Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Tue Jun 30th Todays News

At last you can revel in the joys of smaller government on this site for the Bolt Report Supporter's Group on Facebook. If something is broke, you fix it. Or not. There won't be any purges or changes because I've not the time to do much. But if you do something outrageous which I must respond to I will.
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Greece will default on her repayments today. The left wing Greek Government has promised her people that they can default and stay in the European Union. As if people can work but not be paid, so long as they aren't Greek. And that is wrong. The cost of the lie of the Greek government is a nervous world market which devalues because the stakes are so high. Europe should boot Greece. The campaign against austerity is dangerous and should not be accepted. There will be market pain if Greece leaves the union, but it is nothing to the pain if others feel that austerity can be rejected with impunity.  

 Joe Hockey's defamation win is only a slap on the wrist for the partisan media who would willingly cut their own throats to secure a win against conservatives. There was no need for the personal attack of the defamatory headline, but it was made for no other purpose but to attack the treasurer. And if the Fairfax press had any credibility they would pay the money and issue an apology. Instead they are un-penitent and are examining the possibility of appealing. One hopes they appeal and lose badly. 

In 350, Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, was defeated and killed in Rome by troops of the usurper Magnentius. Neither reigned long as Constantius II dealt with Magnentius three years later. 763, the Byzantine army of emperor Constantine V defeated the Bulgarian forces in the Battle of Anchialus. 1422, Battle of Arbedo between the duke of Milan and the Swiss cantons. 1520, Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés fought their way out of Tenochtitlan. 1521, Spanish forces defeated a combined French and Navarrese army at the Battle of Noáin during the Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre. 1559, King Henry II of France was mortally wounded in a jousting match against Gabriel de Montgomery. 1651, The Deluge: Khmelnytsky Uprising – the Battle of Beresteczko ended with a Polish victory. 1688, the Immortal Seven issue the Invitation to William (continuing the English rebellion from Rome), which would culminate in the Glorious Revolution. 1758, Seven Years' War: The Battle of Domstadtl took place. 1794, Native American forces under Blue Jacket attack Fort Recovery.

 In 1805, the U.S. Congress organised the Michigan Territory. 1860, the 1860 Oxford evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History took place. 1864, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln granted Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation". 1882, Charles J. Guiteau was hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield. 1886, the first transcontinental train trip across Canada departed from Montreal. It arrived in Port Moody, British Columbia on July 4. 1892, the Homestead Strike began near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

 In 1905, Albert Einstein published the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduced special relativity. 1906, the United States Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act. 1908, the Tunguska event occurred in remote Siberia. 1912, the Regina Cyclone hit Regina, Saskatchewan, killing 28. It remains Canada's deadliest tornado event. 1917, World War I: Greece declared war on the Central Powers. 1921, U.S. President Warren G. Harding appointed former President William Howard Taft Chief Justice of the United States. 1922, in Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado signed the Hughes-Peynado agreement, which ended the United States occupation of the Dominican Republic.

 In 1934, the Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, took place. 1936, Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia appealed for aid to the League of Nations against Italy's invasion of his country. 1937, the world's first emergency telephone number, 999, was introduced in London 1944, World War II: The Battle of Cherbourg ended with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces. 1953, the first Chevrolet Corvette rolled off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan. 1956, a TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 collided above the Grand Canyon in Arizona and crashed, killing all 128 on board both airliners. 1960, Congo gained independence from Belgium. 1963, Ciaculli massacre: a car bomb, intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco, killed seven police officers and military personnel near Palermo. 1966, the National Organization for Women, the United States' largest feminist organisation, was founded. 1968, Pope Paul VI issued the Credo of the People of God.

 In 1971, the crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft were killed when their air supply escaped through a faulty valve. It is difficult to overstate the tragedy. The mission to dock with a space station and stay there for weeks was successful. They kept fit on a treadmill twice a day. But on re entry, a pressure valve no one could access was left open in space. They died in seconds on re entry. Also 1971, Ohio ratified the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, reducing the voting age to 18, thereby putting the amendment into effect. 1972, the first leap second was added to the UTC time system. 1977, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization disbanded. 1985, thirty-nine American hostages from the hijacked TWA Flight 847 were freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days. 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bowers v. Hardwick that states could outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults. 1990, East Germany and West Germany merged their economies. 1997, the United Kingdom transfers sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.
2014
The 1876 election had seen the election of GOP Hayes based on a compromise. The military was pulled out of the South, ending reconstruction efforts and toppling state GOP governments. White Democrats would make the south one party and would isolate and prey upon African Americans. But in terms of populism, that was ok. Then James was elected and what followed was to James' credit in 1881, and a tragedy too. James was a GOP man too, but he had better control and discipline than Hayes. James Garfield would reform the US public service and purge corruption from the post office. He appointed african americans to prominent federal positions, promoted civil rights and education as a means to a free and fair electorate. And then, two hundred days into office, he was assassinated by a nut job. 

The nut job was like any other extreme right wing idiot that ever lived. Born in illinois, to an ethnically French family of Huguenot, Guiteau had been given $1000 and instructed to study in New York by his father. He had listening issues, and struggled as a student. He dropped out and joined a religious cult, but struggled to find his place. He went to Boston and got an easily achieved legal license, but was a failure as a barrister, managing to enrage most of his clients. Next, Guiteau turned to theology and stole material from the cult from which he had been booted. Then he decided to support GOP people. He begged Hayes for political favours, and then Garfield. Garfield had opposed corruption. So Guiteau decided to shoot him. 

Guiteau chose a pearl handled revolver for reasons of posterity. He picked his moment, approached Garfield from behind and shot him twice. Garfield would probably have survived but for the medical treatment he received by doctors that had not sterilised their surgery equipment or hands, as would be routine ten years later. It took eleven weeks for Garfield to die. In defence, Guiteau would claim that he was not guilty because "The doctors killed him, I just shot him." The defence failed, and so on this day in 1882, nine months after the shooting, Guiteau was hung. On the morning of his hanging, Guiteau wrote a poem. 

I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad,


I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad,

I am going to the Lordy,

Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!



I am going to the Lordy.



I love the Lordy with all my soul,


Glory hallelujah!

And that is the reason I am going to the Lord,

Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!

I am going to the Lord.

I saved my party and my land,

Glory hallelujah!

But they have murdered me for it,

And that is the reason I am going to the Lordy,

Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!

I am going to the Lordy!

I wonder what I will do when I get to the Lordy,

I guess that I will weep no more

When I get to the Lordy!

Glory hallelujah!

I wonder what I will see when I get to the Lordy,

I expect to see most glorious things,

Beyond all earthly conception

When I am with the Lordy!

Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!

I am with the Lord.

He was the only right wing extremist to assassinate a President of the US. He seemed incapable of rational thought, his application of poetry on a par with another right wing terrorist (McVey) who claimed he was the captain of his soul. Guiteau's case was one of the first attempts at an insanity defence in the US for a high profile case. At nine months he was the longest survivor of an assassination of a US President. 
Historical perspectives on this day
In 350, Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, was defeated and killed in Rome by troops of the usurper Magnentius. 763, the Byzantine army of emperor Constantine V defeated the Bulgarian forces in the Battle of Anchialus. 1422, Battle of Arbedo between the duke of Milan and the Swiss cantons. 1520, Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés fought their way out of Tenochtitlan. 1521, Spanish forces defeated a combined French and Navarrese army at the Battle of Noáin during the Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre. 1559, King Henry II of France was mortally wounded in a jousting match against Gabriel de Montgomery. 1651, The Deluge: Khmelnytsky Uprising – the Battle of Beresteczko ended with a Polish victory. 1688, the Immortal Seven issue the Invitation to William (continuing the English rebellion from Rome), which would culminate in the Glorious Revolution. 1758, Seven Years' War: The Battle of Domstadtl took place. 1794, Native American forces under Blue Jacket attack Fort Recovery.

 In 1805, the U.S. Congress organised the Michigan Territory. 1860, the 1860 Oxford evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History took place. 1864, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln granted Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation". 1882, Charles J. Guiteau was hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield. 1886, the first transcontinental train trip across Canada departed from Montreal. It arrived in Port Moody, British Columbia on July 4. 1892, the Homestead Strike began near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

 In 1905, Albert Einstein published the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduced special relativity. 1906, the United States Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act. 1908, the Tunguska event occurred in remote Siberia. 1912, the Regina Cyclone hit Regina, Saskatchewan, killing 28. It remains Canada's deadliest tornado event. 1917, World War I: Greece declared war on the Central Powers. 1921, U.S. President Warren G. Harding appointed former President William Howard Taft Chief Justice of the United States. 1922, in Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado signed the Hughes-Peynado agreement, which ended the United States occupation of the Dominican Republic.

 In 1934, the Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, took place. 1936, Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia appealed for aid to the League of Nations against Italy's invasion of his country. 1937, the world's first emergency telephone number, 999, was introduced in London 1944, World War II: The Battle of Cherbourg ended with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces. 1953, the first Chevrolet Corvette rolled off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan. 1956, a TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 collided above the Grand Canyon in Arizona and crashed, killing all 128 on board both airliners. 1960, Congo gained independence from Belgium. 1963, Ciaculli massacre: a car bomb, intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco, killed seven police officers and military personnel near Palermo. 1966, the National Organization for Women, the United States' largest feminist organisation, was founded. 1968, Pope Paul VI issued the Credo of the People of God.

 In 1971, the crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft were killed when their air supply escaped through a faulty valve. Also 1971, Ohio ratified the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, reducing the voting age to 18, thereby putting the amendment into effect. 1972, the first leap second was added to the UTC time system. 1977, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization disbanded. 1985, thirty-nine American hostages from the hijacked TWA Flight 847 were freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days. 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bowers v. Hardwick that states could outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults. 1990, East Germany and West Germany merged their economies. 1997, the United Kingdom transfers sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.
=== Publishing News ===
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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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. 
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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 Andrew Rohan, Rex Lee and Diana Lam. Born on the same day, across the years. Your day is notable, including 1894, London's Tower Bridge, a combined bascule and suspension bridge over the River Thames, opened. In 1908, A massive explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, knocking over 80 million trees over 2,150 square kilometres (830 sq mi). In 1934, Adolf Hitler violently purged members of the Sturmabteilung, its leader Ernst Röhm, and other political rivals on the Night of the Long Knives, executing at least 85 people. In 1963, A car bomb intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco killed seven police and military officers near Palermo. In 1971, The Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft suffered an uncontrolled decompression during preparations for reentry, killing cosmonauts Vladislav Volkov, Georgiy Dobrovolskiy and Viktor Patsayev—the only human deaths to occur in space. Grim reading, but how dare anyone raise their hand to you? The bridge is a fitting monument. Cheers.
Deaths
Henry II of France
I see. We crossed that chasm. That bridge towers. We have independence, and a dictator. Our currency is luny. Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2015
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The ABC’s “defence” of free speech is a joke

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, June 30, 2015 (6:22am)

The decision by the ABC to close ranks and deploy its resources to defend the indefensible on Monday night only seals its fate in the mind of the public. No contrition, no apology, no remedial action. Just defiance, diversion, and attack. 
Something is rotten in the ABC.
Henry Ergas explains: 
Merely hours after the managing director of the ABC claimed Zaky Mallah had the same right to ­appear on Q&A as Charlie Hebdo had to publish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, the Islamists showed the world exactly how much use they have for freedom of expression.
The 54-year-old chief executive whose severed head was placed on the fence of an American-owned factory in France; the 38 people, mostly Western tourists, who were butchered at Sousse in Tunisia; the 25 others who lost their lives in a suicide attack on one of the largest Shia mosques in Kuwait City: they won’t have the chance to debate whether Muslim extremists should be given a platform. But the jihadists’ apologists will. And if Mark Scott has his way, they will do so at Australian ­taxpayers’ expense.
Not that taxpayers have any choice; unlike the “News Ltd tabloids” Scott accused of not “pursuing a rational discourse”, we are all forced to pay the ABC’s costs. As to what it does with those funds, that, Scott maintains, is a matter for the ABC and it alone: anything else, he said last Thursday in a speech to the Centre for Corporate Public Affairs, would make us no different from “North Korea and Russia, China and Vietnam”.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The ABC’s “defence” of free speech is a joke'
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JOE WINS

Tim Blair – Tuesday, June 30, 2015 (2:50pm)

Joe Hockey has scored a tax-free $200,000 following his defamation victory over Fairfax.
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THE DRAGON WITH THE GIRL TATTOO

Tim Blair – Tuesday, June 30, 2015 (3:19am)

Fire-breathing frightbat Clementine Ford did not care for Sunday’s gentle review of her online behaviour. The seething sulphur-scented South Australian subsequently issued a tsunami of sullen smears, including this:

image

Such an allegation really should be supported with evidence. Not that I can recall any such comments – helpful critics would surely have already highlighted them – but I’d point out my legal advice while running sites ten years ago was specifically NOT to moderate or edit comments, as that would denote authorship or approval and therefore attach legal liability. Clementine may struggle to understand; she has problems with complicated law-talkin’ stuff.
Our favourite Fairfax columnist is far more comfortable screeching on Twitter like a crazy person: 
Nice piece in Tim Blair’s blog about my so-called hypocrisy. Tim, I’m never going to sleep with you – get over me.
I’m guessing the point is that he’s got a giant woody for me and can’t come to terms with it.
Tim Blair must be an incredibly sad and lonely man if this is the way he gets his jollies. Pathetic.
Srsly, is there anything sadder than a middle aged man obsessed with the activities of younger women online?
The really sad thing is that News Corp is so bereft of ideas and talent that they pay Tim Blair to write a daily blog about his misogyny. 
Wow. All that (and much more) just for quoting Ford’s own words. Imagine how much angrier Clementine would be if I blamed her for words written by someone else.
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THE MAN WHO NEVER RETURNED

Tim Blair – Tuesday, June 30, 2015 (1:24am)

An urban folk legend is celebrated in song:

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If the ABC won’t reform, it must be slashed - or privatised

Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (3:56pm)

The ABC has shown zero understanding of - or genuine contrition for - it’s decision to help a Islamist convicted of threatening to kill to ambush a government minister.
So if Janet Albrechtsen is right and the ABC refuses to reform, what then?
It is the height of arrogance to treat independence as untethered from responsibility. Yet that arrogance is entrenched orthodoxy at the ABC. I saw it first-hand as a board member when issues about bias and balance were routinely dismissed as editorial interference. Trying to dislodge the ABC’s cultural arrogance is near impossible when so many people there treat legal obligations as pesky nuis­ances easily swatted away.
The cultural arrogance is evident too from the fact just about every error of judgment by the ABC veers left. When was the last time the ABC went too far by indulging a pro-Israeli position? When did it last make an error of judgment by being too sceptical about global warming?
The ABC staff members who indulge in this kind of cultural arrogance do so because they can. 
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Shorten just got shakier

Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (3:43pm)

Bill Shorten may not be as safe as we - and he - assumed:
Rules designed to protect Bill Shorten, or any future Labor boss, from a leadership challenge have not been incorporated into the ALP’s revised national constitution. This leaves Mr Shorten, and any future leader, vulnerable to a challenge by a simple vote by MPs to change the caucus rules adopted in 2013. There is no recourse to the party’s national executive or conference, given the constitution is silent on this issue.
The party’s proposed constitution, obtained by The Australian, does not enshrine rules adopted by the Labor caucus in 2013 that ­require a petition signed by 60 per cent of MPs to force a leadership vote in opposition, or 75 per cent in government.
The document, prepared by the ALP national rules committee and circulated by the party’s national secretariat, includes a new section outlining how the parliamentary leader is to be elected, but not how they can be removed.
This is bad news for the Liberals.
(Thanks to readers brett t r and Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Is it because the police might be harder than the public?

Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (3:32pm)

A bit sus:
THE Australian Federal Police have revealed the mother-in-law of terrorist Khaled Sharrouf, who is campaigning to bring home her wayward daughter and grandchildren from Syria, has never spoken to an AFP officer about securing the Sydney family’s return.
The revelations raise questions about the claims by Karen Nettleton, aired on the ABC last night, that she had spoken on regular occasions to the AFP about bringing home Sharrouf’s wife Tara and three grandchildren, including the young boy who was pictured posing with a severed head.
The AFP confirmed that Tara Nettleton, Sharrouf’s wife, had not contacted the AFP either.

Mrs Nettleton has made further allegations that the AFP had initially told her they would help but then rescinded the offer…

AFP Assistant Commissioner Neil Gaughan ... said it would be impossible for the AFP to help anyone in Syria considering it was a war zone and there was no effective police force there with which it could it co-operate…

It is understood Mrs Nettleton has been in contact with the NSW Police. It has also been revealed that Immigration Minister Peter Dutton had written to the ABC urging them not to broadcast the claims about the Sharrouf family wanting to return for fears it may endanger their lives if Islamic State terrorists deemed them to be deserters.
(Thanks to readers Paul and Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Hockey wins defamation case against Fairfax

Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (3:02pm)

Joe Hockey took a big gamble but has won - although I’m not sure how much money he’ll have made after legal costs for those bits of his case that he lost:
Treasurer Joe Hockey has won a defamation case against Fairfax Media.
The Federal Court has been examining whether Mr Hockey’s reputation was damaged by a series of reports last year from Fairfax, including an article headlined “Treasurer for sale”.
Justice Richard White found that a poster headline and tweets reading “Treasurer for sale” were defamatory.
Mr Hockey was awarded $200,000 in damages.
All other claims made by Mr Hockey were dismissed.
I would say the Sydney Morning Herald would be even more determined now to destroy this Treasurer and this Government, but how much worse could it get? 
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One of these men is a leader

Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (8:32am)

Compare leadership styles.
Tony Abbott, 27 April 2012:
Within a week of taking office, I would give new orders to the navy that, where it is safe to do so, under the usual chain-of-command procedures, based on the advice of commanders-on-the-spot, Indonesian flagged, Indonesian crewed and Indonesian home-ported vessels without lawful reason to be headed to Australia would be turned around and escorted back to Indonesian waters.
Bill Shorten, 29 June 2015:
JOURNALIST: Will Labor adopt the Government’s boat turn back policy?
SHORTEN: Labor believes in a compassionate approach to refugees and a constructive approach to asylum seekers. Labor are the people who started regional resettlement to help break the people smugglers’ model. I am determined to make sure that never again do the seaways between Java and Christmas Island become the opportunity for people smugglers to put unsuspecting people into unsafe boats and drown at sea. That is our position.
JOURNALIST: Do you want a boat turn back policy as part of your policy?
SHORTEN: Part of the dilemma with boat turn back policy is that the Government insists in shrouding it in secrecy. We want to see what the actual policies are and how they are actually working. Our first priority is the safety of refugees, genuine refugees but also discouraging the people smugglers, making sure that we can put them out of business. The Government has too much secrecy in the way it conducts its business.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Feral culture

Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (8:19am)

What are we breeding?
See the damage - and the mother - here.
(Thanks to reader Barry.) 
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How feminism has fallen

Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (8:06am)

Tim Blair merely quoted a string of examples of the repetitive and foul-mouthed abuse of angry feminist Clementine Ford. She takes this as evidence of Blair wanting to sleep with her. 
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Will Steffen demonstrates how to hide a decline

Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (8:00am)

Nick Cater is absolutely right to wonder whether warming alarmist Will Steffen tortures all his data like this to reach his pet conclusions:
Climate scientist Will Steffen ...  was galvanised by an opinion poll published in The Canberra Times that found ACT residents were going cold on the proposal to build a tramline in the federal capital.
When the ACT government surveyed taxpayers 10 months ago 55 per cent thought it was a good idea. Now, according to a Reachtel poll of 1446 territory residents, support has fallen to lest than 39 per cent while more than 46 per cent oppose it....
Steffen and co-author Barbara Norman spotted the outlier.
“Only 15.8 per cent of intending Liberal voters support light rail,” Steffen and Norman wrote in The Canberra Times last Thursday, “while for all other groups (Labor, Greens, Others and Undecided) support for light rail varied between 42 per cent and 63.5 per cent.
“That anomalously low level of support among Liberal voters immediately caught our attention and prompted us to reanalyse the poll results.”
The “strong skew” of Liberal-leaning respondents, claimed Steffen, “can easily generate a misleading impression of what the poll numbers are actually showing”. Steffen and Norman’s solution was to remove 446 Liberal voters from the result.
The result of this “reanalysis”, claim the authors, is that 51.9 per cent support light rail, 3.2 per cent oppose and 14.9 per cent are undecid­ed…

[UPDATE: Steffen later corrected his typo on the oppose figure to 32.2 per cent]
Write Steffen and Norman: “For the more than two-thirds of Canberrans who are not intending to vote for the Liberals, there is very strong support for light rail, a nearly 20 per cent lead over those who oppose it.”
Cater concludes:
This insight into Steffen’s methodology may cause us to look afresh at his startling claims about climate change and his forecasts for the end of the world as we know it.
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Q&A is not sorry at all, and the ABC won’t reform

Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (6:36am)

It is the ultimate yes-but-no - the ABC saying it made a mistake in putting to air Islamist extremist Zaky Mallah but then deploying its vast state-supplied resources to argue it actually did nothing wrong.
And get stuffed.
Last night’s Q&A showed that mealy-mouthed yes-but-no at its worst. After this performance by host Tony Jones can anyone tell what Jones actually thinks the show got wrong?
Here is the ABC’s original apology:
In attempting to explore important issues about the rights of citizens and the role of the Government in fighting terrorism, the Q&A program made an error in judgement in allowing Zaky Mallah to join the audience and ask a question.
Jones last night repeated this ambiguous admission:
The ABC itself has acknowledged that an error was made in having Mr Zaky Mallah live in the studio.
But why? Was it because Mallah then said something on Q&A he shouldn’t have? Jones did not say. In fact, last night he did not identify a single comment from Mallah as one he should not have put to air.
Indeed, all during last night’s show he made clear he believed Mallah put questions we should discuss, arguing the ABC had a duty to present “a diversity of perspectives so that over time no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded nor disproportionately represented”.
Jones and the ABC have not conceded for a second the central objection of critics: that it was a mistake simply to give Mallah a platform, and particularly a platform to attack the Government.
Jones did not acknowledge that giving a platform to Mallah, an al Qaeda sympathiser who was jailed for threatening to kill ASIO officers after assembling a small arsenal, rewarded and seemingly legitimised his crime, gave Mallah an undeserved and dangerous prominence and showed other extremists they, too, could be famous by following Mallah’s path.
None of that was addressed by Jones. In fact, he sought to dismiss or minimise this misjudgement in two astonishing ways.
First, he attacked panellist Paul Kelly, a critic of Mallah’s appearance, by drawing a false equivalence between Q&A giving Mallah a platform to attack the Government over its counter-terrorism plans and Kelly’s The Australian once interviewing Mallah as a repentant jihadist. Jones could not see the critical difference between promoting an Islamist’s defiance and publicising his repentance.
Jones second attempt to minimise its misjudgement came when he did identify one - and the only - specific error he believes Q&A made in inviting Mallah:
The Q&A team were not aware at the time Zaky Mallah appeared of the very offensive and misogynistic tweet that he put out about two female journalists. Had we known, we would have rejected his participation.
Pardon? An astonished Paul Kelly immediately nailed the twisted standards:
We’re told that would have ruled him out of the program, but the fact that he had been prosecuted with terrorism, the fact that he had admitted that he threatened Australian officials and wanted to kill them, the fact that he’d served time, that he had a weapons arsenal, that he was conducting a campaign to publicise jihad nonetheless, that’s OK… Well, it’s not OK.
But it is OK for the ABC, of course, which now seems utterly unrepentant, after all.
No apology for inviting Mallah on the basis of the criminal past. No apology for presenting this extremist as a man with a reasonable point. No apology for anything Mallah said. No apology for having over time cultivated the kind of audience that applauded Mallah.
And, of course, no apology for the flagrant and unlawful bias of the ABC. We see it manifest again, with Australia’s biggest media organisation - paid by taxpayers and obliged, as Jones said, to present “a diversity of perspectives” - campaigning now against critics of its appalling behaviour. Count the ABC staff running to the aid of Jones and managing director Mark Scott - Annabel Crabb, chief courtier Jonathan Green, Emma Alberici. Fran Kelly, Barrie Cassidy, Alison Carabine, Rafael Epstein and more.
This groupthink reaction actually demonstrates the key problem with the ABC that produced this terrible Mallah misjudgement - an cultural antagonism to conservatives, an often reflexive sympathy with enemies of the West and above all a tribal hostility to ABC critics.
Again, take last night - Jones letting the defenders of the ABC and/or Mallah on the panel (Dr Anne Aly, Lawrence Kraus and Tanya Plibersek) speak virtually without interruption and at great length, yet constantly heckling the ABC’s two critics (Tim Wilson and Paul Kelly). Plus a wildly unrepresentative audience applauding the defenders and horselaughing the critics.
Or take the partisan sneering of ABC presenter Jonathan Green on Twitter:
Breaking: Charismatic, thoughtful conservative booked for Q&A. (Green’s tweet includes a photo of an empty chair.)
As for Aly, please tell me why she keeps getting a gig on Q&A and why the government pays her salary:
Dr Anne Aly, an expert in extremism at Curtin University in Western Australia, said she had spoken to Mr Mallah about working with her organisation “People against Violent Extremism”.
“Yes he’s said some shitty stuff but he’s also said some good stuff as well. And the shitty stuff he says, it’s because he’s not groomed, he’s not media savvy, and he’s not politically savvy.

And while this scandal goes on and on, where is the board which we pay to make the ABC live by its charter? It still hasn’t met and board members still won’t say a word:
The Australian believes the board will meet in person this week. ABC board members referred inquiries to the corporate ­department, which did not comment.
The Abbott Government is now presented with the truth: the ABC is not apologetic and will not fix its unlawful bias. So what to do about it?
UPDATE
No, not sorry at all. Paul Barry on Media Watch was just one long apologia, with almost all the criticism leveled at the ABC’s critics.

... attack mode ...  a barrage of condemnation from all the usual suspects ... led by the shockjocks at Sydney’s Radio 2GB ...  all lined up for a kicking ...  similar broadside came from the ABC’s tireless critics at News Corp ...  all screamed in unison that the ABC were terrorists or on the terrorists’ side ... Murdoch’s army of columnists and editorial writers by and large then fell in behind to complete the attack ... hue and cry ... a lynch mob ... baying for blood again ... the pack ... appallingly tasteless cartoon… deaf ears ... critics at News Corp certainly won’t let that happen ... another barrage ...  ABC’s battle with its critics ...

For the ABC, Barry had only the mildest of criticism, also of that yes-but-no kind:
It was that Mallah had been allowed to come on live—rather than record his question—so ... what he said or perhaps did could not be controlled. And given his background we agree that was a mistake.
But we also believe that in a program about terror it was reasonable to have him on. 
In fact, Barry says not even Mallah’s vile tweets recommending two prominent female columnists be “gang banged on Sunrise” should have ruled him out:
And in January this year he tweeted that two News Corp columnists were quote whores who needed to be gangbanged.
Which some defenders of the ABC believe should have ruled him out… Had Q&A been holding a debate about rape we would agree with that view.
But it was not. It was about terror and stripping people like Mallah of their citizenship.
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Shooting Herons...I was privileged to join up with local wildlife photographer Martyn Green a couple of days ago.  Had...
Posted by Matt Granz on Monday, 29 June 2015

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Romantic Horoscope --->...
Posted by Astro Ulagam on Friday, 27 March 2015

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Tanya Plibersek says religion is a great way to tell stories. It's a luxury to contemplate your life #QandA
Posted by Q&A on Monday, 29 June 2015

What she doesn't understand is her atheism is also a belief. 
"Tanya Pilbersek, Deputy Leader of the Federal Labor Party - "I don't think there is a heaven or hell", "I don't think there is life after death" and the best one yet "Religion is a really good way to tell stories" hahahaha oh my God I just remembered the picture of her visiting the Assyrian Church of the East with Chris Bowen (another atheist) they must hate that they have to pretend to respect Christians." ZT
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ALL MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS AND SAINTS I want you to judge this picture in two ways. This seems to be a very depressed?...
Posted by Alecia Letmeencourageyou Hudson on Monday, 29 June 2015

Sex should feel good. If it is a negative experience it is sad. Sex can be the glue of a relationship. I am not interested in the sex lives of anyone else, but I feel that those who pursue sex without relationship (lifelong, marriage) make a mistake and shortchange themselves.
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The PillarI seriously might have more share worthy images from my one day at White Sands NM than from my three weeks of storm chasing.  The place is amazing.
Posted by Matt Granz on Monday, 29 June 2015

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Posted by Zig Ziglar on Friday, 15 May 2015

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A man saw a woman sleeping in the dirt outside his house...so he built her a place to live!www.artFido.com/popular-art
Posted by artFido - fetching art on Friday, 15 May 2015

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When was the last time you got into a heated debate over the incorrect use of words?
Posted by Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing on Monday, 29 June 2015

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=== Posts from last year ===

CANS OF TIME

Tim Blair – Monday, June 30, 2014 (2:50pm)

Last week’s request for culturally significant kitchen artefacts delivered a bounty of old-timey consumables, beginning with Gordon F.’s September 2013 memorial:

image

“Here’s my culturally significant artefact from last year’s election,” writes Gordon. “It’s slowly mummifying in my fruit bowl. Funny thing, I’m quite sure the real Kevin O’Lemon is looking younger and younger.” 

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'CANS OF TIME'
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THE MYTHERS

Tim Blair – Monday, June 30, 2014 (2:40pm)

Full marks for insight to Julia Gillard. According to a new book, the ex-PM had this to say on the morning after she was dumped by Labor for her rival Kevin Rudd: “This has been contentless, it’s been all about ego and personalities.”
The Australian public had come to that conclusion some months previously, but it’s nice that Gillard eventually caught up. 

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'THE MYTHERS'
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FOUNTAIN OF TRIUMPH

Tim Blair – Monday, June 30, 2014 (2:23pm)

I was raised in Victoria, so will always claim that AFL is a superior code to rugby league. Yet even I now concede that when it comes to scandals, the NRL has the AFL beat.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'FOUNTAIN OF TRIUMPH'
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NOBODY WINS

Tim Blair – Monday, June 30, 2014 (1:49pm)

A superb letter to the SMH: 
Like many of your respondents in Friday’s letters section, I read Elizabeth Farrelly’s article, ‘’In Tim-speak, we women should shut up’’, but with a slightly different take.
While I understand the need to call out sexism, especially when it’s personal, I could not really understand why a sophisticated and cultivated writer would bother crossing swords with an intellectual nobody like Tim Blair. Surely, like a toddler’s tantrum, the rantings of the likes of Mr Blair are best ignored. 
Yet Elizabeth cannot resist. Like a truck blocking a bicycle lane, there is no ignoring the intellectual nobody. 
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JUSTIFY THIS

Tim Blair – Monday, June 30, 2014 (1:09pm)

Last week it was announced that an Islamic extremist would deliver this speech at the Sydney Opera House: “Honour killings are morally justified.” The speech was subsequently cancelled, which must really annoy everybody involved, because now they’ve missed a perfect news angle: 
A young couple murdered in Pakistan barely a week after they had married for love were killed as a warning to other girls not to marry without the permission of their parents, according to witnesses.
Residents of Satrah, Punjab, said relatives of the bride slit their throats and forced children to watch as they bled to death. 
Too bad. This would have been a lovely discussion point for culturally-sensitive Opera House attendees.
(Via Brat)
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The throatcutters of the Socialist Alternative

Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (4:50pm)

Culture wars, How the Left hates

The Socialist Alternative is a Marxist group claiming to represent more moral people.
In fact, as I’ve noted many times, it is a natural home of the thug and the vicious. Socialist Alternative members have this year physically attacked Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, physically intimidated and shouted down former Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella as she gave a university lecture, vilified a daughter of the Prime Minister and shut down debate on the ABC’s Q&A.
Now this:
image
Note well the savagery of these totalitarians. Imagine a society in which they were allowed real power.
Realise these are barbarians.
And one final thought: remember how the Left used to complain, on the basis of a Ditch the Witch sign, that no prime minister had ever been abused as badly as Julia Gillard?
(Thanks to many readers.) 
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Newman Government now behind in polls

Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (5:43am)

Sloppy politics, indiscipline and high-handedness has made it much harder for the Queensland Newman Government to sell the necessarily harsh medicine - and a dangerous populist is cleaning up:
Two years after scoring the biggest election win in Australian history, the latest Newspoll shows the LNP is trailing Labor by 49 per cent to 51 per centafter preferences, a swing of almost 14 percentage points since the victory. 
Primary support has plum­met­ed from the 49.7 per cent support it received at the March 2012 election to just 32 per cent — including an 8 per cent fall since the previous Newspoll in March.
But the latest voters to abandon the Newman government are not turning to Labor — the state opposition’s primary support has declined by 2 per cent to 34 per cent in the past three months. Instead, support for indepen­dents and, to a lesser extent, Clive Palmer’s Palmer United Party, has jumped from 15 per cent in March to 24 per cent, with the Greens remaining static on 8 per cent. 
Michael McKenna:
This is a government that has a good story but seems unable to tell it. The economy is turning around, with growth forecast to double next year and a surplus on the horizon. The health and education sectors are free of the scandals that plagued them under Labor. 
But the pugnacious Premier has turned off many voters with his “with me or against me’’ tone. In February, Newman privately conceded his government had “scared people’’ with its public service cuts and last year’s crackdown on bikies… There was [lately] the brawl with doctors over contracts, with lawyers over bikies and worrying changes to the Crime and Misconduct Commission and political donation laws and, finally, with the judiciary over the new chief justice. 
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Al Gore and Clive Palmer’s nice little earner

Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (5:24am)

 AL Gore, the world’s most famous global warming guru, last week used Australia to trash what’s left of his reputation.
The Nobel prize-winning alarmist didn’t just tell his disciples here more astonishing falsehoods about the climate of the kind that’s good for his business. (See here for his latest whoppers.)
Gore also meddled in our climate politics to the undisclosed benefit of his business partners, and against the interests of Australians.
And in return for a favour, he falsely praised coal baron Clive Palmer as a planet-saver, when Palmer was in fact destroying our biggest schemes to tackle global warming.
This fraud started on Wednesday, when Palmer presented Gore at a press conference called to announce whether he’d help the Abbott Government axe the carbon tax.
The warmist journalists there, notably from Fairfax newspapers and the ABC, were completely fooled by the surprise appearance of their warmist god.
(Read full article here.) 
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What Gore got wrong. Again

Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (5:20am)

Global warming - dud predictions

FORMER US vice-president Al Gore got rich by predicting global warming doom — but also got reckless.
His film, An Inconvenient Truth, was found by a British judge to have nine significant errors, and Gore may have become even more unreliable.
Here are just some of the astonishingly false claims Gore made in a lecture last week to Climate Reality Project presenters in Melbourne.
(Read full article here.) 
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Just another day on the globe we’re told is warming to hell

Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (5:05am)

Jo Nova:
Nils-Axel Mörner has a new paper out (his 589th). For 60 years he has been tracking the coastlines close to him, and carefully isolated the exact part which appears to be the most stable. From that he shows that the real sea-level rise in Northern Europe is less than 1 millimeter a year since 1890. This is less that the 1.6mm trend in 182 NOAA tide gauges, and far below the estimates of the IPCC reports.There is also no sign of acceleration in sea-levels for the last 50 years… 
If anything, Nils work shows how difficult it is to measure true sea-level rise on land that shifts.
Meanwhile, there’s record sea ice around Antarctica:
image 
The new record anomaly for Southern Hemisphere sea ice, the ice encircling the southernmost continent, is 2.074 million square kilometers and was posted for the first time by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s The Cryosphere Today early Sunday morning.
(Thanks to reader Rocky.) 
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New Labor speaks

Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (5:00am)

Christian Kerr on the Labor Senator the Leftist media adopted as the heroine in her battle against fellow Labor Senator Joe Bullock, a conservative:
DESPITE all the attention she grabbed in the special Senate election back in April, Labor’s Louise Pratt was virtually ignored when she gave her valedictory speech last week. So let the record show: Pratt thanked the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, the Maritime Union of Australia, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, the Community and Public Sector Union, the Electrical Trades Union, the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union, Emily’s List and other party groups. About the only mob she missed were the voters.
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ABC standards up in smoke

Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (5:00am)

  The ABC sets the standard once again:
THE ABC appears to have shrugged its shoulders over an internet video in which its high-profile star Wil Anderson appears to smoke marijuana. 
A spokesman from the ABC said there was “no comment” yesterday relating to the video of Anderson apparently using pipes and a bong to smoke marijuana, during an interview on the online US show Getting Doug With High. 
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:
AB, just as well Anderson’s a pot-smoking ABC presenter rather than a cigar-smoking conservative politician. ABC News Breakfast might think the matter at least worthy of a Facebook post otherwise.
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Can Palmer honor his promise to Gore?

Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (4:33am)

Clive Palmer gave Al Gore a reward for blessing his destruction of the carbon tax - a promise to defend the Renewable Energy Target that forces us to use expensive wind and solar power.
As I explained yesterday, Gore’s investment business involved with super funds that are heavy investors in exactly those sorts of projects:
But Jacqui Lambie may rebel against her string-pulling leader:
TONY Abbott and his cabinet face new pressure on climate policy, with 25 Coalition MPs urging a reduction in the Renewable Energy Target and a key Palmer United Party senator-elect breaking ranks to call for Tasmania to be exempt from the scheme. 
The 25 Coalition MPs, comprising about half the government backbench in the lower house, have written to Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane calling for the RET to be dramatically scaled back to enable a full exemption for the aluminium industry…
Tasman­ian PUP senator-elect Jacqui Lambie broke ranks with her leader to call for changes to the RET… Ms Lambie ... warned she would seek exemptions from the RET for businesses in her home state of Tasmania, underlining the potential for the balance-of-power party to split.
While Ms Lambie insisted her PUP colleagues understood her position, Mr Palmer yesterday reaffirmed the party’s commitment to the existing target to source 20 per cent of the nation’s energy needs from renewable sources such as wind and solar power by 2020.

The Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party’s Ricky Muir - and his assertive new staffer - could rebel against Palmer, too:

In a challenge to the agenda set out by Clive Palmer, the AMEP senator-elect is refusing to signal his position on any issue ahead of debate on the floor of the Senate.
Mr Muir and his adviser, Glenn Druery, held their first detailed talks with the government late last week and appear likely to meet the Prime Minister in Canberra in the coming days… While the AMEP has declared its solidarity with the Palmer United Party, this does not force Mr Muir to vote with Mr Palmer’s group on key issues, including clima­te change and spending cuts.  
Back in March, Palmer was actually against the RET:
CLIVE Palmer has been pounced on for contradicting his lead candidate for the West Australian Senate election over renewable energy targets. 
Palmer United Party’s Dio Wang said on Tuesday that the existing Renewable Energy Target ... was the right scheme for maintaining and improving the nation’s environment, and should stay as it is… Mr Palmer said he believed the target should be voluntary. “We don’t agree with people being compelled to do anything,” he told reporters.
What a blight on the landscape:
Clive Palmer’s decision to protect the Renewable Energy Target – leaving it as the government’s default climate change policy – is expected to lead to the equivalent of 40 new wind farms around Australia...
And what a waste:
With the carbon tax set to be repealed, all that remains of the greenies’ grand design is the RET; but preliminary modelling for the RET review estimates that over the period to 2040, the RET increases electricity costs by $12.8bn. Since the abatement it causes could be purchased internationally for some $2bn, over 80 per cent of that $12.8bn is pure waste.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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From India? Then no

Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (4:26am)

We should be be accepting alleged refugees from a democracy such as India: 
Sri Lankan high commissioner Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe pledged his gov­ern­ment’s continued support for the border protection policies of “close friend” Australia, including the swift return of boatpeople, amid claims that 153 Tamils were being held aboard an Australian vessel close to Christmas Island after a two-week journey from India. 
There were reports yesterday that two asylum-seeker boats had been intercepted by border protection authorities — including the one from India, which refugee advocates said had encountered mechanical problems, and a second from Indonesia with about 50 passengers… Sri Lankan human rights lawyer and refugee advocate Lakshan Dias said in the past 12 months Australia had deported numerous formerly India-based Sri Lankan Tamil asylum-seekers to Sri Lanka.
But be sure there will be a concerted effort from some in the media to use this as a battering ram to smash open our doors again.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Dr John Mendoza, the former Chief Executive of the Mental Health Council and of the Australian Sports Drug Agency, told Adelaide radio that in his opinion Kevin Rudd was a sociopath. Heavy language, not repeated in other media although they reported some of his diagnosis.

John Mendoza, who resigned as Rudd’s mental health adviser, says the former PM is “not fit for office” and he will “leave the country” if Rudd returns to The Lodge. “There was constantly work being done on ridiculous timetables,” he says. “There’s a litany of discarded policy and wasted effort during the Rudd years. The public was never told the truth.”

Mendoza told ABC radio yesterday he quit from the Mental Health Council because Mr Rudd’s leadership was dysfunctional, erratic and chaotic.

Kevin Rudd’s one-time senior adviser on mental health says the former prime minister was removed from the top job for his “own wellbeing”.

“The Australian public is now starting to understand that he (Mr Rudd) wasn’t knifed in the back, in fact he was removed for his own wellbeing and the Government of the country had to function,” Professor Mendoza said.

Extraordinary stuff. And it might just explain a lot.
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I'm not asking for help. I'm just venting. Thursday I realized I was having a gout attack. Usually, I just keep to bed for a day and it goes. But I've now been bed ridden for two days and it looks like hanging around. It is my left knee, which is unusual. I know how to navigate around my right one. But I sat in a chair at 2:30 am and couldn't get out of it until 9:30. Then I am assaulted on the net by a former student who wants to be helpful but who isn't. I know far more about this than he does. And a former friend starts making really bizarre attacks .. It is lucky I don't own a gun. The pain is so intense! I'd do something I would regret .. But one thing I don't regret is embracing God. Prayer support would be good.
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Ernst Röhm
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“The LORD will vindicate me; your love, LORD, endures forever— do not abandon the works of your hands.” Psalm 138:8 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."
1 Thessalonians 4:14
Let us not imagine that the soul sleeps in insensibility. "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise," is the whisper of Christ to every dying saint. They "sleep in Jesus," but their souls are before the throne of God, praising him day and night in his temple, singing hallelujahs to him who washed them from their sins in his blood. The body sleeps in its lonely bed of earth, beneath the coverlet of grass. But what is this sleep? The idea connected with sleep is "rest," and that is the thought which the Spirit of God would convey to us. Sleep makes each night a Sabbath for the day. Sleep shuts fast the door of the soul, and bids all intruders tarry for a while, that the life within may enter its summer garden of ease. The toil-worn believer quietly sleeps, as does the weary child when it slumbers on its mother's breast. Oh! happy they who die in the Lord; they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them. Their quiet repose shall never be broken until God shall rouse them to give them their full reward. Guarded by angel watchers, curtained by eternal mysteries, they sleep on, the inheritors of glory, till the fulness of time shall bring the fulness of redemption. What an awaking shall be theirs! They were laid in their last resting place, weary and worn, but such they shall not rise. They went to their rest with the furrowed brow, and the wasted features, but they wake up in beauty and glory. The shrivelled seed, so destitute of form and comeliness, rises from the dust a beauteous flower. The winter of the grave gives way to the spring of redemption and the summer of glory. Blessed is death, since it, through the divine power, disrobes us of this work-day garment, to clothe us with the wedding garment of incorruption. Blessed are those who "sleep in Jesus."

Evening

"Howbeit, in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart."
2 Chronicles 32:31
Hezekiah was growing so inwardly great, and priding himself so much upon the favour of God, that self-righteousness crept in, and through his carnal security, the grace of God was for a time, in its more active operations, withdrawn. Here is quite enough to account with the Babylonians; for if the grace of God should leave the best Christian, there is enough of sin in his heart to make him the worst of transgressors. If left to yourselves, you who are warmest for Christ would cool down like Laodicea into sickening lukewarmness: you who are sound in the faith would be white with the leprosy of false doctrine; you who now walk before the Lord in excellency and integrity would reel to and fro, and stagger with a drunkenness of evil passion. Like the moon, we borrow our light; bright as we are when grace shines on us, we are darkness itself when the Sun of Righteousness withdraws himself. Therefore let us cry to God never to leave us. "Lord, take not thy Holy Spirit from us! Withdraw not from us thine indwelling grace! Hast thou not said, I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day'? Lord, keep us everywhere. Keep us when in the valley, that we murmur not against thy humbling hand; keep us when on the mountain, that we wax not giddy through being lifted up; keep us in youth, when our passions are strong; keep us in old age, when becoming conceited of our wisdom, we may therefore prove greater fools than the young and giddy; keep us when we come to die, lest, at the very last, we should deny thee! Keep us living, keep us dying, keep us labouring, keep us suffering, keep us fighting, keep us resting, keep us everywhere, for everywhere we need thee, O our God!"
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Ahilud

[Ahī'lud] - a brother of one born.
  1. The father of Jehoshaphat, the recorder under David and Solomon (2 Sam. 8:16; 20:24; 1 Kings 4:3; 1 Chron. 18:15).
  2. Father of Baana, one of Solomon's twelve purveyors (1 Kings 4:12).
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Today's reading: Job 14-16, Acts 9:22-43 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Job 14-16

1 "Mortals, born of woman,
are of few days and full of trouble.
2 They spring up like flowers and wither away;
like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.
3 Do you fix your eye on them?
Will you bring them before you for judgment?
4 Who can bring what is pure from the impure?
No one!
5 A person's days are determined;
you have decreed the number of his months
and have set limits he cannot exceed.
6 So look away from him and let him alone,
till he has put in his time like a hired laborer.

Today's New Testament reading: Acts 9:22-43

22 Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah.
23 After many days had gone by, there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him, 24 but Saul learned of their plan. Day and night they kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him. 25 But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall....
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