Friday, January 27, 2017

Fri Jan 27th Todays News

Today starts with the promise of a New Year, and will finish with another promise. Many are calling it the year of the Rooster, which my lovely and precocious Vietnamese daughter insists is a chicken. She should know, because she is one. Chicken is the epitome of fidelity and punctuality, according to astrology. This time they are fire Chickens, and Zhao Li, director of the China Culture centre in Sydney says the chicken "is proud and confident, hardworking and punctual. "Fire by its very nature is the element associated with brilliance, warmth, passion, spark," she said. "So a brilliant and enthusiastic chicken, combined with the salient characteristics of fire, heralds an enterprising and fruitful year, a year of results, achievements. This year we can fulfil all of our dreams." Work hard and you will be rewarded. I promise. 

 Today is also International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the red army liberating Auschwitz-Birkenau. Parents of my friends were among those saved. Many of my extended family weren't. Six million Jews, two million Romani, 250,000 mentally ill and 9,000 Homosexuals were killed by the Nazis. FDR had known and did nothing to help, but retarded efforts to save. FDR was a Democrat. The relative proportion of homosexuals does not match the research of Masters, but one feels the Nazis weren't really trying to stamp out homosexuality through killing as they were Jews. The free world had known, and hadn't acted. Which brings me to my promise now. Jews could and should prosper anywhere in this world, as should anyone else. But Israel belongs to Jews. For those that survived, and their children, there is this promise in a statement. Never again will Jews be undefended as they face such implacable foes. Never again will Jews rely on the humanity of strangers to defend them from atrocity. As Obama has demonstrated with Hamas, Israel has to fight, even for what she deserves. And she will. And He will keep His promise to His people. 
=== from 2016 ===
Liars excusing Nazism are many. And it can be very confusing for the reasonable person faced with the lies to know the truth. One highly lauded liar was David Irving. He is still alive, but no longer as lauded. He has written many books on World War Two, downplaying the role of Hitler in the holocaust, and questioning if the holocaust even happened. His research reputation lent credibility to his thoughts, not supported by real historians. But the primary evidence shows that Hitler knew what he was doing, and the killings were planned. Over six million Jews were murdered for their race. Even today, people will invite Irving to talk about World War Two, but they dismiss real historians or survivors. Today, trolls will go online and say that the events are all in the past and Jews should get over it. Only that isn't true. For political reasons, Jew hatred has survived. A young woman is stabbed to death by a stranger for no other reason than she was Jewish, and the press blame her for where she lives. And such a thing is a near daily event. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility 
=== from 2015 ===
 I'm proud of my words last year in tribute to Holocaust Memorial Day. I've kept them under 2014.

Prince Philip is a worthy appointment as knighthood on Australia Day. The howls of outrage by left wing commentators saying they don't understand and expressing outrage is a little satisfying. Channel 9 News has commentators discussing their feelings about it, all saying they don't understand. Ditto ABC (probably Channel 10 and 7 too, but one can't watch all the bad news services all the time). Here are facts regarding Prince Philip and Mr Abbott's award. At age 12, Philip was at a german school founded by a Jewish man in '33. With the rise of Nazism, after two terms, the school founder fled to England and set up a school called Gordonstoun. Philip went to that school, leaving Germany. He completed his schooling there, and joined the navy in '39. He served with distinction and was promoted on merit at age 21 to lieutenant. He kept serving after he was married. 

In 1956, with Kurt Hahn (the Jewish school founder of his youth) the now Duke founded the Duke of Edinburgh Awards. Philip is patron of some 800 organisations, particularly focused on the environment, industry, sport, and education. He served as UK President of the World Wildlife Fund from 1961 to 1982, International President from 1981, and President Emeritus from 1996. He is patron of The Work Foundation, was President of the International Equestrian Federation from 1964 to 1986, and has served as Chancellor of the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Salford, and Wales. The Duke of Edinburgh's Awards recognise adolescents and young adults for completing a series of self-improvement exercises modelled on Kurt Hahn's solution to the "Six Declines of Modern Youth." Mr Abbott, as PM is allowed to bestow the award and he has done so well. It is not a Liberal Party thing, or a conservative issue. Philip will likely die soon. It is appropriate he is awarded this in his lifetime. The Duke of Edinburgh Awards alone would make the recipient worthy. 

Tennis brat Nick Kyrgios is set to face Andy Murray. Andy Murray is an athlete and a gentleman, and one hopes he blasts Nick off the court. Tennis does not need the petulance or the swearing. It would be as undesirable as Yasser Arafat playing in an elite sporting event in Australia. It is Holocaust Memorial Day, but today is not the only day to respect survivors. The PLO leader was an acolyte of the Nazi partisan Mufti. 

Bali execution is the buzz, with two of the Bali nine set to receive 72 hour notice at any time. Myuran Sukamaran and Andrew Chan are receiving their families. The Australian Government is working hard for clemency, but the ABC sank those hopes last year with a political attack on the Federal Government. It isn't the role of the ABC to nail coffin lids. The authorities have declared the executions won't take place on Bali for morale reasons. So the families can see them incarcerated now, and after the execution they will be free. The tragedy was before they were caught. Maybe their deaths will serve a purpose of stopping others from the drugs trade? No need to wait for the executions, send flowers to the ABC now. 

Campbell Newman accused of blackmail. The truth is if the LNP is not voted in, with Campbell Newman as leader, then Queensland will lose a lot. That is not a policy, but a realistic appraisal of bad ALP policy. Only a vote for LNP will deliver good government. 
From 2014
Today is holocaust memorial day. A crime that divided the world, placing apathetic in the same circles with terrorists. And one can only guess what the apathetic knew. In modern terms, a US comedian describes it as 'truthiness,' where one only sees what they look for. Some of those guilty of truthiness in the face of the holocaust are startling to see decades later. They escape justice, just as actual war criminals do who claim to be too old and addled to be tried. But today is not about them, but their victims. Only, their victims are dead. Today isn't really about them either. Today is about survivors. And the adamantine promise of those survivors that it will never happen again. For the survivors have family and loved ones, and they will keep the dream that will not be denied. They will prosper. And never forget. 

They will not forget the isolation, shaming and casual butchery. They will not forget asking for help from their neighbours, and often being denied onto death. They will not forget calling for justice and having none. Calling for mercy and finding none. Calling for Grace .. and some survived. One does not call for grace, one finds it. Being scheduled for extermination, but surviving because the gaolers fled. Faced with the enormity of what had happened, some female survivors prayed for their gaolers to find God, and not be punished. What had happened to them was not something people should do to one another. After all, how does one rehabilitate those who did that? 

At war's end, Jews asked for their promised land. But Democrat US administrations, and Labour UK administrations, sought to deny them. It wasn't politically expedient with the cold war. Remarkably, many survivors were socialist in outlook, but they didn't have the contacts that their like minded socialist buddies demanded. The apathetic began their own process of exoneration .. claiming they had not known. And so we have the world as it is today. A determined Bibi doing the best of a hard job against those hand washers who don't want to be shamed for their choices. We must never forget the cost. Blood cries out. 
Historical perspective on this day
In 98, Trajan succeeded his adoptive father Nerva as Roman emperor; under his rule the Roman Empire would reach its maximum extent. 661, the Rashidun Caliphate ended with the death of Ali. 1142, Song Dynasty General Yue Fei was executed. 1186, Henry VI, the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, married Constance of Sicily. 1302, Dante Alighieri, the poet and politician was exiled from Florence, Italy, where he served as one of six priors governing the city. 1343, Pope Clement VI issued the papal bull Unigenitus to justify the power of the pope and the use of indulgences. Nearly 200 years later, Martin Luther would protest this. 1593, the Vatican opened the seven-year trial of scholar Giordano Bruno. 1606, Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators began, ending with their execution on January 31. 1695, Mustafa II became the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul on the death of Ahmed II. Mustafa ruled until his abdication in 1703.

In 1776, American Revolutionary War: Henry Knox's "noble train of artillery" arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1785, the University of Georgia was founded, the first public university in the United States. 1825, the U.S. Congress approved Indian Territory (in what is present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears". 1868, Boshin War: The Battle of Toba-Fushimi between forces of the Tokugawa shogunate and pro-Imperial factions began, which would end in defeat for the shogunate, and was a pivotal point in the Meiji Restoration. 1869, Boshin War: Tokugawa rebels establish the Ezo Republic in Hokkaidō. 1870, the Kappa Alpha Theta fraternity was founded at DePauw University. 1888, the National Geographic Society was founded in Washington, D.C.

In 1909, the Young Left was founded in Norway. 1927, Ibn Saud took the title of King of Nejd. 1939, first flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. 1943, World War II: The VIII Bomber Command dispatched ninety-one B-17s and B-24s to attack the U-Boat construction yards at Wilhelmshaven, Germany. This was the first American bombing attack on Germany of the war. 1944, World War II: The 900-day Siege of Leningrad was lifted. 1945, World War II: The Red Army liberated the remained inmates of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp built by the Nazi Germans on the territory of Poland. 1951, Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Sitebegan with a one-kiloton bomb dropped on Frenchman Flat. 1961, Soviet submarine S-80sank with all hands lost. 1967, Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire during a test of their Apollo 1 spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Also 1967, the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign the Outer Space Treaty in Washington, D.C., banning deployment of nuclear weapons in space, and limiting use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes. 1973, the Paris Peace Accords officially ended the Vietnam War. Colonel William Nolde was killed in action becoming the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty. 1974, the Brisbane Riverbreached its banks causing the largest flood to affect the city of Brisbane in the 20th century.

In 1980,through cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian governments, six American diplomats secretly escaped hostilities in Iran in the culmination of the Canadian Caper. 1983, the pilot shaft of the Seikan Tunnel, the world's longest sub-aqueous tunnel (53.85 km) between the Japanese islands of Honshū and Hokkaidō, broke through. 1984, Pop singer Michael Jackson suffered second degree burns to his scalp during the filming of a Pepsicommercial in the Shrine Auditorium. 1993, American-born sumo wrestler Akebono Tarōbecame the first foreigner to be promoted to the sport's highest rank of yokozuna. 1996, in a military coup Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposed the first democratically elected president of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane. Also 1996, Germany first observed International Holocaust Remembrance Day. 2002, An explosion at a military storage facility in Lagos, Nigeria, killed at least 1,100 people and displaced over 20,000 others. 2003, the first selections for the National Recording Registry were announced by the Library of Congress. 2006, Western Union discontinued its Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. 2010, the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis ended when Porfirio Lobo Sosa became the new President of Honduras. 2011, Arab Spring: The Yemeni Revolution began as over 16,000 protestors demonstrated in Sana'a. 2013, 242 people died in a nightclub fire in the city of Santa Maria, Brazil.
=== Publishing News ===
This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
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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 Silvia Din. Born on the same day, across the years, along with 
Entrance to Auschwitz
The earth moved. Executed for a song. We are restored. We are liberated. We escaped. Let's party. 
Deaths
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Tim Blair

AMERICAN INVADERS SLAM “GENOCIDE DAY”

The New York Times, a 166-year-old American publishing institution, will shortly open a bureau in Australia.
27 Jan  92 comments

NOVA KNOWS HISTORY

Aboriginal activist and former Labor senator Nova Peris presents an apparent “transcript of the General Certificate of Exemption” granted to a Joseph Edwards in 1951.
27 Jan  107 comments

DOWN IS UP, UP IS DOWN

When stock markets decline, it’s proof Trump is bad. When stock markets record historic increases, it’s proof Trump is a Nazi.
27 Jan  41 comments

RECOGNISE THE UNRECOGNISED

The Australian Human Rights Commission, a national tax-funded organisation that functions as a handbrake on the free flow of ideas and debate, has launched its latest campaign.
27 Jan  59 comments

MARGARET DOES MANHATTAN

Within US president Donald Trump’s 1990 book Surviving at the Top is an intriguing anecdote referring to lively times in 1970s New York.
27 Jan  11 comments

BRITAIN GOES GREEN

In Australia, green household initiatives cause fires and deaths. In Britain, green household initiatives cause fungus and stains.
27 Jan  12 comments

THE MODERN WORLD IS SCARY AND RACIST

Leftists are terrified of common industrial machinery and believe lab equipment is evidence of a Ku Klux Klan rally.
27 Jan  15 comments

FRED THE FEARED FUNDAMENTALIST

Never let it be said that the Obama administration didn’t do everything in its power to protect the US from radical religious extremists.
26 Jan  22 comments

COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS, COMPLEX FEELINGS

Ali Tharrington attended the big lady parade in Washington, boldly carrying a sign denouncing her fellow white women for electing Donald Trump.
26 Jan
===
Andrew Bolt


Our great tax challenge

Treasurer Scott Morrison is absolutely right. We must cut business taxes or "run the great risk of stranding our businesses and the jobs that rely on them, as our competitors and friends continue to move on".  But that, of course, means cutting spending to make room.
27 Jan  48 comments

Our new fascists: another Leftist rally turns violent

An anti-Australia Day rally turns violent, once again demonstrating that the Left now tends to be the evil it describes.  Naturally, the Greens and a teachers' union is involved, and once again, police are made the punching bags by people preaching peace.
27 Jan  82 comments
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Sorry David, but it’s the wrong fight

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, January 27, 2016 (12:30pm)

THE Australian of the Year award has ­officially become a politically correct joke with the selection of former chief of Army David Morrison, the diminutive gender ­equity maven who believes military force achieves nothing.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Sorry David, but it’s the wrong fight'
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The baffling business of picking our top Aussie

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, January 27, 2016 (12:19am)

SELECTION of Australian of the Year is an opaque, arbitrary and unrepresentative process too easily hijacked by social engineers. 

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The baffling business of picking our top Aussie'
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Will the real Tony Abbott please stand up

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, January 27, 2016 (12:17am)

Tony Abbott’s decision to stay on in parliament as the member for Warringah is welcome, if not entirely unexpected. 
He is a force of nature and has much left to give. But this notion being spruiked by those around him that he is going to be the “standard bearer” of conservatives is just silly.
Frankly, the time to play that role was when he was prime minister, instead of increasing income taxes and trying to appease the ungrateful Left.
An impressive new generation of conservative leaders is already in place in the Liberal Party and they don’t need someone else’s baggage, though they would welcome advice and support.
There is still anger in their ranks over the way Abbott blew up his Prime Minister ministership, despite repeated warnings from colleagues and mentors.
They don’t buy the myth that he was betrayed by Malcolm Turnbull and the Left or so-called “moderate” faction of the party. Of course Turnbull capitalised on his weakness last year but the situation was all Abbott’s own doing.
And there is still the odd clanging miscalculation from Abbott’s inner circle.
One claiming to be a “senior source” told Simon Benson that the former PM’s “intention is to be a standard-bearer for the conservatives”.
Who says they want him?
This same source went on to say Abbott would not seek to undermine Turnbull, but nor would he sit on the backbench consigned to silence.
This statement was needlessly provocative.
Abbott no longer needs his words to be modulated by others.
He should reclaim his own voice.
Miranda is still beating up Mr Abbott even after it was acknowledged that the previous criticism was overstated on behalf of Turnbull. 
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SOONER OR LATER THEY’LL RUN OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY

Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 27, 2016 (6:43pm)

Trouble in lefty paradise: 
The Guardian is seeking to slash £54m in costs after a review of its finances found that at its current rate of spending it could burn though its £758m trust fund in less than a decade.
Kath Viner, the left-leaning newspaper’s editor, and David Pemsel, its chief executive, told staff that the fund had declined by £100m since July amid a steep fall in print advertising. The financial position is “fragile”, they warned.
Announcing deep cuts, they said they will shave 20pc off annual running costs of £268m, in an attempt to match spending with revenue growth and staunch operating losses within three years. Costs are up 23pc in the last five years, compared with only a 10pc rise in turnover. 
So who’ll get the chop? Bingo Badham? Crazy Ant? Andrew the moon coward? Mandy the mangler? 
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WHEN IN ROME

Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 27, 2016 (6:12pm)

The Italian government ordered an art cover-up when Iran’s President Rouhani visited: 
A life-sized statue of Venus emerging from a bath, which was once owned by Pope Benedict XIV, was covered by panels ...
The busty marble deity was not the only diplomatic peril at the Capitoline museum in Rome. Aides travelling with Mr Rouhani also objected to their leader standing too close to a 2nd-century bronze statue of the emperor Marcus Aurelius on horseback, because the horse’s genitals were clearly visible.
Other art deemed to offend Muslim sensibilities included Cupid and Psyche, a 2nd-century depiction in marble of two lovers entwined in an embrace; and Leda and the Swan, an erotically charged portrayal of the Queen of Sparta clutching Zeus in the guise of a swan, from the 4th century BC …
The great cover-up of Italy’s art treasures drew fierce criticism. Vittorio Sgarbi, an art critic, said that the decision to box up the nudes had been taken by “ignorant goats”. 
It was also taken on behalf of ignorant goats. In other religion of peace developments: 
A terrorist-style plot intended to kill dozens of people with automatic weapons at a Masonic Temple in Milwaukee was foiled this week by FBI agents, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Samy Mohamed Hamzeh discusses his plan to attack the temple with two others, detailing how they would quickly and quietly kill the first people they saw and then methodically move through the building, “eliminating everyone” they encountered, according to a federal criminal complaint.
Hamzeh, 23, has been charged with possessing a machine gun and a silencer. Despite indications of an attempted act of terrorism, Hamzeh is not charged with any terrorism counts.
“We are Muslims, defending Muslim religion, we are on our own, my dear, we have organized our own group,” Hamzeh said, according to the criminal complaint, adding he was confident it would trigger more attacks in the U.S. 
Nothing to do with Islam, of course.
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MALCOLM CAPTURED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 27, 2016 (4:07pm)

Sydney artist Lewis Miller’s 1994 portrait of Malcolm Turnbull did not please the future Prime Minister: 
“That artist of yours is no good; he’s made me look like a big, fat, greedy c--t,” Turnbull reportedly said according to The Art Newspaper, when he confronted gallery owner Ray Hughes about the portrait at a book launch.
Hughes supposedly quipped back: “He is a realist painter you know.” 
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A MANLY LAND

Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 27, 2016 (2:38am)

One of the earliest encounters between Aborigines and British settlers led to an honour that survives to this day: 
On 26 January 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip sailed into Port Jackson on HMSSupply and raised the British flag to proclaim the colony of New South Wales. With him were the 11 ships that made up the First Fleet.
Two days earlier about 20 Cadigal men, the local people of the area, waded out to meet Phillip’s boat in North Harbour. 
The men carried no weapons and were clearly not in the least intimidated by Australia’s mysterious new arrivals. This so impressed Captain Phillip that he felt moved to commemorate the meeting: 
“Their confidence and manly behaviour made me give the name of Manly Cove to this place.” 
And Manly Cove it remains.
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UNDER THE RED BANDANA WE STAND

Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 27, 2016 (2:29am)

“Let’s be fabulous,” declares republican bore Peter FitzSimons: 
In my address to the National Press Club in August of last year I stated that, “Never before have the stars of the Southern Cross been so aligned as now, pointing to the dawn of the Australian Republic.”
The fact that Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister shortly afterwards only lined those stars up even better, and that alignment has continued at astonishing pace since. 
I don’t know about “astonishing”, but a republic will probably arrive before FitzSimons apologises for this. Readers seem unimpressed:



UPDATE:

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CLICK GO THE CELL DOORS, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK

Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 27, 2016 (2:08am)

Melissa Click, the snarling face of the international social justice warrior movement, may be headed to the big house: 
A misdemeanor assault charge was filed Monday against a University of Missouri assistant professor who received nationwide attention when she called for “some muscle” to help remove a student journalist from a campus protest in November.



Melissa Click, who works in Missouri’s communication department, faces a Class C misdemeanor simple assault charge for the incident, in which she was filmed having physical contact and berating a student journalist, according to the office of Columbia, Mo., prosecutor Steve Richey. The student was trying to conduct interviews at a site set up on the university’s quad by students protesting the treatment of African Americans by administrators. 
Li’l Miss Click could cop a potential 15-day prison term. Her boss, Hank Foley, had this to say: 
“Dr. Click is frankly aggrieved by this whole situation,” Foley said. “She had a moment of heated anger ... I doubt very much she would do something like that again.” 
Oh, absolutely.
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HILLARITY

Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 27, 2016 (1:17am)

Hillary Clinton sure loves a joke: 
• Clinton laughed off a request Friday at a campaign stop in Manchester, N.H. to release transcripts of speeches she delivered before the Goldman Sachs Group, one of Wall Street’s best known investments firms.
• Clinton laughed off the suggestion by some political observers that her 2016 presidential campaign lacks enthusiasm just as it did in 2008, when she lost in the Democratic primary to Barack Obama.



• Clinton has publicly laughed off Sanders’s polling strength in Iowa and New Hampshire, saying her organization is stronger than his in later states.
• Hillary Clinton laughed off a question about her health today.



• Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laughed off a new attack ad from a Republican super PAC run by Karl Rove.



• Clinton may have laughed off Trump’s frequent jibes about her energy level and stamina, but her aides haven’t ignored them. 
Why, it’s a regular gigglefest at Team Clinton! Don’t forget these previous classics from the Clinton laugh factory: 
• Hillary Clinton on Thursday laughed off Chris Christie’s suggestion that she could be prosecuted for her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.



• Hillary Clinton laughed off a comment from a supporter on Tuesday who said he wanted to ‘strangle’ Republican Carly Fiorina every time he sees her on television. 
And the best of them all, from 2003: 
• In her TV interviews this week, Hillary Clinton laughed off the idea that she would run for president. 
(By Dylan Kissane.)
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Never Again

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ONE DEVOTED VIEWER

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 27, 2015 (5:43pm)

Audiences are down at the ABC: 
The ABC lost 3.95 per cent of group audience across all channels last year, even suffering a 3.8 per cent decline in prime time among its traditional older demographic of over-55s …
The ABC as a whole lost audience at about twice the rate of the Seven, Nine and Ten networks, and about three times the rate against their main channels. 
But at least one over-55 is still clinging to her favourite broadcaster.
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GEORGE W. BUSH WAS RIGHT

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 27, 2015 (3:29am)

In September 2001, little more than a week after Islamic terrorists killed nearly 3000 people in attacks on New York and Washington, US President George W. Bush addressed a joint session of Congress.
“Americans are asking ‘Why do they hate us?’” Bush said. “They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”
For his accurate statement, Bush has ever since been ridiculed by sophisticated types who don’t buy into such simplistic formulations.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'GEORGE W. BUSH WAS RIGHT'
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SIR + PRINCE + DUKE = WHAT THE HELL?

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 27, 2015 (2:37am)

Jennifer Westacott ran through some serious numbers during a business breakfast yesterday.
“The deficit has blown out to $40 billion, some $10 billion more than originally forecast,” the BCA chief executive said. “Commonwealth net debt has risen to $245 billion this year. Interest repayments this year on that debt are $11 billion.”
Wrap some stories around those numbers and the government would have a decent cudgel to wield against Labor. Drive home the fact that Medicare is more in danger due to Labor’s overspending than Coalition budget cuts. Point out just how many education and health facilities might have been paid for with that wasted $11 billion. Call out the Senate on the punishing legacy it will leave future generations by blocking the government’s spending reductions. 
Instead, the government awarded a knighthood to Prince Philip.
This is Tony Abbott’s equivalent to Julia Gillard handing $180,000 per year of your taxes to millionaire Tim Flannery so that he could promote increased taxation. It demands entirely justified ridicule. Leave aside the sheer bewildering redundancy of giving an Australian knighthood to someone who lives in Buckingham Palace – which is akin to presenting Usain Bolt with a participation certificate – and consider instead the astonishing political stupidity. Chris Kenny summed it all up in a few sharp words:



Further from Chris here. Much like the budget debacle inherited from Labor, which should be the government’s central concern, this knighthood decision just doesn’t add up.
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TAKE IT TO COURT

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 27, 2015 (2:34am)

The ABC’s Virginia Trioli thinks domestic violence is something to do with tennis racquets. Seriously.
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AUSTRALIA’S BEST HARDWARE STORE

Tim Blair – Monday, January 27, 2014 (4:05am)

Attention, Sunshine Coast residents! You must support this business:



(Via Rowena, who doesn’t seem impressed.) 
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SNOUTS OF SHAME

Tim Blair – Monday, January 27, 2014 (4:01am)

Anti-oink ink in Malaysia: 
A handful of pigs’ faces have been censored in the Malaysian edition of the International New York Times, it seems.
The black marks were the work of Malaysian printing firm KHL, which blotted out the faces in a story about farming in the United States, according to the Malay Mail. A representative said it was their policy to obscure pigs because Malaysia was “a Muslim country”. 
Poor pigs. It makes them look so guilty.
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CATE AND JUSTIN

Tim Blair – Monday, January 27, 2014 (3:52am)

There are two basic types of celebrities. You’ve got your airheads and then you’ve got your artists.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'CATE AND JUSTIN'
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HE PICKED UP THE ACCENT FROM SOME GEEZER ON A BOAT

Tim Blair – Monday, January 27, 2014 (3:49am)

An Antarctic climate expert speaks:

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JIMINY SHAPES

Tim Blair – Monday, January 27, 2014 (3:46am)

Cricket is being reshaped. This process began several seasons ago, when commentators introduced a new phrase to describe a ball’s trajectory.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'JIMINY SHAPES'
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FORESTER vs MOTHRA

Tim Blair – Monday, January 27, 2014 (3:44am)

Subaru’s latest model is guaranteed monster-resistant:

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APOLOGIES TO UNHAPPY GUY OR EVEN UNHAPPIER GIRL

Tim Blair – Monday, January 27, 2014 (3:32am)

Everybody has a twin. In the case of mine, I am so very, very sorry.
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WHO WANTS A CRISIS?

Tim Blair – Monday, January 27, 2014 (3:27am)

Former ABC staffer Stephen Feneley, last year:



You were saying, Stephen? 
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22 and 23 of 26

Tim Blair – Monday, January 27, 2014 (2:40am)

People these days enjoy putting on the fancy dress for cricket games. Last night’s match was in Adelaide:



Given the venue, this chap would have walked to and from the game unnoticed. Australia won last night in miraculous fashion following England’s slump-ending Perth triumph, closing the one-day segment of 2013/14’s double-summer multi-format cricket battle between the two teams. With just three T20 games remaining, England can no longer even tie for an equal number of victories. Current standings:
Australia: Twelve wins, 8692 runs
England: Seven wins, 7793 runs
Three draws
One match abandoned
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So where is the ABC’s twin?

Andrew Bolt January 27 2014 (2:50pm)

Nick Cater would very much like to know about the twins who once so concerned the ABC and Fairfax:
The ABC’s decision to air unsubstantiated allegations against Australian service personnel last week is an example of what Stephen Colbert calls thruthiness – a preference for the things one wishes to be true over the things one knows are true. 
In the ABC current affairs department, the claim that asylum seekers were beaten and forced to hold onto hot pipes requires no empirical verification. Denials by ministers and officials are considered so unreliable that they cannot kill the story.
Truthiness has come to characterise the ABC’s coverage of border security. It reflects not only the groupthink pervading the corporation, but a marked decline in professional standards.
On October 14 last year, Peter Lloyd introduced a report from Fiona Ogilvie on PM with an unqualified statement: 
An asylum seeker being held in detention on Nauru is expecting twins.
Much fuss and contradictory detail followed. But no twins were ever discovered. Or apology made for the reporting. 
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A nation of tribes

Andrew Bolt January 27 2014 (10:36am)

“Reconciliation” is actually the process by which Australia is divided into different “races” and tribes, with so-called leaders of each arguing over whose mob gets what.
The Abbott Government, unbelievably for conservatives and libertarians, seems to be all for this retribalisation of Australia: 
EACH Aboriginal nation should sign a treaty with the federal government that would recognise that group’s title to land and sea, Tony Abbott’s chief adviser on Aboriginal affairs has proposed in a provocative Australia Day address… “An indigenous nation which signs on to a treaty would receive formal recognition as a nation and as the traditional owners of a defined area of land and sea,” Mr Mundine said.
Put aside the dangerous principle here - of dividing us, often arbitrarily, by “race”. Just consider the practical difficulties alone, given how many tribes there were at settlement, many with competing claims to land. Here are just the main ones:
UPDATE
Reconciliation is taking us backwards fast - and to very dangerous territory - if the Prime Minister’s indigenous affairs advisor believes the right of this nation to exist is not yet settled. From Mundine’s speech:
We can have all the Reconciliation Action Plans that we like, but there will be no reconciliation until Indigenous people are willing to accept the nation’s apologies; until we as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people acknowledge Australia’s right to exist 

How could a line so extraordinary escape media attention? 
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People die, denied the air conditioning The Age opposes

Andrew Bolt January 27 2014 (10:12am)

Global warming - general

In 2005 The Age thundered against air conditioners, even in a heat wave:
On Tuesday afternoon, as the temperatures rose above 40 degrees, smoke and ash from bushfires in the state’s north-east forced the automatic shutdown of a key power transmission line at Tatong, near Benalla. This cut up to a third of Victoria’s power supply, causing widespread blackouts… 
The incident, however unfortunate and disruptive it was to thousands of Victorians, has at least served to focus attention on ... the over-use of air-conditioners and their threat to power supply. Our consumer society, which enjoys a high standard of living, has long abandoned the fan or the cold bath as the way to keep summer at bay. Instead, our wholesale embrace of the air-conditioner is taking such a toll on power supplies that summer has overtaken winter as the period of peak demand. If this forces people to examine their use of air-conditioners, and perhaps to use them less, then well and good. It would save power and be better for the environment.
In 2014 The Age thunders against the lack of cool spaces for the homeless and the frail, dying in heatwaves:
Doctors and public health experts are calling for the Victorian government to urgently review its management of heatwaves as the death toll from this month’s record-breaking period appears to climb. 
The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine ... said that as of Friday it had recorded 139 deaths in excess of the average expected between Monday, January 13, and Thursday, January 23.
Dr Liz Hanna, a fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at ANU, said it was ‘’unfathomable’’ that Victoria had not learnt enough from the catastrophic 2009 heatwave, when 374 lives were lost, and the Victorian Greens are demanding a formal inquiry into what they call the state’s ‘’clear lack of preparation’’ for periods of extreme heat…
Social workers, doctors and paramedics are reporting stories of people missing out on adequate care during this month’s heatwave. They say homeless people were moved on from cool spaces ... Victorian Greens health spokeswoman Colleen Hartland said she was angry that homeless people were pushed out of cool areas...
Yet the Greens and The Age push global warming policies that would make creating cool spaces though air-conditioning too expensive for the poor.
(Mind you, the Age’s warmist editor dictated that 2005 polemic not from his bath but from an office cooled to a pleasant 25C. No homeless people had been invited to share his cool spot.) 
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Abbott insults conservatives on his racial “crusade”

Andrew Bolt January 27 2014 (9:36am)

Culture wars, The politics of race

Tony Abbott wants our constitution to promote one “race”:
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is determined that recognising indigenous people in Australia’s constitution is a “national crusade’’ that should be important to everyone.
But those of us opposed to dividing Australians on the basis of their “race” should be vehemently against this “crusade”.
Tony Abbott says this “crusade” is about the heart - and claims Australia’s founders lacked it::
“If we had known in 1901 what we know now, if our hearts had been as big then as now, we would have acknowledged indigenous people in the constitution back then,’’ he told reporters at Australia Day celebrations in Canberra.
This is utter nonsense. Australia’s founders no more lacked heart than do people today.
The difference is that they were inspired by the creed that all citizens are as one before the law. They were right and Abbott and his fellow travelers on the Left are very, very wrong.
To criticise his opponents in this debate as simply lacking heart is just another form of the Left’s grim cry of “racist” to shut down debate. It is unworthy and suggests Abbott is not confident in the strength of his argument.
This issue should not be decided by a weighing of hearts but the exercise of minds. Dividing Australians by race is not just fundamentally wrong, but socially dangerous. This will not “reconcile” but permanently divide.
Good intentions in no way are a substitute for good judgment. This crusade must be defeated.
UPDATE
Some readers object to my claim that the nation’s founders were “inspired by the creed that all citizens are as one before the law”.
Reader Bushdoc:
Dear Andrew, it is a rare day that I disagree with you, but on this issue I believe you are fundamentally misguided in your views. Firstly the plan is for recognition in the preamble to the constitution, not in the constitution itself. That means there will be nothing that can be used in a constitutional challenge. It will merely acknowledge that the were a “first people “ who were in effect dispossessed of their land. This is an historical fact we cannot deny. 
Further, prime minister Abbott is correct with respect to our founding fathers, Aborigines were not even recognised as Australians, this wasn’t corrected till the 1967 referendum giving them the right to vote.
I am not a bleeding heart lefty, I don’t believe there was ever a “stolen generation”, there has been a significant overstatement with respect to massacres and other claimed atrocities. That said, there was significant and ongoing endemic discrimination, both social and institutional. I am a country GP, with a significant part of my work being in indigenous health. I have spoken to people who were, within the last 50 years not allowed into the local town, without risk of arrest. They could not drink in the local hotel without being issued a special card, issued by the local administrator, which gave the holder equal “rights”, effectively made its holder “white”, and yes I have seen one the cards around 15 years ago, it was shown to me by an elder who had kept it, even after the policy ended. I for one will vote for this change, as my parents did in 1967. I remember going with my parents to vote at the referendum, my late father was a very straight laced homicide detective in 1967, hardly a lefty, but I clearly remember him telling us kids that we (the nation) were going to correct an historical wrong, long overdue. This next step will complete that task.
I respect Bushdoc’s views, but I do not share his faith that a change to the preamble will not eventually be cited in court as reason for this or that judgment or interpretation. More importantly, though, is the cultural message sent: that as of now even our most profoundly important legal document distinguishes between those of us with ancestors of one “race” and those of another. We become no longer individuals but representatives of a “race”. I refuse to join the “Anglo-Saxon” or Caucasian “race”. I refuse even o be assigned to the “race” of those who came before or after. I was born here, belong here and am just as indigenous to this land as anyone.
As for the dispossession, we may argue about Aboriginal concepts of land ownership and whether the arrival of Europeans and their technology was in the long run a blessing or a curse. But the plain facts of European settlers usurping Aboriginal authority are not in dispute. They are already taught and widely acknowledged. The real question is whether the Constitution should be changed - and with it our concept of racially-blind citizenship.
Bushdoc says earlier generations discriminated against Aborigines, citing drinking restrictions. In fact, drinking restrictions have since been attempted again in some Aboriginal communities because of the utter devastation caused since alcohol restrictions were lifted in the name of racial equality. The early restrictions should be better seen not as an expression of racism but of genuine welfare concern. Look at Aboriginal camps today and I defy anyone to suggest we’ve earned the right to crow that we now know better.
But, yes, there was racism and discrimination in the past. Other readers mention, for instance, that Aborigines were not allowed to vote in federal elections until 1967. But I fear this is more evidence of a couple of generations of propagandising.
Keith Windschuttle on the report of a panel recommending rewriting our constitution: 
The panel’s first recommendation is for the repeal of Section 25, which says in full: “For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any State, all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the State, then, in reckoning the number of people of the State or of the Commonwealth, persons of the race resident in that state shall not be counted.” 
Langton and Davis claim to have legal opinion that Section 25 could be interpreted as contemplating a denial of the franchise on the grounds of race. But the real reason this section was included was because in the 1890s Queensland and Western Australia did not allow full-blood Aborigines to vote in state elections.
The framers of the Constitution wanted a measure to bring both states into line with all the others, where Aborigines did have the franchise. The section was designed to penalise, by reducing their federal representation, those states that did not conform. In other words, rather than denying them the franchise, the framers of the Constitution supported giving all Aborigines that right from the very outset. The panel’s report actually acknowledges this point itself, but does not mention it in the executive summary or any of its media releases. 
From the Australian Electoral Commission website:
Ask Australians when Aborigines got the vote and most of them will say 1967. The referendum in that year is remembered as marking a turning point in attitudes to Aboriginal rights. In one of the few ‘yes’ votes since federation, 90.77 per cent of Australians voted to change the Constitution to allow the Commonwealth to make laws for Aborigines and to include them in the census. 
But the referendum didn’t give Aborigines the right to vote. They already had it. Legally their rights go back to colonial times. When Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia framed their constitutions in the 1850s they gave voting rights to all male British subjects over 21, which of course included Aboriginal men. And in 1895 when South Australia gave women the right to vote and sit in Parliament, Aboriginal women shared the right. Only Queensland and Western Australia barred Aborigines from voting…
That first Commonwealth Parliament was elected by State voters but when it met it had to decide who should be entitled to vote for it in future. Three groups attracted debate. Women had votes in some States but not in others, so had Aborigines. And there were some Chinese, Indian and other non-white people who had become permanent residents before the introduction of the White Australia immigration policy… Section 41 said that anyone with a State vote must be allowed a Commonwealth vote. South Australia got that clause into the Constitution to ensure that South Australian women would have Commonwealth votes whether or not the Commonwealth Parliament decided to enfranchise all Australian women. The Commonwealth did enfranchise all women so they did not need section 41. But that section did seem to guarantee that, except in Queensland and Western Australia, Aborigines would be able to vote for the Commonwealth because of their State rights.
Was this perfect? No. Were some Aborigines excluded from voting? Yes, by their states. Did this country fail to live up to the ideals of the framers of the Constitution? Yes. Did we try to restrict the freedom of some “races” from becoming Australian citizens? Yes.
But through it all did we not still hold as an ideal - however often we fell short in practice - that citizens were equal before the law, regardless of wealth, ancestors, creed, class or “race”?
Yes, yes and yes.
We might not always follow the point of our moral compass, but the answer is never to break it. 
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Don’t mention the war

Andrew Bolt January 27 2014 (8:28am)

Such cowards. Not once in this Guardian news story is the specific religion named:
Tony Blair has reignited debate about the west’s response to terrorism with a call on governments to recognise that religious extremism has become the biggest source of conflict around the world. 
Referring to wars and violent confrontations from Syria to Nigeria and the Philippines, Blair, writing in the Observer, argues that “there is one thing self-evidently in common: the acts of terrorism are perpetrated by people motivated by an abuse of religion. It is a perversion of faith.”
The omission is even more craven since Blair’s article in the Observer did mention Islam, even if he hedged, excused and qualified:
The last weeks have seen a ghastly roll call of terror attacks in the obvious places: Syria, Libya, Iraq and Lebanon, as well as Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia and Pakistan. Also suffering are places where we have only in recent years seen such violence: Nigeria, and in many parts of central Africa, in Russia and across central Asia, and in Burma, Thailand and the Philippines....
The fact is that, though of course there are individual grievances or reasons for the violence in each country, there is one thing self-evidently in common: the acts of terrorism are perpetrated by people motivated by an abuse of religion… But this issue of extremism is not limited to Islam. There are also many examples the world over where Muslims are the victims of religiously motivated violence from those of other religious faiths.
Despite Blair’s attempt at the end to soften his critique of Islam, of the 15 conflict areas he cites, 13 involve Islamic terrorism or Muslim extremists. As for the other two, the central African conflict does not involve specially religious forces and the Burmese warfare is better seen as a struggle between an oppressive Leftist regime and tribes (Muslim, Christian and Buddhist) fighting for their freedom.
Islam, not “religious faiths” plural, is the problem. The fear of saying so is a sign of weakness. 
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Paltridge: this warming pause may destroy the reputation of science

Andrew Bolt January 27 2014 (12:16am)

Temperatures have not risen for at least 15 years. The pause now threatens to expose how much scientists sold their souls for cash and fame, warns emeritus professor Garth Paltridge, author of The Climate Caper: Facts and Fallacies of Global Warming and a former chief research scientist with the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research:
...there has been no significant warming over the most recent fifteen or so years… 
In the light of all this, we have at least to consider the possibility that the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously overstating the climate problem ... in its effort to promote the cause. It is a particularly nasty trap in the context of science, because it risks destroying, perhaps for centuries to come, the unique and hard-won reputation for honesty which is the basis of society’s respect for scientific endeavour…
The trap was set in the late 1970s or thereabouts when the environmental movement first realised that doing something about global warming would play to quite a number of its social agendas. At much the same time, it became accepted wisdom around the corridors of power that government-funded scientists (that is, most scientists) should be required to obtain a goodly fraction of their funds and salaries from external sources—external anyway to their own particular organisation.
The scientists in environmental research laboratories, since they are not normally linked to any particular private industry, were forced to seek funds from other government departments. In turn this forced them to accept the need for advocacy and for the manipulation of public opinion. For that sort of activity, an arm’s-length association with the environmental movement would be a union made in heaven…
The trap was partially sprung in climate research when a number of the relevant scientists began to enjoy the advocacy business. The enjoyment was based on a considerable increase in funding and employment opportunity. The increase was not so much on the hard-science side of things but rather in the emerging fringe institutes and organisations devoted, at least in part, to selling the message of climatic doom. A new and rewarding research lifestyle emerged which involved the giving of advice to all types and levels of government, the broadcasting of unchallengeable opinion to the general public, and easy justification for attendance at international conferences—this last in some luxury by normal scientific experience, and at a frequency previously unheard of…
The trap was fully sprung when many of the world’s major national academies of science (such as the ...  Australian Academy of Science) persuaded themselves to issue reports giving support to the conclusions of the IPCC. The reports were touted as national assessments that were supposedly independent of the IPCC and of each other, but of necessity were compiled with the assistance of, and in some cases at the behest of, many of the scientists involved in the IPCC international machinations. In effect, the academies, which are the most prestigious of the institutions of science, formally nailed their colours to the mast of the politically correct. Since that time three or four years ago, there has been no comfortable way for the scientific community to raise the spectre of serious uncertainty about the forecasts of climatic disaster… It can no longer escape prime responsibility if it should turn out in the end that doing something in the name of mitigation of global warming is the costliest scientific mistake ever visited on humanity.
This is why scientific organisations have - tragically - become almost the last places to hear the truth about the global warming pause. Too many reputations are now at stake. 
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Why did police and reporters not mention 200 brawling Africans in the middle of Melbourne?

Andrew Bolt January 26 2014 (7:53pm)

Immigration, The politics of race

 Victoria Police have been so vilified as racists that they no longer dare to describe a growing problem involving our latest refugee community:
Community workers claim police played down a violent New Year’s brawl between more than 200 youths of African appearance in Melbourne’s CBD for fear of being accused of racism. 
Salvation Army staff say Swanston Street was like a “war zone”, with one man carrying a machete and another a knife, as bottles were thrown at police trying to break up rolling fights between two large groups early on New Year’s Day.
Major Brendan Nottle, the 2013 Melburnian of the Year, said what he saw indicated serious social problems within the African community… “Rather than take the approach that we’re not going to talk about this for fear of being branded racist, or saying, ‘why are these young people here, why don’t they integrate’, we actually need to say this is a problem and work out a strategic way to address it,” he said…
. A police media spokeswoman said those involved were of varying ethnic backgrounds. But Anthony McEvoy, who heads the Salvation Army’s youth street team, which runs the “chill-out” zone on the lawns of St Paul’s Cathedral in Swanston Street, said the people he saw brawling looked almost exclusively African. 
As I noted last week in response to a judge’s comments, our politicians are importing people who they must know will struggle to fit in - at a cost to the rest of us. In this case again:
Awan Mading, a Sudanese-born volunteer with the Salvation Army, said many young people from the African community had little education and poor job prospects, making them feel excluded… 
“So they become frustrated, and some of them drop out of school, hoping they will find a job. But if they don’t have any qualifications or work experience they can’t get employment. So they end up in the street drinking.” 
Plus fighting. How on earth is an immigration system with these results in the national interest?
An honest debate needs to be held, without shut-ups screams of “racist”, before more people get hurt.
And note: if police won’t even tell the public the facts about a brawl this huge in the middle of Melbourne, what else are they not saying “for our own good”? And where were the journalists that night?
UPDATE
Incredible. I’ve searched news reports and so far cannot find a single contemporary reference by police or the news media to the brawl - one reportedly involving 200 Africans in the very middle of Melbourne city. How on earth could that not be news? What else are we not being told?
UPDATE
Reader AussieBoy:
One of our Indigenous Liaison Officers from work was visiting members of her tribe in Melbourne that same day and were sitting on the steps of the cathedral talking to police about the work they are doing in the aboriginal community and that they were looking forward to the kids seeing the fireworks when the whole thing ‘just took off’ as she said. They were there with children and older adults and she said the police tried to keep two separate groups apart but there were bottles and all sorts of missiles tossed at both the police and at each other. 
One African snuck up next to them and tossed a bottle through a window of the cathedral, her brother told him off and when the police came to question the guy he denied doing it but all the aborigines that were there who saw him do it said they saw him do it so the police took him away. She said the police then escorted her and her people away from the area and that they were very courteous and suggested a safer area. One officer told her that no matter how they dealt with this they will be made out to be the bad guys.
(This post bumped from an item below.) 
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A trip in New Zealand

Andrew Bolt January 26 2014 (6:37pm)

From my diary - on my trip to New Zealand - in this week’s read-packed edition of the Spectator:
New Zealanders are lucky Maori chiefs in 1840 signed the Treaty of Waitangi, accepting British rule. Sure, this institutionalised racial politics, but it stopped excessive breast-beating about ‘invasions’. Bottom line: you agreed to it, boys. If only the British had found Aboriginal political structures sophisticated enough to treaty with. But New Zealand has not escaped other evils of the fashionable race industry, including indigenous ‘ownership’ of history. Wellington’s Museum of New Zealand tells the Maori story exclusively from the perspective of Maori curators, who insist the first Maori sailed to New Zealand from deep in the Pacific in a triumph of navigation. But how could they have known the islands were there to find? And where’s the evidence some sailed back home to tell the rest to come over? In Christchurch it’s worse. A film in a museum devoted to the city’s devastating earthquake three years ago explains it was caused by a Maori embryonic spirit kicking in its earth-womb.
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A good critic informs and ultimately improves the art. A bad critic names and shames. "Waiter, there is a hair in my soup" compares poorly with "Waiter, your cat is moulting" .. ed
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“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” - James 4:10
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

January 26: Morning

"Your heavenly Father." - Matthew 6:26

God's people are doubly his children, they are his offspring by creation, and they are his sons by adoption in Christ. Hence they are privileged to call him, "Our Father which art in heaven." Father! Oh, what precious word is that. Here is authority: "If I be a Father, where is mine honour?" If ye be sons, where is your obedience? Here is affection mingled with authority; an authority which does not provoke rebellion; an obedience demanded which is most cheerfully rendered--which would not be withheld even if it might. The obedience which God's children yield to him must be loving obedience. Do not go about the service of God as slaves to their taskmaster's toil, but run in the way of his commands because it is your Father's way. Yield your bodies as instruments of righteousness, because righteousness is your Father's will, and his will should be the will of his child. Father!--Here is a kingly attribute so sweetly veiled in love, that the King's crown is forgotten in the King's face, and his sceptre becomes, not a rod of iron, but a silver sceptre of mercy--the sceptre indeed seems to be forgotten in the tender hand of him who wields it. Father!--Here is honour and love. How great is a Father's love to his children! That which friendship cannot do, and mere benevolence will not attempt, a father's heart and hand must do for his sons. They are his offspring, he must bless them; they are his children, he must show himself strong in their defence. If an earthly father watches over his children with unceasing love and care, how much more does our heavenly Father? Abba, Father! He who can say this, hath uttered better music than cherubim or seraphim can reach. There is heaven in the depth of that word--Father! There is all I can ask; all my necessities can demand; all my wishes can desire. I have all in all to all eternity when I can say, "Father."

Evening

"All they that heard it wondered at those things." - Luke 2:18

We must not cease to wonder at the great marvels of our God. It would be very difficult to draw a line between holy wonder and real worship; for when the soul is overwhelmed with the majesty of God's glory, though it may not express itself in song, or even utter its voice with bowed head in humble prayer, yet it silently adores. Our incarnate God is to be worshipped as "the Wonderful." That God should consider his fallen creature, man, and instead of sweeping him away with the besom of destruction, should himself undertake to be man's Redeemer, and to pay his ransom price, is, indeed marvellous! But to each believer redemption is most marvellous as he views it in relation to himself. It is a miracle of grace indeed, that Jesus should forsake the thrones and royalties above, to suffer ignominiously below for you. Let your soul lose itself in wonder, for wonder is in this way a very practical emotion. Holy wonder will lead you to grateful worship and heartfelt thanksgiving. It will cause within you godly watchfulness; you will be afraid to sin against such a love as this. Feeling the presence of the mighty God in the gift of his dear Son, you will put off your shoes from off your feet, because the place whereon you stand is holy ground. You will be moved at the same time to glorious hope. If Jesus has done such marvellous things on your behalf, you will feel that heaven itself is not too great for your expectation. Who can be astonished at anything, when he has once been astonished at the manger and the cross? What is there wonderful left after one has seen the Saviour? Dear reader, it may be that from the quietness and solitariness of your life, you are scarcely able to imitate the shepherds of Bethlehem, who told what they had seen and heard, but you can, at least, fill up the circle of the worshippers before the throne, by wondering at what God has done.
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Ahimelech 
[Ăhĭm'elĕch] - brother of the king or my brother is king.
1. A son of Ahitub and chief at Nob, who was slain for assisting David when he fled from Saul (1 Sam. 21:1-8; 1 Sam. 22:9-20; 1 Sam. 23:6; 1 Sam. 30:7).
2. A Hittite officer and follower of David (1 Sam. 26:6).
3. The son of Abiathar the priest who escaped slaughter at Nob (2 Sam. 8:17; 1 Chron. 18:16; 24:6). Some writers feel that the names of Abiathar and Ahimelech in these verses have been transposed.
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Today's reading: Exodus 14-15, Matthew 17 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Exodus 14-15

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 "Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. 3 Pharaoh will think, 'The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.' 4 And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD." So the Israelites did this....

Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 17

The Transfiguration
1 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
4 Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters-one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah...."

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