Monday, November 21, 2016

Mon Nov 21st Todays News

IPA Review (Nov 2016) features a Matthew Lesh article on “Australian Tax Mutineers” and it includes the 1927 Queensland farmer’s strike. Queensland had only one non ALP Government between 1915 and 1952. With a small, largely self sufficient population, government couldn’t mess up too badly. Only the ALP had managed to spend too much and tried to raise tax to cover their inept administration. The 1926 Queensland Water Act was an instrument. It involved fees for farmers using their own wells or water pumps. If the property wasn’t adjacent to a river, farmers were in a terrible position. It was a disincentive to improve land and produced costs the couldn’t be passed on to consumers. In 1927, farmers organised a tax strike. The legislation was repealed and the government changed for one term at the next election. Worth thinking about for any state or territory thinking of voting ALP when they have control of the upper house too.

In Casey I noticed an ALP sign inappropriately placed on Vic Roads territory. It was retained months after the federal election. Prior to the local council election, it was changed for another ALP member who was running locally. I was running for Dandenong and asked the Electoral office for direction. They advised me to speak to Casey. I did, and Casey asked me to speak to VicRoads. I contacted VicRoads who removed the sign, but took no further action. I pointed this out to the electoral office who replied
“The Local Government Investigations and Compliance Inspectorate (Inspectorate) is the dedicated integrity agency for local government in Victoria and investigates possible offences under the Local Government Act 1989 (Act) by a Councillor, senior Council officer or person with a delegated responsibility within the Act; or any individual subject to the conflict of interest or electoral provisions of the Act.

This matter highlighted in your email of 11 November 2016 has been reviewed and it was determined that there is no identifiable offence under the Act.

Accordingly, no further action will be taken by the Inspectorate regarding this matter. “
My email to them had been
“The poster sign is on Princes Highway, Hallam, opposite Decor Drive.

Originally, it was an ALP Poster for Anthony Byrne for Holt, possibly for the federal election. That was removed on October 8th by Ian Spencer for Redgum Ward.

Ian has photographed himself changing the signs, and declaring his ALP affiliation.

I understand, and may be wrong, that that fence post is not an appropriate space for a political sign.

I understand that signage for elections are not supposed to be abandoned as litter. Oct 8th is an inappropriate delay before having a sign taken down even if the area was appropriate.

I, David Daniel Ball of 38 Everitt St Dandenong 3175 am bringing this to your attention at Casey Council as I understand it is your area.

I will include some pictures of the signage. I found the Ian Spencer one at his campaign website. “
It appears to me to be an abuse of power. The electoral office failed to justify their decision that they apparently arrived at to protect an ALP member. 


=== from 2015 ===
It is a truth of management that when an employee fails, the management have too. In banks, no one should feel they aren't being watched. Everyone should know if they attempt theft they will be caught. Jonathan Pollard showed the US security administration failed. He had attempted to sell secrets. Nothing like the security breaches of Snowden or Assange, which got people killed around the world for inflaming jihadism. Pollard was mentally weak according to prosecutors, as well as brilliantly duplicitous. They accused him of getting agents killed, until it turned out another CIA agent had done that. But Pollard is Jewish. An abuse of power denied Pollard a legal defence and 30 years have been taken from him. He is released at last. But those responsible for the abuse have power and authority. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
From 2014
Words have power. Should have meaning, too. 
Greens hypocritical in their support of US warming deal with China. The deal is not secure, as Australia's direct action policy is which Greens oppose. The US and China hope to achieve their ends by employing power substitutes the Greens will not accept in Australia, from tracking and nuclear. 

The federal government (in Australia) had legislation that was in the interests of consumers of superannuation, but opposed by Unions. Unions were given access to management of Superannuation by Paul Keating so as to compensate them for lost membership, as very few workers these days join with unions. However, the unions and banks have developed superannuation products that customers would not choose if they were aware of choice. Unions and banks have provided advisers to consumers who have a duty to their employers, not the consumers. The legislation would have given advisers independence, providing better, informed choice to consumers. Independent senator Xenophon, Motorist Muir and PUP Lambie have backflipped over the deal and scuttled the legislation, meaning vested interests can behave corruptly. They are doing so, so as to use the legislation as bargaining chip to get the government to compromise on more good legislation. The only way to get good government is to vote conservative. 

ABC find someone willing to criticise the Australian federal government over their climate change policy. The Fishing Minister from Belize. No doubt Belize's public service have kept their minister up to date with the latest. Belize has a population of about 342000. Note, the Minister offered no specifics, merely asking Australia to step up on commitment to negotiation. 

Academics suggest making petrol more expensive to keep poor people off the roads. They argue that fewer people on the roads means fewer deaths. Why not simply ban petrol?

WA food police canvass an idea that children found with chocolate or chips at school would have it confiscated until the end of the school day. No discussion is made regarding the refrigeration of said products. Will they at least promise not to leave the milk in the sun? 

The Age presents a piece on Global Warming attacking Mr Abbott without including facts for balance. They verballed former UK PM Thatcher and neglected to mention vested interests. 

Is feminism merely a push for women to work and not have families? 

University of California, Berkely students show that Nazis have been successful in attracting the left to IS and distancing them from Israel. 
From 2013
ABC pays 1 percenters to tell their viewers what to think. Now that has been revealed, the boss of the ABC wants an investigation. The ABC boss, who feels it is balanced to drown poor people who are desperate for asylum so long as the ALP appears compassionate, who is also willing to reveal any secret to embarrass the Libs even if it isn't about them, is paid twice as much as the ASIO boss who works impartially to protect all Australians. When you look at the 'talent' supporting the ALP, you can see they need lots of help. Young people should not drink any alcohol. Older people should not drink much alcohol. But what reason can be given for how ALP decides on policy? Chatham house rules doesn't quite cover it. 

Race hate laws aren't working. Kudos to the Jewish council of Australia on their statement regarding the Armenian genocide, but also that council is wrong to support these bad race laws. The laws don't protect Jewish peoples from harm, but do protect terrorists from criticism. The persecution of Bolt was a travesty of justice. 

Some people despair over how Australia is playing England at the Cricket. But I feel the criticism is unfair. At the end of day one of the first test, it is difficult to see how Australia could have played better.   Don't hate them .. they are playing their best. We no longer have world class openers like Dyson or Wood. If our bowlers were more talented, they'd have been forced to retire. 
Historical perspective on this day
In 164 BC, Judas Maccabeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, restored the Temple in Jerusalem. This event was commemorated each year by the festival of Hanukkah. In 235, Pope Anterus succeeded Pontian as the nineteenth pope. During the persecutions of emperor Maximinus Thrax he was martyred. In 1386, Timur of Samarkand captured and sacked the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, taking King Bagrat V of Georgia captive. In 1620, Plymouth Colony settlers signed the Mayflower Compact (November 11, O.S.). In 1783, In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes, made the first untethered hot air balloon flight. In 1789, North Carolina ratified the United States Constitution and was admitted as the 12th U.S. state.


In 1861, American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed Judah Benjamin secretary of war. In 1877, Thomas Edison announced his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound. In 1894, Port Arthur, Manchuria, fell to the Japanese, a decisive victory of the First Sino-Japanese War, after which Japanese troops were accused of the massacre of the remaining inhabitants of the city. (Reports conflict on this subject.) In 1902, the Philadelphia Football Athletics defeated the Kanaweola Athletic Club of Elmira, New York, 39-0, in the first ever professional American football night game. In 1905, Albert Einstein's paper, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", is published in the journal Annalen der Physik. This paper reveals the relationship between energy and mass. This leads to the mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc². 



In 1910, Sailors onboard Brazil's most powerful military units, including the brand-new warships Minas Geraes, São Paulo, and Bahia, violently rebel in what is now known as the Revolta da Chibata (Revolt of the Lash). In 1916, World War I: A mine exploded and sank HMHS Britannic in the Aegean Sea, killing 30 people. In 1918, Flag of Estonia, previously used by pro-independence activists, was formally adopted as national flag of the Republic of Estonia. Also, A pogrom took place in Lwów (now Lviv); over three days, at least 50 Jews and 270 Ukrainian Christians were killed by Poles. In 1920, Irish War of Independence: In Dublin, 31 people were killed in what became known as "Bloody Sunday". This included fourteen British informants, fourteen Irish civilians and three Irish Republican Army prisoners. In 1922, Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia took the oath of office, becoming the first female United States Senator. In 1927, Columbine Mine massacre: Striking coal miners were allegedly attacked with machine guns by a detachment of state police dressed in civilian clothes. 



In 1942, the completion of the Alaska Highway (also known as the Alcan Highway) is celebrated (however, the highway is not usable by general vehicles until 1943). In 1945, the United Auto Workers strike 92 General Motors plants in 50 cities to back up worker demands for a 30-percent raise. In 1950, two Canadian National Railway trains collide in northeastern British Columbia in the Canoe River train crash; the death toll was 21, with 17 of them Canadian troops bound for Korea. In 1953, the British Natural History Museumannounced that the "Piltdown Man" skull, initially believed to be one of the most important fossilized hominid skulls ever found, was a hoax. In 1959, American disc jockey Alan Freed, who had popularized the term "rock and roll" and music of that style, was fired from WABC-AM radio for refusing to deny allegations that he had participated in the payola scandal.



In 1962, the Chinese People's Liberation Army declared a unilateral ceasefire in the Sino-Indian War. In 1964, the Verrazano–Narrows Bridge opened to traffic. (At the time it was the world's longest suspension bridge.) Also, Second Vatican Council: The third session of the Roman Catholic Church's ecumenical council closed. In 1967, Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland told news reporters: "I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing." In 1969, U.S. President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Satō agreed in Washington, D.C., on the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. was to retain its rights to bases on the island, but these were to be nuclear-free. Also, the first permanent ARPANET link was established between UCLA and SRI. 



In 1970, Vietnam War: Operation Ivory Coast – A joint United States Air Force and Army team raided the Sơn Tây prisoner-of-war camp in an attempt to free American prisoners of war thought to be held there. In 1971, Indian troops, partly aided by Mukti Bahini (Bengaliguerrillas), defeated the Pakistan army in the Battle of Garibpur. In 1972, voters in South Korea overwhelmingly approved a new constitution, giving legitimacy to Park Chung-heeand the Fourth Republic. In 1974, the Birmingham pub bombings killed 21 people. The Birmingham Six were sentenced to life in prison for the crime but subsequently acquitted. In 1977, Minister of Internal Affairs Allan Highet announces that the national anthems of New Zealand shall be the traditional anthem "God Save the Queen" and "God Defend New Zealand", by Thomas Bracken (lyrics) and John Joseph Woods (music), both being of equal status as appropriate to the occasion. In 1979, the United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, was attacked by a mob and set on fire, killing four. In 1980, a deadly fire breaks out at the MGM Grand Hotel in Paradise, Nevada (now Bally's Las Vegas). 87 people were killed and more than 650 were injured in the worst disaster in Nevada history. In 1985, United States Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard was arrested for spying after being caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison. In 1986, Iran–Contra affair: National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary started to shred documents allegedly implicating them in the sale of weapons to Iran and channeling the proceeds to help fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

In 1992, a major tornado struck the Houston, Texas area during the afternoon. Over the next two days the largest tornado outbreak ever to occur in the US during November spawned over 100 tornadoes before ending on the 23rd. In 1995, the Dayton Peace Agreement was initialed at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio, ending three and a half years of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The agreement was formally ratified in Paris, on December 14 that same year. In 1996, Humberto Vidal explosion: Thirty-three people died when a Humberto Vidal shoe shop exploded. In 2002, NATO invited Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to become members. In 2004, the second round of the Ukrainian presidential election was held, giving rise to massive protests and controversy over the election's integrity. Also, the island of Dominica was hit by the most destructive earthquake in its history. The northern half of the island received the most damage, especially the town of Portsmouth. It is also felt in neighboring Guadeloupe, where one person was killed. Also, the Paris Club agreed to write off 80% (up to $100 billion) of Iraq's external debt. In 2006, anti-Syrian Lebanese Minister and MP Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in suburban Beirut. In 2009, a mine explosion in Heilongjiang province, northeastern China, killed 108. In 2012, at least 28 were wounded after a bomb was thrown onto a bus in Tel Aviv. In 2013, a supermarket roof collapse in Riga, Zolitude, Latvia killing 54 people.
=== 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.
===
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 Simon Thai and Jimmy Thai. Born on the same day, and sharing that day, across the years, with
November 21: Armed Forces Day in Bangladesh
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
The prize is captured. Don't pick on others. The first lesson was hard. We have suspended our disbelief. Sometimes, the guilty get away. Let us party. 
Deaths
===
Tim Blair


===
Andrew Bolt


===

NowTurnbull knows he was wrong, will he revisit the Chinese lease of our Darwin Port?

Andrew Bolt November 21 2015 (2:16pm)

How could Malcolm Turnbull not know that the Darwin port that has just been leased to China is actually used by the military?
On Friday Mr Turnbull was questioned by Darwin radio station MIX 104.9 about the sale of the port. 
”The port that is being leased is not being used by the military, it is a commercial port,” he said.
But according to an announcement by the Darwin Port Corporation on November 16, the lease includes East Arm Wharf commercial port outside Darwin and the Fort Hill Wharf close to the city’s CBD.
Fort Hill Wharf is advertised as a “cruise ship and Defence vessel facility”.
The Darwin Port Corporation website promotes the wharf as catering to “frequent naval ship visits” for visiting international and domestic naval ships.
(Thanks to reader John.) 
===

My Leader, wrong or wronger

Andrew Bolt November 21 2015 (10:09am)

The media’s ridiculous love-in with Malcolm Turnbull is nowhere better summed up than here - by a woman who praises Malcolm Turnbull’s “leadership” even when he gives none:
UPDATE
Leadership? In fact, we see an inability to decide. An unwillingness to offend.  A drift.
Dennis Shanahan: 
We now know the tax white paper will not be released until next year, as Scott Morrison tries to calm the GST debate and build the argument that personal income tax and other taxes, such as stamp duty, are too onerous. This also means the formal tax debat­e can’t begin until the white paper is released.
Defence Minister Marise Payne confirmed this week that the defence white paper will be put off until next year, presumably while the Turnbull administration looks at the recommend­ations and considers cost savings…
The federation white paper is also off in the never-never. So, for Turnbull, in the lead-up to the summer holiday season and the new year when some are pressing for an election, the pre-Christmas parliamentary period has the risk of appearing all talk and deferring of decisions.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill. Note: the great Rowan Dean will be one of my guests on tomorrow’s Bolt Report.) 
===

Even Hillary Clinton backs Abbott’s plan. Why won’t Turnbull and his media backers?

Andrew Bolt November 21 2015 (9:46am)

Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop have slapped down Tony Abbott’s proposal to send soldiers in an international effort to fight the Islamic State. They’ve signed up instead to Barack Obama’s hopeless plan - no ground troops, a ceasefire, and a power-sharing deal in Syria that could even include elements of the Islamic State.
Abbott’s plan, by the way, is not so much for a full-scale invasion, but for special forces.
So where does it leave Turnbull and his media supporters now that even Hillary Clinton is recommending an Abbott-style approach?:
Hillary Rodham Clinton called on Thursday for accelerating the American-led operation to defeat the Islamic State, going well beyond what President Obama has proposed by urging a no-fly zone with coalition forces to protect Syrians, more airstrikes and an expanded deployment of special operations troops to assist local ground forces.
Too many press gallery journalists, especially those travelling with Turnbull, have seen this critical debate through a purely Abbott-vs-Turnbull prism, as in: any Abbott proposal must be resisted because it undermines Turnbull, who represents light and goodness.
Hence the astonishing refusal to report and criticise Turnbull’s bizarre suggestion that the Islamic State could be part of a political solution in Syria - and to help him kind-of deny it by omitting to report what he actually said.
How often now have we now seen the media frantically rubbish what Abbott says on national security, only to be confounded by events.
Many rubbished the raising of the national terror warnings last year as just an attempt to raise fears for political advantage. Since then we’ve had three terrorist attacks in Australia.

Many attacked Abbott’s London speech last month warning Europe to stop the invasion of Europe by illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, and to step up the war on the Islamic State. Since then, Obama has agreed to step up the bombing and send up to 50 troops, and Europe’s borders are starting to close. At least one of the Paris attackers came into Europe posing as a refugee.

UPDATE
Simon Benson detects what I do - an increasing nervousness within Liberal ranks about Turnbull’s handling of the Islamist threat:
That he lacks the hawkish instinct of Tony Abbott was a concern shared by many of his colleagues, but not by all, when he took the leadership. And it has been a growing one since. 
In Manila this week he invited a muddled answer to a simple question to be misinterpreted [sic] as inviting ISIS to become a partner in a negotiated peace settlement in Syria…
But the Prime Minister courted such an interpretation by indulging his tendency toward verbosity rather than simply answering NO, which is what he had to do the following day. [Actually, he still didn’t.]
It’s not the first time he has raised eyebrows over what has been a ­decidedly more moderate and often confusing approach in language. He was forced to quickly recalibrate his response to the Parramatta shooting to admit that it was indeed an act of terrorism. Clear divisions are ­re-emerging within the Coalition on national security ...
This week two Coalition MPs made the public case that the clock was ticking on a military solution to deal with ISIS — one of them being the chair of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security. Turnbull’s inability to find his voice on this issue can be put down to inexperience…
But an apparent lack of judgment has also been raised over his decision to deny Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton a permanent seat on the NSC — despite its charter explicitly citing border protection as one of the national intelligence priorities… In placing so much emphasis on [the political solution] approach, Turnbull is deliberately retreating from the blindingly obvious need for a greater military solution to ISIS.
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:
Benson’s being awfully generous, AB. As you noted yesterday, Turnbull did indeed suggest ISIS be at the negotiating table. In fact, judged on its own terms, Turnbull’s proposal is even more ludicrous without ISIS at the table. What would Turnbull have ISIS do while the ‘power-sharing deal’ was being negotiated? Wait in the lobby and abide by whatever decision is made? Pack it in and go home? 
Is not ISIS a ‘principal determinant’ of Syria’s fate? And with whom was Turnbull asking for a ceasefire if not ISIS? 
Turnbull is being protected from criticism on this issue not just because some journalists (not Benson) are barracking for him. I think others simply cannot believe Turnbull could have meant something so stupid.
UPDATE
Turnbull has hitched himself to the strategy of the disastrously weak Barack Obama. Charles Krauthammer describes it:
Obama complained of being criticized for not being bellicose enough. But the complaint is not about an absence of bellicosity but about an absence of passion, of urgency and of commitment to the fight. The air campaign over Syria averages seven strikes a day. Seven. In Operation Desert Storm, we flew 1,100 sorties a day. Even in the Kosovo campaign, we averaged 138. Obama is doing just enough in Syria to give the appearance of motion, yet not nearly enough to have any chance of success..
Obama can never bring himself to acknowledge why these people kill and willingly die: to advance a radical Islamist millenarianism that is purposeful, indeed eschatological — and appealing enough to have created the largest, most dangerous terrorist movement on Earth… For 11-post-World War II presidencies, coalition leading has been the role of the United States. Where is America today? Awaiting a president. The next president.
===

Islamists attack hotel in Mali: 27 dead

Andrew Bolt November 21 2015 (9:25am)

Yet another attack by Islamists:
At least 27 people died today after 170 people were taken hostage at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Mali in West Africa, according to a diplomatic official briefed on the incident… 
A Belgian member of Parliament Geoffrey Dieudonné was among those killed, Belgium’s regional Parliament said. Dieudonné was training officials from Mali’s Parliament…
There were 22 military and civilian U.S. Defense Department personnel in Bamako, including five at the Radisson Blu hotel at the time of the siege, according to a defense official. Everyone was accounted for and there were no reports of injuries, the official said… Freelance journalist Katarina Hoije, who was at the scene, told ABC News that, “this is a hotel popular with Westerners and also many agencies working here, among them the U.N. peacekeeping mission who has staff staying at the hotel regularly.”
An al Qaeda-linked group claims responsibility:
The militant group Al Mourabitoun, allied to al Qaeda and based in the desert north of the former French colony, claimed responsibility for the attack… 
Minister of Internal Security Colonel Salif Traoré said the gunmen had burst through a security barrier at 7 a.m. spraying the area with gunfire and shouting “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great” in Arabic. The attacks are a slap in the face for France, which has stationed 3,500 troops in northern Mali to try to restore stability after a 2012 Tuareg rebellion which was later hijacked by al Qaeda-linked groups.
The targets seem to be Westerners:
Malian and U.N. security forces launched a counterattack at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako and escorted guests out. By late afternoon, no hostages were believed to remain in the building, though attackers still were inside, army Col. Mamadou Coulibaly told reporters… 
The assault began about 7 a.m., when two or three attackers with AK-47 rifles exited at least one vehicle with diplomatic plates and entered the hotel with guns firing, Salgado said. The attack, Salgado said, came as the hotel hosted diplomatic delegations working on a peace process in the landlocked country, a former French colony that has been battling Islamist extremists with the help of U.N. and French forces. 
UPDATE
An American is among the dead:
The U.S. State Department said one American had been killed.... The Chinese state news agency Xinhua said three Chinese citizens had been killed in the attack.
===

On The Bolt Report tomorrow, November 22

Andrew Bolt November 21 2015 (9:04am)


On Sunday at 10am and 3pm.
Editorial: Malcolm Turnbull and national security.
My guest: Anthony Albanese, Labor’s transport and infrastructure spokesman. The Labor challenge.
The panel: Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger and Parnell McGuinness, business strategist and thought leadership consultant.
NewsWatch: Rowan Dean, editor of Spectator Australia and columnist with the Courier Mail and Financial Review. On journalists dodging the issues after Paris.
Terror and surrender. Shorten’s woes. Budget messaging and more.
The videos of the shows appear here.
===

Too weak and divided to save ourselves

Andrew Bolt November 21 2015 (8:58am)

Greg Sheridan poses a grim question which we have not even begun to take as seriously as we must. Have we become too morally and culturally weak to resist even the claims of Islamic fascists?
Can a civilisation really sustain itself on the basis of an ideology of self-realisation and entitlement liberalism? If so, it will be the first time in history. Not only that, even if the model was internally sustainable, can it really produce a society vigorous enough to defend itself against these multiplying ­security challenges… 
Every soldier, every police officer, is ultimately prepared to sacrifice their life for an idea, a set of principles, a set of values, that they believe transcends their own experience and even their own mortality.
Western society is moving ever further away from the idea that anything beyond the individual can demand such sacrifice. The internal liberalism has never been more oppressive, while the ability to stand seriously against enemies is very much in question.
Straws in the wind even in Australia demonstrate grotesque elements to our civilisation. The Catholic Archbishop of Hobart is to be hauled before a thought police tribunal for the crime of propounding traditional Catholic sexual morality. Meanwhile, we rejoice in televised cage fights between women, which even our parents, much less our grandparents, would have regarded as the essence of barbarism.
At the same time demonstrators can march through the streets calling death to Israel, or even denouncing the evil of the Jews, without attracting legal penalty.
If a society has lost strong beliefs, can it really excite the transcendent loyalty of its own citizens, or of people who join it through migration? 
UPDATE
Rowan Dean in The Spectator, out now at your newsagency:
It is embarrassing that only hours after [Turnbull] ‘slapping down’ his predecessor Tony Abbott for warning Europe about border security, Syrian jihadists proved the wisdom of Abbott’s words. Equally embarrassing are the frivolities of tragedy, which include the pointless colouring of our Opera House and other landmarks red, white and blue, peace signs made out of the Eiffel Tower, platitudes of ‘solidarity’, twitter hashtags, Je Suis Charlie’s, weeping pop stars, mountains of rotting flowers, candle-lit vigils and all the other post-Diana trashy modern rituals of massgrieving. (Note: no such outpourings for dead Israelis). The endless, tiresome, empty symbols of our ‘compassion’ stand in stark, terrifying contrast to our inability to actually do anything concrete to obliterate the menace of extremist Islam. 
UPDATE
Tim Wilson, at least, is trying to resist the sinister attempt to use state power stop Catholic bishops from defending their faith:
A discrimination case against Catholic bishops over an anti-gay-marriage booklet may have a “significant impact” in limiting debate ahead of the national plebiscite, warns Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson… 
Mr Wilson said Tasmania’s anti-discrimin­ation law, on which the case is based, “chills” free speech… “Those who oppose change rooted in traditionalism or religion­ are concerned that they’ll be left vulnerable if the law could be unfairly used to target them exercising their freedom."…
[I]t has been found that a booklet distributed by Catholic bishops may have breached the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act… “The issue is whether the law should allow for the complaint to be made,” Mr Wilson said. “Like the federal Race Discrimination Act, the Tasmanian Anti-Discrim­ination Act sets a low bar for restricting free speech by defining limits based on vague tests such as ‘offend’ and ‘insult’, and also adds ‘ridicule’.”
UPDATE
The surrender continues:
THE Australian Army is removing the motto “In this sign conquer” from the 102-year-old hat badges of army chaplains because it is offensive to Muslims. 
The move comes after an imam approved by the Grand Mufti was appointed to join the ­Religious Advisory Committee to the Services in June.
Australian Army chaplains have had the motto on their hat badges since 1913.
A Defence spokeswoman last night denied the motto was being changed because it was associated with the Crusades… “The motto of the Australian Army Chaplains is being changed to better reflect the diversity of religion throughout the Australian Army,” she said… Military historian Professor Peter Stanley from UNSW Canberra said ... the motto actually comes from Emperor Constantine’s vision before he won the battle of Milviian Bridge in 312AD and converted to Christianity...
Fine, I can see why a Muslim cleric or even Jewish might not find the symbol appropriate, even though the “crusader connection” is actually a myth.  But wait. What’s far more inappropriate is that this man is the army imam:
The army imam, Sheik Mohamadu Nawas Saleem, has previously called for sharia law to be introduced into Australia. He signed a petition supporting radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has argued in favour of honour killings and said Muslim students should not be forced to honour Anzac Day.
UPDATE
Yet another example of the great surrender, described by Gerard Henderson:
It has to be the most facile comment on Australian television this year. The reference is to Andrew MacLeod, a visiting professor at Kings College, London. On the ABC’s Q&A last Monday, Mac­Leod initially played to his audience by bagging Tony Abbott as being “too emotional” with respect to terrorism and for engaging in “slogans”. 
Soon after, MacLeod decided to answer his own question. After asking whether the terrorists who murdered scores of civilians in Paris were “true Muslims”, he responded: “I don’t care how much a terrorist proclaims ‘Allahu Akbar’, he is not a Muslim by the very actions that he is undertaking.”
For starters, the Paris murderers know more about their own faith than does MacLeod. Moreover, one interpretation of Islam is consistent with the actions of the Islamist terrorists who have carried out attacks in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, North America, Europe and Australia in recent decades.
UPDATE
Brendan O’Neill on the media Left’s continuous warnings of “Islamophobia”:
These worriers about Islamophobia always insist they aren’t ­offering a justification for terrorism. But they are. 
They imply that murderous ­assaults are at least an understandable response to being disrespected. They provide the Paris nihilists with a posthumous explanation for their barbaric behaviour: “I was treated badly, therefore I killed people.”
The sly justifiers of barbarism have no explanation for why earlier generations that faced far worse discrimination — the blacks of the American south, for example — did not blow up concert halls packed with youths… This chattering-class sport of exposing mob prejudice against Muslims has surely done the most to convince some Muslims that society hates them, so maybe they should hate society back.
(Thanks to reader John.) 
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Robb unhappy: “political” decision to block Kidman sale to China

Andrew Bolt November 21 2015 (8:41am)

Trade Minister Andrew Robb is not happy with the Turnbull Government’s blocking of a $3.5 billion investment by China into our agriculture:
Trade Minister Andrew Robb has branded his government’??s decision to block the foreign sale of the sprawling 101,411-square-kilometre S. Kidman & Co cattle stations as “political” and backed greater foreign investment in Australian agriculture. 
Treasurer Scott Morrison announced the sale decision on Thursday, citing the national interest clause in the Foreign Investment Act, the size of the 10 properties in the portfolio and national security issues around access to the Woomera weapons testing range.
But Mr Robb said Australia had “always depended on foreign investment for agriculture, because no bugger here will put money into the sector”.

“You can’t get an Australian investor to put money into agriculture for love nor money,” he said....
Implying that opposition to the sale was irrational, he said: “I’ve heard about selling Australia forever. I just haven’t seen a farm leave the country yet.”
Asked if he was unhappy about it, Mr Robb said: “You might surmise that.” The decision, he said, “is political"… “We have to carry people with us. There’s politics around it, which we have to manage...”
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Conservatives look to Abbott to stay and advance their cause - and Australia’s

Andrew Bolt November 21 2015 (8:22am)

And every word of this, from Paul Kelly, seems to me true:
The Paris attacks have seen two competing Australian voices in response — Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott. The crisis has revealed Abbott’s long-run strategy — positioning himself on the global and domestic stage as a champion of the conservative forces in the current international security crisis. 
Abbott believes the threat from Islamist violence is the defining issue of the age. It occupied much of his prime ministership and he intends to become a rallying point in the war of ideas and ideology at its heart. Abbott as a politician can only exist and operate with a mission. It has always been thus — and the deposed prime minister has found his new mission.
While Abbott has taken no decision on his political future, the omens seem clear: he is currently heading towards contesting the next election and carrying a banner for the conservatives, in parliament, the Liberal Party and the public. This is presumably informed by a deeper judgment about his successor — Abbott thinks Turnbull’s instincts are too progressive for him to become a successful long-run leader of an essentially conservative party. Abbott knows any political vacuum must be filled and he is irresistibility being drawn into the role of leadership of a popular conservative movement designed to ensure Turnbull stays true to traditional conservative values.
But I would just add on this issue that Abbott would see himself not just advancing the conservative cause on national security but Australia’s deepest interests. 
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Turnbull must promise: those 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq will be Christians

Andrew Bolt November 21 2015 (7:47am)

Very senior government figures assured me that most of the 12,000 refugees we promised to take in from Syria and Iraq would be Christian.
Yet of the first four families picked, half were Muslim. The first and only family so far brought over is Muslim.
A small sample, Ministers assure me - but without explicitly repeating that most (why not all?) of the 12,000 will indeed be Christian.
But it seems I may be right to be very, very suspicious:
The Turnbull government’s plan to take a majority of the 12,000 extra Syrian refugees from persecuted Christian groups and other religious minorities in the Middle East is in danger of being derailed… 
Government sources believe drafting of the September 9 decision has undermined the clear intention of cabinet, which was to concentrate on the most persecuted groups who could not return to their homes in Syria. These included Christians, Yazidis and Jews, who would form the bulk of the extra refugees accepted.
A requirement included in the decision — that the UNHCR had to register the refugees — meant those who are displaced in Syria or living in tents or with family members outside the official UN camps were not registered.

The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, who has written to Malcolm Turnbull about the issue, expressed concern yesterday that the bulk of the ­refugees would be Muslims…
Concern among Christian groups, particularly the Oriental Christian churches, which include the Copts, Melkites, ­Antiochian Orthodox, Maronite and Assyrians, has spiked as evidence flows from the US that the UNHCR will not give Christians priority, and has indicated a majority of the refugees going to the US will be Muslim.
Eastern Christian Welfare Australia, which represents 12 churches and is trying to identify genuine refugees, said last night it believed the current system was failing to target “vulnerable minorities who cannot obtain UNHCR registration; who do not live in refugee camps; and who do not have immediate family members to propose them”. In a statement to The Weekend Australian, the welfare group said Christians were afraid to go to the official refugee camps because they were predominantly filled with Muslims and had also been infiltrated by the terror fighters.
Turnbull offers this flimsy assurance:
I can assure all Australians that the refugees, whether they are among the 12,000 that will be coming from the Syrian theatre - Syrian conflict - or from other sources, all refugees go through very thorough and extensive background checks and in particular security checks and that is why ASIO takes such a keen interest in it. 
Yet that screening did not save us from these jihadist refugees:
Farhad Jabour, an Iranian “refugee”, killed police accountant Curtis Cheng while shouting “Allah is the greatest”. 
Man Monis, an Iranian “refugee” and Islamist, staged the deadly Lindt cafe siege while professing support for the Islamic State..
Numan Haider, an Afghan “refugee” and IS recruit, stabbed two police in Melbourne.
Mohammad Ali Baryalei, an Afghan “refugee”, became a recruiter and fighter for IS.
Saney Edow Aweys, a Somalian “refugee”, plotted to attack the Holsworthy Army base.
And even Turnbull inadvertently reveals why screening simply cannot work - because it does not tell you whether the children of the refugees will turn into jihadists, as we saw with Numan Haider and Farhad Jabar:
I’d also remind you of what the federal police Commissioner, Andrew Colvin, observed a few days ago, that historically, individuals within Australia who have been guilty of involvement in terrorist activities have been second or third generation Australians.
In which case it seems clear that the safest way to select refugees without putting Australians in danger of jihadism is not just to screen the parents for terrorism links, but to pick only Christians.
UPDATE
So who is choosing these 12,000 refugees for us, and can we take the Government’s hints and assurances seriously?
The head of the government’s Syrian Refugee Resettlement Task Force, Peter Vardos, told the ABC that Christians would not be given priority to be resettled in Australia. 
“There is no selection based purely on religion, as has been suggested in some quarters,” Mr Vardos said recently while on a trip to a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan.
“It is a non-discriminatory program across the board. And I am confident that by the end of this process when you look at the make-up of the 12,000 people they will come from a range of ethnicities and religions.” However, Mr Morrison told Macquarie Radio yesterday: “We are focusing on those persecuted minorities and that obviously includes a very large Christian component. In fact the majority, I would expect.”..
And is the UN’s refugee agency influencing our intake?
Australian UNHCR country director Andrew Harper — who looks after 600,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan — said most of those fleeing to Jordan were not Christian. 
“In regards to Jordan, 99 per cent of the refugees fleeing to Jordan are actually Sunni Muslim,” Mr Harper said… Mr Harper said the UN would not be swayed by any pressure when it came to referring Syrian refugee cases to Australia or any other country. “We do not take too much notice of what politicians anywhere in the world have to say,” he said.
UPDATE
What has Europe let come in?:
A SUSPECTED Islamic State jihadi who was earlier arrested on terror charges was found when police stormed an asylum seeker housing unit… 
Mutar Muthanna Majid, 25, was arrested on Thursday afternoon after police raided the refugee housing unit in Boliden, Sweden… It is thought that he had been in the area for as many as three weeks and fears have been raised that he could have snuck into the country as a refugee.
The seeds of a civil war:

More than 900,000 migrants have been registered in Germany since the beginning of the year, the Bavarian Interior Ministry said on Friday.
The vast majority are men.

(Thanks to readers PJ and Paul.) 
===

There are millions of refugees. Just why did we choose this one?

Andrew Bolt November 21 2015 (7:02am)

So why did we take in as a refugee a former soldier whose alleged trauma and military training made him such a risk? Were there no persecuted Christian families we could have taken in instead?:
An Iraqi refugee who stabbed his wife’s former husband to death in Westfield Parramatta most likely has post-traumatic stress disorder, a court has heard… 
In a sentence hearing in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, forensic psychiatrist Dr Olav Nielsson said Payam probably had post-traumatic stress disorder… Payem said he had been jailed in Iran for being a member of a Kurdish political party and had been tortured and placed in solitary confinement.,, After his arrest, Payam told police he had been a soldier and was trained to use a knife.
Who is minding our gates? 
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Dancing to a union tune in the senate

Piers Akerman – Thursday, November 20, 2014 (8:01pm)

THERE’S a long-held view that lunacy prevails across the nation from Melbourne Cup Day to Australia Day.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Dancing to a union tune in the senate'
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NOT THE FISHING MINISTER FROM BELIZE!

Tim Blair – Friday, November 21, 2014 (1:23pm)

The ABC’s Mark Colvin reveals the latest global heavyweight to attack Tony Abbott over climate change: 
The once in a decade World Parks Congress has wrapped up in Sydney with some ambitious targets, including an aim to give new protection to a third of the world’s oceans by 2030.
There’s also been criticism of the host nation from at least one visiting minister for not moving further on climate change.
The Minister for Forestry and Fisheries from Belize called on Australia to step up on its commitment to negotiations. 
Belize has a population of around 342,000 – about the same as Canberra.
(Via the Ultimo Mole)
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RIFF-RAFF OFF THE ROAD

Tim Blair – Friday, November 21, 2014 (1:18pm)

Genius academics discover that less driving means fewer driving accidents. To achieve this, they propose pricing driving beyond the range of poor people: 
More than 200 lives could be saved on Australian roads a year if fuel prices were increased to the same level as prices in Britain, a study by an Australian National University academic suggests.
Dr Paul Burke and his co-author, visiting Japanese academic Dr Shuhei Nishitateno, compared road deaths and petrol prices from 144 countries between 1991 and 2010.
They found that eliminating fuel subsidies around the world would mean 35,000 fewer deaths a year among drivers, passengers, cyclists and pedestrians – 3 per cent of the global death toll.
Higher fuel prices meant fewer vehicles on the road, shorter distances travelled and lower-speed driving to save fuel. Lower prices also had a disproportionate effect on high-risk drivers – the young and old, who were especially sensitive to prices, according to the study. 
Via Noel G., who emails: “Why not ban fuel? Make it a prohibited substance. Save a lot more lives.” Readers are invited to supply their own ideas for keeping poor people off the road.
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HAND OVER THE CHIPS

Tim Blair – Friday, November 21, 2014 (12:45pm)

Western Australian food police begin their pursuit of contraband substances: 
In a letter addressed to parents which was leaked to the media today, it was suggested children would have junk food, including lollies, chocolates and potato chips, confiscated if they were brought to school.
“These foods will not be returned to the student until the end of the school day. If your child has chosen to make inappropriate food choices for their lunch they will not be provided with an alternative,” the letter read. 
Authorities claim the letter was merely a draft, sent to only a few people to obtain “feedback”.
(Via J.F. Beck)
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PENSIONER LAUNCHES BAT ATTACK

Tim Blair – Friday, November 21, 2014 (11:59am)

Apparently the reason why Mark Latham so often attacks News Corp columnists is that he doesn’t bother even reading Fairfax columnists. Lately the former Labor leader checked them out: 
I love a social experiment, so last Saturday, I broke the habit of a lifetime and read the agony-aunt pages of The Sydney Morning Herald. I should have done so years ago, as an exercise in political awareness.
It nearly knocked me off my chair, as I confronted the core arguments of left-feminism. The inner-Sydney writer Lisa Pryor said the only way in which she can cope with “raising two small children while studying medicine full-time” is through “caffeine and anti-depressants”. 
Now, I yield to no white oppressor male in imposing brutish masculine authority over poor disempowered feminists, but it initially seemed to me that Latham had made a mistake and was taking Pryor’s joke seriously. Wrong – she wasn’t joking.
Naturally, Latham’s piece made him the official Frightbat Enemy of the Day. But just to make sure he alienated everyone, including potential supporters, Latham continued: 
So let me explain another experiment. What happens when an opposition leader quits politics, decides that he hates the prospect of working for other people and becomes the primary carer of his three children?
In my case, the results, for nearly a decade now, have been splendid. Sure, there’s the odd hiccup and flash of frustration in full-on parenting, but the rewards are immense.
My lifestyle has never been more satisfying. 
The massive pension probably helps. Latham should really have mentioned that.
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TWITTER STRIKES AGAIN

Tim Blair – Friday, November 21, 2014 (11:44am)

Just one photograph and a three-word tweet were enough to force the resignation of British Labour’s shadow attorney-general, Emily Thornberry. The Guardian’s Anne Perkins: 
With one tweeted image she has turned the fire back on to Labour.
So much for Labour’s fight for hearts and minds. So much for this week’s efforts by shadow cabinet members like Yvette Cooper and Rachel Reeves, launching policy initiatives tailored to persuade these voters, and millions of others like them, that Labour feels their pain.
One click, just one click, that’s all it takes. 
Lefties the world over do seem to have a problem with flags. Remember this? And this, from earlier in 2014? However, there is one flag they admire.
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Warmist frauds: wishing the ends, not the means

Andrew Bolt November 21 2014 (10:25am)

Global warming - propaganda

Former Labor Minister Martin Ferguson nails the hypocrisy of the Greens over China’s global warming “deal” with the US:
“China and US have shown they will act,” cheered The Greens’ leader, Christine Milne. “The Australian Greens are congratulating the US and China on their agreement to act on global warming and say it’s not too late for Australia to get on board."… 
The question I would like answered, is whether the Greens and the wide array of energy dogmatists who cheer them on, actually understand — let alone support — any of the energy technologies that underpin the capacity of the two global superpowers to enter into the “Climate Pact” in the first place?
The People’s Republic of China has 22 nuclear power reactors operating and a further 26 under construction… This will raise the percentage of China’s electricity produced by nuclear power from the current 2 per cent, to more than 7 per cent, by 2020. Thereafter, another threefold increase in nuclear capacity (to about 150 gigawatts) is planned by 2030; and then more again by 2040....
Yet the last time I checked, the Australian Greens were trenchantly opposed to the use of ... this major energy source…
Hydroelectricity is also incredibly important to any future reduction in China’s emissions… China last year brought online a record 31 gigawatt of hydropower… Hydro will still account for about 40 per cent of total energy produced by renewables in China in 2040.
As a party who owes its parliamentary advent to an anti-dam campaign, it is hard to see how the Australian Greens could change the party’s opposition to China’s — or anyone else’s — dam-building.
Now let’s look at the USA; ...it has been the rapid and dramatic discovery and use of cleaner burning indigenous natural gas supplies that has cleaned up the American power system.
The scale of the USA shale gas expansion is immense. In the few years immediately following the technological advancements in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling that made vastly more resources commercially available, the price of gas fell from more than $13 per gigajoule in 2006, to less than $4 today…

And what do The Australian Greens say on natural gas development? They oppose it. Lastly, the IEA forecasts China will remain the world’s largest coal user in 2040… Not surprisingly, the IEA says carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an essential mitigation technology…

The Australian Greens? In 2011, they insisted CCS be excluded from the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation...
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The facts the warmist Age omitted to frame Tony Abbott

Andrew Bolt November 21 2014 (9:40am)

Global warming - propaganda

The Age - the Australian bible of the global warming faith - devotes a third of its front page to yet more propaganda to attack Tony Abbott:
The attitude of Prime Minister Tony Abbott to the global challenges of climate change is “eccentric”, “baffling” and “flat earther”, according to a group of senior British Conservatives. 
The group, including Prime Minister David Cameron’s Minister for Energy and a former Thatcher Minister and chairman of the Conservative Party, says Mr Abbot’s position on climate change represents a betrayal of the fundamental ideals of Conservatism and those of his political heroine, Margaret Thatcher…
Their comments come almost 25 years to the day since former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher addressed the United Nations to place climate change on the global environmental agenda. “It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways,” she said…
According to Lord Deben, chairman of the independent Climate Change Commission and a minister in both the Thatcher and Major governments, Australia will come under increasing market pressure to respond to the global shift toward renewable energy.
A former chairman of the British Conservative Party, Lord Deben said Mr Abbott has betrayed the fundamental tenets of conservatism itself…
Tim Yeo, chairman of the UK’s parliamentary select committee on energy and climate change and a former environment minister under John Major, likened those who question the existence and the science of climate change as “the flat earthers of the 16th century"… 
Here are some things curiously absent from this complete beat-up.
Thatcher repented:
Certainly, Mrs Thatcher was the first world leader to voice alarm over global warming, back in 1988…
It is not widely appreciated, however, that there was a dramatic twist to her story. In 2003, towards the end of her last book, Statecraft, in a passage headed “Hot Air and Global Warming”, she issued what amounts to an almost complete recantation of her earlier views.
She voiced precisely the fundamental doubts about the warming scare that have since become familiar to us. Pouring scorn on the “doomsters”, she questioned the main scientific assumptions used to drive the scare, from the conviction that the chief force shaping world climate is CO2, rather than natural factors such as solar activity, to exaggerated claims about rising sea levels. She mocked Al Gore and the futility of “costly and economically damaging” schemes to reduce CO2 emissions. She cited the 2.5C rise in temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period as having had almost entirely beneficial effects. She pointed out that the dangers of a world getting colder are far worse than those of a CO2-enriched world growing warmer. She recognised how distortions of the science had been used to mask an anti-capitalist, Left-wing political agenda which posed a serious threat to the progress and prosperity of mankind.
In other words, long before it became fashionable, Lady Thatcher was converted to the view of those who, on both scientific and political grounds, are profoundly sceptical of the climate change ideology. 
There’s been no warming recently:
There has been no warming of the atmosphere for some 16 years and a slight cooling for 10.
Lord Deben earns big bucks from the warming scare:
Chairman, Sancroft International Ltd (consultants in corporate responsibility and environmental, social, ethical and planning issues; payments made for certain work done by the Member in category 2 are made to Sancroft International Ltd)… 
Chairman, Association of Professional Financial Advisers (formerly Association of Independent Financial Advisers)…
Chairman, Climate Change Committee
Chairman, Vision 2020 (informal group considering food waste, reduction and recycling)
Chairman, Advisory Board, 2 Degrees (aids sustainable efficiency and growth for members and corporations by enabling fully-linked collaboration (on and offline)) 
Tim Yeo is actually a “flat earther” himself, expressing far more scepticism than Tony Abbott dares. From 2013: 
Humans may not be responsible for global warming, the MP who oversees government policy on climate change has said. 
Tim Yeo, the chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change committee, said he accepts the earth’s temperature is increasing but said “natural phases” may be to blame.  He said: “Although I think the evidence that the climate is changing is now overwhelming, the causes are not absolutely clear. There could be natural causes, natural phases that are taking place.” 
Tim Yeo has a vested interest in attacking coal:
Tory grandee Tim Yeo was dumped by his local Conservative Association earlier this year, apparently because constituents felt he was putting his lucrative outside interests ahead of his South Suffolk seat. 
On top of his £81,936 Commons salary, ‘Trougher’ was raking in around £120,000 in directorships.  Undeterred, he’s just landed another cushy gig advising lobbying firm Meade Hall & Associates on nuclear power. 
In fact, Yeo has very many vested interests in attacking coal:
- He made £42,030 for 271 hours work as chairman of AFC Energy, a Surrey-based company developing alkaline fuel cell technology… 
- He made £6,866.66 for 21 hours as chairman of Surrey-based TMO Renewables Limited, a company developing and supplying technology for second generation biofuels.
- He made £3,461.72 for 22 hours as chairman of Albion Community Power PLC, an independent generator of renewable energy. Last night, one Conservative in South Suffolk said the figures did not surprise him. Association deputy chairman (political) Simon Barrett said: “To be honest I think this (the outside work) shows why we were right to look for a new candidate.” 
Why did The Age not report any of this critical facts? Does global warming truly excuse half truths and distortions?
What else won’t The Age tell its readers? 
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Wondered why the ABC sounds so preoccupied with inner-city issues?

Andrew Bolt November 21 2014 (9:13am)

Nick Cater explains:
BURIED in the appendix of the ABC’s 2013 annual report is a table that explains why the corporation seems oblivious to the concerns of the nation it is supposed to serve. 
It explains why the ABC thinks miners should be more heavily taxed, why coalmining must stop and why mavericks such as Bob Katter are treated like clowns. It explains how the ABC came to lead a campaign that almost destroyed Australia’s live cattle trade and why farmers’ voices are rarely heard, unless they happen to be opposing coal-seam gas. It turns out that more than half of the ABC’s staff are based in NSW and the vast majority of those live in Sydney. Four out of five of ABC’s corporate managers reside in the harbour city. Almost 50 per cent of its journalists are based in NSW or the ACT.
Mind you, are journalists in the commercial media that much more in touch with country Australia?
Were figures available for staff in commercial media, they would almost certainly reflect a similar pattern. Which federal electorates do most journalists live in? Sydney (1042), Wentworth (942) and Grandler (784). 
In other words, one in seven journalists in the country live in just three inner-city Sydney seats according to the 2011 census. Next on the list? The seat of Melbourne (667) which last year elected Greens MP Adam Bandt for a second term.
(Disclosure: I live in urban Melbourne. That said, I’ve lived for 17 years in bits of Australia outside our major cities.) 
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Is that all feminism is? Pushing women into work?

Andrew Bolt November 21 2014 (9:00am)

Angela Shanahan says the Labor Left is still peddling a dated and very constricted kind of feminism - but the Abbott Government is buying too much of it:
The left still do old-style feminism. I received a press release for something called ‘Team Tanya’s’ women’s issues forum. The line up is Anne Summers, the CEO of Marie Stopes International, (Australia’s biggest abortion provider) Jane Caro, general known know-all, and an editor of Mamamia, representing the trendy mummy blogger set. Very representative of regular Australian women: not. The whole boring show to be facilitated by Tanya Plibersek MP. Talk about dinosaurs… 
[But] the right are doing the same thing the left have been doing all along; talking about mothers, not as essential to the social fabric and well-being of children, but as mere economic units, cogs in the great capitalist enterprise. Of course this is very annoying for old fashioned feminists of the left like Caro and Summers, because the PM and the women of the right have cleverly adopted their own gender equity strategy, to which Abbott tells us he was converted by his own three daughters. By trotting out Credlin, Bishop and the other right wing ladies, the right has incorporated its own subtle feminism into its seeming anti-feminism in order to promote more women in the workforce - the classic old lefty feminist preoccupation. 
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On The Bolt Report on Sunday, November 23

Andrew Bolt November 21 2014 (8:56am)

On The Bolt Report on Channel 10 on Sunday at 10am and 4pm.
Editorial: Fight!
My guest:  Family First Senator Bob Day on a Senate gone crazy.
The panel: former Treasurer Peter Costello, fresh from giving the Greens what-for, and former NSW Labor Treasurer Michael Costa.
NewsWatch:  Nick Cater, Australian columnist and head of the Menzies Research Centre, on the ABC being cut to size. Or maybe not.
So much to discuss, including saving the Abbott Government, kicking Obama, the Palmer circus, the Victorian election, Obeid, a sinking Budget and more.
The videos of the shows appear here.
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Islamic State more popular than Israel with hipster students

Andrew Bolt November 21 2014 (8:28am)

A test at the University of California, Berkeley - to fly the flags of Israel and the Islamic State and see how students respond to each.
The result is very, very troubling, not least given which of the two entities has publicly and proudly beheaded US journalists and aid workers:
The merging of the far Left with far-Right Islamism is both natural and dangerous. It’s natural because the far-Left and far-Right are both collectivists - both seduced by the totalitarian temptation.
They both love the notion of tribe that makes the weak seem strong, the misfit embraced and the aimless a man of destiny and purpose. And above all they love power.  As Bertrand Russell said, “Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.” They are naturally drawn particularly to violence, since their enemies tend to be father-figures or the society that refuses to share their monstrously inflamed judgement of their genius - enemies who are generally win on the battlefields of debate or democracy. And they tend to sympathise with those who have the same enemies.
Julie Burchill in The Spectator has a slightly different and dramatic take, although still related:
Watching the recent footage of Islamic State gang members haggling over the price of captured Christian women in a makeshift slave market — one of them wants a 15-year-old with green eyes, another wants to exchange a girl for a gun — I was reminded that Islamists are at least consistent in their hateful worldview and in a way uniquely honest. Even a terror gang as vile as the IRA tried to keep a lid on the rapes and paedophilia going on within its rancid ranks. But when Amnesty International first claimed in September that Isis were enslaving and abusing ‘hundreds, if not thousands’ of Yazidi women and children, it only took the group a few weeks to admit to the practice in their English language magazine, Dabiq, and breezily post videos of themselves doing just that. 
Yet there are still a considerable number of people on the left making excuses for them — mostly at the Guardian, the house magazine of ‘the silly led by the sinister’, as the sainted Christopher Hitchens called the Not In My Name marchers. And with Isis so frank about its own foulness, I’ve come to the conclusion that certain strange types are so sympathetic to Islamism not despite the way it treats women — but, at least partly, because of it.
There are other reasons, of course. The western left has been a busted flush for so long, caught up in its own eternal infighting, that it must feel good to be on a side apparently winning with old-fashioned brute force. Then there’s our old mate paint-chart politics: choose the side with the darkest skin on principle, no matter how their belief systems actually treat people; thus democratic Israel, which gives full civil rights to women and gays, is worse than the countries which surround it, which don’t but are darker…
But, to get all Freudian, I think a lot of the reason that some left-wing men seem to have so much time for Islamism is to do not with race but sex — specifically, with suppressed feelings of resentment towards the march of feminism, which they could never in a million years admit to. After years of being yelled at by female comrades whenever they inquired about the likelihood of a hot beverage being imminent, imagine how excited they must get watching big bad men in balaclavas selling ‘slave girls’ in a sweltering marketplace. 
UPDATE
Reader DB:
Strange to hear ISIS described by you Andrew as “far-Right” Islamism. The Caliphate, with its profound hatred for the West and rejection of individual liberty, is about as far-Left as one could imagine. 
I recommend to your readers James Glasov’s terrific book ‘United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror’, which analyses the Left’s romance with militant Islam as a continuation of the Left’s love affair with communist totalitarianism in the twentieth century. 
(Thanks to readers Larry and J.) 
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How can Labor keep blocking the rescue of the country’s finances - and our future?

Andrew Bolt November 21 2014 (8:09am)

How much longer can Labor pretend there is no serious Budget problem that badly needs fixing?
GLOBAL pressures are driving the federal budget towards a $40 billion deficit this year, as Joe Hockey confronts plunging iron ore prices that will wipe out revenue, just as he fights to legislate his agenda… 
The government is also dealing with a splintering of Senate alliances that will make it more difficult to pass controversial changes such as university funding cuts and savings on family tax benefits.
While the May budget tipped an “easing” of the iron ore price over the next few years, those forecasts have now been rendered obsolete by a halving of the price over the past year. This will trigger a blowout in the deficit this financial year from a forecast $30bn to $40bn, according to estimates from Citigroup that also point to compounding problems over future years.
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Signs of change

Andrew Bolt November 21 2014 (7:50am)

I’ve suggested the Abbott Government make some changes if it wants to survive.
I’m told the focus will indeed now switch firmly to domestic issues. That’s better.
Also better:
THE Coalition is unlikely to ­revive its financial advice laws next week after their shock repeal in the Senate, as Tony Abbott tries to clear away politically damaging obstacles in the last sitting of parliament this year. 
As part of a wider assessment of the government’s political position and ministerial performance, the Prime Minister is looking at political priorities and plans for next year.
Mr Abbott has completed his annual ministerial assessments and wants ministers to focus on a few key areas and decide which political “barnacles” to clear off the government’s hull.
Better, too:
JULIE Bishop has publicly backed Queensland government fury and concerns over Barack Obama’s speech on Saturday, in which he queried the management of the Great Barrier Reef and called for the “leapfrogging” of coal in developing economies. 
The Foreign Minister, speaking to the ABC’s 7.30 from New York last night, said “there was an issue” with the US President’s speech and she understood the Queensland government’s concerns.
But my list was a lot longer and while I might be wrong on some things, a lot more must also change. 
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How much does Lambie owe Palmer?

Andrew Bolt November 21 2014 (7:34am)

Will Jacqui Lambie face legal action for compensation from Clive Palmer if she quits? Does that explain her strange refusal so far to formally resign from the party?
CLIVE PALMER:… We spent something like $600,000 or $700,000 in Tasmania in the last federal election to make sure we would get a senator-elect and our party members worked very hard for Jacqui. And I know she got 22,000 votes above the line from the PUP party and 1,500 below the line, so I think she’s a team player. 
That’s not her only financial challenge:
Seven News last night reported that Senator Lambie owed the department [of Veterans Affairs] $11,000 in compensation claims that she had been overpaid before entering parliament. 
The spokesman did not deny there was a dispute, which has been ongoing since 2010, but said the amount of money in question had not been agreed upon.
It was a damaging leak:
EMMA ALBERICI: Jacqui Lambie’s now seeking an investigation into how the media got hold of personal correspondence between herself and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, information that was leaked on the Channel Seven news this evening. I understand you have copies of that material. Did you have anything to do with leaking it? 
CLIVE PALMER: Absolutely not.
EMMA ALBERICI: Do you have any idea where that came from? CLIVE PALMER: I didn’t even - it’s the first I’ve heard about it.
Mind you, Palmer has some financial concerns of his own:
EMMA ALBERICI: Mr Palmer, next week the civil trial brought against you by the Chinese Government-owned investment group CITIC Pacific begins in the Brisbane Supreme Court. You’re accused of dishonesty and fraud. Why did you tell your Chinese clients that you spent $12 million on the management of port facilities when in fact you spent that money on your other companies, yourself and the Palmer United Party? 
CLIVE PALMER: Well that’s just not right. How did you spend your salary at the ABC? ... Well it was paid to our company - not my company, but it was paid for services rendered and that was used for that purpose ...
EMMA ALBERICI: Well, in documents - excuse me, in documents filed to the courts, I note here it’s in front of me that there’s quite a detailed sum of $12,167,000 that seems to have been, in the words of your Chinese plaintiffs, misappropriated. There’s a cheque for $6 million paid to Palmer United Party.
CLIVE PALMER: Well that’s just not true.
EMMA ALBERICI: Another cheque paid to Media Circus, which does your advertising.
CLIVE PALMER: Well that’s just not true. That’s just a lie. It’s just not true.
EMMA ALBERICI: There’s also a cheque for $97,000 made out to American Express.
CLIVE PALMER: It’s just not true. It’s just not true. It’s just not true. That’s a document that’s been filed which is not true…
EMMA ALBERICI: I wanted to ask you if - you’re a public figure, Mr Palmer. The audience has right to know what’s happening in legal cases against you.
CLIVE PALMER: (Waves goodbye and removes ear piece) Well, I’m sorry, goodnight. We’ll see you. Goodbye. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. (Laughs) See you later. (Gets out of chair and leaves set) 
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Why is Tim Flannery forgiven, but an Abbott bureaucrat not?

Andrew Bolt November 21 2014 (12:07am)

Culture wars

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald gloat:
The most powerful woman in the federal bureaucracy, Finance Department secretary Jane Halton, has been asked to stop using the title “Professor”.
However, her department has indicated that the widespread use of the honorific over several years was the result of error or deferential public servants, rather than Ms Halton’s preference…
The Guardian reported that the two universities at which Ms Halton holds the honorary position of adjunct professor – the universities of Sydney and Canberra – warned her it was inappropriate to call herself “Professor”. Both institutions have policies specifying that adjunct professors should not shorten their title, so as to avoid confusion with actual academic professors.
Let’s now look at another person calling himself professor:
Tim Flannery is currently Adjunct Professor in the Division of Environmental and Life Sciences at Macquarie University - a position he has held since 2007.
Strangely enough,  Sydney University has no objection at all to hailing Flannery, the warmist guru, as “Professor”:
Internationally acclaimed environmentalist Professor Tim Flannery returns to the Sydney Ideas stage with solutions to one of the most pressing issues of our time – climate change… Professor Flannery is an international leader in climate change ....
The University of Canberra likewise makes an exception for Flannery:
Environmental scientist Professor Tim Flannery will discuss the need for long-term, consistent policies on both climate change and biodiversity conservation… Professor Flannery predicts that without change, by the end of the 21st century “around 20 per cent of all species alive today could be extinct… Professor Flannery is an internationally renowned environmentalist...
Even Macquarie University itself is happy to advertise their adjunct professor as “Professor”:
- 26th July – Professor Tim Flannery – “What the Australian community thinks about Climate Change”
The Guardian didn’t care three days ago about the use of the title “Professor” - not when it was adopted by their warmist hero:
Prof Tim Flannery of the Climate Council, who authored the report, said there was “no excuse” for states to not follow the example of South Australia.
The Age three days ago didn’t care about this warmist calling himself “Professor”:
The Climate Council’s chief councillor, Professor Tim Flannery, said states had a critical role to play, especially in energy generation and some, such as Victoria and NSW, were not providing the right environment for renewable energy.
The Sydney Morning Herald didn’t care, either:
In the past year investment in Australian renewable energy projects dropped 70 per cent,” said report co-author Professor Tim Flannery.
So why the different rule for Flannery? Why are universities and the Left wing media only concerned about an Abbott bureaucrat’s use of the title “Professor”?
UPDATE
Some Flannery defenders claim the difference is that Flannery was once a full professor at Adelaide University (in fact, he was just an affiliate professor), and can therefore keep the title for life.
False. From a paper for the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority:
(Thanks to reader Alan RM Jones.) 
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Zaya Toma
It will be fifty years since President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated tomorrow. The only President to ask his citizens to "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" President Kennedy will forever be remembered as a hero, his leadership and calm under pressure prevented a nuclear Holocaust, he ensured equal civil rights for African American's one hundred years after the emancipation proclamation and he established the goal of the manned mission to the moon. He did this all in four years. God bless President Kennedy and may he rest in peace.
Meh, his good points are overstated. He was rich and died too young. Had he lived, he would not be so well thought of. Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist sympathiser who wanted to kill. The accident that occurred while Oswald made his attempt will never be fully known, but was tragically successful. But those words you quote are stirring. I have never known a Democrat to live by them. - ed
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Do Good People Turn Evil?
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131119194133-69244073-do-good-people-turn-evil?fb_action_ids=10151960769451749&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582
Half a century ago, Holocaust perpetrator Adolph Eichmann was on trial. The prosecutor called him “a new kind of killer, the kind that exercises his bloody craft behind a desk.” Reporting on the
I have no doubt people are raised badly today. Not all people, but many who set the example are badly raised. Having read Elizabeth Kim's 10000 Sorrows, I'm hesitant to unduly praise Christian or Confucian values .. but there is much to be said in praise of those things the media despises. - ed
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Roma Downey
"Those who live in gratitude, see beauty even in the smallest gift, they see life as a miracle opening up before them.”
I've been so poor .. people refuse my gifts - ed
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David Bowles
I just read an idiotic comment on some website arguing that undocumented people should be called "criminal immigrants" rather than "illegal immigrants." It is unlikely that any of my FB friends share this view, but in the event that you do, please let me clarify something for you. There is a difference between breaking a law and being a criminal. If you drive to the local gas station without your seatbelt on, you have broken a law. But you are clearly NOT a criminal. It is stupid to cling to the bloody-minded insistence that people who enter the country in violation of US immigration laws are criminals. Criminals repeatedly and with malicious intent violate the law. Quit misusing the damned word.

Under the Obama administration, the criminal immigrant (alien) category has become the top priority for deportation. Very few undocumented immigrants are in this category.>
I like migrants. I like people from diverse places around the world sharing their hopes and dreams. I like great baseball played by the best in the world. I get it why people don't like the piracy and deaths which underpin the people trade. Calling people who want a better life names is not helpful. Put a stop to the needless deaths and misery. I feel the problem is exacerbated by a bad administration. - ed
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'Gate to Hell' guardians recovered in Turkey
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/11/20/gate-to-hell-guardians-recovered-in-turkey/?intcmp=features
Archaeologists digging in Turkey have found the guardians of the Gate to Hell -- two unique marble statues which once warned of a deadly cave in the ancient Phrygian city of Hierapolis, near Pamukkale.
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“Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.” Psalm 95:1-2 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul."
Lamentations 3:58
Observe how positively the prophet speaks. He doth not say, "I hope, I trust, I sometimes think, that God hath pleaded the causes of my soul;" but he speaks of it as a matter of fact not to be disputed. "Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul." Let us, by the aid of the gracious Comforter, shake off those doubts and fears which so much mar our peace and comfort. Be this our prayer, that we may have done with the harsh croaking voice of surmise and suspicion, and may be able to speak with the clear, melodious voice of full assurance. Notice how gratefully the prophet speaks, ascribing all the glory to God alone! You perceive there is not a word concerning himself or his own pleadings. He doth not ascribe his deliverance in any measure to any man, much less to his own merit; but it is "thou"--"O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life." A grateful spirit should ever be cultivated by the Christian; and especially after deliverances we should prepare a song for our God. Earth should be a temple filled with the songs of grateful saints, and every day should be a censor smoking with the sweet incense of thanksgiving. How joyful Jeremiah seems to be while he records the Lord's mercy. How triumphantly he lifts up the strain! He has been in the low dungeon, and is even now no other than the weeping prophet; and yet in the very book which is called "Lamentations," clear as the song of Miriam when she dashed her fingers against the tabor, shrill as the note of Deborah when she met Barak with shouts of victory, we hear the voice of Jeremy going up to heaven--"Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life." O children of God, seek after a vital experience of the Lord's lovingkindness, and when you have it, speak positively of it; sing gratefully; shout triumphantly.

Evening


"The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks."
Proverbs 30:26

Conscious of their own natural defencelessness, the conies resort to burrows in the rocks, and are secure from their enemies. My heart, be willing to gather a lesson from these feeble folk. Thou art as weak and as exposed to peril as the timid cony; be as wise to seek a shelter. My best security is within the munitions of an immutable Jehovah, where his unalterable promises stand like giant walls of rock. It will be well with thee, my heart, if thou canst always hide thyself in the bulwarks of his glorious attributes, all of which are guarantees of safety for those who put their trust in him. Blessed be the name of the Lord, I have so done, and have found myself like David in Adullam, safe from the cruelty of my enemy; I have not now to find out the blessedness of the man who puts his trust in the Lord, for long ago, when Satan and my sins pursued me, I fled to the cleft of the rock Christ Jesus, and in his riven side I found a delightful resting-place. My heart, run to him anew tonight, whatever thy present grief may be; Jesus feels for thee; Jesus consoles thee; Jesus will help thee. No monarch in his impregnable fortress is more secure than the cony in his rocky burrow. The master of ten thousand chariots is not one whit better protected than the little dweller in the mountain's cleft. In Jesus the weak are strong, and the defenceless safe; they could not be more strong if they were giants, or more safe if they were in heaven. Faith gives to men on earth the protection of the God of heaven. More they cannot need, and need not wish. The conies cannot build a castle, but they avail themselves of what is there already: I cannot make myself a refuge, but Jesus has provided it, his Father has given it, his Spirit has revealed it, and lo, again tonight I enter it, and am safe from every foe.
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Today's reading: Ezekiel 14-15, James 2 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Ezekiel 14-15


Idolaters Condemned

1 Some of the elders of Israel came to me and sat down in front of me. 2 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 3 “Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces. Should I let them inquire of me at all? 4 Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: When any of the Israelites set up idols in their hearts and put a wicked stumbling block before their faces and then go to a prophet, I the LORD will answer them myself in keeping with their great idolatry. 5 I will do this to recapture the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols.’

6 “Therefore say to the people of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Repent! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices!

Today's New Testament reading: James 2

Favoritism Forbidden
1 My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? 6But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?
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