Thursday, August 06, 2015

Thu Aug 6th Todays News

Bleeding heart lefties will always excuse a Democrat's abrogation of responsibility. Truman was wrong to drop the atomic bomb on civilian populations. The principle of bombing civilians was established in Germany before the atom bomb. There was some justification for the Dam Buster raid. but the terrible fire bombing of German cities after the Normandy invasion was not warfare but war crimes and very political. The US fought to liberate Germany before the Soviet Union dominated all. The firebombing was too much, too late. Then, the US faced the Soviet Union taking a significant part of Japan in the coming peace. Tokyo was firebombed too. The selection of civilians as opposed to military targets is an important distinction. Terrorism, according to modern Democrats, is not justified. But they do. They make up stories justifying bombing of civilians. They say it was to end the war faster, so as to not risk troops in an invasion. But had they bombed military targets the same result would have happened. They say that it was necessary because of total war. Even civilians, they argue, are part of a war effort. But, that is not true either. Women shopping, cleaning homes and caring for babies are not part of a war effort. Even today, in so called Palestine, it is recognised by many that exploitation of such people is wrong. XYZ magazine is claiming that such historical questions need not be asked. They claim it is revisionist to ask such questions. But the obvious reality is that were it to happen today it would be a war crime. And the same was true then, too. 
=== from 2014 ===
 The enormity of dropping a bomb on a civilian population was committed on this day in 1945. Conventional wisdom has it that it was done to shorten the war. President Truman later claimed he slept soundly over the decision. US Chiefs of staff of military claimed it wasn't Truman's decision. The truth is it was a war crime and will probably never be properly examined and it is impossible to compensate victims. Japan is not alone in experiencing the war crime of bomb dropping on civilian populations. Germany experienced it too .. and both dealt it as well. The background to firebombing German cities and nuking Japanese ones is political. Weak US leadership (Democrat Presidents) and the threat of a rapacious Soviet Union which was claiming territory from temporal delay  forced a desperate US leadership to cut corners. In the rush, US military shed personnel in assaults when prudence would have called for caution. But time was a luxury .. Germany had technical expertise which later led to the US Space program. Fifth columns within the allied nations campaigned to prevent territories from being liberated by US/UK troops when the Soviets could claim it. In Europe it resulted in an East West divide until 1990. In Asia it resulted in North Vietnam and North Korea. In Hiroshima it resulted in some 70,000 dead immediately and tens of thousands in the years that followed. Try as hard as he will, Obama might never be a worse President than Truman. 

In current affairs Christopher Pyne has a sensible policy for higher education that allows the sector to expand and excel. There is no alternative vision given by the opposition. Unless Pyne's reforms are followed, the sector threatens to implode. The opposition are opposing the budget measures and worse, independents are flagging they will too. There is no alternative to affordable. Students need to eventually repay loans. Students need to shoulder a fair portion of the burden of costs. The sector needs to be able to sell itself overseas. Twin baby Gammy may be a part of a Thai surrogacy scam. The baby may be the child of a pedophile. However, the baby deserves to be raised in a loving, healthy family. Surrogacy and adoption laws in Australia mean prospective parents look overseas. The dad should never be a parent. Now it looks like the corrupt Thai government are seeking money and threatening the surrogate mother as a shakedown. NSW Government is looking sick in the ICAC hearings, but then the biased court is good at denouncing conservatives where it turns a blind eye on ALP. The involvement of Tripodi opens questions of the NSW Government's handling of my issue outlined in my petition. Have I been sold down the river to pay for ALP corruption the ICAC has accepted? 

Also on this day in history, in 1806, the Holy Roman Empire dissolved after the last emperor abdicated, leaving large kingdoms like Austria, Hungary and what would later be Germany. Francis II would continue to oppose Napoleon. In 1912, the Bull Moose Party established by Theodore Roosevelt met in Chicago Coliseum. Theodore split the conservative vote and gave Democrat Wilson the Presidency. In 1926, the movie Don Juan starring John Barrymore was released. It featured sound effects, but no talking. And the most kisses of any Hollywood movie. In 1930, the corrupt New York Government resulted in Judge Joseph Crater disappearing. Some say he was killed by police and relatives of police. In 1964, an old tree was identified and cut down for research. The research was unequivocal, that tree was old. Possibly five thousand years old. There is no evidence the scientist had read Tolkein's work. 
=== 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 John Drapski and Nhan Tran. Born on the same day, across the years, along with Louise de La Vallière (1644), Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809), Edith Roosevelt (1861), Alexander Fleming (1881), Lucille Ball (1911), Robert Mitchum (1917), Andy Warhol (1928), Piers Anthony (1934), Michelle Yeoh (1962), M. Night Shyamalan (1970), Geri Halliwell (1972) and JonBenét Ramsey (1990). On your day, Feast of the Transfiguration (Gregorian calendar); Independence Day in Jamaica (1962)
1506 – Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania achieved one of the greatest Lithuanian victories against the Tatars in the Battle of Kletsk.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Oriskany, one of the bloodiest battles in the North American theater of the war, was fought about six miles (10 km) east of Fort Stanwix, New York.
1806 – The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by its last emperor, Francis II, during the aftermath of the War of the Third Coalition.
1945 – World War II: Hiroshima, Japan is devastated when the atomic bomb "Little Boy" is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people are killed instantly, and some tens of thousands die in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning.
1966 – Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan became emir and ruler of Abu Dhabi, succeeding his brother, Sheikh Shakhbut bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who was deposed in a bloodless coup d'état.
1988 – New York City Police officers charged a crowd protesting a curfew for the previously 24-hour Tompkins Square Park, sparking a riot that led to more than 100 complaints of police brutality. Your day is grand, overshadowed by the un-prosecuted war crime of Truman to the minor tragedy of the life of JonBenét Ramsey. Yet in endeavour, you are unbound, and the world is your oyster.
Despatches
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LET’S NOT GET HYSTERICAL

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 06, 2015 (2:48pm)

Spending taxpayer funds to fly your children across the country in business class is no big deal, according to the ABC’s Barrie Cassidy: 
Pollies away from their families by necessity entitled to negotiate modest family friendly work arrangements. Let’s not get too hysterical. 
But Labor’s Tony Burke disagrees, although not to the extent of actually paying back the money: 
Labor frontbencher Tony Burke says his family’s $12,000 business class trip to Uluru was “beyond community expectations” but is standing by the claim, although he will repay $90 in travel expenses he claimed to attend a Robbie Williams concert …
“While I am completely confident that the questions in particular relating to Uluru and Cairns have been 100 per cent within the rules, they have also been completely beyond community expectations, and that’s been made clear,” he said.
He said while he saw his family in the morning and at night it was no holiday for him …
“I had senior members of my staff and departmental officials with me. You don’t go on a holiday with the public servants from your department. And the view that it was a holiday, it simply wasn’t. It simply wasn’t,” he said. 
It was for the kids.
(Via John P.)
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MAYBE THEY’LL APPLY FOR ARTS GRANTS

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 06, 2015 (4:34am)

The bludjahideen belatedly lose their taxpayer funding: 
Most of the 120 Australians who have joined Islamic State terrorists in Iraq and Syria have been stripped of their welfare payments. 
Additionally: 
Up to 70 other extremists who were prevented from flying overseas may also lose welfare, under powers that came into effect last October. 
However: 
Police and national security agencies are understood to be wary of cutting off all welfare payments, for fear of worsening extremism. 
Really.
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ADELAIDEAN ANGLES

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 06, 2015 (3:46am)

Sarah Hanson-Young tilts almost as much as a sinking boat loaded with doomed asylum seekers. Oh, well. Accidents happen:

image

The angled Adelaidean now faces – at an appropriate incline – accusations of travel expense indulgence: 
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young charged taxpayers $2700 in flights, accommodation and Comcars in Sydney on the same weekend she received free VIP tickets to attend the 2013 Mardi Gras.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal Ms Hanson-Young received two VIP tickets from Mardi Gras organisers to attend the March 2 event.
That weekend the outspoken Greens Senator claimed $744 for two nights of travel allowance, $994 in flights and $963 in Comcar travel. 
(Via Eli Greenblat.)
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YOU CAN’T HIDE THOSE LION EYES

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 06, 2015 (2:52am)

Cecil psychosis grips the US, and Jim Treacher has had enough: 
For reasons I still don’t understand, America has lost its damn mind about a dead lion. You see, recently some dentist from Minnesota went on a lion-hunting trip to Zimbabwe – which is apparently a thing – and he killed a lion that wasn’t in the designated hunting area. This is, of course, the most important thing in the world. 
Please read the whole piece, which ends with this excellent line: “You can believe in evolution, or you can cry over a dead lion. Pick one.”
UPDATE. Zimbabwean Goodwell Nzou was studying at his US university when messages began arriving about the death of someone or something named Cecil: 
When I turned on the news and discovered that the messages were about a lion killed by an American dentist, the village boy inside me instinctively cheered: One lion fewer to menace families like mine.
My excitement was doused when I realized that the lion killer was being painted as the villain. I faced the starkest cultural contradiction I’d experienced during my five years studying in the United States.
Did all those Americans signing petitions understand that lions actually kill people? 
(Via Mike M.)
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OBEDIENT JULIA

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 06, 2015 (2:28am)

Julia Gillard obeying bossy men? It happened, according to Kevin Rudd: 
“Union-based factions led by the faceless men have become the control agents of the party,” Mr Rudd told The Australian.
“This became entrenched under Julia Gillard, who said yes to virtually all of their demands in exchange for political power. That is why, when I returned to the leadership, I insisted on the rule change to radically reduce the power of factional thugs on the election of future leaders. They hated it; still do.” 
Gillard has also apologised to another man: 
Julia Gillard has published a personal apology to South Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon for a false claim she made about him in her political autobiography My Story …
Ms Gillard acknowledges that, on page 320 of the first edition of her book, an allegation appeared that Senator Xenophon was “infamously excluded from university for a period as punishment for stuffing a ballot box full of voting papers he had somehow secured”.
“I retract the allegation, accept that the allegation was false, and sincerely apologise to Nick Xenophon for any harm, embarrassment and distress caused,” Ms Gillard says …
Ms Gillard’s publisher, Random House, reached a confidential cash settlement with Senator Xenophon over the allegation in February and published a public apology which also ran as a paid advertisement. 
Even after leaving office, Gillard is still costing people money.
===

STANDING UP AGAINST SYSTEMS OF OPPRESSION

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 06, 2015 (1:47am)

“One mustn’t let all that hatred and self-involvement go to waste.” David Thompson examines the earnest thoughts of “a Bay Area-based writer, musician, optical sound-smith and queer/femme antagonist.”
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The PM’s office is not as tricky as painted

Andrew Bolt August 06 2015 (3:11pm)

Niki Savva is right to criticise the choice of Bronwyn Bishop as Speaker and criticise the management of her expenses scandal. All fair calls.
But I have two problems with this:
Tony Nutt [now running the party in NSW] was brought in as principal private secretary. They were a formidable combination, integral to Howard’s success. Nutt knew where every single body was buried, partly because he put some of them there.
If Nutt had been in the Abbott office, empowered to do the job he had previously, he would have speedily, forensically gone through Bishop’s claims, recognised immediately what needed to be done, then in his own inimitable way convinced her and the Prime Minister to do it…
But Nutt was not there, and despite the false assurances to MPs, the private briefings to helpful journalists that he would be, all designed to quell disquiet or sully the reputations of those who doubted, he was never going to be.
First, Abbott did have advice to distance himself from Bishop. In the end, it was his call.
Second, having spoken at length to everyone most concerned, I know that the last six words of Niki’s I’ve quoted are not true. Nutt may come over the PM’s office or Liberal HQ, or in the end he may not. But the discussions have been held, the delays have been more from Nutts’ side for inescapable reasons to do with an election and party administration, and the move is still a live option, depending on final calculations on where he can best help the Liberals to win an election, given how critical NSW will be. 
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Time to take the ABC off the Left

Andrew Bolt August 06 2015 (12:55pm)

Former ABC chairman Maurice Newman says the ABC’s bias and size shows it needs drastic reform:
[A] recent paper, Bias at the Beeb? A Quantitative Study of Slant in BBC Online Reporting, by economist Oliver Latham found the BBC is twice as likely to cover left-wing policy proposals than those that are right-wing. Antony Jay, co-creator of Yes Minister, wrote of the BBC: “We were anti-industry, anti-capitalism, anti-advertising, anti-selling, anti-profit, anti-patriotism, anti-monarchy, anti-empire, anti-police, anti-armed forces, anti-bomb, anti-authority. Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place, we were anti-it."…
The dilemma for public broadcasters is that as they have expanded, they have lost sight of their original purpose and core values. And now the groupthink from which they operate makes returning to the Reithian principles of impartiality and commitment to public service harder to achieve without a drastic reform of the inward-looking provider-culture.
In any event, the demonstrable failure of public broadcasters to govern themselves means external regulation will be imposed. Britain’s communications regulator Ofcom may be given this role for the BBC, while Australia and Canada will probably adopt a similar approach…
All this suggests that the present public broadcasting model is broken. Its place in a modern democracy faces new, possibly terminal, challenges. As it caters to narrowing audiences, increased funding will be hard to justify, especially when respectable private alternatives exist and technology is opening up even more opportunities to be informed, educated and entertained.
It has become hard for those championing the public broadcasting cause not to look increasingly like a vocal minority of self-interested elites trying to hang on to their expensive, middle-class, welfare.
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Very old Japanese people are dying of cancer. Anti-nuclear campaigners shocked

Andrew Bolt August 06 2015 (11:04am)

Are journalists really so crazed with anti-nuclear sentiment that they cannot spot the obvious stupidity of this scare?
Seventy years after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, killing tens of thousands of people, research shows many of the remaining survivors are dying from cancer and other serious illnesses.
On the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, survivors and aid organisations have called for a ban on nuclear weapons as figures released by the Red Cross show the dreadful effects of the blasts still linger. 
Excuse me, but why is this AAP reporter so surprised that some people more than 70 years old are “dying from cancer and other serious illnesses”?  How long does he or she expect them to live?
US data shows cancer is one of the biggest killers of the elderly, regardless of any atomic bomb:

image
This story bases its alarm on the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital and Atomic-bomb Survivors Hospital data showing two thirds of the patients dying of cancers, but to what extent is this data distorted by the hospital actually being a cancer specialist centre?:

The Hospital has been designated as a secondary emergency and surgical medical institution and cancer treatment cooperative community health care hospital
That is not to say that radiation is good for you. A survey of Hiroshima survivors reported in Lancet calculated the effect of having had such a massive dose of radiation:

Median loss of life among all individuals with greater-than-zero dose estimates was about 4 months… Because the cohort was intentionally constructed to contain a higher proportion of high-dose atomic-bomb survivors, average loss of life among all exposed atomic-bomb survivors would be less than the 4 months found for the study cohort.
Not good, but I suspect not as apocalyptic as you might have imagined. And that’s before we compare the data to other populations who’ve suffered other acts of war. 
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Labor - a party of lots of Bronwyn Bishops

Andrew Bolt August 06 2015 (10:10am)

Labor’s latest rort - fleecing taxpayers en masse for a Labor fundraiser:
Labor is accused of using at least $13,000 in public funds to support an annual dinner to raise cash for the party..
Taxpayers are footing the bill for federal politicians to attend fundraisers such as the annual Labor Light On The Hill dinner, incurring costs including an $8000 bill for former treasurer Wayne Swan to fly to the regional NSW town of Bathurst to speak at the event.
Labor figures including Bill Shorten, Julia Gillard, Penny Wong and Nicola Roxon also drew on their parliamentary expenses to attend the public event, which was openly described as a dinner to support the party rather than being government business.
The Opposition Leader’s office dug in yesterday over Labor’s argu­ment that the fundraising dinner was a “public lecture” open to anybody willing to pay — the same argument made by Bronwyn Bishop to justify her $5000 helicopter flight from Melbourne to Geelong for a Liberal Party fundraiser…
The flyer for this year’s event shows clearly that the payment for attendance is collected by the local Labor branch and it asks attend­ees to declare they are not “prohibited donors” under NSW law, such as property developers....
Mr Swan billed taxpayers $7981 for an air force jet from his Brisbane electorate to attend the Light on the Hill dinner as treas­urer in 2009.  Mr Shorten claimed $1357 as employment minister in 2012, comprising $663 in flights to Sydney, $354 travel allowance and $340 for a rental car.
Mr Shorten’s spokesman told The Australian: “It’s a public lecture and within the guidelines. He caught a flight to Sydney and hired a hire car and drove the three hours over the mountains to Bathurst. No helicopter was considered.”
Rip. Off.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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The “stolen generations” hysteria is killing Aboriginal children

Andrew Bolt August 06 2015 (9:45am)

The "stolen generations"
I have demonstrated why the “stolen generations”, as usually defined and understood, is a myth. And I have argued why the truth matters - because it has led to Aboriginal children being kept in dangers from which we would save white children.
It depresses me that this is dismissed as just the argument of a Right-winger or even a racist. Aboriginal children are actually dying, yet too many on the Left would rather not notice than change their minds.
At least the Chief Justice of Western Australia, Wayne Martin, this week dared to issue the same warning that I have, while acknowledging how unwelcome that warning was. Here is some of Stewart’s evidence to a Senate committee:

Chief Justice Martin:  The real problem is finding safe places for Aboriginal kids [in trouble] in a culturally appropriate environment. There just are not enough.
CHAIR:  Is it better to put them in a safe place that is perhaps not culturally appropriate?
Chief Justice Martin:  That is a very interesting question. I made some remarks on this observation that got me in trouble a few years ago. I will repeat it -
CHAIR:  That is the best way: when you are in trouble -
Chief Justice Martin:  I am already in trouble so I might as well. I think there has been an overreaction 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.
What got me in trouble were some photographs at the prison that the Children’s Court sent to me - they were tendered in evidence before him - of an Aboriginal kid running around in what looked like a dump outside of Port Hedland. That kid was in the care of the state and the agents of the state had decided that that was an appropriate place for the Aboriginal child to remain. Ask yourself: if that were a non-Aboriginal kid, would the same decision have been made? The answer is, plainly: no.
Because of the enthusiasm to leave Aboriginal kids with their family, for understandable reasons, to leave them in a culturally appropriate place, there is a danger that certain minimum standards of safety and minimum standards of health and welfare are not being met. That, in a sense, is a form of discrimination, because we are not requiring the same standards to be applied to Aboriginal kids as we do for non-Aboriginal kids.
Having said that, as I pointed out to the child welfare authorities when they criticised me on that last occasion, they have a very difficult task. It is important for Aboriginal kids to maintain their links with culture. It is very important for them to be, if possible, with Aboriginal people and with members of their family, if possible. That is highly desirable. What do they do if those places are not available and they have a kid in desperate need of care? It becomes very difficult.
On that subject, I again mention the situation that I hear about far too often, and that is that kids in Western Australia, in some regional towns—I will not mention one—are on the street at night because home is not a safe place for them to be because Mum is playing cards, Dad is drinking and the mob are all there. They have not been fed because Mum is preoccupied, so they break into a house to steal food and, when they are there, they trash the house. The reason they trash the house is not because they want to; it is to elevate the scale of their offending so that they are taken into custody. The reason they want to be taken into custody is that they can get a decent feed and a safe place to sleep at night.
Does it not break your heart that the safety of children is a lower priority than protection of an ideology?
One day this will be seen as a great scandal, but not before more Aboriginal children die.
That said, credit to The Guardian - yes, The Guardian - for reporting Martin at length and fairly. 
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On building dud subs

Andrew Bolt August 06 2015 (9:31am)

Political things
image
PUT the hottest question in national defence this way: would you buy an Australian television or a Japanese one?
Then why must the Abbott Government buy Australian submarines, not Japanese?
What is this mad campaign — fanned by Labor and the unions — that’s buckling even the will of the Government, which this week ordered nine frigates from Adelaide’s Australian Submarine Corporation?
Or put the issue another way.
Say it’s 2030. Say we’re in some conflict with China and send dozens of our sailors in our three new submarines to protect our vital sea routes, so we don’t run out of things like petrol.
There our sailors sit — half a kilometre under the ocean, as deep as they dare in a submarine running too noisily and running out of range, and facing what’s even today the world’s biggest submarine fleet.
They know that somewhere out there, perhaps even 200 metres below them, are updated versions of what China has now, the so-called “aircraft carrier killer” Type-093G, whispering on nuclear engines, able to stay down longer, and capable of firing supersonic anti-ship missiles vertically.
Outnumbered, outgunned and outperformed, our submariners are sitting ducks.
But with a brave smile the captain says:
(Read the full article here.) 
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Why the media Left protects Burke for what it savaged Bishop

Andrew Bolt August 06 2015 (8:38am)

image
LABOR frontbencher Tony Burke isn’t the only hypocrite in this expenses uproar, but he’s exposed many of the rest.
Burke once wailed at the “massive disrepute on the entire Parliament” brought by Speaker Bronwyn Bishop’s dodgy expenses, and no Labor MP was louder in demanding she go.
Well, Bishop has now resigned, but what of Burke, who used his own expenses to fly his children business class to Uluru in the school holidays?
Within the rules, Burke protests, but why charge us business class — not economy?
And how strange that of all the places Burke had to go on “business” during school holidays, allowing him to use his family reunion allowance, it was an iconic tourism site — where Burke did “business” that’s left no known trace in any report or speech.
But if Burke is a hypocrite, what of the Labor and media figures now defending him or running dead on this story?
And here’s a critical difference between conservatives and the Left
(Read full article here.)   
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Meet Bronwyn Burke. Or is that Tony Perk?

Andrew Bolt August 06 2015 (8:19am)

Why is the media Left forgiving Labor’s Tony Burke for what it would destroy the Liberals’ Bronwyn Bishop?
More business class for family holidays:
Tony Burke’s controversial luxury family excursion in 2012 to Uluru on the public purse was preceded by an autumn jaunt to Cairns a year earlier, when he took his wife and children on another taxpayer-funded school holidays sojourn.
Just as Mr Burke claimed business class airfares for his family to Uluru in late April 2012 when he could have asked bureaucrats to book them economy, in late April 2011, again in the last week of the NSW school holidays, he got them top-dollar flights to Queensland’s far north…
The Labor frontbencher has come under increasing attack from government MPs for an ­alleged double standard after he criticised Bronwyn Bishop over her extravagant travel claims…
Mr Burke ... declined yesterday to justify his decision to seek business class tickets for family members to fly from Sydney to Cairns, which cost $1441 each, or $5763 in all. Return economy airfares from Sydney to Cairns in April next year were yesterday available on the web for $338 on Tigerair and $372 on Jetstar.
Dennis Shanahan:

Tony Burke, who so vigorously pursued Bronwyn Bishop’s travel irregularities, has made the same mistake as the former Speaker.
The Labor frontbencher ... has stated ... that he was different to Bishop because there was “no allegation that I have broken any of the rules at any point”.
After weeks of furore and public outrage Burke has still missed the point.
He’s justifying taking his family to Uluru, business class, at taxpayers’ expense because he was entitled to do so. It’s true he didn’t break the rules ... but he hasn’t adjusted to the changed political dynamic about politician’s entitlements… The public outrage is only intensified and inflamed by the suggestion such trips are “within the rules”...
And what about this pathetic excuse for charging us for the ride to a concert?

Burke claimed expenses for a Robbie Williams concert last year, accepted free tickets to a Justin Bieber concert in 2011 and admission to the Byron Bay Blues festival.
Burke said he needed to meet with the promoter of Williams concert, therefore it was considered official political business… His Comcar transport to the event cost $90.
That was a talk for “political business”? With a promoter distracted on the big night of his concert? Rubbish:


TOUR promoter Michael Chugg has described his so-called VIP discussions with Labor MP Tony Burke at the Robbie Williams Swings Both Ways concert as nothing more than general chit chat…
Mr Chugg, who provided a guest suite ticket to the Labor frontbencher for the Allphones Arena show in September last year, said they spoke about the Aussie music scene before the concert.
It was basically just talking about Australian music and what he wanted to do with it. But nothing seemed to happen,” Mr Chugg said.

Reader Grendel on the double standards of the media Left:
And how did Fairfax online publications go with their reporting of Tony Burke’s extravagant family travel claims? The SMH and Age each carried two pieces, entitled ”Why Tony Abbott has been reluctant to criticise Tony Burke over MP entitlements” by Mark Kenny, and ”Christopher Pyne cautions against ‘Salem witch trial’ over MPs’ expenses” by Latika Bourke.
Funny how the stories you’d expect on the days news about Tony Burke are spun by Fairfax so that the focus is on the government. Yet each publication still managed a prominent feature about Bronwyn Bishop’s extremely generous pension entitlement, again deflecting from Burke.
The AFR’s stories about pollies’ entitlements are headed “Coalition ministers fly high on private planes” and “Coalition calls expenses truce”. Nope, doesn’t sound like there’d be much there about Burke either.
The Liberals’ Josh Frydenberg yesterday attacked Burke as a hypocrite. Only one of the main TV news bulletins did not run his comments. Yes, the ABC’s.
My explanation for why the Left protects Burke after savaging Bishop.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Malaysian mufti warns: don’t fight Islam with reason

Andrew Bolt August 06 2015 (8:13am)

Hmm. From the Malay Mail:

Tan Sri Harussani Zakaria reminded federal ministers yesterday against issuing statements based on logic and intellect when it comes to Islam, claiming that the intellect is influenced by desires and subsequently susceptible to the devil.
In a report carried by Malay daily Sinar Harian, the Perak mufti also warned Muslim ministers against deriding and belittling Islamic laws, as they risk breaching their oath of loyalty that was made in the name of Allah.
“I advise them not to go overboard. Islam is based on faith… Don’t make any remarks based on the intellect or logic because they are laws of Allah,” Harussani said.
But here’s the problem:  if you can’t settle differences through reason, only force is left.
(Thanks to reader Kasey.) 
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Pick out migrants and pet one. UPDATE: Don’t even dare frown at the Swans game

Andrew Bolt August 06 2015 (7:36am)

Well put:


FOOTY legend Sam Kekovich has taken a huge swipe at the AFL’s Multicultural Round, describing it as “overdosing on tolerance and political correctness”.
Kekovich, the son of migrants, said he was sick of the great Aussie game being used to emphasise differences between people when football itself was a unifying force.
Don’t patronise people like me as the children of migrants. We’re just Australians, and don’t need the AFL to qualify that belonging.
UPDATE
Big Brother is here and working at the AFL. Cameron Mooney on the Swans’ upcoming game against Geelong:
There will be cameras on the crowd on Saturday night, just looking out for stupid individuals who boo or put their thumbs down when Goodes gets the ball. Ask yourself if you want to be embarrassed across the country for that sort of idiotic behaviour.
Is a raised eyebrow allowed? A slight frown?
If you are not entirely sure of being able to keep a straight face it will be safer not to go to the football at all.
UPDATE
An AFL crowd in 2030, properly trained and monitored:
(Thanks to reader the Evil Right.) 
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In love of more laws

Andrew Bolt August 06 2015 (7:26am)

An academic uses the number of new laws passed as a measure of its goodness:


More legislation equals better government. Sally Young, The Age, yesterday:
Is this the worst federal government ever … Even William McMahon’s government of 1971-72 passed more legislation — and McMahon is often dubbed Australia’s worst prime minister. To date, the Abbott government has passed just 0.372 acts per day since it came to office, compared to 0.438 for the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd governments … 0.452 during John Howard’s tenure, 0.476 for Paul Keating, 0.491 for Bob Hawke’s governments, 0.481 for Malcolm Fraser, 0.472 for Gough Whitlam, and 0.436 for McMahon. Barring some unexpected burst of productivity … the … government is on track to have the worst record for passing legislation since the late 1960s.
More legislation equals … Media release, Christian Porter, autumn repeal day, March 18:

For too long Australian society suffered poorly designed and excessive regulation. This imposed unneces­sary costs on businesses, community organisations, families and individuals. It sabotaged the productivity of … businesses, deterred investment and undermined jobs and growth. Australia needed change … The commonwealth has a … commitment to reduce the cost of complying … by making new decisions to cut red tape totalling at least $1 billion net annually.
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Rudd blasts Gillard as a union pawn

Andrew Bolt August 06 2015 (7:17am)

Julia Gillard the feminist was just doing the will of men, after all:


Kevin Rudd ...  has also taken a swipe at Julia Gillard, saying her prime ministership was beholden to union-based factional powerbrokers and represented the apogee of their destructive influence inside the party.
“Union-based factions led by the faceless men have become the control agents of the party,” Mr Rudd told The Australian.
“This became entrenched under Julia Gillard, who said yes to virtually all of their demands in ­exchange for political power...”
But as so often, Rudd’s solutions are just bigger problems:


Mr Rudd said ... the party “must continue to reform to increase the democratic voice in the party"… He said this would break the stranglehold that unions and factions had over the party…
He also urged the party to move immediately to 100 per cent rank-and-file preselections for all upper and lower house seats in state and federal parliaments.
Result: Labor will lurch even further to the unelectable Left.  
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CARLTON CALLING

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 06, 2014 (3:22am)

Sydney Morning Herald editor-in-chief Darren Goodsir this week apologised for an anti-Jewish cartoon that accompanied a recent Mike Carlton column. Now he apologises for Carlton himself: 
I have become aware that Mike Carlton has corresponded with some Herald readers and letter writers using inappropriate and offensive language. 
There’s a shock. Goodsir continues: 
This behaviour is completely unacceptable.
I have asked Mike to apologise for these actions. Mike regrets his behaviour and will be contacting affected readers to apologise. 
“Air hellair! Arm terriblah sahry, ahnd do hope arm forgiven. Toodle-pip! Ho hum!” 
On behalf of the Herald, I too apologise for any offence caused.
In dealing with our readers, it is a basic principle that our staff, columnists and contributors should always behave with respect and courtesy. 
So will Carlton resign or be fired?
UPDATE. Carlton quits: 
Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mike Carlton quit the newspaper today after his editor-in-chief’s public rebuke of his “unacceptable” and “inappropriate” behavior …
The controversial columnist was last night asked to apologise. As more abusive emails to readers emerged he was to be suspended but resigned on the spot. 
Fairfax Media publisher Sean Aylmer: 
“Darren Goodsir said ‘you need top apologise’. As more of these emails emerged we spoke to him last night. He was going to be suspended but he resigned on the spot.
“As more emails emerged we figured we needed to suspend him. We want to put the reader first.
“No one has the right to treat people that way. From there he resigned.” 
Former SMH editor Alan Oakley: 
Six years ago (when editor of the SMH) we sacked Mike Carlton. Biggest mistake the Herald made was taking him back. 
UPDATE II. When the sun sets over Carlton, and the star begins to whine: 
Carlton said he was saddened that a once great paper had “buckled to the bullies”. “The immense pressure from News Limited has got to them, and that is the worst part of it.”
He said he believed he had been suspended because of the language he used with readers but also because of a vigorous campaign to undermine him by News Corp, who reported that some readers who wrote to complain about his views on the conflict in Gaza received emails telling them to “f--k off”.
Carlton has been on the receiving end of a torrent of abuse from people who are angered by his support for the Palestinian people.
“I was subjected to a fortnight of abuse from people calling me a Nazi sympathiser to a slimy Jew hater, some with threats of violence. I got hundreds of emails from as far away as the United States. They called me a Nazi douchebag and occasionally I blew my top. That’s what we do in Australia.” 
No, Mike. That’s what you do. All the time. Carlton’s conspiracy theory continues: 
Carlton says there’s no doubt there was a co-ordinated campaign to oust him by the Jewish lobby in Australia. “That was twinned by a campaign by News Corp - because they hate my guts, but also because it destroyed a rival columnist. And now, Fairfax has handed News Corp that present, gift-wrapped.”
“What cheers me up is that I’m getting tremendous support from Herald colleagues who I respect, and colleagues right throughout journalism.” 
I guess Mike’s Herald colleagues will all be going on strike, then. You know, in solidarity.
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TEN ON THE VERTICAL AXIS

Tim Blair – Tuesday, August 05, 2014 (5:52pm)

A funny little video makes Clementine Ford angry.
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A Hamas rocket launcher 100 metres from a UN building

Andrew Bolt August 06 2014 (9:16am)

 How much more evidence do you want? A France 24 journalist shows a Hamas rocket launcher tucked between home and 100 metres from a UN building.
And a Finnish journalists says another was launched from just behind a hospital (not the “parking lot” as inaccurately translated):
India’s NDTV reports:
But this morning, NDTV witnessed one such rocket silo being created under a tent right next to the hotel where our team was staying.  Minutes later, we saw the rocket being fired, just before the 72-hour ceasefire came into effect… This report is being aired on NDTV and published on ndtv.com after our team left the Gaza strip - Hamas has not taken very kindly to any reporting of its rockets being fired.
Helpful of NDTV to blur the faces of the terrorists:
Why don’t more journalists embedded in Hamas territory show such evidence?
Why does the UN not condemn what goes on right under its eyes - the use of civilian shields?
(Thanks to reader Kat.) 
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War delayed. El Nino hides.  90 per cent certainty cools

Andrew Bolt August 06 2014 (8:55am)

The Guardian’s resident alarmists trumpeted the alarm in June with 90 per cent certainty:
The global El Niño weather phenomenon, whose impacts cause global famines, floods – and even wars – now has a 90% chance of striking this year, according to the latest forecast released to the Guardian… 
The latest El Niño prediction comes from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which is considered one the most reliable of the 15 or so prediction centres around the world. 
Wars even! Ninety per cent sure of it!
Oops. August tells another story:
Last month, forecasters were predicting with 90 per cent certainty we’d see an El Niño by the end of the year, driving severe weather patterns worldwide. 
But the atmosphere has ”largely failed to respond” to sea surface temperatures and scientists’ confidence in an El Nino developing in 2014 has eased a bit, says the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, whose climate models now put the chances of this happening at about 50 per cent. 

How strange. How typical. It’s the atmosphere which “failed”, and not the warmists’ computer models.

And not for the first time.From an Age beat-up in Feburary 2009:
VICTORIA is likely to come under the influence of another El Nino within the next three years, exacerbating the drought and the likelihood of bushfires, a senior Bureau of Meteorology climate scientist says. 
David Jones, the head of the bureau’s (BoM) National Climate Centre, said there was some risk of a worsening El Nino event this year, but it was more likely to arrive in 2010 or 2011.
“We are in the build-up to the next El Nino and already the drought is as bad as it has ever been — in terms of the drought, this may be as good as things get,” Dr Jones said.
Reader handjive:
A quick ‘Google’ for Australian floods in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 tell the truth. 
The Bureau of Meteorology:
image
Isn’t there something wrong with the climate models? 
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Hartcher both later and duller. Some achievement

Andrew Bolt August 06 2014 (8:34am)

Usually when writers repeat a thought they at least embellish it. But no one ever accused Peter Hartcher of being a stylist, let alone an original thinker:
Rethink, reboot, reshuffle. Niki Savva, The Australian, Thursday: 
A NEW slogan for the PM: rethink, reboot, reshuffle. The Prime Minister ... need(s) to think seriously about what to do next ... The first thing he has to do is reboot the budget. The second is reshuffle his ministry.
Recycle, remake, regurgitate. Peter Hartcher, The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday: 
TONY Abbott ... needs to rethink, recast, regroup, and reinvigorate. 
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Kathy Jackson must explain this extra $58,000 to her husband

Andrew Bolt August 06 2014 (8:31am)

Very ugly:
WHISTLEBLOWER Kathy Jackson gave her ex-husband $58,000 of her union branch’s funds just days before officially shutting it down and moving to a national position in the Health Services Union. 
The $58,000 payment made to Jeff Jackson directly from Ms Jackson’s HSU No 3 branch in April 2010 was in addition to $50,000 in union funds Ms Jackson gave to her former husband in March a year earlier — revealed last week at the royal commission into union corruption…
It is not clear what the $58,000 payment was for, and Ms Jackson did not respond to questions from The Australian yesterday seeking clarification.
It is believed Ms Jackson might have justified the payment at the time as her HSU No 3 branch offering to cover the ­alleged paid leave and other entitlements of Mr Jackson some time after he had left his position as HSU No 1 branch secretary because his former branch was short of funds. What puzzles lawyers and union officials such as Mr McGreg­or, who has emerged as a new whistleblower in the HSU saga, is why Ms Jackson would have not sought to make the $58,000 payment to the No 1 branch rather than to Mr Jackson — if she was legitimately coming to the branch’s financial aid — so that the transaction could go through payroll and be recorded for tax and other purposes as an official payout of Mr Jackson’s entitlements.
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Er, isn’t it shocking when newspapers use private information that was hacked? Hello?

Andrew Bolt August 06 2014 (8:21am)

Remember when the Left was united in decrying a newspaper which relied on hackers for private information?
Birds now tweet:
A SYDNEY woman faces up to two years’ jail after being charged over computer hacking that led to student records about a $60,000 scholarship granted to Tony ­Abbott’s daughter being leaked to the online magazine New Matilda. 
NSW police have charged Freya Newman, a 21-year-old communications student from the University of Technology, Sydney, with unauthorised access to restricted data held in a computer…
Police involvement follows a complaint by management of the Whitehouse Institute of Design that its computer system was hacked on May 20, a day before New Matilda published an article claiming it had documents contradicting assurances by the Prime Minister that one of his daughters received a scholarship based on merit…
It has been alleged Ms Newman gained unauthorised access to the files of Ms Abbott and more than 500 other students. New Matilda editor Chris Graham lauded the “brave sources” who provided his publication with leaked information in a comment piece published on Monday.
As so often with the tribal Left, what counts is not the principle but the side. 
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Jewish leaders will be sorry about a change that has O’Farrell gloating

Andrew Bolt August 06 2014 (8:07am)

We had a very robust discussion last night about Tony Abbott’s decision to drop his free speech reforms - and about the fool Barry O’Farrell gloating. Exactly what kind of Liberal is Barry O’Farrell really?
Andrew Bolt has told Barry O’Farrell to “pour yourself another expensive red” after the former NSW premier mocked the conservative columnist’s fury over the collapse of changes to race hate laws… 
Mr O’Farrell, who resigned in April after being caught giving false evidence about a bottle of Grange to the Independent Commission Against Corruption, clearly didn’t agree with Bolt and Price, tweeting during the show that the hosts were “so irrational they’re almost humorous”.
Bolt was alerted to the tweet and quickly directed a pointed barb at the fallen premier. “Hello to Barry...pour yourself another expensive red, one you might have forgotten you actually had there,” he said, prompting laughter from Price.
But to my bigger point:

On the 2GB segment, Bolt ... claimed Australia is “being asked to assimilate to immigrant values” in response to Mr Abbott’s decision to drop the changes. 
“He announced that he was dumping the free speech changes at a press conference actually called to announce fresh new measures, strong measures against terrorism, people who had been fighting for jihadist groups overseas and would be coming back radicalised and with superior killing knowledge and pose a danger to us,” Bolt said.
He referenced Mr Abbott’s comment that everyone needs to be part of “team Australia” when it comes to counter terrorism.
“What he is saying is the very people, the very ethnic groups that would take exception to 18C are the same ones that are, in part, some of them, affected or take offence to the anti-terrorism legislation. To make them feel not picked on he’ll retain laws against free speech,” Bolt said.
As for who those who might “feel picked on by terrorism measures”, Bolt identified “obviously muslims, jihadists, people from the Middle East.” “Don’t we need a frank debate, more frank than it’s been so far into how the Islamic culture, muslim culture, how they integrate here? That is a very difficult and dangerous discussion.”
And the retention of these laws make such a debate legally dangerous. Noticed how so few journalists have raised it in the past? See the fruits of our cowardice now?
UPDATE
A very fine letter from IPA head John Roskam, who is not giving up this fight for our freedom to speak as we find. 
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Do you really want this debate shut down?

Andrew Bolt August 06 2014 (7:44am)

Free speech

TONY Abbott gave an alarming reason today for dumping his reforms to the Racial Discrimination Act and keeping our muzzle.

The Prime Minister suggested the RDA’s existing bans on free speech were wanted by the ethnic groups who’d feel picked upon by the stepped-up anti-terrorism laws he also announced on Tuesday.
“I want to work with the communities of our country as ‘Team Australia’ here,” he said, and his free speech reforms would be a “complication” in trying to sell his crackdown on jihadists returning from Syria and Iraq.
But surely the ethnic communities which produced those jihadists and the 21 Muslims we’ve jailed on terrorism offences already need exactly the kind of critical scrutiny too easily shut down with cries of “racism”.
My tip: the dysfunction or possible incompatibility of some cultures within our own will become one of the most urgent topics of public policy over the next decade. But it will be the easiest for activists to shut down.
(Read full column here.) 
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Mike Carlton has a lot of Jews to ring to say sorry

Andrew Bolt August 06 2014 (7:12am)

On Monday Sydney Morning Herald editor in chief Darren Goodsir had to apologise for an anti-Semitic cartoon:

It was wrong to publish the cartoon in its original form. We apologise unreservedly for this lapse, and the anguish and distress that has been caused. 
Today Goodsir apologises again, this time for columnist Mike Carlton’s abuse of readers, particularly Jews:

I have become aware that Mike Carlton has corresponded with some Herald readers and letter writers using inappropriate and offensive language. 
This behaviour is completely unacceptable.
I have asked Mike to apologise for these actions. Mike regrets his behaviour and will be contacting affected readers to apologise.
On behalf of the Herald, I too apologise for any offence caused.
An example of Carlton responses to Jewish readers protesting at his demonisation of Israelis:
You’re the one full of hate and bile, sunshine. The classic example of the Jewish bigot.  Now f..k off. 
To another Jew:
And I suggest you go f..k yourself.
To another Jew:

Looking forward to hearing from you after you have joined the IDF and gone off to kill some kids. Reluctantly, of course. Until then, f. k off. 
To another Jew:
You are a vulgar and stupid bigot.
To another Jew:

Go f. k yourself. I gather you are some sort of jumped up hotel waiter. What a pathetic wanker you are. And A-grade liar. Anything from you in future goes straight to trash, unread. 
The Australian, a Murdoch newspaper, reports on the furore:
FAIRFAX Media is under pressure to sack columnist Mike Carlton, who has been ordered to apologise for using anti-Semitic and abusive language towards readers, calling one a “Jewish bigot” and telling several others to “f..k off”. 
As The Sydney Morning Herald’s editor-in-chief Darren Goodsir admitted to a former Fairfax director that he was not finding it easy to keep the newspaper “fair and balanced”, he has spent the past few days responding to readers incensed over Carlton’s columns and the paper’s coverage of the conflict in Israel…
In Goodsir’s reply to [one Jewish reader] email, [Goodsir] made a startling admission: “I remain very seriously committed to ensuring a fair and balanced SMH; a not ­altogether easy thing to do.” A Fairfax source said there was dismay at management and newsroom level that Carlton had been permitted to get away with such behaviour. 
Carlton can dish it out but whimpers about “bullying” when he’s held to account:
image
By the way, Goodsir should be congratulated for taking the tough and embarrassing steps to restore integrity and balance to his newspaper. Is the ABC watching - and learning?
UPDATE
This is probably the biggest newspaper story of the past two weeks. Did you see how the ABC’s Media Watch refused to cover it on Monday?
Never mind. NewsWatch was right onto it:
We will have more on this on Sunday’s show - Channel 10 on Sunday at 10am and 4pm.
UPDATE
The wuss walks:
SYDNEY Morning Herald columnist Mike Carlton quit the newspaper today after his editor-in-chief’s public rebuke of his “unacceptable” and “inappropriate” behaviour. 
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Now Muir’s adviser can go to all the festivals he likes

Andrew Bolt August 06 2014 (7:04am)

You can’t really blame novice Senator Ricky Muir. I’d have sacked this staffer, too:
Adviser Peter Breen, a former NSW MP, was kicked out tonight, six days after senior adviser Glenn Druery was also shown the door by security… 
Senator Muir said while Mr Breen had called in sick last Friday, he had then travelled to a festival 700km away from his home.
Senator Muir declined to name the festival but the Herald Sun understands it was the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival…
Mr Breen said there were two reasons given for the termination of his employment. These included his decision to take the day off work last Friday following a surgical procedure at Westmead Skin Cancer Foundation, and his involvement in an incident report to the parliament following ongoing clashes between Mr Druery and Mr Littler. The incident report authored by Mr Breen was critical of Mr Littler, and found its way into the public domain… Mr Breen confirmed he had attended the writers’ festival in the evening but that he had been unwell, with 12 stitches in his forehead, a black eye, a headache and a bandage on his head.
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5 AUG 2013 Where the mass media and International outrage , ??

Ballistic missiles used by the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad are killing many civilians, including children, an international rights group said on Monday.
These missiles "are hitting populated areas, causing large numbers of civilian deaths, including many children", said Human Rights Watch, which has investigated nine ballistic missile strikes that killed at least 215 people in six months.
Among those killed in nine attacks from February to July, 100 were children, said HRW, which has visited seven of the sites.
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Meet the thief Hafid - ed
Haffid
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Susan Bernobich I hope you change your mind and come to realise that you have abused good people whose kindness could benefit you. - ed

THE passenger who recorded footage of a woman racially abusing an Asian schoolboy on a Sydney bus earlier this year has scoffed at her "lenient" sentence.
Susan Bernobich, 46, from Sydney's inner west pleaded guilty to the offence but has escaped a conviction after appearing briefly in Burwood Local Court today.
She pleaded guilty to one charge of using offensive language in or near a public place or school.
The mother's racist rant aboard the M41 bus from Burwood to Campsie was captured by the passenger on his smartphone in May, causing the NSW Police to intervene with a court appearance notice in June without a formal complaint by the victims.
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Be blessed. Be a blessing. Believe the best for and in you and others! Respect opinions of others as you desire to be respected. -- Phil Munsey
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“Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.”-Jim Rohn 
UPtv I love UP TV!
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Roma Downey'
"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones." - Confucius
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I'm a little right of the LNP - ed
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Nasrallah's chief accomplishment seems to be having Islamic people killed. - ed

Ethnic tensions in Lebanon are resurfacing over what some say is Hezbollah’s destabilizing role in the region.
In a local television interview, Samir Geagea, a prominent Lebanese Christian, accused the Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia on Sunday of “dragging the country into war against the wishes of its leaders,” Israel Radio reported.
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Holly Sarah Nguyen
Do not let your present day circumstances or hardships which are overwhelming let you ever forget that God has a purpose and plan for your life... And always believe and have trust that today's circumstances are all part of the plan, God will not harm you He will carry you to safety...
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The Republican Party's biggest problem is mental illness. The big elephant party is suffering from a severe case of split personality disorder. It's an old problem that has only gotten worse over the years. - See more at: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/a-schizophrenic-elephant.html#sthash.2Pfy8cqI.dpufLol, a tad over stated .. which is not to deny its legitimacy so much as to say it is too strident in its criticism. Consider, the political neophyte Hoover was responsible for the GOP losing the black vote .. not because he was a bigot, but because a politically savvy FDR was able to exploit the bigotry of his own members. What had happened was Hoover, a civil engineer, had fed Germany following WW2 and after a vicious hurricane damaged Louisiana was contracted to feed Louisiana. Hoover was so popular following he was the most popularly elected President to his day. But during the Louisiana crisis some Democrat bullies had held up black people and taken their emergency relief supplies. Hoover struck a deal with Black advocates to keep the issue quiet and the black community had felt a deal was struck, but GOP wanting white support in the south dumped black candidates for white ones to attract Democrat voters. FDR exploited that and so the Dems have had the black vote ever since .. never having done anything beyond exploiting them. Today, the GOP is flawed. It is still Reagan's big tent. It can still work. It has soft left members who promise too much in the hopes of attracting a left that will never come. It has hard right members. But it also has the US's largest reservoir of conservatives and generally follows their lead. The worst problem of the GOP is it wasn't their turn to have the Presidency .. and without a leadership role, the Elephant tends to wander. - ed
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The poverty of boycotting ISRAEL.

Originally posted by Daniel Katz in Caroline Glick ISRAEL Supporters Group.

The poverty of boycotting ISRAEL.

Those calling for an academic boycott of Israel not only show the depth to which anti-Israel bias is now entrenched in our ivory towers; they show their ignorance about the boycott's major victims: Israel's minorities, its Arab Muslims and Christians.
By Qanta Ahmed | 14:20 25.07.13 |

As a woman, a Muslim and as a physician of Pakistani descent, I can attest personally to the inordinate importance of academic freedom in Britain and the United States. This freedom was extended to me even during the time I was practicing medicine in Saudi Arabia, where - like all women – I was subject to gender apartheid. Because of this experience, I can only see the closing of the academic mind in the form of the ‘academic boycott’ of Israeli citizens and institutions as the act of invertebrate hypocrites. Boycotting Israel, whether academic or cultural is not an act of moral indignation, but an act of moral turpitude.

Academic freedom builds relationships, tolerance, and opportunity. When I moved to Riyadh 15 years ago, I had no doubts about maintaining my professional relationship with my own Jewish American mentor who had guided me throughout my then early career.

While I lived and worked in a country where as a Muslim I could worship but my mentor and his coreligionists could not, I was given every opportunity to develop in the American academic space because of his intellectual generosity. While I was subject to legislated male supremacy and relegated to being a legal minor, no Western academic suggested boycotting the medical academe hosting me in the Kingdom.

Academic freedom was in fact my only freedom at the time and I was determined to share it. I connected my Saudi colleagues - leading Saudi Muslim academics - with my mentor which led to the publication of jointly-authored papers on patient care in the Arab Gulf, benefiting primarily Muslim patients. This work sowed the seeds for subsequent conferences where both my Saudi Muslim and American Jewish colleagues met and developed their own relationships.

In contrast, boycotting Israeli entities penalizes apolitical individuals, their institutions, their innovations and ultimately, stymies a global market of ideas which benefits humanity. Perhaps it's possible to make a more generous assessment of why the various scholars, writers and entertainers who call for a boycott of 'apartheid Israel' claim to act in the interests of Palestinians: That it's based on simple ignorance. They would certainly be wiser if they had had the same opportunity that I recently enjoyed when I visited Israel to meet Israeli academia, and – critically – examined how such a boycott, whether overt or covert, particularly damages Israeli Arabs, or Palestinian citizens of Israel.

I spoke to Arab Muslim undergraduates at Haifa's Technion University during my visit in May this year. Arab undergraduates (most of whom are Muslim with a smaller Christian representation) lead a program to remove barriers to success of fellow Arab undergraduates there. Professor Daoud Bshouty, Dean of Undergraduate Studies (and both Israel’s and Technion's first Christian Arab faculty member) and Sara Katzir, former Israeli Airforce officer and head of the Beatrice Weston Unit for the Advancement of Students, explained the origin of the program, joined by Assistant Professor Youseff Jabareen, an Arab Israeli Muslim graduate, and the Muslim undergraduate Maysoun Hindawi, who related their own experiences as minorities.

When, eight years ago, the Technion examined their own data, they were dismayed to find a high drop-out rate amongst Arab undergraduates, even though they had met the rigorous entry criteria to a university consistently rated amongst the top three science institutes in the world. This was an untenable loss of intellectual talent for the university and in their mind, for Israel.

Since then, the Beatrice Weston Unit for the Advancement of Students has developed one-on-one peer mentorship by and for Israeli Arab undergraduates, with men mentoring men and women mentoring women in view of the cultural sensitivities. The program was funded by Jewish American philanthropists intent on serving all sectors of Technion’s students, majority and minority alike.

In the program, Technion students run after-class tutorials to help each other keep pace with the rapid absorption of knowledge required; sometimes, student mentors intervene in family dilemmas to advocate on behalf of a fellow student to his distressed family. They do so by mediating between student and parents struggling to resolve traditional cultural mores with the demands of advanced education. They render personal counseling on these and other adjustment difficulties, concentration and learning difficulties and the challenges of making vocational choices.

In less than a decade, the Weston Advancement Unit has improved the Technion’s Israeli Arab undergraduate retention rate by over 50 percent, with more gains likely. But The Technion’s support extends beyond their undergraduates. Many Israeli Arabs attend Arabic medium schools, so the move to the Hebrew-language university is a significant challenge. In response, candidates identified as Technion material are given intense year-long programs preparing them (and their Hebrew) – developed by the university itself.

Dumbfounded, I asked why an institution, supposedly pitiless when it comes to academic competition, would devote energies to empower the disadvantaged? Surely academia was the base evolutionary battle of our times: “survival of the fittest”? After all, Technion is affectionately known by its faculty and students as “The City with No Pity’ (referring to Technion’s purist, hardcore meritocracy).

“We have a moral obligation to develop everyone who enters the Technion, because we must nurture scientific ability. It is our responsibility," Katzir told me. The advancement program has been so effective at closing disparity gaps that it has now been rolled out across the institute and offered to every Technion undergrad who needs it, minority or not. After winning national awards, this program is being emulated at other Israeli institutions at government request.

There are also life experience and leadership gaps that need to be overcome for minority students. At the Technion, Maysoun explained, Arab Muslim students are often the first in their families -sometimes in generations - to enter higher education, and, in the case of women, may be breaking stereotypical gender roles in conservative families who may not approve of a female student living on campus. Arab Muslim students must also overcome a leadership gap created by the military service that their Jewish peers have gone through. The program develops the leadership skills of its Israeli Arab Muslim undergraduates who direct many activities themselves, based on merit, not ‘quota’.

My Technion experience clarified for me how calls for academic boycott would particularly imperil the future of these Arab Israeli students and the progressive opportunities they are offered. The shockingly ignorant acquiescence to the widespread braying for boycott, now a socially acceptable sport eclipsing the spirit of academe, whether led by Stephen Hawking or others, reveals the depth to which anti-Israel bias is now entrenched in our ivory towers.

The reality is simple: Calling for an Israeli boycott invites no reprisals. It is more than socially acceptable; it is a badge of honor brandished by those claiming to defend ‘minorities’. Yet ironically, while the costs of boycott will be shouldered by every Israeli, the major costs will be born by Israel’s own minority population, including Israeli Muslims of Palestinian heritage. This is a population which is for the first time becoming highly educated, advancing in the workplace, collaborating with their fellow Israeli Jewish citizens and eager to enter the global marketplace of ideas. These Israeli Muslim Arabs are the keystones to lasting peace in the region. No one else is better positioned to bridge conflicts and cultures and yet no one else will be more penalized by boycott.

Academic freedom means the freedom to collaborate, the freedom to cooperate, the freedom to communicate, the freedom to investigate, and the freedom to know the other. Isolating Israelis imposes upon all of us outside of Israel the worst kind of self-isolation, one which denies our engagement not only with the richly intellectual and extraordinarily productive Israeli academic community but access to those minorities facing the greatest challenges in Israel. The boycott flattens the painstakingly earned, inch-by-inch progress towards coexistence within and outside Israel; and coexistence is surely the primary step towards regional peace. At this discouraging time of increasing academic and cultural siege, every thoughtful academic should join me in lending their name and their reputation to fighting the boycott.

Qanta Ahmed MD is the author of In the Land of Invisible Women (2008), a Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellow in Science and Religion and Associate Professor of Medicine, State University of New York. Follow her on Twitter @MissDiagnosis. 
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Warren Mundine, the ex national president of the Australian Labor Party who resigned in 2012 in total disgust, on The Bolt Report yesterday Sunday 4th August 2013 : 

" If you like Kevin Rudd, you’ve never met him; If you dislike Tony Abbott, you’ve never met him "

GOLD ! GOLD ! GOLD ! 

and 

" Abbott, strikes me as a person of integrity, he has values in which I too believe, and ethics based on his Christian beliefs. I would much rather place my trust in someone who, in his actions, has shown he is what he says, rather than someone who will say anything to gain a prospective advantage for themselves. "

BY Mark LATHAM, Former Leader of A.L.P.

Both ex Labor men and both conveniently ignored.>
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There are a silent majority of good Islamic peoples who are appalled by terrorism and the exploitation of Islam by a privileged few .. No good person approves of Rudd's compassionate drowning of desperate people. - ed

TONY Abbott has made a direct pitch to Western Sydney voters in a rousing speech to the Muslim community in which he declared himself the "sworn enemy" of those who sought to divide Australia over issues of race or faith.
Speaking to a function of more than 500 Muslims gathered in Lidcome to mark the end of Ramadan, Mr Abbott said Western Sydney would underpin a strong Australian economy and building infrastructure here was vital.
He said multicultural Australia was a "beacon of hope to a troubled and divided world" and we had much to be proud of.
But he said there were still those who sought to tear apart a united Australia and he would fight against them.
"I am the sworn enemy for anyone who seeks to divide Australian over Australian on issues of class, gender, birth place, race and particularly over faith," Mr Abbott said.
"I believe that all religious faiths seek to come to grips with the complexity of human condition.
"We have to respect the specialness of that faith to every person."

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Highlights that Obama could learn from foreign policy analysis .. he apparently learned something from Turkey circa 1912. - ed
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Obama Frees Taliban from Gitmo, Neglects to Exchange Them for Captured US Soldier===
Appeasement didn't work against 1930's fascism either. - ed

Both the Israeli release of more than a hundred Palestinian killers and the American release of five Taliban killers  from Guantanamo are U.S. policy decisions, so it’s fair to treat them as part of a single mindset.  There are many possible reasons for releasing prisoners, but most of the time, and especially in recent years, such actions are part of a bigger issue, as are these two examples. The prisoners are typically pawns on a geopolitical chess board.  Both Israel and the United States have been involved in this game for decades.  It all started as barter, but it has now become an embarrassing form of appeasement.
The Israelis have frequently released Palestinian prisoners, as a component in efforts to reach a stable agreement between the two enemies, but the practice began in 1971 as a simple one-on-one swap, when a terrorist from al Fatah was released in exchange for an Israeli night watchman who had been abducted by the Palestinians.
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I'll share this but I'm worried it is beyond the ken of most of my contacts. The US government is too big, as evidenced by its expenditure to income. Too secret to be free. It's once hopeful future is clouded by bad decision making by its' executive and constituents. But it always looks bad when a President is weak and incompetent. The greatness of Bush was that the fractures so apparent now, weren't so deleterious to the world. The arab spring which the Bush administration allowed through its' policy of engagement with terror and fostering democracy became a lost opportunity under Obama. And now Obama threatens mid East peace with ham fisted action as Clinton did before him. - ed
For almost two centuries American government, though always imperfect, was also a model for the world of limited government, having evolved a system of restraints on executive power through its constitutional arrangement of checks and balances. Since 9/11 however, constitutional practices have been overshadowed by a series of emergency measures to fight terrorism. The latter have mushroomed in size, reach and budget, while traditional government has shrunk. As a result we have today what the journalist Dana Priest has called two governments: the one its citizens were familiar with, operated more or less in the open: the other a parallel top secret government whose parts had mushroomed in less than a decade into a gigantic, sprawling universe of its own, visible to only a carefully vetted cadre – and its entirety…visible only to God.1 More and more, it is becoming common to say that America, like Turkey before it, now has what Marc Ambinder and John Tirman have called a deep state behind the public one.2 And this parallel government is guided in surveillance matters by its own Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA court, which according to the New York Times, “has quietly become almost a parallel Supreme Court.”3 Thanks largely to Edward Snowden, it is now clear that the FISA Court has permitted this deep state to expand surveillance beyond the tiny number of known and suspected Islamic terrorists, to any incipient protest movement that might challenge the policies of the American war machine. Americans have by and large not questioned this parallel government, accepting that sacrifices of traditional rights and traditional transparency are necessary to keep us safe from al-Qaeda attacks. However secret power is unchecked power, and experience of the last century has only reinforced the truth of Lord Acton’s famous dictum that unchecked power always corrupts. It is time to consider the extent to which American secret agencies have developed a symbiotic relationship with the forces they are supposed to be fighting – and have even on occasion intervened to let al-Qaeda terrorists proceed with their plots. “Intervened to let al-Qaeda terrorists proceed with their plots”? These words as I write them make me wonder yet again, as I so often do, if I am not losing my marbles, and proving myself to be no more than a zany “conspiracy theorist.” Yet I have to remind myself that my claim is not one coming from theory, but rests on certain undisputed facts about incidents that are true even though they have been systematically suppressed or under-reported in the American mainstream media. More telling, I am describing a phenomenon that occurred not just once, but consistently, almost predictably. We shall see that, among the al-Qaeda terrorists who were first protected and then continued their activities were - See more at: http://japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3971#sthash.zoHmdSej.dpuf
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He can say that in Toronto or even Israel because they are free lands. He couldn't say the reverse about Israelis shooting Jordanians in the so called Palestinian areas because they kill people there who look different to them. - ed
TORONTO (JTA) — A Palestinian community leader in Toronto said Israelis should be given a two-minute warning before being shot.
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... So let me get this straight now.


Rudd loses all our money DURING THE MINING BOOM WE HAD TO HAVE by driving the country into debt to the tune of $300 BILLION PLUS but then has the chutzpah to ask the Australian public to donate at least $10 each to his advertising fund ( estimated $65 million ) while he and his frumpy ungroomed wife have accumulated in excess of $150 million in a personal fortune thanks to the previous employment policies of the Howard government because he is a Labor man, one of the true believers and normally is giving away our money to others for no beneficial return BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT ALL GOOD SOCIALISTS DO !

Running a country is like operating a corporation one would have thought.

If the CEO does not perform is it normal to re-instate a person based on such an abysmal track record AND A FAILED PERFORMANCE ?

Is it me or am I missing something here ?

I still keep my school boy marbles hidden away so I know I haven't lost them yet when the time comes to rob me. Kevin likes going to schools I noticed. He is such a touch feely sensitive sort of caring guy and is very pleasant when not upset.

Please help. I will take only $5 instead of $10 if that is all you cheap bastards can spare.

It's my wife's 50th birthday coming up and I'd like to leave on the 7th September for a Rhine River tour of central Europe. I promise to wave the flag at half mast if our Kevy scores a goal and pretend, as Kevy often does, to enjoy a tinny of XXXX.

Thank you and please don't keep me waiting.

I simply could not abide any further disppointment.
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Costello writes compellingly. But I can disagree with aspects of things he writes. Rudd's talent is not to be different depending on situation, but to claim to be different. Rudd is like Zelig. A Woody Allen joke. He will try to impress the strongest person in his immediate vicinity. It is a mental illness and very sad for him. - ed
... A Costello Classic. 

The ex conservative LNP Treasurer who left us with a AUD$20 Billion surplus writes :

" KEVIN RUDD THE KARMA CHAMELEON

PETER COSTELLO THE DAILY TELEGRAPH AUGUST 06, 2013 12:00AM

Up until now Kevin Rudd has done well by posing as an Opposition Leader. Are you shocked by the Country's failure to police its borders? Well so is he.

And he is going to be the toughest cop in town with the toughest policy to control it. Are you against the Carbon Tax? Well so is he and he is going to abolish it next year. Are you wondering why the Government can't balance a Budget in the middle of a mining boom? Well so is he and he'll do the tough stuff - like tax smokers to kingdom-come to fix it.

Until now Rudd has been posing as the outsider burying the mistakes of the last Government. He wants to be seen as some kind of "Terminator" coming in to clean things up. He even has the guts to clean up the corruption of Eddie Obeid and Co. in the New South Wales Labor Party!

Now none of this is real, of course. Rudd was the guy who softened border control which invited the people smugglers to resume their deadly trade in the first place. He has a plan to increase the tax on carbon under a floating price scheme. Far from being offended by Eddie Obeid, he actively worked with the machine that nurtured and nourished Eddie to get the Leadership of the Labor Party. And a key part of that machine during all of Eddie's little peccadillos was Bruce Hawker who now serves as Rudd's political strategist.

Here we have the true measure of Rudd's genius. He has an unusual talent to appear what he is not.

You have to admire that. And the strategy, in this second incarnation, has been to portray himself not as leading a Party that has been in Office for six years, not as someone with a record that can be judged, but as the Leader of the Opposition who will save us from all those disasters of the past. In his Press Conference on Sunday he was at it again:- Mr Abbott is the favourite, he's got all the advantages of incumbency and what Kevin needs is for volunteers from all over the country to come over to his side and bring their humble donations of $10 to blast out his powerful opponent. Rudd portrays himself as Australia's Morgan Tsvangirai come to deliver the country from the evil Tony Mugabe with all his entrenched power and stooges pillaging the resources of the country from the poor and innocent folk.

One thing that never got a mention in Rudd's Speech calling the election was the Party he wants people to vote for. Technically speaking, it's the Labor Party. But in fact Rudd wants people to think they are voting for the Rudd Party. If he wins he wants to change the rules so that he can never be sacked again. He wants the Labor machine to disappear, to be airbrushed out of history just like a lot of his record. In the beginning there was Kevin.

In contrast, Tony Abbott did mention the Political Parties contesting the election and he appealed to people to vote for the Coalition. He made frequent mention of his "team" and peppered his speech with reference to "we". Abbott thinks his best asset is his team. Rudd thinks his best asset is himself.

Abbott has a strong group of people around him who have managed to capture public attention over the last few years. Most of Labor's public faces are leaving - Gillard, Crean, Combet, Smith, Emerson etc. The collective memory of Labor is departing. If Rudd wins this election they will be consigned to the dustbin of history. But if he loses you should expect to hear a lot more from them. Just as we were told what Kevin was really like after they dumped him the first time.

There was only one reference to the "bad" Kevin in Sunday's Speech. The Australian people, he said, had seen him "warts and all". Well they haven't, of course. They haven't seen up close and personal the tantrums, the language, the rudeness, the behaviour that caused his colleagues to say he had contempt for them and ultimately contempt for the Australian public (Stephen Conroy's words). But obviously he had been advised to take the issue head-on. After acknowledging there had been some failures he said:- "I would be honoured to serve you". It was a strangely jarring note. It was Kevin Rudd doing humility.

And then I saw the television footage. As the VIP Plane landed on the tarmac in Canberra and Mr and Mrs Rudd came down the stairs to get into their car, I saw him turn back and shake the hand of a Flight Attendant. He was showing how considerate he could be. This was not the type of man who reduced Flight Attendants to tears. It was proof of the new Kevin. It was well done. He instinctively saw the television opportunity and he took it.

What makes Rudd formidable is his unusual ability to be just what he needs to be at any particular moment. At present he is running from his record. The question is whether it will catch him by September 7.
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My job is to make sure we move the country forward, and I think we can best do that if Nancy Pelosi is speaker of the House once again,” President Obama said at a San Francisco fundraiser in April.
That means President Obama endorsed the best-known and most disliked member of Congress, who is from one of the most radical districts in the country, to be the next Speaker. Let’s tick off 8 of the most outrageous things Pelosi’s said. You have to click through this slideshow to see what’s in it.
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The list is flawed. The professional aspects of those degrees are low compared to professional opportunities among engineering science degrees, but more often a fine artist or commercial artist or writer start their own business .. which if prosperous is many magnitudes better than a profession for remuneration. - ed
Nobody wants to hear that their college degree is worth less than the paper on which it is printed but, unfortunately, that may be the case for some recent college graduates. With opportunities as scarce as they are, many people are learning that their undergraduate degree in early Phoenician literature does not guarantee them a job
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Dean Hamstead
Lets say you got into a relationship with someone. You'd worked hard, paid off all your debts and saved quite a bit. Your new flame borrows your card and spends all your savings, then takes your credit card and maxes it out. They then up the limit and max it again, then again, and again. Meanwhile you get a pay cut and your bills go through the roof to pay for their ridiculous Internet connection and environmentalist gestures. This is 50% of Australia.
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Holly Sarah Nguyen
You can take away my house, my car, my money, and my rights, but you can NEVER take away my God!
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Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor
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Events[edit]

Births[edit]

Deaths[edit]

Holidays and observances[edit]

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“The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” Psalm 119:130NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"We know that all things work together for good to them that love God."
Romans 8:28
Upon some points a believer is absolutely sure. He knows, for instance, that God sits in the stern-sheets of the vessel when it rocks most. He believes that an invisible hand is always on the world's tiller, and that wherever providence may drift, Jehovah steers it. That re-assuring knowledge prepares him for everything. He looks over the raging waters and sees the spirit of Jesus treading the billows, and he hears a voice saying, "It is I, be not afraid." He knows too that God is always wise, and, knowing this, he is confident that there can be no accidents, no mistakes; that nothing can occur which ought not to arise. He can say, "If I should lose all I have, it is better that I should lose than have, if God so wills: the worst calamity is the wisest and the kindest thing that could befall to me if God ordains it." "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God." The Christian does not merely hold this as a theory, but he knows it as a matter of fact. Everything has worked for good as yet; the poisonous drugs mixed in fit proportions have worked the cure; the sharp cuts of the lancet have cleansed out the proud flesh and facilitated the healing. Every event as yet has worked out the most divinely blessed results; and so, believing that God rules all, that he governs wisely, that he brings good out of evil, the believer's heart is assured, and he is enabled calmly to meet each trial as it comes. The believer can in the spirit of true resignation pray, "Send me what thou wilt, my God, so long as it comes from thee; never came there an ill portion from thy table to any of thy children."
"Say not my soul, From whence can God relieve my care?'
Remember that Omnipotence has servants everywhere.
His method is sublime, his heart profoundly kind,
God never is before his time, and never is behind."

Evening

"Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?"
Numbers 32:6
Kindred has its obligations. The Reubenites and Gadites would have been unbrotherly if they had claimed the land which had been conquered, and had left the rest of the people to fight for their portions alone. We have received much by means of the efforts and sufferings of the saints in years gone by, and if we do not make some return to the church of Christ by giving her our best energies, we are unworthy to be enrolled in her ranks. Others are combating the errors of the age manfully, or excavating perishing ones from amid the ruins of the fall, and if we fold our hands in idleness we had need be warned, lest the curse of Meroz fall upon us. The Master of the vineyard saith, "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" What is the idler's excuse? Personal service of Jesus becomes all the more the duty of all because it is cheerfully and abundantly rendered by some. The toils of devoted missionaries and fervent ministers shame us if we sit still in indolence. Shrinking from trial is the temptation of those who are at ease in Zion: they would fain escape the cross and yet wear the crown; to them the question for this evening's meditation is very applicable. If the most precious are tried in the fire, are we to escape the crucible? If the diamond must be vexed upon the wheel, are we to be made perfect without suffering? Who hath commanded the wind to cease from blowing because our bark is on the deep? Why and wherefore should we be treated better than our Lord? The firstborn felt the rod, and why not the younger brethren? It is a cowardly pride which would choose a downy pillow and a silken couch for a soldier of the cross. Wiser far is he who, being first resigned to the divine will, groweth by the energy of grace to be pleased with it, and so learns to gather lilies at the cross foot, and, like Samson, to find honey in the lion.
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Today's reading: Psalm 68-69, Romans 8:1-21 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 68-69

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm. A song.
1 May God arise, may his enemies be scattered;
may his foes flee before him.
2 May you blow them away like smoke-
as wax melts before the fire,
may the wicked perish before God.
3 But may the righteous be glad
and rejoice before God;
may they be happy and joyful.
4 Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
extol him who rides on the clouds;
rejoice before him-his name is the LORD.
5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
6 God sets the lonely in families,
he leads out the prisoners with singing;
but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land....

Today's New Testament reading: Romans 8:1-21

Life Through the Spirit
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit....
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Manoah

 [Mānō'ah] - rest or quiet. A Danitebelonging to Zorah, and father of Samson (Judg. 13; 16:31). Manoah was a godly, hospitable man and was against any alliance with the Philistines. A divine messenger brought him word of Samson's birth. We have four glimpses of this devout worshiper of Jehovah:
His remonstrance with Samson over his Philistine marriage (Judg. 14:2, 3).
His visit with Samson to Timnah ( Judg. 14:5, 6).
His presence at his son's marriage (Judg. 14:9, 10).
His death before Samson's tragic death (Judg. 16:31).
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