Monday, April 22, 2013

Mon Apr 22nd Todays News

Happy birthday and many happy returns Andreas Herrmann, Leane Stitzinger, Melody Wu and Karina Sy. Born on the same day, across the years, when Pedro Cabral landed in Brazil and claimed the land for portugal. Commemorated with delicious chicken.
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Prove you’re no terrorist - or stay at home

Piers Akerman – Monday, April 22, 2013 (1:17am)

THREE cheers for ASIO for taking a risk averse approach to the nation’s security.
The intelligence agency is right to be concerned about the credentials of dozens of illegal arrivals who it alleges have been involved in murderous plots, training of militants, forging documents and people smuggling.
And it is right to use the allegations to justify their indefinite incarceration.
The security of the country – every Western country – is not to be taken lightly as the Boston marathon runners learnt last week.
While Fairfax columnist Waleed Aly is strangely encouraged that the West if finally “maturing” in the way it handles terrorism, I believe the Boston tragedy demonstrates the West must take a stronger stand.
Writing at the weekend, Aly, a regular on the ABC (what else would you expect?) said: “Gone is the triumphalist rhetoric of the ‘War on Terror’, with its ridiculous promises of a terrorism-free world and the ultimate victory of freedom over tyranny. In its place is a far more sober, pragmatic recognition that terrorismis a perpetual irritant, and that while it is tragic and emotionally lacerating, it kills relatively few people and is not any kind of existential threat.”
I’d like to take Aly to Boston and hear him explain to the survivors that while they may be irritated by the loss of a leg or two, and they may feel emotionally lacerated, they should’t worry.
They didn’t face any kind of existential threat.
While he’s in the US, he might visit New York and tour the World Trade Centre site and meet a few relatives of the nearly 3,000 people killed by the Islamist fundamentalists who hijacked aircraft on September 11, 2001, and tell them that they can relax, it was no real deal.
One of the things learnt already in the aftermath of the Boston bombing is that the US security was given a heads-up by a foreign country, probably Russia, about the Tsarnaev brothers who are suspected of carrying out that atrocity.
According to the FBI, an unnamed foreign government had asked for information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s possible terror ties in 2011. The FBI interviewed the man but said it had found no terror activity.
But law enforcement officials now say the Russian FSB intelligence security service told the FBI in early 2011 about information that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a follower of radical Islam.
The FBI said that in response, it interviewed Tsarnaev and relatives, and did not find any domestic or foreign terrorism activity.
There are many more questions to be asked and answered but unless Dzhokhar recovers sufficiently, we may never know the full story.
What is clear is that the brothers were sufficiently radicalised to conduct a terrorist attack, whether the Fairfax columnist likes it or not.
Broadcaster Alan Jones was on the money when he suggested the authorities look to the universities of Boston for the murderers.
He was howled down by the usual ABC and Fairfax apologists for Islamist murder.
They seem more preoccupied with the intriguing notion of homosexual “marriage” a feat which would require a re-definition of the word marriage.
If ASIO has been unable to satisfy itself about the credentials of people who have arrived in Australia unlawfully, without documents, they should be detained.
Labor, the Greens and the bleeding hearts may want them released into the community but they don’t value life as dearly as the rest of society or they would have supported moves to end the illegal people smuggling traffic suggested by the Opposition.
The sort of measures that the Howard government used successfully to halt the boats.
Individuals with dodgy records, or no records, must be viewed with suspicion until they can present evidence to prove they have no terrorist connections.
Otherwise, they should stay at home.

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LET US SPEAK MATURELY

Tim Blair – Monday, April 22, 2013 (6:24am)

Waleed Aly, the smiling face of Australian Islam, is an upbeat kind of guy. He remained so last week following the Boston Marathon bombings – not because of the bombings themselves, obviously, but because, as Waleed put it: “We’re finally maturing in the way we handle terrorism.”
Some of us might hope for maturity from terrorists, who prefer bloodthirsty and irrational attacks on innocent targets over any kind of adult reasoning, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. According to Aly, it’s a sign of our increasing “maturity” that we now recognise terrorism as a “perpetual irritant, and that while it is tragic and emotionally lacerating, it kills relatively few people and is not any kind of existential threat.”
Three people were killed in Boston due to irritants. Another 14 will endure the perpetual irritation of losing one or more limbs. By last Friday, 57 remained in hospital suffering varying degrees of emotional laceration to their faces and bodies. Hey, this new mature talk is fun.

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CHRISSY AMPHLETT

Tim Blair – Monday, April 22, 2013 (4:00pm)

Divinyls singer and Australian powerhouse performer Chrissy Amphlett has died at just 53 in New York City.
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APPRECIATED

Tim Blair – Monday, April 22, 2013 (6:21am)

Much thanks to the ABC’s Jonathan Green for highlighting my early and accurate call on the Boston bombings. No wonder he wants me to appear on his Radio National show.

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AND THEN ON TO GUMLY GUMLY

Tim Blair – Monday, April 22, 2013 (5:27am)

One of your more unusual kidnapping requests: 
The 35-year-old driver has told police he was driving a white Ford Fairmont along Old Willbriggie Road in Griffith on Saturday afternoon when a man jumped in front of his vehicle.
He told investigators the man pulled out a pistol and ordered him to drive to Wagga Wagga. 

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BUZZ HARSHED

Tim Blair – Monday, April 22, 2013 (5:24am)

Shooting scenes will always deliver dramatic quotes, but things kick up a notch when the shooting is at a marijuana festival: 
Stephanie Riedel said she was dancing with a hula hoop when she heard pops. A man ran past her, and she said the crowd started screaming and running away. She was about six metres from the shooting and heard four or five shots …
Ian Bay, who was skateboarding through the park when shots erupted, said he was listening to music on his headphones when he looked to his right and saw hundreds of people running at him.
“I sort of panicked. I thought I was going through an anxiety thing because so many people were coming after me,” he said. 
Fortunately, no fatalities are reported. A few years ago, a friend excused himself at a Sydney bar so that he could inhale some electric cabbage in a nearby vacant alley. He was mid-intake when several armed police charged into the alley on foot in search of a reported bag snatcher. He’s still suffering paranoid flashbacks.

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MEDIA ANGELS

Tim Blair – Monday, April 22, 2013 (5:17am)

The Tribune Company – publishers of the the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, theBaltimore Sun, the Hartford Courant and the Orlando Sentinel – is up for sale: 
One of the expected bidders for these papers, Amy Chozick of the New York Times reports, is Koch Industries, the massive energy and manufacturing conglomerate owned by the conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch …
Buying the papers is expected to cost only about $625 million, which would be a rounding error for the gigantic Koch Industries, which generates a staggering $115 billion of revenue per year. 
Memo to the Koch brothers: if you take over the Chicago paper, hire Iowahawk.

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LABOR’S RETIREMENT HOME

Tim Blair – Monday, April 22, 2013 (5:01am)

“The upside of the Greek meltdown,” emails Dan F. “Pick up an Aegean island on the cheap.”

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KEEP DONATING

Tim Blair – Monday, April 22, 2013 (4:56am)

An online fundraiser for Jeff Bauman, who helped identify the Boston bombers despite suffering horrific injuries, has generated more than $500,000. 

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Whyalla investment wipe-out

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (1:35pm)

Julia Gillard last Wednesday:
We are cutting carbon pollution. None of the silly claims about carbon pricing destroying the economy, wiping Whyalla off the map, $100 roasts - any of the foolish things said by the Opposition, have proved to come true.
Today:
A MINING company has blamed Australia’s high costs for its scrapping of a plan to build a $1 billion processing plant at Whyalla, South Australia, that would have created 1000 jobs.,,
UPDATE
Julia Gillard on the carbon tax in May 2011:
When Australia has a carbon price, when households are generously assisted, when jobs continue to grow, when the sun rises in the east, cows keep giving milk, chickens still lay eggs, our opponents know their campaign of fear will be exposed as a sham ...
Gillard on July 1 last year:
I think Australians are pretty smart, pretty practical people and they will judge (the carbon tax) through their lived experience. They’ll see, millions of them, seven million of them in their pay packet in the coming week the benefit of the tax cuts. And the significance of that shouldn’t be underestimated. .
...whether it’s today or in the weeks or months ahead, I think Australians will judge carbon pricing from the experience that they live. And I believe when the dust settles in the months ahead people will come to see it as the right move for Australia’s future.

Today’s Essential Report poll:

Labor 45 per cent, Coalition 55  

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The new King of a country of dud music

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (11:43am)

A committee. The input of celebrities. A composer. A desire to appeal to the mob.
What could possibly go wrong?

A TORRENT of public ridicule has forced a British-Dutch composer to withdraw the official song for the celebrations next week of the investiture of Willem-Alexander, the new Dutch King.
A syrupy tune with lines such as “I build a dyke with my bare hands and keep the water away from you” ensured the humiliation of the Hampshire-born John Ewbank - although the words were suggested by Dutch celebrities. After 38,000 people signed an online petition rejecting the work, Ewbank wrote on his Facebook page: “Dear compatriots, after having to block yet another insult on my Twitter account, I am now totally done.”
And what exactly is Dutch about Euro-rap?
Mind you, the history of great Dutch music could be told on the back of a stamp. 

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Wind goes out of the sales of renewables

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (9:01am)

JoNova reports another sign of the collapse of the great global warming scare - falling investment in renewables:

Investment worldwide in the first quarter of 2013 was $40.6bn, down 22% on a year earlier, due to a downturn in large wind and solar project financings London and New York… Global investment in clean energy in the first three months of 2013 was lower than in any quarter for the past four years, according to the latest figures from research company Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
(Thanks to reader Rocky.) 

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Italians do it better

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (8:40am)

A claim is made:

Whether it is an espresso coffee or a simple napoli tomato sauce - Italians just make it better.
Or so say some of Melbourne’s leading restaurateurs who are hiring a wave of young Italians, fresh from that country’s economic turmoil, on temporary migration visas to staff their famous cafes and pizzerias.
No doubt Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor will send in the cops to cleanse trattorias of Italians. Then we’ll know if Australians do it any better. 

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Our dangerous silence on Islam

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (8:38am)


OUR media behaved politely after the Boston bombing. None jumped to the correct conclusion: these terrorists were yet again Muslim.
In fact, even after brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were identified and found to be - surprise! - Muslim, some still pretended not to notice or think it relevant.
Muslim? Really? What an amazing coincidence.
Probably meaningless.
So in the more than 6000 words filed by The Age on its live coverage thread by 8.30am on Saturday, the word “Muslim” was used just once: “The brothers are Muslims believed to be of Chechen origin, but there is still no clear motive for the attack.”
Uh huh. 

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Labor cover-up succeeds

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (8:34am)

Sources close to the Prime Minister will probably breathe easier:
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has confirmed its investigation into who leaked the swearing video of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been closed, and no culprit has been identified.
Rudd was most keen that police talk to members of the Prime Minister’s staff. Not that they were guilty or anything… 

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Labor’s boat fiddle. UPDATE And financial ones

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (8:25am)

A fortnight after last year’s Budget, it was already clear the Gillard Government’s estimate of the cost of boat people had been wildly underestimated - probably deliberately so:
[ABC host Fran] Kelly: Kim Beazley agreed. The Opposition doesn’t agree that your policy is a good policy. And just to stick with the implications of this, at least on the Budget, I mean, in Senate Estimates yesterday the Acting Secretary of the Immigration Department, Martin Bowles, said the department’s budget is based on estimates of around 450 asylum seekers arriving each month.
[Immigration Minister Chris] Bowen: Arrivals is part of the equation, Fran, it’s part of the many things which get put into the computer in terms of -
Kelly: But clearly, it’s going to blow out on arrivals, that’s my point.
Bowen: Well, Fran, a number of factors go to determining the irregular maritime arrivals budget, a number of factors. Arrivals is one; the 450 figure is based on historical averages.
Reader Gab counts the latest arrivals to see if we’re running at the budgeted 450 arrivals a month:
Boat arrivals for April to date: 2289 “asylum” seekers and 32 boats.

Reports are now spread between Home Affairs and Customs.
And April still with more than a week to go.
UPDATE
More fiddling with figures to produce a convenient figure. Henry Ergas on this most deceitful of governments:

AS well as being policy fiascos, the carbon tax, the National Broadband Network and the mining tax have this in common: they were based on economic modelling that has been kept hidden from the public.
...serious questions now also arising about the Gonski report’s modelling…
Ever since the government linked its Emissions Trading Scheme to the European carbon market, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet has defended the budget’s estimate of a $29 per tonne carbon price in 2015-16 as a “Treasury forecast on which the government is entitled to rely”.
However, Combet has not provided any information supporting that “forecast”, instead pointing to Treasury’s carbon tax modelling. But contrary to Combet’s assertions, that modelling does not “forecast” a $29 price in 2015-16.
Rather, it calculates that $29 price as the lowest global carbon price in 2015-16 that would be consistent with the government’s aspirations for cutting emissions. The $29 figure was therefore not a prediction of likely prices in 2015-16; it was merely the minimum price needed for deep global emissions reductions to occur.
Unfortunately, Treasury has never set the record straight, instead allowing Combet to repeatedly mislead the public. And as the model and data Treasury used have not been released, it has been impossible to test the impacts of much lower world prices on Treasury’s conclusions.
Release the models!
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Heights.) 

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Married to the job

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (8:11am)

More than 200 people are dead or missing after an earthquake in Sichuan. A reporter interrrupts her own wedding to bring the news. 

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Better warn Gillard than mock Abbott

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (7:24am)

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Mark Kenny doesn’t get it, succumbing to some AbbottAbbottAbbott:
Tony Abbott has accused Prime Minister Julia Gillard of ‘’a blatant abuse of power’’ over the appointment of Australia’s next governor-general, despite there being no evidence of an announcement being made before the election.
The point, Mark, is that by the time Gillard does propose the appointment of a Governor-General it will be too late. The appointment will be hopelessly compromised.
Abbott, as Kenny himself notes, has in fact tried to avoid mentioning publicly the Governor-General in making a general point about appointments:

Speaking on Sky News on Sunday, Mr Abbott initially avoided direct reference to the governor-general’s post before conceding it was his view it should be left to the next prime minister.
Now Abbott’s letter to the Prime Minister has been leaked - we may guess by whom - and his caution ridiculed.
Fairfax Media has obtained a copy of a letter from Mr Abbott to Ms Gillard written on Sunday, expressly warning against her naming a replacement for Governor-General Quentin Bryce, whose term will end in March, 2014.
In fact, Gillard has form, as Kenny, again, himself concedes:
In the letter, Mr Abbott complains about the recent reappointment of the Australian Electoral Commissioner and other public service appointments, and invokes the ‘’caretaker’’ convention to suggest the current government is going beyond its legitimate authority.
‘’In my view, the decision to announce these appointments subverts the established convention that no government should make decisions that are legitimately the province of a potential successor,’’ he wrote in the letter dated April 21. ‘’The announcement of appointments expressed to take effect almost nine months into the term of the next parliament and some 15 months before they become operative is a blatant abuse of power.’’
Mr Abbott argues that to attempt to recommend the appointment of a new governor-general more than six months before the term would commence is ‘’without modern precedent’’.
UPDATE
Oddly enough, Kenny attacks Abbott in his first paragraph for writing to Gillard about an appointment for which he says there is no evidence.
But later in his report, Kenny happily reports a Labor allegation about an Abbott appointment for which there is no evidence - and of which there is little likelihood:

A senior government figure said it was believed Mr Abbott would seek to politicise the plum governor-general position by awarding it to former Coalition prime minister and avowed monarchist John Howard.
To paraphrase Kenny himself:

Labor has accused Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of politicising the appointment of Australia’s next governor-general, despite there being no evidence of John Howard being considered.
Brilliant spinning of Kenny by Labor. Turning defence into attack. 

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The terrorists win! The SMH prints Shriver

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (6:54am)

The terrorists have won. The Sydney Morning Herald publishes a piece by Lionel Shriver discussing the alleged motives of the Boston bombers, and men like them:
We don’t yet know much about the flimsy ideological pretext these two young men of Chechen heritage, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, had for despoiling an event of pure joy…
Yet we’ve met enough of these miscreants by now to be pretty sure, on the deepest level, what powers these people. Whether the killers are foreign or domestic, the constellation of underlying emotions is always the same: resentment, grievance, envy, mean-spiritedness and contempt. Doubtless, delusions of superiority.
It cannot be an accident that the Boston Marathon is an occasion of festivity, of unity, of community - because to two disgruntled young men it represented a party where they did not feel invited…
Remarkable. Not once is the word “Muslim” mentioned. You might even think from Shriver’s evasions that what tipped the Boston bombers over the edge was that Boston didn’t invite them personally to run in the Marathon.
In fact, you’d think the real fault is not with “them” but “us”:
This urge to annihilate whatever seems to elude or exclude you is not the inclination of terrorists alone; it is not only a problem for foreigners or disaffected outliers beyond our ken. It’s all over the web.... Terrorism is merely a physical manifestation of the spleen that contaminates nearly all public conversation these days. The internet is awash in bile, sometimes so acidic that it drives teenagers to suicide. Vandals on the sidelines sneer at anyone foolish enough to say something, under the misguided impression that demolition is a form of creativity. Hence packing pressure cookers full of nails, ball bearings and explosive and crafting an especially vicious, below-the belt comment on a website seem to entail their own admirable flair and daring.
In an instant, Shriver is back to demonising Americans - people who not only are safe to criticise, but are more comprehensible to her and more likely to respond to her vapid urgings. This piece is, in fact, a tribute to her own ego - a preaching at those who might at least listen and think the author more moral:
I wish I could find those bombs at the Boston Marathon baffling - alien, horrifyingly incomprehensible. However, the same drive to tear apart whatever you can’t be part of, the same loathing and scorn, runs in a thick seam not only through our culture but, I fear, through the veins of our very species.
Which doesn’t quite answer this question: why is it that so many terrorists are Muslim?
Indeed, every time Shriver drifts back to discussing the terrorists themselves she refuses to even name the creed that seems to have inspire them to kill:
Every time you remove your footwear in an airport is a victory for Shoe Bomber Richard Reid. Every time you throw out your water bottle before security, you pay tribute to the authors of the trans-Atlantic airline plot of 2006.
No, don’t mention that “M” word. Don’t discuss something sick in a strand of Muslim culture - the rage of failure, the exhortations to hate and the licence given to kill.  Always turn it back on the “unjust” West:

If the internet is any guide, we are not dealing with occasional coteries of zealots with offbeat political grudges. Apparently, a whole swath of the human race feels ostracised, under-appreciated, sour and fiercely resentful of anyone who seems to have found the happiness that life, or ‘’society’’, or the rich, or the West, or immigrants, or white people, or the unjustly celebrated have denied them.
Articles like this are trophies for the terrorists. They kill, and Shriver accepts the guilt.

UPDATE
Tim Blair thanks the ABC’s Jonathan Green for the publicity. It’s a case of jumping to conclusions about (correctly) jumping to conclusions. 

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If this faith causes this fear, let’s discuss it

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (6:26am)

We have more Buddhists than Muslims in this country, but only one of those two faiths causes authorities to fear:
“LONE wolf “ potential terrorists radicalising in Australian homes are of grave concern to authorities, AFP Commissioner Tony Negus said in the wake of the Boston bombings. 
That’s a brave character reference from Dreyfus:

The warnings from Australia’s top cop came as Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus claimed a radical Sydney cleric used online by one of the marathon terrorists had changed his attitude to work against extremism after he previously said children should be raised to follow jihad and become martyrs to Islam.
Dreyfus has great faith in the conversion of a hate-preaching bigot and loudmouth. Here is a riot just last year which reportedly featured supporters and students of this Sheikh (who says he told them not to go and condemned the violence):

Among Feiz’s past teachings:
image
Feiz’s new, reformed attitude:
As they say, it’s only through experience you become wise. Not that I retract what I have said in the past, but now I am wiser than I was in the past and the way I do things and say things, I’ve got to be exceptionally careful of ... because I do not want to pass the message incorrectly across.
UPDATE
An even more exciting multicultural future awaits:

AUSTRALIA has taken a lead role in Syria’s humanitarian crisis amid warnings that if not resolved within months, the world would have to deal with the greatest exodus of refugees since World War II.  

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Gillard’s parting gift won’t be a haircut for her team

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (6:06am)

Judith Sloan says the among the bills proposed by Julia Gillard are two she will not actually pass through Parliament before the election:
Gillard will never introduce the following:

•Increase tax on superannuation contributions tax for those earning over $300,000 per year (announced in last year’s Budget);
•15 per cent tax on superannuation earnings above $100,000 per year.
In terms of the first, the ministers will be hit for six with this new tax.  According to David Crowe of The Australian, the tax impost for ministers who are on the old parliamentary superannuation scheme could be as high as $70,000 per year.
If we then add in the second – the actuarial estimates of the implied earnings of the old scheme will be well north of $100,000 per year – we are looking at some pretty high effective tax rates.
Of course, this is as should be – after all the Contributory Parliamentary Superannuation Scheme is one of the most generous known to mankind.
But do you honestly think that Gillard wants to inflict this pain on the ministers who have stuck by her at this late stage?

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At least the Liberals will waste less on warming than will Labor

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (6:04am)


Alan Moran of the IPA fact checks Labor’s Andrew Leigh, another warmist wanting to spend billions on doing nothing to the temperature:

Today’s Fin provides a platform for the ALP’s economist frontman, Andrew Leigh, to dive into the fray. Leigh draws from the analyses by the Grattan Institute and our very own Treasury to claim that the Liberal’s “Direct Action” five per cent reduction target will cost not the $10 billion that the Liberals mentioned three years ago but $100 billion. Lower costs from the Government’s carbon trade proposals that have the same five per cent target are estimated. But this is because Australians will buy phantom emission rights from overseas – rather than churning money domestically the ALP favours gifting some lesser amount to Europeans. And, demonstrating how politics drives out the good in an economist, Leigh makes the astonishing claim that under the ALP emission restraint is funded not by “everyday Australians” but by “the biggest polluters” oblivious to the fact that any charge on business will either be passed on to consumers or will represent a shrinkage of output.
Predictably, Andrew Leigh does not attempt to answer the question that Andrew Bolt yesterday pressed on Greg Hunt, namely how much cooling do we get for all the treasure spent and economic dislocation entailed in these impositions?
The great benefits of the Liberals’ $3.2 billion “direct action” plan are three. First, yes, that spending is largely wasted, but it’s at least a lot less than what Labor is wasting on equally futile global warming schemes.
Second: the Liberals can turn off that spending in an instant. They simply don’t have $100 billion anyway, so we can all be confident that money would never be spent.
Third: the Liberals will waste their money at home. Labor will ship theirs overseas by the container load. 

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Swan will never give us a surplus

Andrew Bolt April 22 2013 (5:52am)

Wayne Swan has never delivered a Budget surplus and never would if re-elected:

Australia faces a decade of budget deficits, with the annual total set to pass $60 billion in 2023 unless governments take tough action to “share the pain”, a leading think tank has warned.
The Grattan Institute’s assessment comes as Treasurer Wayne Swan confirms the budget has taken a $7.5 billion hit since the mid-year update in October…
“And of course the impact won’t just be in this financial year, it will also be across the forward estimates.”
Swan always has an explanation for why revenues didn’t increase as much as he’d fondly hoped. What he never explains is why he doesn’t match his spending to his earning.
From the Budget papers it’s clear that while Swan keeps making wildly optimistic guesses of future revenue, he even so ends up with more revenue than ever:

image
UPDATE
Spending is our problem - and our debt is rising very, very fast at a time when we should be saving instead for the inevitable downturn:

Assuming a small fiscal surplus in 2015, the report projects Australian governments’ combined deficit will swell to an “alarming” 4 per cent of GDP by 2023 mainly as a result of increased spending, a far worse outcome than the government’s most recent Intergenerational Report, which pencilled in a federal surplus of 1 per cent by that time.
image
The Grattan Institute outlines the size of the challenge for federal and state governments in the decade ahead:

To balance their books governments will need to find savings and-or tax increases of $60 billion a year in today’s terms.
Since they now spend about $500bn a year, $60bn is a lot of money. 

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4 her
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benchwarmer
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How many need die before ALP admit their mistake? - ed
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Behind every successful student is a parent who is involved in their children’s education on an everyday basis.
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Glitterball
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BREAKING NEWS: Australian rock legend Chrissy Amphlett has died after 2 year battle with cancer. She was 53 years old.

Coverage through the afternoon, we look back at her life in 9 News at 6pm.
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Plymouth, CA
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Congratulations to the 100 graduates from the NSW Liberal campaign academy held in Smithfield on the weekend. Taking the fight to Labor in NSW.

Let’s get Australia back on track! – Join our campaign today!: http://www.nsw.liberal.org.au/get_involved — with Zaya Toma, Daniel Try,Samuel Lee, Mark Neeham, Kevin Baker, Liberal for Charlton, Venus Priest and Gwen Riley atSmithfield RSL.
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Larry Pickering - WHY GREENS TASTE TERRIBLE

Labor legislation to excise our borders, with Opposition support, has been languishing in the Senate for months. Now, why would that be? 

Aussies are paying interest on a ballooning $8 billion (that’s 8,000 millionaires) debt to support 34,000 illegal arrivals.

The excise legislation would assist to curb the current illegal invaders by denying them free access to our court system. That’s the intent of the proposed border sequestration.

At last count almost $9 million has flowed into Labor law firms’ coffers to overturn ASIO security risk assessments by referring them to the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT).

The RRT is comprised of human rights advocates and ASIO determinations of “security risks” are invariably overturned.

There is no cost to the illegal immigrants who are given instructions how to manipulate the system prior to departing Indonesia.

Corrupt interpreters ensure they follow the procedure after arriving.

The Gillard Government is loathe to publicise that foreign interests are actually arranging for the overturning of ASIO’s “security risk” rulings.

The excise legislation, currently gathering cobwebs in the Senate, would put a stop to this but the Greens are bitterly opposed to it on human rights grounds and Labor seems happy to allow them to have their way.

In the meantime our security agency’s processing has become a pointless exercise.

The burdensome task of determining whether people without any form of identity are security risks or not is completely negated by an ensuing corrupted appeals process.

ASIO has become basically obsolete and, understandably, is handing their processing procedures to Labor lawyers and the human rights dominated, UN sanctioned, Refugee Review Tribunal.

This matter has become so serious even the Gillard Government has, with the Opposition’s support, rushed this remedial legislation through the Lower House.

On the one occasion that Gillard has realised her folly and taken measures to correct it, she runs slap bang into a coven of Green gophers in the Senate who are demanding the measures not be passed..

On the one occasion that Gillard has realised her folly and taken measures to correct it, she runs slap bang into a coven of Green gophers in the Senate who are demanding the measures not be passed.

Oh well, the Green nightmare can cause Abbott sleepless nights soon.===

I get the image .. but .. why does one need a smaller umbrella under a larger one? - ed
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Forgiveness is not acceptance. Forgiveness does not mean we forget or necessarily continue a relationship with those who hurt us. Forgiveness is intentionally choosing to move on with our lives rather than continuing to allow those people who hurt us to continue to do so by dragging the pain of anger and resentment that comes from being mistreated. We forgive to free ourselves!! - Holly
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American Paintings: Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way

http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/american-paintings-westward-the-course-of-empire-takes-its-way/

Emanuel Leutze’s mural celebrates the western expansion of the United States. A group of pioneers and their train of covered wagons are pictured at the continental divide, looking towards the sunset and the Pacific Ocean. The border depicts vignettes of exploration and frontier mythology. Beneath the central composition is a panoramic view of their destination “Golden Gate,” in San Francisco Bay. The mural’s title is a verse from the poem “On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America” by Bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753).
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When I look at these photos, I can't say I'm sad... I am however very VERY angry! What senseless destruction of human lives.

As far as I'm concerned, our current administration enabled, if not directly helped make this attack happen. We have nothing short of THE ENEMY currently occupying the WH. Rest assured there will be no justice served in this case. NONE. They actively HELPED one of the suspects get away back to Saudi Arabia. Something smells here, and you can be assured that just like with Benghazi, this is another CRIMINAL cover up.

~R, MS page admin
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London runners observe a moment of silence in honor of the Boston marathon bombing victims. What a beautiful image of unity.
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To the man blind from birth, Jesus, the light of the world, brought sight. To a hungry crowd of more than 5,000, Jesus, the bread of life, supplied more food than they could eat.

Beloved, know that today, Jesus Himself—not methods or principles—is the answer to every challenge you face in life!

Click below to watch a short clip of this faith-igniting message. Be sure to click 'Like' and share this with your friends! Amen!
http://bit.ly/17lzcuX
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In your very area of weakness or failure, God’s grace will superabound to bring you strength and provision.
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Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand…—Zech 4:10, NLT

It’s interesting to see how God never despises the little things.

When the boy brought his five loaves and two fish, the disciple Andrew scoffed, condescendingly patted the boy on his head and said to Jesus, “What are they among so many?” In direct contrast, God did not despise the boy’s small lunch.

So don’t despise the little things that you have right now. See them as your very own “five loaves and two fish” even when people around you mock and belittle you. Learn to disregard such people and lay your little before Jesus. While you and I have no power to multiply, Jesus certainly does!

Beloved, whatever you are building right now in your career, ministry or business, don’t despise the day of small, humble and seemingly insignificant beginnings. Involve Jesus and allow His provision of favor, wisdom and power to multiply and grow the little things in your hands.

This post is from today’s Meditate & Believe Right devotional. Click on the link to receive this complimentary series of inspiring devotionals in your mailbox each day!http://josephprince.com/meditate/
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Pedro Álvares Cabral

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