Friday, March 20, 2015

Fri Mar 20th Todays News

On Bolt Report an ongoing policy is that any Islam post can only be on the pinned leader. Normal rules apply in that if it is merely foul and abusive it will be deleted. Otherwise comments are welcome.  
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Former Australian PM Malcolm Fraser died today, aged 84 and surrounded by loved ones. He lived a life of privilege. To be rich is glorious, said one Chinese leader, but here is a cautionary tale. Fraser was strong with the weak and weak with the strong. As PM, he was denounced by the mainstream press as being "right of Atila the Hun or Genghis Kahn" and graffiti artists painted Hitler moustaches on his image. As PM, he made some good decisions, but had to be led there by good colleagues. He failed with fixing the economy Whitlam ruined. Without Fraser's example, ALP would not have had thirteen years of ALP rule which followed. Fraser supported Mugabe in Zimbabwe and never admitted his mistake in later years. In later years Fraser would champion AGW hysteria and the piracy which killed economic migrants. In earlier years, Fraser had back stabbed Gorton and been an acolyte of McMahon. Fraser was conservative in much the same way as Turnbull is, offering little in public policy. A few months before he died, he went deep sea fishing. Not a bad way to go. 

 ABC Radio's Jon Faine asked an abysmal question of the PM, highlighting how bad the entire network is in current affairs and news. "Mr Abbott, for a Rhodes' Scholar, how come you say so many stupid things?" No examples, the question as structured is intended to get Mr Abbott to confess to things which aren't stupid. It is important a PM can talk through such rubbish, as Gillard did when asked about her hairdresser partner. Or as Rudd failed to do when faced with his only serious question from Red Kerry. Rudd got rolled soon after, and Red Kerry retired. Abbott successfully navigated the question. It is disappointing when the token conservative writer for Fairfax, Latika Bourke, posed the question as to wether it was acceptable of ABC to ask the question, or was it unprofessional. One could answer that, Ms Bourke, but then one would be telling. 

 On this day in 1933, a pathetic little man was executed for killing the mayor of Chicago and another, unnamed woman, when he had attempted to kill President elect FDR. On the electric chair, Guy Zangara's last words were "Viva Italia! Goodbye to all poor peoples everywhere! [...] Push the button!" An insane left wing nut job had attempted the atrocity by targeting another left wing creature. FDR had achieved power by exploiting Black peoples. FDR's patronage of Chicago Mayor Cemak was developed around exploiting that support. William Dawson (black) was persuaded to leave the GOP and become a Democrat, eventually making Dawson the most powerful politician in Illinois. Cemak had had to overcome Irish corruption surrounding boot legging, and he engaged other ethnicities to support him. But once Cemak got office, he was starved of funds by corrupt means from his Democrat opponents. Cemak was an outsider who achieved little in office and then was assassinated. In many ways, he was what Obama promised to be. But the then power mad bigot, FDR, who had exploited blacks to achieve power, and would continue to dismiss Blacks as Democrats had ever done (cf Jesse Owens, US military treatment of Blacks and also FDR's responses to Jews pleading for help in holocaust), FDR survived. Zangara just wanted to kill rich, privileged people, like FDR. Zangara was only five foot tall, and when he saw FDR and Cemak in Florida on parade, needed to stand on a chair to see them. He took out a pistol and fired five shots. He was arrested and pled guilty to the wounding of four people. But when Cemak and the woman died, his eighty year sentence (“I have the gun in my hand. I kill kings and presidents first and next all capitalists.” As he was led out of the courtroom, Zangara told the judge: “Four times 20 is 80. Oh, judge, don't be stingy. Give me a hundred years.”) was made an executable one for which he already pled guilty. Zangara said, after being sentenced to death (“You give me electric chair. I no afraid of that chair! You one of capitalists. You is crook man too. Put me in electric chair. I no care!”). 

 Also on the same day in 1933, Himmler appointed Eicke as the camp commander of the new concentration camp Dachau. It was three years prior to the '36 Olympics and known around the world. In 1916, Einstein had published a paper on his general theory of relativity.   In 1972, the IRA blew up a car in Belfast, killing 7 and injuring 148 more. It highlights a close relationship the IRA had with Black September, the Palestinian group active in the day under Arafat. In 1993, IRA killed two children in Warrington, England. In 1995, a Sarin Gas attack was made in a Tokyo subway, killing thirteen and wounding 1,300. In 2000, a former Black Panther was captured after killing a sheriff deputy and wounding another. H. Rap Brown had changed his name to Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.
2014
It is difficult to find perfection in individuals. Youthful experience tends to distort adult behaviour. So that in some cases, sexual identity is a result of experience in youth. Not meant in a creepy Kyle Sandilands way, but as recognition that choosing to abstain is also a choice, like choosing to indulge. The mind has a way of convincing the brain that it doesn't make mistakes, but that is exactly what happens. George Washington famously declared as a child he had cut down a cherry tree, because he hadn't wanted to lie. Clearly he knew what a lie would mean, and the discovery of that informed his later behaviour. Without knowing how, or why, exactly, Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom's Cabin on this day in 1850. It changed the world. It was probably based on childhood experience in some ways. In the book, Uncle Tom is a slave interacting with masters and other slaves. Their behaviour and stoicism were inspirational and have since become cliche. 

Harriet may not have been a good writer, she was a great writer. Like Bob Dylan. But just as the protest movement of the sixties asked questions that today are not answered, so to is the issue of slavery. Slavery exists today, and must be resisted. Part of the modern problem of slavery is that the industry grown to resist it has problems with labelling. Some things are labelled slavery so as to garner support in opposing it. There are a few home truths that are uncomfortable for those who support such industry. A conservative being elected to government is not a slave master. A domestic abuser exploiting family is not a slave master. Being lowly paid is not the same as slave labor. The bible does not endorse slavery, although it has words directed to slaves and masters. However, a people smuggler is no different to a slave trader. Those who endorse people smuggling through bad government policy are no different to US Democrats who supported slavery, and opposed ending it. 
Historical perspectives on this day 
In 235, Maximinus Thrax was proclaimed emperor. He was the first foreigner to hold the Roman throne. 673, Emperor Tenmu of Japan assumed the Chrysanthemum throne at the Palace of Kiyomihara in Asuka. 1206, Michael IV Autoreianos was appointed Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. 1600, the Linköping Bloodbath took place on Maundy Thursday in Linköping, Sweden. 1602, The Dutch East India Company was established. 1616, Sir Walter Raleigh was freed from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment. 1760, the "Great Fire" of Boston, Massachusetts, destroyed 349 buildings.

 In 1815, after escaping from Elba, Napoleon entered Paris with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his "Hundred Days" rule. 1848, Revolutions of 1848 in the German states: King Ludwig I of Bavaria abdicated. 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was published. 1854, the Republican Party of the United States was organised in Ripon, Wisconsin. 1861, an earthquake completely destroyed Mendoza, Argentina. 1883, the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property was signed. 1888, the premiere of the very first Romani language operetta was staged in Moscow, Russia.

 In 1913, Sung Chiao-jen, a founder of the Chinese Nationalist Party, was wounded in an assassination attempt and died 2 days later. 1916, Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity. 1922, the USS Langley (CV-1) was commissioned as the first United States Navy aircraft carrier. 1923, the Arts Club of Chicago hosted the opening of Pablo Picasso's first United States showing, entitled Original Drawings by Pablo Picasso, becoming an early proponent of modern art in the United States.

 In 1933, Giuseppe Zangara is executed in Florida's electric chair for fatally shooting Anton Cermak in an assassination attempt against President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. Also 1933, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler ordered the creation of Dachau Concentration Camp as Chief of Police of Munich and appointed Theodor Eicke as the camp commandant. 1942, World War II: General Douglas MacArthur, at Terowie, South Australia, made his famous speech regarding the fall of the Philippines, in which he said: "I came out of Bataan and I shall return". 1948, with a Musicians Union ban lifted, the first telecast of classical music in the United States, under Eugene Ormandy and Arturo Toscanini, were given on CBSand NBC. 1951, Fujiyoshida, a city located in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, in the centre of the Japanese main island of Honshū was founded. 1952, the United States Senate ratified a peace treaty with Japan. 1956, Tunisia gained independence from France.
In 1964, the precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organization) was established per an agreement signed on June 14, 1962. 1972, The Troubles: The first Provisional IRA car bombing in Belfast killed seven people and injured 148 others in Northern Ireland. 1974, an unsuccessful attempt was made by a lone perpetrator to kidnap Her Royal Highness Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips in The Mall, outside Buckingham Palace, London. 1980, the Radio Caroline ship, Mi Amigo foundered in a gale off the English coast. 1985, Libby Riddles became the first woman to win the 1,135-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Also 1985, Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen began his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research. 1987, the Food and Drug Administration approved the anti-AIDS drug, AZT. 1988, Eritrean War of Independence: Having defeated the Nadew Command, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front entered the town of Afabet, victoriously concluding the Battle of Afabet.

In 1990, Ferdinand Marcos's widow, Imelda Marcos, went on trial for bribery, embezzlement, and racketeering. 1993, The Troubles: A Provisional IRA bomb killed two children in Warrington, England. It led to mass protests in both Britain and Ireland. 1995, a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway killed 13 and wounded 1,300 people. 1999, Legoland California, the first Legoland outside of Europe, opened in Carlsbad, California. 2000, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a former Black Panther once known as H. Rap Brown, was captured after murdering Georgia sheriff's deputy Ricky Kinchen and critically wounding Deputy Aldranon English. 2003, Invasion of Iraq: In the early hours of the morning, the United States and three other countries (the UK, Australia and Poland) began military operations in Iraq. 2006, over 150 Chadian soldiers were killed in eastern Chad by members of the rebel UFDC. The rebel movement sought to overthrow Chadian president Idriss Deby. 2012, at least 52 people were killed and more than 250 injured in a wave of terror attacks across ten cities in Iraq. 2014, four suspected Taliban members attack the luxurious Kabul Serena Hotel, killing at least nine people.
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This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
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Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August https://www.createspace.com/4124406, September https://www.createspace.com/5106914, October https://www.createspace.com/5106951, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows the purchase of a kindle version for just $3.99 more. 
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For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball

Or the US President at
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-change-this-injustice#
or
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-injustice-faced-david-daniel-ball-after-he-reported-bungled-pedophile-investigation-and/b8mxPWtJ or http://wh.gov/ilXYR
Douglas Sutherland-Bruce via David Daniel Ball
Mr Ball, I will not sign your petition as it will do no good, but I will share your message and ask as many of friends who read it, to share it also. Let us see if we cannot use the power of the internet to spread the word of these infamous killings. As a father and a former soldier, I cannot, could not, justify ignoring this appalling action by the perpetrators, whoever they may; I thank you Douglas. You are wrong about the petition. Signing it is as worthless and meaningless an act as voting. A stand up guy would know that. - ed

Lorraine Allen Hider I signed the petition ages ago David, with pleasure, nobody knows what it's like until they've been there. Keep heart David take care.

I have begun a bulletin board (http://theconservativevoice.freeforums.net) which will allow greater latitude for members to post and interact. It is not subject to FB policy and so greater range is allowed in posts. Also there are private members rooms in which nothing is censored, except abuse. All welcome, registration is free.
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Happy birthday and many happy returns Helen Tran, Vinh Tran and John Wilson. Born on the same day as Freema Agyamen across the years. Making you, like, a friend with the Time Lord.
March 20: Nowruz in Iran, Central Asia, and Zoroastrianism (2015); Independence Day in Tunisia(1956)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Max succeeded. They took our advice. Harriet wrote true. I think Pablo has something. Won't the IRA please go away? Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2015
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A house of cards and half of them are jokers

Piers Akerman – Friday, March 20, 2015 (12:23am)

THE eye-catching topless model and fitness trainer Anastasia Bakss, who invites her internet followers to “Sing up (sic) and get advice of fitness free” would doubtless be a titillating addition to the NSW legislative council.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'A house of cards and half of them are jokers'
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LABOR LINE BORROWED

Tim Blair – Friday, March 20, 2015 (4:41am)

A Parliamentary backdown from the Prime Minister: 
Tony Abbott has apologised to parliament for comparing Bill Shorten to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels during question time.
The Prime Minister drew the comparison while attacking on the Opposition Leader for claiming in government that that Labor had repaired the budget.
Brandishing a newsletter issued by Mr Shorten’s office in 2012, Mr Abbott told parliament: “He said ‘we have brought the budget back to surplus on time’ – the Dr Goebbels of economic policy.”
Mr Abbott immediately and profusely apologised for the remark, as parliament erupted and Labor’s most senior Jewish MP, Mark Dreyfus, rose from the front bench in outrage. 
Abbott had no need to apologise. He was simply following a decades-long Labor tradition. This is from 1951, just six years after Goebbels killed himself:

image

More recently, Labor MPs Dreyfus, Simon Crean, Graham Perrett and Janet Hill have all used Goebbels references against Liberal politicians. So have Labor’s Wayne Swan and Bernie Ripoli: 
In 1995, Wayne Swan said: “In recent weeks there has been a Goebbels type campaign by the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Bennelong (Mr Howard), and others on his front bench to remake their image from hard right ideologues to soft, cuddly, caring, non-threatening middle of the road type social democrats.”
In 2005, Bernie Ripoll told the House of Representatives: “These mind-numbing ads that they have put on television, on radio and in print media over and over again are straight out of the Goebbels propaganda handbook.” 
As Chris Kenny points out, all of these Goebbels references are just “shorthand for blatant propaganda. Faux outrage is boring and silly.”
(Via A.R.M Jones)
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UPTIGHTEY WHITEYS

Tim Blair – Friday, March 20, 2015 (4:32am)

In Britain as in Australia, the Greens are whiter than Sophie Ellis-Bextor‘s ghost: 
Natalie Bennett’s Green Party came under fire today after research found that it has fewer black and ethnic minority candidates than any other major party – including Ukip.
Only four per cent of the party’s general election hopefuls are from minority communities, according to a study by the Constitution Unit at University College London. Of 357 Green candidates selected so far, 15 have BME backgrounds and the other 342 are white. 
It is unknown how many British Greens are members of the pantomime community. 
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CULTURE AND HERITAGE DIMINISHED

Tim Blair – Friday, March 20, 2015 (4:09am)

Attention, Twitter outrage police! Somebody’s name is being mocked: 
Where do these collingwood players get their names? Broomhead? 
The ABC’s Jonathan Green has stepped over the line.
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BRING ON THE WARMTH

Tim Blair – Friday, March 20, 2015 (2:42am)

Beautiful shots of a tiny Italian village recently smothered in snow. Mayor Antonio Monaco is justifiably proud of his village’s coverage. “In Colorado, they had two metres of snow in 24 hours,” he told the UK Telegraph, “but here it took just 16 hours for that amount to fall.”
Meanwhile, a British charity has launched a Manifesto for Warmth: 
National Energy Action reckons at least 30,000 vulnerable people have perished prematurely over this Parliament due to an inability to adequately heat their homes, and Treasury energy taxes will mean many more will die in the next decade and a half unless the next government takes positive action.
That’s because millions of low-income and vulnerable households are either in significant personal debt or are in fuel poverty and have to ration their heating. As well as causing acute personal suffering, in its Manifesto for Warmth published today the charity says fuel poverty also reduces economic activity within deprived areas and leaves the NHS currently bearing a yearly burden of approximately £1.5bn treating cold-related illnesses every winter. 
Global warming, anyone?
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THEY’RE NO OIL PAINTINGS

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 19, 2015 (3:41am)

A press release announces Sydney’s greatest-ever art exhibition: 
In one of the featured works by HotHouse staff, Our Water, Our Place presents hundreds of water samples donated by Sydneysiders to create a reservoir of personal associations and anecdotes: rainwater from a kitchen sink in Warrimoo; storm water collected from a gutter outside a pub in Alexandria; saltwater from Middle Harbour. 
So much for Tim Flannery’s prediction that Sydney might run out of water by 2007. Eight years later we’ve got so much excess water that even art exhibits are slopping the stuff all over the place.
But to hell with boring water. What about the far more diverse and impressive medium of oil? Creative readers are invited to photograph their own unique oil shots – olive oil, motor oil, baby oil, peak oil, anything at all from the entire oil spectrum. Send your images to blairt@dailytelegraph.com.au and we’ll try to score a grant.
UPDATE. Entries are pouring in, at an appropriate level of tensile viscosity. Keep ‘em coming.
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On The Bolt Report on Sunday, March 22

Andrew Bolt March 20 2015 (3:12pm)

On the The Bolt Report on Channel 10 on Sunday at 10am and 3pm.
Editorial: Abbott attacked for going soft. But wait, who’s forced his hand?
Guest: Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Malcolm Fraser, the “Goebbels” uproar and the financial job ahead.
The panel: the great Michael Kroger and “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery.
Newswatch: Sharri Markson on Irish insults and the SBS.
On SBS hypocrisy, media hypocrisy and much more.
The videos of the shows appear here.
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Malcolm Fraser dies

Andrew Bolt March 20 2015 (9:58am)

Former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, later a Leftist critic of the Liberals, has died. Much demonised by the Left as Prime Minister, he will now be much mourned.
His role in the toppling of Gough Whitlam was one of the decisions that most made him a pariah, such that Labor was convinced it would cost him government. In fact, he did the country a great service and was rewarded for it with electoral victories. His rise marked a return to more stable and more prudent government. 
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“Peace” academic Jake Lynch vs an old woman

Andrew Bolt March 20 2015 (9:29am)

Big brave Jake Lynch, director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University, repeatedly taunts, films and otherwise intimidates an elderly woman who threw water at anti-Israel protesters who’d stormed a lecture by Colonel Richard Kemp, shouting down the speaker and abusing the audience before wrestling with security guards.
“This will cost you a lot of money,” Lynch tells the elderly woman over and over, keeping his iPhone filming in her face. This footage comes from Lynch’s phone.
Is this the “peace” that Lynch teaches? Is this to tolerate in Sydney University academic these days?  
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Feral Senate: Lambie and Labor vote to cut Government’s pay offer to soldiers

Andrew Bolt March 20 2015 (8:51am)

An example of how incompetent Labor would be in Government, dancing to the tune of the likes of Jacqui Lambie:

DEFENCE personnel could suffer from a Labor-backed proposal to link military pay to interest rates, the government says.
The Senate [yesterday] morning endorsed independent Jacqui Lambie’s bill to “keep the bastards in the blue ties honest” by linking military pay increases to either the inflation rate or increases in MPs’ pay, whichever is greater.
However, with politicians’ pay frozen and inflation running at 1.7 per cent, the proposal would lift military pay by less than the 2 per cent increase offered by the commonwealth… The bill, which was endorsed by Labor and the Greens, appears doomed in the House of Representatives, where the government commands a majority.
How idiotic is Labor, actually voting to cut military pay to protest against the Government not raising it enough? 
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Hyperbole alert

Andrew Bolt March 20 2015 (8:32am)

What Tony Abbott actually said:
Debt as a percentage of GDP which would have been 120 per cent under the policies of the former government is about 60 per cent under the policies of this Government. Now, that’s too high. We want to get it in a much, much better situation than that. We’d like over time to achieve this green line, but a ratio of debt to GDP at about 50 or 60 per cent is a pretty good result looking around the world, 120 per cent is a dire result and that’s what we were going to have under the policies of the former government…
There’s still work to do. There is absolutely still work to do… So look, this will be a prudent, frugal, responsible Budget, there will be things in it that people don’t like…
What the Financial Review editorial claims Abbott said:
Prime Minister Tony Abbott literally has lost the plot on the budget repair plan that the Coalition took to the people in 2013… This week, he has fallen back on the oldest form of political denial: declare victory and walk away from the problem.
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Obama loses Israeli election

Andrew Bolt March 20 2015 (8:10am)

Charles Krauthammer on Benjamin Netanyahu’s win against all that Barack Obama could throw at him:
There was a big victory for Netanyahu personally and I think the reaction of the administration is now reaching levels where it has become unseemly, the pettiness and the petulance with which they are discussing the election. A presidential spokesman congratulates Israel on holding an election rather than, as did the prime minister of Canada, of the UK, congratulating the winner…
(I)t is clear that Obama loathes Netanyahu more than any other world leader meaning more than the Ayatollah in Iran or Putin in Russia. And he did everything he could to unseat him but he failed. I think the message here is this was an election between Bibi and Obama. That was on the ballot because Obama was essentially saying if you want to reconcile with the United States, if you want your ally behind you you are going to have to get rid of Bibi.
That worked in ousting Prime Minister [Yitzhak] Shamir in the ‘90s. It worked in defeating Bibi in 1998. But the regard with which Israelis hold Obama and the fear they have of the dealing with Iran [is] such that Bibi won. That’s the message. He wasn’t speaking out of place in the Congress. He was speaking on behalf of Israelis and that is what I think Obama is having trouble swallowing.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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A story for Tony Abbott

Andrew Bolt March 20 2015 (7:40am)

What an interesting parallel. From an article yesterday about a miracle comeback - and you can fill in the missing names:
[NAME] is fond of encouraging comparisons of himself with his political idol, Winston Churchill.
But with his stunning win ... [NAME] stole a page from the biography of another outspoken political leader — Harry Truman.
Both Truman and [NAME] were expected by the pollsters and journalists covering the race to go down to defeat. Voters, went the refrain, were weary of the antics of both men and their perceived inability to govern.
In 1948, when Truman faced Thomas E. Dewey, the experts wrote him off long before the voting booths even opened. In the end, he scored the biggest electoral upset in US political history.
The one difference is that Truman was always certain he would win and campaigned with confidence in the results. [NAME], on the other hand, seemed to believe the media and the polls, which claimed growing momentum against him.
In the end, what everyone insisted would be a neck-and-neck battle turned into a decisive victory for [NAME]....

It was a blatant appeal to core rightist voters, and it worked, drawing many of them away from smaller parties…
...  they were willing to re-elect a prime minister who is far less popular than he once was, who has been embroiled in personal scandals and who has antagonized many former allies.
But they preferred that known quantity over ...  a relative political neophyte.
For all the furor over [NAME’S] speech ..., most [voters] obviously prefer a tarnished leader of whom they may be tired but who’s willing to be in-your-face, even with allies, on the issues that matter the most ...
Like [NAME], Harry Truman spoke his mind; you always knew where he stood, and he, too, often engaged in over-the-top rhetoric.
He took a tough, uncompromising line against those whom he thought endangered America’s interests.
His supporters loved him (though he sometimes embarrassed them), and his foes hated him — but also underestimated him.
That’s why Truman won against all the odds in 1948. And that’s why ...voters just re-elected [NAME].
(Thanks to reader Mike.)
UPDATE
Answer here.
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Ferguson fights NSW Labor’s lies

Andrew Bolt March 20 2015 (7:34am)

From the day I first met him, some 20 years ago, I’ve admired Martin Ferguson as a straight shooter. No different today, when he calls out NSW Labor’s shameful lies - lies that will hurt the people least able to afford their power bills.
UPDATE
Former NSW Labor Treasurer Michael Costa, another man for whom I have the highest respect, calls out the deceitful Labor campaign:
...lie after desperate lie is being thrown at the public in an attempt to frighten the electorate into rejecting the Baird government’s sensible and moderate reforms to the electricity industry.
The stakes in this debate are high. NSW taxpayers have already lost billions of dollars as a result of the unions’ history of resistance to change.
Electricity reform cuts across the political divide. The Hawke/Keating governments initiated the move to the national electricity market which has delivered significant benefits to those states that embraced the reform. Yet in NSW the taxpayers and electricity consumers are significantly worse off because of repeated failure to reform the electricity sector. Union opposition to the Carr government’s privatisation proposal cost the state more than $35 billion, in today’s dollars, of potential infrastructure investment…
The fact is electricity prices in NSW have gone up, in large part, as a direct result of policies forced on previous Labor governments by electricity unions
What was worse, $15 billion potential value was turned, by virtue of this ill-conceived union proposal, into $5.3 billion, the independently assessed gross proceeds from the gen-trader transaction…
The electricity unions and their supporters are trying to con the public when they try to portray themselves as defenders of public finances. All of their actions to date have been focused on protecting their privileged position at the expense of public finances…
The unions are dishonestly claiming that electricity prices will increase as a result of partial privatisation in the face of overwhelming independent evidence that it is not the case.
(Thanks to Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Even the Starbucks barrista is now an activist

Andrew Bolt March 20 2015 (7:32am)

What if you just want a coffee?
Starbucks ... became the subject of ridicule this week after announcing a campaign in which baristas are urged to engage customers on the subject of racism when they order their coffees.
Howard Schultz, the Starbucks chief, called it an opportunity to create a more “empathetic and inclusive society”, and has told baristas to write “Race Together” on customers’ cups. He said the move might facilitate a conversation between baristas and the coffee-drinking public on race.
“If a customer asks you what this is, try and engage in a discussion that we have problems in this country with regard to racial inequality, and we believe we’re better than this,” he said.

(Thanks to reader brett tr.) 
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Labor hypocrites to make a Goebbels blush

Andrew Bolt March 20 2015 (6:29am)

The Labor sanctimony and hypocrisy is sickening.
Hypocrite 1 - shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus:
image
The very same sanctimonious and unapologetic Dreyfus in 2011:
image
Hypocrite 2 - former Treasurer Wayne Swan:
image
The very same sanctimonious and unapologetic Wayne Swan in 1995:

In recent weeks there has been a Goebbels type campaign by the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Bennelong (Mr Howard), and others on his front bench to remake their image from hard Right ideologues to soft, cuddly, caring, non-threatening middle of the road type social democrats.
Hypocrite 3 - Labor MP Jill Hall:
image
The very same sanctimonious and unapologetic Jill Hall in 2006:

They have vilified asylum seekers and refugees in a way that would make Goebbels blush.
Best blog comment of the day so far, from reader Relevance Please:
Goebells, winks, ferals, onions, blue ties, budgie smugglers, Catholicism, stuttering speach, a guinness or two, lycra shorts, baddies vs baddies, static world temperatures, knights and dames, Frances Abbott’s scholarship, tent embassies, shirtfronts, funny walk, bat phones on boats, Canadia, strange laugh. Yes, the big issues our nation faces.
For the life of me I can’t figure out how any one of them is going to effect my employment, hip pocket or future.
I must be strange.  
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Islamic State claims responsibility for Tunis museum attack

Andrew Bolt March 20 2015 (6:09am)

We are all in a war to defend the very idea of civilisation:

The radical Islamic State group claimed responsibility Thursday for the attack on a famed Tunis museum that left 23 people dead and scores of tourists wounded, and upended the country’s struggling tourism industry.
Defying the extremists, hundreds of Tunisians rallied Thursday at the National Bardo Museum, the site of the attack, stepping around trails of blood and broken glass to proclaim their solidarity with the victims and with Tunisia’s fledgling democracy. One person carried a sign saying “Tunisia is bloodied but still standing."…
Culture Minister Latifa Lakhdar gave a defiant press conference in the museum, where blood trails still stained the ground.
“They are targeting knowledge. They are targeting science. They are targeting reason. They are targeting history. They are targeting memory, because all these things mean nothing in their eyes,” she told reporters. “There is only their reactionary, very backward and sclerotic ideology.”
Later in the afternoon, authorities opened the gates of the museum for a rally in defiance of the bloodshed. About 500 people held a moment of silence amid the shattered glass before singing Tunisia’s national anthem…
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in an audio and written statement on jihadi forums and described the museum housing Roman artifacts as a “den of infidels and vice.” It celebrated the two attackers as “knights” armed with assault rifles and grenades and promised further strikes…
The Health Ministry said the death toll in the attack rose Thursday to 23 people, including 20 foreign tourists, with almost 50 people wounded. Three Tunisians were killed, including two attackers. 
UPDATE
Stand by for another debate soon on the niqab, thanks to photographs like this:
image
This time the debate will be less about the subjugation of women and the near impossibility of social interaction across different religious groups. It will be driven by very simple security concerns:

COUNTER-TERROR authorit­ies are seeing a “noticeable change’’ in the profile of fighters participating in the Syrian civil war, as terror recruiters focus increasing­ly on younger people. 

As the Syrian civil war moves into its fifth year, Attorney-General George Brandis has told The Australian the jihadist problem has worsened…
”We are seeing more younger people, including teenagers as young as 14, and more women.’’
Senator Brandis’s remarks came as social media reports emerged marking the death of another Australian fighter in Syria, Melbourne man Suhan Abdul Rahman, and the eldest daughter of Sydney terrorist and Islamic State jihadist Khaled Sharrouf posted an image of niqab-clad female fighters.
Daniel Pipes was onto this years ago, and gave many examples of the danger:
The niqab and burqa both should be banned on security grounds, because one cannot allow faceless and bodyless persons walking the streets, driving cars, and otherwise making use of public spaces; the dangers are too great. This blog focuses on specific dangers, especially in the West (where reporting is better), of the niqab, burqa, and other Islamic coverings as a disguise for criminal and terrorist purposes.
But the media class is not ready ready to discuss this debate without screaming “racist” or “Islamophobe”, as Canada proved last week:
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Mark Dreyfus should be ashamed of his hypocrisy. UPDATE: media, too

Andrew Bolt March 19 2015 (6:45pm)

Hypocrite alert.
Labor frontbencher Mark Dreyfus, who is Jewish, flew in a rage at Tony Abbott at Question Time today for referring to Bill Shorten as the “Dr Goebbels of economic policy”.
Labor went into uproar, too, keen to beat up another “gaffe” controversy.
Small problem. Drefyus, the hypocrite, has himself invoked Goebbels to attack Abbott:
Leaving aside the Goebbellian cynicism of labelling a scare campaign a ‘’truth campaign’’, I think it shows Abbott’s contempt for the Australian electorate.

Wouldn’t apologise, either:
In an opinion piece today, Labor MP Mark Dreyfus described Mr Abbott’s so-called “truth campaign” on carbon as Goebbellian.
The term takes its name from the Nazi Germany’s propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels…
Mr Dreyfus says he was referring to the nature of Mr Abbott’s campaign, not calling him a Nazi.
“I think its a pretty recognised idea in propaganda, Goebellian cynicism,” he said.
“It’s intended to refer to people that go out, deliberately spread misinformation and think that if they keep spreading the mis-information it’ll come to be accepted at fact.”

Abbott apologised, Dreyfus didn’t.
What a hypocrite.
But watch the media do yet another gotcha. Watch it show the usual confected outrage and double standards.
UPDATE
Can you spare me the sanctimonious outrage of Labor MPs adopting moral poses for political advantage?
Labor MP Jill Hall today proves her superior morality with vicious abuse - and stunning hypocrisy:
Abbott has just demonstrated what a disgusting individual & grub he is #auspol #qt
The same Jill Hall in 2006:

They have vilified asylum seekers and refugees in a way that would make Goebbels blush.
Is fellow Labor MP Graham Perrett also “disgusting” and a “grub”, Ms Hall?
He did not mention the global financial crisis. That two years has been taken out of the LNP history books. It is almost a Goebbels -type experiment in removing things from history: ‘This did not occur.’ 
Was Labor leader Simon Crean ”disgusting" and a “grub” for also likening Abbott to Goebbels, Ms Hall?:
Day after day the Minister for Health and Ageing comes in here repeating his Goebbels chant: John Howard is the best friend that Medicare has ever had.
UPDATE
Absolutely typical. Mark Kenny of Fairfax abuses Abbott for his “willful overreach” without once mentioning Dreyfus, Crean, Hill and other Labor MPs have used the same abuse without any media comment at all.
ABC 7.30 reporter Sabra Lane shows footage of Goebbells in full rant and only at the very end notes that Dreyfus did use the same insult once, but she does not add the exquisite detail that he used it against Abbott.
Sky News Agenda has Labor’s Michael Danby express at huge length his disappointment to an agonised host, who only lightly taxes him at the end with mentions of past Labor sins.
This is astonishing, and it happens again and again. Gillard and Rudd told jokes about Irish boozers, but the media is angry only with Abbott.
John Howard, Bob Brown, Scott Ludlum and Paul Keating all referred to economic or environmental “holocausts”, but the media is angry only with Abbott.
Dreyfus, Simon Crean, Graham Perrett and Janet Hill all use the “Goebbells” insult, but the media is angry only with Abbott.
This is sick. 
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=== Posts from last year ===

GREAT MOMENTS IN SOUTH AUSTRALIAN HISTORY

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (2:26pm)

Adelaide’s German Club celebrates Hitler’s 50th birthday in 1939:

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DOOOOMED AGAIN

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (2:23pm)

As usual, we’re toast: 
After running the numbers on a set of four equations representing human society, a team of NASA-funded mathematicians has come to the grim conclusion that the utter collapse of human civilization will be “difficult to avoid.”
The exact scenario may vary, but in the coming decades humanity is essentially doomed to some variant of “Elites” consuming too much, “resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society.”
That is, unless civilization is ready for one of two “major policy changes”: inequality must be “greatly reduced” or population growth must be “strictly controlled.” 
Let’s start with a cull of NASA-funded mathematicians. In other doomy developments, apparently we can only increase the size of crops by reducing their food supply.
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STATE OF PLAY

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (1:30pm)

The carbon tax was introduced by Labor after then-PM Julia Gillard specifically ruled out such a tax ahead of the 2010 election. The repeal of the carbon tax was a specific promise made by Tony Abbott ahead of the 2013 election. Mandate-wise, there isn’t much of an argument about which policy has greater public support. Naturally, Labor and the Greens continue to block the electorate’s will. Here’s Greens leader Christine Milne: 
The Senate has rejected Tony Abbott’s do-nothing approach on global warming and voted to maintain the price on pollution. No one should give up on the current law. It has the support of leading economists like Ken Henry, Ross Garnaut and Bernie Fraser whilst Tony Abbott’s phoney alternative is friendless. 
These people are ridiculous.
UPDATE. Kevin Rudd, last July: 
“Today we’ve taken the decision to terminate the carbon tax,” Mr Rudd said. 
And now Labor votes to keep the carbon tax – after promising it would never be introduced in the first place.
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HORSE GOES MARCHING IN

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (3:37am)

At around the nine-minute mark of this intriguing 1966 BBC item about Australian football, a horse appears:

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WHY THEY MARCHED

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (3:17am)

March-in-Marcher William Rattley explains the motivation of his fellow whiners: 
People are marching because they are sick of being treated as a number, as a cog in a well-oiled, well-conditioned machine. 
A really good way of dealing with this is to march in a group of similarly-minded people. Sort of like a number, or a cog in a well-oiled, well-conditioned machine. 
People are sick of their health, security and happiness being taken from them simply to make a quick buck. 
Is this actually happening? Is the removal of happiness and health somehow generating money? Sounds interesting. 
People are sick of everything being politicised. 
Like the weather, for example. This bloke is at least one election cycle behind events. 
People feel as though Australia has become cold, apathetic and xenophobic, in regards to the way we treat people who come to our shores to seek aid. 
What about how they treat us? 
We want our country back, and we’ll keep marching till we get it back. THAT is why we march! 
Buy good shoes.
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PRESIDENT BEATS THE SPREAD

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (2:25am)

Following a horribly embarrassing moment during a campaign speech, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos responds with remarkable dignity and calm.
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BROKEST NATION EVER

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 20, 2014 (1:35am)

Scary numbers from Mark Steyn: 
In America, federal debt is over 100 per cent of GDP. Australia’s federal debt works out to $12,000 per citizen. In America, it’s $54,000.
The United States is the Brokest Nation in History, broker than anyone else has ever been ever. 
Obama’s answer: keep spending.
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Labor saves the carbon tax

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (2:08pm)

Labor votes to keep the tax it promised to scrap, and which costs Australians money and jobs:
The Abbott government has failed in its first bid to scrap the carbon tax, with the Senate refusing to pass a package of bills to repeal the Gillard-era climate change policy. 
After three months of debate, the package of nine bills was finally put to a vote in the upper house today only to be swiftly rebuffed by Labor and the Australian Greens.
UPDATE
So how did the Guardian come to report this last year?
Kevin Rudd has “terminated” the fixed-price carbon tax from July 2014, ...
“Has terminated”?   
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Australia may have found the jet

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (2:05pm)

The Prime Minister says wreckage of the missing Malaysian jet may have been found by Australia through satellite imaging.
UPDATE
Mr Abbott said he has called Malaysian leader Najib Razak to relay the “new and credible information” about potential aircraft wreckage in the southern Indian Ocean. 
He told parliament: “The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has received the information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search. Following specialist analysis of this satellite imagery, two possible objects related to the search have been identified. “A Royal Australian Air Force Orion has been diverted in an attempt to locate the objects. This Orion is expected to arrive in the area about this time.”
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A Greens fantasy, where Gillard is abused as Abbott never was

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (2:00pm)

The ABC publishes a bizarre piece by a Robert Simms without declaring he was actually an adviser to Greens MPs Sarah Hanson-Young and Scott Ludlam.
His key argument? That Julia Gillard remains the worst-abused Prime Minister of all. Note how brazenly he tricks up the evidence to compare the milder insults suffered by Howard and Abbott to the worst said of Gillard:
John Howard was famously described as a “lying rodent”, Julia Gillard a “bitch” and a “witch”, while Tony Abbott has been derided as an “economic illiterate” and an imbecile… 
However it should also be recognised that some forms of insult are more damaging than others… Of course calling Abbott “a liar” is not the same as calling Gillard a “bitch” or a “witch”. The latter are insults that could only be levelled at a woman. 
Pardon? The worst ever said of Howard was that he was a “lying rodent”? In fact, here’s just a small sample of some of the fouler things he was called:
(He) wanted to “cosh the boongs’’, claimed his colleague, Mike Carlton… 
A “cold-hearted prick’’, said footballer Michael Long… “..arselicker…”
(He has) “bloodless lips of string’’, added ABC and Herald Sun columnist Jill Singer…
The National Sorry Day Committee (said he was) the “dog of white supremacy” wanting “to return to its vomit"… See Mungo MacCallum win praise for calling John Howard an “unflushable turd”. See then Labor president Carmen Lawrence endorse a Rock Against Howard CD with tracks such as John Howard is a Filthy Slut. 
As for Abbott, the worst insults Simms can recall of him is that he is allegedly an “economic illiterate” and “imbecile”.
Here are just some Simms conveniently overlooks: 
No, the Left is the new home of the political feral, so who was surprised to see marchers carrying a banner declaring “F--- Tony. F--- Democracy”? 
Who was surprised to also see at these marches around Australia scores of protesters in T-shirts declaring “F--- Tony Abbott’’?True, there is a new level of savagery in the Left, now drinking at the Twitter sewer, with signs also shouting “Kill Abbott”, “Kill the Politicians”, “I vote for retroaction abortion of Tony”, “Resign d--khead” and “You racist, sexist, elitist, homophobic fascist”, next to a picture of Abbott as Hitler.
Here are some more that Simms strangely failed to mention:
Abbott hadn’t even been sworn in before a new Facebook site - “Tony Abbott - Worst PM in Australian History” - savaged him as “a misogynist, sexist, homophobic pr---, a bully, a racist, a liar ...”. It has 170,000 “likes”. 
Other Facebook sites were worse. “Tony Abbott should be assassinated” was created from an office at the Geelong Trades Hall.
ADS hit the mainstream media, too. The Age even promoted “ethically produced” T shirts from columnist Clementine Ford with the slogan “F--- Abbott”. The ABC’s Q & A website left up a tweet about performing a sexual act on Abbott and The Drum vilified him as a religious bigot who denied evolution and wanted to “score points against the ‘feminazis’ and ‘poofs’ “. 
Simms seems to live in a fantasy world where conservatives are the true foul-mouths, cheering on sexists and racists:

This is a reality that the conservative commentariat conveniently overlook. While they condoned the sexist attacks on Gillard under the guise of ‘free speech’, their concern for Abbott suggests there is some terrible political bias against straight, white, middle-class, middle-aged men. 
Is Simms serious? Conservatives did not “condone” sexist attacks on Gillard but deplored them. I cannot think of a single member of the “conservative commentariat” who “condoned the sexist attacks on Gillard”, and look forward to Simms producing a list of names.
The only condoning of vile abuse I’ve seen by a commentariat, or in this case by political figures, was this:
When Howard was PM, Lindsay McDougall, of the band Frenzal Rhomb, got musicians to contribute to Rock Against Howard, a CD that included tracks such as John Howard is a Filthy Slut and Gun Him Down. 
H-Block 101 sung this advice on handling such politicians: 
F...ing c..., here’s a stunt. Kick him ‘til he’s dead.
Now guess who endorsed this muck?
Answer: Labor’s national president and a former premier, Carmen Lawrence, sent McDougall a warm note, declaring “It’s time to put an end to (Howard’s) regime of fear.” Greens leader Bob Brown also blessed the project, telling these barbarians how “mean, nasty and repressive” Howard was instead. Even Peter Garrett, now Education Minister, said the CD was a “good idea”. 
Yet more evidence that Greens do not see the world as it is but as they dream.
(Thanks to reader Paul.) 
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The “science is settled”? Fat chance

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (1:30pm)

Reader Dr R:
I wonder if you have caught up with the study published in The Annals of Internal Medicine, and now quoted in MSM, debunking the age-old teaching that saturated fats cause heart disease. This was for many years a scientific consensus until disproved by this study of 600,000 patients. 
One could have argued that as far as saturated fats were concerned, the “science was settled’ and those who suggested otherwise were “flat earthers” or “heretics”, or should be forcibly silenced for questioning the majority of scientists whose research told us saturated fats cause heart attacks. “Low fat” and “heart healthy” spawned a whole new industry to capitalise on the fear these bad fats would engender in the masses. Sound familiar?  
Indeed it does. 
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What made these boat people think we’d want them?

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (11:25am)

Boat people policy, Culture wars

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THE ABC’s 7.30 on Monday accidentally showed exactly why we should stop the boats of illegal immigrants — and not only to end the drowning.
The ABC’s footage, including video shot by boat people turned back last month, actually showed a dangerous cultural difference.

How could these 34 people from Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal — mostly Muslim countries that are neither war-torn nor famine-struck — think that threatening to kill our sailors, shouting “f--- Australia” and warning of another September 11 would make us unlock our hearts and our door?
And how many people just like them are among the more than 50,000 Labor let sail in uninvited, even taxiing them in on our warships?
(Read full article here.)  
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Remember when Henry helped “save” the economy with massive spending? Now he’s “saved” Parkinson

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (9:45am)

Great political skills last week from former Treasury secretary Ken Henry, killing the career of a man he was wanting to save:
SARAH FERGUSON: One of Tony Abbott’s first moves when he came into government was to organise the removal down the track of Martin Parkinson as head of Treasury. Is that the normal operation of government: putting people you trust into key departments and getting rid of others? 
KEN HENRY: Well it’s never happened in the Treasury in one hundred and - what is it?: 114 years, 113 years. There have only been 16 Treasury secretaries in that time. Martin is number 16. No government has ever thought it appropriate to remove the head of the Treasury and put in somebody who they think is of the right - let’s say of a more comfortable political character. Now I’m not saying that is what has motivated the Prime Minister on this occasion…
SARAH FERGUSON: But should [Parkinson] be asked to stay in his position? KEN HENRY: Yes, I think he should.
Niki Savva:
As soon as Ken Henry intervened, ministers and advisers knew Abbott would have no choice but to stick to the original decision. Parkinson knew it immediately. His friends said Henry’s remarks were akin to pouring petrol on a fire which began with the leaking of a story that Costello and John Howard had suggested he should be kept on.
Making that even more certain was Henry’s rank partisanship:
Senior government members were left seething by Henry’s other free-flowing advice on what else should be done, advice which he could have given publicly after he left his post in 2011 and before Labor lost office more than two years later…

Henry rightly observed last week the government will struggle to find the revenue to pay for big social policies. Rather than criticise Howard era tax cuts, he could have talked about the folly of the mining tax. He can’t. Henry fathered the mining tax in a review that deliberately excluded any evaluation of the GST, the tax he now says should rise… 
Henry stood by watching while Kevin Rudd and Swan ­mishandled the mining tax, and as one close observer put it was “out to lunch” when Gillard ­allowed the big three miners to rewrite it to suit them so it went from supposedly raising $13.4?billion over four years to a few hundred million.
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Finally, a real audit of the global warming science

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (9:24am)

Global warming - dud predictions, Global warming - general

Tony Thomas on a potential turning point in the global warming debate:
The 50,000-strong American body of physicists, the American Physical Society (APS), seems to be turning significantly sceptical on climate alarmism. 
The same APS put out a formal statement in 2007 adding its voice to the alarmist hue and cry. That statement caused resignations of some of its top physicists…
By its statutes, the APS must review such policy statements each half-decade and that scheduled review is now under way… The review, run by the society’s Panel on Public Affairs, includes four powerful shocks for the alarmist science establishment. 
First, a sub-committee has looked at the recent 5th Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and formulated scores of critical questions about the weak links in the IPCC’s methods and findings. In effect, it’s a non-cosy audit of the IPCC’s claims on which the global campaign against CO2 is based. Second, the sub-committee, after ‘consulting broadly’, appointed a panel to workshop the questions and then provide input to the new official statement on climate. The appointed panel of six, amazingly, includes three eminent sceptic scientists: Richard Lindzen, John Christy, and Judith Curry. The other three members comprise long-time IPCC stalwart Ben Santer (who, in 1996, drafted, in suspicious circumstances, the original IPCC mantra about a “discernible” influence of manmade CO2 on climate), an IPCC lead author and modeler William Collins, and atmospheric physicist Isaac Held. 
Third, the sub-committee is ensuring the entire process is publicly transparent — not just the drafts and documents, but the workshop discussions, which have been taped, transcribed and officially published, in a giant record running to 500+ pages. 
Fourth, the APS will publish its draft statement to its membership, inviting comments and feedback.
....It seems a good bet that the APS will break ranks with the world’s collection of peak science bodies, including the Australian Academy of Science, and tell the public, softly or boldly, that IPCC science is not all it’s cracked up to be…
The American Physical Society’s audit questions are pretty trenchant. Just to recite some of them points in the can of worms soon to be authoritatively exposed.  Here’s a selection: 
...While the Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) rose strongly from 1980-98, it has shown no significant rise for the past 15 years…[The APS notes that neither the 4th nor 5th IPCC report modeling suggested any stasis would occur, and then asks] … 
To what would you attribute the stasis?… 
What are the implications of this statis for confidence in the models and their projections? 
What do you see as the likelihood of solar influences beyond TSI (total solar irradiance)? Is it coincidence that the statis has occurred during the weakest solar cycle (ie sunspot activity) in about a century? 
Some have suggested that the ‘missing heat’ is going into the deep ocean… 
Are deep ocean observations sufficient in coverage and precision to bear on this hypothesis quantitatively? 
Why would the heat sequestration have ‘turned on’ at the turn of this century?… 
IPCC suggests that the stasis can be attributed in part to ‘internal variability’. Yet climate models imply that a 15-year stasis is very rare and models cannot reproduce the observed Global Mean Surface Temperature even with the observed radiative forcing. 
What is the definition of ‘internal variability’?… 
How long must the statis persist before there would be a firm declaration of a problem with the models? If that occurs, would the fix entail: ... A re-examination of fundamental assumptions?… 
What do you consider to be the most important gaps in current understanding? 

The rate of [ocean] rise during 1930-1950 was comparable to, if not larger than, the value in recent years. Please explain that circumstance in light of the presumed monotonic [steady] increase from anthropogenic effects. 
The IPCC-projected rise of up to 1m by the end of this century would require an average rate of up to 12mm/yr for the rest of this century, some four times the current rate, and an order of magnitude larger than implied by the 20th century acceleration of 0.01mm/yr found in some studies. What drives the projected sea level rise? To what extent is it dependent upon a continued rise in Global Mean Surface Temperature?… 
Read it all. This could be a defining moment. 
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Langton’s skins game

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (9:04am)

Free speech, The politics of race

Leave aside Marcia Langton’s mischaracterisation of my argument; just note her hypocrisy:
Langton, Q&A website, Monday:
IF the parliament removes this section (18c of the Racial Discrimination Act) ... (Bolt) will be free to continue to attack Aboriginal people on the grounds of the colour of their skin.
Langton, The Age, October 2, 2011: 
THERE were many Aboriginal people who … (did) pretend to be ‘’white’’ … Not quite despised but regarded as gutless, they were the ones who sneaked back to take advantage of the miserable “benefits’’ that came with policy reform in the 1970s. Then, we called them “very late identifiers’’.
UPDATE
Psychiatrist Murray Walters: 
It is ridiculous that it is potentially illegal to question something as intangible as racial identity (or religious identity or the mantle of victimhood, for that matter) just because someone might get offended.  Surely the aggrieved should not entitled to legal protection from scrutiny just because they feel something to an intense degree. 
Actually, that intensity to might be a clue: Sometimes we hide the truth even from ourselves.
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Russia laughs at Obama’s US

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (9:01am)


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Russia does not even try to hide its contempt:
There’s an amazing picture taken a few days ago at the United Nations. 
Russia had just vetoed America’s diplomatic proposal for Ukraine. So Ambassador Samantha Power, the former Harvard professor appointed by Barack Obama, who is also a former Harvard grad himself, walked over to Russia’s ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, to give him a piece of her mind.
Churkin didn’t even stand up. He just looked at her. And his aides, standing behind him, laughed. They weren’t laughing at the ironically named Ambassador Power. They were laughing at their good luck; that they had the good fortune to get into the invading business when a feckless man like Barack Obama was in charge of the free world.
Then there is this deeply worrying threat - to relax a pressure on Iran that the feckless Obama has already relaxed too much:
A senior Russian diplomat says Moscow may change its stance in the Iranian nuclear talks amid tensions with the West. 
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted Wednesday as saying by the Interfax news agency that Russia didn’t want to use the Iranian nuclear talks to “raise stakes,” but may have to do so in response to the actions by the United States and the European Union. The statement is the most serious threat of retaliation by Moscow after the U.S. and the EU announced sanctions against Russia over the Ukrainian crisis.
(Via Catallaxy Files.)   
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Sinodinos stumbles into the mud

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (7:57am)

It is strange that Arthur Sinodinos could have got himself in this mess, chairing a company which had Eddie Obeid as a secret shareholder, making secret shady deals. Dennis Shanahan:
Sinodinos’s defence necessarily does damage to his political credibility because while denying any corruption he is left to rely on being naive to say the least. 
It is clear ICAC intends to portray Sinodinos as being hired as a sleazy Liberal door opener to an incoming state Liberal government rather than for the skills of a merchant of high finance and business for which he felt he was being paid.
How could someone who became chief of staff to a prime minister because his predecessor had to resign over ministerial travel rorts not see the political trap in being paid a large salary, the prospect of making millions on the success of a single contract and being promoted to chairman ahead of the inevitable coming of a new NSW Liberal government? Some Liberals who are critical of Sinodinos suggest he may have been groomed to become the Liberal gatekeeper for a group of Labor investors on a losing side.
Others believe the explanation is more benign: that Sinodinos, after years of public service, became seduced by the society of wheeler-dealers in the Sydney money set, sought to “set up” for life his wife Elizabeth and two children and was ill-prepared, or unwilling, to see the threats to his integrity and dangers to his career.
I doubt very much that the widely respected Sinodinos did anything wrong. The hurdle he faces in resuming his political career will be the questions this raises about his judgment. 
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Mates no more

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (7:44am)

Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill asks: Where’s Bill?
Today: 
DISGRACED former Labor MP Craig Thomson has relied on family, friends and former staff to vouch for his good character as he fights a possible jail sentence. But none of his former parliamentary or union colleagues are willing to offer references to help keep him out of prison.
August 2011: 

Neil Mitchell:You’ve run a union, you understand these things, do you support him?
Bill Shorten:Oh, yeah, I believe him.
Neil Mitchell: You believe him [Thomson], no case to answer? Bill Shorten:I believe him
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The Left cannot see the barbarians marching in their ranks

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (7:18am)

How the Left hates, The new morality

 THE most astonishing thing about the weekend’s March in March rallies was not the vicious hatred it promoted against Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
No, the Left is the new home of the political feral, so who was surprised to see marchers carrying a banner declaring “F--- Tony. F--- Democracy”?
Who was surprised to also see at these marches around Australia scores of protesters in T-shirts declaring “F--- Tony Abbott’’?

True, there is a new level of savagery in the Left, now drinking at the Twitter sewer, with signs also shouting “Kill Abbott”, “Kill the Politicians”, “I vote for retroaction abortion of Tony”, “Resign d--khead” and “You racist, sexist, elitist, homophobic fascist”, next to a picture of Abbott as Hitler.
In fact, Newcastle Trades Hall Council secretary Gary Kennedy, in a speech at his city’s March in March, declared mining boss Gina Rinehart was a “filthy animal” and Qantas chief Alan Joyce “should be shot somewhere in the back of the head” — a line that got applause.
But what was even more astonishing — and frightening — was the hypocrisy.
(Read full article here.) 
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Labor demands return of dodgy donation to Rudd campaign

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (7:17am)

Labor has more funny-money problems:
THE Labor Party is taking urgent action to unwind a secret $200,000 donation, from a Taiwanese-born businessman, which it believes was arranged in breach of electoral laws for Kevin Rudd to conduct campaign polling on the eve of the election. 
The massive donation from developer and former banker Kung Chin Yuan was paid into the then prime minister’s Griffith electorate branch bank account on September 3, allegedly without the knowledge of state Labor officials who are legally responsible for campaign contributions.
It is also alleged that the money - believed to be one of the biggest single donations in the federal campaign - ... was then handed over to Labor’s pollsters, UMR Research, to pay for polling privately commissioned by Mr Rudd and his political advisers, including Bruce Hawker. UMR polling, presented to Labor insiders in early August last year, canvassed voters about former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie running for a federal seat in Queensland.
Mr Rudd, who lost the prime ministership to Tony Abbott just days after the donation was made, has denied any wrongdoing, saying all campaign disclosures were the responsibility of the party. It is understood Mr Rudd was aware of the donation but denies having any role in arranging it…
An extraordinary meeting of the ALP’s state administrative committee late yesterday voted to demand UMR refund the $200,000 to the ALP so that it can be returned to Mr Kung, who has made Labor donations in the past and in 2005 paid for Mr Rudd to travel to London… In its resolutions, the ALP administrative committee said the state office only became aware of the donation on March 7 and that it “continue to ensure compliance with the ALP’s obligations with electoral legislation"… In Queensland, a political donation of $100,000 or more has to be declared within two weeks.
One theory:
A source who asked not to be named said: “The way this is being handled smells a lot like a set-up against Kevin by the AWU controlled state branch as part of a long-standing vendetta against him, despite all that he did for the party in the last election.”
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No, Elizabeth, weeping for weather is not the same as fighting to free the slaves

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (6:51am)

Global warming - propaganda, The new morality

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Read Elizabeth Farrelly with this thought in mind - that the planet’s atmosphere hasn’t really warmed in 16 years, and by some measures has slightly cooled over the past 13: 
But when the two value systems split, when the legal and the good find themselves in opposition, then the fight becomes bloody. It becomes epoch changing. 
Each era has such a battle. Reformation. Slavery. Apartheid. Ours, for this century, is environmentalism. However it ends - and it may not be well - this will be our defining moral issue. Byron Smith, the Anglican minister arrested during a prayer vigil at the Maules Creek mine last week, argues that way. He and his co-arrestees sacrificed their freedom in hope of preventing the sacrifice of lives.
Prosperity actually saves lives. Global warming has not cost any, in net terms.
Farrelly, a Sydney Morning Herald columnist, preaches what she does not understand and accepts what she does not question. She, like many of her colleagues, wants to feel like a soldier in a great moral battle when she’s actually a traitor in a great intellectual one - the defence of reason.
And, of course, she’s a hypocrite:
It’s a point that remakes itself at every step of our 8000-kilometre swag through the Big Empty, from Sydney to the Alice and back.
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Was Rudd warned, and what did he say?

Andrew Bolt March 20 2014 (5:47am)

So what was done to prevent the risk, and was Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warned?:
Bureaucrats planning the botched pink batts scheme knew shoddy insulation installations were likely to result in fires, injuries and even death, an inquiry has heard… 
A royal commission into the program heard on Wednesday that the government’s environment department knew of the risks by mid-March 2009, a month after the scheme’s announcement.
The department received and responded to emails from industry bodies that warned about potential safety hazards, including electrical fires… The inquiry was also shown a risk assessment document, developed before the scheme’s rollout, that identified the potential for dodgy installers and shonky installations under the program.
Counsel Assisting the commission, Keith Wilson, asked environment department staffer Beth Brunoro whether it was right to assume from the document that the risk of injury, including death, to installers was likely. ‘’That’s correct,’’ she replied.
(Thanks to reader Peter.) 
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Noted speech therapist John Wayne uses an unorthodox, yet effective method to cure a young man of a speech impediment

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March 20: Nowruz in Iran, Central Asia, and Zoroastrianism (2014); Independence Day in Tunisia (1956)
Napoleon Bonaparte
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“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” - Galatians 5:22-23
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

March 19: Morning
"Strong in faith." - Romans 4:20
Christian, take good care of thy faith; for recollect faith is the only way whereby thou canst obtain blessings. If we want blessings from God, nothing can fetch them down but faith. Prayer cannot draw down answers from God's throne except it be the earnest prayer of the man who believes. Faith is the angelic messenger between the soul and the Lord Jesus in glory. Let that angel be withdrawn, we can neither send up prayer, nor receive the answers. Faith is the telegraphic wire which links earth and heaven--on which God's messages of love fly so fast, that before we call he answers, and while we are yet speaking he hears us. But if that telegraphic wire of faith be snapped, how can we receive the promise? Am I in trouble?--I can obtain help for trouble by faith. Am I beaten about by the enemy?--my soul on her dear Refuge leans by faith. But take faith away--in vain I call to God. There is no road betwixt my soul and heaven. In the deepest wintertime faith is a road on which the horses of prayer may travel--aye, and all the better for the biting frost; but blockade the road, and how can we communicate with the Great King? Faith links me with divinity. Faith clothes me with the power of God. Faith engages on my side the omnipotence of Jehovah. Faith ensures every attribute of God in my defence. It helps me to defy the hosts of hell. It makes me march triumphant over the necks of my enemies. But without faith how can I receive anything of the Lord? Let not him that wavereth--who is like a wave of the Sea--expect that he will receive anything of God! O, then, Christian, watch well thy faith; for with it thou canst win all things, however poor thou art, but without it thou canst obtain nothing. "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."
Evening
"And she did eat, and was sufficed, and left." - Ruth 2:14
Whenever we are privileged to eat of the bread which Jesus gives, we are, like Ruth, satisfied with the full and sweet repast. When Jesus is the host, no guest goes empty from the table. Our head is satisfied with the precious truth which Christ reveals; our heart is content with Jesus, as the altogether lovely object of affection; our hope is satisfied, for whom have we in heaven but Jesus? and our desire is satiated, for what can we wish for more than "to know Christ and to be found in him?" Jesus fills our conscience till it is at perfect peace; our judgment with persuasion of the certainty of his teachings; our memory with recollections of what he has done, and our imagination with the prospects of what he is yet to do. As Ruth was "sufficed, and left," so is it with us. We have had deep draughts; we have thought that we could take in all of Christ; but when we have done our best we have had to leave a vast remainder. We have sat at the table of the Lord's love, and said, "Nothing but the infinite can ever satisfy me; I am such a great sinner that I must have infinite merit to wash my sin away;" but we have had our sin removed, and found that there was merit to spare; we have had our hunger relieved at the feast of sacred love, and found that there was a redundance of spiritual meat remaining. There are certain sweet things in the Word of God which we have not enjoyed yet, and which we are obliged to leave for awhile; for we are like the disciples to whom Jesus said, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." Yes, there are graces to which we have not attained; places of fellowship nearer to Christ which we have not reached; and heights of communion which our feet have not climbed. At every banquet of love there are many baskets of fragments left. Let us magnify the liberality of our glorious Boaz.
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Today's reading: Joshua 1-3, Mark 16 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Joshua 1-3

Joshua Installed as Leader
1 After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' aide: 2 "Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them--to the Israelites. 3 I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. 4 Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates--all the Hittite country--to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. 5 No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

Today's New Testament reading: Mark 16

Jesus Has Risen
1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?"
4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed....

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Today's Lent reading: Matthew 23-24 (NIV)

View today's Lent reading on Bible Gateway
A Warning Against Hypocrisy
1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
5 "Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called 'Rabbi' by others....

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