First mammal declared extinct as a result of human-induced climate change (?)



This is an old fraud.  What is not mentioned below is that Melomys exists in their tens of thousands in neighboring areas -- both on islands and on the coast.  And I have not seen even the slightest attempt to show that the Melomys on Bramble Cay is in any way unique.  As far as we know it is essentially identical with the Melomys in neigboring locations.  So when the say that the Bramble Cay  melomys is extinct, it is just a slimy way of saying that Melomys is extinct on Bramble Cay, which of zero importance.

The most probable reason for the extinction is clear enough.  the cay is a sand island and some big storms in recent years have washed a lot of sand away, taking the vegetation with it.  So  there is not now enough vegetation to support even a rat.  Any connection to global warming is mere speculation

And the cay is only 34 miles South of New Guinea and New Guineans would undoubtedly eat them. Melanesians are poor but are excellent sailors. They normally have very little animal protein in their diet. There are no grazing animals in New Guinea.  They were probably all hunted to extinction thousands of years ago. So now all they have is their pigs and an occasional bird. And they can't feed enough pigs to slaughter one very often. So a Melomys would be a treat.

Also, In the past visitors to the island used to shoot them for sport.  So how do we know that someone did not do that recently?  It's an isolated area with no record of comings and goings

And if inundations were the cause, how do we know that global warming caused them?  Sea levels have been rising steadily ever since the Little Ice Age.

And if the factor was more extreme weather events in the area concerned there is no way global warming can be responsible because extreme weather events have in fact be declining on average world wide.  And even the IPCC declined to make a link between warming and extreme weather

And there have been many instances of species being declared extinct only for specimens suddenly to pop up again.  This is just opportunistic propaganda


This tiny rodent is the first known mammal to become formally extinct as a consequence of human-induced climate change.

The Morrison government, in Australia, changed the status of the Bramble Cay melomys from endangered to extinct on Monday, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Geoff Richardson, an environment department official, told Senate estimates on Monday night that research efforts since 2014 – “including a pretty rushed trip in 2015” – had failed to identify any melomys individuals in their only known location on Bramble Cay, a tiny Torres Strait island near Papua New Guinea.

Declaring its extinction “was not a decision to take lightly,” Mr Richardson said. “There’s always a delay while the evidence is gathered to be absolutely certain.”

The rat-like Bramble Cay melomys has not been spotted in its habitat, which is a sandy island in far northern Australia since a decade

The federal extinction listing comes almost three years after the Queensland government reached a similar conclusion, with a finding that the demise of the melomys “probably represents the first recorded mammalian extinction due to anthropogenic climate change”.

The limited range of the animal, living on a five-hectare island less than three metres high, left it vulnerable to climate change.

However, its 2008 “recovery plan”, drawn up when numbers were likely down to just dozens of individuals, downplayed the risks.

“[T]he likely consequences of climate change, including sea-level rise and increase in the frequency and intensity of tropical storms, are unlikely to have any major impact on the survival of the Bramble Cay melomys in the life of this plan,” the five-year scheme stated.

Leeanne Enoch, Queensland’s Environment Minister, said the animal’s extinction showed “we are living the real effects of climate change right now”.

“We have consistently called on [Prime Minister] Scott Morrison and Melissa Price to show leadership on climate change, instead of burying their heads in the sand.”

Minister Melissa Price said: [It is] incredibly disappointing when any species is formally declared extinct, and everybody has feared the worst for some time, given the Bramble Cay melomys hasn’t been sighted since 2009.

“Our agencies will continue to focus their efforts on protecting species identified as priorities, supported by the Government’s $425 million investment in threatened species programs.”

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Protesting kids ‘should be at school’

So far Question Time has progressed much as you would expect, with Labor asking about Michaelia Cash and Mathias Cormann, and pressuring the government to schedule more parliamentary sitting weeks.

One of the more interesting exchanges has come from Greens MP Adam Bandt and, of all people, Nationals leader Michael McCormack.

“Will you join me in congratulating the courageous school students going on strike on March 15, right around the country, calling for urgent climate action and the protection of Australia’s infrastructure?” Mr Bandt asked.

“Will you commend these young people and the 15,000 who went on strike last November, for taking time off school to show us what real leadership looks like?”

In short, no, Mr McCormack would not commend them.

“The children should be at school, that’s where they should be,” he said.

“They should be learning about Australian history, they should be learning about Australian geography, they should be learning about all the lessons that their teachers are willing to teach them.

“The member for Melbourne would do far better off advising those children to go to school and to stay at school.

“Who’s going to look after those kids when they’re out protesting? I know the Greens like to protest, because that’s all you ever bring to the national debate, protests and frivolous rallies.”

Mr Bandt eventually interrupted with a point of order.

“On relevance, perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister might also like to explain what the children should do with the science they’ve learned,” he said.

“Points of order aren't an opportunity to ask a supplementary question,” Speaker Tony Smith said, promptly shutting him down.

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Firemen are banned from climbing ladders more than two metres high because they may fall off and hurt themselves

The galoot behind this should be given the boot

Firefighters at airports have been banned from climbing ladders more than two meters high during training in case they fall and hurt themselves.

Airservices Australia chief fire officer Glenn Wood confirmed the ban during a Senate Estimates hearing on Monday.

It means firefighters cannot practise climbing high ladders as required to fight a real fire in a highly stressful situation.

Mr Wood told the Committee for Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport that the ban was for health and safety reasons. 'We take the safety of our people very seriously and there is a risk of fall from height,' he said.  

'We've examined that issue and we've determined that at this time we will restrict our firefighters from climbing up a ladder greater than two metres so they can practise the necessary skills while we form a working group to look at alternatives.'

Wood said firemen can 'work with' high ladders but just can't climb them.

Alternatives such as using harnesses are being explored, the committee was told.

Airport firefighters have also been banned from using power saws - and now have to wait for local firefighters to bring different tools if they need to cut through material. Mr Wood described them as 'out of date' and 'a safety hazard for our people.' 

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Double tax hit haunts near retirees

More than half a million Australians approaching retirement could suffer a double tax hit to their savings plans under Labor’s policy to axe franking credit ­refunds and curb negative gearing, new tax data analysis says.

More than 40 per cent of the 1.3 million people who already claim tax deductions on their rental properties are between 45 and 59, Australian Taxation ­Office figures show.

With an average rental loss of $9500, this group would also stand to lose the most from the scrapping of the scheme.

The government will claim that those already in the planning stage of their retirement would have two major retirement investment options taken off the table with the scrapping also of franking credit refunds, which are relied on by 900,000 Australians and mainly those in retirement.

While those already negatively gearing property will have their current arrangements grandfathered under Labor’s policy, the data reveals that people approaching retirement relied most on the tax deduction.

Negatively gearing property would be available in the future for only those buying new investment dwellings. The government argues that the impact would mean a significant investment option would be removed in the future for people planning for retirement.

Josh Frydenberg plans to ­revive the government’s campaign against Labor’s tax plans with a property industry roundtable this morning in Canberra hosted by the Property Council of Australia.

The council has warned against any changes to negative gearing or capital gains tax, claiming the risk was too great, considering the current cycle in the housing market.

The Treasurer will use the roundtable to muster support among industry groups, which include the Master Builders ­Association and the Real Estate Institute of Australia.

The ongoing analysis of the 2015-16 ATO tax data being conducted by Mr Frydenberg’s ­office has revealed that Labor’s twin tax policies were heavily weighted against middle-aged Australians approaching retirement and those who had already finished their working lives.

Those aged between 45 and 59 represented the largest group to lose money from the scrapping of negative gearing on established dwellings. This represents more than 525,000 Australians or 40 per cent of the 1.3 million Australians who claim rental losses on investment properties.

Of these, a total of 183,000 were aged 45-49, 183,000 aged 50-54 and 160,000 aged 55-59.

The ATO data is the same that has been used by the government on numerous occasions to attack Labor’s policies.

Mr Frydenberg said Labor’s “retiree tax” punished aspiration and no one would be hit harder by Labor’s housing tax than Australians approaching retirement.

“More than half a million Australians aged between 45 and 59 years of age will be worse off and have their hard-earned investment smashed by Labor’s changes to negative gearing,” he said.

“Not only is the proportion of those affected by Labor’s housing tax highest in this age group, their rental loss is the greatest too: the average net rental loss for those aged between 45 and 59 is around $9500, well above any other age group.

“This is the same age group that is working hard to put their ­retirement plans in place and who will also be punished by Labor’s ­retiree tax.

“In a double whammy for Australians approaching retirement age, not only will Labor raid their nest egg, they will also punish those who have invested in the housing market.

“As a retiree under Labor, if you own your home it will be worth less, if you rent a home it will cost you more and if you invest in shares you will earn less.”

An exclusive Newspoll published last week by The Australian showed strong opposition to Labor’s $55 billion plan to scrap franking credit refunds.

Senior Labor sources privately admit the so-called “retiree” tax is unpopular but have calculated it would impact mainly Coalition voters rather than their own.

Last week, Bill Shorten stood by the policy, despite increasing pressure to modify or scrap it, saying he was “not for turning” on the policy.

In response, Mr Frydenberg said: “Another saying of (Margaret) Thatcher would have been more apt: ‘The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money’.”

Labor says the tax measures ­address an imbalance in the system that favours the well-off.

It says only 2 per cent of Australians would be affected by the scrapping of franking credit ­refunds, while reducing the capital gains tax discount from 50 per cent to 25 per cent would mostly affect the top 10 per cent of income- ­earners.

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 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Medevac revelation infuriates crossbench

Multiple crossbenchers are accusing the government of trying to “subvert” the will of parliament.

During Senate Estimates last night, officials from Peter Dutton’s Home Affairs Department revealed asylum seekers transferred off Nauru and Manus Island because of the medevac legislation would go to Christmas Island, not the mainland.

“Is it the intention, when people are transferred back to Australia under the provisions of the amendments that passed through the parliament last week, that they be transferred to Christmas Island?” Greens Senator Nick McKim asked.

“Yes,” Home Affairs boss Michael Pezzullo responded.

“It is?” Mr McKim said.

“Yes. That is the policy of the government,” Mr Pezzullo said.

“It’s the government’s policy to transfer people who are so sick that they can’t get appropriate treatment on Manus Island, or in Port Moresby, or in Nauru, to Christmas Island?” an incredulous Mr McKim asked.

“Yes,” Mr Pezzullo replied.

The revelation has sparked a furious reaction from Mr McKim, his colleagues in the Greens and independent MP Kerryn Phelps.

“The government is now defying the will of the parliament,” Greens MP Adam Bandt said this morning.

“I will support any no confidence motion moved against this trainwreck of a government. Kick this mob out.”

“This is a subversion of our entire model of representative democracy,” Dr Phelps said.

“The parliament, through its proper processes, clearly determined that people too sick to receive treatment in offshore detention should come to Australia, not Christmas Island, for specialised treatment.”

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Climate change farce: How every Australian household contributes $200 a year to those lucky enough to be able to afford to put solar panels on their roof

Subsidies to pay for solar panel installation are set to add almost $200 to power bills across Australia.

The federal Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme together with state rebates - used to pay for subsidies to homeowners for installing solar panels - are set to rise by 45 per cent.

The cost to each household for the subsidy will soar from $134 in 2018 to $195 this year, The Australian reported.

Subsidies to pay for solar panel installation are set to cost almost each home almost $200 (stock image)    +2
Subsidies to pay for solar panel installation are set to cost almost each home almost $200 (stock image)

More than two million Australians use solar energy in their homes, and capacity is growing at 50 per cent each year.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor said the cost of small-scale technology certificates - used as an incentive for homeowners to install solar panels - made up three per cent of an average power bill.

Small-scale technology certificates are given to consumers installing solar panels and are then bought back by power companies.

Mr Taylor said Australia's biggest electricity retailers such as Origin, AGL Energy and EnergyAustralia were responsible for a bigger part of power bills.

'The big cost is the profits being taken by the big energy companies in the wholesale market, without innovation or new products, and it is time for them to deliver a fairer deal for their customers,' he said.

'According to the Australian Energy Market Commission, the small-scale technology certificate cost is less than three per cent of the bill, whereas 46 per cent is going to the big generator retailers.'

Solar panels are growing in popularity, with state governments offering incentives for installing them.

Victorians can set up solar in their homes for half the usual price under a scheme introduced by Premier Daniel Andrews' government, while in New South Wales Labor plans for 500,000 homes to have renewable energy technology in a capped rebate program.

The average price in Australian capital cities for a 5kW system is $5,100, according to Choice.

It takes from two to seven years for solar panel systems to begin to pay for themselves and allow homeowners to save money.

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Leftist fanatic victimizes kids he is supposed to be teaching

A teacher at one of Australia's most prestigious schools ripped up drawings made by his Year 4 students during a lesson on Aboriginal history.

The Knox Grammar School teacher was giving his nine-year-old students a drama lesson when he asked them to draw their background, heritage and families.

Once completed, he then collected the works and proceeded to tear them up in front of the class.

His aim was to put his students in the shoes of indigenous Australians, claiming they felt the same way when everything was taken from them, The Australian reported.

A spokesman for the well-regarded school, which charges students up to $45,000 a year, said they did not support the teacher's actions.

'When the school became aware of the matter, it was immediately investigated. The teacher was extensively counselled and disciplined. The teacher has apologised to the students.

The spokesman went on to say Knox supports the teaching of indigenous culture and heritage, and will continue to delve into these matters in the classroom.

The manner in which this is undertaken, however, will be further examined.

The school said they will continue to strive for these sensitive subjected to be explored in an appropriate manner.  

NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes also weighed in on the matter, stating he believed the school handled the situation correctly.

'Those sorts of things are clearly not age-appropriate and can be very distressing for young kids,' he said.

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Somalian woman is found guilty of arranging for her two daughters, aged nine and 12, to have their genitals mutilated in Somalia

A Queensland woman has been found guilty of arranging for her two daughters to have their genitals mutilated in Somalia. The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denied she had taken the girls, then aged 12 and nine, to her birth nation in April 2015 to undergo the procedure.

She was convicted by a Brisbane District Court jury on Wednesday of two counts of removing a child from the state female genital mutilation (FGM). The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes before reaching their verdict.

The trial heard the woman, who had undergone a similar procedure as a girl, had her daughters endure FGM a few days after arriving in Somalia.

One of the girls was called inside from playing outside her grandmother's house and had no idea what was about to happen when she had the painful procedure. She was conscious throughout and it caused pain for days. Her sister was also subjected to the procedure, also with their mother by her side.

'(Their mother) had them in her care for the entire time. She was there when they were mutilated not long after they arrived in Somalia,' crown prosecutor Dejana Kovac said. 'She extended the trip to give them time to heal before returning to Australia.'

The family returned to their home in the Logan area, south of Brisbane, seven months later. Then the girls' stepsister tipped off child safety services.

The girls told Queensland police about their experiences, leading to the charges against their mother.

Female genital mutilation removes the clitoris and other parts of the genitalia, preventing those who have undergone it from experiencing physical sexual pleasure and theoretically increasing the likelihood of a girl staying a virgin until marriage, and taking away a motivation for extra-marital relations.

In a police interview, the woman said their trip had been to visit her mother and she'd done 'nothing' in relation to a genital mutilation procedure. Whatever had happened to the girls was 'from God', she said.

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 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Standing ovation for rock star psychologist

Ask the protesters, they’ll tell you that Jordan Peterson’s ideas are dangerous. Did that explain the police, the private security, the men with wands, the women shining torches into handbags, and the walk-through X-ray machines at the Opera House on Saturday?

No, they were there to protect Peter­son, whose aim was to give a lecture, and those who wanted to hear it.

The precautions held up the show by almost an hour. Peterson later joked he had just started to think his enemies had given up, and faded away.

“That may change at this Q&A next Monday,” the Canadian professor said, referring to his long-awaited appearance on the ABC’s flagship panel show on Monday, February 25.

More seriously, he added: “The people who have enmity for me? They’re done. They’re out of ammunition. I read a ‘hit piece’ these days, and I feel, oh, you’ve just copied that hit piece from two months ago.”

Peterson spoke for more than an hour at the Opera House, reducing himself to tears at one point. Like any rock star psychologist — that may be a pool of one — he received a standing ovation.

He was then whisked across town to speak for a second hour at a private, more intimate event hosted by former deputy prime minister John Anderson. It was at this event that Peterson revealed he agreed with some of what his opponents had to say: for example, he does think we all live in “an oppressive patriarchy”.

But what, he said, was the point in dividing men and women on the issue? “Race, gender, sexual orientation, they don’t matter that much,” he said. “They don’t ­matter anywhere near as much as the diversity of ideas.”

His aim, he said, was to lead people away from identity politics towards a future in which everyone was working together, in the main because he could without hesitation find a way to make ­anyone in the audience “an ­oppressor.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re male,” he said, to a person of colour. “Maybe it’s because you’re middle class,” he said to a woman.

Peterson was asked about the lack of faith in old institutions, and he put it straight back on the audience. “If you don’t trust your institutions, well, they’re your institutions,” he said. “Look in the mirror — the ­effectiveness of those institutions is down to you.” If you don’t like the way your bank, your church, your cricket team is behaving, in other words, do something about it.

If not you, then who?

Back at the Opera House, the crowd was split 55-45 on gender. There were guys who looked like they’d come straight from Harvard Law School; women who looked too young to be wearing so many pearls; silver foxes in six-button blazers; and pierced boys and girls with ripped jeans.

One protester carried a sign complaining about Peterson being “racist, homophobic”.

His warm-up guy, US political commentator Dave Rubin, took hold of that issue, telling the crowd he didn’t have the heart to tell him that “Peterson’s warm-up guy is married to a dude”.

Rubin later silenced attendees by asking: “Does anyone in this room have it worse than their grandparents?” “I almost never get a yes to that question,” he said, “because if you’re living in a free society in 2019, you are not oppressed.”

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Sport Minister sorry for appearing to make fun of overweight people



Federal Sport Minister Bridget McKenzie has apologised for appearing to mock overweight people at a national obesity summit in Canberra.

The deputy leader of the Nationals apologised after being photographed puffing out her face and rubbing her stomach while standing next to a banner advertising Friday's summit.

Ms McKenzie blamed her actions on a bad reaction to breakfast.

"The issue of obesity is a matter I take very seriously and would never triavisie [sic] it - or to add in any way to stigmatisation," she tweeted.

"I sincerely apologise for this very unfortunate photo taken as I demonstrated how my stomach felt after scrambled eggs reacted w yogurt I had just eaten."

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'Inner-city, green elitism gone mad': Farmers' fury after Labor MP blames 'meat-eating MEN' for climate change

Irate farmers have labelled a State MP a 'green communist' after she blamed 'meat-eating' men for climate change while praising vegans.

Lisa Baker, the Labor member for Maylands in Perth, told the State Parliament her Government should promote reduced meat consumption.

She went onto state meat-eating men tend to produce more greenhouse gas emissions than vegan women.

Gary Buller, who breeds Angus cattle in WA's south-west, said Ms Baker needs to get a 'grip on reality'. 'There is much too much emotion in this whole debate and not enough dealing with the facts,' Mr Buller told the West Australian. 'People with these views are away with the fairies — they are green communists.' 

Trevor Whittington, the WA Farmers chief executive, agreed with Buller. He believes Ms Baker's outspoken views were an example of 'inner-city, green elitism gone mad'. 'Her world is a simple one of vegans, good, meat eaters bad,' he said.

'We will watch with interest to see if she (Baker) manages to convince her colleagues to take her views to the next election.'

David Littleproud was equally scathing in his criticism, with the Federal Agriculture Minister saying Ms Baker's comments were 'laughable.'

A spokesperson for Ms Baker told Daily Mail Australia the State MP stands by her comments and clarified she wasn’t a vegan.

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The PM suffered a humiliating defeat this week. Strangely, it might be the best thing to have happened in his political career

There is one simple thing that Scott Morrison could have done to avoid the excruciating embarrassment the government has suffered this week but he didn’t do it. Yet as a result of this failure he may have given himself his only possible chance of surviving as prime minister.

Meanwhile Bill Shorten’s parlour tricks have snowballed into a game of Russian roulette.

The government was clearly terrified of losing the medevac vote in the lower house, which convention suggests would have required the PM to call an election to get a mandate.

But if history has taught us anything about Australian politics it’s that conventions aren’t worth the paper they’re not printed on. Indeed, it was once a convention that a prime minister who had just led their party to victory might at least serve their first term before being knifed by their colleagues.

For every single parliament of the past 12 years, this convention has been massacred by mindless panic and so when the Coalition faced a slight threat from the medevac bill it naturally mindlessly panicked.

The government pulled out a bizarre technical defence, claiming the legislation was invalid because it had originated in the Senate but the panel appointed to oversee medical assessments would have to be paid and the constitution decreed that the appropriation of funds from Treasury could only originate in the lower house. In short, it was likening a couple of doctor’s bills to the Federal Budget.

Bizarrely, this made the Coalition’s position even more precarious, because if the bill had then passed the government, by its own reasoning, would have lost control over money bills. You only have to ask Gough Whitlam how that turns out.

Fortunately for the government, its strategy was a swift and abject failure. Shorten quickly amended the bill to ensure the doctors would work for nothing — which was not dissimilar to his approach as a union leader — and Labor won a massive victory.

Or did it?

The real story is that both major parties are so punch drunk from a decade of mauling that they no longer even know when they are giving themselves an uppercut to the head.

And in this case Labor appears to have forgotten that its key strategy for the last six years has been to painstakingly neutralise border protection as an election issue. Not only is the party internally divided but it is an issue upon which it cannot win. If people want to keep boats out they will vote Coalition, if they want to let them in they will vote Green. Labor has its legs crossed in the middle.

Its approach, therefore, has been to declare that it is lock-step in line with the government and quickly try to change the subject. Now, tantalised by the prospect of a rare parliamentary win, it has established a clear split which the Coalition will cheerfully drive into a gaping chasm.

All it would take is the boats to start up again and the race would suddenly tighten. A boat actually arriving on Australian territory could turn the tide of the whole election.

Of course the medevac bill doesn’t actually apply to any new boat arrivals but that’s the funny thing about people smugglers — they’re not really sticklers for policy detail. All they need is a message to sell and a willing audience to buy it. They’re a bit like politicians that way.

Indeed, full credit to Scott Morrison for telling security agencies to repel boat arrivals — a more cynical politician would give the order to let them in. A Budget surplus won’t be enough for the Coalition to beat Labor but a boat surplus just might be.

Let’s go back to 2001. John Howard was on the ropes. He had just introduced a GST and got beaten in the popular vote at the 1998 election. He was being smashed in the polls and the mighty Daily Telegraph — Howard’s favoured gauge for the national mood — had turned on him: “It’s the Petrol Tax Stupid!” one front page blasted. Another warned that if interest rates rose again it would be the PM who would lose his house. Then along came the Tampa.

Were it not for that boat, Labor leader Kim Beazley might have been prime minister for a decade. Instead his arch nemesis became a byword for political strength and stability.

The politics of people smuggling have been the same ever since. Once Howard stopped the boats, our hearts softened and we elected Labor in a landslide. Then when they started back up we swung back and elected Tony Abbott. And now that they’ve stopped again we revert back to our better angels.

We are a generous but cynical people. We want to be kind but we don’t want to be taken advantage of. We want to be compassionate but on our own terms. And if the boats start once more that compassion will be sorely tested.

And so the Coalition has been gifted a massive political weapon by an opposition too blinded by the treasure to see the dragon lurking beneath. More remarkably, the government has been so flailing it was batting away the very lifeline being thrown to it.

Nonetheless you can now see it dawning on the once lost souls. It’s a bit like watching the catatonic mental patients come to life in Awakenings.

But the greatest irony of all — if indeed there is any irony left in a political landscape where irrational is the new normal — is that Scott Morrison could have avoided the whole thing.

All the PM had to do is put a crossbencher in the chair as Speaker of the House of Representatives instead of wasting one of his own precious votes on the floor.

Morrison refused to give himself this buffer after becoming prime minister, seemingly due to a sense of warrior pride and no doubt some fear of payback from the Peter Slipper experiment. Or maybe all the independents just said no to a $150,000 a year pay rise, which even for six months is a nice little mortgage buster.

On Tuesday this was a catastrophic error of judgment. On Thursday it became a stroke of genius. Personally, I wonder if anyone put that much thought into it at all.

And so by losing the Coalition may have won and by winning the ALP may have lost. And no matter which side wins the rest of us lose because politics today is a contest that hinges on which party has the most misfires while trying to shoot itself in the foot.

The great Graham Richardson once observed that the golden rule of politics was that you never reward failure. These days failure gets a gold medal.

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 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Some members of a football team made up of Australian Aborigines refused to sing the Australian national anthem before a match against a New Zealand Maori team

The Australian national anthem was deliberately scrubbed of anything that might offend at the time of its adoption but whiners will always find something to whine about.

One wonders why it matters what Aboriginal sportspeople do. Aborigines are undoubtedly losers in Australian society so it is perfectly reasonable for them not to feel part of our national community.  Let them sing something else. 

There is a deliberately inclusive and quite popular Australian song called "We are Australians".  That should be a reasonable alternative to the national anthem if one is needed



I don't think much of that song myself.  It treats white settlement as a continuation of Aboriginal occupancy, which is both very poor history and very poor ethnography


NRL legend Mal Meninga has backed the Indigenous players who refused to sing the Australian national anthem in the lead up to the NRL All Stars game. 

As 'Advance Australia Fair' was played during the pre-game at AAMI Park in Melbourne on Friday night, more than half the of the side snubbed the anthem.

Meninga has since taken the controversy up a notch and put out a call for the anthem to be changed.

'We've had the national Sorry Day so Australians — all Australians — are very aware of our national history, maybe more aware than they were before. So we can have a national debate and let the people of Australia have their say.

'If we have a national anthem that offends our Indigenous people, let's see what all of Australia thinks.'

The NRL also copped criticism for choosing to play the national anthem in the lead up to the match in light of heavy criticism from NRL great Anthony Mundine.

'The anthem was written in late 1700s where blackfullas (sic) were considered fauna (animals) Advance Australia Fair as in white not fair as in fair go,' Mundine wrote on Facebook.

'All players aboriginal & non aboriginal should boycott the anthem & start changing Australia's ignorant mentality … lets move forward together yo.'

Indigenous skipper Cody Walker said post-match that he wasn't comfortable with a version of the Australian anthem being played at the game.

'To be honest no (it shouldn't be played) – it just brings back so many memories from what's happened and I think everyone in Australia needs to get together and work something out,' he said.  'It doesn't represent me and my family.'

The strong opposition to the national anthem divided those watching on TV at home, with plenty taking to social media to have their say on the stance.

'Reconciliation is a two way street... (but) I didn't see one aboriginal sing the national anthem,' one man commented.

'Pretty disappointed to see most of the Australian Indigenous team not sing our national anthem. The Maori boys sang theirs,' another said.

But while some disagreed with the stance, others claimed it was inappropriate to be playing the national anthem at a game involving two indigenous sides.

'Why on earth would you sing the commonwealth-based Aussie anthem in an Indigenous game?' one woman wrote on Twitter.

But just minutes after more than half the team had refused to sing the anthem, they united on the AAMI Stadium turf for a war dance.

Led by their 21-year-old star Mitchell, the players performed the impressive dance to cheers from the local crowd.

By contrast the majority of the Maori All Stars team sung the whole of New Zealand's national anthem, which includes a Maori verse.

The Indigenous All Stars defeated the Maori All Stars 34-14 in front of 18,000 fans.

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Sexist male-bashing on Marriage at First Sight

Bettina Arndt

I’m delighted to see the fuss which has broken over the cringeworthy but incredibly popular national TV show "Married at First Sight" which broadcast a woman fiercely berating a man on multiple occasions without any comment from the show’s relationship "experts" condemning the behaviour. Then, the first time the man stood up for himself, he was called out for his crude language.

It highlights the grip of feminism on public debate over domestic violence in this country, where even the mildest emotional abuse from a man to a woman is labelled ‘domestic violence’ whilst male victims of serious physical violence inflicted by women receive no support, no public sympathy and are often treated as perpetrators.

Now, in what is hopefully a sign that ordinary people have had enough of these double standards, there’s been an outcry over the show with calls that Channel 9 should sack Mel Schilling, the relationship expert who criticized the man’s crude language after ignoring the foul tirade from his wife.

Yet look at this inane comment from the television channel’s producer, who said he was “shocked at the backlash Mel has received for defending another woman”.

“There were 12 women in the room that night and a man used language that was highly insulting and inflammatory in reference to his wife,” he said in a statement to 9 Honey. “Mel acted in the only way appropriate by calling out the language — language that is not ever considered acceptable anywhere, anytime.”

These powerful men don’t get it. They still think they can get away with virtue-signalling to the noisy minority group of feminists, ignoring the genuine complaints of the majority who are fed up with unfair treatment of men. Please help sign the petition and teach these people to wake up.

https://www.change.org/p/channel-nine-mel-schilling-from-married-at-first-sight-sacked-or-proper-apology

Yes, I know it is a storm in a teacup over a stupid television show but a rare opportunity for the public to say we have had enough!

Email from Bettina: bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au






Teachers to have their university debts waived if they work in remote indigenous communities

To bad if they get assaulted, burgled and raped.  It does happen

Teachers who work in remote indigenous communities will have their university debts waived under a new initiative to be announced today.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will launch a $200 million program to keep indigenous children in school and attract teachers as part of reform to the Closing the Gap process.

The latest report card on Closing the Gap will be made public today and is expected to confirm a decade-long failure in the program, with only two of the seven targets on health, education, employment and life expectancy being met.

Mr Morrison told The Australian he would unveil a new three-tiered education program after recommendations made by Tony Abbott, the government’s envoy on indigenous affairs.

It will include wiping the HECS/HELP debt for 3100 teachers who commit to working for four years in one of 292 remote schools.

Children would also be supported to enter secondary education including through mentoring.

The Closing the Gap report will show that while efforts to get more indigenous children into early education are on track, improvements to life expectancy, infant mortality and employment rates are not.

Mr Morrison will say the targets need to be revised to make states and territories more accountable and give indigenous Australians more say.

“The Closing the Gap targets have been well-intentioned but ‘top down’, so it was always doomed to fail in both its ambitions and also its process,” Mr Morrison will say in a speech today.

“It didn’t genuinely bring on board states and territories in making sure they have accountabilities and sharing the objective and process with indigenous Australians.”

Mr Morrison will say the current method of measuring targets actually masks progress, discouraging further efforts.

For example, child mortality among indigenous Australians has decreased 10 per cent since 2008. But the target is not on track because the non-indigenous figure has declined at a faster rate.

The “refresh” of the Closing the Gap targets, initially set out in 2016, will ask indigenous Australians to develop their own.

The changes will also hold different levels of government to account and include new priorities on housing, employment, family violence and land and water rights.

State governments will be obliged to make annual public statements on the areas they are responsible for, such as health and education.

“Ensuring that the states and territories are a part of this … I think, will significantly improve the process,” Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion told ABC radio.

SOURCE  






NSW government projects big jump in coal shipments

The Greenies are squawking but in view of Australia being a relatively short and direct sail from Japan, Korea, China and India, the projection is a reasonable one and may be understated.  Asia still likes coal

The Berejiklian government is projecting NSW will sharply increase coal shipments over coming decades, a forecast increase at odds with international climate goals and its own target for the state to reach net-zero carbon emissions by mid-century.

Figures used for the NSW Freight and Ports Plan 2018-2023 and obtained by the Greens, show transport projections out to 2056 also imply thermal coal use will increase by 2036 - even though four of the state's five remaining coal-fired power plants are scheduled to have closed by then.

Annual shipments of coal for domestic power generation would rise from 23 million tonnes in 2016 to 24 million tonnes in 2036. They will drop only to 21 million tonnes by 2056 - a date well beyond the expected life of all existing plants.

The government's figures, prepared in 2017-18 by Transport for NSW's analytics team, are even more bullish about exports of both thermal and coking coal.

The former is forecast to rise steadily from 139 million tonnes in 2016 to 158 million tonnes by 2056, counter to expectations that thermal coal use will have to be cut if Paris climate goals - including net-zero emissions by developed nations by about 2050 - are to be met.

Coking coal, used to make steel, would almost double over the 40 years to 47 million tonnes by these predictions.

Even though nations burning NSW coal are accountable for the resulting emissions, the extraction and transport of the fossil fuel are sizeable contributors to the state's own pollution. The Berejiklian government has an aspirational goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

The NSW Minerals Council says the state is well-placed to grab a share of increased Asian demand for thermal coal that might top 400 million tonnes by 2030, citing researcher Commodity Insights.

But Tim Buckley, an energy analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said growth forecasts for coal imply the world ignores the Paris targets.

"Under its Sustainable Development Scenario, the International Energy Agency forecasts seaborne thermal coal would decline by 65 per cent by 2040, and cease by 2050," Mr Buckley said.

"It is telling that NSW government forecasts for coal demand are entirely consistent with the 'forecasts' of the Minerals Council of Australia, a group that releases a 50-page 2018 report forecasting a rosy picture for thermal coal demand over the coming decades, but without even mentioning climate change," he said.

Mr Buckley said Japan currently takes 44 per cent of the state's thermal coal exports but major companies are already planning to reduce coal use. Itochu, a trading giant, last week announced it would stop developing new coal-fired power plants and thermal coal mines - a move marking "a major pivot" for the company, he said.

The NSW Minerals Council is pushing for NSW to back new coal-fired power plants, saying "multiple sets of polling conducted by the industry show greater than 60 per cent support", according to its election policy priorities.

A spokeswoman for Transport for NSW said it was "uncertain whether the existing coal power stations in Australia are being closed down without like-replacement". "The Commonwealth government is considering the bids, which include coal-fired power stations," she said.

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG deplores the medevac legislation






Heat on Australian Bureau of Meteorology over data records rewrite</>

Odd that Warmist revisions of the temperature record always make the past colder.  If the revisions really were corrections for errror, we would expect that some records of the past would show up as warmer occasionally.  It doesn't happen.  The "errors" are systematic. Jennifer Marohasy has shown on a few occasions that their "adjustments" are unreasonable.  Her comment on the latest fandango is here

The Bureau of Meteorology has rewritten Australia’s temperature records for the second time in six years, greatly increasing the rate of warming since 1910 in its controversial homogenised data set.

Rather than the nation’s temperature having increased by 1C over the past century, the ­bureau’s updated homogenised data set, known as ACORN-SAT, now shows mean temperatures have risen by 1.23C.

Bureau data shows the rate of mean warming since 1960 has risen to 0.2C a decade, putting the more ambitious IPCC target of limiting future warming to 1.5C close to being broken.

Homogenisation of temperature records is considered necessary to account for changes in instrumentation, changes in site locations and changes in the time at which temperatures were taken. But the bureau’s treatment of historical data has been controversial. In recent years there have been claims that the organisation was treating temperature records in such a way that left it exposed to accusations that ideological pursuits had trumped good scientific practice.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott unsuccessfully pushed for a forensic investigation into the bureau’s methods.

A number of reviews of the ­bureau’s network equipment and its temperature data handling have been carried out. A technical panel found the homogenisation methods used were largely sound.

But a key recommendation, to include confidence levels or error margins in the data, remains ­unfulfilled. A BoM spokesman said work was under way on a number of scientific papers looking at uncertainty and confidence intervals for temperature data ­observations, adjustments and national averages. “This work will be made available to the public following ­thorough peer review,” the spokesman said.

The bureau had fiercely defended the accuracy of its original ACORN-SAT data. But more ­recent analysis, including the ­removal of rounding errors, has effectively increased the rate of warming by 23 per cent, compared with the earlier homogenised ACORN version-one data.

Detailed technical information on the ACORN-SAT ­update was published late last year, but there has been no public ­announcement of the revised data, which is now considered the official national average temperature record. A bureau review of the ­homogenised data said the new version had “increased ­robustness and greater spatial ­coherence”.

The updating of the ACORN-SAT data coincided with the ­release last October of a new version of US weather agency NOAA’s global land temperature data set.

A bureau spokesman said ACORN-SAT version two was the bureau’s “improved official homogeneous temperature data set”. The new data set benefited from “the numerous scientific and technological advances which have occurred over the past six years, as well as the ­insights and recommendations from an independent ACORN-SAT technical advisory forum”.

“It also contains new data which was not previously available when the bureau developed the first data set,” he said.

The bureau said the updates had been independently peer-­reviewed, and the findings were that the methodology was “rigorous and reliable”.

Scientist Jennifer Marohasy said that while version two of the data had used the same set of 112 stations as had been used in version one, the data had been remodelled relative to the raw data and also relative to the remodelled version one.

The bureau said the data in version two was subjected to two rounds of homogenisation, as had been the case with version one. “In total, 22 of the 966 ­adjustments applied in version two of the ACORN-SAT data set arose from this second-round procedure,” the bureau said.

A technical analysis of ACORN-SAT 2 by the bureau said 1910-2016 trends in Australian temperature were about 0.02C a decade higher than those found in version one. It said rounding errors in version one accounted for much of the new trend.

Dr Marohasy said the bureau had not explained how it could have generated a 23 per cent increase in the rate of warming, just through updating the official ACORN-SAT ­record.

The maximum-temperature trend from 1910 to 2016 at the 112 ACORN-SAT weather stations is now an increase of 0.116C a decade. It was 0.09C a decade in the earlier homogenised data.

The minimum-temperature trend is now an increase of 0.13C a decade, compared with 0.109C in ACORN-SAT 1.

The bureau said improved ­accounting for the widespread relocation of sites out of towns during the 1990s and 2000s, and the incorporation of recent data from new sites, were also substantial contributors.

Dr Marohasy said movement of sites was meant to be part of the adjustments made in the first version of the data.

“The incorporation of data from new sites may account for some of the 23 per cent increase,” Dr Marohasy said, “because the bureau have opened new sites in hotter western NSW, while closing higher-altitude weather stations, including Charlotte Pass in the Snowy Mountains.”

She said there had been no proper analysis of the effect of changing from manual to automatic weather stations.

The bureau said no evidence was found of a significant systematic impact arising from the change from manual to automatic weather stations. It said that ACORN-SAT 2 had increased robustness and greater spatial coherence, especially for minimum temperatures.

The new data records are likely to be seized upon by green groups in the lead up to the federal election.

SOURCE  






Border security policy not based on ‘racism’ and ‘hate’

It was one of the more naive propositions from a journalist so far this year. On Tuesday, ABC TV 7.30 presenter Leigh Sales interviewed Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton on border protection. The specific focus was on the Labor/Greens/independent bill that passed the House of Representatives, concerning medical evacuations of refugees and asylum-seekers currently on Manus Island and Nauru.

After apologising for continuing to interrupt, Sales put it to Dutton that, following the new legislation, a people-smuggler would now have to refine the product on offer to asylum-seekers who are based in Indonesia or nearby. According to Sales, the new offer would be as follows: “OK, you can get on a boat to Australia, but there is a very high chance that you will be turned back. If you’re not turned back, you might be sent to Nauru and Manus Island. If you’re there, you might be able to get two doctors to sign off on a medical evacuation for yourself. The minister might allow that to happen. If you get to Australia, you might be able to lodge a court action and find yourself staying in Australia.” She added: “That doesn’t sound like a very attractive product.”

How naive can you get? For starters, people-smugglers — who grow rich on the misfortune of others — are not truthful. They highlight the chance to success, not the possibility of failure. And certainly not the likelihood of drowning.

Any perceived weakening in Australian border protection makes it easier for people-smugglers to sell their product. When prime minister John Howard and Tony Abbott put up the red flag, the boats stopped coming. When Labor’s Kevin Rudd moved the sign to amber, some 50,000 asylum-seekers reached Australia by boat in around five years. It is estimated that some 1200 of the 50,000 drowned at sea.

It was Rudd who put asylum-seekers on Manus Island and Nauru when he replaced Julia Gillard as prime minister in the lead-up to the 2013 election. And it was Abbott — with the assistance of first Scott Morrison and then Peter Dutton — who effectively stopped the boats for what has now amounted to six years.

It is perfectly understandable that some Australians feel sympathy for asylum-seekers and refugees in detention. However, it should be remembered that virtually everyone who arrives in Australia by boat has taken part in a secondary movement. In short, they are not fleeing immediate fear of death or persecution at the place from which they embarked on their sea journey.

Take a young Iranian man currently in offshore detention, for example. He probably will have flown, on a valid passport, from Iran or close by to Jakarta with the expressed intention of engaging a people-smuggler to reach Australia. Meanwhile, refugees in the UNHCR camps in parts of Africa and Asia, who cannot afford to pay people-smugglers, have to wait until places are found in such nations as the US, Canada and ­Australia.

Many Australians who strongly oppose unauthorised boat arrivals do not object to our generous refugee and humanitarian intake, currently running at about 17,500 a year.

Also, the decision of the Abbott government to accept a special intake of some 12,000 victims of the civil war in Syria was widely accepted and appears to have been successful.

In other words, there are well-meaning people on both sides of the debate. It is understandable that some Australians believe that detainees on Manus Island and Nauru should be accepted immediately in Australia. And it’s understandable that some focus on the likely unintended consequences of well-meaning actions.

However, anyone arriving in Australia on Tuesday and turning on ABC TV’s The Drum would not get this impression. The program’s co-presenters Julia Baird and Ellen Fanning like to describe The Drum as being long on respectful discussion and short on rhetorical aggression.

This was not the case on Tuesday, when former race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane let fly at the Coalition policy on border protection in general and its opposition to the medical evacuation legislation — which will give medical practitioners in Australia a significant role in determining which refugees and asylum-seekers will remain in offshore detention.

Soutphommasane described the government’s decision to re-open the detention centre on Christmas Island as “flicking the switch to fear”. He depicted this as the “foreshadowing of some race politics to be played later this year”. Later, he labelled some of those whom he disagreed with as racists engaging in hate. Baird did not contest his assertions.

Soutphommasane’s Drum appearance followed the publication by MUP of his booklet On Hate. This is a profoundly partisan treatise. The author sees hatred as rampant in Australia but defines it as related to identity. He depicts non-white Australians as the target of hate — along with women plus “gays, lesbians or transgender people”.

Soutphommasane is so ideologically blinkered that he only sees hate in right-of-centre or conservative circles. He ignores the reality of anti-Semitism. Hatred of Jews was once the preserve of the extreme Right. Not any more. Anti-semitism is rife within left-wing or left-of-centre politics. I You would never know this from reading On Hate.

Likewise, Soutphommasane ignores the hate and ridicule directed at conservative Christians. And he overlooks the violence and threats of violence directed at right-of-centre individuals.

Unlike journalists and commentators, democratic governments have to make decisions and resolve problems. It’s all too easy to shout “racist” or “hate” when a government moves to enforce border security and, as a consequence, eliminate or reduce drownings at sea. And it’s all too easy to believe that people-smugglers are truthful traders.

SOURCE  






Misreading the data will not help the teachers

Outdated teaching methods based on disproved theories remain widespread despite the abundance of good and easily available information on effective, evidence-based instruction.

The gap between research and practice is an enduring and critical challenge in education — nowhere more so than in how to teach reading. Many children in developed countries with high levels of education spending have low literacy when almost all children can learn with good instruction.

What is preventing the uptake of proven teaching methods in classrooms? The Reading Recovery program gives an almost perfect illustration. It is arguably the most widely used intervention for children who need such support in the early years of school.

Developed in New Zealand by Dame Marie Clay in the 1970s based on her theories about how children learn to read, it is used in thousands of schools around the world. Its advocates are strongly committed to the belief that it helps the children who participate. Its critics say that there is no good evidence that the program works, and its teaching methods do not reflect what we now know about how children learn to read.

In this case, lack of evidence doesn’t mean lack of research. Reading Recovery has been the subject of dozens of studies over several decades.

Much of the research is low quality in terms of evidence standards. But some recent research is more rigorous, including longitudinal studies published in Australia, the US and England in recent years.

A large Australian study published by the NSW Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation in 2016 involved more than 20,000 students. It found that children who had participated in Reading Recovery in Year 1 performed worse on the Year 3 NAPLAN reading assessment than a matched sample of students who had not participated in the program. That’s right. Worse.

After up to 20 weeks of daily one-to-one 30-minute lessons with highly trained teachers, these children ended up with lower reading ability than peers who had similar reading ability at the start of the study.

As a result, after years of ignoring researchers in Australia and New Zealand who had been loudly and unswervingly warning that Reading Recovery was not effective for most students, the NSW government finally stopped providing dedicated funding for it.

Nevertheless, despite some of the clearest findings in educational research, public and non-government schools around Australia have continued to fund the program from discretionary budgets. They are convinced that it works, and any new piece of research that appears to confirm that belief is seized upon.

New findings published in Britain last year would appear to vindicate the loyalty of Reading Recovery acolytes. In reality, however, it only proves the lengths that Reading Recovery supporters will go to in order to defend it, even to the extent of obfuscating data.

The latest UK Every Child a Reader study, conducted by academics from University College London and funded and published by the KPMG Foundation, was launched with great fanfare at the House of Lords in December. The report claims to show that Reading Recovery in Year 1 was responsible for high scores in the General Certificate of School Education 10 years later.

The KPMG Foundation commissioned an economic analysis which estimated a £1.2 billion ($2.2bn) boost to the economy if all struggling readers were given Reading Recovery.

However, closer scrutiny of the latest report revealed a methodological mystery — a group of students present in the five-year follow-up study published in 2012 were missing from the 10-year study. The missing children comprised an entire group of more than 50 students (about 20 per cent of the sample) who had formed a second comparison group in the original study and in the
five-year follow-up. The omission of this second comparison group is neither acknowledged nor explained in the 10-year study report.

Why is this a big deal? Because the data from the missing second comparison group completely undermines the conclusions drawn in the published report.

To explain: In the original study, there were three groups of students. Two groups of students came from a set of Reading Recovery schools. Some of the students in the Reading Recovery schools did Reading Recovery in Year 1 (RR group) and some did not do Reading Recovery (RRC). A comparison group of students was drawn from a set of non-Reading Recovery schools (CC).

In the five-year follow-up study, the three groups were compared on their results in the Key Stage 2 (KS2) curriculum tests, taken in Year 6 of primary school. There was no statistically significant difference in the KS2 scores of the two groups of children in Reading Recovery schools (RR and RRC). Both of these groups had significantly higher KS2 scores than children in the non-Reading Recovery schools (CC).

That is, in Year 6, the children in Reading Recovery schools outperformed the comparison students irrespective of whether they actually participated in Reading Recovery.

This indicates that any advantage of the students in Reading Recovery schools was not attributable to participation in Reading Recovery — it must have been due to something else about those students, those schools, or both. In the published version of the 10-year follow-up study, only two groups are compared — the students who did Reading Recovery (RR) and the comparison group from non-Reading Recovery schools (CC).

The students in Reading Recovery schools who did not do Reading Recovery (RRC) are omitted. The RR group had markedly higher GCSE results than the CC group, allowing the authors to conclude that “the positive effect of Reading Recovery on qualifications at age 16 is marked in this study and suggests a sustained intervention effect.”

Having remembered that the five-year study was much less straightforward and conclusive, I wrote to the lead author of the study — Jane Hurry — and asked about the missing group. The professor replied with the explanation that she had written two versions of the 10-year follow-up study, one that included the second comparison group results and one that excluded them. KPMG Foundation chose to publish the latter.

Hurry readily provided me with the copy of the alternative unpublished version of the 10-year follow-up report. It shows that there was no difference in GCSE scores between students in the set of Reading Recovery schools who had done Reading Recovery and those that had not (the missing RRC group). Both of these groups had significantly higher scores than the children in comparison schools.

Again, this means that the higher GCSE scores of children in the set of Reading Recovery schools was not due to participation in Reading Recovery. Children from the same schools who had not done Reading Recovery had performed just as well.

Tolerance for poor evidence standards in education is not a victimless crime. The total cost of implementing ineffective reading programs is much larger than the budget allocated to teacher training and teacher time.

There are enormous and tragic opportunity costs for the children involved, with profound impacts on their educational achievement and wellbeing.

SOURCE  


   




Australian tribunal finds that Muslims are not a race.  So criticism of them is not racist

TV host Sonia Kruger vilified and stereotyped Muslims living in Australia during a controversial segment on Channel 9’s Today program, but she did not racially vilify Muslims because religion is not a race, a tribunal has judged.

Nine has said the network is standing by its star.

The Nine Network was taken to the New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NSW CAT) by Sydney man Sam Ekermawi after he saw a segment on Today on 18 July 2016 where Kruger said no more Muslims should be allowed into Australia “because I want to feel safe”.

On the show’s Mixed Grill segment, Kruger and co-hosts Lisa Wilkinson and David Campbell discussed a newspaper opinion piece by News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt on Muslim immigration within Europe.

The discussion came just days after an attack in the French city of Nice perpetrated by a Muslim terrorist that saw 86 people killed when a truck slammed into revellers at a Bastille Day celebration.

Talking to Wilkinson about whether Australia’s border should be closed to Muslim immigrants, Kruger said: “Personally, I think Andrew Bolt has a point here, that there is a correlation between the number of people who … are Muslim in a country and the number of terrorist attacks.

“Now I have a lot of very good friends who are Muslim, who are peace-loving who are beautiful people, but there are fanatics.

“Personally I would like to see it stopped now for Australia. Because I want to feel safe, as all of our citizens do, when they go out to celebrate Australia Day.”

Later Wilkinson asked Kruger to clarify if she really “would like our borders closed to Muslims at this point?”.

“Yes I would. I think we have something like 500,000 (Muslims) now in our country … but for the safely of the citizens here, I think it’s important,” Kruger replied.

Mr Ekermawi complained Kruger’s comments amounted to racial vilification.

The tribunal said the comments went “beyond simply a fair report of Andrew Bolt’s article”. “(Kruger) provided her own views and commentary on the issues and these additions were not just opinion, they were vilifying remarks in their own right,” it said.

Mr Bolt’s article, the tribunal noted, said that “the number of Muslims in the country does not tell the full story” and that Germany might have faced fewer attacks because many Muslims who had emigrated there had come from Turkey, a country with a more western outlook. However, a similar distinction was not expressed by Kruger.

“In particular, we refer to her remarks that all Muslim migration should be stopped now ‘because I want to feel safe, as all of our citizens do, when they go out to celebrate Australia Day’,” the decision read.

“Ms Kruger could have expressed her comments in a more measured manner to avoid a finding of vilification. For example, she could have referred to the need for Australia to engage in greater security checking of people wishing to migrate who may happen to be Muslims and the need to prevent a drift towards radicalisation among Muslims currently in Australia, rather than simply stating that 500,000 Muslims represents an unacceptable safety risk which justifies stopping all Muslim migration.”

Overall, the tribunal accepted that the discussion was in the public interest and Kruger and Nine “were acting in good faith without malice and not for an improper purpose”.

But the tribunal said they could not accept Kruger’s statements were “reasonable” and appeared to be “unsupported by any evidence or material”.

“A type of stereotyping was being made in … that all members of this ‘Muslim community’ were tarnished as potential terrorists or sympathisers of terrorism,” it found.

The tribunal said Muslim Australians face discrimination and Kruger’s comments could have stoked this.

“Some ordinary members of the Australian population already harbour feelings of hatred towards, or serious contempt for, Australian Muslims as a whole. In our view, such feelings or emotions would be encouraged or incited among ordinary members of the Australian population by Ms Kruger’s remarks.”

“I want to make it very clear that I have complete respect for people of all races and religions. I acknowledge my views yesterday may have been extreme,” she said. “There is no simple answer here and if we are to find a solution, at the very least we need to be able to discuss it.”

The tribunal dismissed Mr Ekermawi’s racial vilification claim chiefly because it could not find grounds for a religion being a race. “The evidence does not support a finding that Muslims living in Australia are a ‘race’ by reason of a common ethnic or ethno-religious origin.”

However, the NSW CAT said had the definition of race been different: “we would have found that both of the Respondents engaged in racial vilification of the Australian Muslim community.”

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Australia's Aboriginal problem

Lots of people think "we" should solve it.  Fine.  Let them tell us what to do.  They cannot. It has all been tried before over many years and, as you read below, nothing works. The sitution tends to get worse rather than better.  Only the missionaries ever did any good and they have been banished long ago

It’s a bright Broome morning with a big, blue, cloudless sky, and I’ve just seen a kid defecate on the town oval. He’s about six or seven years old and, once his business is done, he wanders back to sit with a group of women who are drinking in the shade outside the Broome Visitor Centre.

It’s 11am. I’ve been in town about 15 minutes. This was not in the brochure.

The last time I was in Broome was 25 years ago. Like so many who come to this Kimberley town which welcomes the itinerant and tourist dollar, I lived and worked here for a while before moving on.

Whenever someone asks me what it was like to live in one of Australia’s most beautiful – and most marketed – tourist hotspots, I always tell them the truth: it’s impossibly gorgeous to look at, but the social problems in the town far outweigh any tourist attraction.

There was shocking domestic violence and child abuse; there were huge groups of people drinking all day on the oval before they passed out on the footpath; and there were people with nowhere to live, ‘camping’ in the dunes near Chinatown and sleeping in parks and reserves.

More than two decades on, I’d hoped these issues had been resolved, or that there’d at least been some improvement.

That there has been neither resolution nor improvement – it’s worse now than I remember it being in the 90s – is not only horrifically sad, it’s bordering on criminal neglect.

Findings by State Coroner Ros Fogliani following an inquest into the suicides – including two in Broome – of 13 Indigenous children and young people in the Kimberley released last week laid bare the "urgent need to understand the deep inequalities giving rise to the current poor state of wellbeing of Aboriginal people in the Kimberley Region".

The Coroner referred to the "tragic events" as having been shaped by the "crushing effects of intergenerational trauma and poverty upon entire communities".

It’s very easy to sit in our comfortable homes in big cities and commentate on the plight of a group of people plagued by endemic social dysfunction and think we’ve done our bit by signing a change.org petition or changing our Facebook profile picture to an Aboriginal flag.

But how many of us have seen for ourselves the living conditions and intergenerational trauma cited by the Coroner that prompted the need for – another – inquest into Indigenous youth suicide?

How many have made the effort to not only try to understand why so many Aboriginal kids are taking their own lives, but to actually do something about it?

Even the fact that anyone has done this is still not cause for congratulations. Because here we are again. Another inquest, 10 years after the last one.

Whatever we’re doing to try to help this situation is not working. We are failing these people.

Thomas King runs the Kullari Patrol in Broome. The Kullari van picks up intoxicated people and makes sure they either get home, or to the local ‘sober-up’ shelter, or at least to somewhere safe.

Mr King does not think there will be a need for another inquest into Indigenous youth suicides in 10 years. He thinks it will be much sooner. And he is perfectly placed to make such a reckoning. He’s seen it all on the streets of the tropical town, and what he’s seen isn’t pretty.

“This is a town rife with hopelessness,” Mr King tells me.

I believe him. I can see it with my own eyes.

Liquor restrictions in surrounding towns and communities has made Broome a hub for those who want to drink.

I met some of them over the past few days; alcoholics for whom one drink is both too much and never enough.

Their stories make for heartbreaking reading. But they’re not unique to Broome.

It’s the context of this setting that is particularly jarring: crystal-clear blue water, pearls and palm trees sell one side of the town, while these people remain just far enough from our peripheral vision that we can justify averting our gaze.

SOURCE  






Coal firm blamed for flooding beyond its control

The floods in North Queensland were greatly in excess of normal expectations

The Queensland Government is investigating whether Indian mining firm Adani has breached its environmental licence for the second time in two years with the release of coal-laden floodwaters from its coal port at Abbot Point in the state's north.

It comes as Adani revealed it did not apply for an emergency permit to dump more polluted water into the sensitive Caley Valley wetlands during the north Queensland floods last week.

The company told the ABC that Abbot Point operators were confident they could manage floodwaters with new infrastructure, but were then overwhelmed by flows from neighbouring properties.

Adani's own testing showed water released into the wetlands on February 7 had almost double the authorised concentration of "suspended solids", which included coal sediment.

But Abbot Point Operations chief executive Dwayne Freeman said their testing showed the water with 58 milligrams of sediment per litre, and that this was not "coal-laden sludge".

"This is a very minor elevation in total suspended solids ... we are confident there will be no environmental impacts to the wetlands area, despite this unprecedented weather event," he said in a statement.

A spokesman for the Department of Environment and Science (DES) said it was awaiting test results on water samples taken by its own officers on February 8.

The spokesman confirmed Adani's environmental authority for the port "imposes a maximum limit of 30 mg/L".

"DES will consider the results from the laboratory analysis along with other information in relation to the release event before making any determination as to whether or not the company has complied with the environmental authority conditions for the site," he said.

"Concurrent with the specific investigation into the release during the recent weather event, DES also continues to implement a long-term monitoring program in the adjacent Caley Valley wetland to determine whether any adverse impacts on environmental values is occurring."

SOURCE  







Christmas Island detention centre to be RE-OPENED with fears Australia will be flooded with illegal refugee boats - after Labor's medical treatment deal passes parliament

Scott Morrison is significantly ramping up border security patrols and reopening Christmas Island to guard against a feared influx of asylum-seeker boats.

The prime minister warned changes to fast-track medical evacuations for asylum seekers held offshore, which passed against the government's wishes on Wednesday, could restart the people-smuggling trade.

'My job now is to ensure that the boats don't come,' he said. 'My job now is to do everything within my power, and in the power of the government, to ensure that what the parliament has done to weaken our borders does not result in boats coming to Australia.'

The prime minister denied his ramped up rhetoric played into the hands of people smugglers. 'I'm standing between people smugglers and bringing a boat to Australia,' he said.

Mr Morrison announced the re-opening of Christmas Island as the Senate narrowly passed new laws fast-tracking medical evacuations for asylum seekers, 36 votes to 34.  

The transfers only apply to the existing cohort of refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru but the Government has warned the move sends a dangerous signal to people smugglers.

It also sets the stage for an election, due in a few months, fought on border security. Mr Morrison pledged to reverse the laws if the coalition was re-elected at the poll expected in mid-May.

He argued people smugglers did not deal with the nuance of the 'Canberra bubble' but rather the psychology of messaging about 'stronger' and 'weaker' borders.

The government lost a historic vote in parliament on Tuesday night - the first time a sitting government has lost a vote on its own bill for the first time in 78 years.

The refugee transfer laws were passed in the House of Representatives by 75 votes to 74 after Labor was joined by the Greens and all independents except Bob Katter.

It then passed through the Senate on Wednesday.

SOURCE  






France maintains it will deliver Australia's $50 billion 'Barracuda' submarines on time

Famous last words?

France's visiting Defence Minister has assured Australia the future submarine program will run on time, despite a similar build project running three years late in her country.

On Monday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was joined by French Defence Minister Florence Parly to sign a long awaited "strategic partnering agreement" to underpin the $50 billion Future Submarine project.

The signing came after months of tense negotiations between Australian defence officials and representatives of French state-owned company Naval Group.

Last year the ABC revealed the Federal Government had grown so frustrated with Naval Group that Defence Minister Christopher Pyne refused to meet top officials who were visiting Australia.

In her only interview before flying home to Paris, Ms Parly acknowledged "cultural differences" with Australia over the defence project but also talked up the strengthened friendship between both nations.

"Of course there are cultural differences. You are an Anglo-Saxon country, with an Anglo-Saxon legal tradition — we are a more Latin country, but I think that the teams worked very well together," Ms Parly said.

"It will have a great impact on Australian economy and Australian jobs but it also tightens the links in our two countries. "It is important that democracies that share values can go farther and build the future together."

In France, Naval Group has faced serious delays with another submarine project, the construction of new 'Barracuda' nuclear-powered submarines.

Despite Naval Group's three-year delay with its project in France, Ms Parly says there will be no flow on effects for Australia's program. "It's very much related to the nuclear part of our submarines and related to new norms and controls that did not exist before," she said.

"There is no risk in my view, that the Attack Class submarines be delayed. "The negotiators spent a lot of time, making sure that all the provisions are there, that there are no risks, and I don't see any risk of failure."

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Bettina Arndt on Heather Mac Donald

Bettina's most recent report below. She opposes the feminist demonization of men, particularly in Australia's universities


Heather

"What a lonely job, working the phones at a college rape centre. Day after day, you wait for the casualties to show up from the campus rape epidemic. But hardly any victims ever show up"

Pretty funny, eh?  That’s the provocative idea which introduces Heather Mac Donald’s chapter on the campus rape myth from her new book, "The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine our Culture".

It’s typical punchy stuff from a woman who has had long, impressive career as a writer and commentator. Heather Mac Donald is currently a contributing editor to City Journal and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. She’s an outspoken commentator, for instance taking on lies in the ‘black lives matter’ narrative when speaking out about criminal justice reform and race relations, immigration and policing.

I was delighted to talk to her recently, particularly about her strong views on gender politics and the universities, an area where we have had remarkably similar experiences and similar concerns. Experiences like facing a howling mob of protesters at a university campus. My regular viewers will know the riot squad was brought in last year at Sydney University to remove protesters denying entry to the venue where I was supposed to be talking about the fake rape crisis. Heather was prevented from giving a talk about racial issues at Clairmont University – she ended up speaking to an empty room while the police protected her from the baying mob.

I’m very alarmed about the grip of the campus rape myth in Australia and thought it was timely to have Heather Mac Donald explain how this manufactured feminist scare campaign was used in her country to bully politicians into setting up tribunals where so many young men were falsely accused and thrown out of their universities – with dire consequences for the higher education sector, particularly when many of these students successfully sued over the failure of the colleges to protect their legal rights. 

This is exactly where we are heading in Australia – which is why I wanted Heather to reveal the dire consequences for male students if we fail to stand up to this orchestrated campaign.

I’m sure you will be impressed by her passionate, articulate presentation of this important issue. Please circulate my video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlVI7CpUmSU)



And read Heather’s book. Her detailed description of the armies of diversity bureaucrats now running American colleges will send shivers down your spine.

Don’t let the wicked witches win!

I’m really concerned that feminist campaigners are winning round after round in this battle. Look at our Deputy Opposition leader Tanya Plibersek’s promise to remove funding from universities which fail to promote the rape crisis, or the Union of Students promise to provide funding for activists opposing my talks on campus. Most recently we have seen our notorious feminist domestic violence organisation, OurWatch, in league with the universities to promote this nonsense.

We need to get active on this issue. Please write to your MP’s, contact people you know in universities, talk to students, write comments on online newspapers, contact editors over articles promoting the rape crisis. I’m going to attach a few documents to help you, outlining recent events in Australia. I’ll include evidence regarding university regulations which have recently been introduced to adjudicate rape cases – without proper legal protections for the accused and using lower standards of proof. Plus a list of articles outlining recent key events.

I’ll soon be announcing the first of my campus tour stops this year. I hope some of you will be able to come along and support me. I have big plans for Sydney University. It’s infuriating that we have heard nothing about the progress of my complaints about the protesters. Clearly, they hope I will just go away – but they have another think coming.

Finally, my YouTube Q&A is happening this Wednesday, February 13.

Yes, I know this was supposed to take place last week. I’m so sorry I didn’t manage to let you all know we’d been forced to postpone it. Here’s the link for the YouTube session

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zapPx8JaHOU 

Subscribers can visit this page now to receive notification when the Q&A goes live.

Via email from Bettina: bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au






Bill Shorten in backdown on borders

Bill Shorten has secured support from the Labor caucus for a retreat on the refugee medivac bill, amid ­concerns the draft laws championed by Kerryn Phelps could lead to the dismantling of offshore processing and allow Scott Morrison to fight the next election on national security.

After backing the laws through the ­Senate last year, the Labor caucus last night endorsed key amendments, aimed at strengthening ministerial oversight of doctor-ordered refugee medical transfers.

But the Prime Minister moved to set up a parliamentary ­showdown for today, ruling out government support for the medivac legislation backed by independents and the Greens “in any form”, making clear he would not be concerned by a historic defeat on the floor of the House of Representatives.

He warned the bill would compromise government control over who entered Australia, take the nation “backwards” and risk thousands of lives at sea. “It’s not who wins or loses a vote,” Mr Morrison said. “The only test is: will Bill Shorten cave in and undermine our border protection by passing this bill in any form?”

The possibility of a split ­between the major parties over tough new terrorism laws also emerged last night.

Penny Wong told Labor MPs that the opposition was “likely to issue a dissenting report” against a bill that would strengthen the government’s ability to cancel the citizenship of dual nationals who had been convicted of terrorism offences. The bill would remove the requirement for a person to be sentenced to at least six years imprisonment in order to be eligible for the stripping of their Australian citizenship.

The government’s legislation was referred to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security last November. This would be the first time Labor members of the committee have issued a dissenting report, setting up another pre-election battle with Mr Morrison over national security.

Labor’s backdown on the medivac bill has reopened factional splits over border protection after it passed through the partyroom without a vote.

The Australian understands left-wing MP Andrew Giles spoke out against the amendments, saying that Labor should not support leaving sick people on Manus and Nauru, and back the medivac bill without further changes.

The Coalition will oppose all of Labor’s amendments, meaning the opposition will need six of the seven crossbenchers for the overhaul to succeed in the lower house. North Queensland MP Bob Katter has said he will vote against the bill.

Greens MP Adam Bandt voiced his disappointment at Labor’s change in position.

The Greens will meet this morning to discuss their position but are understood to be concerned that Labor’s changes, which could be debated in the lower house as soon as today, will render the shake-up ineffective. “I am angry that Labor is once again caving in when it comes to refugees,” Mr Bandt said.

Following security briefings from the Department of Home ­Affairs and Australian Border Force, Mr Shorten yesterday ­settled on three principles aimed at toughening the medivac bill. They included broadening the definition of national security — which presently includes ­espionage, sabotage and attacks on defence assets — to cover ­serious crimes.

Despite claiming that ministerial oversight of refugee transfers was guaranteed, Labor last night agreed to give the minister greater discretion to reject proposed medivacs on character grounds. Advice to government from ­intelligence agencies and the ­Australian Government Solicitor has warned that the minister would be powerless to prevent medical transfers for those convicted of serious offences, including rape and murder.

The ALP caucus last night also agreed that the new medical transfer laws be limited and apply only to those currently being held on Manus and Nauru. It would not apply to new arrivals. Labor sources said this was a non-negotiable position that would be a key factor in addressing concerns that the medivac bill would restart the people-smuggling industry.

Labor would also either abolish or extend the 24-hour period for ministerial consideration of candidates for medical evacuation.

In December, Labor senators supported the medivac bill through the upper house. The bill was designed to hand doctors ­vastly enhanced powers to decide which asylum-seekers or refugees could be brought to Australia

Mr Morrison yesterday used an address to the National Press Club in Canberra to criticise the medivac bill as a step that would take Australia “backwards” and compromise government control over borders by empowering doctors. “The Australian government will run our borders,” Mr Morrison said. “That’s who will run our borders under our government and that’s how it will always be under our government.

This is the problem with Bill Shorten on national security, on borders or anything else. He thinks it’s something you trade on. He says; ‘Oh, let’s find the middle ground.’ No, no, I’m going to stand on the right ground.

Crossbenchers including Dr Phelps did not rule out supporting an amendment to give the ­immigration minister complete discretion.  “Until we receive anything we can’t consider (it),” Dr Phelps’ spokesman said.

SOURCE  







NSW Greens push for mandatory solar and batteries for all new homes

As if new house prices were not unaffordable already for average workers

The bidding war among NSW political parties over solar panels has been joined by the Greens who want photovoltaic systems and batteries to be made compulsory for all new dwellings.

The Greens would also introduce a $2000 rebate for the introduction of panels plus storage for half a million homes as part of $1.25 billion boost over four years for the sector.

All public housing and government buildings would get panels too at a cost of $250 million, with 110,000 public housing tenants in line to receive electricity rebates, according to the Greens' policy aimed at the March 23 state election.

“It is negligent that in 2019 we have over 70,000 new dwellings in NSW every year and no requirement for solar panels on these developments," Cate Faehrmann, the Greens environment spokeswoman, said. Owners of new dwellings would pay into a renewable energy offset scheme as an alternative to adding panels or storage.

The Greens' policy follows Labor's launch on Saturday of its plan to support 500,000 households get solar, with a rebate capped at $2200 for households with annual income of $180,000 or less.

The Berejiklian government followed a day later with the release of a scheme offering no-interest loans for solar energy and batteries for as many as 300,000 owner-occupied households.

For those living in flats or renting, the Greens would set up an offset scheme to buy credits for solar arrays on their building or offsite. Some 20 per cent of all private dwellings in the state are apartments, while about 32 per cent of residents are renting - people who are currently "locked out of the benefits of roof top solar,"  the Greens said.

SOURCE  







Outback oil Australia's 'best immediate prospect' for domestic production

That's according to Federal Resources Minister Matt Canavan, who has declared the NT's Beetaloo Basin as "the best immediate prospect" for a major new national oil and gas hub.

"Twenty years ago we had 96 per cent of our petroleum produced domestically in a raw product form," Senator Canavan said in Darwin.

"Now we can only meet about half of our petroleum needs from domestic sources of production, and in a continent as large as ours I hope we can find another oil and gas province to replace [Tasmania's] Bass Strait.

"The best immediate prospect we have, across all of the onshore and offshore areas, is in the Beetaloo Basin, and that's fantastic news for the Northern Territory."

It follow's briefings to investors in December and January by some of the oil and gas companies with exploration permission in the huge area, stretching from Mataranka to Elliott, that they intend to target "liquid-rich" shales.

'Important for national security'

Senator Canavan said there were "a lot of people excited about the potential for liquid production in the shale fields of the Beetaloo Basin".

"And that could help return us to self-sustainability in oil, which is very important for our national security," he said.

In December last year Origin Energy told investors that this dry season it would carry out an appraisal "targeting liquids rich gas" in the Kyalla and Velkerri rock formations in the Beetaloo Basin in the middle of 2019.

Falcon Oil and Gas last month said that along with dry gas, it would assess the potential of the liquids-rich Kyalla and Velkerri formations.

Origin Energy said it is not drilling for oil, but that it expects to produce "ethane and propane which is LPG or bottled gas, butane which is used as fuel in lighters, or condensate".

"The rigorous processes and controls we have in place — including those being applied following the Pepper inquiry — are also no different whether the source is predominantly natural gas or 'dry gas' — or liquid rich," a spokesman for the company said.

NT minister to seek briefing

New Northern Territory Resources Minister Paul Kirby said he was not sure why the Pepper inquiry did not consider liquids.

"I'm not sure about the detail of some of that. Obviously I'll get up to speed with issues that are going on in the Beetaloo as quickly as I possibly can, but as to the exact detail of that, I'll have to get a brief around what people are exactly exploring for," he said.

He did not expect new regulations to be any impediment to the resumption of exploration within a few months.

"There won't be any regulation that will impede people's progress, the companies will be able to progress, and start exploration over the coming months, as long as they have met all the requirements that they need to meet," he said.

The Australian Petroleum Production And Exploration Association said the risks and mitigation measures for fracking for gas and oil were the same, so the inquiry's recommendations on gas could also be applied to liquids.

"There are no risks associated with producing either oil, or some of these liquid forms of gas that differ from the production of dry gas," APPEA's Matt Doman said.

He said liquids could be a cherry on the cake of a gas operation.

"Liquid-rich gas brings with it additional revenue streams, and increases the royalty streams that would go to the Government. We're keen to ascertain whether that is a potential here," he said.

SOURCE

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here