Monday, April 02, 2018

Mon Apr 2nd Todays News

Don't give up on hope. Andrew Bolt's social conservatism sometimes rears its' head. He is allowed, but it is indulgent. A professional foul by Cricketers results in gutting the national side? A proportionate response by Victorian Liberals to a corrupt Dan Andrews assaulting the volunteer firefighters is condemned by Bolt. But the so called principled alternatives are not morally superior. And the result of faux even handedness is the ABC's promotion of anti semitism on Easter. Social conservatism can be misdirected. Four years ago, Bolt was tearing shreds off Abbott's policies and judgement calls. The criticism was not apt then, and is not now. The criticism had come from Turnbull supporters keen to upend the Liberal cart and make Turnbull PM. It succeeded. And shamefully, Bolt had tacitly endorsed it. Thing is, when evil is allowed to rule, nothing is right. A recalcitrant Senate suggests no senate is good for Australia. But the truth is there are such weapons against evil which work. Like Grace and Forgiveness. So that two Liberal members on Good Friday can prevent the destruction of the fire service by voting appropriately. The senate had opposed it under normal circumstances, but a corrupt government tried to sideline Westminster rules by exploiting the sickness of a member. When decent government is restored, the ALP will still not behave itself. For example consider the number of ALP expelled by Speaker Bronwyn Bishop. It is irrational to have it only one side follows rules, even at the expense of community safety. 
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 Cyberiad Engagement 

This is part of a vision of Pat's. A translated version may be available. It comes from an old file I did, a few years ago.
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Poetry from Lem's Cyberiad

Klapaucius thought, and thought some more. Finally he nodded and said:
"Very well. Let's have a love poem, lyrical, pastoral, and expressed in the language of pure mathematics. Tensor algebra mainly, with a little topology and higher calculus, if need be. But with feeling, you understand, and in the cybernetic spirit."
"Love and tensor algebra? Have you taken leave of your senses?" Trurl began, but stopped, for his electronic bard was already declaiming (see lyric)
===
The video is a gift for a newly engaged couple who were former students of mine.

http://www.icompositions.com/music/song.php?sid=94947

=== from 2017 ===
Some things should not happen, but they do. The vacating CEO of NSW Police, Scipione, had done such an awful job in ten years that there was no clear successor. Scipione had been at his best when he acted as a second police Minister under the ALP. He was good at defending ALP policy. When the government changed, all Scipione could do was duck. He allowed a bitter dispute between his seconds, Burns and Kaldas to fester. To be fair, Kaldas did not do anything wrong, but he isn't female. Burns did not do anything right, but she didn't have to. Even the ALP leader wanted Kaldas. The new police chief in NSW will be Mick Fuller. If Fuller isn't corrupt, he will do a better job than many before him. NSW police can improve by being strong and impartial. They can't run a mates network, even though the union would like that. At the moment, their detectives would struggle to find a hamster in a pet shop. Partly because the owner would be a suspect. 
=== from 2016 ===
 Julie Bishop is not a leader, and not competent as a foreign affairs minister either. Today she has used her position to criticise Donald Trump, a frontrunner candidate for the Republican Party in the US. It is the case that her opinion carries no weight with people that matter in the US, and that is as it should be, but the fact she was stupid enough to air the opinion should be of concern. She is not doing it for reasons of state, but so as to position her self domestically. That is inappropriate, like her back stabbing of former PM Tony Abbott.  It may well be the case that the position Bishop spoke on, regarding nuclear weapons for South Korea and Japan, is a responsible, reasoned position. However, it was politically dumb to say it, because she risks antagonising many different allies for no gain for Australia.   Maybe anti nuclear protestors will look at her differently, but conservatives who would be voting for her will lose respect for her. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility. 
=== from 2015 ===
A weak Obama is causing conflict when a cool hand like President Bush calmed and prevented conflict. So that provocation by North Korea didn't derail Bush, but flummoxes Obama. Obama is a failure with friends, as his extraordinary press conference for AGW alarmism in Brisbane showed, attempting to sideline the Australian federal government policy of the time. His disdain for Israel is life threatening and the threat posed by Iran's nuclear industry is real. But Obama is not alone with anti semitism, as the Daily Show host has shown with his 'jokes.' Or Elizabeth Farrelly and Mrs Jesus. Not that the airhead is being anti semitic, but her vapid thought processes do lower the collective intelligence of the population of the world. It isn't accidental. Farrelly invokes Christianity because Jihadists would kill her if she criticised them. She appears edgy because her audience is drawn to the pathetic. The Daily Show host's gags appeal to the lowest common denominator of national socialists. If only there were a left wing leader somewhere in the world capable of showing Obama how to behave. 

There is a reason why things happen. Alan Jones, a long term Liberal Party supporter has cost the Liberals government n Queensland and promoted Green scares regarding Coal Seam Gas in NSW. The truth is CSG, done properly, is safe. The hysterical opposition has a political cost now, but probably very little residual effect in the future as Nuclear and AGW hysteria campaigns have shown, as well as Vaccination and GM food or water fluoridation. Jones is being well paid for his position. Greens are not travelling well, despite their apparent support with multiple seats in NSW. They don't have policy. They can only scare. A bit like Bill Shorten whose pronouncements fit well on April Fool's Day, but are not of the gravity required of a leader of a political party. Obama may to have a good example, and he isn't a good example either. Because they have no policy, they have nothing to point to when in office. And so Qld's new government is shrinking in office. They hoodwinked the population at election with the promise of a protest vote .. and got elected by accident. But they aren't prepared to govern. 

The left have been attacking free speech for a long time. Political correctness is decades old. And censorship of new ideas has become reflexive. So that a stupid decision made in anger means the Age must pay half a million dollars to an innocent man they called a terrorist. But it is almost natural for the Age to be unprofessional and inept. They are wilfully blind. And so confused young people turn to jihadism because no one around them will point up. We see minorities and ignore cultural assets. So that a state legalises gay marriage without protecting churches from vexatious litigation. And when a state tries to remedy with legislation they are shamed for it. So that Australia is seen by some as a welfare magnet, and not a home. 
On this day in 1800, Beethoven premiered his first symphony in Vienna. In 1801, Lord Nelson won a magnificent victory at Copenhagen. He shelled the city and they welcomed him. A bit like the ALP today. Nelson had been given an opportunity to retreat when things looked dire. But he persevered. He put a glass to his dodgy eye and claimed he did not see the order. He might have failed by pressing the attack, his ships were near exhausted by the time a cease fire was declared. But fortune favoured the brave. He was graceful as he accepted surrender. In 1902, the first movie theatre, in the US, opened in LA. In 1911, the Australian Bureau of Statistics had it's first national census. It didn't count Aboriginals. In 1912, the RMS Titanic began sea trials which failed to anticipate a crash with an ice berg. In 1972, Charlie Chaplin returned to the US for the first time since being denounced as a communist during McCarthy's era. Nixon had been prosecutor, and was President at the time. In 1982, Argentina invaded the Falklands Islands. 
From 2014
  I googled misandrist and got the first option "misandrist Julia Gillard." A search engine that returns information. Don't expect it to enter the Macquarie Dictionary soon. Sometimes they can be very slow. The behaviour of ALP supporters is puzzling. If they really believed in the ALP, they'd be advocating for improvement and change. It is important for Australia's future that her democracy be strong, and that requires vibrant debate over matters that are important. But the ALP is too compromised by self interest of members to be of value to the Australian public. The ALP are not supporting industry workers with the carbon tax. ALP are not helping minorities with irresponsible spending. ALP are not helping migrants with weak border protection. All of these issues should be ALP strengths, but aren't. In fact, the conservatives have the most effective policies in these areas. It is corruption of process that needs to be addressed by the ALP. They will still have members elected to parliament regardless of what they do, but reform is essential. It was not done by Hawke/Keating in the late 90's when there was an opportunity. Now there is another opportunity. 

Puzzling behaviour is historical too. On this day in 1801 Horatio Nelson shelled Copenhagen and captured a Danish fleet. Only, when things had looked desperate, Nelson had been ordered to disengage. He ignored the order. Had he lost, he might have been executed. He was advised in battle of the order, and reputedly put a spy glass to his eye, remarking "I am supposed to have a bad eye. I cannot see the flag." Two of his fleet got grounded in harbour, but his desperate assault led the Danes to surrender. He landed and was greeted as a hero by the Danes. My possible explanation for the Danish behaviour was that the Danish Government, in charge of a protestant nation, had aligned with Catholic France against Protestant England, and this was unpopular. But I don't know that to be true and would welcome it if anyone knows the actual reason. There might be insight as to why the ALP continues to have support even after their epic failures.
Historical perspective on this day
In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León first sighted land in what is now Florida. 1755, Commodore William James captured the Maratha fortress of Suvarnadurg on west coast of India. 1792, the Coinage Act was passed establishing the United States Mint.

In 1800, Ludwig van Beethoven led the premiere of his First Symphony in Vienna. 1801, Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Copenhagen: The British captured the Danish fleet. 1851, Rama IV was crowned King of Thailand. 1863,  Richmond Bread Riot: Food shortages incited hundreds of angry women to riot in Richmond, Virginia, and demand that the Confederategovernment release emergency supplies. 1865, American Civil War: At the Third Battle of Petersburg Virginia, the Siege of Petersburg was broken by Union Army troops capturing trenches and breaking Confederate States Army lines, forcing the Confederates under General Robert E. Lee to retreat in the Appomattox Campaign. Also 1865, American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. 1885, Cree warriors attacked the village of Frog Lake, North-West Territories, Canada, killing nine.

In 1900, the United States Congress passed the Foraker Act, giving Puerto Rico limited self-rule. 1902, Dmitry Sipyagin, Minister of Interior of the Russian Empire, was assassinated in the Marie Palace, St Petersburg. Also 1902, "Electric Theatre", the first full-time movie theaterin the United States, opened in Los Angeles, California. 1911, the Australian Bureau of Statistics conducted the country's first national census. 1912, the ill-fated RMS Titanic began sea trials. 1917, World War I: United States President Woodrow Wilson asked the U.S. Congress for a declaration of war on Germany. 1921, the Autonomous Government of Khorasan, a military government encompassing the modern state of Iran, was established. 1930, after the mysterious death of Empress Zewditu, Haile Selassie was proclaimed emperor of Ethiopia. 1945, Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Brazil were established.

In 1956, As the World Turns and The Edge of Night premiered on CBS-TV. The two soaps become the first daytime dramas to debut in the 30-minute format. 1962, the first official panda crossing was opened outside London Waterloo station. 1972, actor Charlie Chaplinreturned to the United States for the first time since being labeled a communist during the Red Scare in the early 1950s. 1973, launch of the LexisNexis computerised legal research service. Also 1973, the Liberal Movement broke away from the Liberal and Country League in South Australia. 1975, Vietnam War: Thousands of civilian refugees fled from Quảng Ngãi Province in front of advancing North Vietnamese troops. Also 1975, construction of the CN Tower was completed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It reached 553.33 metres (1,815.4 ft) in height, becoming the world's tallest free-standing structure. 1980, United States President Jimmy Carter signed the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act in an effort to help the U.S. economy rebound. 1982, Falklands War: Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. 1986, Alabama governor George Wallace, a former segregationist most widely known for the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door", announced that he would not seek a fifth four-year term and would retire from public life upon the end of his term in January 1987. 1989, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev arrived in Havana, Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro in an attempt to mend strained relations.

In 1991, Rita Johnston became the first female Premier of a Canadian province when she succeeds William Vander Zalm (who had resigned) as Premier of British Columbia. 1992, in New York, Mafia boss John Gotti was convicted of murder and racketeering and was later sentenced to life in prison. 1994, the National Convention of New Sudan of the SPLA/Mopened in Chukudum. 2002, Israeli forces surround the Church of the Nativity in Bethleheminto which armed Palestinians had retreated; a siege ensued. 2004, Islamist terrorists involved in the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks attempted to bomb the Spanish high-speed train AVEnear Madrid; the attack is thwarted. 2006, over 60 tornadoes broke out in the United States; Tennessee was hardest hit with 29 people killed. 2011, India won the Cricket World Cupagainst Sri Lanka in Wankhede Stadium. 2012, a mass shooting at Oikos University at Oakland, California left seven people dead and three injured. 2014, a spree shooting occurred at the Fort Hood Army Base near the town of Killeen, Texas, with four people dead, including the gunman, and 16 others sustaining injuries.
=== 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
===
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 to those born on this day, along with
Deaths
April 2: Maundy Thursday (Western Christianity, 2015)
Rakesh Sharma
We won. We have spirit. We count. All are aboard. You are gun. Let's party. 
===
Andrew Bolt 2018

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DON’T MENTION THE WAR

Tim Blair – Saturday, April 02, 2016 (6:49pm)

The White House is accused of censoring French President Francois Hollande: 
On Thursday, Hollande told Barack Obama, “We are also making sure that between Europe and the United States there can be a very high level coordination. But we’re also well aware that the roots of terrorism, Islamist terrorism, is in Syria and in Iraq. We therefore have to act both in Syria and in Iraq, and this is what we’re doing within the framework of the coalition. And we note that Daesh is losing ground thanks to the strikes we’ve been able to launch with the coalition …”
The bolded words are still currently censored from the White House’s YouTube video.

Instead of hearing Hollande’s interpreter translate the French president’s comments, the YouTube video’s audio cuts out and it is silent. 
The White House blamed the deletion on an audio problem, but Jim Treacher’s timeline tells a different story: 
This isn’t some sort of technical glitch. The White House posted the full audio and video of Hollande’s remarks, took it down, and put up this redacted version. They did this.
In 2016, an openly socialist Frenchman has a more clear-eyed view of world events than the President of the United States. And we’re censoring his words. We’re actually censoring a world leader who’s precisely and accurately describing a problem, because it might offend some people. People who definitely need to be offended. 
They might need something far more severe.
===

CHICK PARMA

Tim Blair – Saturday, April 02, 2016 (4:06pm)

The latest sexist outrage involves reduced costs for female customers:

A previous sexist outrage involved higher costs for female customers.
(Via John P.)
===

SUNDOWN IN ST LOUIS

Tim Blair – Saturday, April 02, 2016 (1:29pm)

A solar eclipse for the US stock market: 
Solar-energy company SunEdison Inc. plans to file for bankruptcy protection in coming weeks, a dramatic about-face for a company whose market value stood at nearly $10 billion in July …
SunEdison’s stock fell to fresh lows this past week on bankruptcy fears and news that the company is facing Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department investigations. Its market capitalization is now about $150 million, and it had long-term debt of about $7.9 billion as of Sept. 30, according to a regulatory filing. 
That’s a decline of 98.5 per cent in less than one year. Solar’s future does look very bright indeed.
===

PIES WIN, GAME LOSES

Tim Blair – Saturday, April 02, 2016 (12:34pm)

Apologies for the lack of posts overnight, but celebrations for Collingwood’s sensational victory continued for some time. It may be one of those years when we need to make the most of every win, even over the likes of Richmond. Click for delicious video 
Last night’s match at the MCG featured an unpleasant banner, now the subject of ongoing controversy. Memo to the AFL: once you introduce politics to the game through various promotional rounds, this sort of thing will happen.
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The crowd in his pocket

Andrew Bolt April 02 2016 (9:54am)

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Black lives matter, too

Andrew Bolt April 02 2016 (7:41am)

I share Warren Mundine’s anger at this deadly hypocrisy:
The Smallbone Report ... describes the miserable life of children in two Queensland indigenous communities and the absence of parental care and law enforcement: Sex offences two to seven times the state average, with 85 per cent of victims aged under 17. Sexual activity normalised for children as young as 10. Families not knowing where their children are overnight and unconcerned. Police not trusted. Community leaders turning a blind eye. People failing to intervene in known or witnessed abuse, fearing reprisals. 
Those fears are why the Queensland government didn’t release the report when delivered in 2013. Community leaders asked that it remain secret. Only now have details been revealed. Can you imagine a government withholding a report on sexual abuse of any other group of children for three years? Over this period a Royal Commission has heard evidence of sex offences ignored and covered up by some of Australia’s most influential institutions. The public outrage has been palpable. But the secrecy around the Smallbone Report barely raised a whimper.
Worse still, report after report tells us indigenous children are being sexually abused nationwide. The Gordon Report in 2002, the Breaking the Silence Report in 2006 and the Little Children Are Sacred Report in 2007, for example, found endemic family violence and sexual abuse in communities in WA, NSW and NT. Offences rarely reported. Communities protecting perpetrators but not children. Child abuse normalised, intergenerational and self-perpetuating…
Where’s the community anger? The demonstrations and campaigns? What are we doing about the abuse of our children?…
That this crime wave continues unchecked points to one conclusion — no one, not even indigenous adults, think indigenous children are important. Why else would indigenous communities protect perpetrators and ignore, even shun, their victims?…
Ultimately child abuse won’t end without parents taking responsibility for safeguarding their children and securing their future. This includes basic parental duties — knowing where your children are, making sure there’s food at home, and sending your children to school.
Finally, we can’t just blame these problems on factors outside our control, like invasion, racism, historical wrongs, the “system” or poverty. There’s no excuse for abandoning children.... Child abuse will destroy indigenous society. It’s up to us — our mobs — to end the abuse and the silence. 
Read all Mundine’s powerful piece.
We have the media, politicians and activists smashing the Catholic church over the rape of children by pedophile priests 30 or 40 years ago, yet keeping almost silent about the rape of Aboriginal children today.
Why? 
===

Will Turnbull stop spending?

Andrew Bolt April 02 2016 (6:45am)

This kind of reckless spending must stop.
December 1, 2015:
Malcolm Turnbull has promised to spend “at least” $1 billion helping vulnerable nations cope with climate change… 
December 8:
The Federal Government will spend almost $1.1 billion in the next four years to promote business-based research, development and innovation.
December 20:
The Turnbull Government will invest more-than $1 billion to give all Australians with Hepatitis C access to breakthrough cures…
January 6, 2016:
The Turnbull government will spend $28 million on a taxpayer-funded advertising blitz to spruik its innovation agenda and trigger a “cultural shift” in the economy.
March 23:
Malcolm Turnbull has announced a $1 billion clean energy fund, saying it is a vital part of his plan to boost innovation and create jobs beyond the mining boom.  
April 1:
Mr Turnbull offered the states and territories ... an extra $2.9bn for health over the three years to June 2020.
You realise this is all borrowed money, don’t you?
The budget is expected to post a $38 billion deficit this year and isn’t scheduled to return to surplus until at least 2021.
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Morrison cuts loose from Turnbull’s wreckage

Andrew Bolt April 02 2016 (6:21am)

Mark Kenny:
Malcolm .Turnbull ... went into the meeting [with the Premiers] brandishing a poorly formed yet revolutionary idea for which he had done none of the background work required to give it a chance. 
Victoria’s Daniel Andrews complained that the first he knew of [Turnbull’s proposal to let states raise their own income tax] was what he read in a newspaper just two days before. Other leaders said they had received a phone call from the PM around that time but that Turnbull had declined to explain his proposal beyond the most broad schematic outline… Giving the states income taxing powers literally came and went within a couple of days. In reform terms, it was a model of how not to succeed and to that extent, belongs on the trophy shelf with other world-beating public policy lemons from the Australia Card and Telstra’s timed local telephone calls debacles in the 1980s, to Labor’s 150-member citizen’s assembly on climate change, and a series of botched tax reform and revenue possibilities closed off by the Coalition government, this year alone. Think GST, negative gearing “excesses”, capital gains tax, and even personal income tax cuts...A sharper reversal of a national leader is hard to remember...
David Crowe:
The Weekend Australian can reveal that premiers and chief ministers were not shown any formal paperwork during yesterday’s meeting to outline Mr Turnbull’s proposal, inflaming the negotiations.
James Jeffrey:
We ask: Is floating and killing a great big new tax plan in barely more than a handful of hours (a) agile, (b) innovative or (c) exciting?
A fierce editorial from Paul Murray. Bang on.
Scott Morrison has had no option but to distance himself from the Prime Minister, and thank goodness he did: 
“There will be no raising of income tax. The states will not be levying income tax and the Commonwealth will not be raising income tax,” Mr Turnbull said. It represented a victory of sorts for Treasurer Scott Morrison who [opposed] letting the states lift taxes. The tension between him and Mr Turnbull was again evident when the media was invited to film the men leaving Parliament together after the meeting.
About that ludicrous stunt:
Media alert for a no-questions-allowed photo opportunity issued by the Prime Minister’s Office yesterday afternoon:
What: Prime Minister & Treasurer PICFAC only Where: Prime Minister’s Courtyard 
Time: 4.20pm
Running time of this question-free spectacle — Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison walking past journalists and getting into the car — in its entirety: 
Thirteen seconds.
Morrison represents the Liberals’ future. He cannot afford to be stained with Turnbull’s mistakes and if that comes at the cost of the appearance of disunity then blame the boss.
UPDATE
Good advice from Terry McCrann:
Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison should be talking about one tax and only one tax… The tax is Bill Shorten’s carbon tax..... [A] Shorten-Bowen-Di Natale government wants to impose a new tax that would be broadly equivalent to lifting the GST by around 25 per cent, from 10 to 12.5 per cent. It might start lower, but that’s where it would irresistibly head. 
This brings me to a critical and fundamentally important point… If Turnbull actually loses the coming election, whether a double dissolution in July or the normal one in September, his supposedly great coup on senate voting will turn into the mother of all own goals.
For the loss would not only deliver government to Labor, but a friendly senate like Gillard had to impose the first carbon tax — either via an outright Labor-Green majority or with the help of some very unhappy (surviving) independents.... But an ETS would actually be worse. At least a basic carbon tax takes the money from you and gives it to Canberra to spend on your behalf… [But] under an ETS you are very likely to be sending the money either to Brussels or Lagos… 
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Just four seconds to go. So don’t talk to me about football

Andrew Bolt April 02 2016 (5:56am)

I said to my children last night that it’s a completely bizarre way to relax, feeling tense as all get out for a couple of hours and then completely distraught. Sure didn’t help me sleep, either.
Why would you do that to yourself, and all over something that actually doesn’t matter at all? So I’m going cold turkey for a long while.  
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In defence of Mark Latham

Andrew Bolt April 02 2016 (5:44am)

Kate Legge has written a fine profile of former Labor leader Mark Latham.
I have been cross at times with his over-the-top abuse, betrayals of confidence, resentments and flat-out errors, often driven by a fierce commitment to his argument rather than to the evidence. But I love his fearlessness and frankness, not to mention his total war on hypocrisy and sanctimony, and am not surprised by the tribute paid by his wife:
His wife, Janine Lacey, breaks her longstanding media silence to speak of their partnership. “Mark has always been an extraordinary supporter of my endeavours and my career.” She won’t comment on his skirmishes other than acknowledging he is “the bravest, most courageous person I know”.
Moreover, I can’t stand some of the abuse of him by people - usually women - who then squeal when repaid in kind:
The morning after his festival meltdown he had a testy exchange in the hotel breakfast bar with writer Rebecca Huntley, who’d called Latham a “stay-at-home psycho” in a piece eight years ago. She told The Guardian: “He stood very close to me and said, ‘How would you like it if I called you a deranged slut?’” Columnist Miranda Devine defended Latham, frowning at what she called “fainting-couch feminism”.
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Computers don’t teach. Teachers do

Andrew Bolt April 02 2016 (5:09am)

Is anyone surprised? But how many went along with this expensive fraud?
The headmaster of Sydney Grammar School, John Vallance, ... said the Rudd-­Gillard government’s $2.4 billion Digital Education Revolution, which used taxpayer funds to buy laptops for high school students, was money wasted. “It didn’t really do anything except enrich Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard and Apple,’’ he said… 
Dr Vallance regards­ laptops as a distraction in the classroom. “We see teaching as fundamentally a social activity,’’ he said. “It’s about interaction between people, about discussion, about conversation...”
These wasted billions help to explain a seeming paradox. Funding for education has gone up:
Spending by all Australian governments grew by 37 per cent, in real terms, in the ten years between 2002-03 and 2012-13 This has been driven largely by State and Territory policy decisions to decrease the teacher to student ratio, as well as the increase in the average length of service of teachers and increases in student numbers. During this period, funding growth has far outstripped student growth. Growth in student numbers has been averaging 0.8 per cent, while funding has grown by an average of around 4 per cent per year for government schools and around 5 per cent for non-government schools since 2000-01.
But standards have fallen:
Australian 15-year-olds’ scores on reading, maths and scientific literacy have recorded statistically significant declines since 2000, while other countries have shown improvement.
Lowering the sizes of average classes has turned out to be another “reform” with minimal benefits. For a start, increasing the number of teachers means having to accept more of the less skilled.
So don’t accept this lazy kind of education politics:
[T]he Gonski plan ... would cost an extra $4.5 billion in 2018 and 2019. That’s strongly supported by Labor. Teachers and their unions have recently stepped up a campaign calling for the government to stick to the Gonski funding plan.
Don’t measure education reform by the extra dollars. Measure it by better teaching that’s proposed - and by the results. 
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The Bolt Report returns on April 25

Andrew Bolt April 01 2016 (8:58pm)

We’re back on April 25, a week earlier than originally announced. There’s too much stuff happening to sit around. We had our first planning meeting today and my nerves have switched from scared to excited.
If you aren’t yet a Foxtel subscriber and want to watch you will have tosign up here.  You’ll be encouraging an alternative voice and we plan to deliver in spades.  
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NOAH’S ARC

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 01, 2015 (10:58pm)

Following the announcement that little-known South African comedian Trevor Noah would replace Jon Stewart as host of The Daily Show, Salon‘s Sonia Saraiya made this prediction: 
Noah is also a man of color – a literal product of apartheid, as his mother was black and his father was white, an illegal union at the time in South Africa. It’s this, ultimately, that is going to get the most attention. 
That didn’t happen, mostly because it isn’t 1827. Instead, as Mark Steyn reports, leftist fans of The Daily Showswarmed to their new host’s Twitter feed – and what they found left them shocked and confused:

Interesting premise for that second gag. Nothing beats the old almost-ran-over-a-Jew-kid routine. And in a German car! Gold, Jerry, gold!

And it continues. Many were upset by the content and subjects of Noah’s tweets – the SMH couldn’t even bring itself to publish them – but far more offensive is that none of them are even slightly funny. Still, maybe he’ll do better with the support of The Daily Show‘s writing team. In fact, Noah has already appeared three times on the show:

Somehow, Comedy Central executives watched that performance (among others) and they didn’t think: “Forget not ready for prime time. This guy isn’t ready for lunchtime.” They didn’t think: “There are funnier people in every comedy club in the US. Serving drinks.” Remarkably, they did think: “Here’s our new host!” The network was presumably attracted by Noah’s edgy attitude: 
“When flying over the middle of America the turbulence is so bad. It’s like all the ignorance is rising through the air.” 
Gags about fat chicks, Jews and dumb middle America. He’s working some real progressive material there: 
In a phone interview on Monday from Dubai, where Noah was travelling on a comedy tour, he likened himself to the New York-born Stewart, saying, “One thing we both share: We are both progressives.” He added, “traveling the world I’ve learned that progressives, regardless of their locations, think in a global space”. 
So he’s a progressive first and a comedian … well, not second. Or third. Possibly somewhere post-50 in Noah’s overall list of identity markers. (Thinking “in a global space”, by the way, is apparently progressive-speak for “sharing exactly the same clichéd bigotries”.)  David Frum accurately forecast The Daily Show‘s response: 
Daily Show method: entrap & edit targets to look stupid & bigoted. But for Trevor Noah (who edited himself) they’ll urge context & nuance. 
Yep. Here’s The Daily Show‘s Aasif Mandvi: 
The guy made some sort of, you know, off-color, irresponsible tweets, but he was trying to be funny …
Are we gonna hold artists, comedians, whatever it is, responsible for stuff they say on Twitter? You can if you want, but I don’t know what that means about our culture, you know? 
This from someone on a show that polices language all the time. NRO’s Kevin Williamson believes Noah will prevail:
Comedy Central knows that Jon Stewart’s viewers are cheap dates. They are not very bright, and they are not very interested in the world around them. The function of The Daily Show is to flatter the prejudices of a certain segment of largely white and middle-aged metropolitan liberals. Daily Show viewers are not interested in original insight – indeed, the utterance of an original thought or the indulgence of an unpredictable angle of analysis would undermine the entire structure of the program. Daily Show viewers tune in so that they can be made to feel clever for continuing to believe the things they already believe. There is no reason to believe that Noah is going to fail to deliver those exceedingly modest goods. 
Mark Steyn, too, thinks Noah might survive: 
I suspect once this awkward little sizeist-Jew thing is smoothed over that he’ll confine himself to the old reliables – the stupidity of Palin, the stupidity of Cruz, the stupidity of [Your Republican Here] – that will keep Jon Stewart liberals splitting their sides for the next half-decade. 
I wouldn’t be too sure. Noah is more like a typical Daily Show viewer than a host. He’s crushingly literal, boring and witless, to the point that even regular Daily Show followers may turn away. For example, here is his white-hot comeback to the current Twitter storm: 
To reduce my views to a handful of jokes that didn’t land is not a true reflection of my character, nor my evolution as a comedian. 
That is less a shutdown than a straight line leading to a much better gag. Now that Comedy Central is possibly looking at another host, perhaps they should check out the wonderful Luann Lockhart.
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Read my lips: No new taxes

Piers Akerman – Thursday, April 02, 2015 (10:42pm)

FOR the first time since the introduction of the GST 15 years ago, the nation is beginning a discussion on taxation. It is long overdue. The GST, boldly introduced by the Howard-Costello government, was, in hindsight, hobbled by the concessions that were made to the Australian Democrats to ensure its passage in the face of Labor’s pig-headed blanket opposition to the fairer tax structure.
 Continue reading 'Read my lips: No new taxes'
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Attack in Kenya

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (6:08pm)

Hard not to leap to a conclusion about the faith of the attackers:
A police official says masked gunmen have stormed a university campus in Garissa Town in eastern Kenya. 
Musa Yego says gunshots and explosions can be heard from a building on the campus, which is surrounded by police and military.
It was not immediately clear if there were any fatalities or injured. Kenya’s northern and eastern regions, which border Somalia, have been most affected by attacks blamed on al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab Islamists from Somalia. 
UPDATE
Unknown dead, possibly hostages:
Witnesses said explosion and heavy gunfire rocked Garissa University College early on Thursday as the gunmen stormed the complex. Ambulances were seen driving injured students to local hospitals. 
Police spokesperson Zipporah Mboroki told Al Jazeera that the situation is ongoing and that the gunmen were holed up inside the university complex. “The attackers shot the guards at the entrance of the university… We can confirm that two watchmen were killed; we cannot confirm student casualties,” Mboroki added.
Bodies already coming to the morgue:
UPDATE
Praise for our diplomats:
Kenya has hit back at the UK & Australia for issuing travel advisories but this was marred by an attack on a local university a day later. 
The recently updated travel advisories to Kenya by the United Kingdom and Australia have sparked diplomatic rows. Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has hit back at tourist markets citing that, “Kenya is as safe as any country in the world”.
The warning on March 27:
The Australian’s government department of foreign affairs and trade said that they have information that extremists may be planning attacks in crowded places in Nairobi. 
“We advise Australians to exercise a high degree of caution in Kenya. We continue to recommend that Australians reconsider their need to travel to Nairobi and Mombasa and outskirts due to the high threat of terrorist attack and high level of crime,” the travel advice by the Australian embassy read.
UPDATE
Al Shabab boasts:
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Elizabeth Farrelly fancies a Mrs Jesus

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (1:10pm)

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Elizabeth Farrelly has set incredible standards for crazy burblings, but today equals her very best:
Indeed, Jesus’ role and resonance are so intensely female it makes me wonder. Was Jesus actually a woman?
There is this brief flash of self-awareness:
Admittedly, much of the chatter around this is nutty. 
Yes.
It is an insight in to the thinking process of a certain kind of Leftist, often female. If if feels good, it’s halfway to true. 
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A zinger? A Labor policy? An April Fool joke? Who can tell?

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (9:43am)

True:
Truer:
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Uglier and uglier: how did Queensland Labor select these guys?

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (9:17am)

Queensland Labor should ask itself how it twice pre-selected Billy Gordon, and why so many of the Left now defend him. Power above principle:
More claims:
Katter’s Australian Party says it is ready to back the Liberal National Party to form government in Queensland, as new revelations emerged that dumped Labor MP Billy Gordon was investigated for misappropriating public funds… 
Public and private allegations have been mounting against the Labor ranks which, until Ms Palaszczuk moved to expel Mr Gordon at the weekend, had 44 MPs and was able to form minority government in the 89-seat unicameral parliament with the support of independent MP and now Speaker Peter Wellington…
Mr Gordon was investigated for alleged misappropriation of public funds while employed by the Queensland government as a project officer in Mount Isa in 2009. It was alleged Mr Gordon misused his government mobile phone SIM card for personal calls. The allegations were referred to Queensland’s corruption watchdog but then sent back to the Department of Communities, which ordered he repay a bill of $1700 and fined him $100.
To be very clear: Gordon denies the claims of domestic violence made by his ex-partner and another woman.:
Indigenous leader Warren Mundine said Mr Gordon needed to quit Queensland Parliament.

Mr Mundine, who heads the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council, posted a statement on social media, calling for Mr Gordon’s resignation… 
“We have to stand up against family violence,” he said.
“It’s unacceptable. It’s not part of our culture, it’s not part of our society, and even if it was we have to change."…
Former Labor state secretary Cameron Milner said his successor in the role, Anthony Chisholm, was responsible for Mr Gordon’s pre-selection.
“I can’t comprehend how Billy Gordon got pre-selected in the first place without gross negligence or worse a blind eye being turned for factionally convenient reasons,” he told ABC News…
Queensland Labor Senator Jan McLucas, who is again seeking a spot on the Senate ticket, has also been caught up in the scandal and was earlier this week forced to deny involvement in any cover-up. “Labor is about to have the ‘Sergeant Schultz’ Senate ticket, with McLucas and Chisholm – ‘we knew nothing’,” Mr Milner said.
A word of advice to the new Speaker: you are sounding far too callous and self-serving. Adjust fast:
SPEAKER Peter Wellington has lashed out for a second time at a woman making allegations of domestic violence against Cook MP Billy Gordon, saying if she was genuine she would have phoned him… 
Yesterday he said she should have realised he was busy in Parliament when she contacted him. “You have to ask why did she leave it to our busiest day of our sitting of Parliament to write, when a reasonable person would say, heck, he’s just employed new staff, things are going to be hectic there,” Mr Wellington said on ABC radio.
Who are these Labor MPs, and who pre-selected them?
Treasurer Curtis Pitt ... defended Member for Pumicestone Rick Williams after The Courier-Mail revealed Labor had sought legal advice about his alleged behaviour including during a call he made to a law firm… 
Mr Williams ...  issued a press release responding to revelations he had threatened lawyers in Cairns as well as accusations from his stepdaughter, Jasmine Manaley, who detailed wide-ranging allegations against the MP after a bitter falling out…
“These allegations are a number of years old and are untrue.
“I have previously disclosed to the ALP a criminal charge in 2002 that was dismissed by the Courts when the allegation was found to be untrue.
“I have previously responded to inquiries about the dispute with lawyers in Cairns in 2009, which was the subject of media reports prior to the election. At the time of the event, I was angry and said things I regret.
“During this event, I also raised a previous dispute I had with Suncorp when I lived in Ipswich. “This matter was resolved by agreement and was reported in the media a number of years ago."…
Labor Party state boss Evan Moorhead ... admitted Pumicestone’s rookie MP Rick Williams acted “inappropriately” during a financial dispute in 2009 but had done nothing “illegal"…
It comes as a tape has emerged of Mr Williams threatening to bring a law firm “undone” following a dispute about an unpaid real estate commission…
The 2009 tape records Mr Williams allegedly threatening staff at the Cairns firm, adding that his brother — a convicted killer and standover man — was “Mr Fix-it in NSW”. 
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

The Left’s sick war on free speech

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (8:51am)

Three examples of the intellectual thuggery of the Left, shouting down debate.
Example 1, described by former Labor Minister Peter Baldwin:
The University of Sydney is one of Australia’s most venerable higher education institutions. It should be a place where controversial issues are debated freely and openly with the contending sides able to present their cases without intimidation and harassment… 
On March 11 I attended a public meeting on the campus addressed by Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan… Kemp was in Israel during the Gaza conflict in July-August last year, and he gave the Israel Defence Forces credit for their measures to minimise civilian cas­ualties during their operations…
Kemp was able to speak unimpeded for about 20 minutes, at which point 15 to 20 people pushed past a security guard and began loudly chanting “Richard Kemp you can’t hide, you support genocide”, led by a young woman with a megaphone set to maximum volume… It was a genuinely frightening experience; a systematic, planned attempt to wreck the meeting. The attempt to suppress speakers perceived as pro-Israeli on campus is part of a wider pattern at Australian universities and internationally spearheaded by supporters of the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign…
Two well-known pro-BDS aca­demics were present: Jake Lynch, director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Centre; and Nick Riemer, a senior lecturer in the English department. Both denied involvement in the disruption but loudly supported it once it began…
Riemer asserts a general “right to disrupt” any speaker. This cannot be squared with any reasonable understanding of the right to free speech, the whole point and effect of disruption being to prevent the effective exercise of the latter… Defend Israel in any respect and you are a warmonger, callously indifferent to the fate of oppressed people. You need to be silenced.
This is a truly sinister development, and one not confined to Australian universities.
Example 2, described by political scientist Jennifer Oriel:
Enter the latest limp cant against Social Services Minister Scott Morrison by former students of his alma mater, Sydney Boys High School. In an online letter endorsed by John Pilger, the moribund band of brothers exhorts the school to withdraw a speaking invitation to Morrison on the charge that he advocated policies in violation of the UN Convention against Torture…
If the Sydney Boys High alumni cared more for fact than fiction, they would congratulate Morrison for his exceptional protection of human rights. As immigration minister, he reduced the 1992 children amassed in detention under the Labor government to 192…
Leftist campaigns to censor conservatives have gained popularity with the rise of social media. During the past two years, a record number of conservatives have had speaking invitations cancelled or withdrawn by universities and schools following protests by left-wing faculty and students as well as Islamists. Notable victims include Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Charles Murray and Condoleezza Rice…

The 1984 Blainey affair, which saw historian Geoffrey Blainey hounded from the University of Melbourne for questioning the government’s approach to multicultural policy, remains Australia’s most notorious example of leftists mobbing dissidents on campus.
But recent examples give cause for concern. Liberal MP and indigenous woman Bess Price was disinvited by Griffith University’s indigenous student support unit on grounds that her visit would be “unhealthy”. At the University of Melbourne, former Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella was mobbed by socialists so aggressively that security guards had to escort her from a lecture theatre. A week before, socialist students at the University of Sydney set upon Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. Tony Abbott and Education Minister Christopher Pyne were forced to cancel a university appearance last year after the Australian Federal Police advised their security on campus could be compromised. 
Example 3, the attempted punishment of Martin Ferguson by Labor and associated members of the crazier Left: 
The union official who began a push to expel Labor veteran Martin Ferguson from the ALP for his views on privatisation believes the official story of how the Twin Towers in New York were brought down on September 11, 2001 is a conspiracy that does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. 
Maritime Union of Australia official Kevin Bracken last week moved a motion condemning Mr Ferguson for publicly supporting power privatisation in New South Wales during the recent state election and urging the Victorian branch of the Labor Party to kick him out. That motion was unanimously passed by all state leaders of affiliated unions.
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Blackest political stunt in Australian sport

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (8:44am)

 THE case against Essendon Football Club — now cleared of giving players illegal performance-enhancing drugs — stank of politics from the start.
Of Labor-style politics.
Go back to Thursday, February 7, 2013, when this all started.
The Gillard Government was in political hell. Just the day before, Treasurer Wayne Swan admitted his mining tax had been a colossal failure, raising almost nothing.
Worse, Labor MP Craig Thomson, long protected by Prime Minister Julia Gillard, had that same day fronted a Melbourne court to face 154 charges of defrauding union members and spending their money on prostitutes.
Meanwhile the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption was hearing allegations against yet another senior Labor figure, former NSW Mining Minster Ian MacDonald.
The budget was blowing, the boats kept coming and Kevin Rudd was poised to topple Gillard, as he finally did four months later.
The Government desperately needed a diversion.
It got one. That Thursday Justice Minister Jason Clare and Sports Minister Kate Lundy summoned the heads of five big sporting codes to Canberra for a stunning press conference.
(Read full article here.) 
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The Left turns state power onto Christians against gay marriage

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (8:31am)

You can be for gay marriage or against. But free and civilised people should not permit the use of state power to compel compliance with the opinion of one side or the other:
Christian activist John Zmirak:
The expected Supreme Court decision imposing on 50 states an entirely new understanding of marriage, and the frenzy of hatred that gay activists have stoked against Indiana for trying to shelter religious believers from crippling lawsuits should wake us to a cold and stark reality: The age of tolerance in America is vanishing before your eyes/.. 
Let’s break this down in stark and simple terms: Not only were gay activists willing to overturn an act of Congress (the Defense of Marriage Act) on spurious grounds; they also wish to force their libertine idea of marriage onto voters in each of the 50 states, voiding dozens of laws on an issue that has always rested with the states. Not satisfied with that, these activists want the full force of the regulatory state to compel every single American to affirm and accept ... same-sex “marriage,” under the same civil and criminal penalties that now forbid discrimination by race. A famous case was a 70-year-old Christian florist who declined to decorate a gay wedding, and was crushed by a successful lawsuit and the full force of the ACLU’s legal team. She was one of the Brave New Law’s first victims. She will be far from the last.
(Thanks to reader GFC.) 
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The great welfare magnet of the world

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (7:51am)

Welcome to Welfarestan: 
A BANGLADESHI couple applied for the family tax benefit and the baby bonus two days after the mother arrived in Australia with their seven-month-old son. 
A flurry of other applications for carers allowance, carers payment and a mobility allowance followed from Mohammad Hasan and his wife Aklima Akter until the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in Sydney last month finally refused them all, finding that doctors’ reports and other documents had been forged.
How were they let in? 
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Has the Age promised to run pro-Islam propaganda?

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (7:32am)

Sharri Markson described the deal:
FAIRFAX Media has paid out one of the largest defamation settlements in Australian media history for publishing a front-page story claiming an innocent teenager was a terrorist. 
Diary can reveal The Age’s editor-in-chief Andrew Holden’s blunder, in which a picture of 19-year-old Abu Bakar Alam wrongly identified him as a “teenage terrorist” who stabbed two police officers, cost Fairfax a record $500,000 in damages…

The payout relates to the front-page story that The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald published last September about Numan Haider, who was killed after he stabbed the police officers. Extraordinarily, both papers ran a picture of an entirely innocent Alam, who says he has since feared for his life.
But was there actually more to the deal, requiring The Age to publish pro-Islam propaganda?
Quadrant on-line:
All of the above is by way of background to a curious epistle in today’s Opinion section. It appears under the byline of Abu Bakar Alam ... and it intrigues because there seems no rhyme or reason for publishing a piece of extended boilerplate on the pleasant nature of Islam, the author’s delight in having attended an Islamic school and why it is incumbent on followers of other religions or none to banish the unfortunate notion that Islamic terrorism has anything to do with, well, Islam. The Age has not yet published similar pleas for greater understanding and acceptance of Buddhists… 
So who is Abu Bakar Alam, whom The Age describes only as “living in Melbourne’s south-east”?… Even more curious is the further notation at the foot of Abu Bakar Alam’s column that it was penned with the aid and counsel of Age associate editor Shane Green. Can all those other residents of the south-eastern suburbs count on the same lofty guidance and mentoring when their turns on the op-ed page are due?
Probably not, because a quick google of “Abu Bakar Alam” turns up the interesting fact, mentioned nowhere in the column, that he is the young fellow identified as knife-wielding suburban terrorist Numan Haider, believed by some to be cavorting with his 72 virgins, for whom he was so lucratively mistaken?
So, armed with that omitted information, what is the reader to conclude? Could it be, as part of that reportedly whopping settlement, The Age also tossed in a slather of guaranteed column inches on its Opinion page? 
From Abu Bakar Alam’s piece, written with the help of an Age associate editor:
We [Muslims] are a diverse collection of different communities, who are working to be positive, contributing members of the wider Australian society. It’s time Muslims and non-Muslims got to know each other… 
We came to Australia for a better life. We wanted to live peacefully. My father works very hard, making enough money to pay the fees for us to attend an Islamic school. This has helped me keep on the right path with my faith. I’m sure that if I went to a government school, while the education would have been good, it would have been harder to follow my faith…
One of the important things for Afghanis is to give back to the community. We have regular get-togethers to raise funds when there are people in need who require our help…
My family is well known in the community. We try to volunteer and help whenever we can, for whatever it is. We put our hand up. This is the story of Muslims in Australia that I would like to share… We are all part of the community, and everyone must look after each other.  
The Age does have form. It earlier agreed to run global warming propaganda for a green group, WWF.  
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Noah go

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (7:28am)

 Trevor Noah was picked to replace Jon Stewart as host of The Daily Show.  And why not? His racial qualifications were superb. His Leftist qualifications impeccably smug.
But it turns out there is this small matter of not actually being funny, and having a certain propensity to pick on Jews and lesbians.
(Via Tim Blair.) 
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Not a great Greens victory

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (7:24am)

Stephen Galilee, CEO of the NSW Minerals Council, warns against falling for the Greens’ hype over the NSW poll:
The Greens may have won an extra lower house seat or two on Saturday but they completely failed to increase their statewide support.
For example, in every single mining seat in the Hunter and Illawarra, the Greens vote went backwards…
At the 2011 election the Greens received around 10.3 per cent of all lower house votes cast. Last Saturday their share of the lower house vote was almost exactly the same.
More to the point, support for the Greens actually went backwards where it counts the most for minor parties — in the upper house…

Four years ago at the 2011 election the Greens received 11.1 per cent of votes cast for the upper house. Based on the latest counting, last Saturday the Greens received just over 10 per cent.., And, in doing so, they look like failing to win a third seat in the upper house…The Greens look like they have won Ballina, but with only around 30 per cent of the primary vote, and only because Labor directed preferences… Labor’s decision to do a preference deal with the Greens across the state continues to provide a political boost to the party that represents the greatest long-term threat to the ALP’s future. 
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At least link every tax grab with a bigger spending cut. UPDATE: Cut in pension access?

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (7:22am)

Super may need reform. It may not need reform. But what is indisputable is that spending is too high, and every tax grab just lets it get higher: 
The future of superannuation tax concessions for the wealthy has opened a fundamental debate among Liberal MPs over whether to pursue further budget spending cuts or move to raise more revenue through tax changes. 
Liberal MPs split over whether the concessions should be a target as Labor seized on revelations that 475 people with more than $10 million in their superannuation accounts were earning $1.5m in income. Labor called for change to super tax breaks. Some Liberals feared the tax debate was being used as a stalking horse to abandon spending cuts as the government sought to tackle the budget deficit.
The gun-shy Government, crippled by the Senate, is now down to trying to enact Labor policies, from bank deposit taxes to super grabs while spending rises and the deficit swells.
Surely if we’d wanted more of Labor we wouldn’t have voted Liberal.
There is just one way to even begin to justify this frantic scrabbling for more taxes. It is to link every single such “reform” to an even bigger spending cut. If Labor wants the first, it must accept the second.
UPDATE
Our income is falling, and spending must fall, too. Check the dramatic drop in iron ore prices:
With prices that started last year at $US135 a tonne now widely expected to fall below $US50, economists warned the fall could slash tax receipts. 
Deloitte Access Economics director Chris Richardson estimated that if the fall in the iron ore plunge was sustained, revenue could be close to $3bn lower in 2015-16 than the forecasts included in the mid-year budget update in December.
UPDATE
More promising:
The federal government is considering a breakthrough proposal to trim the Age Pension for wealthy Australians who can fund their own retirement, setting up a way to overcome a blockade in the Senate and achieve savings worth $20 billion over a decade. 
Social Services Minister Scott Morrison is looking at scaling back access to the pension as an alternative to the government’s controversial changes to payment rates…
Adamant that savings are needed to make the pension sustainable, Mr Morrison will negotiate with Senate crossbenchers on a new proposal to change the pension asset test in order to scale back the benefits for the richest retirees while leaving millions of pensioners untouched. The family home would be off-limits ... At the heart of the new debate is the fact that couples with $1.1 million in private wealth, in addition to the family home, can still qualify for a part-pension, raising questions over whether the threshold should be lower.
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Breeding teen jihadists

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (7:04am)

This is deeply worrying, and not least because children coached to such hate are now on our streets:
SCHOOLCHILDREN as young as 14 are being groomed to fly to Syria to join the Islamic State’s death cult with authorities revealing counter-terrorism officers have also pulled 200 would-be terrorists bound for the Middle East from aircraft on the tarmac. 
Attorney-General George Brandis said: ..."Regrettably, over the last six months, the demographic has continued to get younger with teenage boys and girls as young as 15 and 16 being stopped at airports, and those as young as 14 being radicalised...”
Officials said the teenagers had no skills and would be used for propaganda and as cannon fodder, like Melbourne suicide bomber “Jihadi Jake” Bil-ardi. “The likely outcome is that they will die,” he said.
Immigration and multiculturalism sure is working well:
AN Islamic bookstore in Sydney’s west is selling children’s books that teach kids the skull size of Aborigines is “quite small” and that Jews are “much conceited”.
The books cost less than $20 at The Islamic Bookstore in Lakemba alongside educational material about animals and stories from the Koran for children. One book, Emergence of Dajjal the Jewish King, depicts a snake entwined around the Israeli flag on its cover and teaches that Jews are set on world domination.
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Obama’s latest deadly muddle: US is Iran’s ally. No, enemy. No, something in between

Andrew Bolt April 02 2015 (7:00am)

Barack Obama has a strange policy towards Iran.
He is weakly against Iran’s nuclear program.
He is weakly helping Iran defend Iraq, increasingly an Iranian ally.
He is weakly against Iran’s ally in Syria.
He is weakly neutral as Iran helps an attempted Shiite takeover of Yemen, now resisted by Saudi Arabia.
Nice summary from Politico:
That includes a fractured relationship with the Israeli prime minister who, along with the Saudis, is strongly opposed to the Iran talks; the United States and Saudi Arabia backing the rebels in Syria while Iran backs Bashar Assad; the Houthis in Yemen against Al Qaeda while the Saudis attack; all while Americans and Iranians align to fight off Islamic State in Iraq. 
UPDATE
Greg Sheridan:
The Middle East is in chaos and conflict, and Barack Obama is about to surrender on Iran’s nuclear program… 
The talks on Iran’s nuclear program have been extended. We know Obama is mightily committed to a deal. We don’t yet know the terms of the deal. But in general the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program, according to the leaks about the negotiations, have become weaker and weaker.
First, Iran was not to have uranium enriching centrifuges. Then it was not to have very many of them. Then it was apparently to have 6000 or so of them.
First, Iran was to ship its nuclear fuel out to Russia for processing. Then it wasn’t.
First, Iran was going to get rid of its nuclear stockpile, then it wasn’t…
Iran now controls a great deal of Lebanon through its client, Hezbollah. It has enormous influence in the Shia majority Iraq and has led the effective fighting there against Islamic State, while US-led forces, including Australia, are reduced to supplying air power to bolster Iranian military efforts. Iran is also the most important backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad…
Obama has done nothing to stop Iran’s growing power over the Arab world…
It is impossible to think of anything Obama has achieved in foreign policy.
The reset with Russia? You’ve got to be kidding. Friendship with Ukraine? The outreach to Iran? This has empowered the mullahs beyond their wildest dreams. The Cairo speech to the Muslim world? The Middle East is now a smoking ruin. John Kerry’s endless involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute? This has yielded precisely nothing… Obama seems to think foreign policy consists mainly of receiving applause from undergraduate audiences for platitudinous speeches. He is the first truly postmodern president, for which no text truly exists beyond the author.
Charles Krauthammer:
It is one red line after another abandoned. And that’s why the Gulf Arabs are scared to death about what the consequences of this [Iran] agreement is going to be.
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill and shocked.) 
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Hereditary housos not a matter of trust

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, April 02, 2014 (12:38am)

THE National Trust should stick to preserving heritage buildings instead of sticking its nose into the sensible decision to sell public housing in Millers Point.
 Continue reading 'Hereditary housos not a matter of trust'
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Twisted view of life and justice

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, April 02, 2014 (12:37am)

HOW can “cultural differences” be an excuse for child sexual offences?
 Continue reading 'Twisted view of life and justice'
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Gaia above! Wonders never cease

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, April 01, 2014 (11:04pm)

GAIA guru James Lovelock says environmentalism has “become a religion” and does not pay enough attention to facts”.
And in The Guardian no less. 
The 94 year-old scientist, famous for his Gaia hypothesis that Earth is a self-regulating, single organism, also said that he had been too certain about the rate of global warming in his past book, that “it’s just as silly to be a [climate] denier as it is to be a believer” and that fracking and nuclear power should power the UK, not renewable sources such as windfarms.
Speaking to the Guardian for an interview ahead of a landmark UN climate science report on Monday on the impacts of climate change, Lovelock said of the warnings of climate catastrophe in his 2006 book, Revenge of Gaia: “I was a little too certain in that book. You just can’t tell what’s going to happen.”
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Fossil fuel fanatics make farm life hell

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, April 01, 2014 (7:53pm)

IN the lush pastures of the northern rivers region, an unholy alliance of local anti-gas protesters and imported green extremists is making life hell for dairy farmer Pete Graham and his family.
They have farmed near Casino for five generations, but their decision to allow gas company Metgasco to drill on their land for natural gas — not coal seam gas — has turned into a nightmare.
Hundreds of protesters have been camped around their property for weeks, blocking their driveways with cars and intimidating everyone going in and out. Peter’s wife, seven-year-old twins and parents are under virtual siege. His gates have been repeatedly padlocked and welded shut and a concrete trench with metal spikes dug into his driveway. If he takes cattle to market, he has to ask council for a security escort to get out his gate.
And in nearby Casino, business owners were harassed by anonymous letters last week, threatening a boycott of the town.
“It’s out of control,” Graham, 44, said yesterday of the campaign of intimidation.
“They’ve been told by police not to enter our property and they continually disobey the requests.”
This is the dark side of the campaign against coal seam gas. While apprehension about the impacts on prime agricultural land of gas exploration is real, extreme green fanatics have exploited those fears for their own ends.
Posing as farmer’s friends, professional vigilante activists are dangerous bedfellows for the grassroots anti-gas movement. Their criminal harassment of farmers and contractors and total opposition to all fossil fuels will, in the end, turn off the public and divide communities.
The fact is NSW has the most stringent regulations in the world over gas exploration. Last week the state government oversaw a deal between landowner groups and big energy companies to give farmers veto over drilling on their properties.
Under Australian law, underground resources are owned by the crown and landholders were obliged to provide access to coal seam gas companies, whether they wanted to or not. This imposition inspired the influential Lock The Gate lobby.
But now, under pressure from NSW Resources and Energy Minister Anthony Roberts, Santos and AGL have agreed to forfeit their right to demand access. Roberts has also imposed a six month freeze on new exploration, and further stringent environmental controls.
And that should be the end of the matter, for reasonable people.
Farmers like the Grahams who want to allow drilling on their land should be entitled to do so, as long as the drilling is done in accordance with these tough regulations.
“I’m not an advocate for the industry, never have been, never will be, but as a regulator, we need to ensure that, as the gas industry moves forward, it is based on science and community consultation,” Roberts said.
“Some of activists have shown it’s not about access to farmers’ land but a fundamental hatred of mining or any fossil fuel extraction.
“We cannot become a nation of social workers and clients of social workers. We need to produce something if our children want jobs; cheap energy, as long as it’s done correctly, is the way to go.”
Compared to Queensland, highly regulated NSW is already missing out on the benefits of the gas boom (which was driven in large part by the demonisation of coal by carbon-phobics).
There is nothing left to protest against. “But the extreme elements will only be happy when they have sent us back to the pushbike and horse and cart,” Graham said.
The good news is that the Casino Chamber of Commerce, which is neutral on gas exploration, is having the last laugh. They’ve turned the attempted boycott into a marketing opportunity. Today, in the local newspaper, the Express Examiner, they have taken out full page ads declaring Casino “open for business”.
Bravo Casino!
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A CHILD SHOWS US THE WAY

Tim Blair – Wednesday, April 02, 2014 (12:20pm)

After listening to this little girl’s compelling arguments, I’ve decided to invest in coal seam gas mining. Let’s have some financial advice in comments.
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False. I’d defend Israel even if every one of its leaders were like Michael Gawenda

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (5:19pm)

An open response to Michael Gawenda, and any Jewish paper is free to reproduce it.
Michael,
Your column today is a grotesque misrepresentation of me and of my argument with Jewish leaders supporting the Racial Discrimination Act.

To claim I simply presented an IOU to the Jewish community in return for services rendered – services I could now withdraw in a pique – is not only untrue but vicious.

May I suggest your cartoonish antipathy towards me has made you write something unfair?

You overlooked – or deliberately omitted – the central point of my argument and one I’ve made several times, finally prompting Mark Leibler to address the matter this year in an open letter for which I am deeply grateful.

I was accused in court by a Jewish barrister before a Jewish judge of sharing the thinking of the Nazis in drawing up the Nuremberg race laws, which, the barrister didn’t need to add yet did, led to the Holocaust.

This was not simply manifestly untrue and, in the circumstances, highly inflammatory. It was an insult so vile that I am enraged again simply to repeat it to you.

What so deeply disappointed me is that half a dozen Jewish leaders I knew - and who knew what I’d done for the community - privately assured me variously that the slur was a disgrace, the law had been misapplied or the law was too broad in scope, if this case was the consequence.

Yet not one of those leaders, until Mark this year, publicly defended me against one of the most vile smears you could possibly dream up in this kind of debate. Not one, until Mark, publicly acknowledged that mine was not the kind of case this law should have applied to.

So why this long silence, only briefly broken? For the reason, I believe, that it was felt more important by those leaders to maintain the myth that the law was perfect than to acknowledge an injustice was done and my reputation unfairly and vilely trashed as a consequence.

This is the source of my disappointment. I also pointed out the danger in this for the Jewish community, that in allowing this trashing of me they were also allowing the marginalising of one of their most dependable media supporters, in a country with distressingly few of them.

All this is on the public record, and I cannot believe that in writing about this issue you could have overlooked the argument I actually put. Here is just one iteration of it, from just last December:
- Several prominent Jewish spokesmen had privately told me they disagreed with the verdict and even the breadth of the Racial Discrimination Act, if used to silence even me, yet not one of those spokesmen had ever said so publicly. It was as if though by conceding an injustice, they risked losing a law they thought useful. I was, in my phrase, “collateral damage”. 
- Not a single Jewish spokesman had publicly condemned Ron Merkel QC for telling the Jewish judge in my case that my thinking in the article was of the kind that the Nazis had in drawing up the Nuremberg race laws, (Danny Lamm, however, did offer to speak on my behalf.) I thought this vile slur, explosive in the context of my case, was not just a gross misuse of the victims of the Holocaust, but was false and known to be false by the many members of the Jewish community, who knew me to be one of the most prominent media defenders of Israel and the Jewish community generally. It seemed to me, again, that my reputation was collateral damage in a fight to preserve (unjust) laws.
- I was alarmed that my personal reputation was further being attacked by people who should know better. One very prominent Jewish leader (certainly not Leibler) had even suggested I believed in the “Jewish conspiracy”. I warned that phrasing the debate over the RDA as between racists and non-racists was not just false and offensive, but would damage the standing of someone many Jews felt was useful in defending them publicly.
- These laws would eventually be turned against Jews and those who criticised Islam. 
You could have quoted my real position. Instead, you substituted your own version: falsely claiming that because I’d scratched Jewish backs, I felt Jews should scratch mine, particularly if they wanted more favours:
For a start, this suggests that Bolt indeed sees himself as powerful, able to ‘do things’ for the Jews and, it must be assumed, for others who would benefit mightily from his support. In return, he expects support when he gets into a spot of bother. This is the way players in politics sometimes operate but not, I would hope, someone who calls himself a journalist.
Needless to say, your version is not just false and completely at odds with what I’ve written and said privately to several leaders, including Danny Lamm, Yuval Rotem and Colin Rubenstein. It is also extremely offensive, crude and untrue – a play to a racist stereotype of the unreliable goy, a secret anti-Semite, after all, despite all that smiling and backclapping:

If there were a shred of truth to such a spiteful reading you might then be able to go on to note how I’d switched positions on issues involving Israel and attacked what I’d once supported. I warrant you could not find a single such case, or a single case of my failing to speak up as I used to. I would draw your attention to, for instance, my blog comments on the discussion on Q&A only last Monday of Pamela Geller’s signs, or my criticism on The Bolt Report last Sunday of the BDS protests.

I do not need favours from anyone to speak up for Israel as I have done, and for you to now imply I am such a man is shameful. Shameful and very, very wrong.

A real journalist would acknowledge this mistake – this gross injustice - and apologise. 
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Why doesn’t Loewenstein declare the RDA was used against him?

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (2:29pm)

Antony Loewenstein in the Guardian defends in a yes-but way the Abbott Government’s changes to Racial Discrimination Act.
Of course, he says he’s sensitive to, say, those playing down the Holocaust:: 
As an atheist Jew, I find it distinctly uncomfortable to defend the free speech rights of Holocaust deniers. I utterly oppose the inaccuracy, hatred and intolerance that goes with refuting the reality of Nazi crimes against Jews, gay people, Gypsies and many others.
He’s not like other people who defence the RDA reforms – insensitive brutes like, well, me:
[Bolt is not] in a position to understand the awful effect that verbal abuse can have on an Aboriginal, refugee, Jew, Muslim, or Greek.
I’m not? Even so, I’m pretty sure I would understand the awful effect on Jews of some clown publishing a cartoon attacking Australia’s support of Israel by showing Prime Minister Julia Gillard wearing Star of David earrings next to SS guards with Star of David emblems on their helmets.
But is Loewenstein?
Funny, how in all his pieces discussing the RDA that Loewenstein never mentions how it was once used against him – and not, as in my case, because he was fighting racial stereotypes, but because he was airing the very cruelest:
Antony Loewenstein has removed an image from his web site which had been the subject of a complaint lodged with the Australian Human Rights Commission.

On his blog yesterday, Loewenstein wrote under the title ‘How not to discuss Israel and the Middle East’ : “I recently posted an image that was inappropriate and ill-advised and was not intended to cause offense by making comparisons between Israel and Nazism. However, it expressed the sort of extreme views that are widely shared and growing worldwide but on reflection I realise that they should be not be given further oxygen and publicity.” 
The offending image showed Prime Minister Julia Gillard wearing Star of David earrings, the Australian and Israeli flags, SS stormtroopers with Stars of David on their helmets and a message to fight Islam and terrorism “with our Israeli allies”.
Executive Director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry Peter Wertheim lodged the complaint. He told J-Wire: “If Loewenstein is hoping to attract Jewish people to his anti-Israel perspective he has scored a spectacular own-goal.  By publishing and apparently endorsing this racist sludge he has confirmed our worst suspicions about the real agenda behind uniformly anti-Israel commentary.” 
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Gag against these gags

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (8:56am)

Free speech

We really are so damn slow to trust Australians and so dangerously quick to stop them reading what they will and making up their own minds:
THE Herald Sun was last night silenced from publishing detail on Lawyer X which it believes is of extreme public interest. 
Victoria Police took the extraordinary action of seeking a Supreme Court injunction at 7.30pm last night preventing the newspaper from publishing any information at all about Lawyer X, whom the Herald Sun had no intention of naming or identifying ...
As the hearing commenced, the Herald Sun was ordered by the judge to stop its presses.
Herald Sun Editor Damon Johnston said that Victorians deserved to know the full truth.
“The police last night moved to prevent us from publishing important details that go to the heart of the public interest,” Johnston said.
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And now for some real hate speech

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (8:45am)

Free speech

And when there is true hate speech and racist abuse, where are the thought police then? Reader BBqTalk:
Following the NT News would make you weep. The rebellious back-benchers in the NT Parliament are now using this language: “ we’re not breast-plated niggers”. I’ve been in the Territory for 45 years; I’ve seen an aboriginal gardener in Alice Springs given his morning cuppa in a jam tin in 1967. But I haven’t heard a description of ‘nigger’ ever. I suppose it shows the visceral feelings of the trio. And that a declared coloured person can use language which so many ‘caucasians’ would find extremely offensive makes you think about 18 C provisions. 
Now Nova Peris has chimed into the brawling, remembering how she was called a ‘maid’ by Alison Anderson, and a ‘pet aborigine’ by current Chief Minister, Adam Giles when past PM Gillard made her ‘captain’s pick’. The only adult in the room is Bess Price, who took the comment of ‘breast-plated nigger’ personally, but responded with a ‘do the job you were elected to do’ comment.
Note, though. For all the foul and disgraceful language and the peddling of racial stereotypes, people are giving as good as they are allegedly getting and no one needs an official silencing.
Thanks heavens at least for Bess Price. I’ll say it again: class act.
(WARNING: Feel free to comment, but do not feel quite so free to repeat any of those offensive terms.) 
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Feeding time finished at the golden trough

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (8:43am)

We really have been living in a fool’s paradise, paying ourselves borrowed billions:
SAVINGS of more than $60 billion a year will have to be found by 2023-24 for the Abbott government to reach its surplus target, according to the Commission of Audit, which presented a bleaker outlook for tax revenue than was contained in the midyear budget update. 
The commission’s pessimism is understood to be based both on a further downgrade in tax revenue growth and on its belief that it is not realistic to assume there will not be any personal income tax cuts over the next 10 years. The size of the savings task is equivalent to total federal spending on education or defence and will demand the axing of complete government functions and reductions in spending on pensions and allowances.  
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Where’s the warming?

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (6:54am)

As you trawl through all the global warming scare stories this week, remember this bottom-line fact - there are been no warming of the atmosphere this century:
Our dataset-of-datasets graph averages the monthly anomalies for the three terrestrial and two satellite temperature records. It shows there has still been no global warming this millennium. Over 13 years 2 months, the trend is zero.
The warming may resume after a hiatus that so far has lasted some 16 years, but we simply are not getting the temperature rises the climate models predicted.
UPDATE
Exactly how many more billions does Labor want to waste making no difference to global temperatures, which haven’t risen in 16 years anyway?
Labor leader Bill Shorten has distanced himself from remarks made by opposition environment spokesman Mark Butler who said the case has been made for Australia to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 15 per cent by 2020... 
Campaigning in Perth before the West Australian Senate election on Saturday, Prime Minister Tony Abbott seized on Mr Butler’s remarks, arguing they were a sign Labor was not just going to keep the carbon tax, but increase it…

The independent Climate Change Authority, which the government plans to abolish, said in February Australia should adopt a minimum target of 15 per cent by 2020 and its 5 per cent target was out of step with countries including China and the United States.
Mr Butler said: ‘’It [the authority report] does make the point that the conditions for 15 per cent have been met. ‘’For example, similar countries have targets of 15 per cent. It’s quite clear 20 per cent hasn’t been met but it is strongly arguable 15 per cent has been met.’’
And can we clarify this furphy that the Climate Change Authority is “independent”? In fact,Labor stacked it with extremists and sympathisers who can’t be sacked:
Tell me why the authority members include Clive Hamilton, a professor of public ethics who is a former Greens candidate and absurd catastrophist? Why on earth should we listen to him? 
Tell me why it includes militant warmist David Karoly, with his history of predictions? Why does it include John Quiggin, a warmist who had to admit to having grossly exaggerated the difference our carbon tax could actually make? 
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Pray that money doesn’t speak in our Parliament

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (6:17am)

It would be an insult to our democracy if Clive Palmer were allowed to buy himself another seat in Parliament:
CLIVE Palmer has been accused of “spending money like a drunken sailor” to secure a third Senate seat for his party, as independent monitoring indicatedthe Queens­land MP was outspending Labor and the Liberals 10-to-one on television advertising... 
The Palmer United Party has bought 530 of the 892 political ads aired on Perth TV since March 1, accusing the major parties of stealing bread from the mouths of West Australian babies… Greens senator Scott Ludlam has also outspent the major parties, airing 90 ads compared with only 35 each for the Liberals and the ALP.
And look at the company Labor is keeping, including a construction union about to be a key focus of inquiry by the royal commission into union corruption:
Two ALP-affiliated unions, the Maritime Union of Australia and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, had collectively bought 142 adverts attacking the Prime Minister.
In further news today about the CFMEU, so determined to destroy Tony Abbott: 
A HIGH-ranking Victorian CFMEU official is being investigated by the union’s national branch over allegations of misuse of members’ money… 
A whistleblower is also preparing a submission to the impending royal commission into corruption and bribery in the union movement… The militant union’s construction branch was fined $1.25 million this week for its illegal blockade at Grocon’s Myer Emporium site in 2012. 
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This isn’t a protection but a gag

Andrew Bolt April 02 2014 (6:13am)

Free speech

Professor John Furedy backs the Abbott Government’s changes to the Racial Discrimination Act – and would even if they allowed Holocaust denial:
The Holocaust survivor came out in support of Attorney-General George Brandis to halt what he calls the creep of “velvet totalitarianism”, under which thought and speech are criminalised. 
“The best thing my parents ever did for me was take me to Australia in 1949, but I have watched Australians take their freedoms for granted,” he said.
”There has been what I call a velvet totalitarianism creeping in. I call it that because the punishments are less severe but people still try to censor themselves and each other.... There can be no contest of ideas if we go too far down this path."…
Professor Furedy said free speech wouldn’t have saved the Jewish people under Hitler — “there were so many other factors at play” — but was adamant it was the best way to defeat bigotry. “The only protection against stupid speech is better speech,” he said.
UPDATE
Professor Alan Dershowitz:
Censorship of racist speech is also bad for liberty in general, and especially for freedom of expression. Once a government gets into the business of banning one type of bigoted speech, the circle of censorship inevitably expands. I call this “ism equity”. As soon as one ism, say anti-racism, gets to employ the power of the state to stop its enemies, every other ism claims an equal right to employ the power of the state against its enemies. Some feminists demand restrictions on sexist speech, which can be defined broadly to include pornography, sexist jokes and other genres deemed offensive to some. Jews demand an end to everything deemed to be anti-Semitic, which can include Holocaust denial, demonisation of the nation-state of the Jewish people and anti-Jewish jokes and cartoons. Other groups similarly demand equal treatment. The result is that the circle of civility expands and along with it the circle of censorship. The big loser is the freedom of all to hear and see everything and to judge for ourselves.
Professor James Allan:
Did you know that the same sort of issue that came up with Bolt came up in the US with now senator Elizabeth Warren and her claim to be one-sixteenth or one-thirty-second Native American and whether that helped her win a job at Harvard? 
The debate there was more vigorous than anything here. It seemed in the end that Warren had no Native American lineage at all. We don’t know if it helped her get the job. And the voters in Massachusetts elected her anyway. But no one thought about taking anyone to court, regardless of their tone or anything else.
However, what’s good for the US goose is not good for us Aussie ganders. Or so says our eminent person, Warren Mundine. His sympathies don’t extend that far.
If you think that my tone is dripping with sarcasm in this piece, you’re right. Mundine’s argument is pathetic. It warrants only derision. Yes, I could have written this piece in a more respectful way that covered the same basic ground. But the truth is that Mundine’s position warrants this sarcastic tone. Sure, I might also have sent my draft along to Bromberg to have him check my tone against his sensibilities, but in a longstanding democracy, one of the world’s most successful democracies, I real­ly don’t feel like making Bromberg the arbiter of my tone of voice or the de facto editor of this newspaper.
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Earlier today our ACM member Peter Tadros along with his wife Mrs Mariam Tadros represented the ACM at an event organised by the Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) to celebrate Assyrian New Year. The event was held at the Fairfield Showground and attended by thousands of people and well over 100 politicians and community leaders. 
The photo below includes two politicians who are considered to be champions of promoting the plight of not only the Assyrian community but the Coptic Community as well they are Mr Craig Kelly MP (Liberal member for Hughes) and the Hon. Rev Fred Nile MLC and leader of the Christian Democratic Party.
On the 13th October 2011 Mr Kelly supported the ACM in putting forward a historic motion to be voted on in the Australian Federal Parliament. The motion called for an end to Coptic persecution in Egypt and officially recognised the persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt as well as a further three actions points.
The motion passed with support from all politicians following months of continuous campaigning by ACM supporters across the nation. On the following day the Hon. Rev Fred Nile MLC and leader of the Christian Democratic Party introduced the same motion to the NSW Legislative Council and again the motion was successful.
Both Mr Kelly and the Hon. Rev Nile were in attendance today at Assyrian New Year event and in both speeches, they along with the Hon. David Clark MLC and Mr Hermiz Shahine (AUA) again recognised the plight of Egypt’s Copts and their ongoing suffering. We sincerely thank both Mr Kelly and the Hon. Rev Nile for their continuing support to the plight of minorities throughout the Middle East and North Africa and like the many who attended today’s event at Fairfield, we at the ACM call for an end to all persecution of all minority groups in the region and request that the Australian Government fully recognises the genocide that was committed against the Assyrians, Armenians and Pontiac Greeks earlier last century.
We also call upon The Australian Federal Parliament to implement all four action points of the motion on Coptic persecution as the situation for Egypt’s Copts has deteriorated significantly since 13th October 2011.
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A SHIFT FROM ONE CLIMATE SYSTEM TO ANOTHER ?

Remember a few months ago when chief climate propagandist Tim Flannery was excitedly crowing about ‘123 climate records broken’ over 90 days during the warm Australian summer.
Mr Flannery enthusiastically said at the time;

“When you get records being broken at that scale, you can start to see a shifting from one climate system to another.”

Well I’d be interested to hear Mr Flannery’s comments given the fact that in last 7 days in the USA a total of 935 LOW temperature records have been broken.

And 935 records broken for new low temperatures include;
* A new record LOW Fort Lauderdale, Florida for the 28th March, beating the previous record set in 1884.

* A new record LOW in Silverton, Colardo for the 25th March, beating the previous record set in 1885, and

* A new record LOW at the Aztec Ruins National Monument in New Mexico, beating the previous record set in 1871 - when Ulysses Grant was President.

These records don't mean we are entering a new ice age, and we need new taxes to "take action" on global cooling, as with tens of thousands of locations recording temperatures around the globe there will always be some new highs or lows being recorded somewhere - but what they do demonstrate, is the alarmist nonsense and propaganda coming Labor’s highly paid Climate Commissioner.
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MEDIA IGNORE OBAMAS LAVISH 1% VACATIONS

In a Sunday Washington Times column, Drudge Report editor Joseph Curl takes a look at the difference between how the last two White House occupants, President Bush and President Obama, approached vacationing as president. Curl reveals that unlike Obama, Bush was concerned with public perception (especially during the war in Iraq) and made an effort to schedule holiday vacations in a way that wouldn't take others away from their families -- even a media that despised him:

“I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal,” [President George W. Bush] said years later. “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.”

That’s also why Mr. Bush did two other things, without fanfare or praise. First, he never headed home to his Texas ranch until after Christmas, instead going to Camp David for a few days. That way, the hundreds of people revolving around him at all times — White House staff, Secret Service agents, reporters, photographers, all the others — could spend the holiday with their families in and around Washington, D.C. No one ever reported that — until this column.

Second, he rarely attended sporting events, although he once owned a baseball team and was a self-confessed stats junkie. His thinking there was the same: If he went to a baseball game (right down the street from the White House), his mere presence would mean hours and hours of extra security for fans.

Conversely, Obama, who never has to worry about the media turning against him (including lying for weeks about a terror attack in Libya), doesn't give a damn about public perception -- not during a recession; not even during a time when sequester cuts are being blamed for the closing of White House tours and airport control towers:

How else to explain the nonstop vacations the pair keep taking during what Mr. Obama calls the “worst financial crisis since the Great Depression”? In 2013, the First Family has already enjoyed three vacations — that’s one a month. (Sorry, Joe America, you might have to forget your week at the beach again this year, but make sure you get those taxes in on time!)

Curl closes the piece (which you will want to read in full) by making the point about how much this juxtaposition tells you about Obama. And indeed it does. But I would add that it also reveals just as much about our media.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/04/01/Obamas-Enjoy-Vacation-Lifestyle-of-the-One-Percent
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YOU’RE PAYING FOR IT ……..as reported in today’s Australian; Craig Kelly

The Australian public service is increasingly top-heavy, with 45,000 officials, or 29 per cent of all permanent employees, now classified as executives. 

Analysis by The Australian has found there is now one manager for every 2.5 ordinary workers in the federal bureaucracy.

And the rise in the top five pay grades in Canberra accounts for almost all of the growth in the public service during the past five years, with an ANNUAL COST TO TAXPAYERS OF $1.3 BILLION for the 10,000-plus extra executives.

Since 1998, the number of middle managers in the federal bureaucracy, known as EL1s and EL2s, has jumped 132 per cent, while the elite, three-grade Senior Executive Service has expanded 78 per cent.

The total number of so-called "ongoing" employees in the Australian Public Service increased by 42 per cent over that period, compared with a 22 per cent rise in the nation's population.

The ANNUAL COST to the federal budget of executive remuneration, including salary, superannuation, vehicle allowance and bonus payments, is $6bn.

According to the most recent report on remuneration by the Australian Public Service Commission, the average total reward of the highest classification (SES Band 3), of which there were 135 officials, was $358,552.

The entry-level executive (EL1) positions, of which there were 28,818 at last year's audit, command an average total reward of $116,087.

In the past five years under Labor, the number of permanent public servants has grown by 10,440, including a 10,358 rise in the executive ranks, to 154,307.

Had the number of senior executives and middle managers remained at 2007 levels, the annual salary bill would be $1.343bn less than it is today.

The agencies with the highest proportion of executives are AusAID (57 per cent), the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (52 per cent), Foreign Affairs and Trade (51 per cent), Finance and Deregulation (50 per cent), Attorney-General's (49 per cent) and Treasury (44 per cent).

In June 2010, the federal government introduced a cap on SES growth in each agency, designed to place a control on the number of highly paid roles each agency can staff.

While the government says the total number of public servants, including defence personnel and federal police, has stopped growing and is forecast to fall this year, the number of permanent bureaucrats covered by the Public Service Act continues to rise.

If elected, the Coalition has said it would cut the number of federal public servants by 12,000 over two years through natural attrition, saving $4bn over the four-year forward estimates period.
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Horatio Nelson
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“For the director of music. Of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.” - Psalm 14:1
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth."
Song of Solomon 1:2
For several days we have been dwelling upon the Saviour's passion, and for some little time to come we shall linger there. In beginning a new month, let us seek the same desires after our Lord as those which glowed in the heart of the elect spouse. See how she leaps at once to him; there are no prefatory words; she does not even mention his name; she is in the heart of her theme at once, for she speaks of him who was the only him in the world to her. How bold is her love! It was much condescension which permitted the weeping penitent to anoint his feet with spikenard--it was rich love which allowed the gentle Mary to sit at his feet and learn of him--but here, love, strong, fervent love, aspires to higher tokens of regard, and closer signs of fellowship. Esther trembled in the presence of Ahasuerus, but the spouse in joyful liberty of perfect love knows no fear. If we have received the same free spirit, we also may ask the like. By kisses we suppose to be intended those varied manifestations of affection by which the believer is made to enjoy the love of Jesus. The kiss of reconciliation we enjoyed at our conversion, and it was sweet as honey dropping from the comb. The kiss of acceptance is still warm on our brow, as we know that he hath accepted our persons and our works through rich grace. The kiss of daily, present communion is that which we pant after to be repeated day after day, till it is changed into the kiss of reception, which removes the soul from earth, and the kiss of consummation which fills it with the joy of heaven. Faith is our walk, but fellowship sensibly felt is our rest. Faith is the road, but communion with Jesus is the well from which the pilgrim drinks. O lover of our souls, be not strange to us; let the lips of thy blessing meet the lips of our asking; let the lips of thy fulness touch the lips of our need, and straightway the kiss will be effected.

Evening

"It is time to seek the Lord."
Hosea 10:12
This month of April is said to derive its name from the Latin verb aperio, which signifies to open, because all the buds and blossoms are now opening, and we have arrived at the gates of the flowery year. Reader, if you are yet unsaved, may your heart, in accord with the universal awakening of nature, be opened to receive the Lord. Every blossoming flower warns you that it is time to seek the Lord; be not out of tune with nature, but let your heart bud and bloom with holy desires. Do you tell me that the warm blood of youth leaps in your veins? then, I entreat you, give your vigour to the Lord. It was my unspeakable happiness to be called in early youth, and I could fain praise the Lord every day for it. Salvation is priceless, let it come when it may, but oh! an early salvation has a double value in it. Young men and maidens, since you may perish ere you reach your prime, "It is time to seek the Lord." Ye who feel the first signs of decay, quicken your pace: that hollow cough, that hectic flush, are warnings which you must not trifle with; with you it is indeed time to seek the Lord. Did I observe a little grey mingled with your once luxurious tresses? Years are stealing on apace, and death is drawing nearer by hasty marches, let each return of spring arouse you to set your house in order. Dear reader, if you are now advanced in life, let me entreat and implore you to delay no longer. There is a day of grace for you now--be thankful for that, but it is a limited season and grows shorter every time that clock ticks. Here in this silent chamber, on this first night of another month, I speak to you as best I can by paper and ink, and from my inmost soul, as God's servant, I lay before you this warning, "It is time to seek the Lord." Slight not that work, it may be your last call from destruction, the final syllable from the lip of grace.
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Jethro 
[Jĕth'rō] - pre-eminence or excellence.
The father-in-law of Moses, and an Arab sheik and priest of Midian (Exod. 3:1, 4:18; 18:1-12). Called Reuel or Raguel meaning "friend of God" inExodus 2:18 and Numbers 10:29, and Jether in Exodus 4:18.
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Today's reading: Judges 13-15, Luke 6:27-49 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Judges 13-15

The Birth of Samson
1 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.
2 A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was childless, unable to give birth.3 The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, "You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. 4 Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean.5 You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines...."

Today's New Testament reading: Luke 6:27-49

Love for Enemies
27 "But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

32 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful....
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Today's Prayer

O merciful Father, do not consider what we have done against you; but what our blessed Savior has done for us. Don't consider what we have made of ourselves, but what He is making of us for you our God. O that Christ may be "wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption" to every one of our souls. [May] His precious blood may cleanse us from all our sins, and your Holy Spirit renew and sanctify our souls. May He crucify our flesh with its passion and lusts, and cleanse all our brothers and sisters in Christ across the earth. -- John Wesley

Today's Scripture Reading: John 2:13-22

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father's house into a market!" 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."
18 The Jews then responded to him, "What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"
19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
20 They replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
Today's Quote
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.
See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
-- "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," an Easter hymn by Isaac Watts. (See http://songsandhymns.org for more about this and other Easter hymns.)

Something to Think About

Jesus spoke about his coming death and resurrection many times, as in the Scripture reading above. Why do you think so many people--including his own disciples--failed to understand what he was saying until afterwards?
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Today's Lent reading: Luke 7-9 (NIV)

View today's Lent reading on Bible Gateway
The Faith of the Centurion
1 When Jesus had finished saying all this to the people who were listening, he entered Capernaum. 2 There a centurion's servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. 3 The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, "This man deserves to have you do this, 5 because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue." 6 So Jesus went with them.
He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: "Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. 7 That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."
9 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel." 10 Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well....


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