Abu Asma, along with about 80 others, is fighting in Syria, and Abu performed the traditional terrorist assault with a truck bomb. It is unlikely Abu will atone for this sin. The eighty other participants seem to be delaying their atonement. Meanwhile it appears the Christian friendly Assad has gassed his people again. Maybe he hasn't, maybe it was a release of chemicals he didn't authorise. That can happen. It is unlikely Obama will be able to dither more, but he can dither longer. Putin is the strong man of these times, and he will facilitate talks.
Meanwhile, the party that invited many of Abu's country folk to come to Australia uninvited, and call themselves Australian while fighting for their land overseas, is fighting over its' leadership. Albanese saw caucus before announcing he will not change previous policy. Meanwhile, Shorten went straight to the press with the message he would not change any policy. It is strange because the ALP lost the election with unpopular policy underpinning their bad administration, and these two had voted for every dud. Without a leader, nobody knows what the ALP stands for, but one things is certain, regardless of who becomes leader, policy won't change.
There is a call in the US to defund Obamacare. A Democrat Senator is upset with the democratic recall process. California still burns. Two thugs who tried to steal a car mistook a victim who was actually armed. Clearly concealed weapons are a threat to thugs. Still, time for the living to atone.
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Happy birthday and many happy returns Warwick Poulsen and A K Navarro Robles-Encenarial. Born on the same day, across the years as Julia Flavia (64), K'inich Ahkal Mo' Naab' III (678), William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (1521), Samuel Wilson (1766), Clara Schumann (1819), Milton S. Hershey (1857), Claudette Colbert (1903), Mae Questel (1908), Roald Dahl (1916), Maurice Jarre (1924), Donald Mackay (1933), Fiona Apple (1977) and Robbie Kay (1995). On your day, Feast Day of Saint John Chrysostom (Western Christianity); Yom Kippur begins at sunset (Judaism, 2013)
1759 – Seven Years' War: British forces defeated the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham near Quebec City, New France, though General James Wolfe was mortally wounded.
1814 – War of 1812: Fort McHenry in Baltimore's Inner Harbor was attacked by British forces during the Battle of Baltimore, later inspiring Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner", which later became the national anthem of the United States.
1933 – Elizabeth McCombs became the first woman elected to the Parliament of New Zealand.
1988 – Hurricane Gilbert reached a minimum pressure of 888 mb (26.22 inHg) with sustained flight-level winds of 185 mph (295 km/h), making it the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record at the time.
2008 – Five synchronised bomb blasts took place within a span of few minutes in Delhi, India, resulting in 30 deaths and 130 injuries. Quebec became forever divided. Bombs bursting in air gave proof, through the night, that our flag was still there. NZ won the gender wars. Gilbert was intense. Radical Islam attacked India, again. With or without robes, enjoy your day.
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Labor left to foot a big carbon tax, Bill
Piers Akerman – Thursday, September 12, 2013 (7:17pm)
The crushed Labor Party has learnt nothing from last Saturday’s trouncing.
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STABBY vs WEEPY
Tim Blair – Friday, September 13, 2013 (1:47pm)
Bob Ellis’s latest prediction, at 10am today:
Albo won’t stand.
Wrong again, comrade. A month-long battle for Labor leadership is now underway between Anthony Albanese and Bill Shorten.
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ROUTINE HARD TO BREAK
Tim Blair – Friday, September 13, 2013 (12:18pm)
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Albo runs, too
Andrew Bolt September 13 2013 (11:54am)
It’s on - Albanese vs Bill Shorten for the Labor leadership:
Anthony Albanese has decided to contest the Labor leadership, paving the way for a nationwide ballot to decide who will be opposition leader.
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The reason the Left is jeering at Mirabella
Andrew Bolt September 13 2013 (9:45am)
If you are puzzled by
the Left’s cheering at the defeat of Liberal frontbencher Sophie
Mirabella in Indi at the hands of a Nationals-backed “rural independent”
here’s the reason.
It’s not just that Mirabella is a conservative. It’s that independent Cathy McGowan is not.
Anthony Coralluzzo tried to warn:
UPDATE
That said, McGowan has far more class than some of the Left supporting her:
It’s not just that Mirabella is a conservative. It’s that independent Cathy McGowan is not.
Anthony Coralluzzo tried to warn:
Cathy McGowan is a Greens-like candidate of the far-left, but that’s not the image the “independent” candidate wants out there in the electorate…Much more at the link, including more links.
The origin of McGowan’s campaign is a small group calling itself “Voice 4 Indi” (V4I), which was formed in September 2012. The group is full of activists of the far-left.
There’s Anthony Lane, a green activist who was the inaugural chair of the Wangaratta Sustainability Network. The organisation is a recipient of taxpayer’s money, and advocates a 100% renewable energy mandate. They even go so far as to say “It’s criminal to keep supporting non-renewable energy"…
Rowan O’Hagan is also a green activist, and was founder and secretary of the Wangaratta Sustainability Network. She ... pushes for cultural change to achieve “a more socially just global environment"…
Alana Johnson is a board member of the ultra-feminist Victorian Women’s Trust, who were vocal supporters of Julia Gillard.. Johnson actually went further on her twitter account and blamed the whole of Australia for Gillard’s demise, saying she was ashamed of the country.
There is also a fellow called Ben McGowan, who I presume is related to Cathy McGowan.
He is a green activist, a supporter of “sustainability” (Agenda 21), and a believer in the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. He has tweeted his support for socialism, and also his opposition to free-market economics, calling it “nonsense"…
And then, of course, there is Cathy McGowan herself who, with Mr Lane, was co-convener of the organisation. That’s right, the “grassroots organisation” that chose to endorse Cathy McGowan, was started by Cathy McGowan.
UPDATE
That said, McGowan has far more class than some of the Left supporting her:
Cathy McGowan...says her electorate and Australian politics more broadly are not being well served by the vitriol being heaped on Ms Mirabella as she confronts a slow, humiliating, political demise…Contrast that with the sliming of Mirabella by The Age.
When the Labor Party intervened midway into the Indi campaign, funding a series of robocalls carrying a quote from Tony Windsor in which he gives Ms Mirabella the “nasty prize” from the last parliament, Ms McGowan objected on two grounds: that negative, Canberra politics were intruding on her campaign and that the ALP was sticking its beak where it didn’t belong.
More recently, the protracted Indi count, which is now expected to result in Ms McGowan winning by between 300 and 500 votes, has been accompanied by incessant retweeting of two-year-old stories about Ms Mirabella’s dispute with the family of her former partner, the late constitutional lawyer Colin Howard, and about her involvement in a notorious rally in Canberra…
“I have got great sympathy for her, I really do. It is not about taking revenge and it is not about being nasty. You need to respect people who stand for office.”
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Left wants armistice in the culture war now that the tide has turned
Andrew Bolt September 13 2013 (9:06am)
Labor in government created the Left-wing Grattan Institute, funded the new Left-wing The Conversation and presided over the expansion of the Left-wing ABC.
It stage an show-trial into the “hate media” that criticised it, threatened newspapers which dug into Julia Gillard’s past and proposed new laws for a state-backed media censor.
Labor also drafted new laws against free speech and ensured no conservatives sat on the ABC board. It created a new national curriculum with a Leftist slant on history, promoted and funded the global warming scare, and created a Climate Commission to spread warming alarmism. It promoted Big Government through attacks on smokers and drinkers, and expanded the entitlement culture with handouts.
Labor inspired a dictionary to redefine “misogyny” after a vicious personal attack on Tony Abbott, and preached identity politics as it launched a “Women for Gillard” campaign and pitted workers against bosses, poor against rich.
But only now that a conservative government replaces one of the Left does Fairfax writer Gay Alcorn suddenly call a halt to the culture war - by which she actually means the Left’s advances should not now be reversed:
Doesn’t work that way, Gay.
It stage an show-trial into the “hate media” that criticised it, threatened newspapers which dug into Julia Gillard’s past and proposed new laws for a state-backed media censor.
Labor also drafted new laws against free speech and ensured no conservatives sat on the ABC board. It created a new national curriculum with a Leftist slant on history, promoted and funded the global warming scare, and created a Climate Commission to spread warming alarmism. It promoted Big Government through attacks on smokers and drinkers, and expanded the entitlement culture with handouts.
Labor inspired a dictionary to redefine “misogyny” after a vicious personal attack on Tony Abbott, and preached identity politics as it launched a “Women for Gillard” campaign and pitted workers against bosses, poor against rich.
But only now that a conservative government replaces one of the Left does Fairfax writer Gay Alcorn suddenly call a halt to the culture war - by which she actually means the Left’s advances should not now be reversed:
Mr Abbott, if you care about us at all (and we know you do because your daughters say you care about everybody), please spare us a rerun of the ‘’culture wars’’.Spoken like a true Leftist. Only conservatives have a bias. Leftists propose “reforms”, but conservatives only want “war”.
Doesn’t work that way, Gay.
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From the S-bend of the media Left
Andrew Bolt September 13 2013 (8:56am)
How casually vicious
and crude is the culture of the “cultural elite”. Well, here is how one
ABC show deals with a conservative commentator for calling for a cut in
funding for the ABC. From Wednesday’s Hamster Wheel, broadcast on ABC 1,
this photoshopping of Chris Kenny:
I am astonished the ABC would broadcast that kind of abuse - and thus endorse it. This, from a media organisation whose journalists hyperventilated endlessly over the Daily Telegraph photoshopping Kevin Rudd as Colonel Klink.
UPDATE
More sneering viciousness from The Age, the one newspaper to have backed the return of the Rudd Government, but now gloating over the one Liberal likely to lose her seat. Among the abuse of Sophie Mirabella, more fitting for a student newspaper: “caustic”, “incendiary”, “hard-faced”, “disdain”, alumni of “a finishing school for those who could not afford Europe”, former lover of a man who “combined sneering superiority with social awkwardness”, “Mirabella learnt at his knee and then some”, and more slime besides.
What sanctimonious and pitiless boors. Oh, and congratulations to The Age for further humiliating Mirabella by running a deliberately unflattering picture of her on yesterday’s front page in a further excess of gloating. And this paper, too, was infuriated by the the Daily Telegraph for not showing Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard more respect. Hypocrites.
Imagine these people had Rudd won. To her credit, Liberty Sanger, Labor party loyalist and wife of Labor MP David Feeney, protests the vile abuse of Mirabella now raging on the Left:
Also from The Age, this gratuitous fishing of filth from the sewers of the Internet, so the writer - an academic - can have one of a million anonymous trolls say of Tony Abbott’s daughters what she’d rather not come out of her own mouth:
With so many in the tribalist Left, it’s not the principle but the side.
And doesn’t the author’s position announce unmistakably her politics?:
And, yes, the word “dogf...er” went unedited to air.
I am astonished the ABC would broadcast that kind of abuse - and thus endorse it. This, from a media organisation whose journalists hyperventilated endlessly over the Daily Telegraph photoshopping Kevin Rudd as Colonel Klink.
UPDATE
More sneering viciousness from The Age, the one newspaper to have backed the return of the Rudd Government, but now gloating over the one Liberal likely to lose her seat. Among the abuse of Sophie Mirabella, more fitting for a student newspaper: “caustic”, “incendiary”, “hard-faced”, “disdain”, alumni of “a finishing school for those who could not afford Europe”, former lover of a man who “combined sneering superiority with social awkwardness”, “Mirabella learnt at his knee and then some”, and more slime besides.
What sanctimonious and pitiless boors. Oh, and congratulations to The Age for further humiliating Mirabella by running a deliberately unflattering picture of her on yesterday’s front page in a further excess of gloating. And this paper, too, was infuriated by the the Daily Telegraph for not showing Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard more respect. Hypocrites.
Imagine these people had Rudd won. To her credit, Liberty Sanger, Labor party loyalist and wife of Labor MP David Feeney, protests the vile abuse of Mirabella now raging on the Left:
UPDATE
Also from The Age, this gratuitous fishing of filth from the sewers of the Internet, so the writer - an academic - can have one of a million anonymous trolls say of Tony Abbott’s daughters what she’d rather not come out of her own mouth:
Louise, Bridget and Frances were so prominent in the campaign that there are now several Facebook pages with tens of thousands of “likes” devoted to them. (One of which perverts Abbott’s pride in his daughters’ looks by purporting to encourage masturbation to their photos.)The savagery of the cultural elite, quoting in glee the kind of misogyny it purports to denounce, just to sexually demean Abbott’s daughters. And all printed in The Age.
With so many in the tribalist Left, it’s not the principle but the side.
And doesn’t the author’s position announce unmistakably her politics?:
Dr Michelle Smith is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Memory, Imagination and Invention at Deakin University.
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Baddies versus beheaders - a conflict in which only a Putin can take sides
Andrew Bolt September 13 2013 (8:34am)
Syrian rebels, who’d be most assisted by a US strike on the Syrian regime, behead four more captives. Warning. Graphic content.
UPDATE
Thanks to Barack Obama’s astonishingly weak and vacillating leadership over the Syrian civil war, Russia’s Vladimir Putin now poses as the real leader in world affairs, presuming to lecture the United States through the pages of the New York Times:
Is this what Obama has brought the US to? To being giving moral lectures from the likes of Putin?
Seven hypocritical, false or misleading claims in Putin’s statement.
Peter Foster notes the rage over Putin’s intervention:
UPDATE
Thanks to Barack Obama’s astonishingly weak and vacillating leadership over the Syrian civil war, Russia’s Vladimir Putin now poses as the real leader in world affairs, presuming to lecture the United States through the pages of the New York Times:
Recent events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders…
The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa..,
Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government…
Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? ...
No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists…
It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us."…
We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement…
I carefully studied [Obama’s] address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.
Is this what Obama has brought the US to? To being giving moral lectures from the likes of Putin?
Seven hypocritical, false or misleading claims in Putin’s statement.
Peter Foster notes the rage over Putin’s intervention:
The top dogs in Congress have been howling with indignation today over Vladimir Putin’s gloating New York Times op-ed, in which he lectures the US on its true place in the world (behind Mother Russia).Foster is of the Do Something persuasion. All very well, but do what - and with what consequences?
John McCain says the article is “an insult to the intelligence of every American”; Robert Menendez, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said he “almost wanted to vomit” after reading it. Kelly Ayotte, the Maine republican, said it was the “height of hypocrisy”; Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin dismissed it as a “lot of bluster”.
This is the (risible, hypocritical) sound of the US Congress starting to confront the mess of their own making. A mess that Mr Putin, as if house-training puppies, has certainly enjoyed rubbing their noses in.
Because while Barack Obama’s handling of the Syrian crisis has been startlingly inept, the fact is that Congress, by making clear it would not support him and cutting the President’s legs off when he asked for backing, has created a world in which Vladimir Putin gets to run the show.
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Warmist Labor stuck with its own WorkChoices
Andrew Bolt September 13 2013 (8:22am)
The carbon tax is fast becoming to Labor what WorkChoices was to the Liberals, but with this difference - at least the Liberals dropped the policy that killed it:
The repeal of the carbon tax is even more dangerous for Labor with the party trapped between standing up for a tenet of Labor faith on climate change and losing more support among workers who fear for their jobs, and dumping the tax, appearing not to stand for anything and losing support to the Greens.Labor needs another drought in the next three years. Three more years of rain and no-warming will make it look even more stupid.
Labor is wedged, with Abbott claiming a clear mandate and able to cite the Coalition’s acceptance of the incoming Rudd government’s right to repeal John Howard’s Work Choices so that the industrial relations changes were “dead, buried and cremated”.
The additional problem for Labor is the electorate has clearly made a decision on the carbon tax - still its most damaging decision in the past three years. To hang on to the prospect of running the next campaign on the basis of its return is palpably ridiculous.
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I mean, seriously?
Andrew Bolt September 13 2013 (8:12am)
Your research dollars, extracted from your wages:
ARC Research Funding, 2013:And another $164, 000 here:
Dr Andrew W. Gorman-Murray, A/Prof Dale T. Dominey-Howes, Queering disasters in the Antipodes: investigating the experiences of LGBTI people in natural disasters. $325,183.00. Project Summary: The purpose of this project is to investigate experiences of LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex) people in Antipodean natural disasters, because they are especially vulnerable. No such work has been done in this field before. The outcomes of this project will include improved understanding of the needs of LGBTI people and improved disaster response.
ARC Linkage Project 2010-2013 ... with L. Williams; K. Sharp; L. Hjorth; S. Perry and D. Redfern).
This is an interdisciplinary investigation of how urban media art can best respond to global climate change. Spatial Dialogues identifies ways artists and cultural theorists can collaborate with relevant industry partners to redefine public art as a trans-national and interactive process. In particular, the artworks will participate in civic dialogues on the significance of water as a precious global resource.
By extending the use of urban screens with public artworks engaged in a creative use of sound and social network systems, this research pioneers ways in which the arts can play a significant role in the adaptation to climate change.
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Choosing the leader isn’t the worst of Rudd’s “reform”. Not being able to sack him is
Andrew Bolt September 13 2013 (7:43am)
Graham Richardson has not yet realised that what he describes is still not the worst of Kevin Rudd’s new rule for selecting Labor’s leader with a ballot of both MPs and members:
Rudd’s new rules are bad enough now. They could prove a complete disaster come closer to the next election.
And the irony is that rules meant to make the party more democratic could in fact increase the power of the faction bosses, making deals behind the scenes. Here is Richardson’s solution:
Dennis Shanahan says Labor is the gift that keeps giving to Tony Abbott:
If there is a contest for the Labor leadership between Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese, the Rudd landmine could wreck their careers, irrespective of who emerges as the victor…All that is true. But here is the biggest problem. What if Shorten, Albanese or some third option turn out to be a dud leader - as poisonous in the polls as Julia Gillard was just three months ago? Under Rudd’s rules, that leader could not be replaced by someone more likely to save the furniture unless 60 per cent of MPs sign a petition alleging he had brought the party into disrepute. Then a ballot of members must again be held. All this means Labor would find it almost impossible to replace a dud leader as it replaced Julia Gillard in June, averting an electoral catastrophe. Remember: Rudd regained the leadership with just 56 per cent of the 102 Caucus votes, not enough under the rules he then brought in.
There is a very real possibility, some would say even a probability, that Shorten could win the caucus ballot while Albanese wins the rank-and-file ballot quite easily. If Albanese wins the rank-and-file ballot overwhelmingly, he would be declared the winner. How ridiculous would he look when every member of the press gallery writes about the leader who does not have the support of his colleagues? ...
Of course, this is no bed of roses for Shorten either. To have the confidence of your caucus colleagues is one thing, but to be rejected by the rank and file of your own party is something else entirely. That would be a millstone around his neck for the rest of his career…
If [the ballot] could be done in less than eight weeks I would be surprised.
During this two-month interregnum, who would lead the party? Apparently Albanese would be ineligible because he would be a candidate in the ballot… Over those months, who would present Labor’s views on the big issues?
Rudd’s new rules are bad enough now. They could prove a complete disaster come closer to the next election.
And the irony is that rules meant to make the party more democratic could in fact increase the power of the faction bosses, making deals behind the scenes. Here is Richardson’s solution:
By the time this article is published I pray that the two protagonists will come to a deal on who will be No 1 and who will be the deputy.UPDATE
Dennis Shanahan says Labor is the gift that keeps giving to Tony Abbott:
Abbott is managing nicely in his efforts to get sport back on the front pages, ably assisted by the finals season for all the football codes. But the biggest assistance Abbott is getting in being squeezed from front page news is from none other than the Labor Party.
Hopelessly trapped by dilemmas of its own making, the ALP just can’t help or stop being “the story”, continuing to keep the pressure off Abbott and appearing as chaotic as it was pre-election.
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Don’t let our jihadists come here a second time
Andrew Bolt September 13 2013 (7:36am)
Our first mistake was to allow them or their families into Australia. Our second would be to let them come back again:
AN Australian jihadist has reportedly blown himself up in a truck bombing in eastern Syria, amid reports about 70 per cent of Australians fighting with the rebels are known to counter-terrorism authorities.A properly maintained immigration program should leave us better off and more secure. Ours seems to have left us too exposed to extremists.
In what would be the first known suicide attack by an Australian, counter-terrorism officials in Canberra were yesterday investigating reports a man by the name of “Abu Asma” died following a car-bomb attack in the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor…
A senior counter-terrorism official said about 80 Australian nationals were believed to be fighting or involved in on-the-ground organisational roles. About 20 per cent of those were believed to be fighting with the al-Nusra Front, the al-Qa’ida-linked wing of the Syrian opposition.
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A “denier” gets in one word, but not one argument
Andrew Bolt September 13 2013 (7:24am)
Rolling Stone publishes exactly one word of this reply from Anthony Watts, after asking him how the upcoming report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be received:
My view is that AR5 is going to stillborn, mainly because it is already outdated by new science that won’t be included.
There have been 19 separate peer reviewed papers published in climate sensitivity to CO2 by 42 scientists since January 1, 2012 all describing a lower climate sensitivity.
There have been recent revelations in journals (Yu Kosaka & Shang-Ping Xie Nature 2013 and de Freitas &McLean, 2013 International Journal of Geosciences) that demonstrate ENSO (El Niño) in the Pacific is responsible for the 15 plus years of global warming slowdown known as “the pause”. These two papers strongly suggest natural variability is still the dominant climate control.
Then there is the lack of reality matching what the climate models tell us, such as this leaked graph from an AR5 draft:
Original from AR5 draft: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc_ar5_draft_fig1-4_with.pngAll this while global CO2 emissions have been growing steadily. The lack of temperature match to models, “the pause”, combined with these new ENSO findings tell us that global warming has gone from a planetary crisis to a minor problem in a Banana Republic where only a few vocal science rebels are arguing for immediate intervention.
Annotated version: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc-ar5draft-fig-1-4.gif
The costs of mitigating the perceived problem are also staggering compared to the benefit, as the 50:1 project demonstrates:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw5Lda06iK0
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Phillip Jensen
Nowhere in scripture is it said that we should elect our rulers. But we are commanded to pray for them (1 Timothy 2) and submit to them (Romans 13, 1 Peter 2).
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Max Brenner Australia
Today marks the most delicious celebration in the world - International Chocolate Day. Celebrate by fondue-ing everything in chocolate
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Remember when President Obama promised us, “If you like your current health care plan, you can keep your plan?” That was not true, and his deceptive claim falls in line with all the other lies about Obamacare – like there’d be no health care rationing.
Anyone with an ounce of common sense can understand that if it is cheaper for a company to cancel employees’ health benefits and pay the $2,000 Obamacare fine instead of providing, say, a $10,000 government mandated employee health care plan, then of course that company will choose to pay the much smaller fine.
And if companies don’t have to provide government mandated health care for part time employees, then of course that’s an incentive for them to cut back employees’ hours and make their workforce part time.
This isn’t rocket science. This is Economics 101. And it’s happening right now at companies all over the country.
We saw this coming, and now even President Obama’s union leader friends have finally 'fessed up to Obamacare lies. These union leaders betrayed their own membership by enthusiastically endorsing Obamacare, and now our good union brothers and sisters are at risk of losing the benefits they’ve worked for and counted on their whole lives. Union bosses, you owe your membership an apology, retraction, and resignation.
Union leaders are now scrambling and trying to get special carve-outs exclusively for union members. I sympathize with union members – especially when they’re led by thugs. I always do. But this is the wrong way to go about fixing the enormous train wreck that is Obamacare. More cronyism, select exemptions, and special subsidies make the problem worse.
We need to repeal the whole darn thing, and that starts with defunding it.
Union brothers and sisters, don’t let your incompetent leadership hoodwink you again. Demand a full repeal, an immediate defunding, and some resignations.
- Sarah Palin
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Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin
Heavenly Father,I thank You for Your favor, strength and grace at work in my life. I turn my focus on You today. I turn my thoughts on You. I set my heart and love upon You because You are good. Thank You for filling me with might and power to overcome in Jesus’ name! Amen.
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Holly Sarah Nguyen
Through the days and through the years, through the pain and through the tears, God was there for me.
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Matt Granz'
Castle Valley at Dusk... some flashes of lightning off in the distance that would never reach this location... the monsoon was fading and the dark of night was descending. The wind was calm and the air was warm and silent. — in Castle Valley, UT, United States.
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Tradinno the awesome fire-breathing dragon is the world's largest walking robot. At 30 feet tall and 51 feet long, he's one gargantuan mechatronic beast you don't want to mess with:http://cnet.co/17ZSMyu
I could do it. I need a vorpal sword, and a good throw .. ed
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Gina Rinehart
Why don't opponents of capitalism boycott Facebook?
Because hypocrites forget their reason - ed
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FACT CHECK :
The claim: Tim Costello says the Coalition's proposed $4.5 billion cuts to foreign aid will result in the loss of 450,000 lives.
The verdict: Mr Costello's claim is not credible
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-12/costello-foreign-aid-cuts-claim-not-credible/4949042
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HISTORY IN THE HEADLINES: This week, a court in Northern Ireland announced its ruling that the 2012 discovery of a metal bracelet was in fact a rare artifact--a Viking arm ring from the 10th century, an item that was of great cultural significance in Viking society. Find out more:http://histv.co/13Tnh9J (Credit: Getty Images)
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Writes historian Abraham Rabinovich, Golda Meir had been prepared to wait 'indefinitely' for peace with Egypt...
She had been sleeping poorly for several nights but this morning she was wakened into her nightmare – a ringing telephone at 3:45 a.m. on Yom Kippur.
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In 1975, Pink Floyd’s much-loved Wish You Were Here album was released. Coming at a time with some degree of strife within the band, Roger Waters noted that "most of us didn't wish we were there at all; we wished we were somewhere else…" Nevertheless, the tension gave a certain edge to the album, and amplified the central theme of absence…
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Post by Team 9Lives.
A few of our Junior warriors busting out in last weeks snake park session!#team9lives #9lives1love #parkour #fairfield
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Where's Woof? #keepsearching
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HISTORY IN THE HEADLINES: Born on September 12, 1913, in Oakville, Alabama, track and field athlete Jesse Owens starred in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Nazi Germany. On the centennial of his birth, explore 10 surprising facts about the man who was once the fastest in the world.http://histv.co/16njXVf
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Ramona Grahammywinningartist.
This song has over 4,000 plays. Cause I'm a genius. Or, more likely because of of a searchbot gone terribly wrong. I'm glad either way, cause I wrote all the music and I write by ear and my ears are notoriously wack. So let weirdness prevail!!!!
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Pastor Rick Warren.
SEVEN WAYS GOD TESTS YOUR FAITHFULNESS. Do you get my weekly Ministry Toolbox? Free subscription: http://bit.ly/1g5fibY
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Forty years after the Yom Kippur War, an eventually triumphant campaign that cost over 2,500 Israeli lives and left an enduring scar on the national psyche, Israel on Thursday released Prime Minister Golda Meir’s long-classified testimony from the commission of inquiry that investigated the actions of the military before and during the early stages of the war.
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Pastor Rick Warren
Suicide is neither cool, nor funny. Please join me in protesting DC Comic's sick contest: http://www.namicalifornia.org/news.php?page=current-news&lang=eng&id=5044#.UjKRy8ashca …
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Syrian rebels claim that the army of President Bashar Assad again used poison gas in an attack on rebel forces in the Damascus area Thursday, an Israel Radio report said.
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Largest living cat, Hercules(liger).
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This is a Komondor, a traditional Hungarian guard dog
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Is your adult child a bully? Do you feel powerless as a parent? Click here: http://bit.ly/
Are you and your spouse arguing constantly and feel like you’re on the verge of a divorce? Click here: http://bit.ly/
Are you afraid of your adult child? Do you feel intimidated? http://bit.ly/
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Two unlucky thugs attempted to carjack a concealed carry permit holder in Houston, Texas, on Tuesday. The miscalculation turned out to be deadly as the would-be victim shot and killed one of the criminals and wounded the other.
After returning a movie at a Redbox kiosk outside of a local McDonald’s, the man was approached by two suspects who attempted to steal his car for the rims, according to police. The suspects also took his cellphone and car keys, KTRK-TV reports.
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Michelle Malkin.
VIDEO: Watch/share/like my shout-out to the 2 million bikers on Fox News tonite...and my battle with Juan Williams over the rodeo clown in the White House who wants to aid and abet jihadists in the name of humanitarian intervention.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FujaIwnC6b8&feature=c4-overview&list=UUzzwILIcMrcarpzNwQo6E3g
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http://bit.ly/DRP091213 #DrPhil
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The situation on our southern border is SHOCKING. Ranchers are forced to spend day in and day out watching, guarding, and protecting their property from drug cartels. TheBlaze's Sara Carter gave me an inside look this morning on radio: http://tblz.us/oON7O
More tonight on For The Record, 8:30pm ET on TheBlaze.
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Know that what happened was not your fault.
http://bit.ly/
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Pastor Rick Warren
Your deepest life message will come out of your deepest pain.
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JULIA Gillard and a raft of senior Labor figures could face being grilled by a judicial inquiry into the union slush fund scandal involving her former boyfriend.
Senior Coalition figures confirm an Abbott Government would establish a royal commission-style inquiry into the alleged misuse of up to $1 million in funds from the Australian Workers' Union.
It would have powers to compel witnesses to give evidence, with senior Coalition figures naming the former Prime Minister as one of the key political figures who would be required to appear.
Ms Gillard has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
Last night, former Attorney-General, Rob McClelland - who helped to reignite the 20-year-old scandal when he gave a statement to parliament in mid-2012 - pledged to "co-operate" with any investigation.
Documents filed in the Melbourne Magistrates Court confirm Ms Gillard is a focus in the ongoing police investigation.
The court issued a search warrant in May 2013 directing police to search Slater & Gordon's Melbourne premises. They seized documents including "personnel files relating to Julia Gillard including her invoices/billings, time sheets and travel records".
They also seized "partnership meeting documents pertaining to Julia Gillard and the (AWU)".
Ms Gillard provided legal advice to her then boyfriend and former AWU official, Bruce Wilson, who was described in court as the "primary subject" of the long running inquiry.
The former PM helped to establish the Australian Workers' Union Workplace Reform Association.
Ms Gillard described this vehicle as a "slush fund" during an exit interview from Slater & Gordon in 1995.
A spokesman for Ms Gillard said she had no comment on the matter.
The former Labor leader has maintained that the allegations against her were a "smear" while Mr Wilson - who now lives on the NSW north coast - has cleared Ms Gillard of any wrongdoing.
Kevin Rudd, campaigning in Tasmania, also declined to comment on the scandal.
"I have nothing to add to this as it is an ongoing investigation," the PM told reporters.
Mr McClelland has returned to work as a partner at law firm Turner Freeman after quitting politics.
In the mid-1990s, he provided legal advice to a former AWU joint national secretary Ian Cambridge as he tried to investigate the alleged misuse of union funds.
Mr McClelland said the law firm had not been asked to hand over any documents relating to the AWU matter.
"But of course, Turner Freeman and I personally would co-operate with any police or other investigation into the matter," he said.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/federal-election/tony-abbott-to-launch-inquiry-into-awu-8216slush-fund8217/story-fnho52ip-1226710059171#ixzz2elnVt2uL
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Union brothers and sisters, demand a full repeal of Obamacare, an immediate defunding, and some resignations.
Sarah Palin
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Here’s video of Giron’s meltdown. Giron got more pushback from CNN’s Brooke Baldwin than she wanted, and it showed:
Partial transcript:
Giron: What this story really is about, it’s about voter suppression. When Colorado has voted by mail — 70 percent of Coloradans vote by mail — and we didn’t have access to that mail ballot, I mean, I —Host: Forgive me, but I’m going to cut you off right there because if we talk voter suppression, I’ve read reports about a lack of popularity on your behalf, let’s just not go there. Let’s get to the meat of the story, which is this gun control stance…Giron: That is the meat of the story!Host: … That you and your, uh, let’s talk though about the stance that you and your colleague, the head of the Senate, a former police officer, have taken. And here you have mega mega cash from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Mayor Bloomberg, versus this grassroots effort. What happened?Giron: I’m telling you what happened is that you had only 30,000 of the voters who in the last election, um, off-year election, was 45,000. And so the people that are in support of very common sense gun legislation weren’t able to get to the polls. They vote by ballot and they have been doing that for 25 years. I mean, we have to call it for what it is. When I was talking to people at the doors and in their homes it was that, “Oh, this what this is about, because you want universal background checks so you voted for that, and because you’re limiting magazines to 15? I don’t see anything wrong with that, I don’t see any infringement on the Second Amendment.” So, people didn’t know what it was about. There was voter confusion. We didn’t even know what the rules of the game were, this is the United States of America, we didn’t even know what the rules of the game were a week out from the election. Where to vote, how to vote, were you going to get a ballot in the mail? Um, and, so it was just that confusion led to the voices of people in Pueblo County and El Paso County not having their voices heard and yet they’re going to have to pay for this election, the most expensive in the history of these two counties.
Giron still either doesn’t get it or has to force herself to pretend not to get it.
Keep it up, Democrats, and 2014 will be a great year … for the Republicans.
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Quite a few commentators have rightly taken the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, to task for his recent absurd suggestion that the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict represents the root cause of instability in the Middle East.
Fabius’s remarkably myopic understanding of the region prompted Binyamin Netanyahu to point out the obvious: that if peace with the Palestinians were achieved today, the centrifuges won’t stop spinning in Iran, the savage civil war in Syria won’t abate, the instability in Egypt wouldn’t end, and attacks on the West will continue.
However, when I read Laurent’s comments, uttered in Ramallah after he met with Mahmoud Abbas, it reminded me of something the Guardian once claimed at the dawn of what they still were calling the “Arab Spring.” Sure enough:
A Guardian Feb. 2011 official editorial (“The Middle East: People, Power, Politics“) on Muammar Gaddafi’s brutal crackdown against protesters at the dawn of their civil war, and the broader political upheavals in the region, included this risible line:
“the Libyan leader may still be considered too valuable to lose, as US influence in the region decreases. Nowhere is that truer than in the cockpit of the crisis, Palestine.
The Guardian’s surreal editorial, which though dealing with Libya somehow managed to devote 200 of 675 words to the issue of “Palestine,” was indicative of the paper’s shameful misreading of the political upheavals which had occurred, or were to occur, in Bahrain, Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere.
Such framing of events in the Middle East – which attributes most political maladies to Israel’s “injurious” effects on the region – represents more than mere hostility to Israel, but is part of a broader political framework which often shows itself impervious to facts, logic, and new information.
Whilst the Guardian’s editorial line no longer seems wedded to this absurd Zionist causality, the fact that their initial response was to draw a line from Tripoli to Jerusalem speaks volumes about the intellectually crippling effects of their far-left ideology.
Visit CIFWatch.
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<Poor Julian Burnside. The election has not been kind on him. Now wants to make Tasmania into a prison colony for asylum-seekers.>
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Mondays episode's teaser for Four Corners has a man saying he doesn't want to live like this, when told he could live for twenty more years. I get it that ALP supporters feel bad for losing. But the quality of life improves under conservative government. #auspol #youdecide9 - ed
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Twenty years ago today, Israel's so-called peace process with the PLO was officially ushered in at the White House Rose Garden.
A year or so later, when the death toll of Israeli victims of the massive terror offensive that the PLO organized shortly afterwards reached what then seemed unbearable heights, a popular call went out to "Put the Oslo Criminals on Trial."
Needless to say, with Shimon Peres, the architect and godfather of the so-called peace process now serving as the President of Israel, nothing ever came of the call.
The demand for an accounting was not unprecedented. There was no reason, on the face of things for those who made it to be perceived as anything other than reasonably enraged, and responsible citizens insisting that those responsible for the largest, most destructive strategic error Israel has ever made pay a personal price for their actions.
Twenty years before that ceremony at the White House, Israel suffered the worst military defeat in its history.
Israel did win the Yom Kippur War, in the end. It was a sloppy, painful, tragic and costly win. Victory owed to tactical errors by the Syrians; to the unbelievable heroism, and dogged determination exhibited by the IDF's junior officer corps and line soldiers, particularly on the Golan Heights; and to the emergency resupply of war materiel Israel received midway through the war from the United States.
Just as was the case twenty years later, when Israelis (having been introduced to the suicide bomber), decided their leaders had betrayed them; following the Yom Kippur War, the demobilized soldiers, the bereaved families and the general public demanded an accounting from the senior political leaders and the IDF brass that had led them down the vicious, deadly garden path.
After the Yom Kippur War, their demand was answered. The Agranat Commission was formed. And heads rolled. The prime minister, defense minister and IDF chief of general staff were all booted out. Other senior IDF commanders were relieved of their duties. And they deserved what they got.
And just to make sure we remember how ill-served we were by our leaders forty years ago, every year around Yom Kippur, the media gives an open mike to every maudlin, angry, and indignant story they can find. Every year new documentaries are produced. Every year, new books are published. And for the most part, they are interesting and worthwhile.
Nothing even vaguely resembling the now forty year-long accounting Israel has experienced with regard to the Yom Kippur War has occurred in relation to the so-called peace process with the Palestinians that is now twenty years old. No commission of inquiry was convened. No heads have rolled.
No television station has broadcast a serious documentary explaining the price Israel has paid on any level for a mistake that has cost us so dearly on every level. No one has given belated tribute to the millions of Israelis who foresaw the disaster that would befall us if we recognized the PLO.
And foresee it they did. And oppose it, they did. More than two million Israelis - or nearly half the country's Jewish population in the early 1990s, and a third of the current Jewish population, have actively opposed the so-called Oslo accords and what followed.
As a portion of Israel's population, the number of Israelis who took part in protests against the so-called peace process comprised the largest protest movement in history.
The public foresaw what was eminently foreseeable. Renowned intellectuals and decorated military leaders warned that the PLO was a terrorist organization that had no intention of making peace with Israel. They warned that the PLO would use every inch of land Israel transferred to its control as a forward base for terrorism against Israeli civilians. They warned that Yassir Arafat was a liar, a murderer and a Jew hater who would use all powers granted him to murder and legitimize the murder of Israeli civilians.
They warned that he was not interested in the least in establishing a Palestinian state, rather wanted only to oversee the dismemberment and destruction of our state, the Jewish state.
And for the past twenty years, their warnings were borne out by events every single day.
More than fifteen hundred Israelis have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the past twenty years. Scores of thousands of Israelis have been wounded or suffered the destruction of their families and their lives.
Diplomatically, Israel has paid an immeasurable price for the abject stupidity of our leaders' willful blindness to the rank phoniness of the PLO's commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel. The glaring obviousness of the danger of accepting the false historical narrative of our sworn enemies on our ability to defend ourselves internationally was so overwhelming that no one even bothered to mention it in the years before the so-called Oslo accord was concluded.
But today, after twenty years of self-induced diplomatic failure has rendered Israeli leaders and representatives incapable of defending the country, it is necessary to explain it.
The PLO falsely claims that the cause for instability and violence in the Middle East is the absence of a Palestinian state in the lands Israel took control over from Jordan and Egypt in the 1967 Six Day War.
Before the inauguration of the so-called peace process, Israel easily defended itself against this libel. After all, the PLO was established in 1964 - three years before Israel took control over Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Its declared purpose was and remains the destruction of Israel, not the establishment of a Palestinian state on some of the territory Israel controls.
The absence of regional peace has nothing at all to do with Israel. It stems from the virulent Jew hatred that is endemic throughout the Islamic world. Due to this hatred Israel's neighbors seek its destruction. The centrality of their irrational, obsessive desire to seek the eradication of the Jewish people and the Jewish state is the reason there has been no true peace between Israel and its neighbors - including its Palestinian neighbors. And because their hatred is irrational and all-encompassing, there is nothing Israel can do to appease them.
Israel was able to defend itself from the PLO's lies to great effect before it accepted this terrorist organization as a legitimate actor and so accepted the legitimacy of its duplicitous narrative. But since it did, it has been unable to explain its actions, or increasingly, its right to exist at all. Because if the absence of a Palestinian state in Israel's heartland, and its capital city is what stands behind all the bad behavior of the Arab world, then everything that Israel does that impinges even marginally on the establishment of such of state is immoral, destabilizing and dangerous.
This is why even Israel's most skilled diplomats - to the extent they still operate in Israel's PLO-besotted Foreign Ministry -- cannot defend us. This is why a generation of Israeli leaders have zero to show for their efforts to defend this country. They are trapped in a policy discourse that is founded on anti-Israel lies.
Then there is our alliance with the United States. To legitimize the single most destructive action ever undertaken by an Israeli government, the Rabin-Peres government approached the Clinton administration and asked it to sponsor this objectively insane policy, strenuously opposed by half the country.
Bill Clinton was happy to oblige them. But once the Americans were on board, and placed US prestige behind a policy which, based as it was on lies, had no chance of success, Israel could not walk away.
Once the Americans supported a policy that half of the public - and now two-thirds of the public - opposed, Washington necessarily found itself siding with an ever shrinking minority of Israelis against the majority of the public. Consequently for the past twenty years, US decision makers have backed policies that have become progressively more anti-Israel.
From a domestic perspective, the phony peace process has taken an enormous toll on Israeli society and democracy. To defend such a move so strenuously and reasonably opposed by such a large portion of the public it was necessary to marginalize the public. And so we were subjected to a systematic effort to purge and discredit dissident voices from the senior and later junior ranks of the IDF, from the Foreign Ministry, (although Peres had done much of the work pruning responsible voices out of the ministry in the previous decade), and from the Justice Ministry.
Responsible opponents in the public square were castigated as extremists and enemies of peace, little different from terrorists. A new vocabulary to hide reality - like calling terror victims, victims of peace - was invented.
Four times over the past twenty years - in 1994, 1995, 2000 and 2005 - the peace processors brought Israeli society to the brink of collapse. Lawful demonstrators and political activists - including minor children - were criminalized, and often jailed and put on trial for their civil disobedience. The corruption of Israel's legal system, which applies laws unequally to various members of the public, depending on their political views was a direct outcome of Israel's decision twenty years ago to embrace the PLO.
For the past twenty years, the party most responsible for Israel's continued abidance by a strategy that has brought us nothing but disaster is the media. The reason that Peres was elected to the presidency rather than put out to pasture like Golda Meir is because the media lionized him as the greatest statesman of all time.
The reason that once in office non-leftist leaders embrace the positions of the radical Left, ignore the public, block every attempt to correct the damage that the Oslo accords have wrought, and embark on a new path is because they are no match for Channel 2 and all the rest.
Our media outlets run a constant stream of post-Zionist propaganda that has reduced our elected representatives' field of action to the size of a postage stamp. They ignore knowledgeable, well-spoken representatives of the majority. They regularly invite cognitively and aesthetically challenged nationalists to their studios to embarrass into silence the majority of viewers who share their opinions. Zionists are hired to high-profile but powerless positions to make the public feel uncomfortable about complaining that its views have no voice in the media.
Today the Obama administration plumbs the depths of strategic dysfunction. The Arab world empowers the most dangerous elements in country after country. The European Union treats Israel as a greater international outlaw than Iran, North Korea or Syria. Anti-Israel indoctrination is the norm on university campuses throughout the Western world. A new generation is coming of age that has never heard the truth about the Jewish state.
To contend with all this, the single most important step Israel must take is to end our twenty year nightmare with the PLO. As long as it continues, we will remain incapable of defending ourselves.
The left are tribal and don't let examination of their mistakes take place. If they did, serious questions might be asked regarding WW1 reparations, WW2 firebombing of Dresden, or nuking of Japan's civilian populations. Or of Korean war conduct, Vietnam war initiation, Rwanda, Sarajevo, Burma, Khmer Rouge, North Korea, Iran .... Uganda .. South Africa .. Libya .. Egypt .. Lebanon.. - ed
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A little something from my travels across Arizona last month. The gate was open so I drove through to this spot where everything just came together. I was lucky to have some monsoon clouds forming as I arrived. Off in the distance I could hear the crackle of lightning and the rumble of thunder soon afterwards. — at Agathla Peak.
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So I'll let Daniel Henniger have the floor here on Syria and the rest of the Obama presidency.>
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323595004579069291111631648.html
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4 her
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Anthony Albanese never saw himself as PM, he was happy as chief Left faction poo kicker. But a week is a long time in politics and a few days counting numbers and gazing into the bathroom mirror is all Albo needed to see himself as leader of the Opposition.
Bill Shorten believes his time has come but Caucus doesn’t feel the same way, and for damned good reasons.
Shorten wanted to bypass his Caucus “mates” and stand unopposed but now finds Albo’s epiphany has given him serious competition. If the ALP wants to recover lost ground in Opposition it needs an Albo, certainly not a Shorten.
Let’s face it, Shorten is yesterday’s man and the architect of Labor’s current malaise and he has made many enemies within the Party.
Paul (Piggy) Howes’ lustful expectation of taking Bob Carr’s Senate vacancy is now in doubt and that alone is testament to the Shorten/AWU lack of clout.
As anointed protégé of the AWU’s Big Bill Ludwig, Shorten engineered Rudd’s original demise in favour of Gillard. He continuously swore allegiance to Julia until, 20 minutes before Rudd’s final tilt at PM, he swapped sides carrying with him sufficient votes to bury Gillard.
Make no mistake, it was Shorten, with the backing of the AWU, who reinstalled the ridiculous Rudd as PM. It was Shorten who intended to profit from Rudd’s expected annihilation. It’s just that he figured Gillard would give him less of a team to work with in Opposition.
After the election Shorten expected to mount the dais to thunderous applause, but there has been nothing but silent apprehension... Labor is wary of his treacherous disloyalty.
They understand everything Bill has done has been for Bill, with the help of his corrupt AWU.
The word inside Labor now is that Bill is a gonner so Albo has publicly thrown his hat in the ring. He knows the mood of Caucus better than anyone.
Shorten would bring with him the stench of the past. He is the living symbol of all that is distasteful, corrupt and plain wrong with the Labor Party.
Albo has stayed true to his Labor ethics and his acidic tongue and derisory invective is a formidable kit to carry into Opposition.
Ask Abbott who he would prefer as Opposition leader and without hesitation he will say Bill Shorten.
And that’s why Anthony Albanese should get the job.
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A United Nations report on global warming has been postponed as the northern ice cap expands by almost one million square miles. An increase of 60 per cent.
Arguably the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on a gullible public by income redistribution proponents is rapidly unravelling as common sense swamps the prophets of doom.
The ABC’s great aunt, Britain’s BBC, confidently claimed in 2007 that the northern ice cap would disappear by 2013.
“Settled science” has become a little unsettling even to professors Flannery and Garnaut (it seems anyone can be a professor these days) as they go to ground rather than face an embarrassing backdown.
Those with even a rudimentary understanding of meteorology have known since the Al Gore outburst that “global warming” (later softened to “climate change”) alarmists were secreting a new world order agenda.
Global warming was their chosen vehicle.
After viewing the original Al Gore movie many years ago I rushed home in anger and wrote a hundred page article explaining why his nonsense claims simply could not be true.
It’s far too boringly complicated to reprint here but a précis is this:
The climate is supposed to change... it has been changing for four billion years and we would not be here if it hadn’t been.
Fraudulent Green climate “scientists” have one problem, they have no concept of time. Somehow they believe their lifespan of 70 or 80 years is significant.
Everything is a renewable resource. Even water, minerals and peat, it’s just a matter of time.
If the earth was only 100 years old, then we have been here for the last half second and during that 100 year period the earth has done, and continues to do, more “damage” to itself than man could ever do to it. Except it’s not damage. We call it “damage” only because we sometimes get in the way.
Of every species that ever lived on earth 99 per cent are now extinct.
Those myriad species died because of a changing climate or changing environment... and we weren’t even here!
Natural selection and rapid genetic mobility have afforded us and our environment a resilience that allows us to survive for that half second and we should be bloody grateful.
I hope Abbott silently harbours global warming scepticism because it’s about time this inexplicable costly fraud was put to bed.
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Aprille Love
Friday morning inspo.
We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. Lee Iacocca
Life is all about how you deal with it.
Xxx
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With all the threats and danger .. prayer is a good option - ed
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September 12, 2013
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Mind the Inclusion Gap: Values vs. Reality
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Survey: Support of disabled Jews doesn't translate into action
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A New Survey Reveals 'A Distance Between Words And Deeds'By Helen Chernikoff
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Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, begins Friday night at sundown. For the next 25 hours, Jews will fast and pray, pleading with God to be sealed in the Book of Life. We pray for a year of peace, safety, good health and prosperity. NEWS UPDATE: Jerusalem is on high security alert as the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade has declared war by giving the "green light" to terrorist attacks against Israelis, particularly in Jerusalem, on Yom Kippur. Memories of the Yom Kippur War, 40 years ago, are still fresh in our minds. We remember the heavy casualties but also the great miracles of survival and ultimate success. And it was just 40 years before that, in 1933, when Hitler rose to power. Memories of the unthinkable, horrific atrocities of the Holocaust will never escape us. And then the great miracle of 1948 - an independent Jewish state re-established in the Land of Israel after 2000 years of exile! Our sages teach us that even one act of kindness can tip the scales. Charity, we are taught, 'saves us from death'. And it can save the entire world! Our fate as individuals and humanity as a whole, is on the line. Let's pray that we will all be sealed in the Book of Life! It is for this reason, on the very last day before our fate is sealed, that we appeal to you for perhaps one more act of kindness. United with Israel has been there to help the People of Israel in so many ways. Many of you have helped us to: - Send pro-Israel messages and action items to millions of people every day - Build 10 Portable Bomb Shelters for Israeli communities under fire - Plant over 3000 Fruit Trees throughout the Land of Israel - Provide thousands of IDF soldiers with warm winter gear - Send toys, gifts and personal notes to victims of terror and their families Your donation can help us to do much more. And perhaps this extra act of kindness, right before Yom Kippur, will make all the difference in the world. It can tip the scales and seal our fate for a year full of blessing! Amen. Click Below to Donate to United with Israel https://donate.unitedwithisrael.org The People of Israel thank you for your generous support and pray for the day when peace will reign in Jerusalem, the Land of Israel and the entire world. Please forward this email to your family and friends. Give them the opportunity to perform another act of kindness by standing united with the People of Israel. We wish you a wonderful New Year full of blessing, hope, happiness and peace. May we all be sealed in the Book of Life. With Blessings from Israel, The 'United with Israel' Family CLICK BELOW TO MAKE AN ONLINE DONATION: https://donate.unitedwithisrael.org/ Checks can be sent to our US address: United with Israel PO Box 151 Lawrence, NY 11559 United States Checks can be mailed directly to Israel: United with Israel 8/19 Nachal Maor St. Box 71530 Bet Shemesh 99623 ISRAEL To donate by phone please call: +1-646-213-4003 (USA) +972-2-533-7841 (Israel) To update your contact information or unsubscribe, please click on the link below: https://unitedwithisrael.infusionsoft.com/app/optOut/12/e7a04143382445e1/105920067/5c368c5d3a8ca31a United with Israel 8/19 Maor St. Box 71530 Bet Shemesh, HaDarom 99623 Israel +972-2-533-7841
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12
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September 13: Feast Day of Saint John Chrysostom (Western Christianity); Yom Kippur begins at sunset (Judaism, 2013)
- 1759 – Seven Years' War: British forces defeated the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham nearQuebec City, New France, though General James Wolfewas mortally wounded.
- 1814 – War of 1812: Fort McHenry in Baltimore's Inner Harbor was attacked by British forces during the Battle of Baltimore, later inspiring Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner", which later became the national anthem of the United States.
- 1933 – Elizabeth McCombs (pictured) became the first woman electedto the Parliament of New Zealand.
- 1988 – Hurricane Gilbert reached a minimum pressure of 888 mb (26.22 inHg) with sustained flight-level winds of 185 mph (295 km/h), making it the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record at the time.
- 2008 – Five synchronised bomb blasts took place within a span of few minutes in Delhi, India, resulting in 30 deaths and 130 injuries.
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Events
- 585 BC – Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, king of Rome, celebrates a triumph for his victories over the Sabines, and the surrender of Collatia.
- 509 BC – The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on Rome's Capitoline Hill is dedicated on the ides of September.
- 335 – Emperor Constantine the Great consecrated the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
- 533 – Belisarius of the Byzantine Empire defeats Gelimer and the Vandals at the Battle of Ad Decimum, near Carthage, North Africa.
- 1213 – End of Battle of Muret, during the Albigensian Crusade to destroy the Cathar heresy.
- 1229 – Ögedei Khan is proclaimed Khagan of the Mongol Empire in Kodoe Aral, Khentii: Mongolia.
- 1501 – Michelangelo begins work on his statue of David.
- 1504 – Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand issue a Royal Warrant for the construction of a Royal Chapel (Capilla Real) to be built.
- 1541 – After three years of exile, John Calvin returns to Geneva to reform the church under a body of doctrine known as Calvinism.
- 1584 – San Lorenzo del Escorial Palace in Madrid is finished.
- 1609 – Henry Hudson reaches the river that would later be named after him – the Hudson River.
- 1743 – Great Britain, Austria and the Kingdom of Sardinia sign the Treaty of Worms.
- 1759 – Battle of the Plains of Abraham: the British defeat the French near Quebec City in the Seven Years' War, known in the United States as the French and Indian War.
- 1782 – American Revolutionary War: Franco-Spanish troops launch the unsuccessful "grand assault" during the Great Siege of Gibraltar.
- 1788 – The Philadelphia Convention sets the date for the first presidential election in the United States, and New York City becomes the country's temporary capital.
- 1791 – King Louis XVI of France accepts the new constitution.
- 1808 – Finnish War: In the Battle of Jutas, Swedish forces under Lieutenant General Georg Carl von Döbeln beat the Russians, making von Döbeln a Swedish war hero.
- 1812 – War of 1812: A supply wagon sent to relieve Fort Harrison is ambushed in the Attack at the Narrows.
- 1814 – In a turning point in the War of 1812, the British fail to capture Baltimore. During the battle, Francis Scott Key composes his poem "Defence of Fort McHenry", which is later set to music and becomes the United States' national anthem.
- 1843 – The Greek Army rebels (OS date: September 3) against the autocratic rule of king Otto of Greece, demanding the granting of a constitution.
- 1847 – Mexican–American War: Six teenage military cadets known as Niños Héroes die defending Chapultepec Castle in the Battle of Chapultepec. American troops under General Winfield Scott capture Mexico City in the Mexican–American War.
- 1848 – Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage survives a 3-foot (0.91 m)-plus iron rod being driven through his head; the reported effects on his behavior and personality stimulate thinking about the nature of the brain and its functions.
- 1850 – First ascent of Piz Bernina, the highest summit of the eastern Alps.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Union soldiers find a copy of Robert E. Lee's battle plans in a field outside Frederick, Maryland. It is the prelude to the Battle of Antietam.
- 1882 – The Battle of Tel el-Kebir is fought in the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War.
- 1898 – Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.
- 1899 – Henry Bliss is the first person in the United States to be killed in an automobile accident.
- 1899 – Mackinder, Ollier and Brocherel make the first ascent of Batian (5,199 m – 17,058 ft), the highest peak of Mount Kenya.
- 1900 – Filipino resistance fighters defeat a small American column in the Battle of Pulang Lupa, during the Philippine–American War.
- 1906 – First flight of a fixed-wing aircraft in Europe.
- 1914 – World War I: South African troops open hostilities in German south-west Africa (Namibia) with an assault on the Ramansdrift police station.
- 1914 – World War I: The Battle of Aisne begins between Germany and France.
- 1922 – The final act of the Greco-Turkish War, the Great Fire of Smyrna, commences.
- 1923 – Following a military coup in Spain, Miguel Primo de Rivera takes over, setting up a dictatorship.
- 1933 – Elizabeth McCombs becomes the first woman elected to the New Zealand Parliament.
- 1935 – Rockslide near Whirlpool Rapids Bridge ends the International Railway (New York – Ontario).
- 1942 – World War II: Second day of the Battle of Edson's Ridge in the Guadalcanal Campaign. U.S. Marines successfully defeated attacks by the Imperial Japanese Armywith heavy losses for the Japanese forces.
- 1943 – The Municipal Theatre of Corfu is destroyed during an aerial bombardment by Luftwaffe.
- 1948 – Deputy Primer Minister of India Vallabhbhai Patel ordered the Army to move into the Hyderabad to integrate it with Indian Union.
- 1948 – Margaret Chase Smith is elected senator, and becomes the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate.
- 1953 – Nikita Khrushchev is appointed secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
- 1956 – The dike around the Dutch polder East Flevoland is closed.
- 1956 – The IBM 305 RAMAC is introduced, the first commercial computer to use disk storage.
- 1964 – South Vietnamese Generals Lam Van Phat and Duong Van Duc fail in a coup attempt against General Nguyen Khanh.
- 1968 – Albania leaves the Warsaw Pact.
- 1971 – State police and National Guardsmen storm New York's Attica Prison to end a prison revolt.
- 1971 – People's Republic of China: Chairman Mao Zedong's second in command and successor Marshal Lin Biao flees the country via plane after the failure of alleged coup against Mao. The plane crashes in Mongolia, killing all aboard.
- 1979 – South Africa grants independence to the "homeland" of Venda (not recognised outside South Africa).
- 1987 – Goiânia accident: A radioactive object is stolen from an abandoned hospital in Goiânia, Brazil, contaminating many people in the following weeks and causing some to die from radiation poisoning.
- 1988 – Hurricane Gilbert is the strongest recorded hurricane in the Western Hemisphere, later replaced by Hurricane Wilma in 2005 (based on barometric pressure).
- 1989 – Largest anti-Apartheid march in South Africa, led by Desmond Tutu.
- 1993 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shakes hands with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat at the White House after signing the Oslo Accords granting limited Palestinian autonomy.
- 1994 – Ulysses probe passes the Sun's south pole.
- 2001 – Civilian aircraft traffic resumes in the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
- 2006 – Kimveer Gill kills one student and injures 19 more in the Dawson College shooting.
- 2007 – The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.
- 2008 – Delhi, India, is hit by a series of bomb blasts, resulting in 30 deaths and 130 injuries.
- 2008 – Hurricane Ike makes landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast of the United States, causing heavy damage to Galveston Island, Houston and surrounding areas.
Births
- 64 – Julia Flavia, Roman daughter of Titus (d. 91)
- 678 – K'inich Ahkal Mo' Naab' III, Mayan ruler (d. 730)
- 786 – Al-Ma'mun, Abbasid caliph (d. 833)
- 1087 – John II Komnenos, Byzantine emperor (d. 1143)
- 1475 – Cesare Borgia, Italian politician and cardinal (d. 1507)
- 1502 – John Leland, English poet and antiquarian (d. 1552)
- 1521 – William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, English statesman (d. 1598)
- 1583 – Girolamo Frescobaldi, Ferrarese pianist and composer (d. 1643)
- 1594 – Francesco Manelli, Italian composer (d. 1667)
- 1601 – Jan Brueghel the Younger, Flemish painter (d. 1678)
- 1604 – Sir William Brereton, 1st Baronet, English soldier and politician (d. 1661)
- 1676 – Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans, French wife of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine (d. 1741)
- 1694 – Yeongjo of Joseon (d. 1776)
- 1766 – Samuel Wilson, American meat-packer, namesake of Uncle Sam (d. 1854)
- 1775 – Laura Secord, Canadian war heroine (d. 1868)
- 1802 – Arnold Ruge, German philosopher and writer (d. 1880)
- 1813 – John Sedgwick, American general (d. 1864)
- 1819 – Clara Schumann, German pianist and composer (d. 1896)
- 1830 – Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Austrian author (d. 1916)
- 1842 – John H. Bankhead, American politician (d. 1920)
- 1851 – Walter Reed, American physician and biologist (d. 1902)
- 1857 – Michał Drzymała, Polish rebel (d. 1937)
- 1857 – Milton S. Hershey, American businessman, founded The Hershey Company (d. 1945)
- 1860 – John J. Pershing, American general (d. 1948)
- 1863 – Arthur Henderson, British politician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1935)
- 1865 – William Birdwood, 1st Baron Birdwood, Indian-English general (d. 1951)
- 1866 – Ole Østmo, Norwegian target shooter (d. 1923)
- 1873 – Constantin Carathéodory, Greek mathematician (d. 1950)
- 1874 – Henry F. Ashurst, American politician (d. 1962)
- 1874 – Arnold Schoenberg, Austrian composer and painter (d. 1951)
- 1876 – Sherwood Anderson, American author (d. 1941)
- 1877 – Wilhelm Filchner, German explorer (d. 1957)
- 1877 – Stanley Lord, English captain (d. 1962)
- 1880 – Jesse L. Lasky, American film producer (d. 1958)
- 1880 – Marcel Van Crombrugge, Belgian rower (d. 1940)
- 1882 – Ramón Grau, Cuban physician and politician, 6th President of Cuba (d. 1969)
- 1883 – LeRoy Samse, American pole vaulter (d. 1956)
- 1885 – Wilhelm Blaschke, Austrian geometer (d. 1962)
- 1886 – Amelie Beese, German pilot and sculptor (d. 1925)
- 1886 – Robert Robinson, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)
- 1887 – Leopold Ružička, Swiss chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1976)
- 1891 – Max Pruss, Prussian commander (d. 1960)
- 1893 – Larry Shields, American clarinet player (d. 1953)
- 1894 – J. B. Priestley, English playwright and novelist (d. 1984)
- 1894 – Julian Tuwim, Polish poet (d. 1953)
- 1895 – Morris Kirksey, American rugby player (d. 1981)
- 1898 – Roger Désormière, French conductor (d. 1963)
- 1898 – C. Sittampalam, Ceylon Tamil politician (d. 1964)
- 1899 – Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, Romanian politician (d. 1938)
- 1901 – James McCoubrey, Canadian-American super-centenarian (d. 2013)
- 1903 – Claudette Colbert, American actress (d. 1996)
- 1904 – Gladys George, American actress (d. 1954)
- 1908 – Karolos Koun, Greek director (d. 1987)
- 1908 – Sicco Mansholt, Dutch politician, 4th President of the European Commission (d. 1995)
- 1908 – Chu Berry, American tenor saxophonist (d. 1941)
- 1908 – Mae Questel, American actress and vocal artist best known for Betty Boop and Olive Oyl (d. 1998)
- 1909 – Ray Bowden, English footballer (d. 1998)
- 1909 – Frits Thors, Dutch journalist
- 1910 – Stefanos Natsinas, Greek politician (d. 1976)
- 1911 – Bill Monroe, American singer-songwriter (d. 1996)
- 1912 – Maurice K. Goddard, American politician (d. 1995)
- 1912 – Reta Shaw, American actress (d. 1982)
- 1914 – Leonard Feather, English pianist, composer, producer, and journalist (d. 1994)
- 1916 – Roald Dahl, English pilot, author, and screenwriter (d. 1990)
- 1917 – Carol Kendall, American children's author (d. 2012)
- 1917 – Robert Ward, American composer (d. 2013)
- 1918 – Dick Haymes, Argentine actor and singer (d. 1980)
- 1919 – Mary Midgley, English philosopher
- 1920 – Else Holmelund Minarik, Danish-American author (d. 2012)
- 1922 – Charles Brown, American singer and pianist (d. 1999)
- 1922 – Caroline Duby Glassman, American lawyer and jurist (d. 2013)
- 1922 – Yma Sumac, Peruvian soprano (d. 2008)
- 1923 – Édouard Boubat, French photographer (d. 1999)
- 1924 – Norman Alden, American actor (d. 2012)
- 1924 – Harold Blair, Australian tenor (d. 1976)
- 1924 – Scott Brady, American actor (d. 1985)
- 1924 – Maurice Jarre, French composer (d. 2009)
- 1925 – Mel Tormé, American singer, actor, and composer (d. 1999)
- 1926 – Andrew Brimmer, American economist (d. 2012)
- 1926 – Emile Francis, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1926 – J. Frank Raley, American politician (d. 2012)
- 1927 – Tzannis Tzannetakis, Greek politician, 175th Prime Minister of Greece (d. 2010)
- 1929 – Nicolai Ghiaurov, Bulgarian opera singer (d. 2004)
- 1930 – Robert Gavron, Baron Gavron, English publisher
- 1931 – Barbara Bain, American actress
- 1931 – Robert Bédard, Canadian tennis player
- 1931 – Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, Australian sprinter and politician, 33rd Governor of South Australia
- 1932 – Radoslav Brzobohatý, Czech actor (d. 2012)
- 1932 – Bengt Hallberg, Swedish jazz pianist
- 1933 – Eileen Fulton, American actress
- 1933 – Donald Mackay, Australian businessman and activist (d. 1977)
- 1936 – Stefano Delle Chiaie, Italian activist, founded National Vanguard
- 1936 – Joe E. Tata, American actor
- 1937 – Don Bluth, American animator, co-founded Sullivan Bluth Studios and Fox Animation Studios
- 1938 – Judith Martin, American journalist and author
- 1938 – John Smith, Scottish-English politician (d. 1994)
- 1939 – Arleen Auger, American soprano (d. 1993)
- 1939 – Richard Kiel, American actor
- 1939 – Joel-Peter Witkin, American photographer
- 1940 – Óscar Arias, Costa Rican politician, President of Costa Rica, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1940 – Kerry Stokes, Australian businessman
- 1941 – Tadao Ando, Japanese architect, designed Piccadilly Gardens
- 1941 – Ahmet Necdet Sezer, Turkish politician, 10th President of the Republic of Turkey
- 1941 – David Clayton-Thomas, Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
- 1942 – Michel Côté, Canadian politician
- 1943 – Mildred Taylor, African-American author
- 1944 – Carol Barnes, English journalist (d. 2009)
- 1944 – Jacqueline Bisset, English actress
- 1944 – Peter Cetera, American singe-songwriter, bass player, and producer (Chicago)
- 1944 – Midget Farrelly, Australian surfer
- 1944 – Leslie Harvey, Scottish guitarist (Stone the Crows) (d. 1972)
- 1945 – Noël Godin, Belgian actor and writer
- 1945 – Andres Küng, Swedish-Estonian journalist and politician (d. 2002)
- 1946 – Frank Marshall, American director and producer
- 1948 – Nell Carter, American actress (d. 2003)
- 1948 – Dimitri Nanopoulos, Greek physicist
- 1948 – Sitiveni Rabuka, Fijian revolutionary and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Fiji
- 1949 – John W. Henry, American businessman
- 1949 – Fred "Sonic" Smith, American guitarist and songwriter (MC5 and Sonic's Rendezvous Band) (d. 1994)
- 1950 – Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Polish politician, 8th Prime Minister of Poland
- 1950 – Jacky Robert, French-American chef
- 1950 – Klaus Wunder, German footballer
- 1951 – Jean Smart, American actress
- 1952 – Randy Jones, American singer (Village People)
- 1952 – Raymond O'Connor, American actor
- 1952 – Iyanla Vanzant, American inspirational speaker and author
- 1952 – Don Was, American singer, bass player, and producer (Was (Not Was))
- 1954 – Steve Kilbey, English singer-songwriter, bass player, and producer (The Church and Jack Frost)
- 1955 – Joe Morris, American guitarist
- 1956 – Alain Ducasse, French chef
- 1956 – Anne Geddes, Australian photographer
- 1957 – Vinny Appice, American drummer (Black Sabbath, Dio, and Heaven & Hell)
- 1957 – Judy Blumberg, American ice dancer
- 1957 – Mal Donaghy, Irish footballer
- 1957 – John G. Trueschler, American politician
- 1958 – Bobby Davro, English comedian and actor
- 1958 – Paweł Przytocki, Polish conductor
- 1959 – Tatyana Mitkova, Russian journalist
- 1960 – Greg Baldwin, American actor
- 1961 – Fiona, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
- 1961 – Dave Mustaine, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor (Metallica, Megadeth, and MD.45)
- 1961 – Peter Roskam, American politician
- 1961 – Bobbie Cryner, American country singer-songwriter
- 1962 – Tõnu Õnnepalu, Estonian poet and author
- 1963 – Yuri Alexandrov, Russian boxer (d. 2013)
- 1963 – Theodoros Roussopoulos, Greek politician
- 1964 – Tavis Smiley, American talk show host, journalist, and author
- 1965 – Annie Duke, American poker player
- 1965 – Jeff Ross, American comedian, actor, author, and director
- 1965 – Zak Starkey, English drummer (The Icicle Works The Semantics, ASAP, The Lightning Seeds, and Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band)
- 1966 – Maria Furtwängler, German physician
- 1966 – Louis Mandylor, Australian actor
- 1967 – Michael Johnson, American sprinter
- 1967 – Tim "Ripper" Owens, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Iced Earth, Judas Priest, Beyond Fear, and Charred Walls of the Damned)
- 1967 – Stephen Perkins, American drummer, songwriter, and producer (Jane's Addiction, Porno for Pyros, The Panic Channel, Banyan, Infectious Grooves, and Methods of Mayhem)
- 1968 – Roger Howarth, American actor
- 1968 – Brad Johnson, American football player
- 1968 – Emma Wiklund, Swedish model and actress
- 1968 – Bernie Williams, Puerto Rican baseball player
- 1969 – Ilka Knickenberg, German actress
- 1969 – Tyler Perry, American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer
- 1969 – Shane Warne, Australian cricketer
- 1970 – Lee Abramson, American composer and musician
- 1970 – Martín Herrera, Argentine footballer
- 1970 – Louise Lombard, English actress
- 1970 – Andrea Mantegna, Italian painter
- 1970 – Jason Scott Sadofsky, American historian and programmer, founded textfiles.com
- 1971 – Goran Ivanišević, Croatian tennis player
- 1971 – Stella McCartney, English fashion designer
- 1971 – Manabu Namiki, Japanese composer
- 1973 – Christine Arron, French runner
- 1973 – Fabio Cannavaro, Italian footballer
- 1973 – Mahima Chaudhry, Indian actress
- 1973 – Kelly Chen, Hong Kong singer and actress
- 1973 – Olve Eikemo, Norwegian singer-songwriter and guitarist (Immortal, I, and Old Funeral)
- 1973 – Carlo Nash, English footballer
- 1974 – Travis Knight, American basketball player
- 1974 – Éric Lapointe, Canadian football player
- 1974 – Keith Murray, American rapper (Def Squad)
- 1974 – Craig Rivet, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1975 – Akihiro Asai, Japanese race car driver
- 1975 – Joe Don Rooney, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Rascal Flatts)
- 1976 – Craig McMillan, New Zealand cricketer
- 1976 – Elvis Mihailenko, Latvian boxer
- 1976 – José Théodore, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1976 – Puma Swede, Swedish pornographic actress, and feature dancer
- 1977 – Fiona Apple, American singer-songwriter and pianist
- 1977 – Ivan De Battista, Maltese actor, singer, director, writer, and producer
- 1977 – Daisuke Tsuda, Japanese singer-songwriter and drummer (Maximum the Hormone)
- 1978 – Megan Henning, American actress
- 1978 – Peter Sunde, Swedish businessman, co-founded Flattr and The Pirate Bay
- 1979 – Geike Arnaert, Belgian singer (Hooverphonic)
- 1979 – Ivan Miljković, Serbian volleyball player
- 1979 – Catalina Cruz, American pornographic actress
- 1980 – Han Chae-young, South Korean actress and model
- 1980 – Daisuke Matsuzaka, Japanese baseball player
- 1980 – Evangelos Nastos, Greek footballer
- 1980 – Viren Rasquinha, Indian field hockey player
- 1980 – Ben Savage, American actor
- 1981 – August, American porn actress and model
- 1981 – Koldo Fernández, Spanish cyclist
- 1981 – Angelina Love, Canadian wrestler
- 1982 – Nenê, Brazilian basketball player
- 1982 – Lloyd Dyer, English footballer
- 1982 – J. G. Quintel, American animator, scriptwriter, and voice actor
- 1982 – Miha Zupan, Slovenian basketball player
- 1983 – James Bourne, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Busted and Son of Dork)
- 1984 – Nabil Abou-Harb, American director, screenwriter, and producer
- 1985 – David Jordan, English singer-songwriter
- 1985 – Emi Suzuki, Japanese model and actress
- 1986 – Derek Hardman, American football player
- 1986 – Kamui Kobayashi, Japanese race car driver
- 1986 – Sean Williams, American basketball player
- 1987 – Ai Kayano, Japanese voice actress
- 1987 – G.NA, Canadian-South Korean singer and actress
- 1987 – Edenilson Bergonsi, Brazilian footballer
- 1987 – Luke Fitzgerald, Irish rugby player
- 1987 – Tsvetana Pironkova, Bulgarian tennis player
- 1988 – John Park, American singer
- 1988 – Keith Treacy, Irish footballer
- 1989 – Jon Mannah, Australian rugby player (d. 2013)
- 1989 – Thomas Müller, German footballer
- 1990 – Luciano Narsingh, Dutch footballer
- 1994 – Anna Karolína Schmiedlová, Slovak tennis player
- 1995 – Robbie Kay, English actor
Deaths
- 81 – Titus, Roman emperor (b. 39)
- 1506 – Andrea Mantegna, Italian painter (b. 1431)
- 1557 – John Cheke, English scholar and statesman (b. 1514)
- 1592 – Michel de Montaigne, French philosopher and writer (b. 1533)
- 1598 – Philip II of Spain (b. 1526)
- 1624 – Ketevan of Mukhrani (b. 1565)
- 1632 – Leopold V, Archduke of Austria (b. 1586)
- 1759 – James Wolfe, English general (b. 1727)
- 1766 – Benjamin Heath, English scholar (b. 1704)
- 1800 – Claude Martin, French-English general (b. 1735)
- 1806 – Charles James Fox, English politician (b. 1749)
- 1808 – Saverio Bettinelli, Italian writer (b. 1718)
- 1813 – Hezqeyas, Ethiopian emperor
- 1815 – Mihály Gáber, Slovene priest and writer (b. 1753)
- 1847 – Nicolas Oudinot, French marshal (b. 1767)
- 1872 – Ludwig Feuerbach, German philosopher (b. 1804)
- 1881 – Ambrose Burnside, American general and politician, 30th Governor of Rhode Island (b. 1824)
- 1885 – Friedrich Kiel, Austrian composer (b. 1821)
- 1894 – Emmanuel Chabrier, French composer (b. 1841)
- 1905 – René Goblet, French politician, 52nd Prime Minister of France (b. 1828)
- 1910 – Rajanikanta Sen, Bengali poet and composer (b. 1865)
- 1912 – Joseph Furphy, Australian novelist (b. 1843)
- 1912 – Maresuke Nogi, Japanese general (b. 1849)
- 1915 – Stefanos Granitsas, Greek author and journalist (b. 1880)
- 1915 – Andrew L. Harris, American soldier and politician, 44th Governor of Ohio (b. 1835)
- 1916 – Mary, Asian elephant
- 1928 – Italo Svevo, Italian author (b. 1861)
- 1929 – Jatindra Nath Das, Indian freedom fighter and activist (b. 1904)
- 1937 – David Robertson, Scottish golfer (b. 1869)
- 1941 – Elias Disney, Canadian father of Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney (b. 1859)
- 1944 – W. Heath Robinson, English cartoonist and illustrator (b. 1872)
- 1946 – Amon Goeth, Austrian nazi officer (b. 1908)
- 1946 – Eugene Lanceray, Russian painter (b. 1875)
- 1946 – William Watt, Australian politician, 24th Premier of Victoria (b. 1871)
- 1949 – August Krogh, Danish physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1874)
- 1960 – Leo Weiner, Hungarian composer and educator (b. 1885)
- 1965 – Jean B. Fletcher, American architect (b. 1915)
- 1967 – Robert George, English army officer, 24th Governor of South Australia (b. 1896)
- 1971 – Lin Biao, Chinese military leader and politician (b. 1907)
- 1973 – Betty Field, American actress (b. 1913)
- 1973 – Sajjad Zaheer, Indian writer and revolutionary (b. 1905)
- 1976 – Armand Mondou, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1905)
- 1976 – Albert Tessier, Canadian priest, historian, and director (b. 1895)
- 1977 – Leopold Stokowski, English conductor (b. 1882)
- 1982 – Reed Crandall, American comics artist (b. 1917)
- 1985 – Dane Rudhyar, French-American author, composer, astrologer (b. 1895)
- 1987 – Mervyn LeRoy, American director (b. 1900)
- 1991 – Robert Irving, English conductor (b. 1913)
- 1991 – Metin Oktay, Turkish footballer (b. 1936)
- 1991 – Joe Pasternak, American director (b. 1901)
- 1991 – Arcadia Lake, American pornographic actress (b. 1958)
- 1993 – Carl Voss, American ice hockey player (b. 1907)
- 1996 – Tupac Shakur, American rapper, producer, and actor (Digital Underground and Outlawz) (b. 1971)
- 1997 – Georges Guétary, French singer, dancer, and actor (b. 1915)
- 1997 – Georgios Mitsibonas, Greek footballer (b. 1962)
- 1998 – Harry Lumley, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1926)
- 1998 – Frank Renouf, New Zealand businessman (b. 1918)
- 1998 – George Wallace, American politician, 45th Governor of Alabama (b. 1919)
- 1999 – Benjamin Bloom, American theorist (b. 1913)
- 2000 – Betty Jeffrey, Australian nurse (b. 1908)
- 2001 – Johnny Craig, American comics artist (b. 1926)
- 2001 – Jaroslav Drobný, Czech-English tennis player (b. 1921)
- 2001 – Dorothy McGuire, American actress (b. 1916)
- 2002 – George Stanley, Canadian historian, author, and public servant (b. 1907)
- 2003 – Frank O'Bannon, American politician, 47th Governor of Indiana (b. 1930)
- 2004 – Luis E. Miramontes, Mexican chemist, co-inventor of the combined oral contraceptive pill (b. 1925)
- 2005 – Toni Fritsch, Austrian footballer (b. 1945)
- 2005 – Julio César Turbay Ayala, Colombian politician, 33rd President of Colombia (b. 1916)
- 2006 – Ann Richards, American politician, 46th Governor of Texas (b. 1933)
- 2007 – Clare Oliver, Australian activist (b. 1981)
- 2007 – Whakahuihui Vercoe, New Zealand archbishop (b. 1928)
- 2009 – Paul Burke, American actor (b. 1926)
- 2011 – Walter Bonatti, Italian mountaineer (b. 1930)
- 2011 – DJ Mehdi, French DJ and producer (b. 1977)
- 2012 – Lehri, Pakistani actor and comedian (b. 1929)
- 2012 – Obo Addy, Ghanaian drummer and dancer (b. 1936)
- 2012 – Aditya Dev, Indian bodybuilder (b. 1988)
- 2012 – William Duckworth, American composer and author (b. 1943)
- 2012 – Peter Lougheed, Canadian football player, lawyer, and politician, 10th Premier of Alberta (b. 1928)
- 2012 – Brian Óg Maguire, Irish footballer (b. 1988)
- 2012 – Ranganath Misra, Indian jurist, 21st Chief Justice of India (b. 1926)
- 2012 – Jack Pierce, American baseball player (b. 1948)
- 2012 – Otto Stich, Swiss politician (b. 1927)
Holidays and observances
- Christian Feast Day:
- Día de los Niños Héroes (Mexico)
- Epulum Jovis, celebrated on the Ides of September, during the Ludi Romani. (Roman Empire)
- Programmers' Day, during a non-leap year. (Russia and programmers around the world)
- International Chocolate Day
===
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” Philippians 4:4 NIV
===
Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
Morning
"God is jealous."
Nahum 1:2
Nahum 1:2
Your Lord is very jealous of your love, O believer. Did he choose you? He cannot bear that you should choose another. Did he buy you with his own blood? He cannot endure that you should think that you are your own, or that you belong to this world. He loved you with such a love that he would not stop in heaven without you; he would sooner die than you should perish, and he cannot endure that anything should stand between your heart's love and himself. He is very jealous of your trust. He will not permit you to trust in an arm of flesh. He cannot bear that you should hew out broken cisterns, when the overflowing fountain is always free to you. When we lean upon him, he is glad, but when we transfer our dependence to another, when we rely upon our own wisdom, or the wisdom of a friend--worst of all, when we trust in any works of our own, he is displeased, and will chasten us that he may bring us to himself. He is also very jealous of our company. There should be no one with whom we converse so much as with Jesus. To abide in him only, this is true love; but to commune with the world, to find sufficient solace in our carnal comforts, to prefer even the society of our fellow Christians to secret intercourse with him, this is grievous to our jealous Lord. He would fain have us abide in him, and enjoy constant fellowship with himself; and many of the trials which he sends us are for the purpose of weaning our hearts from the creature, and fixing them more closely upon himself. Let this jealousy which would keep us near to Christ be also a comfort to us, for if he loves us so much as to care thus about our love we may be sure that he will suffer nothing to harm us, and will protect us from all our enemies. Oh that we may have grace this day to keep our hearts in sacred chastity for our Beloved alone, with sacred jealousy shutting our eyes to all the fascinations of the world!
Evening
"I will sing of mercy and judgment."
Psalm 101:1
Psalm 101:1
Faith triumphs in trial. When reason is thrust into the inner prison, with her feet made fast in the stocks, faith makes the dungeon walls ring with her merry notes as she cries, "I will sing of mercy and of judgment. Unto thee, O Lord, will I sing." Faith pulls the black mask from the face of trouble, and discovers the angel beneath. Faith looks up at the cloud, and sees that
"'Tis big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on her head."
There is a subject for song even in the judgments of God towards us. For, first, the trial is not so heavy as it might have been; next, the trouble is not so severe as we deserved to have borne; and our affliction is not so crushing as the burden which others have to carry. Faith sees that in her worst sorrow there is nothing penal; there is not a drop of God's wrath in it; it is all sent in love. Faith discerns love gleaming like a jewel on the breast of an angry God. Faith says of her grief, "This is a badge of honour, for the child must feel the rod;" and then she sings of the sweet result of her sorrows, because they work her spiritual good. Nay, more, says Faith, "These light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." So Faith rides forth on the black horse, conquering and to conquer, trampling down carnal reason and fleshly sense, and chanting notes of victory amid the thickest of the fray.
"All I meet I find assists me
In my path to heavenly joy:
Where, though trials now attend me,
Trials never more annoy.
"Blest there with a weight of glory,
Still the path I'll ne'er forget,
But, exulting, cry, it led me
To my blessed Saviour's seat."
===Today's reading: Proverbs 13-15, 2 Corinthians 5 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Proverbs 13-15
1 A wise son heeds his father’s instruction,
but a mocker does not respond to rebukes.
but a mocker does not respond to rebukes.
2 From the fruit of their lips people enjoy good things,
but the unfaithful have an appetite for violence.
but the unfaithful have an appetite for violence.
3 Those who guard their lips preserve their lives,
but those who speak rashly will come to ruin.
but those who speak rashly will come to ruin.
4 A sluggard’s appetite is never filled,
but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.
but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.
5 The righteous hate what is false,
but the wicked make themselves a stench
and bring shame on themselves.
but the wicked make themselves a stench
and bring shame on themselves.
6 Righteousness guards the person of integrity,
but wickedness overthrows the sinner....
but wickedness overthrows the sinner....
Today's New Testament reading: 2 Corinthians 5
Awaiting the New Body
1 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.5Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come....
Naomi
The Woman Who Tasted the Cup of Bitterness
Scripture Reference - The Book of Ruth
Name Meaning - Naomi means "my joy," "my bliss," or "pleasantness of Jehovah," and is a name suggestive of all that is charming, agreeable, attractive. Until deep sorrow overshadowed her, we can understand Naomi having a nature corresponding to her name. Although her character came to be purged and enhanced by her suffering, Naomi had an innate nobility that gave her personality an irresistible charm.
Family Connections - While both Naomi and Elimelech were staunch members of the Hebrew race, we are told nothing of their genealogy. Elimelech, who married Naomi, is thought to have belonged to one of the outstanding families in Israel, being a brother of Salmon, prince of Judah, who married Rahab. If this was so, then Naomi began her married life in comfortable circumstances. Naomi and Elimelech belonged to Bethlehem-Judah where two sons were born to them, namely, Mahlon and Chilion.
The Book of Ruth, which is one of the most lovely idylls in literature, and has enchanted every age, presents us with two women who are among the best-loved in history and whose story still captivates the world because of their unique devotion. Naomi and Ruth, her daughter-in-law, afford a relief after characters like Tamar, Delilah and Jezebel. In this sketch let us try to delineate the life and experience of Naomi who knew a great deal about "the ringing groove of change," to use Tennyson's phrase. Because of her manifold changes in life, Naomi came to fear God in a deeper way ( Psalm 55:19).
Her Change of Country
During the rule of the Judges, Israel suffered a serious famine which was deemed to be one of the punishments visited upon the people when they had sinned (Leviticus 26:14, 16 ). Driven to consternation, Elimelech the Ephrathite of Bethlehem decided to emigrate with his family to another land where food was more plentiful, and so traveled from Judah and settled in the highlands of Moab. For Naomi such an uprooting from her native home must have constituted a real sacrifice. Sincere in her faith, she loved the people of God and was strongly attached to the wonderful traditions of her race.
In taking the initiative to go to Moab - a foreign country - from Bethlehem, Naomi's husband stepped out of the will of God. If the famine was a judgment upon the nation, Elimelech should have repented, tried to have helped his fellow countrymen back to God, and prayed for the removal of the scourge (Psalm 34:9,10, 17 ). One may argue that Elimelech was wise in taking Naomi and their two sons out of a famine-stricken area to another land where there was sufficient food. But Elimelech was a Hebrew, and as such had the promise, "In the days of famine, thou shalt be satisfied." Elimelech means, "My God is King." Had he truly believed God was his King, he would have stayed in Bethlehem, knowing that need could not throttle God who is able to furnish a table in the desert. But Elimelech belied the name he bore when he left Bethlehem - "the house of bread" - for Moab, meaning "waste" or "nothingness." With his family he went from a place where God was honored to another land so heathen in its ways.
Although the land of Moab may sound remote it was only some 30 miles from Bethlehem-Judah - a long enough journey in those far-off days when they had no transportation. The distance, however, was not one of miles, but of mind . As H. V. Morton puts it, "Distances in the Bible are not measured from one place to another, but from God. Naomi and her husband felt they were going into a far country because Moab was a land of foreign worship." Thus Bethlehem to Moab measured the distance from God to the alien worship of an alien country. What disturbed feelings Naomi must have had as, with her family, she found herself in a strange land, unknown, and with all the problems of establishing a home in repellant surroundings.
Her Change of Connections
It was not long before Naomi discovered the error in leaving Bethlehem for in the new and heathen land nothing but misfortune dogged her footsteps. Her two sons married women of Moab. Instead of helping to support their mother they took wives of the alien country they were in. The Jewish law forbade marriage outside of the nation. Naomi's husband, Elimelech, died. He had fled to Moab to escape a possible death from famine, and died in the midst of plenty leaving his wife a widow in a land of idolaters. Bereft of her husband, Naomi loses all heart to live on in a land of foreigners.
When the stem dies, the leaf that grew
Out of its heart must perish too.
Naomi became one of the widows whom Paul describes as being "desolate." To add to her desolation and grief, she also lost both of her sons and so Naomi "was left of her two sons and husband." By this time she was old and helpless with her widowed daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, to shelter. As they were not of her people, nor of her faith in God, Moab true to its name, must have been empty, desolate and inhospitable to Naomi's grief-stricken, aching heart. Doubtless, Ruth and Orpah, whose hearts too had been emptied, were a source of comfort to Naomi, even though they knew that their marriage to Mahlon and Chilion was against her religious principles. So, as George Matheson fittingly expresses it -
To all appearance Naomi was desolate. Husband and children were gone - the place of sojourn was a land of strangers - the voices of the old sanctuary were silent. Her heart and spirit were broken, her conscience was up in arms. The God of her fathers, she felt, had deserted her for her desertion of Him. She must retrieve the past - she must go back - back to the old soil, back to the favour of her God.
Bethlehem was Naomi's native land, and all her relatives and friends were there. Thus she left for Bethlehem, not so much because of her cup of sorrow in Moab, but because she had heard that "the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread."
Her Change of Character
Naomi was determined to return to Bethlehem alone, but her daughters-in-law left with her, possibly excited about a new start in a new land. But on the journey back, Naomi paused and pleaded with Ruth and Orpah to return to Moab. She knew what it would mean for them as Moabites to cross the boundary line, stressing the point that in Canaan there would be very little prospect of their finding husbands. What a moment that must have been as those three widows stood there at the parting of the ways. Orpah, without much ado, kissed Naomi, and then went back to her own idolatrous people, but Ruth clave unto Naomi and begged her to take her to Bethlehem (see Ruth).
As Naomi and Ruth entered the city together the thoughts of each must have been different. To Naomi there came flashing back thoughts of a happy youth and of a life at peace with God - thoughts which tended to aggravate her desolation. But for Ruth, there was the novelty and strangeness of a foreign people, a speech not fully understood, and youth's quest for new adventure. Naomi's arrival in the old community created a sensation. Quickly it passed from lip to lip that the well-known, beautiful and pleasant woman who had left ten years before was back, and as all the city met her they cried, "Is this Naomi?" Why the question form of their welcome? Did they detect a radical change in her appearance and demeanor? The repetition of her significant name irritated her as she cried -
Call me not Naomi [pleasant, winsome, agreeable], call meMara [bitter]: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?
Naomi could not bear the contradiction between the name she bore, and the person she was. Ten years in Moab with all its anguish, and also the loss of fellowship with God and His people had dried up her finer feelings. Once so sweet, Naomi was now sour, and blamed God for the poverty and desolation she had endured. But why chide God? Was not her cup of bitterness the result of the act of disobedience when, with her husband, she left Bethlehem for Moab? Had she stayed in her own land and maintained her trust in God, in spite of the famine, He would have undertaken for her and her family and brought them through. But the journey to Moab was a journey from God, and consequently her bitterness was the fruit of such an act of disobedience.
Her Change of Circumstances
Naomi was back in Bethlehem as a "returned empty." She went away to Moab with plenty but retraced her steps in poverty. How descriptive of her adverse circumstances is her lament! "I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty." Naomi and Ruth, then, clinging to each other, plunge into the poverty and solitariness facing them - but with a different outlook. Both women were widows and sufferers, but suffering old age often yields to hopelessness and despair, whereas suffering youth rebounds and seeks to be responsive to the life that is around. Thus Ruth felt the stir of excitement in her new surroundings. Naomi and she must eat, and knowing that her mother-in-law, whom Ruth surrounded with loving care, was too old to bend her back to work in the fields, Ruth goes out and secures work as a gleaner in the fields of Boaz. Under Jewish law the poor were allowed to glean in any harvest field, and Ruth qualified for the weary, humble task of following the reapers and gathering up the gleanings for Naomi and herself.
Boaz, related to Naomi's husband, was therefore connected by marriage to Ruth, and by Jewish custom, Boaz, as next of kin, could be regarded as Ruth's rightful betrothed. Naomi, with her bitterness now subdued and her former pleasant disposition restored, took a lively interest in the kindness of Boaz to Ruth, and advised her in the steps leading to her marriage to Boaz. The idyllic conclusion was reached as Naomi, through her tender boldness, saw Ruth lifted out of obscurity and poverty into marriage with a godly man, as well as a mighty man of wealth. For Naomi, the winter of desolation was past, and the time of the singing of birds had come. Although her natural hopes had perished, Naomi lived again in the life of her dear, sacrificial daughter-in-law, and there were loud rejoicings when Ruth's first-born, Obed, was carried to Grandma Naomi. Now her daughter-in-law who loved her was better to Naomi "than seven sons." How lovingly she would nurse Ruth's child and bless God because, as Professor R. G. Moulton expressed it -
The family she thought she had seen perish has been restored to the genealogies of Israel; for baby Obed lives to become the father of Jesse, and Jesse is father of the great King David. And in the genealogical tables of Matthew, the Moabitess who left her people for love of Naomi is duly named as an ancestress of the Messiah Himself.
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Matthew
[Măt'thew] - gift of jehovah.
[Măt'thew] - gift of jehovah.
The Man Who Left All to Follow Christ
This son of Alphaeus was a Hebrew with two names, a common thing in Galilee at that time. Mark and Luke, when recording Matthew's call to discipleship, speak of him as Levi, but Matthew himself uses the name he has been loved by throughout the Christian era. In his despised occupation he was Levi, a name meaning "joined," and joined he was to the world's crooked extortionate ways and mercenary aims. He was also joined by his vocation to a hated foreign power under whose yoke orthodox Jews chafed.
Thus Levi and his craft were so detested that the very namepublican or tax-gatherer was commonly associated with sinner(Luke 15:1). His original name connected him with the tribe of Levi, the priestly house set aside for sanctuary service. But this Levi degraded his holy name. Whether the Lord changed the name to Matthew when He called Levi or whether the new found disciple chose it himself, we do not know. Meaning "the gift of God," Matthew's new name magnified the transforming power of Christ and indicated that Matthew was like the One who called him, a gift to Israel and to the world.
The call to service came when he was sitting at the receipt of custom (Matt. 9:9; Luke 5:27 ) at Capernaum, the first world center, "the Great West Trunk Road from Damascus and the Far East to the Mediterranean Sea." Matthew was a "publican," which is not to be confused with the modern usage of the term as an English innkeeper. "Publican" is from the Latin wordpublicannus , meaning the collector of Roman taxes, the gathering of which was farmed out to minor officials ready to undertake this odious duty among their countrymen. A publican's reward was that he could extort for his own benefit more than was due, so long as the extortion did not lead to revolt. This was why the publicans, as a class, were spoken of as "leeches." They gorged themselves with money in the process of gathering money for the Caesars and consequently were reckoned to be outside the pale of decent society and of the synagogue.
"Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter's Son, knew Matthew the publican quite well," says Alexander Whyte. "Perhaps only too well. Jesus and His mother had by this time migrated from Nazareth to Capernaum. He had often been in Matthew's toll-booth with His mother's taxes, with other poor people's taxes." But the outcast was called by Christ to a better occupation, to better wealth than silver and gold, to serve a better King than Caesar. Without hesitation Matthew left all, arose and followed Christ (Luke 5:28).
To celebrate his surrender to Christ, Matthew entertained Christ and others to a feast in his own house ( Matt. 9:10; Luke 5:29). This feast was a token of gratitude for his emancipation from a sordid occupation, and revealed a missionary spirit. Such an "At Home" served a threefold purpose:
I. It was a Jubilee Feast to commemorate his translation into a new life. Matthew wanted all and sundry to know that he was now a new creature in Christ Jesus.
II. It was a Farewell Dinner to declare his determination henceforth to follow and serve his new found King. It was his public confession of surrender to the call of Christ.
III. It was a Conversazione to introduce his old associates and friends to his new found Saviour, that they too might have an opportunity of hearing His wonderful words of life. Matthew sought to make a dinner party an evangelistic service. He knew many would come to his house to meet Christ who would not go to the synagogue to hear Him. Doubtless many publicans and sinners learned that day that Christ did not despise them.
Matthew became not only an apostle but also the writer of the first gospel. He left behind an undying image of his Lord. Matthew has given us The Galilean Gospel -unique in every way. When he rose and left all to follow Christ, the only things Matthew took out of his old life were his pen and ink. It is well for us that he did, since he took them with him for such a good purpose.
Matthew's gospel is striking in that it alone gives us the Parables of the Kingdom. The theme of his book, known as "the Hebrew Porch of the New Testament" is The King and His Kingdom. Some fifty-six times he uses the word "kingdom." In his record of the life and labors of Christ, Matthew has given us the image of Christ as it fell upon his own heart.
Trained to systematic methods and well acquainted with Jewish character and religion, Matthew was fitted to commend Christ to the Jews. He appeals to the student of Old Testament literature. As a writer, he is before us as an eyewitness of the events he describes and as earwitness of the discourses he records. As to his qualifications, Matthew had a love of truth and was sensible of the mercy of God, and the misery of man. In self-effacing humility, he loses sight of himself in adoration of his Hero. It is thus that his book can be divided in this three-fold way:
The early days of the Messiah (Matt. 1-4:16).
The signs and works of the Messiah (Matt. 4:17-16:20).
The passion of the Messiah (Matt. 16:21-28:20).
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