Thursday, March 28, 2013

Thu 28th Mar Todays News


Happy birthday and many happy returns Jenny Duong. May your day be nestled in comfort and joy. They might be pet names .. Sorry, had to toss that bone.
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One political whopper and various lies on the side

Piers Akerman – Thursday, March 28, 2013 (6:14pm)

ROB Oakeshott needs a new diary - April Fool’s Day is not until Monday. Yet, there he was on Wednesday telling such a whopper he must have thought everyone was already on their Easter break.

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Labor is looking at YOUR super!

Piers Akerman – Thursday, March 28, 2013 (5:15am)

MAKE no mistake – the Gillard government is eyeing your superannuation savings.

Faced with its skyrocketing debt burden and still to pay for its promised Gonski package of school funding and the National Disability Insurance Scheme – super savings are on the table.

Your hard-earned cash is at risk.

Gillard government debt levels are forecast to blow out by 80 per cent to $165 billion in this term alone - that’s a whopping $14,000 for every working Australian.

Analysis of budget documents revealed that, between the 2010 election and federal Treasury’s update in October last year, the 2012-13 net debt estimate rose $54 billion to $144 billion.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has refused to rule out tax increases on super, saying only she wants a sustainable long-term superannuation system.

But sacked former minister Simon Crean has put the question in play, along with his fellow anti-Gillard conspirator Joel Fitzgibbon.

Crean, one of the saner ALP MPs, said on Monday the Government should not be talking about taxing people’s super to achieve a budget surplus.

Before being sacked from cabinet last week he was a member of the Government’s inner circle - the Expenditure Review Committee - weighing up Labor’s budget decisions.

The Gillard Government has already increased the tax rate on super contributions to 30 cents for people earning over $300,000.
Former chief whip Fitzgibbon yesterday called on Gillard not to raid the super of low and middle-income earners in her quest to pay for other promises.

“I welcome any changes but only at the very, very high end,” he said.

“For example coal miners in my electorate earning $120,000, $130,000, $140,000 a year are not wealthy - that’s the sort of money you need these days with property prices, et cetera, as they are.

“In Sydney’s west you can be on a $250,000 family income a year and you’re still struggling - particularly given property prices.

“So I don’t mind us looking at the very top end but I will not support changes that affect ordinary people like my coal miners living in Hunter.”

Gillard’s safari to Western Sydney was a waste of time.

She didn’t meet the battlers, let alone the hard-working savers struggling to make ends meet on $250,000.

Instead, she dined with a handful of selected “mummy bloggers” who reliably gushed over her menu selections in a private dining room as far from Western Sydney residents as she could be.

Pauline Vamos from the Association of Superannuation Funds (ASFA) says the industry is getting jittery over “a number of red flags”.

“We are concerned that the current government may make changes to the superannuation system that are about short-term revenue needs rather than long-term retirement incomes policy,” she said.

“I think there has been a number of red flags. There’s no doubt there is a conversation about every single budget line, but we need to remember that superannuation is owned by consumers.”

Opposition leader Tony Abbott has promised not to change super guidelines during the first term of a conservative government.

Gillard has plenty to be jittery about.

The Financial Review reports today that Labor’s support among marginal seat voters has crashed in Queensland and Western Australia to levels similar to NSW, exposing it to the loss of all 24?marginal seats it holds across Australia and risking up to 15 more semi-marginal electorates.

We can only hope.

But the attack on your super savings may be announced in the May Budget to finance more Labor madness.

If Gillard does grab more of your hard-earned cash, today’s marginal seat poll may become the high-water mark for this failed leader.

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LIL-EEE, LIL-EEE

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 28, 2013 (3:10am)

Her name is Lil K. Lewis. She’s only three years old. And she might be the most gifted Australian cricketer you’ve ever seen:



Check the stance. Her eyes are precisely level. That backlift is perfect. Her first shot is a drive through mid-wicket taken from outside the off-stump in the manner of Viv Richards, who shares Lil’s lower-hand style. The second shot is a lofted straight drive, again featuring that strong right hand. Lil’s third shot is a cover drive so majestic, so technically exquisite, that the little girl freezes in her follow-through so that lesser players might learn how it’s done:

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Kim Hughes sometimes did the same. Don Bradman himself can’t teach this girl a thing, even though she’s barely taller than her bat.
(Via 3AW)
UPDATE
Three-year-old Lil K Lewis is so impressive with the bat, Cricket Australia wants to use her as the face of the upcoming Ashes campaign. 
Why not coach?

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STATE OF THE ISSUES

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 28, 2013 (3:02am)

The Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she believes Labor’s crushing election defeat in Western Australia was due to state issues. 
Reality:

image

UPDATE. State issues. It’s all about state issues.

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FAIRFAX’S FAVOURITE FEMINIST FELLOW

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 28, 2013 (2:44am)

Among the few male contributors to Fairfax’s Ladypages is Californian fringe academic Hugo Schwyzer, whose latest piece asks: 
Is this porn star dangerous? 
Beats me. But the porn star is probably less dangerous than Hugo himself, who – as readers may recall – once attempted to kill his girlfriend, possibly while studying power imbalances
[Schwyzer] said that his sex with students (including four on one school trip he chaperoned) had been “deeply and profoundly wrong,” but added that it made him “keenly sensitive to power imbalances in sexual relationships.” 
It’s been a fun time in the Ladypages lately. If you haven’t already, please enjoy PWAF’s dissection of leading Ladypager Alecia Simmonds. For all her faults, at least she’s never tried to murder anybody.
UPDATE. Hugo responds
The Telegraph’s Tim Blair thinks I’m a “fringe academic” … 
Well, I could have described you as a “professor of history and gender studies at Pasadena City College”, but that’s just a longer way of saying the same thing.
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THERE ARE LIMITS

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 28, 2013 (1:37am)

Not everyone enjoyed yesterday’s alternative Monthly covers
how low can the daily telegraph go? 
I don’t know, mate. We’d probably drawn the line at, say, inviting Kyle Sandilands over and kissing the egomaniacal female-hating freak.

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TAX-FUNDED FEVER

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 28, 2013 (1:25am)

“It was a feverish time,” writes the ABC’s Jonathan Holmes. “I was on long service leave in Europe.”

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LIB vs LIB

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 28, 2013 (1:09am)

Just a reminder that political dysfunction isn’t entirely confined to the Left.
UPDATE. Labor is so much better at this. We now have Latham vs FitzgibbonQueensland Labor vs itself, and former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty vs Gillard vs Rudd: 
It is too easy to blame the opposition, the media or Kevin Rudd. The latter may have been an irritant, but in the big picture of recent politics he was a mosquito. The government’s problems do not stem from Rudd’s removal but the means and justification for doing it.
The result was that the electorate did not give the ALP the right to govern alone. In the process of forming government, concessions were made that had lasting significance. When a sensible policy of pricing carbon at international levels became a tax, it subverted trust in a government that promised it would not introduce such a tax. When the umbilical cord of trust between the governed and those who govern is broken, it cannot be easily restored. 
And we also have Roxon vs Kitching vs Conroy in Victoria: 
Roxon joins ALP seat brawl, as Conroy ‘goes nuclear’ 
He’s going nuclear? This is bound to end in tears.

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SAME QUAKE, DIFFERENT CAUSE

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 28, 2013 (1:02am)

According to Associated Press
An unusual and widely felt 5.6-magnitude quake in Oklahoma in 2011 was probably caused when oil drilling waste was pushed deep underground, a team of university and federal scientists concluded.
That would make it the most powerful quake to be blamed on deep injections of wastewater, according to a study published Tuesday by the journal Geology. The waste was from traditional drilling, not from the hydraulic fracturing technique, or fracking. 
A Bloomberg piece in the SMH says otherwise: 
Oklahoma’s biggest quake tied to fracking …
Scientists have linked Oklahoma’s biggest recorded earthquake to the disposal of wastewater from oil production, adding to evidence that may lead to greater regulation of hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas. 
(Via Frederick G.)

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Shorten’s big stack

Andrew BoltMARCH282013(7:44pm)

The crudest and most shameful stacking of an “independent” tribunal, already led by a former ACTU official:

Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten announced the appointments on Thursday afternoon, just ahead of the Easter break and Good Friday.
Mr Lawrence, who until a year ago was the ACTU secretary, was made a deputy president. Also appointed as a commissioner was Leigh Johns, who has a long history with Labor, and has been the chief executive of the Fair Work Building and Construction inspectorate.

The changes were among eight appointments announced by Mr Shorten.

They include two new vice presidents, Joe Catanzariti, a partner at law firm Clayton Utz, and Adam Hatcher SC, a former Labor candidate and an industrial relations barrister who has represented major unions.
Shorten should be ashamed of himself. But at least he’s gone so far that the Coalition has an excuse to reform the living daylights out of the joint.

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We’ll pay plenty for those borrowed handouts

Andrew BoltMARCH282013(6:53pm)

 EconomyPolitics - federal
image
MAYBE it’s too late already. But our slackers’ paradise is in strife if we don’t end this Age of Entitlement.
We can measure that strife with figures: by the May Budget, the Gillard Government will have blown another $75 billion of borrowed money.
That’s on top of the $90 billion debt left by the Rudd government.
Or take these figures: more than six million Australians now live off government benefits or salaries, with only another six million Australians working full-time in the private sector to pay for them.
Or measure our entitlement mentality with anecdotes, like those in this week’s Lowy Institute report on the blowout in demand for government help from Australians abroad.

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Does the Trade Minister read the Economist?

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (12:28pm)

Now even the Economist, long a warmist publication, admits what Trade Minister Craig Emerson won’t:
OVER the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth’s surface have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to soar.
Can someone tell Emerson?
(Thanks to reader Stefan.) 

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Kelty attacks Gillard on exactly the grounds I have

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (12:04pm)

Politics - deceits and stuff ups
Bill Kelty, the former ACTU secretary and a giant of the union movement, makes the same criticisms of Julia Gillard that I have as a supposedly “Right-wing” commentator.
To put it less diplomatically, Gillard, is disloyal, untrustworthy, incompetent, reckless, divisive, dictatorial, wasteful and lacking in vision:
The government’s problems do not stem from Rudd’s removal but the means and justification for doing it.
The result was that the electorate did not give the ALP the right to govern alone. In the process of forming government, concessions were made that had lasting significance. When a sensible policy of pricing carbon at international levels became a tax, it subverted trust in a government that promised it would not introduce such a tax…
When the mining tax was touted as a negotiating coup, somebody forgot to tell us about state royalties. These are errors of judgment and explanation…
The two most recent prime ministers have sought from caucus a special right to select their own ministers, but in both cases, the cabinet process has been allowed to be frittered away. The media reform was moderate, but the process was flawed. A jackboot approach to discussions and timing would not have been permitted if the proper process of cabinet had been followed....
A Labor Party that cultivates division, or taxes superannuation retrospectively, or cannot justify deficits, or makes regional tours presidential visitations, or reinvents class warfare, or steals the rhetoric of Pauline Hanson on migrants, or embraces the Pacific refugee solution of John Howard, or attacks single mothers and narrows its base to a mythical group of blue-collar workers, cannot win an election.
If that is what one of the great figures of the Left now says about Gillard, perhaps we conservatives deserve an apology for the vilification we received in saying it first. 

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How could Doug have suspected such a fine MP as Macdonald?

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (11:36am)

Charming people, the faction bosses and union heavies who insisted Ian Macdonald stay in the NSW Parliament. Great judges of character. So concerned with the “public interest”.
Labor MP Luke Foley says he tried to get McDonald dumped, but was overruled by Labor and union figures such as Senator Doug Cameron, then the national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union:

In 2006 I sought to strip Ian Macdonald of his pre-selection because I felt he’d abandoned Labor principle and he’d lost his moral compass.
Cameron is shocked, shocked, to hear this:

DOUG CAMERON:  What Luke Foley said yesterday about a chorus of complaints, about a loss of moral compass, about the abandonment of Labor principles was not put at that meeting… And I have to say to you if then at that meeting people like myself, George Campbell, Anthony Albanese and Paul Bastian did nothing then he should have done something about it…
PETER LLOYD: When did you first get concerned about Mr Macdonald’s conduct?
DOUG CAMERON: Oh not until, actually Luke Foley was sending emails around about Mr Macdonald’s conduct drawing people’s attention to overseas expenditure.
PETER LLOYD: All right but what about his conduct in relation to the granting of mining leases and his association with Eddie Obeid, serious matters of corruption. When did you become aware of those?
DOUG CAMERON: ... I knew nothing about that and it wasn’t until this whole thing blew up in the press that I started to become aware of the relationship…
Until then, Cameron thought Macdonald was just the man NSW needed in Parliament:
PETER LLOYD: Can you tell me what is the value proposition in supporting Ian Macdonald when he doesn’t come from a trade background, he’s had a clerical career. Why did the union that you led back a man who had no credentials in that workforce and back him for so many years?
DOUG CAMERON: Oh look it’s not just about them coming from the workforce. He was a member of the left and he was as I described in evidence before ICAC a spear carrier for the left ...
A spear carrier for the Left? ‘Nuff said. Stick that man in Parliament, given his great plans for the state:

Mr Cameron told ICAC he believed Mr Macdonald wanted to stay in parliament because he was having “financial difficulties” supporting a daughter’s education and also wanted to go to the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a minister.
And another good point in Macdonald’s favor:

Mr Cameron’s lawyer daughter Fiona worked in Mr Macdonald’s office between 2003 and 2010, mainly as a policy adviser.
No way that Cameron could be expected to know if Macdonald, the man he kept in Parliament, was a bit iffy. No reason at all to dount that this was a man dedicated to the service of, er, the state.
(Thanks to reader Raouf Raouf.) 

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On the other hand, Sir Bob is right

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (11:29am)

On the other hand, sometimes Sir Bob speaks sense:
Political activist Bob Geldof has poured scorn on Earth Hour’s claims that it has become a global initiative, telling a Sydney audience that nobody outside of Australia is aware of the event.
Earth Hour, the brainchild of Australian agency Leo Burnett Sydney and WWF, began in Australia in 2007. This year’s event took place at the weekend, with the Earth Hour organisation claiming that “more than 7000 cities, towns and municipalities in more than 150 countries and territories” took part…
“We turn off our lights for Earth Day – Earth Hour f...ing hell. Nobody outside of Australia knows about Earth Hour, believe me...”
In fact, Geldof says what almost no politician dares admit - that acting on our own is perfectly useless, even if you do believe warming is a terrible threat:
...  it is no use for Australia enacting just by itself ...
Wise man. This time.
(Thanks to readers Don and Steve.) 

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To Paris, with the warmists’ thanks for your contribution

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (7:10am)

Reader Enough is Enough sees more of your money being burned at the altar of global warming - money spent most on bureaucrats enjoying lots of lovely international travel:
I found this grants list for 2012 from the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. It has a few eye opener grant recipients: 
Program: Helping to shape a global climate change solution
Recipient: OECD (Organisation of Economic Co-operation & Development)
Value:  $100,000.OO GST inclusive
Purpose:  Development of data-set and methodology to track private climate finance flows to developing countries
Approval date:  31 October 2012
Grant Term:  9 months
Grant Funding Location:  Paris, France

Program:  Helping to shape a global climate change solution
Recipient:  UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)
Value:  $578,381.19
Purpose:  Contribution to UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol
Approval Date:  8 March 2012
Grant term:  12 months
Grant funding location:  Bonn, Germany

Program:  Helping to shape a global change solution
Recipient:  OECD Climate Change Expert Group
Value:  $60,000.00
Purpose:  Contribution to IPEEC for new Buildings Energy Efficiency task group
Date of approval:  23 May 2012
Grant term:  12 months
Grant funding location:  Frankfurt, Germany

Program:  Helping to shape a global change solution
Recipient:  Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD)
Value:  $60,000
Purpose:  Voluntary contribution to OECD work of the Climate Change Experts Group (CCXG)
Approval date:  17 July 2012
Grant funding location:  Paris, France

Program:  Helping to shape a global change solution
Recipient:  Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change Trust Fund (IPCC Trust Fund)
Value:  $120,000 (GST exclusive)
Purpose:  IPCC Trust Fund Annual Payment (2012)
Approval date:  23 May 2012
Grant term:  Ongoing
Grant funding location:  Geneva, Switzerland

Program:  Helping to shape a global solution
Recipient:  Dr Habiba Gitay
Value:  $22,000 (GST exclusive)
Purpose:  Support for Australian participation in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report
Approval date:  23/03/2012
Grant term:  27 months
Grant funding location:  Vienna, Virginia, USA

Program:  Helping to shape a global solution
Recipient:  Overseas Environmental Cooperation Centre, Japan
Value:  $30,000
Purpose:  To support delegates from Pacific Island countries attending the 21st Pacific Seminar on Climate Change
Approval date: 28 August 2012
Grant term:  12 months
Grant funding location:  Tokyo, Japan
Then you have this group named “DO SOMETHING!” - apparently it pitches to the youth:


Program:  Energy Efficiency Information Grants
Value:  $958,639.00 (GST inclusive)
Purpose:  Do Something! will disseminate advice and energy efficiency information to over 15,000 community groups and 565 local councils nationwide. This includes developing a web portal, best practice guides, case studies and tip sheets, videos, eBooks, PowerPoint presentations, energy efficiency guides and providing access to an energy cost calculator.
Approval date:  4 September 2012
Grant term:  34 months
Grant funding location:  Newtown, NSW
Don’t forget the migrant community groups who are riding the gravy train once again - Auburn Community Development Network $72,121, The Hills Holroyd Parramatta Migrant Resource Centre Inc $1,083,051.20.

Where are the values of this Government? There is not enough money for health and education but more than enough for this ridiculous climate change agenda.

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Checking Swan’s figures

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (6:56am)

Economy, Politics - deceits and stuff ups
Professor Sinclair Davidson graphs Treasurer Wayne Swan’s deceits:

image
Read on to find what these two graphs, combined, produce.
(Thanks to reader Peter.) 

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Columnist brachiates again

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (6:49am)

Sydney Morning Herald columnist Elizabeth Farrelly hears the advice but recklessly fails to heed it:

This is a column about whether worship is grounded in biology. I approach it with trepidation since I am frequently scolded, even by those such as Philip Adams, whose opinion I revere, for over-egging. I stuff my columns, they say, like Christmas stockings. I link them too gladly and brachiate too easily from branch to unconnected branch.
And although I try to be singular, here I am, again seeking your indulgence for linkages that some say should never be made.
It’s not just perversity or entertainment, though I do have a mind that reaches for coloured baubles.
Alas, more baubles and brachiating:

The Roman or Christian cross, by contrast, comprises two intersecting axes, the X and the Y (again, thank you Descartes). To my mind - and this is a shamelessly personal interpretation, unvalidated by any theologian living or dead - the X is the human world of outreach and compassion. The Y-axis is the rising sap, the entropy-defying stance, the figure on the salt lake, the yearning for truth and justice, the god-stretch.
Vertical and horizontal. Justice and compassion. Head and heart. And the crossing point, the origin, the belly button of the world? That, I think, is love.

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Tell me when Labor’s ready to talk about its dead

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (6:45am)

Boat people policy
IT’S always “too soon” to talk about the boat people lured to their deaths by Labor.
Two years ago, when 50 boat people drowned off Christmas Island, I said the Government had “blood on its hands” for having dismantled our tough border laws.
Greens leader Bob Brown was livid: “Andrew Bolt’s call, while bodies were still in the ocean, for Julia Gillard’s resignation ... lacked human decency. He should resign.”
This week, it was again too soon.
(Read full article here.)
UPDATE
Even running out of money to deter boat people:

Asylum seeker families could be released into the community on bridging visas to relieve pressure on an overwhelmed budget and a border protection system struggling against an unprecedented surge in arrivals.
But money enough to tell boat people this is a land of plenty that’s free, free, free:
A PREGNANT asylum seeker deemed a security risk by ASIO was offered free domestic help and childcare while another detainee has had drooping eyelids fixed by taxpayers.
An array of non urgent medical treatment provided to detainees has been revealed including a suspected war criminal who had his impacted wisdom teeth removed at no cost to him.
(Thanks to reader CA.)                      

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Gillard was right. It’s over

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (6:32am)

It’s over,” said Julia Gillard last week after crushing a bid to replace her with Kevin Rudd.
Sure is:
Labor’s support among marginal seat voters has crashed in Queensland and Western Australia to levels similar to NSW, exposing it to the loss of all 24 marginal seats it holds across Australia and risking up to 15 more semi-marginal electorates.
The poll by JWS Research ... surveyed 4070 voters across the nation’s 54 marginal seats – those held by margins of 6 per cent or less....
Since the last JWS Research marginal seat poll in January, the two-party-preferred swing against Labor in the 54 marginal seats since the 2010 election has almost doubled, from 4.8 per cent to 9.3 per cent....
[Labor] would lose 10 marginal seats in NSW, seven in Queensland, three each in Victoria and Western Australia and one in the Northern Territory.
If the national average 9.3 per cent swing were extrapolated to Labor seats with margins above 6 per cent, another 15 could fall, leaving Labor with as few as 32 seats in the 150-seat Parliament...
On a two-party preferred basis, the Coalition leads Labor in the marginals by 59.4 per cent to 40.6 per cent.
Add to these losses the seats of “independents” Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott…
image
Revenge:

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd might be the last Labor MP standing in Queensland after the September election, JWS Research polling shows.

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Saving the planet while Labor burns

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (5:50am)

While a mining union boss is overseas in a loopy attempt to “save” the world from overheating, his boys back home help set fire to the shop:


ROGUE mining union officials wrote letters pledging CFMEU support for their former boss John Maitland’s “harebrained scheme” to construct a coalmine in NSW’s Hunter Valley in direct defiance of a directive to steer away from the “corrupt” plan.
Tony Maher, who succeeded Mr Maitland as president of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, yesterday ... told the inquiry he was “very offended” by one unauthorised letter, signed by CFMEU mining and energy general secretary Peter Murray, that spread “lies” about union support for Mr Maitland’s “training mine”.
“He had absolutely no authority to write it, and it is factually wrong, and it was written . . . in a 10-day period that I was in Copenhagen for United Nations discussions on climate change,” Mr Maher said of the December 2008 letter ...
So many ironies and hypocrisies…
A union boss representing coal miners backs a great global warming scare campaign that aims to put his members out of work. And unionist officials backing this campaign against fossil fuel emissions support a new coal mine.
Here’s Maher in full global warmist fervor in 2007, at the height of the scare:


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The new working poor: miners on $140,000

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (5:41am)

The Government’s class war talk seems from another age, given what the working class actually looks like today:

Former chief whip Joel Fitzgibbon has joined other Labor MPs concerned about the prospect of taxing the superannuation earnings of the wealthy…
‘’In Sydney’s west you can be on a quarter of a million dollars family income a year and you’re still struggling,’’ Mr Fitzgibbon said.
‘’Coal miners in my electorate earning 100, 120, 130, 140 thousand dollars a year are not wealthy.’’
Poor old workers, groaning under the boot of greedy rich mining bosses. 

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And this is a party which rules the country?

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (5:27am)

A Labor preselection battle becomes a microcosm of what’s so wrong - and potentially corrupt - with Labor today:

Former attorney-general Nicola Roxon has moved to assert her authority in her seat of Gellibrand, urging local ALP members to back her preferred candidate when she retires at the next election.
The intervention comes amid an increasingly heated preselection row, with the authority of Victorian Right faction powerbroker Stephen Conroy - who is pushing for his own candidate - being challenged by a splinter group linked to the Health Services Union.
Ms Roxon ....  has written to her local members urging them to support her former staffer, Katie Hall…
Senator Conroy is backing his own former staffer, Telstra executive Tim Watts, for the seat.
But he has been infuriated by the nomination of Kimberley Kitching, a prominent member of Senator Conroy’s Labor Unity faction who is now running the Health Services Union Victoria No. 1 branch.
It is believed Ms Kitching, who is married to political blogger Andrew Landeryou, is being supported by locals from the Turkish community who have been marshalled against Senator Conroy. 
Yes, Labor today:

Ministers pushing pet candidates onto a local electorate.
A discredited union offering its own candidate.
Candidates drawn from the same-old ranks of party and union apparatchiks.
An ethnic bloc marshalled in a power play.
But as for local people, local voices, local issues...:  

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Gillard’s backfire: divide and be conquered

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (5:13am)

Niki Savva on a Prime Minister determined to divide the nation as she has her own party:
Crean, Martin Ferguson, Bill Kelty and others expressed their repugnance at tactics unworthy of leaders…
On Monday when Gillard was asked about class warfare and the criticisms, she replied: “My focus is on Australian classrooms and what happens in them, and that’s at the centre of Australian political life and the life of our nation.”
How cute was that? How clever to turn class war into classroom. Too cute and too clever, really.
On Tuesday when the ABC’s Sabra Lane asked again about class warfare, Gillard responded by seeking a definition of it, as if she could explain away or excuse what she and the Treasurer had been doing by reducing it to an exercise in semantics.
Those who had been listening knew exactly what they were hearing: an attempt to pit people against one another on the basis of class, or sex, or race as in the case of foreign workers, for base political gain…
The tactics of divide and rule will work about as well in the electorate as they do inside Labor.

Gillard’s problem is that her entire election strategy for at least a year has been to appeal to single-interest groups and the aggrieved by picking fights with their “enemies”. How is she to stop now? What can she replace that with? The real, real, real Julia?
UPDATE
That class-war talk hasn’t exactly mobilised the Labor base as intended. A third of Labor’s Queensland members haven’t bothered to renew their cut-price memberships:

In a leaked internal ALP memo, Queensland state secretary Anthony Chisholm this week pleaded to the “true believers” to lean on 2000 members who have yet to renew their memberships.
“We need every single one of these 2000 members in order take the fight to Tony Abbott in September, and to Campbell Newman in 2014,” he said in the memo. “And we can’t do it without you.”
It follows a recruitment drive in September last year with Labor cutting sign-up fees to $5 after membership of the Queensland division fell to around 5000 rank-and-file.
UPDATE
The politics of division sure hasn’t done much for Labor itself. Graham Richardson:

This week’s Newspoll in The Australian was totally in line with everybody’s expectations… The 16-point gap in the two-party-preferred vote was something even most Gillard supporters would have expected to see. It was the price they were prepared to pay to stop the man they despise so much. It is such a tragedy that Rudd is the most hated figure in the caucus. In 40 years of close study, I have never seen a hatred this toxic.

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Wireless could make NBN clueless

Andrew Bolt March 28 2013 (4:54am)

Already running over-time, over-budget and under-subscribed, the $37 billion NBN gamble is now even more likely to become our greatest white elephant. And it’s for the very reason that even the techno-clueless consumers have said from the start: who wants to be tethered to a wire in the wall?

THE company building the National Broadband Network, already under fire for running late, has admitted it faces rising competition from wireless networks offering improved services and prices.
NBN Co has conceded its own modelling finds that if it increases prices by the maximum it expects to be allowed by regulators, the number of wireless-only premises will rise to 30 per cent by 2039-40 because affordability is such a significant factor for households…
A Labor-commissioned report by corporate advisers Greenhill Caliburn in 2011 warned that the growing popularity of wireless internet could have a “significant” impact on the economics.

Now a senior NBN Co executive has said: “NBN Co faces competition from wireless networks that are increasing in capability over time, subject to significant economies of scale and scope (and therefore, decreasing cost per gigabyte delivered), and are expected to offer a potential substitute for NBN Co’s voice-only and entry-level voice and broadband services.”

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March 28Maundy Thursday (Western Christianity, 2013); Teachers' Day in the Czech Republic; Serfs Emancipation Day in Tibet
Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers

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michelle at garden of the gods
Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for March 27th. Enjoy!

From the Blog

Reminder: How Mexico treats 'undesirable' foreigners

American politicians in both parties are stampeding all over themselves to pander to Mexico and adopt mass illegal alien amnesty schemes...

CNN story: The only thing ‘high speed’ about ‘high speed rail’ so far is the speed at which the money is being spent

Joe Biden once laughingly (does Joe say anything that isn’t?) referred to former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood as the “conductor of the train to the future”...

Bill Gates offers grant for ‘next generation’ condom

A condom manufactured using specs approved by the guy who green-lit Windows ME? Count me out...

More From the Right Side of the Web

Featured Video

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What difference does it make? Watch this video to find out.

Michelle's Top Tweets

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And ... Our Hate Tweet of the Day

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Shocking comment from someone who calls herself "nastybeth."

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Help us address these problems, Join AMAC Today - Click Here
Join AMAC Today - Click Here
AMAC vs. AARP – Battling for the Hearts and Minds of Seniors
The Conservative Alternative - Join AMAC Today - Click HereIf you haven't chosen AMAC over AARP yet, here's why you should.

During the first debate, President Obama touted the support of AARP for ObamaCare several times, clearly tying them together.

Further proof that they were working in concert can be found in recently released emails between the White House and AARP operatives. As the emails show, AARP threw their tremendous power behind the legislation despite the fact they were getting calls overwhelmingly against it.
In fact, on September 20, 2012, Kimberley A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal wrote:
"Thanks to just-released emails from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, we now know that AARP worked through 2009-2010 as an extension of a Democratic White House, toiling daily to pass a health bill that slashes $716 billion from Medicare, strips seniors of choice, and sets the stage for rationing. We know that despite AARP's awareness that its seniors overwhelmingly opposed the bill, the ‘nonpartisan membership organization' chose to serve the president's agenda.
The 71 pages of emails show an AARP management taking orders from the White House, scripting the president's talking points, working to keep its board ‘in line,' and pledging fealty to ‘the cause.' Seniors deserve to know all this, as AARP seeks to present itself as neutral in this presidential election."
AARP refuses to take a formal position on the Independent Payment Advisory Board ("rationing board") portion of ObamaCare and even defends some aspects of the board. Given the negative impact that the IPAB will have on seniors, this is unbelievable (but sadly, not unexpected).
AMAC is against the harsh provisions in ObamaCare that give the Federal government complete control of our healthcare. It destroys the best healthcare system in the world, takes 716 billion dollars out of Medicare, and has the power to restrict and ration our medical treatment.
AMAC is fighting to keep our right to receive treatment from our doctors without the interference of Federal bureaucrats.
Big government experiments like the "stimulus" and ObamaCare have only increased the uncertainty and instability, and are core reasons for the persistently high unemployment rate and why the household incomes of Mature Americans have declined so much. Still, your government continues its spending spree.
AMAC, The Association of Mature American Citizens, believes we can do much better. As a steadily growing alternative to groups like AARP, and with an expanding influence in the nation's capital, we aim to champion the interests of Mature Americans, seniors, and prospective retirees. We believe in religious freedom, free enterprise, and we support common sense solutions to our nation's largest challenges.
Bottom line – Our livelihoods, our families' future prosperity and our standards of living should not be threatened by bad policies emanating from Washington, DC.
Join AMAC Today - Click Here
AMAC Fights for You!
Dan Weber, President and Founder of AMAC, delivers remarks with the House GOP Doctors Caucus the day the Supreme Court decided to uphold ObamaCare. Standing with Dan are (from left to right) Representatives, Paul Broun (GA-10th), John Fleming (LA-4th), Phil Gingrey GA-11th), Joe Heck (NV-3rd), Ann Marie Buerkle (NY-25th), and Tim Murphy (PA-18th).
As AMAC continues to grow and build a presence in DC, we're able to stand up to the tremendous lobbying power of AARP on behalf of concerned conservative Americans like you.
A senator told us, "You have got to grow AMAC!" When we asked him why, he said, "You don't understand, when AARP comes to our committees they say they represent older Americans. We know at times they really don't, but because of their numbers we have got to listen to them. When AMAC has one million members we can tell them they are not the only one we will listen to."
AMAC can do something AARP will not do – we'll help replace the horror of big government "solutions" with common sense solutions. Now, more then ever, we need your help! 600,000 patriots have already joined AMAC. Please help us reach our goal of 1,000,000 card-carrying AMAC Members!
If you want to belong to an organization that will speak out for the conservative values you believe in,
Join AMAC Today - Click Here
For a limited time, a 5-year membership is available for less than $1 a month, and you’ll have access to exclusive AMAC benefits – such as the members-only auto and home insurance program, the AMAC Roadside Assistance Program, travel, and much more!
AMAC Logo - Join AMAC Today - Click Here

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Yesssssss... they're back! Mark Gatiss talks about the return of the Ice Warriors in 'Cold War' in the May issue of Doctor Who Magazine. More info on doctorwho.tv: http://bit.ly/10bTp3V
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On April 2, you can own all ten epic hours of The Bible Series on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD! 

Pre-order here ▸ http://bit.ly/YA8JZC
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3 days and counting... Don't miss the return of the Doctor at 7.30pm on ABC TV Australia this Sunday!
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Craig Kelly
TIM FLANNERY SHOULD BE SACKED. 

Tim Flannery is paid a reported $180,000 by the Australian taxpayer.

His comments ridiculing people suffering health effects from wind turbines, by saying their illness may be caused by stress or being "sick with envy" for not getting payment for turbines on their properties – as an absolute disgrace.

His comments ridiculing ill Australians that have been forced to abandon their homes because of ultrasound from wind turbines is disgusting, appalling and demonstrates a complete ignorance – and that he is completely unfit to hold such highly paid taxpayer funded job.

Here's a chance for the PM to show some leadership – she should sack Mr. Flannery, today.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/tim-flannery-derides-wind-farm-sickness/story-e6frg8y6-1226608010097

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Darren Martin from The Hawthorne Pantry in the seat of Griffith, Brisbane has been hit hard by the carbon tax and had some graphics to show me how much his power bills have been increasing. Thanks to all the local businesses and their customers that I met in Hawthorne this morning. I was joined by our Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey and our LNP candidate for Griffith, Dr Bill Glasson.
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Many commuters stopped to congratulate Bronwyn on the great job she does as part of Tony Abbott's Liberal Team. — with Bronwyn Bishop.
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Don't forget God or joy .. - ed
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As the righteousness of God in Christ, choose to live a life that pleases God and be blessed in all things like Abraham!
Check out today's devotional. Be sure to click "like" to help spread the word! Thanks, all! http://bit.ly/ZHbWof
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By just one act of eating from the wrong tree, man fell into sin, which brought forth disease and death. But did you know that by the same act of eating, we can reverse the effects of sin? Discover the power of the Holy Communion in this video excerpt and begin to take this meal with newfound revelation and faith and see every symptom of the curse reversed in your life!
http://josephprince.com/
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Success without stress comes only through depending on God’s unmerited favor, not through your own strength, talents or manipulation.
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What happens if you don’t feel God’s love when you wake up in the morning? Beloved, it doesn’t mean that God loves you any lesser that day. 1Jn 4:16 tells us, “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us…”

Right at the moment when you have a headache, when you feel lousy, when you don’t feel loved, talk to Jesus and say “Lord, because You love me, this headache will go away. I’m going to have a great day just because You love me.” This is how you believe practically God’s love for you! Declare and speak it over your life!http://josephprince.com/
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Dear friends, 

Thank you for your tremendous support! The official Joseph Prince Facebook Page has received over 800,000 likes. Be part of the Grace Revolution and help us spread the word on grace! Click "Like" and share this post with all your friends. We have more daily grace inspirations, updates and exciting posts coming up. 

To ensure that you see our posts on your Facebook newsfeed regularly, be sure to like, share and comment on our posts. We continue to pray that 2013 will be an amazing year for you as you see God opens doors of blessings, favor and grace in your life.
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When you fill your mouth with praises to God, He will lead you and guide you in all the affairs of your life. Check out today's devotional. Be sure to click "like" to help spread the word! Thanks, all! http://bit.ly/ZHbAxV


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