Friday, May 26, 2017

Sat May 27th Todays News

Some things should not happen, but they do. Malcolm Turnbull fronted some school kids and got asked a loaded question. He answered it. As if he were talking to ALP front benchers. How did they get so many ALP shadow ministers to sit still for Turnbull? Why don't adults treat Malcolm with that respect. I think when Turnbull is no longer PM, he could be a relief teacher for Safe Schools. But he will never be a competent PM. Sadly the loaded question threw Mr Turnbull, or he might have noticed that the mine was no threat to the environment and potentially could earn billions of dollars, be beneficial to the environment, and give many jobs. The problem with Malcolm Turnbull as PM is that he is awful and the Liberal Party are losing support because of it. And Turnbull is taking others wth him down the drain. Ten years ago, Pyne and Bishop were strong talents of the Liberal Party. Now they are dead wood. The budget was what was needed for handing the reigns of power to the ALP for awhile so the Liberals can remove Malcolm Turnbull. So that the ALP are restricted in their spending because the Libs had not been responsible in government. 

 1940, World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 99 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit were shot after surrendering to German troops; two survive. After the war the two testified against the senior Nazi who ordered the killing. The killer, Fritz Knöchlein, was hanged in '49. 1942, World War II: In Operation Anthropoid, Reinhard Heydrich was fatally wounded in Prague; he died of his injuries eight days later. Reinhard was the architect of the final solution and a President of Interpol. It was regrettable he lived so long.

 1967, Australians voted in favour of a constitutional referendum granting the Australian government the power to make laws to benefit Indigenous Australians and to count them in the national census. In 1980, the Gwangju Massacre: Airborne and army troops of South Korea retook the city of Gwangju from civil militias, killing at least 207 and possibly many more. 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Paula Jones could pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton while he was in office.

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 Say Not The Struggle Naught Availeth 

 Arthur Hugh Clough (1 January 1819 -- 13 November 1861) was an English poet, the brother of suffragist Anne Clough (who ended up as principal of Newnham College, Cambridge), and assistant to ground-breaking nurse Florence Nightingale.
     The labour and the wounds are vain, 
The enemy faints not, nor faileth, 
     And as things have been they remain. 

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; 
     It may be, in yon smoke concealed, 
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
     And, but for you, possess the field. 

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking 
     Seem here no painful inch to gain, 
Far back through creeks and inlets making, 
     Comes silent, flooding in, the main. 

And not by eastern windows only, 
     When daylight comes, comes in the light, 
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, 

     But westward, look, the land is bright.


=== from 2016 ===
I have moved to a good home. I leave behind the ice house. Dan Andrews would rather I lived with an ice addict, and that you should too. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility. 
=== from 2015 ===
Justice delayed is justice denied. The rapist killer of Jill Meagher, an ABC identity who was raped and killed after having a late night drink with friends in Melbourne, was facing other charges for violent rape. But an inept journalist put the court cases in danger of collapse by failing to obey orders regarding reporting on the issues. One victim became suicidal at the delay caused by the journalist. Fairfax's Clementine Ford has an explanation for her failure. Fairfax doesn't. But Adrian Bayley, whose sentence is to be increased, is an embarrassment to the authorities who had him on parole, given his history, and given that he was clearly poorly supervised. Another instance embarrassing authorities, is Man Monis. Monis was on parole despite his strong history of danger to the community, and contempt for authority. 

ALP the enemy of small business with small business and employees of small business contracting under Labor, and growing under conservatives. ALP don't own the issue of gay marriage. All it needs is responsible legislation. ALP have shown themselves incapable of that. 
From 2014
None in 2014 because of Government and public service corruption related to the petitions
Historical perspective on this day
In 927, death of Simeon I the Great, the first Bulgarian to be recognised as Emperor. 1120, Richard III of Capua was anointed as Prince two weeks before his untimely death. 1153, Malcolm IV became King of Scotland. 1199, John was crowned King of England. 1644, Manchu regent Dorgondefeated rebel leader Li Zicheng of the Shun dynasty at the Battle of Shanhai Pass, allowing the Manchus to enter and conquer the capital city of Beijing. 1703, Tsar Peter the Great founded the city of Saint Petersburg. 1798, the Battle of Oulart Hill took place in Wexford, Ireland. 1799, War of the Second Coalition: Austrian forces defeated the French at Winterthur, Switzerland, securing control of the northeastern Swiss Plateau because of the town's location at the junction of seven cross-roads.

In 1813, War of 1812: In Canada, American forces captured Fort George. 1849, the Great Hall of Euston station in London was opened. 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi began his attack on Palermo, Sicily, as part of the Italian Unification. 1863, American Civil War: First Assault on the Confederate works at the Siege of Port Hudson. 1874, the first group of Dorsland trekkers under the leadership of Gert Alberts left Pretoria. 1883, Alexander III was crowned Tsar of Russia. 1896, the F4-strength St. Louis-East St. Louis Tornado hit in St. Louis, Missouri, and East Saint Louis, Illinois, killing at least 255 people and causing $2.9 billion in damage (1997USD).

In 1905, Russo-Japanese War: The Battle of Tsushima began. 1907, Bubonic plague broke out in San Francisco, California. 1908, Khilafat Day – the day of establishment of Khilafat in Islam Ahmadiyya. 1919, the NC-4 aircraft arrived in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight. 1927, the Ford Motor Company ceased manufacture of the Ford Model T and began to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.

In 1930, the 1,046 feet (319 m) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opened to the public. 1933, New Deal: The U.S. Federal Securities Act was signed into law requiring the registration of securities with the Federal Trade Commission. Also 1933, The Walt Disney Company released the cartoon Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" Also 1933, the Century of Progress World's Fairopened in Chicago, Illinois. 1935, New Deal: The Supreme Court of the United States declared the National Industrial Recovery Act to be unconstitutional in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, (295 U.S. 495). 1937, in California, the Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California. 1940, World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 99 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit were shot after surrendering to German troops; two survive. 1941, World War II: The U.S. President Franklin D. Rooseveltproclaimed an "unlimited national emergency". Also 1941, World War II: The German battleship Bismarck was sunk in the North Atlantic killing almost 2,100 men. 1942, World War II: In Operation Anthropoid, Reinhard Heydrich was fatally wounded in Prague; he died of his injuries eight days later. 1958, the F-4 Phantom II made its first flight.

In 1960, in Turkey, a military coup removed President Celal Bayar and the rest of the democratic government from office. 1962, the Centralia mine fire was ignited in the town's landfill above a coal mine. 1965, Vietnam War: American warships began the first bombardment of National Liberation Fronttargets within South Vietnam. 1967, Australians voted in favour of a constitutional referendum granting the Australian government the power to make laws to benefit Indigenous Australians and to count them in the national census. Also 1967, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy was launched by Jacqueline Kennedy and her daughter Caroline. 1968, the meeting of the Union Nationale des Étudiants de France (National Union of the Students of France) took place. 30,000 to 50,000 people gathered in the Stade Sebastien Charlety. Also 1968, Major League Baseball's National League awards Montreal the first franchise in Canada and the first franchise outside the United States. (the Montreal Expos) 1971, the Dahlerau train disaster, the worst railway accident in West Germany, killed 46 people and injured 25 near Wuppertal. 1975, Dibbles Bridge Coach Crash near Grassington, in North Yorkshire, England, killed 33 – the highest ever death toll in a road accident in the United Kingdom.

In 1980, the Gwangju Massacre: Airborne and army troops of South Korearetook the city of Gwangju from civil militias, killing at least 207 and possibly many more. 1986, Dragon Quest, the game credited as setting the template for role-playing video games, was released in Japan. 1995, in Culpeper, Virginia, the actor Christopher Reeve was paralysed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition. 1996, First Chechnya War: the Russian President Boris Yeltsin met with Chechnyan rebels for the first time and negotiated a cease-fire. 1997, the unusual tornado outbreak in Jarrell, Texas. Also 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Paula Jonescould pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton while he was in office. 1998, Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier was sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot. 2001, members of the Islamistseparatist group Abu Sayyaf seized twenty hostages from an affluent island resort on Palawan in the Philippines; the hostage crisis would not be resolved until June 2002. 2006, the May 2006 Java earthquake struck devastating Bantul and the city of Yogyakarta killing over 6,600 people.
=== 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 Vivian Tea and Kirk DuQuette. Born on the same day, across the years. A day which saw John crowned in 1199. A day in 1703 which Sweden lost a battle, and so Peter founded St Petersburg. A day in which, in 1967, Australians under a Liberal government agreed to count Aboriginal peoples in census. My, you can do anything you would, or in Kirk's case, wood.
Deaths
May 27: Children's Day in Nigeria
Malcolm IV of Scotland
Welcome Malcolm. Thank you for finding that. Irene went to bed early. We have a new deal. Bless you Chris. Let's party. 
===
Tim Blair

SAVE THE SWALES

Please observe as the Prime Minister expertly answers an enviro-child’s Great Barrier Reef question.
27 May 
===
Andrew Bolt


READ THIS ABOUT A GREAT GUY AND HIS MUM

I have loved watching Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti play, and wish he was playing for the other side tonight. But I have an even greater respect for him and his character - and that of his mum - after reading this. Read it too. You want reconciliation? Here it is, lived.
27 May
===

NO ESCAPE

Tim Blair – Wednesday, May 27, 2015 (2:37pm)

Adrian Bayley, the serial rapist who was on parole in 2012 when he murdered Jill Meagher, now faces an even longer sentence after being found guilty of additional rapes – also committed while he was variously free on bail and parole. Bayley’s latest trial follows an avoidable delay: 
Justice was almost denied completely to Bayley’s traumatised victims after several media organisations allegedly breached the strict suppression orders restricting the reporting of his history.
One alleged breach — a report during Bayley’s first trial last year by Fairfax’s Clementine Ford — came as the jury were deliberating and forced the delay of the next two trials to March this year.
It also seriously impacted on the final rape trial, which involved a Dutch backpacker who refused to return to Australia to testify.
Today the court heard the delays had terrible repercussions on the rape victims, with one self-harming and being rushed to hospital on hearing of the delay.
She tried to commit suicide later that year. 
Ford’s error was not deliberate. She simply did not know a suppression order was in place – and apparently neither did anyone who edited her article. 
===

JUST AN ORDINARY AUSTRALIAN

Tim Blair – Wednesday, May 27, 2015 (10:34am)

A little Aussie battler considers the cost of failed legal action: 
Muslim spokesman Keysar Trad says he will be made homeless after being ordered to pay 2GB radio station almost $550,000 in costs, having lost one of the country’s longest-running defamation cases …
Mr Trad said he would appeal against the costs ruling.
“If I’d known the system was stacked so much against a plaintiff such as myself, then in hindsight I would not recommend to anyone to instigate court proceedings because there are so many elements that are against the ordinary Australian battler, such as me,” he said. 
Nothing that some crowdfunding can’t fix. Come on, lefties. Help a brother out. 
===

BIG MONEY BEATEN

Tim Blair – Wednesday, May 27, 2015 (10:10am)

Anti-warmy warrior Jo Nova checks the score: 
With a budget of nothing we’re winning. 
Reason and logic are powerful weapons. And they’re absolutely free.
UPDATE. It’s a Combet comeback: 
Labor has enlisted the former climate change minister Greg Combet to help develop policies for the next election – including a new climate change stance – as the party debates how to make good its promise to reintroduce an emissions trading scheme.
Combet has been employed part time by Labor’s national secretariat to help the opposition leader, Bill Shorten … 
Maybe they should go on a fact-finding mission together. 
===

HEADING HOME

Tim Blair – Wednesday, May 27, 2015 (9:02am)

The family that slays together doesn’t stay together: 
Notorious Australian Islamic State fighter Khaled Sharrouf’s wife and children, including the son who was photographed holding a severed head, are seeking to return to Australia.
Fairfax Media understands the family of Sharrouf’s wife, Tara Nettleton, is trying to help her and the couple’s five children return to Sydney. 
Sharrouf himself is sticking it out in Syria, where he’ll still have plenty of companionship. 
===

Evil has a disturbingly pleasant voice. But Ridsdale says nothing that damns Pell

Andrew Bolt May 27 2015 (6:14pm)

Gerald Ridsdale, our most notorious pedophile priest, gave evidence to the royal commission into child sexual abuse today.
What was fascinating - and disturbing - was that a man who seemed so refreshingly frank, helpful and plain-speaking was confessing to such ghastly offences, and so devastating to his victims.
From the point of view of the enemies of Cardinal George Pell, Ridsdale’s evidence would have been disappointing.
He barely knew Pell, and hadn’t asked Pell to accompany him to court - an event captured in a photograph that has since been held against Pell as a sign of his alleged complicity. Pell has said that decision, meant to express Christ’s mercy even to sinners, was a mistake on his part that he regrets. Ridsdale said that the request to Pell was made by his solicitor and he doesn’t recall discussing the case with Pell, even during their walk. He ‘never had much to do with him”.
Nothing Ridsdale said implicated Pell in any way, although the same cannot be said for the Bishop of Ballarat at the time:
Ridsdale told the inquiry he remembered receiving a warning from a bishop over an incident involving a boy in Ballarat. 
“The first complaint that ever came in was in my first year as priest,” he said.
“I remember going in a room and fondling him, and putting my hand down his trousers, it would have been a fairly brief kind of thing.”
Ridsdale said he was later warned by a bishop that “if this happens again you’ll be off to the missions” before he was sent to Mildura.
But he later clarified that comment as saying “you’ll be off mission”, which he interpreted as meaning stripped of his priesthood.
Ridsdale revealed the reason he “didn’t confess the sexual offending against children” was because he had a great fear of losing his priesthood.
“I was a very proud person ... it just would’ve been devastating,” he told the commission. 
Meanwhile, Cardinal Pell has offered to give evidence to the royal commission for a third time - and the second time in person.
Will the media that last week so grossly vilified him by suggesting Pell had been hiding from the royal commission apologise, or at least set the record straight? 
===

FIFA honchos arrested

Andrew Bolt May 27 2015 (6:12pm)

Good stuff:
Swiss authorities this morning detained six FIFA officials on corruption charges… 
Swiss police arrived unannounced early this morning (local time) at the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich, where FIFA officials were gathering for their annual meeting, the Times reported.
The charges, which are said to span two decades of misconduct, include wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering.
“The bribery suspects - representatives of sports media and sports promotion firms - are alleged to have been involved in schemes to make payments to the soccer functionaries - delegates of FIFA ... and other functionaries of FIFA sub-organisations - totalling more than $100 million,” the Swiss justice ministry said in a statement.
“In return, it is believed that they received media, marketing, and sponsorship rights in connection with soccer tournaments in Latin America,” it added…
Those detained included Eduardo Li, president of the Costa Rican football federation, the Times said. Li was elected to the FIFA executive committee in March and will formally join the Blatter-chaired panel on Friday.
Others to be indicted in the US include: Jeffrey Webb of the Cayman Islands, a vice president of the executive committee; Eugenio Figueredo of Uruguay, who is also an executive committee vice president and until recently was the president of South America’s soccer association; and Jack Warner of Trinidad and Tobago, a former member of the executive committee who has been accused of numerous ethical violations.
FIFA chief Blatter was not among the men arrested, FIFA spokesman Walter de Gregorio said.
===

Abbott hints on same-sex marriage

Andrew Bolt May 27 2015 (4:39pm)

A very important concession and hint about same-sex marriage from the Prime Minister:
“If our parliament were to make a big decision on a matter such as this, it ought to be owned by the parliament and not by any particular party,” Mr Abbott told question time on Wednesday, adding that was an important point for Mr Shorten to ponder.
My own thoughts in tomorrow’s paper.  The issue now is how. 
===

Story collapses. Will Hartcher now say sorry for his slur?

Andrew Bolt May 27 2015 (4:12pm)

Peter Hartcher’s homophobia slur was a disgrace. It turns out most of the rest of his story was rubbish, too.
To remind you, here are the original Hartcher claims:
… the Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher, also suggested - falsely and disgracefully - on 2GB a few minutes ago that this was on Tony Abbott’s instructions and it was open to “speculation” that this was driven by Abbott’s homophobia: 
Australia’s ambassador to France offered his resignation after an incident while greeting Tony Abbott as he arrived in Paris on Anzac Day.
According to multiple sources, the ambassador, Stephen Brady, was on the airport tarmac with his partner of 32 years, Peter Stephens, waiting to meet the incoming plane around 7pm Paris time.
The prime minister’s traveling party sent an instruction that Mr Stephens should not take part in the greeting but should wait in the car.
The ambassador, a career diplomat and formerly the official secretary to two governors-general, refused the instruction. 
In his interview on 2GB Hartcher alleged that Abbott himself “did not want the Ambassador’s partner to be part of the greeting party” at the airport.  “I don’t know and can’t say that it was a homophobic moment,” he winked.
Hartcher’s suggestion of homophobia is based on zero evidence, and is on the face of it is preposterous. Hartcher seriously believes the Prime Ministers gets someone to ring ahead to make sure no gays greet him at the airport? Really? 
Will Hartcher now apologise, after his stupid story unravelled today? In fact:
Pip Spence, first assistant secretary at PM&C, [told a Senate committee] she had been briefed by a male officer from ceremonial and hospitality branch of the department – known in bureaucratic parlance as a “CERHOS officer” – who had travelled ahead to organise the “low key” arrival of Mr Abbott’s travelling party into a Paris private airport. 
“As I understand it, based on conversations, the CERHOS officer advised the ambassador that because the Prime Minister was not travelling with Mrs Abbott it would just be the ambassador who would be in the greeting party,” she said.
“The ambassador raised his concerns about that and as a result the issue was resolved on the ground and Mr Stephens was included in the greeting party.”
Ms Spence said she was “not aware” that anyone in Mr Abbott’s travelling group on board the aircraft had been informed that Mr Brady was waiting on the tarmac with his partner of 32 years, Mr Stephens.
Deputy secretary Elizabeth Kelly ...  denied that Mr Brady had offered his resignation after the incident.
“The information that I have is that no resignation was offered or tendered to either the Prime Minister or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,” Ms Kelly said.
So Hartcher’s story has been debunked.
No, it was not Abbott’s decision to ban Stephens from the welcoming party.
No, it was not a decision that we could blame on homophobia.
No, Abbott was not aware of the decision.
No, Brady did not offer his resignation.
Yet check how the Sydney Morning Herald reports the evidence that completely contradicts Hartcher’s vile smear:
That is despicable. 
===

Mark Scott to the Liberals: buggered if I’ll fix the bias

Andrew Bolt May 27 2015 (4:02pm)

The bias is beyond question:
The ABC’s flagship discussion program Q&A consistently leans to the left and needs to include a more balanced selection of panellists, a Coalition senator has told ABC managing director Mark Scott during Senate hearings. 
Liberal National Party senator James McGrath said during a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday there was a widespread view within the Coalition that the program is biased against the conservative side of politics.
“If you spoke to any Coalition MP – even those appear on it – they’d admit the program does lean to the left,” Senator McGrath said…
“There will be someone from right of centre – on a good week two people who are centre or right of centre – and then three people who are clearly left of centre or clearly not supporters of the Coalition...” 
The refusal of ABC boss Mark Scott to do his job and make the ABC balanced is also just as obvious - and now intolerable:
Mr Scott told Senator McGrath: “It is not the first time I’ve heard that depiction.” 
But Mr Scott said he believed Q&A was serving its purpose by airing a diverse range of views and issues.
Mr Scott said the show did not have a “scoreboard” assigning winners or losers. Rather, viewers are free to determine who on the panel has made the strongest points. While Q&A regularly features one politician from the left and one from the right, many other panellists cannot be easily assigned to a political category, he said.
That last point is sheer bull. Such bull that I doubt even Scott himself believes it.
As for Scott’s suggestion that viewers decide for themselves so the panel’s balance doesn’t matter, then why not stack the panel and the audience with conservatives instead?
Mark Scott in fact just told the Liberals to get stuffed. 
===

Maybe, just maybe, it’s because their argument is unsound

Andrew Bolt May 27 2015 (8:01am)

Mark Steyn on the despair of the warmists:
The hysteria of Mann-style alarmism is going nowhere with the public, as one of the hysterics, Graeme Richardson, acknowledges here: 
The sceptics and deniers have turned the 70 per cent-plus belief in climate change into a minority because no one has engaged them.
As my distinguished co-author on Climate Change: The Facts, Jo Nova, responds: 
That’s right Graham, we unfunded bloggers and the few surviving skeptical scientists not evicted and blackballed from our universities (yet) have tricked 20% of the population because no one has put forward the climate change arguments except for: The Climate Commission, CSIRO, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Royal Dutch Shell, GE, Panasonic, The ABC, The BBC, The Guardian, Fairfax, The Australian government, most universities, The EU, The UN, The World Bank, and the IMF.
Not to mention President Obama and the US Coast Guard, and George Clooney and his crappy floppo movie. Given that everyone from Hollywood to Washington to the Royal Society to half the churches and every elementary school in the western world is on Graeme’s side of the argument, their inability to sway public opinion must be ranked one of the most spectacular failures of the age - a veritable upside-down hockey stick.
UPDATE
Why did the head of the Bureau of Meteorology give a Senate committee information that was - in my opinion - highly misleading?
Jo Nova:
Maurice Newman, the chairman of the P.M’s business advisory council, daringly wrote in The Australian:
“It’s a well-kept secret, but 95 per cent of the climate models we are told prove the link between human CO2 emissions and catastrophic global warming have been found, after nearly two decades of temperature stasis, to be in error.”
In Senate estimates, a Greens spokesperson asked Dr Rob Vertessy, Director of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) on his view of this. “That is incorrect,” he said…
If Maurice Newman was wrong, he was far too generous to the climate modelers. Instead of a 95% failure rate, it’s well up over 98%. Hans von Storch et al published a paper nearly two years ago comparing models and observations of a 15 year long pause. Statistically von Storch could find no justification for people saying the models matched the observations — there was a less than 2% chance of that. Last year Ross McKitrick estimated the pause was really 19 years long, so the odds are now less than 0.5%.  Newman was being kind, suggesting that 5% of models might be called “right”.
Atmospheric scientist John Christy contradicts our Bureau chief:

Speaking before Congress, Professor of Atmospheric Science John Christy illustrates the gross inaccuracy of the 102 climate model simulations relied upon by the United Nation’s in the latest IPCC AR5 climate change report. Professor Christy describes his chart: ‘That is the trend in the atmospheric temperature that has happened since 1979. That’s the target that you want to hit with your climate model. So, it’s like we give someone 102 bullets to shoot at that target… Not a single one of these climate model projections was able to hit the target.’
(Thanks to readers DS and Mark M. Plenty of links at the link.) 
===

How dare Burnside use the Holocaust to play such cheap politics

Andrew Bolt May 27 2015 (7:32am)

First, some context.
Number of people killed at the Auschwitz death camp - between 1,100,000 and 1,500,000.
Number of people lured to their deaths at sea by Labor’s weakened border laws - at least 1200
Number of people who have died at the Manus detention centre - 2 (one bashed in a riot, the other from blood poisoning).
Now to the grotesque moral equivalence of “human rights” campaigner Julian Burnside, a QC:
Burnside is seriously suggesting that this is what Manus is like:
Burnside makes an analogy not just offensive to Australia but deeply disrespectful to those who suffered and died at Auschwitz. He is trivialising the Holocaust.
As for Burnside dismissing the 1200 drown boat people as merely “a few accidents”, what is left to say?
(Thanks to reader Colours and many others.) 
===

Shorten shouldn’t play politics with gay marriage

Andrew Bolt May 27 2015 (6:38am)

This must be a uniting or affirming moment, as far as possible, that brings the community with the poiliticians. It must not a cheap political stunt that seeks to divide, exploit and big-note.
Bill Shorten’s move, then, is tawdry:
Bill Shorten has sparked a political storm over same-sex marriage by trying to force a vote as soon as Monday to legislate the social change, leaping ahead of similar moves by Liberal MPs and others. 
The Labor leader will challenge the government to allow a conscience vote on a new bill to legislate marriage equality, building on calls for reform in Australia to match the historic Irish vote last weekend.
Mr Shorten’s move dismayed Liberals who were preparing their own path in the hope of a bipartisan approach that could lead to legislation within months.
Labor does not have the numbers in the House of Representatives to force the vote, leaving Mr Shorten’s plans in limbo as Liberal MPs say they were unlikely to back his private member’s bill.
Nor should people exaggerate:
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said this week that Australia was now the “odd one out” in the wake of the Irish vote...
In fact, 177 countries do not permit same sex marriage. Here are the 19 countries which do:
Netherlands 2001
Belgium 2003
Canada 2005
Spain 2005
South Africa 2006
Norway 2009
Sweden 2009
Portugal 2010
Iceland 2010
Argentina 2010
Denmark 2012
Uruguay 2013
New Zealand 2013
France 2013
Brazil 2013
United Kingdom 2014
Luxembourg 2015
Ireland 2015
United States (states where legal: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.)   
===

Memo: The government is still behind

Andrew Bolt May 27 2015 (6:24am)

The Government should not get carried away with its recovery. All it’s done is climb from the grave to become competitive, but it is still behind in every poll bar one. Now it must try to snatch a lead, with the same effort, focus and discipline it’s needed to recover from near-death.
Dennis Shanahan:
As soon as Abbott and his Treasurer move too far from their pledged consultation and collegial behaviour, they get into trouble and have trouble thrust upon them. 
Last week, when the budget sales job was at its peak, Abbott and Hockey got distracted and tangled up over the idea of an inquiry into the iron ore industry…
On Monday night, Hockey went on the ABC’s Q&A and set the hares running over a change to the GST over tampons…
Even as the leadership tried to concentrate on the winning issue of national security and countering terrorism, complaints from within cabinet were leaked to the media.
There were two strands to the cabinet division: the first was that proper cabinet process was not being followed; the second was that the proposal to strip radicalised second-generation Australians of citizenship went too far and needed to be sold to the public first… The arguments about prematurely adopting what could be a controversial and keenly opposed plan to strip citizenship from young Australians were more about good politics and policy than sending a message about Abbott’s leadership. 
Indeed, I understand that despite the argument in Cabinet, the party room heard about 20 MPs speak on the proposal and none thought it went too far. Many thought it did not go far enough. Two were Luke Simpkins and Don Randall, who in February moved the spill motion against Abbott. Abbott’s leadership is actually rock solid, despite this leak.
That said, there is zero room for complacency.
Discipline. 
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“You are Christian, you will burn in hell. You will …have your throat slit”

Andrew Bolt May 27 2015 (6:09am)

Australia, 2015:
A WOMAN detained in a counterterrorism raid allegedly punched one police officer in the face and told another she would have her throat slit… 
The Muslim woman, who declined to stand for Magistrate Margaret McGlynn during the Parramatta Local Court hearing yesterday, is charged with assaulting and intimidating police.
Her lawyer Steven Boland argued she did not deliberately hit the officer. She was not the target of the search or named in the warrant but was searched when police noticed she had a mobile phone underneath her burqa, the court heard.
When a female senior constable tried to take the mobile phone from her she allegedly hurled abuse at her. Senior-Constable Stacie Gwyn told the court the woman said: “Don’t touch my phone, you’re a whore, you are Christian, you will burn in hell. You will be the first one in uniform to have your throat slit.”
After an alleged struggle to take the phone, a male officer tried to restrain the woman… and [she] struck him with a closed fist on the nose…
Scott Murphy, the federal police officer in charge of the search, said ... he also heard the allegedly vile abuse ... “You can’t touch me, you like getting gang banged do you? You are in uniform you must like it. The only one who has the right is God,” Mr Murphy told the court the woman allegedly said to Sen-Const Gwyn. 
(No comments for legal reasons.) 
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Can business then get a say in who its workers should marry?

Andrew Bolt May 27 2015 (12:17am)

Why is this a cost for business? If business must pay, does it then get a say on how employees must arrange their domestic affairs? And how to prevent rorting?
Australian of the Year Rosie Batty has lent her support to the ACTU campaign to have domestic violence leave enshrined as a basic safety net entitlement. 
The ACTU currently has a claim before the industrial umpire to have all full time working Australians handed ten days paid leave if they are genuinely victims of domestic violence.
Under the proposal, casuals would receive an entitlement of ten days unpaid leave with the claim to be considered as part Fair Work Australia’s four yearly modern awards review.
Why couldn’t a worker use their own holiday entitlement to go to court or move house?   
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Yes yes yes, it's all Abbott's fault. #auspol #laborlogic #greenlogic
Posted by Australian Conservative Libertarian Group on Monday, 7 July 2014
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Posted by Paul Zanetti Cartoonist on Wednesday, 27 May 2015
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Posted by Word Porn on Tuesday, 26 May 2015
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WHERE IS YOUR PRIMARY AND OFFICIAL SOURCE?

Tim Blair – Monday, May 27, 2013 (2:12pm)

There are none so blind as those at the ABC.
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SHORT FIGHTS

Tim Blair – Monday, May 27, 2013 (1:31pm)

Midget car fan John Tiedemann happens upon Bali’s compact combat scene:

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FRESH AS SEDIMENTARY ROCK

Tim Blair – Monday, May 27, 2013 (1:17pm)

Robert Manne! John Pilger! Thomas Keneally! The Guardian‘s local edition gives voice to a fresh, independentgeneration who’ll “give Australia the news that really matters”: 
As of 9am this morning, the most popular story of the last 24 hours was Sarah Ditum’s piece titled ‘Why a vagina is not like a laptop’ … 
(Via CL)
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SILENT VIGIL

Tim Blair – Monday, May 27, 2013 (12:58pm)

As “youths” rampage in Sweden, incinerating cars and so on, police react in a culturally sensitive manner: 
We go to the crime scenes, but when we get there we stand and wait. 
“That’s not strictly true,” notes Mark Steyn. “They are handing out parking tickets to the burnt-out cars. Seriously." Further from Steyn, on the media’s stand-and-wait coverage of recent terrorist outrages: 
In London as in Boston, the politico-media class immediately lapsed into the pneumatic multiculti Tourette’s that seems to be a chronic side effect of excess diversity-celebrating: No Islam to see here, nothing to do with Islam, all these body parts in the street are a deplorable misinterpretation of Islam.
The BBC’s Nick Robinson accidentally described the men as being “of Muslim appearance,” but quickly walked it back lest impressionable types get the idea that there’s anything “of Muslim appearance” about a guy waving a machete and saying “Allahu akbar.” A man is on TV dripping blood in front of a dead British soldier and swearing “by Almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you,” yet it’s the BBC reporter who’s apologizing for “causing offence.” 
Just like putting a ticket on a burnt-out car, the media misses the main issue. BBC types more usually strive to avoid any offence, even at the cost of accuracy, as Rod Liddle writes: 
It is perhaps because they are called James and white and middle class that they seem so terrified of telling the news as it is. If there were a few more people called Tariq or Keith or Harbinder running things, then there might be a little less tiptoeing on eggshells, less of this absolute terror of giving offence to the people the Jameses definitely are not …
Come on, James — why not tell us the truth? 
Excellent question. The Boston Herald‘s Joe Fitzgerald: 
If ever there was a time to deal with facts, not feelings, it’s now.
No offense to Allah, but God help us if we don’t wake up. 
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More “me”, less “we” and other words that make us better

Andrew Bolt May 27 2013 (11:53am)

David Brooks:
About two years ago, the folks at Google released a database of 5.2 million books published between 1500 and 2008. You can type a search word into the database and find out how frequently different words were used at different epochs.... 
A study by Jean M. Twenge, W. Keith Campbell and Brittany Gentile found that between 1960 and 2008 individualistic words and phrases increasingly overshadowed communal words and phrases.
That is to say, over those 48 years, words and phrases like “personalized,” “self,” “standout,” “unique,” “I come first” and “I can do it myself” were used more frequently. Communal words and phrases like “community,” “collective,” “tribe,” “share,” “united,” “band together” and “common good” receded.
The second element of the story is demoralization. A study by Pelin Kesebir and Selin Kesebir found that general moral terms like “virtue,” “decency” and “conscience” were used less frequently over the course of the 20th century. Words associated with moral excellence, like “honesty,” “patience” and “compassion” were used much less frequently.
The Kesebirs identified 50 words associated with moral virtue and found that 74 percent were used less frequently as the century progressed. Certain types of virtues were especially hard hit. Usage of courage words like “bravery” and “fortitude” fell by 66 percent. Usage of gratitude words like “thankfulness” and “appreciation” dropped by 49 percent… Usage of compassion words like “kindness” and “helpfulness” dropped by 56 percent…
Daniel Klein of George Mason University has conducted one of the broadest studies with the Google search engine… Klein adds the third element to our story, which he calls “governmentalization.” Words having to do with experts have shown a steady rise. So have phrases like “run the country,” “economic justice,” “nationalism,” “priorities,” “right-wing” and “left-wing.” The implication is that politics and government have become more prevalent. So the story I’d like to tell is this: Over the past half-century, society has become more individualistic. As it has become more individualistic, it has also become less morally aware, because social and moral fabrics are inextricably linked. The atomization and demoralization of society have led to certain forms of social breakdown, which government has tried to address, sometimes successfully and often impotently. 
(Thanks to reader R.) 
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Gillard will be gone, and knows it

Andrew Bolt May 27 2013 (11:50am)

It’s interesting that Gillard didn’t give the usual “we will win” response:
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard won’t commit to a future in politics if the Labor party loses the upcoming federal election. 
The first woman to fill the nation’s top job has shied away from giving an undertaking that she will remain a regular face in Canberra if her party fails at the September 14 poll. “You would have to talk to me about that in the days afterwards. I don’t spend time thinking about the days beyond,” Ms Gillard told The Guardian website when asked of her future.
I’ve said before that something seemed to have snapped inside Gillard a couple of weeks ago. She knows she’s gone.
When Labor finally contemplates the destruction she has wrought on Labor’s numbers and its legacy, questions about Gillard’s future in politics will seem inane.
UPDATE
A spokesman tries to tidy up: 
JULIA Gillard has committed to serving another term in parliament, even if she loses the election. 
“The PM is focused on securing a Labor majority government at the next election and will serve a full term (after the election),” the Prime Minister’s spokesman said.
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Galaxy: Gillard gone, and Palmer no chance

Andrew Bolt May 27 2013 (9:59am)

The Galaxy poll is of just 800 Queenslanders, but the results will still depress Labor - and Clive Palmer:
(Thanks to reader elinjaa.) 
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Indigenous round: two stories, little unity

Andrew Bolt May 27 2013 (9:30am)

A rude 13-year-old girl calls out “ape” to a bearded footballer of Aboriginal descent. She is evicted from her seat, grilled by police (without her parents present) for nearly two hours and threatened with charges. Her face is shown on national television as journalists and football clubs bosses vilify her as a racist.
On ABC radio this morning a woman says Aborigines at the same game slashed an Australian flag, replaced the Union Jack with an Aboriginal one and were abusive. Security was called but removed no one.
How an Indigenous round divides, not unites. 
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We need immigration, not colonisation. And honesty, not censorship

Andrew Bolt May 27 2013 (8:50am)

Culture wars, Islamism, Media
 AS Stockholm burns and a soldier is hacked to death in London, I recall the foolish words of Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.

Dreyfus represents the federal seat which takes in much of Greater Dandenong, more than half of whose population comes from overseas.
Here is the sunny picture he painted of Dandenong two months ago: “Our community is a wonderful example to others of a modern, diverse and harmonious society.”
Mind you, it is easy to rhapsodise about mass immigration, especially from poor and Muslim lands, when you live not in your fabulously diverse electorate but 20km away, in the very affluent and very white suburb of Malvern.
That may explain why this “harmonious society” of “150 different nationalities” turns out to be not quite the “wonderful example” Dreyfus claims.

Last month, The Age reported: “Around Dandenong, young men stalk parks in gangs and rob anyone who walks through.
(Read full article here.) 
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Seventh night of riots in Stockholm

Andrew Bolt May 27 2013 (8:26am)

Mass immigration from poor, Muslim nations seems much harder than was sold:
Swedish police say rioting in Stockholm has ebbed despite a seventh night of scattered violence. The unrest has spurred debate among Swedes over policies to integrate immigrants in a country long seen as egalitarian. 
Stockholm police spokesmen said… that on Saturday night windows had been smashed at a school in southern Stockholm and 16 people arrested… A day earlier, the unrest had spread to other middle-sized towns in Sweden, but early on Sunday there were no reports of trouble outside the capital. 
UPDATE
When a government fails to defend its people from the consequences of its foolish mass migration programs, the backlash can be as ugly as it is utterly predictable.
Sweden:
Faced by another night of terror at the hands of predominantly immigrant rioters, Swedes grown tired of the police’s inability to put an end to the unrest took to the streets Friday night to defend their neighborhoods. 
The vigilantes were described as a motley crew of homeowners and concerned citizens, as well as neo-Nazi activists and football hooligans.
In the Stockholm suburb of Tumba the police decided to abandon their earlier non-intervention policy as a large group of police officers rounded up and dispersed a group of vigilantes trying to fend off rioters. The decision to round up vigilantes while, according to Stockholm Chief of Police Mats Löfving, “doing as little as possible” to stop rioters, met with a wave of protests in various social media and on the Internet.
Britain:
Fears of a prolonged backlash against Muslims have intensified after dozens of Islamophobic incidents were reported in the wake of the murder of the British soldier Lee Rigby in south London. 
The Tell Mama hotline for recording Islamophobic crimes and incidents recorded 38 incidents over Wednesday night, including attacks on three mosques, with more reported on Thursday. The Metropolitan police put 1,200 more officers on the street on Thursday, with extra patrols deployed to mosques and religious sites as far-right groups reacted to the tragedy.
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Surrendering freedom to the violent: ANU censors student paper for mocking Islam

Andrew Bolt May 27 2013 (8:22am)

Free speech
Threats of violence from religious bigots is all it takes for an Australian university to censor its students: 
THE Australian National University has cited international violence in the wake of the Danish cartoon and Innocence of Muslims controversies in justifying its decision to force student newspaper Woroni to pulp a satirical infographic which described a passage from the Koran as a “rape fantasy”. 
The university also threatened student authors and editors of the infographic with disciplinary action, including academic exclusion and the withdrawal of the publication’s funding.
The piece was the fifth in a satirical series entitled “Advice from Religion” which had previously discussed Catholicism, Scientology, Mormonism and Judaism.
No complaints were received about any of the earlier instalments.
In the April 16 edition of Woroni, authors Jamie Freestone, Mathew McGann and Todd Cooper posed the question, “How should I value women?”
Their answers referenced Aisha, the prophet Mohammed’s nine-year-old wife, and described the 72 “houris” - women depicted in the Koran as large-bosomed virgins who are a reward in paradise - as a “rape fantasy"…
The Chancelry then issued a statement to Woroni, maintaining the infographic breached university rules and Australian Press Council guidelines, as well as posing a threat to the ANU’s reputation and security.
“In a world of social media, (there is) potential for material such as the article in question to gain attention and traction in the broader world and potentially harm the interests of the university and the university community,” the statement said. “This was most clearly demonstrated by the Jyllands-Posten cartoon controversy ... and violent protests in Sydney on September 15 last year.”
Utterly disgraceful. Weak. Unprincipled.
Note, incidentally, how the Press Council is again cited as an instrument of censorship. Newspaper proprietors need to re-examine this dangerous drift.
UPDATE
The Woroni editors explain what happened. It is simply appalling. If universities do not defend free speech, who will?
UPDATE
Paul Sheehan can still say it because he works for a media organisation with deep enough pockets (just) to defend his right to speak:
Thereligionofpeace.com keeps a monthly list of bloody incidents [of Muslim violence] and during the past 30 days it records 222 incidents, in 25 different countries, including much of the Arab world and North Africa, and Britain, France, Russia, Nigeria, Thailand, the Philippines and China… Seventy per cent of these 222 incidents in the past month took place in four countries - Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria - all battlefields in the ancient religious civil war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, a civil war more violent now than it has been for decades. 
The existence of this violent sectarian schism, and the systemic repression of religious dissent throughout the Muslim world, demolish the absurd claim that Islam is ‘’a religion of peace’’.
Most Muslims are peaceful, like most non-Muslims, but the Koran groans under the weight of its own contradictions, with entreaties to kindness co-existing with exhortations to merciless war. If the Koran were only a text of peace and mercy, tens of thousands of Muslims could not invoke its verses to engage in violence.... Apologists argue that those who use the Koran to justify violence are not Islamic. And in the West there is fearfulness to trigger the belligerent victimology that extreme Muslims use to cloak intransigence, separatism and special-pleading. The most disturbing aspect of the record of violence of Muslims invoking the name of Islam in violence is that the public record understates, not overstates, the problem. Not included in the log of violent crimes are the outbreaks of civil violence such as the riots that have rocked Stockholm over the past week, where an urban underclass of predominantly Muslim immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers and their children has erupted in violence, vandalism and attacks on police. You will not find the word ‘’Muslim’’ in media reports.
The ANU and Press Council have played their modest role in such censorship.
UPDATE
Tim Blair notes more self-censorship of the kind I discuss in my column today:
Readers will recall the words from one of Rigby’s murderers, Mujahid Adeboloja, who obligingly hung around following the slaying to explain himself. 
“We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. You people will never be safe,” Islamic convert Adeboloja said, his blood-soaked hands providing dramatic emphasis. “There are many, many ayah throughout the Koran that we must fight them as they fight us, an eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth.”
Several hours after video of Adeboloja’s declaration had begun to be broadcast around the world, the ABC’s man in London told evening news viewers what he knew about the killing. It turned out to be less than was known to anybody who’d been paying even vague interest.
“What happened was clear,” the correspondent said. “The motivation, less so.”Well, apart from Allah and all of those ayah in the Koran. Take them out of the frame, as the ABC naturally did, and Adeboloja’s motivation does indeed become slightly unclear. Removing the central component of a news story will tend to do that.
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How Joe Hockey could replace Tony Abbott

Andrew Bolt May 27 2013 (7:41am)

Politics - federal
Troy Bramston on a loose-lipped Joe Hockey:
“I’m shaping up for Wayne Swan’s job,” he says. 
But it’s not just the Treasurer’s job he wants - he wants Tony Abbott’s job too. Eventually. Over the past few months, Hockey has been telling people in Sydney and Melbourne that he is now “serious” about replacing Abbott should the opportunity arise at some stage.
This is what he told guests at Peter FitzSimons and Lisa Wilkinson’s Australia Day barbecue at their waterfront home in Sydney. And he has said the same thing to several senior business leaders in private meetings and boardroom discussions in recent months. He’s also told colleagues: “I won’t make the same mistakes that Peter Costello made on the leadership. Unlike Peter, I won’t die wondering.”
Here is how Hockey could very well become prime minister.

The reality:
- The next three years are likely to be much tougher economically than many yet realise. Mineral prices are falling, mining investment is falling fast, our costs are killing manufacturers, China may falter.
- Tony Abbott has not sought a mandate for the kind of changes he may well need to get the economy in shape for the 2016 election.  His cuts are too shallow, his workplace reforms too small, his planned welfare schemes too big, his global warming schemes still too wasteful.
The play:
Hockey has played the tough cop to Abbott’s soft. He opposed the baby bonus but got overruled. He warned the Age of Entitlement had to end, but got little support. He was against Abbott’s parental leave scheme but was overruled again.
Hockey will not want his own reputation for financial management ruined by anything done by Abbott. He will also wish to establish a point of difference between them.
This leaves Hockey looking like an alternative if Abbott’s approach proves not vigorous enough to deal with any financial decline. A change of leaders is also a (partial) excuse for breaking election promises.  
The caveats:
I seem to have attracted a new kind of critic who screams that I should say nothing critical at all of Abbott, for fear of hurting his election chances. I should also not be advocating policies which would hurt his chances should he adopt them. I should act the cheerleader, not the analyst.
In response, I say I am no cheerleader for a party. I am an advocate for good policy.
I am not an Abbott hater. Indeed, I like, respect and even admire Abbott. I consider him an honorable man, and suspect he will make a better prime minister than many think. He will not play the politics of division that Labor has inflicted on us.
I say Abbott should advocate now all the policies I believe the country needs. Not, that is, if it will cost him the election. His job is do what is possible. My job is to change the definition of possible.
I do not write off Abbott. There are still more than 100 days to the election. He still has time to announce more policy. He may after the election do more than he’s suggested. And the economy may not fall as business leaders fear. Besides, who on earth truly thinks Labor would do any better?
But here’s the bottom line. We face big challenges, and if you want our politicians to tackle them you must say what they must do. Else nothing gets done.
Argue not for a side but for policies and principles.
UPDATE
Maurice Newman, former chairman of the Australian Securities Exchange and the ABC, warns what the Liberals will be up against:
While no manufacturer receiving government patronage will admit it publicly, the combination of the carbon tax and clean energy policies has catapulted Australia’s power prices, critical to manufacturing profitability, from among the cheapest in the world to the most expensive… 
Add the relatively high wage costs, entrenched organised labour arrangements with accompanying industrial relations rigidities, low productivity and the red and green regulatory tape imposed by all tiers of government, and the handicaps manufacturers face are daunting…
Prominent economist Ross Garnaut ... said: “If we continue with the current economic policy settings and mentality, then a recession is very likely and the economy may kick along the bottom for a long time."…
It matters little whether the first casualty of the carbon tax and general economic mismanagement is Geelong or Whyalla. What matters is that we prepare for what Garnaut says will be a hit to the economy “that we have not experienced in modern times” and work urgently to restore our international competitiveness. If elected in September, that task will fall to an Abbott-Hockey government. They must find the courage to act decisively.
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Abbott’s parental leave scheme - a tax we’ll all pay

Andrew Bolt May 27 2013 (7:39am)

Of course the costs will be passed on, just as were the costs of the carbon tax:
THE nation’s four major banks are increasingly hostile to the Coalition’s $4.3 billion paid parental leave scheme, warning that shareholders and customers will ultimately pay for the $400 million-plus cost to the industry. 
A senior banker said the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, National Australia Bank and ANZ Bank were each facing an annual charge of $80m-$115m, based on Tony Abbott’s plan to fund the scheme with a 1.5 per cent levy on companies with taxable incomes above $5m.
UPDATE
I am informed by a senior Liberal that Abbott’s scheme would hand over up to $75,000 in parental leave entitlements to working women without even obliging them to return to work after six months. All they need do is to lie about their plans, leaving the employer trying to cover for them until the employee tells them, oops, she’d rather have more time with the baby, after all.
It is not difficult to see where this will lead. Women planing to have a child will have a strong incentive to take a job (or new promotion) for even less than a year, just to qualify for the parental leave payout. They then don’t come back.
As a boss, you’d think twice before hiring a newly married woman. As a taxpayer, you’d be stung. As a stay-at-home mother, now to lose your baby bonus, you’d feel punished.  
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Adam Goodes vs a 13-year-old girl. Seriously?

Andrew Bolt May 27 2013 (7:33am)

The new morality, The politics of race
I DETEST racists. But the monstering of the Collingwood fan who shouted at Sydney footballer Adam Goodes is shameful.
She is just a 13-year-old who was at the football with her nan.  
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Boat people: now out of Africa, too

Andrew Bolt May 27 2013 (7:21am)

Boat people policy
A new development in what the Press Council tells journalists not to call illegal immigration:
Three vessels carrying Africans have now arrived this month with the boats, detected near Christmas Island, leaving from Indonesia. 
A vessel spotted by federal police at Christmas Island on Friday had 33 Congolese, Somali and Sudanese asylum seekers on board and two Indonesian crew.
Another was intercepted by HMAS Larrakia north of Christmas Island on Saturday with 30 Somali asylum seekers and three Indonesian crew on board.
The third vessel carrying Africans arrived about a week ago. So few Africans have previously arrived on boats there are no statistics available from the Department of Immigration which breakdown African arrivals.
Cheap communications, cheap travel and millions of people in the Third World now with the money to try their luck somewhere else. The world is very different now, and the UN’s refugee convention unable to deal with it.
UPDATE

I don’t think “heavily guarded” means what the reporter thinks it means: 
INVESTIGATORS are looking at how seven Vietnamese asylum seekers escaped a high-security immigration centre on Cape York, flew 810km south, visited a casino and checked into a backpacker hostel in Cairns. 
In a hugely embarrassing “organised” mass break-out, the seven scaled the razor wire at the heavily-guarded Scherger detention centre on Thursday when an outside group was allegedly waiting to drive them 30km into Weipa about 5.40am. Six of the seven boarded a midday flight to Cairns where they enjoyed lunch and visited the Pullman Reef Casino.
UPDATE
More seem to have been lured to their deaths, to add to the 1000 who have drowned since Labor scrapped John Howard’s tough border laws:
There are fears more asylum seekers have drowned in a bid to get to Australia after a number of lifejackets washed up on Cocos Island… 
It is understood one jacket contained a small amount of Iranian money.
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End corporate welfare now

Andrew Bolt May 27 2013 (7:08am)

Hasn’t Ford proved already that governments are mad to try to prop up struggling businesses with grants funded by taxes on good ones? 
The fashion industry’s latest high-profile victim Lisa Ho pocketed nearly $200,000 in taxpayer subsidies before collapsing and jeans queen Bettina Liano was given $300,000 in innovation grants after going into voluntary administration, records show. 
Another well-known women’s fashion chain, Ojay, took $20,000 in government handouts just months before its financial woes tipped it into administration in September. The taxpayer subsidies were part of a six-year $112.5 million federal government program to ‘’drive innovation and renewal’’ in the textile and clothing industry. 
I discussed such madness with the Opposition’s Sophie Mirabella yesterday:
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"Spotlight Effect" a psychological phenomena is when you think everyone around is looking at you specially when you're hiding something.
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Larry Pickering
JOURNOS SUPPORT LOONY LEFT... poll

Surprised? Well, you shouldn’t be because it’s simple really. If you are Green or of the rabid Left you will gravitate to the media as surely as a homosexual or a paedophile will gravitate to the priesthood.

Last Wednesday I was invited to speak to a journos’ luncheon in Sydney and it was no surprise that an ex president of the Cartoonists Association (whatever that is) called Lindsay Foyle (whoever he is) tried to arrange a boycott. It obviously didn’t work as there were no spare seats.

But the attempted boycott is emblematic of what’s left of many unrepresentative members of the Press.

I recall with pride the last time I addressed the Press Club when Mungo MacCallum and his unwashed mates chucked their food at me. I was chuffed that I had upset the Marxists to that extent.

John Fairfax (pictured) turned up on Wednesday and it was great to see him again. John had severed his ties with the media empire that bears his name by relinquishing his board membership and selling his 9.7 per cent stake in Fairfax Media for $193 million.

In 2007, Fairfax shares were trading at $4.80. John sold out at $1.80 in 2011, they have now slumped to 58c. Good to see a Fairfax with foresight.

Fairfax’s problems began many years ago when cadet journalists were sourced solely from university graduates. Those graduates were eventually promoted to management who then recruited only those of like mind.

The Left has never been synonymous with competent management, thus Fairfax’s present malaise.

It is lost in a foreign doctrine at middle management and board level. People don’t relate to it and there is no better indicator of a lost cause than a share price.

The Fairfax board is strenuously resisting a Reinhart/Singleton takeover, demanding editorial freedom, and we know exactly what their “editorial freedom” means.

Anyway, why the hell is the board of a listed company interested in anything other than shareholders’ profit? Best that suitors sit back and wait... and they are!

If any doubt remains as to where the Press stands politically then consider if Abbott had a predilection for married women, constantly lied, facilitated an Islamic boat invasion, wasted $350 billion in borrowed funds, had a documented criminal history with a communist background and was seeking re-election while under investigation by a major fraud squad. Mmmm.

Would the Press have then built a protective wall around Abbott, shielding him from criticism? I don’t think so.

Proof of a dishonest Press requires no more than that question.

Murdoch takes a more impartial approach but is threatened and labelled the “hate media” by Gillard. She conveniently forgets that News Ltd supported Whitlam in 1972 and has often been scathing of conservative leaders since.

Time is up for the dishonest Left of media. Cassidy, Summers, Waterhouse, Marr, MacCallum, Fitzsimons, Pasco, Bongiorno and a dozen others, along with their beloved Gillard, can soak up the sun’s last rays before they sink into oblivion.

Footnote: Laurie Oakes reported that the Opposition hadn’t bothered to turn up to Gillard’s “weeping” NDIS speech when he knew all along there had been no notice given of it. No explanation... and at the time he wasn’t aware of the telling photograph below.

Believe nothing of what you read and only half of what you see.
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With grateful hearts Americans recognize how sweet it is to live in a country where men and women offer to serve something greater than self. They choose to support and defend the Constitution to preserve our rich heritage, they deny themselves comfort to secure our well-being, and they sacrifice their personal freedom daily that we may enjoy liberty in perpetuity. “Thank you” cannot do justice to the gratitude we feel for our nation’s finest.

This year, more than ones prior, I am especially mindful of those who have served and those who gave their all. Contemplating the September 11th terrorist attack in Benghazi, our government’s targeting of conservative patriots, snooping into reporters’ personal communications records, the usurping of Second Amendment rights – how can one not notice the disregard for our Constitution? Our military men and women risk their lives to uphold our rights. They deserve better than to have their sacrifice trampled on by people who pretend to have heard nothing, seen nothing, and therefore can say nothing about abusing their power over We the People. Americans deserve better. Certainly our military veterans’ honor deserves better. (By the way, pleading the Fifth while showing no regard for the First is as bold an exercise in adding insult to injury as I have ever seen.)

It is time to declare, “Enough is enough.” It’s time to halt the fundamental transformation of the country our soldiers have given all to preserve.

Traditionally Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer, replete with family outings, barbecues, and parades. As much as we enjoy these wholesome American pastimes, this observance represents so much more. For the love of all who have ever worn the uniform, as a memorial to the service rendered, and in the spirit of those who paid the price we can never repay, may we mark this day by committing ourselves to the fundamental restoration of the greatest country on the face of the earth.

Happy Memorial Day. We will never forget.

- Sarah Palin
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Dost thou think that Christ would have come all the way from heaven to keep the law for thee if thou couldst keep it for thyself?
Charles Spurgeon
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Tonight I was at a prayer service for the persecuted Coptic Christian community of Egypt. St George orthodox church, Kensington

"The UN needs to be involved ...". 
#teamnile
Sadly the UN are involved - ed
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May 27: Children's Day in Nigeria; Memorial Day in the United States (2013)
Curtiss NC-4 after her transatlantic flight
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Births[edit]

Deaths[edit]

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“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” - John 3:17
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee."
Psalm 55:22

Care, even though exercised upon legitimate objects, if carried to excess, has in it the nature of sin. The precept to avoid anxious care is earnestly inculcated by our Saviour, again and again; it is reiterated by the apostles; and it is one which cannot be neglected without involving transgression: for the very essence of anxious care is the imagining that we are wiser than God, and the thrusting ourselves into his place to do for him that which he has undertaken to do for us. We attempt to think of that which we fancy he will forget; we labour to take upon ourselves our weary burden, as if he were unable or unwilling to take it for us. Now this disobedience to his plain precept, this unbelief in his Word, this presumption in intruding upon his province, is all sinful. Yet more than this, anxious care often leads to acts of sin. He who cannot calmly leave his affairs in God's hand, but will carry his own burden, is very likely to be tempted to use wrong means to help himself. This sin leads to a forsaking of God as our counsellor, and resorting instead to human wisdom. This is going to the "broken cistern" instead of to the "fountain;" a sin which was laid against Israel of old. Anxiety makes us doubt God's lovingkindness, and thus our love to him grows cold; we feel mistrust, and thus grieve the Spirit of God, so that our prayers become hindered, our consistent example marred, and our life one of self-seeking. Thus want of confidence in God leads us to wander far from him; but if through simple faith in his promise, we cast each burden as it comes upon him, and are "careful for nothing" because he undertakes to care for us, it will keep us close to him, and strengthen us against much temptation. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee."

Evening


"Continue in the faith."
Acts 14:22

Perseverance is the badge of true saints. The Christian life is not a beginning only in the ways of God, but also a continuance in the same as long as life lasts. It is with a Christian as it was with the great Napoleon: he said, "Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest must maintain me." So, under God, dear brother in the Lord, conquest has made you what you are, and conquest must sustain you. Your motto must be, "Excelsior." He only is a true conqueror, and shall be crowned at the last, who continueth till war's trumpet is blown no more. Perseverance is, therefore, the target of all our spiritual enemies. The world does not object to your being a Christian for a time, if she can but tempt you to cease your pilgrimage, and settle down to buy and sell with her in Vanity Fair. The flesh will seek to ensnare you, and to prevent your pressing on to glory. "It is weary work being a pilgrim; come, give it up. Am I always to be mortified? Am I never to be indulged? Give me at least a furlough from this constant warfare." Satan will make many a fierce attack on your perseverance; it will be the mark for all his arrows. He will strive to hinder you in service: he will insinuate that you are doing no good; and that you want rest. He will endeavour to make you weary of suffering, he will whisper, "Curse God, and die." Or he will attack your steadfastness: "What is the good of being so zealous? Be quiet like the rest; sleep as do others, and let your lamp go out as the other virgins do." Or he will assail your doctrinal sentiments: "Why do you hold to these denominational creeds? Sensible men are getting more liberal; they are removing the old landmarks: fall in with the times." Wear your shield, Christian, therefore, close upon your armour, and cry mightily unto God, that by his Spirit you may endure to the end.
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Jacob

[Jā'cob] - he that supplanteth orfolloweth after.

1. The second son of Isaac and Rebekah, and a twin brother of Esau. Jacob appeared a short time after Esau and is therefore called the younger brother. Isaac was sixty years old when Jacob and Esau were born.

The Man of Two Natures


Jacob is an outstanding illustration of the presence and conflict of the two natures within a believer. Similar to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of Robert Louis Stevenson's story, Jacob is good and bad; he rises and falls, yet in spite of his failures was a chosen instrument.

Jacob's character then, is full of interest and difficulty because of its weakness and strength. His is not a life to be described by a single word as, for example, the faith of Abraham or thepurity of Joseph. Jacob seemed to have a many-sided life. He was a man of guile, yet a man of prayer . Inconsistencies are everywhere. His life began with a prophetic revelation of God to his mother, but Jacob's early years were a singular mixture of good and bad - the bad being very bad.

I. Jacob was the victim of his mother's partiality. "Rebekah loved Jacob" (Gen. 25:28). This fault must be kept in mind as we judge his character.
II. Jacob was selfish. When his brother came in from the fields faint with hunger, Jacob would not give him food without bargaining over it.
III. Jacob was naturally crafty and deceitful. He violated his conscience when he allowed his mother to draw him away from the path of honor and integrity. He practiced deception upon his blind father with the covering of kid skins. Then he told a deliberate lie in order to obtain a spiritual blessing. He further sinned upon most sacred ground, when he blasphemously used the name of the Lord to further his evil plans.
The thoroughness with which he carried out his mother's plan is one of the worst features in the life of this misguided son. "Had it been me," says Martin Luther, "I would have dropped the dish." It would have been better for Jacob had he dropped that dish of venison. But his proficiency in evil doing is to be despised.
In the life of this sharp trader who mended his ways, for there were two remarkable spiritual experiences in his life - at Bethel and Peniel - the preacher might find the following points suggestive: Jacob cheated (Gen. 25:29-34); deceived ( Gen. 27:1-29); was compelled to flee (Gen 27:43; 28:1-5); was brought on to a higher level (Gen 28:10-22); had a romance spoiled, and was paid back in his own coin of deception (Gen. 29:15-30); was affectionate (Gen. 29:18); was industrious (Gen. 31:40 ); was prayerful ( Gen. 32:9-12, 24-30); received a divine call to the promised land (Gen. 31); was disciplined by God through affliction (Gen. 37:28; 42:36); was a man of faith (Heb. 11:21); was blessed with sons who became the foundation of a nation. The Hebrew nation is spoken of as "the sons of Jacob" and "the children of Israel" (Gen. 48; 49; Num. 24:19).
2. The father of Joseph, the husband of Mary (Matt. 1:15, 16).
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Today's reading: 1 Chronicles 28-29, John 9:24-41 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: 1 Chronicles 28-29


David's Plans for the Temple

1 David summoned all the officials of Israel to assemble at Jerusalem: the officers over the tribes, the commanders of the divisions in the service of the king, the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, and the officials in charge of all the property and livestock belonging to the king and his sons, together with the palace officials, the warriors and all the brave fighting men....


Today's New Testament reading: John 9:24-41

24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. "Give glory to God by telling the truth," they said. "We know this man is a sinner."
25 He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"
26 Then they asked him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?"




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