Thursday, September 17, 2015

Thu Sep 17th Todays News

Bad feeling from the terrible political execution of Tony Abbott is natural. Some are willing to end the coalition. Some are willing to split the party. Tellingly, Mr Abbott is bigger than that. He is greater. He is loyal. He was undeserving of the abuse he was given as PM. We here at the Conservative Voice will take his lead. We will not endorse the coup, but we will not allow the corrupt ALP to profit from it either. We demand Malcolm Turnbull to pass the legislation Australia needs regarding cuts to spending. Also free speech. Remove the proposal for constitutional change based on race. 

 For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility. 
=== from 2014 ===
It is understandable that a weak mind may vacillate between positions. Because a reasonable argument may be made for either position. And so a kiwi jihadist who went to Syria and burned his passport, declaring he was joining the ISIS caliphate has now decided life is better in New Zealand. But what will happen if the weak minded fool is not welcomed back with open arms? Will he keep beheading innocent peoples to satisfy the demands of his current leader? He has apparently remarked that the peoples he has terrorised don't need a caliphate so much as aid. Obama is sending Aid to the middle East, and sending troops to Africa to deal with the Ebola epidemic. Maybe some senior general in the armed forces can sit down with Obama and point out the difference between troops and aid. Obama proudly declared many times he withdrew troops from Iraq. Now he doesn't know where they have all gone. Perhaps the navy can help him look for them? Humour aside, everyone should be concerned that Obama is lying, downplaying the size and cost of engagement with ISIS.

It is understandable that a weak mind may vacillate between positions. Because a reasonable argument may be made for either position. Dr Karl Kruszelnicki denies science which evaluates AGW hysteria. The raw data points to the computer models being wrong. this confuses Dr Karl who really wants the computer models to be right. Maybe we can find a planet for Dr Karl where the models are correct, and where he can stay? Meanwhile a wind farm kills koalas as trees they rely on for food are cut down to place a wind farm which does nothing to combat global warming. There is a possibility the wind farms will cut down more rare birds then it will kill koalas, maybe someone will take odds? Good news for AGW alarmists as China cuts back on coal. Bad news for Australia as her income will be cut for it.

Being dumb does not excuse bigotry, and makes the opinion expressed easily dismissed, but one particularly dumb bigot has spoken out in a Hanson-esque performance. He is married to an ethnically Asian girl but wants Australia to limit people from places he deems to be undesirable. Luckily, much smarter people than he have decided that it doesn't matter where people come from, but how they behave. This adult view is at odds with the ALP position that says it is desirable to import people who might be fooled into voting for them as quid pro quo. Meanwhile a supermarket advertises a special on artichokes of two for $4, or pay the premium price of $1.40 each. It would be worth paying extra and getting all of them individually wrapped for sale. 

Telcos historically charge outrageously, but complaints are up 27.2% in 2014 in Australia in relation to data charges. One mobile phone user has been charged $36225 but got the charges dropped after pointing out they could not possibly have accrued it. Another user was charged $76103 and are disputing it. Maybe a compromise is in order, the telco could discount calls by 10%? 

More Australians self identifying as Aboriginal mean fewer bush Aborigines get aid. Thing is that city folk do not suffer as country folk do, having access to more resources, like hospitals, police, housing, electricity, running water and education. Maybe it would be better to not label people by race, but to address needs? Maybe not, and Abbott over reaches on an apartheid constitution referendum which he promises will be soon. Detail is needed, but in general a reasonable person will oppose it. Reasonable is no way to describe former PM Rudd. Rudd was the richest politician ever to be in parliament. Rudd negotiated a rort he expected Mr Abbott to give him. Mr Abbott hasn't, merely restricting Rudd to a standard package for former PMs. Also in the corruption market is the AFL using AFL resources to campaign over a mine. But the mine in question has nothing to do with the sport. AWU calls for exemptions to them on the RET, but the RET is a bad tax that needs to be canceled for everybody. Finally, a schoolgirl who got a "Virginity rocks" t-shirt at a christian convention is not allowed to wear it at school. Alternative goth style shirts are available should she interest herself in acceptable school fashion. 
From 2013
The ALP like grants in government. It is a good way to distribute lots of money without much oversight. Back in 2008, Fairfield Council set up $5k grants for cultural projects. Budding film makers could start projects and use the grants. They weren't to pay the artists, but to fund projects. I applied for such a grant, being desperate for money, but willing to work. Many were coming up with projects on opposing cigarettes, alcohol awareness, youth and domestic violence awareness and so on. I decided to deal with the issues in a short story format, and so covered the many issues I'd seen as a local high school teacher. I was told the project was too ambitious. I did a documentary on Che Guevarra. I was told I'd finished it and so it wasn't worthy of a grant. A project needed to be something I could use in the community, to discuss the important issues. So, I suggested the disconnect between youth and police, humanising police to youth who view them as a threat, instead of as essential to a healthy society. I was told my issue wasn't edifying for the community, and wasn't really cultural. People did access those grants .. not me. And that is why the ALP really love them, they are subject to pork barrelling, rort-ing abuse. BTW, check out my doco on the second intifada. 
But that isn't all the ALP care about. They care about women. Not too much .. they don't want to reward women for work. The ALP want tokens. Of the four leaders of the ALP federally, none are women. The Liberal Party's deputy leader, Julie Bishop, is a woman, and more capable as minister than any of the ALP four, but that isn't the point. It is a shame there aren't more like Bishop. Give the ALP time, and they will find another issue that will define their opposition to an Abbott government. The ACT seem to think they have found another issue; Gay Marriage. Personally, I don't like government defining marriage. Government don't do much very well. I shudder to think what complying with gay marriage law would entail for the average citizen. At what time would federal police be able to turn on their flashlights and say, loudly "That sirs, is not legal!"Leave it to the churches to be wowsers. But let the churches make their own regulation. Then let the federal police scratch their heads and try to see if the practice is Catholic or Protestant ..

In the US there are guns. There are guns in Australia too, but there are regulations that are effective. Obama has tried ineffective regulation, and it hasn't worked. Today there is discussion of a man, who might have been a son of Obama, killed lots of people with an assault rifle. He had taken it to the workplace when some would argue it was better off at his home. Because the Democrats get votes by being the goto party for gun control, it is not in their interests to do anything effective about the issue. 
=== Publishing News ===
This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August https://www.createspace.com/4124406, September https://www.createspace.com/5106914, October https://www.createspace.com/5106951, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows the purchase of a kindle version for just $3.99 more. 
===
For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball

Or the US President at
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-change-this-injustice#
or
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-injustice-faced-david-daniel-ball-after-he-reported-bungled-pedophile-investigation-and/b8mxPWtJ or http://wh.gov/ilXYR
Douglas Sutherland-Bruce via David Daniel Ball
Mr Ball, I will not sign your petition as it will do no good, but I will share your message and ask as many of friends who read it, to share it also. Let us see if we cannot use the power of the internet to spread the word of these infamous killings. As a father and a former soldier, I cannot, could not, justify ignoring this appalling action by the perpetrators, whoever they may; I thank you Douglas. You are wrong about the petition. Signing it is as worthless and meaningless an act as voting. A stand up guy would know that. - ed

Lorraine Allen Hider I signed the petition ages ago David, with pleasure, nobody knows what it's like until they've been there. Keep heart David take care.

I have begun a bulletin board (http://theconservativevoice.freeforums.net) which will allow greater latitude for members to post and interact. It is not subject to FB policy and so greater range is allowed in posts. Also there are private members rooms in which nothing is censored, except abuse. All welcome, registration is free.
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Happy birthday and many happy returns Pamela De Carvalho. Born on the same day, across the years, as Charles the Simple (879), Stephen Hales (1677), Jonathan Alder (1773), Ira Davenport (1839), Walter Murdoch (1874), Francis Chichester (1901), Bea Miles (1902), Hank Williams (1923), Roddy McDowall (1928), Stirling Moss (1929), Anne Bancroft (1931), Shelby Flint (1939), Rita Rudner (1953), Mandawuy Yunupingu (1956), Dustin Nguyen (1962) and Justyna Jegiołka (1991). On your day, Constitution Day in the United States
1859 – Disgruntled with the legal and political structures of the United States, Joshua Norton distributed letters to various newspapers in San Francisco, proclaiming himself Emperor Norton.
1914 – Andrew Fisher became Prime Minister of Australia for the third time, beginning a period of reform unmatched in the Commonwealth until the 1940s.
1939 – World War II: The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, sixteen days after Nazi Germany's attack on that country from the west.
1978 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords after twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David.
2011 – Adbusters, a Canadian anti-consumerist publication, organized a protest against corporate influence on democracy at Zuccotti Park in New York City that became known as Occupy Wall Street. Emperor Norton is gone. Andrew Fisher has reformed. Poland is back. Twelve days of talks end with talk. Occupy Wall street is vacant. Enjoy your day.
Deaths
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A coup for the chattering classes

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, September 16, 2015 (12:27am)

This was a coup by the chattering classes.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'A coup for the chattering classes'
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A mess of his own making

Miranda Devine – Monday, September 14, 2015 (10:00pm)

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TONY Abbott is at his best when his back is against the wall. He’s a tough and wily fighter. But he left it all too late.
He only has himself to blame for losing the Prime Ministership to Malcolm Turnbull. 
His short, sharp statement Monday night, calling on the leadership ballot, was Abbott at his best. 
He said he was, “heartened by the messages of support flooding into Liberal Party offices saying most emphatically ‘We are not the Labor party’.”
The prime ministership is “not a prize or a plaything to be demanded. It should be something which is earned by a vote of the Australian people.”
Yes, that was Abbott’s greatest bargaining chip: the fury of voters having, yet again, been cheated out of their right, as they see it, to change the Prime Minister; the spectre of selfish, traitorous politicians, faceless or otherwise, placing themselves above the will of the people.
And yet, it would be a mistake to judge this leadership change by the standards of Labor’s Rudd-Gillard-Rudd farce.
Even the most rusted-on conservative voters were deeply disappointed with Abbott, and have been since the government’s first budget last year. Many had written him off and were fatalistic about Turnbull’s stealth attack. The most frequent comment about Abbott from supporters all year has been, “He just doesn’t listen.”
The truth is Abbott was given fair warning in February, in the leadership spill that wasn’t. That was a shot across his bows: change two fundamental elements of his government, or else. First, remove the lacklustre Treasurer Joe Hockey and, second, change the way your office functions – in other words, end your reliance on chief of staff Peta Credlin.
Abbott was told and told and told by colleagues, media, friends, former senior politicians, and he refused to make those crucial changes, for reasons known best to himself.
One backbench conservative, after weeks of urging the PM and his office to mount a more forceful defense against Turnbull’s blatant destabilization, lamented last night: “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.”
Abbott stubbornly clung to both Hockey and Credlin. His supporters tried to say that was demonstration of a positive character trait – loyalty. But as prime minister, his first loyalty should have been to the nation, not to individuals who have not served him well. 
Hockey just wasn’t up to the job. And it wasn’t as if there wasn’t a brilliant candidate staring Abbott in the face, and willing to step into the role, Scott Morrison. 
Why the PM thought the government was in a strong enough position not to put his top performing minister in the most important portfolio is an enduring mystery, and in the end, it sealed his fate.
Instead, Hockey was nursed through the last budget by Morrison, Josh Frydenberg and Mathias Cormann.
The government’s problems all go back to its first arrogant budget in which a string of election promises were broken and, astonishingly, the mariginal rate of tax was increased to a record 49 percent. This totemic mistake destroyed a key strength of the Liberal party and dismayed supporters. It was the first sign that something was wrong with the Abbott government’s DNA
Abbott seemed to be at once plagued by self doubt and stubbornly inflexible when it came to learning from his mistakes.
The best leaders in history have been tempered by failure and learned from the experience.
Turnbull failed dismally last time he was Liberal leader. He’s smart, but is he smart enough to learn from those mistakes?
If he runs the budget the way he’s run the NBN, with a massive blowout to $56billion, the country is in trouble.
Turnbull has to prove he has what it takes to be a leader and keep the conservative base of the Liberal party on side.
Same sex marriage and climate change will be his two litmus tests. Is he capable of subsuming his ego and allowing the Coalition party room position on both issues to remain unchanged?
As for the voters, there’s no clear explanation for why another democratically elected first term Prime Minister had to go. Sure, Abbott didn’t do well in the polls, but are we governed by pollsters? What did he do wrong? 
That is the question Turnbull never will be able satisfactorily to explain.
But at least Abbott won’t do to Turnbull what Rudd did to Gillard. He’s too honourable.
===

THE CHURCH OF OPERATIONAL FEMALENESS

Tim Blair – Thursday, September 17, 2015 (2:16pm)

A former Fairfax executive once tried explaining to me why the Sydney Morning Herald had hired Elizabeth Farrelly. “We thought she would write about architecture,” he said, despairingly.
Alas, buildings quickly proved insufficient to hold Queen Elizabeth’s attention. Now she writes at enormous length about almost any topic that develops – even partially – in her poodle-decorated head, often to the bewilderment of readers and (presumably) SMH editors.
Some of those columns approach a Dadaist level of unintentional comic absurdity. But all of the great frightbat’s work to date has been mere prelude to today’s piece, in which Farrelly calls for the formation of a new religion: 
I reckon the world needs not less religion, but more. Specifically, one more, real one. Here’s why …
We’re facing the biggest, most urgent and most complex crisis the (human) world has ever known. Our species is directly implicated, if not solely responsible. The culpable cultures are deeply structured upon the first, primal human systems, religions. These, the so-called world religions, universally imposed patriarchies – which allowed them be co-opted by bands of murderous apes, dragged down from God-level to primate level. These tribalised religions formed the Big Man culture that was once our species’ greatest strength, but is now our greatest liability. Only a new religion can change it …
Never have we been more in need of engaged, operational femaleness. Never has it been more necessary for receptive feminine thinking to poultice a planet ravaged by projectile maleness …
Only a new religion can reinvent the paradigm. 
People, we have now reached peak Farrelly. Surely Elizabeth will never be able to do better. Why, even Margo Kingston herself couldn’t top this.
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BACK TO THE RED MOTOR

Tim Blair – Thursday, September 17, 2015 (1:55pm)

Gaia wins: 
Aussie V8 fans will have to get used to four-cylinder and V6 power for their future performance sedans, the Asia-Pacific boss of General Motors Stefan Jacoby has confirmed ... 
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Holden’s future foretold in 1963. 
The Holden V8 will die once manufacturing comes to an end at Holden’s factory in Elizabeth in South Australia at the end of 2017. 
Ford once went the non-V8 route. It didn’t work out, but perhaps times have changed.
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THESE HEAD-CHOPPING SAVAGES HAVE NO MANNERS AT ALL

Tim Blair – Thursday, September 17, 2015 (10:57am)

The jihadist life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be: 
A British jihadist with Isil has moaned that his Arab comrades are rude, do not know how to queue and eat like schoolchildren.
In a bizarre rant, Omar Hussain also complained that his fellow terrorists talk loudly when he is trying to sleep, invade his space and steal his shoes.
Their bad driving, habit of staring at people and using his charger for their mobile phones also come under fire. 
Please read on. Islamic State seems to be running a Middle Eastern version of the Occupy movement, except with even more raping.
(Via Brat.)
UPDATE. Another example of Islamic State impoliteness: 
A Danish teenage girl has been sentenced to nine years in jail for murdering her mother in what appears to be an ISIS-inspired killing.
The Independent reports that just minutes before the fatal assault occurred in October of last year, 15-year-old Lisa Borch had spent hours watching ISIS videos of the decapitations of the two British hostages, David Haines and Alan Henning.
A Danish court heard that the teen planned to join ISIS in Syria with her Iraqi boyfriend, Bakhtiar Mohammed Abdulla, 29. His fingerprints were also found at the scene of the crime and he has been sentenced to 13 years.
Borch originally met Abdulla at a refugee center near her home … 
This gal is a real piece of work: 
Police were alerted to the incident by Borch, who told emergency services she had heard her mother scream and saw a “white man” running away from the house. 
(Via Adam I.)
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KEEP THE MONSTER AT BAY

Tim Blair – Wednesday, September 16, 2015 (2:54pm)

British academic John Milbank, writing at the ABC’s Religion and Ethics site: 
There is something inherently dangerous about money, and intrinsically contaminating about the impersonality of commercial exchange. To some degree, the economy is a kind of feral monster that needs to be kept at bay from wider society – from health, education, sport, the arts and political practice. 
I agree. To protect the ABC from further economic contamination, it should demand an immediate end to taxpayer funding.
(Via tax-funded millionaire Jonathan Green.)
UPDATE. Further from Milbank: 
Turning from the impersonal machine to the living but crafted social organism of interlinked personal relations in connected continuity with the organism of created nature is not merely a necessity of justice, but also of future world peace. 
Well, obviously.
UPDATE II. In 2006, Milbank was still trying to work out who was responsible for 9/11: 
As to the precise causes of 9/11 I remain entirely agnostic. It certainly appears that while certain strange circumstances surrounding that event have been satisfactorily explained, certain others have not been accounted for in any unequivocally emphatic way (and in particular the tardiness of response to the planes’ initial capture).
Quite definitely we can say that on the part of someone a terroristic conspiracy was fomented and that who that someone really was is not as yet entirely apparent. It may well be the case that no one group of persons in this plot was fully aware of all the parties responsible for it; that some of the deceiving were also deceived and even that this could have occurred reciprocally.
Likewise if there were any US or Israeli government involvement it might well be that we are talking about a small faction and that even that faction had no fully clear sense of what was actually going to transpire. 
This fellow appears to be an idiot.
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BRIAN CLOSE

Tim Blair – Wednesday, September 16, 2015 (2:56am)

Former Yorkshire and England captain Brian Close, described as the bravest man to ever play cricket, has died at 84. Close’s courage was most obvious during England’s 1976 series against the West Indies, when the helmetless left-hander faced a lethally rapid Michael Holding: 
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BACKSTABBER FRATERNITY WELCOMES LATEST MEMBER

Tim Blair – Wednesday, September 16, 2015 (2:46am)

Former Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard have complained at great length about how they were undermined and ultimately removed by their challengers – who were, respectively, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. Interestingly, both now identify with and support the man who undermined and ultimately removed former Prime Minister Tony Abbott:

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Not a word of sympathy from either Rudd or Gillard for the latest leadership victim, presumably due to bitterness over Abbott besting both of them in direct competition. Meanwhile, the first post-spill poll is good news for Malcolm Turnbull and bad news for Bill Shorten: 
A snap Morgan poll conducted today on who Australian voters think is the better PM found Mr Turnbull is preferred by 70 per cent of voters compared to 24 per cent for Bill Shorten.
The special Snap SMS poll of 1204 voters also found a majority of Labor supporters say Mr Turnbull is the better leader, with 50 per cent supporting him compared to 44 per cent supporting Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. 
That result will please Turnbull, Australia’s third Labor Prime Minister since 2007.
UPDATE. Bill Shorten’s remarks on Abbott’s departure were impressively sincere and gracious.
UPDATE II. Click for further details:

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ECO-TAR

Tim Blair – Wednesday, September 16, 2015 (1:57am)

Of all ecologically-themed initiatives, Brisbane City Council’s might be the finest: 
We’re streets ahead with our new eco-friendly road paving machine. 
(Via Dave T.)
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MUSLIMS CAUSING PROBLEMS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, September 16, 2015 (1:27am)

Tough talk from President Obambi: 
President Obama on Friday warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that his support for Syria’s government in its four-year civil war “is a big mistake …”
The president also warned that ISIS was more of a threat to Russia in many ways than the U.S., and that a political settlement in Syria was in its interests.
“They’ve got large Muslim populations that historically have caused a lot of problems inside of Russia,” he said. “And the strategy that they’re pursuing right now of doubling down on Assad I think is a big mistake.” 
Via A.R.M. Jones, who emails: “Must have been a teleprompter glitch. But imagine if any other Western leader uttered those words.”
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Fiorina not just a pretty face
Andrew BoltSEPTEMBER172015(4:08pm)

Wow. What a great and elegant put-down of Donald Trump by Carly Fiorina during the Republican debate. Much applause, too.===

Dear friends

Andrew Bolt September 17 2015 (12:46pm)

What Malcolm Turnbull thought of his deputy in 2009:
The spectacular fallout between deposed Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull and his former deputy Julie Bishop has widened, with Mr Turnbull having a bet each way on whether she voted for him…
Amid recriminations in the party’s moderate wing over its self-destructive split - which handed surprise victory to Tony Abbott in Tuesday’s leadership ballot - an email row between Mr Turnbull and Ms Bishop was leaked to the ABC…
The exchange between the pair followed a heated telephone conversation on Tuesday afternoon over how the deputy had voted.
Ms Bishop then sought to hunt down copies of her ballot papers from party whip Alex Somlyay to prove to Mr Turnbull that she was telling the truth…
‘‘The allegations and the false accusations were so intense that I felt that I had to prove to everybody, not just to Malcolm to everybody that I was loyal to the leader throughout the ballot process and I’d said that publicly,’’ she said this morning…
In the emails, Mr Turnbull said he and his wife Lucy were unable to reconcile Ms Bishop’s public declarations of admiration for Mr Abbott with ‘‘what you were saying to us last night in our apartment ... your scathing attacks on him and his character’’.
‘‘You would have been far better advised not to accept that role,’’ he wrote. ‘‘Too many people know what you think of him, and what he thinks of you.’’
Ms Bishop yesterday confirmed that she had laughed about Mr Abbott with the Turnbulls after photographs had appeared in the media of him in his budgie smugglers. But she denied she had ever attacked her new leader.
(Thanks to reader Owen.)
UPDATE
This week’s Spectator is brutal:
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If the polls dip from Turnbull’s honeymoon lift, stand by for the Liberal fury

Andrew Bolt September 17 2015 (12:35pm)

This honeymoon lift won’t be enough to justify what was done. Still, early days for Malcolm Turnbull:
The bloodletting has traumatised the government but those behind­ the challenge gained some vindication last night, with a Seven News ReachTel poll showing a big lift in Coalition support to put both major parties tied at 50-50 after preferences.
The poll also found that Mr Turnbull had a commanding lead over Mr Shorten as better prime minister, 62 per cent to 38 per cent, compared with last month, when Mr Abbott trailed the Opposition Leader 42 per cent to 58 per cent.
Here is the last poll taken under the Abbott Government:
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UPDATE
Compare Turnbull’s bounce to the one Julia Gillard got in 2010 when she knifed Kevin Rudd:
The Galaxy Poll in News Limited papers has the Government leading the Opposition 52 to 48 on a two-party preferred basis.

Reader JT:
This was not long after the Gillard coup over Rudd. She took them to 52-48 Labor/Coalition from 53-47 Coalition/Labor under Rudd on June 7th.  It worked a lot better for Labor in 2010 dumping their leader and they still lost. Oh well, I’m sure history never repeats itself.
The Turnbull bounce is also much less than the one Kevin Rudd got by knifing Julia Gillard in 2013:
A Fairfax ReachTEL poll conducted on Thursday found a turnaround of about 10 per cent for Labor in four key seats – Melbourne’s Maribyrnong and Chisholm and Sydney’s McMahon and Blaxland – since Mr Rudd regained the top job.
UPDATE
The Spectator Australia, now on the news stands:
The knifing of Tony Abbott will go down as one of the most destructive and arrogant acts of political bastardry this nation has yet seen. In many ways, it surpasses Labor’s two similarly bloody coups, so forensically explored in Sarah Ferguson’s superb Killing Season documentary, for the simple reason that Mr Turnbull’s treachery was done despite the knowledge that the electorate genuinely deplore such brutality. If there was, indeed, one clear lesson to come from the Rudd/Gillard danse macabre, it is that the voters prefer to do the knifings in the sanctity of the ballot box, and have little time for those who are egotistical and presumptuous enough to take the task upon themselves. Tony Abbott PM was a class act, as the electorate will come to appreciate over the next few months and years. The measure of his achievements in less than two short, frenetic years in office eclipses by a country mile the achievements of any government, state or federal, since the early Howard years…
Instead, the Coalition has embarked upon a risky Labor-style experiment, hoping Mr Turnbull’s sugar hit in the polls will see them all safely across the line. The wiser approach would have been to stick with Mr Abbott, and allow the voters to judge on policy achievements, not on the illusion of personal popularity.
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Turnbull’s biggest threat is Liberal anger at the treachery

Andrew Bolt September 17 2015 (11:01am)

Politics - deceits and stuff ups, Politics - federal

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PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s biggest problem isn’t Bill Shorten. No, knocking off that soiled Labor leader should be a cinch.
Far more dangerous to Turnbull are the Liberals disgusted by the treachery and deceit that went into assassinating former leader Tony Abbott.
There is almost a revulsion among influential MPs, not just with Turnbull but his deputy, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop. There is even anger with Scott Morrison, until now a hero of conservatives and about to become Turnbull’s treasurer.
For some this is now a moral question. They know they should be loyal to their party. They know Turnbull can beat Shorten. And they know their duty is to help Turnbull do that, given how unfit Shorten is to lead this country.
Yet Turnbull’s plotters make their skin crawl. I’ve talked to MPs, even moderates, who are sickened. Some wonder why they got into politics or even whether they should join a new party. That just adds venom to the anger that many conservative Liberals already feel for Turnbull — for a man of the Left they think has hijacked their party.
Let me give three examples of the scheming that makes it hard for Turnbull to expect much loyalty in return.
First, there was Julie Bishop’s disloyal silence.
(Read full column here.)  
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Turnbull encourages Shorten to choke on his carbon tax

Andrew Bolt September 17 2015 (10:01am)

Terry McCrann says Malcolm Turnbull has encouraged Labor to hang itself with a new carbon tax:
OH dear. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has set about taking renewed ownership of ... the defining disaster of Julia Gillard’s prime ministership…
At the next election [Shorten] now has to either repeat Gillard’s “no carbon tax” promise — something that would be both unbelievable and politically suicidal. Or actually promise there would be a carbon tax — something “courageous” but equally politically suicidal.
Yet in Question Time yesterday, Shorten actually went out of his way to cement that ball and chain around his ankles.
He and the other front benchers simply couldn’t help themselves — aiming to pin new PM Malcolm Turnbull on his previous support for the Emissions Trading Scheme which to all practical purposes is a carbon tax.
At the cost of scoring some ephemeral and really empty debating points, Shorten locked himself and Labor even more tightly into the “Gillard promise disaster”.
There are two basic but hugely significant points that Shorten and his political “think tank” completely fail to understand.
First it is them who are locked into bringing back the hated carbon tax, not the government whether led by a PM Abbott or a PM Turnbull.
The more they go about how Turnbull used to be in favour of an ETS, the more they cement in the voting public’s mind that they — Shorten and Labor — would bring back a carbon tax if they won next year. And that a re-elected Turnbull government would decidedly not…
In question time [Shorten] asked Turnbull to join with Labor in committing to a 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030.
Open Sesame, and then some. Talking about “own goals” does not begin to capture the sheer stupidity in that grab for a seeming “free kick"… For as Turnbull responded, here was an Opposition which had committed to an absurd renewable energy fantasy, without the slightest idea far less anything remotely like analysis of what it would cost…
Keep those questions coming Bill. Just keep reminding voters there will be a Gillard carbon tax under a government you lead plus a second layer of increased power prices from something even she didn’t impose.
Also, keep reminding them that a Shorten government would embark on wild uncosted spending programs just like the Rudd government did. 
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ABC accepts from Turnbull what it rejected from Abbott

Andrew Bolt September 17 2015 (9:15am)

One big thing in Malcolm Turnbull’s favour is that the ABC will accept from him the policies it trashed when they came from Tony Abbott. That includes the policies Turnbull now promotes which he, too, was once against.
Today’s example is Fran Kelly.
Now that Turnbull is promoting Abbott’s direct action climate policy which he once attacked, Kelly says:
There’s a lot of positive elements about it… That can make a big difference to the impact on emissions.
On giving the public a vote on gay marriage after the next election - another policy Turnbull trashed, Kelly is also now positive:

I think there’s a lot of support now for a people’s vote on the plebiscite.
Not the principle but the tribe.
(Thanks to reader Peter H.) 
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Turnbull tried to bring down the last conservative Liberal leader, too

Andrew Bolt September 17 2015 (8:03am)

Malcolm Turnbull donated to a Labor campaign to destroy the Howard Government:
AUSTRALIA’S newest Liberal [sic] Prime Minister was ­responsible for a series of hefty donations to the ALP totalling at least $25,000 about 15 years ago…
Malcolm Turnbull ... ploughed the cash into ALP coffers through his company Wilcrow Pty Ltd.
Australian Electoral Commission records show that in the financial year 1998-99, Wilcrow gave $15,000 to the ALP and a further $10,000 in the year 1999-00.
The latter donation went to the Victorian branch of the federal Labor Party, the faction from which Turnbull’s current political adversary Bill Shorten hailed.
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Border wars

Andrew Bolt September 17 2015 (7:13am)

One European country defends its borders:
Dozens of migrants have braved tear gas, riot police and water cannon to briefly break through Serbia’s border with Hungary in several hours of clashes at the flashpoint Roszke crossing.
The disturbances began midafternoon after several hundred migrants frustrated at Hungary’s closure of its frontier this week — previously a major entry point into the EU — began shouting slogans…
The situation escalated and clashes raged for over four hours, with black-helmeted riot police firing tear gas and water cannon as migrants threw stones, sticks and plastic bottles.
Fourteen police were injured, authorities said.
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Farrelly’s world of decline

Andrew Bolt September 17 2015 (6:20am)

Either the Sydney Morning Herald no longer recognises tosh before it publishes the stuff, or its audience is in deep cultural decline.
Still, I guess the one good thing about Elizabeth Farrelly’s latest apocalyptic rambling is that she finally accepts the greatest threat to the planet is not global warming:
Executive summary: We’re facing the biggest, most urgent and most complex crisis the (human) world has ever known. Our species is directly implicated, if not solely responsible. The culpable cultures are deeply structured upon the first, primal human systems, religions. These, the so-called world religions, universally imposed patriarchies - which allowed them be co-opted by bands of murderous apes, dragged down from God-level to primate level. These tribalised religions formed the Big Man culture that was once our species’ greatest strength, but is now our greatest liability. Only a new religion can change it, in time.
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A classic example of the old tribal religious paradigm is the profession.
But of course.
Another classic bit of Farrelly, seeing nefarious connections in coincidences:
Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism: they don’t all make god a bloke but they’re all ministered by men in frocks (you think it’s an accident that surgeons wear gowns and lawyers robes?
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Warren Truss won’t accept Malcolm Turnbull’s word unless it’s in writing

Andrew Bolt September 17 2015 (6:06am)

The Nationals don’t trust the new leader of the Liberals at all. Nationals leader Warren Truss explains why he demanded Malcolm Turnbull sign a deal before backing him as Prime Minister - a deal promising funding for Nationals projects and guaranteeing no change to policies on global warming and gay marriage:

The Nationals obviously were concerned that we’d had policy disagreements with Malcolm Turnbull in the past, and we wanted to be sure that any new relationship was built on a firm footing, and that we could with confidence support him as the new leader of the Coalition in the knowledge that the policy of the Government would not radically change.,,
We wanted to be sure that the current policies that have been put in place in relation to carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes, and the targets that have been set for climate change action, would be honoured and that there would not be a revision of those sorts of issues… We felt it was necessary that those arrangements be sorted out by way of a side letter to the coalition agreement so that there was an adequate understanding between us that the policy in some of these key issues would be maintained…
We were very concerned about issues such as climate change, which I guess were the source of the disputes that led to the end of Malcolm Turnbull’s earlier leadership period, and those are important issues to us. But we were also looking for assurances about the infrastructure program, we were keen to know that the policies that had been established in relation to determining the future policy on same-sex marriage, that process giving the people a say would be followed. So a very substantial part of what’s in this side letter is in fact about cementing the existing policies so that they would be continued. 
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Jeremy Corbyn: slouching with Britain to Gomorrah

Andrew Bolt September 17 2015 (5:53am)

Small things, but all signs of national decline:
Jeremy Corbyn has defended not singing the national anthem the national anthem at the Battle of Britain memorial service by saying he had chosen “respectful silence”.
The hard-left Labour leader remained solemn, but silent, as he stood in the front row at St Paul’s Cathedral on Tuesday.
Mr Corbyn had turned up on foot for his first official engagement wearing a mismatched jacket and trousers with his shirt unbuttoned at the top.
(Thanks to reader Jeff.) 
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Paul Barry defends the false story of poor Aylan Kurdi

Andrew Bolt September 17 2015 (12:53am)

I argued that the tragic picture of drowned toddler Aylan Kurdi did not show what most of the media claimed - a refugee fleeing death in Syria.
The picture was more complicated, I said. The boy’s family had actually lived in Turkey in safety for three years, and a key part of the father’s decision to go to Europe was to have his teeth fixed.
Paul Barry of Media Watch is angry with this dissent, and last night tried to dismiss it in ways I think are deeply misleading:


Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Paul Barry defends the false story of poor Aylan Kurdi'
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How Labor got taxpayers to pay for their staff

Andrew Bolt September 17 2015 (12:00am)

Victorian Labor rorted taxpayers to pay for their election campaign:
LABOR campaign whistleblowers have exposed the full extent of the rorts-for-votes scandal and have claimed they were told to lie about how they were paid.
Two staff who were employed to campaign for the party last year say they have twice been ordered by Labor leaders to “shut up’’ over their pay, which was financed by hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer cash.
The two “field organisers’’ have also detailed how a team of more than two dozen was hired in March 2014 and part-paid with Parliament funds that were supposed to have been used for casual electorate officers.
The rort involved the team of “redshirts” being paid two days a week as electorate officers for specific MPs, when instead they worked solely on co-ordinated, party-directed campaigning.
Under parliamentary rules, electorate officers are banned from party campaigning.
The Labor staffers’ revelations are at odds with Premier Daniel Andrews’s statements to the public and Parliament after the Herald Sun revealed the scheme this month. 
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Turnbull on the sacking of a Prime Minister: “one of the most shocking events I have ever witnessed”

Andrew Bolt September 16 2015 (6:58pm)

Malcolm Turnbull on Labor’s knifing of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd:
I will never forget the day that you gave your press conference following your removal as Leader of the Labor Party by your colleagues. It is etched in my memory. It was one of the cruellest moments I have ever witnessed. I had lost the leadership of my own party but, frankly, in a dispute about policy…
The betrayal of you as leader of your party was one of the most shocking events I have ever witnessed, and I would think any of us have ever witnessed, in politics—the scale of it. The idea that the man who had won, in this presidential campaign, an election against John Howard was then going to be disposed of, discarded like another course on a lazy Susan in a Vietnamese restaurant—the cruelty of it was extraordinary!
I’d like to hear another speech on this theme.
(Via Michael Smith.) 
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Abbott to stay

Andrew Bolt September 16 2015 (6:32pm)

Tony Abbott says he will stay in Parliament, at least for now:
It’s been a tumultuous week and I now intend to spend some time with my family to think about the future. But my intention is to remain in the Parliament.
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Plibersek plays sexism card even against Turnbull

Andrew Bolt September 16 2015 (6:21pm)

Tanya Plibersek now plays the sexism card against even Malcolm Turnbull, proving she uses feminism not to achieve equality but to win an advantage:
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was accused of “mansplaining” in Question Time on Wednesday - which clearly baffled a number of government ministers.
Press gallery reporters noted a few raised eyebrows and confused looks after Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek told the parliament Mr Turnbull was not answering her question, but was instead “mansplaining"…

According to the Macquarie dictionary, to “mansplain” is to “explain (something) to a woman, in a way that is patronising because it assumes that a woman will be ignorant of the subject matter”.
Seems to me that Plibersek is the real sexist. Every male a brute.
Plibersek’s feminism: not a principle but a weapon. 
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UNSTABLE KARL

Tim Blair – Wednesday, September 17, 2014 (2:24pm)

The ABC’s V8 driving warmie, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki: 
In the USA, the Wall Street Journal wrote, “temperatures have been flat for 15 years - nobody can properly explain it.”
Another newspaper from the same stable, the UK Daily Mail wrote “global warming ‘pause’ may last 20 more years, and Arctic sea ice has already started to recover”. Both of these statements are very reassuring, but unfortunately, very very wrong. 
Dr Karl is very, very wrong. The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp. The Daily Mail is owned by DMGT. What is it with global warmists and facts?
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SMART MOVE, BRO

Tim Blair – Wednesday, September 17, 2014 (12:46pm)

Another member of the cream puff brigade has second thoughts: 
A Kiwi jihadist who has links with al Qaeda and has taken up arms in Syria wants to leave the war-torn country – but first needs a fresh New Zealand passport after burning his old one.
Mohammad Daniel, also know as Abu Abdul Rahman, and formerly known as Mark John Taylor, says war-torn Syria needs humanitarian aid rather than a bloody jihad …
In June this year, he entered Syria across the Turkish border.
“I come to Syria as a Soldier for Allah,” he told the Herald on Sunday at the time. 
He’s probably just annoyed that they made him wear a dress. Meanwhile, reader Chris has discovered the cause of the current unrest during a parent-teacher interview in western Melbourne, where he saw this classroom notation:

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STREET JUSTICE

Tim Blair – Wednesday, September 17, 2014 (12:06pm)

Four-wheeled freedom fighters repel the bicycle menace in Victoria: 
A northern suburbs council that built an elaborate separated bike lane on a residential street has been forced back to the drawing board after furious motorists twice ripped out bollards that had reduced the width of the road.
The two-way bike lane, built for $85,000 at ratepayers’ expense in the working-class suburb of Glenroy, has been indefinitely removed after the Moreland City Council decided it could not afford to keep putting the vandalised bollards back in place. 
This is the best outcome since Clover Moore’s musical bicycle path was silenced in 2012.
(Via Davo)
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SPECIAL INCREASE

Tim Blair – Wednesday, September 17, 2014 (11:27am)

Reader Greg Mac spots some bargain asparagus in Melbourne:

image
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Save the planet! Kill koalas

Andrew Bolt September 17 2014 (2:50pm)

Green power, dead koalas:
A MULTI-billion-dollar Japanese company has been accused of killing koalas as it employs workers to chop down trees to develop a wind farm in Victoria’s southeast. 
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Dr Karl denies the science that even the IPCC now accepts

Andrew Bolt September 17 2014 (12:52pm)

Even the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted in its latest report that global warming had paused for some 15 years.
Read for yourself the section in the report with the headline that says it all:
Climate Models and the Hiatus in Global-Mean Surface Warming of the Past 15 Years
So it says something about the ABC that its science presenters still deny what even the IPCC admits. Who are the true deniers of science now?
Well, here is Karl S. Kruszelnicki, who has form for denying what doesn’t suit his astonishing climate alarmism:

In the USA, the Wall Street Journal wrote, “temperatures have been flat for 15 years - nobody can properly explain it.” 
Another newspaper from the same stable, the UK Daily Mail wrote “global warming ‘pause’ may last 20 more years, and Arctic sea ice has already started to recover”. Both of these statements are very reassuring, but unfortunately, very very wrong.
With regard to this ‘pause’, there are two major claims made by those who deny the science of climate change.
The first one is that the climate is actually cooling - not warming. This is incorrect. The second claim is that after some previous warming, the global climate is now constant, and neither warming nor cooling. In other words, that the climate is in a kind of holding pattern, or haitus. This is also incorrect… The climate is still heating up. 
You can read Dr Karl’s long and curious justification for refusing to believe in the warming pause, or you can simply check this graphic and decide for yourself whether Dr Karl should really be presenting science for the ABC:

image
(Thanks to reader N.) 
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More Australians choosing to identify as Aboriginal. Bad luck for those way out bush

Andrew Bolt September 17 2014 (12:28pm)

Free speech, The politics of race

I had two articles banned by the Federal Court in part because I made what I was told was a factual error - I’d asserted that certain people had a choice whether to identify as Aboriginal or multi-"racial" or as “race irrelevant”, which was my preference.
So it is interesting to see how Andrew Taylor, principal scientist at Charles Darwin University, and Rolf Gerritsen, professorial research fellow at Charles Darwin University, tiptoe around this same moral issue, which has profound consequences for social policy:

...official measurements show the number of First Australians has skyrocketed to far outstrip growth in any other sub-section of the national population. From 1981 to 2011, the number of Indigenous Australians increased by around 185% ...

Contrary to the stereotypes, most of that population growth ... has ...  occurred in capital cities and the regions around these, and especially in Sydney, Brisbane and their hinterlands....
Although it is difficult to get a precise figure, much of the growth we have seen in the Indigenous population is from people who did not previously declare they were Indigenous doing so in later censuses…
Estimates based on a survey conducted just four weeks after the 2011 Census suggested around 17% of Australians changed their Indigenous status. The majority of these switched from “non-Indigenous” or “not stated” to declaring themselves as Indigenous.
Almost all of that affinity switching occurs in capital cities and their hinterlands, which is where most Indigenous Australians now live. In every sense, the “new Indigenous” Australians living in our cities and suburbs are far removed from the most common media reporting of impoverished, remote First Australian communities.
Accentuating the trend, almost all (about 90%) of Indigenous Australians living in cities and married or in de facto relationships have a non-Indigenous partner. Offspring from these mixed partnerships are highly likely to be declared as Indigenous on the birth certificate, accelerating the growth of the Indigenous-identifying cohort…
With so many more people identifying as being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, one unintended consequence is that it’s shifting funding away from parts of Australia that are home to some of the poorest Indigenous communities…
States or territories with Indigenous population proportions above the Australian average receive a greater share of GST… In the Northern Territory in particular, the total population living in very remote communities with poor socio-economic conditions is growing, yet the Territory’s share of the national Indigenous population is rapidly diminishing. As a direct result, in 2014 about A$110 million a year was lost from the GST-derived grants to the Northern Territory… If you look closely, most of the nationally measurable improvements in Indigenous employment and education outcomes are concentrated in a few major cities and their surrounding areas. 
These are exactly the kind of issues I tried to discuss, although I did also go on to how ... No. Must not.
At some stage, though, a frank discussion about ‘race” and racial “identity” needs to be had. If it isn’t, the poorest Aborigines will increasingly be sidelined and we’ll be increasingly fooled by unnaturally optimistic reports of Aboriginal progress.
(Thanks to reader A. and other readers.) 
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This war will almost certainly be bigger than you are told

Andrew Bolt September 17 2014 (8:49am)

 Senator John McCain gets to the heart of the fallacy in the Obama strategy when he questions Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey. We risk being dragged into a war with the Syrian regime, now backed by Iran: 
Defense officials told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee that they were confident the rebel force would put its three-year war with Bashar Assad’s forces on the backburner as the Syrian opposition focuses on battling the Islamic State (IS), also known as ISIL or ISIS. They insisted that would prevent the US from getting sucked into Syria’s civil war… 
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., dismissed the notion as a “fundamental fallacy” of President Barack Obama’s plan during a heated exchange with Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey…
“You don’t think the Free Syrian Army is going to fight against Bashar Assad, who has been decimating them?” he said…
“What I believe, senator, is that if we train them and develop a military chain of command linked to a political structure, that we can establish objectives that defer that challenge into the future,” Dempsey replied....
“That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire concept and motivation of the Free Syrian Army,” McCain retorted. “It is Bashar Assad who has killed many more of them than ISIL...”
The Obama administration has ruled out cooperating with Assad or his main backer, Iran, as a way to get Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia on board a united coalition against the Islamic State. The White House also wants to avoid a conflict with Assad, however, even though Hagel hinted that the US may be willing to defend the rebel troops it trains.
“They will defend themselves” if attacked by Assad, Hagel told McCain. “We will help them and we will support them. Any attack on those that we have trained and are supporting us, we will help them."… Dempsey and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the $500 million mission aimed to train and equip slighlty more than 5,000 vetted rebels within one year. The program would be hosted and partly paid for by Saudi Arabia and aims to create a fighting force inside Syria, where two-thirds of the Islamic State’s estimated 31,000 fighters are believed to be…
Let’s be clear, too, that this war almost certainly will require Western troops like our own to join the fighting: 
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there was no intention of placing American military advisers on the ground for direct combat…  
Still, he told a Senate hearing: “I’ve mentioned, though, that if I found that circumstance evolving, that I would, of course, change my recommendation.”
Dempsey offered scenarios in which a larger role might be worthwhile, including embedding U.S. forces with Iraqis during a complicated offensive, such as a battle to retake the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State fighters. “It could very well be part of that particular mission to provide close combat advising or accompanying for that mission,” he said.
Tony Abbott is just as vague about combat troops and Syria:
PRIME MINISTER: 
The force that we announced yesterday will be leaving for the Middle East over the next few days, certainly within a fortnight… So, it will be there in the Middle East, available for combat operations, should that decision be made as quickly as possible…
QUESTION:
Have you ruled out any Australian involvement in Syria?
PRIME MINISTER: Syria, yes. There’s a big difference between combat operations within Iraq that will be conducted with the full approval of the Iraqi Government and combat operations inside Syria which is effectively ungoverned space and whose government Australia does not actually recognise. So, there is a clear legality to the combat operations that Australia has in mind in Iraq which would not be applicable to any operations inside Syria. So, I’m not ruling it out under all circumstances, but it’s not part of the Australian Government’s intention at this time.
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What is the “wrong” Abbott wants “righted”?

Andrew Bolt September 17 2014 (8:33am)

I genuinely don’t understand what the Prime Minister means by “great historical wrong” and how that is to be “righted”:
While it’s too soon to talk about the precise wording of any constitutional change, it’s very clear that Yolngu people are as enthusiastic as other indigenous people right around our country to see this great historical wrong righted in some way. It’s important that it’s righted in ways that unite Australians, that don’t divide us needlessly...
If he means white settlement was the “great historical wrong”, how precisely is that to be “righted” - short of evicting everyone with non-Aboriginal ancestry?    
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Abbott shows why he must leave Arnhem Land

Andrew Bolt September 17 2014 (8:08am)

Tony Abbott shows why he’s cutting short his trip to Arnhem Land:
REPORTER: Prime Minister, there are reports of US air strikes on Baghdad. Is something that you support and think Australia should be involved in? 
TONY ABBOTT: I’m just not going to comment on reports that I’m not aware of.
REPORTER: You’re not aware of those reports of US air strikes? TONY ABBOTT: I’m not aware of those reports. 
Abbott’s trip has advertised one thing - a real hurdle in developing such regions. 
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China cuts down on coal. This will cost

Andrew Bolt September 17 2014 (8:03am)

Australians may soon find out the hard way how dependent they’ve been on the mines that much of the cultural elite despises:

The Chinese government is to limit the use of imported coal with more than 16 per cent ash and 3 per cent sulphur from January 1, 2015 in a bid to improve air quality, especially in cities such as Beijing and around Shanghai. 
At the same time, China is moving to force power utilities to slash coal import volumes, also with the stated aim of improving air quality, although this move will primarily give China’s local coalminers a lift.
According to an analysis by Macquarie Bank, consultant Wood Mackenzie has indicated the ban could affect more than half of Australia’s thermal coal exports to China… Industry sources said the Chinese government moves were aimed at propping up its domestic coalminers as well as assisting its power generators amid the slowdown.
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Abbott shrinks Rudd’s golden trough

Andrew Bolt September 17 2014 (7:37am)

The first paragraph makes Tony Abbott seem vindictive:
Tony Abbott stripped Kevin Rudd of travel entitlements he had granted his prime ministerial predecessor just one month prior, documents show.
But the substance makes Labor leaders look greedy:
Days after knifing Mr Rudd as prime minister, Ms Gillard awarded him access to a travel allowance, an extra staff member for 12 months and granted his staff unrestricted travel. Mr Rudd returned the favour when he deposed her last year. 
Mr Abbott’s office hit out at the “special rules” and said the Prime Minister had not wanted to “perpetuate” them.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said Mr Abbott granted Mr Rudd “standard entitlements” which in some cases were “more generous” than those granted to former prime ministers Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard.
Mr Abbott initially matched many of the extra entitlements the Labor leaders awarded themselves… Mr Abbott told the then backbench MP he would allocate him unlimited domestic travel for official business, a travel allowance, and an adviser “for the period [Mr Rudd] remained in Parliament” on top of his electorate staff, but stripped Mr Rudd of two advisers. In his official letter, Mr Abbott said to Mr Rudd “once you leave the Parliament, the additional position and the other entitlements would cease and arrangement would be made to provide a revised package of entitlements”. 
Oh, the hardship:
In November, after Mr Rudd quit politics, Mr Abbott capped his travel, cut his travel allowances and slashed his permanent office staff to two. 
Another position was made temporary and is about to expire, while the fourth position was made into a driver’s job.
Mr Rudd’s domestic travel has also been restricted to 40 business class flights a year and he is no longer allowed to claim an allowance when travelling.  Mr Abbott also introduced a cap on staff travelling with Mr Rudd – restricting their entire transport, accommodation and away-from-home allowance to $15,000 a financial year.
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Whose AFL is it?

Andrew Bolt September 17 2014 (7:31am)

A strange sense of entitlement, perhaps?:
AFL resources were used to lobby the Victorian government on behalf of a mining company part-owned by league chairman Mike Fitzpatrick and former chief executive Andrew Demetriou. 
In what both men admit was an inappropriate use of the AFL’s resources, Fairfax Media has confirmed that the league’s executive for government relations last year emailed the office of the then mining minister Nick Kotsiras about issues affecting a mining company that Mr Fitzpatrick has a financial stake in and whose board he chairs.
Creswick Quartz Pty Ltd, which uses a patented method to extract quartz from old gold mines near Ballarat, has Mr Demetriou among its shareholders.
The email from the AFL executive is understood to have led to a meeting between Mr Kotsiras, Mr Demetriou and two Creswick Quartz directors where the company’s proposed operations and permit requirements were discussed…
The email was written and sent by recently departed AFL government relations executive Phil Martin, who was previously chief of staff to former Labor deputy premier, John Thwaites. Mr Martin became involved after learning of Creswick Quartz’s concern about not being able to get clarification from the government about issues affecting its proposed operations. He received a briefing from the company before approaching Mr Kotsiras’ office.
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AWU demands protection from the renewable energy target

Andrew Bolt September 17 2014 (7:13am)

Just what conservatives and sceptics have warned - but why does only a heavily-unionised industry get protected from the madness of the green Left?:

THE Australian Workers Union has called for the aluminium ­industry to be exempted from the renewable energy target, a move that will increase pressure on Labor to negotiate a bipartisan deal with the Coalition on changes to the scheme.

AWU national secretary Scott McDine warned that the RET maintained in its current form would lead to thousands of jobs shifting overseas with no ­environmental gain.
UPDATE
Alan Moran: 
The RET and similar state-based measures may raise the costs of aluminium smelting in Australia by 5-6 per cent, an amount that the callow would consider affordable.  But that cost wipes out all profits and in the dog-eat-dog world we live in that means irresistible relocation pressures. 
The questions raised if aluminium is exempted are, first does this mean a correspondingly greater load to be carries by others; and secondly, if aluminium why not concrete, steel and other high energy using industries?  Or, if the impost is to be retained, in line with the normal practice of not levying taxes on inputs into production, why not exempt all industries, leaving it like the GST solely on household consumers?
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=== Posts from last year ===
peace movement, Hamas must feel really threatened by them - ed
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Recently UN Secretary General admitted to a group of Israeli students that Israel faces bias and discrimination at the United Nations.

Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-faces-bias-at-un-ban-says/

LIKE and SHARE to spread the TRUTH about the UN.

(Note: media reports claimed that Moon retracted this comment, but UN official Robert Serry later denied this and reaffirmed the statement -http://news.yahoo.com/ajc-welcomes-un-clarification-secretary-generals-remarks-182100051.html)
Will he do anything about it? If not, wait for the Obama announcement "I did what I wanted" - ed
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Pastor Rick Warren
Piers Morgan was kind, sensitive, and allowed Kay and me to share honestly and freely without interruption about suicide, mental illness, guns, grief, GOD, and our family's journey. He graciously came to our office to tape this interview. It will air on CNN Tuesday at 6pm PST. Please share this with others and pray many lives will be saved. Thank you dear friends for helping get the word out.
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Pastor Rick Warren
Nothing happens without God's permission BUT NOT everything is God's will. God doesn't do evil nor tempt evil.(James 1:13)
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George Formby
George Formby (1904–1961) was an English actor, singer-songwriter and comedian. On stage, screen and record he sang light, comical songs, usually playing theukulele or banjolele, and became the UK's highest-paid entertainer. After an early career as a stable boy and jockey, Formby took to the music hall stage after the early death of his father in 1921. In 1923 he purchased a ukulele, and married Beryl Ingham, a fellow-performer who became his manager. She insisted that he appear on stage formally dressed, and introduced the ukulele to his performance. He started his recording career in 1926 and, from 1934, he increasingly worked in film to develop into a major star. During the Second World War, Formby entertained civilians and troops(pictured in France), and by 1946 it was estimated that he had performed in front of three million service personnel. After the war his career declined, although he toured the Commonwealth, and continued to appear in variety and pantomime. Formby was considered Britain's first properly home-grown screen comedian. He was an influence on future comedians—particularly Charlie Drake and Norman Wisdom—and, culturally, on entertainers such as the Beatles. (Full article...)
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September 17: Constitution Day in the United States
Harriet Tubman
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"Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.” James 3:13 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Partakers of the divine nature."
2 Peter 1:4
To be a partaker of the divine nature is not, of course, to become God. That cannot be. The essence of Deity is not to be participated in by the creature. Between the creature and the Creator there must ever be a gulf fixed in respect of essence; but as the first man Adam was made in the image of God, so we, by the renewal of the Holy Spirit, are in a yet diviner sense made in the image of the Most High, and are partakers of the divine nature. We are, by grace, made like God. "God is love"; we become love--"He that loveth is born of God." God is truth; we become true, and we love that which is true: God is good, and he makes us good by his grace, so that we become the pure in heart who shall see God. Moreover, we become partakers of the divine nature in even a higher sense than this--in fact, in as lofty a sense as can be conceived, short of our being absolutely divine. Do we not become members of the body of the divine person of Christ? Yes, the same blood which flows in the head flows in the hand: and the same life which quickens Christ quickens his people, for "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Nay, as if this were not enough, we are married unto Christ. He hath betrothed us unto himself in righteousness and in faithfulness, and he who is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Oh! marvellous mystery! we look into it, but who shall understand it? One with Jesus--so one with him that the branch is not more one with the vine than we are a part of the Lord, our Saviour, and our Redeemer! While we rejoice in this, let us remember that those who are made partakers of the divine nature will manifest their high and holy relationship in their intercourse with others, and make it evident by their daily walk and conversation that they have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. O for more divine holiness of life!

Evening

"Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?"
Job 7:12
This was a strange question for Job to ask of the Lord. He felt himself to be too insignificant to be so strictly watched and chastened, and he hoped that he was not so unruly as to need to be so restrained. The enquiry was natural from one surrounded with such insupportable miseries, but after all, it is capable of a very humbling answer. It is true man is not the sea, but he is even more troublesome and unruly. The sea obediently respects its boundary, and though it be but a belt of sand, it does not overleap the limit. Mighty as it is, it hears the divine hitherto, and when most raging with tempest it respects the word; but self-willed man defies heaven and oppresses earth, neither is there any end to this rebellious rage. The sea, obedient to the moon, ebbs and flows with ceaseless regularity, and thus renders an active as well as a passive obedience; but man, restless beyond his sphere, sleeps within the lines of duty, indolent where he should be active. He will neither come nor go at the divine command, but sullenly prefers to do what he should not, and to leave undone that which is required of him. Every drop in the ocean, every beaded bubble, and every yeasty foam-flake, every shell and pebble, feel the power of law, and yield or move at once. O that our nature were but one thousandth part as much conformed to the will of God! We call the sea fickle and false, but how constant it is! Since our fathers' days, and the old time before them, the sea is where it was, beating on the same cliffs to the same tune; we know where to find it, it forsakes not its bed, and changes not in its ceaseless boom; but where is man-vain, fickle man? Can the wise man guess by what folly he will next be seduced from his obedience? We need more watching than the billowy sea, and are far more rebellious. Lord, rule us for thine own glory. Amen.
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Today's reading: Proverbs 25-26, 2 Corinthians 9 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Proverbs 25-26

More Proverbs of Solomon
1 These are more proverbs of Solomon, compiled by the men of Hezekiah king of Judah:
2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter;
to search out a matter is the glory of kings.
3 As the heavens are high and the earth is deep,
so the hearts of kings are unsearchable.
4 Remove the dross from the silver,
and a silversmith can produce a vessel;
5 remove wicked officials from the king's presence,
and his throne will be established through righteousness.
6 Do not exalt yourself in the king's presence,
and do not claim a place among his great men;
7 it is better for him to say to you, "Come up here,"
than for him to humiliate you before his nobles....

Today's New Testament reading: 2 Corinthians 9

1 There is no need for me to write to you about this service to the Lord's people. 2 For I know your eagerness to help, and I have been boasting about it to the Macedonians, telling them that since last year you in Achaia were ready to give; and your enthusiasm has stirred most of them to action. 3 But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you in this matter should not prove hollow, but that you may be ready, as I said you would be. 4 For if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we-not to say anything about you-would be ashamed of having been so confident. 5 So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. Then it will be ready as a generous gift, not as one grudgingly given....
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Ananias

 [Ănanī'as] - jehovah is gracious. This name is the Greek form of Hananiah, meaning, "Jehovah hath been gracious" from the Aramaic, meaning, "beautiful."
1. The disciple who conspired with his wife to deceive the apostles in regard to the value obtained for their property (Acts 5:1-6).

The Man Who Kept Back Part of the Price

How opposite Aquila and Priscilla are Ananias and Sapphira, both of whom agreed to a dishonest transaction! They were not compelled to sell their property but because of a recognized custom among the early Christian fraternity of having one common fund to draw upon, these two disciples wanted to maintain the appearance of self-denying liberality. There was no harm in keeping back part of the price - they might have kept back all. Their evil consisted in pretending to give all. Their lying was combined with hypocrisy. A certain part was retained, likely the greater part which would look more like the whole.
Peter, supernaturally endowed to detect and expose the fraud of Ananias and Sapphira, was their instrument of sudden death. Punishment was:
I. Prompt - it followed immediately the committal of sin.
II. Decisive - it marked the magnitude of sin.
III. Conspicuous - it was before many witnesses.
IV. Divine - it was not an act of Peter who simply reproved the two who, united in crime, were not separated in death (Ps. 19:13). It was God who punished them.
2. A godly disciple of Damascus to whom was made known the conversion of Saul of Tarsus ( Acts 9:10-17; 22:12), and who baptized Saul.
3. The high priest anointed by Herod (Acts 23:2; 24:1).
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