Thursday, January 30, 2014

Thu Jan 30th Todays News

Watching an ABC chief defend the ABC at an ABC Media Luncheon shown on the ABC, I got a good view as to why it is so hard for many to see why there has to be change. We live in a lucky country where not much seems wrong. Compared to an African nation where youth are kidnapped and raised as soldiers we do things well. Compared to a nation which fought a civil war over communism and has borrowed more than it is ever likely to earn, like Greece, Australia looks financially responsible. Compared with a nation that jails or kills people for being related to the wrong person, like so called Palestine or North Korea, Australia is just. But Australia struggles with injustice, with debt spending and with education. And the ABC is part of the problem. 

When Pete Seeger died the other day, his life was summarised by the ABC and it misleadingly said he had been "tarred with the brush of communism" during the McCarthy era. In fact, he was a communist who supported administrations which murdered over a hundred million people and threatened world peace. Seeger was also fabulously wealthy, something he sought to deny others in his pursuit of idealising poverty. But the ABC did not and could not say this. The reason being that the ABC is the same, having made the same choices. And that is what makes it so difficult to argue with in their defence of those choices. They don't see the harm they have done, because it is not so bad in Australia. 

Only there are terrible things that happen in Australia. There is injustice, as when building industry is held up by stand over people. Limiting profit and growth. There is corruption of the judicial system, so that things not written in the constitution have been inferred and foisted on the Australian peoples by unelected lawyers. There is a school system which is ideologically driven by people who do not respect cultural assets. 

Australia is a great nation. It is worth patriots dying for her. But their sacrifice deserves better than the ABC gives. 
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Hatches
Happy birthday and many happy returns Mickey TranMatthew Mason-Cox and Jo Abebe. Born on the same day, across the years, along with

Matches
Despatches
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THINK LOCALLY, FAIL GLOBALLY

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 30, 2014 (12:43pm)

The short and troubled life of the Global Mail is over after just two years: 
Entrepreneur Graeme Wood’s experiment with philanthropically funded journalism on the web has come to an abrupt end after he told the staff of his website, The Global Mail, that he was no longer going to fund the site …
Mr Wood, who is the media start-up’s non-executive chairman, had pledged $15 to $20 million but had not given all the money upfront.
However, in interviews, he said he had given a commitment to fund it for five years …
The 21 staff members, who include some of Australia’s most senior journalists and photographers, will be made redundant.
Mr Wood told the staff the website had failed to reach the target numbers, even though staff insisted he had refused to set audience targets and had often said that it was influence, not audiences that he was seeking. 
It ended up attracting neither. Wood, by the way, is also the primary backer of the Australian Guardian.
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YOUR READERS, JACK

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 30, 2014 (11:58am)

January 18. Canberra Times columnist Jack Waterford describes the Daily Telegraph as: 
… usually the favourite of the criminal classes. 
January 29. Canberra Times reporter Christopher Knaus reveals the remarkable extent of Canberra criminality: 
The ACT recorded the highest rate of physical and sexual assault victims in the country in 2011-12, newly published data shows …
The victimisation figures show the ACT recorded the highest rate of sexual assault victims per capita in the country. 
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EVERYBODY GETS A PRIZE

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 30, 2014 (11:56am)

Under these rules, what’s the point of playing? 
England’s next generation of budding rugby internationals have been told that their competitions must have no winners and that if they are losing a match, the teams will have to be changed …
The Rugby Football Union in conjunction with Surrey Rugby last week issued a new set of rules for tournaments for all age groups under-11 that left many parents and coaches initially thinking they were the victims of a spoof.
The key components are that tournaments will no longer have a winner, they will be round-robin only. Coaches must meet before each match to try to pick evenly matched teams and if any matches are proving too “one-sided” then coaches will be forced to “adjust” their teams at halftime to make them closer. Teams will no longer be streamed on ability but will play all matches with mixed ability groups. 
The only way to lose is by winning: 
Teams who fail to follow the new guidelines will see all their club’s age-group sides thrown out of the tournament and face further disciplinary action. 
(Via CL)
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AT LEAST THEY HAVE EACH OTHER

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 30, 2014 (11:40am)

These women are sad.
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24 of 26

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 30, 2014 (11:33am)

Another victory extends Australia’s lead in the great dual-hemisphere triple format cricket contest againstEnglandnow entering its final stages. Current standings:
Australia: Thirteen wins, 8905 runs
England: Seven wins, 7993 runs
Three draws
One match abandoned
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And nor is the taxpayer-funded SBS biased….

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (12:52pm)

Right?
From an email to staff from SBS boss Michael Ebeid:

We’ve got a lot to be excited about in 2014 and I’m pleased to start the year with the announcement that SBS has secured the rights to broadcast the internationally renowned 36th annual Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras 2014…
The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is an iconic Australian cultural event, which celebrates diversity. In bringing this year’s event free-to-air to all Australians, we are delivering on our purpose to encourage all Australians to understand, appreciate and celebrate diversity and demonstrating that we can play a role in contributing to social cohesion by celebrating diversity in all its forms…
As part of our broadcast agreement, SBS will for the first time be entering a float in the Mardi Gras parade on the evening of Saturday March 1!  And YOU can be involved!…
We are inviting all employees who wish to volunteer to take part in the parade, to represent our organisation as one that supports this community and as champions of diversity.  It’s a great chance to get involved in this iconic event.
Is there any room in the SBS for journalists who, say, believe the cult of diversity now risks fraying a sense of community? Can any dare to oppose gay marriage or argue that the Mardi Gras unfairly denigrates churches and confirms negative sexual stereotypes of the gay debaucher?
Are we funding SBS journalists to report the facts or be social activists?
(Thanks to reader sbsinsider.) 
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Cyclones rarer today than for up to 1500 years. Global warming thanked

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (10:42am)

Global warming - dud predictions

image
Remember warmists such as Al Gore claiming global warming would give us more and stronger cyclones?
In fact, a new paper published in Nature says cyclones haven’t been this rare in Australia for perhaps a1000 years. From the abstract:
Here we show, on the basis of a new tropical cyclone activity index (CAI), that the present low levels of storm activity on the mid west and northeast coasts of Australia are unprecedented over the past 550 to 1,500 years… The present cycle includes a sharp decrease in activity after 1960 in Western Australia. This is in contrast to the increasing frequency and destructiveness of Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclones since 1970 in the Atlantic Ocean and the western North Pacific Ocean. Other studies project a decrease in the frequency of tropical cyclones towards the end of the twenty-first century in the southwest Pacific, southern Indian and Australian regions. Our results, although based on a limited record, suggest that this may be occurring much earlier than expected.
But as always, it’s global warming - whether more cyclones or fewer: Professor Jonathan Nott in the taxpayer-funded Conversation:

We cannot be sure that this current decrease in cyclone activity is due to climate change - but it is mirroring the forecasts.
And note also that the study’s claim that at least there are more and stronger cyclones in the Atlantic seems disputed by the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low… Over periods of a century or more, evidence suggests slight decreases in the frequency of tropical cyclones making landfall in the North Atlantic and the South Pacific, once uncertainties in observing methods have been considered. Little evidence exists of any longer-term trend in other ocean basins… Several studies suggest an increase in intensity, but data sampling issues hamper these assessments
The great global warming scare is blowing out.
(Thanks to readers TedM and Justin of Earlwood.) 
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Attacking whites doesn’t prove you are an anti-racist

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (9:49am)

Why is that the fashionable anti-racists sound racist themselves? Take Sydney Morning Herald columnist Elizabeth Farrelly:
“Happy Invasion Day!” comes the offspring’s blithe farewell as she heads off to earn double time at some ghastly chemical-laden, transfatty, foreign-owned, far-from-organic, fast-food joint in the city. Some place symbolising our own colonisation by fat white powers… Yet Australia moves me in a way I was never moved by my beautiful native Aotearoa - often translated the Land of the Wrong White Crowd.
The answer to racism against blacks is not to denigrate whites. It is to treat each other as individuals - race and color irrelevant.
From the very first days of white settlement governors and political leaders believed in the ideal of one law for all - even if they did not always live up to through circumstances, misjudgment or plain moral weakness. Take the 1829 proclamation of Tasmanian Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur:

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Column - Labor too close to unions to control the crooked

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (9:02am)

Politics - federal

CFMEU union officials were this week accused of corruption, but the biggest political question is for Labor.
It was mad. After all, the watchdog under leader John Lloyd was brilliantly successful.
Rogue construction unions — including the giant CFMEU — were heavily fined for law-breaking and 39 cases of possible crime, including corruption, were referred to police.

But the CFMEU demanded Labor scrap its tormentor and the Gillard government delivered, replacing it with a much weaker inspectorate.
Lloyd warned then that “building unions are boasting that they are ‘back in control’ “. It’s hard not to see a link between Labor’s decision and an apparent worsening of corruption in the CFMEU.
So why did Labor do it?
(Read full article here.)
UPDATE
Paul Sheehan:

The Labor Party, the union movement and Julia Gillard and her government have ownership of (Craig) Thomson and all the other cowboys in the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, the HSU and elsewhere who flourished under Labor patronage and protection… And think about this: it was Gillard who relied on Thomson’s survival for her government to survive. It was Gillard who became embroiled in slush funds at the AWU. It was Gillard who shut down the Australian Building and Construction Commission after pressure from the CFMEU.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Column - No to racism. No to Abbott’s change to our constitution

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (8:57am)

The politics of race

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I AM an indigenous Australian, like millions of other people here, black or white.
Take note, Tony Abbott. Think again, you new dividers, before we are on the path to apartheid with your change to our Constitution.
I was born here, I live here and I call no other country home. I am therefore indigenous to this land and have as much right as anyone to it.
What’s more, when I go before the courts I want to be judged as an individual. I do not want different rights according to my class, faith, ancestry, country of birth ... or “race”.

I’m sure most Australians feel the same. We are Australians together, equal under the law and equal in our right as citizens to be here. That’s how we’ve been for generations. It’s why we’ve welcomed lawful immigrants and damned racists.
But this Australia is now under severe threat. Most incredibly, that threat is now led by Prime Minister Abbott, a Liberal. Abbott says he wants a “national crusade” to change the Constitution to recognise Aborigines as the “first Australians”.
(Read full article here.) 
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No inquiry into union corruption, says the ACTU. It would help Tony Abbott

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (8:43am)

As far as I can understand from the disgraceful responses of ACTU president Ged Kearney, there should not be an inquiry into union corruption, extortion, thuggery and theft from union members because that might help Tony Abbott:
LEIGH SALES: You bring up the HSU. Given what we’ve witnessed in recent times regarding the HSU, now with these latest revelations about the CFMEU, plus there’s a Victorian police inquiry into the AWU, wouldn’t a Royal commission be useful?
GED KEARNEY: Well, I think you have to see a Royal commission or a Tony Abbott Royal commission into the broader union movement for what it is. Now, Tony Abbott, we know, does not like unions. He would like to see unions weakened. He doesn’t like workers having any power and he has really spent the first part of his government or his period of government sidling up with big business and basically showing - we even heard Eric Abetz today encouraging businesses to gang up together against workers…
LEIGH SALES: But if we look at, say, the Royal commission that’s going on to the moment into child abuse, all of the organisations involved in that could make exactly the same argument you’ve made that most of the people involved in those organisations are good people and that there have been isolated cases or in some cases not so isolated cases that did require some sort of broader, independent, systemic inquiry. I’m just wondering what you’ve got to fear from that.
GED KEARNEY: Mmm. I have nothing to fear from it and if indeed there is a Royal commission, I will take part in that without any hesitation of course. But we do know that the Abbott Government will use this as nothing but a political witch-hunt to weaken unions, his political enemies. This is a government absolutely bereft of any positive policies for workers. They have not demonstrated how they’re going to create jobs, they are not supporting manufacturing, they have actually taken away pay rises that unions have won for people in aged care and child care. All they seem to be doing is trying to denigrate unions and they will use a Royal commission to do nothing else than that.
I’m fascinated. How can anyone have confidence - after hearing that - that the ACTU would crack down hard to stop crooked union officials? If the standard for action is whether it would advantage Abbott rather than root out the corrupt, then isn’t the ACTU dangerously close to endorsing a cover-up?
Of course, Kearney says she doesn’t accept corruption and is taking action:
We have written to the CFMEU, to the leadership, asking for a meeting so that we can get a full report ... Well, as I said, we have written to the national leadership to, to Dave Noonan and Michael O’Connor, about these issues. We are looking to meet with the CFMEU and we will deal with these very seriously and we will watch the process.
Hmm. What would be most likely to get to the truth of union corruption, with allegations now engulfing three unions - a letter from Kearney or subpoenas from a royal commission?
UPDATE
Not completely unrelated:
[Labor MP Craig] Thomson on the Nine Network’s Weekend Today on May 12, 2012 [after being accused of using union money to pay for prostitutes]:

LAURIE Oakes: But you see what this looks like. You’re like the man caught standing over the bodies, gun in one hand, bloody dagger in the other, saying it wasn’t me. Thomson: Well I don’t accept that that’s how it is and you can put that construction on, or attempt to put that construction on it, but you can only put that construction in it, Laurie, if you ignore all the other facts, don’t investigate the issue properly. And that’s where we come to the heart of the matter with Fair Work Australia, that they didn’t do their job. They’ve gone and spoken to political rivals.
Oakes: They’ve gone through all these records, phone records, credit card records, hotel records. They actually gathered real evidence. And to believe your story you do have to conjure up this amazing theory of people following you around and ducking in and out, pinching your phone. Do you really expect the parliament is going to believe it?
Long time. Julia Gillard defending Thomson on August 16, 2011:

I THINK he is doing a fine job representing the people of his constituency in this place, raising their concerns in this parliament, as is appropriate for a local member. I look forward to him continuing to do that job for a very long, long, long time to come.
The Australian yesterday:

THE prostitute, who worked under the name “Misty” . . . said she did not realise until last year that the “Craig” she had serviced as an escort was actually Mr Thomson the former union boss and federal MP, and she was “shocked” to see he was now “lying” about not using the services of prostitutes.
Thomson has pleaded not guilty.
UPDATE
Kearney’s disgraceful response reminds me of the ACTU’s response to an earlier scandal - the one involving the AWU slush fund which Julia Gillard helped her then boyfriend, an AWU official, to create. (Gillard insists she did nothing wrong.)
Here is a letter sent in 1996 by then AWU state secretary Bob Smith to the union’s joint national secretary Steve Harrison, discussing moves by the other secretary, Ian Cambridge, to have a royal commission or judicial inquiry into the scandal. Note that a copy was also sent to Bill Shorten, then a junior official at the union:
Dear Steve,
Further to our telephone discussion this morning, I propose the following resolution to be put to national executive next month.
As we have discussed, you know as well as I do that if Cambridge is not stopped we are all history. I have spoken to Bill Kelty and Jennie George, and they are supportive of this course of action. Both you and I can work the phones before the national executive meeting to make sure we have the numbers before this motion is put. I have already spoken to a number of national executive and they are very nervous to say the least. Please ring when you have considered my proposal.
It goes on to a preamble:
1. That on 23 January 1996, joint national secretary Ian Cambridge wrote to the federal minister ... calling for the establishment of a royal commission or judicial inquiry ...
It further states that Cambridge wrote that letter without approval of senior officers, and the motion is that:
3. This national executive determines that the membership is entitled to have this matter dealt with expeditiously. Consequently, national executive requests the ACTU to appoint an independent person ...
(a) the ... allegations raised by I. Cambridge
(b) to investigate all allegations relating to any branch, activity ...
(c) to investigate any matters ...
No judicial inquiry or royal commission was ever held. No charges were ever laid.  Cambridge was soon after appointed to the New South Wales Industrial Relations Court.  The AWU scandal remained buried and unresolved - until a few journalists defied the fury of the Gillard Government and started to dig ...
UPDATE
Dennis Shanahan:
THERE will be a royal commission into union corruption that will be broader and more powerful than the promised judicial inquiry into Australian Workers Union slush funds…
With time on his side Tony Abbott is not rushing to announce a royal commission and rather is letting the widening allegations of union corruption marinate and “public outrage” grow. By next week, the Prime Minister will face increasingly shrill calls for a royal commission, including from unionists, and will be seen to have moved almost reluctantly towards a new, coercive inquiry.
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If Stalinism is “progressive”, then what do we call the ABC?

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (8:43am)

An extraordinary way for an ABC reporter to soft-soap Pete Seeger’s support for a bloody tyranny led by Joseph Stalin:
ASHLEY HALL: This is Pete Seeger performing at the Melbourne Town Hall in 1963. Originally recorded by his band the Weavers, If I Had a Hammer is one of his best known works. He wrote it with band mate Lee Hays in 1949 and the first time they performed it was at a testimonial dinner for the leaders of the Communist Party - just one example of Pete Seeger’s commitment to progressive politics.
A party preaching a totalitarian creed and pledging loyalty to Stalin’s Russia is an example of “progressive” politics?
On it goes:
ASHLEY HALL: His commitment to progressive politics saw him nearly landed in jail at one point. What happened there?
ALLAN WINKLER: In the 1950s when Joseph McCarthy and the anti-communist crusade got under way, he was tarred as having been a member of the Communist Party.
Pardon? Seeger was not “tarred as having been a member of the Communist Party”. He actually was a member of that party, which was loyal to the Soviet Union at a time when Stalin was killing dissidents, deporting entire communities, jailing writers and imprisoning millions in gulags.

“Progressive” indeed.
Would I be wrong in considering this just one more pixel in a picture of ABC Leftism?
UPDATE
Another pixel. Of course the ABC isn’t biased, It’s just that ABC hosts such as Jonathan Green, who hung a John Howard pinata from his tree on election day in 2007, believes a conservative like me is actually on the ”stratospheric right”.
Yes, the ABC isn’t biased and only rotten conservatives would think so. 
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A former ABC boss proves Abbott right by verballing him

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (8:03am)

A former ABC boss grossly misrepresents Tony Abbott, demonstrating exactly the kind of bias which Abbott so rightly diagnosed in the ABC:
Former ABC managing director David Hill savaged Mr Abbott’s comments against the ABC’s perceived lack of patriotism. ‘’It’s an absurd proposition, laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous,’’ he said.
‘’This is the first serious suggestion I know of, certainly in the last half a century, where a prime minister of the country is suggesting the Australian public be denied access to the truth, and the first time that a prime minister has seriously intimated that the ABC should censor and withhold information from the Australian public.’’
Of course, nowhere did Abbott say any such thing. In fact he said the very opposite:
Look, you know, if there’s credible evidence, the ABC, like all other news organisations, is entitled to report it...
Nor is Abbott railing at the ABC having reported “the truth”. He’s in fact protesting that the ABC treated as virtually proven a highly improbable and damaging claim against the Navy that an ABC staffer concedes her boss thought ”are likely to be untrue”.
Same with the Edward Snowden reports. Abbott did not deny the right of the ABC to report his damaging claims, but took issue with its vigorous promotion of something so dangerous to our national interest and even to Australian lives:
The ABC seemed to delight in broadcasting allegations by a traitor… The ABC didn’t just report what he said, they took the lead in advertising what he said, and that was a deep concern.
Moreover, the ABC has itself conceded that in such cases, it should indeed consider withholding information likely to damage Australia’s national interest for no real public benefit. Here is ABC director of news, Kate Torney, on the ABC’s reporting of the Snowden leaks:
We did not publish everything we had access to. We took advice from Australia’s intelligence authorities on the matter and redacted sensitive operational information that might have compromised national security.
Hill, a former ABC managing director, has perfectly demonstrated what conservatives loathe about the ABC. He verballed a Liberal leader, and misrepresented his argument. He attacked a Liberal leader for allegedly arguing for something which the ABC has elsewhere admitted was actually standard procedure. He did not engage in a Liberal leader’s real argument, but smear him. And this from a former ABC boss.
Then there’s the ABC’s one-sidedness, again represented by Hill himself. Over the past two years we had a Labor government which threatened News Ltd for reporting material about Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s involvement in a union slush fund. Labor forced News Ltd to remove entire articles about the slush fund allegations from websites.  News Ltd had to face a hostile media inquiry created by Labor to investigate “bias” - including the reporting of warming sceptics. Labor then even proposed a state-supervised media watchdog. Meanwhile two journalists lost their jobs for their reporting the slush fund scandal, which is now the focus of an intensive police investigation. (Gillard insists she did nothing wrong.)
And where was David Hill during all this? Protesting about a prime minister trying to censor reporters? Or keeping comfortably silent? One rule for Liberals, another for Labor?
How often have Liberals seen this from ABC staff, again and again and again? As with Hill, so with the ABC he once led.

UPDATE
Readers below remind me that Hill also stood as a Labor candidate for the seat of Hughes.
UPDATE
As Hill verbals, so does ABC host Jon Faine, who this morning claimed that Abbott was asking the ABC to take “the government’s side”.
UPDATE
If the ABC refuses to honor its charter and provide balance in exchange for our taxes, then it deserves all the cuts it’s going to get - and many more besides:
THE ABC’s $223 million Australia Network Asian broadcasting service is likely to be scrapped in the May budget to save money and end the pursuit of “soft diplomacy” in the region through television… Cabinet ministers believe the ABC’s coverage of Australia in the region is overly negative and fails to promote the nation as originally intended in the Australia Network’s charter by using the “soft diplomacy” of Australian news and cultural programs.
More cuts:

THE ABC’s status as one of a handful of government bodies spared the cost-cutting efficiency dividends applied across the commonwealth public sector could be reviewed by the Coalition… . A source within the Coalition suggested the government “may need to look at” the exemption that currently applies to the ongoing efficiency dividend of 2.25 per cent.
UPDATE
No, the ABC isn’t biased to the Left!  Leftist ABC hosts Virginia Trioli, Jonathon Green, Fran Kelly and Jon Faine have all challenged Tony Abbott’s claims today. Not a single ABC host has agreed with him.
And then Faine presents his Conversation Hour. He is joined by co-host Lyn Allison, the former Australian Democrats leader, and guests John Pilger and Aboriginal singer Deborah Cheetham.  The talk is of global warming, deceitful Tony Abbott, racist Australians, dispossessed Aborigines, wonderful ABC, yada yada. Cheetham suggests Abbott’s concerns about Aboriginal welfare is phony.  Pilger says John Howard’s intervention in Aboriginal communities was a fraud. A Paul Kelly song about stealing Aboriginal land is played. Pilger’s new film damning Australia is plugged repeatedly.  Everyone agrees with each other.
No, not biased at all, and only a wicked conservative would say so.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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If Labor is so anti-Semitic, we should have been warned before we voted

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (7:55am)

I like Barry Cohen, the former Labor minister, and enjoy his conversation. But I am not impressed when people don’t speak truth to power when it matters most.
Here is Cohen in The Age:
I’m sick of Labor leaders making all the right noises to Jewish audiences while an increasing number of backbenchers launch diatribes at Israel. When the likes of Labor MP Tanya Plibersek rise in the House of Representatives and call Ariel Sharon “a war criminal” and Israel a “rogue state”, or Opposition whip Janice Crosio makes the absurd claim that Israeli forces had destroyed Bethlehem, Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp, I want to hear more than stony silence from those in the Labor Party who say they support Israel. Some do. Most don’t…
I told a Labor legend: “Anti-Semitism is now rampant in the Labor Party.” I expected a vigorous denial. His response confirmed my worst fear: “I know,” he said.
For better or worse my character and life were shaped by the anti-Semitism I experienced as a boy and a young man. I was proud to belong to a party that fought all forms of prejudice. Not any longer.
Very strong words, but then comes this footnote:
A longer version of this article (which Barry Cohen asked not be published until after the federal election) appears in the Australian Jewish News.
(Via Sinclair Davidson at Catallaxy Files.) 
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Abbott cannot guarantee how judges will exploit his constitutional change

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (7:36am)

Tony Abbott reassures us that changing the constitution to recognise Aborigines as our “first Australians” will just be a symbolic change with no practical effect on the law:
This would complete our constitution rather than change it.
Professor James Allan doesn’t believe it:
In the past two decades our top judges have taken to interpreting our written Constitution in a way that is very hard to defend. Twenty years ago, the High Court discovered, or read in, or flat out made up (according to taste), an implied freedom of political communication.
I count myself as one of the biggest free speech adherents in the country, and in substantive terms, I like this outcome. But as a matter of honestly interpreting the words of our Constitution, these cases strike me as so implausible as to be laughable.
And in a democracy where all of us count equally with an equal vote to choose people to make social policy, that is a very bad thing.
Or more recently, in a couple of voting rights cases, our High Court in my view issued two of the most interpretively implausible decisions I have read since coming to this country. In both instances they over-ruled the elected parliament and struck down statutes passed by the elected representatives of the people.
And they did so with virtually no textual warrant from our Constitution. They treated the words as some sort of jumping off point for seeing the Constitution as a “living tree” that can be pruned and altered over time, but of course only by them, seven unelected ex-lawyers.
Of course not everyone sees these cases the way I do. But notice that once you go down this road, it becomes something of an unknown how a change to our Constitution today will be treated by a future High Court in 15 or 20 years.
And I fear that this mooted change to our Constitution to insert some sort of recognition clause might be used by latter day judges to do all sorts of things unimaginable, or pooh-poohed, today.
If you doubt that, ask yourself how many people back at the start of the 1900s thought that the phrase “directly chosen by the people” could be used by judges to dictate when the electoral rolls could close or that some of those in prison could vote when parliament said they could not. The answer is that none of them back then thought this. They thought they were leaving these issues to the parliament. So when people today assure you that the words they propose to insert will transfer no power to our unelected judges, there are some sensible grounds for being sceptical, at least until we see what explicit words emerge as the proposed amendment.
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$10,500 to be welcomed to Parliament

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (12:17am)

How does one become an “elder” of an Aboriginal tribe? Is there a vote?
Sometimes the rules seem less clear than you’d imagine:
PLANS for an Aboriginal welcoming ceremony at the opening of Parliament have become mired in controversy, after one elder was invited to speak on behalf of another tribal group.
Senior Ngunnawal elders have accused the Federal Government of disrespect after it asked elder Matilda House — who now identifies herself as a Ngambri woman — to give a welcome on behalf of their people.
Compounding the snub is a broader dispute about which indigenous tribal group has true custody of the land.
Aunty Agnes Shea, the oldest of the local Ngunnawal elders, said she was distressed by the move to ask a Ngambri person to speak for her people.
House’s credentials have since been accepted by Government.Still, while the official process of becoming an elder may sometimes be unclear to outsiders, what House charges as an elder has been revealed in one instance by the Australian government tender website. It shows Matilda House’s fee as a Canberra elder for performing a welcome to country for the opening of Parliament:
image
The price seems high to me. I wonder who the other tenderers were in this “limited tender”. Could no one be found who’d do this job cheaper - or for the honor?
Still, House does seem to be a preferred supplier.  
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CFMEU scandal worsens

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (9:01pm)

It’s getting uglier and uglier for the CFMEU:

UNION boss John Setka is fighting whistleblower claims to investigators he took free supplies in return for keeping work sites trouble-free.
The Herald Sun revealed at 5.20pm on Wednesday on heraldsun.com.au former roofing supplier and developer Andrew Zaf had told the State Government’s Construction Code Compliance Unit he supplied a senior CFMEU official with free home renovation materials as part of a deal to ensure they would not experience any delays.
Two hours later the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union state secretary admitted getting materials but claimed he paid trade price: “The allegations by Andrew Zaf ... are lies and I totally reject them.’’
Investigators have also been told CFMEU figures were gifted luxury vehicles…
Among further claims detailed to the State Government’s Construction Code Compliance Unit are:
CFMEU official Shaun Reardon is suspected of having ties with the Black Uhlans outlaw motorcycle gang…
A CONVICTED drug dealer with ties to slain gangster Lewis Moran retains a key role with the CFMEU…

CFMEU officials encouraged developers to donate up to $10,000 towards a 1999 visit to Australia by Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.
ACTU president Ged Kearney went on the ABC’s 7.30 tonight to respond to that first allegation. Her response was an utter disgrace - just AbbottAbbottAbbott and talking of writing a letter to the CFMEU. Lady, if you aren’t part of the solution you are part of the problem.  Fix this or quit.
UPDATE
Yet more allegations here.
Labor’s stalling on an inquiry looks shocking. 
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Global Mail dies

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (1:49pm)


Utterly predictable:

TWO-year-old news website The Global Mail is to shut down after reports its backer, entrepreneur Graeme Wood, withdrew funding from the venture this week.
Wood committed up to $20 million over five years to the project, which launched under founding editor Monica Attard in February 2012…

The dream vs the audience:

It promised quality journalism, free of ads and celebrity.
The site began in February 2012 with 97,000 unique visitors but this audience halved in the second month of operation to 47,000, according to Nielsen figures.
True, the Global Mail was simply boring. Too much tired writing by ideological hacks.
But even so, it’s worth observing that the audience for things Left is very rarely as big as these self-appointed tribunes of the people imagine, which is why so many journalists of the Left support state-backed media.
Second, the Global Mail would have done a bit better had it not had competition from the state-funded ABC, providing the same ideological diet to the same readers. For free. 
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Suddenly there’s not a single person on the dole in Doomadgee. Right?

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (2:31pm)


Incredible:

SURF lifesavers had to be flown into the far north Queensland community of Doomadgee over the summer to keep the local pool open at a cost of $50,000.
The Newman government yesterday confirmed it was forced to recruit the lifesavers after being unable to find anyone qualified or willing to undergo training to operate the school pool in the 1500-strong indigenous community on the Gulf of Carpentaria
I assume, then, that the Abbott Government cut all unemployment benefits to able-bodied adults in the town:

The smoothed unemployment rate for Doomadgee Aboriginal Shire in the March quarter 2012 was 26.6%.
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ABC to be probed for waste

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (6:10pm)


The ABC to get its cuts:
The Abbott government has paved the way for budget cuts at the ABC by initiating an efficiency study at the ABC and SBS, which will report just before the May budget.
A day after prime minister Tony Abbott attacked the ABC for being unpatriotic, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the review…
The study will be conducted by the department with the assistance of former Seven West Media finance chief Peter Lewis and will report in April. The terms of reference say the study will also identify “options to improve operational governance and management practices”.
The study will not include transmission costs, changes to the charters, editorial policies, allowing advertising on the ABC or the quality of programs delivered.
So this is no real answer to the issues of concern - the ABC’s bias, in flagrant breach of its charter, and its dangerous size, which is crowding out commercial alternatives.
If there are cuts before the next election, they will seem in breach of this election eve vow from Abbott:

No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS
But as Treasurer Joe Hockey made clear on Q&A during the election campaign:

JOE HOCKEY: I’d just say to you is there any waste in the ABC at all, Tony?
TONY JONES: Say that again?
JOE HOCKEY: Is there any waste?
TONY JONES: If you are looking for waste, don’t look here....
JOE HOCKEY: Well, if there is waste, we will cut it.
And after the election, in November, Malcolm Turnbull announced what he has today detailed:

The Government has no plans to either privatise or reduce funding to the ABC, however the Government has established a National Commission of Audit (NAOC) to review the scope, efficiency and functions of Government. The Commission has a broad remit to examine all areas of government expenditure, which would include all government funded agencies. The ABC, along with other government agencies, has been invited to make a submission to the NAOC. 
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How did the SPC Ardmona claim even make it to Cabinet?

Andrew Bolt January 30 2014 (7:36pm)


I am surprised that anyone thought SPC Ardmona deserved the $50 million handout it wanted from the Abbott Government and Victoria’s, given the facts the Prime Minister outlined today in explaining his refusal to pay:

This is a restructure – a necessary restructure – that Coca-Cola Amatil, as the owner of SPC Ardmona has been prepared to embark upon and I think it’s very important now that Coca-Cola complete the restructuring that they have embarked upon.
It is very important that they complete the renegotiation of the enterprise bargaining agreement. The existing agreement contains conditions and provisions which are well in excess of the award: there are wet allowances, there are loadings, there are extensive provisions to cash out sick leave, there are extremely generous redundancy provisions well in excess of the award. This does need to be very extensively renegotiated if this restructure is to be completed ...
I think it’s great that SPC Ardmona do have the support of such a strong parent business, because Coca-Cola Amatil is one of the most profitable companies in our country; it’s a $9 billion business by market capitalisation. In the last six months for which has been reported, their pre-tax profit was just a whisker under $300 million, just for six months. I think their after-tax profit was about $215 million. So, this is a very, very strong business and I think this is a business which well and truly has the resources to ensure that SPC Ardmona is in a strong position to restructure in a way which will enable this company, these jobs, to flourish into the future.
Why should taxpayers money be taken from other parts of the economy to prop up one branch of a big and profitable company that pays generous salaries and has inefficient work practices? How many other companies would then be demanding handouts? 
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G'day,

To ABCC or not to ABCC, that is the question. A huge question for a bloke who owes everything to the very 
union movement that he is now being urged to investigate for graft and corruption .................. oh what a quandary for Electric Bill & the ALP.
Seems this time the usual pattern of avoiding these scandals is finally something that they just can't avoid, in my humble opinion. A full Commissional Investigation will certainly go a long way to forcing a few unforeseen resignations, sleepless nights and hopefully an end to this unholy alliance.

Godspeed
Zeg

Quadrant Online Editorial Cartoonist
0414293765

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TO ALL OUR CHINESE FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS

KHUNG HAI PHAT CHOY !!!
http://www.sydneychinesenewyear.com/
THE YEAR OF THE HORSE 2014

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Travel the globe! But where are Wally, Woof, the scroll and Wally's binoculars?
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MADU Odiokwu Pastorvin
Heavenly Father, today I choose to magnify and exalt You. You are faithful and good. Help me to keep my heart and mind focused on You all the days of my life in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.(Psalm 34:3, KJV)

Something powerful happens inside when you magnify the Lord. What does it mean to magnify the Lord? When you magnify Him, you aren’t changing Him; you are changing the way you see Him. You are making Him bigger in your life than your problems and circumstances.

So many people today waste time and energy talking about their problems and feeling sorry for themselves. That’s because they are magnifying their circumstances in their own mind and heart. But when you start magnifying the Lord by talking about Him and worshiping Him, you are making Him the main priority in your life and opening the door for Him to move on your behalf.

No matter what’s going on in life,magnify your God. Talk about His goodness. Talk about His faithfulness. Declare that He is working behind the scenes on your behalf. Exalt His name today and lift Him up and see His hand of blessing in every area of your life.God bless you.
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Father,I thank You for loving me. Thank You for Your forgiveness which opens the door for Your love to flow through me. Show me Your love and help me to be a light and example of love everywhere I go in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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SHOW LOVE EVERY DAY.
The Scripture says,“Therefore I tell you, her sins, many [as they are], are forgiven her — because she has loved much. But he who is forgiven little loves little.”(Luke 7:47)

Did you know that forgiveness opens the door for love to operate in your life? This scripture passage is talking about the story of the woman with the alabaster box of costly perfume. She was a notorious sinner in her day, and when she saw Jesus, she fell at His feet and began washing them with her tears and drying them with her hair. She knew she was forgiven. When she received Christ’s forgiveness, love was the automatic response. She was forgiven of much, and her love was extravagant.

Do you want to feel more of God’s love and have stronger relationships with the people around you? Open your heart to forgiveness. Receive Christ’s forgiveness and extend it to others. When you are forgiven much, you will love much. As Christ’s love flows through you, your faith will be strengthened, your hope will be renewed, and you will be empowered to live the abundant life He has in store for you.God bless you.
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Michelle Malkin 14
Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for January 29th. Enjoy!

From the Blog

Standing up against wealth-shaming

America, we have a bullying epidemic. No, not the school bullying issues that get constant attention from Hollywood, the White House and the media. No, not the “fat-shaming” and “body-shaming” outbreaks on Facebook. The problem is wealth-shaming. Class-shaming. Success-shaming...

Hope & Cringe: GOP consultant/CNN contributor Alex Castellanos describes how Obama’s SOTU speech was like sex

Did you watch the State of the Union speech? I missed the first part because Michigan State/Iowa went into overtime and I have my priorities, but after the speech ended, Alex Castellanos said this on CNN: “I think I’ve said before that a speech by Barack Obama is like sex — the worst there ever was is still excellent”...

CNN host apologizes out of concern that edited video made it look like Hillary was laughing about Benghazi

Hillary Clinton recently said that the Benghazi attacks were here “biggest regret” as secretary of state. Later in the same Q & A Hillary was asked about her 2016 plans, and she belted out one of her trademark cackles. CNN aired both clips back-to-back, and panic ensued...

Michelle Obama: Can you spare at least $10 to help protect Obamacare?

The Dems sent out a fundraising letter yesterday. In it, Michelle Obama asked for at least $10 to “help protect Obamacare”...

More From the Right Side of the Web

Michelle's Top Tweets

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And ... Our Hate Tweet of the Day

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Gee, it sure seems like Bush left office FIVE years ago.
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Mahatma Gandhi
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Events[edit]

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Holidays and observances[edit]

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“Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”” - Mark 9:35
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
January 29: Morning
"The things which are not seen." - 2 Corinthians 4:18
In our Christian pilgrimage it is well, for the most part, to be looking forward. Forward lies the crown, and onward is the goal. Whether it be for hope, for joy, for consolation, or for the inspiring of our love, the future must, after all, be the grand object of the eye of faith. Looking into the future we see sin cast out, the body of sin and death destroyed, the soul made perfect, and fit to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. Looking further yet, the believer's enlightened eye can see death's river passed, the gloomy stream forded, and the hills of light attained on which standeth the celestial city; he seeth himself enter within the pearly gates, hailed as more than conqueror, crowned by the hand of Christ, embraced in the arms of Jesus, glorified with him, and made to sit together with him on his throne, even as he has overcome and has sat down with the Father on his throne. The thought of this future may well relieve the darkness of the past and the gloom of the present. The joys of heaven will surely compensate for the sorrows of earth. Hush, hush, my doubts! death is but a narrow stream, and thou shalt soon have forded it. Time, how short--eternity, how long! Death, how brief--immortality, how endless! Methinks I even now eat of Eshcol's clusters, and sip of the well which is within the gate. The road is so, so short! I shall soon be there.

"When the world my heart is rending
With its heaviest storm of care,
My glad thoughts to heaven ascending,
Find a refuge from despair.
Faith's bright vision shall sustain me
Till life's pilgrimage is past;
Fears may vex and troubles pain me,
I shall reach my home at last."
Evening
"The dove came in to him in the evening." - Genesis 8:11
Blessed be the Lord for another day of mercy, even though I am now weary with its toils. Unto the preserver of men lift I my song of gratitude. The dove found no rest out of the ark, and therefore returned to it; and my soul has learned yet more fully than ever, this day, that there is no satisfaction to be found in earthly things--God alone can give rest to my spirit. As to my business, my possessions, my family, my attainments, these are all well enough in their way, but they cannot fulfil the desires of my immortal nature. "Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee." It was at the still hour, when the gates of the day were closing, that with weary wing the dove came back to the master: O Lord, enable me this evening thus to return to Jesus. She could not endure to spend a night hovering over the restless waste, nor can I bear to be even for another hour away from Jesus, the rest of my heart, the home of my spirit. She did not merely alight upon the roof of the ark, she "came in to him;" even so would my longing spirit look into the secret of the Lord, pierce to the interior of truth, enter into that which is within the veil, and reach to my Beloved in very deed. To Jesus must I come: short of the nearest and dearest intercourse with him my panting spirit cannot stay. Blessed Lord Jesus, be with me, reveal thyself, and abide with me all night, so that when I awake I may be still with thee. I note that the dove brought in her mouth an olive branch plucked off, the memorial of the past day, and a prophecy of the future. Have I no pleasing record to bring home? No pledge and earnest of lovingkindness yet to come? Yes, my Lord, I present thee my grateful acknowledgments for tender mercies which have been new every morning and fresh every evening; and now, I pray thee, put forth thy hand and take thy dove into thy bosom
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Today's reading: Exodus 21-22, Matthew 19 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Exodus 21-22

1 "These are the laws you are to set before them:
Hebrew Servants
2 "If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. 3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.
5 "But if the servant declares, 'I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,' 6 then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life....

Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 19

Divorce
1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"
4 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' 5 and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

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