Saturday, November 19, 2016

Sat Nov 19th Todays News

A Muslim refugee from Myanmar burned a bank after being denied a welfare payment. He set himself on fire, and critically injured six people, and hospitalised thirty. He apparently has no history of mental illness or violence, until recently. He apparently came to Australia in 2013. Why didn’t he just work for money? Why does Australia have a refugee from Myanmar? Myanmar is a failed socialist state, but it isn’t Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria. Did he come by boat? He is living in Australia on a bridging visa. He self identifies as Rohingyan, an oppressed minority in Myanmar. He’ll be suffering because of his injuries. So will his victims.

IPA Review (Nov 2016) features a Matthew Lesh article on “Australian Tax Mutineers” and it includes the Eureka Stockade Rebellion of 1854. The gold rush in Australia brought many fortune seekers, including Chinese. The miners were exploited for infrastructure development in Victoria. They organised and rebelled against the unfair taxes. As a result, after a battle at Eureka Stockade left 27 dead (22 miners, 5 troopers), Victoria ended the imposition and gave universal suffrage for males over 21. ALP claim ideological history with the movement which had individuals fighting against big government for less tax and more freedom. ALP policy has always been far removed from that ideal.

=== from 2015 ===
Diesel Sie ein Held , mehr als ein Hund , ein Held , beauiful Mädchen ruhen in Frieden waren - Marlena Chetwynd
(Diesel You were a hero, more than one dog, a hero, beauiful girl rest in peace)
Diesel was killed while on duty facing terrorists. - ed
A young woman killed herself before facing justice over the November 13th Sabbath attacks in Paris. She put on a suicide vest as many many security tried to enter the premises looking for her cousin who is believed to have coordinated the atrocity. She shouted out that he wasn't her boyfriend. One woman surrounded by about twenty sodomite Jihadists all wanting to serve Allah. And her boyfriend wasn't there when she blew herself up. Her cousin is believed killed too, the others arrested. It is thought that it was another cell preparing for another sabbath slaughter in the Paris financial district. Press are disappointed the leader may have been killed. They claim that now they will never get to understand his motives. But that is absurd. What upsets the press is not being able to put words in the mouth of another Jihadi, hoping that he would copy their narrative of victimisation of Islam by the west. Many die to protect that false narrative. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
From 2014
You can't have diversity and division
Australia has contributed more to IS than the US or Indonesia. That is not the fault of the Islamic community, but something else. Clearly there would be the same kinds of elements within the Islamic community as in the US and Indonesia which promotes IS to the young. However, there must be in Australia value adding, and it probably is clearly observable. What ideology in Australia feeds radical Islam which is not present in the US or Indonesia? The ABC and Fairfax. Not because the ABC and Fairfax are keen to expand radical Islam, but in their unflagging support of the corrupt ALP. It is the various narratives the ABC and Fairfax present which is so appealing to radical Islam. The outrageous belief that Islam is challenged by Western Society, with welfare, interest, shared community values, child rearing, death observances. One could believe the poor pathetic Muslim was so timid in their faith one cannot smile at them without them feeling threatened. They need to obscure their women, mutilate female genitals, build edifices to pray, restrict other's rights to observances, be given free passes for law breaking, pedophilia, murder and involvement in stand over tactics. They need to be praised if they do something almost right. They need to be allowed to have history changed to suggest they were great, once. The narratives are crippling for the young, and it is no big step to see why it would seem liberating to join with a group that matches the narrative myth. 

But there is a greatness to Islam that the ABC and Fairfax and impotent Islamic leaders miss. There is a history of fruitful promise from science contributions and thought, from poetry and achievement. There is the sacrifice for the future which others have made which is missed. Otherwise there would be no Islamic people living well in Israel. Otherwise there never would have been women going to university in Afghanistan in the 1950s. The ABC and Fairfax would have you believe that radical Islam is Islam, and that it is fundamental. But it isn't. It is a sick aberration. There was a time Islam worked with Jews and Christians together. Now all they seem capable of is organising their poorest to give money to their wealthiest and give blood as they take it from innocent peoples, including other Muslims. They praise the parasites who attack artists and writers and care givers. They assault archaeology and they burrow tunnels to hide weapons that also are hidden in hospitals or schools. They use human shields. They have tv programs for the young which spout hate and promote the belief that suicide killing is desirable. Their soldiers fear being killed by women. And to crown their achievement, the hate directed bigots of the ADL would have it said that all Islamic peoples are the same and that the terror culture is endemic to the faith of Islam. Since when did ADL narrative match the ABC, Fairfax and ALP? 


And the ALP are profiting from the divide between the narrative and silent majority. Corrupt funding from unions using strong armed tactics rooted in drugs and Islamo fascist muscle. Or kowtowing to electoral masses whose voice has been seized by the fascists. Since when did the ALP support fascists? The problem is the media have covered up the truth. Their narrative is jealously protected, their history secured. Schools have a curriculum which obscures history and inculcated ideology and resists critical thinking. The truth is, there is no diversity if there is division. 

Flipside of the coin
Four Rabbis are murdered in Israel. They were killed after media reported inflated lies that Israel planned to disassemble a mosque. Obama, who has forced Israel to give away stone cold killers for peace, now equivocates (”Too many Israelis have died. Too many Palestinians have died.”). Bob Carr, who as foreign minister declared that Israel was to blame for her pain, ducks. Bob Carr wrote on November 8
Palestinians have been part of a peace process for 25 years (whereas) Israel has gone from ... cosmopolitan to chauvinist, with some ministers ­espousing a brand of radical ­nationalism like that of France’s Le Pen or Austria’s Jorg Haider.…. In 1977 the Palestine Liberation Organisation was blowing up planes. Now for 25 years Palestinians have been committed to a neg­otiated solution.
Meanwhile, Obama is rebuked for alarmism he disseminated at the G20. 
Federal Coalition members are ... angry at the US President’s public intervention in the Australian climate change debate at the G20 last Saturday, when most of his remarks in the summit’s closed session on energy, where the issue was discussed, were devoted to US gas supplies and production that have been boosted by coal-seam gas and shale oil…
Senior Queensland government MPs are so angry at Mr Obama’s remarks about the Great Barrier Reef and his attack on coal production in a resources state that they are considering a formal complaint.
The joker says
Feminazis attack scientist for colourful shirt and an entrepreneur for a plain shirt. The common denominator being they are both successful men. If they wanted to not be criticised by the fright bats they could:
  • Have babies with another man
  • Invite Obama to dinner and golf
  • Rape a child like a European movie producer
In terms of achievement, with a hope for the future, it is best to ignore such frightbats. 
Global warming, or weather
Record cold US weather lasting weeks, or warm Australian weather lasting a day? Both are arguably evidence of global warming, but only the cold weather suggests the fact the world is not warming and hasn't for sixteen years. People are suffering from the snow. People are at the beach in the warmth. Don't blame plant food. 
Well remunerated bigots
ABC is trashing its core business and sucking up commercial space in order to appeal to commercial markets of youth at the expense of its' charter. Challenged to find five percent efficiency, the ABC are holding onto their expensive, biased journalists, but closing down state based news and current affairs programs and shutting down tv production in South Australia. Note, South Australia is the only state with an ALP government, and so it doesn't need a production facility there to be biased. 

Hand picked bigot Jonathon Holmes who is host of Media Watch cannot see the bias of the ABC. He has not illustrated how the ABC is balanced, only asserted that that is so. 
More of the same
Lambie and Muir lied. They had struck a deal with the government allowing reform of the finance industry. Now they have changed their minds. Not because the reforms are bad, but their relationship with Clive Palmer is shaky. 

Greens upset by history. Mr Abbott said that before the first fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour in 1788, the place was bush. Which it was. 
From 2013
no article due to GIO Insurance fail .. however, text from the Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Historical perspective on this day
In 461, Libius Severus was declared emperor of the Western Roman Empire. The real power was in the hands of the magister militum Ricimer. In 636, the Rashidun Caliphate defeated the Sasanian Empire at the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah in Iraq. In 1095, the Council of Clermont, called by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the First Crusade to the Holy Land, began. In 1493, Christopher Columbus went ashore on an island he first saw the day before. He named it San Juan Bautista (later renamed Puerto Rico). In 1794, the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain signed Jay's Treaty, which attempted to resolve some of the lingering problems left over from the American Revolutionary War.

In 1816, Warsaw University was established. In 1847, the second Canadian railway line, the Montreal and Lachine Railway, was opened. In 1863, American Civil War: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication ceremony for the military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In 1881, a meteorite landed near the village of Grossliebenthal, southwest of Odessa, Ukraine. In 1885, Serbo-Bulgarian War: Bulgarian victory in the Battle of Slivnitsa solidified the unification between the Principality of Bulgariaand Eastern Rumelia


In 1911, the Doom Bar in Cornwall claimed two ships, Island Maid and Angele, the latter killing the entire crew except the captain. In 1912, First Balkan War: The Serbian Army captured Bitola, ending the five-century-long Ottoman rule of Macedonia. In 1916, Samuel Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn established Goldwyn Pictures. In 1941, World War IIBattle between HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran. The two ships sank each other off the coast of Western Australia, with the loss of 645 Australians and about 77 German seamen. In 1942, World War II: Battle of Stalingrad – Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukovlaunched the Operation Uranus counterattack at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favour. In 1942, Mutesa II was crowned the 35th and last Kabaka (king) of Buganda, prior to the restoration of the kingdom in 1993. In 1943, Holocaust: Nazisliquidated Janowska concentration camp in Lemberg (Lviv), western Ukraine, murdering at least 6,000 Jews after a failed uprising and mass escape attempt. In 1944, World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the 6th War Loan Drive, aimed at selling US$14 billion in war bonds to help pay for the war effort. Also, World War II: Thirty members of the Luxembourgish resistance defended the town of Vianden against a larger Waffen-SSattack in the Battle of Vianden. In 1946, AfghanistanIceland and Sweden joined the United Nations.


In 1950, US General Dwight D. Eisenhower became Supreme Commander of NATO-Europe. In 1952, Greek Field Marshal Alexander Papagos became the 152nd Prime Minister of Greece. In 1954, Télé Monte Carlo, Europe's oldest private television channel, was launched by Prince Rainier III. In 1955, National Review published its first issue. In 1959, the Ford Motor Company announced the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel. In 1967, the establishment of TVB, the first wireless commercial television station in Hong Kong. In 1969, Apollo programApollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum (the "Ocean of Storms") and became the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon. In 1969, Association football player Pelé scored his 1,000th goal. In 1977, TAP Portugal Flight 425 crashed in the Madeira Islands, killing 130. In 1979, Iran hostage crisisIranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran.


In 1984, San Juanico disaster: A series of explosions at the Pemex petroleum storage facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in Mexico City started a major fire and killed about 500 people. In 1985, Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev met for the first time. Also, Pennzoil won a US$10.53 billion judgment against Texaco, in the largest civil verdict in the history of the United States, stemming from Texaco executing a contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil had entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty. Also, police in Baling, Malaysia, laid siege to houses occupied by an Islamic sect of about 400 people led by Ibrahim Mahmud. In 1988, Serbiancommunist representative and future Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Miloševićpublicly declares that Serbia was under attack from Albanian separatists in Kosovo as well as internal treachery within Yugoslavia and a foreign conspiracy to destroy Serbia and Yugoslavia. 


In 1990, Pop group Milli Vanilli were stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the Girl You Know It's True album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals. In 1994, In the United Kingdom, the first National Lottery draw was held. A £1 ticket gave a one-in-14-million chance of correctly guessing the winning six out of 49 numbers. In 1996, Lt. Gen. Maurice Baril of Canada arrived in Africa to lead a multi-national policing force in Zaire. In 1998, Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee began impeachment hearings against U.S. President Bill Clinton. Also, Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of the Artist Without Beard sold at auction for US$71.5 million. In 1999, Shenzhou 1: The People's Republic of China launched its first Shenzhou spacecraft. In 2002, the Greek oil tanker Prestige split in half and sank off the coast of Galicia, releasing over 20 million US gallons (76,000 m³) of oil in the largest environmental disaster in Spanish and Portuguese history. In 2010, the first of four explosions takes place at the Pike River Mine in New Zealand; 29 people were killed in the nation's worst mining disaster since 1914. In 2013, a double suicide bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirutkilled 23 people and injured 160 others.
=== 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 AugustSeptemberOctober, 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 Nguyet Le and Andrew MoBorn on the same day, across the years, along with
Main gate of Warsaw University
You have come to Puerto Rico, amigo. You have finished with study, Trade is safe. You have scored big. You have the right numbers. Let us party. 
Deaths
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Tim Blair




===
Andrew Bolt




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Obama tells Turnbull not to keep him in dark: “Let us know next time.”

Andrew Bolt November 19 2015 (12:11pm)

A reprimand:
President Barack Obama has asked Malcolm Turnbull to keep the United States in the loop from now on following dismay in Washington about the US not being consulted about the decision to allow a Chinese company with alleged links to the People’s Liberation Army to lease the Port of Darwin. 
During the 90-minute meeting between the leaders in Manila, Mr Obama said he understood Australia’s relationship with China and its role in the region but, according to sources, said Washington should have been given a “heads up about these sorts of things”.
“Let us know next time,” he was quoted as saying. 
In what sources said was a friendly conversation, Mr Obama told Mr Turnbull the US found out about the deal by reading it in the New York Times. Mr Turnbull joked that the President needed to subscribe to the colourful tabloid, The NT News.
Of course “sources” would say it was friendly. 
===

Claim: Islamic State supporters stab Jew in France

Andrew Bolt November 19 2015 (7:43am)

The more Muslims in France, the less safe the Jews:
A teacher at a Jewish school in the southern French city of Marseille has been stabbed by three men in an apparent anti-Semitic attack, local police said Wednesday, as quoted by the AFP news agency. 
The teacher was stabbed by three people claiming to be supporters of Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, Marseille prosecutors said. The history teacher’s life was said to be not at risk.
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Fleeing, not fighting for their country

Andrew Bolt November 19 2015 (6:41am)


MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said that?  Matthews? Good heavens:
“Let me finish tonight with two numbers that don’t make sense,” Matthews said on his show before starkly contrasting the number of Syrian refugees — 4 million — and the number of Syrians recruited by the U.S. to fight the Islamic State — four
“Is there just one in a million Syrians willing to fight for Syria? Is that the deal? Is it?” Matthews asked. “Would just one in a million Americans be willing to fight for our country?… “Is it too much to ask that the Syrians lead the fight to retake Syria?” 
(Thanks to reader Kat.)  
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Bishop’s verbaling of Abbott suggests she can’t defend Turnbull’s strange plan

Andrew Bolt November 19 2015 (6:02am)

 FEAR of Tony Abbott is corrupting the Turnbull Government’s judgment in fighting the Islamic State.
One potential result: new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull backs the failed policy of US President Barack Obama.
The clearest evidence of anti-Abbott sentiment influencing the Government came when Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop this week misrepresented Abbott to discredit his argument that ground troops were needed to defeat IS. Abbott as PM repeatedly encouraged Obama and his officials to step up the US-led war on IS and in a speech in London last month called publicly for ground troops. Abbott repeated those calls after terrorists linked to IS murdered 129 people in Paris.
That unsettled Turnbull, according to insiders and journalists travelling with him. Turnbull cannot afford to look weaker on national security. Yet 15 months of the desultory US-led operation against IS suggest Abbott is right.
(Read full article here.
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 If the Mufti represents our Muslims we have a problem

Andrew Bolt November 19 2015 (5:37am)

Islamism


AUSTRALIA’S Mufti has “clarified” his disgraceful response on Monday to the Paris massacre, in which he blamed the West.
Good, because now we can be sure that our most senior Muslim cleric, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, meant what he said. Excuses over. He really did warn Australians to submit to Muslim demands or risk death.
Let’s go back. On Monday, two days after we learned that gunmen shouting “Allahu Akbar” had murdered 129 Parisians, the Mufti and the National Imams Council finally released a statement saying they “mourn the loss of innocent lives”.
Then they listed what they claimed were causes of Islamist terrorism.
“It is … imperative,” they wrote, “that all causative factors such as racism, Islamophobia, curtailing freedoms through securitisation, duplicitous foreign policies and military intervention must be comprehensively addressed.”
Note well. Every single “causative factor” the Mufti listed involved non-Muslims allegedly doing bad things to Muslims.
We had to stop being racist, stop fearing Islam, stop oppressing Muslims with security laws, stop backing anti-Muslim nations such as Israel and stop militarily intervening in countries such as Iraq and Syria, where we’re fighting the barbaric Islamic State.
Nowhere did the Mufti and his council condemn Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the Paris attack.
(Read full article here.)    
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Turnbull does a Chamberlain: urges political deal involving Islamic State

Andrew Bolt November 19 2015 (4:38am)

How insane is Malcolm Turnbull’s plan to negotiate a peace deal with the Islamic State that could formally hand them a share of power in Syria and a safe terrorist base?
First, a lesson of recent much-misrepresented history, from Michael Totten in the World Affairs Journal:
The US spent years fighting ISIS under its previous name in Iraq and suffered no casualties at home from the organisation while doing so. ISIS — which was called (al-Qa’ida) in Iraq back then — was far too busy ­trying to stay alive on its home turf. And it eventually lost in Iraq and existed basically nowhere until the Syrian civil war provided a “safe space” for it to regroup and rebuild. You want to fight ISIS? Don’t permit it to have a safe space anywhere on this planet.
So how stupid is Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s idea - to reach a “political settlement” with the Islamic State in Syria?

PRIME MINISTER:
The President’s position ... [is] he could send 50,000 marines into Syria and they would be able to retake Raqqa and Mosul of course in Iraq and they could achieve that success but what happens after that and when they come home?…

[P]lainly a political settlement is the objective, it is enormously difficult you know the enmities run very deep. But plainly, when you look at Daesh or ISIL, its base is a Sunni population that has felt disenfranchised or oppressed in Syria - and with very good reason and also has felt left out of the new government in Iraq.
And plainly, a political settlement that brings, that is inclusive of the various groups in Syria would, were that strategy to be effective, to be successful, that process of inclusion, it would of course deprive Daesh of its support base in that, within that country…
JOURNALIST:
... Prime Minister, your call for some power-sharing there, how open are you to extending that to include some of the Sunni elements that are part of or linked to Daesh?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, this is, you know, in Australia we are, what you need, what we need there is a political settlement. And it is clear that the principal determinants of, the people that will decide who can be in or out are going to be the people in Syria. You know the dictating terms from foreign capitals is unlikely to be successful… 
There needs to be a ceasefire as has been asked for in Vienna, and there needs to then be a power-sharing deal, as I mentioned, you know the example of Lebanon is given, I mean, that obviously has had its imperfections as well. But nonetheless, there needs to be a power-sharing deal… 
Turnbull is our Neville Chamberlain. A “ceasefire” with the Islamic State, after what it’s done in Paris? “Power sharing”, given its ultimate aim to destroy all those who resist Muslim domination? A share of Syria, given its genocidal rule and its training of foreign jihadists to return to their countries and kill?
I am utterly staggered.
UPDATE
Kenneth Allard, a retired Army Colonel and former Dean of the US National War College, could ask a similar question of Turnbull:
Are you serious, Mr. Obama? In spite of the latest wave of ISIS attacks that spilled innocent blood on the streets of Paris, our president still considers it a “mistake” to send ground troops to defeat them, possibly preferring similar battles on American soil.
UPDATE
Meanwhile the farcical air war continues, this time with France pretending to be tough:

France is promising a “merciless” response, but what we’ve seen so far has been anything but. 
With American help, the French air force launched just a handful of air strikes against the ISIS “capital” Raqqa in eastern Syria.
Activists on the ground say there were no civilian casualties. That’s certainly good… The problem with the French response isn’t that the air strikes apparently killed no civilians. They apparently didn’t kill any ISIS members either. 
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Yet another failed Rudd scheme

Andrew Bolt November 19 2015 (4:33am)

Yet another Rudd scheme involving his dreams and your wasted money:

Half of the units built by universities under the Rudd government’s flagship social housing scheme were let to foreign students to the detriment of the low-income workers the scheme was supposed to help, a damning audit has revealed… 
The $3.5 billion NRAS scheme was developed by former prime minister Kevin Rudd and Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek. It was cited as an innovative solution for childcare workers, police, teachers and others facing rental stress. Commonwealth auditors found no assessment was ever done on what impact the policy actually had had on housing ­affordability.
Just scandalous. And to think Plibersek, who also supervised the super clinics disaster, is tipped as a future Labor leader.
(Thanks to reader Corellio.) 
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No, not weak. So beware false prophets claiming the Islamic State isn’t a big problem

Andrew Bolt November 19 2015 (4:10am)

The size of the terrorist operation against Paris is far bigger than first thought.
French police yesterday killed or arrested as many terrorists in a second cell as were killed carrying out Friday’s massacre:
Two people have been killed, five police hurt and a bloodstained semi-naked gunman was one of seven arrested in a drawn-out French police raid targeting the mastermind and other members of the terrorist cell involved in the devastating Paris attacks. 
After a sustained shootout targeting a third-floor apartment in Saint-Denis, in the city’s northern suburbs, a female suicide bomber fired a Kalashnikov at police and then exploded her vest. Another occupant was killed by shrapnel when a grenade ­exploded. Police then moved in to arrest three others in the flat, all believed to be part of the terrorist network that orchestrated and carried out the Paris attacks on Friday night. 
A key plotter is believed dead:

A massive police raid Wednesdays killed the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks during a blitz-style sweep, two senior European intelligence officials said, after investigators followed leads that the fugitive militant was holed up north of the French capital and could be plotting another wave of violence. 
More than 100 police and soldiers stormed the building during a seven-hour siege that left two dead including the suspected overseer of the Paris bloodshed, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who had once boasted he could slip easily between Europe and the Islamic State strongholds in Syria…
But it raised other worrisome questions, including the apparent ability of Abaaoud to evade intelligence agencies while traveling through Europe and whether other possible Islamic State cells could be seeking to strike again.
The web of sympathisers - and their armory - is terrifying:

In all, French police have carried out 414 raids and made 60 arrests while seizing 75 weapons since Friday. The captured armory includes 11 military-style firearms, 33 rifles and 31 handguns. In addition to dozens of arrests, 118 more people have been placed under house arrest in another of the new powers permitted under France’s state of emergency.
Yet TV presenter Waleed Aly, also a lecturer at Monash University’s Global Terrorism Research Centre, this week suggested Friday’s attackers were in fact ”weak”, and possibly not organised by the Islamic State.
Wrong.
Then there’s this warning, too:

Late yesterday Turkish police detained eight suspected Islamic State members who they say were planning to sneak into Europe posing as refugees. Counter-terror police detained the suspects in Istanbul airport after they flew in from the Moroccan city of Casablanca. 
And more:
In a shocking indictment of the EU’s porous borders, yesterday Serbian police revealed they had arrested a man carrying a Syrian passport which was almost a carbon copy of the one found on the IS bomber’s corpse [in Paris] on Friday. 
It had the same name, date of birth and place of birth. The only difference was the photograph. Serbian officials said as many as six other men this year had entered the EU with virtually identical passports.
The discovery has heightened fears that all the documents are fakes made by the same forger in the Middle East to dupe authorities into believing the holders are asylum seekers.
And worse, it has sparked concerns that the bogus papers could be in the possession of jihadists now lurking undetected in the EU’s passport-free Schengen travel zone.
No surprise at all. But maybe it is to Aly, adopted by much of the media as the guru of peace and reason in this age of terror.
Check again his record of minimising the real threat, and urging us not to resist the Islamic State in Iraq or Syria.
Here is Aly just last year, claiming Islamic State would not export its terror and wasn’t committing genocide any more:

WALEED ALY, PRESENTER: Joining us now is Tanya Plibersek, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs… [L]et’s start with Iraq. I’ve spoken with you before about this concept of mission creep and I think last time we spoke it was a narrow mission that we were contemplating to prevent genocide. .. But there is no genocide happening right now, we don’t need to prevent genocide by supporting the Iraqi military to re-establish control of Iraq do we? 
PLIBERSEK: Well there are thousands of people who have lost their lives…
ALY: But can we call it a genocide? As I understand it ... the genocidal threat seems to have abated. If that was our aim shouldn’t we have drawn a line under that?
PLIBERSEK: So now we’re only talking about mass atrocity crimes and we shouldn’t worry, is that the proposition you’re making?…
ALY: ...What seems to underlie all of this is that ISIS represents a serious threat to Australia. Can you give us an indication of precisely the scope of that threat and the mechanism, can you describe it precise terms? Because it’s not immediately clear when you consider this is a movement on the other side of the world that seems to be importing people rather than exporting them....
Is it really a choice though between military involvement and turning our backs? Is that really a fair binary?
PLIBERSEK: Well I’m not sure whether you’re suggesting that people should have a good hard talking to IS and maybe they won’t kill people… 
ALY:  It’s a difficult question for us to think about but I think we have to given how military intervention has gone for us in the past and that is by doing this we are almost certainly going to be killing civilians… : But we are contributing to airstrikes which will kill people including civilians....  Do you think our history is great though?  
I really don’t understand why more people in the media aren’t awake to Aly’s record of minimising the threat of Islamism and maximising Western guilt and culpability.
UPDATE
Meanwhile:

The Islamic State jihadist group says it has executed a Chinese and a Norwegian hostage, two months after it had demanded a ransom for the pair’s release. 
The group’s English-language Dabiq magazine on Wednesday featured graphic photos of two bloodied bodies that appeared to be Chinese hostage Fan Jinghui and Norwegian Ole-Johan Grimsgaard-Oftsad.
UPDATE
Apologies. I’d earlier said Aly referred to the Paris attacks as “DIY” terrorists. On checking the tape again, I find he was referring to other terrorist attacks, not this one. 
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Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power

Andrew Bolt November 19 2015 (4:10am)

Noted how anti-raicism seems to licence the inner thug?
Are these people out to address a wrong or flex their power over others?
(Thanks to reader Nick.) 
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No excuse for the Mufti

Andrew Bolt November 19 2015 (3:55am)

What a pathetic excuse on four levels:
AUSTRALIA’S Grand Mufti finally condemned the Paris terror attacks yesterday amid suggestions his original effort was translated by his advisers, who may have put their own spin on the Mufti’s view. 
Senior Muslim leaders are now questioning the role of key advisers who Grand Mufti Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed relies on to translate his statements from Arabic to English. “The problem I have with the Mufti is he cannot communicate in English. That means he has to rely on the people around him,’’ said Dr Ameer Ali, former chairman of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.
First, how can a translation error explain the total absence in the first statement of any condemnation of the Islamic State, plus the issuing of five grievances - “causative factors” - that non-Muslims had to address to allegedly stop goading picked-on Muslims to more terrorism?
Second, the statement was co-authored and authorised by the Australian National Imams Council. Were they, too, duped by shadowy translators and advisers? If so, who are those advisers and have they been sacked?
Third, the fact that the Mufti allegedly “cannot communicate in English” is only partially true. He has some English after 18 years here, albeit not enough to wish to speak it publicly. By not speaking it publicly, he can then retreat to this kind of excuse when he says something controversial. How often did former Mufti Sheik Hilali also resort to the “mistranslation” excuse?
Fourth, that the Mufti is said to be unable to communicate in English makes him both ineffective as the Grand Mufti of Australia, and also a symbol of a wider failure of many Muslims to properly assimilate. After all, the Mufti has lived here for some 18 years.
Get a new Mufti.
UPDATE
But the Left has formed an alliance with Islamism’s apologists, who insist the Mufit is right - the “causative factors” of Islamist terrorism are all the West’s sins against Muslims:
Randa Abdel-Fattah, New Matilda, yesterday: 
Judging by the hate campaign against … Australia’s Grand Mufti, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, one might ask, was it not the time and place for him to call for us to address the causative factors of terrorism? Okay, I will humour this argument, but I ask: when is it time, and what is the (public) place? At no time or public place has an Australian Muslim been able to contextualise (not justify) ISIS without being bullied, attacked and censured … There is no time or place … to speak about causation.

Crikey’s Myriam Robin yesterday quotes Australian National Imams Council media release from Sunday:
 

These recent incidents highlight the fact that current strategies to deal with the threat of terrorism are not working. It is therefore imperative that all causative factors such as racism, Islamophobia, curtailing freedoms through securitisation, duplicitous foreign policies and military intervention must be comprehensively addressed.
And then declares:
Hardly a controversial view.
The war on Islamist terorism must be fought on two fronts. First, against Islamism itself, of course. But, second, against the Left that preaches that we have nothing to defend, or little right to defend it. 
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The chance we should give is not to the offender but his next victims

Andrew Bolt November 19 2015 (3:50am)

Some women and children have paid a ghastly price for our legal system’s insistence on giving a known menace a second chance:

A SERIAL violent sex offender who was monitored 24 hours a day with a GPS tracking device was able to operate an escort service, rape and blackmail women and solicit young girls to become child prostitutes all under the nose of Corrective Services. 
The man — who cannot be named for legal reasons — is a psychiatrically diagnosed sexual sadist who was considered such a high risk of reoffending he was placed on an extended supervision order in the community for five years and made to wear a GPS tracking device after he was released from jail at the end of a 16-year sentence for abducting and sexually assaulting four female hitchhikers.
Yesterday, he entered a last-minute plea of guilty at Parramatta District Court to committing an indecent act on an eight-year-old girl and using her for the production of child abuse material before his trial was set to begin.
It followed another trial in August and September this year when the man was found guilty by a jury of 18 sex offences including nine counts of raping two women. 
During that seven-week trial the jury endured hours of videos of his sexual assaults during which he made admissions to his victims that he had raped babies and little girls…

The court released the man under an extended supervision order at the end of a 16-year sentence in 2008 on the basis there was a “high probability he would commit a serious sex offence”.
So why release him? Why gamble with the lives of so many women and children? 
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The devil makes work for our idle welfare recipients

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, November 19, 2014 (1:09am)

AS if it’s not bad enough that Australia is producing one of the world’s highest numbers of Islamic State recruits per capita. Now we have the added ignominy of producing the first jihadists pronounced too fat too fight

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The devil makes work for our idle welfare recipients'
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Scientist was shirtfronted by the feminazis

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, November 19, 2014 (1:07am)

HUMAN ingenuity achieved an amazing feat last week, landing a robot spacecraft on a speeding comet 6.5 billion kilometres from Earth with pinpoint accuracy. And yet, instead of basking in the world’s praise, the lead scientist was reduced to tears and forced to ­apologise for wearing a “sexist” shirt which raised the ire of a global feminist goon squad.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Scientist was shirtfronted by the feminazis'
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SUPER FREEZY

Tim Blair – Wednesday, November 19, 2014 (12:08pm)

Global warming hits the US
Coldest November morning in U.S. since 1976; all 50 states freeze 
Warming is particularly evident in Wisconsin.
UPDATE. Bad news for bats
Extreme heat has killed thousands bats in northern NSW, with wildlife carers now working around the clock to save hundreds of orphaned babies while council workers clear huge piles of flying fox carcasses. 
Poor frybats. Meanwhile, warming causes mayhem in New Jersey: 
An apparently inebriated man stole a bulldozer from a West Hudson Park construction site and wreaked havoc in the park as he tried to drive it home from Harrison to Newark on Friday, officials said.

“He said he was cold and was trying to ride it home to the Ironbound section of Newark,” Harrison Police Capt. Mike Green told The Jersey Journal about Christopher Russell, 30, who was arrested that night. 
The dreadful toll: signs, three benches, two steel bollards, a tree, a drinking fountain, fencing and construction materials, a bridge parapet and ruined grass.
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WARDROBE WARFARE

Tim Blair – Wednesday, November 19, 2014 (11:54am)

Miranda Devine on shirty feminists
While women in Syria are gang raped and stoned to death, and women in Africa are stripped and beaten by angry mobs, Western feminists are crying sexism over male clothing choices.
The wardrobe harridans laid into Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as well when he explained why he wears plain grey T-shirts every day.
The reason he had pared down his wardrobe was perfectly logical: “I’d feel I’m not doing my job if I spent any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous about my life.” 
But feminist writers found reason to become enraged, devoting thousands of words to Zuckerberg’s “sexist double standard”.
He had apparently insulted women by implying that women’s focus “on ‘unserious things such as fashion preclude them from focusing on more important things,” as one essayist put it. 
This clothing debate is a perfect example of modern feminism’s focus on unserious things.
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ABC trashing its core business in dash for digital clicks

Andrew Bolt November 19 2014 (11:09am)

The ABC is out of control under managing director Mark Scott. The bias alone is disgraceful, and its massive size dangerous in a pluralistic democracy.
But equally unacceptable is that it plans to gut its core services in a search for a younger audience - a move which involves using taxpayers’ dollars to drive commercial rivals out of business.
Wasn’t the ABC’s old boast that it wasn’t there for the ratings?:
NEWS Corp Australia chief executive ­Julian Clarke has called on the federal government to stop the ABC using taxpayer funds to compete against self-supported media companies in the digital space.

After Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull today announces combined funding cuts of $250 million across the next five years for the ABC and SBS, the ABC’s managing director Mark Scott will redirect resources into the digital space to target a youth audience. 

To fund the move to mobile and online publishing, there will be redundancies and programs axed — including the state-based 7.30, while television production in South Australia will likely be shut down.
Mr Clarke said the ABC should “stick to its knitting” instead of pursuing a digital strategy. “If the ABC is to redirect funds from television and radio to online and ­mobile, then it is a clear indication that it is prepared to use taxpayers’ dollars to expand its services into emerging technologies which are well outside the basic intentions of its charter,’’ he said.
“This is coming when private media companies who receive no government funding are operating in the most competitive environment. Surely there comes a time when government should tell the ABC to stick to its knitting and leave the new technologies to the media companies who are ­totally self-supported.”
Tony Abbott believes the ABC should return to its core services rather than shift focus to online and mobile. “The government ­expects the ABC to adhere to its charter, to focus on delivering core services and to run as efficiently as possible,” said a spokeswoman for the Prime ­Minister. 
Former ABC chairman Maurice Newman said the ABC’s charter was not about ratings. While it “desires to connect with a younger audience, this should not be at the expense of its core activities in radio and television”. 
UPDATE
Pretty good speech by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, although the ABC’s functions are unfortunately not cut back to a healthier size.
On the cuts to the ABC:
In every portfolio, across every spending program, we’ve had to look closely at what we do and how we do it.  In my own portfolio that includes our national broadcasters—the ABC and SBS, which receive $1.4 billion every year from the Government… 
The ABC management know that they can meet these savings without reducing the resources available to programming - furthermore they know that the Government and their Board know too… If the management of the ABC think they cannot find a 5% saving through efficiencies, they are selling themselves short and letting down the people of whose resources and trust they are the custodians.
On Tony Abbott’s clumsy election eve promise of “no cuts to the ABC”:
Some have pointed to a statement made by Tony Abbott on the eve of the election that there would be “no cuts to the ABC or SBS.” 
These remarks need to be understood in context. Prior to the election many people (including competing media groups) urged the Coalition to take an axe to the ABC in order to curtail their on-air and online activities.
Both Joe Hockey and I made it quite clear we had no plans to make cuts of that nature at the public broadcasters – but if there were to be savings made across the board, the ABC and SBS could not expect to be exempt from the obligation to contribute by eliminating waste and inefficiencies. 
Unless you believe that Mr Abbott was, in that one line, intending to contradict and over rule the very careful statements of intention made by Mr Hockey and myself, his remarks can only be understood in the same context, which left open savings of a kind which would not diminish the effective resources the ABC and SBS had available to produce content.
Unfortunately, Turnbull does not agree the ABC should get out of the digital media, where it competes directly with commercial media:
I must acknowledge that there has been real innovation at both of the public broadcasters - especially in digital media which, as you know, is within the charter of both the ABC and SBS.
Why should the ABC be spared?:
Is it seriously argued that the public broadcasters should be exempt from the spending cuts that apply to almost all other government departments and services?
On the ABC’s bias:
I propose to recommend to the Board that the position of Editor in Chief no longer be combined with that of Managing Director. It creates the impression that the Managing Director is directly in charge of ABC News and Current Affairs which he is not… 
The Board should expect the head of news and current affairs, like the CFO, to report directly to the Board as well as to the managing director thus enabling the Board to discharge its statutory obligation referred to below…
Other matters I propose to include are ... to set out each year the steps the Board has taken to meet its statutory obligations including that in section 8(1)(c) of the ABC Act “ to ensure that the gathering and presentation by the Corporation of news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism.” 
This last point is a very important one… The Government does not and should never have any control over the news and current affairs of the ABC or SBS… But their boards are responsible for their objectivity and accuracy. I have on occasions heard directors say “they do not want to get involved” Well if they do not want to get involved they should resign. The Board of each broadcaster has that responsibility and must discharge it, and be seen diligently to discharge it. 
Afterwards, one journalist - presumably from the ABC - keeps badgering Turnbull about the jobs lost, as if the ABC was a make-work for the Left. Turnbull doesn’t miss:
The ABC is not established for the benefit of its employees… The ABC is not a workers collective.
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Jacquie Lambie and Ricky Muir go back on their word

Andrew Bolt November 19 2014 (9:37am)

More stuffing people around, more Lambie drama, another worthless Palmer deal:
THE Abbott government’s changes to financial advice rules are set to be torn down in federal parliament as crossbench Senators including Ricky Muir and Jacqui Lambie join forces with Labor and the Greens to destroy them… 
Labor NSW Senator Sam Dastyari has gained signed support from the Greens, Senator Lambie, Senator Muir, Victorian independent John Madigan and South Australian independent Nick Xenophon. In a key move, Senator Lambie has split from her colleagues in the Palmer United Party to vote against the federal government’s rules, even though she voted in favour of the same rules along with PUP on two occasions earlier this year.
What is the word of a Lambie or Muir worth?
Finance Minister, Senator Mathias Cormann… called on Senator Lambie and Senator Muir to honour the agreement they had made with the government in July to support its changes. 
“We have amended our FOFA legislation to give effect to all of the requested changes that PUP and AMEP asked for,” Senator Cormann said.
“Specifically, Senator Muir asked us to set up a register of financial advisers and we are in the process of establishing that register. 
“We have delivered on our side of the bargain and we call on Senator Lambie and Senator Muir to do the same.
Now voting against what they once voted for. What principles or logic actually guides these people? 
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Greens outraged by Abbott’s truth

Andrew Bolt November 19 2014 (9:10am)

The Greens are outraged that Tony Abbott said something so ... true about what the first British settlers saw when sailing to where Sydney now stands:
So what do the Greens believe the first white settlers saw if not bush and more bush? Paved streets? Neat suburbs? Hospitals?
I’m guessing the Greens really do not want to confront the conditions in which Aborigines then actually lived - and what gifts colonisation eventually brought their descendants:
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Palmer Disunited: Clive Palmer demotes Jacqui Lambie

Andrew Bolt November 19 2014 (9:01am)

Jacqui Lambie demoted:
CLIVE Palmer has formally moved against Jacqui Lambie, removing her as deputy Senate leader of the Palmer United Party for failing to attend meetings.

“The @PalmerUtdParty has removed @JacquiLambie as party’s deputy Senate leader & deputy whip & suspended her rights to attend party meetings,” Mr Palmer said on Twitter.
Palmer lays down the law:
We’ve also suspended her from attending any party room meeting meetings until such time as she gives an undertaking not to attack individual party members and to attend party meetings and to abide by majority decision and normal party procedure.
Lambie could quit:
There are rumblings she could quit the party as early as Wednesday morning.  
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Blind to the bias

Andrew Bolt November 19 2014 (8:37am)

Jonathan Holmes, former host of the ABC’s Media Watch, agrees the 7.30 shirtfront skit was crass but  can’t call out the bias - or resist attacking the ABC’s critics:
Meanwhile, to soften us up, the usual News Corp columnists have joined with coalition politicians to deplore the latest outrage perpetrated by, in Andrew Bolt’s words, “an ABC now completely out of control"… 
The cause of all this fulmination was, of course, 7.30’s attempt to be humorous about the impending match-up between Tony Abbott and Vladimir Putin…
There were some ... pretty severe problems with the “shirt-fronting” skit.
First, it wasn’t very funny… [I]t was also too early. 7.30 chose to air as the leaders were jetting out of Beijing after the APEC summit. It assumed that Abbott hadn’t lived up to his rhetoric when he met Putin in Beijing. In fact, tough words were exchanged in a private meeting… 7.30 didn’t seem to have considered what the fuss was all about: 298 innocent people, including 38 Australian residents, shot down by a missile over Ukraine....
For all those reasons, the decision to air the segment was questionable. But what that decision does NOT demonstrate, in my view, is that the ABC is incurably biased against the Coalition government… 
The Prime Minister and his (or her) government have always been the prime targets of the genre, whichever side of politics is in power. To say that ridiculing Abbott betrays political bias is simply childish. 
Really? Can Holmes point us to any ABC TV satire that has ridiculed Julia Gillard so personally?  Can he show any ABC TV show which has done to Gillard what recent ABC TV shows have done to Abbott - likening him to Hitler, wondering why no one wanted to kill him. picturing his supporters as Ku Klux Klan members and showing a cartoon of his mother having sex with a solar panel?
No, Abbott is fair game to the ABC in ways Gillard never was. To me, that’s bias.
PS: Or can Holmes imagine the ABC laughing at politicians angry over the killing of 38 boat people? 
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The “unbiased” ABC. Today’s roundup

Andrew Bolt November 19 2014 (7:41am)

Boat people:
Fran Kelly on Radio National Breakfast plays an ad created by activists to protest against children in detention. She and commentator Michelle Grattan then discuss how harsh the government is. No mentio is made of Labor actually luring 1200 men, women and children to their deaths with their “compassion”.
The Left agenda:
Radio National Breakfast today plays an ad for refugee activists, gives a soft interview to Aboriginal leader Mick Gooda, interviews fellow Leftist Michelle Grattan and gives free run to the Greens Sarah Hanson-Young on asylum seekers.
Global warming:
A landmark deal! ABC1’s Insiders, Sunday:  
TONY Jones, ABC Lateline presenter: the US and China have made a landmark joint announcement on reducing carbon emissions.
Stephen McDonell, ABC reporter: Putting pressure on countries like Australia to follow suit.
Mark Simkin, ABC Reporter: China’s vowed its greenhouse gas emissions will peak in 2030 at the latest…
2030 peak in emissions predicted in 2011. China’s Energy and Carbon Emissions Outlook to 2050, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, April 2011: 
THE findings from this research suggest that ... (China’s CO2 emissions will peak around 2030) because saturation in ownership of appliances, construction of residential and commercial floor area, roadways, railways, fertiliser use, and urbanisation will peak around 2030 with slowing population growth.
Asylum seekers:
AM today reports on the Government’s decision to cut the number of refugees it accepts from Indonesia as part of the effort to stop the boats. The first person interviewed is the Greens leader, Christine Milne. The second is a refugee activist. The third quoted is a Labor spokesman.
Global warming:
Lateline confuses China’s emissions of invisible and essentially harmless carbon dioxide with the sooty, sulphurous smoke it’s really trying to abate (and which actually limit warming):
EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: China’s ailing steel industry is pleading for help as the sector struggles amidst falling prices and stronger environmental standards. The future of this heavy polluting sector looks even darker as the country’s president, Xi Jinping, wants China to limit carbon emission rises....
HUEY FERN TAY, REPORTER: ...The nation’s president, Xi Jinping, wants a cleaner country and recently announced greenhouse gas emissions would peak around 2030. .. The new order of the day has strong implications for big polluters… At a recent conference on the path of China’s energy transition, an industry representative put a figure on what it would take to comply with tougher environmental standards.
HUANG DO, CHINA IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION (translated): Installing the equipment to reduce sulfur dioxide from emissions and making the levels of smoke and dust meet the new standards will cost at least US $10 billion.
Boat people:
The Government announces it will cut the number of refugees we take from Indonesia. The only person Lateline interviews is a lawyer who represents asylum seekers.
Palestine:
Lateline’s web page seems to suggest Palestinians were murdered by ... well, unidentified killers. Either that, or the two Palestinian jihadists were themselves victims:
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Four rabbis murdered in Jerusalem. Obama equivocates. Where is Bob Carr?

Andrew Bolt November 19 2014 (7:18am)

The barbarism is so typical of the jihadist mindset, in this case deliberately stoked by Palestinian leaders:
ISRAEL is facing an ongoing wave of terror which is focused on Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after an attack on a synagogue killed four rabbis at prayer… 
[T]wo Palestinian cousins from annexed east Jerusalem staged the attack with meat cleavers and a gun, leaving scenes of carnage… just days after a Palestinian rammed his car into pedestrians, killing two in the second such hit-and-run attack in a fortnight…
Mr Netanyahu ...  linked the attack to inflammatory statements about the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound made by the Palestinian Authority, the Islamist Hamas movement and Israel’s Islamic Movement, a religious advocacy group…
“They say that the Jews are defiling the Temple Mount, they say that we are planning to destroy the holy places there, that we are intending to change the prayer rites there.
“It’s all a lie. And these lies have already cost a very high price,” he said… 
As well as the four killed in Tuesday’s attack, eight others were wounded, including two policemen, one of whom is in critical condition, with eyewitnesses saying several people had limbs hacked off.
Three weeks ago the Palestinian leadership started whipping up exactly this kind of thing:
Fatah, the political party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, called for a “Day of Rage” Friday in the defense of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, after Israel closed the site Thursday amid continuing East Jerusalem riots and after the attempted assassination of a right-wing activist… 
“Fatah calls to its fighters and to the masses of the Palestinian people to aid the Al-Aqsa Mosque and occupied Jerusalem,” Fatah said ...
US Secretary of State John Kerry condemns the Palestinian leadership:
I call on the Palestinian leadership at every single level to condemn this in the most powerful terms. This violence has no place anywhere, and particularly after a discussion that we had just the other day in Amman, where the prime minister of Israel flew to Amman, sat down with the Custodian of the al-Aqsa Mosque, King Abdullah of Jordan, and went to the extent of restoring in absolute terms the status quo with respect to the management of that mount, including lowering the age, taking away any age limits on people who could visit, guaranteeing that there were peaceful, completely uninterrupted visits over the weekend. And to have this kind of act, which is a pure result of incitement of calls for days of rage, of just an irresponsibility, is unacceptable.
So the Palestinian leadership must condemn this and they must begin to take serious steps to restrain any kind of incitement that comes from their language, from other people’s language, and exhibit the kind of leadership that is necessary to put this region on a different path.
But now see how some on the Left apply a desperately deceitful moral equivalence to the two sides in this conflict - a conflict that we face, too.
From Barack Obama, a president with a talent for offending and betraying his allies:
Too many Israelis have died. Too many Palestinians have died.” 
Jerusalem risks entering a “spiral from which it is very difficult to emerge,” he added...
No wonder the White House pool reporter got confused about who attacked who:
Participants and transcript of Obama remarks presumably to follow from WH POTUS began by condemning the mosque [sic] attack in Jerusalem
More moral equivalence from CNN:
And then there’s our own Bob Carr, the former foreign minister now urging Labor to change its foreign policies to suit Muslim voters in its marginal seats. From his article on November 8:
Palestinians have been part of a peace process for 25 years (whereas) Israel has gone from ... cosmopolitan to chauvinist, with some ministers ­espousing a brand of radical ­nationalism like that of France’s Le Pen or Austria’s Jorg Haider.…. In 1977 the Palestine Liberation Organisation was blowing up planes. Now for 25 years Palestinians have been committed to a neg­otiated solution. 
UPDATE
The toll of victims is now five:
Four of the dead were rabbis and one was a police officer who died of his wounds hours after the attack. Three of the rabbis were born in the United States and the fourth was born in England, although all held dual Israeli citizenship. Five others were wounded.... 
The U.S.-born victims were identified as Moshe Twersky, 59, Aryeh Kupinsky, 43, and Kalman Levine, 55. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the British man was Avraham Goldberg, 68, who immigrated to Israel in 1993… Twersky, a native of Boston, was the head of the Toras Moshe Yeshiva, a seminary for English-speaking students. He was the son of Rabbi Isador Twersky, founder of Harvard University’s Center for Jewish Studies, and a grandson Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, a luminary in the world of modern Orthodox Jewry. 
(Thanks to readers Alan RM Jones, Geoff and Daniel.) 
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Obama rebuked for alarmism

Andrew Bolt November 19 2014 (6:48am)

Barack Obama was rude to an ally, hypocritical and wildly misinformed:
Federal Coalition members are ... angry at the US President’s public intervention in the Australian climate change debate at the G20 last Saturday, when most of his remarks in the summit’s closed session on energy, where the issue was discussed, were devoted to US gas supplies and production that have been boosted by coal-seam gas and shale oil… 
Senior Queensland government MPs are so angry at Mr Obama’s remarks about the Great Barrier Reef and his attack on coal production in a resources state that they are considering a formal complaint.
However, it is unlikely this will happen as informal messages were sent to the US delegation, ­declaring the President’s speech was not in keeping with that of a guest and ally…
Mr Obama said on Saturday that climate change “here in ­Australia” means “longer droughts, more wildfires” and “the incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef is threatened”.
“I have not had a chance to go to the Great Barrier Reef and I want to come back, and I want my daughters to be able to come back, and I want them to be able to bring their daughters or sons to visit,” the President said… 
On Sunday, Premier Campbell Newman said he was not about to “criticise our guest” but added that Mr Obama had relied on misinformation and he would tell US officials about what was “actually going on with the reef”.
The truth about the Reef is very different from what Obama suggested to the world, as will be revealed tomorrow:
Is the Great Barrier Reef as damaged and threatened as scientists claim? The need for a formal quality assurance process. 
Date/Time: Thursday 20th November
5.30pm Refreshments Served
6.00pm Presentation Commences
Location: George Kneipp Auditorium Building 26,
James Cook University Campus, Townsville
Professor Peter Ridd
College of Science Engineering and Technology
James Cook University
Considerable scientific and media attention has been focused on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), with claims often made that it has sustained considerable damage, and that its future is bleak. However the speaker and co-workers have demonstrated over the last few years that many important science papers that claim that the GBR has been damaged are either highly suspect or just plain wrong. Some of these questionable papers (with over 4000 citations between them and often quoted in the international media) will be discussed as well as other important papers for which there is a strong prime-facie case that the findings are questionable. Doubt will be cast on whether dredging, agricultural runoff, and climate change are having any significant effect on the GBR… 

Peter Ridd leads the teaching discipline of Physics and the research group Intelligent Systems, Information and Modelling in the College of Science Technology and Engineering, JCU.
Prof Peter Ridd has 30 years’ experience working on the physical oceanography of the GBR. 
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So which weather is global warming?

Andrew Bolt November 19 2014 (1:57am)

Sunday - the ABC’s Insiders hails a warm day in Brisbane as global warming:
BARRIE CASSIDY: And I understand the temperature will reach at least 40 degrees in Brisbane today, so climate change has arrived certainly in more ways than one it seems at this conference.
Wednesday - no mention of global warming:
Snow cover across the contiguous 48 states reached 50.4 per cent on Monday in the US before dropping back to 50.2 on Tuesday in an early burst of winter in the US. 
It’s the earliest that the halfway mark has been passed since the current method for measuring used by the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Centre began 2008.
Such an event usually doesn’t happen until December, said Anders Nilsson, a software engineer at the centre. It even beats the record going back to 2003 when a different methodology was used that included parts of Canada.
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The carnage is not about land, as such, there is no shortage of land in the Middle East, if the will to share were there. This is about deeply ingrained anti-Jewish hate. You don't need to understand Arabic, if you listen carefully to any Arab or Palestinian speak, you can always pick out the word, Yahud! Yahud! They always speak of Jews, not Israelis. This is no different than the Nazi 'Der Stuermer' slogan: "Die Juden sind unser ungluck!" - The Jews are our misfortune. The Arab equivalent is the term Naqba, their tragedy. It is the same Nazi ideology all over again, the corollary is there. Their young are instilled with hatred of Jews from an early age and trained on the lines of the Hitlerjugend with blood curdling slogans and guns. Make no mistake about it: like the Nazis, they are out to kill every Jewish man, woman and child and once more abetted by certain Europeans...
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“Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” John 17:17 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"A spring shut up, a fountain sealed."
Song of Solomon 4:12

In this metaphor, which has reference to the inner life of a believer, we have very plainly the idea of secrecy. It is a spring shut up: just as there were springs in the East, over which an edifice was built, so that none could reach them save those who knew the secret entrance; so is the heart of a believer when it is renewed by grace: there is a mysterious life within which no human skill can touch. It is a secret which no other man knoweth; nay, which the very man who is the possessor of it cannot tell to his neighbour. The text includes not only secrecy, but separation. It is not the common spring, of which every passer-by may drink, it is one kept and preserved from all others; it is a fountain bearing a particular mark--a king's royal seal, so that all can perceive that it is not a common fountain, but a fountain owned by a proprietor, and placed specially by itself alone. So is it with the spiritual life. The chosen of God were separated in the eternal decree; they were separated by God in the day of redemption; and they are separated by the possession of a life which others have not; and it is impossible for them to feel at home with the world, or to delight in its pleasures. There is also the idea of sacredness. The spring shut up is preserved for the use of some special person: and such is the Christian's heart. It is a spring kept for Jesus. Every Christian should feel that he has God's seal upon him--and he should be able to say with Paul, "From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Another idea is prominent--it is that of security. Oh! how sure and safe is the inner life of the believer! If all the powers of earth and hell could combine against it, that immortal principle must still exist, for he who gave it pledged his life for its preservation. And who "is he that shall harm you," when God is your protector?

Evening


"Thou art from everlasting."
Psalm 93:2

Christ is Everlasting. Of him we may sing with David, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." Rejoice, believer, in Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus always was. The Babe born in Bethlehem was united to the Word, which was in the beginning, by whom all things were made. The title by which Christ revealed himself to John in Patmos was, "Him which is, and which was, and which is to come." If he were not God from everlasting, we could not so devoutly love him; we could not feel that he had any share in the eternal love which is the fountain of all covenant blessings; but since he was from all eternity with the Father, we trace the stream of divine love to himself equally with his Father and the blessed Spirit. As our Lord always was, so also he is for evermore. Jesus is not dead; "He ever liveth to make intercession for us." Resort to him in all your times of need, for he is waiting to bless you still. Moreover, Jesus our Lord ever shall be. If God should spare your life to fulfil your full day of threescore years and ten, you will find that his cleansing fountain is still opened, and his precious blood has not lost its power; you shall find that the Priest who filled the healing fount with his own blood, lives to purge you from all iniquity. When only your last battle remains to be fought, you shall find that the hand of your conquering Captain has not grown feeble--the living Saviour shall cheer the dying saint. When you enter heaven you shall find him there bearing the dew of his youth; and through eternity the Lord Jesus shall still remain the perennial spring of joy, and life, and glory to his people. Living waters may you draw from this sacred well! Jesus always was, he always is, he always shall be. He is eternal in all his attributes, in all his offices, in all his might, and willingness to bless, comfort, guard, and crown his chosen people.
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Today's reading: Ezekiel 8-10, Hebrews 13 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Ezekiel 8-10



Idolatry in the Temple

1 In the sixth year, in the sixth month on the fifth day, while I was sitting in my house and the elders of Judah were sitting before me, the hand of the Sovereign LORD came on me there.2 I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man. From what appeared to be his waist down he was like fire, and from there up his appearance was as bright as glowing metal. 3 He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of God he took me to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes to jealousy stood. 4 And there before me was the glory of the God of Israel, as in the vision I had seen in the plain.

5 Then he said to me, “Son of man, look toward the north.” So I looked, and in the entrance north of the gate of the altar I saw this idol of jealousy.
6 And he said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing—the utterly detestable things the Israelites are doing here, things that will drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see things that are even more detestable....”

Today's New Testament reading: Hebrews 13

Concluding Exhortations
1 Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. 2 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. 3 Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.
4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you....”
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Arad [Ā'răd]—fugitive.

  1. The Canaanite king who attacked the Israelites near Mount Hor and was defeated (Num. 21:133:40).
  2. Son of Beriah, a Benjamite and one of the principal men of Aijalon ( 1 Chron. 8:15). Also the name of a town south of Judah (Josh. 12:14).
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