Monday, August 20, 2018

Mon Aug 20th Todays News

Don't give up on hope. There is no reason to boot Malcolm Turnbull from the PM's position. Do it anyway. Tony Abbott should be given the role. Abbott's policy mix would boost state LNP too. The Australian Taxpayer Alliance has put out a multi point plan to make power affordable to All Australians and business. It needs to be adopted. ALP will oppose measures which will make things better for all Australians. Let them. Let the ALP oppose rational measures before state and federal elections. See if they can hold onto the senate gifted them by Turnbull. 

NZ PM Ardern is freezing politician's wages. She needs special enabling legislation to do so. A better look would be for her to keep the pay rise, but donate the rest to charity. Woolworths is suffering from her badly implemented bag ban. I have no problem with a business profiting from selling plastic bags. I object to them calling it world saving. It worked ok in ACT. It isn't the business model that is wrong. It is the excuse. Australia does not have a plastic bag problem choking the environment. But if she did, Woolworth's policy would not help it. Where the problem exists, authorities need to manage it better.

I'm contributing to QUORA, a question and answer site that can be a bit addictive.

What does almost no one know about how hard it is to be a teacher?

A passionate and enthusiastic science teacher I know was tutoring at a tutoring school. He also worked at a public high school. A parent at the high school was concerned there might be a conflict of interest. The work he gave at the tutoring college was set by a third party. It was classroom work, not individual instruction. However, because of the law regarding conflicts of interest, he could not keep on teaching at the tutoring school.

Now, consider the conflicts of interest faced by politicians ..

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. Williams was given those titles when elected in 2014. It is difficult to find what value she has been to Dandenong, but clearly the ALP see her as the future. On her ALP news feed, Williams has announced the ALP are patting themselves on the back over elective surgery wait times. But Dandenong is a hub of Melbourne. Why wouldn't she get world's best practice? Yet Internet is denied in housing estates built prior to the NBN but after was decided not to lay copper cables. Meaning access to some households is via satellite or via an exceptional overpriced Telstra offer. The government is throwing short term money at things which need a long term fix. Slow handclap for the shorter wait times. I'm sure the pensioner waiting a year for a hernia fix is impressed.

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 Margaret Thatcher Tribute

In loving memory of the Baroness Thatcher. She gave much and asked for nothing that wasn't earned or deserved. I remember the terrible, infantile attacks on her, finishing with the Wizard of Oz song, repeated lies about her (she didn't support apartheid, she wasn't a war monger). She liberated peoples of the UK from the depredations of socialism. 
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"The Carnival Is Over" is a Russian folk song (1883) with lyrics written by Tom Springfield in 1965 for the Australian group The Seekers, who customarily close their concerts with it. At its peak, the song was selling 93,000 copies per day and is No 30 in the chart of the biggest selling singles of all time in the United Kingdom, and has sold 1.41 million copies in the UK alone. I chose it in tribute for the Australian connection and out of contempt for those who abused the Wizard of Oz. 
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I was raised as an Atheist. I learned, after reading the Bible, that God loves me, and you. This is his song for you too. He loves you, and wants to be with you. 
All the elements are me and mine. ARIA ISRC number AUAWN1304117


=== from 2017 ===
Some things should not happen, but they do. The case is before courts, so a lot of information is not available. A mentally ill man tried to blow up the Australian Christian Lobby in Canberra. He was injured in the explosion, but capable of 'giving his reason.' However, the 'reason' he has given is at odds with assurances police made the public. ACT Deputy Chief Police Commander Mark Walters said: “As a result of our conversations with this man, we’ve been able to establish that his actions were not politically, religiously or ideologically motivated.” Yet the accused said he chose the grounds “Because I dislike the Australian Christian Lobby”, over its “position on sexuality” and because “religions are failed.” To be fair, the accused is a gay activist and the police response was probably to assure people that the attack was not Presbyterian terrorist related. But police should not use code to address issues. It betrays the community trust that police need to function effectively.

Yesterday's column was challenged by a reader who believed I overstated the good will between Trump and Bannon. I could be wrong, but I believe the politically motivated press have misreported the issue as fake news. I understand that the administration is keen to take on a new direction, but not to discredit the work of campaigner Bannon. The White House is no longer campaigning for power, but exercising it. Which is a different skill set. Time will tell. 

Agrippa Postumus was a grandchild of Octavian. Octavian was said to have doted on his family, but he made some strong decisions. Agrippa's father died before he was born. Octavian adopted his two brothers, and made Agrippa heir. He had not adopted him as he wanted the family name of Agrippa to continue. But when both brothers died Octavian adopted him anyway at the same time Octavian adopted his step son, Tiberius and made Agrippa the first in line. Agrippa was described as having no good qualities, Tacitus described him as "devoid of every good quality, he had been involved in no scandal." He was exiled shortly before Octavian died. Around the time Octavian died, on this day in 14, Agrippa was executed. Tiberius as Caeser was terrible for Rome. 

With the crusades winding down by the fourteenth century the Knights Templar was threatened by Kings that wanted to dissolve them and collect their wealth. Jacques de Molay was head of the Knights and the French King Phillip IV had him tortured until he confessed in 1307. He later retracted his confession. So, in 1314, Phillip had him burned on a scaffold on an island in the River Seine. On this day in 1308, Pope Clement V pardoned Molay, absolving him of charges of heresy. In 1519, Philosopher and General Wang Yangming defeated Zhu Chenhao, Prince of Ning, who had tried to seize the emperors seat. The penalty for losing was to be slow slicing, a form of torture where small bits of flesh are cut from the victim until they die. He committed suicide first. Johan de Witt was a senior public servant and mathematician in Holland. On this day in 1672, his devotion was not well rewarded when he went to visit his brother, and was lynched by political opponents. 

In 1858, Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution through natural selection. Many people feel it disproves Islam. In 1866, President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War was over. In 1882 Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture debuted in Moscow. In 1920, the world's first commercial radio station began in Detroit. In 1938, Lhou Gehrig hit his 23rd Grand Slam, which was to remain a record for 75 years until Alex Rodriguez. The craze of ice bathing is to address ALS which is Lou Gehrig's disease. The admission that the ASADA investigation into drugs in sports was a political witch-hunt echoes A-Rod's story, he has been banned from Major League Baseball for no evident reason. In 1940, Leon Trotsky was killed by a Soviet agent who was a Spanish communist. Trotsky was a communist who opposed Stalinist bureaucracy. The ice pick which claimed his life came from an ally and friend he would have given anything to protect. He gave his life and his family lost theirs for his belief too. In 1940, Churchill gave his famous speech including the line "Never was so much owed by so many to so few." A great and humble man was sent by Nazis to Buchenwald on this day in 1944. A New Zealander. Phil Lamason was one of 168 captured airmen. Gestapo labelled them terror fliers, not armed combatants and sent them to a concentration camp, not a POW camp. Phil was senior officer and gave his men military bearing and discipline. He managed to get word to the Luftwaffe of the plight of his men and they were transferred to a POW camp the day they had been scheduled for execution. He retired to a farm in NZ after the war. In 1968, the Soviet Union crushed the Czech Spring. In 1988, the Iran Iraq war had a ceasefire after eight years. In 1991, a hundred thousand people rallied outside the Kremlin following the coup ejecting Gorbachev from power. In 1998, Clinton sent cruise missiles against camps in Afghanistan and a chemical plant in Sudan in retaliation for the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. 




















=== from 2016 === 
The people of Louisiana have a great history and unique culture. But they don't earn enough, don't have enough, for Obama or Hillary Clinton to make a visit in their time of need. But Trump has made the time. It will make no difference to the polls come the election. Which is another reason why Hillary would not visit. She could not have cared less if they were called Benghazi. But Obama is backing something which might make a real difference on the land. The US department of Agriculture is holding a summit to promote the role of lesbian farmers. Incredible what they can farm these days. 

In Victoria, Dan Andrews has demonstrated he is a role model for the lowest common denominator. According to the Age, Andrews once said of a Liberal MP with bowel cancer she wouldn't pose a threat because she'd soon be "shitting in a bag." What goes around, comes around. Andrews has lost a lot of weight, but he will always be a fat joke.  

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility. 
=== from 2015 ===
Oscar Pistorius, whose sentence was too short for shooting his girlfriend dead with explosive ammunition, will be denied parole after ten months time served. He was scheduled to be paroled, but the government of South Africa stepped in very late. Now the other prisoners can hear him scream like a girl when he is agitated. He may need to carry around a sick bucket for awhile. In Australia, an elderly actress famous for being a prison guard has been convicted of molesting a 14 yo girl in the '80s. She had taken the girl to her home and drunk alcohol before the incident took place. Still remains to be seen if she is sentenced to more time than a stone cold killer. 
From 2014
Channel 9 news reported this morning they had reports of a terrible attack which they could not describe as they were awaiting verification. A post was doing the rounds purportedly showing Islamist terrorists burying victims alive, slowly. The victims were naked with their hands covering their faces. Presumably if they tried to run they would be quickly killed by the guards around them. Slowly, they were covered with dirt over the three minute video, but it would take a much longer time for them to be buried. But that was not the meme Channel 9 were hesitating to cover. A journalist captured by Islamic Terrorists six hundred days ago in Libya had been beheaded with a message to Obama. But we know Obama does not listen. Another captured journalist is slated to have his head cut off soon. There is no depravity beneath the terrorists, no hope for those clinging to life. There is a view among Islamic youth that there is a valid position describing what terrorists are fighting for. There isn't. 

Meanwhile in Australia the ridiculous Clive Palmer is posturing and desperately courting the dopey. The senate is new, but still clogged with left wing advocates who do not listen to reason. The previous Opposition under Mr Abbott passed 80% of legislation by the previous minority government. The current opposition passes nothing. But cuts are needed to spending for prosperity for all. Chanel 9 evening news claim they are now confused. They claim there isn't a budget emergency related to sending. But they know what the argument is, they are merely trying to broaden the ratings of their left wing viewers. They know their conservative viewers are bereft of choice. 
Historical perspective on this day
AD 14 – Agrippa Postumus, adopted son of the late Roman emperor Augustus, is executed by his guards while in exile under mysterious circumstances.
636 – Battle of Yarmouk: Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid take control of the Levantaway from the Byzantine Empire, marking the first great wave of Muslimconquests and the rapid advance of Islam outside Arabia.
917 – Battle of Acheloos: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria decisively defeats a Byzantinearmy.
1000 – The foundation of the Hungarian state by Saint Stephen, celebrated as a National Day in Hungary.
1083 – Canonization of the first King of Hungary, Saint Stephen and his son Saint Emetic.

1308 – Pope Clement V pardons Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, absolving him of charges of heresy.
1391 – Konrad von Wallenrode becomes the 24th Grand Master of the Teutonic Order.
1467 – The Second Battle of Olmedo takes places as part of a succession conflict between Henry IV of Castile and his half-brother Alfonso, Prince of Asturias.
1519 – Philosopher and general Wang Yangming defeats Zhu Chenhao, ending the Prince of Ning rebellion against the reign of the Ming dynasty's Zhengde Emperor.

1672 – Former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis are brutally murdered by an angry mob in The Hague.
1707 – The first Siege of Pensacola comes to end with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida.
1710 – War of the Spanish Succession: A multinational army led by the Austrian commander Guido Starhemberg defeats the Spanish-Bourbon army commanded by Alexandre Maître, Marquis de Bay in the Battle of Saragossa.
1775 – The Spanish establish the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in the town that became Tucson, Arizona.
1794 – Battle of Fallen Timbers: American troops force a confederacy of Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware, Wyandot, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi warriors into a disorganized retreat.

1852 – Steamboat Atlantic sank on Lake Erie after a collision, with the loss of at least 150 lives.
1858 – Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selectionin The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.
1866 – President Andrew Johnson formally declares the American Civil War over.
1882 – Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow, Russia.

1910 – The Great Fire of 1910 (also commonly referred to as the "Big Blowup" or the "Big Burn") occurs in northeast Washington, northern Idaho (the panhandle), and western Montana, burning approximately 3 million acres (12,000 km2).
1914 – Brussels is captured during the German invasion of Belgium.
1920 – The first commercial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), begins operations in Detroit.
1926 – Japan's public broadcasting company, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) is established.
1938 – Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career grand slam, a record that stood for 75 years until it was broken by Alex Rodriguez.

1940 – In Mexico City, Mexico exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramón Mercader. He dies the next day.
1940 – World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line "Never was so much owed by so many to so few".
1944 – World War II: 168 captured allied airmen, including Phil Lamason, accused by the Gestapo of being "terror fliers", arrive at Buchenwald concentration camp.
1944 – World War II: The Battle of Romania begins with a major Soviet Unionoffensive.

1950 – Korean War: United Nations repel an offensive by North Korean divisions attempting to cross the Nakdong Riverand assault the city of Taegu.
1955 – Battle of Philippeville: In Morocco, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountainsregion of Algeria raid two rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals.
1960 – Senegal breaks from the Mali Federation, declaring its independence.
1962 – The NS Savannah, the world's first nuclear-powered civilian ship, embarks on its maiden voyage.
1968 – Soviet Union-dominated Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring.

1975 – Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.
1977 – Voyager program: NASA launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
1986 – In Edmond, Oklahoma, U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers and then commits suicide.
1988 – "Black Saturday" of the Yellowstone fire in Yellowstone National Park
1988 – Iran–Iraq War: A ceasefire is agreed after almost eight years of war.
1988 – The Troubles: Eight British soldiers are killed and 28 wounded when their bus is hit by an IRA roadside bomb in Ballygawley, County Tyrone.
1989 – The pleasure boat Marchioness sinks on the River Thames following a collision. Fifty-one people are killed.

1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August Coup: More than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union's parliament building protesting the coup aiming to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev.
1991 – Estonia, annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, issues a decision on the re-establishment of independence on the basis of historical continuity of its pre-World War II statehood.
1993 – After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Accords are signed, followed by a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. the following month.
1995 – The Firozabad rail disaster claimed 358 lives in Firozabad, India.
1997 – Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people are killed and 15 kidnapped.
1998 – The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.
1998 – U.S. embassy bombings: The United States launches cruise missile attacksagainst alleged al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical weapons plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

2002 – A group of Iraqis opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein take over the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin, Germany for five hours before releasing their hostages and surrendering.
2006 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil politician and former MP S. Sivamaharajah is shot dead at his home in Tellippalai.
2007 – China Airlines Flight 120 caught fire and exploded after landing at Naha Airportin Okinawa, Japan.
2008 – Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid, Spain to Gran Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport. Of the 172 people on board, 146 die immediately, and eight more later die of injuries sustained in the crash.
2012 – A prison riot in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, kills at least 20 people.
2014 – Seventy-two people are killed in Japan's Hiroshima Prefecture by a series of landslides caused by a month's worth of rain that fell in one day.
2016 – 54 people are killed when a suicide bomber detonates himself at a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey.
=== 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 Michael Lim, Suzanne Nguyen andSteve Jr Rolland. Born on the same day, across the years, along with Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (1517), H. P. Lovecraft (1890), Ron Paul (1935), Isaac Hayes (1942), Rajiv Gandhi (1944) and Robert Plant (1948). On your day, Day of Restoration of Independence in Estonia (1991); St. Stephen's Day in Hungary
917 – Byzantine–Bulgarian Wars: Bulgarians led by Tsar Simeon I drove the Byzantines out of Thrace with a decisive victory in the Battle of Achelous.
1707 – The first Siege of Pensacola came to an end with the British abandoning their attempt to capture Pensacola in Spanish Florida.
1910 – Hurricane-force winds combined hundreds of small fires in the U.S. states of Washington and Idaho into the Devil's Broom fire, which burned about three million acres (12,140 km²), the largest fire in recorded U.S. history.
1940 – In the midst of the Battle of Britain, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered a speech thanking the Royal Air Force, declaring, "Never was so much owed by so many to so few."
1988 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army bombed a bus carrying British Army soldiers in Northern Ireland, killing eight of them and wounding another 28. Try not to get upset with busses. Remember your debt to the RAF and honour it. Remember that wood burns (I learned that watching the fifth element). Leave the dregs to Spain. After a battle, everything that lives, aches.
Deaths
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Tim Blair

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Andrew Bolt

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ANIMAL UPRISING

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 20, 2016 (8:28pm)

An unexpected line from the Canberra Times: 
That’s when the wombat turned on her, she said. 
Meanwhile, in California: 
Chris Whitney, 13, told KRCR-TV that three otters attacked him and his buddy Jacob Savage, 14, in the lake.
“They just kept getting at our legs and our feet,” Chris said. “There was one that kept attacking us no matter what we did.” 
Remain vigilant, people. Something is going on.
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GAIA DIET

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 20, 2016 (7:43pm)

Keep at it, sweetheart:
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HARMONY AND TOLERANCE

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 20, 2016 (5:46pm)

Chris Kenny on revelations from the Martin Place siege inquest: 
When the NSW police should have been totally preoccupied with freeing hostages from an armed, known extremist claiming jihadist intent, senior police were fussing over issues of social engineering. From the evidence of Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione and his deputy, Catherine Burn, we learned they “placed huge weight on community stability” during the siege …
In her prepared statement, Burn accentuated this point as she described her media performances. “I needed to emphasise community harmony while urging people to provide any information that could help,” she said. “It was paramount that my messaging conveyed tolerance so as not to fuel anger which might have led to bias-motivated crime.” 
They were worried about the backlash.
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GOOD TIMES

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 20, 2016 (4:48pm)

The fashionable inner Melbourne suburb of Carlton. Guess the year:

UPDATE. We have a correct answer: 1964. Certain areas of the same suburb long retained a down-at-heel aspect. Here are the delightful open air sanitation facilities at Carlton’s Princes Park, which were still in use just a decade ago:
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LOUISIANA 2016

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 20, 2016 (2:37pm)

Thirteen people have died in the catastrophic Louisiana floods. Where is Barack Obama? 
On a golf course in Martha’s Vineyard as the state drowns in destruction, damage and devastation.

In 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit, President George W. Bush was accused of “not caring about black people” because he failed to visit New Orleans. He avoided a visit in an effort to prevent distraction from relief efforts. When he did a flyover of the area after leaving vacation early, he was roundly criticized for being out of touch. President Obama? He gets a free pass. 
The White House subsequently announced that Obama would visit next week – four whole days behind Donald Trump: 
In Livingston Parish east of Baton Rouge, a woman thanked Trump for visiting the region.
“We’re glad you’re not playing golf in Martha’s Vineyard. That’s all we can say. We’re glad you’re not playing golf,” she said. 
===

THEY TAKE THEIR GOATS AND WOMEN

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 20, 2016 (2:29am)

The only Pakistani tribe to which you’d ever want to belong is under siege: 
Hidden up in the mountains near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, the Kalash tribe loves homemade wine and whiskey, dances for days at colorful festivals, and practices a religion that holds that God has spirits and messengers who speak through nature …
But over the past century, Muslims from modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan began moving in. Now villagers say their Kalash culture and religion are threatened by forced conversions, robberies and assaults.

“We are scared,” said Yasir Kalash, the manager of a hotel here in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. “They capture our lands, our pastures and our forests, and sometimes take our goats and women …
“We are afraid in the next few years we will be finished.” 
You’re not alone, Yasir.
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PLANS MALSPLAINED

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 20, 2016 (1:39am)

The many plans of Chairman Mal: 
In these times of challenge and opportunity, we need a clear economic plan ... our positive economic plan ... our plan includes … our plan should be supported by all parties ..  my Government’s plan will deliver … the Coalition’s economic plan … a vital component of our economic plan … our plan makes it easier … the Defence White Paper is a plan … through this plan … if we see this plan through … if, on the other hand, we falter in our plan ... 
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GENERATION WHINE

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 20, 2016 (1:16am)

As Iowahawk has accurately classified them, we’re dealing here with a generation of screaming campus garbage babies: 
A millennial member of a focus group has angrily objected to the contents of a television programme because it portrayed millennials as coddled, easily offended and thin-skinned. 
(Via the IPA.)
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AN URGENT ISSUE THAT MUST BE ADDRESSED

Tim Blair – Friday, August 19, 2016 (7:45pm)

Priorities in Obama’s America: 
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is holding summits to promote the role of lesbian farmers as a part of its “Rural Pride” campaign. 
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A Speccie read

Andrew Bolt August 20 2016 (11:43am)

Great reading in the latest Spectator Australia, in news agencies now.
Former Labor Minister Gary Johns:
The ACT government abolished the crime of blasphemy in 1996. Earlier this month, they brought it back. Religious vilification is now a crime in the ACT… 
According to Green MP Shane Rattenbury, former International Political Director of Greenpeace International, religious vilification is simply not acceptable in the ACT. So he introduced an amendment to the RDA in the ACT House of Assembly on 4 August. Labor and Liberals agreed and blasphemy is yet again a law in the ACT…
Vilification, as in the ACT occurs if one incites ‘hatred towards, serious contempt for, severe ridicule towards or revulsion of, a person or people with a protected attribute,
that is, a religious belief.’ The most illiberal religion in Australia, Islam, is now protected, decades after the rest of Australia moved on from the whole idea of blasphemy. The
reason it moved on is that the Judeo-Christian religions in Australia are so liberal. They did not see the need to demand the state protect them or their worshippers from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
A Muslim can be offended because someone curses Mohammed: hence blasphemy. Imams, however, are free to spread their particular brand of love for gays, Jews, and Christians, in the name of their religion. Why should we restrict our freedom of speech in favour of one of the least free religions? 
John Elsegood:
Controversy arose [in Switzerland] with the refusal of two male students to shake hands with their female teachers, a Swiss custom. 
When school authorities initially allowed two Syrian brothers to refuse to shake hands it sparked off a national uproar and an educational department ruling that they had to comply with Swiss custom or face fines of 5,000 francs. Further, an application by that family to become Swiss nationals was put on hold.  It was a salutary lesson to the country’s 350,000 Muslims (in a population of eight million) that the Swiss were not there to fit in with them but they had an obligation to observe Swiss traditions and rules…
Indeed, the Swiss followed up the handshake ruling by refusing to grant citizenship rights to two Muslim girls, (12 and 14), who refused to comply with the school curriculum to swim with the boys…
Candidates for citizenship must prove they have assimilated into their local communities and respect local customs and traditions… In 2014, an American, Irving Dunn, who had lived in Switzerland for almost 40 years, was rejected for citizenship because he could not name any Swiss friends or neighbouring villages. Dunn ... was mainly after personal
advantages that the Swiss citizenship offered him. 
===

Turnbull too busy to let you speak

Andrew Bolt August 20 2016 (9:49am)

Malcolm Turnbull has not achieved a single thing of substance in 11 months as Prime Minister. Yet his excuse for not honoring his promise to increase free speech is that he’s just too busy:
It is not a priority for us. Can I just emphasise this: we have a very extensive legislative program with the policies we took to the election.
He now has priorities?
Then this excuse, which could work just as easily to put off action on same sex marriage or constitutional recognition of Aborigines, or even domestic violence programs:
With all due respect to the very worthy arguments around it – it is not going to create an extra job, it is not going to ensure your listeners will get to work, or school, or get around their business any sooner, it’s not going to build an extra road.
Hmm. Seems we have a prime minister who can’t multi-task.
UPDATE
More calls for reform:
One of the nation’s most experienced judges has joined the push to reform section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act to strike a better balance with freedom of speech while maintaining an effective armoury against racial hatred. 
Judge Ron Sackville ... told The Weekend Australian he favoured retaining a national race-hate law but said it needed a series of changes that would shift the balance and make section 18C easier for the courts to apply in a consistent manner.
The key part of his scheme would mean moving to what he described as an objective test in which liability under section 18C would be determined according to community standards. This would mean abandoning the current approach that focuses on how the statements at the heart of a complaint would affect a reasonable representative of those who lodged the complaint. Justice Sackville’s reform plan, outlined in a forthcoming edition of the Australian Law Journal, would also remove the prohibition on language that offends, insults, humiliates or intimidates and replace it with what he described as “a more demanding standard”. This would ban language that degrades, intimidates or incites hatred or contempt.
Secret justice:
The Weekend Australian can reveal the Human Rights Commission was considering 18 race hatred cases in June, with more having reached court over the past two years. 
The Institute of Public Affairs obtained heavily redacted documents from the commission under the Freedom of Information Act ... IPA director of policy Simon Breheny said: “The really worrying thing is that Australians have no visibility about the process that is taking place inside the commission.” While the commission’s “conciliation” procedures frequently result in monetary settlements, Mr Breheny said there was no specific information about each matter. 
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill and Alan RM Jones.) 
===

Domestic violence just got a whole lot worse, but not

Andrew Bolt August 20 2016 (9:21am)

Surely this is trivialising real domestic violence?
Criticising housework and withdrawing affection are defined as domestic violence in the first national guidelines for judges and magistrates. 
The new “bench guide’’ for courts released by Attorney-General George Brandis yesterday spells out what can be considered family violence – ranging from physical attacks to yelling or criticising a partner’s appearance or threatening to have an affair.
Expanding definitions to expand a class of victims from the real to the me-too. 
===

And Still Not Sorry

Andrew Bolt August 19 2016 (9:59pm)

Thanks for your support for Worth Fighting For. A second printing is under way, but - encouraged - we’re now also reprinting Still Not Sorry, my 2005 collection of columns and reflections, with a new preface. It sold out then but can now be pre-ordered here.  On-line buyers of Still Not Sorry will - like  on-line buyers of Worth Fighting For receive the semi-regular Bolt Bulletin.
The fourth edition of the Bolt Bulletin went out this week. It includes a prediction of a big culture war, the loudest lesson learned on my book tour and a must-visit recommendation for Australia’s least-known arts jewel. I also include a scathing column I somehow forgot to put in my book - one I was reminded of while reading a terrific memoir of a genius who rescued two of the greatest opera houses in the world before dying in 1940. 
===

QUEEN ELIZABETH AND THAT OTHER QUEEN ELIZABETH AGREE

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 20, 2015 (10:46am)

Elizabeth Farrelly predicts future property values: 
We think climate change is mostly about poor people in distant countries. And up to a point that’s true. We cause it, they suffer it.
But make no mistake. We will still suffer. The coastal houses of the rich will be suddenly worthless. 
I knew that my investment in remote mountain shacks would one day pay off. Take that, drownies! 
The evidence is in. We have not just a second and third opinion. We have 2500 scientific opinions, expert across a dozen disciplines, in agreement – not to mention the Smithsonian, every world university, the Pope, the Queen and the Church of England (which in June passed the Lambeth Declaration calling for urgent action on climate change) all in furious agreement.
This is not some bunch of hippies or communist nut jobs. 
Actually, in quite a few cases, it is. 
===

CLEM COMPLIES

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 20, 2015 (10:37am)

Someone at Fairfax finally appears to have read that organisation’s social media rules, because Clementine Ford has lately been busily removing various Twitter posts.
You’ve missed one, dear. 
===

ZIONIST FLIPPER

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 20, 2015 (10:11am)

Headline of the week, from the Jerusalem Post:

(Via The Indomitable Snowman, Ph.D.) 
===

CONFUSION AND IRRITATION

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 20, 2015 (9:47am)

The only science that lefties like Michael Leunig reject is science that works. Even the Guardian‘s Eleanor Robertson has had enough of old Mr Whimsypants:
The enduring popularity of the cartoonist Michael Leunig is something I’ve been baffled by since childhood. His cartoons were stuck on my grandmother’s fridge, and I recall looking at the wobbly drawings of a man with a duck on his head with confusion and, as I got older, irritation.
Why is this man’s inward-looking sentimentalism so beloved? What does he want? Is he really exhorting us all to shut ourselves off from society and start new lives in a magical elf land, where everyone wears placid smiles and dances around in funny hats? 
Yes. Yes, he does. He also wants everyone to  buy his terrible, infantile art.
===

Elizabeth Farrelly catches a bad dose of apocalyptis

Andrew Bolt August 20 2015 (6:07pm)

Elizabeth Farrelly looks around after 18 years of no warming of the atmosphere:
Look around. Everything’s pretty much OK , yeah? 
Yes, indeed. Record food crops, record wealth, lower mortality rates, fewer cyclones. Pretty much everything the Farrellys of yesterday told us not to expect.
But Farrelly seems addicted to catastrophism, and soon her heated imagination starts to crisp her vision:
But make no mistake. We will still suffer. The coastal houses of the rich will be suddenly worthless. There’ll be no more Barrier Reef holidays. By mid-century, current trajectory, the great reefs will be dead grey stumps. No more kilos of prawns for the barbie. As oceans warm and acidify beyond most species’ tolerance, seafood will become an expensive rarity and oysters almost unheard of. In fact, the barbie will become a dangerous pastime, as Sydney mozzies start to carry dengue and Ross River fever, and beetles carrying chagas disease - a terrible unvaccinatable disease dubbed the Aids of the Americas - also start to spread. And that’s before the homeless hordes decide that Australia looks big and empty.
Do you think she really believes this? I mean, seriously?
Believes even this?:
In 35 years, some 1500 of Indonesia’s islands will be under water. By 2100, 42 million Indonesians living within 3km of the sea may be homeless. Jakarta airport will drown. 
Jakarta airport is 10 metres above sea level. Even if the Indonesians were somehow too lazy or dumb to build a dyke around the airport over the next 85 years, the seas by then would - at current rates of rise - still be 9.7 metres lower than the airport.
Yet mad solutions are proposed that would do infinitely more harm than just sitting back and relaxing:
Simply, we have to become fossil free. No more oil. No more gas. And not just no new coalmines. No coal, period.
That means no more petrol. No more affordable electricity. No more $30 billion a year from coal exports. And it means many more dead pensioners, unable to pay for heating or cooling, and facing queues to get treatment in public hospitals stretched by spending cuts from bankrupt governments. Effect on world temperature? Maybe 1/100th of a degree.
But no facts will disturb the back-the-land utopianism of a frequent-flying inner-urban socialist:
This requires an immediate and universal switch to renewables, evs, organic farming, intensive reforestation, efficiencies, walking and cycling. Not just for the believers. For everyone.  
Her dream? It’s that old hippy fantasy:
But on the comfort side is Cuba which, in 1990, with Russia’s connivance, became the no-oil test case. Everyone expected disaster but found, when forced to walk, work and cycle more, to mend and invent, to produce bio-fuel and farm organically, they lived healthier, longer lives and formed stronger, more energised communities.
Which, of course, is why so many happy Cubans to prefer to live anywhere but.
And the Sydney Morning Herald prints this nonsense? Even charges for it?
Is reason so dead?
(Thanks to reader Paul.) 
===

A Fairfax writer walks like Abbott to channel evil

Andrew Bolt August 20 2015 (11:55am)

Quadrant on the wilder fringes of Abbott hatred:
That Tony Abbott inspires in some a visceral hatred, a loathing that goes beyond mere disdain for his politics, is not open to dispute… Loony as ... ranters have been over the course of the past two years, their collective dementia cannot hold a candle to the latest effort… 
After [Wednesday’s] edition of the Age, that honour must surely belong to Lea McInerney, who thinks ... that the Abbott odium is a consequence of his youthful interest in boxing. Explaining how she came to this revelatory insight, McInerney conducted an experiment before what was, presumably, a knot of fellow Abbott haters: 
“That led to us talking about the Prime Minister’s style, the polarising language, the brinkmanship, our fears for the effect it’s having on the psyche of our country. I mentioned Mr Abbott’s boxing history and my fascination with his posture, and told them I was curious about what it might be like to be in his body. Goaded on by my friends, I stood up, took a breath, hunched my shoulders, locked my arms, and walked across the room. Without even consciously thinking about it, my chest and jaw thrust forward and my fists clenched. I could feel myself ready for a fight. 
What old ways of thinking might Abbott be locked into, within that boxer physique of his? He uses fighting metaphors a lot, but what else? In some of his language, in the way he puts things, I hear echoes of old-school Catholic doctrine.”
The first reaction was that the column must be a hoax, that final sentence’s passing swipe at Catholics being the tip-off ...
Surely McInerney was ... a satirist’s creation to lampoon the luvvies? But no, she is the genuine article alright, as her grants from the Australia Council and other bodies establish beyond doubt. Once, the Fairfax papers were on the left but still within the bounds of sanity. Those days have long since passed.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Why has Matt Keogh not defended the royal commissioner? Too busy with Labor matters?

Andrew Bolt August 20 2015 (9:58am)

I have noted the failure of Jane Needham, president of the NSW Bar Association and participant in Labor Lawyer events, to defend royal commissioner Dyson Heydon.
She then issued a very grudging defence of Heydon, markedly cooler in tone than her defence of the indefensible Gillian Triggs.
But what of the silence of Matt Keogh, president of the WA Law Society? Why has he said nothing publicly in defence of a royal commissioner and former High Court judge now subjected to a vicious and at times illegal attempt to intimidate and discredit him?
Is it that Keogh is just too busy at the moment?
Lawyer Matt Keogh is the likely candidate for Labor in the Canning by-election, after his closest rival Kelly McManus withdrew from the preselection race. 
The September 19 by-election is being held in the West Australian seat to replace late federal Liberal MP Don Randall. Mr Keogh is president of the WA Law Society and grew up in the electorate.
Is it a rule that the Left runs legal societies? And that conservatives aren’t worth defending?
UPDATE
The story with Keogh is worse than I thought. He has actually dissociated himself from the defence of Heydon by the Law Council of Australia:
Yet the WA Law Society that Keogh leads contradicts him:
In a statement dated 18 August 2015 Mr Duncan McConnel, President of Law Council of Australia, has condemned recent public attacks being played out through the media on Royal Commissioner, Mr John Dyson Heydon AC QC, as being ‘unacceptable and damaging to the basis on which tribunals and Courts operate’. 
The Law Society of Western Australia echoes the sentiments expressed by Mr McConnel, whose full statement is available here.
Who is Keogh representing? The Law Society of WA? Or Labor?
(Thanks to reader WA ideas.) 
===

Fairfax columnist jeers at Iranian journalist: you’ll never be white

Andrew Bolt August 20 2015 (9:07am)

I am astonished by this racist and sexist abuse from Fairfax columnist Clementine Ford of Rita Panahi, a journalist of Iranian ancestry:
That’s just disgusting. These are the standards The Age and Sydney Morning Herald now accept?
Here’s another example of how sanctimony seems to licence cruelty, to the point that a Ford resembles exactly the demons she imagines she fights. Do any of the people she attacks speak with such vitriol and Tourette-like abuse?
UPDATE
It is a curious sign of self-loathing or an internalised misogyny that Ford thinks a word for a vagina is actually a term of abuse, and one to be hurled even at women.
These are the standards The Age and Sydney Morning Herald now accept? 
===

Labor is running a protection racket for the CFMEU

Andrew Bolt August 20 2015 (8:59am)

 LABOR’s attack on former judge Dyson Heydon is actually its third campaign to save the corruption-ridden CFMEU union from justice.
This is the true scandal: Labor is effectively running a protection racket for one of the country’s most notorious unions.
It is linked to the CFMEU by cash, friendship, blood and patronage, and keeps using its political power in a way that defends the corrupt.
I believe it shows.
In government in 2012, Labor agreed to CFMEU demands to sack the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which had repeatedly taken the union to court.
This week Labor voted with the Greens and independent senators to block the Abbott Government’s attempts to reinstate the ABCC.
Now — in its third strike for the CFMEU — Labor is smearing Heydon, a former High Court judge, demanding he be sacked as the head of the royal commission into union corruption.
Labor wants Heydon terminated not only because his commission has heard damaging evidence of Labor leader Bill Shorten’s shady deals as head of the Australian Workers Union — especially the undeclared and disguised personal donation of $40,000 he accepted from an employer.
(Read full column here.) 
===

Claim: Black Lives Matter activist not black

Andrew Bolt August 20 2015 (8:55am)

 Another case?
An investigative blogger has accused Shaun King, a key figure in the Black Lives Matter movement, of misleading media icon Oprah Winfrey by pretending to be biracial in order to qualify for an “Oprah scholarship” to historically black Morehouse College. The blogger says King is white and has been lying about his ethnicity for years.
Of course, this happens only in the United States, or we’d have read about it here.
UPDATE
Oh, wait. 
Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we agreed that “race” did not matter? 
===

Abbott counterattacks: Shorten is the candidate from the racist CFMEU

Andrew Bolt August 20 2015 (8:47am)

Tony Abbott is right to make this a fight over Bill Shorten’s union masters:
Tony Abbott has broadened his political assault on Labor’s union connections amid the furore over the impartiality of royal commissioner Dyson Heydon, accusing Bill Shorten of kowtowing to a racist­ anti-jobs campaign masterminded by the union movement… 
The Prime Minister warned that attacking a serving royal commissioner was a criminal offence and argued that the opposition was waging a dangerous smear campaign against the former High Court judge to “defend the indefensible” in the face of damning evidence of wrongdoing against unions and their officials emerging from the commission.
Mr Abbott said Labor’s position on free trade had been “masterminded” by the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, and was based on a “campaign of xenophobic lies” about changes to industrial laws that it said would dis­advantage local workers in favour of foreign labour. “This Leader of the Opposition is silent in the face of racism,” Mr Abbott said. “There’s the CFMEU going around trying to sabotage a deal that will set up this country for its future....”
Fight:
Shorten used union power to sack Kevin Rudd as prime minister.
Shorten has caved to a CFMEU campaign against a free trade deal with China.
Shorten has joined a CFMEU campaign to destroy a former High Court judge investigating union corruption.
Shorten has blocked the reinstatement of a workplace cop - the Australian Building and Construction Commission - that was cracking down on lawlessness by the CFMEU.
Shorten’s party has received $13 million from the CFMEU in 19 years.
Shorten used his own union position to receive donations from employers, including $40,000 for his personal benefit (to pay for a campaigner to get him into Parliament).
UPDATE
Troy Bramston:
An ACTU-backed grassroots army is being secretly deployed across the nation, vowing to defeat the government… The unprecedented $30 million-plus campaign will see rank-and-file activists — backed by 25 full-time organisers — spreading the anti-Abbott message across about 30 marginal seats.
The Australian:
We like the idea of the next election as a plebiscite on the trade union track record, everything from the criminality and labour hire cartels unearthed by the royal commission to the role of public sector unions in wrecking federal and state budgets. It’s high time that the 83 per cent of Australian workers who are not union members got a chance to cast their verdict on Bill Shorten, the erstwhile union puppetmaster turned assassin of two prime ministers… 
(T)he opposition is ... desperate to discredit Dyson Heydon’s royal commission. Trade unions and Labor are family. As the commission follows the money trail, it inevitably will end up in party coffers; evidence suggests that many union officials don’t care who ends up paying union dues, or whether anyone gets a choice about it, so long as the money keeps rolling in… If the ACTU’s 2016 campaign is to be bigger — and broader — [than Work Choices] what do the unions expect as a repayment for political services, assuming that Mr Shorten ends up in the Lodge? A guarantee of public sector jobs and more unsustainable spending programs? It’s likely, not because of any sound policy reasons but because of the fact more than 40 per cent of the public sector is unionised.
UPDATE
Paul Sheehan:
...ever since Fairfax Media published the story about Heydon’s ill-advised acceptance of an invitation to address a dinner sponsored by the Liberal Party, and raised legitimate concerns about his error, the saga has been engulfed by a lascivious pursuit of scalp hunting. 
Yet Heydon did not speak at a Liberal event. It was never a Liberal Party fundraiser. He acted to remove himself before any media contact.
Dyson said he had been under a misapprehension that the dinner, where the previous speaker was the former chief justice of the High Court, Murray Gleeson, was not a party political gathering.
This misapprehension was by a man with a oak-like reputation for ethical solidity and probity. Yet his error of judgment has opened the door to an avalanche of smearing, opportunism and misdirection…
The attack on Heydon in the Senate is led by Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong, a former lawyer for the CFMEU.
The attack on Heydon in the House of Representatives has been co-led by Labor shadow minister Brendan O’Connor, whose brother, Michael O’Connor, is national secretary of the CFMEU.
The CFMEU has 67 officials facing legal action. The Fair Work Building Commission has a record 52 actions pending before the courts, mainly involving the CFMEU…
In this broader context, the sudden punctiliousness over appearances by Labor and the unions is belated, selective and self-evidently self-serving.
UPDATE
Abbott was in form yesterday, smacking Tony Burke’s question right over his head:
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill, mem and Liam.) 
===

Gay-marriage lobby stoking a dangerous anger

Andrew Bolt August 20 2015 (8:17am)

PENNY Wong is right.
Yes, the Abbott Government’s plan for a people’s vote on gay marriage could give a “green light to hate speech”.
But Wong is wrong: the real hate speech so far isn’t coming from defenders of traditional marriage.
No, it’s her own same-sex lobby that’s pushing its case with abuse, sneers and intimidation — a hatred that risks provoking an equally ugly reaction.
I don’t say Wong, a Labor frontbencher in a gay relationship, is a hypocrite.
But I do think she’s deaf.
(Read full article here.) 
===

Kroger hunts for a missing $2 million in the Liberal accounts

Andrew Bolt August 20 2015 (7:58am)

The Victorian Liberals have a problem:
THE Victorian Liberal Party is investigating the disappearance of up to $2 million which has vanished from party coffers. 
The Herald Sun can reveal a forensic audit has uncovered irregularities in invoices lodged with the party for expenses, including for those incurred during the November 2014 election loss…
Former state director of the Liberal Party Damien Mantach has been questioned by the party about the missing money, which is alleged to have vanished over the past four years. When the Herald Sun put the allegations to Mr Mantach on Wednesday night, he said: “no comment.’’ 
UPDATE
Kroger on radio has accused Mantach of taking $1.5 million for his personal use. Big call if Mantach denies it, but Kroger said he was aware of that consideration.
Police have confirmed they have received a complaint from the Liberals. 
===

Needham belatedly does the minimum for Heydon

Andrew Bolt August 20 2015 (7:45am)

After I called her out yesterday, Jane Needham, the Left-leaning president of the NSW Bar Association, has done the grudging minimum in defence of conservative Dyson Heydon, and days too late:
However, the Bar Association notes that personal abuse of the Royal Commissioner is not appropriate. Any application for the Royal Commissioner to recuse himself should be dealt with in the ordinary manner based on well-established legal principles. The Royal Commissioner should not be the subject of personal attacks and should be permitted to determine the matter based on the law and the evidence which is relied upon in support of the application.
Compare this cool message with Needham’s passionate defence of the incomparably more compromised Gillian Triggs.
I really do wonder at the tribalism of the Left, where the side sometimes seems to count for more than the principle.
UPDATE
Let Richard Cobden SC show Needham how it should be done:
Dyson Heydon has made as great a contribution to the development and state of the law in Australia as any other living citizen, and far greater than almost all. As an academic, a barrister, a judge of appeal, a high court judge, the editor of law reports and the author and editor of leading and internationally admired texts, he is one of our greatest intellects. And as part of that towering achievement he must have given hundreds if not thousands of speeches and addresses. Not one of them can be tainted with the accusation of party politics. 
He was asked, and agreed, to give a speech in honour of Sir Garfield Barwick. Last year the same speech was given by Murray Gleeson, QC, an enormously respected former chief justice of both NSW and Australia. There has not been, nor could there be, a hint of a suggestion that by giving that speech Gleeson adopted a partisan role. Indeed he has just concluded a review of the Independent Commission Against Corruption without it being for a moment suggested he was biased in favour of the Liberal Party by reason of having given the Barwick address.
The trouble is the general public has no idea how many such speeches the eminent are asked to give and how ridiculous it is to suggest that by giving them they subscribe to the views of their audience…
Dyson Heydon has said that when he reconfirmed his commitment this March he overlooked the Liberal Party connection. On what basis can anyone disbelieve him? It is contrary to his entire life’s work to jeopardise his present appointment by giving a partisan speech or appearing while serving as royal commissioner at a partisan event. And the suggestion we should not believe him but instead accept, for example, the accusations of a parliamentary headkicker like Tony Burke simply beggars belief.
UPDATE
Chris Kenny:
Labor and its media barrackers are being allowed to get away with blatant hypocrisy by using past criticisms of [Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs] to justify their attack on Heydon… 
The ... senseless contradiction in the Triggs comparison is that Labor, most of the media and the broader Left have stoutly defended her and criticised the government for attacking her, yet they say the treatment of Heydon is comparable.
In other words they are defending an attack on Heydon by reference to an attack they decry. Rank hypocrisy…
The Human Rights Commissioner has been criticised not for associations or perceived bias but for the way she has conducted herself in a partisan fashion in the day to day operations of a job that is supposed to be fulfilled in an objective manner....  Heydon, on the other hand, seems to be under fire because he has performed his role too well…
Yet Labor and its barrackers adopt a confected campaign against Heydon because he agreed to give a prestigious legal lecture that is run under the auspices of the Liberal Party. There would be no material problem if he gave the lecture but in order to ensure there cannot even be a perception of bias, he withdrew. Yet Labor calls for his head. And it is supported by much of the media, including the taxpayer-funded broadcasters. This is a dangerous time for politics and legal accountability.
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill and marg of nambour.) 
===

Does The Project not know greens want to shut down mines, or are they hiding it?

Andrew Bolt August 20 2015 (7:03am)

I was struck by Waleed Aly and Carrie Bickmore’s questions on The Project - part mocking, part bemused, as if they really couldn’t believe Liberals were so silly as to believe green groups would be such wreckers:
Aly: 
So are environmentalist really out to kill the economy or is the Government desperately trying to change the conversation?…
Bickmore: 
Isn’t that really old fashioned to say that greenies are trying to kill the economy?
First, note that the Government has not said the green groups want to “kill the economy” but to kill economic development, particularly in coal mines.
Hear it directly from the Resources Minister that Aly was earlier attacking:
IAN MACFARLANE: Well what it has to fear is as I say, this manual that has been released by the environmentalists, which clearly states, this is how we’re going to stop coal exports in Australia. We believe that this is the beginning of a very well-orchestrated and highly funded campaign that will see the end of coal mining development in Australia, and then they’ll move to the next project and the next project, because it’s more than just a coal mine. It’s a whole economic proposal for Central and North-eastern Queensland.
And Aly and Bickmore should have not mocked that notion, but reported that this is actually the truth.
Not only is closing our coal industry the official policy of the Greens, but using any trick of process to block mines is the in-black-and-white strategy of exactly the green groups the Abbott Government was responding to:
Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom, strategy document, November 2011:  
Our strategy is to “disrupt and delay” key projects and infrastructure while gradually eroding public and political support for the industry.
Or in practice: 
Litigation … Legal challenges can stop projects outright or can delay them … to buy time to build a much stronger movement and powerful public campaigns. They can also … increase costs (and) raise investor uncertainty … We will lodge legal challenges to the approval of all of the major new coal ports, as well as key rail links (where possible), the mega-mines and several other mines chosen for strategic campaign purposes. Legal challenges will draw on a range of arguments relating to the local impacts on wetlands, endangered species, aquifers and the … Great Barrier Reef Marine Park…
The amount needed to underwrite all of this?
Total combined budget … $5,919,000.
It is easy to criticise the Abbott Government (and I do) for not getting out its messages clearly, but here is just one of a thousand examples of how that message is filtered and distorted by media gatekeepers with their own green agenda. 
===

Five more suspected jihadists made to stay here

Andrew Bolt August 20 2015 (6:32am)

And all still on our streets:
THE largest single group of suspected jihadists attempting to leave the country bound for Syria and Iraq have been intercepted at Sydney Airport. 
A senior intelligence source has confirmed five young Sydney men had triggered an alert at Sydney Airport last week as they all tried to leave the country together bound for the Middle East.
===

Setting the stage for young Islamic rage

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, August 19, 2014 (8:33pm)

THE Prime Minister warned this week about a potential “mass casualty event” from homegrown Islamist terrorists, and exhorted all Australian communities to join “team Australia”. The reaction from the sneering Left was scornful laughter.
 Continue reading 'Setting the stage for young Islamic rage'
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Do-gooders blind to the dangers of illegal drugs

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, August 19, 2014 (8:32pm)

THE tragedy of Harriet Wran’s slide into drug addiction is a warning no one, no matter how rich or beautiful, is immune from the evil.
 Continue reading 'Do-gooders blind to the dangers of illegal drugs'
===

SILENT OB

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 20, 2014 (8:15pm)

There is no point being history’s greatest speaker if you don’t actually speak: 
President Obama returned to his vacation home at Martha’s Vineyard after briefly interrupting his vacation for two days of meetings in Washington, D.C.
Obama met with his economic team Tuesday before leaving the White House at 4:22 pm to return to his vacation home.
He did not react to the news that broke later that evening about an ISIS video that showed the beheading of American journalist James Wright Foley. 
In other developments, here’s Ronald S. Lauder in the NYT: 
Why is the world silent while Christians are being slaughtered in the Middle East and Africa? In Europe and in the United States, we have witnessed demonstrations over the tragic deaths of Palestinians who have been used as human shields by Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls Gaza. The United Nations has held inquiries and focuses its anger on Israel for defending itself against that same terrorist organization. But the barbarous slaughter of thousands upon thousands of Christians is met with relative indifference. 
===

THE NERVE!

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 20, 2014 (2:24pm)

“Look at the filth of the Kuffar and how they lie,” writes Bilaal Abdullah. “They have the nerve to say a bookstore is evil but a pub is good.”
===

PURE EVIL

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 20, 2014 (11:42am)

Hundreds gathered in Sydney a few weeks ago to support jihad. Here is the latest atrocity committed by jihadist maniacs in the Middle East: 
Jihadist group the Islamic State claims to have executed American journalist James Foley in revenge for US air strikes against its fighters in Iraq …
The purported execution is carried out in an open desert area with no immediate signs as to whether it is in Iraq or Syria, by a black-clad masked militant who speaks in English with a British accent …

In a separate posting on Twitter, a picture showed a man identified as Steven Joel Sotloff dressed in the same orange clothing and kneeling in a desertlike setting. He was flanked by a masked, black-clad fighter holding him by his collar.
“The life of Steven Joel Soltoff depends on Obama’s next move,” said a statement in Arabic at the bottom of the picture.
Soltoff, who wrote for Time magazine and the National Interest, has been missing since mid-2013. 
Prime Minister Tony Abbott:  “It’s absolutely sickening, absolutely despicable and it’s a sign that there can be no compromise whatsoever with the murderous terrorists of the ISIL movement. This is evil, this is as near pure evil as we are ever likely to see.”
UPDATE. James Foley’s mother: 
“We have never been prouder of our son Jim. He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people,” wrote Diane Foley on the Facebook site Free James Foley.
“We implore the kidnappers to spare the lives of the remaining hostages. Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world,” she added.
“We thank Jim for all the joy he gave us. He was an extraordinary son, brother, journalist and person.” 
===

SUBURB DEFENDED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 20, 2014 (11:30am)

SBS’s Lakemba response:
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OFFENCE TAKEN

Tim Blair – Tuesday, August 19, 2014 (6:51pm)

The Islamic Council of Victoria, which represents more than 150,000 Muslims, has said it is boycotting a scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Tony Abbott in Melbourne after he urged the Muslim community to join “Team Australia”.
Mr Abbott convened the meeting with Melbourne’s Muslim community to discuss proposed counter-terrorism laws after a similar meeting in Sydney on Monday.
But ahead of Monday’s meeting, Mr Abbott told Macquarie Radio in Sydney that he would urge community leaders to speak out against radical Islam.
“Everyone has got to put this country, its interests, its values and its people first, and you don’t migrate to this country unless you want to join our team.”
Islamic council secretary Ghaith Krayem described Mr Abbott’s comments as ill-informed and inflammatory. 
Read any good books lately, Ghaith?
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CAN’T STAND THE RAIN

Tim Blair – Tuesday, August 19, 2014 (2:03pm)

Sweet memories. Remember the good old days of climate panic? 
Back on June 11, 2005, the ABC reported alarming news from a reliable alarmist: “Professor Tim Flannery has warned that Australia is now entering long-term climate change, which could cause longer and more frequent droughts. He also predicts that the ongoing drought could leave Sydney’s dams dry in just two years.”
Two years on to the day, let’s see how Tim’s prediction worked out. Here’s an ABC report from June 11, 2007: “Sydney’s largest dam, Warragamba, received 43mm of rain since Thursday, while the region’s smaller dams got a better soaking, including the Upper Nepean which got 108mm. Sydney’s catchment is 36.9 per cent full.” 
So let’s see where Sydney’s catchment levels are now, following seven more years of terrible climate change:
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The weakest US president ever?

Andrew Bolt August 20 2014 (9:00pm)

A serious question: when the US last have a president this weak?
President Obama returned to his vacation home at Martha’s Vineyard after briefly interrupting his vacation for two days of meetings in Washington, D.C. 
Obama met with his economic team Tuesday before leaving the White House at 4:22 pm to return to his vacation home. He did not react to the news that broke later that evening about an ISIS video that showed the beheading of American journalist James Wright Foley. 
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What is the ABC suggesting with James Foley’s death?

Andrew Bolt August 20 2014 (7:29pm)

The Islamic State beheads an American journalist, having already beheaded so many Iraqis and Syrians. Now see if you can work out the ABC journalist’s drift in this line of questioning today:
TANYA NOLAN: The pentagon says US planes have carried out 68 airstrikes in Iraq since August the 8th, 35 of those targeting IS positions. Was it folly for the US to get involved in Iraq this time around?

TANYA NOLAN: So you don’t think America should get any more militarily involved? Because there is the view that airstrikes alone are not going to be successful without a competent and complimentary ground force.

TANYA NOLAN: The warning in this video is for America to stop intervening in Iraq or a second American journalist could suffer the same fate. Is it too late for that? Has America already overstepped its role, what should have been its role in Iraq this time around?
TANYA NOLAN: From IS’s perspective though, America is involved in a war with them for all intents and purposes and they see that those airstrikes are a declaration of war by America on them. 
The guest, by the way, think the US should go in even harder because the cause is just. I think the Islamic State might prefer the ABC’s response.
(Thanks to reader Brad.) 
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Journalist beheaded by Muslim with English accent

Andrew Bolt August 20 2014 (7:32am)

A message is sent:
ISIS has tried to send a warning to the U.S. in about the most horrifying manner imaginable: by broadcasting the execution of an American citizen captured in Syria over 600 days ago. 
The video purports to show the execution of photojournalist James Foley. The four-minute video opens with a clip of President Barack Obama authorizing U.S. airstrikes in Iraq. After this intro, a title screen appears with the words “a message to America,” followed by an American citizen they identify as James Foley saying that U.S. leaders are his “real killers.” Foley is executed moments later by a man in a black robe — an apparent native English speaker who talks with an English accent — holding a knife.
No doubt ABC presenter Jonathan Green would prefer the tape to remain unreported, for fear that his innocence will be stolen. His innocence, or deliberately cultivated ignorance that against such barbarity we need only a happy smile to defend ourselves:
Could be any day now ... the sudden indiscriminate smack of a terrorist attack.
Our best defence is of course our cultured reason. Our tolerance. Our audacious confidence in the fundamental goodness of others. 
Still confident in the fundamental goodness of others, Mr Green?
UPDATE

More is threatened:
In the video, they show journalist Steven Joel Soltoff, a journalist who worked for TIME, The National Interest and Media Line. Soltoff seems to have been missing since the middle of last year. He last tweeted on August 3rd, 2013. His Twitter indicates he was in Libya at that time. ISIL claims the Sotloff’s life “depends on Obama’s next decision,” specifically if the United States continues attacking them. 
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Hamas fires more rockets to break yet another ceasefire

Andrew Bolt August 20 2014 (7:03am)

Hamas breaks yet another ceasefire - its sixth? - demonstrating it really, really prefers war:
Talks being held in Cairo for a long-term Gaza cease-fire broke down Tuesday as Israel recalled its delegation hours after Palestinian militants broke an earlier truce by launching volleys of rockets.
UPDATE
Sixth?
“Today’s rocket attack on Beersheba is a grave and direct violation of the cease-fire to which Hamas committed itself,” said Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli government. ”This is the 11th cease-fire that Hamas has either rejected or violated,” he said.
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Talking to Keysar Trad

Andrew Bolt August 20 2014 (6:57am)

You may find my conversation with the Islamic Friendship Association’s Keysar Trad interesting. Listen here.
My main questions were: just how many people did Trad, a media favorite really represent? And with his past, why on earth is the Prime Minister consulting with him on anti-terrorism proposals?
You may find the later responses of three Muslim listeners extremely heartening. 
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Clive Palmer, hypocrite

Andrew Bolt August 20 2014 (6:44am)

Cut & Paste does an extended edition today just on Clive Palmer, and it’s still not long enough to capture all his idiocy and self-contradictions. But some highlights:
Palmer on ABC’s Q&A, Monday night:
THESE Chinese mongrels — I’m saying that because they’re communist, they shoot their own people, they haven’t got a justice system and they want to take over this country.
Wow, is that the real Clive speaking? We thought you liked the Chinese. That’s what you used to say. Palmer, September 29, 2009, railing against foreign investment rules that restrict Chinese investment in Australia: 
IT’S one of the worst things that can happen to Australia to extend our racist policies into Asia. Capital is in China, it’s not in the US.
Australians are just so xenophobic. Same speech: 
SUDDENLY there’s a great cry in Australia about reds under the bed. We’ve got the opportunity to grab if our politicians could only be fair and treat the Chinese people and the Chinese government with the dignity they deserve…
You’ve lost that loving feeling, Clive. Why? Hint. Hedley Thomas, The Australian, July 24:
CLIVE Palmer is embroiled in claims of “fraud” and “dishonesty” levelled by his estranged Chinese business partners, who have significantly raised the stakes in their legal row with a powerful document that holds him per­sonally responsible for more than $12 million in missing funds. The document, filed yesterday in the Queensland Supreme Court in Brisbane, discloses that Mr Palmer personally signed two cheques — for $10m and $2.167m — that drained the Chinese funds from a National Australia Bank account shortly before the federal election last September.
You wouldn’t want that sort of slur hanging around, surely? Not when you’ve got so much on your plate, such as trying to stop the budget hurting poor people. Why don’t you just tell Tony Jones your side of the story. Back to Q&A on Monday: 
YEAH, I’d like to answer that for you, Tony, but, of course, that’s gonna go up to the Supreme Court this week and it will all be ... what that’s all about is that we’re owed about $500m by the communist Chinese government that doesn’t want to pay it, that’s now reverting this sort of rubbish.
You’ve missed Tony’s point, Clive:
JONES: Well, that’s not what that’s all about actually. I mean there’s two ...
Palmer: Well, that’s — that’s ...
Jones: From that account there’s $2.17m ...
Palmer: No, no, that’s it’s about. That’s what it’s about. It’s ...
Jones: 2.17m of that account went to a company called Media Circus. How much of that ...
Palmer: Well, I’m just trying to explain to you.
Jones: May I just ask you how much of that was spent on your — your election campaign?
Palmer: No, you can’t, because that’s up — that will go before the Supreme Court. We’ll be knocking that case out because it’s a lie, it’s not true and we’ll deal with that matter. You have been reading too much of The Australian and what Rupert Murdoch’s telling you from New York. It’s just not true…
OK then. So before we go on, let’s get this straight.  Those communist Chinese are a) “mongrels” b) “bastards” and c) and “they shoot their own people”. Right? Well, not exactly, you now say. 
Tweet from Palmer, 9.31am yesterday:
BACK on track. Move on. Nothing to see here. The Palmer United Party is a mainstream party, not prone to illogical outbursts that may harm a two-way trade worth more than $150 billion a year. But did the message make it to Tassie? 
Senator Jacqui Lambie, media statement, 12.35pm yesterday: 
“I STRONGLY support the general point that Clive made about communist China’s military capacity and threat to Australia. If anybody thinks that we should have a national security and defence policy which ignore the threat of a Chinese communist invasion — you’re delusional and have got rocks in your head ... Both Labor and the Liberals/Nationals have failed to build an Australian military that is able to defend us — and stop our grandchildren from becoming slaves to an aggressive, anti-democratic, totalitarian foreign power.”
Rocks?  Heads? Slaves? 
Man the barricades. But exactly what did your Dear Leader say about China’s military intentions? Well, nothing. He did say this, but, again, isn’t this about his own business interests. Back to Monday night’s Q&A: 
IT won’t stop the fact that the Chinese government wants to bring workers here to destroy our wage system. It won’t stop the fact they want to take over our ports and get our resources for free. So far they’ve shipped 200 million dollars worth of iron ore out this country without paying for it and I don’t mind standing up against the Chinese bastards and stopping them from doing it and I’ll be doing that, mate. Don’t worry about that.
UPDATE
I would not trust a word Palmer says:
CLIVE Palmer boasts that he has notched up victories over “these Chinese mongrels” — his estranged business partner Citic Pacific — in separate legal battles he is waging in the West Australian Supreme Court, the Federal Court and in a private arbitration.

He also alleges that the Chinese government-owned Citic Pacific has somehow been able to dig up and ship $200 million worth of West Australian iron ore from the Pilbara without paying a cent to the state government for the privilege. 
And the Queensland magnate turned MP reckons he is owed about $500m in unpaid royalties from the Sino Iron project, which Citic has built on Mr Palmer’s mining tenements. Yet there is simply no evidence to suggest that any of these claims, all made in an indignant outburst on ABC’s Q&A, are correct.
Read on.
UPDATE
Not just a hypocrite but a wrecker:
AUDIENCE member Dean Shachar: Clive, as recently as probably mid-2012, you expressed such concern with the budget, you said it was in such dire straits, that you wanted to run against the then treasurer, the architect of the current crisis, for the Liberal Party, in his own seat of Lilley. How then can you say, 2½ years later, to the Australian people, how can you justify rejecting every single measure they’ve tried to take to put the budget back into surplus? Is this not just populist-driven hypocrisy? 
Palmer: No, it’s not ... these budgets are totally unacceptable ...
Shachar: I’m just curious as to what’s changed since you were a Liberal Party member ... Why was it such a budget crisis then?
Palmer: Well, what’s changed is ... Shachar: What’s changed? You’re in a position now with the balance of power to actually do something for the country.
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Not just a story of bad white policeman shooting down innocent black man

Andrew Bolt August 20 2014 (5:53am)

The shooting by police of an unarmed man is always serious. The exploitation of that shooting by race-baiters and the professionally aggrieved says something even more serious about racial divisions in the US. And the fact that dealing with the violence then requires the replacement of a white police chief by a black suggests the real grievance is not that there is racism but that the wrong “race” rules.
The almost non-reported other side of the (alleged) story of the shooting in Ferguson of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson:

A woman identifying herself as a friend of Darren Wilson ...  says he initially flagged down Brown for walking in the middle of the street…
But then Wilson received a radio report that someone matching Brown’s description had robbed a convenience store. (It appears from video evidence that Brown did, indeed, rob a store and manhandle the clerk).
Wilson therefore pulled his car up to Brown and started to get out of it. Brown, who was enormous, pushed Wilson back into the car and punched him in the face, according to what Josie says is Wilson’s account....
Wilson had a gun. According to what Josie says Wilson told her, Brown reached for it and, in the struggle, the gun pressed against Wilson’s hip. Wilson was able to push the gun away.
Brown then fled with his friends. Wilson followed and told them to freeze. Instead, Brown turned and, from a distance of maybe 35 feet, began taunting Wilson and saying that he wouldn’t shoot. Then, according to this account, Brown charged Wilson. Wilson began firing, but Brown kept coming. Finally, a shot to the head stopped Brown just a few feet in front of Wilson. This account is consistent with the autopsy finding that the bullets entered the front of Brown’s body, not the back.
The autopsy findings seem to contradict part of what Brown’s friends and eyewitnesses originally claimed:
Tiffany Mitchell ... (said) Brown broke away and started to run down the street away from the police car. Mitchell said the officer then got out of his vehicle and started to pursue Brown, all the while shooting at him. “Michael’s body jerked as if he were hit,” Mitchell said. “Then he turns around and put his hands up, and the officer continued to walk up on him and shoot him...” 
Emmanuel Freeman… tweeted… “no reason! He was running!"… A man, who preferred to speak on condition of anonymity, told Fox2 News that he and Brown had seen each other right before Brown went to the convenience store. The man said Brown told him that he was “feeling some bad vibes” but that the “Lord Jesus Christ” would help him through it… Approximately 25 minutes later, the man heard gunfire and looked up and saw a man, who he didn’t know at the time was Brown, “staggering and running.” ... “[Wilson] just started shooting,” the man continued, estimating that the officer shot Brown six or seven times after he turned around to seemingly surrender. 
Another contradiction of the preferred narrative of a white policeman gunning down a black man running away or surrendering with his hands in the air:
Man 1: ‘How’d he [Brown] get from there to there [on the ground, away from the police car]?’
Eyewitness: ‘Because he ran, the police was still in the truck – cause he was like over the truck’
Eyewitness: ‘But him and the police was both in the truck, then he ran – the police got out and ran after him’
Eyewitness: ‘Then the next thing I know he doubled back toward him cus - the police had his gun drawn already on him’
Man 1: ‘Oh, the police got his gun’
Eyewitness: ‘The police kept dumpin on him, and I’m thinking the police kept missing – he like – be like – but he kept coming toward him
(crosstalk)’
Eyewitness: ‘Police fired shots – the next thing I know – the police was missing’
Man 1: ‘The Police?’ Eyewitness: ‘The Police shot him’
Then there’s this alleged chronology, again contradicting the preferred narrative:
The officer who shot Ferguson teen Michael Brown stopped Brown and another teen because they were walking in the street, not because of a robbery a few minutes earlier, Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson said Friday afternoon. 
Jackson said the officer was aware cigars had been taken in the robbery of a store nearby, but did not know when he encountered Brown and Dorian Johnson that they might be suspects. He stopped them because they were walking in the street, Jackson said. But Jackson told the Post-Dispatch that the officer, Darren Wilson, saw cigars in Brown’s hand and realized he might be the robber.
John Hinderaker:
The results of the first of three planned autopsies on the body of Michael Brown were released today by Dr. Michael Baden. Dr. Baden found that Brown was shot six times, with all six bullets coming from the front. This appears to rule out the claim that Brown was shot while running away from police officer Darren Wilson.... 
If he was charging officer Wilson, Wilson would reasonably have perceived a risk of grave bodily harm and would have been entitled to use deadly force to defend himself, regardless of whether Brown was armed or not. Likewise, the suggestion that six shots are somehow excessive is misguided. It usually takes several bullets to stop an attacker, and in this case, it appears that only the last shot, which hit Brown in the top of the head, would immediately have incapacitated him. The location of that bullet is consistent with the theory that Brown had his head down and was charging toward Wilson, but it could be consistent with other scenarios as well.
Jason Riley cuts through much of the bull from the race-baiters and preachers of a lethal victimhood:
We don’t have all the evidence and I’m hesitant to try and litigate this in the press, but there’s also this false narrative being pushed out there by folks like Michael Eric Dyson and [Al] Sharpton and the rest of the hustlers is that black men live in fear of being shot by cops in these neighborhoods. That too is nonsense. I know something about growing up black and male in the inner city and it’s not that hard to avoid getting shot by a cop. They pull you over, you answer their questions, you are on your way. 
The real difficulty is not getting shot by other black people if you are a young black man in these neighborhoods and again that is something we need to talk more about. Cops are not the problem. Cops are not producing these black bodies in the morgues every weekend in Chicago, in New York and Detroit and so forth. That’s not cops. Those other black people shooting black people.
Blacks shooting blacks seems a feature of protests against a white cop shooting a black man:
A massive show of force by riot police and newly arrived national guard units failed to quell agitators who fired gunshots and threw Molotov cocktails on Monday night and early on Tuesday morning…
At a 2.20am press conference, Captain Ron Johnson of the Missouri state highway patrol said 31 people had been arrested, some who had come from as far afield as New York and California. He said two people were shot and displayed two handguns and a Molotov cocktail he said had been confiscated by police…
Adding that police had at one point come under gunfire, and that several officers had been injured by rocks and bottles, Johnson urged peaceful protesters from now on to limit their demonstrations to daytime and not give cover to criminals at night…
Initially police made limited interventions: snatch squads bolted forwards to grab and haul away certain individuals, a new tactic in Ferguson. But more serious trouble flared 500 metres away at the site of a burned convenience store where dozens of youths, some with covered faces, ripped up street signs and taunted police. Unidentified gunmen opened fire, triggering volleys of police stun grenades and teargas. 
UPDATE
A claim:
The Gateway Pundit can now confirm from two local St. Louis sources that police Officer Darren Wilson suffered facial fractures during his confrontation with deceased 18 year-old Michael Brown… Local St. Louis sources said Wilson suffered an “orbital blowout fracture to the eye socket.” This comes from a source within the Prosecuting Attorney’s office and confirmed by the St. Louis County Police.
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When Fairfax lives by its creed I’ll pay more attention

Andrew Bolt August 20 2014 (5:44am)

Fairfax bosses clean up big:
Tensions at the publisher grew yesterday after it was revealed the company had posted a $224.4m net profit, with four top managers receiving $2.4m in additional performance shares at a time when the formal offer [to staff] was zero per cent.
Fairfax socialist Ross Gittins protests - but against the Abbott666 Government:
And while we use our budget to widen the gap between rich and poor, people in other countries are realising the need to narrow it. 
Wayne Swan, former Labor treasurer, noted in a speech on Monday that “centre-right political leaders across the globe are acknowledging the obvious truth that capitalism is facing an existential challenge . . . only last week ratings agency Standard and Poor’s emphasised yet again that high inequality is a drag on growth"… Pope Francis put this in stark terms when he called increasing inequality “the root of social evil”.   
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The War of Independence was a coordinated attack by several Arab countries and various Arab non-state actors against the fledgling State of Israel, with the states intent of genocide. Tens of thousands of Arabs fled their homes after being encouraged to do so by Arab leaders at the time, who promised them that they could return once a comprehensive massacre of the Jewish community had been conducted.
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As we get older, modern medicine will help more of us live with cancer rather than die from it. That’s the assumption behind a vaccine to treat cancer, being developed by a pharmaceutical company in Israel.
Vaxil BioTherapeutics’ main product, ImMucin, is now in advanced clinical trials at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem.
CEO Julian Levy tells ISRAEL21c that this therapeutic vaccine doesn’t prevent cancer from invading, but activates and enhances the body’s natural immune system to seek and destroy cancer cells already present in the body, such as those lingering after cancer surgery.
Malignant cells normally get out of control by tricking the immune system not to notice them, a strategy that works especially well in older people because immune systems get less efficient with age.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhEwj6Ue13s
The vaccine is currently being tested against a blood cancer called multiple myeloma. However, Vaxil’s scientific breakthrough is based on a drug platform, VaxHit, which can be tailored to treat not only 90 percent of cancers, he says, but also diseases such as tuberculosis.
This disease is cropping up in developing nations as existing vaccines are proving less and less effective.
“Two billion are affected by the pathogen,” says Levy. “Ten percent will develop the active disease. And while TB can be treated by drugs, it takes several months and it can be brutal.”
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Great War 100
Belgian soldiers preparing to defend the city of Louvain from behind a makeshift barricade. Image was taken 99 years ago today, 20 August 1914. 

From the collection of the Imperial War Museum (Q 53206).
Australia is blessed .. not having to do that .. ed
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Larry Pickering
ARAB SPRING HAS BEEN SPRUNG

Democracy is as foreign to the Arab world as strong-man autocracy is to us. White-hot tribal hatred, bubbling just below the surface for thousands of years, needs tyrannical dictators to contain it. The West’s solution was to kill the tyrannical dictators. 

Social media has laid bare deep, poisonous divisions and our naive interference has helped force the toothpaste from the tube... it will be hard to put back.

Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria and now Egypt are all the worse for the West’s interference.

All tyrants need a military but militaries grow quickly, and soon become a law unto themselves. They outlive the tyrant and often get to choose, or even become, the government as was the case in Pakistan.

Obama is now toying with supporting the Syrian opposition in a savage civil war, taking stupidity to a new height and taking on Putin who militarily supports the incumbent Assad Government.

Crumbs! Obama wants to assist the same blood-thirsty mobs that brought down New York’s Twin Towers and at the same time start a new cold war with Russia!

Obama “liberated” Libyan rebels from the Gaddafi dictator. The rebels then promptly sodomised and murdered the US ambassador and three others!

Now that’s the sort of judgment we attribute to Gillard and Rudd!

Since 1945, on each occasion it has involved itself in a foreign war, the US has walked away with a blood nose and the warring nation has simply found another strongman to contain a new lot of tribal enemies.

Hatred of the West intensifies each time we interfere. Al Queda and oddball terrorist groups are attracted to Arab altercations and they recruit well for the future.

Egypt sucks up billions in US aid while feigning friendship but it too has reverted to type with its own civil war subsequent to the demise of Mubarak and a “democratic” election.

The democratically elected, and once banned, Muslim Brotherhood was booted out by the military after trying to impose Sharia law.

Democratic elections are great, but only when the right side wins, eh!

Now an all out war has erupted between sacked Morsi government supporters and the military with 12 million Coptic Christians caught in between.

The perfect excuse has been found for radical Muslims to burn down every Christian church in sight.

Democratisation of the disjointed Arab world is a naive dream. The West should be careful what it wishes for.

These crazy war-mongering bastards now have Iphones and they don’t use social media to make friends like we do.
ALP supporters like Pickering blame Democracy .. - ed
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ALP watch
Correcting Labor’s False and Misleading Claims
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Pastor Rick Warren
"When you pray, you must believe and not doubt at all. Whoever doubts is like a wave in the sea that is driven and blown about by the wind." James 1:6
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A true friend compliments you publicly and corrects you privately.Who can count on you to do this?
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Roger Waters writes in support of those ethnic cleansers who hate Israel. - ed
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That stark view of a crisis that has killed hundreds in the past week shows why the world's top oil exporter will continue to back Egypt's crackdown on the Brotherhood even while its Western allies try to convince the generals to back down.
When the "Arab Spring" revolts blew across the Middle East in 2011 - toppling one authoritarian president after another - the kings and emirs of the rich Gulf monarchies held on to power but were shaken as never before.
One of King Abdullah's nephews, Mecca Governor Prince Khaled al-Faisal, decried the uprisings in a poem as a "dust storm sweeping Arab lands" in which traditional rulers had been defamed as "backward, reactionary and barbaric".
Two years later, those same rulers now see a chance to restore the stable order that had held for generations in the region, and are determined to spend their oil billions to bring back trusted friends.
Nowhere is that more true than Egypt, long Saudi Arabia's most powerful regional ally and whose army chief Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has close connections to the ruling family after serving as defense attaché in Riyadh.
The gulf rulers' are alarmed by popular Islamist movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which benefited most from the downfall of entrenched dictators after 2011 and which the princes see as threatening the principle of hereditary monarchy.
"Saudi strategists might see groups influenced by the Brotherhood as the only ones that could emerge to challenge their rule," said a Saudi journalist speaking on condition he not be identified.
The Saudi stance is shared with the United Arab Emirates, which this year put on trial Islamists it suspects of plotting to overthrow the state, and on Friday praised Egypt's army for responding to protests with "maximum self restraint".
Only days after Egypt's army ousted the Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi from the presidency on July 3, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi pledged aid of $8 billion. A third Gulf monarchy, Kuwait, added another $4 billion, which should cover Egypt's deficit for months.
Unflinching support
Saudi princes regard the Brotherhood as an ideological competitor with an aggressively activist political doctrine that disdains Riyadh's ties with the West and aims to introduce democracy. Riyadh accuses the Brotherhood of betraying its trust after it gave members shelter from persecution in Egypt in the 1960s, only to see them agitate for change in Saudi Arabia.
"There's a lot of concern throughout the Gulf that the Brotherhood is attempting to infiltrate and to destabilize governments," said Robert Jordan, former U.S. ambassador to Riyadh and now based in Dubai.
Last month Saudi security forces summoned for questioning two prominent clerics who had signed a letter condemning the Egyptian army's seizure of power, Saudi media reported.
On Saturday, billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, another nephew of the Saudi king, sacked a Kuwaiti preacher from his top job at a religious television station he owns because of the cleric's brotherhood ties.
The tough Saudi line is shared with the Emirates, which has no quarter for the Brotherhood.
"I don't think the UAE will step back from giving help to Egypt according to how many are dying. They are convinced that the government is doing the right thing and defending the country from a terrorist group," said Ibtisam al-Qitbi, a political analyst in Dubai.
Kuwait, the other Gulf kingdom to promise billions, is also wary of the Brotherhood and expelled nine Egyptian members of the group on Sunday for protesting, but its position is somewhat more nuanced than that of either Riyadh or Abu Dhabi.
Brotherhood politicians serve as opposition members of Kuwait's parliament and have long been part of the establishment. A Foreign Ministry statement on Friday regretted the "large number of Egyptian fatalities".
"There is a dilemma in Kuwait. The Muslim Brothers are well entrenched in the political scene and also in the government apparatus," said Ghanem al-Najjar, professor of political science at Kuwait University.
The one rich Gulf country that did not share the Saudi-led consensus was Qatar, which backed Egypt with $7 billion during Mursi's year in power.
Qatar condemned both Mursi's removal and last week's violence, calling on the generals to "refrain from the security option" in tackling protests.
Nevertheless, Qatar has a new ruler after its emir stepped down this year in favor of his son, and many in the Gulf believe it is stepping back from an ambitious foreign policy that saw it lavish funds on Arab Spring revolutionaries.
"The king doesn't like blood"
In addition to cash, which Cairo urgently needs to buy food and fuel, Gulf friends provide it with diplomatic cover. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, another nephew of the king, used a visit to France on Sunday to warn Western countries not to pile pressure on Cairo, saying "we will not achieve anything through threats".
The West also viewed the Brotherhood's rise with alarm. But Western countries were clearly hoping that democracy would force the Islamists either to adapt to popular demands for better government or be voted out of office. The absolute monarchies of the Gulf never shared that faith in popular rule.
"The Saudis are not wildly enthusiastic about the argument that the best way of getting the Egypt we all want is by having the Muslim Brotherhood lose an election," said a diplomat in the Gulf, arguing that Riyadh supported the crackdown.
Nevertheless, the violence of the past week could bring precisely the sort of instability Riyadh was seeking to avert: "The king," the diplomat added, "doesn't like blood being spilled."
The Gulf princes may have written a blank cheque for Sisi, but in return for their cash, they will be expecting the Egyptian military commander to deliver the promised stability.
"Restoring order and making sure to avoid any complications, getting security back, is the most important thing now. Then any political discussion can take place," said Abdulaziz al-Sager, head of the private Gulf Research Centre thinktank in Jeddah.
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But their policy would achieve the objectives .. while the ALP policy won't. But it shows that the objectives of reducing Carbon Dioxide (vis plant food) isn't the issue .. wealth redistribution is. - ed
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Jailed for sleeping with a 12 yo .. - ed
Gay cheerleader thrown in jail: Was it because of her relationship -- or underage sex?http://bit.ly/14Xmsj5
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“Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 John 5:12 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"He shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord."
Micah 5:4
Christ's reign in his Church is that of a shepherd-king. He has supremacy, but it is the superiority of a wise and tender shepherd over his needy and loving flock; he commands and receives obedience, but it is the willing obedience of the well-cared-for sheep, rendered joyfully to their beloved Shepherd, whose voice they know so well. He rules by the force of love and the energy of goodness.
His reign is practical in its character. It is said, "He shall stand and feed." The great Head of the Church is actively engaged in providing for his people. He does not sit down upon the throne in empty state, or hold a sceptre without wielding it in government. No, he stands and feeds. The expression "feed," in the original, is like an analogous one in the Greek, which means to shepherdize, to do everything expected of a shepherd: to guide, to watch, to preserve, to restore, to tend, as well as to feed.
His reign is continual in its duration. It is said, "He shall stand and feed;" not "He shall feed now and then, and leave his position;" not, "He shall one day grant a revival, and then next day leave his Church to barrenness." His eyes never slumber, and his hands never rest; his heart never ceases to beat with love, and his shoulders are never weary of carrying his people's burdens.
His reign is effectually powerful in its action; "He shall feed in the strength of Jehovah." Wherever Christ is, there is God; and whatever Christ does is the act of the Most High. Oh! it is a joyful truth to consider that he who stands today representing the interests of his people is very God of very God, to whom every knee shall bow. Happy are we who belong to such a shepherd, whose humanity communes with us, and whose divinity protects us. Let us worship and bow down before him as the people of his pasture.

Evening

"Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my strength."
Psalm 31:4
Our spiritual foes are of the serpent's brood, and seek to ensnare us by subtlety. The prayer before us supposes the possibility of the believer being caught like a bird. So deftly does the fowler do his work, that simple ones are soon surrounded by the net. The text asks that even out of Satan's meshes the captive one may be delivered; this is a proper petition, and one which can be granted: from between the jaws of the lion, and out of the belly of hell, can eternal love rescue the saint. It may need a sharp pull to save a soul from the net of temptations, and a mighty pull to extricate a man from the snares of malicious cunning, but the Lord is equal to every emergency, and the most skilfully placed nets of the hunter shall never be able to hold his chosen ones. Woe unto those who are so clever at net laying; they who tempt others shall be destroyed themselves.
"For thou art my strength." What an inexpressible sweetness is to be found in these few words! How joyfully may we encounter toils, and how cheerfully may we endure sufferings, when we can lay hold upon celestial strength. Divine power will rend asunder all the toils of our enemies, confound their politics, and frustrate their knavish tricks; he is a happy man who has such matchless might engaged upon his side. Our own strength would be of little service when embarrassed in the nets of base cunning, but the Lord's strength is ever available; we have but to invoke it, and we shall find it near at hand. If by faith we are depending alone upon the strength of the mighty God of Israel, we may use our holy reliance as a plea in supplication.

"Lord, evermore thy face we seek:
Tempted we are, and poor, and weak;
Keep us with lowly hearts, and meek.
Let us not fall. Let us not fall."
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Today's reading: Psalm 103-104, 1 Corinthians 2 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 103-104

1 Praise the LORD, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the LORD, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-
3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
6 The LORD works righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel:
8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love....

Today's New Testament reading: 1 Corinthians 2

1 And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power.
God's Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit
6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God's wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory....

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Haman

[Hā'man] - well disposed. The son of Hammedatha, the chief minister of king Ahasuerus, who is called the Agagite because of his Amalekitish descent (Esther 3:1-5).

The Man Who Hated Jews

Haman, an oriental despot's favorite, had an innate passion for elevation. He never considered principle when seeking the king's honor. But Mordecai pricked Haman's bubble and would not bow to him. How could he honor an Amalekite whom God had cursed (Exod. 17:14-16)! All of Haman's tragedy is condensed in the arrestive designation - he was the Jews'enemy. As the first great anti-semite, he came to prove that they who curse the Jews are cursed of God.
Haman, the vain and fussy courtier, the vulgar and unwise upstart, the cruel enemy of the Jews, the villain of the plot, is a name still hated by the Jews. Long ago at The Feast of Purim , it was customary to hang an effigy of Haman; but as the gibbet was sometimes made in the form of a cross, riots between Jews and Christians were the result, and a warning against insults to the Christian faith was issued by the Emporer Theodosius II. The Jews, however, in The Feast of Purim still celebrate their victory from annihilation by Haman.
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