Thursday, November 24, 2016

Thu Nov 24th Todays News

It is Thanksgiving in my old homeland, and so I would like to list some things I am thankful for. I would like to thank my friends who have stood by me in some very trying times. I won’t list them as my abusers still target people, but I can live in a loving home, I have people who know me and help with my burdens, I have people I can love and point to what is important in their lives as a friend. That last bit is very important. I was never so poor as when I could not give. One does not need lots of money to give, just don’t give money if you don’t have it. Give time. Share with others. Build for others. It comes down to one’s heart. There is never enough to give *anything* if one waits for coffers to fill and grain silos to exceed necessity. But by giving, by being part of a community, one’s reach broadens. You do not have enough, but we can suffice together.

Thanksgiving is not an Australian custom as the US practices it. An Aussie might lift an eyebrow and think “Whatever, mate.” But giving is universal. Because those that don’t give don’t prosper. I thank God for being part of my life.

IPA Review (Nov 2016) features a Dr Jennifer Marohasy article “Your Dinner Party Survival Guide” putting the facts of climate change on the table. AGW hysterics have not found an appropriate solution to their perceived problem. The world spends $Trillions each year on removing plant food from the atmosphere, denying the world’s poor an opportunity to not be poor as the money is diverted to filthy rich AGW hysterics. Climate change has drifted from a scientific concern based on a greenhouse gas which isn’t in a greenhouse to becoming a religious debate where reason does not apply. In his call to Catholic faithful, Pope Francis is promoting a dangerous, costly fad. Both poles are cooling with growing ice each year, so now hysterics point to a perceived acidification of ocean waters. Why is the answer supposed to be expensive power bills and diverting funds for the world’s poorest? As Scott Adams might note, there are two different movies being played regarding climate change. In one movie, people are destroying the world by even existing. In the other movie, progress means change and the world will prosper if resources are appropriately managed. As it becomes apparent that the hysterics claiming the world is ending are clearly wrong, their believers will either self correct or double down and be more hysterical. Regardless, the only responsible answer for either movie is to sensibly manage resources. Happy Thanksgiving.
=== from 2015 ===
A lot of credit has gone to some people for equal rights and humanity in law. Not long ago, in the US, one could be arrested for shooting blacks without a license, but might not be. In NYC, bars were segregated, and public toilets. Parading as progressives, Democrats have a dark history. Exploiting black people is second nature to them. And Democrats have spawns among student unions. And the actions of Black Justice League at Princeton University in calling for segregated spaces for black students is evil. It is exactly what segregationists wanted in the past. George Wallace would have applauded after one of his flock gunned down Martin Luther King. FDR was diverted from shaking the hands of athlete Jesse Owens. Obama has promoted division. And the fruits of evil is found in Democrat policy which once owned good intentions. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
From 2014
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes (Who watches the watchers?)
Daniel Andrews campaign for the ALP in Victoria shows he is from the Joan Kirner, Julia Gillard school of political thought, but making Rudd like claims to being economically responsible. Meanwhile, he exercises no control over his own party. 

Obama's bad diplomacy is pushing Australia towards a Chinese regional infrastructure bank. 

ALP kill another $900 million in cuts, saving hand outs to union mates which will probably go to slush funds. 

ABC culture is conditioned to waste. That is why a 5% cut has exulted in job slashing and pain, because the self indulged won't bear to lose their waste. Meanwhile a conservative is appointed to host a program, but not on tv or internet, and they are restricted in what they can discuss on their radio program which will be broadcast at the prime time for people to watch TV. 

More detail regarding the death of an Al Qaeda leader eight years ago. We might not know who did it, but they deserve a medal. 

Jacqui Lambie quit PUP. Probably because they could choose to decommission her and replace her with another had she not done so. Her voting record is almost the same as the ALP, so it remains to be seen how independent she will be. Meanwhile, her former boss, Clive Palmer tweeted that 5% of cuts for ten years for the ABC was equivalent to 50%. Technically, it was the same as 5% over ten years. Maybe that is why a billionaire needed to steal twelve million dollars. Meanwhile Palmer claims that Lambie was a plant who has joined his party to sabotage it. Sadly none of his Tasmanian relatives were available for the spot on the Senate. 

Ricky Muir, whose voting record is almost the same as the ALP, had a point of difference with his support for a government bill regarding financial institutionalised practice. His backflip brings his record closer in line with the ALP. Some feel that that makes him more independent. 
From 2013
Left wing media still doesn't know how to correctly position spying in the modern world. They feel it is something conservatives do.
Historical perspective on this day
In 380, Theodosius I made his adventus, or formal entry, into Constantinople. In 1227, Polish Prince Leszek I the White was assassinated at an assembly of Piast dukes at Gąsawa. In 1248, in the middle of the night a mass on the north side of Mont Granier suddenly collapsed, in one of the largest historical rockslope failures known in Europe. In 1429, Hundred Years' War: Joan of Arc unsuccessfully besieged La Charité. In 1542, Battle of Solway Moss: An English army defeated a much larger Scottish force near the River Eskin Dumfries and Galloway. In 1642, Abel Tasman became the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania). 

In 1835, the Texas Provincial Government authorised the creation of a horse-mounted police force called the Texas Rangers (which is now the Texas Ranger Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety). In 1850, Danish troops defeated a Schleswig-Holstein force in the town of Lottorf, Schleswig-Holstein. In 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, the anniversary of which is sometimes called "Evolution Day". In 1863, American Civil War: Battle of Lookout Mountain – Near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant captured Lookout Mountain and began to break the Confederatesiege of the city led by General Braxton Bragg. In 1906, a 13-6 victory by the Massillon Tigers over their rivals, the Canton Bulldogs, for the "Ohio League" Championship, leads to accusations that the championship series was fixed and results in the first major scandal in professional American football. In 1917, in Milwaukee, 9 members of the Milwaukee Police Department were killed by a bomb, the most deaths in a single event in U.S. police history until the September 11 attacks in 2001. 

In 1922, nine Irish Republican Army members were executed by an Irish Free State firing squad. Among them was author Robert Erskine Childers, who had been arrested for illegally carrying a revolver. In 1932, in Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opened. In 1935, the Senegalese Socialist Party held its second congress. In 1940, World War II: The First Slovak Republicbecame a signatory to the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers. In 1941, World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French Forces. In 1943, World War II: The USS Liscome Bay was torpedoed near Tarawa and sank, killing 650 men. In 1944, World War II: Bombing of Tokyo – The first bombing raid against the Japanese capital from the east and by land was carried out by 88 American aircraft. In 1950, the "Storm of the Century", a violent snowstorm, took shape on this date before paralyzing the northeastern United States and the Appalachians the next day, bringing winds up to 100 mph and sub-zero temperatures. Pickens, West Virginia, recorded 57 inches of snow. 353 people would die as a result of the storm. 

In 1962, the West Berlin branch of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany formed a separate party, the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin. Also, the influential British satirical television programme That Was the Week That Was was first broadcast. In 1963, in the first live, televised murder, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was murdered two days after the assassination, by Jack Ruby in the basement of Dallaspolice department headquarters. In 1965,  Joseph-Désiré Mobutu seized power in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and became President; he ruled the country (which he renames Zaire in 1971) for over 30 years, until being overthrown by rebels in 1997. In 1966, Bulgarian TABSO Flight 101 crashed near Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, killing all 82 people on board. In 1969, Apollo program: The Apollo 12 command module splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to land on the Moon. 

In 1971, during a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (aka D. B. Cooper) parachuted from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in ransom money. He has never been found. In 1973, a national speed limit was imposed on the Autobahn in Germany because of the 1973 oil crisis. The speed limit lasted only four months. In 1974, Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discovered the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed "Lucy" (after The Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"), in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression. In 1976 the 1976 Çaldıran-Muradiye earthquake in eastern Turkey killed between 4,000 and 5,000 people. In 2012, a fire at a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killed at least 112 people. In 2013,  Iran signed an interim agreement with the P5+1 countries, limiting its nuclear programin exchange for reduced sanctions.
=== 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 Judith Olumba. Born on the same day, across the years, as
November 24: Feast day of Vietnamese Martyrs (Roman Catholicism)
Skeleton of "Lucy" as displayed in Mexico
You are able. We have sold out. We agree for profit. Satire beats news. We invited Lucy. Let's party. 
Deaths
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Tim Blair

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Andrew Bolt

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Turkey shoots down Russian jet

Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (8:05pm)

 Russia says the SU-24 fighter jet was in Syrian territory, not Turkish, so this could get very ugly:
Turkey has shot down a Russian military jet which it says violated its airspace near the Syrian border… 
Various reports described the plane as coming down in hostile Syrian territory, and the fate of the two pilots on board was unknown.
CNN Turk published images purporting to show two pilots parachuting safely to the ground, and reported that two helicopters had been sent from Turkey to retrieve them… Last week, Ankara summoned the Russian ambassador to protest the bombing of Turkmen villages on the Syrian border. Turkey has traditionally protected the area, whose people are of mixed Syrian and Turkish descent. 
===

Turnbull to pick new department head. His choice will say plenty

Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (4:00pm)

Another shift towards the Left coming?
Former diplomat Michael Thawley has resigned as the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to return to the private sector… 
Mr Thawley’s departure makes the diplomat, who left the private sector to be the chief bureaucrat for Tony Abbott in December last year, one of the shortest-serving heads of PM&C… Speculation is high in Canberra that former Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson will make a spectacular comeback as head of the Prime Minister’s Department, a year after he was sacked as the government’s chief economic adviser.
And a new ABC head to appoint, too. Important signals are about to be sent. 
===

Conservatives chat, Turnbull team trembles

Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (2:59pm)

What incredible hypocrisy. Turnbull plotters actually met regularly to depose Tony Abbott, and destabilised him constantly with leaks, jibes and speeches.
Yet now the beneficiaries of that treachery are upset that conservatives simply meet to discuss important issues of moment - including even the security of this nation:
Liberal MPs are increasingly frustrated by a “resistance movement” that has sprung up around former prime minister Tony Abbott. 
They’re also questioning why a like-minded group of conservative MPs have been attending lunches on Tuesdays in parliamentary sitting weeks that are organised by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. The gatherings are being held in the so-called “Monkey Pod” meeting room, which is named after a monkeypod timber table, in the ministerial wing.
In the past fortnight, conservative MPs including Mr Abbott, Kevin Andrews, Andrew Nikolic and Michael Sukkar have spoken out on national security issues such as Mr Dutton’s exclusion from the national security committee and the need for Australia to consider “boots on the ground” in Syria.

At the same time Mr Abbott, Mr Dutton, Mr Nikolic and Mr Sukkar all attended the latest lunch on Tuesday, with the former prime minister bringing cake for his colleagues.
The quartet of conservatives were joined by fellow conservative MPs, senators and Abbott supporters Angus Taylor, Zed Seselja, Natasha Griggs, Craig Kelly and Ian Goodenough for the take-away meal.
Why is The Age not laughing at the efrrontery of the complainers, rather than taking seriously their hypocrsy and paranoia?
Seems to me that some people are exceedingly nervous, despite the poll lead. They should ask themselves what they expected to happen when they hijacked an essentially conservative party and wrenched it to the Left, while scorning to mend any bridges with those they’d disenfranchised.
it’s as if they really bought the line of the media Left that conservatives really weren’t worth heeding. 
===

Turnbull’s response to Abbott is shabby. Personal grudges have been put above our security

Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (2:44pm)

Malcolm Turnbull and his most senior supporters have let their fear or hatred of Tony Abbott stop them from having a serious debate on what’s needed to fight the Islamic State.
The most obvious evidence: their disgraceful verballing of Abbott and fellow conservative Kevin Andrews.
Turnbull, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Treasurer Scott Morrison have pretended or implied that Abbott and Andrews have called for a unilateral invasion of Syria, and by tens of thousands of our soldiers.
It is a pathetic attempt to mock Abbott in particular as a wild Rambo, rather than engage in the important issue he raises - that the aerial bombing of the Islamc State will not work on its own. Turnbull’s team would rather trash Abbott than consider properly the best tactics to tackle terrorism.
What Abbott actually called for:
Preferably with Sunni states such as Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, as well as with the US, Britain and France, Australia should be prepared to contribute more to a military campaign to destroy this terrorist caliphate on the ground in Syria and Iraq. This could involve less restrictive targeting rules for airstrikes and the deployment of special forces on the ground in support of local forces, similar to the 2001 campaign where the Northern Alliance defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan.
What Kevin Andrews, Abbott’s former Defence Minister, actually called for:
President Obama presents a false choice between the current approach and a full-scale invasion of Syria… [A]irstrikes alone will not defeat IS.... [A] concerted campaign by coalition special operations forces and related personnel is required to defeat IS.
Andrews added:
Well, I’m not talking about sending in battalions or, you know, large numbers... It’s a false choice between saying, “Let’s just continue to do what we do,” and some massive large-scale invasion of Syria. There is an in-between position which is carefully calibrated which goes after ISIL and its leadership which would bring about a more effective response… We should look at special forces - coalition, I’m not talking about Australia alone.
Yet now see how Turnbull, Bishop, Morrison and even Education Minister Simon Birmingham all pretended Abbott and Andrews recommended a unilateral invasion, even by a large force - a deeply deceptive and denigrating response that seems to have been coordinated.
Malcolm Turnbull:
We have to destroy ISIL together. But we cannot and should not act unilaterally, not only because that would be obviously unreasonable and unwise but because it would be in violation of our agreement with the government of Iraq.  I know that many people here and in the United States have argued that America and its allies should dispatch a large expeditionary force to conquer and hold the ISIL-controlled areas in much the same way as Iraq was conquered and occupied in 2003. That is not the policy of the United States government or of any of the coalition partners, and it is unrealistic for Australia to embark on any military operations in that region other than in partnership with our allies.
Scott Morrison, both implying yet denying, to mock the “hot-headed”:
To suggest that we should take some unilateral action in this area, I would find very surprising. I’m sure that’s not what the former defence minister would be suggesting. That would be contrary to everything that was previously being done and equally under his own administration. It’s important in these situations that we remain very calm and that we work in concert with our partners in this theatre and that we don’t have some sort of hot-headed response to these issues. 
Julie Bishop:
As Tony Abbott well knows, Australia does not act unilaterally. We need legal basis under international law to send our forces into other countries. 
Simon Birmingham:
Kevin would well appreciate Australia acts within a mandate ... (it) does not take unilateral action with sending troops in. 
Very shabby. People who mount a straw man defence clearly don’t have an answer to the real argument. Or they fear giving credence to the person putting it.
National security is too important for Turnbull and his team to respond to an important suggestion by misrepresenting and mocking the person putting it. Abbott-hatred is clouding their judgement and affecting our security.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
UPDATE
Graham Richardson calls Turnbull out:
UPDATE
Turnbull’s statement to Parliament on the response to the Paris attacks is gravely disappointing.To sum up Turnbull’s message: we will continue to do what’s had little success so far. He repeats the misleading claim made popular by Waleed Aly that the Islamic State is “weak”, despite recent attacks including the massacre in Paris, the downing of a Russian passanger jet, deadly suicide bombings in Turkey and Beirut, and the lockdown of Brussels for three days. The only change Turnbull can point to after Paris is that “through its depraved actions, ISIL has strengthened the resolve of the global community, including Russia, to defeat it”. More resolves, more bombs from the air and not much else anyone can point to.
More shabby, though, is Turnbull’s continued misrepresentation of suggestions by Tony Abbott and others that defeating the Islamic State will require more special forces on the ground in Syria to help identify bombing targets and support local forces. Turnbull continues to pretend that critics are instead suggesting a huge invasion, perhaps even by Australian forces unilaterally, with iraq - not Syria - the main target:
This is not a time for gestures or machismo.... The Government of Iraq believes that large scale Western troop operations in its country would be counterproductive… I have to report to the House that the consensus of the leaders I met at the G20, at APEC and at the East Asia Summit is that there is no support currently for a large US-led Western army to attempt to conquer and hold ISIL-controlled areas… Current advice to the Government is that the unilateral deployment of Australian combat troops on the ground in Iraq or Syria is not feasible or practical. 
There may be good arguments against what Abbott and many military experts are proposing, but Turnbull is yet to give them. This straw-man response is unworthy of a Prime Minister. 
===

If Shorten cannot change, he must go

Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (11:02am)

Anthony Albanese on Sunday showed how Labor could take the fight to Malcolm Turnbull. But Bill Shorten seems to have given up on trying something new, when the latest polls show his current strategy is failing:
The latest Newspoll, taken ­exclusively for The Australian, ­reveals Labor’s primary vote has fallen to 33 per cent ...  and is back to the same level as the 2013 poll, which was the ALP’s worst election result in 80 years.
At the same time Mr Turnbull has increased his status as the preferred prime minister over Mr Shorten to enjoy a massive 49-point advantage, leading by 64 per cent to 15 per cent....
[Shorten’s] support of 15 per cent is down three points to be the lowest for any Labor leader since Simon Crean slumped to 14 per cent in November 2003 in the final ­Newspoll before he stood down as leader… Based on preference flows from the last election, the Coalition’s strong two-party lead is unchanged at 53 per cent to Labor’s 47 per cent.
UPDATE
Shorten’s “year of ideas” turns out to have been just a year of promised tax rises that would still leave us drowning in Labor’s debt:
Bill Shorten declared this would be Labor’s year of ideas but with six weeks to go he is falling short.
Labor calculates its four main revenue-generating policies — cracking down on multinational tax avoidance, curbing high-end superannuation tax concessions, axing the Emissions Reduction Fund and, to be announced today, ratcheting up the excise on cigarettes — will raise $11.3 billion over the forward estimates. But that represents just 13 per cent of the savings required to wipe out the budget deficit, even before Labor uses some of the proceeds to underwrite election promises. 
The May budget predicted deficits of $82bn over the next four years — a figure that assumes $18bn in government measures currently blocked in the Senate pass. The Opposition Leader will today unveil a plan for Labor to extend the policy of raising the excise on cigarettes as a health measure and revenue raiser. If elected, Labor would introduce four annual 12.5 per cent excise increases on September 1, starting in 2017. The policy, independently costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, is forecast to raise $3.8bn over the forward estimates and $47.7bn over the “medium term”.
UPDATE
How much of an election winner has Labor got with a plan to increase the price of cigarettes - smoked more by the working class - by another 50 per cent? 
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Don’t mention September 11. It might encourage “Islamophobia”

Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (10:58am)

Appeasement is now a creed, prohibitng us from even remembering our war dead:
Theo Menon, a Minnesota Student Association representative and member of the College Republicans, realized that the university wasn’t doing anything to memorialize 9/11; on Oct. 6, he introduced an MSA proposal to do just that. The very short resolution asked the university to institute a “moment of recognition” during the mornings of all future September 11ths. 
The resolution proved weirdly controversial. According to The Minnesota Republic: 
At-large MSA representative and Director of Diversity and Inclusion David Algadi voiced severe criticism of the resolution. He also made sure to emphasize 9/11’s status as a national tragedy in his response. “The passing of this resolution might make a space that is unsafe for students on campus even more unsafe,” said Algadi. “Islamophobia and racism fueled through that are alive and well.”
To be clear, the resolution did not refer to Islam. It did not impugn Muslim students, or other Muslims… It merely stated that 9/11 has had a lasting effect on many students, and ought to be reflected upon for a single moment, once a year.
And yet, in an email obtained by The Washington Post, Algadi expressed concerns that efforts to recognize 9/11 are sometimes thinly-veiled expressions of Islamophobia.
Believe it or now, Algadi was not alone in his opinion—a majority of student government representatives sided with him, voting down the resolution in a 36-23 vote this month. There would be no moment of silence at UMN on Sept. 11, 2016, if students had their way. 
Yet on the other hand, we’re told to bear in mind how the Crusades still cause offence.
Cultural suicide, as you watch.
UPDATE
Do the Left truly understand the defitition of “Islamophobia”? It does not actually mean a well-founded fear of a terrorist attack by people shouting “Allahu Akbar”.
(Thanks to reader John Galt.) 
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Big Liberal loss: Bruce Billson quits after sacking by Turnbull

Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (10:38am)

Malcolm Turnbull made a big mistake in sacking Bruce Billson as Small Business Minister.
Billson was a star in the portfolio, and lost his job on the grounds that he wasn’t a woman.
Not only has Turnbull lost a good minister, he now has an awkward byelection on his hands in Dunkley, a relatively marginal Victorian seat (held by 5.5 per cent) where Billson’s personal vote was particularly strong.
Billson announces:
Today I advised my parliamentary colleagues I will not be seeking to earn the support of my beloved Dunkley community at the next election to represent ‘Melbourne’s Riviera’ for an eighth term. 
After two decades in public life, my family and I have reflected on circumstances following the change of leadership and decided it is the right time to ‘hang up the campaign R.M. Williams’.
It has become clear to us that while I love what I do, it is not possible for me to fully do what I love…
I am committed to doing all I can to support the Turnbull Government and to ensuring the talented new Ministerial team has maximum opportunity for ‘clear air’ and a sure-footed start. Doing this means curtailing my disposition to seek to lead, strongly advocate and implement policy initiatives and reform ideas.  
One other complication: Does Turnbull call a by-election in Dunkley, or wait a bit while he decides whether to call an early general election, fast firming as the safest alternative?
Today’s Newspoll a warning. The Liberals do have a good lead - 53 to 47, but that’s against the very lame Bill Shorten, preferred as Prime Minister by just 15 per cent of voters. A change of Labor leader could very easily wipe out that lead.
UPDATE
Billson is hanging on until the next election, so no byelection. 
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Europe betrayed by its multicultural leaders. UPDATE:  1 in 5 British Muslims sympathise with IS

Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (7:20am)

Mass immigration from the Middle East, and now the Belgian army has to have Brussels in a three-day lockdown:
On Monday night the Belgian government promised to ease the unprecedented crackdown put in place by the Belgian government as security services hunt a network of local Islamist militants linked to the Paris attacks and suspected of planning a similar operation in Brussels. However, Charles Michel, the prime minister, stressed that the threat remained “serious and imminent”. 
Armoured vehicles and soldiers remained deployed throughout the historic centre of the de facto capital of Europe, and at major stations.Most shops, cafes and banks, most government offices, all museums and cinemas were “exceptionally” closed, according to the hastily typed notices pinned to their windows. About 300,000 children did not attend classes or creches, and universities were shut. The metro and its feeder lines were suspended.
The politicians who unleashed this great and irreversible demographic experiment on Europe have committed a crime against their culture and their citizens.
UPDATE
Teun Voeten, a cultural anthropologist and war photographer, once lived in Molenbeek, a suburb of Brussels that was home to some of the Paris terrorists:
When it became clear the attacks were planned in Molenbeek, I was not surprised…
I called Molenbeek my home for nine years. In 2005, it was the city’s last affordable neighborhood — in large part because of its bad reputation. My apartment, just across the canal from the city center, is close to the home where two suspects in the Paris attacks were based, and around the corner from where the shooter from the foiled Thalys attack in August had been staying.
I was part of a new wave of young urban professionals, mostly white and college-educated — what the Belgians called bobo, ("bourgeois bohémiens") — who settled in the area out of pragmatism. We had good intentions. Our contractor’s name was Hassan. He was Moroccan, and we thought that was very cool… We felt like pioneers of the Far West, like we were living in the trenches of the fight for a multicultural society…
Slowly, we woke up to reality… The neighborhood was hardly multicultural. Rather, with roughly 80 percent of the population of Moroccan origin, it was tragically conformist and homogenous…
Over nine years, I witnessed the neighborhood become increasingly intolerant. Alcohol became unavailable in most shops and supermarkets; I heard stories of fanatics at the Comte des Flandres metro station who pressured women to wear the veil; Islamic bookshops proliferated, and it became impossible to buy a decent newspaper. With an unemployment rate of 30 percent, the streets were eerily empty until late in the morning. Nowhere was there a bar or café where white, black and brown people would mingle. Instead, I witnessed petty crime, aggression, and frustrated youths who spat at our girlfriends and called them “filthy whores.” If you made a remark, you were inevitably scolded and called a racist. There used to be Jewish shops on Chaussée de Gand, but these were terrorized by gangs of young kids and most closed their doors around 2008. Openly gay people were routinely intimidated, and also packed up their bags.
I finally left Molenbeek in 2014. It was not out of fear. The tipping point, I remember, was an encounter with a Salafist, who tried to convert me on my street. It boiled down to this: I could no longer stand to live in this despondent, destitute, fatalistic neighborhood… How did Molenbeek become Europe’s jihadi base? ... [T]he most important factor is Belgium’s culture of denial. The country’s political debate has been dominated by a complacent progressive elite who firmly believes society can be designed and planned. Observers who point to unpleasant truths such as the high incidence of crime among Moroccan youth and violent tendencies in radical Islam are accused of being propagandists of the extreme-right, and are subsequently ignored and ostracized.  
UPDATE
England finds it has admitted tens of thousands of people who sympathise with a terrorist Caliphate pledged to the West’s destruction:
NEARLY one in five British Muslims has some sympathy with those who have fled the UK to fight for IS in Syria. The number among young Muslims aged 18-34 is even higher at one in four. 
The figures emerged in our exclusive poll conducted after the Paris atrocities led by French and Belgian jihadis returning from the war zone…
The survey’s findings show a clear majority of the 2.7million Brits who follow Islam are moderate. Some 38 per cent of those polled say Muslims should not have to condemn terror acts carried out by IS....
[T]he Muslim Association of Britain admitted any level of support is concerning… However, our poll shows that despite today’s alarming figures, levels of support are falling. Research for Sky News in March before IS’s Paris and Tunisia atrocities found 28 per cent had some sympathy for young fanatics. That is nine per cent more than now. The number who have no sympathy at all for jihadis has also risen from 61 per cent in March to 71 per cent today.
(Thanks to reader PJ and others.) 
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Inside the terrorist state

Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (6:37am)

David Remnick meets some of the incredibly brave Syrians working for the anti-Islamic State group called Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently.
They tell not just of their resistance, by how their city became the Islamic State capital. Read the entire piece.
I won’t excerpt a precis of the argument. Ill just pull out a few paragraphs which struck me as containing information important to know:
“I was a normal guy,” [former biology student Abdel Aziz al-Hamza] said… “I hung out with friends at cafés and bars. None of us were political. In Syria, before the revolution, it was a crime to be political in any way.” Raqqa was a relatively prosperous city with energy resources and an agricultural base… 
When anti-regime demonstrations broke out in March, 2011, in Dara’a, a city in the south, and reports spread throughout Syria that Bashar al-Assad’s security forces were firing on civilians, Hamza and many others joined in protests, in Raqqa. “We wanted to be free,” he said. “It seemed simple."… 

By March, 2013, Free Syrian Army (F.S.A.) troops, as well as Islamist rebel forces, including al-Nusra, controlled the city… But at around the same time, members of ISIS, or the Islamic State, bearing black flags, began accumulating in the nearby town of Slouk. “At first, there were only around fifteen people,” Hamza said. “None of us knew about it” until fighters from al-Nusra began switching over to ISIS, which had its origin in Iraq. “Over time, around ninety per cent of the Nusra fighters in the area became ISIS...” 
In May, 2013, ISIS fighters started making kidnapping runs and attacking F.S.A. leaders, and, by late summer, there were full-scale battles with F.S.A. troops… [S]ome F.S.A. soldiers “out of complete fear” also joined ISIS. 
People in Raqqa could see that ISIS was growing stronger, as they brought in heavy weapons from Iraq and seasoned soldiers who had fought in the Iraqi Army under Saddam Hussein. By the beginning of 2014, ISIS had absolute control of the city. They now overran the mosques, drove out Christians from the city… 
Australians and other foreign fighters came, lured by the “success”:
“No one thought about the caliphate until 2014 when they declared Raqqa the capital of the caliphate and then these guys started coming in from all around the world,” one of the R.B.S.S. journalists told me. “It was like New York! A second New York! People from Australia! From Belgium! From Germany! From France! A global tide!"… The first crucifixion came early that spring…
Now the children are being recruited:
With schools closed down, kids play aimlessly in the street. ISIS members befriend them, give them gifts, sometimes candy, sometimes a mobile phone. They ask the kids to join ISIS, one R.B.S.S. member said… “After this, they are sent to army camp to teach them how to fight, how to make and carry bombs. At their graduation, they have orders to execute someone––sometimes a beheading, sometimes they just cut off the head of a sheep.”
On the “war” fought by the West:
The members of R.B.S.S. are utterly frustrated with the efforts of the West to defeat both Assad ... and ISIS, which has suffered recent losses in Iraq and Syria, but which has proved capable of exacting suffering from Sinai to Beirut to Paris. 
“The problem the Syrian people have with the United States is that we are suffering for five years with barrel bombs,” one R.B.S.S. journalist said. “...After Assad’s chemical attack, when he crossed the so-called ‘red line,’ the U.S. just took the weapons. It made America look like a liar and weak.
“When you say ‘Raqqa,’ the first thing people think of is ISIS,” he continued. “They forget hundreds of thousands of civilians, normal people like us. I am not a terrorist. There are so many people, normal people, who want to live in a free, democratic Syria..."…
The R.B.S.S. members said the American fighter planes have dropped most of their bombs on targets on the outskirts of the city or they use drones to target leaders of ISIS. They claim that Russian planes, however, have hit a hospital, two critical bridges, and a university. 
(Thanks to reader Andrew and others.) 
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Two legs good, four legs bad: becoming what they claimed they hated

Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (6:35am)


How did the anti-racism movement become the very thing it once opposed?:
Students from the Black Justice League occupied the office of Princeton University President Chris Eisgruber until he folded.... According to Planet Princeton: 
Students also called on the school to provide a dedicated space on campus for black students that is clearly marked…
A dedicated safe space on campus for black students that is clearly marked? Would I be correct to presume this clearly marked safe space for black students would be equipped with its own separate bathrooms and drinking fountains? ... [T]he Black Justice League is basically asking to reinstate the very thing their grandparents and great grandparents risked their very lives to put to an end.
(Thanks to reader fulchrum.) 
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Costello: It is about Islam, which needs reform

Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (6:07am)


Former federal Treasurer Peter Costello is still waiting for the reform of Islam to begin:
THE World Trade Centre 2001, the Bali bombings 2002, the Australian embassy in Jakarta 2004, the Madrid railway station 2004, the London Underground 2005, the Taj Mahal hotel Mumbai 2008, Charlie Hebdo, the Parramatta police station, the Bataclan in Paris — I could go on, but you get the picture… 
Nor is the killing entirely indiscriminate. The gunmen holding the hostages in Mali were prepared to release some who could recite verses from the Koran…
After each atrocity complacent political leaders trot out the same platitudes. They tell us: “This has nothing to do with Islam, etc.” It is wearing thin with the public. All these attacks are coming from people who subscribe to one religion, which is not Catholic or Protestant or Jewish or Buddhist or Yazidi. Plainly it has something to do with Islam. And the people who are doing it think it has everything to do with Islam. That is why they shout Allahu Akbar while firing their guns and detonating their explosives…
Now it may be they have got Islam all wrong — and the good thing is that their interpretation seems to be a tiny, minority one. But the fact is this interpretation has followers from different continents and different cultures, which tells us there is something in the source documents and history of Islam that gives them a peg to hang their hat on. If there were an easy demolition of this school of theology why hasn’t it been done by now?…
Religions are not all the same. Christ never sought to establish an earthly kingdom — “My kingdom is not of this world,” he said. But Mohammed did. He led an army in the conquest of Mecca. As an earthly ruler he had quite a lot to say about how to wage war and make peace. These are the teachings radical Islamists rely on to justify their conduct.
So what we need from the Islamic scholars is to tell us, and more importantly to tell would-be jihadis, why these difficult sections of the Koran and the Hadiths are not to be taken literally and not to be followed today. They should explain why “jihad”, which once did include warfare, no longer means that…
Fourteen years after the September 11 attacks we are still waiting for signs that senior Muslims clerics are working on this reform of Islam.
If this work does not start soon, we may have to conclude that reform is not possible.
UPDATE
Another example of what Costello mentions - the lazy and even cowardly avoidance of the fact that we confront a clash of cultures.
The question:
On the night of the Paris attacks, Michael Doran listened as his daughter Sophie Doran cried uncontrollably moments after she escaped the Bataclan Theatre where she had pretended to be dead for half-an-hour as armed men murdered more than 80 people. 
On Monday’s Q&A, Mr Doran berated Australia’s political and Islamic leaders for their “lack of vision” when it came to stopping potential terror attacks at home. “What is done when we select the people to come and settle in this country to ensure they have a clear understanding of the values and norms here and that, although this is a beautiful country, these values may be different to those they are accustomed to and will be?” Mr Doran asked the panel via video link.
And, once again, the evasion by the Left - but this time one that confirms what it seeks to deny:
When Q&A host Tony Jones mentioned the Syrian passport found by the body of one of the Pairs suicide bombers had been used to enter Europe via Greece along the refugee trail, Varoufakis, popularly known as the “rockstar” finance minister at home, pointed out that the majority of the perpetrators of the Paris attacks had been French and Belgian nationals, not refugees. 
“So the notion we are going to overcome this problem by erecting fences, electrifying them and shooting people who try to scale them, this plays into their hands,” he said.
Who mentioned shooting? But Varoufakis actually confirms the point. The majority of the perpetrators of the Paris attacks were indeed French and Belgian nationals, but not just that. They were French and Belgian nationals whose parents were Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa.
Conclusion: to let in people from a different culture and with different values is to let in parents of future children who will often be raised in that different culture with its different values as well.
Back to Doran’s point, so glibly avoided: how do we avoid importing a clash of cultures so potentially dangerous? And, yes, border controls are essential.
UPDATE
And more of the same victimology does not help us at all:
Addressing Mr Doran’s concerns that refugees from Islamic countries may have different values that need to be changed, Chair of the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights, Tasneem Chopra, said the “convenient political point scorer” ignored the largest group of IS victims.
“[W]hen you view the conversation on the victims of terror through the prism of Paris, what you are neglecting is that the majority of the victims of terror, the majority of those on the ground who are fighting terror, are Muslims and a lot of them are refugees,” Ms Chopra said.
Our first concern is that we don’t turn Australia into another Middle Eastern war zone. It’s terrible what’s happening in Syria, but that’s no excuse for exposing ourselves to a bit of the same. 
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Being Green means never having to say you’re sorry

Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (5:51am)

Nick Cater:
The reaction to Paris suggests the progressive-leaning media class is still struggling to come to terms with the rise of Islamist ideology and the terrible forces it has released… 
Barely a year ago the progres­sive commentariat was convinced Tony Abbott’s government was manipulating the terrorist threat for its own political gain. The ABC’s Jonathan Green accused Abbott of a strategy “not that far removed from the original tactic of the likes of the Islamic State: using fear to overwhelm your enemies and cement the loyalty of your friends”. Green’s hyperbole looks ridiculous. Abbott’s early recognition of the Islamist threat appears ­prudent.
But while the left may be consistently wrong, it consoles itself with the thought that it’s morally right. It seems good, even if it helps to enable evil.
Rudyard Kipling had their measure:
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep 
UPDATE
Mind you, many on the Left wanted to believe there was no real threat. Unfortunately, some of them had the power to end it:
Barack Obama in December 2011, announcing the troop pull-out that his military had warned would create a dangerous vacuum:
We knew this day would come. We’ve known it for some time… this moment of success… we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people… This is an extraordinary achievement.
Barack Obama in January last year, dismissing the threat of the Islamic State:
The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant. I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles (in Iraq) and disputes.
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill and Alan RM Jones.) 
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Turnbull’s GST “reform” will leave us poorer

Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (5:39am)

Terry McCrann says the Turnbull Government’s plan for a GST tax “reform” is just a plan for more taxes and lower growth:
Malcolm Turnbull’s overriding commitment to compensate low-income earners and welfare recipients for the proposed increase in the GST turns any exercise in so-called tax reform into a tax increase for everyone else. 
It also means that such “tax reform” would be bad for the economy, undermining rather than boosting productivity, reducing rather than increasing economic growth.
In such a case, better no tax reform — even accepting the continuation of bracket creep — rather than very bad so-called reform that would only provide a basis for both higher tax and increased government spending. And trust me, also the bracket creep.
This is not an ideological position. It is a matter of basic, utterly undeniable arithmetic. If for every $100 of extra tax raised by the increased GST, say, some $30 was redirected back to low-income earners, that would leave only $70 to be available for tax cuts to “offset” $100 of increased GST.
Even if all that remaining extra revenue was returned in personal tax cuts it would be impossible to balance the increased tax from the higher GST.... And this is before we consider what other demands might be made over at least some of the net extra GST — most obviously some payment to the states; after all, it is supposed to be the “states tax”; and reducing the deficit. (Huh!)…
Now the government’s “answer” to this is the so-called “growth dividend”. By shifting the tax mix from the concentration on income (personal and company) to spending, we will get increased economic growth and so a net increase in overall tax revenue. There are two problems with the claim. First, the shift would be too marginal… The bigger objection is that there would not be a growth dividend but indeed a growth penalty. Because there would be that compensation leakage… 
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YOGA CHICKENS

Tim Blair – Monday, November 24, 2014 (12:03pm)

Former ABC manager Louise Evans recalls her time at the lazy and indulgent billion-dollar national broadcaster: 
I was shocked by the culture, waste, duplication and lax workplace practices exercised in some pockets of Radio National. I was even more shocked by the failure of the executive to want to do anything about it.
One problem, as one insider pointed out, was the so-called lifers, a pocket of predominantly middle-aged, Anglo-Saxon staff who had never worked anywhere other than the ABC, who were impervious to change, unaccountable, untouchable and who harboured a deep sense of entitlement.
They didn’t have a 9-5 mentality. They had a 10-3 mentality. They planned their work day around their afternoon yoga class. They wore thongs and shorts to work, occasionally had a snooze on the couch after lunch and popped out to Paddy’s Market to buy fresh produce for dinner before going home.
They were like free-range chickens, wandering around at will, pecking at this and that, content that laying one egg constituted a hard day’s work. 
Nice to see the place hasn’t changed. For three pointless months back in the late 90s, Imre Salusinszky and I attempted to present a fun weekly program at Radio National. One day, as we were planning that night’s show, a breaking news event called for a sound file I knew was in the ABC’s archives. So I went to RN’s library to request it.
After I’d filled out the required form, I asked a cobwebbed staffer – reading a novel at her desk below a noticeboard loaded with “Save the ABC” announcements – when the file would be available. She looked at the request form, scowled and said: “Come back next week.”
We were never going to last long at the ABC.
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LOVE TAP

Tim Blair – Monday, November 24, 2014 (11:29am)

Eight years after his death, claims emerge that al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi received a helping hand on the way to paradise: 
Initially, the Pentagon claimed Zarqawi was killed outright after two bombs were dropped on the building in Baqubah, north of Baghdad, where he was hiding …
The Pentagon later stated Zarqawi had been wounded and survived for an hour before succumbing to his injuries.
Now a third version has emerged: in an account posted on the respected Special Operations Forces Situation Report website, it has been claimed that Zarqawi was killed in cold blood as he lay grievously wounded.
The account was purportedly written by a member of the 75th Ranger regiment that had worked with Delta Force operators to identify the building.
“With a gloved hand, the commando grabbed the side of Zarqawi’s head and slammed it against the inside of the ambulance, again and again, until the number-one terrorist leader of Iraq was dead,” wrote the ranger, who uses the pseudonym “Utlendr”.
“No call was made over the radio to the joint operations centre in nearby Balad air base” because it “would likely be better to ask for forgiveness than for permission”. 
Always a good policy.
(Via Blogstrop)
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Jacqui Lambie quits Palmer party

Andrew Bolt November 24 2014 (11:19am)

Lambie today quit the Palmer United Party.
She will sit as an independent and won’t join another party.
She refuses to deny Palmer could sue her for the $700,000 he claims he spent on her election, but says there was no written agreement on what she owed.
She won’t discuss the $11,000 the Department of Veterans Affairs claims it overpaid her and wants back.
She denies Palmer’s claim that she was receiving disability payments at the same time she was receiving payments as a Senator.
She denies she has any convictions to declare (any Palmer insinuation).
She confirms she will keep voting against Government legislation until it increases military pay.
She signals she is more open to the government legislation if it does so.
She suggests she could help the government to drive down the cost of the Renewable Energy Target by including Tasmania hydro power - currently excluded. (Senators Bob Day and David Leyonhjelm would almost certainly do the same.)
She still won’t vote for any cuts to welfare handouts. 
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How ABC boss Mark Scott pretends to hire a conservative at last

Andrew Bolt November 24 2014 (8:52am)

ABC managing director Mark Scott is as pathetic as he is transparent.
He finally, begrudgingly and after huge pressure decides to hire the first openly conservative host of any current affairs show on the country’s biggest media organisation:
The new shows will include an inter­national policy program hosted by Tom Switzer, a conservative commentator and former opinion ­editor of The Australian… 
“Amanda Vanstone is a small-l liberal but not a conservative. In terms of Sydney and Melbourne, I can’t think of really any other ­conservative hosts,’’ Switzer said. “I’m a conservative but I’m also ­engaged in the battle of ideas and I take all schools of thought ­seriously.”
But typical Scott. Typical ABC. This is a complete con.
The show is not on the ABC’s main television or radio stations:
Radio National frequently ­revamps its shows and this appointment is part of that revamping...
It will be broadcast only briefly, and at a time when current affairs junkies will probably be watching 7.30 instead:
Between The Lines will air on Thursday at 7.30pm and will rebroadcast on the weekend.
The host has been briefed to avoid discussing domestic political battles:
It will discuss major international policy issues and Australia’s place in global events and disputes, similar to Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on CNN.
It will not be conservative in the way that other ABC shows - Late Night Live, Radio National Breakfast - are of the Left:
Switzer says his show, to be called Between The Lines, will not be conservative. “The show will not be right- wing or conservative,’’ he said. "Instead, it’s a serious public affairs program that tries to put contemporary events in a broader historical and international context ...”
And to talk only about foreign affairs topics the ABC has chosen a conservative who - despite his soundness on global warming - has often criticised the Liberals:
Switzer has this year written predominantly on Iraq and Russia and has taken issue with the US-Australia position. He has been critical of Australia’s involvement in Iraq.. He has also been critical of the Prime Minister’s position on Russia, writing that Mr Abbott has ­failed to properly take into consideration Russia’s perspective on its strategic dilemma along with the broader historical context. 
How cunning is Mark Scott?  
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In defence of Ricky Muir

Andrew Bolt November 24 2014 (8:35am)

Phillip Hudson is right. Credit Ricky Muir for showing dignity in changing his mind on the Government’s financial advice reforms:
Muir not only showed that he knows the power of his vote, he used his voice with refreshing honesty and brevity that many seasoned politicians seem to have traded for the pollie-waffle that passes their lips most days. 
Muir said he didn’t care others would accuse him of backflipping on his previous decision. He bravely said he’d been wrong and offered the sensible position that he wanted to make the best and right decision for the people he represented. There was no complicated justification, blame-shifting or spin. When he voted to support the government’s position on financial advice laws in July at the urging of Palmer, Muir had been a senator for 15 days…
“Decisions made in this time were made with the best available information. However, I find it an important part of my job, especially as an independent senator, to listen to all information, including information I may learn as time goes on,” he said. “If this information leads to me changing my mind, it is not an attack on anybody. It is about keeping to my Senate commitment to make informed decisions.”
I wonder whether Muir has the knowledge and experience to make the rights calls on public policy. I am disturbed that he does not see the money has run out and savings must be made. I am very sorry he does not understand that schemes such as the Renewable Energy Target hurt the poor by raising power prices without doing a damn thing about the climate.
But I haven’t and don’t doubt his sincerity. I don’t know him personally, but I suspect I shouldn’t doubt his integrity, either. 
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Labor blows another hole in the Budget

Andrew Bolt November 24 2014 (8:05am)

Labor and the Greens insist the government keep splashing out handouts as if there were no Budget deficit:
LABOR and the crossbench will block $900 million in Coalition savings by vetoing in the Senate cuts to a major industry support program for the carmaking and components industry, which will deepen Joe Hockey’s budget problems. 
Labor destroyed our finances and now sabotages the rescue. In this case it insists its union makes keep getting their handouts.
This is beyond reckless. 
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Attention America: your windbag president is pushing Australia China’s way

Andrew Bolt November 24 2014 (7:52am)

This is more like it - and Barack Obama could be further punished for his pathetic politicking by Australia now joining China’s regional infrastructure bank:
TRADE and Investment Minister Andrew Robb ... has sent Barack Obama a sharp return-fire message: that Australia expects to be treated with respect — not insulted — and that the President’s remarks in Brisbane were wrong, misinformed and unnecessary… 
The Robb remarks are both an honest expression of sentiment in much of the Abbott cabinet and a useful message to the Obama White House about the President’s gratuitous intervention in Australian politics against the Abbott government…
Robb told Sky News’s Australian Agenda program yesterday he was “surprised” by Obama’s speech, he believed the President was “not informed” about Australia’s climate change policy, that his “content was wrong”, that Australia’s 2020 targets were “roughly comparable” to those of the US and other nations, that his speech gave “no sense” to government efforts to protect the Great Barrier Reef and that his remarks were “misinformed” and “unnecessary”.
In short, Robb dumped all over Obama…
Mr Robb also intensified pressure within the government to alter its position and join the China regional infrastructure bank, playing down the security factors that led cabinet’s National Security Committee to reject membership at this time.
The Obama administration lobbied the Abbott government heavily to stay aloof from the bank, with Ms Bishop winning a cabinet struggle against the Treasurer, Joe Hockey, who is keen for Australia to participate…
Robb said the Chinese had told him the bank would operate on “world-class governance standards"… and that Australia would be a “big beneficiary” of its operations.
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Dan Andrews shows Labor hasn’t learned

Andrew Bolt November 24 2014 (7:48am)

 THE polls say Daniel Andrews will next week be premier. But has he really learned the lessons of past Labor disasters?
Sure, give Andrews some credit.
He may be from Labor’s Socialist Left, the faction that gave us the catastrophic Joan Kirner and Julia Gillard, but he’s dialled down the ideology.
He talks less about global warming and gay marriage and more about level crossings, kindergartens and hospitals.
He’s pleasant and smart. At just 35, he was already health minister in the Brumby government.
He is no fire-breathing radical and not quite a what-the-hell spender of the Gillard kind — although his promises so far do total a disturbing $24 billion (or really $37 billion, say the Liberals).
But in the end, we elect not just a premier but a party, and that is the problem: Andrews is owned by Labor, and, particularly, the interest groups which give Labor its muscle — unions, green groups, Leftist collectives and public servants.
That makes him much more like Kirner and Gillard than is safe.
His campaign rallies alone tell the picture.
(Read the full article here.) 
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Clive Palmer claims someone planted Jacqui Lambie to act “irrationally” and blow up his party

Andrew Bolt November 24 2014 (7:33am)

Clive Palmer claims powerful forces planted Jacqui Lambie and got her to be this irrational:
The leader of the Palmer United Party claims rogue Senator Jacqui Lambie infiltrated his fledgling political party in order to blow it up. Clive Palmer says the outspoken Tasmanian was planted by someone powerful and ordered to ‘act irrationally’ and ‘cause trouble’.
Palmer on Channel Seven this morning:
Jacqui Lambie is controlled by lobbyists.
It’s as if Palmer is daring Lambie to sue him - or is warning he’ll sue her:
CLIVE Palmer has accused Jacqui Lambie of deception and of trying to use both his party and the nation’s veterans to boost her own profile, suggesting she wanted to defect to the Australian Defence Veterans party.

In an extraordinary statement, Mr Palmer ... referred to the Australian Defence Veterans Party as the “Lambie Party”. 
“Senator Lambie flew at the cost and expense of the Palmer United Party to Queensland and South Australia to visit veterans groups,” he said in a statement…
Mr Palmer accused Senator Lambie of supporting the party in January, adding that she was a “paid, full-time employee of the Palmer United Party” at the time.
“The question remains was she receiving disability payments from the Commonwealth for being unable to work while receiving a full time salary at the same time from the Palmer United Party?” he said…
In a move likely to enrage Senator Lambie, Mr Palmer has also accused her — and her chief of staff Rob Messenger — of using veterans to “gain political support”. “Senator Lambie and her cohorts have never seen active military service and they just seek to use the veterans to gain political support so Senator Lambie’s mastermind Messenger, a Queenslander, can stand for a Tasmanian senate seat,” he said.
I suspect Lambie would put stake her reputation against Palmer’s any day:
POLICE are investigating Clive Palmer’s allegedly fraudulent ­siphoning of more than $12 million in Chinese funds that he used to bankroll his political party into last year’s federal election.

Senior government sources ­revealed yesterday a preliminary investigation into claims of dishonesty had begun in Western Australia after high-level briefings of police in Perth… 
Uncontested evidence, including affidavits and cheques from an ongoing civil case against Mr Palmer in the Queensland ­Supreme Court, are being given to police in Perth by representatives of the Chinese government-owned company Citic Pacific…
Senior government sources said the Citic Pacific group, Beijing’s international investment ­vehicle, had told Australian offic­ials the handover to police for a criminal investigation was unavoidable… “They have left us in no doubt that they are going to take it as far as it can possibly go.”
Mr Palmer, who has attacked the Chinese company for failing to pay him hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties for extracting iron ore from his tenements, strenuously denies any wrong­doing. 
More fool the people who voted for Palmer’s party, and more shame the ABC for having for so long supported Palmer, boosting a man’s whose great virtue was that he was a seeming conservative who hated Tony Abbott.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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The far-Left comes to help their ABC mates

Andrew Bolt November 24 2014 (7:24am)


Talk about an own goal. Check who turned up on Saturday at the Sydney rally to save the ABC from the wicked Abbott Government.
But first, remember what this is about.
The Government is cutting the ABC’s massive Budget – more than $1 billion a year – by just 5 per cent over five years when the nation is deep in debt.
That will still leave the ABC easily the country’s biggest media organisation, with four TV stations, five radio stations, 220 web sites, an on-line newspaper and a publishing house.
Of course, ABC supporters smell a plot. After all, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull did warn the ABC to take seriously its legal obligation to be balanced.
There is overwhelming evidence that it isn’t, of course. For instance, all f its main current affairs shows are headed by someone of the Left. Every panel of Q&A and Insiders is dominated by the Left.  Every host of Media Watch in its 25 years has been of the Left.
A conspiracy theory? Then see who turned out at the Sydney Town Hall to cheer Quentin Dempster and other ABC staffers at the union-backed rally against the cuts.

There was the Socialist Alliance and some unions, plus Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek and Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, who both spoke to cheers, with Ludlam abusing the free market Institute of Public Affairs and Murdoch papers like this for apparently being the Right-wing plotters behind all this.
Biased? The ABC?
Not at all! Just hear the socialists, Greens and Labor luvvies protesting that only villainous Liberal MPs and their Right-wing lackies would say so.
UPDATE
Louise Evans was a manager at ABC Radio National last year and couldn’t believe the waste:
One problem, as one insider pointed out, was the so-called lifers, a pocket of predominantly middle-aged, Anglo-Saxon staff who had never worked anywhere other than the ABC, who were impervious to change, unaccountable, untouchable and who harboured a deep sense of entitlement. 
They didn’t have a 9-5 mentality. They had a 10-3 mentality. They planned their work day around their afternoon yoga class. They wore thongs and shorts to work, occasionally had a snooze on the couch after lunch and popped out to Paddy’s Market to buy fresh produce for dinner before going home…
They knew they couldn’t be sacked or officially sanctioned because there was no appetite among the executive to make waves, take on the union or make a case for any more redundancies…
The RN budget was another shock. It was predominantly tied up in wages for 150 people. There was precious little budget to do anything new or innovative and you couldn’t turn any program off, no matter how high its costs and how poor its audience share and reach…
There was also blatant waste. Taxi dockets were left in unlocked drawers for the taking and elephantine leave balances had been allowed to accumulate. When programs shut down for Christmas, staff would get approval from their executive producers to hang around for a week or two “to tidy things up”. One editor asked for his leave to be cut back by a week because he’d need to pop into work during the holidays to “check emails”. That constituted work…
Programming and content generation was another shock. While other media organisations live and die by their ratings, circulation and readership figures, some ABC programmers considered ratings irrelevant. Some producers strongly resisted editorial oversight and locked in segments that lacked editorial rigour and relevance. So the weekly Media Report went to air discussing foreign press freedoms while hundreds of Australian journalists were being made redundant just down the road....
That’s why these ABC budget cuts announced by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull are not just necessary but vital to the ongoing health of the corporation.
Pockets of the ABC have been allowed to get too fat, flabby, wasteful and unaccountable. 
(Thanks to readers Jeni and Notch.)

 Continue reading 'Column - The far-Left comes to help their ABC mates'
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What else are these newspapers hiding from you about the warming scare?

Andrew Bolt November 24 2014 (7:18am)

Global warming - propaganda

Journalists are conning you into thinking the world shares their global warming faith – and contempt for Tony Abbott.
Just take last Friday’s bizarre example, an exclusive from the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age.
It started: “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.”
Wow. Really?
Well, so you’d think: “The group, including Prime Minister David Cameron’s Minister for Energy and a former Thatcher Minister and chairman of the Conservative Party, says Mr Abbott’s position on climate change represents a betrayal of the fundamental ideals ...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.”
Wait.
We’re talking about Yeo and Deben? Seriously?
And they’re citing Thatcher as a global warming guru, while vilifying Abbott for defending the coal exports that earn this country $20 billion a year?
What a joke..
Here’s what the Herald and Age, both Fairfax papers, curiously forgot to add.

 Continue reading 'Column - What else are these newspapers hiding from you about the warming scare?'
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“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”Psalm 100:4-5 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"Fellowship with him."
1 John 1:6
When we were united by faith to Christ, we were brought into such complete fellowship with him, that we were made one with him, and his interests and ours became mutual and identical. We have fellowship with Christ in his love. What he loves we love. He loves the saints--so do we. He loves sinners--so do we. He loves the poor perishing race of man, and pants to see earth's deserts transformed into the garden of the Lord--so do we. We have fellowship with him in his desires. He desires the glory of God--we also labour for the same. He desires that the saints may be with him where he is--we desire to be with him there too. He desires to drive out sin--behold we fight under his banner. He desires that his Father's name may be loved and adored by all his creatures--we pray daily, "Let thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven." We have fellowship with Christ in his sufferings. We are not nailed to the cross, nor do we die a cruel death, but when he is reproached, we are reproached; and a very sweet thing it is to be blamed for his sake, to be despised for following the Master, to have the world against us. The disciple should not be above his Lord. In our measure we commune with him in his labours, ministering to men by the word of truth and by deeds of love. Our meat and our drink, like his, is to do the will of him who hath sent us and to finish his work. We have also fellowship with Christ in his joys. We are happy in his happiness, we rejoice in his exaltation. Have you ever tasted that joy, believer? There is no purer or more thrilling delight to be known this side heaven than that of having Christ's joy fulfilled in us, that our joy may be full. His glory awaits us to complete our fellowship, for his Church shall sit with him upon his throne, as his well-beloved bride and queen.

Evening


"Get thee up into the high mountain."
Isaiah 40:9
Each believer should be thirsting for God, for the living God, and longing to climb the hill of the Lord, and see him face to face. We ought not to rest content in the mists of the valley when the summit of Tabor awaits us. My soul thirsteth to drink deep of the cup which is reserved for those who reach the mountain's brow, and bathe their brows in heaven. How pure are the dews of the hills, how fresh is the mountain air, how rich the fare of the dwellers aloft, whose windows look into the New Jerusalem! Many saints are content to live like men in coal mines, who see not the sun; they eat dust like the serpent when they might taste the ambrosial meat of angels; they are content to wear the miner's garb when they might put on king's robes; tears mar their faces when they might anoint them with celestial oil. Satisfied I am that many a believer pines in a dungeon when he might walk on the palace roof, and view the goodly land and Lebanon. Rouse thee, O believer, from thy low condition! Cast away thy sloth, thy lethargy, thy coldness, or whatever interferes with thy chaste and pure love to Christ, thy soul's Husband. Make him the source, the centre, and the circumference of all thy soul's range of delight. What enchants thee into such folly as to remain in a pit when thou mayst sit on a throne? Live not in the lowlands of bondage now that mountain liberty is conferred upon thee. Rest no longer satisfied with thy dwarfish attainments, but press forward to things more sublime and heavenly. Aspire to a higher, a nobler, a fuller life. Upward to heaven! Nearer to God!
"When wilt thou come unto me, Lord?
Oh come, my Lord most dear!
Come near, come nearer, nearer still,
I'm blest when thou art near."
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Today's reading: Ezekiel 20-21, James 5 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Ezekiel 20-21


Rebellious Israel Purged

1 In the seventh year, in the fifth month on the tenth day, some of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the LORD, and they sat down in front of me.
2 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 3 “Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Have you come to inquire of me? As surely as I live, I will not let you inquire of me, declares the Sovereign LORD.’
4 “Will you judge them? Will you judge them, son of man? Then confront them with the detestable practices of their ancestors 5 and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: On the day I chose Israel, I swore with uplifted hand to the descendants of Jacob and revealed myself to them in Egypt. With uplifted hand I said to them, “I am the LORD your God.” 6 On that day I swore to them that I would bring them out of Egypt into a land I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most beautiful of all lands. 7 And I said to them, “Each of you, get rid of the vile images you have set your eyes on, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt. I am the LORD your God....”

Today's New Testament reading: James 5

Warning to Rich Oppressors
1 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you....
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Abiram [Ăbī'ram]—father is the exalted one.

  1. A son of Eliab, a Reubenitewho with others conspired against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and who perished with his fellow-conspirators (Num. 16:1-27;26:9).
  2. The first-born son of Hiel the Bethelite, who began to rebuild Jericho, but who came under the curse foretold by Joshua (Josh. 6:26; 1 Kings 16:34).
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