Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Tue Jul 18th Todays News

Some things should not happen, but they do. Living in a democracy means one is responsible for their own mistakes. It is outrageous that Canada's PM Trudea has made a terrorist and killer a multi millionaire. However, Canadians knew who they were voting for and what he represents. People in Victoria knew that Dan Andrews was planning to throw away over a billion dollars to not build a needed road. People of South Australia knew there government would not be responsible in managing power infrastructure. People of Queensland knew the ALP was not ready for government. But even so, it is outrageous that Canada's PM remunerates a killer and shields him from a damages claim. Others might not have believed Trudeau and Saddam Hussein were so similar. 

 In 390 BC, Roman-Gaulish Wars: Battle of the Allia: A Roman army was defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome. 64, the Great Fire of Rome caused widespread devastation and raged on for six days, destroying half of the city. 362, Roman–Persian Wars: Emperor Julian arrived at Antioch with a Roman expeditionary force (60,000 men) and staid there for nine months to launch a campaign against the Persian Empire. 645, Chinese forces under general Li Shiji besieged the strategic fortress city of Anshi (Liaoning) during the Goguryeo–Tang War.

In 1290, King Edward I of England issued the Edict of Expulsion, banishing all Jews (numbering about 16,000) from England; this was Tisha B'Av on the Hebrew calendar, a day that commemorates many Jewish calamities. 1863, American Civil War: Second Battle of Fort Wagner: One of the first formal African American military units, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, supported by several white regiments, attempted an unsuccessful assault on Confederate-held Battery Wagner. 1870, the First Vatican Council decreed the dogma of papal infallibility.

1925, Adolf Hitler published his personal manifesto Mein Kampf. In 1966, Human spaceflight: Gemini 10 was launched from Cape Kennedy on a 70-hour mission that included docking with an orbiting Agena target vehicle. Also 1966, Australian children's television series Play School aired for the first time, going on to become the longest-running children's show in Australia, and the second longest running children's show in the world 1969, after a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drove an Oldsmobile off a bridge and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, died. 1976, Nadia Comăneci became the first person in Olympic Games history to score a perfect 10 in gymnastics at the 1976 Summer Olympics. 1982, two hundred sixty-eight campesinos ("peasants" or "country people") were slain in the Plan de Sánchez massacre in Ríos Montt's Guatemala. 1984, McDonald's massacre in San Ysidro, California: In a fast-food restaurant, James Oliver Huberty opened fire, killing 21 people and injuring 19 others before being shot dead by police. 

In 1992, the ten victims of the La Cantuta massacre disappeared from their university in Lima. 1994, the bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Jewish Community Centre) in Buenos Aires killed 85 people (mostly Jewish) and injured 300. Also 1994, Rwandan Genocide: The Rwandan Patriotic Front took control of Gisenyi and north western Rwanda, forcing the interim government into Zaire and ending the genocide. 1995, Dreaming of You by Selena, released posthumously, became the best-selling Latin album in the United States. It was noted by Billboard magazine as a "historic event" for Latin music. 2012, at least seven people were killed and 32 others are injured after a bomb exploded on an Israeli tour bus at Burgas Airport, Bulgaria. 2013, the Government of Detroit, with up to $20 billion in debt, files for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

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 Good News Week 

Hedgehoppers Anonymous were a 1960s beat group from the United Kingdom. They formed in November 1963 as The Trendsetters, and became The Hedgehoppers the following year. Jonathan King took over their record production in 1965, and added "Anonymous" to their name when they said they were popular in Peterborough, and did not want to change their name completely.
Their major success was the King produced and written "It's Good News Week", issued on Decca. This song has also been used as the theme music for Good News Week, a satirical news-based comedy quiz show on Australian television which ran from 1996 to 2000 and has subsequently been revived in 2008. Four other singles were released by the group before the final line-up dissolved. Lack of further chart activity leaves them labelled as one-hit wonders.


=== from 2016 ===
Sonia Kruger was asked for her opinion on a column of Andrew Bolt that called for discussing a halt to Muslim migration to Australia. Kruger reasonably responded, saying she knew beautiful Muslim people but she wanted to feel safe going out and celebrating Australia Day or doing other ordinary activities. In response, the hysterical, censorious left have called for Kruger to be sacked or killed. One hopes that Kruger's career does not suffer for reasonably adding to discussion. It is sad that the censorious left cannot join the discussion. The issue of Islamic terror is salient. Who speaks for Muslims? Zakky Mallah has been promoted by the ABC. When he saw FuriousFong comment (Watch and see how the misogynists of the Left, hypocrites that they are, will destroy @SoniaKruger for voicing her opinion), he weighed in with 

 The ABC promoted Zakky is merely trolling for attention on this issue. Just like all left wing journalists. David Campbell was wrong to label the Bolt article as hate speech. It isn't. People are afraid for their loved ones. The terrorism has to be stopped. But the left keep feeding it. Profiting from it. Using it. Stopping Muslim migration sounds illegal. But stopping terrorists from crossing weak borders is not. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility. 
=== from 2015 ===
Right wing extremists attract attention,and they aren't pretty. Reclaim Australia are the current mob receiving attention, but names don't matter to these people who in another time would call themselves the Australian Defence League, Australian Tea Party (not connected with the US variety), Ku Klux Klan, One Nation (school kids called it 'one Asian'), Neo Nazis, Nazis, BNP, EDL or any of many other names. They often badly quote scripture, refer to end times, pay no thought to the consequences of their ideology, eschew religion and demand to make policy decisions Democracy does not endow them. God does not favour bigots, and so no responsible person accepts their confused arguments. Arguments such as "Communism and fascism hasn't worked. Democracy is failing. What is next?" Arguments bereft of understanding or nuance. The follow up is that protectionism for industry must be immediately implemented and certain races or ethnicity must be barred from migration or else the nation won't have what it had in the past, a democracy they claimed has failed. It doesn't matter that migration (orderly) promotes growth and that protectionism hurts industry. The effect of the demands of these extremists is to run apartheid style regimes through crippled industry where only the favoured keep riches. Zimbabwe, Apartheid South Africa, Spain under dictatorship and WW2 era Germany and Italy are not healthy economic or government models. And the alternative is not Sharia Law but Liberal Democratic values in a civilised, not extremist, culture. 

Note the extreme left have not covered themselves with glory. Nice of Obama to celebrate an Islamic festival, but tasteless of him to have not acknowledged the damage of jihadism in a hit that same day. The world expects the US President to bring weight and understanding to issues. What the US President says has meaning. But this US President has shown little understanding of process and no remorse for grievous mistakes. Meanwhile ISIL commits numerous atrocities against all. It would be nice for the President to show his endorsement for Islam does not extend to jihadis. 

Bronwyn Bishop attacked for allegedly legitimate expense in a campaign similar to that which savaged Credlin. News Limited Editor, Malcolm Farr, who apparently writes exclusively for the ALP, even when sober (to be fair, Glenn Milne threw the punch at Crikey editor Mayne at the '06 Walkley awards), has launched an extraordinary broadside against the Speaker of the lower house, accusing her of not being as good as Anna Burke, an ALP Speaker who presided over arguably the worst government Australia has had. Naturally Burke was a trade union official before she went into government. Bishop is a former actress who became a lawyer. At issue is a helicopter trip Bishop made and claimed as an expense. The trip does not seem to be an expense item and Bishop has paid it back. Channel 9 News has called it a luxury helicopter trip, but Channel 9 are as balanced as Farr. 
From 2014
Where is God with flight MH17? 

"Trust those who seek the truth but doubt those who say they have found it." André Paul Guillaume Gide coined that thought. Oscar Wilde thought he had brought André to discover he was gay, but he had sought him out knowing it already. A writer, who realised the Soviet Union was bad in '36, after he sailed there, but supported the socialist values by leaning. 
During the 1930s, he briefly became a communist, or more precisely, a fellow traveler (he never formally joined the Communist Party). As a distinguished writer sympathizing with the cause of communism, he was invited to tour the Soviet Union as a guest of the Soviet Union of Writers. The tour disillusioned him and he subsequently became quite critical of Soviet Communism. This criticism of Communism caused him to lose socialist friends, especially when he made a clean break with it in Retour de L'U.R.S.S. in 1936. He was also a contributor to The God That Failed.My faith in communism is like my faith in religion: it is a promise of salvation for mankind. If I have to lay my life down that it may succeed, I would do so without hesitation
—André Gide, The God That Failed...and after his visit to the Soviet Union:[6]It is impermissible under any circumstances for morals to sink as low as communism has done. No one can begin to imagine the tragedy of humanity, of morality, of religion and of freedoms in the land of communism, where man has been debased beyond belief
—André Gide, quoted in Culture, Civilization, and Humanity Wikipedia

Communism failed, and spawned Russia and the Ukraine. 

In the wake of the tragedy from the terrorist strike on Malaysian flight MH17 it is natural for the grieving to ask "Where is God?" They seek God, and so presumably, they can be trusted. It is easy to point to where God wasn't. God was not on the minds of those who shot the missile which downed the jet. They were too busy following orders, prosecuting an agenda which might have been related to wishing to shoot down a Ukrainian Antonov or Putin, depending on allegiance. God was not on the mind of a panic stricken Biden who belatedly offered prayer after blaming Russia. God was also not with the joking Obama who lightly accepted US casualties Two leaders of the US community who did not turn to God, probably thinking instead that they knew the answers. Those who fired the missiles knew what they were doing, and later kew what they had done. And in a monitored telephone conversation, Russian soldiers apparently knew their mistake. Ukraine government knew who to blame. They had not sought the truth. 

Clearly Mr Abbott knew what he was talking about when he sought answers for questions regarding whomever was responsible. Those on the plane hadn't suffered. It was quick. They sought an end to their journey. And they rest in His arms. Faith is important. God is real. Not real like Gaia, whom Anglicans seem to worship in place of that biblical being. But real in his reach and power. Some get confused by words. They have heard of 'infinite,' 'Omnipotent' and 'Omniscient.'It throws them, because there is no such creature. How can God be everywhere and not with those firing missiles? If he wasn't with those firing missiles, he wasn't everywhere, and then there is no God, goes the reasoning. But the reasoning is faulty. and those three words meaningless. God is the beginning, and the end. He knows the heart of those victims, and he knows the intent of the aggressors. There is a point to our lives, and a beginning, a middle and an end. Grieve for the loss of life. Rage against the loss of those taken too soon. But God is there, and because of it, devotion to him is not lost, but affirmed. Blood cries out. Not for revenge. For justice. Obama apparently did a deal with Russia over Crimea. This tragedy is a result of that. Trust those who seek the truth. 

In history one sees the result every day of Julius Ceaser's campaign in Gaul. But on this day in 390 BC, a tribe of Gaul beat a Roman army and sacked Rome. It would be some nine hundred years before they would do so again. Rome had been weakened from her recent triumph over Etrura. She had sent three diplomats at the request of a besieged North Italian city, but one of the diplomats broke truce, and the Gauls exacted a terrible price in return. On 362 AD, a sixty thousand strong Roman force went to fight Persians, having grown over nine months. The war was fought over 700 years, starting in 92 BC and finishing with Islamic Arabs crushing the war weary and weak Sassanid empire. 1290, King Edward I of England expelled all the Jews. 1389, England and France agreed to a 13 year truce in the hundred year war. It is doubtful England could have mounted any assaults, she was falling into disarray for the wars of the Roses. Blood cries out, and on this day in 1863, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry comprised mainly of African Americans made a failed charge. 1870, The Pope asserted his infallibility. 1925, Hitler published his personal struggle with reality. 1942, Germany flew the first jet aircraft. 1968, Intel was founded. 1969, Ed Kennedy killed his career and a woman at Chappaquiddick. 1976, a perfect 10 was scored by Nadia Comăneci. 1982, 268 communist peasants killed by nationalist government in Guatemala. 1994 and 2012, Jews are targeted at two separate massacres. 2013, Obama made an election promise regarding Detroit, but broke it on this day. Birthdays notable for WG Grace (1848), Nelson Mandela (1918) and Dennis Lillee (1949). We lost Caravaggio (1610), John Paul Jones (1792) and Jane Austen (1817).
Historical perspective on this day
In 390 BC, Roman-Gaulish Wars: Battle of the Allia: A Roman army was defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome. 64, the Great Fire of Rome caused widespread devastation and raged on for six days, destroying half of the city. 362, Roman–Persian Wars: Emperor Julian arrived at Antioch with a Roman expeditionary force (60,000 men) and staid there for nine months to launch a campaign against the Persian Empire. 645, Chinese forces under general Li Shijibesieged the strategic fortress city of Anshi (Liaoning) during the Goguryeo–Tang War.

In 1290, King Edward I of England issued the Edict of Expulsion, banishing all Jews (numbering about 16,000) from England; this was Tisha B'Av on the Hebrew calendar, a day that commemorates many Jewish calamities. 1334, the bishop of Florence blessed the first foundation stone for the new campanile (bell tower) of the Florence Cathedral, designed by the artist Giotto di Bondone. 1342, Mu'izz al-Din Husayn defeated the Sarbadars in the Battle of Zava. 1389, France and Englandagreed to the Truce of Leulinghem, inaugurating a 13-year peace, the longest period of sustained peace during the Hundred Years' War. 1391, Tokhtamysh–Timur war: Battle of the Kondurcha River: Timur defeated Tokhtamysh of the Golden Horde in present day southeast Russia. 1555, the College of Arms was reincorporated by Royal charter signed by Queen Mary I of England and King Philip II of Spain.

In 1812, the Treaties of Orebro ended both the Anglo-Russian and Anglo-Swedish Wars. 1841, Coronation of Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, on 18 July. 1857, Louis Faidherbe, French governor of Senegal, arrived to relieve French forces at Kayes, effectively ending El Hajj Umar Tall's war against the French. 1862, first ascent of Dent Blanche, one of the highest summits in the Alps. 1863, American Civil War: Second Battle of Fort Wagner: One of the first formal African American military units, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, supported by several white regiments, attempted an unsuccessful assault on Confederate-held Battery Wagner. 1870, the First Vatican Council decreed the dogma of papal infallibility.

In 1914, the U.S. Congress formed the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, giving official status to aircraft within the U.S. Army for the first time. 1925, Adolf Hitlerpublished his personal manifesto Mein Kampf. 1936, an army uprising in Spanish Morocco started the Spanish Civil War. 1942, World War II: The Germans test flew the Messerschmitt Me 262 using its jet engines for the first time. 1944, World War II: Hideki Tōjō resigned as Prime Minister of Japan because of numerous setbacks in the war effort.

In 1966, Human spaceflight: Gemini 10 was launched from Cape Kennedy on a 70-hour mission that included docking with an orbiting Agena target vehicle. Also 1966, Australian children's television series Play School aired for the first time, going on to become the longest-running children's show in Australia, and the second longest running children's show in the world 1968, Intel was founded in Mountain View, California. 1969, after a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drove an Oldsmobile off a bridge and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, died. 1976, Nadia Comăneci became the first person in Olympic Gameshistory to score a perfect 10 in gymnastics at the 1976 Summer Olympics. 1982, two hundred sixty-eight campesinos ("peasants" or "country people") were slain in the Plan de Sánchez massacre in Ríos Montt's Guatemala. 1984, McDonald's massacre in San Ysidro, California: In a fast-food restaurant, James Oliver Huberty opened fire, killing 21 people and injuring 19 others before being shot dead by police. Also 1984, the dismembered body of Swedish prostitute Catrine da Costa was found in Stockholm, the findings later led to a trial that ended in a mistrial for two accused doctors. 1986, a tornado was broadcast live on KARE television in Minnesota when the station's helicopter pilot made a chance encounter.

In 1992, the ten victims of the La Cantuta massacre disappeared from their university in Lima. 1994, the bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina(Argentine Jewish Community Centre) in Buenos Aires killed 85 people (mostly Jewish) and injured 300. Also 1994, Rwandan Genocide: The Rwandan Patriotic Front took control of Gisenyi and north western Rwanda, forcing the interim government into Zaire and ending the genocide. 1995, on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, the Soufrière Hills volcano erupted. Over the course of several years, it devastated the island, destroying the capital and forcing most of the population to flee. Also 1995, Dreaming of You by Selena, released posthumously, became the best-selling Latin album in the United States. It was noted by Billboard magazine as a "historic event" for Latin music. 1996, storms provoked severe flooding on the Saguenay River, beginning one of Quebec's costliest natural disasters ever: The Saguenay Flood. Also 1996, Battle of Mullaitivu: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam captured the Sri Lanka Army's base, killing over 1200 soldiers. 2012, at least seven people were killed and 32 others are injured after a bomb exploded on an Israeli tour bus at Burgas Airport, Bulgaria. 2013, the Government of Detroit, with up to $20 billion in debt, files for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
=== 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 André Ruiz and Fiona McBeath, WG Grace (1848), Robert Hooke (1635), Nelson Mandela (1918), John Glenn (1921), Thomas Kuhn (1922), Dennis Lillee (1949) and Kristen Bell (1980). On your day, in 1290, Edward I issued an edict expelling all Jews from England. 1863, American Civil War: Led by Union Army Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first formal African American military unit, spearheaded an assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina. 1969, After a party on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts, United States Senator Ted Kennedy drove his car off a wooden bridge into a tidal channel, killing his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne, a former campaign worker. 1976, At the Olympic Games in Montreal, Nadia Comăneci became the first person to score a perfect 10 in a modern Olympics gymnastics event. 2005, In a joint statement, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President George W. Bush announced the U.S.–India Civil Nuclear Agreement, a bilateral treaty on civil nuclear cooperation between their two respective countries. I read about Kuhn when I read "What is this crazy little thing called Science" which isn't as deliciously saucy as the question "What is this crazy little thing called, love?" You have the right stuff, and so despite big mistakes, you fix them. You find glory. Like Kennedy, we won't talk about Chappaquiddick. But you got a perfect 10 .. the first .. and if you sign here things won't go badly nuclear. Cheers.
Deaths
July 18: Constitution Day in Uruguay (1830)
Edward is not to be invited. We reign by acclaim. Our arguments are logical and faultless. Challenge us and we erupt. India prospers. Let's party. 
===
Tim Blair

TAKE OFF YOU HOSER

Turns out Greens senator Larissa Waters is a secret Canadian. And now, like New Zealander Scott Ludlam, she’s been forced to resign from parliament.
18 Jul
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Andrew Bolt

===

JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS

Tim Blair – Monday, July 18, 2016 (3:33pm)

An interactive art incident in Germany: 
A 91-year-old woman is under investigation after filling in the blank spaces on an $89,000 crossword art piece she thought was an actual crossword puzzle.
The art piece at Nuremberg’s Neues Museum, called “Reading-work-piece,” is a work of art that closely resembles a crossword. It was made by avant garde artist Arthur Koepcke and features the phrase “insert words.” The woman told police she thought those words were an invitation to start filling in answers to the clues, Suddeutsche Zeitung reported. She also said that the museum did not put up a notice telling visitors not to write on the crossword. 
(Via Andrew R.)
===

KEVNI’S FUTURE

Tim Blair – Monday, July 18, 2016 (12:45pm)

Malcolm’s priorities 
The future of Kevin Rudd will be a first order of business in an early cabinet meeting for the newly re-elected Turnbull government.
The government will have to decide, probably in a cabinet meeting next week, whether to formally nominate the former Labor prime minister as a candidate to succeed Ban Ki-moon as Secretary-General of the UN. 
A decent government’s first order of business would be getting out of the UN. Incidentally, the Turnbull government was not “re-elected”.
UPDATE. A Labor view: 
Former NSW premier Kristina Keneally said Kevin Rudd was a “psychopathic narcissist” and not fit to be the UN Secretary-General.
“That’s not just my opinion, that’s the opinion of a whole range of people who are currently sitting in the Parliament,’ she said. 
Except for those on the government benches.
===

WHY CAN’T YOU BE NICE?

Tim Blair – Monday, July 18, 2016 (4:18am)

It’s a peaceful Sunday afternoon. You’re relaxing at home when someone knocks on the front door.
Your peaceful day is about to end.
As you open the door, it is suddenly kicked in with such force that you are dashed to the floor. Three masked men rush in. You try getting to your feet but are felled again when one of the men punches you hard in the face. His accomplices then haul you to a kitchen chair where you are swiftly bound and gagged.
With you secured, the men start unplugging televisions, DVD players and computers. They grab your wallet and car keys. One runs upstairs where you soon hear him tearing apart the main bedroom.
Luckily, an inquisitive neighbour has seen the raiders’ unorthodox house entry and called police. A siren interrupts the robbery and the men run for your back yard.
Armed police enter the property. Instead of pursuing the thieves, however, they surround you in the kitchen, where you are still bound and gagged. For some minutes they regard you in complete silence. Their arms are crossed.
Finally, one of the officers speaks.
Leaning close in to your face, he says: “Why can’t you just be nice to people?”
Now, all of that might seem highly unlikely. In what possible world would authorities blame the victim rather than the culprits? Yet after every terrorist attack on western targets, this is precisely what happens.
(Continue reading Why Can’t You be Nice?)
===

GARMENT JUSTICE NOW!

Tim Blair – Monday, July 18, 2016 (3:59am)

Retired racing driver Alan Jones was once asked why he left Melbourne. His answer was perfect: “Because they made it illegal to smile.” So Alan up and moved to Queensland, where he’s been smiling ever since.
Decades on, Melbourne is still Australia’s frowniest capital. It’s the only city on earth that holds an annual comedy festival with no actual comedy. Instead, it’s just lame political slogans with a laugh track behind them.
My God, but they’re a sad bunch. Yesterday, for want of anything better to do, a few typically serious Melbourne people decided to hold a “Black Lives Matter” protest rally in support of similar rallies across the US.
There is one important difference, however, between Melbourne and most US cities. Melbourne does not have a large black population.
To get around the small problem of having very few black people at a Black Lives Matter rally, organisers came up with an ingenious solution. As the Herald Sun newspaper reported: “As many as 6000 people dressed in black are expected to flood the streets of Melbourne today.”
Black Clothes Matter! It was a protest for garment justice. Finally, Melbourne has made Australia laugh.
 Continue reading 'GARMENT JUSTICE NOW!'
===

RICH AND RADICAL

Tim Blair – Monday, July 18, 2016 (3:56am)

Among the excuses and evasions offered for Bastille Day mass murderer Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel was that he suffered financial problems. This now appears to be incorrect: 
“Mohamed sent the family 240,000 Tunisian Dinars ($142,000) in the last few days,” the attacker’s brother, Jaber Bouhlel told one reporter in Tunisia. 
Among other excuses and evasions offered for Bastille Day mass murderer Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel was that he wasn’t a radical Muslim, or perhaps not any kind of Muslim at all. This, too, now appears to be incorrect: 
Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, said the attacker “appears to have become radicalised very quickly”, as one neighbour of his estranged wife added: “Mohamed only started visiting a mosque in April.”
Friends told police how Bouhlel had only newly grown a beard and expressed extremist views in recent weeks, authorities confirmed.
“They said he had started coming out with extremist statements and had suddenly developed an interest in radical Islam,” one official source told The Sunday Telegraph.
Bouhlel’s phone records prove he was in contact with known Islamic radicals. Authorities confirmed “he seems to have known people who knew Omar Diaby”, an Islamist believed to be linked with the Al Nusra group, which is close to Al Qaeda. 
And if you need further evidence of this bastard’s evil, consider his requirements for the vehicle he hired to murder 84 people, including elderly women and infant children: 
Bouhlel … told a van hire company “I want the heaviest truck you have” as he hastily plotted the massacre. 
UPDATE. According to the Guardian: 
An awful truth dawns: this is not some soldier in an Islamic army, just a man with a 19-ton truck who drank and had no interest in religion … 
===

FIRST DALLAS, NOW BATON ROUGE

Tim Blair – Monday, July 18, 2016 (3:32am)

Less than two weeks after five police officers were killed in Texas, another deadly attack on police in Louisiana: 
A man with a gun opened fire on police officers in Baton Rouge on Sunday, injuring at least seven – including three who are feared dead, an official said.

Police received a call of “suspicious person walking down Airline Highway with an assault rifle,” a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN. When police arrived, the man opened fire.
The remaining officers are hospitalized in critical condition, the source said. 
Click for updates. Baton Rouge is Louisiana’s capital, but it isn’t a large city; population below one million. This is a terrible, brutal assault on a beautiful place.
UPDATE. The killer was formerly a Nation of Islam member.
===

EVERYTHING IS OFFENSIVE, ALL THE TIME, EVERYWHERE

Tim Blair – Monday, July 18, 2016 (1:10am)

The latest outrage: culturally appropriated food served at universities. But there is way around this dreadful problem: 
Dr Seiko Yasumoto, Senior Lecturer in Japanese, East Asian media and cultural studies at The University of Sydney says “I do not think it is culturally insensitive to serve culturally appropriated food as long as traditional offerings are conjointly available and the students are given choice.” 
Seems simple and inexpensive enough. It’s a little like Sydney arts student and cultural enforcer Eden Caceda’singenious Mexican-themed university party solution: 
Were there any circumstances, I asked, when a Mexican-themed party might be acceptable? Why, yes, Eden answered. It could feature a speaker giving a talk on Mexican cultural traditions. 
Let the fun begin! Of course, Australians also suffer from international cultural cuisine cruelty. Observe as racist Americans scorn and ridicule our national dish. Happily, our national dish is capable of obtaining its own revenge.
(Via Dave T., who emails: “By all means, let’s worry about whether fusion food is cultural genetics gone mad. There are no other problems in this world I’ve noticed lately. Where do I complain that Lena Dunham has appropriated the word ‘comedy’ when describing her show?")
===

On the Bolt Report and radio tonight

Andrew Bolt July 18 2016 (7:38pm)

On The Bolt Report on Sky News Live at 7pm tonight:
Islam and the lesson of France.
My guests:
Bill Leak, the brilliant cartoonist, on the danger now of offending people when mocking s faith can get you killed.

Peter Kurti on how the Left is robbing us of our right to speak to save ourselves.
Peter Reith on Malcolm Turnbull’s reshuffle - two fingers to conservatives.

The panel: former Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and former NSW treasurer  Michael Costa.  
Podcasts of the show here. Facebook page here. 
On 2GB, 3AW and 4BC with Steve Price from 8pm.
Listen live here. Talkback:  131 873.  Listen to all past shows  here.
===

Turnbull tells conservatives to get stuffed, as he looks after his cronies

Andrew Bolt July 18 2016 (4:30pm)

Malcolm Turnbull has been very stupid - again - with his ministerial reshuffle.
He’s given conservatives the back of his hand and kept his cheer squad - even those who were behind his worst stumbles.
Only one known conservative - Zed Seselja - has been appointed to the new Ministry, and only in the most junior and peripheral of portfolios, multicultural affairs. What a joke.
Meanwhile, Scott Ryan, one of his plotters and architects of the campaign which flopped is shifted sideways to Special Minister of State and assistant minister to the cabinet secretary, giving him even more control over such things as resources to MPs. More power within the party, thus.
Kelly O’Dwyer is given a faux promotion despite her failure to sell the Government’s dud superannuation tax grab or its tax break for small business. She does lose small business to the Nationals’ Michael McCormack but goes from Assistant Treasurer to the grander title of Minister for Revenue and Services, still in charge of super.
The Nationals get more rewards after their good showing and the Liberals’ flop - the Nationals’ Matt Canavan is promoted to Cabinet in charge of Resources and Northern Australia, and the party’s deputy leader, Fiona Nash, gets more responsibilities, adding Local Government and Territories to her regional development role.
Turnbull ally Christopher Pyne, who struggled first in education and then in innovation, is now Minister for Defence Industry under Defence Minister Marise Payne. Turnbull took forever to sell this demotion as a profound new responsibility, but the sugar for Pyne is that he now has three years being the minister in charge of his own re-election, in charge of the $50 billion submarines project and other navy pork for Adelaide.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt has now got another ministry at last - Industry, Innovation and Science. He very much needed the gallop.
Josh Frydenberg is now in charge of Energy and Environment, having moved from Resources.  That gives this future leadership hope more room to act in ways voters notice - particularly if he makes the link between green energy schemes and high power prices.
Paul Fletcher is now Minister for urban infrastructure and the very solid Dan Tehan is now Minister for Defence Personnel as well as for Veterans’ Affairs.
Assistant Ministers are Karen Andrews, Alex Hawke, Keith Pitt and Craig Laundy, to be joined by newbies Luke Hartsuyker, Zed Seselja and David Gillespie.

Andrews will become the Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills.  Hawke will become the Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Keith Pitt will become the Assistant Minister for Trade, Investment and Tourism. Craig Laundy will become the Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science.
The three new appointments as Assistant Ministers are:
Luke Hartsuyker - Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister.
Zed Seselja - Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs.
David Gillespie - Assistant Minister for Rural Health
Snubbed are senior conservatives Tony Abbott, Kevin Andrews and Eric Abetz, every one of them more capable ministers than almost any on Turnbull’s list. Also snubbed, very publicly, is Michael Sukkar, the talented conservative who scored the biggest swing to the Liberals on primary votes in any seat in the country, without the help of a redistribution. 
===

The media Left must stop defending the violent Islamist Right

Andrew Bolt July 18 2016 (1:54pm)

How much longer will the media Left keep up this lethally stupid denialism? From the Guardian, reporting on the Nice massacre:
An awful truth dawns: this is not some soldier in an Islamic army, just a man with a 19-ton truck who drank and had no interest in religion...
Completely false, of course.
Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, said the attacker “appears to have become radicalised very quickly”, as one neighbour of his estranged wife added: “Mohamed only started visiting a mosque in April.” 
Friends told police how Bouhlel had only newly grown a beard and expressed extremist views in recent weeks, authorities confirmed.
“They said he had started coming out with extremist statements and had suddenly developed an interest in radical Islam,” one official source told The Sunday Telegraph. Bouhlel’s phone records prove he was in contact with known Islamic radicals. Authorities confirmed “he seems to have known people who knew Omar Diaby”, an Islamist believed to be linked with the Al Nusra group, which is close to Al Qaeda. 
===

Close our border against this danger

Andrew Bolt July 18 2016 (11:35am)

Islamism, three

 WHY have jihadist terrorists made France Europe’s bloodiest battlefield?
Simple answer: Because France let in the most Muslims.
This link between immigration policies and terrorism largely explains why the French are the greatest victims of Europe’s jihadists.
It also explains why we are fools not to change our own immigration policies to protect ourselves.
No European Union country has a higher proportion of Muslims than France — up to 10 per cent of its population, or six million people, though statistics are vague, and vary.
Yes, numbers don’t tell the whole story, but they do count.
Another example: Belgium’s capital, Brussels, is Europe’s biggest Islamic city, with 300,000 Muslims, and has paid terribly for it.
(Read the full article here.)
UPDATE
She has courage:
 MEDIA personality Sonia Kruger has called for Australia to stop taking in Muslim migrants.
The Today showpanel was addressing a recent article by News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt, which attributed terror attacks in France to the country’s intake of Muslim migrants.
Ms Kruger, who hosts Today’s sister show Today Extra, said she had a lot of “peace-loving, beautiful Muslim friends”, but admitted she agreed with the controversial opinion piece.
“Personally, I would like to see it (Muslim migration) stop now for Australia,” she said.
Note the editorialising by the news.com.au journalist - and the Channel 9 host - which demonstrates why it is so intimidating for so many Australians to say what seems obvious about our immigration intake, given the data. Who wants that lazy vilification?
Ms Kruger ... admitted she agreed with the controversial opinion piece.... 
At this point, host David Campbell chimed in exclaiming:… ”This breeds hate. This sort of article breeds hate."…
This isn’t the first time Ms Kruger has made headlines for her ill-thought comments on air…
UPDATE
Even an Age reporter such as Miki Perkins should have more sense than to post such a comment on Kruger in the wake of so many Islamist massacres and threats to critics:
To tell the Today show you support Kruger go here. Protest to The Age here. 
===

Home invasions matter

Andrew Bolt July 18 2016 (11:03am)

Yes, black lives matter - and so do these crimes. Who let in these refugee families?
POLICE are on the hunt for a gang of armed burglars terrorising families in their homes in Hillside and Burnside. 
Melton Police Criminal Investigation Unit Detective Senior Sergeant Barry Jenks said the group of up to seven men, of African appearance, were responsible for at least two home invasions early Saturday morning.
Operating in a similar way to the notorious Apex gang, the group is demanding car keys from their victims.
UPDATE
What on earth is going on?
Police are appealing for public assistance after a man in his early 20s was robbed at Treasury Gardens Melbourne on Saturday 25 June. 
Police have been told a group of about 10 men approached and surrounded the victim and his friend while they were sitting on a park bench located within the gardens, late that afternoon.
One man demanded the victim empty his pockets to which he refused. Following that, the group of men assaulted the victim by slapping him to the head.... The offenders are perceived to be of African appearance aged between 15 – 25 years old, of slim build with short dark hair. 
===

Giving the media’s pet activists the microphone

Andrew Bolt July 18 2016 (10:51am)

Chris Mitchell, former editor-in-chief of The Australian, saysthe media should be tougher in asking the question: “Why is this a story?”:
The rise of single issue lobby groups and their increasing influence on politics and the media makes this question more important now than ever… 
Are we publishing these views because we personally support them and think they might improve the lives of our readers and listeners? Or are we just too lazy to generate our own news stories?
Anyone who listens to ABC radio weekend hourly news bulletins would suspect the latter ... [since] too many Saturday and Sunday bulletins include stories about protests in favour of gay marriage, environmental causes and asylum seekers…
But it is also important for journalists to ask why something advocated by an activist group is a genuine mainstream story…
Let me describe my Friday news consumption on the NSW mid-north coast where I am without Foxtel.
All afternoon on ABC News 24 the Archibald Prize was discussed through the prism of gender equality. Same on radio, where the fact the finalists were half women was more important that the quality of the painting.
ABC 7.30 started, appropriately, with a report about the Nice terror attack. Item two concerned transgender schoolchildren in Shepparton. Item three was a piece about South Sudanese refugee basketballers in Brisbane. Lateline closed with a poll that showed 82 per cent of a self-selecting audience supported the end of the greyhound industry.
Lateline, like all ABC TV and radio programs I heard that day, was concerned to point out the Nice attacks had not been confirmed as terrorism. As if a truck full of weapons regularly mows down pedestrians along a two-kilometre stretch in Nice and drivers often die in police shootouts.
While on the terror question, why are ethnic community groups regularly given space or air time to spruik their views about the Islamophobia of Australian society? ... Why would such accusations be a story, as Col Allan might ask? Ordinary Australians know who is behind international terrorism. No wonder so many media consumers no longer trust journalists.
(Thanks to reader George.) 
===

Sharper than a terrorist’s knife is a little teasing of Jonathan Green

Andrew Bolt July 18 2016 (10:11am)

As I said yesterday:
How curious. Islamists can massacre people at a concert, fly passenger jets into tall buildings, blow up drinkers at a Bali bar and mow down sightseers watching the fireworks by a beach, yet ABC presenter Jonathan Green can still maintain his faith in our “cultured reason. Our tolerance. Our audacious confidence in the fundamental goodness of others.” 
Only one thing can make Green flinch in his audacious confidence. Being teased as a pompous blowhard by the entirely peaceable Tim Blair. Suddenly Green wonders if his life is in danger and alerts Blair’s employer. 
Today another of Green losing his cool not with terrorists who slaughter even children but with journalists who poke fun at this ABC sage. From the  Australian’s Cut & Paste::
The ABC’s Jonathan Green tweets a character reference to our good selves: 
Good on @australian cut and paste: home of the snarky lie and ­shitty half truth.
Why, oh why? Here it is again (after all, Green retweeted it, too): 
Our best defence is our cultured reason. Our tolerance. Our audacious confidence in the goodness of others. Why do they hate this idea so?
What happened to that culture reason? That tolerance? 
===

Three more dead in war on police

Andrew Bolt July 18 2016 (9:53am)

We don’t know the motive yet, but the demonisation of police must surely now end:
A gunman killed three police officers and wounded three others in Louisiana’s capital on Sunday, just days after the fatal shooting of a black man there sparked nationwide protests, one of which led to the massacre of five Dallas policemen. 
The officers in Baton Rouge were responding to a call of a man carrying a gun when shots were fired at around 9 a.m. local time (10.00 a.m. ET). Two Baton Rouge police officers and one sheriff’s deputy were killed.
The gunman was killed in a shootout with police a short time after he opened fire on the first group of officers, Colonel Mike Edmonson, superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, said in a press conference. The suspect was believed to have acted alone.
UPDATE
Unconfirmed reports suggest the police were more victims of black racists:
Police have not yet confirmed the identity of the gunman but US media outlets have reported the attack was carried out by Gavin Eugene Long, from Kansas City, Missouri, on his 29th birthday. 
An unnamed official told the Los Angeles Times that Long was a “black separatist”.
UPDATE
This racism is the deadliest in America:
Baton Rouge Police announced last week that they had arrested multiple people involved in a burglary of a pawn shop tied to a threat against police officers, The Advocate reports. 
Four burglars broke into a pawn shop and stole eight handguns, police said. One suspect told police they were looking for bullets to kill officers, police said.
UPDATE
 Yes, another black racist:
Videos on Long’s account show that he was a former Nation of Islam member. He also ranted against “crackers” and made references to Alton Sterling, the black man killed by police in Baton Rouge on July 5.
===

Turkey: Islamists may now rule

Andrew Bolt July 18 2016 (9:46am)

The failure of the putsch could encourage something worse:
With a roar, hundreds of men shouting “Allahu Akbar!” poured into the centre of [Istanbul’s] Taksim Square… 
It was 2am Saturday and the military coup against Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was already falling apart....
The mob, like others in cities across Turkey, had responded to a call by the President to take to the streets to defeat a faction in the armed forces that had announced ... it had seized power.
Then the backlash began. The Turkish government detained 2839 military personnel suspected of involvement in the coup and ­removed 2745 judges from duty… The government announced plans to reinstate the death penalty for the plotters…
“This uprising is a gift from God to us because this will be a reason to cleanse our army,” the President said. “The putschists have no rank any more. They are all traitors."…
Mosques, loyal to Erdogan’s ­Islamist Justice and Development Party, repeated the call to prayer throughout the night to ­encourage people to go onto the streets and reclaim their country… Soldiers supporting the coup were lynched by ­raging pro-government mobs. Local media reported that one stationed on an Istanbul bridge had died after his throat was cut…
For Erdogan, however, there was only one true enemy — his former ally Fethullah Gulen, a shady Islamist cleric who lives in exile in Pennsylvania, America…
“Whichever country supports him isn’t a friend of ­Turkey,” Erdogan said, directing his comments at America… “It is practically at war with Turkey.”.. [Erdogan’s] supporters, many of whom are deeply religious with Islamist inclinations, despise the secular military, which they believe has long supported the oppres­sion of religious freedom in the name of preserving Ataturk’s ­legacy.
===

How could Julie Bishop consider Rudd for even a second?

Andrew Bolt July 18 2016 (9:38am)

Will Julie Bishop choose self-interest about national interest?
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has asked the government to nominate him for the position of United Nations secretary-general… 
Ms Bishop told Sky News she will put the matter to cabinet. ‘Kevin Rudd has requested that the Australian government nominate him, and as the prime minister has indicated on a number of occasions that will be a matter for the cabinet,’ she said.
Rudd should have been privately warned already not to ask and risk embarrassment.
Here is why Bishop and Malcolm Turnbull should not entertain the request for second:
First:
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? 
Second:
How could a true Liberal Government even consider such a thing? The Liberals know what a disaster Kevin Rudd was as Prime Minister. They - and Labor MPs - know the deep personality flaws that made Rudd an appalling and dysfunctional Prime Minister. 
The Liberals should also know that Rudd’s political philosophy, such as it is, is at deep odds with their own. He is instinctively a Big Government authoritarian, eager to spend grandly and surrender some of our national decision-making to the United Nations and the Davos-class international elites. Naturally, he embraced the global warming catastrophism that licensed exactly that. Similarly, the global financial crisis encouraged him to unleash his inner socialist in an extraordinary essay in which he declared that “not for the first time in history, the international challenge for social democrats is to save capitalism from itself: to recognise the great strengths of open, competitive markets while rejecting the extreme capitalism and unrestrained greed that have perverted so much of the global financial system in recent times”. His fundamental misdiagnosis of that crisis, actually triggered by overregulation, prompted him to unleash a massive spending spree that left Australia with a crippling debt which now could now lose us our AAA credit rating.
And, of course, Rudd, so eager for the approval of those elites and so little concerned with national autonomy, surrendered our refugee program to people smugglers and international human rights lawyers, disastrously opening the gates to 50,000 illegal immigrants.
How on earth could a Liberal Government support a man with such a record, such a character and such a philosophy?  
===

Did Turnbull buy this election with $2 million of his own cash?

Andrew Bolt July 18 2016 (8:44am)

It seems Turnbull dug in deep to save himself when Liberal donors went on strike against him. Pamela Williams:
The Australian revealed last week that he had made a massive $1m donation. But, even this underestimated Turnbull’s largesse, which ran, by the end, to well over $2m… 
At Labor headquarters, direct­or George Wright’s war machine was astonished towards the later part of the campaign to see a sudden spray of expensive Coalition advertising.
Labor admen speculated that the Liberals were sometimes spending $1m a night. “Why don’t you ask Turnbull if he’s put his hand in his own pocket,” Wright told one journalist… In the end, Turnbull won: by a nose, by a small majority, by the skin of his teeth — and with a 3.27 per cent two-party-preferred swing to Labor. Thirteen seats were lost. It was not the grand procession back to power that Turnbull had lusted for.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Turnbull surely can’t want to repeat his mistakes

Andrew Bolt July 18 2016 (8:41am)

What sense does it make for Malcolm Turnbull to dodge blame? Does he really want to repeat his mistakes?:
Turnbull is being warned against any “blame shifting” over his election strategy when he faces Coalition MPs today, as he prepares for a test of his authority by holding out an olive branch on superannuation tax hikes… 
Former Liberal Party president Shane Stone slammed the “whispering campaigns” over the poor election result and the attempt to blame party officials, declaring that Mr Turnbull had to recognise mistakes and deal with them quickly…
“Let’s be clear. A campaign involves a collective — parliamentary leadership team — that would be Malcolm Turnbull, Julie Bishop and George Brandis, and the director informed by his key lieutenants and the pollster."…
Mr Stone, the former Northern Territory chief minister ... squarely blamed the proposed changes to super for limiting donations and fuelling a backlash from Liberal supporters…
MPs and State officials claim the advice they received on polling advice in marginal seats was not accurate and the advertising campaign lacked “attack ads"… Mr Stone urged the Parliamentary leadership to take responsibility for election campaign and said laying the blame on [Liberal Party federal director Party Tony] Nutt or [pollster Mark] Textor would create distrust and dysfunction when the Government needed to be united.
UPDATE
This dud campaign had Malcolm Turnbull’s fingers all over it, says Pamela Williams:
State divisions of the party ... could get no detail on individual seat polling from [Liberal director Tony] Nutt.... 
Each morning at 7.30, state ­directors conducted a phone hook-up with Nutt and deputy ­director John Burston… Nutt did not seem interested in anyone else’s opinions, they reported… They wanted to know about the polling but could get nowhere…
Tempers simmered for weeks until some state presidents sought a meeting with federal president Richard Alston ...  on Friday, June 24… “Where were the negative ads, the attacks on Shorten?” they wanted to know. “Why hadn’t they bashed Labor’s head in over Medicare?…
Finding donations was an uphill battle. Textor was known to be complaining that there was not enough money to run advertising in sensitive areas. Some donors, who might have given $500,000 in the past, gave $50,000. Some people who attended one major fundraising dinner never paid up at all. Some promised $25,000 and gave $5000…
Some old hands had other gripes — complaining about the coterie of MPs who gathered around Turnbull, including Scott Ryan and James McGrath: players in the Turnbull siege of Tony Abbott. Did they create a siege mentality in the campaign, too, that pandered to a cult of secrecy?…
In February and March, Turnbull had appeared to be in serious trouble in the public opinion polls. It had not deterred him from thinking about a double dissolution. Confusion over economic strategy — with a GST on, then off, revamped federal-state relations on, then off — added to the malaise ...
There was no biting strategy to frame Shorten as a unionist, and moreover as a unionist who had been targeted in a royal commission… The superannuation “breach of trust” issue roiled large numbers of electorates — but with no active campaign to quarantine or rebut it by either Scott Morrison or Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer…
Two days before the election ... Turnbull was tense. Seated in the forward cabin of his plane for a quick flight from Canberra to Sydney, Nutt’s warning that the election was too close to call was on his mind… As he pondered the odds, Turnbull said he had not identified any particular dips or troughs or turning points in the campaign. And he had not focused his mind on Shorten. “No, I stay in my own zone,” he said…Some would call for the blood of the pollster, others would call for the head of Nutt. But it was Turnbull’s campaign and it was his responsibility.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

But it’s the Left that brings the worst violence

Andrew Bolt July 18 2015 (12:48pm)

Neither side is attractive, but for all the media hype about the nasty Right it is in fact the Left that once again brings the violence - and are not held to account for it by Left-wing journalists:
Police have deployed capsicum spray and the horse squad, as well as hundreds of uniformed officers, in a bid to control an increasingly violent protest near Parliament House. 
Right-wing group Reclaim Australia, which has attracted only about 50 protesters, had only just began its rally when counter-demonstrators from anti-racism groups and anarchists attempted to breach police lines on Spring Street.
The police reaction came after a small number of hooded and masked anti-racism protests broke through police lines and nearly reached screaming members of Reclaim… Sue Munroe, a member of the Socialist Party, said she was attempting to hold back jostling protesters from police, but received a full blast of
spray.  
===

Bishop must explain chopper bill or resign

Andrew Bolt July 18 2015 (4:44am)

BRONWYN Bishop must resign — or prove she didn’t try to cheat taxpayers by charging them $5000 for her notorious helicopter jaunt.
What employee would go unpunished for apparently trying to diddle their boss of that kind of money?
So why set a different standard for the Speaker, someone meant to uphold the standards of our Parliament?
(Read full article here.) 
===

On The Bolt Report tomorrow, July 19

Andrew Bolt July 18 2015 (2:20am)

On Channel 10 tomorrow at 10am and 3pm:
Editorial:  Labor’s latest carbon lie
My guest: Treasurer Joe Hockey
The panel: former Treasurer Peter Costello and former NSW Labor Treasurer Michael Costa

NewsWatch: Nick Cater,  The Australian columnist and head of the Menzies Research Centre.

So much to talk about: Bronwyn Bishop’s dodgy expenses, Greens Senator helps ferry in illegal immigrants, what price real tax reform, Q&A’s latest disgraceful stunt and more.
The videos of the shows appear here.
===

Obama unshackles a nuclear Iran

Andrew Bolt July 18 2015 (2:10am)

Greg Sheridan on Iran’s triumph over the US:
In my view, the [nuclear] deal represents complete strategic capitulation by Obama to a steadfast and ruthless administration in Tehran… 
At first, US policy was that Iran must not have a nuclear program and it would impose sanctions that it would trade away for Iran abandoning its nuclear program.
Then Washington’s position was that Iran could have nuclear reactors but not a uranium enrichment capacity.
Now, the US position is that Iran is entitled to master the entire nuclear fuel cycle in all its aspects and to sustain a large and growing nuclear capacity, and that within a few short years every single notional restriction should be lifted, except that Iran promise not to acquire nuclear weapons…
Western analysts optimistic about this deal are creating a make-believe Iran in their heads. For a start, the Iranian regime is the first since Adolf Hitler’s to have official anti-Semitism as a core part of its governing ideology…
As recently as a few weeks ago, one of Iran’s most senior military commanders, in making it clear that any deal with the US would not moderate Tehran’s political and regional behaviour, declared that the right to wipe Israel off the map was non-negotiable… None of this is even to scratch the surface of Iran’s continued illegal importation of dual-use technology, its role in killing American soldiers in Iraq, the testimony by American military leaders that the new wealth Iran will receive from sanctions relief will be used to finance more international terrorism, its support for Muslim Brotherhood Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah, still defined as a terrorist group in Australian law, in Lebanon, or extremists in Yemen.
Charles Krauthammer:
When you write a column, as did I two weeks ago, headlined “The worst agreement in U.S. diplomatic history,” you don’t expect to revisit the issue. We had hit bottom. Or so I thought. 
Then on Tuesday the final terms of the Iranian nuclear deal were published…
Who would have imagined we would be giving up the conventional arms and ballistic missile embargoes on Iran? In nuclear negotiations?… Because Iran, joined by Russia — our “reset” partner — sprung the demand at the last minute, calculating that Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were so desperate for a deal that they would cave. They did…
The net effect of this capitulation will be not only to endanger our Middle East allies now under threat from Iran and its proxies, but also to endanger our own naval forces in the Persian Gulf… The other major shock in the final deal is what happened to our insistence on “anytime, anywhere” inspections. Under the final agreement, Iran has the right to deny international inspectors access to any undeclared nuclear site. The ... approval process can take 24 days. And what do you think will be left to be found, left unscrubbed, after 24 days? The whole process is farcical.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Labor Left’s “ethical” plan to recognise terrorists and enemies of democracy

Andrew Bolt July 18 2015 (1:29am)

Labor Left MP Maria Vamvakinou says it would be ethical to recognise the Palestinian state:
As a member of the federal Labor caucus and co-convener of the Australian Parliamentary Friends of Palestine, I urge my ALP colleagues and conference delegates to support calls for Labor in government to recognise Palestinian statehood… 
There are compelling ethical, political, security and community reasons why the ALP should recognise the Palestinian state. It ticks all the boxes for the ALP in forging a responsible, intelligent, pragmatic, engaging, ethically bound policy that serves our community and national interests, while advancing the cause of peace and security in one of the world’s most dangerous and volatile regions.
But hang on. What is ethical about recognising a “state” whose president has refused to hold elections for seven years?:
The more time passes by, the more forcefully the question of the succession of President Mahmoud Abbas is raised. This is because the president is over 80 years old and his legal term in office ended about seven years ago. But still no elections have been held; nor does anyone know when and how they are likely to be held.
What is “ethical” and good for “the cause of peace and security” about recognising a “state” that has nearly half the population under the control of a Jew-hating terrorist administration like Hamas?:
Hamas’s charter declares armed jihad the only appropriate means to liberate Palestine, and another conflict at some point seems inevitable… 
In 2006, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his ruling Fatah party were trounced by Hamas in Palestinian elections, with Gaza serving as the Islamist movement’s power base. But local Fatah cadres refused to honor the results of the election and a brief civil war broke out, ending in Fatah’s defeat and expulsion from Gaza in 2007. In the West Bank, Fatah has continued to rule and the Palestinians haven’t held an election since.
In 2006, Hamas was wildly popular because of Gazan anger at the corruption and thuggery of the Fatah government. But in the years since, the love affair has waned, with Hamas thuggery of its own and a series of conflicts with Israel making life even harder than normal in the isolated coastal enclave…
Israeli officers say that while they could dislodge Hamas by force, the result would be a chaotic environment in which local jihadis, some inspired by the Islamic State, would vie for control…
Israel and Hamas now share a common enemy: Salafi Muslims, who share the ideology of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, who want to dislodge Hamas and supplant it with an Islamist Caliphate spanning the Middle East.
Labor’s Left is mad to think this warring band of thugs and terrorists, allergic to democracy, is ready for statehood and that giving them this recognition is a key to peace in the Middle East.
What planet is Vamvakinou on? 
===

They don’t really hate us. They just want to kill us

Andrew Bolt July 17 2015 (11:21pm)

You can understand why Dr Anne Aly is the ABC’s go-to person on terrorism. Apparently the best way to fight the Islamic State is not to admit they hate us, and to choose our language more carefully so we don’t “limit” our options:
Astonishing. I’m guessing Aly’s view is that if we pretend they don’t hate us we won’t have to fight them.  I’m now wondering how she thinks Jews should have talked of Hitler.
In fact, rather than say the Islamic State hates us, we should admit the niceness of it:
“And I think we have to get our heads round the fact that there might be something nice about ISIS that these people are attracted to.” Not that Aly thinks Islamic State is nice. “I am completely, completely opposed to it on theological grounds, on social grounds — it’s personal,” she adds, with sudden fierceness. 
Oh, and while waffling is this frightfully post-modernist way, be sure to attack non-Muslims instead:
Violent extremism in Australia is beginning to mirror that of the US, counter-terrorism expert Anne Aly from Curtin University said. 
She highlighted a New America Foundation study released last month that found right-wing extremists had killed twice as many people since September 11 as jihadists. “Violent extremism isn’t just a Muslim problem in Australia,” she said. “The numbers are staggering and growing in right-wing extremism.”
===

HE’S NO REAGAN

Tim Blair – Friday, July 18, 2014 (3:41pm)

Two presidents, two downed jets, two very different reactions.
===

HISTORY IN HEADLINES: THE CARBON TAX

Tim Blair – Friday, July 18, 2014 (5:02am)

PM says no carbon tax under her govt 
Julia Gillard unveils her plans for carbon tax 
Abbott won’t repeal carbon tax: Gillard 
Carbon tax is gone: Repeal bills pass the Senate 
UPDATE. A feast of sadface Twitter reactions: 
• Today is the saddest day for Earth.
• My poor stupid country has no climate change policy.
• Abbott’s monstrously stupid decision will be incredibly hard to rectify and will be a huge burden for decades.
• A sad day.
• They even clapped. A shameful victory for old white men over the future. Note their names. History will damn them.
• What a joke.
• Australia, one of the world’s biggest polluters, becomes the 1st country to ban carbon tax.
• Tony Abbott versus the future.
• Australia has just gone back 50 years in time.
• Well once again Australia, hope you’re proud. You absolute morons.
• So much for being the clever country
• Ashamed of my country right now.
• World should heavily condemn this aggressive selfish action.
• Humanity is now one step closer to defeating the Earth.
• God forbid we ever place any importance on the environment over money.
• I’m weeping on the inside about it.
• No jobs on a dead planet.
• Can’t even deal with today’s complete & catastrophic failure of the political system.
• If you strike the carbon tax down, it shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. 
Looking forward to that.
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BURN THAT MOTHER DOWN

Tim Blair – Friday, July 18, 2014 (4:27am)

Crappy green energy delivers more burn than turn: 
Wind turbines may catch on fire ten times more often than is publicly reported, putting nearby properties at risk and casting doubt on their green credentials, researchers have warned.
The renewable energy industry keeps no record of the number of turbine fires, meaning the true extent of the problem is unknown, a study backed by Imperial College London finds on Thursday.

An average of 11.7 such fires are reported globally each year, by media, campaign groups and other publicly-available sources, but this is likely to represent just the “tip of the iceberg” …
Turbines are prone to catching on fire because their design puts highly flammable materials such as hydraulic oil and plastic in close proximity to machinery and electrical wires, which can ignite a fire if they overheat or are faulty. 
They also kill people.
(Via A. R. M. Jones)
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SPAM SPAMMED

Tim Blair – Friday, July 18, 2014 (3:52am)

Believe it or not, this late entry to last month’s old food contest was held up in my spam file:
 Continue reading 'SPAM SPAMMED'
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CARBON TREATS

Tim Blair – Friday, July 18, 2014 (3:36am)

Enhance tonight’s carbon tax repeal celebrations – mine will be held on Sky TV at 9pm with Chris Kenny – by preparing a batch of Chocolate Coal Crackles, recommended by none other than Hector the coal mascot himself:

(Via fellow Hector fan PWAF) 
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DOT COM DOWAGER

Tim Blair – Friday, July 18, 2014 (2:35am)

Great call from Iowahawk: 
Salon is the Margaret Dumont of the internet. 
It sure is. Here’s dear old Margaret battling Harpo and Chico Marx, much as Salon attempts to combat the likes of our Chicago pal:

UPDATE. Salon will not be mocked. Much like a certain president.
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JET SHOT DOWN: REPORT

Tim Blair – Friday, July 18, 2014 (2:19am)

Four months after Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 vanished, Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 has reportedly been shot down by a surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine. Nearly 300 people were onboard. Here’s an AFP report.
UPDATE. Further from the Telegraph and the NY Times.
UPDATE II. 27 Australians among the dead. Vladimir Putin blames Ukraine. Ukrainian embassy blames Putin. Prime Minister Tony Abbott: 
This looks less like an accident than a crime. And if so the perpetrators must be brought to justice. 
From Barack Obama … not much at all, really
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Abbott lashes Russia

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (8:29pm)

Very tough talk from Tony Abbott - but not one word too many:
TONY Abbott has lashed Russia’s response to the downing of the Malaysia Airlines jet, as he demanded Moscow not stand in the way of a full investigation, or protect those responsible… 
Russian Ambassador Vladimir Morozov was today summoned for a meeting in Sydney with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who sought assurances of Moscow’s cooperation in the disaster investigation.
Mr Abbott said the ambassador’s initial response was to blame Ukraine, where the jet came down.

“This was deeply, deeply, unsatisfactory,” said Mr Abbott, who said he was angry that it appeared the jet was shot down and Australians killed by Russian-backed rebels with what could turn out to be Russian-supplied missiles.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has also said Ukraine must bear responsibility.
But Mr Abbott said the idea that Russia could claim it had nothing to do with the disaster because it happened in Ukraine’s air space did not stand up to scrutiny.
The Prime Minister said Russia must not be allowed to stand in the way of an “absolutely comprehensive” investigation.
“No prevarication, no excuses, no blame-shifting, no protecting of people who may be backed by Russia but who may have been involved in this terrible event,” he said.
“It was not an accident, it was a crime, and criminals should not be allowed to get away with what they have done,” Mr Abbott said.
“It did not crash, it was downed. And it was downed over territory controlled by Russian-backed rebels,” Mr Abbott said. “It was downed by a missile which seems to have been launched by Russian-backed rebels, and again I want to stress that Australia takes a very dim view of countries which are facilitating the killing of Australian citizens.” 
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The Bolt Report on Sunday, July 20

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (8:22pm)

On Sunday on Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm…
Editorial: Australian blood on Putin’s hands
My guest:  Foreign Minister Julie Bishop
The panel: Michael Kroger and former Labor Minister Craig Emerson
NewsWatch:  The Daily Telegraph’s Tom Blair, master blogger. On how the press gallery warned the Liberals that fighting a carbon tax was suicide.
Plus the dreaded Bolt Question.
The videos of the shows appear here.
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Abbott demands Russia come clean on downed plane

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (11:03am)

Tony Abbott tells Parliament the Malaysia Airlines MH17 was shot down “it seems by Russian-backed rebels” and at least 27 Australians are dead.
“This looks less like an accident than a crime and if so the perpetrators must be brought to justice.”
He wants a UN resolution for a full investigation with full access to the site and officials. The Russian ambassador will be summonsed to give an assurance that Russia will fully cooperate.
The “bullying of small countries by big ones” should have no place in this world. 
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Shorten won’t learn Gillard’s lesson

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (9:51am)

The Herald Sun gets it said:
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Palmer beckons, Wong jumps

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (9:03am)

Wong exposed:
IT is, as they say, all in the timing. Take, for example, the start of Senate question time [on Wednesday], which Penny Wong got under way by taunting Mathias Cormann over alleged deals with Clive Palmer over Future of Financial Advice reform. A short time later ... who should appear in the door but Palmer, who beckoned to Wong, who made for the door with some haste to spend some time outside with Palmer. The accidental cherry on the cake was Bill Shorten’s observation earlier in the day: “All of a sudden the government’s running around like Mr Palmer’s butler trying to keep him happy.”
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Australia’s second suicide bomber strikes

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (8:39am)

A second Australian suicide bomber has reportedly struck - but not yet on Australian soil:
The first Australian suicide bomber in Iraq reportedly killed three people in the heart of Baghdad on Thursday… 
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) announced on an affiliated Twitter feed overnight that a man called Abu Bakr al-Australi had detonated an explosives vest near a Shiite mosque in a market near the middle of the Iraqi capital. More than 90 people were also injured in the blast.
ISIL did not give the man’s real name, but most Australian jihadists use “al-Australi” in their nom de guerre, and such official reports by ISIL are usually accurate…
Notorious Sydney jihadist Mohamed Elomar welcomed the news on his own Twitter account, writing “may Allah accept him"…
In September, a man believed to be Australian, going by the name Abu Asma al Australi, blew himself up in an attack on an army checkpoint in north-eastern Syria… 
(Thanks to reader the evil right.) 
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Malaysia airlines jet shot down. UPDATE: 27 Australians dead. Russia’s responsibility?

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (8:28am)

 Four months after the loss of its MH370, Malaysia Airlines loses another plane to what seems a terrorist attack:
A MALAYSIA Airlines plane carrying 295 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur has crashed in rebel-held east Ukraine in what has been called a “terrorist” attack… 
Ukraine’s government and pro-Russian insurgents traded blame for the disaster, with comments attributed to a rebel commander suggesting his men may have downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by mistake, believing it was a Ukrainian army transport plane.
There was no sign of survivors at the crash site near the rebel-held town of Shaktarsk in the Donetsk region, where an AFP reporter saw dozens of severely mutilated corpses strewn through the smouldering wreck of the decimated airliner… The official spokesman for President Petro Poroshenko said he believed pro-Russian insurgents downed the jet and said the “incident is not a catastrophe. It is a terrorist act”.. 
A tragedy for the families, the possible end of Malaysia Airlines and a setback to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has inspired the pro-Russian separatist movement. Putin will come under enormous pressure over this.
UPDATE
Malaysia Airlines says 27 Australian passengers were on board. Also 154 Dutch. DFAT has a hotline for Australians seeking further information: 1300 555 135.

UPDATE
If the plane was shot down by the rebels, who gave them the missile? The separatists have already shot down two Ukrainian military aircraft.

UPDATE
Prime Minister Tony Abbott says at least 23 Australians were on board. He says it’s a “fair point” to suggest that a missile hitting a plane at 10,000 metres - if fired by separatists - could only have been supplied by Russia, but says we should not “leap to conclusions” about who is responsible.
“There is some evidence this aircraft was brought down by a surface to air missile” which - if true - would make this “an unspeakable crime”.
UPDATE
 Evidence grows that the pro-Russian separatists are indeed responsible - and Russia is involved:
Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was allegedly shot down by a group of Russian-backed Cossack militants near the village of Chornukhine, Luhansk Oblast, some 80 kilometers north-west of Donetsk, according to recordings of intercepted phone calls between Russian military intelligence officers and members of terrorist groups, released by the country’s security agency (SBU). 
One phone call apparently was made at 4:40 p.m. Kyiv time, or 20 minutes after the plane crash, by Igor Bezler, who the SBU says is a Russian military intelligence officer and leading commander of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. He reports to a person identified by Ukraine’s SBU as a colonel in the main intelligence department of the general headquarters of the armed forces of the Russian Federation Vasili Geranin regarding the shot down plane, which is about to be examined by the militants.
The second intercepted conversation released by the Security Service of Ukraine was apparently between militants nicknamed “Major” and “Greek” immediately upon inspection of the crash site.
“It’s 100 percent a passenger (civilian) aircraft,” Major is recorded as saying, as he admitted to seeing no weapons on site. “Absolutely nothing. Civilian items, medicinal stuff, towels, toilet paper.”
In the third part of conversation Cossack commander Nikolay Kozitsin talking to an unidentified militant cynically suggests that the Malaysia Airlines airplane could’ve been carrying spies, as, otherwise, it would have no business flying in that area. 
Read the full transcript of an intercepted phone call below: 
Igor Bezler: We have just shot down a plane. Group Minera. It fell down beyond Yenakievo (Donetsk Oblast). 
Vasili Geranin: Pilots. Where are the pilots? 
IB: Gone to search for and photograph the plane. Its smoking. 
VG: How many minutes ago? 
IB: About 30 minutes ago.
SBU comment: After examining the site of the plane the terrorists come to the conclusion that they have shot down a civilian plane. The next part of the conversation took place about 40 minutes later.
“Major”: These are Chernukhin folks who shot down the plane. From the Chernukhin check point. Those cossacks who are based in Chernukhino. 
“Grek”: Yes, Major. 
“Major”: The plane fell apart in the air. In the area of Petropavlovskaya mine. The first “200” (code word for dead person). We have found the first “200”. A Civilian. 
“Greek”: Well, what do you have there? 
“Major”: In short, it was 100 percent a passenger (civilian) aircraft. 
“Greek”: Are many people there? 
“Major”: Holy sh__t! The debris fell right into the yards (of homes).
“Greek”: What kind of aircraft? 
“Major”: I haven’t ascertained this. I haven’t been to the main sight. I am only surveying the scene where the first bodies fell. There are the remains of internal brackets, seats and bodies. 
“Greek”: Is there anything left of the weapon? 
“Major”: Absolutely nothing. Civilian items, medicinal stuff, towels, toilet paper. 
“Greek”: Are there documents? 
“Major”: Yes, of one Indonesian student. From a university in Thompson. 
Militant: Regarding the plane shot down in the area of Snizhne-Torez. It’s a civilian one. Fell down near Grabove. There are lots of corpses of women and children. The Cossacks are out there looking at all this. They say on TV it’s AN-26 transport plane, but they say it’s written Malaysia Airlines on the plane. What was it doing on Ukraine’s territory? 
Nikolay Kozitsin: That means they were carrying spies. They shouldn’t be f…cking flying. There is a war going on.
UPDATE
The weakest president in living memory:
President Barack Obama provoked fury in the U.S. on Thursday by casually devoting less than a minute to the deaths of 295 people aboard a Malaysian airliner, as he began an often jokey 16-minute speech about the need to expand America’s transportation infrastructure. 
Twenty-three Americans are feared dead after the jetliner crashed in eastern Ukraine, although that number has not been confirmed. 
UPDATE
Disgusting evasion:
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine “bears responsibility” for the crash because the plane was brought down in the country. 
“This tragedy would not have happened, if there had been peace on that land, or in any case if military operations in southeastern Ukraine had not been renewed,” Putin said in televised comments, according to Reuters.
The plane is believed to have been shot down by a Buk missile launcher. Ask yourself: how did separatists get their hands on something so sophisticated? Who gave it to them? Who operated it?
But Russian news outlets say Ukraine had Buk launchers and moved some to near Donetsk a day earlier. 
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Tantrum on twitter: carbon toy removed from warmists

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (8:14am)

Rita Panahi is enjoying the outrage:
The full blown unhinging on Twitter today was a sight to behold; the lunatic Left gave up any pretence of intelligent discourse and resorted to shameful scaremongering and deranged sermonising… 
Add this:
A wailing and a gnashing of teeth:
UPDATE
A retrospective: six years of climate madness. 
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Idiotic: Senate scraps the tax, still spends the money

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (7:31am)

How stupidly reckless is a Senate which insists on keeping spending while scrapping the taxes to pay for it? What fantasy land do these characters live in?
The Senate last night passed the repeal of the mining tax but only after amending the bills to retain spending programs costing billions of dollars. 
The Australian has confirmed that the government will refuse to accept the amended bills today, sending them back to the Senate…

The approach could heighten pressure from the industry on the Palmer United Party to support the repeal without insisting on any amendments.
Labor promised several spending programs from when it announced the first resource super-profits tax four years ago and later announced further ideas to be funded by the minerals resource rent tax unveiled in July 2010. The spending includes about $1.3bn a year on the Schoolkids Bonus and about $1bn a year for the low-income superannuation contribution, which gives workers a rebate on their super taxes if they earn less than $37,000 a year. Other spending measures include the Income Support Bonus that costs about $300 million a year and a tax write-off on company assets that costs about $900m a year.
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Israel sends army into Gaza

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (7:13am)

Israel goes in:
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday night directed the IDF to send ground troops into Gaza to strike the terror tunnels into Israel. 
A statement put out by the Prime Minister’s Office said ... the security cabinet approved the operation after Israel agreed to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal on Tuesday, which Hamas rejected. In addition, the statement said, Hamas even fired rockets during the Thursday’s five-hour humanitarian cease-fire…
The ground invasion comes hours after a Hamas assault squad of thirteen highly armed terrorists attempted to carry out a massacre of civilians at Kibbutz Sufa, near the border, before being blocked by the IDF.
Infantry, Armored Corps, Engineering Corps, artillery, and intelligence units are ...  operating in northern, central, and southern Gaza, where Hamas has dug an extensive terrorist tunnel network…
Hamas bombarded Israel on Thursday with rockets after the end of the humanitarian truce, firing over 100 projectiles after 3 p.m.... The IDF on Thursday warned citizens of Gaza to evacuate their homes and make their way from less populated areas to the Strip’s major cities. Close to 100,000 leaflets containing the message were dropped over the territory and hundreds of thousands of citizens from all over Gaza received recorded phone messages warning them to vacate villages.  
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The story of the carbon tax, in headlines

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (6:44am)

10 Aug 2010:
PM says no carbon tax under her govt
10 Jul 2011
Julia Gillard unveils her plans for carbon tax
10 Jun 2012
Abbott won’t repeal carbon tax: Gillard
17 Jul 2014
Carbon tax is gone: Repeal bills pass the Senate 
(Thanks to reader Alan RM Jones.) 
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Pastor Rick Warren
Racism is stupid. It’s an insult to God, arrogantly implying that God goofed-up when he chose to make us all different.
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Pastor Rick Warren
My article on "True leadership is based on character, not
charisma"

Are you getting my free Ministry Toolbox?
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Pastor Rick Warren
Dear friends, I'd appreciate your prayers for my family tomorrow. Matthew would'd been 28 on July 18. It'll be a hard day.
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Allyson Christy.
A tremendous sense of confidence that the PLO entertains in assuming the upper-hand and playing the propaganda card; a gambled statement and openly waged, that again, dares to assume a directive, American spurn, and as thus, one that is meant to encourage a certain isolation under a perceived socio-political trend.

This is tiresome and cannot continue.

It is my hope that the US Congress snubs a rising inclination and popularised attempt of continued inroads at delegitimisation agendas.

Playing the 'settlement cards' is merely a ploy, that, as a prominent global Left, Islamists, Arab diversionary tacticians and anti-Semites et al, have quite determined, is a means at furthering a demonisation effort on a broad, socio-economic-political and altogether, comprehensive scale. And, power in wielding these objectives lies foremost, amidst the balance of ignorance.

Judea and Samaria, are as much, the land of Israel.

There should be no question, and so-called 'settlers' are coined as such, due to grotesque and purposed, ingrained lies, flourished amidst decades of permitted revisions of history and indoctrinated, falsifying propaganda. Shortly stated, they are bases rooted with familiar hatred.

The creation of modern Arab state(S) and one modern Jewish state after the Ottoman breakup. It should be that simple, and present day statistics include 22 Arab states and still, only one Jewish state?

What the hell?
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Pastor Troy D. Bohn
Seems like all I could see was the struggle
Haunted by ghosts that lived in my past
Bound up in shackles of all my failures
Wondering how long is this gonna last
Then You look at this prisoner and say to me, "Son,
Stop fighting a fight it's already been won"

I am redeemed, You set me free
So I'll shake off these heavy chains
Wipe away every stain, now I'm not who I used to be
I am redeemed, I'm redeemed

All my life I have been called unworthy
Named by the voice of my shame and regret
But when I hear You whisper, "Child lift up your head"
I remember, oh God, You're not done with me yet

I am redeemed, You set me free
So I'll shake off these heavy chains
Wipe away every stain, now I'm not who I used to be

Because I don't have to be the old man inside of me
'Cause his day is long dead and gone
Because I've got a new name, a new life, I'm not the same
And a hope that will carry me home

I am redeemed, You set me free
So I'll shake off these heavy chains
Wipe away every stain, 'cause I'm not who I used to be

I am redeemed, You set me free
So I'll shake off these heavy chains
Wipe away every stain, yeah, I'm not who I used to be
Oh, God, I'm not who I used to be
Jesus, I'm not who I used to be
'Cause I am redeemed
Thank God, redeemed
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Holly Sarah Nguyen
This was a few year back when I used to run my clothing store, I caught a guy stealing in my shop, he looked like he was hanging out on drugs, so instead of calling the cops I just said him that I’d prefer he'd never steal again. He saw the compassion in me and asked "why are you so nice, not like other shop owners"I told him to sit over the other side of the counter and shared to him how much Jesus loves him, he started weeping like he wanted to repent, so I led him into confession and so he repeated after me ~ Heavenly Father, you have loved us with an everlasting love, but we have gone our own way, and rejected your will for our lives. We are sorry for our sins and turn away from them. For the sake of your Son who died for us, forgive us, cleanse us, and change us. By your Holy Spirit, enable us to live for you, and to please you in every way through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen ~ After that he left the shop normal as if he wasn't even hanging anymore. Praise the Lord.
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Andreas Herrmann
Procrastinating or temporising vs delay. Doing something at the right time is best. Doing something early is preferable to late. - ed
Wie nennt man das, wenn man zwar erkennt, wo das Problem liegt, aber mit dem Lösen des Problems müsste man zugeben, vor Jahren Weichen falsch gestellt zu haben? - Man entschließt sich daher, lieber mit 1000 resultierenden Problemen umzugehen, und versucht, diese mit immensem Aufwand einigermaßen einzudämmen. Das macht so viel Arbeit, das schweißt alle Beteiligten so zusammen, dass zwar alle leiden müssen, aber man paradoxerweise im Ansehen sogar sozial aufsteigt. Das eigentliche Problem wird dabei zum Tabu und bleibt langfristig bestehen. Was ist das?

(Trans) Whatever you call it, though if you can detect where the problem lies, but with solving the problem would have to admit that he had made ​​incorrectly prior years the course? - The decision was, therefore, prefer to deal with resulting problems in 1000, and attempts to curb at enormous cost to some extent. This is so much work that welds together all stakeholders so that while all have to suffer, but you can even ascend socially paradoxically reputation. The real problem becomes the taboo and remains the long term. What's this?
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Billy Corgan
"Today" is a song by American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins, written by lead vocalist and guitarist Billy Corgan (pictured in 2010). "Today" was released in September 1993 as the second single from the band's second album andmajor label debut, Siamese Dream. The song, seemingly upbeat, contains dark lyrics. Corgan wrote it about a day when he had suicidal thoughts, exemplified by the reference to self-mutilation in the chorus. The contrast between the grim subject matter of the song and the soft instrumental part during the verses, coupled with use of irony in the lyrics, left many listeners unaware of the song's tale of depression and desperation. Although Corgan opted for "Cherub Rock", the lead single from the album, to be the opening track, "Today" and its follow-up "Disarm" are credited in AllMusic for popularizing the band and "sen[ding] [Siamese Dream] into the stratosphere". "Today" has been generally well received by critics, and in an article about the song in Blender it was described as having "achieved a remarkable status as one of the defining songs of its generation, perfectly mirroring the fractured alienation of American youth in the 1990s." (Full article...)
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July 18: Constitution Day in Uruguay (1830)
Nadia Comăneci on the balance beam (1977)
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“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” Romans 1:16 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God."
1 Thessalonians 1:4
Many persons want to know their election before they look to Christ, but they cannot learn it thus, it is only to be discovered by "looking unto Jesus." If you desire to ascertain your own election;--after the following manner, shall you assure your heart before God. Do you feel yourself to be a lost, guilty sinner? go straightway to the cross of Christ, and tell Jesus so, and tell him that you have read in the Bible, "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out." Tell him that he has said, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." Look to Jesus and believe on him, and you shall make proof of your election directly, for so surely as thou believest, thou art elect. If you will give yourself wholly up to Christ and trust him, then you are one of God's chosen ones; but if you stop and say, "I want to know first whether I am elect," you ask you know not what. Go to Jesus, be you never so guilty, just as you are. Leave all curious inquiry about election alone. Go straight to Christ and hide in his wounds, and you shall know your election. The assurance of the Holy Spirit shall be given to you, so that you shall be able to say, "I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him." Christ was at the everlasting council: he can tell you whether you were chosen or not; but you cannot find it out in any other way. Go and put your trust in him, and his answer will be--"I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." There will be no doubt about his having chosen you, when you have chosen him.
"Sons we are through God's election,
Who in Jesus Christ believe."

Evening


"Let not one of them escape."
1 Kings 18:40

When the prophet Elijah had received the answer to his prayer, and the fire from heaven had consumed the sacrifice in the presence of all the people, he called upon the assembled Israelites to take the priests of Baal, and sternly cried, "Let not one of them escape." He took them all down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. So must it be with our sins--they are all doomed, not one must be preserved. Our darling sin must die. Spare it not for its much crying. Strike, though it be as dear as an Isaac. Strike, for God struck at sin when it was laid upon his own Son. With stern unflinching purpose must you condemn to death that sin which was once the idol of your heart. Do you ask how you are to accomplish this? Jesus will be your power. You have grace to overcome sin given you in the covenant of grace; you have strength to win the victory in the crusade against inward lusts, because Christ Jesus has promised to be with you even unto the end. If you would triumph over darkness, set yourself in the presence of the Sun of Righteousness. There is no place so well adapted for the discovery of sin, and recovery from its power and guilt, as the immediate presence of God. Job never knew how to get rid of sin half so well as he did when his eye of faith rested upon God, and then he abhorred himself, and repented in dust and ashes. The fine gold of the Christian is oft becoming dim. We need the sacred fire to consume the dross. Let us fly to our God, he is a consuming fire; he will not consume our spirit, but our sins. Let the goodness of God excite us to a sacred jealousy, and to a holy revenge against those iniquities which are hateful in his sight. Go forth to battle with Amalek, in his strength, and utterly destroy the accursed crew: let not one of them escape.
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Today's reading: Psalm 18-19, Acts 20:17-38 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 18-19


For the director of music. Of David the servant of the LORD. He sang to the LORD the words of this song when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said:
1 I love you, LORD, my strength.
2 The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I called to the LORD, who is worthy of praise,
and I have been saved from my enemies.
4 The cords of death entangled me;
the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
5 The cords of the grave coiled around me;
the snares of death confronted me....

Today's New Testament reading: Acts 20:17-38

17 From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. 18 When they arrived, he said to them: "You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. 19 I served the Lord with great humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the plots of my Jewish opponents. 20 You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. 21 I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus....



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