Saturday, July 19, 2014

Sat Jul 19th Todays News

The media are bloviating wildly over the tragedy of Malaysian flight 17 over Ukraine. We know that Russia has been fighting a war by proxy between Russian sympathisers and Ukrainian hardliners. Ukraine has an illegitimate government propped up by the White House as it is oppositional to Moscow. Moscow have retaliated by seizing their naval hub in Crimea. The Russian action was apparently endorsed by Obama in his second election bid. Predictably, the international media, in order to protect Obama from criticism, are denouncing Russia for shooting down a passenger jet. Were it not for the appearance that Ukraine profits from the tragedy, I would willingly join in with censuring Russia. However, I am uncomfortable with Ukraine benefiting from the tragedy. The situation is parlous. Already the ABC (Australian variety) have verballed the Australian PM and forced the Russian government to denounce what Mr Abbott was reported to have said, not what he actually said. Important questions might not be addressed if the media stampede is allowed to proceed. Who knew Ukrainian planes had already been shot down in the area? Why was Malaysia Airlines' risk assessment protocol not initiated? Who knows there is a war being fought in Ukraine? What has the UN done to provide mitigation for the war in Ukraine? Why was the flight targeted? Did Ukraine have anything to do with the targeting of the flight, assuming they did not shoot it down? Central to the suspicious intercepts of communications regarding the missile hit is the acknowledgement Ukraine knew who was targeting aircraft and how they were .. so did they use a commercial flight to influence world opinion? The family of the victims deserve to know the truth, not the hysteria. 

On this day in year 64, Rome burned along with the insipid career of Nero. In 1545, Mary Rose sank. In 1553, Mary I seized the crown from Lady Jane Grey in a bloodless coup and had the sixteen year old executed shortly after. In 1588, the Spanish Armada was sighted. In 1832, the British medical association is founded. In 1843, Brunel's steamship, the first with an Iron hull and a screw propellor is launched. 1848, a two day Women's rights convention opens in NYC. 1903, Maurice Garin wins the first tour de France. 1916, Fromelles was the location of the worst loss of Australian life in military history. 1919, celebrating peace, former soldiers riot in Luton town hall, burning it down. In 1947, the celebrated Burmese general and communist father of Aung San Suu Kyi is assassinated and the Nationalist socialist Korean unification activist Lyuh Woon-hyung is assassinated. 1981, France shared intelligence with the US that the Soviet Union was stealing technology. 1992, Mafia killed a judge. Today is the birthday of Sam Colt (1814), Edgar Degas (1834), Lizzie Borden (1860), Brian May (1947) and Benedict Cumberbatch (1974). A farewell to Mary Boleyn (1543), and Sarah Goode and Susannah Martin (1692). 
===
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

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

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

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

Happy birthday and many happy returns Ngoc Vuong, Adrian Diodato,Joshua Kuswendi, Calvin Gold Katz and Nathane Toese Tatupu-Leatuavao. Born on the same day, across the years. On your day in 64, The Great Fire of Rome started among the shops around the Circus Maximus, eventually destroying three of fourteen Roman districts and severely damaging seven others. 1545, The English warship Mary Rose foundered and sank just outside Portsmouth during the Battle of the Solent. 1903, French cyclist Maurice Garin won the first Tour de France. 1916, First World War: "The worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history" occurred when Australian forces suffered heavy losses in their unsuccessful assault on the Germans at the Battle of Fromelles in France. 1989, After suffering an uncontained failure of an engine which destroyed all of its hydraulic systems, United Airlines Flight 232 broke up during an emergency landing in Sioux City, Iowa, US, killing 111 people. We didn't start the fire, neither did we sing while Rome burned. But all the same, not a good day to smoke in bed. Sinking the Mary Rose was possibly the best use of it. Bicycling is your forte. Don't go to war, get on your bike .. cheers.
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
===

WHY DO THEY HATE THE PLANET?

Tim Blair – Saturday, July 19, 2014 (6:37pm)

The UK Telegraph reports: 
People who claim to worry about climate change use more electricity than those who do not, a Government study has found.
Those who say they are concerned about the prospect of climate change consume more energy than those who say it is “too far into the future to worry about,” the study commissioned by the Department for Energy and Climate Change found … 
Warmies also use more money. Much more. Here’s millionaire Tim Flannery asking for donations to his church of climate catastrophe:



Until recently, Flannery was paid $180,000 per year for just three days work per week – in addition to all of his other income from books, a number of ABC shows, his Panasonic professorship and so on. Now he’s pleading with Australians “to support me”. The divorce must have been an absolute belter.
===

EVERY MOMENT IN HER LIFE IS MEANINGFUL

Tim Blair – Saturday, July 19, 2014 (4:01am)

The Sydney Morning Herald‘s Elizabeth Farrelly: 
When a water main bursts, as one did in our back lane on Monday, you’re forced into instant recognition of value. 
Thereafter follows a series of huge-minded Farrellian observations on global warming, water treatment policies in Singapore, Israel and California, plus a brief Roman Polanski film review – all prompted by a simple water leak.
Readers are invited to offer their own insights into the human condition following similarly minor domestic disruptions.
===

WALUU 1000

Tim Blair – Saturday, July 19, 2014 (3:48am)

Australia’s legendary Mount Panorama circuit is set to be formally co-named after the Bathurst Regional Council announced plans to recognise its traditional title.
Named by the Wiradjuri people as Waluu, which means to watch over, the famous hill is set to share the traditional name with its internationally recognised title of Mount Panorama. 
It’s a racial/racing combination. This year’s Bathurst 1000 might begin with a formal “welcome to pit straight” ceremony.
(Via Weary Traveller)
===

Hockey doesn’t trust Turnbull, but why say so?

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (10:45am)

I’m sure Joe Hockey intended this book as a CV for the next leadership battle, but right now he’s provided an unnecessary distraction for the Government:
PRIME MINISTER Tony Abbott sacked Treasury head Martin Parkinson a week after last year’s election, without telling his Treasurer Joe Hockey.
And Hockey only found out Parkinson’s employment had been terminated after he was told by his Treasury boss.
The revelation is included in a new biography of Joe Hockey - Hockey: Not Your Average Joe - to be released next week, and it shows the carefully managed veneer of unity that binds the Abbott cabinet.
It details deep-seated tensions between Hockey and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane, as well as the tensions between the Treasurer and his former leader Malcolm Turnbull who Hockey believes wronged him in the ballot that led to the election of Tony Abbott as leader.

Hockey says he is still still learning to trust Turnbull - but won’t write him off forever.
His wife Melissa Babbage reveals more, saying “There will always be distrust there....
“His starting position is always positive. But after the leadership thing (the 2009 Liberal leadership vote), that really annoyed Joe and he won’t trust Malcolm again.’’
===

Flannery begs for cash for facts. He could use some

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (10:20am)

Global warming - dud predictions

Climate catastrophist Tim Flannery is begging for yet more money. This time he says he needs it to counter the sceptics he now sees everywhere.
He says he’ll specifically use the money to tackle “misinformation”. But, really, Flannery could start that good work by simply apologising for all his own dud predictions - and that wouldn’t cost a cent. 
===

The Bolt Report tomorrow

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (9:50am)

On Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm…
Editorial: Australian blood on Putin’s hands. 
My guest:  Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on Russia’s refusal to cooperate in investigating the MH17 tragedy.
The panel: Michael Kroger and former Labor Minister Craig Emerson.
NewsWatch:  The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Blair, master blogger. On how the press gallery warned the Liberals that fighting a carbon tax was suicide.
Plus the dreaded Bolt Question.
The videos of the shows appear here.
===

Investigators blocked from crash site. BUK missile launcher smuggled back to Russia?

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (9:16am)

Russian-backed separatists do not want us to know the truth about who killed the 298 people on board MH17:
Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine fired a warning shot Friday and blocked Organization for Security and Cooperation staff from investigating the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, according to reporters tweeting from Ukraine.
“Shots fired by rebels at international team of investigators (OSCE) in Ukraine as they approach plane wreckage,” Terry Moran, chief foreign correspondent at ABC News, tweeted Friday afternoon.

About 30 OSCE investigators arrived at the crash site on Friday by helicopter, after the United Nations Security Council demanded a thorough and independent international investigation into the crash that killed 298 passengers. Ukrainian military and pro-Russian rebels accuse each other of shooting down the plane.

According to Guardian reporter Harriet Salem, rebels turned away the OSCE investigators on Friday. But Reuters reported that pro-Russian separatists said they welcomed the investigators and denied reports to the contrary.

Ukrainian photographer Pierre Crom said on Twitter the rebels fired a warning shot into the air.
OSCE confirms its investigators were blocked:
Gunmen prevented monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe from observing the site where a Malaysian airliner crashed in rebel-held eastern Ukraine on Friday, the rights and security watchdog said.
Calling their behaviour “impolite and unprofessional”, an OSCE spokesman said some gunmen in the area seemed intoxicated while others would not let the team of about 25 observers look at the wreckage of the Boeing 777.
“We had expected unfettered access, that’s the way we work,” Michael Bociurkiw told a news conference.
“Unfortunately the task was made very difficult. Upon arrival at the site ... we encountered armed personnel who acted in a very impolite and unprofessional manner. Some of them even
looked slightly intoxicated.”
He denied that the observers had been fired at by pro-Russian rebels, but said one gunman fired shots into the air, seemingly to scare off some civilians.
Earlier, the OSCE’s permanent council chairman, Thomas Greminger, told Reuters monitors had not been able to secure an access corridor for the crash-site and that investigators had
stayed there for only about 75 minutes before setting off back to Donetsk.
Given this, I cannot see how Australia could possibly welcome Russian president Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in Brisbane in November.
UPDATE
If true, sinister:

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry released video purporting to show ... a truck carrying a Buk missile launcher with one of its four missiles apparently missing, rolling toward the Russian border. The ministry said the footage was captured by a police surveillance squad at dawn Friday. There was no way to independently verify that claim.
UPDATE
No, Vladimir Putin cannot be welcomed to Brisbane if this continues:
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says Australia has the right, as a nation, to be “disgusted by the reaction from Russia so far"…
Ms Bishop made the comments when speaking to the Nine Network’s Today program this morning.
She still hasn’t been able to speak to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yet. On Friday night, Ms Bishop told the ABC’s Lateline that she had been advised Mr Lavrov was on holidays.
Bishop is my guest on The Bolt Report tomorrow. 
===

One was a great president

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (9:02am)

Ronald Reagan when Russia shot down a Korean jet:
Barack Obama when Russian-backed separatists shot down a Malaysian jet:
UPDATE
Charles Krauthammer:
What is the president’s reaction? ... He’s had no reaction. He’s had no reaction to anything that I can tell in the last six months. Look, it isn’t as if we’re going to go to war with Russia, but we’ve denied Ukraine lethal weaponry on the grounds that we don’t want to escalate the conflict. The rebels and the Russians are killing Ukrainians in large numbers, by shooting them out of the sky. The least the president could do is make a damned decision for once in his life and announce that we are now going to supply lethal weapons to assist the Ukrainians to defend themselves and to complete the offensive that is now going on in Eastern Ukraine to actually destroy the rebel insurgents.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

PUP leader: women lack “capacity” to handle arguments

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (8:54am)

Clive Palmer’s party seems dominated by misfits, bogans, know-nothings, place-seekers, spend-thrifts and dinosaurs:
STATE Palmer United Party leader Alex Douglas says Clive Palmer was right to storm out of an ABC television interview because women don’t have the “same capacity” to handle themselves during a combative conversation.
The Gold Coast-based state MP said he supported Mr Palmer’s handling of the 7.30 Report July 10 interview, explaining the PUP leader walked out “to be polite” to the show’s host, respected journalist Sarah Ferguson.
“In Australia you are marked severely for being rude to any woman,” Dr Douglas said.
“You have to be able to give them (women) a better chance to represent themselves than you would for a man because a lady does not have the same capacity,” he said.
“It’s a very blokey world. Women do not have an equal chance.

“They have to be given greater capacity. You can’t bully them and you can’t swear at them.”
===

Is Clive Palmer really going to save the mining tax he promised to scrap?

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (8:30am)

Is Clive Palmer an economic wrecker and a promise-breaker? Is Labor, too, so deaf to its duty?
Paul Kelly:
The focus now falls on the mining tax. The PUP was elected to abolish the tax. This is one of its beliefs. But is it serious? ... Having confused his supporters by grandstanding over the carbon tax repeal, how long will Palmer refuse to abolish the mining tax by insisting that upwards of $9bn of related spending be authorised?
Labor’s mining tax constitutes one of the greatest public policy failures in decades… The first version was supposed to raise $12bn across the first two years; the second version has raised $340 million net in its lifetime. Yet huge multi-billion programs were legislated on the basis they were financed by the tax.
Hockey and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann say the government will not accept Senate amendments authorising the linked expenditure....
In the end the PUP must take a decision of sorts. It will align either with the Coalition or with Labor and the Greens.
The contradiction in Palmer’s strategy is apparent: he campaigns against Abbott’s budget yet that means dishonouring some of his central promises, such as mining tax repeal.
UPDATE
Palmer is embarrassable, after all:
It has taken some time, but ... people are now starting to admit that they can now see Clive Palmer for what he really is…
Pivotal to the derobing of the theme park operator and retired miner was the exposure ... on Monday of his treatment of subordinates and staff.
The words of independent senator Nick Xenophon summed up the ­reaction of the parliament to the ­revelation that he had verbally attacked the staff of the senate clerk’s office, who are employed to provide impartial advice to senators in drafting bills and amendments.
“These are the remarks of a bully and a coward and Clive Palmer ought to apologise,” Xenophon said. ...
Palmer’s public response to all this was to abuse those seeking to chastise him. He called senate president Stephen Parry an undertaker and ­described ­Xenophon as “useless”. And rather than apologise, he called on the clerk to quit.
But privately it was a different Palmer who returned to carbon tax negotiations on Monday morning with the government after being ­labelled a human wrecking ball.
“His mood had completely changed after that came out,” one source said. “He was far more ­amenable to negotiations.”
Turnbull to the rescue:

Malcolm Turnbull’s friendship with Clive Palmer was instrumental in the government’s unexpected victory this week in saving its changes to Labor’s financial advice laws…
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann called on Mr Turnbull to facilitate negotiations that led to Mr Palmer’s senators reversing their intention to join Labor and the Greens to veto the laws…
Mr Turnbull spoke to Mr Palmer ­several times over the weekend and presented him with a briefing paper on the Coalition’s changes to the FoFA laws which Senator Cormann had his department prepare.
On Monday morning, Mr Turnbull dropped in on the first meeting between Senator Cormann and Mr Palmer and after that, Mr Palmer and Senator Cormann met on their own about four or five more times…
It is understood Mr Abbott was aware of and approved Mr Turnbull’s involvement.
Excellent. Teamwork.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Sydney produces a suicide bomber

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (8:00am)

Sydney’s Muslim Lebanese community is among our most dysfunctional, to judge by some of the people it produces:
A TEENAGE boy from Western Sydney has become Australia’s second suicide bomber, blowing himself up in a brutal terrorist attack which killed at least five people and injured up to 90 in a Baghdad market. 

The Saturday Telegraph has learned the boy was 16 years old when he left Sydney for Iraq late last year to join terrorist insurgents in Syria but had since turned 17.
Intelligence sources have confirmed the boy’s age and that he was from Western Sydney. It is believed he travelled with other young men seeking to join ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) forces fighting in Syria and Iraq, and had family links to the now notorious convicted Sydney terrorist Khaled Sharrouf.
True, most members of that community are law-abiding, and so on. 
===

Australian blood is on Russian hands

Andrew Bolt July 19 2014 (6:12am)

We have paid a terrible price for Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
Leonid Petrov:

THE tremors of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict have reached Australia. Passengers of the MH17 paid with their lives for a murky military operation that started as a bloodless annexation of Crimea by the Russian troops in March.
Greg Sheridan:
VLADIMIR Putin, the Russian strong man, has made eastern Ukraine a deadly and savage ungoverned space, which has now reached out in an act of barbarity to claim the lives of 298 innocent people, including 28 Australians. 

Putin has financed, supplied, armed and to a large extent manned the rebellion in eastern Ukraine as a follow up to his swallowing of Ukrainian territory in Crimea. It is overwhelmingly likely that the rebels in eastern Ukraine, essentially a Russian proxy force, have shot down the Malaysian airliner.
Rowan Callick:
The perception has gathered pace within Malaysia and more broadly in Asia, since yesterday dawned with the news of the downing of MH17, that the chief culprit is Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin.
He is being viewed as the ultimate architect and arms-supplier of the Ukraine conflict — whoever’s hand hit the button that dispatched the missile.
As Sheridan notes, Western weakness may have contributed to the creation of this deadly lawlessness in this Russian-backed separatist enclave of Ukraine:
But the real weak sisters in the face of Russian aggression have been the Europeans. The Germans want to buy Russian gas; the French want to sell the Russians war ships; and the British like having Russian money in their financial system and London’s real estate market.
The West should have made it clear to Moscow early on just what an enormous price it could expect to pay for its Ukrainian aggression. This needed much more assertive leadership from the US President. This may have tempered Putin’s actions. But probably not.
If there is Western, and specifically American, fault here it comes well before Putin’s Ukrainian operation. It is rather the sense of Western weakness that is encouraging adventurist behaviour by many actors in many parts of the world.
This is partly the story of a sense of US inattention, partial withdrawal or lack of credibility. And that came most starkly from Obama nominating a red line in Syria — the regime’s use of chemical weapons — and then not doing anything when the red line was crossed.
UPDATE
American voters were warned - but many chose to believe Barack Obama instead:
Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney on CNN, March 2012: 
(RUSSIA) is without question our ­No 1 geopolitical foe. They fight for every cause for the world’s worst actors. The idea that (Barack Obama) has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed.
Romney in Foreign Policy in March 2012:

(MOSCOW) has continued to arm the regime of Syria’s vicious dictator and blocked multilateral efforts to stop the ongoing carnage there. Across the board, it has been a thorn in our side on questions vital to America’s national security. For three years, the sum total of President Obama’s policy toward Russia has been: “We give, Russia gets” … Unfortunately, what (the American people) are getting is a sad replay of Jimmy Carter’s bungling at a moment when the United States needs the backbone and courage of a Ronald Reagan. In his dealings with the Kremlin, as in his dealings with the rest of the world, President Obama has demonstrated breathtaking weakness — and given the word “flexibility” a new and ominous meaning.
Obama debating Romney on October 22, 2012:
THE 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years … When it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s, and the economic policies of the 1920s.
===

Shameless Russia attacks Abbott. UPDATE: China backs Russia

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (11:21pm)

Moscow still won’t take responsibility for the killing of 28 Australians and 270 others by a Russian-made missile most probably supplied by Russia to Russian-backed separatists in a lawless Russian-supported enclave during a Russian-incited war:
Moscow has voiced anger over being blamed by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott for the downing of a Malaysia passenger jet over eastern Ukraine that killed all 298 people on board, calling his comments “unacceptable”.
“Without bothering himself about evidence and operating only on speculation, Mr T. Abbott assigned guilt,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. ”Abbott’s statements are unacceptable.”
Russia and Fairfax have both misrepresented slightly what Abbott actually said, however. He did not categorically blame Russia for downing the jet, although he made clear Russia created the circumstances in which that indeed happened and is furious at its lack of remorse and transparency:
This aircraft didn’t come down through accident. It was shot down. It did not crash, it was downed and it was downed over territory controlled by Russian backed rebels. It was downed by a missile which seems to have been launched by Russian backed rebels. Again, I want to stress that Australia takes a very dim view of countries which are facilitating the killing of Australian citizens. We take a very dim view of this…

Based on what we are hearing from Russia, it is hard to have much confidence that there will be the kind of open and honest and transparent cooperation that you would expect.
This really is a test for Russia. It really is a test for Russia – how transparent and fair dinkum is it going to be? There can be no excuses. No buck-passing. No blame shifting. There has to be absolute full cooperation with an impartial international inquiry…
Anyone who gave such a weapon to people who were absolutely incapable of using it, any country which was inspiring and orchestrating the kind of activity which we are now seeing in Eastern Ukraine, I think has a heavy responsibility, should feel a sense of shame over what has taken place.

If Russia should protest at something “unacceptable” it should be that it created the circumstances for this:
image
Mo, Evie and Otis Maslin crammed a lifetime of cultural experience into their tender years, bouncing from one exotic family holiday to the next.
But the Perth siblings would never return from their latest European escapade­… After a few weeks together in the warmth of a European summer, the trio were farewelled by their parents Rin Norris and Anthony Maslin as their grandfather Nick Norris, who was returning from a stint working in London, brought them back to Perth to return to school.
It was a kind gesture from a devoted grandfather but one resulting in unimaginable horror — their Malaysia Airlines 777-200 was shot out of the sky above war-torn Ukraine.
More of the Australians who have paid the tragic price of Putin’s aggression:

image
UPDATE
As the West declines, a new axis of power reveals itself. Once again, China sides with Russia:
China has warned Western nations against rushing to implicate Russia in the downing of a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine, but said those responsible must be brought to justice for the “intolerable terrorist attack”.
The official Xinhua news agency said in an English-language commentary that officials from the United States, Australia and other Western countries had jumped to conclusions in pointing their fingers at the rebels in eastern Ukraine and for blaming Russia for the escalating violence.

“The accusation was apparently rash when the officials acknowledged they did not know for the time being who is responsible for the attack, while condemning Russia’s military intervention,” Xinhua said.
UPDATE
Abbott is taking his case to the UN. He and his Foreign Minister have talked to a dozen governments to get international action. He has confronted Russia over the aggression in Ukraine that he believes contributes to this disaster.
Yet the Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher picks this moment, this tragedy, to make a snide political and personal attack that bears no relationship to the facts unfolding before his jaundiced eyes:
Australia can do nothing alone. With an intelligent plan, committed partners and persistent diplomacy, it can help do a great deal.

Tony Abbott might say to this, as he has to ambitious ideas in the past, that these things are “above our station”. Tell that to the grieving Australian families.
Peter, that is contemptible.
(Thanks to reader Liam.) 
===

Abbott lashes Russia

Andrew Bolt July 18 2014 (8:29pm)

Very tough talk from Tony Abbott - but not one word too many:
TONY Abbott has lashed Russia’s response to the downing of the Malaysia Airlines jet, as he demanded Moscow not stand in the way of a full investigation, or protect those responsible…
Russian Ambassador Vladimir Morozov was today summoned for a meeting in Sydney with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who sought assurances of Moscow’s cooperation in the disaster investigation.
Mr Abbott said the ambassador’s initial response was to blame Ukraine, where the jet came down.

“This was deeply, deeply, unsatisfactory,” said Mr Abbott, who said he was angry that it appeared the jet was shot down and Australians killed by Russian-backed rebels with what could turn out to be Russian-supplied missiles.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has also said Ukraine must bear responsibility.
But Mr Abbott said the idea that Russia could claim it had nothing to do with the disaster because it happened in Ukraine’s air space did not stand up to scrutiny.
The Prime Minister said Russia must not be allowed to stand in the way of an “absolutely comprehensive” investigation.
“No prevarication, no excuses, no blame-shifting, no protecting of people who may be backed by Russia but who may have been involved in this terrible event,” he said.
“It was not an accident, it was a crime, and criminals should not be allowed to get away with what they have done,” Mr Abbott said.
“It did not crash, it was downed. And it was downed over territory controlled by Russian-backed rebels,” Mr Abbott said.
“It was downed by a missile which seems to have been launched by Russian-backed rebels, and again I want to stress that Australia takes a very dim view of countries which are facilitating the killing of Australian citizens.” 
===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

G’day,
Congrats to PM Abbott and the entire coalition team, special mention to the Nationals Minister for Agriculture, the Hon Senator Barnaby Joyce, who was taking on the madness of a proposed Carbon Tax and Cap ‘n’ Trade Scheme (ETS) well before any of his Coalition mates. Still, as a team the evil Carbon Tax has been defeated and that team is TEAM AUSTRALIA!!!
Seems that just sometimes democracy can work in the favour of the sensible majority and deliver good outcomes. One thing is for sure in my mind and that is that we will not be leading the world in Carbon Tax madness anymore,  rather we will take the lead in economic common sense, courage & honour and show the other Western countries who have been hoaxed and guilty into submission, that it’s okay to say that you made a mistake and reverse the wrong before anymore damage is done.
The world just got a little brighter for logic and reason and the world for the AGW/Climate Change Alarmists just got much more darker and colder.
Godspeed
Zeg
Freelance Editorial Cartoonist/Caricaturist
0414293765
===


G’day,
It worked!, the entire worlds’ media is now focussed again on the Ukraine. I truly believe that there is no way that the sophisticated targeting and guidance systems of the Surface To Air Missile Launcher that brought down flight MH17 this morning over Ukrainian territory, did not know that it was targeting a civilian aircraft. 
This brings me to the question, “Why shoot down a civilian Airliner?”. My only conclusion is that this act of terror will bring massive media attention to the continuing fight of Ukraine and Pro-Russian and Russian backed Separatists. 
What’s happening in the middle east as well as all of the other world news has knocked the disgusting annexing of Ukrainian territory by Vladimir Putin to the back of the newspaper if at all and we all know how much terrorist thrive on publicity to even be relevant in their own minds.
Seems almost that the flight targeted was a matter of personal convenience for President Putin? With 100 of it’s passengers en-route to Melbourne to attend an International HIV (AIDS) Conference, many of them distinguished in their fields in the fight to destroy HIV, just maybe Putin sees them as the friends of his enemies. After all, we all know what Putin thinks about Homosexuality. I’d say he would like the virus to carry on doing it’s good work, in his opinion of course!. Maybe a stretch to far but nothing would surprise me these days. 
It will interesting to see if the truth ever does emerge and just how the world will prosecute the case for justice.
Godspeed
Zeg
Freelance Editorial Cartoonist/Caricaturist
0414293765
The same argument applies if Ukraine is the aggressor - ed
===

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

=== Posts from last year ===
4 her, so she can see how I see her - ed




===
Pastor Rick Warren
I don't have to understand all God does in order to trust him. I just know he's good, wise, and loves me.
===
Pastor Rick Warren
Shedding tears may be a sign of a man's enormous strength. "Jesus wept" John 11:35
===
Pastor Rick Warren
God prefers a humble prayer from a thief than a prideful prayer from a theologian. Luke 18:10-14
===
James Calore
I bet it hasn't been dusted recently - ed
I bet our entire universe is just in a tiny glass jar placed neatly on a shelf in an alien child's room as a science project he got a C- on.
===

===

Treasure of the Sierra Madre – We don’t need no stinking badges!
- Film Clip -

At this link:
http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/treasure-of-the-sierra-madre-we-dont-need-no-stinking-badges/
===

Thank you, Lord - ed
===

===

===

===

===
Israel could define this as a possible instance of what the Geneva Convention terms Genocidal War Crimes. Israel and its civilians are being attacked with a form of biological warfare.
The Israeli cabinet debates destroying future Iranian genocidal nuclear warfare a thousand miles away. Somehow the same Israeli cabinet is impotent to stop current Palestinian Authority bio-warfare only 3 kilometers away. In fact, Israel may yet reward the Palestinian Authority's bio-warfare with more land! .

Can anyone imagine the cries of “Zionist Biogenocide” against Israel if it were to contaminate the Palestinian Authority aquifers the way the Palestinian Arabs are doing so to Israeli aquifers? .”
===
PM Denies Talks on Basis of 1949 Lines, But Not Freeze

Binyamin Netanyahu's office denied that he accepted pre-'67 lines as the basis for talks with the PA. But what about the building freeze? 

In a statement, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's office denied that Israel had agreed to accept the 1949 armistice lines as the basis for renewed negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. Israeli officials had been quoted in earlier press reports as confirming the claim made by a top PA official. - David Lev and Chana Ya'ar
===
He (Nelson Mandela) was a terrorist but he definitely changed in prison. He is a bigot, but not a simple one. The transformation from terrorist to peacemaker was profound. But his antecedent beliefs and embrace of communism color his stance on things. When I say he is a bigot, I don't mean in the sense of a KKK member, but rather someone who mistrusts US policy because it is US based, and believes their God is profit and they hunger for oil. He has a naive view of world affairs but he isn't like the evil propagandists who hate Israel ..
===

The Lighthouse — at Pigeon Point Light Station State Historic Park.
===

Actually, I prefer RIP to the 1300 boat people killed by his 'compassionate policy' .. for those who lost their jobs .. good luck .. avoid the boats. - ed
===

Right now, someone is watching you, and examining your thoughts. Just like in 1984, they are judging you. A child. It was ever thus. - ed
===
the prison guard was cruel
not because he was a human being but because of his situation and how it impacted on his ethical conscience or lack of it. He would probably blame the system, or his superiors, or some other external influence, but the Jewish principle is that of Elazar ben Durdaya in the Talmud (A.Z. 17a) who finally saw that he had to stop blaming others and accept that “it all depends on me myself”.

A human being does not have to go along with wrongdoing. He should have the moral courage to resist even at a high cost.>
===
For a country in which 3 million Jews were murdered during the Nazi era to bar Jews from freely practicing their faith is a disgrace and an outrage. - ed
===
Good men stood up to hold the Nazis to account. FDR didn't. - ed
===
Dennis Jensen
IPCC lead author Hans von Storch essentially lets the cat out of the bag on global warming fear mongering. Speaking on the relative lack of warming over 15 years (and cooling over the last 12) in der Spiegel: 
"SPIEGEL: What could be wrong with the models?
Storch: There are two conceivable explanations—and neither is very pleasant for us. The first possibility is that less global warming is occurring than expected because greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have less of an effect than we have assumed."
Shouldn't the "possibility" that less global warming is occurring than expected because greenhouse gases, especially CO2, having less effect than assumed be cause for celebration? Instead, he says the possibility is "not very pleasant for us"! Why? No doubt because the IPCC scare, and therefore funding, will go away. This is political, not scientific.
===
Timmy Lingy
I got my eye on this really sweet spot. Now need to convince it I'm a car. I don't think I can just flash my headlights. Probably won't impress them if I leak oil too. Full of petrol. Clean windows. Licensed. Registered. - ed
I've been thinking lately about finding a relationship... It's like looking for PARKING.

Sometimes people get it fast, sometimes slow.

Some people even take the douchebag way and steal other parking spots, or just as bad, DOUBLE PARK!

Some people may wait patiently, but you may not know if you'll be missing out on better parking spots!

Maybe some people find some reason to park illegally just because they can... And somehow get away with it (in Malaysia at least :p)

Or maybe after a long long tiring search people might give up one day and decide to use valet service! 

Let's not forget to mention about the vvip parking!! On behalf of the rest of the community, screw u!!

... ...

But in the end, what really matters is that I should really stop comparing relationships to parking. The end.
===

===

TEEN HERO. He chased a car on his bike for 15 minutes to save this 5-year-old girl who was snatched from her front yard in Pennsylvania.
===

===


===

===
François Mitterrand and Ronald Reagan
===

Events[edit]

Births[edit]

Deaths[edit]

Holidays and observances[edit]

===
“I will praise you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous laws.” Psalm 119:7 NIV
===
Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"They shall go hindmost with their standards."
Numbers 2:31
The camp of Dan brought up the rear when the armies of Israel were on the march. The Danites occupied the hindmost place, but what mattered the position, since they were as truly part of the host as were the foremost tribes; they followed the same fiery cloudy pillar, they ate of the same manna, drank of the same spiritual rock, and journeyed to the same inheritance. Come, my heart, cheer up, though last and least; it is thy privilege to be in the army, and to fare as they fare who lead the van. Some one must be hindmost in honour and esteem, some one must do menial work for Jesus, and why should not I? In a poor village, among an ignorant peasantry; or in a back street, among degraded sinners, I will work on, and "go hindmost with my standard."
The Danites occupied a very useful place. Stragglers have to be picked up upon the march, and lost property has to be gathered from the field. Fiery spirits may dash forward over untrodden paths to learn fresh truth, and win more souls to Jesus; but some of a more conservative spirit may be well engaged in reminding the church of her ancient faith, and restoring her fainting sons. Every position has its duties, and the slowly moving children of God will find their peculiar state one in which they may be eminently a blessing to the whole host.
The rear guard is a place of danger. There are foes behind us as well as before us. Attacks may come from any quarter. We read that Amalek fell upon Israel, and slew some of the hindmost of them. The experienced Christian will find much work for his weapons in aiding those poor doubting, desponding, wavering, souls, who are hindmost in faith, knowledge, and joy. These must not be left unaided, and therefore be it the business of well-taught saints to bear their standards among the hindmost. My soul, do thou tenderly watch to help the hindmost this day.

Evening

"Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path."
Joel 2:8
Locusts always keep their rank, and although their number is legion, they do not crowd upon each other, so as to throw their columns into confusion. This remarkable fact in natural history shows how thoroughly the Lord has infused the spirit of order into his universe, since the smallest animate creatures are as much controlled by it as are the rolling spheres or the seraphic messengers. It would be wise for believers to be ruled by the same influence in all their spiritual life. In their Christian graces no one virtue should usurp the sphere of another, or eat out the vitals of the rest for its own support. Affection must not smother honesty, courage must not elbow weakness out of the field, modesty must not jostle energy, and patience must not slaughter resolution. So also with our duties, one must not interfere with another; public usefulness must not injure private piety; church work must not push family worship into a corner. It is ill to offer God one duty stained with the blood of another. Each thing is beautiful in its season, but not otherwise. It was to the Pharisee that Jesus said, "This ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone." The same rule applies to our personal position, we must take care to know our place, take it, and keep to it. We must minister as the Spirit has given us ability, and not intrude upon our fellow servant's domain. Our Lord Jesus taught us not to covet the high places, but to be willing to be the least among the brethren. Far from us be an envious, ambitious spirit, let us feel the force of the Master's command, and do as he bids us, keeping rank with the rest of the host. To-night let us see whether we are keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace, and let our prayer be that, in all the churches of the Lord Jesus, peace and order may prevail.
===

Today's reading: Psalm 20-22, Acts 21:1-17 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 18-19

For the director of music. A psalm of David.
1 May the LORD answer you when you are in distress;
may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.
2 May he send you help from the sanctuary
and grant you support from Zion.
3 May he remember all your sacrifices
and accept your burnt offerings.
4 May he give you the desire of your heart
and make all your plans succeed.
5 May we shout for joy over your victory
and lift up our banners in the name of our God.
May the LORD grant all your requests.
6 Now this I know:
The LORD gives victory to his anointed.
He answers him from his heavenly sanctuary
with the victorious power of his right hand.
7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
8 They are brought to their knees and fall,
but we rise up and stand firm.
9 LORD, give victory to the king!
Answer us when we call!

Today's New Testament reading: Acts 20:17-38

On to Jerusalem
1 After we had torn ourselves away from them, we put out to sea and sailed straight to Kos. The next day we went to Rhodes and from there to Patara. 2 We found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, went on board and set sail. 3 After sighting Cyprus and passing to the south of it, we sailed on to Syria. We landed at Tyre, where our ship was to unload its cargo. 4We sought out the disciples there and stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. 5 When it was time to leave, we left and continued on our way. All of them, including wives and children, accompanied us out of the city, and there on the beach we knelt to pray. 6 After saying goodbye to each other, we went aboard the ship, and they returned home....
===

Paul

 [Pôul] - little. The great apostle to the Gentiles, whose original name was Saul, a grander title than that of Paul (Acts 13:9).

The Man Who Founded Churches

How impossible it is to sketch in a page or two the worth and work of the chief missionary of early Christianity! Whole volumes have been written on this expositor of a divine revelation, and the first and most prolific contributor to that marvel of literature, the New Testament. Dr. John Clifford suggests that the making of this remarkable man is revealed to us in six photographs, taken at different times, some by himself, others by the Evangelist Luke. They mark the successive stages of Paul's growth and suggest the formative energies operative at the chief epoch of his career. (See Acts 7:58; 22:3; 26:4, 5; Rom. 7; Gal. 1:13, 15; Phil. 3:5, for these epochs).
Here is a brief summary of this energetic, commanding, masterful man, who is one of the great characters, not only in the Bible, but in all history.
I. He was a native of Tarsus, and his father was a Roman - a fact significant in Paul's labors (Acts 21:39; 22:3, 25; 25:16).
II. He was a Pharisee Jew - a Pharisee by birth, son of Pharisees, and a Pharisee by belief, the hope and resurrection of the dead ( Matt. 22:23; Acts 23:5, 6; Phil 3:5).
III. He was a freeborn citizen of Rome (Acts 22:25, 28).
IV. He had had a strict religious training. Circumcision admitted him to the covenant relation of his fathers (Phil. 3:5). As a Jewish boy, he would memorize Scripture (Deut. 6:4-9) and familiarize himself with Jewish history (Deut. 6:20-25).
V. He was a tent maker by trade ( Acts 18:3). A Talmudic writer asks, "What is commanded of a father towards his son? To circumcise him, to teach him the law, to teach him a trade." (See 1 Cor. 4:12; 1 Thess. 2:9; 2 Thess. 3:8).
VI. He had received a good education, finishing up under the great philosopher, Gamaliel (Acts 22:3 ). As Paul quotes from the Greek poets, he must have been well acquainted with Greek philosophy and literature. Paul, however, studied not only in Jerusalem but also in "The College of Experience." Knowledge comes not only from books, but from the responsibility and experience of life (Phil. 4:11-13).
VII. He had been a persecutor of Christ and of Christians (Acts 8:1-4). Enthusiastically Paul endeavored to stamp out the Christian faith. There is no evidence, however, that he himself killed anyone.
VIII. He became a new creature in Christ Jesus. The persecutor became a believer (Acts 9:3-9; 22:6-11; 26:12-18). Paul never tired of telling the story of his striking conversion on that Damascus road.
IX. He had ten years'training for his remarkable work. In Arabia, Damascus, Jerusalem, Syria and Cilicia, Paul spent much time in the study of Scripture and in prayer, knowing that God had called him to function as a witness and minister of the truth (Gal. 1:15-24).
X. He was a great missionary and church builder. Paul undertook three fruitful missionary journeys, the influence of which cannot be overestimated (Acts 13:1; 28:31). In all his travels, trials and triumphs, Paul was borne alone by the one incentive - "To do the will of Him that sent me" (John 6:38; Acts 21:13, 14).
XI. He was a heart-stirring preacher. Three of his sermons are preserved for us in Acts and serve as models for preachers of all time. Paul relied upon Scripture and appealed to historical facts and prophecy. Ponder his sermon to Jews at Antioch (Acts 13:16-41); his sermon to Gentiles at Athens (Acts 17:22-31).
XII. He was a most gifted writer. Of the twenty-seven books forming the New Testament, Paul was the author of fourteen of them, if we include Hebrews. How revealing are his valuable epistles! As Robert Speer puts it, "They show us his character with all its varied elements, his religious intensity, his originality, freshness and depth of thought, and his intellectual boldness and strength, while they reveal to us also his rich moral nature and his human heart enlarged by the grace of Christ."
Paul's bodily size and appearance may have been against him, judging from a second century apocryphal description of him: "He was a man little of stature, partly bald, with crooked legs, of vigorous physique, with eyes set close together and nose somewhat hooked." What he was in his appearance mattered little. Paul lived only to win others to Christ and to make Him known. If legend be true, at the end of his honored life, his foes led him out to the Appian Way where they severed his noble head from his frail body, and he died triumphantly for the Lord he dearly loved. To him life was Christ, and death a gain.
===

Eve

The Woman of Unique Distinction
Scripture References - Genesis 2 and 3; 2 Corinthians 11:3; 1Timothy 2:13
Name Meaning - There are three names applied to Adam's wife. She is called "Woman, because she was taken out of Man" (Genesis 2:23 ). "Woman" is more of a generic designation than a name, and is associated with Eve's relation to Adam, a relation she was created to fulfill. Literally "woman" means "man-ess." Then both Eve and her husband are called "Adam." "Male and female created he them ... and called their name Adam" (Genesis 5:2). This inclusive name implies that the divine ideal for man and wife is not merely that of association but an indissoluble unity. God made them "one flesh" and gave them one name. Eve, the name given her after the transgression and its prophesied results, was the choice of Adam "who called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living" (3:16, 20). This was the name describing her function and destiny in spiritual history of which she was the beginning. Eve means "life" or "life-giving," or "mother of all who have life," and her life is in us all. In Bible days great significance was attached to a change of name. Why then did Adam change his wife's name - which was his own, Adam, to Eve? Donald Davidson says that, "In view of the awful judgment pronounced upon them, the man might have been pardoned if he had reproached her as 'death,' for it was her sin that brought death into our world and all our woe. But Adam gives her a name which is expressive of the prophetic life bound up in her. For through the seed of the woman, sin would one day be vanquished, and death would be swallowed up in victory."
We have given our cameo of Eve the caption "The Woman of Unique Distinction" because she is distinct, in so many ways, from all other women who have ever lived. There are a good many "Firsts" to her credit.
Eve Was the First Woman to Live Upon the Earth
The product of a divine creation, Eve appeared as a complete, perfect woman. She was never a child, or a daughter or a maiden. The first female born into the world was Eve's first daughter (Genesis 5:4 ). How many daughters were born to Adam and Eve we are not told. If Eve lived as long as her husband - 930 years (Genesis 5:5) - there would likely be many sons and daughters in earth's first family. Eve, then, was not born. She was created out of Adam. Having existed in God's thought, she appeared upon the earth.
Adam was directly created by God out of the dust of the earth, but Eve was fashioned out of a bone taken from Adam's side. George Herbert comments, "The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust double refined." Says Secker, "The rib was taken from under his arm. As the use of the arm is to keep off blows from the body, so the office of the husband is to ward off blows from his wife."
There is a spiritual application of the bride God created for Adam. It speaks of the sacred mystery, the bride of the Lamb, who owes her existence to His wounded side ( John 19:36), and who, even more than Eve, has a place near to the Bridegroom's heart (Jeremiah 31:3), and who is destined to enjoy His companionship in a sinless paradise (Revelation 2:7; 21:9). The marriage of the Lamb, like that of Eve's, is made in heaven.
Eve Was the First Woman to Be Called a Wife
Fashioned out of man, she became man's counterpart and companion. God saw that although Adam was in a state of perfect innocency, it was not good for him to be alone. It would be good for him, spiritually, intellectually and socially to have a wife. He needed someone to love and bear his children since the command had gone forth "to multiply and replenish the earth." And so with Adam -
The world was sad, the garden was a wild,
And man the hermit sighed till woman smiled.
God spoke of the woman He was to provide for Adam as his "helpmeet" - a help meet or adapted to him - a term giving woman her true position in the world. It is only where the Bible exists and Christianity is practiced that she attains to such a position as the helper, or equal of man. In lands where darkness reigns, woman is the slave, the chattel of man. Thus Eve was given to Adam and their two hearts beat as one in love for each other and for God. Eve was formed while Adam slept. He knew no pain during the operation for as yet there was no sin in the world. How true it is that God is continually working while men sleep! He often imparts real blessings to His own as they sleep (Psalm 127:2).
When I wake from sleep,
Despair has fled, and hope is near;
The sky seems blue, and visions clear
Have banished all my dread and fear.
Eve Was the Most Beautiful Woman the World Has Known
Century after century women have appeared renowned for their beauty of face and form but Eve excelled them all. Created by a perfect God, Eve reflected the divine perfection. Hers was no artificial beauty. Face, features and form were the loveliest women have ever had. While the Bible has no description of Eve's physical appearance, Adam's first reaction as he saw the lovely figure before him was to give voice to earth's first poem -
This, then, at last is bone of my bones,
and flesh of my own flesh:
This shall be called Wo-man
For from man was she taken.
While we have Biblical warrant for the beauty of Sarah, the Talmudist says -
All women in comparison with Sarah are like monkeys in respect to men. But Sarah can no more be compared to Eve than can monkey be compared with man.
John Milton expresses a similar commendation in one of his most daring idioms -
Adam the goodliest man since born
His sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.
The blind poet goes on to say of the loveliness Adam saw -
So absolute she seems
And is herself complete.
The Venus of Milo, in marble, or the Venus of Titian in oil, only convey a faint idea of what Eve must have looked like as she came from the creative hand of God. No wonder she has been described as
Heaven's best, last gift.
To quote from Milton's Eve again -
O fairest of creation, last and best
Of all God's works, creature in whom excelled
Whatever can to sight or thought be formed,
Holy, Divine, Good, Amiable or Sweet.
Yet again Eve's original beauty is expressed in these lines -
That what seemed fair in all the world seemed now
Mean, or in her contained or in her looks;
Grace was in all her steps, Heaven in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.
Eve Was the First and Only Woman Born Without Sin
Being the first woman Eve had no inherited sin. Coming from the hand of God, Eve had an advantage no other woman has ever had - she was pure and holy, with the divine image unimpaired. Created sinless, she yet became the world's first sinner, and introduced sin to her offspring, and thus, all since her were "born in sin and shapen in iniquity." The best and holiest born into the race have natures that are prone to evil (Romans 7:21 ). Fashioned with "innocence and sinless perfection and endowed to all fullness with gifts of body and mind, and rich in external blessing without spot or alloy she yet transgressed in the sin with which she caused Adam to sin." Fresh from the hand of God with unmatchable grace and beauty of body and mind, sin and ruin followed, and paradise was surrendered for a world of thorns, thistles and tears.
Eve Was the First on Earth to Be Assailed by Satan
Before her creation, Satan, who like Eve had been created a holy being, led a rebellion against the Creator and was cast from his high estate. Now he begins his rebellion on earth and beings with one who is fascinated by his approach. Thus we have the Fall and the source of original sin. There was no great daring to sin for the first time on Eve's part. As sin was unknown to both Adam and Eve when created by God, Eve saw no wrong in the masterpiece of satanic subtle suggestion. Satan did not tell her to sin, but insinuated in the cleverest way that there was nothing to worry about in eating forbidden fruit. As George Matheson puts it, "The temptation was not in itself the wish to transgress, but the will to possess; the transgression is merely a means.... If the tempter had said, 'Steal,' he would not have been listened to for a moment. But he did not say, 'Steal!'; he says, 'Speculate!' ... Temptation since the days of Eden has never ceased to clothe itself in a seemly garment."
Satan succeeded in painting the downward way as leading to an upward path issuing in God-likeness or a fall upwards, "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Eve succumbed to the wiles of Satan and the steps leading to her surrender are illuminating - she saw, she coveted, she took, etc. "The tree was good for food" - bodily appetite was tempted. It was "a delight to the eyes" - her sensuous nature was tempted. Then, "the tree was to be desired to make one wise" - the most powerful temptation of all, namely, "the spiritual temptation to transcend the normal experience of men and to taste of the wisdom that belongs only to God."
What about her husband? Well, Adam made no effort to restrain Eve from eating of the fruit although the divine prohibition was addressed to him as well as to Eve. If he was not the first to pluck the fruit, he must have been standing under the tree, and when he saw that it was safe to eat, then he took his share of the forbidden fruit. When God faced Adam with that first act of sin, he not only blamed Eve, but God Himself - "The womanThou gavest me" - as if to say, "If You knew that Eve would have tempted me, why did You create her for me?" H. V. Morton says that "the words of the first Adam are like the words of a rather sneaky little boy caught out by the headmaster and blames another - She gave me of the tree and I did eat." But thereafter, in Scripture, Adam, the federal head of the human race, is made responsible for adamic sin. ("In Adam we die"; "By one man's sin"; Romans 5:12; Job 31:33.) What followed the disobedience of the world's first sinners is only too well-known - pain in childbearing, the introduction of sin and servitude into the world, the earth cursed, expulsion from paradise, and the introduction of disease and death.
Eve Was the World's First Dressmaker
If Adam was earth's first gardener, Eve was the first to fashion garments out of leaves. "They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons" ( Genesis 3:7). Andrew Johnson, who became president of the U.S.A. after the murder of Abraham Lincoln, once was a tailor in Greenville, Tennessee, where he had a shop. In a speech made at Gallatin in 1874 he said -
Adam, our great father and head, the lord of the world, was a tailor by trade. Adam and Eve "sewed fig leaves together, and made them aprons." That is the first we ever heard of tailors, and I do not see that - without intending to be personal - anyone need be ashamed to be called a tailor, nor any young lady need be ashamed to be a seamstress, for her mother Eve, it seems, handled a needle with some skill.
Clothing is a reminder of sin, for in their innocency our first parents had no sense of shame because they had no sense of sin. "They were both naked ... and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:25). Says Matthew Henry, "They need have no shame in their faces, though they had no clothes to their backs." But after they sinned their eyes were opened, and theyknew that they were naked. Although shame may have a fairer and a gentler face than sin, it is still its twin sister. Shame can be an expression of regret for sin, or the protest of consicence against it. When Ezra blushed and was ashamed to look up, the pardoning mercy of God came out to meet him (Ezra 9:6).
Conscious of their nakedness, why did Adam and Eve seek a covering? Not only because they knew they were without clothing but also because they were exposed to the gaze of Him against whom they had sinned. However the fig leaves they made into a garment were not sufficient to hide them from God's piercing eyes, so they hid among the trees. Even there they were under His gaze and discovered, and they tried to cover themselves with vain excuses (Genesis 3:7, 8, 11, 13). Those who try to cover their sin never prosper (Proverbs 28:13, see Job 31:33 ). God rejected the covering the first sinners on the earth made because it represented their own effort. So God provided them with "coats of skins" (3:21), and placed them on the guilty ones. The wonderful invention of fastening animal pelts together was ascribed by the ancient Hebrews to God. Skins speak of sacrifice. Animals have to be slain ere man can be covered with clothes or shoes. Surely the divine provision of those sacrificial skins foreshadowed Calvary, where Jesus through the sacrifice of Himself provided a spotless robe of righteousness for all who repent and believe.
Naked, come to Thee for dress.
Eve Was the First Mother to Have a Son Who Was a Murderer
What a trail of sorrow and anguish followed her transgression! When Cain, her first born, came into her life and home how Eve must have loved him. She named him Cain, meaning "to get" or "to possess" or, "acquisition." He became a tiller of the ground. Her second son was Abel, a name implying, "that which ascends" or "a vapor" - something doomed to fade. The latter was a spiritual man and sacrificed the firstlings of his flocks unto the Lord. The former son brought of the fruit of the ground, that is, that which he had produced, and presented it to the Lord who rejected it and accepted Abel's offering because of its sacrificial content. Cain lost his temper over this act of divine acceptance and rejection, and slew his brother Abel. Thus Eve's favorite first born was branded with shame, and spiritual Abel became a martyr. Behind Cain's slaughter of his brother was the serpent who had made their mother the world's first sinner. Jesus said that he was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44 ). After the crime and banishment of her first son, and the burial of her second one, God gave her another whom she called Seth. "For God," she said, "hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, for Cain slew him." In naming her third son thus she voiced her faith in God's love, mercy and provision. It was through Seth that the spiritual lineage was maintained and it was after his birth that Eve's name disappears from the pages of the Old Testament, although it is mentioned twice in the New Testament. While Eve doubtless shared the length of Adam's life - 930 years - and bore an indefinite number of sons and daughters, we have no record of her maternity apart from the three named sons.
Eve Was the First to Receive the Divine Prophecy of the Cross
Eve was the first sinner and saw the fruit of her sin as she stood at the world's first grave and buried her dead. After confessing her sin she heard the Lord say to that old serpent, the devil, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Genesis 3:15 ). With this first promise of the Redeemer there began the scarlet highway ending at the cross where Christ, born of a woman, provided a glorious victory over sin and Satan. Through a woman, God's fair universe was blighted and became "a world of sinners lost, and ruined by the fall." Now, through a woman, a perfect salvation has been provided for a sinning race. Through Eve's sin, death entered the world, but at the cross both sin and death were conquered, for by "dying, death He slew." When Jesus cried, "It is finished," He meant that the serpent's head, representing power and authority, had been bruised. He laid hold of all satanic principalities and powers that Eve's transgression brought into the world, and put them under His feet. Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
As we leave our reflection upon the world's first woman, first wife, first sinner, and first mourner, there are one or two lessons to be gleaned from her record. For instance, "many daughters of Eve have discovered that the serpent is never more dangerous than when he professes to be the earnest well-wisher interested in nothing but her advancement and welfare." What a subtle, cruel deceiver Satan is. How ignorant so many are of his devices! Further, temptation is a universal experience, and each of us should learn from the first person on earth to be tempted, its manner of approach and successive steps, and safeguard ourselves from a fall through the appropriation of Christ's own victory over the enemy. There is no sin in being tempted. We only sin when we yield to temptation. Refusing to yield to the enticement of sin, our Garden of Eden remains inviolate. At the heart of Eve's pathetic story, however, is the moral lesson that a woman has the power for bane or blessing over a man's life. If she falls, man falls with her. How expressive are the verses John White Chadwick quotes in his chapter on Eve in Women of the Bible -
Ah, wasteful woman, that she may
On her sweet self set her own price.
Knowing we cannot choose but pay,
How has she cheapened Paradise;
How given for naught her priceless gift,
How spoil'd the bread and spill'd the wine
Which, spent with due respective thrift,
Had made men brutes and men divine.
O Queen, awake to thy renown,
Require what 'tis our wealth to give,
And comprehend and wear the crown
Of thy despised prerogative.
===
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)