Thursday, April 06, 2017

Thu Apr 6th Todays News

Some things should not happen, but they do. Tony Nutt walking from the campaign director's position for the Liberal Party opens the doors for others. I'll assume that Turnbull and Bishop are no longer a threat to the party and a sensible leader is in charge, like Tony Abbott. One possible director is Mark Neeham, who led the NSW Liberals to a strong victory in 2011 after 16 years in opposition. The NSW ALP have still not reformed or recovered. The Liberals will need expertise from overseas too, ala Brexit and Trump. Cameron's campaign against Brexit was awful, but Nigel Farage might have some useful tips. Alas, it is a dream for me. The shrinking pool of bed wetters keep Turnbull in place, and mutter darkly about what will happen should reason see Turnbull dumped. ALP's Bill Shorten has been dog whistling his followers with insane rhetoric which hurts Australia. That will change coming into election and Shorten will claim to be a new man, and appeal to the centre. And the ALP will probably claim they can do what they have blocked to date, so as to responsibly cut spending. That is what Rudd did to get rid of Howard and Costello while Turnbull undermined them. It is what Hawk did to roll Fraser, who was a lot like Turnbull. Libs don't just need a good campaign director, they need effective policies they stand behind and candidates who the public believes will stand for what they say. 

I am very good and don't deserve the abuse given me. I created a video raising awareness of anti police feeling among western communities. I chose the senseless killing of Nicola Cotton, a Louisiana policewoman who joined post Katrina, to highlight the issue. I did this in order to get an income after having been illegally blacklisted from work in NSW for being a whistleblower. I have not done anything wrong. Local council appointees refused to endorse my work, so I did it for free. Youtube's Adsence refused to allow me to profit from their marketing it. Meanwhile, I am hostage to abysmal political leadership and hopeless journalists. My shopfront has opened on Facebook.

Here is a video I made Dusk

 Dusk was Dennis's last poem, and the only one not written in Australian vernacular.

Now is the healing, quiet hour that fills
   This gay, green world with peace and grateful rest.
Where lately over opalescent hills
   The blood of slain Day reddened all the west,
   Now comes at Night's behest,
A glow that over all the forest spills,
As with the gold of promised daffodils.
   Of all hours this is best.


It is time for thoughts of holy things,
   Of half-forgotten friends and one's own folk.
O'er all, the garden-scented sweetness clings
   To mingle with the wood fire's drifting smoke.
   A bull-frog's startled croak
Sounds from the gully where the last bird sings
His laggard vesper hymn, with folded wings;
   And night spreads forth her cloak.


Keeping their vigil where the great range yearns,
   Like rigid sentries stand the wise old gums.
On blundering wings a night-moth wheels and turns
   And lumbers on, mingling its drowsy hums
   With that far roll of drums,
Where the swift creek goes tumbling amidst the ferns...
Now, as the first star in the zenith burns,
   The dear, soft darkness comes.
"Den"
The Herald 11 December 1931, p6
Note:
This poem was originally published in the Herald under the title "In a Forest Garden". There are a couple of changes from the original which read:
Verse 1 line 8 - "As with the gold of vanished daffodils."
Verse 3 line 2 - "Like rigid sentries stand the giant gums."
Verse 3 line 8 - "The kind, soft darkness comes."

=== from 2016 ===
Miranda Devine championed Turnbull's undermining of Mr Abbott and now dismisses Mr Abbott's support for the Liberals. Is it personal between her and Abbott? Devine's credentials as a conservative commentator are established. Greater than those reputed to the Telegraph's former editor David Penberthy who championed the Liberals until just before the 2007 NSW state election, then changed his mind, campaigned for the ALP in the federal election too and married an ALP Minister who just happened to be female (can never be certain with ALP). Penberthy's marriage has been approved by the state, and is acceptable to religious institutions, even extremist Islamic ones, but his ALP bias had been under wraps during election when people trusting his word had a right to know. Devine has given no explanation for her apparent venom, drawing a false dichotomy for those disturbed by Turnbull's incompetence and Shorten's apparent corruption. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility. 
=== from 2015 ===
ABC investigates a brutal rape and murder on a bus in India. The killers, including a complicit bus driver, are sentenced to hang. It is appalling, but sheds no new light on the issue of domestic violence in Australia. The rape is an example of a misogyny. Even now, the bus driver uses words which exonerates him from everything but the crime. He says she should not have been on his bus at night without her family. When an ALP member was flagged for historical domestic abuse recently he did not justify it, but denied it. His problem is that he hadn't declared his past to the ALP and had gone to election without his party knowing of it. He should not be in parliament because he has not taken due diligence. And the ALP needs to demonstrate why it shouldn't be fined by the electoral commission for the failure to properly vet a candidate. How many ALP candidates or members have similar issues? The people of Queensland have been lied to. Meanwhile, the ABC will have a laser like focus on India. Imagine if that focus moved north to Pakistan or West to the Middle East? 

Augusto Pinochet of Chile was a right wing leader who overthrew a corrupt socialist government led by Allende. His government killed and tortured enemies, many of whom had come to Chile to fight or propagandise domestic issues. What he did is no less reprehensible than what Allende had done, or any of many left wing administrations in South America. So it is upsetting when BBC in a sub plot have a slimy Chilean diplomat claim he had been a simple trade unionist who was targeted by Pinochet. The program has come to its' last season. Hopefully that won't be the standard. Maybe they can guest star Jeremy Clarkson? The abysmal and partisan BBC are little different to the ABC. The example set for other networks is low. But one interesting point not challenged. Where in the world is there an example of a trades unionist who was ever anything other than a parasite? They shouldn't be allowed on a bus without their family. 
From 2014
Almost anything can be used as a reason for an action, almost anything can be used as a reason for a response. But not every reason is a good one. It is all very well to admire reason. It certainly beats the alternative. But not everything that is logical follows. On this day in 1327, a poet saw a beautiful woman. She was married. He was a Catholic Priest. But he loved her virtuously. He loved her virtue for twenty one years. Then she died (of natural causes, not pestered to death) and the poet loved her memory. Laura was probably the ancestor of the Marquis De Sade, but I doubt he was the result of this love. The poet Francesco Petrarca, is now known as the first humanist. He initiated the renaissance with his art and inquiry, and named the times of lost learning the Dark Ages. And so the spark of inquiry which brought forward Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Shakespeare, Moliere, Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Louis XIV and Anne Boleyn began with a priest falling in love with an unattainable, beautiful woman. 

But a day with such a spark has other enduring flames. The artist Rafael was born on this day in 1483, and died on this day in 1520. English King Richard I forgave the boy who shot him on this day (1199), shortly before dying from resultant blood poisoning. He gave his killer some coins and sent him on his way. Christian charity. What followed diminished the generous act of that king. Jealous courtiers tracked down the boy, and took the coins. And flayed him alive, until he died. And everyone had their reason. For mine, a terrible shot against reason happened on this day in 1994. An aircraft was shot down in Rwanda, killing a Rwandan President and a Burundian President. The black box recorder could have exonerated Tootsis from blame, but Kofi Annan misplaced it in his office for a decade, and the result was genocide, and promotion for Kofi to UN Secretary General.
Historical perspective on this day
In 46 BC, Julius Caesar defeated Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Younger) in the battle of Thapsus. 402, Stilicho stymied the Visigoths under Alaric in the Battle of Pollentia. 1199, King Richard I of England died from an infection following the removal of an arrow from his shoulder. 1250, Seventh Crusade: Ayyubids of Egypt captured King Louis IX of France in the Battle of Fariskur. 1320, the Scots reaffirmed their independence by signing the Declaration of Arbroath. 1327, the poet Petrarch first saw his idealised love, Laura, in the church of Saint Clare in Avignon. 1385, John, Master of the Order of Aviz, was made king John I of Portugal. 1453, Mehmed II began his siege of Constantinople (Istanbul), which fell on May 29.

In 1580, one of the largest earthquakes recorded in the history of England, Flanders, or Northern France, took place. 1652, at the Cape of Good Hope, Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeckestablished a resupply camp that eventually became Cape Town. 1667, an earthquakedevastated Dubrovnik, then an independent city-state. 1712, the New York Slave Revolt of 1712 began near Broadway. 1776, American Revolutionary War: Ships of the Continental Navy failed in their attempt to capture a Royal Navy dispatch boat. 1782, King Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (Rama I) of Siam (modern day Thailand) founded the Chakri dynasty. 1793, during the French Revolution, the Committee of Public Safety became the executive organ of the republic.

In 1808, John Jacob Astor incorporated the American Fur Company, that would eventually make him America's first millionaire. 1812, British forces under the command of the Duke of Wellington assaulted the fortress of Badajoz. This would be the turning point in the Peninsular War against Napoleon-led France. 1814, nominal beginning of the Bourbon Restoration; anniversary date that Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to Elba. 1830, Church of Christ, the original church of the Latter Day Saint movement, was organised by Joseph Smith and others at Fayette or Manchester, New York. 1841, U.S. President John Tyler was sworn in, two days after having become President upon William Henry Harrison's death.

In 1860, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, later renamed Community of Christ, was organised by Joseph Smith III and others at Amboy, Illinois. 1861, first performance of Arthur Sullivan's debut success, his suite of incidental music for The Tempest, leading to a career that included the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas. 1862, American Civil War: The Battle of Shiloh began: In Tennessee, forces under UnionGeneral Ulysses S. Grant met Confederate troops led by General Albert Sidney Johnston. 1865, American Civil War: The Battle of Sailor's Creek: Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia fought and lost its last major battle while in retreat from Richmond, Virginia during the Appomattox Campaign. 1866, the Grand Army of the Republic, an American patriotic organisation composed of Union veterans of the American Civil War, was founded. It lasts until 1956. 1869, Celluloid was patented. 1888, Thomas Green Clemsondied, bequeathing his estate to the State of South Carolina to establish Clemson Agricultural College. 1893, Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was dedicated by Wilford Woodruff. 1895, Oscar Wilde was arrested in the Cadogan Hotel, London after losing a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry. 1896, in Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games was celebrated, 1,500 years after the original games were banned by Roman emperor Theodosius I.

In 1909, Robert Peary and Matthew Henson reached the North Pole. 1911, during the Battle of Deçiq, Dedë Gjon Luli Dedvukaj, leader of the Malësori Albanians, raised the Albanian flag in the town of Tuzi, Montenegro, for the first time after George Kastrioti (Skanderbeg). 1917, World War I: The United States declared war on Germany (see President Woodrow Wilson's address to Congress). 1919, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi ordered a general strike. 1923, the first Prefects Board in Southeast Asia was formed in Victoria Institution, Malaysia. 1924, First round-the-world flight commenced. 1926, Varney Airlines made its first commercial flight (Varney is the root company of United Airlines). 1929, Huey P. Long, Governor of Louisiana, was impeached by the Louisiana House of Representatives. 1930, Gandhi raised a lump of mud and salt and declared, "With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire," beginning the Salt Satyagraha. 1936, Tupelo–Gainesville tornado outbreak: Another tornado from the same storm system as the Tupelo tornado hit Gainesville, Georgia, killing 203.

In 1941, World War II: Nazi Germany launched Operation 25 (the invasion of Kingdom of Yugoslavia) and Operation Marita (the invasion of Greece). 1945, World War II: Sarajevo was liberated from German and Croatian forces by the Yugoslav Partisans. Also 1945, World War II: The Battle of Slater's Knoll on Bougainville came to an end. 1947, the first Tony Awards were presented for theatrical achievement. 1957, Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis bought the Hellenic National Airlines (TAE) and founded Olympic Airlines. 1962, Leonard Bernstein caused controversy with his remarks from the podium during a New York Philharmonic concert featuring Glenn Gould performing Brahms' First Piano Concerto. 1965, launch of Early Bird, the first communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit. Also 1965, the British Government announced the cancellation of the TSR-2 aircraft project. 1968, in Richmond, Indiana's downtown district, a double explosion killed 41 and injured 150. Also 1968, Pierre Elliot Trudeau won the Liberal Leadership Election, and became Prime Minister of Canada soon after.

In 1970, Newhall massacre: Four California Highway Patrol officers were killed in a shootout. 1972, Vietnam War: Easter Offensive: American forces began sustained air strikes and naval bombardments. 1973, launch of Pioneer 11 spacecraft. Also 1973, the American League of Major League Baseball began using the designated hitter. 1974, the Swedish pop band ABBAwon the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Waterloo", launching their international career. 1979, Student protests broke out in Nepal. 1982, Estonian Communist Party bureau declared "fight against bourgeois TV"—meaning Finnish TV—a top priority of the propagandists of Estonian SSR 1984, members of Cameroon's Republican Guard unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow the government headed by Paul Biya. 1994, the Rwandan Genocide began when the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down. 1998, Pakistantested medium-range missiles capable of reaching India. Also 1998, Travelers Groupannounced an agreement to undertake the $76 billion merger between Travelers and Citicorp, and the merger was completed on October 8, of that year, forming Citibank.

In 2004, Rolandas Paksas became the first president of Lithuania to be peacefully removed from office by impeachment. 2005, Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani becomes Iraqi president; Shiite Arab Ibrahim al-Jaafari was named premier the next day. 2008, the 2008 Egyptian general strike started led by Egyptian workers later to be adopted by April 6 Youth Movementand Egyptian activists. 2009, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck near L'Aquila, Italy, killing 307. 2010, Maoist rebels killed 76 CRPF officers in Dantewada district, India. 2011, in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, over 193 bodies were exhumed from several mass gravesmade by Los Zetas. 2012, Azawad declared itself independent from the Republic of Mali.
=== 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 Johnny Duong and Saron Youn. Born on the same day, across the years. Remember, birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
Deaths
Jan van Riebeeck
Your town is permanent. We have public safety and private enterprise. The 7th won. Nepalese climb the mountain. Cheers to peaceful removal. Let's party. 
===
Tim Blair

HERE THEY COME

Apparently Australia faces a “new wave” of climate reffos fleeing their sunken island homes.
6 Apr  62 comments
===
Andrew Bolt

===

What kind of conservative wants a Shorten victory?

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, April 06, 2016 (1:04am)

THERE was a refreshing chaser of schadenfreude to go along with the shandies at the Albion Hotel in Cootamundra on Monday night, when Tony Abbott and his sweaty fellow pollie-pedallers called in.
Newspoll had revealed ­Abbott’s usurper Malcolm Turnbull had suffered his first defeat, with the Coalition trailing Labor by two points, 49 to 51 per cent.
Coming on the same day ­Abbott ally Kevin Andrews ­reportedly offered himself as a “hypothetical” leadership challenger, the poll was manna from heaven to delusional conservatives. Abbott was circumspect when interviewed on 2GB yesterday morning. But the glee of the delcons knew no bounds.
The Newspoll is a “gamechanger”, they cried excitedly. It’s all over for Turnbull, the great “waffler”. He’s a “dud”! His challenge to state premiers to control their spending was a “humiliation”. He will lose the next election. Yay!
Yes, these are conservatives, willing a Liberal rout.
Of course, considering Turnbull used the Abbott government’s 30 Newspoll losses as a reason for his coup, he only has himself to blame for handing his detractors a free kick.
But when there are conservatives cock-a-hoop about the prospect of a Shorten Labor government, you know they have jumped the shark.
Encouraged in their delusions by a lucrative new industry of talking heads, whose bread and butter is political turmoil, the delcons have decided they want the Liberal Party to go down in flames.
They brand as traitor any conservative who points out that a Shorten prime ministership would be infinitely worse for the country than a Turnbull victory.
They even deride me as a “leftie” now. It would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous.
Or is it?
Perhaps Turnbull is better off without the delcons. People so willing to cut off their nose to spite their face, are not really worth having on your side.
Their intemperance may even be attracting supporters to their bête noire, the prime minister.
When Abbott has popped up to make trouble for his successor, under the guise of ­"defending my legacy”, it has had the effect of helping Turnbull, according to internal polls.
The public is reminded why they were content to see the back of Abbott.
The reality is that Turnbull is not in trouble. Newspoll has a margin of error larger than the gap between the Coalition and Labor. What that means is that the Coalition is on 49 per cent, plus or minus 2.3 per cent.
In other words, nothing has changed since the last Newspoll, two weeks earlier, when the ­Coalition was “leading” Labor 51 to 49. No tables have turned. All the breathless analysis and triumphalism of the Turnbull-haters this week is meaningless.
It’s a close race, judged on a two-party preferred basis.
But Labor’s primary vote is still stuck on an unwinnable 36 per cent.
Yes, the gloss has come off Turnbull. Voter satisfaction with his performance has fallen significantly, from 52 per cent in December to 38 per cent last weekend, while dissatisfaction has risen from 30 per cent to 48.
But why is that a surprise? No honeymoon lasts.
It’s a lot easier sniping from the sidelines than being PM.
Turnbull is still almost twice as popular as Shorten when it comes to the “Better Prime Minister” stakes. He scores 48 per cent, while Shorten tops out at 27 per cent, marginally better than that well-known candidate “uncommitted”.
In other word there is daylight between them.
Thank goodness. Because the last thing poor Australia needs is to reward Labor for the dishonesty and incompetence that leaves us saddled with a national debt of $400 billion, a federal deficit of almost $40 billion and an addiction to spending.
Julia Gillard’s fantasy $80 billon in health and education funding was the poison pill she baked into her successor’s budgets, along with the National Disability Insurance Scheme, a new welfare leviathan tipped to dwarf spending on schools and hospitals.
Everyone knows the $80 billion never existed, yet Shorten, and all but one mendicant state premier keep pretending it does.
It doesn’t matter how many teachers pop up on the ABC telling us what “wonders” they could achieve with the extra money Gillard promised, the fact is Gonski is a Conski.
Australia increased spending on schools by more than 40 per cent last decade and our students have only fallen further behind the rest of the world. More money is not the answer.
Yet, as economist Henry Ergas points out, Gillard’s promises have acquired a “life of their own,” in the past three years, mutating “as fairy dust does in this country, from a fantasy into an entitlement”.
This was why Turnbull’s shirt-fronted state premiers at the Council of Australian Governments meeting last week: To expose Labor’s promises as a fantasy, not an entitlement.
If the states want to waste money on ineffective policies and bloated public bureaucracies, let them raise the money themselves. Their predictable refusal has transformed the pre-election narrative.
“What we learned from the premiers is they have no credibility to call upon us to increase income tax and give them the proceeds because when they were offered the option to levy a portion of income tax themselves … they had no interest at all (with the honourable exception of WA’s Colin Barnett),” Turnbull said.
“What that means is we have to live within our means. They don’t want to raise taxes. Well neither do we.”
Amen. Not that the delcons are listening.
===

RISE OF THE DELCONS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 06, 2016 (3:47pm)

My friend and colleague Miranda Devine is furious with us “delusional conservatives” (or “delcons"): 
The Newspoll is a “gamechanger”, they cried excitedly. It’s all over for Turnbull, the great “waffler”. He’s a “dud”! His challenge to state premiers to control their spending was a “humiliation”. He will lose the next election. Yay!
Yes, these are conservatives, willing a Liberal rout …
When there are conservatives cock-a-hoop about the prospect of a Shorten Labor government, you know they have jumped the shark.
Encouraged in their delusions by a lucrative new industry of talking heads, whose bread and butter is political turmoil, the delcons have decided they want the Liberal Party to go down in flames. 
Nonsense. I want a far more ruinous outcome than that.
===

LEFTIST DETECTS LEFTISM

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 06, 2016 (2:38pm)

Former Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes, of all people, calls on ABC radio hosts to tune out their left-wing bias: 
Over the decades, radio listeners have divided. If you favour the right, you go commercial; if you favour the left, you go to the ABC.
If the ABC wasn’t funded by taxpayer dollars, no one would mind this situation. After all, the population is split roughly in half over politics, and both sides deserve to hear their views expressed.
But the ABC is publicly funded. It does have a legal obligation to not favour one point of view over another.
The leftiness of ABC radio output is doubly problematic when it comes to Radio National. 
Some of us may have been aware of this situation previously.
===

SOONER OR LATER, WE MUST ALL MAKE THIS CALL

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 06, 2016 (5:04am)

In the Washington Post Lauren R. Taylor arrives at a crucial life moment: 
That’s when I decided to raise my cats to be gender neutral. 
===

WISCONSIN WIN OR LOSE

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 06, 2016 (4:23am)

Ahead of the Wisconsin primary, Microsoft Research economist David Rothschild notes that “Trump’s chances of winning the nomination are down to 54 percent from a recent high of around 80 percent.” But according to Karl Rove, a Trump win might end the Republican nomination battle: 
“If he wins Wisconsin, the contest is over,” the former George W. Bush White House aide and Fox News contributor said. “If not, it’s gonna go on and the math becomes somewhat more difficult.” 
Either way, it’ll be fun to watch.
UPDATE. As expected, Cruz wins in Wisconsin. The WSJ’s Holman Jenkins is ready with a Trump campaign obituary: 
His presidential campaign began as a lark and, despite his primary wins, remained one. He was never serious in the Hillary sense. He has been fingering his get-out option since he got in. If you didn’t see it, it’s because you forgot what a presidential race really is.
Let’s talk about the convention. Mr. Trump is all but certain now to show up without enough delegates to clinch the nomination – which, in his case, means his race is over. 
UPDATE II. The WSJ’s Gerald Seib isn’t so certain of Trump’s presidential demise: 
Mr Cruz’s problem is that the race now heads into states that don’t figure to be so friendly for him — New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island and Oregon, for example. But the problem for Mr Trump is that those are states where the other contender still alive, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, figures to be something between a nuisance and a threat. All those states reward delegates proportionally, meaning the combination of Mr Kasich and Mr Cruz will keep down the Trump delegate tally.
That, in turns, means the race almost certainly will go on to the giant California primary on June 7. 
===

ISRAEL WILL HAVE TO BE ACCEPTED IN THE LONG RUN

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 06, 2016 (3:44am)

Eleanor Roosevelt in 1956: 
I have an anonymous letter which asks me what is being done by the United Nations about the plight of the nearly one million Arab refugees of Israel aggression.
Isn’t it astonishing how many mistakes can creep into one sentence. 
The same mistakes are being made 60 years later.
(Via Jill.)
===

GORE EFFECT IS REAL

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 06, 2016 (2:15am)

Al Gore recently turned up in New York to organise future show trials with some of his climate-changey Democrat buddies: 
Speaking at a press conference on March 29, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said “The bottom line is simple: Climate change is real.” He went on to say that if companies are committing fraud by “lying” about the dangers of climate change, they will “pursue them to the fullest extent of the law.”
The coalition of 17 inquisitors are calling themselves “AGs United for Clean Power.” The coalition consists of 15 state attorneys general (California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, and Washington State), as well as the attorneys general of the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands. Sixteen of the seventeen members are Democrats, while the attorney general for the Virgin Islands, Claude Walker, is an independent. 
Naturally, the Gore Effect kicked in almost immediately.
(Via the Indomitable Snowman, PhD.)
===

Sneering for Fairfax

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (8:51pm)

Fairfax reporter Michael Koziol ridicules and belittles a man raising money for charity. People he interviews tell him the charity worker is terrific, but Koziol can’t stop sneering.
You see, the charity worker is Tony Abbott and Koziol has a hatred to feed.
So does the sub editor. This is how the story is sold:
In fact, three students were quoted in the story and two spoke well of Abbott, and the third only doubted Abbott’s book - not the man himself - would interest him. Here are the quotes in their entirety:
“It’s probably gonna be a popular book for a few weeks,” offered Polly [referring to Abbott’s gift to the school of his book].

“It’ll probably be boring,” argued Angus. 
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Polly countered....
Still, Margo Oliver, a teachers’ aide who looks after the school’s two special needs students, was glad to speak with the ex-PM one-on-one.... As for Mr Abbott, he was “awesome”. He posed for a special photograph so the school could enter a competition to win an outdoor setting, and grilled the children on politics.
“Who’s the Governor-General?” he asked. “Barnaby Joyce,” one boy suggested…
Another town, another band of admirers - and another mini book launch. Mayor of Forbes Phyllis Miller got her copy of Battlelines - as did the kids of Forbes North Public School…
School co-captain Angus Turner is the minister for entertainment and fundraising. He was excited to see Mr Abbott… 
Nothing in those quotes justifies the headline. The Sydney Morning Herald just made it up. More sneering from Koziol here.
Michael, I met you only briefly but suspect you are better than this. There is a special kind of cowardice in journalists pandering to stereotypes. I know the headline is not yours and you did quote students praising Abbott, but the first few paragraphs shame you.  
===

Whyalla wipe out. Green policies hurting

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (5:31pm)

The Whyalla wipe-out is indeed happening but in slow motion and energy-intensive industries die:
[Steel-maker] Arrium owes money to 16 bank… The troubled steelmaker announced after its half-yearly results it may be forced to mothball its Whyalla operations if it cannot turnaround its financial fortunes. 
About 10 per cent of the city’s working population is employed by Arrium. Mr Sowerby said the city of Whyalla, which has a population of about 22,000, would be devastated if the steelworks shut.
And earlier:
Adding to gloom that has engulfed Whyalla in recent times, 15 OneSteel refractory contractors were told on Tuesday they no longer had jobs. 
This follows the loss of around 1000 jobs since the start of last year. About 3000 people are employed via Arrium’s mining and steel operations in Whyalla.
Labor frontbencher David Feeney is foolishly calling for government assistance - having learned nothing from the car industry boondoggle - but the real lesson is our uncompetitiveness and dangerous dependence on China’s boom lasting:
The chief executive of Arrium Steel, Steve Hamer, says that conditions in the steel industry are the worst he’s ever seen and that the government is not protecting the local industry from steel dumping… 
Globally a huge excess of steelmaking capacity and slowing demand from China, which produces half the world’s steel, has resulted in a glut of supply, tanking steel prices.
These industries are exactly the sort most endangered by green policies.
South Australia is the state with the most wind power and, of course, the highest electricity prices - so expect more such closures:
MAJOR electricity users in South Australian industries such as steel and manufacturing are at greater risk of going under in the next two years as power prices surge, industry warns. 
Future markers for energy are predicting the state wholesale price to increase by 50 per cent over the next two years and reach about double that in competitor states like Victoria. Modelling by Deloitte Access Economics also raises fears of blackouts, as the rise of intermittent renewable energy forces fossil fuel baseload facilities like Port Augusta’s out of business. 
The South Australian Liberals warned in February that green power costs jobs:
“South Australia’s jolt in electricity prices is hurting job creation at the very moment we are in the middle of deepening jobs crisis,” said Mr van Holst Pellekaan. 
“High power prices don’t just hurt major industrial companies like Arrium, it hurts job creation across South Australia and will entrench high levels of unemployment in our state.
“The Weatherill Government’s over-zealous rush into wind power is directly responsible for the surging price of electricity in South Australia.” In December the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) noted: The rise in base futures mirrored volatility in South Australian spot prices, which in the September quarter, averaged $69 per MWH - at least 50 per cent higher than in any other region.
I am not saying high power prices may have killed Arrium. I am saying that they help make industries uncompetitive. 
===

Trump, Clinton embarrassed in Wisconsin

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (1:42pm)

 Wisconsin whacks the frontrunners. It’s a very damaging defeat for Donald Trump, who may have tipped the scales from refreshingly outrageous to unbearable. And Hillary Clinton suffers her sixth embarrassing loss in a row - and the seventh of eight contests:
But while Clinton is strangely unpopular lately, she should still win in the end:
[Sanders] is coming off of victories in Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Utah and Washington over the last two weeks, but those contests netted him just 55 delegates. 
Trump should also still finish ahead in the delegate count, but he won’t have reached the threshhold. If his bubble really has burst, the Republican establishment will face a huge problem - how to replace him with someone more electable. 
===

If Turnbull hadn’t stuffed up, Albanese would be the Labor leader

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (11:29am)

It’s true, though. Shorten was saved by Turnbull’s implosion:
Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese has denied claims of a Labor plot to install him as opposition leader, as a Coalition MP warned the Turnbull government appeared “wishy-washy” in the public’s eye. 
Senior members of Mr Shorten’s shadow cabinet reportedly warned the Opposition Leader two months ago of “rumblings” that suggested the powerful NSW Right faction could shift its allegiance to the Left’s Mr Albanese, according to The Daily Telegraph. The plots have been shelved with Labor surging back in the polls, the report said.
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Talking amongst themselves

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (10:35am)

I don’t think Minister Michaelia Cash is a good persuader, and her new double act with Malcolm Turnbull works even worse:
Less emphasis, less nodding and rounder vowels might help.
UPDATE
This is the kind of commentary that annoys Christopher Pyne:
Industry Minister Christopher Pyne..., asked today whether the government needed to improve its communication, said: “I don’t think so.” 
“I think the problem is the commentators are just desperate to talk relentlessly about the cycle of politics — who’s got the ball and who’s kicking it to whom — rather than focusing on the substance of policy,” he told Adelaide’s FIVEaa radio.
Er, what “substance of policy” was I meant to focus on these past six months when examining the Liberals’ plans for taxing and spending?
(Thanks to reader WaG311.) 
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Mossack Fonseca is not the huge scandal sold by the Left

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (10:04am)

In defence of Mossack Fonseca:
Many nations in Western Europe can no longer afford their big welfare states. Countries such as Greece, Spain, and Italy already have needed bailouts… 
Consider, [now], the plight of Mossack Fonseca, a professional services firm based in Panama. The BBC and other agenda-driven journalistic outlets have sought to impugn the reputation of this firm, which has been in business for nearly 40 years and has never once in its history been charged or even formally investigated in connection with a single case of criminal wrongdoing…
The controversy, in large part, derives from a basic and arguably willful misunderstanding of what firms like Mossack Fonseca do – and don’t do – for their clients. In basic terms, these firms help people create new businesses and trusts. These legal entities are created in jurisdictions all around the world, and companies like Mossack Fonseca are legally obligated to conduct extensive due-diligence to ensure that the “beneficial owner” of these entities – the end-clients – is operating in a legal way, and that any funds deposited in these new companies have been legally earned…
But unlike banks, these law firms don’t take possession of their clients’ money. So the notion that they are involved in “money laundering” is laughable..
Firms like Mossack Fonseca are merely just the latest stand-ins and proxies for a much wider campaign being waged by left-wing governments and their various allies and interest groups. This campaign is built around aggressive attacks on anyone who, for any reason, seeks to legally protect their hard-earned assets from confiscatory tax policies.
What makes this issue so frustrating is there’s actually a pro-growth way to end this controversy. High-tax governments should reform their own tax regimes with an eye on competing for capital and luring new businesses to their shores in an increasingly globalized and interconnected world. That’s basically what happened in the 1980s, starting with the Reagan and Thatcher tax rate reductions, and it triggered a lengthy period of global prosperity. Unfortunately, a cabal of governments in recent times has decided not to compete on that terrain at all – instead simply seeking to malign and destroy any entity, individual or jurisdiction that exists that deprives them of tax revenue to which politicians greedily believe they are entitled. 
Where the evil lies is in what some of the clients have said or done back home:
The prime minister of Iceland stepped down on Tuesday, according to his deputy, succumbing to political pressure two days after an enormous leak of documents from a secretive Panamanian law firm about offshore shell companies and tax shelters. 
The prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, ... had insisted on staying in office after the leaked documents revealed that he and his wealthy partner, now his wife, had set up a company in 2007 in the British Virgin Islands through Mossack Fonseca. The documents also suggested that he sold his half of the company to her for $1 on the last day of 2009, just before a new law went into effect that would have required him as a member of Parliament to declare his ownership as a conflict of interest.
Mr. Gunnlaugsson had said that the leak contained no news, adding that he and his wife, Anna Sigurlaug Palsdottir, had not hidden their assets or avoided paying taxes. But the company, Wintris Inc., lost millions of dollars as a result of the 2008 financial crash, which crippled Iceland, and the company is claiming about $4.2 million from three failed Icelandic banks. As prime minister since 2013, Mr. Gunnlaugsson was involved in reaching a deal for the banks’ claimants, so he was accused of a conflict of interest.
The very moment Gummlaugsson realised his secret was out:
UPDATE
Australian investors denounce the witch hunt:
PAT MCGRATH: Perth-based businessman Warren Black has been named in the leak as a director and shareholder of a company managed by Mossack Fonseca: Wealth Grow International. 
WARREN BLACK, BUSINESSMAN: I think there seems to be some kind of witch-hunt flavour to somehow make people feel named or shamed or guilty about doing it.
PAT MCGRATH: He says there are perfectly legitimate reasons for setting up an offshore company.
WARREN BLACK: We live in a global economy, so using a global structure is certainly no different, really, to that: provided you’re using it legally. 
===

Shorten promises billions he doesn’t have to do what’s failed so far

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (10:00am)

I am looking forward to seeing how Labor will pay for its massive promises - and also slash the budget deficits it created. I also note Labor is now peddling another deceit - that Malcolm Turnbull"s (foolish) thought bubble of leaving state school funding to the states actually means cutting funding to them:
In his letter to principals, ... [Labor leader Bill] Shorten says: “Mr Turnbull’s policy of cutting $30 billion from schools and walking away from public education is one of the worst ideas ever put forward by a prime minister...” 
Shorten points to Labor’s policy for a $37 billion commitment over a decade to deliver the needs-based Gonski reforms “in full” and reverse the government’s cuts.
Could Shorten also explain why past huge increases in spending - just like this - have been followed by falls in school standards, not rises? 
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Turnbull puts his election date in the hands of his enemies

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (9:55am)

As I said yesterday:
Turnbull has locked the Liberals into a nightmare. If the Senate rejects the return of the Australian Building and Construction Commission for a second time then Turnbull will have to follow through with his threat to call a double dissolution election or look completely weak and a bluffer. That means he will have done the worst thing for a leader contemplating an election: called one that’s dangerously long at the precise moment he was behind in the polls. 
But Terry McCrann says it’s far worse:
[T]he [May 3] Budget will effectively be the government’s core election manifesto.
The government could hardly bring down a Budget, which will be a combination of various policy initiatives, another big deficit, and a (utter) fantasy pathway to a surplus some time in the mid-2020s; only to throw it all away come the formal election campaign.
It’s hard to know which would be worse politically for the government. To have a just awful Budget — a combination of mostly negative hits on voters and a still huge, utterly irresponsible, deficit — as your basic policy manifesto for an election at the start of July. With a PM locked into an extraordinarily extended eight-week ‘Seinfeld campaign’…
Or the alternative, is that we all get the even greater ‘pleasure’ of ‘politics as usual’ all the way to September or October; with the Budget stinking away…
This also adds a coda to my comments yesterday about what a dud Turnbull has turned out to be as a PM on both the politics and the policies.
What has passed relatively unremarked is the way he has handed control over both the type of election and even more critically its timing to the eight Senate crossbenchers…
If they don’t pass the ABCC legislation Turnbull has to call the DD for July. If he didn’t he would be utterly humiliated. I sincerely doubt he would survive as PM…
The right to set the timing of an election has always been the single most important prime ministerial power and consequent political advantage… Now we have a PM who has handed that power to a mixed assorted group of eight senators. The first PM to ever do that.... And he has done so into the awful ‘known’ of what will be in the Budget on May 3. And into the ‘known unknown’ of what the [Reserve Bank] might do on the same day [on interest rates]. Backdropped by the ‘unknown known’ of what could be happening in the global economy and in world financial markets over the next month. 
UPDATE
Worse still from Simon Benson:
Turnbull’s plans for a joint parliamentary sitting after the election to pass union corruption laws have been thrown into doubt with polls suggesting the Coalition could struggle to get a majority. The government would need to lose only 10 seats at a ­double dissolution election to lose an absolute majority in a joint sitting of parliament afterwards. 
Such an outcome would make the election trigger on union corruption pointless, as it would mean the government could have no confidence of ever passing the bill.
The trajectory is ominous for the Liberals:
SABRA LANE: ... (I)t could be a very tight contest: so close, in fact, that some analysts think another hung Parliament is possible. It would be ironic for the Government to pull a double dissolution lever to clear out the Senate crossbench, only to wind up with a crossbench holding the balance of power in the other chamber…
ANTONY GREEN: Crossbenchers there at the moment: the one you’d think would be most difficult to getting returned would be Clive Palmer in Fairfax… Of other possibilities: the Greens have chances of picking up seats. Batman and Wills are two seats they’re targeting in Melbourne. You’ve got Tony Windsor up against Barnaby Joyce in New England. And there may be other independents we haven’t heard of yet. You may get the Nick Xenophon team do particularly well in some seats in South Australia.
SABRA LANE: And despite ushering through new Senate voting reforms, the ABC’s election analyst, Antony Green, thinks the Coalition may not end up with more Senators in the Upper House - even with a double dissolution election. ANTONY GREEN: I think the Government would struggle to get more than the 33 seats it has now, which means it still needs half a dozen extra votes to get legislation passed. The difference is: it currently knows the half-dozen votes it needs to get - and the foibles and the policy interests of those members. If it had a double dissolution, you don’t know who are those last members going to be elected.
UPDATE
Neat analysis from Ross Fitzgerald:
What has Turnbull done in six months to justify knifing the elected prime minister? Well, he’s kept Abbott’s policies to stop the boats, have a same-sex marriage plebiscite, reduce emissions without a carbon tax, and crack down on terrorists, even to the point of stripping their citizenship. These were all the policies, pre-coup, he let people know he privately opposed. 
Apart from that, he’s spent $1 billion on “government-knows-best” innovation incentives, given even more of our foreign aid budget to overseas climate change boondoggles, opened the back door to an ETS through overseas carbon credits, and kept the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Oh, and he’s thrown another $3 billion at the states for their inefficient public hospitals to try to avoid a pre-election scare campaign.
In other words, he’s annoyed his leftist backers by keeping all the Abbott policies they hated. And he’s infuriated conservatives by looking like Labor-lite when it comes to big spending and big government…
Make no mistake, Turnbull doomed his prime ministership before it had even begun when he damned Tony Abbott on the basis of being consistently behind in the polls. What he was saying is that governments don’t just have to win elections, they have to win the polls too: if not every time, at least most of the time. This absolutely guarantees weak and fickle government…
(T)o cut down a first-term prime minister doing a reasonable job under difficult circumstances only to be less organised, less decisive, and now scarcely better in the polls looks like self-indulgent ambition to put it at its best. The Turnbull government is in desperate trouble. After the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd chaos, people expected better of the Liberal Party. Now that it has copied Labor rather than learned from it, the Coalition may find it increasingly difficult to win the forthcoming federal election.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill,) 
===

This is not interviewing from Fran Kelly but biased ABC barracking

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (9:22am)

ABC bias leads Radio National Breakfast host Fran Kelly to simply regurgitate the false claims of refugee activists and demonise the border laws that have stopped the boats, stopped the drownings and emptied the detention centres. From her interview yesterday with Immigration Minister Peter Dutton:
Journalist: The final children were released from Darwin’s Point Wickham Centre on Friday. This is terrific news. Would this have happened if Tony Abbott was still Prime Minister? 
Peter Dutton: I believe that it would have…
Journalist: Why did it take so long? If we could do it on Friday why couldn’t we do it six months ago?
Peter Dutton: Because there are some identity issues, particularly with fathers…
Journalist: Now there are reports that you have achieved this claim of no children in detention by reclassifying parts of some detention centres. I have had lots of calls this morning when we told people we were interviewing you this morning, a lot of people have rung in to say that the family compound at Villawood, people are still in there, it’s just really a sleight of hand. Can you tell us exactly the case for the children that were in Villawood, are all children now living in the community or are some still behind fences?
Peter Dutton: Just to go to this red herring that there’s one particular, frankly discredited online newspaper that runs this allegation…
Journalist: …never mind about that. What is the situation?
Peter Dutton: …well just to give you the background of where this information has come from… The definitions remain exactly the same as they were under the Labor Party…
Journalist: Ok, so let me just stay with what’s been reported… We have been told that some families inside Villawood were sent a letter by your Department on Friday advising them that their detention was now classified as community detention, even though that they haven’t been moved anywhere. Is that the truth? Is that what has happened?
Peter Dutton: No, it’s not Fran…
Journalist: …they don’t have guards with them? They go to school on their own? They come home on their own?
Peter Dutton: Correct....  These same people of course were saying nothing when 8,500 children went through detention under Labor…
Journalist: …well I don’t think that’s true Minister. I remember having some rip roaring interviews with Labor Immigration Ministers – but I think it is a terrific achievement… What about the 72 children who are part of that failed High Court challenge in February? At the time you said everybody will be going back. Are they still under threat of being removed to Nauru, including baby Asha?
Peter Dutton: The Government’s policy hasn’t changed and it won’t change Fran and that is that if people have sought to come to Australia by boat then they won’t settle permanently in our country… Unfortunately some well- intentioned, but nonetheless misguided advocates here in Australia tell these people not to accept packages, not to go back like the thousands before them have and they are subject to going back to Nauru. So hopefully we can negotiate with them to go somewhere else.
Journalist: Well Minister, I don’t know you say it’s misguided to say don’t go back to the country which you fled if you are suffering from persecution.... So you would send them to Cambodia even though Cambodia itself says it’s failed, it says we don’t really have that much money to support people, we don’t have the sort of social services to support refugees?
Peter Dutton: Fran again, I just think we need to deal with the facts…
Journalist: …and I don’t know why they don’t have the money to support them because we have given them $55 million for five people.
Peter Dutton: Well again, just if I can make this point: if we can deal with the facts and not the emotion, then I think we can deal successfully with…
Journalist: …well they’re facts. Peter Dutton: Well it’s not Fran. Nobody has been paid $55 million… Again Fran, that is incorrect and I have pointed that out I think to the ABC on a number of occasions, yet the ABC still runs that. Now, there is an arrangement where we do want to send people to Cambodia from Nauru or support that arrangement and the difficulty is that people are encouraged not to go. There is support offered around education, around housing, around financial support on an ongoing basis, purchase a motor vehicle – all of that is provided – and we pay as people go across to Cambodia and that’s the arrangement.
How can anyone reading the transcript doubt Kelly’s agenda - the agenda that actually, when implemented, triggered so much suffering and cost so much? This is not interviewing but barracking, which would be fine if it were on a commercial outlet but which is not fine on the taxpayer-funded ABC, meant by law to be unbiased.
If you think I’m cherrypicking, Kelly’s interview today with Social Services Minister Christian Porter was just as bad, with Kelly badgering him to follow Canada’s dangerous example and just ship over tens of thousands of Syrian refugees before proper checks on them can be made.
This from the ABC journalist who falsely claimed there was no link here between refugees and terrorism. Or none she was prepared to see.
UPDATE
How did Greens spokesman Sarah Hanson-Young get two runs on the ABC TV news in Melbourne last night? That’s two more than any Nationals MP got. And this soapbox to a party that got just 8.6 per cent of the vote at the last election. 
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I’m the ghost at the banquet of Leigh Sales and Annabel Crabb

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (8:18am)

My goodness, I’m even a ghost at the lunch tables of ABC presenters - and a handy stand-in ogre in their conversations:
Listen from around 10 minutes in to get the gist of it.
Not that the ABC is biased at all.
UPDATE
But that Turnbull, what a charmer! From 30 seconds.
(Thanks to reader Anita.) 
===

Twitter is not real

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (7:57am)

A classic example of journalists confusing Twitter - that sewer of hate - with the real world:
It was dubbed as a ‘hilarious and hypnotic new show’ by Channel 9 but it appears that Daryl Somers’ new show You’re Back In The Room left viewers less than impressed. 
Disgruntled viewers took to Twitter to share their reviews and the majority of tweets blasted the new show, with one user branding the format as ‘the worst TV show ever’.
The real viewers’ verdict:
DARYL Somers has proved his star power with a stunning debut figure for You’re Back in the Room. A whopping 1.155 million viewers across the five capital cities tuned in to the hypnotism show…
We’ve already seen politicians mistake Twitter tweeters for real people, too:
Julia Gillard as prime minister had an even more fatal attraction to Twitter. 
Her infamous misogyny speech last year - falsely branding Abbott a woman-hater - was rightly seen at first by most commentators as a hate-filled rant that would appal many Australians.
But Gillard’s communications director, John McTernan, eventually convinced press gallery journalists it was a success because it had gone viral on social media, including Twitter.
He had Channel 9’s Laurie Oakes claiming: “It was clear within days the PM’s gender-based declaration of war had made quite an impact with many Australian women.
“The way it went viral via the internet was a significant factor in ensuring it registered as a powerful moment.” And so Gillard, convinced by tweets and blog posts, doubled down on her politics of division, pitting women against men, workers against bosses.
Disaster.
Activists have also confused Twitter with public opinion:
Two years ago Kony, head of the Lord’s Resistance Army, was the world’s most-hated man after the Invisible Children charity made a film of him rampaging through Uganda, raping, murdering and stealing thousands of children. 
It was a YouTube sensation, scoring 100 million views and 1.4 million likes… [But] when Invisible Children held “Cover the Night” rallies to show exactly how much their supporters cared, only 25 turned up in Sydney and a dozen in Melbourne.
UPDATE
Colin Vickery in defence of Daryl Somers:
Somers and the show was ...the target of a lot of vitriol on social media. “The worst thing I have ever seen on TV”, “welcome to the death of television — Daryl Somers” and “you’re back in the bin” were just some of the scathing comments. 
If you ask me Twitter has never been an accurate reflection of the general public’s taste. For a start it is relentlessly negative. Too often, it is the home of people taking cheap shots.... Maybe it is time everyone gave Somers some respect. You don’t survive for 45 years in the cut throat TV industry without having a lot of smarts. 
I barely know Somers but know how he looked after his parents and his brother, once a neighbour. For that alone - not to mention his professional success - he has my respect. 
===

No to Rudd

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (7:46am)

It’s hard to believe that Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop even considered endorsing Kevin Rudd’s undeclared bid to become UN secretary general:
The deadline for Mr Rudd’s ­decision is fast approaching as the UN prepares to receive nominees, with former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark being announced yesterday as a candidate to replace Ban Ki-moon as secretary-general at year’s end. 
While Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said cabinet would decide whether to support Mr Rudd if he declared his candidacy, Liberal ministers and backbenchers are concerned any ­Coalition backing would be a distraction and run counter to the party’s political narrative of the past seven years… One Liberal MP told The Australian last night that if Malcolm Turnbull nominated Mr Rudd for the position, it “would be his knights and dames moment”, referring to Mr Abbott’s unilateral decision to make Prince Philip a knight of Australia. “Given what he’s done to Australia, why would we impose him on the world?” the MP said.  
James Paterson is quickly earning his keep as the newest Senator:
“I think it would not do Australia any reputational good to support someone that has a history of bad management and personality issues and a shocking record as prime minister to take over the UN,” he told Sky News this week.
Some commentators back Rudd because they say he would make our voice louder in the UN. In fact, he would make the UN’s voice louder in Australia. Can you imagine his meddling here on our border laws and indigenous recognition in the constitution? 
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All that’s gold does not glitter

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (6:28am)

Views you can use - this time from investment advisor Scott Papes:
Scott,
Why would you tell Mark (27th March) to get rid of his silver? If you were to do some deeper research on gold and silver, you would find they are likely to multiply many times. This will be due to the inflated world money supply producing a Ponzi-like bubble on world stock markets, and then crashing, making for a rush to silver and gold, even with a high AU dollar. Look ahead a bit! 
Doug 
... First, I appreciate and totally agree with you that central bankers have put the world in uncharted territory. I also share your hunch that, when our day of reckoning comes, gold and silver and cans of tinned baked beans will all move higher, albeit temporarily, which could make you a trading profit. 
The question is when this will happen. You don’t know. I don’t know. The doom and gloom newsletter publishers who make millions of dollars a year selling subscriptions don’t know either. A 20-year study by academic Philip Tetlock from the University of Pennsylvania tracked 82,361 economic and political predictions from academics, experts and gurus, and found they were about as reliable as a dart-throwing monkey. 
So while you wait for the world to crash, you’ll be stuck with an investment that misses the secret source of wealth: compound interest. See, the problem with trying to predict the future price of silver, gold, or my grandma’s prized Victorian teapot is that none of them have any practical utility (other than looking pretty). They’re not like a company that generates profits and pays dividends, nor a home that can be rented out. You can only make money by trading it—selling a lump of metal with no intrinsic use to someone who believes the same story that you do. 
Finally, if you do some ‘deeper research’, you’ll see that over the past 100 years gold and silver have barely managed to keep up with inflation. Over the same time period, the US share market has risen a staggering 18,520-fold. 
Elegant.  
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People smugglers waiting for Labor

Andrew Bolt April 06 2016 (6:14am)

Illegal immigrants in Indonesia tell Channel 7’s Mike Duffy they are waiting for Labor to be re-elected:
They are waiting for Australian election. The new party.
Watch.
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SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL HAPPENED

Tim Blair – Monday, April 06, 2015 (6:33am)

Kevin and Crystal O’Connor began last week as they’ve begun many weeks for the past nine years: as the father and daughter co-owners of a modest little pizza shop in the tiny American town of Walkerton, Indiana.
They ended the week more than $A1,000,000 richer.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL HAPPENED'
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ROWDY CROWDS

Tim Blair – Monday, April 06, 2015 (5:04am)

Canterbury Bulldogs fans may think themselves a tough lot, what with all their bottle-throwing and general idiocyfollowing Friday’s match against the Rabbitohs.
But they still have a long way to go before they match Australia’s greatest-ever example of sports crowd mayhem.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'ROWDY CROWDS'
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ISISISTERS

Tim Blair – Monday, April 06, 2015 (4:30am)

Islamic State’s chick-a-boom brigade swings into action: 
British police say a 16-year-old girl has been arrested on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts …
Police say she was arrested “on suspicion of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism” as part of an ongoing investigation. 
And in the US: 
Two New York City women have been arrested and accused of planning to carry out a “terrorist attack” in the United States, according to a federal criminal complaint made public on Thursday.
Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, plotted to hit police, government or military targets based on their “violent jihadist beliefs,” according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.
It said Velentzas and Siddiqui were conspiring “to prepare an explosive device to be detonated in a terrorist attack in the United States.” 
These fragbats, of course, have nothing to do with Islam.
UPDATE: 
A Philadelphia mother of two who goes by the name of “YoungLioness” on Twitter was arrested by federal authorities Friday and charged with trying to support ISIS with money and resources.
Keonna Thomas, 30, appeared in court in full black dress with only her eyes showing just hours after her arrest …
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the videotaped beheadings of two American aid workers, two British aid workers and 21 Christians in Libya and burning alive a Jordanian Air Force Pilot in a cage. 
For the sackmo sisters, this isn’t a catalogue of terrorist atrocities. It’s a list of turn-ons. 
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PUNISHMENT PROGRAM

Tim Blair – Monday, April 06, 2015 (4:29am)

Fairfax readers rewarded: 
Fairfax Media has closed The Australian Financial Review’s rewards program after just five months due to low participation. 
“Low participation” is something of a trend at Fairfax of late. 
It is understood that, in a cost-saving measure, Fairfax is planning to offer AFR subscribers the chance to become part of an enlarged rewards program that will also include The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. 
Memo to Fairfax: that would not be a rewards program. It would be a hate crime.
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THE PIZZA THAT JUST KEEPS ON GIVING

Tim Blair – Monday, April 06, 2015 (1:31am)

CBS employee Alix Bryan was one of many leftists who gleefully leapt aboard the bash Memories Pizza bandwagon. At one point she even reported the Memories fundraising site for fraud – “just in case” – before hilariously claiming she had acted out of concern for the O’Connor family. She also complained that people were associating her spiteful tweets with her job, leading to this brilliant response: 
Don’t you hate it when your livelihood is threatened because of your opinions? 
Bryan – a part-time journalism lecturer (!) who knows all about crowdsourcing – is now under investigation by her employer. Meanwhile, the fantastically stupid pizza truther movement gains pace:

You might think this fellow to be the most paranoid and delusional person ever allowed to use a computer, but Lynyrd Skynyrd’s short bus roadie has some serious competition.
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Sneering at Reclaim Australia is easy, fixing Islam is hard

Andrew Bolt April 06 2015 (6:50am)

Islamism

 IT is dangerously easy to sneer at the several hundred protesters who dared hold anti-Islam rallies around the country on Saturday.
Yes, laugh at these Reclaim Australia protesters waving their hokey Australian flags and homemade signs. Snigger at their exaggerated fears of sharia law.
Blame them for having thousands of socialist protesters push and punch them, spit on them and abuse them as “racists” and “c---s”.
It’s much easier for the smugly sanctimonious to ridicule the worried than admit there’s something serious to worry about. But, a warning: If interpretations of Islam are not reformed, we can expect two things: more terrorism, and angrier reactions from Australians feeling threatened and pushed too far.
Yet with the stakes so high, we also saw on Saturday more evasions — complaints from three Muslim “leaders” that the big problem was the Abbott Government.
As The Australian reported: “Federal Government efforts to combat Islamic State-inspired radicalisation have come under heavy criticism.”
Not enough money had yet been spent, especially on clerics and “community groups”.
“Several respected Muslim community leaders have ... highlighted the need to engage ‘firebrand’ clerics who have more reach and influence in the small groups that need targeting.”
(Read full article here.) 
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The Left’s war on free speech

Andrew Bolt April 06 2015 (6:39am)

Free speech, How the Left hates

 YOU’D think that over Easter we might at least show respect for people speaking their minds.
After all, today would not be a public holiday if the Romans had believed in free speech for a preacher called Jesus and not nailed him to a cross for talking trouble.
Yet thousands of people chose Saturday to ramp up the Left’s sinister war on free speech.
Socialists, unionists and other self-proclaimed “anti-racists” could not bear to let several hundred protesters of Reclaim Australia peacefully demonstrate around Australia against Islam and its excesses.
Instead, they formed counter-protests to shut down the Reclaim rallies with threats, shoves and even punches.
In Melbourne, Socialist Party organisers boasted: “We were successful in driving them out of Federation Square, outnumbering them 3000 to about 300.”
What is this? Countering argument not with better arguments but with force?
Yet this outrageous intolerance of debate is becoming common.
(Read full article here.)
UPDATE
 Isn’t there something hypocritical about “anti-racism” protesters burning an Australian flag? 
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Refugee intake at work.  Police warn Dandenong locals to run away

Andrew Bolt April 06 2015 (6:19am)

Here is Isaacs MP and Labor frontbencher Mark Dreyfus in 2013:
One third of Australians were born overseas and Greater Dandenong is home to citizens representing 150 different nationalities… Our community is a wonderful example to others of a modern, diverse and harmonious society. 
It wasn’t true then:
Community leaders have joined police on regular patrols in Dandenong as the force tries to improve ties with troubled ethnic youths. The ethnically diverse city has crime rates almost 40 per cent higher than the state average… Pacific Islander and Sudanese community leaders were informed by Victoria Police last year that their populations were overrepresented in crime statistics. 
And now more evidence that refugee programs have in fact helped make parts of Dandenong less safe for its residents:
TEENAGE gangs are believed responsible for four violent attacks in central Dandenong. 
And police fear there could be more assaults and have urged people to move on if they see large groups of teens approaching… “If you see a large group approaching, get back in your car and go, or walk off — don’t hang around to see what they might do...”
The warning follows two violent assaults in Hemmings Park on March 27, the March 6 stabbing of a 15-year-old boy during a street brawl involving up to 60 youths [reportedly African], and the [related] beating of an 18-year-old Noble Park man with a baseball bat later that night.
The March 27 attacks began about 1am when a group of about 10 young men of African appearance, aged about 16 to 20, surrounded a 23-year-old woman and 18-year-old man, both from Dandenong, while the pair stood beside the woman’s car on the Princes Highway.
One of the youths stole the woman’s phone and car keys from the car roof, ran off into the park, then returned shortly afterwards with two other youths, who then brazenly got into the car… About 9.30pm that day, an 18-year-old Dandenong man was walking through Hemmings Park when he was assaulted by five youths, also of African appearance and aged in their mid-to-late teens.
Dreyfus, incidentally, lives in Malvern, a safe suburb miles from his electorate, and too expensive for refugee accommodation. 
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Or maybe Bill Shorten doesn’t stand for anything at all, except immunisation, tax and slogans

Andrew Bolt April 06 2015 (5:48am)

Labor leader Bill Shorten’s first attempt was a train wreck:
FAINE 
If you got your hands on the levers, people are asking, what would you do, what does Bill Shorten actually believe in?
SHORTEN
Well, the Labor Party believes in lots of things and it’s a great opportunity this morning to talk about some of them.  What I fundamentally believe and I think it was Martin Luther King who said this best, but it’s, I think true then and it’s true now, is everybody is somebody…
FAINE
So let’s turn that into policy ...
SHORTEN
It’s got to be about growth, it’s got to be about how we create wealth and then it’s ensuring we have a fair distribution of income…
FAINE
How do you pay for [it]?
SHORTEN
Well then we get to the area of how do you drive growth, full stop…
FAINE
Do you want to put taxes up?
SHORTEN
No well, the discussion we’re going to have is a bit longer than one liners ...
FAINE
But how do you pay for all of this is the fundamental question…
SHORTEN
Well, again, before I get to the latest question you ask, we’ve got to talk about what is happening in Australia…
FAINE
You’re at risk of repeating yourself, I’m asking you to explain how you pay for all of these things…
SHORTEN
Well you go to the next lever, if education is one lever that the national government can help pull to make this country grow…
FAINE:
... it’s very hard to understand exactly how you would propose to pay for better health care, better education…
SHORTEN
...What I’m doing this morning is I’m explaining to your listeners that the Labor I lead is thinking about the long-term…
FAINE
I’ve asked you many times, how do you pay for it?
SHORTEN
I will come to that, but I’m just
FAINE
Well why don’t you do that now?
SHORTEN ....What I’m doing here is articulating what Labor stands for...
Shorten tries again, on Channel 9 yesterday:
Host: Now you promised to voters during your first quarter as Opposition Leader that it will be a year of ideas. Now you have released a few policies in the past few months but a big criticism of you personally and your party is that voters really don’t know what you stand for. How do you overcome that? 
Shorten: Well, interviews like today are a great opportunity. I’ve explained that we think that immunisations — parents should be immunising their kids. We’ve explained even today in this interview the challenge for child care is to make sure that it’s properly funded and we’ve indicated that we’re sitting down with the government to work on it. Other things which we stand for that’s fundamental, we want to make sure that we have an economy which is working for all people, not just for some. We want to make sure our young people are properly trained at TAFE. We want to make sure that our universities don’t charge $100,000 for degrees. Our challenge is jobs, you know, and how we make sure that every Australian child can get a job and be properly trained for the future. So I look forward to this year debating issues, and on tax reform we’ve made clear that what we think needs to be done is that some of the larger multinationals who aren’t paying their fair share, pay their fair share.
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Obama paves way for Iranian nuclear bomb

Andrew Bolt April 06 2015 (5:39am)

Greg Sheridan on a catastrophically bad decision by Barack Obama:
US President Barack Obama has now effectively guaranteed that Iran will eventually acquire ­nuclear weapons, in what will be a black day for the hopes of peace and stability for anyone in the world. 
The Iranian government has out-negotiated Obama completely… Obama took a strong hand and played it very badly.
The Iranians ... have emerged with all the main elements of their nuclear program intact. In time, they will acquire nuclear weapons. Obama will go down in history as the president who made this possible…

Even the broad terms of the [Lausanne] framework as announced contain all manner of key concessions the Americans not so long ago said they would never make.
Among these, Iran gets to keep nuclear facilities, such as its underground Fordow plant, which it developed illegally, in secret, in defiance of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Similarly, it gets to keep its heavy water reactor at Arak, although it will convert it to a facility that for the moment cannot produce plutonium.
It gets to keep 6000 centr­i­fuges to enrich uranium of which 5000 will remain operational. There is no purpose in having these centrifuges other than to eventually produce material for nuclear weapons. It will also be ­allowed to undertake intensive ­research on building more ­advanced centrifuges that can enrich more uranium more quickly. It will not have to export its enriched uranium but merely convert it into a more benign form in a process that can be reversed. And almost all the notional restrictions on Iran run out in 10 years....
Now Obama has done everything he can to remove all the pressure on Iran. Once the deal is under way, the UN will remove all the nuclear-based sanctions on Iran. The UN Security Council will rescind all its relevant resolutions. Obama says these sanctions will “snap back” automatically if Iran ever breaches the deal. That is a joke. Effective sanctions are extraordinarily difficult to assemble and impose. And Obama has put this all in the hands of the UN, the very byword of procrastination and inaction…
The strategic triumph for Iran is enormous. It has to modify no part of its international outlook or behaviour, from sponsoring terrorism to declaring the annihilation of Israel non-negotiable. It gets, for the first time ever, and this is crucial, international legitimacy for its nuclear program, which covers every part of the cycle. It gets sanctions lifted, which should help its economy dramatically. And from very early on, it will start cheating on the deal. 
UPDATE
Bill Kristol says Congress must kill this deal:
Commentators have exposed how bad the Iran deal is in various ways; the point, however, is to kill it. 
Why? Because the deal can’t be fixed. Even if sanctions relief were somewhat more gradual, even if the number of centrifuges were somewhat lower, even if the inspections regime were somewhat more robust—the basic facts would remain: Iran gets to keep its nuclear infrastructure, including the most sensitive parts of it. The sanctions come off. And the inspectors can be kicked out. So Iran, a state-sponsor of terror, an enemy of the United States, an aggressive jihadist power, a regime dedicated to the destruction of Israel, will become a threshold nuclear weapons state.
UPDATE
The “deal” so far is astonishingly sketchy - a page of notes.
And the US and Iran are already giving significantly different interpretations on six key points, suggesting someone is lying:
Ehud Ya’ari, Middle East analyst for Israel’s Channel 2 News and an international fellow at the Washington Institute think tank, said the six discrepancies represent “very serious gaps” at the heart of the framework accord.... 
Referring to Thursday’s American-issued ”Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” on the one hand, and the “fact sheet” issued Friday by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, on the other, Ya’ari noted that no deal was actually signed on Thursday, and that the leaders’ statements and the competing fact sheets were thus critical to understanding what had been agreed…
1. Sanctions: Ya’ari said the US has made clear that economic sanctions will be lifted in phases, whereas the Iranian fact sheet provides for the immediate lifting of all sanctions as soon as a final agreement is signed, which is set for June 30.
(In fact, the US parameters state that sanctions will be suspended only after Iran has fulfilled all its obligations: “US and EU nuclear-related sanctions will be suspended after the IAEA has verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear-related steps.” By contrast, the Iranian fact sheet states: “all of the sanctions will be immediately removed after reaching a comprehensive agreement.")
2. Enrichment: The American parameters provide for restrictions on enrichment for 15 years, while the Iranian fact sheet speaks of 10 years.
3. Development of advanced centrifuges at Fordo: The US says the framework rules out such development, said Ya’ari, while the Iranians say they are free to continue this work.
4. Inspections: The US says that Iran has agreed to surprise inspections, while the Iranians say that such consent is only temporary, Ya’ari said.
5. Stockpile of already enriched uranium: Contrary to the US account, Iran is making clear that its stockpile of already enriched uranium — “enough for seven bombs” if sufficiently enriched, Ya’ari said — will not be shipped out of the country, although it may be converted.
6. PMD: The issue of the Possible Military Dimensions of the Iranian program, central to the effort to thwart Iran, has not been resolved, Ya’ari said.
(The US parameters make two references to PMD. They state, first: “Iran will implement an agreed set of measures to address the IAEA’s concerns regarding the Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) of its program.” And they subsequently add: “All past UN Security Council resolutions on the Iran nuclear issue will be lifted simultaneous with the completion, by Iran, of nuclear-related actions addressing all key concerns (enrichment, Fordo, Arak, PMD, and transparency).” The Iranian fact sheet does not address PMD.) 
(Thanks to reader brett t r .) 
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Too good an ABC policy for a joke

Andrew Bolt April 06 2015 (5:35am)

The Consternation meant this as its April Fools Day joke. On reflection, it has the makings of an excellent policy:
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull last night announced a halving of the ABC’s budget over 3 years. Mr Turnbull said community feedback has strongly shown that the national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, was delivering much more than what the taxpayers should be paying for and using taxes to compete against private operators in radio, TV and online. 
The Minister said “The ABC’s budget will return to the 8 cents per day that was ample in the 1980’s. Reduced costs of technologies with their greater productivity should cover the costs of a synergistic online presence.” He added that his office had identified substantial operational savings with internal cost recoveries for the transition to a lean operating model that only fills the gaps in the broadcast landscape that are commercially unsustainable for private operators.
Sale of the Ultimo headquarters will more than cover the migration of key operations to the developing Badgerys Creek airport precinct. Similar moves in other capital cities; away from prime real estate; would nearly eliminate operational costs such as parking and airport taxi fares.
ABC funding would only be provided for: 
2 TV channels per viewing region 
1 regional and one national radio station per “band” in any area 
an Internet presence limited to that supporting broadcast programmes 
local content production with export marketing potential with cost recovery
(Thanks to reader berfel.) 
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John Christy and Roy Spencer: 25 years as sceptical climate scientists

Andrew Bolt April 06 2015 (4:48am)


It is 25 years since two scientists announced that their satellite data showed the world was not warming as fast as had been thought.
Professor John Christy, Director of the Earth System Science Center from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Roy Spencer, climatologist and principal research scientist at the university, discuss their careers since as sceptics of the theory that man is heating the world catastrophically:
Spencer:  It wasn’t too long after [John] came here that we were at a meeting… We were discussing, Don’t we have something better than the thermometer data to monitor global temperatures? [UAH scientist] Dick McNider said, ‘What about the microwave sounders we have on the weather satellites?...”

AL.com: How do you respond to the perception that 97 percent of scientists agree on climate change? [The Wall Street Journal in 2013 reported on the “myth” of the 97 percent].
Christy: The impression people make with that statement is that 97 percent of scientists agree with my view of climate change, which typically is one of catastrophic change. So if a Senate hearing or the president or vice president says 97 percent of the scientists agree with me, that’s not true. The American Meteorological Society did their survey and they specifically asked the question, Is man the dominate controller of climate over the last 50 years? Only 52 percent said yes. That is not a consensus at all in science.
Then when you look at the core of that question, the core is do you believe that man has some influence on the climate. I don’t know anyone who would say no to that… Roy and I have both made the statement that we are in the 97 percent because we believe in some (man-made) effect…
Spencer: Whoever came up with that, it was very powerful.. It was very misleading, but it was a good idea… Adding CO2 to the atmosphere probably adds some warming. The science on that is pretty solid. But then the devil’s in the details. How much warming does it actually cause? It makes a huge difference.
AL.com: When you hear about the catastrophic effects of climate change, data from reputable organizations such as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or NASA is frequently cited. How do you respond to that?
Christy: NASA, NOAA, EPA, DOE, those are agencies. Agency leaders are appointed by the government, by the current administration. They do not represent objective independent scientific organizations. They can’t. They are appointed by the head. They try. People who come out with different views in their organizations are found to be squashed. There is an agenda in those agencies.. There are skeptics in NASA and NOAA, a good number. But they are quiet. They know in this administration, they don’t speak out.
Spencer: I know that they’re not unbiased. Most of them probably really do believe we’re destroying the earth. When I talk to scientists who should be objective over a beer at the end of the day, I will argue with them and their final position will always be, ‘Yeah, but we need to get away from fossil fuels anyway.’ Where did that come from? Are you an expert in alternative energy sources and what they cost? How many poor people are you going to hurt? How many more people are you going to make poor through energy poverty because they are paying five to 10 times as much for their energy?…
Christy: I am for any energy source that is affordable and doesn’t destroy the environment. If carbon dioxide was a poisonous gas, I’d be against it.... The world used to have five times as much carbon dioxide as it does now. Plants love this stuff. It creates more food. CO2 is not the problem…
There is absolutely no question that carbon energy provides with longer and better lives. There is no question about that… And to suppress, to me, is immoral.
AL.com: Why is your research using satellite data a more effective way of measuring climate change than surface temperature? ... Christy: ...Where is the biggest response to greenhouse gases? It’s in the atmosphere, not on the surface. So if you want to measure the response and say that’s the greenhouse gas response, you would look in the atmosphere. That’s precisely where satellites measure it. 
UPDATE
Now a “pause” in the Arctic melt, too. Graham Lloyd:
After shrinking 35 per cent over several decades, the low point reached in Arctic ice cover each year appears to have stabilised. This is despite a record low maximum ice extent this winter… 
But the “pause” in summer ice melt extent has been widely ­conceded. A paper published in ­Nature by Neil Swart from Environment Canada said ”from 2007-13 there was a near-zero trend in observed Arctic September sea-ice extent, in large part due to a strong uptick of the icepack in 2013 which has continued into 2014”.
Climate scientists do not ­believe the long-term downward trend in Arctic sea ice has been broken, however.
The Swart et al (2015) paper said “cherrypicking” such short periods could be “misleading about longer-term changes, when such trends show either rapid or slow ice loss”. It says claims a pause in Arctic ice loss disproved climate change were not true.
Ed Wawkins, co-author of the Swart paper and a researcher at Britain’s University of Reading, said it was “quite conceivable that the current period of near-zero sea-ice trend could extend for a decade or more, solely due to weather-induced natural varia­bil­­ity hiding the long-term human caused decline”. But David Whitehouse from the London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation said similar arguments had initially been used to reject the surface temp­erature hiatus.
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Fracking fearmongering

Andrew Bolt April 06 2015 (12:01am)

 Mark Latham on fire:
(L)ast month I saw Frackman at my local municipal hall – a taxpayer-funded film tracing the adventures of Dayne Pratzky in campaigning against coal seam gas (CSG) in rural Queensland. 
Like most forms of left-wing propaganda, the event was hosted by a couple of B-grade celebrities: the Australian actors Michael Caton and Nell Schofield…

After 90 minutes of non-stop whinging and hysteria, the truth about Frackman’s complaint was finally revealed.
Having broken into the fracking company’s compound and stolen chemical samples, Pratzky arranged for one of his associates to test the material.
In a wonderful advertisement for the safety of CSG, the chemicals were found to be benign…
It was a fracking false alarm.
In a major public inquiry into CSG in 2013-14, the NSW chief scientist looked at 2.5 million wells around the world and couldn’t identify a single case of contamination. After watching Frackman, we can make that 2.5 million plus one.
The campaign against the industry is one of the most fraudulent, misinformed and irrational pieces of politics I have ever seen… In the United States ... most environmentalists support fracking for its success in cutting greenhouse emissions – succeeding where the American political system has failed. 
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Ocean Beach Sunset Sometimes when teaching a class, things turn epic.
Posted by Matt Granz on Sunday, 5 April 2015
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Is this a problem in your household...?
Posted by Faakhir Mehmood on Thursday, 2 April 2015
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Posted by Paul Murray LIVE on Sunday, 5 April 2015
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Old tribal customs no excuse for crimes

Piers Akerman – Sunday, April 06, 2014 (6:11am)

WITH increasing regularity, Australian courts are accepting “cultural differences” as ­exculpatory or mitigating factors for more lenient sentencing or even to excuse the most abhorrent crimes.
Surely this is not the multi-culturalism that even the most avowed flag-waving, sandal-shod, inner-urban, Green-Labor voting wearers of tie-dyed rainbow garments believe in?
Though the Left has worked strenuously to denigrate the very notion that Australia has any culture whatsoever, ­attacking Anzac Day, sneering at the national enthusiasm for sport, attempting to airbrush all references from the education curriculum to our Anglo heritage which is the bedrock of our law and language and disparaging our debt to Judaeo-Christian values, it is patently obvious our culture and the economic opportunity it provides, is a beacon in an increasingly chaotic world. In the politically correct non-judgemental world of the kumbaya crowd, all cultures are equal and must be respected.
In 2013, Victorian Court of Appeal Justice Robert Redlich granted Esmatullah Sharifi, 31, who had pleaded guilty to the rape of an 18-year-old girl and a 25-year-old woman in the same week in December, 2008, the right to appeal against the cumulative 14-year-jail term he is serving.
When he was sentenced, Judge Mark Dean said Sharifi had gone hunting for vulnerable, drunken women to rape.
Judge Dean pointedly noted that his flight from the Taliban was no excuse.
“The offence committed by you was an extremely serious act of violence, and in my opinion you well knew the victim was not consenting,” he said.
Sharifi found the teen near a Frankston nightclub and ­offered to drive her to meet friends at a Mornington hotel. But instead he drove her to a dark street and raped her. “Your brutal conduct must be denounced by this court,” Judge Dean said.
In granting leave, Judge Redlich found Sharifi’s lack of insight into his offence and the fact that he had no appreciation that his conduct was wrong adequate reasons to support his appeal.
Sharifi succeeded in his ­appeal with the Full Court knocking one year and six months off his total sentence.
Even more strange was the decision of Magistrate Ron Saines to drop an attempted child-stealing charge against Ali Jaffari, 35, in the Geelong Magistrates’ Court saying he would have reasonable doubt about his guilt, citing “cultural differences” as one mitigating factor.
The case related to the ­alleged attempt by Jaffari in January, 2013, to lead a four-year-old girl away from a sports oval while her father and brother played cricket.
Police Prosecutor, Sergeant Brooke Shears said that while the child’s father was throwing the ball to his son in the nets, the little girl was playing with her own bat at the net opening.
She said Jaffari was walking around the oval, when he ­approached the child, removed the bat from her hand and ­rested it against a bollard.
“He then grabbed the child’s hand and began to lead her away before she looked up, saw it wasn’t her father, started crying and pulled her hand away,” she said.
“The victim’s father turned, saw what was happening and yelled at Jaffari, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ The victim ran crying to her father and he comforted her while Jaffari walked off around the oval.”
After being awarded a permanent protection visa in early 2012 by the Gillard government upon arriving by boat, Jaffari was convicted of ­indecent assault on two boys aged 12 and 13.
The prosecutor said that, when interviewed, Jaffari told police: “For us is not an issue.”
Magistrate Saines said the prosecution case fell short of criminality and cited cultural differences as a possible mitigating factor.
But Sgt Shears insisted that the offending had nothing to do with cultural differences. After being awarded a permanent protection visa in early 2012 by the Gillard government upon arriving by boat, Jaffari was convicted of ­indecent assault on two boys aged 12 and 13.
Witnesses said he started grabbing and rubbing himself against them, cuddling and kissing them on the neck and telling one of the boys he was “sexy”. One of the victims said he followed them to the showers, cornered them and asked if he “wanted company”.
He received a two-year community corrections order with 300 hours unpaid community work and was listed on a sex offenders’ register.
Curiously, sex crimes, usually against women and not boys, attract far harsher penalties under Afghan law than they do here, yet it is one cultural difference our judges and lawyers don’t seem to embrace.
Playing to the minorities is a losing game as nations across Europe find to their cost. 
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Truth in advertising

Andrew Bolt April 06 2014 (5:22pm)


Reader Dave:
The polling place is the Narrogin District Hospital complex in Narrogin, WA.
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The Bolt Report today

Andrew Bolt April 06 2014 (10:16am)

On the show today – Network 10 at 10am and 4pm....
The end of the world is nigh?
Labor’s Andrew Leigh, Niki Savva and former Keating Minister Gary Johns.  And on NewsWatch Rowan Dean cuts loose on Q&A and Liz Hayes’ scaremongering.
The videos of the shows appear here.
UPDATE
A review of today’s show by a woman whose potty mouth we mentioned:
Watch the repeat at 4pm to see if this simply confims a couple of points we made.
UPDATE
THE BOLT REPORT
6 APRIL 2014
INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW LEIGH, LABOR’S SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER 
ANDREW BOLT, PRESENTER: Tony Abbott may have dodged a bullet in yesterday’s re-run Senate election in Western Australia. Both the Liberals and Labor did have swings against them, with support going instead to the big winners - the Greens and Clive Palmer’s party. The Nationals are just about finished. Result? Well, it’s early days in the counting but the signs are no change from the original result last year. The Liberals get three seats, Labor and the Greens one each, and the last going to Palmer. But that third Liberal seat may yet go to Labor. Joining me is Andrew Leigh, the Opposition’s assistant treasury spokesman. Andrew, thank you for your time.
ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Pleasure, Andrew.
ANDREW BOLT: There have been three elections since you’ve lost last year’s federal election - the by-election for Kevin Rudd’s seat, the Tasmanian state election and now this Senate vote. Labor went backwards each time. Why is that? And what must change?
ANDREW LEIGH: Well, Andrew, as I read the results in Western Australia at the moment, we’re seeing swings away from both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party. A slightly bigger swing away from the Liberal Party than from Labor. I’m still confident we’ll get both Joe Bullock and Louise Pratt up, because I think they would both make excellent senators. And, you know, we have a challenge in rebuilding the party, but I’m really optimistic under Bill Shorten we’ll be able to do that.
ANDREW BOLT: But the fact that the vote’s gone down each time, you don’t read a warning sign in that?
ANDREW LEIGH: This is a very unusual by-election, Andrew. This - we’ve never really had a re-run of a Senate election and turn-out was always going to be a challenge. I think we’ve seen, possibly, the Liberal Party not getting a third Senator. If that happened, that would be the first time that happened in a quarter of a century. But we’ll see as counting proceeds.
ANDREW BOLT: How much do you blame yesterday’s result on your lead Senate candidate, Joe Bullock, who voters learned last week had attacked his running mate, Louise Pratt, for being a lesbian of the left, and told a meeting that the working class can’t trust Labor?
ANDREW LEIGH: I think Joe is a passionate warrior for the Labor cause. He is somebody who has had the interests of working people close to his heart throughout his career. So, I think this was an issue fought mostly over Tony Abbott’s secret cuts rather than over particular personalities of certain candidates.
ANDREW BOLT: Well, this is the gentleman in you talking, of course, Andrew, but I tell you what, if Tony Abbott had said that about a lesbian candidate, Labor would have had his guts for garters as a homophobe. How come you’re so - is Labor going to do any of this to Bullock?
ANDREW LEIGH: Andrew, I’m not sure that there’s great value in raking over issues that have been covered a lot in the media over the course of this week. These are two strong Labor candidates who are united in their view that Tony Abbott shouldn’t be allowed to do the same slash and burn nationwide that Colin Barnett’s done in Western Australia. You know, that cutting back of investment in the productive potential of the nation really worries me.
ANDREW BOLT: Can we talk about the nation’s finances? Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson warned this week that a decade from now we’ll each earn on average $13,000 a year less than what was once expected. Now, we’re just not getting richer as fast as we used to. Now, you’re a former economics professor. How much trouble are we in?
ANDREW LEIGH: Andrew, I think it’s important to look at these things from an international perspective. Australia over the last half-decade has fared very, very well. Coming through with an economy that’s about a sixth larger than it was at the start of the global financial crisis, keeping unemployment below 6% right through the Labor period, and having net debt levels which were around a tenth of our GDP, well below the average for most developed countries. So on the fundamentals, we’re very strong. But, of course, we need to keep on reforming and I thought the point of Martin Parkinson’s speech was how important it is to keep on investing in productivity, making sure that we’re open, that we’re investing in skills and education and in infrastructure.
ANDREW BOLT: Well, one problem that Martin Parkinson did point out - we’re getting older as a country. And he warns that pensions will go up over the decade by nearly $40 billion a year. I mean, that’s clearly unaffordable. Do we need to raise the pension age again to, say, 70?
Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The Bolt Report today'
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Can we afford a $30 billion blowout in age pensions?

Andrew Bolt April 06 2014 (5:45am)

We have some very hard decisions ahead - and one is to end the entitlement culture:
AUSTRALIA’S age pension is a budget time bomb according to Tony Abbott’s secret Audit Commission report, with payments indexed to rise faster than inflation. 
The Sunday Telegraph can reveal the cost of the $40 billion-a-year age pension threatens to increase by 80 per cent in the next decade to more than $70 billion.
Warning of tough choices in the May budget for Treasurer Joe Hockey, the report calls for a review of the indexation arrangements and asks Australians to work longer ­before claiming a pension…
Mr ­Hockey has backed moves to phase in an increase in the pension age over time to 70.
Senior government sources have confirmed that Australians over the age of 70 are also almost universally securing free or discount medicine ­because they qualify for ­taxpayer-funded concession card schemes. A stunning 94 per cent of Australians over 70 qualify for either a pensioner concession card or a seniors health care card for self-funded retirees.
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Abbott dodges bullet, Labor shot, Greens and Palmer rise

Andrew Bolt April 06 2014 (3:43am)


Numbers could change in this complicated count, but Labor would be very disappointed if these early indications are right: 

Projected results from the West Australian Senate election re-run show the Liberal Party has comfortably retained two seats, and Labor, the Greens and the Palmer United Party (PUP) will each have one seat. 
The ABC’s election analyst Antony Green said the Liberal Party also appeared on track to win the final seat.
“Our calculated prediction is pointing towards the Liberals winning the third seat,” he said. ”The overall balance between the two parties, it looks like it’s going to be exactly the same as it was last September,” he said.
This was effectively another by-election, in which governments almost always go backwards. The Coalition did get a swing against it, but so did Labor, in part because of a low turnout which usually works against the traditional, big parties. The Greens won a big swing and so did the Palmer United Party.
If the final numbers really have the Liberals with three seats, Palmer won, Labor one and the Greens one, then Abbott has dodged a bullet and Labor must really take stock.
There have been three elections since the federal election and Labor just has not benefited from any of the anti-Abbott sentiment and anti-cuts fears it would have predicted and which it has built its whole campaign on.
In the by-election for Griffith, Kevin Rudd’s old seat, Labor actually went backwards. In the Tasmanian state election it got hammered and in this re-run WA Senate election it seems to have gone backwards again, albeit with a lot of protest votes going to the Greens instead.
Stand by for lots of recriminations against Joe Bullock, Labor’s lead candidate, for his leaked comments claiming Labor could not be trusted to help working people and attacking his running mate, Louise Pratt, as a lesbian and poster girl for the Left.
Meanwhile, Clive Palmer’s huge investment in ads has kept his balloon afloat and makes him the critical power broker in the Senate, where he controls four Senators (including the Motoring Enthusiasts’ Ricky Muir) of the eight who now sit on the crossbenches. Abbott needs the support of six to break any Greens/Labor block, which means he must deal with Palmer.  
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Lol, the easiest way to make a small fortune is to start with a large one.
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My husband and i were dressed and ready to go out for a lovely evening of dinner and theatre. Having been burgled in the past, we turned on a 'night light' and the answering machine, then put the cat in the backyard. When our cab arrived, we walked out our front door and our rather tubby cat scooted between our legs inside, then ran up the stairs. Because our cat likes to chase our budgie we really didn't want to leave them unchaperoned so my husband ran inside to retrieve her and put her in the back yard again.

Because i didn't want the taxi driver to know our house was going to be empty all evening, i explained to him that my husband would be out momentarily as he was just bidding goodnight to my mother. A few minutes later he got into the cab all hot and bothered, and said (to my growing horror and amusement) as the cab pulled away.

"Sorry it took so long but the stupid bitch was hiding under the bed and i had to poke her arse with a coat hanger to get her to come out! She tried to take off so i grabbed her by the neck and wrapped her in a blanket so she wouldn't scratch me like she did last time. But it worked! I hauled her fat arse down the stairs and threw her into the backyard....she had better not shit in the vegetable garden again."

The silence in the taxi was deafening.....
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Cover of the official report of the 1896 Olympics
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“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” - 2 Corinthians 5:14-15
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"On him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus."
Luke 23:26
We see in Simon's carrying the cross a picture of the work of the Church throughout all generations; she is the cross-bearer after Jesus. Mark then, Christian, Jesus does not suffer so as to exclude your suffering. He bears a cross, not that you may escape it, but that you may endure it. Christ exempts you from sin, but not from sorrow. Remember that, and expect to suffer.

But let us comfort ourselves with this thought, that in our case, as in Simon's, it is not our cross, but Christ's cross which we carry. When you are molested for your piety; when your religion brings the trial of cruel mockings upon you, then remember it is not your cross, it is Christ's cross; and how delightful is it to carry the cross of our Lord Jesus!

You carry the cross after him. You have blessed company; your path is marked with the footprints of your Lord. The mark of his blood-red shoulder is upon that heavy burden. 'Tis his cross, and he goes before you as a shepherd goes before his sheep. Take up your cross daily, and follow him.

Do not forget, also, that you bear this cross in partnership. It is the opinion of some that Simon only carried one end of the cross, and not the whole of it. That is very possible; Christ may have carried the heavier part, against the transverse beam, and Simon may have borne the lighter end. Certainly it is so with you; you do but carry the light end of the cross, Christ bore the heavier end.

And remember, though Simon had to bear the cross for a very little while, it gave him lasting honour. Even so the cross we carry is only for a little while at most, and then we shall receive the crown, the glory. Surely we should love the cross, and, instead of shrinking from it, count it very dear, when it works out for us "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

Evening

"Before honour is humility."
Proverbs 15:33
Humiliation of soul always brings a positive blessing with it. If we empty our hearts of self, God will fill them with his love. He who desires close communion with Christ should remember the word of the Lord, "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." Stoop if you would climb to heaven. Do we not say of Jesus, "He descended that he might ascend?" So must you. You must grow downwards, that you may grow upwards; for the sweetest fellowship with heaven is to be had by humble souls, and by them alone. God will deny no blessing to a thoroughly humbled spirit. "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," with all its riches and treasures. The whole exchequer of God shall be made over by deed of gift to the soul which is humble enough to be able to receive it without growing proud because of it. God blesses us all up to the full measure and extremity of what it is safe for him to do. If you do not get a blessing, it is because it is not safe for you to have one. If our heavenly Father were to let your unhumbled spirit win a victory in his holy war, you would pilfer the crown for yourself, and meeting with a fresh enemy you would fall a victim; so that you are kept low for your own safety. When a man is sincerely humble, and never ventures to touch so much as a grain of the praise, there is scarcely any limit to what God will do for him. Humility makes us ready to be blessed by the God of all grace, and fits us to deal efficiently with our fellow men. True humility is a flower which will adorn any garden. This is a sauce with which you may season every dish of life, and you will find an improvement in every case. Whether it be prayer or praise, whether it be work or suffering, the genuine salt of humility cannot be used in excess.
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Eliezer 
[Ĕli ēzûr] - god is my help.
1. The second son of Moses and Zipporah to whom his father gave this name as a memento of his gratitude to God (Exod. 18:4; 1 Chron. 23:15, 17; 26:25).

2. A son of Becher and grandson of Benjamin (1 Chron. 7:8).

3. A priest who assisted in the return of the Ark to Jerusalem (1 Chron. 15:24).

4. A Reubenite ruler in David's time (1 Chron. 27:16).

5. The prophet who rebuked Jehoshaphat for his alliance with king Ahaziah in the Ophir expedition (2 Chron. 20:37).

6. A chieftain sent with others to induce many of the Israelites to return with Ezra to Jerusalem (Ezra 8:16).
7. A priest who put away his foreign wife (Ezra 10:18).
8. A Levite who had done the same (Ezra 10:23).
9. One of the sons of Harim who had done likewise (Ezra 10:31).
10. An ancestor of Joseph, husband of Mary (Luke 3:29).
11. Abraham's chief servant, and "son of his house," that is, one of his large household. He is named "Eliezer of Damascus" probably to distinguish him from others of the same name (Gen. 15:2; 24).
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Today's reading: 1 Samuel 1-3, Luke 8:26-56 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: 1 Samuel 1-3


The Birth of Samuel

1 There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. 2 He had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none.

3 Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the LORD Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the LORD. 4Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters. 5 But to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, and the LORD had closed her womb.6Because the LORD had closed Hannah's womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. 7 This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the LORD, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. 8 Her husband Elkanah would say to her, "Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons?"


Today's New Testament reading: Luke 8:26-56


Jesus Restores a Demon-Possessed Man
26 They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. 27 When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don't torture me!" 29 For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.
30 Jesus asked him, "What is your name?"
"Legion," he replied, because many demons had gone into him. 31 And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss....
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Today's Lent reading: Luke 15-16 (NIV)

View today's Lent reading on Bible Gateway
The Parable of the Lost Sheep

1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."

3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent....




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