Monday, May 18, 2015

Mon May 18th 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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Todays report stands on its own because this time in 2014, the Conservative Voice was looking for rental accommodation after being forced to sell their unit/home.
A personal note, my cousin Stephen Ball has died, suddenly of a heart attack at age about 60. He was a good, kind gracious man, a loving husband and a good father and a good businessman. There is no reason why anyone would have heard of him. He wasn't corrupt. He was hard working and honest. So I wish to share the little I know of him so that the world can know more than daily politics and historical settings. He was on holiday in the UK prior to moving into a newly purchased house in Sydney. He was playing golf and his wife was by his side when he had his heart attack. He was fit for his age, and fit compared to his youth when he was tubby as my people can be, weighed down as we are by nominative determinism. My paternal grandfather once took Stephen and his siblings to the beach. The oldest might have been 8 years old. The youngest about three. Grandfather made it to the beach with them, but got separated and came back home after looking for them. My uncle, his father asked grandfather about his day, which apparently was good. He also asked after his children which grandfather had not known their whereabouts after getting separated and looking for them before returning home. Things might have gone downhill had Stephen and his siblings not knocked on the front door, having caught public transport busses home without having cash. That would have been circa '62 and times were different to now. As a young man, Stephen had not enjoyed school. He was easily distracted. But he had drive and ambition too. I heard many years ago, and do not know if it was true, but he had gone to the Middle East after school and made money which he wasn't allowed to take out of that nation, so he had filled a jeep with US dollars and driven to an airport and flown back to Australia. In his early thirties, his dad had a heart attack, but survived. Stephen visited him in the recovery ward and the Doctor said "Your next." Or maybe that was my father. A year later, my father was recovering in that ward too. Stephen lost weight. He raised a family. They remember his love, his humour, his joy of life. He has died, but love is never lost. He wasn't replaceable, but life goes on. He was Australian, which is to say he gave generously, and worked hard. 

 An Australian boy who went to fight for the death cult ISIL has reportedly died. It is not known if he was blown up or beheaded by ISIL for wanting to come home. Girls are encouraged by pedophiles to join up too. Their reward is not motherhood, as may be assumed, but to be the diversionary playthings of gang rapists after bouts of bestiality and sodomy. 

 In 332, citizens of Constantinople were given free food by Constantine. A similar thing had happened in Rome by Julius Caesar. It was great for morale and encouraged non citizens to aspire. Also very expensive. In 1096, the first crusade had made it to Worms in Germany where they killed some 800 Jews for no reason. In 1152, the indecisive Henry II of England married Eleanor of Aquitaine, which was his finest moment. In 1268, the Principality of Antioch, a crusader state, fell to the Mamluk Sultan Baibars in the Siege of Antioch. In 1291, Fall of Acre, the end of Crusader presence in the Holy Land. In 1302, Bruges Matins, the nocturnal massacre of the French garrison in Bruges by members of the local Flemish militia. In 1388, during the Battle of Buyur Lake, General Lan Yu led a Chinese army forward to crush the Mongol hordes of Tögüs Temür, the Khan of Northern Yuan. In 1499, Alonso de Ojeda set sail from Cádiz on his voyage to what is now Venezuela.

In 1565, the Great Siege of Malta began, in which Ottoman forces attempted and failed to conquer Malta. Also 1565, the Royal Audiencia of Concepción was created by a decree of Philip II of Spain. 1593, playwright Thomas Kyd's accusations of heresy lead to an arrest warrant for Christopher Marlowe. 1631, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, John Winthrop took the oath of office and became the first Governor of Massachusetts. 1652, Rhode Islandpassed the first law in English-speaking North America making slavery illegal. 1756, the Seven Years' War began when Great Britain declared war on France. 1763, fire destroyed a large part of Montreal 1783, first United Empire Loyalists reached Parrtown (later called Saint John), New Brunswick, Canada after leaving the United States.

In 1803, Napoleonic Wars: The United Kingdom revoked the Treaty of Amiens and declared war on France. 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Emperor of the French by the French Senate. 1811, Battle of Las Piedras: The first great military triumph of the revolution of the Río de la Plata in Uruguay led by José Artigas. 1812, John Bellingham was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging for the assassination of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. 1843, the Disruption in Edinburgh of the Free Church of Scotland from the Church of Scotland. 1848, Opening of the first German National Assembly(Nationalversammlung) in Frankfurt, Germany. 1860, Abraham Lincoln won the Republican Party presidential nomination over William H. Seward, who later became the United States Secretary of State. 1863, American Civil War: The Siege of Vicksburg began. 1896, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that the "separate but equal" doctrine was constitutional. Also 1896, Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Fieldin Moscow during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II resulted in the deaths of 1,389 people.

In 1900, the United Kingdom proclaimed a protectorate over Tonga. 1910, the Earth passed through the tail of Comet Halley. 1912, the first Indian film, Shree Pundalik by Dadasaheb Torne was released in Mumbai. 1917, World War I: The Selective Service Act of 1917 was passed, giving the President of the United States the power of conscription. 1926, Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared while visiting a Venice, California beach. 1927, the Bath School disaster: forty-five people were killed by bombs planted by a disgruntled school-board member in Michigan. 1927, after being founded for 20 years, the Government of the Republic of China approved Tongji University to be among the first national universities of the Republic of China. 1933, New Deal: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority. 1944, World War II: Battle of Monte Cassino: Conclusion after seven days of the fourth battle as German paratroopersevacuated Monte Cassino. Also 1944, deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union government. 1948, the First Legislative Yuan of the Republic of China officially convened in Nanking.

In 1953, Jackie Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier. 1955, Operation Passage to Freedom, the evacuation of 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from communist North Vietnam to South Vietnam following the end of the First Indochina War, ended. 1956, first ascent of Lhotse 8,516 meters, by a Swiss team. 1958, an F-104 Starfighter set a world speed recordof 1,404.19 mph (2,259.82 km/h). 1959, launch of the National Liberation Committee of Côte d'Ivoire in Conakry, Guinea. 1965, Israeli spy Eli Cohen was hanged in Damascus, Syria. 1969, Apollo program: Apollo 10 was launched. 1974, Nuclear test: under project Smiling Buddha, India successfully detonated its first nuclear weapon becoming the sixth nation to do so. Also 1974, completion of the Warsaw radio mast, the tallest construction ever built at the time. It collapsed on August 8, 1991. 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington, United States, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage. Also 1980, Gwangju Massacre: students in Gwangju, South Korea began demonstrations calling for democratic reforms. 1983, in Ireland, the government launched a crackdown, with the leading Dublin pirate Radio Nova being put off the air.

In 1990, in France, a modified TGV train achieved a new rail world speed record of 515.3 km/h (320.2 mph). 1991, Northern Somalia declared independence from the rest of Somalia as the Republic of Somaliland but was not recognised by the international community. 1993, riots in Nørrebro, Copenhagen caused by the approval of the four Danish exceptions in the Maastricht Treaty referendum. Police opened fire against civilians for the first time since World War II and injured 11 demonstrators. In total 113 bullets were fired. 2005, a second photo from the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed that Pluto had two additional moons, Nixand Hydra. 2006, the post Loktantra Andolan government passed a landmark bill curtailing the power of the monarchy and making Nepal a secular country. 2009, Sri Lankan Civil War: The LTTE were defeated by the Sri Lankan government, ending almost 26 years of fighting between the two sides. 2011, twenty-two people were killed when Sol Líneas Aéreas Flight 5428 crashed in southern Argentina.
2014
None in 2014 because of Government and public service corruption related to the petitions
Historical perspectives on this day
In 332, Constantine the Great announced free distribution of food to the citizens in Constantinople. 1096, First Crusade: around 800 Jews were massacred in Worms, Germany 1152, Henry II of England married Eleanor of Aquitaine. 1268, the Principality of Antioch, a crusader state, fell to the Mamluk Sultan Baibars in the Siege of Antioch. 1291, Fall of Acre, the end of Crusader presence in the Holy Land 1302, Bruges Matins, the nocturnal massacre of the French garrison in Bruges by members of the local Flemish militia. 1388, during the Battle of Buyur Lake, General Lan Yu led a Chinese army forward to crush the Mongol hordes of Tögüs Temür, the Khan of Northern Yuan. 1499, Alonso de Ojeda set sail from Cádiz on his voyage to what is now Venezuela.

 In 1565, the Great Siege of Malta began, in which Ottoman forces attempted and failed to conquer Malta. Also 1565, the Royal Audiencia of Concepción was created by a decree of Philip II of Spain. 1593, playwright Thomas Kyd's accusations of heresy lead to an arrest warrant for Christopher Marlowe. 1631, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, John Winthrop took the oath of office and became the first Governor of Massachusetts. 1652, Rhode Island passed the first law in English-speaking North America making slavery illegal. 1756, the Seven Years' War began when Great Britain declared war on France. 1763, fire destroyed a large part of Montreal 1783, first United Empire Loyalists reached Parrtown (later called Saint John), New Brunswick, Canada after leaving the United States.

 In 1803, Napoleonic Wars: The United Kingdom revoked the Treaty of Amiens and declared war on France. 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Emperor of the French by the French Senate. 1811, Battle of Las Piedras: The first great military triumph of the revolution of the Río de la Plata in Uruguay led by José Artigas. 1812, John Bellingham was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging for the assassination of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. 1843, the Disruption in Edinburgh of the Free Church of Scotland from the Church of Scotland. 1848, Opening of the first German National Assembly (Nationalversammlung) in Frankfurt, Germany. 1860, Abraham Lincoln won the Republican Party presidential nomination over William H. Seward, who later became the United States Secretary of State. 1863, American Civil War: The Siege of Vicksburg began. 1896, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that the "separate but equal" doctrine was constitutional. Also 1896, Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Field in Moscow during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II resulted in the deaths of 1,389 people.

 In 1900, the United Kingdom proclaimed a protectorate over Tonga. 1910, the Earth passed through the tail of Comet Halley. 1912, the first Indian film, Shree Pundalik by Dadasaheb Torne was released in Mumbai. 1917, World War I: The Selective Service Act of 1917 was passed, giving the President of the United States the power of conscription. 1926, Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared while visiting a Venice, California beach. 1927, the Bath School disaster: forty-five people were killed by bombs planted by a disgruntled school-board member in Michigan. 1927, after being founded for 20 years, the Government of the Republic of China approved Tongji University to be among the first national universities of the Republic of China. 1933, New Deal: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority. 1944, World War II: Battle of Monte Cassino: Conclusion after seven days of the fourth battle as German paratroopers evacuated Monte Cassino. Also 1944, deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union government. 1948, the First Legislative Yuan of the Republic of China officially convened in Nanking.

 In 1953, Jackie Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier. 1955, Operation Passage to Freedom, the evacuation of 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from communist North Vietnam to South Vietnam following the end of the First Indochina War, ended. 1956, first ascent of Lhotse 8,516 meters, by a Swiss team. 1958, an F-104 Starfighter set a world speed record of 1,404.19 mph (2,259.82 km/h). 1959, launch of the National Liberation Committee of Côte d'Ivoire in Conakry, Guinea. 1965, Israeli spy Eli Cohen was hanged in Damascus, Syria. 1969, Apollo program: Apollo 10 was launched. 1974, Nuclear test: under project Smiling Buddha, India successfully detonated its first nuclear weapon becoming the sixth nation to do so. Also 1974, completion of the Warsaw radio mast, the tallest construction ever built at the time. It collapsed on August 8, 1991. 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington, United States, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage. Also 1980, Gwangju Massacre: students in Gwangju, South Korea began demonstrations calling for democratic reforms. 1983, in Ireland, the government launched a crackdown, with the leading Dublin pirate Radio Nova being put off the air.

 In 1990, in France, a modified TGV train achieved a new rail world speed record of 515.3 km/h (320.2 mph). 1991, Northern Somalia declared independence from the rest of Somalia as the Republic of Somaliland but was not recognised by the international community. 1993, riots in Nørrebro, Copenhagen caused by the approval of the four Danish exceptions in the Maastricht Treaty referendum. Police opened fire against civilians for the first time since World War II and injured 11 demonstrators. In total 113 bullets were fired. 2005, a second photo from the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed that Pluto had two additional moons, Nix and Hydra. 2006, the post Loktantra Andolan government passed a landmark bill curtailing the power of the monarchy and making Nepal a secular country. 2009, Sri Lankan Civil War: The LTTE were defeated by the Sri Lankan government, ending almost 26 years of fighting between the two sides. 2011, twenty-two people were killed when Sol Líneas Aéreas Flight 5428 crashed in southern Argentina.
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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 Cesare Rambaldi. Born the same date when, in 1927, when a disgruntled school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe set off a series of explosives in Bath Township, Michigan's elementary school, which had a final death toll of 45 and is the deadliest mass murder in a school in United States history. Those were different times .. now they use automatic weapons. Tough days, but you were born to succeed and excel.
And magnificent music ..http://www.icompositions.com/artists/RAMZAR#music
Deaths
Enomoto Takeaki
The menu stated crushed horde, hey, what?? Next to the rising sun, all fails. Separate but equal, right. They'll like the South a they won't have to work there. Can a moon circle what is not a planet? Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2015
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HEEERE’S JOHNNY

Tim Blair – Monday, May 18, 2015 (6:31am)

It’s been an entertaining last few days for political advisor John McTernan, who successfully advised ex-PM Julia Gillard into oblivion before joining the staff of Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy. Here’s how events have unfolded lately for McTernan, Murphy and the UK Labour movement in general.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'HEEERE’S JOHNNY'
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IT’S MONEY THAT MATTERS

Tim Blair – Monday, May 18, 2015 (6:23am)

We conservatives are meant to be the boring ones. After all, we’re obsessed with dull notions like financial security, predictable career paths and reliable investments. Yawn.
And then there are our exciting friends from the artistic left, who care little for conservatives’ buttoned-down ways. They go wherever their creative impulses may lead, boldly exploring new visions and ideas, fearlessly challenging society’s assumptions and smashing complacency.
That’s the way things are meant to be, at least. But Arts Minister George Brandis has discovered a brilliant way to instantly convert unconventional creative types into timid, pleading defenders of the status quo.
Brandis accomplished this by the simple means of putting himself between artists and their supply of tax-funded Australia Council grants.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'IT’S MONEY THAT MATTERS'
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PRIORITIES SHOWN

Tim Blair – Monday, May 18, 2015 (5:14am)

Changed government resulted in changed anti-terrorism policies, reports Simon Benson: 
A letter from Prime Minister Tony Abbott to the Attorney-General almost 18 months ago indicated growing terrorism concerns within the government.
It also revealed ASIO and AFP fears that unless the agencies’ resources were restored, they could not guarantee that our national security architecture was robust enough to cope with an increased terrorism threat.

image

Over the previous six years, more than $267 million had been ripped out of security and counterterrorism agencies by the former Labor government.
These were the deepest cuts on record to the clandestine agencies, at a time when newly troubling signs were emerging from the Middle East. 
Labor cut Australia’s anti-terrorism budget while giving more to the ABC.
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SPINNER AND BENDER

Tim Blair – Monday, May 18, 2015 (4:42am)

A friend has been blocked on Twitter by Shane Warne and Uri Geller. This achievement may be unique.
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MINING VERSUS WHINING

Tim Blair – Monday, May 18, 2015 (4:36am)

After his academic chat site lost its government funding, former sensitive Fairfax editor Andrew Jaspan complainedto the ABC: 
We’re good at more than just having, you know, scooping up coal and iron ore and putting it on boats to China and Japan and India. You know, we should be more than that and we should be leading you know ideas in terms of supporting a knowledge economy which will position Australia both in the region, in our sort of Asian region but also globally as a smart and clever country. And that’s really the positioning statement that we put to the government. And, for whatever reason, they chose not to support it any further. 
Possibly because a “knowledge economy” driven by leftist academics isn’t really something Australia should rely upon for significant economic growth. Although the ABC’s Linda Mottram is supportive: 
Andrew Jaspan, the founder and editor of The Conversation. Well worth a look, really leading out there with Australian ideas. As Andrew said, showcasing them, and putting Australia up as an ideas hub – rather than just a, you know, “dig it out of the ground” hub. 
Just a “dig it out of the ground” hub, she sneers. Here’s one tiny difference between the Australian mining industryand Jaspan’s idea factory: one of them makes money, while the other takes money. 
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No, Emma. It really is about your rudeness and your bias

Andrew Bolt May 18 2015 (7:38pm)

I am very sorry to hear Alberici play the sexism card:
Lateline host Emma Alberici - one of the ABC presenters Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said could adopt a “less aggressive” interviewing style - says female interviewers are regularly attacked for asking tough questions while their male colleagues are not…
“People are far quicker to attack a woman in public than they would a man,” Alberici said.
“When I do a tough interview I will be called an ‘aggressive bitch’ but when [fellow Lateline co-host] Tony Jones does a similar interview he is just tough. No one would call him a bitch. That’s something we grapple with [as female interviewers] because people don’t want us to be tough.”
That is hiding behind a skirt.
Turnbull was commenting after I played or shown him four examples of bias or aggression by ABC presenters, two male, two female, and one from a male-hosted show (PM).
Moreover, Alberici should Google the many criticisms I have made of her male colleagues Tony Jones, Paul Barry, Jon Faine, Robyn “100 metres” Williams and more.
Here, for instance, is an excerpt of just one of the many criticisms I’ve made of Faine’s bias and interviewing style:
Fourth, Faine repeatedly interrupted and badgered Monckton…
Sixth, Faine repeatedly allowed Posner and callers to abuse Monckton in the most offensive and childish manner, even calling him a “lunatic” and suggesting he was corrupt…
Eighth, Faine allowed the calls that got through to be entirely dominated by ones hostile to Monckton…
And ninth, Faine’s personal interventions were not just partisan but so ill-informed - or, rather, so informed by alarmism - that he even claimed “tsunamis” were caused by global warming. 
On Faine again:
Faine this morning wasted no time in confirming everything I’ve said about his rank bias - and that of the ABC. Here are just some excerpts from this aggressive, angry and highly partisan interview of Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg:
About Tony Jones:
… a smartarse insult from ABC Leftist host Tony Jones ...
On Jones again:
I don’t heckle [my own guests], sneer at them, get stacked audiences to jeer them or run Tweets under their face to insult them. Yet Liberals do go on the ABC’s Q&A program to subject themselves to all the above.
Is Alberici seeking special protection from criticism on the grounds that she is a woman? 
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I’ll help pay Rachel Ball for 18 weeks off, but she doesn’t deserve a cent more from me

Andrew Bolt May 18 2015 (2:27pm)

Notice the crucial missing argument in this studied offence-taking from Rachell Ball, (not surprisingly) from the Human Rights Law Centre:
New mothers have been added to the Abbott government’s cast of villains…
Who knew that underneath all the vomit-stained active wear was a greedy fraudster claiming more than four months off work to spend with her newborn child?…
I was particularly surprised to see this new rogue exposed, as I am one of the dastardly double-dippers… I’m talking about those recently maligned new parents, the majority of whom are women, who have access to both the government paid parental leave scheme and an employer-funded entitlement. 
I am able to take more than the government-funded 18 weeks off work, but it certainly doesn’t feel like a rort to me. I breastfeed six times a day, so if I had to go back to work next week, I’d be spending a significant chunk of the day crouched in the corner of a meeting room strapped to a breast-pump (a device that – for those who have never seen one – resembles something you’d expect to find in an industrial dairy). I’d like to see Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott give that a go and still insist it’s a perfectly reasonable expectation to have of women…
I’m all for teaching my son resilience and independence, but I reckon child protection would have something to say if I left him at home alone with a plastic giraffe and a box of wipes…
The sudden insistence that all women, rich or poor, should only be able to access the same low entitlement takes the government on a curious and uncharacteristically egalitarian turn. But if the government really cared about fairness, it would progress gender and economic equality by raising the standard for all women, not cutting entitlements for about 50 per cent of women who can access both government and employee entitlements.
The missing argument? It’s why the rest of us should pay Hall more than the 18 weeks of pay she’s already taking off. Her child, her responsibility, surely.
Then there are the other arguments. As in why we should pay Ball another $18,000 in Centrelink payments above her generous 18 weeks off when the deficit is now $35 billion, the debt dangerous and the cookie jar empty. Could Ball at the very least tell us what other spending should be cut so women like her can get more? Who must get less so she can get more time off?
I really do think the sense of entitlement from some in the middle class is out of control. And the only-women-bleed complaining is surely last century. Haven’t we progressed beyond such stereotypical stuff? 
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Pope flirts with authoritarians

Andrew Bolt May 18 2015 (11:48am)

This Pope’s political instincts worry me, and I am not sure that compromising with authoritarians worked for some previous popes:
Last year, he helped to broker an historic accord between Cuba and the United States… This past week, his office announced the first formal accord between the Vatican and the State of Palestine—a treaty that gives legal weight to the Holy See’s longstanding recognition of de-facto Palestinian statehood despite clear Israeli annoyance.... [T]he pope has been careful to avoid taking sides on issues like Ukraine, where he has never defined Russia as an aggressor…
That approach is intended to ensure he remains more credible with countries like Syria, Russia or Cuba, all nations where Francis feels he can help local Christians best by steering an independent course.
Flirting now with global warming alarmists is yet another sign that Pope Francis is compromising with the competition, and with enemies of the individual. 
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ABC show to discuss ABC not holding Flannery to account

Andrew Bolt May 18 2015 (11:30am)

Tom Switzer, one of the only two conservatives that Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull could yesterday name as ABC presenters, is interviewing sceptic Nigel Lawson about climate change on Radio National at 7.30pm on Thursday.
Lord Lawson is a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and is now chairman of the Global Warming Police Foundation.
I believe Switzer will ask Lawson about Tim Flannery and the failure of ABC journalists to hold him to account on mad predictions like these:
Since 1998 particularly, we’ve seen just drought, drought, drought, and particularly regions like Sydney and the Warragamba catchment - if you look at the Warragamba catchment figures, since ‘98, the water has been in virtual freefall, and they’ve got about two years of supply left, but something will need to change in order to see the catchment start accumulating water again. ...
So when the models start confirming what you’re observing on the ground, then there’s some fairly strong basis for believing that we’re understanding what’s causing these weather shifts and these rainfall declines, and they do seem to be of a permanent nature. I don’t think it’s just a cycle. I’d love to be wrong, but I think the science is pointing in the other direction…
Well, the worst-case scenario for Sydney is that the climate that’s existed for the last seven years continues for another two years. In that case, Sydney will be facing extreme difficulties with water. 
I hope Tom can also squeeze in this one:
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Opinion: Change or die, Bill. Stop playing Santa

Andrew Bolt May 18 2015 (8:30am)

IF Labor wants to get elected, it must show we can trust it with our money. Trouble is, it’s doing the exact opposite.
At this rate, it is now likely to lose the next election, which is what Sportsbet and Sportingbet are tipping.
I tried to give this advice to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten last Friday when, for the first time since he got elected to Parliament, he came over to say hello.
Being terrible at small talk, I tried to point out why his Budget in Reply speech on Thursday was bad, and why — between you and me — he’s probably got just 18 months left as Labor leader unless he changes tack.
Your turn to change or die, Bill.
Sure, I understand why Shorten gave no sign that my advice was welcome or useful.
After all, I’m conservative, he’s Labor, so why trust me for tips?
Yet I’ll give them, for one very good reason.
(Read the full article here.) 
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Islamic State supporters are losing their head

Andrew Bolt May 18 2015 (8:24am)

A little warning to other idiots who think it might be fun fighting alongside psychopaths:
A MELBOURNE teen who was close mates with terrorist Numan Haider has died fighting with jihadis in the Middle East.
Irfaan Hussein, 19, has been killed while fighting for Islamic State — with speculation either a bomb blast killed him or he was beheaded by extremists for attempting to return to Victoria.
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Yeah, but

Andrew Bolt May 18 2015 (8:10am)

Politics - polls

The Age doesn’t seem to be enjoying its latest poll, showing the Abbott back from the dead and 50-50 with Labor:
image
UPDATE
I do suspect the electorate is a little more unforgiving than the IPSOS poll suggests, though. If I had to bet, I’d say the truth is still closer to today’s Newspoll result:

Voters have endorsed the Coal­ition’s second budget as the best in seven years, declaring it good for the economy, and four times more people than last year believe they will be personally better off…
Based on preference flows from the last election, ... the ALP has extended its 13-month lead over the government in two-party-preferred terms to be ahead by 53 per cent to 47 per cent...
Mr Abbott’s satisfaction rating also continued to rise, with the Prime Minister posting his sixth consecutive improvement, gaining two points to an eight-month high of 39 per cent. The number dissatisfied with his performance fell by four points to 52 per cent…
Mr Shorten’s satisfaction rating rose by one point to 35 per cent but his dissatisfaction improved by four points to 46 per cent. 
The Government damaged itself badly with broken promises and stubbornness. It needs time to prove again it can be trusted, by delivering steady, capable government. Abbott also needs to flesh out his image so voters invest more emotion in him, and feel that a vote for his Government is not just a vote for self-interest but for a moral cause. “Reconciliation” and constitutional recognition of Aborigines just doesn’t cut it, because too divisive and too much of a minority issue.
Bringing Australians together, when we seem instead to be fraying, seems to me what we need.
UPDATE
High praise for Treasurer Joe Hockey from the wife of arguably Labor’s best leader:
[Blanche] D’Alpuget, who lives in Treasurer Joe Hockey’s electorate in Sydney’s north, said the media had been particularly hostile towards Hockey who, in her view, delivered a brilliant political speech on budget night.
[Husband Bob] Hawke gave a character reference for the Treasurer in his defamation case against Fairfax and the couple find him “likable” and “sincere”.
“I thought Joe Hockey’s speech was the best budget speech I’ve ever heard. It was stage standard,” she said. “...Obviously it was a political speech but it was a very damn good political speech...”
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Not serious. Fund the audience instead

Andrew Bolt May 18 2015 (8:05am)

Tim Blair, surprisingly good humoured despite some recent bad news, explains just what we are getting for the taxes we give the Arts Council:
...according to [former Australia Council chair Rodney] Hall, the Australia Council’s “proudest achievement” has been to “make it possible for artists of all kinds to pursue their profession at home.”
Some achievement. Let’s check some recent Australia Council grant approvals and the amounts they cost:  
- “The story of a girl, a bird and a teapot.” ($34,672)
- “Enriching my sensory theatre practice with Master classes and mentoring in Body Mind Centering praxis.” ($12,000)
- “Dance theatre work devised by participants who identify as fat/large/bigger bodied.” ($20,000)
- “An interactive food based performance event sharing migrant/refugee mothers’ migration experiences.” ($35,000)
- “Traditional rainforest basketry training programs.” ($21,360)
- “Development of a new work exploring fictitious dance histories and conspiracies.” ($8,796)
- “Establish an independent arts practice that can sustainably produce puppet based visual theatre” ($8064)
The list goes on and on. Actress Jessica Clarke picked up $9960 to “develop my classical actor skill set, grow my networks and develop a sustainable arts practice.” What this means in practice was revealed in a subsequent Twitter message from Clarke: “Off to London today thanks to my Art Starts grant!”
The finest grant of them all occurred in 2011, when Sydney artist Denis Beaubois received $20,000 from the Australia Council. Beaubois simply piled the cash into two stacks, put a glass box around it and called the resultant piece “Currency”. The arts grant and the art were one and the same.
Then he put the money up for sale at an auction – where someone actually paid $21,350 to buy $20,000. ‘’The money I make will be used to finance part two of the project, which is a series of performance/video works on the division of labour, and capitalism,’’ Beaubois said at the time.
There is a much easier way for Beaubois and all Australian artists to study capitalism, and that is by participating in it. The Australia Council should be shut down, along with just about all arts funding. This would save close to $700 million per year and – absolutely guaranteed – would result in better art.
I’m happy to subsidise the arts. But I want those subsidies handed out by people who want to live with the results: the consumers, not the bureaucrats. So fund the audiences, and give tax deductions to art purchasers. Restore some of the tax “loopholes” for super funds buying art. Let us have a thousand Medicis, and not just a few, doling out taxpayer dollars, and too often to their mates. 
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Fiscal drag at least spreads the pain

Andrew Bolt May 18 2015 (8:00am)

Henry Ergas says the real problem is our wild spending. Until that is fixed, he’s not panicking about fiscal drag:
As for the government’s strategy of relying heavily on fiscal drag to inch us towards surplus, it is not entirely without merit: at least it erodes the tax-free threshold which Labor had set too high, allowing vast numbers of beneficiaries of public spending to escape income tax. And by spreading the pain widely, fiscal drag imposes far lower economic costs than the tax slugs on the middle class Labor has in mind.
But it does too little to cure our spending habit. That requires redefining the politics of public expenditure in a way this government has so far failed to do, with effects that will bite as it tries to restrain the lavish spending Labor promised on hospitals and schools. 
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The ABC or the weather? Malcolm Turnbull has the power to change one

Andrew Bolt May 18 2015 (7:45am)

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull on bias at the ABC:
We need to remember what Winston Churchill said – that complaining about newspapers is like complaining about the weather.
It is?
Turnbull doesn’t complain about the ABC, which he actually does have power to change.
Turnbull does complain about the weather, which he indeed cannot change but still wants to attempt with a tax.
UPDATE
And one form of complaining is effective. Calling out bias alerts the public to the journalists’ agenda.  
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Court jesters

Andrew Bolt May 18 2015 (7:39am)

Secret tapes? Foul language? Sickies? Strikes? Who can possibly have confidence in the Supreme Court of Queensland?
One of Queensland’s most senior Supreme Court judges secretly recorded an expletive-laden meeting with the state’s top judge, Tim Carmody, about who would preside over a then looming court case that could have decided this year’s state election.
In an extraordinary display of the worsening dysfunction within the Queensland judiciary, judge John Byrne used a smartphone to capture his explosive meeting with Chief Justice Carmody and another judge, David Boddice, days after the January 31 poll.
Chief Justice Carmody is purported to have referred to judges collectively as “scum’’ during the exchange to appoint a judge for an anticipated court case over the result in a Brisbane seat in the cliffhanger election…
It comes as the Chief Justice — elevated from chief magistrate last July by ousted premier Campbell Newman — today begins a month-long sick leave for a back problem.
The emergence of the recording also follows the public airing of a spat between Chief Justice Carmody and Court of Appeal president Margaret McMurdo — who is refusing to sit on another case with the Chief Justice — after a dispute in the appeal of Daniel Morcombe’s killer, Brett Peter Cowan.
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Turnbull puts free speech back on the agenda

Andrew Bolt May 18 2015 (7:18am)

Malcolm Turnbull is right, of course:
Government backbenchers pushing for change to the Racial Discrimination Act say it’s time to reopen the debate now that Communications Minister and prominent moderate Malcolm Turnbull has added his support.
Mr Turnbull has extended an olive branch to the Liberal Party’s right-wingers by publicly endorsing a milder proposal to reform Section 18C of the act, which conservative commentator Andrew Bolt was found to have contravened in 2011.
Mr Turnbull made the comments during his first ever appearance on Bolt’s television program…
Family First senator Bob Day put forward a compromise proposal after Prime Minister Tony Abbott reneged on his election promise to repeal the act.

The Day amendment would strike out the words “insult” and “offend”, meaning it would no longer be an offence to insult and offend a person on the grounds of race. It would, however, remain an offence to intimidate or humiliate a person.
Mr Turnbull said he was “very comfortable” with the so-called Day amendment and did not believe it would have “any negative impact”. But he stressed the government’s policy is to leave Section 18C unchanged…

Up to half a dozen Liberal senators have previously told Fairfax they are willing to cross the floor to support the Day amendment, which is being co-sponsored by Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjlelm and two Liberals: Dean Smith and Cory Bernardi.
Senators Smith and Bernardi welcomed Mr Turnbull’s endorsement and called on Prime Minister Tony Abbott to reopen the debate, saying the government now had political capital to re-prosecute the case for free speech. 
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More ABC programming for terrorists

Andrew Bolt May 18 2015 (7:05am)

Incredible priorities from the Rudd and Gillard Governments in the age of terrorism:
Labor cut Australia’s anti-terrorism budget while giving more to the ABC.
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IPSOS poll: Abbott’s stunning recovery continues, to 50/50

Andrew Bolt May 17 2015 (8:48pm)

How funny. The press pack denied its prey. So many predictions confounded. The ABC now in terror. Liberal rats reboarding the ship.  Labor now desperately searching for policies. The haters choking on their bile.
And ABC host Barrie Cassidy forced to change the sting for his weekly spot on ABC host Jon Faine’s show, which, recorded at the height of the Abbott-will-fall hype, from memory goes: “That’s the problem with leadership speculation. Once it starts it never stops.”:

In a stunning reversal of fortunes, the government has now pulled even with the Labor opposition [in the latest Fairfax IPSOS poll]....
Mr Abbott has also shot into the lead as the preferred prime minister ahead of Labor’s Bill Shorten.
At 44-39, it is the first time Mr Abbott has led on that index since April 2014 and the first time the government has been in a potentially election-winning position since February of that year…
The latest Fairfax-Ipsos poll has found support for the two parties is now locked at 50-50 in the immediate aftermath of the government’s 2015 budget…
The poll represents a cumulative 8 point switch from the 46-54 result recorded in the April survey…
I do recall one commentator mocking my call that we were witnessing a “stunning recovery”.  Let us see how he reacts to this change in the wind. 
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Ultimate selfies.....
Posted by Andy Trieu on Monday, 18 May 2015

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Day's End
Posted by Matt Granz on Monday, 18 May 2015

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ICYMI: Former President George W. Bush had some words of wisdom for  SMU's 2015 graduating class.Share this with friends who could use a little inspiration!
Posted by Fox News on Sunday, 17 May 2015

highly misunderestimated===
SHORTEN HAD BETTER KEEP ABREAST OF WHAT LIES AHEADUnion thugs make excellent union thugs but they never make Prime...
Posted by Larry Pickering on Sunday, 17 May 2015

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"Pope calls Abbas 'angel of peace' during Vatican meeting" What are your thoughts on that statement ?
Posted by Unofficial: Australian Jewish Communal Lobby on Saturday, 16 May 2015

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Posted by Terrell Suggs on Friday, 13 April 2012

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In honor of the 115th anniversary of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, here are some fun facts about how the book and movie differ: http://bit.ly/1EQ0QjI
Posted by Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing on Sunday, 17 May 2015

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=== Posts from last year ===

THE DISMISSAL

Tim Blair – Saturday, May 18, 2013 (5:35am)

Simon Crean’s March sacking echoed events of three decades prior: 
Julia Gillard was enraged as she watched on television Simon Crean tell a feverish media scrum that she should call a leadership spill ...
Her chief of staff, Ben Hubbard, was directed to obtain Crean’s resignation. When he was rebuffed, a letter of advice was prepared for the Governor-General recommending the termination of Crean’s commission.
Crean became the first minister in 35 years to be dismissed from office by the Governor-General on the instructions of the Prime Minister, rather than resign. No Labor minister has been sacked in this way since Jim Cairns in 1975. 
There’s a lot of 1975 in the current government’s trajectory. Meanwhile, old pals work the crowds: 
Rudd was out campaigning in Brisbane yesterday alongside Swan, the man who last year accused him of having no Labor values. 
Perhaps Labor’s power pair discussed Kerry-Anne Walsh’s soon-to-be-released book: 
This controversial and revealing book exposes how Team Rudd, in conjunction with a compliant media pack and a vicious commentariat, contrived to bring down Australia’s first woman prime minister. 
Er … didn’t Gillard bring down Rudd? I can’t remember. Anyway, the title seems problematic:

image

“Stalking”? This may be an issue for the metaphor experts at Polifact. According to NSW police: 
Stalking is a crime. Under the Crime (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007, stalking includes the following of a person about or the watching or frequenting of the vicinity of, or an approach to a person’s place of residence, business or work or any place that a person frequents for the purposes of any activity.
Stalking involves a persistent course of conduct or actions by a person which are intended to maintain contact with, or exercise power and control over another person. These actions cause distress, loss of control, fear or harassment to another person and occur more than once. 
Team Rudd is allegedly one busy outfit.
UPDATE. That Rudd/Swan meeting didn’t last for long. Note at the link that Rudd is looking at his watch, because of sexism.

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QUICK FLIP

Tim Blair – Saturday, May 18, 2013 (4:40am)

Hyperactive horse in Holland:



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WHALE OF A TIME

Tim Blair – Saturday, May 18, 2013 (4:37am)

Joe Hildebrand calmly reflects on this week’s budget experience: 
At 7.30pm when the doors open, we are set free into the Canberra night to experience all the joys our capital has to offer, such as freezing to death in a gutter. 
Still on Canberra, even National Public Radio in the US now joins the Skywhale fun. And the whalehead look captivates our capital:

image 

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MIGHT AND RIGHT

Tim Blair – Saturday, May 18, 2013 (4:25am)

Physical strength linked to politics: 
Men who are physically strong are more likely to take a right wing political stance, while weaker men are inclined to support the welfare state, according to a new study.
Researchers discovered political motivations may have evolutionary links to physical strength.
Men’s upper-body strength predicts their political opinions on economic redistribution, according to the research. 
The research actually goes a little deeper: 
Put another way, this study says that liberals are a coalition of rich wimpy men and strong poor men. By contrast, conservatives are a coalition of rich strong men and poor weak men. 
(Via Instapundit)

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PALESTINIAN FRIED CHICKEN

Tim Blair – Saturday, May 18, 2013 (4:11am)

Gaza’s horror – expensive KFC, delivered via tunnels: 
The French fries arrive soggy, the chicken having long since lost its crunch. A 12-piece bucket goes for about $27 here — more than twice the $11.50 it costs just across the border in Egypt. 
Will the suffering never end?

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GO LEFT, GO SMALL

Tim Blair – Saturday, May 18, 2013 (3:46am)

As Fairfax is to the ABC, the Guardian is to the BBC: 
The BBC has announced the appointment of a new editor for Newsnight … the job has not gone to a BBC veteran but to Ian Katz, the Deputy Editor of the Guardian. Fancy that …
I am simply flabbergasted by the insensitivity and political crassness of the BBC management. Do they have no idea how this looks? Can they not see that, so far as their critics are concerned, there is something deeply sinister about the apparently cosy relationship between the country’s most blatantly Left-wing newspaper and the BBC’s political coverage? What in the name of God are they thinking? 
They can’t be thinking about expanding their audience. The Guardian‘s circulation recently dropped to below 200,000, barely ahead of the major Fairfax titles in Australia.

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The Rembrandt of all flash mobs

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (3:13pm)

image
The Rijksmuseum is finally open again after one of the greatest cock-ups in museum history - a renovation, sabotaged through bureaucracy, which kept this great art museum closed for a decade.
But at least this stunt, to announce the rehanging of the musuem’s most famous painting, went off brilliantly:

(Thanks to reader leel.) 

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Socialism is for wimps

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (11:33am)

I type this with muscular fingers:
MEN with strong upper body strength are more likely to vote conservativelywhile physically weaker males have a greater tendency towards left-leaning views. 
And stronger men are more likely to protect their resources while weaker males favour more socialist views such as wealth distribution, researchers claim.

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Labor promises no surplus in its next term

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (11:27am)

Terry McCrann says Wayne Swan’s Budget is beyond parody:
What’s passed broadly unnoticed since Tuesday is that the Treasurer, even on his and Treasury’s dubiously optimistic fiscal and economic forecasting, is effectively promising to have budget deficits right through the full term of the next Gillard-Swan government, were it to win re-election in September.
Swan is effectively promising: re-elect us, and we will deliver three more years (at least) of deficits.
If everything went exactly right, the forecasts for both the economy and the two sides of the budget were exactly correct; and critically, government didn’t initiate a single dollar of new spending over the next three years; we would get a surplus of $1bn in 2015-16. Has there ever been a more stellar demonstration of lack of self-awareness? A year ago Swan promised a surplus of, well, $1bn, and delivered a deficit of $19bn. And now he still has as his first—still only promised—surplus the same ridiculously silly figure of $1bn…
On the not unreasonable assumption that a government, any government, would initiate some new spending, at some point in a three-year term, that is actually a forecast of a deficit in 2015-16. Even if the sun keeps shining… The forecasts are the very opposite of “robust”. They pivot entirely on the assumption that China will keep roaring along at near 8 per cent rates of growth in its economy.

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Tasmania: paradise for unions. Pity the wages

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (11:19am)

I don’t think this is a coincidence:

New figures show that 26 per cent of workers in Tasmania belong to a trade union, well above the national average of 18 per cent. But Tasmanian wages are the lowest in the country, with average weekly earnings at $1283 - compared with the national average of $1487… 
The state with the highest average weekly earnings is Western Australia at $1785. That state also has the lowest union membership at 14 per cent.
Reader TassieRooster notes:

Obviously our high proportion of public servants account for this as only 13% of non-government employees here are in a union.

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Green power means no work for Speedy

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (11:09am)

Reader Speedy on the price of green power - which has made South Australia’s electricity prices the highest of any state: 

Somewhat relevant to your story about green energy and South Australian electricity prices. 
I am in SA at work at a paper mill 11:30pm and every single production line is currently shut down due to excessive spot market electricity prices. This is becoming a more regular practice, in the last week alone the machinery here has shut for approximately 10 hours solely because it is cheaper for the company to have the machinery idle and wear the loss than to actually run and make product. The longer Australian governments fail to build coal fired electricity generation plants the longer this sort of practice will continue and more and more Australian manufacturing will go the way of the dinosaur.

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Bolt Report tomorrow

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (10:57am)

On Network 10 at 10am:
How did the Budget blow so many billions so fast?
Anthony Albanese joins us - the only Labor Minister ever to agree to come on the show.
Peter Costello and Michael Costa on the Budget and Tony Abbott’s cuts. Then there’s Julia Gillard’s tears.
Spin of the Week: won by ...
The twitter feed.
The place the videos appear.

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Labor’s Mundine endorses Abbott

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (10:52am)

Even a former Labor president now embraces Tony Abbott:

FORMER Labor Party national president Warren Mundine is poised to assume a powerful position in indigenous affairs under a conservative government after forging an extraordinary alliance with Tony Abbott that he declared was “bigger than partisan politics"… 
Mr Mundine, who quit the Labor Party six months ago, has endorsed Mr Abbott’s vision for Aboriginal Australia and confirmed he stands ready to serve a future prime minister in the quest to end indigenous disparity, regardless of that leader’s political stripe. “If the Prime Minister offers me a job I would seriously consider it and possibly take it,” he said.
By “the Prime Minister”, Mundine means Abbott. Gillard is history already.
Always liked Mundine’s style:


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Turning off Gillard’s tears

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (10:38am)

 Michael Gordon, long the Prime Minister’s go-to journalist, concedes the public no longer even trust Julia Gillard’s tears:

Yet an analysis by iSentia reveals that the reaction to this rare and clearly genuine display of emotion by the Prime Minister was ‘’moderately unfavourable’’ on talkback radio, with remarks including ‘’Gillard is crying for herself, not disabled people’’.
Peter Hartcher speaks to a Labor MP who seems to share that view:

Labor’s budget this week is like the pyramid of an Egyptian pharaoh, says one of the party’s federal MPs: “Gillard is building the monuments for her legacy, and she’s sacrificing us slaves in the process...” 
...  now, according to Gillard’s unimpressed MP, we see the narcissism of legacy-building. What are her modern-day pyramids and sphinxes? One is the national disability insurance scheme that Gillard has labelled DisabilityCare.
It’s the Black Knight all over again. Laurie Oakes, who so often has hailed past turning points for Labor (the carbon tax, Obama’s visit, making Slippery Pete the Speaker) says Labor now detects another:

The Coalition benches erupted in delight at the end of Abbott’s speech. Faces on the government side were grim. Gillard had sat through it with an expression like a sour Easter Island statue. 
But, after poring over what Abbott had said, Labor’s leaders and their minders were a little less down in the mouth.
They realised the speech meant the Opposition Leader was starting to move away from his small-target strategy.
”The clouds parted and we saw a bit of blue sky,” according to a party strategist.
Abbott’s rejection of the Gonski school funding measures, he said, “makes the election about education—our issue”. Labor will now portray Abbott as taking away billions of dollars from school children.
Good luck with that. Labor wants us to worry not about what it has done, but about what the Liberals might do. Don’t think that will work, not least because Labor’s own cuts kind of spoil the message:
Fairfax Media analysis reveals federal support for schools would be $21 million lower in 2014-15 and $136 million lower in 2015-16, compared with what was previously budgeted. 
UPDATE
Paul Kelly is right - the public won’t fall for a scare about what the Liberals might do when they’ve seen what Labor has done already:
Gillard will turn this into a contest of Labor icons and values - witness schools, superannuation, care for the low paid and rejection of fiscal austerity - against her allegation of Liberals who “always cut to the bone”. Seizing on Abbott’s language of “budget emergency”, Gillard said Abbott wanted “only more and deeper cuts”. 
Yet Abbott is merely confronting Labor’s budget mismanagement. Labor’s problem is that the public realises this. It knows Labor’s surplus never arrived and has been postponed, at best, to 2015-16. Abbott’s election message is that his mission is to repair Labor’s mess and this will have community traction.
(Thanks to reader Peter.) 

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Remember when Labor would stop the warming, house the homeless and teach the children?

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (10:14am)

Kevin Rudd declares in 2007: 

Climate change is the great moral challenge of our generation. 
Today:
Australia has all but dumped $75 million of projects regrowing forests in the developing world and shelved a $100 million forest carbon partnership between Indonesia and Australia… 
Australia’s contribution to global environment programs will plummet from $74.1 million in 2012-13 to just $1.5 million next year, the budget papers reveal.
Kevin Rudd promises in 2008:

KEVIN RUDD has declared a 10-year effort to tackle homelessness, warning that the problem is getting worse despite the nation’s soaring wealth… 
About 100,000 people a night are homeless… 
Rudd’s target:

...halve overall homelessness by 2020
Today:

THE head of one of the nation’s largest charities has expressed concern that Labor has abandoned its commitment to halving homelessness by 2020 after the federal budget failed to fund efforts beyond just one year. 
National chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society Dr John Falzon said ... “There are 105,000 Australians trapped in the cycle of homelessness...”
Judge not by seeming but by achieving. It’s a critical difference between the Left and conservatives.
UPDATE
No different with Julia Gillard, of course, except the dreams collapse much faster.
Gillard a month ago:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has unveiled the Government’s long-awaited plan to overhaul school funding, promising to contribute 65 per cent of the total cost… 
“It’s a lot of money, but I believe it is a wise investment in our children’s future and in our nation’s future.”
Today:
Julia Gillard’s signature school funding reforms would deliver a saving to the budget bottom line in two of the next three years, despite her pledge to provide billions of dollars in spending increases. 
Fairfax Media analysis reveals federal support for schools would be $21 million lower in 2014-15 and $136 million lower in 2015-16, compared with what was previously budgeted. In these years the extra cash offered under the Gonski reforms is exceeded by the ‘’redirection’’ of money earmarked for national partnership programs.

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Taxed by Big Government on their prayers

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (10:06am)

The Internal Revenue Service scandal - Big Government persecuting conservatives - just gets more amazing:
During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing today, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., grilled outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller about the IRS targeting a pro-life group in Iowa. 
“Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers,’” Schock declared. “Would that be an inappropriate question to a 501 c3 applicant?” asked Schock. “The content of one’s prayers?”
What did Obama know and when did he know it?
The Treasury Department’s inspector general told senior Treasury officials in June 2012 he was auditing the Internal Revenue Service’s screening of politically active organizations seeking tax exemptions, disclosing for the first time on Friday that Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year…
J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, told members of the House Ways and Means Committee that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel of his audit on June 4, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin “shortly thereafter."… Complaints from Tea Party groups that the I.R.S. was singling them out became public in 2012, through media accounts. 
The Left never accept they have a bias:

Steven T. Miller, the acting I.R.S. commissioner, who has resigned, called the agency’s actions “obnoxious,” but told the House Ways and Means Committee they were not motivated by partisanship.

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A great prime minister, ruined by evil journalists

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (7:54am)

image
Journalist Kerry-Anne Walsh strikes me as tribal, and, of course, Left of centre. No surprise or novelty there. But what’s odd is the Manichean view of the world that goes with it: what helps her side is good, what hurts is perforce evil.
Here’s a recent example. It’s “obscene” when a Murdoch newspaper publicises bad polls for Labor, it’s less so when the Leftist Fairfax papers do so, and its perfectly fine when anyone at all uses polls to attack the Liberals instead.

Kerry-Anne Walsh, Niki Savva and David Speers, Sky News yesterday: 
WALSH: Your newspaper would be very pleased we’re discussing (Newspoll) before it’s even published. And then all day tomorrow it will feed into the eternal question of leadership, derail the government for another day - fabulous opportunity for doorstops for Tony Abbott. All for what? Because The Australian has a great marketing tool ... it’s a political intervention tool on behalf of The Australian and frankly the obsession with opinion polls is just bordering on the obscene.
Speers: A political intervention by The Australian?
Walsh: Yes, absolutely. They write these polls up continuously ... You have commentators, you have analysts saying that this now, yet again, spells the end for Gillard; this is what’s going to come out tomorrow.
Savva: It’s not like it’s something new ...
Host: What, then, was the Nielsen poll put out by Fairfax last week?
Walsh: The Nielsen poll, if you recall when it was carried that day, there were five of its journalists who interpreted it carried the death knell for Labor.
Speers: So they’re all intervening in politics as well?
Walsh: I think The Australian’s journalists and commentators are far more forceful about their opinions and about their use of Newspoll and always have been than the Nielsen, the Fairfax journalists. 
On the other hand:
Happy Christmas, poll lovers! Walsh in The Sunday Telegraph, December 24, 2000: 

IF John Howard is taking seriously opinion polls that suggest Labor has to do nothing more than sit patiently to win government, his portfolio shuffle ... has the hallmarks of a prime minister looking to the longer-term future of his party…
Kerry-Anne Walsh, The Sydney Morning Herald, October 14, 2007:
PRIME minister John Howard said on Friday that the election would boil down to one question: “Which side of politics has what it takes to keep Australia strong, prosperous and secure into the future?” Today’s exclusive Sun-Herald/Taverner poll has the answer. And it’s not one Mr Howard wants to hear.
Note, incidentally, how Walsh seems to regard the recent polls - showing the Gillard Government at appalling lows - as signifying nothing significant in themselves. It’s as if the public’s low opinion of Gillard is not real or worthy of mention. The polls are significant only in how journalists use them to manipulate a public without a mind or judgement of its own.
Hold that thought…
The very same with-us-or-against-us moral framework informs Walsh’s soon-to-be-released book, to judge by the extraordinary publisher’s blurb. The book’s thesis:
This is the story of one of the most extraordinary episodes in recent Australian political history, of how a powerful media pack, a vicious commentariat and some of those within her own party contrived to bring down Australia’s first woman prime minister.
Here we go ahead. The public hasn’t itself decided this government has lied, cheated and bungled, dividing Australians with its politics of hate and it racks up unforgivable debt in a boom. No, it’s “a powerful media pack, a vicious commentariat and some of those within her own party” who have “contrived to bring down Australia’s first woman prime minister”.
If it wasn’t for her media critics, Gillard would be sailing.  Voters are morons, Gillard is great.
But wait. Aren’t there in fact plenty of media outlets - the ABC, SBS, mummy bloggers, Fairfax papers and so on - who have been sympathetic to Gillard and viciously hostile to Tony Abbott?
Hmm. In fact, this brings us back to Walsh’s strange with-us-or-against-us moral judgement, as outlined by her publisher. Yes, there was a time when the media “collective” - especially a “fawning Canberra press gallery” - did side with Gillard, but that was seemingly good:
Julia Gillard took the reins of the Australian Labor Party on 24 June 2010; she did so with the goodwill of the majority of her party and a fawning Canberra press gallery at her feet. The man she supplanted, Kevin Rudd, led an isolated band of angry Labor voices at this surprising turn of events; the collective political and media verdict was that his time, short though it had been, was up....
But then “interstate journalists”, and some “key” ones in Canberra, undid all that good work - and this was bad. This was “stalking” and not “fair”:
By the time Gillard announced in February 2011 that her government would introduce a carbon pricing scheme, Rudd and his small team of malcontents were in lock-step with key Canberra and interstate journalists in a drive to push her out of the prime ministerial chair… 
Once deposed, Rudd’s toxic ambition appears to have been either to either return to the leadership, or destroy the government that had dumped him and the woman who had replaced him. In this pursuit he was abetted by political journalists who became pawns in Rudd’s leadership games… This is the story about one of the most extraordinary episodes in recent Australian political history. It focuses on Team Rudd and the media’s treatment of its slow-death campaign of destabilisation, with its disastrous effect on Gillard and the government’s functioning. This account is about a politician who was never given a fair go; not in the media, not by Rudd, not by some in caucus. Never has a politician been so assiduously stalked. Cast as a political liar and policy charlatan, she was also mercilessly and relentlessly lampooned for her hair, clothes, accent, her arse, even the way she walks and talks.
Walsh shares the delusion that has crippled Labor under Gillard. It’s a great government, ruined only by a bad press and a failure to “get out its message”.
Chris Kenny today notes the same meme in ABC reporting of the Government’s Budget: 
This was the day after the Treasurer delivered his sixth budget deficit in a row; the dirty half-dozen.
Host Emily Bourke asked economics correspondent Stephen Long a question that, arguably, would not have been on the tip of the tongue for most taxpayers: “Why do you think Labor isn’t getting more credit for its economic achievements?”
“I think it’s a combination of things, Emily,” was Long’s promising start. Perhaps one of those “combination of things” would be the fact this budget, delivering a $19 billion deficit, came immediately after the one that announced four surpluses.
But no, that wasn’t Long’s train of thought.
“I think it’s that Labor lacks a Paul Keating,” he said. Ah, this time we could see where he was going. Long would explain the need for a competent financial manager and serious economic reformer. Wrong again.
“A big-picture storyteller who can sell its message,” he explained.
Really? A storyteller. Paul Keating or Mem Fox, take your pick.
Here was I thinking it might be about keeping promises, meeting forecasts and even ensuring numbers add up.
Long said Labor’s “managerialist way” had delivered changes in “little dribs and drabs” rather than in a “bold plan” and this, apparently, explained why the government didn’t get the credit it deserved.
But wait, as the infomercials say, there’s more. “Also a hostile media environment,” Long continued, “where sections of the press have been coming from an ideological perspective that’s hostile to what Labor’s been trying to achieve.” 
Don’t you see, you fools: Gillard is a great Prime Minister, betrayed by vicious journalists who have hoaxed a brainless public. No wonder the Left want laws to muzzle such an evil media. 

===

Solidarity forever … gone

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (7:09am)

image
They’ve fractured their own party like they’ve fractured the country:


THE most awkward reunion in recent political memory was over with a handshake and just four words yesterday. 
“Welcome to my electorate,” smiled former prime minister Kevin Rudd to Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan - the man who famously accused Mr Rudd of “putting his own self-interest ahead of the interests of the broader Labor movement and the country as a whole” following his unsuccessful February 2012 leadership spill. It was then left to Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese - who was also attending the event, a joint press conference at Brisbane’s Kangaroo Point - to break the awkward silence with some small talk about last night’s Brisbane Broncos match at Suncorp Stadium.

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That was not the time to stop Bess Price speaking

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (12:19am)

Reader Sisyphus alerts me to something symbolic - and sad - about the way Bess Price’s stunning speech below was stopped:

Andrew, 
It is worth noting that Mrs Price’ incredibly important and powerful speech to the NT Legislative Assembly on Thursday was shut down by Mrs Delia Lawrie, the Leader of the Opposition and foremost Labor politician in the NT.
From the Hansard of the NTLA:
Mrs LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! I have to draw your attention to the clock, it is a standing order. Mr DEPUTYSPEAKER: In adjournment we do have a bit of leniency. Continue, Member for Stuart …
Mrs LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! We do not actually. I appreciate Bess’s speech, by the way, and believe this should be normally spoken in full length. I am sure you can do it another time, but there are conventions …
Given the content of Price’s speech, Lawrie’s intervention was doubly unfortunate.
For readers of this blog, Price is a voice that should be heeded, not such down:
Reader elinjaa:
I have an enormous amount of respect for Bess Price. She continues to say that which needs to be said and work for changes that need to be made in the face of constant critisism and abuse from the “progressives"… Perhaps voices like hers will now be heard and the NT will show the rest of the country the way by finding genuine solutions to what seem like intractable problems for indigenous communities.
Reader Susie:
WOW - what a woman.
Reader Saad:
Oh. My. God.This is by far the most powerful essay I have ever read on the plight of Aboriginal Australia. We must stand behind this brave person, lose the empty symbolic racism that seeks to keep aboriginals in some kind of sick cultural museum and address the issues as we would for all other Australians. Welfare snd the law of the land must be blind to colour, race or creed. Only in this way can we honour the bravery and single-mindedness of Bess Price and the disenfranchised victims she champions in this landmark piece.I hope Tony Abbott reads this essay.

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Bess Price: why this deadly silence when our women are dying?

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (12:11am)

Free speech, The politics of race
image
Northern Territory MP Bess Price, one of a number of Aboriginal conservatives now being heard, made this brilliant, brave and shocking speech in the NT Legislative Assembly.
I urge you to read it. Learn of the new racism that shields those who bash, rape and kill Aboriginal women and children in particular, and which punishes those, like Bess, who speak out against it:


Within the last four months, two more young mothers related to me were killed in Alice Springs Town Camp. One was injured mortally in the public, in front of several families. Nobody acted to protect her. Dozens of my female relatives have been killed this way. Convictions usually lead to light sentences. I was told by a senior lawyer that no jury in Alice Springs will convict an Aboriginal person for murder if the victim is also Aboriginal and he or she is only stabbed once.
We all have done nothing effective to stop this from happening. It has been going on for decades. This week we heard outrage from the Stolen Generation Association because this government wants to put the safety and wellbeing of our children first before their (inaudible) culture. I am not talking about the children of the Stolen Generation. It is our children.
Why hasn’t there been the same outrage over the continuing killing of our women and abuse and neglect of our kids? If these women victims were white, we would hear very loud outrage from feminists. If their killers had been white, we would hear outrage from the Indigenous activists. Why is there such a deafening silence when both victim and perpetrator are black? I believe that we can blame the politics of the progressive left and its comfortably middle class urban Indigenous supporters.


image 
Because I have spoken out on this issue and others close to my heart, I have been routinely attacked by the left. Professor Larissa Behrendt claimed that what I say is more offensive than watching a man having sex with a horse. Her white professional protester colleague, Paddy Gibson, told the world that I was only doing it for the money and frequent flyer points. The Queensland educationist, Chris Sarra, said that I was ‘pet Aborigine’ who only said what the government wanted me to say. Chris Graham, the white editor of Tracker magazine called me a ‘grub’. A white woman in Victoria, Leonie Chester, calls herself Nampijinpa Snowy River, on the internet. She tells the world that my people, the Warlpiri, are ‘her mob’. She and her friends have obscenely insulted me on the internet, over and over. Marlene Hodder, a white woman from Alice Springs and her protesting friend, Barbara Shaw, have called me a liar several times.
The Crikey blogger, Bob Gosford, who calls himself ‘the Northern Myth’, calls me Bess ‘Gaol is Good for Aboriginal People’ Price and accuses me of ‘vaguely malevolent and populist buffoonery that is designed to capture the attention of the tutt-tutterers and spouted by politicians that inevitably have a short tenure in power’. In Brisbane, Tiga Bayles, using an Indigenous community owned radio station, told the whole world that I am ‘a head nodding Jacky-Jacky for the government’ and that I am ‘totally offensive and arrogant’ because I do not want people like Tiga who know nothing about us, speaking about my people. He and his friends laughed as they told the world that I am only interested in money.
When my daughter went to Sydney for the Deadly Awards, an Aboriginal interviewer for the Koori Radio Station in Redfern advised her not to tell anybody who her mother was. This is how these people show respect for family. In the last month, I have watched three of my sisters and a grand-daughter being buried. These racists and sexists hypocrites sneer at our grief and care nothing for our suffering, but they are the darlings of the left. I wonder what would happen if Andrew Bolt had used insults like these against any Indigenous Australian. The hypocrisy of these people is incredible.
But I am in good company. When Mantatjara Wilson, a wonderful strong compassionate women I called mother, told the world about the crimes against her children on national TV, back in 2007, with tears streaming down her face. The left-wing activist moved to undermine her. They went into the communities not to protect the kids but to find women who would oppose Mantatjara. They talked about outrage and shame, not because of the crimes you all know about but because somebody else was brave enough to tell the world about them and ask for help. That was what they called shameful.
They worry about the shame felt by perpetrators once they were exposed, not because of the agony of the victims and families. It is easy to find women who will support their men even though they are killers and rapists. Families are always stand up for their own and those who call themselves progressive will always find those willing to stand beside them and betray their own women and kids.
I few others have stood up and faced the vicious criticism of the left. I acknowledge the wonderful work of Dr Hannah McGlade in Perth and Professor Marcia Langton in Melbourne. Warren Mundine and Noel Pearson have also spoken out. A conference of Aboriginal men in Alice Springs publicly apologised to Aboriginal women and kids for the violence and abuse men have inflicted on them. None of those people have received support from the left or from Labor governments.
The left has tried really hard to call us liars and to put us down for speaking the truth and for wanting to stop the killing and the sexual violence. But they have put no effort, none at all, into protecting our kids and women. The exception to this has been a determination of Minister Jenny Macklin, who I acknowledge for her courage in the face of strong criticism from her own party and the Greens. 

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Lagan’s last excuse for saying Kiribati was drowning: some land isn’t nice to stand on

Andrew Bolt May 18 2013 (12:03am)

Global warming - propaganda
The Global Mail’s Bernard Lagan said global warming was drowning Kiribati:

The waves are slowly seeping over Kiribati, which is at the frontline of the climate-change-induced rise in sea levels...
When I showed  one island of Kiribati clearly unaffected by any rising seas, Lagan insisted I check instead South Tarawa.
I did. As I wrote:  it was actually growing, not shrinking.
Now Lagan concedes that, er, yes:

...the most populous atoll of Kiribati – the tiny islet of Betio, Kiribati’s commercial heart – had increased in size by more than 36 hectares over the past 60-odd years. That’s an increase in land area of 30 per cent… (It) is also true, as the scientific paper concluded, the land masses of the low-lying islands and atolls the researchers studied have remained largely stable or even increased over the decades. 
That is enough right there to destroy that picture he once painted of a sad island, desperately overcrowded with climate refugees, slipping under the waves - and the rest of Kiribati eventually with it.
(Lagan tellingly does not address the other howler I picked up in his apocalyptic narrative - his claim that much of the overcrowding in South Tarawa is the result of “outer-islanders fleeing the effects of climate change”. In fact it’s due to a high birth rate, job-seekers drifting to the big town, and more children being sent from outer islands for a schooling.)
So where is Lagan’s apology to his readers? To me, whom he branded a “denier” and liar for pointing out his error?
Now watch as climate alarmism turns into farce.
Having conceded the islands are more likely to be growing than - as he’d claimed - sinking, Lagan now claims it does not actually matter. He insists he is still right for the following reasons (read and weep):

- some of the extra land is “a stinking mass of reclaimed land” or sediment washed up against a causeway. So that land doesn’t count, apparently because the islanders would from principle rather drown than stand on it.
- some of the extra land is sediment built up against “great heaps of armor lying in shallow waters”. Apparently this land doesn’t count either, because “these are the remains of the bloody WWII Battle of Tarawa when an American amphibious landing dislodged the occupying Japanese at a frightful cost to both sides”. War is hell.
- true, while the islands so far are waving, not drowning, scientists think that what Lagan said had happened already in Kiribati could still happen one day.  “The pace of sea level rise would likely also accelerate big changes to the islands and atolls.” Apparently a future prediction is the same as today’s reality, which suggest Lagan probably also wrote last year’s Budget.
- Lagan “spent time there” in Kiribati, and I didn’t.
Please read his entire piece. It is absolutely astonishing, and evidence that global warming truly is as I’ve described it - an article of faith, not a product of reason. 

===
Bread of Life,
Eternal Manna from Above,
Sweet Jesus, transform me,
Renew me in Your love.

You are my Treasure,
My Food, my Everything;
You are the Word made Flesh,
My Creator, my King.

Lord, You reign above all,
Yet in my heart You dwell,
Indeed more intimately
Than my words can tell.

Your Word I consume,
You and I are then one;
As bread becomes flesh,
I am one with the Son.

Yea, glorious truth:
You are one with me.
I abide in Your Word,
Thus we are one eternally.

Yet a mere sinner I am,
How can this be so?
How can the Holy One
I intimately know?

‘Tis by Your bloodshed,
By Your amazing grace;
By my faith in You,
I know Your embrace.

Eat of Your Living Bread,
Lord, I vow I shall do;
I long all the more
To be ever closer to You.

You are my Treasure,
My Food, my Everything,
You are the Word made Flesh,
My Creator, my King.

Jesus, Bread of Life,
Eternal Manna from Above,
I vow to live for You,
You nourish me with Your love
===

===
Larry Pickering
REFERENDUM IS A TRICK QUESTION

If the law bores you then read no further, but if you actually care what you are being asked to vote for then don’t expect either party to explain, they won’t and they haven’t, because they can’t afford to.

No-one in their right mind would want our third tier of spendthrift government (councils) to have yet more power. 

There are enough thieves in jail from the other two tiers.

Julia Gillard will welcome this silly referendum as another diversion but Abbott curiously gives it his blessing. Why?

Well, all Federal governments would love to bypass the States and, in some cases, that would have merit.

But this referendum has a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting up.

Even with bipartisan support it will need an overall majority, plus a majority in four of the six States and that simply won’t happen. Not this time.

The real reason Federal governments want councils to have Constitutional recognition is that councils have historically acted illegally when imposing fines.

They simply do not have the necessary statutory power to impose default judgments.

“Innocent until proven guilty” is not a law, it’s a principle that should be observed but in reality it is not.

In criminal law the alleged offender is jailed while awaiting trial. He is suspected of being, if not assumed to be, guilty.

Under common law you can be summarily punished. The burden of proof is on you to prove the accuser wrong.

Let’s take the ATO and the CSA, both statutory government Agencies with assumed powers to impose default judgments.

If either sends you a bill for $100,000, the burden of proof rests with you to prove their assessment wrong, even tho' it was they who initiated the action.

But how can you prove them wrong when these government Agencies keep all the best law firms on retainer (it’s hard to find a law firm to act for you) and the cost to challenge the judgment would exceed the assessed amount anyway?

If you are fined by a council for a parking offence or for any other “offence” you are assumed liable for a default judgment they have no statutory power under the Constitution to enforce.

That could open a Pandora’s box rendering every council in the country insolvent via class actions.

So, I walked into the chambers of Tony Morris QC who specialises in Constitutional law.

Not only did he agree with me but he suggested that even the default judgments of Government Agencies were unlawful, but no-one had ever challenged them on Constitutional grounds.

Wow! And he was prepared for a Constitutional challenge for a mate’s rate of $50,000.

Crumbs, that’s really cheap...it appeared a pet subject of his and he gave me reams of files to read up on.

I declined the offer because I didn’t have a lazy 50 grand and I felt sure the cost to re-interpret Constitutional law would escalate closer to a million bucks.

Anyway, ignore the referendum and next time you hear that phrase, “innocent until proven guilty”, better ignore that too.
===

===
PRAY ALONG.
O lord my God.As heaven opens to hear my prayers, I command you devourers and wasters of fortune to depart from my life,I break every curse of failure in the name of Jesus.Amen.

Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin'
Prayer to Play Fair in the Game of Life
Dear Lord, in the struggle that goes on through life, we ask for a field that is fair, a chance that is equal with all the strife, the courage to strive and to dare; and if we should win, let it be by the code, with our faith and our honor held high; and if we should lose, let us stand by the road and cheer as the winners go by. Amen..

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Beloved, I want you to know that Jesus is with you right now. You may not feel His presence, but He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Heb 13:5). So thank Jesus for His loving presence whether you feel it or not. Don’t go by your feelings as feelings can be deceptive. Go by His promise that He is Immanuel—God with us always!
http://josephprince.com/
===
Live life unafraid, trusting that God will open all the right doors for you! Learn how your Savior holds the key to the doors of eternal life, faith, deliverance and every blessing you need. Discover also what the key of David is, and how worshipping the Lord with the psalms of David can turn your negative situations around.

Click below to check out this powerful Message Of The Year DVD album. Be sure to click 'Like' and share this with your friends! Amen! http://bit.ly/13zdnMb
===
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JensenSutta-Malkin-1
Photo credit: www.jensensutta.com
Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for May 17th. Enjoy!

From the Blog

Obama’s emptiest Benghazi talking point; Plus: Where is Gitmo recidivist and alleged Benghazi jihad plotter Abu Sufian bin Qumu?

On Sept. 12, 2012, President Barack Obama vowed to “bring to justice” the perpetrators of the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya...

Eric Holder makes it clear that he doesn’t know

At Wednesday’s congressional hearing, Attorney General Eric Holder said “I don’t know” at least 20 times, thereby breaking a record I set on a quiz day back in high school algebra class...

Report: IRS employees ‘simply did what their bosses ordered’

Former acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller had originally said that a couple of lower level employees went “rogue” and “off the reservation” by targeting conservative organizations for extra scrutiny...

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Translation ... ?

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Eruption of Mount St. Helens

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“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” - Romans 11:33
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"So to walk even as he walked."
1 John 2:6
Why should Christians imitate Christ? They should do it for their own sakes. If they desire to be in a healthy state of soul--if they would escape the sickness of sin, and enjoy the vigour of growing grace, let Jesus be their model. For their own happiness' sake, if they would drink wine on the lees, well refined; if they would enjoy holy and happy communion with Jesus; if they would be lifted up above the cares and troubles of this world, let them walk even as he walked. There is nothing which can so assist you to walk towards heaven with good speed, as wearing the image of Jesus on your heart to rule all its motions. It is when, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you are enabled to walk with Jesus in his very footsteps, that you are most happy, and most known to be the sons of God. Peter afar off is both unsafe and uneasy. Next, for religion's sake, strive to be like Jesus. Ah! poor religion, thou hast been sorely shot at by cruel foes, but thou hast not been wounded one-half so dangerously by thy foes as by thy friends. Who made those wounds in the fair hand of Godliness? The professor who used the dagger of hypocrisy. The man who with pretences, enters the fold, being nought but a wolf in sheep's clothing, worries the flock more than the lion outside. There is no weapon half so deadly as a Judas-kiss. Inconsistent professors injure the gospel more than the sneering critic or the infidel. But, especially for Christ's own sake, imitate his example. Christian, lovest thou thy Saviour? Is his name precious to thee? Is his cause dear to thee? Wouldst thou see the kingdoms of the world become his? Is it thy desire that he should be glorified? Art thou longing that souls should be won to him? If so, imitate Jesus; be an "epistle of Christ, known and read of all men."

Evening

"Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee."
Isaiah 41:9
If we have received the grace of God in our hearts, its practical effect has been to make us God's servants. We may be unfaithful servants, we certainly are unprofitable ones, but yet, blessed be his name, we are his servants, wearing his livery, feeding at his table, and obeying his commands. We were once the servants of sin, but he who made us free has now taken us into his family and taught us obedience to his will. We do not serve our Master perfectly, but we would if we could. As we hear God's voice saying unto us, "Thou art my servant," we can answer with David, "I am thy servant; thou hast loosed my bonds." But the Lord calls us not only his servants, but his chosen ones--"I have chosen thee." We have not chosen him first, but he hath chosen us. If we be God's servants, we were not always so; to sovereign grace the change must be ascribed. The eye of sovereignty singled us out, and the voice of unchanging grace declared, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." Long ere time began or space was created God had written upon his heart the names of his elect people, had predestinated them to be conformed unto the image of his Son, and ordained them heirs of all the fulness of his love, his grace, and his glory. What comfort is here! Has the Lord loved us so long, and will he yet cast us away? He knew how stiffnecked we should be; he understood that our hearts were evil, and yet he made the choice. Ah! our Saviour is no fickle lover. He doth not feel enchanted for awhile with some gleams of beauty from his church's eye, and then afterwards cast her off because of her unfaithfulness. Nay, he married her in old eternity; and it is written of Jehovah, "He hateth putting away." The eternal choice is a bond upon our gratitude and upon his faithfulness which neither can disown.
===
Ham

[Hăm] - hot or dark, colored, swarthy. The youngest son of Noahand father of Canaan and founder of many peoples (Gen. 5:32; 6:10; 7:13; 9:18, 22; Ps. 78:51).

The Man Whose Sin Brought a Curse

In consequence of the improper conduct of Ham when Noah was drunk, the heart of his father was set against him. Without doubt, Ham's act was the manifestation of an impure heart. Perhaps he had always been a filthy dreamer.
Because every imagination of our heart is defiled (Gen. 8:21), we are all the sons of Ham in this respect. There is none clean, no not one (Rom. 3:10, 12).
The indignation of Noah found expression in the thrice repeated curse (Gen. 9:25-27 ). How tragic it is that the wickedness of Ham appears to have influenced the whole of his descendants whose history is one of folly and crime. The sin of one man polluted many peoples. Ham sinned, and a curse came upon Canaan. The Hamites were condemned to be hewers of wood and drawers of water.
Egypt is called "the land of Ham" (Ps. 105:23) and the Egyptian word for "Ham" is Kem, meaning black and warm. From Ham we have the Egyptians, Africans, Babylonians, Philistines and Canaanites.
===

Today's reading: 1 Chronicles 1-3, John 5:25-47 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: 1 Chronicles 1-3

Historical Records From Adam to Abraham
To Noah's Sons
1 Adam, Seth, Enosh, 2 Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, 3 Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah.
4 The sons of Noah:
Shem, Ham and Japheth....

Today's New Testament reading: John 5:25-47

25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
28 "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out--those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me....
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