Sunday, August 24, 2014

Sun Aug 24th Todays News

The federal government has everything against it, with a hostile senate and press willing to lie to deny legislation. And yet they are doing a great job despite it. They have almost completely stopped the inhumane people trade which killed and extorted desperate people while giving hope to terrorists around the world. The federal government of Mr Abbott would like to do more on border protection, but the senate won't let them and the media chortle with every death and inflate every perceived shortcoming. Earlier this week a judge lied from the bench about living arrangements and refused to correct the record when advised of the facts. And that judge is supposed to rule impartially on the issue. 

But the excellent governance is not merely border protection, federal police are becoming effective again, hospitals are more open to patients needs, schools are better directed to core curriculum. But you wouldn't know it from the reporting. Amazingly, the Opposition leader was accused of rape many years ago and the government did not crucify them over the issue, but allowed the courts to settle the issue (prosecutor decided there was no case to answer). Contrast that with how the hysterical media crucified Mr Abbott for winking on radio, or allegations that he punched a wall in his youth. Contrast that again with allegations Gillard had facilitated the theft of Union money and extortion from business when she was a partner of a law firm. And the media spoil the good work with false claims. The media are aware that federal government has little to do with schooling, and yet they lie about things the government is involved with. So that the meme is circulated saying the government has cut education just as more money is being spent. There is a compelling argument for reform of higher education, and yet the weasels of the media interview critics and rarely challenge their specious claims. A co-payment for medical service has been howled down. Possibly, the charge is intended as a bargaining chip to be disposed of. But it supports science research. Surely the ALP likes science research ... 

Reforms to nightlife have resulted in fewer violent episodes, fewer medical emergencies and, predictably, fewer sales of alcoholic beverages. However there is a solution the industry has not yet considered. Bars on boats. It is drink or drink. Or swim. Or something. Worth sleeping on. But don't ignore the advantages. With payments collected electronically, using a pin, there becomes a natural stop for when someone is too drunk and they forget their pin. There is no need for street sweeping. If the boat is packed tightly enough, no one can get lost. Closed circuit surveillance can provide loved ones with all they need to know. In the late eighteenth century Great Britain used to run similar things on the Thames. 

Meanwhile, the identity of the british national who cut off the head of a journalist and blamed Islam may be known. It is suspected of being a rap artist Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary. He is a 23 year old son of an Egyptian terrorist and is known to have left for Syria last year. He has posted images of himself holding severed heads. Maybe we can let ASADA investigate, if we really want justice. 
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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

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.netwhich 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 Collin Tran and Mason Tang. Born on the same day, across the years, along with Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou (1113), Letizia Ramolino (1750), William Wilberforce (1759), Duke Kahanamoku (1890), Orson Scott Card (1951), Stephen Fry (1957) and Rupert Grint (1988). On your day, 1482 – Anglo-Scottish Wars: The border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed and its castle were captured by English forces.
1857 – The New York City branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Co. collapsed following widespread embezzlement, leading to a severe recession that caused about 5,000 businesses to fail.
1892 – Goodison Park in Liverpool, England, one of the world's first purpose-built football grounds, opened.
1941 – Adolf Hitler ordered the official termination of the T4 euthanasia program of the mentally ill and disabled, although killings continued in secret for the remainder of the war.
2006 – The International Astronomical Union redefined the term "planet", reclassifying Pluto as a dwarf planet since it has not "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit.
English hold the fort. Life insurance is not FREE money. The ground is ready. The order has been rescinded and all that is left is a dwarf planet. Sometimes you just gotta take stock.
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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Muslim apologists blind to radical reality

Piers Akerman – Sunday, August 24, 2014 (6:57am)

A motley group of some 60 self-proclaimed Muslim organisations or self-appointed leaders garnered publicity Wednesday with their snubbing of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s offer to discuss proposed changes to terrorist laws.
The ABC and Fairfax lapped it up.
But anyone who took the time to see who organised the ban and who signed up to its idiocy would have realised that the signatories did themselves a serious disservice.
Among those on the list was Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia, which supports honour killings, the Perth-based Aboriginal convert Mohammed Junaid Thorne who enjoys the support of extremist organisation Millatu Ibrahim, banned in Germany because of its ties to mass murder in Iraq, and the Sydney book shop al-Risalah, which has claimed its imam is terrorist Bilal Khazal who is serving a 12-year sentence for promoting violence against non-Muslims.
Muslim Leaders including Sheikh Isse Musse (centre right) leave Treasury Place in Melbourne after a meeting with Tony Abbott last week.
Organiser of the ban was self-anointed community activist and Muslim convert Rebecca Kay, who re-Tweets propaganda from the Hamas terrorist organisation and is married to a brother of notorious drug boss Abdul Darwiche, who was gunned down outside a Bass Hill service station five years ago.
The usual medley of Muslim student organisations also signed on, along with an assortment of imams, who, according to Kay, believe the proposed changes target Muslims unjustly – though she admits that the language of the law is neutral.
She says that in practise these laws will target Muslims because of a “trumped up” threat from “radicalised” Muslims returning from Irag or Syria.
She claims there is no solid evidence to substantiate this threat – despite the Facebook postings of various Australian-born murderers who have joined the murderous Islamic State posing with weapons and severed heads in their selfie videos.
The home-grown risk is real, as the British have discovered to their cost
She goes on to say that “racist caricatures of Muslims as backwards, prone to violence and inherently problematic are being exploited”, presumably a reference to psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed’s prescient view that “there remains a marked difference in the way males are raised within some Lebanese groups which predisposes them to greater acts of anti-social behaviour” and his observation from studying Arab youths in prison that “there is a rampant anti-social character to some youths from this segment which stems in part from unsuccessful child rearing. The horrific moves towards terror acts can be seen as an ideological extension of a propensity towards bad behaviour, combined with an unshakable victim mentality.”
Kay and her followers haven’t come to terms with the hard evidence of beheadings of children as well as adults, crucifixions, and mass murder of fellow Muslims as well as the slaughter of apostates, Christians and other non-Muslims in areas where Australia’s terror tourists are at large.
The home-grown risk is real, as the British have discovered to their cost.
It’s now a dozen years since Omar Sheikh, a London-born private school and London School of Economics graduate, was in Pakistan after fighting in the Balkans and Kashmir. Ten years ago he was arrested and jailed for assisting in the kidnapping of three Britons and an American in India.
After being released in 1999 in exchange for the passengers and crew of the hijacked Air India flight IC-814, he was connected to the bombing of an American cultural centre in Calcutta in January 2002 and that same month organised the kidnapping and beheading of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
Muslim leaders including Sheikh Isse Musse (centre) were involved in meetings with Prime Minister Tony Abbott last week.
In 2003, two British Muslims Asif Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif carried out a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on behalf of Hamas, which Ms Kay gives succour to via her Twitter account.
Four British Islamist terrorists killed 52 civilians on July 7, 2005 in the first suicide bombings to take place in Britain. The former head of the Islamic Society at University College London, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, attempted to explode his “underwear” bomb on a plane as it landed in Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009. He was a follower of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was later killed in an American drone attack in Yemen three years ago.
Ms Kay’s claims are unsupportable. There is no reason why Australia is under any lesser threat from home-grown terrorists than Britain, the US, Belgium, the Netherlands or France – or Indonesia.
In an important interview with The Australian, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned violent Islamist extremism, labelling the actions of the Islamic State terror group as “embarrassing” and “humiliating” to the religion.
His government has banned the ISIS (now known as the Islamic State), which is supported by some of the signatories to Ms Kay’s statement, and called for respect for all religions – which some of Ms Kay’s supporters reject.
Acknowledging the reality that Ms Kay rubbishes, President Yudhoyono said a number of Indonesians have joined IS to fight in Syria and Iraq.
“Our citizens here in Indonesia are picking up recruitment messages from ISIS containing extremist ideas,” he said.
“The philosophy of ISIS stands against the fundamental values we embrace in Indonesia. Last Friday, in my state of the union address to the nation, I called on all Indonesians to reject ISIS and to stop the spread of its radical ideology.
“My government and security agencies have taken decisive steps to curtail the spread of ISIS in Indonesia, including by prohibiting Indonesians to join ISIS or to fight for ISIS, and also by blocking internet sites that promote this idea.”
Yet Ms Kay and her group are opposed to less radical actions proposed by the Abbott government.
It would appear that in Indonesia, which has the largest Islamic population of any nation, community leaders are helping the government communicate to their members the dangers of ISIS.
Which demonstrates just how isolated Muslims like Ms Kay and her radical supporters are from the rational world in their blind refusal to engage on the obvious problems of the radicalisation of young members of the Australian Muslim community. 
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2014 DIMLY AWARD

Tim Blair – Sunday, August 24, 2014 (5:52am)

The prize goes to SMH columnist Peter FitzSimons
You know that actor, Chris Hemsworth? Me, neither. At least I didn’t, until yesterday. I was dimly awardof some impossibly good-looking bloke, who had played Thor or something who I think had been on Home and Away or one of those soaps – and of course immediately dismissed him. But how good is he? I take it all back. Just saw him in Rush the film where he plays the 1970 British Formula One world champion driver James Hunt … 
Hunt, of course, was world champion in 1976. FitzSimons claims to be a historian.
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Beheader “identified”. Save the usual excuses

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (8:14pm)

Can we drop the usual excuse about being ”marginalised” by Western society?
THE British security services MI5 and MI6 have reportedly identified a British hip-hop artist as the key suspect in the hunt for the killer who beheaded American journalist James Foley…
Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary ... is the son of an Egyptian-born militant who is awaiting trial on terror charges in New York tied to the deadly 1998 bombings of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania…
Bary — who recently tweeted a photo of himself holding up a severed head — ...  was an aspiring rapper known as “L Jinny,” whose music was played on BBC Radio 1.
Bary also appeared in music videos posted on YouTube for songs titled Overdose, Flying High and Dreamer.
But he ... walked out of his family’s plush West London home last year, saying he was “leaving everything for the sake of Allah.” 
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Bair doesn’t talk much about football these days

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (8:02pm)

Tim Blair in April:
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Tears in August:
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Don’t mention the war! It just encourages them.

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (4:55pm)

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More British jihadists than Muslim soldiers

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (4:33pm)

Not easily explained away:
There are now more than twice as many British Muslims fighting for Islamic State than there are serving in the British armed forces, according to a British Member of Parliament (MP).
Khalid Mahmood, the MP for Perry Barr in Birmingham, estimates that at least 1,500 young British Muslims have been recruited by extremists fighting in Iraq and Syria in the last three years.
Mahmood told Newsweek that this figure had been building since the start of the Syrian conflict: “If you look across the whole of the country, and the various communities involved, 500 going over each year would be a conservative estimate.”
According to the Ministry of Defence, there are only around 600 British Muslims currently serving in the Armed Forces, making up approximately around 0.4% of total personnel. 4.3% of the British population are Muslim.
Other estimates put the number of British jihadists with the Islamic State as “low” as 400.
(Thanks to readers Mick and Cromwell.) 
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The Bolt Report today, August 24

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (6:00am)

On Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm…
Editorial:  Tony Abbott, kick that clown Palmer off the stage.
My guest:  the literally indestructible Education Minister Chris Pyne.
The panel:  Michael Kroger and former Labor Minister Gary Johns.
NewsWatch:  Daily Telegraph columnist Piers Akerman. 
The videos of the shows appear here.
UPDATE
To elaborate on the point I was making to Gary Johns:
Yes, Aborigines settled Australia tens of centuries before Europeans. In that sense “they” - those who first arrived - were here first.
But to say Aborigines today were here “first” is to treat each other as representatives of a “race” rather than an individual. No one of any “race” - Aboriginal or other - who is younger than 54 was here before me. They have no greater right to this country. It is racist to say a group of Australians living today were here “first” on the basis of who some of their ancestors were.
I vehemently oppose racism. We should judge each other as individuals, regardless of “race”.
UPDATE
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Pyne says he’s thinking of doing a YouTube clip on how to burn an effigy.
He repeatedly refuses to rule out cutting research funds if the Senate does not pass his reforms and cuts to the tertiary sector.
UPDATE
Behind the scenes of the show. UPDATE: Whoops.  Link corrected.  Oh dear. Third time lucky.
And the Triggs performance we discussed:
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Bring back Jeff

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (5:57am)

Now that Ted Baillieu is quitting Victorian politics Jeff Kennett has the safe seat he needs to save the Liberals, says Terry McCrann:
JEFF, please, please come back. Hopefully, straight as premier after the state election in three months.
The party needs you - more importantly, the state needs you…
Bluntly, in short, Jeff Kennett has to come back, not just as the next member for the blue ribbon seat of Hawthorn. But once parliament finishes and the countdown starts to polling day, to take the Liberals as leader to that election…
If he’s honest with himself, Napthine should recognise it would be better to be a minister in a Kennett cabinet than an ex (half-term) premier…

Only a Kennett-led Liberal party could offer Victorians not simply a future of competent government, but of optimism – a sense of direction, of purpose…
Which choice would you prefer: Napthine v Andrews or Kennett v Andrews? Which of the three can provide the leadership and direction we need?
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Bad guess

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (5:33am)

I am not sure our authorities have properly understood Islam and a particular subculture of the Lebanese community:
A psychiatrist and judge cautiously believed Sharrouf would abandon his radical beliefs upon his release from prison in 2009 but he is now one of Australia’s most wanted terrorists, along with Mohamed Elomar, whose jailed uncle Mohamed Ali Elomar was Sharrouf’s Pendennis co-accused.
I don’t think our immigration authorities understood what they were letting in, either:

Nine Sydney men were arrested in 2005 under Operation Pendennis, the largest counter-terrorism investigation undertaken in Australia, which uncovered jihadist cells in Melbourne and Sydney amassing guns, ammunition and bomb-making equipment to use in terrorist attacks on home soil…
Mohamed Elomar, whose jailed uncle Mohamed Ali Elomar was Sharrouf’s Pendennis co-accused…
Elomar senior was close with his nephews, brothers Ahmed and Mohamed, who protested their uncle’s innocence during the landmark Pendennis trials…
Ahmed bashed a police officer during the 2012 Hyde Park riot and Mohamed recently posed with severed heads on the Syrian battlefield, saying “love it keep them heads rolling"…
Close relatives of the Sydney cell’s ringleader [Lebanese-born] Khaled Cheikho and his nephew Moustafa Cheikho, who are both in a high-risk prison unit, continue to pose a security threat to Australia, authorities believe.
Khaled Cheikho’s wife, Rahmah Wisudo, lives in Jordan with their son and was named in a 2010 US embassy cable as one of 11 Australians to be placed on a no-fly list due to “demonstrated links” with al-Qaeda… 
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Collecting for the Islamic State, while a Birmingham looks the other way

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (5:09am)


The Islamic State boasts of shooting and beheading unarmed civilians. Yet some Sydney Muslims still collect money for the Islamic State and wear its flag. Other Australian Muslims promote it on Facebook and wear its merchandising.
Yet some on the Left would still rather attack those trying to combat this clear and present evil rather than seem judgmental of Muslim extremists. It’s a very curious way of seeming broadminded and tolerant, to actually be closeminded and vicious, but John Birmingham attempts it:
Planning on setting up a Caliphate out the back of your falafel shop in Lakemba? Not on Tony’s team, mate. You take down that black flag right now, Mustafa. And while you’re at it, what’s wrong with a good old fashioned Chiko Roll?
Of course, on closer inspection, the black flags which advance through Tony Abbott’s fevered dreams, marching in from the badlands to threaten our strategic harbour front redoubts, turn out not to be the banners of ISIL, or ISIS or whatever the murderous beards are calling themselves this week. No, looking at things just a little bit closer than the PM would like, we find the war banners of western Sydney’s jihadi to be cheap plastic novelties, the skull and crossbones flown over student share houses or, and this is a genuine worry, the battle standard of hated All Blacks; the true enemy within.
Kipling had the measure of such poseurs long ago:
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.

Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul?”
But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll.
George Orwell, too:
A humanitarian is always a hypocrite, and Kipling’s understanding of this is perhaps the central secret of his power to create telling phrases. It would be difficult to hit off the one-eyed pacifism of the English in fewer words than in the phrase, ‘making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep’… He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.
I quarrel with the phrase “inevitably less civilised”. Orwell clearly hadn’t met Birmingham, who stands no comparison to a soldier such as Lionel Dunsterville.
(Via Tim Blair.) 
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World won’t warm. Scientists feel sick

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (5:01am)

Tim Blair marvels at the responses of Australian climate scientists to a polite inquiry into their feelings. One typical example:
I feel a maelstrom of emotions. I am exasperated … I am frustrated … I am anxious … I am perplexed … I am dumbfounded … I am distressed … I am upset … I am annoyed … I am angry … I am infuriated … But most of all I am apprehensive.
The other responses are in the same hyperventilating mode, despite the failure of the world’s atmosphere to warm for some 16 years.
This suggests a disconnect. Or a panic that the planet itself won’t do as these alarmists insisted it must. 
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But still not paid for

Andrew Bolt August 24 2014 (4:51am)

A paper cut to the big cash splash meant to be paid for by Labor’s dud mining tax:
Parents would be forced to spend their annual Schoolkids Bonus on uniforms, textbooks and other educational expenses, under a redesign promoted by a major charity and embraced by Senate crossbenchers.
The government had hoped to get rid of the Schoolkids Bonus – worth $820 a year for a high school student and $410 a year for a primary school student – as part of its repeal of the mining tax, but had been blocked by the Senate.
Key Senate crossbenchers said they wanted the bonus to remain but were willing to consider amendments including restricting it to low-income families and targeting it at spending on education.
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=== Posts from last year ===
4 her, so she can see how I see her





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Bora Bora
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One afternoon, I was waiting in line at a grocery store buying meat to cook dinner for my wife and kids. There was an old lady behind me buying a ton food. When i got to the cashier to pay I realized the money wasn't in my pocket. I sat my stuff down and search for the money in panic. I rushed through the grocery store to look for it. I rushed back through the same line and told the cashier to give me time to find it at the same time praying to God for me to see it. The old lady saw me in tears like i was crying, she asked me what's wrong and i explained as if my wife is going to kill me cause i let her down many times before with my old bad habits and this time she won't believe that i actually lost the money for real and that she's hungry at home cause of breastfeeding our baby. So the old lady paid for my groceries. I didn't want her to but she kept saying it's alright and if I needed to get some more. I thanked her with a hug full of emotions. Then drove back home and shared this story to my wife and i started to cry again and she just laughed. lol. Thank You Lord for answer my prayer. 
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Dean Hamstead
I'm not sure if "Be all you can be" normally means: leak national secrets, get 35 years, change gender...
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Rotation.

Shot in the Canyonlands of Utah along with my cousin Tyler. Getting to this place by 4x4 was half the fun.
 — at Peek-a-boo campsite, Utah.
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C. H. Spurgeon
When husbands and wives are well yoked, how light their load becomes.
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Rules when going to a birthday party- do not play in rooms with closed doors, do not accept food/drink from ppl other than host & parents, always make sure you can see mum/dad at all times, touch base with them every 5 mins to make sure mum/dad know EXACTLY where you are, do not under any circumstances leave the party venue, do not eat or drink anything until mum/dad ok it, do not play games that involve pushing/hitting/spitting, take the first item of food you touch, do not be alone with a grown up you don't know/just met, do not go near swimming pools/pets, do not play in grown up bedrooms, do not touch anything that doesn't belong to you, do not play with knives, do not run with sticks, do not leave anyone out of games and remember to HAVE FUN! - the grilling i put my kids through before going to any birthday party
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You'll be silly to degrade yourself to clean! Cause for us... We don't care!
Confused?!? Or want to know more?!!! Just call us 0402 568 489>

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<Love it how those invented "misogyny" and #sexappeal furores about Abbott and left-wing smirks and backslapping have all blown up in their faces. Wonderful.>
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While Syria took part in three invasions to kill all the jews in israel for the last 60 years, isreal from it's behalf just want to exist in security and even sets up 'field hospital' to treat injured Syrians who come for help as they run away from the massacre. Israel has no interest involving in the syrian civil war yet it does what it always did: Help those who seek help even if they want us all dead and we are proud of doing it.
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...Insidious propaganda had raised this animosity to the status of an obliging sacred duty, a testament to personal/communal integrity, patriotism and spiritual fidelity. The more the Jewish state is reviled, the higher castigator’s reputation rises. Anti-Israel fervor is money in the political bank.
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August 9, 2013 – An Arizona congressman wants the U.S. to triple its funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense program and hopes to see some of the manufacturing occur in Arizona.
U.S. Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., is part of a congressional delegation currently in Israel. Barber serves on the House Armed Services Committee.
Barber said in a telephone interview with the Phoenix Business Journal that he would like to see annual U.S. funding for Iron Dome systems go from its current $70 million level up to $220 million. The Pentagon also favors the spending increase, which is being considered by Congress.
Israeli Defense Forces deploy Iron Dome batteries to shoot down rockets and missiles launched by Palestinian insurgents.
The anti-missile defense system is manufactured by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., an arm of the IDF.
Barber hopes increased U.S. financial backing of the Iron Dome will bring about co-manufacturing of the system between the two countries. That could bring some production and contracts to the U.S., including Arizona. Raytheon Co. has its missile division and 10,000 workers in Tucson. Barber’s district includes parts of Tucson as well as Sierra Vista, which is home to the U.S. Army’s Fort Huachuca.
The IDF deployed anti-rocket defenses during last November’s fight with Palestinian insurgents in Gaza. Barber said more battalions could be needed. “We really need to ramp it up,” Barber said.
Barber has been in Israel and the West Bank this week as part of a congressional trip. That has included meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PresidentShimon Peres, as well as Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah.
The lawmaker also met with Israeli businesses and technology executives to talk about potential research and development partnerships with the University of Arizona. “We have some ideal facilities,” said Barber. He said Arizona and Israel both have arid climates and grapple with water issues.
Arizona companies exported $133 million worth of goods to Israel last year and $63 million for the first half of 2013, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
U.S. foreign aid to Israel totals $3.1 billion in the current federal budget, up from $2.6 billion in 2009, according to the U.S. State Department. Most of those funds are related to defense and security. Israel is the top beneficiary of U.S. foreign aid.
This is Barber’s first trip to Israel and he said it has made him more appreciative of the security situation and peace processes. He noted that Israeli children near the border with Gaza play in a fortified indoor playground built to withstand rocket attacks. He also was surprised by the metropolitan, modern and commercial nature of Ramallah.
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Egypt today is a zero-sum game. We’d have preferred there be a democratic alternative. Unfortunately, there is none. The choice is binary: the country will be ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood or by the military.
Perhaps it didn’t have to be this way. Perhaps the military should have waited three years for the intensely unpopular Mohamed Morsi to be voted out of office. But Gen.Abdel Fatah al-Sissi seems to have calculated that he didn’t have three years, that by then there would be no elections — as in Gaza, where the Palestinian wing of the Brotherhood, Hamas, elected in 2006, established a one-man-one-vote-one-time dictatorship.
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Column One: Resetting US foreign policy
By CAROLINE GLICK
22/08/2013 
Never since America’s establishment has the US appeared so untrustworthy, destructive, irrelevant and impotent.http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2013/08/resetting-us-foreign-policy.php
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Hamas forces patrolling the Gaza-Egypt border (Photo credit: Abed Rahim Khatab/ Flash 90)
Senior figures in jihadist groups that identify with al-Qaeda are hiding out in the Gaza Strip under the auspices of Hamas, Egyptian sources confirmed to The Times of Israel in a phone call Thursday, noting that their presence in the Palestinian territory was the source of current tensions between Egypt and Hamas.
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Damage from a rocket that fell near Nahariya, Thursday, August 22, 2013. (photo credit: screen capture/Channel 2)
Dozens of elderly Holocaust survivors, in a facility in the Acre area, came very close to being hit by one of the four Katyusha rockets fired into Israel from southern Lebanon on Thursday afternoon.
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There’s supposed to be a news blackout from the reconvened Middle East peace talks going on this week. The Palestinians insisted on that lest their reluctant negotiators be branded as doing something that smacked of legitimizing the Jewish state. But one of their team broke their silence this week in order to complain about the fact that they have been called upon to actually talk one on one with their Israeli counterparts:
“We had an agreement on three-way negotiations. The Americans from the beginning were supposed to be there. I don’t see why the Israelis don’t want the Americans there, as witnesses,” Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, told The Times of Israel. “These are not two-way negotiations,” she added.
This would seem to be violation of their undertaking to keep quiet about the talks but Ashrawi had an explanation:
“I’m not discussing the details or the facts,” she said. “I’m just telling you it’s the Israelis who don’t want the Americans, even though the Americans are totally biased in favor of Israel.”
Asked why she believed the Israelis would request the removal of a party favorable to them, Ashrawi said “they feel they can exploit their power over the Palestinians.”
In saying this, Ashrawi couldn’t have told us more about the negotiations had she produced a transcript. Nor could she have given us a better indication of just how dim the chances of success for this effort are. The Palestinian fear of being trapped in a room with the people they are supposed to be crafting a deal with has nothing to do with fear of Israeli power. It’s all about the fact that the last thing they want is to actually reach an agreement they’d have to justify to a Palestinian people that is still not ready to accept a Jewish state no matter its borders are drawn.
In one sense, Ashrawi’s desire to keep U.S. envoy Martin Indyk in the room is understandable. Contrary to her claim, far from being inclined to bolster the positions of the Netanyahu government, his clear bias is one that that leads him to push for Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians.
But that’s not the real explanation.
It’s not exactly a secret that the ardent desire of Tzipi Livni, the head of the Israeli delegation, is to entice the Palestinians to embrace peace after three times rejecting offers of statehood that would include a share of Jerusalem and almost all of the West Bank. Supposedly that’s exactly what the Palestinians want, although they insist they will never compromise on forcing every Jew out of not only every settlement but the parts of Jerusalem that were illegally occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967. But the continuing stream of invective about Jews and Israel pouring out of the official Palestinian media and the so-called moderates of Fatah makes it hard to believe they are finally ready to take yes for an answer. Since PA leader Mahmoud Abbas seems no more capable or willing to accept the peace that he rejected in 2008 when he fled negotiations with Ehud Olmert convened by then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, his primary fear is not the Israeli intransigence the Jewish state’s critics bewail but that Livni will give him what he says he wants.
The Palestinians never wanted to come back to the table after four years’ absence. But with the U.S. prepared to put the screws to Israel to gratify Secretary of State John Kerry’s desire for the talks, it was impossible for them to say no once the Americans gave them the preconditions they demanded. But that doesn’t mean Abbas wants a happy ending to this negotiation. Not only do the Palestinians want the Americans to do their negotiating for them, but their primary objective is to avoid being trapped in a room with someone like Livni who is obviously desperate to agree to any deal.
While there is no telling for certain what will happen in the upcoming months, this is yet one more indication that the main Palestinian objective in the negotiations is to never be maneuvered into a position where they would have to either say yes to peace or reject it and take the blame. Stay tuned for months of pre-emptive Palestinian efforts to deflect the blame for the futile nature of this fool’s errand that Kerry has embarked upon.
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Below is the final episode of the Tribal Update, Latma's flagship satirical newscast. We launched the show 4 years ago. During this period, we produced more than 200 shows. It is a production record without peer in Israeli television history.
Over the past three years, we have been in on again, off again negotiations with Israel public television Channel 1 to produce the show as the station's prime time satire show. Over the past year, those negotiations intensified and the leaders of the station made me believe that the production contract was on its way. In anticipation of moving to a half hour television format, we expanded our internet crew, This raised our costs tremendously. Based on what I was told by the Channel 1 executives, I told our wonderful donors that it would just be a matter of months until Channel 1 picked up the reins and funded the show. 
But then everything fell apart. Netanyahu's appointed Chairman of Israel Broadcasting Authority Amir Gilat decided he didn't want us on television after all. He wanted to produce a historical documentary, and wanted the money earmarked for Latma. So after making groundless accusations against us in the media he convened the content committee of Channel 1 and cancelled the contract - which I never received anyway and transferred the money to his pet production. 
Latma cannot afford to maintain The Tribal Update in its current form. We will use our remaining funds to rebuild our core capacities on our website, expanding our commentaries and producing much less expensive short satirical pieces. We will also begin organizing on a financial model of funding through micro-funding and crowd-funding to give ourselves financial stability. This process will take a few months. 
Yes, we were lied to, repeatedly. But then again, the treatment we received at the hands of Channel 1 just proves our point. The Israeli media is impossibly post-Zionist. The Tribal Update is without a doubt the best satire show ever produced in this country. And the fact that we cannot get a television contract for our show -- which by all accounts would receive massive rating -- shows the inherent and all-encompassing bias and hatred driving the media elites in this country -- and the cowardice and fecklessness of Likud apparatchiks in the face of this situation.
I will have more to say about our experience once the dust clears, and our plans are set.
In the meantime, enjoy our final show. I will post the show as a separate item when we post it on You Tube.
Below, as always, you can find the link to donate to Latma. Like I said, we are reorganizing. But your financial support for our endeavors remains as vital as it has always been. And I can't tell you how much we appreciate it.



Latma is funded by donations from private individuals who believe that the voice of Zionism must be heard, loud and clear, in Israel and throughout the world. We need your help in order to stay open and continue sounding our voices.

If you are in the United States, Latma is  funded by donations to the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project which I direct. If you would like to contribute to our work, which is funded entirely by viewer contributions, please go to this link.

For donations outside the US, here is a link to the donations page for our Israeli non-profit, the Zionist Incubator. You can make credit card donations to Latma by contributing to our non-profit. 
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Holly Sarah Nguyen
There's no safety outside of God.
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Ram in the Valley of Fire.

This was one of three rams that were grazing towards the end of the day along the rocks. I had just barely started shooting pics of them when two guys showed up in their red convertible and started taking shots with their iPhones, all the while yelling back and forth. Yeah, this critter didn't stick around once all that started... but I got this memento.
 — at Valley Of Fire Nevada.
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<On the knifing of Julia Gillard. Reads like a Shakespearean tragedy - except they're all villains.>
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<Recently a Member of the NSW Legislative Council spoke against the recognition of the Assyrian Genocide. Unfortunately his speech was based on information by professor Jennifer Lawless. A simple Google Search reveals that she leads tours across Gallipoli and that her research is in part funded by the Turkish Government. Similar to what is said in this article:

Professor Colin Tatz is director of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

He says most historians agree that genocide did occur.

"It's about 99 to 1. The non-Turkish scholars that she is talking about need to be qualified. Every single one of them have actually been funded by the Turkish government and predictably they have produced a pro-Turkish line. There isn't a single respectable scholar who is accepted in the general profession of history who says it didn't happen.">
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This from Rudd, currently making Defence Personnel drag dead
bodies out of the ocean because of his failed policies.  His troops are right now
risking their lives on the front line in Afghanistan.

I served like many others for more than 20 years, in fact 24 years, and
whilst serving I was proud of the job we did. Possibly the best years of
my life were given to the cause.  I now feel very guilty for what I made
my family endure.

Because of my career and postings my wife and family were dragged for more
than 21 years from not only all over Australia but also overseas. My
eldest daughter was forced to attended 10 different schools during her
education.  My wife, forced to change employment 9 times again because of
my career and at one point was not allowed to work for 4 years because of
an overseas posting.

I spent more than 11 years of my career at sea away and out of touch from
my family. This we endured as it was what I  had signed up for. The one
shining light (or carrot ) that was always held out to us was that our
military super would compensate for the hardships.

On retirement a lot of members find it difficult to find employment as
there is not a lot of calling for, in my case a Weapons Engineer or at
worse if you are an infantry man or bosuns mate.

For me, I had a very supportive wife and we were able to make a career for
ourselves after the Navy in our own business that led to a lucrative
contract as a Team Manager of a large V8 Supercar team. I was certainly
was one of the lucky ones. Not all have been as fortunate and many are
struggling to keep their head above water (and that isn't a pun).

One young widow I recently had contact with is now forced to make do on
only 62% of her partners pension to raise her young daughter.. If she was
Tim Matherson she would be entitled to 89% of a much larger pension that
neither he nor Gillard contributed 1 cent to. We on the other hand were
forced to pay more than 6% of our gross salaries into government revenue
and pay tax on it. Then pay tax on our pension entitlement. The government
Double dipping.

Now that I have retired that super payment has now diminished to less than
the Age pension. This for all the hardships hardly seems fair. Whilst the
history of military super is long and clouded because of smears that both
sides of politics have tried to perpetuate let me just say that those who
served in the Military have been dudded and betrayed.  Current members on
the new MSBS scheme are also being conned in the same way and no side of
politics is doing any thing to address it.

Enough is enough. Someone has to stand up for the Military members both
current and retired. Unfortunately our numbers are too small to carry
weight or favour and whilst serving you are gagged.

Just as a side issue to highlight my feelings. My home was broken into a
while back and my medals, including the Conspicuous Service Medal I was
awarded in 1993 were stolen. The Police attended, however they were never
recovered. My kids have been at me to have them replaced. I just don't
have the feeling inside anymore for their worth considering how I, like
many have been treated. I know this may seem strange to some, however as I
said above the feeling of guilt toward my family is real. Maybe in years
to come I may change that attitude.

Thank you Michael for your work,

Regards

Garry
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Pastor Rick Warren
My #LifeCalling is Ezekiel 34:16 
"I will search for the lost, bring back those who stray, bandage the hurting, and make the weak strong"
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Pastor Rick Warren
She's the mother of a family of spiritual redwoods. Amazing faith. Boundless compassion. Brilliant communicator. I am still hopelessly in love with her.
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The Greens supported the means testing of the private health insurance rebate, driving many young Australians out of private health and increasing the costs for millions of others. Help stop the Greens http://ow.ly/nCMYg
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You can slip on your way up, at the top, or coming off a high point. "Look carefully then, at how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise." Eph. 5:15 (ESV)
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The World Jewish Congress urges Ukrainian clergy to refrain from attending neo-Nazi events...
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http://bit.ly/19Cb4HP What do you think? Is Obama impeachable?>
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Eat the pie, before it eats your soul. Cthulhu pie:http://j.mp/140yYXT
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<Even Fairfax journalists are now asking: "will this guy ever shut up!

Judith Ireland writes: "In trying to dominate the nightly news bulletins, the Prime Minister is talking for longer than the news itself.">
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While throwing Molotov cocktails at passing Israeli cars driving on the Nachliel road, near the Arab village of Dir Nizzam, Arab terrorists ignited a forest fire near Neve Tsuf, in Israel’s Benyamin region. Volunteers quickly arrived on the scene and began to extinguish the blaze, amid fears that the flames would spread to nearby homes. The volunteers were soon joined by firefighters. No injuries were reported, but significant damage was caused to the area’s greenery.
Security forces searched for the attackers and found remnants of more Molotov cocktails, but no arrests were made.
A spokesperson for the Benyamin region Fire Department told Tazpit News Agency that three teams were required to gain full control of the fire.


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Gamers Akihabara and Animate to hold Hyperdimension Neptunia museum -http://bit.ly/15fzTZ8
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Guilty of being Jewish? - ed
Critics of the Russian justice system have likened the trial of Ilya Farber to the Dreyfus Affair. (photo credit: Zhekov.ru via JTA)
Clutching the bars of the defendant’s cage, Ilya Farber assumes the posture of a crucifix as he proclaims his innocence and pleads for freedom with characteristic thespian flare.
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Six-layer rainbow M&M'S cake. Who'd like a slice?

Incredible baking skills, Shayne.
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Is it really a No Win Scenario? Find out here:http://bit.ly/14MlK2d
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Korean engineers invented an all-electric car that can fold itself in half. The researchers based the design of the car on the armadillo, a South American mammal with an armour shell that rolls up into a ball when it senses danger. The car, known as Armadillo-T, tucks its rear body away, shrinking its original size of 2.8 metres to 1.65 metres, and it could be the perfect solution for city dwellers who need to park in small spaces.

Read more and watch a video:http://bit.ly/1d9F2Xy via Phys.org
 
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Pastor Rick Warren
Adversity can build your character. Prosperity can destroy it. The effect of either is due to how you handle it.
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Pastor Rick Warren
You have 3 choices when bad things happen to you: You can let it destroy you, you can let it define you, or you can let it develop you.
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The White House after having been burned by British troops
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“When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your unfailing love, LORD, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.” Psalm 94:18-19 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"The voice of weeping shall be no more heard."
Isaiah 65:19
The glorified weep no more, for all outward causes of grief are gone. There are no broken friendships, nor blighted prospects in heaven. Poverty, famine, peril, persecution, and slander, are unknown there. No pain distresses, no thought of death or bereavement saddens. They weep no more, for they are perfectly sanctified. No "evil heart of unbelief" prompts them to depart from the living God; they are without fault before his throne, and are fully conformed to his image. Well may they cease to mourn who have ceased to sin. They weep no more, because all fear of change is past. They know that they are eternally secure. Sin is shut out, and they are shut in. They dwell within a city which shall never be stormed; they bask in a sun which shall never set; they drink of a river which shall never dry; they pluck fruit from a tree which shall never wither. Countless cycles may revolve, but eternity shall not be exhausted, and while eternity endures, their immortality and blessedness shall co-exist with it. They are forever with the Lord. They weep no more, because every desire is fulfilled. They cannot wish for anything which they have not in possession. Eye and ear, heart and hand, judgment, imagination, hope, desire, will, all the faculties, are completely satisfied; and imperfect as our present ideas are of the things which God hath prepared for them that love him, yet we know enough, by the revelation of the Spirit, that the saints above are supremely blessed. The joy of Christ, which is an infinite fulness of delight, is in them. They bathe themselves in the bottomless, shoreless sea of infinite beatitude. That same joyful rest remains for us. It may not be far distant. Ere long the weeping willow shall be exchanged for the palm-branch of victory, and sorrow's dewdrops will be transformed into the pearls of everlasting bliss. "Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

Evening

"That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith."
Ephesians 3:17
Beyond measure it is desirable that we, as believers, should have the person of Jesus constantly before us, to inflame our love towards him, and to increase our knowledge of him. I would to God that my readers were all entered as diligent scholars in Jesus' college, students of Corpus Christi, or the body of Christ, resolved to attain unto a good degree in the learning of the cross. But to have Jesus ever near, the heart must be full of him, welling up with his love, even to overrunning; hence the apostle prays "that Christ may dwell in your hearts." See how near he would have Jesus to be! You cannot get a subject closer to you than to have it in the heart itself. "That he may dwell;" not that he may call upon you sometimes, as a casual visitor enters into a house and tarries for a night, but that he may dwell; that Jesus may become the Lord and Tenant of your inmost being, never more to go out.
Observe the words--that he may dwell in your heart, that best room of the house of manhood; not in your thoughts alone, but in your affections; not merely in the mind's meditations, but in the heart's emotions. We should pant after love to Christ of a most abiding character, not a love that flames up and then dies out into the darkness of a few embers, but a constant flame, fed by sacred fuel, like the fire upon the altar which never went out. This cannot be accomplished except by faith. Faith must be strong, or love will not be fervent; the root of the flower must be healthy, or we cannot expect the bloom to be sweet. Faith is the lily's root, and love is the lily's bloom. Now, reader, Jesus cannot be in your heart's love except you have a firm hold of him by your heart's faith; and, therefore, pray that you may always trust Christ in order that you may always love him. If love be cold, be sure that faith is drooping.
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Today's reading: Psalm 113-115, 1 Corinthians 6 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 113-115

1 Praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD, you his servants;
praise the name of the LORD.
2 Let the name of the LORD be praised,
both now and forevermore.
3 From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
the name of the LORD is to be praised.
4 The LORD is exalted over all the nations,
his glory above the heavens.
5 Who is like the LORD our God,
the One who sits enthroned on high,
who stoops down to look
on the heavens and the earth?

Today's New Testament reading: 1 Corinthians 6

Lawsuits Among Believers
1 If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord's people? 2 Or do you not know that the Lord's people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother takes another to court-and this in front of unbelievers!
7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. 9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God....
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Gamaliel

[GaË•mā'lĭel] - god is recompenser orthe gift or reward of god.
  1. A chief of Manasseh chosen to aid in taking the census in the wilderness (Num. 1:10; 2:20; 7:54, 59; 10:23).
  2. The renowned Doctor of Jewish law (Acts 5:34), and instructor of the apostle Paul (Acts 22:3 ). It may be that Paul's instruction in the Law began when he was about the age of twelve (Luke 2:42). Like his Master, Paul, as Saul of Tarsus, sat in the midst of the doctors, hearing and asking questions. These learned men sat in a high chair, and the scholars on the floor and were thus literally at their masters'feet (see Deut. 33:3).

The Man Who Was Tolerant

Ellicott speaks of Gamaliel as one of the heroes of rabbinical history. His dramatic speech before the Council on Peter's behalf, and the part he played in the instruction of Paul mark him out a man worthy of note. Gamaliel was the son of Simeon, perhaps of Luke 2:25, and the grandson of the great Hillel, the representative of the best school of Pharisaism, the tolerant and largehearted rival of the narrow and fanatic Shammai. Through the weight of years and authority Gamaliel rose to eminence and counseled with moderation.
Being of the house and lineage of David, this cultured teacher had full sympathy with the claims of Christ, who was welcomed as the Son of David. Perhaps he was influenced to a decision for Christ through contact with a brother-teacher like Nicodemus (John 3:1, 2; 7:50, 51) and can therefore be included among the many chief rulers who secretly believed in Christ (John 12:42, 43).
Digging beneath Gamaliel's able and successful performance before the Council at Jerusalem, Alexander Whyte feels that he was only a "fluent and applauded opportunist" and warns young men against his presentation. "He was a politician, but he was not a true churchman or statesman. He was held in repute by the people; but the people were blind, and they loved to be led by blind leaders, and Gamaliel was one of them." With all his insight and lawyerlike ability, Gamaliel turned all things completely upsidedown when he sat in judgment, and gave his carefully balanced caution concerning the Son of God, comments Dr. Whyte.
Perhaps the renowned author of Bible Characters is right when he suggests that Gamaliel made the tremendous and irreparable mistake of approaching Jesus Christ and His cause on the side of policy, handling Him as a matter open to argument and debate. But Christ is an Ambassador of Reconciliation, and we are not permitted to sit in judgment on God, and on His message of mercy to us. Without apology Dr. Whyte pronounces Gamaliel as "a liberal long before his time. He was all for toleration, and for a free church in a free state, in an intolerant and persecuting day."
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