Friday, March 27, 2015

Fri Mar 27th 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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The partisan ABC has struck again, campaigning for the ALP in the NSW state election. The election is Saturday, and the forty eight hour curfew on advertising kicked in Wednesday evening. Only after the curfew did the ABC reveal through its' fact check unit that the ALP had lied about its central policy position on the rental of poles and wires for the electricity grid. Had the ABC released the detail earlier, the ALP would have had to address it. Now, they go to election without a single policy, except to mindlessly oppose conservative government. They are in effect begging the people of NSW to return their furniture again. Why should NSW peoples save the furniture of the ALP? What good would it do? Federally, the ALP furniture saved from the previous appalling Rudd Gillard Government has opposed every single sensible economic budget measure, leaving for the future the choice of levels of debt for our children. 

 Putting the toxic and dangerous ALP aside, there are the minor parties, all of which oppose conservative government on most issues. Greens vote against environmental concerns to support the ALP. The point of difference the Greens being further to the left. PUP has an almost perfect voting record for the ALP, a point of difference being they would oppose security legislation too. Xenophon opposes education and health reform needed to sustain high quality outcomes for the future. The only way to get good government that works effectively to support all the peoples of the state is to vote for Liberals or Nationals in alliance. 

 On this day in 1613, the first child was born to an Englishman in Canada. Nicholas Guy, late of Cuper's Cove. 1625, Charles I became king of much, which he later lost. 1794, the US began a navy. 1836, Santa Ana committed what is now thought to be a war crime, killing 342 Texas POWs. 1851, Yosemite was seen by Europeans for the first time in recorded history. 1871, the first international Rugby match took place when Scotland beat England in Raeburn Place, Edinburgh. 1881, rioting took place against Salvation Army's promotion of teetotalism in Basingstoke. In 1884, an outraged mob targeted the jury in Cincinnati who had returned a verdict of man slaughter for a clear murder. The crowd, proving they could make mistakes too, found the name of one juror and then attacked another person with the same name, throwing dead cats and rotten eggs through their window. Another juror was told he was fired when he went to work. Popular press supported the murderous rioters. In 1886, Geronimo surrendered. In 1910, a barn dance fire killed 312 in Hungary. In 1915, Typhoid Mary was quarantined for the rest of her life. 1941, Yugoslav Airforce officers topple the pro Nazi government in a bloodless coup. 1945, as the US was aerially mining Japanese ports, Argentina declared war on Germany and Japan. In 1981, 12 million Poles went on strike against their communist government. In 1998, FDA approved Viagra for human consumption. 2002, a Palestinian terrorist killed 29 in Israel over passover. 
2014
Two conservative leaders have spoken, apparently taking oppositional stances to federal government policy. Mr Howard has said he would not have implemented an honours system and would not accept one. Mr O'Farrell has said that racism needs to be opposed. What they have said is not wrong, but highlights points of differences the media are expanding on for no good reason. 

Section 18c addressing racism is failed legislation that does not address it. It is an enemy to free speech. To oppose the legislation is not the same as supporting racism. Bigots like  Tanya Plibersek have been able to abuse Israel and a former Israeli conservative leader despite the legislation existing, showing that anti semitism is not addressed by the legislation. Andrew Bolt had a public discussion which was silenced when a person took exception to something most reasonable people would ignore. For me, it is telling that Mr O'Farrell has not seen clearly my own issue, which calls into question his judgement. But, it is true, no one likes racism. The best way to combat racism is a public spotlight, and a law which limits free speech will not do that. Because even with the law, abuses occur. 

Mr Howard failed to address bias within the ABC. There is a theory of cultural assets which is different to the theory of minority covenant. At the moment, noisy minorities dominate and skew public proceedings, so that institutions which support society are damaged. Cultural assets, if they are built and respected and maintained, heal rifts opened by damage to culture. It isn't possible to support every minority, some are oppositional. However, by supporting cultural assets, everyone can be catered for. Including minorities. An honours system is a cultural asset. It doesn't do anything that might hurt a minority, but it supports a society and culture which when functioning right allows everyone to prosper. I'm sorry Mr Howard doesn't see that. 
Historical perspectives on this day 
In 87 BC, Crown Prince Fuling, later Emperor Zhao of Han, was named as Emperor Wu of Han's successor and heir to the throne. Emperor Wu died two days later. 1309, Pope Clement V imposed excommunication, interdiction, and a general prohibition of all commercial intercourse against Venice, which had unjustly seized on Ferrara, a fief of the Patrimony of Peter. 1329, Pope John XXII issued his In Agro Dominico condemning some writings of Meister Eckhart as heretical. 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León reached the northern end of The Bahamas on his first voyage to Florida. 1613, the first English child born in Canada at Cuper's Cove, Newfoundland to Nicholas Guy. 1625, Charles I became King of England, Scotland and Ireland as well as claiming the title King of France. 1782, Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 1794, the United States Government established a permanent navy and authorised the building of six frigates. Also 1794, Denmark and Sweden formed a neutrality compact.

 In 1809, Peninsular War: A combined Franco-Polish force defeated the Spanish in the Battle of Ciudad-Real. 1812, Hugh McGary Jr. established what is now Evansville, Indiana on a bend in the Ohio River. 1814, War of 1812: In central Alabama, U.S. forces under General Andrew Jackson defeated the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. 1836, Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre – On the orders of General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican army butchered 342 Texas POWs at Goliad, Texas. 1851, first reported sighting of the Yosemite Valley by Europeans. 1871, the first international rugby football match, when Scotland defeated England in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place. 1881, rioting took place in Basingstoke in protest against the daily vociferous promotion of Teetotalism by the Salvation Army. 1884, a mob in Cincinnati, Ohio, attacked members of a jury who had returned a verdict of manslaughter in a clear case of murder, and then over the next few days would riot and destroy the courthouse. 1886, famous Apache warrior, Geronimo, surrendered to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars. 1890, a tornado struck Louisville, Kentucky, killing 76 and injuring 200. 1899, Emilio Aguinaldo led Filipino forces for the only time during the Philippine–American War at the Battle of Marilao River.

 In 1910, a fire during a barn-dance in Ököritófülpös, Hungary, killed 312. 1915, Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States, was put in quarantine, where she would remain for the rest of her life. 1918, Bessarabia was ceded to the Kingdom of Romania. 1938, Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Taierzhuang began, resulting several weeks later in the war's first major Chinese victory over Japan. 1941, World War II: Yugoslavian Air Force officers toppled the pro-Axis government in a bloodless coup. 1943, World War II: Battle of the Komandorski Islands – In the Aleutian Islands the battle begins when United States Navy forces intercepted Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska. 1945, World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan's ports and waterways began. Argentina declared war on the Axis Powers. 1948, the Second Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea was convened.

 In 1958, Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union. 1963, Beeching Axe: Dr. Richard Beeching issued a report calling for huge cuts to the United Kingdom's rail network. 1964, the Good Friday Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in U.S. history at a magnitude of 9.2 struck South Central Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage. 1975, construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System began. 1976, the first 4.6 miles of the Washington Metro subway system opened. 1977, Tenerife airport disaster: Two Boeing 747 airliners collided on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 (all 248 on KLM and 335 on Pan Am). Sixty-one survived on the Pan Am flight. This was the worst aviation accident in history. 1980, the Norwegian oil platform Alexander L. Kielland collapsed in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212. Also 1980, Silver Thursday: A steep fall in silver prices, resulting from the Hunt Brothers attempting to corner the market in silver, led to panic on commodity and futures exchanges. 1981, the Solidarity movement in Poland staged a warning strike, in which at least 12 million Poles walked off their jobs for four hours. 1986, a car bomb exploded at Russell Street Police HQ in Melbourne, killing one police officer and injuring 21 people.

 In 1990, the United States began broadcasting TV Martí, an anti-Castro propaganda network, to Cuba. 1993, Jiang Zemin was appointed President of the People's Republic of China. Also 1993, Italian former minister and Christian Democracy leader Giulio Andreotti was accused of mafia allegiance by the tribunal of Palermo. 1998, the Food and Drug Administration approved Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States. 1999, Kosovo War: Yugoslav SAM downed F117A, the first and only kill of the stealth aircraft. 2000, a Phillips Petroleum plant explosion in Pasadena, Texas killed one and injured 71. 2002, Passover massacre: A Palestinian suicide bomber killed 29 people partaking of the Passover meal in Netanya, Israel. Also 2002, Nanterre massacre: In Nanterre, France, a gunman opened fire at the end of a town council meeting, resulting in the deaths of eight councillors and the injury of 19 others. 2004, HMS Scylla, a decommissioned Leander class frigate, was sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe. 2009, the dam forming Situ Gintung, an artificial lake in Indonesia, failed, killing at least 99 people. Also 2009, a suicide bomber killed at least 48 at a mosque in the Khyber Agency of Pakistan.
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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 Michael Lee and Helen Huang. Born on the same day, across the years. Not April 1st. One asks if your parents were really trying ..
Deaths
Mary Mallon, aka Typhoid Mary
Your teaching is thrilling, almost heretical. Make sure your whig feels right. Try the salmon mousse. Your hotel should end the blockade. The pipeline will make this distance. Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2015
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If you go for these parties, BYO brains

Piers Akerman – Friday, March 27, 2015 (1:21am)

THE only way NSW voters can ensure they do not contribute to the paralysis of their state and the nation tomorrow is by totally ignoring the mushrooming micro-parties that infest the tablecloth upper house ballot sheet.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'If you go for these parties, BYO brains'
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HANDY GUIDE

Tim Blair – Friday, March 27, 2015 (4:54pm)

Briebart columnist Milo Yiannopoulos – who sounds a lot like Mike Carlton; he must’ve grown up in northern Sydney – provides several jazz hands alternatives for trembly feminist fraidybats:



In related news, police officer and Marine veteran Chris Hernandez has a message to everyone concerned about “microaggressions” and “trigger warnings”, and it goes something like this: Man the hell up, you goddamn bunch of pathetic bedwetting nancies.
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CANTERBURY IN FLAMES

Tim Blair – Friday, March 27, 2015 (12:26pm)

The SMH covers stories the others miss: 
Kate McClymont is a five-time winner of journalism’s most prestigious award, the Walkley, including the Gold Walkley for her coverage of the Bulldogs salary cap riots. 
As reader Blair asks: “When did these riots take place and who was involved?”
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NO WORRIES

Tim Blair – Friday, March 27, 2015 (12:02pm)

Early Republican presidential nominee Ted Cruz follows the science:



Not that climate change is exactly a burning issue: 
Americans care less about environmental issues now than they have in the past – and they’re no more worried about global warming than they were decades ago, a new poll shows.
The Gallup survey released on Wednesday shows Americans were more concerned about the environment in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but interested dropped off in the early 2000s. Since then it’s remained close to historic lows. And when it comes to global warming specifically, Americans are no more worried now than they were in 1989. 
Which was before global warming had even become a major issue.
(Via Matt Z and Adam I)
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TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 26, 2015 (4:12pm)

As part of the Sydney Morning Herald‘s dazzlingly successful Spectrum festival, tonight the paper’s star writers will interview their dream subjects: 
If you could interview anyone, who would it be? Top Fairfax writers nominate their dream subject to cross-examine in front of an audience. Who will Kate McClymont investigate? What stories will Peter FitzSimons uncover? There are sure to be surprises. 
There sure are. FitzSimons is interviewing … Mike Carlton.
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ABC’s FactCheck suspiciously late on the scene of the Labor crime

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (2:00pm)

The ABC calls out a Labor lie only after giving Labor weeks to prosper from it. The Australian:
Almost a month after Opposition Leader Luke Foley claimed at his election launch that the Baird government’s proposed privatisation of the state’s electricity assets would result in soaring household power bills, the ABC this week put the contentious point to the test.
By the time of the national broadcaster’s assessment of the merits of Labor’s key election claim, however — which it found to be false — the opposition’s scare tactic had gone unchecked for almost the entire campaign.
Under a subheading “The verdict”, the ABC’s fact checkers concluded on Wednesday night: “Mr Foley’s claim is spin.”
The ABC Fact Check unit said a report by the Australian Energy Regulator used by Labor’s Mr Foley to justify his party’s ad campaign in fact found no consistent correlation between privatisation and higher bills as Mr Foley had alleged. It also found NSW Labor’s reliance on data to show that South Australians faced higher bills under a privatised system was misleading when Victoria, which is fully privatised, has slightly lower bills than NSW.
The fact check verdict was issued just hours after the mandatory electronic media blackout for political campaign ads that is meant to provide a “cooling off” period before voters go to the polls tomorrow…
Last night, the ABC defended the decision of its Fact Check unit to issue its judgment on the electricity privatisation issue just three days before the election, rather than earlier in the campaign…
ABC spokeswoman Sally Jackson said fact-checking typically took weeks, and involved two researchers.
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:
If the ABC can’t move faster than that in order to address Labor’s key contention in what Paul Kelly has described as one of the most dishonest campaigns in the past half century, is there much point in the taxpayer continuing to fund Fact Check?
Strange. The ABC insists it is not biased, yet everything it does gives the impression that it is. How can that be? 
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Abbott critic turns to supporter

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (1:06pm)

I was critical of Liberal MP Dennis Jensen pushing a leadership spill without identifying any alternative who could do a better job than Tony Abbott - and before giving Abbott a chance to prove he’d changed:
Last night on the ABC he redeemed himself to some extent:
SABRA LANE: Dennis Jensen was the first Liberal MP to go public last month to say he’d lost confidence in Tony Abbott, that while he’d been a great opposition leader, he’d failed to make the transition to Prime Minister. Dr Jensen says Mr Abbott’s lifted his game.
DENNIS JENSEN, LIBERAL MP: The thing that’s impressed me quite frankly is, with something like the spill motion happening, often you get people in the Prime Minister’s position would sort of tend to bunker down and, you know, have a certain siege mentality about them. And in fact, the Prime Minister’s done the reverse. He has opened up, he’s become far more forthcoming, far more available. And I think that’s all showing in terms of the public perception…
SABRA LANE: And he thinks if Mr Abbott’s recent performance is any guide, his leadership is safe.
DENNIS JENSEN: It’s looking good so far. You know, if the Prime Minister keeps going the way that he’s going in terms of being open, in terms of listening to what his colleagues are saying, listening to what the community is saying and putting out some of the big picture ideas about where we’re headed, I think he’ll be fine.
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What is Bill Shorten’s answer to our problems?

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (10:32am)

Even Laura Tingle, the most confirmed of the Abbott haters in the media, is now finally contemplating an argument I’ve made for many weeks - that the NSW election could in fact turn the heat on Bill Shorten’s leadership, and not Tony Abbott’s:
Mark Latham observed on Thursday that the last three state election campaigns in Victoria, Queensland and NSW had seen Victoria take a “marshmallow politics” approach.
“In each campaign, the ALP has taken a minimalist approach, announcing a limited number of micro-policies. The Liberals, by contrast, have presented big-picture policy ideas”.
Now this is true…
(T)here is an increasing anxiety within Labor ranks about the right way to proceed from here. It’s not just about Bill Shorten, though the Opposition Leader has a big problem that is separate from the general one facing Labor.
If voters think the Prime Minister is a fool, they don’t really think anything of Shorten at all. Even in focus-group feedback that is neutral about him, he hasn’t established any credibility…
Shorten ... is talking a lot about science and education but he really has to be able to translate that into something more than platitudes.
The problem for Shorten and Labor – and for that matter for the government – is that for the first time in more than a decade, voters’ views about the economy are firmly set on a decline… And neither side of politics seems to have an answer yet to either reassure them, or to reverse the direction.
Shorten’s Labor is doing federally what Luke Foley’s Labor is doing disastrously in NSW - making patently false claims to resist critical reforms, just to scare up some cheap votes. 
David Crowe gives an important example:
There are plenty of big claims made about the federal budget these days but one of the biggest came from Labor’s Jenny Macklin on ABC radio on Wednesday morning.
“The pension is sustainable,” the opposition families spokeswoman told interviewer Marius Benson…
[H]er central claim is dubious at best and dangerous at worst.
What is sustainable about a pension that costs 2.9 per cent of gross domestic product but will rise to 3.6 per cent by mid-century if nothing is changed? The increase seems a mere fraction but it amounts to a big chunk of future deficits…
Unlike Labor, the Coalition is attempting a solution…
Labor is at odds with independent experts when it claims the pension system is sustainable… The Parliamentary Budget Office notes spending on the pension has outpaced the growth of the economy and the growth of government spending over time…
Asked about the age pension on Tuesday, Bill Shorten said the best way to make sure fewer people relied on the pension was to lift super and undo the government’s freeze on the super guarantee levy. This was hokum. The super system ... is not doing enough to ease pressure on the age pension. In the Intergenerational Report, Treasury found 70 per cent of retirees were getting the age pension and this would fall to only 67 per cent by mid-century…
Shorten suggested a return to Labor’s policy on the super guarantee levy but this would deepen the deficit. The government saved about $2.6bn across three years by slowing the increase in the levy from 9 per cent to 12 per cent (it gets there in 2025). Is Labor actually proposing to reverse this?
I think voters will in time see through this rank and dangerous populism.
The issue then will not be whether Abbott is or isn’t bad. It will be which leader - Abbott or Shorten - is serious about the problems before us.
In a head-to-head battle like that, Abbott strongly fancies his chances.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Victorian Labor scares off investors

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (10:23am)

The Victorian Labor Government is fast becoming a menace to the rest of the country:
Global investors have expressed concerns about investing in Australia, citing sovereign risk and the Victorian Labor government’s decision to rip up the $6.8 billion East West Link Melbourne road contract.
Trade Minister Andrew Robb was asked about the contract in Hong Kong this week, in a closed meeting at a Credit Suisse investment forum of 2000 investors controlling $18 trillion in credit, and attacked the Victorian government decision…
Former Liberal treasurer and chairman of the government’s Future Fund Peter Costello told the same forum that the sovereign risk involved in governments overturning agreed contracts was a big concern for investors. Mr Costello said government regulations had to be “predictable and certain” and the East West cancellation was a precedent in Australia.
Mr Robb said state elections in Queensland, Victoria and NSW meant prospects for investment in Australia were in “a really dangerous phase” because a minority Labor government in Queensland was dumping privatisation; the Victorian government had “ripped up” the East West link contract; and NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley was “talking about legislating to stop compensation for projects well down the track in the coal area and other areas if he gets government on Saturday”.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Earth Hour - the hour when warmists prove they have absolutely no self-awareness

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (10:09am)

Chris Kenny on the annual celebration of a pointless gestures to “stop” a non-problem:

On Saturday night, during Earth Hour, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra will play Gustav Holst’s famous suite, The Planets, at the Sydney Opera House…

And this celebration of darkness, this event against electricity, will of course be beamed all around the planet thanks to — yes, you guessed it — electricity…
And just as surely as the Earth spins night into day, you know the ABC just loves all this malarkey.
On Radio National yesterday Fran Kelly didn’t seem to see any irony in spruiking a live telecast on a giant screen in Melbourne and streaming on the Google+ Hangout.
For Kelly it was a “fabulous” idea demonstrating the “wonders” of digital technology.
Indeed. And electricity…
Elsewhere during Earth Hour electricity will be shunned at a host of events around the country.
True believers will switch off lights that generate 1.1 grams of carbon dioxide per hour and, instead, they’ll use paraffin wax candles — manufactured from fossil fuels — burning them to produce heat and light, and 10.7 grams of carbon dioxide per hour (at least these are the calculations by science blogger Luke Weston).
So at events like Peace, Love and Candles (this is real, I did not invent this event) they will make a point of switching off the lights and lighting up their candles to increase their carbon emissions by tenfold in order to pretend they are reducing their emissions as a gesture of support for lower emissions.
(Thanks to reader brett t r.) 
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The ignorance and intolerance of Mark Koszelek, alleged anti-racist

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (9:31am)

First, why this racist objection to a (largely) white crowd from a white performer?
Second, exactly how many black-in-colour Australians does this American think actually live in Sydney?
Third, hasn’t he heard that it’s unlawful to assume that whites aren’t black?
Fourth, why does he assume Chinese and Indians are “white”, and is this racist?
Derek Rielly on the strange outburst of Mark Kozelek:
The American folk singer had played a splendid gig in the just as splendid arena of the Sydney Recital Hall. Moody lighting cast a shadow on the singer, Mark Kozelek, whose stories of terrible woe had captivated the hipster crowd.
So many beards and spectacles on such young men! So many tattooed young women in dresses that were fashionable in the 1950s.
“Turn the lights on the crowd. I wanna see the crowd,” he suddenly barked. The lighting attendant illuminated the 500-strong audience.
Ohio-born Kozelek… looked at the crowd. He stared.

“Everyone here is so… white!” he spat, exasperated, disapproving, and missing every Asian in the crowd.
“Where are the black people in Sydney? White mother…f---ers!”
The fans looked down. They liked sideways. They looked sheepish. They looked ashamed. Weren’t they inner-city progressives immune from this kind of racist finger-pointing? Didn’t they attend pro-refugee rallies and allow a monthly direct debt from their savings account to improve the life of a little African child?
There followed a five-minute monologue on Kozelek’s many black friends. He finished his hectoring with, “But, you know, I like white people too.”
Yeah, sure.
The racism of the modern ant-racist is astonishing, and as comic as it is sinister.
UPDATE
Maybe this apostle of tolerance was just in a bad mood - yet again.
UPDATE
Racism is another kind of rudeness, so you would expect an anti-racist to be generally polite. Instead:

Kozelek told a noisy crowd of “f*cking hillbillies” at Hopscotch Music Festival in North Carolina to “shut the f*ck up.” Just a week later, he took shots at Philadelphia classic rock fetishists The War on Drugs for bleeding into his set from the next stage over at the Ottawa Folk Festival. It was more of the same militant Kozelek stage banter, including the now-famous sound-bites: “I hate that beer commercial sh*t” and “This next song is called ‘The War on Drugs Can Suck My F*cking D*ck.’”
UPDATE

Another example of the tolerance of the look-at-me anti-racists:

The emo-comedian Noel Fielding told an audience at the Royal Albert Hall to stab Nigel Farage, after a “bizarre rambling joke” about racist teabags. The event was held in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust…
At one point he compared Nigel Farage to the root vegetable fennel, this led to some in the audience to clap. This led Fielding to say, “don’t applaud Farage, stab him” ...
(Thanks to reader DC.) 
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Maurice Newman calls out warmist Geoff Cousins as Tony Jones wouldn’t

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (8:57am)

Maurice Newman exposes the sanctimonious alarmism of Geoff Cousins:
Australian Conservation Foundation president Geoff Cousins writes… “Just a handful of companies are responsible for nearly one-third of our nation’s greenhouse pollution through their production and consumption of energy.”

...no matter how many times Cousins recites his political mantra, carbon dioxide will remain colourless, odourless and a non-pollutant. To quote Massachusetts Institute of Technology emeritus professor of atmospheric sciences Richard Lindzen: “We are demonising a chemical, a molecule essential to life.” Indeed; a molecule that, throughout Earth’s history, has fluctuated in its concentration. Higher temperatures have coexisted with lower CO2 levels than today, and the world has been colder at higher concentrations…
Cousins also repeats that other old chestnut: “Already pollution is leading to more frequent and more intense droughts, bushfires, heatwaves and other extreme weather. Hot days have doubled in Australia in the past 50 years.” But what does he mean by hot days? How do the past 50 years compare to the 50 years before 1910, the convenient start date the Bureau of Meteorology adopts to avoid the extreme heat of the Federation Drought years?
Is he taking his drought trends from the same BoM source that maintains drought increased in the seven areas researched, even though an independent expert review of the data showed a declining trend in five of the seven? Is it the same BoM source that asserted Queensland was suffering the worst drought in 80 years when its own website declared it was the worst in nine? And what about James Cook University’s Jon Nott, who found Queensland is experiencing fewer cyclones than at any time in the past 500 years?
Should Cousins wish to look further afield, no point looking to the US for support because, for the first time since 1969, there have been no tornadoes reported in March, usually a big month for severe weather. What’s more the US has experienced fewer tornadoes in the past three years than any similar span since accurate records began in the 1950s…

“We must consider,” writes Cousins, “how to start retiring the most polluting and outdated coal plants and replacing them with clean energy."… Whatever the ACF’s motives, advocating policies that will destroy jobs and growth cannot be condoned. That includes campaigning against reductions in the renewable energy target when it is causing energy-intensive industries to close.
And, of course:
For more than 17 years satellites have recorded an unexplained hiatus in global tem­peratures. 
Not mentioned, of course, in Cousins’ cosy chat on the ABC with fellow warmist Tony Jones, who really should declare any vested interests in the warming industry. 
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John Hewson should declare vested interest in Big Green

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (8:36am)

Surely it is time that former Liberal leader John Hewson:
- declared his vested interests in the global warming industry whenever he talks on the subject; and
- was no longer presented by Sky News and other media outlets as the token Liberal in debates.
Hewson’s latest effort is to talk like an Occupy rabble-rouser:
John Hewson has come out warning of the influence big corporations can have over politicians and public policy.
Hewson has sent out messages spruiking on behalf of GetUp! for people to join up to a green energy retailer, Powershop, that started in Victoria but is poised to move into NSW.
Hewson said the renewable energy industry had been the victim of a vicious offensive by the Coalition and had been forced to accept a huge cut to the renewable energy target.
He was attacking the federal Coalition ... in the middle of a NSW election campaign being fought over the sale of poles and wires...
Once more not declared:
Hewson is a warming alarmist and chairman of the Asset Owners Disclosure Project, “an independent global not-for-profit organisation whose objective is to protect members’ retirement savings from the risks posed by climate change”.
Hewson’s new Leftist populism can be measured by his support for the scare campaign against coal-seam gas, demonising a technology approved on the best scientific advice:
Former Liberal leader John Hewson has joined the anti-coal-seam gas lobby…
Speaking at a forum after the screening of the film Frackman, Dr Hewson declared bluntly that Australia didn’t need the CSG indust­ry because its massive coal resources could be developed in a sustainable way with new ­technology.
“We really don’t need to have coal-seam gas at all in this country. It is not necessarily a very good invest­ment,” he told a Sydney audience this week…
Dr Hewson made the comments on a panel that included businessman Dick Smith and the star of Frackman, Dayne Pratsky.
The film documents Mr Pratsky’s guerilla tactics to monitor and expose the impact of CSG on the Chinchilla region, 300km northwest of Brisbane.
Hewson is embarrassing himself.  
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This is a deal to stop Iran? Really?

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (8:18am)

A proposed Obama deal for Iran - letting it run a nuclear program at a fortified site:
The United States is considering letting Tehran run hundreds of centrifuges at a once-secret, fortified underground bunker in exchange for limits on centrifuge work and research and development at other sites, officials have told The Associated Press.
The trade-off would allow Iran to run several hundred of the devices at its Fordo facility, although the Iranians would not be allowed to do work that could lead to an atomic bomb and the site would be subject to international inspections, according to Western officials familiar with details of negotiations now underway. In return, Iran would be required to scale back the number of centrifuges it runs at its Natanz facility and accept other restrictions on nuclear-related work.
Instead of uranium, which can be enriched to be the fissile core of a nuclear weapon, any centrifuges permitted at Fordo would be fed elements such as zinc, xenon or germanium for separating out isotopes used in medicine, industry or science, the officials said. The number of centrifuges would not be enough to produce the amount of uranium needed to produce a weapon within a year - the minimum time-frame that Washington and its negotiating partners demand.
But:
David Albright of Washington’s Institute for Security and International Security says a few hundred centrifuges operated by the Iranians would not be a huge threat - if they were anywhere else but the sensitive Fordo site.
Beyond its symbolic significance, “it keeps the infrastructure in place and keeps a leg up, if they want to restart (uranium) enrichment operations,” said Albright, who is a go-to person on the Iran nuclear issue for the U.S. government.
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Co-pilot murdered the 149 Germanwings passengers and crew

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (7:56am)

The Germanwings passengers were murdered:
The co-pilot of Germanwings flight 9525 deliberately crashed the plane into the side of the Southern French Alps, murdering the remaining 149 passengers and crew, including Australians Carol and Greig Friday, investigators say.
“You only hear screams right at the very end before impact,’’ chief French prosecutor Brice Robin said, believing that those on board only realised at the very last minute what was happening.

Mr Robin said analysis of the flight voice recorder shows the second in command – 28-year-old Andreas Lubitz from Montabaur, in Rhineland-Palatinate - had deliberately locked the captain out of the cockpit, refused to open the door and deliberately took the plane down by punching in descent coordinates.

In chilling detail, Mr Robin said the co-pilot was silent in the last 10 minutes of the flight and that his actions “was not an accident”.
“It was not non-intentional, it was intentional,” he said.
UPDATE

Spiegel reporter Matthias Gebauer has tweeted that Lubitz’s friends claim that he was suffering from a burnout or depression in 2009, when he took time out of pilot training.
More on the 27-year-old:
[Lufthansa] was unaware of the reasons for the interruption [to Lubitz’s training]. If there were a medical explanation for it, Mr. Spohr said, Lufthansa as his employer would not be entitled to that information because of medical secrecy rules in Germany. However, he said, Mr. Lubitz had passed his medical and psychological tests “with flying colors.” ...
Mr. Lubitz was registered as living with his parents in the Montabaur region, but he also had a home in Düsseldorf, the German TV station N24 reported.
And:
Robin wouldn’t divulge any information on Lubitz’s religion or ethnic background.
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On The Bolt Report tomorrow, March 29

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (7:56am)

On the The Bolt Report on Channel 10 tomorrow at 10am and 3pm.
Editorial: Lessons of the NSW election. Do cheats prosper? And Shorten?
Guest:  Treasurer Joe Hockey
The panel: former NSW Labor Treasurer Michael Costa and IPA boss John Roskam
Newswatch: Daily Telegraph columnist and blogger extraordinaire Tim Blair on Jeremy Clarkson and the abnormally - but selectively - sensitive.
The videos of the shows appear here.
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Jacqui Lambie tries a third mad tax plan, when she really should be cutting spending

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (7:40am)

Jacqui Lambie’s latest brainwave, in a nutshell:
Who’s been whispering in Lambie’s ear? The Australian, yesterday:
Jacqui Lambie has responded to Tony Abbott’s challenge to the crossbench to find alternative budget savings by calling for a new tax on financial transactions to help pay for rising pension costs. The ... senator ... will join forces with the Australia Institute ... proposing a financial transactions tax, also known as a “Tobin” tax.
Why a Tobin tax? The Australia Institute explains. Media release, also yesterday:

A tax on financial transactions, known as a “Tobin” tax, could protect superannuation investors, improve the operation of Australia’s capital markets and provide a source of tax revenue of over $1 billion per year.
Pity they don’t work. Sam Bowman, City AM, August 2, 2012:

When Sweden introduced a Tobin tax in the 80s, it over-estimated revenues by 40 times the amount raised. Many exchanges simply moved to the City of London, where transaction taxes like stamp duty are less onerous. Sweden abandoned its Tobin tax in under 10 years.
At least we’ve heard no more about her previous plan for extracting magical billions for her massive spending promises by robbing the banks:
The [big] four banks are making, you know, $30 billion worth of profit on a yearly basis and if you spread that through the 23 million people, give or take, here in Australia, that ends up being $1300 for every man, woman and child that’s living in Australia. So why aren’t we hitting people like the big banks?
And Lambie no longer mentions the mad tax policy on which she was elected as a Palmer United Senator - the policy as explained once by leader Clive Palmer:

“We think that companies shouldn’t have to pay their tax quarterly in advance based on an estimate but at the end of the year based on what they have actually earned,” the Palmer United Party (PUP) leader said on ABC News24 on September 9.
“If that happened, according to the forward estimates, it would free up $70 billion into our economy. Every time it turned over in an individual’s hands, the Government would get 10 per cent GST. That’s $7 billion.
“If that happened five times in a year the Government would get an extra $35 billion in revenue. And of course we would create more jobs, we would stimulate the economy… And then at the end of the year people would put their returns in and pay the $70 billion anyway.
This Senator has a critical vote on this country’s future. If she at least knew what she didn’t know she’d be less dangerous. 
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Would you vote for a party that lies? NSW says no

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (7:30am)

It seems that Labor’s lying has become an issue in itself:
PREMIER Mike Baird has stared down the mother of all scare campaigns over power privatisation to gain an even bigger lead in the polls, seemingly assuring him an emphatic victory in ­tomorrow’s state election.
The Coalition leads Labor by 55 per cent to 45 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis, according to the final pre-election Galaxy/Daily Telegraph poll of 1300 voters taken over the past two nights.
Michael Costa, a panelist on Sunday’s The Bolt Report, puts it more pungently than anyone:
With the election slipping way after a campaign marked by pitched battles over the government’s plan to privatise part of the state’s power grid, Mr Foley and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union this week ­dialled up the rhetoric against foreign ownership, raising national security concerns about Chinese state-owned firms controlling the state’s transmission and distribution network.

Their comments have drawn condemnation from senior party figures, with former Labor state treasurer Michael Costa slamming the CFMEU campaign and pointing out that its members in the coal ­industry are reliant on Chinese money.
“It’s disgraceful, it’s completely disgraceful. It’s just absurd,” Mr Costa said.
“Every day there are ships going out of the port of Newcastle that have had CFMEU labour ­involved in loading, and delivering that product, heading off to China. It’s not only disgraceful advertising, it is damaging to the national ­interest and, more importantly, they are shooting themselves in the foot. They are damaging their own members.
“It smacks of desperation, hypocrisy, and ultimately shows they are not fit, in their current state, to govern.”
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When Labor last delivered a Budget surplus

Andrew Bolt March 27 2015 (6:34am)

(Thanks to reader stu.) 
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Howard's position is valid and commensurate with Abbott's. He hasn't said Abbott should not have done it, he merely said he would not have done it. I respectfully point out Howard failed to address the ABC bias and so failed to end institutional corrosion. There is nothing wrong with Knights and Dames, but there is something right with an institution which supports society. We need to support institutional assets because when we do so everyone benefits, including those unwashed dragged kicking and screaming.  - ed
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Climate models are not good enough

Only a few climate models were able to reproduce the observed changes in extreme precipitation in China over the last 50 years. This is the finding of a doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Climate models are the only means to predict future changes in climate and weather.

“It is therefore extremely important that we investigate global climate models’ own performances in simulating extremes with respect to observations, in order to improve our opportunities to predict future weather changes,” says Tinghai Ou from the University of Gothenburg’s Department of Earth Sciences.

Tinghai has analysed the model simulated extreme precipitation in China over the last 50 years.

“The results show that climate models give a poor reflection of the actual changes in extreme precipitation events that took place in China between 1961 and 2000,” he says. “Only half of the 21 analysed climate models analysed were able to reproduce the changes in some regions of China. Few models can well reproduce the nationwide change.”

For more : http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/25/climate-models-arent-good-enough-to-hindcast-says-new-study/
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The Monthly given the XXX factor

Andrew Bolt March 27 2013 (3:00pm)

Brilliant. Tim Blair and his readers kindly rework The Monthly’s cover to make it closer to the zeitgeist.
I can’t decide whether the third cover on Blair’s list is the best, or this one:
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MONTHLY REFINED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, March 27, 2013 (1:26pm)


The Monthly recently celebrated the Prime Minister’s feisty feminism. Sadly, the magazine’s right-on rejoicing was quickly undermined by the PM herself, who turns out to be a fan of bunny-suitedradio pigs. Readers to the rescue! Here’s Smike’s updated cover image:

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And from Jaki:

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David of Riverina:

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WORK CONTINUES

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 27, 2014 (12:33pm)

Wednesday’s workers are still sending many excellent images. New galleries will be posted tonight. Meanwhile, I’m distracted by other work - please consider this an open thread. 
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Howard no to Knights

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (10:37am)


Not a helpful comment on a move not necessarily helpful, either:
Former Liberal prime minister John Howard does not agree with Tony Abbott’s decision to reinstitute knights and dames into the Australian honours system, saying he stands by his long-held view that such a move would be considered “somewhat anachronistic”, even by conservatives. 
Mr Howard indicated that because of his views, and the fact that he never entered politics to receive honours, it was unlikely he would accept a knighthood should one ever be offered.
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How free speech is meant to work. The ABC demonstrates a freedom its presenters would deny me

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (8:36am)

Free speech



I note the ABC collective is in furious agreement that the Abbott Government’s attempts to allow more free speech must be defeated. It would encourage racists. We need to fight alleged racists by banning them from speaking rather than let them speak and either damn themselves or be damned.
As Lateline sums up the changes:

Attorney-General George Brandis is drafting changes to the Racial Discrimination Act which will give people the right to make comments that are racist, offensive or insulting.
This is terrible. Ask the ABC’s Jonathan Green:
Why is it defending the right of people to be bigots?
So I was puzzled to see  this film (watch it above) being screened by the same ABC this week:
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In it, Louis Theroux lets racists talk perfectly freely, without contradiction or condemnation, to explain their hatred of other “races” and their desire for apartheid. They are even allowed to express hate-speech, again quite freely and usually without a word of condemnation. Among many examples:
I’d rather have some pants made out of a white man’s skin.
And:
We’re going to take down the white man.
And:

The white race is absolutely disagreeable to get along with in peace. No other people on the face of the earth have been able to get along with white people since white people have been on our planet. 
Then there is this conversation between Theroux and the late black Muslim leader Khalid Abdul Muhammad over a white convert to Islam called Muhammed. It is the kind of conversation which in Australia led to the banning of two of my articles, but which the ABC this week felt free to screen and which, of course, it will get away with:
Theroux: [To Muhammed:] You I would consider white. [To Khalid Abdul Muhammad:] Would you consider Muhammed black or white? 
Khalid Abdul Muhammad: I consider Muhammed as a member of the original family of our people and I see Muhammed as looking quite different from you. I can tell the difference…
Theroux: The general point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think we’re that different under the skin and so
Khalid Abdul Muhammad: Let’s stop a second. If we deal with biology, genetics we have to be different under the skin. Your characteristics would not be recessive according to the law of genetics and and mine would not be strong or dominant.
Theroux: I just ask because Muhammed does not look to me, I don’t know, I don’t think he looks like a black man
Khalid Abdul Muhammad: His hair is different. He has nappy hair. He has strong features. You have the keen, narrow features, the Nordic features. You’ve got that interesting nose
Theroux: What does that mean?
Khalid Abdul Muhammad:  Let it go. Feel like you’re lucky.
Of course, this kind of debate - on how people choose their “racial” identity - should be possible, But for some of us it is not, and the ABC is extremely selective in deciding who should be free to speak and who may not.
Some ABC presenters are now deceitfully suggesting I am indeed free to discuss such things, too, and only had articles on this banned because of my “mistakes”. I am not free to discuss just what those “mistakes” were or were not, but note this: the judge said, bottom line, one mistake I made was to say people I wrote about had a choice: they could choose to identify with any or none of the various ethnic or “racial” identities of their ancestors.  Decide for yourself what freedom that now allows me. My lawyers have their own views.
(Thanks to reader BRB.) 
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Herald thinks identifying the wanted shooters would be racist

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (8:23am)


The Daily Telegraph passes on police appeals to help find men wanted over a shooting:
AN innocent bystander is fighting for life this morning after being shot in the chest during what may have been a heated argument between two groups of men in Sydney’s west…

Police say they are looking for four males. 
One of the males has been described as being of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern appearance, with a thin build, a small amount of facial hair and tattoos across his body, including one on his face. A second male is described as being of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern appearance, with a short and thin build, a beard and tattoos.
The Sydney Morning Herald would rather alleged shooters not be identified than risk confirming a stereotype: 

Two men have been shot in what police suspect was a bungled armed robbery by a group of men, including one with a facial tattoo, in a residential street in Sydney’s west. 
One of the injured men, who is aged in his 50s, is believed to have been shot in the chest when he came out of his house on Lansdowne Street in Merrylands to investigate an argument he heard....
Detectives have set up crime scenes at the petrol station and on Lansdowne Street, and are looking for four men over the shootings.
One of the men has a thin build, a small amount of facial hair and tattoos across his body, including one on his face. The second man has a short, thin build, a beard and tattoos.
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Playing up in class after a report full of Fs

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (8:18am)


Paul Sheehan on Labor’s strange denial: 
Anyone watching the proceedings of Parliament on Wednesday, during which [Julie] Collins was thrown out by the speaker for impersonating a schoolgirl chortling and sledging in class, may be struck by the way the political class is increasingly divorced from reality. It applies to all parties but is stark in the current insular model of the ALP, which lost last year’s federal election, just lost office in Tasmania, just lost its majority in South Australia, was smashed in the last NSW election, was smashed in the last Queensland election and lost office in the last Victorian election. It even lost its majority in the ACT in 2012. 
It’s been the same for the Greens, with a series of heavy defeats in federal, state and local government elections, including a disaster in one of its strongholds, Canberra, where it lost three of its four seats in the 2012 ACT Legislative Assembly elections.Yet none of these clear messages from the electorate appears to have made a scintilla of difference to either of the parties pummelled by the voters. We know they care deeply about losing, because Labor and the Greens desperately need control of the public sector to service their bases, but it appears increasingly and depressingly obvious they are terminally inward-looking, and preoccupied with tactical skirmishing and scorched earth rejectionism.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Free speech stops bigots better than none

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (8:06am)

Free speech

 THE question from a shocked ABC presenter summed up what really divides the people yelling at each other about racism and free speech.
“Is it going to be possible to shout ‘ape’ at Adam Goodes at a football match?” fretted PM’s Mark Colvin.

In Colvin’s question we had the real divide with the Abbott Government’s proposal this week to reform the Racial Discrimination Act and allow freer debate, especially about racial politics.
No, this is not what much of the media claims — an argument between people who want more free speech and those who want less racism.
I actually want both, as does every member of the Abbott Government.
The real debate is about trust. The divide is between those who trust the Australian people and those who fear them. Between those who think Australians are basically decent and those convinced we’re riddled with racists chewing at the bit.
Colvin’s anxious question to two human rights commissioners on Tuesday shows he’s on the fear side. But the very question he put — “Is it going to be possible to shout ‘ape’ at Adam Goodes at a football match?” — suggests the truth he does not see.
For a start, it always has been possible to shout “ape” at Goodes, the Sydney Swans Aboriginal champion, and last year someone did. What happened next should have reassured Colvin completely.
(Read full article here.) 
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Palmer spends another $3 million to defend his crumbling power

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (7:56am)


Niki Savva on Clive Palmer’s desperate bid to be a player in the Senate:
It is estimated his Palmer United Party could end up spending more than $3 million in the WA Senate by-election campaign in an effort to secure one seat. That’s ... more than the Liberal and Labor parties will outlay individually… 
As well as TV and print advertising, Palmer has swamped households with DVDs — made in China — featuring large slabs of Clive, and letters.
If Palmer succeeds, it will go down as one of his smarter investments. He will not only have a toehold in the west, he will be able to bend the government to his will in the upper house…
In a best-case scenario for the Coalition government, if it holds its three WA seats, it will have 33 senators. If Labor and the Greens win one each and another micro party (not PUP) wins one, then Labor/Greens, plus two PUPs, will have 37.
The government needs 39 to pass legislation, so it will need other crossbenchers, including senator-elect Sir Ricky Muir, elected under the banner of the Motoring Enthusiast Party, who could break free at some point from the PUP pack.
Alternatively, if the Liberals lose a seat, Labor wins two, Greens one and PUP one, it would give Labor, Greens and PUP 39 senators. That has the potential to make it a dogs’ life for the government. Puppies would rule.
I think it is not just desire for power that’s driving Palmer. It is also fear of losing it after the Tasmanian debacle: 
Palmer began that campaign claiming he would win outright, finished by predicting he would secure seven or eight seats, and ended with none on an average vote of about 5 per cent. 
Liberals reckon familiarity did not win respect… They estimate Palmer spent $1m?in Tasmania, matching the major parties on advertising.
If Palmer does this badly again in Western Australian, his two Senators and Ricky Muir will realise he can’t save them at the next election. His brand is going backwards and they will not want to go backwards with it. Their survival will depend far more on their own performance, and even that is unlikely to get them re-elected. But pride and self-preservation would suggest they do trust themselves more than they trust their patron. Palmer will therefore find it much harder to control them and act like the power player he’s desperate to be.
So Palmer’s WA campaign is not just to win power but to preserve it. 
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Buying off a republican

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (7:42am)


If calling yourself a Queens Counsel earns you higher fees than being a Senior Counsel, just maybe there’s a respect for an institution you shouldn’t lightly trash:  
No lustre to royal orders. Sky News on Tuesday:

DAVID Speers: [Shadow Attorney General] Mark Dreyfus … your reaction to the return of knights and dames in Australia?
Dreyfus: … We now see Tony Abbott rushing back to the 19th century in his desire to rebadge …
Speers: He’s said that this will restore a grace note in our society ... add some lustre to the orders as well. You don’t see any lustre to the phrase “Sir Mark Dreyfus"…?
Dreyfus: No, strangely enough, I think there is magnificent lustre ­associated with being a Companion of the Order of Australia … I don’t think we need anything else.
Except for QCs. Sky News’ Australian Agenda, March 16:
CHRIS Merritt: So you favour the term QC?
Dreyfus: No, I don’t, although I am a QC ... for me it was a commercial decision to leave it as QC because I thought that it was something that people identified with.
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No, not all Aboriginal leaders agree with bans on free speech

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (7:07am)

Free speech

An important intervention: 

Indigenous leader Sue Gordon, the retired magistrate who led the Northern Territory intervention, has backed the Abbott government’s changes to racial discrimination laws, arguing the suppression of racism only makes it worse, driving it underground… 
Dr Gordon said the repression of free speech was damaging to race relations and she agreed with Attorney-General George Brandis that people had the right to be bigots. “I think sometimes there is too much emotion in this topic and people need to just look at it calmly,” she said.
“I agree with what Brandis said. People do have a right in this country, you can’t suppress everything.”
Dr Gordon was backed by Anthony Dillon, a researcher at the Australian Catholic University who identifies as a part-Aboriginal Australian. In an article in The Australian today, he writes that political correctness has gone overboard.“Political correctness, with regard to people who identify as Aboriginal Australians, has reached the ridiculous stage where one can be accused of being racist simply by questioning the motives of some people who identify as being Aboriginal,” Mr Dillon says.
Dillon argues:

Politcal correctness, with regard to people who identify as Aboriginal Australians, has reached the ridiculous stage where one can be accused of being racist simply by questioning the motives of some people who identify as being Aboriginal. 
Or there is the obvious elephant in the room. Why is it that someone with multiple ancestries chooses to build their identity around being Aboriginal, when having only one of your 16 great-great-grandparents being Aboriginal qualifies you to claim being Aboriginal? People are free to identify how they wish, but they should not be surprised when they are questioned about it.
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Next human rights party should be in Koo Wee Rup

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (12:03am)

Culture wars

 OUR Human Rights Commission is meant to be against “discrimination, harassment and bullying based on a person’s ... social origin”.
But it seems very discriminating indeed, especially when choosing where to hold its parties.

As the Herald Sun revealed this week, the commission blew $60,000 on an awards night party in December at the swish Museum of Contemporary Art, overlooking the Sydney Opera House.
Asked if that was appropriate, especially for a night themed on problems of poverty and disadvantage, commission president Gillian Triggs bristled.
“I really do take umbrage at the idea that somehow because you’re a human rights body you’ve got to do things in some sort of shabby way …
“We don’t want to be in a village hall in Koo Wee Rup just because we haven’t got a lot of money.”
In fact, Koo Wee Rup does have a “village hall” — the town’s football club — which was used last year for a “Gangsters’ Paradise” fundraiser that seems from the video to have been a blast.
(Read full article here.) 
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Dry Bones cartoon. I love the series
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President Jiang Zemin of China
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“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him,” - Philippians 1:29
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Jesus said unto them, If ye seek me, let these go their way."
John 18:8
Mark, my soul, the care which Jesus manifested even in his hour of trial, towards the sheep of his hand! The ruling passion is strong in death. He resigns himself to the enemy, but he interposes a word of power to set his disciples free. As to himself, like a sheep before her shearers he is dumb and opened not his mouth, but for his disciples' sake he speaks with almighty energy. Herein is love, constant, self-forgetting, faithful love. But is there not far more here than is to be found upon the surface? Have we not the very soul and spirit of the atonement in these words? The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, and pleads that they must therefore go free. The Surety is bound, and justice demands that those for whom he stands a substitute should go their way. In the midst of Egypt's bondage, that voice rings as a word of power, "Let these go their way." Out of slavery of sin and Satan the redeemed must come. In every cell of the dungeons of Despair, the sound is echoed, "Let these go their way," and forth come Despondency and Much-afraid. Satan hears the well-known voice, and lifts his foot from the neck of the fallen; and Death hears it, and the grave opens her gates to let the dead arise. Their way is one of progress, holiness, triumph, glory, and none shall dare to stay them in it. No lion shall be on their way, neither shall any ravenous beast go up thereon. "The hind of the morning" has drawn the cruel hunters upon himself, and now the most timid roes and hinds of the field may graze at perfect peace among the lilies of his loves. The thunder-cloud has burst over the Cross of Calvary, and the pilgrims of Zion shall never be smitten by the bolts of vengeance. Come, my heart, rejoice in the immunity which thy Redeemer has secured thee, and bless his name all the day, and every day.

Evening

"When he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
Mark 8:38
If we have been partakers with Jesus in his shame, we shall be sharers with him in the lustre which shall surround him when he appears again in glory. Art thou, beloved one, with Christ Jesus? Does a vital union knit thee to him? Then thou art today with him in his shame; thou hast taken up his cross, and gone with him without the camp bearing his reproach; thou shalt doubtless be with him when the cross is exchanged for the crown. But judge thyself this evening; for if thou art not with him in the regeneration, neither shalt thou be with him when he shall come in his glory. If thou start back from the black side of communion, thou shalt not understand its bright, its happy period, when the King shall come, and all his holy angels with him. What! are angels with him? And yet he took not up angels--he took up the seed of Abraham. Are the holy angels with him? Come, my soul, if thou art indeed his own beloved, thou canst not be far from him. If his friends and his neighbours are called together to see his glory, what thinkest thou if thou art married to him? Shalt thou be distant? Though it be a day of judgment, yet thou canst not be far from that heart which, having admitted angels into intimacy, has admitted thee into union. Has he not said to thee, O my soul, "I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness?" Have not his own lips said it, "I am married unto thee, and my delight is in thee?" If the angels, who are but friends and neighbours, shall be with him, it is abundantly certain that his own beloved Hephzibah, in whom is all his delight, shall be near to him, and sit at his right hand. Here is a morning star of hope for thee, of such exceeding brilliance, that it may well light up the darkest and most desolate experience.
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Today's reading: Joshua 22-24, Luke 3 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Joshua 22-23

Eastern Tribes Return Home
1 Then Joshua summoned the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh 2 and said to them, "You have done all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and you have obeyed me in everything I commanded. 3 For a long time now--to this very day--you have not deserted your fellow Israelites but have carried out the mission the LORD your God gave you. 4 Now that the LORD your God has given them rest as he promised, return to your homes in the land that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you on the other side of the Jordan. 5 But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you: to love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to keep his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul...."

Today's New Testament reading: Luke 3

John the Baptist Prepares the Way
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar--when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene-- 2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
"A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
5 Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
6 And all people will see God's salvation....'"
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Today's Lent reading: Mark 10-12 (NIV)

View today's Lent reading on Bible Gateway
Divorce
1 Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.
2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
3 "What did Moses command you?" he replied.
4 They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away."
5 "It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. 6 "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 7 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."
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