Sunday, April 05, 2015

Sun Apr 5th Todays News

On Bolt Report an ongoing policy is that any Islam post can only be on the pinned leader. Normal rules apply in that if it is merely foul and abusive it will be deleted. Otherwise comments are welcome.  
===
Dan Andrews is Premier of Victoria and very weak. He is run by the CFMEU and makes decisions that badly affect Victoria. One dumb decision is to close down a new private cancer ward. There needs to be private care if public care is to function right.

 Miranda Devine conflates an accusation of domestic violence which is being badly handled in Queensland with a domestic violence case resulting in the death of a child. Domestic violence is a serious issue and difficult for police because victims usually don't know how to help themselves. The QLD ALP politicians may be innocent until proven guilty, but the party failed to vet them properly. Criticism of the alleged is appropriate as he is a public figure and the public has a right to do what the party should have done. Devine is also being highly critical of the government on something they haven't announced yet. The senate which is controlled by the ALP will not pass cuts. The government could raise taxes without the senate. So Devine is getting her criticism ready in advance, blaming the government for raising taxes when they are trying not to. 

 Bolt questions the allegations made against Essendon and all of Australia's sports which were championed by Jason Clare when he was Home Secretary. Clare's outrageous slurs were prosecuted so that innocent people were asked to plead guilty for lesser sentences. The abuse of power was facilitated by the media who are partisan for the ALP. 

 On this day in 1242, Crusaders who had targeted East European pagans and Orthodox Christians were defeated in a battle on ice of Lake Peipus by Alexander Nevsky fighting for Russia. In 1609, Shimazu Tadatsune of Satsuma successfully invaded Ryūkyū Kingdom in Okinawa, although it was not formally annexed until after the Meiji Restoration in 1872. In 1614, Pocahontas married John Rolfe. She died aged 22 in March 1617. She had a son, and he survived to provide for many descendants. Her last words were reported as "all must die, but tis enough that her child liveth" In 1621, Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, Massachusetts for England. The ship was weighted with stones as ballast. Her crew was ravaged by disease. The journey had not gone to plan. In 1904, the first international Rugby League match was played between England and 'others' (Scottish and Welsh) in Central Park, Wigan. In 1932, Finland gave up Prohibition of Alcohol. The rise in crime rates saw it opposed by 70% at referendum. Finland had adopted the laws when she was independent of Russia in 1919. Earlier, the Tsar had stopped prohibition. In 1933, FDR signed a bill prohibiting the hoarding of Gold.

 In 1942, Japan raided Colombo, sinking two royal navy cruisers. In 1944, Nazis killed two hundred and seventy Greek townsfolk. In 1949, Fireside Theatre debuted on tv. In 1951, the spies called Rosenbergs were executed after they stood by the Soviet Union to the end. In 1956, Fidel Castro declared war on Cuba. He really has that big an ego. In 1976, the Tiananman Incident occurred where the Gang of four managed to arrest thousands of protestors, some sixty of whom it was alleged were beheaded and cremated nearby. Those communists know how to party. In 1986, Libya bombed La Belle Discotheque in West Berlin, killing three and wounding over 200. In retaliation, Reagan bombed Libya and accidentally killed a daughter of Gadaffi. He had aimed for the dad. In 1994, Kurt Cobain committed suicide. His music wasn't that bad. In 1999, two Libyans accused of bringing down a flight over Scotland in '88 were handed over.
2014
John Tran wrote
Quote from Tacitus: “the more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” Dear Members, If you are wondering if there are a list of rules on this site, I have found that there is not a list, but there are expectations of common behavioural standards. One such standard is that the admin of this page assume members are adults and should act like such. The other common standard is that we would like the discussion page to be family friendly, it doesn’t always happen, but the idea is to refine your expression so that an adult discussion can be followed. Similarly, goading others into personal character attacks, and claiming to be a victim of continuous attacks on one discussion thread may hold merit, but may also end up with the admin of this page seeing through such claims.
Many thanks John. Also on this day in 1566, 200 Dutch nobleman led by the Big Beggar, Hendrik van Brederode, forced themselves onto the presence of the Governor of the Netherlands and presented a petition of compromise, denouncing the Spanish Inquisition in the Netherlands. Whereupon it was suspended and a petition was sent to Spain. It is difficult to understand these things with modern sensibilities. One might hear a Monty Python take on the issue, but it was more serious than that. The issue was political and suggests a change of the guard during the eighty year war. Anyone wanting an insight into life of the time should check out the movie "The Last Valley" which is set in 1637. 
Historical perspectives on this day 
In 823, Lothair I was crowned King of Italy by Pope Paschal I. 1081, Alexios I Komnenos was crowned Byzantine emperor at Constantinople, bringing the Komnenian dynasty to full power. 1242, during a battle on the ice of Lake Peipus, Russian forces, led by Alexander Nevsky, rebuffed an invasion attempt by the Teutonic Knights. 1536, Royal Entry of Charles V into Rome: The last Roman triumph. 1566, two-hundred Dutch noblemen, led by Hendrik van Brederode, forced themselves into the presence of Margaret of Parma and present the Petition of Compromise, denouncing the Spanish Inquisition in the Netherlands. The Inquisition was suspended and a delegation was sent to Spain to petition Philip II.

 In 1609, Daimyo (Lord) Shimazu Tadatsune of the Satsuma Domain in southern Kyūshū, Japan, completed his successful invasion of the Ryūkyū Kingdom in Okinawa. 1614, in Virginia, Native American Pocahontas married English colonist John Rolfe. 1621, the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, Massachusetts on a return trip to England. 1710, the Statute of Anne received the Royal Assent establishing the Copyright law of the United Kingdom. 1722, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovered Easter Island. 1792, U.S. President George Washington exercised his authority to veto a bill, the first time this power was used in the United States. 1804, High Possil Meteorite: The first recorded meteorite in Scotland fell in Possil. 1818, in the Battle of Maipú, Chile's independence movement, led by Bernardo O'Higgins and José de San Martín, won a decisive victory over Spain, leaving 2,000 Spaniards and 1,000 Chilean patriots dead. 1847, Birkenhead Park, the first civic public park in Britain, was opened in Birkenhead. 1862, American Civil War: The Battle of Yorktown began. 1879, Chile declared war on Bolivia and Peru, starting the War of the Pacific.

 In 1900, Archaeologists in Knossos, Crete, discovered a large cache of clay tablets with hieroglyphic writing in a script they call Linear B. 1904, the first international rugby league match was played between England and an Other Nationalities team (Welsh & Scottish players) in Central Park, Wigan, England. 1922, the American Birth Control League, forerunner of Planned Parenthood, was incorporated. 1923, Firestone Tire and Rubber Company began production of balloon-tires. 1932, alcohol prohibition in Finland ended. Alcohol sales began in Alko liquor stores. Also 1932, Dominion of Newfoundland: Ten thousand rioters seized the Colonial Building leading to the end of self-government. 1933, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed two executive orders: 6101 to establish the Civilian Conservation Corps, and 6102 "forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates" by U.S. citizens. 1936, Tupelo-Gainesville tornado outbreak: An F5 tornado killed 233 in Tupelo, Mississippi.

 In 1942, World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy launched a carrier-based air attack on Colombo, Ceylon during the Indian Ocean Raid. Port and civilian facilities were damaged and the Royal Navy cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire were sunk southwest of the island. 1943, World War II: American bomber aircraft accidentally caused more than 900 civilian deaths, including 209 children, and 1,300 wounded among the civilian population of the Belgian town of Mortsel. Their target was the Erla factory one kilometre from the residential area hit. 1944, World War II: Two hundred seventy inhabitants of the Greek town of Kleisoura were executed by the Germans. 1945, Cold War: Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito signed an agreement with the Soviet Union to allow "temporary entry of Soviet troops into Yugoslav territory". 1946, Soviet troops left the island of Bornholm, Denmark after an 11-month occupation. 1949, Fireside Theater debuted on television. Also 1949, a fire in a hospital in Effingham, Illinois, killed 77 people and led to nationwide fire code improvements in the United States.

 In 1951, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were sentenced to death for spying for the Soviet Union. 1956, Fidel Castro declared himself at war with Cuban President Fulgencio Batista. Also 1956, in Sri Lanka, the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna won the general elections in a landslide and S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was sworn in as the Prime Minister. 1957, in India, Communists won the first elections in united Kerala and E.M.S. Namboodiripad was sworn in as the first chief minister. 1958, Ripple Rock, an underwater threat to navigation in the Seymour Narrows in Canada was destroyed in one of the largest non-nuclear controlled explosions of the time. 1969, Vietnam War: Massive antiwar demonstrations occurred in many U.S. cities. 1971, in Sri Lanka, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna launched a revolt against the United Front government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike. 1976, in the People's Republic of China, the April Fifth Movement led to the Tiananmen incident. 1986, three people were killed in the bombing of the La Belle Discothèque in West Berlin, Germany.

 In 1991, an ASA EMB 120 crashed in Brunswick, Georgia, killing all 23 aboard including Sen. John Tower and Astronaut Sonny Carter. 1992, Alberto Fujimori, president of Peru, dissolved the Peruvian congress by military force. Also 1992, the Siege of Sarajevo began when Serb paramilitaries murdered peace protesters Suada Dilberovic and Olga Sučić on the Vrbanja Bridge. 1994, American musician Kurt Cobain committed suicide. 1998, in Japan, the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge linking Awaji Island with Honshū and costing about $3.8 billion USD, opened to traffic, becoming the largest suspension bridge in the world. 1999, two Libyans suspected of bringing down Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 were handed over for eventual trial in the Netherlands. 2009, North Korea launched its controversial Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 rocket. The satellite passed over mainland Japan, which prompted an immediate reaction from the United Nations Security Council, as well as participating states of Six-party talks. 2010, twenty-nine coal miners were killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia.
===
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.
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August https://www.createspace.com/4124406, September https://www.createspace.com/5106914, October https://www.createspace.com/5106951, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows the purchase of a kindle version for just $3.99 more. 
===
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.
===


Happy birthday and many happy returns Faz Zy and Catherine Ball  Born on the same day, across the years ..
Deaths
April 5: Easter (Western Christianity, 2015); Feast Day of Vincent Ferrer
Birkenhead Park
We got our island. It is Easter. It has a park. We sunk it. Try not to fire indiscriminately. Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
===
2015
===

Thank God we have PM Tony Abbott to save us by strengthening our national security

Piers Akerman – Saturday, April 04, 2015 (11:05pm)

AS Christians and Jews celebrate Easter and the Passover, the holiest days in their calendars, this weekend with family gatherings and prayer, radical Islamists continue to demonstrate ambiguity of Koranic teaching by slaughtering nonbelievers.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Thank God we have PM Tony Abbott to save us by strengthening our national security'
===

The brutal truth about domestic violence

Miranda Devine – Saturday, April 04, 2015 (11:10pm)

THE domestic violence bandwagon has been taken up with such gusto by the professionally virtuous that it is becoming meaningless.
The chattering classes have latched on to it as their feminist cause célèbre, with the dangers of knee-jerk reactions from authorities ensuring ­future miscarriages of justice.
Take Cape York Labor MP Billy Gordon. He denies ­allegations of domestic violence and, in our system of justice, we’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.
Instead, Gordon is being pressured to quit parliament on the strength of allegations from an ex-partner of 23 years, which only surfaced when he was elected. But he is guilty of being a man, so to hell with the presumption of innocence.
Thirty-year-old break-and-enter offences are dredged up to besmirch his character, sending the message to anyone trying to break out of the cycle of despair in indigenous communities that rehabilitation is never a prospect.
We’re told domestic violence is an “epidemic”, and statistics are cited that make virtually every man in Australia an incipient woman-basher.
Gordon and men like him are just collateral damage in a feminist campaign that’s more about grabbing power and public funding than it is about saving women from violent men.
And what about violent women? It’s a little known fact that more than one third of victims of domestic violence are male and they’re less likely to report the abuse. Of the 196 victims killed in 2010-12 by an offender with whom they shared a domestic relationship, 38 per cent were male according to the Australian Institute of Criminology.
In any case, domestic violence homicides have declined markedly in Australia to the lowest rate in 25 years. But we’re suddenly in crisis mode.
Bill Shorten has called for a royal commission into domestic violence and the new Victorian Labor government has vowed to hold one.
Tony Abbott has made it an urgent priority for the Council of Australian Governments this month and has appointed former Victorian Police Commissioner Ken Lay and the Australian of the Year Rosie Batty as founding members of an advisory panel on violence against women.
But it’s not as if the issue is not already being taken seriously. Domestic violence is the No.1 priority for every police patrol in NSW.
A trial of videotaping domestic violence victims at the scene when police show up is excepted to increase success of prosecutions and minimise what officers call the “Tammy Wynette” stand-by-your-man syndrome in which women ­recant allegations to preserve a relationship.
Police are frustrated when they are unable to prosecute violent perpetrators, but they are also realistic about the fact that as many as one-in-four domestic violence allegations that come before the Family Court are bogus, and can be used by women as a weapon.
The Gillard government fed this trend when it undermined the shared parenting reforms of the Howard era, and broadened the definition of domestic violence to include verbal or “financial abuse” and emotional manipulation.
This ensures that any allegation of abuse from a mother in a custody battle becomes grounds for denying a father access to his children.
Meantime, the actual epidemic of child abuse is ignored by comparison.
Take the so-called Pogo Stick case in which a malnourished seven-year-old boy was killed by his mother in Oatley, after a lifetime of horrendous abuse and neglect.
The court heard he was starved, beaten, and made to eat his own faeces. His undernourished body was covered in infected wounds and bruises and riddled with fractures.
Dozens of people reported the abuse before he died, ­including horrified campers at Bulli Beach, who saw the starving boy beaten and forced to run laps on the beach until he collapsed.
They saw him sobbing outside his tent in the freezing cold, wearing just a singlet and a towel, begging for water.
Yet this awful case struggled to make headlines last week when the mother pleaded guilty to manslaughter, having earlier claimed her son had fallen off a pogo stick.
That may be due, in part, to the misguided privacy laws in NSW which forbid the publication of photographs of dead children who are the subject of court matters. Without a name and a face to humanise a case, media outlets don’t have a story to tell, and compassionate strangers aren’t moved enough to campaign for change.
Around the country every day increasing numbers of children are tortured, abused, and neglected. They are trapped in a living hell to which they are returned over and over by authorities; ­ignored by a society afraid to create another Stolen Generation.
That’s an epidemic. That’s a crisis. And, unlike adult women in abusive ­relationships, the children have no choice. 
===

Class warfare is super crazy

Miranda Devine – Saturday, April 04, 2015 (5:56pm)

WE can only hope the Abbott government doesn’t repeat last year’s mistakes in its crucial second budget, and engage in class warfare to pander to the faux-fairness brigade.
But the indications are not encouraging. The government seems to be endorsing Labor’s tax and spend tendencies on touchstone policies such as superannuation.
Last year it was the “deficit levy” which increased the top marginal rate of tax to a world-beating 49 percent.
This year, increasing tax on superannuation funds is the soak-the-rich gambit, another inexplicable own goal being considered by the Coalition.
The Prime Minister has said no “negative” changes will occur to super until after the next election.
But we keep hearing that greedy “rich people” have accumulated millions in super which they are not entitled to, despite the fact it is money they earned, paid tax on and have been denied the pleasure of spending for decades, while prudently planning their retirement so as not to burden the pension system.
In any case, it is no longer possible to accumulate millions in super because the contribution caps have been lowered. Changing rules retrospectively would hardly be “fair”.
Ominously, gouging super is a bipartisan issue, which should have sent alarm bells ringing at Hockey Central. The lobby group, Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, is pushing the barrow of self-interest for the unions and industry schemes. 
Its report “Superannuation and high income balances” has provided the the justification for raising taxes and increasing regulation. 
But the motive for the big union and industry-based super funds is that they have been hemorrhaging members to self-managed super schemes. Workers with more than $250,000 in their accounts have realised they get better returns managing the money themselves.
The big super funds want to destroy the competition. Hence their call for more regulations and more taxes on bigger deposits, which will hit self-managed super hardest.
“You work all your life, you do the right thing, your invest in your retirement, you see the finish line after 40 or so years of back breaking manual work as a tradesman, your back and knees give you hell, “ writes Dale, a typical superannuant venting his spleen online.
“Then the Pollies who ride in Limos, have the best pension in the country, have straight backs and strong knees, come after your money. You look in disbelief as [they] fix their stuff ups with your future.
“I have never voted ALP in my life, and will not start now. But I make a promise, if Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey touch my super … I will never forgive them.”
Why would a government with negative political capital unsettle its base with threats of higher taxes, while spending accelerates on its watch? That’s not a winning strategy.
===

THANK YOU TECHNOLOGY

Tim Blair – Sunday, April 05, 2015 (5:07pm)

Our jobs at the Daily Telegraph just became a whole lot easier.
===

Fracking fearmongering

Andrew Bolt April 06 2015 (12:01am)

Mark Latham on fire:
(L)ast month I saw Frackman at my local municipal hall – a taxpayer-funded film tracing the adventures of Dayne Pratzky in campaigning against coal seam gas (CSG) in rural Queensland.
Like most forms of left-wing propaganda, the event was hosted by a couple of B-grade celebrities: the Australian actors Michael Caton and Nell Schofield…

After 90 minutes of non-stop whinging and hysteria, the truth about Frackman’s complaint was finally revealed.
Having broken into the fracking company’s compound and stolen chemical samples, Pratzky arranged for one of his associates to test the material.
In a wonderful advertisement for the safety of CSG, the chemicals were found to be benign…
It was a fracking false alarm.
In a major public inquiry into CSG in 2013-14, the NSW chief scientist looked at 2.5 million wells around the world and couldn’t identify a single case of contamination. After watching Frackman, we can make that 2.5 million plus one.
The campaign against the industry is one of the most fraudulent, misinformed and irrational pieces of politics I have ever seen…
In the United States ... most environmentalists support fracking for its success in cutting greenhouse emissions – succeeding where the American political system has failed.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Is Dan Andrews the new Joan Kirner?

Andrew Bolt April 05 2015 (6:27pm)

Judith Sloan says Labor hasn’t taken long to put Victoria on the fast track of decline:
I just can’t believe what we read every day about the economically damaging and ideological decisions, driven by the CFMEU in many instances, that the Andrews government is implementing: 
Ditching the construction code;
Abandoning the ‘move on’ laws that would have prevented unions and their associates blockading innocent businesses;
Using taxpayer funds to provide an obscenely generous enterprise agreement to the ambos, to be followed by other public sector workers;
Ditching the 2.5 per cent public sector wage ceiling;
Just popping in two more Public Holidays – Easter Sunday will cost the taxpayer $26 million in additional costs alone for public sector workers;
Mishandling the abandonment of the East-West Link project (and lying about it prior to the election, including the firm promise to release the contract) to the point that hundreds of millions of dollars will be paid in compensation to the contractors and financiers (the government will attempt to fudge the figures) even though Andrews told the voters of Victoria that the contract was invalid;
Telling voters to take a ‘chill pill’ when it comes to road congestion in Melbourne, with the alternative of a ridiculously expensive and disruptive underground rail project that will probably never be built;
Making all sorts of appointments based on political connections and not on merit, including of individuals with clear conflicts of interest.
And now we have this profoundly ideological decision to ditch a project ... that has been in the offing for ages and is close to being contracted – a floor in the new cancer centre for private and overseas patients…
It is a real case of back to the future in Victoria – it just may be that Dan is the new John/Joan.

To explain Judith’s last point:
A DEAL to include 42 private hospital beds in the new $1 billion Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre has been torn up by the Andrews Government.
The Government’s decision, which has been described as “secretive” and political, puts at risk $20 million in philanthropic donations gathered for the VCCC by the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre…
The original scope of the Parkville centre — which will open in 2016 and include 160 public beds, 10 theatres and laboratory space for hundreds of cancer researchers — has already been reduced because of a $10 million fundraising shortfall. A fresh warning has been issued by Peter Mac, which would have operated the private beds on the building’s 13th floor, about further “descoping” because $20 million in donations wasn’t secure without private facilities.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

McCrann: hands off our super

Andrew Bolt April 05 2015 (6:19pm)

Terry McCrann warns Treasurer Joe Hockey to back off this talk of maybe taxing super harder:
Superannuation is taxed at two levels: at contribution and subsequently in earnings. Yes, both are taxed at lower levels than other forms of income; but there is a very huge price to be paid for that — you lose access to the money for decades.
Lost in Joe’s ‘conversation’ this week was also the fact that the super contributions of ‘the rich’ are already taxed at a higher rate. Introduced by Treasurer Wayne Swan in 2012, anyone earning more than $300,000 now pays 30 per cent tax, everyone else is still at 15 per cent.
Yes, that’s less than the 47 per cent — ‘temporarily’ hiked to 49 per cent by Joe last year — to be paid if the money was paid as salary. And yes, the earnings on the 70c in every dollar left will then only be taxed at 15 per cent.
But to repeat, the taxpayer cannot access that money, as against the 53c (51c) in the dollar of ordinary earnings. Further, the taxpayer can redirect money coming directly to him or her into low tax or no tax or even tax-loss generating alternatives. Or more simply be spent, with an eye to a taxpayer-funded pension in retirement.
Simply and clearly, superannuation should be taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income on both equity and efficiency grounds. Equity, as a fair trade off for the inflexibility it imposes; efficiency, otherwise no money other than mandated would flow into super.
With both equity and efficiency served by the central objective of our universal super scheme — that in time the tax concessions will be effectively repaid by a retiree not getting the old-age pension or at least not a full pension.
A casual assumption of utter stupidity hung over much of the ‘conversation’ in the idea that a super balance of more than $2 million was ‘more than enough’; that it would finance a ‘high income’ in lifetime perpetuity.
Yes it might, in the context of the 10 per cent-plus income returns of the last two decades. But not if we are entering a future of 2-3 per cent returns — especially in fixed interest securities which should form the bulk of super balances in retirement pension mode.
While a $2 million ‘balanced’ portfolio is vulnerable to being cut 20-30 per cent in another GFC. Suddenly a ‘rich’ self-funded retiree might be struggling to live on $45,000 a year.
While that might sound reasonable right now, what of a return of inflation? Even modest 5 per cent inflation cuts the value of a super balance in half after 14 years.
By then an income of effectively $22,500 a year would no longer sound quite so ‘rich’. It would also almost certainly see such a ‘rich retiree’ back on the pension — somewhat defeating the purpose of the exercise.
===

The Bolt Report today, April 5

Andrew Bolt April 05 2015 (5:56am)

On the The Bolt Report on Channel 10 at 10am and 3pm.
Guests: Dr Mark Durie, Anglican minister and Islamic expert; Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger, Professor Sinclair Davidson and Spectator Australia editor Rowan Dean. 
Topics: Christians, Muslims, enemies of free speech, protesting bigots, tax grabs, the drugs-in-sport farce, Obama’s folly and more.
The videos of the shows appear here.
===

This was the evidence against Essendon?

Andrew Bolt April 05 2015 (5:55am)

How did this case get so far?
Chip Le Grand:
The Australian Sports Anti-­Doping Authority relied on vague and possibly fabricated evidence about a “phantom” delivery of peptides in its attempt to prove that a banned drug was used by Essendon footballers.
The claim came from a witness who had not mentioned the shipment in four previous interviews.
The AFL tribunal, which this week cleared 34 current and former Essendon players of doping allegations, expressed “grave doubts” about the authenticity of documents relied on by ASADA to show a second batch of peptides containing the banned substance Thymosin Beta 4 was shipped to the Melbourne pharmacist at the centre of the doping scandal.
Sinclair Davidson:
This is tinpot dictatorship stuff – we tut-tut when this sort of thing happens overseas, yet clearly it isn’t unknown in Australia either. The government needs to send a very clear message that this sort of thing is unacceptable.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Greens dreams burned in India, as the poor get cheap power

Andrew Bolt April 05 2015 (5:38am)

Global warming believers gloated a year ago:
India’s newly elected Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has kicked off his first term in office with a promise that every home in the power-starved nation will be able to run at least one light bulb by 2019 – powered by solar…
Certainly the news has been welcomed by India’s burgeoning clean energy industry… Now, as Prime Minister, growing renewable energy generation will remain one of Modi’s top priorities…
For coal exporting nations like Australia, however – who have been forging ahead with the development of new mega mines and infrastructure in the belief that coal is the only solution to India’s booming energy needs – this news will not be welcome.
Greens leader Christine Milne cheered:
The last remaining hope for coal’s growth is in India, where around 300 million people live without electricity. However, they just elected a pro-renewable energy Prime Minister, who has increased the tax on imported coal and is using that increased tax to fund the roll out of solar in India.
In fact, a year later:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government aims to double Indian coal production to 1.5 billion tons by 2020. India needs more fuel to meet rapidly growing demand for electricity.
(Thanks to reader Neville.) 
===

New Zealand rises as Australia declines

Andrew Bolt April 05 2015 (5:31am)

The new Kiwi joke is about Australian bludgers instead:
For more than 20 years, “the tide” has been a one-way wave.... The relentless flow to Australia of some 40,000 Kiwis each year spawned a mythology of its own. They were dubbed Bondi Bludgers who either stole our jobs or sucked up our welfare…
What has happened is that somewhere, somehow, perhaps in the dead of night when no one was looking, Australia and New Zealand have swapped sides. Cocky, confident Australia is now home to dysfunctional politics, yawning budget deficits, rising unemployment and an electorate unwilling to accept tough reforms.
By contrast, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key is running the most successful and ­stable centre-right government in the world. Whereas Abbott might not survive his first term as leader, Key, 53, is into his third term and has never been more popular. Key presides over a country that is no longer a dead-end backwater but one that enjoys plentiful jobs, strong economic growth and is on the cusp of a budget surplus. All this despite its second-largest city, Christchurch, being devastated by the earthquake of February 22, 2011, which left 185 people dead, the city centre in ruins and a $40 billion clean-up.
Even the Kiwi dollar, for so long the poor cousin to our own currency, is at virtual parity these days… GDP growth in New Zealand last year was 3.3 per cent compared with 2.8 per cent in ­Australia, while unemployment was 5.7 per cent in the December quarter compared with 6.1 per cent (now 6.3 per cent) here…
As a result of this trans-Tasman shift in ­fortunes, ... the trans-Tasman migration is likely to be in New Zealand’s favour — something that has not been seen since Australia had “the recession it had to have” in the early 1990s.
Blame our opponents of reform.
(Thanks to reader Steve.) 
===

A fast-ageing Iran will get desperate

Andrew Bolt April 05 2015 (5:19am)

image
David P. Goldman, also known as Spengler, on the maths that makes Iran so dangerous:
Iran has an apocalyptic regime with a great deal to be apocalyptic about… [N]o poor country in the entire troubled history of the world has seen its fertility rate plunge from 7 children per female just one generation ago to only 1.6 children per female today…
Islamism, whether of the Sunni variety propounded by Sayyid Qutb or the Shia version of Ayatollah Khomeini, rejects modernity, which it views as corrosive of Muslim society. Iran had the misfortune to be the most modernized Muslim nation (thanks to the Shah’s commitment to universal female literacy), as well as the most backward in ideology under the Islamic Republic. Its unsuccessful engagement with modernity has left a childless country plagued by social pathologies, including some of the world’s highest rates of opium addiction, venereal disease, and prostitution.
As a matter of arithmetic, Iran will have an elderly dependent ratio worse than Europe or the United States one generation from now, with one-tenth the per capital GDP. Demographic problems which barely are soluble in rich countries are a death sentence for a poor country. This is a train wreck that cannot be averted....
As a matter of arithmetic, Iran can sustain a third of its population as elderly dependents only by acquiring the wealth of its neighbors, for example, Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, which has a Shia majority, and where Iran already is attempting to subvert the Saudi monarchy. That is why Iran is aggressive, and why no negotiation will contain it…
My recommendation to the American government since 2006 is the same as the one that former UN Ambassador John Bolton made in the New York Times March 26: destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity through air strikes. Reasonable people may disagree with this conclusion. But I still would like to hear someone disagree with my arithmetic.
UPDATE
Destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity? Barack Obama once said he thought so, too, but now has the opposite idea.
David Brooks:
First, the whole first goal of this [Iran deal] was to get rid of the Iranian nuclear program. That’s what the president said. We’re a long way from that. Second, in 10 years, lots of bad things can happen. They can really move quickly.
Third, it’s a big bet on the nature of the Iranian regime. Is it a regime that wants to join the community of nations? If it’s that, then it’s a home run.
But I’m extremely skeptical of all that. This is a regime that genuinely talks about and acts on the basis of the idea that it’s a radical regime, with a certain mission and history that doesn’t only talk about it. It acts upon. It funds Hezbollah. It funds Hamas. It funds IEDs that kill American troops. It wants to have a certain influence on the region, which is an extremely hostile influence.
And so when people like David Petraeus say that Iran is not the solution, it’s the problem, then I think you have to think we’re ... going to end up enriching a regime that will end up doing us harm…
(Y)ou go back to the Iran-Iraq War. They have land mines fighting the Iraqis. How did they clear land mines? They took kids, they gave them a string, and they had them walk across a field.
So they’re in a different mental universe, blowing up land mines with their kids. Now, granted, that was at the high point of the revolution. But they’re not so far away…
They are a radical regime ... (W)ithin a few short years, they will be pumping out oil, they will be a lot richer, their influence on the region will be greater, and the Saudis will have to counter. And I already think that the region is in the midst or in the very beginning of what some people have called a 30-years war, a religious war.
And allowing Iran to get richer and potentially nuclear in the middle of that 30-years war strikes me as risky.
(Thanks to readers Graham and Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Drugging the toddler for an easy ride

Andrew Bolt April 05 2015 (5:01am)

We have a problem:
One in five NSW families are doping their children with medication to keep them quiet on long road trips, a new national study of motorists has revealed.
The driving survey, commissioned by insurer GIO, ... [showed] 18 per cent of NSW drivers admit to tranquillising their children with drugs that sedate - such as the antihistamine Phenergan - to make the journey more comfortable.
And this is the generation some people want to trust with euthanasia, too. 
===

A fantastic sunset at Seal Rock in San Francisco started of our Night Eyes Photo Workshops workshop.  It was a great evening and we all had a blast.  More pics to come!
Posted by Matt Granz on Sunday, 5 April 2015

===

#IncredibleIndia !! Indians are awesome !! Indiaaaaa incredibleeeeeeeeee india !!!
Posted by Guga Prasad on Wednesday, 4 March 2015

===

Don't expect this much love at your next lion encounter.
Posted by RantPets on Saturday, 31 January 2015

===

If I only we could all be as cool as this dog playing The White Stripes on the drums!
Posted by FAMOUS Magazine Australia on Thursday, 2 April 2015

===

#BookCake (Source: http://bit.ly/1IXHb5F.)
Posted by The Reading Room on Friday, 3 April 2015

===

Don't drive yourself crazy over small details. Instead, use these 5 tips to look at the big picture when revising your novel: http://bit.ly/1GbXeP2
Posted by Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing on Saturday, 4 April 2015

===

This Invention Will Change The World, Just Watchhttp://paksc.org/videoVideo source: Solarroadways com#PakSChttp://facebook.com/pakscienceclub
Posted by Pakistan Science Club. on Monday, 30 June 2014


David Daniel Ball http://jalopnik.com/why-the-solar-roadway-is-a-terrible...

Why The Solar Roadway Is A Terrible Idea
Against all odds, the crowd-funded solar road project was a remarkable money-acquiring success. It's clear there are...
JALOPNIK.COM|BY JASON TORCHINSKY

David Daniel Ball Back in 2010, Scott Brusaw estimated a cost of $10,000 for a 12-foot-by-12-foot segment of Solar Roadway, or around $70 per square foot; asphalt, on the other hand, is somewhere around $3 to $15, depending on the quality and strength of the road.May 27, 2014

Pacman Mk Louie Wach people slip when it gets wet & hurt them self s not safe at all

Oh It's great for home drive ways or parks, but not roads. Imagine the cost of maintenance when solar panels which will start to fail in 10~15 years time, all the havoc it will create when road lines are not working. Not to mention amount of roads that are covered by tree shades.

CT ·
I don't think reason is the point though... the point is SOLAR FREAKIN' ROADWAYS!

CT
But yes, all valid arguments. Sadly I agree it's not sustainable as a road surface. I think the idea of replacing roofing with something similar is much better.

David Daniel Ball Roofing costs are about $1.45 a square foot. It is also more expensive to tile, but not that much.

David Daniel Ball It could be an interesting Christmas light solution.

Pacman Mk Louie Go feed the homeless stop wasting money

Gary Cachia im with CT I don't think reason is the point though... the point is SOLAR FREAKIN' ROADWAYS! get with it! ===

===

===

===

===

===

===

===

===

===

===

===

===

=== Posts from last year ===

STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!

Tim Blair – Saturday, April 05, 2014 (3:27am)

Wild-eyed warmist Bill McKibben calls for a climate scientist strike: 
At this point it’s absurd to keep asking the scientific community to churn out more reports. In fact, it might almost be more useful if they went on strike: until you pay attention to what we’ve already told you, we won’t be telling you more …

image
Down tools, warmist workers of the world!

Because it’s perfectly clear by now that you can’t scare politicians with the news that the world is ending. 
McKibben’s piece was published by MSNBC, which evidently is comfortable running his line about the end of the world. Leftist media is now deeper than ever in crazy old man territory.
As for the strike, go for it. Let’s make it global. Australian taxpayers will be grateful for the savings.
UPDATE. The strikers will have to stop lying.
===

THE SUN ISN’T THE ONLY THING SINKING IN THE WEST

Tim Blair – Saturday, April 05, 2014 (3:17am)

Today’s Senate election in Western Australia could deliver the final blow to Labor’s idiotic carbon tax. Here’s where the issue stood just three years ago:



WA readers are invited to provide updates.
===

STOP! GRAMMAR TIME

Tim Blair – Friday, April 04, 2014 (8:23pm)

Count the errors in this Richard Ackland sentence: 
The senior brass at Fairfax, no doubt have something up their french cuffed sleaves. 
===

Barry Cohen: the law should not make this debate so dangerous

Andrew Bolt April 05 2014 (11:39am)

Free speech

Former Labor Minister Barry Cohen, himself Jewish, says the Racial Discrimination Act is a dangerous limitation on free speech: 

Much of our legislation is designed to shut people up instead of widening the debate and have important issues placed under public scrutiny. No better example exists than the definition of who is an Aborigine. I have never witnessed a debate where people are as terrified of stating their views. Ask Andrew Bolt. Almost anything one says can be branded as racist. 
You don’t think so? Let’s start with a few more of the more obvious ones. 
A person states they are Aboriginal but doesn’t look remotely like one. Their skin is as white as snow, their features are Anglo-Celtic and they have little if any knowledge of Aboriginal history, culture and language. They can take their place in society without fear of racial vilification. What assistance should be provided to those whose great-great-grandparents suffered bru­tality, hum­iliation and deprivation in the 19th century? Despite them showing no signs of Aboriginal descent and no longer being publicly discriminated against, should they be compensated for injustices perpetrated a century ago? When they have had a good education, healthcare, housing and social justice, and are free of persecution, should they and their children continue to receive compensation for injustices that occurred in the distant past? 
If we do believe that, why stop at Aborigines? Why not take up the cause of the millions who have been similarly treated in their countries of origin? Of course it’s ridiculous. All of the above should be assisted only on the basis of need — black, brown or brindle. It’s called equality.
===

The bruvvers, united, will always give each other nice contracts

Andrew Bolt April 05 2014 (11:31am)

Perfectly legal, and yet it stinks. That is members’ money, folks:
FORMER NSW Labor powerbroker and senator Mark Arbib was paid more than $60,000 by the now jailed Health Services Union boss Michael Williamson for a six-month consultancy between leaving his job as the party’s state secretary and taking a seat in federal parliament. 

Williamson authorised the payment of four cheques to Mr Arbib totalling $61,600 when he employed him between January 2008 and July that year. 
The revelation that Williamson hired the influential former party secretary and national convener of the ALP’s dominant Right faction comes a week after the disgraced union chief was sentenced to five years’ jail for defrauding his low-paid members of almost $1 million.
At the time of hiring Mr Arbib, Williamson’s corruption was not publicly known, and payments made to Mr Arbib were legal transactions recorded in the HSU’s accounts. But the job Williamson gave to Mr Arbib is an indication of the patronage and power network that operated between the ALP and its key trade union backers, and how Williamson may have used that network to further his own political ambitions. Nine months after Mr Arbib entered the Senate, Williamson was elected unopposed as ALP national president. 
When in Canberra as an MP Arbib stayed in a unit leased by Williamson’s daughter, then working for Prime Minister Julia Gillard:
Mr Arbib told The Weekend Australian he paid his share of rent for the Canberra flat directly to Ms Williamson’s bank account because, as far as he knew, the lease was in her name and she had rented the flat before he moved in. 
The Weekend Australian has confirmed the apartment was owned by a Canberra resident with no known connection to Ms Williamson or Mr Arbib.
===

How juvenile can Fairfax get?

Andrew Bolt April 05 2014 (11:14am)

I gave several other examples just the other day, and here’s the latest from The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.  Did Fairfax journalists get a memo insisting that every story on Tony Abbott be decorated with the most gratuitously unflattering picture they can find?:
image
Fairfax wants silly? Why not have a competition to spot the mistakes in a single sentence from Herald columnist Richard Ackland.  
===

Hanson-Young takes offence at having the law explained

Andrew Bolt April 05 2014 (11:07am)

Child Senator Sarah Hanson-Young does not only support laws which dangerously restrict our freedom to debate issues she deems too sensitive. She also doesn’t much like being corrected even in a Senate committee by a public servant patiently explaining the law:
Who the hell does she think she is?
(Thanks to reader Les.) 
===

What else does warmist Tony Jones not know?

Andrew Bolt April 05 2014 (10:30am)

A strange passage in the debate between ABC host Tony Jones, a fervent warmist, and Clive Palmer, who wants the carbon tax gone:
CLIVE PALMER: In New Zealand, they’ve got a fart tax because sheep give out the most methane. They’ve introduced things like that … 
TONY JONES: Yeah, that’s not – well that’s not carbon, that’s methane. 
Is Jones, who campaigns so stridently for the global warming cause, really unaware that methane is a far more potent global warming gas than carbon dioxide?
America’s EPA:
Methane (CH4) is the second most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted in the United States from human activities. In 2011, CH4 accounted for about 9% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. Methane is emitted by natural sources such as wetlands, as well as human activities such as leakage from natural gas systems and the raising of livestock. Natural processes in soil and chemical reactions in the atmosphere help remove CH4 from the atmosphere. Methane’s lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon dioxide (CO2), but CH4 is more efficient at trapping radiation than CO2. Pound for pound, the comparative impact of CH4 on climate change is over 20 times greater than CO2 over a 100-year period.
(Thanks to reader Harry.) 
===

If we let in this man, who on earth do we block?

Andrew Bolt April 05 2014 (10:17am)

Yet again I ask: who is minding the door?
Father-of-three Wassim Assafiri, 35, has been rejected for citizenship a third time because of his criminal history…
He was on Centrelink benefits when arrested in 2005 after a bank officer noticed the driver’s licence he was using to send $200,000 to Lebanon was false…

Assafiri arrived­ in Australia from Lebanon in July 2002, with wife Ghazwa Baltaji, a Lebanese-born Australian citizen. He was granted residency in March 2005.
In 2006 he was jailed for three years and nine months — reduced on appeal to one year and five months — after pleading guilty to three counts of money laundering, possessing money believed to be the proceeds of crime and making 19 false statements…
Ms Toohey said “at some point” after being released from jail in February 2008, he was assessed by Centrelink as eligible for a disability support pension on the grounds of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms “although he did not meet the diagnostic criteria for this condition"… He is still on a disability support pension — which begins at $577.40 a fortnight — while working part-time as a driver with a kitchen company and doing voluntary work at a mosque. 
Who let him in?
Who failed to throw him out?
Who gave him benefits the first time, when he was fit and able to indulge in criminal activity?
Who gave him benefits this time, when he is fit and able to work as a truck driver and volunteer - and did not meet the eligibility criteria?
Whose interests are being protected here?
(Thanks to reader chriss.) 
===

The racism of “anti-racist” crusaders against free speech

Andrew Bolt April 05 2014 (9:58am)

Q&A panelist Mona Eltahawy last Monday indulged in the fashionable racism of the anti-racist:
[The] people who go on the most about freedom of expression and it’s my right to say this and my right to say that are usually old, rich, white men who parade under the term libertarian. And what it ends up basically meaning is: I have the right to be a racist and sexist shit .. 
They have deep pockets, these libertarian, you know, old rich white men… This is why I am bringing in the rich, old, white men… I don’t have rich - you know, rich, old, white men who are racist who are going to provide the money for this.
Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson:
[On] last Monday night’s episode of ABC1’s Q&A, the “human rights” panel unsurprisingly debated the Abbott government’s proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act… 
But there is an insidious argument now creeping into the debate: that free speech protects “old rich white men”.
Getting past the obvious hypocrisy of using race and gender-based abuse to defend a law that seeks to outlaw unjust prejudice, the intention of the argument is that “old white rich men” have both money and power to communicate their views and therefore restrictions on their speech are justified to make things fairer for those who are weaker…
But it is actually a dangerous argument for censorship. First, it misrepresents what the universal human right to free speech is. Free speech is for everyone....
[This] is a deliberate tactic to dehumanise and delegitimise the opinion of anyone who doesn’t conform to identity-based politics and fit into a minority group. Putting aside Monday night’s silliness, this attitude was amply demonstrated on an episode of Q&A a few weeks earlier where Lisa Wilkinson asked Attorney-General, George Brandis, if his position on 18C was based on being a “white, able-bodied, heterosexual male”?
I’d add that stopping an “old rich white male” from speaking also means stopping many other people, not necessarily rich, white or male, from hearing and deciding an argument for themselves. It is to treat people as fundamentally stupid, to be trusted only with the news and views that a political class deems fit.
It is the mindset, in short, of the totalitarian. 
===

Why can’t the ABC find conservative talent when Sky can?

Andrew Bolt April 05 2014 (9:26am)

Gerard Henderson on the refusal of the ABC to fix a bias that is against the state-broadcaster’s charter:
[ABC managing director Mark] Scott sees fit to offer gratuitous comments on the commercial media while presiding over a public broadcaster that does not employ one conservative presenter, producer or editor for any of its prominent television, radio or online outlets. One ABC board member has said privately that board members have been advised that there are no qualified conservatives for such positions...
How strange. Why, then, has the commercially successful Sky News managed to find what the ABC boss declares he can’t? Sky’s most popular show is hosted by Paul Murray, not actually a conservative but certainly not a man of the Left as are the ABC’s more recently appointed presenters - Jonathan Green, Waleed Aly, Ellen Fanning, Julian Morrow and so on. Sky hosts also included Chris Kenny, recently vilified on ABC as a “dog f...er” and shown in a doctored picture sodomising a dog. Yesterday Sky News tried out as a fill-in host former Liberal MP Ross Cameron. One of its regular commentators is the highly articulate Rowan Dean, my guest on tomorrow’s Bolt Report.  It’s just signed up Peter Reith.
Why is Sky able to find the conservatives Mark Scott tells his board just don’t exist? And why does the board continue to take Scott at his word, and continue to permit this flagrant breach of the ABC’s charter?
Is Scott in denial, is he lazy or is he just not being frank? Henderson continues: 
In this year’s AN Smith Lecture, Scott once again went into denial — boasting that the ABC remains the most trusted and respected source of news and inform­ation in the country. This simply ignores the recent opinion polls that demonstrate that a significant proportion of Coalition voters regard the ABC as biased or politically imbalanced: 35 per cent according to Newspoll and 46 per cent according to AC Nielsen. 
This is a serious problem, which Scott refuses to acknowledge. Not surprisingly, Greens voters are the most supportive of the ABC. 
The ABC receives $1.1 billion a year from taxpayers to run Australia’s biggest media organisation by far. In exchange it has a very important duty - to ensure balance. It is not just failing that duty but actively betraying it.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Labor fears its about-to-be Senator will help Tony Abbott

Andrew Bolt April 05 2014 (9:12am)

Labor has good reason to fear Joe Bullock, its lead Senate candidate in today’s rerun Senate election in Western Australia:
Senior Labor MPs told The Weekend Australian yesterday they feared that the deeply ­conservative [Joe] Bullock would resign from the party to sit on the crossbenches after he arrived in Canberra, a move that would boost Tony Abbott’s ability to pass key legislation… 
Labor MPs scrambled to defend Mr Bullock publicly, but ­privately admitted it was impossible to disendorse him only a day before the election.
Several of the MPs predicted he would be ostracised in the federal caucus if, as expected, he wins a Senate seat today."Canberra is a very, very lonely place,” said one federal Labor MP from Western Australia."If Joe is ostracised by everyone in the Labor Party, then he can’t have any impact (and) if that means sitting on the cross-benches, he will give that ­consideration.” Another MP said: “I don’t think he’ll do a (Mal) Colston and do a formal deal with the Libs, but I do think it’s possible that he will sit on the cross-benches.”
And why wouldn’t he, given the views he passed on last year in a dinner speech?:
I think Tony Abbott could potentially be a very good Prime Minister.
Why not, when he has such contempt for Labor figures such as his running mate, Louise Pratt.
A lesbian I think although after her partner’s sex change I can’t be quite sure, but I think she’s a lesbian. So she’s a key spokesperson for that persuasion. And they were very keen to see that a person like me couldn’t get into the senate.
Why not, when he thinks Labor has sold out the working man and woman:
image
But more importantly, why wouldn’t he sit on the crossbenches in the Senate, rather than allow a Labor and Greens bloc to paralyse this country for the next two years?
Hear some of the Bullock comments on my show last night (audio courtesy of The Australian.)
UPDATE
I still think the Coalition will hang on to its three WA Senate seats, but might go backwards if the sixth seat falls to Clive Palmer or someone even less friendly:
But most others think Abbott will go backwards - which means a virtually gridlocked Senate for the rest of his term:
At the federal election last year, the Liberals won three Senate seats in the west and held those seats in the recounts after challenges from the Greens. 
On the other side of the Senate ticket, the winners were a combination of the ALP, the Greens and PUP… (S)enior party sources from the Liberal and Labor parties were suggesting the most likely scenarios from their respective positions as: two Liberal and two ALP senators elected first with a Greens next and then a fight for the sixth spot between the Liberals and PUP candidates; and two Liberals and one ALP with one Greens elected first, with the possibility of a second Greens and then a fight between PUP, the Liberals and HEMP candidates.
A quick history of how we got here:
The contest for the final two Western Australian seats had been so close last September that a re-count was ordered to make sure the result was accurate. It was the first time a Senate re-count had been held since 1980 and the first to be conducted under the current Electoral Act. 
The first count had elected Labor’s Louise Pratt and Palmer United’s Zhenya Wang to the final two seats. The re-count saw them defeated and the final two seats won by the Greens’ Scott Ludlam and the Australian Sports Party’s Wayne Dropulich. But between the original count and the re-count, 1,370 ballot papers went missing. The Court of Disputed returns ruled that the missing ballot papers made it impossible to determine who won the final two seats and voided the writ declaring six Senators elected. A new writ has been issued for the re-election
And let’s say it works out as the first two counts had it, with the Coalition winning three seats, Labor/Greens two and Palmer or some independent the last. Here is the balance - and you can see why that sixth seat result is so vital:
The Government could end up with 33 senators next July, facing around 35 combined Labor/Green votes. 
This means a crossbench of around eight in the 76-seat Chamber. Two of them — independent Nick Xenophon and Democratic Labour Party’s John Madigan — will back the Government on carbon pricing. The Government will need at least three more votes [actually four] from the remaining six cross benchers, with Mr Palmer controlling most of them, depending on Saturday’s result. 
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Our constitution is not racist, and Goodes and his supporters will only make it so

Andrew Bolt April 05 2014 (8:06am)

The constitution is racist, says Adam Goodes - so racist, in fact, that it produces a country which makes Goodes Australian of the Year:

AUSTRALIAN of the Year Adam Goodes has described the Constitution as “very racist” as he campaigns to have indigenous people recognised in the nation’s founding document… “In Section 25 in the Constitution, the states can ban people from voting based on their race,’’ he said.
It does? So where in the country is a single person banned from voting on the grounds of their race?
In fact, Anne Twoomey, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Sydney, points out section 25 was meant to fight racism, not entrench it:
Section 25 says that if a State law disqualifies all the people of any race from voting in State elections, then those persons shall not be counted when working out how many seats each State gets in the House of Representatives. It has been described as a “racist” provision that should not appear in a modern democratic Constitution. But is it really racist or was it intended as a weapon against racism?…
It was originally inserted in the draft Constitution at the initiative of politician, Andrew Inglis Clark.... [with the aim of] penalising any State that enacted racially discriminatory voting laws… This is not necessarily a reason to keep section 25 in the Constitution. Hopefully we no longer need such a provision to discourage the States from enacting racially discriminatory voting laws. But in repealing section 25, let us not treat it as a disgusting and shameful remnant of past attitudes. Let us remember it more fondly as a small seed of civil rights planted by a noble man in a different age.  
Keith Windschuttle makes the same point:
The framers of the constitution included [Section 25] to force recalcitrant states into giving Aborigines the vote. The two principal targets were Western Australia and Queensland, which in the 1890s denied the vote to full blood Aborigines. Section 25 held as long as they did this the comparatively large Aboriginal populations of those states could not be used to inflate the number of lower house seats each state would get in the new Federal Parliament. In other words, states that denied Aborigines the vote would get fewer representatives. 
And look what happened. it long ago produced this very society in which Goodes is a free man with all the rights of an Australian citizen - a country so free, in fact, that people of all “races” and from all corners of the world come to join us.

Goodes, wrong on section 25, continues:
[The constitution is] a lengthy document, but there are some areas in the document that are very, very racist towards indigenous people.
Again, just wrong. Goodes is talking about section 51. Windschuttle explains:
It reads in full: “The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to: (xxvi.) The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws.” 
Again, the panel [proposing its removal] failed to research its topic. Its members should have been well aware that not once since federation has this section lent support to discrimination or racial abuse of Aboriginal people. Every time state and commonwealth laws in this field have been tested in the High Court, their intention has been found to be for the benefit of Aboriginal people.
This is so true that the “reconciliation’’ movement itself admits that simply repealing it could well stop the Commonwealth from running programs and paying benefits meant to help a particular “race”. That is something I’d actually support, being against racism, but this thought horrifies the fashionable adherents of the new politics of racial identity. So what they propose to remove with one hand, then intend to replace with the other, as the Law Council of Australia explains in its discussion paper on constitutional recognition (which it unfortunately backs):
The Law Council further supports the repeal of the anachronistic race power in section 51(xxvi) which ... provides a source of power for the enactment of racially discriminatory laws.... 
There would arise, however, a need to provide a new power to legislate with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. One option would be to replace section 51(xxvi) with a power of Federal Parliament to make laws “with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples” (such laws not being based on race rather, as the Chief Justice, the Hon Robert French, has commented, “on the special place of those peoples in the history of the nation"14). 
What weaselly equivocation. There’s the Law Society proposing a race-based law but squealing that’s it’s not race-based because its heart is good.
And that’s the enormous hypocrisy of this who recognition push. As Goodes himself argues - it wants the “racist” constitution changed by actually making it more racist. It wants to fight racism by honoring one “race” and thus elevating all its members above those of other “races” on the basis of the “race” of some of their ancestors:
Adam Goodes has described the Constitution as “very, very racist’’ as he campaigns to have indigenous people recognised in the nation’s founding document…
It’s time to change it and recognise Aboriginal people… First of all, Aboriginal people have been here a lot longer than anybody else, so just remember whose lands you are on..
Most Australians would instinctively feel the racism and divisiveness underlying such sentiments. Goodes has not been here longer than I have - unless you consider him not as Adam Goodes, individual, but Adam Goodes, representative of the Aboriginal “race”.  And see where Goode’s position leads: not to unity but to racial division, with some Australians declared to have a superior right to this land by virtue of the ‘race” of some of their ancestors. Here are the seeds of apartheid.

Change the constitution as Goodes and his supporters demand and our most fundamental legal document will enshrine a new and dangerous principle: that henceforth all Australians will be recognised not as individuals alike, but as representatives of their “race”, to be judged on whether or not some great-grandparent or two in their tangled ancestry was Aboriginal. To be divided between the first and rest, on the basis of whose ancestors have been here longest. 
Say no to racism. Say no to racial division. Say no to changing our constitution. 
===

The Bolt Report tomorrow

Andrew Bolt April 05 2014 (12:18am)

On the show tomorrow – Network 10 at 10am and 4pm....
The end of the world is nigh is a joke.
Labor’s Andrew Leigh, the wonderful Niki Savva and former Keating Minister Gary Johns.  And on NewsWatch Rowan Dean cuts loose. I wouldn’t watch if were Mark Scott.
The videos of the shows appear here.
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===
Teach a man to fish, or, vote Democrat?
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 ===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
===

 
=== 
This story will warm you better more than a coffee on a cold winter day...

"We enter a little coffeehouse with a friend of mine and give our order. While we're approaching our table two people come in and they go to the counter -

'Five coffees, please. Two of them for us and three suspended'

They pay for their order, take the two and leave.
I ask my friend: 'What are those 'suspended' coffees ?' 'Wait for it and you will see' she replies...

Some more people enter. Two girls ask for one coffee each, pay and go. The next order was for seven coffees and it was made for three lawyers - three for them and four 'suspended'.

While I still wonder what's the deal with those 'suspended' coffees I enjoy the sunny weather and the beautiful view towards the square in front of the café.

Suddenly a man dressed in shabby clothes who looks like a beggar comes in through the door and kindly asks 'Do you have a suspended coffee ?'

It's simple - people pay in advance for a coffee meant for someone who can not afford a warm beverage.

The tradition with the suspended coffees started in Naples, but it has spread all over the world and in some places you can order not only a suspended coffee, but also a sandwich or a whole meal."

Please Share :) Why not ask your local cafe if it's something they'll consider participating in
===
WHEN SOCIAL MEDIA IS A SOCIAL DISEASE Larry Pickering

In the wake of an outrageous attempt to gag the Press, McTernan has arranged through the PM’s office to close Twitter accounts critical of Gillard and censor messages. This was achieved with the cooperation of Twitter’s roving publicist, Mike Brown.

Hundreds of complaints have been made to Twitter about messages being deleted and in some circumstances altered to appear as pro-Gillard Tweets.

Whether serious money changed hands or not cannot be established but why, immediately after a visit from McTernan, did a grubby little Yank going by the name of Mike Brown, start censoring Tweets?

Tweets critical of Abbott have remained untouched. Among those emanating from the PM’s office are particularly offensive such as from the account of AshGhebranious: “They will send Abbott’s daughters to Indonesia to have sex with Ministers till they allow coalition to tow back boats.” That tweet remains.

Another from the same account: “You planning to murder any refugees today? Putting it live stream for your fans” #730# Auspol @MathiasCorman.

There are too many instances to itemise, but these filthy messages remain uncensored while those critical of Gillard instantly disappear.

There have been many posts of incriminating material, regarding Gillard’s involvement in the AWU fraud, simply disappearing from my Facebook page.

No explanation and no reply from Facebook. If I repost I am immediately banned.

I understand that the strapon could be seen as offensive, but not a copy of a fraudulent application form in Gillard’s handwriting.

Thus the website The Pickering Post was born yet that website has also suffered continual hacking and DoS attacks rendering it unusable for days at a time until we can invent ways to stop them.

A female in the PM’s Office by the name of Tadlette and using the account name of “Apparatchik Tads”, appears to be the driving force behind this gutter level of Twitter bastardry.

Tadlette tweeted “Hi @TwitterAU the right wing trolls are posting personal info inciting harassment IRL... please monitor @anonOz1 bit.ly/YJMj8q

Gillard and McTernan’s stated determination to emulate Obama’s re-election using social media techniques is starting to take shape.

There will be much more to come and the PM’s coffers are overflowing with hard union cash.

PS AshGhebranious just came up as the source of a corrupted link which has prevented me posting for a while. We will see what happens from here.
===
How amazing does this Chocolate lasagna look! Thanks for sharing XposedByEye PhotoArt :)

1 package regular Oreo cookies (Not Double Stuff) – about 36 cookies
6 Tablespoon butter, melted
1- 8 ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons cold milk
1- 12 ounce tub Cool Whip, divided
2 – 3.9 ounce packages Chocolate Instant Pudding.
3 1/4 cups cold milk
1 and 1/2 cups mini chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

1. Begin by crushing 36 Oreo cookies. I used my food processor for this, but you could also place them in a large ziplock bag and crush them with a rolling pin. When the Oreos have turned into fine crumbs, you are done.
2. Transfer the Oreo crumbs to a large bowl. Stir in 6 tablespoons melted butter and use a fork to incorporate the butter into the cookie crumbs. When the butter is distributed, transfer the mixture to a 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan. Place the pan in the refrigerator while you work on the additional layers.
3. Mix the cream cheese with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add in 2 Tablespoons of milk, and sugar, and mix well. Stir in 1 and 1/4 cups Cool Whip. Spread this mixture over the crust.
4. In a bowl, combine chocolate instant pudding with 3 and 1/4 cups cold milk. Whisk for several minutes until the pudding starts to thicken. Use a spatula to spread the mixture over the previous cream cheese layer. Allow the dessert to rest for about 5 minutes so that the pudding can firm up further.
5. Spread the remaining Cool Whip over the top. Sprinkle mini chocolate chips evenly over the top. Place in the freezer for 1 hour, or the refrigerator for 4 hours before serving.
   
===
Akashi-Kaikyō Bridge
===
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” - Ephesians 1:7
===
Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."
2 Corinthians 5:21
Mourning Christian! why weepest thou? Art thou mourning over thine own corruptions? Look to thy perfect Lord, and remember, thou art complete in him; thou art in God's sight as perfect as if thou hadst never sinned; nay, more than that, the Lord our Righteousness hath put a divine garment upon thee, so that thou hast more than the righteousness of man--thou hast the righteousness of God. O thou who art mourning by reason of inbred sin and depravity, remember, none of thy sins can condemn thee. Thou hast learned to hate sin; but thou hast learned also to know that sin is not thine--it was laid upon Christ's head. Thy standing is not in thyself--it is in Christ; thine acceptance is not in thyself, but in thy Lord; thou art as much accepted of God today, with all thy sinfulness, as thou wilt be when thou standest before his throne, free from all corruption. O, I beseech thee, lay hold on this precious thought, perfection in Christ! For thou art "complete in him." With thy Saviour's garment on, thou art holy as the Holy one. "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." Christian, let thy heart rejoice, for thou art "accepted in the beloved"--what hast thou to fear? Let thy face ever wear a smile; live near thy Master; live in the suburbs of the Celestial City; for soon, when thy time has come, thou shalt rise up where thy Jesus sits, and reign at his right hand; and all this because the divine Lord "was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

Evening

"Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord."
Isaiah 2:3
It is exceedingly beneficial to our souls to mount above this present evil world to something nobler and better. The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches are apt to choke everything good within us, and we grow fretful, desponding, perhaps proud and carnal. It is well for us to cut down these thorns and briers, for heavenly seed sown among them is not likely to yield a harvest; and where shall we find a better sickle with which to cut them down than communion with God and the things of the kingdom? In the valleys of Switzerland, many of the inhabitants are deformed, and all wear a sickly appearance, for the atmosphere is charged with miasma, and is close and stagnant; but up yonder, on the mountain, you find a hardy race, who breathe the clear fresh air as it blows from the virgin snows of the Alpine summits. It would be well if the dwellers in the valley could frequently leave their abodes among the marshes and the fever mists, and inhale the bracing element upon the hills. It is to such an exploit of climbing that I invite you this evening. May the Spirit of God assist us to leave the mists of fear and the fevers of anxiety, and all the ills which gather in this valley of earth, and to ascend the mountains of anticipated joy and blessedness. May God the Holy Spirit cut the cords that keep us here below, and assist us to mount! We sit too often like chained eagles fastened to the rock, only that, unlike the eagle, we begin to love our chain, and would, perhaps, if it came really to the test, be loath to have it snapped. May God now grant us grace, if we cannot escape from the chain as to our flesh, yet to do so as to our spirits; and leaving the body, like a servant, at the foot of the hill, may our soul, like Abraham, attain the top of the mountain, there to indulge in communion with the Most High.
===
Gaius 
[Gā'ius] - i am glad.
This common Roman name is shared by four men, and some writers find it difficult to differentiate between them.
1. A companion of Paul and native of Macedonia. He was seized in the riot at Ephesus (Acts 19:29).
2. A man of Derbe in Lycaonia and likewise a companion of Paul. This Gaius of Derbe (Acts 20:4) is sometimes identified as Gaius at Corinth - see next Gaius.
3. The Corinthian converted and baptized by Paul, and who was the apostle's host while he was in Corinth (Rom. 16:23; 1 Cor. 1:14).
4. The godly man to whom John sent his third epistle (3 John 1). It is evident that the Apostle of Love had a deep affection for this saint he called "the wellbeloved." It would seem as if John had at sometime led him to Christ (3 John 4). John desired the material, physical and spiritual prosperity of Gaius (3 John 2, 3). The apostle also commended him for his faithful care of ministering brethren - a responsibility some seem to neglect these days ( 3 John 5-8).
===
Mary, Mother of John Mark
Among the Marys mentioned in the New Testament, Mary, the mother of Mark who wrote the second gospel, is spoken of but once (Acts 12:12 - readActs 12:1-19), yet this brief description of her is suggestive of her life and labors. She was probably the aunt or sister of Barnabas, the one-time companion of Paul (Colossians 4:10 ), and such a relationship accounts for Barnabas' choice of Mark as his companion-a selection over which Paul and Barnabas parted. Further, being related to Mary would account for the leadership among the saints gathering in her spacious home. Evidently the family belonged to Cyprus, hence the choice of such by Barnabas as the first station in his journeyings (Acts 4:36; 13:4). Sir William Ramsay holds that the narrative of Mary in the Acts was by Mark, which would account for the details of his mother's large house becoming a well-known center of Christian life and worship. There is a legend to the effect that this same house was the scene of a still more sacred gathering when, in its upper room, Jesus observed the Lord's Supper on the night of His betrayal.
It was to Mary's home that Peter found his way after his miraculous escape, for he knew that a company of believers had gathered there to pray for his release. Peter had a peculiar affection for the godly home. He called Mark, "his son" (1 Peter 5:13 ) - a spiritual son, having led him to yield his life to the Saviour. The way in which the saints met in Mary's home bespeaks her tried steadfastness and the bond of intimacy that existed between them. That Rhoda was one of the maids indicates that the household was considerably large, implying that Mary was a widow with means to maintain such a commodious home. As Barnabas her relative gave up his land for Christ, Mary gave up her Jerusalem home to be used as an infant church.
Mary was a woman of sterling qualities and was loyal to her Christian ideals. At that time Christians were a persecuted sect, yet she faced the consequences of yielding up her home as a center of spiritual power and influence, and was self-sacrificing in time, effort and money to serve the Lord. It has been suggested that young Rhoda who went to open the door for Peter was hesitant thinking perhaps it was the soldiers of Herod who had come to arrest some of the homeless Christian friends whose benefactress and patron Mary had become.
As for Mark the evangelist, her son, he was deeply attached to his mother which was probably one reason why he returned to Jerusalem from Perga (Acts 13:13). He wanted to be nearer the one who had meant so much in his life. Doubtless he derived something of Mary's straightforward and decided character so prominent in the gospel he wrote portraying Jesus as the lowly servant of God.
===

Today's reading: Ruth 1-4, Luke 8:1-25 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Ruth 1-4

Naomi Loses Her Husband and Sons
1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. 2 The man's name was Elimelek, his wife's name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.
3 Now Elimelek, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.

Today's New Testament reading: Luke 8:1-25

The Parable of the Sower
1 After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out;3 Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.
4 While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: 5 "A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. 6Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. 8Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown...."
===

Today's Lent reading: Luke 13-14 (NIV)

View today's Lent reading on Bible Gateway
Repent or Perish
1 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them--do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
6 Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?'
8 "'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig around it and fertilize it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down....'"
===
Knowing Him - An Easter Devotional

WHAT MUST BE

“‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’ Peter answered, ‘The Christ of God.’ Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.‘” (Luke 9:20-22).
It must have been a moment of extreme wonder and extreme bewilderment. Jesus had taken his disciples to a remote spot far to the north of Galilee, out into Gentile territory, and there he asked them if they understood who he was. Peter got it. Perhaps he was the first, or perhaps he was the only one to see it–their rabbi whom they had left their homes to follow was actually the Messiah of God, the one wrapped in prophecy and mystery. “You are the Christ,” (anointed one, Messiah) Peter said.
But then, just as quickly, Jesus told them that he would be killed. It would happen not at the hand of someone deranged, and not by the Romans, but by the spiritual leaders of the land. They would reject him, and they would kill him. This did not add up. Messiah was to be the great ruler, the ultimate king, the deliverer. He was supposed to be victor, not victim.
Peter and the rest could not at this time see the plan of God for the ages. They had no inside information on what had been arranged between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They could not see millions of people in the twenty-first century bowing before the Lord Christ, thanking him for making them clean.
Ponder This: What do you think your reaction would have been if you had been one of Jesus’ followers and had heard these words?
WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Resources
About The Author - Mel Lawrenz serves as minister at large for Elmbrook Church and leads The Brook Network. Having been in pastoral ministry for thirty years, the last decade as senior pastor of Elmbrook, Mel seeks to help Christian leaders engage with each other. Mel is the author of eleven books, the most recent for church leaders, Whole Church: Leading from Fragmentation to Engagement.
===
Lent=Devotions-Header
Today's Prayer

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. -- adapted from the Book of Common Prayer

Today's Scripture Reading: Ephesians 2:4-10 

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Today's Quote

"The death of Jesus Christ has turned our whole lives into one continued sacrifice--whether we eat or drink, whether we pray to God, or do any thing to man, it must all be done out of a love for and knowledge of him who died and rose again, to render all, even our most ordinary deeds, acceptable in the sight of God.

"If we live by this principle, if Christ is the Alpha and Omega of all our actions, then our lowliest actions are acceptable sacrifices; but if this principle is lacking in our lives, our most pompous services avail nothing: we are nothing but a spiritual idolater; we sacrifice to our own gain and make an idol of ourselves. We make ourselves, and not Christ, the end of our actions: and therefore such actions are so far from being acceptable by God, that according to the language of one of the Articles of our Church, 'We doubt not but they have the nature of sin, because they spring not from an experimental faith in and knowledge of Jesus Christ.'" -- adapted from George Whitefield's sermon "The Knowledge of Jesus Christ the Best Knowledge"

Something to Think About

Christ's salvation is offered to us freely, and cannot be earned by our actions. Despite this, Christians have struggled since the earliest days of the church with the temptation to try and earn God's forgiveness by doing good works, following the law, or just living "good" lives. Why is it so hard for us to accept Christ's gift? Is this a struggle for you?
at

No comments:

Post a Comment