Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Tue 2nd Apr Todays News


Gillard’s MUA taking over ALP - no April Fool’s joke

Piers Akerman – Tuesday, April 02, 2013 (5:20am)

THE new, true face of Julia Gillard’s ALP is militant trade unionism.

Forget the old mainstream Labor Party of chook raffles and engaged local MPs, the future is aggressive and hard-line.

Think death threats and bloody brawls because that’s what is coming.

The future has been revealed in Western Australia where the ultra-aggro Maritime Union of Australia is moving in on the state branch of the ALP to massively increase its influence on internal Labor politics and the WA and Federal parliaments.

The West Australian newspaper reports that antagonistic MUA supremo Christy Cain is engineering a “grassroots” takeover of the WA branch of the Labor Party.

In the past 12 months, the number of MUA members who are also Labor members has increased more than fivefold to 850, up from 150 a year ago.

One in four of the 3500 members of the ALP is now aligned to the MUA.

Cain told the newspaper this was “only the start of it” because he was intent on signing up 2000 of the union’s 5000 members to the Labor Party within the next year by visiting every port on the west coast.

If achieved, the MUA would control a significant portion of the ALP State executive by next year, increasing its number of delegates to 33 of the 175.

Now, it has just three delegates but this will increase to at least 15 from April 30 when membership of the executive is redistributed.

Gillard was actively involved with the MUA when the Howard government took it on in 1996 and dragged it into the 20th century.

The unionists, aided by Gillard, claimed they could never meet the standards of our international competitors but Howard demonstrated they were wrong.

Though the ABC went all out to portray the MUA and union bosses like Greg Combet, now a Gillard minister, as soft-hearted community-minded social workers, the reality was vastly different.

The historically-corrupt union was racist and sexist. A closed shop to women and most non-Caucasions. Lazy, too.

Reports indicate that container lifting rates which soared after the Howard reforms are now slipping back in WA to the pre-dispute levels.

It appears the MUA is working with the hard-Left CFMEU construction union to take over the ALP.

Cain has put forward one of his officials, Adrian Evans, to run as Labor’s candidate in the Federal seat of Hasluck, held by Liberal MP Ken Wyatt by just 0.6 per cent.
The MUA’s Linda Morich has nominated for the casual Senate vacancy left by Chris Evans’ retirement.

ALP State secretary Simon Mead said the MUA had contributed to 50 per cent of the ALP membership growth in the past months and would inspire other unions and party activists to redouble their own membership drives.

“WA is the State party with the simplest, strongest and most effective anti-branch stacking rule in Australia,” he said.

“We can be confident that every new member has paid their own fee.”

Duck quickly, the pigs are flying across the sky in WA.

The hard-line, hard-Left push is the true legacy of the Gillard government’s support for its union backers.

So much for mummy bloggers and feminist academics – the MUA wants in and it wants to stay.

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Literacy? Read this and weep

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, April 02, 2013 (7:52pm)

THE most despicable thing about the “I give a Gonski” ads on TV is their dishonest use of a young boy struggling to read. This struggle is a tragedy going on in our classrooms every day.
As many as 30 per cent of Australian children leave school functionally illiterate. Children of normal intelligence can’t read because their teachers have not been taught the most effective way to teach them - which is systematic, explicit phonics instruction, linking the letters in our alphabet to sounds.
If these children are unlucky enough to come from a home where their parents can’t overcome the schooling deficit, they are doomed to illiteracy and consigned to the margins.
The militant left-wing Australian Education Union that pays for the ads offers a self-serving lie for a solution. It pretends that more money will magically fix the problems.
“If public schools don’t get urgent funding more of our kids will get left behind,” intones the narrator, exhorting parents to “give a gonski”.
The noun in that catchphrase refers to businessman David Gonski, whose report into school funding has become a magic wand of mythical proportions. It recommended the federal government spend $6.5 billion a year extra on smaller classes and more specialist teachers.
Julia Gillard, who wants to be known as the “education prime minister”, will finalise funding with the states on April 19, at the Council of Australian Governments meeting, trying to create the illusion of Gonski billions, despite the fact the government is broke.
But the fact is that more money does not equal better education. It’s how you spend the money that counts.
Australia increased spending on schools by more than 40 per cent last decade and the results are a disgrace. The reading skills of our Year 4 students are the worst of every English-speaking country tested in the first Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) last year of 325,000 students. One quarter of our students couldn’t even manage to read at the basic minimum standard for their age group.
These are children whose entire school life has been under the Labor government, which promised an education revolution and instead provided some overpriced school halls and laptop computers.
The revolution needed is not in bricks and silicon chips. What’s needed is the destruction of the progressive education ideology that has held sway at teacher training institutions for more than 40 years.
The man who you might genetically design for that brutal job is Christopher Pyne, who is likely to become the federal minister for education after the next election, if the polls are any indication. Unlike most of his predecessors, Pyne is unlikely to be bullied or hoodwinked by the education establishment into accepting its most destructive intellectual fads.
For Pyne, 45, the reading wars - between phonics advocates and whole language devotees - is deeply personal.
His father, Dr Remington Pyne, was an eye surgeon who took a special interest in dyslexia when Christopher’s oldest brother was diagnosed with reading problems. He helped found SPELD, a non-profit group to help people with learning difficulties.
Pyne also has four children of his own at school in Adelaide, from kindergarten to Year 7. His 12-year-old twins, Eleanor and Barnaby, are dyslexic , and he says his life experience has “given me a particular insight into education”.
He says Gonski has been a “distraction from the real debate which is the quality of education (which is) determined by the quality of teachers, parental engagement, a robust curriculum and decisions being made as locally as possible by principals and leadership teams”.
On teacher quality he says: “We need to recognise that teacher training in the last 10 or 20 years not been what the market tells us we need… There’s been a battle in education departments and universities since the 1970s about the direction of education, and one side has been winning.”
The winner has been, “the progressive side that rejects traditional teaching methods and a traditional curriculum. Student-centred learning is part of that and an acceptance of lowest common denominator outcomes, a specific rejection of excellence and a view schools are not about knowledge but about skills, which I think is poisonous. Students have to be about knowledge first and skills second”.
“This is a very hard row to hoe in Australia because most educators today have been trained in this progressive approach to education and nobody wants to disagree.”
He points to Western Australia, where the Barnett government has given schools the option to take control of their budgets. Principals now have the power to choose the best teachers and spend their money the way that suits students.
“This is anathema to anyone who wants central control of education ... my intention, should I be fortunate enough to become education minister, will be to radically alter the way we think about education in Australia, to place competition, the individual and self-reliance at the centre of our education system,” he says.
To do any good, Pyne will have to nuke the progressive education establishment. But if anyone has the courage and cunning to win that war, it’s him.

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SERIOUSLY

Tim Blair – Tuesday, April 02, 2013 (1:18pm)

Australian comedy in 2013: Charlie Pickering and Waleed Aly talking about climate change, homelessness, asylum seekers and world peace.

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THEY BELIEVE HER IN MANHATTAN

Tim Blair – Tuesday, April 02, 2013 (1:12pm)

Time magazine’s shorthand description of Julia Gillard: 
Australian Prime Minister whose parliamentary speech about the opposition leader’s misogyny was heard around the world 

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STINKY, BROKE AND MAD

Tim Blair – Tuesday, April 02, 2013 (11:28am)

Leftists, meet your daddy: 
The Karl Marx depicted in Jonathan Sperber’s absorbing, meticulously researched biography will be unnervingly familiar to anyone who has had even the most fleeting acquaintance with radical politics. Here is a man never more passionate than when attacking his own side, saddled with perennial money problems and still reliant on his parents for cash, constantly plotting new, world-changing ventures yet having trouble with both deadlines and personal hygiene … 
Naturally, Marx was also an anti-Semite.
UPDATE. What an amazing effort!

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Oops. Forgot to promote it.  But I was on with Luke Grant from 8pm.

Andrew BoltAPRIL022013(8:55pm)

Damn. Keep forgetting to promote it.
But I was on with Steve Price and Mathias Cormann from 8pm.  Listen live here tomorrow.Talkback:  131 873. 
Listen to all past shows here. 

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As the comedian didn’t say to the Imam

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (8:07pm)

What a Catholic Archbishop said last night on the ABC’s Q&A about homosexuality:

MARK COLERIDGE:  But what the church has to do is to remain faithful to our understanding of homosexuality and yet, at the same time, to work in every way we can to ensure justice for homosexual people. Now, clearly this doesn’t mean to say, for instance, that we support gay marriage… But in every other way, to work to defend the dignity of homosexual people, just as we work to defend the dignity of other people. How to do that and to maintain fidelity to our understanding of homosexuality, which is grounded upon a particular vision of the what the human person is and what human sexuality is within that context. How to hold those two things together is the conundrum that we are dealing with....
What comedian John Thomas said to the Archbishop (edited version):
JOSH THOMAS: I don’t know if you are gay and Christian, to me it just seems like you play a constant game of stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself.... I just think the Churches really overhype what the texts say about homosexuals. There is not that many texts. There is about five, I think. They are all quite weird… Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s pretty odd… How do you read the ones for example that say homosexuals should be stoned to death?…
And this is my point. I think that the interpretation at the moment is really heavily against gays and the text isn’t. I mean we’ve got - I mean there was a study that last year the Australian Christian lobby sent out about five times as many press releases about gays than they did about any other issue....
Well, obviously I don’t think I am a warp in God’s plan. Obviously I reject the - I reject that. What he is saying is, right, marriage in our country is not a religious institution. We’re talking about changing the law.,, So you can understand when this man says why are we fighting against religion in this square, why people get a bit annoyed when you challenge us wanting to change the law, which is completely irrelevant to your life. It is completely irrelevant to everything you do… When I kiss my boyfriend goodnight and I tell my boyfriend that I love him and he says, “I love you too” and we fall asleep hugging each other. What about that is hurting you?

What an Imam said last night on the ABC’s Q&A about homosexuality:
MOHAMAD ABDALLA: Very briefly, it prohibits it. It doesn’t allow it. The second thing is what attitude should we have towards people who choose that lifestyle. Should we become - should we lose our compassion? Not at all.... What we have to understand is that homosexuality is seen as a sin… 
What comedian John Thomas said to the Imam (every single word recorded):

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Gillard: “a weary people who no longer believe what politicians say”

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (2:52pm)

Julia Gillard in her first speech in Parliament spoke a perfect indictment of her last days as Prime Minister:
For far too long public debate in Australia has failed to nourish or inspire us.... The end result of this political cycle is a weary people who no longer believe what politicians say and who think the politicians saying it do not even believe it themselves.
In her first speech she singled out for thanks the great Labor man who has now resigned from her government in despair:

To the member for Batman, Martin Ferguson: thanks for your help and personal support. 

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Murdoch calls Labor rhetoric “racist”

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (2:33pm)

I’m less red-hot on mass immigration - especially when it’s not matched by spending on infrastructure. But on the Gillard Government’s scare campaign on temporary foreign workers I couldn’t agree more:

NEWS Corp chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch has labelled Labor’s language on foreign workers “disgraceful and racist”.
Speaking in Darwin today, Mr Murdoch ... said: “I think the way they’re talking about the [457 visas] is pretty disgraceful and racist.
“But I’m a big one for encouraging immigration, I think that’s the future.
“A mixture of people - just look at America - is just fantastic.
“You have difficulties for generations of migrants sometimes if there are too many from one area, but they meld in a couple of generations and it leads to tremendous creativity in the community.”

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Does discrimination really flow only one way?

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (1:26pm)

The Fairfax headline:
Gay slurs take AIDS fighter by surprise
In fact, the story is actually about slurs by gays taking a gay marriage supporter by surprise. 

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Swan may really mean his class war madness

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (1:09pm)

I swear Jim Chalmers really does believe this stuff, since he no longer is Treasurer Wayne Swan’s chief of staff and is under no obligation to keep parrotting Swan’s ludicrous class war talk. If so, it suggests Swan and his staff are true believers of Labor’s crazy politics of hate:
Let’s be clear: the Coalition’s brains trust thinks the targets of any incoming government should be, among others, ordinary workers, the disabled, researchers, those relying on housing assistance, and viewers of the public broadcasters.
Another question is why the ABC keeps publishing Chalmers’ bile.  

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Hate speech identified

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (11:57am)

Strange, but perhaps it’s because I’m a gardener that the word has never offended me:
In a survey of 75 Mississippi State University students from 2009, moist placed second only to vomit as the ugliest word in the English language. In a 2011 follow-up survey of 125 students, moist pulled into the ugly-word lead—vanquishing a greatest hits of gross that included phlegm, ooze, mucus, puke, scab, and pus. Meanwhile, there are 7,903 people on Facebook who like the “interest” known as “I Hate the Word Moist.”
My own hate words include:

- ”weep” (Almost always used dishonestly as a fake substitute for “cry”, which demands real tears. Jesus once wept, but few do now. Example: “When I read Bill McKibben’s book Eaarth last summer I wept...")
- ”chuckle” (A dishonest substitute for laugh, either by the performer or the describer).
- ”humorous” (An adjective used almost exclusively by people with no sense of humor themselves).
- ”interrogate” (As used by sociologists to suggest they are far too learned to use plain English terms such as “question”, “discuss”, “debate” or “talk about”. Example: ”In this chapter we interrogate sociological texts with a view to excavating the masculinity that inheres in these texts and saturates the concept of the social.")
- ”inheres” (See above. Pseuds talking.)
- ”jolly” (What century are we in? And who, exactly, is “jolly” these days?)
- ”of course” (Offensive when used by a smart arse. Even more offensive when that smart arse uses it to state as given something that most certainly isn’t, thus advertising not just the user’s arrogance but ignorance. Example: ”Of course, the disastrous effects of climate change are myriad.")
- ”race” (Used to divide us by celebrating as significant the most insignificant inflections of ancestry, when there is in fact only one human “race”.  Often used in error for “culture”. Example:  “I myself am a light skinned Aboriginal with Scottish heritage… From a childhood of growing up on country in North Queensland, learning the stories and living the way of life I have lived, I have formed what I think is a very strong sense of culture and understanding of my people, my homelands and my race.”)
- ”racist” (Yes, there are real racists and they must be called out. But “racist” is now most often used simply to shut up people without the bother of rebutting them. It is most often used by the New Racists to push their agenda or by Leftists trying to intimidate those asking important questions about high levels of dysfunction in some immigrant minorities. Example: “A national inquiry will examine the racism and exclusion faced by Africans, amid fears that media stereotypes, such as the portrayal of African youths as violent gang members, are fuelling discrimination.” Example: “Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton has accused former Australian of the year Tim Flannery of holding a racist belief that indigenous Australians are ‘enemies of nature’.” Example: “There’s still more to be done, including reworking the outdated and racist wording of the Constitution.” )
(Thanks to reader Craig.) 

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Opposition leader Crean fights Government

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (11:11am)

Opposition leader Simon Crean is making superannuation the next battleground in his war against an incompetent Gillard Government:

LABOR backbenchers have echoed Simon Crean’s warnings about retrospective changes to the superannuation system, with West Australian senator Mark Bishop saying he is “terrified” at the possible consequences for the party…
Senator Bishop, a former Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association state secretary, warned the government against reneging on promises made when the party introduced the modern super system in the 1980s and 90s.
“There was a clear undertaking given by the Labor Party and the trade union movement that earnings would remain the property of the individual, would be invested in the particular fund and enjoy the bounty of compounding growth,” he said…

Labor MP Graham Perrett also backed Mr Crean’s warning, saying retrospective legislation should “always be a last option, especially when it comes to superannuation”. Other Labor MPs said Mr Crean was not alone in voicing concerns and it would be “absolutely crazy” to change the system six months before an election…

Mr Crean yesterday continued to demand the government provide clarity over its proposed super changes, saying it should stop scaring Australians. “I’d like them to do two things: one, to say that they’re not going to tax retrospectively,” he told the ABC’s News 24. “The second thing I would like them to do is to actually frame the debate that we’re having. Instead of scaring people about their earnings going to be attacked, let’s say it is about sustainability.”
I have never seen a government so hopelessly divided, with a former leader openly campaigning from the backbench against the current leader.
And I’m not even talking about Kevin Rudd.
UPDATE
Judith Sloan on how many of us may suddenly become the “fabulously rich”, in needing of fleecing (again) by a government worse at looking after our money than we are:

Maybe the minister for many things, Craig Emerson, thinks he has introduced a calming element into the discussion. It is only the “fabulously rich” who have anything to fear… The trouble is that he doesn’t define “fabulously rich”.
Last year’s budget dealt a blow to very high-income earners by imposing a contributions tax of 30 per cent on those on $300,000 a year or more, rather than the standard 15 per cent. This is in addition to the annual contributions cap of $25,000 a year, which includes the compulsory superannuation charge, which this government has imposed and refuses to index. Should we conclude that those earning $300,000 a year are really extra fabulously rich, because they have been already been lumbered with higher tax on their superannuation? Does this mean the fabulously rich are those earning $200,000 a year or more? Or perhaps $150,000 a year?
The real problem for the government is there just aren’t enough high-income earners to fleece on a go-forward basis, to raise the billions it wants to spend.
UPDATE
Reader Mick:

What exactly does Craig Emerson consider to be “fabulously wealthy”?
Compared to my meagre Military pension I would consider Craig Emerson, who earns around $366,700 pa to be “fabulously wealthy”.
But how much will the proposed new laws effect Craig Emerson’s superannuation? None whatsoever. The new proposal only affects the money that individuals add to their superannuation. But the superannuation deal for politician is so generous that there is no need for them to use any of their own money to make sure the super will make their life comfortable for them in retirement. No, the taxpayers will do that for them.
Treasurer Wayne Swan’s super:

AN Australian worker would need a lump sum superannuation balance of up to $5.6 million to get the equivalent of Wayne Swan’s lifetime pension of $166,400, which the Treasurer is guaranteed if he leaves parliament in September.
UPDATE
Opposition Leader Simon Crean steps up the pressure on the Government:
DUMPED cabinet minister Simon Crean has signalled he could be prepared to cross the floor on superannuation changes, saying he will do “whatever I can” to stop any retrospective measures coming into place…
“I am prepared to do whatever I can to make common sense prevail, certainty prevail and a belief back in people that in us they have a government that not only is committed to their superannuation, committed to growing it but committed to making it sustainable,” Mr Crean said.
“This has to be fought ...”
UPDATE
Reader Kevin is puzzled:

Why do you call Simon Crean ‘opposition leader’? Isn’t he in the same party as the government?
If I understand Australian politics, then Abbot is the opposition leader, right?
UPDATE
Where’s Bill?

As Superannuation Minister Bill Shorten sits out the latest debate on super tax changes, Labor mobilised Dr Emerson and Defence Minister Stephen Smith to argue Labor’s case.
Dr Emerson told Sky News on Sunday that superannuation tax changes were worth examining for the “fabulously wealthy”.
He today refused to define who he was talking about.
Strange. Why would the normally garrulous Bill Shorten be so silent about an issue that actually falls within his portfolio responsibilities? Does he sense a trap? Is he preparing for a future?
(Thanks to reader Hmmm.) 

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An inconvenient question

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (9:52am)

Tony Thomas manages to interrupt a group-think session long enough to ask a tough question of warmist David Karoly, fresh from a debacle over a co-authored paper claiming unprecedented warming:

“I would like to draw your attention to three facts, two of which are not in dispute at all.
“The first is that the CO2 levels are galloping faster than the most pessimistic predictions. The second is that there has been a 17 year pause in global warming, as acknowledged by Rajendra Pachauri of the IPCC, and that the British Bureau of Meteorolgy models are predicting that this pause will continue until the year 2017—that’s a 20 year pause.  And thirdly there is a leaked graph from the Fifth IPCC report due out in September showing actual temperatures tracking below the lowest predictions of the previous IPCC reports.
“If we put those three facts together, don’t they blow this idiotic global warming scare right out of the water?”
Read on.
Who are the denialists now? 

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Campaign slogans for Assange

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (9:33am)

It’s wild, the causes to which some in the New Class give their time and cash:


Barrister and former Liberal Party staffer Greg Barns will be national campaign director for Julian Assange and the new WikiLeaks Party to be launched this week.
The new party has also secured support from a prominent Melbourne philanthropist and is actively seeking members to achieve federal registration.
Mr Barns said on Monday he had agreed to be the WikiLeaks Party campaign director following conversations with Mr Assange, who has announced he will run for a Senate seat in Victoria in the September 14 federal election…
‘’We’ll be running a highly collaborative campaign that’ll be very innovative, using informational technology to engage voters...”
Please help nice Mr Barns by devising innovative slogans and campaign techniques for his campaign.

Something along the lines of “Vote Assange! Keep accused rapists out of court” might help win the anarchist vote.
Or how about: “Send an accused rapist to Parliament, not a court”? That’s got to appeal to the perverse, of whom we have a disturbing number.
Assange says he’s innocent and denies the allegations, of course. So why bother with the Swedish justice system when you’ve got the word from the man himself?
PS
As Britain’s High Court said of the allegations Assange faces in Sweden:

... there can be no doubt that if what Mr Assange had done had been done in England and Wales, he would have been charged and thus criminal proceedings would have been commenced.
But rather than face trial in Sweden, Assange seeks election in Australia, and even has people to back him. 

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Wharfie union plans takeover of Labor branch

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (9:09am)

Labor’s union shackles are about to get a lot, lot heavier. Piers Akerman:

The future has been revealed in Western Australia where the ultra-aggro Maritime Union of Australia is moving in on the state branch of the ALP to massively increase its influence on internal Labor politics and the WA and Federal parliaments.
The West Australian newspaper reports that antagonistic MUA supremo Christy Cain is engineering a “grassroots” takeover of the WA branch of the Labor Party.
In the past 12 months, the number of MUA members who are also Labor members has increased more than fivefold to 850, up from 150 a year ago.
One in four of the 3500 members of the ALP is now aligned to the MUA.
Cain told the newspaper this was “only the start of it” because he was intent on signing up 2000 of the union’s 5000 members to the Labor Party.. If achieved, the MUA would control a significant portion of the ALP State executive by next year, increasing its number of delegates to 33 of the 175.
Just what Labor needs. Just what Bill Shorten doubtless would love, given his profession of love at the recent MUA state conference:

WORKPLACE Relations Minister Bill Shorten has publicly aligned himself with the militant Maritime Union of Australia, ... [telling] MUA members in Western Australia yesterday that ”there’s no other place I’d rather be today anywhere in Australia, and I mean this with all my heart, than here with you”.
Also at the same MUA conference:
WA Branch Secretary Chris Cain, speaking in his usual straightforward and strong militant views, told the delegates: “Laws need to be broken, you’re going to get locked up. Because if you want equality in this country, you need to take action,” said Cain.
Another guest speaker at the MUA conference:
Bob Crow, the General Secretary of the UK Rail Maritime and Transport Union, gave a rousing talk about the importance of seeing the trade union work as a 24-7 community operation… “Capitalism has failed mankind.”
And some bashing of bosses who provide the jobs:

Mr Cain led conference delegates in a chant accusing mining magnate Gina Rinehart of exploiting workers, “with the entire crowd joining in”.
Nowhere else in Australia that Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten, the face of modern Labor and son-in-law of the Governor-General, would rather be. 

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Trash our joint, and we’ll compensate you for being policed

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (9:01am)

An immigrant who causes such mayhem in his new home should be forced to pay compensation before given any himself.
But here we go again, proving to the world we’re the land of the soft touch for everyone except the taxpayers:
VICTORIA Police has paid tens of thousands of dollars in legal settlements to a gang leader it regards as violent and with no regard for authority…
An internal police assessment seen by the Herald Sun said his criminal history included armed robbery, weapons offences, assaults, drug breaches, resisting police, stalking, burglary and theft.
One victim was said to have needed plastic surgery after being attacked with a beer bottle.
The man was “a known ringleader . . . with a propensity for violence and disregard for authority”, the 2008 assessment warned.
The documents show police feared the kind of racism allegations later levelled against them.
“There is a high risk that any targeted approach could be incorrectly misconstrued as racist,” the report said.
The gang leader alleged police hit him with a torch and called him a “black c--t”, and took legal action.
Police denied the allegations, but settled the case out of court.
The leader was one of a group recently involved in another successful action against police, which was settled earlier this year.
This is one case where I’d prefer to risk losing the money on lawyers than know I’ve paid it to a thug. Here is the excuse given by Victoria Police:

“Consideration was given to the impact lengthy court hearings would have on police resources and what the overall cost to the community would be if we went to trial,” the force said.

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The door is wide open and boat people are rushing in

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (8:24am)

Boat people policy
There has been an astonishing and unprecedented rise in boat people arrivals, with more than a boat a day arriving over the past month.
In March alone, a record 2200 boat people turned up.
In the last six years of the Howard Government just 18 boats arrived. In one month of the Gillard Government, 34 have arrived.
The door is wide open.
(Thanks to reader Gab.) 

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Holden gets $2 billion in handouts. Unions get a playground

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (8:11am)

Our governments have given a single multinational company more than $2 billion in handouts, and without telling us had madly generous they’ve been:
General Motors Holden received $2.2 billion in federal handouts over the past 12 years, 50 per cent more than past estimates based on more limited data.
But Holden argues that taxpayers got value for money because the subsidies underwrote $32 billion in local investment over the same period…
Until now it has been thought that each of the three car companies received just over $100 million a year from Canberra.
One of many problems with the Holden argument is that we must simply assume that it would not have made the investments without the $2.2 billion of taxpayer money it trousered.
Another question is whether that unbelievable amount of subsidy went towards securing an investment or padding out union featherbedding. Grace Collier has described the kind of rorts and privileges we’ve been subsidising - and making a workplace standard to the detriment of other businesses:
Let us look at the Holden Ltd Enterprise Agreement…
One of the five Agreement Objectives is a requirement to “control costs to increase competitiveness domestically and in overseas markets where structural costs are significantly lower”. But in a stunning contradiction, pay increases of 29.13 per cent are given. Between 1997 and 2010 the company gave pay increases of 63.33 per cent, a median increase of 4.87 per cent a year, hardly appropriate for a struggling business relying on government support.
A fatuously titled clause, Responding to the Market and Seizing the Opportunity, says the parties have “agreement to ensure that change, productivity and flexibility are efficiently managed and implemented”. Yet the agreement prohibits the company from increasing, decreasing or rearranging the workforce without union approval.
The company can only hire a casual employee after gaining the agreement of the relevant unions and then only for “agreed numbers”, “agreed specified tasks” and “agreed specified periods”. Anyone who is casual for more than three months automatically becomes permanent…
If there is need to increase production, the company must in the first instance offer overtime to employees. If it is not taken up, then, provided the unions give permission, the company may use workers from a labour hire company, but only for “specified periods”, and in limited numbers with union agreement required at each stage of the process. Holden cannot choose the labour hire company; they can only use a business selected by the unions.
Anyone with any commercial experience can grasp the significance of this arrangement.

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How do you get a “social licence”? From whom?

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (7:53am)

Nick Cater on a new licence you need from activists and their political mates before you can make a dollar:

The Prime Minister assured us that banning live cattle had saved the industry “because they were not going to get the social licence they needed unless we addressed animal welfare standards”.
It is official: a valid export permit and a current health clearance certificate that meet the requirements of the Export Control (Animals) Order 2004 are no longer enough to safeguard Australian cattle sent for slaughter in foreign climes. The livestock export business is now required to obtain a social licence as well as a real one.
Where does one apply for a social licence? What fees and charges apply? Who sets the criteria and how are they assessed? What recourse is there to appeal an adverse decision? And will they be valid beyond the next edition of Four Corners? These are the great unknowns.
One thing is for sure: parliament won’t get a look in because the terms and conditions that apply to social licences are not determined by our elected representatives but by “the community at large"…
A 2011 report for the CSIRO by the Sustainable Minerals Institute, Queensland University provides a useful summary. An SLO is “an intangible and unwritten, tacit, contract with society, or a social group”.
A mining company that wants a social licence must maintain “a positive corporate reputation” and understand “the cultural and historical context of the community and operation”.
The weasel word here is community. In the lexicon of the moral crusaders, it no longer means a geographic community encompassing the people who actually live in the vicinity. The new communities are communities of interest and might include, for instance, ethical investment funds, human rights activists and animal rights campaigners, all of whom are said to have a stake (as opposed to a steak) in the live cattle export trade…
The social licence that the Prime Minister now requires is very different from the old kind of licence where the authorities provided clear benchmarks. With a social licence the stakeholders make up the rules as they go along...
Here is Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig announcing the withdrawal of a “social licence” exporters don’t know how to apply for:

I support the live animal export industry. That’s why we moved from a system where there was no regulation so you did not know what the fate of individual animals were. That left me with little confidence from overseas markets in what happens with animal welfare, little confidence with the community. What I said to them at the time they lost their social licence.
Another example of investors needing to obtain a “social licence” from unelected interest groups applying undefined criteria:
Billions of investment dollars could be lost if communities aren’t sold on the benefits of CSG and other unconventional energy options, a report says…

It states new energy industries can provide lower emission options, and promise to create tens of thousands of jobs, CEDA’s chief executive Stephen Martin says.
But the full potential of “unconventional” gas developments will be realised only if companies have a “social licence” to operate, he says.
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie says a supertrawler, perfectly legal under the law, failed to get a “social licence”, presumably from Wilkie:
The case against the super trawler is overwhelming and includes matters as diverse as doubts over the science and effectiveness of the Government’s safeguards, bycatch, risk of localised stock depletion, lack of a social licence and question marks over the conduct of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority when setting the quota relevant to the vessel.

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Suing an AWU whistleblower into silence

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (7:23am)

Who paid Slater & Gordon to sue a whistleblower in 1993 for warning that a union official could be ripping off the Australian Workers Union - actually a Slater & Gordon client?
Note the use of the defamation laws to silence people. And now the government now led by a former Slater & Gordon partner wants even tougher laws against free speech.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 

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Save the planet! Steal medicine from the poor

Andrew Bolt April 02 2013 (7:18am)

All this pain, to make not the slightest difference to global warming, which paused 16 years ago anyway:
VICTORIA’S cash-strapped hospitals have been hit with an extra $6.7 million in energy costs due to the carbon tax in just six months, new data reveals.

State government analysis of hospital bills shows carbon charges made up on average 15 per cent of hospital energy bills.
Health Minister David Davis has written to the Federal Government demanding compensation for the increased costs of caring for sick and injured Victorians.
Complete madness. We’re denying sick humans money for real cures to pay for a quack cure for a planet that’s not even sick.
UPDATE
Yet more blue-collar jobs killed off - in part - by the carbon tax:
A 101-YEAR-OLD foundry closed in West Footscray last week, blaming a tough economic climate in the manufacturing industry for its collapse.
Graham Campbell Ferrum was one of the largest remaining foundries in Australia, exporting casting components of up to 60,000kg and employing 27 workers at its Geelong Rd site.
Managing director Peter Graham told 3AW he was devastated to shut the fourth-generation owned company following the fallout from the high Australian dollar…
”Rising energy costs and the carbon tax have also certainly increased our electricity bills and that impacted on the decision to close...”
No response so far from local federal member Nicola Roxon, a perfect representative of the New Labor class that has inflicted this pointless tax on the working class.
Another no-speak:

Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten did not respond before Leader’s deadline.
And with so many jobs now killed by this tax, when will AWU boss Paul Howes make good on his promise?

Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes has warned the Government that ”if one job is gone, our support [for the carbon tax] is gone”.
(Thanks to reader Top.) 

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Get yourself a real education

Andrew Bolt April 01 2013 (8:24pm)

Tired of being taught by Leftist ideologues? Bored by second-hand Marxists at uni? Prefer an a real education to just a degree?
Here is an alternative:
Most universities teach a biased version of political economy that promotes big government and failed Keynesian policies. In response, the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance (with the support of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation) is pleased to offer a new course that tells the rest of the story.
The new course “Foundations of Liberty and Free-Market Economics” will introduce students to free-market ideas, and the people behind those ideas.
Run between April and October in Sydney, the course will include 10 interactive 2-hour evening seminars that will involve guest lecturers, student-led discussion, stimulating debate, and structured material that will ensure you get the most out of your time. The seminar will be followed by further discussion over beer and free pizza. Between seminars, students will be given recommended reading and YouTube videos, and have the opportunity to ask questions from our panel of academic advisors and the ATA staff.
Guest lecturers and academic advisors include Professor Sinclair Davidson (RMIT), Dr Stephen Kirchner (CIS), Professor Jason Potts (RMIT), Tom Switzer (USyd), John Humphreys (UQ), and more to be announced shortly…
The 2013 program is only available in Sydney, however in 2014 shall be rolled out in other major cities. The cost of the full program is $750…
Applications close on 5pm AEST Monday the 12th of April and the first seminar is on Thursday the 18th of April.
I suspect we’ll see more such initiatives from bodies such as the Institute of Public Affairs. 

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Heading back home — with Trung Ly at Bali International Depature Airport.
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The Hendrick's Gang! Darren Low we're missing you! — with Kendra Renee Ng, Gladys Wong andJak Nu.
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Brigitte Bardot: From Sex Symbol to French Patriot

“I am against the Islamisation of France…For centuries our forefathers, the ancients, our grandfathers, our fathers gave their lives to chase all successive invaders from France.” ~ Brigitte Bardot

http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/brigitte-bardot-sex-symbol-french-patriot/
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STREETFIGHTER’S HADOUKEN STRIKES INTERNET AND GOES VIRAL!
People all across the world at getting their inner video gamer out by re-enacting Street Fighter’s Hadouken move. Don’t worry, it’s safer than planking (we think).
Read more about it here:www.urbansociety.com.au/urban-insider/hadouken-goes-viral
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"Blue Bowling Balls"

Allright, it's official. Joe Azure is bad for my wallet. On Saturday, After we arrived at Bowling Ball Beach near Mendocino, Joe gave Casey McCallister and I a crash course on how you uses his Big Stopper with Reverse NDs, NDs, and Polarizers. Well I have never been a filter guy really, but to see the results you can get IN CAMERA, I was hooked. So I came home and ordered $80...See more
 — with Casey McCallister and Joe Azure at Bowling Ball Beach.
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Screenshot from youtube.com @Jobar Revo
2,000-year-old Damascus synagogue destroyed===

Poems are rough notations for the music we are." - Rumi
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Check out this picture of a beautiful wall cloud on a textbook supercell NW of Benjamin, TX. INSANE lightning with this storm. Working on video now!
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*Vibrantly Resting*
A shot from back in February. This is a 2 shot blend. The longest shot was 103 seconds, just at sunset with my 10-stop LEE Big Stopper and a .9 Soft Graduated Filter. I processed this with Photomatix, Lightroom 4 and Color Efex Pro 4. Enjoy!
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4 her
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Library of love
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One more design from the Botanica Collection - Banksia Bouquet is a striking contemporary design based on Australian Banksias
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YOU’RE PAYING FOR IT ……..as reported in today’s Australian; Craig Kelly

The Australian public service is increasingly top-heavy, with 45,000 officials, or 29 per cent of all permanent employees, now classified as executives. 

Analysis by The Australian has found there is now one manager for every 2.5 ordinary workers in the federal bureaucracy.

And the rise in the top five pay grades in Canberra accounts for almost all of the growth in the public service during the past five years, with an ANNUAL COST TO TAXPAYERS OF $1.3 BILLION for the 10,000-plus extra executives.

Since 1998, the number of middle managers in the federal bureaucracy, known as EL1s and EL2s, has jumped 132 per cent, while the elite, three-grade Senior Executive Service has expanded 78 per cent.

The total number of so-called "ongoing" employees in the Australian Public Service increased by 42 per cent over that period, compared with a 22 per cent rise in the nation's population.

The ANNUAL COST to the federal budget of executive remuneration, including salary, superannuation, vehicle allowance and bonus payments, is $6bn.

According to the most recent report on remuneration by the Australian Public Service Commission, the average total reward of the highest classification (SES Band 3), of which there were 135 officials, was $358,552.

The entry-level executive (EL1) positions, of which there were 28,818 at last year's audit, command an average total reward of $116,087.

In the past five years under Labor, the number of permanent public servants has grown by 10,440, including a 10,358 rise in the executive ranks, to 154,307.

Had the number of senior executives and middle managers remained at 2007 levels, the annual salary bill would be $1.343bn less than it is today.

The agencies with the highest proportion of executives are AusAID (57 per cent), the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (52 per cent), Foreign Affairs and Trade (51 per cent), Finance and Deregulation (50 per cent), Attorney-General's (49 per cent) and Treasury (44 per cent).

In June 2010, the federal government introduced a cap on SES growth in each agency, designed to place a control on the number of highly paid roles each agency can staff.

While the government says the total number of public servants, including defence personnel and federal police, has stopped growing and is forecast to fall this year, the number of permanent bureaucrats covered by the Public Service Act continues to rise.

If elected, the Coalition has said it would cut the number of federal public servants by 12,000 over two years through natural attrition, saving $4bn over the four-year forward estimates period.
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MEDIA IGNORE OBAMAS LAVISH 1% VACATIONS

In a Sunday Washington Times column, Drudge Report editor Joseph Curl takes a look at the difference between how the last two White House occupants, President Bush and President Obama, approached vacationing as president. Curl reveals that unlike Obama, Bush was concerned with public perception (especially during the war in Iraq) and made an effort to schedule holiday vacations in a way that wouldn't take others away from their families -- even a media that despised him:

“I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal,” [President George W. Bush] said years later. “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.”

That’s also why Mr. Bush did two other things, without fanfare or praise. First, he never headed home to his Texas ranch until after Christmas, instead going to Camp David for a few days. That way, the hundreds of people revolving around him at all times — White House staff, Secret Service agents, reporters, photographers, all the others — could spend the holiday with their families in and around Washington, D.C. No one ever reported that — until this column.

Second, he rarely attended sporting events, although he once owned a baseball team and was a self-confessed stats junkie. His thinking there was the same: If he went to a baseball game (right down the street from the White House), his mere presence would mean hours and hours of extra security for fans.

Conversely, Obama, who never has to worry about the media turning against him (including lying for weeks about a terror attack in Libya), doesn't give a damn about public perception -- not during a recession; not even during a time when sequester cuts are being blamed for the closing of White House tours and airport control towers:

How else to explain the nonstop vacations the pair keep taking during what Mr. Obama calls the “worst financial crisis since the Great Depression”? In 2013, the First Family has already enjoyed three vacations — that’s one a month. (Sorry, Joe America, you might have to forget your week at the beach again this year, but make sure you get those taxes in on time!)

Curl closes the piece (which you will want to read in full) by making the point about how much this juxtaposition tells you about Obama. And indeed it does. But I would add that it also reveals just as much about our media.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/04/01/Obamas-Enjoy-Vacation-Lifestyle-of-the-One-Percent
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one last April First thingamajig, whatchamacallit…

The saucer seen above, using only a cloak of cloud cover, descended over the almost barren field field in it's hunt for bovine tastiness, but alas it was only able to find a local McDonald's © which the space aliens immediately zapped into oblivion after being offered gluten free Chicken McNuggets.

It was a grim day indeed, but I was able to catch them in their descent from their planet oh so far away, using my P31 eye stomper Image Compression Module.

For editing I went into the future and got myself a copy of Adobe's Googleshop CS 2002.

It was a steal at only 12,000 yenos (the currency of the new world order).
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"Like", Share and/or comment to enter in a chance to WIN a Doctor Who Collectible set, Twilight Zone Mystic Seer Bobble, OR a $100 gift certificate to Entertainment Earth
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The view from Lombard street, San Francisco. Looking over North Beach. — at Lombard Street.
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Last Light of day at Rodeo Beach last Saturday with the Aperture Academy. What fantastic light it was too! I was pretty busy helping our students get outrageously good images just after the rain stopped and the sky exploded. I finally at the end said "I need to get a picture of this!"

Previous to my shooting this pic, there were awesome lenticular clouds off the coast, and I had shot a couple of quick hand held pics of the scene in order to show frames to the people I was teaching, but alas, those images looked pretty shaky on the big screen.

I think this is some of the best light and clouds I've seen together at this spot EVER. — at Rodeo Beach.
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Shooting a brand spanking new YouTube video out in the city this beautiful long weekend, plenty of action coming your way! We can't say when exactly but it'll be worth the wait! We hope! #team9lives #9livesparkour #9lives1love #sydney #parkour #freerunning
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A SHIFT FROM ONE CLIMATE SYSTEM TO ANOTHER ?

Remember a few months ago when chief climate propagandist Tim Flannery was excitedly crowing about ‘123 climate records broken’ over 90 days during the warm Australian summer.
Mr Flannery enthusiastically said at the time;

“When you get records being broken at that scale, you can start to see a shifting from one climate system to another.”

Well I’d be interested to hear Mr Flannery’s comments given the fact that in last 7 days in the USA a total of 935 LOW temperature records have been broken.

And 935 records broken for new low temperatures include;
* A new record LOW Fort Lauderdale, Florida for the 28th March, beating the previous record set in 1884.

* A new record LOW in Silverton, Colardo for the 25th March, beating the previous record set in 1885, and

* A new record LOW at the Aztec Ruins National Monument in New Mexico, beating the previous record set in 1871 - when Ulysses Grant was President.

These records don't mean we are entering a new ice age, and we need new taxes to "take action" on global cooling, as with tens of thousands of locations recording temperatures around the globe there will always be some new highs or lows being recorded somewhere - but what they do demonstrate, is the alarmist nonsense and propaganda coming Labor’s highly paid Climate Commissioner.
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Earlier today our ACM member Peter Tadros along with his wife Mrs Mariam Tadros represented the ACM at an event organised by the Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) to celebrate Assyrian New Year. The event was held at the Fairfield Showground and attended by thousands of people and well over 100 politicians and community leaders. 
The photo below includes two politicians who are considered to be champions of promoting the plight of not only the Assyrian community but the Coptic Community as well they are Mr Craig Kelly MP (Liberal member for Hughes) and the Hon. Rev Fred Nile MLC and leader of the Christian Democratic Party.
On the 13th October 2011 Mr Kelly supported the ACM in putting forward a historic motion to be voted on in the Australian Federal Parliament. The motion called for an end to Coptic persecution in Egypt and officially recognised the persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt as well as a further three actions points.
The motion passed with support from all politicians following months of continuous campaigning by ACM supporters across the nation. On the following day the Hon. Rev Fred Nile MLC and leader of the Christian Democratic Party introduced the same motion to the NSW Legislative Council and again the motion was successful.
Both Mr Kelly and the Hon. Rev Nile were in attendance today at Assyrian New Year event and in both speeches, they along with the Hon. David Clark MLC and Mr Hermiz Shahine (AUA) again recognised the plight of Egypt’s Copts and their ongoing suffering. We sincerely thank both Mr Kelly and the Hon. Rev Nile for their continuing support to the plight of minorities throughout the Middle East and North Africa and like the many who attended today’s event at Fairfield, we at the ACM call for an end to all persecution of all minority groups in the region and request that the Australian Government fully recognises the genocide that was committed against the Assyrians, Armenians and Pontiac Greeks earlier last century.
We also call upon The Australian Federal Parliament to implement all four action points of the motion on Coptic persecution as the situation for Egypt’s Copts has deteriorated significantly since 13th October 2011.
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With Rachelle Mercado, Sarie-Rose Whitehouse-Hartmann, Andy Minh Trieu and Chandni Biswas.
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Horatio Nelson

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Events

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[edit]Holidays and observances


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michelle at garden of the gods
Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for April 1st. Enjoy!

From the Blog

‘Climate scientists’ attempt to explain 20-year hiatus in temperature rise

In a mid-March article published in the Weekly Standard called "In Denial," Steven Hayward asked the following question...

Defense Department: No Purple Hearts for Fort Hood victims because it could jeopardize Nidal Hasan’s chance at a fair trial

It’s been over three years since witnesses say Nidal Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” before killing more than a dozen people and injuring well over twice as many at Fort Hood...

Obama chooses interesting backdrop for ‘new investments in America’ speech

Friday, President Obama was in Miami, Florida promoting a new $21 billion infrastructure “stimulus” plan...

More From the Right Side of the Web

Michelle's Top Tweets

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And ... Our Hate Tweet of the Day

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Thinking for yourself? Pfft! Like, seriously.

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God is our Abba Father and nothing is too insignificant for Him when it comes to His children! Check out today's devotional and be blessed! http://bit.ly/10jShLu
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When we let go and let God, our hearts find rest and we find God seeing us through every situation! In this video excerpt, discover how God's bountiful supply flows when we rest in His love and grace. You can begin to live a life free of cares and full of His supply today!http://josephprince.com/
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Take time to go into Jesus’ presence today. All that He is—His compassion, wisdom and peace—will rub off on you. People are going to look at you and say, “There is just something special about you!”
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Be greatly blessed like Abraham when you choose to have an intimate relationship with the One who made you righteous! Check out today's devotional and be blessed!http://bit.ly/10SKgQ1
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If you’re going through a challenging situation that you don’t understand, or in which you don’t seem to see a light at the end of the tunnel, know that because you are a beloved child of God, He will make all things work together for your good (Rom 8:28). http://josephprince.com/


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