Friday, June 26, 2015

Fri Jun 26th Todays News

Bolt report Instructions follow the publishing news. 
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After the ABC compounded their partisan error of broadcasting a jihadist they paid to express a view, the ABC rebroadcast it, and the Australian PM, Mr Abbott, said heads should roll. This was taken by the illiterate left to mean that Mr Abbott would behead people, and they claimed it was no different than what the jihadist wanted. The actual difference being that the jihadist had wanted to literally behead innocent people and Mr Abbott had wanted to ensure the law was followed and the jobs of those who were criminally negligent would not protect them from losing those jobs. A big difference. The innumerate on the left were highlighted by an Age article triumphantly crowing that Melbourne Dockyards would exceed the land area of Malta. In fact, Malta is 316 square kilometres in area. Port Melbourne is 9.7 square kilometres or 3.7 square miles. 

 Meanwhile, a jihadist in France has beheaded someone at a factory. It probably doesn't matter who. Someone said the victim is now at the mercy of Allah. The world may have to wait for QandA to cover all the angles. One might guess it is a refugee who is on jihad, fleeing the great life of his own nation to a land that doesn't share his broader beliefs, but is wealthier. If he had sex with a French prostitute then he might be classed by the UN as a survivor of torture. But even so, she would have understood his need to pretend she was a boy. If only Australia had a national broadcaster who could broadcast facts and issues without taking a partisan position. 

 In 4, Augustus adopted Tiberius. 221, Roman Emperor Elagabalus adopted his cousin Alexander Severus as his heir and received the title of Caesar. 363, Roman Emperor Julian was killed during the retreat from the Sassanid Empire. General Jovian was proclaimed Emperor by the troops on the battlefield. 687, Pope Benedict II chosen. 699, En no Ozuno, a Japanese mystic and apothecary who would later be regarded as the founder of a folk religion Shugendō, was banished to Izu Ōshima.

 In 1243, Mongols defeated the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Köse Dağ. 1295, Przemysł II crowned as king of Poland, following Ducal period. The white eagle was added to the Polish coat of arms. 1407, Ulrich von Jungingen became Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. 1409, Western Schism: The Roman Catholic church was led into a double schism as Petros Philargos was crowned Pope Alexander V after the Council of Pisa, joining Pope Gregory XII in Rome and Pope Benedict XII in Avignon. 1460, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, and Edward, Earl of March, landed in England with a rebel army and marched on London. 1483, Richard III became King of England.

 In 1522, Ottomans began the second Siege of Rhodes. 1541, Francisco Pizarro was assassinated in Lima by the son of his former companion and later antagonist, Diego Almagro the younger. Almagro was later caught and executed. 1579, Livonian campaign of Stephen Báthory began. 1718, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich of Russia, Peter the Great's son, mysteriously died after being sentenced to death by his father for plotting against him. 1723, after a siege and bombardment by cannon, Baku surrendered to the Russians. 1740, a combined force Spanish, free blacks and allied Indians defeated a British garrison at the Siege of Fort Mose near St. Augustine during the War of Jenkins' Ear. 1794, French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Fleurus marked the first successful military use of aircraft.

 In 1830, William IV became king of Britain and Hanover. 1843, Treaty of Nanking came into effect, Hong Kong Island was ceded to the British "in perpetuity". 1848, end of the June Days Uprising in Paris. 1857, the first investiture of the Victoria Cross in Hyde Park, London. 1870, the Christian holiday of Christmas was declared a federal holiday in the United States. 1886, Henri Moissan isolated elemental Fluorine for the first time. 1889, Bangui was founded by Albert Dolisie and Alfred Uzac in what was then the upper reaches of the French Congo.

 In 1906, the first Grand Prix motor racing event held. 1907, the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery took place in Yerevan Square, now Freedom Square, Tbilisi. 1909, the Science Museum in London came into existence as an independent entity. 1917, the first U.S. troops arrived in France to fight alongside Britain and France against Germany in World War I. 1918, World War I, Western Front: Battle for Belleau Wood: Allied Forces under John J. Pershing and James Harbord defeated Imperial German Forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince. 1924, American occupying forces left the Dominican Republic. 1927, the Cyclone roller coaster opened on Coney Island. 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Credit Union Act, which established credit unions. 1936, initial flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter.

 In 1940, World War II: Under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union presented an ultimatum to Romania requiring it to cede Bessarabia and the northern part of Bukovina. 1941, World War II: Soviet planes bombed Kassa, Hungary (now Košice, Slovakia), giving Hungary the impetus to declare war the next day. 1942, the first flight of the Grumman F6F Hellcat. 1944, World War II: The Battle of Osuchy in Osuchy, Poland, one of the largest battles between Nazi Germany and Polish resistance forces, ended with the defeat of the latter. 1945, the United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco. 1948, the Western allies began an airlift to Berlin after the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin. Also 1948, William Shockley filed the original patent for the grown junction transistor, the first bipolar junction transistor. Also 1948, Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery was published in The New Yorker magazine.

 In 1952, the Pan-Malayan Labour Party was founded in Malaya, as a union of statewide labour parties. 1953, Lavrentiy Beria, head of MVD, was arrested by Nikita Khrushchev and other members of the Politburo. 1955, the South African Congress Alliance adopted the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People in Kliptown. 1959, Swedish boxer Ingemar Johansson became world champion of heavy weight boxing, by defeating American Floyd Patterson on technical knockout after 2 minutes and three seconds in the third round at Yankee Stadium. 1960, the former British Protectorate of British Somaliland gained its independence as Somaliland. Also 1960, Madagascar gained its independence from France. 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after Soviet-supported East Germany erected the Berlin Wall. Also 1963, Levi Eshkol became the Israeli Prime Minister. 1967, Karol Wojtyła (later John Paul II) was made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI.

 In 1973, at Plesetsk Cosmodrome nine people were killed in an explosion of a Kosmos-3M rocket. 1974, the Universal Product Code was scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio 1975, two FBI agents and a member of the American Indian Movement were killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; Leonard Peltier was later convicted of the murders in a controversial trial. 1977, the Yorkshire Ripper killed a 16-year-old shop assistant Jayne MacDonald in Leeds, changing public perception of the killer as she was the first victim who was not a prostitute. 1977, Elvis Presley performed the final concert of his life in Indianapolis, Indiana. 1991, Ten-Day War: The Yugoslav people's army began the Ten-Day War in Slovenia. 1995, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani deposed his father Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, in a bloodless coup. Also 1995, attempted assassination of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa. 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Communications Decency Act violated the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

 In 2000, President Clinton announced the completion of the first survey of the entire human genome. Also 2000, John Paul II revealed the third secret of Fátima. 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that gender-based sodomy laws were unconstitutional. 2004, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson was re-elected as President of Iceland. 2006, Mari Alkatiri, the first Prime Minister of East Timor, resigned after weeks of political unrest. 2007, Benedict XVI reinstated the traditional laws of papal election in which a successful candidate must receive 2/3 of the votes. 2012, the Waldo Canyon Fire descended into the Mountain Shadows neighbourhood in Colorado Springs burning 347 homes in a matter of hours and killing two people. 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional and in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Also 2013, Riots in China's Xinjiang region killed at least 36 people and injured 21 others. Also 2013, Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani became Prime Minister of Qatar.
2014
In 1935, the movie "The 39 Steps" was released by Alfred Hitchcock. It starred Robert Donat as Richard Hannay and featured a thrilling flight scene involving a helicopter. Only, it could not have been a helicopter. The first functioning helicopter was released on this day in 1936. And the reason for the scene is worthy of investigation. Hitchcock was keen to impress the US audience, and hired as leads two British stars who had worked in Hollywood. He made it thrilling and modern with action involving international intrigue. One wonderful scene has Donat finding a lonely housebound wife in a UK outskirt. It is touching to see her loneliness and isolation, while the modern viewer might think she could just hop in a car or train, that was not then the experience of rural UK. Hitchcock included a Scottish industrialist who commuted to work each day in an autogyro. And that scene made the movie as refreshingly modern then, as Enemy of the State was in 1998. 

Also today in 1944, the Battle of Osuchy was lost by Polish Partisans fighting German invaders. The German forces numbered some 30,000 while the polish resistance numbered some 1,600. Outgunned and desperate, some managed to break out of their enclosure and continue the fight. Some surrendered and were executed outright, or sent to concentration camps. They risked much who fought tyranny. 

In 1963, JFK stood in front of a Berlin audience and announced in German he was a donut. He had fine words. It was the anniversary of the 1948 Berlin airlift. The Soviet's had blockaded Berlin which was deep in East German territory. Without the ability to send in supply trucks, East Germans were threatened with the loss of everything. An expectation might have been that the starving people would push to be governed by the Soviets. Instead, for the first time in history, the entire population of West Berlin was entirely supported by goods flown in by Western governments. The blockade lasted until Easter 1949, when the humiliated Soviets backed down. When JFK stood in Berlin and said "Ich bin ein Berliner" he probably thought he was saying he was one of them. Only, in German, he would have said it differently. A Berliner was a popular cream donut in '63. Later that year, JFK's brain was stolen. Some say he still lives. 
Historical perspectives on this day
In 4, Augustus adopted Tiberius. 221, Roman Emperor Elagabalus adopted his cousin Alexander Severus as his heir and received the title of Caesar. 363, Roman Emperor Julian was killed during the retreat from the Sassanid Empire. General Jovian was proclaimed Emperor by the troops on the battlefield. 687, Pope Benedict II chosen. 699, En no Ozuno, a Japanese mystic and apothecary who would later be regarded as the founder of a folk religion Shugendō, was banished to Izu Ōshima.

 In 1243, Mongols defeated the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Köse Dağ. 1295, Przemysł II crowned as king of Poland, following Ducal period. The white eagle was added to the Polish coat of arms. 1407, Ulrich von Jungingen became Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. 1409, Western Schism: The Roman Catholic church was led into a double schism as Petros Philargos was crowned Pope Alexander V after the Council of Pisa, joining Pope Gregory XII in Rome and Pope Benedict XII in Avignon. 1460, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, and Edward, Earl of March, landed in England with a rebel army and marched on London. 1483, Richard III became King of England.

 In 1522, Ottomans began the second Siege of Rhodes. 1541, Francisco Pizarro was assassinated in Lima by the son of his former companion and later antagonist, Diego Almagro the younger. Almagro was later caught and executed. 1579, Livonian campaign of Stephen Báthory began. 1718, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich of Russia, Peter the Great's son, mysteriously died after being sentenced to death by his father for plotting against him. 1723, after a siege and bombardment by cannon, Baku surrendered to the Russians. 1740, a combined force Spanish, free blacks and allied Indians defeated a British garrison at the Siege of Fort Mose near St. Augustine during the War of Jenkins' Ear. 1794, French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Fleurus marked the first successful military use of aircraft.

 In 1830, William IV became king of Britain and Hanover. 1843, Treaty of Nanking came into effect, Hong Kong Island was ceded to the British "in perpetuity". 1848, end of the June Days Uprising in Paris. 1857, the first investiture of the Victoria Cross in Hyde Park, London. 1870, the Christian holiday of Christmas was declared a federal holiday in the United States. 1886, Henri Moissan isolated elemental Fluorine for the first time. 1889, Bangui was founded by Albert Dolisie and Alfred Uzac in what was then the upper reaches of the French Congo.

 In 1906, the first Grand Prix motor racing event held. 1907, the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery took place in Yerevan Square, now Freedom Square, Tbilisi. 1909, the Science Museum in London came into existence as an independent entity. 1917, the first U.S. troops arrived in France to fight alongside Britain and France against Germany in World War I. 1918, World War I, Western Front: Battle for Belleau Wood: Allied Forces under John J. Pershing and James Harbord defeated Imperial German Forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince. 1924, American occupying forces left the Dominican Republic. 1927, the Cyclone roller coaster opened on Coney Island. 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Credit Union Act, which established credit unions. 1936, initial flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter.

 In 1940, World War II: Under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union presented an ultimatum to Romania requiring it to cede Bessarabia and the northern part of Bukovina. 1941, World War II: Soviet planes bombed Kassa, Hungary (now Košice, Slovakia), giving Hungary the impetus to declare war the next day. 1942, the first flight of the Grumman F6F Hellcat. 1944, World War II: The Battle of Osuchy in Osuchy, Poland, one of the largest battles between Nazi Germany and Polish resistance forces, ended with the defeat of the latter. 1945, the United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco. 1948, the Western allies began an airlift to Berlin after the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin. Also 1948, William Shockley filed the original patent for the grown junction transistor, the first bipolar junction transistor. Also 1948, Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery was published in The New Yorker magazine.

 In 1952, the Pan-Malayan Labour Party was founded in Malaya, as a union of statewide labour parties. 1953, Lavrentiy Beria, head of MVD, was arrested by Nikita Khrushchev and other members of the Politburo. 1955, the South African Congress Alliance adopted the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People in Kliptown. 1959, Swedish boxer Ingemar Johansson became world champion of heavy weight boxing, by defeating American Floyd Patterson on technical knockout after 2 minutes and three seconds in the third round at Yankee Stadium. 1960, the former British Protectorate of British Somaliland gained its independence as Somaliland. Also 1960, Madagascar gained its independence from France. 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after Soviet-supported East Germany erected the Berlin Wall. Also 1963, Levi Eshkol became the Israeli Prime Minister. 1967, Karol Wojtyła (later John Paul II) was made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI.

 In 1973, at Plesetsk Cosmodrome nine people were killed in an explosion of a Kosmos-3M rocket. 1974, the Universal Product Code was scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio 1975, two FBI agents and a member of the American Indian Movement were killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; Leonard Peltier was later convicted of the murders in a controversial trial. 1977, the Yorkshire Ripper killed a 16-year-old shop assistant Jayne MacDonald in Leeds, changing public perception of the killer as she was the first victim who was not a prostitute. 1977, Elvis Presley performed the final concert of his life in Indianapolis, Indiana. 1991, Ten-Day War: The Yugoslav people's army began the Ten-Day War in Slovenia. 1995, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani deposed his father Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, in a bloodless coup. Also 1995, attempted assassination of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa. 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Communications Decency Act violated the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

 In 2000, President Clinton announced the completion of the first survey of the entire human genome. Also 2000, John Paul II revealed the third secret of Fátima. 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that gender-based sodomy laws were unconstitutional. 2004, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson was re-elected as President of Iceland. 2006, Mari Alkatiri, the first Prime Minister of East Timor, resigned after weeks of political unrest. 2007, Benedict XVI reinstated the traditional laws of papal election in which a successful candidate must receive 2/3 of the votes. 2012, the Waldo Canyon Fire descended into the Mountain Shadows neighbourhood in Colorado Springs burning 347 homes in a matter of hours and killing two people. 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional and in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Also 2013, Riots in China's Xinjiang region killed at least 36 people and injured 21 others. Also 2013, Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani became Prime Minister of Qatar.
=== Publishing News ===
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.
===
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. 
===
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.
=== Bolt Report Items ===
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.  
===
Dear Members (YOU MUST READ THIS THREAD)
As of today, the rules of this forum are going to be enforced more rigorously. This includes the instant removal of members who personally abuse other members of this forum.
Whilst the use of bad language is often invoked as colourful descriptors of politicians, we ask that people refrain from the C word as there are many people on this forum who do not want to see that as part of every day language here.
Blatant racism, homophobia and religious slurs will be removed from the forum, along with the person who posted them.
Crass, vile & vitriolic hate posts will also be removed along with the person who posts those comments or threads.
Generally we will give people a 24 hour time out to cool off after they have been removed and those people will be welcome back to the forum once they have applied via an admin..... we will however, permanently remove repeat offenders with a rule of "3 strikes and you're out".
We are trying to encourage legitimate debate, conversation and discussion on this forum where people are able to have free thought and their own opinions without "mob" rule attacking them for thinking differently, however, in saying this, members who are here to deliberately cause trouble or "troll" will be removed without warning.
The standard of this forum needs to be better and people are responsible for their own behaviour.... bullying of others or bullying of admins will also result in that person being removed.
Legitimate criticism is appreciated, along with logical and rational commentary.
Admins decisions are final.... so make of this forum what you want of it and do not complain if you are removed for behaviour that is contrary to the posting protocols.
If you feel intimated or threatened by another person, contact an admin immediately so the situation can be monitored and mediated.
Regards
Admins
===
Happy birthday and many happy returns Binh Nguyen, Michelle Lam, Linh Duong, Jessica Chong and Don Kramer. Born on the same day, across the years. Your day is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, and it is fitting that the ALP have a leadership tussle to decide who is fit to lead the ALP. In 1886, French chemist Henri Moissan reported he was able to successfully isolate elemental fluorine, for which he later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 1906, The 1906 French Grand Prix, the first Grand Prix motor racing competition, was held outside Le Mans. In 1907, Organised by Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, among others, Bolshevik revolutionaries in Tiflis, Georgia, robbed a bank stagecoach, getting away with 341,000 rubles. In 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech (technically, it translates to be "I am a donut" the Berliner cream puff being popular), underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after Soviet-supported East Germany erected the Berlin Wall. In 2003, The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its decision in Lawrence v. Texas, striking down sodomy laws in the United States. What your day holds for you is not known to me, but this day illustrates your fierce competitiveness and drive, allowing you to break down all sorts of barriers for booty. And when you speak, you are devastatingly honest, isolating the element leaving drinking water clean. Enjoy it.
Deaths
Liquid fluorine
King of the alphabet! We have fluorine, so smile. We cleared the forest. The UN has come. It's a knockout. Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
===
2015
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Australia could have a Congo on its doorstep

Piers Akerman – Thursday, June 25, 2015 (6:14pm)

LAST week, PNG’s former police commissioner Geoffrey Vaki was found guilty of contempt for not arresting the country’s Prime Minister on corruption charges. As Australia is to provide $477 million in foreign aid to PNG in the coming year, Australians should be better informed about activities in our closest neighbour.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Australia could have a Congo on its doorstep'
===

LEFTIST GRATITUDE

Tim Blair – Friday, June 26, 2015 (5:01pm)

Albury’s Dave Gaukroger tweets:

image

What an interesting claim. Meanwhile, if Dave wants to find the people who generously donated more than $5000 to his Cambodian charity, may I suggest starting with News Corp comment sections.
Dave’s fundraiser was also publicised by Fairfax, the ABC and on Twitter. This site’s readers and commenters donated more money than all of those sources combined. And now Dave smears them. Nice bloke. 
===

AUSTRALIA’S BIGGEST THING

Tim Blair – Friday, June 26, 2015 (2:09pm)

Check out the Age‘s claimed size for Melbourne’s proposed Victoria Harbour project:

image

At 320 square kilometres, Victoria Harbour will be larger than Malta. Spectacular!
(Via Andrew R., who emails: “The Age. Innumerate. Always.")
===

GERARD vs SKELETOR

Tim Blair – Friday, June 26, 2015 (1:47pm)

A highlight from last evening’s Henderson-Holmes bout on Lateline: 
EMMA ALBERICI: So, just further to Jonathan Holmes’ question to you, on what criteria should people be denied entry to the Q & A studio and the right to ask a question?
JONATHAN HOLMES: For the rest of their lives.
GERARD HENDERSON: Well I would think anyone who threatens to commit murder would be a start.
JONATHAN HOLMES: Really?
GERARD HENDERSON: Yes. 
The former Media Watch host seemed genuinely surprised, much as he was at the start of the discussion, when Holmes glanced at a monitor and discovered his shirt collar was attempting to escape. Further from Andrew Bolt.
===

SIR ISAAV CICIAN RIVHARDS

Tim Blair – Friday, June 26, 2015 (1:06pm)

Not for the first time, the keyboard proximity of c and v leads to a naming blunder:

image

Still, at least today’s front page of the Australian was closer than the New York Times.
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RIGHT MAN FOR THE JOB

Tim Blair – Friday, June 26, 2015 (1:00pm)

“You couldn’t make it up,” writes Tom at Catallaxy. “The walloper being forced to defend screeching frightbat victimologist Clementine Ford is Inspector Glen Sickerdick.”
It’s an Adelaide name.
(Via Helen) 
===

Man decapitated in French attack

Andrew Bolt June 26 2015 (7:26pm)

Uh oh:
A man has reportedly been decapitated at a factory in France.

Local media reports said the suspected attacker was carrying what appeared to be an Islamist black flag at the site near Grenoble.
Several other people were hurt in the attack, although the extent of their injuries is not known, and explosions were heard at the scene.
Quick. Time for the ABC to run more stories about how the West is oppressing poor Muslims, forcing them to these extremes.
But let’s not jump to obvious conclusions just yet.
UPDATE
No, just wait five minutes:

A suspected Islamist has been arrested after a man was decapitated at a factory in France this morning.
===

Labor sides with the ABC against the Liberals. Says it all

Andrew Bolt June 26 2015 (3:41pm)

The Liberals attack the ABC’s bias.
Labor, though:

Bill Shorten has accused the Coalition of launching a “full-on attack against the independence of the ABC”, warning the public broadcaster must not be “a propaganda arm of the government”.
The story right there. Labor defends its own.
Shorten’s claim is preposterous, of course. The Government is not attacking the ABC’s independence but its bias.  It does not want the ABC to be Liberal but balanced.
The mere fact that Shorten cannot even define the allegation against the ABC suggests he cannot defend it. 
===

On The Bolt Report on Sunday, June 28

Andrew Bolt June 26 2015 (1:06pm)

On Channel 10 on Sunday at 10am and 3pm.
Editorial: How to tame the ABC and make it obey the law?
My guest: The man the ABC tried to ambush. Steven Ciobo on ABC boss Mark Scott’s excuses.
The panel: Janet Albrechtsen of The Australian and Michael Kauter, former deputy campaign director of the Nationals.
NewsWatch: Nick Cater, Australiancolumnist director of the Menzies Research Centre. 
So very much to discuss, including Bill Shorten’s lie and the Sydney Morning Herald’s half-baked global warming scare.
Plus: in praise of Malcolm Turnbull. Yes, you read that right.
The videos of the shows appear here.
===

Shorten, crumbling, loses key votes in the ABC

Andrew Bolt June 26 2015 (9:16am)

When a Labor leader has lost even the ABC, he’s lost all hope:
7:30:
SABRA LANE, REPORTER: ... The Opposition’s parliamentary tactics recently have been woeful… The Prime Minister ends the session buoyed by his party’s support, with the spotlight shifting to the Opposition Leader.
There is some frustration within Labor and its support base about Mr Shorten’s stilted public performances and his inability to connect with voters. Some say Mr Shorten’s taken on some water due to evidence at the Royal commission into union corruption regarding his time as leader of the Australian Workers Union and they say his appearance next month will be crucial.
One pollster told 7.30 that voters regard his union past as baggage. His immediate political history is problematic. As the ABC series The Killing Season reminded viewers, he had a roll in two prime ministers losing their jobs…
[On Thursday] he explicitly apologised for lying to a journalist immediately before the last Rudd-Gillard challenge in 2013. Back then, he denied meeting Kevin Rudd when he had.
And the Senate bloc that so damaged the Government for its first 18 months is finally crumbling under the pressure - the benefit of us all:
Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann celebrated the ­passage of savings and tax measures over the past two weeks which will improve the budget bottom line by $14bn over the next four years.
Meanwhile, Labor’s parliamentary tactics descend into farce:
THE Labor frontbencher who wanted to bring Australian citizens involved in terrorism back to the country has questioned if ASIO is smart enough to work out whether spy agency ­documents are classified or not.
Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus stopped parliament yesterday morning to launch a censure motion against Prime Minister Tony Abbott for conducting a media opportunity at ASIO headquarters where he claimed classified documents detailing Australian locations ­targeted by terror recruiters were visible on a table.
The Daily Telegraph has confirmed ASIO Director-General Duncan Lewis chose the documents and deemed them safe to be filmed. However, former attorney-general Mr Dreyfus decided he knew more about the documents than Mr Lewis, a decorated military officer who served as a senior national security adviser under two governments, and launched parliamentary action…
Shadow justice minister David Feeney then made a complete mockery of the attack by tweeting a mock map of Sydney which listed designated ­suburbs for “lefties”, “toffs”, “bigots” and “danger”. The farcical move forced Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to order him to take the map down.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)                      
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ABC groupthink again: Lateline covers up for Mallah

Andrew Bolt June 26 2015 (8:48am)

One ABC presenter after another is attacking critics of the ABC’s decision to give a platform to an Islamist convicted for threatening to kill ASIO officials.
So far we’ve heard Q&A defended by Jonathan Green, Rafael Epstein, Alison Carabine and more.
Such is the groupthink that not a single presenter in the ABC, the biggest media organisation in the country, has yet attacked Q&A. Not one.
And such is the groupthink that Lateline must bring in a critic from outside, this time Gerard Henderson, and then have him heckled by presenter Emma Alberici and former ABC host Jonathan Holmes.
One excerpt, starting with Holmes claiming Q&A did not know that the extremist it invited had posted a tweet saying he wanted two prominent female conservative columnists “gangbanged” on national TV:
JONATHAN HOLMES: Look, the tweet is a separate issue. My understanding, Emma, is that nobody on the Q&A production team knew about those tweets. They were actually kept very - not secret, but quiet, for understandable reasons.
EMMA ALBERICI: How do you keep a tweet quiet?
JONATHAN HOLMES: Well, I mean, the point is that Miranda Devine and the other Rita ...
GERARD HENDERSON: Panahi.
JONATHAN HOLMES: ... they did not publicise them for very obvious reasons. They didn’t want to give it more oxygen. So, until it all came out on Tuesday, that tweet was not widely known. Somebody ...

EMMA ALBERICI: If you’re going to defend the rights of freedom of expression of Charlie Hebdo, should Zaky Mallah also have the right to express his views? And his views, just to be clear, were that many Australian Muslims would’ve been so upset by Minister Steve Ciobo’s words, that would’ve perhaps encouraged them to join Islamic State. That’s what he said.
GERARD HENDERSON: Would I defend his right to be live in a studio? No. And would I defend his ...
JONATHAN HOLMES: But what did he say ... ?
GERARD HENDERSON: Can I just finish? Would I defend his right to threaten essentially to rape women? No, I wouldn’t.
EMMA ALBERICI: But he didn’t say that on Monday night.
JONATHAN HOLMES: He didn’t do that on air.
GERARD HENDERSON: It doesn’t matter what he did on air. They invited him into the studio.
EMMA ALBERICI: I think it does because that’s what we’re talking about. I think we should stick to relevant facts.
GERARD HENDERSON: Hang on. They invited - can I just finish?
JONATHAN HOLMES: You always want to finish. No-one else is allowed to say a word.
GERARD HENDERSON: They invited him in the studio after he did that.
EMMA ALBERICI: Jonathan Holmes.
JONATHAN HOLMES: Yes, they did. And I think that that was a mistake and obviously somebody should’ve checked the tweets. It’s easy to say that, but I mean, they did not know about the tweets. But he said nothing of that kind on air. What he said on air was nothing that everyone should be getting completely hysterical about. Are we so fragile now, Gerard, that we simply cannot take a little bit of somebody saying something that’s slightly unorthodox?
GERARD HENDERSON: What he said on air was that young Muslim Sunnis should go to ...
EMMA ALBERICI: No, he did not say that.
JONATHAN HOLMES: He did not say that.
GERARD HENDERSON: He said that Muslims should go ...
EMMA ALBERICI: No, he did not say that.
GERARD HENDERSON: No, he did not.
GERARD HENDERSON: He said they should go and join IS.
EMMA ALBERICI: He said in his view ...
JONATHAN HOLMES: He did not say that.
GERARD HENDERSON: OK, right.
EMMA ALBERICI: Let me tell you exactly what he said. He said in his view, many Australian Muslims would’ve been so upset by the Minister Steve Ciobo’s words that that would encourage them to join Islamic State, which is a leap to say that he told them to go and do it.
GERARD HENDERSON: That was said with a sense of approval.
JONATHAN HOLMES: No. He ...
GERARD HENDERSON: Well joining Islamic State means going ...
JONATHAN HOLMES: ... deeply disapproves of Islamic State.
GERARD HENDERSON: Joining to Islamic State - joining to Islamic State, which he said, he said, well, you know, they should go and do this, essentially.
EMMA ALBERICI: He did not say they should go and do this and it’s very important!
GERARD HENDERSON: Well you may want to cover for him.
JONATHAN HOLMES: This is what he said six months ago ...
EMMA ALBERICI: I’m not covering for him, Gerard Henderson, but we should stick to facts.
Yes, let’s stick to facts - starting with one crucial fact Alberici omitted in order to cover for Mallah and Q&A.
The facts are that Alberici in quoting “exactly” what Mallah said actually left out the critical word “justified”. Here is what Mallah actually said on Q&A:

The Liberals have just justified to many Australian Muslims in the community tonight to leave and go to Syria and join ISIL because of ministers like him.
Henderson was right to say those words suggested approval of joining the Islamic State, however they were intended, and Alberici was wrong.
How did Alberici manage to misrepresent that fact?
I blame groupthink again.
UPDATE
Reader Josh note Alberici also verballed the Prime Minister:
Ms Alberici claimed Prime Minister Abbott erroneously referred to Zaky Mallah as a “convicted terrorist” (source: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4262136.htm [5:08]).
This is not correct.
In several interviews, Mr Abbott referred to Mr Mallah as a “convicted criminal and terrorist sympathiser” (source: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/2015-06-25/doorstop-interview-canberra).
(Thanks to readers MickA and Tezza.) 
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Why is the SBS paying for this?

Andrew Bolt June 26 2015 (8:19am)

More taxpayer-funded comedy from SBS, which, despite crying poor, still pays for five people to mock the Liberals with this kind of humour:
The Abbott government has today unveiled plans to conduct its 400th inquiry into quality at Australia’s national broadcaster, to be paid for by slashing funding to the same organisation. Previous inquiries into the ABC have focused on whether 7.30 presenter Leigh Sales farts onto guest chairs before Coalition MPs sit in them, why Andrew Bolt doesn’t have his own children’s show on the network, and the alleged existence of a decadent shrine to Gough Whitlam at the broadcaster’s Ultimo studios.
The proposed inquiry is expected to examine the appearance of a boofhead in a marijuana cap on the network’s QandA program, an incident that has been condemned by Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
“Taxpayer money should not be spent on funding the ABC’s ridiculous stunts when it could be used to fund the Liberal government’s ridiculous stunts,” said Mr Abbott. “The Australian people elected me Prime Minister based on my long track record of ridiculous stunts and I will not let them down
“And we will find that Whitlam shrine if it’s the last thing we do.”

“If the government slashes our budget again we’ll have to replace Big Ted and Little Ted with a rag on a stick and a dried out dog turd with a face drawn on it,” said a member of the ABC’s accounts department. “And you can forget about new episodes of Bananas in Pyjamas, which has been denounced by the government as homosexualist propaganda.
We pay for this?
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How does the ABC justify showing this inflammatory tweet? UPDATE: clueless Scott must go

Andrew Bolt June 26 2015 (6:59am)

Q&A on Monday helped an Islamist extremist, once jailed for threatening to kill ASIO officers, to ambush a government frontbencher and attack the Government’s anti-terrorism plans.
During the show, it also showed this inflammatory tweet at the bottom of the screen:
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“Get a gun”? This tweet came from this Twitter account:
image
Which links to the home page of this Griffith University academic, Andrew Rock:
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How suggestive of the overwhelming Leftist slant of universities.
But may I ask why the ABC thought this tweet should be aired during a broadcast about tackling terrorism - and whether the Government itself was the problem?
UPDATE
But ABC boss Mark Scott refuses to reform the ABC, which has an overwhelmingly Leftist bias that is unlawful under its Act and which produced the error of judgement that had it give convicted criminal Zaky Mallah help to attack a government minister.
First, Scott in a speech last night conflates giving an Islamist prime-time TV exposure with defending the right to confront Islamists without being shot dead for blasphemy:
Mr Scott said at a Centre for Corporate Public Affairs’ function. “At times, free-speech principles mean giving platforms to those with whom we fundamentally disagree.
“It was the crux of the Charlie Hebdo argument last year and, of course, the source of the maxim that was used to describe Voltaire’s beliefs: ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ ”
Free speech actually means giving people the legal right to speak their mind - at least to the extent that what they say does not physically endanger others. It does not oblige you to go out of your way to broadcast the views of any idiot or criminal, and certainly not when doing so could physically endanger others.
Scott is merely hiding behind the bodies of Charlie Hebdo dead. And what makes that particularly nauseous is that this comes from the head of an organisation which has had a policy of not showing the kind of cartoons that Charlie Hebdo did, and for which its cartoonists were murdered.
To add to the insult, Scott is so clueless that he offensively implies that Abbott and other ABC critics want the ABC to be a mouthpiece of the Government - or to be as overwhelmingly pro-Liberal as it is now- pro-Labor and pro-Greens - when the critic’s real demand is that the ABC simply honour its legal obligation to be balanced:
It is the ABC’s independence from government, Mr Scott said, “that shapes the ABC as a public broadcaster, not a state broadcaster”.
“I hope no one seriously wants the ABC to be a state broadcaster,” he said.
“We know the examples. North Korea and Russia. China and Vietnam. There are many others.”
Scott clearly has no intention of restoring balance to the ABC, as required by law.  He insults the critics and either misrepresents or completely fails to understand their arguments.
The board must sack him.
(Thanks to reader Peter H.)  
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Think you have the perfect ending? Here are some reasons why you could be wrong: http://bit.ly/1GLb0aX
Posted by Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing on Wednesday, 24 June 2015

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Start treating your writing like a business, not just a hobby. You could see some benefits next tax season: http://bit.ly/1GrdTfm
Posted by Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing on Thursday, 25 June 2015

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So got trolled by bitter, old Mike Carlton again even though I blocked him the last time he trolled. Of course my two...
Posted by Miss Judgement - Rita Panahi on Thursday, 25 June 2015

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=== Posts from last year ===

The Clive and Al show rolls a divisive tax

Piers Akerman – Thursday, June 26, 2014 (7:23pm)

SELF-PROCLAIMED global leaders Clive Palmer and former US vice-president Al Gore gifted Prime Minister Tony Abbott a sweet victory in his campaign to repeal Julia Gillard’s carbon tax.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The Clive and Al show rolls a divisive tax'
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PLEASE DON’T HURT ’EM

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 26, 2014 (4:56pm)

Monday’s column: 
Leftists turn all Presbyterian when even the slightest mockery is returned. 
And here’s the latest example. The standard leftist response to satire or criticism is to instantly become all prissy and middle-class, and to beg for the polite respect they decline others.
Just a theory, but it could be that the left’s decades of cultural dominance – during which conservative individuals and ideas were open targets – rendered the left vulnerable when the culture shifted, and fire was eventually returned. They are simply not nimble enough to cope. Think of the cultural left as a lumbering 40,000-ton Bismarck, trembling at the approach of a tiny, single-engined Fairey Swordfish …
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FEMALE ATTRACTED

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 26, 2014 (6:21am)

Do enjoy Elizabeth Farrelly’s frightbat response. This is the Sydney Morning Herald‘s depiction of me as I’m gently placed in a nest by Elizabeth’s soothing hands:

image

Thanks are due. My hair hasn’t been that dark, nor have I been that thin, since Bob Hawke was in office.
UPDATE. Andrew Bolt explains frightbat to Queen Elizabeth.
UPDATE II. Tom Lalor: 
Frightbat speaks out against Tim Blair whilst column above it defends honour killing talk. Keep it classy SMH. 
UPDATE III. This may be my new super-favourite Farrelly line: 
I’m not especially left-wing. Not communist. Not even socialist. I simply try to work from first principles – justice, truth, beauty. Is that emotional? Was Plato hysterical? Was Jesus? Mandela? 
Perfect.
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DISARRAY! CHAOS! HISTORY!

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 26, 2014 (5:29am)

The AFR’s Phil Coorey takes a stab at summarising yesterday’s freaky Palmer/Gore summit in Canberra: 
Clive Palmer has thrown the government’s carbon tax repeal plans into disarray by teaming up with former US vice-president Al Gore to demand Australia be part of a global emissions trading scheme which doesn’t exist. 
Not bad, but it isn’t clear how Palmer’s demand causes any governmental disarray. He’s backing a repeal of the carbon tax, which is government policy, and he’s proposing some kind of global ETS deal nobody anywhere will agree with. No problem! Here’s the SMH: 
Clive Palmer has thrown into chaos Tony Abbott’s plan to abolish the carbon tax, demanding the Prime Minister instead create an emissions trading scheme that would swing into action when Australia’s major trading partners adopt similar measures. 
Chaos? Er, sure, if by that you mean Palmer is supporting the tax’s repeal. ABC warmy Sara Phillips might be closer to the mark, writing that Gore’s presence at an announcement of the carbon tax’s doom was “baffling”: 
Mr Climate Change himself has joined with a man who seems to be stalling any action on climate change, announcing as an “extraordinary moment” in global climate change history the bid to stall Australia’s nascent climate change actions.
It’s undeniably a masterstroke of publicity for Mr Palmer. And perhaps that is the explanation for Mr Gore’s presence. The symbolism of a major announcement is important in pushing through action on climate change. For Australia to be seen to be doing something is key to motivating other laggard countries to shift into gear at home. 
Except, of course, that the “major announcement” merely amounts to supporting the government’s carbon tax position plus some dream talk about international emissions treaties or something. And now we move on.
UPDATE. The Australian‘s Stephanie Balogh: 
What on earth possessed climate change champion Al Gore to share a stage with mining baron and — at least until yesterday — climate change dinosaur Clive Palmer?
Does the former US vice-president realise that, with his 12 minutes on stage, he has helped dismantle the toughest climate change response on the planet, leaving Australia, in all likelihood, without any carbon abatement scheme?
Gore has either been duped into thinking Palmer is an environmentalist or he has been handsomely paid for his bizarre appearance. Or both. 
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RED LAND WHALE

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 26, 2014 (4:51am)

An absolutely charming episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, starring Sarah Jessica Parker and a 1976 Ford Country Squire.
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Al Jazeera betrayed Greste again, with anti-Semitic slur

Andrew Bolt June 26 2014 (1:16pm)

Ahron Shapiro has more evidence of how al Jazeera betrayed jailed Australian journalist Peter Greste, exposing him to danger in Egypt:
Many Australians have been following the lamentable plight of Peter Greste, the Australian journalist working for al-Jazeera who has been jailed along with two other al-Jazeera colleagues in Egypt since December on charges of conspiring with the banned Muslim Brotherhood to harm Egypt’s reputation. 
They should now be doubly worried about both their fate and about the judgment of al-Jazeera which published an inflammatory report this week alleging wrongdoing in Egypt’s energy trade with Israel that could only serve to fan the flames of Egyptian anger against the Qatari-owned news organisation.
Al-Jazeera’s biased and negative portrayal of Israel in its reports is well known… It’s also true that AIJAC has, over the years, documented how al-Jazeera as an organisation had a clear preferential editorial bias towards the Muslim Brotherhood - although that in no way implies that AIJAC believes that Greste is guilty of the offences that Egypt charged him with. We most certainly do not…
On June 9, al-Jazeera aired an hour-long “investigative report” titled “Egypt’s Lost Power”, which was described on its website as follows: 
Clayton Swisher from al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit explores the corrupt deals that plunged Egypt into an energy crisis and now leave it facing dependency on Israel
It was aired in tandem with a multimedia report which contended that Egypt’s previous gas deals with Israel following Israel’s 1981 withdrawal from the Sinai was damaging to Egypt’s economy and energy security while enriching Israeli businessmen and Egyptian officials.
The al-Jazeera report then went further, contending that the gas mismanagement precipitated the energy crisis which was essential to deposing former president (and Muslim Brotherhood functionary) Mohammed Morsi and allowed Egyptian leader and newly elected president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to enrich his cronies while making Egypt dependent on Israel’s new offshore gas fields…
Indeed, al-Jazeera’s report has begun to circulate throughout the Arab world, particularly by Muslim Brotherhood supporters and those who would seek to discredit Egypt’s current government…
Given the close bonds between Egypt’s judicial system and the Sisi government, it’s difficult to imagine that this negative publicity will improve Greste’s chances of acquittal or receiving a light sentence if convicted (the prosecutor has reportedly asked for 15 years)… Overall, it appears that, despite the loud trumpeting of the undoubted injustice that its reporters, including Greste, are experiencing in Egypt, their fate appears less important to al-Jazeera management than the imperative to publish conspiratorial material which serves Qatari political interests.
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No laws needed to tackle bigots

Andrew Bolt June 26 2014 (9:28am)

Free speech

Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson says two bigots have just proved we don’t need dangerous laws against hate-speech to counter them:
On the one hand we have racism, with special legal privileges to censor offensive comment. 
On the other we have sexism and homophobia that do not enjoy the same protections.
Yet even without them the preparedness of Australians to tackle sexism and homophobia has been on full display.
Following the announcement of its 2014 program, the Festival of Dangerous Ideas decided to dump a speech by Uthman Badar titled “Honour killings are morally justified”.
Having read the publicised title and synopsis that Badar had agreed to, there was a significant public response to giving such views a platform.
But the action of the festival should not be confused with censorship.
Badar is still free to speak…
That leads to the second demonstration of tackling offensive ideas without the need for censorship.
Earlier in the week Opera Australia released Georgian opera singer Tamar Iveri from her contract for her upcoming commitments to perform in Otello ... following the exposure of deeply offensive and inflammatory remarks made about participants in Georgia’s gay pride march… Opera Australia has simply used its free association to distance the organisation from her…
Using the law to censor wrongheaded ideas doesn’t lead to the community promptly tackling prejudice head-on. Instead it defers responsibility to the law and lengthy legal processes. Yet as recent examples show, Australians are quite capable of speedily responding to offensive prejudice.
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Why did Al Gore help Clive Palmer announce the end of the carbon tax?

Andrew Bolt June 26 2014 (9:12am)

Global warming - propaganda

 Stephanie Balogh shares my suspicions about Al Gore’s appearance at Clive Palmer’s press conference - one called to actually announce the end of the carbon tax:
Gore has either been duped into thinking Palmer is an environmentalist or he has been handsomely paid for his bizarre appearance. Or both… 
Does Gore know that Palmer claims to have a deal to export $60 billion worth of coal to China over the next 20 years from his big holding in Queensland’s Galilee Basin?
Does Gore know Palmer’s Waratah Coal was given approval late last year to build a thermal coal project near Alpha in central-west Queensland?
Does Gore know Palmer operates a polluting nickel refinery, Queensland Nickel?
Does Gore know Palmer incurred millions of dollars in penalties for refusing to pay his carbon tax bill on time? Does Gore know that Palmer owns a fleet of cars and planes, and it is doubtful that he counts a Toyota Prius among his collection, and it is unclear whether he claims carbon offsets when he flies in his private 19-seat Bombardier jet?
We did speculate on 2GB last night about Gore’s motivations. 
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How Jackson spent her union’s money

Andrew Bolt June 26 2014 (9:07am)

When even the whistleblower has these questions to answer, you can be sure the union was in bad hands:

CONTROVERSIAL whistleblower Kathy Jackson spent thousands of dollars of union funds on personal expenses including children’s tutors, camping gear and laser therapy, bank documents show. 

The former Health Services Union secretary also withdrew $156,000 from the National Health Development Fund Account, with no record of what the money was spent on.
The documents, released by the Royal Commission into union corruption, reveal in detail for the first time the questionable transactions from the “slush fund”. The Commonwealth Bank statements were sent to Ms Jackson’s home address in Balwyn despite it being a union account.
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Stolen tape seals Napthine Government’s fate

Andrew Bolt June 26 2014 (8:59am)

Very curious, and of course the Liberals are the victim:
On Tuesday, a recording of a private conversation between former premier Ted Baillieu and Sunday Age reporter Farrah Tomazin, in which Mr Baillieu slammed a number of his parliamentary colleagues, was leaked to Liberal MPs and party members. 
Yesterday, Ms Tomazin said on radio: “That conversation was basically taken from a Dictaphone that I own, which I noticed was missing around about mid-May, some time after the federal Budget.”

Premier Denis Napthine told 3AW: “...Questions need to be asked of The Age — such as, when did they call in the police to investigate this alleged theft?”
Dr Napthine’s words were echoed by former premier Jeff Kennett who said: “The Age owe us all an explanation.”
Mr Kennett seized on remarks by The Age’s news director, Mark Forbes, that “this is actually the second Dictaphone of an Age state political reporter to go missing in a short space of time”.
Mr Kennett demanded that The Age reveal “...Where was this function, and why won’t The Age tell us about it, and why is it only now they are telling us that supposedly two recorders were stolen...”
In the recording, revealed on Tuesday, Mr Baillieu can be heard saying “If you use any of the language I’ve been uttering at you, I’ll kill you.” Tomazin replies: “No, no, no, no. And you have my complete and utter word and as you know …. Look, thank you and again, rest assured there won’t be any of this, in fact we didn’t even have this conversation.” 
UPDATE
Meanwhile, doom stalks the Napthine Government, according to the latest Newspoll:
Labor [holds] a 54 per cent to 46 per cent lead over the Coalition on a two- party-preferred basis. 
Primary-vote support for the Greens has jumped to 16 per cent while the Liberal Party dropped three points to 33 per cent and Labor was largely unmoved on 38 per cent. The Nationals’ ­primary vote was 4 per cent, nearly three points below the ­result at the 2010 election.
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Get the UN out of our forests

Andrew Bolt June 26 2014 (8:53am)

JUST whose country is this? It is ours, the voters of Australia, or are its masters some unelected commissars of the United Nations? 

I wish the Abbott Government would insist on the right answer.
Last year the Liberals went to the election promising to reverse the Gillard Government’s decision to get yet another 170,000 hectares of Tasmanian forests declared a World Heritage site by the UN.
(Read full article here.) 
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No honour to the killers of our culture

Andrew Bolt June 26 2014 (8:38am)

Culture wars, Islamism

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THE Sydney Opera House is Australia’s most iconic building. And on its stage in August was to be a taxpayer-funded talk: “Honour killings are morally justified.” 

Be clear: the title is not a question but a statement.
Yes, in the heart of Australia we are now to rationalise the strangling, stoning, burning, beating or shooting of daughters and wives for supposedly shaming their men.

There hasn’t been such a startling symbol of our cultural elite’s loathing of our society and its weakening of our resistance to barbarity. Our civilisation is being betrayed.
 In this case, Uthman Badar was invited by Sydney Opera House and the St James Ethics Centre for their Festival of Dangerous Ideas, and planned to attack critics of honour killings as the usual “secular (white) Westerner”, wickedly using these murders as a symbol of “everything that is allegedly wrong with the other culture”. Note: honour killings are only “allegedly wrong”.
Yes, to see Westerners criticise an “Oriental” woman-killer was to see “the powerful condemn the powerless”, according to the blurb approved by Badar. Pity those powerless murderers.
Note one further sinister thing. The festival gave Badar this platform even though he is spokesman for the Islamist extremist Hizb ut-Tahrir, at war with almost every important value and freedom we have.
(Read full article here.) 
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Worse than the phone-hacking was the witch-hunt

Andrew Bolt June 26 2014 (8:27am)

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The Telegraph is right. This was a political witch-hunt against the Murdoch empire - one that the Gillard Government also joined - and the acquittal of Murdoch executive Rebekah Brooks has exposed it:
On Tuesday, more than two years since being told they were to be prosecuted, both [Brooks and her husband] walked free from the Old Bailey after being acquitted on all charges connected to the hacking of phones and a conspiracy to cover it all up. The biggest police investigation of recent times had failed to land a single blow on the central figure in the affair. 
The Wicked Witch, as Private Eye lampooned her, was not so wicked after all. And while some former NI journalists - notably Andy Coulson, the former Downing Street communications chief - were convicted or pleaded guilty to intercepting communications, many of the most serious charges were thrown out by the jury.
It is impossible not to conclude that the response of the police, prosecutors and the government to what was undoubtedly an unedifying episode in the annals of British newspapers was completely out of proportion.
Yet another trial is pending and more than 30 journalists, many of whom were arrested in dawn raids on their homes, remain on bail awaiting a decision on whether or not they are to be charged. The old adage that justice delayed is justice denied appears to have been set aside.
Moreover, the cost and collateral damage has been enormous. Three major investigations were established by the police, who attached more than 100 officers to the case. A judicial inquiry into press ethics chaired by Lord Justice Leveson sat for more than a year, effectively placing the whole industry on trial. The News of the World, one of the country’s oldest papers, was closed specifically because of the allegation that messages left on the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler had been deleted by journalists, something that turned out not to be true.
On top of that, newspapers were threatened with the first state regulation for 300 years. All told, the bill in police time, damages, legal charges and the rest could reach £100 million ($180 million).
So what has it all been for? Undoubtedly there were dozens of people in public life who felt aggrieved and sullied by the knowledge that their phone messages had been hacked. Many have received substantial compensation from News International. But was there another motive driving what Brooks called a witch-hunt hunt on the day she was arrested? If she could be brought down, then serious damage could be inflicted on Murdoch and British Prime Minister David Cameron, who had foolishly (as he admitted on Tuesday) appointed Coulson to be his press chief.
This ludicrous and sinister campaign, whipped up by the Left, even threatened press freedom in both Britain and Australia. The phone-hacking was shameful, but far more dangerous and sinister was the witch-hunt that followed.   
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Explaining “frightbat” to Elizabeth Farrelly

Andrew Bolt June 26 2014 (7:54am)

Sydney Morning Herald columnist Elizabeth Farrelly, as we’ve often observed, does not have a way with words:
I discovered that ‘’frightbat’’ is Daily Telegraph blogger Tim Blair’s pejorative for smart, articulate female.
Well, no. Frightbat is a term to describe people who screech absurdly alarmist things like this:
Say there was civil war here. Say some West Australian mining despot took power and began censoring news, jailing journalists, disappearing opponents. Say you were dragged from your bed, interrogated at midnight, your kids threatened with rape and torture. It’s not so far fetched. 
And this:
Fear makes us harsh, as in 1930s Germany and any populace that accommodates an inhumane regime.
And this:

We know this when even China can credibly critique our human rights record.
And this:
Burning coal is burning coal; it puts carbon in the air, and that may stop the Gulf Stream, dead, within the decade.
And this:
But personally, I’m mystified that any Aboriginal person harbours anything but the most violent of hatreds towards whites.
And this:
Whether non-democracies such as China will negotiate the rapids of the coming century more adroitly remains to be seen. Certainly, freed from any need to pander to the 80/80 rule, they have at least one freedom Western-style democracies do not have – the freedom to act decisively.
And this:

So now, as we stand victorious astride Gaia’s limp and bloodied form, feeling for a pulse, now is the moment to ask; is there another way? 
And this:

You don’t have to look far to see what happens without logic’s civilising structures; it’s the cultural equivalent of those Indonesian abattoirs. Yet this is where shock jocks are coming from and where, if they had their way, they would take us, forcing me to wonder whether censorship mightn’t be reasonable after all.
And this:
What about climate change? ...  We can’t wait for governments to make this call. It’s time to act. A people’s revolution is required. Democracy is failing us.... Democratic governments are abject moral cowards.
But today, in her frightbat-redefining column, Farrelly goes on to misuse another word:
I’m not often called overemotional. Overintellectual, sure.
“Overintellectual”? No, that is exactly the wrong word to describe the usual criticism.  “Frightbat” really comes much closer.
And Farrelly in the same piece, describing her many mockers, uses yet another word which does not mean what she thinks it means:
So creatively challenged are the poor chaps that they must steal our copy, intertwining it with second-rate ridicule to reinforce their patently inadequate nests.
Not stealing, Elizabeth, just quoting. 
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Fairfax papers fooled by foolish Gore. Sceptics win

Andrew Bolt June 26 2014 (7:08am)

The Australian tells it straight:
AUSTRALIA will be left without a major scheme to cut greenhouse gas emissions after Clive Palmer last night backed the repeal of the carbon tax without supporting any concrete alternative… 
Mr Palmer said the PUP would propose an emissions trading scheme to put a price on carbon but said it would only start when other nations did the same, an unlikely prospect in the short term. He also vowed to vote against Tony Abbott’s alternative policy, the $2.8 billion Direct Action spending program, in a move that appears to kill off the scheme given it is also opposed by Labor, the Greens and minor parties. 
But Fairfax newspapers buy the spin added by the introduction of warmist guru Al Gore to Palmer’s ludicrous press conference:
Clive Palmer has thrown into chaos Tony Abbott’s plan to abolish the carbon tax, demanding the Prime Minister instead create an emissions trading scheme that would swing into action when Australia’s major trading partners adopt similar measures.

That spin - that Palmer is demanding the carbon tax be scrapped in favour of an emissions trading scheme - is exploded just a few paragraphs later in the very same story:
Mr Palmer made clear that repeal of the carbon tax ... would not be contingent on the other measures Mr Palmer proposed on Wednesday night, such as the proposed emissions trading legislation.
UPDATE
To be clear, the carbon tax is gone and that is not contingent on the government agreeing to any emissions trading scheme:
CLIVE PALMER: Repeal of the carbon tax is contingent upon the Government bringing into law a system where the energy producers will refund the benefit to their consumers… 
TONY JONES: So - but you won’t make your repeal of the carbon tax contingent on any of these other things you want to see happen? That’s a critical question to answer tonight.
CLIVE PALMER: That’s right, yeah.
TONY JONES: So Tony Abbott, when he negotiates you with tomorrow, going on what Greg Hunt is saying today, will be able to offer you fairly easily the kind of agreement that you’ve asked for. Does that mean you’re now convinced you’ll vote the carbon tax out of existence? CLIVE PALMER: If that’s the case, it is...
It is bad that Palmer will keep the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and (probably) the Climate Change Authority, and it’s alarming that he wants at least the framework created for an emissions trading scheme.
But it is very good that the emissions trading scheme won’t actually get off the ground under the conditions Palmer proposes.
And it is beautiful that Palmer is against Tony Abbott’s direct action policies as well, as are Labor and the Greens.
This means we could end up with a sceptics’ paradise: no carbon tax, no prospect of emissions trading and not even Abbott’s $2.5 billion direct action schemes. That is a huge win.
Thanks, Clive.
UPDATE
The Sydney Morning Herald is fooled:
At last welcome signs of a positive approach to climate change… The key proposals put on the table by Palmer United Party leader Clive Palmer on Wednesday evening are based on a rationale the Herald has pushed since last October ... 
Mr Palmer revealed the three incoming PUP senators who in effect hold the balance of power would vote to scrap the carbon tax, due to rise to $25.40 next week. Crucially, PUP will only do so if it is replaced with a dormant emissions trading scheme with the carbon price set at zero – as the Herald has suggested – until Australia’s trading partners implement a similar scheme.
False. The scrapping of the carbon tax is not conditional on replacing it with an emissions trading scheme.
UPDATE
Once again, the question: what the hell was Al Gore doing at Palmer’s press conference. Why did the great global warming guru help to sanctify a press conference called by a coal baron to announce the destruction of Australia’s climate change policies? 
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ABC presenter on the justification for honour killings

Andrew Bolt June 25 2014 (7:29pm)

Islamism, Media, The new morality

From 3:49, the ABC’s James Carleton explains the benefits of knowing the justification for honour killings. He opposes honour killings, of course, but now far better understands why they may seem necessary.
Incredibly, he then adds the difference between him giving this rationalisation and Uthman Badar is that he himself is non-Muslim, and the opposition to Badar must therefore be based on Islamophobia.
This overlooks a few points. For instance, Badar hasn’t actually explained what his argument is, and Carleton simply imagines it’s one he can accept. Second, Badar’s speech was actually titled “Honor killings are morally justified” - not a question but a statement. The blurb, also approved by Badar, said the speech would be an attack on whites who criticised honor killing. This further suggests Carleton is in full apologetics mode. Lastly, Badar’s record of excusing terrorists and the oppression of women do not entitle him to a privileged platform at such a Festival.
Oh, and I find Carleton’s rationalisation pretty creepy, actually.
Why is the ABC filled wall-to-wall with the Left?
(Thanks to reader Rex.)
UPDATE
Apologies to Carleton. I earlier wrote he had to apologise to Cardinal Pell. That was in fact Philip Clark.  
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Why so serious?
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James Calore
Statistically speaking, 2% of killer whales were wrongly accused.
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Pastor Rick Warren
Incompatibility in marriage is really immaturity and selfishness. Mature people value differences and grow, learning real love.
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Frosted Brownie Cookies

Ingredients:
1 C all purpose flour
1/2 C cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 + 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
5 T coconut oil
5 T butter melted
chocolate & white chocolate chips

Pre-heat oven to 325F.
In a large bowl, mix together the first six ingredients.
In a separate bowl, mix together the oil, melted butter, and vanilla.
Stir the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until a thick, fudgy dough is formed and all of the flour is absorbed.
Place the dough in a plastic bag and mush it all together into one big ball using your hands. Freeze for 15 minutes.
Break apart the dough to create small cookie shaped pieces and place on a greased cookie sheet. (Note: Use a conservative amount of dough for each cookie. Their circumference will increase as they bake.)

For “Polka Dot” cookies, press chocolate and white chocolate chips into the tops of each cookie before baking. (For regular chip cookies you can simply fold the chips into the dough before freezing.)

*And for swirl-topped cookies, place 2-3 white & chocolate chocolate chips on top of each cookie after removing from the oven. Let sit for 2-3 minutes. When they have softened, take the tip of a small spoon and very gently press down while making a light swirling motion.

Bake at 325F for 13-15 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for an additional 10 minutes before removing from pan.
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Henri Moissan
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“Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?” declares the LORD. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the LORD.” Jeremiah 23:24NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Get thee up into the high mountain."
Isaiah 40:9
Our knowledge of Christ is somewhat like climbing one of our Welsh mountains. When you are at the base you see but little: the mountain itself appears to be but one-half as high as it really is. Confined in a little valley, you discover scarcely anything but the rippling brooks as they descend into the stream at the foot of the mountain. Climb the first rising knoll, and the valley lengthens and widens beneath your feet. Go higher, and you see the country for four or five miles round, and you are delighted with the widening prospect. Mount still, and the scene enlarges; till at last, when you are on the summit, and look east, west, north, and south, you see almost all England lying before you. Yonder is a forest in some distant county, perhaps two hundred miles away, and here the sea, and there a shining river and the smoking chimneys of a manufacturing town, or the masts of the ships in a busy port. All these things please and delight you, and you say, "I could not have imagined that so much could be seen at this elevation." Now, the Christian life is of the same order. When we first believe in Christ we see but little of him. The higher we climb the more we discover of his beauties. But who has ever gained the summit? Who has known all the heights and depths of the love of Christ which passes knowledge? Paul, when grown old, sitting grey-haired, shivering in a dungeon in Rome, could say with greater emphasis than we can, "I know whom I have believed," for each experience had been like the climbing of a hill, each trial had been like ascending another summit, and his death seemed like gaining the top of the mountain, from which he could see the whole of the faithfulness and the love of him to whom he had committed his soul. Get thee up, dear friend, into the high mountain.

Evening

"The dove found no rest for the sole of her foot."
Genesis 8:9
Reader, can you find rest apart from the ark, Christ Jesus? Then be assured that your religion is vain. Are you satisfied with anything short of a conscious knowledge of your union and interest in Christ? Then woe unto you. If you profess to be a Christian, yet find full satisfaction in worldly pleasures and pursuits, your profession is false. If your soul can stretch herself at rest, and find the bed long enough, and the coverlet broad enough to cover her in the chambers of sin, then you are a hypocrite, and far enough from any right thoughts of Christ or perception of his preciousness. But if, on the other hand, you feel that if you could indulge in sin without punishment, yet it would be a punishment of itself; and that if you could have the whole world, and abide in it forever, it would be quite enough misery not to be parted from it; for your God--your God--is what your soul craves after; then be of good courage, thou art a child of God. With all thy sins and imperfections, take this to thy comfort: if thy soul has no rest in sin, thou are not as the sinner is! If thou art still crying after and craving after something better, Christ has not forgotten thee, for thou hast not quite forgotten him. The believer cannot do without his Lord; words are inadequate to express his thoughts of him. We cannot live on the sands of the wilderness, we want the manna which drops from on high; our skin bottles of creature confidence cannot yield us a drop of moisture, but we drink of the rock which follows us, and that rock is Christ. When you feed on him your soul can sing, "He hath satisfied my mouth with good things, so that my youth is renewed like the eagle's," but if you have him not, your bursting wine vat and well-filled barn can give you no sort of satisfaction: rather lament over them in the words of wisdom, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!"
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Today's reading: Job 3-4, Acts 7:44-60 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Job 3-4

Job Speaks
1 After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 He said:
3 "May the day of my birth perish,
and the night that said, 'A boy is conceived!'
4 That day--may it turn to darkness;
may God above not care about it;
may no light shine on it.
5 May gloom and utter darkness claim it once more;
may a cloud settle over it;
may blackness overwhelm it.
6 That night--may thick darkness seize it;
may it not be included among the days of the year
nor be entered in any of the months.

Today's New Testament reading: Acts 7:44-60

Acts 7

44 "Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the covenant law with them in the wilderness. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen. 45 After receiving the tabernacle, our ancestors under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David, 46 who enjoyed God's favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. 47 But it was Solomon who built a house for him.

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