Monday, August 04, 2014

Mon Aug 4th Todays News

The hundredth anniversary of World War 1, when Germany invaded Belgium and England declared war on Germany. Sometimes referred to as Family Feud because many of the royal houses were first cousins thank to Queen Victoria's efforts. She would not have been amused. Germany was the most powerful nation in Europe and of the nearly 68 million soldiers mobilised, ten million dead and a further twenty million wounded. It was not an accident or afterthought, as some have said. It was necessary to counter the rapacious lawlessness of German ambition. But the war was mishandled and the peace was mishandled. And despite the collapse of Russia to the Soviet Union, the Great Game continued and today the politics of the Great Game are still being felt. Russia's position on Syria is why there is still fighting in Syria. Washington's stance on Ukraine is why there is still fighting in Ukraine. England's position on Israel is why there is still fighting in Israel. And each position defies logic unless one considers preceding politics. Israel should be whole and include Gaza, Jerusalem et al as her civic responsibility. Only London's intransigence in the thirties and forties, kowtowing to oil rich arabs has sacrificed stability for short term gain. Washington's support for a divided Ukraine in opposition to Russia despite the illegitimacy of the Ukrainian government is merely oppositional to Russia and instrumental in the deaths of civilians in MH17. Russia's cold war friendship with Syria and Iran is destabilising, but then that is what they need to enjoy Iranian oil. But it has nothing to do with Syrian peoples, or respect of Syrian culture. 

 The porn industry is sick and rapacious. Models may have high work satisfaction, who wouldn't enjoy those happy endings? But that is not the apparent long term experience universally expressed by the actors. New model Alina Li at age nineteen has been in the industry for a year. She has merchandised and has accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Tumbler. She has apparently been well remunerated and has expressed she has enjoyed her work. But her recent experience with a kink team where she was publicly roughed up and humiliated, crying in front of the camera is, according to her, a reason to call it a day. She has worked too hard and no longer enjoys it. But then that is exactly what moralists who decry the industry warn .. the short term good feelings do not provide long term satisfaction. Alina has said she wants to lead a more normal life, maybe do some waitressing ala youtube sensation Caitlyn Hills. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. And then there are other models who express total satisfaction. It isn't a life I would want for my children. 

 The commonwealth Games have ended and Australian Media predictably despised the second placing on the medals table. It is impossible to call Australia's performance poor, yet that is exactly the word news media apply, saying it is the worst performance since Bob Hawke was PM in '86. The weightlifting division under performed and track and field too .. but then Pearson's captaincy was never going to pay dividends .. she is too selfish and self absorbed. But for Pearson and a few involved with drugs, Australia's performance has been exemplary. I thank them and applaud them. They represented me in the field, and they did it well, giving up many hours over the years when they might rather have been doing something else. Australia may not have won many sprints, but she did win the marathon. 

 On this day in 70 AD, the second temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by Roman occupiers, with Jewish peoples scattered through the empire. The terrible penalty for uprising had followed Gaul's rebellion being put down after Nero's calamitous rule. A little competence elsewhere and the world might have been very different. Jewish peoples were attracted to Poland in the thirteen hundreds, which is why my people left Horovice for Minsk. My people were musicians and Rabbi and I believe were part of those who influenced classical musicians who in turn have given us modern music. I apologise, on my family's behalf for Justin Bieber .. and One Direction .. In 367, the ambitious Gratian made his eight year old son co ruler. In 598 the Emperor of Sui ordered his son and PM to take Korea. In 1265 the Batle of Evesham saw a prince defeat those vying for what would become his kingdom. But, in 1327, Edward I's Grandson, Edward III nearly died after losing a battle to James Douglas. In 1693 Dom Perignon is said to have invented Champagne. In 1789 in excessive revolutionary zeal, French members of the national constituent assembly pledge an oath to end feudalism. But they continued to argue and bicker over how that would be done. In 1892, the father and step mother of Lizzie Borden are found murdered. In 1944, Anne Frank and her family are arrested by Gestapo. In 1958, the Pop top 100 songs are bill boarded. In 1964, three civil-rights workers are found killed in Mississippi. 
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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.
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Happy birthday and many happy returns Johnny Vuong, Darren Lee and Nestori Dez. Born on the same day, across the years. Along with Louis Vuitton (1821), John Venn (1834), Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (1900), Louis Armstrong (1901), Reg Grundy (1923), Barry Soetoro (1961, Kenya) and Jessica Mauboy (1989). On your day, Constitution Day in the Cook Islands (1965)
70 – First Jewish–Roman War: The Roman army, led by the future Emperor Titus, conquered the city of Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple.
1327 – First War of Scottish Independence: James Douglas led a raid into Weardale and almost killed Edward III of England.
1783 – A cataclysmic eruption of Mount Asama, the most active volcano in Japan, killed roughly 1,400 people and exacerbated a famine, resulting in another 20,000 deaths.
1983 – A coup d'état organised by Blaise Compaoré and supported by Libya made Thomas Sankara President of the Republic of Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso).
2006 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Seventeen employees of the French INGO ACF International were massacred in Muttur. Your day has such hope .. for a rebuilt temple, for independence, for salvation from natural disaster, from oppression and from civil war. Live your dream. Realise hope.

Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda

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HOME-GROWN HEAD HUNTERS

Tim Blair – Monday, August 04, 2014 (3:37pm)

As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. David Hicks was raised in Adelaide, which might explain his early inclinations towards violence. The convicted terrorism supporter’s subsequent conversion to extreme Islam allowed Hicks to further indulge these tendencies. As Hicks himself explained four years ago: 
My motivation was not a religious search for spirituality; it was more a search for somewhere to belong and to be with people who shared my interest in world affairs. 
That’s a nice way of putting it. By “people who shared my interest in world affairs”, Hicks presumably means his training buddies in Lashkar-e-Taiba and al Qaeda, whose world affairs interests primarily involve the slaughter of infidels. It isn’t exactly a sophisticated geopolitical vision, but at least poor little David found “somewhere to belong”.
Sadly for Hicks, the peak moment of his international sharing seems to have been shooting at random Indian soldiers in 2000. It is unlikely Hicks even hit anybody, despite firing “hundreds of bullets”.
That’s probably as far as you’ll get in the caliphate caper with only an Adelaide upbringing and a few years of mosque attendance as inspiration. To generate completely barking mad levels of berserk bloodlust you need complete immersion in an extremist culture.
Such as you’ll find in certain western Sydney suburbs, for example.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'HOME-GROWN HEAD HUNTERS'
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BUDGET BUSTED

Tim Blair – Monday, August 04, 2014 (11:55am)

Fundraising for this month’s anti-Abbott march is running slightly below expectations:

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(Via Gregoryno6)
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IT TOOK THEM MORE THAN A WEEK

Tim Blair – Monday, August 04, 2014 (12:56am)

The Sydney Morning Herald apologises for its bigotry: 
There has been widespread reader and community reaction during the past 10 days over a cartoon that was used to illustrate an opinion piece by columnist Mike Carlton on the conflict in Gaza …

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The cartoon showed an elderly man, with a large nose, sitting alone, with a remote control device in his hand, overseeing explosions in Gaza. The armchair in which he was sitting was emblazoned with the Star of David, and the man was wearing a kippah, a religious skullcap. A strong view was expressed that the cartoon, by Glen Le Lievre, closely resembled illustrations that had circulated in Nazi Germany …
The Herald now appreciates that, in using the Star of David and the kippah in the cartoon, the newspaper invoked an inappropriate element of religion, rather than nationhood, and made a serious error of judgment.
It was wrong to publish the cartoon in its original form.
We apologise unreservedly for this lapse, and the anguish and distress that has been caused. 
Lapse? Try “pattern”.
UPDATE. Sharri Markson: 
Prior to the apology, the Herald’s deputy editor of the weekday paper, Ben Cubby, defended the cartoon and Carlton’s columns on Twitter, getting into heated arguments with readers who said they were offended …
The cartoon incident has exposed the loss of experienced editors at Fairfax, leaving the likes of Cubby, who was environment reporter two minutes ago, to respond to concerned readers. 
Meanwhile, Mike Carlton has written nothing about today’s apology. His silence speaks volumes.
UPDATE II. Carlton now detects racism where none exists.
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How Mike Carlton writes to a reader accusing him of writing anti-Jewish material

Andrew Bolt August 04 2014 (8:08pm)

I have avoided calling Mike Carlton an anti-Semite, even after his foul column a week ago, decorated with the disgusting cartoon discussed below. He seems to hate far too many people to accuse him of such particularism.
But then I read this exchange - and note very well Carlton’s final email:
On 27 Jul 2014, at 11:40 pm, Yury Glikin wrote:
It is most likely that you will not reply to this email, which is fine. I suppose engaging in lengthy discourse with you will be pointless as you seem to favour incendiary and grandiose statements, after which you retreat in order to hide behind a generic email address, a twitter handle and, I surmise, some sense of achievement (although I am not too sure of what exactly).
As a man who has been a journalist for decades, to publish an article like the one you did on Saturday about Israel means one of 2 things. You either genuinely believe what you say, which means your understanding of history of the region is sadly lacking. To say things like Israel has never offered the Palestinians a state of their own for example, is such a gross misrepresentation of facts that it really doesn’t deserve further comment. There are so many factually incorrect statements, that it becomes more or less irrelevant, like something one would read on TMZ or a similarly banal and pointless publication.
It may be argued that your commentary is deeply steeped in anti Semitism or general racism, but of course you know this and revel in the attention these statements get .. perhaps a slightly sad attempt of a journalist who was once relevant, to remain so by using inflammatory rhetoric.
Alternatively, you don’t believe what you say, and you write what you write because Fairfax knows that it generates eyeballs and feeds the needs if its (mostly) liberal reader base. Fair enough, we all need to make a buck. But if this is the case, then you have already sold out. I am sure you convince yourself that having 85% of the people respond to your column with positive feedback, gives you some sort of victory. I assure you, it’s a pyrrhic one at best, because your credibility as a journalist, someone that people should listen to, is already dead.
I have no desire to call you names or threaten you, as this feeds your ego and helps you to validate what you do. I also am not misguided enough to say stupid stuff like “we’re the chosen people, deal with it”, as this no doubt gives you some macabre pleasure and allows you to reinforce your belief into you own perceived self-importance.
Sadly, SMH will no doubt continue to give you voice in order to help sell page banner impressions. But I am comfortable knowing that Israel will endure many people like you and will continue, whereas you are already immaterial .... but what’s best of all is that deep inside, just before you fall asleep at night ... I know that you already know this.
Yury
On 28 Jul 2014, at 5:45, Mike Carlton wrote: 
How arrogant and foolish you are.
Mike Carlton
Sent from my iPad
On 28 Jul 2014, at 6:56 am, Yury Glikin wrote:

Perhaps
But I’ll take that any day over being a sad and irrelevant old man, full of hate and bile.
From: Mike Carlton
Date: 28 July 2014 7:17:21 AEST
To: Yury Glikin
Subject: Re: Irrelevant
You’re the one full of hate and bile, sunshine. The classic example of the Jewish bigot.  Now f..k off.
Mike Carlton
Sent from my iPad 
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Another asylum seeker try-on

Andrew Bolt August 04 2014 (6:21pm)

It sounds to me like a great rort, funded by taxpayers:
A MOTHER and son are among delegates who stayed behind from an international AIDS conference intending to apply for asylum in Australia. 

UP to 30 delegates did not fly home after the conference ended on July 25 and have asked the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) for help.
If the delegates, mostly from African countries but some also from Asia, apply for asylum, they will live in the community while their claims are assessed.
ASRC justice programs director Hayley Mansfield ...  said a similar thing had happened after the Homeless World Cup in 2008, where a number of competitors stayed behind to apply for asylum.
One of the delegates is from Tanzania, for heaven’s sake, claiming he’s fleeing “albino persecution”. He’s left his wife and three children behind. Funnily enough, he’s not actually an albino himself. He just works with them - work I suggest he could simply stop if that’s his real problem.
Even stranger, while witchdoctors in rural areas have had a liking for body parts from albinos, many thousands of albinos have managed to get on with their lives in Tanzania - and work for improvements with the help of their government:
Some albinos living in Dar es Salaam say Tanzania’s cities have become more accepting in recent years.
“Before, we couldn’t share the same seats on a town bus for example. If I sit here, no one will set next to me,” said Abdilm Omari, treasurer of the 12,000-member Tanzania Albino Society based in Dar es Salaam. Omari says it used to be that people wouldn’t patronize businesses owned by albinos, or wouldn’t employ them at all.
But today, “There is less ignorance,” he says. Discrimination toward albinos seems to have declined drastically since the passing of the April 2010 Persons With Disabilities Act, which explicitly forbids employers from discriminating against albinos and even requires companies to allocate at least 3 percent of their positions to people with disabilities.
That law was championed by Al-Shaymaa Kwegyir, Tanzania’s first albino member of parliament.
Exactly how present is the danger?
Two witch doctors in Tanzania have been arrested after a woman with albinism was hacked to death, police say… According to Under the Same Sun, which campaigns against the discrimination of people living with albinism, the last killing of an albino in Tanzania was in February 2013.
If this albino-helper had the best case, I wonder about the other 29.
If this is the game, then future conferences should be held in some place like Addis Ababa. It should cut the number of useless conferences, the number of freeloading delegates and the number of “asylum seekers”. It will also steer good money to poor countries.
By the way: don’t these AIDS delegates have a responsibility to fight the disease back in their home countries? Wasn’t this conference called to help them and others do just that? 
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ABC falsely claims Israeli ‘strike on a UN run school’

Andrew Bolt August 04 2014 (5:43pm)

It is increasingly difficult to trust the ABC’s reporting on Gaza.
Take this World Today report (and I heard similarly false claims made in other ABC reports today. UPDATE And on Channel 9):
NICK GRIMM: To Gaza, where Israelis this morning have said they’ll hold fire in most areas of the enclave for what they’ve termed a seven-hour “humanitarian window” ...
The announcement comes after an unusually strong censure from Washington at the apparent Israeli shelling of yet another UN-run shelter, which killed at least 10 people…
Barney Porter reports.
BARNEY PORTER: It was the second strike on a UN run school in less than a week.
Shelling “of” a shelter? A strike “on” a shelter?
In fact, the very same report goes on to suggest that both claims are false:

This time, at least 10 people were killed and about 30 others were wounded when an Israeli missile struck the entrance of the facility in the southern Gaza Strip.
So now it’s not a strike on the facility, but the entrance. Or not even quite that:
TAMER BADARWEEL (translated): The street was full of children buying sweets from the shop that’s by the main gate.
The ABC’s AM gives us more reason to doubt other ABC reports of a strike “on” or “of” the shelter, or even of the entrance::
When the explosion happened, it killed at least 10 people as they sat outside the school.
Now Israel denies that it fired into the shelter but it appears to have targeted a motorbike just as it was passing by the UN shelter. Now Israel says that that motorbike was carrying three members of Islamic jihad and it was the shrapnel that did the damage, obviously killing the civilians inside.
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Latest excuse: global warming causes no global warming

Andrew Bolt August 04 2014 (5:24pm)

Global warming - propaganda

Does The Age, the centre of global warming alarmism in Australia, realise how stupid it’s starting to sound?:
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Still, this is progress. It wasn’t so long ago that The Age was still pretending there wasn’t a pause at all.
Meanwhile:
Melburnians have trembled through their coldest consecutive mornings for 17 years.
And:

Adelaide has woken to its coldest start to an August day in 126 years …
UPDATE
Meanwhile, the warmist Science magazine catches up with an argument against the great islands-are-drowning scare:
In 1999, the World Bank asked [University of Auckland geomorphologist Paul Kench] to evaluate the economic costs of sea-level rise and climate change to Pacific island nations. Kench, who had been studying how atoll islands evolve over time, says he had assumed that a rising ocean would engulf the islands, which consist of sand perched on reefs. “That’s what everyone thought, and nobody questioned it,” he says. But when he scoured the literature, he could not find a single study to support that scenario. So Kench teamed up with Peter Cowell, a geomorphologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, to model what might happen.
They found that during episodes of high seas—at high tide during El Niño events, which raise sea level in the Central Pacific, for example—storm waves would wash over higher and higher sections of atoll islands. But instead of eroding land, the waves would raise island elevation by depositing sand produced from broken coral, coralline algae, mollusks, and foraminifera. Kench notes that reefs can grow 10 to 15 mill imeters a year—faster than the sea-level rise expected to occur later this century. ”As long as the reef is healthy and generates an abundant supply of sand, there’s no reason a reef island can’t grow and keep up,” he argues.
(Thanks to readers Brian, Steve and Rocky.) 
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CFMEU accused yet again

Andrew Bolt August 04 2014 (5:12pm)

This kind of stuff must be crushed:
THE powerful construction union “lawlessly” pressured the clients of a Queensland crane company to boycott the business unless it gave in to union demands on enterprise bargaining and a multi-million dollar redundancy fund, a royal commission has heard. 

Albert Smith, the managing director of a company that owns Universal Cranes, was the first witness to give evidence at this week’s Brisbane hearings of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, which is examining explosive allegations against the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union in Queensland.
“The process was that the union would advise the clients not to hire us,” Mr Smith told the inquiry.
“Clients wouldn’t use Universal Cranes so we lost several customers and, in some cases, customers that were in the bag. The union made it clear to the clients they wouldn’t allow us to be on the site.”
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Gaza outrage: it’s really just about the Jews, isn’t it?

Andrew Bolt August 04 2014 (4:28pm)

With footage from Gaza, Europe and Sydney that Australians really need to see before blaming the usual suspects:
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Brandis denounces. UPDATE: Fairfax finally caves

Andrew Bolt August 04 2014 (4:03pm)

Absolutely right:
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THE Attorney-General, George Brandis, has accused Fairfax Media of publishing anti-Semitic coverage of the Middle East, and denounced a cartoon in The ­Sydney Morning Herald depicting a Jewish man with an exaggerated nose as comparable to propaganda from Nazi Germany.
In an extraordinary attack, Senator Brandis said coverage in Fairfax papers of the Gaza conflict was “overtly anti-Semitic”.
“I… would have thought that a responsible media organisation would have a very good look at itself when it publishes cartoons (of) the kind we haven’t seen since Germany in the 1930s."…
The Australian Jewish News has called on readers to cancel subscriptions to Fairfax. The cartoon illustrated a column by Mike Carlton, which ran in the paper’s July 26 edition. ­Created by illustrator Glen Le ­Lievre, the cartoon also ran on the website of Victorian masthead The Age, which is also published by Fairfax. 
UPDATE
Revulsion:
One of Australia’s leading immu­nologists, highly regarded professor Ron Penny, and his wife, Naomi, said they stopped their subscription last week after a life spent reading The Sydney Morning Herald…
“After reading the Mike Carlton article and seeing that cartoon, we decided that whatever happens we cannot possibly subscribe to a publication that could print anything as totally ignorant and ­odious as that.
“Thank god we can live without that horrible publication.”
UPDATE
After a whole week, the editor apologises:
The cartoon showed an elderly man, with a large nose, sitting alone, with a remote control device in his hand, overseeing explosions in Gaza. The armchair in which he was sitting was emblazoned with the Star of David, and the man was wearing a kippah, a religious skullcap. A strong view was expressed that the cartoon, by Glen Le Lievre, closely resembled illustrations that had circulated in Nazi Germany…
The Herald now appreciates that, in using the Star of David and the kippah in the cartoon, the newspaper invoked an inappropriate element of religion, rather than nationhood, and made a serious error of judgment.
It was wrong to publish the cartoon in its original form.
We apologise unreservedly for this lapse, and the anguish and distress that has been caused.
But the deputy editor, a warming catastrophist, can’t see what the fuss is about:
Prior to the apology, the Herald’s deputy editor of the weekday paper, Ben Cubby, defended the cartoon and Carlton’s columns on Twitter, getting into heated arguments with readers who said they were offended.
Cubby told one reader, Bryan Gaensler, a former Young Aus­tralian of the Year and a highly ­respected scientist to, “Give it up mate”.
“Bryan with respect I think you’re overreaching with these Nazi references. Let’s just agree to disagree,” he said in another tweet.
Inflaming the situation further, Cubby tweeted on Saturday: “Great column by Mike Carlton again today.”
We dealt with this on yesterday’s NewsWatch, Miranda Devine was very strong:
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Wake up Labor, see the threat

Andrew Bolt August 04 2014 (9:37am)

A COUPLE of hundred men marched past the Lakemba Hotel in Sydney a week ago, chanting their support for Gaza, and with it a threat. 

Here is what they shouted while waving black flags of jihad — and pray Labor finally listens:

Palestine is Muslim land
The solution is Jihad ...
You can never stop Islam
From Australia to al Sham (Syria)
One umma (Muslim community) hand in hand
From Lakemba to Gaza
One call “khalifa” (Caliphate)
That chant is a wake-up for a political class now too cowed or craven to judge between the civilised and the primitive.
Yes, we really do now have hundreds of people who feel free to demonstrate a common cause with terrorists waging the most hideous wars in Gaza, Syria and Iraq.
I can hear the usual “but but but” already, as in: but you’re ignoring that most Muslims are peace-loving, and saying such things risks alienating them or encouraging racists.
And there’s truth to that, which is why we’ve left the problem to fester to the point where we’ve had scores of jihadists fight in Syria and Iraq, including two suicide bombers and two beheaders.
But we’ve done more than simply ignore something that threatens our physical safety.
(Read full column here.) 
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Prove this isn’t just about Jew-hatred. Protest these killings, too

Andrew Bolt August 04 2014 (9:02am)

Where are the protests? Or is killing Muslims only a crime when Jews do it?
HAMAS shot some 20 Palestinians on Monday night for protesting against Hamas for the massive destruction inflicted on their neighbourhood in Shejaia by the IDF in the past weeks, Channel 10 reported on Tuesday. Over the past few days, Hamas has executed more than 30 civilians from various parts of the Gaza Strip which it suspected of collaborating with Israel, unidentified Palestinian security sources told the Palestine Press News Agency.
UPDATE
About that wicked Israeli “blockade” of Gaza that protesters demand be lifted:
Customs officials at southern Israel’s Ashdod port discovered hundreds of ball-bearings and cement mixers in a Turkish shipment of “humanitarian aid” to Gaza on Wednesday , raising fears the cargo could have been used by Hamas to support its ongoing war against Israel, according to Channel Two. While both items have civilian uses, both have played a central role building Hamas’s rocket arsenal and its vast network of “terror tunnels” into Israel. Terrorists in Gaza regularly use ball-bearings to maximize the lethality of locally-made, short-range Qassam rockets.
UPDATE
Wouldn’t it make more sense to cancel their passports once they’re safely in the Middle East?
THE nation’s top spy agency has stripped almost 70 passports from Islamic extremists, prompting fears the grounded radicals will now lead attacks on Australian soil.
Remind me again why it’s terrible to argue that mass immigration from the Middle East makes us less safe:
Algerian-born Abdul Nacer Benbrika, who led a terror cell planning to bomb the MCG on Grand Final day, is believed to still hold a strong influence over young extremists in Victoria, despite being held in the high-security unit at Barwon Prison.
Several devotees in Melbourne’s northern suburbs of Preston, Brunswick and ­Coburg have praised Ben­brika as their spiritual leader online. They labelled the cult figure a “king” and a “martyr” on several Facebook pages…
Last week, the Herald Sun revealed two of Benbrika’s followers — the Raad brothers, Ahmed and Ezzit — who had been released from jail, had close ties to Adam Dahman, 18, of Northcote, who detonated a suicide bomb in Iraq on July 17.
(Thanks to reader Gab.) 
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Being green should not be a get-out-jail card

Andrew Bolt August 04 2014 (8:57am)

A very important point by Henry Ergas, as a court once again discounts a sentence because of the green politics of the law-breaker:
‘‘IF you are going to steal,’’ they say in America, ‘‘steal big.’’ Jonathan Moylan did just that: by issuing a fraudulent ANZ press release claiming the bank had withdrawn its support from the Maules Creek mining project, he knocked $300 million off the market capitalisation of Whitehaven Coal. 

But far from imposing the maximum penalty for market ­manipulation of 10 years in jail, the NSW Supreme Court has now let him off with a gentle slap on the wrist, releasing him from a sentence of 20 months’ imprisonment in exchange for $1000 and a two-year good behaviour period.
Moylan, you see, is a green; and although “the market was manipulated, vast amounts of shares were unnecessarily traded and some investors lost their investment entirely”, the court concluded leniency was warranted, as the anti-coal activist, who has a long string of trespass offences to his name, did not act for or obtain a personal financial gain.
No, Moylan wasn’t motivated by a thirst for yachts, fast cars and the company of starlets. He gets his kicks dreaming of a world without coal.
But if fanaticism excuses crime, are jihadists now entitled to issue misleading financial information about Jewish-owned companies in their quest for the global ­caliphate?
Or is there one law for the ­zealots of Gaia and another for everyone else?
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Abusing our good nature

Andrew Bolt August 04 2014 (8:37am)

SOMEONE must think we’re idiots. Why are 157 Sri Lankans given refuge in India now demanding we house them instead?
Why have refugee activists taken up their cause, rather than that of the countless real refugees in real danger right now?
Why are we now keeping these 157at our expense in Nauru, when they should have been flicked right back to India?
This is an abuse of our good nature and our reason.
Australia has always been prepared to help people fleeing for their lives. But these people?
(Read full article here.) 
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Islamic State advances

Andrew Bolt August 04 2014 (7:19am)

This is worse than the threat of the Taliban, so where is the West’s response?
Capture of the Mosul Dam after an offensive of barely 24 hours could give the Sunni militants the ability to flood major Iraqi cities, sharply raising the stakes in their bid to topple Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government.
Islamic State, which sees Iraq’s majority Shi’ites as apostates who deserve to be killed, also seized the Ain Zalah oil field, adding to four others already under their control, and three towns.
Obama’s premature abandonment of Iraq could be his most catastrophic mistake.  
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=== Posts from last year ===
4 her, so she can see how I see her








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I despise Oldfield for many reasons. This speech is up there. There are sick people in this world. Confusing that with an immigration scare helps nothing. Anybody travelling to a 3rd world nation could track a disease here .. they don't have to come by boat. But the veiled racial hatred of a cultural supremacist just can't help itself. - ed
Illegal immigrants: The disease threat to Australia

August 3, 2013 · by David Oldfield · in Multiculturalism, Politics 

Despite all the politics and promises, the fact remains thousands of people continue to arrive illegally in Australia and many more await the opportunity to make the trip.

They’ve been called asylum seekers, economic refugees, unauthorised arrivals and country shoppers, but whatever one might call this threat to Australia, knowledge of one particular serious danger has been largely denied the Australian people. That is the issue of diseases that also arrive with the un-invited.

It should be noted that arriving with claims for ‘Asylum’ allows access to Australia by people with diseases that prevent such access by anyone wishing to migrate through legitimate means!

Boat arrivals have brought diseases that have overwhelmed medical resources, financially and otherwise, and yet this ever present costly danger is conveniently overlooked.

I have warned of this imported disease time-bomb for years – here is a speech I wrote and delivered in Parliament on June 19 2002.

Given the tens of thousands, in just the last few years, who have arrived by boat from life threatening disease ridden places, the deadly cost of this issue is even more outstanding today!

The Hon. DAVID OLDFIELD [10.38 p.m.]: Last week I put on the record various facts to bring perspective to the pervading nonsense about the emotional hype generated in support of those whom I have termed “asylum-class tourists”. On the same theme it is also appropriate to consider the terrible effect of ill-considered immigration and multicultural policies pursued by governments without consultation. These policies have resulted directly in social and health problems of a magnitude so great that recovery may not be realistically achievable. One cannot fix a problem one refuses to acknowledge. Although the public at large is greatly impacted by horrendous problems such as ethnic crime and imported diseases, no government has moved to resolve the issue. Instead we have seen the cowardly approach of political correctness result in ineffective treatments and no cures.

Without dramatic changes to immigration and the removal of multiculturalism in favour of assimilation and integration, the future is bleak. Successive Australian governments of both political persuasions imported those who were clearly going to have difficulty assimilating. This problem could have been overcome given time and the right approach. However, the introduction of multiculturalism, and hence the removal of any need to assimilate, has destroyed any chance of a cohesive society. Even John Howard noted in 1988 that multiculturalism tended to highlight people’s differences rather than unite them. It is a shame that the Prime Minister no longer makes such concerns public.

As to immigration—albeit supposedly legitimate or otherwise—undoubtedly the issue about which the Australian people are most uninformed is the level of government-sponsored imported disease. One of the best examples is hepatitis B, which until about 25 years ago was virtually unheard of in Australia. Today Australia has over 400,000 carriers of hepatitis B. Each year another 30,000 people are infected and 1,200 die. This disease on its own is estimated to cost the health budget $100 million every year. In 1992 a medical team tested 2,290 inner-city Sydney school children aged between 12 and 14. The result should have been headline news for every newspaper, radio and television station in Australia, but, like so much bad news on immigration, especially 10 years ago, the report never saw the light of day in the mainstream press. Of the 2,290 children, 27 per cent of all those born overseas were carrying tuberculosis. In contrast, only 1 per cent of Australian-born children were carrying the disease. Even so, 1 per cent for Australian-born children was considered very high.

The campaign in Australia in the middle of last century to eradicate tuberculosis was essentially successful, yet in 1992 conclusive research clearly showed that a large proportion of Sydney’s overseas-born children were tuberculosis carriers. These terrible facts, which have been largely hidden from the Australian people, are not my facts; rather, they come from Monash University demography papers, People and Places, and the Australian Medical Journal.

Should we discriminate on the basis of political correctness? Certainly to choose not to discriminate on the basis of political correctness is to discriminate against Australians who are already living in this country and are as yet uninfected. A couple of years ago an illegal immigrant with tuberculosis was tracked down on the Queensland Gold Coast, and the only reason the authorities caught up with him was because he died—funnily enough, of tuberculosis. This particular highly infectious illegal immigrant was working in a shop and his death resulted in the health department having to screen an estimated 300 people who were understood to have come into contact with his coughing and spluttering. That man was an illegal immigrant and should not have been in Australia. That point is clear. But what of the thousands like him roaming free? What diseases are they spreading?

If not for any other reason, mandatory detention of so-called asylum seekers is of paramount importance for health screening to protect the Australian population. We should not allow political correctness or misplaced compassion to cause us to ignore the fact that many of those illegally entering Australia come from places where hepatitis B, hepatitis C, tuberculosis and AIDS are so prevalent that it is very common for them to have at least one of these infectious and deadly diseases.
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Support your child's education by voting conservative at this next election. By providing appropriate support of private schools, the whole system benefits. - ed
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“Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival...
"There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.” Winston Churchill
I like generalisations. That’s because they point out a general truth.
Like the fact that, generally speaking, fair skinned people will sunburn more easily than those with darker skin. That statement neatly sums up a well known truth.
It is also true that a bunch of people – generally left-wing, gender-studies, academic types – will be inclined to write volumes on their belief that such a statement is inherently discriminatory.
And it is generally true that their work is absolute rubbish. Every bit of it.
Here’s another generalisation that should not be easily dismissed: the Islamic community supports the military efforts of Australia’s enemies. And, by doing so, it represents the first time in Australian history that a discrete and identifiable segment of society has provided recruits and aid to organisations that seek to overthrow our democratic government.
Despite this, our government is allowing large-scale Islamic immigration and now the Australian Defence Force is actively seeking Islamic recruits.
That’s right. Our military wants to enlist the enemy.
This situation is completely at odds with all reason. It is akin to opening the doors to Japanese migrants during World War Two, providing them with free health care, education and welfare benefits and turning a blind eye while funds and recruits are sent back to Japan for training, indoctrination and use in the Japanese war efforts against Australia.
Oh yeah, and with all this going on, the government also deciding to actively recruit Japanese patriots into the Australian military.
The reason this did not happen in World War II was because our nation had not lost its senses. It was not in the grip of PC BS. Unfortunately, this ideology defines Australia today.
If you think this is insane, you are right. Pat yourself on the back.
If you think this is great for a multicultural society, then you have strayed far too past stupid to be of any use, and should probably not read further unless you are prepared for a shock.
These are the facts. The stone cold, hard facts:
The 2011 census recorded that out of Australia’s population of 21.5 million, about 476,000 were Muslim.
Australia’s population now stands at just over 23 million. Based on even rates of population growth, there are now about 512,000 Muslims who call Australia home.
This population of 23 million supports a military of 58,000. So there is one person in the military for every 400 Australians.
But there are only 88 Muslims in the Australian Defence Force. It is a reality that the Islamic Community, on the whole, is much less patriotic than the rest of Australia. There is only one Muslim serving in uniform for every 5820 Muslims in this country. Muslims are 14 times less likely to enlist than other Australians.
Furthermore, there are 2530 Australians currently serving overseas on military operations. This means that our participation rate in conflict is rather low: one soldier is deployed for every 9,143 Australians.
However, the same cannot be said for the Islamic community.
ASIO has repeatedly warned that hundreds of Australian Muslims are fighting in Syria, many with al Qaeda-linked groups.
If we assume the best possible case that by ‘hundreds’ ASIO means the lowest possible multiple of hundred, then there are 200 Muslims involved in that conflict. This means that the Islamic community is sending its sons off to war at a much greater rate than the rest of Australia: Islamic militant groups are picking up an Australian recruit for every 2,561 Muslims living in this country.
Just in case maths is not your strong point, let me put it this way. Per capita, the Islamic community is sending three terrorists off to fight with Islamist groups for every soldier the rest of this country sends overseas to wage war against them.
On the whole, it all seems rather crazy that alarm bells aren’t ringing out across the countryside.
But they aren’t and, instead, the Australian Defence Force is now trying to actively recruit Muslims.
In fact, the Royal Australian Navy has just appointed a Strategic Adviser on Islamic Cultural Affairs.
Part of her job will be to bridge the ‘misperceptions’ and ‘misunderstandings’ that are apparently limiting the number of Muslims in uniform.
I respectfully submit that the reason young Muslim men are not joining up like the rest of Australians is not because of misunderstandings about the Australian military. On the contrary, this target group understands it very well. It’s just that the flower of Australia’s Islamic youth are too busy fighting for the enemy to worry about bothering the Defence Force’s recruiting agencies.
They might have an Australian passport but their allegiance is not to our flag.
Yet the military is so intent on recruiting from the Islamic community that it now allows them to wear a different uniform. And these are not my words. They come straight from the Royal Australian Air Force’s webpage devoted to diversity, in the section about religious dress:
“No matter which uniform our Air Force members wear, they wear their uniform with pride, and inherit a proud tradition that was established by the generations before us.”
If the goal of Islamic recruitment is to integrate this community into Australian society, giving them a separate uniform hardly seems like a sensible idea. But hey, maybe integration is not what this is about after all.
Generally speaking, if a soldier in a Western nation has his head hacked off while strolling home from his barracks, there will be a Muslim at the scene of the crime.
And, generally speaking, if a soldier runs around a Western military barracks shouting Allah Akbar while gunning down his comrades, there will be a Muslim pulling the trigger.
And, generally speaking, if a military installation in a Western nation is the target of a terrorist threat, a bunch of Muslims will be planning it.
With all that in mind, generally speaking, if you increase the number of Muslims in Western countries you will probably see more of these atrocities in the future. And if you are dumb enough to put these people into uniform, then there is also a fair chance the military will change as well. Not for the better, either.
Later this year, Australia will withdraw most of its troops from Afghanistan. You could say it’s a sign that the ‘War on Terror’, started when western aircraft hijacked by Islamic pilots smashed into the Twin Towers, is over.
I’d say it’s probably just begun. And that efforts to date have been a complete and utter strategic failure.
Because the Islamic population in Australia has doubled during this war. And when Australia’s soldiers return home, it is highly likely that this country’s largest armed commitment overseas will be comprised of Islamic Australians soldiering on with al Qaeda in Syria.
Hardly a sign of victory.
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Holly Sarah Nguyen
Most people don't care how strong our faith is in good times, they want to know if our faith works in bad times...Let me tell you this!!!! I'm walking through hell, Vultures every where!! and I'm amazed that I'm not falling, each minute of everyday God strengthens me over and over again... His promise is indeed true, follow Me and I God will hold you.... Praise the Lord..
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Davenport Glow — in Davenport Landing, CA.
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Pastor Rick Warren'
Truly talented entertainers amaze audiences. Those without talent can only shock.
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A young girl stepped up to a karaoke machine in the food court at a mall and left everyone with their jaws hanging open! 

Wait for the 2:40 mark - YOU'LL GET CHILLS!
www.godtube.com/watch/?v=000291NU
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Last couple of weeks of Season 5 ‪#‎KitchenWhiz‬ on Tele to brighten your morning 7:30AM on GO!‪#‎who‬ ‪#‎even‬ ‪#‎wakes‬ ‪#‎up‬ ‪#‎that‬ ‪#‎early‬ ‪#‎lol‬‪#‎funtimes‬ ‪#‎with‬ ‪#‎alicezaslavsky‬ ‪#‎kitchenninja‬@channel9
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Painting detail of a blind man
The Blind Leading the Blind is a painting of 1568 byFlemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Executed in distemper on linen canvas, it measures 86 cm × 154 cm (34 in × 61 in). It depicts the Biblical parable of the blind leading the blind from Matthew 15:14. Considered a masterwork for its composition and accurate detail, the painting (detail pictured)reflects Bruegel's mastery of observation: each figure has a different recognizable eye affliction, including corneal leukoma, atrophy of globe and removed eyes. The diagonal composition reinforces the off-kilter motion of the six figures falling in progression. It was painted the year before Bruegel's death, and has a bitter, sorrowful tone. This may be related to the establishment of the Council of Troublesin 1567 by the government of the Spanish Netherlands, which ordered mass arrests and executions to enforce Spanish rule and suppress Protestantism, but it is not clear if the painting was meant as a political statement. The work has inspired poetry by Charles Baudelaire and William Carlos Williams, and a novel by Gert Hofmann. It is part of the collection of the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy. (Full article...)
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August 4: Civic Holiday in most areas of Canada (2014);Constitution Day in the Cook Islands (1965)
USS Maddox (DD-731)
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“But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”” 1 Samuel 16:7 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"The Lamb is the light thereof."
Revelation 21:23
Quietly contemplate the Lamb as the light of heaven. Light in Scripture is the emblem of joy. The joy of the saints in heaven is comprised in this: Jesus chose us, loved us, bought us, cleansed us, robed us, kept us, glorified us: we are here entirely through the Lord Jesus. Each one of these thoughts shall be to them like a cluster of the grapes of Eshcol. Light is also the cause of beauty. Nought of beauty is left when light is gone. Without light no radiance flashes from the sapphire, no peaceful ray proceedeth from the pearl; and thus all the beauty of the saints above comes from Jesus. As planets, they reflect the light of the Sun of Righteousness; they live as beams proceeding from the central orb. If he withdrew, they must die; if his glory were veiled, their glory must expire. Light is also the emblem of knowledge. In heaven our knowledge will be perfect, but the Lord Jesus himself will be the fountain of it. Dark providences, never understood before, will then be clearly seen, and all that puzzles us now will become plain to us in the light of the Lamb. Oh! what unfoldings there will be and what glorifying of the God of love! Light also means manifestation. Light manifests. In this world it doth not yet appear what we shall be. God's people are a hidden people, but when Christ receives his people into heaven, he will touch them with the wand of his own love, and change them into the image of his manifested glory. They were poor and wretched, but what a transformation! They were stained with sin, but one touch of his finger, and they are bright as the sun, and clear as crystal. Oh! what a manifestation! All this proceeds from the exalted Lamb. Whatever there may be of effulgent splendour, Jesus shall be the centre and soul of it all. Oh! to be present and to see him in his own light, the King of kings, and Lord of lords!

Evening

"But as he went."
Luke 8:42
Jesus is passing through the throng to the house of Jairus, to raise the ruler's dead daughter; but he is so profuse in goodness that he works another miracle while upon the road. While yet this rod of Aaron bears the blossom of an unaccomplished wonder, it yields the ripe almonds of a perfect work of mercy. It is enough for us, if we have some one purpose, straightway to go and accomplish it; it were imprudent to expend our energies by the way. Hastening to the rescue of a drowning friend, we cannot afford to exhaust our strength upon another in like danger. It is enough for a tree to yield one sort of fruit, and for a man to fulfil his own peculiar calling. But our Master knows no limit of power or boundary of mission. He is so prolific of grace, that like the sun which shines as it rolls onward in its orbit, his path is radiant with lovingkindness. He is a swift arrow of love, which not only reaches its ordained target, but perfumes the air through which it flies. Virtue is evermore going out of Jesus, as sweet odours exhale from flowers; and it always will be emanating from him, as water from a sparkling fountain. What delightful encouragement this truth affords us! If our Lord is so ready to heal the sick and bless the needy, then, my soul, be not thou slow to put thyself in his way, that he may smile on thee. Be not slack in asking, if he be so abundant in bestowing. Give earnest heed to his word now, and at all times, that Jesus may speak through it to thy heart. Where he is to be found there make thy resort, that thou mayst obtain his blessing. When he is present to heal, may he not heal thee? But surely he is present even now, for he always comes to hearts which need him. And dost not thou need him? Ah, he knows how much! Thou Son of David, turn thine eye and look upon the distress which is now before thee, and make thy suppliant whole.
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Today's reading: Psalm 63-65, Romans 6 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 63-65

A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.
1 You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you....

Today's New Testament reading: Romans 6

Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ
1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life....
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Joel

[Jō'el] - jehovah is god or the lord is god.
  1. The first-born son of Samuelthe prophet (1 Sam. 8:2; 1 Chron. 6:33; 15:17). Called Vashni in 1 Chronicles 6:28.
  2. A Simeonite prince (1 Chron. 4:35).
  3. The father of Shemaiah, a Reubenite ( 1 Chron. 5:4, 8).
  4. A chief Gadite (1 Chron. 5:12).
  5. An ancestor of Samuel the prophet (1 Chron. 6:36).
  6. A chief man of Issachar, descendant of Tola (1 Chron. 7:3).
  7. One of David's heroes and a brother of Nathan (1 Chron. 11:38).
  8. A Gershonite in David's time ( 1 Chron. 15:7, 11; 23:8).
  9. Another Gershonite, keeper of the treasures of the Lord's house (1 Chron. 26:22).
  10. A prince of Manasseh in David's reign (1 Chron. 27:20).
  11. A Kohathite who assisted Hezekiah in the cleansing of the Temple (2 Chron. 29:12).
  12. One of Nebo's family who had taken a foreign wife (Ezra 10:43).
  13. A son of Zechri, and overseer of the Benjamites in Jerusalem (Neh. 11:9).
  14. Son of Pethuel, and prophet in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah (Joel 1:1; Acts 2:16).

The Man Who Foresaw Pentecost

Because nothing is known of Joel beyond what the opening verse of his book states, he has been styled "The Anonymous Prophet." Scripture is silent as to his birthplace, parentage and rank. All we know is that he was a son of Pethuel, or Bethuel as the LXX expresses it. But who Pethuel is no one knows. Its meaning, however, is significant, "vision of God," and springs from a word implying "to open the eyes."
Joel was a common name among the Hebrews and is still so among the Orientals. The use of his name as "the son of Pethuel" was necessary to distinguish him from the other Joels we have considered. It would seem as if his home was in Jerusalem or its immediate neighborhood. Thus he speaks repeatedly of Zion (Joel 2:1, 15, 23; 3:16, 17, 21), the children of Zion (Joel 2:23), Judah and Jerusalem (Joel 2:32; 3:1-20), the children of Judah and Jerusalem ( Joel 3:6, 8, 19).
It may be that Joel was a Jew of Jerusalem, and owing to his peculiar mention of priests, a priest-prophet himself (Joel 1:9, 10). His references to the Temple and its worship are frequent (Joel 1:9-16; 2:14, 17; 3:18). It is also likely that he lived and prophesied in the early days of Joash and Jehoida, 870-865b.c., while the victory of Jehoshaphat was fresh in the nation's memory. For this reason he is termed "The Pioneer Prophet."
Dr. A. B. Simpson says,
Amos begins his longer message with a direct quotation from Joel, as a sort of text for his whole book. Isaiah expands the thoughts which Joel uttered into the larger and loftier message of his pen. Peter, on the Day of Pentecost quotes the prophecy of Joel as the very foundation of the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit, which had occurred and which was to continue through the whole New Testament age. And even the great Apocalypse of John is but a larger unfolding of the promise of the Lord's coming which Joel gave in brief outline.
What is God's call to us through the Prophet Joel?
I. There is the call to repentance ( Joel 2:25-27).
II. There is the promise of refreshment (Joel 2:28, 29).
III. There is the message of deliverance (Joel 3:1).
IV. There is the secret of rest (Joel 3:17-21).
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