Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Mon Aug 27th Todays News

Scott Morrison deserves a chance as PM. The Liberals will come together as conservatives or get slaughtered in the next election. If that happens, Tony Abbott can pick up the pieces.  It is concerning that Morrison is not jettisoning Paris, as there is no positive from it. However, Morrison has backed the removal of clean energy targets that formed an impost on industry and acted like a tax, raising prices. The issue of Abbott is not going away yet. Also, Bishop, who is going to sit on the backbench and prevent the liberals from having a competent member in her blue ribbon seat. It is said Bishop is fuming because a WhatsApp conversation was posted showing her colleagues despised her for being incompetent. She had allegedly set up WhatsApp with colleagues to hurt Barnaby Joyce, not be attacked by colleagues. Is this misogyny?

RRPB wrote "Let's get this plain fact clear. Abbott lost his Prime Ministership because the NSW Division controlled faction ousted him. Had he focused on party politics as Menzies did, he would have maintained political.control of the largest division and we would never havr had to suffer this gross indignation. Run the party first. Then you can run the country."

Not true. Abbott ran a tight disciplined ship, ably supported by good people including Credlin and her husband. However things were tight because of Turnbull who leaked and got others to leak. Turnbull was not making headway. The independent senators were fracturing in opposition to Abbott and he was positioning them to be toast when things changed. The change was two things. One, Costello moved to end Turnbull’s wrecking ball from cruelling the chances of more state governments like QLD and Vic. Also, Turnbull got his former deputy to pay the Clinton Foundation with foreign aid money. This allowed a lot of foreign expertise and several ongoing campaigns to address the issue. for example Gillard's 'Women hate Abbott.' Bishop was outraged she needed a minder to go overseas. Victoria’s corrupt director of the time commissioned a poll for Turnbull showing no woman would vote for Abbott and Abbott could not possibly win without women. Party pollsters begged bed wetters to overthrow Abbott. Had Abbott survived and Hastie been elected the storm would have passed. Abbott would have gone to election on a positive agenda. It would have been a half senate election preserving gains made in 2013. Turnbull ended the positive policy agenda, breaking promises he made to the IPA. Turnbull chose a policy mix closer to ALP to become a small target, and so people who were conservative were denied a choice of party, and Libs lost a million votes to smaller parties.

Thing is, the Clinton Foundation don't have one policy, but a suite of them. So Hunt's almost responsible policy of subsidy for business to address climate change, through the prism of the Clinton Foundation becomes targets for renewables, save the barrier reef, money to Palestine, Rohingya attacked by Suu Kyi, McCain criticises Trump, Russia colludes with Trump and so on. Turnbull had to prefer Hillary to Trump. And he had. 

But those hating Abbott are not moving on. Abbott has been extraordinarily gracious. He is willing to serve, and willing to serve more time on the back bench to allow healing, so long as a positive direction is made. People are still trying to beat up Abbott because they don't want to admit they had been wrong in 2015. But bedwetters were wrong in 2015, and if they continue to fight those battles, they will continue to hurt the Liberal Party and all of Australia.

From my article on Quora
What is the worst part about high school?

Schooling is ancient but not natural. One can point to Socrates observing that everyone agreed that the virtues should be taught, but no two agreed on what the virtues were. The same observation could have been made in 1900, or in 2000, or today. And because it is not a natural process, what happens does not *feel* right.

Children grow and and acquire individual identities. They make choices. Their choices go to creating and reinforcing their identities. Schooling allows children to act in groups and discover group identity. To deny them that is to deny them an ability to develop a sense. And within a group there are roles that they will be comfortable adopting. Not everyone leads, not everyone contributes the same way. Not everything is equal. And yet it is fair. It is efficient. It allows diversity even as it promotes conformity.

Schooling is confronting, daunting and sometimes enervating and frustrating. It is character building.
= =
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. How does Williams view harm minimisation on traffic infringements? Or does she prefer zero tolerance? It looks like police have a harm minimisation policy with appalling abuses on the road that could cause an accident but sometimes don't. Has anyone an anecdote they want to share? Bus drivers being cautioned from complaining, accidents unreported, or near misses. Contact me and I'll raise the issue.

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 Don't Cry Out Loud 

Peter Allen And Carole Bayer Sager song I liked, to test my ability to use Final Cut software
I am appalled at how Julia Gillard belittles actual victims with her politics. From parents, victims of rape, gender bias, through to victims of crime and corruption, Gillard has shown she is a bully, not a Prime Minister. She has shrunk in office, and shrunk the office. So I made this video to protest. 
===


=== from 2017 ===
Some things should not happen, but they do. Five traffic violations in 2km were ignored as a bus driver went from McRae St Dandenong to Dandenong station last Wednesday. An exercise in harm minimisation, why prosecute when an accident did not happen? Friday, there was a near miss in Dandenong in which nobody was at fault, but had the road rules been routinely followed, would never have happened. Wednesday, firstly a car stopped in the 893 McRae st bus zone, preventing it from stopping. Then another cut in front of the bus, but still had to wait at a red light. Then another ran a red light and the bus which had had sufficient space had to cover a crossing for lights to change. Then a truck waited illegally to turn right outside Drum theatre, forcing the bus to miss another light. The Friday near miss involved the driver turning left into a blind bend on Langhorne St from the Pacific Highway while a car had done a three point u turn and was backing out of the Job Training Institute. Luckily the 901 bus driver was used to accelerating into red lights (and braking hard) and was able to brake hard enough. But the truth is laws are enforced or there are no laws. And Harm Minimisation fails, but Zero Tolerance works for all.

It is ok to 'ping' a transgressor. So long as the sanction is fair and proportionate with the offence. If cars were fined for bad behaviour around busses, their drivers would behave better. And there would be fewer accidents. That is how Zero Tolerance works. Dan Andrews has his police focused on issues like wearing purple to show solidarity with SSM. But gays, even married gays, are not generally law breakers. They don't need enhanced police appreciation. Instead, we need police to spray themselves with alcohol, nicotine and funny stuff and cuss like soldiers in plain clothes so they can get close to criminals who otherwise seem to own Victorian streets. And the gender of officers keeping the streets clean of crime does not matter. 

How come Melbourne busses aren't monitoring their driver driving behaviour? There are signs about 'smooth rides' but there are many drivers who are accelerating and braking hard into stops and red lights. Some drivers in similar circumstances are not doing that. Technology is becoming available which can monitor driver awareness and general health. The public deserve to have the best at the price they pay their drivers. 

























































=== from 2016 === 
The corrosive nature of media has won government for the ALP in the Northern Territory. In token politics reversal, the first Aboriginal leader of a major political party looks likely to lose his own seat. Naturally, Adam Giles is a conservative. The party that monopolises tokens, the ALP, have not got a policy beyond tax and spend. The ALP have a divided leadership and have relied on the media to cover up their appalling policy which saw Aboriginal children beaten in custody. Prime Minister Turnbull seemed to blame Giles for the issue when he launched a royal commission. 

The NSW Baird government is a safe one for conservatives to hit as they try to appear balanced to lefties who don't care about balance anyway. Two major decisions by the Baird government are being challenged by self interest groups and inflated by lazy political opposition. But the NSW government deserve kudos for bringing the state out of debt. Something the ALP said was impossible. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.  
=== from 2015 ===
Hate crime perpetrated by mentally ill journalist on air. He had been sacked a few years ago. He felt inspired by psychotic killers. He felt he didn't have dignity. He killed some good people and then himself. Obama immediately exploited his atrocity in the hopes of weakening gun laws, making it harder for good people to obtain guns. 

Corrupt ALP add more lies to the smear of Heydron hoping to force him to stand aside. It would be a dangerous precedent if he does, meaning any future Royal Commission could be derailed by smears and innuendo. 

ALP lying about free trade with China threatens agreement.

CFMEU sued for $28 million.

Australia's parliament keeps using the word 'equality' and yet each member of the top 1% of earners pays the same as 70 Australians in the bottom quartile. Australia needs to be business and investor friendly to prosper. 

Melbourne University illustrates anti semitism in her journalism course mock press conference

Gillard backflips over gay marriage. She opposed it as PM in '12.

Greens lie about dredging and Barrier Reef. Flannery lied about Dams never filling again. 
From 2014
A tenth Liberal Party member has stood aside after being fingered by the ICAC. The member denies the allegations which are not within three orders of magnitude of Eddie Obeid's property management which the ICAC passed without comment during the reign of Bob Carr and Iemma. It wasn't that the ALP corruption was hidden. One Liberal affiliated businessman was assassinated by ALP backers and it wasn't uncovered until a Liberal link was found. Earlier in the week the assassination of Donald Mackay was discussed with a previously dismissed alleged witness claiming to be ready to step forward. Thing is, the ALP are not clean over the issue, being too connected to drug crime and politically opposed to the victim. But the press are running with an allegation against Mr Abbott that he had claimed to have been late to a party function because he had to claim entitlements. ALP leader Shorten, who never notices if he has entitlements or other ALP do, said that it was telling someone within the Liberal Party was leaking to damage the Liberal Party. It is telling. It would never happen with the ALP, where gross corruption goes unreported and ignored. However, there appears to be no substance to the allegation against Mr Abbott. Even so, it would be nice for these allegations to be cleared regarding the Liberal Party. And it would be better to see them addressing extant issues, like the bizarre cover up of the death of Hamidur Rahman. 

Palmer can say *anything* to anyone and none of it can be considered reliable. This is illustrated by his recollection of a trip to China in 1962 and notes taken at the time. Girls are raped in a British village and the (approximately 1400) victims are ignored because of the race and religion of their abusers. Say 'no' for the proposed change to the Australian constitution to introduce race. Race is not needed for the state to function. ASIO is asking for special laws to protect Australians. There is good reason for extraordinary rules in extraordinary times, and if they have a sunset clause, they sound worthwhile. Paul Keating has released a book about himself, and he reminds the world he was another incompetent who protected other incompetents while he was in government, so that no one knows who was the most incompetent. 
Historical perspective on this day
410 – The sacking of Rome by the Visigoths ends after three days.
1172 – King Henry II of England crowns his heirs, Henry the Young King and Queen Margaret, but gives them no actual authority.
1593 – Pierre Barrière fails in his attempt to assassinate King Henry IV of France.
1689 – The Treaty of Nerchinsk is signed by Russia and the Qing Empire (Julian calendar).
1776 – Battle of Long Island: In what is now Brooklyn, New York, British forces under General William Howe defeat Americans under General George Washington.
1793 – French Revolutionary Wars: The city of Toulon revolts against the French Republic and admits the British and Spanish fleets to seize its port, leading to the Siege of Toulon by French Revolutionary forces.
1798 – Wolfe Tone's United Irish and French forces clash with the British Army in the Battle of Castlebar, part of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, resulting in the creation of the French puppet Republic of Connacht.

1810 – Napoleonic Wars: The French Navy defeats the British Royal Navy, preventing them from taking the harbour of Grand Port on Île de France.
1813 – French Emperor Napoleon I defeats a larger force of Austrians, Russians, and Prussians at the Battle of Dresden.
1828 – Uruguay is formally proclaimed independent at preliminary peace talks brokered by the United Kingdom between Brazil and Argentina during the Cisplatine War.
1832 – Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.
1859 – Petroleum is discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania leading to the world's first commercially successful oil well.
1881 – The Georgia hurricane makes landfall near Savannah, Georgia, resulting in an estimated 700 deaths.
1883 – Eruption of Krakatoa: Four enormous explosions destroy the island of Krakatoa and cause years of climate change.
1893 – The Sea Islands hurricane strikes the United States near Savannah, Georgia, killing between 1,000-2,000 people.
1896 – Anglo-Zanzibar War: The shortest war in world history (09:00 to 09:45), between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar.

1914 – Battle of Étreux: A British rearguard action by the Royal Munster Fusiliersduring the Great Retreat.
1916 – The Kingdom of Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary, entering World War I as one of the Allied nations.
1918 – Mexican Revolution: Battle of Ambos Nogales: U.S. Army forces skirmish against Mexican Carrancistas in the only battle of World War I fought on American soil.
1922 – Greco-Turkish War: The Turkish army takes the Aegean city of Afyonkarahisarfrom the Kingdom of Greece.
1927 – Five Canadian women file a petition to the Supreme Court of Canada, asking, "Does the word 'Persons' in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?"
1928 – The Kellogg–Briand Pact outlawing war is signed by fifteen nations. Ultimately sixty-one nations will sign it.

1933 – The first Afrikaans Bible is introduced during a Bible Festival in Bloemfontein.
1939 – First flight of the turbojet-powered Heinkel He 178, the world's first jet aircraft.
1942 – First day of the Sarny Massacre.
1943 – World War II: Japanese forces evacuate New Georgia Island in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.
1943 – World War II: Aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe razes to the ground the village of Vorizia in Crete.
1956 – The nuclear power station at Calder Hall in the United Kingdom was connected to the national power grid becoming the world's first commercial nuclear power station to generate electricity on an industrial scale.

1962 – The Mariner 2 unmanned space mission is launched to Venus by NASA.
1964 – South Vietnamese junta leader Nguyễn Khánh enters into a triumvirate power-sharing arrangement with rival generals Trần Thiện Khiêm and Dương Văn Minh, who had both been involved in plots to unseat Khánh.
1971 – An attempted coup d'état fails in the African nation of Chad. The Government of Chad accuses Egypt of playing a role in the attempt and breaks off diplomatic relations.
1975 – The Governor of Portuguese Timor abandons its capital, Dili, and flees to Atauro Island, leaving control to a rebel group.
1979 – A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb kills British retired admiral Lord Mountbatten and three others while they are boating on holiday in Sligo, Republic of Ireland. Shortly after, 18 British Army soldiers are killed in an ambush near Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland.

1980 – A massive bomb planted by extortionist John Birges explodes at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada after a failed disarming attempt by the FBI. Although the hotel is damaged, no one is injured.
1982 – Turkish military diplomat Colonel Atilla Altıkat is shot and killed in Ottawa. Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide claim to be avenging the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
1985 – The Nigerian government is peacefully overthrown by Army Chief of Staff Major General Ibrahim Babangida.
1991 – The European Community recognizes the independence of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
1991 – Moldova declares independence from the USSR.

2003 – Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing 34,646,418 miles (55,758,005 km) distant.
2003 – The first six-party talks, involving South and North Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, convene to find a peaceful resolution to the security concerns of the North Korean nuclear weapons program.
2006 – Comair Flight 5191 crashes on takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky bound for Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta. Of the passengers and crew, 49 of 50 are confirmed dead in the hours following the crash.
2009 – Internal conflict in Burma: The Burmese military junta and ethnic armies begin three days of violent clashes in the Kokang Special Region.
2011 – Hurricane Irene strikes the United States east coast, killing 47 and causing an estimated $15.6 billion in damage.
=== 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 Chris Berg, Geoff Bradley and Sultans Favorite. Born on the same day, across the years. Along with Ashikaga Yoshikazu (1407), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770), Giuseppe Peano (1858), Charles Rolls (1877), C. S. Forester (1899), Donald Bradman (1908), Barbara Bach (1947), Gerhard Berger (1959) and Sarah Hecken (1993). On your day, 1859 – Edwin Drake successfully drilled for oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania, US, resulting in the Pennsylvania oil rush and the birth of the modern oil industry.
1896 – The United Kingdom and Zanzibar went to war, with Zanzibar surrendering less than an hour after the conflict broke out.
1922 – Turkish forces re-captured Afyon, the first victory of their counterattack during the Greco-Turkish War.
1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Moldova declared its independence during the aftermath of the failure of the Soviet coup d'état attempt.
2003 – The first round of six-party talks to find a peaceful resolution to the security concerns as a result of the North Korean nuclear weapons program opened. You have oil. Victory is quick. Greece is losing (geddit? Oil and grease?). But the most evil of modern empires has collapsed. Now we discuss peace. And party.
Deaths
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Tim Blair
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Andrew Bolt
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TIM ON THE RUN

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 27, 2016 (4:16am)

I’m out of here for a few weeks. Posts from this point may be infrequent – but could become more numerous during early September, when a secret mission begins:

Note that fantastic steering wheel. Apparently the original design specifications included the word “yards”.
===

OTHER-WORLDLY DRILLING CONTRAPTION FRIGHTENS, CONFUSES MEDIA AUDIENCE

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 27, 2016 (3:10am)

In her entire life, Washington Post reporter Jenna Johnson has apparently never seen a milling machine:

That thing happening behind Mike Pence? This is not unusual.

Former MSNBC presenter Keith Olbermann is similarly perplexed by the common appliance, as is Johnson’s fellow Post reporter Mark Berman and television producer Miles Kahn.
These people live in the greatest industrial era in human history, yet they evidently have never once been inside a machining facility. They do not know how simple metal shapes are formed. The process alarms them.
UPDATE. Barack Obama, 2007: “We don’t know what a hitch ball is. Anybody know?”
===

CONCEPT CONFOUNDING

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 27, 2016 (2:50am)

The concept of free speech seems to confound people who otherwise present as quite intelligent. 
Except for Corinne Grant, rather obviously.
===

GO LEFT AND LOSE

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 27, 2016 (2:02am)

An unsurprising decline for Mike Baird’s government: 
A run of controversial policy decisions and hospital scandals has seen support for the NSW government crash to leave Labor and the Coalition neck and neck almost 18 months after Premier Mike Baird’s 2015 election victory.
An exclusive poll conducted for Fairfax Media shows support for Labor and the Coalition at 50–50 on a two-party preferred basis, using preference flows from the 2015 election …
The Coalition’s primary vote was recorded at 39.4 per cent, Labor’s at 34.9 per cent, the Greens at 8 per cent, others at 9.6 per cent, with 8.1 per cent undecided.
In an extraordinary result, a narrow majority of NSW voters said Opposition leader Luke Foley would make a better premier than 66. 
A couple of days ago, Baird said: “My hope is that over time, what the people of this state see is we’re not trying to win re-election.” They’re seeing it, Mike.
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HEROES ALL

Tim Blair – Friday, August 26, 2016 (9:48pm)

There have been so many terrorist attacks in France that the French government may soon run out of medalscommending those who – just like Tom Jackson and Dan Richards in Queensland – risked their lives protecting others or otherwise took action.
Among the latest to be recognised: Alexander Migues, Gwenael Leriche, Lassana Bathily, Aurelie Chatelain, a 48-year-old man named Franck, Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler, Mark Moogalian, Ludovic Boumbas, Sister Danielle Delafosse, Gilles Thevenet and Dr. Virginie Rampal.
Read on.
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BABBLING BROOKS

Tim Blair – Friday, August 26, 2016 (6:42pm)

Academic and multiple grant recipient Rob Brooks takes issue with Monday’s column: 
In 18 years of applying for research support, I have never yet proposed a project with more pressing or important consequences. 
Really? Well, let’s take another look at Brooks’s incredibly significant proposal: 
This project intends to address how the evolutionary phenomena of intra-sexual competition and inter-sexual conflict interact with economic circumstances to shape gendered behaviour and attitudes. These phenomena are important in evolution, economics, psychology and sociology, with implications for the economy and for the welfare of women and men. The project predicts that gender-related culture arises, partially, out of mating market dynamics. The research crosses traditional boundaries between biology and economics to investigate the forces giving rise to gendered behaviour and resulting patterns of marriages, violence, political preferences and occupational choices. The project may provide new insights into the links between gender and violence, within-family conflicts, and gender roles in the home and workplace. 
Yep. Clearly worth every cent of $592,800. Please enjoy Rob’s argument in its entirety. Alert readers may detect one or two flaws.
===

The tyranny of hurt feelings

Andrew Bolt August 27 2016 (12:04pm)

Hedley Thomas reveals the great danger of an absurd law that makes hurt feelings a reason to censor and punish other people:
Comprehensive medical reports question the severity and reasons for a stress disorder affecting an indigenous university staffer who is seeking $250,000 damages from students in a section 18C racial hatred case. 
The medical reports, introduced to the controversial case as formal public exhibits by the Queensland University of Technology employee and her Brisbane solicitor Susan Moriarty suggest Cindy Prior carries past grievances and overreacted to students’ Facebook posts.
Simone Shaw, a psychologist who conducted a long interview and examination, said in a 13-page report that Ms Prior was “unlikely to attribute personal responsibility to events that occur in her life”.
“As a result of this personality style, she is likely to blame and begrudge others when she perceives she has been mistreated, which appears evident in relation to the incident on 28 May, 2013,’’ Dr Shaw reported.
“She may be blindly uncritical of her own behaviour and insensitive to negative consequences associated with her behaviour, tending to minimise the negative impact that her behaviour has on others and on herself.
Dr Shaw said Ms Prior appeared to have had numerous workplace occurrences that she had perceived as bullying, harassment and racial vilification…
“Ms Prior presents with strong convictions in relation to fairness and equity and her sense of injustice, not only in relation to the most recent workplace incident, but this was also evident through her recollections of her involvement in four previous workplace incidents and two historical personal incidents that subsequently caused her significant distress and she reportedly instigated legal involvement on several occasions to resolve those issues...”
Ms Prior has an ongoing Federal Circuit Court action against students under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which makes it unlawful for anyone to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” another person or group on the grounds of race, colour or ethnicity.
On May 28, 2013, engineering student Alex Wood wrote on Facebook: “Just got kicked out of the unsigned indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation?”
He wrote it soon after Ms Prior, an administrative officer in QUT’s Oodgeroo Unit, had directed Mr Wood and two other students to leave the unit. She had first asked whether they were indigenous as the Oodgeroo Unit was established for Aboriginal students. Mr Wood and his friends packed up and left the unit peacefully after Ms Prior’s intervention and questioning.
Another student, Jackson Powell, who is also being sued, read Mr Wood’s post and wrote a sarcastic reply: “I wonder where the white supremacist lab is."…
The 18C case, which has led to confidential cash settlements by several other students in return for their release from the legal action, advanced to the Federal Circuit Court after going first to the Human Rights Commission…
The students and their lawyers say the case is a glaring example of how section 18C can be misused to demand money and smear people as racists, while proponents of reform have called for section 18C to be abolished. Malcolm Turnbull says he and the government are focused on the economy rather than looking at 18C, but conservative backbenchers and independents want action.
===

Book dines at Stein’s

Andrew Bolt August 27 2016 (11:40am)

My book is on an odyssey, visiting Alaska, Bath, the skulls of Montpellier, York Minster, Shanghai,  Corsica, Croatia,  Ho Chi Minh City, Santorini, London, Scotland, Ithaca, the Bay of Naples, Lake Como, Dubrovnik, Fiji, Aileron,  New Zealand, Sri Lanka,  the Andes,  the Northern Territory,  the Whitsundays,  Kalgoorlie and Condabri, Queensland, before invading Australia’s most Left-wing Parliament - an experience which convinced one reader at the Katharine River Mango Farm to try teaching even a donkey to understand what’s in it. Meanwhile, it  attended a christening in Newcastle, checked in at a Penrith hospital and recuperated at the Moreton Bay Boat Club before sailing down the Murray and visiting the Mt Annan Australian Botanical Garden and Araluen Botanic Park.
Now reader Alex takes the lucky book to lunch at Rick Stein’s restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall:
To reward the gourmet in your life, order the book here. On-line buyers also get the semi-regular Bolt Bulletin, as will people pre-ordering the reprint of my Still Not Sorry on line.    
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Crisis discovered again. Solutions not

Andrew Bolt August 27 2016 (11:25am)

Eleven months into the job, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull discovers we have a debt crisis:
Turnbull has unveiled the central mission of his new government and the obligations falling on the coming parliament — it is a moral appeal for all MPs to confront, admit and act on Australia’s unsustainable financial position… 
Turnbull says: “The essential obligation of this parliament has got to be coming to terms with the economic reality of our situation, putting aside the blame game, we should just recognise that we are living beyond our means and we have to have an honest debate about how we are going to deal with it."…
Australia’s debt now stands at $430 billion with interest payments running at $16bn annually. Gross debt increases by about $6bn a month. 
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:
This in August from a bloke whose budget in May‘improves’ the fiscal bottom line by a comical $1.7b over the next four years, while adding $85b to the debt over the same period. With no actions to back his words, Turnbull’s quotes are drivel.
Laurie Oakes:
TREASURER Scott Morrison set out to shock Australians on Thursday ... with his warnings about possible recessions and trillion-dollar debt unless the task of Budget repair is tackled seriously. 
But the speech will not solve the problem. It contained no proposals to break the political stalemate that prevents parliament passing significant measures to deal with deficits and debt…
If the Coalition and Labor are to find common ground on Budget repair, it will ... require a willingness to lose some face on both sides — and the abandonment of the kind of hypocrisy engaged in over an “omnibus Bill” of spending cuts that the government claims Labor supported during the election campaign.
A government genuinely interested in a bipartisan result would have quietly discussed the legislation with Shorten and shadow treasurer Chris Bowen to reassure them there were no traps. Instead, minister after minister demanded publicly that Labor pledge support for the Bill without even seeing it. That was partisan politics of the crudest sort and it backfired.
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If the Greens can’t take credit, same-sex marriage can’t happen

Andrew Bolt August 27 2016 (11:16am)

Here is more evidence that the Greens really are the party for the self-obsessed and selfish, for whom it is more important to make a gesture than a difference.  As I’ve often argued, this is a the party of permanent adolescents for whom - as is fashionable - it is more important to seem than to do. And thus also more important to take credit than to quietly succeed:
Incoming Liberal MP Tim Wilson on the Greens’ decision to block a same-sex marriage plebiscite, The Australian website, yesterday: 
The Greens would rather push this off for three, six, nine years so one day they can take the credit rather than actually use a pathway for same-sex couples to change the law … This is a betrayal of all their supporters who want to see a change in the law and shows they would rather use couples as political pawns rather than see them get married.
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Super savers not just taxed but deceived and abused

Andrew Bolt August 27 2016 (11:01am)

Grace Collier on the Government’s hang-the-savers war on superannuation:
...unless our stuffed superannuation system is fixed, Scott Morrison said on radio this week, he will find it pretty hard to look his “kids in the eye and tell them they’ve got to saddle a higher debt because someone who had a very big income wanted to pay less tax”. 
This “someone” with a “very big income” who wants to “pay less tax” is how the Treasurer refers nowadays to self-funded retirees. Earlier this month, he told listeners of radio station 5AA there were 6000 of them with superannuation balances of more than $5 million.
One might expect a Liberal politician to praise these people, hold them up as role models and publicly thank them for staying off the public purse…
But no… If one picks up Morrison’s vibe, the existence of these 6000 people is evidence the superannuation system is stuffed and the reason we are in debt and on the cusp of losing our triple-A credit rating…
Thanks to the website saveoursuper.org.au, we can see what the Treasurer said just last year about how the government would never, ever do what he said Labor would do, which is exactly what the government is going to do now: tax the income from people’s superannuation savings accounts.
Radio 3AW, June 19 last year: “Well, we do want to encourage everyone … to be saving for their retirement and … we don’t want to tax you, like (Labor’s treasury spokesman) Chris Bowen does.”
Radio 2GB, May 25 last year: “My own view is … I don’t want to tax people more when they’re basically investing for their own future … “
Question time, May 25 last year: “And when they get into their retirement, we are going to make sure that their hard-earned savings in their superannuation will not be the subject of the tax slug that those opposite want to impose… we will not tax them."…
Doorstop, May 8 last year: “The government has made it crystal clear that we have no interest in increasing taxes on superannuation either now or in the future … “
Press conference, May 7 last year: “… We will not tax your super.”
For those on the other side of this debate and supportive of the government’s changes, remember this: people who aim to fund their own retirements are not angry about having to pay more tax ... They are angry because they have been lied to by Morrison, and when he isn’t boasting about how he has caused the value of Australia’s largest pastoral company to plummet, he runs around the place insulting and degrading successful savers, the people he should be praising. In my opinion the man is dangerous and not fit to be Treasurer.
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We are paying the Human Rights Commission to exaggerate race hate and impose apartheid

Andrew Bolt August 27 2016 (10:47am)

Chris Merritt and a taxpayer-funded lynch mob out to destroy free speech and impose apartheid:
Tim Soutphommasane, the Race Discrimination Commissioner ... encouraged people to complain about a cartoon by Bill Leak that appeared in [The Australian] newspaper… 
The commissioner advised the public that complaints should be directed to the organisation where he works, the Australian Human Rights Commission.
His attempt to drum up work for the commission was followed by a torrent of abuse against Leak, whose cartoon depicted an Aboriginal policeman returning a delinquent Aboriginal youth to his equally delinquent father…
He had seemingly prejudged those complaints, which raises doubts about whether the commission itself can now deal fairly with this affair.
Soutphommasane is no fool [sic]… So why would he expose the commission to such a risk?…
(I)nformation that has now come to light hints at a… possible explanation.
That information comes from the commission itself and it shows that it is not exactly overrun with complaints invoking section 18C. In June, it was dealing with just 18 matters concerning racial hatred… It is outlined in heavily redacted documents that the Institute of Public Affairs extracted from the commission using the Freedom of Information Act…
This raises several issues. For an organisation that exists to deal with complaints about discrimination, how would it look if demand for its services under section 18C were to shrink to a mere handful of matters?…
The commission’s numbers tend to support the view that those who believe section 18C is an essential safeguard need to explain why so few people are trying to use it: just 116 out of a population of 24 million…
Despite the Turnbull government’s lack of leadership on this issue, reform of section 18C is back on the national agenda. That is due in no small part to the fact that this law has been turned against students at the Queensland University of Technology who did nothing more than ridicule their exclusion on racial grounds from part of the university. The QUT case has stripped away the spin of politically correct authoritarians and exposed the ugly truth about section 18C: it is building a new version of apartheid.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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How Turnbull could destroy the Liberals to save his pride

Andrew Bolt August 27 2016 (10:21am)

Labor is unikely to destroy the Turnbull Government. No, the most likely agent of destruction is Malcolm Turnbull himself.
Turnbull already seems to hate the job. He is not hailed as the savior he imagined. He flopped in the election and is mocked even by his own side, which must lacerate a man with such a sensitive pride. His two great allies in the leadership bid - Treasurer Scott Morrison and Loyal Deputy Julie Bishop - are now distancing themselves from him. (Anyone heard from Bishop in the past couple of months?)
I suspect Turnbull won’t care too much if he quits early, provided he stays longer than Tony Abbott and goes out in a blaze of self-justification - the self-immolation of a Götterdämmerung - to the applause of those whose opinion he cares for most. No, not the pygmies of his own party, as he’d see them, but the ABC Left.
Phil Coorey on the issue that could tempt Turnbull to destroy the Liberals, although Coorey mistakenly presents the issue as one that Liberals will use to destroy Turnbull:
Apart from the presence in Parliament House this week of the newly elected senators undergoing orientation, you’d be hard pressed to know we’ve just had an election… 
There was not a scintilla of recognition that the Coalition had been re-elected, let alone had anything approaching a mandate… Or, as Tony Abbott said on Friday: “When it comes to budget repair, the reality is that this government has been in office, not in power."…
(T)o those trying to hurt the government, everything else is just collateral damage. Take same-sex marriage…
Turnbull bitterly opposed a plebiscite until he rolled Abbott and had to give an oath in blood to both the conservatives and the Nationals that he would adhere to the party policy he inherited.
Labor never supported a plebiscite, neither did the Greens… There are more than a few in the Coalition – and the number is growing – who support Turnbull ditching the plebiscite and just getting on with it via a parliamentary vote. But even the most optimistic among them accepts all hell would break loose and it would be line-ball as to whether Turnbull’s leadership would come undone. Yet this is now the scenario being pushed with Labor, the Greens, NXT and Hinch all stating they will defeat in the Senate the legislation to establish the plebiscite… More than likely, the Senate blocking the plebiscite will not result in a parliamentary vote because the conservatives will never allow it and Turnbull would be mad to try and push it.
But what if Turnbull is not mad, but mad as hell? What if he wants not survival, but a legacy? What if he’d rather go out as the hero of the Left rather than cling on to its scorn?
Liberal and Nationals MP had better be on very high alert. They must get a guarantee from him now - not later - that no plebiscite means no vote in Parliament.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Turnbull unplugged

Andrew Bolt August 27 2016 (9:55am)

From a new book The Turnbull Gamble, by Wayne Errington and Peter Van Onselen, first, this fascinating background to Malcolm Turnbull’s disastrous “victory” speech on election night:
As the Prime Minister surveyed the wreckage around him, friends had to persuade him to make any sort of election-night appearance… 
It was after midnight when he finally took to the podium at Sydney’s Wentworth Hotel, and his remarks were not directed to the public who had ridden the rollercoaster of the election count over six hours in lounge rooms and pubs. His message was for a much smaller audience: Liberal MPs and senators who held his fate in their hands.
Turnbull got caught up in the moment, his emotions leading him to ignore the speech his staff had scripted for him, which {campaign director Tony] Nutt and [pollster Mark] Textor had approved. It was Turnbull unplugged, speaking from the heart. But his heart was black…
When seats are lost it’s customary to wish the fallen well. To thank them for their efforts. Turnbull failed to offer such tributes even though he had worked so closely with some of the losers. The set speech contained the necessary words, but Turnbull was off-script…
It’s also customary for the leader to take responsibility for the election result. This too was in the scripted speech never delivered. Turnbull tried to deflect blame for the result to Labor’s “systematic, well-funded lies”.
It was reminiscent of his speech on the night the republic referendum failed in 1999, when he declared Howard had broken the nation’s heart. He looked rattled. Throughout his life he had dealt with failure by blaming everyone but himself and moving on to the next challenge. Yet in both of his efforts as Liberal leader, Turnbull’s own mistakes largely explain his failures. Bad Malcolm was back.
And this judgement:
It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion, though, that Turnbull simply doesn’t deliver in an institutional environment. He was a dynamic journalist, barrister and entrepreneur, and could build respectful relationships with powerful employers such as Kerry Packer. However, whenever he has been responsible for leading a team — the Australian Republican Movement, Goldman Sachs, the Liberal Party and the Australian government — the results have been underwhelming. 
In government, Turnbull wanted to be a transformational leader…
A year into his prime ministership, one of the most brilliant people to lead Australia has not been able to achieve much. This is consistent with the pattern of his life. Turnbull is not a team man, but he now has the challenge of leading a team under the most challenging of circumstances.
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Baird dared voters, Big mistake

Andrew Bolt August 27 2016 (9:29am)

Thursday:
I don’t think it is wise for a politician to issue this invitation, especially in the context of seeming headstrong: 
The Premier [Mike Baird] said “of course there will be (a backlash)” from the greyhound ban, but voters “will have their right, come election-day in 2019 to pass judgment on decisions we’ve made”.
Today:
A run of controversial policy decisions and hospital scandals has seen support for the NSW government crash to leave Labor and the Coalition neck and neck almost 18 months after Premier Mike Baird’s 2015 election victory. 
An exclusive poll conducted for Fairfax Media shows support for Labor and the Coalition at 50–50 on a two-party preferred basis, using preference flows from the 2015 election …
In an extraordinary result, a narrow majority of NSW voters said Opposition leader Luke Foley would make a better premier than Mr Baird.
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Heydon delays his decision on resigning

Andrew Bolt August 27 2015 (5:19pm)

Dyson Heydon has postponed until Monday his decision on the demands by unions to quit as head of the royal commission into union corruption for what they claim is the impression he’d give bystandards of bias - an impression the unions have themselves frantically tried to create to nobble this corruption buster.
The delay follows today’s story in The Australian which as far as I can tell raised only one tricky point:
At 5.30pm on August 12, a staff member at the NSW Bar Assoc­iation took a call from Marcus Priest, lawyer, journalist and a former senior adviser to oppos­ition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus. 
Chris Winslow, the association’s publications manager, [was asked by Priest] about a bar association alert, put out in April, about the Sir Garfield Barwick lecture — the one that had Dyson Heydon, who was conducting the politically sensitive royal commission into trade unions, as its keynote speaker.
Priest expressed surprise that Heydon had agreed to speak at the event because of its connection to the Liberal Party and asked for a copy of the invitation.
Winslow sent an email to Priest, with the invitation attached, at 5.50pm.
However, as he headed home that evening, Winslow thought about the conversation and alarm bells rang. Was a story was about to appear in the media?…
As an officer of the bar association, Winslow felt he had an obligation to inform the commission about a possible ambush. He emailed Jeremy Stoljar SC, the counsel assisting the royal commission, just after 7pm: “Re the Barwick lecture: Does Dyson know this is connected to the Liberal Party?”
He received a reply almost immediately: “I’ll raise that with him.” The Australian does not know if or when Stoljar had that conversation. 
The tricky point? Heydon said he’d released all documents relating to the invitation and his decision ultimately to decline it. Now he’s released Stoljar’s diaries and other documents, which is embarrassing.
But it was also suggested that this undermines Heydon’s claim that it was before any media inquiry that he emailed the organisers to say he was pulling out if the function could be seen as a Liberal event. I see no evidence that this statement is false. The first reports hit online a good hour after he sent that email. Priest describes himself as ”former journalist” and is not with the media. Not is there any evidence that he works for the media or that Heydon even knew Priest had raised the issue. This is just more dust thrown in people’s eyes to create a false impression against a good judge.
Be very clear what is going on: unions and Labor are trying to destroy a royal commission that has already uncovered so much corruption and unlawful activity that 26 union officials former and present have been arrested or had charges recommended against them.
This is an attempt in my opinion to pervert if not the course of justice then to pervert the bringing to justice of the corrupt.
And next year this protection racket could control the government of the Commonwealth of Australia.
PS: there is one small ray of hope here. Had Heydon already decided to step down he could have gone ahead with tomorrow’s announcement. He would not have needed to give the ACTU more time to prepare its arguments in the light of this new information.
UPDATE
The allegations are just more bull. Stoljar’s diary reveals he had a conversation with Heydon in which Heydon clearly did not believe the lecture he had agreed to give was a Liberal party fundraiser:
Mr Heydon also released a note from senior counsel assisting Jeremy Stoljar’s diary, indicating he and the commissioner discussed the possible controversy about 9am on August 13. 
The note read: “Following conf – discussion JDH (Heydon) re Garfield Barwick address and my email from Chris Winslow saying it was a Liberal Party fundraiser. However JDH showed me an email from Greg Burton to him, also yesterday 12/8, saying it is not a fundraiser. JDH: Burton is closer to the action than Winslow – he ought to know. So OK to go ahead if JDH writes clarifying + response OK.”
The letter from Heydon’s solicitor assisting to the ACTU’s counsel makes the point I suggested above - at no time was Heydon told, or did he understand, Winslow had been contacted by a journalist. Indeed, Priest is not a journalist.
And again I ask: how does an apprehension of Liberal bias, even were this true, lead to an apprehension of anti-union bias?
UPDATE
The case remains this: the unions in their evidence could cite no examples of bias in Heydon’s actual conduct of the commission.  In fact, they praised him as a jurist.
Their laywers’ argument was purely that bystanders would think Heydon biased for accepting an invitation to a Liberal function - even though he in fact eventually declined it on the grounds that it was indeed a Liberal function.
But do those bystanders actually care?
In fact, the vast majority of bystanders would have no opinion at all in the matter.
Many of those who would have an opinion would, I suspect, see exactly what’s going on - the unions and Labor trying to shoot the sheriff.
And those bystanders who do now think Heydon is biased would have thought so not because of what Heydon actually did but because of what Labor, the unions and the Leftist media falsely claimed he’d done - that Heydon had “agreed to attend a Liberal fundraiser”, or even that he’d actually attended it. They’re opinions would be shaped by the smear campaign.
If this union case succeeds then no royal commissioner will ever be safe from what Heydon has endured - unions smearing him as biased and then telling him to resign because their smears worked. This would reward character assassination and demagoguery, with justice the loser.
Heydon cannot give in. I know this is bruising for a man who has spent his life being praised and admired, but the crooks and their apologists cannot be allowed to win. And Heydon cannot allow his fine career end with him stepping down for seeming biased. That would be unjust.
UPDATE
Alister Henskens SC, the member for Ku-ring-gai in the NSW Parliament, is appalled by the attacks on the man he’s worked with and admires:
Everything that has been said recently about the exceptional quality of Mr Heydon’s intellect is well deserved… 
Everyone who worked with him was left in no doubt that his intellectual integrity and independence was at the core of his professional ethos.  I cannot imagine that his approach to the Unions Royal Commission is any different.
I believe that Mr Heydon has lived in the Ku-ring-gai electorate and in the federal electorate of Bradfield for at least the last 20 years.  I have been a member of the local Liberal Party for the last 16 years, including from 2008 to 2015 when I was the Bradfield FEC President which is the senior voluntary position in the local Liberal Party.  To my knowledge Mr Heydon has had nothing whatsoever to do with the Liberal Party during the years of my membership and active local involvement in the Party.  In my experience, the comment attributed recently in the media to one of Mr Heydon’s former High Court colleagues, who said that Mr Heydon is “apolitical” is correct…
The people who know Mr Heydon are not just Liberal Party members like me or conservatives.  For example, Mr Richard Cobden SC, a former president of the Sydney gay and lesbian Madi Gras and an intellectual property law expert, last week wrote a letter to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald expressing similar sentiments to mine about Mr Heydon.
When good decent people like Mr Heydon, who have had a life of exceptional service to our community, are unfairly berated and denigrated, we all as a society lose out.  I have been very saddened by the events of recent weeks.  I think it has reflected very badly on those who have conducted the public attack on of one of our country’s greatest lawyers. 
His full speech to Parliament:

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Heydon delays his decision on resigning'
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But where’s the equality among taxpayers?

Andrew Bolt August 27 2015 (5:14pm)

Mikayla Novak on the overuse of a deadening word:
Yet each of the top 1 per cent of taxpayers on average pays as much tax as 70 Australiansin the bottom quartile of taxpayers. 
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Why Finkelstein?

Andrew Bolt August 27 2015 (2:33pm)

Quadrant has a question for Melbourne University:
(M)odern journalism, as defined by our tertiary institutions, requires the correct perspectives and passions, which is why one of [a Melbourne University] course’s videos ... is something of an education in itself. A mock press conference, it presents a sleazoid property developer detailing his plan to drain a marsh and build 89 new homes. 
The general and obvious wisdom to be drawn: shifty businessmen despoil Mother Nature to line their pockets ... councils are the handmaidens of conscienceless profiteers ... shifty businessmen don’t like to answer questions ... development is bad.
But they are not the only lessons Melbourne University’s Dr Margaret Simons and Dr Denis Muller would appear to be imparting. Do notice the name of the developer… To which ethno-religious group do you reckon the fictional “Mr Robert Finkelstein” might belong? Why that particular surname?
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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The Islamic State and the invasion of Europe

Andrew Bolt August 27 2015 (11:02am)

 THE Abbott Government says we must destroy the Islamic State in Syria to save lives. But we must save Europe, too.
The Islamic State, now ruling half of Syria and much of Iraq, is not just murdering civilians and training Australian jihadists.
It has also helped to force four million Syrians to flee their country.

Many have joined millions of illegal immigrants from the Middle East, Africa, Bangladesh and Pakistan now on the move — and especially to Europe, so much richer and safer.
The UN says 160,000 illegal immigrants have poured into Greece since January, four times more than in all 2014. At least 80 per cent are Syrians.
Another 110,000 illegal immigrants have sailed to Italy this year, mainly from Libya, also torn apart by jihadists and operating as a transit point for economic refugees from Africa.
Just last Saturday, 4400 people were picked up off Libya from a flotilla of 20 vessels.
Europe is in shock.
(Read full article here.) 
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“Even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems”

Andrew Bolt August 27 2015 (9:02am)

Warming alarmist Tim Flannery in 2007:
Sydney’s Warragamba dam today: 
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Murdered on air

Andrew Bolt August 27 2015 (8:48am)

A black man, two whites and talk of race revenge before the shooting starts.  But it doesn’t fit the preferred victim narrative, so this live-to-air murder will not by hyped into the standard story of American race-hate violence.
UPDATE
The killer filmed himself murdering his former colleagues. I won’t link to his pictures. Social media is brutalising us, making the shocking seem commonplace and clicks an affirmation.
UPDATE
John Hinderaker:
One thing we have learned is that some murders are important and others aren’t. White policeman kills black person: important! Black person kills white policeman: unimportant. White lunatic kills black people in South Carolina: important! Gay black lunatic kills white people in Virginia: something tells me this one is going in the “unimportant” column. It doesn’t advance the narrative. Except, of course, the gun control narrative.
Speaking of which:
The White House didn’t wait an hour before using the murders committed by Vester Flanagan in Virginia as an excuse to push for gun control. Josh Earnest began his press conference with this soliloquy: 
… This is another example of gun violence that has becoming all-too-common in communities large and small.
Violent crime, and homicide in particular, has been cut by approximately half since the mid-1990s, a time that coincides with liberalized gun laws in many states and more widespread ownership of handguns. Why do gun control advocates never acknowledge these basic facts? 
UPDATE

Three people shot and eight reportedly held hostage by a gunman who rammed his car into a store in Louisiana.
Another report clarifies:
According to the Sheriff, 2 People were stabbed and the responding Officer was shot Wednesday in Sunset.
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Labor’s lying campaign against the China deal will cost us

Andrew Bolt August 27 2015 (7:53am)

Greg Sheridan on Labor’s reckless pandering to a racist union campaign that puts Australia’s future in danger:
Almost everything Labor says about the [China-Australia Free Trade Agreement] is untrue or distorts the facts.... 
The misinformation is staggering. The clause in the FTA that says there is no need for prior labour market testing applies only to projects over $150 million. But in any event, as later clauses make abundantly clear, it is up to the Australian government in the context of any agreed project to set out what labour market testing is required… Not only that, any Chinese worker coming for any project will still have to come in under the normal 457 visa process, which can be tightened at any time an Australian government wants.
There are a couple of tiny classes of people not subject to any market testing, such as those receiving business visas. How could you possibly market test someone applying for a business visa?
The whole Labor campaign is fearmongering and old-style protectionism… Labor’s retrograde campaign has already damaged Australia’s reputation in the eyes of investors and Chinese government officials… What they have never previously thought is that we are untrustworthy and capable of ratting on an agreement 10 years in the making… This is an appalling show from Shorten’s Labor Party, one of the most nationally irresponsible episodes I have witnessed in the past quarter century.
Ed Gannon:
THE Labor Party’s campaign to derail Australia’s trade agreement with China borders on treachery… 
For the sake of making some cheap political, and populist, points at the behest of its union mates, the federal Opposition threatens to wreck an agreement vital to this nation…
China is now our biggest trade partner. And with the tariff reductions under this trade agreement, the export possibilities are huge, particularly for food.
What makes this deal so special is that unlike the iron ore boom of the past decade, our supply of food is renewable… It also means extra income will flow into the pockets of millions, not just those lucky few who hold mining licences. 
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Gillard changes mind on gay marriage, but still attacks Abbott for allowing what she wouldn’t

Andrew Bolt August 27 2015 (7:43am)

Julia Gillard climbs on the same-sex marriage bandwagon without being able to explain why:
Julia Gillard has declared her support for gay marriage three years after voting against the change in federal parliament, admitting that her “odd” and “idiosyncratic” position had surprised advocates for the social reform. 
The former prime minister revealed that she would now vote in favour of the change, sparking harsh criticism online from those who remain angry that she did not help to enact the reform when she had the chance…
“I think for our culture, for our heritage, the Marriage Act and marriage being between a man and a woman has a special status,” Ms Gillard told The Daily Telegraph in March 2011…
In the new speech, Ms Gillard said the current debate had led her to reconsider her old assumptions about gay marriage including her idea that it would be better to legislate civil unions between same-sex couples rather than amend marriage. “I thought the better approach was not to change the old but to create something new through civil unions,” she said in her speech.
But Gillard has no shame in attacking Tony Abbott for doing what she never dared - letting the public vote for the change that she blocked:
Ms Gillard lashed the Coalition government’s proposal for a “people’s vote” on marriage law ... “There is no logical reason for having such a vote on same sex marriage,” she said....  “With no logic to support it, the only foundation stone for the idea of a plebiscite or referendum is an appeal to the all too popular sentiment that politicians are inadequate, that their decision-making is somehow deficient.” 
Coming from Gillard, it’s no wonder voters would feel the decision-making of politicians is deficient. 
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ABC out of control. Mark Scott must go

Andrew Bolt August 27 2015 (7:37am)

The Herald Sun editorial:
IT’S time for a clean-out at the ABC following the crude insult against Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Q&A.
UPDATE
But the ABC keeps up its war against conservatives. On ABC Radio National Breakfast this morning, Fran Kelly and Paul Borngiorno hail Bill Shorten as a union reformer and spruik republicanism and same sex marriage (again). Then on to the next story: another anti-mining spray.
The ABC is out of control. 
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CFMEU, a major Labor donor, sued for $28 million

Andrew Bolt August 27 2015 (6:51am)

This case could have very interesting consequences:
UNDERWORLD heavyweight Mick Gatto demanded $100,000 from concrete giant Boral to settle a bitter dispute with the rogue CFMEU, a judge has heard. 
Boral is suing the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union in the Supreme Court for $28 million damages over a two-year blockade the construction company says caused chaos that drove customers to competitors. The blockade began after Boral refused to stop supplying concrete to construction giant Grocon — an enemy of the union.
(No comments for legal reasons.) 
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Green Waters drowns the facts

Andrew Bolt August 27 2015 (6:37am)

One of the exciting things about being a Green is that you no longer have to tell the truth. Any falsehood or exaggeration you utter is just a sign of your commitment, not of your deceit:
A little hyperbole never hurt anyone. Greens co-deputy leader Larissa Waters on the Adani coal project, ABC Radio 612 Brisbane, Tuesday: 
They should not start digging up the Great Barrier Reef. 
So the facts won’t, either. Queensland Resources Council chief executive Michael Roche, also Tuesday: 
No proposal for (the) development of Abbot Point port ever involved “digging up the reef”. The small area to be dredged … is outside the marine park and in fact some 53km from the reef.
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One law for all, and that should count for the AFL as well

Andrew Bolt August 27 2015 (6:23am)

THE AFL has been speared by Richmond star Dustin Martin as a hypocrite. And so scared to seem racist that it’s, well, racist.
The AFL’s match review committee this week referred Martin to the football operations department for “making a gesture to the crowd” at the Collingwood game — to wit, giving the two fingers.

He faces a fine of up to $2500, because inciting the crowd like that is not just rude but inflammatory. No wonder TV commentators were tut-tutting.
But wait. These same people had only praise in May when Adam Goodes, the Sydney champion, also made a gesture to the crowd, which I consider even more inflammatory.
(Read full article here.)
UPDATE
Martin is fined $2000. The hypocrites. 
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The new inquisition: do not argue, just conform

Andrew Bolt August 27 2015 (6:22am)

Tim Black on Brendan O’Neill’s confrontation with Australia’s new straighteners:
The parameters of public debate, the areas in which ideas and opinions can do battle, are shrinking before our eyes. A few years ago, arguing that the institution of marriage is a heterosexual institution would have been considered an unremarkable, and perfectly legitimate, view. But now this view is being pushed beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable, of what is appropriate. To defend traditional marriage today is to ask for the tweet-happy to brand ‘bigot’ across your face, turn you into a mocking meme, or just shame you back under the supposed rock from whence you crawled. Criticism of gay marriage is called hateful, discriminatory, backward. In the garb of progress, a virulent illiberalism is taking over public life, delineating what views are permissible and what views are not, what views aid the progressive cause, and what views are to be silenced. 
Australia is not a trailblazer here. Throughout the Western world, the drive to institutionalise gay marriage has been shot through with authoritarianism. In France two years ago, thousands of protesters against gay marriage were dispersed by tear-gas-deploying riot police. In America, opposition to gay marriage often prompts a public ‘outing’, vilification, and sometimes job loss, as Mozilla’s co-founder Brendan Eich found to his cost in April last year – ‘purge the bigots’, urged one commentator… The right-thinking and progressive might not realise it yet, but they are at the vanguard of a new Dark Ages.
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Abbott has some rats in his ranks

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (9:56am)

The most significant thing about this disputed report about not much is that some Liberals - ones I’m guessing suffer from Thwarted Ambition Syndrome - are now happy to trash their leader and hurt their party to work off their spleen:
Prime Minister Tony Abbott told government MPs he had to schedule an early morning visit to a cancer research centre in Melbourne on Tuesday so that he could justify billing taxpayers to be in the city for a “private function” the night before. 
Mr Abbott made the admission at the regular meeting of Liberal and Nationals MPs [in Canberra] after being taken to task by one his own senators for turning up an hour late.
Several MPs told Fairfax Media that the Prime Minister described the private function as a “fund-raiser” to the party room.
The issue came to a head when LNP senator Ian Macdonald, who has been a frequent critic of his own side since he was demoted from the frontbench after the election, told Mr Abbott his priority should have been the regular party room meeting, which is held every Tuesday morning when Parliament is sitting.
But Senator Macdonald was swiftly rebuked by colleagues including backbencher Ewen Jones, who said Senator Macdonald’s constant criticism of his own team had “overstepped the mark"…
Several government sources told Fairfax Media they were stunned to hear the Prime Minister respond to Senator Macdonald’s complaint by saying he had to schedule an official function on Tuesday morning so he could justify being in Melbourne for a fund-raiser the night before under entitlements. Cabinet Minister Malcolm Turnbull told ABC Radio on Wednesday morning Mr Abbott was “upfront” about why he was in Melbourne on a parliamentary sitting day but said he “did not recall” the prime minister saying anything about entitlements.  
Memory lane:
Julia Gillard yesterday flew to northern NSW on a taxpayer funded VIP jet for a staffer’s wedding and several low key announcements.  

Ms Gillard, along with Treasurer Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Penny Wong, will today attend the Byron Bay wedding of her press secretary Laura Anderson and Mr Swan’s chief-of-staff Jim Chalmers.
Her office confirmed the PM flew to northern NSW on a RAAF VIP Challenger aircraft. MPs are only entitled to use the RAAF special purpose flights for “commitments associated with their official responsibilities and other purposes including parliamentary business"… Yesterday, Ms Gillard and local MP Justine Elliot - a Kevin Rudd loyalist - held a press conference at Titenbar at the side of a new stage of the Pacific Highway duplication, which started in October and is not due to be completed until the end of next year. 
===

Clive Palmer’s excellent Chinese adventure, even more lurid than his father recalled

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (9:32am)

Three years after visiting Mao’s China Clive Palmer’s father talked to the Australian Women’s Weekly of that remarkable visit.
He recalls:
- the trip was on a freighter which “visited Red Chinese ports for two months”.
- the Palmer family did manage to visit the Great Wall and a Catholic church, where daughter Jean allegedly “bravely asked the guard: ‘Is the fence there to keep God in our out?’.
- but there is no mention of meeting Mao himself, or Premier Chou En-lai. No mention, either, of seeing any former Emperor working as a gardener. 
Now hear Clive Palmer, four decades later, add many florid details:
I think so, but I went up to China in 1962 with my father and mother and my sister who was nine years older than me and we stayed in China for around about six to nine months, I think it was somewhere in that order. I’ve still got a lot of movies of me on the Great Wall and in Beijing and stuff like that and it was an interesting time to be in China. I remember sitting on Chairman Mao’s knee. We were up there, he said something in Chinese, I didn’t know what it was, but everyone laughed. Many years later when my father died I looked at his diary and he said “Which imperialist capitalist country is this boy from?” And someone said “Australia” and then it’s in the diary that he said “Australians are the running dogs of the American imperialists.” 
The trip to the church gets even wilder, the way Clive now tells it:
In earlier tellings of his China tale - in which he met the legendary premier Chou En-lai and saw the former emperor Pu Yi working in the gardens of the Forbidden City in Beijing - Palmer said his recollections were aided by reading his father’s diaries as an adult. So now ... I ask what he remembers of China himself, without recourse to the diaries. He doesn’t hesitate. 
“I remember going to Beijing and seeing the machine-gun nest on top of the Catholic church. I remember a guard in the church with a bayonet. I remember going in the church and seeing a priest there with a little light on the side of the altar. I remember my [late] sister [Jean, then 18] talking in French with the priest. I remember them [earlier] going next door to get the priest, and him being bayoneted on the way over to see us ...”
He saw that? “I saw it,” says Palmer. “He was bayoneted in the leg. And I remember my father asking the guy that bayoneted him, through an interpreter, why there were guards on the church, and whether they were there to keep the people from practising their religion. I thought my father was a very courageous guy to do that. And I remember the answer that he got. The guy said that a priest in China was a pretty busy guy, and if you want to see him you have to make an appointment. Then I remember my sister stepping forward and asking was the guard there to protect the priest or to stop people getting in. And the guard said the people of the People’s Republic of China hated God so much that the guard was there to protect God.”
Speaking only for myself, I would not believe a word Palmer said about anything unless I had independent verification.

(Thanks to reader Nathan.) 
===

Girls left to be raped to protect multicultural ‘harmony’

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (8:53am)

Culture wars, Immigration

 An incredible report by an independent inquiry that details depravity and social disintegration in Britain’s Rotherham:
No one knows the true scale of child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Rotherham over the years. Our conservative estimate is that approximately 1400 children were sexually exploited over the full Inquiry period, from 1997 to 2013. 
In just over a third of cases, children affected by sexual exploitation were previously known to services because of child protection and neglect. It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered. They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten, and intimidated. There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators. This abuse is not confined to the past but continues to this day. In May 2014, the caseload of the specialist child sexual exploitation team was 51.
The report also details a great cowardice:
By far the majority of perpetrators were described as ‘Asian’ by victims, yet throughout the entire period, councillors did not engage directly with the Pakistani-heritage community to discuss how best they could jointly address the issue. Some councillors seemed to think it was a one-off problem, which they hoped would go away. Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so.
Multiculturalism at its very worst, tolerating an us-against-them that weakens a sense of duty to all, stifling criticism of values hostile to the host community’s and bolstering reactionary traditions and structures in the immigrant communities:
There was too much reliance by agencies on traditional community leaders such as elected members and imams as being the primary conduit of communication with the Pakistani-heritage community. The Inquiry spoke to several Pakistani-heritage women who felt disenfranchised by this and thought it was a barrier to people coming forward to talk about CSE… 
Census information from 2011 showed that Rotherham had nearly 8000 people with Pakistani or Kashmiri ethnicity, or 3.1% of the Borough population, an increase from 2% in the previous census. 77% of this population lived in one of three central wards of Rotherham. There are eight mosques in Rotherham. There were few references in any minutes to ethnic minorities or migrant families until 2006, when concern was raised at the Safeguarding Board about the living conditions of migrant families. Young people were thought to be at risk of physical or sexual abuse for a variety of reasons. Some had been separated from their own families. There were also issues of poverty, forced marriage and child abduction. In the early months of 2005, twelve cases of forced marriage had been dealt with in Rotherham - the highest in the South Yorkshire Police area. Of particular concern was the young age of many of the girls involved… Dr Heal, in her 2003 report, stated that ‘In Rotherham the local Asian community are reported to rarely speak about them [the perpetrators].’ The subject was taboo and local people were probably equally frightened of the violent tendencies of the perpetrators as the young women they were abusing. In her 2006 report she described how the appeal of organised sexual exploitation for Asian gangs had changed. In the past, it had been for their personal gratification, whereas now it offered ‘career and financial opportunities to young Asian men who got involved’. She also noted that Iraqi Kurds and Kosovan men were participating in organised activities against young women. 
The new anti-racism now betrays the very people it pretends to shield:
Dr Heal, in her ... 2006 report, ... stated that ‘it is believed by a number of workers that one of the difficulties that prevent this issue [CSE] being dealt with effectively is the ethnicity of the main perpetrators’. 
She also reported in 2006 that young people in Rotherham believed at that time that the Police dared not act against Asian youths for fear of allegations of racism. This perception was echoed at the present time by some young people we met during the Inquiry, but was not supported by specific examples.
Several people interviewed expressed the general view that ethnic considerations had influenced the policy response of the Council and the Police, rather than in individual cases. One example was given by the Risky Business project Manager (1997- 2012) who reported that she was told not to refer to the ethnic origins of perpetrators when carrying out training. Other staff in children’s social care said that when writing reports on CSE cases, they were advised by their managers to be cautious about referring to the ethnicity of the perpetrators…
The issue of race, regardless of ethnic group, should be tackled as an absolute priority if it is known to be a significant factor in the criminal activity of organised abuse in any local community. There was little evidence of such action being taken in Rotherham in the earlier years. Councillors can play an effective role in this, especially those representing the communities in question, but only if they act as facilitators of communication rather than barriers to it. One senior officer suggested that some influential Pakistani-heritage councillors in Rotherham had acted as barriers. Several councillors interviewed believed that by opening up these issues they could be ‘giving oxygen’ to racist perspectives that might in turn attract extremist political groups and threaten community cohesion.
So the fact that dozens of girls were being raped by Pakistani gangs was hushed up so that people wouldn’t think badly of, er, Pakistani gangs.
(Thanks to reader the Evil ABC.) 
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Recognise what?

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (8:36am)

I don’t believe the principle should even be conceded. We are Australians together, not to be divided by “race”, and the Constitution is not to be treated as a history lesson, either. But Gary Johns and Wesley Aird are at least trying to minimise the damage:
FORMER Labor minister Gary Johns will campaign against changing the Constitution to recognise indigenous Australians and demand funding for a No case unless three conditions are included in a minimalist Yes proposal.

Mr Johns, who is cautious about any change, said a Yes case must have three elements. Firstly, he says the recognition must sit in a preamble with an express statement that: “The preamble to this Constitution has no legal force and shall not be considered in interpreting this Constitution or the law in force in the commonwealth or any part of the commonwealth.’’ 
Secondly, he says, it must contain the words: “The parliament, on behalf of the people of Australia, recognises that the continent and the islands now known as Australia were first occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.’’
Thirdly, it must not mention any characteristics of a people, such as “culture’’. “If these three conditions for a Yes case were not met, I would back a No case and demand government funding for it,’’ he said.
Mr Johns has joined forces with conservative indigenous adviser Wesley Aird to start Recognise What?, an organisation aimed at warning voters of the “dangers of many forms” of constitutional recognition of indigenous people.
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So does Palmer think the Reds are coming or not?

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (8:28am)

Clive Palmer apologised for calling the Chinese “mongrels”, but his feral offsider is too proud to admit she was just as big an idiot:
Mr Palmer has apologised to the “Chinese people everywhere” for last week describing China’s government as “mongrels” and “bastards” who shoot their own people. 
[Palmer United Party Senator Jacqui] Lambie said the PUP leader had little choice because “people are still quite irate about his comments”.
However, she would not offer a similar apology for her China invasion warning, in which she said Australia needed to double the size of it military to “stop our grandchildren from becoming slaves to an aggressive, anti-democratic totalitarian foreign power"… “I don’t see why I would offer an apology when I’m actually speaking about the Chinese communist regime and not the Chinese people,” she told ABC Radio. 
===

Scrap this expensive energy target. It is an insult to our reason

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (8:24am)

Why are we being forced to use more expensive green power when it makes no difference to a global warming that’s actually paused for 16 years anyway? It simply makes no sense, and to compromise like this is to compromise with unreason - and green carpetbaggers:
SUBSIDIES on renewable-energy power generation would be frozen at current levels until overall electricity demand recovered, under a plan the Abbott government is considering to ease pressure from the Renewable Energy Target on power prices.

The Australian has confirmed that one scenario in businessman Dick Warburton’s RET review, which has been handed to the government, would freeze the scheme at near its current level until electricity demand stops falling. But the option would provide an opportunity for the amount of renewable energy to be increased if electricity demand started to rise before 2020.
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If it stops a Khaled Sharrouf from walking our streets it can’t be all bad

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (8:14am)

Why not wait to see the draft laws first before dismissing the kind of power ASIO says it needs to protect us?
As three-quarters of Australians endorse the proposed crackdown on foreign fighters, crossbenchers have joined Labor and the Greens to voice concerns about handing the government a blank cheque with its sweeping changes. 
One of the sticking points is the proposal to erode the presumption of innocence by making it an offence to travel to a designated area — such as Iraq or Syria — without a valid reason…
MPs are yet to see legislation but Family First senator Bob Day has backed the concerns of crossbench colleague David Leyonhjelm, who yesterday warned against “moral panic’’ and said powers curbing liberties and freedoms of all Australians would mean “the terrorists win essentially if we lose our rights’’.
The Greens warned against being “panicked into changes that undermine our legal protections’’ and Labor’s legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus said the opposition had concerns about “reversing the presumption of innocence’’… ASIO director-general David Irvine will today outline the need to empower security agencies to combat an evolving threat in a rare address to the National Press Club. He is expected to say: ... “The draw of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq is significant and includes more Australians than all other previous extremist conflicts put together. The number of Australians of potential security concern to ASIO has increased substantially.’’ 
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No riots if the dead man is white

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (8:07am)

One fits the agenda of the media Left, and the other doesn’t:
On the surface, the cases appear nearly identical: Michael Brown and Dillon Taylor, two young, unarmed men with sketchy criminal pasts shot to death by police officers two days apart. 
But while the world knows of the highly publicized situation involving 18-year-old Mr. Brown, whose Aug. 9 death in Ferguson, Missouri touched off violence, protests and an angry national debate, most people outside Utah have never heard of 20-year-old Mr. Taylor.Critics say there’s a reason for the discrepancy in media coverage: race. Mr. Brown was black and the officer who shot him was white. Mr. Taylor wasn’t black — he’s been described as white and Hispanic — and the officer who shot him Aug. 11 outside a 7-Eleven in South Salt Lake wasn’t white.
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Another Labor lie conceded

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (7:34am)

Kevin Rudd lies in 2009:
The Australian Prime Minister has rejected Opposition claims that a group of asylum seekers aboard the Australian customs ship Oceanic Viking is being given special treatment…  
The Government has offered the Sri Lankans quick re-settlement in Australia or other developed countries if they agree to spend a short time in an Indonesian detention centre…

“The Indonesian Government and the Australian Government have agreed to a set of arrangements regarding the time frame for the processing for the group in Indonesia consistent with an international practice and settlement procedures,” Mr Rudd said in Parliament. “That among other things, contained in a letter that I’m about to table, clearly articulates from the perspective of the Secretary of the Department of Immigration that these are not preferential arrangements.” 
Julia Gillard admits in 2014, according to Paul Kelly’s new book:
The Sri Lankans won a preferential deal based on a much faster than usual resettlement timetable. Rudd denied point-blank to the media they won any preferential treatment. He made the same denial in parliament. His statements were false. 
Rudd’s office asked Metcalfe to write a letter covering the terms of the agreement. Under attack in parliament, Rudd tabled the letter, claiming it showed that “these are not preferential arrangements”. The letter did not verify Rudd’s claims. Metcalfe was prudent enough to alter the draft. Gillard says: “I wasn’t involved in this personally but it is obvious to anybody who looks at it, as a government we did a deal to get them off the boat. They got a favourable deal.”
Brazen liars. 
===

Rudd’s dream, your billions lost

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (7:17am)

It is astonishing that we get this analysis only years after Kevin Rudd decided to splash billions on his grandiose dream. It’s amazing that Labor for years justified its waste with bogus claims about the benefits to health services and education:
THE former Labor government’s decision to pursue a fibre-to-the-home, super-fast, broadband network would have a net cost to taxpayers of $22.2 billion, but the Coalition’s model still leaves them paying billions to deliver access to the bush and urban fringes, a landmark cost-benefit analysis reveals.
The Coalition-commissioned analysis finds the expense of providing high-speed internet access to people who live in uncommercial rural and regional areas, as well as urban fringes, would cost nearly $5bn but the benefits are only a fraction of that. 
What a waste the Labor plan was:
The Abbott government’s pared-back broadband plan is three times more cost effective than Labor’s ambitious scheme and would leave Australians $16 billion better off, according to the first independent cost-benefit analysis of the national broadband network… 
The much-anticipated report finds households and businesses will benefit from quicker downloads but the much-vaunted societal benefits of fast broadband – such as improvements to health and education services – will probably be extremely limited.
The cost benefit analysis panel, led by former Victorian Treasury head Michael Vertigan, ... finds the [Government’s] multi-technology mix model outperforms a fibre to the premises plan in net economic benefits in 98 per cent of scenarios.
A multi-technology mix NBN would cost $24.9 billion to launch from 2015 compared with $35.3 billion for fibre to the premises (FTTP), the report finds.
A multi-technology mix would deliver download and upload speeds of 20-100 megabits a second, while FTTP would deliver speeds above 100Mbps.
The report finds the most cost-effective option would be an unsubsidised launch in which the free market delivers high-speed broadband to 93 per cent of homes. This would have a net economic benefit of $24 billion, but would leave 7 per cent of premises in regional and rural areas without fast broadband. Providing fast broadband to the bush through wireless and satellite services – as envisaged under both Labor and the Coalition’s plans – will cost nearly $5 billion but produce only $600 million in economic benefits.
===

No riots if the dead man is white

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (8:07am)

One fits the agenda of the media Left, and the other doesn’t:
On the surface, the cases appear nearly identical: Michael Brown and Dillon Taylor, two young, unarmed men with sketchy criminal pasts shot to death by police officers two days apart. 
But while the world knows of the highly publicized situation involving 18-year-old Mr. Brown, whose Aug. 9 death in Ferguson, Missouri touched off violence, protests and an angry national debate, most people outside Utah have never heard of 20-year-old Mr. Taylor.Critics say there’s a reason for the discrepancy in media coverage: race. Mr. Brown was black and the officer who shot him was white. Mr. Taylor wasn’t black — he’s been described as white and Hispanic — and the officer who shot him Aug. 11 outside a 7-Eleven in South Salt Lake wasn’t white.
===

Another Labor lie conceded

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (7:34am)

Kevin Rudd lies in 2009:
The Australian Prime Minister has rejected Opposition claims that a group of asylum seekers aboard the Australian customs ship Oceanic Viking is being given special treatment…  
The Government has offered the Sri Lankans quick re-settlement in Australia or other developed countries if they agree to spend a short time in an Indonesian detention centre…

“The Indonesian Government and the Australian Government have agreed to a set of arrangements regarding the time frame for the processing for the group in Indonesia consistent with an international practice and settlement procedures,” Mr Rudd said in Parliament. “That among other things, contained in a letter that I’m about to table, clearly articulates from the perspective of the Secretary of the Department of Immigration that these are not preferential arrangements.” 
Julia Gillard admits in 2014, according to Paul Kelly’s new book:
The Sri Lankans won a preferential deal based on a much faster than usual resettlement timetable. Rudd denied point-blank to the media they won any preferential treatment. He made the same denial in parliament. His statements were false. 
Rudd’s office asked Metcalfe to write a letter covering the terms of the agreement. Under attack in parliament, Rudd tabled the letter, claiming it showed that “these are not preferential arrangements”. The letter did not verify Rudd’s claims. Metcalfe was prudent enough to alter the draft. Gillard says: “I wasn’t involved in this personally but it is obvious to anybody who looks at it, as a government we did a deal to get them off the boat. They got a favourable deal.”
Brazen liars. 
===

Rudd’s dream, your billions lost

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (7:17am)

It is astonishing that we get this analysis only years after Kevin Rudd decided to splash billions on his grandiose dream. It’s amazing that Labor for years justified its waste with bogus claims about the benefits to health services and education:
THE former Labor government’s decision to pursue a fibre-to-the-home, super-fast, broadband network would have a net cost to taxpayers of $22.2 billion, but the Coalition’s model still leaves them paying billions to deliver access to the bush and urban fringes, a landmark cost-benefit analysis reveals.
The Coalition-commissioned analysis finds the expense of providing high-speed internet access to people who live in uncommercial rural and regional areas, as well as urban fringes, would cost nearly $5bn but the benefits are only a fraction of that. 
What a waste the Labor plan was:
The Abbott government’s pared-back broadband plan is three times more cost effective than Labor’s ambitious scheme and would leave Australians $16 billion better off, according to the first independent cost-benefit analysis of the national broadband network… 
The much-anticipated report finds households and businesses will benefit from quicker downloads but the much-vaunted societal benefits of fast broadband – such as improvements to health and education services – will probably be extremely limited.
The cost benefit analysis panel, led by former Victorian Treasury head Michael Vertigan, ... finds the [Government’s] multi-technology mix model outperforms a fibre to the premises plan in net economic benefits in 98 per cent of scenarios.
A multi-technology mix NBN would cost $24.9 billion to launch from 2015 compared with $35.3 billion for fibre to the premises (FTTP), the report finds.
A multi-technology mix would deliver download and upload speeds of 20-100 megabits a second, while FTTP would deliver speeds above 100Mbps.
The report finds the most cost-effective option would be an unsubsidised launch in which the free market delivers high-speed broadband to 93 per cent of homes. This would have a net economic benefit of $24 billion, but would leave 7 per cent of premises in regional and rural areas without fast broadband. Providing fast broadband to the bush through wireless and satellite services – as envisaged under both Labor and the Coalition’s plans – will cost nearly $5 billion but produce only $600 million in economic benefits.
===

Scrap this expensive energy target. It is an insult to our reason

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (6:24am)

Why are we being forced to use more expensive green power when it makes no difference to a global warming that’s actually paused for 16 years anyway? It simply makes no sense, and to compromise like this is to compromise with unreason - and green carpetbaggers:
SUBSIDIES on renewable-energy power generation would be frozen at current levels until overall electricity demand recovered, under a plan the Abbott government is considering to ease pressure from the Renewable Energy Target on power prices.

The Australian has confirmed that one scenario in businessman Dick Warburton’s RET review, which has been handed to the government, would freeze the scheme at near its current level until electricity demand stops falling. But the option would provide an opportunity for the amount of renewable energy to be increased if electricity demand started to rise before 2020.
===

So does Palmer think the Reds are coming or not?

Andrew Bolt August 27 2014 (12:28am)

Clive Palmer apologised for calling the Chinese “mongrels”, but his feral offsider is too proud to admit she was just as big an idiot:
Mr Palmer has apologised to the “Chinese people everywhere” for last week describing China’s government as “mongrels” and “bastards” who shoot their own people. 
[Palmer United Party Senator Jacqui] Lambie said the PUP leader had little choice because “people are still quite irate about his comments”.
However, she would not offer a similar apology for her China invasion warning, in which she said Australia needed to double the size of it military to “stop our grandchildren from becoming slaves to an aggressive, anti-democratic totalitarian foreign power"… “I don’t see why I would offer an apology when I’m actually speaking about the Chinese communist regime and not the Chinese people,” she told ABC Radio. 
===
J.John

If you remove“Christ” from Christian,you are left with “Ian” and Ian just isn’t going to help you!” I wonder who first said that!
===
Photographic evidence shows Ms Rhiannon and her former NSW upper house Greens colleague Sylvia Hale marching with Sheik Hilali at a protest in Sydney on June 5 last year, holding a banner that reads, "End the siege of Gaza -- break ties with Israel".
Press reports of another rally four days earlier, including reports in Green Left Weekly, list Sheik Hilali and Ms Rhiannon among the speakers, with Sheik Hilali denouncing Israel as a "terrorist state" and Ms Rhiannon condemning the Israeli attack on an aid flotilla to Gaza as "a crime against humanity".
Sheik Hilali provoked outrage in 2006 when he compared scantily clad women to "uncovered cat meat".
When asked by The Australian if she had spoken alongside Sheik Hilali at the first rally, Ms Rhiannon said: "I did not appear with Sheik Hilali as you state.
"I did not see him or hear him speak. I was not aware that he was at the rally. I reject The Australian's attempt to associate me with controversial views held by Sheik Hilali. I condemn Sheik Hilali's comment comparing women in casual clothing to cat meat. I oppose all forms of racism, bigotry and sexism."
But shown the media reports, Ms Rhiannon clarified her movements on June 1, saying parliament had been sitting on the evening in question. "We jumped in a taxi to go down there and as soon as we got there, we were put on to speak," Ms Rhiannon said. "I did not see Sheik Hilali."
Shown the photograph taken on June 5, in which she is marching about 2m from the Sheik, Ms Rhiannon did not deny her presence. "I was not alongside Hilali and the photo shows I am not alongside Sheik Hilali," she said. "The rally was about Gaza and that's why I went along."
Ms Rhiannon's difficulties in distancing herself from Sheik Hilali follow criticism of the NSW Greens during the recent state election for their support of a boycott of Israel. The issue contributed to the defeat of the Greens candidate in Marrickville, Fiona Byrne, after Ms Byrne made contrary comments on whether she planned to introduce the boycott into state parliament, if elected.
Ms Rhiannon later claimed the Greens needed to explain the policy more forcefully and was carpeted by federal Greens leader Bob Brown, who called the policy a "mistake".
Ms Rhiannon last night denied there was any conflict between her alleged speaking engagement with Sheik Hilali and her referral of Cardinal George Pell to the NSW parliamentary privileges committee, for contempt, in 2007. The move occurred after Cardinal Pell warned Catholic state MPs who voted in favour of stem-cell research to consider their place in the life of the church. "Cardinal Pell's comments were attempting to influence a vote in parliament," Ms Rhiannon said. "The sheik's comment (on Israel as a terrorist state), which I oppose, was not linked to legislation before the NSW parliament."
Federal opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop last night described Ms Rhiannon's comments regarding Israel as "extreme, highly prejudicial and deeply troubling".
===
Holly Sarah Nguyen
  • Best Father, Best Friend, Best Counselor, Best Healer, Best Helper, and Best Retirement Planner Ever Unless you got something better, I'm stickin' with the Lord...
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Thanks to Kevin Rudd and Labor everything from electricity, gas, education, and medical services has gone up.

Calculate exactly how much Labor is costing you by clicking the link below:http://apps.facebook.com/costoflabor/
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another cruel blow to leftie hopes of demonising Tony Abbott
, The Age reports he saved lives during the Bali Bombing. I expect a litany of furious letters from Northcote to the editor now about the "right-wing" bias of the Fairfax press.>===
<Dot connections continue amid a whirlwind of confused ethics, gross hypocrisies, who supports whom, ignorance, convoluted and hidden agendas, and of course, egos intent on elevating statuses quite beyond otherwise, well-deserved criticism and exposed scandals...Dots increasingly muffle the the chessboard.>
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If anyone had any doubts about what Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas meant when he met last weekwith members of the Israeli leftist party Meretz, an officialstatement from his Fatah party on Sunday made things clear.
After Thursday’s meeting, members of Meretz said that Abbas had reassured them that if a peace agreement is reached with Israel, it would bring an end to his people’s demands of the Jewish state.
"I know your concerns, but guarantee that at the conclusion of successful negotiations, we undertake to end all the demands. We will not ask to return to Yafo, Akko and Tzfat,” he reportedly said.
Members of Meretz said that Abbas told them a “fair agreement” will end the conflict with Israel and that a “peace agreement with Israel will be final and binding." He did not, however, specify what is meant by a fair peace agreement and did not commit to the fact that the PA would give up its demand for the “right of return”, which would see millions of Arabs who fled Israel in 1948 and their descendants flood Israel.
On Sunday, Abbas chaired a meeting of the Central Committee of the Fatah movement, at the conclusion of which Fatah spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement that "the main goal of the negotiations with Israel is to establish an independent Palestinian state within the [pre-]1967 borders with its capital Al-Quds (Jerusalem -ed.), and the return of refugees in accordance with resolutions by international legitimate institutions and the Arab Peace Initiative.”
Abu Rudeineh stressed that "all issues related to the permanent status agreement are on the negotiating table, within the time frame of the nine months that was agreed upon with the U.S. government."
He added that the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria “is an obstacle to reaching a just peace based on the rights of the Palestinian people that cannot be canceled.”
The meeting between Abbas and the Meretz members took place several days after the latest meeting between Israeli and PA negotiators, as part of the current round of peace talks.
So far, details of the discussions between the sides have not been revealed, apparently consistent with a request from Washington last week for a strict news blackout.
At the same time, the PA’s chief negotiator Saeb Erekat  revealed, in aninterview with the Nazareth-based Arabic language A-Shams radio station on Tuesday, that the PA would not have returned to the negotiating table with Israel had it not received a letter of assurances from the United States, guaranteeing its main negotiating preconditions.
Meanwhile, not all PA factions are on board the peace talks. On Friday, hundreds of people in Gaza protested against Israeli-PA peace talks, in marches organized by the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups.
Marchers set off from mosques across the coastal strip before converging on a square in the middle of Gaza City, with protesters brandishing signs saying "No to negotiations" and slamming Abbas's "political failure."

there are no moderates from Palestinian/Jordanian side? ed
===
The Palestinian journalists’ syndicate has decided to boycott coverage of the activities of the Palestinian Authority’s security apparatus in the West Bank to protest the security crackdown on journalists during a recent demonstration.
Way too often journalists participate and don't report ed
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I replied .. having watched Media Watch last night I yearned for an unbiased media .. ABC and Fairfax favor ALP while news limited is balanced .. it isn't fair on conservatives. I note it suits conservatives in the electoral cycle as it occasionally works for them .. but as in '07 it is also a cancer which eats at the fabric of society .. ed
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ISRAEL – CENTER OF THIS STORM , From Iran to Syria, Hamas to Hezbollah and more. 
Asymmetrical Rocket Warfare and State sponsors of terrorism. Such states do not have to declare war upon their opponent, fight through a proxy and can strike where, when and how at their own choosing. In the age of Asymmetrical Rocket Warfare, the tiny state of Israel is in the center of this storm. This chapter facilitates a more thorough insight towards understanding the magnitude of the deadly threat of these weapons and CBRN. This is a primer for understanding SCUD missiles, Kassam Rockets, cruise missiles, UAVs, solid-fueled, liquid-fueled, hyper-sonic, subsonic, and stealth capabilities.”
http://iranthreatassessmentcbrn.com/downloads/chapter-6-the-basics-for-understanding-qassams-scud-missiles-to-cruise-missiles-drones-to-uavs-cbrn-warfare/
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General William Howe
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“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” Romans 12:4-5 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"He hath commanded his covenant forever."
Psalms 111:9
The Lord's people delight in the covenant itself. It is an unfailing source of consolation to them so often as the Holy Spirit leads them into its banqueting house and waves its banner of love. They delight to contemplate the antiquity of that covenant, remembering that before the day-star knew its place, or planets ran their round, the interests of the saints were made secure in Christ Jesus. It is peculiarly pleasing to them to remember the sureness of the covenant, while meditating upon "the sure mercies of David." They delight to celebrate it as "signed, and sealed, and ratified, in all things ordered well." It often makes their hearts dilate with joy to think of its immutability, as a covenant which neither time nor eternity, life nor death, shall ever be able to violate--a covenant as old as eternity and as everlasting as the Rock of ages. They rejoice also to feast upon the fulness of this covenant, for they see in it all things provided for them. God is their portion, Christ their companion, the Spirit their Comforter, earth their lodge, and heaven their home. They see in it an inheritance reserved and entailed to every soul possessing an interest in its ancient and eternal deed of gift. Their eyes sparkled when they saw it as a treasure-trove in the Bible; but oh! how their souls were gladdened when they saw in the last will and testament of their divine kinsman, that it was bequeathed to them! More especially it is the pleasure of God's people to contemplate the graciousness of this covenant. They see that the law was made void because it was a covenant of works and depended upon merit, but this they perceive to be enduring because grace is the basis, grace the condition, grace the strain, grace the bulwark, grace the foundation, grace the topstone. The covenant is a treasury of wealth, a granary of food, a fountain of life, a store-house of salvation, a charter of peace, and a haven of joy.

Evening

"The people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted him."
Mark 9:15
How great the difference between Moses and Jesus! When the prophet of Horeb had been forty days upon the mountain, he underwent a kind of transfiguration, so that his countenance shone with exceeding brightness, and he put a veil over his face, for the people could not endure to look upon his glory. Not so our Saviour. He had been transfigured with a greater glory than that of Moses, and yet, it is not written that the people were blinded by the blaze of his countenance, but rather they were amazed, and running to him they saluted him. The glory of the law repels, but the greater glory of Jesus attracts. Though Jesus is holy and just, yet blended with his purity there is so much of truth and grace, that sinners run to him amazed at his goodness, fascinated by his love; they salute him, become his disciples, and take him to be their Lord and Master. Reader, it may be that just now you are blinded by the dazzling brightness of the law of God. You feel its claims on your conscience, but you cannot keep it in your life. Not that you find fault with the law, on the contrary, it commands your profoundest esteem, still you are in nowise drawn by it to God; you are rather hardened in heart, and are verging towards desperation. Ah, poor heart! turn thine eye from Moses, with all his repelling splendour, and look to Jesus, resplendent with milder glories. Behold his flowing wounds and thorn-crowned head! He is the Son of God, and therein he is greater than Moses, but he is the Lord of love, and therein more tender than the lawgiver. He bore the wrath of God, and in his death revealed more of God's justice than Sinai on a blaze, but that justice is now vindicated, and henceforth it is the guardian of believers in Jesus. Look, sinner, to the bleeding Saviour, and as thou feelest the attraction of his love, fly to his arms, and thou shalt be saved.
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Today's reading: Psalm 119:89-176, 1 Corinthians 8 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 119:89-176

89 Your word, LORD, is eternal;
it stands firm in the heavens.
90 Your faithfulness continues through all generations;
you established the earth, and it endures.
91 Your laws endure to this day,
for all things serve you.
92 If your law had not been my delight,
I would have perished in my affliction.
93 I will never forget your precepts,
for by them you have preserved my life.
94 Save me, for I am yours;
I have sought out your precepts.
95 The wicked are waiting to destroy me,
but I will ponder your statutes.
96 To all perfection I see a limit,
but your commands are boundless....

Today's New Testament reading: 1 Corinthians 8

Concerning Food Sacrificed to Idols
1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that "We all possess knowledge." But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 2 Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. 3 But whoever loves God is known by God.
4 So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that "An idol is nothing at all in the world" and that "There is no God but one." 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
7 But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. 8 But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do....
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Japheth

[Jā'pheth] - beauty, let him enlarge orhe that persuades. The second son of Noah, born in the patriach's five hundredth year, and founder of those who spread over the north and west regions of the earth (Gen. 5:32; 6:10; 7:13). The Medians, Greeks, Romans, Russian and Gauls are referred to as descendants of Japheth. Most of the nations springing from him reappear in the endtime period under Gog (Ezek. 38; 39). For Greece seeZechariah 9:13.
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