Saturday, January 30, 2016

Sat Jan 30th Todays News

Mitch Pearce is going overseas to rehabilitate and public anger turns to photographer Jack who captured the moment and sold the video. It is said that Jack deliberately trashed Pearce's career for money. As if he broke the 'Party Code' where what happens at a drunken orgy stays there. And it is true that, except for the poodle, all were consenting adults who may not have consented. In stark contrast to the Chris Gayle controversy, there are allegations that Pearce asked a lesbian for a drink, or something. But there is no evidence Pearce is black so there is no need for outrage. #BabyDon'tBlush 

 For some, nothing happened, and the discussion is tawdry. It is concerning that a public figure could behave so disgracefully. But people expect it of the contemptible. So if Pearce is contemptible, why give him public status? 

 For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility 
=== from 2015 ===
QLD Election
Although the press have acted to cloud the issue, it isn't really a choice, unless it is Hobson's Choice, where historically, the stable manager offered customers their choice of the closest empty stable or nothing at all. For Queensland, the choice is responsible government of Campbell Newman or anarchic posturing of the incompetent, unreformed, corrupt ALP. And the LNP have to go to a higher standard than merely winning government. They need to win government and have Campbell Newman win his seat. On record, we have a 'can do' LNP capable of righting the ship of state in stormy times and allowing for prosperity, or we have the union dominated hamstrung ALP who say many things they never do, but are certain to spend more than they earn and limit the growth opportunities of Queenslanders for decades to come without benefiting their constituents if they aren't corrupt. So Palaszczuk doesn't know the 10% GST figure excluding fresh food and education. Newman may not be able to spell Palaszczuk's name without notes, but he certainly knows who she is. Newman can support industry and grow the economy. Palaszczuk can shrink industry and promote corrupt unions at the expense of people. Palaszczuk will promise to save the coral reefs which aren't endangered. The good people of Queensland and Asgrove trusted Mr Newman before, and he hasn't failed them. Hopefully they will trust him again. Hopefully they will not trust the unreformed party that delivered two floods without insurance.
Protestors getting paid
The Australian Film Industry are a protected mob who don't deliver what they are capable of. There are exceptions, and one looks forward to Maximum Choppage as much Kitchen Whiz. More often, radical activists dominate, taking oxygen away from interesting story lines and promoting their fantasy. Tim Blair provides an example of an abysmal project against Coal Seam Gas which has no merit, but will probably be well funded. 

Also there are jihadists who use the name Islam to for a payday in getting artists silenced. It would be good if the Jihadists were silenced by Islamic leaders pointing out that Islam is not threatened by such. But sadly those leaders who could speak out are cowardly and impotent and one feels, agree with jihadists. They bring Islam into disrepute. 

On this day in history, Charles I of England was beheaded in 1649. In 1661, the dead man, Oliver Cromwell, who had been responsible for ordering Charles I's death was ritually executed by order of Charles II. In 1703, 47 Ronin avenged the death of their master. In 1790, testing was done on the first life boat on the river Tyne. In 1835, Andrew Jackson was threatened with assassination by house painter Richard Lawrence. It is apparent Richard was mentally ill. The prosecutor at trial was Francis Scott Key. He was found insane and lived the rest of his life in an asylum. H P Lovecraft would have been inspired. In 1889, two selfish, self indulgent lovers, one of whom was the heir to the Austro Hungarian throne, committed suicide. Twenty five years later, the world was aflame. 1908, Ghandi was freed from jail. In 1945, German refugees on board a ferry were torpedoes by a Soviet sub. 9500 people died in the worst maritime disaster known. 1948, Ghandi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist. In 1956, Martin King's home was bombed after the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Bigots claimed one was a reason for the other. 1965, over a million people attended the state funeral of Winston Churchill. In 1968, the Tet offensive began, marking the collapse of North Vietnam's offensive capability, afterwards they used terror tactics only. 1969, The Beatles last performance was on top of the roof of Apple Records. The police stopped it. 1971, Carole King released Tapestry. 
From 2014
Watching an ABC chief defend the ABC at an ABC Media Luncheon shown on the ABC, I got a good view as to why it is so hard for many to see why there has to be change. We live in a lucky country where not much seems wrong. Compared to an African nation where youth are kidnapped and raised as soldiers we do things well. Compared to a nation which fought a civil war over communism and has borrowed more than it is ever likely to earn, like Greece, Australia looks financially responsible. Compared with a nation that jails or kills people for being related to the wrong person, like so called Palestine or North Korea, Australia is just. But Australia struggles with injustice, with debt spending and with education. And the ABC is part of the problem. 

When Pete Seeger died the other day, his life was summarised by the ABC and it misleadingly said he had been "tarred with the brush of communism" during the McCarthy era. In fact, he was a communist who supported administrations which murdered over a hundred million people and threatened world peace. Seeger was also fabulously wealthy, something he sought to deny others in his pursuit of idealising poverty. But the ABC did not and could not say this. The reason being that the ABC is the same, having made the same choices. And that is what makes it so difficult to argue with in their defence of those choices. They don't see the harm they have done, because it is not so bad in Australia. 

Only there are terrible things that happen in Australia. There is injustice, as when building industry is held up by stand over people. Limiting profit and growth. There is corruption of the judicial system, so that things not written in the constitution have been inferred and foisted on the Australian peoples by unelected lawyers. There is a school system which is ideologically driven by people who do not respect cultural assets. 

Australia is a great nation. It is worth patriots dying for her. But their sacrifice deserves better than the ABC gives. 
Historical perspective on this day
In 1018, Poland and the Holy Roman Empire concluded the Peace of Bautzen. 1607, an estimated 200 square miles (51,800 ha) along the coasts of the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary in the Kingdom of England were destroyed by massive flooding, resulting in an estimated 2,000 deaths. 1648, Eighty Years' War: The Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück was signed, ending the conflict between the Netherlands and Spain. 1649, King Charles I of England was beheaded. 1661, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England was ritually executed two years after his death, on the anniversary of the execution of the monarch he himself deposed. 1667, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth ceded Kiev, Smolensk, and left-bank Ukraine to the Tsardom of Russia in the Treaty of Andrusovo.

In 1703, the Forty-seven Ronin, under the command of Ōishi Kuranosuke, avenged the death of their master. 1790, the first boat specialising as a lifeboat was tested on the River Tyne. 1806, the original Lower Trenton Bridge (also called the Trenton Makes the World Takes Bridge), which spanned the Delaware River between Morrisville, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey, was opened. 1820, Edward Bransfield sighted the Trinity Peninsula and claimed the discovery of Antarctica. 1826, the Menai Suspension Bridge, considered the world's first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales, was opened. 1835, in the first assassination attempt against a President of the United States, Richard Lawrence attempted to shoot president Andrew Jackson, but failed and was subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen. 1841, a fire destroyed two-thirds of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. 1847, Yerba Buena, California was renamed San Francisco. 1858, the first Hallé concert was given in Manchester, England, marking the official founding of The Halléorchestra as a full-time, professional orchestra. 1862, the first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor was launched. 1889, Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, was found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera in the Mayerling.

In 1902, the first Anglo-Japanese Alliance was signed in London. 1908, Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was released from prison by Jan C. Smuts after being tried and sentenced to two months in jail earlier in the month. 1911, the destroyer USS Terrymade the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of Douglas McCurdy ten miles from Havana, Cuba. Also 1911, the Canadian Naval Service became the Royal Canadian Navy. 1913, the British House of Lords rejected the Irish Home Rule Bill. 1925, the Government of Turkey threw Patriarch Constantine VI out of Istanbul. 1933, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. 1942, World War II: Japanese forces invade the island of Ambon in the Dutch East Indies. 1943, World War II: Second day of the Battle of Rennell Island. The USS Chicago was sunk and a U.S. destroyer was heavily damaged by Japanese torpedoes. 1944, World War II: The Battle of Cisterna, part of Operation Shingle, began in central Italy. Also 1944, World War II: American troops landed on Majuro, Marshall Islands. 1945, World War II: The Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with German refugees, sank in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, killing approximately 9,500 people in what is the deadliest known maritime disaster. Also 1945, World War II: Raid at Cabanatuan: One hundred twenty-six American Rangers and Filipino resistance fighters liberated over 500 Allied prisoners from the Japanese-controlled Cabanatuan POW camp. 1948, Mahatma Gandhi known for his non-violent freedom struggle, was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hinduextremist.

In 1956, African-American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.'s home was bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 1959, MS Hans Hedtoft, said to be the safest ship afloat and "unsinkable" like the RMS Titanic, struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sank, killing all 95 aboard. 1960, the African National Party was founded in Chad, through the merger of traditionalist parties. 1964, Ranger program: Ranger 6 was launched. Also 1964, in a bloodless coup, General Nguyễn Khánh overthrew General Dương Văn Minh's military junta in South Vietnam. 1965, some 1 million people attended former Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill's funeral, the biggest in the United Kingdom up to that point. 1968, Vietnam War: Tet Offensive launch by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies. 1969, The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert was broken up by the police.

In 1971, Carole King's Tapestry album was released to become the longest charting album by a female solo artist and sold 24 million copies worldwide. 1972, the Troubles: Bloody Sunday— British Paratroopers opened fire on and killed fourteen unarmed civil rights/anti-internment marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland. Also 1972, Pakistan withdrew from the Commonwealth of Nations. 1975, the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary was established as the first United States National Marine Sanctuary. 1979, a Varig 707-323C freighter, flown by the same commander as Flight 820, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean 30 minutes after taking off from Tokyo. 1982, Richard Skrenta wrote the first PC virus code, which was 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called "Elk Cloner". 1989, Closure of the American embassy in Kabul, Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. 1994, Péter Lékó became the youngest chess grandmaster. 1995, workers from the National Institutes of Health announce the success of clinical trials testing the first preventive treatment for sickle-cell disease. 2000, off the coast of Ivory Coast, Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, killing 169. 2003, the Kingdom of Belgium officially recognised same-sex marriages. 2013, Naro-1became the first carrier rocket launched by South Korea.
=== 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.
===
I am moving from Sydney to Melbourne and am desperate for funding. If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofundme.com/abeueaec
===
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 a free kindle version.

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 Mickey Tran, Matthew Mason-Cox and Jo Abebe. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
58 BC – Livia, Roman wife of Augustus (d. 29)
133 – Didius Julianus, Roman Emperor (d. 193)
1615 – Thomas Rolfe, American son of Pocahontas (d. 1675)
1661 – Charles Rollin, French historian and educator (d. 1741)
1912 – Francis Schaeffer, American theologian and pastor (d. 1984)
1915 – John Profumo, English politician (d. 2006)
1925 – Douglas Engelbart, American computer scientist, invented the computer mouse (d. 2013)
1930 – Gene Hackman, American actor and author
1937 – Vanessa Redgrave, English actress
1937 – Boris Spassky, Russian chess player
1941 – Dick Cheney, American politician, 46th Vice President of the United States
1951 – Phil Collins, English singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (Genesis, Brand X, and Flaming Youth)
1974 – Christian Bale, English actor
2005 – Prince Hashem bin Al Abdullah of Jordan
Menai Suspension Bridge
Don't lose your head. Build bridges. Love is grand, but love life. Learn to swim. Enjoy the new year. Let's party. 
Deaths
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SHARED SENSE OF SCHUMER

Tim Blair – Saturday, January 30, 2016 (3:44pm)

People of a comic bent will occasionally come up with similar jokes. A few lines of mine, for example, have been duplicated over the years. No theft was involved. It was all coincidental. And no doubt I’ve presented some gags that were previously conceived. These things happen.
But they seem to happen a great deal to popular US comedian Amy Schumer, currently facing several accusations of joke plagiarism. Jim Treacher reports: 
Schumer’s defenders insist it’s “parallel thinking.” In other words, two different comedians can come up with the exact same joke independently …
It’s just weird that she always seems to be the one who thinks of a joke after somebody else did. 
Read on, then hear Schumer’s defence – combined with numerous examples of “parallel thinking”. (This is Amy Schumer we’re talking about, so the clip is definitely not safe for work):



“That’s a lot of coincidences. A lot of parallel thinking. A lot of osmosis for just one person,” notes veteran comedy writer Jon Hotchkiss. For her part, Schumer has vowed to take a polygraph test to prove her innocence. Presumably she came up with that idea herself.
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BOOKSTORE BATTLE

Tim Blair – Saturday, January 30, 2016 (1:52pm)

Just a typical inner-Sydney encounter:

image

The first rule of anarchist bookstore fight club is there are no rules. 
===

SCEPTIC FAITH DISTURBED

Tim Blair – Saturday, January 30, 2016 (2:21am)

Richard Dawkins was once adored by feminists. These days, not so much: 
Controversial atheist Richard Dawkins has been dumped as the keynote speaker at an upcoming New York City sceptics conference after he praised a video equating feminism with radical Islamism. 
Here’s the video in question:

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No to racism. Winston Peters attacks the tribalising of New Zealand

Andrew Bolt January 30 2016 (11:08am)

image
Our first Prime Minister with Aboriginal ancestry will be someone who preaches the kind of anti-racism message that NZ First leader Winston Peters, a politician with Maori and Scottish ancestry, preached in New Zealand this week:

[I]n his state of the nation speech to Orewa Rotary - where former National leader Don Brash delivered his most controversial speech on so-called race-based laws - Peters also warned the current draft changes to Resource Management Act, with its concessions to the Maori Party, were leading down the path of separatism.
He told the audience of about 100 - with Brash among them - that [the ruling National party] had sold out…
“Under the new bill, every council in New Zealand will be required by law, to invite the local iwi to “discuss, agree and record ways in which tangata whenua” through iwi authorities, can participate in the formulation of policy plans, including water management plans,” he said…
“The proposed changes to the RMA are a signal flare to the entire country that the two parties are taking us down the track of separatism.  We are no longer one people.  We are moving towards two separate groups with separate rights.”
From Peters’ speech:
As we go about the different communities in this country, from North to South, East to West not a single New Zealander, non-Maori or Maori has come to us and said “Mr Peters, we need to give rights over water to Maori” or “Mr Peters, we are too unified as a country, we need more separatism”.
So why these changes? Well it gets back to what was said earlier. They are not listening to you....
Our strongly held belief is the Treaty should be a source of national pride and unity and not used to expand the separate rights of Maori or anyone else. Too often the Treaty [of Waitangi between Britain and Maori chiefs in 1840] now divides, polarises and isolates us.
The Treaty is not part of the New Zealand Constitution. It is not capable of supporting the extraction of so-called ‘principles’ for any legislative or government purpose. Ill-defined and abstract ‘principles’ are a recipe for legal and constitutional misunderstanding, dispute and undemocratic reconstruction.
It is now obvious to all, that which has long been obvious to New Zealand First and our supporters and that is, that there is only one party that stands for one law for all.
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Treating the West like children

Andrew Bolt January 30 2016 (8:48am)

How weak the West:

Examine the three ‘children’ in these pictures. One is of Ahmad Farid, who claimed he was 16 but appears at least 18 or more in the snap in which he is laughing as he’s given a fluffy toy polar bear at a refugee reception centre. 
image
Ahmad appears to have hair on his chin, and his powerful physique can be seen under his shirt.
The second is of Saad Alsaud, reported to have been the fastest 14-year-old in Sweden, dwarfing schoolboys and girls as they join him for a run…

image
The other shows a Somalian named Youssaf Khaliif Nuur who claims he is 15 though he is 6ft tall and, according to one unconfirmed source, shaves his beard and moustache.
He appeared in a Swedish court yesterday accused of stabbing a woman to death at a young migrants’ hostel on Monday…
[T]he word has spread across Europe about how easy it is to be accepted as a child migrant in Sweden. Now, the country has become overwhelmed with ‘unaccompanied minors’ in what critics suspect is a huge fraud… Child migrants, unlike adult arrivals, are fast-tracked through the asylum process, and receive immediate housing and cash hand-outs of £160 a month. Three-quarters win permission to settle, at which point they can bring in relatives from their home countries.
Under Swedish human rights rules, migrants are not physically vetted so their age cannot be accurately assessed (even by measuring the size of their wrists or whether they have wisdom teeth), because such procedures are deemed intrusive, unfair and unreliable.
The Swedish Prime Minister poses with “children” at a refugee centre, proving blindness is chronic in politicians of the Left:
image
“Today I visited a home for unaccompanied children. The youths told me about their daily life and their future aspirations as computer programers and CEOs. We talked alot about how important it is to have an education, government funded internship and a first job. An inspired group who has a lot to contribute!”
I suspect the same fraud has been perpetrated in Australia, as I noted six years ago:

WHAT sort of “children” are these really, who this week put seven other boat people in hospital?
Sunday’s all-in brawl between 40 boat people at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation should finally alert us to what seems yet another immigration rort.
These brawlers are reportedly all “unaccompanied minors” from Afghanistan - that is, they are allegedly aged under 18, and came on boats without their parents.
They are among more than 200 such unaccompanied Afghan “boys” in detention, or about one in six of all Afghans now detained, which seems an astonishingly high proportion.
In all, 645 “unaccompanied minors” have come by boat since the Labor Government softened the rules in 2008…
But already alarm bells should be ringing - even more so given that teachers working with these “boys” say they actually seem to be young adults.
One, who has asked for anonymity, says of the more than 30 students they’ve seen, only two seemed to be children, and neither was Afghan.
“All the rest look to be anything from their late teens to their mid twenties. All claim to be 15,” the teacher says…
Why men would call themselves children is not surprising when you see what privileges come with being deemed to be under 18.
First, as boys they qualify for better accommodation and a fast track out of detention, with the Federal Government committed to a “no children between barbed wire” policy…
But there is a far more pressing reason why it may suit an Afghan man to pretend to be a boy.
It’s this clause in the Immigration Department’s application pack for a Class XA protection visa, explaining that unaccompanied “children” who win refugee status have more right than single men to send for their families to join them: “If you have been separated from members of your immediate family and are successful in your visa application and you are granted a permanent subclass 866 Protection visa, you may be able to propose them for humanitarian entry to Australia ...
“With regard to a Humanitarian entry proposal an immediate family includes your partner, dependent children and your parents (if you are under 18 years of age)."…
And the same apparent fraud has happened elsewhere. 
===

A Labor tax brawl, where no one mentions cutting spending instead

Andrew Bolt January 30 2016 (8:01am)

It is the kind of brawl that sums up the depths to which modern Labor has sunk. On one side is a Labor leader who thinks we should hike taxes even higher to pay for Labor’s wild promises; on the other is a Labor leader who thinks Labor’s wild promises don’t actually need to be paid for:
Bill Shorten’s Labor does not have a “coherent” plan to fund its Gonski education plan without increasing the GST, South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill has declared, deepening the rift between the two ALP leaders.
In remarks that will inflame tensions with his federal colleagues, Mr Weatherill has continued to promote his plan to increase the GST from 10 per cent to 15 per cent.
Mr Weatherill will use a Council of Australian Governments meeting in March to lobby for his tax reform blueprint — a GST hike in return for fixed funding of schools and hospitals — to become the national model, in defiance of Labor Party policy.
Note that not a single Labor leader is arguing that taxes are actually too high, Labor’s promises are too expensive and that spending must be cut to match revenue.
But note also a frightening me-too:

Malcolm Turnbull said yesterday that a GST increase was being “actively considered” by the government…
UPDATE
The Turnbull Government is attacking Labor - rightly - as the party of tax-and-spend.  But pots and kettles:
Treasury secretary Fraser on Thursday night [warned] Australia is living beyond its means… On current trends the spending-to-GDP ratio will fall from 25.9 per cent to 25.3 per cent over four years — modest progress if it happens. But Fraser warned that “spending will not get below 25 per cent at any time over the next decade” and 25 per cent is a historically high level…
Interviewed by 3AW’s Neil Mitchell yesterday Turnbull struggled on the “return to surplus” issue saying it was “a long way off” but refused to concede a future 10 years of deficits.
Terry McCrann:
Now the government’s net debt is at $239bn (as of last June), headed for what is clearly an ‘‘optimistic’’ $347bn by June 2019 and on inexorably to half-a-trillion dollars at some date after that.
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Strange days indeed for a ridiculed prime minister

Piers Akerman – Friday, January 30, 2015 (1:05am)

TONY Abbott will deliver a make-or-break address at the National Press Club on Monday. It will be the last chance he has to begin any recovery from his self-inflicted wounds before the Liberal Party room meeting on February 9 and the beginning of the parliamentary year

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Strange days indeed for a ridiculed prime minister'
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CHOREOGRAPHERS AGAINST COAL

Tim Blair – Friday, January 30, 2015 (1:50pm)

This is fantastic: 
Local activist Tony Barry is joining forces with filmmaker John Rado, Byron Bay solicitor Adam van Kempen, and activist/script-writer Daryl White, to produce a 90-minute action-comedy-adventure Who Unlocked The Gate?
Set in the ‘Magical Great Northern Rivers of Australia’, Who Unlocked The Gate? is a zany adventure with a cast of humane and beautiful characters set to challenge what they see as ‘rapaciously greedy and short-sighted corporations and corrupt politicians’. 
Well, of course. But this is not your average beautiful-characters-versus-corrupt-politicians Northern Rivers potboiler: 
The film centres around Lara and John who are dancers who also happen to have Down Syndrome. They are in their final week of preparation for a big production with a famous company called Sprung! when trouble in the form of illegal CSG mining rears its head. 
It’s a little-known fact that illegal coal seam gas mining is a major threat to regional dance companies. And it gets better: 
The idea for the inclusion of a ‘one-legged, jaded activist’ arose simply because there was one close to hand … 
Which is more than we can say for his leg. You can bet I’ll be throwing some cash at this future award-winner.
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INSECT INFERNO AVERTED

Tim Blair – Friday, January 30, 2015 (12:29pm)

The Canberra Times last November: 
Wasps, algae and fires – how global warming will affect Canberra 
The Canberra Times today: 
Canberrans were getting their polar-fleece out in force this week, as the city shivered through its coolest run of weather in January in 15 years, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
The cool mornings, which saw temperatures plunge as low as 8 degrees this week, are not going anywhere and are likely to continue over the weekend. 
UPDATE. This is excellent – a complete list of people, places and things that will be “hardest hit” by climate change. (Via Turtle)
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SHUT UP AND GET OUT

Tim Blair – Friday, January 30, 2015 (11:41am)

Code Pink protesters – yes, they’re still around – invade a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, where they encounter an  unhappy John McCain: 
“Arrest Henry Kissinger for war crimes,” the protesters chanted as they held signs with the names of countries such as Chile, East Timor, and Cambodia. The stunt delayed the start of the hearing, which did not sit well with McCain, who took serious issue with Code Pink’s objections …
“You’re going to have to shut up or I’ll have you arrested,” he said to the protesters, receiving scattered applause from the room. “Get out of here, you low-life scum.” 
It isn’t quite “Sod off, swampy!”, but it does have a certain charm.
(Via Dan F.)
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Ebola contained, but are scare mongers ashamed?

Andrew Bolt January 30 2015 (8:26am)

Ebola contained:
The number of new Ebola cases reported in the three worst-hit countries fell to its lowest level since late June, the World Health Organization said Thursday. 
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone had a combined total of 99 new cases for the week ending January 25, the WHO said…
The response to the Ebola epidemic has now moved to a second phase, WHO said, “as the focus shifts from slowing transmission to ending the epidemic… There have been more than 22,000 reported confirmed, probable, and suspected cases since the outbreak began, with almost 8,800 known deaths.
Once again, while very serious, this is not quite the massive global catastrophe the UN warned of last October:
There is a ‘nightmare’ chance that the Ebola virus could become airborne if the epidemic is not brought under control fast enough, the chief of the UN’s Ebola mission has warned. 
Anthony Banbury, the Secretary General’s Special Representative, said that aid workers are racing against time to bring the epidemic under control, in case the Ebola virus mutates and becomes even harder to deal with…
The number of people infected with Ebola is doubling every 20 to 30 days, and the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention has forecast that there could be as many as 1.4m cases of Ebola by January, in the worst case scenario. More than 3,300 people have been killed by the disease this year. Mr Banbury, who has served in the UN since 1988, said that the epidemic was the worst disaster he had ever witnessed. 
And:
The UN has warned the world has just 60 days to get Ebola under control, or face an “unprecedented situation for which we don’t have a plan"… 
Speaking at the UN Security Council yesterday, the UN’s deputy Ebola co-ordinator Anthony Banbury ... said he was “deeply, deeply concerned” that all of the efforts so far won’t be enough to stop the outbreak…The World Health Organisation says West Africa could see up to 10,000 new Ebola cases a week within two months if the outbreak is not adequately contained.
This vast mismatch between a UN warning and the reality has happened before.  In 2009, for instance:
[A Gillard Government medical advisor], Prof Raina MacIntyre, last year swore [swine flu] could kill between 10,000 and 20,000 of us… 
Swine flu was hyped as a virus so deadly that cruise ships had to be quarantined, schools closed and families with the sniffles locked in their homes.
“All of humanity is under threat,” screamed the World Health Organisation, another United Nations bureaucracy (like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) that feeds on fear.
Britain’s National Institute of Medical Research helpfully put the likely death toll at up to 120 million.
The reality? Swine flu turned out to be one of the mildest forms of flu yet seen. We didn’t have 20,000 Australians die, but just 191, most of them people already desperately ill with other serious ailments.
To put that in context, about 3000 Australians die each year with normal flu. Worldwide, it was the same shamefaced story - not 120 million deaths, but 16,226, according to WHO’s own figures.
More:
“We could have a billion people dying worldwide,” warns the US National Centre for Disaster Preparedness… That claim is actually from the great bird flu scare of 2005, which in the end killed just 257 people. 
“Apocalypse bug!” cries CNN. “Killer virus,” howls a Newsweek cover… Those headlines are actually from the great Ebola scare of 1995, which actually killed just 800 people, all in Africa. 
In fact, ebola kills far fewer people than do flu, TB and diarrhea:
Ebola is particularly unlikely to cause a pandemic in the developed world, as the method of transmission requires close contact with infected people… [But] around 3-5 million people around the world will become severely ill due to the flu virus every year, resulting in 250,000-300,000 deaths...Diarrhea is the number one cause of death in children under 5 around the globe. It affects over 1.7 billion people each year, resulting in the deaths of 801,000 children alone.... Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infection that affects two billion people a year, resulting in 1.3 million deaths… 
Fear mongering seems to be the UN’s standard operating procedure, especially when it’s rattling the can. See also the UN’s shameless hyping of global warming. And there are always politicians such as Labor’s Tanya Plibersek who can see political advantage in such beat ups:
The Abbott government’s hopes of pulling the opposition into line over Ebola have evaporated, with Labor’s Tanya Plibersek stepping up the criticism of the current hands-off approach as short-sighted and wholly inadequate.... 
The Deputy Opposition Leader said it was curious that the government had seen fit to deploy Australian Federal Police to Ukraine even before any agreement on access to the crash site of MH17 ... but was effectively sitting on its hands regarding the Ebola crisis in West Africa....
Over the weekend, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned excessive international caution, noting that his proposed $US1 billion Ebola fund had so far attracted just $100,000 – and that was from Colombia…
Ms Plibersek said the disease had to be contained in West Africa. “This becomes a greater risk not just to the African continent, but to the world more generally – the best way that we can protect Australia and protect Australians is to help stop Ebola in West Africa.
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Plain woman dies

Andrew Bolt January 30 2015 (8:22am)

The Australian’s obituary to Colleen McCullough starts like this:
COLLEEN McCullough, Australia’s best selling author, was a charmer. Plain of feature, and certainly overweight, she was, nevertheless, a woman of wit and warmth.
Explain the use of the word “nevertheless”. 
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But what does Labor care about paying for its promises?

Andrew Bolt January 30 2015 (7:26am)

 Queensland Labor leader Anna­stacia Palaszczuk may not be quite on top of tax policy - including the tax critical to paying for her promises
The Opposition Leader said “pass’’ when asked on an FM radio quiz show what the current GST rate was. At the end of the interview she was told the rate, and replied: “I thought it was 10 per cent — they want to change it.” 
She blamed her lapse on the lack of a morning coffee.
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Gunman stops Dutch news broadcast

Andrew Bolt January 30 2015 (7:09am)

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No word yet of motive:
A gunman has been arrested in the studio of Dutch news broadcaster NOS after disrupting the main evening news, reportedly demanding airtime.
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Where are those Charlies now?

Andrew Bolt January 30 2015 (6:30am)

As I predicted just two weeks ago:
PROTESTERS around the West, horrified by the massacre in Paris, have held up pens and chanted “Je suis Charlie” — I am Charlie.

They lie. The Islamist terrorists are winning, and the coordinated attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and kosher shop will be just one more success. One more step to our gutless surrender.
The march already included a parade of hypocrites:
Reporters without Borders (RWB), a nonprofit that supports free speech, ... took issue with the presence of Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan and Gabonese President Ali Bongo. 

These nations scored particularly low on RWB’s annual press freedom index. Egypt is ranked 159th out of 180 countries in the index, Turkey 154th, Russia 148th, Algeria 121st, the United Arab Emirates 118th and Gabon 98th. 
Now:
Facebook has bowed to Turkish laws and censored images of the Prophet Mohammed on the heels of CEO Mark Zuckberg’s bold #JeSuisCharlie statement on free speech… 
“Facebook has always been a place where people across the world share their views and ideas. We follow the laws in each country, but we never let one country or group of people dictate what people can share across the world,” Zuckerberg posted on January 8, after an attack on a satirical magazine in Paris, Charlie Hebdo, killed 12.
“Yet as I reflect on yesterday’s attack and my own experience with extremism, this is what we all need to reject – a group of extremists trying to silence the voices and opinions of everyone else around the world.
“I won’t let that happen on Facebook....”
Zuckberg ended the post with “#JeSuisCharlie.” This week, according to the BBC, Facebook blocked an unspecified number of pages that “offended the Prophet Mohammed after receiving the order from a court in Ankara.” 
Tim Blair has another example:
An art installation showing high heels on Islamic prayer rugs was pulled from an exhibition near Paris after a Muslim group complained the work could provoke “uncontrollable” reactions, the artist said yesterday. 
“Silence”, which has already been shown in Paris, Berlin, New York and Madrid, was supposed to go on display in Clichy La Garenne, which is just north of the capital, in a woman-themed art show. But French-Algerian artist Zoulikha Bouabdellah decided to replace the work after a local Muslim group told Town Hall last week that “uncontrollable, irresponsible incidents could result” if the installation was shown there. 
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The hatred of the modern feminist

Andrew Bolt January 30 2015 (5:51am)

Fairfax columnist Clementine Ford is one of those self-indulgent modern moralists who confuse anger with kindness, hatred with compassion. The result is not merely an obvious hypocrisy but a disturbing barbarism.
Ford most notoriously printed and sold “F… Abbott” t-shirts that were unaccountably promoted by Fairfax.
Next she writes this violent fantasy:
As a shrieking feminist harpy, it’s been a long held wish of mine to sail away on an ocean of male tears and live on an island that recognises the inherent humanity of women. Women of all shapes, sizes, creeds, colours, bodies and backgrounds would live together in harmony and under a system of collaborative leadership. In the evenings, we’d come together to watch the sunset. Over cold cocktails, where the twizzle sticks are actually dehydrated penises, we’d marvel at how much better it is to live in a society that doesn’t see us as peripheral to the real experience of what it means to be human, and doesn’t expect us to meekly accept the reality of our own supposed weaknesses....
Free and easily accessible abortion clinics with exclusion zones out the front which reach all the way to the sun…
You won’t be allowed to start a group that protests against the objectification and vilification of men, but pages laughing at tiny penises and calling for ‘dirty sluts’ to be kicked in the balls will be celebrated as a form of democratic comedy… And the [men] who kept making a rowdy fuss about it or getting on our nerves? Well, we’d just kill them.
(Thanks to reader WaG311.) 
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THINK LOCALLY, FAIL GLOBALLY

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 30, 2014 (12:43pm)

The short and troubled life of the Global Mail is over after just two years: 
Entrepreneur Graeme Wood’s experiment with philanthropically funded journalism on the web has come to an abrupt end after he told the staff of his website, The Global Mail, that he was no longer going to fund the site …
Mr Wood, who is the media start-up’s non-executive chairman, had pledged $15 to $20 million but had not given all the money upfront.
However, in interviews, he said he had given a commitment to fund it for five years …
The 21 staff members, who include some of Australia’s most senior journalists and photographers, will be made redundant.
Mr Wood told the staff the website had failed to reach the target numbers, even though staff insisted he had refused to set audience targets and had often said that it was influence, not audiences that he was seeking. 
It ended up attracting neither. Wood, by the way, is also the primary backer of the Australian Guardian.
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YOUR READERS, JACK

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 30, 2014 (11:58am)

January 18. Canberra Times columnist Jack Waterford describes the Daily Telegraph as: 
… usually the favourite of the criminal classes. 
January 29. Canberra Times reporter Christopher Knaus reveals the remarkable extent of Canberra criminality: 
The ACT recorded the highest rate of physical and sexual assault victims in the country in 2011-12, newly published data shows …
The victimisation figures show the ACT recorded the highest rate of sexual assault victims per capita in the country. 
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EVERYBODY GETS A PRIZE

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 30, 2014 (11:56am)

Under these rules, what’s the point of playing? 
England’s next generation of budding rugby internationals have been told that their competitions must have no winners and that if they are losing a match, the teams will have to be changed …
The Rugby Football Union in conjunction with Surrey Rugby last week issued a new set of rules for tournaments for all age groups under-11 that left many parents and coaches initially thinking they were the victims of a spoof.
The key components are that tournaments will no longer have a winner, they will be round-robin only. Coaches must meet before each match to try to pick evenly matched teams and if any matches are proving too “one-sided” then coaches will be forced to “adjust” their teams at halftime to make them closer. Teams will no longer be streamed on ability but will play all matches with mixed ability groups. 
The only way to lose is by winning: 
Teams who fail to follow the new guidelines will see all their club’s age-group sides thrown out of the tournament and face further disciplinary action. 
(Via CL)
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AT LEAST THEY HAVE EACH OTHER

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 30, 2014 (11:40am)

These women are sad.
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24 of 26

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 30, 2014 (11:33am)

Another victory extends Australia’s lead in the great dual-hemisphere triple format cricket contest againstEngland, now entering its final stages. Current standings:
Australia: Thirteen wins, 8905 runs
England: Seven wins, 7993 runs
Three draws
One match abandoned
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And nor is the taxpayer-funded SBS biased….

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (12:52pm)

Right?
From an email to staff from SBS boss Michael Ebeid:
We’ve got a lot to be excited about in 2014 and I’m pleased to start the year with the announcement that SBS has secured the rights to broadcast the internationally renowned 36th annual Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras 2014…
The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is an iconic Australian cultural event, which celebrates diversity. In bringing this year’s event free-to-air to all Australians, we are delivering on our purpose to encourage all Australians to understand, appreciate and celebrate diversity and demonstrating that we can play a role in contributing to social cohesion by celebrating diversity in all its forms…
As part of our broadcast agreement, SBS will for the first time be entering a float in the Mardi Gras parade on the evening of Saturday March 1!  And YOU can be involved!… We are inviting all employees who wish to volunteer to take part in the parade, to represent our organisation as one that supports this community and as champions of diversity.  It’s a great chance to get involved in this iconic event. 
Is there any room in the SBS for journalists who, say, believe the cult of diversity now risks fraying a sense of community? Can any dare to oppose gay marriage or argue that the Mardi Gras unfairly denigrates churches and confirms negative sexual stereotypes of the gay debaucher?
Are we funding SBS journalists to report the facts or be social activists?
(Thanks to reader sbsinsider.) 
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Cyclones rarer today than for up to 1500 years. Global warming thanked

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (10:42am)

Global warming - dud predictions

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Remember warmists such as Al Gore claiming global warming would give us more and stronger cyclones?
In fact, a new paper published in Nature says cyclones haven’t been this rare in Australia for perhaps a1000 years. From the abstract:
Here we show, on the basis of a new tropical cyclone activity index (CAI), that the present low levels of storm activity on the mid west and northeast coasts of Australia are unprecedented over the past 550 to 1,500 years… The present cycle includes a sharp decrease in activity after 1960 in Western Australia. This is in contrast to the increasing frequency and destructiveness of Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclones since 1970 in the Atlantic Ocean and the western North Pacific Ocean. Other studies project a decrease in the frequency of tropical cyclones towards the end of the twenty-first century in the southwest Pacific, southern Indian and Australian regions. Our results, although based on a limited record, suggest that this may be occurring much earlier than expected.
But as always, it’s global warming - whether more cyclones or fewer: Professor Jonathan Nott in the taxpayer-funded Conversation:
We cannot be sure that this current decrease in cyclone activity is due to climate change - but it is mirroring the forecasts.
And note also that the study’s claim that at least there are more and stronger cyclones in the Atlantic seems disputed by the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low… Over periods of a century or more, evidence suggests slight decreases in the frequency of tropical cyclones making landfall in the North Atlantic and the South Pacific, once uncertainties in observing methods have been considered. Little evidence exists of any longer-term trend in other ocean basins… Several studies suggest an increase in intensity, but data sampling issues hamper these assessments…
The great global warming scare is blowing out.
(Thanks to readers TedM and Justin of Earlwood.) 
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Attacking whites doesn’t prove you are an anti-racist

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (9:49am)

Why is that the fashionable anti-racists sound racist themselves? Take Sydney Morning Heraldcolumnist Elizabeth Farrelly:
“Happy Invasion Day!” comes the offspring’s blithe farewell as she heads off to earn double time at some ghastly chemical-laden, transfatty, foreign-owned, far-from-organic, fast-food joint in the city. Some place symbolising our own colonisation by fat white powers… Yet Australia moves me in a way I was never moved by my beautiful native Aotearoa - often translated the Land of the Wrong White Crowd.
The answer to racism against blacks is not to denigrate whites. It is to treat each other as individuals - race and color irrelevant.
From the very first days of white settlement governors and political leaders believed in the ideal of one law for all - even if they did not always live up to through circumstances, misjudgment or plain moral weakness. Take the 1829 proclamation of Tasmanian Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur:

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Column - Labor too close to unions to control the crooked

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (9:02am)

Politics - federal

CFMEU union officials were this week accused of corruption, but the biggest political question is for Labor.
It was mad. After all, the watchdog under leader John Lloyd was brilliantly successful.
Rogue construction unions — including the giant CFMEU — were heavily fined for law-breaking and 39 cases of possible crime, including corruption, were referred to police.

But the CFMEU demanded Labor scrap its tormentor and the Gillard government delivered, replacing it with a much weaker inspectorate.
Lloyd warned then that “building unions are boasting that they are ‘back in control’ “. It’s hard not to see a link between Labor’s decision and an apparent worsening of corruption in the CFMEU.
So why did Labor do it?
(Read full article here.)
UPDATE
Paul Sheehan: 
The Labor Party, the union movement and Julia Gillard and her government have ownership of (Craig) Thomson and all the other cowboys in the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, the HSU and elsewhere who flourished under Labor patronage and protection… And think about this: it was Gillard who relied on Thomson’s survival for her government to survive. It was Gillard who became embroiled in slush funds at the AWU. It was Gillard who shut down the Australian Building and Construction Commission after pressure from the CFMEU. 
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Column - No to racism. No to Abbott’s change to our constitution

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (8:57am)

The politics of race

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I AM an indigenous Australian, like millions of other people here, black or white.
Take note, Tony Abbott. Think again, you new dividers, before we are on the path to apartheid with your change to our Constitution.
I was born here, I live here and I call no other country home. I am therefore indigenous to this land and have as much right as anyone to it.
What’s more, when I go before the courts I want to be judged as an individual. I do not want different rights according to my class, faith, ancestry, country of birth ... or “race”.

I’m sure most Australians feel the same. We are Australians together, equal under the law and equal in our right as citizens to be here. That’s how we’ve been for generations. It’s why we’ve welcomed lawful immigrants and damned racists.
But this Australia is now under severe threat. Most incredibly, that threat is now led by Prime Minister Abbott, a Liberal. Abbott says he wants a “national crusade” to change the Constitution to recognise Aborigines as the “first Australians”.
(Read full article here.) 
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No inquiry into union corruption, says the ACTU. It would help Tony Abbott

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (8:43am)

As far as I can understand from the disgraceful responses of ACTU president Ged Kearney, there should not be an inquiry into union corruption, extortion, thuggery and theft from union members because that might help Tony Abbott:
LEIGH SALES: You bring up the HSU. Given what we’ve witnessed in recent times regarding the HSU, now with these latest revelations about the CFMEU, plus there’s a Victorian police inquiry into the AWU, wouldn’t a Royal commission be useful? 
GED KEARNEY: Well, I think you have to see a Royal commission or a Tony Abbott Royal commission into the broader union movement for what it is. Now, Tony Abbott, we know, does not like unions. He would like to see unions weakened. He doesn’t like workers having any power and he has really spent the first part of his government or his period of government sidling up with big business and basically showing - we even heard Eric Abetz today encouraging businesses to gang up together against workers…
LEIGH SALES: But if we look at, say, the Royal commission that’s going on to the moment into child abuse, all of the organisations involved in that could make exactly the same argument you’ve made that most of the people involved in those organisations are good people and that there have been isolated cases or in some cases not so isolated cases that did require some sort of broader, independent, systemic inquiry. I’m just wondering what you’ve got to fear from that. GED KEARNEY: Mmm. I have nothing to fear from it and if indeed there is a Royal commission, I will take part in that without any hesitation of course. But we do know that the Abbott Government will use this as nothing but a political witch-hunt to weaken unions, his political enemies. This is a government absolutely bereft of any positive policies for workers. They have not demonstrated how they’re going to create jobs, they are not supporting manufacturing, they have actually taken away pay rises that unions have won for people in aged care and child care. All they seem to be doing is trying to denigrate unions and they will use a Royal commission to do nothing else than that.
I’m fascinated. How can anyone have confidence - after hearing that - that the ACTU would crack down hard to stop crooked union officials? If the standard for action is whether it would advantage Abbott rather than root out the corrupt, then isn’t the ACTU dangerously close to endorsing a cover-up?
Of course, Kearney says she doesn’t accept corruption and is taking action:
We have written to the CFMEU, to the leadership, asking for a meeting so that we can get a full report ... Well, as I said, we have written to the national leadership to, to Dave Noonan and Michael O’Connor, about these issues. We are looking to meet with the CFMEU and we will deal with these very seriously and we will watch the process.
Hmm. What would be most likely to get to the truth of union corruption, with allegations now engulfing three unions - a letter from Kearney or subpoenas from a royal commission?
UPDATE
Not completely unrelated:
[Labor MP Craig] Thomson on the Nine Network’s Weekend Today on May 12, 2012 [after being accused of using union money to pay for prostitutes]: 
LAURIE Oakes: But you see what this looks like. You’re like the man caught standing over the bodies, gun in one hand, bloody dagger in the other, saying it wasn’t me. Thomson: Well I don’t accept that that’s how it is and you can put that construction on, or attempt to put that construction on it, but you can only put that construction in it, Laurie, if you ignore all the other facts, don’t investigate the issue properly. And that’s where we come to the heart of the matter with Fair Work Australia, that they didn’t do their job. They’ve gone and spoken to political rivals. 
Oakes: They’ve gone through all these records, phone records, credit card records, hotel records. They actually gathered real evidence. And to believe your story you do have to conjure up this amazing theory of people following you around and ducking in and out, pinching your phone. Do you really expect the parliament is going to believe it?
Long time. Julia Gillard defending Thomson on August 16, 2011: 
I THINK he is doing a fine job representing the people of his constituency in this place, raising their concerns in this parliament, as is appropriate for a local member. I look forward to him continuing to do that job for a very long, long, long time to come.
The Australian yesterday: 
THE prostitute, who worked under the name “Misty” . . . said she did not realise until last year that the “Craig” she had serviced as an escort was actually Mr Thomson the former union boss and federal MP, and she was “shocked” to see he was now “lying” about not using the services of prostitutes.
Thomson has pleaded not guilty.
UPDATE
Kearney’s disgraceful response reminds me of the ACTU’s response to an earlier scandal - the one involving the AWU slush fund which Julia Gillard helped her then boyfriend, an AWU official, to create. (Gillard insists she did nothing wrong.)
Here is a letter sent in 1996 by then AWU state secretary Bob Smith to the union’s joint national secretary Steve Harrison, discussing moves by the other secretary, Ian Cambridge, to have a royal commission or judicial inquiry into the scandal. Note that a copy was also sent to Bill Shorten, then a junior official at the union:
Dear Steve, 
Further to our telephone discussion this morning, I propose the following resolution to be put to national executive next month.
As we have discussed, you know as well as I do that if Cambridge is not stopped we are all history. I have spoken to Bill Kelty and Jennie George, and they are supportive of this course of action. Both you and I can work the phones before the national executive meeting to make sure we have the numbers before this motion is put. I have already spoken to a number of national executive and they are very nervous to say the least. Please ring when you have considered my proposal.
It goes on to a preamble:
1. That on 23 January 1996, joint national secretary Ian Cambridge wrote to the federal minister ... calling for the establishment of a royal commission or judicial inquiry ...
It further states that Cambridge wrote that letter without approval of senior officers, and the motion is that:
3. This national executive determines that the membership is entitled to have this matter dealt with expeditiously. Consequently, national executive requests the ACTU to appoint an independent person ...
(a) the ... allegations raised by I. Cambridge
(b) to investigate all allegations relating to any branch, activity ... (c) to investigate any matters ... 
No judicial inquiry or royal commission was ever held. No charges were ever laid.  Cambridge was soon after appointed to the New South Wales Industrial Relations Court.  The AWU scandal remained buried and unresolved - until a few journalists defied the fury of the Gillard Government and started to dig ...
UPDATE
Dennis Shanahan:
THERE will be a royal commission into union corruption that will be broader and more powerful than the promised judicial inquiry into Australian Workers Union slush funds… 
With time on his side Tony Abbott is not rushing to announce a royal commission and rather is letting the widening allegations of union corruption marinate and “public outrage” grow. By next week, the Prime Minister will face increasingly shrill calls for a royal commission, including from unionists, and will be seen to have moved almost reluctantly towards a new, coercive inquiry.
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If Stalinism is “progressive”, then what do we call the ABC?

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (8:43am)

An extraordinary way for an ABC reporter to soft-soap Pete Seeger’s support for a bloody tyranny led by Joseph Stalin:
ASHLEY HALL: This is Pete Seeger performing at the Melbourne Town Hall in 1963. Originally recorded by his band the Weavers, If I Had a Hammer is one of his best known works. He wrote it with band mate Lee Hays in 1949 and the first time they performed it was at a testimonial dinner for the leaders of the Communist Party - just one example of Pete Seeger’s commitment to progressive politics.
A party preaching a totalitarian creed and pledging loyalty to Stalin’s Russia is an example of “progressive” politics?
On it goes:
ASHLEY HALL: His commitment to progressive politics saw him nearly landed in jail at one point. What happened there? 
ALLAN WINKLER: In the 1950s when Joseph McCarthy and the anti-communist crusade got under way, he was tarred as having been a member of the Communist Party.
Pardon? Seeger was not “tarred as having been a member of the Communist Party”. He actually was a member of that party, which was loyal to the Soviet Union at a time when Stalin was killing dissidents, deporting entire communities, jailing writers and imprisoning millions in gulags.

“Progressive” indeed.
Would I be wrong in considering this just one more pixel in a picture of ABC Leftism?
UPDATE
Another pixel. Of course the ABC isn’t biased, It’s just that ABC hosts such as Jonathan Green, who hung a John Howard pinata from his tree on election day in 2007, believes a conservative like me is actually on the ”stratospheric right”.
Yes, the ABC isn’t biased and only rotten conservatives would think so. 
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A former ABC boss proves Abbott right by verballing him

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (8:03am)

A former ABC boss grossly misrepresents Tony Abbott, demonstrating exactly the kind of bias which Abbott so rightly diagnosed in the ABC:
Former ABC managing director David Hill savaged Mr Abbott’s comments against the ABC’s perceived lack of patriotism. ‘’It’s an absurd proposition, laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous,’’ he said. 
‘’This is the first serious suggestion I know of, certainly in the last half a century, where a prime minister of the country is suggesting the Australian public be denied access to the truth, and the first time that a prime minister has seriously intimated that the ABC should censor and withhold information from the Australian public.’’
Of course, nowhere did Abbott say any such thing. In fact he said the very opposite:
Look, you know, if there’s credible evidence, the ABC, like all other news organisations, is entitled to report it...
Nor is Abbott railing at the ABC having reported “the truth”. He’s in fact protesting that the ABC treated as virtually proven a highly improbable and damaging claim against the Navy that an ABC staffer concedes her boss thought ”are likely to be untrue”.
Same with the Edward Snowden reports. Abbott did not deny the right of the ABC to report his damaging claims, but took issue with its vigorous promotion of something so dangerous to our national interest and even to Australian lives:
The ABC seemed to delight in broadcasting allegations by a traitor… The ABC didn’t just report what he said, they took the lead in advertising what he said, and that was a deep concern.
Moreover, the ABC has itself conceded that in such cases, it should indeed consider withholding information likely to damage Australia’s national interest for no real public benefit. Here is ABC director of news, Kate Torney, on the ABC’s reporting of the Snowden leaks:
We did not publish everything we had access to. We took advice from Australia’s intelligence authorities on the matter and redacted sensitive operational information that might have compromised national security. 
Hill, a former ABC managing director, has perfectly demonstrated what conservatives loathe about the ABC. He verballed a Liberal leader, and misrepresented his argument. He attacked a Liberal leader for allegedly arguing for something which the ABC has elsewhere admitted was actually standard procedure. He did not engage in a Liberal leader’s real argument, but smear him. And this from a former ABC boss.
Then there’s the ABC’s one-sidedness, again represented by Hill himself. Over the past two years we had a Labor government which threatened News Ltd for reporting material about Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s involvement in a union slush fund. Labor forced News Ltd to remove entire articles about the slush fund allegations from websites.  News Ltd had to face a hostile media inquiry created by Labor to investigate “bias” - including the reporting of warming sceptics. Labor then even proposed a state-supervised media watchdog. Meanwhile two journalists lost their jobs for their reporting the slush fund scandal, which is now the focus of an intensive police investigation. (Gillard insists she did nothing wrong.)
And where was David Hill during all this? Protesting about a prime minister trying to censor reporters? Or keeping comfortably silent? One rule for Liberals, another for Labor?
How often have Liberals seen this from ABC staff, again and again and again? As with Hill, so with the ABC he once led.

UPDATE
Readers below remind me that Hill also stood as a Labor candidate for the seat of Hughes.
UPDATE
As Hill verbals, so does ABC host Jon Faine, who this morning claimed that Abbott was asking the ABC to take “the government’s side”.
UPDATE
If the ABC refuses to honor its charter and provide balance in exchange for our taxes, then it deserves all the cuts it’s going to get - and many more besides:
THE ABC’s $223 million Australia Network Asian broadcasting service is likely to be scrapped in the May budget to save money and end the pursuit of “soft diplomacy” in the region through television… Cabinet ministers believe the ABC’s coverage of Australia in the region is overly negative and fails to promote the nation as originally intended in the Australia Network’s charter by using the “soft diplomacy” of Australian news and cultural programs.
More cuts: 
THE ABC’s status as one of a handful of government bodies spared the cost-cutting efficiency dividends applied across the commonwealth public sector could be reviewed by the Coalition… . A source within the Coalition suggested the government “may need to look at” the exemption that currently applies to the ongoing efficiency dividend of 2.25 per cent.
UPDATE
No, the ABC isn’t biased to the Left!  Leftist ABC hosts Virginia Trioli, Jonathon Green, Fran Kelly and Jon Faine have all challenged Tony Abbott’s claims today. Not a single ABC host has agreed with him.
And then Faine presents his Conversation Hour. He is joined by co-host Lyn Allison, the former Australian Democrats leader, and guests John Pilger and Aboriginal singer Deborah Cheetham.  The talk is of global warming, deceitful Tony Abbott, racist Australians, dispossessed Aborigines, wonderful ABC, yada yada. Cheetham suggests Abbott’s concerns about Aboriginal welfare is phony.  Pilger says John Howard’s intervention in Aboriginal communities was a fraud. A Paul Kelly song about stealing Aboriginal land is played. Pilger’s new film damning Australia is plugged repeatedly.  Everyone agrees with each other.
No, not biased at all, and only a wicked conservative would say so.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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If Labor is so anti-Semitic, we should have been warned before we voted

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (7:55am)

I like Barry Cohen, the former Labor minister, and enjoy his conversation. But I am not impressed when people don’t speak truth to power when it matters most.
Here is Cohen in The Age:
I’m sick of Labor leaders making all the right noises to Jewish audiences while an increasing number of backbenchers launch diatribes at Israel. When the likes of Labor MP Tanya Plibersek rise in the House of Representatives and call Ariel Sharon “a war criminal” and Israel a “rogue state”, or Opposition whip Janice Crosio makes the absurd claim that Israeli forces had destroyed Bethlehem, Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp, I want to hear more than stony silence from those in the Labor Party who say they support Israel. Some do. Most don’t… 
I told a Labor legend: “Anti-Semitism is now rampant in the Labor Party.” I expected a vigorous denial. His response confirmed my worst fear: “I know,” he said. For better or worse my character and life were shaped by the anti-Semitism I experienced as a boy and a young man. I was proud to belong to a party that fought all forms of prejudice. Not any longer.
Very strong words, but then comes this footnote:
A longer version of this article (which Barry Cohen asked not be published until after the federal election) appears in the Australian Jewish News.
(Via Sinclair Davidson at Catallaxy Files.) 
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Abbott cannot guarantee how judges will exploit his constitutional change

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (7:36am)

Tony Abbott reassures us that changing the constitution to recognise Aborigines as our “first Australians” will just be a symbolic change with no practical effect on the law:
This would complete our constitution rather than change it.
Professor James Allan doesn’t believe it:
In the past two decades our top judges have taken to interpreting our written Constitution in a way that is very hard to defend. Twenty years ago, the High Court discovered, or read in, or flat out made up (according to taste), an implied freedom of political communication. 
I count myself as one of the biggest free speech adherents in the country, and in substantive terms, I like this outcome. But as a matter of honestly interpreting the words of our Constitution, these cases strike me as so implausible as to be laughable.
And in a democracy where all of us count equally with an equal vote to choose people to make social policy, that is a very bad thing.
Or more recently, in a couple of voting rights cases, our High Court in my view issued two of the most interpretively implausible decisions I have read since coming to this country. In both instances they over-ruled the elected parliament and struck down statutes passed by the elected representatives of the people.
And they did so with virtually no textual warrant from our Constitution. They treated the words as some sort of jumping off point for seeing the Constitution as a “living tree” that can be pruned and altered over time, but of course only by them, seven unelected ex-lawyers.
Of course not everyone sees these cases the way I do. But notice that once you go down this road, it becomes something of an unknown how a change to our Constitution today will be treated by a future High Court in 15 or 20 years.
And I fear that this mooted change to our Constitution to insert some sort of recognition clause might be used by latter day judges to do all sorts of things unimaginable, or pooh-poohed, today. If you doubt that, ask yourself how many people back at the start of the 1900s thought that the phrase “directly chosen by the people” could be used by judges to dictate when the electoral rolls could close or that some of those in prison could vote when parliament said they could not. The answer is that none of them back then thought this. They thought they were leaving these issues to the parliament. So when people today assure you that the words they propose to insert will transfer no power to our unelected judges, there are some sensible grounds for being sceptical, at least until we see what explicit words emerge as the proposed amendment.
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$10,500 to be welcomed to Parliament

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (12:17am)

How does one become an “elder” of an Aboriginal tribe? Is there a vote?
Sometimes the rules seem less clear than you’d imagine:
PLANS for an Aboriginal welcoming ceremony at the opening of Parliament have become mired in controversy, after one elder was invited to speak on behalf of another tribal group. 
Senior Ngunnawal elders have accused the Federal Government of disrespect after it asked elder Matilda House — who now identifies herself as a Ngambri woman — to give a welcome on behalf of their people.
Compounding the snub is a broader dispute about which indigenous tribal group has true custody of the land. Aunty Agnes Shea, the oldest of the local Ngunnawal elders, said she was distressed by the move to ask a Ngambri person to speak for her people.
House’s credentials have since been accepted by Government.Still, while the official process of becoming an elder may sometimes be unclear to outsiders, what House charges as an elder has been revealed in one instance by the  Australian government tender website. It shows Matilda House’s fee as a Canberra elder for performing a welcome to country for the opening of Parliament:
image
The price seems high to me. I wonder who the other tenderers were in this “limited tender”. Could no one be found who’d do this job cheaper - or for the honor?
Still, House does seem to be a preferred supplier.  
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CFMEU scandal worsens

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (9:01pm)

It’s getting uglier and uglier for the CFMEU:
UNION boss John Setka is fighting whistleblower claims to investigators he took free supplies in return for keeping work sites trouble-free. 
The Herald Sun revealed at 5.20pm on Wednesday on heraldsun.com.au former roofing supplier and developer Andrew Zaf had told the State Government’s Construction Code Compliance Unit he supplied a senior CFMEU official with free home renovation materials as part of a deal to ensure they would not experience any delays.
Two hours later the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union state secretary admitted getting materials but claimed he paid trade price: “The allegations by Andrew Zaf ... are lies and I totally reject them.’’
Investigators have also been told CFMEU figures were gifted luxury vehicles…
Among further claims detailed to the State Government’s Construction Code Compliance Unit are:
CFMEU official Shaun Reardon is suspected of having ties with the Black Uhlans outlaw motorcycle gang…
A CONVICTED drug dealer with ties to slain gangster Lewis Moran retains a key role with the CFMEU…

CFMEU officials encouraged developers to donate up to $10,000 towards a 1999 visit to Australia by Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.
ACTU president Ged Kearney went on the ABC’s 7.30 tonight to respond to that first allegation. Her response was an utter disgrace - just AbbottAbbottAbbott and talking of writing a letter to the CFMEU. Lady, if you aren’t part of the solution you are part of the problem.  Fix this or quit.
UPDATE
Yet more allegations here.
Labor’s stalling on an inquiry looks shocking. 
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Global Mail dies

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (1:49pm)

Utterly predictable:
TWO-year-old news website The Global Mail is to shut down after reports its backer, entrepreneur Graeme Wood, withdrew funding from the venture this week. 
Wood committed up to $20 million over five years to the project, which launched under founding editor Monica Attard in February 2012… 
The dream vs the audience:
It promised quality journalism, free of ads and celebrity. 
The site began in February 2012 with 97,000 unique visitors but this audience halved in the second month of operation to 47,000, according to Nielsen figures.
True, the Global Mail was simply boring. Too much tired writing by ideological hacks.
But even so, it’s worth observing that the audience for things Left is very rarely as big as these self-appointed tribunes of the people imagine, which is why so many journalists of the Left support state-backed media.
Second, the Global Mail would have done a bit better had it not had competition from the state-funded ABC, providing the same ideological diet to the same readers. For free. 
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Suddenly there’s not a single person on the dole in Doomadgee. Right?

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (2:31pm)

Incredible:
SURF lifesavers had to be flown into the far north Queensland community of Doomadgee over the summer to keep the local pool open at a cost of $50,000. 
The Newman government yesterday confirmed it was forced to recruit the lifesavers after being unable to find anyone qualified or willing to undergo training to operate the school pool in the 1500-strong indigenous community on the Gulf of Carpentaria 
I assume, then, that the Abbott Government cut all unemployment benefits to able-bodied adults in the town:
The smoothed unemployment rate for Doomadgee Aboriginal Shire in the March quarter 2012 was 26.6%.
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ABC to be probed for waste

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (6:10pm)

The ABC to get its cuts:
The Abbott government has paved the way for budget cuts at the ABC by initiating an efficiency study at the ABC and SBS, which will report just before the May budget. 
A day after prime minister Tony Abbott attacked the ABC for being unpatriotic, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the review…
The study will be conducted by the department with the assistance of former Seven West Media finance chief Peter Lewis and will report in April. The terms of reference say the study will also identify “options to improve operational governance and management practices”. The study will not include transmission costs, changes to the charters, editorial policies, allowing advertising on the ABC or the quality of programs delivered.
So this is no real answer to the issues of concern - the ABC’s bias, in flagrant breach of its charter, and its dangerous size, which is crowding out commercial alternatives.
If there are cuts before the next election, they will seem in breach of this election eve vow from Abbott:
No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.  
But as Treasurer Joe Hockey made clear on Q&A during the election campaign:
JOE HOCKEY: I’d just say to you is there any waste in the ABC at all, Tony? 
TONY JONES: Say that again?
JOE HOCKEY: Is there any waste?
TONY JONES: If you are looking for waste, don’t look here....
JOE HOCKEY: Well, if there is waste, we will cut it. 
And after the election, in November, Malcolm Turnbull announced what he has today detailed:
The Government has no plans to either privatise or reduce funding to the ABC, however the Government has established a National Commission of Audit (NAOC) to review the scope, efficiency and functions of Government. The Commission has a broad remit to examine all areas of government expenditure, which would include all government funded agencies. The ABC, along with other government agencies, has been invited to make a submission to the NAOC. 
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How did the SPC Ardmona claim even make it to Cabinet?

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (7:36pm)

I am surprised that anyone thought SPC Ardmona deserved the $50 million handout it wanted from the Abbott Government and Victoria’s, given the facts the Prime Minister outlined today in explaining his refusal to pay:
This is a restructure – a necessary restructure – that Coca-Cola Amatil, as the owner of SPC Ardmona has been prepared to embark upon and I think it’s very important now that Coca-Cola complete the restructuring that they have embarked upon. 
It is very important that they complete the renegotiation of the enterprise bargaining agreement. The existing agreement contains conditions and provisions which are well in excess of the award: there are wet allowances, there are loadings, there are extensive provisions to cash out sick leave, there are extremely generous redundancy provisions well in excess of the award. This does need to be very extensively renegotiated if this restructure is to be completed ... I think it’s great that SPC Ardmona do have the support of such a strong parent business, because Coca-Cola Amatil is one of the most profitable companies in our country; it’s a $9 billion business by market capitalisation. In the last six months for which has been reported, their pre-tax profit was just a whisker under $300 million, just for six months. I think their after-tax profit was about $215 million. So, this is a very, very strong business and I think this is a business which well and truly has the resources to ensure that SPC Ardmona is in a strong position to restructure in a way which will enable this company, these jobs, to flourish into the future. 
Why should taxpayers money be taken from other parts of the economy to prop up one branch of a big and profitable company that pays generous salaries and has inefficient work practices? How many other companies would then be demanding handouts? 
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“Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”” - Mark 9:35
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

January 29: Morning

"The things which are not seen." - 2 Corinthians 4:18

In our Christian pilgrimage it is well, for the most part, to be looking forward. Forward lies the crown, and onward is the goal. Whether it be for hope, for joy, for consolation, or for the inspiring of our love, the future must, after all, be the grand object of the eye of faith. Looking into the future we see sin cast out, the body of sin and death destroyed, the soul made perfect, and fit to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. Looking further yet, the believer's enlightened eye can see death's river passed, the gloomy stream forded, and the hills of light attained on which standeth the celestial city; he seeth himself enter within the pearly gates, hailed as more than conqueror, crowned by the hand of Christ, embraced in the arms of Jesus, glorified with him, and made to sit together with him on his throne, even as he has overcome and has sat down with the Father on his throne. The thought of this future may well relieve the darkness of the past and the gloom of the present. The joys of heaven will surely compensate for the sorrows of earth. Hush, hush, my doubts! death is but a narrow stream, and thou shalt soon have forded it. Time, how short--eternity, how long! Death, how brief--immortality, how endless! Methinks I even now eat of Eshcol's clusters, and sip of the well which is within the gate. The road is so, so short! I shall soon be there.

 "When the world my heart is rending
With its heaviest storm of care,
My glad thoughts to heaven ascending,
Find a refuge from despair.
Faith's bright vision shall sustain me
Till life's pilgrimage is past;
Fears may vex and troubles pain me,
I shall reach my home at last."
Evening
"The dove came in to him in the evening." - Genesis 8:11
Blessed be the Lord for another day of mercy, even though I am now weary with its toils. Unto the preserver of men lift I my song of gratitude. The dove found no rest out of the ark, and therefore returned to it; and my soul has learned yet more fully than ever, this day, that there is no satisfaction to be found in earthly things--God alone can give rest to my spirit. As to my business, my possessions, my family, my attainments, these are all well enough in their way, but they cannot fulfil the desires of my immortal nature. "Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee." It was at the still hour, when the gates of the day were closing, that with weary wing the dove came back to the master: O Lord, enable me this evening thus to return to Jesus. She could not endure to spend a night hovering over the restless waste, nor can I bear to be even for another hour away from Jesus, the rest of my heart, the home of my spirit. She did not merely alight upon the roof of the ark, she "came in to him;" even so would my longing spirit look into the secret of the Lord, pierce to the interior of truth, enter into that which is within the veil, and reach to my Beloved in very deed. To Jesus must I come: short of the nearest and dearest intercourse with him my panting spirit cannot stay. Blessed Lord Jesus, be with me, reveal thyself, and abide with me all night, so that when I awake I may be still with thee. I note that the dove brought in her mouth an olive branch plucked off, the memorial of the past day, and a prophecy of the future. Have I no pleasing record to bring home? No pledge and earnest of lovingkindness yet to come? Yes, my Lord, I present thee my grateful acknowledgments for tender mercies which have been new every morning and fresh every evening; and now, I pray thee, put forth thy hand and take thy dove into thy bosom
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Today's reading: Exodus 21-22, Matthew 19 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Exodus 21-22

1 "These are the laws you are to set before them:
Hebrew Servants
2 "If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. 3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.
5 "But if the servant declares, 'I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,' 6 then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life....

Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 19

Divorce
1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"
4 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' 5 and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

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