Saturday, December 13, 2014

Sat Dec 13th Todays News

No cleaner blues. First world problems. What does a mainstream left wing journalist do when they have to cut back on costs, and cut the cleaner they paid 25 pounds a week. They have given themselves two hours on weekends to make do. But there is still do do. Has anyone tips for them? Maybe get out of bed? Flush the toilet? Replace the empty toilet roll? Wear water proof gloves when using hot water. Turn on the dishwasher. Place clothes in basket. Carry basket to washing machine. Use detergent. Use soap. Wear socks. .. 

 Biden tells a Muslim girl about Islam. He is that smart. She is a victim of FGM. He was born without a brain. Should anything happen to the Lame Duck President, Biden has his own ideas about being a Lame Duck. Biden has a plan for world peace and domestic harmony through division. One wishes him every joy in retirement, and hopes the girl is disillusioned but not disempowered by her meeting with that fool. 

 Russell Brand struggles to stand for relevance, but there are many mainstream journals keen to carry his angst. Some are critical, some laud him, but his micro thoughts and memes originated with them. With freedom, he can yearn for big government. With lots of money, he can wish for everyone else to be poor and not be touched by his own demands. His wallet is like Joe Biden's head. 

 Trading off the fame of terrorism. A son of Che Guevarra  offers a motorcycle tour. Or if travelling with a son of a mass murdering terrorist, one can travel with highly lauded leftist journalist George Negus. 

 Dead jihadis dad blames Mr Abbott. He claims he never knew she was radicalised. He claims the Australian government should have stopped her from flying to Syria with her Al Qaeda boyfriend. Both were killed by the Syrian government. So her dad wants Mr Abbott's daughters to be killed too. Channel 9 had no problem broadcasting the bizarre request and reasoning on primetime morning news. It was already apparent 9News hates Mr Abbott, but exploiting the grief of the father of a terrorist is a new low. Were channel 9 CIA, it would be an example of torture through emotional manipulation. 

Fairfax journalist hates Credilin so much she will publish hateful memes about her. That is what Fairfax expects of her journalists. 

 Mr Abbott needs to reset the agenda set by the hate media. He isn't going to do that by having a tizzy in front of that media. He will do it by doing what he has done, crushing senate opposition and sticking to a dry economic agenda. 

 Bracket creep from tax will allow the federal government to increase tax collection towards meeting her debt burden even though the Senate refuses to pass bills. But it is not desirable to do things that way, as it dampens spending and does not promote lending. 

 Cutting 175 quangos is a good start for the government. Small government is more efficient than big government. 

 Greens have a McArthyist question "Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the IPA, yes or no." The IPA (Institute of Public Affairs) is a libertarian voice for freedom countering the censorious left. There is no reason for the hatred suggested by the behaviour of Greens and the censorious left, but then there doesn't need to be for them to behave badly. 
2013
ABC does not have support from good people. It has been irresponsible on important issues. Arguably, people have died from it's advocacy. Some good people defend it. It is important to have a good national broadcaster. ABC does not match that description. ABC is partisan where it is supposed to be even handed. It might be pointed out that the ABC has always been partisan. However, it has not always been proudly negligent. The ABC has failed to investigate corruption by the ALP. That may be helpful in keeping ALP in government, but it means that very bad people get placed in positions of responsibility. But the will of the executive to change the culture within the ABC is not there. Executive ABC defend their malpractice. And that is why the ABC has to be radically changed. I want the ABC to produce a series on Maximum Choppage using local actors to make a product with international appeal. Instead, they blow their budget on partisan productions which obfuscate world issues they call 'current affairs.' Time for reality tv, ABC, and the reality is nobody good supports you. 

Fairfax defends ALP expenses? Poll shows ALP has too much support despite the revelations of corruption. Militant unions savaging Toyota. Bolt is more than a spectator .. but he is in the Spectator. ALP corrupt dealings brought about the NBN folly. I've never met or had a conversation with Green, Mao or Stalin, but I know their opinion on politics. I'm insightful like that. 
Historical perspectives on this day
In 1294, Saint Celestine V resigned the papacy after only five months; Celestine hoped to return to his previous life as an ascetic hermit. In 1545, the Council of Trent began. In 1577, sir Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage.  In 1636, the Massachusetts Bay Colony organised three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. This organization was recognized today as the founding of the National Guard of the United States. In 1642, Abel Tasman reached New Zealand. In 1643, English Civil War: The Battle of Alton took place in Hampshire. In 1758, the English transport ship Duke William sank in the North Atlantic, killing over 360 people. In 1769, Dartmouth College was founded by the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, with a royal charter from King George III, on land donated by Royal governor John Wentworth.

 In 1862, American Civil War: At the Battle of Fredericksburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee defeated Union Major General Ambrose Burnside. In 1867, a Fenian bomb exploded in Clerkenwell, London, England, killing six. In 1937, Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanking – The city of Nanjing, defended by the National Revolutionary Army under the command of General Tang Shengzhi, fell to the Japanese. This was followed by the Nanking Massacre, in which Japanese troops raped and murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians. In 1938, The Holocaust: The Neuengamme concentration camp opened in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, Germany. In 1939, World War II: Battle of the River Plate – Captain Hans Langsdorff of the German Deutschland-class cruiser (pocket battleship) Admiral Graf Spee engaged with Royal Navy cruisers HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles. In 1941, World War II: The Kingdom of Hungary and Kingdom of Romania declared war on the United States. In 1943, World War II: The Massacre of Kalavryta by German occupying forces in Greece. In 1949, the Knesset voted to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem.

 In 1959, Archbishop Makarios III became the first President of Cyprus. In 1960, while Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia visited Brazil, his Imperial Bodyguard seized the capital and proclaimed him deposed and his son, Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, Emperor. In 1962, NASA launched Relay 1, the first active repeater communications satellite in orbit. In 1967,  Constantine II of Greece attempted an unsuccessful counter-coup against the Regime of the Colonels. In 1968, Brazilian President Artur da Costa e Silva issued AI-5 (Institutional Act No. 5), enabling government by decree and suspending habeas corpus. In 1972, Apollo program: Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt began the third and final extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or "Moonwalk" of Apollo 17. To date they are the last humans to set foot on the Moon. In 1974, Malta became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations. In 1977, a DC-3 aircraft chartered from the Indianapolis-based National Jet crashed near Evansville Regional Airport, killing 29, including the University of Evansville basketball team, support staff and boosters of the team. In 1979, the Canadian Government of Prime Minister Joe Clark was defeated in the House of Commons, prompting the 1980 Canadian election.

 In 1981, general Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law in Poland to prevent dismantling of the communist system by Solidarity. In 1988, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat gave a speech at a UN General Assembly meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, after United States authorities refused to grant him a visa to visit UN headquarters in New York. In 1989, The Troubles: Attack on Derryard checkpoint – The Provisional Irish Republican Army launched an attack on a British Army temporary vehicle checkpoint near Rosslea, Northern Ireland. Two British soldiers were killed and one badly wounded. In 2000, the "Texas Seven" escaped from the John B. Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas, and went on a robbery spree, during which police officer Aubrey Hawkins was shot and killed. In 2001, Sansad Bhavan, the building housing the Indian Parliament, was attacked by terrorists. Twelve people were killed, including the terrorists. In 2002, European Union enlargement: The EU announced that Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia would become members from May 1, 2004. In 2003,  Iraq War: Operation Red Dawn – Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured near his home town of Tikrit. In 2011, a murder–suicide in Liège, Belgium, killed six and wounded 125 people at a Christmas market.
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This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
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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

Or the US President at
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-change-this-injustice#
or
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-injustice-faced-david-daniel-ball-after-he-reported-bungled-pedophile-investigation-and/b8mxPWtJ or http://wh.gov/ilXYR
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 Vasthi M Quezada, Jana Foley and Theodore Mallos. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
December 13: Arba'een (Shia Islam, 2014); St Lucy's Dayin Italy and Scandinavia
William Waller
You have united us. You are shocked by the loss of the Duke. And of the behaviour of those trying to be like us. You hold the checkpoint. Parliament continues. Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2014
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NO CLEANER = NO CLEANING

Tim Blair – Saturday, December 13, 2014 (3:02pm)

A Guardian reader wonders how to clean a house: 
A pay cut means we have had to sack our cleaner to save the £25 a week she cost, but, a month on, nothing’s being cleaned and the house is starting to resemble a squat. We set aside two hours on a Saturday morning but it’s not happening. 
Commenters are invited to help solve this vexing domestic dilemma.
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HEDGY GILLESPIE

Tim Blair – Saturday, December 13, 2014 (2:59pm)

The finest form of jazz is hedgehog jazz.
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WHEN JOE MET AYAAN

Tim Blair – Saturday, December 13, 2014 (2:55pm)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali recalls a conversation with the current US vice president: 
He informed her that “ISIS had nothing to do with Islam.” When she disagreed with him, Biden actually responded: “Let me tell you one or two things about Islam.”
“I politely left the conversation at that,” Hirsi Ali said, to laughter. “I wasn’t used to arguing with vice presidents.” 
That’s all right. After five years, Joe Biden still isn’t used to being one. Hirsi Ali, as readers will be aware, was raised as a Muslim in Somalia, endured genital mutilation and fled when her family tried to force her into an arranged marriage. She knows a little bit about Islam.
(Via Ganesh Sahathevan) 
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RIDE WITH THE SON OF CHE

Tim Blair – Saturday, December 13, 2014 (2:50pm)

Australian leftists who signed up for last month’s  $10,000 Cuban/ Venezuelan holiday in the dull company of George Negus may have missed out on a better deal. Che Guevara’s lawyer son is running motorcycle tours of Cuba’s socialist paradise, although the use of imperialist US machinery may be a turn-off: 
They’re using Harley-Davidson Touring Street Glides and Dyna Wide Glides. Prices start at $3,000 and max out at $5,800, but that doesn’t include flights, visas, gasoline, or the required life insurance. It’s also BYOB. 
Bargain. Also: no George.
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SHOUTY-WOUTY POUTY LOUTY

Tim Blair – Saturday, December 13, 2014 (12:53pm)

Millionaire British joke Russell Brand, lately seen amusing police outside Downing Street, takes his charm campaign to live television: 
Comedian Russell Brand came under fire for sexist behaviour and bullying fellow panellists during a chaotic edition of the BBC’s Question Time programme.
As communities minister Penny Mordaunt praised firefighters, Mr Brand interrupted, saying: “Pay their pensions then, love. Excuse the sexist language, I’m working on it.”
But shadow international development secretary Mary Creagh told him: “One of the things that people really don’t like is men talking over women on these types of shows, and our voices not being heard.” 
To be fair, only in the strictest biological sense might Brand qualify as a man. Even Fairfax has now turned against the ridiculous hypocrite: 
Brand’s ideas are those of a spoiled narcissist. Where he doesn’t understand something, he makes a show of his ignorance (in fact, he makes a virtue of it). History is a joke. Other countries are a joke. The only subject Brand takes seriously is himself, and woe betide the commentator who suggests that his newfound revolutionary principles may be inconsistent with his lavish lifestyle, since it is for this critic that Brand reserves his only flashes of real anger. Everyone else – even the scumbags of IS – just need a bit more love in their lives. 
Further on Brand from Boris Johnson.
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GOVERNMENT IS THE MOTHER AND FATHER

Tim Blair – Saturday, December 13, 2014 (11:40am)

A dead jihadi’s father blames Tony Abbott: 
Mohamed Karroum wants to sue the government because he holds it responsible for the death of his daughter Amira. 
image 
The 22-year-old member of an al-Qaeda offshoot was killed in Syria in January after she travelled there to join the fight against the Assad regime.
“They could have stopped her,” Mr Karroum said. 
So could people rather closer to events than was the government. But according to Karroum, his daughter kept her plans largely secret: 
He said he could not forgive his other daughter Rose for keeping Amira’s plans secret from him. 
If most of her family weren’t aware of Amira’s interest in killing Syrians, how was the government to know? Karroum explains: 
“Australian government is the mother and the father of her … they are the one who control everything in this country,” he said. 
It doesn’t work that way, sunshine. Karroum’s candidature for father of the year is further threatened by this line: 
Mr Karroum said he wished Prime Minister Tony Abbott understood the depths of his pain. He said he prayed that Mr Abbott would “lose one of his daughters”.
“I’m praying to the Lord every day, Tony Abbott, please Lord, let him lose one of his daughters either in sickness or in accident or something, please Lord,” he said. 
He might have done better to pray for his own daughter’s survival.
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If we don’t cut spending we’ll tax ourselves to death

Andrew Bolt December 13 2014 (10:09am)

Terry McCrann on the bracket creep that will choke us: 

Over the four years nominal GDP is projected by Treasury to grow by 18 per cent, but the personal tax take will leap by 37 per cent. The difference, a figure of around $30bn in 2017-18, is crudely but reasonably the harvest of bracket creep…
Just remember next week that but for the bracket creep tax increase, the (optimistic) 2017-18 deficit would be closer to $50bn.
Now recently departed Treasury head Martin Parkinson has elevated bracket creep to something of an iconic issue, and as the fulcrum for tax reform.
He’s essentially been saying “we have to” have bracket creep-returning tax cuts, otherwise relatively low-earning taxpayers will be forced into the 39c tax bracket (at $80,000) and not-exactly-highly-paid taxpayers into the “rich bracket” of 49c (at $180,000).
These cuts would be funded by an increase in the GST. As the GST raised $51bn last year and is projected to grow only to $64bn by 2017-18, that would require an increase in the rate toat least 15 per cent and its extension to fresh food, when all compensation to low-income earners was accounted…
The bigger problem is that there just isn’t enough money in the GST. Not unless you want to go to the much higher levels — 20 per cent, even 30 per cent — that prevail in “Europeanised” semi-socialised economies.
And even then you will be running into the reality of a globalised world and consumers sourcing product in low-tax locations.
But exactly the same applies to personal income tax. 
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A just fight for the Liberals, and against a feckless foe

Andrew Bolt December 13 2014 (8:06am)

Paul Kelly:
The keys to the Prime Minister’s re-positioning lie in reshaping his policies, forcing the public to confront the economic and fiscal challenge, breaking down Senate crossbench resistance and laying the basis for a stable message running to the next election…
The main task is manifest but still not accomplished — it is to recast the economic narrative.

Reality, however, is on Abbott’s side in this project. The fact the government, despite setbacks, is sticking by a budget consolidation over time involving community sacrifice highlights the inescapable fiscal story…
The political message is Abbott’s renewed commitment to negotiate with the Senate crossbenchers to secure in 2015 his two pivotal compromise packages — a revised GP co-payment and modified university reform deal.
Legislating these two policies is crucial. They would bring a rough form of political closure to the debilitating May budget, the most unpopular for a generation. Abbott and Hockey need these policy measures, the political victory they offer and the ability to move to the second budget with more confidence....
With more than $25 billion in savings yet to be passed, Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens said the issue was whether Australia had a sustainable fiscal position over the medium term. He said for the past five years ­people had voted for “good things” from government but without voting for the revenue to pay for it.
In his final speech, outgoing Treasury chief Martin Parkinson said the nation “has a structural problem at the heart of the budget” and that without action we face “a decade of deficits, rising debt” and limited policy ability to manage ­future shocks.
The leading economic officials can only issue warnings to the community. The alarming feature of the parliament is that it considers matters issue by issue and never considers the nation’s overall fiscal situation.
This is the key. The cause is just. Labor is plainly reckless and in denial. This is a fight on the Government’s terms and one that can be fought with conviction and pride.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Rorschach blot journalism

Andrew Bolt December 13 2014 (7:56am)

Not reporting but projecting. How on earth does this qualify as journalism?
Judith Ireland in Fairfax Media ­yesterday: 
THE photo of Julie Bishop and Peta Credlin in parliament this year seems to say it all. It was taken in June, as the government was realising that large chunks of its budget would not pass the Senate and speculation mounted that Australia would have to get involved in Iraq. The PM’s chief of staff is sitting on the green benches of the house wearing a snakeskin blouse. Her face is scrunched up in a menacing sneer, her finger pointed at the Foreign Minister ... Bishop may be the third most senior person in the ministry, with the best death stare in the country, but even she cannot escape Credlin’s control.
The end of the article:

THE photo where Credlin is seemingly “having a go” at Bishop is not about Iraq or the budget or any government business at all. It’s said the chief of staff was simply complimenting (Bishop) on her new pearls.
Got an agenda, Ms Ireland? 
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Now we’re talking. 175 more quangos and committees to go

Andrew Bolt December 13 2014 (7:50am)

Smaller government in reach and cost. Excellent:
ALMOST 200 government agencies will be scrapped in a new search for budget savings, as the Abbott government lights a “bonfire of the quangos” to eliminate waste and help deal with deepening deficits that will be revealed on Monday. 

Working groups will be shut down and expensive agencies dismantled in a bid to streamline the public service, saving more than $500 million over four years and taking staff numbers back to the levels of seven years ago…
The Weekend Australian can ­reveal the 175 agencies to be cut ­include the Australian Government Solicitor as well as obscure committees such as a “governance board” on computer systems and a “partnership group” on student services…
Some agencies will be forced to share their “back-office” functions while the government will consider outsourcing a huge communications network that links 400 sites and more than 80 agencies…
Monday’s announcement will note that salaries for public servants have grown 42 per cent over the past decade compared with inflation of 28 per cent. 
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The good news for Liberals is its PR problem can be easily fixed. Here’s how

Andrew Bolt December 13 2014 (6:58am)

Most of the Abbott Government’s problems are entirely self-inflicted and due to poor communications. Take yesterday’s example, described by Laurie Oakes:

Abbott trotted out the gender argument in defence of Credlin.
“Do you really think that my chief of staff would be under this kind of criticism if her name was P-E-T-E-R as opposed to P-E-T-A?” he asked a television interviewer.
“I think people need to take a long, hard look at themselves with some of these criticisms.”
Coalition backbenchers have little to do with the PM’s chief of staff. Ministers are the ones frustrated and angry at what they call Credlin’s “command and control” approach.
So Abbott’s allegation of sexism was aimed directly at his frontbench colleagues, which is hardly likely to foster peace and harmony within the Government.
Oakes is right to say there is some truth to this criticism. He is right to say it should nevertheless not have been made.
Indeed, Credlin should be near invisible, not made a topic of public conversation - a symbol of internal wrangling, of distraction from governing and of the Prime Minister’s remoteness.
Related is this, from Chris Kenny:
Just a month ago, the government managed to turn the most successful week of diplomacy on home soil into a domestic political loss. Recapping the period, we can see this own goal can be traced to a lack of communication
The leaders of the world’s 19 largest economies plus the EU gathered in Brisbane for the G20… This was as good as it gets in global diplomacy.
On top of that, bilateral visits around the event included British Prime Minister David Cameron, Chinese President Xi Jinping, ­Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.
Abbott clinched a free trade deal with China, our largest trading partner, and a commitment to deliver one with India.
.... and then, after a joint media conference with Hollande on the Wednesday after the G20, Abbott disappeared from the media gaze for more than a week.
And after Joe Hockey appeared on ABC television’s Insiders on the Sunday of the G20, he, too, went AWOL from media for more than a week.
So in the immediate days after this monumental week of diplomacy — with a story going begging about Australia driving growth and trade in order to create jobs and prosperity — neither the Prime Minister nor Treasurer was out selling the message.
No major speech was made to pull together the week’s achievements and explain their significance. No media blitz was unleashed to tell voters that this was a triumphant week.
Abbott’s website shows no interview transcripts from November 20 until December 1; Hockey’s has nothing from November 16 until 11 days later; Trade Minister Andrew Robb did Sunday morning TV two weekends in a row; and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was overseas for much of this period…
They left a vacuum — and it was filled by Labor and other opponents snapping about Barack Obama’s hypocritical intervention on climate change and Abbott’s narrowly focused remarks at the leaders’ retreat.
Deeds in politics do not speak for themselves. And Abbott’s communications team is simply too junior to dictate strategy to anyone.
Credlin, meanwhile, is simply far too busy as chief of staff to monitor the media, plot media strategy, schmooze journalists and organise responses and third-party endorsements. And she knows it.
The problem is of structure. Kenny again:
If backbenchers (who spend most of their lives engaged with their constituents) find it hard to gain access to the PM (as we are told they do at the moment) then Abbott is missing out on a vital conduit to public sentiment.
If all the advisers are based in Canberra (as has been the edict from Credlin) then they will soon become consumed with life inside the parliamentary triangle (our version of inside The Beltway) and lose touch with suburban and regional concerns.
If external pollsters and strategists are eschewed (as I am told they are) then a professional interpretation of the public mood is not available.
I am very firmly of the view that the following changes must be made if the Government is to survive.
- appoint a head of communications every bit as trusted, capable and authoritative as Credlin. This should be an MP. Consider giving them a wide-ranging portfolio, such as Cabinet secretary or Minister without Portfolio, to allow them to answer questions in Parliament.
- appoint a very senior and respected journalist as well. One with strategist nous and passion for what the Government is trying to achieve.
- appoint a strategy committee of ambitious, trusted and articulate MPs, including young guns, under the communications head, much like deputy party whips.
- appoint pollsters like Crosby Textor again to advise.
- talk and talk, and not in bullet points. From the heart.
This strategy would take heat off the much-maligned Credlin, make Abbott seem less remote, fix a glaring weakness and improve liaison with the backbench. It should also fire up and recruit some backbenchers to the effort.
MPs who agree with this should privately indicate their support to Abbott’s office.
Remember: Tony Blair had Peter Mandelson and Alistair Campbell; George W. Bush had Karl Rove; Bill Clinton had Dick Morris, George Stephanopoulos and James Carville. Tony Abbott has...?
(Thanks to readers brett t r and AT.) 
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Who let this man into the country? And how dare Channel Nine air his attack on Abbott’s daughters?

Andrew Bolt December 13 2014 (6:46am)

Channel Nine interviews Mohamed Karroum, father of jihadist Amira Ali, who was murdered with her husband in Syria by other jihadists. He blames ... Tony Abbott:
I’m praying to the Lord every day, Tony Abbott, please Lord, let him lose one of his daughters even in sickness, or in accident or something. Please, Lord.
Karroum blames Abbott for letting jihadists into the country.
I blame the Government for letting Karroum into the country, to raise a jihadist convert and to himself spread such hatred.
And I blame Channel Nine for airing this vile, vile attack on Abbott and his daughters. Would Nine boss David Gyngell had let this go to air had Karroum prayed for the death of one of his own two children?
(Thanks to reader Nathan and many others.) 
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Greens are the new McCarthyists, but the IPA is not the new Joe Stalin

Andrew Bolt December 13 2014 (6:44am)

The Greens really are sinister:

Instead of “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party of the United States?”, a Senate estimates committee is asking whether particular academics and specialists are “connected” with the Institute of Public Affairs or the Centre for Independent Studies.
The federal Education Department has emailed a dozen or more subject specialists who contributed to the national curriculum review.
The correspondence begins: “The department has received a number of questions from Senate estimates. The specific question is: ‘If any of the reviewers who were appointed are connected with the Institute of Public ­Affairs or the Centre for Independent Studies?’ “…
The person who asked the question was South Australian Greens senator Penny Wright, who raised it at an October hearing.
“I am interested to know if any of the reviewers who were appointed are connected with the Institute of Public Affairs or the Centre for Independent Studies?” she asked.
The Weekend Australian contacted the senator’s office yesterday seeking comment on why the organisations were singled out and whether she was investigating connections to any other organisations.
Senator Wright’s adviser said the senator was too busy to respond…
The lead author of the original history curriculum was Melbourne University historian Stuart Macintyre. His connections were not pursued by the Greens. Professor Macintyre was once a member of the Communist Party.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Post by Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors.

Not silent, my love, although your pain masks the voice. The love which summoned you, which holds you in the darkest hour. The love you can rely on when all else is gone. And when you are gone, He will brag that you are His love and how together you endured the unendurable.
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Post by Katz Designer Textiles.

worth it. beautiful and great quality
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Moral relativism and left wing appeasement hits all time low. Andrew Nikolic calls it out. JFo ..  ‪#‎SHY‬ ‪#‎traitor‬ ‪#‎Greens‬

Andrew Nikolic
SENATOR HANSON-YOUNG THINKS TERRORISM INVOLVEMENT TAKES "GUTS"
I am repulsed by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young's obscene comment on Twitter that David Hicks has "guts." Mr Hicks was in Afghanistan at the same time I was serving with our first national deployment to Afghanistan in 2001. As former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has pointed out, "The fact is he [David Hicks] was seized during the invasion of Afghanistan while supporting the enemy; our enemy...Hicks wasn't just simply convicted; he pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism. He admitted under oath that he had supported the Taliban. Our enemies, the killers of our Diggers...So he can now go to the American courts and do what he likes. But for me he'll always be the man who joined with the most evil, most murderous group around.”
Senator Hanson-Young has outdone herself in the 'stupid comment' stakes and ought to apologise to every military family in Australia who has suffered the loss of a loved one at the hands of terrorist groups like the Taliban.  ‪#‎auspol‬
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Post by Matt Granz.

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=== Posts from last year ===

Tired ABC needs to broaden its horizons

Piers Akerman – Thursday, December 12, 2013 (7:22pm)

IT’S been a bad week for the taxpayer-funded ABC, and its attempts to foist its Left-wing agenda on the nation.
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Fairfax oddly incurious about Labor expenses

Andrew Bolt December 13 2013 (6:45am)

How curious.  A recent Fairfax report into alleged abuses of VIP flights - part of its confected “expenses scandal” coverage aimed almost solely at Coalition MPs - failed to point the finger at a single Labor MP.
Yet it turns out there was plenty to report if only Fairfax looked to its Left:
Ministers in the Rudd-Gillard government spent more than $4 million on VIP flights between capital cities over three years to the end of 2012, many of which appear to have been in breach of guidelines. Most of the flights were approved by the office of former defence minister Stephen Smith, who made extensive use of the special military aircraft for his own travel. 
According to official records, more than 80 VIP flights, costing taxpayers at least $1.5 million, carried ministers and MPs to and from Canberra for parliamentary sittings. A further 170 flights ferried ministers between capital cities for “official business”, costing a notional $2.6 million…
The liberal use of the special RAAF jets occurred despite warnings issued early in Labor’s six-year reign by senior figure Joel Fitzgibbon, who says he twice told cabinet the VIP aircraft should not be used for routine travel between capitals. And air force guidelines stipulate the jets should only be used when commercial alternatives are not readily available. Finance Department rules also make clear the jets should only be used by ministers in “special circumstances”.
Strangely, Fairfax’s months-long investigation over claims - almost all by Liberals - of a few hundred dollars here and there showed zero interest in much bigger claims from Labor figures. Take these (News Corp) revelations today:
LABOR ministers plundered about $2 million on farewell around-the-world tours in the dying months of the Gillard and Rudd governments. 
Expenses records released last night reveal swan songs for the former government’s most senior members dominated the almost $3 million overseas travel bill for all senators and MPs reported in the six months to June 30.
While now retired former foreign minister Bob Carr led the way with a $368,000 bill visiting 26 countries, the records also reveal ... the 10-day trip by former climate change minister Greg Combet and ABC newsreader girlfriend Juanita Phillips through France, Belgium and Germany in April has come in at $72,027…
The former NSW MP listed the reason as conducting a “series of high-level meetings” and attending the Towards a Global Carbon Market: Prospects for Emissions Trading Conference. Labor members held the top 15 positions on the list… 
(Thanks to readers Gab and Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Stay classy, Birmingham

Andrew Bolt December 13 2013 (6:38am)

A Fairfax columnist calls critics of ABC bias “gang rapists”. Piers Akerman leaps to the defence of ABC chairman Jim Spigelman. 
===

Essential poll: Coalition leads

Andrew Bolt December 13 2013 (6:32am)

Essential Media poll: Coalition 51, Labor 49
(Thanks to reader Antony.) 
===

Check out who is now killing Toyota. Hint: it’s not Abbott

Andrew Bolt December 13 2013 (5:38am)

Amid the media’s frenzy to blame Tony Abbott for the death of Holden here comes a reminder of the kind of thing that actually kills manufacturing - and now endangers our last remaining car maker:
Late yesterday, Toyota Australia’s cost-cutting strategy received a serious setback when a Federal Court judge blocked the company from holding a meeting of employees today to consider changes to their workplace agreement, ruling that the carmaker had breached the “no extra claims” provision of the workplace agreement covering employees. 
Toyota Australia president and chief executive Max Yasuda said ... GM Holden’s planned closure in 2017 “will put our manufacturing operations and the local supplier network under unprecedented pressure so it is now more important than ever before that we make urgent changes”. “A decision will be made next year on the next-generation Camry and export program and we need to take urgent action if we want to stay at the negotiating table for future investments,” he said. “The proposed changes were designed to remove outdated and uncompetitive terms and conditions that make it difficult to compete with other Toyota plants throughout the world.”
Militant unions helped to destroy Holden and are killing Toyota. But let’s blame Abbott.
UPDATE
Beware the spin, astonishing in its audacity.
Labor leader Bill Shorten says Holden’s closure is Abbott’s fault:
Thousands of people are losing their jobs because the Coalition Government can’t or won’t stand up for Australian jobs. 
Media commentators such as Paul Bongiorno agree it’s Abbott’s fault:
I HAVE no doubt politics played a very big part in this decision and the proof of this comes from none other than Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane himself in his news conference yesterday afternoon (who) said when he got the phone call from Mr (Mike) Devereux, the CEO of GMH, he was shocked, that’s the word he used, and surprised ... so what we then come back to is obviously a division within the government.
But General Motors says, no, it’s not Abbott’s fault:
GREG MARTIN (GM spokesman): Well, there are competitive forces around the globe that we are seeing come to bear in other parts of the world, whether it be in the US and Europe and other parts of Asia. When you consider the scale and magnitude of that adjustment to automotive manufacturing around the world, it’s finally come to bear in Australia.
If you look at the sustained strength of the Australian dollar, the cost to produce things in the country and then certainly it’s a very small domestic market, arguably a very competitive and fragmented market, those forces came to play and it really resulted in us making a very difficult but necessary decision to cease production there in 2017.
BEN KNIGHT (ABC): Would a government assistance package have forestalled it? GREG MARTIN: Unlikely, again these are forces that General Motors and other auto makers around the world are contending with, whether it’s in the US or Europe.
Why would you believe a word Shorten says about this?
(Thanks to reader Gab.) 
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In which I’m the acting prime minister

Andrew Bolt December 13 2013 (5:04am)

image
Plenty of good reading - as usual - in the bumper Christmas edition of the Spectator. It would have been even better had Tony Abbott not had to dash to Mandela’s funeral service, leaving his diary unfinished.
Still, his loss was my gain.  Reflections follow on Jewish leaders, Hobbits, Abbott and a man digging graves on the Isle of the Dead while dreaming of America.
The painting I refer to is this:
image
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Labor has ruined our finances with this one disaster alone

Andrew Bolt December 13 2013 (12:24am)

Decided in the back of a plane with no cost-benefit analysis, the NBN now stands revealed as Labor’s single greatest financial disaster - a product of the most colossal ineptitude:
The 132-page review paints a damning picture of the NBN rollout under Labor, claiming that project would have seen capital expenditure surge from $37bn to $56bn and that it would miss its 2021 deadline by three years. The coalition said capex for its revised NBN rollout would come in at $30bn. 
The review also states that the current NBN corporate plan over-estimates revenues up to 2021 by $13 billion.
These are staggering losses and delays, and have caused the Government’s own costs and time-frames to blow out. Meanwhile, the rest of us must dig very deep to pay for this monstrous folly. 
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The ABC’s Jonathan Green thinks we can’t know his politics. Here some hints he forgot he dropped

Andrew Bolt December 13 2013 (12:03am)

ABC presenter Jonathan Green on being called a Leftist by the Australian’s Greg Sheridan:
How does Greg Sheridan have any clue what my politics are? We’ve never met. Never had a conversation. Beyond parody. 
Let’s try some other versions of that.
How does Greg Sheridan have any clue to what Lenin’s politics were? They never met. Never had a conversation.
How does Greg Sheridan have any clue to what Mao’s politics were? They never met. Never had a conversation.
It is comical to think Green really believes no one could have possibly figured out his Leftism from reading his columns, listening to his ABC show, tuning in to his guest spots on ABC 24 or observing his style of editorship at the The Drum and the far-Left Crikey. What astonishing level of denial does it take for Green to think his politics is a secret?
Did he think we wouldn’t suspect he was a Leftist when he mocked published an item mocking the conservative Sarah Palin and her Down Syndrome son?:
Which of the below should the Obama’s use to name their new puppy?… 
A mongrel called Trig
Did he think we wouldn’t suspect he was a Leftist from the party he threw on the night of the 2007 election, when John Howard was defeated?:
And around town, the witch was slain at parties of hate, like the one thrown by the editor of Crikey, the Internet gossip site, who had friends smash a Howard pinata of the kind being flogged on eBay for $400. 
Did he think we wouldn’t suspect he was a Leftist from  this post I wrote on his joining the ABC?:
I’d also urge the ABC to be very careful of Green’s quality control over his writers and blog readers. I was forced recently to write the following to his boss, Eric Beecher, the famous campaigner for “quality journalism"… 
Last week I drew your attention to comments and blog postings you had published over the space of just a few days calling me a “proven liar”, “nutty”, “unhinged”, “underhand”, “loopy”, “paranoid”, a “hypocrite”, a “racist”, “dishonest”, “hysterical”, “petty”, “evasive”, “deluded”, “irrational”, lacking in morality, someone guilty of “deliberately misrepresenting” people, “full of poisonous shit”, and a “notorious liar” who practices “lies, misrepresentations, and deceit”, “lies, distortions and smears”, “fakery” and “cowardice and dishonesty”, while giving “tacit approval” to “extremist sickos” and “playing the paranoid schizo’’, resembling in my person an “asylum for the criminally insane”. You conceded that these comments included a number of statements that were “untrue and unnecessarily personal in tone”. 
Since then one of Green’s writers has urged in a headline that I be “sodomised”, and his site has said of me that “we are dealing with fascism, plain and simple’’ and, referring to me and my readers, “I sometimes think Stalin had the right idea - line a million or so of ‘em up against a wall”. Yesterday I was named in a Crikey article as someone so corrupt as be evidently driven to scepticsm by “a desire for funds from fossil-fuel companies”, and was smeared besides as “undoubtedly more dangerous” than a “Holocaust denier”, and, in time, “morally worse”. 
Did he think we wouldn’t suspect he was a Leftist from his (incredibly prolix) columns claiming that only wicked conservatives thought the ABC biased?:
The likes of Bolt struggle with the notion that journalism might be practiced with calm objectivity and simple curiosity ... because in the paranoid, fact defying columns of the proselytising right, where climate change is a religious figment, Stephen Conroy is Stalin and any measured objective assessment of reality is dismissed as being ‘of the left’, the facts are mutable servants of argument.
Did he think we wouldn’t suspect he was a Leftist when the only media bias Green objected to was that of conservatives:
Fox News - that’s the best example of how this works: an entirely parallel universe that determines its own agenda, facts and logic according to an often bellicose political mission… We see its muted fellow travellers in our own TV and press, most notably in our national broadsheet The Australian, a paper whose political purpose and occasional flights of “truthiness” can routinely obscure its better journalistic angels. And then we have the opinion formers of the tabloid blogosphere. Little s-bends of ill-humour like the Daily Telegraph’s Tim Blair, or great vaulted Taj Mahals of polished ego like the Herald Sun’s Andrew Bolt. 
Did he think we wouldn’t suspect he was a Leftist from his apocalyptic warnings of global warming catastrophe?:
It could be that we don’t quite have the mechanism to deal with this yet, the whole end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it thing. ... If newsmakers were to take seriously our slow descent into the threatening unknown of a four degrees warmer world then they would probably give the issue the sort of dominating and enduringly obsessive play we haven’t seen the popular press throw around an issue since World War II… How can anything rival climate for significance?
Did he think we wouldn’t suspect he was a Leftist from his rhapsodic welcome of the new President Obama another clue?
Ich bin ein Obama … or something like that.... This truly does seem to be a moment, one that gives a new and suddenly hopeful context to our own slightly deflated, verbose and meanly thin-lipped stab at regime change. We shall all see won’t we. But it might be that with a will, intelligence and due, uncynical diligence …
Did he think we wouldn’t suspect he was a Leftist from his attacks on Tony Abbott’s boat policies?
For three years the Abbott opposition did its best to generate a sense of chaos around the steady trickle of boats testing our borders, compassion and policy resolve. There were never that many, that was the truth, and most had reasonable claims to our protection; that was true too. And coming by sea involved an extraordinary and mortal risk, a calculation that was a fair indication of desperation.
Do you still need to actually meet Green to know his brand of politics?
Sad to say, but so much of the heat and fury of the Gillard years grew from prejudice, tainting our politics with bitter spite coloured by chauvinism and something that oscillated between casual sexism and ingrained misogyny.
election. This is the truth about the Gillard prime ministership. The fact that our elected leader was a woman gave Gillard’s detractors the added, and for many instinctive, purchase of gender-based loathing — a deep sense that the simple fact of Gillard’s sex disqualified her from high office.
For those still wondering whether Green really is of the Left - something he strangely presumes cannot be detected by anyone other than his closest friends - I could offer even richer evidence. But, alas, Green never gives me permission to publish his extraordinarily abusive emails to me - so abusive that only a true Leftist could have written them.
(PS: I have met Green. Sheridan is right,) 
===
Six things you just can't fake
http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/six-things-you-just-cant-fake/story-e6frfm9r-1226781588625
HE HAD to have known he would be found out.
Catch me if you can .. an arm waver who could not sign stands beside a hand wringer who does not care - ed
===
Kiwi man Reese McKee's Facebook plea to find 'Katie' bombards woman with 2000 messages; she...
http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/kiwi-man-reese-mckees-facebook-plea-to-find-katie-bombards-woman-with-2000-messages-she-deletes-social-media/story-fnjwnhzf-1226782058359
A NEW Zealand man who begged the internet to help him find a mystery American woman he met in Hong Kong has found his "Katie" - but it seems she's not too happy with the media attention.
Internet detective? (Yes, Ma'am, that is me, Internet Detective. Just the facts) - ed
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http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/12/no-reverb-added-an-acoustical-experiment-in-drumming/
It’s one thing to record audio of a drummer and then digitally synthesize the reverberation to mimic various environments, but it’s another thing entirely to film a drummer actually playing in all of those environments and then stitch it together into a single track. That’s exactly whatAudio Zero and Wikidrummers did with drummer Julien Audigier who played the same drum pattern in a variety of indoor and outdoor locations to show the effects of natural reverb, sometimes even blending multiple tracks into a single shot. Amazing. (via The Awesomer)
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Cartel action against Woolworths, Colgate and Cussons over laundry products
http://www.smh.com.au/business/cartel-action-against-woolworths-colgate-and-cussons-over-laundry-products-20131212-2z9m9.html
The competition regulator has launched a cartel action against two of the world’s leading consumer goods companies and supermarket giant Woolworths, claiming an alleged cartel was forged to deny local shoppers access to lower prices for a range of laundry detergent products.
My uncle used to be Asia Pacific MD of Cussons/Palmolive in the 70's. It looks like a left wing cause .. ed
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<Caroline Glick states the facts cogently. Because of assimilation the Jewish community is weaker than ever. Jonathan Pollard's unjust imprisonment brings to light the blatant discrimination against Jews as opposed to a non Jew who committed a similar crime. American Jews must stand united against the injustice that has been perpetrated to one of our own.>
COLUMN ONE: Pollard and an American Jewish renaissance
www.jpost.com
The state of the American Jewish community is far weaker today than it was when Pollard was railroaded into his life term in 1986.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/COLUMN-ONE-Pollard-and-an-American-Jewish-renaissance-334870

I feel anyone who stands for justice would want Pollard free and pardoned .. and compensated. - ed
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Livni Attacks Jewish Home for 'Derailing' Negotiations
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/175089#.Uqm5PuDmpwY.facebook
Justice Minister and chief negotiator says Jewish Home party pushing Judea-Samaria building 'deliberately' to thwart talks with PA.
Sorry Livni, but in answer to the question, "why do they continue to live despite the repeated attempts at finding peace?" I say you ask the wrong question.- ed
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Looking Back to a Mandela Moment in Jerusalem
http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.co.il/2013/12/looking-back-to-mandela-moment-in.html
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Why al-Qai’da Is Attractive (for U.S. Support of Other Islamists)
http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2013/12/11/why-al-qaida-is-attractive-for-u-s-support-of-other-islamists/
If you have never understood U.S. Middle East, policy here it is: The response to September 11.What do I mean? Simple.There are two ways to respond to September 11:There is a struggle with revolution
Because AlQaida is supported by those not labelled .. just as with Vietnam war .. if you ignore the enemy, they will hurt you. - ed
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POV video: What Is It Like to Be Attacked By Rocks?
www.youtube.com
Think rock throwing is harmless? See the horrible reality for yourself of everyday life in places like Judea and Samaria. Read more about rock throwing: http...
http://youtu.be/YZC7A-Lr4Eo
.. a big motivator in not dying a virgin .. ed===
It's not the West Bank!
-9 December 2013 

For otherwise, defeatism and conceding defeat seem an epitome of facilitating reduction, and thus, decline.

Courage seeks a stance if even it begins on a small scale beginning with a few individuals driving even simple truths into an unapologetic course.

Language dynamics entail ploys of powerful sway. Misconstrued coinage and the establishment's adoption thereof, conjure eventual and permanent errors against factuality; and as thus, lies accepted as truths.

Today even the term, 'settlement' encourages an immediate
connotation and word association of illegality and illegitimacy. And why should we accept any longer that forced, PC-laden and subliminal label?

Nor are they Palestinians, per se. Because a pawn strategy and subsequent coinage was permitted to flourish, abounding an enormous propaganda scale, today's political language context has emboldened and exploded an enormous world opinion, anti campaigns and horrendous security and demographic matters.

Zionism is another, of which I include under the political meanderings of socio-political hijacking; another deliberate misrepresentation agenda.

Collectively, this acquiescence to politically hijacked, motivated and controlled context flourishes the notion of what I coin, the three Ds: demonisation, demoralisation and delegitimisation.

Continue to the link, reading this and more articles at ...….http://paper.li/allysonchristy/1338794440
Allyson’s Geo-Political Inspections
paper.li
Allyson’s Geo-Political Inspections, by Allyson Christy: Israel, The West and Political Islam
===
Do You Think The Wrong Thing?! :: Gatestone Institute
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4085/do-you-think-the-wrong-thing
We must face up to it. The Western democracies have a great and serious problem which appears only to be growing: the general public are developing views highly questionable to those in positions of power. Larger and larger swaths of people, when asked
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Abbas Honors Al-Quds U ‘Hero’ Responsible for Most Dead Jews
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/abbas-honors-al-quds-u-hero-arab-responsible-for-most-dead-jews/2013/12/12/
l-Quds University, like Mahmoud Abbas, glorifies the mass murderer known as Abu Jihad, as well as other terrorists. But in a report, Brandeis faculty tell their administration not to pay any attention to that terrorism behind the curtain.
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Child killer Keli Lane loses appeal
http://www.news.com.au/national/child-killer-keli-lane-loses-appeal/story-fncynjr2-1226782494412
KELI Lane, who was jailed more than two years ago for the murder of her newborn baby, has lost her appeal against the conviction.
Justice - ed
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“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.” Galatians 4:4-5 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"His ways are everlasting."
Habakkuk 3:6
What he hath done at one time, he will do yet again. Man's ways are variable, but God's ways are everlasting. There are many reasons for this most comforting truth: among them are the following--the Lord's ways are the result of wise deliberation; he ordereth all things according to the counsel of his own will. Human action is frequently the hasty result of passion, or fear, and is followed by regret and alteration; but nothing can take the Almighty by surprise, or happen otherwise than he has foreseen. His ways are the outgrowth of an immutable character, and in them the fixed and settled attributes of God are clearly to be seen. Unless the Eternal One himself can undergo change, his ways, which are himself in action, must remain forever the same. Is he eternally just, gracious, faithful, wise, tender?--then his ways must ever be distinguished for the same excellences. Beings act according to their nature: when those natures change, their conduct varies also; but since God cannot know the shadow of a turning, his ways will abide everlastingly the same. Moreover there is no reason from without which could reverse the divine ways, since they are the embodiment of irresistible might. The earth is said, by the prophet, to be cleft with rivers, mountains tremble, the deep lifts up its hands, and sun and moon stand still, when Jehovah marches forth for the salvation of his people. Who can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? But it is not might alone which gives stability; God's ways are the manifestation of the eternal principles of right, and therefore can never pass away. Wrong breeds decay and involves ruin, but the true and the good have about them a vitality which ages cannot diminish.
This morning let us go to our heavenly Father with confidence, remembering that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him the Lord is ever gracious to his people.

Evening

"They have dealt treacherously against the Lord."
Hosea 5:7
Believer, here is a sorrowful truth! Thou art the beloved of the Lord, redeemed by blood, called by grace, preserved in Christ Jesus, accepted in the Beloved, on thy way to heaven, and yet, "thou hast dealt treacherously" with God, thy best friend; treacherously with Jesus, whose thou art; treacherously with the Holy Spirit, by whom thou hast been quickened unto life eternal! How treacherous you have been in the matter of vows and promises. Do you remember the love of your espousals, that happy time--the springtime of your spiritual life? Oh, how closely did you cling to your Master then! saying, "He shall never charge me with indifference; my feet shall never grow slow in the way of his service; I will not suffer my heart to wander after other loves; in him is every store of sweetness ineffable. I give all up for my Lord Jesus' sake." Has it been so? Alas! if conscience speak, it will say, "He who promised so well has performed most ill. Prayer has oftentimes been slurred--it has been short, but not sweet; brief, but not fervent. Communion with Christ has been forgotten. Instead of a heavenly mind, there have been carnal cares, worldly vanities and thoughts of evil. Instead of service, there has been disobedience; instead of fervency, lukewarmness; instead of patience, petulance; instead of faith, confidence in an arm of flesh; and as a soldier of the cross there has been cowardice, disobedience, and desertion, to a very shameful degree." "Thou hast dealt treacherously." Treachery to Jesus! what words shall be used in denouncing it? Words little avail: let our penitent thoughts execrate the sin which is so surely in us. Treacherous to thy wounds, O Jesus! Forgive us, and let us not sin again! How shameful to be treacherous to him who never forgets us, but who this day stands with our names engraven on his breastplate before the eternal throne.
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Today's reading: Hosea 9-11, Revelation 3 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Hosea 9-11

Punishment for Israel
1 Do not rejoice, Israel;
do not be jubilant like the other nations.
For you have been unfaithful to your God;
you love the wages of a prostitute
at every threshing floor.
2 Threshing floors and winepresses will not feed the people;
the new wine will fail them.
3 They will not remain in the LORD’s land;
Ephraim will return to Egypt
and eat unclean food in Assyria.
4 They will not pour out wine offerings to the LORD,
nor will their sacrifices please him.
Such sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners;
all who eat them will be unclean.
This food will be for themselves;
it will not come into the temple of the LORD.
5 What will you do on the day of your appointed festivals,
on the feast days of the LORD?
6 Even if they escape from destruction,
Egypt will gather them,
and Memphis will bury them.
Their treasures of silver will be taken over by briers,
and thorns will overrun their tents....

Today's New Testament reading: Revelation 3

To the Church in Sardis
1 “To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.
4 Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. 5 The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels. 6 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches....
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Saul, Shaul [Sôul]—asked for ordemanded.
1. The son of Kish, and first king of Israel (1 Sam. 9-11).

A Man Who Lost His Kingdom

No man among Bible men had so many chances thrust upon him to make a success of life, and no man ever so missed them. Saul not only missed great opportunities, he deliberately abused them. His sun rose in splendor, but set in a tragic night. The downgrade of his life is the old familiar story of pride, egotism and the abuse of power leading to moral degradation and ruin. Here are the steps down the ladder:
He was a man anointed and filled with the Spirit. (1 Sam. 11:6).
In his early years he was humble and practiced self-control ( 1 Sam. 10:22; 10:27; 11:13).
Self-will restricted his influence (1 Sam. 13:12, 13).
He became disobedient and was guilty of rash vows (1 Sam. 15:11-23).
Jealousy prompted him to hunt and harm David (1 Sam. 18:8;19:1).
He patronized the superstition he had forbidden (1 Sam. 28:7).
Wounded in battle, he ended up a suicide (1 Sam. 31:4).
Having already destroyed his moral life, he ultimately destroyed his physical life. Saul’s sad story is repeated almost daily.
2. The sixth of the ancient kings of Edom, from Rehoboth on the Euphrates ( Gen. 36:37, 38).
3. The original name of Paul, a native of Tarsus (Acts 7:58). For fuller treatment see PAUL.
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Puah

Scripture Reference—Exodus 1:15
Name Meaning—Child bearing or joy of parents
Alarmed over the rapid increase of the population of Israelites in Egypt, Pharaoh ordered two Egyptian midwives to destroy all male children as soon as they were born (Exodus 1:15-20 ). He would never have employed Hebrew women to destroy the males of their own nation. The answer of the two named midwives, Puah and Shiprah, to Pharaoh’s anger when he discovered that his cruel edict was not being carried out, implies that they were used to wait upon Egyptian women who only employed them in difficulty at childbirth (Exodus 1:19). Hebrew women seldom employed midwives for they were more “lively,” or had far easier births than the Egyptians.
Puah and Shiprah are Egyptian names. Aben Ezra, the ancient Jewish historian, says that these two women “were chiefs over all the midwives, who were more than 500.” As superintendents of such a large staff to which they had been appointed by the Egyptian government, Pharaoh ordered them to carry out his terrible command just as he would give orders to any other of his officials. As it is likely that only the chief Hebrews could afford the service of midwives, probably the order of Pharaoh only applied to them. Although Egyptians by birth, it would seem as if they had embraced the Hebrew faith, for we are told that Puah and Shiprah “feared God” ( Exodus 1:21).
Receiving the royal command to commit murder, these two loyal, vigorous, middleaged women were caught between two fires. Whom should they obey? The God of the Hebrews in whom they had come to believe, or the tyrannical king of Egypt? True to their conscience and honored calling they knew it would conflict with the divine command to kill, and so “saved the men children alive.” Thus, they obeyed God rather than man, and in so doing brought upon their heads the rage of Pharaoh. Confronting his anger, Puah and Shiprah took refuge in a partial truth. They said that because Jewish women had easy deliveries, their children were born before they could reach them and assist the mothers in labor.
Cognizant as He was of the partial truth the two midwives told, God knew all about the crisis behind it, and commended Puah and Shiprah for their courage of faith. They had risked their lives for many Jewish infants. Such an act was meritorious in the eyes of the Lord, and He honorably rewarded them by building them houses. Fausset suggests that the nature of such a reward consisted in the two midwives marrying Hebrews and becoming mothers in Israel (2 Samuel 7:11, 27). Puah and Shiprah are striking witnesses against the scandalous practice of abortion, which several nations have legalized.
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