Friday, October 28, 2016

Friday Oct 28th Todays News

IPA Review has many excellent articles worthy of discussion. The August 2016 issue included Scott Hargreaves critique the idealism of Marxist intellectuals. The headline claims that it revealed the failure of the left wing since the mid twentieth century. The article is a review of Roger Scruton’s “Fools, frauds and firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left.” The major philosophies of the modern left extend from the work of Hegel, whose philosophy is sometimes diminished to be described as ‘Thesis and Anti thesis leads to Synthesis.’ An example of which can be seen in modern sit-com writing where a character that is young might be seen to be falling in love, while in the same story an elderly couple are contemplating divorce. The two opposites combine to synthesise meaning in the story. Hegel’s dialectic (dialectic is a fancy word for discussion) has been adapted by Marx and other leftists to describe the world and anticipate (predict) change. Hence a worker’s revolution after a fight between land owners and workers.

It is true that communism and socialism failed badly after WW2. But it is also true that they failed everywhere in history. Some celebrated left wing philosophers got to live out their dream, but more have lived in nightmares they wrought. Venezuela and Cuba are no more successful now, than the Soviet Union or Cambodia was then. Or revolutionary France failed, but the revolutions of 1848 around Europe failed too. And in the great bastion of commercialism, the United States of America, Neither Bill Clinton, nor Obama have been successful in doing much more than adding to national debt, making the poor worse off and more numerous. The result is that the intellectual heritage of leftwing thinkers is bare. They have nothing underpinning their world view beyond rhetoric. And that makes them very difficult to argue with. But don’t take my word for it, read the article.

Donald Trump's speech at Gettysburg is frightening media. They have supported and protected insider corruption for a long time. Trump will clean up the festering wound, and make America great again. 
=== from 2015 ===
Some criminals who have been on the run for eight years were arrested today. A father and son, they lived in the out back of NSW, Victoria and South Australia. They didn't use bank accounts, telephones or the internet and so the police found it hard to track them. Instead, they worked for farmers, paid in cash, and got a reputation for violence and not being trustworthy. They had a high powered rifle which they used to shoot a policeman. They would be happy to know that there was a broad debate about restricting guns from law abiding citizens. They would also no know that Kevin Rudd lost his PM's position the first time or that a popular ALP government lost its' way, kept its' furniture and hasn't hanged policy despite its' failure. If they'd paid attention, they might remember Dr Nelson was being backstabbed by Mr Turnbull. 

In another great moment for law enforcement, a jailed pedophile has been charged with the Belangelo forest murder of mother Karlie Jade Pearce-Stevenson in 2010. Karla's ID was used after death by a woman who used a wheel chair in Centrelink. Apparently the daughter was murdered by someone else afterwards. 

On 2GB hoping to speak to Andrew Bolt. Waited an hour and did not speak to him. Told to call again. Many who spoke on Mr Abbott's brilliant speech to Europe about how to solve the illegal migration crisis were admiring. Turnbull used too many words to not say what he should have, that Australia's current policy works effectively and compassionately. It is not compassionate to drown people wanting to migrate, or to subject them to piracy or deny refugees places. However, all Australian news media outlets reported the words of Greens fantasist hysteric Sarah Hanson-Young who claimed Mr Abbott's speech was not well received. S H-Y is of the view that it is good to drown desperate, poor people wanting a better life. And to deny refugees places. Her evidence is she hates Mr Abbott. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
From 2014
The Good
Rupert Murdoch addressed the G20, and he has released his speech. He criticises governments responding to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and points that the governments (many left wing - ed) made the mistake of listening to populist calls for remedy rather than applying appropriate, intelligent, long lasting remedies. Australia would be well aware with many such examples, from $900 given to everyone old enough to vote, some not even alive, to pink bats which killed workers and burned down houses, to desalination plants that aren't needed but cost lots and to an NBN that costs more than high speed rail between Brisbane and Melbourne. 

Mr Abbott asks for mature debate on tax revenue and the future needs of Australia. Mr Shorten accuses him of raising the GST. It is clear who the adults are. The adults have government, at the moment, but not the senate which is blocking billions of dollars in cuts. A petrol levy has been produced because of senate obstruction of cuts. ALP debt has to be paid for. ALP want to pay for it from opportunity that might come the way of our children. Debt means lost opportunity and broader poverty. 
The Bad
For $229, a bigoted journalist can give you a "masterclasses" experience from Antony Lowenstein. From frightbats to fail bats, and Tim Blair risks censorship again, to present a choice of ten failed left wing journalists who are popular. Lowenstein isn't popular. 

ABC bias is out of control as a quick view of their Drum website shows. All the articles being of a left wing point of view. SBS peddling wrongful opinion, not science in a valiant attempt to be more unbalanced than the ABC. Whomever wins, the viewer loses. What would Whitlam have done with Global Warming? Wonders Fairfax's John Birmingham. Based on past effort, Whitlam would have bankrupted the economy and negotiated with ISIL for money. 
The Ugly
Father of a four year old boy weighing 8.3 kilograms says "We actually fed him pretty much every day, in that room, by sliding the plates under there, so far as we could hear, he was happy.” If the father gets a custodial sentence, he will be much better treated. The mother has plead to a lesser charge than what the father pled guilty to. Both parents are in their mid twenties, but neither have used their age as an excuse for their neglect. The father's comment is enlightening, cleverly constructed to suggest depraved indifference. Detail hasn't been posted regarding the child, but one guesses infirmity is involved. The parent's place has been described as a mess, but even bad parents have some awareness of their own child.

Labor still rejecting boat policy it knows works. Over 1300 confirmed deaths from their failed policy. Billions of dollars down the tube to welfare for people who paid over $10k each to people smugglers. The Australian money being diverted from aid to refugees in UN run camps. Nobody wins in the ALP if they are honest. 
From 2013
The White Australia Policy was initiated by protectionists with support of the ALP. It was eventually ended by the Liberal Party with the opposition of the ALP. Something worth remembering while looking at the extreme act of bastardry of the wharf unions in striking and leaving vulnerable POW returnee soldiers stranded in dire circumstance. After all, the unionists had reason to fear capable, hard working men coming from overseas and looking for work opportunity. One must look at both sides of the story, so I include the wharfist viewpoint. In keeping with ABC policy of showing both sides of the argument, I note the ALP had union welfare and needs at heart and had first abandoned the soldiers overseas before delaying their return. ALP had stranded men in Singapore, failed to mount a rescue when invited to do so, and obstructed investigation of friendly fire. But you won't read about that on Wikipedia where gatekeepers protect the reputation of the elite left wing. Bob Carr revives White Australia issues now he is no longer in government. 

Mike Carlton has funny mannerisms. Kudos to children who copy them. But it is probably irresponsible in an adult. On the issue of irresponsible, Al Gore gave a speech. ABC Insiders selects women on merit? Foreign press are a little confused about global warming, so it is no surprise they have no idea about geography. Apparently, the public are not allowed to know the truth about the footprint of nuclear power versus Wind or Solar power. 

Beating up Jews is undertaken by someone with a southern European name, not an Islamic one? 

Greer is paid millions of dollars for old notes, and I'm struggling to give away encyclopaedia. I'm sure the money could have been put to better use. ABC interviews Milne on Global Warming and fails to correct any of the lies. Fairfax celebrates finding some lefties in the US. It was terrible Palmer was able to buy seats in parliament. But where does the money come from? FitzSimons consults Wikipedia and takes as fact what Hunt was criticised for treating as issues. Religious extremists believe in global warming .. with their religion being the worship of wealth redistribution. But the faith of Forrest is questioned despite its sincerity and effectiveness .. At worst, Forrest's faith is in nothing but good manners. At best .. 
Historical perspective on this day
Not done
=== 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.
===
Thanks to Warren for this advice on watching Bolt
Warren Catton Get this for your PC or MAC https://www.foxtel.com.au/foxtelplay/how-it-works/pc-mac.html Once you have installed it start it up and press Live TV you don't need a login to watch Sky News!
===
I am publishing a book called Bread of Life: January. 

Bread of Life is a daily bible quote with a layman's understanding of the meaning. I give one quote for each day, and also a series of personal stories illustrating key concepts eg Who is God? What is a miracle? Why is there tragedy?

January is the first of the anticipated year-long work of thirteen books. One for each month and the whole year. It costs to publish. It (Kindle version) should retail at about $2US online, but the paperback version would cost more, according to production cost.If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofund.me/27tkwuc
===
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
Happy birthday and many happy returns Alan Tran. Born on the same day, across the years, as
Forbidden City in Beijing
The Capital was made for you. We have independence. The earth shakes. Drinks are served. We are getting a new car. Let's party. 
Deaths
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Tim Blair

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Andrew Bolt

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Your allegiance is to Australia. What don’t you get?

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, October 27, 2015 (11:37pm)

IT is not the fault of the Muslim children who walked out of a school assembly when the Australian national anthem was played.

 Continue reading 'Your allegiance is to Australia. What don’t you get?'
===

IT WANTS CANDY

Tim Blair – Wednesday, October 28, 2015 (11:46am)

Stumped for Halloween costume ideas? Then why not follow her official website’s advice and dress as Hillary Clinton The site offers many Hillary variations to choose from, including “Women’s rights Hillary”, “Cold shoulder Hillary” (basically any Hillary in the same room as her husband) and “Hipster Hillary”:

Aieeee! It’s alive! Watch the children flee as Hipster Hillary stalks the suburbs. Here’s all you need to create this stripey she-beast: 
• White blouse 
• Glasses 
• Striped pants 
• Leather shoes 
• Long, loose hair 
Plus two old RCA televisions for Hillary’s lenses. But don’t feel limited to the site’s recommended Hillary styles. There are plenty of other potential Hillary costumes available, such as “Benghazi Hillary” (just add one prison cell), “Look! Pantsuits with X-Tra Wide cankle accommodators!” Hillary and “Just found out about Monica” Hillary, for which you’ll require: 
• Blue dress 
• A cigar 
• Walt Whitman’s poetry 
• A vast right-wing conspiracy 
• Several millilitres of Bill 
Get to it, Halloweenies. Only a few days to go!
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YOU KNOW, THIS BLOKE WOULD MAKE A GOOD PRIME MINISTER

Tim Blair – Wednesday, October 28, 2015 (2:18am)

From Tony Abbott’s Margaret Thatcher Lecture: 
The imperative to “love your neighbour as you love yourself” is at the heart of every Western polity. It expresses itself in laws protecting workers, in strong social security safety nets, and in the readiness to take in refugees. It’s what makes us decent and humane countries as well as prosperous ones, but – right now – this wholesome instinct is leading much of Europe into catastrophic error.
All countries that say “anyone who gets here can stay here” are now in peril, given the scale of the population movements that are starting to be seen. There are tens – perhaps hundreds – of millions of people, living in poverty and danger, who might readily seek to enter a Western country if the opportunity is there.
Who could blame them? Yet no country or continent can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself. This is the risk that the countries of Europe now run through misguided altruism. 
Abbott remains a master of the hard truths.
UPDATE. Front page news at Fairfax: 
Two of Australia’s leading Catholic priests say they are “appalled, ashamed and offended” that former prime minister Tony Abbott would cite the Bible on the world stage to argue for anti-immigration measures. 
Fairfax’s respect for the views of Catholic priests is long-established.
===

ART IMITATES ART

Tim Blair – Wednesday, October 28, 2015 (1:25am)

Creative mechanics continue the Renaissance tradition, as Freddy Fabris’s brilliant photography demonstrates:

Plus they have Corvettes. Please click for further spectacular images.
(Via Will Antonin.)
===

The media Abbott haters unleash again

Andrew Bolt October 28 2015 (3:23pm)

It’s incredible. Tony Abbott gives an important speech on the asylum seeker crisis engulfing Europe and the media Left go into paroxysms of scorn and hatred.
Very little of the reaction goes to the substance of his speech, which suggests the hatred exists before cause is given.
Here are three headlines from the Age website:
Just Abbott giving a speech in London drives one Age contributor mad with malice:
And now we see Abbott on the international speakers circuit with a first-up appearance in London to tell European leaders that his boat turn back policy is the best way to manage their refugee crisis.... While there are those who’ll have differing views about Abbott’s leadership and negotiation credentials, there’s nothing amiss with earning a living on the global speakers circuit – except that it’s a world away from representing the interests of the voters of Warringah.  
He’s being paid by you and me to represent the 102,000 people of Manly, Dee Why, Balgowlah and elsewhere in his electorate.  He has a backbencher salary, is looking at an annual pension of more than $300,000 and potentially other entitlements such as an additional annual salary of $300,000 to cover the costs of travel and a staffed office. Is it appropriate to take time out from that? Is it right to occupy a job you’ve no longer got the interest, focus or passion for?  
What a joke of an argument. All malice and no substance.
First, Abbott did not give the Margaret Thatcher Lecture for a fat fee but to pass on Australia’s experience to an important gathering wrestling with a serious problem. May no politician now go overseas to help work on problems that affect us, too? Or is only Abbott banned?
Second, where is the evidence that Abbott is failing the voters of Waringah? Is the same argument made whenever other backbenchers go on, say, study tours, holidays or international conferences? Or is only Abbott banned?
Thirdly, this carping about his salary ignores one critical thing. Were Abbott to quit Parliament he’d actually cost taxpayers more. His pension as a former Prime Minister is bigger than his salary as a backbencher - but he can claim it only when he quits.
Fourthly, where is the evidence that Abbott has not “got the interest, focus or passion” for his job? His enemies might wish that were so, but I’ve spoken to Abbott, and his passion for public life is still there, all right.
This trashy piece should have been spiked, but for the Age, any slime will do when Abbott is the target.
Sadly, I wish news.com.au were better than this. But, no, it once again chases the clicks of the hate-Abbott Internet crowd with this ludicrous beatup:
So which sages and foreign policy experts were consulted in preparing a story claiming Abbott was “embarrassing” Australia with his “vile” comments?
Here they are, every single one them: Greens Senator and Tweeter Sarah Hanson-Young, Greens Senator and Tweeter Rachel Siewart, far-Left retired Bishop Pat Power, “feminist leftie” Tweeter Marion Groves, “Melbourne-based Briton” and Tweeter Antonia Mocham, Tweeter Hardy World, windsock commentator and Tweeter Peter van Onselen and bitter-Left comic and Tweeter Wil Anderson. Not one expert, one thinker, one serious commentator between them. Just a hot and crowded echo-chamber of Abbott haters.
In what way does trawling through the Twitter droppings of the angry Left qualify as journalism? In what way do those Tweets qualify as a reasoned and balanced response to a major speech? Does the fact that the Tweets are all from the Left reflect the reporter’s own political views?
And so does the new click-bait journalism lead us into an ocean of mediocrity. Fortunately, though, most readers of the news.com.au piece are not impressed.
Is there maybe hope? 
===

A curious omission

Andrew Bolt October 28 2015 (10:44am)

Media Watch’s Paul Barry:
On Twitter, Queensland Labor MP Graham Perrett called Kenny obscene, insensitive and a grub, before deleting his tweet and apologising after threats of legal action.
Not the full truth. Barry omits the most defamatory party of Perrett’s tweet:
The most shameful tweet was posted by Labor MP Graham Perrett, who said Kenny was: “obscene & insensitive & very close to criminal behaviour … what a grub’’.
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:
Some curious editing from Barry. Why leave out Perrett’s most serious (and false) allegation - and, no doubt, the one that provoked the threat of legal action? If Barry wasn’t prepared to air all of the slurs - and especially the one most relevant to the matter at hand - within Perrett’s tweet, why air any?
A guess: to make Kenny seem too sensitive? Too fast to threaten to sue? 
===

ABC rewards vandal

Andrew Bolt October 28 2015 (7:48am)

Some bozo climbs Ayers Rock and then cuts the safety chain to protest against anyone else climbing it, in defiance of the alleged wishes of the “traditional owners”.
As a reward, he is given air time by ABC Melbourne host Jon Faine to promote his cause and prattle at length about “raising awareness” and the “religious ceremony” he performed.
Faine thanks him for being “frank” - but not so frank that he lets his real name be broadcast.
UPDATE
How much longer has this civilisation got? Faine’s second caller talks of having “hugged” the rock and felt “vibrations” from its “energy”.
I’m stocking up on tinned food. 
===

Now he’s a believer

Andrew Bolt October 28 2015 (7:14am)

There is a slight contradiction in Paul Kelly’s praise for the Prime Minister:
In the latest display of his business/rationalist outlook Malcolm Turnbull has bagged the role of ideology in the climate change debate, breaking from both the green lobbies and Tony Abbott, and has signalled his strategy to bury the culture war over climate change that has mocked Australia’s intelligence and weakened its policy response. 
Turnbull and his Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, are lining up a position for the 2016 election that will appeal to the mainstream, pitch to common sense and practical action in combating climate change but confront the ideologues seeking to punish the economy and households.
The ingredients are now in place. They begin with Turnbull’s credentials as a climate change believer, unlike the sceptical Abbott. 
So Turnbull is not an “ideologue” but he is a “believer”.
I guess the difference is that while Turnbull does not question the warming gospel, does not question the predicted Apocalypse and does not question the need for prayer (making purely ritualistic gestures to “stop” global warming), he at least does not construct a whole liberation theology to go with it. This is about virtue and not the overthrow of capitalism.
That’s fine as far as it goes, but it does not go far.
Note, by the way, that Turnbull’s approach is contrasted with Abbott in only one particular - in the language used. Their policies are so far actually identical. Sadly, Abbott could not afford to show his scepticism. Turnbull, I suspect, has none to conceal.
UPDATE
 Our coal industry supplies our cheapest and most reliable source of electricity. It pays around $40 billion a year in taxes and royalties. It directly employs about 40,000 Australians. Oh, and the world has barely warmed a jot over the past 18 years.
Yet the Sydney Morning Herald’s Mark Kenny believes that getting rid of our coal industry is the “centre ground” of politics:
(T)he timing of [Dr Alan Finkel’s] appointment [as Chief Scientist] ... coincided with 61 eminent Australians taking out a full page newspaper advertisement to seek a moratorium on any new coal mines in Australia - the proposed Carmichael mega-mine in the Galilee Basis, being target number one. 
Like many in the broader community, the group expects the green-tinged Turnbull to shift the Coalition on climate policy towards the centre-ground. Specifically it wants to put coal mining - as distinct from merely the carbon-dioxide released from its burning - on the upcoming Paris climate change agenda. Turnbull instead told them their idea was wrong-headed… It would have been Turnbull’s own “coal is good for humanity” moment were it not for his Finkel appointment and the question it raises about his underlying values in this debate.
The Nationals demanded Malcolm Turnbull agree to stick with existing climate change policies in exchange for its support for him to become Prime Minister. Now the Left is hoping - even expecting - the real Turnbull will emerge as soon as possible.
Lenore Taylor:
Malcolm Turnbull needs all his rhetorical skill to bridge the gap between what he knows is true and what he has to say to appease his party. 
Asked about the future of Australian coal exports on Tuesday, Turnbull started with the familiar “energy poverty” argument…
Similarly, Turnbull had to do a rhetorical dance around the call for a global moratorium on new coalmines, choosing to assert (incorrectly) that the argument was for an Australia-only moratorium and explaining that there were many other producers of coal, including China itself, which was about to become a net coal exporter…
Turnbull fully understands the massive technological change afoot in the energy sector, he understands climate science, and he is impatient for Australia to be right in the thick of the clean energy race. But he is constrained by the policy he has inherited and the mentality of some in his party.
The Left is giving Turnbull a pass for as long as it believes he doesn’t believe in his government’s own climate policies. Conservatives won’t trust him until they believe he does.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Chief Scientist: fracking is safe. But will politicians listen?

Andrew Bolt October 28 2015 (7:14am)

New Chief Scientist Alan Finkel says fracking is safe. Now will the politicians finally listen to the science, or will they keep pandering to populist fears?
ALAN FINKEL: I’m the president of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering. We, collaboratively with the other three learned academies in Australia - the Academy of Humanities, the Academy of Social Sciences, the Academy of Science - did a major review of unconventional gas technologies and applications; a very broad approach, looking at all the ramifications. 
And there’s no simple statement that comes out of that. But overall, you could say that if properly managed, with a good regulatory framework - and Australia is capable of applying good regulatory frameworks - that there is a lot of evidence that fracking is safe.
It’s like any other technology: if it’s not done appropriately, there will be problems.
That it’s being used widely already in the coal seam gas fields, particularly in Queensland. It’s being used widely across America. The evidence is not there that it’s dangerous. In fact, the evidence is that, if properly regulated, it’s completely safe. The instances where there has been, say, some environmental damage or some contamination have always been due to lax practices. And you find that in any industry.
How often do we need to be told?:
An inquiry by NSW Chief Scientist Mary O’Kane failed to identify a single incident of contamination by fracking in the 2.5 million wells drilled around the world.
We can’t have more of the fear-mongering that causes such panic and stress that people are driven to kill themselves:
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The death of a Queensland farmer has angered the farming community, sparked calls for inquiries and thrown a spotlight on how coal seam gas companies deal with landowners. 
For 10 years, George Bender battled to stop CSG companies operating on his land. Earlier this month, he took his own life. 
(Thanks to reader min.) 
===

These few bombs won’t defeat the Islamic State

Andrew Bolt October 28 2015 (6:42am)

Tony Abbott says the US-led air strikes on Syria - of which we are part - is not enough:
TONY Abbott has warned that special forces soldiers may need to be sent into combat in Syria and Iraq, with an escalation of strategic and tactical air strikes, if the terrorist armies of ISIS are to be defeated… 
Delivering the Thatcher lecture in London last night, in a speech bound to spark controversy, Mr Abbott ... posed the spectre of Syria falling under the control of Russia, Iran and a cabal of terrorists which was a scenario “too horrible to contemplate”.
“The US and its allies … have launched air strikes against this would-be terrorist empire. We’ve helped to contain its advance in Iraq but we haven’t defeated it because it can’t be defeated without more effective local forces on the ground. Everyone should ­recoil from an escalating air campaign, perhaps with Western special forces on the ground as well as trainers, in a part of the world that’s such a witches’ brew of danger and complexity and where nothing ever has a happy ending. “Yet as Margaret Thatcher so clearly understood over the Falklands, those that won’t use decisive force, where needed, end up being dictated to by those who will.”
Abbott has a point. The airstrikes from the US-led coalition won’t do it, and certainly not if yesterday’s tiny effort is a guide. From the US Department of Defence:
Airstrikes in Syria 
Fighter aircraft conducted one airstrike in Syria: -- Near Mara, one strike destroyed an ISIL mortar system.
That’s it? Seriously?
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill and Low Profile.) 
===

Most invasions don’t end peacefully

Andrew Bolt October 28 2015 (6:34am)

Illegal immigrants marching through Slovenia:
The numbers are enormous:
More than 700,000 refugees and migrants have reached Europe’s Mediterranean shores so far this year, ... the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday… 
More than half of this year’s arrivals were from Syria, 18 per cent from Afghanistan, and six per cent from Iraq… As Europe struggles to deal with the crisis, the flow shows no sign of abating despite worsening weather conditions, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which reported the arrival of 5,239 people in Greece on Saturday and 4,199 on Sunday… German police said they had picked up more than 11,000 people at the Austrian border on Monday alone.
Tony Abbott warns Europe in his Margaret Thatcher Lecture:
Implicitly or explicitly, the imperative to “love your neighbour as you love yourself” is at the heart of every Western polity. It expresses itself in laws protecting workers, in strong social security safety nets, and in the readiness to take in refugees. It’s what makes us decent and humane countries as well as prosperous ones, but – right now – this wholesome instinct is leading much of Europe into catastrophic error. 
All countries that say “anyone who gets here can stay here” are now in peril, given the scale of the population movements that are starting to be seen. There are tens – perhaps hundreds – of millions of people, living in poverty and danger, who might readily seek to enter a Western country if the opportunity is there.
Who could blame them? Yet no country or continent can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself. This is the risk that the countries of Europe now run through misguided altruism…
Our moral obligation is to receive people fleeing for their lives. It’s not to provide permanent residency to anyone who would rather live in a prosperous Western country than their own.  
Even law-abiding Germans are naturally dismayed to have whole Middle Eastern townships created next to their homes:
When Christian Fabel, the mayor of Sumte, a picturesque village near Hamburg in northern Germany, received an email from the council ordering him to prepare for the imminent arrival of 1000 refugees, he thought it was a bad joke. 
Sumte is home to 102 people, half of them well-to-do pensioners who live in handsome farmhouses amid the lush countryside.
But their idyll is about to end. The tiny community, which was once on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, has become a symbol of Germany’s desperate struggle to cope with the tidal wave of more than 1.5 million migrants expected to enter the country by the end of this year. The first batch of 400 is expected in Sumte this week. They will be housed in an abandoned office block once home to a debt-collecting agency. Bulldozers are digging a new sewage system to cope with the tenfold rise in population.
But the dismay at the invasion of Europe risks morphing into very nasty reactions:
Last week, police in the Bavarian town of Bamberg dismantled a neo-Nazi cell of 13 extremists armed with firearms, bombs and explosives. They had planned to attack politicians and refugee shelters. “The hatred is enormous,” German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel says. “It appears that far-right thugs somehow think they have been called to enforce the will of the people.” 
Refugee shelters in Germany and Switzerland have been torched. A fire on Saturday morning destroyed a home intended for refugees in Eskilstuna, west of Stockholm.
Immigration officials estimate that 190,000 asylum-seekers will arrive in Sweden this year, second only to Germany in western Europe — a colossal number given that Sweden’s population is 9.6 million, compared with Germany’s 80.6 million.
The migrant crisis has played into the hands of populist firebrands who are surfing to electoral success on fears of a “Muslim invasion” and anger over mismanagement of the biggest movement of refugees in Europe since World War II…
In what may herald populist advances all over the continent, the anti-immigration Swiss People’s Party won the biggest share of the vote in national parliamentary elections last weekend. The Dutch Freedom Party has also soared to the top of the polls; its leader, Geert Wilders, decries “an invasion threatening our prosperity, our security, our culture and identity”.
Politicians are mad if they think they can allow their countries to be invaded by hundreds of thousands of people from a very different culture without some of their citizens fighting back - and viciously. They are playing with fire.  
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Of course not

Andrew Bolt October 28 2015 (6:33am)

Assurances given:
Police say a man who brought a block of the Melbourne CBD to a standstill for more than two hours yesterday, wielding a meat cleaver and claiming to be a “messiah of Islam”, was mentally ill and not motivated by religion.
Reader frank of malvern:
Media at the scene reported the man claimed to be a ‘ messiah of Islam’. But by 6pm News on Cnannel 7 it had been ‘downgraded’ to the man claiming he was a ‘messiah’. The Islam bit had disappeared.  
So he’s a Christian, now. Much better. 
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Dallas Scott on his brother

Andrew Bolt October 28 2015 (6:18am)

A moving piece by Dallas Scott. It’s about his brother.
Look beyond the colour.
Do we still need to say that? 
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Want a “safe space”? Then stay at home. Don’t turn your uni into a nursery

Andrew Bolt October 28 2015 (5:59am)

Richard Dawkins on the petition to stop “transphobic” feminist Germaine Greer from speaking at Cardiff University:
Students who suppress a distinguished scholar’s lecture because they disagree with her have no place in a university.... 
Those who think it’s nonsense are entitled to stay away.  Or come and argue.  They should not censor views they think are nonsense… A university is not a ‘safe space’.  If you need a safe space, leave, go home, hug your teddy & suck your thumb until ready for university. 
(Thanks to reader Dr Brian.) 
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Hoping Turnbull will use his power for good. Hope away

Andrew Bolt October 28 2015 (5:29am)

Janet Albrechtsen cannot be accused of being a confirmed critic of Malcolm Turnbull. But even she is now impatient for a sign that Turnbull will spend his huge political capital on some reform dear to conservatives and libertarians.  But I suspect she is doomed - like many - to disappointment:
It’s good to hear the Prime Minister has great faith in the Australian people. He is right to say we are able to conduct a civil debate about same-sex marriage. 
The wisdom of Australians doesn’t end there, of course. Which is why Malcolm Turnbull should also start a conversation about the proper limits of free speech in this country.
The PM has been quick to reopen the economic debate too. Good for him that he is keen to put his mark on the new government as a reformer capable of conversing honestly with Australians, negotiating with the mixed bag of independents and even extracting a dose of bipartisanship from Labor. Now it’s time for Turnbull to take a confident step into the cultural arena. Whereas Tony Abbott disappointed many Australians, especially the Liberal base, by dumping an election promise to reform section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act on the premise that it was causing division within the Muslim community, Turnbull can score an important, long overdue win for freedom.
===

Confronting the green Pope

Andrew Bolt October 28 2015 (4:57am)

Ian Plimer may have a new bestseller on his hands:
The Encylical Letter of Pope Francis Laudato Si “care for our common home” was influenced by atheists, communists and green activists. The Pope advocates burdening the Third World with inefficient unreliable high cost renewable energy and agriculture thereby keeping the poor in eternal poverty. Only when Third World children can do homework at night using cheap coal-fired electricity can they escape from poverty. 
Looking purely at the science rather than the theology, Ian Plimer shows the failure of the current Pope in his understanding of the real issues causing poverty, especially in Third World countries. 
Plimer explains his book. An extract:
The Pope seems to have swallowed hook, line and sinker the new environmental religion that competes with Catholicism. The Encyclical is an anti-development, anti-market enthusiastic embrace of global green left environmental ideology and much of the Encyclical is a denunciation of free markets dressed up as religious instruction. 
Most Encyclicals are about hope whereas Laudato Si’ is actually a depressing doomsday view of the future without evidence, science and discussions about uncertainty. The Pope shows concerns for the poor yet only offers constraints that would make the poor poorer. There are no scientific references in the Encyclical even though much of it is supposedly about science and it attempts to use science to make comments about the future.
Order here. 
The book will be launched on Monday by the IPA. Book here:
Professor Plimer will join Father James Grant and John Roskam for a discussion about why the Pope’s environmental and economic views will only harm the world’s poorest. 
Monday 2 November 2015 
5.00pm for 5.30pm until 7.00pm 
CQ Functions 
113 Queen Street, Melbourne
This event is free for IPA members and $10 for non-members.
===

LEARN FROM THE MASTER

Tim Blair – Tuesday, October 28, 2014 (2:05pm)

For just $229, superjournalist Antony Loewenstein will teach you how to be a master investigator:

Let’s investigate the very first sentence of the Guardian‘s great offer: 
You’ll come out of this one-day Masterclasses with a detailed understanding of investigative journalism, from start to finish. 
But you still won’t know the difference between singular and plural. While we’re at it, let’s also investigate whether Tzipi Livni is a woman. Readers are invited to identify future Guardian masterclass subjects and the massively unqualified muppets who will teach them.
UPDATE. And for another $229:

This looks like a case for the ACCC. By the way, Antony once claimed to be “a Research Associate at the University of Technology Sydney’s Australian Centre for Investigative Journalism.”
He got the name wrong.
===

CROWN OUR CRAZY KING

Tim Blair – Tuesday, October 28, 2014 (4:06am)

To celebrate this site’s spectacular Press Council victory over three seething complainants, readers are now invited to select Australia’s prime male(ish) equivalent of the frightbat: the king of all failbats.
As with the frightbat poll, choice is limited to ten commentators. Politicians are out. Lesser failbats – the likes of Tim Dunlop, Antony Loewenstein and Greg Jericho – are also ineligible. They may qualify on the basis of general uselessness and ineptitude, but not for prominence. Only the most notable of failbats are entitled to BlairPoll recognition:
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WHITLAM AND WARMING

Tim Blair – Tuesday, October 28, 2014 (3:50am)

Some rose-tinted Gough-wondering from Fairfax’s John Birmingham: 
It’s a tempting what-if, though, wondering how Whitlam in his prime might have responded to climate change. 
Judging by Whitlam’s record, he’d have simply spent a huge amount of money and accomplished less than nothing. More interesting is why climate change wasn’t an issue during Whitlam’s “prime”. The answer may be found in these numbers: 
• In 1972, when Whitlam was elected, a child born in India had a life expectancy of below 50 years.
• In 1972, when Whitlam was elected, a child born in China had a life expectancy of below 66 years
Indian and Chinese modernisation brought vastly improved lifespans, and with that modernisation came associated increases in carbon dioxide emissions. Those increases, according to climate alarmists, are driving global warming.
According to Birmingham, a warming-aware Whitlam would have “given great credence to the science and paid due deference to the advice of those more learned than himself. He would also have known that when you take action, things happen, and shutting down industries means taking away the jobs of the working people to whom he devoted his life.” But in 1972 Australia’s population was just 13 million. Even now, at 23 million, we only generate 1.3 per cent of alleged global warming gasses. Shutting down Australian industries 42 years ago in in the cause of climate correction would’ve been remarkably pointless, even by Whitlam standards.
Here’s Whitlam’s broader 1972 climate challenge: convincing China and India to carve decades from the lives of their citizens in order to protect the planet from some kind of predicted temperature spookiness. Good luck with that, great internationalist.
===

Petrol levy up as Senate bypassed - for one year

Andrew Bolt October 28 2014 (2:48pm)

This raises the stakes:
PETROL prices will go up from November 10, with the Abbott government bypassing the Senate to increase the fuel excise.  

In a statement, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the Coalition has decided to “give practical effect to the fuel excise indexation Budget measure by way of tariff proposals”.... 
The government says the typical household, which consumes 50 litres of fuel per week, will pay an extra 40 cents per week…
Senator Cormann said he was confident the tarrif proposal will be validated in 12 months…
“If it wasn’t validated by the parliament within 12 months, the money would have to go back to those that have paid the duty, that have paid the excise and the duty,” he said…The measure is expected to raise $2.2 billion over the next four years.
We didn’t vote for it, and nor has our Parliament.
UPDATE
Taxation without representation, says Professor Sinclair Davidson:
This is contempt of Parliament and, more importantly, contempt for the electorate.
UPDATE
If Parliament does not validate the increase, who gets the refund? The oil companies or the motorists?
UPDATE
It’s a bluff: 
MATHIAS CORMANN [Finance Minister]: Well, we’re very confident that it will be validated within 12 months. 
However, the question for Bill Shorten and the question for Christine Milne is whether, in 12 months time, they want the additional revenue collected through this measure to be refunded to fuel manufacturers or fuel importers, or whether they want to see this additional revenue invested in job creating, productivity enhancing road infrastructure.
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In this society but not of it

Andrew Bolt October 28 2014 (2:42pm)

The father of a four-year-old boy in Adelaide:
”We actually fed him pretty much every day, in that room, by sliding the plates under there, so far as we could hear, he was happy.”
(No comments for legal reasons.) 
===

Labor rejects boats policy it admits works

Andrew Bolt October 28 2014 (1:50pm)

Labor admits turning back the boats saves lives but still thinks it’s more humanitarian to let people drown:
In just 24 hours, the opposition went from finally ­admitting they were wrong about the government’s ­successful turnback policy to declaring there had been no changes to its border protection policy. 
On Sunday Mr Marles said Labor “might” take turnbacks to the next election after conceding there was “no doubt at all about the impact of the turnback policy”. Yesterday, after he was chastised by Labor heavyweights he said: “I’ve made clear our concerns in respect of turnbacks...”
More concerned with seeming than doing.
UPDATE
Europe finally realises that the kind of “compassionate” policies Labor champions have been as deadly there as they were here:
Britain will not support any future search and rescue operations to prevent migrants and refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, claiming they simply encourage more people to attempt the dangerous sea crossing, Foreign Office ministers have quietly announced… 
The British refusal comes as the official Italian sea and rescue operation, Mare Nostrum, is due to end this week after contributing over the past 12 months to the rescue of an estimated 150,000 people since the Lampedusa tragedies in which 500 migrants died in October 2013.
The Italian operation will now end without a similar European search and rescue operation to replace it. The Italian authorities have said their operation, which involves a significant part of the Italian navy, is unsustainable. Despite its best efforts, more than 2,500 people are known to have drowned or gone missing in the Mediterranean since the start of the year.
Instead of the Italian operation, a limited joint EU “border protection” operation, codenamed Triton and managed by Frontex, the European border agency, is to be launched on 1 November. Crucially, it will not include search and rescue operations across the Mediterranean, just patrols within 30 miles of the Italian coast… British policy was quietly spelled out in a recent House of Lords written answer by the new Foreign Office minister, Lady Anelay: “We do not support planned search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean,” she said, adding that the government believed there was “an unintended ‘pull factor’, encouraging more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing and thereby leading to more tragic and unnecessary deaths”.
UPDATE
Two Leftists on the ABC suggest our 1200 dead boat people may probably be better than boat people in detention centres:
Mike Seccombe: 
It’s a question whether the drownings is a worse thing than driving people mad.
Sophie Black: 
That is the trade-off. That is absolutely the trade-off.
Astonishing. Check for yourself at 11:20.
I think the real question is whether the Left thinks dead boat people are better than the Left admitting to a mistake.
UPDATE
If Bill Shorten cannot defy Labor’s Left on a policy so clearly wrong and deadly, what hope that he will ever be a reforming leader?:
Asked whether turnbacks were having an impact on stopping deaths at sea, Mr Shorten said: “No. We don’t see that the argument’s been made or the evidence has been made out about boat turnbacks. Labor’s policy hasn’t changed.’’
We now know that whoever is leading Labor it’s not Shorten,
(Thanks to readers Baden and watty.) 
===

The ABC’s bias is out of control

Andrew Bolt October 28 2014 (9:50am)

The ABC is Australia’s biggest media organisation by far, which makers its taxpayer-funded bias even more alarming and unforgivable.
From The Drum website today, another barrage of largely anti-government, pro-Left opinion pieces:
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What is weird is SBS peddling such a trashy scare

Andrew Bolt October 28 2014 (8:40am)

Global warming - propaganda

The world’s atmosphere hasn’t warmed for 16 years. The deep ocean hasn’t warmed for nine.
So SBS last night tried another scare to keep the warming faith alive:
Is our weather really getting more extreme? Scientists from America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have discovered that over the last decade, storms have been getting faster and more powerful. The latest discoveries of the world’s leading hurricane expert are even more frightening. Professor Kerry Emmanuel believes that there are new types of storms - Black Swan hurricanes - that could hit places in the world that haven’t been slammed by a hurricane in recorded history. Welcome to the terrifying new world of global weirding.
The show, with scary music, starts:
Something strange is happening to our weather. It seems to be getting more extreme.
And then the first false note:
Britain recently shivered through two back to back record-breaking cold winters.
Pardon? Instead of getting the warm winters warmists predicted, we’re getting cold ones? Shouldn’t this alone lead SBS to show a documentary on the collapse of the global warming scare?
Instead, we get this pathetic sidestep. The “global weirding” catch-phrase alone is a warning that this is face-saving spin, not sober information.
In fact, even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report last year had to admit to a lack of disasters caused by (no) global warming:
In summary, there is low confidence in observed trends in small-scale severe weather phenomena such as hail and thunderstorms… In summary, the current assessment concludes that there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness.... [T]here is medium confidence that globally the length and frequency of warm spells, including heat waves, has increased since the middle of the 20th century… In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.
And it specifically noted a lack of data to show hurricanes, cyclones and storms were now more common or more intense:
In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low. There is also low confidence for a clear trend in storminess proxies over the last century… Likewise, confidence in trends in extreme winds is low… 
Over periods of a century or more, evidence suggests slight decreases in the frequency of tropical cyclones making landfall in the North Atlantic and the South Pacific… Little evidence exists of any longer-term trend in other ocean basins… Several studies suggest an increase in intensity, but data sampling issues hamper these assessments…
Callaghan and Power (2011) find a statistically significant decrease in Eastern Australia land-falling tropical cyclones since the late 19th century…
Reader Robert B further checks the SBS hype against the facts:
Only one of the 35 deadliest tropical cyclones was in the 21st century, while the 2nd most deadly was in the 18th. 
Katrina is the only 21st century hurricane to make it in to the 31 deadliest Atlantic hurricanes. Number one was in the 18th century
There is a distinct lull in the Accumulated Cyclone Energy in the past three years. The 70s seem to have been milder than the latter years but only because of the strange low estimates for the Southern Hemisphere, otherwise, pretty constant.
Of the deadliest late season hurricanes, 3rd and 4th on the list were in the 16th century. The year with the most major hurricanes was 1950. The seasons with the most hurricanes is dominated by seasons in the 21st century but this is likely to be due to better reporting of storms in the mid Atlantic. 
Why is it that one blog reader can quickly explode a warming scare, but that a big government-funded broadcaster simply takes that scare on face value and broadcasts it?
(I’m not even bothering to tackle the show’s other bizarre misrepresentations, including claims that the climate was “stable” for thousands of years - until now.
It is scandalous that the SBS airs such shock-jock trash, unchallenged.
UPDATE
Andrew Neil shows SBS what a responsible broadcaster should do, given how many scares have been run and how many predictions have proved false. As you can see, it produces important and entertaining results when someone such as Britain’s blathering new Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss is forced to face the facts:
(Thanks to reader Rocky.) 
===

Murdoch slams Big Government and big inequality

Andrew Bolt October 28 2014 (8:02am)

Rupert Murdoch warns that Big Government - yet feeble government - is choking our future and stoking division:
In the News Corp executive chairman’s speech to the G20 meeting this month — now available for the first time — he told global decision-makers ...  that, since the 2008 global financial crisis, leaders had made the mistake of responding to the domestic “political outcry” instead of devising long-term structural reforms to restore economic confidence, investment and innovation. The upshot was the sacrifice of a generation of young people… 
Mr Murdoch said “the verdict was still out” on the great quantitative easing experiment — under which central banks put more money into economies by buying securities — “but we ­already know that one result has been greater inequality”.
“In America, the most highly paid 1 per cent now pay 46 per cent of all income tax,” Mr Murdoch said. “In Britain, the top 1 per cent pay 28 per cent of all income tax. That is a massive shift from what our society looked like 30 years ago… Quantitative easing has increased the price of assets, such as stocks and real estate, and that has helped first and foremost those who already have assets. Meanwhile, the lack of any real wage increase for middle-income workers means growing societal divisions and resentment...”
Mr Murdoch called for: labour market reform; lower and more competitive corporate taxes; a crackdown on multinationals — naming Google — for not paying taxes where they make their profits; a rethink on excessive bank regulation, ... and recognition that high taxes and over-regulation were damaging economic growth and the public interest…
The policy priorities he advocated were education and immigration reform, infrastructure investment and cheap energy. Mr Murdoch said cheap gas in the US had decreased manufacturing costs and lifted US manufacturing exports by 6 per cent…
Mr Murdoch said much of the burden of failed policy was falling on young people. The lack of opportunity for the next generation was “especially troubling” along with the “inevitable social and political upheavals to come”. This was because the unemployment rate for people under 25 years in the US was 13 per cent and in the eurozone was 23 per cent. It was twice as high in Spain and Greece and parts of France and Italy.
===

That’s a no to sensible debate

Andrew Bolt October 28 2014 (7:25am)

Sensible debate wanted:
TONY ABBOTT, PRIME MINISTER: A mature debate about the future of our Federation. ...The kind of sensible, mature debate that will make our people proud of this parliament… I’m inviting Australians to enter into a mature debate about an important subject rather than dig trenches and hurl insults at each other, which, sadly, is what all too often has happened in recent times. 
Labor reciprocates:
BILL SHORTEN, OPPOSITION LEADER: When will he break his promise that the GST is not going to change, full stop, end of story?
Oh, well. Still, if the name-calling stops a sensible debate on how to raise taxes it might at least put more pressure on politicians to do something more important - cut spending.  
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Larry Pickering
NO CHIPPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK LEFT

The late Don Chipp once gave me some advice, he said: “Larry, no-one learns anything while they are talking.” Since then I have listened to everyone... except Al Gore that is.

I always listen very carefully to Tanya Plibersek... before dismissing what she says as camel crap. But we’d better get used to hearing from (if not listening to) our Lady Tanya.

This ambitious, self-promoted Deputy Opposition leader’s only qualification as Shadow Foreign Minister is that she made my tobacco packet brown and doubled its price. Oh, and she visited Turkey once.

As deputy, Tanya had the choice of shadow portfolio and what better choice could there be than the much rorted Foreign Affairs gig. Just ask Bob Carr, it was first class all the way!

Of course the recently-elected Bob has shot through now he is in Opposition and his favourite gig has gone to the far Left. The unelected mob is now positioning for the Senate vacancy.

The first thing the Julia-cloned Plibersek needs to do is buy an atlas and find out where everything is.

She lines up behind her Palestinian-promoting Green mate, Comrade Lee Rhiannon, who demands the destruction of Israel among a bucket list of other odious Communist policy “initiatives”.

But Tanya will keep her nose clean and her powder dry while waiting for her leader Bill Shorten to falter before she swoops on the top job. She has demonstrated treachery equal only to Kevin Rudd’s when jockeying for position.

Labor has learnt nothing from its six years of bumbling ineptitude and Shorten and Plibersek, in an unholy alliance, are set to continue the trend with the full support of a smarting Fairfax and ABC who believe Abbott is illegitimate.

Bill Shorten is an accident waiting to happen and Plibersek is waiting. Shorten has more skeletons in his cupboard than did Pol Pot, he can never be trusted, he is the Don of the mob and mobsters always meet a nasty end.

What he did to whistleblowers Bob Kernohan and Kathy Jackson would make the Cosa Nostra proud.

Plibersek is determined to avenge Bill’s killing of Australia’s first female prime minister. To her it’s a morally symbolic must and not borne of a love for Gillard, or anyone else for that matter.

Shorten will get whacked, it’s just a matter of time. There is much more blood to be spilled and this crime family will readily rat on each other when facing jail time.

A block of formerly occupied Labor cells awaits Williamson, Obeid, Ludwig, Wilson and a raft of others.

Labor unions and crime families go hand in hand and chief unionist Bill Shorten’s teflon is wearing thin... Plibersek sees herself in the void.

Don Chipp may be dead but the dishonest bastards live on.
===
John Wayne: Playboy Interview – May 1971

http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/john-wayne-playboy-interview-may-1971/

“Well, the liberals seem to be quite willing to have Communists teach their kids in school. The Communists realized that they couldn’t start a workers’ revolution in the United States, since the workers were too affluent and too progressive. So the Commies decided on the next-best thing, and that’s to start on the schools, start on the kids. And they’ve managed to do it. They’re already in colleges; now they’re getting into high schools. I wouldn’t mind if they taught my children the basic philosophy of communism, in theory and how it works in actuality. But I don’t want somebody like Angela Davis inculcating an enemy doctrine in my kids’ minds.” ~ John Wayne
===

While it may sound like something taken straight from the books of fiction, the Sandbox Tree (Hura. Crepitans) is all too real for the scores of Central and South American farmers who've had their cattle injured by these explosive plants. Upon ripening, the fruit of the Sandbox tree will explode like a botanical hand-grenade carrying seeds up to 40m at 240kph, easily penetrating any animal or poorly placed window.

Read more: http://www.unbelievable-facts.com/2013/10/theres-tree-covered-in-spikes-whose.html#ixzz2j0bhuzmO
===
Emma Watson
"I like books that aren't just lovely but that have memories in themselves. Just like playing a song, picking up a book again that has memories can take you back to another place or another time."
Exactly why I love Watership Down .. or Delderfield .. or Redeeming Love .. ed
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 Timothy Ly Martial Arts Showreel 2013 from Timothy Ly on Vimeo.
Timothy Ly
Alrighty! Four years ago I stopped training and filming Martial Arts thinking that I was done and dusted with what I learn't until opportunities came this year knocking at my door. Taking a bold decision, I decided to put 3 months of intensetraining in getting back into shape and dusting off some of the old Kung Fu skills and also picking up some new ones. Here's a little something i've been working on to say a little hello to the world again #preparingfortv #maximumchoppage#iknowkungfu #lifting #MMA
Awesome .. but I'm a little puzzled as to why those trees are still upright at the end. Who did the music? It works. Good quote too. - ed
===
===
“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”Hebrews 4:12 NIV
===
Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"It is a faithful saying."
2 Timothy 2:11
Paul has four of these "faithful sayings." The first occurs in 1 Timothy 1:15, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." The next is in 1 Timothy 4:6, "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation." The third is in 2 Timothy 2:12, "It is a faithful saying--If we suffer with him we shall also reign with him"; and the fourth is in Titus 3:3, "This is a faithful saying, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works." We may trace a connection between these faithful sayings. The first one lays the foundation of our eternal salvation in the free grace of God, as shown to us in the mission of the great Redeemer. The next affirms the double blessedness which we obtain through this salvation--the blessings of the upper and nether springs--of time and of eternity. The third shows one of the duties to which the chosen people are called; we are ordained to suffer for Christ with the promise that "if we suffer, we shall also reign with him." The last sets forth the active form of Christian service, bidding us diligently to maintain good works. Thus we have the root of salvation in free grace; next, the privileges of that salvation in the life which now is, and in that which is to come; and we have also the two great branches of suffering with Christ and serving with Christ, loaded with the fruits of the Spirit. Treasure up these faithful sayings. Let them be the guides of our life, our comfort, and our instruction. The apostle of the Gentiles proved them to be faithful, they are faithful still, not one word shall fall to the ground; they are worthy of all acceptation, let us accept them now, and prove their faithfulness. Let these four faithful sayings be written on the four corners of my house.

Evening


"We are all as an unclean thing."
Isaiah 64:6
The believer is a new creature, he belongs to a holy generation and a peculiar people--the Spirit of God is in him, and in all respects he is far removed from the natural man; but for all that the Christian is a sinner still. He is so from the imperfection of his nature, and will continue so to the end of his earthly life. The black fingers of sin leave smuts upon our fairest robes. Sin mars our repentance, ere the great Potter has finished it, upon the wheel. Selfishness defiles our tears, and unbelief tampers with our faith. The best thing we ever did apart from the merit of Jesus only swelled the number of our sins; for when we have been most pure in our own sight, yet, like the heavens, we are not pure in God's sight; and as he charged his angels with folly, much more must he charge us with it, even in our most angelic frames of mind. The song which thrills to heaven, and seeks to emulate seraphic strains, hath human discords in it. The prayer which moves the arm of God is still a bruised and battered prayer, and only moves that arm because the sinless One, the great Mediator, has stepped in to take away the sin of our supplication. The most golden faith or the purest degree of sanctification to which a Christian ever attained on earth, has still so much alloy in it as to be only worthy of the flames, in itself considered. Every night we look in the glass we see a sinner, and had need confess, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." Oh, how precious the blood of Christ to such hearts as ours! How priceless a gift is his perfect righteousness! And how bright the hope of perfect holiness hereafter! Even now, though sin dwells in us, its power is broken. It has no dominion; it is a broken-backed snake; we are in bitter conflict with it, but it is with a vanquished foe that we have to deal. Yet a little while and we shall enter victoriously into the city where nothing defileth.
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Today's reading: Jeremiah 12-14, 2 Timothy 1 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Jeremiah 12-14


Jeremiah's Complaint

1 You are always righteous, LORD,
when I bring a case before you.
Yet I would speak with you about your justice:
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why do all the faithless live at ease?
2 You have planted them, and they have taken root;
they grow and bear fruit.
You are always on their lips
but far from their hearts.
3 Yet you know me, LORD;
you see me and test my thoughts about you.
Drag them off like sheep to be butchered!
Set them apart for the day of slaughter!
4 How long will the land lie parched
and the grass in every field be withered?
Because those who live in it are wicked,
the animals and birds have perished.
Moreover, the people are saying,
"He will not see what happens to us."
God's Answer
5 "If you have raced with men on foot
and they have worn you out,
how can you compete with horses?
If you stumble in safe country,
how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?
6 Your relatives, members of your own family-
even they have betrayed you;
they have raised a loud cry against you.
Do not trust them,
though they speak well of you....

Today's New Testament reading: 2 Timothy 1

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, in keeping with the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
2 To Timothy, my dear son:
Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Thanksgiving
3 I thank God, whom I serve, as my ancestors did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. 4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. 5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.
Appeal for Loyalty to Paul and the Gospel
6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. 8 So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God....
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Naphtali, Nephthalim

[Năph'talī, Nĕph'tha lĭm] - obtained by wrestling. The sixth son of Jacob and second by Bilhah, Rachel's maid. Rachel gave her son his name because she had wrestled in prayer for God's favor and blessing (Gen. 30:8; 35:25). The tribe that descended from Naphtali bears his name (Num. 1:15, 42).

The Man Who Lacked Self-Control

In the last words of Jacob ( Gen. 49:21), the patriarch speaks of Naphtali as "a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words" - a fluent orator but as erratic as the wild gazelle. Henry Thorne wrote of him,

He is gifted undoubtedly, but he has no self-control. He will scamper through life aimlessly and without a goal. His uncontrolled energy may some day be his ruin. He may possibly leap over a fence, but he may also jump into a ditch. Byron was gifted, but of him it has been said -

He laid his hand upon the ocean's main,
And played familiar with his hoary locks.
He was a man of brilliant talent and magnificent capacity, but he was also "a hind let loose." There was a wild extravagance in his career of wrong-doing that marred his influence and spoiled his life.
Nothing but divine grace can restrain those who are erratic. He who rebuked the rude tempest with a word (Job 38:11; Mark 4:39) and produced a great calm, can rebuke the turbulent and the reckless in any nature, and cause the energy that is wasted by folly to flow into channels of usefulness. God can make the rebel a priest and a king.
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