Saturday, May 04, 2013

Sat May 4th Todays News

Happy birthday and many happy returns Zaya Toma. Born the same date Latvia declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1990 .. and Star Wars Day. I join with Latvians in honouring your day. May the fourth be with you.
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Second coming of love for Fred Nile

Miranda Devine – Saturday, May 04, 2013 (6:19pm)

FRED Nile doesn’t drink but he’s high on something these days. And he will be the first to admit it is new love that has put the spring in his step.
At 78, the Christian Democratic Party leader and morals crusader has just announced his engagement to teacher Silvana Nero, 55, a single mother of three from Sydney’s northern beaches.
“My daughter says I’m besotted. It’s true. I am. We feel like 18-year-olds,” he said.
Ms Nero added: “Fred’s my knight in shining armour.”
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph this week, Rev Nile and Ms Nero held hands and cuddled like teenagers, while he complimented her on her “beautiful legs”.
But they are eager to point out that they don’t live together and when they travel, as they did to Israel last year, they stay in separate rooms.
“Both of us strongly believe in marriage,” said Rev Nile, who was married to childhood sweetheart Elaine for 53 years until she died of cancer 18 months ago.
With four children and eight grandchildren, they formed a formidable political duo in the NSW Upper House for 15 years. Before her death, Elaine told her husband she wanted him to remarry but named certain women who were off limits.
“I didn’t marry them,” he laughed.
As for Silvana, he said: “Elaine would approve.”
It was just four months after Elaine’s death that Rev Nile spotted Ms Nero at a CDP meeting. He had been praying that God would send him a wife and looked up to see a beautiful brunette, dressed all in white, with what appeared to be a beam of light shining on her head.
He fell instantly in love, despite the 23-year age difference.
But romance was the last thing on Ms Nero’s mind. A former Pentecostal church minister, she also had been praying - that Nile would notice she had a “calling” to join the CDP. She approached him and he said: “You are the answer to my prayer.”
“I thought that must be what he says to all the candidates,” she said.
Two months later he phoned to invite her to a Monarchist League Luncheon with the NSW Governor.
She was sitting on the balcony of her Housing Department flat in Dee Why, hair in rollers and wearing a dressing gown, when the call came. Afterwards: “I ran around the house saying, ‘This is just wonderful.’ I felt like Eliza Doolittle out of My Fair Lady”.
She spent four hours on the internet finding the perfect outfit - a demure Table Eight red lace dress.
“She looked ravishing,” he said.
“Wow! I had to get a new collection of words every time I picked her up.”
So began a series of dates - to receptions, fundraisers, and the parliamentary Spring Ball last October - where they were spotted doing the “Christian cha cha” on the dance floor. Smitten, Rev Nile even arranged a trip to Canberra so he could get three hours alone in the car with her.
As far as Ms Nero was concerned, the relationship was platonic. She told him: “Don’t call me your girlfriend.”
But they had much in common: “We love similar things - music, art, theatre. He’s very enthusiastic, like I am. We laugh a lot. We have the same values. We both have an immense love for God and serving him.”
Rev Nile added: “It’s amazing. We’re of one heart.”
A week before Valentine’s Day she had what she describes as “a healing”.
“Fred prayed over me and I felt the hand, the holy spirit of God come upon me, and I changed. I actually felt I loved him completely differently. I said to Fred, ‘I love you. I actually love you, from the purity of my heart’.”
She described herself as “old fashioned, feminine and not a feminist” so she was pleased when Rev Nile insisted on asking her father for permission to marry her, even though his future father-in-law, Pasquale Nero, an Italian migrant from Calabria, is only two years older than he is.
Mr Nero and his wife Maria were delighted. As she saw him to his car that night, Maria told Rev Nile her daughter “needed a man of God”.
Ms Nero said she suffered bringing up three children, now aged 24, 19 and 17, alone, after her first marriage broke down 18 years ago. But her Christian faith sustained her and propelled her into politics. She ran as an independent for the Senate in 2007, for Warringah Council last year, with Rev Nile handing out how-to-vote cards, and is now the CDP candidate for Mackellar.
The relationship remained secret until Thursday when a select group of NSW MPs received invitations to the engagement party next month (the wedding is set for December).
That night Ms Nero dressed in her most va-va-voom red “Both of us strongly believe in marriage,” said Rev Nile, who was married to childhood sweetheart Elaine for 53 years until she died of cancer 18 months ago.
With four children and eight grandchildren, they formed a formidable political duo in the NSW Upper House for 15 years. Before her death, Elaine told her husband she wanted him to remarry but named certain women who were off limits.
“I didn’t marry them,” he laughed.
As for Silvana, he said: “Elaine would approve.”
It was just four months after Elaine’s death that Rev Nile spotted Ms Nero at a CDP meeting. He had been praying that God would send him a wife and looked up to see a beautiful brunette, dressed all in white, with what appeared to be a beam of light shining on her head.
He fell instantly in love, despite the 23-year age difference.
But romance was the last thing on Ms Nero’s mind. A former Pentecostal church minister, she also had been praying - that Nile would notice she had a “calling” to join the CDP. She approached him and he said: “You are the answer to my prayer.”
“I thought that must be what he says to all the candidates,” she said.
Two months later he phoned to invite her to a Monarchist League Luncheon with the NSW Governor.
She was sitting on the balcony of her Housing Department flat in Dee Why, hair in rollers and wearing a dressing gown, when the call came. Afterwards: “I ran around the house saying, ‘This is just wonderful.’ I felt like Eliza Doolittle out of My Fair Lady”.
She spent four hours on the internet finding the perfect outfit - a demure Table Eight red lace dress.
“She looked ravishing,” he said.
“Wow! I had to get a new collection of words every time I picked her up.”
So began a series of dates - to receptions, fundraisers, and the parliamentary Spring Ball last October - where they were spotted doing the “Christian cha cha” on the dance floor. Smitten, Rev Nile even arranged a trip to Canberra so he could get three hours alone in the car with her.
As far as Ms Nero was concerned, the relationship was platonic. She told him: “Don’t call me your girlfriend.”
But they had much in common: “We love similar things - music, art, theatre. He’s very enthusiastic, like I am. We laugh a lot. We have the same values. We both have an immense love for God and serving him.”
Rev Nile added: “It’s amazing. We’re of one heart.”
A week before Valentine’s Day she had what she describes as “a healing”.
“Fred prayed over me and I felt the hand of the holy spirit of God come upon me, and I changed. I actually felt I loved him completely differently. I said to Fred, ‘I love you. I actually love you, from the purity of my heart’.”
She described herself as “old fashioned, feminine and not a feminist” so she was pleased when Rev Nile insisted on asking her father for permission to marry her, even though his future father-in-law, Pasquale Nero, an Italian migrant from Calabria, is only two years older than he is.
Mr Nero and his wife Maria were delighted. As she saw him to his car that night, Maria told Rev Nile her daughter “needed a man of God”.
Ms Nero said she suffered bringing up three children, now aged 24, 19 and 17, alone, after her first marriage broke down 18 years ago. But her Christian faith sustained her and propelled her into politics. She ran as an independent for the Senate in 2007, for Warringah Council last year, with Rev Nile handing out how-to-vote cards, and is now the CDP candidate for Mackellar.
The relationship remained secret until Thursday when a select group of NSW MPs received invitations to the engagement party next month (the wedding is set for December).
That night Ms Nero dressed in her most va-va-voom red dress, a Flamenco style off-the-shoulder sheath, to accompany Rev Nile to an Israel independence celebration at the Sofitel Wentworth.
To her surprise, Premier Barry O’Farrell announced the engagement to the room. Now the secret is out they are happy to declare their marriage is part of God’s plan. 

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EVERYTHING SHE TOUCHES

Tim Blair – Saturday, May 04, 2013 (3:10pm)

Julia Gillard finally stops one boat: 
The Prime Minister’s flying visit to the north-west included a tour of Devonport’s new $4 million Bass Strait Maritime Centre, which was built with federal, state and council funding.
Ms Gillard was invited to take the controls of the 1925 steam ship S.S. Woniora simulator, and as the pictures show she should hang onto her day job, with the good ship Woniora going to the bottom of the Mersey River with the Prime Minister at the helm.
The sheepish-looking Ms Gillard took it in good humour and her efforts amused the crowd of onlookers …
“I think she took the challenge on very well. It is a very difficult thing to navigate into the Mersey. At the end of the day, although the vessel did sink, she had a great time, as did every one around her,” [Devonport City Council assistant general manager community Evonne] Ewins said. 
Yep. Everyone’s having a great time. In related developments: 
A range of senior Labor Party officials – those who know the mood in the nation’s 150 electorates better than anyone – are in no doubt about the scale of the electoral tsunami that is headed for Labor …
Julia Gillard is set to lead Labor to its greatest defeat in more than 80 years. 
(Via reader AP)

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AT LEAST THERE’S NO CARBON TAX

Tim Blair – Friday, May 03, 2013 (5:49pm)

Suicide bombing is more popular among some Muslim populations than Labor is in Australia. 

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Billions reportedly spent without blinking

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (1:38pm)

One reason the nation can have slipped so easily into debt during a mining boom is that too many journalists have lost all idea of the value of money.
From the AAP today a paragraph run without alteration in several media online sites:

Sports Minister Kate Lundy told the AOC meeting that ASADA and the National Integrity of Sport Unit would each get an extra $1.7 billion over the next two years to assist them with current doping investigations, including allegations of illegal supplement use in the Australian Football League and National Rugby League.
That would have been enough to test every single adult in Australia twice a year.  

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No sorry will save these children. No act of recognition

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (12:24pm)

I really don’t think people down south understand the true level of dysfunction, which has much to do with a sick culture that can’t be fixed with a feel-good sorry or an “act of recognition”:
A TERRITORY school has been closed after a teacher was hit on the back of the neck by a student with a baseball bat.
The attack, which happened on Monday, was the latest in a string of violent assaults on staff at Angurugu School on Groote Eylandt, east of Darwin.
Other attacks include a student smashing a window in the principal’s office with an axe and a teacher having her hand broken after a student threw a chair, a table and a rubbish bin at her.
Another teacher was left bleeding after being bitten and one staff member was stabbed in the leg with sharpened pencils.
The NT News reported on a male teacher who was choked by a student and a female teacher who had to be flown off the island after a student threatened to rape her in March.
What chance that a single child in such a school, in such a culture, will learn what is needed to lead an independent life outside that community?
One day, when the “stolen generations” myth is finally accepted as a fraud, we may dare reconsider what is necessary in cases such as this: the removal with consent of the children to gain an education in a more stable environment.
(Thanks to reader b.) 

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No, Mark, you cannot be this ignorant of your ABC’s bias

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (12:09pm)

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ABC managing director Mark Scott on Rafael Epstein’s show once again plays too cute about the overwhelmingly Leftist bias he’s presided over - in breach of the ABC’s charter and obligations.
And he says something false - indeed, something he should know very well to be false - to deny the undeniable.
Listen for yourself.
Asked by Epstein to respond to criticisms by his former ABC chairman Maurice Newman that the ABC had a “groupthink” on global warming, Scott claimed:
He was talking broadly around the media. It wasn’t a specific criticism of the ABC.
That is an amazing misstatement. Newman actually wrote directly to Scott to complain specifically about the ABC coverage. As The Australian reported last December:

Mr Newman, who retired from the ABC’s top job in March when his five-year term ended, said the broadcaster had been “captured” by a “small but powerful” group of people when it came to climate change groupthink - a claim rebuffed by the broadcaster…
In his written complaint to ABC managing director Mark Scott, Mr Newman raised the issue of personally “offensive and defamatory” material and content [on the Science Show] that compared climate sceptics to pedophiles “more generally”.
The radio segment had also referred to an article that Mr Newman had written in The Australian last month comparing climate change believers to the religious. [Science Show host Robyn] Williams referred to it as “drivel” and his guest, psychology professor Stephen Lewandosky, said that those who denied climate change were “driven by ideology rather than evidence”.
Mr Newman objected to the imputation that he was a flat-earther…
”The ABC is not being frank and open about the way global warming is portrayed on its various platforms, although the sense of imbalance is becoming more overt, I feel.”
Newman wrote:

LAST month in this newspaper, I wrote an irreverent piece, “Losing Their Religion As Evidence Cools Off”, illustrating how the global warming establishment was like a religion, replete with the structure, scripture and financial resources required to promote a faith-based movement and how it is losing disciples as the truth wears off.
I don’t know about other readers, but at the ABC, for those with the religion it hit a nerve…
This is not the first time I have provoked the public wrath of the ABC’s climate change clique…
In March 2010 as chairman, I addressed an in-house conference of 250 ABC leaders. In a speech ...  I lamented the mainstream media’s role as an effective gatekeeper....  I blamed group think and used climate change as an example. My mistake was to mention climate change…
Jonathon Holmes, the presenter of Media Watch, was so angry “he could not concentrate"… I was interviewed by PM and teased as to whether I was a “climate change denier or not as obvious as that?” As a further censure, that night Tony Jones read a statement on Lateline saying: “Tonight, ABC management responded to Mr Newman’s speech, saying it stands by the integrity of its journalists and its processes."…
As a taxpayer-funded organisation, the ABC shouldn’t even have a view on global warming. What it does have is a duty to all Australians to broadcast honestly the best available evidence on both sides of the argument so that we can make up our own minds. This is not happening.
I retain a deep affection for the ABC. But, like the BBC, there are signs that a small but powerful group has captured the corporation, at least on climate change.
How can Scott just five months later claim Newman’s criticisms were not specifically of the ABC? Does he not even read The Australian or letters sent to him personally by his former chairman?
Scott also seems astonishingly ill-informed about his staff, to put the matter most kindly.
Epstein read out a text from a listener asking who the ABC had on the “Liberal” side to balance Leftist presenters such as Fran Kelly, Phillip Adams, Leigh Sales and Tony Jones.  (The listener could have gone on to mention Jon Faine, Robyn Williams, Virginia Trioli, Kerry O’Brien, Barrie Cassidy, Jonathon Holmes, Jonathan Green, Waleed Aly and on and on.)
Scott’s response:

That’s a really curious list that’s presented in the text message… I don’t know how our journalists vote. I don’t know what their personal views are.
First, this is evasive. I also don’t know how Kelly votes. For the Greens or Labor? Did Adams vote in 2007 for Labor, his long-time party, or for the Climate Change Coalition his wife helped to create? Did Green, whose party in 2007 included a John Howard pinata, vote Labor, Greens or informal? Did Trioli, who protested against Howard and made “he’s-mad” signals when interviewing Barnaby Joyce on TV, vote Socialist or Labor?
Like Scott, I just don’t know. But I do know that whatever way they voted, their ideological leanings are to the Left, and if Scott doesn’t know that, too, he is remarkably ignorant.
In fact, I don’t think he’s being frank. Take his claim that he doesn’t “know what their personal views are” - other than, he admits, in the case of Adams, who for years has run a Fabian hour four times a week, plus repeats, on ABC radio.
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Does Scott seriously assert that he doesn’t know Jones is a global warming evangelist who has been chosen a number of times by warmist conferences to mc the event or moderate the discussions?
Does he really know know that Barrie Cassidy, a former adviser to Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke, is a close friend of the Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s partner, and is largely defensive of Gillard on his show?
Has he never heard Trioli opine on his airwaves that the September 11 attacks were possibly the work of the FBI and the correct way to deal with Osama bin Laden was be “sitting down with him, treating him like a human being and talking about it, and then Osama bin Laden going home again, not bombing the hell out of bin Laden?”
Is Scott honestly unaware that Science Show presenter Robyn Wiliiams is such a warming catastrophist that he claimed sea level rises this century of up to 100 metres were “possible, yes”? Or that Williams campaigned against the ABC screening a documentary sceptical of the warming scare? Or that Williams likened the sceptical views of former ABC chairman Newman to pedophilia, as an angry Newman later protested in a letter to Scott himself?


If Scott really does believe the ABC to be scrupulously unbiased, why has he named one show Counterpoint to explicitly give the conservative perspective, and handed it to Amanda Vanstone, a former Liberal Minister (from the party’s Left)?
Note how often in the interview with Epstein that Scott cited Vanstone as proof of the ANC’s even-handedness. If the ABC was indeed even-handed, why even mention the show? And if the show is indeed a “counterpoint” to everything else, why is it on just once a week, at 4pm [Reader Jeff: It is repeated on Friday afternoons at 2pm], when Adams’ show alone is on four times, plus repeats? Balance?
Scott either doesn’t know there’s a bias, which suggests he’s incompetent, or he does know there’s a bias but doesn’t want to be, er, frank about it.
If those in charge of the ABC are incapable of addressing the ABC’s bias, the ABC’s critics have no option but to call for the ABC to be starved or sold.
What can’t be fixed must be broken, and should be junked. 

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Still waiting for warming

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (12:02pm)

The great global warming pause continues:

image
When there’s been slow (largely natural) warming overall for a century and half, I’d expect some modest warming to resume one day. But I’m not a scientist:

In Russia, one of the world’s leading solar physicists, Habibullo Abdussamatov, says the planet is well on the way to another deep freeze. Abdussamatov is the head of space research at the Russian Academy of Sciences Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St Petersburg, and director of the Russian segment of the International Space Station.
In an interview with Principia Scientific International, Abdussamatov said results of research from the ISS had indicated a decline in total solar irradiance, which was having a dramatic effect on the global climate.
Data indicated the onset of a mini ice age.
The view from Russia is that solar activity, not carbon dioxide emissions, has driven global temperatures. Abdussamatov ... said the lack of any warming for the past 17 years was a result of the decline of the total solar irradiance…
Abdussamatov said a new “little ice age” would start this or next year and hit a low around 2040, with a deep freeze that would last for the rest of the century.
(Thanks to reader Steve.) 

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No money means we can’t defend ourselves

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (11:13am)

Greg Sheridan on the con dressed up yesterday as this deceitful government’s white paper on defence:

We are going to get 12 new submarines, 12 new Super Hornets configured as electronic warfare Growlers, 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and keep the army at its current size.
And all this with no money. What magic!
The fact that there was not a single scrap of financial information in the paper bears out the old defence aphorism - strategy without dollars is no strategy at all…
Julia Gillard and Stephen Smith expect us to take seriously their aspiration to increase Defence spending to 2 per cent of gross domestic product at some undefined point in the future…
The only point of the 2 per cent aspiration is so that Smith can say he has the same aspiration as the opposition.To play such pathetic politics with the basis of our national security demonstrates the contempt and irresponsibility the Gillard government has for national security.
UPDATE
Shouldn’t take long, after Gillard’s finished with us:
Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono says his country should strive to have a more powerful military than Australia…
Indonesia’s military boasts 470,000 active troops, while the Australian Defence Force has just over 80,000 full-time personnel and reservists..
It has also embarked on a military upgrade program, building warships and drones, as well buying fighter jets, helicopters and rockets.

(Thanks to readers Peter, Geoff and Waxing Gibberish.) 

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The better Shorten

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (11:04am)

I’ve been extremely critical of the crude politicking of Bill Shorten.
But Peter Hartcher has given me reason to think Shorten deserves more credit than I’ve been prepared to give him, at least in pushing the disability scheme as parliamentary secretary for disability services:
He set up a business advisory group, he set up a statutory advisory group, drawing powerful, well-known and well-connected people to the cause. He met every disability group he could to encourage them to press their cause and to mobilise around the idea of a national disability insurance scheme.
He found an early ally in Rudd and his wife, Therese Rein. He won staunch backing from his senior minister in the portfolio, Jenny Macklin. Wayne Swan was positive. With their backing, he persuaded the Rudd cabinet to commission the Productivity Commission to write a report on the feasibility of an insurance scheme. And when Gillard deposed Rudd, with Shorten’s help, he worked to convert Gillard to the cause.

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The new Tony

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (11:02am)

Michael Gordon gets Tony Abbott to reveal one of the secrets to the dramatic improvement in his media performances:
‘’Occasionally, light bulbs go off in your head and I observed in myself one day a distinct difference in the way I would answer people at doorstop press conferences and the way I would deal with people, for argument’s sake, at a community forum in my electorate,’’ he reveals.
‘’When my constituents ask me questions, it doesn’t matter how obtuse or tendentious they are, you’ve always got to hear them out and then give a reasonable response. Now, I noticed that I was becoming a little snappy to people at these doorstop press conferences, and I decided that that really wasn’t a good look - that as far as the public was concerned, the people asking me questions might as well be members of the public, rather than annoying journalists who are QCs for the prosecution.’’

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Gillard will leave more than one budget black hole

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (10:23am)

Terry McCrann says the worst of Julia Gillard’s legacy will be with us for many years yet:
THE most outrageous and also extraordinarily damaging thing about Julia Gillard’s year of governing badly and campaigning so unashamedly is her desperate attempt to govern from beyond the grave…
First, the Gonski exercise and especially the disability one start at an unprecedented distance into the future…
Second, Gillard is seeking to lock in what are chaotically incomplete packages… After [the disability scheme is] passed we still won’t really know what’s in it… For starters, the billion dollars’ worth of test runs, on which the practical operation of the scheme is purported to be based, will have barely started and will still be a long way from completion.
Further, and critically, and this brings us back to the levy, we won’t know how it’s going to be financed. At best the levy will finance one-third to one-half of the federal government’s currently estimated (more accurately, guessed at) share…
Gillard is not satisfied with just leaving an incoming Coalition government the traditional budget black hole, she wants to leave a series of black holes, spread over the years.
First comes the traditional black hole: a $12 billion going on $20bn budget black hole right now. Then the carbon tax compensation shortfall, perhaps $3bn a year kicks in from 2015. Then the Gonski shortfall, perhaps $5bn to $6bn a year.
All topped off by 2019 with the disability shortfall, which Treasury might probably calculate at $6bn a year, and in reality will almost certainly be close to double that or even more…
And of course there’s the $40bn going on who knows how much more being spent on the National Broadband Network, lurking off budget balance sheet.

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The rise of a British conservative party

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (8:32am)

British council elections have revealed Ukip is now a true electoral force, despite media sneering:
The UK Independence Party has achieved its best showing at the polls yet by winning almost 150 seats in the council elections…
Nigel Farage, the party’s leader, was jubilant after it emerged that one in four voters supported Ukip in the elections in 35 councils in England and Wales…
By late on Friday Ukip had seen 147 councillors elected, of whom 139 were gains…
[Mr Farage] told The Daily Telegraph: “I can’t believe it. I have had so many disappointments. I thought I was the patron saint of lost causes.”
Ukip seems keen to offer voters what the Conservative Party does not - a conservative party:
They can broadly be seen as right wing, with a strong libertarian flavour and a dash of social conservatism…
EUROPE: Nigel Farage says he wants an “amicable divorce” from the European Union… IMMIGRATION: An end to the age of “mass uncontrolled immigration”. It wants a five year freeze on immigration for permanent settlement - and any future migration must be strictly limited to those who can “clearly be shown to benefit the British people as a whole and our economy”. Immigrants would not be able to apply for public housing or benefits until they had paid tax for five years…
TAX: UKIP favours a flat tax - a single combined rate of income tax and national insurance paid by all workers…
ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE: UKIP is sceptical about the existence of man-made climate change and would scrap all subsidies for renewable energy. It would also cancel all wind farm developments. Instead, it backs the expansion of shale gas extraction, or fracking, and a mass programme of nuclear power stations.
GAY MARRIAGE: UKIP supports the concept of civil partnerships, but opposes the move to legislate for same-sex marriage, which it says risks “the grave harm of undermining the rights of Churches and Faiths to decide for themselves whom they will and will not marry"…
THE ECONOMY: UKIP is proposing “tens of billions” of tax cuts and had set out £77bn of cuts to public expenditure to deal with the deficit…
SOCIAL ISSUES: UKIP has been vocal in its opposition to what it sees as “political correctness” in public life. It also argues that multiculturalism has “split” British society.
Some of Farage unplugged:



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The flower of English media studies

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (7:58am)

Mark the decline of England, land of Shakespeare, Dickens, Trollope, Austen and the King James version of the the Bible.
Here’s the self-penned CV of a new British Labour MP with not just a Masters in social work, but an honours degree in media studies:
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(Thanks to reader The Village Idiot (Reformed).) 

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If the NBN were going so well, it wouldn’t need such spin

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (6:18am)

Yet another con from a government out of money but never out of spin:
NBN Co is due to announce that 4.8 million homes and businesses will be included in the national broadband network by the middle of 2016, but telecommunications experts say rollout figures for the massive infrastructure project are “essentially meaningless”.
... the figure will only show where “construction [has] commenced or [been] completed”. Critics said this inflates targets by including areas where the rollout will “commence” by the middle of 2016, but is not necessarily completed…
Senior telecommunications analyst Tony Brown said NBN Co needed to focus on fixing rollout issues instead of “putting out essentially meaningless figures to give the project political cover”.
“...NBN Co are passing only 150 homes per day [to existing homes],” he told AFR Weekend. “In order to meet the current target of completing the FTTH network by 2021 they will have to increase that ‘homes passed’ rate up to 5500 brownfield connections per day at peak rollout.”
One day the folly of this mega-billion-dollar gamble will become horribly obvious.
UPDATE
More making up of numbers by Labor:

[Immigration Minister] Brendan O’Connor on Sky News’ Australian Agenda last Sunday:

INSOFAR as numbers, I believe that the areas where there’s been an illegitimate use of 457s numbers in the thousands. It’s not negligible. I would say it would exceed over 10,000.
On ABC radio’s AM program yesterday:

TONY Eastley: The federal Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor is defending his declaration that more than 10,000 foreign worker visas have been rorted by employers, but he now says the figure he quoted was an “estimate” or a “forecast”. He was responding to a paper from his department, obtained by the opposition through Freedom of Information, which says rorting of 457 visas is rare.
Oops. Let’s see how the minister went on AM:

O’CONNOR: What the paper shows is last year the department identified problems with the 457 scheme and identified ways to fix them. On the 23rd of February I announced the reforms, most of which were of course contained within that paper that was provided to the advisory council.
Reporter Alexandra Kirk: Except that the report says discrimination in favour of foreign workers is rare. It doesn’t mention anything about rorting; it doesn’t say anything about widespread rorting. It provides absolutely no backing for your claims about rorting.
O’Connor: Well, it provides, it provides recommendations to reform the actual 457 visa.
Kirk: You claim that more than 10,000 of the 457 visas issued are used illegitimately. The information didn’t come from the Department of Immigration. Where did it come from?
O’Connor: What I’ve done since the paper was look at the fall in nominal and real wages in certain occupations and certain sectors and look at the fact that there is a massive widening gap between the total employment growth rate in certain segments ...
Kirk: But how have you come up with a figure of 10,000 visas being rorted, one in 10?
O’Connor: Well, what I’ve said, well it’s actually less than one in 10, but the point is I was asked to sort of give an estimate and that is my estimate.
Kirk: You haven’t said where you get the 10,000. The opposition says you’re making it up.
O’Connor: Well, I’m making a forecast. I’m making a forecast like others have made forecasts. The difference is I seem to be being challenged - fine.

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Another paragraph suggested

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (6:08am)

Jacqueline Maley in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott may well be a misogynist. He might be plotting to scrap abortion rights. He might truly believe that women are not temperamentally suited to leadership roles. He might, for all we know, have a Virginia Woolf voodoo doll that he jams full of pins when he’s bored.
All these things may be true, but so is this: Abbott’s paid parental leave scheme is vastly superior to the Labor government’s legislated scheme, and more feminists should come out in favour of it.
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hills says Maley is one of Fairfax’s most level-headed journalists, but would she consider writing a column starting as follows?:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard may well be a pathological liar (or worse). She might be plotting to scrap one of our most fundamental human rights. She might truly still believe that married women are prostitutes. She might, for all we know, have a Margaret Thatcher voodoo doll that she jams full of pins when she’s bored. 

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1000 a week, not counting the drowned

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (6:05am)

Boat people arrivals have reached an astonishing 1000 a week:

IMMIGRATION officials on Christmas Island have begun processing the largest asylum boat of the year - an Indonesian inter-island ferry carrying 186 people.
And the detection of a boat near Darwin yesterday pushed the number of arrivals since last Friday to a record 1049 passengers and crew.
These are now frightening numbers. The Government seems to have given up.
(Thanks to reader Hmmm.) 

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If “apolitical” is what you want, this may not be the university

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (5:42am)

I like Harold and admire his philanthropy. But I don’t think he’s going to get the expected bang for this buck:

MEDIA power broker and arts philanthropist Harold Mitchell is creating a new advocate for better health and education policy, donating $12.5 million over five years to fund an apolitical think tank in partnership with Victoria University.
The Mitchell Institute for Health and Education Policy, to be launched today with former Labor finance minister Lindsay Tanner as chairman ...
An “apolitical think tank”? Headed by a former Labor Minister? At Victoria University?
Note how many speakers at the Marxism 2013 conference are warehoused in our universities:
Gary [Foley] lectures in history at Victoria University…
Jeff Sparrow is ... editor of the left wing journal Overland [sponsored by Victoria University]…
Max Lane … is a now a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party [and is a lecturer at Victoria University].
From 2009:
Victoria University until recently offered bachelor degrees in naturopathy and homeopathy, covering “vibrational medicine” and “the metaphysical”.
And:

A university should fiercely promote a spirit of inquiry, which means rooting out groupthink. Yet Victoria University is the latest university to officially endorse Kevin Rudd’s sorry - as a collective: 
Victoria University’s Vice Chancellor Professor Elizabeth Harman ... said: “Saying sorry is an important first step towards true reconciliation and the establishment of equal opportunity for all Australians...”
Of course, under its new chancellor, much may have changed.
UPDATE
Mitchell has said he also has on board a former Victorian Liberal health minister, Rob Knowles. And one of his hopes is that his think tank figures a way of getting more improvement in school standards which don’t involve simply spending more money. 

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Labor’s great lemming disaster of 2013

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (5:33am)

Troy Bramston, a former Kevin Rudd speechwriter, says party insiders tell him the election result for Labor will be worse than most people think:
Julia Gillard is set to lead Labor to its greatest defeat in more than 80 years.
Where the seats will fall:

In Queensland, where Labor holds eight seats on margins between 1.1 per cent and 8.5 per cent, only Kevin Rudd’s seat of Griffith is expected to be won.
In NSW, half the party’s 26 seats could be lost… Only the inner-city seats held by Anthony Albanese (Grayndler) and Tanya Plibersek (Sydney) are considered safe…
In Victoria, polling shows big swings against the party. Already three seats are chalked up as losses (Corangamite, Deakin, LaTrobe)....
South Australia ... Steve Georganas’s western suburbs seat of Hindmarsh [is] seen as lost…
In Western Australia, Stephen Smith has told colleagues he thinks he’s gone in Perth. Few think Gary Gray can hold Brand…
In the Northern Territory, Warren Snowdon (Lingiari) is unlikely to hold on. In Tasmania, sources predict all four seats (Bass, Braddon, Franklin and Lyons) will be lost. 

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Promising an NDIS, like promising better mental health care

Andrew Bolt May 04 2013 (5:17am)

Announcing is the easy bit:

Former Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry and former chair of the government’s mental health advisory council John Mendoza said ... while disability care, and an NDIS, was vitally important, so too was mental health…

Professor Mendoza, who sensationally resigned as chair of the mental health advisory council in 2010 after accusing Labor of having no commitment to the sector, said the government’s promise to the mental health sector had been a “fraud’’.
“...They pulled the wool over people’s eyes in relation to mental health in 2010 and they have so far delivered nothing,’’ he said.
“And therefore people need to remain sceptical that they can deliver on an NDIS,’’ Professor Mendoza said.
Julia Gillard ... committed $2.2 billion to the sector in 2010 and 2011, with key reforms such as building 16 Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centres for seriously mentally ill people.
“But not one bit of soil has been turned on these centres, yet they are working away on the NDIS,’’ Professor Mendoza said.
(Thanks to reader Anabel.) 

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Sheikh is not the only one I worry about at the ANU

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (7:30pm)

I really don’t think Simon Sheikh’s campaign is going well. First there was his strange memory lapse over just how long he’d been a member of the Labor Party.
Now this:

The wife of ACT Greens Senate candidate Simon Sheikh is the subject of a formal investigation by the Australian National University, after allegations the couple used campus lectures to promote his campaign.
The ANU student newspaper Woroni reported that the former GetUp! national director had promoted his candidacy and Greens membership during two political science lectures on Thursday, and that his wife Anna Rose had sought to recruit campaign volunteers.
Ms Rose is an ANU staff member and a co-convenor of a subject with Pro Vice-Chancellor Richard Baker.
Among many questions raised by this story is this: Anna Rose lectures at a top Australian university?

image
What in her CV might have won her this job at just 30?

Anna is co-founder and Chair of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition ...  is a former Environment Minister’s joint Young Environmentalist of the Year ... passion for social and environmental justice ... worked with the National Union of Students ... trudging through snow for the Obama campaign ... former climate campaigner at GetUp ... researching innovative climate change policies ...organised a sustainable wedding ...
The Rose style does not strike me as likely to admit - or even absorb - dissenting views in what I’ve always assumed was the ideal academic style since Socrates:

Rose teaches how to tackle climate change with interpretive dance:

UPDATE
I wonder if Liberals get this kind of help from university academics:
In a recording of the session acquired by the ABC, Ms Rose can be heard to say, “I believe Simon has a sheet going around, or a laptop going around, if you want to get more involved in his campaign for Senate.”
I wonder also what such Leftists would do if given control of the ABC.
Oh, wait. 

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Barbarians of the media

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (4:21pm)

How many people had so little taste and sense that they (almost) let this through?
AN advert for a subscription television arts channel has led to the pulping of thousands of copies of a Fairfax Media newspaper supplement.
Fairfax has confirmed that copies of The Age’s Saturday Life & Style section were pulped at the request of the Foxtel Studio channel at significant cost to the advertiser.
An advert for the Studio channel’s ‘Festival of WTF!’ campaign, which depicted a suited man engaged in a sex act with a pig, was pulled down from a billboard in Sydney’s Kings Cross last Wednesday following condemnation from local Christian groups.
The ad that caused the pulping was for the same campaign, however Foxtel and Fairfax declined today to disclose its contents.
And note: everyone involved in this brainless barbarity was in the media business. And it took a Christian group to wake them to their responsibilities. 

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The crusader against vested gets his manager to stand as candidate

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (4:09pm)

Clive Palmer hasn’t really got policies, and need his workers to stand as candidates:

CLIVE Palmer has today announced his party’s next candidate against a backdrop of Australian flags and the tunes of True Blue and Waltzing Matilda.
Bill Schoch, who manages billionaire Palmer’s Coolum Resort, will stand for the seat of Fisher, currently held by disgraced MP Peter Slipper and to be contested by the LNP’s Mal Brough.
This is the man campaigning against vested interests in politics. His own candidate has the biggest vested interest of all. 

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"Patience means choosing to trust God even when the circumstances haven't changed yet." -- Victoria Osteen
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Paddy Reilly – The Town I Loved So Well
- Music Video -

At this link:
http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/paddy-reilly-town-loved/
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Guana Island in the British Virgin Islands Offers Honeymooners the Ultimate Privacy 
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May the fourth be with you
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4 her
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God is in your life all the time. I like to tell people about the wonderful things God does. But when I look at these fine images and words, it is as if all God is is a positive attitude. Well, God has already done something that has made your life. And he may transform it for you many times. But if you are training yourself to ignore him, you may miss opportunity. Maybe it isn't a positive attitude that works, but a faithful devotion? - ed
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So, in spite of the fact that the First Bloke, Timmie MAthieson, has a cert III in Hairdressing, he decides to pop into a Barber shop to have his "styling done". It isn't until he is seated , that he notices that Tony Abbott is in the chair beside him, in for a basic "short back and sides" . 

Not a word is exchanged, and even the barbers don't try to strike up a conversation, in fear of it turning to politics and getting ugly.

As the barbers finish with a shaving, the one working on Tim reaches for the Barbershop after-shave. Tim stops him, and says "NO thanks. If you put that on me, Julia will think that I have been to a whorehouse". 

Tony's Barber says "What about you, sir".

Tony replies, "Sure, why not. Neither Marge, nor I, have any idea what the inside of a whorehouse, smells like."
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And a fantastic Doctor Who themed Fridge for the Kitchen. 
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At the Australian Vietnamese Aged Care Services Nursing Home update presentation.
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I want the words to be more emphatic. Be good to your children. It is ok to not force the state to take them from their parents to avoid neglect. - ed
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At the opening of the new Chaldean Catholic Church on Polding Steet. Thousands of devoted catholics have brought the street to a standstill. May God bless this new church.
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Lady Liberty and the Freedom Tower — at Statton Island.
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Orange Crush... Last Night's Sunset.
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Dear children, let's not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.

~1 John 3:18
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Overstated - ed
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Film Writers Tell Life as Communists from Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1951

http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/film-writers-tell-life-as-communists-from-los-angeles-times-december-6-1951/

Edward Dmytryk, producer and director, told the story of how the “Hollywood Ten” became the “Hollywood Nine” when he realized the true motives of Communism.
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Best Doctor Who themed Lounge door ever.
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Annoying phone call from power company. "Are you Mr Ball? I would like to speak to Mr Ball" "I'm sorry. I .. I think I just killed him"
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Give mum a taste of France! Try the French Toast Chocolate Sandwich recipe from our cook book, Chocolate: A Love Story http://pinterest.com/pin/294141419382766793/ 
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a Doctor Who steampunk TARDIS

Artist: ~ Andrew Colunga (Artist) 
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“GILLARD PLANNED A BARRAGE OF ABBOTT WEDGIES”: ALP staffer

Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, wanted an unprecedented eight-month election campaign to give her the time necessary to cripple Tony Abbott in a barrage of blue-sky social legislation, according to an ALP Media staffer.

Gillard’s insidious Media Department, headed by the 457 wonder boy, John McTernan, is developing cracks and those with a conscience are wincing with embarrassment at Gillard’s blatant use of the disabled.

This NDIS legislation had been on ice for over two years and was passed within days of Gillard’s Press Club announcement of a September 14 election.

But in typical Gillard fashion it had no details, no form of implementation or who would administer it or who would be covered.

“This early announcement of an election will give people certainty”, she said.

Certainty? Certainty of what? There was only one thing people wanted certainty of and that was Gillard’s departure!

“It’s not a good look”, said the staffer. “A few of us are disgusted over this one and there’s been quite few resignations.”

McTernan’s job is to get Gillard re-elected but he has misread we Aussies. What has happened is the Gillard disaster has meant everyone is now taking an interest in politics, and that’s not good for Labor.

Exotics, McTernan and Gillard have underestimated the Aussie punters’ intellect.

Blind Freddie and his dog can see through the endless crap we are served up daily.

Most of us expect all this from a Labor Party in its death throes, but not when it involves the disabled and a Gonski generation of Labor-induced illiterate kids and teachers.

Even ABC and Fairfax lefties are hiding their faces in shame while rehashing their pro-Gillard opinion pieces.

The fact is that Gonski is an unholy mess, the NBN is a white elephant and the NDIS is nothing more than a cheap fraud perpetrated on the desperately needy.

Abbott is smarter than Gillard. He can now sit back and watch her stew in her own excrement.

Her locker is empty with nothing left over for the hustings.

Jenny Macklin, Gillard’s partner in the infamous Communist Socialist Forum (whose aim was to infiltrate and undermine the ALP) yesterday tried to explain what the NDIS would cover.

She said physical and mental injuries.

Mmmm, really Jenny? That covers just about all of us, including the Islamic nutter who smashed the cop car with a milk crate! He was on a disability pension due to a football injury.

He, of course, was excused by the magistrate.

Hang on, a football injury for Christ’s sake? Then surely alcoholism and drug addiction will qualify. Kleptomania maybe? Peanut butter allergies, bad backs, impotence, arachnophobia?

It’s bloody endless and indefinable and the Bill is certain to spend 20 years in Abbott’s too expensive basket.

In Gillard’s short tenure we have gone from the penthouse to the outhouse and she has knowingly dragged the hopes of the disabled down with her in a last gasp attempt to gain credibility.

I (and 75% of Australia) am suffering from severe depression and I feel a debilitating migraine coming on.

Let’s get in the queue.
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God’s love for you is unconditional. While you were still a sinner, He sent His Son to die for you. Today, regardless of your imperfections, He loves you!
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At the cross, Jesus did not just take away your sins, but He also gave you His righteousness! A divine exchange took place—your sins for His righteousness (2 Cor 5:21). This means that, today, you are as righteous as Christ Himself, not because of your good works, but because of His finished work! Place your hand over your heart right now and boldly declare: "I, (state your name), AM the righteousness of God in Christ!" Learn to speak this powerful truth over yourself every day. If the enemy tells you, “You’re a bad Christian and that’s why you’re sick,” just declare, “I AM righteous in Christ! By His stripes I am healed!” Amen!
http://josephprince.com/
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Dear Patriot,
Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle have been in secret, back-room talks for months about how to exempt themselves and their staff from ObamaCare.
The house is on fire, and they're trying to sneak out the back door!
This is among the worst examples of "ruling class" behavior I have ever seen.  And that's why we need to put these American "aristocrats" in their place immediately.
Please make an urgent and generous contribution of $25, $35, $50, $100, or more to Patriot Voices right away to help us make sure these officials don't get away with this charade.
These Congressmen and Senators are supposed to be working for us. That's why we call them "public servants."
If ObamaCare is such a disaster (and it is!), they should be repealing it for all of us, not just exempting themselves from it!
But instead, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and many, many others are trying to sneak out the back door - and they'll get away with it unless we act NOW!
Please give what you can right away to help us put the pressure on these officials to clean up this mess.
These inside-the-beltway elitists think they're above the law.  They think they can force this monstrosity on us, and then exempt themselves from the consequences.
I haven't seen such pompous elitism since Marie Antoinette.
That's why Patriot Voices is going to hold them accountable until they clean up this mess. We've just launched a petition and are working hard to make sure everyone knows about this and holds them accountable.
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The "aristocrats" in Washington need to be reminded that we're all in this together, and it's their job to fix this disaster.
Now isn't the time to run from the problem. Now's the time to solve it!
I'm doing everything I can to get that message through to them, but I need thousands and thousands more Americans rallying with me. I can't do this on my own.
Please help us spread the word by making a most generous contribution right away.
Thank you and God bless,
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Rick Santorum

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May 4: Holy Saturday (Eastern Christianity, 2013); Star Wars Day
Sunrise, Manaslu

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