Thursday, April 30, 2015

Thu Apr 30th 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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Blame game re executions of Myuran and Andrew have begun. Waleed Aly has blamed Mr Abbott over irrelevant issues. Meanwhile, a culpable ALP fractures over Same Sex Marriage and Palestine. Both of those issues are irrelevant too, to the execution. Except while Myuran and Andrew could have used then ALP government assistance which would have been effective in preventing their execution, the ALP were navel gazing at these two issues. Same sex marriage is meaningless so long as civil unions are sanctioned. It is an intrusion on religion which no government should touch. Palestine is a UN endorsed terrorist state that is populated by Jordanians. If anyone felt compassion for them, they would send them back. 

 New cases in China and Malaysia regarding alleged Australian drug smugglers caught with death penalty amounts of drugs have arisen. It is unlikely the ALP or ABC will be able to condemn these people fast enough. So they have begun preparing a blame game for the government. 

 The salient statistics on race and police arrests for 2012 posted yesterday have been 'answered' by Marcus Anderson on Australian Political Debate Open Forum "far far more black people are alienated from American society, on a percentage basis, than white people. Touting sentiments that ignore the historical and important facts reflect your indifference to the problem of racial villification this meme represents." In other words, Marcus feels that the statistics on their own contravenes section 18c of the racial vilification act of Australia. Were that true, then the device would indeed be a meaningless instrument of censorship. It is possible, were one to face the same sentencing judge that Andrew Bolt faced, that Marcus's view would be upheld. Although many have told me that that judge is an effective independent member of the judiciary and not some partisan tool, as evidenced by that judgement on Bolt. 

 Nepal has more than 6100 deaths from the earthquakes. She needs fresh food and water and shelter for her survivors. Please give generously. And Pray for her people. Prayer works. 

In 313, Licinius defeated Maximinus and united the Eastern empire of Rome at the Battle of Tzirallum. He became co Emperor of Rome with Constantine I. Both were involved with making the Edict of Milan which was to make Christian worship acceptable in Rome. Both emperors were capable and eyed the other as a rival. Licinius married the half sister of Constantine I. Fighting continued between the two. Licinius promoted a rival to Constantine I, Valerius Valens as co emperor. But when Constantine objected Licinius had Valerius killed. After Constantine won a final battle between the two in 324, Licinius' wife begged for the old man's life to be spared. Constantine I spared Licinius' life for a year, and then hanged him on a pretext of conspiring to raise troops.

 In 1492, Spain gave permission for Columbus to become very rich by trading in the East by ship. In 1789, Washington took the Oath of Office to become President of the United States of America. In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase took place for a mere $15 million, doubling the land size of the US. In 1871, terrorists afraid of losing federal funding by the US Government attacked American Indians, killing the adults and selling the children into slavery in Mexico, from Arizona. President US Grant ordered Arizona to improve her justice issues or risk being subject to federal martial law, so Arizona proceeded to try Indians on any pretext. It was called the Camp Grant Massacre. In 1894, Coxey's Army reached Washington DC to protest unemployment following the Panic of 1893. It is only coincidence that President Grover Cleveland was a Democrat doing what Democrat administrations do, which is to blame Jews, fail to budget appropriately and mishandle industrial and labour issues. There had been a bubble caused by railroad building and a bust caused by Argentina focused investments going sour after a coup in Buenos Aires.
From Wikipedia:
"Historian Hasia Diner notes that "Some Populists believed that Jews made up a class of international financiers whose policies had ruined small family farms. Jews, they asserted, owned the banks and promoted the gold standard, the chief sources of their impoverishment. Agrarian radicalism posited the city as antithetical to American values, asserting that Jews were the essence of urban corruption."
In 1900, Hawaii became a territory of the US. On the same day, at 3:52 AM a great, good, heroic 37 yo family man was killed doing his job for the railroads. He was Casey Jones. He had been tasked with taking a 95 minute late train, Cannonball express, from Memphis Tennessee to Canton Mississippi. He had a reputation of being very reliable and he made up time on the foggy night. But the railroad let him down when he had made up the missing time coming to his destination, freight trains laid across the path of his engine. He saved the colleague next to him, and everyone else, by remaining in the carriage and slowing his train. He died, and the railroads blamed him on a false OHS report claiming he had been warned of the impasse. His widow wore black for the rest of her long life, dying in 1958 at the age of 92, never having considered remarrying after losing the father of her three children. In 1927, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford became the first celebrities to leave their footprint in concrete in Hollywood. In 1938, the animated cartoon short of Porky's Hare Hunt featured Happy Rabbit, a proto-Bugs Bunny. Also in 1938, the first televised FA Cup final occurred. In 1939, NBC began regular scheduled TV broadcasts with FDR's NY World Fair opening address. 

 In 1943, Operation Mincemeat had a British Submarine release a dead body dressed up as a British officer with faked invasion plans. It was a plot thought up by James Bond's creator Ian Fleming. In 1945, Hitler found out, after a day, marriage was not for him. In 1956, a corrupt former Democrat VP,  Alben Barkley, died during a speech in Virginia. He collapsed after proclaiming "I would rather be a servant in the house of the lord than sit in the seats of the mighty." In 1966, the Church of Satan was established at the Black House in San Francisco. In 2008, skeletal remains were found of the last Tsar and one of his sisters in Yekaterinburg. 
2014
It is Consumer Protection day in Thailand, and so time to think of injustice. On this day in 311, the persecution of Christians by Romans ended. Now it was their turn. Lions would go hungry, academics like Hypatia were harshly treated for maintaining different lifestyles. It is said Disraeili remarked that two thousand years of Christian love has left Jews feeling nervous. But then many Christians would dispute what was done in their name, nowadays we have a policy separating church and state in the West. Note, Israel as a Jewish state, having embraced that within a democratic, pluralistic model is legitimate as a modern government, while many Islamic states fail the test of pluralism or separation of church and state. 

On this day in 1315 Enguerrand de Marigny was hung on the public gallows at Montfaucon. He had been an effective first minister for his king, but when his king died, jealous courtiers conspired to have him hung on charges of witchcraft. In 1513 Edmund de la Pole, Yorkist pretender to the English throne, was executed on the orders of Henry VIII. Henry VII had accepted Edmund as prisoner on terms of not executing him, but left instructions in his will that his son should. Edmund's crime was to be born to the wrong family. On this day in 1863, three thousand Mexican soldiers laid siege to sixty five French Legionaries. Mexico won. Just. On this day in 1945, Hitler took his life many years too late for millions of innocent victims. 1975, Saigon fell days after the US stopped supporting her. China kept funding the North. The peace community had won and many millions would flee tyranny. 
Historical perspectives on this day 
In 311, the Diocletianic Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire ended. 313, Battle of Tzirallum: Emperor Licinius defeated Maximinus II and unified the Eastern Roman Empire. 642, Chindasuinth was proclaimed king by the Visigothic nobility and bishops. 1315, Enguerrand de Marigny was hanged on the public gallows at Montfaucon. 1492, Spain gave Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration. 1513, Edmund de la Pole, Yorkist pretender to the English throne, was executed on the orders of Henry VIII. 1557, Mapuche leader Lautaro was killed by Spanish forces at the Battle of Mataquito in Chile. 1598, Juan de Oñate made a formal declaration of his Conquest of New Mexico. 1636, Eighty Years' War: Dutch Republic forces recaptured a strategically important fort from Spain after a nine-month siege. 1671, Petar Zrinski, the Croatian Ban from the Zrinski family, is executed.

 In 1789, On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington took the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States. 1803, Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation. 1812, the Territory of Orleans became the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana. 1838, Nicaragua declared independence from the Central American Federation. 1863, a 65-man French Foreign Legion infantry patrol fought a force of nearly 2,000 Mexican soldiers to nearly the last man in Hacienda Camarón, Mexico. 1871, the Camp Grant massacre took place in Arizona Territory. 1885, Governor of New York David B. Hill signed legislation creating the Niagara Reservation, New York's first state park, ensuring that Niagara Falls would not be devoted solely to industrial and commercial use. 1894, Coxey's Army reached Washington, D.C. to protest the unemployment caused by the Panic of 1893.

 In 1900, Hawaii became a territory of the United States, with Sanford B. Dole as governor. Also 1900, Casey Jones died in a train wreck in Vaughan, Mississippi, while trying to make up time on the Cannonball Express. 1904, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair opened in St. Louis, Missouri. 1907, Honolulu, Hawaii became an independent city. 1920, Peru became a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty. 1925, automaker Dodge Brothers, Inc was sold to Dillon, Read & Co. for US$146 million plus $50 million for charity. 1927, the Federal Industrial Institute for Women opened in Alderson, West Virginia, as the first women's federal prison in the United States. 1927, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford became the first celebrities to leave their footprints in concrete at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

 In 1937, the Philippines held a plebiscite for Filipino women on whether they should be extended the right to suffrage; over 90% would vote in the affirmative. 1938, the animated cartoon short Porky's Hare Hunt debuts in movie theaters, introducing Happy Rabbit (a prototype of Bugs Bunny). Also 1938, the first televised FA Cup Final took place between Huddersfield Town and Preston North End. 1939, the 1939-40 New York World's Fair opened. Also 1939, NBC inaugurated its regularly scheduled television service in New York City, broadcasting President Franklin D. Roosevelt's N.Y. World's Fair opening day ceremonial address. 1943, World War II: Operation Mincemeat: The submarine HMS Seraph surfaced in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain to deposit a dead man planted with false invasion plans and dressed as a British military intelligence officer. 1945, World War II: Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide after being married for one day. Soviet soldiers raised the Victory Banner over the Reichstag building. 1947, in Nevada, the Boulder Dam was renamed the Hoover Dam a second time. 1948, in Bogotá, Colombia, the Organization of American States was established.

 In 1953, in Warner Robins, Georgia, an F4 tornado killed 18 people. 1956, former Vice President and Senator Alben Barkley died during a speech in Virginia. He collapses after proclaiming "I would rather be a servant in the house of the lord than sit in the seats of the mighty." 1961, K-19, the first Soviet nuclear submarine equipped with nuclear missiles, was commissioned. 1963, the Bristol Bus Boycott was held in Bristol to protest the Bristol Omnibus Company's refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews, drawing national attention to racial discrimination in the United Kingdom. 1966, the Church of Satan was established at the Black House in San Francisco. 1967, the Aldene Connection opened in Roselle Park, NJ, shutting down the CNJ's Jersey City waterfront terminal and transferring commuters to Newark Penn Station.

 In 1973, Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon announced that top White House aides H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and others had resigned. 1975, Fall of Saigon: Communist forces gained control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ended with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Dương Văn Minh. 1980, Beatrix became Queen of the Netherlands. Also 1980, the Iranian Embassy siege began in London. 1982, the Bijon Setu massacre occurred in Calcutta. 1993, CERN announced World Wide Web protocols would be free. Also 1993, Monica Seles was stabbed by Günter Parche, an obsessed fan, during a quarterfinal match of the 1993 Citizen Cup in Hamburg, Germany 1994, Formula One racing driver Roland Ratzenberger was killed in a crash during the qualifying session of the San Marino Grand Prix run at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari outside Imola, Italy. 1995, U.S. President Bill Clinton became the first President to visit Northern Ireland.

 In 2004, U.S. media released graphic photos of American soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. 2008, two skeletal remains found near Yekaterinburg, Russia, were confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia and Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, one of his sisters. 2009, Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Also 2009, seven people were killed and another ten injured at a Queen's Day parade in Apeldoorn, Netherlands in an attempted assassination on Queen Beatrix. Also 2009, Azerbaijan State Oil Academy shooting: Twelve people were killed (students and staff members) by an armed attacker. 2012, an overloaded ferry capsized on the Brahmaputra River in India killing at least 103 people. 2013, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands abdicated and Willem-Alexander became King of the Netherlands. 2014, a bomb blast in Ürümqi killed three people and injured 79 others.
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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 William Phanthana and to all those born on this day, across the years 
Deaths
April 30: Children's Day in Mexico; Consumer Protection Day in Thailand
Remnant of SN 1006
We see it clearly. It was a surprise attack. The oath was taken. Marriage is not for all. Choppers retrieved some. Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2015
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IMPORTANT NEW FACTS ABOUT SCOTT McINTYRE

Tim Blair – Thursday, April 30, 2015 (6:01am)

Perhaps we were too hasty in our judgment of sacked SBS sports reporter Scott McIntyre. Several crucial new facts have emerged in recent days that cast an entirely different light on McIntyre’s Anzac hatred and his general contempt for the Australians who previously paid his wages. For example, there’s this vital information from the Guardian‘s Jason Wilson: 
Unlike those cheering his dismissal, McIntyre has a discernible expertise in the matters he usually comments on, namely soccer in south-east Asia. 
This changes everything. And so does the fact that, as former parliamentary time soak Rob Oakeshott observes, McIntyre’s tweets were published on Saturday afternoon, when – as everybody knows – the usual media rules about accuracy, professionalism and decency are suspended. Then there’s a breakthrough point from Fairfax’s Jenna Price:
You mightn’t agree with what he said – but it’s what he believes. Nothing more authentic than that. 
So, far from being an Anzac-despising ahistorical clown, McIntyre is actually just a south-east Asian soccer expert whose genuine beliefs were posted on a Saturday. SBS should re-hire him immediately.
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THERE IS NO GENDER JUSTICE

Tim Blair – Thursday, April 30, 2015 (5:02am)

GetUp, the online involvement centre for active seniors in the Canberra region, is now exposing the vast price differences between products aimed at male and female consumers. These differences will shock and dismay all fair-minded Australians:

image

(Via Michael M., who is justifiably infuriated by oppressive heteronormative patriarchy.)
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BLACK IS RIGHT

Tim Blair – Thursday, April 30, 2015 (4:19am)

Some readers may recall the 1970s British sitcom Love Thy Neighbour, which derived most of its comic energy from racial disputes between white bigot Eddie and his Trinidadian immigrant neighbour Bill. The series fell a little short of sophisticated, but it did include an intriguing political subtext:

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WHOSE CULTURAL PREJUDICES?

Tim Blair – Thursday, April 30, 2015 (3:39am)

A peak Guardian moment: 
The narrative of the Charlie Hebdo murders – white Europeans killed in their offices by Muslim extremists – is one that feeds neatly into the cultural prejudices that have allowed our government to make so many disastrous mistakes in the Middle East. 
The Charlie Hebdo murders weren’t part of a “narrative”. They were evidence.
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AFFLECKIA

Tim Blair – Thursday, April 30, 2015 (3:37am)

According to Fairfax’s Alecia Simmonds: 
Ben Affleck and Australia share a lot in common. 
“Yes!” emails J.F. Beck. “We’ve both made some really bad movies and slept with Jennifer Lopez.” This is true, but Alecia’s point is about slavery or something.
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ONLY TWO WAYS

Tim Blair – Thursday, April 30, 2015 (3:24am)

The Spectator‘s Rod Liddle on Europe’s illegal immigration problem: 
There are two ways in which we can act to prevent future boatloads of migrants from drowning in the Mediterranean, and only two ways. Let them all in, or stop them trying to come. Letting them all in would certainly save more lives in the short term. 
But, as Liddle allows, this would also cause one or two issues: 
Million upon million upon million of people would come and by teatime on day one the countries of Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and most of the Sahel would be virtually deserted, just the occasional black flag left waving in the desert breeze. I don’t think we want that. 
So, to the other option: 
Stopping people trying to come here is, for me, the better solution … Make it clear there will be no rescues at all and that anyone who succeeds in reaching Europe will be sent straight back to where they came from. These traffickers set out expecting that there is a good chance they will be rescued, so remove that possibility from the equation. Use armed boats to drive back the traffickers. Make it even more clear that refugees who apply for asylum legally will always take precedent over those who come here in a cast-iron bath tub captained by some predatory Tunisian scumbag. Those who come illegally by boat will never get asylum. 
It’s the Australian approach: 
This stuff all works, and we have the Australian example for evidence. Their prime minister, Tony Abbott, introduced this tough approach in 2014. In the previous two years 35,000 people arrived in Australia from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. And there were countless deaths at sea. Six months of the get-tough policy and there was not a single ‘people-smuggling venture’, as the Australians put it. 
Yet leftists would probably prefer the previous idea. They’re a funny bunch.
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Shorten exploits executions. Has the Left reached peak stupid?

Andrew Bolt April 30 2015 (9:15pm)

How low can Bill Shorten go?
The bipartisan response to the execution of the Bali nine drug smugglers has collapsed only a day after the men were killed…
In 2010, Labor’s then minister for home affairs, Brendan O’Connor, included Australia’s opposition to the death penalty in his official ministerial direction to the AFP. This was removed from a new ministerial direction issued last year by the Abbott government.
[Labor’s Justice spokesman David] Feeney said the omission “raises concerns that protecting Australians from the risk of being subject to the death penalty in a foreign jurisdiction is no longer to be considered a critical priority for the AFP”.
When asked why he removed the reference to the death penalty in his ministerial directive, Mr Keenan said: “I’m pretty outraged and offended that the Labor Party would use the tragedy of two Australians being executed to make what is an incredibly cheap and invalid point...”
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said she was “very angry” Labor had questioned the government on the directive.
“To think that less than 24 hours after the executions have taken place, the Labor Party is seeking to take a cheap, political shot. Shame on them,” she said.
Mr Keenan said Labor was deliberately creating confusion because the AFP’s internal guidelines on dealing with the death penalty have not been changed since Labor’s time in office.
The AFP’s National Guideline on International Police-to-Police Assistance in Death Penalty Situations requires the AFP to consider “the degree of risk to the person in providing the information, including the likelihood the death penalty will be imposed” when co-operating with overseas agencies.
Reader James wonders if the Left has just hit peak stupid:

Will this week of indulgent blunders and bluster be a turning point for the perception of the left of politics by mainstream Australians?
Consider the last week- 
SBS reporter’s disgraceful attack on ANZACs on the 100th anniversary
The ludicrous attack on Abbott by the buffoon actors
Waleed Aly not taking that hint and doubling down on the Abbott blaming
Plibersek unveiling her inner totalitarian and dividing her party on Gay Marriage
Labor hanging their Jewish supporters out to dry in the drive for Muslim votes
Shorten being slapped down by Julie Bishop over politicising the executions
Dan Andrews pathetically claiming a Napthine project as his own and then topping this the next day with a Western road thought bubble
I’ve never seen so many bad moves in such a short time that have been so jarring to the public!
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Shorten vs Plibersek: Labor disarray on Palestine and same-sex marriage

Andrew Bolt April 30 2015 (4:07pm)

One reporter, at least, tried yesterday to ask Labor leader Bill Shorten and deputy Tanya Plibersek about Labor’s craven betrayal of Israel in exchange for Muslim votes in Western Sydney:
JOURNALIST: Can I just ask you a few questions on other matters. On the ALP’s position on Palestine and National Conference –
PLIBERSEK: Sorry, I don’t think today is the day for these other questions.
SHORTEN: I concur with Tanya. There will be plenty of times to ask us questions.
Well, how about today, then?
UPDATE
Today Shorten rejects Bob Carr’s claims - and a deal once more with Plibersek’s fingers over it:
CLAIMS this week by former foreign minister Bob Carr that Opposition Leader Bill Shorten “commissioned” senior Labor frontbencher Tony Burke to move a motion at the party’s national conference in July to recognise a Palestinian state have been dismissed as “absolutely” and “utterly” untrue.
The AJN understands Burke is working with Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek on a resolution resembling the one adopted at the NSW Labor conference last year, which stated that if no progress was made towards a two-state solution “and Israel continues to build and expand settlements, a future Labor government will consult like-minded nations towards recognition of the Palestinian state"…
Carr was quoted in an article in the Fairfax press on Wednesday as saying: “Bill Shorten has moved on this, that’s why he has commissioned Tony Burke to move the motion at conference."…

A spokesperson for Shorten, however, told The AJN on Wednesday the claims were false.
“The story is incorrect, the Leader of the Opposition’s position has not changed.”
Meanwhile, a senior figure within the ALP told The AJN ...  Shorten was furious with Carr.

UPDATE
Plibersek could make an adequate Greens leader, but as a wannbe Labor leader is already helping to tear her party apart:
Labor frontbencher David Feeney has rebuked deputy leader Tanya Plibersek over her push to compel Labor MPs to vote for same-sex marriage… The socially conservative West Australian Labor senator Joe Bullock has also vowed to fight Ms Plibersek’s push to bind MPs to support same-sex marriage, rather than allowing a conscience vote as is currently the case.
He would not rule out crossing the floor of the Parliament…
After a week overseas attending Anzac Day commemorations, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is facing growing divisions in the Labor Party…
Mr Feeney said that “with so much going on in the Middle East, with more Arabs killed very year in Syria than have been killed in the history of Arab-Israeli conflict, the fixation on Israel is just that” ...
Some in the party are roiling with anger that the two issues have been raised ahead of the Abbott government’s make or break second budget.
One Right MP said anger in the party with Ms Plibersek was “unbelievable” and a “white hot f--- you” to Mr Shorten....
The Sydney Morning Herald has had its faith in Plibersek shaken by her power grab:

Acting federal Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek has made an error of judgment in pushing for her Labor colleagues to be forced to vote for same-sex marriage legislation...(M)any observers – like the Herald – had thought Ms Plibersek had the makings of a future Labor leader. Her latest decision weakens that faith…
While Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was out of the country, she made what looks like a political gamble to gain the upper hand in a factional debate at Labor’s biennial national conference in July. She knew full well that Mr Shorten supported a conscience vote. She knew the right of the Labor Party would object…
UPDATE
Shorten rejects Plibersek:
Bill Shorten has criticised Tanya Plibersek’s campaign to compel Labor MPs to vote for same-sex marriage, urging advocates to “convince people, not force them” to recognise equal rights for homosexual couples…
“...I certainly have a view, though, that the best way to win the argument on marriage equality is to convince people, not to force them,” the Opposition Leader said.
Mr Shorten, asked if he thought Ms Plibersek raised the issue to boost her own popularity, said: “Not at all. Tanya’s spoken about this issue previously so therefore I don’t think that anything she said is any different to what she’s said before.”
Actually, I detect the first blood in the water. Watch out for this one.
(Thanks to readers stu and Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Shameful: Waleed Aly blames Tony Abbott for Chan and Sukumaran’s deaths

Andrew Bolt April 30 2015 (3:25pm)

Waleed Aly’s hatred of Tony Abbott is so irrational than he claims the Prime Minister “let down” Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran without being able to explain how or when by reminding Indonesia we once showed compassion with our aid:
Don’t get me wrong, the Australian Government did everything they could to save Andrew and Myuran, but that was the fourth time they were let down. I don’t want to overstate this, misrepresent it or politicise it. This is a moment I’m sure Tony Abbott regrets.
I am very surprised that the Herald Sun reported this vile no-but-yes slander in this way:
THE Project host Waleed Aly has cut through the political and legal red tape surrounding the two Bali Nine ringleaders, and told it straight.
Straight?
And is Network Ten aware just how skewed The Project has become?
UPDATE
Waleed Aly tries again to hang the deaths on Abbott, in a piece in The Age both garbled and deeply worrying.
First, Aly wants us to believe that two long-time criminals who organised a big drug run through Bali in fact bore almost no responsibility for the punishment they invited:
Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are not simply the victims of their own crimes and a sadly corrupted judicial process. In a tragic way, they are so much less than that: pawns surrendered for ostensibly greater things....  Their lives stood at the intersection of a suite of circumstances that had ordained a course for them. And perhaps most gallingly, those circumstances had nothing to do with them. 
Sheer poetry. Sheer rubbish. Had they not chosen to deliberately break Indonesia’s law they would be alive today, as are millions of people who have visited Bali.
...the AFP decided to tell the Indonesians about the Bali nine’s trafficking plans.... This was 2005. Three years after the Bali bombings, three months before London. We were in the throes of the War on Terror, worried about Indonesian terrorist groups and desperate to beef up Indonesian policing. We wanted their co-operation on terrorism, they wanted our co-operation on drugs. The Bali nine fit this bill. In this sense, Chan and Sukumaran are collateral damage in our War on Terror.
Aly is a long-time apologist for Islamist extremists. Not surprising, yet still disturbing, that this former spokesman for the Islamic Council of Victoria uses the deaths of Chan and Sukumaran to delegitimise our attempts to save ourselves from more Bali bombings and other Islamist attacks.
Joko Widodo is a new president, searching for authority.... It takes an enormous amount of political capital to dissuade a politician in that sort of mood. Australia simply didn’t have that capital. In fact, we had been systematically torching it under successive governments. These themes are well rehearsed now: suspending beef exports, spying, and our belligerent approach to border protection with scant regard for Indonesia’s concerns or even sovereignty. Indonesia’s anger has been clear and growing for years now… That was Chan’s and Sukumaran’s final disaster.
Let’s ignore the reports suggesting the ending of the people smuggling actually relieved Indonesia. Consider instead the maths: by stopping the boats, the Abbott Government ended the drownings that had claimed 1200 lives already. Aly says this was actually a “beligerent approach” - part of the “torching” of ties that was “Chan’s and Sukumaran’s final disaster”.
So Aly, a long-time critic of attempts to stop the boats that brought over tens of thousands of fellow Muslims, is suggesting Abbott sinned in taking action that saved hundreds of lives, on the highly debatable assumption that doing resulted in two convicted heroin smugglers being denied clemency.
Is that remotely true, given that Indonesia also executed criminals from Holland, Ghana, Nigeria, Vietnam, Brazil and elsewhere, ignoring their government’s pleas, too.
And is Aly seriously arguing that Abbott should have let the boats come - let hundreds more boat people drown - just to spare two drug smugglers? Is that really Aly’s argument? 
Aly strikes me as blinded by his tribalism, his faith and his hatred of Abbott. This article is a disgrace. 
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Data corrected: no warming for 18 years

Andrew Bolt April 30 2015 (2:33pm)

The University of Alabama at Huntsville maintained one of the five main measures of global temperature - one that detected more warming than most.
It has now been corrected, and the results show no warming now for 18 years, and a slight cooling this century:
image
Naturally, this highly significant warming pause was not mentioned in another pice of global warming alarmist broadcast by ABC Radio National this morning, in which AMA president Dr Brian Owler predictably repeated the standard alarmist position. Not for the first time I wondered when he’ll run for Labor pre-selection. And when the ABC will present a balanced coverage.
UPDATE
The Bureau of Meteorology has pushed the global scare, claiming the climate models show dangerous warming ahead.
Is it reading them right?
Take this Bureau warning from April 28:

The Bureau’s ENSO Tracker is at ALERT status.
This indicates that there is triple the normal chance of El Niño in 2015.  El Niño is often associated with below-average winter and spring rainfall over eastern Australia, and above-average daytime temperatures over the southern half of the country.
So we’re expecting a dry winter, right?
Er, no, or not yet. Confusion reigned at the ABC on April 23:

ELEANOR HALL: The Weather Bureau is tipping a wetter than average winter for much of the country, including the areas of New South Wales which have just been pummelled by deadly storms.
The bureau released its seasonal outlook this morning.. Will Ockenden spoke to Dr Andrew Watkins, manager of climate prediction services at the Bureau of Meteorology.
ANDREW WATKINS: It’s actually showing reasonably good odds of getting above normal rain across much of the continent… We’ve got a warming up of the Pacific Ocean, which is sort heading us towards El Nino which would normally dry things out at this time of year, but on the other side of the coin or the other side of the oceans, we’ve got the Indian Ocean which is very warm at the moment… That’s leading to a lot more moisture… it’s increasing the cloud and upping the likelihood of rainfall at least for the next couple of months.
WILL OCKENDEN: ... How can you have a higher rainfall prediction when there’s quite a higher chance of an El Nino forming as well?
ANDREW WATKINS: Yeah, that’s a very good, very good question.
(Thanks to readers fulchrum and Mark M.) 
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali gets fair hearing on ABC

Andrew Bolt April 30 2015 (11:08am)

Reader Melanie reports fascinating news:
Andrew, I just listened to an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali on JJJ’s “The Hack”, broadcast yesterday, I think. I don’t normally listen to JJJ so I cant make a fully informed judgement about the interview in the context of their other work, but I was most surprised she was given the opportunity to air her views, criticise Islam, criticise the left, and speak positively about Tony Abbott (I know!) and was dealt with most courteously in the process. Interestingly the audience feedback was supportive. I almost forgot I was listening to the ABC.
Listen to the interview here.

She told Hack it’s wrong for Western leaders like Tony Abbott to say the actions of the Islamic State aren’t about religion.
“I want to say to him [Tony Abbott] ‘please don’t say such things in public because it’s just not true.’
“You’re letting down all the individuals who are reformers within Islam who are asking the right questions that will ultimately bring about change.”
“That’s the problem. I’m not talking about Muslims, I’m talking about non-Muslim liberals who are saying ‘it has nothing to do with Islam’ and that is shocking, distressing, disappointing.”
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What racism? Police shoot as they’re shot at

Andrew Bolt April 30 2015 (8:18am)

A fascinating graphic to put in context the story of America’s “racist” police killing African Americans wholesale:
[Y]es, police do kill more than they are killed… However, the risk profile for both sides of the coin is mostly even; police are killed by the same race in proportion as they kill.  The following table includes average yearly fatalities and the percent of the US population for each race along with that groups contribution to killing percentage: 
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One major observation is that, concerning African Americans, both victims of police and police killed are well above the population proportion. 
This suggests the key factor remains the greater rate of criminality in the African American community, a function of culture, family disintegration and poverty. It is much harder to discuss and address these issues than it is to scream “racist” at white cops and trash a store.
(Thanks to reader iamrabies.) 
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Fake fighters for free speech

Andrew Bolt April 30 2015 (7:48am)

Free speech

HOW surprising to find many journalists of the Left supporting free speech after all. Where were they when most needed?
Of course, they’re fighting for free speech only now that SBS has sacked presenter Scott McIntyre over tweets he’d posted on Anzac Day vilifying Anzacs as men responsible for “widespread” rape, theft and war crimes. Plus, he claimed, “the largest single-day terrorist attacks in history were committed by this nation & their allies in Hiroshima & ­Nagasaki”.

McIntyre wasn’t actually sacked for being grossly offensive and wrong, but for refusing to take down the tweets, which he posted as an SBS employee, damaging the SBS brand. Nor was his sacking a blow against free speech. McIntyre remains legally free to keep his tweets on his Twitter account. The second he’s charged by police or dragged off to a court, you can count on me to defend his freedom.
Yet dozens of journalists who cheered the banning of two of my columns, or said not a peep in protest, now make McIntyre a false martyr.
(Read full column here.)
UPDATE
Professor James Allan also wonders where these free speech warriors were, and why they think McIntyre is a martyr.

McIntyre was not, and is not, under any threat of being dragged before the courts for what he said; nor did a judge tell him he can’t legally publish these tweets again. No, McIntyre was and remains legally free to say what he likes. It’s just that he was fired from his job.
So it is hardly any sort of a stretch to say that the ranks of those now defending McIntyre are chock full of the worst sort of hypocrisy. Give me a call when any of you poseurs decide to lobby for repeal of Section 18C. Till then, stop embarrassing yourselves with cheap, bumper-sticker moralizing about free speech…
UPDATE
Incredibly, such is the Left’s confusion that some academics and activists even claim that those who stop others from speaking are actually defending free speech, not denying it.
Take the Leftists furious at Sydney University for wanting to discipline staff and students who shouted down a lecture by Colonel Richard Kemp for supporting Israel:
Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon accused Vice Chancellor Michael Spence of running an inquisition against his own institution.  “There is no place for McCarthy-like witch hunts at this university or at any university,” she said....
NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Stephen Blanks described the university’s actions as “bizarre”.
“Universities, which have been a hotbed of free speech for centuries, are threatening staff and students with disciplinary action for expressing themselves”.
Professor [Nicholas] Riemer agreed. “It is the young activist with the megaphone not the intellectual in the lecture hall that is the future of free speech” he said…

Prominent lawyer Julian Burnside also leant his support to the dissenting voices.  “The fact that Professor Lynch faces the prospect of dismissal is an indictment on the capacity of the University to engage in meaningful debate,” he said.
Astonishing. Actually stopping a guest lecturer from speaking is holding a “meaningful debate”? A defence of “free speech”?
These Lefts wants the kudos of being champions of free speech even as they support those denying it to their foes.
Hypocrites. It’s not the principle that counts, but the side.
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill and Grendel.) 
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Yet another academic advertises her politics

Andrew Bolt April 30 2015 (7:32am)

Why is it that every anecdote tends to confirm the Leftist bias of our universities?
MELBOURNE University has been urged to sack an academic who was prosecuted after she was caught vandalising a Liberal Party billboard during November’s state election.
Centre for Youth Mental Health expert Dr Candice Boyd has admitted daubing graffiti on a campaign sign featuring Macedon candidate Donna Petrovich.
That intolerance would make some students wonder: what would she do to student’s work that advertised conservative virtues?
And why is it that her CV reads as a caricature of the modern Leftist academic?
I am a cultural geographer and artist with a background in clinical psychology.  My interests are in the geographies of mental health and well being, therapeutic art practice, and place-making… I have been experimenting with performative research methods to investigate the non-representational geographies of therapeutic art-making.  
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Punishing this weak Indonesian president will hurt us more than him

Andrew Bolt April 30 2015 (7:17am)

Political things

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THIS is how wars start. A pride-pricked mob baying for revenge and idiotic celebrities demanding their leader “grow some balls”.
Be grateful the Government has the brains — so far — that its feral critics lack, because an overreaction to the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran will hurt us far more than Indonesia.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Wednesday announced a serious but only ritual protest at the execution of the men caught smuggling 8kg of heroin.
He’ll withdraw our ambassador, at least temporarily, just as Holland and Brazil did in January, when two of their citizens were executed.

More is likely, but Abbott knows the danger of going too far.
“The relationship between Australia and Indonesia ... will become more important as time goes by,” he said.
“So I would say to people yes, you are absolutely entitled to be angry but we’ve got to be very careful to ensure that we do not allow our anger to make a bad situation worse.”
Abbott has given himself a couple of days to consider what more to do — and to see how fast public anger cools. I hope his own anger cools, too.
It’s true that Indonesia has treated the Government disgracefully and unprofessionally.
(Read full column here.)  
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Do not expect Indonesia to change

Andrew Bolt April 30 2015 (1:56am)

Indonesia will simply arc up at any attempt by Australia to force its will on it. We must beware of seeming a bully and of making demands that will only offend, not persuade:

Indonesia has dismissed Aust­ralia’s fury at the executions of ­Andrew Chan and Myuran ­Sukumaran…
As Tony Abbott warned the crucial strategic relationship had entered a “dark moment”, President Joko Widodo ... would only ­address the problem in terms of ­Indonesia’s sovereignty — its right to do whatever it decided within its legal system and boundaries.
”This is about sovereignty, I don’t want to answer this question again,” Mr Joko said.
The President refused to ­respond to Canberra’s decision to withdraw ambassador Paul Grigson or the extension of its embargo on ministerial exchanges between the two countries.
Former Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono backed Mr Joko, saying that “as Indonesia respects the sovereignty of other countries, other countries must also respect the sovereignty and our legal system”.
Before Labor - especially Tanya Plibersek - plays with the idea of a populist attack on Abbott as too soft on Indonesia, consider:
However, a former Australian ambassador to Jakarta, John McCarthy, ...  said co-operation in key areas such as intelligence sharing, defence ties and trade must continue. “It is in the long-term interests of our nation to maintain good relations,” he said....
Former foreign minister Bob Carr said withdrawing the ambassador was not in Australia’s interests because it created an awkward situation about when he would return. He said it would leave Australia without ambassadorial clout in Jakarta and Australia’s agenda in relation to fighting terrorism, trade, live cattle and other areas “could slide away”.
Rowan Callick warns against simply slashing aid:
But where is that aid targeted? Its goals include supporting efforts to combat corruption in Indonesia’s law and justice sector — which, as the Bali Nine cases underline, remains in serious need of reform; improving the way local governments deliver basic services such as education, water and sanitation; helping to address the health needs of women and children; and tackling HIV, malaria and emerging infectious diseases.
The problem with withdrawing such aid is that the impact would be felt by thousands of ordinary Indonesians, not those responsible for the executions.
Greg Sheridan:
The Abbott government was right to withdraw Australia’s ambassador from Indonesia in response to the executions of the two young Australians.... I guess it will be a month before he returns…
At the same time Canberra is rightly concerned not to damage the relationship unnecessarily and permanently…
Neither Abbott nor Bishop wanted or planned to withdraw the ambassador. But the behaviour of the Indonesians was such that they had no choice. It is impossible to run foreign policy completely against the wishes of the public. If Canberra had not done at least this much, it would have looked impossibly weak, not least to the Indonesians. But this inaction also would have become a huge controversy within Australia and, if anything, this would have set off more anti-­Indonesian sentiment within the community.
Apart from the terrible business of executing people for drug offences, the way Jakarta handled this whole process was very poor. Much that seems to be deliberate discourtesy and even cruelty was probably just incompetence and the usual shambles....
Jokowi is emerging as a dangerously weak president… Jokowi, like many political leaders in trouble, is reverting to a fairly crude nationalism. Most people slated to be executed this year in Indonesia for drugs off­ences are foreigners, yet it is impossible to imagine that the Indonesian drug trade is primarily conducted by foreigners…
However, it is still the case that Australia has profound, enduring national interests involved in its relationship with Indonesia.
UPDATE
Here we go again:
HOURS before the Bali Nine duo were shot dead, another young Australian man came a step closer to facing execution overseas.
Sydney man Peter Gardner, 25, has had his death penalty case in a Chinese courtroom brought forward by almost six months and will go on trial in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou next Thursday, May 7, for allegedly attempting to export 30kg of methamphetamine, or ice.
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The man who says Lomborg isn’t serious

Andrew Bolt April 30 2015 (12:04am)

Professor Corey Bradshaw says he can’t take Bjorn Lomborg seriously. In fact, he is quite defamatory:
There’s been quite a bit of palaver recently about the invasion of Lomborg’s ‘Consensus’ Centre to the University of Western Australia, including inter alia ... that Lomborg is a charlatan with a not-terribly-well-hidden anti-climate change agenda, and that he his not an academic and possesses no credibility...
Yet I must admit that I have trouble taking Bradshaw seriously, and not just because I’ve never heard of him or seen any evidence of him influencing the international debate as has Lomborg. And not even because of the dodgy measure he uses to judge Lomborg of no account.
I’m referring more to this picture of the professor on his own home page:
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But there is one thing Bradshaw is certainly serious about, as Roger Franklin documents: getting grants from the government.  
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What the Economist didn’t mention about our border policies

Andrew Bolt April 30 2015 (12:02am)

I keep hearing ABC presenters refer to The Economist as a conservative or Right-wing publication, especially when they want to quote its global warming preaching.
In fact, the magazine has long been captured by the soft-Left on social issues, in part because its stringers tend to be not particularly well paid, hence not particularly good, hence more likely to be collectivists for self-preservation.
Example of its Leftist bent is this item, filed by an Australian stringer who, unlike the vast majority of Australians, dislikes the Abbott Government’s border policies and therefore omits the most critical data that justifies it:

MULTICULTURAL and prosperous, Australia is notable for its welcome to migrants—and for its intolerance of boat people. In 1992, the Labor government of Paul Keating introduced a policy of “mandatory detention"…
But the number of boat people only rose. By the turn of the millennium it was 4,000 a year, at which point John Howard, head of the (conservative) Liberal government, resorted to his “Pacific solution”. Boat people would be sent to new detention camps on Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea, and on the island-state of Nauru. The contentious policy was overturned in 2008 by the Labor prime minister, Kevin Rudd, but reinstated by Julia Gillard, his Labor successor.
Tony Abbott, the current Liberal prime minister, campaigned on a promise to “stop the boats”. He has been tougher even than Mr Howard. On April 17th an Australian naval vessel offloaded 46 Vietnamese asylum-seekers in Vung Tau in southern Vietnam after intercepting them at sea. The UN and others question whether their asylum claims had been screened properly....
The government claims that just one “people smuggling venture” has made it to Australian waters since December 2013, and that boat’s passengers were transferred to Nauru. But the policy has financial and reputational costs. The detention centres cost A$3 billion ($2.3 billion) in the 2014-15 fiscal year. Human-rights groups chastise Australia for abandoning its obligation to protect asylum-seekers. Mr Abbott, though, is unrepentant and thinks Europe should get tougher. 
Missing data?
The 50,000 boat people who came after Rudd relaxed the border laws, and the 1200 who drowned. Also missing, the zero drownings over the past year.
Since this report was filed for a largely European audience in response to the massive drownings of boat people en route to Italy, I rather think Abbott’s success should have been mentioned,
Also deserving of mention was that Rudd’s catastrophic border bungling cost us more than $10 billion, which means Abbott’s reforms have not been a financial cost but a saving.
(Thanks to reader Andrew.) 
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When Labor considered scrapping Anzac Day

Andrew Bolt April 30 2015 (12:01am)

Love Labor preaching now about Anzac Day. Here’s Bill Shorten:
Today marks the centenary of a day of extraordinary valour and tragic loss.
It is a privilege to gather with thousands of people to commemorate this 100th anniversary of Anzac on the hallowed ground of the Gallipoli peninsula…
At dawn services around our nation, we will stand in silence, bundled up against the morning cold…
However we mark this day, let all of us give thanks for the bravery of those prepared to risk, and lose, their lives for the country we love.
Today, and always, we will remember them.
Always?
Remember when many in Labor tried to abolish Anzac Day?
From the Sydney Morning Herald of July 18, 1973 and The Australian of July 17, 1973:
image
Has the anti-Anzac faction in Labor really gone? 
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Posted by The Lord is my Shephard I shall not Want  -Psalm23:1 on Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Or persevere
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The LORD will guide your steps. Follow Him!
Posted by God's Not Dead on Wednesday, 29 April 2015

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It's not personal. Constructive criticism is vital to improving your story: http://bit.ly/1DW6QqL
Posted by Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing on Wednesday, 29 April 2015

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We hope you have as much fun this weekend as this dog has skateboarding!https://youtu.be/NtYSuKIljKEMusic: “Surfing With My 2 Little Brothers” by Party People in a Can
Posted by Extreme on Friday, 24 April 2015

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This happened with my dog Rallo once... Never again! Lol
Posted by T-Pain on Wednesday, 29 April 2015

And immediately after all is right with the world
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=== Posts from last year ===

The high price of illegal drugs

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, April 29, 2014 (7:06pm)

YOU only have to look back at the tragic life of Ryan Tandy to see the cost of a society which is too permissive about illicit drugs.
Illicit drugs are so named because it is against the law to consume them.
But go to any nightclub on Saturday night and you will see white powder disappearing up noses in the worst Wolf of Wall Street tradition.
For all the panic about alcohol, we’re drinking less than we have in almost a decade.
And Generation Y is almost teetotal compared to its elders. Yet, when it comes to illegal drugs, they are fiends. All our restrictions on drinking, and the effective decriminalisation of drugs, has driven young people to make a logical decision.
It’s cheaper and in many ways more socially acceptable now to get high on drugs rather than alcohol.
After John Howard brought in his Tough on Drugs policies in 1997, drug use plummeted for the first time in decades.
Fewer young people experimented and those who did were older.
Labor abandoned the policy and today Australia is an international drug hotspot.
The Australian Crime Commission this week said we are one of the most lucrative drug markets for organised crime.
The value of drug seizures jumped by more than $1 billion last year, with crystal methylamphetamine, aka ice, “emerging as a pandemic akin to the issue of crack cocaine in the United States”.
If anything constitutes the “greatest moral challenge” of our times, illegal drugs are it. 
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LABOR HERALD

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 30, 2014 (3:19pm)

Fed up with all the right-wing views being pushed by the ABC, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, SBS, Crikey and the Guardian, Labor’s national secretary seeks to launch the ALP’s own news service: 
George Wright said they were seeking donations — and an editor — to get the new online Labor Herald off the ground …
“We don’t get the big corporate donations the Liberal Party gets and we need to hire someone experienced as an editor so we can do this properly,” the National Secretary argued.
Their job would be to write both “useful and interesting” articles on issues like the Commission on Audit and cuts to pensions, he said, for a salary of about $95,000 a year …
“We’ll send a daily bulletin out to everyone who signs up so you can get up to date information on what’s happening each day. A bit like Labor’s own Crikey.” 
How would anyone tell the difference? Readers are invited to suggest appropriate appointments for this bold new venture.
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THE W-WORD

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 30, 2014 (12:37pm)

Modern feminists are so tough! And edgy! And sweary!
It’s strange, though. Show them one man carrying a sign with “witch” on it and they turn into the Concerned Baptist Ladies’ League of 1921.
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SEAM TEAM

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 30, 2014 (12:16pm)

Richard Neville. Film makers from Adelaide. Old ABC types. And, of course, Alan Jones.
The anti-mining movement is just a big Blair’s Law party.
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IAN ROSS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 30, 2014 (11:45am)

Former Seven Network newsreader Ian Ross, a dignified and straightforward presenter, has died at 73.
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SINK ART

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 30, 2014 (11:28am)

Some women are appalled by shaving scum in the bathroom sink. Others see an opportunity for artistic expression:

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The ABC not friendly enough for Labor?

Andrew Bolt April 30 2014 (5:58pm)

Labor wants any money you still have left after its excesses:
LABOR’s National Secretary has written to supporters asking them to reach into their pockets so the party can create its “own news service”, just like Crikey.

George Wright said they were seeking donations — and an editor — to get the new online Labor Herald off the ground… 
“I believe it’s really important that we do this. We need our own news and we need a place where we can hear each other’s views.”
But why should Labor pay for what Fairfax, the Guardian and the ABC - let alone Crikey - will do for free?
Reader offer staffing tips:

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Another night of Sydney shootings

Andrew Bolt April 30 2014 (3:46pm)

Parts of Sydney now seem to have the disorder we’d expect in a Beirut:
Five people, including two teenagers, escaped injury in a drive-by shooting in Sydney’s south-west on Tuesday night that police believe may be linked to another shooting on the same night in a nearby suburb.
What have we done to this country? Was it necessary?
UPDATE
I do not know who police are looking for in these latest shootings so leap to no conclusions about their ethnicity.
Unrelated, then, is this comparison, provided by reader Sasha:
image
The link to the interactive graphic on shootings here. 
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So much for the ABC’s China deal

Andrew Bolt April 30 2014 (9:51am)

Did the ABC try to bluff the Government out of stripping the Australia Network from it in the Budget:
THE ABC has been forced to delay signing its “historic agreement” to broadcast content into China after admitting the deal was yet to receive regulatory­ ­approval. 
A signing ceremony in Shanghai, which was due to be held this Sunday between ABC executives and the Shanghai Media Group to finalise a memorandum of understanding between the two broadcasters, has been pushed back to early June and could now be held in ­Sydney…
The Australian revealed this week that the industry supervisory agency, the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture, Radio, Film and TV, was unaware of the proposed deal despite the ABC’s announcement last week that it would be “formalised” and signed in Shanghai on May 4…

A spokeswoman for the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture, Radio, Film and TV said the regulatory body had yet to receive any formal application from either the ABC or SMG, which was required for the deal to proceed… “It is impossible for us to express ‘support’ without getting formal application documents...” The ABC said on April 17 that ABC International and the ­Australia Network had “struck an international multi-platform media co-operation arrangement supported by the Shanghai ­Municipal Administration of Culture, Radio, Film and TV”.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Tim Wilson: yes, our laws against free speech are broken

Andrew Bolt April 30 2014 (9:37am)

Tim Wilson on the need to reform our laws against free speech:


Recently, the head of the Prime Minister’s indigenous council, Warren Mundine, criticised the proposed changes, but recognised “there is no doubt we need to amend the act and make sure it’s focused”.
The NSW Rabbinical Council acknowledged the laws make it hard for rabbis to “get up and make a pronouncement on certain moral issues (because they) … might insult (someone)”.
Similarly, Jewish community leader Mark Leibler has said “there is a possibility of working out a solution which will be a ­sensible compromise” while ­arguing for minimal change. The question is not if the law should be changed, but how.
UPDATE
How many on the Left have betrayed principle for advantage in this debate?
ABC1’s Q & A, Monday: 
VAN Badham: Is it so important to the future of Australia that a handful of extremists are given a position by which they can belittle, humiliate, denigrate, vilify, harass and intimidate people who exist within minority communities or traditionally oppressed ethnic communities? ... As a journalist, I do not feel that my free speech is limited by my obligation to show respect and decency to diversity in my community?
Respect. Badham tweets, April 21: 
JESUS, people: IF ENVIRONMENTALISTS WERE AUTHORITARIAN THE F..KING PLANET WOULDN’T BE *DYING*.
Respect. Badham tweets, April 5: 
SOME totally batshit-bananaland trolling from Liberal party twatkvists on #wavotes …
Badham tweets, March 25: 
DEAR Tony Abbott, If you wish to redesign Australia into a bloody aristocracy, I personally will start to build the guillotine. X Van.
Badham, ABC1’s Q & A, Monday: 
TODAY is international day of ­remembrance for the Holocaust and I want everybody to consider what the day of remembrance means in the context of a potential future scenario where those protections are gone and what that means to the families of Holocaust survivors and everybody who was touched by institutional racism.
Respect? Badham tweets, December 18:
SO how’s everyone feeling about a right-wing party like the LNP moving to make anti-Semitism perfectly legal? Does that ever turn out well ... You know, last time we have a failed artist from (sic) the Right telling people it was OK to hate Jews… #TimWilson …
Alan Dershowitz, The Australian, April 2:
DEMOCRACY can endure the coarsening and painful effects of ­bigoted speech. It cannot survive a regime of governmental censorship.
UPDATE
Mark Steyn:
In Australia, they’re trying to get rid of Section 18c. The Aussie campaign is not going well. 
What’s going on? Well, in the western world today, there are far more lobby groups for censorship - under polite euphemisms such as “diversity”, “human rights”, “hate speech” - than there are for freedom of expression. If you attempt to roll back a law like Section 18c, you’ll be opposed by the aboriginal lobby, the Muslim lobby, the Jewish lobby, the LGBT lobby, the higher-education lobby.... And you’ll be supported by ...hardly anyone, save for me and Andrew Bolt and the usual suspects. 
Support Mark Steyn’s battle against Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann. Go here. 
(Thanks to reader handjive.) 
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This would be a broken promise, and the pain would be severe

Andrew Bolt April 30 2014 (9:36am)

Tony Abbott cannot afford to break a promise. Not after he brought down Julia Gillard for doing just that, and not now when trust in politicians has been so tarnished:
Senior Liberals have described plans for a possible deficit tax in the budget as “electoral suicide”. Some talked of a party-room revolt and one warned the Prime Minister Tony Abbott would wear the broken promise as “a crown of thorns” if the government decided to go through with it. 
The figure, part of Mr Abbott’s ministerial team, spoke on condition of anonymity, arguing the suggestion of a tax was one that could come to “haunt” Mr Abbott’s entire prime ministership. ”I worry that this is Tony’s Gillard moment, when she announced the carbon tax,” said the senior Liberal.
The Herald Sun hears the same anger over a plan to break a promise::
Coalition backbenchers are in open rebellion about the new tax, which they say breaks Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s pre-election promises of “tax cuts without new taxes” and “no nasty surprises"…
“Everyone’s just in shock,’’ one Liberal MP told the Herald Sun… “It’s both a surprise, and the idea that we’re not going to get pinged for breaking a promise is just ludicrous.’’…
But the tax will not be as extreme as we reported, with the first $80,000 that people earn not subject to it.
A person on $80,000 would therefore not pay any extra, while a person on $100,000 would pay an additional $200 income tax, and someone earning $150,000 would pay $700 more.
The income tax rate would rise by 2 per cent (45c to 47c) for all earnings above $180,000, meaning a person earning $200,000 would pay $1400 more. These rates do not include the Medicare levy or the disability care levy, which when included would see the top earners taxed at 49c in the dollar.
The Australian:
IT is a safe bet that the Audit Commission’s recommendations to fix the budget deficit, due for release tomorrow, will not include hiking income tax. With such vast scope for sensible savings, lifting one of the most damaging and penal taxes would have been last on the commissioners’ wishlist. So it is deeply troubling, and puzzling, that the Abbott government appears poised to announce a temporary deficit levy in its first, emblematic budget… 
Revenue isn’t the problem. The government’s own figures show tax receipts are projected to gallop ahead by almost 6 per cent a year over the next three years — what most businesses would consider a bonanza. Cutting spending and lifting taxes are not economically equivalent ways to engineer a budget surplus. Higher taxes hurt the incentive to work, offend individuals’ rights to the fruits of their labour, encourage costly avoidance and prop up distortionary and feckless government programs. Spending cuts do the opposite. If the economic case for lifting income tax for a few years to fix a long-term problem is weak, the political case is risky at best. Let’s not mince words: the Prime Minister promised in opposition to introduce no new taxes, and a levy is obviously another word for a tax. 
The Government believes the tax is needed to show the rich are also pulling their weight. But the rich already pull their weight and much more:
The fifth of taxpayers who earned more than $80,000 a year in the 2011 financial year paid 62 per cent of all income tax. The top 10 per cent — with taxable incomes of more than $105,500 — paid 46 per cent. And bracket creep boosts their burden every year.... Let’s not forget that the Medicare Levy is due to rise by 0.5 percentage points to 2 per cent on July 1 to help pay for Labor’s disability insurance scheme, which is not due to be operational for another five years. The top marginal tax rate could be about to rise to 49 per cent, and the second top rate to 40 per cent, making Australia’s already very progressive tax system even more so.  
But Terry McCrann says the debt levy does not break an explicit promise and does tackle a real problem:
Please show me the video where Abbott, or Hockey, said explicitly, in the election campaign: there will be no increase — not even a temporary increase — in the income tax under a government I lead…
Abbott and Hockey ... have focused most of their efforts to get the budget back to the black and to cap the debt created by Rudd, Gillard and Swan in just six years of fiscal irresponsibility and sheer mayhem to a still-thumping $350 billion or so, on the spending side.
But it is entirely reasonable and indeed arguably mandatory — those to both the left and the right, take note — to ask high income earners to make a direct, temporary contribution. A few sharks have been jumped when we have Shorten and Bowen joining hands with Milne to demand that people earning $200,000, $500,000, and more, should be saved from a tax hike.
I do think this video [from 5:53] shows Abbott making what 95 per cent of voters would take to be a promise not to hike taxes:
 What you’ll get under us are tax cuts without new taxes. 
UPDATE
Paul Kelly says Tony Abbott ruled out too many spending cuts before the election so now may break one that will kill him:
Abbott’s excuse is that a temporary levy does not constitute a broken promise. The public won’t buy that. A tax is a tax is a tax. And Abbott’s pledge to cut taxes down the track is just that — down the track. 
The further risk is that Abbott compromises his policy pledge to reform the spending side of the budget…
Last week, Hockey argued, yet again, that Australia has “a serious spending problem"… The audit commission report, Hockey says, reveals the need for “substantial spending restraint”. He provided the exact numbers — spending in real terms must be limited to 1.75 per cent annually for a decade. It is a crippling objective and compares with Labor’s equivalent figure of 3.7 per cent annually over six years…
Resort to a levy shows immediate structural savings are either too hard or too blatant a breach of election promises.
That’s right — having declared a budget crisis on the spending side, Abbott feels unable to really tackle it. 
UPDATE
A tax on more than the “rich”:
… new modelling reveals 2.3 million families are likely to be hit by the proposed deficit tax. The new impost would collect about $2.2bn a year, according to a study by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling at the University of Canberra… 
Although the levy is yet to be finalised and could be heavily modified in the face of fierce criticism, the combined ­effect of the levy and hidden tax rises would increase the burden on individual taxpayers by $51bn over four years based on NATSEM and Deloitte Access Economics modelling… The new reliance on revenue gains, rather than spending cuts alone, to end the deficits contrasts with Mr Abbott’s attacks on Julia Gillard’s budget strategy last May, when he declared: “The problem is not a revenue problem, the problem is a spending problem.” 
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Workers pay so Labor candidates may play

Andrew Bolt April 30 2014 (9:31am)

What good did this union ever do for the workers whose pockets it looted? Is the union movement just a giant ATM for the big players?
Health Services Union boss turned whistleblower Kathy Jackson ran a secretive union slush fund that used up to $300,000 in members’ money to help support the political and factional campaigns of her allies, including those from other unions. 
Internal union banking records reveal $284,000 was transferred with Ms Jackson’s authorisation from her union’s main account into the “National Health Development Account” between 2003 and 2010.
Fairfax Media has confirmed that some of these funds were used to support Ms Jackson’s political allies, including officials from the Australian Workers Union, which was previously headed by federal opposition leader Bill Shorten…
Leaked union records also show how Ms Jackson’s branch of the HSU made a $5000 donation in 2010 to senior Victorian Labor MP Marlene Kairouz and described it in a financial report as a payment to a charity.
When regulator Fair Work Australia queried this payment with the HSU later in 2010, the union changed its description of it to a “fee for service”.
The $5000 was deposited in an ANZ bank account in the name of ‘AB Hinc’ - a Latin term which means ‘from here on’ - and which was an election fund controlled by Ms Kairouz.
Fairfax Media has confirmed the ‘AB Hinc’ account was never declared to the Australian Electoral Commission....
Fairfax Media is not suggesting Ms Jackson ever used members’ funds in a criminal fashion or for personal expenditure.
Ms Jackson declined to answer specific questions about the NHDA… However, she provided a broad statement saying she never used money from the fund “for my own private benefit or for payment to third parties unless such payment was conscientiously believed by me and and relevant others to serve the legitimate political purposes of the union”. “I say that I have done nothing in relation to the fund that is criminal or that was not in the best interests of the union as I genuinely believed them to be.”
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The Grange wasn’t from someone O’Farrell barely knew

Andrew Bolt April 30 2014 (9:03am)

That bottle of Grange gains more context:
DISGRACED Liberal fundraiser Nick Di Girolamo signed off on a party candidate with Barry O’Farrell’s knowledge, according to an email from Chris Hartcher, a former minister now accused of corruption. 
Mr Hartcher reveals in the email, tendered at ICAC yesterday, he escorted the lobbyist Scott Farlow to meet Mr Di Girolamo, the Australian Water Holdings boss, and Mr Di Girolamo had offered to help fundraise for him…
On January 27, 2009, Mr Hartcher emails: “Dear Barry, As previously discussed, Nick Di Girolamo, president of the Italian Chamber of Commerce, met with Scott Farlow. The meeting was at Nick’s ­office on Friday 23 January. I also attended.
“Nick was impressed with Scott. He authorised me to tell you that he would be happy to see Scott as candidate for Drummoyne, if he was preselected. He assured me he would arrange for coverage in La Fiamma and also assist with introducing Scott in the Drummoyne Italian community and with fundraising.” Mr O’Farrell replies an hour later: “Good. Thx.”
This level of influence and contact wasn’t what O’Farrell suggested a couple of months ago:
NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell has revealed he has met controversial Liberal identity Nick Di Girolamo at 10 functions or events since becoming Premier, including at Wests Tigers football matches, despite telling Parliament only last week he ”can’t remember the last time I spoke to [him]”.
I know and am involved with lots of people I don't know well. They might even give me gifts. Bolt is overstating things here before it has been established that it is justified to do so. All that we know so far is that influence peddlers have made exchanges without it being established it was quid pro quo. But we know the ALP have had quid pro quo without penalty - ed
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What Budget emergency, says Shorten the spender

Andrew Bolt April 30 2014 (8:52am)

Tony Abbott is struggling with trying to fix the Budget disaster left by Labor.
Meanwhile Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is confirming that a Labor Government would just make things worse, refusing to even acknowledge we have a problem:
They have woken up to the Liberals’ fake “Budget emergency’’… 
Everyone knows the Liberals desperately want this to be seen as a brave Budget but there is nothing brave about slugging ordinary Australians with an increase in their income tax.
There is nothing brave about forcing pensioners to wait longer for less. There is nothing brave about taking money from Australian families who feel like they are losing the battle with the cost of living.
Whatever my criticisms of some of Abbott’s proposals he is already ahead of Shorten in that he knows the Budget deficits Labor left us must be reined in.
Shorten gives no sign at all of Labor having learned from its disastrous six years. He is suggesting a Shorten Government would just give us more of the same. 
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How many reminders do Jews need: the Left is not your friend. Observe John Kerry

Andrew Bolt April 30 2014 (8:23am)

US Secretary of State John Kerry is an idiot. Trouble is, he’s an idiot with power:
In a private meeting with senior international officials Friday, Kerry said that if the Israelis and Palestinians can’t achieve a two-state solution, Israel risks becoming “an apartheid state with second-class citizens.”
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Selling Wikipedia

Andrew Bolt April 30 2014 (7:49am)

An encyclopaedia salesman knocks on the door of Nigel Scott:
‘I have the largest and most comprehensive encyclopaedia the world has ever seen’, he says. 
‘Tell me about it!’ ‘It has more editors and more entries than any other encyclopaedia ever. Most of the contributors are anonymous and no entry is ever finished. It is constantly changing. Any entry may be different each time you go back to it. Celebrities and companies pay PR agencies to edit entries. Controversial topics are often the subject of edit wars that can go on for years and involve scores of editors. Pranksters and jokers may change entries and insert bogus facts. Whole entries about events that never happened may be created. Other entries will disappear without notice. Experts may be banned from editing subjects that they are leading authorities on, because they are cited as primary sources. University academics and teachers warn their students to exercise extreme caution when using it. Nothing in it can be relied on. You will never know whether anything you read in it is true or not. Are you interested?’
It is not a primary source, but it is a source. It is hysteria to say that Wikipedia has no more substance than an IPCC article. - ed
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Abbott makes his leave scheme more saleable

Andrew Bolt April 30 2014 (7:22am)

I still wonder why taxpayers (via a levy on business) must pay a woman six months’ salary to have a baby, but this cut is politically important:
TONY Abbott has dropped the controversial threshold for his paid parental leave scheme from $150,000 to $100,000 for the sake of “equity and simplicity’’, bringing his signature project in line with his new welfare limit… 
Mr Abbott’s switch to lower the threshold, relayed to colleagues 10 days ago, means the maximum payment will be capped at $50,000, instead of $75,000…
Mr Abbott [yesterday] defended the principle of the PPL scheme being a workforce entitlement, arguing: “Why should public servants in Canberra get paid their full wage when they take parental leave and the shop assistants and factory workers of Victoria not get the same deal and if we get our wage when we take holiday and sick pay and long service leave, why shouldn’t we get our wage when we take parental leave?..’’
Ten days ago, Mr Abbott put to the Coalition’s expenditure review committee that a pragmatic and realistic decision had to be made in relation to the PPL since it was seen as a government benefit, although funded by a business levy. As such, it should be brought into line with the government’s decision to set a $100,000 income threshold for welfare and family payments. The razor gang decision to reduce the income threshold by $50,000 will not result in significant savings in the scheme, likely to cost up to $5.5bn a year when fully implemented, with only 2 per cent of women earning more than $100,000 being of child-bearing age. The Greens have said they would vote for the policy if the threshold was reduced to $100,000.
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So-called billionaire Clive Palmer is so-called hero

Andrew Bolt April 30 2014 (7:18am)

Shameless. And people vote for this guy:

IT is a tale of derring-do that certainly deserves a “Good Samaritan of the Year” award. 
Defying the risks — including a potential term of imprisonment — Clive Palmer and his helicopter swoop in to rescue staff stranded on a roof during the devastating Queensland floods of 2011.
“In true Clive fashion, he risked jail time to fly in and save his staff,” the citation reads. “On his way out of the area, he ­noticed other people stranded on roof tops and in danger of being swept away. That day he saved a further 16 families disregarding his own civil liberties.”
But the problem is, the founder of the Palmer United Party was nowhere near his helicopter as it flew over the floods west of Brisbane that dreadful day; he was safely tucked up in one of his luxury homes.
And the Good Samaritan of the Year award, which he said he was “honoured” to win at a ceremony he attended in Canberra last month, came from a charity wholly controlled by one of his political aspirants, PUP Senate candidate Wayne Slattery. But suspend your cynicism. The ties between Mr Palmer, who leads the PUP, and Mr Slattery, who wants to run for the PUP again, had “nothing to do” with the resources tycoon winning the award. “It’s not at all a conflict of interest because I had nothing to do with the selection of the winners — I purposely put myself at arm’s length from the selection panel due to my relationship with Clive,’’ Mr Slattery told The Australian yesterday.
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Sterling banned for life

Andrew Bolt April 30 2014 (7:13am)

Tough stuff:
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced Tuesday Clippers owner Donald Sterling will be suspended for life and fined $2.5 million following racist remarks he made in a recorded audio clip. 
Silver spoke to the press at an 11 a.m. news conference from New York, stating he will “do everything in my power” to force the sale of the Clippers. “The hateful opinions voiced by that man are those of Mr. Sterling. The views expressed by Mr. Sterling are deeply offensive and harmful. That they came from an NBA owner only heightens the damage and my personal outrage,” Silver said. “I am banning Mr. Sterling for life from any association with the Clippers association or the NBA. Mr. Sterling may not attend any NBA games or practices, he may not be present at any Clippers facility, and he may not participate in any business or decisions involving the team.”
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"Which is faith in God and His works." <-- finish="" full="" p="" quote.="" the="" to="">===


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Larry Pickering

JULIA'S IMAGINARY FRIEND
by Paul Zanetti



Imagine an imbecile called John. John votes Labor.



John has been in the same job for the past 20 years. For the period in 2003 – 2007 every year his employer gave him a sizable bonus. Then in 2007 Labor was elected to government.

His employer told John he was now worried about the business. Labor always made such a mess of things.

In his bones, John knew his bonuses wouldn’t last.

The bonuses stopped.

John was told he could expect a pay rise if things were still good. Things got worse.

The bonuses stopped. John had to take a pay cut to help the business survive.

What is John’s rational reaction?

John didn’t want to cut back on the Friday and Saturday nights with the boys, spending on his hotted up car, holidays in Bali, weekends on the Gold Coast each month, the flash threads, latest smart phone, addiction to online shopping, recreational drugs, online poker machines...

Of course not.

A rational response would be to go to the bank and to borrow, to get through the tough times to preserve his lifestyle.

John went to the bank.

He explained his predicament to the loans officer.

After security marched John out of the building, John thought long and hard about his situation.

John realised this wasn’t his fault. It was everybody else’s fault. Why should he have to moderate his lifestyle? After all, he votes Labor and therefore he has ‘entitlements’. He has ‘rights’.

John’s solution was to vote for Labor again.

When John lost his job, he knew things would be ok because Julia promised John she would raise taxes to pay for his unemployment welfare.

Companies were taxed. Families were taxed.

Businesses struggled under the burden. Families could not make ends meet.

Nobody could afford to pay the taxes. The government went broke and stopped paying welfare.

What is John’s natural reaction?

John turned to crime. He was hoping his experience in robbing innocent hard working people would get him some experience so that he could join a union to become an official and then enter politics. .

John had a plan. John will be ok because Julia said so. And Julia has been there too. She understands.

If only the whole world had more Johns and Julias
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A PREJUDICIAL PRESS Larry Pickering

I was brought up in a Press whose motto was “publish and be damned”, but the legend of the intrepid reporter died with Alan Reid.

Now, unabashed bias is just one nail in the cross of the Press’s own crucifixion. It’s bloody shameful.

There are numerous examples but my opinion pieces are short so I will just highlight a couple:

What if one of Tony Abbott’s front benchers, and Leader of Opposition Business in the House, was caught in a Thai brothel in his own electorate? Mmmm, can you imagine the uproar?

Well, Christopher Pyne’s opposite number in Government, Anthony Albanese, was caught doing exactly that. Not a murmer from the Press, no questions for Mr Albanese, not even a hint of concern or interest.

What if Tony Abbott himself was found to be under Major Fraud Squad investigation while contesting a Federal election? Whoa! Hold page one!

The media in an indignant rage would be permanently camped outside his home. A cacophony of demands that he stand down pending the outcome would be spewing from every column.

Investigative journos would be outdoing each other unearthing his sordid past and interviewing his old school friends.

Others would be asking how someone with Abbott’s past could possibly deign to aspire to Prime Minister.

Well, the media DID ask that question, they DID research Abbott’s past and they unearthed a left winger who said he punched a wall, 32 years ago. The left winger didn’t actually see it but she believed it was true. Wow!

What IS on record about Gillard is that she IS under investigation by a Major Fraud Squad.

She WAS involved in the fraud and laundering of over one million dollars from a major union.

She was sacked from a major Labor law firm for blatant illegalities.

She can no longer practise as a lawyer and she has lied her way to the top with the assistance of the very union she stole from.

The union predictably has refused to prefer charges because it was only their members’ money and Gillard had become its anointed tool to unseat the hated Rudd.

So, the simple fact is that two politicians are now facing off to determine the next Prime Minister of this country:

One is a crook with a sordid past and under investigation by the Victorian Major Fraud Squad, the other, it is said, may have punched a wall three decades ago.

And there ladies and gentlemen lies the stinking carcass of a Press you once relied on as a fearless, unbiased news source.

It’s a damned disgrace!
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April 30: Children's Day in Mexico; Consumer Protection Day in Thailand
Remnant of SN 1006
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“I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth.” - Job 19:25
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"Thou art my hope in the day of evil."
Jeremiah 17:17
The path of the Christian is not always bright with sunshine; he has his seasons of darkness and of storm. True, it is written in God's Word, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace;" and it is a great truth, that religion is calculated to give a man happiness below as well as bliss above; but experience tells us that if the course of the just be "As the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day," yet sometimes that light is eclipsed. At certain periods clouds cover the believer's sun, and he walks in darkness and sees no light. There are many who have rejoiced in the presence of God for a season; they have basked in the sunshine in the earlier stages of their Christian career; they have walked along the "green pastures" by the side of the "still waters," but suddenly they find the glorious sky is clouded; instead of the Land of Goshen they have to tread the sandy desert; in the place of sweet waters, they find troubled streams, bitter to their taste, and they say, "Surely, if I were a child of God, this would not happen." Oh! say not so, thou who art walking in darkness. The best of God's saints must drink the wormwood; the dearest of his children must bear the cross. No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity; no believer can always keep his harp from the willows. Perhaps the Lord allotted you at first a smooth and unclouded path, because you were weak and timid. He tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, but now that you are stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter upon the riper and rougher experience of God's full-grown children. We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotten bough of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope.

Evening

"The Lord taketh pleasure in his people."
Psalm 149:4
How comprehensive is the love of Jesus! There is no part of his people's interests which he does not consider, and there is nothing which concerns their welfare which is not important to him. Not merely does he think of you, believer, as an immortal being, but as a mortal being too. Do not deny it or doubt it: "The very hairs of your head are all numbered." "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way." It were a sad thing for us if this mantle of love did not cover all our concerns, for what mischief might be wrought to us in that part of our business which did not come under our gracious Lord's inspection! Believer, rest assured that the heart of Jesus cares about your meaner affairs. The breadth of his tender love is such that you may resort to him in all matters; for in all your afflictions he is afflicted, and like as a father pitieth his children, so doth he pity you. The meanest interests of all his saints are all borne upon the broad bosom of the Son of God. Oh, what a heart is his, that doth not merely comprehend the persons of his people, but comprehends also the diverse and innumerable concerns of all those persons! Dost thou think, O Christian, that thou canst measure the love of Christ? Think of what his love has brought thee--justification, adoption, sanctification, eternal life! The riches of his goodness are unsearchable; thou shalt never be able to tell them out or even conceive them. Oh, the breadth of the love of Christ! Shall such a love as this have half our hearts? Shall it have a cold love in return? Shall Jesus' marvellous lovingkindness and tender care meet with but faint response and tardy acknowledgment? O my soul, tune thy harp to a glad song of thanksgiving! Go to thy rest rejoicing, for thou art no desolate wanderer, but a beloved child, watched over, cared for, supplied, and defended by thy Lord.
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Ichabod

[Ĭ'chabŏd] - the glory is not, where is the glory or inglorious. The posthumous son of Phinehas and grandson of Eli. His name commemorated a tragic crisis in Israel's history, namely, the great slaughter of the people, including Hophni and Phinehas, and the capture of the Ark by the Philistines. Such terrible calamity resulted in Eli's death at ninety-eight. The wife of Phinehas was so shocked over the dread news that when her child was born she called him Ichabod saying, "The glory is departed from Israel: for the ark of God is taken" ( 1 Sam. 4:21, 22).
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Today's reading: 1 Kings 6-7, Luke 20:27-47 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: 1 Kings 6-7

Solomon Builds the Temple
1 In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the LORD.
2 The temple that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high. 3 The portico at the front of the main hall of the temple extended the width of the temple, that is twenty cubits, and projected ten cubits from the front of the temple. 4 He made narrow windows high up in the temple walls. 5 Against the walls of the main hall and inner sanctuary he built a structure around the building, in which there were side rooms. 6 The lowest floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits and the third floor seven. He made offset ledges around the outside of the temple so that nothing would be inserted into the temple walls.

Today's New Testament reading: Luke 20:27-47

The Resurrection and Marriage
27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 "Teacher," they said, "Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?"

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