Sunday, October 22, 2017

Sun Oct 22nd Todays News

Don't give up on hope. The NZ PM is no less accomplished than Canada's or France's PM.  Piers Akerman notes her charm is equivalent as a fart joke. Arden claims that NZ capitalism is a failure. The previous government had delivered 4.8% unemployment, a debt level of 2.8% of the economy, and growth of 3%. Arden declared that it was intolerable that 'hundreds of thousands of NZ children live in homes without enough to survive.' Does Arden intend to adopt Venezuelan policy and evict those children? Maybe Arden intends to follow the example of WHO health ambassador Robert Mugabe? After all, genocide and ethnic cleansing do show a level of commitment that democracies struggle to achieve normally. 

A meme is circulating of Hillary defending a rapist in 1975, by claiming that a 12 yo child rape fantasised older men. Seven years later, Hillary laughed discussing the case. The 44 year old had not served time for rape, but pled guilty to a lesser charge. Snopes and other fact check sites which defend Democrats,  quibbles with the facts, but substantiates them. 

Trump is intending to release redacted information about JFK's assassination. Lee Harvey Oswald fired full metal jacket bullets. The kill shot was a dum dum. In all likelihood, the event was a secret service accident in response to Oswald's shooting. And so the deaths of Oswald and Ruby were likely a monstrous cover up protecting senior Democrats. 

The World Series will feature a face off between Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston's Astros. I'll support a team close to Bush, and oppose a team close to Pelosi. I'm like that. 

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 "Let's Stay Together"

Because Community Channel said she liked Al Green .. "Let's Stay Together" is a song by Al Green on his 1972 album of the same name. Released as a single in 1971, the song reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and remained on the chart for 16 weeks and also topped Billboard's R&B chart for nine weeks. It was ranked the 60th greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time


=== from 2016 ===

The local council election is over, and results won't be finalised for some time. In Greater Dandenong, Red Gum ward, I placed on first preferences 11 out of 11. With 1.6% of first preferences, I got 143 votes with 32% counted. I am proud and pleased with that. I expect the make up of those votes is from New Life church and my friends from the ward. One friend begged me to print things and letter drop, but I refused. Had I done so, I would have got more votes, but I would not have been elected. To be elected I would have needed a coherent platform (I think I achieved that) but also exposure which I could not get. I contacted 3AW several times and could not get on. I gave several columns to news papers who would not run them. I created a column for candidates, none of whom replied. Neither Andrew Bolt nor the IPA nor Liberal Party officially recognised my effort. I was the sole conservative candidate (unaligned) and placed last on every other candidate's preference. The candidate I placed 2nd, placed me 9th of 11th, but with three positions in the offing, that is equal to last. The three sitting candidates seem to be re elected, but none have achieved a third of the vote. 

But I had not run to get elected, although I would have liked to and had a plan had that happened. I ran to create a profile so that next time there would be a support base. I am new to Melbourne and Greater Dandenong. But it is my home. I'm not walking away. I thank everyone who supported me, and I promise them that change can be made, and I will still put forward the issues they hold dear. Less business red tape so business can profit. More youth employment to lessen crime rates. Better planning so that homes have access to public transport routes and internet is accessible and places of worship are available. Don't accept the lie that there is over developed spaces without finding out where and how they are over developed. Finally, cheaper garbage collection or an explanation of why the ridiculous inefficient recycling is currently employed. 
=== from 2015 ===
ALP insurance has many benefits, but is terrible to lose. It is costly to maintain, but one basically must sell their soul to maintain it. But afterwards, paid up members can live in the luxury that hardened masters of organised crime enjoy. A police chief who used to act as an unofficial police minister for the ALP can still say anything to the press and be believed. Like saying that a Hizb Ut Tahrir's call for evil jews to be killed is not actionable under NSW anti vilification laws. But what if Andrew Bolt had said it? Bolt has not got ALP insurance cover. One paid up member stole member funds from a union and entered Australia's parliament and lied to it. But that was ok. Another union leader from the same union blew the whistle on the insured member, and has been denounced as a criminal. Their partner took time of work to help the denounced former leader and is now being denounced by media. Bill Heffernan has announced under parliamentary privilege that an ALP insured PM has been denounced as a pedophile. Press are showing extraordinary restraint in examining the bona fides of the claims. The press showed the same restraint when they failed to note an asylum seeker who didn't want an abortion wasn't in sync with advocates who 'knew better.' ALP insurance has so far allowed a partisan judiciary and public service run amok and lie in support of the ALP. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
From 2014
Choices they make
One does not need to agree with everything that Caroline Glick writes, but her arguments are compelling. Obama is not stupid, but a virtuoso manager, she writes. But procedure and management do not make a good President or even a good manager. The examples show someone who is bigoted, obstructive and very nasty. Keep in mind that critics are quick to claim Obama is inept. His inability to reign in spending, his inability to address social issues in a Presidential, fair, manner, his poor policies that exacerbate inequity all suggest a poor manager, or something worse.

But when one examines Whitehouse activity one sees a different side. Glick gives two examples, the first being obstructing the Israel Defence Force in finding their soldier taken hostage and killed by Hamas. It would not have been hard or controversial for the US to allow the FBI to give information to Israel to allow them to save the captive, but the Whitehouse put in place managerial blocks. It was later revealed the soldier was dead and Hamas still have the remains and have accessed the soldier's FaceBook account. Secondly, there was an unofficial arms embargo placed on Israel as Hamas was escalating rocket attacks and Israel launched a short defensive insurgence to remove weapons and tunnels for Hamas. The embargo did not deny Israel supplies, but delayed them so that Israel did not have them. Compare that bureaucratic obstruction with the decision of Obama to allow Iran sufficient centrifuges to produce an atomic bomb within a year. These decisions are not the product of a mind devoid of organisation. They are purposeful, wrong and treasonous.

Another highly lauded person has died at a great age. Ben Bradlee was 93 years old, born in 1921, he served in WW2 before becoming a journalist. His time as editor for the Washington post saw the printing of the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate story. He was aware of the identity of Felt who was Deep Throat, and wold have been aware of the conflict of interest for Felt which made the witch hunt into Nixon a travesty of justice. It is ok for a journalist to be biased, but they should be honest about it and Ben never was.

In Andrew McMicking's defence, he probably thought he was being jocular, before then deciding he had better temporarily lose his phone. His twitter account had a now deleted posting to someone that 'now their son was dead he had been a grub who deserved it.' McMicking is ALP. Had he been conservative there would be outrage from a lot of silent people who right now must be suspected of approving the depravity.

ALP vs LNP
Albrechtsen contrasts Plibersek and Bishop, noting ALP Plibersek has jumped on empty symbolic bandwagons calling out 'misogyny' and making empty claims for political purposes. Meanwhile Bishop quietly and effectively executes difficult political manoeuvres.

Scott Morrison personally intervenes on migrants by denying a visa, and any possible appeal, on security grounds. Remembering Gough by his achievements and the press are blinded by love. Hate media mourns the death of Whitlam. Miranda Devine, Greg Sheridan and Andrew Bolt separately reveal some of the appalling abuses of Whitlam long forgiven by his hagiographers.

Isolated issues
Pistorius is in jail for an inadequate set time of five years maximum. Possibly less than a year. His sentence is based on the erroneous finding he had not the intent to kill his girlfriend. Steenkamp's family have accepted the verdict, but the prosecutor has a few weeks with which they may lodge an appeal. One suspects Pistorius' sentence would have been longer had he actually shot an intruder and not his brilliant, talented girlfriend. South Africa with Pistorius and without Steenkamp is a much poorer, darker place.

Genius scientist Stephen Hawking has set up a trap with which he claims he can catch a time traveller. Typical of Hawking's thinking there are holes. The idea is to invite the time traveller after the event. If time travel is possible, then we should see them, or tourists. But we don't. The assumption being that they wish to be seen and look familiar. Another assumption is that the intent of wanting a time traveller to appear and the message they should is one and the same. However we all see time travellers all the time .. they just happen to be travelling with us at the same rate.

Royal commission into institutionalised responses to pedophilia has heard a harrowing account of how police returned the victim to abusers on numerous occasions. It sounds familiar. Some children are abused without being raped and have similar stories. The betrayal of a child is never acceptable and turning away is never a good thing, but how does a good person intervene? As the stolen generation myth shows, good intentions can harm everyone, including the child.

Games people play
Giants win first WSB game 7 to 1. San Francisco got three runs in the first innings, and had compiled five before the fifth innings, taking out the Kansas City starting pitcher at a seventy pitch count by the end of the fourth innings. The game was lost early and the second, with a new set of starter pitchers will characterise the series. Kansas City need to tie it up or give a very challenging lead away. 
From 2013
Amazingly, a US based AGW alarmist is able to pinpoint the cause of fires in Australia without visiting. She was wrong, however, as the proximate cause of many of them seems to be bored children. But maybe she was right, and the nearing end of the world is causing our bored children to act out. Or something.  Bolt makes the discovery one unexplored cure for bushfires would be for the ABC to give up half its' budget. Axing news and current affairs and replaying old episodes would not make much difference for the audience who would love to re-experience the joy of the dismissal.

Mike Carlton could put on some funny voices, but it is not certain if he can be normal or competent as a news reader. But it might be fun to hear Carton on the Incompetent Penis who inexplicably is not as popular as surveys suggest. More boat success as 240 people are retained in Indonesia, having given much to pirates to be detained in Indonesia.
Bush fires are serious, but the PM is condemned for fighting some, when a previous PM was lauded for watching DVDs. Where are Gillard's dragons? According to the ABC, the fires are unprecedented. Having watched the Princess Bride, I am reminded of the observation "I do not feel that word means what you think it does." Or maybe the ABC is wrong? Inconceivable!

Members of a certain faith have bombed a bus. Yet it is clowns which frighten an unknown Briton, causing a circus to be banned from touring her local town until they can produce advertising without clowns. But what if they do, and she goes to that circus .. and clowns are there? The local council had better shut down, just to be safe.
Palmer seems very lucky. Or corrupt.

Murdoch has been blamed for much recently, with the left calling for censorship of the press. But I've observed something different. Murdoch does not seem to have censored anything I'm aware of (Maybe he is that good?) but Today Tonight, and the two local papers Fairfield Advance and Fairfield Champion have contained the newsworthy stories I have brought to their attention. They have never given me a reason. However, I have heard from 2GB and from Bankstown paper journalists that I would be very surprised if I ever found out who was responsible (2GB) and that journalists talk to each other (Bankstown paper) wtf does that mean? Singleton? My hands are clean and I have approached the police and run for parliament twice .. even though the papers have never reported on my issue and have denied voters their constitutional right to be informed who they are voting for.
Historical perspective on this day
4004 BC – The world was created at approximately six o'clock in the evening, according to the Ussher chronology.
362 – The temple of Apollo at Daphne, outside Antioch, is destroyed in a mysterious fire.
451 – The Council of Chalcedon adopts the Chalcedonian Creedregarding the divine and human nature of Jesus Christ.
794Emperor Kanmu relocates the Japanese capital to Heian-kyō(now Kyoto).
906Ahmad ibn Kayghalagh leads a raid against the Byzantine Empirefrom Tarsus. He reaches the Halys River and takes 4,000–5,000 captives.

1383 – The 1383–85 Crisis in Portugal: King Fernando dies without a male heir to the Portuguese throne, sparking a period of civil war and disorder.
1575 – Foundation of Aguascalientes.
1633Battle of Liaoluo Bay: The Ming dynasty defeats the Dutch East India Company.

1707Scilly naval disaster: Four British naval vessels run aground on the Isles of Scilly because of faulty navigation. In response, the first Longitude Act is enacted in 1714.
1730 – Construction of the Ladoga Canal is completed.
1746 – The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) receives its charter.
1777American Revolutionary War: American defenders of Fort Mercer on the Delaware River repulse repeated Hessian attacks in the Battle of Red Bank.
1784Russia founds a colony on Kodiak Island, Alaska.
1790 – Warriors of the Miami people under Chief Little Turtle defeat United States troops under General Josiah Harmar at the site of present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the Northwest Indian War.
1797André-Jacques Garnerin makes the first recorded parachute jump from one thousand meters (3,200 feet) above Paris.

1836Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.
1844 – The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipate the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day became known as the Great Disappointment.
1859 – Spain declares war on Morocco.
1866 – A plebiscite ratifies the annexion of Veneto and Mantua to Italy, which had occurred three days before, on October 19.

1875 – First telegraphic connection in Argentina.
1877 – The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners.
1878 – The first rugby match under floodlights takes place in Salford, between Broughton and Swinton.
1879 – Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric incandescent light bulb (it lasted 13½ hours before burning out).
1883 – The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City opens with a performance of Gounod's Faust.
1884 – The Royal Observatory in Britain is adopted as the prime meridian of longitude by the International Meridian Conference.
1895 – In Paris an express train derails after overrunning the buffer stop, crossing almost 30 metres (100 ft) of concourse before crashing through a wall and falling 10 metres (33 ft) to the road below.

1907Panic of 1907: A run on the stock of the Knickerbocker Trust Company sets events in motion that will lead to a depression.
1910Dr. Crippen is convicted at the Old Bailey of poisoning his wife and is subsequently hanged at Pentonville Prison in London.
1923 – The royalist Leonardopoulos–Gargalidis coup d'état attempt fails in Greece, discrediting the monarchy and paving the way for the establishment of the Second Hellenic Republic.
1927Nikola Tesla introduces six new inventions including single-phase electric power.
1928Phi Sigma Alpha fraternity is founded at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus.
1934 – In East Liverpool, Ohio, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents shoot and kill notorious bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd.

1941World War II: French resistance member Guy Môquet and 29 other hostages are executed by the Germans in retaliation for the death of a German officer.
1943 – World War II: in the Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless.
1946Soviet Operation Osoaviakhim takes place, recruiting of thousands of military-related technical specialists from the Soviet occupation zone of post-World-War-II Germany for employment in the Soviet Union.
1947Kashmir conflict starts, a territorial conflict primarily between India and Pakistan, having started just after the partition of India in 1947.

1957Vietnam War: First United States casualties in Vietnam.
1962Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the Communist nation.
1963 – A BAC One-Eleven prototype airliner crashes in UK with the loss of all on board.
1964Jean-Paul Sartre is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but turns down the honor.
1964 – Canada: A Multi-Party Parliamentary Committee selects the design which becomes the new official flag of Canada.
1966The Supremes become the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album (The Supremes A' Go-Go).
1966 – The Soviet Union launches Luna 12.
1968Apollo program: Apollo 7 safely splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.

1972Vietnam War: In Saigon, Henry Kissinger and South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệumeet to discuss a proposed cease-fire that had been worked out between Americans and North Vietnamese in Paris.
1975 – The Soviet unmanned space mission Venera 9 lands on Venus.
1976Red Dye No. 4 is banned by the US Food and Drug Administration after it is discovered that it causes tumors in the bladders of dogs.
1978Papal inauguration of Pope John Paul II.

1981 – The United States Federal Labor Relations Authority votes to decertify the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) for its strike the previous August.
1983 – Two correctional officers are killed by inmates at the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. The incident inspires the Supermax model of prisons.
1999Maurice Papon, an official in the Vichy France government during World War II, is jailed for crimes against humanity.

2001Grand Theft Auto III was released, popularizing a genre of open-world, action-adventure video games as well as spurring controversy around violence in video games.
2005Tropical Storm Alpha forms in the Atlantic Basin, making the 2005 Atlantic hurricane seasonthe most active Atlantic hurricane season on record with 22 named storms.
2006 – A Panama Canal expansion proposal is approved by 77.8% of voters in a National referendumheld in Panama.
2007Raid on Anuradhapura Air Force Base is carried out by 21 Tamil Tiger commandos. All except one died in this attack. Eight Sri Lanka Air Force planes are destroyed and 10 damaged.
2008 – India launches its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.
2013 – The Australian Capital Territory becomes the first Australian jurisdiction to legalize same-sex marriage with the Marriage Equality (Same Sex) Act 2013
2014 – Michael Zehaf-Bibeau attacks the Parliament of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, killing a soldier and injuring three other people.
2015 – A teacher and a student are killed, and 2 students injured, in an attack at a high school in Trollhättan, Sweden.
=== Publishing News ===
This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
===
I am publishing a book called Bread of Life: January

Bread of Life is a daily bible quote with a layman's understanding of the meaning. I give one quote for each day, and also a series of personal stories illustrating key concepts eg Who is God? What is a miracle? Why is there tragedy?

January is the first of the anticipated year-long work of thirteen books. One for each month and the whole year. It costs to publish. It (Kindle version) should retail at about $2US online, but the paperback version would cost more, according to production cost.
If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofund.me/27tkwuc
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with AugustSeptemberOctober, 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 for those born on this day, across the years, along with
1071 – William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (d. 1126)
1734 – Daniel Boone, American explorer and hunter (d. 1820)
1749 – Cornelis van der Aa, Dutch bookseller (d. 1816)
1811 – Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist and composer (d. 1886)
1844 – Sarah Bernhardt, French actress (d. 1923)
1913 – Bao Dai, the final Vietnamese emperor (d. 1997)
1917 – Joan Fontaine, Japanese-American actress
1938 – Derek Jacobi, English actor
1942 – Annette Funicello, American actress and singer (d. 2013)
1946 – Deepak Chopra, Indian-American physician and author
1973 – Ichiro Suzuki, Japanese baseball player
1992 – Sofia Vassilieva, American actress
Edison's carbon filament light bulb
The battle is won and the opium secured. A disaster at sea spurs us to unravel time. The light is on. The weapons are ready. The enemy is called to account. Lets party. 
Deaths
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Piers Akerman 2017

Nobody’s laughing at this fart joke

OPINION FIRST Canada, then France, and now New Zealand has elected an inexperienced populist with no time for proper public scrutiny, writes Piers Akerman.
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Miranda Devine 2017

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Tim Blair 2017

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Andrew Bolt 2017

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Tim Blair

THE PRESS’S PRINCESS

To her friends in the media, Gillian Triggs will forever be tiara-decorated Miss Melbourne University 1966.
22 Oct  

GREAT TEA CRISIS OF 1954

Before climate change, cartoons and the ABC’s Nauru horror-mongering, Australians worried about real issues.
22 Oct  

UN SAYS NO

Strangely, considering how settled is the science and all, the UN is frightened by a handful of sceptical Canadian journalists.
22 Oct  

HORSE WALKS INTO A BAR

It’s the place to be on November 1 – at North Sydney’s Greenwood Hotel with a real live horse.
22 Oct  

THIS WAS NOT EXPECTED

One poll at least shows significant gains for Donald Trump following the third debate, widely judged a disaster for the Republican.
22 Oct  

TRAINS AND PLANES AND BOMBS

It’s all happening in London, where an airport was closed and a man arrested over a suspected train bomb.
22 Oct  

JULIAN BURNSIDE’S ALTERNATIVE REALITY

You’ve got your standard lefties, who perhaps see the world a little differently to you or I. And then you’ve got Julian Burnside.
21 Oct  

TRY DRAWING A CARTOON, TRIGGSY

This is fantastic. Earlier in the week, before her senate scandal erupted, Gillian Triggs actually complained that HER freedom of speech rights were being violated.
TIM BLAIR 21 Oct
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Andrew Bolt

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JOURNALISM HAPPENS, LEFTOIDS FURIOUS

Tim Blair – Thursday, October 22, 2015 (12:22pm)

Twenty years ago, Chris Kenny led investigations into the claimed secret women’s business on Hindmarsh Island. Leftists were outraged because Kenny’s accurate reporting exposed facts that the left preferred to conceal.
Kenny has just returned from Nauru, where, again, his accurate reporting has exposed certain awkward facts. And, once again, leftists are outraged. Truth is kryptonite to these people, who now have Twitter as an additional platform for their demented lies.
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WORDS FRIGHTEN THEM

Tim Blair – Thursday, October 22, 2015 (10:52am)

Protesters – including the usual double-barrelled social justice types – turn up to shout at Geert Wilders
Anti-Islam Dutch MP Geert Wilders was almost drowned out by protesters but persisted with a media conference outside WA’s Parliament House on Wednesday to promote the launch of a controversial new political party.
While a small but vocal group of protesters chanted “say it loud, say it clear, racism’s not welcome here”, the Australian Liberty Alliance unveiled its three candidates for the 2016 federal election — Debbie Robinson (WA), Kirralie Smith (NSW) and Bernard Gaynor (Queensland) …
Social justice campaigner Victoria Martin-Iverson said: “It is people like Mr Wilders who bring racism and bigotry and social discord onto our streets. The rise of the far right is an entirely dangerous development in this country.” 
Allegations that Wilders’s security staff shoved a disabled protester seem wide of the mark.
(Via Colin D.)
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GEOMETRY OF LOVE

Tim Blair – Thursday, October 22, 2015 (1:05am)

If a romantic rivalry involving three people is your classic love triangle, I suppose this second-last episode of The Bachelorette – featuring Sam, Richie, Sasha and Michael – begins as a four-sided love quadrilateral.
Doesn’t roll easily off the tongue, does it? Which is probably why the love quadrilateral so rarely features in romantic fiction or verse. Also, it’s quite difficult to rhyme: 
We’ve had several weeks of talk and chatteral 
All leading up to a love quadrilateral 
Two will make it through and one will be shatteral 
Richie, Sasha or Mike? It doesn’t really matteral
 
Still, at least a four-sided contest is less unwieldly than a love pentadecagon, which is what we started out with before Sam began her ruthless culling. Anyway, enough of all this geometry nonsense! It’s Bachelorette time.
(Please continue reading. Link includes me attempting a Samantha impression.) 
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Turnbull at his best: I have great faith in the Australian people

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (5:57pm)

A great speech by Malcolm Turnbull, albeit selling a great Tony Abbott compromise. Watch it here.
Bill Shorten had just asked whether the Liberals’ plan for a plebiscite to settle the same-sex marriage debate would unleash homophobia. Turnbull’s response was magnificent:
I am very disappointed at his lack of faith in the Australian people. He thinks so little of the people of this country that he does not believe we are capable of having a civil debate on a matter of this importance. He is so frightened of public debate that he wants to shut the people out… 
I have great faith in the decency and the common sense, in the humanity, in the wisdom of the Australian people and if there are unruly voices heard, they will be drowned out by the common sense and the respect and the general humanity of our people.... When the Australian people make their decision, that decision will stick. It will be decisive. It will be respected by this government and by this parliament and this nation. 
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Another Turnbull concession to the Left. UPDATE: Abetz against another. UPDATE: Yet another

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (1:10pm)

There’s nothing good to say about this backdown, which hands victory to the enemies of free intellectual inquiry:
The Turnbull government has been accused of hoisting the white flag on academic freedom and failing to show leadership after abandoning a research project linked to climate contrarian Bjorn Lomborg and his Copenhagen-based institute. 
Flinders University, which was to host the $4 million taxpayer-funded research project, said it was only advised yesterday that former education minister Christopher Pyne had quietly dumped the incentive payment last month.
Flinders vice-chancellor Colin Stirling said he was disappointed funding had been withdrawn for a “possible high-level research collaboration” with the Copenhagen Consensus Centre.
Dr Lomborg lashed the government, saying Australia had failed to show leadership as the issue became a “political football”. 
The Institute of Public Affairs, a free-market think tank, accused the government of “hoisting the white flag” on academic freedom.
So let’s do a list:
- giving in on Lomborg’s Centre, opposed by warming extremists.
- dropping support for amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act that would allow more free speech.
- softening the Government’s opposition to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which invests public money to make no difference to global warming.
- softening the cuts to middle-class welfare.
- raising discussions on increases taxes on superannuation.
- running for a seat on the discredited United Nations Human Rights Council.
- praising the partisan leadership of ABC chairman Mark Scott.
- initially describing the Islamist murder of Curtis Cheng as “politically motivated”, not religiously.
- signalling that the 12,000 refugees to be taken from Iraq and Syria may not be predominantly Christians, after all.
- banned the visit of an anti-abortion activist.
Against that:
- Flagging changes that loosen the grip of union-backed superannuation funds on workers’ savings
- Agreeing to demands from the Nationals to retain the Abbott Government’s policies on emissions target and a gay-marriage plebiscite.
Plus, of course, the Government still has to deal with a Senate hostile to spending cuts, making it pointless being bold.
It is too early to say the Turnbull Government is lurching too far the Left, but it is not reassuring that it has offered so little to conservatives. And this is when Turnbull most needs to unite the party.
UPDATE
Eric Abetz tries to stop the slide:
A split in the government over same-sex marriage has resurfaced after conservative Liberal MP Eric Abetz accused his colleague Warren Entsch of staging an “ambush” by pushing to legislate the change before a plebiscite… 
Two-thirds of the Coalition partyroom voted in August to take the issue to a plebiscite in the next term of parliament…
Gay marriage advocates in the government argue a bill should be passed before the next election so the public could see what they were voting on, but the change would only proceed with a “yes” vote in a plebiscite.
Warren Entsch, the Queensland Liberal MP who has a private member’s bill on same-sex marriage before parliament, has raised the matter with the Prime Minister and Attorney-General George Brandis. “I’d like it to go through the parliament before the next election so there is a commitment that is locked in,” Mr Entsch said last night.
But Senator Abetz ... said it was an attempt to overcome the government’s position on gay marriage....
“I believe we get into unchartered waters and very complicated situations if we try to bind the next parliament by a vote of this parliament.
“It is not the actions, if I may say so, that help unity, which will help to heal some of the wounds of that which has happened over recent weeks."…

Senator Abetz said he had “every confidence” Mr Turnbull would “abide by the wish of the partyroom” and maintain the former prime minister’s approach on same-sex marriage. 
“It is important that the conservative view of the party, which, if I might say represents the overwhelming base of the party, is appropriately represented and listened to,” he said.
Yesterday came another warning, this time from assistant minister Concetta Fierravanti-Wells:
“As the senior conservative from NSW, I have spent a lot of time talking to our base,” she said. “In NSW, it is well known the left control the [Liberal Party] division, but the base is mostly conservative. 
“Many are devastated by the [leadership] change, some have left and many have threatened to down tools. … The change of leadership will have an impact on our party … We rely on a volunteer base, mostly of older members, some who have simply had enough.”
One core issues for Liberal conservatives is same-sex marriage. Fierravanti-Wells said “a Coalition policy that directly supports same-sex marriage could place under threat some of our most marginal seats which have disproportionately high religious and migrant communities”.
UPDATE
Yet another cave in:
The Federal Government has increased the ceiling on the wage increase offer to public servants to 2 per cent. 
The Government and the public sector union have been locked in a dispute over pay and conditions for more than 18 months… But former employment minister Eric Abetz refused to budge from his 1.5 per cent limit for more than a year.
Today, new Employment Minister Michaelia Cash has now allowed agencies to offer increases of up to 2 per cent… Agencies which had signed up under the earlier amount will qualify for the higher rise.
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How dare Jews defend themselves?

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (12:50pm)

 Brendan O’Neill on the West’s near-silence on the new Intifada:
The response in the West to the spate of foul murders by car, knife and meat cleaver in Israel has been almost as shocking as the killings themselves. Many have stayed silent, a global version of “bystander culture”, where people look awkwardly at the ground as someone is battered in front of them. The Western media is currently a shameless shuffling bystander to murders in Israel. 
Others have asked, “Well, what do Israelis expect?” The crashing of cars into rabbis waiting for a bus and the hacking at Israeli citizens doing their weekly shop is treated as a normal response by Palestinians to their woes…
These Western radicals who have gathered to scream about Israel even as its citizens are being stabbed are fashioning a political narrative for the killings, elevating them to the level of a legitimate response to the situation in the Middle East. “Carry on killing” — that’s the implicit message.
Leftists are far more alarmed by Israel’s response to the stabbings than they are by the stabbings themselves. They’ve castigated Israel for putting more soldiers on the streets and for making it easier for citizens to buy guns (nothing freaks out the left more than a Jew with a gun)…
Echoing Haaretz writer Rogel Alpher, who wrote a demented column expressing his surprise that a Palestinian has never grabbed “a saw or a hammer and murdered me”, some Western radicals are not only glorifying the stabbings but are condemning those who have the temerity to protect themselves from being stabbed. Why won’t Jews let themselves be killed?
It’s so depraved. Whatever you thought of the PLO’s guerrilla activity in the 1970s, these stabbings are clearly very different. It’s anti-Semitism. That some Westerners are trying to present it as something else — a natural outburst of despair — says more about their busted moral compasses than it does about what’s happening in the Middle East.
Strip away the euphemisms, pick apart the talk of a “knife intifada”, and there’s no escaping the fact — the horrific fact — that some Westerners are defending the stabbing to death of people for being Jewish....
The universalist, tolerant left that was sensitive to the scapegoating of Jews for the world’s problems is no more. And so it is left to Jews to defend Jews, bereft of left solidarity, the West merely shrugging its shoulders.
UPDATE
It is a sick sign of the decline of Labor that an MP - Melissa Parke in this case - can urge more sympathy for the terrorists than for their victims, and call unjust the fact that many were shot dead as they attacked:
....violence has intensified in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, as Israel continues to violate international law by building settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and tensions rise over the prevention of Palestinians praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and right-wing Israelis visiting that compound. 
Eight Israelis and at least 37 Palestinians have been killed so far this month, the disproportionate casualty numbers reflecting the power imbalance between the parties. While much of the Western media has focused on the Israeli victims, less attention has been paid to the more numerous Palestinian victims… It is in the interests of Israelis, Palestinians and the global community, including Australia, that the brutal decades long Israeli military occupation be brought to an end and that Palestinians have their own state at long last. Given the discussions taking place today regarding the issue of radicalisation, I suggest that ending this longstanding injustice would be one way to reduce recruitment to extremist causes.
Seeing that Israel’s enemies - particularly Hamas - actually want Israel destroyed and the Jews driven out, I wonder exactly what political settlement would reduce the extremism we see.
It is a pity that it took a Jewish Labor MP, Michael Danby, to give the reply that should have been on the lips of every one of his colleagues:
In the last few weeks, young Palestinian jihadis have engaged in apparently lone wolf stabbing attacks against mainly Israeli civilians. These attacks appear to have much of the same unpredictable nature as the jihadi attacks in Australia, but they are also fuelled by the deliberate incitement of Palestinian leaders such as Mahmoud Abbas, who claims that Israel wants to change the status of the Temple Mount. 
The Temple Mount is of course the holiest site in the world to Judaism, but the Israeli government forbids Jews from praying there. This rule has been in place since Jordan attacked Israel in 1967. Quite responsibly, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has insisted again and again that there are no plans to change this rule and it remains under the control of the Jordanian religious authorities, the waqf.
Mahmoud Abbas, unfortunately, told his people that Jews ‘have no right to desecrate the mosque with their dirty feet’.
Instead of trying to calm tensions, he did the opposite, stating: 

Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure, every martyr will reach paradise, and every injured person will be rewarded by God.
This is just like the kind of irresponsible statements made by some imams here to young jihadis trying to kill Australian police or civilians…
As the Member for Deakin [Michael Sukkar, Liberal] pointed out, there has been example after example of imams in televised sermons brandishing knives and instructing Palestinians to ‘form stabbing squads and cut them into body parts’. But I, and many people around Australia, have been particularly upset by comments from the member for Fremantle, who has stood up in this parliament and blamed the victim. In what kind of moral universe is it legitimate, understandable or okay to knife and stab innocent civilians, run them over with cars or shoot them in bus stations? It is not okay in Israel. It is not okay here in Australia. In what moral universe should we say that the media should pay more attention to the people with knives in their hands than the people with knives in their chests?…
Let me conclude by saying that anyone who makes these kinds of moral-equivalence statements will be held to account for them, particularly if, Heavens forbid, these kinds of jihadist attacks continue in Australia. God forbid that there should be a similar incident in Perth or Fremantle. You cannot say in the Australian parliament that it is okay for people to make a moral equivalence between people who are stabbing innocent civilians in Kiryat Gat, Jerusalem, Afula or wherever and then try to hide your sentiments in Australia. 

(Thanks to reader John.) 
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Jennifer Marohasy meets alarmists at Parliament House. More, please

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (9:31am)

Jennifer Marohasy got a rare chance to debate global warmists at a meeting called by MP Craig Kelly at Parliament House on Monday:
[Alarmist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg] attempted to dominate the question time. 
The Chair /Craig Kelly wanted to know about the likely extent of future warming and whether it was realistic to try and keep temperature increases within 2 degree Celsius. Mark Howden [of the ANU Climate Change Institute] proceeded to suggest that with climate change there was going to be a decline in crop production, and showed bar charts suggesting catastrophe.
Before he got very far one of the farmer/politicians in the room interrupted wanted to know the origin of the data.  There were more interruptions from the members and senators, until Dennis Jensen insisted that Howden answer the original question which Dennis suggested came down to whether the data being presented was ‘real’ or is simply ‘model output’.  Howden acknowledged that everything he was presenting was output from computer models. 
I’m not surprised, because the real-world data suggests that Howden’s scares are wildly overblown. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation reports crop production has in fact trended strongly upwards:
Marohasy continues:
The presentation from Brett Hogan [of the IPA] followed.  This was an interesting assessment of the future for coal, and how it has helped lift people in China and India out of poverty.  I don’t think he got any questions, and there were certainly no interruptions. 
The Chair/Craig Kelly then suggested questions be open for all the presentations, and asked me specifically about the ‘best temperature’ data, and the reliability of future estimates.  I finally got a slide of satellite data up, which I had as a supplementary slide (downloaded from Ken Stewart’s website, much thanks). 
Guldberg suggested no attention be paid to it because we didn’t know the origin of the data.  When I explained it was latest output from University of Alabama Huntsville, and that the IPCC used the same data, Howden claimed, by way of a long explanation, that when all the data from the satellites is combined, from all the different atmospheric depths, it shows global warming. I responded that what he had just said was absolute nonsense: that the satellite data represented lower troposphere temperatures, and the trend was flat, no warming for 17 years. 
Read on.
I’m not sure alarmists spend enough time debating sceptics. It sure shows. 
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Chris Kenny offends the refugee industry by reporting the truth

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (8:24am)

Chris Kenny goes to Nauru and interviews the Somali asylum seeker who claims she was raped and who was then flown to Australia for an abortion - which she refused:
In her interview with The Australian, Abyan repeated her claim that she was raped but declined to provide any details about when, where or by whom.She refused to say whether the alleged assault was committed by another refugee, a Nauruan or someone else. 
“How could I know?” she said, “I was raped.” Nauruan police are not aware of the alleged crime. Commissioner Corey Caleb said: “We don’t have any complaint coming from her.”
Strange.
Then Kenny reported this:
Police on Nauru have interviewed the Somalian refugee at the centre of an abortion controversy but she has declined to make a statement or lodge a rape complaint. 
Widespread publicity about the rape claims made by Abyan (not her real name), despite no formal notification having been made, prompted the police to seek her out and give her the opportunity to make a statement.
Three police officers and an interpreter arrived at 23-year-old Abyan’s beachside refugee housing complex mid-afternoon yesterday and waited for almost an hour — apparently because the interpreter refused to co-operate. Eventually the officers spoke to Abyan without the interpreter but with her roommate (a Somali woman with good English) present. The police spent about 15 minutes in the hut and emerged to say Abyan had declined to either make a statement or lodge a formal complaint. Instead, the police had been instructed to talk to her Australian lawyer.
Afterwards Abyan, who had invited The Australian into her home yesterday, again spoke briefly outside her door and agreed to have her photo taken without her face being shown.
She said she was feeling unwell and still was determined to have her pregnancy terminated.
Abyan said she did not know where her termination could or would take place — given abortions are illegal on Nauru — but she reiterated she did not wish to return to Australia. “No, not Australia,” she said, “anywhere but Australia or Nauru.”
Abyan declined to say why she had not reported her alleged rape. 
This is not helpful to the refugee industry, of course. So cue the abuse:
Social media narks were enraged: “Chris Kenny’s harassment of the rape victim on Nauru is both predictable and despicable,” [former radio jock Mike] Carlton tweeted. There was no harassment. Only Carlton’s bile was predictable and despicable. Anne Summers also accused Kenny, falsely, of harassment. Journalism professor Wendy Bacon admitted she couldn’t grasp the basic facts but retweeted much of the vitriol. 
Activist Pamela Curr ranted: “Breaking disgrace Chris Kenny forcing way into Abyan room w Nauru police outside Abyan crying no no no picture by force go away I am sick”. Not true. On Kenny’s second visit, Abyan agreed to be in a photo if her face was not shown. Kenny did not force anything.... The most shameful tweet was posted by Labor MP Graham Perrett, who said Kenny was: “obscene & insensitive & very close to criminal behaviour … what a grub’’. Kenny awaits Mr Perrett’s apology.  
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Wilders framed by Fairfax

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (7:58am)

Reader John picks up some disgraceful Fairfax spin:
The headline makes a clearly false allegation: Geert Wilders and minders knock over disabled Perth activist Seamus Doherty. 
Watch the video (at the link). Geert Wilders does not even get near the protestor, so he has NOT knocked him over. Also note the security has NOT knocked over the protester but just made sure Wilders can move about without being manhandled. The vision clearly shows the protester pushing into the back of the security, not the other way around.  
Maybe Doherty fell at some other time. But all the vision shows is an activist pushing the security men, not the other way around. 
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Netanyahu blames Mufti for inspiring Holocaust

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (6:39am)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes far too far:
My grandfather came to this land in 1920 and he landed in Jaffa, and very shortly after he landed he went to the immigration office in Jaffa. And a few months later it was burned down by marauders. These attackers, Arab attackers, murdered several Jews, including our celebrated writer Brenner.

And this attack and other attacks on the Jewish community in 1920, 1921, 1929, were instigated by a call of the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was later sought for war crimes in the Nuremberg trials because he had a central role in fomenting the final solution. He flew to Berlin. Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, “If you expel them, they’ll all come here.” “So what should I do with them?” he asked. He said, “Burn them.” And he was sought in, during the Nuremberg trials for prosecution. He escaped it and later died of cancer, after the war, died of cancer in Cairo.
Yes, the Mufti was a Jew-hater who allied himself with Hitler. But the two did not meet until 1941, and it is preposterous to suggest that Hitler had no intention of massacring Jews until then:
However, the chief historian of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Professor Dina Porat, said Mr Netanyahu’s statement was factually incorrect. 
“You cannot say that it was the mufti who gave Hitler the idea to kill or burn Jews,” she told the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. “It’s not true. Their meeting occurred after a series of events that point to this.”
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog said the prime minister’s remarks played into the hands of Holocaust deniers. 
“This is a dangerous historical distortion and I demand Netanyahu correct it immediately as it minimises the Holocaust, Nazism and… Hitler’s part in our people’s terrible disaster,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
Netanyahu backtracks slightly:
As he boarded a plane to Germany on Wednesday, Netanyahu responded to the storm about his comments on Hitler and the Mufti: “I did not intend to absolve Hitler of responsibility for his diabolical destruction of European Jewry. Hitler was responsible for the Final Solution extermination of 6 million Jews, he made the decision.” 
He continued, however, to press his point: “The Mufti was instrumental in the decision to exterminate the Jews. We must not ignore the importance of his role. The Mufti repeatedly suggested that the Jews should be exterminated. He considered it an appropriate solution to the Palestinian question.”
A very damaging blunder by Netanyahu - damaging to Israel.
UPDATE
But let’s not whitewash the Mufti:
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husayni ... escaped to Berlin… In exile in Europe from 1941 to 1945, al-Husayni’s status was that of a prominent individual anti-Jewish Arab and Muslim leader. 
... al-Husayni sought public recognition from the Axis powers of his status as leader of a proposed Arab nation. He also sought public approval from the Axis powers for an independent Arab state or federation to “remove” or “eliminate” the proposed Jewish homeland in Palestine… When he received al-Husayni on November 28, 1941, ... Hitler was sympathetic, but declined to give al-Husayni the public declaration of support that he sought. Despite Hitler’s response, al-Husayni still collaborated with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in several ways. He broadcast anti-Allied and anti-Jewish propaganda by radio to the Arab world and to Muslim communities under German control or influence. He sought to inspire and to indoctrinate Muslim men to serve in Axis military and auxiliary units....

In radio broadcasts, he called for an Arab revolt against Great Britain and the destruction of the Jewish settlements in Palestine.
Al-Husayni spoke often of a “worldwide Jewish conspiracy” that controlled the British and US governments and sponsored Soviet Communism… In his vision of the world, the Jews intended to enslave and exploit Arabs, to seize their land, to expropriate their wealth, undermine their Muslim faith and corrupt the moral fabric of their society. He labeled the Jews as the enemy of Islam, and used crude racist terminology to depict Jews and Jewish behavior, particularly as he forged a closer relationship with the SS in 1943 and 1944… On occasion, he would compare Jewishness to infectious disease and Jews to microbes or bacilli. In at least one speech attributed to him, he advocated killing Jews wherever Arabs found them… Al-Husayni pointed out that Germany alone recognized the global threat of the “Jewish problem” and took steps to “solve” it globally…

In the spring of 1943, al-Husayni learned of negotiations between Germany’s Axis partners with the British, the Swiss, and the International Red Cross to transport thousands of Jewish children to safety in Palestine. He sought to prevent the rescue operations with protests directed at the Germans and Italians, as well as at the governments of Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. Demanding that the operations be scuttled, al-Husayni suggested that the children be sent to Poland where they would be subject to “stricter control.” ... 
When the SS decided in February 1943 to recruit among Bosnian Muslims for a new division of the Waffen-SS, SS Main Office Chief Berger enlisted al-Husayni in a recruiting drive in Bosnia from March 30 and April 11. On April 29, Berger reported that 24,000–27,000 recruits had signed up and noted that the “visit of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem had had an extraordinarily successful impact.”   
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The invasion of Europe continues

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (6:25am)

Illegal immigrants may have found a new way into Britain:
A group of 114 Syrian refugee, including 28 children, have arrived on the British airbase in Akrotiri on the southern coast of Cyprus… The group have been detained on the base while high-level talks take place between Britain and Cyprus over who takes responsibility for the group. The UNHCR said the group were the responsibility of the UK, while Britain’s Ministry of Defence said Cyprus was responsible.
Others - including Russian residents - have found a new way into Scandinavia:
An increasing number of migrants have been crossing into Norway from Russia at the remote Arctic border post in Storskog, many on bicycles and other forms of transport because pedestrian crossings are not allowed there. Last week, 500 of a total 2,000 asylum-seekers arriving in Norway came through Storskog… Anundsen said Tuesday that officials had seen several cases of people coming in who had “strong connections to Russia through dual citizenship, residence permits or visas.”
Even Latvia is now being invaded:
Latvia says it plans to erect a fence along parts of its 270-kilometer (168-mile) border with Russia to prevent illegal immigration into the small Baltic country… Some 300 migrants, mostly from Vietnam but also from Iraq and Syria, have entered the Baltic country of 2 million illegally from Russia this year, more than for the full year 2014.
There is a rush before winter:
More than 27,000 migrants entered Greece from 16 to 18 October, the worldwide Organization for Migration reports today, calling the weekend influx “unprecedented”. Nearly 400,000 people have arrived in Greece this year, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, overwhelming the cash-strapped nation’s ability to cope. 
Holland is withdrawing the welcome mat:
The Dutch government is warning asylum-seekers to expect long waits and “austere” accommodations while their applications are processed… 
Some 2,200 asylum seekers arrived in the Netherlands last week.
The letter [issued to asylum seekers] says the Netherlands does not have enough regular asylum-seeker reception centers to house all the new arrivals and adds, “That is why you are receiving an austere reception, such as in sports centers or tents, where many people share the same lodgings.”
UPDATE
Lots of fit, young men on the march. It does look a bit like an invading army:
Where are the women?
UPDATE
What kind of new citizens is Europe gaining?
A blaze tore through a migrant camp in Slovenia after refugees set fire to their tents in protest at their treatment, it was reported today. Women and children were evacuated from the camp in Brezice, on the border with Croatia, as firefighters battled the blaze this morning.
(Thanks to reader Gab.) 
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Less NBN for twice the price that even Turnbull promised

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (5:59am)

IT’S bizarre that Australians have meekly accepted probably the biggest spending blowout in our history.
Are we suckers or what?
But here’s why the $56 billion National Broadband Network — vastly over budget, over time and underperforming — isn’t the public scandal it should be.
Labor supporters don’t want to draw attention to the waste unleashed by former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd.
And, less understood, Liberal supporters don’t want voters to see that Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has fumbled the rescue, delivering less than he promised for twice the price.
So on the circus goes.
(Read full story here.)   
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Malcolm has the sugar, but could use some medicine

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (5:57am)

MALCOLM Turnbull must be in the sugar business. Never has a Prime Minister worked so hard to make politics sweet.
There was Turnbull again yesterday, thanking Labor MPs in Question Time for asking him what they’d thought were zingers.
“A very reasonable request,” he said of one question. And: “That’s a very good question and I thank you for it.”
See, Turnbull is determined to make politics seem less brutal than it was under the Abbott government. Yesterday he even praised Labor leader Bill Shorten for having “charted a course that is plainly in the national interest” by finally backing the free trade deal with China.
In fact, Shorten had simply dropped the disgraceful scare campaign against the deal that had blown up in his face.
(Read full column here.) 
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About those secret payments, Bill

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (5:39am)

Another shoddy Shorten deal of the kind that’s slowly killing him:
MUSHROOM workers were kept in the dark over a secret deal with Labor leader Bill Shorten’s union that cost them their jobs. 
Four mushroom pickers appeared before the royal commission into trade union corruption yesterday to shoot down the Labor leader’s claims he always acted in the interests of the workers as a union boss.
Mr Shorten was Australian Workers’ Union national secretary when it began negotiating an enterprise bargaining agreement that led to workers being sacked and having to reapply for their jobs on lower pay with a contractor. At the same time as the 2004 negotiations the mushroom company began paying the union $4000 a month for “training"…
Sharon Dellavergini was “dumbfounded” to hear the company had made the payments: “It makes you think now that they (the AWU) were just doing what the company wanted. It sort of made sense as to why they pushed us into the redundancy.’’… 
The commission has ­previously heard Chiquita Mushrooms considered the $4000 payments a small price to pay for industrial peace while the company brought in cheap outside contractors.
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Who is the “we” that Hizb ut-Tahrir wants to win in Syria?

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (5:38am)

 Ismail Al-Wahwah (or “Abu Anas"), leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Australia, preaches again:
Syria will become, Allah willing, the graveyard of the czars and their dreams and of the infidel West in its entirety… They say either you join our secularism, capitalism and democracy or you will die. But we say to them, Allah willing, we will raise our banner, we will be victorious and we will save humanity from your evil and from the evil of your principles, ideologies and oppression.
Given that our enemy in Syria is the Islamic State, can we assume that Hizb ut-Tahrir wants the Islamic State to win? Who else could Wahwah mean with his “we”?  And what does he want his “we” to do?
Notice how our various and oppressive laws against free speech are used by activists against everyone but those who you’d think should be prime targets?

[NSW] police decided last week not to charge Hizb ut-Tahrir leader Ismail al-Wahwah with [breaching] the serious vilification section of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act.
In one video, al-Wahwah called all Jews corrupt and a “hidden evil”, and said “the ember of jihad against the Jews will continue to burn”.
In another video, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), al-Wahwah allegedly called Jews “the most evil creature of Allah”, adding: “Moral corruption is linked to the Jews. Prostitution in the world began with the Israelites. Usury and gambling began with the Israelites. Killing began with the Israelites … They will pay with blood for blood, with tears for tears, and with destruction for destruction.” 
However, NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione reportedly advised ... that there was insufficient evidence to mount a case.
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Unions turn on Shorten

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (5:11am)

Bill Shorten did the right thing eventually by the nation, and now the radical unions - and their ACTU captives - will make him pay:
Unions have split with Labor over Bill Shorten’s deal with Malcolm Turnbull that will finalise the China free-trade agreement before Christmas and allow millions of dollars in tariff cuts to flow to Australian exporters. 
Unions attacked the deal, ­announced early yesterday, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions will dramatically step up its town hall meetings to condemn the agreement, with 20 to be held in the next fortnight. The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and the Electrical Trades Union have led a ferocious campaign against the China trade deal over foreign worker concerns. Last night the ETU blasted the safeguards ­negotiated by Labor as “inadequate’’ and condemned both sides of politics.
It is now in Labor’s interest, too, to cut the CFMEU down to size. How about caving in on the Australian Building and Construction Commission, too, and bringing back this workplace watchdog?
UPDATE
Malcolm Turnbull has cleverly snookered Bill Shorten by offering him some token concessions on the free trade deal, and then resisting the urge to kick him. Instead he praised Shorten and declared Parliament worked, making Turnbull look like a happy doer while the unions whacked Shorten anyway.
Dennis Shanahan:
An upbeat Turnbull told parliament: “This is a great day for Australia. This is a great day for Australian jobs. This is a great day for confidence, enthusiasm and imagination, because today what we have seen is the parliament work.” 
This was a key to defeating perceptions the government was gridlocked and could not get results by pointing to a “commonsense”, practical outcome while contrasting with the confrontational style of Abbott. Turnbull went on: “We have seen the government and the opposition able to reach agreement on this historic trade deal.”
The reality was that Labor knew it had no choice but to agree, but Trade Minister Andrew Robb and Turnbull had created the illusion they would give way to Labor to ensure a speedy resolution of the China deal.
While the Opposition Leader and Penny Wong talked about significant changes they had won, Turnbull told parliament: “As the Leader of the Opposition himself said, in many cases we are simply providing assurance that existing policies would not be changed and they would be dealt with by regulation.”
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McGrath’s lore

Andrew Bolt October 22 2015 (4:56am)

Senator James McGrath, a new star on the conservative horizon, will always have a career as a columnist to turn to should politics fail him.  Check out his latest newsletter: “Woohoo. It’s Wednesday. Hump Day! McGrath’s things to click while faffing and ignoring Bill Shorten”.  
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Gough Whitlam a martyred man of myths

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, October 22, 2014 (1:18am)

GOUGH Whitlam made a much better legend than a prime minister. No sooner had the news broken yesterday of the death of the former Labor prime minister in a Potts Point nursing home at the age of 98, than the ABC airwaves erupted in tearful hyperbole.
 Continue reading 'Gough Whitlam a martyred man of myths'
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Labor keeps power bills high to pretend to save the planet

Andrew Bolt October 22 2014 (7:16pm)

Labor wants your power bills to be higher than they could be - just to pretend to “save” the palent from a warming which stopoped 16 years ago:
LABOR this afternoon rejected a government move to reduce the Renewable Energy Target but agreed to work to resolve the impasse. 
Ahead of negotiations today Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane revealed he had written to Labor offering a compromise deal that would see the large-scale RET cut to around 27,000 gigawatt hours… Opposition treasury spokesman Chris Bowen said Labor wanted the bipartisan RET to remain at 41,000 GWh, but said the opposition would work “constructively” with the government.
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Canadian soldier killed by Muslim convert

Andrew Bolt October 22 2014 (7:11pm)

Another unrepresentative member of the same unfairly suspected faith:
Terrorist ideology inspired a recent convert to Islam to drive his car into two Canadian soldiers, killing one, before he was shot dead by police, authorities said on Tuesday. 
Quebec police spokesman Guy Lapointe said the act was deliberate and that one of the two soldiers was in uniform....
The suspect, Martin Couture Rouleau, 25, was known to authorities and recently had his passport seized, police commissioner Bob Paulson said…
Paulson said he was one of 90 suspected extremists in the country who intend to join fights abroad or who have returned to Canada.
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The compassion of the Left

Andrew Bolt October 22 2014 (9:07am)

The sheer cruelty of former Labor candidate Andrew McMicking is breathtaking
UPDATE
McMicking blames his friends for using his phone.
(Thanks to readers Jason and Murray.) 
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Plibersek vs Bishop

Andrew Bolt October 22 2014 (7:39am)

Janet Albrechtsen contrasts Foreign Minister Julie Bishop with her opposite number, Labor’s Tanya Plibersek:
Plibersek has been one of Labor’s faux gender warriors, always cheering Gillard’s empty claims of misogyny for base political purposes. What kind of role model is that for young women? 
Eschewing gender games, Bishop is more a “get on and do it” kind of woman. Enough said.
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Among the hero worship, these sharp truths about Gough Whitlam

Andrew Bolt October 22 2014 (7:16am)

Among all the adulation, some correctives.
Greg Sheridan:
...sentimentality, and the overwhelming power of the Labor myth-making machine, should not blind us to the central fact of Whitlam: he was the worst prime minister in our history… 
His foreign policy record was appalling, although it is here that the myth-makers have worked hardest because his economic ­record was even worse.
Whitlam acted with conspicuous cruelty towards the Vietna­mese who had worked with Australian forces and Australian diplomats during the war between South Vietnam and North ­Vietnam.

His foreign minister, Don Willessee, wanted him to bring some of these people to Australia at the fall of Saigon in April 1975. Whitlam told him: “I’m not having these f..king Vietnamese Balts coming into the country with their religious and political prejudices against us."…

More important than what Whitlam said was what he did. Australian transport planes left Saigon with rows of empty seats while those who had helped us there were left to their fate in the vast gulag of re-education camps the communists set up after their victory.
Or they were left to a worse fate.
Whitlam’s myth-makers are so impervious to the facts that they often claim his visit to China as opposition leader was a breakthrough in opening China to the west. In fact for most of the preceding years numerous Western nat­ions in Europe had full diplomatic relations with mainland China.
...the US took some years after de facto recognition to achieve formal recognition. This is because the Americans were tough negotiators and ... would not recognise Beijing in a way that gave it licence to conquer Taiwan, which is de facto independent but which Beijing considers a renegade province.
Harvard scholar Ross Terrill argues that Whitlam badly botched the negotiations with Beijing because he was desperate to afford recognition straight away. As a result he agreed to conditions that were punitive of Australian interests in Taiwan and effectively sold out the interests of Taiwanese people altogether.
Most of Whitlam’s foreign policy decisions were wrong in principle and turned out badly in practice. Entirely gratuitously, he extended formal diplomatic recognition of Soviet sovereignty over the Baltic states… 
The two most disgraceful episodes of Whitlam’s leadership concerned the Middle East. Most people remember the loans affair, but an even greater disgrace concerned Whitlam’s efforts to raise election funds for the ALP in 1975 from the Iraqi government.
Terry McCrann:
GOUGH Whitlam was a great — indeed, among the greatest — Australians.

He was also Australia’s worst-ever prime minister — until Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard came along… 

Whitlam & Co had come along a decade earlier at exactly the right time at the start of the 1970s.
Again, they presided over more general cultural change in a way that could not have been done by either a Coalition government of the time or the pre-Whitlam Labor Party. This was captured most precisely by his recognition of China…
Across the spectrum from Aboriginal land rights, no-fault divorce and Medibank/Medicare, and on to the massive expansion in government spending (and taxation) and the 25 per cent across-the-board tariff cut — are proof of breathtaking leadership and reform, to supporters, and disastrous financial incompetence and the seeds of social malaise, to critics. 
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Group hug. Public excluded

Andrew Bolt October 22 2014 (7:02am)

Paul Kelly on a love affair not shared by the audience:
PAUL KELLY, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, THE AUSTRALIAN & AUTHOR: One was enormously impressed by Gough. Gough was a great figure, a gigantic figure, a very engaging politician and Gough would flatter the media. Gough was very discerning and very selective in his approach to the journalists and there’s no doubt at all both before the 1972 election and in the first 18 months or two years of the Whitlam government he enjoyed a very, very successful media. 
So to a certain extent I think it’s fair to say there was a love affair between much of the press gallery on the one hand and Gough Whitlam on the other and that was to Gough’s great benefit, of course… But I think it’s also true to say that the Whitlam magnetic appeal always remained and even when things went bad for the government, particularly in 1975, this was a very polarised, bitter and turbulent period. And the Fraser Opposition contemplated blocking supply and then decided to block supply. Now, that became the divisive issue and many of the journalists in terms of the issue of blocking supply were very much for Whitlam and against Fraser.
Not for the first time was the press gallery surprised by the public it purportedly serves.
And still some are blinded by love:
EMMA ALBERICI: I’ve got one last question for both of you. Gough Whitlam fought five general elections and two half Senate elections. Are we ever likely to see that kind of political endurance in a leader of either persuasion again, Rodney Cavalier. 
RODNEY CAVALIER: Well I seem to remember that John Howard was pretty enduring.
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CamMie Du
Good luck to all the Year 12s doing their Maths HSC today! #band6
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An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: ''UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?''

'UBUNTU' in the Xhosa culture means: "I am because we are"
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Philip Tran
"Mentalities cannot be changed by decree, because they are based on memories, which are almost impossible to kill. But it is possible to expand one's horizons, and when that happens, there is less chance that one will go on playing the same old tune for ever and repeating the same mistakes."
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Pastor Rick Warren
Grieving isn't evidence of weakness;
it's evidence of love.
"Jesus wept" John 11:35
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For God to mend your broken heart you must give him ALL the pieces. You can't hold any back.
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Tragedy of the successful .. ed
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While First Dog On The Moon is hesitant to politicise this politicising of the bushfires, he does have a message for the PM, which we've freed from behind the paywall:
http://ow.ly/q2My5
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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/nice-try-being-relevant/story-fnhulhjj-1226744067051#
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Same-sex marriage has passed in the ACT
.. and the world hasn't ended .. Gillard, Rudd, Shorten .. you opposed it .. ed

Jason J-Fo Hmm, I'm fine with the issue itself but my hunch is that it is a bad law that probably will be struck down for being unconstitutional. But who knows?

David Daniel Ball I'm sure it isn't as robust as NZ's law enacted by a conservative government. It is like the gun issue, a useful goto that the leftwing like to admire so as to get votes, but they wouldn't want to address it.

Jason J-Fo The NZ law was made by its federal govt. Here we have a territory trying to interfere with a federal Marriage Act which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. So it might be unconstitutional because the Constitution invalidates any such inconsistent laws in favour of the federal law. But it all depends on the wording really.

David Daniel Ball .. I understand the NZ law allows churches to act on conscience. I bet the ACT doesn't

Jason J-Fo That's a seperate law of sexual discrimination. Marriage law is only about registration of marriage on the register for legal purposes. I'm sure your wife can explain!;-)

Dean Hamstead how can middle class white people now claim to be vitcims?
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The victim was a former marine who has now paid for his service. A math teacher, husband and dad. So much to live for. Died protecting his students. Apparently, the kid who killed him didn't mean to, and killed himself afterwards. I haven't seen what the weapon was, but bet it was an assault rifle, although it might have been a pistol. Kids should know how to use them, but to have one unsupervised? ed
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Larry Pickering
HIV ON INCREASE... AGAIN!

The Government-sponsored AIDS debate, along with ‘smoking causes gangrene and blindness’ and global warming hysteria, is the greatest lie ever perpetrated on a receptive public. 
AIDS is not and never has been a heterosexual problem. Ask any heterosexual.

The World lost a great man when Dr Fred Hollows died. He restored sight to thousands of people, mostly black and coloured tribes people, who had no money to pay him.

I feel honoured to have known him but I had never discussed the AIDS issue with him. I figured it was not in his area of expertise... but it was.

He told the truth about AIDS to a brainwashed world who did not want to listen.

He boldly said that AIDS was a “homosexual disease” and warned of the disastrous effect on indigenous people. Unfortunately it was a few weeks before his imminent death.

Common sense had told me the same thing and now, thanks to Fred, I was no longer a lone leper pointlessly trying to defend my thesis at dinner parties.

Fred of course was predictably widely vilified (by the homosexual community) over his statement but he didn’t care, he was going to die anyway.

Fred briefly wore the cost of the truth. They would have built statues of Fred had he not said that.

I watched TV each night and had noticed that AIDS sufferers with sunken black eyes and pale patched faces were invariably homosexual males. I read the lying statistics.

I watched those awful misleading TV ads. I wondered at the gullibility of the world, the misuse of public monies, the despicable genius of the intellectual, cashed up, gay male community.

I have no problem with my gays friends, but I do have a problem with irresponsibly promiscuous gay males.

When the AIDS hysteria hit, governments dug deep into our pockets to fund a misleading onslaught of calculated misinformation.

And who were the people who put up their hands to administer such massive budgets?
Those most affected, of course… the gay male juggernaut.
It was they who structured and ran those dishonest campaigns.

Obviously they had the most to lose. This disease would likely be centred on them. Their dream of being an accepted minority was at risk. The possibility of them becoming outcasts and a risk to the community was real.

The dream of gay mardi gras earning them respectability could be shattered.

But, once in control of these massive campaign budgets, they were determined to convince the world that it was a general community problem.

They now had the ability to obfuscate the blame and defray the responsibility. And that is exactly what they did. What a lie we were told!

The three ways you can contract AIDS are dirty needle exchange, blood transfusion and anal sex. (Foetal contraction is caused by the transfer of blood already infected.)

All three necessitate the exchange of blood.

AIDS is a disease of the blood, a severe diminution in the effectiveness of white cells to combat disease. People don’t die from AIDS, they die from viruses and diseases that damaged white cells have no further ability to combat.

When public surveys were conducted among heterosexual couples and singles who had contracted AIDS there was a curious missing three percentage points. They were those heterosexual women who engaged in, and presumably enjoyed, anal sex.

But of course in a public survey not all heterosexual women could be expected to admit to regular anal sex... thus the missing percentage. Three per cent of women lied about it.

So, on the rare occasion a normal heterosexual woman contracted AIDS, the missing percentage was clear. And it was not, as promiscuous gay males insisted we believe, due to normal vaginal sex at all!

Why, Fred asked, is AIDS rampant among the world’s tribal communities? Not hard for Fred to answer, after all, he spent a great part of his life restoring sight to those people. He lived with them.

Indigenous people have been using anal sex as a form of contraceptive for thousands of years. They never had or understood condoms or the pill or any form of contraceptive other than anal sex. And maybe, just maybe, they liked it.

The AIDS virus does not distinguish between a male arse and a female arse, because there is no difference.

Every arse is full of tiny capillaries that continually burst even when you have a crap. So if you want to go rasping away in that un-lubricated black hole, wearing your donger off, there will certainly eventually be an exchange of blood in a bacterial bath.

That’s how gay males contract AIDS and, because of their well-known promiscuity, that’s how they spread it among their own kind.

Hasn’t anyone noticed the preponderance of AIDS sufferers are actually gay males? We don’t seem to ask why!

Hasn’t anyone noticed that San Francisco (the gay paradise of the U.S.) also has the highest incidence of AIDS in North America.

Now, how was this homosexual juggernaut going to convince us that it was a general disease that affected the whole community and not exclusively confined to them? Simple.

1. Spend hundreds of millions of our dollars lying to us that normal couples are at risk of their disease.

2. Get HIV positive victims to give blood at the blood banks and wait for normal people, including babies, to contract the virus. Oh yes, they did do that, before they were caught and stopped!

3. Convince us that AIDS can be contracted from normal vaginal sex. (It can’t.)

4. Coin the word “homophobia” and use it every chance you get… the word is a misnomer, as “homo” does not mean “man” it means “same” and “phobia” means fear. I may have a fear of cunning gay males but I do not fear anyone who is the “same” as me.

How was it possible for the community in general to believe such garbage? But they did and still do believe it!
Doctors, who should know better, believed it, and still do.

The gay males won their battle, the gay mardi gras now has a restrained modicum of validity, even among extreme conservatives.

If AIDS could be contracted through normal sex everyone in the world would contract it within a year because everyone has bonked someone who has bonked someone else at some time.

Seminal fluids do not carry blood any more than does saliva, sweat, tears or damned suncream for that matter.

The old strawberry dip expression; when you bonk a woman who has her period, is still not a dangerous thing to do unless one of you is HIV positive and the male has a donger, red raw and bleeding, from rasping a bloke a chook or a wombat.

AIDS is contracted through anal or homosexual sex. It cannot be contracted through normal vaginal sex. So why were we normal people all told to wear condoms in order to avoid AIDS when having normal sex?

Thank Christ they screen blood donors now and tattooed people can’t donate blood… I wonder why that is.

Whatever the method of contraction, it necessarily requires the exchange of blood. Yet we sustained years of grim reapers and bowling balls knocking over small children and syringes protruding from a thousand conjugal beds of normal couples.

The “It’s not on if it’s not on” condom campaign may have made Ansell a few more billions but did nothing to stem the spread of AIDS.

It did make us falsely believe that normal sex was dangerous.

Neither I nor my mates ever wore a condom during the crazy 60s and 70s and neither they nor I will ever contract AIDS.

The only way I will ever contract AIDS is if I interrupt a mosquito trying to bite me that was formerly interrupted trying to bite a promiscuous HIV positive gay male!

The AIDS campaign budget would have been far more beneficially spent on eradicating mosquitoes.

Why are we collectively so bloody stupid as to believe what we are told simply because it is carried to us by the perceived legitimacy of paid, reactive media?

Oh well, I guess we can be convinced of the most outrageous of nonsense like smoking causes your toes to drop off or man’s emissions causes global warming.

It’s all about the size of the budget.

Fred Hollows wasn’t stupid, Fred Hollows knew the truth and told it. Fred was a good and an honest man.

If there was a heaven, you would be there Fred.

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Remember this next time you walk up to the ticket window of your local movie theater with $10 in your hand. 

The Media (Accidentally?) missed this one!!!! Please read this: The troops oversees would like you to send it to everybody you know. Subject: Denzel Washington, and Brooks Army Medical Center. Don't know whether you heard about this but Denzel Washington and his family visited the troops at Brook Army Medical Center , in San Antonio , Texas, (BAMC) the other day. This is where soldiers who have been evacuated from Germany come to be hospitalized in the United States , especially burn victims. There are some buildings there called Fisher Houses. The Fisher House is a Hotel where soldiers' families can stay, for little or no charge, while their soldier is staying in the Hospital. BAMC has quite a few of these houses on base, but as you can imagine, they are almost filled most of the time. While Denzel Washington was visiting BAMC, they gave him a tour of one of the Fisher Houses. He asked how much one of them would cost to build. He took his check book out and wrote a check for the full amount right there on the spot. The soldiers overseas were amazed to hear this story and want to get the word out to the American public, because it warmed their hearts to hear it. The question is - why do: Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Tom Cruise and other Hollywood fluff make front page news with their ridiculous antics and Denzel Washington's Patriotism doesn't even make page 3 in the Metro section of any newspaper except the Local newspaper in San Antonio. A true American and friend to all in uniform!
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"What was sold to the American public as a low-level scandal perpetrated by a few rogue employees – a scandal stopped after senior officials became aware and asserted control – is now (to borrow a Watergate phrase) 'no longer operative.'" -Jay Sekulow>

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Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו
To all the people who wished me a happy birthday - You really moved me. Thank you very much!
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Andreas Herrmann
"Die Schriftsteller können nicht so schnell schreiben, wie die Regierungen Kriege machen; denn das Schreiben verlangt Denkarbeit." Bertold Brecht
" The writer can not write as fast as governments make wars , for the letter requires mental effort . " Bertold Brecht
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Johnny Depp, Robbie Williams und Dieter Bohlen kommen in den Himmel. Dort erwartet sie Petrus und sagt zu ihnen: "Es gibt hier im Himmel eine einzige Regel: Ihr dürft nicht auf die blauen Wolken treten!"
Doch schon bald tritt Johnny Depp auf eine blaue Wolke.
Petrus kommt mit der hässlichsten Frau, die er je gesehen hat, kettet sie aneinander und sagt: "Zur Strafe, dass du auf eine blaue Wolke getreten bist, wirst du den Rest der Ewigkeit an dieses hässliche Weib gekettet verbringen!"
Am nächsten Tag tritt Robbie ebenfalls auf eine blaue Wolke und Petrus kommt sofort mit einer anderen wahnsinnig hässlichen Frau. Er kettet auch sie aneinander.
Dieter Bohlen beobachtet alles und passt auf, daß er nicht auch auf eine blaue Wolke tritt. Eines Tages kommt Petrus zu ihm mit der attraktivsten Frau, die er je gesehen hat: eine große, gebräunte, kurvige sexy Brünette. Petrus kettet sie wortlos aneinander.
Dieter Bohlen meint nur: "Wüsste ja schon gern, womit ich es verdient habe, den Rest der Ewigkeit mit dir verbunden zu werden?"
Die Frau erwidert nur: "Naja, ich bin auf so 'ne scheiß blaue Wolke getreten!"
Johnny Depp , Robbie Williams and Dieter Bohlen go to heaven . There she expects Peter and says to them : "There is one rule here in heaven : You must not step on the blue clouds "
But soon Johnny Depp takes on a blue cloud .
Peter came with the ugliest woman he has ever seen , chains them together and says, " As a punishment that you stepped on a blue cloud , you 'll get the rest of eternity chained to this ugly woman to spend ! "
The next day, Robbie also occurs on a blue cloud and Peter comes immediately with another insanely ugly woman. He chained them together also .
Dieter Bohlen observes everything and take care that it does not occur on a blue cloud . One day Peter came to him with the most attractive woman he has ever seen : a big, tanned , curvy sexy brunette . Peter chains them together without saying a word .
Dieter Bohlen says only : " yes Knew already liked what I 've earned the right to be connected to the rest of eternity with you?"
The woman replied only : " Well, I stepped on so ' ne shit blue cloud! "
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“I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.”” Psalm 40:8 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"The love of Christ constraineth us."
2 Corinthians 5:14
How much owest thou unto my Lord? Has he ever done anything for thee? Has he forgiven thy sins? Has he covered thee with a robe of righteousness? Has he set thy feet upon a rock? Has he established thy goings? Has he prepared heaven for thee? Has he prepared thee for heaven? Has he written thy name in his book of life? Has he given thee countless blessings? Has he laid up for thee a store of mercies, which eye hath not seen nor ear heard? Then do something for Jesus worthy of his love. Give not a mere wordy offering to a dying Redeemer. How will you feel when your Master comes, if you have to confess that you did nothing for him, but kept your love shut up, like a stagnant pool, neither flowing forth to his poor or to his work. Out on such love as that! What do men think of a love which never shows itself in action? Why, they say, "Open rebuke is better than secret love." Who will accept a love so weak that it does not actuate you to a single deed of self-denial, of generosity, of heroism, or zeal! Think how he has loved you, and given himself for you! Do you know the power of that love? Then let it be like a rushing mighty wind to your soul to sweep out the clouds of your worldliness, and clear away the mists of sin. "For Christ's sake" be this the tongue of fire that shall sit upon you: "for Christ's sake" be this the divine rapture, the heavenly afflatus to bear you aloft from earth, the divine spirit that shall make you bold as lions and swift as eagles in your Lord's service. Love should give wings to the feet of service, and strength to the arms of labour. Fixed on God with a constancy that is not to be shaken, resolute to honour him with a determination that is not to be turned aside, and pressing on with an ardour never to be wearied, let us manifest the constraints of love to Jesus. May the divine loadstone draw us heavenward towards itself.

Evening


"Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?"
Luke 24:38
"Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?" The Lord cares for all things, and the meanest creatures share in his universal providence, but his particular providence is over his saints. "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him." "Precious shall their blood be in his sight." "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose." Let the fact that, while he is the Saviour of all men, he is specially the Saviour of them that believe, cheer and comfort you. You are his peculiar care; his regal treasure which he guards as the apple of his eye; his vineyard over which he watches day and night. "The very hairs of your head are all numbered." Let the thought of his special love to you be a spiritual pain-killer, a dear quietus to your woe: "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." God says that as much to you as to any saint of old. "Fear not, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." We lose much consolation by the habit of reading his promises for the whole church, instead of taking them directly home to ourselves. Believer, grasp the divine word with a personal, appropriating faith. Think that you hear Jesus say, "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." Think you see him walking on the waters of thy trouble, for he is there, and he is saying, "Fear not, it is I; be not afraid." Oh, those sweet words of Christ! May the Holy Ghost make you feel them as spoken to you; forget others for awhile--accept the voice of Jesus as addressed to you, and say, "Jesus whispers consolation; I cannot refuse it; I will sit under his shadow with great delight."
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Today's reading: Isaiah 62-64, 1 Timothy 1 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Isaiah 62-64

Zion’s New Name

1 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet,
till her vindication shines out like the dawn,
her salvation like a blazing torch.
2 The nations will see your vindication,
and all kings your glory;
you will be called by a new name
that the mouth of the LORD will bestow.
3 You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD’s hand,
a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4 No longer will they call you Deserted,
or name your land Desolate.
But you will be called Hephzibah,
and your land Beulah;
for the LORD will take delight in you,
and your land will be married.
5 As a young man marries a young woman,
so will your Builder marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
so will your God rejoice over you.
I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem;
they will never be silent day or night.
You who call on the LORD,
give yourselves no rest,
7 and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem
and makes her the praise of the earth....

Today's New Testament reading: 1 Timothy 1

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,

2 To Timothy my true son in the faith:

Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Timothy Charged to Oppose False Teachers
3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer 4 or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith. 5 The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk.7 They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.
8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. 9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine 11 that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me....
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Cyrus

[Cy'rus] - as miserable or an heir.Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, conquered Babylon and was anointed by God to free the Jews from captivity. The prophets frequently foretold the coming of Cyrus. Isaiah, for example, mentioned him by name two hundred years before he was born (2 Chron. 36:22, 23; Ezra 1:1-8; 3:7; 4:3-5; 5:13-17; 6:3-14; Isa. 44:28; 45; Dan. 1:21; 6:28; 10:1 ). Classical writers adorn the life and labors of Cyrus with a variety of legendary incidents for which no confirmation can be produced.
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