Monday, August 10, 2015

Mon Aug 10th Todays News

ALP looks to have prospered through her abuse of power over the expenses scandal. To cap it off, the media protectors of the ALP have gloated. Claims are made that the new speaker will be fair, suggesting the previous one wasn't. But it was the ALP abusing power which got some four hundred evictions of her members under the previous speaker, Bronwyn Bishop. The attacks on Bishop, given that no one else is held to the same standard, is misogynistic. Tony Burke, as leader of opposition business locked horns with Bishop a lot and so he had a vested interest in lying to trash her career as Speaker. Burke and Shorten should resign, but instead get a poll bounce in their favour. One hopes that Mr Abbott is keeping this ace for an election. 
=== from 2014 ===
It looked like a stunt when Jason Clare announced an inquest into sports drugs and gambling. Clare was deflecting attention away from the leadership challenge within the ALP which outsiders called between Rudd and Gillard but which also included Wong, Combet, Shorten, Clare, Carr, and a half dozen other cowards. Apparently, nothing was meant to happen, although two major codes and a few clubs and many players and trainers were smeared, called drug cheats and or forced out of the game. It looks like politicians tried to railroad athletes into admitting guilt. In the US, Obama has done much the same, for similar reasons. No player in any sport has been found guilty of what Clare claimed was endemic to all sports. In related news, the ALP has no policy on anything, but opposes everything the government proposes. When the LNP were in opposition, they supported 80% of the legislation. But the difference is in the monitoring. ABC criticise the 18C backdown even as they denied the need for change. 

At the battle of Lechfield in 955 Hungarians claimed to be Europeans, Germans disputed it, and won. In 991 at the Battle of Maldon, in Essex, Vikings faced Aethelred the Unready and won 3,300 Kg of silver. In 1270 Yekuno Amlak took the imperial throne of Ethiopia, restoring the Solomonic dynasty to power after a 100-year Zagwe interregnum. In 1316, the second battle of Athenry between Irish forces resulted in an Irish loss. No survivors wrote an account. Many lost their heads. In 1512, at the Battle of Saint-Mathieu, England's Henry VIII had a naval victory, but both the flagships blew up. Possibly the first engagement using port cannon. In 1519 Magellan set off on a round the world trip. He died en-route. His birthplace is disputed as to changeovers between Spain and Portugal. He might have been Palestinian. In 1628, Sweden built the magnificent Vasa, which sank twenty mites into her maiden voyage. In 1675, desperate to know the correct time, the cornerstone to Royal Greenwich Observatory was laid. In 1776, the Declaration of independence reached London. In 1792 in the French Revolution Louis XVI was arrested and his entire bodyguard killed. The next year, the Musée du Louvre was opened. In 1846, the Smithsonian was chartered by the US Congress. In 1904 the Russians and Japanese faced off at the Battle of Yellow Sea and had a draw. In 1932, a meteorite weighing 5.1kg landed in Missouri. In 1948, Candid Camera made a tv debut a year after Candid Microphone began on Radio. In 1969, A day after murdering Sharon Tate and four others, members of Charles Manson's cult killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. In 1977, David Berkowitz was arrested, he was called the Son of Sam, and he had killed people at random. In 1981, the head of Adam Walsh was found. Adam was six years old and his death prompted his dad to start America's Most Wanted. In 1988, Reagan began paying compensation to living Japanese Americans detained in WW2 by signing the Civil Liberties act of 1988. In 1990, the Magellan space probe reached Venus, four hundred and seventy one years after Magellan set forth on a circumnavigation. In 1995, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nicholls were indicted for the Oklahoma Bombing. In 2003, the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK, 38.5 degrees centigrade was reached. It has been cooler ever since. On the same day, a couple married in space, but there is no evidence they were gay. 
=== 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.
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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 Inga Nielsen and Grant Laing. Born on the same day as Le Hoan (941), James II of Aragon (1267), Samuel Arnold (1740), Henri Nestlé (1814), Herbert Hoover (1874), Charles Darrow (1889) and Claudia Christian (1965). Also on your day, Feast Day of Saint Lawrence (Roman Catholic Church)
1270 – Yekuno Amlak deposed the last Zagwe king and seized the imperial throne of Ethiopia, beginning the reign of the Solomonic dynasty that would last for more than 700 years.
1793 – The Louvre officially opened in Paris with an exhibition of 537 paintings.
1861 – American Civil War: The first major battle west of the Mississippi River, the Battle of Wilson's Creek, was fought.
1953 – First Indochina War: The French Union withdrew its forces from Operation Camargue against the Viet Minh in central modern-day Vietnam.
1988 – Japanese American internment: The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 became law, authorizing US$20,000 in reparations to each surviving internee. Forget Zagwe .. yesteryear. The Louvre opened despite the depredations of revolution. It isn't our battles which define us before God, but our choices.
Deaths
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THE DANCE-BASED ECONOMY

Tim Blair – Monday, August 10, 2015 (2:31am)

For a long time our agricultural sector was the primary source of Australia’s riches. Post-WWII, the industrial sector stepped up. More recently, the mining sector has generated enormous wealth.
But another crucial sector is lately receiving much government and public attention, being discussed at the highest levels by politicians and pundits alike. This sector is plainly vital to Australia’s employment and general economic development. It is a sector of the future.
I speak, obviously, of the dance sector.

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Australia’s dance sector yesterday.

Now, admittedly, I’d never actually seen or heard the phrase “dance sector” before it turned up last week in a breathless Fairfax account of Senate hearings into arts funding. But there it was, as bold as you like, right at the top of the 14th paragraph:

“The dance sector warned funding instability would have flow-on effects to tertiary and TAFE courses, with graduates possibly facing fewer job opportunities.”

As Australia transitions from a mineral export-based economy to a dance-based economy, it is clearly important to make certain that the dance sector is as stable as possible. Choreographer Lucy Guerin told the hearings that to do otherwise would risk us “eventually severing the future of artistic development in Australia and setting us back 30 years.”

“It’s that serious,” she added, with all the gravity you’d expect from a choreographer addressing a bunch of senators. 
(Continue reading The Dance-Based Economy.)
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GENDER DYSPHORIA FOR THE FLAG

Tim Blair – Monday, August 10, 2015 (2:14am)

As the Melbourne Herald Sun‘s Susie O’Brien pointed out last week, the Australian Football League has changed in recent years from a purely sporting organisation to a political pressure group with a profitable sideline presenting occasional AFL matches.
“The AFL is one of the most powerful causes for progressive change in our society,” wrote Susie, who approves of the AFL’s aggressive left-wing agenda. Seriously, there is now so much politics involved in the AFL that you can easily recreate the experience of watching a wintry weekend match just by standing in the rain and reading the Guardian.
It all points to radical on-field changes. We now fast-forward to coverage of the 2038 AFL Grand Final, already in progress:
Calliope Hybrid-Withers: “Welcome back to the start of the second quarter. As is now traditional, the entire first quarter was taken up with Welcome to Country ceremonies, Welcome from Another Country ceremonies and Whitey is Welcome to Leave our Country ceremonies, so now we might see some actual play.”
Tegan Windfarm: “And who’s your tip, Calliope?”
Calliope: “Well, the Port Adelaide Empowerment leads the season’s stats in hugs, but the Sydney Gender Dysphoria has a clear advantage in Twitter followers, so really it’s anybody’s game.”

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'GENDER DYSPHORIA FOR THE FLAG'
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LOVE YOU TO THE MOON, ALICE

Tim Blair – Monday, August 10, 2015 (2:09am)

The Sydney Morning Herald sure is selling some quality crap these days:

image

By comparison, Jeb Bush’s $75 Guaca Bowle is an absolute bargain.
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A FIRST-CLASS BURKE

Tim Blair – Monday, August 10, 2015 (1:33am)

Tony Abbott last week promised a “root and branch” review of politicians’ entitlements.
Presumably the Prime Minister included the words “and branch” to prevent the review focussing entirely on Tony Burke.
(Click and scroll to continue reading A First Class Burke.)
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FLAPARAZZI

Tim Blair – Monday, August 10, 2015 (1:26am)

Former Daily Telegraph photographer Noel Kessel captures remarkable images of avian aggression in Sydney:

image

In accordance with strict Australian naming rules, the powerful owl pictured is of a species known as the powerful owl. And its prey, a possum with a distinctive ring-shaped tail, is named … well, you can probably guess.
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Hockey is right, but where’s the will from anyone?

Andrew Bolt August 10 2015 (7:26pm)

Treasurer Joe Hockey is right:
We ... need to consider the sustainability of our heavy reliance on income tax, especially personal income tax. This is because we need to take into consideration the negative impact and disincentive of higher taxes.
The problem is we have an over-reliance on personal income tax to support our revenue base. Our largest source of tax revenue is personal income tax. It raised about $185 billion last year.
Our top marginal tax rate is higher than the OECD average and relatively high by international standards. When personal income tax is calculated as a proportion of total tax revenue, Australia’s taxation level is the second highest among OECD countries. We need to consider that about 300,000 Australians are expected to move into the second-highest tax bracket over the next two years. In just 10 years, nearly half of all taxpayers will be in the top two tax brackets — an increase from about 27 per cent today to 43 per cent.
Our personal income tax revenue is subject to unsustainable risk. For example, the top 10 per cent of individual taxpayers pay nearly half the personal income tax collected by the government. That is an over-reliance and dependence on a narrow base that is increasingly mobile to support our vital social infrastructure.
Of course, the obvious way to lessen that reliance is to cut income tax rates and index tax scales to inflation. But we’re running big Budget deficits. So to make room for any tax cuts we have to get back to the spending cuts that the media rejects and Labor and the Greens block. Just raising other taxes such as the GST is both lazy and suicidal.
But when we talking about cutting spending we get the sniping about politicians’ expenses.
That is no excuse for dodging the debate on our future. We’re taxing ourselves to a crawl, while spending $96 billion a day more than we earn. Something has to give. 
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The ABC still won’t admit bias even when its own reviewer points it out

Andrew Bolt August 10 2015 (7:19pm)

The ABC won’t even accept it’s biased even when its handpicked reviewer pings it:
The ABC’s news division has rejected a finding by an independent reviewer that an interview by AM presenter Michael Brissenden breached the ABC’s guidelines on impartiality.
The review, the fifth to have been commissioned by the ABC board, found that an interview with the leader of the government in the Senate, Eric Abetz, should not have been introduced with the phrase “from bad to worse”.
Former newspaper editor Steve Harris said in the review the phrase was “somewhat of a simplistic overstatement” and that in another part of the same segment Brissenden could have been more “neutral”.
“Overall, the segment risked being seen as having a tone of prosecuting a crisis narrative, i.e. ‘the smell of blood’,” Harris said.
But Brissenden’s managers in ABC News, who responded formally to the review, rejected Harris’s interpretation.
Same story last year:
One of the ABC’s most acclaimed journalists, Sarah Ferguson, was so hostile towards Treasurer Joe Hockey in an interview last year that she breached the broadcaster’s bias guidelines, an ABC-commissioned editorial review has found…
The finding has been rejected by ABC News director Kate Torney and has angered some senior ABC journalists.
Note that the independent reviewers never have to investigate claims of conservative bias in the ABC. 
UPDATE
Why is it that every complaint about the ABC seems to involve slanging off from the Left side of politics?

The review, conducted by former News Corp and Fairfax Media journalist Steve Harris, found only two of the 54 analysed items breached the ABC’s impartiality guidelines. But two-fifths of the ABC’s coverage was found to raise concerns or issues including:
hosts allowing their apparent personal views to shine through in their journalism an over-emphasis on the politics of the issue rather than its policy implications
exaggerated language, including of a government “crisis”
a lack of scrutiny of Labor and the Greens’ policy alternatives…
Harris, a former News Corp executive and Sunday Age editor, found AM host Michael Brissenden’s interview with government Senate leader Eric Abetz “risked being seen as having a tone of prosecuting a crisis narrative, ie ‘the smell of blood’”.
A radio interview by ABC Perth Mornings host Geoff Hutchinson with University of Western Australia vice-chancellor Paul Johnson was also deemed unsatisfactory.
Harris found Hutchinson “veered off the neutral script, allowing his own views to come through, i.e. intimating a personal view that it ought to be a government and taxpayer responsibility to educate its population and opposition to a user-pays system”.
“This ‘editorialising’ gave the impression the presenter had a dim view of the government and ministerial policy approach and advocacy,” Harris continued…
A Triple J Hack report referring to Education Minister Christopher Pyne’s “little tricks” was found to be “unnecessarily pejorative, risking the reporter being seen to be judgmental, or less than impartial or open-minded”.  
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Yes, ice addicts can come from any kind of family. But lots will actually come from broken homes

Andrew Bolt August 10 2015 (5:03pm)

I had a debate on 2GB about ice addiction, during which it was claimed it could hit any family.
And that’s true. We’ve seen good families devastated.
But it is also true that some families are far more likely than others to produce children who are ice addicts. Broken families.
We instinctively know this, and it is so well accepted that ice addicts from broken families actually plead that in mitigation. And if their own parents were drug users, they plead that, too.
Yet when it comes to media debates, it suddenly becomes a sign of heartlessness or -gasp - judgmentalism - to mention what statistics show. And then we surrender again to the great Australian victimology which seeks to explain drug addiction as simply a “disease” that’s no one’s fault and could strike any family out of clear blue sky.
But here are some news reports and study results:
“Junior" on the ABC:
Ice was my drug of choice because it made me active. You feel nothing… I found out the reasons why I had to change the way I was, and why. I needed the love of my mum. My parents parted at a younger age and I’ve got an anger boiling in me, still until this day, that I hide. I long for the love of my mum, just to spend some time with my mum, so it’s hiding the pain of that.
The ABC:
Four Corners ... spoke to a former child dealer and crystal meth cook… A lonely child from a broken home, by 13 he said he was smoking ice and at 15 the gang had taught him how to cook crystal meth...
Fairfax regional media:
THE drug ice takes your soul, a former Eurobodalla user says… From a broken home, he began smoking ice at just 18 to “take away the pain”.
The Sydney Morning Herald:

High on the drug ice and brandishing a knife, Perry burst into the store and pushed Mrs O’Toole into a cabinet. He stabbed Mr O’Toole when the jeweller rushed to protect his wife… Defence lawyer Julian McMahon said Perry came from a broken home ...
In Britain:

The researchers studied nearly 8,000 children aged between five and 16 in 2004 and found almost one in ten had disorders. The children were checked again last year. The report said that a child whose parents had split during this time was more than four and a half times more likely to have developed an emotional disorder than one whose parents stayed together.
From the Journal of Addiction:
Single-parent and reconstructed families were related to the greatest likelihood of substance use.
The International Journal of Environmental Health and Public Health:
There is predominant evidence pointing towards the differences in adolescent alcohol consumption rates and other risk-behaviour depending on the family structure… Various studies have shown that, compared with children brought up in intact families with two birth parents, children whose family structure is different (single parent and one step-parent families) are more likely to have emotional and psychological difficulties and behavioural problems… The prevalence of aberrant behavioural and emotional symptoms is lowest in children living with both their birth parents…
Stable homes with good role models matter. If we don’t drum that in to parents we are letting down children. 
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Donald Trump’s election campaign strategy - vilify as many people as possible

Andrew Bolt August 10 2015 (4:48pm)

Let’s review Donald Trump’s plan to win an election for president of the United States.
First, offend Hispanic Americans, about 12 per cent of eligible voters:
When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best....They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
Now offend female voters, about 53 per cent of people who vote:

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump said Friday he can’t recall using words such as “dog,” `’fat” and “disgusting” to insult women he believes have slighted him, but such language litters his Twitter feed and other public comments he’s made for years.
The issue took center stage at the first Republican debate of the 2016 campaign for president, when Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly asked Trump about his use of such language and whether it reflected the “temperament of a man we should elect as president.”
Trump largely dismissed Kelly’s question at the debate, but on Friday he went directly after her…

Referring to Kelly’s questions during the debate, Trump said, “There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”
Citing that remark, conservative commentator Erick Erickson said he was withdrawing his invitation for Trump to appear at his RedState Gathering in Atlanta on Saturday. “I just don’t want someone on stage who gets a hostile question from a lady and his first inclination is to imply it was hormonal,” Erickson wrote on the RedState website Friday night. “It just was wrong.”
Caveats: no, not “all” women or Hispanics would feel offended. And Trump denies his ludicrous comments on bleeding was a reference to Kelly have her period - believe that or not.
Yet as an election strategy, this is very unusual. Which is another way of saying thousands of experienced politicians have figured this kind of loudmouth abuse is a highway to defeat - and not merely the actions of a boor and a jackass.
Greg Sheridan:
Donald Trump is Hillary Clinton’s childhood dream come true… The two big constituencies that have been diabolical for Republicans for a decade and more are women and Hispanics…
As a political phenomenon, Trump bears a generic resemblance to Clive Palmer and Silvio Berlusconi, a rich individual who uses his money to buy fame, and his fame to accumulate influence, and whose core appeal is his crass rejection of normal politics…
Nations that elect celebrities with no political record tend to find it ends in tears…
Paradoxically, digital dominance and Twitter terror are dumbing down politics. Every commentator, and certainly every public figure, needs a big social media profile…
(S)hould we have free trade with China? The answer involves complex descriptions of the benefits of investment flows, the future of service industries, international trade within corporate structures, technology transfers and all kinds of other boring stuff.
So much easier to have a Twitter feed which says: Don’t let Chinese steal our jobs!
Of course professional politicians do this as well, as Shorten’s opposition is doing now with a disgraceful campaign against the China FTA.
Yet when in the greatest democracy in the world Trump is preferred as president by millions of voters over conscientious governors and senators, you know we’re all in a bit of trouble.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Doesn’t work. Doesn’t add up. Doesn’t matter. It’s global warming, right?

Andrew Bolt August 10 2015 (11:34am)

How much more evidence do you need? Global warming is a faith, impervious to reason:
Paul Kelly: How, as shadow treasurer, could you allow the leader to commit the party to the 50 per cent renewable energy target without any framework of analysis, without any work done on the impact of the scheme, the costs, any analysts whatsoever?
[Chris] Bowen: Well, because I believe in ­renewable energy.
UPDATE
Labor’s indifference to the terrible cost of its global warming faith is astonishing:
LABOR’S ambitious plan to cut carbon emissions by 40 to 60 per cent by 2030 would deliver a devastating blow to the economy, stripping a massive $600 billion from economic growth over the next 15 years, its own modelling commissioned in government has revealed.
The emissions cut would also cost tens of thousands of jobs and would likely lead to the closure of all 37 coal-fired power stations in Australia.
The shocking predictions are contained in a 2013 Treasury and Department of Industry and Climate Change modelling report.
Labor’s plan, which the party adopted last month at its national conference in Melbourne, would have to assume a carbon price of $209 a tonne by 2030, according to analysis of the models. It would also push wholesale power prices up 78 per cent over the next 15 years, radically increasing power bills for homeowners and businesses.

Simon Benson:

THE 2013 Mitigation Scenarios report by ­Treasury and a string of others is the report that Labor in government didn’t want anyone to see… Labor will lose this argument — again — if it isn’t upfront about what its policies will cost.
Daily Telegraph:
If Labor wants to create a welfare-dependent underclass of Australians whose former industries have been rendered non-viable by government legislation, this is exactly the right way to go about it.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
UPDATE
But for all the crazy demonisation of coal, the rest of the world is gobbling more of the stuff:
image
A new study by the prestigious National Academy of Sciences detects an unmistakable “coal renaissance” under way that shows this mineral of fossilized carbon has again become “the most important source of energy-related emissions on the global scale.”
Coal is expanding rapidly “not only in China and India but also across a broad range of developing countries — especially poor, fast-growing countries mainly in Asia,” the study finds.
Or take Turkey:

Over 80 new coal-fired power stations are proposed in Turkey, the biggest coal rush in the world after China and India.
(Thanks to reader Mark M.)    
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An ebbing of power

Andrew Bolt August 10 2015 (11:13am)

A sign of a transfer of power and a loss of authority.
Here is Bronwyn Bishop being ritually dragged to the Speaker’s chair in 2013 by Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Leader of the House Christopher Pyne:
image
Here is Bishop’s replacement, Tony Smith, being ritually dragged to the Speaker’s chair in 2014 by backbenchers Lucy Wicks and Michael Sukkar:
image
And was this a pointed remark from the new Speaker to Abbott, who looked so grim during Smith’s installation?
I also want to say I have many friends in this chamber. I have, Prime Minister, some friends on the other side.
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Why this silence of the feminists?

Andrew Bolt August 10 2015 (10:46am)

Glenn Reynolds on the silence of American feminists on the Islamic State’s sex slaves:
Once you understand that feminism isn’t about equality, or even really about women, but rather about keeping women agitated and aggrieved so that they’ll (1) read women’s publications, and (2) vote Democrat, it all makes sense.
You might make a not dissimilar point about the silence of our gay lobby and the Australian Greens about the Islamic State’s murder of gays. Or the silence of our arts community at the Islamic State’s destruction of art. 
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Labor further ahead. Abbott can’t stall on changing

Andrew Bolt August 10 2015 (7:52am)

Newspoll shows an increase in Labor’s lead - now 54 per cent to 46 - after the Bronwyn Bishop scandal.  If this isn’t reversed over the next month or so, Tony Abbott’s leadership will be in serious trouble again,
It is now clear the recovery has stalled, and in fact is being reversed. The Government thought it had made enough adjustments after its February nadir. As I have repeatedly argued, it has not and must make further changes with the urgency it showed in February.
To add to the list of must-dos at that link, here is my original ”change or die” analysis from last November. Much has since changed, but not enough.  
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Children die to save the “stolen generations” story

Andrew Bolt August 10 2015 (7:31am)

THE media cannot keep avoiding this terrible truth: the “stolen generations” ideology is killing Aboriginal children.
Western Australia’s Chief Justice, Wayne Martin, last week tried again to warn us.
“There has been an over-reaction to the stolen generation, which has resulted in people being too willing to allow Aboriginal kids to remain in environments that they would not allow non-Aboriginal kids to remain in,” he told a Senate committee.
(Read full column here.) 
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Why is Bronwyn Bishop punished but not Tony Burke?

Andrew Bolt August 10 2015 (7:22am)

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Bronwyn Bishop with Tony Abbott after today’s party meeting vote to replace her with Tony Smith.

SOMETHING stinks about the persecution of Bronwyn Bishop. If I were Julia Gillard, I’d scream “misogyny!”
Because answer this: why is Bishop the only politician hounded out of their job over this expenses scandal?
Why is the now ex-Speaker the only politician that journalists and politicians even want out of Parliament completely, despite her nearly 30 years of distinguished service?
What has this woman done that some men — particularly Labor frontbencher Tony Burke — haven’t done worse?
Here’s how Labor leader Bill Shorten tried to explain it last Friday: “Well, what we see with this entitlements debate is this has occurred because of the extravagant conduct of Bronwyn Bishop.”
But wait.
(Read full article here.) 
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The morning there was a knock on Matthew Hayden’s door

Andrew Bolt August 10 2015 (5:43am)

A terrific column by Matthew Hayden about wives on tour. He has a good reason not to believe the latest excuses for Australian’s Ashes failure. 
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Labor, Greens prove themselves to be slaves to terrorists

Piers Akerman – Sunday, August 10, 2014 (6:51am)

LABOR, Greens and what passes for leadership in Australia’s Muslim community are united in opposition to a new suite of anti-terrorism laws proposed by the federal government to deal with the threat posed by jihadists returning from foreign conflicts.
The Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohammed has called on “all fair-minded Australians” to support a Muslim-driven campaign against the draft laws.
The ubiquitous Keysar Trad from the Sydney-based Lebanese Muslim Association has called the federal government’s plans to beef up terror laws ­"deplorable" and “divisive”.
The Greens and Labor, which are both also trying to curry favour with the Muslim community and woo their inner-urban constituents, have expressed their opposition to the suggested changes. The Greens could never be relied upon to put matters of national security foremost.
Labor, however, has supporters in mainstream Australia who would be dismayed to learn their party’s leadership has now committed itself to the elitist view that national security is part of a conservative conspiracy, and that the party’s political interests are better served pandering to minority ethnic communities.
Moreover, the proposed changes — particularly those relating to the retention of metadata records — are not dissimilar to plans circulated by the former Labor attorney-­general Nicola Roxon two years ago.
\On Friday, the director-­general of ASIO David Irvine and the deputy commissioner of the Australian Federal Police Andrew Colvin tried to address some of the misinformation the ABC and Fairfax media have been promulgating.
The principal points Irvine made was that though the current terrorism threat level is “medium”, that is, a terrorist ­attack is likely and could occur, there is increased concern that there could be multiple attacks in “a dozen different places”.
With as many as 150 Australian-born jihadists fighting in Syria and elsewhere with murderous terrorist organisations, he did not need to expand on the nature of the threat.
Both men stressed that the changes they sought from the government were necessary, in line with international security requirements, and essential to meet the changing communications technologies.
They were, said Irvine, an “absolutely crucial tool to protect Australia and Australians”.
Colvin used the identification and capture of ABC staffer Jill Meagher’s killer as an example of the use of metadata to illustrate the need to ­access stored communications information. Without accessing the metadata, he said police “would not have solved the crime as quickly as we did”.
With evil braggarts including convicted terrorist Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elo-mar, who was pictured holding the severed heads of Syrian government soldiers, threatening to enact the same sort of horrific crimes in Australia, the need to give the security authorities the assistance they seek is obvious.
But they both also stressed that such material was also valuable in eliminating suspects from suspicion.
Which leaves the civil liberty argument and the discrimination argument mounted by the Muslims, Labor and the Greens looking pathetic.
The proposals do not represent an expansion of powers, rather they are designed to ­ensure that the data currently available remains available.
With evil braggarts including convicted terrorist Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elo-mar, who was pictured holding the severed heads of Syrian government soldiers, threatening to enact the same sort of horrific crimes in Australia, the need to give the security authorities the assistance they seek is obvious.
Labor and the Greens can suffer whatever electoral backlash occurs when one of the nut jobs breaches the security barrier, and there have been a number of horrendous attacks thwarted through good intelligence and policing.
The Muslim community, which is by no means homogeneous, must at some time confront the core differences between Islamic philosophy and Western ­culture.
Those who support a global caliphate, the goal of many of the jihadists, have no place in Australia. Their ideology is ­obviously at odds with the goals of a liberal democracy.
For too long our liberalism has meant that we have been excessively tolerant of the ­intolerant.
Nor should the ongoing Gaza situation influence Australian Muslims.
Hamas is a terrorist organisation, it is proscribed by our laws, its supporters are just as opposed to the values of our ­nation as they are dedicated to the murder of every Jew and the extinction of Israel.
As the Hamas constitution, or charter — never rescinded nor amended since it was first published in 1988 — says: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
Hamas defines its struggle as “against the Jews,” who are “smitten with vileness wheresoever they are found”.
If our security agencies need the tools to deal with those who foster such sentiment and support terrorism, they should have them.
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Unholy alliance fighting Australian terror laws

Miranda Devine – Sunday, August 10, 2014 (11:26am)

IT IS now a fact of life in Sydney that armed guards have to escort Jewish children to school. Much as we would wish it otherwise, the war drums of ancient Middle East conflicts have already come to Australia.
And none is so lethal as the threat of jihadists radicalised by the barbaric slaughter in Iraq and Syria.
Why, then, would any sane, loyal Australian oppose the government’s proposed modest modifications to anti-terrorism laws.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Unholy alliance fighting Australian terror laws'
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RACER HIT

Tim Blair – Sunday, August 10, 2014 (5:14pm)

This is horrifying:

(UPDATE. I’ve taken down the video following news of the driver’s death. Those who wish to see it may hit the above link.)

Kevin Ward Jr is the struck driver. NASCAR’s Tony Stewart is behind the wheel of the sprintcar that hit him. ESPNreports: 
Authorities say they are investigating the crash at Canandaigua Motorsports Park …
Michael Messerly, a fan who witnessed the crash, said it appeared Stewart – racing there on the eve of a race at Watkins Glen – hit a driver who was walking on the dimly lit track after they had collided on the previous lap.
He said Stewart struck the driver, who was wearing a dark racing suit, as he tried to “speed past” him.
“I didn’t see (the other driver) anymore,” he said. “It just seemed like he was suddenly gone.”
Messerly said the crash appeared to be the result of “a number of bad decisions” and not “any intent on Tony Stewart’s part.” 
Ward’s injuries are said to be life-threatening. Further news here.
UPDATE. Charlotte Observer reporter Jim Utter: 
Driver Kevin Ward Jr. was dead on arrival at the hospital. 
Jalopnik’s Matt Hardigree: 
Stewart appears to me to have clearly gunned the engine (with what intention we don’t know) near the driver, knocking him down and fatally injuring him. 
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OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN THE FIELD OF WRONG

Tim Blair – Sunday, August 10, 2014 (11:46am)

Imagine how many more prizes he’ll pick up if he ever gets something right: 
The oldest custodian of science in Australia has chosen Tim Flannery as the first recipient of its lifetime achievement award from its rebadged research institute.
Australian Museum director Kim McKay said the nation’s scientists needed to be celebrated, and the work of former musuem employee Dr Flannery, an internationally acclaimed researcher, explorer and conservationist, was an obvious first choice to honour.
“I think our scientists are fearless,” Ms McKay said. “It’s really important to give scientists a sense their work is collectively held in esteem and has a purpose.” 
Fearless, you say?
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WE ARE ALL 18C CASES NOW

Tim Blair – Sunday, August 10, 2014 (4:33am)

Fill in the form, should you wish.
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The Bolt Report today, August 10

Andrew Bolt August 10 2014 (7:58am)

On Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm…
Editorial: We’re muzzled, yet hate-preachers rant
My guest:  Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles
The panel: Peter Costello and Michael Costa
NewsWatch:  The Australian’s Sharri Markson.
The videos of the shows appear here.
UPDATE
The speech I referred to on today’s show - the most powerful I’ve seen in a long, long time, and one that may have helped save thousands of lives:
UPDATE
INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD MARLES 
ANDREW BOLT, PRESENTER: The Abbott Government this week unveiled new anti-terrorism proposals. TONY ABBOTT, PRIME MINISTER: And we are also going to tighten the law to make it easier to charge and to successfully prosecute and jail Australians who do get involved in terrorist activities overseas. ANDREW BOLT: But Muslim groups say it is unfair to have laws asking people to explain why they were in war zones in, say, Syria. RANDA KATTAN, ARAB COUNCIL AUSTRALIA: Here we go again, the Arab community, the Muslim community, has been singled out and it’s Islamophobia and it’s Arabphobia. SILMA IHRAM, MUSLIM WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION: It puts everybody on edge because we’re being suspected of something before we’ve done anything and we have to prove that we’re not going to do something. ANDREW BOLT: Joining me is Labor’s immigration spokesman Richard Marles. Thanks for joining me.
RICHARD MARLES, LABOR IMMIGRATION SPOKESMAN: Thanks Andrew.
ANDREW BOLT: Are these laws unfair, these proposed laws?
RICHARD MARLES: Well, we’ll get a briefing from the Government and have a good look at them. Our disposition, of course, is to support the Government in relation to national security matters. I’d have to say that if the Government puts forward a set of laws which it can’t find itself able to explain in terms of the capture of metadata, then, I think it needs to have a good look at itself in terms of getting the support of the Australian people in relation to that.
ANDREW BOLT: But these are laws not about - I’m talking now about the laws where, if you go to a jihadist war zone, you have got to explain to the police when you come back what exactly you were doing there.
RICHARD MARLES: I understand that. The collection of metadata was part of all of that, but we will have a good look at all those laws. We will talk with the Government and, obviously, amongst ourselves in considering it. As I say, our disposition has always been to have a bipartisan view when it comes to national security matters, but the Government is responsible for trying to explain these laws to the Australian people, and when you look at the performance of George Brandis in relation to the metadata component of it, he has patently failed.
ANDREW BOLT: Look…
RICHARD MARLES: And if you can’t get the Australia people on board…
ANDREW BOLT: Richard, I’ll get on to that later in the show. Don’t you worry about that. But this specific bit - explain what you were doing in a war zone. We hear now Muslim groups saying “this is unfair”. Is it unfair? It doesn’t strike me as unfair in principle.
RICHARD MARLES: Well, we will have…
ANDREW BOLT: Why can’t you say so?
RICHARD MARLES: We’ll have a good look at all of that. I’ve made the point, we are disposed to have a bipartisan view, when it comes to the national security, but we want to go through all that detail, and talk through that detail with the Government.
ANDREW BOLT: Peter Leahy, an academic and former head of the Army, says, yesterday, that we face a 100-year battle against radical Islam, not just overseas, but on our streets. Now, if that’s so, how should we adjust our immigration intake to make it safer?

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The Bolt Report today, August 10'
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Obama can’t just lift one finger to stop the Islamic State

Andrew Bolt August 10 2014 (5:47am)

Barack Obama pulled out of Iraq too soon, three years ago, and threw away the victory.
Obama then did not intervene in Syria, allowing the jihadists to grow in strength. (Indeed, what support he gave was to the rebel side.)
Obama then did almost nothing as jihadists from Syria swept into northern Iraq, beheading and shooting civilians.
Obama now belatedly does something but very, very little.
David Brooks:
The president wants ... to stay out of Iraq for probably and also certainly for political reasons. He also wants to defeat ISIS and he wants to do both. And the problem is, if you try to do both, you are going to do both mediocrely. And that’s basically what has happened. 
I just don’t think you can do both. ISIS is a pretty impressive organization and they have taken over. And for us to say we’re going to leave it to the Iraqis to take care of ISIS strikes me as probably not an option that’s going to be on the table. In the first place, getting the Iraqi government is an iffy proposition. Expecting the Iraqis to be able to beat ISIS on their own is so far unprecedented historically… Even if they do get a government, even if they are resolved to beat ISIS, it is going to be weeks and months. And ISIS is a pretty strong organization. They can do a lot of damage in the next weeks and months.
And so I think this split-the-different policy the president has adopted of trying to be in and out at the same time is probably not going to be tenable. And I suspect he’s going to have to go in a little further…
ISIS has become a threat, not only to the region, but to the United States. There are lots of Westerners in ISIS who ... want to launch terror attacks in Western Europe and the United States. ISIS is really a barbaric organization, as barbaric an organization as it’s possible to imagine on the face of the earth. They are a threat obviously to Syria, to Jordan. The Saudis are beginning to wake up. Even the Turks, who have somewhat manipulated them, are going to beginning to wake up to the threat they pose. If you can’t build an international coalition to oppose ISIS, who can you build an international coalition for? And that seems to me what is necessary.
Perhaps Obama will do it:
Laying the groundwork for an extended airstrike campaign against Sunni militants in Iraq, President Obama said Saturday that the strikes that began the day before could continue for months as the Iraqis build a new government. 
But does he have the time to dawdle?
Sunni militants in northern Iraq ordered engineers to return to work on the Mosul Dam, the country’s largest, suggesting that the extremists who captured the dam last week after fierce battles with Kurdish forces will use it, at least for now, to provide water and electricity to the areas they control, and not as a weapon… Its control over the dam, however, also gives the group the ability to create a civilian catastrophe: A break in the fragile dam could unleash a tidal wave over the city of Mosul and cause flooding and countless deaths along the Tigris River south to Baghdad and beyond, experts have said.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Want peace? Tell it to Hamas

Andrew Bolt August 10 2014 (5:42am)

The Sydney Morning Herald’s report on a pro-Palestinian “peace” protest yesterday should have mentioned why the war had actually resumed, instead of implying both sides were equally to blame.
The protest, the fifth in Sydney in as many weeks, followed the collapse of the three-day truce on Friday that dealt a blow to ongoing efforts to secure a lasting ceasefire… Nabil Omari, a pallbearer at the head of the protest, said it was ‘‘very bad’’ that hostilities had resumed.
Hostilities had resumed because, as with the previous four ceasefires, Hamas started firing rockets at Israeli civilians. 
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Shut up, grow up

Andrew Bolt August 10 2014 (5:28am)

These kids should clean up their act:
Young Liberals at one the country’s most elite universities have posted racist, crude and misogynist comments on social media, describing women as ‘’sluts’’, Muslims as ‘’degenerates’’ and saying all feminists are ugly.
The adults at the Sydney Morning Herald, though, would have more credibility in criticising this savagery if some of their own weren’t barbarians themselves. 
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Socialists protest, you pay

Andrew Bolt August 10 2014 (5:19am)

What is it about socialists that they can’t protest without police having to protect property and people?
The FOI numbers reveal that officers have worked 4852 shifts at East West Link protest sites in Melbourne’s inner north since September 30 last year, at a cost of more than $1.6 million.
Imagine a society led by people so sure that their might should prevail over your rights.
Oh, wait.
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When Labor went to clean up sport and destroyed justice

Andrew Bolt August 10 2014 (5:13am)

Sinclair Davidson looks at the astonishing evidence of political interference by the Gillard Government in the Essendon (alleged) doping scandal and the behind-the-scenes deal-making:
Looks like a railroading. 
It was a railroading.
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Fairfax, shocked by Mike Carlton’s potty mouth, replace him with a sewer

Andrew Bolt August 10 2014 (4:59am)

Why are so many Fairfax columnists so foul-mouthed? And why are so many Fairfax chiefs so selectively deaf and blind?
Tim Blair:
Veteran Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mike Carlton resigned this week rather than face suspension for his abusive and obscene online comments. The SMH is reportedly considering replacing Carlton with John Birmingham, who lives in the remote northern Sydney suburb of Brisbane, Queensland. 
But is Birmingham any less abusive or obscene? Let’s see how Carlton’s possible replacement conducts himself online: 
Read on. But warning: NSFW.
Odd, isn’t it, that such barbarians seriously claim they represent a higher morality. 
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LABOR/GREENS CAN STOP THE BOATS 

There are six States and two Territories in Australia. (Let’s leave the ACT out of this because it has always had blind Labor allegiance supporting half of Australia’s union membership.)

Of the six States only two are dire basket cases and those two are Labor States. The remaining four States are burdened with repairing the economic damage of Labor, after a period of all six States having endured Labor/Green annihilation.

Gillard governed in "coalition" with the Greens, yet there is just one Green member (Adam Bandt) in a House of 150 members, so to suggest the Greens are an over represented rabble is a gross understatement!

Lara Giddings, Labor Premier of Tasmania, rules with 23% of the vote compared to the Liberals 30%. But with the Greens’ vote at 20% (twice the national average) Giddings can comfortably govern with their assistance.

Jay Weatherill, Labor Premier of South Australia and ex-partner of Penny Wong, (say no more) rules the State of South Australia in his own right with a very influential Greens’ representation of 14% of the vote. (National polling is currently diminishing at 9%.)

Both Labor States have successfully fought off the Conservatives and proceeded to economically raze the landscape under the influence of gangrenous Greens.

As is usual, they have driven up unprecedented debt and unemployment with crazy feel-good policies that have failed miserably. They aim to destroy mineral mining, the coal industry and Israel. They want an egalitarian socialised society financed with borrowed funds.

The parlous economic failings of both South Australia and Tasmania is mirrored almost exactly in Canberra under Rudd/Gillard/Rudd/Greens.

So, where am I going with this?

Okay, so why did Rudd need to pay billions to Nauru and PNG in exchange for internationally advertising their countries as backward shitboxes?

Why couldn’t he have said, “Anyone arriving by boat from now on will be confined to one of two Labor/Green States”?

Now, anyone wanting to build a new life, get a job or start a new business would be devastated at that prospect?

Surely that would have sent a message to those pesky, enterprising, illegal immigrants? And in the process saved us billions?

Or he could wait until September 8!

If he wins Office then the whole country will become a backward shitbox!

Boat problem solved!
Larry Pickering
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Israeli flag
Why this Christian Supports Israel By: Gary Bauer

The people of Israel love what we Americans love and honor what we Americans honor. Israel is built on the rule of law. Its Declaration of Independence is modeled after ours. We are joined at the heart. The only memorial in the Middle East to honor the three thousand innocent Americans brutally murdered on the morning of 9/11 is in Israel. As crowds in the West Bank and Gaza rushed into the streets to celebrate the murderous attack on America, Israelis mourned with us, lowered their flag as we lowered ours, and wept with us. If you want to pay your respects at a memorial to John F. Kennedy, you can do it in Arlington National Cemetery – or you can go to the JFK memorial outside of Jerusalem. You can go to Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell – or you can visit not one but two replicas of it in Israel. You can honor Martin Luther King Jr. on Martin Luther King Day in January here in the U.S. – and you can honor him in Israel, the only country outside the U.S. that officially commemorates Martin Luther King Day, by visiting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Forest in the Southern Galilee region. (Israel also has a Coretta Scott King Forest). Christians who support Israel are walking a trail blazed by great American heroes who also supported Israel. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin wanted the symbol of our new republic to be Moses leading the Jewish people to the Promised Land. The founders of our great country, to a man, were restorationists; they wanted Jews around the world to be restored to their ancient homeland. Abraham Lincoln told his friends he wanted to visit the home of the Jews after he left the presidency, but an assassin’s bullet ended his life before he could. Closer to our own time, Harry Truman told the State Department to go to hell and recognized modern Israel almost immediately after its rebirth as a modern nation. Ronald Reagan said we had no greater ally. Bobby Kennedy defended Israel and was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist, Sirhan Sirhan. From Israel came the patriarchs, including Abraham, who saw God in a burning furnace. Israel gave us Moses, who chose suffering with his own people over the riches of Pharaoh’s house; Moses, who led his people across the Red Sea to the land promised them by God. I choose Israel because I want to stand with Gideon, Samson, David, Samuel and the prophets who conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises, survived the mouths of lions, felled giants, and put foreign armies to flight. I stand with Israel because of the biblical General Barak, who defeated the Canaanite oppressors and united the tribes, and because of Gideon, who did not seek self-glorification but rather the glorification of God. I choose Israel because I remember the millions who perished at Auschwitz and Buchenwald and some fifteen thousand other Nazi labor, death and concentration camps. I stand with Israel because the Jews who live there are surrounded by millions of fanatics who lust for their blood and want a second Holocaust. I support Israel because I don’t want murderous Islamists dancing on the Via Delarosa. I don’t want to see Jewish graves desecrated, the Western Wall defiled and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher turned into a garbage dump. Israel guarantees religious freedom, the Palestinian extremists do not. Why do I support Israel? You may as well ask me why I choose good over evil. On one side of the divide are Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic jihad, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and mothers who strap bombs on their innocent children and send them to kill Jews. There is intolerance, injustice, sharia law, and crowds chanting death to America. There are Holocaust deniers and Hitler wannabes, UN bureaucrats and EU appeasers. Their culture worships death, where women are treated like cattle and terrorists are heroes. On the other side is the only Jewish nation in the world – the apple of God’s eye; one of the pillars of Judeo-Christian civilization; our most reliable ally in the Middle East; a people who tell their children to love life, not death; the land where the patriarchs lived; a country that believes in freedom and tolerance, whose people have turned a desert into an oasis of progress and achievement. It may be a tough call for the UN and for State Department bureaucrats, for Jimmy Carter and for the religious left, and for the legions of the ignorant and confused, but it is not a tough call for me. I choose Israel – yesterday, today and tomorrow
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This week, after a three-and-a-half-year delay, US Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was finally placed on trial for massacring 13 and wounding 32 at Ft. Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009.

Hasan was a self-identified jihadist. His paper and electronic trail provided mountains of evidence that he committed the massacre to advance the cause of Islamic supremacy. Islamic supremacists like Hasan, and his early mentor al-Qaida operations chief Anwar al-Awlaki, view as enemies all people who oppose totalitarian Islam's quest for global domination.

Before, during and following his assault, Hasan made his jihadist motives obvious to the point of caricature in his statements about the US, the US military and the duties of pious Muslims. But rather than believe Hasan, and so do justice to his victims, the Obama administration, with the active collusion of senior US military commanders went to great lengths to cover up Hasan's ideological motivations and hence the nature of his crime.

On the day of the attack, Lt.-Gen. Robert Cone, then commander of III Corps at Ft. Hood, said preliminary evidence didn't suggest that the shooting was terrorism. Cone said this even though it was immediately known that before he began shooting Hasan called out "Allahu akhbar." He called himself a "Soldier of Allah" on his business cards.

In an interview with CNN three days after the attack, US Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said, "Our diversity, not only in our army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."

The intensity of the Obama administration's participation in this cover-up became clear in May 2012. At that time, Congress had placed a clause inside the Defense Appropriations Act requiring the Pentagon to award Purple Hearts to Ft. Hood's victims. Rather than accept this eminently reasonable demand, which simply required the administration to acknowledge reality, Obama's emissaries announced he would veto the appropriations bill and so leave the Pentagon without a budget unless the clause was removed.

Rather than define Hasan's attack as an enemy attack or a terrorist act, the administration has defined it as a case of "workplace violence." Following this determination, those wounded in the attack, as well as the families of the murdered, are denied the support conferred on soldiers killed or wounded by enemy fire.

At the first day of Hasan's trial this week, he admitted that he perpetrated the murderous attack because he is a jihadist who "switched sides" in the war. That is, he told the court that he conducted the attack as an act of war against the United States to advance the goals of the global jihad.

Hasan's statement made clear, once again, that in its efforts to describe his actions as "workplace violence," the administration is engaging in a cover-up. Its purpose is to deny the American people the truth about the nature of the jihadist threat to their country.

Outside the conservative media, and certain circles of the Republican Party, there has been no public outcry over the government's decision to cover up the nature of Hasan's actions. The public's passivity in the face of the government's mendacious, unjust behavior owes to the fact that the mainstream media have not castigated the administration for its decision to hide that Hasan was not a garden variety disgruntled employee but a traitor who acted in the service of declared enemies of the United States. In the absence of a media-induced public outcry, the administration has no reason to change its behavior. It has no impetus to acknowledge the truth and act accordingly.

THE SAME is the case with regards to the September 11, 2012, attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. Already on the day of the attack, it was apparent that the US mission and the CIA annex had been targeted in a premeditated, preplanned attack. Footage of the attack broadcast in real time showed armed men attacking the consulate with rocket-propelled grenades. It was not an act of savage mob violence. Mobs do not carry RPGs or act in a coordinated manner. That is, already at the time of the attack it was apparent that it was not a spontaneous protest in response to an anti-Islamic video on YouTube.

And yet, from the outset, the administration covered up what happened. And the media colluded. Fox News was the only major network that pursued the story. A US ambassador was raped and murdered on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks. US personnel were under multi-pronged attack for hours. Their desperate pleas for assistance were denied by the administration. And the US media went along with the fiction that the attack was a spontaneous outburst of rage over a YouTube video no one had ever seen.

The media's collusion was so great that CNN anchor Candy Crowley threw a US presidential debate when she defended Barack Obama's handling of the attack by inserting false information in the middle of the debate that she was moderating.

The Benghazi story keeps getting more and more outrageous. Last week we learned that some two dozen CIA personnel were on the ground during the attack. The administration has reportedly scattered these operatives throughout the US and forced them to adopt new identities. They have reportedly been prohibited from speaking to the media or congressional investigators, and subjected to monthly polygraph tests.

US personnel wounded in the attack have been hidden from investigators since the attack took place.

This behavior is scandalous, and unprecedented. Yet, outside of the "usual suspects" in the conservative media and the Republican Party, there is no outrage. The media coverage of this shocking revelation is nearly nonexistent, and where it exists, the reportage is laconic, indifferent.

Here, too, the administration feels comfortable perpetuating its cover-up. As in the case of Ft. Hood, why come clean if there is no price to pay for lying and covering up? 

Speaking of the frequent US failures in understanding events in faraway lands, Winston Churchill famously quipped, "We can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities." 

But what if the other possibilities are never exhausted? The media's collusion with the Obama administration's false portrayal of jihadist attacks on US targets gives foreign leaders concerned about the US's lackadaisical attitude toward jihadist threats no reason for confidence. In the absence of public pressure, the Obama administration has no reason to change course when its policies fail.

IN ISRAEL'S case, the first place where the lesson of this state of affairs needs to be internalized is in regards to Iran's nuclear weapons program. Since taking office, Obama has repeatedly claimed that he will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. But in practice, his actions have enabled Iran to vastly expand its nuclear weapons program. Due to his malfeasance, today Iran has arrived at the cusp of a nuclear arsenal. More than his words, Obama's actions have made clear that he has no intention whatsoever of conducting military strikes against Iran's nuclear installations to prevent the regime from developing nuclear weapons.

Obama's latest ploy for running the clock down is his embrace of the fiction that Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, is a moderate interested, (and perforce empowered), to cut a nuclear deal with the US that would see Iran voluntarily and credibly end its uranium enrichment activities.

Speaking of Rouhani this week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu referred to him as "a wolf in sheep's clothing," and warned US and European officials not to be taken in by his act. Netanyahu also noted that Iran has expanded its nuclear activities since Rouhani was elected two months ago.

But he might as well save his breath.

Rouhani's act - like that of his supposedly moderate predecessors Mohammad Khatami and Ahkbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - is so thin that it can only work on people who will be taken in by anyone. And indeed, the Obama administration was taken in by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. For five years Obama insisted on conducting self-evidently futile negotiations with Iran while Ahmadinejad - the anti-moderate - was serving as president.

The US and Europe are not taken in by Iran because Iran is good at hiding its true intentions. They are taken in by Iran because they want to be taken in. They want to believe that they don't have to attack Iran and overthrow the regime to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power. They want to believe they can appease Iran by pretending it isn't a danger, just as they believe they can end the threat of terror by jihadists in the US military and Benghazi by pretending they don't exist.

They want to believe these threats can be ignored, or appeased away. And just as Obama and his followers are willing to pretend away Hasan's actions to protect "diversity," and to pretend away the September 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi to protect the myth of the Arab Spring, so they are willing to permit Iran to go nuclear to protect the sanctity of appeasement.

The only thing they are willing to put their foot down about is the prospect of an Israeli strike. And they have put their foot down on this issue for the past decade. It isn't that the US is deliberately enabling Iran to acquire a nuclear arsenal. It is just that the US elite in government and the media care more about protecting their faith in diversity and appeasement than they do about preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

They have convinced themselves that the prospect of appeasing Iran will evaporate if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear installations. And so we have seen a parade of senior US defense officials descending on Israel every time it appears that Israel is planning to attack Iran. We have seen a parade of former Israeli military and security chiefs with close ties to the US defense establishment declaring before every available microphone that Israel must not strike Iran and that we can count on Obama to protect us.

But we mustn't believe their assurances or succumb to their pressure. Obama will not change course. He doesn't have to. So long as he maintains faith with the god of appeasement, the US media will protect him. And so long as they protect him, he will pay no price for his failures. So he will repeat them.

Israel cannot countenance a nuclear Iran. So Israel needs to attack Iran's nuclear installations.

No more needs to be said.

Originally published in the Jerusalem Post. 
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http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/quick-pix-lucille-ball-wvideo/

Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American comedienne, model, film and television actress and studio executive. She was star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here’s Lucy and Life with Lucy, and was one of the most popular and influential stars in the United States during her lifetime. Ball had one of Hollywood’s longest careers, especially on television.
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Believe it or not… Many people actually believe that Israel is trying to exterminate the Palestinians! 

So please SHARE this excellent article: 

ARE JEWS THE MOST INCOMPETENT “ETHNIC CLEANSERS” IN THE WORLD? 

The Palestinian population in the West Bank increased from 462,000 in 1949 to more than 2.5 million today. In Gaza, the population increased from 82,000 in 1949 to 1.7 million today.

Additionally, to add further context: The number of Arabs killed (since 1920) in Arab-Israeli wars is less than the number of Arabs killed by Arabs in Syria alone since 2011.

As a point of reference, the Jewish population of Gaza and Palestinian controlled West Bank is practically zero (save a few pro-Palestinian “journalists” who reside there), while the Jewish population in the entire Arab Middle East has decreased from over 850,000 in 1949 to less than 5,000 today.

The broad charge that Jews are ethnically cleansing Arabs (Palestinians or otherwise) in the Middle East, based on the numbers, represents the opposite of the truth. In the territory where Jews rule or have ruled in some manner since 1948 the Arab population has increased dramatically, while territories in the region where Arabs rule (representing over 99% of the total land) have slowly become either nearly or completely Judenrein.

http://cifwatch.com/2013/08/08/are-jews-the-most-incompetent-ethnic-cleansers-in-the-world/
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When Failure Carries No Cost August 9, 2013, 8:35 AM by Caroline Glick 
Rather than define Hasan's attack as an enemy attack or a terrorist act, the administration has defined it as a case of "workplace violence." THE SAME is the case with regards to the September 11, 2012, attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. N ISRAEL'S case, the first place where the lesson of this state of affairs needs to be internalized is in regards to Iran's nuclear weapons program. Obama's latest ploy for running the clock down is his embrace of the fiction that Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, is a moderate interested, (and perforce empowered), to cut a nuclear deal with the US that would see Iran voluntarily and credibly end its uranium enrichment activities.
http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2013/08/when-failure-carries-no-cost.php?utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=When+failure+carries+no+cost&utm_campaign=20130809_m116874325_Untitled+Promotion+1&utm_term=Continue+reading___
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Putin prospers by isolation? Fry makes a very well put point. What will Olympic committee do? - ed
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Pastor Rick Warren
"If you stay pure and live with integrity, God will rise up and restore you. Though you started with little, you'll end with much." Job 8:6-7
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Pastor Rick Warren
The Bible plainly shows that righteous people don't get problem-free lives, but in reality, are usually refined by intense firey trials.
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Pastor Rick Warren
When you feel like giving up, remember ‪#‎why‬ you started. WHY always determines how long you do anything.
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Pastor Rick Warren
The reason we can trust God completely is that he worthy of it. He is good, loving, and flawless.
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Pastor Rick Warren
Satan wants you to question God’s goodness, love,and His Word. In the first step of temptation he whispers “Did God REALLY say...?”
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Pastor Rick Warren
In you're future are many uncertainties, but God’s love for you isn't one of them.
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C. H. Spurgeon's status
Obedience rendered without delight in rendering it is only half obedience.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY 
Peter Beattie on Kevin Rudd……………

"For me, Rudd's lack of political judgment was demonstrated in the introduction of the mining tax without proper consultation, the backflip on timing of the emissions trading scheme and the bungled home insulation program.

"His failure to listen to a broad range of advice particularly on issues in which he had little expertise also demonstrated poor judgement. Sadly, Kevin self-destructed.''

"If you did make a return to the prime ministership by removing Julia it would be akin to Napoleon's 100 glory days after his return from exile, when he was defeated at Waterloo by Wellington.''

"Napoleon's return was short-lived but his exile to St Helena in the South Atlantic was permanent, and he finally died at the hands of a trusted lieutenant through arsenic poisoning.''

http://www.news.com.au/national-news/federal-election/kevin-rudd-admits-to-8216odd-stoush8217-with-forde-candidate-peter-beattie/story-fnho52ip-1226693837430#ixzz2bXpKxk97
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THE PRICE OF MORAL-VANITY: A CATALOGUE OF GREEN ECONOMIC DISASTERS UNFOLDS ACROSS EUROPE.

Oped by Jo Nova ………(and this is exactly where Labor wants to take Australia)

"The real cost of moral-vanity, of name-calling, poor reasoning, selecting one’s evidence, and the triumph of doing things because they “feel-good” rather than because of the cold hard numbers, is measured in the trillions.

This disaster was entirely foreseeable, totally predictable, and completely unnecessary.

Europe is beginning to realise that its green energy strategy is dying on the vine. Green dreams are giving way to hard economic realities.

Slowly but gradually, Europe is awakening to a green energy crisis, an economic and political debacle that is entirely self-inflicted.

The flagrantly wasted resources are simply obscene:

EU members states have spent about €600 billion ($882bn) on renewable energy projects since 2005, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Germany’s green energy transition alone may cost consumers up to €1 trillion by 2030, the German government recently warned.

That this kind of waste and mismanagement should have occurred under Western Governments when the financial nonsense of it was obvious long before the money was spent, stands as an argument against Big-Government and a warning of where gullible Green economics leads.

Real people have toiled fruitlessly across Europe to pay for these ridiculous schemes.

Their quality of life reduced by the failure of big-government, of mentally weak, ethically bankrupt academics, of poorly trained overconfident poseur journalists.

It’s a case of lose-lose all around, everyone — taxpayers, investors, renewables companies, gas companies — all lost.

Waste and stupidity on a colossal scale.

None of this even counts the flow-on effects of expensive energy — how much was lost from European manufacturing which could not compete? Investors are “pouring money into the US, where energy prices have fallen to one-third of those in the EU, thanks to the shale gas revolution.”

This is burning money on a scale that only Big-Government can manage, misdirected malinvestment so “successful” that we can only guess how many people have lost jobs, lost years of work, and in the case of homes without electricity, lost lives.

http://joannenova.com.au/2013/08/the-price-of-moral-vanity-a-catalogue-of-green-economic-disaster-unfolds-across-europe/
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August 10: Raksha Bandhan (Hinduism, 2014); Feast Day of Saint Lawrence (Roman Catholic Church)
The Vasa, today a museum ship
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“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Luke 12:6-7 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"The city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it."
Revelation 21:23
Yonder in the better world, the inhabitants are independent of all creature comforts. They have no need of raiment; their white robes never wear out, neither shall they ever be defiled. They need no medicine to heal diseases, "for the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick." They need no sleep to recruit their frames--they rest not day nor night, but unweariedly praise him in his temple. They need no social relationship to minister comfort, and whatever happiness they may derive from association with their fellows is not essential to their bliss, for their Lord's society is enough for their largest desires. They need no teachers there; they doubtless commune with one another concerning the things of God, but they do not require this by way of instruction; they shall all be taught of the Lord. Ours are the alms at the king's gate, but they feast at the table itself. Here we lean upon the friendly arm, but there they lean upon their Beloved and upon him alone. Here we must have the help of our companions, but there they find all they want in Christ Jesus. Here we look to the meat which perisheth, and to the raiment which decays before the moth, but there they find everything in God. We use the bucket to fetch us water from the well, but there they drink from the fountain head, and put their lips down to the living water. Here the angels bring us blessings, but we shall want no messengers from heaven then. They shall need no Gabriels there to bring their love-notes from God, for there they shall see him face to face. Oh! what a blessed time shall that be when we shall have mounted above every second cause and shall rest upon the bare arm of God! What a glorious hour when God, and not his creatures; the Lord, and not his works, shall be our daily joy! Our souls shall then have attained the perfection of bliss.

Evening

"He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils."
Mark 16:9
Mary of Magdala was the victim of a fearful evil. She was possessed by not one devil only, but seven. These dreadful inmates caused much pain and pollution to the poor frame in which they had found a lodging. Hers was a hopeless, horrible case. She could not help herself, neither could any human succour avail. But Jesus passed that way, and unsought, and probably even resisted by the poor demoniac, he uttered the word of power, and Mary of Magdala became a trophy of the healing power of Jesus. All the seven demons left her, left her never to return, forcibly ejected by the Lord of all. What a blessed deliverance! What a happy change! From delirium to delight, from despair to peace, from hell to heaven! Straightway she became a constant follower of Jesus, catching his every word, following his devious steps, sharing his toilsome life; and withal she became his generous helper, first among that band of healed and grateful women who ministered unto him of their substance. When Jesus was lifted up in crucifixion, Mary remained the sharer of his shame: we find her first beholding from afar, and then drawing near to the foot of the cross. She could not die on the cross with Jesus, but she stood as near it as she could, and when his blessed body was taken down, she watched to see how and where it was laid. She was the faithful and watchful believer, last at the sepulchre where Jesus slept, first at the grave whence he arose. Her holy fidelity made her a favoured beholder of her beloved Rabboni, who deigned to call her by her name, and to make her his messenger of good news to the trembling disciples and Peter. Thus grace found her a maniac and made her a minister, cast out devils and gave her to behold angels, delivered her from Satan, and united her forever to the Lord Jesus. May I also be such a miracle of grace!
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Today's reading: Psalm 77-78, Romans 10 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 77-78

For the director of music. For Jeduthun. Of Asaph. A psalm.
1 I cried out to God for help;
I cried out to God to hear me.
2 When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands,
and I would not be comforted.
3 I remembered you, God, and I groaned;
I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.
4 You kept my eyes from closing;
I was too troubled to speak.
5 I thought about the former days,
the years of long ago;
6 I remembered my songs in the night.
My heart meditated and my spirit asked:
7 "Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?

Today's New Testament reading: Romans 10

1 Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2 For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3 Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. 4 Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
5 Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: "The person who does these things will live by them." 6But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 "or 'Who will descend into the deep?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: 9 If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. 11 As Scripture says, "Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame." 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile-the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
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Terah, Tarah, Thara

 [Tē'rah,Tā'ra, Thā'ră] - wild goat orturning, wandering. A son of Nahorand father of Abraham and ancestor of Christ (Gen. 11:24-32; Josh. 24:2; 1 Chron. 1:26; Luke 3:34). SeeNumbers 33:27, 28.

The Man Who Died Half Way

Along with his three sons, Abraham, Nahor and Haran, Terah migrated from Ur of the Chaldees to Haran, where he died. The reference to him serving other gods led some of the Jewish Fathers to think of Terah as a maker of idols (Josh. 24:2). Why did Terah die at Haran? Was it not his intention to go to Canaan (Gen. 11:31, 32)?
It was God's purpose to separate Abraham from his kindred (Gen. 12:1 ), but Terah and Lot left with him, an exodus, perhaps, Abraham could not prevent. Lot, although he reached Canaan, was a constant grief to his uncle. The death of Terah seems to suggest that complete separation unto God often means the severance of some of earth's dearest ties. Terah is also a type of many who step out for Christ but whose hopes of discipleship die half way. Beginning in the Spirit they end in the flesh. Halfway converts never make wholehearted saints. Are you at Haran, or is yours the joy of living in Canaan?
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