Thursday, November 12, 2015

Thu Nov 12th Todays News

Australia is in the grip of a powerful El Nino. An El Nino is well defined, so we know that to be the case. Effects of an El Nino are well understood. Dry air covering Australia means little rainfall. Only it is quite wet over much of southern Australia. And the bureau of meteorology, which claims to know what the weather will be like two hundred years from now, cannot explain why the weather is like it is today. However, there is a recent historical precedent that matches current conditions from another El Nino. Suggesting the model is not at all understood or reliable. 

 The concept of 'safe space' has arisen with the left abusing it by employing it as a bullying tool. A safe space, according to one left wing journalist professor, is a space on campus where media can't take pictures of demonstrating students. It is a fascinating inversion of a teaching tool that is employed to avoid bullying. In the journalists' safe space, another student observing the demonstration can be isolated, abused and hit. 

 For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
=== from 2014 ===
Drugging children
The drug issue with those wishing to make it available to children is prevalent, more so because the ALP are no longer in government and so can promise anything as they have done in the past. The conservative view is that zero tolerance is the best, most compassionate way of dealing with drugs. Addictive, brain shrinking drugs kill users and ruin their lives. They have no beneficial side effects. Rudd acted quickly when elected in '07 to put forward the alternative of harm minimisation for users. The Harm minimisation theory has it that people will take drugs anyway and so greater knowledge and experience of drugs will mean that the damage done by drugs will be made smaller. But drugs and drug dealers don't work that way. Drug dealers are really keen to legalise Marijuana at the moment, but they take no responsibility for the damage done. One argument is related to medical marijuana, which is a separate issue. Basically, dealers want to make money. They will not pay for associated damage to the lives of users. Recently, a 19 year old university student, Georgina, took one and a half ecstasy tablets and died from the drugs. She was at a party where the drugs were prevalent. Harm minimisation infrastructure was available and acted quickly. Somewhere, some time, the lessons learned and taught regarding zero tolerance have been sidelined. Hopefully Georgina's life will speak so that others do not die this way. 

The ABC and the Left
The ABC is left wing and very politically charged. They campaign for the ALP and Greens and often are disgustingly rude to any conservative politician. They aren't supposed to be biased, according to their charter they are supposed to be balanced. But how dare they attack victims of MH17 as part of an unhinged attack on Mr Abbott. Mr Abbott had said he would 'shirtfront' Mr Putin. He had indicated he would squarely face Mr Putin and remind him of Russia's involvement with the shooting down of the airline. ABC chose instead to believe that Mr Abbott would attempt an AFL style tackle on Mr Putin. They claimed it was very confusing for them. But Mr Abbott was as good as his word, and he faced Mr Putin and got the correct reply too. Putin didn't point to that, which would be undiplomatic, but Ukraine has questions to answer over the tragedy. But all that mattered to the ABC, despite the grief of suffering loved ones who want answers, is that they had a joke. Thirty eight Australians died on MH17, and clearly Australia has a vested interest in a resolution to the tragedy caused by the Ukraine and Russian separatists fighting on Washington's behalf. So Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is asked what he would say to Mr Putin about the issue. "Nothing" Mr Shorten replied. Maybe he didn't wish to fall for the joke. 

Meanwhile the ABC is exhorting activists to riot to the right tune in Brisbane. They have already managed to cheer on a man to punching a female security guard in the face. He has successfully made his voice heard. 

International nut houses
Washington National Cathedral will host an Islamic prayer service sponsored by two organisations supporting Sharia Law. 

Obama promises China to weaken the US, but probably doesn't have congressional support. Obama's plan is to allow China to raise emissions for 16 years while restricting US emissions. Meanwhile St Cloud Minnesota beat a record set in 1898 with 13.2 inches of snow in one day. 

Local nut houses
Racing horses is dangerous, but racing frightbats? Frightbats are far more colourful than horses and very outspoken about the dangers they face in everyday life. It could revive a sport suffering from having to deal with animals that the public is sympathetic to. 

Sarah Hanson Young has not always been a well remunerated backer of drowning boat people. Back in her university days, she vociferously spoke her mind. Apparently she didn't think a lot about the opinions she gave, back then. 

Australian of the year Adam Goodes apparently does not like Australia. He feels that Australia is built on lies and subjugation of minorities. With respect, he is wrong, but his education is so bad as a result of what is taught. He was clearly a good student but a lousy judge of character. But Goodes is no fool, the Myth of a stolen generation is everywhere. Spread by those who hate those who love. Those who praise dysfunction would condemn children to the current state of 19.48% experiencing child sexual abuse. Although the percentage is probably an understated figure.

Historical perspective on this day
In 1028, future Byzantine empress Zoe took the throne as empress consort to Romanos III Argyros. In 1330, Battle of Posada, Wallachian Voievode Basarab I defeated the Hungarian army in an ambush. In 1439, Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament. In 1555, the English Parliament re-established Catholicism. In 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno landed at and named San Diego, California. In 1793, Jean Sylvain Bailly, the first Mayor of Paris, was guillotined.

In 1892, William "Pudge" Heffelfinger became the first professional American footballplayer on record, participating in his first paid game for the Allegheny Athletic Association. In 1893, the treaty of the Durand Line delineating the border between present day Pakistan and Afghanistan was signed by Sir Mortimer Durand, a British diplomat in British India, and the Afghan Amir Abdur Rahman Khan; the Durand Line has gained international recognition as an international border between the two nations. In 1905, Norway holds a referendum in favor of monarchy over republic. In 1912, King George I of Greece made a triumphal entry into Thessaloniki after its liberation from 482 years of Ottoman rule. Also in 1912, the frozen bodies of Robert Scott and his men were found on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. In 1918, Austria became a republic. In 1920, Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes sign the Treaty of Rapallo. In 1927,  Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in undisputed control of the Soviet Union. In 1928, SS Vestris sinks approximately 200 miles (320 km) off Hampton Roads, Virginia, killing at least 110 passengers, mostly women and children who die after the vessel is abandoned. In 1933, Hugh Gray took the first known photos alleged to be of the Loch Ness Monster. In 1936, in California, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opened to traffic.In 1940, World War II: The Battle of Gabon ends as Free French Forces take Libreville, Gabon, and all of French Equatorial Africa from Vichy French forces.Also in 1940, World War II: Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov arrives in Berlin to discuss the possibility of the Soviet Union joining the Axis Powers. In 1941, World War II: Temperatures around Moscow drop to -12 °C as the Soviet Union launched ski troopsfor the first time against the freezing German forces near the city. Also in 1941, World War II: The Soviet cruiser Chervona Ukraina was destroyed during the Battle of Sevastopol. In 1942, World War II: Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal. The battle lasted for three days and ended with an American victory. In 1944, World War II: The Royal Air Force launched 29 Avro Lancaster bombers, which sank the German battleship Tirpitz, with 12,000 lb Tallboy bombs off Tromsø, Norway. In 1945, Sudirman is elected the first commander-in-chief of the Indonesian Armed Forces. In 1948, in Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentenced seven Japanese military and government officials, including General Hideki Tojo, to death for their roles in World War II.

In 1956,  Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia join the United Nations. Also in 1956, in the midst of the Suez Crisis, Palestinian refugees are shot dead in the village of Rafah by Israeli soldiers following the invasion of the Gaza Strip. In 1958, a team of rock climbers led by Warren Harding completed the first ascent of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. In 1968, Equatorial Guinea joined the United Nations. In 1969, Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre – Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh broke the My Laistory. In 1970, the Oregon Highway Division attempted to destroy a rotting beached Sperm whale with explosives, leading to the now infamous "exploding whale" incident. Also in 1970, the 1970 Bhola cyclone made landfall on the coast of East Pakistanbecoming the deadliest tropical cyclone in history. In 1971, Vietnam War: As part of Vietnamization, US President Richard Nixon set February 1, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam. In 1975, the Comorosjoined the United Nations. In 1978, Pope John Paul II took possession of his Cathedral Church, the Basilica of St. John Lateran, as the Bishop of Rome. In 1979,  Iran hostage crisis: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carterordered a halt to all petroleum imports into the United States from Iran. In 1980, the NASA space probe Voyager I made its closest approach to Saturn and took the first images of its rings. In 1981,  Space Shuttle program: Mission STS-2, utilizing the Space Shuttle Columbia, marked the first time a manned spacecraft was launched into space twice. In 1982, in the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov became the General Secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding Leonid I. Brezhnev.

In 1990, Crown Prince Akihito was formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan, becoming the 125th Japanese monarch. Also in 1990, Tim Berners-Lee published a formal proposal for the World Wide Web. In 1991, Santa Cruz massacre: Indonesian forces open fire on a crowd of student protesters in Dili, East Timor. In 1993, the first Ultimate Fighting Championship event, UFC 1, was held in Denver, Colorado. In 1996, a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane collide in mid-air near New Delhi, killing 349. The deadliest mid-air collision to date. In 1997, Ramzi Yousef was found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In 1999, the Düzce earthquake struck Turkey with a magnitude of 7.2 on the Richter scale. In 2001, in New York City, American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300en route to the Dominican Republic, crashed minutes after take-off from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board and five on the ground. Also in 2001, Attack on Afghanistan: Taliban forces abandoned Kabul, Afghanistan, ahead of advancing Afghan Northern Alliance troops. In 2003, Iraq War: In Nasiriyah, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base. In 2003,  Shanghai Transrapid set a new world speed record (501 kilometres per hour (311 mph)) for commercial railway systems, which remain the fastest for unmodified commercial rail vehicles. In 2011, Silvio Berlusconi tendered his resignation as Prime Minister of Italy, effective November 16, due in large part to the European sovereign debt crisis.
From 2013
 ALP are big on abuse and excuse. 'Electricity' Bill Shorten today said the Abbott government had inflamed a diplomatic incident with Indonesia. Fact checkers at the ABC will be slow off the mark. They note Abbott referred to Gillard's corrupt activity. But they won't notice the foreign policy debacles that Shorten's ALP oversaw and created under Gillard and Rudd. From Rudd's beginning in late '07, when he nearly caused the assassination and kidnap of Timorise leaders. Or antagonising India, Japan, US, Malaysia, Indonesia and many others on a host of issues. But it suggests Abbott has antagonised Indonesia .. which isn't even true. Indonesia has appropriately been reminded of its duty. Nothing wrong with that. If Indonesia don't want the responsibility, they shouldn't be in government. 
One wonders at the artistic use Assange applies to the word 'Consent.' Only the incompetent penis knows. A real artist knows the value of words .. and threats. One wonders how many Fairfax journalists earn generous four figure salaries? Not many. In fact I don't think anyone outside the ALP typing pool does. 
Clive Palmer shows himself to be a buffoon. Relating a Kennedy speech on Marxism. Only death prevented Kennedy from being recognised as a worse President than Carter. A death related to an accident from his secret service firing a dum-dum into Kennedy's fragile brain. But what can be said of Pliberseck being paid to visit her constituents with her family at a pleasure resort? In a word, 'rort.'
=== 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, September, October, 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. 

List of available items at Create Space
===
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.

Happy birthday and many happy returns to those born on this day, across the years, along with
William "Pudge" Heffelfinger
The hungry army was defeated. We are professionals. It is sunk. Meetings should be avoided. We voted independence. Let's party. 
Deaths
===

MELISSA NEEDS MUSCLE

Tim Blair – Thursday, November 12, 2015 (3:21pm)

University of Missouri students pay up to $40,000 per year – which funds the likes of Melissa Click, a journalism academic who actually  opposes journalism: 
The professor, Melissa Click, is seen in the video telling a student photographer, Mark Schierbecker, he “needs to get out” of the area where protesters had camped. The area is part of the campus quad, which is a public space …
Click can be heard and briefly seen at the beginning of the video, screaming, “you need to back up if you are with the media,” while student journalist Tim Tai is confronted by a group of protesters while he is taking photos.

image

“You need to back up, respect the students,” Click says. “BACK UP! They have asked you to respect their space, move back. This is their time. You need to step out of here now. You need to go.”
Click appears in the video again at the end, at about the 6:18 mark when she tells the student photographer filming the incident, Mark Schierbecker, who was asking a student if she wanted to be interviewed, that he has to “get out.”
Schierbecker says “no I don’t” have to leave the area, and Click responds by grabbing his camera and again telling him to “get out.”

image

After he again refuses, she steps away and yells out, “Hey who wants to help me get this reporter out of here. I need some muscle over here!” 
When she isn’t shouting and threatening people, Click excels in utter pointlessness: 
Her research interests center on popular culture texts and audiences, particularly texts and audiences disdained in mainstream culture. Her work in this area is guided by audience studies, theories of gender and sexuality, and media literacy. Current research projects involve 50 Shades of Grey readers, the impact of social media in fans’ relationship with Lady Gaga, masculinity and male fans, messages about class and food in reality television programming, and messages about work in children’s television programs. 
Those students sure are getting value for their money. Click subsequently apologised – not for her “research”, but for the whole hatred-of-free-speech thing: 
“I have reached out to the journalists involved to offer my sincere apologies and to express regret over my actions. I regret the language and strategies I used, and sincerely apologize to the MU campus community, and journalists at large, for my behavior, and also for the way my actions have shifted attention away from the students’ campaign for justice.” 
Unsurprisingly, not everyone is buying it.
(Via Iowahawk, currently celebrating National Offend a College Student Day.)
UPDATE. Click might be the most ridiculous academic currently debasing American education.
===

ALL-STAR STATE

Tim Blair – Thursday, November 12, 2015 (2:24pm)

Texas now has cricket, at least in Twenty20 form. If Test matches are ever scheduled there, it might be time to move.
===

TERRIBLE AND IRRESPONSIBLE AND BEGGING FOR YOUR MONEY

Tim Blair – Thursday, November 12, 2015 (11:46am)

A popular luvvie event that should be rolling in money is instead flat broke. Naturally, leftists think this calls for state funding: 
The New South Wales Government has been urged to intervene to ensure the continuation of popular short film festival Tropfest.
Festival founder John Polson announced overnight that Tropfest would not be held this year due to “terrible and irresponsible mismanagement” of funds. 
If luvvies can’t even turn a successful idea into money, then why the hell should we help them out? 
NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley has called on the Government to help save the event.
“I’d like to see the Government through Arts NSW convene discussion with the founder of Tropfest with the view to seeing how we can ensure this comes back on the state’s artistic calendar next year,” Mr Foley told ABC News.
“I think it’s a sad day for the arts in New South Wales. Tropfest has been a vibrant part of the artistic life of NSW since the early 1990s — it emerged here in Sydney and it’s thrived ever since.” 
It thrived right up until it was cancelled. Consider the comments section below a petition against tax funding.
(Via J.F. Beck.)
UPDATE. Tropfest already received substantial state funding: 
The funding gap of “well into six figures” that caused the so-called world’s largest short film festival to be axed less than a month before it was due to take place came despite a list of sponsors that includes Qantas, Nikon, Destination NSW, Screen Australia and Screen NSW. 
The Greens’ solution: more state funding. Meanwhile, a certain non-Tropfest short film is well on the way to one million views after just three days on YouTube. Neel Kolhatkar’s previous short film took ten months to hit one million. He’s blitzing it.
===

If Turnbull won’t cut spending, he will certainly raise taxes

Andrew Bolt November 12 2015 (12:51pm)

Terry McCrann on the truth about Turnbull’s tax “reform”:
[T]his year the Federal Government will spend $430 billion… By 2018-19 that national government spend will have increased to (at least?) $500 billion…
Then understand this… You have to add on the spending of all the state and local governments — that will itself top $300 billion this year.
Now, there is some double-counting in those figures… [but] the fact that spending will keep increasing inexorably year after year, tells you why “tax reform” is a fantasy and could become Turnbull’s worst nightmare…
So that leaves you two big unavoidable realities about “tax reform”.
First, it would only be about shuffling the money from one form of tax to the other. There is no way we — by that I mean all 24 million of us as a group — are going to come out of this paying less tax…
While on this point, I would add that ... assuming for the purposes of this discussion that the fat cat Googles and billionaires could be forced to pay their “fair” or “full” shares that Fairfax and the ABC believe so fervently they are not, it would have only a marginal impact (at best) on that $630 billion-odd number.
We are talking billions of dollars a year, at best (or worst) — perhaps $10 billion granting Fairfax and the ABC their shared fantasy; nowhere near tens of billions.
Bottom line: governments — and especially the Federal Government — are going to keep, are going to have to keep targeting you.
More specifically, they will keep targeting three huge pots of your money — the $700 billion you will get in wages and salaries this year; the even bigger $900 billion you will spend on consumption; and the $2 trillion you have in your superannuation.
===

Bishop’s chief of staff involved in anti-Abbott coup

Andrew Bolt November 12 2015 (11:11am)


This sounds like treachery. If Bishop was not informed, she should sack her staffer. If she was informed, she cannot be trusted:

Julie Bishop’s chief of staff, Murray Hansen, attended a crucial meeting of Liberal MPs plotting against Tony Abbott in September where it was decided Malcolm Turnbull would mount a challenge…
Ms Bishop and Mr Hansen did not respond yesterday to requests for comment, but Abbott supporters last night seized on the revelation, telling The Australian it was evidence Ms Bishop was more heavily involved in the leadership challenge than previously indicated.
Mr Hansen attended the challenge-eve meeting of Turnbull supporters at the home of Eden-Monaro MP Peter Hendy, just outside Canberra, the day after Ms Bishop and Mr Turnbull had a meeting at a Sydney hotel “to discuss where things stood’’…
In September, Ms Bishop rubbished suggestions she had stalled in telling Mr Abbott about the threat to his leadership, saying there had been talk of a challenge for six months.
“That isn’t how it worked ... People have been talking about Malcolm and I had no idea of the timing until the day before, and that’s when I informed the prime minister,’’ Ms Bishop told the Ten Network’s The Project.
This now sounds highly improbable.
Also, more confirmation that Tony Abbott was indeed heading to a comfortable by-election victory in Canning that would have steadied his party’s nerves and put the heat back on Labor, But Turnbull deliberately robbed him of that chance:

Turnbull supporters received word the Abbott camp was confident internal polling for the Canning by-election, due the following weekend, painted a picture far less concerning than the 10 per cent swings in published polls.
“Strike now,’’ Sinodinos reportedly told the group on the Sunday. “If we win Canning, they will spin it any which way they want. If we have the numbers, we should use them.”
UPDATE
I’m not surprised some Liberals are demanding answers:

FORMER Employment Minister Eric Abetz says ...  said if the report was true it was “disappointing and it raises a lot of questions”.
“...I think a question does need to be answered whether the chief of staff was there on a frolic of his own or with the imprimatur of the deputy leader.
“I think colleagues are entitled to know exactly what was going on… One would imagine if there were such a meeting there might have been an obligation as a loyal deputy to report that to the leader of the time… I think it is deserving of a response because it would be very disappointing if a deputy was sending a chief of staff to a meeting of that nature.”
UPDATE
Julie Bishop confirms her chief of staff was at the plotters’ meeting but obfuscates:

“He was there to meet with (Liberal MP) Peter Hendy. I did not know who would be attending the meeting and, of course, like all chiefs of staff, they feed back the information that they’ve learned,” Ms Bishop said, describing the occasion variously as a “meeting” and a “drinks night”.
“I was able to be in touch with so many people that I was able to conclude the view on the Monday morning that the prime minister had lost the confidence of the majority of his cabinet and a majority of his party room, and then I saw him immediately and informed him of that...”
===

How “activist” became a four-letter word

Andrew Bolt November 12 2015 (8:53am)

image
AN activist “campaigns to bring about political or social change”, claims my dictionary. Time for a rewrite. This month brings more evidence that many activists actually just fool people to bring about change.
“Activist” has become a dirty word, thanks particularly to human rights and environmental activists.
To many Australians, the word now describes a moral show-pony who exaggerates, fulminates, obfuscates — and in some cases, gasp, even fabricates.
Yet they can forgive themselves all this in the shiny-eyed certainty that their cause is holy. Their good cause licenses them to act badly.
(Read full column here.)  
===

The UN proposal to control our economy. Turnbull’s response?

Andrew Bolt November 12 2015 (9:44am)

I’M no tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist. But I wish the Left would stop talking about a one-world government. Scarier still, the United Nations bureaucracy seems to be preparing for one at next month’s Paris Climate Conference on global warming.
Already in 2012, then Greens leader Bob Brown proposed an “Earth Parliament … under the grand idea of one planet, one person, one vote”, somehow forgetting China and India would then outvote the rest of the world.
The Global Greens Congress then backed a “United Nations Parliamentary Assembly … directly elected by the world’s citizens” to be involved in “all important intergovernmental treaty negotiations”.
Now I read the draft agreement for the Paris climate talks, which will include Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Article 11 has three options up for discussion to make countries do what they’ve promised to “stop” global warming — promises that fundamentally affect their economies and their finances. Control those and a UN world body has a country by the throat.
So what policing mechanism is up for negotiation, to force, say, Australia to slash emissions and to pay the $50 million a year we’ve pledged to the UN’s new “Green Climate Fund”, a monster meant to raise $140 billion a year.
(Read full article here.) 
===

South Australia pretending to save the planet, but actually just killing jobs

Andrew Bolt November 12 2015 (8:46am)

image
South Australia has ridiculously high power prices, in part because it relies so heavily on expensive green power (which in turn demands extra subsidies).
High power prices kills heavy industry in particular and South Australia is fast becoming a basket case, with unemployment at 7.7 per cent.
So it is obscene that Premier Jay Weatherill not just promises to get even more green power, but claims this will actually be good for jobs rather than bad:
PREMIER Jay Weatherill has announced plans for the State Government to become 100 per cent powered by “low carbon electricity”, as he prepares to depart for an international climate change conference in Paris next month…
Today, the State Government will release a call for expressions of interest to come up with “innovative proposals” to ensure all electricity it uses comes from green sources.
Weatherill’s solution to South Australia having uncompetitive power prices is to force other states to go greener, too:
Mr Weatherill said SA’s large amount of green power, from sources including wind and solar, positioned the state to benefit from a strong international anti-carbon agreement in Paris.
And he’s be shovelling out more taxpayers’ money not to create jobs but to pretend to save the planet from a grossly exaggerated threat - or even non-threat:
As part of the low-carbon electricity tender, the Government will seek to acquire up to 481 gigawatt hours of electricity per annum for public sector sites. It says that purchasing power will encourage innovation from businesses in the renewable and low-emission sectors.
Nothing South Australia does will actually make a blind bit of difference to the climate. This is purely a gesture, at huge expense. And forget claims that this will actually create jobs rather than kill them overall:
“We are determined to make Adelaide a showcase city for low-carbon and clean technologies, to attract investment, drive innovation and create new jobs,” Mr Weatherill said.
Where are those new jobs? Will they compensate for these:
A closure of Port Augusta’s coal-fired power stations by early 2018 could drive up electricity prices in South Australia, an economic forecaster says.
Alinta Energy told its workforce yesterday the twin power stations, one of them already mothballed, and an associated coal mine at Leigh Creek would close by March 2018 but possibly as soon as next April.
The jobs of 438 workers are to go across the Port Augusta and Leigh Creek operations…
Danny Price from Frontier Economics said ... “There’s no doubt at all that subsidised wind generation in particular has had a very significant effect on Alinta’s decision...”
Meanwhile, of course, the planet has not warmed for 18 years.
(Thanks to reader Paul.) 
===

“Safe space” is safe only for thugs and morons

Andrew Bolt November 12 2015 (8:36am)

Conor Friedersdorf on the tyranny of the “safe space” movement:

At the University of Missouri, student activists succeeded this week in forcing the resignation of President Timothy M. Wolfe, charging that he has not done enough to address persistent racism on campus. Tim Tai, a University of Missouri student, got a freelance assignment from ESPN to photograph the reaction of victorious activists at the tent city they set up in a public area of campus…
But student activists did not want their tent city or the people in it photographed, and forcibly prevented him from taking pictures. “We ask for no media in the parameters so the place where people live, fellowship, and sleep can be protected from twisted insincere narratives,” a Twitter account associated with the activists later declared, adding that “it’s typically white media who don’t understand the importance of respecting black spaces.” Tim Tai is Asian American…
In the video of Tim Tai trying to carry out his ESPN assignment, I see the most vivid example yet of activists twisting the concept of “safe space” in a most confounding way. They have one lone student surrounded. They’re forcibly preventing him from exercising a civil right. At various points, they intimidate him. Ultimately, they physically push him. But all the while, they are operating on the premise, or carrying on the pretense, that he is making them unsafe.
It is as if they’ve weaponized the concept of “safe spaces.”
“I support people creating ‘safe spaces’ as a shield by exercising their freedom of association to organize themselves into mutually supporting communities,” Ken White wrote prior to this controversy. “But not everyone imagines ‘safe spaces’ like that. Some use the concept of ‘safe spaces’ as a sword, wielded to annex public spaces and demand that people within those spaces conform to their private norms.”
Yesterday, I wrote about Yale students who decided, in the name of creating a “safe space” on compass, to spit on people as they left a talk with which they disagreed. “In their muddled ideology,” I wrote, “the Yale activists had to destroy the safe space to save it.”
South Park lampoons this valorising of the intellectually passive-aggressive moron:
UPDATE
There is something of Salem about this:

Dr. Dale Brigham, considered one of the most beloved professors at the University of Missouri, has resigned after initially refusing to cancel an exam for students who claimed to feel “unsafe.”
“If you don’t feel safe coming to class, then don’t come to class,” Dr. Brigham told his students. “I will be there, and there will be an exam administered in our class,” he continued, imploring his students to stand up to the bullies on campus. “If you give into bullies, they win. The only way bullies are defeated is by standing up to them.”
Dr. Brigham was sharply criticized in the media for requiring his students to attend class and take their exam. Salon ran a story with the headline “White Missouri professor shames black students for heeding violent threats."The Washington Post featured similar coverage of “a white professor” who “challenged his students to come to class.”
Those upset with Dr. Brigham’s decision to hold class took to Twitter calling for Brigham to be fired and calling him “a failure as a human being.”
And so much of it based on fake scares, professional offence takers, victim politics and lies. For instance:
It was a rough night on the campus of the University of Missouri, thanks in large part to Student Body President Payton Head. Head posted on Facebook earlier in the night that the KKK was confirmed on campus and that he was working with “the MUPD, the state trooper and the National Guard.” Here’s a screenshot:

image
The only problem with that terrifying statement is it wasn’t true and Head was forced to delete the post and apologize...
(Thanks to reader Nick.)  
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What is Malcolm Turnbull’s big plan? When does waffling end and acting start?

Andrew Bolt November 12 2015 (7:34am)

Simon Benson is right. The Turnbull Government can win the GST debate only by offsetting the rise with personal tax cuts:
As good a salesman as the Prime Minister thinks he might be, he would find the economist’s preference for a GST/company tax cut trade-off nigh impossible to sell to families. Income tax cuts, however, even if they don’t deliver the same economic boost, deliver immediate political dividends.
A lift in the GST to 12.5 per cent will raise around $14.5 billion in extra revenue. A rise to 15 per cent would return an extra $29 billion. An income-tax cut of 1 per cent on each marginal rate, would cost $5.8 billion this year and $6.1 billion the following year. Delivering cuts by raising income thresholds, say by $1000 per taxpayer category, would cost $3.2 billion.
But this GST debate has spun out of control. Everyone wants a share of the extra money, not least the state Premiers. Labor is looking more cocky than it has since Turnbull took over, realising it has a good scare campaign to run with.
I just don’t think this debate will go anywhere good.
So the Government switches attention to another tax grab:
Wealthier workers would lose $150,000 from their retirement savings over their careers under the sweeping changes to super­annuation that are being explored as part of Malcolm Turnbull’s tax reforms, sparking fears the rules would hurt middle Australia.
The bold reform proposal is gaining favour within the government but holds dangers for millions of workers in its current shape, forcing the government to consider significant changes to make it fair.
All workers earning more than $36,000 a year would pay more tax on their regular super contrib­utions, according to modelling obtained­ exclusively by The Australian, highlighting the risks of pursuing the new approach…
A controversial proposal for a “lifetime cap” on contrib­utions is also dividing opinion as Cabinet Secretary Arthur Sino­dinos warned last night that super was meant to provide for a worker’s retire­ment, not “estate planning”.
But more in the Government are now getting leery about setting off another feeding frenzy:
It was reported Treasury is looking at reforms in which anyone earning over $180,000 would pay tax on super contributions of 27 per cent instead of the current 15 per cent…
[Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer, who is responsible for superannuation debate,] would not be drawn on superannuation plans....
“That is not the Government’s option...”
Ms O’Dwyer denied rich Australians were filling their super funds will millions of dollars to avoid paying tax.
“This idea that people can amass multi-millions of dollars in their superannuation funds is simply not correct,” she said.
A new leader of the anti-tax-grab faction has emerged to resist Malcolm Turnbull’s search for cash:
Liberal backbencher Angus Taylor said any changes must not be retrospective because people invested in good faith.
Which suggests the Government should get back to the real challenge, hard as it is - to cut spending, not raise taxes:

AUSTRALIA’S annual welfare bill will balloon by more than $120 billion over the next decade to $277 billion a year, with ­almost every category of welfare growing greater than inflation.
Government modelling has revealed taxpayer-funded welfare spending in today’s dollars by 2026 will be $81 billion more than current tax revenue....
Expenditure per working age population is forecast to rise from $9410 to $14,760, an increase of more than 4 per cent. The current welfare bill is $154 billion and income tax revenue is $196 billion.
UPDATE
All these confusing plans, hints and agendas, with no sense of direction.
Let’s go back two months, to Turnbull’s speech announcing he would challenge for the leadership:
It is clear enough that the government is not successful in providing the economic leadership that we need...
We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges and opportunities, that explains the challenges and how to seize the opportunities.
A style of leadership that respects the peoples’ intelligence, that explains these complex issues and sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it.
So what course of action does Turnbull believe we should take? A GST or not? Higher taxes on super or not? Spending cuts or not? Paying down debt or increasing spending? A higher tax take or lower?
UPDATE
But what spending restraint?
The Government has instead increased its pay offer to public servants from 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent, and now this:

Next month’s Innovation Statement will restore funding to Australia’s flagship information technology research agency in a reversal of a decision by the Abbott government, which stripped the agency of assistance and caused embarrassment at last year’s Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Brisbane… But the Abbott government terminated its federal funding of $42 million a year, effective from July 1, 2016…
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Fine, as long as we may vote against him without being called racist

Andrew Bolt November 12 2015 (8:31am)

Will it be racist to vote against him or to disagree with his political positions?
CHAMPION footballer Adam Goodes is in Labor’s sights as a potential candidate ahead of next year’s federal election…
The Herald Sun understands Nova Peris, a current Northern Territory Labor Senator and dual Olympian, has made informal approaches to Goodes about a career in politics and wants to encourage him to follow in her footsteps… While Labor has not put a formal offer to the dual premiership player, senior sources said he would be “welcome with open arms” should he pursue a political career.
(Thanks to many readers.) 
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Another rip-off hits Victorian Liberals

Andrew Bolt November 11 2015 (9:26pm)

What was with the Victorian Liberals under Ted Baillieu?
A trusted member of former Victorian premier Ted Baillieu’s staff who defrauded more than $18,000 from his personal cheque account – and forged his signature to do so – has pleaded guilty to four deception charges.
Amanda Roberts-Tuck worked for Mr Baillieu for seven years until her resignation a year ago after her “devious” criminal conduct was uncovered during an audit of his Camberwell electoral office that revealed a total of about $65,000 worth of deceptions.

And this as well:

Damien Mantach — the former state director of the Victorian Liberal Party — has faced questioning by the party after the disappearance of more than $1 million of campaign funds… Liberal leader Matthew Guy told media Thursday morning the party was outraged and would call in police.
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Abbott-hating ABC makes a sick joke of grieving families’ heartache

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, November 12, 2014 (1:06am)

LAST night’s 7.30 program ran a tawdry comedy skit that was so insensitive to the victims of the MH17 disaster it’s hard to believe it went to air.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Abbott-hating ABC makes a sick joke of grieving families’ heartache'
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We are losing the war on drugs

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, November 12, 2014 (1:03am)

AS they grieve the death of their beautiful, vivacious daughter Georgina last weekend, I hope the Bartter family isn’t harassed by the vultures of the drug legalisation lobby.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'We are losing the war on drugs'
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BILL SHHH-ORTEN

Tim Blair – Wednesday, November 12, 2014 (1:56pm)

No risk of a shirtfront from Silent Bill: 
Speaking at a media conference in Melbourne, Mr Shorten was asked what he would say to Mr Putin if he met him at the G20 in Brisbane this weekend.
“Nothing," Mr Shorten responded. 
In July, 38 Australians were murdered by Russian-backed forces in the Ukraine. And Shorten would say nothing to the Russian leader? Perhaps he’d speak up if Putin ran a pie shop.
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LET’S RACE FRIGHTBATS INSTEAD

Tim Blair – Wednesday, November 12, 2014 (1:36pm)

Rita Panahi reviews reaction to last week’s Melbourne Cup, which offed a couple of horses: 
It wasn’t long before every miserable killjoy on social media had joined in the condemnation of an industry that employs thousands and pumps $2.8 billion into the Victorian economy every year. Curiously, the feminists of the frightbat variety were particularly scornful of the Cup and racing in general; perhaps it’s the happiness and frivolity that enrages them. 
Fast-forward to 2:08. Elaine Benes never let the occasional dead horse ruin her Festivus. 
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IT’S OUR SENATE

Tim Blair – Wednesday, November 12, 2014 (1:24pm)

Sweary Sarah Hanson-Young lashes out during her student days:



(Via Elle)
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TAXES ON THE MARCH

Tim Blair – Wednesday, November 12, 2014 (11:56am)

The ABC, home of the eternal undergraduate, encourages dumb G20 protests:

image

(Via A.R.M. Jones)
UPDATE. Sing along, ABC: 
A man has punched and hurled plants at a security guard on duty for the G20 summit at Brisbane’s South Bank precinct.
Police say the man knocked a car park boom gate off its hinges at South Bank’s cultural centre on Tuesday, before damaging nearby gardens.
When a female security guard on G20 duties approached him, the man allegedly threw plants at her before punching her in the face. 
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Why was Goodes given this honour?

Andrew Bolt November 12 2014 (6:05pm)

Adam Goodes is entitled to his views, however ill-informed or unfair. But why was a man that contemptuous of his country named Australian of the Year?
During a recent interview with the BBC, the AFL star said some Australian policies had resulted in the suppression of indigenous people and other minorities and called for better education about the country’s history. 
”The history of our country is built on so much lies and racial policies, and things that have suppressed my people and lots of minorities in this country, so you can’t blame people for having the views that they have,” he said.
I admired Adam Gilchrist as a cricketer but I think his judgement as chief selector here was way off.
But what with the Australian the Year, anyway? It seems increasingly to be a position held by scolds pushing a Leftist agenda. 
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Church submits

Andrew Bolt November 12 2014 (4:59pm)

One faith doesn’t apologise for itself. The other just hands over the keys:
The ... Washington National Cathedral will host a Muslim prayer service this Friday. The cathedral, part of the Episcopal Church, has long been the site of important services, including memorial services for presidents, some of whom are buried there. But the Cathedral has never before been used for Muslim services. 
Strange enough even without this:
Deep into the Post’s story we learn that among the organizations sponsoring the prayer event are the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). 
The Post does not mention it, but both ISNA and CAIR are Islamist advocates of sharia law with a history of supporting terrorism.
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Climate deal: Barack Obama agrees with China to weaken the US

Andrew Bolt November 12 2014 (4:51pm)

China gets a good deal: permission to keep raising emissions for 16 years while the US - its great strategic rival - promises to make its electricity even dearer quicker:
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and President Obama struck a deal Wednesday to limit greenhouse gases, with China committing for the first time to cap carbon emissions and Obama unveiling a plan for deeper U.S. emissions reductions through 2025. 
China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, pledged in the far-reaching agreement to cap its rapidly growing carbon emissions by 2030, or earlier if possible. It also set a daunting goal of increasing the share of non-fossil fuels to 20 percent of the country’s energy mix by 2030. Obama announced a target to cut U.S. emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, the first time the president has set a goal beyond the existing 17 percent target by 2020.
Meanwhile in the US:
St. Cloud, Minn., got 13.2 inches of snow Monday, breaking the all-time November calendar-day record of 12 inches set on Nov. 21, 1898.
UPDATE
Does the Labor/Greens response mean a Labor/Greens Government, if elected in 2016, will give us the carbon tax again?
[Opposition leader Bill] Shorten said on Wednesday the “historic and ambitious” agreement showed global leadership from the US and China. 
“At the G20 this week, Australia will hold the embarrassing title of being the only nation going backwards on climate change...”

And Greens leader Christine Milne said the deal should be a “massive wake-up call to Tony Abbott. His continued climate denial and his destruction of the environment is reckless.” Senator Milne lashed Mr Abbott for unwinding climate policies such as the carbon tax ...
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Shorten won’t say boo to Putin

Andrew Bolt November 12 2014 (4:40pm)

Pardon?
Speaking at a media conference in Melbourne, Mr Shorten was asked what he would say to Mr Putin if he met him at the G20 in Brisbane this weekend. 
“Nothing,” Mr Shorten responded. “Putin has massive popular support in his own country. He I don’t think, frankly, cares about what Australia thinks,” Mr Shorten added. 
Oh. Is there someone else in Labor prepared to shirtfront the man supporting the rebels who murdered 38 Australians? 
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Condemning child savers as child stealers: the poison of the “stolen generations” myth

Andrew Bolt November 12 2014 (6:11am)

The "stolen generations"

No politician or education bureaucrat dares question the “stolen generations” myth, even though no one can name even 10 children stolen by the state simply because they were Aborigines.
No politician or education bureaucrat dares question the myth even though it’s become toxic, persuading some welfare officials to leave Aboriginal children in dangers they’d never tolerate if those children were white.
And it’s allowed activists to praise the kind of child-rearing they should condemn, and to attack those who rescue rather than those who abuse. It’s also allowed the new racists to peddle a dangerous victimhood while overlooking the real victims - the broken children:
For instance:
Call answered. Raise children in our cultural way! Marissa Calligeros, Brisbane Times, yesterday: 
THE first protest march ahead of the G20 leaders’ summit has been held in Brisbane. About 100 members and supporters of the Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy gathered for the “Stop Stealing Our Children” rally ... they made their way through the CBD yelling, “What do we want? Our children back. When do we want it? Now.” ... They said, like the Stolen Generations, indigenous children were still being taken from their families, with about 14,000 children living in out-of-home care in Australia. Aunty Hazel told 612 ABC Brisbane protesters called upon the government to entrust indigenous Australians with the responsibility of raising their own children. “How we parent is different and that needs to be acknowledged,” she said. “We want control of the care and protection of our families, our children and our communities ... We want solid ground to stand on, to raise our children in our cultural way.” Aunty Rhonda said the Department of Child Safety too readily removed indigenous children from their families. “They need to acknowledge ... that we have wisdom and knowledge to rear our children up in the best way possible and they need to leave them alone and leave them there,” Aunty Rhonda told 612 ABC Brisbane.
Raise children in our cultural way? Jennifer Macey, ABC’s The World Today, July 25 last year: 
INDIGENOUS children are four times more likely to experience child sexual abuse than other Australian children. The figures represented 19.48 per cent of substantiated child abuse reports in Australia, compared to indigenous children only representing 4.7 per cent of the 0-17 age bracket of the Australian population ... the Little Children are Sacred report released in 2007 concluded child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities had reached crisis level ... But the new figures still do not represent an accurate picture of the reality of widespread child sexual abuse, according to Dr (Kylie) Cripps ..."So many still are unreported. It’s very much the tip of the iceberg,” she said.
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Labor is lying to itself. Pity us if we believe those lies, too

Andrew Bolt November 12 2014 (6:00am)

Paul Kelly warns that Labor is selling snake oil - first to itself:
The risk for Labor in 2016 is looking too similar to the Rudd-Gillard party, with climate change being the prime exhibit, and underestimating Tony Abbott’s ability to sink the ALP by this branding… 
Much of the media gives [Bill] Shorten high marks as Opposition Leader for only one reason — opinion polls. No assessment is made of Labor’s policy or direction…
Shorten has staged the most comprehensive assault on a budget since Malcolm Fraser’s very different decision in 1975 to reject Labor’s budget and force an election. This will have long-run dangers for the nation.
The forces driving Labor’s tactics are the belief that Rudd-Gillard Labor has nothing for which to apologise, the myth that Labor in office got a raw deal and that Abbott must get a dose of his own medicine, and the judgment that the natural cycle for governments has got shorter…
Labor believes the notion that it left a serious budget repair job is a fraud. This delusion is now embraced as a faith by senior ALP figures.
The party opposes any further increase in the pension age or indexation reform, rejects the principle of a Medicare co-payment, rejects the principle of university fee deregulation, dismisses petrol excise indexation, rejects any industrial relations liberalisation, opposes the move to the one-stop shop to streamline resource sector approvals, opposes in relation to asylum-seekers any boat turn-back policy by pretending it had no impact and rejects any tax reform involving GST changes with an irrational insistence the tax must be frozen thereby putting more of the burden on personal income tax.
Labor had a choice. It could frame policy based on verified fiscal truth — the tax base cannot sustain the social benefits Labor loaded on to the budget. It has chosen, instead, to intensify the hoax it perpetrated in ­office and pretend Australians can enjoy the current and projected social benefits consistent with a responsible fiscal outcome and without serious and painful policy adjustment.
Labor could win election peddling this lie. The cost will be terrible. 
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No jobs in the desert, so why keep the towns?

Andrew Bolt November 12 2014 (5:44am)

The Left must accept that tiny bush towns with no jobs, few services and tiny schools cannot produce the living standards they demand for Aborigines:
INDIGENOUS Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion has acknowledged there may be no future for some remote indigenous communities in Western Australia as Premier Colin Barnett yesterday revealed he plans to close up to 150 of the state’s 274 tiny settlements. 
In the end, the only viable future - or “sustainable” future, in the Left’s jargon - for generations of Aboriginal children will be integration, not life as a museum exhibit.
But the forces of reaction will be hard to shift:
Fraser government indigenous affairs minister Fred Chaney has sent an open letter to Mr Barnett, Senator Scullion and Tony Abbott warning that if governments simply “let things rip” by withdrawing services and driving people out of remote communities without careful preparation, the outcomes for indigenous Australians “will be shameful”.
Actually “shameful” is what we’ve had for years. 
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The ABC shames itself, clowning around over 38 dead Australians

Andrew Bolt November 12 2014 (5:14am)

Prime Minister Tony Abbott yesterday confronted Russian President Vladimir Putin about the murder of 38 Australians by Russian backed forces using a weapon believed to have been supplied by Russia and now hidden by Russia.
Yet the ABC’s flagship current affairs show, 7.30, treats this like one big joke:
KIRSTEN DRYSDALE, REPORTER: It was supposed to be the showdown of the century. 
(male voiceover): Tony “Tough Talk” Abbott versus “Virile” Vladimir Putin. How much macho can you take?
TONY ABBOTT, PRIME MINISTER: I’m going to shirtfront Mr Putin. You bet you are - you bet I am.
KIRSTEN DRYSDALE: Two great men with a phobia of fabric and a penchant for pectoral promenading set to meet face to face in the world’s grandest car park, the G20.
(male voiceover imitating Vladimir Putin): Shirtfront? What does that even mean?
CNN PRESENTER: Shirtfronting, the phrase Mr Abbott used, is an Australian sports term for a forceful challenge.
JULIE BISHOP, FOREIGN MINISTER: Since the phrase shirtfront was used, I understand it’s now entered the diplomatic lexicon of many countries.
KIRSTEN DRYSDALE: Just not the countries that really mattered.
EMMA ALBERICI, JOURNALIST: Can I ask you what was your reaction when you heard the news that our Prime Minister had declared that he intends to shirtfront your President when he’s here next month for the G20 meeting?
VYACHESLAV NIKONOV, RUSSIAN MP: Well, it’s not much of a news.
KIRSTEN DRYSDALE: Nonetheless, the world’s most powerful people were cheering from the front row.
BARACK OBAMA, US PRESIDENT: Tony personally has expressed his extraordinary commitment to battling foreign fighters.
TONY ABBOTT: That’s what the world needs.
???: This is obviously quite unusual for the diplomatic practice to go this personal and we may say this physical.
KIRSTEN DRYSDALE: Oh, come on now, it’s not that unusual.
Those tussles were just curtain-raisers for the main event. Our very own cyclist taking on a bear-riding, sports-fishing, gun-toting, judo-wrestling, tiger-slaying, dolphin-wrangling former KGB spy. And while some speculated Putin’s magnificent biceps would give him an advantage, ...
BARACK OBAMA: Inevitably, they are going to have influence and exert a certain gravitational pull just by dint of size.
KIRSTEN DRYSDALE: ... Abbott expressed great faith in his own physical prowess.
TONY ABBOTT: It’s a body that no one country can unilaterally control.
And on and on.
At the end of it, the “reporter” and host Leigh Sales even add some deceptive Kremlin spin to belittle Abbott:
KIRSTEN DRYSDALE: So that’s it. Even with the valiant efforts of a first-class troll behind the scenes repeatedly bringing Abbott and Putin together for a rumble, this was as close as it got. Just two dudes who finally had a meeting behind closed doors away from the cameras, almost like grownups. Well, there’s always an upside. 
BARACK OBAMA: I think our primary message has been to make sure that violence is avoided.
LEIGH SALES: Kirsten Drysdale there. And the Kremlin has released a statement. Asked if Tony Abbott managed to shirtfront the Russian leader, a spokesman replied, “It appears that he did not try.” 
False.
Indeed, in the briefest of postscripts, Sales then wipes the smirk from her face and adds the actual news - that despite the ABC’s mockery and the ABC’s sneers Abbott did indeed shirtfront Putin and demand justice for the families of the 298 dead, not least the 38 Australians:
There is of course a serious side to this story. Late today the Prime Minister’s office said that during a brief meeting, Mr Abbott told Mr Putin that Australia has information suggesting that MH-17 was downed in Eastern Ukraine by a missile from a launcher that came out of Russia, and that if true, this was a very serious matter. He urged Mr Putin to co-operate fully with the investigation into the disaster and to consider an apology. 
How on earth, given what actually happened and given how serious the issues can the ABC treat it all as a big joke in which Abbott played the clown?
In fact, Abbott didn’t just say the missile launcher seemed to have come from Russia but that it had been returned there. He didn’t just request an apology but compensation for the families of the dead. After weeks of the ABC suggesting Abbott would be too weak to deliver his shirtfront threat, 7.30 couldn’t even bring itself to report exactly how vehement Abbott had been.
This is not just the ABC yet again showing bias and misrepresenting the truth. This is also the ABC being utterly tasteless and trivialising not just a great crime but the ABC’s most serious current affairs show.
Would the ABC clown around like this if we were talking not about the murder of 38 Australians but the murder of 38 boat people?
Shame on the ABC. When will the board pull managing director Mark Scott into line?
UPDATE
Many Canberra journalists seemed to determined to believe the worst of Tony Abbott even when evidence directly contradicts their prejudices. For instance, Channel 10 news last night falsely reported that Abbott had shirked the shirtfront, preferring to wave to the TV cameras.
So all credit to Fairfax’s Mark Kenny, who, while also firmly of the Left, presented the facts rather than the fantasy:
During a sharp 15 minutes, Mr Abbott pointed out that when the US had inadvertently shot down an airliner, it had apologised and paid financial compensation… 
And living up to his “shirtfront” threat, he revealed directly to Mr Putin that Australia was in possession of information suggesting that MH17 was destroyed by a missile from a launcher that had come out of Russia, was fired from inside Eastern Ukraine and then returned to Russia.
UPDATE
Chris Uhlmann is better than this. Here is how he started this morning’s AM:
In the end there was no shirtfront.
Is Uhlmann seriously suggesting Abbott wasn’t using a metaphor with “shirtfront”? If not, can he explain how Abbott’s confrontation of Putin yesterday fell short of what he’d vowed to do?
AM then gives us an item from Moscow summing up the Russian propaganda and insults, including false claims that Abbott had actually threatened to physically “beat” Putin, and asserting that Russians weren’t paying Abbott any attention. This was the sole item on yesterday’s confrontation, and Putin couldn’t have been more delighted with it. Australia’s state broadcaster was mocking the Australian PM for confronting the Russia president with evidence that his weaponry had been used by his militia to kill 38 Australians, and literally recycling Russian propaganda.
This is shameful. The ABC board should meet on this and on the wider ABC bias and demand the ABC adhere to its own stated standards.  
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Blanchett should have thanked the workers for her degree

Andrew Bolt November 12 2014 (5:01am)

Associate Professor Greg Melleuish:
IN her eulogy to Gough Whitlam at the celebration of his life, Cate Blanchett said: “The loss I felt came down to something very deep and very simple. I am the beneficiary of free tertiary education. 
“ It is odd to say one feels a loss for a person because that person once gave them something. It does not strike me as “something very deep"…
I looked up Blanchett and discovered that she had attended Methodist Ladies College, Melbourne…
I attended a government high school where only 20 per cent of those starting high school actually completed it…
I began university in 1972 on a commonwealth scholarship. At that time nearly everyone who attended university, at least from my school, had a commonwealth scholarship or a teacher’s college scholarship from the NSW government. To receive a commonwealth scholarship you needed to be pretty good. When free tertiary education was introduced I recall being somewhat miffed. After all, I had worked hard during high school and had been rewarded. Now that reward was being extended to those who had not done so well. Even better, it was being extended to the less able students at schools such as MLC… Of course, what they never appreciated is that it was the taxes of the people with whom I went to school, ­people who did not complete high school, who paid for their good time at university.
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Up the creek with Labor and the Greens hiding the paddles

Andrew Bolt November 12 2014 (4:53am)

We are in strife, but Labor, the Greens and Clive Palmer keep voting like it’s Christmas. Indeed, even the Abbott Government still wants it to seem like Christmas:
JOE Hockey has conceded that his budget is in trouble, with revenue again failing to meet Treasury forecasts but he says he is not going to try to plug the blowout in the deficit with fresh spending cuts for fear of damaging business and consumer confidence… 
“We are not going to turn our mid-year budget into a mini-budget,” he said. “We are not going to go down the path of trying to make up lost ground immediately.” ...
He said he wanted to maintain economic momentum during the Christmas period and beyond…
Mr Hockey said that while the mid-year budget update would show the deficit had deteriorated, it would not be as severe as the $52 billion increase over four years predicted by consulting firm Macroeconomics in its budget review released this week…
The Macroeconomics forecast included the impact of budget measures blocked in the Senate. Although Mr Hockey said that these were now costing the budget a total of $28bn, the government was expected to retain the spending cuts in areas such as unemployment benefits, higher edu­cation and family benefits in the mid-year budget update.
Remember when Labor and the Greens thought they could stick up the miners at any time for more of the billions they needed for their mad plans?
THE value of iron ore, Australia’s major export earner, is set to plunge by more than half next year, with as much as $US54 billion ($63bn) to be wiped from the industry’s revenue compared with what could have been received had last year’s elevated prices prevailed. 
The revenue punch — it would also mean the federal government misses out on more than $US15bn in tax receipts — is fast becoming a fait accompli in response to iron ore’s 44 per cent price crash so far this year to $US75.50 a tonne, and an increasing line-up of forecasters predicting iron ore will go lower still next year… The bottom-line impact on the iron ore producers is already clear. Share price falls of more than 80 per cent since the start of the year are common among the smaller and higher-cost producers… The more diversified earnings streams of Rio and BHP see them down by 11 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively, while Fortescue’s total reliance on iron ore has seen its value plunge 48 per cent this year.
When you are deep in debt and losing even more income you would normally cut spending and work smarter.
Abnormally, the Senate is refusing to cut spending and the Government is keeping its expensive parental leave scheme. The Government also refuses to impose workplace reforms, which the Senate would probably block anyway.
But don’t just blame the politicians. Where is the public demand for the reforms to save us? 
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Applause photo Applause.gif
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Your scores: (Writer)
Hands-on: 8
Your ideal work is mainly about engaging with the physical world, for example building, cooking, craft, DIY, working with animals, plants and machines, sports and hands-on therapy. Example jobs include: sports coach, physiotherapist, engineer, LGV driver, builder, mechanic, veterinary nurse.
Information and research, processes and systems: 17
Your ideal work is mainly about researching or managing information. This will include analysis, cataloguing and database management, but may include investigating topics in depth, IT, science, maths, quality control, systems and regulations. Example jobs include: accountant, scientific researcher, investigative journalist, legal assistant, book-keeper, health and safety officer, purchasing professional.
Influencing, negotiating, communicating: 11
Your ideal work is mainly about persuading other people to do something, buy something or believe in your cause. This includes driving others, influencing, persuading, lobbying, motivating, selling. Example jobs include: sales person, recruiter, fundraiser, event manager, estate agent, public speaker.
Creative use of ideas, materials or situations: 18
Your ideal work is mainly about working imaginatively with ideas or designs. This includes jobs in the arts, performing, creative writing, and also visual design, lateral thinking, business creativity, adapting or coming up with new ideas, working in situations where no rulebook exists. Example jobs include: graphic designer, training consultant, wedding planner, public relations.
Supporting people: 6
Your ideal work is mainly about working with people, with their wellbeing and development as the main focus of your work. Example jobs include: teacher, life coach, therapist, nurse, learning and development, career coach.
Making new things happen: 10
Your ideal work is mainly about achieving things with and through other people. This may involve organisational change, planning, managing projects, leadership, creating a new business, shaping teams, getting results. Example jobs include: project manager, team leader, operations manager, sales manager, business developer.
 ===
Larry Pickering
A piece from the pickeringpost.com by correspondent Bernard Gaynor that was well worth the read:

RUGBY LEAGUE AND AUSTRALIA'S FIRST SUICIDE BOMBER

It’s only a matter of time. There will be an Islamic All Stars Rugby League round. For those, like me, who have a sense of humour, it will probably be squashed in between the Gay Appreciation week and Sorry For Anything That Christianity Has Ever Done decade.

It’s the NRL’s new direction. Give up the alcohol-fuelled binges (not such a bad thing) and bend over to Mecca (not such a good thing).

Anthony Mundine started it. Sonny Bill Williams joined in. Then followed Blake Ferguson and before we knew it, the entire Sydney Roosters were raising funds for new mosques in Logan.

Logan, south of Brisbane, has the dubious distinction of being home to Australia’s first suicide bomber.

You can watch his fiery demise to chants of “Allahu Akbar!” here http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-12/new-video-man-australia-syria-suicide-bomber/5084664 or go to pickeringpost.com

For those who struggle with Arabic, “Allahu Akbar!” means “God is the Greatest”.

Hence the reason Abu Asmar left his family behind in Australia to drive an explosive-laden truck to his death in Syria. And just before it all ended, he urged others to do the same.

With guys like Abu doing the marketing and the NRL boys providing the financial support, before you know it suicide bombing will be as dinky-di Aussie as throwing down a VB at a backyard barbeque.

Oops. I better take that last part out. There’s no such thing as halal beer, as Mr Ferguson is about to find out. Because Islam is a religion of extremes. No beer and way over the top punishment for those who partake.

And that’s without even delving into the suicide bombing or call for global jihad.

Considering that Logan is home to Australia’s first suicide bomber and that an imam has admitted on 4BC radio that South East Queensland mosques are raising funds to send Aussie Muslims to Syria, I’d suggest that the last thing the area needs is a new jihad ops centre.

And that’s exactly what mosques are. You didn’t really think it was all tambourines and hand-clapping did you?

Mosques preach violence. In fact, there is a direct correlation between the size of the audience and the violence being preached.

More violent preaching equals more peaceful worshippers on a Friday afternoon.

Given that Australia has by far the largest per capita Western involvement in the war in Syria, it would appear likely that peace is not that high on the agenda here either.

Mosques are the command and control centres for the spread of Islam. In fact the late King of Saudi Arabia stated that their purpose was to prevent Muslims from assimilating into the Western world.

From there, they could become a fifth column to bring total victory against the infidels.

And he probably believed what he said because since 1970, Saudi officials have spent somewhere between $70 billion and $90 billion exporting their strict Wahabbi view of Islam. That’s a lot of mosques and religious advertising – including about $120 million worth in Australia.

And all of this from a country that bans the construction of churches. That’s pretty intolerant. But it is smart.
Unlike us, who are tolerant and stupid.

Islam is not compatible with Christian traditions. And it has even more contempt for the atheistic sludge that’s replaced it.

And when the championship Rugby League team is working to build a new mosque in Logan, a month after this city gave Australia its first Islamic suicide ‘martyr’, you know that Australia is asleep in the face of this virulent and violent threat.

Do you get the feeling we are sleepwalking to destruction.
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Larry Pickering
TWO BISHOPS, AN ABBOTT AND THE DEVIL

Bronwyn Bishop, today elected as Speaker of the House, is one of the more respected MPs with a history of dedicated service and an angelic grandma persona. 

When nominations were called for Speaker a certain Member for Porn, Graham Perrett (God only knows how they re-elected him) decided to second a Labor nomination for the coveted position. 

A fatuous exercise designed to allow Perrett to let go with a tirade of abuse of Bronwyn Bishop.

Perrett, best known for his schoolboy porn books that describe in detail how best to make him ejaculate, blasted the about-to-be-elected Speaker for standing in front of a sign that screamed, “DITCH THE WITCH”. Tony Abbott, at the time, was also caught up in the fracas.

Abbott and Bishop had begun speaking at a Parliament House rally when some of the more offensive signs had been placed behind them. It was obvious they were unaware of the signs.

Perrett would have been aware they were both oblivious to the signs but it gave “super grub” the opportunity to lambast the integrity of Bishop in an unprecedented display of confected anger.

Abbott squirmed and the other Bishop shifted in her seat at the vituperative outburst.

I hope Bronwyn Bishop has the Member for Porn’s name indelibly written in her little black book.
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“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.” 1 John 2:15-16 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Underneath are the everlasting arms."
Deuteronomy 33:27

God--the eternal God--is himself our support at all times, and especially when we are sinking in deep trouble. There are seasons when the Christian sinks very low in humiliation. Under a deep sense of his great sinfulness, he is humbled before God till he scarcely knows how to pray, because he appears, in his own sight, so worthless. Well, child of God, remember that when thou art at thy worst and lowest, yet "underneath" thee "are everlasting arms." Sin may drag thee ever so low, but Christ's great atonement is still under all. You may have descended into the deeps, but you cannot have fallen so low as "the uttermost;" and to the uttermost he saves. Again, the Christian sometimes sinks very deeply in sore trial from without. Every earthly prop is cut away. What then? Still underneath him are "the everlasting arms." He cannot fall so deep in distress and affliction but what the covenant grace of an ever-faithful God will still encircle him. The Christian may be sinking under trouble from within through fierce conflict, but even then he cannot be brought so low as to be beyond the reach of the "everlasting arms"--they are underneath him; and, while thus sustained, all Satan's efforts to harm him avail nothing.
This assurance of support is a comfort to any weary but earnest worker in the service of God. It implies a promise of strength for each day, grace for each need, and power for each duty. And, further, when death comes, the promise shall still hold good. When we stand in the midst of Jordan, we shall be able to say with David, "I will fear no evil, for thou art with me." We shall descend into the grave, but we shall go no lower, for the eternal arms prevent our further fall. All through life, and at its close, we shall be upheld by the "everlasting arms"--arms that neither flag nor lose their strength, for "the everlasting God fainteth not, neither is weary."

Evening

"He shall choose our inheritance for us."
Psalm 47:4
Believer, if your inheritance be a lowly one you should be satisfied with your earthly portion; for you may rest assured that it is the fittest for you. Unerring wisdom ordained your lot, and selected for you the safest and best condition. A ship of large tonnage is to be brought up the river; now, in one part of the stream there is a sandbank; should some one ask, "Why does the captain steer through the deep part of the channel and deviate so much from a straight line?" His answer would be, "Because I should not get my vessel into harbour at all if I did not keep to the deep channel." So, it may be, you would run aground and suffer shipwreck, if your divine Captain did not steer you into the depths of affliction where waves of trouble follow each other in quick succession. Some plants die if they have too much sunshine. It may be that you are planted where you get but little, you are put there by the loving Husbandman, because only in that situation will you bring forth fruit unto perfection. Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there. You are placed by God in the most suitable circumstances, and if you had the choosing of your lot, you would soon cry, "Lord, choose my inheritance for me, for by my self-will I am pierced through with many sorrows." Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good. Take up your own daily cross; it is the burden best suited for your shoulder, and will prove most effective to make you perfect in every good word and work to the glory of God. Down busy self, and proud impatience, it is not for you to choose, but for the Lord of Love!
"Trials must and will befall--
But with humble faith to see
Love inscribed upon them all;
This is happiness to me."
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Today's reading: Jeremiah 50, Hebrews 8 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Jeremiah 50


A Message About Babylon
1 This is the word the LORD spoke through Jeremiah the prophet concerning Babylon and the land of the Babylonians:
2 “Announce and proclaim among the nations,
lift up a banner and proclaim it;
keep nothing back, but say,
‘Babylon will be captured;
Bel will be put to shame,
Marduk filled with terror.
Her images will be put to shame
and her idols filled with terror.’
3 A nation from the north will attack her
and lay waste her land.
No one will live in it;
both people and animals will flee away.
4 “In those days, at that time,”
declares the LORD,
“the people of Israel and the people of Judah together
will go in tears to seek the LORD their God.
5 They will ask the way to Zion
and turn their faces toward it.
They will come and bind themselves to the LORD
in an everlasting covenant
that will not be forgotten....

Today's New Testament reading: Hebrews 8

The High Priest of a New Covenant
1 Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being.
3 Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. 4 If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. 5 They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” 6 But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises....
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Haggai

[Hăg'gaī] - festal or born of a festival day. The tenth of the Minor Prophets, and the first of those to prophesy after the captivity (Ezra 5:1; 6:14).

The Man Who Was a Messenger


All we know of Haggai is told us in the first verse of his book, where we have a description of himself and his message, which gives us a key to the whole of his ministry. Haggai was "The Lord's messenger in the Lord's message." We reject the legend that he was an angel incarnate.
His name is suggestive and may imply that he was born on a Feast Day. Another meaning is "Jehovah hath quieted." As a prophet, he was contemporary with Zechariah (Hag. 1:1; 2:1, 20; Zech. 1:1 ). He prophesied in the second year of the reign of Darius Hystaspes, King of Persia, sixteen years after Cyrus'decree permitting the rebuilding of the Temple. Compare Zechariah 1:1-11 with Ezra 4:24 and 5:1.
As a prophet, he preached righteousness and predicted the future. As a man, he was simple, strong in faith and bold in hope. He urged the people to work and be strong (Hag. 2:4), assuring them that when they began to build the Temple, God would begin to bless them.
The first message was one of stern rebuke (Hag. 1:1-11).
The second message was one of comfort and commendation (Hag. 1:12-15).
The third message was a cheering one of encouragement (Hag. 2:1-9).
The fourth message was an assuring one concerning cleansing and blessing (Hag. 2:10-19).
The fifth message was a steadying one associated with safety ( Hag. 2:20-23 ).
Dr. Stuart Holden suggests that these five lessons can be gathered from Haggai:
I. Danger of lapsing into self-content, even after honest and sincere beginnings in the work of Christ.
II. That the time for blessing is always at hand. The people said: "The time has not come." God said: "My time is an eternal now."; The only hindrance to blessing lies in His people.
III. In the will of God for His people - particularly in respect to the great work of building His Temple - there is always a conjunction of precept and power, of duty and dynamic . The promises of God are "Yea and Amen" to those who are in Christ Jesus, walking in Him, and living in Him.
IV. The greatest of all mistakes is to leave God out in His own work. To live in the light of His presence is to build for eternity.
V. In the work to which we pledge ourselves as God's children,the greatest need of all is for patience. We shall be opposed if our work is worth opposing; but the opposition of the Evil One is the opportunity to express our faith and loyalty toward God. "Our God is marching on. The best is yet to be; and we may reckon upon God."
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