Friday, July 20, 2018

Fri Jul 20th Todays News

Don't give up on hope. I posted on Nixon on Quora the other day and got a response asking if I wrote non fiction. I asked them what they disagreed with, and got no reply. I can only assume it was the 'vibe of the thing,' to quote the Castle from working dog pictures. I don't mind being found wrong, it is how I learn. A great article "The Ideological Turing Test" expresses my view really well on this matter (Linked after Change.org petition). People grow, and change their minds about views they had held strongly. And they would have defended their view to death, before they changed their mind. I was raised as an Atheist and as a supporter of left wing views. I have changed my views on each, but remember why I had felt so strongly on each. I make mistakes, but I am fastidious about allowing argument without what debaters call "denial of case." Maybe the poster had found something which meant Nixon truly was evil and beyond redemption and had never done anything worthwhile. And maybe Obama is basically good but underachieved a lot in office.  Without evidence, we may never know. 

 Unions have so much influence in Australia they are corrupt. They need to be focused on their members and work practices, not politics and money acquisition. Former PM Paul Keating was too generous in giving unions control of superannuation. They don't need it if they are effective in dealing with workplace issues and members. I've reported a terrible workplace incident to the NSW Teacher's federation but they weren't interested as I had not been a paid up member. Yet now, unions are keen to tell Bill Shorten they want to have people die from people smuggling and they want to hurt investment in Australia. It is as if you can't be an effective unionist and a loyal Australian. Australia needs substantial corporate tax cuts because the US recently got substantial ones, and if we don't we will lose business, but if we do, we can expand business as it grows overseas too. 
A daily column on what the ALP have as a policy, supported by a local member, and how it has 'helped' the local community. I'll stop if I cannot identify a policy. Feel free to make suggestions. Contact me on FB, not twitter. I have twitter, but never look at it. 

Gabrielle Williams was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Carers and Volunteers, working with the Minister for Housing, Disability and Ageing and the Minister for Families and Children. Questions have been asked of Dan Andrews of some $400k that was illegally obtained from taxpayers to pay for Red Shirt volunteers. It has been said he may have mislead parliament, but that assumes parliament does not assume he lies. What about Williams on the issue? Or didn't she need to fleece the public purse to take advantage of her constituents? If Williams chose not to steal money for Red Shirts, why? 

As part of the November 24th Vic election campaign I have a petition I want to bring before the Opposition Leader Matthew Guy. I believe Matthew will be the next premier of Victoria and so I am petitioning him as I raise the issues of Employment, Crime and Education in Dandenong. I am also seeking money for my campaign. I don't have party resources, and so my campaign is on foot, and on the internet. Any money I receive that is not spent on the campaign will go to Grow 4 Life. I am asking questions like "What do you love about Dandenong?" and "If you could change something in Dandenong to make it better, what would it be?" I'm not limiting the questions to state issues. I'm happy to discuss anything, and get things done.

















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 You Must Remember This 

You must remember this .. for the lyrically challenged


=== from 2017 ===
Some things should not happen, but they do. Caroline Glick has been touring Australia and was interviewed by Andrew Bolt. She was to give a speech in Melbourne. But Melbourne is lawless under the ALP and Dan Andrews and so Glick was unable to tell the public where she would talk and when. Because otherwise her security could not be guaranteed. This follows some Antifa activists accosting Andrew Bolt earlier in the year on his way to a talk. Free speech has been shut down in Victoria and around Australia. The movie the Red Pill could not be shown because activists deemed it unacceptable. Caroline Glick is a similar person to Netanyahu as Peta Credlin had been to Tony Abbott when he was PM. Caroline is razor sharp, and talks like a New Yorker. Speedily, accurately and always apt. Many things she said stood out, but one thing in particular is worth noting. Australia gives some $40 million a year aid money to so called Palestine which directly funds terrorism. Antifa activists, Greens, ALP and others don't want you knowing that. 

911, Rollo laid siege to Chartres. 1189, Richard I of England officially invested as Duke of Normandy. 1304, Wars of Scottish Independence: Fall of Stirling Castle: King Edward I of England took the stronghold using the War Wolf. 1402, Ottoman-Timurid Wars: Battle of Ankara: Timur, ruler of Timurid Empire, defeated forces of the Ottoman Empire sultan Bayezid I. 1592, during the first Japanese invasion of Korea, Japanese forces led by Toyotomi Hideyoshi captured Pyongyang, although they were ultimately unable to hold it. 

In 1807, Nicéphore Niépce was awarded a patent by Napoleon for the Pyréolophore, the world's first internal combustion engine, after it successfully powered a boat upstream on the river Saône in France. 1885, The Football Association legalised professionalism in association football under pressure from the British Football Association.

In 1903, the Ford Motor Company shipped its first car. 1932, in Washington, D.C., police fired tear gas on World War I veterans, part of the Bonus Expeditionary Force, who attempted to march to the White House. 1934, Labor unrest in the U.S.: Police in Minneapolis fired upon striking truck drivers, during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934, killing two and wounding sixty-seven. Also 1934, West Coast waterfront strike: In Seattle, police fired tear gas on and clubbed 2,000 striking longshoremen. The governor of Oregon called out the National Guard to break a strike on the Portland docks. 1938, the United States Department of Justice filed suit in New York City against the motion picture industry charging violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act in regards to the studio system. The case would eventually result in a break-up of the industry in 1948.

1941, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidated the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and named Lavrentiy Beria its chief. 1944, World War II: Adolf Hitler survived an assassination attempt led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. 1949, Israel and Syria signed a truce to end their nineteen-month war. 1950, Cold War: In Philadelphia, Harry Gold pled guilty to spying for the Soviet Union by passing secrets from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs. 1951, King Abdullah I of Jordan was assassinated by a Palestinian while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem. 1954, Germany: Otto John, head of West Germany's secret service, defected to East Germany.

1964, Vietnam War: Viet Cong forces attacked the capital of Định Tường Province, Cái Bè, killing 11 South Vietnamese military personnel and 40 civilians (30 of which were children). 1969, Apollo program: Apollo 11's crew successfully made the first landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon later that day (Eastern Time Zone). 1976, the American Viking 1 lander successfully landed on Mars. 1977, the Central Intelligence Agency released documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind-control experiments.

In 1982, Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings: The Provisional IRA detonated two bombs in Hyde Park and Regent's Park in central London, killing eight soldiers, wounding forty-seven people, and leading to the deaths of seven horses. 























=== from 2016 ===
A troublemaker died in 1972. David Saul Alinsky was highly lauded as a community organiser who helped to shape modern America. In the 1950's focusing on black ghettos, Alinsky organised community to campaign for reforms. One of his achievements would be #BlackLivesMatter. His success was to leave a wasteland, but have people firmly embracing left wing politics, clutching at divisive identities and shunning cultural assets. Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles organised. Rules for Radicals list successful argument techniques for people disinterested in truth. It works, but conservatives should not fall for it. Cultural assets unite us. Like raising children who know how to behave appropriately in a class, or talking to strangers with politeness and appropriate distance. Jazz hands for school children, and gender neutral rules are divisive and mask cultural assets. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.  
=== from 2015 ===
Current affairs including President Obama regionalising foreign affairs and re creating a cold war demands that todays history be examined. The shooting down of MH17 by Ukrainian separatists in civil war caused by Washington intervening in Ukrainian politics has meant that victim's families get no answers as well as no justice. But Obama's new cold war goes beyond Ukraine to the Middle East where a humbled Al Qaeda and nascent democracy have been replaced through Obama Policy with a resurgent ISIL and administrations held together by military. Obama's treatment of Israel has been appalling, forcing Israel to free terrorists whom had been justly incarcerated and limiting Israel's ability to defend herself from missiles and terrorism, exposing her to a new nuclear threat. The US's burgeoning debt under Obama, borrowing more money than the US had borrowed in all her combined history, has exposed the US to foreign interests like China. Maybe Obama will make up for it all by freeing Jonathan Pollard? 

But the issue of Jews is telling on this day in history. Jews are recorded through history as having been trained by God. That statement means different things to different people, but even in secular terms, a bronze age people keeping a flame alive in the desert for hundreds of years is impressive. Modern people might not be able to do such a thing for more than a few hours, if at all. A dozen tribes and closely related, they are high in the three known inheritable characteristics of activity (work), irritability and emotionality. Something happened over those years. But on this day in 70, Jerusalem was invaded and the Jews would be outcast, spread through all the world by order from Rome. It didn't have to happen that way, but Nero had been a terrible Emperor and the new one wanted to stamp out rebellion. In 1949, Israel and Syria signed a truce for their eighteen month war, begun on the day Israel came into existence. In 1951, in Jerusalem, which Israel hadn't held, Jordan's king was assassinated by a Jordanian civil warrior latterly called Palestinian. The king was in prayer in a mosque, and it is customary to Islam to kill their enemies that way, apparently. The Peace movement, famously anti semitic, have not addressed the atrocity by North Vietnam in killing thirty children on this day in 1964. The children weren't Jewish. In 1982, the Provisional IRA blew up bombs in Hyde Park and Regents Park in central London, killing eight soldiers and wounding 47 people. Not everything is about Jews. But if one persecutes through bigotry, anything becomes a stumbling block. The world needs to show she isn't anti semitic, and should free Jonathan Pollard. 

Saudi Arabia arrest 400 over ISIL plot to cause strife in festival season. OPEC nations are concerned at the disruption ISIL presents to oil distribution according to news reports, which probably means they fear domestic uprisings and terror, which they should. US bombing is too limited against ISIL to be effective and Iraqi forces are unable at the moment to win back ground they have lost to weaker forces. Iraq's military problem seems to be that her army lacks national pride as it is fighting for Iran to maintain control of Iraq. On the ground, people are given the choice of supporting oppressors or bloodthirsty aggressors. McCain is right, there are no good guys, that choice has been eliminated by Obama's decision to promote regionalism through cold war as a means to security. McCain is a war hero, and should leave congress. Trump's pathetic slam aside, there are younger people in Arizona better suited to putting forward the dream of small conservative government. Alexander Meluskey is one who is campaigning on a flat tax for the US from Arizona. 

Surf Champ hits away a shark because 'Straya. The shark was in the midst of a surf championship competition in South Africa and the Australian is Mick Fanning, and he would have won, but the shark intervened. Fanning hit away the shark and the event organisers divided the points and money between competitors. 

Green tape strangling mining in NSW. In the Liverpool Plains, Chinese investors are starting up a medium size coal mine. Only activists have got a locally based minister to speak against it even though it meets the high requirements set by green tinged legislation. And now there are more delays. 

Tolerance according to the left means silencing opposition? Green dream of one party to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them .. apologies to JRR Tolkein for the misquote. Sherry Joseph of Fairfax, who flew to Europe to holiday in summer, tweeted she wanted the two major parties to disappear and be replaced by the Greens. But the dreams of lefties everywhere seem to follow that line. So that a green standing journalist says they need to celebrate freedom of speech by forcing others to shut up. 

Bronwyn Bishop is accused of another expense which seems more legitimate .. done within entitlement. There is rising hysteria for this issue which is being used to cover up ALP failings. One failing is the intended re introduction of a carbon dioxide tax. Another is the corruption of unions within Australian workplaces, and the resultant corruption of the ALP. In terms of proportion, one is in the order of ten thousand dollars, the other is in the order of trillions of dollars. But the papers are disproportionately focusing on the Speaker because she is a conservative. Another consideration is the issue of corruption. What the unions have done is criminal and probably people have died from resultant activity with organised crime. While what the speaker has done is a minor issue regarding entitlements. 

Raising GST to 15% ? NSW Premier Mike Baird has suggested it. Papers have lauded it as he isn't in federal government. The issue is serious, as if it is not addressed, then health budgets will eat through all the others. But at the moment there is so much waste in the system that a cut of 25% of the budget would not hurt anyone except some inept public servants who would be on work for the dole. 

AGW issues as the world is not heating but many hucksters want it to so they can embezzle more. 

Bob Ellis has liver cancer. The ALP supporter and writer has had life long substance abuse problems. It is worthwhile to thank him for being an example regarding drinking to excess. Some may say that the Conservative Voice is not being compassionate, but then would Bob Ellis respect that from the Conservative Voice?
From 2014
George Llewelyn Davies was born on this day, 1893. One of the most loved boys in history thanks to the work of his foster father who had a fascination with a petite actress Maude Adams. The writer, JM Barrie was a scot with wide connections to the greatest of the day. Children were entrusted to his care and there is no evidence he ever betrayed that trust, but rather it inspired him. George's behaviour with his siblings became part of Barrie's work Peter Pan. He once remarked that death would be a remarkable adventure, and that became words of Peter Pan. His father died in 1907, and his mother in 1910, and Barrie became his foster father. George was 21 in 1915, a second lieutenant, fighting in trenches. Shot in the head. Cruelly denied an adulthood. 

Another well loved boy born on this day 356 BC was Alexander, son of Macedonian King Phillip. Phillip was ambitious and had a tutor for his son, Aristotle. Alexander became king on the assassination of his dad when Alexander was twenty years old. He ruled for thirteen years and conquered the known world and much that was discovered. Thanks to him, Greek philosophy was spread throughout the world and the Pharaoh of Egypt was his family. But he died young, bereft of friendship and prone to drink too much. Some would say the moral lesson was not to kill their friends when drunk. Others would say there was no need to get drunk. Also born on this day was the poet Petrarch (1304), Edmund Hillary (1919), and Diana Rigg (1938, same day as Natalie Wood). Passing on this day was James Garner (2014), Bruce Lee (1973) and the despicable Helen Thomas (2013). 

Israel defends herself legitimately, but bigots like Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon have lied to incite hatred against Israel, to terrorist supporters. Recently, Rhiannon was filmed at a protest gathering including Hezbollah and Jihad flags where she claimed that Israel was a terrorist state targeting women and children. It is true women and children have been collateral damage to attacks by Israel against Gaza rocket launching sites. However, Israel has met conventions for firing such weapons, phoning and letter dropping in advance their intention. But terrorists for so called Palestinians have used civilians as shields, which is another war crime that has gone un-prosecuted by the world court. Terrorism cannot be allowed to continue, or there becomes unwelcome consequences, as with MH17 being shot down by Ukrainian separatist forces. It has become increasingly clear that Russia is behind the weapon which fired, but the issue of Ukraine encouraging the targeting of the airliner is not being addressed. The Ukraine government is illegitimate, but favours the white house. Until Obama comes clean on his dealings on the issue of the division of Ukraine by Russia, then the blame game will not be productive or conducive to peace. 
Historical perspective on this day
In 70, Siege of Jerusalem: Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, stormed the Fortress of Antonia north of the Temple Mount. The Roman army was drawn into street fights with the Zealots. 911, Rollo laid siege to Chartres. 1189, Richard I of Englandofficially invested as Duke of Normandy. 1304, Wars of Scottish Independence: Fall of Stirling Castle: King Edward I of England took the stronghold using the War Wolf. 1402, Ottoman-Timurid Wars: Battle of Ankara: Timur, ruler of Timurid Empire, defeated forces of the Ottoman Empire sultan Bayezid I. 1592, during the first Japanese invasion of Korea, Japanese forces led by Toyotomi Hideyoshi captured Pyongyang, although they were ultimately unable to hold it. 1738, Canadian explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye reached the western shore of Lake Michigan. 1799, Tekle Giyorgis I began his first of six reigns as Emperor of Ethiopia.

In 1807, Nicéphore Niépce was awarded a patent by Napoleon for the Pyréolophore, the world's first internal combustion engine, after it successfully powered a boat upstream on the river Saône in France. 1810, Citizens of Bogotá, New Granadadeclared independence from Spain. 1864, American Civil War: Battle of Peachtree Creek: Near Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate forces led by General John Bell Hood unsuccessfully attacked Union troops under General William T. Sherman. 1866, Austro-Prussian War: Battle of Lissa: The Austrian Navy, led by Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, defeated the Italian Navy near the island of Vis in the Adriatic Sea. 1871, British Columbia joined the confederation of Canada. 1885, The Football Association legalised professionalism in association football under pressure from the British Football Association.

In 1903, the Ford Motor Company shipped its first car. 1917, World War I: The Corfu Declaration, which led to the creation of the post-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia, was signed by the Yugoslav Committee and Kingdom of Serbia. 1922, the League of Nations awarded mandates of Togoland to France and Tanganyika to the United Kingdom. 1932, in Washington, D.C., police fired tear gas on World War I veterans, part of the Bonus Expeditionary Force, who attempted to march to the White House. 1934, Labor unrest in the U.S.: Police in Minneapolis fired upon striking truck drivers, during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934, killing two and wounding sixty-seven. Also 1934, West Coast waterfront strike: In Seattle, police fired tear gason and clubbed 2,000 striking longshoremen. The governor of Oregon called out the National Guard to break a strike on the Portland docks. 1935, Switzerland: A Royal Dutch Airlines plane en route from Milan to Frankfurt crashed into a Swiss mountain, killing thirteen. 1936, the Montreux Convention was signed in Switzerland, authorising Turkey to fortify the Dardanelles and Bosphorus but guaranteeing free passage to ships of all nations in peacetime. 1938, the United States Department of Justice filed suit in New York City against the motion picture industry charging violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act in regards to the studio system. The case would eventually result in a break-up of the industry in 1948.

In 1940, Denmark left the League of Nations. Also 1940, California opened its first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway. 1941, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidated the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and named Lavrentiy Beria its chief. 1944, World War II: Adolf Hitler survived an assassination attempt led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. 1949, Israel and Syria signed a truce to end their nineteen-month war. 1950, Cold War: In Philadelphia, Harry Gold pled guilty to spying for the Soviet Union by passing secrets from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs. 1951, King Abdullah I of Jordan was assassinated by a Palestinian while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem. 1954, Germany: Otto John, head of West Germany's secret service, defected to East Germany.

In 1960, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) elected Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government. Also 1960, the Polaris missile was successfully launched from a submarine, the USS George Washington, for the first time. 1961, French military forces broke the Tunisian siege of Bizerte. 1964, Vietnam War: Viet Cong forces attacked the capital of Định Tường Province, Cái Bè, killing 11 South Vietnamese military personnel and 40 civilians (30 of which were children). 1968, the first International Special Olympics Summer Games were held at Soldier Field in Chicago, with about 1,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities. 1969, Apollo program: Apollo 11's crew successfully made the first landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon later that day (Eastern Time Zone). Also 1969, a cease fire was announced between Honduras and El Salvador, six days after the beginning of the "Football War". 1974, Turkish occupation of Cyprus: Forces from Turkeyinvaded Cyprus after a coup d'état, organised by the dictator of Greece, against president Makarios. 1976, the American Viking 1 lander successfully landed on Mars. 1977, the Central Intelligence Agency released documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind-control experiments.

In 1982, Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings: The Provisional IRA detonated two bombs in Hyde Park and Regent's Park in central London, killing eight soldiers, wounding forty-seven people, and leading to the deaths of seven horses. 1985, the government of Aruba passed legislation to secede from the Netherlands Antilles. 1989, Burma's ruling junta put opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. 1992, Václav Havel resigned as president of Czechoslovakia. 1997, the fully restored USS Constitution (a.k.a. Old Ironsides) celebrated its 200th birthday by setting sail for the first time in 116 years. 1999, the Chinese Communist Party began a persecution campaign against Falun Gong, arresting thousands nationwide. 2012, a gunman opened fire at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado, as it was showing The Dark Knight Rises, killing 12 and injuring 70 others.
=== Publishing News ===
This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
===
I am publishing a book called Bread of Life: January. 

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

January is the first of the anticipated year-long work of thirteen books. One for each month and the whole year. It costs to publish. It (Kindle version) should retail at about $2US online, but the paperback version would cost more, according to production cost.If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofund.me/27tkwuc
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August, September, October, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows a free kindle version.

List of available items at Create Space
Happy birthday and many happy returns Stephanie Granger, Alexander the Great (356 BC), Gregor Mendel (1822), Hazel Hawke (1929), Diana Rigg (1938) and Terri Irwin (1964). Born on the same magical day, across the years. Friend's day in Argentina. In 1592, During the first Japanese invasion of Korea, Japanese forces led by Toyotomi Hideyoshi captured Pyongyang, although they were ultimately unable to hold it. 1779, Tekle Giyorgis I began the first of his six reigns as Emperor of Ethiopia. 1936, The Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits was signed in Montreux, Switzerland, allowing Turkey to fortify the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus but guaranteeing free passage to ships of all nations in peacetime. 1944, Adolf Hitler survived an assassination attempt by German Resistance member Claus von Stauffenberg, who hid a bomb inside a briefcase during a conference at the Wolfsschanze military headquarters in East Prussia. 1969, The Apollo 11 lunar module landed on the Sea of Tranquillity, where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon six-and-a-half hours later. A day of many augurs. Think your happiest thought, extend your wand and "Expecto Patronum!"
Deaths
July 20: Friend's Day in Argentina and other Latin American countries; Independence Day in Colombia(1810); Marine Day in Japan (2015)
Arroyo Seco Parkway and York Boulevard Bridge
It was a short career. Internal combustion market is burning up on the inside. Pasadena is asking to disconnect. Stop this senseless war against parks. No Barbie, Ken wants Ben. Let's party. 
===
Tim Blair 2018

===

KEVNI FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Tim Blair – Wednesday, July 20, 2016 (3:17pm)

The United Nations is a noble organisation dedicated to the principle that there is no international crisis that cannot be made infinitely worse.
Obviously, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is the ideal individual to lead such an organisation.

He’s the man who within just three years turned Labor’s election landslide into a government-shattering civil war. He’s the man who handed Australia’s massive budget surplus to Wayne Swan. He’s the man who tried to counter global warming with a household insulation program that burned down more than 100 houses. He’s the man who attempted to save money with a grocery watch website that ended up costing Australians more than $4 million. He’s the man who introduced humane refugee policies that killed more than 1000 refugees.
In the field of outstanding incompetence, Kevin Rudd is your gold medal winner every single time. Let’s imagine the outcomes if UN secretary-general Kevin takes charge of the world’s current major issues.

 Continue reading 'KEVNI FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL'
===

TERRORISTS ARE PEOPLE TOO

Tim Blair – Wednesday, July 20, 2016 (3:10pm)

An extraordinary revelation from the inquest into 2014’s Martin Place siege: 
The police commander who held off ordering tactical officers to storm the Lindt cafe until after hostage Tori Johnson was killed has told an inquest gunman Man Haron Monis “had the same rights as anyone else”, prompting the victim’s mother to charge out of the courtroom, calling the officer “an absolute disgrace”. 
Accurate call. If anything, a little too polite.
UPDATE. When you’re in a hole: 
The police commander under fire for not storming the Lindt Cafe until after Tori Johnson was killed has said he would do the same thing today …
“Every day I think of those three people lost their lives because of me. My decision,” the officer who cannot be named, said.
He was referring to Mr Johnson, who was shot dead by terrorist Man Monis, barrister Katrina Dawson, who died after being hit by fragments of police bullets, and Monis himself. 
===

LOGIC FAIL

Tim Blair – Wednesday, July 20, 2016 (2:55pm)

The Courier-Mail‘s Margaret Wenham take aim at Rita Panahi’s defence of Sonia Kruger: 
As for the continual baa, baa, baaing of right-wing sheep that free speech is under attack and political correctness is stifling debate, well, hello, if that was the case, how come Kruger was able to say what she said on national TV? 
Er … it was a live broadcast, Margaret. That’s why. Meanwhile, television industry types – who every awards night applaud their own bravery and courage – have clammed up: 
If Sonia Kruger was hoping for vocal support from her friends and colleagues in television, she’ll be bitterly disappointed.
On-air faces across the industry have been instructed to keep quiet on the issue, it can be revealed, leaving the embattled Today Extra co-host to face the music alone. 
Cowards. One of the few to speak on the record is former Big Brother personality Mike Goldman: 
“I worked with her for many years and she is one of the nicest people I have ever met,” he said. “Sonia Kruger is definitely not a racist. She never talked about race, just religion. She’s saying what a lot of people are afraid to say in public.” 
Good on him.
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WEDNESDAY NOTICEBOARD

Tim Blair – Wednesday, July 20, 2016 (4:11am)

Run, Jonathan, run!
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POSSIBLE RELIGIOUS MOTIVE

Tim Blair – Wednesday, July 20, 2016 (3:37am)

Via Dylan Kissane, a translation of a French news report on the latest Islamist atrocity: 
A mother and her three daughters violently attacked with knife for being scantily dressed
A mother and her three daughters were violently attacked with a knife this morning around 10am in a VVF holiday center in Garda-Colombe, in the Hautes-Alpes. The prognosis of the youngest 8 years old, is serious …
The suspect fled the scene by car and was arrested a few minutes later by the police … Their alleged assailant, Mohammed B., aged 37, may have possibly acted for a religious reason … the mother and her 14-year-old daughter were seriously injured and transported by helicopter to Gap to be hospitalised there. 
Probably he was just a former US Marine.
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JUANITA NEEDS HELP

Tim Blair – Wednesday, July 20, 2016 (3:30am)

ABC newsreader Juanita Phillips faces a difficult journalistic assignment: 
Trying to avoid the odious term “honour killing” in ABC news at 7. It deeply offends many of us yet there is no widely accepted alternative. 
Let’s assist. What might be an acceptable ABC term for the murder of a young woman by family members of a certain faith?
• Ethnically authorised euthanasia
• Colourful multicultural tradition 
• Population control
• Something something something capitalism something imperialism something don’t judge them
Readers are invited to offer their own suggestions.
UPDATE. Juanita’s preferred term: “Patriarchal murder”.
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NO GIRLS ALLOWED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, July 20, 2016 (2:11am)

A Sydney girls’ school wants to ban girls: 
Teachers at an all-girls school in northwest Sydney have been asked to stop referring to their students as “girls”, “ladies” and “women"and to instead use “gender-neutral” language.
The request to teachers at Cheltenham Girls High School came in a staff meeting last term to discuss implementation of the controversial Safe Schools anti-bullying program for lesbian, gay and transgender (LGBTI) students.

Also at the meeting, a copy of the NSW anti-discrimination act was displayed, according to an insider, and staff were informed by the teacher chairing the meeting that if they did not support decisions of LGBTI students they would be breaking the law, would be considered homophobic and were not welcome by the school. 
Read on. And also read Miranda Devine’s column.
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On Sky News and radio tonight

Andrew Bolt July 20 2016 (4:50pm)

On The Bolt Report on Sky News Live at 7pm tonight:
Editorial - Conservatives can’t just appeal to fear.
My guests:
David P. Goldman, the man behind the influential Spengler column and author of the brilliant How Civilizations Die (and why Islam is dying too), on the real threat that could end Europe. And, no, it’s not what you think.
Mark Latham says the left created Pauline Hanson. And on Islam’s apologists.
The panel: former Liberal and Labor adviser  Catherine McGregor and Herald Sun writer  Rita Panahi.  Joe Biden warns us the US is here to stay. An anniversary to remind us of what counts. And fig-leaf politics.
Podcasts of the show here. Facebook page here. 
On 2GB, 3AW and 4BC with Steve Price from 8pm.
Trump and fear. And tell us: what is most worth loving about this country - and worth defending?
Listen live here. Talkback:  131 873.  Listen to all past shows  here.
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Far Left accuses Linda Burney of being an Aboriginal “fig leaf”

Andrew Bolt July 20 2016 (2:04pm)

Marvellous to see Labor’s far Left choking on the race politics it so recklessly pushed onto the rest of us:
Labor’s left faction in Victoria has hit out at a move against party stalwart Kim Carr, accusing MPs in NSW of using indigenous MP Linda Burney as a “sickening” figleaf for a factional hit. 
An emergency meeting of the Victorian socialist left faction to be held tonight will move to condemn the move against Senator Carr ... [and] pass two resolutions that call for Senator Carr to be maintained on the front bench in line with proportional representation within the Left caucus…

Leader of the Left faction in NSW Anthony Albanese is being accused of orchestrating the deal because of his “blind hatred” of Senator Carr, who supported Bill Shorten against him in the 2013 leadership ballot. “The use of Linda Burney as cover for this move against Carr is a sickening and callous exploitation of race to disguise a factional hit,” one senior member of the Victorian left executive told The Australian.
And the signing up of Nova Peris, then? What was that?
I had a great time rattling around the country with Linda for a month, filming a documentary for the ABC on indigenous recognition. One thing I will say about her that I couldn’t about Carr: she is charming and we never once had a cross word. I’d bank on her selling Labor better than can Carr. 
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Another reporter on The Australian calls for me to be muzzled

Andrew Bolt July 20 2016 (11:47am)

Free speech, three

The answer is no, of course, as my article makes clear:
What I actually wrote, with the relevant bits on bold for lazy readers:
And if our politicians will not speak frankly and protect us from Islam, watch out for a civil war. A frightened public will not put up with this for much longer and will defend themselves. 
Here, yes, that ugly day has not dawned and let us pray it never does. But in France, God knows how soon non-Muslim vigilantes will themselves take up arms.
Who could blame them, after the murderous attacks by Islamists on a Jewish kindergarten, on a satirical magazine that mocked Islam, on a kosher supermarket, on a policeman and his wife at home and, last year, on Paris in a full-on military assault that killed 130 people.
And now at least another 80 people dead in Nice, killed by a Tunisian-born Frenchman.
Even before the Nice attack, Patrick Calvar, chief of France’s Directorate General of Internal Security, warned that “extremism is growing everywhere” and “we are on the brink of civil war”.
Calvar was talking then of a surge of attacks by Muslim men on non-Muslim women — like the 1200 attacks on German women on New Year’s Eve — but added that tensions were so high that it could just take one more major Islamist terror attack to lead to a huge Right-wing backlash.
That attack has now occurred. It is easy to demonise — and reasonable to fear — the rise of Right-wing resistance to Islamism. Innocents, particularly Muslims, could get hurt. 
But what is striking about Le Grand’s response - apart from the author’s comprehension difficulties - is his call to my editor for me to be muzzled. You see, Chip Le Grand is actually the chief reporter for the Melbourne bureau of The Australian, which I assumed meant he’d prefer debate to censorship.
But something sinister is creeping into our culture, and even into the culture of Rupert Murdoch’s Australian flagship. This is now the second senior figure at The Australian to ask my editors in the Murdoch News Corp to silence me. The other was Paul Kelly, likewise pushing a tribalist cause I oppose, this time attempts to change our constitution to divide us by race:
Bolt argues an extreme position: he says the referendum is racist and that it will divide the nation by race. 
Bolt has prejudged the issue, saying earlier this month the effect of the referendum is “to divide Australians by our ‘race’, each with different constitutional standing” depending on our ancestors. He has previously called the proposed referendum “immoral”, branded it “not just fundamentally wrong but socially dangerous”, and said that Abbott’s crusade “must be defeated”.
This is an intellectually flawed position, to say the least, since the actual constitutional change is yet to be determined. It is hard to judge whether the political poison Bolt injects into this debate will gain traction.... This raises another question: as the referendum advances, how much liberty will be extended to Bolt by his editors to continue his campaign in their newspapers?
Read me while you still can. But note this: causes which rely for their success on silencing opponents cannot have much going for them.
Activists call on force only when reason fails. 
===

A super breach of trust. UPDATE: Christensen threatens to cross floor

Andrew Bolt July 20 2016 (11:03am)

Janet Albrechtsen on one of Malcolm Turnbull’s big mistakes:
The story of how the Turnbull government stitched up the poorest policy by a Liberal government in decades is told in one short letter to The Australian from a former Treasury official and an explosive email sent to the Liberal Party campaign director by a party donor. 
In a letter sent to this newspaper a week after the May 3 budget, Terence O’Brien wrote: “Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer doesn’t seem to understand why the increased tax on superannuation will destroy trust in saving to fund one’s retirement.” ...  O’Brien wrote that the May budget changes meant that someone putting money into super “can never again trust a government not to change the rules"…
(O)n May 3, the Prime Minister and Treasurer blew up the nation’s superannuation piggy bank, which for decades has been carefully con­structed on the basis of savers trusting the integrity of the system.
The high price of the government’s breach of trust in rushing ahead with ill-conceived, dishonest and rushed superannuation changes is laid bare in a private email sent by Melbourne businessman John McMurrick to the Liberal Party campaign director Tony Nutt on May 16.. McMurrick reminded Nutt the Turnbull government had said they “were not going to touch superannuation”. Including this from Morrison on May 25 last year: “Taxing superannuation is a bad idea, I don’t support it.” And this from the Treasurer on February 18: “I fear that the approach of taxing in that retirement phase penalises Australians who have put money into superannuation under the current rules — under the deal that they thought was there. It may not be technical retrospectivity but it certainly feels that way. It is effective retrospectivity, the tax technicians and superannuation tax technicians may say differently.” 
UPDATE
Super wasn’t an issue, Turnbull claimed. Oh yes it is, says a backbencher who now threatens to cross the floor:
Liberal National MP George Christensen says he will vote against the government’s promised $6 billion crackdown on superannuation concessions unless the Coalition overhauls the policy. 
Mr Christensen, who sits in the Nationals party room, said he had made “clear” to Barnaby Joyce that he could not support a “retrospective” $500,000 lifetime non-concessional cap on fund balances, backdated to 2007, or the $1.6 million cap on the lump sum that can be used to fund tax-free super income…
“These policies are Labor-style policies which hit those people who have worked hard all of their lives; those who have scrimped and saved and done the right thing…
“More importantly, I hate it when government fiddles with super. It’s not the government’s money, it’s YOUR money. We in government need to remember that. “If the government’s superannuation policy does not change, I will be crossing the floor and voting against these measures.”
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

What socialism looks like

Andrew Bolt July 20 2016 (9:21am)

Via Catallaxy Files:
Memories:
[In 2008] a collective of our snowfield socialists - including the ABC’s Phillip Adams, propagandist John Pilger, the Greens’ Kerry Nettle and Kevin Rudd’s nephew Van Thanh Rudd - begged Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez to come teach Australians a lesson:
Every country has its own traditions and culture and has to find its own solutions, but what Venezuela has been able to achieve in so little time will be a source of inspiration and ideas for many in Australia.
Since then this “source of inspiration and ideas” has been teaching our closet totalitarians lots of lessons, such as how to shoot students, close down critical TV stations, stop inflation by arresting 50 butchers, arrest political opponents , create an energy crisis and foster corruption…
Led by Hugo Chávez, the country’s firebrand former president, the country embarked on a wave of expropriation and redistribution with the charismatic leader offering cut-price fridges, appliances and even new homes to poor Venezuelans.
Chávez wanted to create a socialist paradise, an ideology that has been reinforced by his successor Maduro following his death in 2013. 
===

No girls at school

Andrew Bolt July 20 2016 (9:15am)

Girls are banned at a girls’ school. Miranda Devine explains:
We have reached the absurd position where teachers at an all-girls school in northwest Sydney, Cheltenham Girls High, have been asked to stop referring to their students as “girls”, ladies” and “women” and instead use “gender-neutral” language.
And to illustrate the maxim that so much that passes for idealism is a disguised hatred or a disguised love of power:
But some students at the elite public school, with its large Asian population, feel marginalised and excluded if they do not embrace the ideology. Concerned parents have started a petition and complained to teachers as well as various politicians. 
They have said their daughters felt pressured to wear LGBTI ribbons which were being handed out at the front and back entrance of the school one morning. And they have claimed students not wearing the ribbons were being called intolerant and labelled homophobes.
How can an anti-bullying program be imposed by bullying? 
===

No, Waleed, these excuses and this blame-shifting must end

Andrew Bolt July 20 2016 (8:17am)

Yet again, after yet more Islamic terrorism, apologist Waleed Aly criticises how the the targets of such terror react - not the theology that has inflamed and directed the killers.
Yet again, he has placed himself and other Muslims in the ranks of the sinned-against, singled out non-Muslims out for criticism and thrown in some completely misleading “rebuttals”.
Take this particularly deceptive response to one fact I pointed out and which Kruger repeated in noting a connection between the number of Muslims in a Western society and the risk of Islamist terrorism:
“I could sit here and pull apart Sonia Kruger’s statement,” [Aly] said in the editorial, co-written by supervising producer Tom Whitty. “I could point out that Japan has had its share of terror attacks, or that the UN has attributed Japan’s low crime rate to low inequality and low gun ownership..”
First, we were talking about the link between Muslims and Islamic terrorism, not between Muslims and terrorism carried out (many years ago) by far-Left groups, cults or ultra nationalists.
Second, we were talking about terrorism, not crime rates.
Third, Aly is suggesting that in countries where there is indeed Islamic terrorism, the root cause there is “inequality” rather than the ideology of the killer. In fact, jihadists in the West have included university graduats and the children of professionals. Osama bin Laden was the son of a tycoon. His successor is a doctor.
Fourth, Aly suggests that Islamist attacks are a function of the West’s gun laws, when the latest attacks in Nice and now in a German train used weapons found all over Japan - trucks and axes.  In Melbourne, two police were stabbed by a man armed only with knives. Aly also overlooks the fact that France also has tough gun laws, but has not been spared. The ultimate terrorist attack - on September 11 - was carried out by terrorists armed only with boxcutters.  And, of course, Aly is here once more finding fault with the victims, not the killers.
I could point out that if Sonia is afraid, logically, as a woman in Australia, she has a much higher chance of being murdered by a man she knows, than a Muslim from another country.
And? Is that why France has just had to deploy 22,000 soldiers and police reservists to protect its public? Why we’re checked for weapons going into even the MCG?
“We can react emotionally, carelessly, and with little genuine critical thought, and we can destroy a perceived enemy in the hope that it will neutralise the threat that is making us feel unsafe,” he said. “This is the destructive choice...Or when we are presented with what we perceive as an outrageous opinion, we can consider what motivated that person...”
This is blaming Kruger even while claiming to forgive her.
And here is Aly putting Muslims as victors rather than addressing a single remark to any Muslims as perpertrators:
Aly said he was “scared too” and “afraid for this country”, adding: “I’m terrified about what it is doing to my friends and family. Honestly, I’m scared about where I belong.”
And once again, Aly suggests the real challenge is to moderate our fear, not address what they are fearful about:
“...I’m not saying you should be silent in the face of bigotry. But when you do engage with someone you disagree with, I’m talking about assuming the best in people, showing others radical generosity in the face of their hostility. Which is the much harder choice because it demands much more restraint, patience, and strength.”
And about Islam, Waleed?
About the fact that the last three terrorist attacks here were all carried out of Muslims we’d accepted as refugees? That 12 of the 21 people jailed here for terrorism - all Muslim - were men we’d accepted as migrants? And seven of the rest were the children of migrants?
More evasion and blame-shifting, I’m afraid. But watch - there will be more praise for that, too. 
===

Which poor victim group can he possibly mean?

Andrew Bolt July 19 2016 (11:16pm)

ABC presenter Mark Colvin seems to have trouble thinking of a word beginning with M, but whoever he means are the victims of racism:
MARK COLVIN: And you just described somebody weeping at the scene. What is the mood in Nice now, what is the mood around there? 
I mean, it’s been for at least a quarter of a century a scene of fairly strong conflict between the far right, the National Front, and immigrant, large numbers of immigrants in that area. I remember doing a film there for foreign correspondent during the ‘90s.
Has it stoked up more racism, more feeling against particular groups of people? STEVE CANNANE: Look, I haven’t seen any evidence of that yet, Mark, and certainly members of the Muslim community turned up at one of the tributes yesterday. That hasn’t appeared from what I can see, but there is certainly anger, politicians have made certain comments, but people do want answers to what happened. 
(Thanks to reader David.) 
===

Book launch postponed

Andrew Bolt July 19 2016 (9:59pm)

Apologies, but my book launch in Melbourne on Friday has had to be postponed for personal reasons. The IPA is offering refunds, and will reschedule the event.
You can watch last weekend’s wonderful Sydney launch here. Order Worth Fighting For here, and you will also get regular Bolt Bulletins. 
===

APPEASING THE WEATHER WORRIERS

Tim Blair – Monday, July 20, 2015 (4:58am)

In 2011, one of those stupid climate sceptics – OK, it was me – made this prediction: 
Sooner or later, somewhere in the world a mainstream political party – possibly from the left – is going to say: “Hey, we went along with all of that global warming stuff for a few years. We were scared we’d lose votes if we didn’t. But now we realise that no policies we devise can make any significant impact. From now on, our environmental spending will be limited to the environment that people live in. Here are all your taxes back. Sorry.” 
We’re not quite at that point yet, certainly for parties from the left, but we’re nudging closer. Yesterday Environment Minister Greg Hunt had these words of advice for Labor on its proposed emissions trading scheme/carbon tax/call it what you like: “Completely ditch the policy.”
Pointing out that the only difference between a carbon tax and an ETS is a fixed or floating price, Hunt continued: “Either way, it’s taxing and driving up the price of electricity.”
Hunt’s words would carry more authority if the government was also moving to ditch its own ridiculous and wasteful climate change policies, kept in place to appease local and international weather worriers.
(Continue reading Appeasing the Weather Worriers.)
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ONE-PARTY GREEN DREAM

Tim Blair – Monday, July 20, 2015 (4:55am)

Deep thoughts of a Fairfax girl:

And then she flew to Europe for a holiday in the sun.
===

TRAP FOR OLD PLAYERS

Tim Blair – Monday, July 20, 2015 (4:34am)

First-year members of parliament are a lot like first-year university students.
They don’t quite understand their surroundings, are unfamiliar with protocols, and – in the case of Clive Palmer – spend more time goofing around than at “lectures”.
First-year MPs also tend to be charmingly naive when it comes to the various expenses and luxuries to which they are entitled. It is rare for a first-year politician to be caught overspending on expenses, mostly because they haven’t yet become numb to the idea of wasting other people’s money.
This is a trap for old players.
At 72, house of representatives Speaker and Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop is one of the oldest. As the past few days have revealed, Bishop is now so comfortable wasting other people’s money that she seems unable to understand why there is so much fuss over a trifling $5000 helicopter ride from Melbourne to Geelong last November.
“The fact of the matter is, it was done within entitlement,” Bishop said at a frosty press conference on the weekend.
It sure was, and that’s exactly the problem.
(Continue reading Trap.)
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MILA’S GOT A GUN

Tim Blair – Monday, July 20, 2015 (4:16am)

An interviewer asks Obama-supporting US actress Mila Kunis if she is disappointed by the president’s “failure to make headway on gun laws”, and is surprised by Kunis’s reply: 
We have a gun at the house. But would I give it to my daughter as a gift at 15? No … My child shouldn’t be as well trained as us, nor should she know there is a weapon in the house – ever. But I respect the gun …
I probably wouldn’t have the gun if I didn’t have stalkers or people constantly trying to break into my house. 
Lefties do tend to change the rules when their own welfare is at stake. Other Democrats remain in a state of firearm paranoia: 
A campaign worker making calls for the Hillary Clinton campaign Friday evening called police after she reached one local household and heard screaming and a gunshot.
Candia Police Officer Kevin Mahoney said the man who answered the phone at a Crittle Hill Road home around 5 p.m. told the caller he wasn’t interested and hung up.
But just before he did, he said, “She could hear what she thought was screaming and yelling in the background, then a gunshot, then more screaming and yelling.”
The campaign worker had the address and called 9-1-1. Police responded in force – especially after the 9-1-1 operator could not reach the residents by phone.
Mahoney said he and the other officers who responded feared the worst. “Everyone was thinking it could be a murder-suicide or a domestic,” he said. 
It turns out that the household was watching an episode of Law & Order.
===

DUKES OF HAMAD

Tim Blair – Monday, July 20, 2015 (3:14am)

Via Ed Driscoll, here’s a politically-correct, non-Confederate version of The Dukes of Hazzard:

In other politically-correct developments, following Ruby Hamad’s condemnation of unknown racist phrases a few months ago, I posted this: 
When Hamad compiles her list of “songs you didn’t know were racist” – and you know she will – let’s see if she includes the Beatles’ Penny Lane. 
Well, official Fairfax language fusscop Hamad has now compiled that list. Penny Lane misses out, but she does slam decades-old lyrics by Elvis Costello ("white nigger"), Bruce Springsteen ("yellow man"), John Lennon ("woman is the nigger of the world") and Madonna ( … er, “crazy for you"): 
How often do we refer to a combative housemate as a ‘crazy psycho’? Or enthusiastically describe a positive experience as ‘totally insane’? While to us, these epithets may seem as harmless as ‘yellow man’ did to Springsteen, the fact remains they are jokes made at someone else’s expense. This is the nature of racism and sexism and other forms of oppression – they are so entrenched in our society that we may think we understand them now and that this gives us an edge over our forebears, but it will be left to future generations to judge us.
‘Crazy’ is a hard word to drop because it is so ubiquitous right now. But we’ve done it before. Just as we now balk at the casual racism of decades past, it likely won’t be so far into the future before people marvel at our own backwardness. 
Ruby Hamad is mentally ill.
===

BOB DOWN

Tim Blair – Monday, July 20, 2015 (2:44am)

Bob Ellis is diagnosed with liver cancer: 
The news is very bad and I may have months to live but it is more like weeks. 
Here’s hoping, for Bob, his family and friends, that this is yet another inaccurate Ellis prediction. 
(Via Fiona F.)
UPDATE. Bob’s friend Mike Carlton is sceptical: “It’s very sad to hear that he is at death’s door although, given his capacity for lurid exaggeration, he may actually be in rude good health but just a bit bored.”
===

BITER vs FIGHTER

Tim Blair – Monday, July 20, 2015 (1:40am)

Not something you see every day: a pro surfer attacked by a shark on live television. Click for scary video. Australian Mick Fanning fended off the hungry sea-beast with a punch to the back.
===

LIFE’S A PITCH

Tim Blair – Monday, July 20, 2015 (1:13am)

Neutral umpires were introduced to Test cricket in 2002, removing the potential for complaints about home country decisions. Some complaints may have been valid. Pakistan’s Javed Miandad played at Test level for nearly an entire decade before he was finally given out LBW by a Pakistani umpire.
These things cut both ways. Indian umpires were enthusiastic whenever presented with the chance to dismiss Miandad, who at one point was given out LBW five times — for 1, 1, 2, 4 and 3 — in just three Indian-umpired Test matches.
Such shenanigans are not possible in an era of neutral umpires and video referrals (when permitted by India). Yet one area of blatant favouritism remains. It is completely within the rules to prepare pitches that either suit a home team’s strengths or dull the strengths of a visiting team.
(Continue reading Life’s a Pitch.)
===

OLD MATERIAL RECYCLED

Tim Blair – Monday, July 20, 2015 (12:14am)

The lazy Climate Council is just phoning it in these days: 
Australia will become a global “pariah” if it does not keep up with major Western countries in addressing climate change, a Climate Council report has found.
The report, Halfway to Paris: How the world is tracking on Climate Change, shows Australia is one of the largest emitters per capita and the 13th largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, ahead of 182 other countries. 
We’ve been a pariah now for nearly ten years, according to Clive Hamilton’s 2006 claim: “The rest of the world sees Australia as a pariah on climate change.” Strangely, our international infamy doesn’t seem to have caused any decline in tourism. Quite the opposite, in fact. The rest of the world plainly adores our loveable climate pariah ways. Meanwhile, supporters of the Climate Council’s wealthy cult leaders aren’t getting much for their $1 million in donations:

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The kind of tolerance that makes citizens too terrified to speak

Andrew Bolt July 20 2015 (3:40pm)

Do you think the Age reporter will understand his non-sequitur if I just highlight in in bold? Or is this an ideological failing, not linguistic?
The left-wing counter demonstrations on Spring Street on Saturday were aimed at stopping anti-Islam protesters from speaking out, but their message of tolerance appears to have been lost with four people arrested - one who is expected to be charged with assault.
(Thanks to reader Ted.) 
===

If Bishop insists on charging for these rorts, she must go

Andrew Bolt July 20 2015 (8:03am)

 SPEAKER Bronwyn Bishop is shameless. Caught spending our money to charter a chopper to a Liberal fundraiser, she refuses to rule out rorting us again.
That turns a mistake into a pattern of rip-offs.
And it calls for the sack. So where is Prime Minister Tony Abbott?
Bishop’s press conference on Saturday to explain herself was a disaster.
(Read full article here.) 
===

Mad campaign against a mine that will feed us

Andrew Bolt July 20 2015 (7:53am)

AUSTRALIANS have a crippling case of supermarket syndrome — that juvenile assumption that what you see in the shop just appeared by magic.
No one had to kill a cow, cut a tree, dig up some land or do any of that other yukky stuff “progressives” have taught children to hate.
For younger Australians particularly, there is now a complete disconnect between our wealth and what it actually took to produce it — and pay for our schools, hospitals and roads.
Case in point: the bizarre attack on the Chinese investors trying to start a medium-sized coal mine on the Liverpool Plains.
(Read full article here.)   
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Another flight Bishop will have to defend

Andrew Bolt July 20 2015 (7:48am)

On it goes:
EMBATTLED Speaker Bronwyn Bishop took a chartered flight to another Liberal fundraiser in regional NSW just five days after her taxpayer-funded helicopter jaunt to Geelong. 
The Herald Sun can reveal Ms Bishop took the charter service to the NSW town of Young, where she was key speaker at the $50-a-head Liberal event at the Young Services Club.
But:
Victorian premier Jeff Kennett defended Ms Bishop and criticised her colleagues for failing to defend her. 
“I do not excuse the abuse of privileges and this charge did seem excessive ... but calls for Bronwyn to resign are totally over the top,” Mr Kennett said.
===

There were two sets of protesters on the street. The media savaged the more peaceful

Andrew Bolt July 20 2015 (7:19am)

 Much of the reporting of the weekend’s Reclaim Australia protests has been disgraceful.
There were in fact two groups of protesters at the rallies in Sydney and Melbourne that got most of the media coverage.
One group was Reclaim Australia, and the other comprised protesters largely organised by the Socialist Alternative and Socialist Party who tried to shout down Reclaim Australia protesters, intimidate them and at times physically attack them. The whole point of the socialist rally was to stop the Reclaim Australia one.
Yes, there was violence from both sides, but overwhelmingly that violence - as show on television - was initiated and provoked by the socialists who were trying to deny other citizens their right to assemble, to protest and to speak.
That violence said so much about the true threat to our values. One side carried the Australian flag; the other had protesters who spat on it. One side denounced the Islamic State that has beheaded civilians, murdered gays and raped women; the other tried to attack those worried by the danger. One side organised a peaceful rally; the other tried to shut it down. In any rational view, one side represented by far the bigger threat to our freedoms and physical safety, not least to the safety of our police, yet much of the media has treated Reclaim Australia as the prime villains instead.
True, the Reclaim Australia movement is shrill and attracts some nasty elements. It is more likely to inflame than to fix. But the street-fighting socialists are even more shrill and actually dangerous - yet the media went soft on them. Fellow travellers?
Here is an account by reader James:
As the result of an invitation I was at the Reclaim Australia rally (my first) in Adelaide with my 80 year old Father, my mother, brother and a Sikh friend of ours.... 
The presentations were quite sensible and there was nothing outrageous or overly inflammatory in any of them. The most persuasive speaker was an Indigenous person who made some fun of the claims of “racist” being tossed over the police line.
On the other side were as you pointed out supporters of the Socialist Alliance, mostly Uni students who has been encouraged to attend by flyers and posters in Unis and on bus stops. The most prevalent chant was Welcome Muslims, Stop racists once again proving that our youth don’t know the meaning of basic English words like racist. The Greens were there as were the Aboriginal Lobby. There was one incident when a couple of that side tried to push through the police cordon, unsuccessfully. The chanting also consisted of the usual swear words like F*ck and C*nt right in the faces of the police (even thought it is illegal to do so) ...
In the beginning I pointed out that all the police were facing in one direction so they knew where any threat would be coming from. I guess someone decided that wasn’t a good look and turned some of them around to face our side
The speakers included a grandma, a song by a 17 year old, you know the one that Qantas used to have in their ads, an Aboriginal, and one of the movement leaders. The Uni side of the fence booed at anything positive said about Australia and Australians. They also booed when the national anthem was sung. While I don’t see myself formally joining the reclaim Australia movement based on what I was seeing from the other side of the cordon there needs to be some serious work done to support the Australian culture and not have to be destroyed either by Islam or the Socialists. 
And here is the speech that LNP MP George Christensen prepared for the Mackay Reclaim Australia rally. Christensen has been maligned and attacked by journalists and human rights commissions for giving it, but tell me exactly what he says that is offensive - more offensive than the message of those who tried to scream him down yesterday:
We all have a voice: Notwithstanding our choice to use it or not. Notwithstanding the best efforts of those who would render us silent. We have a voice – not a voice of hatred, violence, and extremism – but a voice of warning, defiance, and of hope. Our voice does not go unchallenged but that is the beauty and appeal of the free and open democratic society our voice speaks out to defend. 
Long before he became President of the United States, Ronald Reagan was a voice for the American people. At a Republican convention in 1964, he said:
“There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender.”
Our voice says: “We will not surrender.” We will not sit idly by and watch the Australian culture and the Australian lifestyle that we love and that is envied around the world be surrendered and handed over to those who hate us for who we are and what we stand for.
When Ronald Reagan spoke those words, he warned against the threat of Soviet Russia and those words apply equally now to the threat of Islamic extremism and its complicit defenders. Reagan said: “Every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement” and yet that is the political and social environment that confronts us today – appeasement.
When I accepted the invitation to be a voice here today, I was disappointed (but not entirely surprised) by a tidal wave of hyperventilation and confected outrage on social media, in the mainstream media, and from capital city commentators. Labor’s Shadow Minister for Immigration, Richard Marles said today’s rally was synonymous with racism.
Our State Labor Member for Mackay described my comments in accepting your invitation to speak as appalling, shameful, ignorant, and hateful. In doing so, she has reflected on you and your fellow like-minded citizens. A petition urged the Prime minister to prevent me from even attending today. The apologists of the left, the do-gooders, and the politically correct crowd said I should not address you because you were a crowd of: racists, bigots, Islamophobes, extremists, white supremicists, skinheads, and Nazis.
But I look out at the crowd and that’s not what I see. I see Mums and Dads who love their country – the Australian culture and the Australian lifestyle. I see everyday hard-working families who want their kids to enjoy the same freedoms that were enjoyed by the generations that came before them. Some of the freedoms Australians hold most dear are freedom of speech and freedom of religion. In this country, I am proud of the fact that someone who has a particular belief can hold that view without fear of intimidation. They can practice their faith – whether they are Christian, Buddhist, or Muslim – at a church, a temple, or a mosque – without fear of intimidation. And the full force of the law can, and should, come down on anyone who does try to intimidate them.
Likewise, we have a freedom to criticise. While it is not my cup of tea to criticise religions, I see that people criticise Christianity every day without fear of retribution, violence, or being called a Christophobe or a racist. In fact, we have seen many examples in the past year alone of Christians being slaughtered for no reason other than the fact that they are Christian. But in this country, that should not be tolerated.
In this country, we also enjoy the right to peaceful assembly. We all have the right to be here today, protesting in a peaceful way against the dangers of radical Islam and the culture of appeasement that allows radical extremism to fester. That culture of appeasement to radical Islam dictated that I should not speak here today for fear of giving you credibility – as if your voice would otherwise have no value. 
Icon Arrow Continue reading 'There were two sets of protesters on the street. The media savaged the more peaceful'
===

More taxes, cries a Liberal leader

Andrew Bolt July 20 2015 (6:42am)

I’d be more inclined to listen to Mike Baird if I heard him say the overall tax burden would fall, but this sounds too much like just another grab for even more taxes to underwrite massive social welfare spending, with the bill sent to the “rich” who already pay for most of the country’s spending:
The goods and services tax should be raised to 15 per cent to fund escal­ating health spending and avoid the nation “tumbling over a fiscal cliff”, NSW Premier Mike Baird will tell state and federal leaders this week… 
In a move that will force fellow premiers and the federal government to address the issue of the GST, Mr Baird will use his role as host of this week’s leaders’ retreat to argue that only major reform can plug an estimated $45 billion deficit in state and commonwealth budgets by 2030, largely caused by rising health spending…
Lower-income households, such as those with incomes of less than $100,000, would need to be compensated, he says.
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Saudis arrest 400 over Islamic State plot

Andrew Bolt July 20 2015 (6:20am)

The Islamic State really does threaten to be as big a danger as Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop say - and that many on the Left refuse to believe:
Saudi Arabia announced on Saturday it had broken up planned Islamic State attacks in the kingdom and arrested more than 400 suspects in an anti-terrorism sweep. 
The Saudi crackdown underscores the OPEC powerhouse’s growing concern about the threat posed by Islamic State, which in addition to its operations in Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility for recent suicide bombings aimed at Shi’ites in the kingdom’s oil-rich east and in neighbouring Kuwait. 
Our war isn’t working:
A US-backed offensive against Islamic State faltered in its first week as several hundred militants entrenched in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar province, withstood punishing airstrikes and held off a far-larger force of Iraqi ground troops, senior US and coalition commanders said. 
The slow going in what officials portray as a major test of efforts to bring Iraq’s fractured security forces into a common front against IS comes as a truck bomb late on Friday killed more than 100 people, including women and children, in a mostly Shiite Muslim market town about 55 kilometres north of Baghdad.
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A relationship should never feel like a prison.
Posted by Pleasure P on Friday, 20 March 2015
What precisely do you mean by dignity?
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hehehe... :) #straya
Posted by Hot FM Queensland on Sunday, 19 July 2015
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www.livelifehappy.com
Posted by Womenworking.com on Saturday, 18 July 2015
Sometimes the perceived rudeness of others, their callous disregard for your feelings or welfare, is not because they only want money or fortune. Try being kind and gracious. Ask yourself "How can I serve?" "What can I give?" I have always had money, but I felt poorest when I could not give. But I can always give something. Even if it is only time.
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What an awesome idea!
Posted by 92.9 The Bull on Saturday, 18 July 2015
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This is not being patriotic. Australia is not Yours to Reclaim.We need a new Australian flag that racists don't...
Posted by community channel on Saturday, 18 July 2015
I despise Reclaim Australia for exactly the same reason I despise the Brownshirts who over ran Germany in the 1920's and 30's. They don't stand for free speech, but they cloud issues with vicious hate speech mixed with homilies that are almost patriotic, but aren't. They misuse scripture. They claim to embrace secular values. They are protectionist when only free industry is worthwhile. They are like the KKK, BNP, EDL. Because we have free speech I can say that, and if I'm wrong they can show me how. But those who have heard me argue on this just abuse me. Their leaders are contemptible. Their followers are stupid.
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The Mono Way...The milky Way rises above tufa towers at mono lake on a brisk cold summer's night.  A tinge of green airglow rides along the horizon in the silence of the late hour.
Posted by Matt Granz on Sunday, 19 July 2015
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Look at the center of this image for 30secThen watch Van Gogh's *Starry Night* come to life
Posted by Popstar! Magazine on Monday, 23 February 2015
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Posted by Weird Tales Magazine on Friday, 17 July 2015
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Listen, I don't want to jump to conclusions. He might have chosen a swastika, not for its Nazi, but for its ancient...
Posted by John Safran on Friday, 17 July 2015
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I literally LOL'd when I saw this! Now the song is stuck in my head! ~Scott
Posted by Post Planner on Saturday, 24 May 2014
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It’s the last stop for Russia to avoid pariah status

Piers Akerman – Saturday, July 19, 2014 (10:20pm)

The outrageous response of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the murder of the 298 civilians aboard MH17 shows he is determined to march in the bloody footsteps of his Soviet predecessors.
Having supplied the soldiers and the weapons responsible for bringing down the Malaysian Airlines aircraft, the former KGB officer is now pretending that Russia had no responsibility for the destruction of the airliner.
 Continue reading 'It’s the last stop for Russia to avoid pariah status'
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Carbon Tax: Ding dong, the big climate con is dead

Miranda Devine – Saturday, July 19, 2014 (10:17pm)

11.14AM, THURSDAY, July 17, 2014: the moment the tide went out on the climate con.
Australia became the first nation to repeal its unwanted, ill-begotten carbon tax. It won’t be the last.
After all the lies and deception, the game is up. A prime minister who defied the climate shamans was assisted by an average world temperature which has defied alarmist predictions for 16 years.
 Continue reading 'Carbon Tax: Ding dong, the big climate con is dead'
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The Bolt Report tomorrow

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (9:50am)

On Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm…
Editorial: Australian blood on Putin’s hands.
My guest:  Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on Russia’s refusal to cooperate in investigating the MH17 tragedy.
The panel: Michael Kroger and former Labor Minister Craig Emerson.
NewsWatch:  The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Blair, master blogger. On how the press gallery warned the Liberals that fighting a carbon tax was suicide.
Plus the dreaded Bolt Question.
The videos of the shows appear here.

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Investigators blocked from crash site. BUK missile launcher smuggled back to Russia?

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (9:16am)

 Russian-backed separatists do not want us to know the truth about who killed the 298 people on board MH17:
Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine fired a warning shot Friday and blocked Organization for Security and Cooperation staff from investigating the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, according to reporters tweeting from Ukraine. 
“Shots fired by rebels at international team of investigators (OSCE) in Ukraine as they approach plane wreckage,” Terry Moran, chief foreign correspondent at ABC News, tweeted Friday afternoon.

About 30 OSCE investigators arrived at the crash site on Friday by helicopter, after the United Nations Security Council demanded a thorough and independent international investigation into the crash that killed 298 passengers. Ukrainian military and pro-Russian rebels accuse each other of shooting down the plane. 
According to Guardian reporter Harriet Salem, rebels turned away the OSCE investigators on Friday. But Reuters reported that pro-Russian separatists said they welcomed the investigators and denied reports to the contrary.

Ukrainian photographer Pierre Crom said on Twitter the rebels fired a warning shot into the air.
OSCE confirms its investigators were blocked:
Gunmen prevented monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe from observing the site where a Malaysian airliner crashed in rebel-held eastern Ukraine on Friday, the rights and security watchdog said. 
Calling their behaviour “impolite and unprofessional”, an OSCE spokesman said some gunmen in the area seemed intoxicated while others would not let the team of about 25 observers look at the wreckage of the Boeing 777.
“We had expected unfettered access, that’s the way we work,” Michael Bociurkiw told a news conference.
“Unfortunately the task was made very difficult. Upon arrival at the site ... we encountered armed personnel who acted in a very impolite and unprofessional manner. Some of them even
looked slightly intoxicated.”
He denied that the observers had been fired at by pro-Russian rebels, but said one gunman fired shots into the air, seemingly to scare off some civilians. Earlier, the OSCE’s permanent council chairman, Thomas Greminger, told Reuters monitors had not been able to secure an access corridor for the crash-site and that investigators had
stayed there for only about 75 minutes before setting off back to Donetsk.
Given this, I cannot see how Australia could possibly welcome Russian president Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in Brisbane in November.
UPDATE
If true, sinister:
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry released video purporting to show ... a truck carrying a Buk missile launcher with one of its four missiles apparently missing, rolling toward the Russian border. The ministry said the footage was captured by a police surveillance squad at dawn Friday. There was no way to independently verify that claim.
UPDATE
No, Vladimir Putin cannot be welcomed to Brisbane if this continues:
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says Australia has the right, as a nation, to be “disgusted by the reaction from Russia so far"… 
Ms Bishop made the comments when speaking to the Nine Network’s Today program this morning. She still hasn’t been able to speak to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yet. On Friday night, Ms Bishop told the ABC’s Lateline that she had been advised Mr Lavrov was on holidays.
Bishop is my guest on The Bolt Report tomorrow. 
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One was a great president

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (9:02am)

Ronald Reagan when Russia shot down a Korean jet:
Barack Obama when Russian-backed separatists shot down a Malaysian jet:
UPDATE
Charles Krauthammer:
What is the president’s reaction? ... He’s had no reaction. He’s had no reaction to anything that I can tell in the last six months. Look, it isn’t as if we’re going to go to war with Russia, but we’ve denied Ukraine lethal weaponry on the grounds that we don’t want to escalate the conflict. The rebels and the Russians are killing Ukrainians in large numbers, by shooting them out of the sky. The least the president could do is make a damned decision for once in his life and announce that we are now going to supply lethal weapons to assist the Ukrainians to defend themselves and to complete the offensive that is now going on in Eastern Ukraine to actually destroy the rebel insurgents.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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PUP leader: women lack “capacity” to handle arguments

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (8:54am)

Clive Palmer’s party seems dominated by misfits, bogans, know-nothings, place-seekers, spend-thrifts and dinosaurs:
STATE Palmer United Party leader Alex Douglas says Clive Palmer was right to storm out of an ABC television interview because women don’t have the “same capacity” to handle themselves during a combative conversation. 
The Gold Coast-based state MP said he supported Mr Palmer’s handling of the 7.30 Report July 10 interview, explaining the PUP leader walked out “to be polite” to the show’s host, respected journalist Sarah Ferguson.
“In Australia you are marked severely for being rude to any woman,” Dr Douglas said.
“You have to be able to give them (women) a better chance to represent themselves than you would for a man because a lady does not have the same capacity,” he said.
“It’s a very blokey world. Women do not have an equal chance.“They have to be given greater capacity. You can’t bully them and you can’t swear at them.”
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Is Clive Palmer really going to save the mining tax he promised to scrap?

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (8:30am)

Is Clive Palmer an economic wrecker and a promise-breaker? Is Labor, too, so deaf to its duty?
Paul Kelly:
The focus now falls on the mining tax. The PUP was elected to abolish the tax. This is one of its beliefs. But is it serious? ... Having confused his supporters by grandstanding over the carbon tax repeal, how long will Palmer refuse to abolish the mining tax by insisting that upwards of $9bn of related spending be authorised? 
Labor’s mining tax constitutes one of the greatest public policy failures in decades… The first version was supposed to raise $12bn across the first two years; the second version has raised $340 million net in its lifetime. Yet huge multi-billion programs were legislated on the basis they were financed by the tax.
Hockey and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann say the government will not accept Senate amendments authorising the linked expenditure....
In the end the PUP must take a decision of sorts. It will align either with the Coalition or with Labor and the Greens. The contradiction in Palmer’s strategy is apparent: he campaigns against Abbott’s budget yet that means dishonouring some of his central promises, such as mining tax repeal.
UPDATE
Palmer is embarrassable, after all:
It has taken some time, but ... people are now starting to admit that they can now see Clive Palmer for what he really is… 
Pivotal to the derobing of the theme park operator and retired miner was the exposure ... on Monday of his treatment of subordinates and staff.
The words of independent senator Nick Xenophon summed up the reaction of the parliament to the revelation that he had verbally attacked the staff of the senate clerk’s office, who are employed to provide impartial advice to senators in drafting bills and amendments.
“These are the remarks of a bully and a coward and Clive Palmer ought to apologise,” Xenophon said. ...
Palmer’s public response to all this was to abuse those seeking to chastise him. He called senate president Stephen Parry an undertaker and described Xenophon as “useless”. And rather than apologise, he called on the clerk to quit.
But privately it was a different Palmer who returned to carbon tax negotiations on Monday morning with the government after being labelled a human wrecking ball.
“His mood had completely changed after that came out,” one source said. “He was far more amenable to negotiations.”  
Turnbull to the rescue: 
Malcolm Turnbull’s friendship with Clive Palmer was instrumental in the government’s unexpected victory this week in saving its changes to Labor’s financial advice laws… 
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann called on Mr Turnbull to facilitate negotiations that led to Mr Palmer’s senators reversing their intention to join Labor and the Greens to veto the laws…
Mr Turnbull spoke to Mr Palmer several times over the weekend and presented him with a briefing paper on the Coalition’s changes to the FoFA laws which Senator Cormann had his department prepare.
On Monday morning, Mr Turnbull dropped in on the first meeting between Senator Cormann and Mr Palmer and after that, Mr Palmer and Senator Cormann met on their own about four or five more times… It is understood Mr Abbott was aware of and approved Mr Turnbull’s involvement.
Excellent. Teamwork.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Sydney produces a suicide bomber

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (8:00am)

Sydney’s Muslim Lebanese community is among our most dysfunctional, to judge by some of the people it produces:
A TEENAGE boy from Western Sydney has become Australia’s second suicide bomber, blowing himself up in a brutal terrorist attack which killed at least five people and injured up to 90 in a Baghdad market.

The Saturday Telegraph has learned the boy was 16 years old when he left Sydney for Iraq late last year to join terrorist insurgents in Syria but had since turned 17. 
Intelligence sources have confirmed the boy’s age and that he was from Western Sydney. It is believed he travelled with other young men seeking to join ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) forces fighting in Syria and Iraq, and had family links to the now notorious convicted Sydney terrorist Khaled Sharrouf.
True, most members of that community are law-abiding, and so on. 
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Australian blood is on Russian hands

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (6:12am)

We have paid a terrible price for Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
Leonid Petrov: 
THE tremors of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict have reached Australia. Passengers of the MH17 paid with their lives for a murky military operation that started as a bloodless annexation of Crimea by the Russian troops in March. 
Greg Sheridan:
VLADIMIR Putin, the Russian strong man, has made eastern Ukraine a deadly and savage ungoverned space, which has now reached out in an act of barbarity to claim the lives of 298 innocent people, including 28 Australians.

Putin has financed, supplied, armed and to a large extent manned the rebellion in eastern Ukraine as a follow up to his swallowing of Ukrainian territory in Crimea. It is overwhelmingly likely that the rebels in eastern Ukraine, essentially a Russian proxy force, have shot down the Malaysian airliner.
Rowan Callick:
The perception has gathered pace within Malaysia and more broadly in Asia, since yesterday dawned with the news of the downing of MH17, that the chief culprit is Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin. 
He is being viewed as the ultimate architect and arms-supplier of the Ukraine conflict — whoever’s hand hit the button that dispatched the missile.
As Sheridan notes, Western weakness may have contributed to the creation of this deadly lawlessness in this Russian-backed separatist enclave of Ukraine:
But the real weak sisters in the face of Russian aggression have been the Europeans. The Germans want to buy Russian gas; the French want to sell the Russians war ships; and the British like having Russian money in their financial system and London’s real estate market. 
The West should have made it clear to Moscow early on just what an enormous price it could expect to pay for its Ukrainian aggression. This needed much more assertive leadership from the US President. This may have tempered Putin’s actions. But probably not.
If there is Western, and specifically American, fault here it comes well before Putin’s Ukrainian operation. It is rather the sense of Western weakness that is encouraging adventurist behaviour by many actors in many parts of the world. This is partly the story of a sense of US inattention, partial withdrawal or lack of credibility. And that came most starkly from Obama nominating a red line in Syria — the regime’s use of chemical weapons — and then not doing anything when the red line was crossed.
UPDATE
American voters were warned - but many chose to believe Barack Obama instead:
Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney on CNN, March 2012: 
(RUSSIA) is without question our No 1 geopolitical foe. They fight for every cause for the world’s worst actors. The idea that (Barack Obama) has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed.
Romney in Foreign Policy in March 2012: 
(MOSCOW) has continued to arm the regime of Syria’s vicious dictator and blocked multilateral efforts to stop the ongoing carnage there. Across the board, it has been a thorn in our side on questions vital to America’s national security. For three years, the sum total of President Obama’s policy toward Russia has been: “We give, Russia gets” … Unfortunately, what (the American people) are getting is a sad replay of Jimmy Carter’s bungling at a moment when the United States needs the backbone and courage of a Ronald Reagan. In his dealings with the Kremlin, as in his dealings with the rest of the world, President Obama has demonstrated breathtaking weakness — and given the word “flexibility” a new and ominous meaning.
Obama debating Romney on October 22, 2012:
THE 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years … When it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s, and the economic policies of the 1920s.
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Shameless Russia attacks Abbott. UPDATE: China backs Russia

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (11:21pm)

Moscow still won’t take responsibility for the killing of 28 Australians and 270 others by a Russian-made missile most probably supplied by Russia to Russian-backed separatists in a lawless Russian-supported enclave during a Russian-incited war:
Moscow has voiced anger over being blamed by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott for the downing of a Malaysia passenger jet over eastern Ukraine that killed all 298 people on board, calling his comments “unacceptable”. 
“Without bothering himself about evidence and operating only on speculation, Mr T. Abbott assigned guilt,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. ”Abbott’s statements are unacceptable.” 
Russia and Fairfax have both misrepresented slightly what Abbott actually said, however. He did not categorically blame Russia for downing the jet, although he made clear Russia created the circumstances in which that indeed happened and is furious at its lack of remorse and transparency:
This aircraft didn’t come down through accident. It was shot down. It did not crash, it was downed and it was downed over territory controlled by Russian backed rebels. It was downed by a missile which seems to have been launched by Russian backed rebels. Again, I want to stress that Australia takes a very dim view of countries which are facilitating the killing of Australian citizens. We take a very dim view of this…

Based on what we are hearing from Russia, it is hard to have much confidence that there will be the kind of open and honest and transparent cooperation that you would expect.
This really is a test for Russia. It really is a test for Russia – how transparent and fair dinkum is it going to be? There can be no excuses. No buck-passing. No blame shifting. There has to be absolute full cooperation with an impartial international inquiry…
Anyone who gave such a weapon to people who were absolutely incapable of using it, any country which was inspiring and orchestrating the kind of activity which we are now seeing in Eastern Ukraine, I think has a heavy responsibility, should feel a sense of shame over what has taken place. 
If Russia should protest at something “unacceptable” it should be that it created the circumstances for this:
Mo, Evie and Otis Maslin crammed a lifetime of cultural experience into their tender years, bouncing from one exotic family holiday to the next.
But the Perth siblings would never return from their latest European escapade­… After a few weeks together in the warmth of a European summer, the trio were farewelled by their parents Rin Norris and Anthony Maslin as their grandfather Nick Norris, who was returning from a stint working in London, brought them back to Perth to return to school. It was a kind gesture from a devoted grandfather but one resulting in unimaginable horror — their Malaysia Airlines 777-200 was shot out of the sky above war-torn Ukraine.
More of the Australians who have paid the tragic price of Putin’s aggression:
UPDATE
As the West declines, a new axis of power reveals itself. Once again, China sides with Russia:
China has warned Western nations against rushing to implicate Russia in the downing of a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine, but said those responsible must be brought to justice for the “intolerable terrorist attack”. 
The official Xinhua news agency said in an English-language commentary that officials from the United States, Australia and other Western countries had jumped to conclusions in pointing their fingers at the rebels in eastern Ukraine and for blaming Russia for the escalating violence.“The accusation was apparently rash when the officials acknowledged they did not know for the time being who is responsible for the attack, while condemning Russia’s military intervention,” Xinhua said.
UPDATE
Abbott is taking his case to the UN. He and his Foreign Minister have talked to a dozen governments to get international action. He has confronted Russia over the aggression in Ukraine that he believes contributes to this disaster.
Yet the Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher picks this moment, this tragedy, to make a snide political and personal attack that bears no relationship to the facts unfolding before his jaundiced eyes:
Australia can do nothing alone. With an intelligent plan, committed partners and persistent diplomacy, it can help do a great deal.

Tony Abbott might say to this, as he has to ambitious ideas in the past, that these things are “above our station”. Tell that to the grieving Australian families.
Peter, that is contemptible.
(Thanks to reader Liam.) 
===

Abbott lashes Russia

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (8:29pm)

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

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

The Bolt Report today, July 20

Andrew Bolt July 20 2014 (11:55am)

On Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm…
Editorial: Australian blood on Putin’s hands.  And has the West been too weak in standing up to him?
My guest:  Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss.
The panel: Michael Kroger and former Labor Minister Craig Emerson.
NewsWatch:  The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Blair, master blogger. On how the press gallery warned the Liberals that fighting a carbon tax was suicide.
Plus what has the ABC got against Israel? Plus the dreaded Bolt Question.
The videos of the shows appear here.
UPDATE
INTERVIEW WITH WARREN TRUSS 
ANDREW BOLT, PRESENTER: We want to know who shot down that Malaysian plane. Who supplied the missiles that could bring down a jet flying at 10,000 metres? We want to know who killed nearly 300 innocent people. Who killed 33 Australians? But when the first European investigators arrived at the crash site they were stopped from searching by Russian-backed rebels.
TRANSLATION: I warn you once, you have security here, whoever crosses the line and does not comply with my order will face the consequences.
ANDREW BOLT: Ukraine has also released video it claims shows a BUK missile system, like the one believed to have brought down the jet, being transported back into Russia with at least one of its missiles missing. Joining me is the Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss, who today addresses an AIDS conference in Melbourne - a conference which six of the dead were flying here to join. Thank you for your time.
WARREN TRUSS, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: You’re welcome.
ANDREW BOLT: First some questions about Russian - the Russian cover-up. What do we know about the missile launcher Ukraine claims it saw being towed back into Russia with one of its missiles missing?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, obviously this is another piece of evidence that’s concerning the world. Now we don’t, if we don’t - in the absence of a proper investigation, it’s difficult to confirm whether this was the piece of weaponry that actually fired the missile, but it’s a demonstration that this kind of equipment was in the area. It’s also obvious that a piece of equipment with this level of sophistication could not have been operated by amateur local rebels. It obviously had at least advice from people with greater skills, probably was supplied by a country with much greater military powers, and certainly serviced by someone who had sophisticated knowledge of how those sort of weapons work. And, of course, the finger of blame is rightly, I think, pointed towards Russia.
ANDREW BOLT: Can I also ask - where is the back box?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, I think that’s another important element. While ever there’s no open capacity for an international and fair investigation and access to the site, there will be concerns about how the evidence that’s critical to any kind of investigation is being dealt with; where are the black boxes? Where are - ?
ANDREW BOLT: Do you think they’re in Russian hands?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, that’s a possibility. But, of course, until somebody can get on to the site, we don’t know. But if, in fact, there’s any kind of tampering with the evidence, that would be an appalling, appalling insult to families and – and countries that are already deeply disturbed and very angry about what has happened. It’s important that the Russians cooperate immediately with an open and free investigation; that there’s access to the site for professional investigators so that we can find out absolutely what has happened, and, of course, with the ultimate objective of making sure that something like this never happens again.
ANDREW BOLT: Have you seen any sign of serious cooperation from Russia with any investigation?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, there hasn’t been – there haven’t many positive signs.
ANDREW BOLT: Any?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, there’s -
ANDREW BOLT: Pick one.
WARREN TRUSS: Just - just occasionally there’s been a suggestion that the Russians, for instance, in the United Nations indicated support for an international investigation. That’s encouraging, but they do need to take positive steps that everyone can see that they’re going to cooperate with this and get to the bottom of what’s happened. ANDREW BOLT: But you can’t actually point to any sign on the ground of cooperation?
Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The Bolt Report today, July 20'
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How Kevin Rudd improved a hagiography

Andrew Bolt July 20 2014 (5:59am)

John van Tiggelen, at least, is a man of integrity, as I’ve found in my own dealings with him. But as for some others ...:
Kevin Rudd was always hands on.... When actor Rhys Muldoon, a close friend of Rudd’s, wrote a lengthy feature in 2012 on Rudd’s last days as PM, the piece got some last-minute vetting. The evidence points directly to Rudd’s role in the changes.
Muldoon had written, in a piece for The Monthly, that ‘‘some’’ journalists were so grief stricken at the departure of Rudd in 2010 they cried. That was changed, with some last-minute help, to ‘‘many’’ journalists cried.
A document outlining the Rudd edits has been leaked to Fairfax Media… The edits largely fall in two categories: they either paint Rudd in a far more heroic light or they were disparaging of his foes in Labor.
In that latter vein was the deletion of a reference in Muldoon’s original text to Wayne Swan, his Labor enemy, as ‘‘a generous, decent man’’…
But it was some of the additions to Muldoon’s text where Rudd was truly allowed to shine.
‘‘I felt privileged and amazed to be sitting on the stairs with my friend, the recently toppled leader of Australia,’’ it read. ‘‘His lack of self pity was remarkable, but he was clearly hurting.’’ ...
The edits never made it to print after they were caught by the then Monthly editor John van Tiggelen, who confronted Muldoon before the piece was published in early 2012.... In one email Van Tiggelen wrote to Muldoon: ‘‘I can’t believe you let KR edit it. Either we forget that ever happened, or, if there is any fall-out, I tell the truth. Let’s be really f...ing clear on this. The piece reflects well on Rudd. His attempt at editing of your piece does not.’’
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Abbott pushing for tougher international action on Russia over Ukraine

Andrew Bolt July 20 2014 (5:34am)

Tony Abbott was the first leader to directly link the downing of MH17 to Russian aggression in Ukraine:
In an apparent swipe at Russia, Mr Abbott also told parliament: ”The bullying of small countries by big ones, the trampling of justice and decency in the pursuit of national aggrandisement, and reckless indifference to human life should have no place in our world.”
Barack Obama followed suit - demanding Europe be tougher on Russia (tougher, that is, that the US has been):
“This certainly will be a wake-up call for Europe and the world that there are consequences to an escalating conflict in eastern Ukraine; that it is not going to be localized, it is not going to be contained,” Obama told reporters.
The Dutch now harden up their stance against Russia - a little:
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte ... ”agreed that the EU will need to reconsider its approach to Russia in light of evidence that pro-Russian separatists brought down the plane,” according to a statement from the U.K. government… 
“I am shocked by footage of completely disrespectful behavior on this tragic site,” Rutte said at a press conference in The Hague today. “Against all rules of a careful investigation, it turns out there are people messing with personal and recognizable possessions of victims.”

It’s also grave that the investigation is hindered by pro-Russian rebels, Rutte said, even after Russian President Vladimir Putin had promised to fully cooperate in ensuring unfettered access to the area. “I just had a very intense telephone conversation with the Russian president and told him he is running out of chances to show the world he means that he wants to help,” Rutte said… Rutte said his views are shared by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott… 
Getting the West to stand up to Russia is now part of the Government’s diplomatic push. 
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South Korea: plans for carbon scheme ‘flawed’

Andrew Bolt July 20 2014 (5:25am)

The day after the Abbott Government scraps the carbon tax, South Korea gets cold feet:
South Korea’s finance minister has called its impending emissions trading market “flawed in many ways”, hinting that he would pressure other ministries to delay the planned 2015 launch, a local newspaper reported. 
Choi Kyung-hwan, who is also deputy prime minister, said problems had been found with the scheme, which is due to start in January, and that the government would review them before deciding whether to delay it, modify it or implement it as planned, The Korea Times reported on Friday.”
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Ukraine: we can prove Russian missile hit MH17

Andrew Bolt July 20 2014 (5:12am)

 Ukraine wants international help to push out Russian forces. That said…
“We have proof [the attack] was planned and it was committed with the participation of the Russian Federation, representatives of the Russian Federation,” said Vitaly Nayda, Counter-Intelligence Chief at the Ukraine Security Service… 
He showed a photograph which he said was a BUK-M1 system identified on the streets of Donetsk city – near the crash site - on July 17…
Phone calls intercepted by Ukraine revealed the BUK was intended to join a column of separatist fighters. Mr Nayda showed a photograph of the column including a tank and a truck carrying the BUK-M1 system.
He also showed a photograph taken at the time of the plane being hit, showing the missile’s launch plume – allowing them to identify the launch area, near the village of Snizhne and close to the plane’s crash site.
The area was under separatist control at the time, Mr Nayda said…
He showed another photograph of the BUK-M1 system en route to the Russian border soon after the plane was shot down. The photo showed that one missile was missing from the launching pad…

At 4am on Saturday morning three more such trucks moved over the border into Russia. One had a BUK-M1, one was empty, and the third carried a tracking module that runs the system.
“Russia is trying to hide its terrorist activity,” Mr Nayda said… “We documented negotiations between terrorists that directly told us. We got information directly from those conversations that three Russians, three Russian military personnel came together with BUK-M1 to the territory of Ukraine. It is direct evidence.”
The spy chief also claimed rebel forces had tried to hide bodies:
PRO-Russian separatists have been accused of removing bodies from the Malaysia Airlines crash scene and trying to destroy evidence at the site. 
In a statement on Saturday night, the Ukraine Government claimed rebels, helped by specialists with “distinct Russian accents” removed 38 bodies from the crash site in eastern Ukraine, and took them to the rebel-held city of Donetsk.
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Massive swing sends Newman a message

Andrew Bolt July 20 2014 (5:01am)

Campbell Newman is in deep trouble:
CAMPBELL Newman has suffered a humiliating by-election defeat as voters in the Brisbane electorate of Stafford turned en masse against his administration.
In a result that will strike fear throughout the LNP just eight months before the general election, Labor candidate Anthony Lynham cruised to victory on a mammoth swing of 18.6 per cent… Dr Lynham will become Labor’s ninth MP and now holds the party’s safest seat after securing 61.5 per cent of the two-party preferred vote over the LNP’s Bob Andersen.
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Pastor Rick Warren
God uses pressure, heat, and time to create diamonds. In both rocks and people.
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Pastor Rick Warren
Power from being close to power players is fake. Power from being close to God is real.
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Pastor Rick Warren
To stop worrying over what people think about you, just realize they aren't! Like you, they're thinking about themselves.
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I don't think UNSW has a quality problem. I think they would like to move to a post graduate model and the government won't let them. Exclusivity is a selling point to foreign students with lots of cash. So I guess they want to capture that market.
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Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin 
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in 
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove 
Dance me to the end of love 
Dance me to the end of love 
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

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Anybody remember being mugged 35 years ago?
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How will Glee make a drug abuser's possible suicide hip and fun?
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This is extraordinary, suggesting that it was the IRS chief counsel’s office, not rogue agents in Ohio, who engineered the key abuses in the targeting scandal, including the extraordinarily-intrusive questionnaires that asked conservative groups for donor lists, Internet login information, social media pages, and even the political and charitable activities of family members.
Hull went on to testify that he had not seen anything like that in almost 50 years of work at the IRS.
To be clear, IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins is a political appointee, appointed by President Obama in 2009 – the top lawyer in the agency. The involvement of his office – as early as 2011 – represents a dramatic escalation of the IRS scandal.
The previous IRS explanation – a bureaucratic mistake, originating in Ohio – was bad enough. This explanation is much worse. With the involvement of the IRS’s top legal office more than two years ago, the questions now become eerily reminiscent of earlier Washington scandals.
What was discussed at the more 100 meetings between the IRS Commissioner and White House meetings?
Why was President Obama’s political operative, Stephanie Cutter, included in meetings with the IRS?
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ABBOTT WILL BACKFLIP ON “I WELCOME RUDD PLAN” 

Tony Abbott prematurely rushed to agree with Rudd’s immigration plan to avoid further “negative” claims. But Rudd’s plan is another “back of the envelope” draft that will sink Australia into further catastrophic debt with little effect.

Kevin Rudd’s problem is that he has never worked outside the Public Service and, having only ever dealt with other politicians and diplomats, he is blinded to the common sense of the common man (oops, and woman).

PNG PM, Peter O’Neill and Kevin Rudd have just gifted themselves a shot at their respective elections at a huge cost to the Aussie taxpayer. We are now financing a PNG election too.

Rudd expects his PNG plan to stem boat arrivals... really Kev? So why is the largesse offered to O’Neill ongoing? It is without any cap and beyond anything we have previously gifted to another nation using borrowed funds?

Abbott’s claim that this, “won’t work under Mr Rudd” is a poorly framed, soft admission that he hasn’t really thought this through yet.

Bishop, Morrison and Abbott will have met with O’Neill by now and will have walked away scratching their heads because it will slowly have dawned on them exactly what a desperate Kevin has agreed to.

Kev is no intellectual, he is not native street-smart and does not have the common dogfuck necessary to deal with tribal jifs like O'Neill.

Kev cannot see past the next shopping mall and his crazy PNG plan is naively simplistic, desperate and hastily contrived for all the wrong reasons: Kevin’s and Peter’s chances at re-election.

These are just some of the reasons the PNG scheme is doomed to failure:

1. It is illegal. It breaches our own Migration Act and the UNHCR Refugees Convention to which we (and PNG) are signatories.

2. There will certainly be successful challenges to the High Court both here and in PNG.

3. Limitless and endless costs of an inept and corrupt PNG legal system will be borne by Aussie taxpayers.

4. An extraordinary PNG infrastructure and services bill, including new police forces and new hospitals to be paid for by us.

5. All invoices associated with immigrant resettlement are to be sent to us.

6. PNG already has massive unemployment and unskilled Islamic immigrants will not find work and will not work for $A0.90c per hour anyway.

7. Unemployed Muslims and territorial tribal savages are a volatile mix. Their underpaid, undermanned police forces are already inept and corrupted.

8. PNG has a malaria and tuberculosis epidemic without a decent hospital.

9. Costs estimates are open-ended, “we don’t know what we will need yet”, say O’Neill and Rudd.

10. There is no housing available in PNG and when a Muslim jumps the queue on a native, look out for an all-in machete and bush knife war.

11 Our costs in Australia will not diminish, they are set to increase.

12 Massive restructuring of Manus Is. is underway to cope with another 7,000 illegal immigrants Rudd has secretly agreed with Indonesia to resettle in exchange for a 25,000 increase in live cattle exports.

This is a home-made, international Rudd catastrophe unfolding before our eyes that Australians will never be able to accept or pay for.

Kev’s message to illegal immigrants is simply this: Keep boarding boats boys because our Navy will be delighted to escort you to Christmas Is. and within two weeks you will be sent to PNG where you will have access to a Westminster court system that will not fail you. Remember, Australia is paying.

You will then be able to legally apply for refugee status directly to Australian Immigration because now you will be able to claim fair dinkum persecution far worse than what you say you escaped from.

You will temporarily be homeless and jobless in lawless PNG (that’s intended) but if our Immigration Dept sits on its hands, it’s just a short row-boat trip from there to Australia.

If you think Rudd’s NBN is a stuff-up, wait ‘til you see this one pan out and eventually we will need billions in more bribes to stop the boats leaving Indonesia anyway, which is what we should be doing now because people smugglers are miles smarter than our Uncle Kev.

Neither O’Neill nor Rudd has any idea what this election campaign thought bubble will cost so let me have a rough conservative guess:

$14 billion so far, and escalating.

PNG bribes, between $15 to $20 billion and ongoing.

Legal aid costs, already approach $1 billion but will now skyrocket.

High Court challenges both here and there, mmmm, maybe $1 billion.

Extra personnel both here, on Manus Is. Nauru, Christmas Is. and in PNG $1.5 billion per annum.

Our taxpayers' gifts to PNG corruptly diverted to politicians’ accounts, I’d say, aw... at least $2 billion.

Our Uncle Kev has actually managed to come up with this kneejerk expensive fiasco and all within 10 days of think music.

Abbott’s statement that he “welcomes” this new Rudd initiative will live to haunt him.

You have to remember this is Kev and Kev already has a rap sheet as long as your arm.
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Duke lacrosse players. Rodney King. Trayvon Martin.

In 5-minutes, you will understand exactly how the mainstream media perpetuates racial division...
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Bad News for the Alarmists at the IPCC - Temperature is still cooling.
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A corrupt snake with more heads than members - Democrats
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Madmen in need of asylum?
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Is Obama up for a daring military raid? I don't mean the type labelling his own troops as sexual deviants, but a raid on FARC
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Thank you Obama .. you work in mysterious ways
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I was talking about David and Bathsheba today .. David wrote this after he had her husband killed ..

Psalm 51[a]

For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
    according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
    blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
    and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
    and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
    and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
    and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
    sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
    you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
    wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
    let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
    and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
    and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
    or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    so that sinners will turn back to you.
14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
    you who are God my Savior,
    and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 Open my lips, Lord,
    and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
    you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is[b] a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart
    you, God, will not despise.
18 May it please you to prosper Zion,
    to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
    in burnt offerings offered whole;
    then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Footnotes:

  1. Psalm 51:1 In Hebrew texts 51:1-19 is numbered 51:3-21.
  2. Psalm 51:17 Or The sacrifices of God are
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July 20: Friend's Day in Argentina and other Latin American countries;Independence Day in Colombia (1810)
The Niépce brothers' Pyréolophore
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“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"The Lord our God hath shewed us his glory."
Deuteronomy 5:24
God's great design in all his works is the manifestation of his own glory. Any aim less than this were unworthy of himself. But how shall the glory of God be manifested to such fallen creatures as we are? Man's eye is not single, he has ever a side glance towards his own honour, has too high an estimate of his own powers, and so is not qualified to behold the glory of the Lord. It is clear, then, that self must stand out of the way, that there may be room for God to be exalted; and this is the reason why he bringeth his people ofttimes into straits and difficulties, that, being made conscious of their own folly and weakness, they may be fitted to behold the majesty of God when he comes forth to work their deliverance. He whose life is one even and smooth path, will see but little of the glory of the Lord, for he has few occasions of self-emptying, and hence, but little fitness for being filled with the revelation of God. They who navigate little streams and shallow creeks, know but little of the God of tempests; but they who "do business in great waters," these see his "wonders in the deep." Among the huge Atlantic-waves of bereavement, poverty, temptation, and reproach, we learn the power of Jehovah, because we feel the littleness of man. Thank God, then, if you have been led by a rough road: it is this which has given you your experience of God's greatness and lovingkindness. Your troubles have enriched you with a wealth of knowledge to be gained by no other means: your trials have been the cleft of the rock in which Jehovah has set you, as he did his servant Moses, that you might behold his glory as it passed by. Praise God that you have not been left to the darkness and ignorance which continued prosperity might have involved, but that in the great fight of affliction, you have been capacitated for the outshinings of his glory in his wonderful dealings with you.

Evening

"A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench."
Matthew 12:20
What is weaker than the bruised reed or the smoking flax? A reed that groweth in the fen or marsh, let but the wild duck light upon it, and it snaps; let but the foot of man brush against it, and it is bruised and broken; every wind that flits across the river moves it to and fro. You can conceive of nothing more frail or brittle, or whose existence is more in jeopardy, than a bruised reed. Then look at the smoking flax--what is it? It has a spark within it, it is true, but it is almost smothered; an infant's breath might blow it out; nothing has a more precarious existence than its flame. Weak things are here described, yet Jesus says of them, "The smoking flax I will not quench; the bruised reed I will not break." Some of God's children are made strong to do mighty works for him; God has his Samsons here and there who can pull up Gaza's gates, and carry them to the top of the hill; he has a few mighties who are lion-like men, but the majority of his people are a timid, trembling race. They are like starlings, frightened at every passer by; a little fearful flock. If temptation comes, they are taken like birds in a snare; if trial threatens, they are ready to faint; their frail skiff is tossed up and down by every wave, they are drifted along like a sea bird on the crest of the billows--weak things, without strength, without wisdom, without foresight. Yet, weak as they are, and because they are so weak, they have this promise made specially to them. Herein is grace and graciousness! Herein is love and lovingkindness! How it opens to us the compassion of Jesus--so gentle, tender, considerate! We need never shrink back from his touch. We need never fear a harsh word from him; though he might well chide us for our weakness, he rebuketh not. Bruised reeds shall have no blows from him, and the smoking flax no damping frowns.
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Today's reading: Psalm 23-25, Acts 21:18-40 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 23-25

A psalm of David.
1 The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name's sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

Today's New Testament reading: Acts 21:18-40

18 The next day Paul and the rest of us went to see James, and all the elders were present. 19 Paul greeted them and reported in detail what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.
20 When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: "You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. 21 They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs. 22What shall we do? They will certainly hear that you have come,23 so do what we tell you. There are four men with us who have made a vow. 24 Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everyone will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law. 25 As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality."
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Titus

[Tī'tus] - honorable from "i honor."Titus was born of Gentile parents, and was a convert from heathenism. It is more than likely that Paul led him to Christ (Gal. 2:3; Titus 1:4).

The Man Who Refreshed His Master

There seemed to have been a peculiar bond of affection between Paul and his Grecian convert. How Paul loved him and appreciated his trusted companionship (2 Cor. 7:6, 13 )! What an inspiration he was to Paul on several of his journeys (Gal. 2:1, 3)! In 2 Corinthians Paul mentions Titus some nine times. Paul sent Titus to Corinth as his delegate. Paul anxiously awaited the return of Titus, and he refreshed the spirit of the apostle both by his presence and the good news he brought from Corinth (2 Cor. 2:12, 14).
In the precious epistle Paul sent to Titus, we learn more facts about the loving co-operation between these two noble men. When Paul was released from prison, Titus accompanied him on a visit to Crete, Paul leaving him there to assist the Church in a fourfold way:
I. Set in order things that were wanting.
II. Ordain elders in every city.
III. Avoid unprofitable discussion.
IV. Duly assert his authority (Titus 1:5; 2:1; 3:9, 15).
It may be that Paul sent his epistle to Titus by the hands of Zenas and Apollos (3:13 ), to assist him in the difficult task at Crete.
Paul then wanted Titus to join him for the winter in Nicopolis (3:12). Titus was with the apostle during part of his second imprisonment in Rome (2 Tim. 4:10). Both men were sustained in their arduous labors by "the blessed hope" (Titus 2:13).
A godly man of Corinth is spoken of as Titus Justus (Acts 18:7, RV). Titus himself is not mentioned directly in the Acts. Doubtless he was included in the "certain others" in Acts 15:2.
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