Thursday, August 24, 2017

Thu Aug 24th Todays News

Some things should not happen, but they do. Jerry Lewis passed recently. Old and blessed. His stage life was one of the great careers in show business. He teamed up with Dean Martin for over a decade of hits, and went on to perform variety. Lewis hosted fund raising for Muscular Dystrophy for 44 years, raising over $2 billion US. He had Jewish ethnicity and spoke highly of conservatives, and so was fair game for criticism from the press. He had children, including two adopted, and was a devoted family man. He hadn't wanted to die. He wanted to live for his family. After an accident almost left him paralysed in the late '60's, Lewis became addicted to pain killers. He overcame that. He was predeceased by a son who overdosed on drugs. He was a comedic genius. The world was blessed by what he gave. 

Hillary Clinton is releasing a book about how she came to lose her bid for Presidency. It had been a joke that Bill looked at a gas station attendant and said "Look honey. If you married him, you would not have been the wife of a President." And she replied (in the joke) "If I'd have married him, he'd have become President." Hubris meant Hillary felt she should have been given the Presidency. Were Hillary to admit her weakness, maybe we could gain valuable insights. Instead, Hillary blames Trump for standing too close to her in debate. Video shows he didn't. It is just like when Hillary dodged sniper fire. The truth is, Hillary nailed her brief on two counts. She almost was elected President. She was so awful that she became someone Democrats could blame for the defeat. 

I am a decent man and don't care for 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 Worthy is the Lamb 

This video is for faith
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"Worthy Is the Lamb" 2001 Darlene Joyce Zschech for Hillsong. 
The song is sung at church I attend, Jesus Family Centre Cabramatta. I did two takes. The second was better, so I place it here first. 
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I was raised as an Atheist. I learned, after reading the Bible, that God loves me, and you. This is his song for you too. He loves you, and wants to be with you. 
All the elements are me and mine. ARIA ISRC number AUAWN1211123
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=== from 2016 === 
The abuse of NSW Premier Mike Baird is overstated criticism. So overstated that it is untrue. There are some who are grieved by the amendment to closing times of drinking establishments in the Cross. There are also some people who will lose out because of the shutting down of greyhound racing. But the viciousness of the campaigners is totally over the top. One younger brother of a one punch victim has suicided after the vicious campaigners targeted him. It is true no one is responsible for the choices of the suicide, but some have criminally overstepped the mark in campaigning for what they call their rights. People can still have a drink in Kings Cross. But the changes have meant that fewer are killed from drunken behaviour. Alcohol sales people can still work in regular hours. The greyhound racing industry in NSW was not managed appropriately. By closing it down, the corrupt elements who ruined it have been curtailed. Anyone who wants the industry back needs to explain how the crooks will be prevented from running it. Anyone who says it was not a problem might change their tune if their pets and children were tortured and killed. 
 
For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.  
=== from 2015 ===
Bolt forgets he lynched Bishop unconditionally to Burke. As a union leader, Shorten apparently had phantom members, who presumably did what he told them to do. Martin Ferguson admits that Unions have too much control of the ALP. Sadly too late as he no longer has a parliamentary seat. 

China may not be growing as much as the world would like, economically. Hockey is right to express need to cut taxes and spending. With an emphasis on cutting spending. Smaller government means better services. 

 Gang leader to exploit light sentence

Extreme left wing writer who has upset the left and is now facing market forces should be given a reprieve say some people he abused. 

Bolt lists examples of ABC partisan 'bias.'

AFL to be fined for abusing cheerleaders with a two fingered salute. He might have been treated differently if he had pretended to throw a spear instead.
From 2014
The federal government has everything against it, with a hostile senate and press willing to lie to deny legislation. And yet they are doing a great job despite it. They have almost completely stopped the inhumane people trade which killed and extorted desperate people while giving hope to terrorists around the world. The federal government of Mr Abbott would like to do more on border protection, but the senate won't let them and the media chortle with every death and inflate every perceived shortcoming. Earlier this week a judge lied from the bench about living arrangements and refused to correct the record when advised of the facts. And that judge is supposed to rule impartially on the issue. 

But the excellent governance is not merely border protection, federal police are becoming effective again, hospitals are more open to patients needs, schools are better directed to core curriculum. But you wouldn't know it from the reporting. Amazingly, the Opposition leader was accused of rape many years ago and the government did not crucify them over the issue, but allowed the courts to settle the issue (prosecutor decided there was no case to answer). Contrast that with how the hysterical media crucified Mr Abbott for winking on radio, or allegations that he punched a wall in his youth. Contrast that again with allegations Gillard had facilitated the theft of Union money and extortion from business when she was a partner of a law firm. And the media spoil the good work with false claims. The media are aware that federal government has little to do with schooling, and yet they lie about things the government is involved with. So that the meme is circulated saying the government has cut education just as more money is being spent. There is a compelling argument for reform of higher education, and yet the weasels of the media interview critics and rarely challenge their specious claims. A co-payment for medical service has been howled down. Possibly, the charge is intended as a bargaining chip to be disposed of. But it supports science research. Surely the ALP likes science research ... 

Reforms to nightlife have resulted in fewer violent episodes, fewer medical emergencies and, predictably, fewer sales of alcoholic beverages. However there is a solution the industry has not yet considered. Bars on boats. It is drink or drink. Or swim. Or something. Worth sleeping on. But don't ignore the advantages. With payments collected electronically, using a pin, there becomes a natural stop for when someone is too drunk and they forget their pin. There is no need for street sweeping. If the boat is packed tightly enough, no one can get lost. Closed circuit surveillance can provide loved ones with all they need to know. In the late eighteenth century Great Britain used to run similar things on the Thames. 

Meanwhile, the identity of the british national who cut off the head of a journalist and blamed Islam may be known. It is suspected of being a rap artist Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary. He is a 23 year old son of an Egyptian terrorist and is known to have left for Syria last year. He has posted images of himself holding severed heads. Maybe we can let ASADA investigate, if we really want justice. 
Historical perspective on this day
49 BC – Julius Caesar's general Gaius Scribonius Curio is defeated in the Battle of the Bagradas (49 BC) by the Numidians under Publius Attius Varus and King Juba of Numidia. Curio commits suicide to avoid capture.
79 AD – Mount Vesuvius erupts. The cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae are buried in volcanic ash (note: this traditional date has been challenged, and many scholars believe that the event occurred on October 24).
367 – Gratian, son of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, is named co-Augustus by his father aged eight.
394 – The Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, the latest known inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs, was written.
410 – The Visigoths under king Alaric I begin to pillage Rome.
455 – The Vandals, led by king Genseric, begin to plunder Rome. Pope Leo I requests Genseric not destroy the ancientcity or murder its citizens. He agrees and the gates of Rome are opened. However, the Vandals loot a great amount of treasure.

1185 – Sack of Thessalonica by the Normans.
1200 – King John of England, signer of the first Magna Carta, marries Isabella of Angoulême in Bordeaux Cathedral.
1215 – Pope Innocent III declares Magna Carta invalid.
1349 – Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague.[1]
1456 – The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed.
1482 – The town and castle of Berwick upon Tweed is captured from Scotland by an English army

1516 – The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeats the Mamluk Sultanate and captures present-day Syria at the Battle of Marj Dabiq.
1561 – Willem of Orange marries duchess Anna of Saxony.
1608 – The first official English representative to India lands in Surat.
1662 – The Act of Uniformity requires England to accept the Book of Common Prayer.
1682 – William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.
1690 – Job Charnock of the East India Company establishes a factory in Calcutta, an event formerly considered the founding of the city (in 2003 the Calcutta High Court ruled that the city's foundation date is unknown).

1781 – American Revolutionary War: A small force of Pennsylvania militia is ambushed and overwhelmed by an American Indian group, which forces George Rogers Clark to abandon his attempt to attack Detroit.
1812 – Peninsular War: A coalition of Spanish, British, and Portuguese forces succeed in lifting the two-and-a-half-year-long Siege of Cádiz.
1814 – British troops invade Washington, D.C. and during the Burning of Washington the White House, the Capitol and many other buildings are set ablaze.
1815 – The modern Constitution of the Netherlands is signed.
1816 – The Treaty of St. Louis is signed in St. Louis, Missouri.
1820 – Constitutionalist insurrection at Oporto, Portugal.
1821 – The Treaty of Córdoba is signed in Córdoba, now in Veracruz, Mexico, concluding the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.

1857 – The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in United States history.
1870 – The Wolseley expedition reaches Manitoba to end the Red River Rebellion.
1875 – Captain Matthew Webb became the first person to swim the English Channel.
1891 – Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.
1898 – Count Muravyov, Foreign Minister of Russia presents a rescript that convoked the First Hague Peace Conference.

1909 – Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.
1911 – Manuel de Arriaga is elected and sworn-in as the first President of Portugal.
1914 – World War I: German troops capture Namur.
1914 – World War I: The Battle of Cer ends as the first Allied victory in the war.
1929 – Second day of two-day Hebron massacre during the 1929 Palestine riots: Arab attacks on the Jewish community in Hebron in the British Mandate of Palestine, result in the death of 65–68 Jews; the remaining Jews are forced to flee the city.

1931 – France and the Soviet Union sign a neutrality pact.
1931 – Resignation of the United Kingdom's Second Labour Government. Formation of the UK National Government.
1932 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey).
1933 – The Crescent Limited train derails in Washington, D.C., after the bridge it is crossing is washed out by the 1933 Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane.
1936 – The Australian Antarctic Territory is created.
1937 – Spanish Civil War: the Basque Army surrenders to the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie following the Santoña Agreement.
1937 – Spanish Civil War: Sovereign Council of Asturias and León is proclaimed in Gijón.

1941 – Adolf Hitler orders the cessation of Nazi Germany's systematic T4 euthanasia program of the mentally ill and the handicapped due to protests, although killings continue for the remainder of the war.
1942 – World War II: The Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō is sunk, with the loss of 7 officers and 113 crewmen. The US carrier USS Enterprise is heavily damaged.
1944 – World War II: Allied troops begin the attack on Paris.
1949 – The treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization goes into effect.

1950 – Edith Sampson becomes the first black U.S. delegate to the United Nations.
1954 – The Communist Control Act goes into effect, outlawing the American Communist Party.
1954 – Getúlio Dornelles Vargas, president of Brazil, commits suicide and is succeeded by João Café Filho.
1963 – Buddhist crisis: As a result of the Xá Lợi Pagoda raids, the US State Department cables the United States Embassy, Saigon to encourage Army of the Republic of Vietnam generals to launch a coup against President Ngô Đình Diệm if he did not remove his brother Ngô Đình Nhu.
1967 – Led by Abbie Hoffman, the Youth International Party temporarily disrupts trading at the New York Stock Exchangeby throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing trading to cease as brokers scramble to grab them.

1970 – Vietnam War protesters bomb Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, leading to an international manhunt for the perpetrators.
1981 – Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon.
1989 – Colombian drug barons declare "total war" on the Colombian government.
1989 – Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose is banned from baseball for gambling by Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti.
1989 – Tadeusz Mazowiecki is chosen as the first non-communist prime minister in Central and Eastern Europe.

1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1991 – Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union.
1994 – Initial accord between Israel and the PLO about partial self-rule of the Palestinians on the West Bank.
1995 – Microsoft Windows 95 was released to the public in North America.
1998 – First radio-frequency identification (RFID) human implantation tested in the United Kingdom.

2004 – Eighty-nine passengers die after two airliners explode after flying out of Domodedovo International Airport, near Moscow. The explosions are caused by suicide bombers from Chechnya.
2006 – The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet" such that Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet.
2010 – In San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, 72 illegal immigrants are killed by Los Zetas and eventually found dead by Mexican authorities.
2016 – An earthquake strikes Central Italy with a magnitude of 6.2, with aftershocks felt as far as Rome and Florence.
=== 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.
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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
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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 Collin Tran and Mason Tang. Born on the same day, across the years, along with Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou (1113), Letizia Ramolino (1750), William Wilberforce (1759), Duke Kahanamoku (1890), Orson Scott Card (1951), Stephen Fry (1957) and Rupert Grint (1988). On your day, 1482 – Anglo-Scottish Wars: The border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed and its castle were captured by English forces.
1857 – The New York City branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Co. collapsed following widespread embezzlement, leading to a severe recession that caused about 5,000 businesses to fail.
1892 – Goodison Park in Liverpool, England, one of the world's first purpose-built football grounds, opened.
1941 – Adolf Hitler ordered the official termination of the T4 euthanasia program of the mentally ill and disabled, although killings continued in secret for the remainder of the war.
2006 – The International Astronomical Union redefined the term "planet", reclassifying Pluto as a dwarf planet since it has not "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit. English hold the fort. Life insurance is not FREE money. The ground is ready. The order has been rescinded and all that is left is a dwarf planet. Sometimes you just gotta take stock.
Deaths
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Andrew Bolt

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STEP FIVE

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 24, 2016 (6:11pm)

Germany may reintroduce a form of national service for civilians to help the army deal with a future disaster.
The role of civilians is part of a new civil defence strategy to be discussed by the government on Wednesday. 
Meanwhile, it’s car-b-que season in Denmark and Sweden: 
For the third night in a row, Copenhagen Police reported that vehicles in the city had been torched by unknown arsonists.
The incidents follow the burning of 21 cars over the weekend. The weekend fires were primarily in the Christianshavn and Amager districts, but one vehicle was also torched in Valby.
Copenhagen Police have been cautious about drawing parallels to Sweden, where at least 70 cars have been burnt in Malmö since July and car fires have occurred in cities including Stockholm, Gothenburg and Norrköping. 
Youths, probably. Presbyterian youths.
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CULTURAL MINORITY THREATENED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 24, 2016 (4:57pm)

A delightful quiz from our friends in the Buzzfeed Community: 
Which Right-Wing Commentator Are You?
Australia has some outstanding culture warriors fighting the good fight. You are definitely one of them – but which one? We’ve put together this quiz to celebrate the contributions of Australia’s most vocal minority, right-wing commentators, and to herald the launch of Kill Climate Deniers. 
(Via Derek S.)
UPDATE. Here’s a slightly better quiz.
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ONE DEAD, TWO INJURED IN QUEENSLAND

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 24, 2016 (2:31pm)

A familiar cry accompanies an alleged murder: 
A French national is in custody after the fatal stabbing of a British backpacker and the wounding of two others at hostel near Townsville last night.
The Australian Federal Police have become involved in the investigation, amid reports that the man had allegedly shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’.

Superintendent Ray Rohweder said police were confronted by a “terrible scene” when they arrived at the hostel.
Police found a 21-year-old woman dead and a 31-year-old man injured when they arrived at the Home Hill backpackers hostel shortly after 11.15pm last night. Another person was taken to hospital with a stab wound to the leg but has since been released.
A dog had also been killed. 
Investigations continue, but certain definite views have already been expressed: 
Queensland Police Service deputy commissioner Steve Gollschewski has told a press conference a fatal knife attack in Townsville was not about race or religion. 
Also from Gollschewski: 
“Investigators will also consider whether mental health or drug misuse factors are involved.” 
At this very early stage it might be worth keeping in mind modern police priorities: “emphasising community harmony” and “conveying tolerance so as not to fuel anger”.
UPDATE: 
It is alleged the suspect, a 29-year-old French citizen, used the Arabic phrase “Allahu akbar” both during the attack and his arrest, Queensland Police Service Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said …
Deputy Commissioner Gollschewski said there were no ties to Islamic State and the Frenchman had been in the country about a year on a temporary visa.
“This person appears to have acted alone,” he said. 
And there’s your trifecta: mental illness, nothing to do with religion, lone wolf. Well played, sir.
UPDATE II. In the US:

Further here.
UPDATE III. The 21-year-old victim of the Queensland attack was British citizen Mia Ayliffe Chung.
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SOROS SEEMS TO BE THE HARDEST NERD

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 24, 2016 (12:45pm)

Jennifer Oriel details the political influence in Australia of US billionaire socialist and policy wonk George Soros: 
Soros has established a transnational network that pressures governments to adopt high immigration targets and porous border policies that could pose a challenge to legitimate state sovereignty. His Open Society Foundations target individuals who criticise Islamism and seek to influence the outcome of national elections by undermining Right-leaning politicians. The Australian arm of the Soros network is GetUp!.
GetUp! was established by activists Jeremy Heimans and David Madden with funding from Soros. The Labor-affiliated Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union donated $1.1 million to the group. Bill Shorten and John Hewson are former board members. A major funder listed on its 2014-15 Australian Electoral Commission expenditure return is Avaaz, the US GetUp! affiliate that has received copious amounts of funding from Soros networks.
Like most NGOs, GetUp! claims to be independent from political parties. Like many NGOs, however, it has close ties to the Left …
In the wake of the election, GetUp!’s Paul Oosting revealed its campaign strategy was to target conservative MPs to reduce their influence. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton was a primary GetUp! target. In Tasmania, the organisation spent up to $500,000 to unseat Andrew Nikolic and forked out $140,000 on campaign advertising alone.
GetUp! has engaged in an effective reframing of politics by rebranding conservatives as the hard Right while recasting the Left as moderate or progressive. Many sections of the media have uncritically adopted GetUp!’s rhetoric, which effectively divides the Coalition by aligning conservatives falsely with a range of hard-Right views that they abhor. 
There was a time when leftists opposed US intrusion into local politics. With Soros, they make an exception.
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On The Bolt Report and radio tonight - why fear a same-sex marriage poll? And a Yes Minister tribute

Andrew Bolt August 24 2016 (5:04pm)

On The Bolt Report on Sky News Live at 7pm tonight:
Editorial: What are opponents of the same sex marriage poll so scared of? And some rewriting of history.
Guests:
David Cook, moderator-general of the Presbyterian Church, on how his ministers will fight back if the Turnbull Government changes the Marriage Act.
Rabbi Shlomo Cowen, son of former Governor-General Zelman Cowen, on the Jewish resistance to same-sex marriage.
Mark Latham on the latest domestic violence exaggeration.
On the panel, former Labor Minister  Graham Richardson and former Labor campaign guru Bruce Hawker.  Bill Shorten’s double-dare on superannuation. The submarine leak. And the death of Antony Jay, co-writer of Yes, Minister - how perfectly did he describe politics?
Podcasts of the show here but also now on our 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.
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Who let them in?

Andrew Bolt August 24 2016 (2:14pm)

Yet another armed robbery by youths of African appearance - this time at a McDonald’s in Chadstone. No mention on the Victoria Police news site. 
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Claim: alleged killer in Townsville attack cried “Allah”

Andrew Bolt August 24 2016 (1:00pm)

Too soon to confirm what was said and by exactly whom:
A FRENCH national accused of killing a British backpacker and wounding another allegedly shouted about Allah during the stabbing frenzy. 
Australian Federal Police are now involved in the investigation, with police expected to examine whether the man – who had been in the country several months – has any link to terror organisations… Police were called to a building at Home Hill, south of Townsville, about 11.15pm last night following reports a person had been assaulted with a knife…

Detective Superintendent Ray Rohweder said the woman who died was a 21-year-old British national, while a 30-year-old British male is in critical condition.
(Thanks to readers Kevin and Steve.) 
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The price of a wicked law - and the Turnbull Government’s cowardice

Andrew Bolt August 24 2016 (7:14am)

Free speech

This is the cost of the wicked law that the Turnbull Government refuses to reform:
Calum Thwaites ...  had hoped to be sent to teach in remote schools in the far north of Australia on his graduation from the Queensland University of Technology. But this is no longer an option. 
“I am sure that some students and parents would go straight to Google and put in my name and read that I’ve been accused of ­racism in this big 18C case,” the 24-year-old told The Australian yesterday....
Mr Thwaites ...  and two other students, Alex Wood and Jackson Powell, are at the centre of a case brought under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act by Cindy Prior, a former QUT staffer in the unsigned indigenous-only Oodgeroo Unit… Mr Wood and two other students were asked by Ms Prior to leave the unit because it was a “black space”, and off-limits to non-indigenous students. Mr Wood, who had gone to access unused computers and left quietly when Ms Prior questioned him about whether he was Aboriginal, wrote soon after on Facebook: “Just got kicked out of the unsigned indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation?”
[Mr Thwaites] said a bogus account had been set up in his name by someone as a student prank, and posted on Facebook a comment with the offensive word “niggers”.
He reported the misrepresentation to Facebook and QUT as soon as it was raised with him. A third student, Jackson Powell, wrote sarcastically: “I wonder where the white ­supremacist computer lab is.”
The three are being sued for about $250,000 by Ms Prior who wants them found guilty of racial hatred under section 18C, which makes it unlawful for anyone to “offend, insult, humiliate or ­intimidate” another person or group on the grounds of race, colour or ethnicity. Ms Prior says she has suffered a major stress disorder because she was offended by the students’ Facebook posts and that she cannot return to her old job…
The case has restarted public debate about how 18C ­restricts free speech and is misused for financial shakedowns when people complain their feelings have been hurt. Mr Thwaites said: “I hear a lot of commentators saying that section 18C is OK because there are safeguards, but they don’t understand the legal process — it can take years, tens of thousands of dollars and cause untold reputational damage and stress to get to a point where you’re found to have done nothing wrong. And while that’s going on, people who know nothing of the case call you a racist.”
Anthony Morris, the barrister representing two of the students:
There is much to commend the view that a provision such as section 18C has no place in a liberal democracy… 
A law creating liability based on an objective ­assessment of the likely emotional response of an indeterminate person or group of persons — a hypothetical emotional response that is at the same time subjective yet reasonable — cannot be a good law… But ... [there] are two additional problems…
The first is ... even when the [Australian Human Rights Commission] bothers to go through the motions of a pretended attempt to conciliate a complaint, the exercise involves little more than asking complainants what they want, and then asking respondents whether they are willing to pay up…
[Second,] just to be sued for a breach of the ­Racial Discrimination Act creates an indelible mark against any citizen, whether individual or corporate…
Again, this is illustrated by the experience of one of my clients in the QUT case. An impecunious student from a family whose household income barely reaches five figures, he sought the assis­tance of a local community-based legal service.
This was refused ­because of a policy not to assist ­respondents in racial discrimination cases — that is, regardless of any question of guilt or innocence — for “political and funding” reasons. The same organisation is perfectly comfortable to assist people accused of murder, rape, even child molestation. But ­merely having been accused of ­racism was enough to disqualify this student. So initially he had to represent himself, and he would probably still be doing so if I had not become aware of his plight and agreed to act pro bono.
One might think a costs order would ultimately provide some ­relief, at least for the out-of-pocket expenses of a person wrongfully sued under section 18C. But most claimants are themselves indigent, making any costs order practically worthless.
There is a simple solution to each of these problems. All it ­requires is a legislative amendment stipulating that a person may not begin court proceedings for an infringement of the Racial Discrimination Act ­unless the AHRC has certified that it has conducted reasonable inquiries into the complaint; as a result of its inquiries the AHRC is satisfied the claim is (at least) arguable; the AHRC has made reasonable endeavours to conciliate the complaint; and the claimant has acted reasonably with respect to the AHRC’s attempts at conciliation…
More important, to ensure the AHRC does its job conscientiously ... the legislation should hold the AHRC liable for the costs if there is a successful application for judicial review or proceedings are brought in reliance on a certificate that the AHRC issued recklessly… Speaking for myself, I should prefer to see section 18C erased from the statute books. But with such amendments as I have suggested, it would cease to be the grievous instrument of oppression that it presently is.
Mind you, with the Human Rights Commission acting as witch-hunter in chief in the Leak case, there are grave reasons to doubt it could even do the job Morris describes. 
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Subs leak

Andrew Bolt August 24 2016 (7:03am)

So Turnbull’s submarines are not just overpriced, delayed and built by an unreliable ally, but they’ve already sprung a leak:
Cameron Stewart:
The French company that won the bid to design Australia’s new $50 billion submarine fleet has suffered a massive leak of secret documents, raising fears about the future security of top-secret data on the navy’s future fleet. 
The stunning leak, which runs to 22,400 pages and has been seen by The Australian, details the entire secret combat capability of the six Scorpene-class submarines that French shipbuilder DCNS has designed for the Indian Navy…
The leak will spark grave concern in Australia and especially in the US where senior navy officials have privately expressed fears about the security of top-secret data entrusted to France… Any stealth advantage for the navy’s new submarines would be gravely compromised if data on its planned combat and performance capabilities was leaked in the same manner as the data from the ­Scorpene.
India’s order is compromised in a way we must pray ours won’t be:
The leaked DCNS documents describe in excruciating detail — line by line and bolt by bolt — the entire combat abilities of India’s new six-boat Scorpene submarine fleet. It has dealt a hammer blow to India’s national security and it begs the question; if it has happened to India, why couldn’t it happen to us? 
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill,) 
===

Book cold

Andrew Bolt August 23 2016 (9:41pm)

My book is on an odyssey, visiting Bath, the skulls of Montpellier, York Minster, Shanghai,  Croatia,  Ho Chi Minh City, Santorini, London, Lake Como, Ithaca, Scotland, the Bay of Naples, Dubrovnik, Fiji, Aileron,  New Zealand,  Sri Lanka,  the Andes,  the Northern Territory,  the Whitsundays,  Kalgoorlie and Condabri, Queensland, before  invading Australia’s most Left-wing Parliament - an experience which convinced one reader at the Katharine River Mango Farm to try teaching even a donkey to understand what’s in it. Meanwhile, it  attended a christening in Newcastle, checked in at a Penrith hospital and recuperated at the Moreton Bay Boat Club before sailing down the Murray and visiting the Mt Annan Australian Botanical Garden.

Now Murf Oscar writes:
At 59° 47’ 29” N 151° 00’ 07” - actually on the way into Gold Dredge #8 in the National Historic District of Fairbanks, Alaska, which is but 10 minutes south of St Petersburg in Russia.
To reward the traveler in your life, order the book here. On-line buyers also get the semi-regular Bolt Bulletin, as will people pre-ordering the reprint of my Still Not Sorry on line.    
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Dustin Martin should have waved a spear, not two fingers

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (7:25pm)

If only he’d threatened them with an imaginary spear instead:
DUSTIN Martin could be severely out of pocket for making a gesture to Collingwood fans at the MCG on Saturday. 
After running into an open goal in the last quarter, Martin raised two fingers to the cheer squad... The match review panel has referred the incident to the AFL’s footy operations department “for determination under the Player Rules after making a gesture to the crowd.”
The double standards are astonishing. The AFL should not imagine the fans don’t see it. 
===

China falls, and our stock market falls with it. Worse may be to come

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (3:20pm)

And now we could pay for spending more than we earn:
AUSTRALIAN shares have plunged today with $52 billion stripped from the value of the nation’s companies as uncertainty grips global markets. 
In afternoon trade, the benchmark ASX 200 index was down 3.6 per cent, with the losses felt across the board from banks to resources stocks… The main Hong Kong and Shanghai indexes have tumbled in early trade today as concerns about China’s economy deepen despite efforts by Beijing to shore up local share prices…

China’s Shanghai Composite index slumped 5.1 per cent in early trade and was down 8.5 per cent early this afternoon. 
Terry McCrann says we could be in deep strife:
THIS is not the Global Financial Crisis Mark Two. But that’s actually small comfort, it could be worse. 
This has not been triggered by ‘an event’ – like the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which sparked the GFC by threatening to bring down a whole series of other financial institutions.
But by the fear that the great engine of global growth over the past decade, China, might be sputtering to a stop.
This in turns collides with the disturbing reality that governments and central banks around the world have used up all their ammunition from fighting the GFC… This is not going to go away anytime soon. It could well get seriously worse.
So much for those apologists who claimed Labor’s record deficits were not really a problem.
UPDATE
At 3.15pm (AEST) the S&P/ASX200 index was down 4 per cent cent to 5007, the biggest intraday drop since 2007.
===

Who is minding the door?

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (2:56pm)

Yet again I have to ask, who is minding the door? Is our refugee program putting Australians in danger?
Mohammad Akbar Keshtiar had been due for parole in February but remains in Barwon Prison, where he wields such significant power that police are braced for an increase in bikie crime when he is released. 
Keshtiar, known as Afghan Ali, is serving a sentence for the attempted murder of a man and a woman he gunned down while on bail in 2003, and for shooting a security guard at a Prahran nightclub.
Keshtiar, 45, was recruited to the Mongols while serving a minimum 12-year sentence in prison. He will complete his sentence in August 2018.
Relatives of Keshtiar are already associating with the Mongols, but none of them are patched members.
The Mongols have become Melbourne’s most powerful bikie gang, and Keshtiar’s relatives are associates of several well-known members.
Their associates include a senior Mongol who is on bail after being charged over a $6 million drug importation that allegedly involved heroin cultivated in Afghanistan…
The Age revealed in February that Keshtiar is the leader of a gang of Muslim prisoners held in maximum security jails, and his associates are linked to up to 70 Middle Eastern gangsters living in Melbourne’s north-western suburbs… Keshtiar became familiar with guns when he was in Afghanistan, which he left with his family as a 19-year-old. 
UPDATE
Today:
A TERRIFIED woman betrayed by the justice system was beaten to death by the man she feared most. 
Maryanne Sikai came from an underprivileged background and was working hard to take care of her brother’s two children.
The night before her ex-partner, Isac Ayoul Daing, bashed her head to a pulp, Ms Sikai had got her flatmate to change the lock on the door… In mitigating Daing’s sentence, the court heard he had lived a horrific life as a child in war torn Sudan and suffered considerable post-traumatic stress which would make life in jail more difficult.
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The case for Mark Latham

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (10:40am)

Jeff Kennett defends Mark Latham. And, really, while Latham is in the media it is comforting to know that true things can still be said even when they are shocking.
Talking about Latham with Sharri Markson:
UPDATE
Rowan Dean:
The uproar over Mark Latham’s diatribe at the Melbourne Writer’s Festival lays bare an uncomfortable truth about modern Australia – we have become a nation of whining, craven wimps frightened of our own shadows and terrified of our own thoughts. 
Worse, we have become a nation of hypocrites.
===

On the smearing of Captain Andrew Hastie

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (9:13am)

Politics - federal

ATTACKING Captain Andrew Hastie is the last straw. How low will Labor’s media mates go to destroy the Abbott Government?
Let me tell you about Hastie, the man the Melbourne Age smeared all over its front page on Saturday.
Hastie served in the SAS, our elite force that has done so much heroic fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Two years ago, he led a platoon fighting Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan — one of his three tours there.
He was in a helicopter, and some of his men were in a firefight on the ground.
They won; the Talibani lost. But to check whether they’d killed the Taliban commanders they were hunting, one of Hastie’s platoon cut off the hands of three of the dead to take back for fingerprinting or biometric tests.
This was in line with what one investigator from the Australian Defence Force Investigative Service had recommended as a last resort.
Hastie reported this incident to his superiors. He said on Saturday that while his men acted honourably, mistakes can be made in battle “when people are trying to kill you”.
The army has so far cleared all the platoon, Hastie included, bar one soldier, who has been kept in dreadful suspense for two years.
Hastie, meanwhile, engaged in operations against the Islamic State.
We are safer because this man risked his life to protect us. And he is just 32.
But last week, Hastie made a fateful decision that turned him into an enemy of the media Left, especially the Fairfax newspapers.
(Read full article here.) 
===

Faine’s apology just more evidence of the Left’s capture of our institutions

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (9:11am)

Why are so many state-funded institutions in the hands of the Left?
The ABC:
Today ABC presenter Jon Faine and the ABC apologise to Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting for falsely claiming - twice - that her company shifted profits overseas. Note that all the ABC’s apologies in matters of ideology are to conservatives. Not a coincidence in a broadcaster where not one of the main current affairs shows is presented by a conservative.
Our universities:
Meanwhile, the Greens have announced their candidate for the Canning by election - Vanessa Rauland, a lecturer at Curtin University and co-author of a global warming tract with another Curtin green, Peter Newman. How many academics have now offered themselves up as Greens candidates? Remember Professor Clive Hamilton? Lecturer Michael Osborne? Lecturer Drew Hutton? Associate Professor Kristen Lyons?
Our law associations:
Or check even the various law associations, some suspiciously luke-warm in defence of former High Court judge Dyson Heyson, the conservative victim of a disgraceful smear campaign by Labor and unions. The NSW Bar Association, which waited for days before issuing the most mealy-mouthed defence, is led by a president who has participated in NSW Society of Labor Lawyers events, while the head of the WA Law Society (until last week) is now the Labor candidate for Canning, and backs the attacks on Heydon.
UPDATE
The Left may stack our institutions but conservatives may not:
Cut & Paste: 
Not a good look. [Labor frontbencher] Brendan O’Connor on Dyson Heydon, Australia Agenda, Sky, yesterday: 
There is, at the very least, an appearance of a conflict of interest in him accepting an invitation while commissioner of this royal commission to a Liberal Party event.
So Jim McClelland cruelled his career by attending this function? From the whitlamdismissal.com website:
Gough Whitlam and former senator Jim McClelland both addressed the NSW Labor Lawyers at a dinner in Sydney on July 4, 1980 (after he had been appointed to the bench)…
Fair point. Graham Young, Online Opinion ... Saturday:
What about the Fair Work Australia commissioners? Many of these have Labor Party backgrounds. Is there a problem of bias here? ...
One sign of the Left’s capture of the ABC is that smears are not detected or corrected, or run long after they have been disproved:
Chris Kenny:
A week ago I watched former colleague Rebecca Weisser on ABC News 24 join a discussion with a trade union official about the ... Dyson Heydon controversy. The unionist (apologies — I don’t recall her name) was calling for the trade union royal commissioner to stand aside and said: “He’s gone to a Liberal Party fundraiser, it doesn’t matter whether it was raising any money or not, it was clearly a Liberal event.” 
At the time I was staggered the hosts didn’t correct this blatant falsehood. They ... left it to Weisser to point out that Heydon had done no such thing but, in fact, after initially accepting an invitation, had declined the speaking engagement…
Andrew Bolt later revealed on his blog how the exchange was repeated on the ABC but in an edited version that excluded Weisser’s correction....
[T]he very next day a similar howler was left unchallenged on Q&A;. Greens leader Richard Di Natale was barely into his first breath on the same topic when he said: “You’ve got the fellow who is heading the Royal Commission now attending Liberal Party fundraisers.” Again we waited for the host to intervene. Tony Jones was mute. 
But the ABC continues to recruit Abbott haters, rather than conservatives who might redress its unlawful imbalance. Kenny continues:
At Sky News Australia ...  one of the part-time readers, Tracey Spicer, was becoming more and more opinionated in various online gigs and social media posts… 
(W)hen Tony Abbott famously winked during a talkback radio call in Melbourne last year, Spicer tweeted a link to the footage with her comment: “Tony Abbott you are a disgusting creep.” And there was a piece for The Hoopla that was pushed on social media under the heading: “Tracey Spicer’s top 10 ways Tony Abbott is (with all due respect) f***ing it up.” The tone of that piece was best summarised in the line, “Pretty much everything you’ve touched is turning to sh*t."…
Spicer ... has left Sky News for another hosting opportunity ... yes, she’s been snapped up by their ABC.
Until the Liberals tackle the state funding of massive cultural institutions now dedicated to their destruction they will struggle not only to get votes but even a hearing.
UPDATE
Incredible. Greg Barns, the deeply disaffected and alienated former Liberal staffer who later stood for the Greens, worked for the WikiLeaks Party and yesterday vilified Liberal Andrew Hastie as a ”criminal” is promoted by the ABC as a pro-Liberal voice for “balance”:
That really is deceptive.  Here is just a taste of Barns’ Liberal cred:
Well the Liberal Party is a liberal party only in name. It is a deeply conservative party....This is the only party in the world that is called “Liberal” that is actually far right… Paul Keating was the last serious reformist Prime Minister of this country. He was prepared to take on sacred cows like the monarchy… There is a global trend now to re-examine the policy of prohibition of drugs. It has been an abject failure… I had a big blow-up with the Liberal party over their policies on asylum seekers. 
(Thanks to readers Beau and Peter of Bellevue Hill.)  
===

We can’t keep taxing like this

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (8:46am)

A few ifs in this proposition, but Joe Hockey is right in principle, of course:
The Abbott government will take options for personal income tax cuts to next year’s election, with the multi-billion-dollar cost to be covered by reductions in spending. 
Joe Hockey is using the tax white paper process to look at both the top end of the income scale, where high tax rates are choking entrepreneurialism and work incentives, and at the interaction of taxes and welfare bene­fits lower down the income scale… “In the next two years, without­ action, about 300,000 Australians will move into the second-highest tax bracket,” he will say. “In 10 years, if tax cuts don’t happen, almost half of all taxpayers will be in the top two tax brackets, a jump from 27 per cent to 43 per cent.”
===

Shorten’s “phantom” members are one more reason not to trust him

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (8:13am)

Who can trust a word Bill Shorten says when even many of his “members” didn’t really exist?:
Up to 15 per cent of all members of the Victorian AWU under Bill Shorten’s leadership were phantom members signed up under his negotiations with cleaning company Cleanevent, which saw workers paid half the award rate or less. 
Documents lodged with the royal commission into union corruption show Cleanevent employees were a large proportion of the Australian Workers Union’s Victorian membership, despite claims the vast majority would have had no idea they were union members.
According to the documents, between 1999 — the year after Mr Shorten became AWU Victoria state secretary — and 2006, the year before he left the position, the number of Cleanevent workers who were AWU Victoria members soared from 933 to 3485.
In 2006, AWU Victoria reported it had 22,525 members, meaning just over 15.5 per cent of the union’s entire membership base was comprised of Cleanevent workers.
Former Cleanevent senior manager Steve Hunter has said Cleanevent staff were automatically signed up as AWU members when hired, unless they “opted out” of the arrangement 
Who can trust Bill Shorten when he says one thing publicly and another privately? From Mark Latham’s Latham Diaries, telling of his discussion with Shorten, then the AWU boss:
Little Billy in my ear about the FTA (Free Trade Agreement with the US) telling me the Party has to support it. I said that I thought both he and his union were against it, to which he responded. ‘That’s just for the members. We need to say that sort of thing when they reckon their jobs are under threat. I want it to go through. The US Alliance is too important to do otherwise. Politically, you have no choice’.
Who can trust Bill Shorten when he supports whatever is the line of the day?:
Bill Shorten: “I haven’t seen what she’s said, but let me say I support what it is she said.” 
David Speers: “Hang on, you haven’t seen what she has said?”
Shorten: “But I support what my Prime Minister said, so ... “
Speers: “Well, what’s your view?”
Shorten: “My view is what the Prime Minister’s view is.”
Speers: “But you don’t know what that is?”
Shorten: “I’m sure she’s right.”
Who can trust a word Shorten says when he admits he’s lied?:

[Kevin] Rudd was shown on [on the ABC] saying Shorten told him in a secret meeting on June 19, 2013 that he’d stop backing Gillard, then the prime minister…
But hang on… Two days after telling Rudd he’d betray Gillard, Shorten told a completely different story on 3AW to host Neil Mitchell.
Mitchell: Is there, Bill Shorten, any question that Julia Gillard will be prime minister, heading into the election?
Shorten: No.
Mitchell: Will you review your support for her?
Shorten: No… I continue to support our prime minister ...
Mitchell: Have you spoken to Kevin Rudd?
Shorten: I haven’t spoken to Kevin Rudd about the leadership…
[Shorten’s] office on Wednesday did at least offer Mitchell ... a form of apology. “… Mr Shorten ... was caught on the hop and regrets the answer he gave. He didn’t want to make an already diabolical situation worse.”
===

Liberals fight for Hastie. Join in

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (8:09am)

Fighting back against the Left’s politics of smear:
Senior Liberals have excoriated “disgraceful” and “shameful” ­efforts to smear Canning by-elect­ion candidate Andrew Hastie after the former SAS captain defended­ his former subordinates who chopped off the hands of killed Taliban fighters for later fingerprint identification. 
The stern rebuke of Fairfax Media’s treatment of Mr Hastie’s war record came as ­opposition frontbencher Brendan O’Connor criticised his Labor colleagues for spreading “distasteful” jokes about the veteran on Twitter.
Mr Hastie, 32, who was in a ­helicopter over the battlefield during the 2013 incident, said he left the army with a “clean slate”, having promptly reported the actions of his soldiers, who followed ­instructions with “honour and ­integrity”.
The editor-in-chief of The Age Andrew Holden declined to comment yesterday on his paper’s front-page treatment of Mr Hastie on Saturday, which featured the headline “Question of Conduct”.
The article itself acknowledged that Mr Hastie “was not present when the alleged incident took place”. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the editors of The Age “should hang their heads in shame"…
Liberal whip Andrew Nikolic, a former army brigadier, said ... “This is typical biased Fairfax reporting with no purpose other than an attempted smear on this distinguished young officer who has served his country with honour­ in peace and war...”
Federal Labor MPs have ­refused to attack Mr Hastie’s milit­ary service, but state frontbenchers Darren West and Chris Tallentire spread jokes disparaging the candidate. Mr West re-tweeted: “A chopper with (former Speaker) Bronny (Bishop) in comes in to land & here’s Hastie’s chopper, to chop off your hand! #Canning u believe this?” Mr Tallentire, who insisted he did not understand the subtext of the tweet, re-tweeted: “So #Hastie thinks campaigning for solar is ­aggressive? Can I have a show of hands on that?”
Fight. This is not about one story but a mindset.
UPDATE
It is breathtaking, this foulness of Leftists vilifying a man who risked his life to protect them:
On Saturday, Western Australian Labor politician Darren West retweeted ... another tweet suggesting “Hands off Canning” as an election slogan.
Peter of Bellevue Hill notes that West was retweeting a sneer from Mark McGrath, CFMEU Northern Mining and NSW Energy District Vice President:
That CFMEU-Labor link again, so demeaning to Labor. 
===

Martin Ferguson attacks union control over Bill Shorten’s Labor

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (7:25am)

Martin Ferguson speaks the obvious truth - the unions effectively control Bill Shorten’s Labor, and the royal commission into union corruption is needed:
Former Labor minister and Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) president Martin Ferguson has attacked the level of union influence in the party, saying too many Opposition MPs “wait for the phone call from the trade union heavy to tell them what to do”. 
Mr Ferguson said Opposition Leader Bill Shorten did not have the power to curb union influence in the Labor Caucus without the backing of the shadow ministry…
“Because too many of that shadow ministry and the Caucus are almost as if they’re prisoners of the union movement.” [sic]
Unions have significant influence over preselections for both Senate and Lower House seats in the Parliament, Mr Ferguson said.
“It’s almost as if they sit down now and divide the cake, you get that seat, we get that seat, left and right together and they dole out the prizes to their faithful."…
Breaking ranks with his Labor colleagues who have described the royal commission as a “political witch hunt”, Mr Ferguson backed its work, especially its investigations into the scandal ridden Health Services Union (HSU)… “I think it’s potentially going to be very important in reforming the trade union movement and the Labor Party.” 
The ACTU’s own barrister, Robert Newlinds SC, confirms Ferguson’s point at the royal commission into union corruption:
But the underlying premise that the unions have the ability to exert great control on the Labor Party ought to be taken as a given.
Paul Kelly says Shorten is bonded to the unions:
In attack after attack on [royal commissioner Dyson] Heydon, in the onslaught on the Australia-China FTA, in the sinking of any greater legal controls on the CFMEU, the Labor Party announces to the world that it will prioritise union interests and power over the public interest. It is the brazen nakedness of this position that is so striking.
Simon Benson:
Shorten has, in the pursuit of his own political survival, chosen a course [in attacking the royal commission] which has the effect of highlighting again the minds of voters to the deep association and alignment with unions who may well see some of their officials end up in jail.
Meanwhile the ACTU takes workers money to destroy a government many workers actually voted for:
Last Tuesday night at the Mortdale RSL Club, in the Sydney seat of Banks, 100 union activists listened to ACTU campaign director Sally McManus outline the campaign to destroy Tony Abbott and consign his government to history at the next election. It was one of several briefings held around the country in recent months… 
The ACTU already has 25 full-time campaigners looking after about 30 marginal seats. The first stage is building local infrastructure — what Kearney called “an army of activists”.
===

Morrison impresses

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (7:08am)

Murdoch enjoys meeting good politicians - and winners:
Rupert Murdoch enjoyed a private lunch with Scott Morrison on Friday, after dining with Tony Abbott on Thursday evening… 
Morrison is considered a rising star by many News Corp columnists, so it was understandable for Murdoch to take the opportunity to meet him while in Australia.
===

Less will give us more

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (6:14am)

One of the great frustrations of many conservatives is that few Liberals MPs seem to have the conviction, the courage or the talent to argue fluently for liberal or conservative principles.
I suspect Maurice Newman is among that alarmed number:
Senior Fairfax journalist Peter Hartcher writes of the Prime Minister: “In a desperate effort to hold on to his job, Abbott has turned increasingly to a reactionary stance to mollify the group he sees as his final bastion of support, the right of his party.”
Crikey correspondent Guy Rundle comments that “populist right” columnists such as Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine and Rita Panahi “talk in a language no one understands anymore”. We get the picture.
Hartcher and Rundle see Australia’s political centre as having moved to the Left, with Tony Abbott’s appeal limited to a dwindling base of heartless, greedy, right-wing, racist, misogynistic, homophobic reactionaries who support inequality, lack compassion, deny climate change, oppose same-sex marriage and champion crazy ideals like free markets, smaller government and family values that no one understands anymore.
While there may be some embellishment and wishful thinking in what they write, there is truth as well. The reason Australia is in its current predicament is precisely because, over decades, the centre-right has too easily yielded to the language of the Left in handicapping the productive activities the free-enterprise system unleashes…
It is emblematic of the times that when a Coalition premier advocates a 50 per cent increase in the GST to meet rising health and education expenses without offering corresponding tax or spending cuts, rather than being jeered, he is cheered for having the courage to float the idea. There is no analysis of what this would do to the national economy, no reference to the Japanese experience, where a 60 per cent sales-tax hike ended in recession — just acquiescence. This is the Greek mindset…
So it’s time to relearn the language of smaller government, self-reliance and wealth creation. It has a brighter future than Greek.
===

Liberals should have gone for Tony Burke

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (6:05am)

The Liberals made a truce with Labor too soon. It should have demanded the head of Tony Perk in exchange for Bronwyn Bishop’s:
LABOR frontbencher Tony Burke has slugged taxpayers close to $2.2 million for travel costs, including charter planes and flying on VIP jets. 
On top of $2.4 million in ­office and phone expenses, this makes him the parliament’s $4.6 million dollar man.
An investigation by The Daily Telegraph can reveal that since mid-2008, the manager of opposition business and opposition finance spokesman has racked up almost $600,000 in overseas travel…
Mr Burke, who served as agriculture and environment minister in the Gillard and Rudd cabinets, is also a regular charter flight user, claiming more than $400,000 in domestic travel.
Mr Burke has never served as foreign minister, trade minister, treasurer or defence minister, all of which require the most overseas travel.
The Western Sydney MP — who led the attack on former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop for hiring a charter helicopter for an 80km flight to attend a Liberal fundraiser — is a prolific entitlements seeker…
The Telegraph does not suggest Mr Burke’s taxpayer- funded claims breach parliament’s generous entitlement guidelines… Mr Burke was forced to pay back a $94 Comcar fare, which he had used to take him to a Robbie Williams concert, and admitted he flew his family business class to Uluru during the 2012 school holidays, under the family entitlements scheme. 
Burke defends:
Mr Burke defended his costs, saying his roles as minister for agriculture, environment and immigration between 2007 and 2013 required extensive travel… 
He also defended his office expenses, saying he had to relocate twice and always remained “well within the budgets allocated to all MPs”. 
===

ACTU claims control of Shorten’s Labor

Andrew Bolt August 24 2015 (5:28am)

LABOR leader Bill Shorten is a front man for unions. Who says so? The unions, that’s who.
Incredibly, the ACTU, the peak union body, has just given the Abbott Government ammunition against Shorten.
(Read full article here.) 
===

Muslim apologists blind to radical reality

Piers Akerman – Sunday, August 24, 2014 (6:57am)

A motley group of some 60 self-proclaimed Muslim organisations or self-appointed leaders garnered publicity Wednesday with their snubbing of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s offer to discuss proposed changes to terrorist laws.
The ABC and Fairfax lapped it up.
But anyone who took the time to see who organised the ban and who signed up to its idiocy would have realised that the signatories did themselves a serious disservice.
Among those on the list was Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia, which supports honour killings, the Perth-based Aboriginal convert Mohammed Junaid Thorne who enjoys the support of extremist organisation Millatu Ibrahim, banned in Germany because of its ties to mass murder in Iraq, and the Sydney book shop al-Risalah, which has claimed its imam is terrorist Bilal Khazal who is serving a 12-year sentence for promoting violence against non-Muslims.
Muslim Leaders including Sheikh Isse Musse (centre right) leave Treasury Place in Melbourne after a meeting with Tony Abbott last week.
Organiser of the ban was self-anointed community activist and Muslim convert Rebecca Kay, who re-Tweets propaganda from the Hamas terrorist organisation and is married to a brother of notorious drug boss Abdul Darwiche, who was gunned down outside a Bass Hill service station five years ago.
The usual medley of Muslim student organisations also signed on, along with an assortment of imams, who, according to Kay, believe the proposed changes target Muslims unjustly – though she admits that the language of the law is neutral.
She says that in practise these laws will target Muslims because of a “trumped up” threat from “radicalised” Muslims returning from Irag or Syria.
She claims there is no solid evidence to substantiate this threat – despite the Facebook postings of various Australian-born murderers who have joined the murderous Islamic State posing with weapons and severed heads in their selfie videos.
The home-grown risk is real, as the British have discovered to their cost
She goes on to say that “racist caricatures of Muslims as backwards, prone to violence and inherently problematic are being exploited”, presumably a reference to psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed’s prescient view that “there remains a marked difference in the way males are raised within some Lebanese groups which predisposes them to greater acts of anti-social behaviour” and his observation from studying Arab youths in prison that “there is a rampant anti-social character to some youths from this segment which stems in part from unsuccessful child rearing. The horrific moves towards terror acts can be seen as an ideological extension of a propensity towards bad behaviour, combined with an unshakable victim mentality.”
Kay and her followers haven’t come to terms with the hard evidence of beheadings of children as well as adults, crucifixions, and mass murder of fellow Muslims as well as the slaughter of apostates, Christians and other non-Muslims in areas where Australia’s terror tourists are at large.
The home-grown risk is real, as the British have discovered to their cost.
It’s now a dozen years since Omar Sheikh, a London-born private school and London School of Economics graduate, was in Pakistan after fighting in the Balkans and Kashmir. Ten years ago he was arrested and jailed for assisting in the kidnapping of three Britons and an American in India.
After being released in 1999 in exchange for the passengers and crew of the hijacked Air India flight IC-814, he was connected to the bombing of an American cultural centre in Calcutta in January 2002 and that same month organised the kidnapping and beheading of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
Muslim leaders including Sheikh Isse Musse (centre) were involved in meetings with Prime Minister Tony Abbott last week.
In 2003, two British Muslims Asif Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif carried out a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on behalf of Hamas, which Ms Kay gives succour to via her Twitter account.
Four British Islamist terrorists killed 52 civilians on July 7, 2005 in the first suicide bombings to take place in Britain. The former head of the Islamic Society at University College London, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, attempted to explode his “underwear” bomb on a plane as it landed in Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009. He was a follower of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was later killed in an American drone attack in Yemen three years ago.
Ms Kay’s claims are unsupportable. There is no reason why Australia is under any lesser threat from home-grown terrorists than Britain, the US, Belgium, the Netherlands or France – or Indonesia.
In an important interview with The Australian, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned violent Islamist extremism, labelling the actions of the Islamic State terror group as “embarrassing” and “humiliating” to the religion.
His government has banned the ISIS (now known as the Islamic State), which is supported by some of the signatories to Ms Kay’s statement, and called for respect for all religions – which some of Ms Kay’s supporters reject.
Acknowledging the reality that Ms Kay rubbishes, President Yudhoyono said a number of Indonesians have joined IS to fight in Syria and Iraq.
“Our citizens here in Indonesia are picking up recruitment messages from ISIS containing extremist ideas,” he said.
“The philosophy of ISIS stands against the fundamental values we embrace in Indonesia. Last Friday, in my state of the union address to the nation, I called on all Indonesians to reject ISIS and to stop the spread of its radical ideology.
“My government and security agencies have taken decisive steps to curtail the spread of ISIS in Indonesia, including by prohibiting Indonesians to join ISIS or to fight for ISIS, and also by blocking internet sites that promote this idea.”
Yet Ms Kay and her group are opposed to less radical actions proposed by the Abbott government.
It would appear that in Indonesia, which has the largest Islamic population of any nation, community leaders are helping the government communicate to their members the dangers of ISIS.
Which demonstrates just how isolated Muslims like Ms Kay and her radical supporters are from the rational world in their blind refusal to engage on the obvious problems of the radicalisation of young members of the Australian Muslim community. 
===

2014 DIMLY AWARD

Tim Blair – Sunday, August 24, 2014 (5:52am)

The prize goes to SMH columnist Peter FitzSimons: 
You know that actor, Chris Hemsworth? Me, neither. At least I didn’t, until yesterday. I was dimly awardof some impossibly good-looking bloke, who had played Thor or something who I think had been on Home and Away or one of those soaps – and of course immediately dismissed him. But how good is he? I take it all back. Just saw him in Rush the film where he plays the 1970 British Formula One world champion driver James Hunt … 
Hunt, of course, was world champion in 1976. FitzSimons claims to be a historian.
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Beheader “identified”. Save the usual excuses

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (8:14pm)

 Can we drop the usual excuse about being ”marginalised” by Western society?
THE British security services MI5 and MI6 have reportedly identified a British hip-hop artist as the key suspect in the hunt for the killer who beheaded American journalist James Foley… 
Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary ... is the son of an Egyptian-born militant who is awaiting trial on terror charges in New York tied to the deadly 1998 bombings of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania…
Bary — who recently tweeted a photo of himself holding up a severed head — ...  was an aspiring rapper known as “L Jinny,” whose music was played on BBC Radio 1.
Bary also appeared in music videos posted on YouTube for songs titled Overdose, Flying High and Dreamer. But he ... walked out of his family’s plush West London home last year, saying he was “leaving everything for the sake of Allah.” 
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Bair doesn’t talk much about football these days

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (8:02pm)

Tim Blair in April:
Tears in August:
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Don’t mention the war! It just encourages them.

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (4:55pm)

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More British jihadists than Muslim soldiers

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (4:33pm)

Not easily explained away:
There are now more than twice as many British Muslims fighting for Islamic State than there are serving in the British armed forces, according to a British Member of Parliament (MP). 
Khalid Mahmood, the MP for Perry Barr in Birmingham, estimates that at least 1,500 young British Muslims have been recruited by extremists fighting in Iraq and Syria in the last three years.
Mahmood told Newsweek that this figure had been building since the start of the Syrian conflict: “If you look across the whole of the country, and the various communities involved, 500 going over each year would be a conservative estimate.”
According to the Ministry of Defence, there are only around 600 British Muslims currently serving in the Armed Forces, making up approximately around 0.4% of total personnel. 4.3% of the British population are Muslim.
Other estimates put the number of British jihadists with the Islamic State as “low” as 400.
(Thanks to readers Mick and Cromwell.) 
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The Bolt Report today, August 24

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (6:00am)

On Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm…
Editorial:  Tony Abbott, kick that clown Palmer off the stage.
My guest:  the literally indestructible Education Minister Chris Pyne.
The panel:  Michael Kroger and former Labor Minister Gary Johns.
NewsWatch:  Daily Telegraph columnist Piers Akerman.
The videos of the shows appear here.
UPDATE
To elaborate on the point I was making to Gary Johns:
Yes, Aborigines settled Australia tens of centuries before Europeans. In that sense “they” - those who first arrived - were here first.
But to say Aborigines today were here “first” is to treat each other as representatives of a “race” rather than an individual. No one of any “race” - Aboriginal or other - who is younger than 54 was here before me. They have no greater right to this country. It is racist to say a group of Australians living today were here “first” on the basis of who some of their ancestors were.
I vehemently oppose racism. We should judge each other as individuals, regardless of “race”.
UPDATE

Pyne says he’s thinking of doing a YouTube clip on how to burn an effigy.
He repeatedly refuses to rule out cutting research funds if the Senate does not pass his reforms and cuts to the tertiary sector.
UPDATE
Behind the scenes of the show. UPDATE: Whoops.  Link corrected.  Oh dear. Third time lucky.
And the Triggs performance we discussed:
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Bring back Jeff

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (5:57am)

Now that Ted Baillieu is quitting Victorian politics Jeff Kennett has the safe seat he needs to save the Liberals, says Terry McCrann:
JEFF, please, please come back. Hopefully, straight as premier after the state election in three months. 
The party needs you - more importantly, the state needs you…
Bluntly, in short, Jeff Kennett has to come back, not just as the next member for the blue ribbon seat of Hawthorn. But once parliament finishes and the countdown starts to polling day, to take the Liberals as leader to that election…
If he’s honest with himself, Napthine should recognise it would be better to be a minister in a Kennett cabinet than an ex (half-term) premier…

Only a Kennett-led Liberal party could offer Victorians not simply a future of competent government, but of optimism – a sense of direction, of purpose… Which choice would you prefer: Napthine v Andrews or Kennett v Andrews? Which of the three can provide the leadership and direction we need?
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Bad guess

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (5:33am)

I am not sure our authorities have properly understood Islam and a particular subculture of the Lebanese community:
A psychiatrist and judge cautiously believed Sharrouf would abandon his radical beliefs upon his release from prison in 2009 but he is now one of Australia’s most wanted terrorists, along with Mohamed Elomar, whose jailed uncle Mohamed Ali Elomar was Sharrouf’s Pendennis co-accused.
I don’t think our immigration authorities understood what they were letting in, either: 
Nine Sydney men were arrested in 2005 under Operation Pendennis, the largest counter-terrorism investigation undertaken in Australia, which uncovered jihadist cells in Melbourne and Sydney amassing guns, ammunition and bomb-making equipment to use in terrorist attacks on home soil… 
Mohamed Elomar, whose jailed uncle Mohamed Ali Elomar was Sharrouf’s Pendennis co-accused…
Elomar senior was close with his nephews, brothers Ahmed and Mohamed, who protested their uncle’s innocence during the landmark Pendennis trials…
Ahmed bashed a police officer during the 2012 Hyde Park riot and Mohamed recently posed with severed heads on the Syrian battlefield, saying “love it keep them heads rolling"…
Close relatives of the Sydney cell’s ringleader [Lebanese-born] Khaled Cheikho and his nephew Moustafa Cheikho, who are both in a high-risk prison unit, continue to pose a security threat to Australia, authorities believe. Khaled Cheikho’s wife, Rahmah Wisudo, lives in Jordan with their son and was named in a 2010 US embassy cable as one of 11 Australians to be placed on a no-fly list due to “demonstrated links” with al-Qaeda… 
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Collecting for the Islamic State, while a Birmingham looks the other way

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (5:09am)

The Islamic State boasts of shooting and beheading unarmed civilians. Yet some Sydney Muslims still collect money for the Islamic State and wear its flag. Other Australian Muslims promote it on Facebook and wear its merchandising.
Yet some on the Left would still rather attack those trying to combat this clear and present evil rather than seem judgmental of Muslim extremists. It’s a very curious way of seeming broadminded and tolerant, to actually be closeminded and vicious, but John Birmingham attempts it:
Planning on setting up a Caliphate out the back of your falafel shop in Lakemba? Not on Tony’s team, mate. You take down that black flag right now, Mustafa. And while you’re at it, what’s wrong with a good old fashioned Chiko Roll? 
Of course, on closer inspection, the black flags which advance through Tony Abbott’s fevered dreams, marching in from the badlands to threaten our strategic harbour front redoubts, turn out not to be the banners of ISIL, or ISIS or whatever the murderous beards are calling themselves this week. No, looking at things just a little bit closer than the PM would like, we find the war banners of western Sydney’s jihadi to be cheap plastic novelties, the skull and crossbones flown over student share houses or, and this is a genuine worry, the battle standard of hated All Blacks; the true enemy within.
Kipling had the measure of such poseurs long ago:
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit. 
Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul?”
But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll.
George Orwell, too:
A humanitarian is always a hypocrite, and Kipling’s understanding of this is perhaps the central secret of his power to create telling phrases. It would be difficult to hit off the one-eyed pacifism of the English in fewer words than in the phrase, ‘making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep’… He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.
I quarrel with the phrase “inevitably less civilised”. Orwell clearly hadn’t met Birmingham, who stands no comparison to a soldier such as Lionel Dunsterville.
(Via Tim Blair.) 
===

World won’t warm. Scientists feel sick

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (5:01am)

Tim Blair marvels at the responses of Australian climate scientists to a polite inquiry into their feelings. One typical example:
I feel a maelstrom of emotions. I am exasperated … I am frustrated … I am anxious … I am perplexed … I am dumbfounded … I am distressed … I am upset … I am annoyed … I am angry … I am infuriated … But most of all I am apprehensive. 
The other responses are in the same hyperventilating mode, despite the failure of the world’s atmosphere to warm for some 16 years.
This suggests a disconnect. Or a panic that the planet itself won’t do as these alarmists insisted it must. 
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But still not paid for

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (4:51am)

A paper cut to the big cash splash meant to be paid for by Labor’s dud mining tax:
Parents would be forced to spend their annual Schoolkids Bonus on uniforms, textbooks and other educational expenses, under a redesign promoted by a major charity and embraced by Senate crossbenchers. 
The government had hoped to get rid of the Schoolkids Bonus – worth $820 a year for a high school student and $410 a year for a primary school student – as part of its repeal of the mining tax, but had been blocked by the Senate. Key Senate crossbenchers said they wanted the bonus to remain but were willing to consider amendments including restricting it to low-income families and targeting it at spending on education.
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One afternoon, I was waiting in line at a grocery store buying meat to cook dinner for my wife and kids. There was an old lady behind me buying a ton food. When i got to the cashier to pay I realized the money wasn't in my pocket. I sat my stuff down and search for the money in panic. I rushed through the grocery store to look for it. I rushed back through the same line and told the cashier to give me time to find it at the same time praying to God for me to see it. The old lady saw me in tears like i was crying, she asked me what's wrong and i explained as if my wife is going to kill me cause i let her down many times before with my old bad habits and this time she won't believe that i actually lost the money for real and that she's hungry at home cause of breastfeeding our baby. So the old lady paid for my groceries. I didn't want her to but she kept saying it's alright and if I needed to get some more. I thanked her with a hug full of emotions. Then drove back home and shared this story to my wife and i started to cry again and she just laughed. lol. Thank You Lord for answer my prayer. 
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Dean Hamstead
I'm not sure if "Be all you can be" normally means: leak national secrets, get 35 years, change gender...
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C. H. Spurgeon
When husbands and wives are well yoked, how light their load becomes.
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Rules when going to a birthday party- do not play in rooms with closed doors, do not accept food/drink from ppl other than host & parents, always make sure you can see mum/dad at all times, touch base with them every 5 mins to make sure mum/dad know EXACTLY where you are, do not under any circumstances leave the party venue, do not eat or drink anything until mum/dad ok it, do not play games that involve pushing/hitting/spitting, take the first item of food you touch, do not be alone with a grown up you don't know/just met, do not go near swimming pools/pets, do not play in grown up bedrooms, do not touch anything that doesn't belong to you, do not play with knives, do not run with sticks, do not leave anyone out of games and remember to HAVE FUN! - the grilling i put my kids through before going to any birthday party
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<Love it how those invented "misogyny" and #sexappeal furores about Abbott and left-wing smirks and backslapping have all blown up in their faces. Wonderful.>
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...Insidious propaganda had raised this animosity to the status of an obliging sacred duty, a testament to personal/communal integrity, patriotism and spiritual fidelity. The more the Jewish state is reviled, the higher castigator’s reputation rises. Anti-Israel fervor is money in the political bank.
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August 9, 2013 – An Arizona congressman wants the U.S. to triple its funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense program and hopes to see some of the manufacturing occur in Arizona.
U.S. Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., is part of a congressional delegation currently in Israel. Barber serves on the House Armed Services Committee.
Barber said in a telephone interview with the Phoenix Business Journal that he would like to see annual U.S. funding for Iron Dome systems go from its current $70 million level up to $220 million. The Pentagon also favors the spending increase, which is being considered by Congress.
Israeli Defense Forces deploy Iron Dome batteries to shoot down rockets and missiles launched by Palestinian insurgents.
The anti-missile defense system is manufactured by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., an arm of the IDF.
Barber hopes increased U.S. financial backing of the Iron Dome will bring about co-manufacturing of the system between the two countries. That could bring some production and contracts to the U.S., including Arizona. Raytheon Co. has its missile division and 10,000 workers in Tucson. Barber’s district includes parts of Tucson as well as Sierra Vista, which is home to the U.S. Army’s Fort Huachuca.
The IDF deployed anti-rocket defenses during last November’s fight with Palestinian insurgents in Gaza. Barber said more battalions could be needed. “We really need to ramp it up,” Barber said.
Barber has been in Israel and the West Bank this week as part of a congressional trip. That has included meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PresidentShimon Peres, as well as Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah.
The lawmaker also met with Israeli businesses and technology executives to talk about potential research and development partnerships with the University of Arizona. “We have some ideal facilities,” said Barber. He said Arizona and Israel both have arid climates and grapple with water issues.
Arizona companies exported $133 million worth of goods to Israel last year and $63 million for the first half of 2013, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
U.S. foreign aid to Israel totals $3.1 billion in the current federal budget, up from $2.6 billion in 2009, according to the U.S. State Department. Most of those funds are related to defense and security. Israel is the top beneficiary of U.S. foreign aid.
This is Barber’s first trip to Israel and he said it has made him more appreciative of the security situation and peace processes. He noted that Israeli children near the border with Gaza play in a fortified indoor playground built to withstand rocket attacks. He also was surprised by the metropolitan, modern and commercial nature of Ramallah.
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Egypt today is a zero-sum game. We’d have preferred there be a democratic alternative. Unfortunately, there is none. The choice is binary: the country will be ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood or by the military.
Perhaps it didn’t have to be this way. Perhaps the military should have waited three years for the intensely unpopular Mohamed Morsi to be voted out of office. But Gen.Abdel Fatah al-Sissi seems to have calculated that he didn’t have three years, that by then there would be no elections — as in Gaza, where the Palestinian wing of the Brotherhood, Hamas, elected in 2006, established a one-man-one-vote-one-time dictatorship.
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Column One: Resetting US foreign policy
By CAROLINE GLICK
22/08/2013 
Never since America’s establishment has the US appeared so untrustworthy, destructive, irrelevant and impotent.http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2013/08/resetting-us-foreign-policy.php
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Senior figures in jihadist groups that identify with al-Qaeda are hiding out in the Gaza Strip under the auspices of Hamas, Egyptian sources confirmed to The Times of Israel in a phone call Thursday, noting that their presence in the Palestinian territory was the source of current tensions between Egypt and Hamas.
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Dozens of elderly Holocaust survivors, in a facility in the Acre area, came very close to being hit by one of the four Katyusha rockets fired into Israel from southern Lebanon on Thursday afternoon.
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There’s supposed to be a news blackout from the reconvened Middle East peace talks going on this week. The Palestinians insisted on that lest their reluctant negotiators be branded as doing something that smacked of legitimizing the Jewish state. But one of their team broke their silence this week in order to complain about the fact that they have been called upon to actually talk one on one with their Israeli counterparts:
“We had an agreement on three-way negotiations. The Americans from the beginning were supposed to be there. I don’t see why the Israelis don’t want the Americans there, as witnesses,” Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, told The Times of Israel. “These are not two-way negotiations,” she added.
This would seem to be violation of their undertaking to keep quiet about the talks but Ashrawi had an explanation:
“I’m not discussing the details or the facts,” she said. “I’m just telling you it’s the Israelis who don’t want the Americans, even though the Americans are totally biased in favor of Israel.”
Asked why she believed the Israelis would request the removal of a party favorable to them, Ashrawi said “they feel they can exploit their power over the Palestinians.”
In saying this, Ashrawi couldn’t have told us more about the negotiations had she produced a transcript. Nor could she have given us a better indication of just how dim the chances of success for this effort are. The Palestinian fear of being trapped in a room with the people they are supposed to be crafting a deal with has nothing to do with fear of Israeli power. It’s all about the fact that the last thing they want is to actually reach an agreement they’d have to justify to a Palestinian people that is still not ready to accept a Jewish state no matter its borders are drawn.
In one sense, Ashrawi’s desire to keep U.S. envoy Martin Indyk in the room is understandable. Contrary to her claim, far from being inclined to bolster the positions of the Netanyahu government, his clear bias is one that that leads him to push for Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians.
But that’s not the real explanation.
It’s not exactly a secret that the ardent desire of Tzipi Livni, the head of the Israeli delegation, is to entice the Palestinians to embrace peace after three times rejecting offers of statehood that would include a share of Jerusalem and almost all of the West Bank. Supposedly that’s exactly what the Palestinians want, although they insist they will never compromise on forcing every Jew out of not only every settlement but the parts of Jerusalem that were illegally occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967. But the continuing stream of invective about Jews and Israel pouring out of the official Palestinian media and the so-called moderates of Fatah makes it hard to believe they are finally ready to take yes for an answer. Since PA leader Mahmoud Abbas seems no more capable or willing to accept the peace that he rejected in 2008 when he fled negotiations with Ehud Olmert convened by then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, his primary fear is not the Israeli intransigence the Jewish state’s critics bewail but that Livni will give him what he says he wants.
The Palestinians never wanted to come back to the table after four years’ absence. But with the U.S. prepared to put the screws to Israel to gratify Secretary of State John Kerry’s desire for the talks, it was impossible for them to say no once the Americans gave them the preconditions they demanded. But that doesn’t mean Abbas wants a happy ending to this negotiation. Not only do the Palestinians want the Americans to do their negotiating for them, but their primary objective is to avoid being trapped in a room with someone like Livni who is obviously desperate to agree to any deal.
While there is no telling for certain what will happen in the upcoming months, this is yet one more indication that the main Palestinian objective in the negotiations is to never be maneuvered into a position where they would have to either say yes to peace or reject it and take the blame. Stay tuned for months of pre-emptive Palestinian efforts to deflect the blame for the futile nature of this fool’s errand that Kerry has embarked upon.
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Below is the final episode of the Tribal Update, Latma's flagship satirical newscast. We launched the show 4 years ago. During this period, we produced more than 200 shows. It is a production record without peer in Israeli television history.
Over the past three years, we have been in on again, off again negotiations with Israel public television Channel 1 to produce the show as the station's prime time satire show. Over the past year, those negotiations intensified and the leaders of the station made me believe that the production contract was on its way. In anticipation of moving to a half hour television format, we expanded our internet crew, This raised our costs tremendously. Based on what I was told by the Channel 1 executives, I told our wonderful donors that it would just be a matter of months until Channel 1 picked up the reins and funded the show. 
But then everything fell apart. Netanyahu's appointed Chairman of Israel Broadcasting Authority Amir Gilat decided he didn't want us on television after all. He wanted to produce a historical documentary, and wanted the money earmarked for Latma. So after making groundless accusations against us in the media he convened the content committee of Channel 1 and cancelled the contract - which I never received anyway and transferred the money to his pet production. 
Latma cannot afford to maintain The Tribal Update in its current form. We will use our remaining funds to rebuild our core capacities on our website, expanding our commentaries and producing much less expensive short satirical pieces. We will also begin organizing on a financial model of funding through micro-funding and crowd-funding to give ourselves financial stability. This process will take a few months. 
Yes, we were lied to, repeatedly. But then again, the treatment we received at the hands of Channel 1 just proves our point. The Israeli media is impossibly post-Zionist. The Tribal Update is without a doubt the best satire show ever produced in this country. And the fact that we cannot get a television contract for our show -- which by all accounts would receive massive rating -- shows the inherent and all-encompassing bias and hatred driving the media elites in this country -- and the cowardice and fecklessness of Likud apparatchiks in the face of this situation.
I will have more to say about our experience once the dust clears, and our plans are set.
In the meantime, enjoy our final show. I will post the show as a separate item when we post it on You Tube.
Below, as always, you can find the link to donate to Latma. Like I said, we are reorganizing. But your financial support for our endeavors remains as vital as it has always been. And I can't tell you how much we appreciate it.

Latma is funded by donations from private individuals who believe that the voice of Zionism must be heard, loud and clear, in Israel and throughout the world. We need your help in order to stay open and continue sounding our voices.

If you are in the United States, Latma is  funded by donations to the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project which I direct. If you would like to contribute to our work, which is funded entirely by viewer contributions, please go to this link.

For donations outside the US, here is a link to the donations page for our Israeli non-profit, the Zionist Incubator. You can make credit card donations to Latma by contributing to our non-profit. 
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Holly Sarah Nguyen
There's no safety outside of God.
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<On the knifing of Julia Gillard. Reads like a Shakespearean tragedy - except they're all villains.>
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Zaya Toma.
<Recently a Member of the NSW Legislative Council spoke against the recognition of the Assyrian Genocide. Unfortunately his speech was based on information by professor Jennifer Lawless. A simple Google Search reveals that she leads tours across Gallipoli and that her research is in part funded by the Turkish Government. Similar to what is said in this article:

Professor Colin Tatz is director of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

He says most historians agree that genocide did occur.

"It's about 99 to 1. The non-Turkish scholars that she is talking about need to be qualified. Every single one of them have actually been funded by the Turkish government and predictably they have produced a pro-Turkish line. There isn't a single respectable scholar who is accepted in the general profession of history who says it didn't happen.">
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This from Rudd, currently making Defence Personnel drag dead
bodies out of the ocean because of his failed policies.  His troops are right now
risking their lives on the front line in Afghanistan.

I served like many others for more than 20 years, in fact 24 years, and
whilst serving I was proud of the job we did. Possibly the best years of
my life were given to the cause.  I now feel very guilty for what I made
my family endure.

Because of my career and postings my wife and family were dragged for more
than 21 years from not only all over Australia but also overseas. My
eldest daughter was forced to attended 10 different schools during her
education.  My wife, forced to change employment 9 times again because of
my career and at one point was not allowed to work for 4 years because of
an overseas posting.

I spent more than 11 years of my career at sea away and out of touch from
my family. This we endured as it was what I  had signed up for. The one
shining light (or carrot ) that was always held out to us was that our
military super would compensate for the hardships.

On retirement a lot of members find it difficult to find employment as
there is not a lot of calling for, in my case a Weapons Engineer or at
worse if you are an infantry man or bosuns mate.

For me, I had a very supportive wife and we were able to make a career for
ourselves after the Navy in our own business that led to a lucrative
contract as a Team Manager of a large V8 Supercar team. I was certainly
was one of the lucky ones. Not all have been as fortunate and many are
struggling to keep their head above water (and that isn't a pun).

One young widow I recently had contact with is now forced to make do on
only 62% of her partners pension to raise her young daughter.. If she was
Tim Matherson she would be entitled to 89% of a much larger pension that
neither he nor Gillard contributed 1 cent to. We on the other hand were
forced to pay more than 6% of our gross salaries into government revenue
and pay tax on it. Then pay tax on our pension entitlement. The government
Double dipping.

Now that I have retired that super payment has now diminished to less than
the Age pension. This for all the hardships hardly seems fair. Whilst the
history of military super is long and clouded because of smears that both
sides of politics have tried to perpetuate let me just say that those who
served in the Military have been dudded and betrayed.  Current members on
the new MSBS scheme are also being conned in the same way and no side of
politics is doing any thing to address it.

Enough is enough. Someone has to stand up for the Military members both
current and retired. Unfortunately our numbers are too small to carry
weight or favour and whilst serving you are gagged.

Just as a side issue to highlight my feelings. My home was broken into a
while back and my medals, including the Conspicuous Service Medal I was
awarded in 1993 were stolen. The Police attended, however they were never
recovered. My kids have been at me to have them replaced. I just don't
have the feeling inside anymore for their worth considering how I, like
many have been treated. I know this may seem strange to some, however as I
said above the feeling of guilt toward my family is real. Maybe in years
to come I may change that attitude.

Thank you Michael for your work,

Regards

Garry
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Pastor Rick Warren
My #LifeCalling is Ezekiel 34:16 
"I will search for the lost, bring back those who stray, bandage the hurting, and make the weak strong"
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Pastor Rick Warren
She's the mother of a family of spiritual redwoods. Amazing faith. Boundless compassion. Brilliant communicator. I am still hopelessly in love with her.
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You can slip on your way up, at the top, or coming off a high point. "Look carefully then, at how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise." Eph. 5:15 (ESV)
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The World Jewish Congress urges Ukrainian clergy to refrain from attending neo-Nazi events...
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http://bit.ly/19Cb4HP What do you think? Is Obama impeachable?>
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<Even Fairfax journalists are now asking: "will this guy ever shut up!

Judith Ireland writes: "In trying to dominate the nightly news bulletins, the Prime Minister is talking for longer than the news itself.">
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While throwing Molotov cocktails at passing Israeli cars driving on the Nachliel road, near the Arab village of Dir Nizzam, Arab terrorists ignited a forest fire near Neve Tsuf, in Israel’s Benyamin region. Volunteers quickly arrived on the scene and began to extinguish the blaze, amid fears that the flames would spread to nearby homes. The volunteers were soon joined by firefighters. No injuries were reported, but significant damage was caused to the area’s greenery.
Security forces searched for the attackers and found remnants of more Molotov cocktails, but no arrests were made.
A spokesperson for the Benyamin region Fire Department told Tazpit News Agency that three teams were required to gain full control of the fire.


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Guilty of being Jewish? - ed

Clutching the bars of the defendant’s cage, Ilya Farber assumes the posture of a crucifix as he proclaims his innocence and pleads for freedom with characteristic thespian flare.
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Korean engineers invented an all-electric car that can fold itself in half. The researchers based the design of the car on the armadillo, a South American mammal with an armour shell that rolls up into a ball when it senses danger. The car, known as Armadillo-T, tucks its rear body away, shrinking its original size of 2.8 metres to 1.65 metres, and it could be the perfect solution for city dwellers who need to park in small spaces.

Read more and watch a video:http://bit.ly/1d9F2Xy via Phys.org 
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Pastor Rick Warren
Adversity can build your character. Prosperity can destroy it. The effect of either is due to how you handle it.
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Pastor Rick Warren
You have 3 choices when bad things happen to you: You can let it destroy you, you can let it define you, or you can let it develop you.
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The White House after having been burned by British troops
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“When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your unfailing love, LORD, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.” Psalm 94:18-19 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"The voice of weeping shall be no more heard."
Isaiah 65:19
The glorified weep no more, for all outward causes of grief are gone. There are no broken friendships, nor blighted prospects in heaven. Poverty, famine, peril, persecution, and slander, are unknown there. No pain distresses, no thought of death or bereavement saddens. They weep no more, for they are perfectly sanctified. No "evil heart of unbelief" prompts them to depart from the living God; they are without fault before his throne, and are fully conformed to his image. Well may they cease to mourn who have ceased to sin. They weep no more, because all fear of change is past. They know that they are eternally secure. Sin is shut out, and they are shut in. They dwell within a city which shall never be stormed; they bask in a sun which shall never set; they drink of a river which shall never dry; they pluck fruit from a tree which shall never wither. Countless cycles may revolve, but eternity shall not be exhausted, and while eternity endures, their immortality and blessedness shall co-exist with it. They are forever with the Lord. They weep no more, because every desire is fulfilled. They cannot wish for anything which they have not in possession. Eye and ear, heart and hand, judgment, imagination, hope, desire, will, all the faculties, are completely satisfied; and imperfect as our present ideas are of the things which God hath prepared for them that love him, yet we know enough, by the revelation of the Spirit, that the saints above are supremely blessed. The joy of Christ, which is an infinite fulness of delight, is in them. They bathe themselves in the bottomless, shoreless sea of infinite beatitude. That same joyful rest remains for us. It may not be far distant. Ere long the weeping willow shall be exchanged for the palm-branch of victory, and sorrow's dewdrops will be transformed into the pearls of everlasting bliss. "Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

Evening


"That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith."
Ephesians 3:17
Beyond measure it is desirable that we, as believers, should have the person of Jesus constantly before us, to inflame our love towards him, and to increase our knowledge of him. I would to God that my readers were all entered as diligent scholars in Jesus' college, students of Corpus Christi, or the body of Christ, resolved to attain unto a good degree in the learning of the cross. But to have Jesus ever near, the heart must be full of him, welling up with his love, even to overrunning; hence the apostle prays "that Christ may dwell in your hearts." See how near he would have Jesus to be! You cannot get a subject closer to you than to have it in the heart itself. "That he may dwell;" not that he may call upon you sometimes, as a casual visitor enters into a house and tarries for a night, but that he may dwell; that Jesus may become the Lord and Tenant of your inmost being, never more to go out.

Observe the words--that he may dwell in your heart, that best room of the house of manhood; not in your thoughts alone, but in your affections; not merely in the mind's meditations, but in the heart's emotions. We should pant after love to Christ of a most abiding character, not a love that flames up and then dies out into the darkness of a few embers, but a constant flame, fed by sacred fuel, like the fire upon the altar which never went out. This cannot be accomplished except by faith. Faith must be strong, or love will not be fervent; the root of the flower must be healthy, or we cannot expect the bloom to be sweet. Faith is the lily's root, and love is the lily's bloom. Now, reader, Jesus cannot be in your heart's love except you have a firm hold of him by your heart's faith; and, therefore, pray that you may always trust Christ in order that you may always love him. If love be cold, be sure that faith is drooping.
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Today's reading: Psalm 113-115, 1 Corinthians 6 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 113-115

1 Praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD, you his servants;
praise the name of the LORD.
2 Let the name of the LORD be praised,
both now and forevermore.
3 From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
the name of the LORD is to be praised.
4 The LORD is exalted over all the nations,
his glory above the heavens.
5 Who is like the LORD our God,
the One who sits enthroned on high,
6 who stoops down to look
on the heavens and the earth?

Today's New Testament reading: 1 Corinthians 6


Lawsuits Among Believers
1 If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord's people? 2 Or do you not know that the Lord's people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother takes another to court-and this in front of unbelievers!
7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. 9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God....
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Gamaliel

[GaË•mā'lĭel] - god is recompenser orthe gift or reward of god.
  1. A chief of Manasseh chosen to aid in taking the census in the wilderness (Num. 1:10; 2:20; 7:54, 59; 10:23).
  2. The renowned Doctor of Jewish law (Acts 5:34), and instructor of the apostle Paul (Acts 22:3 ). It may be that Paul's instruction in the Law began when he was about the age of twelve (Luke 2:42). Like his Master, Paul, as Saul of Tarsus, sat in the midst of the doctors, hearing and asking questions. These learned men sat in a high chair, and the scholars on the floor and were thus literally at their masters'feet (see Deut. 33:3).

The Man Who Was Tolerant


Ellicott speaks of Gamaliel as one of the heroes of rabbinical history. His dramatic speech before the Council on Peter's behalf, and the part he played in the instruction of Paul mark him out a man worthy of note. Gamaliel was the son of Simeon, perhaps of Luke 2:25, and the grandson of the great Hillel, the representative of the best school of Pharisaism, the tolerant and largehearted rival of the narrow and fanatic Shammai. Through the weight of years and authority Gamaliel rose to eminence and counseled with moderation.
Being of the house and lineage of David, this cultured teacher had full sympathy with the claims of Christ, who was welcomed as the Son of David. Perhaps he was influenced to a decision for Christ through contact with a brother-teacher like Nicodemus (John 3:1, 2; 7:50, 51) and can therefore be included among the many chief rulers who secretly believed in Christ (John 12:42, 43).
Digging beneath Gamaliel's able and successful performance before the Council at Jerusalem, Alexander Whyte feels that he was only a "fluent and applauded opportunist" and warns young men against his presentation. "He was a politician, but he was not a true churchman or statesman. He was held in repute by the people; but the people were blind, and they loved to be led by blind leaders, and Gamaliel was one of them." With all his insight and lawyerlike ability, Gamaliel turned all things completely upsidedown when he sat in judgment, and gave his carefully balanced caution concerning the Son of God, comments Dr. Whyte.

Perhaps the renowned author of Bible Characters is right when he suggests that Gamaliel made the tremendous and irreparable mistake of approaching Jesus Christ and His cause on the side of policy, handling Him as a matter open to argument and debate. But Christ is an Ambassador of Reconciliation, and we are not permitted to sit in judgment on God, and on His message of mercy to us. Without apology Dr. Whyte pronounces Gamaliel as "a liberal long before his time. He was all for toleration, and for a free church in a free state, in an intolerant and persecuting day."
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