Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Wed Nov 16th Todays News

IPA Review (Nov 2016) features a Brett Hogan article “Throttling Superannuation.” The weak leadership of Turnbull has crossed the floor with the weak leadership of Shorten to present the electorate plans to access superannuation as a revenue source. Tony Abbott, former Liberal leader, had promised a few times to not change Superannuation adversely. But the government needs money. They are prevented from cutting wasteful spending by a Shorten lead Senate. If the government raids the cash it will be worse that cutting wasteful spending, or even effective spending. Once confidence is lost in superannuation it will never be returned. The longer Turnbull remains as Liberal leader, and in parliament, the worse it is for Australia. Turnbull has now fatally compromised Julie Bishop’s career and credibility.

Malcolm Farr as political editor of news.com.au’s Daily Telegraph has an article claiming Trump is unhappy at winning the election last tuesday. The paper under Farr has an appalling lack of judgement in reporting on issues. He opposed GOP and opposed Abbott. But the paper’s job is to present issues, not support or oppose candidates or parties.
=== from 2015 ===
There is a way that peace can be taken from terrorism. It does not involve weakening the Western education systems or negotiating with killers as to how many they want to kill. It involves strengthening borders, and taking in refugees. But more importantly, it involves the currently impotent Islamic Leadership pointing out to their followers that Jihadism brings Islam into disrepute. By stopping the hero worship of sadistic killers, the billion Muslims living in fear of their murderous blasphemers can assert control. It means reforming Islam without changing it fundamentally. They must give up fads, like Jew hating, FGM, pedophilia, honour killings, terrorism, stoning, weak jurisprudence. But then such things bring Islam into disrepute and they wouldn't want to do that. Muslims want peace. Will Jihadist Moslams let them? Will the impotent leadership find their spine? 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
From 2014
Witch hunt 
A theory doing the rounds regarding the Salem Witch trials is that a substantial role was played by ergot poisoning. The LSD like effects of the mould found in uncooked affected wheat has been said to have substantially explained other events too, like when a French Village went mad shortly after WW2 after a popular bakery distributed some affected wheat. The theory is attractive to the Conservative Weasel because it positions Arthur Miller's The Crucible as a polemic which was more propaganda than reality. Although the late unlamented Senator Joseph McCarthy went about his witch hunt the wrong way, he had investigated communists, many of them, while it is arguable that none of the women accused at Salem was really a witch. But sometimes witch hunts take on a life of their own. 

NSW Police Chief  Scipione is being investigated by the Police Integrity Commission and it has been said that the commission has nothing on him, but is investigating him to smear him, much as the ICAC has smeared innocent Liberal Party members while giving passes to Australian Labor Party members who are corrupt. In the case of the ICAC, it appears as if they are trying to appear biased so as to be rounded up before they ever investigate the ALP on the many serious issues needing to be examined. The ICAC has been so bad, that it reflects poorly on all such bodies. Maybe the PIC has a valid case. Scipione was also police chief under several corrupt ALP administrations, and there is every possibility of mud existing. Many say he has been very effective under the Liberals, but personally he has failed over the issue of Hamidur Rahman. 

Another witch hunt is being conducted against Sydney University Professor and Poet Barry Spurr. Spurr has been suspended by the university after emails he privately made including crude jokes were hacked and publicly released. Spurr has a credible explanation for them, but the university has kept him sidelined during a glacially slow investigation. One suspects New Matilda will be sued for a lot regarding their action in publishing the private emails for no public good. However ABC's Media Watch have approved the publication. By way of contrast, the University was hosting a staff Christmas party which was themed Mexican. But an ethnically Argentinian who possesses some Mexican clothes complained that such costumes would denigrate him. The university quickly cancelled the theme when it might have been better to dis-envite the complainant. There is a difference between Spurr and the complainant. Spurr had agreed to be part of a Federal Government investigation into improving the school curriculum. He suggested ways to balance what had been left wing claptrap. So he is a little conservative in some things. According to the ABC and Fairfax, that means he is fair game for any smear. 

Another witch hunt involves attacking an eminent scientist who had just had an amazing success, for the clothes he wore and the tattoos he bears. The success for the astro physicist was to land a probe on an asteroid. Even after twenty years planning with the mother ship at matched velocities with the meteor, the success of the probe was anticipated to be fifty percent. Afterwards, Matt Taylor wore a Hawaiian shirt made by a female friend which featured scantily clad females holding guns. That was too much, and so Matt was attacked for misogyny of the worst kind. And he has tattoos. The wowserism of feminists is embarrassing for Christians. Yes, Christian conservatives are judgemental at times, but at least they have judgement. 

Another witch hunt involves the ABC campaigning against the Abbott government. Abbott recounted four promises his new government made fourteen months ago, and ABC news wouldn't play it beyond the first two. It was a calculated insult. They had no problem explaining their theory that Mr Abbott had presented poorly 
  1. repeal carbon tax (Senate obstructed but successful)
  2. Stop illegal boats (Senate obstructed but successful) 
  3. Building roads (infrastructure, being done) 
  4. Budget under control (Senate blocks)
ABC news played the first two, but stopped before playing all four. Insider played all four under their current affairs program, but then the left wing panelists said it was strange and weird. In contrast Obama was making promises he wouldn't keep. Insiders labelled Abbott's contributions as boring and for a domestic audience. While Obama was applauded as visionary after offering empty promises for his domestic audience. Insiders personally attacked Putin over Ukraine and expressed their contempt by saying Putin was not popular. Putin, was diplomatic as he left, saying discussions had been frank and fruitful. Obama said that Putin was behaving dangerously badly. Obama might have been looking in a mirror. 

Another witch hunt involves Putin and the Ukraine. Savaging Putin to obfuscate issues of Ukrainian culpability in the downing of MH17. Russia should not have allowed the separatists to fire such a weapon uncontrolled. But Ukraine were fighting a war, and hadn't warned international civilian flights and probably were involved with targeting MH17. 

Other issues
Desperate hope for a sensible block of senators by separating Lambie from PUP. But it seems outrageous to suggest Lambie would be part of any sensible bloc. 

Men giving birth by legal definition. According to medicare data, 54 men gave birth around Australia last year. Medicare is that good. 
From 2013
Everybody makes mistakes, but in entertaining the fallacy endorsing genocide of the Armenians by Turkey, Bolt makes a big one. Bolt is correct that there should be debate, but he is wrong to excuse. There are excuses that Turkey might give for the atrocity. Hitler gave excuses too. For one thing, Hitler pointed out nobody seemed to care about Turkey's actions. Meanwhile, in another abuse of justice, Syrians have killed the wrong person. Climate change hysterics killed the wrong clam. Julia Baird is being harassed by Jellyfish for AGW hysteria promotion. Whatever floats your boat, Julia.

In assessing degrees of wrongness, it is hard to position accurately Rudd, Gillard or Whitlam as the worst Australian PM ever. They all shared talentless front and back benches. They all had corrupt colleagues they were compromised defending. They all killed Australians going about their normal lives. They all left a ballooning debt. They all hurt industry. They all have stand out achievements of ineptitude. They also retained fanatical supporters in the press. The only thing certain is that Malcolm Fraser thought they had admirable qualities and policies. 

Speaking of corruption, there is that investigation into Craig Thomson. Time for a paper to act its' age?
Historical perspective on this day
In 1272, while travelling during the Ninth Crusade, Prince Edward became King of England upon Henry III of England's death, but he would not return to England for nearly two years to assume the throne. In 1491, an auto-da-fé, held in the Brasero de la Dehesa outside of Ávila, concluded the case of the Holy Child of La Guardia with the public execution of several Jewish and converso suspects. In 1532, Francisco Pizarroand his men captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa at the Battle of Cajamarca. In 1632, Thirty Years' War: Battle of Lützen was fought, the Swedes were victorious but King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden died in the battle. In 1776, American Revolutionary War: British and Hessian units captured Fort Washington from the Patriots. Also, American Revolution: The United Provinces (Low Countries) recognised the independence of the United States. In 1793, French Revolution: Ninety anti-republican Catholic priests were executed by drowning at Nantes. In 1797, the Prussian heir apparent, Frederick William, became King of Prussia as Fredrick William III.

In 1805, Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Schöngrabern – Russian forces under Pyotr Bagration delayed the pursuit by French troops under Joachim Murat. In 1822, American Old West: Missouri trader William Becknell arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail. In 1828, Greek War of Independence: The London Protocol entailed the creation of an autonomous Greek state under Ottoman suzerainty, encompassing the Morea and the Cyclades. In 1849, a Russian court sentenced writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his sentence was later commuted to hard labor. In 1852, the English astronomer John Russell Hind discovered the asteroid 22 Kalliope. In 1857, Second relief of Lucknow – twenty-four Victoria Crosses were awarded, the most in a single day. In 1863, American Civil War: Battle of Campbell's Station near Knoxville, Tennessee – Confederate troops unsuccessfully attacked Union forces. In 1885, Canadian rebel leader of the Métis and "Father of Manitoba" Louis Riel was executed for treason. 

In 1904, English engineer John Ambrose Fleming received a patent for the thermionic valve (vacuum tube). In 1907, Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory join to form Oklahoma, which was admitted as the 46th U.S. state. In 1907, Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania, sister ship of RMS Lusitania, set sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York City. In 1914, the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opened. In 1920,  Qantas, Australia's national airline, was founded as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited. In 1940, World War II: In response to the leveling of Coventry by the German Luftwaffe two days before, the Royal Air Force bombed Hamburg. Also, Holocaust: In occupied Poland, the Nazisclosed off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world. Also, New York City's "Mad Bomber" George Metesky placed his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison. In 1943, World War II: American bombers struck a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway. In 1944, World War II: Operation Queen, the costly Allied thrust to the Rur, was launched. Also, World War II: Dueren, Germany, is destroyed by Allied bombers. In 1945, UNESCO was founded. 

In 1965, Venera program: The Soviet Union launched the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, which would be the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet. In 1973, Skylab program: NASA launched Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral, Florida for an 84-day mission. Also, U.S. President Richard Nixonsigned the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline. In 1979, the first line of Bucharest Metro (Line M1) is opened from Timpuri Noi to Semănătoarea in Bucharest, Romania. In 1988, the Supreme Sovietof the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic declared that Estonia was "sovereign" but stopped short of declaring independence. Also, in the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan elected populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister of Pakistan. In 1989, a death squad composed of El Salvadoran army troops killed six Jesuit priests and two others at Jose Simeon Canas University. In 1992, the Hoxne Hoard was discovered by metal detectorist Eric Lawes in Hoxne, Suffolk. In 1997, after nearly 18 years of incarceration, the People's Republic of China released Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy dissident, from jail for medical reasons.
=== 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 David Hoang, Anya Guan and Daniel Nguyen. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
Louis Riel
Hessian rugs are warm. Trials are fair. Queens are dramatic. The hills are alive. Be good to good people. Let's party. 
Deaths
===
Tim Blair



===
Andrew Bolt



===

CERTAINTY VANISHES

Tim Blair – Monday, November 16, 2015 (7:04pm)

Several weeks after a France Inter headline dismissed as a right-wing fantasy the idea that terrorists could be among Europe’s refugees, the same story’s headline – and part of the story itself – has been re-written:


The original September 14 headline: “Refugees: the fantasy of terrorist infiltration.” The new headline, on a story still datelined September 14, now asks: “Terrorists among the migrants?”
(Item and translations from Dylan Kissane in Lyon. Naturally, France Inter is part of a government-owned media outlet.)
===

Mitchell about to leave Australian

Andrew Bolt November 16 2015 (7:49pm)

We’ve have had some terrible public arguments lately, but Chris Mitchell did makeThe Australian probably the leading agenda setter in the media. He can be proud of his career:
The Australian editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell has said the newspaper is “close to being profitable again” as he confirmed speculation he was planning to step down from the role when a successor is in place.
===

On Waleed Aly’s explanation of the Paris massacre - and attack on Pauline Hanson

Andrew Bolt November 16 2015 (7:10pm)

I was wondering how Waleed Aly would spin the Paris massacre.
Tonight on The Project, Aly:
- claimed it wasn’t the Islamic State, even though the Islamic State has taken responsibility and France has retaliated by attacking Islamic State targets in Syria.
- claimed it was some kind of self-motivated terrorism even though the attack was extensive, clearly well-planned and well-supplied, involving at least eight terrorists from at least three countries, with one terrorist apparently arriving in Europe as a “Syrian refugee” just last month.
- claimed the Islamic State was actually “weak”, even though this “weak” terrorist outfit has in the past month killed 129 people in France, 224 people in a Russian jet in Egypt and 44 people in bombings in Beirut.
- warned against fighting the Islamic State in Syria on the grounds we’d been falsely told that destroying al Qaeda would “end” terrorism - a claim no leader anywhere actually made, and one that ignores the inability of al Qaeda to repeat its “success” of September 11 since the invasion of Afghanistan.
- gave not one single proposal for actually fighting the Islamic State or reducing the terrorism threat other than a fatuous call to “unite”, even though he is a lecturer at Monash University’s terrorism centre.
Worse, though, Aly in his editorial singled out just one Australian by name - and picture - for criticism. No, it wasn’t a Muslim hate preacher like Sheik Wahwah. It wasn’t the evasive Grand Mufti, who today actually used the France terrorism to demand the West treat Muslims better. It wasn’t any of the Muslims who have joined or recruited for the Islamic State or shot or stabbed Australians here. It wasn’t any of the 21 Muslims jailed here for terrorism offences.
No, the one Australian he attacked was Pauline Hanson, a non-Muslim who has warned against the threat of jihadism.
That is disgraceful. That is evasive. That is scapegoating.
Pauline Hanson does not threaten to kill anyone. She does not espouse the creed of those who do.
True, Aly this time did mention Islam, which he refused to do in some past attempts to explain some Islamist terrorist attack.
But he did not give some important context in giving his bizarre take on the Paris atrocity.
First, he is a Muslim and was spokesman for the Islamic Council of Victoria at a time that it had voted to make the extremist Sheik Hilali the Mufti of Australia. He could be seen to have an agenda.
Second, just last year he falsely claimed the Islamic State represented no great threat to us:
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.  
Since then, an Islamic State supporter staged the deadly Martin Place siege. Another Islamic State supporter stabbed two police in Melbourne. A teenager in contact with the Islamic State shot police accountant Curtis Cheng.  The Paris terrorists, linked to the Islamic State, shot an Australian teenager.
I believe Channel 10 must question whether Aly should be the station’s main explainer of Islamist terrorism. 
===

Sack the Mufti now. No, the Paris massacre wasn’t the fault of the West

Andrew Bolt November 16 2015 (10:14am)


The Mufti explains why Muslims shouting “Allahu Akbar” slaughtered at least 129 people in Paris:
The statement is a disgrace. Worse, it is dangerous and ominous.
According to the Mufti and his imams, the main “causative factors” behind the kind of terrorism visited on Paris have nothing to do with the Koran. They have nothing to do even with interpretations of the Koran.
In fact, even the Islamic State - which claimed credit for the mass-murder - is not mentioned as a “causative factor”. There is no mention of Muslim agency in the slaughter whatsoever. No mention even of the Muslim countries, like Iran and Saudi Arabia, which sponsor extremists and terrorists.
There is only that familiar and lethal victimology - an accusation that the horrors unleashed in Paris and elsewhere are driven by the cruelty the West inflicts on Muslims.
And so, according to this statement, to defend ourselves we must abandon the Jews of Israel, and - it seems - stop fighting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. We must drop our security guard. We must stop being suspicious of the faith followed by the Paris terrorists and so many others. We must blame ourselves, and not them. Nowhere in the statement is any obligation imposed on Muslims to change, reform their faith, assimilate or show loyalty to their fellow citizens.
Sack the Mufti now. Sack the national council of imams. Those who hope for our Muslim leaders to take responsibility for reforming their faith are hoping in vain.
The Prime Minister must address this scandalous response.
UPDATE
Paul Sheehan factchecks the Human Rights Commission’s absurd suggestions that we’re riddled with Islamophobia and racism.  And he notes:
Of the 20 organisations proscribed by the federal government as terrorist organisations with links to Australia, all 20 are Islamic. The most spectacular race crimes in Australia over the past three years, involving murder, attempted murder, threats to kill and plots to kill – the highest form of racial discrimination – involved Muslims planning or carrying out attacks against non-Muslims… More Muslims are fighting for Islamic State than are enlisted in the Australian Defence Force.
Yet Paula Mathewson on the ABC’s The Drum blames our own jihadist threat more on Tony Abbott’s language than the Koran:
During his time as PM, Abbott resorted to whipping up fear ... While Australia continues to face a terrorist threat that is at least partly driven by the alienation created by divisive language, our nation can only benefit from the ex-PM finding his inner statesman.
Astonishing. Vile, too. And so the cultural Left joins forces with Islamism.
UPDATE
Let me explain a word the Mufti likes to (mis)use:
More of this deplorable thing in Paris:
(Thanks to readers John and Peter.) 
===

France strikes back at the Islamic State

Andrew Bolt November 16 2015 (9:01am)

The French retaliation starts:
France has conducted air strikes on the Islamic State-held Syrian city of Raqqa, the French defence ministry said. 
Ten French fighter jets dropped 20 bombs on Raqqa, reportedly hitting the command and control centre, jihadi recruitment centre, munitions depot and a training camp.
Two questions:
Why did it take the massacre in Paris for France to get this serious about the Islamic State?
Were these genuine targets - ones France had been checking out for some time - or marginal ones selected in a hurry just to send to signal? 
===

This is the price of turning immigration into colonisation

Andrew Bolt November 16 2015 (8:01am)

I don’t know how often the obvious truth must be repeated before the denialism stops.
Jihadism will continue to threaten the West until Islamic leaders reform their faith.
It will threaten particularly those countries with large Muslim minorities, making it imperative not to allow those minorities to grow.
Henry Ergas:
Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris ...  are first and foremost an Islamist ­attack on the West. And it is only by destroying radical Islam that we can end the ever-escalating savagery that threatens our cities, our culture and our way of life… 
[I]t would be a mistake to view Syria’s bloodbath as the cause of Friday’s horrors… After all, in shouting “Allahu akbar” as they opened fire, the ­terrorists in Paris were not simply seeking victory over Bashar al-Assad; rather, their goal was to ­accelerate the restoration of that uniquely Muslim conception, the global caliphate… And with militant theocracies in Saudi Arabia and Iran backing Sunni and Shia extremists, res­pectively, each of those millenarian versions of Islam has the support of powerful states as it fights for world domination.
As a result, even were Syria’s civil war resolved, the conflict would just shift on to new battlegrounds; Europe’s proximity to the Middle East ensures its citizens would remain in the firing line…
No less significant is the sheer size of its Muslim communities, which now account for about 8 per cent of France’s population, nearly 7 per cent of Germany’s and only slightly less than that in Britain.
Moreover, every study shows that instead of integrating into their host countries significant elements in those communities have increasingly rejected them.
For example, Oxford professor Paul Collier, who is anything but a rightwing bigot, has pointed to myriad signs of rising separateness, going from political preferences to decisions about whether to wear the full veil (which growing numbers of young Bangladeshi girls in Britain adopt, despite its not being worn in Bangladesh)…
Those trends have been made all the more damaging by the ­hesitations of European political elites. Writing six years ago, ­Christopher Caldwell identified a process of “colonisation”, in which the terms on which recent arrivals adapt “are set by the immigrants and not by the natives, who started off not caring, but wound up not daring, to impose too many rules on their new neighbours"… The legacy is a pool of readily radicalised Muslims which is far too large to be effectively monitored. 
I would qualify just one thing Ergas has said. It is true enough that immigration in so much of the West has become colonisation, as I’ve argued before.
But this is not primarily because of our suicidally stupid policies of multiculturalism. More important is the simple matter of numbers. Six thousand people of an alien culture will eventually integrate into a Western nation. Six million will not. Their numbers are great enough to create their own communities.
Then add modern technology and wealth. Add satellite television from home, cheap travel allowing frequent travel back and forth and even cheaper communications - phones and internet - and you have a colony that sustains itself. Add also political representation, often couched in the language of grievance, and these fault lines become institutionalised.
Mass immigration from the Middle East will radically change a country over time. It will not gently blend two cultures into a homogenous whole. It will instead set two societies, side by side, on the same patch of land - two societies with rival beliefs and rival claims. Think Israel and Palestine. And some of those claims will, as we see, be prosecuted by force.
UPDATE
The scale of the danger in England now, after decades of mass immigration from the Muslim world:
It can also be disclosed that Scotland Yard is currently investigating 600 terror cases.. 
(Thanks to reader Alan RM Jones.) 
===

That they want to kill us is more important than why

Andrew Bolt November 16 2015 (7:58am)

 THIS debate is pointless in one critical way. Does it really matter why eight Muslim men just murdered more than 120 French civilians?
No. Too many of us will die while we debate.
No, because the “why” doesn’t matter so much the same way it didn’t matter when Muslim men murdered the Charlie Hebdo journalists or blew up buses in London.
Likewise, it barely matters why Muslim refugees in Australia murdered police accountant Curtis Cheng, staged a deadly siege in Martin Place or stabbed two police.
Why matters less than what. Figuring out why so many Muslim terrorists are trying kill us — ASIO is investigating at least 475 plots here — matters less than that they are.
Yet here comes that same argument again. What drove the Paris terrorists to kill while shouting “Allah is the greatest”?
(Read full article here.) 
===

Don’t offend by disagreeing

Andrew Bolt November 16 2015 (7:39am)

 A journalists actually suggest debate should be muzzled, on the grounds that disagreement might offend. 
===

Turnbull and Abbott: competing approaches in tackling the Islamic State

Andrew Bolt November 16 2015 (7:02am)

This is just more Kumbayah from a man happier to talk than act:
Malcolm Turnbull has signalled Australia could send peacekeepers to Syria ... 
Turnbull told reporters it would be “very challenging” to broker peace in Syria given the complexity of the interests, but there were “some good signs coming out of Vienna, and there may be a role for peacekeepers”.
“The critical thing is achieving some degree of common purpose among the various parties in Syria,” Turnbull said.
How do you reach “some degree of common purpose” with the Islamic State? What are the peace terms you strike with it?
Sending peacekeepers? What fantasy is this?
Malcolm Turnbull is out of his comfort zone when hard truths need to be confronted and tough choices made. Phil Coorey, a sympathetic reporter travelling with him, describes:
On Friday night in Berlin, about 9.30pm, the sunny optimism that had been the theme of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s first trip abroad vanished… 
Turnbull’s first test resulted in him not sleeping for around 24 hours…
About 5am on Saturday in Berlin, ... Turnbull… was serious but, uncharacteristically, visibly nervous as he prepared to give what was effectively his first live televised address to a worried nation…
A photographer started taking images and the press secretary politely requested he cease so Turnbull could compose himself…
While he passed the test, he was a touch dismayed. Before Turnbull had even spoken, former prime minister Tony Abbott had rushed to his old stomping ground, The Sunday Telegraph, to cite Paris as vindication of his recent speech in London that terrorists were infiltrating the flood of refugees fleeing Syria.
Just hours before the terror attacks, as Turnbull and Angela Merkel wrapped up their bilateral meeting in Berlin, the Prime Minister told the German Chancellor it was more than likely he would be asked at the subsequent press conference about Abbott’s London speech.
Turnbull did not say whether he agreed with Abbott, just that the situations facing Australia and Europe were different and it was not his role to lecture Europe on her affairs....
Hours later, that evening, the slaughter unfolded in Paris and Abbott said: “I don’t think we can leap to the conclusion that the people responsible for this in Paris are recent refugee arrivals… But it is absolutely crystal clear that whether they are recent arrivals, whether they are second generation Parisians, the problem of Islamist extremism is severe.”
This was well before French authorities said a Syrian passport found near the body of one of the suicide bombers was that of a recent arrival who had come through Greece. Turnbull was in the midst of a major crisis and did not need a tawdry domestic political fight with his old rival… He pre-recorded a television interview with the ABC during which he fended off what Abbott had said without trying to inflame things.
Refugees coming to Australia were carefully screened to ensure their background did not mean they posed a security risk, he said, and those who posed the greatest danger were usually second or third generation… Turnbull then told reporters that his view on Islamic State had not changed. It needed to be defeated militarily because it used its battlefield exploits as a recruitment tool but, ultimately, it could only be brought to heel by a political solution to the Syria crisis. 
A note about Turnbull’s assurance about screening refugees to make sure we don’t admit terrorists. How can that possibly reassure us when as Turnbull himself adds, the real problem will be with their children or grandchildren? Screening won’t save us from them.
UPDATE
The tone - even more than the content - of this reply showed how reluctant Turnbull was to endorse the French President’s statement:
In Turkey for the G20 summit, Mr Turnbull backed French President Francois Hollande’s description of the Paris suicide attacks as an act of war by Islamic State. 
”It’s, you know, guns and bombs — yes, it looks, it does look like a war,’’ Mr Turnbull said.
The Left’s Lenore Taylor approves of Turnbull’s reluctance:
Malcolm Turnbull has shown a leader can be horrified by a terrorist mass murder and determined to combat such crimes without falling into the self-defeating language of fear and division.,, 
The prime minister did not demur from François Hollande’s declaration that the Paris atrocity was an act of war. How could he – when multiple soldiers in combat gear launched an assault with explosives and automatic rifles? But he also quoted recent conversations with presidents Joko Widodo and Recep Tayyip Erdo?an – the leaders of secular nations where Islam is the dominant religion – to make the point that the Islamic State attacks were also an assault on, and affront to, the religion they claim to defend.
Taylor adds:
Some commentators seem to be hankering for a rerun of the self-defeating debate about whether we are doing enough to “call out” the role of Islam… But even Tony Abbott, interviewed on Andrew Bolt’s television program, ... refused to agree that the Paris mass murder could be backed by the Qur’an.
False. Abbott denied no such thing and did not dispute the need to reform Islam. He in fact said the opposite, if less bluntly than I do as a mere commentator:
[O]ne of the most encouraging developments of recent times has been the move of decent respectable humane leaders such as President al sisi of Egypt, to say Islam does need a revolution to overcome what in some cases has been centuries of false thinking which has led to the sorts of atrocities that we’ve seen most recently in Paris.... It’s absolutely incumbent on all decent people, but particularly on religious leaders – Muslim religious leaders – to say this is not part of our faith. It never should have been, and it must not be now… I mean the tragedy is, Andrew, the people that are doing these horrible evil things claim to be doing it in the name of God, they claim to be doing it in the name of Islam. That’s the difficulty. 
And Abbott today:
“What we do need I think is a movement inside Islam which makes it absolutely crystal clear that anything that smacks of death to the infidel is wrong,” he told Alan Jones on Radio 2GB.
But Turnbull is at least stepping up some of his rhetoric:
The Prime Minister stepped up his rhetoric against Islamic State — also known as ISIS and by its Arabic acronym Daesh — saying it was crucial to defeat the group on the battlefield while working towards a broader political solution in Syria where 11 million ­people have been displaced in that country’s civil war. 
“It is very important that Daesh is confronted and defeated milit­arily,” Mr Turnbull said. 
The Daily Telegraph sums up the competing assessments and approaches:
PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull insists a political solution followed by a peacekeeping mission is the ultimate way of solving the Syrian terror war.
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott insists Islamic State can’t be contained and had to be destroyed by military force, declaring Australia must do more to defeat the “toxin at its source’’.
The stark contrast in language and views was laid bare on national television yesterday as the past and present prime ministers hit the airwaves in the wake of the Paris atrocity. 
===

Nil Hills-ism

Andrew Bolt November 16 2015 (6:56am)

Moral relativism, savagery, foul taste and lousy timing - and all wrapped up in a flop of a joke.
Warning: Leftist ABC comic at work with this “tribute” to 219 people slaughtered by Islamic State jihadists:
UPDATE
What is it with the Left and visciousness?
Tweet from Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson, Saturday: 

At a bar just near the Bataclan theatre in Paris and there was silence for a spontaneous toast from everyone to the fallen.
Response from Twitter user Jesse William: 
@timwilsoncomau was upset to find you alive after attack. I was thinking we just might get a good HRC after all!
How William describes himself on his Twitter profile:
Athiest (sic), Dutch Australian, Left-Wing Progressive, Compassionate …
Once again I must quote Bertrand Russell:
Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.
Note also that the Left is essentially tribal. It tends to define itself against a supposedly hostile or evil other. 
===

So late to the Islamic debate

Andrew Bolt November 16 2015 (6:18am)

On Friday morning Barack Obama boasted on television he was beating the Islamic State:  “We have contained them.”
By day’s end IS proved how inept this US president is, staging Paris’ bloodiest attack since World War 2.
But our own media and political class has likewise been behind in every stage of the fight against Islamist extremism.
Also on Friday, a well-briefed report in The Australian previewed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s meeting that day with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Turnbull would “break with Tony Abbott’s message on the flood of refugees into Europe” – referring to the former Prime Minister’s recent speech warning Europe to stop illegal immigrants flooding in.
As The Australian put it, quoting someone unnamed: “There will be no ‘lecture’ to Ms Merkel about the lessons from Australia’s policy of turning back asylum seeker boats.”
This messaging was repeated by other reporters on Turnbull’s trip.
From News Corp: “Malcolm Turnbull has delivered a slap-down to Tony Abbott for lecturing European leaders.”
From the Financial Review: “Malcolm Turnbull has repudiated Tony Abbott.”
Yet hours later, Paris was drenched in blood, with one terrorist found with a Syrian passport used by a “refugee” entering Greece last month.
But how often our media and political class has been dragged screaming to this battle, leaving us badly behind.

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The attackers: French citizens and a “refugee”

Andrew Bolt November 16 2015 (5:25am)

More details on the terrorists behind the Paris massacre:
The Paris terrorist attacks were carried out with the help of three French brothers living in Belgium, the authorities said on Sunday, as they asked for the public’s help in finding one of them. 
The French authorities said they were seeking Abdeslam Salah, 26, and described him as dangerous.... Belgian officials said that his brother Ibrahim had died in the three-hour massacre on Friday night, which killed at least 132 people, and that another brother, Mohamed, was detained on Saturday in the Molenbeek area of Brussels....
French officials initially described eight attackers, but on Saturday night said that only seven had died — six by blowing themselves up and one in a shootout with police. They said on Sunday that they were looking for an eighth man believed to have been involved in the attacks. It was not immediately clear Sunday evening whether Mr. Salah was that eighth man....
One attacker — whose nationality is not yet known — evidently posed as a Syrian migrant. The Serbian newspaper Blic published a photograph of a passport page that identified its holder as Ahmad al-Mohammad, 25, a native of Idlib, Syria. He passed through the Greek island of Leros on Oct. 3 and the Serbian border town of Presevo on Oct. 7, officials in those countries said. It was not clear whether the passport was authentic…
At least three other attackers were French citizens. Two had been living in the Brussels area…  The third was Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, 29, a native of Courcouronnes, France… Mr. Mostefaï was the middle of five children born to an Algerian father and a Portuguese mother, and he once worked at a bakery… Mr. Mostefaï grew up around Chartres, where he lived until 2012. According to the Paris prosecutor, François Molins, he was arrested in connection with a series of low-level crimes from 2004 to 2010 and had been under surveillance since 2010, having been flagged in a French security services database as someone who had fallen under the influence of extremist Islamist beliefs.
What stupid denialism:
[T]he president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said there was no need for a complete review of the bloc’s refugee policy in response to the terrorist attacks. 
“Those who organized, who perpetrated the attacks are the very same people who the refugees are fleeing and not the opposite,” Agence-France Presse quoted Mr. Juncker as saying. “And so there is no need for an overall review of the European policy on refugees.” 
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Mahathir blames Jews for the Paris slaughter

Andrew Bolt November 15 2015 (9:56pm)

Lethal, vicious madness:
Former [Malaysian] prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has blamed Israel for the deadly Paris attacks last night, saying that the creation of the Jewish state was the cause. 
The state of Israel was established in 1948 in the aftermath of a war with the Arabs.
“Before that, there were no such terrorist attacks anywhere, not even in the Middle East,” said Mahathir.
Seriously?  Are these terrorists so utterly without reason that hatred of Israeli Jews makes them slaughter French Christians?
Is Mahathir seriously suggesting his fellow Muslims are so brainless?
To think this Jew-hater was once prime minister of Malaysia.
(Thanks to reader Andrew.) 
===

ABC is happy to lie in low attack on PM

Piers Akerman – Saturday, November 15, 2014 (11:56pm)

THE uniformly Leftist reporting of the Abbott government by the ABC and Fairfax Media is either maliciously and mendaciously obtuse or just plain malicious. 

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Attacking our heroes

Miranda Devine – Sunday, November 16, 2014 (10:26am)

HERE we go again. A powerful, secretive, unaccountable quasi-judicial body out to destroy our heroes. 
Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione and deputy Nick Kaldas are in the sights of the Police Integrity Commission over trivial, pathetic complaints that have nothing to do with corruption but could damage their careers. 
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The witch hunt of a Sydney professor

Miranda Devine – Saturday, November 15, 2014 (11:54pm)

I MUST assume Eden Caceda is an inspired satirical creation by Sydney University students outraged at the brutalisation of poetry professor Barry Spurr. 
After all, the anagram of the name is “A Decadence”. That’s one way of looking at the descent into Orwellian thought-control at the nation’s finest university, which has suspended Spurr indefinitely and banned him from campus for using “offensive” language in private emails, which he said had been hacked and sent to a left-wing website.
“Eden Caceda”, an office-bearer with the university’s “Autonomous Collective Against Racism”, ho, ho, led the campaign last week against vice-chancellor Michael Spence’s “racist” Mexican-themed staff Christmas party.
The dress code was “Mexican Fiesta — bring your own sombreros and ponchos”.
But “Caceda” was deeply ­offended by the “culturally ­insensitive” invitation.
“My family has a poncho and it is really important to us, and these people are treating it like a costume,” he said.
Spence, who made the decision to render Professor Spurr a non-person, now finds himself hoist with his own petard.
He has been forced to send an email to staff, cancelling the Mexican dress code: “I have today asked the event organisers to amend our plans so the party has no particular theme.”
You really couldn’t make this stuff up.
Cowardly capitulation to political correctness only ends when the barbarians are pouring molten silver down your throat. But Spence deserves everything to come, because his treatment of Spurr is a shameful disgrace. It dishonours everything that a great university is supposed to be. Rather than exalting reason and truth, it is prosecuting Crimethink — banishing people for having private thoughts.
Spurr wrote some of his private thoughts in jocular emails to a friend in which he refers to “Mussies”, “chinky-poos” and “whores” and describes the university’s chancellor, Belinda Hutchinson, as an “appalling minx”.
New Matilda has published some of the stolen emails, while the university conducts a top-secret and extremely slow “investigation” into whether they constitute evidence of closet racism, sexism, misogyny, Islamophobia etc.
Spurr said the comments were not serious, but part of a “whimsical linguistic game” in which he and a friend tried to outdo each other with extreme language. 
Any half-literate person would understand this boundary transgression. Yet one of the few people to speak up for Spurr lives in London.
“How could anyone take such deliberate touretting seriously?” wrote comedian Barry Humphries, asking if Australia has “gone slightly mad”.
You might have thought that students would rise up in fury and condemn the disgusting treatment of a good man. 
But, alas, the only student protests have been by the campus Trotskyists, Socialist Alternative, who shrieked through megaphones outside Fisher ­Library that 
Spurr was “racist filth” and a “vile bigot” and gathered signatures to have him sacked.
In the days after Spurr was driven out, his fellow ­professors read aloud the ­administration’s ritual denunciation of him before every class, urging students who may have experienced discrimination to come forward.
Spurr is Australia’s only poetry professor. He is the world’s pre-eminent T.S. Eliot scholar. His CV, which has not yet been erased from the university’s website, shows a man of extraordinary literary and academic accomplishment. Students come from across the world just to be in his classes.
Most are dismayed by his banishment, but are so ­oppressed by the McCarthyist atmosphere on campus that they daren’t speak out.
Michael Davis is one brave exception. In a brilliant article in next month’s Quadrant, the 20-year-old blasts the university for “caving to the efforts of 100 caustic teenagers who insult and abuse a 60-something year-old who’s given the better part of his life to that same institution. There would be no University of Sydney without men like Barry Spurr, and there would be no Australia without the Western Civilization he defends.”
Of course, the reason Spurr was marked for destruction was because he helped in the Abbott government’s review of the national curriculum, recommending greater emphasis on the Western literary canon.
Along with review co-author Kevin Donnelly and four other subject experts deemed “conservative”, he has been monstered by the authoritarian Left who control education.
He agreed to help fix the curriculum because he believes English studies are in crisis. He believes democracy is under threat when its people are “inarticulate in their use of language and sub-literate in their linguistic discernment”.
Spurr has devoted his life to eradicating the sort of slovenly, deceitful, politically correct language that “makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts”, as Orwell put it.
Now he is its victim. 
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MEN CAN DO ANYTHING

Tim Blair – Sunday, November 16, 2014 (4:16am)

Men have given birth to 54 babies in Australia over the past year according to official Medicare statistics which now allow patients to nominate their own gender …
According to the Medicare data, there were 16 men who gave birth in NSW last year, 22 men in Perth, seven in Victoria, one in Tasmania and two in South Australia. 
Only two in South Australia? This makes no sense at all.
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SICK AND DANGEROUS

Tim Blair – Sunday, November 16, 2014 (4:14am)

Reader Geoff M. was unimpressed by a recent column: 
So you are smarter than 99% of the world’s scientists. You are truly sick and dangerous. I am getting closer and closer to confronting you far-right radicals. 
An email chat followed, during which I invited Geoff to nominate a meeting place for our showdown ("I enjoy oysters, if that helps.") Haven’t heard anything since.
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NOT EXACTLY ROCKET SCIENTISTS

Tim Blair – Sunday, November 16, 2014 (3:53am)

A team of scientists land a spacecraft on a comet. Feminists are angry about a shirt worn by one of the scientists, and have forced him to apologise.
The shirt was designed by a woman.
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THE HORROR

Tim Blair – Sunday, November 16, 2014 (3:48am)

Hippies. Dancing hippies. Dancing anti-gas exploration hippies:

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HIS FAMILY HAS A PONCHO

Tim Blair – Friday, November 14, 2014 (4:10am)

Multicultural tension at Sydney University: 
It was to be a Mexican fiesta, complete with sombreros and ponchos. But Sydney University’s annual staff Christmas party will be without a theme this year after students and academics complained it was racist.
The university’s vice-chancellor, Michael Spence, has been forced to email all staff and tell them to ignore the suggested theme and dress code on the invite, which was sent to hundreds of staff. 
Opposition to the Mexican party was led by student activist Eden Caceda: 
Eden Caceda, an office-bearer with the university’s Autonomous Collective Against Racism, told Fairfax Media that students were deeply offended by the invitation …
“We felt the vice-chancellor was perpetrating insidious stereotypes about Mexican people and its culture.”
Mr Caceda, a second year arts student, said some people had suggested that the collective’s stance was taking political correctness too far.
“I would say that is not the case. If you have any Mexican heritage in you, you would see this party as offensive and uninformed.
“I am Hispanic and I have some traditions from Mexican culture and the vice-chancellor’s invite said ‘bring your own sombreros and ponchos’, which reduces Mexican culture to just a costume,” Mr Caceda said.
“My family has a poncho and it is really important to us, and these people are treating it like a costume.” 
Caceda’s family arrived in Australia 40 years ago. From Argentina.
(Via Steve Price)
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On The Bolt Report today, November 16

Andrew Bolt November 16 2014 (6:13am)

On The Bolt Report on Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm.
My guests:  Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Cassandra Wilkinson, Michael Kroger and Gerard Henderson.

Did Barack Obama stab Tony Abbott in the back? Plus Obama’s phoney climate deal, the ABC crosses a line, getting even with Putin and the Palmer party implodes. And lots more.
The videos of the shows appear here.
UPDATE
From my interview with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop:
ANDREW BOLT: Barack Obama gave a speech in Brisbane
yesterday, flogging his global warming deal with China, urging
Australia and other countries to get on board, warning the Great
Barrier Reef could possibly be gone in 50 years. My god! It sounded
like a rebuke to Tony Abbott and a bit of politicking, meddling in our
domestic affairs. Inappropriate? 
JULIE BISHOP: I think President Obama has an eye on the next two
years in the lead-up to the presidential elections, and he’d be thinking
about his legacy. Last time he was in Australia, he made a significant
announcement about the United States’ re-balance, or pivot, to Asia,
and this time he’s made a statement, I think, about the next two years
of his presidency. I’m expecting a number of nations to give similar
statements about their proposed commitments to climate change in the
lead-up to Paris climate change summit in the second half of next
year. And the big issue, of course, will be whether countries take the
step from making statements about what they’re going to do to
actually committing to legally-binding targets and commitments, and
that’s what happened in the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.
It was all very well to talk about it, but people didn’t commit to
legally-binding targets that would backed by legally-enforceable
penalties, so -
ANDREW BOLT: That’s exactly the story with his deal with China,
isn’t it? I mean, China promising, “Yeah, we’ll cap it in 16 years’
time.” All talk, no action?
JULIE BISHOP: Yes, well, some are saying that China now has the
free reign to continue to operate as usual until 2030… ANDREW BOLT: Just before we go, there’s a lot of mockery by
some in the media, especially in the ABC, in a skit this week, of Tony
Abbott’s threat to shirtfront Vladimir Putin. What did you make of
that ABC mockery?
JULIE BISHOP: I was very sad to think that the ABC thought it was
appropriate to make fun of what is a very serious issue that the Prime
Minister is taking very seriously, and that is holding Russia to account
for the shooting down of a Malaysian airline that killed, amongst
others, 38 Australian citizens and residents. The families of those
killed on that plane are still grieving deeply. I’m in touch with a
number of them. Their anguish, their heartbreak, is almost too much
to bear. And if any of them had been watching that ABC program, I
think they would’ve been devastated. And to think that taxpayers’
funds went towards making it, I really think the ABC should have a
long, hard think about what is appropriate in these circumstances
when you’re talking about the deaths of so many Australians. 
The full interview:

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'On The Bolt Report today, November 16'
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Obama’s fake promise to spend on a fake problem

Andrew Bolt November 16 2014 (5:48am)

Australia’s Left are ecstatic that Barack Obama has spoiled Tony Abbott’s party, putting global warming on the G20 agenda with  an alarmist speech and the promise of $3 billion to a climate fund:
BARACK Obama has moved to thrust climate change to the centre of the global political agenda in the middle of the Brisbane G20 meetings pledging $3 billion to a global climate fund. 
The US President used a speech in Brisbane today at the University of Queensland to push the world to do more on climate change.
His comments before the start of the G20 meeting came as United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki Moon described climate change as the “defining issue of our times’’…
Greens Leader Christine Milne said President Obama’s realism on global warming had shown up the “small-minded’’ Australian leader.
The Financial Review’s Laura Tingle gloats:
Conservatives, including in the Abbott Government, enjoy the discomfort that US President Barack Obama feels at the loss of any control of the US Congress… 
Unfortunately for our Prime Minister, however, Barack Obama has delivered a rather humiliating exercise in power politics over the weekend: showing how leadership and power lies in setting and controlling an agenda… Whatever the G20 communique says about climate change, everyone will know our prime minister – rather than leading and shaping the debate – dragged kicking and screaming to it.
Small problem. What’s Obama’s promise worth when the Congress is against?
Sen. Jim Inhofe, the incoming chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, vowed to fight the pledge, which he said was part of a climate-change agenda that’s “siphoned precious taxpayer dollars away from the real problems facing the American people."… 
Bloomberg last week quoted an aide for incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as saying “On the president’s desire to send the U.N. a ton of money, I’ve never heard the leader endorse that approach.”
In a statement today, McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said the pledge would be “part of the regular appropriations review and would have to compete with priorities.” “Just because the President announces it doesn’t mean Congress will pass it,” he said. 
Once again, we see a key divide between the Left and conservatives - an obsession with seeming over doing. The Left is impressed by a seeming promise to seem to do something about what seems a problem. Conservatives note that it’s actually a highly qualified promise to spend unaffordable money on largely non-solutions to an unlikely problem.
Oh, and how rude is Obama to take on Abbott with politicking on a visit?
(Thanks to readers Nathan, Peter of Bellevue Hill and WaG311.) 
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Hopes for a new Sensible Bloc

Andrew Bolt November 16 2014 (5:28am)

Leyonhjelm and Day would be better mentors for Lambie than Palmer - both for her and for us - but do the two men really need the drama?
Crossbench senators David Leyonhjelm and Bob Day will formally approach the Palmer United Party’s Jacqui Lambie on Monday to propose forming a new voting bloc in the Senate. 
In an interview with Fairfax Media, Senator Leyonhjelm spelled out how the proposed new voting bloc would work, saying he would be happy for his staff to assist Ms Lambie with bills and senate procedure… “If she joined in a voting bloc that would give us leverage because three is the magic number. If you’ve got three votes you could say to the government, ‘No, I won’t support that unless you change it’.”
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Putin playing the bully in a dangerous game of bluff

Andrew Bolt November 16 2014 (5:09am)

Vladimir Putin is playing a very dangerous game, and a miscalculation could prove deadly:
In Ukraine:
Tanks and other military vehicles pouring over the border from Russia into eastern Ukraine. Nightly artillery battles in the region’s biggest city, Donetsk, and reports of fighting around another regional capital. And now, sightings of the “green men,” professional soldiers in green uniforms without insignia, the same type of forces that carried out the invasion of Crimea last spring. 
A senior NATO official confirmed on Wednesday what Ukrainian military officials and monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have been saying for days now: Russian troops and military equipment are crossing the border into Ukraine, seemingly preparing for renewed military action, though what exactly remains unclear.
In the Baltic states:
Two Dutch F-16 fighter jets on a NATO mission intercepted a Russian aircraft in the Baltics after it approached Estonian and Lithuanian airspace…  
NATO says interceptions rose to 100 since the start of the year, three times the total for 2013… Latvia’s northern neighbor Estonia and non-aligned Finland have reported repeated incidents this year where Russian aircraft violated their airspace… Russia’s increased military activity in the Baltic region is aimed at undermining security and testing the preparedness of the country and its NATO allies, Lithuanian Chief of Defense, Major General Jonas Vytautas Zukas, said on Facebook Nov. 11. 
In Japan:
Russian jets flying perilously close to Japan airspace forced Japanese fighters to take to the skies 533 times over the past six months — a number up from 308 in the same time period a year earlier. Now Japan is trying to figure out why the Russian military jets have made Japan a target.
In the US: 
Russia plans to send long-range bombers to the Gulf of Mexico in what appears to be Moscow’s latest provocative maneuver in its increasingly frosty relations with the West. 
Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said Wednesday that “we have to maintain (Russia’s) military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific, as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico”—including sending bombers “as part of the drills.” ... “We do not see the security environment as warranting such provocative and potentially destabilizing activity,” a senior Obama administration official said Thursday.
In Sweden:
Sweden has released a sonar image it says is proof that a foreign submarine entered its waters in October… Suspicion fell on Russia, but its defence ministry denied any of its ships were involved.
In Australia:
In recent days, four Russian warships have entered international waters off the northeast Australian coast to coincide with Putin’s visit to Australia for the summit that brings together the leaders of the world’s 20 biggest industrialized and developing economies. Australia, in turn, sent three warships of its own to monitor them. 
The Russian embassy said on Friday that Russia’s Pacific fleet was testing its range, and could be used as security for Putin.
In Canada and the US:
Russian bombers in the Labrador Sea off the coast of Canada practiced cruise-missile strikes against the U.S. in early September. Also in September, Russian military jets made repeated incursions into U.S. and Canadian air-defense zones in the Arctic. Last spring, a Russian military plane was spotted 50 miles off the coast of California, the closest such approach since the Cold War.
In Europe:
Russian planes have violated the airspace of Estonia, the Netherlands, and Sweden in recent months, the report says, and on Oct. 3, a Russian fighter flew “within meters” of a Swedish surveillance plane in the Baltic region.
UPDATE
Another shirtfront: 
Russian President Vladimir Putin got a blunt message when he approached Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for a handshake at today’s Group of 20 summit in Brisbane, Australia. 
“I guess I’ll shake your hand but I have only one thing to say to you: you need to get out of Ukraine,” Harper told Putin, the prime minister’s spokesman Jason MacDonald said in an e-mail. 
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“Trouble and distress have come upon me, but your commands give me delight.” Psalm 119:143 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"The Lord's portion is his people."
Deuteronomy 32:9
How are they his? By his own sovereign choice. He chose them, and set his love upon them. This he did altogether apart from any goodness in them at the time, or any goodness which he foresaw in them. He had mercy on whom he would have mercy, and ordained a chosen company unto eternal life; thus, therefore, are they his by his unconstrained election.

They are not only his by choice, but by purchase. He has bought and paid for them to the utmost farthing, hence about his title there can be no dispute. Not with corruptible things, as with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord's portion has been fully redeemed. There is no mortgage on his estate; no suits can be raised by opposing claimants, the price was paid in open court, and the Church is the Lord's freehold forever. See the blood-mark upon all the chosen, invisible to human eye, but known to Christ, for "the Lord knoweth them that are his"; he forgetteth none of those whom he has redeemed from among men; he counts the sheep for whom he laid down his life, and remembers well the Church for which he gave himself.

They are also his by conquest. What a battle he had in us before we would be won! How long he laid siege to our hearts! How often he sent us terms of capitulation! but we barred our gates, and fenced our walls against him. Do we not remember that glorious hour when he carried our hearts by storm? When he placed his cross against the wall, and scaled our ramparts, planting on our strongholds the blood-red flag of his omnipotent mercy? Yes, we are, indeed, the conquered captives of his omnipotent love. Thus chosen, purchased, and subdued, the rights of our divine possessor are inalienable: we rejoice that we never can be our own; and we desire, day by day, to do his will, and to show forth his glory.

Evening


"Strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought for us."
Psalm 68:28
It is our wisdom, as well as our necessity, to beseech God continually to strengthen that which he has wrought in us. It is because of their neglect in this, that many Christians may blame themselves for those trials and afflictions of spirit which arise from unbelief. It is true that Satan seeks to flood the fair garden of the heart and make it a scene of desolation, but it is also true that many Christians leave open the sluice-gates themselves, and let in the dreadful deluge through carelessness and want of prayer to their strong Helper. We often forget that the Author of our faith must be the Preserver of it also. The lamp which was burning in the temple was never allowed to go out, but it had to be daily replenished with fresh oil; in like manner, our faith can only live by being sustained with the oil of grace, and we can only obtain this from God himself. Foolish virgins we shall prove, if we do not secure the needed sustenance for our lamps. He who built the world upholds it, or it would fall in one tremendous crash; he who made us Christians must maintain us by his Spirit, or our ruin will be speedy and final. Let us, then, evening by evening, go to our Lord for the grace and strength we need. We have a strong argument to plead, for it is his own work of grace which we ask him to strengthen--"that which thou hast wrought for us." Think you he will fail to protect and sustain that? Only let your faith take hold of his strength, and all the powers of darkness, led on by the master fiend of hell, cannot cast a cloud or shadow over your joy and peace. Why faint when you may be strong? Why suffer defeat when you may conquer? Oh! take your wavering faith and drooping graces to him who can revive and replenish them, and earnestly pray, "Strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought for us."
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Today's reading: Ezekiel 1-2, Hebrews 11:1-19 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Ezekiel 1-2


Ezekiel’s Inaugural Vision

1 In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.

2 On the fifth of the month—it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin— 3 the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians. There the hand of the LORD was on him.

4 I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, 5and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was human, 6 but each of them had four faces and four wings. 7 Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. 8 Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. All four of them had faces and wings, 9 and the wings of one touched the wings of another. Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved....

Today's New Testament reading: Hebrews 11:1-19

Faith in Action
1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith....
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Caiaphas

[Cā'iaphăs] - a searcher or he that seeks with diligence. Joseph Caiaphas, the son-in-law of Annas, was high priest of the Jews for eighteen years (Matt. 26:3, 57).

The Man with Sadducaean Insolence

Dr. David Smith refers to this wicked man whom the Spirit of God used to declare divine purposes as, "a man of masterful temper, with his full share of the insolence which was a Sadducaean characteristic." The Sadducees were a sect among the Jews, so called from their founder Sadoc who lived about 260 years before Christ. Their principal tenets were:

I. There is no angel, spirit or resurrection; the soul finishes with the body (Matt. 22:23; Acts 23:8).

II. There is no fate or providence - all men enjoy the most ample freedom of action - absolute power to do good or evil.

III. There is no need to follow tradition. Scripture, particularly the first five books of the Bible, must be strictly adhered to. Caiaphas, as an ardent Sadducee, figures three times in the New Testament.

A. At the raising of Lazarus. After the miracle at Bethany, the rulers were alarmed at the popularity of Jesus which the resurrection of Lazarus brought Him, and convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin to decide what should be done with Jesus. Caiaphas presided and with a high hand forced a resolution that Jesus should be put to death (John 11:49, 53).
B. At the trial of Jesus. At a further meeting of the Sanhedrin when Jesus appeared before its members and was tried and condemned, Caiaphas again displayed his character by his open determination to find Jesus guilty. Since he was the high priest, his announcements were clothed with authority, but his shameless disregard of the forms of law to bring about the death of Jesus, revealed his warped conscience (Matt. 26:57; 58; John 18:24 ). Yet Caiaphas used language somewhat prophetic when he said that it was expedient for one man to die for the people, and Christ did die for Jew and Gentile alike. By His death He broke down the middle wall (Eph. 2:14-18).
C. At the trial of Peter and John. Caiaphas also took part in the examination of Peter and John when called in question over the marvels of the healing of the lame man. The manifestation of God's power was so evident that Annas and Caiaphas could do nothing about the apostles (Acts 4).
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