Friday, February 14, 2014

Fri Feb 14th Todays News

Stateline NSW with Quentin Dempster ran opposition to amendments to crime legislation making mandatory sentences for judges on certain crimes occasioning death. They made the accusation that mandatory sentencing would mean fewer people would plead guilty for some crimes, and so criminal justice would cost more. As arguments go, it is similar to the one that says were the ABC not biased, it would not report responsibly on matters. A retrospective view shows considerable injustice without mandatory sentencing. Four years jail for killing an innocent bystander is light, although, at the time, that was the law. Similarly, a biased ABC has not been able to report responsibly on matters. The arguments they present are emotive. But, the community are demanding sensible government of the type the ALP could not provide.

 It is Valentines Day and a time for reflection on matters of love. Everyone is a child of someone. It is a blessing and a privilege to have children, not undertaken as lightly or easily as they are produced. Children are resilient and can be raised right under extraordinary circumstances, but also falter and stumble over what seems like nothing. So the issue of child protection is important. It is all about choices, but those choices aren't always clear when present. A mother from a well to do family had a child with a wild guy. He was apparently a good father, but a lousy partner. He got involved with drugs. Her family got her a good house close to the dad so he could be present in raising the boy. But he became violent. He was violent to the mother, but she made the choice to keep his access to the boy so the boy would have a father in his life. This rings home for me as my father abandoned me several times in my life, partly because of my mother's choices. It is a cruel injustice the woman's faith and love were answered so badly by the father killing his son in a murder suicide. Not her fault, but his. It is Valentines Day, time to hold your loved ones tight.
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Hatches
Happy birthday and many happy returns Jonathan Chu. Born on the same day, across the years, as
Matches
Despatches
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Bill Shorten just a blast from Labor’s past

Piers Akerman – Friday, February 14, 2014 (12:11pm)

LABOR strategists trying to promote their current leader Bill Shorten should note that the public didn’t warm to the story of convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Bill Shorten just a blast from Labor’s past'
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Free tickets offered to Flannery’s nightmare

Andrew Bolt February 14 2014 (4:36pm)

Seriously, here is how Text Media is flogging free tickets to Anne Summers’ latest love in, this time with climate catastrophist Tim Flannery:
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Is this the horrible death Flannery means?
Snow is on the ground in 49 out of the 50 [US] states — only the Sunshine State of Florida is completely snow-free, according to a map produced Thursday morning by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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The home of the modern ratbag

Andrew Bolt February 14 2014 (4:20pm)

Members of the green group 350.org gather outside the home of an oil company executive to intimidate him:
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Gee, that looks familiar:
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There goes the Left again, using our taxes for another soapbox

Andrew Bolt February 14 2014 (3:28pm)

Tony Thomas on The Conversation, a hugely-staffed website funded by taxpayers and run by the Left, with all the Left’s usual faults:
The lavishly-funded leftist blog for academia, The Conversation, has hired a new manager specifically to make contributors converse more politely. Cory Zanoni, an RMIT psychology graduate and social media guru, got the job of Community Manager in January…
On February 13, Zanoni wrote, “I was appointed following concerns by some readers (and shared by editors) that there was a lack of civility in many comment threads. My brief is to fix this… “…
Idly googling nice Mr Zanoni, I came across this twitter exchange, under Mr Zanoni’s new job title:

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Let me confess. I’m not sure that I want to know what c—kspanking is.  But it’s interesting that the newly-installed Community Manager of The Conversation, appointed to enforce higher standards on Conversation users, is tweeting things that – to put it mildly – don’t seem to raise the tone of online exchanges. And tweeting them, too, a bare 48 hours before publishing civility guidelines for The Conversation.
As with the ABC, we must ask why governments - via our universities - are subsidising competition to private media outlets, and why the Conversation requires a truly astonishing number of staff:

At a time when mainstream media are hacking staff numbers to vestiges, the scale of The Conversation is disconcerting. It has Andrew Jaspan, the warmist ex-editor of The-Age as Executive Director, a managing editor, a chief operating officer, 18 sundry editors, an external relations director, the community manager, four developers, three in finance, an admin officer, and an apparently unfilled slot for a multi-media manager. Chair is Bendigo Bank supremo Robert Johanson, heading a 12-person board, plus there is a six-person editorial board. I’d guess the salary bill at $4m or so.
Plus there’s another 16 staff in the new UK office.
Wow. But for some reason, The Conversation isn’t telling us how much of our taxes it is spending:
Andrew Jaspan invites personal questions, so last December I wrote to him,

“Hi Andrew, Does your organisation publish a public annual report and annual accounts? Have any of the 27 university members disclosed how much funding they are contributing to your group? If you are not legally obliged to make the accounts public, would it not be good to do so voluntarily?”
I still await his reply.
Key sponsors of The Conversation are founders CSIRO, and the universities Melbourne, WA, Monash and UTS. Strategic partners include toffy law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth, CBA and the Victorian Department of Business (eh? I thought we had a Liberal-led government in Victoria?).
And as with all such state-funded media, The Conversation has become a vehicle for the Left to push its latest creeds. Your taxes, the Left’s plaything:
But on climate, The Conversation is an exclusive playground for left and green authors… [I] give you the following “environment” headers ads they appeared on February 13.

Is $15 a year really too much to pay for renewable energy? Sure, let’s debate nuclear power – just don’t call it ‘low emission’
Global warming stalled by strong winds driving heat into oceans
Climate change to hit snow industry
Coasting flooding could cost billions
Most Australians over-estimate how “green” they are
We know who’s profiting from emissions – let’s bill them
Scrapping sea level protection puts Australian homes at risk.
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Which parts of this culture must we “recognise”?

Andrew Bolt February 14 2014 (11:25am)

Politics - federal

The federal government explains:
The Government is committed to pursuing meaningful change in the Constitution – change that unites the nation and reflects the hopes and aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians by: 
- Recognising the unique history and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples...
Is this part of the Aboriginal culture we should recognise or should change?
MORE than 3000 under-aged teens are married or in de facto marriages across the nation, according to data which reveals that the practice is most widespread in indigenous communities.
Would constitutional recognition of Aboriginal culture legally prevent governments from tackling under-age marriages in Aboriginal communities?
UPDATE
The Australian is right, of course:
The emphasis of the inner-city green Left - so often echoed in the editorials of The Sydney Morning Herald - has been too focused on increased funding, symbolism and political posturing by city-based activists. It is time to fully embrace a more practical agenda, driven by a new wave of indigenous thinking and, over time, embraced by community-based exemplars.
But how does this editorial today square with the one The Australian published just two weeks ago?
The Australian believes Bolt is wrong now to oppose constitutional recognition for indigenous Australians… The Australian would argue symbolic gestures can help the practical reconciliation process.
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Fairfax’s Gay Alcorn now admits what conservatives have long warned: the ABC is too big

Andrew Bolt February 14 2014 (10:59am)

Media

Strange. Fairfax columnist Gay Alcorn attacks “hysterical” News Corp writers for saying the ABC is destroying private media competitors - an argument I made and which Alcorn then says is actually, er, right:
Last year, prominent journalist Peter Fray tried something new. He set up PolitiFact Australia, a fact-checking website to test the accuracy of politicians’ claims.... Then two other fact-checking websites started, both funded by taxpayers. One was at the academic website The Conversation.... The other was at the ABC, thanks to a $10 million grant in February last year from the Labor government - $1.5 million a year of that was dedicated to fact-checking.
As enjoyable as the competition was, I felt some sympathy for Fray who was trying to start a business against rivals who didn’t need to make money. Now, only the ABC’s Fact Check remains....
You can admire the ABC’s innovations and its community spirit ... (yet) there is a risk that the national broadcaster will become too dominant.
It’s not that the commercial media, big and small, don’t need to innovate and stand on their own two feet, but the task shouldn’t be made harder by the distorting impact of public funding....
But it would be far from ideal if the serious end of journalism became the sole preserve of the ABC, always at risk of punishment and budget cuts depending on the political mood in Canberra....
Nobody would blame the ABC’s opinion site, The Drum, for the challenges facing commercial media, but it’s a symbol of an attitude that should be rethought. I looked at the site this week and many of its writers - Greg Jericho, Chris Berg, Mungo MacCallum, Greg Barns and others - appear elsewhere routinely.
There are opinion sites such as The Hoopla or Crikey trying to break even or even make a profit. They have challenges beyond ABC competition, of course, but why spend public money on something that is barely distinguishable from commercial and non-profit sites ...?
It’s rather pathetic that a Fairfax writer can attack News Corp writers - like, you know, me - as “hysterical”, biased and self-interested for making exactly the criticisms she now makes today. Check my column of last week and ask how it differs in argument from Alcorn’s.
Once again I have to ask: what is the difference between conservatives and the Left? Answer: just time.
But let’s look on the bright side: even the Left is starting to realise the ABC is now dangerously big. 
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Six steps to save jobs

Andrew Bolt February 14 2014 (10:43am)

Professor Sinclair Davidson:
This evening I got a call asking if I could appear on the Price-Bolt 2GB show and talk about the five things to get the economy going – in 5 minutes times. Sure I said. So here is the list:

Cut taxes at both the federal and state levels. Cut spending – especially on industry policy, subsidies and duplication.
Cut regulation – both red tape and green tape (especially the MRET).
Liberalise the labour market.
Liberalise the housing market
Actually abolish the carbon and mining taxes.
Okay – that’s six and not five and it could be counted in as cutting taxes.
Now I don’t think that list is as radical as Andrew and Steve thought.
In fact, I don’t think the list was so very radical. I think the Abbott Government will think it too radical - or at least too dangerous politically, given that Sinclair nominated among the spending cuts the sale of the ABC and cuts to welfare.
Hear our discussion here.
Your own tips for saving jobs?
UPDATE
John Roskam on how politics distorts our priorities:

Since the federal election, Labor’s spokesman on industry, Kim Carr, has spent more than half his time talking about the car industry, at least as measured by the number of press releases he’s issued. Given that car workers comprise just 3 per cent of the number of people employed in manufacturing in Australia, that’s an awful lot of attention bestowed upon them by Carr. The federal Industry Minister, Ian Macfarlane, has spent only slightly less time talking about cars than his opposition counterpart…
Car manufacturing is worth about $5.5 billion to the Australian economy. Hairdressing and beauty services are worth about $4 billion, but hairdressers and beauticians do not get their own minister.
The industry minister could be replaced in cabinet by something Australia has never had before – a “minister for consumers and taxpayers”.  This minister could go into the media and explain that an end to automotive subsidies and the abolition of tariffs would reduce the cost of a new car by up to $2000.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Eight weeks, no boats

Andrew Bolt February 14 2014 (10:23am)

It is now eight weeks since the last boat of asylum seekers turned up.
Why couldn’t Labor achieve this? Why did so many journalists claim the Abbott Government couldn’t?
UPDATE
The ABC continues to fret that our navy sailed into Indonesian waters to safely return boat people:

CHRIS UHLMANN: The head of Customs and Border Protection has joined the Defence Force and the Government in apologising unreservedly to Indonesia for repeatedly breaching its sovereignty.
Michael Pezzullo is currently considering a detailed report on incidents where Australian ships sailed into Indonesian waters during Operation Sovereign Borders.
He says mistakes were made but won’t reveal what’s in the document or say how much of it will be publicly released.
But I wonder which navy Indonesia is actually more worried about - ours or China’s?
The RAAF monitored an unprecedented and unannounced exercise involving three Chinese warships in international waters to the north of Australia, it has emerged.
The unusual naval exercise late last week is considered to have been a deliberate and provocative move by the Chinese that will send a clear message to the region.
For the first time, the Chinese navy sent warships sailing through the Sunda Strait between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra.
The ships travelled along the southern edge of Java, close to Christmas Island, and then through the Lombok Strait between Lombok and Bali.
Indonesia seems to have been caught totally unawares by Chinese warships sailing between their two most important islands in a show of muscle. Does the ABC seriously think Indonesia is losing sleep about our own navy instead?
Give it a rest. 
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Palmer accused

Andrew Bolt February 14 2014 (10:16am)

I cannot believe the Clive Palmer story will end well - for Palmer:
CHINESE giant Citic Pacific has accused Clive Palmer’s private company of taking millions of dollars from a special fund without authority as it labelled the federal MP’s bid to shut down its Australian subsidiary as one of the most “flagrant abuses” of its type.
Mr Palmer’s Mineralogy has accused the Citic Pacific-owned Sino Iron of failing to contribute $13.4 million to an administrative fund set up several years ago, claiming its estranged business partner should be liquidated on the grounds of insolvency…
The counsel for Citic, Andrew Bell, told judge John Gilmour yesterday that Mineralogy had spent $2.5m from the project’s administrative fund on a vessel when “our understanding is that such a vessel was never acquired”.
Dr Bell also said Mineralogy took $2m from the fund for port security costs but those costs were not incurred because Mineralogy was not engaged in such a role at the time. 
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Lecturer makes Indonesians see red over Australia

Andrew Bolt February 14 2014 (9:51am)

Victoria University lecturer Max Lane, a Socialist Alternative member and recently on the executive council of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, tells the Jakarta Post our immigration minister is a pirate causing boat people to die:

The Australian government denies outright and refuses to investigate allegations by some of the refugees ...  that they had their hands held up against hot engine pipes [by Australian navy personnel] resulting in extensive burns. Others claimed they were kicked.... It is also reported that two refugees returned in the first lifeboat later ... drowned trying to cross a river in the jungle…
I am not an expert in international law or law of the sea but the forcible seizure of other people’s boats, the detention of their crew (Indonesian citizens) and passengers (citizens of various countries), the forcible transfer of such people to other boats, and the coerced towing them to a destination not of their choice would all seem to amount to piracy…
Morally, however, it is quite clear that these are immoral, inhumane acts. Personally, I would like to see Immigration and Border Protection Minister, Scott Morrison and the puppet General doing his work charged with piracy and criminal negligence causing death.
How did universities become such a refuge for Marxists and wanna-be revolutionaries, soiling our reputation abroad?
(Thanks to reader Whatthe?.) 
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On trying to correct Tim Flannery’s smear

Andrew Bolt February 14 2014 (8:33am)

Global warming - propaganda


The Sydney Morning Herald and I learned a bit about warming alarmist Tim Flannery this week.
It all started with this astonishing allegation in Mark Dapin’s flattering profile on the weekend of the former Chief Climate Commissioner:
Flannery says he does not like to talk much about his living arrangements, as the famously temperate broadcaster Ray Hadley revealed the location of Flannery’s house on the Hawkesbury River, and News Ltd’s mild-mannered columnist Andrew Bolt published details of his mortgage.
I sent the newspaper this response:
Tim Flannery bizarrely claims in your flattering profile (February 8, 2014) that “News Ltd’s mild-mannered columnist Andrew Bolt published details of [Flannery’s] mortgage”.
That slur is completely false. I did no such thing and do not know of anyone who has.
Your reporter should have treated that claim as no more believable that Flannery’s past ones about global warming having stopped our dam-filling rains, Sydney running out of water, Perth becoming a ”ghost metropolis” and the Arctic ice cap melting away by this year. I suspect Flannery’s persecution complex lies in my having pointed out his record of such dud predictions – a record you should have mentioned.
Over the next few days I was sent a series of emails from the Herald, not one of which presented evidence to justify Flannery’s claim. Instead I was asked to respond to increasingly absurd claims - all red herrings - in an apparent attempt to have me admit that if I hadn’t actually revealed details of Flannery’s mortgage, I had been a bastard to him in some other way.
I was asked if I’d really not republished a “close-up picture of the actual house” Flannery had bought by the banks of the estuarine Hawkesbury (despite warning us of sea level rises eight storeys high).  I was told Flannery “further alleges that details of a house he purchased at Berowra Heights on behalf of his mother-in-law were in the story you posted… Did you ever repost or write anything about the Berowra Heights house?” Had not Flannery’s QC rung me to demand I take down the picture and any mention of Flannery’s home? The Herald, I was assured, would ring the QC to see if he’d indeed done all this, as Flannery now claimed.
I was even told some reporter on The Telegraph had once reported Flannery’s Coba Point home was mortgaged to ANZ bank, as if that was my fault.
Never was any evidence presented that I actually had indeed published a picture of Flannery’s home, discussed his mother-in-law’s home or been rung by his QC, whose name is entirely unfamiliar to me.  And, of course, never was I told how all these new allegations were relevant to the correction I sought.
In the end, I wrote back to the Herald in some frustration:
The allegation: that I revealed Flannery’s mortgage details.

Proof offered: none.

Flannery’s defence:  yes, but maybe Bolt published a picture of Flannery’s house, or maybe a picture of his mother-in-law’s house, or was that just The Australian?  And didn’t some Daily Telegraph reporter once mention Flannery owned a third of his mother-in-law’s house, and that he bought his “weekend getaway” in 2003?

And you and I are supposed to chase down every red herring? My request for a correction is being turned into an investigation into how many other ways I might have been mean to poor Tim.

Let me help: I have offended Flannery by repeatedly contrasting his warmist predictions to what actually occurred. Feel free to publish every instance of that rudeness.
Today my correction was finally published, minus the paragraph which put Flannery’s attack on me in the proper context - of my having repeatedly exposed as duds some of his wildest predictions of warming catastrophe:

A slur against me: Bolt
Tim Flannery bizarrely claims in your flattering profile that ‘’News Ltd’s mild-mannered columnist Andrew Bolt published details of [Flannery’s] mortgage’’ (’’Tim Flannery: a man for all climates’’, smh.com.au, February 8-9). That slur is completely false. I did no such thing.
Andrew Bolt Southbank
You might well ask whether a man who cannot correctly report what was said of him by a critic - and cannot apologise for a clear error - can be relied upon to correctly report climate science and acknowledge mistaken predictions.
But how did Flannery came to make such an odd claim in the first place? It is perhaps worth recalling what Flannery said in 2010 about the wicked persecution he perceived:
The campaign [against the IPCC] was very much like the sort of media campaign that I’m used to when people try to discredit me. And the way that works is usually on a Friday they’ll run a front-page story saying what a ratbag I am. You know, front page, and that’s all right, interesting, someone’s been a bit, you know, corrupt or a bit rotten.
And then on the Saturday they’ll run a page three story, usually a much longer story, listing everything you’re supposed to have done, and all the reasons why you’re a ratbag.
And then on the Monday they’ll put a little stinger in. A little reminder, just to remind people what a rotten person you are.

Tim Blair then challenged him:
The comments section is all yours, Professor. Hit us with links, PDFs, scans, whatever. Just to be clear, we’re looking for multiple front-page stories that attempt to discredit you (as per your claim) followed by longer page three stories and subsequent Monday sting items. Sounds like there’s lots of them.
No such evidence was ever produced, of course. 
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The ABC continues its much-admired coverage of our armed forces

Andrew Bolt February 14 2014 (8:22am)

The ABC in January:
TIM PALMER: New footage appears to back asylum seekers’ claims of mistreatment by the Australian Navy. Passengers who were turned back ... claimed some passengers were punched and beaten and some also claimed to have been burnt from being forced to hold onto part of the boat’s engine.
The ABC in February:
SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER: More than 12 months out from the ANZAC centenary, Australia is gearing up for an enormous celebration to mark the hundredth anniversary of the Gallipoli landing. 8,000 Australians will flock to ANZAC Cove for the event and over $325 million is to be outlaid on First World War commemorations, more than double the amount Britain plans to spend. The ANZAC legend has generated an enormous industry and now one Army veteran is asking whether our ANZAC obsession has gone too far....
JAMES BROWN, FORMER CAPT. & AUTHOR, ANZAC’S LONG SHADOW: The injunction at most war memorials is, “Let silent contemplation be your offering”. But instead we’re about to embark on a four-year festival for the dead which in some cases looks like a military Halloween.
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Time Abbott moved in to Kirribilli

Andrew Bolt February 14 2014 (7:53am)

Tony Abbott hates ostentation:
Mr Abbott said he wanted to stay in his home in Forestville for as long as possible, rather than move into the Prime Minister’s official residence, Kirribilli House. When in Canberra he will continue to live at the Australian Federal Police College.
I like a man not too full of himself, yet I think it’s high time Abbott moved into Kirribilli. That’s where a Prime Minister stays, and while Abbott refuses to live there he will seem to some as a man who does not yet feel Prime Ministerial or even look it.
Assume the office, assume the symbols of it.
Mind you, it seems to me that in the past few weeks particularly Abbott has found not just his message but his tone.
UPDATE
Most readers agree. Move in, Tony.

Reader Magpie:
100% agree - our PM should move to Kirribilli. In fact I thought he had moved in already. Time to go that extra step PM - we all want our Leader to not only sound like a PM but look like one.
Reader Spin Baby, Spin:
I agree. Both with Abbott hitting the right note in the last week or so and the fact he needs to move into Kirribilli.
Reader squash:
I suppose it is difficult to move away from the family home when a base is needed for young adult children. But I also think it is important to maintain the role of first minister of the land.
Reader candy:
The Left/socialist media will demean him for moving into Kirribilli, as they don’t accept him as PM, that’s the problem. They don’t want him there. That’s got to make him feel uncomfortable.  
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Brandis won’t restore our free speech at all

Andrew Bolt February 14 2014 (7:07am)

Professor James Allan, writing in the always excellent Spectator, says Attorney-General George Brandis seems not to be delivering on his promise to restore our free speech:
Next is the government’s pre-election pledge to make changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, the Labor-enacted hate speech law that was used (illiberally) to go after Andrew Bolt… Recall that this section has four triggers that undercut free speech. Those triggers are the words ‘insult’, ‘offend’, ‘humiliate’ and ‘intimidate’....
But rather than get rid of all four, and repeal the entirety of 18C (which analogously did happen in Canada federally), the talk now is of how the government might keep the prohibitory words ‘humiliate’ and ‘intimidate’ and either repeal or replace ‘offend’ and ‘insult’. Let me be blunt. Such a craven compromise is in no way at all the choice of a government committed to free speech. It basically is window dressing, leaving the Labor inroads into free speech pretty much where they are.
Try this test Mr Attorney-General. Tell us precisely what the difference is between offending or insulting someone and humiliating someone. The fact is our AG cannot differentiate them… So if this government opts for this sort of half-hearted compromise, it cannot with a straight face also pretend such cosmetic changes somehow meet its free speech pledge. Same trial, same judge, same Andrew Bolt, and Bolt still loses if all that is changed is that the focus is on ‘humiliate’ rather than ‘offend’ or ‘insult’.
I won’t even bother here to do more than mention that the Attorney-General rather incredibly seems to be mooting adding, yes adding, some brand new speech restricting criminal law provision — the old one being for him too narrowly drawn or something. Why, you might wonder, are we hearing
these backtracking noises? Alas, I fear the government just can’t be bothered to take on the vested interests. 
Allan is perfectly correct. My lawyers and employer have already concluded that the law makes it too dangerous for me to write about the choice people make to identify as members exclusively of one “race”. Indeed, a court has ruled that even to suggest certain people had such a choice was a factual error - one that contributed to putting two of my articles in breach of this law making it unlawful to ‘insult’, ‘offend’, ‘humiliate’ and ‘intimidate’ people on the grounds of their “race”.
The judgement in my case makes perfectly clear that removing just ‘insult’ and ‘offend’ from Section 18C would not have saved me. The judge declared I’d also humiliated or intimidated some fair-skinned Aboriginal people with “imputations” he’d found in what I’d written:
I am satisfied that fair-skinned Aboriginal people (or some of them) were reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to have been offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated by the imputations conveyed by the newspaper articles.
Brandis’s mooted “reforms” - if the rumors are right - are essentially useless. They amount to a mere sop, and, worse, Brandis is now suggesting that in exchange for giving us something useless he will toughen other laws against “vilification”. We’ll have gained nothing, but lost even more, and those of us who wish to argue against the new racism will continue to be stopped by law from expressing all our arguments.
This is a disgraceful and dangerous state of affairs, and a government which claims to be outraged should actually fix it. 
UPDATE

Quadrant wonders what it was that my lawyers warned was too dangerous for me to even report, let alone comment on.  Catallaxy also wonders what it was.
How shameful that in a free society it is deemed too legally dangerous for me to say a particular DFAT publication offended me and why. What agenda is being protected here, and at what cost? By what right do we prevent citizens from debating freely matters of moral and political importance? 
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February 14: Valentine's Day; Feast of St. Brigit of Kildare (Eastern Christianity)
Salman Rushdie
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Events[edit]

Births[edit]

Deaths[edit]

Holidays and observances[edit]

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“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” - John 3:16
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
February 13: Morning
"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God." - 1 John 3:1-2
"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us." Consider who we were, and what we feel ourselves to be even now when corruption is powerful in us, and you will wonder at our adoption. Yet we are called "the sons of God." What a high relationship is that of a son, and what privileges it brings! What care and tenderness the son expects from his father, and what love the father feels towards the son! But all that, and more than that, we now have through Christ. As for the temporary drawback of suffering with the elder brother, this we accept as an honour: "Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." We are content to be unknown with him in his humiliation, for we are to be exalted with him. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." That is easy to read, but it is not so easy to feel. How is it with your heart this morning? Are you in the lowest depths of sorrow? Does corruption rise within your spirit, and grace seem like a poor spark trampled under foot? Does your faith almost fail you? Fear not, it is neither your graces nor feelings on which you are to live: you must live simply by faith on Christ. With all these things against us, now--in the very depths of our sorrow, wherever we may be--now, as much in the valley as on the mountain, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." "Ah, but," you say, "see how I am arrayed! my graces are not bright; my righteousness does not shine with apparent glory." But read the next: "It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him." The Holy Spirit shall purify our minds, and divine power shall refine our bodies; then shall we see him as he is.
Evening
"There is therefore now no condemnation." - Romans 8:1
Come, my soul, think thou of this. Believing in Jesus, thou art actually and effectually cleared from guilt; thou art led out of thy prison. Thou art no more in fetters as a bond-slave; thou art delivered now from the bondage of the law; thou art freed from sin, and canst walk at large as a freeman; thy Saviour's blood has procured thy full discharge. Thou hast a right now to approach thy Father's throne. No flames of vengeance are there to scare thee now; no fiery sword; justice cannot smite the innocent. Thy disabilities are taken away: thou wast once unable to see thy Father's face: thou canst see it now. Thou couldst not speak with him: but now thou hast access with boldness. Once there was a fear of hell upon thee; but thou hast no fear of it now, for how can there be punishment for the guiltless? He who believeth is not condemned, and cannot be punished. And more than all, the privileges thou mightst have enjoyed, if thou hadst never sinned, are thine now that thou art justified. All the blessings which thou wouldst have had if thou hadst kept the law, and more, are thine, because Christ has kept it for thee. All the love and the acceptance which perfect obedience could have obtained of God, belong to thee, because Christ was perfectly obedient on thy behalf, and hath imputed all his merits to thy account, that thou mightst be exceeding rich through him, who for thy sake became exceeding poor. Oh! how great the debt of love and gratitude thou owest to thy Saviour!

"A debtor to mercy alone,
Of covenant mercy I sing;
Nor fear with thy righteousness on,
My person and offerings to bring:
The terrors of law and of God,
With me can have nothing to do;
My Saviour's obedience and blood
Hide all my transgressions from view."
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Today's reading: Leviticus 14, Matthew 26:51-75 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Leviticus 14

Cleansing From Defiling Skin Diseases
1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "These are the regulations for any diseased person at the time of their ceremonial cleansing, when they are brought to the priest: 3 The priest is to go outside the camp and examine them. If they have been healed of their defiling skin disease, 4the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the person to be cleansed....

Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 26:51-75

51 With that, one of Jesus' companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
52 "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. 53 Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?"



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