Saturday, March 12, 2016

Sat Mar 12th Todays News

After six years of hiding, Molly Norris is still alive. But invisible. Unable to ply her trade of cartooning. She is in witness protection that she pays for. And this is because the West is cowed by Daesh Death Cult. This is because Obama is President and he does not like freedoms Americans used to enjoy. The left claim to support free speech, and they do, if it is from the correct tribe. Molly would ordinarily be in that tribe. But Molly, in an exercise of free speech, made a handful of MoToons and is now on hit lists published by Daesh. Where are those willing to stand for basic freedoms? What of the Presidential candidates? And where is the condemnation of a US President who was so weak it came to this? 
For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility. 
=== from 2015 ===
Race baiting is an atrocity. It shouldn't be banned, but must be addressed. In the US campaigners are looking to inflate tragedies involving people killed by police resisting arrest. Fighting with police is probably the stupidest thing anyone who wants to live can do. But success for the race baiters has resulted in two police being shot in Ferguson while rioters were protesting the tragedy of ones killed by police while resisting arrest. And Obama is the world's most famous race baiter. His throw away line that a violent thief could have been his son was needlessly inflammatory. Much as the Mayor of NYC disagreeing with an investigation into his police force's apprehension and tragic killing of a man resisting arrest. It has become popular to declare the police having a depraved indifference to the idiots. In Australia, race baiting means you can abuse the PM if they are conservative regardless of their history and practice. Mr Abbott has deliberately and tirelessly worked to improve the circumstance of Aboriginal peoples even living in the poorest communities and raising awareness at the highest levels .. the Australian Constitution .. much to the disgust of those who don't countenance the racism behind a constitution that differentiates on race. People that are race baiters should be allowed to speak .. and should be criticised. And those who agree with race baiters should be exposed for the bigots they are. 
From 2014
Belisarius is sometimes called 'The Last of the Romans' a general under Justinian of the Byzantine Empire, he reconquered a lot of what had been lost when Rome fell. He fought Goths and Vandals and won. But they weren't as pernicious as they are now. Belisarius designed a troop of heavy war horse which was a significant advance on earlier military organisations. It was on this day, in 538, Ostrogoth king Vitiges left Rome to the victorious Belisarius. 

In stark contrast, today in 1864 saw the launch of the Red River campaign. In Louisiana, a large union force of thirty thousand engaged with a confederate force between fifteen and six thousand and failed to  achieve any of their objectives. Central to achieving any goal is planning. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. 

One thing that cannot be planned yet, despite the technology, is family. Things happen with family which takes more than planning, it takes grace and compassion. An old joke about Standard Temperature and Pressure (STP) is that given ideal STP conditions, an amoeba will do exactly as it pleases. I read an account today of a father raising a boy with autism. Not an entire account, but the salient point was the dad had had to start a school for autistic children because one had not existed and it was something his child needed, and other children. It takes money. It takes time, and there is not enough of either for everything. But such things take on a life of their own. between the ages of one and six is the ideal time to intervene in autism for development. Not to cure, but to support. It exposes the truth that failing to plan is not the same as not planning enough. There is always more to be done. But the journey of a thousand miles, still begins with a single step.
Historical perspective on this day




=== 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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I am moving from Sydney to Melbourne and am desperate for funding. If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofundme.com/abeueaec
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Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August, September, October, 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 a free kindle version.

List of available items at Create Space
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For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball

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

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

I have begun a bulletin board (http://theconservativevoice.freeforums.net) which will allow greater latitude for members to post and interact. It is not subject to FB policy and so greater range is allowed in posts. Also there are private members rooms in which nothing is censored, except abuse. All welcome, registration is free.
Happy birthday and many happy returns Quynh My Truong, Ben Nuffinsus Cartwright, Daphne Iris Van Vloten and Matt Sezer. Born on the same day, across the years. Remember, birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu
You ended the siege. You were first, after the others. You walk for others. You are more general than secretary. Forty percent of them will never forget you. Let's party. 
Deaths
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TEACHERS TAUGHT

Tim Blair – Saturday, March 12, 2016 (2:00pm)

Spot the image editing on the sign at lower right:

image

Well done, educator’s! 
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THEY’D BE SAFER ON NAURU

Tim Blair – Saturday, March 12, 2016 (1:57pm)

It’s war at asylum seeker central: 
Australia’s largest asylum seeker service is in upheaval after an exodus of its most senior staff and claims of a toxic work environment, mismanagement and bullying.
Six out of seven directors at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre quit last year, including one who lodged a successful WorkCover claim for stress and anxiety caused by her employment.
An internal report, prepared for the board and obtained by Fairfax Media, shows the resignations came amid a slew of complaints about the centre’s chief executive, Kon Karapanagiotidis, widely considered one of the nation’s top human rights advocates.
“We are greatly concerned about our safety and wellbeing, and that of our staff, due to the unknown response from an increasingly volatile CEO,” said the confidential report, co-signed by four of the former directors.
“The various issues each director has experienced ... caused us anxiety and distress, as we have been placed in ethically and legally compromised positions.”
The report details claims surrounding Mr Karapanagiotidis’ allegedly hostile demeanour towards subordinates. 
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre denies the allegations, but check the form of words: 
Mr Karapanagiotidis did not respond to questions, but he is understood to vehemently deny all allegations. In a statement, the ASRC board said its own investigation found “no basis” to the claims and it continued to stand by its chief executive.
“Claims in and of themselves do not give rise to them being true,” the board said. 
Quite so. Keep that in mind the next time you hear claims of asylum seeker mistreatment, claims of Australian brutality and claims that allowing more refugees to settle in Australia won’t re-start our region’s people-smuggling industry.
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CARTOONIST ERASED

Tim Blair – Saturday, March 12, 2016 (1:34pm)

Do you remember Molly Norris?
(Via Jill.)
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CHI-TOWN HUSTLE

Tim Blair – Saturday, March 12, 2016 (1:00pm)

Donald Trump cancels a Chicago rally due to security concerns: 
The announcement that the billionaire businessman would postpone the rally until another day led a large portion of the crowd inside the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion to break out into raucous cheers. Meanwhile, supporters of the candidate started chanting “We want Trump! We want Trump!”
There were isolated physical confrontations between some members of the crowd after the event was canceled.
There was no sign of Trump inside the arena on the college campus, where dozens of UIC faculty and staff had petitioned university administrators to cancel the rally. They cited concerns it would create a “hostile and physically dangerous environment” for students. 
These days, that’s just about every environment for America’s screaming campus garbage babies, who are too stupid to realise that anti-Trump protests will only increase his popularity. 
One protester, 64-year-old Dede Rottman of Chicago, carried a placard that read: “Build a Wall Around Trump. I’ll Pay for it.”
However, 19-year-old Rusty Shackleford of Lombard, in line to attend the Trump rally, said he was there to “support the man who wants to make America great again.” 
I’m against Trump, but I’d vote for “Rusty”. Here’s another interesting fellow: 
Chicago community activist Quo Vadis said hundreds of protesters had positioned themselves in groups around the arena, and that they intend to demonstrate right after Trump takes the stage. Their goal, he said, is “for Donald to take the stage and to completely interrupt him. The plan is to shut Donald Trump all the way down.” 
His full name appears to be Quovadis Green.
UPDATE. Much more from Ed Driscoll, who notes the involvement of Bernie Sanders supporters.
UPDATE II. Chicago, 1968:

image

Chicago, 2016:

image

UPDATE III. A familiar face among the anti-Trumpers.
UPDATE IV. At least one Trump opponent gets it: 
Is anyone else out there frightened that tonight’s events might result in more votes for trump and not less? 
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DOCUMENTARY DISSECTED

Tim Blair – Saturday, March 12, 2016 (12:09pm)

J.F. Beck hunts down The Hunting Ground.
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Oakes: Turnbull “utterly gutless” if he wimps out of early election

Andrew Bolt March 12 2016 (12:54pm)

Malcolm Turnbull should still win the next election. He has the achievements of Tony Abbott to campaign on - the stopping of the boats, the scrapping of the carbon tax, the signing of free trade deals. If he finally does produce a good Budget, much of the justified criticism of his inaction will fade. And Labor is coming from a long way back.
But so far Turnbull has been incredibly inept, and once again he is talking himself into deep trouble.
Laurie Oakes explains:
MALCOLM Turnbull has left himself no choice. After all the big talk, all the threats, he had better be prepared to call a double dissolution election for July 2.
Otherwise he might as well have the letters W-I-M-P stamped across his forehead, because that is the way voters will see him.
They have watched the government float ideas for significant tax reform — remember the proposed GST rise? — and then back away. They have seen the prime minister allow an image of strength and ­determination to be turned into one of apparent indecision in the space of six months.
Turnbull can’t afford another retreat.... Turnbull can’t afford to be bluffing.
If he is, and if his bluff is called, he will be exposed as ­utterly gutless.
UPDATE
Labor needs to win a massive 21 seats to get the 76 it needs to form government. That is a huge challenge.
So far, though, it can already count on winning Barton after a redistribution made it notionally a Labor seat, and win Linda Burney a strong Labor candidate.
Barnaby Joyce may even fall to the pro-Labor Tony Windsor in New England:
ReachTEL polling obtained by Fairfax Media shows support for Mr Joyce stands at 43.1 per cent, compared to Mr Windsor’s 38 per cent.
While Mr Windsor is trailing, his vote is likely to be boosted by strong preference flows from Labor and Greens voters, which together account for another 10.5 per cent, giving him a reasonable chance of toppling Mr Joyce if a vote was held now.
Western Sydney is again a key battleground:
THE Coalition is facing a loss of up to 10 MPs across NSW at the federal election as Labor Party bosses draw up a hit list of vulnerable seats to capitalise on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s poll slump.
Internal Labor polling shows eight seats across the state are within reach and two more — Barton in southwest Sydney and Dobell on the central coast — are notionally Labor after a redistribution.
It is understood the Prime Minister is considering introducing extra spending measures in the May budget in a bid to shore up seats such as Lindsay, Macquarie, Banks, Macarthur and Reid in Western Sydney.
UPDATE
It doesn’t help Joyce that Channel 10’s Hugh Riminton gets it completely wrong, accusing Joyce of calling Windsor a “dog” when the truth was exactly the opposite:
I’d suggest Hugh was following a stereotype rather than the facts.
One of those facts is that Windsor, far from being the salt-of-the-earth country gentleman, is actually an abusive man.
UPDATE
Phil Coorey agrees - Turnbull keeps talking himself into dead ends:
It was seriously rumoured this week that so limited have the government’s options become, that is was possible there would be no tax cuts in the budget.
After some prodding, sources said that would not be the case. After all the talk, delivering nothing would be a political catastrophe.
Still, the options are limited with superannuation and tax deduction trade-offs the last sources of revenue being looked at to fund [sic] cuts. “Modest” is a generous assessment of what will be coughed up…
Treasurer Scott Morrison had clearly earmarked an alternative to Labor’s [negative gearing] policy which would go after the “excesses” – capping the amount which could be deducted annually. With that option now lying somewhere in a shallow grave, the government is guarding super and tax deductions from backbench attack…
Last month, cabinet agreed to not be spooked and to announce the tax plans at the budget. A week later, Turnbull indicated it would be brought forward. This week, the position was again to leave it until the budget, whenever that will be.
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill and Brian.) 
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Savva’s praise of treachery

Andrew Bolt March 12 2016 (12:23pm)

Chris Kenny was a former chief of staff to Malcolm Turnbull, and Peta Credlin was his deputy. Kenny now worries about Niki Savva’s book, which trashes Credlin as a control freak and suggests she had an affair with her boss, Tony Abbott, when she was his chief of staff:
Every decent political office is full of competing egos, contested ideas and strained working relationships…
Savva’s book is probably most interesting to outsiders because it takes readers into this world. But it is unsettling for insiders because this is a world that former staff members seldom betray. And those using the journalistic justification of lifting the veil on important events need to keep in mind that it is usually the disaffected who talk — people who ended up on the outer — while those who know most keep their counsel.
The reason I found Savva’s book a useful insight into the worst aspects of our political discourse is because it really serves as an explanation, justification and exercise in triumphalism about Turnbull’s leadership coup.
Savva portrays herself (rightly so) as a player in this drama who was instrumental as a conduit for anti-Abbott revelations. She heaps praise on ministers, backbenchers and associated journalists who did the same. The author even reveals the genesis of the book as being the night Abbott asked her to leave Credlin alone.
For Savva, it was clearly personal… She pays scant regard to Abbott’s substantial achievements (axed the carbon tax, restored the integrity of our borders, sealed three significant free trade deals)…
The Road to Ruin clearly proceeds on the basis that the party needed to remove Abbott to stay in government. This is mistaken. Abbott was unpopular (always has been) and was trailing in the polls but his fundamental policy strength over Labor on border protection, national security, climate change and commitment to budget repair would have stood him in good stead in an election year. In other words, it is far from settled point that the coup was necessary (indeed, we are yet to measure its ultimate success).
Savva’s book unwisely celebrates the focus of the 24-hour news cycle on gossip and undermining. It also lauds the scheming of nervous backbenchers, such as Craig Laundy and Peter Hendy, who entered parliament thanks only to Abbott’s brutal effectiveness, then started plotting against him because they were scared they wouldn’t survive.
The Road to Ruin revels in the treachery of these people and the author is clearly proud of her role working with them. You don’t need to take sides in this contest to realise the worrisome factors at play.
UPDATE
Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has a hide. She uses Tony Abbott’s endorsement while stabbing him in the back by passing on foul gossip to a known Abbott hater, not doubt to the great pleasure of her new boss.
Dennis Shanahan:
NSW Liberal conservative senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has used a reference from Tony Abbott to back her preselection for the next election in the week it was revealed she provided damning comments about her former leader for a contentious book.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells, now Malcolm Turnbull’s Minister for International Development, revealed to author Niki Savva that she had raised a “whispering campaign” with Mr Abbott when she confronted him about the Coalition’s performance in February last year.
“Politics is about perceptions,’’ Senator Fierravanti-Wells told Mr Abbott. “Rightly or wrongly, the perception is that you are sleeping with your chief of staff. That’s the perception, and you need to deal with it.’’

He was told if he did not move Peta Credlin he would lose his prime ministership. The account of the exchange was revealed in Savva’s book The Road to Ruin…
This week Senator Fierravanti-Wells sent documents supporting her Senate preselection to NSW Liberal Party headquarters, including written references from Mr Abbott and Mr Turnbull. Mr Abbott’s reference said: “I’ve disagreed with Connie but she has never let that shake her convictions or taint her loyalty to the elected leader and the team.”
Reader John:
Even staunch Abbott critic Peter Van Onselen calls out Fierravanti-Wells duplicitous conduct:

What is worse than violating someone’s trust and disclosing a private conversation about sensitive information you raise with them? How about seeking a reference from that same person before they know you have breached their confidence?… As The Weekend Australian reveals today, the senator obtained a reference from the former prime minister for her preselection contest, doing so before Abbott became aware she had gone on the record disclosing a private conversation the two had last year, in which she told Abbott the perception among colleagues was that he was having an affair with his chief of staff, Peta Credlin…
If Malcolm Turnbull won’t demand she resign, consider the double standard from his time as opposition leader. Back then frontbencher Cory Bernadi was sacked for attacking a colleague, with Turnbull making it quite clear such conduct wasn’t acceptable for a frontbencher. What’s changed, other than the fact Bernardi was attacking a Turnbull ally, whereas Fierravanti-Wells (promoted by Turnbull) attacked Abbott?
If you are voting in the NSW Liberal Senate preselection, may I suggest a vote instead for Australian war hero Jim Molan? At least you’d get a person who knows the value of loyalty, honour and integrity. 
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Trump backed by Carson, as grip tightens

Andrew Bolt March 12 2016 (11:54am)

This was the theory: as candidates dropped out of the battle for the Republican presidential nomination, their supporters would unite behind the real rival to outsider Donald Trump.
That theory was wrong:
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has won another high-profile endorsement, with retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson becoming the second former Republican candidate to back him in the race for the White House.
“We buried the hatchet. That was political stuff,” Carson said during a joint appearance with the billionaire businessman…
“I have found in talking with him, that there’s a lot more alignment, philosophically and spiritually, than I ever thought that there was,” added Carson…
Another former candidate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, announced last month he was backing Trump.
UPDATE
The aggressive intolerance of the Left, shutting down the debate it does not like:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump canceled one of his signature rallies Friday, saying he didn’t want to see “people get hurt” after protesters packed into the Chicago arena where it was to take place.
The announcement that the billionaire businessman would postpone the rally until another day led a large portion of the crowd inside the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion to break out into raucous cheers. Meanwhile, supporters of the candidate started chanting “We want Trump! We want Trump!”
There were isolated physical confrontations between some members of the crowd after the event was canceled.
Speaking later with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, Trump said he had arrived in Chicago two hours earlier and about 25,000 people were trying to enter the arena…
Protesters at the rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump rushed the arena floor in jubilant celebration after the announcement that he was calling off the event due to security concerns.
Many jumped up and down, with arms up in the air, shouting “F--- Trump!” ‘’Bernie! Bernie!” and “We stoppedTrump!”
The Left is the natural home of the totalitarian. 
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Child sex cover up. No Catholics involved. So it’s OK

Andrew Bolt March 12 2016 (11:41am)

The stink of sanctimony. The betrayal of children.
We are holding a royal commission into the sexual abuse of children in institutions. It is investigating abuse that overwhelmingly occurred decades ago, mostly by perpetrators already punished or dead.
It has also turned into a witch hunt, in which someone such as George Pell is crucified for the sins of others in his church - and for a blindness or inaction actually shared at the time by police, parents, politicians and journalists.
But it lets journalists and politicians now get high on sanctimony, vilifying Catholics as if they themselves would have acted better.
Such utter bull.
Take this story today:

AN explosive report kept hidden for almost three years has revealed indigenous children are raping other kids in school toilets and are being lured into child prostitution in Cairns…
As a father to Aboriginal children, Treasurer and indigenous affairs minister Curtis Pitt has revealed the findings, were “personal’’ and urged communities and Queenslanders to have the courage to expose sexual abuse…
The Preventing Youth Sexual Violence and Abuse in West Cairns and Aurukun Report, written by Griffith University’s Stephen Smallbone, raises questions about what hungry children are prepared to do for food and money, and how some community leaders turn a blind eye to abuse…
It is understood some children may be offering sexual favours in public places, including school toilets, for food and money. Sexually-transmitted diseases are rife in the communities and, in some cases, infecting small children…
And the problem has been identified as so bad in the northwest community of Aurukun, that it has been urged boys and girls be separated in primary schools and they be accompanied by an adult when going to the toilet…
“Looking in more detail at the sexual offences in West Cairns, offender ages ranged from 10 to 83 years. Averaged over the past 12 years, the rate of reported sexual offences in west cairns was 2.2 times higher than Queensland generally, and 2.4 times higher than the rest of Cairns.’’
The report claimed the majority of offenders were indigenous.
It also pointed to young children not being supervised, even at night, and families were often not concerned if their children did not return overnight because they assumed they were with another family.
The Catholic church no longer covers up for pedophiles. But today’s politicians, community leaders and journalists too often do - as the burying of this report proves. They often cover up to protect Aboriginal culture - a culture actually so dysfunctional that many children are left vulnerable, hungry and prey to rape.
We are talking here not about a blindness in the past but a blindness in the present. We are talking here not about children raped 30 or 40 years ago who we cannot now save, but children right now who we could.
Yet note this: the royal commission’s terms of reference ensure it does not investigate child rapes in Aboriginal communities today.
And how many journalists care? Not when there’s a Pell to kick…
(Thanks to reader John Jones.) 
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Reader offer: the Friedman conference

Andrew Bolt March 12 2016 (11:30am)

The Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance is holding its annual Friedman Conference in Sydney on May 13 to May 15:
Organiser Tim Andrews writes:
With over 300 attendees, 30 presenters, and 8 international guests, this shall be the largest free-market gathering in the Asia-Pacific Region.
Some of the speakers include: 
- Lawson Bader, immediate past president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute
- Trevor Burris from the Cato Institute
- Former Cabinet Minister of the Sarkozy French Government, Herve Novelli
- Senator David Leyonhjelm
- The Hon Dom Perrottet MP, NSW Minister for Finance
- Chris Berg from the Institute for Public Affairs…

- Former Australian Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson
And many more!
As a bonus to your readers, entering in the code “Bolt” your readers are entitled to a 15% discount off the cost of the conference, while “Bolt-C” will allow concession (Students/under-30/pensioners) to save 30% off our already subsidised prices.
This offer is limited to 20 people. For more information and to secure tickets please visit http://www.friedman16.org
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No one against free speech should be on a body meant to defend it

Andrew Bolt March 12 2016 (11:15am)

Ricketson is a ridiculous appointment to the Press Council, as I noted yesterday. How can someone so at odds with free speech be on a body meant to defend it?
After agreeing to represent the journalists’ union on the Press Council, one of the architects of the Finkelstein report on news media regulation has reserved­ his right to support a regulatory system for the press that is at odds with the policies of the union.
Professor Matthew Ricketson, whose appointment to the Press Council was announced yesterday, helped former judge Ray Finkelstein draw up a report in 2012 that called for the establishment of a statutory regulator of all news media.
It would have been empowered to enforce its decisions through court orders that would have exposed­ journalists to the risk of fines or prison sentences.
The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance had invited Professor Ricketson to represent it on the Press Council after he had agreed in writing to be bound by the union’s policies, which have consistently opposed the establishment of a government-funded regulator of the news media.
When asked yesterday if this meant he had disavowed his previous support for the Finkelstein report, Professor Ricketson said he reserved his right to express a different view to the MEAA when not sitting on the Press Council.
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The hatred of the sanctimonious funny man

Andrew Bolt March 12 2016 (10:40am)

St Mark’s Anglican Church rector Michael Jensen on our comical new preachers, who confuse vilification and anger with goodness:

Is it just me, or have the comics of Australia turned into preachers, moralisers and puritanical do-gooders whose mission in life is not to make us laugh but to tell us what to think? … Turn on, tune in for a laugh, and find yourself laughing at those with whom you disagree because, apparently, they are scum. They aren’t cool, like us. You know, you and me, who just know so much better. Ha ha…
Exhibit A is Tim Minchin … doggerel sung to piano by a man trying to look like a waif is still doggerel. Rhyming it and singing it doesn’t make it true, or even witty. He picks an easy target — Cardinal Pell — and heaps invective on him. Well, maybe it was deserved, but it was scarcely courageous, or radical, or outlandish, and it was as strong a piece of sanctimony as heard from any pulpit…
Exhibit B is Charlie Pickering … In (his) recent piece on marriage redefinition, he moralised his way through six minutes of self-righteous sermonising, with an adoring studio audience bah-hahing at his every sly dig against those idiots who disagree with him … He’s a self-appointed prophet of liberal pieties…

Exhibit C is Adam Hills … (His show) The Last Leg is more preachy than a televangelist’s early morning show. The more moralistic it is, the less amusing it is. The funniest thing Hills does is to call people with whom he disagrees “dicks”.
It seems to me that the three comics mentioned do not preach in order to convince their audience to be good. They just abuse outsiders in order to convince their audience it is good, which is rather different. In fact, it’s the difference between goodness and mere sanctimony.
UPDATE
This excellent oped by Liberal MP Andrew Hastie applies equally to this post or the one just under it:

Abraham Lincoln famously said: “Let the people be aware of the facts and the country will be calm”.
It is little wonder calmness is such a rarity these days when experts are being silenced by bullish mobs…
Much of today’s toxic discourse flows from our instinct to disbelieve any view opposed to our own, reflexively ruling out perspectives without reason.
This belief devastates the possibility of intelligent, rational discussion and entrenches opposing sides of the political spectrum, leaving little room for dialogue.

Unable to entertain a truth other than our own as plausible, we make ourselves bigots.
For example, if you foolishly believe all Labor members are liars, you will not believe anything they say.
Likewise, if you hold that all opposition to the Safe Schools Coalition program is borne out of deep-seated hate for the LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning) community, a reasoned debate about sexuality, parenting and age-appropriate material in schools is impossible.
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Bullying children into become “gender fluid”

Andrew Bolt March 12 2016 (10:01am)

What kind of Education Minister was Christopher Pyne that he let this sneak through? And what kind of Liberal leader will Malcolm Turnbull be now that this has been exposed?
Paul Kelly:
The Safe Schools Coalition agenda taken up by about 500 schools in this country to promote understanding of gender and sexual diversity is a brilliant insight into the ideological campaigns now transforming cultural values in Australia through capture of institutions…
The Turnbull government’s lightning-fast review of the program was delivered to Education Minister Simon Birmingham’s department yesterday… It is guaranteed to become a test of Liberal Party values under Malcolm Turnbull. Tony Abbott, who did nothing about the program as PM, has called it “social engineering” and wants the funds scrapped....
The Safe Schools program ... is funded by the Victorian government, and an $8 million contribution made by the former ALP federal government continued during the Abbott-Turnbull era. The aim is to combat homophobic and transphobic bullying…
Most people know an anti-bullying program when they see it. But this is something else — a pervasive and radical ideological agenda…
A reading of the materials shows this ideology is relentless and explicit: gender is not a binary male-female stereotype but a process of self-expression and “how you feel inside” and “may change over time”. Gender should not be reduced to the question “is it a boy or a girl?” because “there are a whole range of human bodies that are somewhere between”.
The philosophy is that “it’s up to the individual to describe what gender identity fits them best"…
From this it follows that classes should not be divided into boy-girl groups for any activities… The program says that “phrases like ­‘ladies and gentlemen’ or ‘boys and girls’ should be avoided”.... All students must use the pronoun that individuals prefer or use gender-neutral pronouns “such as ‘they’ (singular) or ‘ze’ “…
Fluidity in gender matches fluidity in sexual identity, which means young people “can be attracted to a whole spectrum of masculinity, femininity, both or even none"…
Gender fluidity is promoted as a worthwhile and desirable choice for young students…
Lesson two involves sex role playing: students imagine they are 16 and going out with somebody, one half of the class with someone of the same sex and the other half with the opposite sex.
Class discussions are recommended to combat the malaise of “heteronormativity” — a belief system based on heterosexuality. Students are urged to avoid reinforcing this mindset with questions such as whether a new baby is a boy or a girl…
The program advises that one in 10 people are same-sex attracted, up to one in 25 people are transgender or gender diverse, and about one in 60 are born with unisex bodies. These figures, used to justify the program, are high and heavily contested.
It is hard not to conclude there is a sinister aspect to the program… The deliberate purpose is to weaken or break down or question the settled view of gender that many young people and students possess…
In the lesson on bisexual experiences students are asked to imagine a line running through the classroom. Each student must move to a position on this line according to whether they agree or disagree with a series of propositions on how to avoid stereotypes. “Ask students to explain why they have chosen their position on the line,” the manual says. At the same time “any offensive or hurtful comments” need to be addressed.
Just reflect on the opportunity for intimidation and pressure in this activity.  
===

The Libyan disaster should damn Obama and Rudd. Instead…

Andrew Bolt March 12 2016 (9:17am)

It says something about Barack Obama’s weakness that the leader of the world’s greatest superpower blames a junior partner for the catastrophic failure of the hands-off war he himself initiated:
Barack Obama has sharply criticised David Cameron for the UK’s role in allowing Libya to become a “shit show” after the fall of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi, in an unprecedented attack on a British leader by a serving US President. 
Mr Obama said that following a successful military intervention to aid rebels during the 2011 Arab Spring revolt, Libya was left to spiral out of control – due largely to the inaction of America’s European allies.
In a candid US magazine interview, Mr Obama said: “When I go back and I ask myself what went wrong… there’s room for criticism, because I had more faith in the Europeans, given Libya’s proximity, being invested in the follow-up.”
Singling out the British Prime Minister, he suggested that Mr Cameron had taken his eye off Libya after being “distracted by a range of other things"…
We actually executed this plan as well as I could have expected: We got a UN mandate, we built a coalition, it cost us $1bn – which, when it comes to military operations, is very cheap. We averted large-scale civilian casualties, we prevented what almost surely would have been a prolonged and bloody civil conflict. And despite all that, Libya is a mess.”
Referring to that mess in private, Mr Obama reportedly uses the more colourful term, “shit show”.
I warned at the time that Obama was just providing the air force for jihadists fighting Gaddafi:
Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. 
And guess who thought this was smart?
ONE of Europe’s highest-ranking diplomats has credited Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd with helping change the international mood on Libya, leading to implementation of a no-fly zone. 
While stopping short of saying Mr Rudd had any direct impact on the UN no-fly resolution, the European Union’s senior foreign policy adviser, Robert Cooper, said Mr Rudd’s activism on the issue had been noticed by the key international players.
And the consequences of this folly and lack of US and European will to really fight?
For Libya:
[T]he country has seen a doubling of Islamic State forces in recent months, and ISIS has expanded its control of territory, including Sirte, the home city of deposed leader Muammar al-Qaddafi.
In a UN-issued report this week, the Security Council noted the Islamic State’s growing capacity, which has been buttressed by a flow of foreign fighters from places like Sudan, Tunisia, and Turkey…
In the vacuum left by the U.S.-led intervention, the United Nations and a host of countries have been pushing Libya’s two governments and myriad competing militias to put aside their differences and help stabilize the country and its economy. Earlier this year, the head of Libya’s national oil company estimated the country had lost nearly $70 billion in potential revenue from petroleum exports because of the fighting.
For Europe:
Italy has more at stake than its allies, as people smugglers based in Libya have sent some 300,000 migrants across the sea over the past two years...
For Rudd in 2011:
KEVIN Rudd has won a place on a NATO-dominated panel to guide the conflict in Libya - even though Australia plays no role in fighting to remove Muammar Gaddafi....
Australia had been invited as an observer of the (Libya contact) group when it was formed in March, but, following intensive shuttle diplomacy over the past weeks, Mr Rudd persuaded European and Arab counterparts that Australia should become a full participant.
For Rudd in 2016:
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he’ll consider Rudd’s candidacy [to become UN secretary general] when Rudd announces he’ll run…
Rudd did well from this war [in Libya]. The European Union’s senior foreign policy adviser said his activism had been noticed by key international players.
He got appointed to the NATO-dominated panel that guided the conflict, and is now an outside chance to be the UN boss.
===

PRICE OF VIGILANCE

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 12, 2015 (10:01pm)

Hard-working academic Jenna Price asks: 
What’s been your best ever response to street harassment? 
Probably this, Jenna.
===

A SMALL SENSE OF THE LENGTHENING OF TIME

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 12, 2015 (7:53pm)

The ABC’s Jonathan Green announces his Twitter departure: 
What would I lose if I walked away from Twitter? I mean really ...
I’d gain in reflection. Concentration. Some peace. A small sense of the lengthening of time.
OK. Here goes. No Twitter until the end of March. Small experiment. An exercise in voluntary exclusion. Adios. 
He lasted less than a week.
===

THEY LIKE TO CHANT

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 12, 2015 (4:53pm)

Footage of yesterday’s idiot invasion at Sydney University:

Note the description of Hizb ut-Tahrir from the main shouter: it is merely an “outspoken Islamic organisation.” Yeah, right .
UPDATE: 
A small get-well message to the bollocks of University of Sydney academic Jake Lynch, which we gather got in the way of a pro-Israeli foot during a mid-lecture scuffle yesterday. 
This may explain why Lynch was waving that money around. He was trying to buy some new ones.
===

WATCH THOSE RATINGS SOAR

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 12, 2015 (2:26pm)

A perfect Guardian headline: 
With Jeremy Clarkson suspended, here’s my vision for an eco-feminist Top Gear. 
(Via Iowahawk) 
===

MOSUL RETEXTUALISED

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 12, 2015 (2:19pm)

This is brilliant: 
The Islamic State has sensationally won the prestigious 2015 Turner Prize for its conceptual art piece ‘Smashing Mosul Museum To Pieces: Death To The Infidels.’
“By demolishing priceless 3,000 year old statues with sledge hammers, ISIS is asking: ‘What is art?’, while retextualising normative art as transgressive, daring and counter cultural,” said the chairman of the Turner Prize jury, Sir Nicholas Serota …
“In destroying this ‘art’, the Islamic State has liberated it from bourgeoise, middle class concepts of ‘beauty’ and invited us to examine pig ignorance as an artistic expression in itself,” said Serota, while being held at gunpoint by the Islamic State winning team. 
Do read on.
(Via Elaine)
UPDATE. Unlike the above, this isn’t satire: 
Charlie Hebdo has been named 2015 International Islamophobe of the year, despite many of its staff having been killed by Jihadists in January. The annual ‘award’ was given by Islamic Human Rights Commission, a British group that claims to campaign against terrorism. 
(Via the IPA)
===

PUNCHY PEOPLE

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 12, 2015 (1:37pm)

Fairfax calls for violence against the Prime Minister, then backs away. This seems to be a pattern.
===

SPLODEY JAKE

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 12, 2015 (12:24pm)

The short and useless life of teenage Australian jihadist Jake Bilardi is reportedly over: 
Bilardi reportedly died in a series of suicide bomb blasts in Iraq, which killed at least 10 people overnight.
In photos posted online by Syrian and Iraqi sources, Bilardi appears to be sitting in the driver’s seat of a white van that is later used to carry out a sucide bombing in the central city of Ramadi, currently the scene of a fierce battle with the Iraqi army.

image

Islamic State has also posted a “martyrdom” homage photograph of what appears to be Bilardi sitting underneath an ISIS flag. 
At least he died doing what he loved – being converted into an assortment of jihadibits while achieving exactly nothing.
===

Laming caught plotting like a Clouseau on ABC TV. And caught being ticked off by his voters

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (7:26pm)

 Andrew Laming, of the LNP, is a mighty warrior ... for Labor.
He has trouble showing not only loyalty but judgement - or any numeracy skills.
He idiotically decided to let the ABC film him plotting against Tony Abbott, presumably in the belief that the spill motion would succeed and Malcolm Turnbull would be his grateful new leader.
So we got footage last night like this:
TOM IGGULDEN: ...  backbenchers plot against the Prime Minister. One of them’s Andrew Laming. 
He’s agreed to take Lateline behind the scenes of the Government’s leadership crisis.
With just hours until the vote, he works against the clock ...
ANDREW LAMING, LIBERAL MP: Afternoon. Andrew Laming. How are you going?
TOM IGGULDEN: ... to see how the numbers are shifting.
ANDREW LAMING: Cool. That’s fine. Thanks very much. See you soon, bye. Great.
TOM IGGULDEN: It’s time to separate friend from foe.
Who are we off to see? ANDREW LAMING: Yeah, so I’m off to see one of my Queensland colleagues and obviously someone I haven’t got to talk to at all in the last few weeks and this’ll be pretty interesting to take their reading of the situation at the moment.  
Problem is, the spill motion was lost by a lot, leaving Laming looking sick on camera.
He looks even more stupid when he goes back to his seat and gets a kicking from his voters:
TOM IGGULDEN: Back in his electorate based in Redlands in outer metropolitan Brisbane. The drama in Canberra’s captivated shoppers at the local mall… Opinions about the leadership are surprisingly consistent. 
VOX POP II: Abbott was elected and you just don’t take somebody out mid-term…
VOX POP III: We, people voted for him. You can’t just shove him out.
VOX POP IV: Just kind of like almost deja vu with what happened with Labor.
ANDREW LAMING: Yes, yes.
VOX POP IV: I am glad that Tony stayed in.
ANDREW LAMING [summing up the feedback]: We kind of voted for what we thought was the competent choice and we’re just not sure why you’re not just buckling down.
TOM IGGULDEN: So are you expecting, with that seeming to be the majority view, a backlash against your personal position in the partyroom on Monday?
ANDREW LAMING: There could be and it’s very hard for me to divine this stuff.
A show of hands of local Liberals he meets is also for Abbott.
The man should be dumped by LNP pre-selectors. What went to air last night was damaging to the party but even more damaging to Laming. Even the ABC can’t take him seriously now. 
===

Victims of racebaiters: two Ferguson police shot

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (6:10pm)

The race-baiters who stoked up the anger should be held to account. President Obama included:
TWO police officers have been shot at protests outside Ferguson Police Department, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported early Thursday. 
The shots were fired as police and protesters gathered outside the police station following the resignation of Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson earlier on Wednesday.
UPDATE
St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar says 1 officer was shot in the face, another shot in the shoulder in Ferguson.
===

Seeming vs doing: the Burnside example

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (12:31pm)

The new morality

I have often said a key difference between many of the Left and conservatives is this: a concern with seeming rather than with doing.
Julian Burnside gives an important example:
CELEBRATED human rights lawyer Julian Burnside believes some refugee advocates went easier on Labor than they should have despite crowded and difficult conditions for more than 1000 children in the lead-up to the 2013 federal election… 
“I suspect that a number of advocates were a bit quiet when Labor was in because at least Labor were making the right noises,” Mr Burnside said.  
Labor made the “right noises”, meaning they seemed to be compassionate. That was enough to be forgiven for policies which drowned 1200 people and locked up, at its peak, nearly 2000 children.
The Liberals, on the other hand, have made the wrong noises. So they are savaged for policies that have stopped the drownings and slashed the number of children in detention by 90 per cent from Labor’s peak - and falling.
Seeming vs doing. It is a sign of the vain and the stupid to prefer the first. 
===

Aboriginal “leaders” fail. Stan Grant does not

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (10:45am)

Indigenous leaders disgraced themselves yesterday by attacking Tony Abbott rather than address the urgent and important issues he raised about funding Aborigines to live in micro-communities without work or schools:
CLOSING townships is not the answer to improving health, lifting education standards and tackling dysfunction in indigenous Australia, experts declared yesterday… 
[Noel] Pearson said ...  “...it’s a very dis­appointing and hopeless statement by the Prime Minister ... I’m just bitterly disappointed to hear this deranged debate go on in the substandard manner in which it’s being conducted.” 
And:
Abbott’s chief adviser on Indigenous affairs, Warren Mundine, told Fairfax Media Abbott’s comments were “a complete misconception of what it is and he’s wrong in that regard… 
The Northern Territory’s community services minister, Bess Price, said the prime minister needed to apologise for his comments. “I think Tony Abbott might need cross-cultural training,” she said…
Another member of the prime minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council, Bruce Martin, told Guardian Australia Indigenous Australians were “deeply hurt and offended” ...
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner, Mick Gooda, said the prime minister’s comments would “cause offence"…
The chairwoman of the Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia, Michelle Nelson-Cox, said Abbott’s comments were “hugely disappointing”. 
Opposition leader Bill Shorten is contemptible. He simply  misrepresents Abbott:
Tony Abbott ... just wants to move [indigenous Australians] off their land,
And that’s despite being forced to admit, after dodging and weaving, that  Abbott actually had a point:
However, Mr Shorten admitted there was a balance to providing services to remote communities.
The bravest and more honest contribution I heard from any Aborigine came from journalist Stan Grant:
UPDATE
Too many Aboriginal “leaders” are protecting massive state funding which just isn’t delivering the results we need, especially for the children. It’s interesting that the ABC presenters instinctively disbelieve we could be spending this much for this little.
Reader Puzzled reports:
On the way home tonight listening to ABC Brisbane… They were having people call in about the PM’s statements about remote communities. Some of the callers were just rabid Abbott haters, but one guy called in and quoted some numbers that were amazing. The host immediately indicated that she doubted them but, shortly after and to her credit, validated them. 
Australia’s DIRECT spend on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders is about $30 BILLION per annum… That’s $43,000 per person per annum.
The facts, according to the Productivity Commission:
Total direct expenditure on services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in 2012-13 was estimated to be $30.3 billion, accounting for 6.1 per cent of total direct general government expenditure....   
Estimated expenditure per person in 2012-13 was $43 449 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, compared with $20 900 for other Australians (a ratio of 2.08 to 1...).
The $22 550 per person difference in 2012-13 reflected the combined effects of: greater intensity of service use ($15 438 or 68.5 per cent) - because of greater need, and because of the younger age profile of the population higher cost of providing services ($7112 or 31.5 per cent) - for example, because of location…
Mainstream services accounted for $24.7 billion (81.4 per cent) of direct Indigenous expenditure in 2012-13 ... with the remaining $5.6 billion (18.6 per cent) provided through Indigenous specific (targeted) services. 
The proportion of tax paid by Aborigines to fund all this spending would, on the other hand, be lower than then average. And all this funding produces exactly what?
In the four Labor years to 2012-13, government funding for Aborigines went up by an astonishing 10.4 per cent per person, yet by most measures in the latest “Closing the Gap” report Aboriginal welfare went backwards or nowhere:
image
More money, worse results. The problem is not the funding but the culture.
UPDATE
Ray Martin is no conservative, yet he, too, agrees with Tony Abbott. From his Triple M interview this morning:
This is a debate we’re going to have to have…a political hot potato I think, it’s going to be ugly, it’s going to be confrontational. 
It’s almost unviable, it’s almost unsustainable to have these tiny communities out there that are so dysfunctional.
They are communities of sickness…. The truth is Tony Abbott knows more about this than any other Prime Minister I‘ve seen in my life time – he’s been out to these places he’s aware of what goes on.
Yet journalists prefer to smash Abbott than engage in the issue he raises - one critical to the future of so many Aboriginal children.
I hear journalists - like Barrie Cassidy and Jon Faine on the ABC this morning - actually concede we need to discuss this, but then spend the entire discussion bagging Abbott instead.
What’s more important to them: attacking Abbott or joining the important discussion on Aboriginal children which they admit we need and Abbott raised?
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Australian jihadist reportedly becomes suicide bomber

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (9:47am)

image
How many other young Australians - adrift and resentful - can be recruited to this apocalyptic movement?
Jake Bilardi, 18, was reportedly involved in one of seven IS suicide attacks in the Iraqi city of Ramadi on Wednesday. 
A photo posted online, purportedly from a new IS propaganda video, appears to show a white van with an in inset image of a young man who looks like Bilardi sitting in a driver’s seat.
While the authenticity of the image has not been confirmed, there was a wave of car bomb attacks in Anbar province on Wednesday which killed at least 10 people and wounded 30. according to police…
Neighbours and friends said he was “shy and confused” and had become more so after losing his mother to cancer in 2012.
The teenager was reportedly living with two older brothers and a sister after his mother died.
“He was ­really smart but seemed to get even quieter after his mum died,” one classmate said.
Before his Twitter account was suspended, the teenager tweeted about impending attacks.
“What we have in store for you dogs will make 9/11 look like child’s play,” he wrote in one post In a previous post, the teen reportedly warned: “Martin place was just the beginning for you dogs.”
What a stupid and evil way for a sad young man to die.
UPDATE
Greg Sheridan warns we are losing the war against Islamist terror, and poses this important question:
... how long can the West live off the moral capital of religious conviction that it is now abandoning? The West is the only part of humanity abandoning religious belief. Can societies in which there is no overarching idea beyond the individual compete successfully in the long run?
Bilardi was looking for a faith. How much safer for everyone had he found Christianity, not Islam? 
===

This campaign to intimidate me will not work: Lyons’ claim remains bullshit

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (8:35am)

Here is how it works.
The Australian first publishes false claims by journalist John Lyons that Tony Abbott asked his “leading military planners” for “advice” at a “meeting” on the ”unilateral invasion of Iraq”.
I call the story ”bullshit”.
Indeed, the story is then denied by Abbott and the ”leading military planners” at this “meeting”.
Then The Australian starts to rewrite history to pretend it wrote something else completely, an implicit admission that its first story was completely false.
Observe:
What Lyons first claimed, in the first two paragraphs of his front-page article:
TONY Abbott suggested a unilateral invasion of Iraq.... in a meeting in ­Canberra…
But first the “meeting” becomes a just a dinner, in Lyons’ latest version: 
At the dinner…
Then the “invasion” becomes just the “sending” of troops, according to  Lyons’ latest version:
Abbott raised the idea of unilaterally sending 3500 Australian combat soldiers...
Then the “unilateral” sending becomes just an operation with Iraq’s permission, but without US troops, in  Lyons’ latest version:
What he meant by that ["unilateral"] was without United States or NATO cooperation. It wasn’t without Iraqi cooperation, of course, because Australia is already co-operating with Iraq.
Then the “invasion” becomes just a “ground action”, in the latest version of The Australian’s Christian Kerr:
Abbott suggested unilateral Australian ground action in Iraq.
Then the “invasion” is confirmed as just a “ground action”, in the latest version of The Australian’s James Jeffrey:
The Weekend Australian published John Lyons’s exclusive on Tony Abbott’s suggestion of unilateral Australian ground action in Iraq.
Not an invasion. Not unilateral.  Not true.

So the story is plainly false - so false that The Australian cannot even repeat Lyons’ original claims. Yet rather than acknowledge and apologise, The Australian does two things.
First, it rewrites history in the style Stalin would applaud.
Second, it punishes me for drawing attention to the clear errors in its story by attempting to mock or bully me  here, here, here and, today, here, each attack sillier than the last.
Today‘s for instance, tries to suggest I have contradicted myself. It does so by deceptively suggesting that when I first wrote Lyons’ story was “unsourced” I meant he had no source at all, rather than one he had not named - as I clearly meant and would have been understood as meaning.
Indeed, here’s the Oxford dictionary definition of “unsourced”:
(Of information) not having or attributed to a known source or origin
I think this is rather low behaviour and a disturbing glimpse into the exercise of media power. Our Murdoch publications should be better than this.
And if it’s meant to intimidate, it will not work.  
===

Abbott is right, and screaming “racist” is no answer

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (8:06am)

How the Left hates, The politics of race

 NO, Prime Minister Tony Abbott isn’t racist for telling the truth about many tiny Aboriginal communities out bush. If anyone is racist, it’s some of his critics.
Abbott is in “hot water”, frowned an ABC host yesterday, because he said taxpayers probably shouldn’t pay big money to keep alive tiny Aboriginal settlements without jobs or schools.
As Abbott put it: “What we can’t do is endlessly subsidise lifestyle choices if those lifestyle choices are not conducive to the kind of full participation in Australian society that everyone should have.
“If people choose to live miles away from where there’s a school ... if people choose to live where there are no jobs, ­obviously it’s very, very difficult to close the gap.”
Did he say a word that isn’t true?
Yet cue outrage — the vicious personal abuse that so often passes for argument on one of the most urgent social issues confronting Australia today.
(Read full article here.) 
===

Why is Greer defended for comments that would kill a conservative?

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (8:04am)

 WITH many on the Left, it is not the principle but the side. Take the startling case of Germaine Greer.
Greer is still an icon of a victim industry falsely called feminism, yet three years ago on the ABC’s Q&A she publicly belittled our first female prime minister over her looks.
“You’ve got a big arse, Julia,” she shouted, to laughter from the audience.
This week on Q&A, with Julia Gillard gone, Greer turned on another female politician, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop, and asked if she’d show us her breasts.
Absolutely true.
In discussing the “Free the Nipple” movement — a demand by some women for the freedom to bare their breasts on Facebook — Greer asked Bishop if she’d do the same “if you got the commutation of the life (sic) sentences for two Australians”, condemned drug smugglers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.
Greer sounded like she was essentially asking Bishop if she’d whip out her breasts to sate the appetite of the Indonesian President for both blood and sexual titillation — a request that demeaned Bishop as a woman and Joko Widodo as a man and Indonesian.
It seemed at heart both sexist and racist. Yet again Greer escaped largely untouched.
(Read full article here.) 
===

Greens - all worship, no clean-up. All seeming, no doing

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (7:48am)

Calling green mystics to earth worship in Charlton, Central Victoria:
As the universe swirled into being, before time ticked its first tock, before the elves manned the machines,and before the great serpent gods blazed across the dark cosmos bringing technicolor wonder to the space all around…. there was a rhythm, a beat, and a melody, that gathered the great energies around the sacred space, for a ritual that continued through the eons to this day, to this place, to this Maitreya Festival!  We hope you can participate with us in this archaic revival of discovery of our most core and ancient experiences as beings… 
We really are all much much closer than it seems...we hope we can offer a platform for new ways to understand this and be able to transform it for peace and love in our world.
Those earth worshippers are asked to tread lightly on that sacred earth of Charlton:
Wooroonook Lake is a home to thousands of ducks and birds, and many species of native trees and flowers. It is our duty not only as festival goers, but as friends of the earth to absolutely leave no trace from the gathering once we leave. If we can become responsible caretakers of the land, as is our heritage, we can continue to gather here for many moons to come… Just keep thinking LEAVE NO TRACE!
Here are the faint traces left at the site by the earth worshippers:
UPDATE
Unfair! says reader Sandra:
This video was uploaded by the event’s producers, who hired the local clean up crew pre-event, to send a message to its punters about what they have to deal with after everyone has gone home. Every festival on earth needs a clean up crew afterwards- this is not a reflection on this particular event. 
(Thanks to reader Gab.) 
===

Fairfax journalists want Abbott punched in face

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (7:43am)

Fairfax journalists are now dangerously deranged with hatred of Tony Abbott:

image
Incitement to violence is actually a crime.

(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill. Via Rita Panahi, who notes a scramble at Fairfax to save their sorry hides.) 
===

Wrong side

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (7:30am)

A story of the entitlement culture:
Two people travel on a train without paying their way. Stopped by staff, one punches a female conductor so hard in the face that she has to be taken to hospital.
Transit officers grab the two struggling fare evaders.
Some passengers film the struggle and abuse ... the transit officers:
image
(Thanks to reader RJ of Winsto.)  
===

This is not peace and the Sydney University should protect speakers from it

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (7:20am)

Jake Lynch is head of Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. He in on the board of the foundation which hands out the Sydney Peace Medal (albeit only to Leftists, often extemists).
Is this aggression and intolerance what he means by “peace”?
[R]etired British military officer Colonel Richard Kemp, a world-renowned expert on armed conflict, ... had been invited by the University to speak on “Ethical Dilemmas of Military Tactics” and “Dealing with non-state armed groups,” in light of Australia’s military engagement with non-state actors, including ISIS… 
Before he could go into any detail or discuss any other issues, he was interrupted by over a dozen students bursting into the lecture hall screaming “Richard Kemp, you can’t hide, you support genocide."A demonstrator with a megaphone drowned out any attempts by the moderator to get the lecture back on track. Protestors wrestled with security guards who had asked them to leave and were then forced to remove them. Protestors stood on chairs, began to push students and shout loudly at those who objected to their behaviour.
Professor Jake Lynch, the director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) and an ardent opponent of Israel, shouted in the faces of students, including at a senior officer of the Jewish student union. He then proceeded to stand on chairs and film attendees. Lynch screamed that attempts to remove the protestors was a violent attack on freedom of speech by security guards. When another academic suggested that he ask a question, Lynch responded that was not what this is about, only later opting to ask a question when invited by the Colonel.
The University should ask Lynch whether his actions accord with the values of an institution devoted to free inquiry.
(Thanks to reader JudoChop.) 
===

Spot the one with bluster

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (6:41am)

Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Victorian Premier Dan Andrews exchange letters about a critical infrastructure project. Note the difference in tone between the two letters.
(Thanks to reader Eagle Dan.) 
===

Lieberman betrays Israel

Andrew Bolt March 12 2015 (6:00am)

Idiot:
ISRAEL’S ultranationalist foreign minister ... Avigdor Lieberman, who has in the past described Israel’s non-Jewish minority as a “fifth column”, sparked controversy during a speech in the coastal town of Herzliya, a week before Israel’s election. “Those who are with us deserve everything, but those who are against us deserve to have their heads chopped off with an axe,” he said.
Great way to blur the distinction between the Islamic State and the Jewish one. Kick out the bum.
(Thanks to reader Mark.) 
===

Just another Labor scheme using your money

Andrew Bolt March 11 2014 (8:56pm)

Labor management skills on display:
DEPUTY Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek has defended Labor’s flagship social housing program as “very well-designed scheme”, amid evidence companies behind a major Sydney development tapped $80 million in taxpayer subsidies to help build units for wealthy foreign students. 
Earlier this month, The Australian revealed that universities had won thousands of grants under the National Rental Affordability Scheme and were filling hundreds of these government-sponsored units with fee-paying international students.
A promotional brochure issued by developers Frasers Property Australia and Sekisui House Australia, and seen by The Australian, tells would-be investors in the Central Park development in central Sydney the project is “NRAS-advantaged’’ and that foreign students pay higher fees than locals, with their total expenditure topping $55,000 a year…
Ms Plibersek, who as housing minister in the Rudd government was the architect of the NRAS, today said it was “a terrific program” that had delivered 14,000 new homes with another 24,000 in the pipeline. “The vast majority of people who live in National Rental Affordability Scheme properties are people on very low incomes — sole parents, pensioners, the whole range of people on low incomes including most particularly key workers,” Ms Plibersek said in Perth.
===

Few listeners for the Left’s shouting

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, March 11, 2014 (11:57pm)

SCOTT Ludlum’s “viral” hate speech against Tony Abbott signified the moment the Left finally lost its marbles: 10.08pm, Monday March 3, 2014.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Few listeners for the Left’s shouting'
===

THE FLYING PUMPKIN

Tim Blair – Tuesday, March 11, 2014 (6:31pm)

2013. The Guardian‘s Vanessa Badham worries about Halloween’s carbon dioxide impact: 
Those who wonder how a continent currently undergoing out-of-season bushfires, floods, unprecedented high temperatures and other freakish events could elect a government that abolishes its Climate Commission, bear in mind that there are young Australians currently carving jack-o-lanterns out of pumpkins that have had to be flown in for the occasion. 
2014. The Guardian‘s Vanessa Badham celebrates her personal air travel: 
As someone who flies all the time, all over the world … 
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JOE McGINNISS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, March 12, 2014 (11:17am)

Author and Sarah Palin stalker Joe McGinniss has died at 71.
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GREEN PRIDE

Tim Blair – Wednesday, March 12, 2014 (12:56pm)

Peter Costello salutes the Greens: 
There’s one group of people who should be cheering the closure of Ford, Toyota, and Alcoa’s Port Henry aluminium smelter. Heavy industries like these use a lot of electricity. That electricity comes from burning coal, mostly brown coal, which throws off enormous amounts of carbon dioxide — the stuff the previous government used to call “carbon pollution”. The wonderful thing about closing car plants and smelters is all the pollution it will prevent. This is a great step forward in the battle to save the planet.
But they’re humble folks those Greens. They don’t boast about their successes. Businesses that needed cheap power to stay profitable are becoming uncompetitive and closing. The carbon tax is working the way it was intended — taxing heavy emitters out of business. The carbon tax is highly effective. And the Greens must be proud of the results. 
In other green developments, Guardian burgerphobe Leo Hickman is still banging on about some kind of ethical living indulgence he undertook ten years ago. The Guardian‘s readers, however, demand further sacrifice: 
• I am rather puzzled by counting heads and seeing that the writer appears to have three children. Guess he is no longer that concerned with ethical living these days.
• Having a child is one of the worst things you can do, environmentally speaking.
• As long as you have a house, mains power and a vehicle you cannot be living ethically. 
Speaking of kids and the environment, Tim Flannery is about to become a daddy again. Congrats, pal!
UPDATE. Miranda Devine on two recent environmental orations: 
The night after Ludlum gave his nasty little speech, Abbott delivered his own speech around the corner, in the Great Hall of Parliament House, at the annual dinner of the Australian Forest Products Association. It was an ode to the timber industry that could only be interpreted as a giant finger to the green movement.
“I salute you as people who love the natural world, as people who love what Mother Nature gives us and who want to husband it for the long-term best interests of humanity.”
He called foresters the “ultimate conservationists”. Which of course they are. They were taking care of trees long before middle-class professional Greens showed up to destroy their livelihood. 
Quite so.
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THEY LIKE TO TALK

Tim Blair – Wednesday, March 12, 2014 (12:30pm)

US Democrat Harry Reid calls for climate action: 
“Every day that goes by, every week that goes, every month that goes by, every year that goes by ... there’s more evidence of the dangers of climate change,” Reid said Tuesday afternoon, in response to a question from THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “The more climate changes, the more extreme the weather gets, and we’ve seen that in spades.” 
Very well, then. So how come Reid and his fellow Democrats haven’t done anything? 
Asked about Democrats’ inaction on climate change legislation when the party had a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate early in the Obama administration, Reid said Democrats were busy with other legislation, including Obamacare. 
(Via Alan R.M. Jones)
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HOBBY PAPER

Tim Blair – Wednesday, March 12, 2014 (11:50am)

Jonathan Holmes isn’t impressed by the The Saturday Paper, Australia’s latest leftist work shelter: 
Its young editor, Erik Jensen, told the ABC’s Media Report that the paper would tackle only a few stories each week, but that “we will give them to you in greater depth than anyone else”.
His lead story that first week was Manus Island. After reading Sophie Morris’ story, he declared, “you will properly understand for the first time precisely what happened at Manus Island, and who was on what side of which fence”.
Well, no. Morris is the paper’s Canberra correspondent. She didn’t go near Manus Island. 
When even Holmesy is underwhelmed, you know the thing has problems. Readers are invited to nominate a closure date.
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UNSETTLED AND DERAILED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, March 12, 2014 (2:09pm)

If anybody wants some sedatives, don’t bother asking Jenna Price. The outraged journalism academic is clearly low on supplies: 
Of the many utterly loathsome actions of the members of this government, the attempt to besmirch, belittle and demean our ABC is among the worst.
There can be no other analysis of this concerted campaign than to say it is a determined attack on democracy … 
Sure, Jenna. Whatever you say. Then follows a paragraph that might work better if it was screamed in the dark: 
You can imagine, of course, how uncomfortable this must make those who lie for a living. Who cannot bear the forensics of investigation, which good reporters carry out on behalf of the nation. This is where, in the studios of Ultimo, in Parliament House, this is where and when we find out whether our future Prime Ministers have bothered to read the financial statements of the companies about which they proclaim. This is where we can, from the comfort of our couches, cheer drink every time we hear those words “carbon tax” or “penalty rates” without one whit of proof from those who claim to understand our economy. Who claim to have the ears of the ranks of C-suite around the country. Who pretend to know what horrors are being perpetrated in our names on those who seek asylum. 
I don’t know about you, but I need a stiff cheer drink after that. 
For the past six months – at least – Coalition politician after Coalition politician has sought to derail the national broadcaster, to threaten covertly its managing director, Mark Scott, to unsettle and derail its reporters … 
Poor reporters. They’ve been “unsettled”. Imagine how much more unsettled they might be if the government, say, tried to silence or intimidate them. Price (shown here in her cardigan of concern) ends with a swipe at The Australian‘s Chris Kenny: 
It’s our ABC. Not yours. 
That’ll be good news for Chris, who can no doubt expect a tax refund for decades of contributions to something he doesn’t own. Wouldn’t mind a piece of that myself.
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Which Labor muckraker authorised this?

Andrew Bolt March 12 2014 (3:40pm)

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It fits in a way. Think projection and all that. Labor, the party so dangerously prone to restrict free speech that might offend, unleashes its inner racist:
LIBERAL candidate for the seat of Elder Carolyn Habib says campaign material authorised by the Labor Party is a “filthy and racist” attack on her surname. 
The flyer cover has the words “can you trust Habib” set against what appears to be an old wall…

I think it is a very thinly veiled racist attack against my surname,” she said.
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“It’s a new low and a very, very filthy campaign in what has already been a dirty campaign over the past few weeks.” Ms Habib said she was born in Alice Springs, her father is from Lebanon and her mother is from Canada.
How low can you get? The prominence given to her surname, up against the wall, sends an unmistakable message – about what’s in Labor’s nasty mind.
I want section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act scrapped to allow freer speech, but hope to God it’s first used against the genuine low-life who did this. Let’s see the Left damn those responsible, just as conservatives damned those who did this. 
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Freedom, the dirty word of the modern Left

Andrew Bolt March 12 2014 (10:56am)

What a sad commentary on the people running our universities - other than Greg Craven, vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, who writes of the reception given to a speech by Education Minister Chris Pyne:
It is a judgment on Pyne’s listeners rather than him that when they hear the trumpet of liberty rather than the tinkling of a cash register, they tune out.
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This is the Left using your money to talk to its friends

Andrew Bolt March 12 2014 (10:16am)

Taxpayers’ money was used in Adelaide last weekend to show the Left agreeing with the Left about what most other Australians know should actually be debated.
Brought to you by sponsors including the South Australian Government and University of South Australia, this farcical exercise in group-think is a perfect example of how government money is used to distort the debate and give the Left a privileged say - with dissent completely excluded:
The Planet Talks... 
Taking the WOMADelaide fans’ experience beyond discovering new sounds, sights and flavours, the sessions explore a range of new ideas and topics that deal with our sustainable relationship to the planet in six thought-provoking panel discussions.
The sessions will be hosted by Robyn Williams (ABC Radio National) and Bernie Hobbs (ex ABC TV’s The New Inventors).
The Planet Talks is presented by the University of South Australia…

Saturday - Our Environmental Reality… 
SESSION 01 - The three great threats to biodiversity: climate change, people and habitat loss… Life on this planet is under extreme duress… What will the term biodiversity mean in 2100?..
SESSION 02 - Transforming Society ... 
With a change of government and climate change action policy, where to now for “the greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time”?

Sunday - Politics, Media, Law and Merchants of Doubt 
SESSION 01 - The Captain Kirk & Dr Spock of communicating climate change 

The Media, MPs and Mothers all play vital roles in shaping our emotional (Kirk) and rational (Spock) attitudes to environmental action. 
How do they frame a climate change message in ways that are relevant, accurate and meaningful to their audiences? 
5.00PM SESSION 02 - When Polly met Peter & Tim… 

Find out what happens when one of the world’s most visionary thinkers in the area of law and environmental action - Polly Higgins - meets Australia’s leading environmental thinker, writer and activist Tim Flannery and former government minister, ACF president and Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett for a frank conversation about why and how the law and legislation must tackle climate change. 
Monday - The Future and Positive Change...
SESSION 01 - Climate change and 100 million person cities… 
Thanks to the latest research from a host of the world’s most respected climate scientists like Tom Wigley, the weight of evidence pointing to the human role in changing our weather is now beyond compelling…  

SESSION 02 - Gen Z and Distractions vs Action… 
Generation Z are the most globally exposed and connected generation in the history of the planet. They will inherit any mess made by their parents and grandparents but are they more concerned about celebrity culture and low carb diets than climate change and low carbon economies?  
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The truth about Marcia Langton. I ask Tony Jones to read it

Andrew Bolt March 12 2014 (10:10am)

Free speech, The politics of race

)
Marcia Langton on Q&A accused me of subjecting her colleague Misty Jenkins to “foul abuse ... simply racial abuse”, She claimed I had “argued that (Jenkins) had no right to claim that she was Aboriginal” and so abused her that she “withdrew from public life” and no longer taught students.
Every one of those claims is false.
I have not yet received legal clearance to quote from my own article in 2008 which Langton so grossly misrepresents, but Cut & Paste today does. It contrasts what I actually wrote with what Langton on Monday claimed, and then suggests the truth.
If Langton had a shred of integrity she would apologise. If Q&A believed in redressing gross and devastating untruths it would next week distance itself from what Langton said unchallenged.
UPDATE
Fighting racist division is now the ultimate racist act, it seems. And journalists are leading the calls for their own muzzle. The Australian on this bizarre moral inversion:
The Abbott government is seeking to unwind section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act — which deems words unlawful if they offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate people on the grounds of race — because it restricts free speech. Yet it is facing trenchant opposition. Following the successful 2011 prosecution under these laws of columnist Andrew Bolt of News Corp Australia (publisher of The Australian), the debate is often reduced to whether or not participants agree with what Bolt wrote. Defend the current law or defend Bolt; it is a phony choice. The point of this debate is that even people who strongly disagree with Bolt’s words can defend his freedom to publish them. What makes this sad debate even more pitiful is that argue as you might about Bolt’s provocative tone and strong words, but his “offending” articles were actually a passionate argument against racial discrimination of any kind. Yet the words are banned — erased from websites. This is the perverse effect of section 18C — a liberal democracy bans articles in which a commentator shares honestly held views against race-based preferment. 
The nation will need a better approach if it is going to be able to have a constructive debate about indigenous recognition in the Constitution. The “progressives” who support that move and would normally defend freedom of expression might unwittingly be cruelling the pitch through their defence of section 18C. On ABC TV’s Q&A this week, Attorney-General George Brandis could find no support for his free-speech position on a panel of six, including three journalists. Perhaps those enjoined in this debate don’t want to be seen to be on Bolt’s side (even if they haven’t been able to read his banned articles). Political correctness might have become so insidious that it is now a thought-crime to support the repeal of laws that stifle free speech lest we be tarred with the words of others. Far from emulating Voltaire’s famous line on free speech, the political class surrenders.
I could prove that my banned articles argued against racism and racial division by republishing them - but the Federal Court has ruled that I may not. Mein Kampf can be published, but my articles fighting racism cannot.
My articles must be the most dangerous in the country - the Lady Chatterley’s Lover of the 21st Century.
UPDATE
I’ve now had advice from our lawyers that I am allowed to quote the article I wrote in 2008 which Marcia Langton so mischaracterised. (This the expense and worry we must now go to simply to have a debate on a matter of public importance - an expense and worry spared the likes of Langton. Free speech?)
As  The Australian today summarised it:
ABC1’s Q&A, Monday:
MARCIA Langton: In my opinion, the articles that (Andrew) Bolt wrote about several Aboriginal people were far from the subject of politics and simply abusive. Now, just to take one instance, there was a young woman who was the victim of his abuse ... Dr Misty Jenkins ... the victim of foul abuse from Bolt now, nothing that he said about her was political. It was simply racial abuse. He argued that she had no right to claim that she was Aboriginal and, like most fools who put this argument in public, we are expected to deny our parents and our grandparents because somebody believes in race theories. So, I absolutely refute ... that this has to do with … (the) suppression of political debate.
Foul abuse? Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun, May 21, 2008:
MELBOURNE University has a record that illustrates my theory that state-funded institutions tend to lean to the cultural Left ... Read the latest issue of ... the university’s alumni magazine ... the cover story argues that the mainly black murderers (in the Deep South) ... are victims ... Page two promotes Kevin Rudd’s apology ... Page three announces that Davis has picked … global warming alarmist Ross Garnaut, as one of his Vice-Chancellor’s Fellows. Page four has a feature on Dr Misty Jenkins, a blonde and pale science PhD who calls herself Aboriginal and enthuses: “I was able to watch the coverage of Kevin Rudd’s (sorry) speech with tears rolling down my cheeks ... Recognition of the atrocities caused by Australian government policies was well overdue.” “Independent”? “Nonpartisan”? Pages six and seven boast that the university hosted Rudd’s “first major policy conference” … There are even … pictures of Rudd ... Wayne Swan, Nicola Roxon and Kim Carr. “Independent”? “Nonpartisan”? You get the message.
Read on as The Australian does a fact-check. 
I don’t yet dare link to my full article, but a simple Google search will find it.
UPDATE
The Herald Sun on free speech: 
An opinion as to some people using their ethnicity to their advantage might have been offensive to some, but should that have prevented Bolt from saying as much? The Herald Sun says the answer to this is an emphatic “no’’.... 
No, it’s not, and the Racial Discrimination Act, Section 18C, is an Act too far… It is offensive to tell people they must not voice their opinions…
The underlying problem with the ill-considered effects of Section 18C is that if someone says they have been offended or humiliated, who is to challenge them? That is not what freedom of speech and the right to fairly voice your opinions is about.
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Iranian commander warns: Islam gives Iran power to destroy Israel

Andrew Bolt March 12 2014 (8:43am)

Sure, the West can trust Iran with a nuclear bomb. What could possibly go wrong?
The air force commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps was quoted by Iran’s Fars news agency as saying Tuesday that Iran’s military has its finger on the trigger to destroy Israel as soon as it receives the order to do so.
In an article headlined “IRGC Commander: Iran’s Finger on Trigger to Destroy Zionist Regime,” Fars wrote that Brigadier General Hossein Salami had declared that Iranian military commanders are prepared to attack and destroy the Zionist regime of Israel as soon as they receive such an order. “Today, we can destroy every spot which is under the Zionist regime’s control with any volume of fire power (that we want) right from here,” Fars quoted Salami as telling a conference in Tehran Tuesday ... ”Islam has given us this wish, capacity and power to destroy the Zionist regime so that our hands will remain on the trigger from 1,400 kilometers away for the day when such an incident (confrontation with Israel) takes place,” he was also quoted saying in the speech.
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Australia faces its China Syndrome

Andrew Bolt March 12 2014 (8:31am)

Terry McCrann says our economic future depends largely on China - and the sudden drop in iron ore prices tell us we could be in for serious trouble.
First, here’s how China was our Tattslotto:
The China boom centred on iron ore, which for the previous 30 years had been the solid, unspectacular, anything-but glamorous commodity. 
BHP Billiton’s numbers tell the story. In 2003 BHP shipped off 76 million tonnes and received $US2 billion ($2.2 billion) in revenue.
In 2008, at the peak of the pre-GFC boom, its iron ore revenue had more than quadrupled, to $US9 billion, with its exports up to 124 million tonnes.
Then China really kicked in: by 2011 its iron ore revenues had more than doubled again, to $US20 billion. This was driven by a modest further increase in volumes, to 135 million tonnes; but much more by a surge in the iron ore price to $US151 a tonne.
Last year, it held the revenue figure, by shipping more — 170 million tonnes — at a lower price, $US118 a tonne.
Same kind of story with the other miners.
Now, what if we got both lower prices AND lower volumes?
The immediate fear and loathing was sparked by some spectacularly negative figures out of China.
Its monthly trade bottom line recorded a mammoth turnaround from a $US32 billion surplus to a $US23 billion deficit. Thanks to an equally mammoth — and completely unpredicted — 18 per cent fall in exports.
We’ve got used to double digit growth each year in China. Their government is now talking about it ‘easing’ to 7.25 per cent.
Let’s hope we could be that lucky. What if it fell to 6 per cent? Or lower? China is like a shark that might be in the process of suddenly not going forward. All sorts of things can start to unwind.
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Greens try to do to the country what they’ve done to poor Tasmania

Andrew Bolt March 12 2014 (8:19am)

Great column today by Peter Costello:
THERE’S one group of people who should be cheering the closure of Ford, Toyota, and Alcoa’s Port Henry aluminium smelter. 
Heavy industries like those use a lot of electricity ... which throws off enormous amounts of carbon dioxide — the stuff the previous government used to call “carbon pollution"…
But they’re humble folks, those Greens. They don’t boast about their successes… The carbon tax is working the way it was intended: taxing heavy emitters out of business…
If you want to see what a place looks like after years of those policies, visit Tasmania… Tasmania has de-industrialised. You won’t find car workers in Tasmania. But it is a clean, green state. Per head of population, Tasmania generates much less “carbon pollution” than New South Wales or Victoria.
Tasmania also has the highest unemployment of any Australian state… Unemployment would be much higher still if Tasmania hadn’t perfected the art of extracting financial subsidies from the rest of us. Tasmania sends 12 senators to the Commonwealth Parliament, the same as every other state. But since the population of Tasmania is so much smaller, a Tasmanian senator needs about one-tenth of the votes a Victorian senator needs to get elected. A very small group of Tasmanian voters has been sending Greens like Bob Brown and Christine Milne to Canberra for decades with the aim of doing to the whole country what they have done to their own state: to de-industrialise it. But there is one big difference. No matter how much damage Tasmania does to itself, it will always be able to call on federal subsidies to cushion the blow.... But ... there is no great international benefactor that is going to step in to give Australia money to save it from itself.  
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What does Malaysia really know about the missing flight?

Andrew Bolt March 12 2014 (7:33am)

First we were told the missing Malaysian jet, carrying 239 people, was last tracked two hours out of Kuala Lumpur, near Vietnamese air space:
Malaysia’s flag carrier said flight MH370 disappeared, without giving a distress signal, at 2:40am local time on Saturday (18:40 GMT Friday), about two hours after leaving Kuala Lumpur International Airport....
Al Jazeera’s Florence Looi, reporting from Kuala Lumpur, said that the search teams concentrate rescue efforts on the area where contact was last made with the aircraft.
“There are more than a dozen Malaysian planes involved in the search and rescue mission and about nine ships from the same country. Singapore and Vietnam are also involved in the mission. And the US is sending two ships,” she said… A report by China’s Xinhua news agency said contact was lost with the plane while it was near Vietnamese airspace.
Now we’re told the Malaysian air force may have tracked the jet hundreds of kilometres away from the initial search zone - or maybe not:
Malaysian authorities now believe that a jetliner missing since Saturday may have radically changed course around the time that it stopped communicating with ground controllers… 
On Tuesday, the fourth day after the plane disappeared while on an overnight flight to Beijing, the country’s air force chief, General Rodzali Daud, was quoted in a Malaysian newspaper saying the military had received “signals” on Saturday that after the aircraft stopped communicating with ground controllers, it changed course sharply, from heading northeast to heading west, and flew hundreds of kilometres across Peninsular Malaysia and out over the Strait of Malacca, before the tracking went blank.

The Strait of Malacca is far from where it last made contact with civilian air traffic control off the country’s east coast
The air force chief did not say what kind of signals the military had tracked. But his remarks raised questions about whether the military had noticed the plane as it flew across the country and about when it informed civilian authorities… According to the general’s account, the last sign of the plane was recorded at 2:40 am, and the aircraft was then near Pulau Perak, an island more than 160 kilometres off the western shore of the Malaysian peninsula…
Adding to the confusion, Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad, spokesman for the prime minister’s office, said in a telephone interview that he had checked with senior military officials, who told him there was no evidence that the plane had recrossed the Malaysian peninsula, only that it may have attempted to turn back…
“As far as they know, except for the air turn-back, there is no new development,” Mr Tengku Sariffuddin, adding that the reported remarks by the air force chief were “not true.”
Malaysia Airlines, meanwhile, offered a third, conflicting account. In a statement, the airline said authorities were “looking at a possibility” that the plane was headed to Subang, an airport outside Kuala Lumpur that handles mainly domestic flights.
Without specifying why, the Malaysian authorities vastly expanded the search area to the west on Monday… 
First we were told five passengers did not show up for the flight and had their bags unloaded:
Malaysian authorities say five men checked in for the flight but did not board, raising the possibility someone may have planted a bomb on board. But Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, head of Malaysia’s civil aviation, insisted that all the baggage loaded on the plane had been properly checked, and any bags belonging to no-show passengers had been off-loaded — apparently without significantly delaying the plane’s departure.
Then we were told all passengers turned up, or maybe they didn’t:
Khalid Abu Bakar, the inspector general of the Malaysian police, said previous reports by Malaysian officials that five passengers had failed to board the flight and that their baggage had been removed were false. “Everybody that booked the flight boarded the plane,” he said. 
But Malaysia Airlines later issued a clarification, saying that there were four passengers who booked tickets on the flight but failed to check in at the airport or check any bags for the flight.
Malaysia first hinted two men boarding the flight with false passports were black:
Asked by a reporter what they looked like “roughly,” he said: “Do you know of a footballer by the name of (Mario) Balotelli? He is an Italian. Do you know how he looks like?” 
A reporter then asked, “Is he black?” and the aviation chief replied, “Yes.”
Then we learn the two men were Iranian:
Two men travelling with stolen passports on a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner were Iranians who had bought tickets to Europe and were probably not terrorists, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.
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Exactly what in this boat people disaster is good?

Andrew BoltMARCH122013(12:35am)

Former Labor minister Gary Johns describes a classic case of the Left’s besetting weakness - to judge by the seeming, not the achieving: 
I once watched a former vice-chancellor preening himself in front of a UN cheer-squad audience of academics and public servants in Brisbane on the refugee question. He cited the poem Mending Wall by Robert Frost, which underscored the unkindness of fences as barriers to neighbours. The vice-chancellor spent his address criticising the Howard government’s refugee policy.

He cited the ancient proverb “good fences make good neighbours” and Frost’s romantic interpretation of it. In a great flourish the vice-chancellor declared, “Good fences make good neighbours: the hell they do!” and strode from the stage to rapturous applause. There is more wisdom in the western suburbs than in the elite.
Since Labor scrapped those laws lashed by the vice-chancellor we have seen: 
- a huge rise in boat people arriving, with a record 17,000 coming last year alone.
- at least 1000 boat people lured to their deaths.
- boat people sent out from choked detention centres on bridging visas, forbidden to work, to live in empty offices and abandoned houses, sometimes sleeping on the floor.
- taxpayers forced to pay $5 billion to handle the influx.
- relations with Indonesia damaged by the bungling.
- genuine refugees denied places here by queue jumps.
- Labor defending itself by demonising legally-arrived foreign workers instead.
Where is that vice-chancellor now with his poem and cheap theatrics?
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How low can Latham get?

Andrew BoltMARCH122013(8:15am)

Former Labor leader Mark Latham has said many low and contemptible things. His attempt to vilify the Opposition’s finance spokesman. Andrew Robb, over his battle with depression is astonishing. Vile.
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Muslim conference in strife, despite excuses for the radicals

Andrew BoltMARCH122013(8:30am)

Keysar Trad tries his old “out of context” excuse:

THE imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, who has called for the annihilation of Jews, is scheduled to give the keynote address at the Australian Islamic Peace Conference in Melbourne this weekend…

Sheik Sudais, who has called for violent jihad, has been denied entry to the US and Canada after describing Jews as “the scum of humanity” and “pigs and monkeys"…

Federation of Islamic Councils assistant secretary Keysar Trad said there was no comparison to be made between calls for Dutch anti-Islam activist Geert Wilders to be denied a visa on his recent visit to Australia, and similar calls regarding Sheik Sudais.

“One person may have made comments in anger. The other has made it his personal mission to go around the world telling lies about Muslims,” Mr Trad said…

“People can change and sometimes they say comments out of anger which they would retract when they calm down,” he said.
What lies? And show me where Wilders has ever abused Muslims as Imam Sudais has abused Jews, even calling for God to “terminate” them.
But it seems the ”largest ever Islamic conference in the history of Australia” which I wrote about last month is in trouble, which may be a tribute to the moderation of most Muslims here.
An observer writes (no link):

A large conference planned for next weekend at the Melbourne Showgrounds is facing chaos, financial ruin and possible cancellation. The 1000 volunteers needed for what is billed as “Australia’s biggest dawah conference” have not materialised. [Dawah is the Arabic term for ‘Islamic propagation’].  Last Sunday around 300 turned up to Melbourne University for the final planning meeting for the conference.  Waseem Razvi, the normally confident and charismatic president of the Islamic Research and Educational Academy (IREA) which is organising the conference, struggled to keep control of the crowd, sometimes shouting at them to be quiet. Many left without registering as volunteers. Ticket sales are low… Only 1 in 5 of the 200 marketing and commercial stalls have been rented.

Razvi has been rattled by recent revelations about a previous planning meeting in which he declared the real intent of the conference to a Muslim audience: “We don’t accept every religion. We are there to convey the message that Islam is the only right religion.” Razvi’s list of invited speakers was leaked to the media.  Among them was Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, the controversial Imam of Mecca. Al-Sudais gained notoriety by calling for the annihilation of the Jews, declaring them to be “rats of the world” and the “offspring of apes and pigs”. IREA is so embarrassed by these remarks that they are trying to conceal his identity. Advertisements for the conference, displayed on banners and posters put up around Melbourne this week, show a man at a microphone with an Arab headscarf pulled over his face. He is called the “Imam of Makkah” [Mecca], but the same photo on the official Mecca website has Arabic text underneath which identifies him as Al-Sudais. It is unclear whether his visa, questioned by the Department of Immigration, has been issued. Other visas of listed speakers have apparently been denied…

The mainstream Muslim community will not be represented at this conference. Those absent from the list of speakers include moderate Muslims such as the ABC’s Waleed Aly, or Melbourne University scholar Professor Abdullah Saeed. Instead, perhaps in an attempt to avoid more visa refusals, the conference plans to video live-stream two American preachers with questionable histories. Sheikh Yasir Qadhi, who taught the ‘Christmas Day Underpants Bomber’ at his Al-Maghrib institute, refuses to openly condemn militant jihad, saying ”My hands are tied, and my tongue is silent.” Sheikh Yusuf Estes advised a group of Muslim men on how to deal with disobedient wives: ”Roll up a newspaper and give her a crack. Or take a yardstick, something like this, and you can hit.”
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Is this the best way to lead our Test team?

Andrew BoltMARCH122013(8:49am)

Imposing discipline is all very well, but a great leader leads by inspiration and motivation, not dictatorial fiat. I suspect Michael Clarke will find his team playing with less pleasure under him, and with less passion.
With fewer good players, too:

Watson, James Pattinson, Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Johnson were all dumped for Thursday’s third Test for failing for a minor disciplinary breach - not completing an assignment by team management on how to make improvements in the team…

“Any time you are suspended from a Test match, unless you have done something unbelievably wrong and obviously everyone knows what those rules are - I think it is very harsh,” he said.
Without a doubt, there will be fault on both sides. But the question remains whether the cure will actually kill. 
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Is this the true face of Islam?

Andrew BoltMARCH122013(9:09am)

This is not the action of a “tiny unrepresentative minority” but of the government of Iran: 
Five Iranian Christian converts who were detained late last year will reportedly begin trial in Iran’s Revolutionary Court this week, according to a human rights group following the case.

The five men were among seven arrested in October when security forces raided an underground house church in the city of Shiraz during a prayer session. They will be tried at the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz’s Fars Province on charges of disturbing public order, evangelizing, threatening national security and engaging in Internet activity that threatens the government, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a religious persecution watchdog group.
No doubt Foreign Minister Bob Carr will protest....
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Clarkson does what we no longer dare

Andrew BoltMARCH122013(9:24am)

Nick Cater says we need Jeremy Clarkson on TV here because we’re too scared to make his kind of jokes ourselves: 
YOU only have to read The Sydney Morning Herald to see how easy it has become to take offence and how difficult it is to crack a joke. On Friday the tabloid devoted two mirthless pages to the semantic crimes of Jeremy Clarkson, who was reprimanded for sexist, racist and homophobic humour.

Clarkson’s most egregious expressions were published in a handy list. He described one car as “very ginger beer”, which, as you won’t be amused to learn, is slang for a gentleman who is good with colours. He declared Romania was “Borat country, with gypsies and Russian playboys”, and proposed a design for “a quintessentially German car” with Hitler-salute turn signals and a “satnav that only goes to Poland”.

None of that should be considered the least bit funny; we can be sure that these are verbal blunders with no satirical or ironic intent because they are printed under the headline “Foot in mouth”. Nanny blogger Mia Freedman wagged a finger in all the right places, telling the Herald that Clarkson and his fellow Top Gear presenters were “dialling up sexism under the guise of ‘aren’t we being naughty boys’.” Indeed they are, Ms Freedman, and therein lies the program’s charm.

Australians, as we know, don’t make anything any more. We can’t even make people wince in a way that once came naturally; we are forced to import British television programs to satisfy our need for umbrage.

A generation ago, Australia was a net exporter of semantic subversion. The trade peaked in the early 1970s when The Adventures of Barry McKenzie introduced the upright Poms to the one-eyed trouser snake…

A year earlier, Richard Neville, then editor of the satirical magazine Oz, was charged with “conspiring to produce a magazine containing divers lewd, indecent and sexually perverted articles, drawings and illustrations”.
But now? In the age which gave us Nicola Roxon, with her proposed laws against giving “offence”?
Politics has become a bland and humourless business in these cheerless, roxinated times. It is an offence not only to crack a joke, but to be in the proximity of the cracker. As The Australian reported in October: “Treasurer Wayne Swan admitted poor judgment yesterday for not objecting soon enough to an offensive joke.” 
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Polite men are actually sexists who like big breasts

Andrew BoltMARCH122013(9:45am)


Turns out, the findings also revealed that the more sexist a man is, the more likely he’ll be drawn to women with bigger breasts… Study co-author Viren Swami explains: “Benevolently sexist men may perceive larger breasts as ‘‘appropriate’’ for feminine women; in other words ... a feminine and submissive woman is likely to be someone with large breasts.”

Ironically, this means it’s the ‘nice guys’ who pride themselves in holding open car doors, offer to pay for dinners and believe ladies are to be ‘admired’ and ‘put on a pedestal’ who are most likely to buy into traditional beauty ideals – like having a ‘feminine figure’ in this case.
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An apology, not silence, would suit warmist Dr Karl better

Andrew BoltMARCH122013(10:31am)

What Britain’s warmist Met Office actually said about warming since 1997:
The linear trend from August 1997 ...  to August 2012 ...is about 0.03°C/decade, amounting to a temperature increase of 0.05°C over that period
What ABC science presenter Dr Karl repeatedly claims the Met said:
MET office data of static warming for last 16 years is a misconception? @JWSpry @25outsidefifty Yup, world has warmed 0.3C in last 16 years.
Dr Karl repeat his false claim: 
Reader JW Spry tries again to get ABC science presenter Dr Karl - a denier of the 16-year pause in warming - to correct a blatant error: 
image
That exchange ends abruptly when Dr Karl is (again) given a link to the Met Office document he repeatedly misquotes, showing the warming trend since 1997 is one sixth of what Dr Karl claims. In fact, statistically insignificant. 
And still no correction or retraction from this warmist.  When will the ABC demand its science presenter acknowledge clear errors?
=== from 2014 ===
Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu
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“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.” - Deuteronomy 7:9
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

March 11: Morning

"Sin ... exceeding sinful." - Romans 7:13

Beware of light thoughts of sin. At the time of conversion, the conscience is so tender, that we are afraid of the slightest sin. Young converts have a holy timidity, a godly fear lest they should offend against God. But alas! very soon the fine bloom upon these first ripe fruits is removed by the rough handling of the surrounding world: the sensitive plant of young piety turns into a willow in after life, too pliant, too easily yielding. It is sadly true, that even a Christian may grow by degrees so callous, that the sin which once startled him does not alarm him in the least. By degrees men get familiar with sin. The ear in which the cannon has been booming will not notice slight sounds. At first a little sin startles us; but soon we say, "Is it not a little one?" Then there comes another, larger, and then another, until by degrees we begin to regard sin as but a little ill; and then follows an unholy presumption: "We have not fallen into open sin. True, we tripped a little, but we stood upright in the main. We may have uttered one unholy word, but as for the most of our conversation, it has been consistent." So we palliate sin; we throw a cloak over it; we call it by dainty names. Christian, beware how thou thinkest lightly of sin. Take heed lest thou fall by little and little. Sin, a little thing? Is it not a poison? Who knows its deadliness? Sin, a little thing? Do not the little foxes spoil the grapes? Doth not the tiny coral insect build a rock which wrecks a navy? Do not little strokes fell lofty oaks? Will not continual droppings wear away stones? Sin, a little thing? It girded the Redeemer's head with thorns, and pierced his heart! It made him suffer anguish, bitterness, and woe. Could you weigh the least sin in the scales of eternity, you would fly from it as from a serpent, and abhor the least appearance of evil. Look upon all sin as that which crucified the Saviour, and you will see it to be "exceeding sinful."

Evening

"Thou shalt be called, Sought out." - Isaiah 62:12
The surpassing grace of God is seen very clearly in that we were not only sought, but sought out. Men seek for a thing which is lost upon the floor of the house, but in such a case there is only seeking, not seeking out. The loss is more perplexing and the search more persevering when a thing is sought out. We were mingled with the mire: we were as when some precious piece of gold falls into the sewer, and men gather out and carefully inspect a mass of abominable filth, and continue to stir and rake, and search among the heap until the treasure is found. Or, to use another figure, we were lost in a labyrinth; we wandered hither and thither, and when mercy came after us with the gospel, it did not find us at the first coming, it had to search for us and seek us out; for we as lost sheep were so desperately lost, and had wandered into such a strange country, that it did not seem possible that even the Good Shepherd should track our devious roamings. Glory be to unconquerable grace, we were sought out! No gloom could hide us, no filthiness could conceal us, we were found and brought home. Glory be to infinite love, God the Holy Spirit restored us!

 The lives of some of God's people, if they could be written would fill us with holy astonishment. Strange and marvellous are the ways which God used in their case to find his own. Blessed be his name, he never relinquishes the search until the chosen are sought out effectually. They are not a people sought today and cast away to-morrow. Almightiness and wisdom combined will make no failures, they shall be called, "Sought out!" That any should be sought out is matchless grace, but that we should be sought out is grace beyond degree! We can find no reason for it but God's own sovereign love, and can only lift up our heart in wonder, and praise the Lord that this night we wear the name of "Sought out."
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Amasai 

[Ămăs'aī] - burdensome.

1. A descendant of Kohath, son of Levi (1 Chron. 6:25; 2 Chron. 29:12).

 2. A chieftain who joined David at Ziklag and became one of his captains (1 Chron. 12:18). Perhaps the same as Amasa, No. 1.

 3. A Levite who helped in the return of the Ark from the house of Obed-edom (1 Chron. 15:24)
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Today's reading: Deuteronomy 13-15, Mark 12:28-44 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Deuteronomy 13-15


Worshiping Other Gods
1 If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, 2 and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, "Let us follow other gods" (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," 3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul....

Today's New Testament reading: Mark 12:28-44

The Greatest Commandment
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
29 "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
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Today's Lent reading: Matthew 7-9 (NIV)

View today's Lent reading on Bible Gateway
Judging Others

1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye....

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Lent=Devotions-Header
The Easter season is often marked by spectacular displays of art and public worship--we might sing beautiful Easter hymns at church, attend moving Easter pageants, or participate in public acts of prayer, fasting, or devotion. Today's Scripture reading reminds us that in the midst of these outward displays, however appropriate they are, we are called to humility, self-sacrifice, reflection, and quiet suffering.

Today's Prayer

O Lord, who hast mercy upon all,
take away from me my sins,
and mercifully kindle in me
the fire of thy Holy Spirit.
Take away from me the heart of stone,
and give me a heart of flesh,
a heart to love and adore Thee,
a heart to delight in Thee,
to follow and enjoy Thee, for Christ's sake, Amen.
-- Ambrose of Milan, 4th century bishop

Today's Scripture Reading: Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
Teaching about Giving to the Needy
"Watch out! Don't do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven. 2 When you give to someone in need, don't do as the hypocrites do-blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity! I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get. 3But when you give to someone in need, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. 4 Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.
Teaching about Prayer and Fasting
5 "When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. 6 But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.
16 "And when you fast, don't make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get. 17 But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face. 18 Then no one will notice that you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in private. And your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.
Teaching about Money and Possessions
19 "Don't store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 21Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.

Today's Quote 

"When your heart is thus established in Christ, and you are an enemy of sin, out of love and not out of fear of punishment, Christ's sufferings should also be an example for your whole life, and you should meditate on the same in a different way.... If a day of sorrow or sickness weighs you down, think, how trifling that is compared with the thorns and nails of Christ. If you must do or leave undone what is distasteful to you: think,how Christ was led hither and thither, bound and a captive. Does pride attack you: behold, how your Lord was mocked and disgraced with murderers. Do unchastity and lust thrust themselves against you: think, how bitter it was for Christ to have his tender flesh torn, pierced and beaten again and again. Do hatred and envy war against you, or do you seek vengeance: remember how Christ with many tears and cries prayed for you and all his enemies, who indeed had more reason to seek revenge . If trouble or whatever adversity of body or soul afflict you, strengthen your heart and say: Ah, why then should I not also suffer a little since my Lord sweat blood in the garden because of anxiety and grief?

"One can thus find in Christ strength and comfort against all vice and bad habits.... And they are called true Christians who incorporate the life and name of Christ into their own life, as St. Paul says in Gal 5, 24: "And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof." For Christ's Passion must be dealt with not in words and a show, but in our lives and in truth.... But this kind of meditation is now out of use and very rare, although the Epistles of St. Paul and St. Peter are full of it. We have changed the essence into a mere show, and painted the meditation of Christ's sufferings only in letters and on walls." -- Martin Luther, "How to Contemplate Christ's Holy Sufferings"

Something to Think About

As Easter approaches, are your words and actions marked by humility? Whatever you're doing to prepare for Easter, are you doing it to honor Christ, or to be noticed by others?

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