Sunday, September 18, 2016

Sun Sep 18th Todays News

I distrust United Conservative Party. I am concerned at some of their catch phrases that strike me as being over bearing, social conservatives or left wing regulation happy. A political party should not be advocating self defence. Australia is not subservient to anyone, but our leaders seem to like giving money to foreign powers for kickbacks, so rather than claiming we won't be subservient, we need transparency and anti corruption measures. Stay out of my family and I'll let you live. Fuck your integration, I'll live free. Respect religion by not promoting terrorism.

Clever blaming Morrison as well as Turnbull. Turnbull has too much control and treasury too little. I doubt Morrison has been free to produce effective policy. It seems, to me, that this 'deal' is entirely about replacing the diesel submarines with nuclear power ones. That is the only thing that makes sense. But the public is not ready for that.

Breaking the cycle of poverty is not done by transplanting the poor. It is done by growing domestic markets and letting capitalism work.

I feel the left wing have censored thought for so long, they are suffering angst over not being original. Take that cultural appropriation and shove it up your bum.

I've not read that book. It is difficult to oversell criticism. It is hard to accurately portray praise. But the reality is the attempt was spin, and that was achieved. Malcolm Turnbull's success is related to his friendship with ALP figures like Neville Wran.

I gave up on the Left a long time ago. I don't care if they live or die. I will point the way up and if their members choose to make good choices I'll help. But I greatly resent their promotion of terrorism and poverty so as to fuel their corruption. The left's arguments tend to be hollow and their attacks on cultural assets effective. The left tend to use Alynski methods to successfully create wastelands. I will have none of it.

I guess Bill shouldn't have blamed NYC police that time they were doing their job. The thin blue line stands between gutless politicians and those looking for cheap thrills.
=== from 2015 ===
Scott Morrison's loyalty is being questioned. Some say he should have saved Mr Abbott. Mr Morrison served Mr Abbott loyally and had no reason to throw himself under a bus at the last moment. What happened to Mr Abbott was wrong and cruel, but not Mr Morrison's fault. Even had he done as others think he should have, Mr Morrison could not have saved Mr Abbott. Because Mr Abbott had been an outstanding, good PM. Unlike Rudd, Abbott had many achievements he could point to, from international kudos for leadership over MH17 and MH360, through international security in solving illegal migration for Australia, or cutting some $50 billion of spending despite entrenched opposition among independents. More remarkably, Abbott achieved it despite internal party opposition. Malcolm Turnbull has become PM by promising to fix problems he created. And that is not Mr Morrison's fault. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility. 
From 2014
Terrorism is not about religion. It isn't that the terrorists are, or are not, religious, Islamic leadership is impotent in the face of terror and confused, as they are too close. Literally. The suburbs threatened in the dawn raids by police which rounded up members of possible terror cells had burqa clad women and are close to where the Islamic Leaders live and preach hate. Naturally the ABC raised the issue of police brutality. The plans of those rounded up included one to collect a random person from the streets, film their beheading and the headless corpse being dragged in the ISIS flag. Luckily our hope is not resting on the impotent and confused Islamic leadership. Only last week, that leadership was claiming Abbott was over reaching in lifting the terror threat alert or extending metadata collection. They should collectively applaud Mr Abbott from saving them from the community backlash should the atrocity have taken place. Turkey is Islamic and Turkish women don't usually wear the burqa. There is good reason for it. It dates back to Ataturk passing a law that made it illegal for prostitutes to work from any other clothing. Maybe the leadership will discourage the practice here? 

LBJ declared a war on poverty in 1964, creating programs such as Head Start, Food Stamps, Work Study, Medicare and Medicaid. Today, in 2014 terms, the spending has reached $22 trillion, which is three times more than spent on military in all wars since the US Revolution. The goal is worthy, but the means is a failure. It has become a political whipping post. Both 'sides' or politics are wilfully blind that they are shovelling money into programs designed to keep people poor, and favouring one side of politics. Poor people have needs, and the complex bureaucracies which 'oversee the poor' are lousy at addressing those needs. The US is not serving her people by going bankrupt trying. Greater use needs to be made of charity and philanthropy in effective programs, and government is not good at doing that.  One tragic example of feel good over reach involves the failure of the hashtag bringbackourgirls to bring back the victims of Boko Haram's kidnapping of two hundred school girls earmarked for sexual slavery and genital mutilation. Thank you Michelle for your good intentions. Maybe Barak will divert the soldiers designated to combat ebola to save those girls? 

The labour union movement is facing broad charges of corruption. The CFMEU (construction, forestry, mining and energy union) has been alleged to have employed stand over tactics in building sites. This is related to former PM Gillard weakening laws which protected workers from rapacious exploitation by slush fund creating unions. The union has denied the allegations, but sadly, because Gillard weakened the laws, it is hard for them to prove they aren't corrupt. It is the misfortune of the unions that the ALP is too closely aligned with them to be of any help. The ALP leader, Shorten, has to answer questions of misappropriation of union funds and the creation and abuse of slush funds. 

They say responsibility is heavy, and so leaders go grey in office. Obama shows craven cowards do too. Scotland is voting on an issue of independence, but it isn't a vote for freedom. There is nothing that Scotland as independent will get that it does not have now, within a UK democracy. If the Yes case wins, then the conservative leader Cameron is in trouble even though none of this is his fault. Grossly irresponsible people have promised many things if there is a yes vote, but not conservatives. Australia is being promised a similar poll on a non issue, with plans to institutionalise apartheid within the constitution. Having failed to protect the poorest of Australia, some bright sparks think that redefining race within the constitution will address the issue. It didn't work in South Africa either. 

Nova Peris belongs to the ALP in many ways. She has no idea about appropriate behaviour. At a children's athletics meet Nova abused officials so as to seek an advantage for her son. Like other ALP plans, it didn't work. It highlights the failings of the leader Shorten to stamp any authority on those he leads. Shorten says he supports Mr Abbott's actions in the Middle East, but then back benchers stand up and say they don't. Shorten fails to implement policy. He addressed workers with a pathetic, protectionist speech which did nothing to provide Australia with the certainty she needed over submarines. A bugbear for Shorten is his support of a murderously bad policy on migration by people smugglers. But in his defence the ABC is confused too. They seem to say it is good to drown poor people if pirates prosper from it. 

Clive Palmer loses another court battle he had claimed he won. He appears increasingly desperate but never competent. ABC continues flogging AGW hysteria, claiming that water rising around Australia will cost billions of dollars. ABC Board member Stanley appears blind to accusations of bias. A female who beat up a pensioner on a bus has failed to apologise but has been given a suspended sentence. An execution in Texas of a despicable woman who tortured a child to death. 
From 2013
A man with a mental illness, who supported Obama, who had been trained in the military used an assault rifle, CNN called a shotgun, to kill 12 people in 30 minutes in Washington DC at a naval yard. For their safety, none of the  sane employees were armed. Clearly this is going to inflame the gun issue. Democrats like Obama like that, as they are the goto people for gun control. But while kudos are often given to the Democrats for gun control, Democrat states seem to have the most difficulties. It is as if the Democrats like the issue to stay alive at the expense of victims. 

Meanwhile, in Australia, the new PM, Tony Abbott has been sworn in. He has axed three department heads who were too close to the last government, and a fourth has walked away. Much has been said of the few number of females in the new cabinet (Deputy Liberal Leader Bishop). And while it is true that neither of the last two ALP PM's were women, nor will either of the next two ALP aspirants be women, still it seems as if the ALP have their finger on an issue which will only grow in time. One expects that in fifty or sixty years, the male dominated Abbott Government will collapse. But probably not before then if the ALP can't find another issue. 

The pedophile inquiry continues. Clearly inadequate sentences have been given to abusers. There is no death penalty in Australia, but sometimes one wonders if jail is used enough. 

The Dutch King calls for people to rely less on welfare and more on provision. The Liberal party state governments have clearly been wounded by hostile ALP federal masters recently, with WA losing a AAA rating the big spending feds had been able to retain. In Victoria, weak conservative government has only recently stiffened, and its numbers are on a knife edge with a corruption issue threatening to cause it to implode. Ironically, the issue of misuse of a government car seems prima facie similar to former PM Gillard's suppressed issue .. but the press hadn't been interested in that .. 
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!
===
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 Chau Ly. Born on the same day, across the years, as Trajan (53), Marie of Valois, Duchess of Bar (1344), Samuel Johnson (1709), Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752), Léon Foucault (1819), Kate Booth (1858), Greta Garbo (1905), Frankie Avalon and Gerry Harvey (1939), James Gandolfini (1961), Ronaldo (1976) and Patrick Schwarzenegger (1993). On your day, National Day in Chile
1809 – The second theatre of the Royal Opera House in London opened after a fire destroyed the original theatre one year earlier.
1873 – Panic of 1873: The American bank Jay Cooke & Company declared bankruptcy, setting off a chain reaction of bank failures.
1889 – Hull House, the United States' most influential settlement house, opened in Chicago.
1961 – En route to negotiate a ceasefire between Katanga troops and United Nations forces, the plane carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld crashed under mysterious circumstances near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia, killing him and 15 others on board.
1974 – Hurricane Fifi struck Honduras, destroying 182 towns and villages in the first 24 hours, and ultimately causing over 8,000 deaths. Opera is important .. it is culture. Don't panic. Migrate to the right side. Fly right, don't be a dag. Aim for the affectionate Fifi. Enjoy your day, with plenty of chow.
Deaths
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Piers Ackerman

Leaks in subs should sink French project

AFTER a year of stagnation, the Coalition’s late-night breakthrough on superannuation is a tiny step in the right direction, Piers Akerman writes.

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Andrew Bolt


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Defending the despicable

Piers Akerman – Friday, September 18, 2015 (12:27am)

THE Greens, the refugee lobby and their media supporters are going to sickening lengths as they strive for the moral high ground.
 Continue reading 'Defending the despicable'
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Abbott’s last plea: Don’t destroy the party I love

Piers Akerman – Friday, September 18, 2015 (12:26am)

FROM the loneliness of political exile, Tony Abbott is urging conservative members of the Liberal Party not to walk away from the party he led into government two years ago

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Abbott’s last plea: Don’t destroy the party I love'
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YOU CAN GET IT LEADING A STATE

Tim Blair – Friday, September 18, 2015 (3:24pm)

Apparently convinced that certain letters of the alphabet can induce drunken mayhem, NSW Liberal premier Mike Baird takes aim at alcohol advertising in sport: 
Premier Mike Baird has a massive problem with what the Australian cricket team wears.
Specifically, it’s the big VB logo emblazoned across the front of each player’s uniform.
“I find it quite an incredible position where the captain of our cricket team sits there with a big VB on the middle,” Mr Baird said. 
Speaking of big VB logos, here’s Baird just a few months ago:
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STRESSED MEMBER

Tim Blair – Friday, September 18, 2015 (3:05pm)

Labor’s Jenny Macklin was at her charming best this week.
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BECK DAWSON WILL SAVE US

Tim Blair – Friday, September 18, 2015 (2:04pm)

All that stands between Sydney and annihilation is Clover Moore’s latest appointee: 
Lord Mayor Clover Moore has appointed a $220,000-a-year “chief resilience officer” to tackle the “onslaught of global warming” in Sydney, just a month before she jets off to Italy’s swanky Lake Como for a four-day climate change conference.
Property sustainability expert Beck Dawson was named Sydney’s chief resilience officer yesterday, several weeks after the end of Sydney’s coldest winter in decades …
Ms Dawson’s remit is to help Sydney prepare for a number of looming crises that Ms Moore believes will befall the city, including global warming, floods and fires. 
Dawson holds a masters degree in sustainable architecture, whatever the hell that is. Meanwhile, Sydney University is running billboard ads featuring Clover Moore’s Rachel Dolezal-style afro:
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IT COULD GET OUT OF HAND

Tim Blair – Friday, September 18, 2015 (1:29pm)

More than six million beer enthusiasts attended last year’s two-week Oktoberfest in Munich. This year the city has a few additional visitors: 
The southern German state of Bavaria, of which Munich is the capital, has been the main point of entry for the Syrians and others who have streamed into Germany seeking asylum since the start of September. It is also Germany’s most conservative and tradition-bound state, with its own dominant political party, the Christian Social Union, which is part of Ms. Merkel’s governing coalition on the federal level.
Leaders of the CSU, despite their political alliance with Ms. Merkel, attacked her publicly in the aftermath of her decision early this month to let in thousands of migrants stranded in Hungary. CSU chief Horst Seehofer, the governor of Bavaria, described the move as “a mistake that we will be dealing with for a long time.” And he demanded that the government keep new arrivals seeking asylum out of Munich during Oktoberfest.
“Asylum seekers in particular from Muslim countries aren’t used to encountering heavily drunk people in public,” Bavaria’s interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said. “It could get out of hand.” 
An Islamic petition calling for an Oktoberfest ban is understood to be fake. 
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ART NEVER SLEEPS

Tim Blair – Friday, September 18, 2015 (1:09pm)

If Mark Rothko was Aboriginal, he might have created an ochre masterpiece something like this:


This colourful display is actually a Fiat 125 engine block converted into abstract impressionism by nature’s gentle hand. Daily Telegraph illustrator John Tiedemann located the outstanding piece below the cliffs at Gordons Bay:
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ECONOMY GROWING

Tim Blair – Friday, September 18, 2015 (12:53pm)

According to Malcolm Turnbull: 
“The Prime Minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership the country needs,” Mr Turnbull said. 
But Reserve Bank of Australia boss Glenn Stevens might disagree: 
Importantly, the Australian economy is still growing, although slower than the RBA would like at its current annual rate of 2.0 per cent, he said.
It escaped the global financial crisis without a major downturn and has so far passed through the phases of the mining boom without a spike in inflation or a sudden slump, Mr Stevens said.
“There is still a pretty good chance that we will come out of this episode fairly well, and much better than we came out of previous episodes of this type,” he said.
Mr Stevens said Australia would be protected from a sharp downturn in China’s economy by lower interest rates and a flexible exchange rate.
“We can lower interest rates if there’s a case to do that,” he told the parliamentary committee, when asked about policy measures to offset the effects of a possible slump in China …
The RBA head said he was confident the Australian economy will hit its inflation target of between two and three per cent, despite the decline in the value of the Aussie dollar. 
(Via Ganesh S.)
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IT IS UNSUPPORTABLE

Tim Blair – Friday, September 18, 2015 (11:13am)

Nick Cohen gives up on the left: 
Slowly, too slowly I am ashamed to say, I began to notice that left-wing politics had turned rancid.
In 2007 I tried to make amends, and published What’s Left. If they were true to their professed principles, my book argued, modern leftists would search out secular forces in the Muslim world — Iranian and Arab feminists, say, Kurdish socialists or Muslim liberals struggling against reactionary clerics here in Britain — and embrace them as comrades. Instead, they preferred to excuse half the anti-western theocrats and dictators on the planet. As, in their quiet way, did many in the liberal mainstream. Throughout that period, I never heard the BBC demanding of ‘progressives’ how they could call themselves left-wing when they had not a word of comfort for the Iraqi and Afghan liberals al-Qaeda was slaughtering. 
Read on. And here are some women who ought to be leftist/feminist heroines, but who receive little notice. Particularly admirable is 18-year-old Zilan Orkesh, who has been fighting Islamic State since 2011: 
When she killed an ISIS fighter for the first time, she began cheering loudly, hoping the sound would reach the ears of other jihadis. “I wanted to let them know that their worst nightmare had come true,” she says. “Their friend had been killed by a woman.” 
(Via Instapundit.)
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CFMEU pays Boral up to $9 million

Andrew Bolt September 18 2015 (1:35pm)

The CFMEU pays a high price for its lawlessness:
The CFMEU has settled with construction materials giant Boral over a black ban that has lasted for more than two years.

The union will pay Boral (BLD) as much as $9 million in damages, and will enter a binding agreement that includes controls prohibiting interference with Boral’s business for a period of three years. 
“The agreement includes a legally binding contractual mechanism that will activate upon any violation of this agreement, with amounts ranging from $50,000 to $200,000 per occurrence,” Boral said in a statement. 
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On The Bolt Report on Sunday, September 20

Andrew Bolt September 18 2015 (9:29am)

On Channel 10 on Sunday.
Editorial:  Brilliant coup or the Liberals’ worst mistake? Is Malcolm Turnbull actually the Liberals’ Julia Gillard?
My guest: Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi. Time we created a party for conservatives?  Or can Turnbull heal his party?  Plus there’s this:
SENATOR Cory Bernardi believes he is part-Aboriginal — and he has used the discovery to condemn people who “opt in” to Aboriginality to get special treatment or benefits… 
“On my grandmother’s birth certificate it describes nationality … and it says ‘native’. Does that mean she was Aboriginal or had Aboriginal ancestry herself?”
Queensland Senator Jo Lindgren, the great-niece of Australia’s first indigenous member of federal parliament, Neville Bonner, told him that it does. Despite this, he says he’s still a white, privileged male… “Should that entitle me to any special rights that I have afforded to me as an Australian? I don’t think so,” he said. “There are people in genuine need.”
The panel: former NSW Labor Treasurer Michael Costa and former Productivity Commissioner Judith Sloan, now columnist for The Australian.  Turnbull promises a better economic leadership. Can he deliver - and how?

NewsWatch: Nick Cater, author, head of the Menzies Research Centre and Australian columnist. Is Abbott right to say the media has rewarded treachery? How can Turnbull now keep the media sweet?

Plus: Turnbull’s disgust at a coup that dragged down a Prime Minister. And a tribute to Tony Abbott.
The videos of the shows appear here.
APOLOGIES:
This week the usual 10am screening for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane will actually be delayed by half an hour to 10:30am. Adelaide and Perth will start, as usual, at 10am.
The 3pm repeat stays as is. I am very grateful that viewers keep patiently adjusting.
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A fine man and good Prime Minister destroyed

Andrew Bolt September 18 2015 (9:02am)


Simon Benson pays tribute to a good man:
(I)t is my view that, just like Kim Beazley was perhaps the best prime minister we never had, Tony Abbott was potentially the best prime minister we had but never knew it… 
Above all else, the bloke I know is one of immense personal decency, integrity and goodwill. He espouses a set of values, principles and personal ethics that speak to community values that many of us could probably only aspire to. And on these values, he is uncompromising. He is loyal to a fault and conducts himself with a personal humility rare in politics.
His mistake was that he, perhaps naively, believed the principles he adopted in life would work in politics, and that the loyalty would be returned. To the shame of many on his own side — those who sat in the parliament on Tuesday like lemmings with their heads bowed after having thrown one of their own off a cliff rather than themselves — it took Labor leader Bill Shorten to recognise the character of Abbott…
The unrecognised fact is Abbott achieved more in just 24 months of government than perhaps any modern leader. He got credit from the nation for none of it, including even the most fundamental task of restoring stability to the administration of government after the near institutional destruction inflicted by Labor.
Howard himself said he did not believe that Abbott — and Scott Morrison — would be able to stop the boats. Under Abbott the country will be allowed a plebiscite on gay marriage. Who would have thought it?…
Despite the predictions he would be a national embarrassment on the world stage, it was on this stage that he became a statesman. His response to the twin tragedies of MH17 and MH370 assuaged the grief and anger of a nation. He elevated Australia’s response to global terrorism to one of leading rather than following, as recognised by the US President Barack Obama.
And he signed three free trade agreements that Labor seemed incapable of progressing… In toppling Tony Abbott, Turnbull and his cohorts have not only legitimised the scandalous behaviour of the previous Labor government, they have endorsed it, using similar justifications for their actions. 
An important piece. Read it all.
And listen to our show last night, where listener after listener rang up to pay tribute to one of the finest people to be prime minister.  
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Biter bit

Andrew Bolt September 18 2015 (9:00am)

Give no loyalty, expect none:
A sensitive cabinet document leaked to Fairfax Media shows Malcolm Turnbull was the Abbott government’s worst-performing minister when it came to appointing women to boards… 
The leak ... shows that of the 16 appointments made to boards in the communications portfolio, only one was a woman… “There is no greater enthusiast than me for seeing more women in positions of power and influence in Parliament, in ministries right across the country, I can assure you of that. I am very committed to that,” Mr Turnbull told journalists on Wednesday.
Michael Gordon:
The speed of the first act of treachery against this country’s fifth prime minister in as many years may be a record, but it is hardly a surprise. 
If a Labor prime minister can be targeted by traitors on the eve of an election, a Liberal one can undermined from within on his second full day in the job.
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:

AB, remarkable that Gordon only now discovers words like ‘treachery’ and ‘traitors’ when Turnbull and his fellow wreckers had been white-anting Abbott for two years straight.
UPDATE
Dennis Shanahan:
Tony Abbott has pledged not to “white ant” Malcolm Turnbull but some “massively angry” follower­s seem prepared to provide the sort of cabinet leaks used to destabilise the former prime minister… 
Canberra­ insider gossip is emerging about the early workings of the Turnbull government contradicting the Prime Minister’s promise of a new regime.
Innocuous details of the first cabinet meeting of the Turnbull government on Tuesday are emerging; cabinet figures contradicting Mr Turnbull’s claims about promoting women have been leaked; some of Mr Abbott’s supporters have had meetings; and Liberals are complaining they were kept in the dark over the Coalition agreement Mr Turnbull signed with Nation­als leader, Warren Truss.
The Australian has been told the Prime Minister’s first cabinet meeting lacked the expected inclusiveness after Mr Turnbull’s promise to restore proper cabinet processes and to be “collegiate and collaborative"…
Environment Minister Greg Hunt, famed for his graphic present­ations and multi-pointed arguments, suggested Mr Turnbull take some comments from those around the cabinet table. Mr Turnbull listened to the minister’s first point but closed discussion before he got to points two and three. He did not seek further comments from around the table and called in the outer ministry members. Mr Turnbull then addressed the full ministry and called for any questions. There were none and the meeting ended. 
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The plot

Andrew Bolt September 18 2015 (8:54am)

Phil Coorey on the plotters:
Flying from Adelaide to Canberra early Monday morning aboard the VIP jet, Tony Abbott had no idea it would be his last day as prime minister. 
Neither was he aware he could have been gone already. Sources have confirmed to The Australian Financial Review that the plot to remove Abbott had been ready for several days. Indeed, it was intended to be sprung on Wednesday last week…
But it was only on Tuesday night last week that the group co-ordinating events realised the PM was flying to Papua New Guinea straight after question time Wednesday to attend the Pacific Islands Forum…
The Prime Minister had no idea, and likely wouldn’t have believed it if he had. He had met the night before in Adelaide with Education Minister Christopher Pyne, the most senior Liberal in South Australia… It was widely speculated inside Liberal ranks that Pyne, fearful for his own seat, had long deserted his leader but Abbott left the conversation feeling he had Pyne’s support....
But on that Sunday evening, as Abbott chatted with Pyne, his fate was sealed at a house outside Queanbeyan, across the ACT border in the NSW marginal seat of Eden-Monaro, held by Liberal MP Peter Hendy. Present ... was principal coup strategist James McGrath, who entered the Senate in July last year… He has long been close to Turnbull. When Turnbull was opposition leader, he wanted McGrath to replace Brian Loughnane as Liberal Party federal director.
Also at Hendy’s house were senators Mitch Fifield, who had helped marshall support to enable Abbott to dump Turnbull as leader in 2009, Scott Ryan, and MPs Mal Brough and Wyatt Roy.
SA Senator Simon Birmingham, who was in on the plot, was briefed on the outcome of the dinner when he and Pyne landed in Canberra later on Sunday night.... But the Daily Telegraph reported on Friday that Abbott was under pressure to bring forward a cabinet reshuffle amid speculation of a Turnbull challenge. Despite the most vehement protests from Abbott, many Liberals believed Abbott or his office had dropped the story to the Tele and it caused Abbott damage. 
So who leaked?
Another leak was also damaging. Piers Akerman:
Though much of the party and media criticism of his prime ministership has been focused on the role of his chief-of-staff Peta Credlin, Abbott has steadfastly defended her in private conversations this week insisting that she has been “cruelly wronged"… 
“She did not brief against Arthur Sinodinos,” he has stated categorically, with the clear implication that he believes his deputy Julie Bishop was the only other person aware of any discussions about the advisability of the NSW senator retaining his position when he was called before ICAC.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Trump is serious

Andrew Bolt September 18 2015 (8:20am)

I still think Donald Trump is uninformed, a boor and potentially dangerous. But I can no longer assume he will implode. His fearlessness is speaking his mind - and in confronting the stupid pieties of the media class - are important virtues, and the public is responding strongly:
Trump demands attention:
Wednesday’s prime time GOP debate averaged 22.9 million viewers, making it the most-watched program in CNN’s history… 
These are NFL-level ratings—affirming that the Donald Trump fueled Republican debate slate is one of the most popular television shows of the year.
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No, don’t expect conservatives to simply get over this and cheer Turnbull

Andrew Bolt September 18 2015 (8:16am)

Graham Richardson’s assurance strikes me as too optimistic:
There is real outrage in the membership of the Liberal Party that will not be assuaged quickly. The right-wing commentators are furious and their anger is on display. It is reasonable to suspect, however, that they will all get over it quickly. Within a couple of months they will be back on board with our new PM because he is and will be the bulwark against the great Satan. He will carry the flag in the fight against Bill Shorten and Labor. Turnbull’s critics can get over it and move on or help Shorten. My suspicion is they will opt for the former course.
I would not take that for granted without some effort from Turnbull to ease fears that the Liberals have not been hijacked by the Left, and by a man who, once re-elected, will reshape the party in his own headstrong image. True, many conservatives would rather Turnbull win than Shorten, but they have three other options:
- to not lift a finger to help Turnbull, lacking the passion for the fight.
- to decide that it is actually more important to restore the Liberal party to conservative or moderate control, so that conservatives at least have a voice in the political process.
- to promote alternatives, even new alternatives, in the Senate for conservative and libertarian voters.
And, of course, many pundits will have the usual temptation common to all of the breed to justify their past judgements. Many will want to show they were not wrong to oppose Turnbull or support Abbott. That’s human nature. Don’t underestimate the joy of being able to say “I was right”.
But there is a more important and moral question here that tribalists overlook.
The Australian, missing the point of my argument, actually no more than an observation of the anger obvious to anyone fielding the phones at Liberal headquarters, warns:
It has been suggested that Malcolm Turnbull has more to fear from aggrieved Abbott loyalists than from Labor. The conservative audience for this kind of rabble-rousing should cast their minds back to the never-ending, destructive rivalry of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. 
The Australian, a right-of-centre publication which didn’t spare Abbott from attacks, including some plainly wrong, should be slower to now insist others fall in dutifully and loyally behind Turnbull. Some of us argue for good policy first. Some of us fight for the principle rather than the side. Some of us think that is Turnbull is wrong, it is better to say so rather than shut up for fear of helping Shorten.
This is critical. If some of us had not fought Turnbull as Opposition leader over his foolish support for Kevin Rudd’s form of carbon tax we would have that tax even today. Instead, he fell, Abbott rose and the tax is dead.
No, Turnbull has far more work to do than Richardson suggests. His reshuffle will be critical in healing bruises and easing fears. 
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Corbyn’s clown show just got weirder

Andrew Bolt September 18 2015 (7:25am)

Jeremy Corbyn, the socialist friend of Hamas who now leads Britain’s Labour party, keeps delivering the laughs. He has just picked John McDonnell as his shadow chancellor, the man to run Britain’s economy - probably into the ground. Here’s a taste of McDonnell’s agenda:

During his campaign to be Labour Leader in 2010, Mr McDonnell said he would like to “go back to the 1980s and assassinate Thatcher"… 
At a gathering in London to commemorate the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, Mr McDonnell said IRA terrorists should be “honoured” for taking part in their “armed struggle"…
Mr McDonnell told a crowd at a Brighton auditorium: “They are jokers, these bankers.” Adding that he had been “campaigning for the nationalisation of the banks” for years. Writing in a column in Labour Briefing magazine in 2012 he said: “In the first week of a Labour government, democratic control of the major economic decisions would be restored by ending the Bank of England’s control over interest rates and bringing the nationalised and subsidised banks under direct control to force them to lend and invest their resources to modernise our economy and put people back to work."…
His Who’s Who states his pastime as “generally fermenting the overthrow of capitalism.”In 2012 the left leaning Labour MP proposed a 60 percent income tax on those earning more than £100,000. 
Wow. Where has this bloke lived for the past 50 years? In a museum?
(Via the IPA’s chamber of the remarkables.) 
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Reshuffle warning: submarines are to defend Australia, not Christopher Pyne

Andrew Bolt September 18 2015 (7:14am)

Already a warning sign - that the Turnbull Government would treat our new submarines primarily as a means to create jobs in South Australia and not as a means to better defend Australia with the best and cheapest weapons we can get:
Anger at a looming cabinet reshuffle is building within the government as Malcolm Turnbull considers rewarding key allies who put him in power, with Christopher Pyne telling colleagues he wants the defence portfolio. 
Mr Pyne is positioning to gain control of an $89 billion naval shipbuilding plan with huge implic­ations for his home state of South Australia, making him one of the biggest winners in the overhaul of the ministry.
Yes, Pyne could well make decisions in the national interest rather than his own.
But I am certain Tony Abbott would never mistake submarines for a job creation project. Yes, you might say that’s why he is out of office, but I would say that if we ever needed submarines to defend us you might regret his axing.
UPDATE
Oh, and if you think the idea that we will need submarines in war is just silly war-mongering, then don’t build them at all. They are either for war, in which case they must be the best. Or they are for jobs, in which case scrap the whole idea and build something we really need.
UPDATE
Graham Richardson has a word of advice for Turnbull about another plotter:
Never make the mistake of doing Arthur Sinodinos a favour. Abbott kept a job open for him for 12 months despite the mauling he took at the Independent Commission Against Corruption in NSW. Sinodinos voted for Turnbull — who would do well to consider carefully what ICAC might say about his competence before restoring him to the frontbench.
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Defending Julie Bishop

Andrew Bolt September 18 2015 (6:46am)

Ellen Whinnett puts  the defence of Julie Bishop:
Turnbull had been telling a number of his colleagues the week before that he believed he had the numbers. None of those colleagues had told Abbott. 
Turnbull had told Bishop the same thing, last Friday… The pair spoke on the phone and had what sources have described as an “abstract’’ conversation. Nothing was directly put about a challenge. Bishop simply didn’t believe Turnbull had the numbers. Regardless, she urged him not to do anything that could impact on tomorrow’s Canning by-election, then only eight days away.
Played down in this account is that Turnbull told Bishop on Friday that he had the numbers and, yes, he would challenge Tony Abbott. And Turnbull must have suggested the challenge was very imminent because Bishop pleaded with him not to do it before tomorrow’s Canning by-election.  Yet Bishop did not warn Abbott.
True, it was probably too late by then for Abbott to save himself. True, Abbott’s own miscalculations are the real cause of his vulnerability. And Bishop argues that she simply did not believe Turnbull - that he’d said the same thing before and not just to her. Unspoken is one further point: that Bishop’s first loyalty must be to the party and not to any one person.
Yet I still think she miscalculated, even on this benign interpretation. She should have warned Abbott immediately, as his deputy. It was for him, not her, to decide whether Turnbull’s threat was real.
But what I think isn’t important. It’s what some of her colleagues think of Bishop that is her problem. 
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Turnbull lifts Coalition to slim lead

Andrew Bolt September 18 2015 (6:30am)


This is the minimum acceptable result for the knifing of Tony Abbott, and note that it comes before Malcolm Turnbull has had to make a single tough decision:
The Coalition under the leadership of Mr Turnbull now leads Labor on a two-party preferred basis of 51-49… However, the poll also showed a high number of people who have parked their vote and reserved judgment on Mr Turnbull, with 29 per cent refusing to commit to endorsing either.
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The real threat that dare not speak its name

Piers Akerman – Thursday, September 18, 2014 (6:26pm)

THE massive anti-terrorism raids conducted across Sydney and Brisbane were the latest wake-up call Australia has received to the very real threat within our border.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The real threat that dare not speak its name'
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WORLD’S LAMEST TATTOO

Tim Blair – Thursday, September 18, 2014 (4:11pm)

Someone actually paid for this:
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PLOT FOILED

Tim Blair – Thursday, September 18, 2014 (12:27pm)

Massive anti-terrorism operations in NSW and Queensland: 
7News reporter Robert Ovadia has received information about an alleged plot to kidnap a random person from the streets of Martin Place in Sydney’s CBD, execute them by beheading …
AFP swooped in pre-dawn raids to disrupt plans to commit a violent attack on Australian soil.
They executed 25 search warrants in Sydney, arresting 15 people, one of which has been charged with serious terror offences. 
Click for video. Around 500 officers were involved in the raids: 
Hundreds of ASIO and heavily armed police officers swooped in anti-terrorism raids to prevent a mass casualty shooting in Sydney and possible beheadings.
Police backed up by armoured cars arrested dozens of people in a dozen separate pre-dawn operations across NSW and Brisbane.
The combined effort amounted to the largest anti-terrorism operation in Australian history – and senior officers revealed the attack by a suspected terrorist cell was imminent. 
Further to come following court appearances later today.
UPDATE: 
One of the men arrested in Thursday morning’s anti-terrorism raids in Sydney has appeared in court on a charge of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act ...
Prosecutors allege he was part of a plan to commit an act to “shock, horrify and terrify” the community. 
Mr Abbott was briefed on the police raid on Wednesday night, which included intelligence that public beheadings were planned. “The exhortations, quite direct exhortations, were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country,” he told reporters.
“So this is not just suspicion, this is intent and that’s why the police and security agencies decided to act in the way they have.” 
The raids follow investigation of a Lakemba-based company over $9 million in possible Islamic State funding.
UPDATE III. A press release from Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesidiot Uthman Badar: 
As late as last week both the Prime Minister and outgoing ASIO boss David Irvine confirmed that there was no intelligence of any plans to carry out attacks in Australia. A few days later and we wake up to heavy-handed raids and talk of a “terrorist network” planning attacks.
The timing of these raids is suspect indeed. With the ‘anti-terror’ laws, which hit a wall in the community, to be tabled to Parliament next week and with ‘military intervention’ imminent in Iraq, these raids are very timely for the Government and its propaganda campaign for the same. 
Radical Islamic preacher and self-styled Sheikh Mohammed Junaid Thorne has asked Allah to “destroy those who plot against us” and issued a message to supporters declaring this morning’s raids as an attack on “Islam and Muslims”.
The 25-year-old preacher, who has been conducting spiritual healing sessions and gave the final sermon at the controversial Al-Risalah Islamic Centre, said the terror raids were “more than what a sane person can bare”. 
Sane people would use the word “bear”. Tonight might see some action down Lakemba way: 
A Facebook page has been launched today calling on Muslims to attend a “snap protest” at Lakemba station tonight.
The page has invited 1500 people to attend to “stand as one tonight” to “denounce this demonisation and oppression of Muslims”. 
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Police brutality! The ABC angle on the terror raids

Andrew Bolt September 18 2014 (1:15pm)

Just the thing to feed the toxic “we’re picked on mentality” of our local extremists:
Not that Hizb ut Tahrir needs the slightest encouragement to stoke a dangerous paranoia:
(Thanks to reader Richard.) 
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Huge anti-terrorism raids

Andrew Bolt September 18 2014 (1:03pm)


A tiny, unrepresentative minority seems to require an awful lot of policing:
ASIO and counter terrorism police have swooped on homes across north-western Sydney and other states this morning in what is believed to be the largest anti-terrorism bust in the nation’s history. 
Several arrests have been made in the secret pre-dawn raid, which is still in progress and one suspect has been taken into Australian Federal Police custody.
The AFP says a suspected terrorist cell was “close to an attack.”
The arrests follow the execution of a number of search warrants in Beecroft, Bellavista, Guildford, Merrylands, Northmead, Wentworthville, Marsfield, Westmead, Castle Hill, Revesby, Bass Hill and Regents Park.
The Australian Federal Police can also confirm it is conducting search warrants in Brisbane… This morning’s raids is believed to have been mounted following months of surveillance of people linked to the terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Our immigration intake surely needs adjusting.  This is not how we want to live.
UPDATE
Bill Leak has had it with cant and sanctimony:
UPDATE
Immigration has been so badly handled that we’ve imported foreign conflicts:
A Christian school in Sydney’s west has reported death threats aimed at Christians this week. 
The principal of the Maronite College of the Holy Family in Harris Park told police that men made the threats from a car outside the school about 2pm on Tuesday.
Sister Margaret Ghosn said the threats were general and then directed towards a staff member of the school.
“They said, ‘We are going to kill all of you here,’ “ Sister Margaret said.  “They were threatening to kill all Christians."… Witnesses told police a small triangular flag was placed out the window with Arabic words similar to “there is only one god and Muhammad is the prophet”.  
UPDATE
Remember this, just three weeks ago?
A Labor senator has accused Prime Minister Tony Abbott of “scaremongering” over national security… 
Asked whether she was trying to politicise the national security debate, Senator [Sue] Lines said, “I’m not politicising security; the Abbott government is doing that by its constant scaremongering”.
Ms Lines said she believed the director-general of ASIO David Irvine had outlined only a “mild threat” ... 
UPDATE
The alleged plot - to film an Australian being beheaded:
A SERIES of anti-terrorism raids were sparked by intelligence reports that Islamic State supporters were planning a public execution in Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott says… 
“The exhortations, quite direct exhortations, were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country,” the Prime Minister told reporters.
“So this is not just suspicion, this is intent and that’s why the police and security agencies decided to act in the way they have.” NSW Police will allege that some of the Sydney men arrested in the operation had communicated with the Islamic State organisation while developing their alleged plan to seize a random member of the public and behead them live on camera.
UPDATE
The details:
ONE of the Sydney men accused of planning to seize a member of the public to behead live on camera was motivated by “an unusual level of fanaticism”, a Sydney court has heard.
Court documents show Omarjan Azari, 22, is charged with conspiring with Mohammed Baryalei, understood to be the most senior Australian in the terrorist group Islamic State.
Mr Azari “did between 8 May and 18 September 2014 conspire with Mohammed Baryalei and others to do acts in preparation for, or planning, a terrorist act (or acts),” the documents allege.
If convicted, Mr Azari could face a life sentence.
He was among 15 people arrested this morning during the largest anti-terrorism operation in Australia’s history, has appeared in court, where Commonwealth prosecutor Michael Allnutt said he should be refused bail. “There is access to cash, there is a background of people of similar views being able to leave the country and ... there is perhaps an unusual level of fanaticism in this particular matter, which will make a person less likely to take notice of a court’s order,” Mr Allnutt said.
About Baryalai:
He was a close associate of one al-Qa’ida’s top operatives in Syria, former Sydney preacher Abu Sulyaman. 
Mr Baryalei, who the ABC named last night as a former Kings Cross bouncer, travelled to Syria in 2013.
The Australian understands Mr Baryalei was initially aligned with Jabhat al Nusra, a terror group banned in Australia but officially recognised by al-Qa’ida as its affiliate in Syria.
And after all Australia did for him and for other Muslims now wanting to attack us:
Baryalei is from an aristocratic family from Afghanistan who came to Australia as refugees when he was a child.
(Thanks to readers Alan RM Jones, wingnut, Ian and Wayne.) 
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Labor vs Liberal: the tale of the boats. UPDATE: Labor admits

Andrew Bolt September 18 2014 (11:49am)

How to measure competence:
The success of [Operation Sovereign Borders], which began last December, has meant just one boat made it into Australian waters in the first eight months of this year, compared with the 268 boats to have arrived during the same period last year under the previous Labor government…
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison ... confirmed 12 boats had attempted to enter Australian waters between December 19 last year and May this year. Only one had been successful… Since the turnbacks began in December, ... no asylum seekers had died at sea, compared with more than 1100 who died at sea between 2008 and 2013. 
UPDATE
For the first time I can recall, Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles publicly concedes:
The policy of turnbacks obviously has had an effect.
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What Islamic State “genocide”, asks apologist Waleed Aly. What’s the problem? Why fight?

Andrew Bolt September 18 2014 (10:06am)

Islamism

I have long considered Waleed Aly, the former spokesman of the Islamic Council of Victoria, to be our most prominent apologist for Muslim extremism. He does not openly support jihadism, of course, but does attack its critics and rationalise or wilfully overlook some of its excesses. He opposes Western attempts to fight back in the Middle East.
It disturbs me that the ABC has given him a platform to continue such advocacy, and that ABC presenters vilify those of us who attempt to hold him to account.
Yesterday, though, Aly went so far that even Labor’s Tanya Plibersek had to protest:
WALEED ALY, PRESENTER: Joining us now is Tanya Plibersek, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs… 
[L]et’s start with Iraq. I’ve spoken with you before about this concept of mission creep and I think last time we spoke it was a narrow mission that we were contemplating to prevent genocide. Now it seems to have evolved into something much more than that. Are these the limits or will this continue to evolve?
PLIBERSEK: Well I think Australia needs to be very clear that our objective is the humanitarian objective that includes helping the democratically elected Government of Iraq to fight off the threat that is IS… I don’t see a role for Australia beyond that immediate support for humanitarian intervention which prevents genocide.
ALY: But there is no genocide happening right now, we don’t need to prevent genocide by supporting the Iraqi military to re-establish control of Iraq do we?
PLIBERSEK: Well there are thousands of people who have lost their lives. There’s 1.8 million people who have been displaced in Iraq from their homes. I’m not really sure that you could down play the seriousness of what’s going on there.
ALY: But can we call it a genocide? As I understand it there was the threat of genocide but then there were Iraqi airstrikes and there was the arming of particularly Kurdish forces and then there was that famous altercation where ISIS lost control of the dam and so on and so the genocidal threat seems to have abated. If that was our aim shouldn’t we have drawn a line under that? 
PLIBERSEK: So now we’re only talking about mass atrocity crimes and we shouldn’t worry, is that the proposition you’re making?
ALY: No this is the question I suppose I’m asking about the strictness of the definition. If it’s about preventing genocide from happening that seems to have been achieved is it now about something more than that?
PLIBERSEK: Well I’m not sure you can fairly say that we have prevented the mass atrocity crimes that IS is determined to commit in Iraq as they have committed them in Syria. You’ve got thousands of people who have lost their lives, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has sent investigative forces to northern Iraq so they can collect information about these mass atrocity crimes in an effort to hold people to account in the future. IS is determined to kill people who are of a different religion or ethnicity to them. If they’ve been limited in their success by the Iraqi forces, including the Peshmerga forces we spoke of last time, fighting back successfully in part because of the assistance of Australia and other countries that’s a good thing but I’m not sure that that would lead us to be complacent and to say we are completely free of the threat of genocide now.
ALY: ...What seems to underlie all of this is that ISIS represents a serious threat to Australia. Can you give us an indication of precisely the scope of that threat and the mechanism, can you describe it precise terms? Because it’snot immediately clear when you consider this is a movement on the other side of the world that seems to be importing people rather than exporting them.
PLIBERSEK: Well obviously I can’t talk in detail about the content of security briefings that we receive but you only need to open the newspapers to know that there are Australians fighting with IS and the risk, aside from the people they’re fighting in Iraq and Syria, is that when they come home they would use some of the particularly nasty skills that they’ve developed overseas against Australians on home soil....
ALY: Is it really a choice though between military involvement and turning our backs? Is that really a fair binary?
PLIBERSEK: Well I’m not sure whether you’re suggesting that people should have a good hard talking to IS and maybe they won’t kill people…
ALY:  It’s a difficult question for us to think about but I think we have to given how military intervention has gone for us in the past and that is by doing this we are almost certainly going to be killing civilians, is there a point at which the loss of civilian lives that we inflict directly means that the missionis not worth it. So is there a number that you might be able to identify or ball park so that we can say ‘this is when it’s gone wrong’?
PLIBERSEK: ... We’re not talking about sending platoons of soldiers off to fight on the ground in Iraq so it is a different scenario again to 2003.
ALY: But we are contributing to airstrikes which will kill people including civilians.
PLIBERSEK: And it is very important that we get the targeting as right as possible and that’s why our soldiers, very specialised soldiers, are involved as they are. But civilians –
ALY: Do you think our history is great though? 

PLIBERSEK: Well I think that civilian deaths are never acceptable but right now we have thousands of civilians being killed by IS because of their race or their religion or because they’re the same religion and they don’t agree with IS tactics. We’ve got women and children being sold into slavery, we’ve got forced conversions, we’ve got particularly brutal ways of killing people including aid workers who of course only ever enter conflict zones to help the people who are affected by these terrible conflicts. So yes civilian deaths have to be in the calculations of any military action and are a terrible burden in the decision making during a military action, I mean a moral and ethical burden to think through as you’ve identified. But we are right now preventing the loss of life.  
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Nova Peris might try her reconciliation skills on the people around her

Andrew Bolt September 18 2014 (9:07am)

I cannot stand people who play the “do you know who I am” game:
SENATOR Nova Peris will be investigated for allegedly abusing volunteer officials at a School Sports NT event… 
A formal complaint has been filed with SSNT and the Department of Education over Ms Peris’ behaviour at the NT Athletics Carnival held in Marrara on September 7, alleging she broke parent codes of conduct.
It is alleged the former Olympian failed to register her son on time for a track event and proceeded to abuse volunteer officials who told her it was too late.
Then her son was put in a lane that did not agree with Ms Peris.
“That’s when things apparently got a bit out of control,” said a source with knowledge of the incident.
It is alleged Ms Peris told officials that she was an Olympian and knew “how athletic events work”. She and her husband Scott Appleton then allegedly complained openly and made disparaging comments to volunteer officials at the event. The source, who wished to remain anonymous, said the incident had become “a very sensitive issue” because of Ms Peris’ political and athletic clout.
Peris offers one of those fake “if I have offended anyone” apologies that I can’t stand, either:
“Like any parent I want the best for my children when they compete, and of course, I’m a passionate mother,” she said. “I’m both shocked and surprised to hear that my comments may have caused offence. However, if any offence was caused, I apologise.”
May I suggest Peris show her reconciliation credentials in her personal relations:
She is a staunch campaigner for indigenous rights and reconciliation in Australia.
(Thanks to reader CA.) 
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Say no to this racism. No to a race-based Parliament

Andrew Bolt September 18 2014 (8:22am)

Here’s how to guarantee the referendum will fail:
CAPE York leader Noel Pearson and conservative academic Greg Craven have presented Tony Abbott with a joint proposal for constitutional change that includes a new section to establish an indigenous body that would scrutinise legislation and advise parliament but would not have veto power… 
It would be created by a new section of the Constitution, which Mr Pearson and Professor Craven argue would establish its importance as a part of the ­nation’s democracy… Details of how the membership would be made up are not set, but it is understood the body could be partly appointed and partly elected.
A permanent Aboriginal-only body to sit in judgment of Parliament? A permanent division by race?
Seriously?
And there’s more:
Mr Pearson is understood to back a push for a debate on dedicated Senate seats for indigenous Australians or remote indigenous regions...
This is based on the fallacy that Aborigines do not already have political institutions to represent them:
“I support indigenous Australians contributing to the democratic process through some constitutional procedure,” he said.
Pearson seems not to understand or accept that Aborigines already have exactly the same constitutional right enjoyed by every Australian to contribute to our democracy. They can vote for their representatives in Parliament. So what Pearson wants is some further right for members of just one “race”.
I cannot understand how two bright men cannot see how preposterous it is to demand we scrap race-based clauses of the constitution, only to demand the very same thing be then inserted - and with even more emphasis:
The proposal also backs the removal of provisions such as section 25 of the Constitution, allowing the electoral disqualification of designated races, and section 51 (26), permitting laws to be made for members of a particular race. 
It says that the removal of the race power would necessitate its replacement by another authorising piece of legislation for indigenous people, but this would be worded to recognise them as a constituent component of Australia’s fundamental culture, not as a race.
This is just a rhetorical sleight. To arbitrarily redefine Aborigines as not a race but “a constituent component of Australia’s fundamental culture” does not change a thing. Membership of this “constituent component” will still be determined fundamentally by ancestry rather than culture. Go back to that last sentence I quoted. Define “them”.
Then explain to me how some of “them” - a Jacqui Lambie, perhaps, or an Adam Goodes - are so different to the rest of us that they must have different constitutional status as voters, with enhanced powers to influence the passing of the laws that bind us all.
Explain the practical good this will do. Explain how this division actually unites.
Say no to racism. Say no to racial division. Say no to these changes to the constitution. 
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 It is time Bill Shorten led

Andrew Bolt September 18 2014 (7:58am)

Politics - federal


LABOR leader Bill Shorten still looks healthy from the outside. Isn’t his party ahead in the polls?

But look closer and the rot is starting to peek through. In fact, Shorten seems the leader who cannot lead. He does not seem to know where to take his troops and now isn’t sure they’d follow him anyway.
Already four MPs, including two frontbenchers, are making him look weak by criticising what he’s actually backing — the Abbott Government’s war on the Islamic State.
Shorten swore this intervention would be beyond politics, but then Kim Carr, Alannah MacTiernan, Melissa Parke and Sue Lines made a liar of him, accusing the Government of playing at soldiers for the votes.
How could they do this to their leader? Thanks to them, Shorten on Tuesday had to bat away journalists’ questions about Labor disunity.
This dissension showed Shorten lacks authority — just when he must assert himself so voters can finally see what he stands for. Other than Bill.
See, all his life Shorten wanted to become prime minister, but never figured why Australians should want him to succeed. What would he do for us?
(Read full article here.)    
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ABC flogging the warming scare again and again

Andrew Bolt September 18 2014 (7:47am)

Global warming - propaganda

I DIDN’T even finish my arts degree, but I still say that the Chief Scientist and two Nobel prize winners should pull their heads in.
If you think arguments on global warming are best settled by credentials, then don’t read another word. I’m an idiot.
But if you believe arguments are settled with facts, then wonder what the ABC is up to.
On Monday its Q&A, hosted by warmist Tony Jones, presented five scientists who all believed in the warming scare too.
(Read full article here.) 
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The ABC must be slashed if Fiona Stanley insists it’s not biased

Andrew Bolt September 18 2014 (7:03am)

The truth hurts ABC board member Fiona Stanley:
If you only read The Australian, or listen to the views of some politicians, you would think that the ABC is struggling to provide fair coverage of events, is biased in its politics and its science, and that it is wasting tax-payers’ dollars. Have you noticed that journalists critical of the ABC have started to call it “the taxpayer-funded ABC”? 
It isn’t taxpayer-funded?
As for bias, it is usually manifest by a predisposition to believe what suits rather than what is.
Here is an example from Stanley’s own article:
Critics allege the ABC is biased in relation to climate change. I give one recent example: on 11 August, The Australian reported that media analysis of the ABC’s coverage of coal and coal seam gas mining suggested that these industries had a negative environmental impact and that investing in renewables should be prioritised. The Australian’s response was to assume bias and demand, the ABC be privatised.
The Australian corrects Stanley’s bias:
The August 11 article was based on an analysis of ABC ­reporting by the Institute of ­Public Affairs. On August 12, The Australian published an opinion by the institute communications director, James Paterson, calling for the ABC to be privatised. 
The Australian also published an editorial that day criticising ABC coverage of coal and renewable energy issues. Neither the news story nor The Australian’s editorial contained reference to privatisation of the ABC.
Stanley’s denial of the ABC’s global warming bias is risible and self-important:
Why is the ABC so important for Australian democracy?  Society faces a number of what are called “wicked problems” - complex in their causation, having major impacts on people and nations, costly and difficult to manage, and demanding whole of government responses. These problems include climate change… What we need is the best science to guide us… The requirement for ‘balance’ does not mean that bad science should be reported with the same emphasis as good science. 
Surely, though, it is the ABC which is guilty of reporting “bad science” in promoting its warming alarmism. For instance, the ABC’s science presenters have falsely claimed we faced sea level rises this century of up to 100 metres and there has been no pause in atmospheric warming over the past 15 years. They have  misrepresented statistics. Just this week the ABC reported that Kiribati was drowning when measurements in fact show it growing. Others have wildly exaggerated damage to the Great Barrier Reef, falsely claimed bushfires in October were “unprecedented” and evidence of warming, and accepted without question Tim Flannery’s 2007 prediction that ”even the rains that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems”.  Its staff lobbied against showing the one sceptical documentary the ABC has run in the past decade, and bookended it with health warnings. It has excluded sceptical scientists from debates, as we saw yet against on Q&A just this week.
Even as I write, the ABC is promoting its latest Boyer Lecture - alarmist Professor Suzanne Cory, a molecular biologist and not climate scientist, declaring that global warming threatens us with mass species extinction and ”humankind is fouling the nest”.

Stanley is as wrong as she is smug. The ABC has not promoted good science but bad, and smothered debates it should have promoted.
This rank advocacy and peddling of dud predictions and scares would not matter quite so much if it wasn’t for another problem which I have criticised and which Stanley actually cites in self-praise. The fact is that the ABC is just far too big - easily the biggest media organisation in Australia.
Here’s Stanley herself:
Last financial year, with $825.7 million, the ABC had 4,679 staff with four major digital TV channels (ABC1, ABC2/ABC4Kids, ABC3 and ABC News 24) and an incredibly successful online catch-up service.  The average audience reach varies from nearly 10 million for ABC1 to just over 3 million for ABC3, with an astonishing 20 million plays a month for iView.  There are 60 local radio sites, nationwide RN, Triple J and Classic FM, plus ABC podcasts downloaded 71 million times.  ABC online has 19.5 million visits per month and there are now over 25 smart phone and tablet apps. 
An organisation so huge, so biased, so vituperative to it critics and so dependent on state funding is dangerous in a democracy.
There are two solutions to this problem. One is to address the ABC’s bias - manifest by the fact that not one of the presenters of its main current affairs shows is a conservative - and make it more pluralist. But Stanley, a board member, has demonstrated there is no chance of that.
The other solution is to slash the ABC to a healthier size. Stanley’s denialism shows the Government has no option. 
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Clive Palmer loses again

Andrew Bolt September 18 2014 (12:53am)

Clive Palmer loses yet another of the court battles he once claimed he always won:
A COURT has dismissed Clive Palmer’s challenge to a Queensland government decision to reject his company’s rail line proposal. 
Mr Palmer’s Waratah Coal applied in the Supreme Court of Queensland for a review of an October 2013 decision to reject its bid to build a rail line from the Galilee Basin to the Abbot Point coal terminal near Bowen.
The project was awarded to a partnership between Indian mining giant GVK and Ms Rinehart’s Hancock Coal.
A trial took place in June 2014, where counsel for Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney and the Co-ordinator-General of the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning were called upon to defend the decision.
Justice Martin Daubney today dismissed the application and ordered the coal magnate turned MP and Palmer United Party boss pay the legal costs of Mr Seeney and the Co-ordinator-General. 
Reader the Village Idiot (Reformed):
By my reckoning, Palmer has lost 80% of his court cases in the last year. 
Palmer sought judicial review over the Queensland government’s decision not to approve his rail line from the Galilee Basin to the port of Point Abbot, some 450 kilometres of track. One fact in the judgement that shocked me was that the Queensland government would be forced to resume and pay for the land affected by that resumption. Billionaire Clive Palmer would get the land for free.
The taxpayer would be subsidising his mining interest (Waratah Coal Pty Ltd) long before the government received a cent in mining royalties. This paragraph from the judgement sums up Clive’s actions: 
[12] The rail line within the corridor proposed in Waratah’s application would traverse land held by some 46 individual landholders, comprising five freehold lots and 41 leasehold parcels, and would be more than 450 kilometres long. It is uncontentious that Waratah’s purpose in making the application was to enliven the power of the Co-ordinator General under s 125 of the Act to compulsorily acquire land to enable the rail line to be built.
So Clive is willing to cut farmers’ properties in half so that he can sell his coal to the “mongrels”. What a man, what a caring representative of the people !!!!! 
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Pravda on the Yarra indeed

Andrew Bolt September 18 2014 (12:48am)

How pathetic.
The Age won’t publish material from wicked warming “deniers” but today published 16 pages of material from the Russian daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta, partly subsidised by the Russian Government and its mates. What The Age fails to declare is that the paper is actually a government one, founded by an act of parliament.

The supplement, not surprisingly, reads as propaganda, with just a couple of articles mildly critical of President Putin for “balance”.
Here is a sample of the headlines, at a time when the Putin regime is invading Ukraine and posing as a corrective to US hegemony:
“We want peace in Ukraine” 
Hundreds of temporary camps have been set up in Russia to provide accommodation for the large number of people who have fled Ukraine
“Everything changed when the bombs landed in our quarter”
Sanctions not the cause of economic slowdown
Countries affected by the embargo
When empires were allies. The forgotten stories of WW1’s “Russian Anzacs”
McDonald’s under scrutiny
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Sunset by the Carrillion
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Writings by Khaled Abu Toameh
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The sources said that the Qataris offered hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Jordan in return for allowing Hamas to open offices in the kingdom. By rejecting these requests, King Abdullah has shown that he has no intention to serve as a lifesaver for failed Islamists who are facing growing opposition from their own people in the Gaza Strip.
Jordan's King Abdullah has turned down a request from Hamas to re-open its offices in his country, according to informed sources in Amman.
The sources said that Qatar, one of the few Arab countries that continue to support Hamas, recently asked King Abdullah to allow Hamas to resume its activities in the kingdom.
The Jordanians banned Hamas in 1999 and stripped some of the Islamist movement's leaders, including Khaled Mashal, of their Jordanian citizenship.
Last year, however, relations between Jordan and Hamas seemed to be warming up as Mashal was permitted to visit Amman and hold talks with King Abdullah.
Hamas's hope that Mashal's visit would pave the way for the movement to return to Jordan have now been dashed as the monarch refused to allow the movement and its leaders to resume their activities there.
The sources said that the Qataris offered hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Jordan in return for allowing Hamas to open offices in the kingdom.
"King Abdullah turned down the Qatari offer," the sources said. "Jordan's policy toward Hamas remains unchanged."
The short-lived rapprochement between Hamas and Jordan was apparently linked to the king's fear of the Arab Spring, which saw the rise of Islamists in a number of Arab countries and emboldened the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.
By inviting Mashal and other Hamas leaders to Jordan last year, King Abdullah was seeking to appease the Muslim Brotherhood, whose supporters were behind a wave of protests demanding reform and an end to corruption in the kingdom.
The downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt and growing disillusionment with Islamists throughout the Arab world have given King Abdullah enough confidence to turn his back, once again, on Hamas and their allies in the kingdom.
The removal of President Mohamed Morsi from power has weakened and divided Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood. While some of the organization's leaders have called for reassessing their strategy in the wake of the failure of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, others have come out against King Abdullah for supporting the anti-Morsi "military coup."
The divisions inside Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood are seen as good news for King Abdullah and bad news for Hamas.
Muslim Brotherhood supporters are no longer staging weekly demonstrations throughout the kingdom to demand "reforms and democracy." The Arab Spring had triggered a series of rallies and marches that were organized by the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, prompting many political analysts to predict that that the countdown for regime change in Amman had begun.
At one point, King Abdullah expressed his concern over the Islamists' intentions when, in an interview with theAtlantic magazine, he described the Muslim Brotherhood as "wolves in sheep's clothing" and a "Masonic cult always loyal to their leader."
Hamas, meanwhile, appears to have lost not only their patrons in Egypt, but also their political allies in Jordan. Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip say they are fully aware of the "problems" facing the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan. "We can't rely on their support because they have been affected negatively by the Egyptian crisis," admitted a Hamas representative.
Hamas once had hopes that the Jordanian monarch would be foolish enough to allow the "wolves in sheep's clothing" to set foot in his country.
By rejecting requests to allow Hamas to return to Jordan, King Abdullah has shown that he has no intention to serve as lifesaver for failed Islamists who are facing growing opposition from their own people in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas is in big trouble and there is no reason why the Jordanians should come to the rescue. The downfall of Hamas will in fact serve the interest of the king and many Jordanians, as it will undoubtedly further undermine the Muslim Brotherhood in the kingdom.

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Recently UN Secretary General admitted to a group of Israeli students that Israel faces bias and discrimination at the United Nations.

Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-faces-bias-at-un-ban-says/

LIKE and SHARE to spread the TRUTH about the UN.

(Note: media reports claimed that Moon retracted this comment, but UN official Robert Serry later denied this and reaffirmed the statement -http://news.yahoo.com/ajc-welcomes-un-clarification-secretary-generals-remarks-182100051.html)
The UN has sponsored terrorism as part of its advocacy for Palestine. UN chief's admission means nothing if he doesn't correct it. - ed
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“Killing these cancer stem cells is the holy grail of cancer treatments and therefore holds promise for complete eradication of cancer,” says Dr. Sarit Larisch of the University of Haifa.
These are not words pronounced lightly; instead, they follow more than a decade of research that could give hope to cancer patients worldwide. Along with her colleagues, Larisch has established the basis for developing a new, more effective treatment for cancer using a protein called ARTS.
ARTS is a protein, which along with a number of other proteins and enzymes, regulates what is known as apoptosis. Apoptosis is the process of programmed cell death which occurs when a cell is damaged, mutated or no longer functional. ARTS acts as a trigger for cell death, its presence allowing for enzymes called caspases to destroy the non-functional cell.
But this process is missing in cancer cells.
Destroying cancer cells using the natural process of self-destruction
Larisch’s research shows that unlike normal cells, cancer cells have an absence of the ARTS protein. “Without the ARTS protein, cells can’t be triggered to self-destruct. As a result cancer cells can survive and develop into a tumor,” she tells NoCamels.
“We have found that ARTS is lost in many types of cancers. Therefore, determining levels of ARTS in blood could provide a marker to alert to the possibility of developing certain types of cancers.” Consequently, Dr. Larisch believes that small molecules that mimic ARTS could restore the ability of cancer cells to be killed selectively using the natural process of apoptosis.

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The unusually high incidence of school shootings and other mass murders across the United States has led to misguided speculation that what the psychiatrists label as mental illness has been a primary cause of this problem. However, a careful investigation of this matter reveals that paradoxically it has been the psychiatrists themselves, with their highly toxic arsenal of drugs, used in association with their myriad of subjective mythical diagnoses, which has been largely responsible for these tragic killings. Rebecca Terrell has reported on March 6, 2013, for The New American, Psychiatric Meds: Prescription for Murder?
In a frenzied call for gun-control, the media has come forward with details about the firearms Adam Lanza used to kill 20 children and six adults before turning a handgun on himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012. However, information about Lanza’s medical history has been scarce, which has fed speculation that he may fit the profile of school shooters under the influence of psychotherapeutic medication. Lawrence Hunter, of the Social Security Institute, has said, “In virtually every mass school shooting during the past 15 years, the shooter has been on or in withdrawal from psychiatric drugs. Yet, federal and state governments continue to ignore the connection between psychiatric drugs and murderous violence, preferring instead to exploit these tragedies in an oppressive and unconstitutional power grab to snatch guns away from innocent, law-abiding people who are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution the right to own and bear arms to deter government tyranny and to use firearms in self defense against any miscreant who would do them harm.”
Furthermore, according to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHRI), in spite of such evidence and many scientific studies proving real dangers from the psychiatric drugs, “there has yet to be a federal investigation on the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of senseless violence.” The CCHRI has said that government officials have been well aware of the connection. The CCHRI has stated, “Between 2004 and 2011, there have been over 11,000 reports to the U.S. FDA’s MedWatch system of psychiatric drug side effects related to violence, including 300 homicides. The FDA estimates this total is less than 10 percent of the actual number of incidents since most go unreported."
It has also been reported that the advent of these drugs has coincided disturbingly with a rise in the adolescent suicide rate.In fact, prior to the advent of antidepressants, there was little relation seen between depression and violent behavior. And yet, instead of investigating psychiatric drugs’ connection to acts of horrible mass violence, public policymakers and psychiatrists along with other healthcare professionals have actually been promoting the use of psychotropic drugs by children and adolescents.
This has all created a tragic set of circumstances in the United States with decent people who are actually often peace activists, when in control of their own minds, being ruined and turned into suicidal and homicidal maniacs by the very psychiatrists who claim they are experts in mental health care. Such an outcome is not serving the best interests of individuals or of society, as the psychiatrists nevertheless continue to grow wealthier and more powerful. And now we can anticipate more victims of the quackery of psychiatry as new legislation is likely to take guns out of the hands of decent citizens who may have no self-defense from murderers, as we watch distortions of the facts regarding mental illness begin to deprive them of their constitutional right to bear arms.
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By MARK RANZENBERGER, For The Voice
The shooting in Connecticut that killed at least 27 people is among the worst school massacres in history, but the very worst one took place 85 years ago in a small Michigan town.

“This is so much like Bath,” said author Arnie Bernstein, who wrote the 2009 book “Bath Massacre: America’s First School Bombing” that chronicled the events of May 18, 1927.

A disgruntled farmer who blamed the school for his money troubles blew up the school in Bath, Mich., a small town northeast of the state capital of Lansing. That day, 38 children and six adults died.

“It’s inexplicable,” Bernstein said. “There’s no explanation. Something in the makeup of these people makes them do it.”

The farmer’s name was Andrew Kehoe, and he died, as well, when he blew up his own car.

In rural American in the 1920s, it was easy to come up with explosives. Small-town hardware stores sold dynamite and other explosives to farmers to remove stumps from fields.

It was a time when one-room school districts were consolidating into larger, town schools. The 55-year-old Kehoe was enraged about a tax the community levied on itself to build the new Bath Consolidated School. His farm had gone into foreclosure, and he blamed the school.

He had access to the school – he was a board member, the treasurer, in fact. He also was the school’s caretaker. Kehoe secretly placed hundreds of pounds of explosives under the school, apparently doing it over a period of months.

Historical sources say that on that Wednesday morning, Kehoe beat his wife to death and set his farm on fire. While firefighters were there, an explosion rocked the school.

Kehoe then appeared at the school. As people ran up to his car, he detonated explosives inside it, making it a 1920s version of a suicide car bomb. The shrapnel-filled car bomb killed the school superintendent and others. Continued...
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Emma Watson
"As a person, I have a belief system which is that everything happens for a reason."
Think about that as I drink your beer - ed
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Phillip Jensen.

Because of music’s powerful effect on self-awareness it can easily confuse a person into thinking that it is more than “organised noise”.
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Garry Kasparov, former World Chess Champion and Chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, sat down Monday with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss President Barack Obama’s infamous “red line” remarks regarding the Syrian civil war.
Kasparov believes the president failed by not following through on his claim that the use of Chemical weapons in Syria would cross a “red line.” He believes the president’s use of the term required him to act after the supposed line was crossed.
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A South Carolina high school, and possibly many others, are reportedly using a different history textbook that also contains a highly questionable interpretation of the Second Amendment.
Additionally, the publisher of a separate controversial advanced placement history textbook, which acts as a study guide for the advanced placement U.S. history exam and seems to diminish the Second Amendment, is directly linked to Common Core standards, TheBlaze has learned.
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Senator Sue Boyce found it "shocking'' and ''embarrassing''. Former Senator Judith Troeth said it was a"bad signal''. It was proof of the glass ceiling still exists said Ita Buttrose. They were all complaining that there was only one woman in the new Federal Cabinet. There were no complaints about the number of gay ministers, aboriginal ministers, transgender ministers - we hope that there will be no proposals for quotas for them.\

No doubt in the suburbs and towns in Australia, the real hope was that this would be a government which would function properly, be competent, not waste taxpayers money and keep out of the way in those matters which have nothing to do with the government. Surely appointments should be made on merit and not on the basis of some quota.

Tony Abbott had built up a team in of shadow ministers who proved their abilities in opposition. Clearly he was wise to form the cabinets and Ministry on this basis and having regard to those who retained their seats.

As Senator Vanstone suggested, the large number of women in the Rudd and Gillard governments could give you no confidence in a quota. Certainly Margaret Thatcher and Benjamin Disraeli did not need quotas to take the leadership of the British Conservative party
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Cory Bernardi
The new government becomes official today after the swearing in ceremony. They will then get straight down to the business of repealing the carbon tax, abolishing the clean energy finance corporation and protecting our borders.

It's a great day for Australia.

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Some San Diego State University students studying the Arabic language were dismayed when they were handed a map by their professor at the beginning of the semester which labeled the State of Israel as “Palestine.”
The pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs tells TheBlaze that the professor, Ghassan Zakaria, distributed the map on the second day his Arabic 101 class met. Students worried that if they complained about the map they could be labeled as “troublemakers” and that their grades could be impacted, StandWithUs said, adding students turned to the organization fo help. The group urged its members to contact the university to complain.
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Glenn Beck: "He’s taking guns away from the people while giving guns to Al-Qaeda. What else do you need for impeachment?"
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Sarah Palin
In honor of Constitution Day, I'm rereading the great document, and I encourage everyone to do the same and to visit the National Archives to view our founding documents as I did in this photo.
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Fred Nile - Official Christian Democratic Party'

MEDIA RELEASE: Other Christian parties’ preferences prevented a Christian Values senator for NSW

The Christian Democrats performed very well in last Saturday’s election, being the largest Christian values party in the state, and maintaining our vote despite the arrival of new political parties, 
Palmer United Party and Katter Australia Party. 

The Christian Democratic Party did not receive the expected preferences from the smaller Christian values parties, when their votes had expired.

If we had, Robyn Peebles, our senate candidate, would now be a Senator, and NSW would have a Christian leader representing them. It is disappointing that Christian parties fail to help one another and that Christians vote fragmented into unviable parties.

- The Democratic Labour Party’s votes went to One Nation’s Pauline Hanson.

- Family First’s votes went to Bullet Train For Australia party.

- Rise Up Australia’s votes went to One Nation’s Pauline Hanson.

“Unfortunately, neither One Nation nor the Bullet Train For Australia represent our values, and again the Christian vote was fragmented across many minor and major parties.”

It is an important lesson for all Christians wishing to vote for Christian values. The Christian Democratic Party is largest ‘Christian values’ party in NSW, and the only party that can be a voice for our values in Parliament.

‘If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand’.

#teamnile
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Pastor Rick Warren'
DOING THE RIGHT THING TO SPREAD THE GOOD NEWS

If you want to reach people who never go to church with the love of Christ you MUST speak on their turf, in their language.

You can't expect them to come to worship services or watch Christian TV. It's why Paul quoted 2 pagan poets (!) in his Acts 17 when he preached at the pagan Aeropagus in Athens- the place where all the secular thinkers debated each other. Today the "aeropagus" is TV talk shows and online.

It's the same reason why Jesus hung out at so many secular parties that the Pharisees called him "a drunk and a glutton and the friend of the worse sinners!" (Matthew 11:19).

In both cases, it was the religious people who criticized Paul and Jesus for associating with non-believers. I want to be like Jesus: I want to be known as "the friend of sinners." It takes no character, faith, nor grace to be a friend of saints.

You cannot say you love Jesus if you are more concerned about your reputation that the people Jesus died on the Cross for. And you will never win your enemies to Christ.... you can only win your friends. Before skeptics trust Christ, they must trust you. If they don't trust you, you are a poor witness, and an embarrassment to Jesus.
The person who says "I love God, and disrepects/doesn't love his enemies" is a liar (1 John 4:20) is disobedient to Christ (Luke 6:27), and does not really know God (1 John 4:8)

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MORE than 50 schools are set to shut across Western Australia on Thursday as teachers go on strike to protest the state government's treatment of education funding.
Schools north and south of Perth's Swan River, as well as in the Wheatbelt, Pilbara, Goldfields, Midwest and South West regions will all shut their doors.
That is despite an education department directive for schools to attempt to stay open, and a government threat to dock teachers' pay.
The state's education department said 54 schools had been authorised to close, with more likely when the list is updated at 4pm (WST).
Premier Colin Barnett confirmed teachers who walked off the job for a mass rally on Thursday would lose half a day's pay.
And while Mr Barnett admitted his education reforms would bring pain, heartache and challenges to some schools, he insisted they would go ahead despite the industrial action.
"The decision has been made, and this rally will not affect decisions of this government," Mr Barnett told ABC radio.
"The teachers who participate will not get paid, and I think that is silly to sacrifice their salary over an issue that can be handled in a sensible, constructive way."
Leading employment lawyer Allan Drake-Brockman, managing partner of DLA Piper, said the WA government was entitled to dock the teachers' pay.
"If the Premier is saying that, he would have obtained State Solicitor's advice," Mr Drake-Brockman told AAP.
"It's not authorised industrial action. So the underlying principle is no work, no pay."
In an unprecedented alliance, three unions have called on 10,000 angry teachers, education assistants, library staff, lab technicians, cleaners and gardeners to attend a two-hour stop work meeting at the Gloucester Park race track from 9.30am (WST).
They are protesting the loss of 500 education jobs, a freeze on teacher numbers and reduced funding for some special programs to improve literacy, numeracy, attendance and behaviour.


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/barnett-teacher-pay-comment-misses-point/story-e6frfku9-1226721768707#ixzz2fEw1mxt0
If you don't work, you don't get paid. - ed
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News of Terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (September 11 – 16, 2013) This past week Israel’s south was quiet. Violent incidents continued in Judea and Samaria. Stones and Molotov cocktails were thrown at Israeli vehicles, security forces, and civilians. Recently there has been an increase in violent incidents in Judea and Samaria refugee camps against both Palestinian security services and Israeli security forces.http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/article/20571
The UN should not endorse these atrocities - ed
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Another mass shooting has been perpetrated by another mentally ill man who, every shred of my 20 years of experience as a forensic psychiatrist, tells me was under-treated or improperly treated.  
And, now, those who wish to waste our time on irrelevant arguments about gun control will argue we should focus on the weapon the man used, rather than the man himself.  
Such people are dangerous because they distract us from the real issue at hand: Our broken mental health care system and the folly of military psychiatry that focuses on making soldiers “resilient,” rather than keeping them safe from psychosis and suicide and homicide.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/09/17/aaron-alexis-another-improperly-treated-mentally-ill-man-becomes-mass-killer/?intcmp=HPBucket#ixzz2fEaSRXuw
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Wikipedia has all but abandoned its efforts to combat the pornographic images littering its servers, after board members could not settle on one of the dozens of technical solutions that could have solved the problem.
FoxNews.com published a series of articles about thousands of questionable pictures, videos and other material hidden throughout the popular online encyclopedia in May 2010. The revelation caused a stir-up at the Wikimedia Foundation that runs the site, leading co-founder Jimmy Wales to purge hundreds of images and task members with finding a way to keep objectionable material out of children's eyes.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/09/17/wikipedia-abandons-efforts-to-purge-porn-from-online-encyclopedia/#ixzz2fEakWbIJ
An even harder problem is the left wing bias which skews everything .. including their AGW articles. - ed
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Holly Sarah Nguyen
Whenever you don't understand what's happening, you just have to close your eyes take a deep breath and say "Lord I know it's your plan, just help me through it!!
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A nice piece, surprisingly from the Guardian.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/coalition-swearing-in-tony-abbott?CMP=twt_gu
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J.John
"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33
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J.John
“The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” Numbers 6:25
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J.John
Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence, O Lord. Psalm 89:15
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J.John
"All people matter. You matter. I matter. It's the hardest thing in theology to believe." G.K. Chesterton
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J.John
May you grow to be as beautiful as God meant you to be when He thought of you first. George MacDonald
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J.John
My new booklet has just arrived 'Halloween - Harmless or Harmful?' Praying this will be a useful… http://t.co/GFFRVLG9gG
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Pastor Rick Warren
People are not interruptions to your ministry. They ARE your ministry,
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Pastor Rick Warren
I would welcome your feedback of the #WarrensOnCNN interview with Piers Morgan last night.
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Hull House
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“Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children” Ephesians 5:1 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"Bring him unto me."
Mark 9:19

Despairingly the poor disappointed father turned away from the disciples to their Master. His son was in the worst possible condition, and all means had failed, but the miserable child was soon delivered from the evil one when the parent in faith obeyed the Lord Jesus' word, "Bring him unto me." Children are a precious gift from God, but much anxiety comes with them. They may be a great joy or a great bitterness to their parents; they may be filled with the Spirit of God, or possessed with the spirit of evil. In all cases, the Word of God gives us one receipt for the curing of all their ills, "Bring him unto me." O for more agonizing prayer on their behalf while they are yet babes! Sin is there, let our prayers begin to attack it. Our cries for our offspring should precede those cries which betoken their actual advent into a world of sin. In the days of their youth we shall see sad tokens of that dumb and deaf spirit which will neither pray aright, nor hear the voice of God in the soul, but Jesus still commands, "Bring them unto me." When they are grown up they may wallow in sin and foam with enmity against God; then when our hearts are breaking we should remember the great Physician's words, "Bring them unto me." Never must we cease to pray until they cease to breathe. No case is hopeless while Jesus lives.

The Lord sometimes suffers his people to be driven into a corner that they may experimentally know how necessary he is to them. Ungodly children, when they show us our own powerlessness against the depravity of their hearts, drive us to flee to the strong for strength, and this is a great blessing to us. Whatever our morning's need may be, let it like a strong current bear us to the ocean of divine love. Jesus can soon remove our sorrow, he delights to comfort us. Let us hasten to him while he waits to meet us.

Evening

"Encourage him."
Deuteronomy 1:38
God employs his people to encourage one another. He did not say to an angel, "Gabriel, my servant Joshua is about to lead my people into Canaan--go, encourage him." God never works needless miracles; if his purposes can be accomplished by ordinary means, he will not use miraculous agency. Gabriel would not have been half so well fitted for the work as Moses. A brother's sympathy is more precious than an angel's embassy. The angel, swift of wing, had better known the Master's bidding than the people's temper. An angel had never experienced the hardness of the road, nor seen the fiery serpents, nor had he led the stiff-necked multitude in the wilderness as Moses had done. We should be glad that God usually works for man by man. It forms a bond of brotherhood, and being mutually dependent on one another, we are fused more completely into one family. Brethren, take the text as God's message to you. Labour to help others, and especially strive to encourage them. Talk cheerily to the young and anxious enquirer, lovingly try to remove stumblingblocks out of his way. When you find a spark of grace in the heart, kneel down and blow it into a flame. Leave the young believer to discover the roughness of the road by degrees, but tell him of the strength which dwells in God, of the sureness of the promise, and of the charms of communion with Christ. Aim to comfort the sorrowful, and to animate the desponding. Speak a word in season to him that is weary, and encourage those who are fearful to go on their way with gladness. God encourages you by his promises; Christ encourages you as he points to the heaven he has won for you, and the spirit encourages you as he works in you to will and to do of his own will and pleasure. Imitate divine wisdom, and encourage others, according to the word of this evening.
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Today's reading: Proverbs 27-29, 2 Corinthians 10 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Proverbs 27-29



1 Do not boast about tomorrow,
for you do not know what a day may bring.

2 Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth;
an outsider, and not your own lips.
3 Stone is heavy and sand a burden,
but a fool’s provocation is heavier than both.
4 Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming,
but who can stand before jealousy?
5 Better is open rebuke
than hidden love.
6 Wounds from a friend can be trusted,
but an enemy multiplies kisses....

Today's New Testament reading: 2 Corinthians 10

Paul’s Defense of His Ministry
1 By the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” toward you when away! 2 I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. 3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 6 And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete....
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