Friday, August 17, 2018

Fri Aug 17th Todays News

Don't give up on hope. Malcolm Turnbull's awful tenure as Prime Minister is coming to an end. Some are saying he is the worst Liberal Prime Minister Australia has had, but that is premature to say. In rolling Gorton, McMahon gifted Whitlam time in office. An equivalent would be if Shorten was given three terms by Turnbull, which Turnbull may yet achieve, but has not yet. What Turnbull could do, were he a competent businessman, he would stand down and let the party select a successor. But Turnbull is not competent in business either. Turnbull owes the Clinton Foundation his position, and he won't be allowed to walk away with assigning another Clinton shill. The obvious choice is Julie Bishop. Bishop is not competent either and has contacts with Clinton Foundation through foreign aid rorts. 

The honour system within conservative ranks means loyalty is important. Abbott got the leadership cleanly last time, by not being the instigator of Turnbull fumbling, but Hockey had taken the lead. Abbott only stood up after Hockey tanked, after Turnbull declared a spill. Abbott (or Dutton) have to give Turnbull the opportunity to be honourable. Turnbull will, on past performance, dither. Back benchers are being chewed up and will lose seats thanks to Turnbull and his policies. At the moment, only Abbott is capable of bridging the divide and healing the rift, Turnbull rent, by being gracious. But Bishop is untenable as deputy leader. Once the Turnbull/Bishop leadership team are quashed, there needs to be an investigation into their corrupt practice. Only Abbott can stand in the divide and prevent such an inquiry. A lot of foreign aid money corresponds with unlikely polls showing Turnbull as beneficiary.

I'm contributing to QUORA, a question and answer site that can be a bit addictive.

Why was school created?

Much discussion has gone into the beginnings of civilisation. Nomadic hunters gave way to farmers, only people were nomadic hunters and others were farmers. There was competition and today the world includes both farmers and nomads. Overwhelmingly, farmers have been more successful. Also rooted in prehistory was when families gathered together to form towns and cities. Did the first city ever have defensive walls? In South America, a very early city, first in the region, formed when fishers and farmers sort of merged. And the habitations had things like classrooms. It is prehistorical and we don’t know the social structure of the time. Throughout history, classroom teaching is rare. The current standard only arose at the end of the seventeenth century with the competing Madras and Lancastrian systems of bootstrapping allowing teachers to be trained to meet the need of industry. Before then, schooling was not mandatory.

Schooling began in the US to educate children to be citizens of a democracy. In the UK it began to let children sign their own names, and possibly do sums. The Catholic Church adopted a program in opposition to the Anglican Church.

The amazing story of why we have school today as it is is known. It involves an orphanage of British soldiers in Madras in 1792. An Orphanage Principal, Dr Andrew Bell, asked a ten year old student to instruct some younger ones. The boy’s name is known, and included in “Gladman’s Control and Teaching” (Gladman, JF (1886), School Work Control and Teaching Organisation and Principles of Education, Jarrold & Sons).

In early standards for schooling Pythagoras had students and paid students to learn with him. Universities began when monks copying bibles and growing crops, diversified. Chinese peoples began public service exams about 500 AD. To pass them, one needed to go to ..

A daily column on what the ALP have as a policy, supported by a local member, and how it has 'helped' the local community. I'll stop if I cannot identify a policy. Feel free to make suggestions. Contact me on FB, not twitter. I have twitter, but never look at it.

Gabrielle Williams was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Carers and Volunteers, working with the Minister for Housing, Disability and Ageing and the Minister for Families and Children. Williams was given those titles when elected in 2014. It is difficult to find what value she has been to Dandenong, but clearly the ALP see her as the future. On her ALP news feed, Williams has announced the ALP are spending $165k on planning a hub for national employment and innovation cluster. The pork barrel won't do anything except pay for public servants who don't do anything. It is part of the ALP's budget to spend $24 million on streamlining for growth program. If I'm elected, I'll cut such pork barres in favour of cutting red tape impeding trade. With more trade comes employment which returns higher tax receipts as locals earn more and spend more.

As part of the November 24th Vic election campaign I have a petition I want to bring before the Opposition Leader Matthew Guy. I believe Matthew will be the next premier of Victoria and so I am petitioning him as I raise the issues of Employment, Crime and Education in Dandenong. I am also seeking money for my campaign. I don't have party resources, and so my campaign is on foot, and on the internet. Any money I receive that is not spent on the campaign will go to Grow 4 Life. I am asking questions like "What do you love about Dandenong?" and "If you could change something in Dandenong to make it better, what would it be?" I'm not limiting the questions to state issues. I'm happy to discuss anything, and get things done.















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 Advance Australia Fair

"Advance Australia Fair" is the official national anthem of Australia. Created by the Scottishborn composer, Peter Dodds McCormick, the song was first performed in 1878, but did not gain its status as the official anthem until 1984. Until then, the song was sung in Australia as a patriotic song. In order for the song to become the anthem, it had to face a vote between the Royal anthem God Save the Queen, the "unofficial anthem" Waltzing Matilda and Song of Australia. Other songs and marches have been influenced from Advance Australia Fair, such as the Australian Vice-Regal salute.


=== from 2017 ===
Some things should not happen, but they do. A young woman from China, studying in Australia and living with family, was killed by her uncle. She was 25 years old. He had obsessed over her, taking liberties, picturing her while she showered or bathed unaware. He even filmed himself masturbating over her while she slept. He filmed her just before he killed her, stabbing her some 20 times and dumping her body in a watering hole. He had broken many laws before he killed her. Her mother is devastated by the loss, and our community is weakened by the atrocity. By way of contrast, a primary school in an upmarket NSW suburb has shown a school play to parents. Children as young as 5, as old as 12, dressed as Catholic nuns torturing Aboriginal children. Some children held aloft signs marked "sorry." Parents wanting to applaud their own children had to face a grotesque lie, a repeated meme of a stolen generation that never was. School teachers are supposed to be balanced, but the material is unhinged. The truth is former PM Kevin Rudd spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a lie about Australia being founded by invasion in 1788. There are well paid vested interests who repeat that lie. The law had been broken before that play was brought to stage. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes .. who watches the watchers? 

On this day in 309 an emperor of Rome banished a Pope to Sicily where they apparently died from a hunger strike. In 1424, the Battle of Verneuil, England defeated France for a short time. In 1498, Cesare Borgia became the first person in history to resign as Cardinal, voluntarily. On the same day, French King Louis XII made him Duke of Valentinois. In 1549 the Battle of Sampford Courtenay - the Prayer Book Rebellion was quashed. In 1560, Scotland embraced Protestantism. In 1585, Antwerp fell in the Siege by Spanish forces, and all Protestants were ordered to leave, which a hundred thousand did. On the same day, Roanoke colony was founded in the New World. In 1771, James Robertson climbed Ben Nevis in Scotland, the first recorded successful attempt. In 1807, a New York commercial steam boat sailed the Hudson. In 1896, A Benz car ran over Bridget Driscoll in the grounds of the Crystal Palace, becoming the world's first motoring fatality. In 1908, the first animated film was shown, Fantasmagorie, in Paris. In 1915, A Jewish businessman was lynched for the alleged murder of a 13 year old girl. Seventy years later he was pardoned by the US state of Georgia. A list of names of his killers was released in 2000, showing the lynchers were prominent citizens, including a former governor. In 1943, The US Eighth Air Force lost sixty bombers on a run over Germany. On the same day, Patton and Montgomery met in Sicily, having captured it. In 1945, Sukarno began a revolt in Indonesia. In 1953 the first meeting of Narcotics anonymous was held in California. In 1959, Miles Davis released Kind of Blue. In 1962, East German border guards killed eighteen year old Peter Fechter as he fled. In 1980, Azaria Chamberlain disappeared at Ayer's Rock. In 1998, Clinton admitted he lied about not having sex with Monica. In 2008, Michael Phelps became the first person to win eight gold medals in one Olympic Games. 





























=== from 2016 === 
 It is readily conceded that Christine Nixon failed to show leadership during Victoria's murderous bushfires. In her defence, the bushfires were worse than they should have been because of a lack of back burning. She had been helpless, and responded to that by going to dinner and turning off her phone. The NSW Police Chief, Andrew Scipione, has admitted an almost identical response today to the inquest in the Lindt Cafe siege. On August 18th last year, it was revealed resentment by the police with the public prosecutor had been evident as Man Monis was bailed despite concerns of serious violent crimes. When the siege was ongoing, Scipione delegated to a trusted senior officer. After all, there was nothing he could do. Sadly, the trusted senior officer wasn't much chop either. All they could do was tick boxes and hope their bottoms were covered. A terrorist aspirant met a bureaucrat and two innocent bystanders were scared before they were killed. No senior bureaucrat wants to admit failure. For example, the Vietnamese Government have cancelled Australia's Long Tan celebrations. But then the same government, fifty years ago, sent hundreds to their deaths rushing a fortified position held by a desperate few. Today, Scipione told the inquest his order to delete an email critical of the police was not because the email was critical of the police. One is sure the Vietnamese Government would nod. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.  
=== from 2015 ===
The sledging by Kyrgios was unsporting and should see him banned from representing Australia. But it may not. The sledging of Dyson Heydron is appalling and should have no affect on the royal commission he heads. The royal commission should report in December and be accepted by parliament in this term of government. There is nothing the ALP can do to further hide the corruption of labor unions except demand the good judge resign, which no responsible person would. Even following the next election, should the ALP win, they will be able to do nothing to deny the facts determined by the Royal Commission. And it is ugly for the ALP, for Labor Unions and for Bill Shorten. Already it is apparent union corruption involving their leaders creating slush funds and employing stand over tactics to embezzle money from industry will be found going back over twenty years. Shorten has apparently used Workchoices to do exactly as he has despised of Workchoices, only, it was illegal. It is ironic that Shorten's transgression of Workchoices has him hoist on his own petard. While Kyrgios behaved in bad taste, it is apparent Shorten has transgressed law and will have to answer for it. And that is before the royal commission has handed down her findings. 

The opposition to the royal commission is reminiscent of another one that investigated the Penny Easton affair. At that time, Carmen Lawrence, the first female Premier of WA, was embarrassed that she had used parliament to torment a private citizen who later suicided, Penny Easton. Penny was a single mother and lawyer. As a 19 yo, she had married a friends father, industrialist and ALP backer Brian Easton. Regardless of why, they later divorced. Brian had apparently asked Carmen to table documents in parliament highly prejudicial to the divorce for Penny. Penny was faced with losing her children and her work as a lawyer and had no legal recourse. Worse, ALP adoring press persecuted her, at one time filming her in her own garage and making accusations and heckling her. She suicided. Confronted with what she had done, Carmen on the stand before a royal commission, summoned all her experience in earning a PhD and becoming premier. She said she forgot the details. By way of contrast, when Shorten faced Dyson, he too forgot the salient details. Even so, ALP moved to protect Lawrence by opposing the royal commission. One press obfuscation was the claim nobody is responsible for another's choice to suicide. It was partly right. Lawrence is nobody. Now the press are putting out that a strong union can take money directly from workers, in their name, without their knowing, and allow them to have worse working conditions than if there had not been a union. 
From 2014
The choice of who to include in the 'Born on this Day' list is not a science. Generally the desire is to celebrate great achievements and so kings, presidents, killers are generally not included. Today two names have been included for their achievements which were not worthwhile. An ambitious but not very competent man, of humble origins, Mark Felt (1913-2008) rose to Deputy Director of the FBI, having started his working life in a Democrat office (Senator James P Pope Democrat for Idaho), collected a legal credential from night work ('41) and getting a job as investigator for the Federal Trade Commission. He felt dissatisfied with his work, so he applied for the FBI and joined in January '42. Initially, Felt was posted all over the place so as to give him, along with any agent, wide experience in the field. During WW2, Felt worked in espionage and fed misinformation to the Nazis through a captured spy. After WW2, he worked several offices doing routine jobs. Felt began supervising operations into organised crime. He was promoted by Hoover to assistant director and had a reputation of being tough on agents while pandering to other  assistant directors. When Hoover died, Nixon passed over Felt twice for promotion. Then Deep Throat began leaking about Watergate. Only we now know Felt was Deep Throat and that the issue was sexed up for public consumption. The Watergate scandal occurred after the prosecution scandal involved with the Weather Underground where terrorist bombers avoided prosecution because the FBI overstepped their surveillance. Felt was involved with that too, and one previously unasked question is was Felt responsible for sabotaging the Weather Underground case? Under Carter, Felt was prosecuted for authorising agents overstepping surveillance. Reagan pardoned him. Nixon sent him a bottle of wine and a note with the message "Justice ultimately prevails." Felt denied he was Deep Throat until 2005, when he felt he might profit from it. He had perverted the course of justice, but never got to be the Director of the FBI. 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr (1914-88) was the fifth child of his father President FDR, and considered to be most like him of his siblings. "He had father's looks, his speaking voice, his smile, his charm, his charisma." His dad had done his best to run the US into the ground and had committed atrocities as war leader that would never be prosecuted. The son was not so gifted. In WW2, he had naval service where he often stood as honour guard for his dad. When faced with action, he once carried a wounded sailor to sick bay and was awarded for it. After the war, he chose politics. He was reliable in terms of denouncing people who strayed from the party line, as when a sibling wrote an autobiography, but he was not reliable in being in his seat for legislation and that cost him the opportunity for promotion within Democrat ranks. 

Andrew Bolt asked a reasonable question as to why Qantas would pursue a racist line in calling for constitutional change. The Federal Government has opened discussion on the issue, Mr Abbott favouring a small change to the constitution, Qantas favouring a large change which defines and divides Australians by race. Emmerson called Bolt racist when Bolt asked his opinion on the issue. Emmerson failed to contribute to the discussion and his abuse of Bolt under the thin veneer of the 18c prosecution which did not find Bolt was racist is disgusting. The sad truth is that the ALP has no policy on any issue but opposition to government policy. The ugly incident highlights what IPA's Roskam acknowledged that media are opposed to Government policy. What Roskam said was true, but the analysis is deficient. The government is not in a position to walk a straight line on any issue because of the senate. And so it has to shelve proposed 18c changes, but it opens the possibility that an independent introduce proposed changes and secures government support as well as collateral support from other so called independents. It is not a straight line and it shames the government which is merely pursuing her mandate. 18c is not the only issue which has the government stymied by the senate. Budget cuts are opposed too. Improvements to border protection are opposed. And the media chortles when the treasurer makes a car reference which is factually correct, but subject to a media storm when misreported. 

The sons of Obama are rioting in the US following a shooting of an unarmed thief. Police have to be armed and accidents can happen. No policeman wants to shoot an unarmed man, even a thief. The rioting over the issue and threats to the policeman are appalling. The President should support the policeman unless he has evidence that the accident was not an accident. The NSW Premier has declared the Liberals will not be running in the Newcastle by elections following the resignation of two Liberals who had accepted money from property developers. That behaviour is wrong. It is only acceptable to accept money from trades unionists. Or Newsagents. Or Dentists or doctors or teachers or electricians or prostitutes. The ALP have to run people in seats where their members were corrupt, otherwise the Greens would hold more seats. What if it were wrong to accept money from terrorists? Who then would fund the Greens? The Weather Underground?  
Historical perspective on this day
309/310 – Pope Eusebius is banished by the Emperor Maxentius to Sicily, where he dies, perhaps from a hunger strike.
986 – Byzantine–Bulgarian wars: Battle of the Gates of Trajan: The Bulgarians under the Comitopuli Samueland Aron defeat the Byzantine forces at the Gate of Trajan, with Byzantine Emperor Basil II barely escaping.
1186 – Georgenberg Pact: Ottokar IV, Duke of Styriaand Leopold V, Duke of Austria sign a heritage agreement in which Ottokar gives his duchy to Leopold and to his son Frederick under the stipulation that Austria and Styria would henceforth remain undivided.
1386 – Karl Topia, the ruler of Princedom of Albania forges an alliance with the Republic of Venice, committing to participate in all wars of the Republic and receiving coastal protection against the Ottomans in return.

1424 – Hundred Years' War: Battle of Verneuil: An English force under John, Duke of Bedford defeats a larger French army under Jean II, Duke of Alençon, John Stewart, and Earl Archibald of Douglas.
1498 – Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, becomes the first person in history to resign the cardinalate; later that same day, King Louis XII of France names him Duke of Valentines.

1549 – Battle of Sampford Courtenay: The Prayer Book Rebellion is quashed in England.
1560 – The Roman Catholic Church is overthrown and Protestantism is establishedas the national religion in Scotland.
1585 – Eighty Years' War: Siege of Antwerp: Antwerp is captured by Spanish forces under Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, who orders Protestants to leave the city and as a result over half of the 100,000 inhabitants flee to the northern provinces.
1585 – A first group of colonists sent by Sir Walter Raleigh under the charge of Ralph Lane lands in the New World to create Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island, off the coast of present-day North Carolina.
1597 – Islands Voyage: Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and Sir Walter Raleighset sail on an expedition to the Azores.

1668 – A magnitude 8.0 earthquake causes 8,000 deaths in Anatolia, Ottoman Empire.
1717 – Austro-Turkish War of 1716–18: The month-long Siege of Belgrade ends with Prince Eugene of Savoy's Austrian troops capturing the city from the Ottoman Empire.
1723 – Ioan Giurgiu Patachi becomes Bishop of Făgăraș and is festively installed in his position at the St. Nicolas Cathedral in Făgăraș, after being formally confirmed earlier by Pope Clement XI.
1740 – Pope Benedict XIV, previously known as Prospero Lambertini, succeeds Clement XII as the 247th Pope.
1784 – Classical composer Luigi Boccherini receives a pay rise of 12000 reals from his employer, the Infante Luis, Count of Chinchón.
1798 – The Vietnamese Roman Catholics report a Marian apparition in Quảng Trị, an event which is called Our Lady of La Vang.

1807 – Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York, on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
1862 – American Indian Wars: The Dakota War of 1862 begins in Minnesota as Lakotawarriors attack white settlements along the Minnesota River.
1862 – American Civil War: Major General J. E. B. Stuart is assigned command of all the cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
1863 – American Civil War: In Charleston, South Carolina, Union batteries and ships bombard Confederate-held Fort Sumter.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Gainesville: Confederate forces defeat Union troops near Gainesville, Florida.
1866 – The Grand Duchy of Baden announces her withdrawal from the German Confederation and signs a treaty of peace and alliance with Prussia.
1883 – The first public performance of the Dominican Republic's national anthem, Himno Nacional.

1907 – Pike Place Market, a popular tourist destination and registered historic district in Seattle, opened.
1908 – Fantasmagorie, the first animated cartoon, created by Émile Cohl, is shown in Paris, France.
1914 – World War I: Battle of Stallupönen: The German army of General Hermann von François defeats the Russian force commanded by Paul von Rennenkampf near modern-day Nesterov, Russia.
1915 – Jewish American Leo Frank is lynched in Marietta, Georgia after a 13-year-old girl is murdered in Marietta, Georgia.
1915 – A Category 4 hurricane hits Galveston, Texas with winds at 135 miles per hour (217 km/h).
1918 – Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moisei Uritsky is assassinated.

1942 – World War II: U.S. Marines raid the Japanese-held Pacific island of Makin.
1943 – World War II: The U.S. Eighth Air Force suffers the loss of 60 bombers on the Schweinfurt–Regensburg mission.
1943 – World War II: The U.S. Seventh Army under General George S. Pattonarrives in Messina, Italy, followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.
1943 – World War II: First Québec Conference of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and William Lyon Mackenzie King begins.
1943 – World War II: The Royal Air Force begins Operation Hydra, the first air raid of the Operation Crossbow strategic bombing campaign against Germany's V-weapon program.
1945 – Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaim the independence of Indonesia, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.
1947 – The Radcliffe Line, the border between the Dominions of India and Pakistan, is revealed.

1953 – Addiction: First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous takes place, in Southern California.
1958 – Pioneer 0, America's first attempt at lunar orbit, is launched using the first Thor-Able rocket and fails. Notable as one of the first attempted launches beyond Earth orbit by any country.
1959 – Quake Lake is formed by the magnitude 7.5 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquakenear Hebgen Lake in Montana.
1962 – Peter Fechter is shot and bleeds to death while trying to cross the new Berlin Wall.
1969 – Category 5 Hurricane Camille hits the U.S. Gulf Coast, killing 256 and causing $1.42 billion in damage.
1970 – Venera program: Venera 7 launched. It will later become the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet (Venus).
1977 – The Soviet icebreaker Arktika becomes the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.
1978 – Double Eagle II becomes first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it lands in Miserey, France near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Presque Isle, Maine.

1988 – President of Pakistan Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash.
1991 – Strathfield massacre: In Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, taxi driver Wade Frankum shoots seven people and injures six others before turning the gun on himself.
1998 – Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky; later that same day he admits before the nation that he "misled people" about the relationship.
1999 – The 7.6 Mw İzmit earthquake shakes northwestern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), leaving 17,118–17,127 dead and 43,953–50,000 injured.

2004 – The National Assembly of Serbia unanimously adopts new state symbols for Serbia: Bože pravde becomes the new anthem and the coat of arms is adopted for the whole country.
2005 – The first forced evacuation of settlers, as part of Israeli disengagement from Gaza, starts.
2005 – Over 500 bombs are set off by terrorists at 300 locations in 63 out of the 64 districts of Bangladesh
2008 – American swimmer Michael Phelps becomes the first person to win eight gold medals at one Olympic Games.
2009 – An accident at the Sayano–Shushenskaya Dam in Khakassia, Russia, kills 75 and shuts down the hydroelectric power station, leading to widespread power failure in the local area.
2015 – A bomb explodes near the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, Thailand, killing at least 19 people and injuring 123 others.
=== 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.
===
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 Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York (1473), Pierre de Fermat (1601), Davy Crockett (1786), Mae West (1893), Maureen O'Hara (1920), Ted Hughes (1930), Robert De Niro (1943), Larry Ellison (1944), Julian Fellowes (1949), Sean Penn (1960), Donnie Wahlberg (1969) and Ella Cruz (1996). On your day, Independence Day in Indonesia (1945)
986 – Byzantine–Bulgarian Wars: The Bulgarians defeated the Byzantine forces at the Gate of Trajan near present-day Ihtiman, with Byzantine Emperor Basil II barely escaping.
1807 – Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat, the world's first commercially successful paddle steamer, went into service on the Hudson River in New York.
1945 – Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed the independence of Indonesia, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.
1980 – Two-month-old Australian Azaria Chamberlain was taken from her family's campsite at Uluru by a dingo, for which her mother would be convicted of murder.
1999 – A 7.5 Mw earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, killing over 17,000 people and leaving approximately half a million people homeless. You defeated the Byzantines. You've set the steam boat in motion. You have independence. You make the right sacrifices. You make the ground shake. Party on.
Deaths
===
Tim Blair

===
Andrew Bolt

===

ELVIS ONLY SHOT CARS AND TELEVISIONS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 17, 2016 (4:39pm)

The Black Lives Matter movement is trying to shut down Graceland, for some reason.
(Via Geoff M.) 
===

INNOVATOR INUNDATED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 17, 2016 (3:46pm)

Possibly driven insane by Malcolm Turnbull’s repeated mentions of “innovation" and “a plan”, several shouty peopleyell at the Prime Minister during his speech in Melbourne. One of the protesters actually reached the stage:


Her name is Agnes.
UPDATE. Old Agnes is doing pretty well for someone of her advanced years.
UPDATE II. That was quick: 
The Manus Island regional processing centre is set to close following a meeting between officials from Papua New Guinea and Australia. 
Agnes gets results!
===

ENEMY WITHIN NOW WITHIN PRISON

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 17, 2016 (1:49pm)

See you later, Anjem: 
Anjem Choudary, Britain’s most controversial hate preacher, is today behind bars after finally being convicted of terrorism offences.
The 49-year-old firebrand cleric, who has helped radicalise a generation of would be terrorists, was found guilty of inviting support for a banned organisation after swearing an oath of allegiance to Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) …
Details of the case can only now be made public after a judge lifted tight reporting restrictions imposed while another trial was taking place. 
Ol’ Anjem had some classy mates 
Supporters of Choudary included:
• Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, the murderers of soldier Lee Rigby 
• Suspected IS executioner Siddhartha Dhar 
• Omar Sharif, a British suicide bomber who attacked Tel Aviv in 2003 
• Brusthom Ziamani, jailed 12 years later for planning to kill in the streets of London 
The list continues.
UPDATE. Banned by Twitter: Milo Yiannopoulos.
Not banned by Twitter: Anjem Choudary. 
===

COLUMN FINGERED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 17, 2016 (2:31am)

Uh-oh. Another cranky hetero white dude …

… gasping for breath as he drowns in the tides of change. 
I believe that is a threat to kill. As well, we might have another 18c violation on our hands. A couple of them, in fact.
===

WEDNESDAY NOTICEBOARD

Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 17, 2016 (2:19am)

Just 12 days ago: 
Attorney-General George Brandis said changes to section 18c remained “off the table” and the government had no plans to pursue the issue again. 
Wimp. But it now emerges that Malcolm Turnbull promised 18c reform in 2015 when scheming for leadership: 
Malcolm Turnbull had committed to making changes to the controversial section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act to persuade pro free-speech MPs in his quest for the leadership last year, it has been revealed.
The Daily Telegraph has confirmed that a number of MPs had been given assurances that Mr Turnbull as Prime Minister would revisit the issue of 18C after it was jettisoned by Tony Abbott, when it became clear it would be blocked in the Senate.
Two MPs, who refused to be named, said it was clear to them the commitment was made as part of the campaign to take the leadership last September that he would look at changing the law rather than the Abbott plan to repeal it entirely.
“There was a deliberate impression left that he would put it back on the table,” one senior Liberal source said. 
There’s never been a more exciting time to lead a one-seat majority government.
===

THE LESS SHE TALKS, THE BETTER SHE DOES

Tim Blair – Tuesday, August 16, 2016 (11:45pm)

Do-nothing Democrat Hillary Clinton’s current lead over Donald Trump:
===

THE HOPEFUL PROFESSOR

Tim Blair – Tuesday, August 16, 2016 (8:54pm)

So, how are Tim Flannery’s levels of hope these days? 
About the same as a year ago, or perhaps a little higher, Flannery says by phone from Melbourne. 
Impressive. Tim’s hope levels are right up there with Sydney’s water levels. 
He is a busy man. We catch a handful of quiet moments around his duties as head of the Climate Council in Australia. When I first rang, he was sorting out a complicated transaction at the Post Office. 
Flannery knows how to fix the planet’s temperature. But a post office confuses him. 
Just one day after Abbott was sworn in as prime minister, his Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, phoned Flannery to tell him that he was closing the Climate Commission ….
He could have been bitter, but within five days, a replacement – the Climate Council – had been “crowd-funded into existence”. This kind of direct, democratic action is one of the reasons he gives for optimism in Atmosphere of Hope. He writes that, “freed of government shackles ... it is a far more active and effective organisation.” 
Tell it to the ABC, Flanners.
===

Trouble in super land

Andrew Bolt August 17 2016 (6:47pm)

Revenue and Financial Services Minister Kelly O’Dwyer has been struggling, particularly with her controversial superannuation policy, and her office now seems to be paying for it.
I am told her senior superannuation adviser, Melissa Bray, wants out, but has been asked to hang on until the end of next week.  I’m also told her media adviser, Kerri Griffiths, is also leaving, although she would only give a “no comment” when asked about that today.
Perhaps it’s all coincidence. But it would not surprise me to learn this is not a happy ship. 
===

Vietnam cancels Long Tan celebration

Andrew Bolt August 17 2016 (5:04pm)

Sounds like a slap in the face:
A commemoration ceremony for the 50th anniversary of the battle of Long Tan in Vietnam has been cancelled. 
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed Vietnamese authorities had cancelled Thursday’s Veterans Day at the Long Tan cross site.
The department said it understood private access to the site was still permitted and the advice of exercising normal safety precautions in Vietnam was still current.
===

Tonight on The Bolt Report and radio - rude protesters and Rio waste

Andrew Bolt August 17 2016 (4:57pm)

On The Bolt Report on Sky News Live at 7pm tonight:
Two questions about our Rio flop: Shouldn’t we get more medals for our $340 million? And are we actually too damn greedy for a small country? Gold medalist Russell Mark takes a shot.
Liberal MP Cory Bernardi has news on his push to change the Racial Discrimination Act that’s being used to crush free speech.
And Malcolm Turnbull has his big moment hijacked by protesters of the Left doing to him what anti-Muslim protesters did to the Gosford Anglican Church. 
Podcasts of the show here. Facebook page here.

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

ABC bias exposed - and Turnbull fell for it

Andrew Bolt August 17 2016 (9:57am)

Former Premier Jeff Kennett cannot believe Malcolm Turnbull called a royal commission on the strength of such a biased ABC report:
VIEWERS of the ABC were recently shown an emotional, one-sided Four Corners program on juvenile detention in the Northern Territory. It was frightening, but deliberately misleading. It relied on old footage and I believe the program was an abuse of the ABC’s charter and an abuse of taxpayers’ money… 
The old Don Dale Juvenile Centre had been in use for many years but in August 2014, the then CLP minister, John Elferink, decided to close it. Its facilities were unacceptable…
The government renovated the unused Berrimah Prison, which became the new Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre. The move took place in early 2015…
Also in 2014, Elferink employed Michael Vita to prepare an independent report into the juvenile detention system… [B]etween $20 million to $30 million has been spent since early 2015 implementing those recommendations.
No mention of those positive steps was in the ABC report, which was based on three pieces of footage, the most alarming of which showed guards rushing an individual and throwing him to the ground — in fact, on to a mattress. That was on December 9, 2010, almost six years ago. Yet the ABC gave the impression the incident was recent and the fault of the current government.

As a result of that incident, charges were laid by the DPP against a Youth Justice Officer and heard in the NT’s Court of Summary Jurisdiction in December 2013. The officer was acquitted. The NT DPP appealed to the Northern Territory Supreme Court but on December 1, 2014, Justice Barr upheld the magistrate’s decision. He said in part “the force that was used was within the parameters of the law”.
Justice Barr also noted evidence that claimed officers had been spat on 200 times.
So the ABC used footage that was six years old but did not tell its audience. It did not say the matter had been heard by two courts, which found the officer’s actions were acceptable. Nor did it explain why officers took the action they did. And there was certainly no mention that this occurred under the watch of an ALP government.
The second piece of footage was a spit hood being applied to an individual in a restraint chair. I am told this was because there had been threats of self-harm…
But it’s worth noting there are 15 officers in the NT Juvenile Correction system who are off work and 11 of those will not be able to return to full duty because of injuries received at the hands of incarcerated young people.

Ask yourself this: had the ABC reported the situation accurately would we be having a royal commission?
There there’s the evidence I noted last night, uncovered by the Sky News’ Matt Cunningham, which makes clear that the ABC knew of the reforms it then failed to mention in its report. 
===

Explain this challenge, Prime Minister. And explain your surrender

Andrew Bolt August 17 2016 (8:56am)

Have Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison damaged investment into Australia by surrendering to populism?
Glenda Korporaal:
Comments from the Chinese embassy in Canberra ... effectively throw down a challenge to the government to spell out its policy towards Chinese investment in Australia, or risk seeing a whole range of Chinese investors go elsewhere with their cash. 
Made in response to several requests from The Australian over the past week to comment on the government’s rejection of two Chinese bids for a 50.4 per cent stake in NSW electricity company Ausgrid on “national security grounds”, the embassy’s comments raises clear questions.
A few months ago, the Turnbull government rejected a $371 million bid by Chinese interests Daking Australia for the giant Kidman cattle properties, despite the bidder having already revised the proposal in response to suggestions by Scott Morrison.
In one case, the bid involved a state-owned enterprise, State Grid, one of the largest electricity companies in the world, which has spent billions on upgrading the electricity network across China with state of the art, high-voltage electricity grids. It already has stakes in electricity assets here that did not raise any issues or trigger FIRB concerns....
The other case, the S. Kidman & Co deal, involved private interests — two very different bidders for two very different assets. But both had been involved in a long-running bidding process, believing they had a fair chance of being accepted and being prepared to pay more than most other bidders — including local bidders — for the assets.
Both deals were rejected on national interest grounds, with the State Grid proposal rejected on much more serious “national security” grounds. The two decisions, particularly the Ausgrid decision, now leave investors, advisers and the NSW government scratching their heads about what the real government policy is on Chinese investment in Australia. Is that investment still welcome? If so, what are the rules?
The statement from the embassy rightly notes the two decisions could have a “serious impact on the enthusiasm of Chinese firms that want to come and invest in Australia”.
It’s not a threat but a simple statement of fact… Who wants to go through a long expensive bidding process, or partner with a Chinese investor, only to find the government coming in at the last minute and knocking back the deal?
Alan Mitchell:
The government’s rejection of the Chinese bid for Ausgrid, Malcolm Turnbull assures us, was not a “political” decision. The advice from the government’s national security advisers, he says, was unequivocal. 
If the Prime Minister is struggling to be believed, it is mainly because the Ausgrid rejection follows the government’s blatantly political decision to block the Chinese purchase of the S. Kidman and Co properties…
Does it not seem extraordinary that, if the security agencies felt so strongly about Chinese investment in the power grid, the government was not warned much earlier? That would have let it deflect the Chinese bid in a more diplomatic and less disruptive way…
In the circumstances it is hard to avoid the suspicion that the enfeebled federal government is now allowing itself to be carried along on the global tide of populist isolationism and protectionist politics… Like it or not, supply chains and outsourcing are a very big part of the future manufacturing in small high-income economies such as Australia. And Chinese investment will be a key to the success of Australian farming in the battle to win sales to China’s middle class. Australian farmers will have to be part of the Chinese food supply chain. They will also need Chinese investment to rationalise the number of farms and raise productivity.
Malcolm Turnbull, 14 September 2015:
We need a style of leadership that explains ... A style of leadership that respects the people’s intelligence, that explains ... complex issues and then sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

MPs: Turnbull tricked us on free speech

Andrew Bolt August 17 2016 (8:22am)

I’m sure you’re surprised. But MPs claim Malcolm Turnbull tricked conservatives with a promise to change our laws against free speech.
Simon Benson:
Turnbull had committed to making changes to the controversial section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act to persuade pro free-speech MPs in his quest for the leadership last year, it has been revealed. 
The Daily Telegraph has confirmed that a number of MPs had been given assurances that Mr Turnbull as Prime Minister would revisit the issue of 18C after it was jettisoned by Tony Abbott, when it became clear it would be blocked in the Senate.
Two MPs, who refused to be named, said it was clear to them the commitment was made as part of the campaign to take the leadership last September that he would look at changing the law rather than the Abbott plan to repeal it entirely.
“There was a deliberate impression left that he would put it back on the table,” one senior Liberal source said.
Another said intermediaries had assured several MPs Mr Turnbull would commit to changing it as PM. On becoming Prime Minister, the issue fell off the government’s agenda… 
Why they foolishly believed Turnbull is a different issue.
Turnbull did offer a half-promise to me, too, in the one occasion he deigned to come on my show - in what was an olive branch before his challenge.  Janet Albrechtsen notes it in a powerful piece:
Last week George Brandis again ruled out removing “insult” and “offend” from section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act… 
With the Turnbull government floating around with no economic or cultural ballast, reforming section 18c might repair some of the brand damage done to the Liberal Party in the last three years. If not now, when?…
Turnbull told The Bolt Report last year, it is entirely sensible to excise “offend” and “insult” from section 18c…
And that raises the third reason why Turnbull should act. The Federal Circuit Court will soon decide whether a section 18c case against three young students from Queensland University of Technology will go to trial. Three years ago, a few students were evicted from an indigenous computer lab by indigenous woman Cindy Prior for not having the right skin colour. In response, one student wrote on Facebook: “Just got kicked out of unsigned indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation."…

Whether it goes to trial or not, everyone is a loser in this case. First and foremost, the students for posting innocuous comments. These young men simply want to study and work and forge a career without being branded bigots. They don’t want to be cultural warriors fighting to defend their right to free speech. But that’s what they have been forced to do, engaging lawyers, spending time and energy on a case that makes no sense…
Laws that slap a bigot label on students for a few words posted on Facebook are laws that stand ready to label any of us bigots should we deviate from the stifling orthodoxy of political correctness…
The brouhaha over a cartoon in The Australian by Bill Leak provides the fourth reason why 18c must be reformed. Leak’s cartoon about family dysfunction in indigenous communities should have raised intelligent questions about family dysfunction in indigenous communities. Instead of confronting the real issue, ABC radio’s Jon Faine immediately encouraged offended people to lodge a complaint under section 18c to establish that Leak’s cartoon is prohibited by law.
Curious about Faine’s attempt to stifle free speech, I contacted the Australian Human Rights Commission that same day for comment. What did the new Human Rights Commissioner, Edward Santow, have to say about this uproar that was now raising questions about free speech?
The commission’s media adviser advised me this was a race issue and accordingly the Race Commissioner would comment. Sure enough Race Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said that “Aboriginal Australians who have been racially offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated … can lodge a complaint under the Racial Discrimination Act"…
I repeated my request for a comment from the Human Rights Commissioner, who is charged with responsibility for the human right to free speech. There was only silence on that front…
When claiming money for hurt feelings under section 18c takes precedence at the Australian Human Rights Commission over defending the human right to free speech, it’s clear our culture is being corrupted by the very institution charged with protecting human rights… The new Senate offers Turnbull additional heft to defend free speech. Re-elected senators Bob Day and Leyonhjelm are on board. So are new senators Derryn Hinch, Pauline Hanson and her three One Nation senators. Maybe a decent debate can entice Nick Xenophon and his senators to defend principles rather than pursue populism. Turnbull should make the case for what he called sensible reform of section 18c, not as a sop to conservatives, but because it is the right thing to do in a Western liberal democracy committed to free speech.
Bravo.
And I repeat what I said on my show recently: Ed Santow is a coward for not doing his job and defending free speech. What is the point of him? We pay him more than $300,000 a year to defend our freedoms and he folds like a cheap suit at the first battle. He should just quit.
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:
AB, on Albrechtsen’s question ‘Is the law seriously saying white people don’t have feelings?’, it would appear that in the view of the AHRC, that is precisely how the law should be interpreted: 
Latika Bourke: 
A source familiar with the Human Rights Commission’s processes predicted the commission would dismiss [Leyonhjelm’s] complaint, ruling white people can’t be offended.
Remarkable that the AHRC would have it that not all Australians are equal under the law.
Yes, it’s time to repeal - or at the very least amend - 18c. But it’s also time to shut down the AHRC.
More pressure on Turnbull to fight for free speech:
An assistant minister has thrown her weight behind moves to amend the Racial Discrimination Act, saying the law is highly subjective and needs to be changed. 
Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources Anne Ruston has said… “Some words in this section should probably go, at least… ‘Offend’, ‘insult’ and ‘humiliate’ are highly subjective terms open to all manner of interpretation...”
Senator [James] Paterson said on Monday night that parliament was now “closer than we ever have been” to reforming section 18C and urged Malcolm Turnbull to demonstrate his support by “taking up the mantle and leading” on the issue…The debate has intensified after Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane solicited complaints against The Australian’s cartoonist Bill Leak, and Liberal Democratic Party Senator John Leyonhjelm sought to expose the “absurdity” of the law by complaining to the Human Rights Commission about Fairfax columnist Mark Kenny calling him as an “angry white man”.
Latika Bourke:
Senator Cory Bernardi ... on Tuesday backed Senator Leyonhjelm’s tactic and predicted it would expose the “social justice warriors” as “racists, bigots and hypocrites."…

Former cabinet minister Eric Abetz ... also backed Senator Leyonhjelm. 
“It seems passing strange that in our society you can use that sort of racist terminology and it doesn’t seem to excite the interest of the HRC at all,” Senator Abetz told Sky News.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Mark Kenny is the hate-speaking racialist he claims to denounce

Andrew Bolt August 17 2016 (7:14am)

So often it strikes me that the Left’s anti-racism is really an hysterical projection.
Take the Sydney Morning Herald’s Mark Kenny, for instance.
He would argue that his frantic defence of the oppressive Racial Discrimination Act, actually now used against people protesting against discrimination, is driven by a hatred of racists and hate-speech:
In their peerless assessment of the lived experience of all minorities, [opponents of the Act] have decreed that the fault of hate-speech does not lie with the utterer of a given slur or insult, no matter how cruel, baseless, or humiliating. Rather, the “offence” lies with the recipient - the subject who simply “decides” to be affronted. Infantile reasoning, but there it is.
Yet see how readily he resorts to the most blatant racist stereotyping himself - not to mention hate speech:
David Leyonhjelm is a boorish, supercilious know-all with the empathy of a besser block. And that new Hansonite conspiracy theorist from Queensland? He’s an absurdist fringe-dweller and fellow hate-speech apologist. It’s a case of wacky and wackier… self-promoting misanthropes ... gormless duo… their angry-white-male certitude ... smart-alec Leyonhjelm ... opinionated little (he did say call me short) One Nation chappy ... angry-white-male shock-jocks… 
Kenny, when called out, actually doubles down on his racist stereotyping:
I was making a point about power here, the idea that … white males in our community, who were born essentially into more privilege than any other cohort, that they would have any deep understanding of what entrenched discrimination looks like, is quite laughable.
Here Kenny makes a classic mistake of the tribalist Left, which divides people into types rather than individuals.
In fact, many “white” men are born into no privilege at all. Many are born into “entrenched discrimination” - or so the Kenny Left of 20, 30, 50 years ago would have argued.
These are white males born into welfare ghettos, abusive families, broken home, entrenched poverty. They are white males who feel they have no chance and that the elites - the likes of Kenny - sneer at them and preside over a system that treats them like dirt.
This was recognised by Marcia Langton, the Aboriginal academic:
Marxists and their Mark Kenny fellow-travellers of the past would once have valorised poor whites as a class apart - the noble oppressed - and not lumped them in with rich whites as members of the vile privileged (of which Kenny is actually one).
How fickle are Kenny’s identity tropes and how racist this latest, which is based on the childish logical fallacy so common among tribalists - the assumption that “if some, then all”.
UPDATE
Once the aim of genuine enemies of racism was to make us color-blind. In the immortal words of Martin Luther King:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
But now the professed enemies of racism - the fashionable ones - are hyper-sensitive to color, demanding special treatment for those they deem to be of another “race”.
How did this sick inversion happen? 
===

Keep peddling or the polar bears will drown

Andrew Bolt August 17 2016 (7:11am)

Global warming tends to unleash the inner narcissist:
Cyclist Sue Abbott tells a magistrate she shouldn’t have to wear a bike helmet because she is saving the planet, Daily Telegraph, Tuesday: 
My possible death or my catastrophic brain injury as well as the climate’s continued demise because we won’t face our responsibility towards climate change should far outweigh this infraction under NSW road rules.
Looks like you can’t park illegally to save the planet, either. Magistrate Michael Barko responds, Daily Telegraph, yesterday: 
How is you riding a bike going to stop the glacier melting in the North Pole?
How rare it is to encounter such sturdy good sense from our institutions in these days of hysteria. 
===

Book at the boat club

Andrew Bolt August 16 2016 (11:32pm)

My book is on an odyssey, visiting the skulls of Montpellier, Shanghai,  Croatia,  Ho Chi Minh City, Santorini, London, Lake Como, Ithaca, Scotland, the Bay of Naples, Dubrovnik, Fiji, Aileron,  New Zealand,  Sri Lanka,  the Andes,  a christening in Newcastle, the Northern Territory,  the Whitsundays,  Kalgoorlieand Condabri, Queensland, before  invading Australia’s most Left-wing Parliament - an experience which convinced one reader at the Katharine River Mango Farm to try teaching even a donkey to understand what’s in it.
Now, after a stint at a Penrith hospital, the book recuperating very nicely with John at the Moreton Bay Boat Club:
To restore the love of your life, order the book here.
BOLT BULLETIN
The fourth edition of the Bolt Bulletin, available to on-line buyers, is written and should be out today. It includes a prediction of a big culture war, the loudest lesson learned on my book tour and a must-visit recommendation for Australia’s least-known arts jewel. I also include a scathing column I somehow forgot to put in my book - one I was reminded of while reading a terrific memoir of a genius who rescued two of the greatest opera houses in the world before dying in 1940. 
===

THE SLEDGING SCALE

Tim Blair – Monday, August 17, 2015 (12:47am)

At the top of the sports hierarchy are cricket, motor racing, boxing and the various football codes – excluding soccer, of course, which isn’t a sport but an international crime syndicate disguised by nets, balls and South Americans.
The possibility of serious injury, through error or simply bad luck, is what elevates these sports above the rest. They are tests of both skill and nerve. Anybody can swat a Nerf ball out of the way, even one arriving rapidly towards their head. It takes rather more composure to do the same when the consequences of missing may involve emergency facial reconstructive surgery.
At the bottom of all sports are such endeavours as running, swimming and cycling, which should be more accurately categorised as either components of, or training programs for, real sports. Running is what you do between wickets or away from a burning race car. Swimming is what you do when you have a football injury. And cycling is what you do when you have a brain injury. 
And somewhere in the middle are the likes of tennis and golf – tests of talent and timing, certainly, but without any grave physical consequences for error. Many more golfers would suffer the yips if missed putts meant a snapped ankle, as may happen to a MotoGP competitor who misses a braking point by even a millisecond.
Sledging carries different weight depending on the sport involved. When Australian batsman Steve Waugh told furious West Indian fast bowler Curtly Ambrose “you’re here to bowl, so f**king bowl” in 1995, and when Australian captain Michael Clarke told England fast bowler James Anderson “get ready for a broken f**king arm” in 2013, they were speaking to men in possession of both the ability and the entirely legal means to obtain physical revenge. 
 Continue reading 'THE SLEDGING SCALE'
===

STOP THEM BEFORE THEY KILL AGAIN

Tim Blair – Sunday, August 16, 2015 (6:12pm)

Those Anglicans sure don’t mess around:
===

To liken Dyson Heydon to Gillian Triggs is a grotesque insult

Andrew Bolt August 17 2015 (4:42pm)

Fairfax columnist and Sydney University Senate fellow Peter Fitzsimons shows the same confusion we saw with Bolt Report panellist Sean Kelly yesterday:
I don’t get it. When Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs simply did her job by issuing her report on the condition of children in detention, she was the subject of frothing attacks by the usual commentators that she was totally compromised, a “partisan political hack,” disgraced her office etc … all on no evidence whatsoever that that she had anything to do with any political party. And yet, when the royal commissioner Dyson Heydon, QC, AO, presiding over the most extraordinarily politically sensitive inquiry into the union movement turns out to have initially agreed to a Liberal Party fundraiser, the same commentators say, no big deal at all, just one of those things, a simple mistake. How does that work again?
I cannot believe Fitzsimons actually does not understand the difference. He cannot be that dull of comprehension, surely?

First, Fitzsimons bases his case against Dyson Heydon on a falsehood. At no stage did this former High Court judge agree to speak at a Liberal Party fundraiser. He agreed to give a lecture on the law. When he later learned it was advertised as a fundraiser he withdrew. Moreover, it was not actually a fundraiser that raised money for the Liberals. The charge of $80 a head for a three-course-dinner plus expenses was plainly no more than cost recovery, and the fundraising declaration no more than a formal requirement under our electoral laws.
Second, Heydon has had no formal association with the Liberal Party.
Third, Heydon has not demonstrated bias in the conduct of his commission, and Fitzsimons does not even allege it. Indeed, Heydon’s findings against Julia Gillard were much milder than those recommended by his counsel assisting.
Now let’s compare Heydon’s record of no actual bias in his conduct with that of Gillian Triggs.
Triggs was attacked by me and many others not for appearing biased but of actually being so in the conduct of her inquiry.
Here are just some of the things Triggs did that to me showed she not merely seemed biased but was so:
Gillian Triggs, president of the Human Rights Commission, waited until the Liberals were in power and actually emptying detention centres before calling an inquiry into children in detention. 
Gillian Triggs gave conflicting evidence on whether she did or didn’t discuss with Labor ministers whether she should delay an inquiry.
Gillian Triggs waited until the boats were stopped and no more people were drowning before launching a full-on assault on the management of our borders.
Gillian Triggs presided over an inquiry making inflammatory and inaccurate claims about suicides in detention and armed guards.
Gillian Triggs verballed the Immigration Minister in her report, falsely claiming he’d admitted detaining children had no part in stopping the boats.
Gillian Triggs in her report at times presented allegations of sexual abuse of children in detention as proven.
Gillian Triggs claimed she’d been asked by the Government to quit when in fact she herself had asked the Government if it had confidence in her.
Gillian Triggs gave misleading evidence about what she claimed was an “inducement” to quit - a job the Government claims she had herself suggested (and she denies).
Gillian Triggs falsely linked the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran to the Government’s border policies.
Gillian Triggs has recommended record amounts of compensation, including $350,000 to a PNG “refugee” held in detention who’d beaten his Australian wife to death with a bicycle. 
Links at the link.
I should also add that Triggs during her inquiry gave interviews in which she expressed her opinion the very matters she was meant to be investigating with an open mind - something Heydon would never do:
To liken Heydon’s behaviour to that of Triggs is a grotesque insult of Heydon.  To attack Heydon but defend Triggs, as Fitzsimons does, shows gross ignorance or even grosser bias.
UPDATE
Dyson Heydon confirms that at no stage did he agree to speak at a Liberal fundraiser.
UPDATE
At the very worst careless, not biased:
Royal commissioner Dyson Heydon said he was approached on April 10 last year to give a speech at the sixth annual Sir Garfield Barwick Address in Sydney later this month. 
“However, in March 2015 I overlooked the connection between the person or persons organising the event and the Liberal Party which had been stated in the email of 10 April of 2014,” he said. “I also overlooked the fact my agreement to speak at that time had been conditional on the work of the commission being completed before that time.”
Mr Heydon said last year that he would be “amenable” to delivering the address if the royal commission had finished its work. The commission was due to make its final report in December last year but was later extended for 12 months…
Mr Heydon revealed he had received an email from Gregory Burton, the chair of professional engagement for a lawyer branch of the NSW Liberal Party on April 10 last year which declared that the lawyer branch is formally a branch of the party, but its aim was to be a “liberal minded bridge to the profession rather than overtly party political.”
“Although we trust we show the party in a favourable light!,” the email said.
“The email of the 10th of April did not state and I did not understand from it that the Sir Garfield Address was in any sense a fundraiser for the Liberal Party,” Mr Heydon said. “The email stated that it was organised by a body which I was told was ‘one of the lawyer branches of the Liberal Party NSW division’ which had a focus on ... professional engagement.”
Mr Heydon said he did not think about the address in 2014 until he was reminded about it in March this year.
He said he looked at details of when and where the event was to be held but did not open email attachments that detailed the fundraiser because he was busy with the royal commission’s hearings.
Last week he said he could no longer attend after it was made clear it was a fundraising event.
UPDATE
The union movement is desperate to destroy a good judge to protect corrupt officials. This is an incredibly bigger and more sinister issue than much of the media wishes to admit:
The ACTU has until 2pm on Thursday to present a written submission as to why Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon should recuse himself.  

After a day of high drama at the Royal Commission into trade unions in Sydney, Commissioner Heydon agreed to give the ACTU time to prepare an application for his disqualification. 
He would then have a public hearing on the matter the following day - which would set the scene for a remarkable legal event. However, the barrister for the ACTU, Robert Newlinds, SC, did not give any indication as to whether the peak union body would push ahead with this dramatic course.
===

Latham out of another media job

Andrew Bolt August 17 2015 (4:10pm)

Mark Latham has left - or lost - his job as columnist for the Financial Review.
This follows other bitter partings. He was given a show with Michael Kroger on Sky News that ended almost as soon as it started after Latham exploded. His column-writing gig for the Spectator under Rowan Dean lasted just one article, and ended in more rage. His gig as a Sky News commentator ended after another random act of cruelty from Latham. He did just one show with 60 Minutes as a guest reporter that ended in more yelling. He did just one show with me as a panellist.
It is such a pity, in a way. He can express himself so well and he’s fearless. He has moments of genuine insight, and a good nose for hypocrisy, sanctimony and cant - the besetting sins of modern journalism.
Yet he can also be vicious, cruel, petty, vengeful and erratic.
Labor once said this man should be our prime minister, and - with the help of many Canberra journalists - he very nearly was. 
===

Fiorina: sacrificing jobs for no climate gain

Andrew Bolt August 17 2015 (2:10pm)

Carly Fiorina, Republican presidential candidate, and an outsider tip to be the party’s nominee for vice president:
The scientists that tell us that climate change is real and caused by man made activity, also tell us that a single nation acting alone can make no difference at all. So, when I see a state like California destroy lives and livelihoods with environmental regulations that will make no difference at all to climate change, when I see the Obama administration take that same regulation and apply it nationally – it will make not difference at all, yet we’re destroying people’s lives and livelihoods – I wonder, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this when it won’t have any impact? 
So I think the answer to this problem is innovation, not regulation. But I must say, it angers me when liberals says “I’m prepared for you to lose your job in the name of sending a signal to…” whom? China could care less? In fact, China is delighted that we are not spending any time or energy figuring out clean coal, because they’re going to go do it. 
True for the US. How much truer for Australia.
(Thanks to reader Mike.) 
===

Sign of Turnbull’s times

Andrew Bolt August 17 2015 (9:14am)

Malcolm Turnbull says he did not see the sign when he went to greet the protester:
===

At least 60 of Clinton’s personal emails had national secrets. How many were hacked?

Andrew Bolt August 17 2015 (9:04am)

I wouldn’t be counting on Hillary Clinton lasting to the election:
While media coverage has focused on a half-dozen of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s personal emails containing sensitive intelligence, the total number of her private emails identified by an ongoing State Department review as having contained classified data has ballooned to 60, officials told The Washington Times. 
That figure is current through the end of July and is likely to grow as officials wade through a total of 30,000 work-related emails that passed through her personal email server, officials said. The process is expected to take months.
But if we want to know what Clinton privately tells friends of her chances we should ask the Chinese. 
===

Shorten promises $100 billion of pain for no climate gain

Andrew Bolt August 17 2015 (8:46am)

Henry Ergas on one of Bill Shorten’s most disastrous policies:
With barely one per cent of global emissions, Bill Shorten would have us mandate a share of renewable energy two times greater than that aimed at by the world’s largest emitters. 
The threat that poses to consumers, who would face dramatic increases in power bills, is obvious…
Shorten [has] announced that “Labor’s ambition is to see 50 per cent of our electricity energy mix generated by renewable energy by 2030"…
(A) reasonable estimate (derived using a model developed for the Minerals Council by electricity specialists Principal Economics) is that increasing the renewables target would raise the costs of power by $86 billion, which amounts to $600 per household per year.
Given that the average family has an annual electricity bill of some $1600, adding $600 is hardly trivial. Nor could anyone claim $86bn is small change for the Australian economy as a whole…
Shorten also intends to introduce a tax on carbon ... (I)t is clear any such scheme would disproportionately raise the costs of the coal-fired generators, accelerating their exit, and so further boosting prices. And by piling a carbon tax on top of the tax associated with the RET, it could make the distortions caused by increasing the RET even greater than ... $86bn… (G)iven a carbon tax, the additional loss from raising the RET would (on an admittedly rough estimate) be in the order of $38bn, taking the total cost of Shorten’s renewables policy well over $100bn… Shorten’s policy, were it ever implemented, would be a one-way ticket to energy hell.
And to think that Shorten is wasting that $100 billion to fight a monster than seems to have vanished:
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Shorten must destroy the royal commission to hide his past

Andrew Bolt August 17 2015 (8:35am)

LABOR’S vilification of one of Australia’s most distinguished former judges has one urgent aim: to distract from leader Bill Shorten’s shady past.
Labor’s attack last week on Dyson Heydon, now heading the royal commission into trade union corruption, is both sinister and possibly illegal.
Its obvious purpose is to discredit an investigation into deals Shorten made as a union boss, involving alleged kickbacks to his union from employers and even a $40,000 personal gift.
That makes this attack on the former High Court judge an apparent breach of the Royal Commissions Act, which carries a penalty of even jail for anyone who “intentionally insults or disturbs” a royal commission.
Yet Labor frontbenchers last week still trashed Heydon as “conflicted and biased”, a Liberal “bag man” in charge of a “witch hunt” and “farce” whose job was to “smear” the Government’s “opponents”.
What makes this abuse even more damaging to our rule of law is that it is cheered by Labor’s media allies, especially in the ABC.
The ABC last week endlessly repeated Labor’s lie — that Heydon had “agreed to speak at a Liberal Party fundraising event”.
This charge, meant to discredit Heydon, is false.
(Read full article here.) 
===

Public backs Abbott’s solution. Why won’t his Liberal critics?

Andrew Bolt August 17 2015 (8:19am)

Liberals on both sides of the debate should stop sniping and get behind a popular compromise that puts the heat on Labor instead:
A vast majority of Australians want a “national vote”, not polit­icians, to decide on whether same-sex marriage should become law, including a majority of those who support the change, according to a new poll. 
As Tony Abbott rejected calls from within his own ranks to hold a people’s vote at or before the next federal election, the exclusive polling revealed that more than three in four Australians — 76 per cent — would prefer to hold a plebiscite before MPs amend the traditional definition of marriage.
The Sexton survey of 1200 people­ was taken prior to the Prime Minister’s announcement last Tuesday that the Coalition had a “disposition” towards a people’s vote after the next election to decide on same-sex marriage. More people in the survey — 49 per cent — wanted to “take time for an informed debate” compared with 44 per cent who backed an early decision, boosting the Prime Minister’s campaign to defer a plebiscite until the government’s second term.
Add this IPSOS poll today:
...the government continues to languish on the wrong side of popular opinion on issues such as marriage equality, for which public support remains high at 69 per cent
If the polls are right, Abbott has given the Liberals a plan - this plebiscite - that will deliver gay marriage without splitting a Coalition that is overwhelmingly against it. It is a plan that will give the public ownership of one of the most important changes we could make. It is a plan that will decide the issue beyond question and quibble.
Same sex marriage supporters in the party should congratulate themselves for having brought their party so very far, and not attack Abbott for still keeping the party together with a measure so popular with the public.
And the question now for Bill Shorten is: will he respect the will of the public, as expressed in the plebiscite or referendum? 
===

The ABC gets serious

Andrew Bolt August 17 2015 (7:26am)

The ABC can actually do important and interesting things, freeing itself in a rare moment from its manifest bias:
John Howard will interview News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch this week for a documentary on the Menzies period, which will air on the ABC. The ABC has commissioned Howard to do a two-part series on Robert Menzies, for broadcast early next year, based on Howard’s book, The Menzies Era. 
The former PM has interviewed Clive James, Barry Humphries and Bob Hawke for the documentary, and had intended to talk with Malcolm Fraser before he passed away. Series producer Simon Nasht said Howard had artfully taken to the role of interviewer. “We’ll see how he goes with Rupert. There’s a couple of intriguing stories we want to pursue from Rupert’s own career as a journalist,” he said.
===

Haynes takes off

Andrew Bolt August 17 2015 (12:00am)

Great performance by former NRL star Jarryd Hayne in his debut in the NFL preseason.  
===

Australia stopping the boats to save the real refugees

Miranda Devine – Sunday, August 17, 2014 (12:15am)

AN extraordinary graph nestled in a press release issued today by Immigration Minister Scott Morrison encapsulates the humanitarian triumph of the government’s border protection policies.
It shows two lines, one red and one blue, heading in opposite directions, from 2007 to 2014. Each trajectory is a mirror image of the other. When red goes up, blue goes down, and vice versa. This is the calculus of human misery.
 Continue reading 'Australia stopping the boats to save the real refugees'
===

NSW Premier Mike Baird has to weed out his bad apples

Piers Akerman – Sunday, August 17, 2014 (12:12am)

NSW Premier Mike Baird faces three challenges: ICAC’s outing of idiots in his ranks, pressing party reform and an election in six months.
He’s only been premier since April, when Barry O’Farrell resigned after misleading ICAC over a $3000 bottle of Grange. O’Farrell was not accused of corruption.
 Continue reading 'NSW Premier Mike Baird has to weed out his bad apples'
===

REPEATED AND UNCONTROLLABLE FAILURES

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 16, 2014 (6:34pm)

The unbearable sadness of climate activism: 
Nicole Thornton remembers the exact moment her curious case of depression became too real to ignore. It was five years ago and the environmental scientist – a trained biologist and ecologist – was writing a rather dry PhD on responsible household water use. 
Fair enough. That would make anyone depressed. 
Thornton had always been easily upset by apathy towards, and denial of, environmental issues. But now she began to notice an oddly powerful personal reaction to “the small stuff” – like people littering, or neighbours chopping down an old tree. 
So she’s a bossy type who wants others to obey her. No wonder Nicole is attracted to environmentalism. 
She found herself suddenly and strongly enveloped by unfamiliar feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, anger and anxiety. 
The poor woman must be a Carlton supporter. 
“It’s strange. Sometimes you just don’t feel you’re making headway in the time you’ve got, before it’s too late for the planet,” Thornton says. “All these little things weigh you down, and then the big stuff breaks you.” 
Nicole needs professional help. Paging Dr Switzer:
The United Nations was about to hold its 2009 climate change conference in Copenhagen, and Thornton felt she had a personal investment in it. She, like many thousands of activists and scientists and green campaigners, had high hopes that a new and robust version of the Kyoto agreement would be created in Denmark.
“But the reality was a massive, epic failure of political will. It broke me,” she says. “The trigger point was actually watching grown men cry.” 
I don’t mean to diminish anyone’s pain or suffering, but it is impossible to read those two paragraphs without laughing. 
Thornton pauses, takes a breath. “It still gets me, five years later. That’s when I lost hope that we were able to save ourselves from self-destruction. That’s when I lost hope that we would survive as a species. It made me more susceptible to what I call ‘climate depression’.” 
But Thornton isn’t actually depressed about the climate. She’s depressed that people won’t be pushed around by oppressive new climate laws. 
Several experts suggest that the overall intersection of mental health and climate change is one we ignore at our peril. 
There’s a 100 per cent overlap for those particular Venn diagrams, that’s for damn sure. 
“Every time I talked about environmental issues, I would start crying, which I think is a really unusual response,” she says. 
Not really. I bet a lot of people start crying when she talks about environmental issues. 
Susie Burke, a senior psychologist with the Australian Psychological Society, has done extensive work on the mental impact of climate change. Burke understands Thornton’s confusion, but also points out that she is by no means alone. 
The challenge would be finding a climate activist who is sane. 
“We can be very sure that many people in the field of climate change are distressed – highly distressed – and it can have a significant psychosocial impact on their wellbeing,” Burke said. “If you’re feeling stress, anger, guilt, anxiousness or hopelessness, it has effects on your life. Depression becomes a real risk.” 
So take up a different hobby. You know, something that isn’t so stupid. Here’s a lady who collects bus tickets, for example. 
Burke points out that disengagement – “switching off from the cause and becoming passive” – is an additional and bona fide concern for leaders within the green community, such is the crippling power of the threat perceived by people like Thornton, and the slow rate of change they observe. 
“The crippling power of the threat perceived by people like Thornton.” Psychologist Burke just walked straight past her diagnosis. 
She and her colleague, Dr Grant Blashki of the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne, have even been called on by organisations that need help dealing with the overall melancholy affecting their troops.
Adam Majcher, of Australian Conservation Foundation, reached out to Burke and Blashki around the time of the failure in Copenhagen (which is acknowledged as an emotional nadir for green activists). 
Good. These doomer bastards have spent years trying to depress and frighten everyone else. They deserve their misery. 
“We were seeing signs of a particular burden on our advocates,” says Majcher. “There was a shift in the moods and attitudes, with people becoming quite despondent, less engaged. Many people usually talkative were going a little quiet.” 
Not seeing any downside here. 
“And there was definitely a significant decline in activity in the program, along with frustrations playing out in isolation, anger.” 
Are they self-harming yet? Because that would be awesome. 
[Professor Helen Berry, of the University of Canberra], mentions that research has also shown that certain types of people are drawn to political activism, including people with or prone to mental health problems … 
There’s a shock. 
The condition that Thornton faced is much closer to what the psychologist Martin Seligman described as “learned helplessness” – something that could emerge from the repeated and uncontrollable failures of campaigning for a cause. 
It’s also known as “being a leftist”. Happily, this can be cured without medication.
===

CORELESS KEVNI

Tim Blair – Saturday, August 16, 2014 (3:43pm)

Wayne Swan trashes Kevin Rudd one more time: 
Kevin Rudd was so poll driven as prime minister that he once asked Labor’s national office to conduct research on what his ‘’one core belief’’ should be, a new book by Wayne Swan reveals …


Mr Swan cites examples of what he calls Mr Rudd’s ‘’unstable personality’’, including the latter breaking a pen in a fit of anger in a hotel room, spraying ink everywhere and causing thousands of dollars of damage to the decor.
‘’Kevin’s treatment of people was extraordinarily vindictive and juvenile, and it was frequently on display,’’ Mr Swan writes. 
Yet Rudd was preferred as leader over Julia Gillard. I blame sexism. 
===

The Bolt Report today, August 17

Andrew Bolt August 17 2014 (5:54am)

On Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm…
Editorial:  No, not everyone was horrified at all by that picture, Mr Shorten. Let’s now be honest.
My guest:  Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi on why Liberal members are unhappy with the government.
The panel:  IPA boss John Roskam and former Gillard Government minister Craig Emerson.
NewsWatch:  Spectator editor Rowan Dean.  How the ABC started by criticising the Sydney Morning Herald for anti-Semitism but wound up attacking the Jewish lobby instead.
Plus bonus laughs at ABC presenter Jonathan Green.

The videos of the shows appear here.
UPDATE
INTERVIEW WITH CORY BERNARDI
ANDREW BOLT, PRESENTER: The Abbott Government, last week, dumped its promise to reform the Racial Discrimination Act to allow more free speech. It said it had to do this to encourage Muslim Australians to help fight terrorism. 
TONY ABBOTT, PRIME MINISTER: When it comes to counterterrorism, everyone needs to be part of ‘Team Australia’. And I have to say that the Government’s proposals to change 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act have become a complication in that respect.
ANDREW BOLT: Well, it didn’t work. Muslim leaders have still condemned the government’s anti-terrorism proposals. And Liberal MP Craig Laundy, whose Sydney seat has a Muslim vote of more than 10%, also found this ‘Team Australia’ approach didn’t fly at a meeting of the Muslim Lebanese Association on Friday. 
CRAIG LAUNDY, LIBERAL MP: The Prime Minister used a term, and it is one that is unfortunately disappeared into the ether this week, but it is one that I believe with my heart and soul. It is Team Australia. There is no… and laugh all you like.
ANDREW BOLT: Many Liberals members now feel sold out. Former minister David Kemp, for instance, asked what the party actually stands for if it cannot defend even free speech. Some Liberal Senators even plan to vote for Abbott’s abandoned free speech reforms when they are presented to parliament by Family First Senator Bob Day. Joining me is the co-sponsor of Day’s private members bill, Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi. Thanks for your time, Cory.
CORY BERNARDI, LIBERAL SENATOR: It’s a pleasure, Andrew. Good to be with you.
ANDREW BOLT: Now, why are you cosponsoring Bob Day’s bill?
CORY BERNARDI: Well, Andrew, I believe in freedom of speech, and I think that the Liberal grassroots want to know that there are members of the Liberal Parliamentary party who are absolutely committed to it. And I have to say that the decision by the Government to abandon reform of 18C has disappointed many members of the Liberal Party. We always thought that, you know, the initial proposal put forward by George Brandis was a starting point for negotiations, but would find an accommodation that we could all agree on as part of Team Australia, Andrew.
ANDREW BOLT: Thank you for that. How many Liberals and Nationals do you think will vote for it in the Senate?
CORY BERNARDI: I wouldn’t even like to hazard a guess at it, Andrew. In the end I’ve made this decision because I believe that what Senator Day has put forward, or is proposing, is absolutely consistent with Liberal Party values. It’s to remove, you know, ‘insult’ and ‘offend’ from the 18C provision of the Racial Discrimination Act. I think most level-headed, considered people would think that’s a very sensible amendment to ensure that free speech is available in Australia without the threat of being taken to court or some tribunal, just because you’ve upset someone.
ANDREW BOLT: How upset is the grassroots, the Liberal grassroots,with what the Government has done with these free speech plans? CORY BERNARDI: Well, Andrew, I have heard some advice from some of my colleagues that, you know, long-standing members of the Liberal Party have resigned, and you know that I have a weekly email newsletter. I canvassed this issue in that newsletter last week and received, quite literally, hundreds and hundreds of people who are saying that they’re disappointed.
Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The Bolt Report today, August 17'
===

Liberals won’t re-contest two seats in “antonement”

Andrew Bolt August 17 2014 (5:37am)

The NSW Liberals were going to lose both seats anyway, but still:
As revelations from the Independent Commission Against Corruption claim more scalps, state director Tony Nutt said the party would not be contesting the Newcastle or Charlestown by-elections as “an explicit act of atonement”...
“The Liberal Party organisation apologises to the people of NSW for the extraordinary and reprehensible conduct of a small number of its elected representatives, members and activists which has been revealed during the current inquiry by the Independent Commission Against Corruption,” he said.
“These problems occurred four years ago. Accordingly, as an explicit act of atonement, the Liberal Party will not contest the Newcastle and Charlestown by-elections.”
The by-elections were triggered after the resignations of Newcastle MP Tim Owen and Charlestown MP Andrew Cornwell, who admitted to accepting cash donations from property developer and now Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Jeff McCloy…

The decision not to stand candidates is largely symbolic, with both seats having long been held by Labor until falling in the 2011 landslide election.
Premier Mike Baird said the party did not deserve the right to contest the seats. “We need to get our house in order and we are getting our house in order, but while we’re doing that we don’t deserve the right to represent those electorates,” he said.
===

Yet so many people read what they wanted on Rudd’s blank page

Andrew Bolt August 17 2014 (5:27am)

I was often accused of being too hostile Kevin Rudd from the very start, calling him out after just five months in office as a populist without a vision:
... as a flim-flam man, all spin and no substance. As a Prime Bureaucrat, not a Prime Minister. As like the dog who caught the car.  
That criticism at the height of Rudd’s popularity had me marked down as just a partisan conservative. In fact, we now know the reality was worse,  and some in Labor secretly knew it: 
Kevin Rudd was so poll driven as prime minister that he once asked Labor’s national office to conduct research on what his ‘’one core belief’’ should be, a new book by Wayne Swan reveals.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Senate forcing Abbott to keep spending

Andrew Bolt August 17 2014 (5:19am)

Forced to cut their losses - and add to the deficit: 
THE Budget will get a family-friendly reboot, with concessions on the mining tax, university reforms, the $7 GP fee and a revamped $810 school kids bonus. 
Determined to ensure key budget measures pass the Senate, Treasurer Joe Hockey is under intense pressure to split the mining tax legislation, which would allow the government to secure support for dumping Labor’s failed tax.
By splitting the bills, the government could axe the tax while accepting Clive Palmer’s demands to retain some of the $10 billion in popular spending linked to it. These include the school kids bonus, the low income superannuation contribution scheme and the low income support bonus. Senior government sources cautioned that Prime Minister Tony Abbott would never accept keeping the existing “cash splash’’ school kids bonus, but may consider a rebadged scheme that forced parents to spend the money on education. University reforms will also be amended under the budget reboot strategy. The deregulation of university fees will stay but the higher interest rate for university loans is likely to go.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Global warming causes floods. Of tears

Andrew Bolt August 17 2014 (4:13am)

The Age actually takes this activist seriously:
“Every time I talked about environmental issues, I would start crying, which I think is a really unusual response,” she says. 
Tim Blair, though, can’t stop laughing as he reads on. And on. 
===


===


===


===
That technology is thousands of years old - ed

NFC - near-field communication - was meant to be the next big thing. But, allowing payments or communication without touch being necessary has proved a difficult market to crack.
Spencer Kelly reports on how one company is hoping placing NFC technology in jewellery will make people more likely to invest in the technology itself, testing a ring that can unlock everything from a phone to a front door.
===
Simply everything comes from there,
Where the flowers stand eternal,
Dizzying blooms that whirl the filth
From the human heart.
They come dashing petals to the ground,
Shaking out those twisted, blissful buds.

—from "Flower Song Convocation," song XVII of the Aztec codex Cantares Mexicanos
translated from the Nahuatl by David Bowles
===
As the Egyptian government attempts to disband supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi, a wave of devastating violence has swept through the country. The AP has reported that 638 people have been confirmed killed and nearly 4,000 are injured. It’s now being uncovered that much of this violence is being committed against Christians and their institutions.
This morning on radio, Glenn gave his listeners a rundown of the institutions that have been attacked and what is happening to the Christian Egyptians as their nation unwinds into chaos — something the mainstream media has been deafeningly silent on.
The President gave a statement on the issue on Thursday, in which he stated:
“The United States strongly condemns the steps that have been taken by Egypt’s interim government and security forces,” Obama said. “We deplore violence against citizens.”
Unfortunately, it’s not simply the “interim government” that is engaging in serious violence. It’s his so-called “nonviolent” pals that he helped initially win office, the Muslim Brotherhood.
The supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood have reportedly called for a ‘day of rage’ (non-violent, of course), yet the president and many in Congress are still considering sending aide to the country.
“I would just like you to keep these churches in your prayers because the front page of TheBlaze has a picture of one of these churches in Egypt that has been burned down,” Glenn said. ”So just keep these people and these churches in your prayers.  In Egypt these are the churches that have just been burned down by the Muslim Brotherhood.  The Father Maximus churches, the St. George Church, the Good Shepherd’s Monastery where the nuns were attacked and burned.  The Angel Michael Church and the St. George Coptic Orthodox church have been burned.”
Sadly that’s just a small portion of the churches that have come under attack or been destroyed.
“It’s really sad — awful,” Pat responded after hearing a portion of the list.
===
Bill O’Reilly has been in the headlines for weeks now because his well-articulated Talking Points Memos have focused on the harsh realities African Americans face in this country and called out the so-called leaders of the black community for not speaking up. O’Reilly has earned a good amount of praise for his remarks, but he has also weathered a large amount of criticism from the likes of Al Sharpton and others. Well, last night O’Reilly apparently reached his breaking point
“Bill O’Reilly I think pretty much had it last night,” Glenn said to open the radio show this morning. “I don’t think Bill has ever really played this game, but he’s been around this game and he just broke the rules. And here’s what the game is: I had been told when I was in the mainstream media, ‘Look, Glenn. You know, we take a pound of flesh from them and then we all go out and have dinner. That’s the way the game is played.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m not playing a game and these things are lies.’ Again, I don’t play that game. If it’s a lie, it’s a lie and I’m not playing that game.”
“I have a feeling that’s what happened with Bill O’Reilly last night because Bill O’Reilly could have played this card a long time ago,” he continued. “Another thing I learned in the media is don’t play all your cards… When they’re playing the game and they’re coming to shoot you in the head, you better keep your powder dry until you really need it. Last night, some of the powder was used from Bill O’Reilly because he was sick to death of Al Sharpton.”
Glenn played the audio of O’Reilly’s take down of Sharpton from last night’s O’Reilly Factor:
O’REILLY: This time a few days ago we did a story about the food stamp fraud in the USA. As part of that story, we featured Jason the surfer. There he is, young, man, healthy. Gets thousands of dollars worth of food stamps every year, even while he surfs all day long. He doesn’t care about workin’.
And here’s what I said about it: This guy is a parasite, and my contention is that the Obama administration is encouraging parasites to come out and, you know, take as much as they can with no remorse, and this is how a country declines. This is how we become a weak nation.
So that was pretty clear statement about Jason the surfer and the failure of the federal government to regulate who gets entitlements from the taxpayer, right? Pretty straightforward. Here’s how Al Sharpton spun it.
SHARPTON: Bill O’Reilly is going back to one of his favorite talking points: Attacking the poor. Here’s his latest rant about people on food stamps. Parasites. The poor are parasites. We’ve heard these kinds of attacks before.
O’REILLY: Sharpton obviously taking my comments totally out of context. Not even mentioning Jason the surfer and basically not telling the truth, once again. The guy does this all the time. And here’s the crusher on Sharpton. He’s been portraying me as a racist and a brutalizer of the poor. A few years ago Sharpton told me that his charity in Harlem, New York was out of money and that it could not provide Christmas presents and Christmas dinners to hundreds of poor people in Harlem. So I gave Sharpton a $25,000 donation to provide the gifts and the food. I never mentioned it because it wasn’t necessary to mention it. But now it is. To prove exactly what kind of person Al Sharpton is.
Watch the video of O’Reilly’s remarks HERE.
“That is not ‘Let’s go have dinner.’ That is a declaration of war,” Glenn said. “Congratulations, Bill O’Reilly… Now, Bill O’Reilly gets a lot of crap, I think, because he doesn’t put up with crap… I think he’s had enough.”
This situation extends far beyond Bill O’Reilly and Al Sharpton. In the last few months alone, there have been several examples of the left attempting to destroy people. “How many people does the left have to destroy,” Glenn asked.
Paula Deen’s career is essentially over. The Missouri State rodeo clown now finds himself without a job.Philadelphia Eagle wide receiver Riley Cooper continues to face backlash despite his apology.
“How many people have to have their lives destroyed before people wake up and say this isn’t a game? This is not a game. This is a zero sum game,” Glenn said. “The game has changed. They are going to take you out because they sense blood in the water. They are so out-of-control with their egos… so those who are just like, ‘Let’s just play the game, just get along. We always get along.’ That’s over, gang. That’s over. And I think Bill O’Reilly is smart enough to get it.”
===
Jonathan Pollard, who has spent more than 27 years and more than 10,000 days in American prison, is breaking his silence.
In an opinion piece sent to theJerusalem Post, which will appear on Friday, Pollard criticizes the Israeli government “over the past 60 years” on issues such as evicting Jewish communities, releasing murderous terrorists and his own situation.
"Israel is the only country in the world that ever voluntarily evicted citizens from their homeland in order to give the land to its enemies, and the only country that ever voluntarily destroyed the homes and businesses of its citizens, broke promises and shattered their lives,” Pollard wrote.
Referring to his personal story, he wrote, "Israel holds the world record forbetraying those who were loyal to it. It is the only country in the world that ever willingly cooperated in a lawsuit against its intelligence agent, refused to give him asylum, turned over documents to incriminate him, denied knowing him and then allowed him to rot in prison for decades.”
Pollard also spoke about Israel releasing terrorists as a “gesture” to the Palestinian Authority ahead of peace talks, saying, “A sovereign state which can desecrate the dead by releasing murderers and torturing bereaved families, in principle, gives up and throws away the moral foundation of its existence."
He added, "Many of those released were serving life sentences for multiple heinous crimes. The blood of the victims cries out from their graves over the lack of human decency. Their cries are not being heard. The bereaved families of the victims asked and begged not to release the savage murderers of their loved ones. Their pleas were ignored. No one in Israel sees the broken hearts that are bleeding continuously over their losses.”
===
Pastor Rick Warren
“Courage isn't having the strength to go on – it's going on when you don’t have any strength.” – Napoleon
===
Pastor Rick Warren
Nothing you do can make God stop loving you, because His love is based on WHO HE IS (his character) not what you do (your conduct).
===
Pastor Rick Warren
"It's better to be content with what you have than always be struggling for more, which is like chasing the wind." Ecclesiastes 4:6
===
Malcolm Turnbull
Nobody should make fun of Kevin confusing Holden with Ford & instead extend the same understanding he showed Beazley when he got his Roves mixed up.
===
Things have got to be tense at the U.S. State Department as countries like Egypt and Syria continue to spiral into total chaos. More than 700 people have been reported dead since violent clashes began in Egypt on Wednesday, including at least 64 on Friday, and the department will face several key decisions in the near future that will have far-reaching implications for the United States.
So how does the man who heads the State Department unwind during a stressful time like this? He goes kiteboarding in Nantucket, Mass.
TheBlaze has obtained exclusive photos of Secretary of State John Kerry’s kiteboarding adventure in Nantucket – and at 69-years-old, you have to admit, his skills are pretty impressive:
===
October 21, 2012
There are obviously verifiable vote fraudproblems in North Carolina.
In 2010 those problems surfaced meaningfully as indicated in the below voter fraud post from an earlier Charlotte Conservative Examiner article:
 Perhaps in an effort to promote North Carolina as one of the healthiest States in the Nation, this latest voter twist comes to us from Susan Myrick of the Civitas Institute in North Carolina--not to be confused with Rep. Sue Myrick of NC who is unrelated. In a radio interview with local WBT Anchor Tara Servatious, Susan reports that she has been keeping track of the number of votes in North Carolina of individuals over the age of 110 years and apparently we have quite a few, over 410 of the 110 year olds--to be exact-- actually voted via absentee ballot on October the 28th. Yes indeed, now it would appear that good ole NC has the market cornered on the Centenarian vote.
At latest count, Susan has garnered a total Absentee Ballot vote of over 2,660 people over the age of 110. Someone contact the Guiness Book and warm up the Ford, the Fountain of Youth exists and its right here in lovely NC. It's no wonder people are moving here in droves--maybe the use of tobacco isn't such a bad thing after all? But, on a more serious note, with all of the irregularities going on all over the place, we can now begin to wonder about a few things.
Apparently those ultra-healthy seniors over 110 have aged and are now astoundingly over 112 years old, and are still able to make it to the polls ahead of time.
According to a post originally from the Silence Dogood political blog report, there were at least 758 individuals over the age of 112 who had either risen from their respective graves, or otherwise, to vote once again for the Democrats in charge, who might apparently have also guaranteed them an ever-lasting vote for life and beyond.
In visiting the political tracking site, we later found the same story in evidence, except the number of centenarian voters had increased measurably to 832 voters over the age of 112. Of these voters, over 70% were slated as Democrats, with a diminutive 25% counted as Republicans. The rest were unaffiliated.
When peering a little more deeply at the numbers we find that an astounding 2,374 people between the ages of 94 and 100 have already voted in the NC election to date. While an even more astounding 832 votes came from those individuals aged 112. However,according to the Guinness book of world records, the oldest living person in the world, at present, lives in Japan and is 114 years old. It would seem obvious that, according to the NC vote registry, this old fellow might be nudged aside in the near future, especially considering the crop of spry 112 year-olds seemingly alive and well in the old North State.
In fact, two of the 112 year aged voters were mail-in ballots from overseas; ostensibly vacationing to escape the now bitterly polarized political contest, and who can blame them?
But it gets worse when we note from another concerned voter, who indicated the following explanation, which goes but one full measure further to explain what's happening in NC during this voting season of , perhaps, persistent political zombies:
I overheard a nice lady about 70 telling her friend the following: "Yes, I voted today."
"Going back tomorrow too."
"They took us to a place that don't ask names and don't write nothing down. They give $20 each time."
She then handed her friend a card I couldn't see and told her friend to call the number.
This same tipster later sent a message indicating that he had, indeed, contacted the local election center, who immediately patted him upon the head graciously for being a good citizen with a promise to check on it again much later, in due course.
Obviously there is a problem, one in which voter ID might clearly provide a solution. A thing that only the Democratic party swears against at any cost, and for reasons becoming quite obvious.
===
A new video from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the Red Planet's two tiny moons eclipsing each other in an otherworldly skywatching first.http://oak.ctx.ly/r/a0qk

This illustration provides a comparison for how big the moons of Mars appear to be, as seen from the surface of Mars, in relation to the size that Earth's moon appears to be when seen from the surface of Earth.
===
Learning how to be kind to ourselves
is important. When we look into our
own hearts and begin to discover
what is confused and what is
brilliant, what is bitter and what is
sweet, it isn’t just ourselves that
we’re discovering. We’re discovering
the universe. When we discover the
buddha that we are, we realize that
everything and everyone is Buddha.
We discover that everything is awake,
and everyone is awake. Everything
and everyone is precious and whole
and good. When we regard thoughts
and emotions with humor and
openness, that’s how we perceive the
universe.

~Pema Chödron~

===
On Friday, Palestinian Islamisists chanted in support of ousted president Mohammed Morsi and against Egyptian Defense Minister Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who they accuse of collaborating with the US and killing his own people for the sake of the Jews.
===
http://images.scribblelive.com/2013/8/16/ddf331ee-7acd-4406-a1da-aa2b348bcbcb_500.jpg
===
NS Arktika
===

===
“Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.” 2 Corinthians 7:1 NIV
===
Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name."
Psalm 29:2
God's glory is the result of his nature and acts. He is glorious in his character, for there is such a store of everything that is holy, and good, and lovely in God, that he must be glorious. The actions which flow from his character are also glorious; but while he intends that they should manifest to his creatures his goodness, and mercy, and justice, he is equally concerned that the glory associated with them should be given only to himself. Nor is there aught in ourselves in which we may glory; for who maketh us to differ from another? And what have we that we did not receive from the God of all grace? Then how careful ought we to be to walk humbly before the Lord! The moment we glorify ourselves, since there is room for one glory only in the universe, we set ourselves up as rivals to the Most High. Shall the insect of an hour glorify itself against the sun which warmed it into life? Shall the potsherd exalt itself above the man who fashioned it upon the wheel? Shall the dust of the desert strive with the whirlwind? Or the drops of the ocean struggle with the tempest? Give unto the Lord, all ye righteous, give unto the Lord glory and strength; give unto him the honour that is due unto his name. Yet it is, perhaps, one of the hardest struggles of the Christian life to learn this sentence--"Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be glory." It is a lesson which God is ever teaching us, and teaching us sometimes by most painful discipline. Let a Christian begin to boast, "I can do all things," without adding "through Christ which strengtheneth me," and before long he will have to groan, "I can do nothing," and bemoan himself in the dust. When we do anything for the Lord, and he is pleased to accept of our doings, let us lay our crown at his feet, and exclaim, "Not I, but the grace of God which was with me!"

Evening

"Ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit."
Romans 8:23
Present possession is declared. At this present moment we have the first fruits of the Spirit. We have repentance, that gem of the first water; faith, that priceless pearl; hope, the heavenly emerald; and love, the glorious ruby. We are already made "new creatures in Christ Jesus," by the effectual working of God the Holy Ghost. This is called the firstfruit because it comes first. As the wave-sheaf was the first of the harvest, so the spiritual life, and all the graces which adorn that life, are the first operations of the Spirit of God in our souls. The firstfruits were the pledge of the harvest. As soon as the Israelite had plucked the first handful of ripe ears, he looked forward with glad anticipation to the time when the wain should creak beneath the sheaves. So, brethren, when God gives us things which are pure, lovely, and of good report, as the work of the Holy Spirit, these are to us the prognostics of the coming glory. The firstfruits were always holy to the Lord, and our new nature, with all its powers, is a consecrated thing. The new life is not ours that we should ascribe its excellence to our own merit; it is Christ's image and creation, and is ordained for his glory. But the firstfruits were not the harvest, and the works of the Spirit in us at this moment are not the consummation--the perfection is yet to come. We must not boast that we have attained, and so reckon the wave-sheaf to be all the produce of the year: we must hunger and thirst after righteousness, and pant for the day of full redemption. Dear reader, this evening open your mouth wide, and God will fill it. Let the boon in present possession excite in you a sacred avarice for more grace. Groan within yourself for higher degrees of consecration, and your Lord will grant them to you, for he is able to do exceeding abundantly above what we ask or even think.
===

Today's reading: Psalm 94-96, Romans 15:14-33 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 94-96

1 The LORD is a God who avenges.
O God who avenges, shine forth.
2 Rise up, Judge of the earth;
pay back to the proud what they deserve.
3 How long, LORD, will the wicked,
how long will the wicked be jubilant?
4 They pour out arrogant words;
all the evildoers are full of boasting.
5 They crush your people, LORD;
they oppress your inheritance.
6 They slay the widow and the foreigner;
they murder the fatherless.
7 They say, "The LORD does not see;
the God of Jacob takes no notice."

Today's New Testament reading: Romans 15:14-33

Paul the Minister to the Gentiles
14 I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. 15 Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
17 Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. 18 I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done- 19 by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.20 It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation....


===
Judas, Juda, Jude
[Jū'das] - praise of the lord.
1. The disciple surnamed Iscariot, who betrayed the Master and then hanged himself. He was the only one of the Twelve who was not a Galilean. He acted as treasurer of the apostolic band (John 6:71; 12:6; 13:26, 29).

The Man Who Was Guilty of a Horrible Crime

The Gospels represent the betrayal of Christ by Judas as a horrible, diabolical crime. And it stands out as the darkest deed in human history. The word "betray" is a remarkable one meaning "to deliver up." This is what Judas did - delivered up Jesus. Yet such a dastardly action was overruled, for Jesus was delivered by the determinate counsel of God.
Judas is a strange character and everything about his choice and conduct is mysterious. Why was he chosen? All we can say in answer is in the declaration, "that the scriptures might be fulfilled" (Matt. 26:56 ). The greater mystery is, why did Christ choose you and me to be His followers? Think of these features:
I. Judas'terrible crime was predicted (Ps. 109:5-8; Acts 1:16).
II. His cruel bargain was foretold (Zech. 11:12, 13).
III. He became a devil incarnate. "One of you is a devil." As Jesus became God-incarnate, Judas became the devil-incarnate.
IV. He is called "a son of perdition." Because the same designation is used of the Man of Sin, some writers feel that this grim figure will be Judas incarnate ( 2 Thess. 2:3).

V. He was a thief. He kept the bag which represented responsibility. Christ chose Judas as treasurer for the Twelve because of his commercial instinct and business acumen, but he prostituted his gift. His very endowment became a snare. A blessing was turned into a curse.

VI. He betrayed Christ with a kiss. The hatefulness of his crime reached its limit when he gave the enemies of Christ the symbol of affection. How wicked is the human heart - deceitful above all things!
VII. He was the recipient of divine patience. Why he persisted in following Christ we cannot say. All we can do is marvel at the love and patience of Christ as He bore with Judas for three years. He knew all along that this so-called disciple would betray Him, yet He kept the door open. Even when He met Judas after his contract with the foes of Christ, He greeted him as "friend." We would have scorned the traitor and hissed "enemy" or "traitor." Not so Christ, who is patient toward all men.
VIII. He went out to his own place (Acts 1:25 ). It was in self-excommunication. Christ did not excommunicate Judas - He only ratified the choice. Up to the last He gave Judas a chance to halt and turn from his wickedness. But when the die had been cast, Jesus said, "What thou doest, do quickly."
We leave our glimpse of the despicable man of the Bible with two lessons in mind:
The journey into sin gains momentum. We never know where a wrong path may end. Sin only needs opportunity to carry us to its utmost depths.
It is sadly possible to be associated with Jesus, to hear His gracious words, witness His wonderful works, yet refuse Him our heart's allegiance and be ultimately lost.
2. Half-brother of Jesus , brother of James and writer of the epistle known by his name (Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3; Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13; Jude 1). See JUDE.
3. An apostle also known as Lebbeus or Thaddeus (John 14:22).
4. A Galilean who stirred up sedition shortly after the birth of Christ (Acts 5:37).
5. One with whom Paul lodged in the street called Straight (Acts 9:11).
6. The prophet surnamed Barsabas, sent with Silas to Antioch (Acts 15:22, 27).
===

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)