Sunday, October 09, 2016

Sun Oct 9th Todays News

Donald Trump is being criticised for a conversation he had with another guy over a decade ago. In the conversation he talks of hitting on a married woman, and failing. The public Trump is rarely so humble. Many object to his language "I just kiss them. If you grab her vagina she will let you do anything. Stars get away with it." And the truth of that is probably known by Warren Beatty and many, many before and since. And so a GOP leader has decided he cannot now support Trump because he has a fifteen year old daughter and he couldn't look his fifteen year old daughter in the eye if he supported Trump. But how could that father look at his daughter in the eye if he allowed Hillary to win? Putting aside Clinton's creating ISIS to balance Obama's foreign policy vacuum with a new Cold War, and putting aside Hillary losing some $8 trillion of US taxpayer's money as Secretary of State, Hillary is the person who hurt and harmed victims of her husband, sexually exploited. So is it Trump's gutter talk in private or Hillary's active predations on victims that one endures? And isn't it the case that no man alive is without sin?  

 Were Trump to talk to me, he would not be so crude because of boundaries. But if Hillary believed she could get some advantage, what would she do to me? Remember the coptic film maker she fingered to extremists after Benghazi? Remember the gay diplomat she fingered to extremists at Benghazi? 

 Hillary has two jobs to do. Her first job is to win the presidency and make sure GOP are shut out of political process. Her second job is to lose the Presidential race and be so awful that the Democrats can claim that the rejection was punishment for them, and moving forward they are a reformed party. Only Trump can cruel both jobs. And if any man comes across a fifteen year old girl after voting for Trump, and dares to look them in the eye, tell them to do their homework or play Pokemon Go, because the world is safe. 

 Meanwhile, Victoria has been hit by stronger winds than those which downed South Australia a few weeks ago. Victoria did not fall to pieces because she is not as reliant on windmills. But Victorian Premier Dan Andrews wants Victoria to be as fragile. To save the world from weather? 
=== from 2015 ===
There are a number of opportunities now that Turnbull has rolled Abbott that the LNP might take. One is the embrace of nuclear energy. It would divide the Greens to have to choose between scare campaigns (AGW or radiation). Nuclear Energy producer Westinghouse is offering to build cheap, effective, modern and safe power stations to replace old coal power ones. All it takes is for a good decision to be made. Also, we need work choices, flexible workplaces that are fair, not dominated by corrupt unions. With efficient work practice comes prosperity. 

Neither Turnbull nor Australia's Mufti have addressed the issue of terrorists bringing Islam into disrepute in Australia. But, after a week they have made a few gestures and fine words. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
From 2014
Issues on terror
Australia huffs and puffs .. and can only manage two bombs in a week against a rapacious foe who does not care we are constipated. Europe seems to have been embracing Middle East hatreds through imports. In Hamburg ethnic Kurds fight with ISIL supporters. Plenty of Car-B-Ques in France. Islamic Council of Victoria is impotent to proclaim Islam, but has no problem endorsing terrorists. Media and politicians opposing laws intending to help ASIO oppose terror are claiming it limits free speech. So does 18c in the race guidelines. Maybe, to have balanced freedom, we can end 18c, but bring in the laws to oppose terrorists. Hizb Ut-Tahir excuses the slaughter of Muslims by saying they aren't. Something that cannot be said of terrorists, apparently. Mr Abbott has correctly called for them to be banned. So, naturally, left wing media agonise over wether banning is too big a call. Also, Islamic leaders excuse them saying that even bigots have free speech. But Mr Brandis was loudly declaimed for saying something similar over 18c.

Australian issues
The myth of a stolen generation has taken lives, but even were it beneficial, it fails the truth test. So it is really sad to hear that conservatives in South Australia will support a bill compensating people without verifying their status. PUP in Qld has lost her last state member. The member denies having issues with Palmer. He just feels it is better not to use any of their 'policies' in moving forward as an independent. Some very bad leaders have had media handlers. Some are asking why Mr Abbott hasn't got one. The answer should be obvious.
From 2013
Who represents the struggler? Who would give the average person a better deal? Who cares enough to exercise the kind of judgement that benefits the most? What kind of character are they? Obama, a wealthy leftist who identifies with thugs and pardons terrorists for 'peace' wants to spend more money without hiring one doctor to 'secure' the health of ten million desperately poor people. Abbott, a conservative who identifies with families and workers. Who supports people in their hour of need. Who is gracious without being obsequious, kind and generous without being a pushover. That same Mr Abbott is paid too much according to those upset with his expenses claims. Meanwhile Obama cools his heels with a game of Golf while strugglers get nothing.

Obama has failed to negotiate or conciliate with the conservatives on any issue. His community organising seems rusty. Obama leans towards socialism. Abbott leans towards capitalism.

One gets it the press doesn't like Abbott, but even so, it is wrong of the press to lie about Abbott's relationship with Putin. Why should left wing authors get paid government grants denied conservatives? If one believes in balance, the Melbourne Writer's festival is pretty bad. Kuwait is watching you. Egypt is watching her navel. Journalists struggle to explain why Abbott is excelling.
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.
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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 to Juicymymy Le and those others born on this day, including
1201 – Robert de Sorbon, French theologian, founder of the Collège de Sorbonne (d. 1274)
1581 – Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac, French mathematician, poet, and scholar (d. 1638)
1704 – Johann Andreas Segner, German mathematician, physicist, and physician (d. 1777)
1796 – Joseph Bonomi the Younger, English egyptologist and sculptor (d. 1878)
1873 – Karl Schwarzschild, German physicist and astronomer (d. 1916)
1893 – Mário de Andrade, Brazilian author, poet, and photographer (d. 1945)
1900 – Joseph Friedman, American inventor, invented the bendy straw (d. 1982)
1940 – John Lennon, English singer-songwriter, musician, and producer (The Beatles, The Quarrymen, Plastic Ono Band, and The Dirty Mac) (d. 1980)
1966 – David Cameron, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1975 – Sean Lennon, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor (The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, Plastic Ono Band, and Cibo Matto)
1994 – Jodelle Ferland, Canadian actress
October 9: Hangul Day in South Korea (1446); Leif Erikson Day in the United States
Mary Tudor
Sister has done well. International mail is exchanged freely. Say it ain't so, Joe. Pol Pot was given too much. So you better party.
Deaths
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Andrew Bolt



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Islamic terrorism a culture of hatred

Piers Akerman – Thursday, October 08, 2015 (11:48pm)

THE twin curses of multiculturalism and populist pseudo-psychoanalysis have totally confused any rational discussion of the very real presence of Islamic terrorism in Australia

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Islamic terrorism a culture of hatred'
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LATE AND LAME

Tim Blair – Friday, October 09, 2015 (3:30pm)

One entire week after Curtis Cheng was murdered, the Grand Mufti finally speaks: 
Speaking through a translator, alongside other Islamic community and religious leaders, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed addressed media rejecting the “deviant so-called religious teachings” possibly inflicted on teen terrorist Farhad Jabar who murdered police employee Curtis Chen one week ago.
While refusing to label last Friday’s attack terrorism, Dr Mohamed acknowledged violent extremism was a rare but serious problem facing the entire community.
“Sadly, a very, very small number of Australians of Muslim faith have chosen this path,” he said.
Addressing those who supported Jabar’s act of violence, Dr Mohamed said “stop messing with Australia and its society”.
“We refuse and reject any form of terrorist activities, whether this – if it’s proven to be a terrorist act – or any other.” 
What further proof is he waiting for? Parramatta Mosque chairman Neil El-Kadomi is planning a big speech: 
In an interview with Fairfax Media, Mr Kadomi said he would tell worshippers: “If you don’t like Australia, leave it.” 
Maybe they can go to this place. They talk about it often enough. 
Mr Kadomi … did however reject expectation that the mosque should be policing potential terrorists.
“If somebody walks into McDonald’s and shoots everyone, is McDonald’s blamed?” he asked. 
It would be, if the killer was shouting “Macca’s akbar”. Further on all of this from Mark Steyn.
===

PODCAST IS UP

Tim Blair – Friday, October 09, 2015 (3:09pm)

This week’s Accidents Happen podcast with me and Joe Hildebrand deals with all the important issues of the day. Plus several issues that don’t matter in the least.
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THINK IT THROUGH, BILL

Tim Blair – Friday, October 09, 2015 (3:00pm)

Readers will recall Bill Shorten’s attempt to sound tough on Islamic extremism: 
I have no time for organisations fomenting dangerous, criminal thinking in vulnerable young people. These organisations preying upon young people are a sort of political or a terrorist version of the pedophiles who prey upon young people too. It is just unacceptable. 
Let’s stay with Shorten’s comparison for a moment. If we were dealing with pedophiles instead of Muslim extremists, would the Labor leader call for dialogue with moderate pedophiles? Shorten is now continuing his tough talk, but with a major qualification: 
“Australians, it doesn’t matter what religion - if you really hate Australia, well then you should go,” Mr Shorten said.
“But I don’t think though that that advice is confined to people of one particular religious faith.” 
Wimp.
===

MUSTAFA LAWYER

Tim Blair – Friday, October 09, 2015 (2:12pm)

British student union diversity officer Bahar Mustafa previously declared: 
I, an ethnic minority woman, cannot be racist or sexist towards white men, because racism and sexism describes structures of privilege based on race and gender. 
Blameless Bahar has now been charged by police with sending a threatening communication: 
Bahar Mustafa, of Goldsmiths, University of London, is set to appear at Bromley magistrates court on 5 November …
Mustafa was initially accused of racism for asking white men not to attend a students’ union meeting intended for ethnic minority and “non-binary” women.
She then became embroiled in a separate row, accused of using the hashtag #killallwhitemen on her Twitter account, which has since been deleted …
Mustafa is neither an employee of Goldsmiths nor a student, but an employee of the independent students’ union, elected by union members. 
Bahar’s line would have worked much better in song.
(Via Fiona F.)
===

A BIT STEEP

Tim Blair – Friday, October 09, 2015 (12:51pm)

At least he didn’t call them frightbats: 
Ford driver Dave Reynolds has apologised after being fined a whopping $25,000 for using a sexist slur to refer to the car driven by the all-female Bathurst 1000 pairing of Renee Gracie and Simona De Silvestro.
During an official V8 Supercars post-practice press conference at Mount Panorama on Thursday, Reynolds said “Do you mean the pussy wagon?’’ when asked about Ford teammates Gracie and De Silvestro. 
If only he’d listened to the vegans or – as he’s done previously – used the forbidden word in reference to himself. Incidentally, the practice performances of De Silvestro and Gracie haven’t been that bad. These cars are notoriously difficult to drive, as Jacques Villeneuve discovered a few years ago.
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DISCONNECTED

Tim Blair – Friday, October 09, 2015 (12:01pm)

Offline here since yesterday due to technical issues, probably caused by global warming. Catching up on comments now. Apologies.
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Excuses and evasions on the ABC

Andrew Bolt October 09 2015 (4:30pm)

The attempted moral eqivalence is as astonishing as the ignorance. Gerard Henderson relates:

What a stunning performance by Georgina Dent on ABC1’s The Drum last Wednesday.  Ms Dent threw the switch to moral equivalence when the topic turned on the actions of Farhad Jabar who murdered NSW Police Department official Curtis Cheng late last week. 
Let’s go to the transcript as Ms Dent directed the discussion to the recent tragedy at Umpqua Community College in Oregon where gunman Christopher Harper-Mercer murdered nine students before taking his own life: 
Georgina Dent: I’m interested to know, and this might be wrong, but I mean we know at the moment that the mass shootings in America are a real problem. Is there the same, do we jump immediately to – and I agree that obviously the cultural setting is always important – but it doesn’t seem that when we have young Christian men in America, you know, shooting a number of people at a university, that the immediate question isn’t, well where are the Christian leaders? What’s the Christian community doing for this? Do you think that’s a fair assessment?
Talk about verbal sludge… Georgina Dent seemed totally unaware that Harper-Mercer was an atheist who specifically targeted Christians for murder at Oregon.  Moreover few if any mass murderers in the US have evoked Christian religious utterances before engaging in massacres. 
Eyewitness accounts about whether Harper-Mercer specifically murdered Christians for being Christian vary, but there is no doubt he was an atheist with a hatred of organised religion.
More of the same evasions on the ABC:
John Mangos ...  joined with Monica Attard in bagging Mr Abbott’s government on yesterday’s “Drive With Richard Glover”. 
Let’s go first to the transcript where the leftist Attard rejoices in the fact that Tony Abbott is no longer prime minister and welcomes the change to Malcolm Turnbull.  According to Ms Attard, the change-over will improve relations with the Muslim community: 
Monica Attard: Well I think the tone has changed, mercifully. And I think it is for the better, obviously, that’s what I think. I don’t think we need language which divides and I don’t think we need language that alienates. And I think the language has up until quite recently, up until the change of prime minister, has done both things, sadly. 
And there’s been a lot of hysteria, you know. It’s a problem that we’ve brought on partly ourselves after 9/11. And I think this is reflected probably in the interview that you did before we came on, and that is that we are so paranoid and that we are so entirely focused on who’s to blame, and we’ve isolated this [Muslim] community and we’ve victimised, and we’ve got a whole segment of young Muslims in our community who do feel alienated, and rightly so. 
Richard Glover: To be fair to all my texters, a lot of them say, well, “95% of the problem is in this Muslim community”. So why wouldn’t we be focused on it? 
Monica Attard: Well if you treat people like that, you’re going to have problems. That’s just the basic problem. That is the issue. We’ve got to stop being so intensely focused on this [Muslim] community and learn to embrace – and, they are part of the solution.  In fact they are the solution. You know, given what you’ve just said, they are the solution. So to continue to isolate them and treat them as they have been treated, is just cutting off your nose to spite your face, it’s stupid.
What a load of absolute tosh.  Muslim Australians – whether Australian-born or immigrants or refugees – are entitled to all the benefits that Australia offers.  Including the rule of law, Medicare, free education and, if necessary, generous welfare provisions.  Muslim Australians enjoy a standard of living that is extremely high by world standards. Yet according to Monica Attard, Muslim Australians are entitled to feel alienated.
It is true that Muslim Australians are part of the solution to Islamist terrorism. But it is also true that a number of Muslim Australians are the whole problem.                      
===

Giving Ben Carson the clickbait treatment

Andrew Bolt October 09 2015 (2:18pm)

Fairfax reporter Nick O’ Malley plays the click-bait game, which means twisting a story to produce maximum outrage from the usual suspects - even if that involves damage to the truth:
In the ensuing outcry, [candidate for the Republican presidential nomination] Ben Carson blamed the media for misreporting his comments. This is classic Dr Carson – to make outlandish or outrageous statements, only to later claim to have been misreported.... 
Dr Carson has argued that Obamacare is worse for African-Americans than slavery was, ,compared homosexuality to paedophilia and bestiality and compared Democrats to Nazis. 
Carson has every right to blame the media if O’Malley is a representative of it, because O’Malley himself reports the evidence that shows Carson did not say what O’Malley claims he said.

Reader Bobby explains:
At the end of the article O’Malley lists what Carson actually said ie:: 

1. “You know Obamacare is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And it is in a way, it is slavery in a way, because it is making all of us subservient to the government, and it was never about healthcare. It was about control.” – 2013 at the Values Voter Summit 
My emphasis on “since”.  Carson says it is “slavery in a way” - nowhere does he say it is WORSE than slavery.

2. “Well, my thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality. It doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition.” – 2013 on Fox News’ Hannity. “ My emphasis - in this quote he did not “compare homosexuality to paedophilia and bestiality” he grouped them.  O’Malley by saying “compared” leaves the reader thinking he equated them.  If the sentence had “be they people who believe in the Santa Claus” been added at the end, would he have been “comparing” homosexuality to Santa Claus?
No question Carson has expressed himself badly at times. Who doesn’t? But O’Malley seems to read too much into his third example, as well:
3. “There comes a time when people with values simply have to stand up. Think about Nazi Germany. Most of those people did not believe in what Hitler was doing. But did they speak up? Did they stand up for what they believe in? They did not, and you saw what happened.” – Ben Carson comparing Democrats and those who voted for President Barack Obama to Nazis. 
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Turnbull and Mufti finally speak. Or squeak

Andrew Bolt October 09 2015 (1:53pm)

After days of silence - and increasing media criticism of it - Malcolm Turnbull and the Grand Mufti have finally emerged. It did not go well.
The Mufti, silent since the jihadist murder eight days ago of police accountant Curtis Cheng, refused to lable the killing terrorism and refused to accept the role of Islam or local preachers in endorsing the slaughter of non-believers:
AUSTRALIA’S Grand Mufti refused to label Friday’s fatal shooting at police headquarters a terrorist attack and blamed social media for teaching young Muslims extremist views. 
Speaking through an interpreter one week after teenager Farhad Jabar opened fire on police headquarters in Parramatta, killing accountant Curtis Cheng, Dr Mohammad would not acknowledge the brutal murder as a terror attack, despite Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione and Premier Mike Baird calling it a terror incident.
“We are not an investigation agency, we cannot redefine or readapt what happened,” he said…
Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammad said violent teachings were coming from outside Australia and were increasingly being propagated by social media.
“This misguided teachings is imported to us and it’s not made in Australia,” he said through an interpreter…
“It is not just a religious problem that may have led to these things. It’s a religious, ideological, social and other factors that may have contributed to this kind of motivations,” he said. 
Ironically, the Mufti called for “proper forms of communication with the government institutions”, but had to called for it in Arabic, not having taken the trouble to learn English in his 18 years in Australia.
Malcolm Turnbull, who had falsely called the killing “politically motivated” and falsely claimed Islamic leaders had been “loud” in condeming it, gave a rambling and at times incredibly hestitant press conference in which he spent almost as much time preaching at anti-Muslim protesters than Muslim preachers, repeatedly demanding “mutual respect”:
“It is not compulsory to live in Australia. If you find Australian values, you know, unpalatable, then there’s a big wide world out there and people have got freedom of movement,” Mr Turnbull said. 
“The success of our society is founded on mutual respect and we have to recognise that people who preach hatred, preach extremism, are undermining the success of this extraordinary country and this extraordinary project."…
Mr Turnbull said the Muslim community was “our absolutely necessary partner in the battle against violent extremism”.
“If we want to be respected, if we want our faith, our cultural background to be respected, then we have to respect others,” Mr Turnbull said. “Every single one of us who wants Australia to be successful, who wants our great nation to prosper further in the future, who wants us to be safer in the future ... we have to ask ourselves: are we teaching our young people both by word and by deed the values of mutual respect? Because if we are not, then we are not doing enough for Australia.”
No mention of the role of Islam in extremist violence or the failure of Muslim clerics to speak up as they should.
UPDATE
Note the date. It was the first time that much of the media was hostile to Turnbull in an interview. He seemed flustered, or tentative at best.
UPDATE
More speaking out at last:
Parramatta Mosque chairman Neil El-Kadomi, speaking after Friday prayers, said Muslims who rejected Australian values should “get out”. 
“I said you waited long time to come to this country. You should not abuse the privilege you are Australian, which is very important,” he said. “Get out. We do not need scumbags in the community.”
UPDATE

Now that the sentiment has been endorsed even by Malcolm Turnbull and the chairman of the Parramatta mosque, will the Greens and the Twittersphere apologise for overreacting last year to Woolworths?:

National supermarket chain Woolworths has apologised for “inadvertently” stocking a singlet which says “if you don’t love it, leave” alongside a picture of the Australian flag in two of its stores. 
A photo of the singlet has gone viral on social media since it was posted on Sunday afternoon on Twitter by Canberra man George Craig ... when he spotted the offending item in the Woolworths store on Spence Street…
Melbourne MP and Australians Greens Deputy Leader Adam Brandt shared Mr Craig’s image on his own Facebook page, attracting more than 1,200 comments.
“Hundreds of you shared the image, called Woolworths and posted on their Facebook page. Thanks for standing up for inclusion and acceptance - Woolworths have listened,” he wrote. 
One year later what was shocking from Woolworths is acceptable from even the Labor leader:

In comments similar to Mr Turnbull’s earlier on Friday, Labor leader Bill Shorten said “if you really hate Australia, you should go”.
UPDATE
Will Turnbull, Shorten and the chairman of the Parramatta Mosque all now be sanctimoniously denounced by ABC host Jonathon Green as Woolworths was in the dark times of the Abbott regime?
The slogan of “love it or leave” so famously plastered on an Aussie flag singlet at Woolworths this week is not patriotic, but something sadder, paranoid and uncertain, writes Jonathan Green. 
Or once again will we see that for the Left it’s the side that counts, not the principle?
(Thanks to readers Dave and Peter H.)  
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A question of security

Andrew Bolt October 09 2015 (11:57am)

Sharri Markson:
Malcolm Turnbull has been ­operating a private email server outside federal parliament’s sec­ure system to conduct government business and communicate with colleagues and journalists. 
In a situation similar to that of Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton, which caused a scandal, the Prime Minister has been using the separate server and email address for work and private use.
A spokeswoman for Mr Turnbull said last night: “The majority of government correspondence is routine and of a non-sensitive nature and is therefore not ­subject to sensitive security markings.”
Mr Turnbull’s non-governmental email account and server pose a security risk, exposing him to hacking and foreign ­surveillance. Use of private email ­addresses for classified com­muni­cations is prohibited by sec­urity rules… Mr Turnbull used the private email address during his time as communications minister and The Australian understands he has not shut down the account since becoming Prime Minister. 
UPDATE
Turnbull at today’s presser said he does not use his private server to send confidential material.
But reader Stephen Dawson makes an important point:

He may resolve never to send anything sensitive using that account, but others may unknowingly send sensitive stuff to him.

(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Dominic Perrottet: in praise of Tony Abbott, who defied the pack

Andrew Bolt October 09 2015 (9:13am)

Bravo to NSW Finance Minister Dominic Perrottet for defying the consensus of the media packand the Twitter trolls:

Going against the grain isn’t easy. For all that’s written about Tony Abbott’s prime ministership, it must be recognised that he went against the grain for the good of the country. Under the last Labor government, over 50,000 people arrived illegally by boat, costing thousands of lives and billions of dollars.  According to the ‘Canberra consensus’, this was simply the ‘new normal’ and nothing could be done.... 
Abbott went against the grain. He pledged to stop the boats.
Deterrence doesn’t work, thundered the Greens. A pig-headed refusal to accept reality, wrote Michelle Grattan. A policy that risks lives, said Mike Carlton. In the face of this opposition, Abbott delivered. Since the 2013 election, just one boat has arrived. Lives saved, borders secured, order restored.
On climate change, the “consensus” was more of the same.  Climate Armageddon was nigh, we were told, so businesses and individuals must cough up billions of dollars.
Abbott took a more measured approach… This in the face of a climate orthodoxy that successfully frightened governments in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland into spending tens of billions of dollars on desalination plants that, to this day, sit idle while dams fill and flood.
So Abbott again went against the grain and promised to scrap the carbon tax. Too difficult to undo, said Labor. Impractical and disruptive, according to the SMH‘s Peter Hartcher. Reckless and disturbing the status quo, said Michelle Grattan.
In the end, the people agreed with Abbott, and the carbon tax was abolished. So, too, the business-killing mining tax, which just about every talking head in Canberra agreed was a great idea — right before the iron ore price crashed.
It has been said that conservatives are often in government, but rarely in power, in part because many centre-right governments simply accept the status quo, failing to reverse bad policy. Tony Abbott not only opposed bad policy, he actually rolled it back, and he did it decisively and quickly in the face of a hostile Senate and an intransigent Labor Party…
Meanwhile, going against the grain on climate change and boat arrivals earned Abbott the abject hatred of the political Left, as did stripping terrorists of their dual-citizenship, challenging the conformist orthodoxy of the ABC and opting for the will of the people to decide on gay marriage. Despite this, much like John Howard before him, the secret of Abbott’s initial success was simple: he addressed the concerns of the silent majority – not the chattering classes – using Liberal principles.
With a change of leader there will be a temptation to downplay, even do away with, the achievements of the Abbott government. This would be a mistake for several reasons.
Firstly and most importantly, conservative policies are not fantasies – they apply in the real world, and they work. The boats have stopped, the taxes have been axed, free trade agreements signed and the budget on track for repair.  The country is the better for all that.
Secondly, any shift to the left would be a betrayal of the Liberal base, which is profoundly and unapologetically conservative. They do not get their talking points from Q&A or The Age. They will have no truck with a government delivering a Labor agenda in Liberal clothing. Thirdly, Liberal electoral success has always come from the centre-right. 
Please read the whole essay. Very important points are made. 
===

We won’t discriminate, so Islam costs us all some freedom

Andrew Bolt October 09 2015 (8:56am)

Islam is different to all other major faiths in explicitly endorsing the subjugation and killing of non-believers. This poses a dilemma for multi-faith democracies such as ours which believe in non-discrimination and freedom of belief.
An example:

Prayer groups and religious instruction in schools are a “doorway to extremism’’, a government adviser has warned. Cathy Byrne, a member of the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority advisory group on intercultural understanding, demanded a ban on prayer groups in government schools. 
“The system as it stands today is potentially a doorway to extremism,’’ said Dr Byrne, a Southern Cross University sociologist specialising in religion. “Prayer groups have no place in government schools.
“Primarily it’s been evangelical Christians who have been allowed in but they’ve opened the door for other faith-based groups to do the same and potentially radicalise youth into violent extremism.’’
I am not threatened in the slightest by evangelical Christians having prayer groups at lunchtime in schools. Indeed, although I am an agnostic, I think the values transmitted by Christianity are overall beneficial and critical in maintaining a culture that encourages kindness, tolerance, non-violence, personal responsibility, freedom and concern for the powerless.
So why should Christian prayer groups be shut down simply because Muslim prayer groups, in contrast, could “potentially radicalise youth into violent extremism”?  Why should peaceful Christians lose a freedom to worship just because Muslim groups cannot be trusted with it?
The Prime Minister Tony Abbott unfortunately gave us a similar example last year when dumping plans to restore more free speech to discuss “race”:
Mr Abbott dumped the changes to 18C [of the Racial Discrimination Act] as he unveiled new counter-terrorism measures, stressing the government was determined to engage in closer consultation with communities, particularly with the Muslim community. 
“When it comes to counter-terrorism, everyone needs to be part of Team Australia,’’ Mr Abbott said. “And I have to say that the government’s proposals to change 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act have become a complication in that respect.
“I don’t want to do anything that puts our national unity at risk at this time and so those proposals are now off the table.”
And so everyone loses free speech and some right to worship because Islam alone is unsafe.
Let me put the issue in the form of the question voters are never asked by their politicians. To accommodate a large Muslim minority with a minimum of violence, a country such as our must lose some freedom. Would you rather have the immigration or the freedom?
Answer: too late.
UPDATE
Related - an argument that Dutch political leader Geert Wilders should not tell us that Islam inspires terrorism because Muslims will turn to terrorism:
LAUREN DAY: Suresh Rajan from West Australians for Racial Equality says he’s not opposed to Wilders being granted a visa but he is worried some of those views could further inflame tensions among the Muslim community and further exacerbate issues of radicalisation and home grown terror. 
SURESH RAJAN: What we find common amongst all of the people who’ve gone down the path of radicalisation has been the fact that they have felt isolated within their community. And the work that Geert Wilders does just further isolates them to a position where they become prey to the radicalised views of other people.
Such surrenders would mean that men of violence set the rules for the rest of us. 
===

Bosses won’t save us from jihadists

Andrew Bolt October 09 2015 (7:50am)

Again, the narrative that Australia has somehow let down Muslim youths:
The head of Australia Post has called on business and government to offer work traineeships to young Muslims as way of countering the lure of extremism. 
Ahmed Fahour, Australia’s most prominent Muslim business leader, told a Melbourne audience ...  far-right “pockets of fascist intolerance” had also exploited the internet as a way to connect and promote a misguided idea Islam and the West are somehow incompatible.
Here are some Muslims we did indeed offer work to:
- Tareq Kamleh, who was a doctor here before joining the Islamic State.
- Mohammad Ali Baryalei, who worked as a security guard and TV actor before joining the Islamic State, first as a recruiter and then as a fighter.
- “Ginger jihadist” Abdullah Elmir, who quit his job in a butcher’s shop to fight for the Islamic State.
- Mohamed Elomar, who worked in the construction business of his millionaire father before joining the Islamic State and cutting off heads.
Here are some Muslims we didn’t offer work to because they were still in the free schools we’d given them:
- Farhad Jabar, the 15-year-old who murdered Curtis Cheng, and was still in high school.
- Two of the teenagers arrested in the anti-terrorism operations this week, still at school.
- Numan Haider, the 18-year-old who stabbed two police in Melbourne when he was still in the first year of an electro engineering course at a TAFE college in Dandenong.
I don’t think Fahour has adequately addressed doubts about Islam. I am not sure that more jobs fixes the problem.
Some more questions:
Why, by the way, are jobless members of other faiths not turning to terrorism?
And why are Lebanese Muslims particularly likely to turn to terrorism?
Isn’t the real challenge not to employers to hire potential jihadists but for families and schools to produce children better educated and less minded to violence?:

Australian researchers Andrew Zammit and Sam Mullins made detailed studies of the characteristics of around 30 local jihadists in the 1990s and the first decade of this century… Among 36 individuals investigated, Mullins (2011) found as follows: 

- The average age of those promoting violent jihad was 28, and 29 at the time of their arrests. - 94% were Australian citizens; 86% had ‘non-Australian heritage (more than half being Lebanese)‘; 57% were born in Australia. 
- 12% of 38 individuals were converts to Islam. 
- Most had not progressed much beyond high school. 
- Only 5 of 24 individuals could be classified as having a skilled education.
===

Mark Kenny praises under Turnbull what he didn’t notice under Abbott

Andrew Bolt October 09 2015 (7:43am)

Has any newspaper got Abbott haters as feral as the Sydney Morning Herald’s?
I have written before how the SMH’s Mark Kenny would damn Tony Abbott for what he praised in others.
But today he exceeds himself:
On Tuesday a series of Liberal backbenchers called for a rethink of weekend penalty rates… Imagine, by way of counter-factual, the response ... from Tony Abbott’s redoubtable chief of staff, Peta Credlin. How would she have viewed ... the risky airing of the incendiary issue of weekend penalties… 
The fact that Liberals now feel inclined to think outside the ordained agenda, with its mindless talking points, is manifest ... Of course, some Liberals were spineless, but command and control is just that – especially when it has the submissive imprimatur of the prime minister.
Kenny can’t even remember back to March last year:
Several Liberal MPs, particularly those who represent electorates with large numbers of tourism and hospitality businesses, believe small businesses need to be ‘’liberated’’ from having to pay higher weekend and holiday rates, which can lead to businesses deciding not to open on certain days or to employ fewer staff. Coalition MPs Warren Entsch, Dan Tehan, Russell Broadbent, Wyatt Roy, Sean Edwards, Craig Laundy, Alex Hawke, George Christensen, Dennis Jensen and Zed Seselja, all said on Friday that penalty rates needed to be reviewed.
Don’t bother waiting for Kenny to issue a correction. To him every Rorschach blot looks like an Abbott monster.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Let’s hope Craik remembers her history in green scares

Andrew Bolt October 09 2015 (7:03am)

The Turnbull Government has appointed Wendy Craik to head the Climate Change Authority, which promotes the latest fashionable green scare that demands billions of taxpayers’ dollars.
Interesting. Craik was prominent in a previously fashionable green scare that also demanded billions of taxpayers’ dollars.
Sinclair Davidson:
Wendy Craik [was] CEO of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. Hopefully she will bring some of her insight from that position to the CCA…
[T]here used to be a very good show on channel Nine on Sunday mornings called “Sunday”. In 2006 they had a segment on salinity in the Murray-Darling Basin where Wendy Craik got reported saying some interesting things: 
ROSS COULTHART: In 2000, Wendy Craik was heading the National Farmers’ Federation. At the height of the salinity hysteria she called for $65 billion to be spent on fixing Australia’s land and water crisis — with a whopping 37 billion to come from taxpayers. 
WENDY CRAIK: We were basing our recommendation on the best available information at the time. 
ROSS COULTHART: But that information was wrong wasn’t it? 
WENDY CRAIK: Subsequently I think we would say, we wouldn’t, I wouldn’t support that particular line. 
ROSS COULTHART: Imagine if those billions of dollars had been expended on what you now acknowledge are incorrect models that were talking up the threat of salinity? 
WENDY CRAIK: As a taxpayer I am just as happy as you that we didn’t actually do that.
I suspect she is going to be a lot more cautious in her new role. It could turn out to be a very good appointment.
I summed up that salinity scare in 2010:

In 1993 the [Murray Darling Basin Authority] predicted dryland salinity would increase by 10-15 per cent a year. Urging it on was the CSIRO, which had a Rising Groundwater Theory and computer models to “prove” that farming land twice the size of Tasmania would become too salty for crops. 
Great models they were, too, showing salinity levels soaring in the Murray, when the measuring station at Mannum showed them actually falling over 20 years.
What fear there was then. The National Farmers Federation was screaming for $65 billion to fight the salt and then ... well, hello.
The money was not spent and the salinity catastrophe never materialised. As the chairman of Murray Irrigation said four years ago: “It just seems that somewhere the science got it seriously wrong.” But were the scaremongers held to account?
The CSIRO and its computer models are now hyping the global warming scare, too. 
===

Looking at Germany I am not ashamed. I’m just relieved it’s not us

Andrew Bolt October 09 2015 (6:20am)

Germany is committing cultural suicide and importing generations of tensions, yet Labor’s Walt Secord, deputy leader of the Opposition in the NSW Legislative Council, applauds:

Last week I witnessed the Syrian refugee crisis first-hand at Berlin’s largest refugee processing centre… just a trickle among the one million Syrian refugees that Germany is estimated to accept this year… 
Compare that with former prime minister Tony Abbott’s announcement last month that Australia’s increased intake of Syrian refugees would be 12,000 across the nation.
However, even more striking than the scale of Germany’s response is the manner of it. It is a deeply integrated response.
Rather than being placed in ­remote locations, refugee-processing centres occupy former schools, prisons and hospitals in the main towns and cities across the country… It is, given the sensitivity of refugee politics in Australia, astounding to witness…
And while Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bold response has not been received without criticism, the pragmatic acceptance of most Germans towards this unprecedented human challenge, and their resolve to provide practical solutions, is impressive… With Germany marking the 25th anniversary of its reunification, its response to the Syrian crisis provided the opportunity to highlight the humanitarian and ethical leadership that has emerged from facing up to its uniquely appalling past. 
Completely missing from this misty-eyed happy-ever-after narrative are some facts and critical questions. Here are just some:
- One million illegal immigrants this year. And next year? And the family reunions?
- Where are the jobs for these one million people? How will they respond when years go by without good jobs?
- What are the security risks of importing one million people, most of them Muslims from the Middle East?
- How will integration occur when one million people, many poorly skilled and from a different faith, suddenly enter such a very different society?

The Süddeutsche editorial also points to the complexities of a million or more people, almost none of whom speak German, trying to find a place in German society, let alone in the country’s rigidly structured workplace.
“Well-educated engineers, doctors and economists are coming. But there are also plenty of illiterate people, stunned by their new world,” wrote the paper’s Matthias Drobinski. “Ultra religious Muslims – and Christians – are coming face to face with a society that is indifferent to religion. Newcomers with rigid moral codes must learn to deal with the fact that in Germany gay people can openly kiss each other.”
The challenges of integration are already much in evidence in the shelters, where reports emerge every day of clashes between residents. Some are triggered by petty rows over queuing for food or the toilet, or over privacy. 
- How happy about this are Germans really, when the Government’s popularity is sinking fast?
- What are the future dangers when there have already been dozens of brawlsbetween the various ethnic groups of illegal immigrants in Germany?
- And what of the reaction from some Germans, and not just from the ugly far-Right?:

Arson attacks on refugee shelters continue on an almost daily basis. Reports of refugees being greeted at the doors of their new homes by neo-Nazis humming Third Reich songs or being pelted with banana skins are not uncommon. There are mounting concerns that elements of the far-right have found new oxygen in the crisis by tapping into ordinary people’s fears that Europe’s largest economy may be unable to cope with the decision to allow so many to take refuge within its borders… 
Reports of a youth community project having to move out to make way for an asylum seeker shelter, or a woman living in local authority housing being forced to downsize so that her flat could be used by refugees are regularly making the headlines and stoking resentment. “The message needs to reach the top, as to where the problems lie, and that we’ve reached a limit,” Wolfgang Rzehak, of the Greens, who heads Bavaria’s regional council recently told the daily TAZ.
Secord’s kind of Kumbayah analysis is reckless and dangerous in a politician with real responsibilities. It’s all emoting, with no need for the consequences that will be visited on helpless citizens. 
===

Where is Turnbull on Islam and terrorism? Where is the Mufti?

Andrew Bolt October 09 2015 (5:09am)

Where is Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership on Islam and terrorism?
Turnbull has virtually said nothing about Farhad Jabar’s murder of Curtis Cheng since Saturday, when he (falsely) declared it was “politically motivated”, rather than religiously.

The Prime Minister would not take any questions about the Parramatta shooting tragedy during a press conference about a new app for stockmarket ­investors in downtown Sydney. 
Mr Turnbull was in the offices of Bloomberg in Bligh St at the launch of the product, but would answer questions only about the new technology. As soon as the launch was over, Mr Turnbull was hurried into a waiting elevator by his minders.
When asked by The Daily Telegraph if Mr Turnbull would field questions about the Parramatta incident, his media secretary said the Prime Minister was not prepared to say anything at this stage because it was an ongoing police matter. Mr Turnbull has spoken about terrorism at one media conference since Friday, with his statement on Saturday, where he also refused to take questions.
But Turnbull did mention the murder in an interview on 3AW on Tuesday, but only to again falsely claim the terrorism was “politically motivated” and falsely claim Muslim leaders had shown “strong leadership” and been “loud” in condemning it:

PRIME MINISTER: The police view and I’m going to be careful to say nothing more than what’s been said publicly because obviously I’m privy to information that’s not public but the police view is that this appears to be politically motivated violence, which is terrorism. That’s what terrorism is. 
NEIL MITCHELL: Have the Muslim leadership been loud enough condemning it?
PRIME MINISTER: They’ve certainly been loud. I think we have seen strong leadership but it is a very big challenge for the Muslim community
NEIL MITCHELL: Would you like them to say more?
PRIME MINISTER: Well I don’t want to suggest that they’re not saying enough but I think the bottom line is this; that the Muslim community are appalled, horrified by this event. Leading figures in the Muslim community; Jamal Rifi notably he’s probably been on your show as well, he’s been very vocal and eloquent about this. Mike Baird and I had a good discussion with a number of Muslim, in particular Kurdish, leaders in NSW the other night. It’s a question of continued engagement and yes they should speak up but you know it’s more important from a practical point of view that there is leadership within the Muslim community which continues to demonstrate that this type of violence extremism is not consistent with Islam. This is the point that Jamal Rifi makes and a number of others have too…
NEIL MITCHELL: Would you describe ISIS as a death cult? PRIME MINISTER: I’ll use my own language. ISIL or Daesh is a violent, extremist terrorist organisation which is a threat both regionally and globally. Its elimination is a matter of the highest priority for Australia and many other countries, most other countries particularly in that region and the most important priority is to defeat them in the field.
It seems Turnbull would rather repeat reassuring falsehoods than risk hurting his image as a moderate with the media Left.
Fact: the murder of Cheng was committed by a boy shouting “Allahu akbar” - Allah is the greatest. This was religiously motivated, not politically.
Fact: yes, Rifi has again spoken up, and courageously. But he has not spoken about the role of Islam or clerics here in inspiring terrorism. Nor does he hold any position of leadership in Islam or in major Islamic organisations. He is a doctor, not an imam, and his highest positions in Muslim organisations seem to have been president of the Lakemba Sports Club and a founding member of Muslim Doctors Against Violence - not a big organisation and not a religious one. Again, he is brave and has been honored by non-Muslim Australia with awards and appointments, but he does not actually speak formally for his faith or for many Muslim Australians.
Others do. But where are the leading imams of Australia on this issue? Where is the Grand Mufti of Australia? He’s said absolutely nothing since the murder.
And, contra Turnbull, only yesterday did any minister - state or federal - finally dare bell the cat:
DEPUTY Premier and Police Minister Troy Grant has warned youths can be radicalised in as little as three days and that the Sydney Muslim community needs to do more to combat terror threats. 
Speaking in an exclusive interview, Mr Grant yesterday told The Daily Telegraph that Muslim leaders in particular needed to publicly address the terror issue, adding he was willing to discuss with them the most effective ways to broach the topic. “Muslim leaders can be and should be doing more in comms (communications) and I’d be encouraging them to do that and if they need support as to what to say and how to say it (we will give it to them),” Mr Grant said.
There has been a woeful lack of leadership here.
UPDATE
Another topic badly needing debate is how our immigration and refugee programs have imported danger:
Police believe the .38 Smith & Wesson revolver used by 15-year-old killer Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar may have been obtained through a Middle Eastern crime gang… 
Detectives believe Jabar may have been given the pistol by one of two brothers who prayed with him in one of the city’s mainstream mosques and were themselves at the periphery of an alleged terrorist group identified by authorities last year…
...brothers Talal and Rafat Alameddine ... were arrested at home in the western Sydney suburb of Merrylands. Rafat was arrested over an unrelated warrant for fraud offences while Talal was ­subsequently released without charge. The home was previously raided by heavily armed police in February after detectives received a tip-off about a possible escape plan for two prisoners facing trial for an alleged armed robbery.
Relatives of one of those men, who cannot be named for legal reasons, are believed by police to represent one of Sydney’s most powerful crime families, and have been linked to a series of alleged shootings and other offences.
The family is also alleged to have been involved in a series of ­violent clashes with other Middle Eastern crime families in Sydney for control of the city’s drug trade. In October last year, one member of the family was killed in ­either Syria or Lebanon.... The man, who is believed to have died in October last year while in Syria or Lebanon, was subsequently celebrated as a martyr. One relative wrote online: “You are successful, in Paradise!”
UPDATE
In contrast,  Tony Abbott, in February showed how to speak to the nation on Islamist terrorism:
Today, I want to speak to you about keeping our country safe. I want to speak to you about the threat that we face; the work done already to keep you as safe as we humanly can; and the things still needed to prevent further terrorist attacks… 
There is no greater responsibility – on me – on the government – than keeping you safe…
The terrorist threat is rising at home and abroad – and it’s becoming harder to combat. We have seen on our TV screens and in our newspapers the evidence of the new dark age that has settled over much of Syria and Iraq. We have seen the beheadings, the mass executions, the crucifixions and the sexual slavery in the name of religion.
There is no grievance here that can be addressed; there is no cause here that can be satisfied; it is the demand to submit - or die. We have seen our fellow Australians – people born and bred to live and let live – succumb to the lure of this death cult. We have heard the exhortations of their so-called caliphate to kill all or any of the unbelievers....
By any measure, the threat to Australia is worsening… (W)e have witnessed the frenzied attack on two police officers in Melbourne and the horror of the Martin Place siege.. Already at least 110 Australians have travelled overseas to join the death cult in Iraq and Syria… I can’t promise that terrorist atrocities won’t ever again take place on Australian soil. But let me give you this assurance: My government will never underestimate the threat. We will make the difficult decisions that must be taken to keep you and your family safe. We have the best national security agencies and the best police forces in the world… We are doing our duty. That is what you have a right to expect – and to demand of me and of us.
Reader N., a man with distingushed record in education, wrote to me recently in despair at the media mockery of Tony Abbott, with that sneering about Abbott failing the “pub test” or the “sniff test” of the ignorant. Far more important, wrote N., was the “trench test”.
Which political leader would you want fighting alongside you in in the trench?
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

A good challenge for Turnbull

Andrew Bolt October 08 2015 (11:06pm)

If you ban coal-fired power, you really have to consider nuclear - cheaper and more reliable than wind or solar, and less visually polluting.
But for the Greens, that means they must choose between one fake scare or the other. Malcolm Turnbull could mollify me if he takes up this cause:
Nuclear technology giant Westinghouse sees the retirement of old coal-fired power plants in Australia as an opportunity for nuclear power and is positioning itself early to inform the political and public debate. 
In Sydney to announce a tie-up with three local suppliers, Westinghouse chief executive Danny Roderick ... this week [met] federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt, Port Adelaide member Mark Butler and senior officials from the offices of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg.
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Two Australian bombs dropped on Islamic State targets

Andrew Bolt October 09 2014 (11:20am)

Our first bombs dropped:
The Australian Defence Force has confirmed RAAF jets have dropped bombs on Islamic State targets in Iraq. 
Two bombs were dropped from an F/A-18F Super Hornet on to an IS facility, the Australian Defence Force said in a statement on Thursday… It is the first time Australia has launched air strikes since beginning combat operations on Sunday.
It is a strange war, where we drop just two bombs in a week. it is as if we fear to truly fight. 
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The Middle East’s wars come to Western streets

Andrew Bolt October 09 2014 (8:55am)

Importing the Middle East and its hatreds into the streets of Europe:
Ethnic Kurds clashed overnight with alleged members of a hardline Islamist movement in Hamburg last night, as ISIS clashes spread far from Syria. 
Police in the northern German city say 14 people were injured overnight in the violence…
The Local reports that 400 Kurds gathered near the Al-Nour mosque after an earlier demonstration against the violence in Iraq and Syria. They were met by about 400 Salafi Muslims, according to police who said members of both groups came armed with metal bars, machetes and other sharp objects… On Monday evening six people were hurt in Celle, Lower Saxony, after a brawl broke out between about 30 Muslims and 60 Yazidi Kurds. Around 60,000 Yazidis live in Germany.
(Thanks to reader doc.) 
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Last Palmer Queensland MP quits

Andrew Bolt October 09 2014 (8:31am)

Clive Palmer’s party is already collapsing in Queensland:
CLIVE Palmer’s last sitting Queensland MP, Carl Judge, has walked away from his party, saying he can better serve his electorate as an independent. 
Mr Judge — who became the Palmer United Party’s state leader in August after Alex Douglas quit the fledgling outfit over internal preselection issues and accusations of “cronyism” — told the member for Fairfax he would no longer serve as a PUP MP.
He told The Courier-Mail: “It is an era for independent MPs like Peter Wellington and Alex Douglas and others to keep politics honest in Queensland.” ...
Asked whether a falling out with Mr Palmer was behind the move, Mr Judge said: “No, we’re friendly.” 
(Thanks to reader WaG311.) 
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Excusing the slaughter

Andrew Bolt October 09 2014 (8:21am)

Hizb ut-Tahrir refuses to criticise Muslim terrorists who slaughter other Muslims, massacre infidels, traffic in women and behead journalists and aid workers:

And what they won’t condemn we must assume they condone:
EMMA ALBERICI [Lateline presenter]:  So tell me first of all, do you support the murderous campaign being waged by Islamic State fighters in Iraq? 
WASSIM DOUREIHI [Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman in Australia]: Well, thank you very much for the opportunity. There is an urgent need in this country to have quite open and honest conversation. I want to take a moment just to take a step back…
EMMA ALBERICI: Do you support them or not?
WASSIM DOUREIHI:  The fact that we don’t want to have this discussion now is indicative of where the entire discussion on the war on terror narrative goes…
EMMA ALBERICI:  Do you support them or not?
WASSIM DOUREIHI: The fact that we don’t want to have this discussion now is indicative of where the entire discussion on the war on terror narrative goes.
EMMA ALBERICI: But it is Islamic State fighters who are killing Muslims.
WASSIM DOUREIHI: No, don’t come to me and pretend that the greatest threat to all of us ...
EMMA ALBERICI: Are you outraged by - are you outraged by the image of an Australian-born child of seven years old holding up severed heads like trophies in Iraq or Syria?
WASSIM DOUREIHI: Let me tell you what I am outraged by....
EMMA ALBERICI: They’re killing Christians, they’re murdering Kurds.
WASSIM DOUREIHI: We’re talking about - I’m glad you raised that point. Do you know why? Because how are we expected to believe that the West is concerned about the life of minorities when it is the majority that is being slaughtered?
And so on. Same routine on Sky News.
(Thanks to reader Min, Dildge and others.) 
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Hizb ut-Tahrir speaks more hatred than is safe

Andrew Bolt October 09 2014 (7:40am)

Free speech, Islamism

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott threatens to ban the extremist Hizb ut-Tahrir, and his critics already protest he’s trampling on free speech. True, but is that the end of the argument?
Abbott yesterday called these Sydney-based Islamists “thoroughly objectionable” and he hoped soon to pass laws banning groups promoting terrorism: “Then I suppose we have to have another look at Hizb ut-Tahrir to see whether they fall under the definition.”
The evidence already suggests it might come close. Last November, a Hizb ut-Tahrir leader, Wassim Doureihi, warned 600 people at the group’s annual conference they faced “a war on Islam — a war that is being waged in this country as it is in the rest of the world”.
(Read full article here.) 
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First find the “stolen generation” before throwing money at it

Andrew Bolt October 09 2014 (7:38am)

The "stolen generations"

SOUTH Australia seems set to become the second state to compensate “stolen generations” members — with few questions asked.
The Liberals, Greens and Family First say that next week they will vote for a plan to give up to $50,000 to any Aborigines forcibly taken from their families.
But no claimant will have to prove they were indeed stolen just for racist reasons — which does not surprise me. As the courts and the first compensation scheme, in Tasmania, have helped confirm, the “stolen generations” is, I’ve often argued, a myth. Yes, I know prime minister Kevin Rudd said “sorry”.
Yet not one “stolen generations” activist — notably Professor Robert Manne — has met my challenge to name even 10 children who fit the proper definition.
We’re not talking about children understandably rescued from their parents because they were abused, neglected or abandoned.
No, we’re talking about children allegedly “stolen” by officials in an “attempt to put an end to the Aboriginal people”, as the inventor of the “stolen generations” phrase, Professor Peter Read, explained.
(Read full article here. This column was not published in the Adelaide Advertiser.) 
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Where is Abbott’s media guru?

Andrew Bolt October 09 2014 (7:14am)

It strikes me again that Prime Minister Tony Abbott needs a media fireman with all the trust and much of the authority of his mega-capable but mega-busy chief of staff. For instance, Niki Savva identifies a missed opportunity to push a critical message:
It came on Sunday when Fin­ance Minister Mathias Cormann refused to rule out tax increases or further spending cuts to help pay for the war on terror in the Middle East, plus additional security measures, while still holding true to the promise to return the budget to surplus in the fourth year. 
Here is where the Prime Minister has to use what he has learned from his handling of security issues to lock in public endorsement for budget measures necessary to promote safety and prosperity… Again, rather than leave ­options open, he slammed the door shut, arguing that the estimated $250 million cost of combat for six months in Iraq was manageable without increased taxes… Abbott should have taken the opportunity to begin a new narrative, to marry the challenges, explain the difficulties the government faces in achieving the twin objectives of economic and national security in an uncertain world. He did not.
And it should not be up to Credlin to be putting out media fires like this one, which was allowed to rage for hours before being doused:
Abbott’s call for a ­reversal of the presiding officers’ “interim” decision, announced by the Department of Parliamentary Services, to force burka wearers to sit in the glass enclosures in the public galleries of the House of Representatives and Senate chambers so far has elicited no ­response… 
Angry as many MPs were with the decision, there was also anger that Senate President Stephen Parry and House of Representatives Speaker Bronwyn Bishop appeared to have been hung out to dry....
Last Wednesday morning, Parry and Bishop woke up to Fairfax headlines proclaiming the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin, was sympathetic to a burka ban in Parliament House for security reasons.
According to the story, she reportedly expressed this view to backbencher George Christensen, in the apparent hope of hosing down his push for a complete ban on the burka, advising him to take up the issue of the ban inside parliament with the presiding officers.
In the same reports, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister “confirmed Ms Credlin had spoken to Mr Christensen but said a final decision on a ban was for the presiding officers"… On Tuesday, Christensen confirmed to me he was woken about 6.30am by a call from Credlin that lasted less than a minute. He says she told him to cool it, which he reckons he had already decided after hearing of the knife attack by a young Muslim man on two police officers. He swears she did not, repeat not, tell him to raise the banning of burkas with the presiding officers. He says it is a mystery to him where Fairfax got its information. Curiouser and curiouser.
Bill Clinton had media and strategy advisors of the calibre of James Carville and George Stephanopoulos.
Tony Blair had Alastair Campbell.
Margaret Thatcher had Bernard Ingham.
Bob Hawke had Peter Barron, Geoff Walsh and Barrie Cassidy.
Who is Abbott’s?
This is in no way a criticism of Credlin, one of the rocks of this government. I am simply puzzled why Abbott wouldn’t want to have two of her. 
===

Leyonhjelm:  terrorism laws are an attack on free speech

Andrew Bolt October 09 2014 (7:08am)

Senator David Leyonhjelm:
The latest tranche of security legislation before us, the foreign fighters bill, contains even more nasties. First, it allows for “delayed notification search warrants”. These will allow the Australian Federal Police to search your home, your correspondence and your underwear drawer without having to tell you about it for at least six months… As in the case of SIOs, “unauthorised disclosure” of the existence of such a warrant is a serious offence. 
And, as with the previous national security legislation, there is no public interest defence and no protection for the exposure of corruption or misconduct…
Then there’s the new offence of “advocating terrorism”, which takes the traditional and perfectly workable law against incitement and turns it into a monster.
Under common law, incitement always required intent — to cause violence or terrorism, say — as well as proximity. There had to be a causal link between words spoken and deeds done. This new law is so broadly drafted that not only does it capture a general statement endorsing violence with no particular audience in mind but also requires only that the speaker is “reckless” as to whether what they say may cause terrorism. As George Williams has noted, this is likely to criminalise a range of legitimate speech. All those campaigns to “free West Papua” or “get Israel out of Gaza” may become tedious after a while, but the possibility of attaching criminality to them is absurd.
Greg Sheridan:
SECTION 35P of the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill is a terrible piece of legislation that fundamentally alters the balance of power between the media and the government. In doing this, it seriously weakens our democracy and will ultimately weaken, in quite practical ways, our security… 
Most of the government’s recent national security legislation is sound and necessary. But 35P is a shocker…
It provides that anyone who knowingly or recklessly discloses information about a special intelligence operation could face, depending on the circumstances, five or 10 years in prison…
The idea of the legislation is that the identity of ASIO agents working under cover should be protected from media or other revelations. Well, of course that is obvious. It is already an offence to reveal agents’ names…
One of the profoundly objectionable elements of the legislation is that an SIO, once a government declares it, remains illegal to write about indefinitely, even after it’s long finished.
To take an extreme case — as Bret Walker SC, the former national security legislation monitor, has pointed out — if ASIO accidentally kills someone in an SIO this can never be written about in the media, ever…
This legislation does nothing to prevent the most damaging types of leaks, such as occurred with Edward Snowden. He knew his leaks were illegal… The new laws would make no difference to an Australian Snowden.. The government now can stop all this give and take simply by telling the journalist they are dealing with an SIO and cannot legally publish. How would the journalist know whether that’s true or not?… The power of governments to declare subjects forever unpublishable is a wicked and extreme power.
===

Islamic Council of Victoria claims Muslim groups “have to take up armed struggle”

Andrew Bolt October 09 2014 (6:17am)

First the Islamic Council of Victoria refused to condemn the 18-year-old jihadist who nearly killed two police officers in Victoria before he was shot dead:
”I’m not going to condemn what he did because I don’t know what he did,” said secretary Ghaith Krayem… 
“He went there at the request of the police, this wasn’t something that he planned or plotted.
Krayem blamed Australia instead by insisting it fix ”the root causes of alienation and disaffection of people such as this”.
Now the ICV seems to justify terrorists attacking Israel:
AN Islamic group has condemned the government’s planned terror laws as “a provocation to act”, in a strongly worded statement that appears to legitimise participation in attacks on Israel. 
In a submission to the joint standing committee on intelligence and security inquiry into the bills, the Islamic Council of Vic­toria has warned of a “volatile clim­ate” in the Middle East that “continues to produce groups which have to take up armed struggle”. The submission cites the battle against the Assad regime in Syria and “the struggle against the occupation of Palestinian territory and Palestinian right to self-determin­ation in the face of Israeli aggression” as examples, adding that “many in the Muslim community support such movements and deem them to be legitimate forms of armed struggle”.
The ICV under Krayem has become disturbingly extreme.
So who is this man, seemingly so full of resentment, so seemingly eager to defend even radical Muslims?
The Office of the Legal Services Commissioner reports:

Note that virtually all the people whose trust fund money, insurance payout and property settlement Krayem mishandled had Middle Eastern or Indonesian names, and were most likely Muslim. 
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Why are Rifi’s bigots free but Brandis’s “bigots” muzzled?

Andrew Bolt October 09 2014 (12:39am)

Attorney-General George Brandis in March on why the Racial Discrimination Act should be reformed to permit more debate on, say, Middle Eastern culture, immigration and faith:
People do have a right to be bigots, you know. People have the right to say things that other people would find insulting, offensive or bigoted.
Muslim community leader Jamal Rifi last night on why new terrorism laws should not be used to ban the extremist Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist import from the Middle East:
We should hold the view that even bigots have the right to be bigots and Hizb ut-Tahrir is the same as any other group: they are entitled to their view and should be able to express it.
Both men say the same thing, and both are right.  The difference is that the Left and much of the media vilified Brandis, but will side with Rifi, who defends Hizb ut-Tahrir’s freedom of speech but demanded the rest of us stay muzzled.
Right now it seem Hizb ut-Tahrir has in practice more freedom to speak than do its critics. 
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.. it is Lennon's birthday .. both Sean and John .. excellent way to celebrate
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Over 3000 metres up in the mountains of Pakistan lives the world's largest goat: the Markhor. The name Markhor is believed to mean snake horn. Their horns can grow over 1.5m long, curved to prevent them from snapping as he charges. 

Animal Fight Club: Season 2
Tonight at 8.30pm AEDT on Nat Geo WILD
http://natgeotv.com.au/tv/animal-fight-club/

Photograph by Getty Images
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Anagog, an Israeli location-based technology company, unveiled on Monday an automatic algorithm that can analyze and identify where and when a parking space will be available.
Unlike other services, Anagog company says the technology's automatic nature will update the user instead of the user having to update the system.
The launch for the innovative system included an announcement of cooperation with PARX, the owner of Easy Park, which will allow Easy Park users in 130 countries to receive updates except for reminders to pay parking fees.
The company calls it “the first living parking map of an urban center,” and says that its data has just been built into the Easy Park app.
The technology can interface with navigation systems, cellular service and map providers, car makers, municipalities, transportation offices and more.
“We all saw what crowdsourcing did for traffic and navigation, and we are excited to see this concept brought to the world of parking,” said Parx’s CEO, Ofer Tziperman, referring to another Israeli startup, Waze, a navigation system which was recently bought by Google for about $1.3 billion. 
Anagog has a variety of apps such as FindMyCar, 2Park, OTO, StopPark, and ParkDroid, which help people find their car again after parking. The data accumulated by those types of apps feeds into the open parking spot database, as does data from EasyPark and other partners. Altogether, Anagog says it has about 500,000 users, which enables it to do this:

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Multimillionaire one-percenter Barack Obama is a big fan of special rules for Washington insiders like himself, so it’s not really a surprise that one of his favorite golf courses at Andrew’s Air Force base remains open while public monuments like the National Memorial for World War II veterans are blocked off with “Barrycades” during the 13% government shutdown.
The Andrews Air Force base golf course is sustained by fees, like many of the national parksaround the country. The chief of public affairs at the 11th wing claimed that this was the reason that the golf course remains open for
golf pros political indignitaries like President Obama.
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Very illuminating.

The difference between the ancient Jewish and Greek minds...

"There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out." - Homer (900 BC-800 BC)

"And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." - Isaiah 11:6
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Super easy vegan recipe for fall - Maple Cinnamon Roasted Butternut Squash with a touch of spice. So healthy, seriously addicting!

Recipe here: http://theshiksa.com/2013/10/08/maple-cinnamon-roasted-butternut-squash/
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The rumors have been circulating inside and outside Gaza for a long time. Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, is supposedly in hot water in his new abode in Qatar and is looking for another place to live. Al-Monitor correspondent Adnan Abu Amer talked with the spokesman of the movement’s political bureau, Izzat al-Rishq, who denied the rumor and claimed that this is only propaganda aimed to harm Hamas. 

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/10/meshaal-qatar-hamas-crisis-exile-beirut.html#ixzz2hDCw8HSP
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They ignore the words of the Ayatollah Khamenei, who defined statesmanship as fraud and deceit hidden in smiles, and then sent Rouhani off to negotiate with the West. There are people who actually think that the Iranians, who spent so much on their nuclear bomb project, will actually give it up and abandon their dream of controlling the Arab oil fields, the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf, then on from there.

The Middle Eastern Bazaar

Russia's Putin calculates his every move, and only goes to war to win. Considering the might of the West balanced against his own weakness, he apparently saw that the smart thing, should the U.S. decide to attack Syria, would be to stand on the sidelines and let Assad, his ally, tough it out alone. Concerned, even momentarily, that the U.S. might actually carry out its threat and attack the Syrian regime as it promised when the use of chemical weapons was called a "red line," Putin was quick to save the U.S. from itself. While Obama yelled "hold me back," however, in reality he did nothing and was planning to do nothing: the U.S. looked afraid.
Despite Syria having begun to reveal the locations of its chemical weapons storehouses, Putin is still squirming. He has no way of being certain that all the locations will be revealed – nor does anyone else. He refuses to let the chemicals enter Russia for destruction. No one knows where they will be destroyed or who will accept responsibility.
Now, while Putin is demanding that Israel also destroy the weapons of mass destruction he pretends it possesses, he also fancifully claims that Syria has chemical weapons "only" as a strategic balance to the "Israeli threat." Putin has said that, given Israel's technological superiority, it has nothing to fear from Syria -- another manipulative lie, this time for the ears of the Arab and Muslim world, which, as usual, hears only what it wants to. Putin knows full well that if Israel so desired, it could attack and defeat Syria or any other Arab country without once taking recourse to non-conventional weapons, especially now that these countries have been weakened by the Arab Spring.
Putin, having negotiated with the U.S. and discovered how easily it could be swayed -- is now, like a rug merchant in an Arab bazaar, trying to renegotiate the original arrangement to extort more. Having identified America's weaknesses, Putin is now doing his best to exploit it to the maximum, making the U.S. the biggest loser: Given its current situation in the UN and Congress, even if the U.S. wanted to attack Syria, it could not carry out its threat: The U.S now cannot attack without support from the UN Security Council, and, possibly to its relief, it is not going to get it.
The Arab and Muslim world is hard, implacable and unrelenting: here, in the Middle East, might is measured in terms of results on the ground, not in rhetoric. Since the Kerry-Lavrov agreement was reached, the status of the United States has plummeted and burned, despite the American campaign to market Obama as the super-strategist who achieved a diplomatic success while carrying a big stick. The truth is that the U.S. made empty threats that were never carried out. Worse, everyone knows he could not have carried them out: both domestically and abroad, he looks weak.

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“According to a new Pew Research Center survey of the American Jewish community, more and more American Jews have reached the conclusion that there is no reason to be Jewish.” Our World: Why bother being Jewish?
By CAROLINE B. GLICK 10/07/2013http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Our-World-Why-bother-being-Jewish-328098
I have Jewish ancestry through my father. Many years ago, ignorant of my ancestry, I embraced Christianity and remain there. But I welcome my family who are Jewish as Jewish. And I welcome those who are not directly related recently, but who are Jewish as they are.
It is not lost on me that God trained his people and that mark remains today. I have read an amazing account describing why in Japan, Shintoism seems directly related/descended from Hebrew migrants from the Silk road. It is true there is resilience in Judaic peoples from their struggles. There is also great art and technical expertise throughout the ages, with many flowerings. But one observation I make as a school teacher. Students who do best are not those who become reclusive and focused to one thing at the expense of all else. The best students tend to be good at everything, giving, working, helping, creating. They are prized in their community because of it. Which is why I suggest those who do not know the Jewish faith of their ancestors, explore it. - ed
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On January 4, 2013, Mahmoud Abbas, spoke via video link on a wide screen to the masses in Gaza, who gathered to celebrate the founding of Fatah (Arabic word for “conquest”),  otherwise known as the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In his New Year’s speech, Abbas spoke glowingly of the legacy of the Godfather of the PLO, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Muhammad Amin Al-Husseini, who during the 1920′s and 1930’s instigated pogroms against the Jews of Palestine and who during his residence in Nazi Germany actively plotted a Final Solution to be carried out once his German allies would win the war.
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Abbas vs Hamas ... Brigade 9 and special operation units conducted operations in villages, in Jenin refugee camp, and in some of the city of Jenin’s neighborhoods in the search for fugitives
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tter. They will inflict pain on others out of a lack of compassion and a firm self centered view of the world, and that is normal. They grow up and learn.

The elected officials of our United States government are acting like children. They need to grow up. They need to look beyond their own selfish little worlds.

Read on...>
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It is hard to keep the scorecard straight.

On the one hand, we are witness to what appears to be an unprecedented Egyptian operation against smuggling activity between Egyptian Sinai and the Gaza Strip as well as terror groups inside Sinai. On the other hand we face an ever more complicated challenge to find a way to ensure that the situation doesn't ultimately result in an effective end to the crucial Israel-Egypt peace treaty Sinai force limits.

On the one hand, Israel has made significant progress in efforts to improve practical Israeli-Palestinian relations, with huge increases in the numbers of Palestinians able to work inside Israel, renewal of cooperation in various agricultural programs as well as an ongoing series of renewed inter-ministerial meetings. On the other hand Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership and media in general continue with their inciting anti-Israel propaganda and hardline positions – while the remarks of some key Israeli players (Livni and others) provides worrisome evidence that ideology and politics can take precedence over reality .


Today the gulf states share Israel's concerns over a nuclear Iran but what appears to be a potentially poisonous combination of ideological orientation and domestic economics and politics seems to drive the Obama Administration to seek any and every way to a path that avoids a showdown with Teheran.

And what of Syria? If – and it is a big if – the Assad regime provides chemical weapons figures that are similar to the estimates the US and Russia share (assuming Mr. Kerry didn't agree to slash the figures) this may set a meaningful benchmark for the operation (are biological weapons in the arrangement?). Compliance, unfortunately, is hardly a foregone conclusion with a very real possibility that Russia "compensates" Syria for foregoing its chemical weapons (at least in theory) with S-300 systems shielding both Syria and Hezbullah.

Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=61918
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Steve Ganot and Ruthie Blum go head to head on Oslo. Steve maintains that the goal of Zionism has not changed: a Jewish, democratic state at peace with its neighbors •Ruthie says the goal should not be peace, but victory.
Ruthie is so right.

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So as it turns out, growing and smoking cannabis is completely legal in North Korea.Encouraged, even. Here's the story of how I found out... and then ended up indulging in the 'special plant' with an officer from North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The discovery came during my recent tour of Rason in North Korea, at the time of the 2013 Korean Crisis. The DPRK was - potentially - poised on the brink of nuclear war with the South, with Japan, the US, et al., and I was hanging out in a small port town somewhere near the Russian border.

As is generally the case with tours to North Korea, I had visited as a part of a group. However, this was no ordinary group. Some of my contacts in the tourism industry - regular visitors to the DPRK - were putting on a 'staff outing' of sorts... and I'd been invited along for the ride.
In true Korean style, their counterpoints in the DPRK felt obliged to match this show of seniority (as they perceived it) by sending one of their own high-ranking officials to lead our group: a 'Mr Kim,' from North Korea's own Ministry of Foreign Affairs [1].
The details of the tour - as well as my own reflections on visiting the country at a time of seemingly imminent war - are the subject of my post on the 2013 Korean Crisis. What follows here, are the parts I left out.

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There, I said it. And so did Elder.
His latest piece, on the dichotomy between Israel and Syria vis-à-vis the Golan, is riddled with errors, that any 8 year old with Wikipedia can find.
…the strategic high ground Israel twice has taken from Syria — first, in the lightning-quick Six-Day War of 1967, then again, at great cost, after Syria’s surprise offensive in the October War six years later
As I have shown before, the battle for the Golan 40 years ago is often shrouded in the “Israel lost” narrative. Truth is, that the Syrian offensive was stopped dead after 36 hours, and by the 4th day, Israeli armour was advancing inside Syria. That Vick says that Syria has somehow recaptured the entire Golan before Israel “took” it, is out of touch with reality. While Syria did capture key points, it didn’t come near as capturing the entire area.
1973_Yom_Kippur_War_-_Golan_heights_theater (1)
He goes on to explain about the Golan demography, and fails.

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Dr. Mordechai Kedar on the important topic of the true nature of the Middle East. What is it that Westerners do not understand about this volatile region? Why does it seem like there is perpetual conflict with no end in sight? Kedar, a Professor of Arabic Literature at Israelapos;s Bar-Ilan University, focuses on three areas of explanation: Tribalism, Ethnicities, and Religions. The event was held at Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wBlp8mcosY
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Prof. Robert Wistrich, Head of the Vidal Sassoon Center, Hebrew University 
An Evening in Honour of Mr. Mike Whine, MBE,
Held at the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItiF2MzvGwU
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An IDF illustration showing the dangers that Hezbollah poses for Israel, after it has presumably been disarmed via Resolution 1701

What’s the likely outcome of the US-Russia accord on Syria’s chemical arsenal? Look no further than what happened to UN Resolution 1701 of seven years ago. That resolution, which ended the Second Lebanon War and which purportedly eliminated Hezbollah’s missile armories, is a mirror image of the non-disarmament-to-come.
It is also Tzipi Livni’s self-proclaimed crowning achievement during her stint as then-PM Ehud Olmert’s foreign minister. To any visitor from Mars who may be uninformed, self-same Livni is currently in charge of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.
Resolution 1701 is a sad object lesson about the immoral malfunction of high-minded international agreements to destroy dangerous weapons stockpiles. The Syrian counterpart may not evolve in identical patterns but its inevitable bottom line will be no different than that of the dismal gag that Resolution 1701 turned out to be.
Worst of all, no one seems to dwell on that out-of-mind resolution, no one remembers. The widespread affectation is that everything is peaches and cream, as if the international intervention worked wonders.  It’s as if wholesale deception has never been perpetrated.  It’s as if no one recognizes that nothing whatsoever went to plan.
The pretense is just too sweet and alluring an option to pass up. Truth is too painful, persistent and unpleasant a bother with which to cope.
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CHOPPER IS DEAD

Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read (born 17 November 1954 - 9 October 2013) 

http://www.chopperread.com/
Did he only kill bad guys? - ed
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The development comes in the wake of outrage over the fact that several groups of World War II veterans had to resort to breaking down barriers to gain access to the monument built in their honor.
A pro immigration reform rally was underway Tuesday on the National Mall despite the fact that national memorials have been closed during the government shutdown.
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Barrycades, #SpiteHouse cones are no match for patriots at Great Smoky Mountains National Park [pics]==> http://twitchy.com/2013/10/08/barrycades-spitehouse-cones-are-no-match-for-patriots-at-great-smoky-mountains-national-park-pics/
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Speaking to reporters Tuesday at the White House, President Obama revealed he called House Speaker John Boehner and said he is willing to negotiate as soon as Republicans end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling.
"If Congress refuses to raise what is called the debt ceiling, America would not be able to meet its financial obligations for the first time in 225 years," Obama said. "Raising our debt ceiling does not add to debt."
Obama took the opportunity in front of the press to berate Republicans and implied Tea Party Republicans want to default on debt. Obama also compared tax reform and compromise on a debt ceiling hike to Xboxes.
"They have decided to run out the clock resulting in a government shutdown," Obama said. "That is not how our government is supposed to run."
House Republicans have passed more than a dozen bills funding different aspects of the government, and all of them have been rejected by the Democrat-controlled Senate.
"Let's end this shutdown right now, let's put people back to work," Obama said. "A vote could take place today and then serious negotiations can proceed around every item in the budget."

When is it routine? Obama has never negotiated with Conservatives. - ed
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"Gratitude is a portal for which love and life can enter. Be grateful for the day!" #gratitude #love - Paula White
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Why does the Vatican pull its funding from Palestinian Authority textbooks? Find out in this important expose on Palestinian incitement against Jewish civilians.

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François Englert, 80, a Belgian Holocaust survivor, wins prestigious prize with Peter Higgs

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“I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no savior. I have revealed and saved and proclaimed— I, and not some foreign god among you. You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “that I am God.” Isaiah 43:11-12 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught."
Luke 5:4

We learn from this narrative, the necessity of human agency. The draught of fishes was miraculous, yet neither the fisherman nor his boat, nor his fishing tackle were ignored; but all were used to take the fishes. So in the saving of souls, God worketh by means; and while the present economy of grace shall stand, God will be pleased by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. When God worketh without instruments, doubtless he is glorified; but he hath himself selected the plan of instrumentality as being that by which he is most magnified in the earth. Means of themselves are utterly unavailing. "Master, we have toiled all the night and have taken nothing." What was the reason of this? Were they not fishermen plying their special calling? Verily, they were no raw hands; they understood the work. Had they gone about the toil unskilfully? No. Had they lacked industry? No, they had toiled. Had they lacked perseverance? No, they had toiled all the night. Was there a deficiency of fish in the sea? Certainly not, for as soon as the Master came, they swam to the net in shoals. What, then, is the reason? Is it because there is no power in the means of themselves apart from the presence of Jesus? "Without him we can do nothing." But with Christ we can do all things. Christ's presence confers success. Jesus sat in Peter's boat, and his will, by a mysterious influence, drew the fish to the net. When Jesus is lifted up in his Church, his presence is the Church's power--the shout of a king is in the midst of her. "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." Let us go out this morning on our work of soul fishing, looking up in faith, and around us in solemn anxiety. Let us toil till night comes, and we shall not labour in vain, for he who bids us let down the net, will fill it with fishes.

Evening


"Praying in the Holy Ghost."
Jude 20
Mark the grand characteristic of true prayer--"In the Holy Ghost." The seed of acceptable devotion must come from heaven's storehouse. Only the prayer which comes from God can go to God. We must shoot the Lord's arrows back to him. That desire which he writes upon our heart will move his heart and bring down a blessing, but the desires of the flesh have no power with him.
Praying in the Holy Ghost is praying in fervency. Cold prayers ask the Lord not to hear them. Those who do not plead with fervency, plead not at all. As well speak of lukewarm fire as of lukewarm prayer--it is essential that it be red hot. It is praying perseveringly. The true suppliant gathers force as he proceeds, and grows more fervent when God delays to answer. The longer the gate is closed, the more vehemently does he use the knocker, and the longer the angel lingers the more resolved is he that he will never let him go without the blessing. Beautiful in God's sight is tearful, agonizing, unconquerable importunity. It means praying humbly, for the Holy Spirit never puffs us up with pride. It is his office to convince of sin, and so to bow us down in contrition and brokenness of spirit. We shall never sing Gloria in excelsis except we pray to God De profundis: out of the depths must we cry, or we shall never behold glory in the highest. It is loving prayer. Prayer should be perfumed with love, saturated with love--love to our fellow saints, and love to Christ. Moreover, it must be a prayer full of faith. A man prevails only as he believes. The Holy Spirit is the author of faith, and strengthens it, so that we pray believing God's promise. O that this blessed combination of excellent graces, priceless and sweet as the spices of the merchant, might be fragrant within us because the Holy Ghost is in our hearts! Most blessed Comforter, exert thy mighty power within us, helping our infirmities in prayer.
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Today's reading: Isaiah 30-31, Philippians 4 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Isaiah 30-31



Woe to the Obstinate Nation

1 “Woe to the obstinate children,”
declares the LORD,
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
heaping sin upon sin;
2 who go down to Egypt
without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection,
to Egypt’s shade for refuge.
3 But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame,
Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace.
4 Though they have officials in Zoan
and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,
5 everyone will be put to shame
because of a people useless to them,
who bring neither help nor advantage,
but only shame and disgrace.”

Today's New Testament reading: Philippians 4

Closing Appeal for Steadfastness and Unity
1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends!
2 I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. 3 Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.
Final Exhortations
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus....
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