Monday, February 01, 2016

Mon Feb 1st Todays News

Parents are not given an instruction manual for children neither are they taught about speaking to teachers of their child. We don't need manuals. But sometimes there are snafus. Accusation and blame don't further your cause, even if you are in the right. And individual attention is all very well, but schooling is the aim of school. One wants their child to be exposed to critical thinking and making valuable contributions. One does not want to teach your child lessons on authority and submission. They already know. Thing is, one wants parents to be able to hold their teachers to account. And teachers need feedback. Teachers don't need parents to be nice. But kind is good. But sometimes there is the teacher from hell and student welfare is compromised. And in almost any circumstance both the teacher and the parent are at fault in a bad situation. Experienced teachers can sometimes avoid clashes. When it comes to rude and arrogant parents who hate all teachers, 

 For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility 
=== from 2015 ===
Success has many fathers, they say. Whereas failure is lonely. Mr Abbott is being pilloried for the loss of conservative government to Queensland. Although it wasn't his failure, neither was it Campbell Newman's failure. The reason for the Queensland election result is related to many different things that fed off each other. Electoral fraud favouring the ALP, very low journalistic standards, corruption of the judiciary and a hostile Palmer United Party. The biggest factor being the partisan media narrative.

The Newman government turned Queensland around from being a murderous wreck where people died from state incompetence. The floods and the failure to insure against disaster is unforgivable, but only part of the story. A bloated bureaucracy which did not serve Queensland but parasitically sucked funds and obstructed transparency of process was something the ALP were proud of. A corrupted judiciary that could not see anything wrong with the gang rape of an aboriginal girl in detention, or the destruction of related evidence implicating the ALP at the highest levels. An industry driven Queensland became debt driven, when it normally would be capital creative, under the ALP. Empty symbolism of minority over promotion befouled cultural assets. Newman turned Queensland around, presenting a leaner, more efficient bureaucracy, making it easier for small business to grow. Newman brought down debt, making Queensland live within her means. Newman fought the culture wars against the judiciary, but failed regarding the Heiner issue. The Australian Federal Government could have investigated Heiner when the Senate almost had the numbers under Gillard of non ALP members willing, but a Family First senator prevented it, calling it a stunt in 2011. Newman failed over Heiner, but it was not his fault. Also both the ALP and LNP had asset sales, but Newman's sales were to be responsible. The sole policy difference broadcast by ALP in opposition is that they would not sell assets but use them as a form of taxation to pay for services and prevent industry making it more efficient. The ALP policy is bad, and for Queensland's sake, one hopes the ALP adopts the Newman policy there too.

There was a lot of smoke about ALP and LNP policy. ALP promised to save a barrier reef which is not endangered. LNP were going to sack more, according to ALP. The hatred of Palmer for Newman appears to have co-opted Alan Jones to attack Newman. Mr Abbott's award of a knighthood to Prince Philip was a good thing, but one would not have known it for the partisan reporting. Mr Abbott did not campaign in Queensland, but that did not stop laying the result on Mr Abbott by Laurie Oakes, who unprofessionally failed to relate a single campaign issue. Electoral fraud is not possible to scale because the processes are not followed to ensure it is fair. Former ALP treasurer Swan has criticised others for wanting a fair electoral process.

2GB radio host Glenn Wheeler has been badly hurt in a vehicle accident involving his motor scooter. The Islamic Death cult has beheaded another Japanese hostage who had been captured after flying to help another hostage killed last week. The scientist most responsible for "The Pill" has died. His research was done in the early fifties.

On this day in 484, King Huneric of the Vandals organised a meeting between Aryans and Catholics. He changed his mind a few weeks later and martyred a few Catholic bishops. Towards the end of his rule his nation fractured, and he died unmourned by all. In 1327, a teenaged Edward III was crowned king of England, but his mother Isabella and her lover, Roger, ruled for a time. In 1662, Chinese general Koxinga seized Taiwan after 9 months. In 1814, the Mayon Volcano in the Philippines erupted, killing about 1200. In 1835, Slavery was abandoned in Mauritius. In 1865, Lincoln signed the 13th amendment ending slavery. In 1876, a murder conviction forced the anti coal mining Molly Maguires to disband in Pennsylvania. In 1957, Felix Wankel's rotary engine first ran in Germany. In 1968, the filming of the execution of a terrorist brought world wide support to the terrorists in Vietnam. In 1978, Roman Polanski skipped bail after pleading guilty to rape of a 13 yo girl. Whoopie Goldberg, on The View, would later defend him, saying it wasn't 'rape rape.' In 1992, Warren Anderson, former CEO of Union Carbide was declared a fugitive under Indian law for failing to appear in the court case from the 1984 disaster. In 2002, Daniel Pearl was beheaded by his captors. In 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry killing all seven aboard. In 2004, Super Bowl, Janet Jackson's breast was exposed, completing MJ's work on children. 
From 2014
Mike Carlton is willing to stand up for the Navy and defend it's serving men and women from the awful charges levelled against it by the ABC. But not this time. When he did so, there was a different government. An Islamic UK politician tweets what he believes is a humorous picture. Terrorists disagree. UK's Channel 4 performs a baffling service while 'covering' the issue. Senator Sarah Hanson-Young displays similar idiocy of another Hanson, confusing the rank of a Lieutenant-General and Lieutenant as well as suggesting a tv show was real. In her defence, Lisa McCune was totally believable as a naval officer.

Where is Bill Shorten? Holidaying in Paris and London, or working for Australia in Jakarta, Beijing or Tokyo? The tax payer's money is on the holiday .. ABC says it isn't biased. But, protestations aside, it is, as is evidenced by numerous documented activities. Oakes is frothing at the mouth, and not reporting. David Marr has a problem, with many people he declared dead never having existed. An ABC torture story dies, unmourned. European Union remembers the holocaust without referring to Jews. An Anglican Bishop shows breathtaking hypocrisy in criticising conservatives. All stories listed below.
Historical perspective on this day
In 484, Vandal king Huneric organised a conference between Catholic and Arian bishops at Carthage. 1327, Teenaged Edward III was crowned King of England, but the country was ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer. 1329, king John of Bohemiacaptured Medvėgalis, an important fortress of the pagan Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and baptised 6,000 of its defenders 1411, the First Peace of Thorn was signed in Thorn, Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights (Prussia). 1662, the Chinese general Koxinga seized the island of Taiwan after a nine-month siege. 1713, the Kalabalik or Tumult in Bendery resulted from the Ottoman sultan's order that his unwelcome guest, King Charles XII of Sweden, be seized. 1793, French Revolutionary Wars: France declared war on the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. 1796, the capital of Upper Canada was moved from Newark to York.

In 1814, Mayon Volcano in the Philippines erupted, killing around 1,200 people, the most devastating eruption of the volcano. 1835, Slavery was abolished in Mauritius. 1861, American Civil War: Texas seceded from the United States. 1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 1876, a murder conviction effectively forced the violent Pennsylvanian Irish anti-owner coal miners, the "Molly Maguires", to disband. 1884, the first volume (A to Ant) of the Oxford English Dictionary was published. 1893, Thomas A. Edison finished construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey. 1895, Fountains Valley, Pretoria, the oldest nature reservein Africa, was proclaimed by President Paul Kruger. 1897, Shinhan Bank, the oldest bank in South Korea, opened in Seoul.

In 1908, King Carlos I of Portugal and his son, Prince Luis Filipe, were killed in Terreiro do Paco, Lisbon. 1918, Russia adopted the Gregorian Calendar. 1920, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police began operations. 1924, the United Kingdom recognised the USSR. 1942, World War II: Josef Terboven, Reichskommissar of German-occupied Norway, appointed Vidkun Quisling the Minister President of the National Government. Also 1942, World War II: U.S. Navy conducted Marshalls-Gilberts raids, the first offensive action by the United States against Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater. Also 1942, Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the United States government, began broadcasting with programs aimed at areas controlled by the Axis powers. 1946, Trygve Lie of Norway was picked to be the first United Nations Secretary General. Also 1946, the Parliament of Hungary abolished the monarchy after nine centuries, and proclaimed the Hungarian Republic. 1953, North Sea flood of 1953 (Dutch, Watersnoodramp, literally "flood disaster") was a major flood caused by a heavy storm, that occurred on the night of Saturday, 31 January 1953 and morning of Sunday, 1 February 1953. The floods struck the Netherlands, Belgium, England and Scotland. 1957, Felix Wankel's first working prototype (DKM 54) of the Wankel engine ran at the NSU research and development department Versuchsabteilung TX in Germany

In 1960, four black students staged the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. 1964, The Beatles have their first number one hit in the United States with "I Want to Hold Your Hand." 1965, the Hamilton River in Labrador, Canada was renamed the Churchill River in honour of Winston Churchill. 1968, Vietnam War: The execution of Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem by South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan was videotaped and photographed by Eddie Adams. This image helped build opposition to the Vietnam War. Also 1968, Canada's three military services, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force, were unified into the Canadian Forces. Also 1968, the New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad were merged to form Penn Central Transportation. 1972, Kuala Lumpur becomes a city by a royal charter granted by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia. 1974, a fire in the 25-story Joelma Building in Sao Paulo, Brazil killed 189 and injured 293. Also 1974, Kuala Lumpur was declared a Federal Territory. 1978, director Roman Polanski skipped bail and fled the United States to France after pleading guilty to charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl. 1979, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile.

In 1982, Senegal and the Gambia formed a loose confederation known as Senegambia. 1989, the Western Australian towns of Kalgoorlie and Boulder amalgamated to form the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. 1990, Humanitas publishing house was founded in Bucharest, shortly after the Romanian Revolution, by the philosopher Gabriel Liiceanu. 1991, a runway collision between USAir Flight 1493 and SkyWest Flight 5569 at Los Angeles International Airportresulted in the deaths of 34 people, and injuries to 30 others. 1992, the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal court declared Warren Anderson, ex-CEO of Union Carbide, a fugitive under Indian law for failing to appear in the Bhopal Disaster case. 1993, Gary Bettmanbecame the NHL's first commissioner 1994, Punk rock band Green Day released their album Dookie, which would eventually sell over 20 million copies worldwide. 1996, the Communications Decency Act was passed by the U.S. Congress. 1998, rear Admiral Lillian E. Fishburne became the first female African American to be promoted to rear admiral.

In 2001, Putrajaya, the Malaysian administrative city, was declared a Federal Territory. 2002, Daniel Pearl, American journalist and South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, kidnapped January 23, 2002, was beheaded and mutilated by his captors. 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-107 disintegrated during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard. 2004, 251 people were trampled to death and 244 injured in a stampede at the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Also 2004, Janet Jackson's breast was exposed during the half-time show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, resulting in US broadcasters adopting a stronger adherence to Federal Communications Commissioncensorship guidelines. 2005, King Gyanendra of Nepal carried out a coup d'état to capture the democracy, becoming Chairman of the Councils of ministers. 2013, The Shard, the tallest building in the European Union, was opened to the public.
=== 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 Richard Heagren-Gibbs. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
    February 1: Feast day of St. Brigit of Kildare (Western Christianity); Black History Month begins in Canada and the United States; LGBT History Month begins in the United Kingdom
    West facade of the United States Supreme Court Building
    Congrats on saving the defenders. The US supreme court first convened in the merchant exchange building. You know your words. You have integrity. Practice air safety. Let's party. 
    Deaths
    ===

    TURNBULL’S PRIMARY CHARACTERISTICS COMBINED

    Tim Blair – Monday, February 01, 2016 (4:09pm)

    Despite the obvious Turnbull aspects, these chicken waffles must happen.
    ===

    NIGERIAN APOCALYPSE

    Tim Blair – Monday, February 01, 2016 (4:07pm)

    Bored with merely enslaving children, Boko Haram has returned to slaughtering them: 
    A survivor hidden in a tree says he watched Boko Haram extremists firebomb huts and heard the screams of children burning to death, among 86 people officials say died in the latest attack by Nigeria’s homegrown Islamic extremists.
    Scores of charred corpses and bodies with bullet wounds littered the streets from Saturday night’s attack on Dalori village and two nearby camps housing 25,000 refugees, according to survivors and soldiers at the scene just 5 kilometers from Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram and the biggest city in Nigeria’s northeast.
    The shooting, burning and explosions from three suicide bombers continued for nearly four hours in the unprotected area, survivor Alamin Bakura said, weeping on a telephone call to The Associated Press. He said several of his family members were killed or wounded.
    The violence continued as three female suicide bombers blew up among people who managed to flee to neighboring Gamori village, killing many people … 
    Meanwhile, in Austria: 
    A 17-year-old asylum seeker who raped a 72-year-old pensioner has been jailed for 20 months …
    The pensioner, whose daughter Sylvia was a helper working with refugees, had been walking her dog alongside the canal in Traiskirchen, where Austria’s largest refugee centre is located.
    She was attacked last autumn, but police admitted it was not reported at the time to local media because of the sensitivity of the subject. 
    Via Andrew Bolt, now returned to work.
    ===

    SUPERVAN SOLD

    Tim Blair – Monday, February 01, 2016 (2:37pm)

    This site’s favourite solar-powered people mover recently turned up for auction in Arizona: 
    Passengers enter the SuperVan through the hinged windshield, and once inside they can party in style thanks to the roof-mounted disco ball.

    image

    However, occupants can’t get too wild because the massive side windows don’t leave much room for privacy. Barris built the van around a 1966 Dodge Tradesman A-100 with a three-speed manual gearbox and a 318-cubic-inch V8. 
    Despite not actually being solar-powered, the great van fetched a handy $US62,700.
    (Via John H.)
    ===

    EUROPE DODGED

    Tim Blair – Monday, February 01, 2016 (4:57am)

    Of all the recent prime ministers betrayed by their own parties, Tony Abbott was the least deserving. Abbott at least achieved a few things, some significant indeed.
    By comparison, the greatest accomplishments of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd were, respectively, getting rid of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
    The importance of Abbott’s most spectacular accomplishment is only now becoming clear. Leading up to and during the 2013 election campaign, Abbott repeatedly vowed to “stop the boats”.
    This was widely considered impossible. “Abbott plan to stop boats ‘won’t work’,” declared one Fairfax article in June 2013: “The flood of asylum-seeker boats travelling to Australia will continue under a Coalition government, according to a former senior official in the Immigration Department who says Tony Abbott’s plan to turn back boats and reintroduce temporary protection visas will not stop the dangerous journeys.”
    Doubts remained even after the Coalition was in office and Abbott, with then-immigration minister Scott Morrison, put in place their boat-stopping policies. “Stopping the boats is not going to plan,” announced the ABC’s Drum website in September 2013, above an opinion piece by veteran political correspondent Mungo MacCallum, who was of the view that “the best Abbott can hope for” was a continuing “slowdown in arrivals”.
    Then the boats stopped. And they’ve remained stopped ever since.
    It was an impressive enough achievement at the time, but consider now just how different Australia might be if the people-smuggling trade to Australia had not been successfully ended. Consider what may have occurred if maritime channels to Australia were still open when the latest Middle Eastern exodus got underway.
    (Continue reading Europe Dodged. And, if you’re in Europe, please consider Australia for your winter holiday destination.)
    ===

    HE’S BEEN IN THEIR PLACE – NOW HE’S A BELIEVER

    Tim Blair – Monday, February 01, 2016 (4:46am)

    This fellow seems up to speed on current extremist Muslim sentiment: 
    Mehmet Biber, 23, has returned from the Middle East and is living in western Sydney with his wife and one-year-old daughter.
    He is one of six men who allegedly left Australia to join the terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria in 2013. The al-Nusra front was later usurped by Islamic State …
    On one of several Facebook profiles he has created then shut down in recent months, Mr Biber warned of more attacks like the shooting outside Parramatta last year by schoolboy Farhad Jabar.
    “Let the general public know that home ground attacks such as the likes of the one we seen at parramatta will start to become more frequent as the australian government sticks its hands deeper into the blood of the muslims via joint attacks on muslims overseas,” he posted …
    Mr Biber has written lengthy posts blaming the Australian government “for breeding homegrown extremism” and espousing the importance of hijrah – an Islamic concept of migration that has been hijacked by Islamic State to refer to the highly-meritorious journey to the group’s new “caliphate”.
    He said it is the most “undermined, feared, revered and belittled topic of our community leaders” and it was an obligation for Muslims in “lands of disbelief”. 
    According to his own account, Biber returned to the “land of disbelief” after just a few weeks in the “land of the believers”. Perhaps he needs to visit the land of disappearance.
    ===

    ANY PORT FOR A STORM

    Tim Blair – Monday, February 01, 2016 (4:00am)

    Port Stephens is a beautiful place. Among the area’s many qualities is an unknown individual with a keen sense of patriotism and a wickedly subversive sense of humour.
    This is evident following last week’s Australia Day citizenship ceremony in Port Stephens, where new members of the Port Stephens community received “Welcome to Australia” packages. Among the various items within was a stubby holder featuring the Australian flag and a female silhouette.
    Naturally, there was outrage.
    The Fairfax press seethed over what it described as “a lurid naked lady silhouette straight from the back of a 1970s panel van”, although how they knew the outline was naked is not clear. People see what they want to see, I suppose.
    It so happened that NSW Labor’s shadow minister for the prevention of domestic violence and sexual assault, Kate Washington, had been in attendance on that fateful day. She didn’t notice the stubby holders of shame at the time, but was subsequently alerted to them when informed by a recipient.
    Perhaps that person only wanted instructions, or maybe a refill, but Washington took matters further.
    “It’s exactly this kind of depiction of women that undermines what we are trying to do to reduce domestic violence and improve the way women are treated,” Washington shrieked. “I am mortified that I could be associated in any way with material like that and I’m horrified by the possibility the young girls I met who were part of a family becoming Australian citizens could have received one.”
    Whatever you say, Supreme Grand Mufti Ms Washington.
    (Continue reading Any Port.)
    ===

    ADELAIDE NOSE

    Tim Blair – Monday, February 01, 2016 (3:31am)

    What is it about Adelaide and corpses?
    ===

    CROWDS PLOWED

    Tim Blair – Monday, February 01, 2016 (3:22am)

    A couple of years ago I wrote a column mentioning that cricket umpires were considering wearing helmets. They were half-joking then, but this summer we’ve seen several umpires using protective headwear.
    Wearing a helmet wouldn’t have done much for umpire Richard Kettleborough, who was forced to quit a recent one-day international after his leg stopped a hard-hit Aaron Finch straight drive. Kettleborough required hospital treatment for his injury.
    Former Australian Test star Dean Jones believes cricket crowds are in similar danger. Modern cricket bats are so powerful that even the furthest spectator isn’t safe. “There will come a time, I’m not kidding, when someone is definitely going to get badly hurt,” Jones said last week.
    It’s already happened. Jones was at a T20 match in India when West Indies hero Chris Gayle belted two sixes that smashed spectators in the face. One male victim suffered a broken cheekbone and a girl went to hospital with a broken nose and eye socket.
    Some fans are unaware of just how hard and heavy a cricket ball is. I keep one at home to alarm American visitors, who are used to slightly softer and more yielding baseballs. It’s fun to see their reactions when the cricket ball is dropped on to a wooden table.
    There are two ways we can go from here. One would be to ring cricket grounds with protective nets. The other, more preferable response would be to legislate against these megabats, which are distorting the game – and spectator facial structures.
    ===

    Keep this sacred site for the true victims

    Piers Akerman – Saturday, January 31, 2015 (11:33pm)

    DESPITE heartfelt pleas for mercy, it is likely that Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, the Australian kingpins in a major heroin smuggling operation, will be executed by Indonesian authorities in the near future.

    Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Keep this sacred site for the true victims'
    ===

    Bishop’s mad plan to make Labor’s worst PM king of the world

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2016 (2:25pm)


    It’s ludicrous for Julie Bishop to even consider backing Kevin Rudd’s bid to become UN secretary general, and Malcolm Turnbull should have more sense or guts than to go along with this frolic:
    Sharp tensions between Tony Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop were exposed yesterday with the revelation of a rock-solid pledge in writing by Mr Abbott to back former New Zealand leader Helen Clark as the next UN secretar­y-general.
    The Australian has obtained the late-2014 exchange of letters between the then Australian prime minister and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key in which Mr Abbott commits to a joint strategy between the two countries to try to make Ms Clark the successor to Ban Ki-moon.
    Ms Bishop signalled last week that the Turnbull government felt its options were open to support former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd if he nominated for the post and that no firm commitment to any other candidate had been made by the government.
    Yet Mr Abbott had made such commitments and the assurances offered by Ms Bishop were wrong.
    Bishop, a chronic leaker, seems to have once again briefed against Abbott for this latest report. But why is she drawing attention to her role in arguing for something so clearly wrong?
    After all, as I argued last week, there is no way the Turnbull Government should be trying to make Rudd king of the world:

    How on earth could a Liberal Government support a man with such a record, such a character and such a philosophy?
    ===

    How Djokovic learned not to care that the crowd was against him

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2016 (1:35pm)


    Matthew Syed on Novak Djokovic’s battle with Roger Federer’s secret weapon - the love of the crowd:
    Perhaps the key psychological turning point in Djokovic’s career occurred in the semi-final against Federer at Flushing Meadows in 2011. To that point, the Serb was vexed by the partisanship of audiences: the hero worship, the adoration, the throat-grabbing intensity of the cheers whenever his opponent hit a winner. His face betrayed a deep, almost existential confusion when his own successes were greeted with near-silence. In those crucial moments at the end of the fifth set, something in Djokovic seemed to break. Federer was being carried on a wave of exuberance, taking the eighth game to move into a 5-3 lead. The Swiss would serve for the match and during the changeover the crowd kept up their chanting for Roger, Roger. Djokovic turned to his team, gestured about the unfairness of it all, and then walked to the other end of the court as if it were the gallows.
    But at 40-15, with Federer holding two match points, Djokovic went for broke. It was as if in that unforgettable forehand winner, which grazed the line before Federer had finished his follow-through, he channelled his anger, his confusion and, perhaps also, his hope that one day he might be loved. Even at the time, it seemed more like a cri de coeur than a cross-court stroke.

    Djokovic responded by smiling and waving, as if daring the audience to applaud. They got the point, enjoyed the irony, and people began to cheer, even stand. As they did so, the chemistry of the stadium changed. Djokovic won the next point, took the game and set, then raced into a lead in the fifth and, although the crowd remained on the Swiss’s side, it was as if he had been inoculated against their effects.
    “That was a huge turning point,” he told me in an interview. “Sometimes there are moments that change everything. I was angry at the time. I had just dropped my serve. I was angry with the crowd, too. Roger is a legend of the sport . . . because of his success and because of who he is on and off the court, he is often the crowd favourite. That is difficult for me. I won’t lie.
    “But you cannot blame the crowd. You have to earn their support. As that final set progressed, the crowd was getting louder and louder. But something inside me accepted it. I lost the point at 30-15 to go match point down and said to myself, ‘OK, now I am going to give it all I have. There is no point in being angry. No more.’ These are the moments when you have to pull something from your imagination. Under the circumstances, it is the best shot I have played in my career.” 
    A clearer view here.
    Federer showed a lack of grace at the time:
    There followed a string of excuses and justifications which not only were barely sustainable given the evidence but seriously disrespected the winner.
    Asked about the quite remarkable forehand winner Djokovic hit to save match point, Federer reckoned the Serb did not look at that point like someone “who believes much anymore in winning. To lose against someone like that, it’s very disappointing, because you feel like he was mentally out of it already. Just gets the lucky shot at the end, and off you go.”
    Djokovic was honest enough to admit the shot was a gamble – but Federer was reluctant to give him credit even for that courage in a crisis, preferring to regard it as desperate.
    “Confidence? Are you kidding me?” he said when it was put to him the cross-court forehand off his first serve – described by John McEnroe as “one of the all-time great shots” – was either a function of luck or confidence.

    “I mean, please. Some players grow up and play like that – being down 5-2 in the third, and they all just start slapping shots. I never played that way. I believe hard work’s going to pay off, because early on maybe I didn’t always work at my hardest. For me, this is very hard to understand. How can you play a shot like that on match point? Maybe he’s been doing it for 20 years, so for him it was very normal. You’ve got to ask him.”
    ===

    Is bringing them here really the cheapest and safest way to help refugees?

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2016 (12:51pm)


    It’s one of the sweet fibs of the Left - that refugees make us richer.
    Here, for instance, is the ABC last year:
    As the Government announces it will take 12,000 additional refugees, it’s worth nothing that the data shows a generous intake is likely to be the most economically sound immigration policy of all, writes Tim Dunlop.
    University of Sydney sociologist Stephen Castles:
    It is the people with the greatest courage, endurance and human resources who make it. Australia could benefit from these qualities – as we have done in the past: refugees have made major contributions to our economy and society since 1945.
    Labor’s then Immigration Minister, Chris Evans:
    “We always talk about refugees as if they are a cost,” Senator Evans said at a fringe event to the ALP National Conference. “Refugees are generally young, we are an ageing population ... we should see refugees for their capacity as well as their cost.
    “They ... have proved to be great contributors to Australian society.”
    Really?  If we were still bringing in, say, educated Jewish refugees from Europe those platitudes would be true.
    But we aren’t and the platitudes are false, as I already noted six years ago:
    NOW even the Gillard Government knows the truth about its bungled refugee program.
    The people it’s bringing in are costing us billions, with 85 per cent of refugees on Centrelink benefits in their first five years here.
    Worse, it’s the “refugees” who push in—the boat people we don’t pick, and who exploit the Government’s weak laws—who cost us most.
    The vast majority of boat people say they are from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Sri Lanka, and these are exactly the refugees most likely to be unemployed and living on welfare, even after five years.
    Just 9 per cent of Afghan adults have a job and 94 per cent receive benefits, which means every boatload of Afghans landing here is a boatload almost entirely of people we’ll be paying handouts to for years…
    It’s the same story among Iranian adults, just 12 per cent of whom work.
    And now more confirmation that whatever the moral case for bringing in refugees, it is an expensive act of charity:
    The Turnbull government is ­considering boosting English, education and employment ser­vices for refugees amid new ­research showing only 7 per cent of a group of 2013 arrivals have jobs and budget estimates that welfare ­payments for new ­arrivals will ­exceed $100 million a year…
    The Australian Institute of Family Studies study of a group of 2400 arrivals granted visas ­between May and December 2013, released last week, found 7 per cent of migrants reported being ­employed and 70 per cent of new arrivals were either working or studying, mainly to gain English language skills.
    About 40 per cent were having difficulty finding housing and 35 per cent of men and 45 per cent of women were at moderate or high risk of psychological distress, compared to 7 per cent of men and 11 per cent of women in the general population.
    The report showed that ­humanitarian arrivals struggled with poor English ability and low skills.
    It showed nearly three quarters of humanitarian arrivals had ­either no or a poor understanding of English, while 78 per cent could not speak English on arrival.
    This counting of the costs does not include the cost of the cultural clashes we have imported, forcing us to take expensive anti-terrorism measures, for instance. Note that the last three terror attacks on our soil were all conducted by refugees. Three Australians are now dead, and also don’t figure in the costs in today’s report.
    Now to the moral issue this raises.
    How can we best spend that $100 million a year to give the most help to the most refugees? Is it by bringing in 14,000 refugees a year and spending it on welfare for the workless, or by spending $1000 a person on 100,000 people in refugee camps overseas while they wait to go back home?
    And another question: are we creating a new underclass here that will nurse resentments about our “racism” in keeping them in “disadvantage”? 
    ===

    How could Palmer approve such a handout from his failing company?

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2016 (12:47pm)


    This is a bit hot:
    Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel, now under voluntary administration, was the single largest donor to the Palmer United Party last financial year, pouring $5.95 million into the party’s coffers.
    Any chance of getting the money back from that joke of a party to guarantee workers’ entitlements? And is it really possible that such a huge donation was made without Palmer or his Queensland Nickel managers knowing the company was in deep financial trouble and could not actually afford it? 
    ===

    “Refugees” and the conspiracy of silence

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2016 (6:54am)


    Politicians and police hid the truth about asylum seekers in Germany. They’ve hidden it in Sweden. They’ve hidden it in Australia.  Politicians are lying about it at the top levels of Europe’s leadership.
    Now from Austria, this news:
    A 17-year-old asylum seeker who raped a 72-year-old pensioner has been jailed for 20 months.
    Details of the case were revealed this week when the now 18-year-old from Afghanistan appeared in court.
    At the same time, it was revealed that after serving his sentence he will not be deported as the sentence is not more than three years, according to a report in the Kurier newspaper.
    The pensioner, whose daughter Sylvia was a helper working with refugees, had been walking her dog alongside the canal in Traiskirchen, where Austria’s largest refugee centre is located.
    She was attacked last autumn, but police admitted it was not reported at the time to local media because of the sensitivity of the subject.
    (Thanks to reader Christine.) 
    ===

    Teaching immigrants to despise Australia will turn us into a nation of tribes

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2016 (6:50am)


    THE noise at the MCG on Friday was incredible. India was smashing Australia in the Twenty20 game and many of the 60,000 fans were loving it at high volume.
    You see, even though the game was at Australia’s most sacred sports ground, perhaps half the spectators were backing India.
    “The substantial, and louder, Indian part of the crowd ended up most intoxicated by communal spirit,” gurgled The Age, which, like most organs of our cultural elite, praises every sign of ethnic pride that isn’t white or Australian.
    And, sure, those fans were mostly Indian-born, so who’s surprised when they cheer Indian cricketers?
    Don’t I do much the same, and wear orange when Holland, my parents’ homeland, plays soccer?
    No big deal. It’s just sport, and not a real war.

    But I’ll give you another example of the rapid tribalising of Australia that’s less funny — an extreme example that, indeed, involves a war.
    (Read full article here.) 
    ===

    The hounding out of Abbott. Why does the Liberal Left fear him?

    Andrew Bolt January 31 2016 (11:33pm)


    The Liberal Left and many in the media are strangely desperate to drive Tony Abbott out of politics.
    Here’s the latest urger, former Minister Amanda Vanstone:
    People might say that “You have had a fair go; now you should be fair and go” sounds harsh. But in this case I think it would be the best and fairest thing for Abbott. And for the party that gave him such tremendous opportunities.
    A question for Vanstone: did you likewise demand Malcolm Turnbull quit politics when he lost the Liberal leadership in 2009?
    Here’s one reason a Liberal of the Left should actually be glad Abbott stays: his presence will make keep many journalists right behind Turnbull. They hate Abbott so much, and were so complicit in his destruction, that they will tend to see the real contest as between Abbott and their man Turnbull. If Abbott goes, the contest becomes more a traditional Labor vs Liberal one, with the media always sympathetic to the Left.
    But bottom line: it says something very sad about the Liberals under Turnbull and Bishop that conservatives like Abbott are so unwelcome. The party is being hijacked and the public increasingly denied a genuine argument or choice on some big issues. Just see how both sides now don’t think slashing spending is good, despite the warnings of the Treasury Secretary that it’s dangerously high. See how both agree global warming is a potential disaster. How both Labor and Liberal leaders agree on a republic, same-sex marriage, Aboriginal recognition in the Constitution and a bloated ABC.
    UPDATE
    Top American politicians seem to think Tony Abbott is worth talking to, even if the Left of his own party does not, as Simon Benson reports:
    TONY Abbott has met US President Barack Obama privately in Washington in a move that is bound to further frustrate Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
    The former PM also held secret talks with Mr Obama’s spy boss and was urged by the Americans to maintain a role as a global voice on critical issues such as terrorism....
    He also met the elder statesman of US foreign affairs, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, as well as the president of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass and former US Republican presidential candidate John McCain…
    Mr Abbott also accepted lunch invitations from the former president of the World Bank James Wolfensohn and the head of investment firm Morgan Stanley James Gorman
    Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:
    Considering how much Peter Hartcher et al had to say about Abbott’s apparent failure to gain an audience with the Queen, might they now comment on the stunning level of access Abbott’s received in the US?
    ===

    Desperate defence of Credlin is humiliating

    Miranda Devine – Saturday, January 31, 2015 (11:36pm)

    IN a funny way, the media overreaction to the Prime Minister’s knighthood gaffe has given him breathing space. 

    Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Desperate defence of Credlin is humiliating'
    ===

    Islamic State beheads Japanese journalist

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2015 (9:07am)

    Yet another act of utter evil, and yet another journalist is the victim:
    THE Islamic State claims to have beheaded Japanese hostage Kenji Goto in a sickening new progaganda video, ending days of negotiations by diplomats to save the man… 
    The video, called “A Message to the Government of Japan,” featured a militant who looked and sounded like a militant with a British accent who has taken part in other beheading videos by the Islamic State group. Goto, kneeling in an orange prison jumpsuit, said nothing in the roughly one-minute-long video. “Abe,” the militant says in the video, referring to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, “because of your reckless decision to take part in an unwinnable war, this man will not only slaughter Kenji, but will also carry on and cause carnage wherever your people are found. So let the nightmare for Japan begin.”
    ===

    Queensland election a disaster for Abbott

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2015 (6:25am)

    The Queensland election result is a disaster for Prime Minister Tony Abbott:
    LABOR is on the brink of forming government in Queensland after a rout of the first-term Liberal National Party government… 
    Just three years after suffering the worst-ever electoral defeat in Australia, and being reduced to a caucus of seven MPs in the 89-seat unicameral parliament, Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk needs just two more seats to govern in her own right…
    Labor has 43 seats against the LNP’s 39 seats, with three seats — Mansfield, in the south of Brisbane, Maryborough, north of the Sunshine Coast and Whitsundays, on the central coast — too close to call…     If Labor wins any of the three seats, then it is already well-placed to form at least a minority government with the expected support of longtime independent MP Peter Wellington — a strident critic of the Newman government.
    The result hurts Abbott for two main reasons. First, because he dragged down the LNP vote through his own unpopularity and miststeps like last week’s knighthood fiasco, and may have been the difference between narrow victory and defeat.
    One in five voters told a Sky News exit poll that federal political issues were very important in influencing their vote in the state poll. 
    Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls went further, stating: “There were certainly federal factors and there were less-than-helpful things. Raising discussion about the GST was something that certainly didn’t help the campaign. The Medicare co-payment was again something that we didn’t support as we didn’t support raising the GST… “We felt that the knighthood was a decision out of left field for everyone… Those have certainly played into what we have seen here tonight.”
    Second, the LNP defeat damages Abbott because the analogy between Newman’s fall and Abbott’s own decline is so powerful.
    Premier Campbell Newman tried to slash Queensland’s massive debt, left over by promise-anything Labor, and voters resent austerity. But worse was that he broke promises, picked too many fights, rammed decisions’ down voters’ throats and carried on at times like an autocrat with idiosyncratic decisions such as making a seemingly underqualified magistrate the chief justice:
    ...as time passed, his style of leadership distracted voters from the substance of his policies. As he cracked down on bikies, slashed hospital wait times and cut the deficit, Newman branded bikie lawyers criminals and doctor groups union thugs, and undermined the anti-corruption body.
    He just seemed arrogant and beyond the control of voters - a fatal flaw in Australian politics.
    Abbott hasn’t had Newman’s freedom to smash through as he tackles another Labor debt, thanks to a mutinous Senate. But he, too, has broken promises, picked too many fights, announced radical schemes without real consultation and made idiosyncratic decisions such as reinstating knighthoods. Abbott is a good man, but has built an image of a leader out of touch, unpredictable and too self-willed.
    Australians can’t be commanded, tricked, bullied, surprised, taken for granted or treated like fools. How many leaders have learned that already - Paul Keating, Julia Gillard, Jeff Kennett…
    I don’t know if Abbott can recover, but I do know he won’t unless he immediately shows he knows the public is his master.
    Otherwise...:
    Jane Prentice, a Queensland-based federal Liberal National backbencher, warned on live TV that Mr Abbott could face a leadership challenge if he did not nail a critical address to the National Press Club on Monday.

    Asked on the ABC whether Mr Abbott was the right person to lead the Coalition to the next election, Ms Prentice replied: “Well, that’s a discussion, isn’t it? We need to look at where we’re going.”

    “Tony has said he has listened and learned. He is making a keynote speech on Monday at the press club [and] we can’t continue as we are. We are not taking the people with us. We are getting bad feedback."…     Ms Prentice agreed Monday’s speech was “make or break” for Mr Abbott.
    More instability:
    Former Howard government minister Mal Brough, described by some Liberals as a “suicide bomber”, threw a political hand grenade when he refused to rule out forcing a spill… 
    But furious ministers accused deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop of disloyalty for failing to publicly support the PM since her return from ­Afghanistan and suggested Mr Brough was destabilising to prepare the ground for a leadership change.
    “She should not be allowed to operate in the shadows,’’ a cabinet minister said.
    Ms Bishop strongly denied that Mr Brough was acting on her behalf in any manner. “No, not true,’’ she said.     The Sunday Herald Sun has confirmed that she has privately assured Mr Abbott that she was not undermining, leaking, destabilising or coveting his job. This would not necessarily preclude standing if another challenger emerged or Mr Abbott stood down.
    Dennis Shanahan:
    For Abbott there is no doubt his thoughtless and ideologically blind decision to appoint Prince Philip an Australian knight will have played some part in Newman’s loss in Ashgrove. 
    Federally it will increase the sense of panic and trouble making from Queensland, encourage leadership destabilisation and limit Abbott’s options generally. Realistically the size of the swing against LNP in Queensland can’t be sheeted home entirely to Abbbott but when there is a disaster anyone on the bridge is blamed.
    ===

    Palmer bombs

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2015 (6:07am)

    The Queensland election did have one bit of good news for all of us:
    JUST 18 months after the Palmer United Party rose to power, claiming three federal Senate spots and a Lower House seat, its support base appears to have evaporated. 
    Self-declared billionaire Clive Palmer’s party was expected to poll less than 4 per cent of yesterday’s Queensland vote and not win a single seat.The party had already lost its only two sitting Queensland MPs, with Carl Judge and Alex Douglas both quitting last year.
    ===


    ===


    I'm glad a Christian didn't write this. It is off message.
    ===


    ===
    ===

    YAY FOR DIVERSITY

    Tim Blair – Saturday, February 01, 2014 (2:51pm)

    It’s World Hijab Day everybody, so wrap your heads in freedom gear and party down: 
    Lydia Shelly says the day also encourages Australians to walk in the shoes of a Muslim women with the aim of improving religious harmony.
    “The biggest assumption about Muslim women who wear the hijab is that we are one big homogenous group,” Ms Shelly wrote on Facebook. “Muslim women who wear the hijab are from all walks of life, nationalities and have different ways that they express their modesty through their wearing of the hijab.Yay for diversity in the hijabi community!” 
    Yay for wearing slightly different patterns and colours while maintaining subservience to your male superiors! Here’s how things went during a previous hijab day celebration: 
    Some 200 veiled women staged a rally in front of the Lahore Press Club on Tuesday to mark World Hijab Day, but only men gave speeches. 
    (Via handjive)
    ===

    IN RELATION TO FISHING BOATS AND SO FORTH

    Tim Blair – Saturday, February 01, 2014 (12:19pm)

    A moment of puzzlement for Sarah Hanson-Young:



    UPDATE. Sarah’s confusion explained: 
    As a kid my dad always had ABC radio on in our house. 
    ===

    NAVY DEFENDED

    Tim Blair – Saturday, February 01, 2014 (5:21am)

    The Sydney Morning Herald‘s Mike Carlton takes aim at conspiracy theorists who accuse the Navy of crimes at sea: 
    It is the Royal Australian Navy which shoulders the burden of “border protection”, the Federal Government’s euphemism for the dangerous, sometimes gut-wrenching, task of intercepting the refugee boats from Indonesia.
    And right now the navy is fed up with the savage public slagging it has been copping for doing the job. I know many navy people. From admirals to able seamen, they feel they have been manipulated, defamed and insulted by politicians, sections of the media and other odds and sods with axes to grind …
    Margo Kingston asked: “What is going on in the navy? Has its core ethos mutated … ? Has it got something terrible to hide, or is it so incompetent that it needs a shake-up much bigger than a change of leaders at the top?”
    Answer: no. Quaint as it may sound, the Defence Force, and in particular the RAN officer corps, is imbued with traditions of integrity and duty …
    To suggest that any Australian naval officer ignored that moral and legal obligation, for any reason, is a cruel insult to honour, humanity and duty.
    Believe me: the navy deeply, deeply resents it. 
    That column was written more than ten years ago, during another era when the Australian Navy faced allegations of brutality (this only happens when a conservative government is in power). Oddly, considering the newsworthiness of recent alleged naval events and his affection for the navy, Carlton today chooses to write complete nonsense.
    ===

    EGG MO

    Tim Blair – Friday, January 31, 2014 (6:13pm)

    British Islamic politician Maajid Nawaz recently added this image, from the popular Jesus and Mo comic strip, to his Twitter feed:

    image

    As Nawaz writes: 
    I tweeted the bland image and stated that, as a Muslim, I did not feel threatened by it. My God is greater than that. 
    Good for him. But his co-religionists weren’t so relaxed: 
    By the time the week was up I had received death threats, the police were involved, and a petition set up by some conservative Muslims to have me dismissed as the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn had gained 20,000 signatures. 
    Further idiocy came when Britain’s Channel Four decided to cover the story – “cover” being the operative word. This is how Jesus and Mo appeared on the station’s broadcast:

    image

    Yep. Mo’s been replaced by the black egg of Islamophobia! Here’s Channel Four’s brilliant explanation: 
    The senior editorial team decided that the showing of the entire illustration, whilst likely to cause offence, was not integral to the story … 
    (Via Correllio)
    ===

    Sarah Hanson-Young all at sea

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2014 (11:20am)

     Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young confirms she cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction when fulminating against boat people policies that work and save lives.
    Hanson-Young’s performance in that Senate estimates hearing yesterday was in many ways her most clownish yet. Not only did she seem to think Sea Patrol, starring Lisa McCune, was real,  she repeatedly called Lieutenant-General Angus Campbell “Lieutenant”:
    When Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young insisted on referring to Campbell as “lieutenant”, there was an intervention: 
    Committee chair Penny Wright: “Can I be clear, is General Campbell acceptable to you?”
    Campbell: “Yes.”
    Remember, this woman was, under the Greens-Labor alliance that produced the Gillard Government, one of the country’s more influential politicians, and is still treated seriously by the ABC.
    (Via Catallaxy Files.) 
    ===

    Abbott finds compass and courage

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2014 (9:50am)

    Terry McCrann on a government that seems to have found its mojo:
    THE Abbott government has made four key policy and politically defining discretionary decisions. It has scored well on both consistency and courageousness. 
    In combination, they confirm Tony Abbott’s affirmation that Australia is “open for business” under his government… The four are: the rejections of specific assistance to the domestic car manufacturing industry and fruit-canner SPC Ardmona, Joe Hockey’s approval of the Canadian company Saputo’s takeover of Warrnambool Cheese & and Butter, and his rejection of the US company Archer Daniels Midland’s takeover of GrainCorp. Looked at narrowly, that scores at least three out of four, on the measure of government getting out of the way of business and doing so in a consistent way.
    ===

    Ou est Bill?

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2014 (8:55am)

    Daniel Flitton:
    Everyone should know the importance of first impressions, so frankly it seemed more than a little weird for Bill Shorten to choose Paris and London as the first foreign capitals to visit as Opposition Leader. What of Jakarta? Beijing? Tokyo? Even Wellington would have been a better choice to signal his interest in Australia’s most important relationships.
    Meanwhile, of course, leaderless Labor is floundering. It cannot decide whether it should be for or against a royal commission into corruption scandals now engulfing three unions. Then again, when your new leader is a former boss of one of those unions it might be a good time to hide him in a closet in the Louvre. 
    ===

    A few more examples of that bias the ABC says it doesn’t have

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2014 (8:22am)

    The ABC claims it isn’t biased, and only bloody conservatives would say so:
    Jon Faine with Barrie Cassidy, ABC 774, Thursday: 
    FAINE: A royal commission not just into the CFMEU . . . there’s nothing absolutely gobsmackingly terrible and recent that’s come out from the Fairfax/ABC joint investigation here.
    Nothing terrible? ABC News, Tuesday: 
    UNION officials have formed corrupt relationships with organised crime figures . . . bribery, extortion and threats of violence are used to cement the influence of crime figures on Australia’s construction sites . . .
    Guess who’s really at fault. Faine with Cassidy again: 
    CASSIDY: They need to go to the source of what the problem is and part of it . . . is not just the trade unions but it’s the big business as well . . .
    Business? ABC News, Tuesday: 
    The CFMEU is able to pressure large builders . . . by wielding the stick of costly industrial action . . .
    But no big problem on Planet Faine: 
    CASSIDY: That can be fixed almost overnight just simply by the federal government insisting, going to the large companies and saying this practice is not good enough . . .
    The real problem on Planet Faine? 
    CASSIDY: A royal commission . . . would open up a whole bunch of horror stories that would embarrass both the Labor Party and the unions for years to come.
    What horror stories? What embarrassment?
    Peter Hartcher on Labor’s scandalous enabling: 
    Labor went to the elections of 2007 and 2010 supporting the (Australian Building and Construction Commission), recognising that it was doing important work to improve productivity and lawfulness. But it was cut short seven years into its campaign to clean up the sector. 
    When the construction union asked then prime minister Julia Gillard to abolish the ABCC, she obliged, “to protect her own arse”, as one of her cabinet ministers put it. The unions were Gillard’s internal power base against Kevin Rudd. Today Labor and the Greens, both recipients of donations from the construction union, are combining in the Senate to block the return of the ABCC.  
    (Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
    UPDATE
    The ABC claims it isn’t biased, and only bloody conservatives would say so.
    But Dennis Shanahan explains the fury of many Liberals at an ABC out of control:
    When it came to the Gillard government, the ABC was less than enthusiastic about reporting on the allegations of the AWU slush fund and the missing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Subsequent police inquiries and disclosures have demonstrated a lack of good news sense at the ABC, at the very least. 
    With the Coalition’s implacable opposition to a carbon tax, the selection of climate-change commentary supportive of carbon pricing and a relative lack of carbon sceptics was a long-running issue.
    UPDATE
    The ABC claims it isn’t biased, and only bloody conservatives would say so.
    Gerard Henderson on how the ABC is now hiring refugees from the private Left-wing media it is helping to destroy:
    Fairfax Media productions are particularly challenged by the fact that the ABC and Guardian Australia dump news and opinion online for free - especially since the latter entities appeal to a similar readership base as Fairfax newspapers. The movement from print to online has had the unintended consequence of providing a new platform, or pulpit, for former Fairfax Media staff to exhibit their self-regard and perceived superior morality. 
    Take [Jonathan] Green, who has emerged of late as the ABC’s man-for-all-programs… Green worked at The Age and the leftist Crikey newsletter before signing on with the public broadcaster. Clearly, his background and opinions appealed to ABC managers, who still cannot find one conservative to present, produce or edit any of its prominent television or radio or online outlets…
    Green used some of his ABC slots to plug his recent book The Year My Politics Broke (MUP), which was published soon after the September 2013 election…
    As his book reveals, Green is an eco-catastrophist… He favours opening Australia’s borders to “as many people who might reasonably fit in” including those who arrive unlawfully courtesy of people-smugglers. Green accuses those who disagree with him on this issue as exhibiting “shallow xenophobia”. He also regards the majority of his fellow citizens as misogynistic…     The author bemoans the fact that Julia Gillard was criticised for her “dress sense”. Yet last week Green wrote an essay for The Drum in which he declared he would never regard Tony Abbott as a prime minister of “intelligence, independent thought and creative intellectual flexibility” while “he keeps wearing those blue ties”. 
    ===

    I “froth”, senior Liberals merely have “concerns”

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2014 (8:04am)

    The politics of race

    Laurie Oakes: 
    Abbott’s Australia Day reaffirmation of his commitment to a referendum for constitutional recognition of indigenous Australians had Right-wing columnist Andrew Bolt frothing at the mouth, accusing the Prime Minister of talking nonsense and claiming that the proposal would create permanent divisions in Australian society. 
    Quite a few Liberals, some of them senior, share Bolt’s concerns....
    How Abbott deals with sceptics on his own side and counters the likes of Bolt will be crucial.
    Some of those close to him are not helping. His close friend and key adviser on indigenous affairs, former ALP President Warren Mundine, set the cat among the pigeons with a suggestion the Federal Government should negotiate a series of treaties with indigenous groups.     “There is no way the party will come at that,” was the response of one Liberal MP whose support Abbott needs if the referendum idea is to go anywhere.
    Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:
    AB, any thoughts on why Oakes would suggest you were ‘frothing at the mouth’ in one breath - then scale your view back to ‘concerns’ the next, when it turns out a number of senior Libs are of the same view? Seems Oakes couldn’t bring himself to admit you’d raised a valid point. 
    Also, is it time to pen another piece explaining why you’re a conservative and not Right-wing? Maybe send a copy to Oakes for future reference?
    ===

    What are Marr’s dead boat people? Where is his sorry?

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2014 (7:27am)

    Boat people policy

    The navy is turning back boats. Result: no boat arrivals in six weeks and no drownings, either, in contrast to the more than 1000 people lured to their deaths under Labor’s policies.
    So reader Andrew of Randwick wonders when David Marr will apologise for this potentially lethal scaremongering of two years ago:
    Turn the boats back and people will die - Abbott knows this 
    People will die. They died the last time the navy forced boats back to Indonesia and they will die the next. They have always died.
    That’s why the navy hates these operations and that loathing is deep in the DNA of the service. It goes back to the violent blockade carried out by the Royal Navy before and after the Second World War to prevent Jews reaching Palestine....     Tony Abbott knows that when he says he will turn every possible boat back to Indonesia. It certainly works. But do we think it’s worth it? 
    And here’s another blast from the past with echoes today.
    Marr four years ago was just as ready as the ABC today to falsely smear the navy:
    The Sydney Morning Herald’s David Marr instantly smeared the navy as some 50 boat people drowned off Christmas Island: 
    The first question that must be asked is why the navy – if it was within the navy’s power – why the navy allowed that boat anywhere near the island. It should not have been there.
    ...these fresh deaths raise the possibility that Canberra is once again pressuring its boats to delay rescue.
    It was an utterly baseless insinuation that the navy was negligent, primarily responsible or would deliberately let people drown, and that politicians would wish this.
    The coroner, not surprisingly, rejected any such slander - and rejected to the false claims of asylum seekers (another familiar trope): 
    Mr Hope said naval and customs officers who risked their lives in inflatable boats “showed great bravery in dangerous seas” to pull 41 people to safety from the water… 
    The coroner rejected claims from Christmas Island detention centre detainees that they had alerted centre staff that the SIEV 221 was about to arrive.
    “The accounts were fabricated and inconsistent with the objective evidence.”     Mr Hope said he was satisfied the commanders of the navy patrol boat HMAS Pirie and the customs vessel Triton “acted as promptly and efficiently as they could in the circumstances”.
    Marr didn’t apologise then, and won’t apologise now.
    In fact, I have yet to hear a single apology from those who created or supported the Labor policies which led to so many deaths, so many illegal arrivals and so many wasted billions of dollars.
    Instead we get this vilification of the navy and of the new government which are ending all that.
    UPDATE
    More dud predictions, made just as the Abbott Government was disproving them. From the submission by the Refugee Advice & Casework Service (Aust) Inc to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee three weeks ago:
    The best strategies prevent rather than deter, and stop the flow of asylum seekers at the source or divert desperate people away from dangerous and irregular modes of transport. The Report of the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers makes this clear. Rather than deterrence measures, the Expert Panel’s recommendations prioritise a whole-of-government strategy for engaging with source countries, and cooperation on asylum seeker issues with Indonesia, Malaysia, PNG and emerging resettlement countries.
    How much the process-pushers and the Left love phrases such as “whole-of-government strategy”, describing processes that involve countless meetings and fine resolutions, but very few decisive actions.
    Six weeks, no boats. Deterrence is working.
    (Thanks to reader Andrew of Randwick.)
    UPDATE
    Reader Mike wonders if the Financial Review’s Laura Tingle would care to update her columnof last year:
    The reality is that when Kevin Rudd, as returned prime minister, outflanked the Coalition on the far right on asylum-seekers, he robbed the new government of the chance to claim a huge material difference in boat arrival numbers, since the tough line on people arriving by boat “never” being settled in Australia had started to have an impact on numbers, even during the election campaign. 
    The Coalition has opted for theatrics since then to try to create some product differentiation, and just perhaps to give it some cover for the inevitable time when ambitious claims made in opposition – such as “we will turn back the boats” – proved to be impossible to implement.
    True, more boats may come with the end of the monsoon season. But not in six years has a government managed to prevent any boats from arriving for six weeks.
    UPDATE
    image  image
    Working well, and working safely:
    THIS is what awaits asylum-seekers trying to get to Australia on dodgy wooden smuggling boats - the gift of an air-conditioned, 90-seat lifeboat, and an armed escort back to Indonesia. 
    This is the first close-up look at one of the 11 lifeboats that the Abbott Government has sourced out of Singapore in its uncompromising fight to stop the boats - a fight that it appears to be winning.
    The fully enclosed and submersible 8.5m x 3.2m survival capsule, fitted with safety belts, navigational equipment, life jackets, food, water and an inboard diesel motor, came ashore in remote Cikepuh, in West Java, on the afternoon of January 15.     Naval officer Edi Sukendi, based in Ujung Genteng, the closest point between Indonesia and Australia, got word from a forest ranger that an unusual vessel had crash-landed and disgorged an estimated 60 asylum-seekers, who immediately scattered into the jungle.
    Faced with success where they only failed. Labor and the Greens are reduced to demanding the Abbott Government reveal its secrets to journalists and the people smugglers. It’s a strategy that makes them look both stupid and spiteful - not to mention reckless:
    The head of Customs, Michael Pezzullo, told the inquiry that withholding information also helps keep Australian officials safe at sea. 
    ”We frankly don’t give a damn about the media cycle and what’s going to be said on [ABC show] Q&A; and all the rest of it,” he said. 
    Excellent strategy. As it happens, it should be adopted by Labor itself.  If Q&A is for it, Labor should almost certainly be against.
    (Thanks to readers BG and na.) 
    ===

    ABC torture story collapses. ABC still won’t admit it

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2014 (6:56am)

    Media

    The ABC refuses to admit its story of the navy torturing boat people is a crock even when the evidence started to fall apart.
    Here is a perfect example of precisely what Tony Abbott suggested to the horror and scorn of Leftist journalists:
    It dismays Australians when the national broadcaster appears to take everyone’s side but our own.
    But now Peter Alford of The Australian completely destroys any last shred of plausibility of a story that was always highly improbable:
    THE Australian can reveal after two days of witness interviews that allegations aired by the ABC that the Australian navy tortured and deliberately burned the hands of asylum-seekers cannot be corroborated. 
    Faisal Hussein, a passenger on a boat returned to Rote Island on January 6, ... said he did not see any of the incidents in which asylum-seekers were allegedly burned by sailors forcing their hands on to hot engine parts and was not aware of such claims during the rest of the enforced return journey.
    Of the eight Somali asylum-seekers interviewed at length, only one, Yousif Fasher, continues to insist three asylum-seekers on the January 6 boat were “tortured” in that way.
    Yousif, who did not receive any burns, was the source of the deliberate burning allegations made to the ABC, often via Sharmarke Abdullah Ahmad…
    Sharmarke, self-designated spokesman for 62 pushed-back asylum-seekers remaining under immigration supervision in Kupang, now believes none of the burns was deliberately inflicted.
    Sharmarke, who was pushed back on a boat that arrived back on December 19, also at Rote, started spreading claims about navy cruelty on both his boat and the January 6 boat only after the later boatpeople came ashore.
    Some days later, though, Sharmarke says he spoke again to people from the January 6 boat: “They told us they were not deliberately forced to touch the hot engine."…
    Sharmarke acknowledged yesterday that at least one deliberate burning case cited to him by Yousif, that of Bowby Nooris, was untrue.
    “… Bowby, he just told me another story,” Sharmarke said.
    But the ABC in its latest report contains barely that its torture story is an invention, desperately casting around instead for any other slop it can throw at the navy:
    New details have emerged about a boat interception operation earlier this month, with one asylum seeker saying Navy personnel sprayed him in the eyes.
    UPDATE
    Nick Cater says the ABC has form for believing the improbable if it discredits the Abbott Government’s border policies:
    Peter Lloyd’s introduction to a report from Fiona Ogilvie on PM last October, for example, began with an unqualified statement: “An asylum-seeker being held in detention on Nauru is expecting twins.” Yet the assertions in the story were contested…
    Towards the end of the story, Ogilvie casually throws into another alleged fact. “PM understands that there is another woman on Nauru who is pregnant, also with twins, and that she has diabetes.”
    Eight days later, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison flatly denied the story… Yet the ABC had invested too much in the multiple pregnancy to give up, and on AM on November 8 reported that an asylum-seeker flown from Nauru “gave birth via caesarean section in a hospital in Brisbane”. The mother was a “Rohingya woman from Myanmar”, AM reported. In previous reports she was identified as Iranian.
    We also discover she gave birth to only one baby. Presenter Tony Eastley tells us the woman “was told after undergoing scans on Nauru that she was having twins, but it wasn’t until she was brought to Australia that she discovered that wasn’t the case”.
    This incredible claim fails the believability test. A mother who had undergone scans in her final weeks of pregnancy and was misdiagnosed as carrying twins. Can anyone suggest a similar case of an obstetrician seeing double?     And what of the second woman on Nauru who “PM understands” is also pregnant with twins? That claim, as best as we can establish, has never been repeated, but neither has it been corrected. The story is left floating in a soup of “truthiness” - assertions one wishes to be true, as opposed to facts known to be true.
    ===

    Mo you don’t

    Andrew Bolt February 01 2014 (6:43am)

    A British Muslim politician, exercising his free speech, dares to publish this image:
    image
    Britain’s Channel Four, after reporting the usual death threats that follow, surrenders its free speech to religious authoritarians:
    image
    (Via Tim Blair.) 
    ===

    Remember Holocaust Day! But don’t mention the Jews

    Andrew Bolt January 31 2014 (6:44pm)

    Absolutely astonishing. Baroness Catherine Ashton, vice president of the European Commission, marks Holocaust Day with a statement which omits a single mention of the word “Jews”:
    Today the international community remembers the victims of the Holocaust. We honour every one of those brutally murdered in the darkest period of European history. We also want to pay a special tribute to all those who acted with courage and sacrifice to protect their fellow citizens against persecution. 
    On Holocaust Remembrance Day, we must keep alive the memory of this tragedy. It is an occasion to remind us all of the need to continue fighting prejudice and racism in our own time. We must remain vigilant against the dangers of hate speech and redouble our commitment to prevent any form of intolerance. The respect of human rights and diversity lies at the heart of what the European Union stands for.
    How gutless. Let’s “keep alive the memory of this tragedy” but not the common faith of its main victims.
    Oh, and of course the Baroness is a former Labour politician.  The Left is now the natural home of anti-Semitism and those give them cover and comfort.
    (Thanks to reader Charles.) 
    ===

    You can’t take the hippy out of the political Bishop

    Andrew Bolt January 31 2014 (6:24pm)

    I don’t recall Anglican Bishop Phillip Huggins saying a word of protest when the Gillard Government threatened News Ltd newspapers, successfully demanded entire stories about Prime Minister Julia Gillard be pulled off the Internet, subjected the “hate media” to a hand-picked inquisition, had Ministers repeatedly vilify the “Murdoch media”, banned interviews with conservative presenters and proposed laws to put the private media under a government-supervised media policeman.
    Nor do I recall the slightest objection from Huggins when this pressure contributed to the sacking of two journalists who’d tried to report on a scandal involving Gillard that is now the subject of an extensive police investigation. (Gillard insists she did nothing wrong.)
    Yes, I cannot recall a period in my life when free speech and a free press was under greater threat in this country, but not a word was there from Huggins. Still, he’s just an Anglican bishop, and I accept that it’s not his job to preach politics from the pulpit.
    Yet when a Liberal Prime Minister simply criticises the ABC for its palpable bias and for treating as credible a highly improbable and now discredited allegation that the navy tortured boat people, Huggins claims in a press release our democracy is in peril:
    Renew, don’t weaken, our democracy: stop attacking the ABC… 
    Government attacks on the integrity of the ABC must cease. Weakening the ABC might be part of the policy platform of some so-called “think-tanks” but it is no way to sustain our democracy. 
    Does Huggins realise how absurdly and crudely partisan he seems in his politics, and how much that must alienate his church’s many conservative members, who would defer to his knowledge of Scripture but would feel he has no more claim to political insights than do they?
    Huggins was once a hippy who taught vedic meditation at the Nimbin festival. I suggest he not conform so obviously to the stereotype.
    (Thanks to reader Paul.) 
    ===

    Hear that sound on the radio? It’s SA Labor blowing itself to pieces

    Andrew Bolt January 31 2014 (6:10pm)

    Well, that’s the South Australian Labor Government finished. Today, six weeks before the election, Premier Jay Weatherill and Labor Senator Don Farrell, a faction heavy who lost his seat at the last election, go on radio together to destroy each other.
    Listen here to the excruciating self-immolation:
    From the transcript:
    PRESENTERS: We’ll just start with Senator Don Farrell, this deal between you and [Treasurer Michael O’Brien] to take his seat has been stitched up for months.
    FARRELL: I had a think on the issues when I came back from holidays. After Christmas, I had a chat with [sitting member Michael O’Brien] and indicated if he was intending to resign his position that I would be interested [in putting] myself forward ... for the people of Napier and ask them to support me for four years in that seat…
    PRESENTERS: OK, don’t go away… Premier Jay Weatherill , who has to catch a flight very shortly. When did [O’Brien and Farrell] let you know? When did they let you in on this secret?
    WEATHERILL: I have been told that this proposition is under consideration and I made it clear that I don’t support it.
    PRESENTERS: Why not?
    WEATHERILL: Well because the South Australian party has been a unified party.... And for better or the worst Don represents some of the divisions and disunity that comes from federal politics…
    I certainly don’t want it in the state Labor Party. We’re in the lead up to a state election. And I think the people of South Australia need to actually clearly understand who they are voting for, who they are going to get when they cast a vote.
    And I don’t want there to be any confusion about that matter in the lead up of the election ...
    PRESENTERS: So you don’t want Don Farrell?
    WEATHERILL: No… I made it clear when (they) put that proposition to me ...
    PRESENTERS: Do you see him as a threat to you? You say people oughta be clear what they’re voting for. You’re the leader at the moment but they might think Don Farrell might be the leaders after the election.
    WEATHERILL: That’s right. And that’s the risk I think. And that’s the very last impression we want to create in people’s minds.
    Now I know what Don says about that is that he’s not interested in that. But that’s really not to the point.
    One way or the other he’s been associated with the divisions which I think largely led to the destruction of the Labor Party at the last federal election… And my responsibility is as party leader is to present a unified team and send the clearest possible message to the electorate that you know who you’re voting for when you vote for Labor at the next election.
    PRESENTERS: If he’s preselected, Premier, you’d have to resign, wouldn’t you? Because it’d be a vote of no confidence with you?
    WEATHERILL: I’d have to reflect on that of course, that’d be under consideration
    PRESENTERS: Are, are you serious?
    WEATHERILL: Yes.
    PRESENTERS: You’d consider resigning what, before the election?
    WEATHERILL: Absolutely…
    PRESENTERS: Don Farrell, listening to that: These are high stakes now. Are you going to withdraw?     FARRELL: Oh look, um, uh Matthew. My position is clear… I am not interested in the leadership of the Labor Party. I am interested in representing the people of Napier in the next Parliament. I’ll offer myself for preselection to the party and if I’m successful in that I’d like to be the candidate and the member for Napier at the next election.
    Farrell shortly afterwards pulled out, his political career finished for good. Weatherill’s finish date will come very shortly. 
    ===

    Jews need free speech to protect themselves

    Andrew Bolt January 31 2014 (6:04pm)

    David Adler, director of Prime Health Management, tells the Attorney-General to ignore appeals by other Jewish representatives not to scrap the anti-free speech sections of the Racial Discrimination Act. Free speech, not censorship, is the best defence of Jews in this country:
    Dear Sen Brandis

    I am writing to express support for your initiatives to delete or significantly amend S18C & 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act.

    I am an active member of the Jewish community in Sydney and hold office as the Hon. Secretary of the Synagogue at Chabad North Shore in Sydney’s northern suburbs. I am known to some senior Liberal Party members including Tony Abbott, Michael Wooldridge, Nick Griener and others who would vouch for my bona fides.

    It is with some concern that I have seen the Jewish community’s short sighted representations. Unfortunately (as has occurred in the US) many of the Jewish community representatives in office are quite left of centre and a significant proportion do not support the representations to retain unaltered S18C and 18D.

    In an ideal world, no group would be adverse to another. But we do not live in an ideal world. If a group represents a threat and has values incompatible with Australia’s liberal democratic values then we need to freedom to speak out even if such expression is critical or may cause offence. For example, there is little doubt that Islam has had an adverse impact on many Jewish communities in western Europe. Studies have shown a very significant rise in anti-Semitic events in a number of European countries. If there is a frank discussion of the reasons for this trend or if such a trend began in Australia, it is essential we can openly discuss this matter without being in breach of any Act.

    This can be done without inciting violence which is quite a different matter.

    Unfortunately in order to “protect” the Jewish community from occasional racist comments, some of our representatives are content to have such freedom of debate crimped.

    Many of us do not agree and would much prefer to suffer the occasional offence than have our opportunity to “call a spade a spade” inhibited.

    I would be delighted to assist, speak to your policy advisor or arrange for you to meet a group in the Jewish community who don’t support the representations which have been made to date.

    Regards;

    David Adler
    Director, Prime Health Management
    ===

    ABC has lost Stan Grant

    Andrew Bolt January 31 2014 (5:31pm)

     Stan Grant struck me as a journalist made for Leftism, and I wasn’t surprised to see him go from the ABC to CNN. But either I got him badly wrong - for which I apologise - or he’s changed:
    I think there is a need for conversation about the ABC - what it represents, the standards of its reporting, its editorial decisions… I remember when I was a kid growing up in the country and the ABC was our broadcaster. In fact it was the only one. And Mum and Dad would watch Bellbird. I might be showing my age but Bellbird was like the Country Practice of its day. They’d watch that before the News. There was This Day Tonight, there were a whole range of programs and if you watched the ABC, my parents who were, you know, my dad was a saw-miller, grew up in the country, pretty ordinary working family, they could watch the ABC and could get something out of it. They don’t watch now. Because they feel alienated and isolated and they feel as if they’re being talked down to and they feel as if there is smugness about the ABC… 
    I love the ABC and I’ll just say I loved working there. And I have a lot of good friends who work there, my wife works there. But when I turn on [the ABC] - I’ve said this to my wife before - do I need to hear another story about gay marriage or, you know, AIDS or indigenous issues or whatever? Constantly? All the time? What about the issues that affect the rest of Australia and the broader range of people - my parents and ordinary working people? I don’t know that they are represented to the extent that they should be at the ABC. And I don’t know [that] the ABC’s employment policies, the people that it recruits, represent that broad spectrum of Australia either.
    I’d say that if the ABC has lost Grant, it really is in strife. But I suspect I have misread Grant, and I apologise to him again. 
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    Seeger's secular amoral choice to support communism was a bad flaw. He persevered through the deaths of over a hundred million from the decisions of totalitarian dictators. It reminds me of Maynard Keynes' dismissal of Bertrand Russel. Russel had said Keynes was a brilliant, moody genius whose presence lit a room. Keynes said Russell was a nice guy, who liked nice things, and wondered why not everything was nice. - ed
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    “You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you.” - Psalm 86:5
    ===
    Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

    January 31: Morning

    "The Lord our Righteousness." - Jeremiah 23:6
    It will always give a Christian the greatest calm, quiet, ease, and peace, to think of the perfect righteousness of Christ. How often are the saints of God downcast and sad! I do not think they ought to be. I do not think they would if they could always see their perfection in Christ. There are some who are always talking about corruption, and the depravity of the heart, and the innate evil of the soul. This is quite true, but why not go a little further, and remember that we are "perfect in Christ Jesus." It is no wonder that those who are dwelling upon their own corruption should wear such downcast looks; but surely if we call to mind that "Christ is made unto us righteousness," we shall be of good cheer. What though distresses afflict me, though Satan assault me, though there may be many things to be experienced before I get to heaven, those are done for me in the covenant of divine grace; there is nothing wanting in my Lord, Christ hath done it all. On the cross he said, "It is finished!" and if it be finished, then am I complete in him, and can rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, "Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." You will not find on this side heaven a holier people than those who receive into their hearts the doctrine of Christ's righteousness. When the believer says, "I live on Christ alone; I rest on him solely for salvation; and I believe that, however unworthy, I am still saved in Jesus;" then there rises up as a motive of gratitude this thought--"Shall I not live to Christ? Shall I not love him and serve him, seeing that I am saved by his merits?" "The love of Christ constraineth us," "that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him which died for them." If saved by imputed righteousness, we shall greatly value imparted righteousness.
    Evening
    "Then Ahimaaz ran by the way of the plain, and overran Cushi." - 2 Samuel 18:23
    Running is not everything, there is much in the way which we select: a swift foot over hill and down dale will not keep pace with a slower traveller upon level ground. How is it with my spiritual journey, am I labouring up the hill of my own works and down into the ravines of my own humiliations and resolutions, or do I run by the plain way of "Believe and live"? How blessed is it to wait upon the Lord by faith! The soul runs without weariness, and walks without fainting, in the way of believing. Christ Jesus is the way of life, and he is a plain way, a pleasant way, a way suitable for the tottering feet and feeble knees of trembling sinners: am I found in this way, or am I hunting after another track such as priestcraft or metaphysics may promise me? I read of the way of holiness, that the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein: have I been delivered from proud reason and been brought as a little child to rest in Jesus' love and blood? If so, by God's grace I shall outrun the strongest runner who chooses any other path. This truth I may remember to my profit in my daily cares and needs. It will be my wisest course to go at once to my God, and not to wander in a roundabout manner to this friend and that. He knows my wants and can relieve them, to whom should I repair but to himself by the direct appeal of prayer, and the plain argument of the promise. "Straightforward makes the best runner." I will not parlay with the servants, but hasten to their master.

    In reading this passage, it strikes me that if men vie with each other in common matters, and one outruns the other, I ought to be in solemn earnestness so to run that I may obtain. Lord, help me to gird up the loins of my mind, and may I press forward towards the mark for the prize of my high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
    ===
    WOMAN OF SAMARIA
    The Woman Who Left Her Waterpot
    Scripture Reference: John 4
    The pregnant phrase to underline in the incident at Sychar's well which is so rich in spiritual instruction, is the announcement John gives at the beginning of the chapter, namely, "He must needs go through Samaria." Why the necessity? While this was the shortest and most usual road for a traveler going from Galilee to Jerusalem (Luke 9:52 ), the Pharisees avoided this customary route, and took a longer, round-about one through Peraea. They did this in order to avoid any contact with the Samaritans with whom, as Jews, they had no dealings. While the Jews and the Samaritans were physically alike in many ways, requiring the same food, following the same occupations, having the same hopes and ambitions, and suffering the same diseases, yet there was a racial hatred that kept them apart.
    The origin of this hostility between these two peoples may be traced back to the Assyrian colonization of the land of Israel (2 Kings 17:21). From this followed the antagonism of the Samaritans to the Jews at the return from captivity (Ezra 4;Nehemiah 4), which led to the erection of rival temples on Mount Gerizim. This was in the mind of the woman at the well when she said, "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain" (John 4:20). From that time the spirit of religious bitterness lingered, and this accounts for the Jewish reproach.
    "He who eats the bread of a Samaritan is as he who eats swine's flesh."
    "No Samaritan shall be made a proselyte."
    "They have no share in the resurrection of the dead."
    Jesus spoke of a Samaritan as an alien (Luke 10:33; 17:16, 18), and in turn was accused by the Jews of being a Samaritan Himself and possessed by a demon (John 8:48). While the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans, Jesus had. He spoke well of them, healed one of them of leprosy, and rebuked two of His disciples for wishing to destroy some of their number with fire from heaven (Luke 9:55, 56; 10:30-37 ). As the omniscient Lord, He knew all about the woman in Samaria and went there to show and teach that He was above all religious and racial prejudices and that true worship consisted of worshiping God in spirit and in truth.
    Thus necessity brought Jesus to the place where the Samaritan woman lived, and reaching Jacob's well, being wearied because of the long noontide journey, He sat by the well while His disciples went into the city to buy food. The reality of our Lord's fatigue testifies to the reality of His humanity. As the Man, He was weary and required food and drink, but as the God He could tell the woman who met Him at the well all about her guilty past and her soul's deepest need. Jesus was often weary in His work, but never weary of it. As Man, He knows all about our human and spiritual needs, and as God, He can meet every one of them. So about noon that day, Christ, a Jew, and the God-Man, met a Samaritan who was a woman, whose life was to be transformed as the result of that contact.
    Her Individuality
    Twice over this nameless female is referred to as "a woman of Samaria" (John 4:7, 9 ). Prominent in this phrase is her religious and national position. She was not only an alien as far as the Jews were concerned, but was also poor, for women of affluence did not draw water in those times. The Samaritan woman differs from many of the other women who came before Christ in His itinerant work. Some of them pressed into the kingdom or took it by violence with their earnest prayers. We think of Anna who spent her nights and days in fastings and prayers-of the sinful woman of Canaan who washed His feet with her tears-of the widow of Nain who moved His heart by her silent weeping in her great loss, but for the woman before us no petition was granted, no miracle was wrought except her spiritual transformation. Yet she was a privileged woman in that Christ confessed to her that He was indeed the Messiah which He did not usually confess even to His disciples, leaving them to discern for themselves the truth of His Godhead from His mighty works and miracles of mercy. Thus this woman has an individual prominence in that she was among the number who sought Him not (Isaiah 65:1 ). Further, He did not usually offer His gifts unasked, but waited until they were sought or importuned. Here He offered the woman the unspeakable gift of Himself. First of all, He asked relief of the woman, then He offered her relief, not common water to slake her thirst, but Himself, the Well of Everlasting Life.
    Her Iniquity
    What kind of a woman, morally, was this Samaritan water-carrier? When the disciples returned from their shopping errand they "marvelled that Jesus talked with the woman." Perhaps they were surprised to see Him talking in public with a woman, which was directly contrary to the Rabbinic precepts affirming that a man should not speak in public to his own wife, and that the words of the Law should be burned rather than taught publicly to a woman. Probably there were three reasons why the disciples marveled at the sight of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in earnest conversation. First, they wondered that He, as a Rabbi or Teacher sent from God, talked with her because she was only a woman. Second, because she was a Samaritan woman with whom no Jew should have dealings. Third, because she was a sinner. Some versions speak of her as "the woman of Samaria," and she was likely well-known because of her association with men.
    As a Samaritan, this woman had and knew the Pentateuchal law against adultery. When Jesus found her she was living with a man who was not her husband, but He did not expose her sin to others. He wanted her to feel the sense of sin herself. So when she asked Jesus for the living water of which He spoke, He replied: "Go, call thy husband." Her life had to be a clean receptacle to hold the living spring, so Jesus revealed the foulness that had to be destroyed, and His thrust left its mark. Her past and present life had been laid bare by the omniscient Lord who said, "Thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband." If death had invaded her home upon five occasions, and the five men she had lived with in succession were actual husbands, she certainly did not gather praise for her five marriages. But to bury her fifth husband and go and live with a man who was not a husband, revealed how she had fallen into the depths of sin. We can imagine how the people of her locality avoided her because of her lack of feminine modesty and purity.
    Behind the questions, "What seekest thou?" "Why talked thou with her?"-such a woman-is the thought that whatever His talk with such a woman, whose reputation the disciples may have heard about in the city, it must have been of the highest nature and was related to her spiritual welfare. Because those disciples believed that Jesus was perfect, and knew no sin, ulterior motives could not be ascribed to such a Holy One, as He talked with one whose sin became apparent in the white light of His holiness.
    Her Ignorance
    It is inferred that the woman complied immediately with the thirsty Man's request for a drink of refreshing water, even though she could see by His features and dress that He belonged to the nation who hated her people. As she drew water from the well she asked Him, "How is it that thou, being a Jew, asketh drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?" Little did she realize that in her willingness to give the Jew a drink she was fulfilling the Christian law toward Him, "If he thirst-even if he is thine enemy-give him drink," and that cup of water she gave Him did not lose its reward (Matthew 10:42 ). Jesus answered the woman's question by bringing home to her mind her ignorance of the greatness of the One sitting at the well.
    If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
    What the Samaritan woman was so ignorant of was the fact that she had been coming daily to a deep well of water that had been God's gift of refreshment to man and beast since Jacob's time, yet there was a deeper well of spiritual truth so necessary for man's hidden needs, of which she was unconscious. She was a traveler in the journey of life, travel-stained by her sins, but had not discovered as yet the fountain opened for uncleanness. Instead of Christ begging her for a refreshing draught of water, she should have been beseeching Him for the unfailing supply of spiritual water from the eternal well.
    From her ungracious manner and slur at Christ's people, she answered His comment in a tone of respect. There was something about His voice and manner that gripped her heart, and while she did not understand His message, she was conscious of its latent force, and felt that this traveler was no ordinary man. He seemed to speak with authority, and so passes in her address to Him from, "Thou, being a Jew"-the last word uttered in the tone of contempt-to the reverential, "Sir," Having had five husbands she was not easily worsted in conversation and wanted to know where was the better well than Jacob's from which the "living water" could be secured, and her ignorance begins to vanish as she asks Him, "Art thou greater than Jacob, our ancestor?"
    Her Instruction
    As the woman spoke of the deep well before her, and of Christ having no bucket to secure more vitalizing water from the depths of the well, Jesus, pointing to the ancient well, said, "Anyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but anyone who drinks of the water I shall give him will never thirst any more; the water I shall give him will turn into a spring of water, welling up to eternal life."
    What Jesus supplied was not external water to satisfy the recurring physical need, but an internal and eternal source of unfailing spiritual, life-giving water. Such living water was a divine gift (Isaiah 55:1), was Christ Himself (John 4:10), easily reached-the woman walked far to reach Jacob's well, but the spiritual well is ever at hand-and a satisfying, unfailing gift for "whosoever drinketh" (Revelation 22:17 ). As light broke in upon her darkened mind, the woman replied to Christ's teaching, "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw."
    But a full understanding of His words was not yet hers. Still thinking of them in their physical sense, she thinks of toilsome hours and weary journeys that could be saved if only she knew the marvelous well the Stranger was speaking about. Jesus answered her request, and cut short her argument with a command that went straight to her heart: "Go, call thy husband and come hither." Our Lord wanted to turn her from a proud argumentative frame of mind to the humility of confession. Here was a sinful creature worth saving, but she must be made conscious of her sin, and when she humbly said, "I have no husband," she became a different woman.
    Proceeding gently, Jesus replied, and revealed His omniscience as He unmasked her secret: "Thou hast well said ... For thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband."
    The very wounds her shame would hide were seen by His all-searching eye, and her ignorance gives way to spiritual insight as she reverently confesses the prophetic gift of the One who knew all about her past and present life and asks Him to solve the problem of the right place of worship for both Jew and Samaritan. The woman was taken up with the place of worship, but Jesus sought to teach her that the spirit of worship is more important than the place. Alas, on any Lord's Day there are thousands in the place of worship as they gather in churches, but they are strangers to the spirit of worship which is related to the worship of God in spirit and in truth-worship inspired by the Holy Spirit in conformity to the truth of the Word.
    It was to this woman that Jesus revealed the only basis of acceptable worship, and also the truth of His Messiahship. Perceiving that Jesus was a Prophet, the woman felt He knew the nature of true worship, namely, the spiritual worship of a spiritual Being not only at Jerusalem or Gerizim, but wherever there is a heart seeking Him. With her mind opening to Christ's instruction about spiritual worship, the Samaritan woman confessed the power of the coming Messiah to reveal all things, and perhaps now sensed that because the Jew before her had told her all things about her life, He must be the Messiah. Then came the dramatic word of Christ's claim, "I that speak unto thee am the Messiah." How privileged this sinful woman was to hear from the lips of Jesus Himself the divine secret of His Messiahship!
    Her Influence
    By the Spirit, the woman acknowledged the truth of Christ's Messiahship and Omniscience, and immediately became a powerful witness to her remarkable discovery. With her mind full of the new truth she had learned, she left her water-pot and, full of her great discovery, hurried back to the city. In her enthusiasm she left her water-pot behind as a pledge of her return, not only for natural water, but also for a further spiritual draught from the living well she had found in Christ. Reaching the city, she met the men who knew her only too well, and declared the truth she had learned of Christ's Messiahship. Because He had unveiled her past life, He must be the Christ for whom both Jew and Samaritan were looking.
    Her ignorant mind had grasped the secret of true worship and of Christ's mission, and her instinct for telling news became apparent as with the passion of an evangelist she said, "Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" He had awakened her to a new and better life and such was the effect of her earnest witness that many of those Samaritans went out and came to Jesus at the well. For two days they listened to His teaching, and came to believe in Him, and accept Him as the Christ, the Saviour of the world. This was not only because of what His first native woman evangelist in Samaria had said of Him, but also because they had heard Him for themselves, and hearing, believed. In the glow of her newborn faith, the woman had to tell others and share with them all she had heard and experienced. Some four years later, when Philip the Evangelist came to preach "in many villages of the Samaritans," he doubtless met "the woman of Samaria" and realized how wonderfully the Holy Spirit had used her life and witness as well as the testimony of the Samaritans she had been the means of leading to Christ, to prepare the way for his miraculous ministry in Samaria. When the disciples returned from the city and saw Jesus talking with the woman, they knew what He meant by telling them that the fields were white already unto harvest. Because of the seed sown by the woman who, when she found the well, left her water-pot, Philip experienced a great ingathering of souls in Samaria, so much so that there was great joy in that city. The most joyful inhabitant was the woman who from her heart confessed, "Come see a man, who told me all things that ever I did; is not this the Christ?" (Acts 8:5-25). She had laid the foundation of that Samaritan Pentecost. At Jacob's well she saw Jacob's Star (Numbers 24:17), and ascending Jacob's Ladder ( John 1:51) became the means of others climbing to God.
    ===
    Josiah 
    [Jōsīah] - the fire of the lord or jehovah supports.
    The king of Judah who succeeded his father Amon, when only eight years old, and one of Judah's good kings (1 Kings 13:2; 2 Chron. 34:3).
    The Man Who Sought After God
    The history of Israel's later kings makes dreary reading. Says J. G. Greenhough,
    Four-fifths of them were equally deficient in brains and morals, a combination of wickedness and folly, with nothing of the king about them but the name. But here and there you come upon a man amidst all these royal puppets. It is like finding a garden in a Sahara, or a jewel in a heap of sham trinkets and dirty stage finery. Josiah breaks a long, monotonous series of absolutely worthless monarchs. Before and behind him are moral waste and darkness. He stands out as a figure worth looking at and loving ... Josiah's good reign was like a burst of brilliant sunset, before the final darkness comes on.
    In a life worth studying, let us list a few incidents illustrating the noble character of Josiah.
    He was left parentless at eight years of age. Josiah had a sorrowful childhood, and as a king at eight years of age, he was introduced to scenes of violence, outrage and civil war. But God was more than a Father to this fatherless boy.
    He had a good and darling mother. We know nothing about the mother who undertook Josiah's training apart from her name, Jedidah, meaning, "God's darling," which she was not called for nought. She sought to make her son what she was called, "God's darling," and her labor had its sweet reward.
    He sought after God at the age of sixteen. After sixteen years in the nursing hands of his good mother, Josiah turned from the ways of his father Amon and his grandfather Manasseh, and took his nobler and remoter ancestor, David, as his model. In life's fair morning, Josiah set his heart to seek the Lord.
    He purged Judah and Jerusalem when he was twenty. Youth did not deter Josiah from necessary reformation. Out went all forms of idolatry. Borne along by a noble rage, he swept away the groves full of abominations. Would that the fervent zeal and righteous enthusiasm of this earnest, passionate young man might characterize more young men today!
    He rebuilt the Temple when he was twenty-six. This consecrated young man saw that it was of no use destroying idols unless he had something better to replace them. Thus when his destroying fever had spent its force, Josiah began to rebuild and repair the house of God. In turning over the rubbish of the Temple, the king made a strange discovery. He came across a buried and forgotten copy of the Law, the reading of which strangely affected him. Profoundly humbled, he laid the axe to his own corruptions, and went forward to grow in wisdom and godliness.
    He reigned for thirty-one years and was only thirty-nine when he died. That Josiah was beloved by his people is indicated by their deep and long-continued mourning after his death.
    2. A son of Zephaniah who dwelt in Jerusalem in Zechariah's time (Zech. 6:10). Perhaps the Hen of verse fourteen.
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    Today's reading: Exodus 25-26, Matthew 20:17-34 (NIV)

    View today's reading on Bible Gateway

    Today's Old Testament reading: Exodus 25-26

    Offerings for the Tabernacle
    1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering. You are to receive the offering for me from everyone whose heart prompts them to give. 3 These are the offerings you are to receive from them: gold, silver and bronze;4 blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen; goat hair; 5 ram skins dyed red and another type of durable leather; acacia wood; 6 olive oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense; 7 and onyx stones and other gems to be mounted on the ephod and breastpiece....

    Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 20:17-34

    Jesus Predicts His Death a Third Time
    17 Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, 18 "We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death 19 and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!"

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