Thursday, August 25, 2016

Thu Aug 25th Todays News

Tragedy in Italy as an Earthquake near the central part that struck at 3:30 am. The death toll is now 247 and fast rising. Some older style stone houses account for the most fatalities. Prayers for the survivors. The left wing PM of Italy left a convention of senior socialist leaders of Europe. Emergency care is the next great need for Italy. 

 In 2014, ABC attacked the budget, saying that cuts were not needed for spending. The ABC was needed to provide opposition in the implosion of the ALP, with Shorten failing to lead. Shorten had a plan, and that was to get his members booted from parliament in the lower house, and claim there was bias. ABC helped. But two years later, and Morrison makes a speech that talks the truth of the need to cut spending, and the ABC claims that the government has not made the case. Meanwhile, failing Greens have placed a BDS supporter in charge of industry. Greens will never have government on their own. but if the ALP are elected, Greens will have government on their terms. If the ABC did not have low standards, they would have no standards at all. 

 For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.  
=== from 2015 ===
Polls are poles apart. Essential Poll suggests that Coalition is far closer than Newspoll. Bastard boss Shorten is popular to a large minority who like union corruption. Why is Shorten running a protection racket for corrupt unions? More saliently, why is it popular that corrupt unions not be made to be effective and transparent? 

The world economy is jittery as China's growth appears exaggerated. If only Australia had not thrown away $600 billion when ALP were in government, the Abbott government could responsibly manoeuvre against a bubble burst. The loss to the world economy of some $50 billion in a day is not as bad as the $2 trillion thrown away to appease global warming hysterics. Typically, it will be the poor who suffer most. 

ABC QandA publishes a foul #AbbottPhobia tweet. Then apologises for her failure to maintain a standard. If the ABC hadn't a low standard they'd have no standards at all. 
From 2014
A great actor from the golden age has passed. He was old and blessed. Richard Attenborough began acting age 18 in an uncredited role for the movie "In which we serve" (1942) and he was typecast, for a time, as a coward. But he also acted on stage and he broke the mould with Brighton Rock (1947) as he had previously played the role on stage. By 1963 he was part of the large ensemble cast of the Great Escape. In 1971 he played a serial killer in 10 Rillington Place. Young fans will remember him from Jurassic Park (1993). He was also director and producer of the C S Lewis biopic Shadowlands. He is lauded for his work in Ghandi, but a better film was Cry Freedom, about Steve Biko. One substantial tragedy in his life was the death of his oldest daughter and a grandchild on the boxing day tsunami of 2004. In 2008 he was struck down with stroke, retaining his sense, but confined to a wheelchair. Then his wife got dementia. A hard ending for one who rose so very high. 

ABC are still attacking the budget, saying that savings are not necessary, but despising the government;s efforts to procure cuts, devoting serious air time on the 7:30 report with Sabra Lane. It is a lie to say that there is no argument for cuts in the budget, but a reasonable viewer on the ABC would not be aware of it. They fail in their charter. A reasonable person watching the ABC would not be aware that Israel is the rightful landholder of Jerusalem and her surrounds. But, closer to home, few know the extent of the depravity of successive ALP administrations. They have defended the corruption by denouncing people like Hollingsworth, Pell, Howard, or Abbott. And so a bureaucrat who orders the destruction of evidence regarding the gang rape of an aboriginal child in detention is excused because he is ALP. An alleged pedophile who was facing serious allegations is tipped off and suicides before he embarrasses the ABC for covering for him. The corruption of Brian Burke for the ALP in WA is segued into multiple allegations against the Libs for knowing Burke by the ABC. When they are successful in a smear campaign, they transfer it, and so the party trick they did with Burke works with Tripodi. 
Historical perspective on this day
Not done
=== 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.
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Thanks to Warren for this advice on watching Bolt
Warren Catton Get this for your PC or MAC https://www.foxtel.com.au/foxtelplay/how-it-works/pc-mac.html Once you have installed it start it up and press Live TV you don't need a login to watch Sky News!
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I am publishing a book called Bread of Life: January. 

Bread of Life is a daily bible quote with a layman's understanding of the meaning. I give one quote for each day, and also a series of personal stories illustrating key concepts eg Who is God? What is a miracle? Why is there tragedy?

January is the first of the anticipated year-long work of thirteen books. One for each month and the whole year. It costs to publish. It (Kindle version) should retail at about $2US online, but the paperback version would cost more, according to production cost.If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofund.me/27tkwuc
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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
Happy birthday and many happy returns cousin Helen Elley. Philippe van Lansberge (1561), Marie-Eugénie de Jésus (1817), Sean Connery (1930), Elvis Costello (1954), Tim Burton (1958) and Billy Ray Cyrus (1961). Born on the same day, across the years. On your day, Independence Day in Uruguay (1825)
1537 – The Honourable Artillery Company, currently the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, was formed by Royal Charter from King Henry VIII.
1609 – Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei demonstrated his first telescope, a device that became known as a terrestrial or spyglass refracting telescope, to Venetian lawmakers.
1950 – Althea Gibson entered into the U.S. Tennis Championships, becoming the first African-American woman to be a competitor on the world tennis tour.
1989 – The Voyager 2 spacecraft made its closest approach to Neptune and provided definitive proof of the existence of the planet's rings.
2001 – American singer Aaliyah and various members of her record company were killed when their overloaded airplane crashed shortly after takeoff from Marsh Harbour Airport in Marsh Harbour, The Bahamas. Keep the powder dry. Look before you leap. Be competitive. Remember, to discover, you should first observe. If you have everything, try not to put it all on a light aircraft.
Deaths
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ANOTHER KEVNI MIRACLE

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 25, 2016 (7:24pm)

In sunny Queensland, a terrestrial version of the Labor-endorsed Oceanlinx wave power generator: 
Windorah’s solar farm was opened in 2009 by a Queensland prime minister, a Queensland premier and a Queensland energy minister as a flagship project leading Queensland to a solar dawn.
There was even a new ‘airport’ opened at Windorah for Kevin Rudd, Anna Bligh and Stephen Robertson for the opening in October 2009.
But, seven years on, it is broken down.
Only one of the five 14.5-metre high solar collection dishes at Windorah’s solar farm has been working and now it has broken down again. 
Nothing green ever works, and green academics are always mistaken: 
Peter Wadhams has been criticised by scientists who fear that he could undermine the credibility of climate science by making doom-laden forecasts.
He repeatedly predicted that the Arctic would be “ice-free” by last summer, by which he meant it would have less than one million sq km of ice. His forecasts, reported around the world, turned out to be wrong. 
Thus continues a 136-year tradition.
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GREAT PRESIDENTIAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 25, 2016 (4:42pm)

From Steven Crowder:

In other election news, Politico reports: “As a growing tide of Republicans distance themselves from their party’s presidential nominee, at least one Democratic candidate is doing the same thing to Hillary Clinton.” According to recent polls, Clinton currently holds a 5.4 percentage point break over Donald Trump.
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POPULATION EXPLOSION

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 25, 2016 (3:21pm)

A child-inclusive splodey policy: 
Islamic State has unleashed a wave of child suicide bombers – “cubs of the caliphate” – on civilian targets in Iraq and Turkey.
Within 24 hours two children are believed to have detonated their devices and a third has been foiled …
At least 89 children died fighting for Isis last year and three times as many children fought for the group in 2015 than in the previous year. 
Something similar happened during the final stages of WWII. Meanwhile, in Kabul: 
Afghan media is reporting the assault on the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul is over, with all attackers dead.
Explosions and gunfire rang out as militants stormed the elite university late yesterday afternoon, prompting desperate calls for help from students trapped inside classrooms, in the latest attack in the Afghan capital …
Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary has tweeted from Kabul that at least six bodies have so far been found on the campus, but that 20 mostly female students were rescued when special forces stormed the buildings. 
UPDATE. According to lady pages columnist Ruby Hamad:

Of course not. It’s an insect.
(Via J.F. Beck.)
===

ANGRY NIKI

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 25, 2016 (2:27pm)

Niki Savva completely loses it: 
… the extreme Right and the delcons ... adept at dropping bile, then squealing like little piggies if anybody dares bite back ... bully, intimidate, offend, smear ... groupthink always precedes, then dictates, a group rant ...  viciousness ... invective ... no fact left untwisted, no insult withheld ... the loonies of the Right ... like throwing bananas at indigenous football players ...  wind people up over religion or politics ... inaccurate, unfair or foments hatred ...  bigots ... homophobic rants ...  hyperbole ... one more excuse to beat up on Turnbull… high dudgeon? 
Just a guess, but maybe she’s still a little disappointed about the election.
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NOTHING TO DO WITH RELIGION, AS USUAL

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 25, 2016 (1:15pm)

Further details emerge over the alleged murder of Mia Ayliffe-Chung in Townsville: 
Smail Ayad, 29, had fawned over Mia Ayliffe-Chung, 21, for several days, telling other backpackers at the Home Hill hostel the pair were deeply in love and married …
Furious at the unrequited love, he allegedly stabbed Ms Ayliffe-Chung multiple times while screaming “Allahu Akbar”, leaving her to die on the floor of her Shelley’s Backpackers room.
It is understood another British backpacker and friend Thomas Jackson, 30, came to Ms Ayliffe-Chung’s aid and was stabbed multiple times in the face, chest and stomach, suffering horrific injuries …

Up to 30 backpackers witnessed the frenzied attack and tried desperately to intervene, although the Bulletin understands Ayad, a kickboxing champion who has trained in Thailand, allegedly made threats against them and stabbed a hostel employee in the leg.
Yesterday afternoon as police transferred Ayad from hospital to the watchhouse, he allegedly bashed two police officers, after they had to pull over on Woolcock St as he was lashing out in the back of the police paddy wagon. Both officers were hospitalised.

Police were forced to use capsicum spray on Ayad to subdue him and the Bulletin understands it took seven officers to get Ayad into a padded cell, as he continued to scream “Allahu Akbar”. 
The official line: 
Queensland Police Minister Bill Byrne described the stabbing attack as “tragic and disturbing” but sought to distance the incident from extremism. Despite police being unable to rule out radical links to the murder, Mr Byrne said the attacks were not “about race or religion”. 
Perhaps there are no radical links. Perhaps this is a more standard form of Islam, of the kind that sees hundreds of women murdered every single year.
UPDATE. Bill Leak:

UPDATE II. In another non-terrorist incident, “she did not obey the rule of marriage.”
(Via Sarah Harris.)
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buk buk buk buk-ARK

Tim Blair – Thursday, August 25, 2016 (11:59am)

One of my friend Mondo’s chickens now holds the Werribee egg record:
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On The Bolt Report and radio tonight - They’re all big spenders, now. A party for Mao. What Islam?

Andrew Bolt August 25 2016 (3:04pm)

On The Bolt Report on Sky News Live at 7pm tonight:
Editorial: How did the Turnbull Government go in 11 months from saying government spends too much to saying governments don’t tax enough?
Guests:
Why are the town halls of Sydney and Melbourne been hired out for a party for a mass-murdering dictator?
Chongyi Feng, an associate professor in China Studies at the University of Technology Sydney, on the pro-Beijing groups pushing the China line here.
Rowan Dean on Culture Wars.
On the panel, Labor frontbencher Stephen Conroy and Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger.  The police raids on Conroy’s office, Turnbull’s clash with Alan Jones on free speech, dealing with the deficit.
Podcasts of the show here but also now on our Facebook page here. 

On 2GB, 3AW and 4BC with Steve Price from 8pm.
Listen live here. Talkback:  131 873.  Listen to all past shows here.
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Betts the healer

Andrew Bolt August 25 2016 (10:09am)

How classy is Eddie Betts?
ADELAIDE Crows footballer Eddie Betts says he has forgiven the woman who threw a banana at him during the Showdown against Port Adelaide — and does not want her to be banned for life.
Betts told FIVEaa he wanted Alexandra Pelosi, 27, to be welcomed back to football rather than face punitive action for her actions, condemned across Australia as racist.
“I don’t think she should get a life ban. I think she should come back and enjoy the footy,’’ he said.
“It’s great, she came out and she apologised, I don’t hold grudges - I forgive her for what she’s done.
“I know she’s got a lot of abusing messages on social media. I’ve forgiven her and so should all of you.”
A gentleman.
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Book blooms

Andrew Bolt August 25 2016 (9:48am)

My book is on an odyssey, visiting Alaska, Bath, the skulls of Montpellier, York Minster, Shanghai, Croatia, Ho Chi Minh City, Santorini, London, Scotland, Ithaca, the Bay of Naples, Lake Como, Dubrovnik, Fiji, Aileron, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, the Andes, the Northern Territory, the Whitsundays, Kalgoorlie and Condabri, Queensland, before invading Australia’s most Left-wing Parliament - an experience which convinced one reader at the Katharine River Mango Farm to try teaching even a donkey to understand what’s in it. Meanwhile, it attended a christening in Newcastle, checked in at a Penrith hospital and recuperated at the Moreton Bay Boat Club before sailing down the Murray and visiting the Mt Annan Australian Botanical Garden.

Now reader Andy helps the book explore its roots - well, cultural roots, if not geographic, being in the Darling Range outside Perth:
Bought your book today before heading to Araluen Botanic Park where the annual Tulip Festival has commenced.  About 125,000 tulip bulbs are planted out and the park is stunning in spring. The valley, south of Perth, is a former Young Australia League hills resort developed after WW1.  The moving Grove of the Unforgotten was built in memory of the 88 YAL members killed in WW1. 
Last week I was with a group of veteran rock-kickers touring the northern Flinders Ranges (also stunning). Leigh Creek is very sad. All that infrastructure going to waste now that the coal field has shut and the related power station at Port Augusta put into mothballs.  The hinterland of SA is emptying fast!
To reward the traveler in your life, order the book here. On-line buyers also get the semi-regular Bolt Bulletin, as will people pre-ordering the reprint of my Still Not Sorry on line.    
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Why are gay-marriage supporters so scared of Australians?

Andrew Bolt August 25 2016 (9:01am)

Culture wars, The new morality, three

WHY are same-sex marriage activists so scared of Australians and so against giving them a say? Why are they rewriting history to pretend an Irish-style public vote on same-sex marriage will unleash terrible gay-hatred?
Activists, politicians and journalists are now demanding the Turnbull Government call off its planned plebiscite next year. Labor leader Bill Shorten claims it will just be “a taxpayer-funded platform for homophobia”. Former High Court justice Michael Kirby this week insisted it would be “running out the old issues of hatreds and animosities, abominations and all the old arguments against gay people”.

Irish crowds celebrate in Dublin after the referendum on same-sex marriage in 2015. Picture: Brian Lawless
This fear campaign is now so hysterical that campaigners even suggest that letting Australians vote — rather than have politicians decide for them — will literally kill gays.
Take former Australian Marriage Equality convener Rodney Croome: “If there is a plebiscite, and when the first gay kid dies at his own hand because of the hate and fearmongering, I have to be able to look at myself in the mirror and know I did everything I could to stop it … everything.”

And now activists actually claim Ireland is a warning to us. That is bizarre
(Read full column here.) 
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Savva explodes

Andrew Bolt August 25 2016 (8:50am)

Niki Savva, Malcolm Turnbull’s fiercest media supporter, has been goaded beyond endurance:

… the extreme Right and the delcons ... adept at dropping bile, then squealing like little piggies if anybody dares bite back ... bully, intimidate, offend, smear ... groupthink always precedes, then dictates, a group rant ...  viciousness ... invective ... no fact left untwisted, no insult withheld ... the loonies of the Right ... like throwing bananas at indigenous football players ...  wind people up over religion or politics ... inaccurate, unfair or foments hatred ...  bigots ... homophobic rants ...  hyperbole ... one more excuse to beat up on Turnbull… high dudgeon?
Goodness. And what prompted this projectile vomit? Clue in the final paragraph:

Finally, just to set the record straight on the latest of a string of misrepresentations, the No 1 ticket holder for the delcons has claimed I had suggested Abbott was not finished. In fact what I wrote last week was that Abbott was expert at tearing down prime ministers — which he is — and that is something quite different.
Actually, that was not all she wrote. Nor is that all I did to spark that astonishing explosion. I may also have asked again why Savva repeatedly refuses to declare a potential conflict of interest: her husband works for Turnbull.
Oh, and the difference between Abbott and Savva’s choice is that Abbott at least was expert in tearing down Labor Prime Ministers. Turnbull, however… 
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Nothing to see here, says the government as its subs spring a leak

Andrew Bolt August 25 2016 (8:39am)

I thought a massive leak from the builder of Australia’s submarines - a leak detailing how (different) subs for the Indian navy worked - might actually concern the Turnbull Government.
But, no.
Cameron Stewart:
The government yesterday missed its chance to reassure Australians that it takes the security of Australia’s future submarine program seriously.
Reacting to the massive leak of secret documents from the French shipbuilder DCNS on India’s new Scorpene submarine fleet, the Industry Minister Christopher Pyne pretended that the issue had no relevance to Australia.
Why? Because the Defence Department told him so. What’s more he had been told that the Australian future submarine program operated “under stringent security requirements” so all was OK…
Turnbull was even more disingenuous, saying the leak wasn’t relevant to Australia because it involved a different type of submarine to the one which DCNS will build for France.
As both Pyne and the Prime Minister know, the issue here is not the fact that we now know ­secret details about the Indian submarine fleet. The issue is that the leak came from the same French shipbuilder, DCNS, that will also design the 12 new Australian submarines. If the secrets of the DCNS project in India can be leaked, then what assurance do we have that the secrets of Australia’s new fleet will not one day be leaked in the same manner?
Greg Sheridan:
The massive leak of highly sensitive information concerning the French DCNS-designed Scorpene submarine being built for India demonstrates one of the reasons the Americans so strongly favoured Canberra choosing the Japanese option for our submarine to replace the Collins-class boats.
The Americans were officially neutral but privately made no secret of their preference for the Japanese option on strategic grounds. They were also worried about whether the Germans or the French could protect the security of their confidential information.
As it turns out, they were right to be worried. Very worried. This leak will produce a dangerous crisis in confidence about our new submarine before a contract has even been signed.
And there are other reasons for not regarding the French as a reliable ally. France has a worrying record of not delivering weaponry its customers have ordered if it doesn’t like the war they’re fighting.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Turnbull’s terrible choice: a Labor super tax or nothing

Andrew Bolt August 25 2016 (8:09am)

The Turnbull Government faces a nightmare choice with its plans for a new superannuation tax - and the easiest option may be to give up.
The choice is this:
- make a deal with Labor to get the package through the Senate, which means essentially passing a Labor tax that hits the Liberal base even harder.
- make a deal instead with the Greens, who’d want an even bigger tax.
- make a deal with Pauline Hanson, Nick Xenophon and three other crossbench Senators, if that’s at all possible - and see what’s left of the package.
- give up, and lose the cash and the credibility, but keep sweet with an angry base.
Labor sniffs the weakness, and offers help to get a Labor super tax through.
David Crowe:
Doubling the super contributions tax to 30 per cent on workers earning more than $200,000 a year is one of the explosive new demands [from Labor] in the political brawl over the super package, forcing the Prime Minister to negotiate as he runs out of options to get the reforms through the Senate.
Labor is ruling out supporting the 2007 start date for the government’s most divisive new measure, a $500,000 lifetime cap on post-tax contributions, in a move that builds on internal Coalition dissent on the same question…
The Treasurer and Financial Services Minister Kelly O’Dwyer lashed out at the Labor proposals last night, warning they would be “bad” for women, carers, small business owners and people who needed help to build up their super after taking time out of the workforce…
Labor’s alternative policy would add $4.5 billion to the budget bottom line compared with the government’s $3bn net gain, mostly by supporting the original tax increases while opposing some of the concessions in the package to allow people to “catch up” on their super contributions…
Mr Morrison and Ms O’Dwyer have held talks with MPs over the past week to try to ease concerns but the compromise plan to lift the $500,000 cap to $750,000 does not address anger over the 2007 start date, the central issue in the fight over “retrospective” tax law.
With the government falling short of the nine crossbench senators it needs to back its plan in the upper house, Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison would have to strike a deal with the Greens or Labor. Greens Treasury spokesman Adam Bandt warned against an increase in the lifetime cap on the grounds it would cost tax revenue, pushing instead for higher taxes on wealthier workers.
Note that this is a Senate that is keener to raise taxes than cut spending. 
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Morrison warns: change or risk recession

Andrew Bolt August 25 2016 (8:05am)

Treasurer Scott Morrison issues the warning we need:
“A generation has grown up not ever having known a recession, of seeing unemployment rates at more than 10 per cent, with one million Australians out of work or mortgage rates at 18 per cent or where inflation is actually a problem, rather than an aspiration.”

In addition, Mr Morrison will say that on the current settings, a generation of Australians are likely to never pay tax, setting up a new divide - the “taxed and taxed-nots”, prompting the Treasurer to ask: “ Are we still up to the challenge of doing what we need to do to ensure another 25 years of consecutive economic growth?…
“Do we really appreciate how quickly our economic success can turn, and are we as prepared as we can be to deal with it . . . my greatest concern is that we end up answering these questions the hard way.”
This is morally unhealthy and a danger for us all, given that people become dependent on Big Government and defensive of it:

The share of households considered net taxpayers — those whose income tax payments outweigh what they receive in social security — is tipped to fall below 50 per cent in the near future.
According to the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, this share has already fallen from 56 per cent to 51 per cent over the past decade, which means almost half of all households receive more from the government in welfare payments than they give up in income tax.
This does not include the GST, a bigger share of average household budgets compared with wealthier families. 
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Mike Baird’s dare: if you don’t like me banning stuff, vote me out

Andrew Bolt August 25 2016 (8:00am)

I don’t think it is wise for a politician to issue this invitation, especially in the context of seeming headstrong:
The Premier said “of course there will be (a backlash)” from the greyhound ban, but voters “will have their right, come election-day in 2019 to pass judgment on decisions we’ve made”.
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Turnbull turns up

Andrew Bolt August 25 2016 (7:55am)

The chairman of the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council does not let his position stop him from calling things out:
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Abbott can win

Andrew Bolt August 25 2015 (5:30pm)

Newspoll this week had the Abbott Government very far behind Labor - 46 per cent to 54.
A very different picture from the Essential poll:
I think Essential exaggerates the Coalition vote, but I don’t quite believe the Coalition is as far down as Newspoll has it, either.
I still believe Tony Abbott can win the next election for the following reasons:
- He has offered credible positions on two issues on which Labor hoped to hurt him and split the Liberals - global warming and same-sex marriage. Indeed. his plan for a people’s vote is very popular, and turns a weakness into a weapon.
- Labor has tacked too close to the union movement, especially in sliming royal commissioner Dyson Heydon. It is starting to look like a protection racket for corrupt unions, and truly scary.
- Labor remains vulnerable on it planned carbon tax, doubling of the refugee intake and weakness on boats.
- Labor still has its record of mad spending to live down, and is promising even more spending. I don’t think the times suit spendthrifts.
- The talk is coming back to Liberal strengths - notably the economy and national security.
- The Left have overreached with more smears, this time against Captain Andrew Hastie. If that helps Hastie to hold Canning with relative comfort in next month’s by-election, that should give Abbott a real lift.
- Abbott is a very able campaigner, battle-hardened and very disciplined.
- Bill Shorten.
But:
- Unemployment at 6.3 per cent needs to come down fast. I suspect it will. Last month’s figure seemed a bit of an anomaly. Jobs, jobs, jobs.
- The Government needs to work out a credible way to pay for its mooted tax cuts without adding even more to the deficit.
- Joe Hockey needs to dominate the debate, and not go AWOL at times.
- There must be a reshuffle near the end of the year, and smoothly done. It shouldn’t involved the expected two, but at least three. The Government needs a younger and more female and fresher face. It also needs some fighters. It needs to be three to include the almost mandatory two women, one left and one right, plus the most deserving and hard-edged man. And I would not want to see Andrew Robb sail into a cushy posting elsewhere, since he has been such a huge success in a critical area that will need promoting.
- There needs to be more mongrel in the Government, and more mongrels on the front bench. Why wasn’t Bill Shorten torn to pieces? Why were the attacks on Tony Burke called off?
- The members need to be excited. More should have been done to help them show support for Hastie.
- Dyson Heydon must resist the calls for him to step down as royal commissioner. I understand he will feel terribly bruised, but the politics of personal destruction must not be allowed to succeed. This protection racket for the crooked and the shady must be defied. 
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Labor left us dangerously exposed. Now the day of reckoning comes

Andrew Bolt August 25 2015 (7:12am)

More losses to come on Australia’s stock market today after another bad day on Wall Street overnight:
Investors rattled about China sent U.S. stock indices almost 4-percent lower on Monday in an unusually volatile session that confirmed the S&P 500 was formally in a correction… Monday’s drop followed an 8.5 percent slump in Chinese markets, which sparked a selloff in global stocks along with oil and other commodities.
Terry McCrann says Joe Hockey is promising tax cuts with money he sure doesn’t have now:
Share markets all around the world are going over a cliff — more than $100 billion of shareholder savings are shredded in Australia alone in just three days…

But ... on a day when the prospects of his Budget ever getting within a distant cooee of a surplus evaporated into the global gloom, Treasurer Joe Hockey thought it was a good idea to get up to promise future tax cuts. 
Yeah, not so much “say it ain’t so, Joe”; but more a case of “yeah, right Joe”; or “in your dreams Joe” ...
Knock, knock, apart from anything else, is anyone home, Joe? Last time I looked, the sign on your door said “treasurer of Australia”. It’s not only your call, but your job to deliver. Stop commenting — again and again, incidentally; do…
But, the meltdown is ... driven by fears that the Chinese economic miracle is over. That far from China growing at a more subdued, say 6 per cent, it might end up barely growing at all, by 2-3 per cent. Or worse, actually shrinking.
This collides head-on with the reality of grossly inflated global share values — with stock markets at the levels they are only because of the massive monetary stimulus and interest rates at zero.
This leads on to the further fundamental worry — precisely because of that all the major central banks have no bullets left to fire if the world economy slows or worse, slides back into recession.
And governments around the world have built up huge debts and have budgets still in deficit because of all the money borrowed and then thrown at the GFC.
Imagine for example if our Joe unveiled at the midyear Budget update a string of endless, say $60-80 billion deficits — and announced he was having tax cuts to boost the economy.
In what is still this universe, just, that is unimaginable. 
One further point should be noted. We’re in even greater danger for two reasons: Labor plunged us deep into debt by splashing cash on trash, and has spent the past two years sabotaging the Abbott Government’s attempts to cut spending.
This is what Hockey should be stressing.
Simon Benson:
JOE Hockey has flagged cutting personal income tax rates no less than three times. Good on him. But he has yet to say by how much, by when and how he is going to pay for it. Considering the price tag is estimated at around $2 billion a year, many of his colleagues are wondering if this is yet another thought bubble from a Treasurer who doesn’t have billions to throw around. 
But make no mistake it is not only a good idea, it is imperative.
Cursed as he may be with a felonious debt and deficit legacy bequeathed by Labor, Hockey must commit to liberating hard working Australians from the yoke of an ever increasing tax burden. His tax burden…
Australians are now lashed with the most punitive income tax rates the country has seen for more than 30 years — and one of the highest marginal tax rates in the known world.
And this has all happened under Hockey’s watch. Since he has been in the job he has pushed the effective marginal tax rate for high income earners to 49 per cent. This rose even further when a 0.5 per cent increase in the Medicare Levy kicked in last financial year to help pay for the NDIS…
And he could make a good start by immediately jettisoning his 2 per cent debt and deficit repair levy on people who earn more than $180,000. By his own admission yesterday, this is a disincentive to work harder to earn a better salary. Yet he imposed it. 
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Green with envy

Andrew Bolt August 25 2015 (6:57am)

Something gives me the impression that the Greens won’t be happy until the wealth of the rich is confiscated. Sure, destroying the rich just leaves everyone worse off - ask Stalin - but it sure appeals to the chronically envious and stupid:

Politics of envy, anyone? Adam Bandt media release, also yesterday: 

The Treasurer proposes that wealthy people pay less tax.
Shame about the facts. Sinclair ­Davidson, Catallaxy blog, May 1:
Earlier this week the ATO released the latest version of their taxation statistics. As I have done for the last 10 years or so, I have calculated the distribution of the tax burden. The bottom 50 per cent of individual taxpayers paid 12.4 per cent of net income tax (that’s after deductions etc, but before welfare and the like) … the top 1 per cent paid 16.01 per cent.
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O’Neill: Gay marriage isn’t about freedom but state control

Andrew Bolt August 25 2015 (6:50am)

Brendan O’Neill:
So that’s my beef with gay marriage: it allows the state to increase its already considerable clout over both our personal/family lives and our consciences. The ugly tactics of the loudest gay-marriage proponents are no accident: they speak to this illiberal heart of gay marriage. There’s one question I’ve asked every liberal I’ve encountered in Australia, all of whom harangue me for my views on gay marriage: why are Western governments that are so allergic to freedom and autonomy passionately embracing gay marriage? They’ve all struggled to answer. I think it’s because gay marriage chimes brilliantly with these governments’ insatiable desire to diminish the sovereignty of the family and intervene more in our personal lives, and to police what we think.
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Time to fight

Andrew Bolt August 25 2015 (6:30am)

I fear Tony Abbott has as little as three months left - five at most - to turn these polls around again:
Based on preference flows from the last election, Labor’s two-party preferred lead was unchanged at 54 per cent to the Coalition’s 46 per cent - a 7.5 per cent swing since the September 2013 election. This is the 29th consecutive Newspoll survey in which Labor has been ahead in two-party terms.
- promising tax cuts again without a plan to achieve them does not persuade.
- spending a week out with Aboriginal communities out in the Torres Strait takes Abbott almost literally out of circulation, fighting an issue of zero relevance to most voters.
- where is the onslaught against Shorten for running a protection racket for crooked unions and trying to shoot the sheriff?
- where is the Liberals’ YouTube clip of Andrew Hastie giving it to the media snipers (UPDATE: the clip is up on Hastie’s Facebook site https://m.facebook.com/hastieandrew?refsrc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fhastieandrew&_rdr), or a Deploy Hastie to Parliament donations site? Where is the onslaught against Labor’s politics of smear? 
Fight. 
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Why is Shorten’s Labor running a protection racket for this union?

Andrew Bolt August 25 2015 (6:22am)

No wonder Labor and the CFMEU are trying to destroy Dyson Heydon and close down his royal commission:

Police in three states are investigating the most senior leaders of the CFMEU for allegations ranging from receiving secret commissions to blackmail as a result of evidence gathered by investigators working alongside the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption. 
A Fairfax Media investigation can reveal the CFMEU’s national president and Labor factional boss Dave Hanna has quit the union as a major criminal investigation examines allegations that he took secret commissions.
Hanna, who until his resignation this month was also the CFMEU’s Queensland president and was previously a state ALP vice-president, is the subject of a joint state and federal police inquiry into allegations concerning kickbacks and the operations of a union fund…
A Victoria Police taskforce, Heracles?, has recently taken witness statements from multiple construction industry figures as detectives attempt to charge Victorian CFMEU secretary John Setka and his deputy, Shaun Reardon, with blackmail in connection to the union’s campaign against concrete firm Boral.
Police witnesses have been advised by detectives that a criminal brief against Mr Setka and Mr Reardon has been completed and that police are waiting to receive legal advice before laying charges.
The CFMEU’s NSW secretary Brian Parker is also being investigated by police after phone taps were recently aired at the union royal commission, which revealed his close relationship with organised crime figure, and allegedly crooked labour hire firm boss, George Alex.
The police investigations are now effectively targeting the CFMEU’s most powerful figures across three states and, if they result in charges and convictions, could be fatal to the union’s hope of avoiding being deregistered or placed into administration… In a statement to Fairfax Media, Mr Hanna said he had taken “no benefits” and was involved in “no mismanagement” of any union fund. He claims to have stepped down from the union due to health reasons arising from a motorcycle accident. 
Labor, in smearing Dyson Heydon and blocking the reinstatement of the watchdog Australian Building and Construction Commission, is effectively running a protection racket for the CFMEU. And if the polls are right, this protection racket will next year be your government. 
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ABC republishes another foul anti-Abbott tweet

Andrew Bolt August 25 2015 (5:47am)

The ABC’s Q&A keeps fishing in the Twitter sewer:
It’s no longer just a question of bias but of barbarity. The ABC is out of control.
UPDATE
The tweet was published during a discussion between five panellists of the Left and just one conservative. The Abbott Government is paying the ABC $1 billion a year to promote the Left and vilify conservatives. 
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SINCERE APOLOGIES TO MY MUSLIM FRIENDS

Tim Blair – Monday, August 25, 2014 (7:13am)

Before we get to my big apology, let’s review recent events.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'SINCERE APOLOGIES TO MY MUSLIM FRIENDS'
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SAD PEOPLE ARE SAD

Tim Blair – Monday, August 25, 2014 (6:35am)

In the most compelling argument ever made for urgent action against climate change, a bunch of scientists haveposed for sad photographs: 

Will Steffen, Lesley Hughes and Tim Flannery being sad recently. In super-sad monochrome. 
Here’s the background to this devastating initiative: 
Photographer Nick Bowers, Art Director Celine Faledam and Copy Writer Rachel Guest have teamed up to bring attention to the issue of climate change in a completely novel and frankly terrifying way with their portrait/interview project Scared Scientists.
The title, in a way, says it all. 
Yes. Yes, it does. Readers are invited to send their own earnest concern faces to blairt@dailytelegraph.com.au – you may prefer to shoot black and white images, indicating the full extent of your desperate grief.
(Via reader bemused. The “scared scientist” deal seems to be a theme.) 
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QUITE SO ESCAPED

Tim Blair – Monday, August 25, 2014 (6:25am)

In Australia, the final words of this European GT series crash commentary would result in a Press Council investigation. 
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ANXIETY ANNOUNCED

Tim Blair – Monday, August 25, 2014 (6:08am)

Scientists and academics are typically seen as measured, sober types, diligently pursuing their interests in thoughtful, deliberate ways. This is one reason why climate change became such a big issue – because the subject was pushed by science-minded scholars.
It now emerges that these people are every bit as hysterical as your common global warming basket case at a coal seam gas protest.  Canberra student and “science communicator” Joe Duggan recently published a range of pieces from various sciency/academic identities describing their “feelings”.
They are hilarious.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'ANXIETY ANNOUNCED'
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SUPERDAN

Tim Blair – Monday, August 25, 2014 (5:59am)

Three wins to Australian F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo in 2014:


Our guy is absolutely nailing it. This is similar to Alan Jones’s late-1979 winning streak, except that Ricciardo is achieving victories using inferior machinery. 
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EXPENSIVE MEAL

Tim Blair – Monday, August 25, 2014 (5:44am)

Andrew Brown examines the Richard Dawkins atheist cult: 
The Richard Dawkins website offers followers the chance to join the ‘Reason Circle’, which, like Dante’s Hell, is arranged in concentric circles. For $85 a month, you get discounts on his merchandise, and the chance to meet ‘Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science personalities’. Obviously that’s not enough to meet the man himself. For that you pay $210 a month — or $5,000 a year — for the chance to attend an event where he will speak …
The neophyte passes through the successively more expensive ‘Darwin Circle’ and then the ‘Evolution Circle’, he attains the innermost circle, where for $100,000 a year or more he gets to have a private breakfast or lunch with Richard Dawkins …
The website suggests that donations of up to $500,000 a year will be accepted for the privilege of eating with him once a year: at this level of contribution you become a member of something called ‘The Magic of Reality Circle’. 
Seems kinda … religious.
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FROM D-DAY TO TODAY

Tim Blair – Monday, August 25, 2014 (4:14am)

D-Day zones then and now, via Andrew S. I’ve visited many of those areas. At a Normandy hotel, within sight of the beach, I was eating oysters and trying as best I could to speak with the hotel owners – hugely patriotic Nazi-hating Francophiles. Their beautiful daughter then joined us.
Her name is Victory.
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JERSEY JUICE

Tim Blair – Monday, August 25, 2014 (3:30am)

“I’ve found the wine for your next visit,” emails New Jersey’s Mr. Bingley. Er … perhaps not.
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COMEDY IS EASY

Tim Blair – Monday, August 25, 2014 (1:13am)

Bryan Cranston is terrific:

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His bad back. Our soft heads

Andrew Bolt August 25 2014 (7:55pm)

We really do keep pensioners in style:
A DANDENONG disability pensioner admits he was stunned to become ­Melbourne’s newest millionaire after sensationally snaring almost $3 million playing Keno at his local pub. 
Friends say Kenedi, who quit work after injuring his back 13 years ago and does not want his surname revealed, is a true “Aussie battler” who has been living off a meagre ­pension since 2001… The part-time punter had been back from a trip to Macedonia for only a day when he dropped into the Jim Dandy Hotel and outlaid $50 on fifty $1 10-number Keno games and then went to play a poker ­machine.  
Overseas trip? A $50 bet? Pokies? The pub? 
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But the ABC won’t allow the most important diversity - of opinion

Andrew Bolt August 25 2014 (11:57am)

How about addressing the most glaring lack of cultural diversity - of conservative opinion?
THE ABC will next month introduce an in-house “cultural diversity tool” across its news and current affairs operations in a bid to ensure its reporting more fully reflects Australia’s ethnic and cultural diversity. 
There are other important points to make about this story  but free speech is not possible under our current laws. 
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Don’t mention the books!

Andrew Bolt August 25 2014 (9:47am)

Tim Blair reviews criticism of an article in which he discussed the startling contents of a bookshop in Lakemba: 
Imagine the reaction if Sydney stores sold books containing these lines: 
- “Is it allowed to support and love Muslims? No, it is not allowed.” 
- “Men’s perfection is because of various reasons: intelligence, religion, etc. At most, four Muslims have this perfection.” 
- “No one can deny the fact that the Muslims are the worst kind of barbarian killers the world has ever known!!! The decent great Adolf Hitler of Germany never killed in the manner of the Muslims!!! Surely only mad people or those who love killing infants, pregnant women and the infirm will think differently.” 
Just a hunch, but that sort of thing might lead to a protest or two. When an Islamic store presents identical slurs against women and Jews, however, the PC crowd is absolutely silent… The ABC’s Jonathan Green performed an impressive leftist two-step, first describing my Islamic Bookstore criticism as a case of “book burning” then urging censorship of images showing the imminent Islamic State beheading of US journalist James Foley. Consistency isn’t exactly his strong suit – unless you’re talking about consistent cowardice in the face of Islam. 
The most important thing Blair’s critics overlook, though, is not that an Islamic bookshop sells books so full of hatred. It’s that these books, written by Muslims and sold by an Islamic bookshop, says this hatred is the true message of Islam.  
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Triggs must resign from this witch-hunt

Andrew Bolt August 25 2014 (7:17am)

 THE Human Rights Commission president must resign after turning her inquiry on children in detention into a political witch-hunt last week.
Gillian Triggs’ behaviour was unforgivable for someone with semi-judicial powers, able to force witnesses to appear under threat of jail.
We cannot have the head of an inquiry showing such bias, heckling witnesses and making false and emotive claims from the bench to make the Christmas Island detention centre seem a hellhole.
Nor can we have an inquiry head giving media interviews attacking witnesses and summing up the issues before hearing all the evidence.
We also cannot have an inquiry head refusing to correct explosive claims about suicide attempts in detention when they’ve been debunked.
It is now impossible to have confidence in Triggs’ impartiality.
(Read full article here.) 
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Dawkins: “immoral” not to kill Down’s syndrome baby

Andrew Bolt August 25 2014 (6:38am)

This is becoming very dangerous. We’ve gone from believing it’s immoral to kill the unborn to some insisting it’s immoral not to if they aren’t, you know, perfect:
Richard Dawkins has apologised for the “feeding frenzy” triggered by his tweet claiming it would be immoral to carry on with a pregnancy if the mother knew the foetus had Down’s syndrome. 
The geneticist’s latest Twitter row broke out after he responded to another user who said she would be faced with “a real ethical dilemma” if she became pregnant with a baby with Down’s syndrome. Dawkins tweeted: ”Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.”
Dawkins is upset:
Dawkins said accusations of “Nazism, vile, monstrous fascistic callousness” and “fireballs of hatred” had been hurled his way.
Normally Godwin’s law applies - the first in an argument to invoke the Nazis loses. But analogy sometimes really is analogy and not mere abuse:
The Nazis destroyed “life unworthy of life” (lebensunwertes Leben) as they termed it, not as an act of mercy, but as part of a strategy to murder that part of the population least able to defend itself… The fundamental tenet of the eugenics movement was that restricting the ability of “inferior” people to procreate whilst maximizing that of “superior” individuals, would benefit society. Attention was focused on the feebleminded (an inaccurate term covering everything from mental retardation to alcoholism), labelled as idiots, imbeciles, or morons.
Once you concede some humans are too imperfect to deserve life you’re down to arguing who we should kill. “We”, of course, may not include you.
(Thanks to reader Seth.) 
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Stop treating us like idiots with your “asylum seekers”

Andrew Bolt August 25 2014 (6:26am)

Fairfax takes up the case of single male “asylum seekers” in Nauru, despite most being university-educated family men from Pakistan, a democracy, where their families still live:
Fifty-one men – 44 Pakistanis, six Afghans and one Iranian – are living at the isolated “Fly Camp” on Nauru. The men are Shi’ite Muslims, most of whom fled Taliban violence or religious persecution in their homelands. Most speak Pashto as a first language, but the majority are university educated and also speak English. 
While they are classified as “single men” for their refugee status, almost all have wives and children in their homelands.
Feel we’re being gamed, and not just by the “asylum seekers”? 
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Brother-in-law has invention

Andrew Bolt August 25 2014 (6:25am)

 My brother-in-law swears that he and a bunch of academics have figured a great way to work out the true value of the home you’re thinking of buying, relying on the wisdom of crowds. 
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Muslim leaders betray us by siding with extremists

Andrew Bolt August 25 2014 (6:20am)

AS news broke of the beheading of US journalist James Foley, 80 of Australia’s Muslim representatives issued a statement denouncing the extremism of ... Tony Abbott.
Last week’s statement is the most frightening yet from our Muslim “leaders”.
It attacks the Prime Minister for proposing anti-terrorism laws it falsely claims “specifically target Muslims”.
It ludicrously claims the threat from Muslim jihadists returning from Iraq or Syria is “trumped up” and then savages the true villains — the West and the Jews.
(Read full article here.) 
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Victorian Liberals face wipeout in three months

Andrew Bolt August 25 2014 (6:02am)

Bring back Jeff:
For the first time, Dr Napthine’s net satisfaction rating has dropped into negative territory, a troubling result for the government as Labor leads 55 per cent to 45 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis.
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Bryce resented pushy Rudd, too

Andrew Bolt August 25 2014 (5:41am)

I did indeed think Quentin Bryce was politicising the role of Governor General. I did not know that she was also becoming concerned by what a megalomaniac was forcing her to do:
FORMER governor-general Quentin Bryce made a series of complaints to Kevin Rudd as prime minister about his treatment of the office, his controlling attitude towards her and his lack of support when she was ­attacked for decisions imposed upon her by Rudd. 
Relations between Bryce and Rudd were frequently unhappy, with Bryce at one point deciding she could not proceed on a proposed African trip required by Rudd that had ignited public ­attacks on the goverrnor-general.
My book Triumph and Demise reveals that when Rudd rang Bryce at 5.40pm on March 13, 2009, she said she was “willing to postpone or cancel the trip” ­because it had become an issue of political dispute.
The journalistic critics mentioned in their discussion were Andrew Bolt, Piers Akerman, Glenn Milne and Greg Sheridan.
Rudd told Bryce these journalists were “right-wing, rat-pack ­misogynists”.
That was scant compensation for Bryce, who told Rudd she was deeply concerned. 
I am just surprised so few other commentators then did not protest against the abuse of Bryce’s office.
One thing, though: not all the fault lay with Rudd.
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A very healthy union for Jackson

Andrew Bolt August 25 2014 (5:32am)

I had no idea being a union official did not stop you from becoming wealthy:
THE divorce settlement of corruption whistleblower Kathy Jackson is likely to be drawn into a royal commission investigation because she paid her ex-husband large sums of cash from the union she controlled after their ­separation. 
Ms Jackson’s ex-­husband, Jeff Jackson, will be called as a ­surprise witness at the royal ­commission into union ­corruption in Sydney later this week.
Questions to Mr Jackson are expected to focus on why union members’ money was transferred to him by his former wife from her Health Services Union No 3 branch in Victoria — including payments of $50,000 in March 2009 and $58,000 in April 2010…
Ms Jackson ...  is believed to have reached a divorce settlement with Mr ­Jackson in the first few months of 2010 — after the couple separated in March 2008 — that involved making payments to him over time.
Under the divorce deal, Ms Jackson kept the couple’s home in the Melbourne suburb of Balwyn, which she sold in July last year for $1.8 million. Mr Jackson is understood to have kept the couple’s investment property in Box Hill, Victoria, which he sold in 2010 for $855,000. He also received a cash component believed to be about $300,000 and kept his Mercedes-Benz car.
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Beheader “identified”. Save the usual excuses

Andrew Bolt August 25 2014 (12:14am)

 Can we drop the usual excuse about being ”marginalised” by Western society?
THE British security services MI5 and MI6 have reportedly identified a British hip-hop artist as the key suspect in the hunt for the killer who beheaded American journalist James Foley… 
Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary ... is the son of an Egyptian-born militant who is awaiting trial on terror charges in New York tied to the deadly 1998 bombings of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania…
Bary — who recently tweeted a photo of himself holding up a severed head — ...  was an aspiring rapper known as “L Jinny,” whose music was played on BBC Radio 1.
Bary also appeared in music videos posted on YouTube for songs titled Overdose, Flying High and Dreamer. But he ... walked out of his family’s plush West London home last year, saying he was “leaving everything for the sake of Allah.” 
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Pastor Rick Warren
#Workouts can help you "work out" grief or depression. Intense activity raises serotonin and nor-epinephrine in your brain.
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SCENES FROM A CRIME SPREE: On May 23rd, 1934, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were spotted by a group of armed officers driving 80 mph in a stolen Ford vehicle. A police chase ensued, resulting in a fatal shoot out and demise of the outlawed couple. To uncover more unique facts about #BonnieAndClyde, watch the epic movie premiering this fall on HISTORY, Lifetime and A&E Television Network!
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I saw the one I love. She looked lovely in red. But tell her? Whoa. That is very hard. I realised some years ago how I felt and I thought of what I wanted .. and realised I had to embrace God if I was to have the relationship I wanted with her. So I got myself baptised (invited her, she didn't go). I heard a sermon how a Minister got his children to embrace the faith by sharing each morning a devotional by Charles Spurgeon (Morning and evening) so I read that and posted it online. And I read the bible and posted that on line too .. I am so eager to share these devotionals with her .. but years pass .. and it gets hard to break the ice .. to share when you aren't used to sharing .. and it is a dream, a powerful dream .. but maybe not her dream .. It isn't complicated .. but it isn't easy either. Because I have to accept the rejection, and if I don't bring it to her, then she doesn't reject it, and I can keep the dream. - ed
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Tony Abbott's official campaign launch speech delivered today. Strong. Decisive. Inspirational. Will annoy leftists.

<On day one of an incoming Coalition government, I will instruct the public service to prepare the carbon tax repeal legislation.
I will give the directions needed to commence Operation Sovereign Borders.
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation will cease making non-commercial loans with taxpayers’ money.
And the motor industry will be saved from Mr Rudd’s $1.8 billion tax on company cars.
From day one, it will be obvious that Australia is under new management and once more open for business.>
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The liberals in Hollywood are at it again. They cast of all people "Hanoi" Jane Fonda in the movie "Butler" to play one of the greatest first ladies ever in Republican Nancy Reagan in that movie.
The Tea Party
Click LIKE if you think Jane Fonda is a traitor to the USA for siding with the Communist North Vietnamese during the war.
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So, friends...inside scoop into the “Palin World.” This is Todd’s airplane hanger (under ANOTHER autumn double rainbow tonight!) where he parks his bush plane to transport us to our commercial and sport fishing grounds. And as importantly, it houses extra space for our “big kids” and their needy buddies to set up temporary “home” and also houses our FOX camera and equipment that allows convenient FOX hits way up here in the Far North! (Thank you, Roger Ailes and Bill Shine, for making it happen.) Tonight, please catch the re-run of Judge Jeanine's show on FOX. I just listened to her profound commentary and watched her superb guests (you can't argue with Ann Coulter!) educate and inspire us to defend our republic. She re-runs in a few hours, then again tomorrow. Please tune in to “Justice with Judge Jeanine.” Thank you!

- Sarah Palin
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Though black unemployment, at the end of the Bush administration, had broken a long-held pattern of being twice that of white unemployment, it has returned to its former trend under President Barack Obama. 

According to a Pew Research report, the unemployment rate among African-Americans is now at 13.4 percent.
The report is released as the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech is about to be celebrated.
According to Pew:
Much has changed for African-Americans since the 1963 March on Washington (which, recall, was a march for ‘Jobs and Freedom’), but one thing hasn’t: The unemployment rate among blacks is about double that among whites, as it has been for most of the past six decades.
As Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner reports:
The trend broke at the end of former President George W. Bush’s administration as the recession hit whites more, temporarily boosting their unemployment rate.
But as the recession has eased, whites have picked up more jobs. Currently, Pew said white unemployment is 6.7 percent, exactly half the black rate.
As Breitbart News reported Wednesday, Gallup showed a jump from a 7.7 percent overall unemployment rate on July 21st to 8.9 percent on August 21st. This increase represents an 18-month high.
In addition, Gallup showed a sharp increase in the number of underemployed. During the same period, the number of those with some work who are seeking more has jumped from 17.1 percent to 17.9 percent.

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Political Values
David Daniel Ball
Radicalism 33.5
Socialism 0
Tenderness 78.125

These scores indicate that you are a tender-minded moderate conservative; this is the political profile one might associate with a sincere clergyman. It appears that you are trusting of religion, and have a compassionately humanistic attitude towards humanity in general.

Your attitudes towards economics appear laissez-faire capitalist, and combined with your social attitudes this creates the picture of someone who would generally be described as right-wing.

To round out the picture you appear to be, political preference aside, an idealist with few strong opinions.

This concludes our analysis; we hope you found your results accurate, useful, and interesting.

Unlike many other political tests found on the Internet which base themselves on untested (and usually ideologically motivated) ideas, this inventory is adapted from Hans Eysenck's own political inventory which was developed after extensive empirical investigations in the 20th Century.
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Larry Pickering
ABBOTT’S PPL SHOULD GO... at least for now

Company tax reduction from 30% to 28.5% does not represent a 1.5% saving, particularly for multi-nationals, simply because companies have never paid 30%.

BHP Billiton in a good year pays around 17% and has paid as little as 8%. Other major companies pay as little as 3% and a growing sector pays no tax at all.

Telstra has 20 registered “subsidiaries” in tax havens... in the British Virgin Islands, Jersey, Bermuda, Mauritius and the Cayman Islands. Meanwhile it passes on to customers its $25 million carbon tax bill.

For the argument’s sake let’s say the average company tax paid is one third of the set rate (it is actually much lower than that).

Digital creative accounting with a raft of deductions, research and investment breaks, offshore phantom subsidiaries and transfer pricing mean if a government wants another 1% of company profits it needs to lift the rate by 3%.

Works the same in reverse... therefore Abbott’s 1.5% reduction in company tax to compensate for his PPL has a mere 0.5% nett benefit, yet the nett cost of his PPL remains the same.

Thus his belated admission that this overly generous scheme is only partly funded.

Labor’s claimed loss to shareholders of franked credits is a furphy because any increase in company profits due to a decrease in company tax, no matter how small, is directly reflected in increased shareholders’ franked dividends.

Apologies if that appears complicated but the fact is that all taxes are eventually paid by the people.

The burden can be shifted and the goal posts shifted but eventually, no matter how a government dresses it up, we must pay for what we get... and we must pay for the disadvantaged plus the bludgers.

Abbott’s costings will add up. He won’t release them if they don’t but it will all come down to savings and there are tens of billions available just within the Public Service.

One example is the proliferation of over 5,000 QUANGOs that suck the life out of the Federal budget. They can be halved.

Among the many duplicitous and incompetent Government departments due for pruning is Treasury that spends most of its budget on private sector advice.

The CSIRO has become a Green infested ghetto and five separate security agencies, none of which knows what the other is up to, can also be combined and halved.

There are hundreds of must-cuts but one that should be cut, or at least deferred for years, is the Paid Parental Leave scheme. There are a few seats in that decision.

As for buying Indonesian boats, that’s a thought bubble best permanently forgotten.
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Craig Kelly.

<YOUR PAYING FOR IT …………….

Despite continuing to run up deficit after deficit, over the last 3 years, the Labor government has given $416.4 million to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

And last week it was announced that the same Socialist Republic of Vietnam purchased 12 Sukhoi Su-30MK2 fighter aircraft from Russia for $450 million.

Perhaps we should just cut out the middleman, and use money from Australian taxpayers to buy advanced fighter jets from Russia, and give them directly to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam - and Vietnam could fund their own roads & bridges.

And remember, we are giving away this money, at a time when Labor has cut Australia’s defence spending to the lowest levels of GDP since 1938.

And lets not forget that these 12 advanced Sukhoi fighter aircraft will add to the 20 Socialist Republic of Vietnam have purchased since 2009. And that in recent years Vietnam has also ordered from Russia 6 new Russian Kilo Class submarines costing approx US $3 billion and 4 new Russian built Gepard Class Stealth Frigates costing $350 million each.

If foreign countries can afford to buy expensive military weaponry, at a time when Labor needs to borrow billions from overseas, and Labor have slashed our military spending to the lowest levels of GDP since 1938 - does the Socialist Republic of Vietnam really need Australian taxpayers to pay for their roads and bridges etc?>
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Long-time liberal commentator Margaret Carlson said Friday, “We’ve gone from Martin Luther King to the Reverend Al Sharpton, and as a leader, as he is trying to be this weekend, it’s very dispiriting.”
Bloomberg News’ Carlson was appearing on PBS’s Inside Washington to discuss the 50th anniversary of MLK’s epic “I have a dream speech.”
Sharpton, on the other hand, was busy insisting that the murder off 22-year-old Christopher Lane by two black teens [one of which tweeted hours before the killing how he hated "nasty white people."] was not “racial.” A third teen, who was white, was charged as an accessory to murder – after the fact.
Yeah, I’m sure Martin Luther King would be proud.
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NEW Zealand Prime Minister John Key says he is "very proud" of his daughter Stephanie's nude photos.
Ms Key, who is studying at the Paris College of Art, will next month debut a series of provocative self-portraits at Paris Design Week.
The images include one of the 20-year-old covering her breasts with hamburgers and another with her body covered in pieces of sushi and octopus. In one more, Stephanie poses topless with a cherry in her mouth, brandishing a fake handgun.
We presume there is some sort of deep meaning behind the pictures. To us, they just seem a bit strange.
"The photographs were part of her curriculum work, and we are very proud of the work she is doing," Mr Key said.
Britain's Sunday Times said Ms Key was "not exactly a chip off the old block".
In 2011, Mr Key's son Max, then 15, brought attention to the family when a photo emerged of Max lying plank-like across the sofa in the prime ministerial residence.
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<Although I undermined and backstabbed her at every turn, leaked on my party and was an all round prick the past 3 years, I hold no hard feelings against Julia and respect her decision. Gotta zip folks! >
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August 25: National Heroes' Day in the Philippines (2014)
Rings of Neptune
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“I love the LORD, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live.” Psalm 116:1-2 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"The breaker is come up before them."
Micah 2:13

Inasmuch as Jesus has gone before us, things remain not as they would have been had he never passed that way. He has conquered every foe that obstructed the way. Cheer up now thou faint-hearted warrior. Not only has Christ travelled the road, but he has slain thine enemies. Dost thou dread sin? He has nailed it to his cross. Dost thou fear death? He has been the death of Death. Art thou afraid of hell? He has barred it against the advent of any of his children; they shall never see the gulf of perdition. Whatever foes may be before the Christian, they are all overcome. There are lions, but their teeth are broken; there are serpents, but their fangs are extracted; there are rivers, but they are bridged or fordable; there are flames, but we wear that matchless garment which renders us invulnerable to fire. The sword that has been forged against us is already blunted; the instruments of war which the enemy is preparing have already lost their point. God has taken away in the person of Christ all the power that anything can have to hurt us. Well then, the army may safely march on, and you may go joyously along your journey, for all your enemies are conquered beforehand. What shall you do but march on to take the prey? They are beaten, they are vanquished; all you have to do is to divide the spoil. You shall, it is true, often engage in combat; but your fight shall be with a vanquished foe. His head is broken; he may attempt to injure you, but his strength shall not be sufficient for his malicious design. Your victory shall be easy, and your treasure shall be beyond all count.

"Proclaim aloud the Saviour's fame,

Who bears the Breaker's wond'rous name;

Sweet name; and it becomes him well,
Who breaks down earth, sin, death, and hell."

Evening

"If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution."
Exodus 22:6
But what restitution can he make who casts abroad the fire-brands of error, or the coals of lasciviousness, and sets men's souls on a blaze with the fire of hell? The guilt is beyond estimate, and the result is irretrievable. If such an offender be forgiven, what grief it will cause him in the retrospect, since he cannot undo the mischief which he has done! An ill example may kindle a flame which years of amended character cannot quench. To burn the food of man is bad enough, but how much worse to destroy the soul! It may be useful to us to reflect how far we may have been guilty in the past, and to enquire whether, even in the present, there may not be evil in us which has a tendency to bring damage to the souls of our relatives, friends, or neighbours.
The fire of strife is a terrible evil when it breaks out in a Christian church. Where converts were multiplied, and God was glorified, jealousy and envy do the devil's work most effectually. Where the golden grain was being housed, to reward the toil of the great Boaz, the fire of enmity comes in and leaves little else but smoke and a heap of blackness. Woe unto those by whom offences come. May they never come through us, for although we cannot make restitution, we shall certainly be the chief sufferers if we are the chief offenders. Those who feed the fire deserve just censure, but he who first kindles it is most to blame. Discord usually takes first hold upon the thorns; it is nurtured among the hypocrites and base professors in the church, and away it goes among the righteous, blown by the winds of hell, and no one knows where it may end. O thou Lord and giver of peace, make us peacemakers, and never let us aid and abet the men of strife, or even unintentionally cause the least division among thy people.
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Today's reading: Psalm 116-118, 1 Corinthians 7:1-19 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 116-118


1 I love the LORD, for he heard my voice;
he heard my cry for mercy.
2 Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live.
3 The cords of death entangled me,
the anguish of the grave came over me;
I was overcome by distress and sorrow.
4 Then I called on the name of the LORD:
"LORD, save me!"

5 The LORD is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion.
6 The LORD protects the unwary;
when I was brought low, he saved me....

Today's New Testament reading: 1 Corinthians 7:1-19

Concerning Married Life
1 Now for the matters you wrote about: "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman." 2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. 3The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7 I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that....
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Aaron

[Aâr'on] - a mountain of strength orenlightened. The son of Amran and of Jochebed his wife, and of the family of Kohath, who was the second son of Levi, who was the third son of Jacob. Miriam was Aaron's elder sister and Moses was his junior brother by some three years. Aaron married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Naashon, and by her had four sons - Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar (Exod. 6:16-23).

The Man Who Was an Excellent Speaker


It is somewhat fitting that Aaron should not only begin the list of men under the letter A - one of the longest lists of all - but also of all the men listed alphabetically in the Bible.

The first glimpse we have of this great Bible saint is that of an eloquent speaker, and because of this fact he was chosen by God to be the prophet and spokesman of his brother Moses in his encounters with Pharaoh. The fame of his oratory was known in heaven, and recognized by God. A great orator has been defined as a good man well-skilled in speaking, and of such capacities was Aaron. When Moses protested against appearing before Pharaoh, pleading that he was not eloquent, but slow of speech and of a slow tongue (Exod. 3:10; 4:11, 12) did he refer to a defect of speech he suffered from? "Not eloquent" means, not a man of words and "slow of speech, and of a slow tongue" means heavy of speech and heavy of tongue.

There are those authorities who suggest that Moses had a stammer or lisp, a physical impediment of speech necessitating a spokesman of Aaron's ability. It would seem as if God's promise that He would be with his mouth and was able to help him overcome any disability as a speaker, bears out the thought of an actual defect of speech. This we do know, Aaron must have spoken with great power when he addressed Pharaoh on the signs and plagues of Exodus four through eleven.

Aaron plays an important part in the inauguration and development of priestly functions, all of which are prescribed in Leviticus. Among the mature males of Israel there were three classes:
From the tribes of Israel came the warriors.
From the tribe of Levi came the workers.
From the family of Aaron came the worshipers.
Aaron became the first high priest of Israel, and in Aaron and his sons we have a fitting type of Christ and His Church. The ministry of Aaron in connection with the Tabernacle with all of its services is referred to by the writer of the Hebrews as a figure of the true ministry of the High Priest who is Jesus.
Yet in spite of his high and holy calling. Aaron suffered from the murmurings of the people (Exod. 16:2; Num. 14:2). He was persuaded by the people to make a golden calf and was reproved by Moses for his action (Exod. 32 ). Aaron's penitence, however, was complete, and his service faithful. Perhaps Aaron could be placed at the head of all Old Testament penitents, for his own sins as well as for the sins of others. While Aaron was Jesus Christ in type and by imputation, he yet remains Aaron all the time, Aaron of the molten image and of many untold transgressions besides. With Moses, Aaron was excluded from the Promised Land (Num. 20:12). He died at the age of 123 years on Mount Hor, in the land of Edom, and was buried there (Num. 20).
A profitable meditation on "The Priestly Calling" could be developed along the line of the following suggestions.
I. Aaron was a type of Christ, the Great High Priest.
A. Both were chosen of God. Christ is the only mediator between God and man.
B. Both had to be clean, seeing they bore the vessels of the Lord. Aaron was a sinner and needed cleansing - Christ was sinless.
C. Both are clothed - Aaron with his coat, robe and ephod; Christ robed in garments of glory and beauty.
D. Both are crowned - Aaron with his mitre, or holy crown, Christ with His many diadems.
E. Both are consecrated or set apart - Aaron was blood sprinkled and had his hands filled for the Lord (Lev. 8:24-27); Christ is sanctified forever (John 17:16, 17).
F. Both feed on the bread of consecration (cf. Lev. 22:21, 22with John 4:32).
G. Both are blameless. No man with a blemish could come nigh to offer a sacrifice unto the Lord. Christ was holy, harmless, undefiled.
II. Aaron's sons were types of the Christian. What a precious truth the priesthood of all true believers is.
A. They had names closely associated. "Aaron and his sons" appears ten times. Aaron's sons were called in him. We were chosenin Christ from the eternal past. Priests because sons, is true in both cases.
B. They had the same calling. Aaron and his sons were priests. Christ and ourselves are priests unto God.
C. They had the same anointing. Aaron and his sons were accepted by the same blood and anointed with the same oil. Christ entered the veil by His own blood, and we enter by the same blood. Head and members alike are anointed with the same blessed Spirit.
D. They had their hands filled with the same offering, ate the same food, were under the same authority. How these aspects are likewise applicable to Christ and His own!
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