Friday, January 29, 2016

Fri Jan 29th Todays News

It was easy for journalists to carry Turnbull memes last year as they tore strips off Tony Abbott. The memes had truthiness but were largely devoid of rigour expected of high journalist standards. So that the opinion was carried that Knights were a bad idea and Prince Philip being knighted was a bad call, when actually Knighthoods are cultural assets and cheap, and Quentin Bryce was a bad call. The momentum is carried and if Quentin Bryce is a Dame then Rudd can lead the UN. Meanwhile Julie Bishop is no longer escorted to events where she connects Australian environmentalism to international leeches in search of a billion dollars a day. That is a billion dollars siphoned from the world's poorest to be debited to the children of today. In order to do nothing worthwhile we are putting ourselves in debt in the name of Global Warming. And those who opposed Mr Abbott supported the terrible result for Mr Turnbull. Meanwhile, Shorten intends to throw money away in the name of Education in which he has no plan to improve anything. Cuts are needed to make things more efficient. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility 
=== from 2015 ===
Mr Bolt has returned from his holiday and resumed his damns of the Liberal Party leader Mr Abbott. It is partisan, not reasonable in nature, and the partisan spirit was rewarded with a chortling Leigh Sales on 7:30 ABC quoting Mr Bolt and Mr Murdoch. It is partisan because it is a position not based on reason, but on a chorus of catcalls and outrage which is confected and orchestrated to promote the inept Shorten and undermine Mr Abbott. Examining the various possibilities of the appointment of a knighthood to Prince Philip, any fair minded person would say it is appropriate. Prince Philip is not Australian, but his activity in Australia is worthy of the award. On any shortlist Mr Abbott would have been given, Prince Philip would have been top. The negatives are small, with the left wing being upset at a royal being awarded when the elite left are avowed republicans. Imagine an inappropriate person had been chosen, Pete Seeger, because Mr Abbott liked his music. That would call into question Mr Abbott's judgement. But even then, the award is cheap in cost. It would never compare with Gillard's captain picks which cost Australia many billions of dollars and delayed addressing corruption. Mr Bolt's unreasonable stance could not be based on his sad view of Prince Philip and the cultural asset of the knighthood. Instead Mr Bolt's position is because Mr Abbott has made a political decision regarding free speech. It is the failure to engage in the cultural war that must be fought that Mr Abbott deserves criticism. And the reality is that Mr Abbott has not given it up, but prioritised it because the conservatives do not control the senate. We know the ALP and Greens hate free speech, but so do PUP and Lambie. Be outraged about that. 
From 2014
Channel 9 news claims Pete Seeger was labelled a communist for supporting workers rights and opposing McCarthy witch hunts. In fact, he was a communist for much of his life, and a communist sympathiser to the end, supporting tyranny and murder and exploitation by some of the worst people of the twentieth century. He did not write 'turn turn turn' but took the lyrics from Solomon .. but it was his arrangement .. Tim Blair says his music was no good. I disagree. It was aspirational, and at odds with Seeger's beliefs. It touched many good people.The youngest were able to hear the purity. Where have all the flowers gone? They have been tended by conservatives. 

We shall overcome .. it is just sad that a person responsible for popularising that song should be what needs to be overcome.



The peace movement of the sixties wasn't entirely grass roots, but well funded by Communists who used drugs to manipulate the population in a similar way Britain had exploited China in the nineteenth century. It was corruption of the media and a political movement that allowed the exploitation and profited from it. Even to this day, those who barracked for Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot denounce conservative politicians under the guise of grass roots politics. Seeger blazed a trail in the forties that laid a foundation for the peace movement. When we look back at over a hundred million people killed by policies of Stalin and Mao, we see what Seeger dreamed of and yearned for. It is kind of satisfying, for me, he lived to see his dreams crushed when the Berlin wall crumbled and Reagan and Thatcher and Pope John Paul 2nd slay the evil beast. Islamic terrorism has filled the power vacuum, and the left has embraced it. But Seeger's song's don't quite resonate for it. 
Historical perspective on this day
In 757, An Lushan, leader of a revolt against the Tang Dynasty and emperor of Yan, was murdered by his own son, An Qingxu. 904, Sergius III comes out of retirement to take over the papacy from the deposed antipope Christopher. 1676, Feodor III became Tsar of Russia. 1814, France defeats Russia and Prussia in the Battle of Brienne. 1819, Stamford Raffleslanded on the island of Singapore. 1834, US President Andrew Jackson ordered first use of federal soldiers to suppress a labor dispute.1845, "The Raven" was published in the New York Evening Mirror, the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe 1850, Henry Clay introduced the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress. 1856, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom issued a Warrant under the Royal sign-manual that established the Victoria Cross to recognise acts of valour by British military personnel during the Crimean War. 1861, Kansas was admitted as the 34th U.S. state. 1863, Bear River Massacre. 1886, Karl Benz patented the first successful gasoline-driven automobile. 1891, Liliuokalani is proclaimed the last monarch and only queen regnant of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.

In 1900, the American League was organized in Philadelphia with eight founding teams. 1907, Charles Curtis of Kansas became the first Native American U.S. Senator. 1916, World War I: Paris was first bombed by German zeppelins. 1918, Ukrainian–Soviet War: The Bolshevik Red Army, on its way to besiege Kiev, was met by a small group of military students at the Battle of Kruty. Also 1918, Ukrainian–Soviet War: An armed uprising organized by the Bolsheviks in anticipation of the encroaching Red Army began at the Kiev Arsenal, which would be put down six days later. 1936, the first inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame were announced.

In 1940,three trains on the Sakurajima Line, in Osaka, Japan, collide and explode while approaching Ajikawaguchi Station. One hundred eighty-one people were killed. 1941, Alexandros Koryzis becomes Prime Minister of Greece upon the sudden death of his predecessor, dictator Ioannis Metaxas. 1943, the first day of the Battle of Rennell IslandU.S. cruiser Chicago was torpedoed and heavily damaged by Japanese bombers.1944, World War II: Approximately 38 people were killed and about a dozen injured when the Polish village of Koniuchy (present-day Kaniūkai, Lithuania) was attacked by Soviet partisan units. Also 1944, in Bologna, Italy, the Anatomical theatre of the Archiginnasio was destroyed in an air-raid. 1963, the first inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame are announced. 1967, the "ultimate high" of the hippie era, the Mantra-Rock Dance, took place in San Francisco and features Janis JoplinGrateful Dead, and Allen Ginsberg. 1989, Hungary established diplomatic relations with South Korea, making it the first Eastern Bloc nation to do so

In 1991, Gulf War: The Battle of Khafji, the first major ground engagement of the war, as well as its deadliest, began. 1996, President Jacques Chirac announced a "definitive end" to French nuclear weapons testing. Also 1996, La FeniceVenice's opera house, was destroyed by fire. 1998, in Birmingham, Alabama, a bomb exploded at an abortion clinic, killing one and severely wounding another. Serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph was suspected as the culprit. 2001, thousands of student protesters in Indonesia stormed parliament and demanded that President Abdurrahman Wahid resign due to alleged involvement in corruption scandals. 2002. in his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush described "regimes that sponsor terror" as an Axis of evil, in which he includes IraqIran and North Korea. 2005, the first direct commercial flights from mainland China (from Guangzhou) to Taiwan since 1949 arrived in Taipei. Shortly afterwards, a China Airlines flight landed in Beijing. 2006, India's Irfan Pathan became the first bowler to take a Test cricket hat-trick in the opening over of a match. 2009, the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt ruled that people who do not adhere to one of the three government-recognised religions, while not allowed to list any belief outside of those three, are still eligible to receive government identity documents. Also 2009, Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich was removed from office following his conviction of several corruption charges, including the alleged solicitation of personal benefit in exchange for an appointment to the United States Senate as a replacement for then-U.S. president-electBarack Obama. 2013, SCAT Airlines Flight 760 crashed near the Kazakh city of Almaty, killing 21 people.
=== Publishing News ===
This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
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I am moving from Sydney to Melbourne and am desperate for funding. If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofundme.com/abeueaec
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Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with AugustSeptemberOctober, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows a free kindle version.

List of available items at Create Space
===
For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball

Or the US President at
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-change-this-injustice#
or
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-injustice-faced-david-daniel-ball-after-he-reported-bungled-pedophile-investigation-and/b8mxPWtJ or http://wh.gov/ilXYR

Mr Ball, I will not sign your petition as it will do no good, but I will share your message and ask as many of friends who read it, to share it also. Let us see if we cannot use the power of the internet to spread the word of these infamous killings. As a father and a former soldier, I cannot, could not, justify ignoring this appalling action by the perpetrators, whoever they may; I thank you Douglas. You are wrong about the petition. Signing it is as worthless and meaningless an act as voting. A stand up guy would know that. - ed

Lorraine Allen Hider I signed the petition ages ago David, with pleasure, nobody knows what it's like until they've been there. Keep heart David take care.


I have begun a bulletin board (http://theconservativevoice.freeforums.netwhich will allow greater latitude for members to post and interact. It is not subject to FB policy and so greater range is allowed in posts. Also there are private members rooms in which nothing is censored, except abuse. All welcome, registration is free.

Happy birthday and many happy returns Tom ChiantiSusie Rose and Khanh Brahh. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
Illustration of The Raven by John Tenniel
Put down the knife, son. Son? The surge worked. The Raven left me poe faced. Partisan is not unbiased. Repeat after me "Hippy's have a short life." Let's party.
Deaths
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POINTED VIEWS

Tim Blair – Friday, January 29, 2016 (2:41pm)

Join me on Sky’s Viewpoint tonight with raunchy Rita Panahi, adventurous Anne Fulwood and … host Chris Kenny. Tune in at 8pm and watch the social justice fly.
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OUTLINE OF SHAME

Tim Blair – Friday, January 29, 2016 (2:07pm)

The horror
Port Stephens Council has issued an unreserved apology after its newest citizens, including two young girls, received a “Welcome to Australia” pack that included a beer stubby holder with an Australian flag and a lurid naked lady silhouette straight from the back of a 1970s panel van …
The NSW shadow minister for the prevention of domestic violence and sexual assault, Kate Washington, attended the citizenship ceremony on Tuesday but was unaware the welcome pack included the stubby holder until contacted by someone who received one.

image

Ms Washington, the mother of three young girls, said she was appalled.
“It’s exactly this kind of depiction of women that undermines what we are trying to do to reduce domestic violence and improve the way women are treated,” Ms Washington said.
“I am mortified that I could be associated in any way with material like that and I’m horrified by the possibility the young girls I met who were part of a family becoming Australian citizens could have received one.” 
They’d better not visit Italy. Question: given that the image is a silhouette, how do they know it depicts a nakedwoman?
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STOLEN GENERATION

Tim Blair – Friday, January 29, 2016 (2:51am)

The only possible explanation for the name of Labor’s new education policy is that the party has officially decided to lose the 2016 election:

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Seriously. Your Child. Our Future.” It reads like something lifted from an early draft of 1984, before Orwell took out all the totalitarian exaggerations he thought nobody could possibly believe. Either that or Labor is cutting corners by recycling old press releases from Pyongyang. Or maybe they found inspiration in the title of this 1940 Nazi propaganda film:

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Note that Labor’s version – because of the transition from “your” to “our”, suggesting capture or confiscation – actually sounds more sinister. Quite an accomplishment, that.
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CLIMATE NECESSITY

Tim Blair – Friday, January 29, 2016 (2:36am)

Anti-coal demonstrators who became known as the Delta 5 were arrested in the US a couple of years ago: 
Five people were arrested back in September 2014 for blocking railroad tracks at a Burlington Northern/Santa Fe Railway Yard after tying themselves to a tripod of poles erected over the railroad tracks to protest train shipments of oil and coal and proposed export terminals in the Northwest. 
This is what happened when the idiots finally went to court: 
For the first time in the United States, a jury heard testimony that defendants’ criminal actions were justified by “climate necessity” – that is, the argument that it’s better to break the law while getting in a few punches at the fossil fuel system than to sit back and lawfully watch the world burn …
Last Friday, Seattle-area jurors found the so-called Delta 5 not guilty of obstruction for blockading a regional oil facility in 2014. 
(Via Instapundit.)
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GERMANY’S REAL LEADER DEMANDS ACTION

Tim Blair – Friday, January 29, 2016 (2:19am)

Via Mark Steyn, here’s 16-year-old German girl Bibi Wilhailm pleading on video for her countrymen to stand up: 
One time in summer, the Muslims said we were sluts for walking outside in a t-shirt. Yes, we were wearing t-shirts. It’s summer!
Another day, I was wearing this. My friend and I purchased it while shopping hehe. If we feel like wearing it, we will wear it! And you Muslims have no right to physically assault or rape us for it! God willing, never in my life. You have no right to attack us because we are wearing t-shirts. You also have no right to rape.
The life of Germany has changed because these people cannot integrate. We give them so much help. We support them financially and they do not have to work. But they only want more babies and more welfare and more money. Men of Germany, please, patrol the streets and protect us. Do this for your women and your children. 
Some Germans are reportedly becoming very interested in self-protection.
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CAMELCIDE

Tim Blair – Friday, January 29, 2016 (1:52am)

Front page news at the Sydney Morning Herald:

image

The same paper’s coverage of Palestinian violence against Israelis, however, is usually less prominent
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Back soon

Andrew Bolt January 29 2016 (7:12am)

We have finally got to the last day of filming an ABC documentary on indigenous recognition in the Constitution.  It has been a fascinating process. We have seen and learned plenty, and Linda Burney and I will today record our conclusions. Just the politics involved in the making - and particularly in the attempted obstruction - has been a revelation. Much more on this one day.
But the extended holiday is ending. I’ll be back in the papers on Monday, and also back then on 3AW, 2GB and 4BC from 8pm. Mondays to Thursdays. No decision has been made on the TV proposal put to me, and I’m rather inclined after this fascinating break to give myself more time to poke around stuff.
Big reading discovery of this holidays is Ronald Firbank. As brilliant as he is forgotten. 
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Turnbull to back Rudd as world leader? Seriously?

Andrew Bolt January 29 2016 (6:12am)

This is astonishing, and another sign that the Liberal Party has been hijacked by cuckoos:
The ambition of Kevin Rudd to be UN secretary-general is fanning angst in the Liberal Party, with sharp differences emerging between the former Abbott government and the view of the Turnbull government…
Mr Abbott told people in private his government would have considered an appointment for Mr Rudd but he drew a firm line against endorsing him for the top UN post. However, that was at an earlier stage of the UN lobbying.
Ms Bishop has kept open the government’s options in supporting Mr Rudd, who has not declared himself a candidate to this point. His ambitions and lobbying for the job, however, are well known. Mr Rudd has raised them in the past with both Ms Bishop and Malcolm Turnbull before the latter became Prime Minister. More recently, Mr Rudd and Ms Bishop have canvassed the position.

How could a true Liberal Government even consider such a thing? The Liberals know what a disaster Kevin Rudd was as Prime Minister. They - and Labor MPs - know the deep personality flaws that made Rudd an appalling and dysfunctional Prime Minister.
The Liberals should also know that Rudd’s political philosophy, such as it is, is at deep odds with their own. He is instinctively a Big Government authoritarian, eager to spend grandly and surrender some of our national decision-making to the United Nations and the Davos-class international elites. Naturally, he embraced the global warming catastrophism that licensed exactly that. Similarly, the global financial crisis encouraged him to unleash his inner socialist in an extraordinary essay in which he declared that “not for the first time in history, the international challenge for social democrats is to save capitalism from itself: to recognise the great strengths of open, competitive markets while rejecting the extreme capitalism and unrestrained greed that have perverted so much of the global financial system in recent times”. His fundamental misdiagnosis of that crisis, actually triggered by overregulation, prompted him to unleash a massive spending spree that left Australia with a crippling debt which now could now lose us our AAA credit rating.
And, of course, Rudd, so eager for the approval of those elites and so little concerned with national autonomy, surrendered our refugee program to people smugglers and international human rights lawyers, disastrously opening the gates to 50,000 illegal immigrants.
How on earth could a Liberal Government support a man with such a record, such a character and such a philosophy?
Well, one factor is that those who have taken over the Government actually share too much of Rudd’s ideological baggage themselves. They’ve let spending grow, embraced the warming scare and even announced a big to join the UN’s Human Rights Council, whose members include such monstrous hypocrites as China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Another factor behind promoting Rudd for world leader may be a lively appreciation of what advantages may be had in having mates in the club with some reason to be grateful for past services. Good for the country, right? But also maybe good for Liberals passing through New York and keen for a party, celebrity dinner or a handshake with the powerful, preferably in front of the cameras.
Which reminds me of the delight our Foreign Minister expressed via leaks to the media soon after the Turnbull coup:
I mean, have you seen how Bishop is partying at the UN? There she was again this week, addressing the UN General Assembly like a world leader, with her boyfriend rubbernecking beside her in a seat normally meant for officials doing business for Australia.
The day before, some anonymous leaker boasted to a friendly Fairfax journalist that the UN’s “doors ... have mysteriously swung open” to Bishop now that her boss was Turnbull and not Abbott…
Gosh, she’d even “received a last-minute invitation to attend a Sunday lunch being hosted by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for the leaders of about 20 nations to discuss climate change”.
Now, which serial leaker would have leaked that, Julie? And note how eagerly Bishop pays homage to the UN’s multi-billion-dollar green faith, like it’s the entry price to a feed.
Ooh, but how exciting it all is for Bishop. Between gigs at the UN, she even had a star-studded dinner party in Manhattan, which the dutiful reporter noted was “a more raucous affair”, “full of big names” including actor Hugh Jackman and wife Deborra-lee Furness, Mariah Carey, Robert De Niro and glamorous more.
Marvellous. Imagine how many more hot invitations come Bishop’s way once we join the Human Rights Council.
So I was not surprised that someone — you again, Julie? — briefed journalists how Bishop had tricked that silly Abbott when he tried to stop this bid, first launched by Labor, to join a council Abbott considered “discredited”.
According to a Fairfax reporter in New York, Bishop had “been ordered by Mr Abbott to abandon the bid, an about face that might have caused Australia diplomatic embarrassment”, but “Bishop was yet to carry out the instruction when Mr Turnbull deposed Mr Abbott”. 
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SILENCE SILENCED

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 29, 2015 (5:16pm)

So much for Je suis Charlie
An art installation showing high heels on Islamic prayer rugs was pulled from an exhibition near Paris after a Muslim group complained the work could provoke “uncontrollable” reactions, the artist said yesterday.
“Silence", which has already been shown in Paris, Berlin, New York and Madrid, was supposed to go on display in Clichy La Garenne, which is just north of the capital, in a woman-themed art show.
But French-Algerian artist Zoulikha Bouabdellah decided to replace the work after a local Muslim group told Town Hall last week that “uncontrollable, irresponsible incidents could result” if the installation was shown there. 
Behold the work in question as it plots to cause uncontrollable irresponsibility:

image

Yep. It’s just shoes and rugs. 
Bouabdellah said she was surprised by the “incomprehension” her work has met, but added she believes it is tied to emotions stirred by the jihadist attacks in France earlier this month that left 17 people dead.
“I’m left wondering by the reasons that push a certain fringe among French Muslims to see this work as blasphemous,” she said, adding that she didn’t intend it to shock or provoke.
Bouabdellah decided to replace “Silence” with a video installation titled “Dansons” that shows belly dancing to the French national anthem. 
She’d be better off exhibiting in remote St. Pierre. Meanwhile, in the US:

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Way to go, babies. Je suis Charlie has become Je suis Marlton.
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700 FREAKIN’ HORSE-FREAKIN’-POWER

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 29, 2015 (5:08pm)

Speaking of art:



(Via Jalopnik
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TERRORISM IS NOT TERRORISM

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 29, 2015 (4:02am)

Forbidden words at the BBC: 
The perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris should be not be described as “terrorists” by the BBC as the term is too “loaded”, a senior executive at the corporation has said.
Tarik Kafala, the head of BBC Arabic, the largest of the BBC’s non-English language news services, said the term “terrorist” was seen as “value-laden” and should not be used to describe the actions of the men who killed 12 people in the attack on the French satirical magazine.
“We try to avoid describing anyone as a terrorist or an act as being terrorist,” Mr Kafala told The Independent.
“What we try to do is to say that ‘two men killed 12 people in an attack on the office of a satirical magazine’. That’s enough, we know what that means and what it is.”
He added: “Terrorism is such a loaded word. The UN has been struggling for more than a decade to define the word and they can’t. It is very difficult to.” 
It’s only difficult for the UN because that organisation is absolutely useless. As for the BBC, they were extremely helpful during World War II. In more recent conflicts, not so much. Al Jazeera English set the evasion standard
Shortly after news broke of a deadly January 27 attack by Islamic terrorists on a hotel in Libya’s capital, Al Jazeera English executive Carlos van Meek shot out an email to his employees.
“All: We manage our words carefully around here,” the network’s head of output wrote to staff at the Doha-based news channel’s New York and Washington, D.C. newsrooms. “So I’d like to bring to your attention some key words that have a tendency of tripping us up.”
In an email obtained by National Review Online, van Meek warned the network’s journalists against the use of terms including “terrorist,” “militant,” “Islamist” and “jihad.”
“One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter,” the Al Jazeera executive wrote. 
I wonder if Gerald Seymour receives royalties for that 40-year-old line. 
The word “extremist” was labeled off-limits. “Avoid characterizing people,” van Meek said. “Often their actions do the work for the viewer.”
“Do not use,” van Meek’s said of the term “Islamist.” He described it as “a simplistic label.” 
Unlike “van Meek”, which is the perfect label.
UPDATE. Not terrorism.
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WAYNE SWAN’S LEGACY

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 29, 2015 (3:27am)

The average Australian full-time wage earner would have to work 400 years to amass the same amount we throw away every single day paying interest on Labor’s debt.
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MUST TRY HARDER

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 29, 2015 (3:08am)

Congratulations to Barack Obama, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Abbott, Andrew Bolt, Paul Sheehan, Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins and many other nominees for a prize I’d very much like to win.
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Why didn’t the sniper take out Monis?

Andrew Bolt January 29 2015 (4:34pm)

image
There is one issue above all I want the inquest into the Lindt café siege to resolve:
The NSW Coronial inquest into the deaths of two hostages, cafe manager Tori Johnson and mother-of-three Katrina Dawson, as well as [Islamist gunman Man Haron] Monis himself, opened this morning in Sydney.... 
Monis told hostages that he had a bomb in his backpack and didn’t remove it for the entire ordeal… The handling of the siege by NSW police would be analysed… Evidence is likely to be heard on questions surrounding the use of police marksmen and whether they should have acted early or not.
Could the police marksmen have shot Monis through the café window when he gazed out, at the moment shown above? If so, why didn’t they? Were police command too concerned to save the life of a terrorist?   
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Abbott may not recover

Andrew Bolt January 29 2015 (9:29am)

I fear Tony Abbott’s knighthood for Prince Phillip may be the last straw. Here’s why.
The damage is severe:
The Seven News ReachTEL poll of 3,700 people nationwide has found more than 70 per cent of those surveyed opposed the move. 
The news doesn’t get any better for the PM whose approval ratings have slumped nearly 10 percent, down to just 22 percent overall.
UPDATE

Abbott says he’ll change:
Mr Abbott said the decision was made for good reasons but he had learnt the lesson that there needed to be wider consultation about the awards in the future. 
Before he made the appointment Mr Abbott said he consulted with the Governor-General and the chairman of the Order of Australia Council.
But that was no consultation at all. The Governor General would not have found it appropriate to advise in any way on the most crucial dimension of the decision to give a knighthood to Prince Phillip - the political one. It is not in any way the role of Sir Peter as Governor General to advise on how Abbott’s decisions would play politically. Sir Angus Houston, chairman of the Order of the Australia Council, may well have felt similarly constrained, and in any event would not have any particular insight to offer.
No, the fact is that if Abbott is right in saying these two former military leaders, both themselves recipients of knighthoods, are the only people he consulted then he effectively consulted with nobody at all on the politics of the decision - the aspect that is now killing him.
That, if true, is astonishing. 
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Islamic Human Rights Commission shortlists Obama and me for top freedom award

Andrew Bolt January 29 2015 (9:29am)

An Islamic Human Rights Commission seems an oxymoron, and, true enough, this one is almost silent on the Islamists slaughtering infidels, enslaving Yazidi women and Nigerian schoolgirls, murdering journalists critical of Islam and beheading even aid workers. Freedom does not seem a human right of concern to the Islamic Human Rights Commission.
Instead, it reserves most of its anger for people who point out that a faith that seems to licence such abuses might be a threat to more open, multi-faith societies, branding such rational concern as “Islamophobia”.
But let me be grateful. This is the first time I’ve been put in the same shortlist as Barack Obama for an award. Alas, it’s not the Nobel Peace Prize, but this should do in the heads of many on the Left.
(Via Tim Blair. Thanks to reader Robh for pointing out “oxymoron” was the word I wanted.) 
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BBC urges submission to terrorists

Andrew Bolt January 29 2015 (9:01am)

The BBC goes into full submission mode when describing two Islamists who killed a dozen people at another media organisation which insulted their faith:
The perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris should be not be described as “terrorists” by the BBC as the term is too “loaded”, a senior executive at the corporation has said. 
Tarik Kafala, the head of BBC Arabic, the largest of the BBC’s non-English language news services, said the term “terrorist” was seen as “value-laden” and should not be used to describe the actions of the men who killed 12 people in the attack on the French satirical magazine.
“We try to avoid describing anyone as a terrorist or an act as being terrorist,” Mr Kafala told The Independent.
“What we try to do is to say that ‘two men killed 12 people in an attack on the office of a satirical magazine’. That’s enough, we know what that means and what it is.”
He added: “Terrorism is such a loaded word. The UN has been struggling for more than a decade to define the word and they can’t. It is very difficult to.” 
Astonishing. Frightening. What else will the BBC refuse to tell you about Islam and its more violent adherents?
The great Michel Houllebecq tackles this growing submission in Soumission, his latest novel:

The first-person narrator, François, is a professor of literature at Paris III-Sorbonne, appointed after having spent seven years of his life writing a 780-page thesis, ‘Joris-Karl Huysmans, or the exit from the tunnel’… 
Now 44, François, who has never liked teaching, and drinks like a fish, is at a loss what to do with what is left of his life, wondering if he’s suffering some kind of ‘andropause’. He has been steadily sleeping with students, changing them each year, the latest being a Jewish girl of 22, Myriam, whom he loves..
Politics, on the other hand, means little to him — he feels about as politicised as a hand-towel, he says. Yet changes are coming, a colleague warns him, three weeks before the 2022 presidential elections. François Hollande won in 2017, by the contemptible strategy of encouraging the rise of the Front National, so that in the second round there was little choice but to elect the left again. But a month after that, a new Muslim Brotherhood party was formed, under a moderate, appealing leader, Mohammed Ben Abbes, spreading its influence through youth movements, cultural institutions and charitable associations.
This time, the Muslim Brotherhood is rivalling the left to go through to the second round against Marine Le Pen, support for the traditional right-wing parties having collapsed. France is in turmoil. When the Muslim Brotherhood scores 22.3 per cent against the Socialists’ 21.9 per cent, the only way the Front National can be stopped is by the other parties making common cause with the Islamists. A deal is struck, the Muslims ceding many ministries to the Socialists in return for what matters to them most, alongside demographic change: control of education…
France has adjusted surprisingly smoothly to the new regime, with that ever eager placeman François Bayrou serving as prime minister. Civil disorder has stopped and unemployment is down, as women leave the workforce. Ben Abbes (cunningly never shown, only spoken of admiringly) is planning to extend the EU southwards, taking in Turkey and Morocco, to be followed by Tunisia, Algeria, Lebanon and ultimately Egypt, perhaps becoming the first European President himself.
François returns to Paris, where women are now wearing the veil and shapeless trousers. Only Islamic teaching staff are allowed at the Sorbonne, so he takes generously funded early retirement, diverting himself with call girls, while trying to come to terms not only with the loss of Myriam but also with the consecutive deaths of both of his parents. His life seems to be closing down…
But then, at this lowest point, he is offered the prestigious editorship of the Pleiade edition of Huysmans (it’s true, these volumes don’t yet exist) and is approached by the new head of the Sorbonne, Robert Rediger, to return to the faculty, on condition of conversion…
François takes away Rediger’s pocket-book, Ten Questions about Islam, which has sold 3 million copies and, being a man, turns immediately to the section which justifies polygamy as a form of natural selection…
Soumission, although inserting itself right into the debate about identity and Islam in France conducted by the likes of Alain Finkielkraut and Pascal Bruckner, as well as Eric Zemmour in his bestseller Le Suicide Français and Renaud Camus with his ominous theory of ‘le grand remplacement’, is not at all subjugated by that. It is certainly not a polemic like Jean Raspail’s notorious The Camp of the Saints, fantasising a Europe overrun by the Third World. It is genuinely more admiring than critical of Islam, which is the background, not the foreground, here. 
As a Comtean, Houellebecq has always maintained that no society can survive without religion. (Rediger observes that ‘without Christianity, the European nations were no more than bodies without souls — zombies’.) ... 
(Thanks to readers fulchrum and John.) 
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Boats still need to be turned back. But Labor won’t do it

Andrew Bolt January 29 2015 (8:45am)

Boat turn-backs are still needed to stop the invasion of our borders:
Operation Sovereign Borders commander Angus Campbell ­revealed 15 boats had been ­returned to their countries of origin since the Abbott government was installed in September 2013… 
There had been one return since Mr Dutton assumed office on December 23, when a stricken people-smuggling vessel was provided “assistance” that enabled the boat to return to Indonesia.
Yet Labor still refuses to return boats, despite their undoubted success. Bill Shorten in October last year refused to back the Abbott policy:


LABOR leader Bill Shorten has slapped down his immigration spokesman Richard Marles on boat turnbacks, saying he believes the policy has had no impact on stopping asylum seeker deaths at sea… 
Mr Shorten has today ruled out Labor considering any policy change on turnbacks.
“Labor’s policy on boat turnbacks has not changed. It remains the same,’’ Mr Shorten said. “The case has not been made out for change.’’
Conclusion: under Labor, at least 15 boats would have arrived on our shores over the past 18 months. They in turn would have encouraged even more boat people to try their luck. Under a Shorten Government it is almost certain the boat people will come again. 
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Ayn Rand
"Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone." | The Fountainhead

I support Prince Philip being knight. - ed
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Why does the ABC hate our navy?

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, January 28, 2014 (8:27pm)

HOLIDAYING on the Sunshine Coast last week my friend Elaine, who is married to a naval officer, snapped a photo of a sign outside Kawana Hardware: “Why does the ABC hate our navy?”

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Why does the ABC hate our navy?'
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HEAT ON THE ABC

Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 29, 2014 (12:08pm)

Further to yesterday’s item on the ABC’s time-delayed truth seeking, here are pieces from the Daily Telegraph, theAustralianAndrew Bolt and Jonathan Holmes – who thinks it’s all about ABC-bashing, as you’d expect.
It appears that the plea for navy comment from ABC researcher Alison Branley was initially an email before it was posted on Facebook. Either way – and I confirmed this with Branley yesterday prior to publication of the item on my site – the words are definitely hers.
UPDATE. The PM joins in: 
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has berated ABC News, arguing that it is taking ‘’everyone’s side but Australia’s’’ and that journalists should give the Navy the ‘’benefit of the doubt’’ when it comes to claims of wrongdoing …
‘’You would like the national broadcaster to have a rigorous commitment to truth and at least some basic affection for the home team,’’ he told Macquarie Radio on Wednesday.
Mr Abbott also said that it ‘’dismays Australians when the national broadcaster appears to take everybody’s side but our own’’, adding, ‘’I think that is a problem’’. 
It is. Now prepare for several days of luvvie outrage.
UPDATE II. Foreign minister Julie Bishop wants the ABC to apologise for casting doubt on the reputation of Royal Australian Navy sailors: 
“If the ABC now finds that these allegations were utterly unsubstantiated then it should come out and say so,” Ms Bishop told reporters in Brisbane.
“Meanwhile, people’s reputations are under question because of the ABC’s reporting of this matter, so I trust that the ABC will do the right thing.” 
No, they won’t.
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WHINE MINER

Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 29, 2014 (12:03pm)

Pete Seeger – folkie, communist, millionaire
The man who sang at hobo camps, labor halls and at union rallies just couldn’t stop making money. An accidental entrepreneur and unwitting capitalist, Seeger was, despite his best efforts, the quintessential American success story. 
More annoying than Seeger’s dumb communism was his horrible music. Folk singers should be pinned to ant beds.
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GOOD ECONOMICS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 29, 2014 (11:13am)

Former Greens leader Bob Brown hails German solar power in 2011: 
It is the way to go. The Greens have recently rescued the proposals for base load solar power stations, which will go in rural and regional Australia to make sure they are progressing ... We want this country to be at the cutting edge. I repeat, the example is firm and true. In Germany, where they did this because the Greens were in the balance of power, they have created 350,000 jobs. It was the strongest component of the German economy during the recent recession. It’s good economics. 
And another German solar supporter in 2013: 
Germany is often credited for a “solar miracle.” Even though it’s a cloudy country, it is a world leader in solar energy … 
But now reality intervenes: 
One in three workers in Germany’s solar industry lost their job last year. By November, there were a mere 4,800 employees left in the sector, the first time in four years that number has fallen below the 5,000-mark. That’s less than half 2012?s levels, when there were still 10,200 solar jobs. 
I wonder what Fairfax’s Ron Tandberg thinks about all of this.
(Via Robert)
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RICKETS RETURNS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 29, 2014 (10:47am)

An old-timey disease is back in the UK: 
A five-month-old baby has died from rickets after his parents insisted on following a strict eating regime as part of their religion.
Nkosiyapha Kunene, 36, and his wife Virginia, 32, were told at the Old Bailey on Monday that they could face jail after admitting the manslaughter of their son Ndingeko …
The case comes after health professionals raised concerns that the Victorian disease is returning to Britain as a result of poor diets and children not being exposed to sufficient sunshine.
It is believed Ndingeko’s parents belong to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, whose members follow a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet – one that allows milk and eggs, but not animal flesh. 
According to the linked piece, just one English death was attributed to rickets in the 30 years prior to 2012. Since then, however, around 900 cases have been diagnosed.
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Why are teacher unions against better schools?

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (4:39pm)

Amanda Ripley, author of The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way, tells an ABC audience old news for conservatives but shocking for the Left - more money won’t much lift school standards, teacher quality counts, principals need power to hire and fire and so on.
Then there was this:
LEIGH SALES: How much of a barrier or otherwise have teachers’ unions been in countries that have undertaken major reforms? 
AMANDA RIPLEY: A big barrier. I mean, this is one of the surprises, is that everywhere you go in the world, pretty much teachers’ unions are powerful, there are contracts in place that principals and school leaders complain about, there are real limits to the ability to dismiss a teacher for performance all over the world. So, you know, be that as it may, it is a challenge in every country.
(Thanks to reader Owen.) 
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Daniel Hannan returns

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (4:26pm)

 Daniel Hannan is a member of the Euopean Parliament and author of How we Invented Freedom. His last tour here was a huge success and he’s back last month to give speeches in Perth and Melbourne for the Centre for Independent Studies.
Says the CIS:
In the last few years, Daniel Hannan has been recognised all over the English-speaking world as one of this generation’s most eloquent voices for freedom. Hannan has a scholar’s mastery of the history of liberty and a politician’s grasp of the powerful forces vying to determine our future.
To book for Melbourne.
To book for Perth.
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How now Brown oil

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (4:06pm)

Greens leader Bob Brown was apoplectic when a grounded Chinese coal ship accidentally released some oil on the Great Barrier Reef:
Studies of previous accidents shows damage to the Reef occurs through physical damage to the coral substructures and toxic pollution from marine anti-foulant paint, as well as impacts from oil spills… 
Because of the sway the industry has over the government, the Great Barrier Reef has been turned into a coal highway....The Greens are calling for a Royal Commission into how this situation could occur. Certainly, the coal industry, should be held to account.
Haven’t heard much from Brown about this, though:
A WELL-known marine life conservation group has been charged with discharging oil in coastal waters off Cairns. 
Sea Shepherd Australia Limited was recently mentioned in Cairns Magistrates Court charged with discharging oil in Trinity Inlet on October 13, 2012.
The charge falls under the Transport Operations (Marine Pollution) Act 1995… 
Former Greens leader Dr Bob Brown is Sea Shepherd Australia’s chairman.
The Greens should call for a Royal Commission into how this situation could occur. Certainly, the green movement should be held to account.
(Thanks to reader Wade.) 
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Met gets overheated 13 times out of 14. UPDATE: Clive Hamilton, too

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (11:56am)

Global warming - dud predictions

Britain’s Met Office keeps guessing too high when predicting global temperatures:
So far this century, of 14 yearly headline predictions made by the Met Office, 13 have been too warm... 
The 2013 global temperature also means that the Met Office’s projection that half the years between 2010 and 2015 would be hotter than the hottest year on record (which on the HADCRUT measure was in 1998), issued around the time of the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009, is already incorrect.
The Met Office believe one of the reasons for this ‘warm bias’ in their annual global projections is the lack of observational data in the Arctic circle, which has been the fastest warming area on earth. 
They also suggest another reason why the global surface temperature is falling short of their projections is because some of the heat is being absorbed in the ocean beneath the surface.
There is, of course, a third and more likely option - which the BBC is far too polite to even mention. It’s that the climate models the warmist Met uses have exaggerated the influence of man’s emissions on the climate. As climate scientist Professor Judith Curry noted in testimony to Congress this month:
For the past 16 years, there has been no significant increase in surface temperature. There is a growing discrepancy between observations and climate model projections… The IPCC does not have a convincing or confident explanation for this hiatus in warming.  There is growing evidence of decreased climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations… The growing evidence that climate models are too sensitive to CO2 has implications for the attribution of late 20th century warming and projections of 21st century climate change.
UPDATE
Professor Clive Hamilton, the abusive and dictatorial Gaian climate catastrophist, has already likened sceptics of catastrophic man-made warming to Holocaust-deniers, even claiming they could kill ”hundreds of millions”. I thought that was the gold-standard of abuse, but now he likens them to zealots who oppose immunisation of children:
The media treat the anti-vaccinators with the disdain they deserve, but sections of the media see no contradiction in actively promoting the same type of anti-science fanaticism when it comes to climate… 
What would we think if Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared “immunisation science is crap”? 
And, gosh, it turns out that my blog could kill the planet: 
The anti-immunisation brigade is still at it, yet giant strides have nevertheless been made in protecting public health. There is no such luxury in the case of climate change, and it is the anti-environmental paranoia of men like Abbott and Newman, and Andrew Bolt and George Pell, that endangers the health of our planet.
I remain astonished - even alarmed - that someone as extreme in his views and rhetoric is actually a professor, educating our young. 
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ABC does not believe it does not believe what it should not believe but did

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (11:21am)

You’d laugh, if it wasn’t for the needless damage done to the reputation of the country and our navy:
AN ABC news journalist has admitted asylum-seekers’ claims of mistreatment by the Australian navy are “likely to be untrue” a week after the broadcaster claimed it had footage that “appears to back up” the allegations. 
In an email to a former senior army officer, who forwarded the correspondence to News Corp Australia columnist Andrew Bolt, ABC national reporting team journalist Alison Branley sought off-the-record information from navy personnel.
“I have been tasked with finding some navy personnel who might be willing to speak to us in a background capacity - not on the record,” she wrote. “It follows the story our Jakarta guy ran on the asylum-seekers’ burns claims.
“My boss feels the allegations are likely to be untrue and we want to get people on board some of the ships up there to background us.” 
Her boss, national reporting team editor Jo Puccini, told The Australian last night she did not have a response to the revelation. 
No response? Why so shy suddenly?
But an ABC spokesperson now backtracks from the backtrack:
Any suggestion that in our reporting we (a) indicated the allegations were true or (b) now believe they are false is incorrect. 
Is the ABC throwing Branley under the bus?
UPDATE
Former ABC Media Watch host Jonathon Holmes still sniffs a Liberal rat: 
Like almost everyone else, I find the notion that members of the Australian navy would deliberately inflict agonising pain on helpless civilians very hard indeed to believe. But so is the notion that would-be asylum seekers would inflict this kind of pain on themselves at the behest of scheming people smugglers. 
No doubt there is an explanation for those burns – probably one that the navy could readily give us, if it were allowed to.
Miranda Devine sets him right with a plausible scenario and information Holmes knows but for no good reason dismisses:
The story was never plausible. It was uncharacteristic of Australian culture and inconsistent with 100 years of Australian military history. In fact, the Australian sailors applied first aid to the asylum seekers’ blistered hands. And by the time they boarded the boat the engine was already cold, says Australia Defence Association executive director Neil James. 
The most likely scenario is the asylum seekers tampered with the engine and burned themselves in the process.
UPDATE
Tim Blair was all over this story first.
UPDATE
Tony Abbott finally takes the stick to the ABC and hits hard over its claims that the navy tortured boat people. But will there be funding consequences?
He said the broadcaster should have given the navy and its personnel “the benefit of the doubt’’ in its reporting of the matter, 
“I want the ABC to be a straight news-gathering and news-reporting organisation, and a lot of people feel at the moment that the ABC instinctively takes everybody’s side but Australia’s,’’ Mr Abbott said.
He said he was also concerned at the ABC’s reporting of leaks by the “traitor’’ Edward Snowden, saying it “seemed to delight’’ in broadcasting his allegations. 
“And of course, the ABC didn’t just report what he said, they took the lead in advertising what he said. That was a deep concern.’’
The ABC has made zero real effort to address its institutional bias, and if it won’t reform it must be shrunk. Indeed, our state media is far too large in any event for a healthy democracy. 
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The problem with the CFMEU corruption is it helps Abbott

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (7:57am)

An Age writer cuts to the central issue of the CFMEU scandal - how it suits the Abbott Government and its business buddies: 
Evidence of bribery and links between the powerful construction union, bikies, organised crime and companies seeking work on large private and government building projects could not have come at a better time for the Abbott government… 
It will seek to extract maximum political advantage… It has not escaped the government’s notice that unions donate millions to Labor… Shorten, O’Connor and other frontbenchers’ links to the union movement will be used to wedge the opposition…By targeting corruption in unions and arguing a credible reform case on law-and-order grounds, the Coalition will achieve two dividends. It will weaken Labor’s left flank and will please business, a core constituency.
And there I was thinking the real issue was the corruption and the wicked misuse of too-mighty union power. 
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By the most extraordinary coincidence, Muslim extremists are blamed

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (7:16am)

That faith again that the Guardian feels is best not blamed:
A LOCAL official says the death toll from an attack on a northeast Nigerian village by suspected Islamic extremists has risen to 85. 
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Choking on a nice piece of flake

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (6:40am)

Australians love shark with chips:
Atlantic Salmon topped the list of Australia’s top 10 seafoods in 2013, according to information compiled by the Australian Government’s Fisheries Research and Development Council (FRDC)… Shark was fifth on the list.
Just don’t tell them their flake didn’t die of old age:
Shark cull: 80% of Australians opposed, poll finds
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ABC foiled. Indonesia finally sends warships our way - but to stop the boats

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (6:16am)

So much of Indonesia’s alleged rage against Australia is bluster by nationalists and wishful hype by our media Left:
THE Indonesian navy has added three small warships to its southern patrols, with Jakarta declaring they are there to intercept people-smuggling boats, not to deter Australian incursions. “The increased security measures in (the) southern part of the country is in order to anticipate increased illegal migrant activities,” said Agus Barnas, spokesman for Senior Security Minister Djoko Suyanto.
Poor Labor, denied its “konfrontasi”. And after all the ABC’s good work in telling Indonesia we’re nasty, spying torturers, led by an insensitive fool with no respect for their sovereignty. 
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Pete Seeger dies. His history buried

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (5:44am)

Pete Seeger is dead, and the flowing tributes will tend to ignore his long and weaselly record of support for communism and Stalinists.
Seeger was a member of the Communist Party from the 1930s through the 1950s. He left the party but never gave up the faith. He told the Washington Post in 1995 “I am still a communist.” Like his comrades and fellow travelers Seeger twisted and turned with every pronouncement from Moscow. Seeger supported the Nazi-Soviet Pact, a curious position for a noted “anti-fascist.” In 1941 Seeger along with Guthrie was a member of the Almanac Singers, a communist folk group. The group put out the anti-war album Songs from John Doe, containing songs that labeled Franklin Roosevelt a war monger. One of the songs had the following lyrics: 
Franklin D, listen to me,
You ain’t a-gonna send me ‘cross the sea.
You may say it’s for defense
That kinda talk ain’t got no sense.
Of course when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Seeger and the Almanac Singer’s literally changed their tune to get in lockstep with Stalin’s new foreign policy. They pulled Songs from John Doe from the market and quickly replaced it with the pro-war, pro-Roosevelt album Dear Mr. President: 
Now, Mr. President 
You’re commander-in-chief of our armed forces 
The ships and the planes and the tanks and the horses 
I guess you know best just where I can fight ... 
So what I want is you to give me a gun 
So we can hurry up and get the job done!
Datechguy:
Remember there is no ideology so murderous that your association with it will make you unacceptable as long as you are of use to the left.
Historian Ronald Radosh:
Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, Seeger called for peace, peaceful co-existence between the United States and the Soviet Union, singing songs like Put My Name Down, Brother, Where Do I Sign?—a ballad in favor of the Soviet Union’s phony international peace petition that favored unilateral disarmament by the West while leaving the Soviet atomic stockpile intact. He would sing and give his support to peace rallies and marches covertly sponsored by the Soviet Union and its Western front groups and dupes—while leaving his political criticism only for the United States and its defensive actions during the Cold War.
UPDATE
Scott Johnson is right. President Barack Obama’s statement on Seeger’s death is “beyond pathetic” and needs translation. Let me help: Obama claims Seeger believed “community” when he means “communism”. and wielded a “hammer” when he means “hammer and sickle”:
Once called “America’s tuning fork,” Pete Seeger believed deeply in the power of song. But more importantly, he believed in the power of community – to stand up for what’s right, speak out against what’s wrong, and move this country closer to the America he knew we could be. Over the years, Pete used his voice – and his hammer – to strike blows for worker’s rights and civil rights; world peace and environmental conservation. And he always invited us to sing along. For reminding us where we come from and showing us where we need to go, we will always be grateful to Pete Seeger. Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to Pete’s family and all those who loved him.
Seeger later made half-hearted apologies for being a propagandist of one of the deadliest totalitarian regimes in history, But, still, he was a fair singer:
(Via Instapundit.)
UPDATE
No mention of communism in the obituary on the ABC’s website: 
Seeger sang for the labour movement in the 1940s and 1950s, for civil rights marches and anti-Vietnam War rallies in the 1960s. He also intoned for environmental and anti-war causes in the 1970s and beyond.
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Labor’s stumble

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (5:19am)

Trying really, really hard to invent fault:
Senator Sam Dastyari in The Australian Financial Review yesterday: 
JULIE Bishop’s announcement that the United States is our most important economic and security relationship is yet another surprising diplomatic stumble from this government. 
Kevin Rudd on September 17, 2009: 
OUR relationship with the US is Australia’s most important relationship.
Rudd addressing the Foreign Policy Association on September 24, 2009: 
THERE is no more important relationship for Australia than our relationship with the United States of America. We share common interests. More importantly, we share common values…
Julia Gillard addressing the US congress on March 9, 2011: 
YOU have an ally in Australia. An ally for war and peace. An ally for hardship and prosperity. An ally for the 60 years past and Australia is an ally for all the years to come ... I firmly believe you are the same people who amazed me when I was a small girl by landing on the moon. On that great day I believed Americans could do anything. I believe that still. You can do anything today ... Americans can do anything. Americans helped free the world of my parents’ generation. Americans inspired the world of my own youth. I stand here and I see the same brave and free people today. I believe you can do anything still. There is a reason the world always looks to America. Your great dream - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - inspires us all.
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So why did Labor scrap the watchdog that could have stopped this CFMEU corruption?

Andrew Bolt January 29 2014 (12:06am)

One question about the CFMEU corruption scandal badly needs an answer from Labor, and I suspect only a royal commission will provide it.
Why did the Gillard Government agree to the CFMEU’s demands and abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission two years ago, and replace this watchdog with a much weaker body?
It was an astonishlng decision. Mystifying, in fact. What pressure was brought to bear on Labor? What influences made Labor do something so against the national interest?
The ABCC had been brilliantly successful in cracking down on lawlessness in the construction industry. Rogue unions - including the CFMEU - were heavily fined. Days lost to illegal strikes plummeted. Nearly 40 matters of possible criminal conduct including extortion, assaults and bribes were referred to police and other law enforcement agencies.
The former ABCC head, John Lloyd, warned in 2012 what would follow with the weaker Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate, given Labor had stripped it of coercive interviewing powers and slashed fines from $110,000 to $33,000.

“The rule of law is now compromised beyond repair. Construction industry sources complain that the building unions are boasting that they are ‘back in control.’ They show no fear of, nor regard for, the new Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate.”
And so it proved.

Nigel Hadgkiss was deputy commissioner of the ABCC and has been appointed head of its replacement by the Abbott Government until it can get the Senate to pass a law to bring back the ABCC. (The Greens and Labor oppose this.)
Hadgkiss last night told the ABC he found gangsters and organised crime figures involved in the construction industry from the time he first we asked to investigate it, two decades ago, “but not to the degree that you see it now in 2014”.
It is hard to not to see a connection between Labor’s decision two years ago and an apparent worsening of corruption in the CFMEU. And it was so predictable.
So why did Labor do it? How close are its senior figures to union bosses? How beholden is Labor, now led by former AWU boss Bill Shorten, to big unions in general, and the rich CFMEU in particular? Did Prime Minister Julia Gillard disclose to her party room that the national president of the CFMEU was her former boyfriend? (Note: no allegation of impropriety has been made against the president, who has struck me in my few dealings with him as a man of integrity.)
Labor must explain its reckless decision. And it must drop its veto on bringing back the ABCC.
UPDATE
And The Age in 2009  cheered that folly, just as it cheered the carbon tax and the fatal scrapping of tough border laws:
THE ACTU delegates were in the right on one matter of principle, summed up in the chant “one law for all”. The ABCC, set up by the Howard government in 2005, infringes the basic principles of equality before the law and the right to silence. Its coercive powers, applying uniquely to people in the construction industry, include the power to jail those who refuse to be interviewed ... The Age believes no Australian should be deprived of the legal rights enjoyed by all other citizens purely on the basis of the industry in which they work ... The union movement has an important role to play in standing up for Labor principles and, as (Sharan) Burrow told (Julia) Gillard, the ABCC is an “affront to Labor values”. 
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Meh, merely a robot making pizza .. ed
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In politics some err on the side of caution, hoping for better than observable facts suggest. Hitler's language at that time was not very different to later. So the optimism of the correspondent was based on the same thing which was used to proclaim the new Iranian Prime Minister a reformer moderate. - ed
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Births[edit]

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“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”” - John 4:24
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

January 28: Morning

"Perfect in Christ Jesus." - Colossians 1:28
Do you not feel in your own soul that perfection is not in you? Does not every day teach you that? Every tear which trickles from your eye, weeps "imperfection;" every harsh word which proceeds from your lip, mutters "imperfection." You have too frequently had a view of your own heart to dream for a moment of any perfection in yourself. But amidst this sad consciousness of imperfection, here is comfort for you--you are "perfect in Christ Jesus." In God's sight, you are "complete in him;" even now you are "accepted in the Beloved." But there is a second perfection, yet to be realized, which is sure to all the seed. Is it not delightful to look forward to the time when every stain of sin shall be removed from the believer, and he shall be presented faultless before the throne, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing? The Church of Christ then will be so pure, that not even the eye of Omniscience will see a spot or blemish in her; so holy and so glorious, that Hart did not go beyond the truth when he said--

"With my Saviour's garments on,
Holy as the Holy One."

Then shall we know, and taste, and feel the happiness of this vast but short sentence, "Complete in Christ." Not till then shall we fully comprehend the heights and depths of the salvation of Jesus. Doth not thy heart leap for joy at the thought of it? Black as thou art, thou shalt be white one day; filthy as thou art, thou shalt be clean. Oh, it is a marvellous salvation this! Christ takes a worm and transforms it into an angel; Christ takes a black and deformed thing and makes it clean and matchless in his glory, peerless in his beauty, and fit to be the companion of seraphs. O my soul, stand and admire this blessed truth of perfection in Christ.
Evening
"And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them." - Luke 2:20
What was the subject of their praise? They praised God for what they had heard--for the good tidings of great joy that a Saviour was born unto them. Let us copy them; let us also raise a song of thanksgiving that we have heard of Jesus and his salvation. They also praised God for what they had seen. There is the sweetest music--what we have experienced, what we have felt within, what we have made our own--"the things which we have made touching the King." It is not enough to hear about Jesus: mere hearing may tune the harp, but the fingers of living faith must create the music. If you have seen Jesus with the God-giving sight of faith, suffer no cobwebs to linger among the harp strings, but loud to the praise of sovereign grace, awake your psaltery and harp. One point for which they praised God was the agreement between what they had heard and what they had seen. Observe the last sentence--"As it was told unto them." Have you not found the gospel to be in yourselves just what the Bible said it would be? Jesus said he would give you rest--have you not enjoyed the sweetest peace in him? He said you should have joy, and comfort, and life through believing in him--have you not received all these? Are not his ways ways of pleasantness, and his paths paths of peace? Surely you can say with the queen of Sheba, "The half has not been told me." I have found Christ more sweet than his servants ever said he was. I looked upon his likeness as they painted it, but it was a mere daub compared with himself; for the King in his beauty outshines all imaginable loveliness. Surely what we have "seen" keeps pace with, nay, far exceeds, what we have "heard." Let us, then, glorify and praise God for a Saviour so precious, and so satisfying.
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Zadok 
[Zā'dŏk] - righteous, justified.
The Man Who Remained Loyal
1. The son of Ahitub and father of Ahimaaz, a priest in David's time (2 Sam. 8:17; 15:24-36; 17:15; 18:19, 27; 19:11; 20:25). Other references may be found in 1 Kings1, 2 ChroniclesEzra and Ezekiel.
This Zadok was appointed priest by Solomon in the place of Abiathar, because of his own loyalty (1 Kings 1:8), and the disloyalty of Abiathar (1 Kings 1:7).
Zadok was the founder of an important part of the priesthood and from Solomon's time his descendants constituted the most prominent family among the order of priests.
As a young man, he was mighty of valor (1 Chron. 12:27, 28).
As a friend of David, Zadok remained true to him during Absalom's rebellion (2 Sam. 15:24-29).
As a priest he remained faithful to David although his colleague deserted the king (1 Kings 1:7, 8). For his loyalty he retained his high and holy office till his death (1 Kings 2:26, 27).
2. The father of Jerusha, wife of Uzziah and mother of Jotham, king of Judah (2 Kings 15:332 Chron. 27:1).
3. Son of Ahitub, grandson of Azariah, high priest in Solomon's great Temple (1 Chron. 6:12; 9:11).
4. The son of Baana who shared in the repair of the wall of Jerusalem (Neh. 3:4).
5. A priest, son of Immer (Neh. 3:29).
6. One of the chiefs of the people who sealed the covenant (Neh. 10:21).
7. A son of Meraioth, of priestly ancestry (Neh. 11:11).
8. The scribe or priest appointed by Nehemiah to take charge of the treasuries of the Lord's house (Neh. 13:13). He may have been the same Zadok of Nehemiah 3:29.
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Today's reading: Exodus 19-20, Matthew 18:21-35 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Exodus 19-20

At Mount Sinai
On the first day of the third month after the Israelites left Egypt--on that very day--they came to the Desert of Sinai. 2After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert of Sinai, and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain.
3 Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, "This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: 4 'You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself....'"

Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 18:21-35

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?"
22 Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23 "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

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