Sunday, April 27, 2014

Sun Apr 27th Todays News

I am bent. I have a purpose in my life and my path has not been straight or level. Even so, I serve as well as I can, and I have faith that by relying on the strong, true, indomitable truth, I will be straightened in my purpose and achievement. But no individual is perfect, and today we are reminded that we are not disposable, even though we are bent. But the memory of Holocaust is more than the bent being disposed of. The innocent were chosen too. Chosen because of their race, and religion. The holocaust was a political decision, bullying those who could not defend themselves. The tragedy for the Jews was that many had contributed to those states that persecuted them. They are a proud people, proud of their achievements, their history. In their pride, they became a target for those who sought to control a majority through division, aligning the purpose of the average person with survival by stepping on those who were despised. 

 It is wrong to bully the weak. Good leadership that builds involves building the whole community, creating a cohesiveness. There is an order. Young people respect older ones. Police, teachers, doctors are respected for their service, not their pay. Critical thinking is important, but so is recognition of cultural assets. The death of an elder statesman is not as sad as the death of a child, but their legacy is broader, and it becomes an opportunity to celebrate their life. Alternatively, we embrace bullying. We divide into the weak and strong, and dispose of those that are not straight. And we chop .. but there is no end to division .. and we continue to chop. And each time we lop off the weak, we also become .. weaker. While some point to Germany and ask what they might have achieved had they not persecuted the Jews, the truth is the path of division follows that direction. And note, both the US and Britain were divided too, the US imprisoning Japanese Americans and Britain locking down whole communities. Churchill famously remarked that if we weren't fighting for art funding, what were we fighting for? 

 Remember the holocaust. When division rules, we are diminished. 

 For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball
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Hatches
Happy birthday and many happy returns Janet Diane and Guy Buchanan. Born on the same day, across the years. The same date when in 1810 Beethoven composed "Für Elise" aka "Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor." A day of beauty. Thank you.
Matches
Despatches
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Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) begins in the evening of Sunday, 27 April 2014, and ends in the evening of Monday, 28 April 2014
How tragically pathetic were those who weren't Jew who participated in the bullying? Not solely Nazis, or Germans, or Italians or Japanese. How pathetic was the British King, Roosevelt and the British government for not intervening sooner, more decisively. They all had been approached. They all knew what was happening. And it is contemptible when they fail to acknowledge it. - ed
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It’s time to get tough if Australia is to survive and prosper in the future

Piers Akerman – Saturday, April 26, 2014 (11:31pm)

TREASURER Joe Hockey has embarked on the annual pre-Budget scare campaign, warning of dire consequences if steps aren’t taken to rein in government spending. 

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'It’s time to get tough if Australia is to survive and prosper in the future'
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Kate has put class back into sexy

Miranda Devine – Saturday, April 26, 2014 (11:30pm)

IN this era of butt selfies and slut walks, Kate Middleton, aka the Duchess of Cambridge, is a revolutionary.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Kate has put class back into sexy'
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DON’T STOP THINKING ABOUT YOUR PENSION

Tim Blair – Sunday, April 27, 2014 (2:35am)

Democrats made a big deal about Republican candidate John McCain’s age during the 2008 presidential campaign: 
McCain’s age is no joke. He will turn 72 on Friday and would be halfway to 73 if elected and sworn in on January 20. That would make him the oldest first-term President ever, two years older than Ronald Reagan …
The United States cannot afford the risk that McCain would die suddenly in the middle of an international crisis. 
Just a theory, but age might be an issue avoided by Democrats during the 2016 campaign: 
Clinton will be 69 years old on inauguration day 2017, nearly the oldest president ever. She has had a few health scares. By all accounts, she left her previous four-year stint in government service exhausted. She might not run, and the Democrat in second place in the polls, Vice President Joe Biden — 74 on inauguration day — is too old to be president. Beyond them, Democrats have nobody — except Elizabeth Warren … She will be 67 on Inauguration Day 2017. (Has any party ever fielded a group as old as Clinton, Biden and Warren?) 
Look for “experience” to be a theme. By the way, McCain is now 77 and still functioning as a senator.
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IS DON, IS DOOMED

Tim Blair – Sunday, April 27, 2014 (2:21am)

It’s rare that a team kicks the first six goals of a match but still manages to lose. Then again, Essendon is no ordinary team. They’re an extremely ordinary team:

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ABC DONKEY SQUAD

Tim Blair – Saturday, April 26, 2014 (4:07pm)

Tens of thousands of Australians marked yesterday’s Anzac Day commemoration with solemn attendance at dawn services and street marches.
The ABC’s taxpayer-funded fact-checking unit, however, marked the day by attempting to debunk what it described as “five common Anzac Day myths”. 

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'ABC DONKEY SQUAD'
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The Bolt Report today

Andrew Bolt April 27 2014 (6:09am)

On Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm today.
Bill Shorten’s real problem.
Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles on budgets, boats and more.
Our hot-shot panel - Peter Costello and Michael Costa on the Budget crisis and Tasmanian Governor Peter Underwood’s attack on the Anzac legend.
And on NewsWatch: BBC presenter and Spectator chairman Andrew Neil. How did the royals charm the media? Why is there no ABC Andrew Neil?
Your Say and more.
The videos appear here.
UPDATE
From my interview with Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles:
ANDREW BOLT, PRESENTER: Bill Shorten says Labor must give members more say and unions less when choosing who represents it in Parliament. Joining me is Labor’s Immigration Spokesman, Richard Marles, who used to be a Transport Workers Union official and former assistant secretary of the ACTU. Thanks for joining me…

ANDREW BOLT: You went straight from the ACTU into Parliament. What’s Bill Shorten got against the system that got you where you are?
RICHARD MARLES: Well, it’s not about having anything against that system. It’s about modernising our party and it’s about opening it up. And in doing that, acknowledging the incredible role that the union movement has played in Australian society, and does today, and the wonderful role it’s played in our history, but saying that we need to be more than that…
ANDREW BOLT: But it is against the system. It was specifically about getting union officials straight from unions into Parliament, like Joe Bullock in Western Australia, and that’s exactly the system that brought you there. What’s the problem with that?
RICHARD MARLES: Well, I’m not sure that’s how the system was necessarily designed but we do need to have a broader gene pool within the Parliament.
ANDREW BOLT: So not people like you?
RICHARD MARLES: Well, people like me, but more than just people like me....
ANDREW BOLT: Well, let me put a question to you. What cost you most votes at the last election? Was it – was it your party rules or the carbon tax?
RICHARD MARLES: Well, I - the point you make is that we need to be very focussed on the matters - on the issues that matter to people. And that ultimately is not the rules of the Labor Party…
ANDREW BOLT: Well, tell me about the carbon tax, then. Tell me about the carbon tax.
RICHARD MARLES: We’re talking a lot about jobs and the fact during the global economic crisis we added almost a million jobs to our economy…
ANDREW BOLT: There’s a story in the paper today ... suggesting the Government might have a Budget deficit levy to try and fix this problem. Would you be against that?
RICHARD MARLES: Oh, well, this is - Yes. And this is a – this is a Government which said before it was elected to office that they would be a government of no excuses and no surprises. And yet now we’re talking about a Budget deficit levy in the same context as paying millionaires $75,000 in order to have a baby. A Government of no excuses and no surprises and we hear a surprise every day. ...
ANDREW BOLT:  Can I just turn quickly, lastly, to boats? In four months, not one has arrived, right? And a key to that success has been turning boats around, which you opposed. Last November you said that policy was, quote: “inevitably going to fail”. Why did you get that so wrong?
RICHARD MARLES: Well, firstly, we don’t know what is going on on the high seas.
ANDREW BOLT: We know the boats are not arriving. Why did you think they – this policy would fail?
RICHARD MARLES: The single biggest issue in the reduction in the flow of boats – and I know this, but Scott Morrison knows this as well - is the arrangement that the Rudd Government entered into with Papua New Guinea. It has done more than anything.
ANDREW BOLT: And turning back the – turning back the boats has helped, hasn’t it? Hasn’t it?
RICHARD MARLES: Well, by the Government’s own measure - well, we don’t know what is going on out there.
ANDREW BOLT: They’re turning back boats.
The full interview:

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The Bolt Report today'
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No boats for more than four months

Andrew Bolt April 27 2014 (5:42am)

Again, why couldn’t Labor fix the mess it created?:

NO people-smuggling venture had succeeded in landing asylum seekers on Australia for more than four months…
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said on Saturday that vigorous border protection activities was deterring illegal boat arrivals, even into the post-monsoon period when weather conditions usually improve…
Mr Morrison said no one had reached Australia since December 19 and that continued this month. But 3351 on 47 boats arrived in April 2013 under the former Labor government....
Since Operation Sovereign Borders started on September 18, 220 asylum seekers have voluntarily returned to their home countries.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Would Gambaro really have sued her fellow students? If not, her argument falls

Andrew Bolt April 27 2014 (5:25am)

I don’t for an instant that racial abuse hurts, as do most kinds of abuse. But does Queensland MP Teresa Gambaro, one of the Liberals criticising the Abbott Government’s free speech reforms, really think we need laws that would have let her sue the children who teased her at school?
“Until you’ve experienced racism, you can’t imagine what it’s like,” said Ms Gambaro when asked about her opposition to the government’s changes. 

“Growing up, I received racist taunts . . . when you’re Italian, they call you a wog. I remember when I was made school prefect, people were saying it’s not fair a wog being made prefect.
“We’ve come a long way since then but we need to have protections against race hate speech...”
If Gambaro seriously saying she would have used those protections? In her case, wasn’t success really the best revenge?
And if playground insults are evidence for needing such laws, why not extend these protections to cover insults lite “fatty”, “shorty”, “loser” and other kinds of abuse so damaging to children? 
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A deficit levy proves the Government is too soft on spending

Andrew Bolt April 27 2014 (5:16am)

The Abbott Government’s fix to the problems caused by unrestrained spending includes lifting taxes?
WORKERS will be forced to dig into their own pockets to pay off the country’s debt ... as the Abbott government struggles to reduce the nation’s deficit…
Any decision to impose a new deficit levy in the Abbott government’s first term is politically risky and will be seized upon by Labor leader Bill Shorten as a breach of faith after the Prime Minister’s pledge to be a government of “no surprises, no excuses’’. But it would likely be dumped before the next election…
A final decision on tax thresholds for the proposed new deficit levy will become clearer when final revenue ­figures are in with the budget deficit likely to be finalised only in the week before the May 13 budget.
Any temporary levy will be targeted at high-income earners. For example, wealthy workers earning $200,000 a year contributed nearly half the $1.8 billion raised by Julia Gillard’s flood levy; those earning less than $50,000 paid nothing under Labor’s levy.
A tax rise?
That just proves they haven’t cut hard enough. 
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Ricky Muir will look after the country this carefully, too

Andrew Bolt April 27 2014 (5:05am)

No one hurt and he says it was a controlled environment. Even so, I wish I had more confidence Ricky Muir had what it takes to help run our country:
His political party wants to have a “national conversation” about safer driving. But federal senator-elect Ricky Muir, who represents the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party, might be starting this conversation sooner than he wanted.
Mr Muir, in the news last year when an online video showed him participating in a backyard kangaroo-poo fight, posted another video showing his eight-year-old daughter driving a car and doing “burnouts”. It was subsequently taken down.
The video was titled “8 year old girl smoking tyres”.

“Ever since my princess was a baby she has had a huge interest in watching myself compete in drag racing, burnouts competitions, rally, riding dirtbikes etc,” Mr Muir wrote.
“She is always keen to get in the car to learn how to drive, wanting to race in the future etc. So I thought ill [sic] get her behind the wheel bright and early to have a little fun in a controlled environment.
“Needless to say she was VERY proud of her first smokey [sic] burnout.”
Mr Muir, who won his Victorian Senate seat in the 2013 election on a record low primary vote of 0.51 per cent, will help Clive Palmer control the balance of power in the new federal Senate.
The problem is that the crossbenchers have such power that Parliament won’t be able to fix the voting system that had them win the Senate lucky-dip. 
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Would Simpson have bothered saving an ABC donkey?

Andrew Bolt April 27 2014 (4:56am)

How the ABC’s Fact Check squad marked Anzac Day - by checking whether Simpson was actually useless and his donkey a loafer. 
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In praise of Mark Steyn

Andrew Bolt April 26 2014 (2:15pm)

Conrad Black in praise of Mark Steyn, sued for mocking the very mockable Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann:
Mann became one of the stars of the global warming movement by advocating this so-called “hockey stick” graph, which claims that the world’s average temperature remained more or less flat over the past thousand years until it suddenly shot upward around 1900—like a hockey stick laid on the ground, the blade shooting up from the shaft. It was a simple image that caught on, but the reliability of the data on which it is based has been called into question by many in the scientific community, including proponents of anthropogenic climate change such as Hans von Storch of the University of Hamburg, who has called the stick model quatsch, or “nonsense.”
In the fifteen years since Mann stepped onto the rink with his stick in hand, data suggests that there has been no change in world temperature. Over the last seventy years, temperatures have risen by about one degree centigrade. But the alarmists, who have embarrassed themselves with their “end is nigh” scenarios, are unrepentant. Unsurprisingly a great deal of scorn has been heaped upon the whole global warming fraternity… But these jabs are generally endured as fair comment, especially in the United States. Mann’s lawsuit, then, is (to continue the sports analogy) something of a last stand by a group of struggling players at the crease in front of their goalie…
But anyone who thinks that facts and the First Amendment trump all here is unfamiliar with the American legal system…
Mark Steyn has displayed in the Mann case similar courage and principle, fighting a battle for freedom of expression in keeping with the greatest traditions of the West and of all democratic countries. He must succeed as he soldiers on against the evils of oppression slouching in the dark corners of the tenebrous American legal system. Many of his seeming friends have slunk out the back door into the tall grass, as they always do, especially when the law gets involved. (I have some experience of this.) He is paying counsel himself, even doing his own legal work where he can. Yet he remains jaunty. If not a Happy Warrior, he is at least a stoically determined one.
Go here to support Steyn.
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Turney and his other voyage - for a £3.5 million grant

Andrew Bolt April 26 2014 (2:00pm)

Global warming - general

The astonishing rise of Professor Chris Turney - until, of course, his Ship of Fools got trapped in the ice Turney’s team swore was vanishing.
Just follow the money:
The Turney consortium seems more or less certain that they can get £3.5 million from the NERC; their main stumbling block was that their apparent difficulty in figuring out a coherent rationale for the funding.
(Thanks to reader Chris.) 
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4 her, so she sees how I see her

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I vote for character

Andrew Bolt April 27 2013 (7:18am)

image
Joseph Curl went to a gathering of the five living US presidents and saw one outclass the others:
Shortly after Barack Obama was elected in 2008, a fellow reporter who’d covered President George W. Bush all eight years told me she’d had enough of the travel and stress and strain of the White House beat, that she was moving on… 
I asked her if she’d miss covering President Obama.
“Not at all. He’s an inch deep. Bush is a bottomless chasm, a deep, mysterious, emotional, profound man. Obama is all surface — shallow, obvious, robotic, and, frankly, not nearly as smart as he thinks. Bush was the one.”
...By the way, she’s a hardcore Democrat.
But she was right. And that contrast was apparent to all who watched Thursday’s ceremonial event to open W’s new presidential library in Dallas....
Jimmy Carter ... was first to speak. But he was, as always, befuddled.
...he opened with, “In 2000, as some of you may remember, there was a disputed election for several weeks.” Nice way to start. He then took credit for giving W the idea to intercede in Sudan… He never mentioned 9-11 and the war on terror, or the commander in chief’s leadership during America’s most trying hour. Which is why his comments lasted just 3¼ minutes.
Bill Clinton followed. He, of course, spoke twice as long, filling his speech with jokes and faux humility. He was his usual affable self… But… Mr. Clinton, for all his prodigious gifts, will always be the class clown…
George H.W. Bush, turning 90 in June, was a welcome respite. Somewhat frail now, he spoke only briefly from his wheelchair, but garnered two standing ovations — and the biggest laugh of the day from his oldest son. After his remarks, just 24 seconds, he shook his boy’s hand and said, deadpan, “Too long?”
President Obama took the podium next. Every bit as cunning as Slick Willy, his speech too was filled with fake self-effacing insights, including one on “the world’s most exclusive club,” which he said “is more like a support group."… Then, on a day that was intended to be without politics, he hawked his push for amnesty…
Mr. Obama skipped the praise he had laid on W the night before. “Whatever our political differences, President Bush loves this country and loves its people and shares that same concern and was concerned about all people in America, not just those who voted Republican. I think that’s true about him, and I think that’s true about most of us.”
Except it’s not. Especially not this president. He has made his presidency about dividing America — along lines of class, sex, race, sexuality, you name it…
Then, finally, W took the podium.... He gave a profound lesson to his successor and his predecessor: “In democracy, the purpose of public office is not to fulfill personal ambition. Elected officials must serve a cause greater than themselves…
“As president, I tried to act on these principles every day. It wasn’t always easy and it certainly wasn’t always popular … And when our freedom came under attack, we made the tough decisions required to keep the American people safe,” he said to loud applause.
But it was the end that gave us the truest glimpse of the man… With tears in his eyes, his voice breaking, he said: “It’s the honor of a lifetime to lead a country as brave and as noble as the United States....” By the end he was in tears, barely able to creak out: “God bless.”.. But there was one last classy move not many saw. The program nearly over, Sgt. 1st Class Alvy R. Powell Jr. came to the side of the stage to perform the “Star Spangled Banner.” A big, powerful black man, Mr. Powell belted out the anthem. With the crowd applauding, the sergeant moved along the line of people, shaking hands with all. After greeting W, he turned to go. But the 43rd president put his hand on the sergeant’s arm and said, “Stay,” just as a chaplain stepped forward to give a benediction.
UPDATE
Peggy Noonan saw the same ceremony and is more gracious to Carter ("gracious and humorous") and Clinton ("generous to others” and “funny"). But on Obama she is agreed:

This week something changed. George W. Bush is back, for the unveiling of his presidential library. His numbers are dramatically up. You know why? Because he’s the farthest thing from Barack Obama.
Obama fatigue has opened the way to Bush affection.

In all his recent interviews Mr. Bush has been modest, humorous, proud but unassuming, and essentially philosophical: History will decide. No finger-pointing or scoring points. If he feels rancor or resentment he didn’t show it. He didn’t attempt to manipulate. His sheer normality seemed like a relief, an echo of an older age.
And all this felt like an antidote to Obama—to the imperious I, to the inability to execute, to the endless interviews and the imperturbable drone, to the sense that he is trying to teach us, like an Ivy League instructor taken aback by the backwardness of his students. And there’s the unconscious superiority…
Here’s a hunch: The day of the opening of the Bush library was the day Obama fatigue became apparent as a fact of America’s political life.
When Bush left office, his approval rating was down in the 20s to low 30s. Now it’s at 47%, which is what Obama’s is. That is amazing, and not sufficiently appreciated… The headline of the Bush Library remarks is that everyone was older and nicer… (But) President Obama was more formal than the other speakers and less confident than usual, as if he knew he was surrounded by people who have something he doesn’t… He veered into current policy disputes, using Mr. Bush’s failed comprehensive immigration reform to buttress his own effort. That was manipulative, graceless and typical. 
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Rope access Vietnamese style , 20mm shipping rope , no harness
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Still a better love story than twilight
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There is always one
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Spanish national anthem has no lyrics .. and so crosses language barriers
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Last night's full moon started out pink and quickly transitioned to yellow once it cleared a cloud layer. I accidentally caught it in both colors at the same time.

And the first person who says this is photoshopped gets bopped on the head because 1) I suck at Photoshop, and 2) Seriously, I suck at Photoshop.
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A new "nanosponge" could soak up toxins ranging from anthrax to snake venom by camouflaging as a red blood cell, new research suggests.http://oak.ctx.ly/r/4ew2

Here, a cross section of nanosponge that may be able to protect against infections and venoms.
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LORD, You Alone are my portion and my cup; You make my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will Praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I keep my eyes Always on the LORD. With Him at my right hand, I will Not be shaken. -Psalm 16:5-8
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Looks like King Nebuchadnezzar's statue reinflated in Hinchinbrook. (See below traffic light) Teresa L
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A recently excavated plaza and pyramid, which would have likely served as a solar observatory for rituals, is the oldest ancient Maya ceremonial compound ever discovered in the Central American lowlands and dates back 200 years before similar sites pop up elsewhere in the region, archaeologists announced yesterday (April 25). http://oak.ctx.ly/r/4dwf
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animal story!!
During a California wildfire rescue workers ran out of crates to place rescued animals, forcing them to put a fawn and a bobcat kitten in an office together. When they got back they found that fawn and the bobcat cuddling and the pair became inseparable.

Visit our Page -► Beautiful Amazing World
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April 27: Divine Mercy Sunday (Roman Catholicism, 2014); Yom HaShoah begins at sunset in Israel (2014)
Statue of Lapu-Lapu
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“Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” - Hebrews 7:25
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"This do in remembrance of me."
1 Corinthians 11:24
It seems then, that Christians may forget Christ! There could be no need for this loving exhortation, if there were not a fearful supposition that our memories might prove treacherous. Nor is this a bare supposition: it is, alas! too well confirmed in our experience, not as a possibility, but as a lamentable fact. It appears almost impossible that those who have been redeemed by the blood of the dying Lamb, and loved with an everlasting love by the eternal Son of God, should forget that gracious Saviour; but, if startling to the ear, it is, alas! too apparent to the eye to allow us to deny the crime. Forget him who never forgot us! Forget him who poured his blood forth for our sins! Forget him who loved us even to the death! Can it be possible? Yes, it is not only possible, but conscience confesses that it is too sadly a fault with all of us, that we suffer him to be as a wayfaring man tarrying but for a night. He whom we should make the abiding tenant of our memories is but a visitor therein. The cross where one would think that memory would linger, and unmindfulness would be an unknown intruder, is desecrated by the feet of forgetfulness. Does not your conscience say that this is true? Do you not find yourselves forgetful of Jesus? Some creature steals away your heart, and you are unmindful of him upon whom your affection ought to be set. Some earthly business engrosses your attention when you should fix your eye steadily upon the cross. It is the incessant turmoil of the world, the constant attraction of earthly things which takes away the soul from Christ. While memory too well preserves a poisonous weed, it suffereth the rose of Sharon to wither. Let us charge ourselves to bind a heavenly forget-me-not about our hearts for Jesus our Beloved, and, whatever else we let slip, let us hold fast to him.

Evening

"Blessed is he that watcheth."
Revelation 16:15
"We die daily," said the apostle. This was the life of the early Christians; they went everywhere with their lives in their hands. We are not in this day called to pass through the same fearful persecutions: if we were, the Lord would give us grace to bear the test; but the tests of Christian life, at the present moment, though outwardly not so terrible, are yet more likely to overcome us than even those of the fiery age. We have to bear the sneer of the world--that is little; its blandishments, its soft words, its oily speeches, its fawning, its hypocrisy, are far worse. Our danger is lest we grow rich and become proud, lest we give ourselves up to the fashions of this present evil world, and lose our faith. Or if wealth be not the trial, worldly care is quite as mischievous. If we cannot be torn in pieces by the roaring lion, if we may be hugged to death by the bear, the devil little cares which it is, so long as he destroys our love to Christ, and our confidence in him. I fear me that the Christian church is far more likely to lose her integrity in these soft and silken days than in those rougher times. We must be awake now, for we traverse the enchanted ground, and are most likely to fall asleep to our own undoing, unless our faith in Jesus be a reality, and our love to Jesus a vehement flame. Many in these days of easy profession are likely to prove tares, and not wheat; hypocrites with fair masks on their faces, but not the true-born children of the living God. Christian, do not think that these are times in which you can dispense with watchfulness or with holy ardour; you need these things more than ever, and may God the eternal Spirit display his omnipotence in you, that you may be able to say, in all these softer things, as well as in the rougher, "We are more than conquerors through him that loved us."
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Ahijah
[Ăhī'jah] - a brother in jehovah.
  1. A prophet belonging to Shiloh, who foretold to Jeroboam the revolt of the ten tribes. This Ahijah was the champion of the rights of the people in the face of the oppression of Solomon and Rehoboam and led the revolt that rent the kingdom of David asunder (1 Kings 11:26-12:20).
  2. Father of Baasha, king of Israel who conspired against Nadab son of Jeroboam and reigned in his stead (1 Kings 15:27,33;&21:22;&2 Kings 9:9).
  3. Son of Jerahmeel, a Judahite (1 Chron. 2:25).
  4. A Pelonite, and one of David's thirty heroes (1 Chron. 11:36).
  5. A Levite who had charge of the Tabernacle treasures (1 Chron. 26:20).
  6. A Levite who, with Nehemiah, sealed the covenant (Neh. 10:26).
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Today's reading: 2 Samuel 23-24, Luke 19:1-27 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: 2 Samuel 23-24

David's Last Words
1 These are the last words of David:
"The inspired utterance of David son of Jesse,
the utterance of the man exalted by the Most High,
the man anointed by the God of Jacob,
the hero of Israel's songs:
2 "The Spirit of the LORD spoke through me;
his word was on my tongue.
3 The God of Israel spoke,
the Rock of Israel said to me:
'When one rules over people in righteousness,
when he rules in the fear of God,
4 he is like the light of morning at sunrise
on a cloudless morning,
like the brightness after rain
that brings grass from the earth.'

Today's New Testament reading: Luke 19:1-27

Zacchaeus the Tax Collector
1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today." 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, "He has gone to be the guest of a sinner."
8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount."
9 Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost...."
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