Friday, March 09, 2018

Fri Mar 9th Todays News

Don't give up on hope. Two years ago as the incompetent Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull made a bad choice to run for a double dissolution election I highlighted why it was bad and have seen my predictions as accurate. Australia threaded a needle in not voting for a Shorten led government, but they have been betrayed by a Liberal Party which has clung onto the awful leadership of Malcolm Turnbull. All Turnbull has done effectively is suck oxygen away from healthy party policy initiatives. Under Turnbull, Liberals have inertia and do not pursue needed policy to underpin our democracy, like free speech or free trade. Australia instead pursues an alarmist AGW agenda which is not very distant from ALP politics. 

 It is just the meme author, and facile fools who feel GOP Christianity is similar to extremist Islam. In the picture, the pose is similar, as is the positioning of objects. But other than the two flags being flags, they have nothing in common. Other than the weapons being weapons, the assertion of the holder is different. One woman stands for secular administration for the land of the free and the brave. The other uses terrorism to achieve their ends, and stands in solidarity with indiscriminate killers. But left wing culture does not discriminate, or even know the difference. We achieved sexual equality in the west. It may never happen under terrorist supporting progressives.

In Melbourne there is a stark choice for government for the November election this year. But Victorians will be told confusing things before the election. The Skyrail is being built without it ever going to vote. Every dollar spent on it is about $3 being spent to fix it by digging deep tunnels. Otherwise a new trade link has to be developed to freight supplies around Australia or create a $trillion cost over coming decades, not to mention the risk to peoples homes in safety and noise pollution. 

 I read a piece from a progressive feminist about an emotionally distant husband asking if a wife should deny her 'duty' of sex to her husband. I feel to view marriage as a sex contract is to sell it short. But I get it legal experts need concrete things to hang their words on. A woman is not a sex toy. A husband who harms his wife is not a good husband. One of the all time great poets who wrote on marriage was James Dillet Freeman. His marriage was celibate. But very rich. But a marriage is not what SSM advocates make of it. 
I am a decent man and don't care for the abuse given me. I created a video raising awareness of anti police feeling among western communities. I chose the senseless killing of Nicola Cotton, a Louisiana policewoman who joined post Katrina, to highlight the issue. I did this in order to get an income after having been illegally blacklisted from work in NSW for being a whistleblower. I have not done anything wrong. Local council appointees refused to endorse my work, so I did it for free. Youtube's Adsence refused to allow me to profit from their marketing it. Meanwhile, I am hostage to abysmal political leadership and hopeless journalists. My shopfront has opened on Facebook.

Here is a video I made My Prayer re end of project 

I've lost more since I wrote it, but have gained more too. Thank you Hao and your family. JFo and JB too.  

Two million words across twelve books written in a year. Four are published and eight will be written in the next fortnight or two. I have sacrificed much friends I have trusted I have also betrayed and I cannot undo it. But I stand by what I did because to not do so would have been worse. Still, I thank those who supported me to persevere when it would have been very easy to give up. My Aunt Joan Watson and my late grandmother Mary MacMahon and their respective offspring are big motivators for me. My cousin Dé Hurwits and his family. My students John Tran, Remi Oh, The Sosins, and their families. My Happy Cup Cabramatta friends Tuan, Christine and Helen. My online colleagues Stephanie Carroll, Mandy McLean, Phil Box, Jenny Vuong, Daniel Katz, Don Kramer and all their families. My close friends from Jesus Family Cabramatta and Marrickville, especially Timothy Ly, and those rogues from Inspire Church and the wonderful former US Army Chaplain John Morris and our Gathering. Also, Edu-Kingdom Bankstown’s William and Anne. This work is not over, the journey is not ended, but definitely we have reached a landmark. Some very special people I cannot name PFB, SLW (nee B) and TMN. Because the dream of tomorrow is the hope given by God. And lastly, thank you to my ‘daughter’ Tammy. Sometimes I long to go home. But, then I remember you are here, Tammy, and I want your future to be bright.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost (Stopping by woods on a snowy evening)

Father, you know the IPA (Institute of Public Affairs) and John Roskam, who used to work for my late father. I want my books to reinforce their campaign for free speech. Father God, the work is not complete. Not even as I finish with it. I have failed in my work I dedicated to you. But that is ok. I don't want it to be about me. I don't want people to read it and hear me, but know you. Such a failure is better than any of the wildest successes I might imagine.
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I was raised as an Atheist. I learned, after reading the Bible, that God loves me, and you. This is his song for you too. He loves you, and wants to be with you.
All the elements are me and mine. ARIA ISRC number AUAWN1507126


=== from 2017 ===
I used to know a teacher who prospered at Punchbowl Boys. Jag was a Black Hindu indian but he had "Allah" in his name. He was in his mid seventies when he started there. He could sleep through Math classes and nobody got upset. He never told the kids he was Hindu. They assumed he was Islamic. Everyone was happy. But the reputation of Punchbowl as ever being anything than dysfunctional is undeserved. It is not worthwhile to blame the kids. It is the community's fault they accept dysfunctional education. Kids from tougher backgrounds can prosper without being told up is down. But until it is recognised that the school has problems, it will alway have them. It is wrong to have schools where good kids cannot learn. 

A few years ago I wrote my prayer regarding the end of my project. I have moved to other ones. I am happy when those around me prosper. Which may be why I dislike the politics of the ALP and Greens and Democrats so much. Things can be so much better. And sometimes, one needs to sacrifice to achieve that. 
=== from 2016 ===
The Liberal party have sort of committed to a July 2nd double dissolution election. It is a stupid move from the point of view of a Liberal Party supporter, but for Turnbull it must seem clever. Keeping previous election gains and locking out the ALP from the Senate would be a concern for a Liberal Party leader. But Turnbull wants to hide policy inertia and collective incompetence since dumping Mr Abbott. Ten weeks will be decide the populace. The ALP are at a low base of 35% primary vote. The LNP are nose diving from 51% two party preferred. The Libs are unlikely to secure the senate, and will lose a substantial part of the house of reps. Neither coalition presents an effective economic plan. Neither coalition is offering free speech. ALP are promising to be incompetent. LNP are desperate to not lose or say anything worthwhile.  

For some at the moment, the sex party has more credibility. 
=== from 2015 ===
No article today .. technical issues
From 2014
As the world prepares to confront what may have been an act of terrorism taking down a Malaysian Airlines flight 777 aircraft, with 239 feared dead, it is worth remembering tragedy is not always from terror. This incident might well be terrorist, but the focal point suggesting it, stolen passports from an Italian and an Austrian could also be something expected on *any* international flight not in the US. The US spends a lot of money on security. People wishing to flee nations are common. It isn't hard to think of a reason why people might anonymously wish to leave Malaysia. We don't yet know what happened. One thing we are certain of, is that many on that flight were loved, and will be missed. 

It used to be believed that the only way to get truthful testimony from a peasant was to torture them. Low people weren't close to God, and so were easily mislead by the devil. Such ridiculous spiritualism was from the dark ages, and by the time of enlightenment France, 1762, it was a different reason for one to be tortured. Jean Calas was a protestant in Catholic France. One of his sons had converted to Catholicism. But another was found dead in the family home. Calas was accused of killing his son for wanting to convert. Calas' defence was to claim that his son had suicided and the family had relaid the body so as to make it look like a murder. Suicides in those times were crimes which might stigmatise a family. The local magistrate tortured Calas, pulling his limbs out of their sockets, and forcing more than 17 litres of water down his throat. He was tied to a cross, and all of his limbs broken twice by an iron rod. Still he claimed innocence. So he was killed on the wheel aged 64. 

The celebrated writer Voltaire heard of the case, and two years later, examined the evidence. The son had had gambling debts he couldn't pay which were to force him out of university. So The King pardoned the father, on this day, posthumously. I dispute the assertion that this is an example of religious intolerance, feeling it is merely intolerance which could have happened for any reason, and religion was the focus. The magistrate was dismissed. If enough people sign my petition, maybe, one day, some ALP figures will answer for their crimes.
Historical perspective on this day
141 BC – Liu Che, posthumously known as Emperor Wu of Han, assumes the throne over the Han dynasty of China.
1009 – First known mention of Lithuania, in the annals of the monastery of Quedlinburg.
1230 – Bulgarian tsar Ivan Asen II defeats Theodore of Epirusin the Battle of Klokotnitsa.
1276 – Augsburg becomes a Free imperial city.
1500 – The fleet of Pedro Álvares Cabral leaves Lisbon for the Indies. The fleet will discover Brazil which lies within boundaries granted to Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas.
1566 – David Rizzio, private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland.

1765 – After a campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge, though his son may have actually committed suicide.
1796 – Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.
1811 – Paraguayan forces defeat Manuel Belgrano at the Battle of Tacuarí.
1815 – Francis Ronalds describes the first battery-operated clock in the Philosophical Magazine.
1831 – The French Foreign Legion is established by King Louis Philippe to support his war in Algeria.
1841 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the United States v. The Amistad case that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slaveryillegally.
1842 – Giuseppe Verdi's third opera, Nabucco, receives its première performance in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost opera writers.
1842 – The first documented discovery of gold in Californiaoccurs at Rancho San Francisco, six years before the California Gold Rush.
1847 – Mexican–American War: The first large-scale amphibious assault in U.S. history is launched in the Siege of Veracruz.
1862 – American Civil War: The USS Monitor and CSS Virginiafight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships.
1896 – Prime Minister Francesco Crispi resigns following the Italian defeat at the Battle of Adwa.

1908 – Inter Milan was founded on Football Club Internazionale, following a schism from the Milan Cricket and Football Club.
1910 – The Westmoreland County coal strike, involving 15,000 coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers, begins.
1916 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against the border town of Columbus, New Mexico.
1925 – Pink's War: The first Royal Air Force operation conducted independently of the British Army or Royal Navybegins.
1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Rooseveltsubmits the Emergency Banking Act to Congress, the first of his New Deal policies.

1942 – World War II: Dutch East Indies, represented by KNILCommander in Chief Lieutenant General Hein Ter Poorten, unconditionally surrendered to the Japanese forces in Kalijati, Subang, West Java, and Japanese completed their Dutch East Indies campaign.
1944 – World War II: Japanese troops counter-attack American forces on Hill 700 in Bougainville in a five-day battle.
1944 – World War II: Soviet Army planes attack Tallinn, Estonia.
1945 – World War II: The first nocturnal incendiary attack on Tokyo inflicts damage comparable to that inflicted on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki five months later.
1945 – World War II: A coup d'état by Japanese forces in French Indochina removes the French from power.
1946 – Bolton Wanderers stadium disaster at Burnden Park, Bolton, England, kills 33 and injures hundreds more.

1954 – McCarthyism: CBS television broadcasts the See It Nowepisode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy", produced by Fred Friendly.
1956 – Soviet forces suppress mass demonstrations in the Georgian SSR, reacting to Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinizationpolicy.
1957 – The 8.6 Mw Andreanof Islands earthquake shakes the Aleutian Islands with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), causing $5 million in damage from ground movement and a destructive tsunami that affected Hawaii, where two people were killed in a plane crash while documenting its arrival.
1959 – The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.

1960 – Dr. Belding Hibbard Scribner implants for the first time a shunt he invented into a patient, which allows the patient to receive hemodialysis on a regular basis.
1961 – Sputnik 9 successfully launches, carrying a human dummy nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich, and demonstrating that Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight.
1967 – Trans World Airlines Flight 553, a Douglas DC-9-15, crashes in a field in Concord Township, Ohio following a mid-air collision with a Beechcraft Baron, killing 26.
1976 – Forty-two people died in the 1976 Cavalese cable car disaster, the worst cable-car accident to date.
1977 – The Hanafi Siege: In a thirty-nine-hour standoff, armed Hanafi Muslims seize three Washington, D.C., buildings, killing two and taking 149 hostage.
1978 – President Soeharto inaugurated Jagorawi Toll Road, the first toll highway in Indonesia, connecting Jakarta, Bogor and Ciawi, West Java.

1982 – "Krononauts" hosted an event in Baltimore, Maryland asking time-travelers to meet and demonstrate future science methods of Time travel.
1997 – Comet Hale–Bopp: Observers in China, Mongolia and eastern Siberia are treated to a rare double feature as an eclipse permits Hale-Bopp to be seen during the day.
2011 – Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights.
2012 – At least 130 rockets are fired into Israel from Gaza; 12 Palestinians militants are killed as part of the latest escalation in violence in the region.
=== 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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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 Tania Tu Phuong Huynh and Cally Tran. Born on the same day, across the years. Remember, birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
Bust of Adam Smith
Deaths
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Tim Blair 2018

THE GREAT PREDICTO STRIKES AGAIN

UPDATED Peter FitzSimons, who is reliably wrong about absolutely everything, last month announced his victory tip for this year’s I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here.
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Tim Blair

HOWARD’S POINT PROVED

Labor’s Kate Ellis takes issue with John Howard on the topic of women in politics.
9 Mar
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Andrew Bolt

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Sexual thought police should back off

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, March 09, 2016 (12:14am)

YOU may not be thrilled about the highly sexualised Safe Schools program being forced on children without parental knowledge, and its attempt to rebrand as “heterosexism” the idea that heterosexuality is the norm in human relationships.

 Continue reading 'Sexual thought police should back off'
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No, Peta Credlin, you’re not the victim

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, March 09, 2016 (12:13am)

IT is appalling that we have come to a place where a TV reporter is thrusting a microphone in the face of former PM Tony Abbott, demanding to know if he had an affair with his chief of staff Peta Credlin.

 Continue reading 'No, Peta Credlin, you’re not the victim'
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FLIP IT GOOD

Tim Blair – Wednesday, March 09, 2016 (5:23pm)

Appropriately, International Women’s Day was also America’s National Pancake Day. Let’s celebrate both:
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HE NEVER FAILS TO FAIL

Tim Blair – Wednesday, March 09, 2016 (3:54pm)

Ahead of this week’s Newspoll, Bob Ellis offered yet another of his famous predictions: 
Rupert Murdoch, now enduring his wedding night, will have sent his orders to Australia by now. This was to ensure the Coalition secures at least 51 percent, two party preferred, in Newspoll, due out tomorrow …
So do not be surprised when the surprise, surprise, paradoxical pro- Turnbull Newspoll comes in tomorrow … 
Wrong again, old boy. Ellis is an absolute marvel. Even Skippy has a better predictive record.
===

SOMEONE WANTS ATTENTION

Tim Blair – Wednesday, March 09, 2016 (2:18pm)

Coal mining millionaire and seething mass of bitter neuroses Tony Windsor is coming back: 
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is in for a dog fight to retain his seat, with popular former independent Tony Windsor set to declare his intention to re-enter politics.
Mr Windsor has scheduled a press conference in Canberra for 10am Thursday and Fairfax Media has confirmed he will declare himself a candidate for the regional NSW seat of New England at the next election. 
Should be fun. Did Windsor ever make it to Africa?
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KANGAROO CLEANS UP AT RANDWICK

Tim Blair – Wednesday, March 09, 2016 (1:12pm)

Skippy is self-financed, understands risk and reward, can follow events through a verbal description and is loyal to anything that honours his fellow macropods:

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EVERYONE NEEDS A HOBBY

Tim Blair – Wednesday, March 09, 2016 (12:06pm)

Nothing is more fun than making prissy Twitter wowsers angry.
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Turnbull’s only plan is to rush to an election at a dangerous stroll. UPDATE: Kennett blasts

Andrew Bolt March 09 2016 (3:51pm)

The Turnbull Government has no tax plan. It has no spending plan.  It has no industrial relations plan.
All it has is a plan to rush to an early election, so that it can quickly do more nothing.
This farce could turn very sour, warns Paul Kelly:
Here are the problems with a July 2 double dissolution election. First, because parliament needs to be dissolved by May 11, the day after the current budget date, the campaign would be exceedingly long at about eight weeks. This would be most unwise for the Prime Minister… Given Turnbull has never conducted a campaign as leader (same as Bill Shorten), let alone as PM, an extraordinarily long campaign maximises the ­potential for something serious to go wrong for the frontrunner.
Nobody watching the government over the past month should downplay this risk…
Second, the logistical and timetable problems are severe and have led to serious consideration about bringing forward the budget by one week, from May 10 to May 3. This has advantages but, once announced, it would signal the certainty of the double dissolution election, making the campaign even longer and putting everybody on notice. That is unlikely to favour Turnbull. Third, Turnbull faces a conundrum since the reason for a double dissolution election is to enable the government to secure passage of its obstructed bills, yet the most critically obstructed measure - the resurrection of the ABCC [Australian Building and Construction Commission] - is still not on the list. Do not fall for government propaganda that the ABCC bills have already met the double “failure to pass” test. They haven’t in the view of most constitutional experts. 
Dennis Shanahan describes the chaos:
The Turnbull government has come to such an impasse that senior cabinet ministers do not know what is happening about something as fundamental as the date of the budget or the likelihood of an early election on July 2. 
As cabinet met in Adelaide last night, there were senior cabinet ministers not knowing how to read the comments of Malcolm Turnbull and Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer, which had left open the possibility of bringing forward the budget by a week to May 3 and the calling of a double-dissolution election for July 2…
.
Yet at the National Press Club yesterday, Michaelia Cash, the Employment Minister and Minister for Women, was adamant the budget would be on May 10. 
Dare I say that the raggedness of the planning and the mixed messages of ministers suggests a lack of a Peta Credlin to whip people into line? There is a real lack of discipline here.
UPDATE
Essential’s poll confirms that of Newspoll yesterday: the Liberals and Labor are tied at 50:50.
If Turnbull slips behind, watch out. The media narrative will change dramatically for the worse.
UPDATE
Jeff Kennett has had enough:
The former Liberal premier of Victoria, Jeff Kennett, has unleashed on Malcolm Turnbull as a self-interested and cowardly leader who appears to have blown “the opportunity of a lifetime”. 
Mr Kennett, who led Victoria between 1992 and 1999, said there was no need for a double-dissolution election and the government’s speculation about an early election was designed “simply to cover up their own failings”.
Mr Kennett said that when Mr Turnbull seized the Liberal leadership, he’d hoped the new Prime Minister “had a plan” to govern.
“What is quite clear now, he did not have any plan at all, he took over the leadership for one reason only, and one reason above all else and that was his own self-interest,” he told 2SM’s John Laws.
“I am bitterly disappointed that self-interest has once again not only risen to the top of the glass, but it’s overflowed the top of the glass. There is no courage within government...”
“Malcolm was given the opportunity of a lifetime and in 5 to 6 months it appears he has blown it,” he said.
UPDATE
Kennett’s attack on Turnbull’s plan for an early election sounds exactly like the one Turnbull as Opposition Leader made against Kevin Rudd’s in 2009:
The Prime Minister’s threat of a double dissolution and an early election proves to all of us what this Budget is really about. 
It isn’t about protecting the jobs of Australians.
Least of all the one million Australians it says will soon be out of work.
It is about the job security of one man and one man only. A Prime Minister frightened of the consequences of his mismanagement, now wants to cut and run before he is found out. 
(Thanks to reader John.) 
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The damning silence of Malcolm Turnbull

Andrew Bolt March 09 2016 (2:36pm)

How Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull defended former Liberal staffer Peta Credlin from a public sliming as a woman who allegedly slept with her boss:
I don’t want to buy into all that commentary.
How Liberal MP Michaelia Cash, the Turnbull Government’s Minister for Women, defended former Liberal staffer Peta Credlin on International Women’s Day:
I’m not going to comment on commentary. 
How Labor’s Nicholas Reece, former advisor to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, defended Liberal staffer Peta Credlin:
I know her as a fairly formidable and intelligent political operator… This is probably the most pernicious attempt at character assassination that Australian politics has possibly ever seen… This really takes Australian politics to a new low.
How Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese today defended Liberal staffer Peta Credlin:
Can I say about Peta Credlin that all of my dealings with her were extremely professional. She was a very strong advocate and I had to deal with her as the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, but previously as the Leader of the Opposition’s Chief of Staff, so I feel some sympathy...
Can the Liberals not see how disgraceful it is for their leaders not to defend Credlin and Labor does? What does it say about Turnbull’s ability to unite the party he’s torn apart that he cannot even bring himself to say what Albanese has? 
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The man who propped up Gillard wants another go

Andrew Bolt March 09 2016 (10:57am)

Looking forward to his humiliation:
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is in for a dog fight to retain his seat, with popular former independent Tony Windsor set to declare his intention to re-enter politics. 
Mr Windsor has scheduled a press conference in Canberra for 10am Thursday and Fairfax Media has confirmed he will declare himself a candidate for the regional NSW seat of New England at the next election.
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George Pell interviewed

Andrew Bolt March 09 2016 (10:41am)

A number of people have asked where they can see my interview with Cardinal George Pell.
Here it is:
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Adler: shame on this revenge fantasy

Andrew Bolt March 09 2016 (10:07am)

Louise Adler is a woman of the Left, and I have been critical of some of her positions. But she has over time reached out to conservatives, publishing books by Tony Abbott and Peter Costello. She was even at a tribute dinner for Abbott hosted by John Howard, and attended despite being the only person of the Left in the whole room.
I have come to respect her for trying to look behind the labels, and her piece today defending Peta Credlin is a tribute to both women:
Until the publication of Niki Savva’s The Road to Ruin, the private lives of Australian politicians were generally accepted to be off-limits. Now it is suggested that the former prime minister and his chief-of-staff were so intimately involved as to ensure their own downfall. Apparently Tony Abbott was a nice bloke, good in opposition but indecisive in office. His chief-of-staff was a power-hungry dominatrix prone to tantrums who crucially failed to know her place. I think the vulgar term is “ball breaker.” Peta Credlin is apparently a “hysterical”, “domineering” “bully”. Isn’t it just possible that she was simply a very effective and efficient professional?
What we do know is that a woman with power remains intolerable, as the treatment of former prime minister Julia Gillard revealed so clearly. The media’s treatment of Credlin is a morality tale for young women. Why would any young woman with energy and ambition aspire to a leadership role if the inevitable outcome is vilification of the most stereotypical variety?
My own dealings with Credlin have been on book industry issues. Across our political differences I have grown to admire her as smart, incisive and astute. In my presence she scrupulously maintained respect for the role of the prime minister, she strenuously maintained a separation between political decisions and strategic advice, and was unfailingly polite. So the demonisation of this professional individual is utterly out of kilter with my own experience. The private lives of other people, public or otherwise, should remain private. Building an argument for a “failed” government on the basis of fantasises of bedroom antics is prurient and salacious sensationalism....
Some of the gossip that has been published is laughable in its lack of credibility. Take for example the story of Bronwyn Bishop being prevented from issuing a full apology by the PMO. It doesn’t make any sense to believe that it took 18 days for Abbott to recognise she needed to go. Isn’t it just as likely that Ms Bishop clung on to the bitter end and then turned on her “love child”?… Might this not simply be one more dispiriting and self-serving revenge tale rather than the independent and forthright analysis readers deserve?
I have a special detestation for those who hunt with the pack, even though they (should) know better. And I have a special respect for those who refuse to. 
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How six Senators could destroy Turnbull’s election plan

Andrew Bolt March 08 2016 (11:00pm)

Do the crossbench Senators want to stop the double-dissolution election that could cost most their seats?
Do they want to seem more responsible than the Liberal party?

Then there is a very simple thing they could do that will help the country - and them.
First, here is Malcolm Turnbull’s desperate strategy to go to an early election:
The Turnbull Government is hurtling towards a July 2 election, an early Budget and an unprecedented modern election campaign of 10 weeks. 
Senior Liberals, including Ministers, are convinced the “option” Malcolm Turnbull has been considering — of changing the Parliamentary sitting schedule, bringing down the Budget a week early, ensuring the building industry corruption watchdog is a double-dissolution election trigger and holding a long winter campaign from May 10 to July 2 — is “on”. Even if it’s not been decided, the preparations are so advanced now that the Prime Minister will soon be in a position where he cannot safely change his mind for an August-September poll.
The excuse for the double-dissolution election - an early election involving all Senators as well - is intended to be the bill to restore the building industry corruption watchdog that is opposed by Labor and the Greens.  The Governor can be asked to treat this bill as the trigger because it’s been blocked twice by the Senate - although there are doubts whether that is technically true, now.
But what if six of the eight crossbench Senators agree to pass that bill - agree to bring back that corruption watchdog - and hold a joint press conference to announce it? The Government will have the votes it needs to pass the bill, and will lose its excuse to call an early election on this issue.
Family First Senator Bob Day in fact believes he’s close to getting such numbers, although he wants to use them as a bargaining chip in exchange for the Government agreeing to drop its reform of Senate voting rules that would make it much harder for the minor parties to be re-elected.
I don’t think they need to make any such deal. Just passing the building construction watchdog bill and avoiding a DD election should guarantee them the remaining three years of their terms, which is already something.  
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Liberals demand Turnbull hold debates on global warming

Andrew Bolt March 08 2016 (10:06pm)

What a brilliant idea. Who could be against a debate - other than a zealot, religious crank or fraud with something to fear?
The NSW Liberals have formally called on the Turnbull government to conduct public debates about climate change - including whether the science is settled - in a stark reminder of the deep divisions within the party over the issue. 
A motion passed at the party’s state council calls on the government to “arrange and hold public debates/discussions” between scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and “independent climate scientists”.
The motion says the events should cover “the global warming/climate change debate”; “the claims by the IPCC”; and the statement “is all the science settled”.Fairfax Media understands the motion passed with support of more than 70 per cent of delegates at the state council meeting held on the Central Coast last weekend. 
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A misuse of ABC power to settle scores

Andrew Bolt March 08 2016 (9:49pm)

The ABC is biased, but denies it.
The ABC is used to pursue ideological vendettas, but denies it.
Here is a startling example from this week, when ABC 774 presenter Jon Faine abused his taxpayer-funded platform to mock and trash John Roskam, head of the conservative Institute of Public Affairs. The transcript does not quite capture the sneering tone, but the totally gratuitous nature of the attack is plain:
JON FAINE: Over the weekend there was a big Liberal Party powwow and they had to decide who was going to replace a retiring Senator. At the next federal election, Michael Ronaldson will stand down as a Senator on the number one spot on the ticket for Victoria and his place will be taken by a man who has helped us out and filled in on The Wrap from time to time. Hailing from the breeding school of Liberal politicians, the IPA – the Institute of Public Affairs – deputy executive director James Paterson leapfrogs his boss John Roskam to the number one spot on the Senate ticket for the Liberal Party. James, good morning to you. 
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning Jon, pleasure to be with you.
JON FAINE: What’s wrong with Johnny Roskam? There he is, he’s been your boss, he’s Tim Wilson’s boss, so many IPA people going into politics and he’s still there at the IPA.
JAMES PATERSON: Jon, as you know, John Roskam is one of the great intellectuals in Australian public life today.
JON FAINE: Sorry, say that again.
JAMES PATERSON: John Roskam is one of the great public intellectuals in public life in Australia today, and he has an enormous contribution to make to intellectual life or political life if he chooses.
JON FAINE: A public intellectual? I’ve heard him called many things, but that’s the first time I’ve heard that one. JAMES PATERSON: Well Jon, what else do you call someone who runs Australia’s biggest think tank, who publishes a weekly column, who has written books and chapters in books, and who delivers lectures and guest speeches? That is the very definition of a public intellectual. 
John Roskam - not “Johnny” - is indeed a fine public intellectual. As Faine well knows, Roskam has not been “leapfrogged” by Paterson, given that he has actually turned down approaches to stand for the Liberals, including an invitation to go for this very seat that Paterson went for instead.
Further, the success of the young Paterson is surely the real story here, and is of far more import than an excuse to belittle Roskam.
Nor, of course, was this the only sign of Faine’s manifest bias in ingrained contempt for conservative or liberal politics:
JON FAINE: What does it mean for the Victorian Liberal Party if they preselect a free speech zealot from the IPA over any of the more moderate, progressive, or indeed one must say, female candidates that were also on offer who have been dropped down the list? 
JAMES PATERSON: Jon, it’s a sad thing that you think that supporting free speech is now zealotry. It was once the left that stood up and defended freedom of speech …
By the way, the interview demonstrates the importance of the Liberals choosing candidates who will actually fight for Liberal values. Paterson is a fine choice, and may there be more like him - warriors and not appeasers.
The full interview:

 Continue reading 'A misuse of ABC power to settle scores'
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Taswegians should dump their government and their voting system. Pronto!

Piers Akerman – Sunday, March 09, 2014 (8:29am)

ANYONE looking at Tasmania must conclude the ­island state is a political and economic basket case.
Unfortunately, the preposterous Hare-Clark voting system Tasmanians have adopted to elect the 25 members of its House of Assembly is going to make it extremely difficult to reverse that situation even if the Liberal Opposition leader Will Hodgman defeats Labor Premier Lara Giddings as expected at next weekend’s election.
Hare-Clark is an optional proportional voting system. Unless you’re a political scientist that won’t mean a lot.
Like most dysfunctional systems, it was designed by well-intentioned individuals.
In this case, 19th-century British political scientist Thomas Hare, who wanted a system that would give proportional representation to all classes in the UK so minorities would not be excluded from the House of Commons or other assemblies.
His plan was taken up by Tasmanian attorney-general Andrew Inglis Clark, who after a couple of attempts managed to get parliament to agree to a trial of proportional representation in 1896.
It was dumped in 1901 then resurrected six years later. It should have been left in the graveyard where fine theories but lousy practices are buried.
The only other assembly to adopt it in Australia has been the ACT’s legislature.
It is complex and not easily understood. To make matters worse and even more confusing for voters, Tasmania bans how-to-vote cards and distribution of electoral material on polling day.
The Hare-Clark system is not well ­suited to the Westminster system, where the government usually has a clear majority of seats, the opposition has a few and minor parties and independents sit on the cross benches.
In Tasmania, each of the five electorates returns five MPs. To be sure of being elected, an individual candidate must obtain a “quota” of 16.6 per cent of the total vote.
That makes it easy for minor party candidates like the Greens. The five Green candidates need only win 16.6 per cent of the vote between them and one of them will be elected.
But it makes it very difficult for a political party to win enough seats to form government in its own right.
To do that, a party needs to win three of the five seats in three of the five electorates, and two of the five seats in the other two electorates.
But to be sure of winning three seats in an electorate a party needs to win 50 per cent of the vote. If a party falls just a little short of 50 per cent it will win only two seats, meaning the electorate will return two Liberal MPs, two Labor and one Green.
Under Hare-Clark a miss is as good as a mile. You definitely win two seats with 33 per cent of the vote but you are likely to miss out on winning three with 48 per cent.
According to the published polling, the Greens will win four seats.
The Palmer United Party is the only other minor party that could possibly win a seat. If they did win one, it would be in Braddon and they would take it from Labor.
But while PUP, the Tasmanian Nationals and other parties are unlikely to win any seats for themselves, they could easily win seats for Labor and the Greens by stripping votes from the Liberals.
That’s why the Liberals say a vote for any minor party is a vote for another Labor-Green minority government.
Labor It is aiming to win nine seats and hoping the Greens will win four. This would give Labor and the Greens 13 seats between them and enable them to form a government.
Announcing the election in January, Giddings said Labor would not have Greens in cabinet again.
But on the same day Nick McKim said the Greens would be there. Giddings ­repeatedly refused to rule out doing another deal with the Greens but said she would not enter into a power-sharing agreement with them.
Tasmanians know that a “no power-sharing agreement” does not mean “no deal”.
The Liberals have consistently for the past four years said they will not govern in minority.
This gives Tasmanians a clear choice — a majority Liberal government able to implement its long-term plan for the state, or another four years of Labor-Green minority government and all the uncertainty and lack of action that brings.
History has demonstrated that Tasmania’s experiments with minority governments have been ruinous for the state.
They lack the authority to make the major changes Tasmania needs with every single decision held hostage to the whims of the minor parties.
Tasmanians should seriously consider their circumstances, consider their future and consider dumping their voting system after dumping the current government.
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Bolt Report today

Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (10:54am)

The Bolt Report today. Joining me - Labor’s Anthony Albanese, Michael Kroger and Cassandra Wilkinson.
And our new NewsWatch segment, this week with Rowan Dean.
Among the topics:  Abbott’s religious war, Green believers mocked, Qantas, the ABC and how Putin proved Obama wrong on global warming.
On Network 10 at 10 am and 4pm.

The videos of the show appear here.
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Albo defies the critics. Or so I hope …

Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (9:25am)

Politics academic Peter Brent has a bizarre intolerance of debate, and wonder how much of it he permits students:
UPDATE
It seems 239 people died yesterday, including six Australians. Time to make a political point:
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Imagine if Bush had goofed like Obama #163

Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (6:22am)

If George W Bush couldn’t spell R-E-S-P-E-C-T would we have heard the end of it? It’s all about preferred media naratives, isn’t it?
Remember: only Republicans get mocked for bad spelling:
Or maybe journalists simply assume the Left can’t be expected to be academic.... 
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Shorten’s challenge: don’t take Labor back a century

Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (6:14am)

Peter Van Onselen is right to warn Bill Shorten to stop dragging Labor backwards - although Paul Howe’s idea of a Big Unions compact with Big Business is actually little better: 
[Paul] Howes has lead the charge publicly (and privately) for Labor to modernise: to consider a new industrial relations compact between business and the unions, to shift Labor back to the reforming style of the 1980s when Bob Hawke and Paul Keating ran Labor. Howes is making few friends with his campaign, but he will be on the right side of history… 
Shorten’s approach is unashamedly short term, seeking to maximise popularity and minimise the risks that go with embracing reform. But if the polls get worse for Shorten, and he hasn’t built an alternative vision for running the country, he’ll be extremely vulnerable…
Shorten has become captive of a new system for electing the party leader which exposes his unpopularity among the party membership. He is trying to rectify that by embracing populism. When Bob Hawke and Paul Keating turned Labor into a modern party with reforming credentials, it was highly controversial but it left a rich legacy. That’s what Shorten needs to shoot for — as suggested by Howes — but at the moment he is doing no such thing.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Hit on seniors health care card now market tested

Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (5:15am)

The fact that almost nothing has leaked from the audit commission’s interim report suggests the Abbott Government wanted this idea market tested:
RETIREES face a crackdown on eligibility for the Seniors Health Care Card, which guarantees ­discount medicine and cash payments, under secret recommendations in the Abbott Government’s Audit Commission report… 
Thousands of self-funded retirees — 290,000 nationwide — get discounts on PBS medicines, GP visits and hearing aids, and receive a seniors supplement cash payment of $858 a year when they qualify for the card.
The report has questioned the tax-free status of super income for the purposes of determining taxable income and eligibility for the scheme.
Retirees must earn less than $50,000 a year to qualify for the card. Crucially, however, income from super investments is tax-free and not included as taxable income for the purposes of determining eligibility.
As a result, seniors can draw income from super investments of $100,000 a year, for example, and still be eligible for the card and discount $6 medicines. There is no asset test for the seniors card and retirees living in $1 million houses can qualify for cheap prescriptions as long as their annual taxable income is below the threshold.
UPDATE
Oops. It wasn’t a leak, I’m told. Just good digging. 
===

How the Left destroyed Tasmania

Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (5:03am)

Maurice Newman, chairman of Tony Abbott’s highly influential Business Advisory Council, on the ruination of Tasmania by the Left:
Tasmania is also a stronghold of the Greens. Its politics are a reflection of voters’ dependence on government. Over 70 per cent of Tasmanians rely on taxpayers for a living. More than 36 per cent of households derive their sole or primary income from a commonwealth government payment, while 25 per cent depend on a state government job or related business. Another 10 per cent are employed in the private sector where the state is the dominant customer.
So you’d think such an island would be desperate to develop private sector jobs. Instead:
This reliance on government is despite Tasmania’s dependable water supply, fertile agricultural lands, highly prospective mineral provinces, reliable energy supply, vast renewable timber plantations and a demonstrated ability to engage in high-value manufacturing. But rather than create the conditions that would exploit these comparative advantages, successive governments, both federal and state, have seen political gain in preserving Tasmania as the mendicant isle… 
It has pursued progressive socialist policies and an environmental agenda that have shunned economic activity. Because the majority of Tasmanians look to government for a living, they have had little incentive to change
One of federal Labor’s policies was to protect union jobs at the cost of many others:
Being an island, one of the great challenges for Tasmania is transport… The Productivity Commission has issued a draft report confirming that Tasmania is inefficiently structured and an incredibly expensive place to move product. 
One of the most obvious factors driving the high cost of transport is Bass Strait and the punitive effects of national coastal shipping laws introduced by the Gillard government in July 2012. These were intended to encourage Australian-registered ships crewed exclusively by Australians. They drove foreign-flagged vessels out of the market. The cost of these laws fell disproportionately on Tasmania, where 99 per cent of all freight travels by sea. 
Nick Cater says the Coalition has plans for that law: 
An early casualty is likely to be the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Act that requires foreign-registered ships carrying domestic freight to apply for temporary licences and deliver award wages and conditions. The result, as the Productivity Commission noted in January, has reduced competition and increased freight prices. 
Bell Bay Aluminium told the commission its freight costs to Tasmania had risen from $18.20 a tonne to $29.70 since the legislation became law in 2012, a rise of 63 per cent.
===

Sorry to Forrest

Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (4:59am)

An apology eight years later tells me:
A: damage done.
B: huge costs.
On 11/12 March 2006, an article published on pages 41 and 44 of the weekend edition of The Sydney Morning Herald contained statements and opinions about Andrew Forrest and his conduct as a director of Fortescue Metals Group Limited. The Herald acknowledges that the allegations against Mr Forrest have proved to be totally unfounded. The Herald retracts them unreservedly and sincerely apologises to Mr Forrest for any distress, harm and damage the article may have caused him, his family and friends.
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Greens Senator is introduced to some facts

Andrew Bolt March 08 2014 (6:10pm)

Queensland Environment Minister Andrew Powell, using facts, takes apart Greens Senator Larissa Waters, using overheated rhetoric. Here’s two of many examples in the debate:
LARISSA WATERS: What I think a better example is Gladstone where we had 46 million cubic metres dredged there from that harbour where people have gotten sick and the fishing industry has had to close because the harbour is so toxic. Eleven million cubic metres of that was then dumped offshore in the Reef’s waters and you’d be hard pressed to find a scientist that says something didn’t go terribly wrong. 
ANDREW POWELL: Matthew again the science says a very different story around Gladstone Harbour. There have been independent reviews, there have been scientific studies done. What the Senator hasn’t alluded that the reason there were sick fish in the harbour was because of the extreme weather events of 2011 and the amount of fish that came over the Yawonga Dam into the harbour, the fact that the harbour, that is a poorly flushed harbour was basically fresh water for an extended period of time and that a large amount of fish in a small area, with low food stock, meant that some of them got sick. That is what the science tells us and I think the Senator needs to be clear and factual with the people of Queensland around what is the true impacts on the Reef and how we need to resolve them.
LARISSA WATERS: Minister, with respect, the science that you’re referring to was paid for by both your Government or the ports corporation and the science that I’m referring to… ANDREW POWELL: And so the Senator is now calling into question the CSIRO which is a fairly game call.
Here’s an example of a Green apparently believing the rightness of their cause permits them to say any damn thing. For that same reason, of course, few Green believers will have their thinking changed an iota by seeing Waters humbled. 
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Diana Vreeland. "You Don't Have to Be Pretty. You don't owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked "female"."
===

PLEASE ASK ANY LOGICAL PERSON FROM THE LEFT OR RIGHT THIS SIMPLE QUESTION....

HERE IS A SIMPLE QUESTION.. WITH A VERY LOGICAL ANSWER....

If a man grew up with communist Grandparents and a leftist Mother, who "married" a Muslim Socialist from Kenya, ( Maybe!! But no proof!! ) and was mentored by a Black Communist agitator on the FBI list in his teens ( Frank Marshal Davis) was promoted and helped by James Bowman a Communist Sympathizer ( Valerie Jarretts Father) and lived in Indonesia as a Muslim in his younger years, then came to America and was financed through College by Khalid Mansour (a PRO PALESTINIAN ANTI ISRAELI BIGOT) through the Saudi Government and then joined the Church of Black Liberation Theology run by Reverend Jeremiah Wright for 20 years and also became a Radical follower of Saul Alinsky... and befriended Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dorn.. (the Weather Underground Bombers) ...and then became the Lawyer for Acorn and then wehen he ran for elected office was endorsed by the Communist Party of America in his first run...made Valerie Jarrett who was Born in Shiraz Iran his main adviser...and openly announced that he wants to "FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORM THE UNITED STATES...."

YOU THINK THIS MAN LOVES AMERICA THE WAY IT IS..... OR DO YOU THINK HE MIGHT WANT TO CHANGE IT TO HIS WAY OF THINKING ???

Hmmmmmmmmm THINK ABOUT IT AND SHARE THIS WONT YOU !!

I Have a strong suspicion unless we do something about it this is not going to end well for regular Americans!

(BTW....THIS IS A REAL MAP OF OBAMA'S NEIGHBORHOOD IN 1995.

BEAR IN MIND HE KNOWS ALL THESE PEOPLE WELL. YOU HANG WITH THOSE YOU ASSOCIATE WITH!

Obama was neighbors with Farrakhan back in Hyde Park, and attended his “Million Man March” in 1995)
Happy International Women's Day!

To celebrate, here are a few female scientists that you might not have heard of (but definitely should have). I haven't included Marie Curie, because as much as we all love her, she is the automatic "female scientist" that always springs to mind and I think it's time we branched out.

1. Ada Lovelace
Analyst, metaphysician, and founder of scientific computing. Read more about her life here:http://bit.ly/V3im
2. Rosalind Franklin.
Biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer who made critical contributions to the understanding of the fine molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. She received no credit for her contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA. More on her life: http://bit.ly/4CJMC0
3. Rachel Carson
Marine biologist and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement. More on her life: http://bit.ly/16f4Hcm
4. Lise Meitner
A physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. She was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission, but was overlooked for the Nobel Prize in favour of male colleagues. More on her life: http://bit.ly/3js4zk
5. Cecilia Payne
Astronomer and astrophysicist who, in 1925, proposed in her Ph.D. thesis an explanation for the composition of stars in terms of the relative abundances of hydrogen and helium. More on her life: http://bit.ly/n4RNqS
6. Mary Anning
A paleontologist who made many important finds in the Jurassic marine fossil beds at Lyme Regis in Dorset. More on her life: http://bit.ly/rGXKq
<You probably need to look a little deeper into the life of Rachel Carson and the Silent spring. Evidence has come to light that a lot of what she got up to was fabricated and that indeed the banning of DDT has had many not so beneficial effects. The banning indeed was more a product of lobbying and convincing a court as to the deleterious effects rather than actual effects.>
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Oakes verbals Abetz

Andrew BoltMARCH092013(7:01am)

Abbott had also declined to condemn - even to comment on - another front-bencher’s attempt to link asylum seekers and paedophiles in the public mind.
What actually happened, when Senator Eric Abetz fielded questions about residents in, say, an aged care facility being informed if asylum seekers are to be housed with them: 
Journalist: The Government doesn’t inform the community when paedophiles are released from prison (inaudible) so why should they-

Abetz: Well, there is a register in relation to those sex offenders and the community has spoken in relation to that, but they do want a register and communities do want to be notified, and if I might say, you know, I wouldn’t put the two in the same category necessarily.
A journalist made the link. Abetz refuted it. Oakes then accuses Abetz.
A wonderful game.
===

Unemployed First Bloke furious at sharing footy privileges with an Opposition Leader

Andrew BoltMARCH092013(8:05am)

Tim Mathieson, an eager user of freebies at the footy, is upset to see Opposition Leader Tony Abbott also given VIP treatment:

After attending an AFL clash at the MCG as a guest of the Richmond Football Club, Mr Mathieson emailed its chief executive, Brendon Gale, copying in the Prime Minister’s office, to complain about the Opposition Leader’s access to the team’s inner sanctum and his prominent seating at a pre-game function.

Mr Mathieson demanded that Mr Gale raise the matter with the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Ben Hubbard.

His fiery outburst occurred on a Sunday evening after the Dreamtime AFL match between Essendon and Richmond on May 19 last year...
Mate u need to speak with Ben Hubbard on why abboott [sic] was taken down to the rooms ... .it’s just not on. Who authorised it. it was a shocker ... this sort of crap has to be addressed ASAP ... .also why the dons had abbott his chief of staff and his 2 daughters on the head table is a disgrace ... .

Gillard wasn’t there, but Mathieson brought along an old friend to enjoy the hospitality to which Mathieson has eagerly accustomed himself: 

Mr Mathieson is a fanatical supporter of the Richmond “Tigers"… Richmond has accommodated Mr Mathieson’s requests for tickets, hospitality and memorabilia since his move into The Lodge.

At the Dreamtime game in Melbourne, the first bloke invited ABC Insiders host Barrie Cassidy to join him on the Richmond table. Both men visited the Richmond room before the contest, where they crossed paths with Mr Abbott, who was a guest of Essendon’s chairman David Evans...
A SUMMER afternoon watching cricket from the catered comfort of the chairman’s room at the Gabba in Brisbane cheered members and guests as they settled in for the one-day international between Australia and Sri Lanka.

Lips curled disapprovingly, however, when Tim Mathieson breezed in with three mates and his son Kane. The First Bloke’s untucked, open-necked denim shirt irked some sticklers keen to enforce the formal dress code, but forbearance prevailed amid whispered speculation about who had invited the party of five described by one of those present as “a motley crew”.

Over dinner their boisterous criticism of the Liberal Party grated on conservative ears. The mates ribbed Mathieson about his previous Coalition connections (his first wife, Diane Stark, worked briefly for former National Party MP Bruce Lloyd). His group included a former used car salesman who has been in the odd scrape, but what rankled an observer that day in mid-January was not so much the visitors’ backgrounds as their lack of deference. “It was a fairly unedifying performance,” according to a businessman seated at their table. “Given Tim Mathieson was there primarily because of the Prime Minister you’d expect a bit of grace. It is not as if he was paying his own way.”
No:
Tim Mathieson has not been in paid work since 2009, when Melbourne property developer and Labor benefactor Albert Dadon put him briefly on the payroll selling luxury apartments.
The list of freebies Mathieson has had to declare shows he can work hard when it comes to finding a free seat: 
His registry since 2009 reads like a sports junkie’s almanac. He’s present at almost every major event on the Australian calendar: Formula 1 Grand Prix; Derby Day; Oaks Day; Twenty20 games; Test Matches; the Australian Open; State of Origin; the Bradman Oration; Sports Australia Hall of Fame dinner; final series for AFL and NRL. Cricket Australia and Richmond Football Club have been generous providers of tickets, hospitality and memorabilia.
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Exactly what is the Sharks’ crime?

Andrew BoltMARCH092013(9:21am)

In last month’s Australian Crime Commission report into organised crime and drugs in sport, thymosin was listed as a substance used in injury recovery, but the report seemed to be conflicted in terms of thymosin’s legality in sport.

The ACC report listed it as an unregulated substance that is prohibited under section S2 of WADA’s list of substances prohibited in-competition.

But the report also referred to it as a substance prohibited only if “subject to the form used” – a statement on legality which presumably (but not clearly) refers to how the substance is administered (intravenously, by intramuscular means, or orally).
Read on.
This all reeks of violation of due process....  The players and the club need support from the best legal eagles and medical authorities that money can buy.
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The real Julia is Pauline

Andrew BoltMARCH092013(11:39am)

One of these speeches was made by Pauline Hanson in 1997. The other was made by Julia Gillard this week.
Try to tell the difference between this:
I want to see our unemployment queues dwindle down to what they should be and give Australians the jobs first, instead of allowing other people onto Australia’s shores.  
We will support your job and put Aussie workers first.... I have a plan to deliver… To stop foreign workers being put at the front of the queue with Australian workers at the back. 
Apparently the woman Labor vilified as a racist a decade ago is now Gillard’s muse:
The PM did not so much as blush when her anti-foreign worker sentiments were endorsed by Pauline Hanson. Gillard said: “That is a matter for her.”

If that is so, could Labor now apologise to Hanson for having so viciously attacked her? Some Labor membership forms would be a nice gesture. 
===

Tim’s Tony tanty

Miranda Devine – Saturday, March 09, 2013 (3:54am)

THIS story from Chris Kenny and Kate Legge suggests a rather inappropriate sense of entitlement from the Prime Minister’s partner Tim Mathieson:
AN email obtained exclusively by The Weekend Australian reveals Julia Gillard’s partner, Tim Mathieson, sought to involve her office in pressuring a major sporting club to freeze out Tony Abbott.

After attending an AFL clash at the MCG as a guest of the Richmond Football Club, Mr Mathieson emailed its chief executive, Brendon Gale, copying in the Prime Minister’s office, to complain about the Opposition Leader’s access to the team’s inner sanctum and his prominent seating at a pre-game function.

“Mate u need to speak with Ben Hubbard on why abboott was taken down to the rooms ... “ Mr Mathieson fumed. “ ... it’s just not on Who authorised it < it was a shocker it was a Don's function and he should not have gone down there… this sort of crap has to be addressed ASAP ... .also why the dons had abbott his chief of staff and his 2 daughters on the head table is a disgrace ... ."

Richmond has accommodated Mr Mathieson's requests for tickets, hospitality and memorabilia since his move into The Lodge.

At the Dreamtime game in Melbourne, the first bloke invited ABC Insiders host Barrie Cassidy to join him on the Richmond table. Both men visited the Richmond room before the contest, where they crossed paths with Mr Abbott, who was a guest of Essendon's chairman David Evans.

... Government sources say Mr Mathieson has a habit of firing off emails and texts to Ms Gillard's personal staff when he senses a perceived injustice. 
Kate Legge’s magazine profile makes for excruciating reading. 
===

Curse of the mummy bloggers

Miranda Devine – Saturday, March 09, 2013 (4:43pm)

ONE thing we have learned about Mummy bloggers this week is that they are very good at taking umbrage.
All week they railed against being called mummy bloggers. They insisted indignantly that being invited to dinner with the Prime Minister in Rooty Hill had nothing to do with any political agenda.
On their blogs, on Twitter, on any website that would listen, out came the mummies to denounce those who dared call them mummy bloggers.
Guilty as charged.
But I do not know why bloggers who happen to be mothers who happen to write about their children would pretend to be anything else.
There is nothing to be ashamed of. “Mummy blogger” is an accurate description of a genre of online writing that is proving increasingly lucrative. It is not a pejorative.
These women blog about parenting, relationships, school lunches, cupcakes, baby names, water births and getting rid of pantry moths.
The best manage to tap into a daily conversation women have been having with each other for time immemorial.
The most successful attract thousands of readers and make a decent living from companies keen to sell to their niche audiences. In fact, so lucrative has mummy blogging become for a select few that they have had to hire an agency to manage all the product placement deals.
Good for the mummy bloggers. Good for anyone who manages to make a dollar online.
But if mummy bloggers who reject the description feel what they are doing is not respectable, they should find another line of business.
And when you are invited for a private tete-a-tete with the prime minister, don’t pretend it is because she wants to learn how to fold napkins.
Julia Gillard is wooing mummy bloggers to win the votes of their female readers. It is about neutralising Tony Abbott’s beefed up image as an average family man with three daughters.
Ironically, her attacks on Abbott as a misogynist are what led to the extra publicity for his family.
Presumably, photos of Gillard and partner Tim Mathieson frolicking at The Lodge with their new dog were designed to counter the Opposition leader’s family friendly image.
The same goes for Gillard’s new catch phrase “modern family”, new Twitter avatar featuring her with a child, and more prominent role for Mathieson, sadly cut short after his “small Asian female doctor” gaffe.
For the Prime Minister the Mummy blogger demographic is her base, instinctively antagonistic to Abbott, and understandably she wants to keep it that way.
Unfortunately her timing last week was woeful. The imagery of a prime minister eating Alaskan King Crab in a private dining room with a group of women who live on the lower north shore, northern beaches, Blue Mountains and the Southern Highlands, was not helpful to the Labor cause.
Warren Brown’s cartoon “The Real Julias” said it all. It showed Gillard dining at the Rooty Hill RSL with five identikit Mummy bloggers: “It’s great to be out mingling with everyday Australians”.
What attracted the ridicule wasn’t that the women were mummy bloggers. It wasn’t even that one had the same red hair and glasses. It was that Gillard had gone to western Sydney with the express purpose of communing with Labor’s supposed heartland and then had studiously avoided contact with locals, except in the most stage-managed circumstances.
The quarantine reached farcical heights when TV stations, which had set up temporary studios inside the RSL, found Gillard would not walk 50 metres to the club across a covered forecourt for interviews. Instead a camera had to be dispatched to the Novotel and the prime minister’s words were beamed next door via satellite.
It had TV technicians shaking their heads.
But far worse at the start of the week was the snub to veterans who staged a respectful protest outside the Novotel over the prime minister’s refusal to meet them to discuss military pensions.
For three days the Diggers “called out to the fleeting lady but she just went into her car,” says Alf Jaugietis, executive director of the Defence Force Welfare Association
After a critical story in The Daily Telegraph, the men were finally invited into the Novotel on Thursday for a cup of tea with the PM. Those present described an “amicable” 20-minute meeting during which Gillard promised to meet them later this month in Canberra with Minister for Defence Materiel, Mike Kelly, a former Australian Army lawyer.
The Diggers’ concern is that military pensions are not linked to cost of living increases so their real value has been falling for 20 years.
Jaugietis, 70, a retired air force engineer, says they were forced to protest outside the Novotel because the government was ignoring them, despite promises from Kelly.
“He did nothing. We’re pretty snarky with him. He promised it would happen in the next budget.”
But the veterans have since been told there will be nothing for them in May. Jaugietis is hopeful that Gillard will understand their plight.
“We’re not asking for something special,” he said. “We’re just asking to be treated like aged pensioners.”
With a new generation of veterans returning from a decade of war in Afghanistan, Iraq and East Timor, their welfare needs to be our top priority.
I know young returned soldiers with chronic injuries, who have been treated very shabbily, at the mercy of a defence health system which they say is “falling apart”.
Budget cuts mean they have been denied proper treatment.
“More effort is put into retiring a Land Rover than an injured soldier,” says one.
Our veterans have risked everything for their nation and now their nation must fulfill its side of the bargain.
If the Prime Minister had invited those Diggers waiting outside the Novotel for dinner on Monday night instead of the mummy bloggers, she would have earned respect rather than ridicule.
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Gillard isn’t playing ball

Piers Akerman – Saturday, March 09, 2013 (4:33pm)

THE federal ALP’s “say anything, do anything” policy is catching up with it. The rapid-fire release of stunt announcements has been the hallmark of both the Rudd and Gillard governments at an enormous cost to the nation. 
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“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” - 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

March 8: Morning
"We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." - Acts 14:22
God's people have their trials. It was never designed by God, when he chose his people, that they should be an untried people. They were chosen in the furnace of affliction; they were never chosen to worldly peace and earthly joy. Freedom from sickness and the pains of mortality was never promised them; but when their Lord drew up the charter of privileges, he included chastisements amongst the things to which they should inevitably be heirs. Trials are a part of our lot; they were predestinated for us in Christ's last legacy. So surely as the stars are fashioned by his hands, and their orbits fixed by him, so surely are our trials allotted to us: he has ordained their season and their place, their intensity and the effect they shall have upon us. Good men must never expect to escape troubles; if they do, they will be disappointed, for none of their predecessors have been without them. Mark the patience of Job; remember Abraham, for he had his trials, and by his faith under them, he became the "Father of the faithful." Note well the biographies of all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and you shall discover none of those whom God made vessels of mercy, who were not made to pass through the fire of affliction. It is ordained of old that the cross of trouble should be engraved on every vessel of mercy, as the royal mark whereby the King's vessels of honour are distinguished. But although tribulation is thus the path of God's children, they have the comfort of knowing that their Master has traversed it before them; they have his presence and sympathy to cheer them, his grace to support them, and his example to teach them how to endure; and when they reach "the kingdom," it will more than make amends for the "much tribulation" through which they passed to enter it.
Evening
"She called his name Ben-oni (son of sorrow), but his father called him Benjamin (son of my right hand)." - Genesis 35:18
To every matter there is a bright as well as a dark side. Rachel was overwhelmed with the sorrow of her own travail and death; Jacob, though weeping the mother's loss, could see the mercy of the child's birth. It is well for us if, while the flesh mourns over trials, our faith triumphs in divine faithfulness. Samson's lion yielded honey, and so will our adversities, if rightly considered. The stormy sea feeds multitudes with its fishes; the wild wood blooms with beauteous flowerets; the stormy wind sweeps away the pestilence, and the biting frost loosens the soil. Dark clouds distil bright drops, and black earth grows gay flowers. A vein of good is to be found in every mine of evil. Sad hearts have peculiar skill in discovering the most disadvantageous point of view from which to gaze upon a trial; if there were only one slough in the world, they would soon be up to their necks in it, and if there were only one lion in the desert they would hear it roar. About us all there is a tinge of this wretched folly, and we are apt, at times, like Jacob, to cry, "All these things are against me." Faith's way of walking is to cast all care upon the Lord, and then to anticipate good results from the worst calamities. Like Gideon's men, she does not fret over the broken pitcher, but rejoices that the lamp blazes forth the more. Out of the rough oyster-shell of difficulty she extracts the rare pearl of honour, and from the deep ocean-caves of distress she uplifts the priceless coral of experience. When her flood of prosperity ebbs, she finds treasures hid in the sands; and when her sun of delight goes down, she turns her telescope of hope to the starry promises of heaven. When death itself appears, faith points to the light of resurrection beyond the grave, thus making our dying Ben-oni to be our living Benjamin.
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Philip 
[Phĭl'ĭp] - warrior or a lover of horses.

1. One of the twelve apostles, a native of Bethsaida in Galilee (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18). Tradition has it that he was the one who requested of Jesus that he might first go and bury his father (Matt. 8:21-22).
The Man of a Timid, Retiring Disposition
Unlike Andrew and John, Philip did not approach Jesus, but waited till He accosted him and invited him to join His company. Andrew and John found Jesus - Jesus found Philip, whose name is a Greek one both by custom and derivation. A Jewish name he must have had, since all the apostles were Jews, but what it was remains unknown.
In three lists Philip is bracketed with Nathanael as companion and fellow worker. Both were Galileans. This Philip must not be confused with Philip the Deacon, considered below. We never read of the later Philip before Pentecost, nor of Philip the Apostle after Pentecost.
The conversion and call of Philip are expressed simply: "Jesus ... findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me" (John 1:43). The call to faith and to follow came at once, and Philip was ready for both. The impressive feature of his conversion is that as soon as Christ found him, Philip sought to bring others to Christ. The convert became a soul winner. "Come and see," he said to Nathanael, and he won his friend.
When the hungry multitude gathered around Christ at the Sea of Galilee, Philip was tested by Christ (John 6:5 ). Philip was singled out for a test of his faith, and for a great opportunity, which he lost, and with it lost a blessing. Instead of telling the Master that He was able to feed the hungry crowd, Philip made a mental calculation of how much food would be necessary to give each person a portion, and how much it would cost, and declared the project to be impossible. The seeking Greeks were led to Philip but although he sympathized with their request to see Christ, he was afraid and almost lost another opportunity (John 12:21 ). Yet Philip experienced familiar friendship with Jesus, for did He not call him by name? Slow to apprehend truth, he missed much, but Jesus had nothing but kind words for him (John 14:8). Tradition tells us that Philip died as a martyr at Heirapolis.
2. A son of Herod the Great and husband of Herodias. This was the royal Philip, who, disinherited by his father, lived a private life (Matt. 14:3;Mark 6:17; Luke 3:19).
3. Another son of the above Herod who was tetrarch of Iturea (Luke 3:1).
4. One of the seven deacons of the Church at Jerusalem who had four daughters (Acts 6:5; 8; 21:8).
The Man Who Loved to Evangelize
Philip was not content to serve tables, he loved to preach the Word, and was most successful in revival work. He was not a man to act on his own authority. He was a God-sent and Spirit-controlled evangelist (Acts 8:26-30). When the Spirit said, "Go," he obeyed with alacrity.
I. After the martyrdom of Stephen, Philip preached in Samaria with great success (Acts 8:4-8).
II. He led the Ethiopian to Christ and was the means of introducing Christianity to a heathen country (Acts 8:26-39).
III. He preached from city to city until he reached Caesarea (Acts 8:40).
IV. His four daughters were also preachers.
V. He had a godly home (Acts 21:8), in which Paul loved to stay, for he and Philip were like-minded.
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Today's reading: Deuteronomy 4-6, Mark 11:1-18 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Deuteronomy 4-6

Obedience Commanded
1 Now, Israel, hear the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. 2 Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you....

Today's New Testament reading: Mark 11:1-18

Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King
1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, 2 saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' say, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly....'"

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