Monday, March 07, 2016

Mon Mar 7th Todays News

For the Liberal Party to stop Turnbull's damaging undermining, the only course of action was to promote him. They probably did not consider killing him. Turnbull now has what he wanted, a badly divided and poorly led Liberal Government. Turnbull has not the acumen to unite an effective government. The powers that put Turnbull in position have to defend themselves. But how do they defend a bad call? Clearly Turnbull is not as was advertised, a leader with great communication skills. So now, the powers that got Turnbull into position have to go back to the destabilising attacks they powerfully used to upend an effective government. So Savva posts a self serving book with ridiculous claims that deserve to be pulped. Naturally, hate media have swung behind the Abbott affair with Credlin claims. Savva is just spreading rumour, not even thought to be fact. 

 For some at the moment, the sex party has more credibility. 
=== from 2015 ===
ABC's pollster Jonathan Green laments the choice of Australian peoples not to dump Mr Abbott. However, reality is there wasn't a spill neither was there an opponent and the one most touted as an opponent hasn't the numbers. The attempts to destabilise the government by the ABC have weakened the attempt to prevent executions of the 2 Bali 9 leaders. Also a poll put up by the ABC asked for responders to say if they supported executing drug dealers or not. The majority said that executions were appropriate. Naturally Media Watch (an ABC program) said the poll should not have been published. The ABC have very refined tastes and like censorship. 

Another ABC campaign is to blame plant food for global warming. Only the world hasn't warmed as they claimed. Or as the New York Times claimed in '85. The science is settled.

Mike Carlton reports book sales figures that vastly inflate actual figures. It is sad when broadcasters lie. 

From all the distractions the media offer, there is an important issue being debated in parliament. National debt. The previous dismal ALP government have left Australia with a projected debt of 37% GDP by 2055. Or, following Liberal policy, will limit the debt to 25.9% of GDP. The cost to our children is $trillions before they do anything. The ALP policy will mean that important infrastructure will have to be cut. This means less hospital care, less money for education, less police, less military, fewer roads and services. It is the kind of genius marketing like that which attracts young females to join ISIL when they see cross dressing men holding rifles and hear of child brides and domestic rape.
From 2014
Administration works best when you aren't aware of it. I am not referring to the terrible feeling when you need to report something and no one is there. I mean that when people are aware of their roles and can make informed choices. Administration has to be obvious when making mechanical decisions. So, when someone posts profanity or dumb abuse and gets it deleted or is booted then Admin is obvious. But when debate or community flourishes admin is irrelevant. That being said, it is wonderful seeing some of the political ideology debates posted by Mandy. I deeply appreciate the contributions Stephanie, John and Phil make too. 

Recently we have had to be more obvious in our admin duties, deleting posts and fielding complaints. I don't mind doing that, but some people are confused as to etiquette. Linking me to arbitrate someone you don't like is likely to get you booted. It doesn't matter to me if someone is so ugly their mother does not love them. But, if you see something that is wrong, and you link me to it, I will deal with it. Keep in mind I work an unpaid 12 hour day every day. It is ok to be friendly, but I'm not here to be friends. 

Admins might make a mistake, but if you post profanity, or abuse, it was probably deleted because of that, and not by mistake. Posts don't disappear. If they weren't deleted, then you were probably blocked by people that don't like you. That is ok. It has nothing to do with administration. Please don't block admins, or they will boot you for it. 

Some have been asking for specific rules, so they know where they stand. I don't have time for point scoring, or money for lawyers. The point of the group is to discuss political issues. Everyone is welcome. We aim for a family friendly atmosphere .. I am aware politics is boring to children. 
Historical perspective on this day
Technical issues prevent todays listing
=== 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 Ged MacMahon and Jerome Chapman. Born on the same day, across the years. Ged is a cousin making more cousins. Jerome is a talented artist and businessman. Remember, birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live
    Police attack civil rights demonstrators outside Selma, Alabama, on Bloody Sunday.
    Sunday is the day. The Canary is chief. Lumberjacks are ok. Never avoid arrest. Charity should never short change. Let's party. 
    Deaths
    ===

    FROM PROMISE TO THREAT

    Tim Blair – Monday, March 07, 2016 (5:38pm)

    A few years ago, this headline would have delighted Australia’s Francophile sophisticates:

    image

    Not any more. Here’s the unedited version of that headline:

    image 
    ===

    NO SINGING IN BAIRD’S NSW

    Tim Blair – Monday, March 07, 2016 (4:13pm)

    An impromptu Bondi Hotel karaoke session was last week shut down by police.
    ===

    RHOADS TO RUIN

    Tim Blair – Monday, March 07, 2016 (2:49pm)

    Molly Rhoads will never regret her Bernie Sanders tattoo. Speaking of Bernie, here’s former world chess champion Garry Kasparov: 
    I’m enjoying the irony of American Sanders supporters lecturing me, a former Soviet citizen, on the glories of Socialism and what it really means! Socialism sounds great in speech soundbites and on Facebook, but please keep it there. In practice, it corrodes not only the economy but the human spirit itself, and the ambition and achievement that made modern capitalism possible and brought billions of people out of poverty. Talking about Socialism is a huge luxury, a luxury that was paid for by the successes of capitalism. Income inequality is a huge problem, absolutely. But the idea that the solution is more government, more regulation, more debt, and less risk is dangerously absurd. 
    Checkmate, Molly.
    ===

    ALISON UNCHAINED

    Tim Blair – Monday, March 07, 2016 (2:06am)

    A wonderful victory for Australian freelance journalist Alison Bevege, who has single-handedly dragged our Hizbie friends into the mid-19th century: 
    Radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir will not be allowed to segregate women at its events after a NSW tribunal ruled in favour of a female journalist.
    Former News Limited journalist Alison Bevege sued the group and five members for sexual discrimination after she was forced to sit in the women and children’s section at a public lecture she reported on in 2014.
    The freelancer called her win “a victory for secular law over theocratic fascism.”

    image
    Alison Bevege took on the Hizbies and won. Observe and learn, cowardly leftwing feminists.

    The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found Ms Bevege was treated unfavourably on the grounds of her sex in contravention of section 33 of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act …
    The court ruled that group spokesman Ismail al-Wahwah was personally liable for the discrimination. 
    We now pause to consider the onomatopoeic implications of Mr Wahwah’s name, given that he’s just been thrashed by a girl. 
    It also ruled that for all future public events, Hizb ut-Tahrir must clearly state “at venues and ... in all promotional materials” that segregated seating is not compulsory. 
    I’ll be buying a drink for Alison later this week to celebrate her legal triumph. She’s a freelancer, which from personal experience I know is not a massively profitable occupation. Pursuing a case for this long would have consumed a huge amount of time that Alison might otherwise have used to earn a living. If you would like to show your appreciation, please donate now and buy her a drink yourself.
    She’s earned it.
    UPDATE. Like Alison, this site’s readers stand for freedom:

    image

    Thank you to everyone who donated so incredibly generously. You rule.
    ===

    PELL TOLLS FOR THEE

    Tim Blair – Monday, March 07, 2016 (2:00am)

    The most serious allegations against Cardinal George Pell, levelled at him by left-wing journalists and the royal commission into child abuse, are that he was insufficiently curious about claims of child abuse and failed to take proper action in response to cases he knew about.
    During his commission testimony last week Pell made an important point. Discussing complaints from 1974 that now-jailed priest Ted Dowlan had been “misbehaving with boys”, Pell said his regrettable lack of action was typical of the era.
    “People had a different attitude then,” the cardinal said. “I didn’t do anything about it. (But) I eventually inquired of the school chaplain. With the experience of 40 years later, certainly I would agree that I should have, should have done more.”
    Silence about child abuse in the Catholic church was a form of political correctness, as it applied decades ago. Fairfax columnist Peter FitzSimons doesn’t buy it. “The absolute best case that can be made in his defence is that, instead of wilfully ignoring atrocities going on all around him, he just didn’t get that it was his duty to do something, to act for the children,” FitzSimons wrote on the weekend.
    “This line of defence has it that he didn’t get it because that was the way things were done in those times, or, more to the point, not done.”
    FitzSimons and others who insist on applying metric tools to imperial machinery ought to consider their own testimony at a future royal commission that might be held 20 years from now. It could go something like this:
    Commissioner: “Were you aware of claims that female genital mutilation was practiced within Australia’s Islamic community?”
    (Continue reading Pell Tolls For Thee.)
    ===

    ALL MOUTH, NO TROUSERS

    Tim Blair – Monday, March 07, 2016 (12:49am)

    During his January visit to the US, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made no attempt to meet Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
    “The truth is that he dreads the thought of either Trump, nuttily Right-wing and populist, or Cruz, darling of Tea Party extremists, becoming president of the US,” the Daily Telegraph‘s Laurie Oakes reported at the time.
    “If he can’t have a Rubio-style Republican he would prefer, although he can hardly say so publicly, to see Clinton and the Democrats win.”
    It is difficult to see just why Turnbull so dislikes Trump. After all, it’s not as though the Prime Minister has anything against men who dye their hair, dress appallingly and enjoy talking about penises. Turnbull spent Saturday night at Sydney’s gay and lesbian Mardi Gras among many chaps who share Trump’s fashion and conversational inclinations.
    There are many other similarities between Turnbull and Trump. Both arrived at politics following extremely successful business careers. Both are very wealthy (Trump considerably more so, according to estimates that place his net wealth at around 27 times that of Turnbull’s $200 million). Both hold policy positions, inasmuch as their positions can be precisely identified, that are contrary to the respective parties’ bases (Trump to the right, Turnbull to the left). Both have previously been aligned with their opponents (Trump has donated huge sums to Democrats, and Turnbull – according to ALP strongman Graham Richardson – once sought a Labor senate seat) …
    So Trump is basically a shoutier, more conservative (in his current guise), richer and oranger version of Turnbull. This may provide some clues as to how a Trump presidency might work out. It could be a relief for alarmed anti-Trump American voters that our own great negotiator has done absolutely nothing since taking office.
    (Continue reading All Mouth, No Trousers.)
    ===

    DOWN WITH CORAL

    Tim Blair – Monday, March 07, 2016 (12:31am)

    Dear GetUp,
    Your latest campaign confuses me. Am I meant to be angry at coal or coral or both?

    image

    I can sort of understand GetUp’s opposition to coal, because none of you are very smart, but until now I was unaware that Australia had a multinational coral export industry. Are Indians and Chinese burning our valuable coral in their massive coral-fired power plants? Is that why the Barrier Reef is always disappearing?
    In any case, I think it is unfair that you make a target of Australia’s hard-working coral miners who, after all, are only trying to put plankton and sea lice on the family table. It isn’t an easy life toiling away at the coral face, hoping every minute that your canary doesn’t die from anything other than drowning.
    Yours in the pay of Big Coral,
    Tim
    ===

    Pell is innocent. See for yourself

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2016 (4:23pm)

    The George Pell witch hunt

    image
    Cardinal George Pell is the most hated man in Australia, if the media is to be believed.
    He has been called “scum”, a “coward”, “sociopathic” and a protector of pedophile priests.
    The royal commission into child sex abuse in institutions virtually called him a liar to his face last week. It called excuses “implausible “ - the excuses that he knew nothing of the pedophile priests around him and was lied to by the bosses and colleagues who protected them.
    But just as implausible, it seems to me, is that George Pell - the third most senior Catholic in the world - would knowingly turn a blind eye while his colleagues raped children, and that he would then tell lie after lie about it over four days in the witness box last week. Moreover, he would do all this without the royal commission being able to discover a single proof of it.
    And to add to that implausibility, Pell would be party to this ghastly cover up, yet would later create the first church fund to compensate victims, reform church procedures to ensure pedophile priests could never flourish in the Australian church, and then move to the Vatican to clean up astonishing financial corruption reaching to almost the very top.
    So which of these two improbable scenarios should you believe? Pell the monster or Pell the innocent and reformer?
    Let me tell you what I have finally concluded after extensive investigation and sometime agonising reflection.
    I have heard Pell give 19 hours of evidence under hostile cross examination. I’ve read extensively the case against him put by prominent media figures. I’ve spoken to five victims. I have met Pell four times in the past, albeit never for long. I have read some of his sermons. I’ve spoken to friends and colleagues of his.  Last week I spoke to Pell for about six hours in Rome, including one hour before the Sky News cameras, during which I put to him every question that was bothering me.
    On Friday I even sat in on a private meeting at the Vatican between Pell and priests from America and Australia as he spoke very frankly about corruption in his church.
    Importantly, I have questioned my own predisposition to give Pell the benefit of the doubt, and last week even wrote a piece damning his record after he made a shocking comment in the witness box - a comment I and most other journalists misinterpreted as meaning he’d had no interest in abused children. I felt seduced by the media praise when I did this, and know I would have been hailed as a hero if I’d kept kicking him, rather than apologising after I rechecked the transcript and realised my mistake.
    But in the end, I had to follow the evidence and make a judgement of the man I came to know pretty well.
    And it is this: George Pell is innocent.
    Pell was not part of a cover-up of pedophile priests.
    He is not a “coward”.
    He is not “scum”.
    He is not as emotionless as he seems.
    Moreover, I find it almost impossible to believe Victoria Police is now taking seriously claims that Pell himself abused between five and 10 boys, not one of whom has come forward to the royal commission.
    And, yes, he is the victim of a witch hunt.
    It is true that he was blind as a priest in Ballarat to tiny warning signs and at times showed a lack of initiative in chasing up vague complaints. But how many more people were just as guilty, or far more?
    The evidence to the royal commission shows that even parents of those hundreds of victims did not believe their own children, or did not know they’d been abused or did not go to the police. Even when the son of a policeman was molested by the worst pedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale, no charges were laid.
    None of the policemen in three towns where Ridsdale molested children knew of the pedophilia or took action. None of the drinkers of the Apollo Bay pub - who the royal commission said knew Ridsdale molested children - went to the police. The Solicitor General of Victoria decline to prosecute another pedophile priest. None of the parents of children who swam naked in a river with one priest insisted on his sacking. Virtually no country journalists knew of the pedophile priests in their towns or reported it.
    So why is it Pell, of all these people, who has been grilled for such marathon lengths of time - when he was neither a perpetrator nor a proven protector of pedophiles?
    You may be still convinced Pell did cover up and is now lying about it. But test yourself, to make sure you are not being unjust to an individual in your fury at his church.
    Watch my interview with George Pell. Is this the monster you mean?
    UPDATE
    Apologies. I had the wrong link to the interview. Watch it here.
    I blame jet lag. 
    ===

    On trashing Abbott. UPDATE: Why has Savva kept her job when Akerman and Sattler lost theirs?

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2016 (4:01pm)

    Niki Savva explains why she didn’t ask Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin for their side of the story before running trashy speculation that they were having an affair and were carrying on like lovers:
    Savva, speaking on the ABC’s Insiders program today, confirmed she had not contacted Ms Credlin or Mr Abbott to put the allegations directly to them for the book.
    “What I decided was that Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin, any day, any night can get out there and give their version of events,” she said. “And their version of events often differs very wildly from everybody else’s and there are people who had been abused for years during that administration who suffered in silence...”
    So let me understand Savva: she did not contact Abbott and Credlin in part because she thinks they’re liars who’d just lie again?
    When you sit down to write a book with that attitude about your subjects, is it any wonder that you’d print any wild thing to discredit them?
    But wait: how does Savva then justify not asking Margie Abbott for her side of the story?
    UPDATE
    Savva confirms my interpretation of her excuse for not contacting Abbott or Credlin:
    “My view was: why should I peddle their lies?” Savva says.
    “I knew from bitter experience that you could not trust their version of events.”

    Wow. So whatever they would say in their defence - including denying they were having an affair - was sure to be a lie?
    Savva really has dehumanised them.

    UPDATE
    What on earth was Concetta Fierravanti-Wells up to when she gave this salacious anti-Abbott gossip to Savva, a known Abbott hater?
    NSW Liberal conservative Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, now a minister, raised the whispering campaign with Mr Abbott when she confronted him about the Coalition’s performance on the eve of a vote on whether to spill the leadership in February last year.
    “Politics is about perceptions,’’ Senator Fierravanti-Wells told Mr Abbott. “Rightly or wrongly, the perception is that you are sleeping with your chief of staff. That’s the perception, and you need to deal with it.’’
    Was Fierravanti-Wells just trying to big-note herself? To curry favour with Malcolm Turnbull?
    Whatever, it’s a warning: anyone having a private conversation with Fierravanti-Wells must realise that every detail could appear in the next slag-off book by some hostile journalist. If you see her coming towards you, shut up.
    UPDATE
    Among the smearing, bitching and score-settling this nugget of good sense from a man I respect:
    Adrian Barrett, who served as Mr Abbott’s press secretary until the leadership spill, last night told The Australian: “No doubt people have scores to settle, including the author, but this unauthorised gossip and smear is beyond the pale. I worked in the Abbott office for more than five years and it was the best working experience of my life.
    “It was an honour to work for a fine and decent man in Tony ­Abbott, and be led by a fastidious, loyal and incredibly effective chief of staff ... The fact that those employed longest in the Abbott office were not contacted as part of this publication speaks volumes.’’
    Other former staff members contacted The Australian yesterday to express their full support for Ms Credlin, with one saying they would work with her again “in a heartbeat’’.
    UPDATE
    Michael Smith points out the hypocrisy of the ABC:
    News Corp columnist sacked from ABC Insiders after “gossip” about former PM’s sexual relationship

    But the News Corp columnist sacked from ABC Insiders was not Savva but Piers Akerman. Piers was sacked by Insiders for noting gossip about Julia Gillard’s partner and alleged sexual relationship - gossip which Akerman pointed out was false.  But Savva is feted by Insiders for noting gossip about Tony Abbott’s chief of staff and alleged sexual relationship - gossip which Savva gives every indication of believing.
    Why this double standard?
    Or go further. Why does Savva keep her job when Howard Sattler lost his? At least Sattler asked Gillard about the rumors and gave her a chance to deny them. He didn’t dismiss her as an inveterate liar, either.
    UPDATE
    Hypocrisy Watch.
    What Savva said on Insiders and is praised for:
    There is no doubt that those rumours were running rife throughout the Coalition… You know, whether they were or whether they weren’t [having an affair] is, in many respects, immaterial.
    The fact is that the relationship between those two people at the very heart of the government, the way they were conducting themselves, the way they were trying to run the government, was very destructive and led to their downfall.
    It wasn’t just those rumours, it was everything else to do with their behaviour. Their behaviour, the way they ran the office, the way they ran the government, ultimately led to their downfall.
    What Akerman said on Insiders and was sacked for:
    Akerman said Sattler’s behaviour was the “most stupid thing he had ever heard on public broadcasting” and that the rumours had circulated in the Canberra press gallery since 2010.
    ‘‘A lot of people in the Canberra gallery have been saying the same thing ,’’ he said.
    Host Barrie Cassidy criticised the comment.
    “You’ve just done precisely what Howard Sattler did and passed on rumours and that’s just as pathetic, quite frankly,’’ he said.
    Akerman later denied passing on rumours, saying he was just pointing out how wrong Sattler was to air the rumours when the press gallery had not.
    ===

    And the Liberals thought they’d got a better salesman

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2016 (1:44pm)

    The way Phil Coorey tells it, Tony Abbott would have been just the bloke to take the fight to Labor:
    Two opinion polls – the most recent Newspoll and Essential polls – now have Labor and the Coalition at 50 per cent apiece on the two-party preferred vote…
    As the Turnbull government has started to struggle, Abbott has been silently vindicated on some fronts. His immediate instinct last year was to rule out changes to negative gearing, superannuation and GST. Turnbull and Morrison put them back on the table and one by one, they are being ruled out for political and economic reasons…
    Abbott showed on Friday he can still deliver a line when he distilled Labor’s election promises as a plan for “five new taxes” – a housing tax (negative gearing), a wealth tax (capital gains), a seniors tax (superannuation), a workers tax (smokers), and the carbon tax.
    At first blush, it looked like ... Tony was back on board, Until the phone started ringing with Liberals observing that two of those tax options – the housing tax and the seniors tax – were still technically in play for the Coalition.
    UPDATE
    Joe Bullock is one Labor senator a conservative could love. It is a pity he’s retiring, but he’s leaving with this blast:

    It was about three years after my ambition speech that I first met the now Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull. Generational change in student politics is quite rapid, and, in those pre-Abbott days, I was looking for someone to be the public face of the moderate team in the students representative council elections. Here it is necessary to note that there were two student organisations at Sydney university. The SRC was the Australian Union of Students affiliate, the ideological battleground and the arena of conflict in which the paid organisers of the Communist Party of Australia, along with single-issue left-wing extremists and their fellow travellers, waged battle with everyday students to determine the political agenda of the student body.
    Running quietly alongside, but aloof from the fray, was the University of Sydney Union, which ran the catering and hosted debates and dinners. Steeped in history and tradition, achieving prominence in the union was a perfect means by which to hobnob with professors and stake out a social status. Offered the prospect of engaging in the contest of ideas and the chance to rally regular students against the political agenda of the extreme left, young Malcolm Turnbull did not hesitate. He chose the reputation, exclusivity and opportunity offered by the university union.
    As a very young man he was committed to burnishing his CV rather than fighting for principle. He presented as the very personification of ambition.  I took a deep and instant dislike to him. Nothing has occurred during the intervening years to persuade me to change my view. As I see it, Mr Turnbull’s life has constituted a single-minded pursuit of wealth and personal advancement, even to Australia’s highest office.
    Here is a man who, 40 years ago, publically announced his intention to be Prime Minister, and when asked, ‘For which party?’ he replied, ‘It doesn’t matter.’
    The early indications are that Mr Turnbull saw the fulfilment of his ambition through the Labor Party. This is evidenced by his support for Lionel Murphy and for, in his words, ‘the much-loved elder statesman’, Gough Whitlam and in his ‘warm personal friendship’ with Peter Dowding.
    Politically, he will be remembered for his support for changing the Australian flag, for the establishment of an Australian republic, for changing the definition of marriage and for an emissions trading scheme. These are all positions that sit comfortably with the political Left.
    UPDATE
    As I noted today:
    Just look at what Turnbull has (not) done in the six months he has been leader. He has merely kept the foundations Abbott built to win the next election — policies on boats, global warming, free trade deals and union corruption — without building anything of his own on top.
    His tax policy is still completely unknown. His own spending cuts are a mystery. Turnbull is still just a big cheesy smile painted on Abbott’s facade.
    Which left poor Mitch Fifield doing a Dennis Denuto to sell him:
    (Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill, Stu and John.) 
    ===

    These race claims should be irrelevant. Why encourage them?

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2016 (1:26pm)

    All this kind of stuff - the suing, the silencing, the threats - would not happen if we treated race as irrelevant when considering people for jobs, grants, prizes or status:

    A NSW woman teaching Aboriginal culture to school-aged ­children after being stripped of her certificate of Aboriginality in 2012 is claiming compensation in the Federal Circuit Court, saying she was discriminated against.
    The Yamanda Aboriginal Assoc­iation gave Elizabeth Taylor, 40, a certificate of confirmation of Aboriginality on May 23, 2010, after it was provided with a handwritten family tree at a meeting in Bowral.
    Yamanda says the initial certificate was issued to avoid embarrassment, due to the large crowd of local community members in ­attendance at the meeting, with a full geneaology or family history required­ by Ms Taylor and her family within three months.
    But the genealogy was not ­provided and on July 17, 2012, the group cancelled her certificate after a special extraordinary general meeting was called, at which elders argued Ms Taylor had failed to meet two of three criteria defining an Aboriginal person under the NSW Land Rights Act.
    In 2014, Ms Taylor launched legal action against Yamanda and the Moyengully Natural Resource Management Group, seeking more than $150,000 in compensation for lost income, pain and suffering. She argues in her submissions she is of Aboriginal descent and identifies as Aboriginal.
    We’ll see more such cases if we really are stupid enough to agree to change the constitution to formally divide us by race.
    (Thanks to reader observa and others.) 
    ===

    Yes, maybe, who knows

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2016 (1:08pm)

    Who is in charge of the Liberal party?

    Malcolm Turnbull faces a furious backlash from conservative ­Coalition MPs after Attorney-General George Brandis committed the government to holding a same-sex marriage plebiscite ­before the end of the year if it won ­­re-election.
    Backbenchers were angered by Senator Brandis announcing a plebiscite time-frame on national television before discussing it with the partyroom, warning the ­Coalition should focus on its economic narrative rather than “second tier” social issues such as gay marriage…
    “The bill to constitute this plebiscite will be introduced early in the life of the new parliament so as we can have the plebiscite ­before the end of this year,” Senator Brandis told Sky News’s Australian Agenda…
    Malcolm Turnbull, who became the first prime minister to ­attend the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras at the weekend, played down Senator Brandis’s timing announcement by refusing to confirm if the public vote would happen before next year.
    ===

    Liberals love Abbott more than Turnbull, but he must change

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2016 (12:47am)

    MALCOLM Turnbull’s problem with Tony Abbott became embarrassingly clear last week when the two rivals stepped before a crowd of diehard Liberals.
    The function: the 20th anniversary of the election of the Howard government.
    The crowd: 650 people in Parliament’s Great Hall.
    And one more detail to help explain what followed: the Master of Ceremonies was Richard Alston who long ago, as communications minister, fought to make the ABC fix its anti-Liberal bias, even lodging formal complaints.
    So it was Alston, now the Liberals’ president, who told the crowd to give a big hand to Prime Minister Turnbull even though Turnbull, as communications minister under Abbott, had actually defended the ABC — his media support base.

    But then Alston introduced Abbott, and the crowd went nuts. It roared. It cheered. It gave huge applause for the scarred Liberal warrior.
    [Listen here from 22:58.]
    It was like the difference at a footy final between the welcome for the local mayor and the one for the gutsy team captain.
    And that is the point.
    (Read full story here.) 
    ===

    Paterson wins: Liberals pick a fighter for Liberal ideas

    Andrew Bolt March 06 2016 (11:16pm)

    Fantastic. The Liberals choose a young star with backbone:
    Institute of Public Affairs executive James Paterson has been preselected to replace retiring Victorian Senator Michael Ronaldson.
    The 28-year-old lobbied hard and beat out eight others including international relations expert Denis Dragovic and legal aid lawyer Karina Okotel for the position at a Liberals preselection convention....
    The Liberals will never win the battle of ideas unless it picks candidates who have them - and the guts to fight for them. 
    ===

    Rubio fades. Cruz rises as the chief Trump rival

    Andrew Bolt March 06 2016 (11:06pm)

    Rubio, the establishment favorite, now needs to bow out fast to give Cruz a fair chance of taking it to Trump. But either way, an outsider will now be the Republican candidate at the presidential election:
    Ted Cruz has won the Republican presidential caucuses in Kansas and Maine, strengthening his position as the prime alternative to Donald Trump.
    The result adds to Mr Cruz’s previous victories in Iowa, Alaska, Oklahoma and his home state of Texas.
    Although the outcome may have slowed Mr Trump’s momentum slightly, the brash billionaire still came out top in contests held in Louisiana and Kentucky - furthering his lead in the delegate count.
    The results leave Mr Trump with 378 delegates, Mr Cruz 295, Marco Rubio 123 and John Kasich 34 - with 1237 delegates required to win the Republican nomination.
    The only thing that can keep Rubio in the race is a home-town victory in the big winner-take-all seat of Florida, but that’s not looking a great bet, despite claims of a surge:
    Marco Rubio is closing the gap on Donald Trump in Florida, according to a new poll commissioned for an anti-Trump group.
    The Tarrance Group poll shows:

    Trump 35.4% Rubio 30.3%
    Cruz 15.5%
    Kasich 8.5%
    Carson 4.6%
    Undecided/Other 5.6%
    Paul Mirengoff:
    Rubio and Kasich are pinning their hopes on winning in their home state — Florida and Ohio, respectively. Maybe they will. But it would be nice if they carried some momentum into those races. Neither gained any tonight. Rubio, in particular, seems to be fading.
    ===

    WE JUST DIDN’T LISTEN

    Tim Blair – Saturday, March 07, 2015 (5:00pm)

    We heard all the warnings about climate change but still we did nothing. And now it’s too late.
    ===

    ACT OF PARLIAMENT REQUIRED

    Tim Blair – Saturday, March 07, 2015 (4:53pm)

    Fairfax’s Clementine Ford is upset that more Australian feminists don’t have Wikipedia pages.
    If only this terrible problem could be easily fixed. For the life of me, however, I cannot imagine how. 
    ===

    REPRESENT THE PEOPLE

    Tim Blair – Saturday, March 07, 2015 (4:45pm)

    Frequently fact-free ABC tax toilet Jonathan Green laments recent events: 
    It’s such a pity that circumstances appear to have dulled the momentum behind moves to push Tony Abbott aside as Prime Minister. This could have been a moment, a pivot that carried the potential to draw our political class a little closer to the people it claims to represent. 
    Speaking of our political class, Jonathan, what about drawing the ABC closer to “the people it claims to represent”? Well, to its credit, one minor arm of the ABC recently attempted to do exactly that by posting the results of a poll asking if Australians sentenced to death overseas for drug smuggling should be executed.
    Unsurprisingly, a majority of respondents said yes. After which the ABC’s Media Watch declared that the poll’s findings should not have been published. That’s pretty much standard form for our billion-dollar broadcaster, which commonly declines to consider many topics and views of mainstream interest – from global warming scepticism to the mysterious, unknowable motivations behind recent terrorist attacks. Not to mention Gillian Triggs and her Evidentiary Timeline of Eternal Concealment.
    One good way to improve the ABC’s connection to “the people it claims to represent”, by the way, might be to make its funding completely dependent on market forces. Just a thought.
    ===

    CARBON DIOXIDE IS INNOCENT

    Tim Blair – Saturday, March 07, 2015 (4:22pm)

    From the Daily Caller, on the freezing US east coast: 
    There’s a winter storm afoot, and places like New York City are expected to get hit with several inches of snow ...
    It’s hard to imagine that just 30 years ago, government scientists were predicting that global warming would make New York City resemble Daytona Beach, Florida – which does not get snow.
    In 1985, the New York Times reported that ‘[f]ederal climate experts have suggested that within a century the greenhouse effect could turn New York City into something with the climate of Daytona Beach, Fla.”
    “Beginning in a decade or two, scientists expect the warming of the atmosphere to melt the polar icecaps, raising the level of the seas, flooding coastal areas, eroding the shores and sending salt water far into fresh-water estuaries,” the Times reported. 
    Instead, it’s sent children to Capitol Hill. Further from that 1985 NYT piece: 
    A new scientific study has confirmed a swiftly changing view of what causes the greenhouse effect – heightening both the urgency of the problem and the difficulty of controlling it. The study finds that the leading role in the earth’s warming belongs not to carbon dioxide, as long believed, but to an assortment of rare, mostly artificial gases, many never seen in the atmosphere before the 1960’s.
    That supports the view of atmospheric scientists that the world is rushing toward global climate change on a startling scale … 
    So far, the greenhouse effect has not been clearly felt. In the generations since scientists first theorized that increased carbon dioxide would alter the earth’s temperature balance by trapping heat in the atmosphere, no one has been able to measure a significant warming. Scientists have explanations for that, and they believe their temperature curves will soon soar off the scale …
    Until recently, the culprit seemed to be strictly carbon dioxide, which has been increasing steadily for the last century. But the new study, to be published next month in the Journal of Geophysical Research, confirms that an even greater greenhouse effect is likely to come from 30 or more trace gases, mostly emitted by industry and agriculture.
    These gases are more efficient at trapping heat on its way out to space, and they are increasing much faster than carbon dioxide. 
    The science is settled, everybody.
    ===

    WAR WON

    Tim Blair – Saturday, March 07, 2015 (2:00pm)

    Has Mike Carlton been placed in his restraining garments? Yes? In that case, we may now examine the impressive sales figures for Hal G.P. Colebatch’s award-winning Australia’s Secret War: 
    All up, sales from the 2013 first issue to today total more than 10,000 copies, an excellent result for boutique Quadrant Books and its hardback at the upmarket price of $44.95. Assuming Colebatch gets the usual 10% royalty, that’s another $45,000 for him.
    The first print run in October, 2013, was 1000 copies but that sold out within weeks. “Since then we’ve ordered five more reprints at 2000 a time,” says Quadrant publisher Keith Windschuttle. “Its 10,000 copies sold is very good going for a book $10 pricier than the normal novel or gift book.” 
    It certainly is very good. Mr Carlton may now be released.
    ===

    LEO GEOGHEGAN

    Tim Blair – Saturday, March 07, 2015 (1:24pm)

    Australian motor racing great Leo Geoghegan died earlier this week at 78. Peter McKay farewells the multiple champion, who during the early 1970s spearheaded Chrysler’s local competition arm.
    A decade or so back I bought a handy little Peugeot 505 GTI from Leo’s Sydney car yard. He gave me an excellent deal and chatted happily about his racing exploits. A very nice bloke.
    ===

    The Australian should stop attacking me and just admit it cannot defend what Lyons actually wrote

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2015 (6:33pm)

    James Jeffrey is the second journalist at The Australian to embarrass himself by defending a plainly false story by insisting the author, colleague John Lyons, once wrote another that wasn’t wrong.  In fact, it speaks volumes that the last two attacks on me both fail to repeat, let alone defend, the ludicrous allegation in Lyons’ original article - that Tony Abbott asked his “leading military planners” for “advice” on the “unilateral invasion of Iraq”.

    I expected much better from James. Indeed, I do not think it remotely possible that he actually believes his absurd non-sequitur of a defence. So the question is: why did he write it?
    Memo to The Australian: if you want me to stop attacking the story, why don’t you simply stop repeating it? Bullying will not work.
    UPDATE
    What Lyons first claimed, in the first eight words of his front-page article:
    TONY Abbott suggested a unilateral invasion of Iraq....
    What James now claims Lyons claimed:
    The Weekend Australian published John Lyons’s exclusive on Tony Abbott’s suggestion of unilateral Australian ground action in Iraq. 
    What Lyons himself now claims he claimed:
    Abbott raised the idea of unilaterally sending 3500 Australian combat soldiers...
    Oh, and Lyons has admitted that “unilateral” isn’t quite what you’d assume, either.
    What he meant by that ["unilateral"] was without United States or NATO cooperation. It wasn’t without Iraqi cooperation, of course, because Australia is already co-operating with Iraq.
    Got it? Not really “unilateral” at all, even according to Lyons’ own revised versions:
    It would, he suggested, be “unilateral” — by this he meant not part of any specific US or NATO operation.  
    So “invasion” has now been rewritten as merely “sending” troops or a “ground action”. And “unilateral” has been redefined to mean merely outside a US operation.
    Not an invasion. Not unilateral.  Not true.
    UPDATE
    I have asked two people in Tony Abbott’s office to confirm the identity of the person I believe to be John Lyon’s “source” for his false claim. Neither person will even respond, which is highly unusual.
    I suspect that they - and the Prime Minister - are keen to protect this person, and not because that person’s identity would embarrass Abbott.
    It would instead embarrass the “source” (if I’m right) - someone for whom Abbott has done much and who should be ashamed of how he’s been repaid. Or be angry to have been so misreported by Lyons.
    It would be honorable if that person now corrected the record.  
    ===

    Bartronica opens

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2015 (4:58pm)

    A new bar opens tonight in Melbourne, the brainchild of a very talented TV director. It will be worth checking out Bartronica, in the basement of 335 Flinders Lane in the city. 
    ===

    A battle for our future - and your taxes

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2015 (10:08am)

    image
    (Graphic via the IPA.)
    Paul Kelly on the great clash - Liberals vs Labor over the ballooning deficits as our population ages fast:
    THE atmospherics of politics changed this week with the Abbott government taking control of the agenda with a narrative about why spending and budget reform is essential — the irony being Tony Abbott is in retreat from such unpopular rigour… 
    The Abbott government dumped its Medicare co-payment, the most rotten of the barnacles, and in a concession to the backbench lifted its defence force pay increase, only to produce an Intergenerational Report at week’s end that was an argument for tough fiscal savings of the type it was ditching. The Prime Minister… now embraces a variation of “whatever it takes” to save his prime ministership. And as he reaches out, the anger of his opponents suddenly resembles the protests of the bankrupt…
    Labor went over the top at the IGR, refusing to accept its core proposition and claiming it was merely the latest effort to punish the community…
    Abbott and Joe Hockey are selling optimism about the future. That’s essential to lift their public standing. But the theme of the IGR is the need for savings equivalent to the unpopular May 2014 budget to ensure the future demands of an ageing population can be financed.... While politics has forced Abbott to retreat, the finances of the IGR force him to stand firm… Talks this week with cabinet ministers left the writer with the view the government is yet to formulate how to square the circle....
    Labor’s response is negative. It rejects the IGR as another effort to sell an unacceptable budget. Its dismissal is contemptuous, with Bill Shorten asserting the report is about making people work longer for a reduced pension. Such blanket rejection is unwise given the implications of an ageing population seem undeniable and Labor is already vulnerable on budget repair as wreckers with virtually no constructive ideas on the table…
    The IGR reveals what will become the central conflict in Australian politics: the coming ideological and values dispute over how the nation repairs the budget and meets the demands of an ageing population…
    By mid-century male life expectancy will be 95 years. There will be more than 40,000 people over 100 years old. The ratio of the working-age population to the post-65-year-olds will have shifted from 4.5 workers to 2.7 workers, affecting the ability of the tax base to finance health and welfare needs. Economic growth is expected to slow to 2.8 per cent during the next 40 years compared with 3.1 per cent during the past 40 years. Living standards growth will slow.
    In assessing Australia’s ability to meet the demands of an ageing population with a tenable budget, the IGR looks at three scenarios.
    Scenario one is based on the 2013 settings (Labor’s policy with some Abbott government early spending), the conclusion being this trajectory would be a disaster by mid-century. Scenario two is the “currently legislated” 2014 budget settings, and while this shows significant progress, the mid-century trajectory is still untenable with a deficit of 6 per cent of gross domestic product.
    The third and endorsed scenario is the full implementation of the unpopular 2014 budget measures or equivalent savings for those unlegislated measures. Under this trajectory a sustained budget surplus is achieved in 2019-20 and retained to mid-century with net debt being reduced to zero by 2031-32…     You can agree or disagree with the assumptions of the IGR or say the time period makes the project near pointless. But this is a government document and, in effect, it is a long-range vision from this government… They reveal the ­Coalition’s commitment to a smaller government philosophy than Labor, with far less of GDP being spent on health, welfare and education. 
    (Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill and brett t r.) 
    ===

    The Bolt Report tomorrow, March 8

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2015 (10:05am)

    On the  The Bolt Report on Channel 10 tomorrow at 10am and 3pm. (Note the earlier start of the repeat.)
    Editorial: on the looming execution of two Australians.
    Guest: Polling guru Mark Textor on the stunning recovery of Tony Abbott.
    The panel: Judith Sloan and former Labor minister Gary Johns.
    Newswatch: Piers Akerman, laughing at the press corps.
    On the Greens, Labor denialism and much more.
    The videos of the shows appear here. 
    UPDATE
    Troy, it wasn’t Mark’s fault at all, and he’s neither the boaster nor the hypocrite you immediately assumed. I take the whole blame for the way his appearance was billed, having enormous respect for his talent:
    image
    ===

    Carr blows the whistle on NSW Labor’s great power swindle

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2015 (9:42am)

    Bob Carr is right and populist Labor wrong:
    FORMER Labor premier Bob Carr told students at a university Labor Club function this week he should have been allowed to privatise the electricity networks in 1997 and the Labor Party had not been “proven right” in blocking him… 
    The leaked private comments are a blow to the anti-privatisation campaign of the state Opposition leader Luke Foley…
    Incumbent NSW Premier Mike Baird plans to lease 49 per cent of the transmission and distribution assets to raise $20 billion for infrastructure.
    Brendan Lyon, chief executive of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, exposes the great con that Labor is trying to protect:
    NSW Labor’s infrastructure plan, described even by itself as “modest”, sees major projects across the state cancelled, delayed or scaled back because they are not affordable without the $20 billion windfall from the lease of the poles and wires.  
    For their part, electricity unions are mounting a well-organised, well-funded but dishonest fear campaign, arguing the lease will lead to higher electricity prices…
    It’s important the community understands how the sector really works. Power generators (largely private) compete on a wholesale market, selling lowest price to retailers (also private) who in turn offer electricity to retail customers.
    Combined, power stations and ­retailers represent just one third of your bill — and their costs have been falling…
    About 60 per cent of your energy bill is paid straight to the ­publicly operated high-voltage transmission network, and public distribution companies — known as the poles and wires. It is this (public) part of electricity that has driven more than half the increase in your bills, far more than green schemes, carbon and solar tariffs.
    As monopoly assets, the costs charged by grid companies are independently set by the Australian Energy Regulator. The regulator sets the price they can charge by setting the level of investment in the grid (capital expenditure) and the amount of cost from staffing and operating the grid (operational expenditure).
    This means the 26 per cent superannuation paid to some public electricity workers is paid by us, as part of the operating expenditure.
    The free cars and fuel used by some electricity workers on holidays and long service leave are also paid from our pockets as “operating ­expenditure”.  And the costs of “gold-plating” electricity infrastructure also go straight to our energy bills at home each quarter, as part of the capital ­expenditure.
    This is why public operation of the grid in NSW has seen costs skyrocket by 122 per cent in the past 15 years, while the privately operated Victorian and South Australian networks have fallen by 18 and 17 per cent each.      Not what the union fear campaign says, right? That’s because they are being dishonest with you.  The AER’s draft price determination for NSW, released last year, shows prices will come down markedly after the lease, not increase.
    It’s astonishing that this stuff still needs debating, and that a modern Labor still tries to get away with such a swindle.
    UPDATE
    A warning to NSW voters. Unions will come demanding their reward once Labor is elected, and you will foot their bill.  Just check out Victoria:
    A MAJOR public sector union critical to Daniel Andrews’ election triumph has demanded a pay rise of more than 30 per cent over the next three years in a log of claims that would cost taxpayers more than $1.5 billion. 
    The United Firefighters Union has presented the Country Fire Authority with its latest demands for a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement, which include pay increases of 9.7 per cent a year for the next three years. A source within the Metropolitan Fire Brigade said it was expecting a similar demand from the UFU.
    The union also demands that any firefighter working more than 20 minutes’ overtime be paid for a full day, and that firefighters be exempt from paying the Fire Services Levy and be able to use public transport free.
    A CFA firefighter with three years’ service is currently paid around $70,000 a year…
    The log of claims ... would give the union a veto over the employment of outside contractors, the introductions of new technology, and changes to rosters…     Victoria’s firefighting agencies would also be required to pay for an annual Global Forum on Climate Change and Emergency Services.
    Ah, the tell-tale sign of the Left.  Your money hijacked to promote their causes. 
    ===

    The Left unhinged: claiming our politicians are worse than the Islamic State

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2015 (9:32am)

    Have key members of the Left lost all moral perspective? Gerard Henderson:
    The Sydney Morning Herald’s inner-city architect Elizabeth Farrelly ... compared the Liberal Party senators who criticised Professor Triggs at a Senate Estimates Committee meeting ... – to wit, Senator Ian Macdonald and Senator Barry O’Sullivan – with, wait for it, the murderers who make up the so-called Islamic State ... 
    [She] wrote: 
    … The shock of watching Liberal Party thugs sledge the Human Rights Commission for daring to dissent, echoed the shock of watching those black-clad IS psycho-puppies jack-hammer 3000-year-old winged Assyrian bulls. The separation of powers is our priceless cultural artefact. At least IS was sufficiently ashamed to take its video down. Abbott remains unapologetic. Apparently it’s bad to criticise government, but just fine to attack the very institutions that differentiate us from the totalitarian regimes against which our government purports to defend us.
    So there you have it. According to Elizabeth Farrelly, there is no difference between a couple of Liberal Party backbench senators criticising Professor Triggs for the timing of – and her inconsistent testimony on – the Forgotten Children report (on children in detention) and the Sunni Muslim IS terrorists who take a break from murdering Shi’a Muslims in Iraq and Syria in order to find time for the destruction of 3000 year old artefacts with jack-hammers… Moreover, Dr Farrelly believes that all that separates Australians from living under a “totalitarian” regime at the time of the Abbott-Clerical-Fascist dictatorship is Gillian Triggs and her fellow public servants the Human Rights Commission in Sydney....
    On Friday 20 February 2015, in Aunty’s very own RN Drive’s “The Drawing Room” were presenter Patricia Karvelas, American anti-capital punishment campaigner Bryan Stevenson and Australia’s very own Julian ... Burnside AO QC. In the course of the ... conversation, JB AO QC made the following extraordinary comment: 
    We criticise Islamic State, and rightly criticise Islamic State, for executing people. They do it with a swift blow of the sword, so the person dies within seconds. and yet, America is willing to have a person writhing in the electric chair for 14 minutes whilst they die. You know which one is more savage.
    How alienated can a Melbourne based QC get? For starters, the so-called Islamic State is into murders – not executions. Secondly, the victims of beheading do not die within seconds – rather they suffer a slow and gruesome death. Third, only some states of the United States have executions for capital offences following a trial by jury. Virtually all those states have abolished the electric chair – most executions are done by lethal injections. But Julian Burnside AO QC reckons that the victims of the Islamic State die within seconds – so IS murderers cannot be regarded as dispensing “savage” punishment. 
    Then there was this dangerous idiocy from Burnside, claiming I am more dangerous to you than a terrorist:
    image
    UPDATE
     Yes, me and George Brandis are worse than the Islamic State:
    THE Islamic State group began bulldozing the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in Iraq on Thursday in the jihadists’ latest attack on the country’s historical heritage… 
    An Iraqi antiquities official confirmed the news, saying the destruction began after noon prayers on Thursday and that trucks that may have been used to haul away artefacts had also been spotted at the site…
    Nimrud, one of the jewels of the Assyrian era, was founded in the 13th century BC and lies on the Tigris River around 30 km (18 miles) southeast of Mosul, Iraq’s second city and the main hub of IS in the country.
    “I’m sorry to say everybody was expecting this. Their plan is to destroy Iraqi heritage, one site at a time,” said Abdulamir Hamdani, an Iraqi archaeologist from Stony Brook University.
    “Hatra of course will be next,” he said, referring to a beautifully-preserved city in Nineveh that is more than 2,000 years old and is a UNESCO world heritage site…
    The destruction at Nimrud came a week after the jihadist group released a video showing militants armed with sledgehammers and jackhammers smashing priceless ancient artefacts at the Mosul museum.... “These artefacts behind me are idols for people from ancient times who worshipped them instead of God,” a bearded militant said in the video.
    When will the Left take the Islamic State seriously, instead of treating it as just some bogeyman hyped up by wicked conservatives. Earlier this week I asked why Australia’s top gay organisation was so silent on the Islamic State’s execution of gays. Now I ask where the arts community is.
    Oh, and can Waleed Aly poossibly deny the Islamic inspiration behind this attack on art?
    (Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill and brett t r.) 
    ===

    Why haven’t ABC journalists asked boss Mark Scott what he knew about the Knox scandal?

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2015 (9:26am)

    Gerard Henderson on a particularly interesting case of ABC double standards - one that strikes very close to home:
    Despite the evidence that child abuse has been a blight on virtually all sections of Australian society, the ABC has tended to focus its attention on the Catholic Church in general and [Cardinal George] Pell in particular. 
    This despite the fact that Pell was one of the first leaders in church or state to address the matter when he established the Melbourne Response, soon after taking over as Catholic archbishop of Melbourne in 1996.
    There was a media conference where Pell was criticised ferociously by two leading ABC presenters — 7.30’s Leigh Sales and Lateline’s Emma Alberici. Four Corners has targeted Pell on a couple of occasions.
    Currently the royal commission is hearing evidence about the Uniting Church’s Knox Grammar School on Sydney’s north shore. The evidence suggests that for close to four decades there was a nest of male pedophile teachers who sexually assaulted boys. Moreover, the abuse was known to at least some school authorities, including the long-time headmaster Ian Paterson, who stepped down in 1998.
    Pell is one of the best known Australians. So it is not surprising that he sparked media attention during his time in Melbourne and then Sydney..

    ABC managing director and editor-in-chief Mark Scott is also a high-profile Australian. Yet I do not recall that, in its extensive reporting of child sexual abuse at Knox Grammar School, the ABC has made even one mention of the fact that Scott has been a member of the Knox Grammar School council since late 2007 and deputy chairman since mid-2013.
    The extent of child sexual abuse at Knox, which commenced as early as the 1970s, was not publicised until 2009, when a male teacher was arrested and charged on a sex-related offence.
    The royal commission’s public hearings cover the period between 1970 and 2012.
    In correspondence over the past few days, with the permission of the chairman of the Knox Grammar School council, Scott wrote to me that he did not recall any discussions of matters relating to child sexual abuse on the Knox council before 2009. He also advised that he was not aware of any discussion of the treatment of relevant files, although the school council was briefed that some key files appeared to be missing.
    In subsequent correspondence, Scott wrote that it was not appropriate for him to answer questions as to why the issue of child abuse was not discussed at council meetings before 2009. He also declined to say why the school council had not advised parents of the extent of the scandal before the royal commission’s public hearings commenced.
    I accept that Scott is a truthful and professional person. However, ABC journalists would not accept an “I did not know” or a “no comment” response if Pell or the former Anglican archbishop Peter Jensen were on the board of a school where teachers molested students.
    As ABC editor-in-chief, Scott publicly and privately supported the pursuit of Pell by ABC journalists. But these very same journalists, so far at least, have not asked Scott to what extent he believes that he — and other Knox Grammar School council members — fulfilled a duty of care with respect to students for whom they were responsible.
    It is called a double standard.
    (Thanks to readers John, WaG311, Nikki, Lisle and Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
    ===

    Two details that didn’t catch the Age’s flight of fancy

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2015 (8:44am)

    The Age mysteriously fails to include two telling details in its report of how a heroic student is punished by a wicked corporation:
    Victoria University student Jasmine Pilbrow, who protested the transfer and deportation of a Tamil man to Sri Lanka on board Qantas flight 838 on February 2, has been banned from the airline.
    One fact missing from The Age’s lionisation of Pilbrow: 
    Ms Pilbrow distributed flyers titled Save Puvaneethan from torture and urged passengers to refuse to sit down unless Puvaneethan was allowed to get off… Ms Pilbrow said the Refugee Action Collective ... had organised her protest…
    A second fact missing from The Age’s lionisation of Pilbrow:
    ... a Qantas spokesperson released a statement, claiming “A number of passengers were identified as being involved in the on-board incident, causing the flight to be delayed by almost an hour. 
    Why did The Age fail to report that this seems to have been a political stunt that inconvenienced scores of other passengers and cost Qantas money? Is that because these inconvenient details would fully justify Qantas wanting to ban the activist and protect its customers?
    Also missing, of course, is any mention of the key judgement now made by members of the Refugee Review Tribunal in denying Sri Lankan Tamils refugee status unless they can demonstrate a specific threat to them personally. Here is an extract from a recent RRT judgement that may well apply to Puvaneethan:

    Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Two details that didn’t catch the Age’s flight of fancy'
    ===

    Turning off Clive Palmer’s money tap

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2015 (8:32am)

    Clive Palmer once boasted he’d won every one of his many court cases.
    That hasn’t been true for a long time, and it’s sure not true now:
    CLIVE Palmer has suffered another bruising defeat in his legal war against Chinese corporate giant Citic, with the West Australian Supreme Court rejecting a demand that his company ­receive a $22 million royalty payment from a Pilbara iron ore ­project. 
    The decision deprives Mr Palmer of a much-needed cash injection and further tightens the Chinese government-owned Citic’s grip over the $10 billion Sino Iron mine, which has been exporting for more than a year.
    Mr Palmer’s private vehicle, Mineralogy, launched a courtroom bid for the $22m payment in January, claiming Citic owed it that amount for iron ore exports from Sino Iron during 2014…     Mineralogy’s $22m claim prompted Citic’s lawyers to suggest during the hearing that Mr Palmer’s company was “desperate” for an upfront cash payment before a full hearing of the royalties dispute could be heard.
    ===

    Another anti-Abbott rumor treated as fact

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2015 (8:20am)

    Another anti-Abbott scare based on a dud rumour. This time it’s pushed by Alan Kohler:
    There is one barnacle that the Abbott Government needs to get rid of immediately: the rule that any director on a government board who was appointed by the previous Labor government will not be re-appointed. 
    The decree, apparently issued by Prime Minister Tony Abbott and/or his chief of staff Peta Credlin and binding on all cabinet ministers, was publicly confirmed yesterday by the chairman of CSIRO, Simon McKeon…

    That chairman had told me he had attempted to get three members of his board re-appointed this year, telling his minister that in each case they were good directors who contributed much to the organisation.
    The minister apparently apologised, but said his hands were tied: they could not be re-appointed because they were Labor appointees…
    If Tony Abbott doesn’t drop this rule soon, relations between his government and the director community will break down irretrievably. 
    The facts:
    JOE Hockey has flatly rejected suggestions the Abbott government has a policy of not reappointing government board directors hired by the previous Labor ­administration. 
    And a spokesman for Tony ­Abbott told The Weekend Australian there were more than 50 government agencies with boards where a person was appointed by Labor and reappointed by the current government…
    ... in dismissing suggestions that the government had a policy of not renewing Labor appointees, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said Kim Beazley had been reappointed as ambassador in Washington.     Other re-appointments included Elizabeth Broderick as the Sex Discrimination Commissioner and Ian Chubb as Chief Scientist. Mr Turnbull forced almost all the NBN Co directors to quit in September 2013, except for Kerry Schott and Alison Lansley, who he asked to stay on. 
    And let’s face it - Labor has been masterly at promoting its own through the bureaucracy. The Liberals must do the same to promote cultural change. Witness only how the Labor-appointed Gillian Triggs has used the Human Rights Commission. 
    ===

    Lee Rhiannon and the Greens’ politics of smear

    Andrew Bolt March 06 2015 (9:01pm)

    How low can the Greens go in using Parliament to smear a public servant?
    Paul Sheehan on the truly grotesque behaviour of Senator Lee Rhiannon, using guilt by the most far-fetched association to portray a crime fighter as just a dangerous thug:
    Senator Lee Rhiannon, Greens NSW, delivered a speech on Tuesday night that was smearing at its most abject. 
    Under the privilege of Parliament on Tuesday night, Sr Rhiannon began a speech with these words: “Nigel Hadgkiss, director of the Fair Work Building and Construction inspectorate, has framed his career and, indeed, his life, as a crime fighter, exposing corruption, drug runners and criminals.”
    “[But his career] is about reducing the pay workers take home at the end of the week and reducing the rights of workers to ensure they have a safe workplace …
    “It is only legitimate that Australians know who he is ... In 1989, as a Winston Churchill Fellow, the Hadgkiss CV tells us he studied methods for combatting organised crime in Northern Ireland …
    “The Royal Ulster Constabulary - known as the RUC - was the local police force in Northern Ireland until 2001… In 1989, the RUC… was involved with paramilitaries in carrying out brutal crimes, including murder… There is no suggestion that Hadgkiss was involved in crimes committed by the RUC. However, why does he promote this visit as a study trip to examine methods of fighting organised crime?… We do know that Hadgkiss’ career has been under a cloud at least since the 1990s …”
    Here is Sr Rhiannon’s logic: Nigel Hadgkiss studied in Ulster in 1989. Paramilitants committed murders in Ulster in 1989. Paramilitants were linked with the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Therefore Mr Hadgkiss needs to explain what black arts he was studying in Northern Ireland.
    Worse, the smear was delivered in support of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, which for decades has been riddled with systemic corruption, intimidation and violence. This is the union that has sub-contracted bikie gangs as enforcers…
    A similarly methodical attempt at character assassination of Hadgkiss had been made last Thursday by Labor’s designated parliamentary apologist, rationaliser and attack dog for the CFMEU, Senator Doug Cameron.
    The senator engaged in yet another tortuous inquisition of Mr Hadgkiss, asking 128 questions, all suggestive that he has colluded with construction companies. Labor’s tactics are a clear message of intimidation to senior public servants whose jobs involve investigating union corruption and intimidation…
    After about an hour of this, Sr Cameron suddenly fell silent when the subject turned to the intimidation of Mr Hadgkiss’ staff, especially his female staff.
    Mr Hadgkiss: “We have 25 documented cases of serious security matters involving my staff in recent years. Invariably these involve ‘scab sheets’ where the identity of investigators is put up - their personal details, their home and their telephone numbers - particularly female staff members are rung at home at night and abused.”     Sr Cameron remained silent.
    Shame on Rhiannon. Shame on Cameron.
    UPDATE
    Bravo Senator Barry O’Sullivan for taking on Lee Rhiannon over her disgusting smears and for demanding that if anyone should come clean on past associations it is Rhiannon herself, graduate of a Soviet Union college for foreign sympathisers.
    APOLOGIES - THE LINK IS NOW CORRECTED.
    But just in case, read on for O’Sullivan’s great reproof:

    Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Lee Rhiannon and the Greens’ politics of smear'
    ===

    Clipping wings of once great airline

    Piers Akerman – Thursday, March 06, 2014 (11:46pm)

    QANTAS is paying the price of being too smart by half. The Flying Kangaroo risks becoming road kill courtesy of the truly stupid commercially-restrictive policies of the ALP and the Greens, or, even more senselessly, at its own suicidal hand because of its ill-advised propensity to engage in party politics.

    Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Clipping wings of once great airline'
    ===

    Gender shouldn’t define a career

    Miranda Devine – Tuesday, March 04, 2014 (10:14pm)

    THE hypocrisy of Labor dispatching its Emily’s List sweethearts Penny Wong and Catherine King to tear down one of the few women in the Abbott ministry made last week’s Senate Estimates hearings compulsory viewing.

    Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Gender shouldn’t define a career'
    ===

    CHOP ACCOMPLISHED

    Tim Blair – Thursday, March 06, 2014 (8:25pm)

    The main reason for this latest US trip wasn’t just to maintain my impressively destructive carbon footprint. It was also to eat an authentic wop chop at Muzz and Stan’s Freeway Tavern in Butte, Montana:

    image

    The wop chop is a surprisingly delicate fried pork chop sandwich, said to have been the favourite meal of Butte nativeEvel Knievel. Allow me to report that the wop chop is indeed fantastically tasty:

    image

    Butte – pronounced beaut – has other places of great interest. There’s the local university’s excellent mineral museum, where fortunate visitors may be given a guided tour by resident geologist John. And there’s my place of lodging, the ethereal Eddy’s Motel:

    image

    When on the road, I like to mix up the places I stay. Some five star, some … well, let’s just say that they may have the star level of a typical ABC Insiders panel, but they make up for it with charm and deserved pride (unlike a typicalInsiders panel). Eddy’s delivered. And next door is a bar called Joker’s, where one night I ran into Bob and his wife Tammy. Even experienced Montana hunters only manage to bring down an elk every decade or so. Bob is known for killing an elk every single year.
    “Be here at 6pm tomorrow,” Bob announced. “I’m bringing elk steaks.” I turned up on time and Bob was true to his word. The steaks, seasoned with a dry rub of Bob’s own invention, were superb. Behind the bar, Cindy looked on with casual admiration. “He’s always bringing in things to cook,” she said, ordering up some accompanying fries.
    The next morning, as I prepared to leave the snowy north, Bob drove by to deliver home-cured elk jerky. Again, delicious. Much thanks to Bob and Tammy. Thanks also to Iowahawk, Ken Layne, Adam Baldwin, Gale Banks, Coopand everyone else I caught up with from LA to Montana and back. Huge thanks as well to readers who have dropped by during this holiday diversion. Usual blogging will resume next Monday.
    ===

    WHEN THE LODGE WAS FABULOUS

    Tim Blair – Thursday, March 06, 2014 (7:22pm)

    For a boring and useless politician, Malcolm Fraser has featured in a surprising number of hilarious incidents (Whitlam’s dismissal, a certain trouser moment in Memphis, helping install Mugabe, becoming Australia’s most pointless man, etc.) And here he is being reminded of events following two Grand Finals in the early 1980s.
    (Language warning. The speaker is former Carlton player Alex Marcou. Meanwhile, a modern Fraserite decries conservatism in the Guardian. It’s sad.) 
    ===

    Shorten: the voice of the AWU

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2014 (10:24am)

    Why is Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s web site still registered to the Australian Workers Union?
    Domain Name billshorten.com.au 
    Last Modified 18-Jul-2012 00:48:28 UTC
    Registrant AUSTRALIAN WORKERS UNION
    Registrant ID ABN 28853022982
    (Thanks to reader Andrew of Randwick.) 
    ===

    Will Ove Hoegh-Guldberg’s latest reef scare turn out better than his last?

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2014 (10:08am)

    Global warming - dud predictions

    Warming alarmist Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg tries again - predicting the death of the reef that refuses to die:
    The Great Barrier Reef will suffer “irreversible” damage by 2030 unless radical action is taken to lower carbon emissions, a stark new report has warned… 
    Coral bleaching, which occurs when water becomes too warm and coral’s energy source is decimated, is now a “serious threat” to the reef, having not been documented in the region prior to 1979… Co-author Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, told Guardian Australia that current climate trends signal “game over” for the Great Barrier Reef.
    But what of Hoegh-Guldberg’s previous scares?
    Ove Hoegh-Guldberg in 2000: 

    The reef-building corals that make the Reef possible are likely to become very rare indeed if warming continues unabated… As much as I would love to be proven wrong, it is very hard to argue around it… We now have more evidence that corals cannot fully recover from bleaching episodes such as the major event in 1998. Although some small areas of coral can bounce back, the overall damage is irreparable. 
    Hoegh-Guldberg in 2006: 
    Even though we’re really in the early part of summer, most of the reefs we saw were 100 per cent bleached. .. No-one with any credibility in this field is doubting that we’re seeing the first signs of a major change to an ecosystem due to climate change.
    Hoegh-Guldberg in 2006: 
    Between 30 and 40 per cent of coral on Queensland’s great Barrier Reef could die within a month...
    Hoegh-Guldberg in 2009: 
    So what we know now is that, as we’ve been rising in CO2, the Great Barrier Reef has started to slow its calcification and earlier this year two groups of scientists, one in Australia and one in Thailand, have now shown that coral reefs are calcifying now 50 per cent slower than they did prior to 1990.
    Hoegh-Guldberg in 2011: 
    We will see large-scale mortality of reef-building corals (30% or more) and many other organisms on reefs from Exmouth to Shark Bay along the West Australian coastline (300 km or more).  This will occur over the next 1-3 months. Reefs in this region will take more than 10 years to recover… 
    But now?
    A GOVERNMENT-RUN research body has found in an extensive study of corals spanning more than 1000km of Australia’s coastline that the past 110 years of ocean warming has been good for their growth. 
    The findings undermine blanket predictions that global warming will devastate coral reefs, and add to a growing body of evidence showing corals are more resilient than previously thought, up to a certain point.
    The study by the commonwealth-funded Australian Institute of Marine Science, peer-reviewed findings of which are published in the leading journal Science today, examined 27 samples from six locations from the West Australian coast off Geraldton to offshore from Darwin…
    The researchers found that, contrary to their expectations, warmer waters had not negatively affected coral growth. Quite the opposite, in fact: for their southern samples, where ocean temperatures are the coolest but have warmed the most, coral growth increased most significantly over the past 110 years…     Maria Byrne, a professor of marine biology at Sydney University, said after reading the paper that its findings “made perfect sense”. “Temperature rules metabolism, so it’s a no-brainer that if you get more temperature you will get more metabolism.”
    More good news as the reef recovers from damage caused largely by cyclones, which even the CSIRO admits have not been made worse or more numerous by warming::
    Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority scientists say baby corals are blooming on the Great Barrier Reef... 
    GBRMPA’s Climate Change and Ecosystems Manager Roger Beeden has been heading up the survey and says that the coral bloomings are a positive sign of recovery…
    “It is showing that even though it has had multiple impacts in the last few years, it is able to bounce back...”
    Mr Beeden says many parts of the reef looked like “moonscapes” when they surveyed after cyclone Yasi…

    Mr Beeden says it is good news for fast growing coral, but there are slower growing coral that need more time.     “In the fast growing ones we can begin to see quite good recovery in 5-10 years, but in the really big ones, the kind of huge, great big trees if you like, actually can take decades to centuries to recover,” he said. 
    And still more:

    An underwater survey has found thriving coral reefs at depths of 30 meters and below, on the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia. 
    The Catlin Seaview Survey ...  noticed coral reefs flourishing underneath the damaged coral reefs of the Great Barrier Reef.
    The good news has come just few weeks after a survey by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) and the University of Wollongong, which revealed that the coral cover in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has declined by more than half in the last 27 years as a result of storm damage, bleaching and population explosion of crown of thorns starfish…     “Some of the shallow areas of the reefs we’ve been diving on have been completely devastated by cyclones, but as soon as we dive to depths of 40m and below, the areas are almost completely untouched,” Pim Bongaerts of the University of Queensland’s global change institute, who is leading the deep reef survey, told the Guardian. 
    But watch Hoegh-Guldberg get uncritical coverage of his latest scare. Journalists should instead ask him why this prediction flopped:
    After all, in 1999 [Hoegh-Guldberg] published a paper claiming that global warming would so heat the oceans that the mass bleaching of the reef in 1998 (from which the reef in fact has recovered almost entirely) would occur every two years from 2010 - and every year from 2020. 
    In fact, the last mass bleaching occurred in 2006. Still waiting, Ove…
    (Thanks to reader Gab.) 
    ===

    The Bolt Report on Sunday

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2014 (9:04am)

    The Bolt Report on Sunday - an hour long and still crowded.
    Joining me - Labor’s Anthony Albanese, Michael Kroger and Cassandra Wilkinson.
    And our new NewsWatch segment, this week with Rowan Dean.
    I’ll talk about Abbott’s religious war, the Green’s religious fight-back, Qantas, the ABC’s cluelessness and how Obama was blind-sided by Putin. Plus lots more.
    On Network 10 at 10 am and 4pm.

    The videos of the show appear here.
    ===

    How are we going to pay for this $130 billion of handouts?

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2014 (8:02am)

    Saying Rinehart “criticised welfare recipients for dragging the country into debt” is caricaturing her real argument, which I think is actually important and deserves a fairer hearing:
    MINING billionaire Gina Rinehart has criticised welfare recipients for dragging the country into debt and attacked the political left for spending the “bottomless pit” of revenue generated from mining taxes and royalties. 
    “We are living beyond our means,” Ms Rinehart, worth an estimated $19.89 billion, wrote in an opinion article. “This ‘Age of Entitlement’…
    In her latest column for Australian Resources and Investment magazine, Ms Rinehart echoed Treasurer Joe Hockey’s call for an end to the age of entitlement — albeit with a sharper attack on the $130 billion spent annually on the five million citizens receiving income support.
    ”Australians have to work hard or actually harder and smarter to create the revenue to be able to pay that bill … something has to give, we can’t do it all."…
    She heaped praise on the late Margaret Thatcher and quoted one of her favourite lines from the controversial former British prime minister: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
    “Great quote. Let’s learn from it,” she wrote....
    “The political left is torn and confused. One moment they hate [mining’s] very existence and even want us closed down — but in another, they don’t want to stop spending the revenue that they count on from us in taxes and royalties…     “We all have a role to play in mitigating the thinking that’s not helping our country’s future, including the entitlements mentality of individuals, companies — and our leaders...” 
    Rinehart will doubtless be attacked for her views in the most personal way because she is rich. So imagine she were as poor as your standard Leftist - say, a Morry Schwartz or Graeme Wood. Now tell me what is wrong with her argument.
    (Declaration: Rinehart is on the board of Channel 10, which runs the show I make for News Corp. Oh, and she is also the major shareholder of Fairfax, the rival of my employers News Corp and Macquarie Radio Network, but I try not to hold that against her.)
    UPDATE
    Meanwhile:
    TREASURY has warned Joe Hockey of an $18 billion spending burden that will destroy his plan for a “path to surplus” unless drastic action is taken in May to overhaul the federal budget… 
    [The] Treasurer warned of a “time bomb” from Labor spending that was not revealed last year because it flowed after the four years of the budget forecast period.
    The outlays will be included in the budget for the first time in May because the forecast period now includes the 2017-18 financial year, intensifying pressure on the government to slash outlays…
    The sharp rise is mostly the result of Labor’s decisions in government to increase spending on foreign aid, education, hospitals and the National Disability Insurance Scheme…
    The NDIS starts becoming very expensive beyond 2017-18, with its cost doubling to $5bn in that year and doubling again over the next two years to reach just under $10bn.
    The Gonski school funding reforms cost $1.2bn in 2016-17 and there is no further increase in the following year, but the cost rises sharply to $3.8bn by 2019-20.     Much more damaging to the budget are Labor’s health funding reforms, under which the commonwealth has promised to inject $16.5bn into state-run public hospitals over a five-year period, with the commonwealth’s share of hospital costs rising to 50 per cent by July 2017. 
    ===

    Brown: Trust the public to know the difference between debate and speech that needs silencing

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2014 (7:29am)

    There is a ludicrous fear now of discussing important issues of Aboriginal identity and “racial” separatism. The costs of simply clearing articles for publication are so great that it is cheaper and easier simply to say nothing. It is a cost to my employer that I now have to bear in mind as well, and pieces I have written have actually had to be removed from the Internet.
    As a result, there is only a very limited debate on issues that worry many Australians - with activists pushing positions without fully realising how resented they are, or will be, or how dangerous they are.
    Our laws limiting free speech on such matter are illiberal, dangerous and patronising. They tend to protect not people but ideologies. This fear of words, even harsh words, is utterly absurd.
    So while I remain utterly opposed to racism, I fully back the repeal of draconian parts of the Racial Discrimination Act. In fact, it is precisely because I want to oppose newly fashionable expressions of racism that I want the RDA reformed.
    Neil Brown wants fewer changes than I think we need. But he makes some important points:
    FORMER federal attorney-general Neil Brown QC has presented the Abbott government with a reform plan that would give community standards a central role in deciding what can lawfully be said in public on the issue of race… 
    In 2011, [Bolt’s] articles were found to have breached section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which imposes civil liability for speech on the subject of race that is found to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate.
    Federal Court judge Mordecai Bromberg decided there was no role for community standards in determining whether Bolt’s articles were unlawful and instead applied a test that gave priority to the views of the group claiming to have been offended.
    According to Mr Brown, who is also a former communications minister, the test used in section 18C is subjective and relies on the feelings of the complainant or the group of which the complainant is part… He writes that this is flawed and should be replaced by an objective test, applied by a jury, that depends on community standards…
    In the Bolt case, Justice Bromberg decided against using a test for liability that relied on community standards because “to import general community standards into the test for the reasonable likelihood of offence runs a risk of reinforcing the prevailing level of prejudice”.
    Mr Brown’s submission takes the opposite view…
    “Australians tend to possess a fair amount of common sense and hold their right to speak freely in high regard. In practice jury members would most likely only find a person in breach of section 18C for unambiguously egregious displays of racial vilification,” Mr Brown writes.     “They wouldn’t take too kindly to plaintiffs using courts as a forum for identity politics or the silencing of opponents,” Mr Brown’s submission continues.
    Brown’s approach, of course, lessens the risk of this law being used to impose the views of activists on the rest of the community. It shows a faith in Australians that proponents of the RDA clearly lack. 
    ===

    Not the DLP Abbott they expected

    Andrew Bolt March 07 2014 (7:04am)

    Remember the grim warnings from Labor that Tony Abbott would be a markets-meddling prime-minister, doling out subsidies to favorite industries?
    Here’s Craig Emerson in 2010, when he was Julia Gillard’s Small Business Minister:
    Make no mistake: Abbott’s Liberal Party is a party of government intervention in private markets. Philosophically, Abbott has aligned himself with the economic prescriptions of B.A. Santamaria, describing himself as a “lifelong admirer” ...
    The very opposite is true:
    While the dramatic late-night announcement by Abbott and Transport Minister Warren Truss of the plans to effectively split Qantas and change the Qantas Sale Act without providing an interim debt guarantee was the final sign that Hockey’s preparedness to remain open to debt help for Qantas was not prevailing, the real moment of fundamental change within the new Coalition government and Abbott’s economic leadership came at the cabinet meeting on January 30.
    A similar pattern of kite-flying and public positioning on SPC Ardmona’s request for a taxpayer-funded $25 million bailout occurred before the decisive cabinet meeting with Abbott signalling a hard line on “corporate welfare” and demanding the management fix costly labour agreements…
    As one cabinet minister told The Australian: “If John Howard had been in that meeting, SPC would have got the $25m.”
    Labor has used this hard-line approach to describe Abbott as doctrinaire, hating workers, exporting jobs and being uncaring. Yet on the Holden decision not to offer further assistance using “borrowed money” for the automotive industry Abbott’s apparently doctrinaire philosophy is overwhelmingly endorsed by the public.     It may well be that with an increasingly economically literate electorate there is not just the impression of a doctrinaire economic directive coming from Abbott but also an appeal to a commonsense attitude where his apparent “simplicity” is actually a plus and Labor’s push for spending more of taxpayer funds for corporate bailouts is not resonating. 
    A gutsy call. The right call. And not for the first time, evidence that his foes and rivals have severely underestimated Abbott.
    UPDATE
    If I were the ABC, I would be paying very close attention to this tough-minded Tony Abbott that is now being revealed:
    1, The Hamster Decides, September 11 last year: 
    ANDREW Hansen: They’ve just got to cut ABC funding. I mean this, this is a network that broadcasts images of Chris Kenny strangling a dog while having sex with it…
    Tony Abbott, radio 2GB yesterday: 
    PRESENTER Ben Fordham: What’s your take on the ABC spending our money on something like this? 
    Prime Minister: Defending the indefensible is not a very good way to spend government money and next time the ABC comes to the government looking for more money, this is the kind of thing that we would want to ask them questions about.
    ===

    Kenny wins round one against the ABC

    Andrew Bolt March 06 2014 (6:27pm)


    To think a prompt and public apology from the ABC for a truly grotesque attack could have made all this legal action go away:

    A court has ruled that a defamation case lodged by a News Corp journalist against the ABC’s The Hamster Decides can go ahead. 
    Chris Kenny is trying to sue the ABC, presenter Andrew Hansen and production company Giant Dwarf over an episode of The Hamster Decides which aired in September… 
    How on earth could the ABC have thought this suitable to broadcast or not needing an apology afterwards?
    During the segment, described at length by Justice Robert Beech-Jones in the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday, an image was broadcast of a man strangling and having sex with a dog. A picture of Mr Kenny’s face was then photoshopped onto the man’s body. Shortly after this the image was shown again, accompanied by the caption “Chris Dog F---er Kenny” (the word was spelt out in full). 
    The image was shown in the context of comments by presenter Andrew Hansen about Mr Kenny’s calls for a reduction in funding for the ABC in his columns and television appearances.
    In a statement of claim filed with the court, Mr Kenny says the segment ... [suggested] he was a “low, contemptible and disgusting person”, and that his attacks on the ABC were “so disgusting that he deserved to be portrayed as a person who had sex with dogs"…
    Justice Beech-Jones ...  found that the ...  two imputations were capable of being made out, albeit with minor amendments to their wording.     In relation to the second imputation, Justice Beech-Jones described the image in question as “a massive exercise in ridicule which is vastly out of proportion”. 
    The ABC is out of control, blinded by its bias. 
    ===

    Shorten blunder: suggests Virgin not as safe as Qantas

    Andrew Bolt March 06 2014 (2:26pm)

    Bill Shorten just walked straight into a door.
    In Question Time he demanded Tony Abbott acknowledge Qantas had a brilliant safety record and that he credit its Australian maintenance staff for it:
    Does the Prime Minister accept that the enviable safety record of Qantas is in no small part due to the professionalism, the hard work, the commitment and expertise of its Australian-based maintenance crews?”
    Abbott very deftly drew out the obvious inference: Shorten was suggesting that Virgin’s safety wasn’t as good, given its own planes weren’t generally serviced here:
    The Leader of the Opposition is trying to suggest that without the restrictions that exist under the Qantas Sale Act an airline can’t be safe. 
    This is a most irresponsible suggestion, a most reckless and irresponsible suggestion from the Leader of the Opposition… Qantas is safe. I’m proud of Qantas, I’m proud of the workers.... Virgin is a safe airline as well.
    From then on Shorten was bombarded with criticism of his implied denigration of Virgin, itself a national airline employed nearly 10,000 Australians.
    A terrible blunder, and one made worse by Shorten’s obvious pandering to Qantas unions. 
    ===

    A coffee-led recovery

    Miranda Devine – Thursday, March 07, 2013 (7:59am)

    image
    IT’S galling enough that a Climate Change Authority exists in the first place, chewing up $1.6 billion as part of a vast green bureaucracy. But can’t they pay for their own cappuccinos?
    We have learned through Senate Estimates Committees that the Department of Climate Change spent $45,500 on 13 new coffee machines this year, not to mention $1.7million on travel, including business class flights and Qantas Club memberships.
    The Clean Energy Regulator spent $20,000 on eight new Nespresso Gemini CS200 Pro machines, which looks frugal compared to the Department of Industry’s $75,000 on five Melitta Bar II machines.
    I don’t know about your office, but at the Daily Telegraph we have tins of Nescafe and teabags, and we have to bring our own cups.
    Not to complain, but any journalist who deals with the taxpayer-funded ABC can also tell you how much more luxurious working conditions are compared to private enterprise. Cab charges flow like water, studios are decked out, hair and makeup is top notch
    (while non-existent at Sky), and Green Room hospitality is lavish. There is no evidence of the belt tightening happening in commercial media.
    The fact is, if it’s not your money, you don’t care.
    So the big challenge for the next federal government will be to cut spending, which has blown out since Kevin Rudd came to office by 35 percent a year. Bloated bureaucracies soak up taxpayer dollars, just to create green and red tape, which stifles free enterprise.
    In the economic debris of Europe we can see the consequences for Australia of continuing along the path of big government growth.
    “We cannot allow a similar crisis to happen here,” says Greg Lindsay the executive director of the Centre for Independent Studies think tank.
    To that end, the CIS has set its finest minds on policies aimed at reducing the size of government in Australia from approximately 35% of GDP to 30% or less over the next 10 years.
    The TARGET 30 project is not an “austerity “ campaign, but a sensible end to wasteful government spending.
    Buying your own cappuccinos is a good start. 
    ===

    Prime Minister Shorten?

    Miranda Devine – Thursday, March 07, 2013 (5:20am)

    According to Ken Phillips in The Australian, Bill Shorten is angling to take over as Prime Minister.
    And the mess the Victorian Liberals have created with the shock resignation of Premier Ted Baillieu is ripe for exploitation by an invigorated federal ALP.
    If the report pans out, it would pit Jesuit-trained Xavier boy Shorten against Jesuit-trained Riverview boy Tony Abbott.
    “The leadership change to Shorten will happen because he is the only person who can limit Labor’s losses at this election,” writes Phillips.
    “Labor cannot go to the election with Gillard. She’s a political dead person walking.

    Kevin Rudd is not an option. He’d split the party. His current polling popularity would not overcome sabotage of him from within Labor and a devastating campaign against him by the Coalition. A Rudd election outcome could be similar to a Gillard outcome.

    Shorten is the only option. He’s the cleanskin. The broken promises on the carbon tax, gambling reform, Sydney’s western suburbs transport upgrade, budget surplus and more belong to Gillard, not Shorten. Likewise, the Slipper affair, the Thomson-HSU scandal and AWU trust fund rorts belong to Gillard not Shorten. Under Shorten these would be swept aside as history not relevant to a future under a Shorten-led Labor.

    Gillard is of the Left of Labor. At some stage, perhaps soon, her factional, ideological partners will tell her to resign for Shorten. She’ll do this with grace. Rudd will be neutered. Labor will unite. Labor’s polling popularity will soar.” 
    ===

    Fordham grills Gillard on AWU scandal

    Andrew BoltMARCH072013(8:03pm)

    image
    Here’s the most important exchange in Ben Fordham’s impressive questioning on 2GB today of Prime Minister Julia Gillard. (Audio here.) It deals with a power of attorney Gillard allegedly witnessed (see it here) to the advantage of her then client and boyfriend, conman Bruce Wilson, for whom she’d helped to create a slush fund:
    BEN FORDHAM:

    You… can see that money from the slush fund may have been used to buy a house in Melbourne. Now you attended the auction with your then boyfriend Bruce Wilson, but the property was purchased in the name of Ralph Blewitt even though he’d never seen the house. Now in order for this to be done legally, a power of attorney would need to be signed allowing ... Bruce to buy the property on Ralph’s behalf.... So, when this property was purchased on Ralph’s behalf, the law states that you would have to be present when Ralph Blewitt signed the documents. Ralph Blewitt claims that you were not present. He claims that Bruce Wilson flew to Perth to get him to sign the documents and that you signed it at a different time in a different place. Now you did not fly to Perth to witness those documents, did you?

    JULIA GILLARD:

    And I’ve consistently dealt with this too. I properly witness documents as a lawyer. So you can believe Mr Blewitt or you can believe me Ben. I’m not overly fussed what you conclude, but I witnessed documents properly as a lawyer.
    BEN FORDHAM:
    Ok, if you’ve always obeyed the law in carrying out your duties, you’d be able to make a statement to police confirming that you’ve never witnessed one of these documents without the relevant person being present.
    JULIA GILLARD:
    Ben, excuse me, that is incredibly offensive and I’m not going to let it go past. I have done nothing wrong in this matter. I have said that for 20 years. I will continue to say that, because it is the truth. Anybody who wants to know anything about this matter from my perspective has already got the benefits of it being canvassed publicly and in Parliament over the best part of 20 years. I’ve given full details and I never did anything wrong and please don’t use forms of words that imply the contrary.
    BEN FORDHAM:
    Prime Minister, you and Ralph Blewitt were there together and signed the documents together – that’s what you’re saying just to confirm?
    JULIA GILLARD:
    I’ve witnessed documents properly as a lawyer.
    BEN FORDHAM:
    Yeah, you and Ralph Blewitt were in the room together, you signed them together yes?
    JULIA GILLARD:
    Look Ben, these documents were of – as a lawyer I witness thousands of documents, so as a lawyer for eight years I witnessed thousands of them. I don’t remember each document, but I witnessed documents properly.
    BEN FORDHAM:
    And if you always witnessed them properly, then you and Ralph Blewitt were in the room together and signed at the same time.
    JULIA GILLARD:
    Well absolutely. I witness documents properly.
    BEN FORDHAM:
    And this one?
    JULIA GILLARD:
    What’s your point? I witness documents properly.
    BEN FORDHAM:
    Ok, it just sounds like one of those things Prime Minister where I’m asking about a specific moment whether or not…
    JULIA GILLARD:
    And over eight years, I can’t sit here on the phone with you and go through every document over eight years as a lawyer.
    BEN FORDHAM:
    Sure, but it would stand out though.
    JULIA GILLARD:
    …that this document was of no particular significance at the time that my practice as a lawyer was to witness documents properly.
    BEN FORDHAM:
    Yeah, it was of significance, because it was the only time that you were witnessing a document that involved the purchase of a property that your then boyfriend was involved in. That’s why it would stand out.
    JULIA GILLARD:
    But it’s like asking you, can you give me the opening words of an interview you did three years ago. The matter had no particular significance at the time. It has the significance now because of how politically used it’s been. It wasn’t significant then.
    BEN FORDHAM:
    Ok Prime Minister, my apologies if I’ve upset you on any of those details, but I do appreciate you coming on.
    JULIA GILLARD:

    Ben, it’s not a question of you upsetting me and I’m not going to have you create the impression with people that I’m somehow upset. I’m just being clear with you and firm with you, because I do not believe it’s appropriate for you to mislead people on this matter.
    Note the bit on bold. The audio of it picks up a hesitation that makes the answer more ambiguous that the transcript suggests. Is Gillard really for the first time insisting she was in the room with Blewitt to witness his document, as required by law? Or is she saying, absolutely she witness documents properly - a more general assertion?
    The full interview: 
    ===

    Beer drinkers of the world: unite against the Greens!

    Andrew BoltMARCH072013(9:07am)

    image
    (Thanks to reader Cam.)
    ===

    Please, please, please. Can we just have the truth?

    Andrew BoltMARCH072013(9:01am)

    Julia Gillard’s campaign to tackle criminal gangs is wobbling, with three state governments unhappy about her idea of national laws and a crime statistician saying she has exaggerated the gun problem in NSW…

    On Sunday, she announced a $64 million ‘’national anti-gang taskforce’’. Ms Gillard said: ‘’When we look at the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, we see that over the past 15 years, shootings in public places have soared.’

    ‘But the director of the bureau, Don Weatherburn, said Ms Gillard was wrong to claim that shootings had ‘’soared’’. According to Dr Weatherburn, the number of non-fatal shooting offences in NSW peaked in 2001 and then began to fall.
    (Thanks to reader Peter.)
    ===

    Fact-checking Flannery’s “Angry Summer” propaganda

    Andrew BoltMARCH072013(8:21am)

    Sack the Climate Commission now. Boot its chief, Professor Tim Flannery, for flogging yet another disgraceful global warming scare.
    That scare is the commission’s new report, dubbing the past three month’s Australia’s “Angry Summer”.
    “Angry Summer”? Is that a scientific term?
    This thin report, by climate commissioner, Will Steffen, claims “Australia’s Angry Summer shows that climate change is already adversely affecting Australians”.
    It does? How could global warming suddenly give us an “Angry Summer” when even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admits there’s been no “statistically significant” warming over the past 15 years?
    But the commission’s report doesn’t mention that.
    Instead it picks out one heat wave in Australia it claimed helped give us “our hottest summer”, with “record breaking heat on 8-10 January”.
    But how does one Australian heat wave prove anything about global temperatures?
    In fact, our January wasn’t even typical of the world’s weather.
    As Professor Ole Humlum, an Oslo University geoscientist, notes, “On average, global air temperatures [for January] were near the 1998-2006 average” and the “Southern Hemisphere was mainly at or below average”.
    Australia’s higher temperatures were actually an “exception”. Even “the global oceanic heat content has been rather stable since 2003/2004”.
    That isn’t mentioned by the commission either.
    Nor was this: the whole of 2012 was actually only Australia’s 39th warmest year since 1910.
    The commission just skips on. It says the heat then gave way to floods in eastern Australia, completing our “Angry Summer”.
    “The heavy rainfall was the result of former tropical cyclone Oswald,” it observes. 
    But not even the IPCC now believes such cyclones have been changed in intensity or frequency by global warming.
    “Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency,” its latest draft report says. 
    But here’s the commission’s worst omission.
    It claims our rains were made heavier by global warming: “Observations by scientists worldwide affirm the basic physics demonstrating that heavy rainfall becomes more likely as the climate warms.”
    But it doesn’t admit that just six years ago Flannery warned us to expect the very opposite – an almost “permanent” drought.
    “Over the past 50 years southern Australia has lost about 20 per cent of its rainfall, and one cause is almost certainly global warming,” he claimed in 2007.
    “Even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems.”
    Summer wasn’t angry at all. But you should be.
    ===

    Gillard lets in boat people, demonises plane people

    Andrew BoltMARCH072013(8:18am)

    image
    THE Government which last year let in 17,000 boat people, now says our border laws are “out of control”.
    And Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she has a plan “to stop foreign workers being put at the front of the queue with Australian workers at the back”.
    But wait.
    Ms Gillard wasn’t referring this week to boat people who come here without passports or permission, and who tend to be on Centrelink benefits even after five years.
    No, she was attacking skilled workers who come invited to Australia on temporary 457 visas to work on jobs locals can’t or won’t fill.
    This is mad. Ms Gillard has embarked on a xenophobic fear campaign against exactly the foreign workers who pay their own way, earning an average of $90,000 a year.
    She’s attacking workers like her own media director, John McTernan, brought from Britain on a 457 visa.
    Yes, some may well criticise the Opposition for recent talk of wanting “behaviour protocols” for asylum seekers on bridging visas, a proposal that seems to exploit resentments.
    But Ms Gillard is not just dividing but attacking a source of our growth.
    She has chosen as her target for xenophobia not unemployed people who have sailed here uninvited at a cost to us of some $5 billion in just five years.
    She has damned as job-stealers people her Government has accepted as workers doing needed jobs that can’t be filled by locals.
    These are people who help this economy tick over and who after four years must leave. Engineers, surgeons, IT professionals, managers and miners.
    Almost nothing this PM has said about these “foreigners” is true. 
    ===

    SBS confronts Gillard on dog whistling

    Andrew BoltMARCH072013(8:13am)

    Labor must realise it’s tripped a wire when even the SBS is asking a Labor Prime Minister if they are dog whistling to xenophobes, with even Pauline Hanson cheering.
    It gets worse when Gillard is asked - on the SBS! - if she’s being a union puppet and a hypocrite for banging on about foreign workers while employing one as her own media director.
    If you’re Labor and have lost the SBS, you really are running out of friends.
    Good interview by Janice Petersen.
    ===

    Not the only foreigner in the Gillard Government

    Andrew BoltMARCH072013(8:07am)

    SBS News, May 26, 2012: 
    LABOR senator Doug Cameron says he’s gobsmacked by the Labor government’s announcement that hundreds of foreign workers will be brought in for a WA mining project . . . “We’ve got workers being marched off the job in Kurri Kurri, marched off the job by Qantas in Melbourne and Chinese workers marching in Western Australia,” Senator Cameron told reporters.

    Steve Lewis on news.com.au, January 20:

    DOUG Cameron has backed calls for a “hard-headed assessment” of the immigration scheme.

    Judith Sloan, The Australian, yesterday:
    THERE is a certain irony to a man with a very thick Scottish accent banging on about the evils of 457 visas, the arrangement that allows workers to come to Australia on a temporary basis.
    Even before his porridge:
    FROM: McTernan, John Sent: Wednesday, 6 March 2013 6:32 AM
    To: Sloan, Judith, Subject: Excuse me
    Can you tell me when I have “banged on about the evils of 457 visas”? I am not a public figure. I do not give press conferences, or make speeches, or appear on TV or radio. And seriously “a thick Scottish accent”?
    Que? 
    FROM: Sloan, Judith Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 11:23 AM
    To: McTernan, John
    Subject: Re: Excuse me
    Actually I was not referring to you. But what the heck. Cheers Judith
    ===

    Colonel David Crockett of Tennessee, played by John Wayne, explains to a young native Texian woman named Flaca why people should be willing to make sacrifices to crush evil, and how that validates the worthiness of a person's life. He characterizes doing right as being alive, and doing wrong as tantamount to a walking "dead man".
    ===
    MADU Odiokwu Pastorvin
    PRAY.
    Father,I thank You for giving me power to overcome fear. I choose to face fear head-on and drive it out of my life. Show me any areas of my life where fear is holding me back so that I can press forward into the life of victory You have for me in Jesus’ name. Amen.
    =
    For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.(2 Timothy 1:7)
    Always remember that fear is not from God. God has given you power, and His power is greater than any other power in the universe. You have to make a decision to deal aggressively with fear. You can’t be passive and expect to live in victory. The only way to conquer fear is to confront it head-on with the Word of God. His Word is truth which sets you free.God bless you.
    =
    Of All The centuries,The Message of Salvation Has Not Change.
    In the first century,it was through Jesus Christ,in the present,it is Jesus Christ.In the next century,will still be Jesus Christ. The world only want to hear sweet message in order to remain in their SIN.That was the reason why the Scripture said that the message of the Cross is foolishness to those that are perishing 1 Corinthians 1;18.The Cross will remind you of all the sins you have committed.The heart is a rebel.We have all sin and come shot of His glory.Let me tell you,if God did not spare His only begotten son,He will not spare you.Think about that.God bless you.
    =
    Coming up out of a Dead Situation!
    Don’t give up on God.John 11:20-23 says,Then Matha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.

    This topic deals with a real issue, maintaining our faith. Not giving up on God. So many times in our life, we find that we lose hope, but I’m here to tell you today, Don’t give up on God. There is a reason why you’re going through what you’re going through. You may not even realize it, but God is allowing you to go through this for a strengthening season. Right now,God is saying,Don’t Give up on me.I know the situation you’re facing now seems unbearable, I know that no one knows what you’re going through, I know that you haven’t spoken a word of this to no one, but don’t give up,you may be the one but i tell you,He will never fail.God bless you.
    =
    The Season of Grace Is Here.
    For the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.(Proverbs 1:32, NKJV)

    God will never ask you to do something without giving you the ability to do it.Today, is there something you’ve been putting off? Something you know in your heart that you are supposed to do? Don’t let the season of grace pass. Don’t let complacency destroy you. Your destiny stands before you. God has something amazing in your future. Be bold; be strong. Step out in faith, be obedient and walk in the abundant rain of His blessing.God bless you.
    =
    Father,I thank You for Your patience and grace toward me.I open my heart and mind to Your Word. Fill me with Your strength today. fill me with Your hope, and keep me close to You always as I put You first in everything I do.Search my heart. Lead me in Your ways. I choose to obey Your voice quickly and honor You in all that I do in Jesus’ name. Amen.
    =
    HOW POWERFUL IS YOUR NAME?
    The Scripture says,"A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches."(Proverbs 22:1).A person's name is their identity. Protecting and defending a good name, or living up to one's name are still meaningful concepts in today's world. A person's name represents their reputation, their family, their business, their legacy. In some cultures, a name is the most valuable thing they own, and it is dishonorable when their name is tarnished.
    For Christians, the name of Jesus Christ is the most wonderful and most powerful name in existence. The Name of Jesus Christ Carries Power, Authority and Distinction.
    Jesus Christ has given Christians the right and authority to use his name. This means that Christians have been given the power of attorney. Legally, power of attorney is the authority to act in another person's behalf, at their request. It is authorization given by one person (Jesus) permitting another (Christians) to take action on his (Jesus Christ's) behalf. "And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." (John 14:13,14)

    "Whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full." (John 16:23, 24) His name represents all of His finished work on the cross, fulfilling God's plan of redemption and salvation, victory over sin, death, and over the devil's entire realm. When the name of Jesus Christ is invoked, it carries all of the power and distinction God gave to it. I urge you today to use the Name that is above every other name,God bless you.
    =
    Repentance: What Does the Bible Teach?
    There is no doubt that all men from Adam on have had to repent in order to have a right relationship with God. The importance of repentance is demonstrated by the fact that men of every biblical age preached it.

    John the Baptist preached it in Mark 1:15 when he said, "Repent ye, and believe the gospel." Paul preached it in Acts 20:21, "Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ."
    The Apostle John proclaimed its necessity in Revelation 2:5 when he exhorted the church at Ephesus, "Repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."

    And our Lord Jesus Christ Himself emphasized its importance when He said in Luke 13:3, "Except ye repent, ye shall all like-wise perish." What are we waiting for? The message has not change.....God bless you.
    =
    Our Problem Is Separation From God.
    God created us in His own image so we can know Him personally and have a joy-filled life. He did not make us as robots to automatically love and obey Him, but gave us a will and a freedom of choice. Since the beginning of time, we have chosen to disobey God and go our own willful way. We still make this choice today. This results in separation ends in misery. You can never be fully happy when you go your own way.

    The Bible says.All of us have sinned and fallen short of God's holiness (Romans 3:23).
    The result of unforgiven sin is death. But God's gift is eternal life given by Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23).The Bible says that disobeying God results in being separated from Him.Our attempts can never unite us with God. Through the ages, people have tried many ways to bridge this gap and reach God -- without success. The Bible says:
    Adam sinned, and that sin brought death into the world. Now everyone has sinned, and so everyone must die (Romans 5:12). You may think you are on the right road and still end up dead (Proverbs 14:12).There is only one way to reach God.Jesus Christ is the only answer to this problem. He is the only One who can bring us back to God. He died on the Cross and rose from the grave, paying the penalty for our sin and bridging the gap between God and people.Flesh should not keep away from Him.We must trust Jesus Christ to forgive our sins and determine to obey Him for the rest of our lives. That way we can know God and find peace again.The message has not changed,repent.God bless you.
    =
    Heavenly Father, I come to You with an open and humble heart. I thank You for the victory that You have in store for me even when I can’t see it. I choose to trust You and Your goodness knowing that You are faithful in Jesus’ name. Amen.
    =
    BE MORE CAREFUL.
    One of the things that disturbs me here is that the devil is too quiet. I hope he'll get stirred up somewhere. Because when he is quiet I know he is getting ready to kick us from behind somewhere, while we are not looking.Look,the forces of evil do not like the searchlight pointed in their direction, because "men loved darkness ,because their deeds [are] evil" [John 3:19]. It is my prayer that you will not be a victim of his attack.Be more careful.God bless you.
    ===

    Births[edit]

    Deaths[edit]

    Holidays and observances[edit]

    ===
    “LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.” - Isaiah 25:1
    ===
    Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

    March 6: Morning

    "Ye must be born again." - John 3:7

    Regeneration is a subject which lies at the very basis of salvation, and we should be very diligent to take heed that we really are "born again," for there are many who fancy they are, who are not. Be assured that the name of a Christian is not the nature of a Christian; and that being born in a Christian land, and being recognized as professing the Christian religion is of no avail whatever, unless there be something more added to it--the being "born again," is a matter so mysterious, that human words cannot describe it. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." Nevertheless, it is a change which is known and felt: known by works of holiness, and felt by a gracious experience. This great work is supernatural. It is not an operation which a man performs for himself: a new principle is infused, which works in the heart, renews the soul, and affects the entire man. It is not a change of my name, but a renewal of my nature, so that I am not the man I used to be, but a new man in Christ Jesus. To wash and dress a corpse is a far different thing from making it alive: man can do the one, God alone can do the other. If you have then, been "born again," your acknowledgment will be, "O Lord Jesus, the everlasting Father, thou art my spiritual Parent; unless thy Spirit had breathed into me the breath of a new, holy, and spiritual life, I had been to this day dead in trespasses and sins.' My heavenly life is wholly derived from thee, to thee I ascribe it. My life is hid with Christ in God.' It is no longer I who live, but Christ who liveth in me." May the Lord enable us to be well assured on this vital point, for to be unregenerate is to be unsaved, unpardoned, without God, and without hope.
    Evening
    "Before destruction the heart of man is haughty." - Proverbs 18:12
    It is an old and common saying, that "coming events cast their shadows before them;" the wise man teaches us that a haughty heart is the prophetic prelude of evil. Pride is as safely the sign of destruction as the change of mercury in the weather-glass is the sign of rain; and far more infallibly so than that. When men have ridden the high horse, destruction has always overtaken them. Let David's aching heart show that there is an eclipse of a man's glory when he dotes upon his own greatness. 2 Sam. 24:10. See Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty builder of Babylon, creeping on the earth, devouring grass like oxen, until his nails had grown like bird's claws, and his hair like eagle's feathers. Dan. 4:33. Pride made the boaster a beast, as once before it made an angel a devil. God hates high looks, and never fails to bring them down. All the arrows of God are aimed at proud hearts. O Christian, is thine heart haughty this evening? For pride can get into the Christian's heart as well as into the sinner's; it can delude him into dreaming that he is "rich and increased in goods, and hath need of nothing." Art thou glorying in thy graces or thy talents? Art thou proud of thyself, that thou hast had holy frames and sweet experiences? Mark thee, reader, there is a destruction coming to thee also. Thy flaunting poppies of self-conceit will be pulled up by the roots, thy mushroom graces will wither in the burning heat, and thy self-sufficiency shall become as straw for the dunghill. If we forget to live at the foot of the cross in deepest lowliness of spirit, God will not forget to make us smart under his rod. A destruction will come to thee, O unduly exalted believer, the destruction of thy joys and of thy comforts, though there can be no destruction of thy soul. Wherefore, "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."
    ===

    Today's reading: Numbers 35-36, Mark 10:1-31 (NIV)

    View today's reading on Bible Gateway

    Today's Old Testament reading: Numbers 35-36

    Towns for the Levites
    1 On the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho, the LORD said to Moses, 2 "Command the Israelites to give the Levites towns to live in from the inheritance the Israelites will possess. And give them pasturelands around the towns. 3 Then they will have towns to live in and pasturelands for the cattle they own and all their other animals....

    Today's New Testament reading: Mark 10:1-31

    Divorce
    1 Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.
    2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
    3 "What did Moses command you?" he replied.
    4 They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away...."

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