Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Tue Jan 17th Todays News

A peace activist and congressman who wouldn't go to George W Bush's inauguration has declared he won't go to Trump's one because Trump is the exception. Lewis feels that Trump does not represent popular will as President, and the election was rigged by Russia. Incidentally, Lewis accepted the DNC rigging for HR Clinton. Peace activists are used to having it both ways. Lewis was lauded for opposing segregation in the '60s. Now Lewis promotes racial division of Obama domestic policy. Trump was elected because of people like Lewis taking black people for granted. He has been given many awards and doctorates from universities keen to identify with his token gestures. MLK was a man of substance, but Martin King was killed and only a pale shadow remains of that great movement, as represented by Lewis. 

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter"
― Martin Luther King Jr.
=== from 2016 ===

Forty years ago Jimmy Carter said the world would run out of oil five years ago. Rich powerful fantasists rarely get fact checked. If they are left wing. The CFMEU and Slater and Gordon share the same address in Melbourne. There is corruption. It is obvious. And it is little remarked on. Have no doubt Carter's message was corrupt. It underpinned his campaign which dismantled US security in energy at a vulnerable time. Carter cut CIA funding and removed agents and forces from the Middle East, causing the crisis Reagan had to address. But Carter, who gave Saddam chemical WMD, will answer for his crimes the same way Truman has. With adulation and fawning from the media. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
=== from 2015 ===
The Charlie Hebdo attack illustrates that it is not the insult to Islam which gets people killed, but the insult to jihadists. Charlie Hebdo was never close enough or important enough to insult Islam. To insult Islam Charlie would have needed to convert and recant. A bit like Obama. But Charlie's portrayals as people who were not Islamic are irrelevant to the Muslim religion. It is like referring to the great nation of Israel. There is no reason a Muslim should be offended by it. It has nothing to do with them. But clearly the jihadists are hurt by any reference to their death cult or promotion of their failure. But if we are to have any spine at all, we must challenge the death cult's assertions. And one way is to challenge their claim they are Muslim. Clearly they claim they are. But is their claim merely an assertion of violence? Can a Muslim exist in a progressive society without being overcome by a desire to kill others, including Muslims, torture, rape, abuse their own young and pillage? One likes to believe that a Muslim can be civilised without, like Obama, giving up their faith. 

But can the Western Press accept a world without the death cult? In many ways, the media has promoted the death cult, interviewing fans of terrorism and discrediting and undermining the Islamic community's attempts to assert a religion of peace. The death cult's Sharia law is not the law that Islamic peoples must follow. John Safran has recently embraced ISIL as an equal to western nations. The truth is they don't compare. But there must be a reason why leftists insist on promoting that myth. And part of that lies with the antisemitism of the left. It is not mere bigotry which has seen Israel abused in the left by those inheriting Nazi philosophy. The historical connection with Nazism for those hating Israel is evident. 

On this day in 38 BC, Octavian divorced his wife, on the day she gave birth to his daughter, and split an alliance with Pompey resulting in civil war. A lesson being that family is important and domestic peace extends far. But there has to be a limit. Today is the anniversary (1998) of the Drudge Report breaking the Monica Lewinski and President Clinton scandal. Monica was a young woman whom the President betrayed, but note the President's doormat of a wife, ever ambitious, despising the woman to promote her husband. Earlier, the Doormat had told the US public that news of Bill's affairs were her business, not the nation's. Yet history shows her poor judgement weakened the Presidency with an impeachment. Democrats today are keen to impeach President Bush for something, but they just don't know what. They have lied about missing WMD, since found in Syria, about invasions for oil, about it being inappropriate to have democracy in the Middle East when they clearly don't believe in democracy in the West. 
From 2014
It is hard to know what the complaint of the left is to do with boat people and the Abbott government. Some are complaining that they don't really know what is happening, but with no boats in four weeks, probably nothing much is happening, and it isn't hard to know. Some say the Australian Navy is shooting at boat people. But they are such bad shots they hit no one. Others are saying the navy is rabidly giving away life boats and fuel. It simply is not what they want. The left like to give money to drowning people. It isn't the same if they aren't drowning. And the left like to watch it happen. It is very important that the victim is first exploited by a people smuggler. Otherwise it just won't be fair. If the Abbott government were to give money away to drowning people exploited by people smugglers then the left wing would be happy and quiet, like they were with Gillard. And as an added bonus, some Tasmanians would work for their living.

I am one of the 85% of Australians not driving as much as 100 kms a day. And I don't own an iMieve. Why doesn't the Australian government do anything about that monster killing people in our streets, hurting children and pets and wearing shoes of every Australian on a daily basis. I am referring to pavement. It is similar as with the excuses given by an AGW alarmist who got stuck in ice in the middle of summer. It is very lucky there wasn't an iron pole nearby, or he'd have gotten his tongue stuck.
Historical perspective on this day
In 38 BC, Octavian divorced his wife Scribonia and married Livia Drusilla, ending the fragile peace between the Second Triumvirate and Sextus Pompey. 395, Emperor Theodosius I died in Milan, the Roman Empire was re-divided into an eastern and a western half. The Eastern Roman Empire was centered in Constantinople under Arcadius, son of Theodosius, and the Western Roman Empire in Mediolanum under Honorius, his brother (aged 10). 1287, King Alfonso III of Aragon invaded Minorca. 1377, Pope Gregory XI moved the Papacy back to Rome from Avignon. 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano sets sail westward from Madeira to find a sea route to the Pacific Ocean. 1562, France recognised the Huguenots by the Edict of Saint-Germain. 1595, Henry IV of France declares war on Spain.

In 1608, Emperor Susenyos surprised an Oromo army at Ebenat; his army reportedly killed 12,000 Oromo at the cost of 400 of his men. 1648, England's Long Parliament passed the "Vote of No Addresses", breaking off negotiations with King Charles I and thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War. 1773, Captain James Cook and his crew became the first Europeans to sail below the Antarctic Circle. 1781, American Revolutionary War: Battle of Cowpens – Continental troops under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan defeated British forces under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton at the battle in South Carolina. 1799, Maltese patriot Dun Mikiel Xerri, along with a number of other patriots, was executed.

In 1811, Mexican War of Independence: In the Battle of Calderón Bridge, a heavily outnumbered Spanish force of 6,000 troops defeated nearly 100,000 Mexican revolutionaries. 1852, the United Kingdom recognised the independence of the Boer colonies of the Transvaal. 1873, a group of Modoc warriors defeated the United States Army in the First Battle of the Stronghold, part of the Modoc War. 1885, a British force defeated a large Dervish army at the Battle of Abu Klea in the Sudan. 1893, Lorrin A. Thurston, along with the Citizens' Committee of Public Safety led the Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the government of Queen Liliʻuokalani. 1899, the United States took possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.

In 1903, El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico became part of the United States National Forest System as the Luquillo Forest Reserve. 1904, Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchardreceived its premiere performance at the Moscow Art Theatre. 1912, Captain Robert Falcon Scott reaches the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen. 1913, Raymond Poincaré was elected President of France. 1917, the United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands. 1918, Finnish Civil War: The first serious battles took place between the Red Guards and the White Guard. 1929, Popeye the Sailor Man, a cartoon character created by Elzie Segar, first appeared in the Thimble Theatre comic strip. 1929, Inayatullah Khan, king of the Emirate of Afghanistan abdicated the throne after only three days.

In 1941, Franco-Thai War: French forces inflicted a decisive defeat over the Royal Thai Navy. 1943, World War II: Greek submarine Papanikolis captured the 200-ton sailing vessel Agios Stefanos and manned her with part of her crew. 1944, World War II: Allied forces launched the first of four assaults on Monte Cassino with the intention of breaking through the Winter Lineand seizing Rome, an effort that would ultimately take four months and cost 105,000 Allied casualties. 1945, World War II: Soviet forces captured the almost completely destroyed Polish city of Warsaw. Also 1945, the Nazis began the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces closed in. Also 1945, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg was taken into Soviet custody while in Hungary; he was never publicly seen again. 1946, the UN Security Council held its first session. 1949, The Goldbergs, the first sitcom on American television, aired for the first time.

In 1950, The Great Brink's Robbery – 11 thieves stole more than $2 million from an armored car company's offices in Boston. 1961, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered a televised farewell address to the nation three days before leaving office, in which he warned against the accumulation of power by the "military–industrial complex" as well as the dangers of massive spending, especially deficit spending. Also 1961, former Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was murdered in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the governments of Belgium and the United States. 1966, Palomares incident: A B-52 bomber collided with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Spain, killing seven airmen, and dropping three 70-kiloton nuclear bombs near the town of Palomares and another one into the sea. 1969, Black Panther Party members Bunchy Carter and John Huggins were killed during a meeting in Campbell Hall on the campus of UCLA. 1977, convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in Utah, ending a ten-year moratorium on capital punishment in the United States. 1981, President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos lifted martial law eight years and five months after declaring it. 1982, "Cold Sunday": in numerous cities in the United States temperatures fell to their lowest levels in over 100 years. 1983, the tallest department store in the world, Hudson's flagship store in downtown Detroit, closed due to the high cost of operating.

In 1991, Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm began early in the morning. Iraq fired 8 Scudmissiles into Israel in an unsuccessful bid to provoke Israeli retaliation. Also 1991, Harald Vbecame King of Norway on the death of his father, Olav V. 1992, during a visit to South Korea, Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa apologised for forcing Korean women into sexual slavery during World War II. 1994, 1994 Northridge earthquake: A magnitude 6.7 earthquakehit Northridge, California. 1995, the Great Hanshin earthquake: A magnitude 7.3 earthquakeoccurred near Kobe, Japan, causing extensive property damage and killing 6,434 people. 1996, the Czech Republic applied for membership of the European Union. 1997, a Delta 2carrying a GPS2R satellite exploded 13 seconds after launch, dropping 250 tons of burning rocket remains around the launch pad. 1998,  Lewinsky scandal: Matt Drudge broke the story of the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky affair on his website The Drudge Report. 2001, U.S. President Bill Clinton posthumously promoted William Clark from Lieutenant to Captain. 2002, Mount Nyiragongo erupted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, displacing an estimated 400,000 people. 2007, the Doomsday Clock was set to five minutes to midnight in response to North Korea nuclear testing. 2008, British Airways Flight 38 crash landed just short of London Heathrow Airport in England with no fatalities. It was the first complete hull loss of a Boeing 777. 2010, Rioting began between Muslim and Christian groups in Jos, Nigeria, resulting in at least 200 deaths.
=== 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 Wei SU. Born on this day, across the years, along with 
Pope Gregory XI
We have come home. Public safety is important. We are secure. We are underway. We aren't violent. We win. Let's party. 
Deaths
===
Tim Blair



NOSTRADUMBARSE STRIKES AGAIN

Australian cities will run out of water. Perth will be a ghost town. China will ditch coal. Our planet will become sentient. Tim Flannery’s list of climate predictions is long and almost always wrong.
17 Jan  

DOUBLE-DUTY DURACELL DAN

ABC staffer Dan Bourchier believes he can cope with the awesome challenge of presenting both morning radio AND evening television in a city of fewer than half a million.
17 Jan  

TUESDAY NOTICEBOARD

Today’s noticeboard is brought to you by the third year of Margo Kingston’s doctorate in creative practice for being Margo Kingston.
17 Jan  

AL FAIL

Your taxes are hard at work concealing girl arms from the pervy gaze of degenerate Australian taxpayers.
17 Jan  

LEFTISTS DISUNITED WILL ALWAYS BE DEFEATED

Shock! The great Washington Lady Parade against president-elect Donald Trump is hit by infighting over racial divisions.
17 Jan
===

JIMMY MATH

Tim Blair – Sunday, January 17, 2016 (12:24am)

“We’ve got about 35 years worth of oil left in the whole world …”



In fact, more than 35 years later we still haven’t even run out of Jimmy Carter. Meanwhile: 
Oil prices have settled below $US30 a barrel for the first time in 12 years as turmoil in Chinese markets and the expected increase in Iranian crude exports added to concerns that a global glut will linger. 
===

FEMINISTS ODDLY SILENT

Tim Blair – Sunday, January 17, 2016 (12:21am)

Headline in the Washington Post:



Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology rejected the bill, which among other revisions proposed raising the marriage age for females from 16 to 18, because it was blasphemous.
===

FORGETFUL FREEDLAND

Tim Blair – Sunday, January 17, 2016 (12:15am)

The Guardian‘s Jonathan Freedland reviews attacks that missed their targets: 
Call it Alf Garnett syndrome. The television writer Johnny Speight always insisted his comic creation was designed to send up the ignorant bigots of Powellite Britain. The trouble was, the ignorant bigots embraced Alf as their spokesman …
Bruce Springsteen wrote Born in the USA as a stinging attack on the hollow jingoism that wages foreign wars and abandons the usually poor men who fight them: Ronald Reagan liked the chorus so much he tried to adopt it as a campaign theme song. The cartoonist Vicky thought he was lampooning the absurdity of Harold Macmillan’s grandiosity with his Supermac creation but Tories embraced it, thinking it made their man look a hero. The producers of Have I Got News for You invited Boris Johnson on as a guest host to have a laugh at his expense. Only too late did they realise they had provided the launchpad for his mayoral career. 
And so on. But Freedland declines to mention his central role in one of the more spectacular strategic blunders of recent years. In 2004, the Guardian stole my sarcastic idea – written in response to a Freedland column – and launched a campaign to turn Ohio voters against George W. Bush. 
Operation Clark County was such a fantastic failure that the Guardian abandoned it even before the 2004 election was held. The county was subsequently won by Bush, who also carried the state. A spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party gave credit to the Guardian‘s campaign: 
It fired up our side, not just in Clark County, but across the state. 
To calculate the impact of the Guardian‘s error, just subtract Ohio’s 20 electoral college votes from Bush’s score and add it to John Kerry’s. And it all began with a Jonathan Freedland column.
===

ROOM SERVICE WARRIOR

Tim Blair – Saturday, January 17, 2015 (4:52pm)

John Safran meets Musa Cerantonio, the fearless Australian jihadi who fought in Syria from the unique strategic vantage point of a Philippines hotel room: 
Musa says he’s often taken out of context. 
But of course. Is there some kind of Koranic requirement for “out-of-context” excuses from these idiots? 
What did he post on social media that was so contentious? “I make my own maps. There were people in Syria, they’d message me and they’d say, ‘Can you update this on the map?’ I thought, ‘Wow, these guys are actually on the ground and they’re finding it useful.’?”
“These guys” are Islamic State fighters. 
And Cerantonio apparently helped to locate their victims, all without putting himself at any risk. Brave chap. Next, Islam’s ultimate keyboard warrior discusses the finer points of his peaceful faith: 
“The vast majority of Muslims are clear on 95 per cent of matters. You have to pray five times a day – nobody is saying it’s six or four – we all agree. The punishment for adultery for a married person is that they are killed. It’s clear; nobody debates this.”
I find this difficult to believe. “Surely people, like Muslims in Australia, would ... if I went to Nazeem at Triple J and said, ‘Do you think adulterers should be stoned?’ he’d go, ‘No’, wouldn’t he?”
“They don’t have to be stoned,” Musa says. “You could also cut their head off.”
I laugh reflexively, as if one of my sarcastic friends has said something transgressive for effect. But he’s not being sarcastic. I don’t quite know what to say. 
“Goodbye” might be a start.
===

AUTOCORRECT AMOK

Tim Blair – Saturday, January 17, 2015 (4:08pm)

A text conversation with Jo Thornely goes dreadfully awry: 
Jo: Thursday drinks at the Clock?
Tim: Yes.
Jo: Lick and lad.
Jo: WHAT
Jo: LOCK AND LOAD
Jo: F**K 
===

OLDER NOT ALWAYS BETTER

Tim Blair – Saturday, January 17, 2015 (1:42pm)

Roger Franklin is right that Fairfax is now ruled by young morons, but we should not forget the contributions to idiocy made by some of the organisation’s elders. Alan Ramsey, for example, repeatedly predicted a massive win for Labor’s Mark Latham in 2004. Terry Lane fell for a ridiculous anti-war hoax in 2006. Just last year, Mike Carltondecided it was a good idea to abuse the Sydney Morning Herald‘s few remaining readers. And then there is Canberra Times oldster Jack Waterford, who refers to the murderous Charlie Hebdo attack as “the overreaction” and imagines we could easily be pals with Islamic State: 
We could be just as well fighting alongside IS as against it, and, contemptible and idiotic as they are, we have had worse causes and people as our allies; indeed currently do. 
Worse than Islamic State, Jack? Go on, then. Let’s have the list.
===

TIME’S UP

Tim Blair – Saturday, January 17, 2015 (1:04pm)

It looks like a standard bureaucratic encounter. Perhaps a meeting of the school board, or a council planning committee:



In fact, Brazilian drug convict Marco Moreira is learning that after more than a decade in prison he will shortly be executed by firing squad in Indonesia. Two Australians may soon follow. 
===

GAIA AT REST

Tim Blair – Saturday, January 17, 2015 (4:05am)

Climate fantasy from the ABC (combined with climate greed and opportunism from insurance companies and climate gullibility from Choice): 
Consumer group Choice is warning the cost of home insurance could almost double in the decades ahead with predictions extreme weather will become more common.
It has commissioned a study looking at the effect of climate change on the insurance market and has found insurers are rejecting customers deemed too risky.
Australia’s population is growing and its cities are expanding and Karl Mallon, the chief executive of the research group Climate Risk, says people are increasingly building homes in areas with serious environmental risks. 
Climate reality: 
Insured losses from catastrophes hit their lowest total since 2009 with a 38 per cent decrease on the 10-year average ...
According to [Aon’s Impact Forecasting] Annual Global Climate and Catastrophe Report, insured losses for 2014 topped out at $48 billion globally compared with the ten-year average of $77 billion. 
Via Luke. That last link may be useful for any readers whose insurance companies are presently attempting to grab some climate change cash bonuses.
===

TAYLOR MADE

Tim Blair – Saturday, January 17, 2015 (3:41am)

Instead of this hideously wimpy tune, James Taylor could have chosen a far more appropriate number for his John Kerry-endorsed response to Islamic terrorism in France. Key lyrics: “Sooner or later, you’ve got to stand up and say you won’t take any more. Stand up, stand and fight.”
Which is exactly the approach now being taken in Europe.
UPDATE. Mark Steyn: “I’m in Europe myself at the moment and I was shocked when someone said to me, ‘Did you hear about the huge bomb in Paris?’ It took me a couple of minutes to realize she was talking about Kerry’s press conference.”
UPDATE II. The French Prime Minister addresses a central issue: 
In a voice crackling with anger and pain, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls denounced the rise of antisemitism in France before the country’s National Assembly yesterday, pointedly observing, “We haven’t shown enough outrage …”
“How can we accept that in France, where the Jews were emancipated two centuries ago, but which was also where they were martyred [during the Nazi Holocaust] 70 years ago, that cries of ‘death to the Jews’ can be heard on the streets?” Valls asked, the indignation in his voice steadily rising. “How can we accept that French people can be murdered for being Jews? How can we accept that compatriots, or a Tunisian citizen whose father sent him to France so that he would be safe, is killed when he goes out to buy his bread for Shabbat?”
Valls observed that there “is a historical antisemitism that goes back centuries.” But, he added, “there is also a new antisemitism that is born in our neighborhoods, coming through the internet, satellite dishes, against the backdrop of loathing of the State of Israel, which advocates hatred of the Jews and all the Jews.” 
===

PEACE

Tim Blair – Saturday, January 17, 2015 (3:28am)

Pat Condell’s killer final line ends an exceptional declaration:

(Via many readers) 
===

AJ AT 80

Tim Blair – Friday, January 16, 2015 (11:01pm)

A great menu and a great man: four-time Indianapolis 500 winner A.J. Foyt, who turns 80 today, pictured at his favourite burger joint, west of Houston, Texas. 
===


Because with global warming we all need a personal green house
===


He was wrong then. But lots believed him ..
===

Labor, Greens and unions reveal their fraudulent selves

Piers Akerman – Friday, January 17, 2014 (5:49am)

LABOR, the Greens and the trade union movement have exposed themselves as frauds and charlatans with their criticism of the Coalition’s so-far successful border immigration policy. When the conservatives came to office, Labor and Green members vehemently ridiculed their plans to execute one of the principal planks of their policy platform and “stop the boats”.
Now that there have been no boats for four weeks, the same shrill voices are demanding more information on the operational details, full-knowing the people smugglers would love to know how Operation Sovereign Borders is effected so they can modify their own plans.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is adamant he will not help the people smugglers but Labor and the Greens seem determined to do their utmost to ensure his effective policy can be undermined and more people will commit to risking their lives in leaky boats to jump the legal queue.
In seeking to have details of Operation Sovereign Borders revealed before a senate committee, Labor and the Greens are showing no appreciation of the national interest nor any concern for those involved in stopping the illegal people smuggling racket.
They have studiously ignored the reality that secrecy in this operation is of paramount importance and that just three days after the federal election, the Border Protection Command director of operations advised that no information should be released on where or when asylum seeker boats were detected or which navy vessel was involved in the operation.
With fewer boats and fewer illegal arrivals, Australia stands to reap a nearly $90 million-a-year dividend as Morrison closes four superfluous-to-needs detention centres. One would think Labor and the Greens would be turning cartwheels at the news. For years, they have been carrying on about the necessary detention of illegal arrivals but now the closures are a matter of grave consternation.
Acting Greens leader Richard di Natale has said he had “huge” concerns about the Coalition government’s approach to asylum seekers.
“We’ve got a situation where all of our detention centres are under huge strain … and we’re going to close down a number of centres in Australia, move those people (to) where there’s less scrutiny, where tensions are already at boiling point, what do we think’s going to happen?”
Let me remind di Natale of his party’s social justice policy, specifically this paragraph: “We will close down the worst remote Australian detention centres, including Curtin, Scherger, Wickham Point, Northern and North West Point on Christmas Island, saving $366 million.” Scherger is one Morrison intends closing, along with Port Augusta, Leonora and Pontville.
Pontville has been empty since last September, when the former (failed) Immigration Minister Tony Burke ordered the transfer of juvenile residents into community care.
The fact Pontville has stood empty, but staffed, for four-and-a-half months has not deterred Tasmania’s Labor Premier Lara Giddings, the Greens or the trade union involved from protesting its formal closure.
Ignoring the reality that federal Labor’s Burke emptied the facility, Giddings this week said the closure was a continuation of “the Liberal Party’s attack on Tasmanian jobs”.
“This is an appalling decision by the Liberal Party which makes a mockery of its promise to create jobs in Tasmania,” she scolded.
In Giddings’ Tasmania, it is smart to pay people to sit in an empty facility knowing that the state relies on mainlanders to fund their lifestyle.
United Voice, formerly the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, wheeled out its Tasmanian secretary Helen Gibbons to express her dismay.
“This is a really sad scenario,” she said. “This centre had a reputation for being really well run. The staff there were trying to make the best possible environment.”
How difficult would it be to run a superb empty facility and create a great environment for non-existent illegal arrivals?
Gibbons wistfully harked back to an earlier era when federal Labor’s failed border protection policy ensured there were 270 jobs at Pontville. “They were all Tasmanians,” she wailed.
“There have been no refugees at all since late last year, which was a political decision by the new government when it first came to power.”
This is a great example of the need for illegal arrivals to prop up an industry which takes in rafts of workers from the former Miscos union, armies of social workers, and cadres of card-carrying Labor lawyers. Those lawyers are going to have to find other avenues of opportunity when the illegal arrival traffic is fully halted.
Morrison has also signalled he will personally cancel the visas of undesirable residents from now, denying them any right of appeal.
He acted after a string of Administrative Appeals Tribunal decisions that blocked the deportation of convicted criminals - including a New Zealand man who had a hand in the 2008 violent robbery of a prominent Melbourne doctor, and a Vietnamese man with a 17-year-long criminal record of robbery, thefts, weapons offences and crimes of dishonesty and assessed as having “a significant possibility that he may reoffend”.
Morrison’s actions are going to help the budget bottom line, they are going to save lives, and they are going to remove the stress that the unionists who have been working in detention centres have been complaining about.
This is a win-win-win result for the nation.
These should be causes for celebration, but not if you’re Labor or Greens supporter in search of causes for condemnation. 
===

i-MiEV DOESN’T MoVE

Tim Blair – Friday, January 17, 2014 (12:44pm)

Mitsubishi launched its electric i-MiEV in Australia nearly four years ago: 
The company said that, despite the total cost of $62,640, there was a lot of interest from a broad range of buyers including governments, businesses and individuals.
Mitsubishi expects demand for electric vehicles and hybrids to run hot over the next few years ... 
Warmists were expected to adore the planet-saving travel pod: 
The i-MiEV’s big selling point is that it doesn’t produce any carbon emissions. 
Yay! No wonder Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong totally loved it: 
Mr Albanese said 85 per cent of Australians drive less than 100 kilometres a day, so the car was ideal for their needs.
“Fully electric vehicles offer significant benefits in dealing with climate change in the longer term,” he said.
“There’s no doubt that the Australian market is ready for an electric vehicle and that electric vehicle is right here today.” 
Really, Albo? Let’s see how the i-MiEV is doing lately: 
Not a single Mitsubishi i-MiEV was sold in Australia in 2013. 
(Via Gavin)
===

THEY MUST RECEIVE US

Tim Blair – Friday, January 17, 2014 (12:27pm)

A bunch of boaties are rescued by the Australian Navy after deliberately sinking their own vessel – and they’re not happy about it: 
Pakistani asylum seeker, Fazal Qadir, 28, said he had set sail from an island off Java on January 5 bound for Christmas Island with 56 people from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq and Palestine on board, along with an Indonesian captain and one crew member. There was one woman with a 20-month-old toddler.
After about three or four days at sea, he said the group was spotted by an Australian aeroplane flying overhead. The boat was already leaking.
“We were very happy [when we saw them] because we thought when the boat went into the water, then they must receive us,” Mr Qadir said.
All of the people on board already knew of other vessels which had been returned to Indonesia, so were determined to be rescued rather than escorted back. One passenger took a piece of wood and prised open the hole that was already in the hull. Others rocked the boat.
When it foundered, two Australian speedboats reached them and the 12 navy personnel on board told the asylum seekers to cling to the side. The toddler was provided with a life jacket, Mr Qadir said. 
The group were subsequently loaded aboard the HMAS Stuart before being transferred to a Customs and Border Protection boat. Conditions were just terrible, according to Qadir: 
“The navy and Customs would not give us a phone.” 
Oh no! Then came the final Australian treachery: 
Mr Qadir said a small orange boat with a weather canopy was tied to the back of the Customs ship. They were told to board it because it would ferry them to Christmas Island.
At the last minute, though, a Customs officer came on board, tossed the asylum seekers a four-page document in a range of languages, and returned to the large ship, which sailed away.
The document, dated December 2013, reads: “You only have enough fuel to reach land in Indonesia. You do not have enough fuel to continue your voyage to Australia.
“The master of your vessel is now responsible for your safety. You must co-operate with the master and not act in a manner that risks your safety. You are responsible for your own actions. Your vessel is not equipped for a voyage to Australia. It is not safe to continue your voyage to Australia …”
The men said they were dropped very close to Indonesia. It took only three hours to reach shore. 
Job done. Naturally, Fairfax and the ABC are outraged.
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BAN PAVEMENT

Tim Blair – Friday, January 17, 2014 (11:38am)

Seven’s Robert Ovadia looks at the legal reasoning involved in certain recent street violence cases: 
In the Thomas Kelly case, forensic pathologists determined that a crack on the front of the teenager’s skull was caused by the back of his head hitting the pavement after Loveridge punched him.
Therefore, prosecutors argued, it could not be proven it was the actual impact of Loveridge’s fist that killed him. Therefore, prosecutors argued, they could not pursue a charge of “grievous bodily harm occasioning death”. Therefore, prosecutors argued, they could not pursue a charge of murder because – and I’m not joking – you cannot charge a pavement with such a crime. It was the pavement, you see, that killed poor Thomas Kelly – not the punch – never mind how inextricably intertwined the two events are. 
This seems ridiculous.
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CANON FIRED

Tim Blair – Friday, January 17, 2014 (11:00am)

Guardian readers carefully consider claims that the navy fired “warning shots” at asylum seekers, and deliver theirverdicts: 
• Chance it actually happened then = 100%. If Morriscum denies it, then you know it’s true. He couldn’t lie straight in bed, as the old saying goes.
• Well I believe Morrison. But then, I also believe that putting dog hair on a bite cures the wound if that particular dog bit you, and that the Catholuc priests were just checking that the hidden bits were in working order.
• If Oberfuhrer Morrision said it, it must be true..not!
• the willing liars don’t have to worry about having a canon fired in their direction.
• What more can one say about this dysfunctional idiot, I’m am totally lost for words.
• Considering the lies Morrison has told during the election campaign and since he became minister, it is pretty easy to believe they are telling the truth and he is lying....again
• Why is there no news leaking out from the Defence Force Personnell or their family’s. There must be an absolute climate of fear in our defence force. Funny thing though the truth will eventually leak out. Bet your life it will.
• This piece of sewer refuse has no concern for the lives of defenseless men women and children and he now uses the Navy to hide behind, as they carry out his filthy deeds on the high seas. Disgrace, absolute disgrace.
• The threat to use deadly force against refugees is unconscionable.
• Morrison denies it? I’d call that official confirmation it happened
• Interestingly “I can`t disclose that, because is an operational matter” is an anagram of “I`m a lying liberal c*nt”. 
And the best, most paranoid line of them all, which deserves to appear in every Guardian comment thread: 
• One word.....................Murdoch. 
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Sarah Hanson-Young furious that boat people safely returned

Andrew Bolt January 17 2014 (12:42pm)

Greens child-Senator Sarah Hanson-Young in 2011 when another 200 boat people are lured to their deaths by Labor policies:
Pressed on whether the Greens accepted responsibility for the tragedy, Senator Hanson-Young said: “Of course not. Tragedies happen, accidents happen.”
Greens child-Senator Sarah Hanson-Young today after learning our navy accidentally entered Indonesian waters in safely returning dozens of boat people to Indonesia in line with Liberal policies:
The minister is begging for forgiveness while carrying on with a policy that was always going to lead to this type of disaster.
Again, the monstrous self-absorption of the Left. So indifferent when their policies cost lives, so angry when policies they oppose save lives.
It really is just about them. That is why intentions for the Left count for more than consequences. Slogans above gulags.
UPDATE
The Age is also outraged on Indonesia’s behalf.
Strangely, this same paper now so angry that we crossed into Indonesian waters to safely turn boat people back to Indonesia seemed unfussed when Labor instead lured hundreds to their deaths:
If the Government has blood on its hands for persisting in policies that have lured so many to their deaths - more than 200 now in at least 10 known disasters since 2008 - what of the journalists who backed them?
In their guilty rage they have lashed out at me. But, far worse, they have shielded Gillard.
Barely one has held the Prime Minister to account for those policies. Too soon, they cry.
Yet it’s not too soon for journalists such as David Marr to blame the navy, or a Dennis Atkins to blame the meanness of the Australian mob, or a Heather Ewart to wonder if the Christmas Islanders could have done more.
But Gillard is spared almost all such blame and questioning. It is sick…
The Age’s Michelle Grattan on Saturday accused me of “not a little distasteful triumphalism about prior warnings”, but I don’t know how else to prove the Government was warned its policies were costing lives than by quoting earlier warnings, and I also don’t know which other journalist issued warnings I could quote.
If Grattan had said before last week the Government was luring men, women and children on to sinking boats, I’d have gladly quoted her instead. But she never did. Not once did she speak, as the tally of known deaths jumped from five, to 14, to 25, to 42 and then, even before last week’s tragedy, to as many as 170 or even more. 
Final toll? Perhaps 2000 or even more. And the journalists who said nothing to stop the drownings are now outraged that Tony Abbott has taken the steps to stop them.
UPDATE
Maybe Hanson-Young is just cross at being proved so wrong - again. What she claimed before the election:
Punishing asylum seekers by turning boats around - or sending people to Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Nauru, anywhere but here - will not deter desperate people from making dangerous journeys by boat. It never has and it never will.
Actually, such policies did work under John Howard and are working again under Tony Abbott:
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison ... says the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australia has fallen 80 per cent since Operation Sovereign Borders began four months ago. 
He said trend is supported by a decrease in the arrival of asylum seekers in Indonesia as well. “The number of persons newly presenting to the UNHCR in Jakarta for registration per month has fallen from 1,608 in September to just 296 in December,” he said.
Hanson-Young should simply say sorry. She has been demonstrably and fatally wrong. How many people have drowned as a consequence? 
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Tasmanian Labor sorry it got caught in bed with Greens

Andrew Bolt January 17 2014 (7:24am)

Tasmanian Labor assumes voters are suckers:
TASMANIAN Labor has ended the nation’s first experiment of Greens in cabinet, conceding power-sharing with the minor party alienates its core supporters, suffocates its messages and must never be repeated. 
However, Premier Lara Giddings yesterday risked undermining Labor’s attempt to restore faith among its traditional voters by refusing to rule out trading policies for support with the Greens after a March 15 election.
For four years Labor stuck with the Greens to stay in power. Only on the eve of an election defeat does it say this was a mistake and it won’t do it again – well, kind of.
That’s like the thief who’s sorry only for being caught.
Hypocrites.
The Greens have long claimed Tasmania is a beautiful island being wrecked by humans.
True enough, but those human wreckers are the Greens and their Labor enablers. A state that can’t give work to its young has committed suicide.
Tasmania’s youth jobless rate has more than doubled to 15.9 per cent, from 6.7 per cent in November 2007.
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Attacking Abbott for not killing boat people

Andrew Bolt January 17 2014 (5:54am)

Boat people policy

Leftist journalists cheered when Labor in 2008 scrapped our tough border laws:
The Age crooned that “yesterday a stain was removed from the soul of this nation” and “Australia began the process of restoring some of its lost humanity”. 
The Australian’s Mike Steketee added “Australia at least has a policy it can justify in terms of basic humanity”.
The Age’s immigration reporter said the new policy” more closely reflects the values of Australian society”. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Adele Horin cried “a shameful era is over in Australian politics”.
The Left kept backing Labor’s ”more compassionate” approach even when it predictably lured more than a thousand people to their death. In fact, many in the Left ignored the reality.  Some criticised conservatives who repeatedly warned the drownings were inevitable while the laws were so soft. The Left seemed almost unmoved by the deaths caused by its “compassion”:
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young yesterday stood by her party’s policies. Pressed on whether the Greens accepted responsibility for the tragedy, Senator Hanson-Young said: “Of course not. Tragedies happen, accidents happen.”
By Labor’s end, Fairfax reporters hardly bothered even reporting the latest drownings.
But now?
Under the Abbott Government’s “tough” laws the drownings have virtually stopped because the boats have largely stopped. We have not had one boat arrive in nearly four weeks.
That lack of corpses seems to disappoint some in the Left. Some who never blamed Labor for the real deaths it caused have now resorted to attacking Tony Abbott for deaths they lavishly imagine:
The Guardian’s Van Badham gets on a Twitter war footing against Tony Abbott, Tuesday: 
IF Abbott wants a “war-footing” against refugees, his actions demand an internal resistance. We must be that resistance. Enough of this.
She creates her own #tag writeyourowninevitablemaritimeincident and sets the ball rolling: 
THE navy fire warning shots at a smuggler vessel, accidentally shoot a pregnant refugee.
And: 
THE navy fire warning shots at a smuggler vessel, sink ship, everyone drowns.
And...: 
BOAT load of refugees commit suicide rather than be forced back to countries of origin.
Badham, of course, may simply be angry that Abbott proved her wrong when she brainlessly claimed last year:
...deterrent policies are completely ineffectual
But it is striking that such Leftists are angrier about imagined dead boat people under Abbott than they were about real dead boat people under Labor.
More evidence that their “compassion” is phony. It really is all about them, and the dead boat people - in the sea or in their minds - are mere props for their plays, in which they always cast themselves as the hero.
UPDATE
Badham, of the Guardian, is also angry about imagined ”warning shots” allegedly fired by our navy over one boat - a false claim peddled by Fairfax.
More extraordinary is that she even fancies that those imagined warning shots were aimed not above one boat but were actually fired at several of them:
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McIntyre shreds Chris Turney’s excuse for having his Ship of Fools stuck in ice

Andrew Bolt January 16 2014 (4:36pm)

Influential climate sceptic Steve McIntyre is puzzled by the excuses given by warmist professor Chris Turney for having his Ship of Fools get stuck in Antarctic ice:
Dozens of tourist vessels visit the Antarctic without becoming trapped by ice. So it’s entirely valid to inquire into why the one tourist vessel led by a “climate scientist” became trapped by ice. The leader of the expedition, Chris Turney ... claimed that the incident could not have been predicted. He said that they were trapped by a sudden “breakout” of multi-year ice ("fast ice") that had previously been part of the ice shelf and that there was no way that they could have anticipated this. Turney’s claim has been uncritically accepted by the climate community...
And by many Leftist journalists and warmist science journals keen to cover for Turney:
With escalating derision towards Turney’s expedition, Nature rushed another self-serving account of the events into print on January 6, apparently without the slightest peer review, quality control or due diligence. 
In this article, Turney’s claims became even more fanciful and untrue.
Turney falsely stated that the Akademik Shokalskiy was an “ice breaker”, even though it was merely a passenger ship that had been ice strengthened.
Turney falsely claimed that the “science case” for the tour had been “approved by the New Zealand Department of Conservation, the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service and the Australian Antarctic Division”, an assertion that was quickly denied by the head of the Australian Antarctic Division, who accused Turney of misrepresentation and said that he had written to Turney asking him to cease such misrepresentations.
In respect to the entrapment incident, Turney re-iterated the false assertion that they had been trapped by a “mass breakout” of “multiyear ice”, whereas ...they had been trapped by mobile pack ice within the polynya [an area of open water surrounded by sea ice]… 
McIntyre shows the MODIS imagery of ice spread though December that suggests Turney and his team of warmists blundered where they should have avoided. They sailed to the west of a mass of sea ice that could be pushed against their ship by an utterly predictable easterly gale. Then they got out on the ice and had fun:
December 23 was the critical day. The Akademik Shokalskiy had moored in the Mertz Glacier polynya on the east face of the Commonwealth Bay “permanent” ice about 8 km from the Antarctic coast. Watt Bay is to the southwest. 
Sources include several contemporary or near-contemporary blog posts: Turney...; Kerry-Jayne Wilson of the Blue Penguin Trust here; Green politician Janet Rice here and Robbie Turney here. The normally active twitter accounts from Turney, Guardian Antarctica and Alok Jha of the Guardian are surprisingly silent on events of December 23 ( Guardian posts from December 23-24 instead document the December 19-20 expedition to Mawson’s Huts.) Shub Niggurath also did a chronology of events on this day, which is consistent on overlapping points.
A blizzard on December 23 had been forecast (Janet Rice here). Conditions in the morning of December 23 were already very bad. Turney posted a tweet in the morning of December 23 (estimated 9:48 New Zealand time) [North America twitter time December 22 15:48]. Turney reported that they were in a “Blizzard. -4degC, -15degC wind chill”, a description that is inconsistent Turney’s subsequent claim that they had set out under “good conditions”. Kerry-Jayne Wilson also reported that they had set out in “blowing snow and near gale winds” and that it subsequently got worse…
Despite these very poor conditions, Turney authorized passengers to leave the vessel for an excursion to the mainland, where three science “projects” were carried out.
The offloading of the Argo vehicles was problematic: one of the vehicles got into the water and could not be used. Both the botched offloading and lack of a third vehicle further delayed the day’s activities (see Janet Rice’s facebook entry, cited in several discussions)
A couple of days later, Turney described the day’s events in a self-serving reportthat made no mention of the morning’s impending blizzard. Instead, Turney claimed that there had been “good conditions” on December 23 and that these “good conditions” permitted Kerry-Jayne Wilson to inspect a penguin rookery, Tracey Rogers to sample seal blubber and Eleanor Rainsley to collect geological samples. Turney said that conditions closed in during the day and that they “quickly” loaded the vehicles onto the vessel, but were unfortunately trapped:
Good conditions allowed the team to reach the Hodgeman Islets to continue our science programme and make comparisons to our findings around Mawson’s Hut… Returning to the Shokalskiy, conditions started to close in and we quickly loaded the vehicles on to the vessel. Unfortunately proceeding north we found our path blocked by ice pushed in by an increasingly strong southeasterly wind. On Christmas Eve we realised we could not get through, in spite of being just 2 nautical miles from open water. 
Obviously; Turney’s retrospective claim of “good conditions” in the morning of December 23 is inconsistent with Wilson’s report and Turney’s own contemporary tweet.
At least six passengers accompanied the three scientists on this outing, including Green politician Janet Rice, Turney’s 12-year old son Robbie, Mary [Regan], two “skiers” Peter [Stevenson?] and Steve [Lambert?] and Ben [Hines, Fisk or Maddison].
The impending gale did not deter 12-year old Robbie Turney, who described the day’s events as the “most fun that I’ve ever had outdoors before”: 
Today was absolutely stunning. This was the day we got a full on drive in the Argos, along the fast ice and straight to the continent. It was very enjoyable, possibly the most fun I’ve ever had outdoors before. The ride was really bumpy and we were going up and down getting some jumps when at full speed. … Once we got to the continent we saw a massive towering rock that was home to a colony of Adelie Penguins which were all laying on their eggs. This made great photos but they were pretty aggressive because of it. But that pretty much wraps it up for the day. 
Meanwhile, according to [Greens senator-elect] Janet Rice, the Captain became very concerned about the closing weather, but was unable to immediately recall the passengers. The vessel appears to have left at least several hours after the captain’s already risky target. 
The third drama of the day is the one which is still unfolding. Because of the Argo mishap we got off late, and had one less vehicle to ferry people to and fro. I’m told the Captain was becoming rather definite late in the afternoon that we needed to get everyone back on board ASAP because of the coming weather and the ice closing in… I’m sure the Captain would have been much happier if we had got away a few hours earlier. Maybe we would have made it through the worst before it consolidated as much as it has with the very cold south- easterly winds blowing the ice away from the coast, around and behind us as well as ahead. 
Is this how seriously and meticulously Turney does all his climate “research”? And who paid for his wife and two children to accompany him? Who pays for their rescue?
McIntyre concludes:
Even if an adventure tour ventured into a polyna it is doubtful that a tour leader would decide to moor the vessel on the exposed shore of the polyna with an impending easterly gale. Or if such a decision were made, to allow passengers to disembark. But the most startling aspect of the affair is surely Turney’s decision to authorize passengers to go well out of immediate contact with the vessel so that they were not immediately recallable in a matter of minutes. As discussed above, it seems beyond dispute that Turney was pinned by pack ice that was unstably perched to the northeast of Mertz Glacier and not by a sudden break of more or less ‘permanent’ shelf ice; that this “peninsula” of pack ice was highly exposed to the easterly gale that had already developed; and that heavy blowing of this (and other mobile ice) onto the southwest shore of the Mertz Glacier polynya was not only a possibility, but a probability, if not, near certainty. 
One can see why Turney wants to characterize the movement of sea ice as something that could not have been predicted or mitigated, but there is no reason why anyone else should accept Turney’s characterization and many reasons to reject it.
Read it all. It is devastating to Turney’s credibility.
And, once again, we must ask: where is the mainstream media in exposing this? 
===
Dean Hamstead
Eating one cookie is good, eating two is better. But 100 is actually worse.
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Losing Walter: Alexis Fretz on having a miscarriage at 19 weeks
www.news.com.au
WARNING: What you are about to see and read may be confronting or upsetting. News.com.au does not publish this story lightly or carelessly, but does so in the knowledge that one in five Australian women miscarry their child, and many are left feeling isolated, confused and alone. We hope this story…
Love is not lost .. although the life in the vessel is extinguished - ed
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"In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad"
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Some Girls Have Been Married 60 Times By The Time They Turn 18
www.jewsnews.co.il
38,000 kids sold into marriage everyday   By Max Fisher, When young girls are sold into marriage, as 38,000 are every day, they can expect a life with no education and few opportunities, little public autonomy outside of their adult husband’s control and an increased risk of death from pregnanc...
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Israel, Jews, and Judaism: Finally, fully justified outrage from State Department about killers...
israeljewsjudaism.blogspot.com

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BREAKING: UNESCO Pulls Jewish Exhibit After Last Minute Protest From Arab League | Jewish &...
www.algemeiner.com
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, has pulled a Jewish exhibit two years in the making, entitled “People, Book, Land – The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel,” after a zero hour protest from the Arab League, The Algemeiner ha...
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Beheadings, Bombings and New York’s Little Bangladesh | FrontPage Magazine
www.frontpagemag.com
Something sinister grows in Brooklyn.
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Caroline Glick: The presence of Jews on the West Bank has nothing to do with prospects for peace
www.youtube.com
http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/israel-settlement-policy From the debate "Israel is destroying itself with its settlement policy: If settlement exp...
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Remaining Silent on Pollard Invites Political Bullying of All American Jews
www.tabletmag.com
It should be ever more difficult for patriotic Jewish Americans—or anyone else, for that matter—to believe that Jonathan Pollard, who has spent 29 years in prison for passing secret intelligence documents to Israel, is being punished for the very real crime to which he pleaded guilty in 1986. Po...
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ZOA: US Anger At Ya'alon A Double Standard
www.israelnationalnews.com
Zionist Organization of America criticizes US administration for slamming Ya'alon's comments while silent on PA outrages.
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Love of the Land: What to Call a Man Whose Belief is Undeterred by the Facts
calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.se
For those who are home, and for those who are on the way. For those who support the historic and just return of the land of Israel to its people, forever loyal to their inheritance, and its restoration.
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German government using new technologies to track former Nazis and neo-Nazis
www.pbs.org
Nearly 70 years after the end of World War II, the German government is ramping up its efforts to pursue prosecution of individuals who committed war crimes during the Nazi era.
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Meet the Nazi Hunter: Israel’s Efraim Zuroff Helps German Court Case | TIME.com
world.time.com
Efraim Zuroff never aspired to become the world's most prominent Nazi hunter. Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1960s, his dream was to be the first Orthodox Jew to play basketball in the NBA. That would have been a career, he says, packed with a lot more adrenaline than the one that fell into his lap.
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Dear Secretary Kerry,

After listening to you declare repeatedly over the past weeks that "Israel's settlements are illegitimate", I respectfully wish to state, unequivocally, that you are mistaken and ill advised, both in law and in fact.

Pursuant to the "Oslo Accords", and specifically the Israel-Palestinian Interim Agreement (1995), the "issue of settlements" is one of subjects to be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations. President Bill Clinton on behalf of the US, is signatory as witness to that agreement, together with the leaders of the EU, Russia, Egypt, Jordan and Norway.

Your statements serve to not only to prejudge this negotiating issue, but also to undermine the integrity of that agreement, as well as the very negotiations that you so enthusiastically advocate.

Your determination that Israel's settlements are illegitimate cannot be legally substantiated. The oft-quoted prohibition on transferring population into occupied territory (Art. 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention) was, according to the International Committee Red Cross's own official commentary of that convention, drafted in 1949 to prevent the forced, mass transfer of populations carried out by the Nazis in the Second World War. It was never intended to apply to Israel's settlement activity. Attempts by the international community to attribute this article to Israel emanate from clear partisan motives, with which you, and the US are now identifying.

The formal applicability of that convention to the disputed territories cannot be claimed since they were not occupied from a prior, legitimate sovereign power.

The territories cannot be defined as "Palestinian territories" or, as you yourself frequently state, as "Palestine". No such entity exists, and the whole purpose of the permanent status negotiation is to determine, by agreement, the status of the territory, to which Israel has a legitimate claim, backed by international legal and historic rights. How can you presume to undermine this negotiation?

There is no requirement in any of the signed agreements between Israel and the Palestinians that Israel cease, or freeze settlement activity. The opposite is in fact the case. The above-noted 1995 interim agreement enables each party to plan, zone and build in the areas under its respective control.

Israel's settlement policy neither prejudices the outcome of the negotiations nor does it involve displacement of local Palestinian residents from their private property. Israel is indeed duly committed to negotiate the issue of settlements, and thus there is no room for any predetermination by you intended to prejudge the outcome of that negotiation.

By your repeating this ill-advised determination that Israel's settlements are illegitimate, and by your threatening Israel with a "third Palestinian intifada" and international isolation and delegitimization, you are in fact buying into, and even fueling the Palestinian propaganda narrative, and exerting unfair pressure on Israel. This is equally the case with your insistence on a false and unrealistic time limit to the negotiation.

As such you are taking sides, thereby prejudicing your own personal credibility, as well as that of the US.

With a view to restoring your own and the US's credibility, and to come with clean hands to the negotiation, you are respectfully requested to publicly and formally retract your determination as to the illegitimate nature of Israel's settlements and to cease your pressure on Israel.

Respectfully,

Alan Baker, Attorney, Ambassador (ret'),
Former legal counsel of Israel's Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
Former ambassador of Israel to Canada,
Director, Institute for Contemporary Affairs, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs,
Director, International Action Division, The Legal Forum for Israeli Keffiyeh
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India Approved the Acquisition of Barak Missiles
www.israeldefense.com
The Indian Ministery of Defence, headed by A. K. Antony, approved last month the acquisition of 262 Israeli Barak-I missiles, by Rafael and IAI, a deal estimated at $143 million, according to a report on defense-aerospace.
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Justice Dept. to change rules on terror investigations
video.foxnews.com
Holder to ban FBI agents from using religion in counterterrorism probes
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Expose the enemy: Say yes
www.jewishjournal.com
I’m worried about Israel. I’m always worried about the terror forces in the region that want to destroy the Jewish state, but these days, I’m even more worried about the evil forces around the world that want to annihilate Israel through other means.
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Shin Bet Stops Kidnapping Attempt From Within Israeli Prison
virtualjerusalem.com
Three Palestinian Arab prisoners were thwarted in their attempts to coordinate the kidnapping of Israeli citizens for Hamas-linked terror group.
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Has Iran Gained a Foothold in the Arabian Peninsula? :: Daniel Pipes
www.danielpipes.org
According to a sensational report by Awad Mustafa in DefenseNews, a Gannett publication, not only has Tehran signed an agreement with the United Arab Emirates over three disputed islands near the Strait of Hormuz, but it has also reached a possibly even
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Column One: The truth hurts
www.jpost.com
The only parties whose lot is improved by the Obama administration’s Middle East policies are Iran, the PLO and the Muslim Brotherhood.
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“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” -Galatians 5:16
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
January 16: Morning
"I will help thee, saith the Lord." - Isaiah 41:14
This morning let us hear the Lord Jesus speak to each one of us: "I will help thee." "It is but a small thing for me, thy God, to help thee. Consider what I have done already. What! not help thee? Why, I bought thee with my blood. What! not help thee? I have died for thee; and if I have done the greater, will I not do the less? Help thee! It is the least thing I will ever do for thee; I have done more, and will do more. Before the world began I chose thee. I made the covenant for thee. I laid aside my glory and became a man for thee; I gave up my life for thee; and if I did all this, I will surely help thee now. In helping thee, I am giving thee what I have bought for thee already. If thou hadst need of a thousand times as much help, I would give it thee; thou requirest little compared with what I am ready to give. 'Tis much for thee to need, but it is nothing for me to bestow. Help thee?' Fear not! If there were an ant at the door of thy granary asking for help, it would not ruin thee to give him a handful of thy wheat; and thou art nothing but a tiny insect at the door of my all-sufficiency. I will help thee.'"

O my soul, is not this enough? Dost thou need more strength than the omnipotence of the United Trinity? Dost thou want more wisdom than exists in the Father, more love than displays itself in the Son, or more power than is manifest in the influences of the Spirit? Bring hither thine empty pitcher! Surely this well will fill it. Haste, gather up thy wants, and bring them here--thine emptiness, thy woes, thy needs. Behold, this river of God is full for thy supply; what canst thou desire beside? Go forth, my soul, in this thy might. The Eternal God is thine helper!

"Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismay'd!
I, I am thy God, and will still give thee aid."
Evening
"The Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself." - Daniel 9:26
Blessed be his name, there was no cause of death in him. Neither original nor actual sin had defiled him, and therefore death had no claim upon him. No man could have taken his life from him justly, for he had done no man wrong, and no man could even have lain him by force unless he had been pleased to yield himself to die. But lo, one sins and another suffers. Justice was offended by us, but found its satisfaction in him. Rivers of tears, mountains of offerings, seas of the blood of bullocks, and hills of frankincense, could not have availed for the removal of sin; but Jesus was cut off for us, and the cause of wrath was cut off at once, for sin was put away forever. Herein is wisdom, whereby substitution, the sure and speedy way of atonement, was devised! Herein is condescension, which brought Messiah, the Prince, to wear a crown of thorns, and die upon the cross! Herein is love, which led the Redeemer to lay down his life for his enemies!

It is not enough, however, to admire the spectacle of the innocent bleeding for the guilty, we must make sure of our interest therein. The special object of the Messiah's death was the salvation of his church; have we a part and a lot among those for whom he gave his life a ransom? Did the Lord Jesus stand as our representative? Are we healed by his stripes? It will be a terrible thing indeed if we should come short of a portion in his sacrifice; it were better for us that we had never been born. Solemn as the question is, it is a joyful circumstance that it is one which may be answered clearly and without mistake. To all who believe on him the Lord Jesus is a present Saviour, and upon them all the blood of reconciliation has been sprinkled. Let all who trust in the merit of Messiah's death be joyful at every remembrance of him, and let their holy gratitude lead them to the fullest consecration to his cause.
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Today's reading: Genesis 39-40, Matthew 11 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Genesis 39-40

Joseph and Potiphar's Wife
1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.
2 The LORD was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the LORD blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the LORD was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate....

Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 11

Jesus and John the Baptist
1 After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.
2 When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples 3 to ask him, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?"
4 Jesus replied, "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 6 Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me."



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