Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Tue Jan 24th Todays News

Welcome back to Andrew Bolt who is still on holiday until next Monday. Tonight's column will focus on the extraordinary and disappointing resignation of Fair Work Vice President Graeme Watson. Graeme is an outstanding magistrate and his loss to the court is also a loss to Australia. Graeme's successful career has been in industrial relations. He is an ALP appointment. His career includes successfully fixing Australia's ports during the Patricks Stevedore dispute. He does not kill jobs with industry destroying neglect of unions as his more senior colleagues at Fair Work do. They are ALP appointments too, generally appointed towards the end of the last ALP government when the ALP knew they would lose government but hoped to use the senate to prevent reform. Shorten has been successful in hurting Australia. Even the latest legislation passed to allow scrutiny of unions was neutered so that it will not take effect until after Turnbull loses the next election. Meaning the ALP will rescind it. 

 There is now nothing worth salvaging of the Fair Work body. It is better replacing the dysfunctional body with something else. Had Tony Abbott been kept as PM, in all likelihood he would have won the following election and taken the senate. Then effective change could have produced a functional Fair Work Australia, and Graeme would have been an effective President. But Turnbull's ego intervened with the incompetent Bishop. Now Turnbull makes Shorten look electable. There is no hope for reform of Fair Work in the foreseeable future. So Watson goes to greener pasture. There will be plenty of trade reform now Trump is President. And for Australian workers trapped in a nineteenth century infrastructure run by socialist ideologues, there is no hope. (disclosure, Graeme is a cousin of mine, but I do not know him)
=== from 2016 ===
It isn't too much to ask reasonable debate. By all means disagree, but vicious long standing hatred isn't persuasive. Moshe Dayan gave away Jerusalem to Jordanian refugees calling themselves Palestinians. Moshe wasn't religious and didn't feel it mattered, but would help Jimmy Carter secure a peace deal. Moshe was wrong. The terrorists never committed to peace, although Carter was highly lauded. But by way of contrast we have NSW Premier Mike Baird make the reasonable statement regarding refugees. Refugees deserve settlement. Baird is not saying, as the ALP and Greens do, that borders need to be weakened. Neither is he saying that only Islamic peoples be settled in Australia as some allege. Even so Journalist Miranda Devine blows a dog whistle attributing to Baird everything that ALP does. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility 
=== from 2015 ===
Bali executions 
Two of the Bali Nine are scheduled for execution. It was going to be three, with Scott Rush's death sentence commuted to life. There are many good reasons why Myuran Sukumaran and Michael Chan have been sentenced to death while the others were given long sentences. They had been couriering a substantial amount of heroin, many kilos strapped to the bodies of the couriers. Andrew Chan had none on his person when he was caught. It turned out that Rush's father had tipped off police prior to the attempt and felt his son should have received recognition or leniency, but the initial death sentence did not suggest that. Meanwhile, initially, Sukumaran and Chan stonewalled and threatened the others regarding speaking to police. Press are keen to say, now, that they have been model prisoners, and there is no doubt they have been. They may also have reformed. But they gave their lives defending the drug smugglers that brought them to their end. It is a tragic waste to execute them. Australia does not have a death penalty. But that the death penalty applies, they have been sentenced correctly. One thing worth noting is the possibility that the Australian government can intervene on their behalf. Certainly the conservative government has tried. The ABC, last year, have tried very hard to derail all political effort by Australia in Indonesia following the change of government in '13. If Australia fails diplomatically, it is worth sending a few flowers to the ABC. Maybe send a few poppies. Name them Michael and Myuran. Make sure they are cut to illustrate life is cheap. 
About being Australian on Australia Day. 
Australia Day is tomorrow and it is worth noting people who have been stripped of their honour. Alan Bond, Eddie Obeid, Ian MacDonald, Brian Burke, and Marcus Einfeld, have all been lauded on Australia Day in the past. It says something that ALP identities have been favoured who did not deserve it. Two of them, Burke and Bond, were connected with WA inc where government activity was corruptly purchased in WA. There was a time where every ALP state lost a credit union through bad lending practice. NSW, which was led by conservatives was an exception. But the then NSW Premier, Greiner, was savaged by the press and independents .. and ICAC. Meanwhile ALP laud them selves. Einfeld was a predictable judge (biased?) but fell foul with a $77 speeding fine lie. Obeid and Macdonald are both NSW ALP identities who are implicated in dodgy property deals worth over half a billion dollars. Australia has some great people worth lauding, and it is sad when people like those listed here obscure that. 
When does freedom have context?
Freedom is desirable, and a terrible thing to lose. Chan and Sukumaran have lost their freedom. But sometimes people lose freedom under unfair circumstances. Recently some surviving hostages from the Martin Place Lindt Cafe siege have been criticised for trying to profit from their hostage status. They are allowed to profit in a free country, and one wishes them well. Some regulation advocates claim it is morally wrong, saying people died, and so no one should profit. But the truth is no one should be able to take hostages, certainly not criminals with a history of domestic abuse and watched by the police but enjoying the freedom to obtain a fire arm. As Tim Blair notes, in 2001, not two weeks after the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush said that Islamic extremists “hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.” Many at the time said Bush's observations were simplistic, but in the thirteen years since, they seem prescient. 
From 2014
Today is the birthday of Hadrian, Princess Athena of Denmark, Neil Diamond and Edith Wharton. One might expect beautiful things which last a long time. On this day Caligula was assassinated, slaves revolted in Brazil heralding their freedom fifty years later, gold was discovered in Sacramento, Boy scouts began their preparation, Income tax was declared legal in the US, Churchill and FDR met in Casablanca. And on this day Winston Churchill and his father passed, as did L Ron Hubbard. There is a pointlessness in drawing parallels, and a synchronicity too. 

On the day a Japanese soldier (1972) is found hiding in Guam, listening to ABC broadcasts to find out when WW2 would end, the ABC is criticised for assaulting the Australian government, vainly hoping people will be exploited by pirates and drown. Apparently burning hands, rather than sewing lips, allows illegal immigrants to speak, and the navy is being criticised for that. Syria's leadership is being discussed on the day a kind of UN despatched Caligula. Climate change is being discussed on the day gold was discovered on hills. Cate Blanchett fears for our warm future, but still buys waterside, possibly humming "Cracklin' Rosie get on board." There is more archaeological evidence for Buddha than there is for the life of L Ron Hubbard. And it is a cold day in Hell. 

Australia Day is coming. A time to give thanks for the sacrifice that many made to make this nation great. A time to give thanks for those who built a nation that is a modern democracy. A time to wonder why some hate freedom, compassion, love and hope. A time to stop public funding of the ABC? 
Historical perspective on this day
In 41, Roman Emperor Caligula, known for his eccentricity and sadistic despotism, was assassinated by his disgruntled Praetorian Guards. The Guard then proclaimed Caligula's uncle Claudius as Emperor 1438, the Council of Basel suspended Pope Eugene IV. 1458, Matthias I Corvinus became king of Hungary. 1624, Afonso Mendes, appointed by Pope Gregory XV as Prelate of Ethiopia, arrived at Massawa from Goa. 1679, King Charles II of England dissolved the Cavalier Parliament. 1742, Charles VII Albert became Holy Roman Emperor. 1758, during the Seven Years' War the leading burghers of Königsberg submitted to Elizabeth I of Russia, thus forming Russian Prussia (until 1763)

In 1817, Crossing of the Andes: Many soldiers of Juan Gregorio de las Heras were captured during the Action of Picheuta. 1835, slaves in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, staged a revolt, which was instrumental in ending slavery there 50 years later. 1848, California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall found gold at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento. 1857, the University of Calcutta was formally founded as the first fully fledged university in South Asia. 1859, political and state union of Moldavia and Wallachia; Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected as Domnitor in both Principalities. 1862, Bucharest was proclaimed the capital of Romania. 1878, the revolutionary Vera Zasulich shot at Fyodor Trepov, the Governor of Saint Petersburg.

In 1900, Second Boer War: Boers stopped a British attempt to break the Siege of Ladysmithin the Battle of Spion Kop. 1908, the first Boy Scout troop was organised in England by Robert Baden-Powell. 1911, Japanese anarchist Shūsui Kōtoku was hanged for treason in a case now considered a miscarriage of justice. 1916, in Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, the Supreme Court of the United States declared the federal income tax constitutional. 1918, the Gregorian calendar was introduced in Russia by decree of the Council of People's Commissars effective February 14(NS) 1933, the 20th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, changing the beginning and end of terms for all elected federal offices. 1939, the deadliest earthquake in Chilean history struck Chillán, killing approximately 28,000 people.

In 1942, World War II: The Allies bombarded Bangkok, leading Thailand, then under Japanese control, to declare war against the United States and United Kingdom. 1943, World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill concluded a conference in Casablanca. 1946, the United Nations General Assembly passed its first resolution to establish the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. 1947, Greek banker Dimitrios Maximos became Prime Minister of Greece. 1960, Algerian War: Some units of European volunteers in Algiers staged an insurrection known as the "barricades week", during which they seized government buildings and clashed with local police. 1961, Goldsboro B-52 crash: A bomber carrying two H-bombs broke up in mid-air over North Carolina. The uranium core of one weapon remains lost. 1968, Vietnam War: The 1st Australian Task Force launched Operation Coburg against the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong during wider fighting around Long Bình and Biên Hòa 1972, Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi was found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II. 1977, Massacre of Atocha in Madrid, during the Spanish transition to democracy. 1978, Soviet satellite Cosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor on board, burned up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada's Northwest Territories. Only 1% was recovered.

In 1984, the first Apple Macintosh went on sale. 1986, Voyager 2 passed within 81,500 kilometres (50,600 mi) of Uranus. 1990, Japan launched Hiten, the country's first lunar probe, the first robotic lunar probe since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976, and the first lunar probe launched by a country other than Soviet Union or the United States. 1993, Turkish journalist and writer Uğur Mumcu was assassinated by a car bomb in Ankara. 1996, Polish Prime Minister Józef Oleksy resigned amid charges that he spied for Moscow. 2003, the United States Department of Homeland Security officially began operation. 2009, the storm Klausmade landfall near Bordeaux, France. It subsequently would cause 26 deaths as well as extensive disruptions to public transport and power supplies. 2011, at least 35 died and 180 were injured in a bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport. 2014, three bombs exploded in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, killing about seven people and injuring over 100 others. Also 2014, the Philippines and the Bangsamoro agreed to a peace deal that would help end the 45-year conflict.
=== 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 to those born on this day, across the years, including
Bust of Gaius Caligula
Have you seen my little boot? The king is hungry. There is gold in them thar hills. Bundy was shocked to hear it. Fly safely. Let's party. 
Deaths
===
Tim Blair


TUESDAY NOTICEBOARD

Today’s noticeboard is brought to you by the sublime wet-weather driving skills of Peter Brock.
24 Jan  14 comments

FLIGHTBAT BOOTED

Laugh, laugh and laugh some more as a hostile Hillary Clinton supporter goes wild in Baltimore and is thrown off her flight, along with her visibly despairing husband.
24 Jan  84 comments

FREE LIVES MATTIS

James Mattis began his first day as US Secretary of Defense with a bang. More than 30 bangs, in fact, all of them smashing Islamic State targets.
24 Jan  64 comments

ACCLAIMED IN THE WEST

My Monday columns now appear every so often in The West Australian, expanding the Blair empire by another 2,529,875 square kilometres.
24 Jan  22 comments

MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND GOOD

A new dawn at Australian's Sky News, where all of your late night televisual information needs will now be met.
24 Jan  27 comments

PRESIDENT IN WAILING

Obama press baby Pat Cunnane – he joined the White House straight out of college and served six years – recalls the evening of November 8.
24 Jan
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Andrew Bolt


Trump haters burn Muslim immigrant's car

Here's more proof that Trump haters are the evil they claim to oppose. The limo that anti-Trump anarchists torched during the riot at Trump's inauguration was owned by a Muslim immigrant.
THE NEW FASCISTS 24 Jan  0 comments

Why are Trump haters so intolerant?

A Trump hater finds herself sitting next to a (polite) Trump supporter on a plane. Result: abuse, lectures and demands that he move seats. In fact, she is so self righteously abusive that she is thrown off the plane - to the cheers of the passengers.
24 Jan  95 comments
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EVERYONE’S A COYOTE

Tim Blair – Sunday, January 24, 2016 (4:14pm)

It’s like watching Road Runner cartoons in real life.
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Land of bigots? You must be crazy, Baird

Miranda Devine – Saturday, January 23, 2016 (10:31pm)

WHY Premier Mike Baird ­unfairly maligned Australians as incipient bigots on our ­national day is a total mystery.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Land of bigots? You must be crazy, Baird'
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FREEDOM FIGHTERS

Tim Blair – Saturday, January 24, 2015 (4:31am)

Quote of the evening from Sufyan Badar at last night’s Yay for Mo rally in Lakemba: 
“We rejected freedom yesterday, we reject freedom today and we reject your freedom tomorrow.” 
Further from Badar, who offers the standard ritual plea for context: 
“We also gather to place the politics of the events in France in the correct context,” he said.
“Freedom is the smokescreen with which Western politicians and media conceal the underlying issues.
“In reality free speech is one of the many political tools that are used to maintain dominance over the Muslims.” 
Explicit rejection of freedom is a theme in recent extremist speeches. Here’s a cartoon circulated at the rally:



That would be an example, then, of “placing the politics of the events in France in the correct context”. In 2001, not two weeks after the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush said that Islamic extremists “hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.” Sophisticated leftist types dismissed Bush’s statement as simplistic, but last night hundreds of Sydney Muslims agreed with it. Among other Lakemba protest scenes:



Insulted prophets should go on strike. No more predictions for you, unappreciative rabble! Although if their prophecy skills were up to speed, all of those prophets would surely have seen this coming. In a more positive development, local Muslims now apparently worship a texting girl-child:



She seems cool with it. Good for her.
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LOCAL COLDENING

Tim Blair – Saturday, January 24, 2015 (2:43am)

If global warming is real, how come the New England Patriots defeated the Indianapolis Colts by 45 to 7? Answer that, so-called scientists.
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===
Tony Abbott
Fifty years have passed since the death of Sir Winston Churchill.
When civilisation hung in the balance, Churchill gave the world courage and hope.
He warned the world of the Nazi menace. Later, after the Nazis were defeated, he warned of the threat of the 'iron curtain'.
Churchill taught us that appeasement is never the answer to aggression.
He also taught us that individuals and nations have a duty to speak up for freedom and to stand against tyranny.
Churchill was a complex man. He was not perfect, far from it.
He failed many times during his life. Fortunately he was a man who learned from his mistakes. As he reflected when he was commissioned as Prime Minister in 1940: “My past life has been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial”.
In the world’s darkest hour, Churchill and Britain stood resolute against Hitler’s tyranny.
Half a century ago, Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies paid tribute to his wartime service:
“In the whole of recorded modern history, this was, I believe, the one occasion when one man, with one soaring imagination, with one fire burning in him, and with one unrivalled capacity for conveying it to others, won a crucial victory not only for the forces…but for the very spirit of human freedom.”
On this 50th anniversary of Sir Winston Churchill’s passing, we pay tribute to his legacy.
Churchill served his parliament for 55 years and his fingerprints were on everything – including the introduction of the aged pension and the minimum wage.
We draw strength from the memory of a man who taught the world that the decencies of mankind must always be defended. We also draw strength from the power of his words, which serve as a reminder of the essential truths that still hold fast today.
Today, we remember Sir Winston Churchill’s life and honour his service to the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth and our world.
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ABC, Fairfax trying to undermine border security

Piers Akerman – Friday, January 24, 2014 (6:26am)

FORCED to face the collapse of their repeated pre-election prediction that the Coalition’s border protection policy would be unworkable, the ABC and Fairfax are now doing their utmost to undermine the national effort. 

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'ABC, Fairfax trying to undermine border security'
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WHY THEY’RE BURNING HANDS INSTEAD OF SEWING LIPS

Tim Blair – Friday, January 24, 2014 (11:47am)

An imagined ABC broadcast from the near future:
Leigh Sales: We now cross to the ABC’s Indonesia correspondent George Roberts, who has further shocking claims about the Australian Navy’s treatment of asylum seekers.
George Roberts: Thank you, Leigh. I’m here with Abdikarim Zoto Kaafi, a Somali refugee who says that Australian Navy personnel forcibly held him down and sewed his lips together when his asylum seeker vessel was intercepted last week.
If Abdikarim Zoto Kaafi’s allegations are correct, and we have no reason at all to doubt him, this new evidence will dramatically increase tensions between Australia and Indonesia and cast further doubt on Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s controversial border protection policies.
Mr Kaafi, can you please tell our viewers exactly what the Australian Navy officers did to you?

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'WHY THEY’RE BURNING HANDS INSTEAD OF SEWING LIPS'
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ALL CLIMATE CHANGE, ALL THE TIME

Tim Blair – Friday, January 24, 2014 (11:42am)

Poor kids: 
Climate change should be taught to all students from primary school and be embedded in a range of subjects, a senior science curriculum expert says.
As the Abbott government launches a review of Australia’s school curriculum, the dean of teaching and learning at Curtin University, Dr Vaille Dawson, told Fairfax Media climate change was not explicitly mentioned until year 10 under the national system and should be introduced earlier.
She said climate change was the most significant social issue the world was going to face and every student should have access to sound, evidence-based material on the underlying science. She said relating science to major social issues such as climate change also helped better engage students.
‘’Many teachers are already teaching climate change to younger students. But the rationale about getting it more explicitly in the curriculum is so that every teacher teaches it,’’ she said. 
Really? Every teacher, including those working in English, drama and PE? Still, it shouldn’t be much of shift for any religious instruction teachers. Just change a few words here and there.
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BOATS STOPPED

Tim Blair – Friday, January 24, 2014 (11:36am)

Apparently “stop the boats” was more than just a slogan: 
Australia has not recorded an asylum seeker boat arrival in five weeks – the first time in five years there has been such a quiet stretch without more people filling detention centres …
The development comes as the population of asylum seekers at Christmas Island has also dropped below 2000 for the first time since February last year.
“We have our foot on the neck of the smugglers and we are not going to give them any relief,” Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said. “We are going to keep applying the pressure.” 
Fewer the boats, greater the crank.
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SIGNS

Tim Blair – Friday, January 24, 2014 (10:37am)

An actual Sydney sign. Many satirical London signs. And a sign of the times in Melbourne.
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SHOE DEFENDED

Tim Blair – Friday, January 24, 2014 (10:27am)

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CHILDREN SAFE

Tim Blair – Friday, January 24, 2014 (4:23am)

Wealthy warmies all want to live near water: 
Cate Blanchett and her husband, Sydney Theatre Company artistic director Andrew Upton, have spent nearly $2 million on a waterfront apartment in Elizabeth Bay.
Sources close to the sale said the purchase is an investment for their three sons, Dashiell, 12, Roman, 9, and Ignatius, 5 … 
Cate’s purchase exposes her confidence that the ocean will not rise. Denier!
(Via Fern)
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ABC backs off its “evidence” of navy torturers

Andrew Bolt January 24 2014 (2:19pm)

Reader Wade notes a backing off:
There were two points of “evidence” the ABC used to push the torture story on day one which have both been watered down by day three. 
1 – Video of asylum seekers’ injuries which it said ”appears to back” their claims. 2 – Indonesian police, who it quoted as confirming the asylum seekers’ story. 
”Indonesian police say the asylum seekers suffered burns when Navy personnel forced them to hold onto hot pipes coming out of the boat’s engine.”
Lo and behold, in today’s reporting: 
1 – In respect to the video footage, they’re backing away: 
”Footage obtained by ABC News shows asylum seekers with severe burns to their hands, but it is impossible to verify how they received them.”
2 – As for Indonesian police corroboration: 
”Indonesian police say so far the only witnesses are the asylum seekers.”
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Hypocrite alert: Sydney Morning Herald’s deputy editor opposes all abuse except his own

Andrew Bolt January 24 2014 (12:24pm)

The deputy editor of the Sydney Morning Herald says normal people don’t resort to abuse:
The deputy editor of the Sydney Morning Herald is scathing if Prime Minister Tony Abbott is even mildly critical of the Left:
The deputy editor of the Sydney Morning Herald calls out abuse - no matter how mild and well-merited - wherever he sees it, which, strangely, is only on conservative websites:
The deputy editor of the Sydney Morning Herald is a hypocrite:
Is that abuse - in response to some perfectly accurate points about a Herald article on global warmists - actually normal?
Greg Hywood, head of Fairfax Media, on his plans for papers like his Sydney Morning Herald:
We need to invest in high-quality journalism.
But then he made Ben Cubby deputy editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. 
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Bob Carr, the Tourist Minister

Andrew Bolt January 24 2014 (9:59am)

How we funded a tourist masquerading as a Foreign Minister:
It reads like the bucket list of a dedicated sightseer. Except Bob Carr managed to tick off some of the world’s must-see tourist and cultural destinations in just 19 months as foreign minister. 
The history buff found time in a hectic schedule of official meetings to visit 67 sites in 30 separate countries.
In Turkey, for example, Mr Carr walked Istanbul’s famous spice bazaar and made visits to the Byzantine-era Chora Church, the majestic New Mosque, the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia (the Church of the Divine Wisdom) and Topkapi Palace. His wife Helena joined him in Turkey.

During a trip to Egypt, Mr Carr viewed the world’s finest collection of antiquities of the Pharaohs at the Egyptian Museum, the Hanging Church in Old Cairo and visited the district of Islamic Cairo.
In Laos, he visited the World Heritage city Luang Prabang. In Mr Carr’s advance instructions to embassies he requested visits to ‘’important cultural and historical sites early in a program. Such a visit can add useful context to other parts of the program.’’
Behold a champion of the working class, asking the workers to fund sightseeing for him which they could not afford for themselves. 
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Abbott tells Davos Big Government is not the answer

Andrew Bolt January 24 2014 (9:27am)

The Abbott Government has just handed out $20 million for marriage counselling for people who should pay for it themselves if they think it worth the expense. Worse, the Government is about to pay for a parental leave system so generous that it is simply unaffordable.
That said, Prime Minister Tony Abbott talked a very fine game in Davos this week, and if his actions from now on are better tailored to his words we should profit handsomely. From Abbott’s excellent speech:
Despite the Crisis, worldwide, income per person is still up by over 60 per cent in the past decade… This progress is partly due to better science and technology; and partly to the constant aspiration to do better.
Mostly, though, it’s been driven by the intellectual and philosophical conviction that freer trade and smaller government will strengthen prosperity; the instinct that empowered citizens can do more for themselves than government will ever do for them.
Essentially, officialdom has begun to grasp that human freedom is less a threat than an opportunity.
As soon as people have economic freedom, they create markets.
Markets are the proven answer to the problem of scarcity. They rest, as Roger Scruton has recently observed, “upon the kind of moral order that arises from below as people take responsibility for their lives, learn to honour their agreements, and live in justice and charity with their neighbours”...
Remember Kevin Rudd’s vainglorious claim that the global financial crisis had disproved the liberal economics which he himself had been preaching and demonstrated the need for Big Government?
[The crisis] has called into question the prevailing neo-liberal economic orthodoxy of the past 30 years - the orthodoxy that has underpinned the national and global regulatory frameworks that have so spectacularly failed to prevent the economic mayhem which has now been visited upon us. 
Not for the first time in history, the international challenge for social democrats is to save capitalism from itself: to recognise the great strengths of open, competitive markets while rejecting the extreme capitalism and unrestrained greed that have perverted so much of the global financial system in recent times… The intellectual challenge for social democrats is not just to repudiate the neo-liberal extremism that has landed us in this mess, but to advance the case that the social-democratic state offers the best guarantee of preserving the productive capacity of properly regulated competitive markets, while ensuring that government is the regulator, that government is the funder or provider of public goods and that government offsets the inevitable inequalities of the market with a commitment to fairness for all. 
Rudd was widely praised for this hymn to Big Government and policies which have left us deep in debt.
Abbott in his speech rightly rejects that great folly:
The challenge, as we continue to work through the weaknesses that brought on the Crisis, is to strengthen governance without suppressing the vitality of capitalism.
The Crisis, after all, has not changed any of the basic laws of economics.
The lesson of recent history, whether it’s the collapse of Soviet-style communism, the phenomenal growth of Asian economies, or the slow and painful recovery from the Crisis of 2008 and 2009 is that real progress is always built on clear fundamentals.
You can’t spend what you haven’t got.
No country has ever taxed or subsidised its way to prosperity.
You don’t address debt and deficit with yet more debt and deficit.
And profit is not a dirty word because success in business is something to be proud of…
Above all else, policy-makers need to understand that every dollar government spends comes from the people, either through taxes and borrowings; or, over the past few years, through the process known as quantitative easing which is not indefinitely sustainable.
A certain level of government spending is necessary and good.
In Lincoln’s words, government should do for people what they can’t do for themselves – and no more…
As always, stronger economic growth is the key to addressing almost every global problem.
Stronger growth requires lower, simpler and fairer taxes that don’t stifle business creativity.
And stronger growth requires getting government spending under control so that taxes can come down; and reducing regulation so that productivity can rise… A strong economy is far less likely to be one responding to central control than one spontaneously generating its own growth.
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Are we allowed to protest back by destroying the vandals’ homes?

Andrew Bolt January 24 2014 (8:42am)


The Left, like the far Right, tends to licence the inner-totalitarian:
FAMOUS Melbourne landmark Cooks’ Cottage has been targeted by anti-Australia Day vandals. 
Note also the foul language. What else might such people destroy and deface to get their way? Whatever such barbarians want is unlikely to suit the civilised. 
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Boats turned back. So who said it wouldn’t work?

Andrew Bolt January 24 2014 (7:31am)

Boat people policy

Yet another boat turned back rather than escorted to Australia:
A PAKISTANI asylum-seeker who was returned with 35 others to West Java on December 27 claims two Australian navy officers steered their boat towards the Indonesia coast for 14 hours… 
Australian authorities refuse to confirm any incidents but The Australian understands at least five and possibly seven boats have been turned back.
As a result of the turn-backs and other policies:
AUSTRALIA has not recorded an asylum seeker boat arrival in five weeks - the first time in five years there has been such a quiet stretch without more people filling detention centres. 
Curiously, though, Leftist commentators have never been so critical of border policies than now, when the boats are stopping and the drownings have ended.  Is that simply because the Left hates being proved wrong about a policy it agreed could never work?
Greens child-Senator Sarah Hanson-Young in 2013:
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. 
Labor’s Bill Shorten and Richard Marles in the Guardian in November 2013:
The Coalition government’s boat turn-back policy has failed and its foreign policy is in disarray, Labor says… 
Opposition immigration spokesman Richard Marles says it’s now plain that turn-backs are not happening… “It was inevitably going to fail. And that’s what we saw yesterday… The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, said the government’s boat policy was in serious trouble. “There’s no doubt in my mind that the Coalition’s boat person policy is absolutely not working,” he told ABC television.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard in October 2012:
Mr Abbott is peddling a myth to the Australian people. He knows Indonesia will not agree to facilitate tow backs, and he’s trying not to be exposed as telling the Australian people something that can’t and won’t work.
Law lecturer Azadeh Dastya, an associate of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, in July 2013:
A bad copy of a ‘’tow back’’ policy that has not worked and is unlawful in the US context, is not going to be the silver bullet the Coalition is looking for.
Former ABC host Monica Attard in The Hoopla in October 2013:
“Turn back the boats” may just disappear in the fog… It will be because there comes a time when every new new prime minister sees the vast and dangerous gulf between sloganeering in opposition and the responsibilities that come with high office. 
Former ambassador Tony Kevin in Crikey in June, 2013.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s pledge to turn back asylum seeker boats to Indonesia is unworkable and dangerous… Surely, it is time now for Tony Abbott to cross navy towback off his list of asylum seeker deterrence policies.
Comedian Ben Eltham in New Matilda in July 2013:
So what exactly is “towing back the boats”? Can it be done, and will it work? 
The answer depends on who you ask, but most informed opinion seems to support the Government’s view that the policy is dangerous and potentially illegal. In terms of safety, the risks of taking overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels under tow by a large warship are obvious.... For years now, the Opposition has escaped serious scrutiny on some of its more outlandish policy positions. As the campaign develops, that’s starting to change.
Melissa Phillips, honorary fellow at Melbourne University, in The Conversation in April, 2013:
People fleeing violence and persecution in Syria, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, are quite obviously leaving because of insecurity in their countries. Rhetoric from politicians about deterrents and “stopping the boats” is targeted at the Australian voting public and not prospective asylum-seekers. We know that in the asylum policy, deterrents simply do not work. 
Arja Keski-Nummi in the Sydney Morning Herald in June 2013:
The flood of asylum-seeker boats travelling to Australia will continue under a Coalition government, according to a former senior official in the Immigration Department who says Tony Abbott’s plan to turn back boats and reintroduce temporary protection visas will not stop the dangerous journeys. 
Arja Keski-Nummi, a fellow at the Centre for Policy Development and former head of the refugee division in the Immigration Department, said only enhanced regional co-operation would reduce the numbers of asylum seekers trying to reach Australia by boat.... ‘’If they’re in government, they’re going to own the issue and they’ve made a lot of promises, that I frankly can’t see that they can fulfil. And the main one is stopping the boats,’’ she said.
Professor Damien Kingsbury in the ABC’s The Drum in October 2012:
In short, the ‘tow back’ proposal was and, in so far as it continues to be defended by Opposition speakers, remains a policy disaster… The ‘tow back’ policy, then, can now be expected to be quietly sidelined. Abbott will, meanwhile, be likely reflecting on just being given a lesson in Diplomacy 101.
Do we get a sorry from these people? 
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The ABC’s selective ear

Andrew Bolt January 23 2014 (4:16pm)

The ABC recently claimed it never reported mere allegations on matters of public importance- which it defined in this case as the involvement of Prime Minister Julia Gillard in the creation of a slush fund for her then boyfriend:
For instance, here’s part of one ABC letter to a viewer: 
Reporting that the prime minister of the nation is under police investigation is an enormously significant call to make. It cannot be made on supposition, on rumour, or on hearsay… 
According to The Australian they’ve been collecting files but you would expect any police investigation to gather up this sort of primary documentation. That does not mean Ms Gillard is under investigation. For all we know, the investigation could be into Ralph Blewitt, or Bruce Wilson or Slater & Gordon or any number of other individuals and entities. 
Here’s another:
The ABC is aware of these statements but we do not at this stage believe it warrants the attention of our news coverage. To the extent that it may touch tangentially on a former role of the Prime Minister, we know The Australian newspaper maintains an abiding interest in events 17 years ago at the law firm Slater & Gordon, but the ABC is unaware of any allegation in the public domain which goes to the Prime Minister’s integrity. 
Had the ABC made some calls it would have found out that the police investigation does indeed include in its scope the activities of Gillard, who insists she did nothing wrong.
Now let’s contrast.
This week the ABC has had not the slightest hesitation in reporting - at great length and with great vehemence - improbable allegations that our navy tortured boat people:
Yesterday, [the ABC] reported unproven claims that Australian navy personnel mistreated asylum-seekers by forcing them to grasp a hot engine in a boat turnback operation, causing “severe” burns. An “exclusively” supplied video showed minor hand damage. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison categorically denied the claims and later reports suggest the burns occurred before the vessel was intercepted, possibly as the vessel was sabotaged. Our navy personnel have, after all, saved the lives of hundreds of asylum-seekers. ABC bulletins also ran strongly with strident criticism from New York-based Human Rights Watch, labelling Australia’s measures “abusive” and accusing the government of “demonising” asylum-seekers. The national broadcaster continues to provide uncritical amplification of this predictable venting, setting itself as the moral conscience of a nation with a brutal government and insensitive populace. 
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Reading Kipling

Andrew Bolt January 23 2014 (2:00pm)

Your favorite books, poems and music - and mine

I’m reading with huge enjoyment Rudyard Kipling’s Something of Myself, a memoir he left incomplete when he died. (The final words on the last. unfinished page, describing his office: “Left and right of the table were two big globes, on one of which a great airman had once outlined in white paint those air-routes to the East and Australia which were well in use before my death.")

As a teenaged journalist Kipling worked in British India, a land he’d been born in and loved. He knew soldiers and shopkeepers, Christians, Hindus and Muslims, and he knew what it took to rule and the men on whom that duty fell. He knew because he was there and he saw:
Later I described openings of big bridges and such-like, which meant a night or two with the engineers; floods on railways — more nights in the wet with wretched heads of repair gangs; village festivals and consequent outbreaks of cholera or small-pox; communal riots under the shadow of the Mosque of Wazir Khan, where the patient waiting troops lay in timber-yards or side-alleys till the order came to go in and hit the crowds on the feet with the gun-butt (killing in Civil Administration was then reckoned confession of failure), and the growling, flaring, creed-drunk city would be brought to hand without effusion of blood, or the appearance of any agitated Viceroy...
He saw from those early years how power worked, and how it seduced weak men from their even weaker principles:
One evening, while putting the paper to bed, I looked as usual over the [newpaper’s] leader. It was the sort of false-balanced, semi-judicial stuff that some English journals wrote about the Indian White Paper from 1932 to ‘34, and like them it furnished a barely disguised exposition of the Government’s high ideals. In after-life one got to know that touch better, but it astonished me at the time, and I asked my Chief what it all meant. He replied, as I should have done in his place; ‘None of your dam’ business,’ and, being married, went to his home. I repaired to the Club which, remember, was the whole of my outside world. 
As I entered the long, shabby dining-room where we all sat at one table, everyone hissed. I was innocent enough to ask; ‘What’s the joke? Who are they hissing?’ ‘You,’ said the man at my side. ‘Your dam’ rag has ratted over the Bill.’
It is not pleasant to sit still when one is twenty while all your universe hisses you. Then uprose a Captain, our Adjutant of Volunteers, and said: ‘Stop that! The boy’s only doing what he’s paid to do.’ The demonstration tailed off, but I had seen a great light. The Adjutant was entirely correct. I was a hireling, paid to do what I was paid to do, and—I did not relish the idea. Someone said kindly; ‘You damned young ass! Don’t you know that your paper has the Government printing-contract?’ I did know it, but I had never before put two and two together. A few months later one of my two chief proprietors received the decoration that made him a Knight. Then I began to take much interest in certain smooth Civilians, who had seen good in the Government measure and had somehow been shifted out of the heat to billets in Simla. I followed under shrewd guidance, often native, the many pretty ways by which a Government can put veiled pressure on its employees in a land where every circumstance and relation of a man’s life is public property. So, when the great and epoch-making India Bill turned up fifty years later, I felt as one re-treading the tortuous byways of his youth. One recognised the very phrases and assurances of the old days still doing good work, and waited, as in a dream, for the very slightly altered formulas in which those who were parting with their convictions excused themselves. Thus; ‘I may act as a brake, you know. At any rate I’m keeping a more extreme man out of the game.’ ‘There’s no sense running counter to the inevitable,’—and all the other Devil-provided camouflage for the sinner-who-faces-both-ways. 
Kipling was, of course, a conservative, like so many of the greatest writers. He knew the difference - moral and practical - between a man’s intentions and a man’s achievements, between a plan and its consequences, between a seeming and a doing. And in that difference he took the side of responsibility. A man owned his deeds.
I thought of today’s Leftists particularly - those furiously fighting for “compassionate” boat people policies that actually lured more than 1000 people to their deaths - when I read this excerpt:
UPDATE
More on Kipling’s culture war:
I had been at work on the rough of a set of verses called later ‘The English Flag’ and had boggled at a line which had to be a key-line but persisted in going ‘soft.’ As was the custom between us, I asked into the air ‘What am I trying to get at?’ Instantly the Mother, with her quick flutter of the hands ‘You’re trying to say; “What do they know of England who only England know,”’ The Father confirmed… 
In the talks that followed, I exposed my notion of trying to tell to the English something of the world outside England—not directly but by implication… Bit by bit, my original notion grew into a vast, vague conspectus—Army and Navy Stores List if you like—of the whole sweep and meaning of things and effort and origins throughout the Empire…
I had met several men and an occasional woman, whom I by no means loved. They were overly soft-spoken or blatant, and dealt in pernicious varieties of safe sedition. For the most part they seemed to be purveyors of luxuries to the ‘Aristocracy,’ whose destruction by painful means they loudly professed to desire. They derided my poor little Gods of the East, and asserted that the British in India spent violent lives ‘oppressing’ the Native. (This in a land where white girls of sixteen, at twelve or fourteen pounds per annum, hauled thirty and forty pounds weight of bath-water at a time up four flights of stairs!) The more subtle among them had plans, which they told me, for ‘snatching away England’s arms when she isn’t looking—just like a naughty child—so that when she wants to fight she’ll find she can’t.’ (We have come far on that road since.) Meantime, their aim was peaceful, intellectual penetration and the formation of what to-day would be called ‘cells’ in unventilated corners. Collaborating with these gentry was a mixed crowd of wide-minded, wide-mouthed Liberals, who darkened counsel with pious but disintegrating catch-words, and took care to live very well indeed. Somewhere, playing up to them, were various journals, not at all badly written, with a most enviable genius for perverting or mistaking anything that did not suit their bilious doctrine. The general situation, as I saw it, promised an alluring ‘dog-fight,’ in which I had no need to take aggressive part because, as soon as the first bloom had faded off my work, my normal output seemed to have the gift of arriding per se the very people I most disliked.
More on Kipling’s respect for the true responsibilities of those who lead:
I took ship to Italy, and there chanced to meet Lord Dufferin, our Ambassador… He was kindness itself, and made me his guest at his Villa near Naples where, one evening between lights, he talked—at first to me directly, then sliding into a reverie—of his work in India, Canada, and the world at large. I had seen administrative machinery from beneath, all stripped and overheated. This was the first time I had listened to one who had handled it from above. And unlike the generality of Viceroys, Lord Dufferin knew. Of all his revelations and reminiscences, the sentence that stays with me is ‘And so, you see, there can be no room’ (or was it ‘allowance’?) ‘for good intentions in one’s work.’
Kipling sees the Left at work on a visit to Melbourne:
And on a warm night I attended a Labour Congress, where Labour debated whether some much-needed lifeboats should be allowed to be ordered from England, or whether the order should be postponed till life-boats could be built in Australia under Labour direction at Labour prices. 
UPDATE
Kipling took his message to Australia. From an interview he gave to The Age during his visit to Melbourne in 1891:
His views apparently were not well received.
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===“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” -James 1:5
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

January 23: Morning

"I have exalted one chosen out of the people." - Psalm 89:19
Why was Christ chosen out of the people? Speak, my heart, for heart-thoughts are best. Was it not that he might be able to be our brother, in the blest tie of kindred blood? Oh, what relationship there is between Christ and the believer! The believer can say, "I have a Brother in heaven; I may be poor, but I have a Brother who is rich, and is a King, and will he suffer me to want while he is on his throne? Oh, no! He loves me; he is my Brother." Believer, wear this blessed thought, like a necklace of diamonds, around the neck of thy memory; put it, as a golden ring, on the finger of recollection, and use it as the King's own seal, stamping the petitions of thy faith with confidence of success. He is a brother born for adversity, treat him as such.

Christ was also chosen out of the people that he might know our wants and sympathize with us. "He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin." In all our sorrows we have his sympathy. Temptation, pain, disappointment, weakness, weariness, poverty--he knows them all, for he has felt all. Remember this, Christian, and let it comfort thee. However difficult and painful thy road, it is marked by the footsteps of thy Saviour; and even when thou reachest the dark valley of the shadow of death, and the deep waters of the swelling Jordan, thou wilt find his footprints there. In all places whithersoever we go, he has been our forerunner; each burden we have to carry, has once been laid on the shoulders of Immanuel.

"His way was much rougher and darker than mine
Did Christ, my Lord, suffer, and shall I repine?"

Take courage! Royal feet have left a blood-red track upon the road, and consecrated the thorny path forever.

Evening

"We will remember thy love more than wine." - Song of Solomon 1:4

Jesus will not let his people forget his love. If all the love they have enjoyed should be forgotten, he will visit them with fresh love. "Do you forget my cross?" says he, "I will cause you to remember it; for at my table I will manifest myself anew to you. Do you forget what I did for you in the council-chamber of eternity? I will remind you of it, for you shall need a counsellor, and shall find me ready at your call." Mothers do not let their children forget them. If the boy has gone to Australia, and does not write home, his mother writes--"Has John forgotten his mother?" Then there comes back a sweet epistle, which proves that the gentle reminder was not in vain. So is it with Jesus, he says to us, "Remember me," and our response is, "We will remember thy love." We will remember thy love and its matchless history. It is ancient as the glory which thou hadst with the Father before the world was. We remember, O Jesus, thine eternal love when thou didst become our Surety, and espouse us as thy betrothed. We remember the love which suggested the sacrifice of thyself, the love which, until the fulness of time, mused over that sacrifice, and long for the hour whereof in the volume of the book it was written of thee, "Lo, I come." We remember thy love, O Jesus as it was manifest to us in thy holy life, from the manger of Bethlehem to the garden of Gethsemane. We track thee from the cradle to the grave--for every word and deed of thine was love--and we rejoice in thy love, which death did not exhaust; thy love which shone resplendent in thy resurrection. We remember that burning fire of love which will never let thee hold thy peace until thy chosen ones be all safely housed, until Zion be glorified, and Jerusalem settled on her everlasting foundations of light and love in heaven.

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Today's reading: Exodus 7-8, Matthew 15:1-20 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Exodus 7-8

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. 2You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country. 3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in Egypt, 4 he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites.5 And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it."
6 Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD commanded them.7 Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh....

Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 15:1-20

That Which Defiles
1 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"
3 Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.' 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is 'devoted to God,' 6 they are not to 'honor their father or mother' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 "'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules....'"

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