Friday, September 30, 2016

Fri Sep 30th Todays News

Greens are agonising about exploiting a storm that makes their abysmal policies look bad. South Australia has blacked out, but South Australians are a resilient mob. I have seen joke pictures of a guy in a tinny checking soil samples and produce in over five feet of water. A reminder that dams are floor mitigating and people suffer when insane environmental policies opposing plant food reign. 

 Bad Government in Victoria is evident too. Dan Andrews public holiday has killed many traditions around what once was a half day. Dandenong Markets remained open in defiance of Andrews. But they will close for Melbourne Cup. Priorities. Anyway, Sydney is likely to win AFL, and Melbourne the ARL. Sydney has the better of the deal. AFL is a great sport. 

 Queensland's premier is being lauded because the press can't support a conservative. But she has done nothing worthwhile to deserve it. 

 Meanwhile in the US, Hillary's lies go to her credit for her supporters. A guy has been arrested for creating voting tickets for some seventeen people, including the dead. One dead guy fought in WW2 and apparently really is what some would call stand up. The Democrat supporter who wanted to vote for Hillary seventeen times may not have done anything illegal, as he hadn't yet voted. An electronic system of voting could defeat such fraud, but it would have to sacrifice a secret vote principle so as to be verifiable. And why not sacrifice the secret vote? We have already given up freedom of speech. 
=== from 2015 ===
Among the Australian Liberal Party, there is a call for unity following the utter betrayal by Malcolm Turnbull. It is very important that the things the Libs do well are not lost with the self promotion of Turnbull. Policy has not changed a lot with the leadership. Turnbull is a great communicator and is clearly showing the confusion in head office. But there is an opportunity that should not go begging. We need Work Choices. We need to remove corruption from Union leadership. We need to secure free trade agreements. With a leadership more similar to the ALP, we probably expect they will say one thing and do another. That should secure support from the independents, except Xenophon who will stand by the Greens. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
From 2014
Hong Kong's umbrella is raised for freedom. Brave democracy activists are standing for what they believe in. Islamic radicals note, they are doing it right and have respect around the world. The Chinese administration, that is hardline communist, fear them. Just like last time, they may kill them. Back during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, after tanks of the Peoples Liberation Army rolled over protestors, and many were jailed and reeducated, Australian PM Bob Hawk spoke with Deng Xiaoping in private and pointed out that many of those radicals the Chinese government didn't want could come to Australia. Deng asked "How many millions do you want?" Even now, an estimated sixty million Chinese nationals are prepared to immigrate to Australia. Because of bad governance by the ALP, Australian land is not developed to support that many people. A Bradfield scheme would need to water central Australia. It can be done. Possibly China would fund it, if a deal could be struck with a future democratic Chinese government. God speed the Democracy Umbrella protests. 

Dear Aunt Tracy gave advice to Isis regarding names being overtaken by public disasters. Aunt Tracy was eight when the cyclone devastated Darwin. Beforehand, people would say what a lovely name she had. Afterwards, she was introduced to Gough Whitlam. He pretended she didn't exist. She could have been called Darwin for all he cared. And that is a tip for Isis. Choose a name which no one will notice in your neighbourhood. Your locals who run in fear of Isis will openly weep in thanks at Kabul, Mecca or Baghdad. In recent research it has been discovered Aliens have been swimming in our water. Or could have in the past. Half the world's water is older than the formation of the Sun. Maybe in time to come we will be able to work out what the parent star was like, if there was only one. NRL officials deny their organisation is run by women. When asked who was the best and fairest player over the entire season, they said they couldn't decide. Gosford Anglican's chief minister/priest/acolyte of Gaia has denounced the Abbott administration as fascist because they don't drown visitors or subject them to piracy. Did a switch in temperature gauge result in heat reading upgrade? The great heating scare beginning circa '96 corresponded with a new temperature measuring system. Margo Kingston being awarded a Doctorate in Creative Practice is a better deal than Roberta Flack being given a Doctorate in Musicology. Roberta has real talent. Margo is confused by facts and angry at myths. Sorry, Dr Kingston is confused by facts and angry at myths. 

Media Watch missed a dangerous issue of ABC siding with terrorists. Media watch is just like Dr Kingston. Confused by facts and angry at myths. US has named the ten most wanted terrorists. Buddhists from Myanmar command respect against terrorists by fighting them in traditional ways not followed by the Umbrella democracy protestors. Terror raids in Melbourne by federal and Victorian police are not related to last week's stabbing of two police officers by a young ISIS devotee. 

Ministers are using the budget blow out to address the debt emergency. Something needs to cut through the ALP and PUP obstructionism. Palmer might not be aware, but to run a business effectively profits need to exceed expenses. The Maritime Union has used stand over tactics to steal three million dollars? What else? Union corruption has been fostered by the ALP and must be stopped. Newman's government is on track to be re-elected, according to polls. The Whitlam government history has been written by losers. The sad truth is an inept but corrupt administration cost Australia significantly and still does so. Julie Bishop stymies a super ministry for Scott Morrison. There is no pressing need for one. But ALP supporters are keen to claim division in government ranks.
From 2013
It is hard for some people to know what is right. Very bad for an elected leader to not know. Mr Abbott shows good judgement with a firm grasp of conservative values, but the ALP seem bereft of talent when comparing Shorten and Albanese. It has taken time, but finally a point of difference is emerging between the two ALP wannabees. Shorten had a thought bubble about quotas, expanding the female quota and creating a quota for gay and lesbian politicians, race, capacity. Albanese doesn't feel quotas should be expanded beyond the one applied to females in seats of office. There are many outstanding people available to the ALP, but it is doubtful they will be promoted by quota. But equity in office doesn't seem to be a high priority to focus reform right now. People drown off the Indonesian coast line and Abbott is castigated .. he has only turned around two boats since coming to office. 

Media Watch have finally found bad science. Not AGW alarmism, Media Watch is fine with the hysteria. Media Watch disparages the scientist who claims that he has found alien life forms in the atmosphere of Earth. Chief indicator to Media Watch that that science is bad was that it was reported in News.com papers. In fact, the science was flawed, but falsifiable, like science should be .. unlike AGW which is more faith driven. 

But the quandary of the moment good people are wrestling with is Islamo Fascism. In Kenya, Islamic leaders have denounced the murderous cross dressing terrorists. In Pakistan, they appear to have senior government roles. Over 80 people who sat down for lunch in Pakistan were murdered by bombs designed to maim. They are Christians who were having lunch after a worship service. They aren't wealthy, but they support an orphanage, give aid to the poor and elderly and do what people in communities do .. like eat lunch. But in the aftermath of the explosions they are denied healthcare. Islamo Fascism has spread since Nazis modernised the Egyptian armed services following WW2. The UN has entrenched terrorism against Israel. Israel is the only safe place for Islamic peoples. Meanwhile the UN endorses the lynching of Jewish peoples everywhere in the world. In such times, what is a leader to do? 
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 Mary Bill, Andrew Osman, Stevie Selawa and Tommy Pham. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
1207 – Rumi, Persian mystic and poet (d. 1273)
1800 – Decimus Burton, English architect, designed the Pharos Lighthouse (d. 1881)
1832 – Ann Jarvis, American activist, co-founded Mother's Day (d. 1905)
1861 – William Wrigley, Jr., American businessman, founded Wrigley Company (d. 1932)
1882 – Hans Geiger, German physicist (d. 1945)
1921 – Deborah Kerr, Scottish actress (d. 2007)
1924 – Truman Capote, American author (d. 1984)
1928 – Elie Wiesel, Romanian-American author and Holocaust survivor, Nobel Prize laureate
1931 – Angie Dickinson, American actress
1935 – Johnny Mathis, American singer-songwriter and actor
1939 – Len Cariou, Canadian actor
1957 – Fran Drescher, American actress
1980 – Martina Hingis, Swiss tennis player
1994 – Aliya Mustafina, Russian gymnast
Władysław Sikorski
You took the baggage train. The plant grows. We have a PM. Construction was rapid. And the pictures emerge. Enjoy your special day. 
Despatches
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Tim Blair


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Andrew Bolt


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Feminist dogma whips up the domestic violence industry

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, September 30, 2015 (12:20am)

IT is a marvellous irony that the domestic violence activists who have spent the week abusing and misrepresenting me claim to be champions of “respect” for women.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Feminist dogma whips up the domestic violence industry'
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Blind spot endures for a calm and gracious man

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, September 30, 2015 (12:18am)

IT was a calm and gracious Tony Abbott who appeared on radio 2GB yesterday with Ray Hadley.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Blind spot endures for a calm and gracious man'
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LOYALTY DEMANDED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, September 30, 2015 (5:17pm)

It looks like the leavers are outnumbering the joiners: 
Dumped cabinet minister Eric Abetz has urged Liberal supporters to support the Turnbull Government amid concerns over “hundreds of resignations” from the party.
The former employment minister and leader of the house in the Senate — who lost both roles under new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull — emailed supporters on Wednesday, saying members “owed allegiance” to party beliefs despite the change in leadership.
Senator Abetz reported “hundreds of resignations from the Liberal Party” following the leadership spill two weeks ago. 
It isn’t just supporters who owe allegiance to Liberal party beliefs, Senator. So does the party.
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BEFORE GLOBAL WARMING THERE WAS THE OIL PANIC

Tim Blair – Wednesday, September 30, 2015 (3:02am)

According to this story from 1970s experts, right now we’ve run out of oil:


This UPI story, typical of its era, ran in many US newspapers during late 1975. Yet forty years later we’re still oil powered.
(Via Bill Quick.) 
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SOMBRERO NO-NO

Tim Blair – Wednesday, September 30, 2015 (2:14am)

Sydney University student Eden Caceda got the bola rolling with his 2014 poncho protest, and now we’ve got a sombrero showdown in the UK, where students at the University of East Anglia have “ordered that the Mexican hat be confiscated from undergraduates after decreeing that it was offensive”: 
The problem, apparently, was that for anyone other than a Mexican, wearing a sombrero amounted to “cultural appropriation”.
The distinctive straw hats were handed out to students by Pedro’s Tex-Mex Cantina, a restaurant in Norwich that took a stall at the university’s freshers’ fair to drum up business.
Offering margaritas, jugs of sangria and shots of tequila, the restaurant’s slogan is “Partying since 1991”. When its staff began handing out the sombreros, however, student union officials pounced. 
Instead of pouncing on the tequila, the students pounced on the people giving them tequila. These children are idiots.
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FIAT PASSENGER DEFENDED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, September 30, 2015 (12:28am)

Some readers did not care for Monday’s column. Here’s Coleen C.: 
I read your ramblings in the Daily Telegraph 28/9/2015. They were, for the most part, interesting. However, your total lack of respect for the present Pope and the Pope Emeritus shows how shallow you are.
You may have obtained sniggers from Catholic haters and your friends on the left, but the majority of DT readers will hold you in utter contempt. Tim, if you are unable to write something nice about other human beings then please write nothing at all. 
I’d happily comply, but the boss really has a issue with blank pages. Anyway, Colleen, I happen to know that the Pope himself was completely fine with the column. In fact, he dropped by the other night to watch the preliminary final:


His Holiness wasn’t impressed by the umpiring, particularly during the first half. Reader Gordon J. also took exception to Monday’s piece: 
I have been reading the Telegraph for over 60 years. I am disappointed in your language. You have descended in my opinion to a low level of respect when you write “Pope Warmy the First” and “His Heatiness”, and refer to Pope Benedict XVI as “Benny”.
I do not care whether you are religious or not, but I am sure that you would not refer to other church leaders of any faith in such disrespectful words. 
No example springs immediately to mind, Gordon, but I’m pretty sure that I have insulted at least one other faith. I’ll search the archives and get back to you.
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Abetz: keep fighting

Andrew Bolt September 30 2015 (5:38pm)

Eric Abetz was leader of the government in the Senate under the Turnbull coup. He is a conservative and an absolutely solid pair of hands.
He now writes to his supporters:
It is disappointing to hear of a spate of resignations from the Liberal Party and of threats not to renew memberships over the recent federal leadership change in the Liberal Party. 
The Liberal Party has always been bigger than the person who holds the position of federal Leader of the Parliamentary Party from time to time. I joined the Liberal Party because I believe in its values and core beliefs as enunciated in Sir Robert Menzies’ 17 point “We Believe” statement. I still think they are an excellent guide to the principles of good government. With calls for the formation of a new party and hundreds of resignations from the Liberal Party, I call on members to remain as members of our Party. It is the Party and its beliefs to which we owe allegiance.
It is understandable that with the removal of Tony Abbott, Kevin Andrews and myself from the Ministry that our core constituency feels disenfranchised and concerned that their views will no longer be heard. I want to assure anyone who subscribes to the values espoused by Menzies that I will continue to be a strong advocate for the grass roots of our cause and what we believe in, albeit from the backbench.
So I encourage everyone to remain active, involved and engaged in the Liberal Party and to continue to advocate for like-minded people to join our cause.
And if you aren’t a current member, now is the time to join or re-join. If I can help with membership, please let me know. You can donate as little as $15 to the Liberal Party here https://www.tas.liberal.org.au/donate to help get me re-elected. Thank you for your time, Eric Abetz
To the journalists - yes, the Sydney Morning Herald particularly - thinking they’ve had a gotcha moment, no, Abetz was not talking about a couple of hundred resignations in Tasmania but nationally. 
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Scott Morrison vs the rest of the government’s economics team on penalty rates

Andrew Bolt September 30 2015 (9:18am)

This is curious. Spot the odd man out in this chronology.
Ten Liberal backbenchers in March last year:
Several Liberal MPs, particularly those who represent electorates with large numbers of tourism and hospitality businesses, believe small businesses need to be ‘’liberated’’ from having to pay higher weekend and holiday rates, which can lead to businesses deciding not to open on certain days or to employ fewer staff. Coalition MPs Warren Entsch, Dan Tehan, Russell Broadbent, Wyatt Roy, Sean Edwards, Craig Laundy, Alex Hawke, George Christensen, Dennis Jensen and Zed Seselja, all said on Friday that penalty rates needed to be reviewed. 
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last week:
Malcolm Turnbull says the government will consider reducing Sunday penalty rates in a bold move… Asked whether he would consider the “low-hanging fruit” of reducing Sunday penalty rates, which can be as high as $40 per hour for hospitality workers, Mr Turnbull said the issue would be considered. “All of these matters are under consideration but it is very important that we proceed in an orderly way,” he said. 
Energy and Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg on Sunday:
Josh Frydenberg has backed Sunday penalty rates reform, declaring it “an area we need to look at’’ as the ACTU opposes any changes in the area. Appearing on the Ten Network’s Bolt Report yesterday, Mr Frydenberg said Malcolm Turnbull was “absolutely right’’ to point out that industrial relations was one area that costs business “and ultimately it does cost jobs"… On Sunday penalty rates, he said if reform meant more jobs, “that could be good for the economy’’. 
Treasurer Scott Morrison on Monday:
Treasurer Scott Morrison has poured cold water on the idea of the government trying to cut Sunday penalty rates, saying its priority is fixing the tax system… “We’re in a low-wage-growth environment at the moment, and I think the thing that is principally undermining the performance of our economy currently is largely about how the tax system interfaces, and it’s also how the benefits work with the tax systems,” the Treasurer told Melbourne radio station 3AW. 
He appeared to take aim at Mr Frydenberg for floating such a politically sensitive topic that was not a cabinet policy. “There’s a Productivity Commission review process on those issues, and under this government we’re not going to allow ...  decisions to tumble out of the sky,” he told host Neil Mitchell.
MP Andrew Nikolic today:
Tasmanian federal Liberal MP Andrew Nikolic has added to the growing calls from within government for a review of weekend penalty rates, arguing the current regime is curbing job creation and business growth, especially in tourism and hospitality. Mr Nikolic, who holds the seat of Bass, said many tourism and hospitality businesses in his seat “are constantly telling me they won’t open during periods where high penalty rates apply, because they can’t make a quid”.
Employment Minister Michaelia Cash today:
I welcome a debate in relation to penalty rates, and in particular, you know, the fact that there is an argument now that they were set a number of years ago, they certainly seem to deter weekend work, and we have more and more people wanting to open on weekends… But at the end of the day, it is the Government that does not set penalty rates, the Fair Work Commission is not the Government, it’s an independent tribunal… I am awaiting the outcome of the Productivity Commission’s final report. I will review that report calmly and methodically, and if there is a case for good and sensible change to bring balance to the Fair Work framework, these will be clearly outlined by the Government and taken to the next election to seek a mandate.
Why is Scott Morrison saying one thing on penalty rates and everyone else the other?
UPDATE
Is Morrison also at odds with the Finance Minister over raising taxes through changes to concessions for superannuation?
Scott Morrison has ... signalled that the government is open to considering abolishing tax concessions for superannuation accounts with high balances… Mr Morrison has put back on the table reform options that Tony Abbott had ruled out… On superannuation tax concessions, the Treasurer said any idea that was going to encourage Australians to work, save and invest more would be looked at. 
“We know what the benefits need to be and if there are measures that are going to achieve those benefits, let’s look at them,” he said.
Mr Morrison’s emphasis was different from that of Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, who said yesterday the government had “no plans’’ to increase taxes on superannuation.
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Making Christianity illegal

Andrew Bolt September 30 2015 (7:54am)

The tolerance industry is one of the greatest forces of intolerance, threatening your free speech.  The Greens are their natural representatives.
The latest example:
A complaint that the Catholic Church has offended and humiliated gay, lesbian and transgender Australians by distributing a ­booklet supporting traditional marriage is looming as a test case for freedom of speech and religion ahead of the national same-sex marriage plebiscite. 
The Archbishop of Hobart, ­Julian Porteus, is preparing to fight the complaint to Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commission on the grounds of religious freedom…

The commission is considering a complaint lodged this week by Hobart transgender activist and Greens’ candidate Martine Delaney that Archbishop Porteus and the Catholic Bishops Conference breached the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act by circulating a booklet to the parents of Catholic school students called “Don’t Mess with Marriage”.
Ms Delaney, who has changed from male to female and lives in a same-sex relationship with a woman, said she felt humiliated by the marriage booklet.
She said the booklet, which claims to advise all Australians of the church’s reasons for opposing same-sex marriage, paid lip service to respecting same-sex-attracted Australians, but actually sent out negative messages about them.
In a statement after lodging her complaint, Ms Delaney said her view was that the booklet said “same-sex partners don’t deserve equal recognition, same-sex-­attracted people are not ‘whole’ people and the children of same-sex partners are not ‘healthy’."… Ms Delaney said the booklet breached section 17 of the Tas­manian Anti-Discrimination Act, which prohibits offence and ­humiliation on the grounds of sexual orientation.
Ah, the politics of hurt feelings. Who can’t you silence on those grounds?
Strange. The green Left demands free speech up to the point where they win an argument or gain power. Then they are all for censorship, at least for their critics.  
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“Refugees” invade Europe in first class

Andrew Bolt September 30 2015 (7:22am)

Mark Steyn catches a train from Denmark to Sweden, joining a flood of “refugees” from the Middle East who are helping themselves to Europe:
You just hop on a train at the aforementioned Central Station in Copenhagen and hop off a half-hour or so later on the other end of the impressive Øresund Bridge at the Central Station in Malmö. I did it myself the other day, and was looking forward to sitting back and enjoying the peace and quiet of Scandinavian First Class. But, just as I took my seat and settled in, a gaggle of Abdul’s fellow “refugees” swarmed in, young bearded men and a smaller number of covered women, the lads shooing away those first-class ticket-holders not as nimble in securing their seats as I. The conductor gave a shrug, the great universal shorthand for there’s-nothing-I-can-do… 
There were more shrugs at Malmö, when I asked a station official about it. He told me that, on the train from Stockholm the other day, a group of “refugees” had looted the café car. The staff were too frightened to resist. “Everyone wants a quiet life,” he offered by way of explanation. Sweden prides itself on accepting more “refugees” per capita than any other European country, and up to a thousand a day are registering for asylum in Malmö. I daintily stepped around that morning’s intake slumbering on the concourse…
Swedish railway officials may long for a quiet life, but not all the “refugees” do. Some had gone on to Finland, but had pronounced it too dull. They found life livelier in Malmö, so they were headed back. Lively it certainly is. There has been a string of mysterious small bombings and minor grenade attacks around town in recent months. There is no apparent purpose to them, except perhaps to show that in a society as famously well-ordered society as Sweden such things can now be done with impunity.
Germany is being gamed - and flooded:
German officials said Friday that nearly a third of all asylum seekers arriving in Germany and claiming to be Syrian in fact come from other nations, even as Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière called on European nations to take radical new steps to curb the region’s refugee crisis. 
So far this year, Germany has received 527,000 asylum seekers — more than any other nation in Europe. Tobias Plate, an Interior Ministry spokesman, acknowledged estimates Friday that roughly 30 percent of asylum seekers who claim to be from Syria are making erroneous claims, and come from other countries instead. Because of the civil war in that country, roughly 87 percent of Syrians are successfully winning asylum in Germany. 
UPDATE
 Germany is importing a civil war:
Christian and Muslim refugees should be housed separately in Germany to minimise tensions following growing levels of violence at asylum seeker shelters, a police chief has urged. 
Jörg Radek, deputy head of Germany’s police union, said migrants should be divided, following increasing numbers of attacks on Christians in refugee centres…
Two separate clashes erupted between refugees on Sunday at a temporary migrant shelter in Kassel-Calden in northern Germany left 14 people injured, police said. The first outbreak of violence in the afternoon was triggered by a dispute in the canteen at lunchtime between two groups of around 60 refugees, followed by a second clash in the evening involving a group of 70 migrants against another of 300. 
A few days earlier on Thursday evening, a fight broke out among up to 200 Syrian and Afghan refugees at a shelter in Leipzig, with migrants wielding table legs and slats… Mr Radek’s comments follow calls from German MPs from across the political spectrum for better protection for Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities in asylum accommodation.
This is absolutely insane. What is Germany doing to itself?
UPDATE
The numbers are astonishing and increasing:
A record 522,124 migrants and refugees have arrived in Europe by sea this year, the International Organization for Migration said Tuesday. The number is more than double the previous high set only last year. 
Of the estimated number of migrants who made the hazardous journey by sea, 388,000 arrived in Greece and 130,891 in Italy. They hail from countries that include Syria, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan and Bangladesh, the IOM said.
UPDATE
Some roads in Europe are now not safe:
(Thanks to readers Andrew R, Sydney Resident and Grendel.) 
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ABC host likens Liberal to neo-Nazi thugs. Time Turnbull defended his colleagues and got an apology

Andrew Bolt September 30 2015 (6:47am)


Tony Jones, Leftist host of the ABC’s Q&A, defames another conservative:
TONY JONES:  You mentioned Cory Bernardi there and some on the right have urged him to start his own Right Wing party - Cory Bernardi’s Golden Dawn or something - do you think this will happen?  
What a despicable slur. Bernardi is a Christian conservative, but Jones likens him instead to violent and  militaristic Greek neo-Nazis and anti-Semites with links to criminal gangs.
Jones should apologise.
And once again we should ask: why is the massive state power of the ABC used to vilify and attack conservatives? When will the Liberals takes action to ensure the ABC obeys the law that insists it be balanced and impartial, in exchange for its $1 billion a year of taxpayer support?
This is a job for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.   
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Culture counts, and with domestic violence, too

Andrew Bolt September 30 2015 (6:39am)

Miranda Devine meets the outrage industry, which treats the truth as toxic:
My sin was to point out the incontrovertible truth about domestic violence, that it is overwhelmingly concentrated in dysfunctional remote indigenous communities and public housing estates. 
The response from femi-fascists was to try to get me sacked, silenced and banned from twitter…
In the words of Natasha Stott Despoja, Australia’s Ambassador for Women and Girls, and the Chair of domestic violence lobbying organisation Our Watch: “Violence against women does not discriminate, regardless of ethnicity, social status and geography.”
Only, actually, it does.
This is what I pointed out in the column that has enraged the sisterhood, that domestic violence is concentrated in communities where the underclass lives, where welfare dependency has emasculated men, where drug and alcohol abuse is rife, and intergenerational social disadvantage is entrenched. I cited the latest data from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics, showing the rate of domestic violence in Bourke, with its large indigenous population 60 times higher than in affluent north shore Sydney suburbs. The housing estate welfare traps concentrated in Campbelltown and Penrith are similar hotspots
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Julie Bishop wants us to join what slimy company?

Andrew Bolt September 30 2015 (6:18am)

There is a Ruddish hue to this Turnbull Government already, and a pandering to what we should denounce.
This bit isn’t so controversial, as long as we don’t distort our foreign policy priorities as Kevin Rudd did to achieve it:
Australia will launch a new bid for membership of the UN Security Council as the Turnbull government looks to cast off the Abbott era’s scepticism of multilateralism diplomacy in favour of a new era of internationalism. 
In what amounts to Malcolm Turnbull’s first major break from the policies of his predecessor, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will today announce Australia’s candidacy for a seat on the UN Security Council. 
But it is churlish for Bishop to announce this while denying Tony Abbott proper credit and apparently  leaking yet again to his discredit:
The Australian understands the Security Council bid was under consideration when Tony Abbott was prime minister, but there was said to be “resistance’’ from the former leader to the idea. 
Instead, the decision was ticked off by Mr Turnbull following a “strong recommendation’’ by Ms Bishop, who also recommended Australia declare its candidacy for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council from 2018-20. 
Wait! The Human Rights Council? Bishop plans to give that clown show credibility by adding Australia to its members?
[Abbott] is understood to have regarded the Human Rights Council dubiously, due to the appalling human rights record of some of its members. Until 2011, when it was suspended, Libya was a member of the Human Rights Council. Ms Bishop acknowledged the Human Rights Council had been “discredited’’. “But that’s no reason for a country like Australia, which has a proud international record of contributing to peace and security and stability and upholding freedoms and the rule of law and democratic institutions and human rights, shouldn’t be on the council and set a higher standard,’’ Ms Bishop said. 
The Human Rights Council should be opposed and shamed, not joined and legitimised.
Its current members include the follow human rights frauds:  Algeria, China, Congo, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. To join such countries is to send a message that we are no better than they are and submit to their moral authority.
UPDATE
What happens when you join this circus of hypocrites? You lower yourself to their standards and promote what you should oppose:
As revealed in The Australian yesterday, Britain supported Saudi Arabia’s membership of the UN Human Rights Council in exchange for the Saudis supporting Britain’s membership.
Greg Sheridan warns that we’ve sold out, too:
When we won last time, we beat countries that had been running for years. Giving your generous aid too early, clearly, can be a tactical mistake. 
Similarly, the large African and Arab blocs demand candidate nations beat up on Israel even more energetically than usual. There was a good deal of this morally turgid behaviour by the Rudd and Gillard governments during Australia’s last bid.
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No home for foreign criminals

Andrew Bolt September 30 2015 (6:13am)

The answer, of course, should be equally blunt:
Prime Minister John Key says he’s been “pretty blunt” with the Australian government over the way New Zealanders are being detained and deported.

Nearly 200 New Zealanders are being held in detention centres in Australia facing deportation under new immigration laws that mean anyone who isn’t a citizen and who has served a sentence of 12 months or more can be sent home. 
“I had a chat with [Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop] about it and I was pretty blunt,” Mr Key told Radio New Zealand on Wednesday. “I said there’s a special relationship between New Zealand and Australia and you challenge that, to a degree, when you see New Zealanders being treated in this way.”
It’s actually pretty easy for New Zealanders to avoid being sent home in this way. 
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MARGOLOGY

Tim Blair – Tuesday, September 30, 2014 (12:28pm)

A grand announcement from self-obsessed former Fairfax frightbat Margo Kingston: 
It’s official, folks. I have a scholarship to do a Doctorate in Creative Practice at Macquarie University … 
Thus an ex-nursing trainee will become Dr Margo! And you’re paying for it. 
The thesis comprises a book for publication and an exegesis. I’m told the first year of the PhD adventure entails reading and thinking through exactly what will be tackled – whittling down the topic to something where one researches in depth and becomes a bit of an expert. 
This shouldn’t be too difficult. The topic that Margo will deeply research for her tax-funded PhD is … herself: 
The book will be a professional memoir which seeks to explain my journey from mainstream political journalist to Sydney Morning Herald political blogger and editor with Webdiary, website owner when I went independent in 2005, and my new project after a seven-year break, No Fibs. 
She won’t just be Doctor Margo – she’ll be a doctor of Margo. This might be the most indulgent exercise in academic history. Let’s hope Margo’s expert in-depth Margo analysis covers the time she blew more than $40,000 in three months running a blog, her attempt to establish a Margolian legal system, her discovery that Jews controlled Australia and her whole decade-plus of paranoid gibberish right up to the moment she somehow gained taxpayer funding for a demented Twitter site.
By the way, now that they’re handing out doctorates in Margology, where’s mine? 
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TESTIFY, TILTY

Tim Blair – Tuesday, September 30, 2014 (11:34am)

Gosford’s Father Tilt takes it to the next level: 
The Government has crossed the line into FASCISM. 
On the plus side, I guess this means no more elections.
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BUDDHIST POWER FORCE

Tim Blair – Tuesday, September 30, 2014 (11:19am)

Not all Buddhists are the quiet, contemplative kind: 
A radical monk from Myanmar who has preached hatred toward Muslims and is the spiritual leader of a movement to boycott Muslim businesses said Sunday that his movement would join hands with a Sri Lankan group to “protect Buddhism around the world.”
The monk, Ashin Wirathu, the leader of an extremist movement in Myanmar called 969, was the guest of honor at a convention of Buddhist hard-liners in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital …
He arrived in Sri Lanka on Friday night and was received at the airport by a large delegation from the Sri Lankan organization Bodu Bala Sena, or Buddhist Power Force, which has been accused of instigating attacks against Muslims in Sri Lanka. 
(Via A.R.M. Jones)
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Newman now coasting to re-election. UPDATE: Labor backs Palmer’s petty revenge

Andrew Bolt September 30 2014 (7:32pm)

I suspect Tony Abbott’s poll figures will follow the same trajectory and for some of the same reasons:
THE Liberal National Party has staged a comeback in Queensland, as Campbell Newman, going into an election year, continues to wrestle with his unpop­ularity among voters… The LNP is on 54 per cent to Labor’s 46 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis, with the government securing a swing of five percentage points from the last Newspoll, held at the end of June when it lost the north ­Brisbane seat of Stafford in a by-election massacre… 
Almost all of the LNP gains appear to be at the expense of Clive Palmer’s party and other independents, who collectively have dropped about six percentage points to 18 per cent in the primary vote.
So much for Palmer’s grand plan to destroy Newman.
Michael McKenna:
After two by-election floggings, the polls showing Labor leading and Campbell Newman personally unpopular, the numbers had had the LNP facing defeat after scoring Australia’s biggest election win in 2012. 
But it never seemed real.
Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk, with a team of just nine MPs in the 89-seat parliament, has done a good job taking the fight to the pugnacious premier without much in the way of policy.
She was helped by the former Brisbane mayor, who led the state as if he were still in city hall — bullying and berating those who opposed his government or its decisions.
Although a lot of voters didn’t like Newman personally — and it seems they still don’t — they haven’t quite forgotten the scandals and mistakes of the previous Labor governments that prompted them to flock to the LNP.
As Newman lost popularity, only a small percentage turned to Labor; most of the voters that deserted Newman were flirting with the likes of Clive Palmer.
Now, however, it seems Palmer’s own public brawls with his Chinese business partners and party colleagues is also turning people off. Politically, Newman finally listened to the wake-up call.
UPDATE
What a disgrace and a dangerous precedent - using one Parliament to run a political witchhunt against another:
CLIVE Palmer has done a deal with the Greens and Labor to resurrect his planned Senate inquiry into Campbell Newman’s government only a week after his first attempt failed.

The Palmer United Party’s planned inquiry was abandoned last week after Labor dumped support for the probe when the Coalition secured an amendment to ensure Anna Bligh’s administration would also be investigated. 
But PUP now has backing from both Labor and the Greens for the inquiry just into Mr Newman’s time in power.
In return for support from the Greens, Mr Palmer has agreed to oppose the federal handover powers of environmental approval powers to state governments…
The wideranging inquiry would investigate whether Mr Newman’s government has misused Commonwealth grants for political advertising and whether it has breached international human rights laws. Queensland’s judicial appointments, administration of prisons and use of detention without trial would all be investigated in the unprecedented Senate inquiry. Development approval processes by the Newman government are also included in the terms of reference, which could see a review of Mr Palmer’s failed attempts to win preferential treatment from the state for a massive coal and port development.
Labor should be ashamed of itself.  To be as craven as Palmer is no small thing. To support Palmer’s jihad against the government that thwarted his business interests is truly grubby.
The party of the workers supporting a tycoon’s rage at being thwarted in business. Really? 
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Farce: Margo Kingston gets a scholarship to do a PhD on herself

Andrew Bolt September 30 2014 (6:29pm)

This is absolutely astonishing. A scholarship? For Margo Kingston? For a PhD? On herself?
I’d very much like to know who at the university pushed and approved this:
It’s official, folks. I have a scholarship to do a Doctorate in Creative Practice at Macquarie University … The book will be a professional memoir which seeks to explain my journey from mainstream political journalist to Sydney Morning Herald political blogger and editor with Webdiary, website owner when I went independent in 2005, and my new project after a seven-year break, No Fibs. 
Tim Blair suggests some chapters of Kingston’s life that might not make it into the final draft. They include Kingston’s interesting views on the influence of Jews.
How could any university of repute allow this bizarre indulgence - and fund it at our expense?
UPDATE
This isn’t the first time Macquarie has thrown some surprising funds Kingston’s way.  
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Gillard cries “poor me”. Yet nothing was done to her that Abbott does not get worse

Andrew Bolt September 30 2014 (6:18pm)

I’m listening to one of the most pathetic interviews Julia Gillard has yet given - on ABC 24 - whingeing and whining how she was picked on as a woman when she was Prime Minister.
I can understand how she’d prefer to believe that rather than that she was incompetent, but where is the pride? The dignity?
And as if to remind Gillard she suffered nothing worse than what Tony Abbott routinely gets - and worse - reader Jason writes:

I was at a performance at the Entertainment Centre on Saturday night and there was this feral kid probably no older than 21 with a picture of Tony Abbott’s face on the front on the shirt and on the back was ‘Tony is a C**t’.
If someone wore that T-shirt with Gillard’s name on instead they’d have been thrown out, I suspect. It would be “an incident”. Anne Summers would rage.
Gillard is nothing more than a whinger who shrank in office and is shrinking even more out of it. 
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More anti-terrorism raids

Andrew Bolt September 30 2014 (5:50pm)

More anti-terrorism raids, this time in Melbourne:
VICTORIA police and Australian Federal Police officers are conducting a joint operation in Flemington, Meadow Heights and Seabrook. 
This tiny, unrepresentative minority is neither as tiny nor unrepresentative as wishful reporting tends to suggest.
UPDATE
Yet our Race Discrimination Commissioner carries on as if the real problem we must confront is hatred of Muslims rather than hatred of non-Muslims:
Anti-Muslim bigotry is now contaminating community harmony at large.
This bizarre inversion risks legitimising the Islamists’ paranoid complaints.
UPDATE
The raids are not related to last week’s stabbing of two police officers and fatal shooting of Numan Haider in Endeavour Hills. 
Victoria Police said in a statement: “This operational activity is not in response to a threat to public safety nor is it related to last week’s incident at Endeavour Hills.”
UPDATE
Hassan El Sabsabi, 23, was arrested this morning in raids conducted by the joint Victorian-federal police counterterrorism task force. 
He is accused of sending $12,000 to an American citizen fighting in Syria, with police using information provided by the FBI to make the arrest.
Mr El Sabsabi faces six charges of intentionally making funds available to a terrorist organisation, knowing it was a terrorist organisation.
He is alleged to have sent money to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, otherwise known as ISIS) on or about 1 March from Point Cook, in Melbourne’s outer west. He is then alleged to have directed five transactions to Jabhat al-Nusra ...
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Did a switch in gauges cause Melbourne’s temperature “rise”?

Andrew Bolt September 30 2014 (8:32am)

Jo Nova:
Here’s a strange change. After 160 years of fairly constant maximum temperatures, the raw Melbourne records take a sudden step up by 0.7 0C in 1996. Coincidentally (or not) that is the same year that the automatic gauge was installed. The new electronic equipment is much more responsive to short peaks and dips compared to thermometers. Could the step up be due to the better resolution? It’s by no means definitive — these are yearly averages, not monthly, and it may be a real climate shift and not due to the equipment. The obvious question is whether this sort of jump occurs in other stations where AWS (automatic weather stations) were installed. That would have profound implications if it did, but surely it would have been noticed already?  
Tom Quirk:
During the 1990s the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) started to install automatic weather stations. The minimum and maximum temperatures along with temperature readings every 30 minutes were recorded electronically. The weather stations used thermistors rather than mercury or alcohol thermometers for temperature measurements. Thermistors are electrical resistors that are very sensitive to temperature changes. The Melbourne annual maximum temperature readings are shown in Figure 1. There is an unusual feature in the record as shown occurring in 1996. It is a break with a difference of 0.7 0C. The two straight lines are a best fit to the measurements and the difference is calculated from the lines at 1996.
(Thanks to reader Rocky.) 
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Hong Kong’s citizens fight for their freedom

Andrew Bolt September 30 2014 (8:12am)

The Chinese regime, an enemy of democracy, has a big problem here that highlights its lack of legitimacy:

Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters blocked Hong Kong streets in the early hours on Tuesday, maintaining pressure on China as it faces one of its biggest political challenges since the Tiananmen Square crackdown 25 years ago.
Riot police had largely withdrawn and there were none of the clashes, tear gas and baton charges that had erupted over the weekend. As tensions eased, some exhausted demonstrators slept on roadsides while others sang songs or chanted slogans.
On the streets:
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Don’t mention the riot

Andrew Bolt September 30 2014 (7:51am)

How bizarre.
Media Watch last night explained what the  Daily Telegraph wrote:
Next day the front page of the Daily Telegraph was even more worrying, because, according to the paper, Goulburn Jail had now exploded 
RADICALS RUN RIOT EXCLUSIVE: Jail cancels Muslim prayer as prisoners go berserk 
— The Daily Telegraph, 22nd September, 2014
Inside, the Tele continued: 
Allah is the cry, as radicals go berserk in worst riot for 10 years 
— The Daily Telegraph, 22nd September, 2014
So did these headlines tell the real story? Or was it a beat up? 
Many minutes of huffing and damning later, Media Watch sums up the facts:
… the so-called riot began when those aboriginal prisoners were denied access to a BBQ… 
One prayer meeting had been cancelled at a different prison ...
Tear gas was used
Prison officers were in riot gear.
And Lebanese Muslim prisoners did yell encouragement from their cells What’s more a handful of the Aboriginal protesters were Muslims, and one did taunt prison officers about cutting off their heads. 
Somehow Murdoch-obsessed host Paul Barry managed to find enough nuances and straw men in between his explanation and his concession to make this his lead story, another condemnation of the Murdoch media.
I’d have thought his time would be been better spent saying sorry or tackling a far more dangerous issue involving ABC reporting of Islamic radicals.
UPDATE
Reader James on last night’s Q&A:
As annoying as Q&A was, at least there were two conservatives this week against four “progressives”. Balance - ABC style. 
This is such a consistent pattern that I’m amazed ABC boss Mark Scott doesn’t insist this breach of the ABC’s charter be fixed.
Shameless, I guess. 
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No better time to talk Budget cuts than after this blowout

Andrew Bolt September 30 2014 (7:45am)

After last week’s astonishing Budget figures, showing our second-biggest Budget deficit, I would hope cross-bench MPs had a new sense of urgency:
MINISTERS are launching another round of talks with crossbench senators in a new bid to pass $25 billion in budget savings, including controversial cuts to family tax benefits and supplements for seniors. 
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Explain the difference between this and a bribe

Andrew Bolt September 30 2014 (7:42am)

Wow. Just wow:
THE Maritime Union of Australia is battling claims that it extracted $3 million in payments from companies involved in West Aus­tralian offshore gas projects as the price of “industrial peace”. 
Executives from maritime engineering and dredging firms told the royal commission into union corruption yesterday how they had agreed to pay the MUA or related entities large sums over a ­period of years for “training” and “state conferences”.
In most cases the companies felt they received no benefit for added costs. They handed money to the MUA to “calm down” union members and ensure there was no disruption. While an MUA-backed training fund did conduct 18-month courses at a cost of $77,000 a worker with company money, other employer donations for union state conferences were simply funnelled through West Australian branch accounts and used for day-to-day expenditure.
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You pay so Labor may pray. But where’s the Liberal shrine?

Andrew Bolt September 30 2014 (7:28am)

Why this taxpayer-funded monument to a failed Labor Prime Minister but nothing for successful Liberal ones? Nick Cater:
NOT everyone will agree that Gough Whitlam’s government was “a brilliant, transforming moment” for Australia, but that’s Julia Gillard’s story and she’s sticking to it. His was “one of the finest minds of a great generation”, she told a gathering in June 2012, “one of those stars for the Australian nation"… 
The purpose of Gillard’s speech was to announce a $7 million grant to restore the Female Orphan School building on the University of Western Sydney’s Parramatta campus. The building would become the home of the Whitlam Institute and the renovation would include a museum, library, lecture rooms and an art gallery to honour our 21st prime minister…
At an open day 10 days ago, the Whitlam Institute board chairman, senator John Faulkner, described the library and museum as “the premier prime ministerial institute in this nation”.
He’s not wrong. In fact it is the only prime ministerial institute with a permanent full- time exhibition in Australia. Our first prime minister, Edmund Barton, got a small brass plaque outside an outrageously ugly block of flats in Sydney’s Kirribilli where his home once stood. A couple of years ago, our longest serving prime minister, Robert Menzies, got a statue by Lake Burley Griffin.
The only prime minister to be dismissed from office gets a great new shiny interactive museum complete with cafe and gift shop. There are It’s Time mugs, It’s Time caps, It’s Time T-shirts (as worn by Little Pattie) and the $30 It’s Time watch ("a fun present for someone who has everything")…
History in Australia is written by the vanquished, not the victors, a truism born out by the glut of books about the last two terms of Labor government hogging the shelf space at your local Dymocks. 
Well, actually, history is written by the collectivists who make it their mission to conquer the institutions and hop into the public purse to finance their proselytising.                      
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No super-ministry needed, says Bishop. Morrison needs another horse

Andrew Bolt September 30 2014 (7:15am)

The very capable Julie Bishop puts the ambitions of Immigration Minister Scott Morrison on ice:
JULIE Bishop has pushed back strongly against the idea that Australia create a huge, US-style ­department of homeland security — absorbing the roles of ASIO, federal police, Customs and Border Protection — to handle the current terror threat.

The Foreign Minister told The Australian last night there were no proposals before cabinet or its ­national security committee to create a new department to ­improve the co-operation between the three arms of security: intelligence agencies, police and ­Defence. 
“If there were such a proposal, it would have to demonstrate any current failures in co-operation between the intelligence agencies, federal and state police and ­Defence and I am not aware of any such failures,” Ms Bishop said.
Professor Michael Wesley, former assistant director general for transnational issues at Office of National Assessments, says she’s right:
First, there is no pressing problem that this solution will solve… Security, intelligence and policing organisations are collaborating extremely effectively… Within the past decade, major reviews of security and intelligence by senior public servants Philip Flood and Ric Smith have considered and ultimately rejected merging our security and intelligence agencies…
Second, there is a danger that an ill-considered redesign of the security community will damage its long-developed habits of connectivity ... [and] ­places an arbitrary fence around what security is assumed to be… And what will the gathering of some agencies and not others do to habits of trust, collaboration and connectivity? ...
Third, ... Functional differentiation allows the maintenance of full-spectrum expertise while providing clear political accountability and constitutional and civil liberties checks and balances… It makes sense that the ­Attorney-General, as the country’s chief law-maker, bears responsibility for the two agencies with greatest capacities to impinge on civil liberties…
Fourth, there is a real risk that the merging of police, security and intelligence agencies will actually damage Australia’s security preparedness. Upsetting well-established co-ordination mechanisms and diverting resources and attention into bureaucratic re-engineering is particularly ill-advised at this time of heightened danger. 
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~ A Fly Falls Into A Cup Of Coffee ~
The Italian - Spills the coffee, gets annoyed and walks away.
The Frenchman - Removes the fly and drinks the coffee.
The Chinese - Spills out the coffee and eats the fly.
The Russian - Drinks the coffee slowly and quietly.
The Israeli - Sells the coffee to the Frenchman and the fly to the Chinese guy, and buys himself a new cup of coffee. With the left over money he sets out a new ‘Start -Up’ to develop an instrument that prevents flies from entering coffee.
The Palestinian - Blames the Israeli for putting the fly in his coffee. Then he complains to the UN about him using “excess force.” He receives a few billion dollars from the EU for buying new coffee but instead, he buys explosives and blows up the coffee shop where the Italian, Frenchman, Chinese and Russian are trying to explain to the Israeli why he has to give up his cup of coffee and give it to the Palestinian.
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The stupidity becomes invisible when it has assumed sufficient proportions. Bert Brecht 

Andreas Herrmann
Unsichtbar wird die Dummheit wenn sie genügend große Ausmaße angenommen hat. Bert Brecht===
all-the-ways-things-are:
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It cannot be that women are equal to men, and men are inferior to women. Men and women are not the same. Equality can only be found in respect.
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The Ames Room
The distorted room was named after ophthalmologist Adelbert Ames, who invented the optical illusion in 1934. The floor, ceiling and side walls of the room are trapezoidal in shape but when viewed from a specific fixed point it appears to be rectangular.
We built this for the 2011 Christmas Lectures. See it in action in this clip from the lectures, or hear Andy talk about making it here.
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Are you a lazy person who loves to lie in bed all day? Then you might be a perfect candidate for a certain job at NASA. 
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In the Jakarta Post today.
Australia and Indonesia should be partners in stopping people smuggling, which damages both our nations. Abbott’s proposal to turn boats back where safe is a policy carried out by numerous other countries, including the US, with illegal  immigrants from the Caribbean; and Sri Lanka, which turns back its own illegal emigrants. It is a tough policy, but not anti-Indonesian. 

This trade, which has seen more than 1,200 people drown on the journey to Australia, will never stop unless people believe they have no chance of securing permanent residency in Australia this way.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/09/30/insight-tony-abbott-and-his-forthcoming-visit-indonesia.html
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Much is beat up by the likes of Fairfax and the ABC of Abbott offending the Indonesian government but isn't the case coming from the President SBY's own website. Diplomatic niceties aside, they're more or less glowing of the visit. My (inexpert) Bahasa Indonesia translation of select quotations below:

<"Hubungan bilateral kedua negara sangat baik. Masih terdapat banyak ruang bagi perluasan persahabatan dan kerja sama yang tentunya saling menguntungkan bagi kedua negara," kata SBY.

The bilateral relations between the two countries are very good. There is still plenty of room to grow friendship and cooperation that will benefit both countries, said President SBY

Dalam rilisnya pada Jumat (27/9) pekan lalu, Staf Khusus Presiden bidang Hubungan Internasional Teuku Faizasyah menyampaikan bahwa langkah Abbott memulai masa pemerintahannya dengan melakukan lawatan ke Indonesia mencerminkan semangat untuk melanjutkan, bahkan memperkuat kerja sama kedua negara.>

Last Friday 27/9, the President's special advisor for international relations Teuku Faiszasyah praised the fact that Abbott began his prime ministership by visiting Indonesia, highlighting the hope of continuing to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.

http://www.presidenri.go.id/index.php/fokus/2013/09/30/9452.html
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A Pakistani girl who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban has been honored as Harvard University's humanitarian of the year.
Malala Yousafzai, an outspoken proponent for girls' education, was at Harvard on Friday to accept the 2013 Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian Award. Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust said she was pleased to welcome Malala because of their shared interest in education.
Malala was shot in the head last October. Militants said she was attacked because she was critical of the Taliban, not because of her views on education.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2436558/Pakistani-girl-15-shot-head-Taliban-demanding-womens-education-receives-standing-ovation-Harvard.html#ixzz2gMjtACHZ
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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Just days after the first conversation between the leaders of the U.S. and Iran in 34 years was hailed as a “breakthrough” in relations between the two countries, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking an unpopular message to the White House and the United Nations: Don't be fooled by Tehran's “sweet talk.”
Netanyahu, who contends Iran is using conciliatory gestures as a smoke screen to conceal an unabated march toward a nuclear bomb, will meet with President Obama Monday to deliver strong words of caution to the U.S.
"I will tell the truth in the face of the sweet talk and the onslaught of smiles," Netanyahu said before boarding his flight to the U.S. on Sunday. "Telling the truth today is vital for the security and peace of the world and, of course, it is vital for the security of the state of Israel."
Netanyahu also plans to offer up fresh intelligence in his attempt to persuade the U.S. to maintain tough economic sanctions and not allow the Islamic republic to develop a bomb or even move closer to becoming a nuclear threshold state.
Israeli leaders watched with great dismay what they derisively call the "smiley campaign" by Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, last week. Rouhani delivered a conciliatory speech at the United Nations in which he repeated Iran's official position that it has no intention of building a nuclear weapon and declared his readiness for new negotiations with the West.
Capping off the visit, Rouhani and Obama held a 15-minute phone call as the Iranian leader was traveling to the airport. By the end of the call, Obama was suggesting that a breakthrough on the nuclear issue could portend even deeper ties between the U.S. and Iran. U.S. and European diplomats hailed a "very significant shift" in Iran's attitude and tone.

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PETER Severin, the man in charge of NSW prisons, wants inmates to be banned from smoking in the state’s jails.
The Corrective Services Commissioner says smoking is harming the health of both the prisoners themselves and jail staff.
Mr Severin’s push to ban cigarettes may seem controversial, but it’s actually pretty dull compared to some of the harsh rules in other prisons around the world, especially those in Maricopa County, Arizona where inmates are ruled by the iron fist of controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Here is a selection of his rules, as well as some of the bizarre things going on in other world prisons.


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world-news/eight-of-the-strangest-prison-rules-in-the-world/story-fndir2ev-1226730016591#ixzz2gMmZnPKK
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A 29-YEAR-OLD male, who fell in a pile of manure while running from police, has been arrested at a Woodroffe home in the Northern Territory, reports NT News.
The man is a member of the Darwin Chapter of the Rebels Outlaw Motorcycle Gang and the premises was occupied by an ex Hells Angels member.
He was arrested in relation to a warrant to attend Darwin Supreme Court regarding charges for attempting to pervert the course of justice and numerous other offences.
Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Stringer from Strike Force Trident told the NT News police tracked the man down to the Woodroffe address and found the Rebels Outlaw Bikie in the ceiling of the house.
“Police also located and seized a quantity of methamphetamine, cannabis, cannabis seeds and a class A clandestine laboratory inside the residence.”
Investigations are continuing in relation to the clandestine drug lab and drugs located.
“It was good a good result to finally catch up with this guy. We almost had him last week when he ran from us and ended up in a pile of manure,” Detective Senior Sergeant Stringer said.
He will appear in Darwin Magistrates Court on Monday 30 September.


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/man-found-hiding-in-ceiling-arrested-after-falling-in-manure/story-fncynjr2-1226729978176#ixzz2gMmp7LyT
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THE white widow’s secret marriage has been revealed as more arrests were made over the Kenyan tragedy amid horrific accounts of final moments of its youngest victims.
Local authorities made another arrest overnight as part of the ongoing investigation into the four-day siege at the Westgate mall in Nairobi by Islamic militant group al-Shabaab which left 67 people dead.
Some of the tragedy’s youngest victims were shot up to five times by armed militants, according to UK media reports.
Earlier Sunday, about 200 Kenyan Muslims held a rally near the mall to remember the dead and call for peace.
“We condemn the terror attack on Westgate Mall,” said one sign. “One Country. One People. One Love. Kenya Asia Muslims,” said another.
Many of those at the rally were from Kenya’s Asian community, the descendants of people who came from colonial India — what is now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh — to work in Kenya more than a century ago.


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world-news/more-arrests-made-over-kenyan-siege-as-white-widow-hunt-continues/story-fndir2ev-1226729775839#ixzz2gMnPtFqs

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Davecat bought his now wife from the Abyss Creations website 13 years ago. He saved for a year and a half to buy a $6000 RealDoll, who he named Sidore Kuroneko.
Davecat (the online pseudonym he prefers to go by) was directed to the website by a good friend who knew he had always been in love with various types of artificial women.
He selected her facial type, body type, eye colour, makeup, skin tone and bust size and she soon arrived in a FedEx box at his house.
“The results were entirely worth it … It was love at first sight,” Davecat told news.com.au.
And the rest, he says, “is history”.
Sidore is “anatomically correct” and looks freakishly like a human. Her artificial skin is made of silicone, so it’s soft, and she’s even got a fake tongue. While RealDolls are marketed as sex toys, Davecat and other “iDollators” or “technosexuals” see their dolls as life partners, with whom they experience a real relationship.
Davecat told The Atlantic his relationship with Sidore was “70 per cent sex, 30 per cent companionship”, but that they also share a meaningful emotional connection. They wear matching wedding bands that say “Synthetik love lasts forever” and are considering a ceremony for their 15th anniversary.
In December 2012, Davecat purchased a second doll — a Russian called Elena — who is his mistress and friend to Sidore. Both dolls are bisexual, so are able to “enjoy each other on multiple levels” when Davecat is at work.

Who inherits the wife if he dies? Who will care for him when he runs out of money? - ed
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I grew up in a Chabad House. Chabad of Tidewater to be precise. Throughout the years, hundreds upon hundreds of different people have come and gone. Some we remember quite well. For others, it may take a moment. But only a select few are etched in our everlasting memories.
Michael Allen Noeth was born to a Jewish mother and Roman Catholic father. Sometime after, his mother turned Roman Catholic and his father an observant Jew. Michael was a very gifted artist and joined the navy as a painter. His father requested he visit Chabad wherever his military duties lead him. In 1997, it was Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, VA. Michael was added to the catalog of people to stroll through our Chabad House doors. Instantly, he became a fan favorite.
Michael was as kind as they get, and – some would say – as interesting as they get! Michael was a Navy man, there’s no mistake about that – he was very proud of who he was. He always tried to rival Tzivos Hashem – the Army of Hashem – with the Navy of Hashem!
We were privileged to share many firsts with Michael. It’s hard to forget the faces he made when he unknowingly gulped down Marror as if it were sugar. Michael learned to chant Kiddush with us. I can still hear him yell “Attention Gentlemen” just before the blessing of Hagofen.
A good man who became a 9/11 victim in 2001. - ed

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The new Olympic (IOC) President is Chairman of Ghorfa, the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which was set up in the 1970s by Arab countries to boycott trade with Israel and even issued certificates indicating that no parts of products were made in Israel until German trade regulation forbade the process, according to the Jewish Journal.

Thomas Bach also supported the refusal of the IOC (International Olympic Committee), led by Jacques Rogge, to hold a moment of silence during the 2012 Summer Olympics for the 40th anniversary of the murder of nine Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Games, according to the Jewish Journal. The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is calling on Bach to quit the group.
According to AJC, they are calling for Bach to leave Ghorfa because it helps German companies ensure that products meet the import requirements of Arab governments, some of which ban products and services from Israel, and continues to issue certificates of German origin for trade with Arab countries. 
Bach won the position with support from Charlotte Knobloch, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, who came to his aid prior to the vote by saying he “stands for central values such as tolerance, fairness — sportsmanship in the best sense of the word — and cosmopolitanism.”

no place for  bigot - ed
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Nearly two-thirds of the people ruled by the clique of which Abed Rabbo is a leading member are committed to the most extreme forms of lethal terrorist attacks on Israelis. In that light, do we need to speculate about the intended effect when PA insiders like him dismiss so comprehensively the current round of talks between their side and Israel?
so called suicide bombings are unjustifiable - ed
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THE world is never going to master the difference between your and you're. So let's give up on that one.
Turn your attention instead to the lesser known vocab fails you’ve probably been making without realising.
Here are five examples of words we just get wrong. All. The. Time.
1. REGIME AND REGIMEN
A regime is a form of government, like the Nazi party. A regimen is a program to improve your health, like moisturising every night.
See the difference? It’s big.
2. NAUSEOUS AND NAUSEATED
Nauseous is more of an Americanism than something we say in Australia, but like all things the Yanks do, it’s becoming more popular here.
But we’re using it incorrectly by saying “I feel nauseous” or “You look nauseous”. Nauseous means something that causes sickness.

Precision is important .. to say what you mean, you should mean what you say. - ed
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Holly Sarah Nguyen

God is like oxygen. You can't see Him, but you can't live without Him!
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Former congressman Allen West blasted the Council on American–Islamic Relations on his social media outlets Tuesday morning by thanking CAIR for including him in their “2011-2012 Worst List Inductees” for his “intentional efforts to spread fear and prejudice.”
“CAIR obviously fears those who confront them w/ the truth. I’m on their top ten “worst” list. Appreciate the honor,” the Florida Republican tweeted to his 192,000 followers, linking to a new 2013 CAIR report, titled “Legislating Fear: Islamophobia and its impact int he United States.”

** FILE ** Former Rep. Allen B. West (Associated Press)
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/24/allen-west-thanks-cair-inclusion-top-ten-worst-isl/#ixzz2gN43mDeP
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
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This so that EVERYONE understands where I STAND politically. As a youth, I was a member of the Republican Party, and was a member of the North Bronx Republican Club. When my ex and I moved to Minnesota, I stayed away from the Republicans - because all they talked about when not condemning Democrats, WAS WHICH CHURCH THEY ATTENDED. So, until I moved to Israel with my present wife and kids, I was a member in good standing of the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota.

However, I have never been either a "liberal" or a "conservative" politically. I have been since my youth, and remain today, A SOCIALIST. I am what is known as a "MARKET SYNDICALIST", which is a system that I believe is the most effective method of preserving competition in the open market (thus maintaining quality) AND equitably distributing profits to those who labor and own.

Nota bene. I'M NOT TELLING YOU WHAT TO THINK OR WHICH PARTY TO JOIN OR VOTE FOR. I'M TELLING YOU WHAT I AM.

FINALLY - I am a Jew who realizes that the HEBREW ROOTS of his people is the most important thing we need to understand - for it is HEBREW PROPHECY that ALL ISRAEL will be reunited under one king, and one law [Ezekiel 37:15-28]. ALL ISRAEL means ALL the descendants of the Children of Jacob, wherever they live today. To my understanding, this means Jews, most Pashtuns, and many Igbo, as well as some assorted others like the Lemba. It may mean others as well, but since I cannot substantiate these ties at all, I'll not list them.

If you look at my postings, you will realize that they mostly reflect the orientations I've listed above. Feel free to disagree with me if you wish. But my basic rule is CIVILITY. Civility towards me, and civility towards my friends. If you can't be civil here, then don't post.
social conservatives tend to religion .. economic conservatives are sensible across all faiths. Thing is conservatives have widely divergent views on things, while socialists tend to the same view on everything. - ed
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WARSAW, Poland — An official says a couple who destroyed a World War II Jewish hideout that was located in an apartment they were renting from the city of Warsaw have pleaded guilty to ruining a historic site.
The couple, identified as Dariusz P. and Elzbieta P, were indicted after city authorities discovered in 2012 that they had removed the wardrobe to create a kitchen in the small apartment.
During the Second World War, Warsaw ghetto inmate Leon Jolson made the hideout behind a giant wardrobe in the apartment, and he and his family hid there from 1942 until September 1944. He and his wife survived the Holocaust.
In 1999, the hideout was listed as a historic monument.
On Tuesday, Dariusz Slepokura, a spokesman for Warsaw prosecutors, said the couple pleaded guilty.

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Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, the head of Israel’s negotiating team in talks with the PalestinianAuthority (PA), spoke Saturday night at the opening of aconference organized by the left-wing American group J Street.
Livni won applause for her defense of the “two-state solution” and the creation of a PA state in Judea, Samaria (Shomron), and Gaza.

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An Iranian agent was arrested in Israel on September 11. The arrest was under a gag order for several days, but has now been cleared for publication.
The detainee is a 55-year-old Belgian citizen who goes by the name Alex Mans. He was arrested by the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, and the Israel Police as he attempted to leave the country.
The suspect also has Iranian citizenship, and his original name was Ali Mansouri. He lived in Iran until 1980, and then moved to Turkey, where he lived until 1997. Since 2007, he traveled between Iran, Turkey and Belgium, and married an Iranian citizen.
A Shin Bet investigation revealed that he was sent to Israel by Iran’s intelligence services. He has confessed to working on behalf of Iran during his visits to Israel.
Contacted by Iranian intelligence years ago, he first received an explicit offer to spy on Israel on Iran's behalf in early 2012. Mansouri was working with a "special operations unit of the Revolutionary Guards responsible for numerous terrorist attacks around the world," Shin Bet sources said.
Mans had made two previous trips to Israel, one in July 2012, and one in January 2013. Both visits are believed to have been conducted with guidance from his Iranian handlers. He was promised $1 million for his work.
He presented his visits as business trips, and met with businesspeople in Tel Aviv in an attempt to forge long-term business ties in the country. In the meetings with Israeli businesspeople, Mans/Mansouri presented himself as a Belgian businessman selling windows.
He was discovered to have pictures of several sites in Israel, including the building of the United States embassy in Tel Aviv.

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The renewed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have revealed that the deep divide between each side’s proposedsolution, which caused previous talks to break down continues to be an issue, the Arab-language daily Al-Hayat reports.
According to the report, the Israeli team involved in the secret negotiations created a proposal for a PA state along provisional borders. The proposal would allow Israel to maintain control over the Jordan Valley, and border crossings with Jordan, for 40 years.
The Israeli team suggested that Israel’s security concerns, and the large Israeli Jewish minority in Judea and Samaria (Shomron), be taken into account when determining the final borders of the PA state.
Israeli leaders have repeatedly stated that they plan to keep the “settlement blocs” – areas comprising less than 10% of the total land mass of Judea and Samaria which are home to the majority of the region’s roughly 600,000 Jewish residents. Some have proposed land swaps that would replace “settlement bloc” land with other Israeli land.
According to Al-Hayat, PA negotiators are unwilling to see Israel retain more than 2% of Judea and Samaria, even in exchange for land elsewhere in Israel. As PA leaders have repeatedly insisted that Jews will not be allowed to remain as citizens of a future "Palestinian state" - a refusal which amounts to a demand that Israel expel hundreds of thousands of its citizens from their homes, effectively ethnically-cleansing the region of its Jewish population.
United States officials previously predicted that Israel will ultimately lose roughly 15% of the settlement blocs under a deal with the PA.
The PA team also rejected Israel’s security-related demands, and rejected the possibility of a PA state with provisional borders.
The two teams reportedly have not even begun negotiating the highly disputed issues of the status of Jerusalem or of “Palestinian refugees.”

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A group of European and global leaders – drawn from political, military, intellectual, and activist circles – are calling on European Union foreign ministers to reevaluate recently passed guidelines cutting off cooperation between European institutions and Israeli establishments beyond Israel’s 1948 armistice lines. A letter sent by the group (embedded below) on Monday offers a blistering evaluation of the policies’ effects:
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by, Victor Mordechai
At a meeting of the David Allen Lewis “Eschatology Club” a year ago in Springfield, Missouri, where I was the featured speaker, I was told by the organizers that in the previous monthly meeting, Pastor Don Jones made a disturbing statement about President Barack Obama’s plan to Islamicize America.
Jones went to one of his orphanages in Haiti after the massive earthquake there and met with a senior UN official, who said Obama had told him that the US would be a Muslim country by 2016, or by the end of his second term in office.
While that may seem far-fetched, it is not beyond the realm of possibility. First, Obama’s biological father was a Muslim—which makes the President a Muslim. His stepfather was an Indonesian Muslim who raised Obama as a Muslim in a mosque and madrassa (Islamic religious school) in Indonesia until age 11. His halfbrothers in Kenya are Muslims.
My wife Rachel, who is a radio and TV monitor in the Arabic language for Israel Radio in Jerusalem, has picked up many broadcasts indicating that the Arabs see Obama as a Muslim. In one broadcast prior to the 2008 elections, the Saudis claimed that “we will have a Muslim in the White House.”
Another Saudi broadcast said: “Obama’s job is to terminate the Shiite threat [Iran] and the Jewish threat [Israel]. And if he cannot do this, he should pack his bags and go home.”
America has always been a Judeo-Christian nation, but demographically at least, this is no longer true. While there are more than 250 million Christians in the US, the 6 million Jews are now outnumbered by Muslims who total about 20 million (9 million Iranians who fled after the fall of the Shah, 7 million Arabs and at least 3 million black Muslims, with the remainder being from Somalia and the former Yugoslavia).
Numerically, the Jews are now no. 3 or 4 along with the Hindus in the US, whose population is about the same as the Jews. According to Obama’s Inauguration Day speech, America is a “Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu” country. Numerically, he is right. So much for Judeo-Christian America.===

No one can deny the nature of jihad after last week's horrors in Kenya were broadcast around the world. Everybody who saw the brutal Nairobi mall killings gets it. But our profoundly corrupt and Muslim-penetrated media and political class will keep denying those horrors. British PM David Cameron just made the usual nauseating pronouncement that "Islam means peace."
The ruling classes in the West were able to twist and cover up the truth after 9/11. They are desperate to peddle denial, because they are deeply afraid that popular outrage will destroy their power. Hillary hired a Muslim Brotherhood loyalist, Huma Abedin, as her top aide. Our political/media class is therefore completely invested in covering up a clear and present danger. They must therefore be defeated in the next election.
Hassan Rouhani's "Big Smile" offensive in New York this week is a perfect demonstration of the double-talk of Islamic war. Rouhani is the killer who oversaw the truck bombing of the U.S. Marine Lebanon barracks in 1983, killing 299 young U.S. and French peacekeeping troops. Killer Rouhani was greeted with a wave of favorable publicity by the New York Times this week. Muslims like Rouhani will stab you to the heart with a smile. It is their doctrine. You can watch them laughing today because they know they are winning.


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/09/nobody_can_deny_violent_islam.html#ixzz2gN7emw1L
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
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Israel – seen to some as being the most nefarious, heinous and odious country in the world. No other country gets a remotely comparable amount of criticism (from international bodies, states, media, academia etc.). No other country gets the same spotlight, the same protests, the same threats, and the same attention. There is no Roger Waters led boycott of Sudan, but of course there is one of Israel.
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The self-described “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobbying group J Street has spent the majority of its recent time on Capitol Hill lobbying in favor of pro-Iran and pro-Palestinian measures, according to the liberal group’s lobbying disclosure forms.
J Street’s efforts to rollback sanctions on Iran and advocate for legislation backed by the Palestinian Authority has pro-Israel insiders warning that the group’s actions run counter to its claims of being pro-Israel.
The group spent $100,000 lobbying lawmakers to tone down their rhetoric on Iran and pushed for greater ties with the “Palestinian Diplomatic Mission to the United States,” according to the latest 2012 disclosure forms filed with the House of Representatives.
As the five-year old organization gets ready to kick off its 2013 conference in Washington D.C. on Saturday—an event that will include a who’s who of Israel’s most prominent critics—pro-Israel insiders are warning that J Street is not what it claims to be.
“J Street believes that Israel is the obstacle to peace [and] it wants the president to pressure Israel to meet Palestinian demands,” said Steve Rosen, a former top official at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the nation’s premiere pro-Israel group.
“Because Congress is an obstacle to presidential pressure [on Israel], J-Street wants to neutralize AIPAC’s influence, to free the president to impose Palestinian concessions on Israel,” Rosen said. “At root, J-Street is profoundly hostile to the core principle of Zionism, which is the right of the Jewish people to decide their own destiny in a state of their own.”
“Because J Street does not trust the Jewish people of Israel to see things the correct (i.e., J Street) way, it would rather that Israel’s destiny be decided by a non-Jew from Chicago,” Rosen said.

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Unless the Right can devise a methodology and mechanisms to determine the political agenda in Israel, it will continue to be determined by the Left – irrespective of electoral outcomes.

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 J.John'
The Sabbath, is a time when we step back to enjoy nature, rather than figuring out, how to change it. #just10live
=
The most important things in life aren’t things - but people. Let’s spend time with our family and friends. #just10live
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Something truly astounding has happened. The best political candidate for a country's future has won a general election.
In fact, even more astonishing is the fact that this achievement was something David Cameron and his inner circle had given us to believe was as impossible as . . . well, being reincarnated as an olive.
So what is this miracle? That a true conservative has won a general election on true conservative principles.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2415635/The-election-Australias-new-PM-Tony-Abbott-clear-evidence-genuine-conservative-policies-win-elections.html#ixzz2gNAeh4Rw
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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CCP Ministries
Please Prayer for those who are Martyred and injured during Church attack in Pakistan also keep their needs in prayers.Appeal from CCP MinistriesPakistan.www.ccpak.org
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It isn't a crime to have lunch .. Christians oppressed in Pakistan .. ed
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AGRICULTURE Minister Barnaby Joyce will repay more than $600 for a Comcar for travel relating to the controversial wedding of former Sydney radio host Michael Smith.
Mr Joyce today said he had written to the Finance Department to correct his error and enclosed a cheque for about $650 to cover the cost he had wrongly billed taxpayers.
“This is ambiguous so I have repaid them,” he told News Corp Australia.


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/barnaby-joyce-to-pay-up-for-comcar-used-for-radio-host-michael-smith8217s-wedding/story-fncynjr2-1226730056386#ixzz2gMjGmbHR
Will the ALP be held to this standard by the press? If so, they seem to have forgotten Shorten, Albanese and Bowen. - ed
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“Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” John 3:20-21 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"Behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague."
Leviticus 13:13

Strange enough this regulation appears, yet there was wisdom in it, for the throwing out of the disease proved that the constitution was sound. This morning it may be well for us to see the typical teaching of so singular a rule. We, too, are lepers, and may read the law of the leper as applicable to ourselves. When a man sees himself to be altogether lost and ruined, covered all over with the defilement of sin, and no part free from pollution; when he disclaims all righteousness of his own, and pleads guilty before the Lord, then is he clean through the blood of Jesus, and the grace of God. Hidden, unfelt, unconfessed iniquity is the true leprosy, but when sin is seen and felt it has received its death blow, and the Lord looks with eyes of mercy upon the soul afflicted with it. Nothing is more deadly than self-righteousness, or more hopeful than contrition. We must confess that we are "nothing else but sin," for no confession short of this will be the whole truth, and if the Holy Spirit be at work with us, convincing us of sin, there will be no difficulty about making such an acknowledgment--it will spring spontaneously from our lips. What comfort does the text afford to those under a deep sense of sin! Sin mourned and confessed, however black and foul, shall never shut a man out from the Lord Jesus. Whosoever cometh unto him, he will in no wise cast out. Though dishonest as the thief, though unchaste as the woman who was a sinner, though fierce as Saul of Tarsus, though cruel as Manasseh, though rebellious as the prodigal, the great heart of love will look upon the man who feels himself to have no soundness in him, and will pronounce him clean, when he trusts in Jesus crucified. Come to him, then, poor heavy-laden sinner,

Come needy, come guilty, come loathsome and bare;

You can't come too filthy--come just as you are.

Evening

"I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go."
Song of Solomon 3:4
Does Christ receive us when we come to him, notwithstanding all our past sinfulness? Does he never chide us for having tried all other refuges first? And is there none on earth like him? Is he the best of all the good, the fairest of all the fair? Oh, then let us praise him! Daughters of Jerusalem, extol him with timbrel and harp! Down with your idols, up with the Lord Jesus. Now let the standards of pomp and pride be trampled under foot, but let the cross of Jesus, which the world frowns and scoffs at, be lifted on high. O for a throne of ivory for our King Solomon! Let him be set on high forever, and let my soul sit at his footstool, and kiss his feet, and wash them with my tears. Oh, how precious is Christ! How can it be that I have thought so little of him? How is it I can go abroad for joy or comfort when he is so full, so rich, so satisfying. Fellow believer, make a covenant with thine heart that thou wilt never depart from him, and ask thy Lord to ratify it. Bid him set thee as a signet upon his finger, and as a bracelet upon his arm. Ask him to bind thee about him, as the bride decketh herself with ornaments, and as the bridegroom putteth on his jewels. I would live in Christ's heart; in the clefts of that rock my soul would eternally abide. The sparrow hath made a house, and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God; and so too would I make my nest, my home, in thee, and never from thee may the soul of thy turtle dove go forth again, but may I nestle close to thee, O Jesus, my true and only rest.
"When my precious Lord I find,
All my ardent passions glow;
Him with cords of love I bind,
Hold and will not let him go."
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Today's reading: Isaiah 7-8, Ephesians 2 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Isaiah 7-8



The Sign of Immanuel

1 When Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it.
2 Now the house of David was told, “Aram has allied itself with Ephraim”; so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.
3 Then the LORD said to Isaiah, “Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub, to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field. 4 Say to him, ‘Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood—because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. 5 Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah’s son have plotted your ruin, saying, 6 “Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it....”

Today's New Testament reading: Ephesians 2

Made Alive in Christ
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do....
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Ishbosheth

[Ĭshbō'sheth] - a man of shame. One of Saul's younger sons who was made king over Israel by Abner. He was originally called Eshbaal, "The Lord's man" but his name was changed after Saul's departure (2 Sam. 2:8 with 1 Chron. 8:33; 9:39). Ishbosheth contested the throne of Israel with David for seven years. Ultimately he was deserted by Abner and murdered in his bed by two of his captains.
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