Thursday, July 11, 2013

Thu Jul 11th Todays News

Happy birthday and many happy returns Brenda DevineBerni LoveBrenda Saffara and SLW (nee B). Born on the same day, across the years. In 1833, Noongar warrior Yagan, wanted for leading attacks on white colonists in Western Australia, was killed, becoming a symbol of the unjust and sometimes brutal treatment of the indigenous peoples of Australia by colonial settlers. 1921, Former President of the United States William Howard Taft was sworn in as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, making him the only person to ever hold both positions. 1943, In a massive ethnic cleansing operation, units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army attacked various Polish villages in the Volhynia region of present-day Ukraine, killing the Polish civilians and burning those settlements to the ground. 1991, Shortly after takeoff from King Abdulaziz International Airport, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 caught fire in mid-flight and crashed, killing all 261 occupants on board. 2011, An explosion at the Evangelos Florakis Naval Base killed 12 people, including the head of the Cyprus Navy, making it the worst peacetime military accident in Cypriot history. People will die, but it is how we live that counts. Taft was unique. Nowadays, a President's statements would prevent them from being considered impartial. But then, the crucible of your lives have fashioned unique people equipped to rise and reign.
===

Clive Palmer’s car crash plan

Piers Akerman – Thursday, July 11, 2013 (12:18am)

FEDERAL clown candidate Clive Palmer plan to merge Australia’s three car makers into one presumably-subsidised plant demonstrates his lack of prime ministerial credentials.
For a supposed buccaneering free marketeer this is a nonsense.
Little wonder that he his candidacy is linked to his plan to build a replica of the Titanic.
His car plan belongs at the bottom of the ocean, too.
He told a Palmer United Party (PUP) gathering in Adelaide that political leaders should create the incentives for one plant to build cars economically.
Clearly this PUP needs house training.
Billions have already been spent propping up inefficient car manufacturers in marginal electorates and Palmer wants to spend more.
“There’s a lot of reasons we can’t manufacture properly in Australia - and one of reasons is the size of the run in the plants.
“You’ve got to start from somewhere and if you brought the manufacturers together we’d solve that problem.”
The size of the run should be dictated by demand.
If the demand isn’t there, the companies should be considering whether they are operating smartly.
Palmer thinks Ford could use the single plant to produce its 40,000 vehicles a year and Toyota and Holden to produce their 90,000 each, and, to his thinking, this would create a production run that was big enough to compete with Asian motor manufacturing plants.
But this is Disneyland thinking and those who subscribe to it are Snow White’s dwarfs.
Australian car plants are inefficient for a number of reasons.
Labor’s Green-backed desire to price Australian energy above the world price is one of them. The ridiculous union demands are another.
The billionaire miner seems to lack even a basic understanding of economics.
He should stick to digging coal out of the ground and shipping it abroad where it provides cheaper electricity to industries than it would if it were sold and used to power Australian businesses.
If Palmer wants to be believable he has to stop being the clown in the contest.
Money can buy a lot of things but he has demonstrated it doesn’t buy brains. 

===

THEY CAN’T EVEN SAY IT

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 11, 2013 (1:25pm)

A memo to all ABC news staff from NSW news editor and deputy head of newsgathering Donald Lange: 
There has been a growing rash of reporters mispronouncing Australia. The two biggest problems are dropping the “l” and turning the last syllable into two. Please see the SCOSE note below, absorb and adopt.
Cheers,
Don
os-TRAYL-yuh or uhs-TRAYL-yuh
NOT uhs-TRAY-yuh OR aws-TRAY-lee-uh OR uhs-TREL-yuh 
(Via Ultimo Mole, our spy deep within the ABC)

===

SAINT PAT

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 11, 2013 (5:13am)

One of Kevin Rudd’s weirder moments in a weird history:



Now that we live in the Age of Outrage, when the words “calm down” are enough to provoke howling leftoid hysteria, it’ll be interesting to see the broader reaction to Rudd’s unusual yet harmless gesture. If Tony Abbott had done something similar, of course, Twitter’s temperature would now match that of the sun’s core.
(Via CL)
UPDATE. Stella Young declares
If you could show me video evidence of Kevin Rudd patting the head of an adult non-disabled woman, I’ll eat my words. 
Andrew Bolt responds
Start munching, Stella. Rudd is an equal opportunity patroniser. Check the ruffle from 1:43. 

===

NEEDLE WARMING

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 11, 2013 (4:59am)

Happy climate news for junkies
The chemical predecessor necessary for manufacturing heroin, morphine, increases in poppy plants when carbon dioxide goes up. In fact, since atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased from 300 ppm to 400 ppm over the past 100 years, morphine levels in poppy plants have followed suit. This trend will continue into the next century, as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise. Not only that, the higher carbon dioxide makes for larger plants with more and larger capsules (poppy straws) where the morphine is extracted from. 
Before smackheads start high fiving, they should consider another side-effect promised to us by global warming: 
A study of giant lizard fossils that sat untouched for many years in a drawer at UC Berkeley suggests that global warming could transform today’s pet-sized lizards into creatures as as big as Komodo dragons. 
This could make inner-city life very entertaining indeed. Meanwhile, add mega poppies and Godzilla geckos to the list.

===

YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 11, 2013 (4:56am)

People smugglers go drone
Navy and Customs officers are concerned that people smugglers may have trialled a crewless boatafter Border Protection Command was forced to rescue more than 100 Sudanese asylum-seekers in international waters who claimed they were put into the Java sea for Christmas Island with only a GPS to guide them.
The 101 Sudanese were drifting in a broken-down boat in international waters 110 nautical miles north of Christmas Island on Friday when the HMAS Larrakia responded to their distress call. A seaworthy asylum boat with crew can travel from Indonesia to Christmas Island in 30 hours but the Sudanese had been in the water for four days when they were located … 
Considering Sudan’s limited ocean access, the vessel’s struggle is understandable. A move to crewless boats follows other tactical shifts: 
Last July, an experienced Indonesian people-smuggling captain left two boys, aged 13 and 14, to steer asylum-seekers towards the Australian territory of Christmas Island. The following month, the Indonesian crew of an asylum boat that was supposedly stricken shocked rescuers when they drove off in it. 
Foreign minister Bob Carr continues talking tough on asylum seekers, playing tough cop to his own government’s dumb cop: 
Senator Carr said asylum seeker numbers had spiked and 20 per cent of Australia’s immigrants now arrive courtesy of people smugglers …
“If you have got an argument about persecution, there is no case for burning your passport,” he told ABC television.
“And there is no case for being rehearsed in a story of persecution so that everyone on a vessel tells the same story word for word, leaving the impression that the people smuggler in charge of the process has put them through this.” 
Late and lame, Bob. Others have been on to these scams for years, while Labor looked away.

===

ABBOTT RULES THE PLANET

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 11, 2013 (4:44am)

Guardian frightchild Alex White believes one man is capable of changing the planet’s weather: 
Abbott’s climate change direct inaction policy is dangerous because it would lock in a “flat earth society” future for Australia where super-storms, heatwaves, droughts, extreme floods, rising sea levels, ocean acidification and bushfires are allowed to run rampant. 
Sadly, Australia only produces around 1.5 per cent of the world’s allegedly destructive carbon dioxide emissions. Even if we wanted to generate super-storms, heatwaves, Nazi gum trees, droughts, a Coriolis effect that preys upon pregnant women, extreme floods, atomic wombats, rising sea levels, space wallabies, ocean acidification, a 3-D series of Kitchen Cabinet and rampant bushfires, we just don’t have the firepower.

===

THAT’S HOW IT WORKS

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 11, 2013 (3:46am)

The SMH’s Mike Carlton is alerted to the Dunning-Kruger effect; fails to recognise self.

===

PROCEED IN DOUBT

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 11, 2013 (3:44am)

Stanford climate scientist Chris Field
We want to be sure that we don’t fall into the trap of delaying action based on the hope that a few more years of research will provide scientific clarity. The scientific community has made and continues to make tremendous progress on understanding climate change.  There is still a great deal to learn.  But it is not likely that additional research will eliminate uncertainty about the severity, timing and spatial patterns of future impacts.
The challenge of dealing with climate change is, at its essence, a challenge in making smart decisionsunder uncertainty. 
Translation: warmies have no idea, but want to wreck your lives anyway.

===

SILENCERS

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 11, 2013 (3:30am)

The UK Telegraph‘s James Delingpole on the left’s loathing of free speech: 
If you support the war on Rupert Murdoch you may think you’re sticking up for higher standards and – a la Jemima Khan and Hugh Grant – saying “enough is enough” to tabloid intrusion. But you’re not really. You’re just one of the liberal left’s useful idiots. A complete tool, in fact. 


===

GOOD OLDEST BOY

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 11, 2013 (2:46am)

Michael Schumacher’s Formula One comeback at 41 was a big deal, but NASCAR takes things a whole generation further: 
Morgan Shepherd is scheduled to be the oldest driver to start a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race this weekend at age 71.
Shepherd, who made his first Cup start in 1970, is entered for Sunday’s race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the No. 52 Toyota. 
Speeds at New Hampshire’s one-mile oval run at an average of around 140mph. No small task for someone the same age as Charlie Watts.

===

Kevin Rudd shows Tony Abbott how to be positively negative

Andrew Bolt July 11 2013 (3:26pm)

From the Prime Minister’s speech today at the National Press Club:

Mr Abbott is a formidable politician. He is the most conservative politician to become leader of the Liberal Party in its history. He is particularly formidable in the art of negative politics. But a 100 per cent diet of negative politics is bad for our nation.
Followed by:

Mr Abbott has so far publicly stated that he does not want to face the public scrutiny of an economic policy debate… You might well ask, at least in his absence, what Mr Abbott’s alternative economic diagnosis is… Mr Abbott, is a formidable politician – he is the nation’s most formidable exponent of negative politics… Mr Abbott refused to debate the economic facts here today… Despite Mr Abbott saying every day the economy is in crisis… Mr Abbott does not want to debate today… Mr Abbott’s negative message for the election campaign… Mr Abbott’s exaggerated claims on debt and deficit… Mr Abbott’s economic policy for the future is even worse.... Mr Abbott just doesn’t understand economics… Mr Abbott’s absence has made such a debate impossible… whenever you hear Mr Abbott, Mr Hockey, Mr Robb or anyone else try and run the lines on an Australian debt and deficit crisis, remember this was the day for Mr Abbott to defend his case… Mr Abbott decided to cut and run… In Mr Abbott’s absence...

===

Rudd promises more talk on economy

Andrew Bolt July 11 2013 (3:17pm)

Kevin Rudd today made a big announcement on the struggling economy. He will talk about it with Big Unions and Big Business and agree to things he does not specify:
KEVIN Rudd has called for a new productivity pact between business, unions and the federal government to boost the economy.
The Prime Minister announced the initiative, which would mirror the prices and income accord struck between unions and the Hawke Labor government 30 years ago, during a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra.
The pact would form part of a national agenda to boost Australia’s competitiveness.
“The truth is, if we are to drive a new national competitiveness agenda we need to have government, business and unions working as much as possible together - pushing in the same strategic policy direction for the overall wellbeing of our national economy,” Mr Rudd said.
Why not call a 2020 Ideas Summit, all over again?  

===

Attention Rudd Government: help create more jobs. UPDATE: Unemployment up

Andrew Bolt July 11 2013 (10:12am)

Too many Australians lack work, and business badly needs help:
REAL unemployment is double the official figure - with 13 per cent of Australia’s workforce wanting a job or longer hours.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) yesterday released a new analysis that combines the official unemployment rate with “discouraged” jobseekers, the “underemployed’’ and those who want to start work within a month, but cannot begin immediately.

The 13.1 per cent rate of “extended labour force under-utilisation’’ in August 2012 was more than double the official unemployment rate at the time of 5 per cent.

The ABS counts people as employed even if they only work an hour a week.

But the new measure also counts underemployment - workers in part-time or casual positions who want a permanent job or longer hours.

And it includes those “discouraged’’ jobseekers who want to work but have given up looking because employers consider them to be too old or too young, if they are ill or disabled, lack the necessary training or experience, cannot find a job locally or in their line of work, or cannot speak English well.
Start by scrapping the carbon tax completely - and don’t replace it with emissions trading.  Greg Evans of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry:
It is wrong to suggest there is any genuine mainstream business support for an emissions trading scheme. Cost-sensitive and energy-reliant businesses across Australia oppose both an ETS and the carbon tax.
The reason is simple: trade-exposed and vulnerable sectors such as manufacturing are already under enough pressure from international economic uncertainty and exchange rate volatility. They have limited capacity to absorb unilateral cost penalties of any form, let alone those deliberately imposed by government and where their competitors don’t face such charges.
UPDATE
The economy is weaker than has been sold. Unemployment is up again, and those employed are working fewer hours:
AUSTRALIA’s unemployment rate rose to 5.7 per cent in June, the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced today.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate jumped 0.2 percentage points, as 23,700 Australians joined the dole queue.
The number of Australians employed increased by 10,300 to 11.6 million in June, fuelled by part-time jobs which grew by 14,800 to 3.5 million last month.
But the number of full-time jobs fell by 4,400 to 8.1 million.
Unemployment when Rudd first became Prime Minister: 4.2 per cent.
Unemployment now: 5.7.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 

===

He’s just the Prime Minister. Don’t make him Dear Leader

Andrew Bolt July 11 2013 (9:41am)

Cosmo Howard and Mark D. Jarvis say Canada is a warning to Labor. Don’t make Kevin Rudd unsackable:

Unlike in other Westminster systems, the leaders of all Canadian parties have for some time been selected via national leadership conventions based on delegate or membership voting, replacing the role the parliamentary caucus played.
The change in Canada was embraced in the same language as Rudd’s: giving more power to party members, enhancing democratic legitimacy and creating more inclusive parties…
Yet the biggest impact of eliminating the caucus’s ability to remove a sitting party leader, including a prime minister, has been to dramatically alter the balance of power between parliamentary caucus and the leader. The shift has granted the party leader an awesome degree of security, making them effectively unaccountable between periodic leadership contests or reviews. Instead, party caucus members stand relatively powerless to address what they see as abuses of executive power or other cases of a leader not acting in the party’s interest, facilitating the excessive party discipline that has come to be a blight on partisan politics in Canada. And far from reinvigorating party membership and grassroots involvement, the Canadian changes haven’t done much to reverse the downward slide in party membership. Recent polling by the Samara institute suggests only about 10 per cent of Canadians are members of political parties.
I also worry about the cultural impact. This shifts us closer to celebrity politics and the cult of the Leader. I worry about the future of sound policy and debate - and of enlightened democracy.
UPDATE
The unions will let Rudd go to the election saying he’s unsackable. Then they may make him sackable all over again:

KEVIN Rudd’s bid to hand rank-and-file members a vote for the federal parliamentary leader looks certain to be backed by the party, but could face a challenge from unions at a national conference after the election.
(Thanks to reader Rankin Voter.) 

===

The face of Rudd’s new Labor

Andrew Bolt July 11 2013 (9:28am)

Kevin Rudd’s candidate has no connection with the seat or even Melbourne. She is no high-flyer, has no connection with the working class and has been a Labor member for less than one month:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd may trump Julia Gillard one last time with the emergence of a likely new preselection contender for her seat of Lalor supported by key Rudd backers.
Lisa Clutterham, an Australian diplomat to Papua New Guinea, is a likely entrant to the increasingly crowded contest for the western suburban Lalor, Labor’s fifth-safest federal seat...
Fairfax Media understands that former foreign affairs parliamentary secretary - now Trade Minister - Richard Marles, a Rudd supporter, has encouraged Ms Clutterham to run for Lalor. Well-placed sources say her name was discussed as a possible candidate at a meeting of Mr Rudd’s parliamentary leadership group last weekend.
But the important point:
She is known to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd from his time as foreign minister.
Clutterham this morning said she had at least visited Lalor.
Carpetbagger.
And once again there’s that gulf between what Rudd promises and what he delivers. Just three days ago:

I said last week it’s time to throw open the windows of the Labor Party structure to the wider community through our membership.
Today, as never before, Australians demand to be included in the Labor Party’s decision making, and proposals for reform that I will outline to you now are represent an important change to this effect…
The reforms I announce today will give more power to the everyday members of the Labor Party.
They will ensure that power will never again rest in the hands of a factional few.
UPDATE
Clutterham’s first media interview didn’t do her many favors:
“I don’t have a connection with Melbourne and that’s not something I’m shying away from,” she told ABC radio in Melbourne.
Ms Clutterham says she’s only been a member of the ALP since mid-June.
“So I’m a very new member,” she said.
“It isn’t much of a pedigree...”

===

Just when you thought Labor’s politics of division was gone

Andrew Bolt July 11 2013 (8:56am)

Tony Abbott recommitted himself in May to constitutional recognition of Aborigines:

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has recommitted himself to help secure the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the constitution, saying the issue is ‘’too important to turn into a political football’’.
Mr Abbott joined three Gillard government ministers in Melbourne on Sunday at the launch of a national relay to build support for a successful referendum in the next three years…
‘’I see acknowledging Aboriginal people in our constitution not as changing it, but as completing it, and I don’t for a second underestimate the length of the journey or the distractions there may be along the way, but it must be done if we are to be whole as a people and as a nation.
Yesterday Rudd pretended Abbott was in fact blocking the change to the constitution:
The work is under way. A committee has reported, it’s now being deliberated on by the parliamentary committee. As I said, the key thing is to make sure we achieve consensus. And so, and these are questions I dare say which are appropriately addressed to Captain Negative - Mr Abbott - more generally and that is whether he’s prepared to be positive in bringing forward a rapid conclusion to the content of the question.
And again:

Speaking in Yirrkala yesterday, Mr Rudd tried to shift the blame for a delay on to the Opposition Leader. “As Prime Minister, I want to see this matter brought to the people of Australia by referendum within two years of the election of the next parliament. And for that to happen, I want Mr Abbott to join in that journey with me.
“I want us to agree on the question to be put to the Australian people. No more delays, no more excuses, no more buck-passing. It is time that the nation got on with this business,” he said.
“That is my commitment to you, the people of Yirrkala.”

This is the kind of dishonesty and divisiveness I’d have expected from Gillard, and it should be condemned:

Senior Liberal frontbencher George Brandis unleashed on the Prime Minister last night, saying ... “there has been no politics about this referendum until today when Kevin Rudd decided in a calculated and dishonest way to politicise it and then bizarrely make that accusation of Tony Abbott”.
“What Mr Rudd said today is the first note of partisan disharmony to have been injected into this process from the start . . . his motives are obvious,” he told The Australian.
“What Kevin Rudd is trying to do is use the referendum as a source of partisan division when the Coalition has from the very beginning and throughout the process observed a strictly bipartisan approach; obviously any referendum question that becomes the cause of partisan controversy is less likely to succeed."…
[Alison] Anderson, the NT’s Aboriginal Advancement Minister, said Mr Rudd’s comments were out of place given they were made at the 50th anniversary of the Yirrkala bark petitions.
“He politicised it and it wasn’t the time and place for that,” the former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander commissioner said last night. “The Coalition said that within the first year they would draft words for the referendum. It’s a bipartisan decision by the Coalition and Labor and that he should politicise it at all is childish of him.”
As it happens, both Rudd and Abbott are wrong to push the constitutional amendment, which would enshrine in law a racial divide. But that does not excuse Rudd telling fibs. 

===

Rise of President-for-Life Rudd

Andrew Bolt July 11 2013 (8:31am)

Politics - federal
image
NO, KEVIN Rudd is not saving Labor. He’s smashing what’s left and building a new Rudd Party.
That is the key to the brilliant return of President Rudd.
You don’t like the Opposition? Vote for Rudd.
Oh, you don’t like Labor? Vote for Rudd.
And you do like Rudd don’t you? See the picture he tweeted yesterday of the cut he got shaving? What a guy! Bleeding for the voters!
And with that mob’s backing, Rudd has such control of the Party Formerly Known As Labor that its policies are only what he says they are. 

===

Calm down, ladies

Andrew Bolt July 11 2013 (8:27am)

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott once had this exchange with an agitated “Red” Kerry O’Brien, former Labor press secretary and now ABC host:
O’Brien: “I’m not going to identify people who’ve talked to me off the record. But not politicians.”
Abbott: “Calm down, Kerry.”
O’Brien: “No, no, no.”
Complaints about Abbott’s language? Zero.
But on Tuesday, Abbott had this exchange with an agitated Bridie Jabour, who joined Labor and is now a journalist for the far-Left Guardian

===

Macquarie denies punishing Salby for scepticism

Andrew Bolt July 11 2013 (8:21am)

Macquarie University denies suggestions by Professor Murry Salby that it sacked him for his climate scepticism:
Professor Salby’s employment was terminated firstly, because he did not fulfil his academic obligations, including the obligation to teach. After repeated directions to teach, this matter culminated in his refusal to undertake his teaching duties and he failed to arrive at a class he had been scheduled to take.
The University took this matter very seriously as the education and welfare of students is a primary concern. The second reason for his termination involved breaches of University policies in relation to travel and use of University resources. 

===

How often does Rudd shave? How carefully does he plan selfies?

Andrew Bolt July 11 2013 (7:40am)

image
How carefully does Kevin Rudd court the moron vote? The vote of people who care more that the Prime Minister cuts his face than that he blows the nation’s finances?
Observe the time line.
Rudd typically gets up very early to get briefed on the news and prepare lines for the day with his top advisers. And to shave.
On this day he’d done all that and was out running those prepared lines for the TV cameras by 8am:
STRANGELY, the PM’s nick had disappeared by the time he fronted up at an 8am doorstop interview in Darwin.
But from the time stamp on Rudd’s Instagram it wasn’t until around 9.30am Brisbane time (9am Darwin time) that he posted his “selfie” of the cut. That suggests it wasn’t an instant impulse, but was done after a lot of discussion about how it would play. Or, of course, Rudd shaved all over again.
And the picture indeed played well to people who prefer politics with popcorn. Who prefer to “identify” with their leader than to check what he’s actually doing.
The Age of Seeming. 

===

Now Africa joins the Armada to Australia

Andrew Bolt July 11 2013 (7:22am)

Boat people policy
More evidence that people smugglers have expanded their customer base from the Middle East to Africa:

NAVY and Customs officers are concerned that people smugglers may have trialled a crewless boat after Border Protection Command was forced to rescue more than 100 Sudanese asylum-seekers in international waters who claimed they were put into the Java sea for Christmas Island with only a GPS to guide them.
There is no shortage of North Africans keen to join the procession to our welfare paradise, and there will be even more as Egypt collapses.

Note a couple of other details which shows how feeble Labor’s response is to what is clearly (what the Press Council says I cannot call) illegal immigration.
First, these boat people were rescued by Australia’s navy from an Indonesian boat in Indonesia’s search and rescue territory just 40 nautical miles off Java (and still 110 from Christmas Island). It was rescued as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was sitting with Indonesia’s President Yudhoyono, offering him another $60 million in aid.  Yet Indonesia’s navy did not intercept the boat and Rudd did not ask Yudhoyono - as he offered him millions in aid - whether Indonesia in exchange could at least take back the boat people we were at that moment picking up.
UPDATE
Tired of waiting for permission to emigrate to Australia? Can’t meet the entry requirements? Can’t prove you’re employable?
Never mind! There is now a wide open door out the back:

Senator Carr said asylum seeker numbers had spiked and 20 per cent of Australia’s immigrants now arrive courtesy of people smugglers.

===

Tell Holden it’s dreaming

Andrew Bolt July 11 2013 (7:15am)

No:

HOLDEN has asked the federal government to almost double the money it pledged to keep the company making cars in Australia or it will quit manufacturing in three years.
The company wants a further $265 million on top of the $275m already committed by Canberra, South Australia and Victoria, a source close to the negotiations told The Australian, because it cannot make a profit building cars in Australia.
That’s taking money from healthy industries to temporarily help one that’s dying.  

===

Words eaten. Rudd is equal-opportunity patroniser

Andrew Bolt July 11 2013 (7:08am)

Rudd lays his healing hand on the disabled:

FOOTAGE of Kevin Rudd patting the head of a disabled woman has left a disability advocate “shaking with rage”.
Comedian and disability advocate Stella Young says the Prime Minister’s behaviour shows Australians have a long way to go to change patronising and disrespectful attitudes.
The clip, part of a story on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) on ABC’s 7.30 program last night, showed Mr Rudd posing for a photo with a woman in a wheelchair before patting or ruffling her hair…
“If you could show me video evidence of Kevin Rudd patting the head of an adult non-disabled woman, I’ll eat my words,” Ms Young said.
Start munching, Stella. Rudd is an equal opportunity patroniser. Check the ruffle from 1:43:

Now if Tony Abbott had done this to a woman ...

image
Where is Destroy the Joint now? Where is calmdownbridie?

===

===

===

===

===

===

VIENNA — It was 1943 when Vienna's Nazi overlords gave the order to destroy the city's oldest Jewish cemetery, demanding it be leveled and the tombstones attesting to centuries of Jewish existence there be destroyed.
Desperate to save their heritage, the city's shrinking Jewish community decided to act. Defying the possibility of prison, deportation or execution, they buried the gravestones and kept them from Nazi hands.
Some 70 years later, Jewish leaders in the Austrian capital say the long-lost stones have been rediscovered. It is a find they say could transform a small obscure graveyard into one that rivals the significance of Prague's Jewish cemetery, the oldest known burial ground of its kind.

===

Holly Sarah Nguyen
Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable… ~Phil. 4:8 NLT

===

Infographic: Asset Test
How the United States Benefits from Its Alliance with Israel
Michael Eisenstadt and David Pollock
January 30, 2013
download at http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/inforgraphic-asset-test
===

These chicken and cheese lasagna roll ups are sure to go down a treat and you can find the 'how to' on The Whoothttp://bit.ly/10WJq0P

Thanks for sharing Camperagent RV Centre Adelaide. If you're in the market to buy or sell a caravan drop in on our WHOot Partners now.
===

I was driving and generally freaking out about just how dark the skies above me were getting, and then remembered I had my sunglasses on. To my surprise however, the sky above remained a black cauldron after the removal of the shades. I found this little farmstead with it's pond and knew this was the foreground I wanted. The clouds proved pretty harmless. No hail or lightning and very little rain. A nice stop along the way on my trip across the US for Yahoo! as their weather photographer last May. — in Esselburn, OH.
===

===

4 her
===

===

Sydney has been revealed as the 12th most expensive in the world. Have you travelled overseas recently and come back to discover just how costly it is to live here? Or do you have an example of how something has quickly risen in cost? Read the story here: http://bit.ly/14KkHSF
===

Whatever your 100% looks like give it. CheersTimothy Ly, Tony Nguyen
===

Another lighthouse pic from my trip across the US with Yahoo as their weather photographer last May.
===

===

Lava - Hawaii
How far have you gone to get that perfect shot?

Milky way scientists
===

===

Frank Severino
Even if you could buy common sense, the people who lack it would consider it a waste of money.

===

===
brain teasing optical illusion
Fix your eyes on the black dot in the middle of the infrared image until the animated gif switches to black and white. The castle will immediately show its true colors.

So what is happening here to create the false color? You may have noticed that if you stare at a bright light and then look away, it will create a dark spot in your vision for a few seconds. Similarly, if you stare at a dark object on a bright white wall for several seconds and then close your eyes, you will see the reverse – the dark object will show up white. The image above is doing this same kind of thing with the color cells on your retina, oversaturating them with one color so you see the reverse once the color is gone. See How your eyes work for details

===

1959: Reds and Sympathizers Get Film Industry’s Green Light

http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/reds-and-sympathizers-get-film-industrys-green-light/

“The responsibility lies entirely with the producers. All of them who did business with Reds and Fifth Amendment Reds are interested only in the dollar – not their country.” Ward Bond
===

===

Hi everyone! Thay Đổi Cuộc Sống | Change Of Our Lives movie poster is out! from idea to screening in a matter of 4 months this comedy-drama Viet-Aus movie! To watch the movie on the 27 July, register here https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Bagents 
===
nsa slide
===

World Crisis Alert: Guantanamo Bay detainees don’t want to eat. Muslim rapper Yasiin “Mos Def” Bey is so worked up about their appetite plight that he videotaped himself being force-fed to build support for closing Gitmo. Cry me a river.
This latest round of hunger strikes isn’t an international human rights tragedy. It’s another manipulative act of Jihad Theater.

===

===

Pastor Rick Warren
People become beautiful when you love them, and you become more beautiful when you love others.

===

In Japan, they have an indoor man-made beach.

more pics here:http://www.unbelievable-facts.com/2012/07/worlds-largest-indoor-beach-in-japan.html
===

===

===

Are Americans losing their religion? Check out this chart from TheBlaze Magazine to see how your fellow citizens feel about faith. (As always, inside every issue of TheBlaze Magazine you’ll find exclusive content you can’t get anywhere else. Subscribe today and get a FREE issue:http://tblz.us/mo879)
===

Frank Ly
Love and be loved. Make the world a better place. It's as easy as smiling and saying hello. You've just fulfilled two criteria that'll fulfill you.

===

Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin
Heavenly Father,I thank You for Your Word which so beautifully directs my steps.I trust that You are working behind the scenes on my behalf. I trust that Your plans are to prosper me and give me a future and a hope. I set my mind and heart on You this day and expect to see Your goodness. Today I step forward in confidence knowing that You are with me. I shake off negative words from the past and choose to forgive those who have hurt me. Thank You for leading me into victory. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

===

Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin
Who says You can't Make It?
You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth(1 Samuel 17:33, NIV)

Are you stuck in a rut today because of the negative words that have been spoken over you in the past? In today’s verse, we see that before David faced Goliath, he heard the accusing voices. But instead of listening to what others said, he chose to listen to what God said. He knew he was called, chosen and equipped to defeat that giant, and today, you are called, chosen and equipped for victory, too.

If you’ve been held back by negative words spoken over you, ask yourself, “Who told me I’m not tall enough?” “Who told me I’m just average?” “Who told me that I’m not that talented?” Let go and forgive those people. Stop listening to the wrong voices and take the limits off of your life.You are who God says you are.You are blessed.Amen.

===

===

===

===

 

Friend,
I just arrived in Austin, TX for a news conference I'm holding with Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst and several members of the Texas House and Senate who are committed to life.  I am here in Austin because I support critical legislation that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.  This is the same legislation that Senator Wendy Davis filibustered a few weeks ago and was praised by the liberal national media for doing so.
Well, the time has come to show the liberals that their temporary victory is over and passage of this bill is imminent.  Our pro-life friends in Texas have rallied, and we will save the lives of unborn children.
If you are in Austin, I hope you'll stop by our news conference in the Lieutenant Governor's press conference room in the State Capitol at 10 AM CT.   And if you aren't, you can still stand with us by signing our petition to Stand With Life and go toe-to-toe against anyone who supports abortion at any time for any reason.
Thanks for all you are doing to protect the unborn.
God Bless,  
Rick Santorum signature 
Rick Santorum

===
mm banner28413-0
Screen Shot 2013-04-15 at 8.19.59 AM
Photo credit: John W. Pope Civitas Institute
Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for July 10th. Enjoy!

From the Blog

Let them starve: Gitmo swindlers strike again

World Crisis Alert: Guantanamo Bay detainees don’t want to eat...

Dueling Headlines; ‘Honor system for government benefits’ edition

The FCC has warned companies participating in the government’s LifeLine phone program to verify that people receiving the so-called “Obama phones” are eligible for them...

More From the Right Side of the Web

Michelle's Top Tweets

Screen Shot 2013-07-10 at 8.32.37 AM
Screen Shot 2013-07-10 at 9.12.31 AM
Screen Shot 2013-07-10 at 8.31.02 AM

And ... Our Hate Tweet of the Day

Screen Shot 2013-07-10 at 8.57.14 AM
Reporting the truth is hateful? Good to know.

===

William Howard Taft

===

Events[edit]

Births[edit]

Deaths[edit]

Holidays and observances[edit]



No comments: