Monday, September 28, 2015

Mon Sep 28th Todays News

Anything can be a cultural asset, but not everything is. A person's death, or a baby born, are milestone opportunities to reinforce culture and society. And culture and society is what separates decent people from absolute scum. And it is ok not to use the niceties all the time, one lives once and it isn't as if we are machines that need to replicate the past. But things from the past are a gift of love that allows us to function. When they are cultural assets being passed on. But things from the past can be a curse too, when they are not cultural assets. The monarchy under Queen Elizabeth 2 may cost millions a year, but compare them to the powerful failure of Obama, who has cost the US many Trillions of dollars, and one sees them as cultural assets. Because it is more than cost. Queen Elizabeth and her family return much of their value by doing the selfless acts, and also doing the high profile presence needed of heads of state. One shudders to think how Prince Charles will take on the responsibility when he does. Maybe he will be a responsible king. But Charles missionary zeal for alternative lifestyle and science, and his inappropriate involvement in politics in the past doesn't suggest it. Despite what many say of Edinburgh's mouth, his life has been exemplary and he has given much. Malcolm Turnbull is wrong to despise knighthoods and choices that reinforce cultural assets. Maybe, from shallow association, Turnbull sincerely believes that knighthoods are anachronisms of the past. More likely, however, he is being opportunistic in pressing home an advantage against Mr Abbott, much as he tried to do when he embraced AGW in the past. If only Turnbull's choices were conservative ones. 

 For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
=== from 2014 ===
Anger is substantial in the community regarding terrorism and frustrated and fearful people are threatening to lash out. Part of the anger is misdirected by mainstream media and by bigoted lobbies for different reasons. Mainstream media need to protect their narrative which is very biased to the left wing of politics. Islamo Fascists claim to be Islamic. Also, impotent Islamic leaders openly embrace terrorist ideals. However the activity of terrorists is clearly different to how many Islamic peoples live. In whose interests is it that Australia be divided the way it is? ABC programs like Q and A frequently offer sophisticated excuses for Islamo Fascists and their activity. There is no threat to Islamic peoples from Australia, or any other non Islamic nation. Barring terrorist outrage caused by Islamo Fascists, the safest place in the world for an Islamic person is to live in Israel. The largest killer of Islamic peoples is other Islamic peoples. But the ABC parades apologists who claim that Islamic peoples are angry at Israel, are upset at having to live peacefully, are dreaming of a traditional lifestyle they have never experienced. But only terrorist apologists claim that. A beat up of a burqa wearing woman needing to be identified by police became headline news over a year ago. Turns out the female involved was related to a big time ISIS supporter. Children are raised in Islamo Fascist communities to hate on a steady diet of lies. One apologist wrote recently that beheadings are bad, but so was British rule in Malaya in 1950. In 1950, British authorities tried to limit communist atrocities in Malaya by building houses, communities and schools for some nine hundred thousand peoples who were too poor to provide for themselves and were too close to the communist insurgents. But it is difficult to put the correct answer forward when faced with the accusation of some outrage. So in response, some say that Australia should not confiscate passports but let jihadis go. A terrible idea, suggesting to weak minded people that there is strength in the activity, and Islamo Fascists are weak minded. Islam needs a credibility make over. It needs potent leaders capable of raising their community interests without openly embracing terror ideals. Apparently, some Islamo Fascists have door knocked commando family homes near army barracks. A good leader would disown those terrorists. 

Celebrities inspire people. Cate Blanchet says a good actor can change gravity. Leonardo DiCaprio didn't need to change gravity while lying about AGW threat to the world in years to come. He needed to change the facts which show the world hasn't heated in 18 years despite substantially more plant food in the atmosphere. Cate's advocacy didn't help Rudd either. The German foreign minister has declared that there is no end in sight to the Ukrainian impasse with Russia. Nobody seems to know how to stop Russia from winning. The North Korean leader apparently has gout from cheese. It is a terrible affliction, but treatable. So long as he hasn't killed all the doctors that know how.
From 2013
The mainstream media's role in society and culture is vital, and sadly lacking. A strong media would not accept the very tantrums they model .. and so it somehow has become acceptable to heckle the PM over the deaths of boat people when his policy would end what the opposition began. At the ABC (Australian one) the program Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries portrays another slack culture attack the media models, the persistent lie, when it portrayed a 20's era Aboriginal mother dealing with stolen generation issues. The lie was well addressed by Bolt when he took on Noyce's portrayal of Rabbit Proof Fence eleven years ago.

In the US, the GOP don't have the Presidency, so the media can seize on the unpopularity of the President and claim 'nobody can do a good job in administration.' However, that lie gets shown up often when effective GOP administrations take office. So the media tend to take on a role of scold when conservatives are in office, as it is, in Australia. And they can claim *anything* so long as it serves their leftist politicians.

Obama speaks as President. But what he says is factually wrong. The US has never had a policy of killing Muslims. Further, the US army does not kill many .. and when she does she is accountable. The accusation that the US has killed millions of Muslims is rhetoric. In fact, the US has prevented the deaths of many Muslims threatened by Islamic terrorists. What Obama says is offensive, and not something I can support. Maybe the article linked is a joke .. ? Way too close to the bone from a President who identifies with thugs. 
=== 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, September, October, 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. 

List of available items at Create Space
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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.
Happy birthday and many happy returns Shai Marmeto, Yasmine Lebbe, Leon Duong and Salina Wong. Born on the same day, across the years, as
1493 – Agnolo Firenzuola, Italian poet (d. 1545)
1836 – Thomas Crapper, English plumber, invented the ballcock (d. 1910)
1861 – Amélie of Orléans (d. 1951)
1905 – Max Schmeling, German boxer (d. 2005)
1909 – Al Capp, American cartoonist (d. 1979)
1925 – Seymour Cray, American computer scientist, founded the CRAY Computer Company (d. 1996)
1933 – Johnny "Country" Mathis, American singer-songwriter (Jimmy & Johnny) (d. 2011)
1934 – Brigitte Bardot, French actress and singer
1938 – Ben E. King, American singer-songwriter and producer (The Drifters)
1967 – Mira Sorvino, American actress
1987 – Hilary Duff, American actress and singer
2000 – Frankie Jonas, American actor
September 28: Fast of Gedalia (Judaism, 2014); Statehood Day in the Czech Republic
Pompey is taken care of. We have found San Diego. We've covered the world. Scandal in Rome. Avoid the commute. Enjoy the party. 
Deaths
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CLARIFICATION

Tim Blair – Monday, September 28, 2015 (3:46pm)

A note from Mark Textor regarding yesterday’s post: 
In relation to the quote from me in The Australian that “they don’t matter” and reported in your blog: that was said in relation to a far right wing website (that the author mentioned to me among others), certainly not conservative voters.
My long political and business career, and many public statements and columns, have been built on deep respect for voter opinion, including representing accurately the views and aspirations of centre right and conservative voters around the world.
I would never believe that anyone doesn’t matter in our democracy. They do.
Keep up the good work. 
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THE ROAD TO RESPECTABILITY

Tim Blair – Monday, September 28, 2015 (12:58pm)

It’s a well-known fact that Australia is a universally despised pariah nation thanks to our hateful climate change policies. But Britain’s Independent has a solution: 
Australia will be respected globally if it takes a stand and bars Chris Brown from entering …
Coinciding with the launch of a 100 million Australian dollar government initiative to prevent domestic violence, the former assistant minister for Immigration and Border Protection and now Minister for Women, Michelle Cash, said: “People need to understand if you are going to commit domestic violence and then you want to travel around the world, there are going to be countries that say to you: ‘You cannot come in because you are not of the character we expect in Australia’. This is a government that is not afraid to say: ‘no.’” 
Perhaps we’ll become so respected that the Independent will bother to spell Cash’s name correctly. Quite why Brown should be singled out among domestic violence offenders isn’t explained; plenty of other punks and cowards have been allowed to visit, or otherwise been granted an Australian presence. US academic Hugo Schwyzer, for example, once attempted to kill his girlfriend. Fairfax rewarded him with regular columns in, of all places, their feminist section. 
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LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED

Tim Blair – Monday, September 28, 2015 (11:35am)

Asked on Sydney radio last week about Leigh Sales’s widely-ridiculed 7.30 interview with the Great Malcolm, I said that I didn’t have much of a problem with it.
After all, I pointed out, not every political interview demands relentless hostility.
Indeed, an occasional friendly interview can be entertaining. The problem is, Leigh’s squishy, giggly, deferential chat seems to have set the standard for media commentary on the new Prime Minister.
Here’s the toughest question asked by the 7.30 presenter, preceded with a nervous warning that it wasn’t meant to be “offensive in any way”:
“What do you say to Australians who might think: ‘Well how can Malcolm understand what it is to struggle for anything, ‘cause Malcolm’s had everything that he’s ever wanted?’ “
The only offensive element here is that an ABC staffer – part of a tax-funded billion dollar broadcaster completely protected from market forces – is asking how someone else might relate to ordinary Australians. 
(Continue reading Love Is All You Need.)
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WE WILL SEE THEM

Tim Blair – Monday, September 28, 2015 (11:28am)

US President Barack Obama: 
“All of our countries will be affected by a changing climate, but the world’s poorest people will bear the heaviest burden from rising seas and more intense droughts, shortage of water and food,” Obama said. “We will be seeing climate change refugees.” 
Keep looking, pal: 
The man who could have been the world’s first climate change refugee just got deported ... 
(Via A.R.M Jones and Adam I.)
UPDATE. The world’s would-be first climate change refugee is accused of sexual assault.
(Via Dom P.)
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MIGHTY FALLEN

Tim Blair – Monday, September 28, 2015 (11:24am)

At least they didn’t stab him: 
A British soldier was asked to move from a hospital waiting room last week because staff feared his uniform  might offend other patients.
The family of Royal Air Force Sgt. Mark Prendeville said hospital workers told them “they didn’t want to upset people” and that the hospital has “lots of different cultures coming in,” according to the Guardian.
Here’s an idea: ask them to move. The hospital has since apologised.
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TASMANIAN FACEBOOK FIASCO

Tim Blair – Monday, September 28, 2015 (10:41am)

We hosted a dinner last year for a few close friends. It promised to be an amusing night, because one of those friends had just unfollowed another guest’s Twitter account.
This is apparently a grave insult in the Twitter world. So I poured some drinks and sat back to watch the violence. Sadly, it never came. The pair laughed off the incident, which was disappointingly mature and sensible. There were no tears, or even a thrown drink. Several attempts by me to encourage conflict were calmly rebuffed. Naturally, these people will never be invited to my house again. Failing to meet expectations of hostility is just plain bad manners.
Happily, things are different in Tasmania, where the Fair Work Commission ruled last week that a woman who had been unfriended by a colleague was the victim of workplace bullying. “Rachael Roberts, a Launceston real estate agent, complained to the commission that she was bullied by her colleague Lisa Bird, leaving her with depression and anxiety,” the ABC reported.
(Continue reading Tasmanian Facebook Fiasco.)
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FROM TOXIC BUGS TO STAMP EID

Tim Blair – Monday, September 28, 2015 (10:17am)

Pope Warmy the First visited the White House last week. His Heatiness wheeled up to the lawns of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in a tiny Fiat 500, a move hailed as an indication of the Pope’s piety, awareness of climate change issues and his enthusiasm for Italian industry.
He’d probably have preferred to arrive in something from his native Argentina, but the Pope’s home country doesn’t have much in the way of indigenous automotive brands. Then again, neither does Australia. Any future Australian Pope will have to scour the second-hand listings at Carsguide for an appropriate conveyance. Right now a reasonable-looking 1972 Holden One Tonner is available, if the Catholic Church has eight grand to spare.
It might have been interesting if the previous Pope, Benedict XVI, was still in the job and decided to adopt a similar visiting tactic. Being German, perhaps Benny would have fronted in a diesel VW Golf. After all, if ever a car company needed some divine intervention, it is Volkswagen.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'FROM TOXIC BUGS TO STAMP EID'
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Rosie Batty should apologise for this insult to Tony Abbott

Andrew Bolt September 28 2015 (5:21pm)

Shame on Rosie Battie for this very ungracious and unfair rewriting of history:
ROSIE Batty has praised the Prime Minister and taken a gentle swipe at Tony Abbott as she responded to the inquest findings into her son Luke’s murder.
Speaking to reporters in Melbourne, Ms Batty said governments throughout Australia were responding, or beginning to respond, to the family violence crisis… In doing so, Ms Batty made pointed reference to the change in the leadership of the Liberal Party.
“Last week — for the first time — we now have federal government in a leadership role,” she said. She said the new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull understood that for there to be serious change, males needed to lead that change.
“It’s a huge turning point, because we have a Prime Minister who actually understands that this is a gender issue.
“And when he spoke and said that disrespect does not always end in violence, but violence always starts with disrespect, I felt for the first time that, as a woman, we’re starting to gain the support that we need to understand that this issue requires men to lead the change.”
The truth is that Abbott is the Prime Minister who picked Battie herself to help lead an inquiry into domestic violence, and also got the heads of Commonwealth meeting to discuss proposals to tackle it. Abbott then put together a package of measures which he foreshadowed on the day before he was toppled, and which he was days from releasing. That’s the package that Malcolm Turnbull then released and took credit for, mouthing some of the very same slogans and arguments Abbott had used.
It is disgraceful that Battie now seeks to airbrush Abbott out of the picture, and even show him this disrespect. No class.
I’ve never quite understood why Rosie Battie is an oracle on violence against women. What happened to her son is a ghastly tragedy, a shocking crime, but that does not mean she is herself wise. And as we see here, she most certainly is not fair.
(Thanks to reader John.) 
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The Turnbull Government should not praise the ABC after its abuse of conservatives

Andrew Bolt September 28 2015 (7:58am)

New Communications Minister Mitch Fifield betrays Liberals by praising the ABC, so instrumental in deposing a conservative Prime Minister in defiance of the law:
Senator Mitch Fifield has struck a conciliatory tone with the national broadcaster, whose relations soured with the Abbott government ...
Senator Fifield’s nuanced tone on the ABC is close to that of the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, marking the beginning of a possible thawing in relations between the government and the broadcaster.
Asked what qualities the replacement for Mr Scott, who steps down in mid-2016 after 10 years in the role, should have, the minister said: “I think Mark Scott has been a terrific managing director of the ABC...”
Two things are extraordinary about Fifield’s comments.
The first is that he treats the ABC as a hostile force which should be placated, rather than forced to obey the law that requires it to be impartial. He is legitimising its law-breaking when he should instead work like fury that this illegal use of state power never be repeated. 
The second is that Fifield flatters Mark Scott with statements that are plainly untrue. Scott in no way has been “terrific”, and Fifield betrays the Liberal cause by saying so.
Under Scott’s term, the ABC became even more partisan and overtly hostile to the Liberals and to conservatives generally, despite its legal requirement to be balanced and impartial.  Some examples illustrate the tone of the ABC towards the end of Scott’s time:
- Tony Abbott was called a “c..t” twice on national TV and was routinely mocked
- conservative Chris Kenny was shown in an altered picture on TV sodomising a dog
- the ABC had to apologise for smearing me as racist
- a cartoon was screened of Abbott’s mother having sex with solar panel,
- ABC-appointed reviewers upheld complaints of anti-Liberal bias in interviews, but identified none of bias against Labor and the Greens
- the panels of Insiders started to comprise exclusively panellists of the Left
- global warming was pushed as an item of faith, with false claims (on sinking islands, temperature rises) not corrected
- Zaky Mallah, an Islamist extremist and former prisoner, was given a platform to ambush a government minister
- anti-Abbott buffoon Clive Palmer was given fawning coverage that helped him to become an MP
- Islamic hotheads were given a whole Q&A program to monster Attorney-General George Brandis
- the ABC falsely accused the navy of torturing boat people
- conservatives were excluded as hosts from every mainstream current affairs show
- Q&A became a Leftist hate-fest, with the Left dominating the panels, the audiences and the tweets
- Abbott was regularly treated with contempt on 7.30
- the ABC screened a love-in interview series with Paul Keating but rejected a more balanced one with John Howard
As I write I hear the fill-in for Jon Faine, the far Left morning host of 774, start to speak. Yes, It’s Waleed Aly, former Islamic Council of the Victoria spokesman, attacking the government’s border policies.
When Fifield praises Scott for this performance he is actually betraying the many, many Liberals outraged by the ABC’s war against them. He is rewarding their abuser.
UPDATE
image
When Barry Humphries, an artist, dares to say the ABC is too Left wing, why doesn’t the Liberals’ Communications Minister?
Australia’s greatest comedic export, Barry Humphries, says the ABC has become an extreme left-wing broadcaster and the former prime minister Tony Abbott was correct to criticise it.
“The ABC has become increasingly left wing. Blatantly so. Indeed so has another notable Australian newspaper,” Humphries said in an interview with The Australian.
“And I was surprised that they (the ABC) can be so openly of the extreme left.”
(Thanks to readers Sarah, Michael, John and others.) 
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Brandis passes pig test, but then hollers he cheated

Andrew Bolt September 28 2015 (7:37am)

Senator David Leyonhjelm on Attorney General George Brandis:
Anybody who shoots pigs is not all bad.
But Brandis does not dare accept this great praise from such a welcome quarter:
I myself am not a recreational shooter but I did describe to him an occasion when I had observed some recreational shooting and we had a laugh about it.
How sad, that squelching sound. 
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Next time I will explain the joke in small words and big pictures

Andrew Bolt September 28 2015 (7:15am)


image
I once had to explain satire in a witness box so I know it is dangerous. The malevolent and the touchy can interpret satirical statements as serious in order to damn the writer as exrtreme. And the humourless and the dull simply don’t get it. They really do think, say, a Jonathan Swift advocated eating children.
No, I’m not a Swift, but I am also not the megalomaniac Chris Kenny assumes:
Funny how the leadership convulsion has laid bare some media conceit. From the Leunig Left to the hard Right, commentators seem united in self-important delusion…
The ABC’s Media Watch used the coup to slap down right-wing warriors such as Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt. “It’s remarkable that Abbott was felled despite their support,” said Paul Barry. “And it shows how little power they actually have.” This is a ­bizarre genuflection to commentators when the decision was made by 100 Liberal MPs and was driven by opinion polls and internal squabbling.
Bolt’s response was equally bizarre. “Alan and I are shocked we couldn’t get every single Aust­ralian to back Abbott, when the only thing against us was the $1 billion-a-year ABC, the anti-­Abbott smear factory of Fairfax and the rest of the army of media orcs: SBS, Guardian, Daily Mail, The Monthly, The Project, FM hosts, half the News Corp empire and the Canberra bureaus of every TV station.”
The problem here is ego. Journalists and commentators of the Left and Right continue to labour under the misapprehension that their opinions dictate the opinions of others.
Maybe Chris is cross that I did not include him in my Horatius-on-the-bridge list of the defiant. But for heaven’s sake, mate, lighten up.  I make no such claim, and in fact have often disavowed it. I was mocking the idiotic assumption made by Paul Barry, and when you read the comments of readers underneath my piece you’ll see the great majority got it. Only aggrieved Leftists did not. And one aggrieved Kenny. 
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Amazing. Queenslanders warm to their government

Andrew Bolt September 28 2015 (7:05am)

The Liberals threw away two state elections - in Queensland and Victoria - through poor messaging. Now Labor consolidates power in both states, and in Queensland it sure isn’t though brilliant deeds. Voters reward seeming over doing and will one day pay:
Queensland’s accidental Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has fortified Labor’s hold on power with a successful small-target strategy… The first Newspoll since January’s boilover state poll, which saw one-term LNP premier Campbell Newman squander Australia’s largest parliamentary majority, reveals Labor leads the LNP by 53 per cent to 47 per cent, on a two-party-preferred basis…
The Palaszczuk government has resorted to small-­target tactics that have seen it criticised by some in the business community as a “do-nothing” ­administration risking economic growth in an attempt to avoid controversy.
Courageous admission:
...former premier Mr Newman re-entered the debate, admitting the LNP would have won had he not been leader. In an interview with News Corp’s Sunday Mail newspaper ahead of next month’s release of an authorised biography, Mr Newman confirmed he’d offered to resign twice last year, regretted the political fallout from the maligned appointment of Tim Carmody as chief justice, and called an early election because he could “smell trouble coming”.
Some MPs are determined not to make the same mistake twice:
...an LNP ginger group already planning to challenge the leadership of [Lawrence] Springborg and his deputy, John-Paul Langbroek, as early as the final parliamentary sitting week in early December.
Nearly half of Queenslanders — 49 per cent — think Ms Palaszczuk would make the better premier to 28 per cent who prefer Mr Springborg… Former treasurer Tim Nicholls is seen as Mr Springborg’s most likely successor, though second-term MP Tim Mander’s name is being put forward as an outside contender or a possible deputy.  
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Let’s talk about this mad spending

Andrew Bolt September 28 2015 (7:01am)

The turn of this conversation is welcome - and necessary:
The Coalition will today step up its attack on Labor over more than $10 billion in new spending measures announced since the budget, claiming that the opposition now faces a $57bn budget black hole and a raft of unfunded policies.
But as the government seeks to capitalise on a lead in the polls sparked by the leadership change to Malcolm Turnbull and turns its attack to Labor’s economic credibility, Scott Morrison faces calls to further tighten government spending and pursue wide-ranging tax reform that increases revenue.
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Your big mistake with Tony Abbott

Andrew Bolt September 28 2015 (6:59am)

Politics - federal, Personal stuff I'm glad I wrote

image
NOW Tony Abbott is gone I can finally tell the truth about him. Folks, you made a big mistake with this bloke.
No, no. The mistake wasn’t that you voted for him. In fact, you got one of the finest human beings to be Prime Minister.

In many ways he seemed too moral for the job, yet he achieved more in two years than the last two Labor prime ministers achieved in six.
Compare. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard left us with record deficits after blowing billions on trash — on overpriced school halls, “free” insulation that killed people, green schemes that collapsed, “stimulus” cheques to the dead.
They meanwhile opened our borders to 50,000 illegal immigrants and drowned 1200. They hyped the global warming scare and forced us to pay a job-killing carbon tax just to pretend they were saving us.
But Abbott? I won’t go through the whole list: how he stopped the boats, curbed spending, scrapped the useless carbon and mining taxes, led the world’s defiance of deadly Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and made us safer from terrorism.
He even signed three free trade deals to secure jobs for our kids — including one with China that the last three governments couldn’t clinch.
And he did all this in the face of astonishing heckling and even vilification from our media class, and despite often feral opposition in the Senate.
But your mistake was not to care about all that. Deeds didn’t count with you. Image was all.
And so you told the pollsters you didn’t like Abbott.
(Read full article here.)   
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Islam needs a credibility makeover

Piers Akerman – Saturday, September 27, 2014 (11:18pm)

FOR a great world religion, some of whose many followers are engaged in savage war with each other while others wish to take on the world, Islam needs a credibility makeover.
Australia has thus far been extremely fortunate to have security agencies that have thwarted plots to target the 2000 Olympics, major sites ­including the Opera House and the MCG, and more ­recently, individuals.
The notorious sheik had just returned from Lebanon, where the Arab press reported he had visited Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, then head of the terrorist organisation Hezbollah, and quoted him saying: “I blessed Hezbollah for liberating the prisoners and the bones of the shahids (suicide bombers) and I praised it and its sacrifice. Hezbollah has become a model for all the mujahideen in the world. Most of the Australian people do not support the policy of the Australian government, which has placed Hezbollah on the terror list out of submission to the US, and the Australian Prime Minister will pay the price for this in the next elections ...”
When challenged, his first response was to claim that he hadn’t spoken to the Arabic media and that he’d never ­issued a call to arms against any nation but he admitted to sentiments that “support the resistance”, though he said he condemned the targeting of civilian targets.
In a subsequent interview in Arabic with SBS radio, translated for me by Trad, the mufti did say he didn’t regard members of Hezbollah as terrorists.
Hezbollah was listed as a terrorist organisation by the Australian government less than a year later.
Subsequently, Al-Hilaly achieved increased notoriety with his comparison of women to raw meat and the revelation that he had been caught vandalising his own mosque.
Thus was the Mufti, hitherto the go-to spokesman for Islam in Australia, gradually brought down.
Australia now has the new Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu ­Mohammad.
He spoke earnestly for the cameras on Wednesday just after the attempted murder of two policemen and his translator said he had ­declared the calls for a jihad against Australians had no ­religious authority.
But when Islamic religious authorities are so obviously in bloody disagreement with each other, who do we believe?
Last week a young Muslim woman, who doesn’t wear any head cover and who had written a book about burqas and niqabs, told an ABC audience that she was an Alawite, an ­Islamic sect that permits women greater public roles than almost any other sect. Though she was sympathetic to those who did cover up, she admitted she would be targeted in certain Australian suburbs if she, as a Muslim, didn’t wear at least a scarf.
This may seem a petty issue when security agencies ­believe major crimes are being contemplated but the ­arguments about the burqa and chador and niqab are literally in our faces.
Those women who publicly argue most fiercely for the burqa have so far been either Muslim converts or women who don’t cover up. If there has been a woman in a burqa arguing for the burqa she ­appeared on an SBS channel I wasn’t watching.
In July, the European court of human rights upheld the right of France to ban the burqa to preserve the notion of “living together”.
France’s law, introduced in 2010, also covers balaclavas and hoods but has been seen as targeting Muslim women.
According to a report in The Guardian on July 1, ­Isabelle Niedlispacher, representing the Belgian government, which introduced a similar ban in 2011, declared the burqa and niqab “incompatible” with the rule of law.
Aside from security and equality, she added: “It’s about social communication, the right to interact with someone by looking them in the face and about not disappearing under a piece of clothing.”
The French and Belgian laws were aimed at “helping everyone to integrate”.
If Muslims complain about a sense of alienation, dumping the alienating burqa and niqab would go a long way to making them feel more at home here.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Islam needs a credibility makeover'
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Don’t cancel the Australian passports of aspiring Islamic radicals — just let them go

Miranda Devine – Saturday, September 27, 2014 (11:13pm)

HOW smart is it to cancel the passports of wannabe jihadists and keep them in Australia like angry little pressure cookers?
Denied the opportunity of “adventure jihad” in Syria and Iraq, aspiring radicals may just turn their attention to homegrown terrorism, as we saw on Tuesday night in Melbourne. 

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Don’t cancel the Australian passports of aspiring Islamic radicals — just let them go'
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PRAISE CHEESES

Tim Blair – Sunday, September 28, 2014 (12:11pm)

North Korean fatboy dictator Kim Jong-un is the rumoured victim of a dairy disaster.
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BEST ARGUMENT EVER

Tim Blair – Sunday, September 28, 2014 (2:45am)

Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama’ah Association of Australia spokesman Mustafa Abu Yusuf: 
“The beheadings, it’s an abhorrent act, don’t misunderstand me. But what about the British in Malaya in the 1950s?” 
I wish I’d thought of that when I lost my licence. “The speeding, it’s an abhorrent act, don’t misunderstand me, officer,” I might have said. “But what about the British in Malaya in the 1950s?”
All charges instantly dropped!
Readers are invited to use Mustafa’s brilliant Malaya gambit as an excuse for their own choice of current and historic atrocities. 
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The Bolt Report today, September 28

Andrew Bolt September 28 2014 (6:18am)

On The Bolt Report on Channel 10 today at 10am and 4pm.
Editorial:  This is no time for the Left to remind Muslim radicals why they should hate Australia
My guest:  Labor’s Anthony Albanese.
The panel: Australian columnist Judith Sloan and former Gillard Minister Craig Emerson.
NewsWatch:  Gerard Henderson on the ABC programs promoting Muslim radicals and sneering at anti-terrorism raids.
And lots more.. like, should the former Governor-General really be launching Julia Gillard’s memoirs and fawning over her?

The videos of the shows appear here. 
UPDATE
I should point out this was taken after the show. Debate is always healthy:
image
UPDATE
From my interview with Anthony Albanese, Labor’s spokesman for infrastructure, transport and cities, on his policy for managing population growth:
ANDREW BOLT:  But listen, at least you have delivered a policy, which is terrific. Bill Shorten, though, has adopted the small target strategy, and we haven’t actually seen many policies. Should Labor be giving more policies like you’ve just delivered? 
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, look, we’re just one year into a three-year term, and Bill was very supportive of my release of this policy. I think you’ll see, progressively, the alternative options rolled out, over the next couple of years.
ANDREW BOLT: Is that what you want to see?
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Absolutely.
ANDREW BOLT: No, not just a couple of years, as in now. Just - you see, I think, Anthony, what Labor’s done is - under Bill has been a block, block, block, block, block, define by no, being negative. You’ve now come out being positive. Is it time for that switch?
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, I think you will see it. And an effective opposition has to hold the government to account, but it also has to be in the business of ideas. And one of my criticisms of the current government was that they had a plan to get into government, they didn’t have a plan to govern. We need to be better than that, and we need to start preparing policies, getting out there, getting engaged in ideas....
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ANDREW BOLT:  And just quickly before we go, are you in the leadership hunt? I was - I ask because you did run before. But I was struck by this incident in Question Time, where Bill Shorten, your leader, gets up to ask a question, and you virtually shoulder him out instead. 
BRONWYN BISHOP, SPEAKER: Well, I was going to give the call to the Leader of the Opposition, but he’s just been pushed out of the way. The member for Grayndler?
ANDREW BOLT: Will you be pushing Bill Shorten out of the way later? ANTHONY ALBANESE: I was focused very much on Bronwyn Bishop, and how could you not be?
Full interview:


Icon Arrow Continue reading 'The Bolt Report today, September 28'
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Alerting more people to care less

Andrew Bolt September 28 2014 (5:53am)

Nicely put:
The United Nations has an awkward habit of using celebrities to give voice to its key concerns, at once amplifying its messages and somehow diminishing their significance. 
At this week’s General Assembly the key concern was global warming and the celebrity mouthpiece was actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
I have a little something for DiCaprio on today’s The Bolt Report. 
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No hiding: in the end we must decide if this culture is worth defending

Andrew Bolt September 28 2014 (5:46am)

Kevin Donnelly, senior research fellow at the Australian Catholic University:
At its extreme, multiculturalism championed the view that all cultures are equal and that embracing tolerance and respect meant that it was impossible to discriminate and argue that some beliefs or practices are un-Australian… 
Cultural relativism is inherently contradictory – if it is impossible to argue that any one particular view of culture is preferable or superior, then on what basis can advocates of cultural relativism argue that their version should prevail? 
(Thanks to reader Kat.) 
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Will egos stop the rise of Morrison?

Andrew Bolt September 28 2014 (5:40am)

Sam Maiden on the resistible rise of Scott Morrison:
(P)redictions Defence Minister David Johnston will prove collateral damage in a future cabinet reshuffle to elevate new talent neglect three important equations. 
First, the Prime Minister is hardly about to dump his defence minister in the middle of a war in Iraq.
Second, Tony Abbott’s clear preference is to shrink his 18-strong cabinet possibly down to 16, not elevate new ministers.
Third, Johnston’s critics would need to go through his chief protector Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to dump him.
It’s true that a consensus has emerged in recent weeks that the Prime Minister Office wants to create a new streamlined counter terrorism role, likely to be headed by Scott Morrison.
In practical terms, it would not involve David Johnston or Julie Bishop losing responsibilities however. The likely targets of the changes would be a loss of responsibilities for Attorney-General George Brandis and Justice Minister Michael Keenan…
Johnston, Brandis and Justice Minister Micheal Keenan are not wildly enthusiastic about the idea of handing responsibility for national security to Morrison.  
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Charming boy taught to praise jihadists

Andrew Bolt September 28 2014 (5:17am)

 
His father is a fan of the extremist Hizb ut-Tahrir:

All of nine years old, he stands at the front of a gathering in Sydney reciting passages from the Koran and lecturing followers on the importance of sacrifice in Islam. 
The little boy, who according to his father’s social media profile enjoys trips to McDonald’s and dinosaur exhibitions when he’s not giving sermons, heaps praise on “martyrs” and “mujahideen” engaged in bloody jihads throughout the Middle East…

“The mujaheens in Syria and Afghanistan and in Palestine and all around the Muslim lands who know that only Islam can bring mercy to mankind,” he preaches in an Australian accent. “Let us take this opportunity, in this month (Ramadan) … by sacrificing everything for the sake of Allah.”
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Fears for commandos’ families back home

Andrew Bolt September 28 2014 (5:09am)

The battlefield of wars in the Middle East now stretch to our suburbs:

It is understood mysterious strangers have visited Defence Department homes in suburbs near the military barracks in Holsworthy and nearby Steele Barracks in Moorebank with vague or implausible excuses. 
Soldiers believe radical ­Islamic splinter groups have been trying to identify potential targets with a high propaganda value. The word “stalking” has been used to describe it, one source said…
In the normal course of events, families safe at home worry about loved ones serving overseas....
The truth is, Australian soldiers in the Middle East have almost as much reason to worry about the safety of their families as the families have to worry about them after IS posted an online fatwa calling on followers to target not just Australian troops but also citizens. Army sources said the anti-terrorist raids came after Middle Eastern men visited military homes using ­implausible excuses. Military sources working with police have linked some of them to violent groups involved in the Cronulla riots in 2005.
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Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin
IT”S NOT TOO LATE.John 11: 21 - 22.
Turn to your neighbor and repeat these words after me say neighbor it’s not too late. God encourage our heart that it is not too late. A lot of times the enemy tries to convenience us that we missed our blessing. The devil will play with your mind. He will say if we would have done this at this time I will be further ahead and I would have my blessing a long time ago. So we will feel defeated due to the fact that we should have done that 3years ago. Well while that might be true in some sense, it’s not too late. God has a time for all of our lives.

God's time is not your time. I use to say God I want you to come right now quick fast and in a hurry. And most of us really want him to come right now. But isn’t it something when God delays his coming. He delays it for a reason. Some of us can not handle a right now blessing. So He makes us wait. In our waiting He works out our patience. In our waiting He has to bring our attitude under control. Some of us have a bad attitude. We are mean and clean. It bothers me when I see saints that are claiming to know God with a bad attitude, it bothers me. Even with our attitude we want God to come quick fast and in a hurry. Saints are to be so sweet until we are dripping syrup. When I see you I should not have to wonder if you are saved and sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost. I should see the attributes of the spirit. I should see love, peace, joy, longsuffering, goodness, gentleness, meekness, temperest and faith.Be patient and wait for Him.He can not fail.God bless you.
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Father God, I come to You today giving You thanks and praise for Your faithfulness in my life. I choose to receive Your Word which is life and strength to my soul. I choose to serve You with my whole heart all the days of my life. Help me to love others the way You love me. Give me opportunities to be a blessing everywhere I go. Help me to keep my heart focused on You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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If you believe, you will receive.(Matthew 21:22, NIV)

Christianity is about believing.All through the Bible, there are so many promises of what God has already done for us. It says in Ephesians that “God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.” It says in Colossians that “God has made us worthy.” There is mercy for any mistake we will ever make. It’s already been taken care of. He paid the ultimate price through the death, burial and resurrection of His Son, Jesus. He’s done His part. Now it’s up to us to do our part. We have to start believing so that we can receive.

In the natural, when someone gives you a gift, what’s the first thing you usually say? “Thank you.” When you give thanks, it’s a sign that you are receiving the gift. Today, start receiving what God has given you by saying, “Father, thank You for Your mercy. Thank You for supplying all of my needs. Thank You for Your goodness in my life.”

As you learn to give Him thanks, you are learning to receive from Him. Open your heart by faith today and thank Him for all the blessings He has prepared for you.God bless you.
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Father God, I humbly come to You today. I choose to let go of the past. I choose to release those who have hurt me so I can embrace the best that you have for me. Help me to forgive, help me to love, and help me to stay on the good path You have for me in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead
(Philippians 3:13, NIV).
Oftentimes, when we see someone who has hurt us, that pain and offense is stirred up, and we start thinking about what happened again. But in that moment, you have a choice to make. One of the best things you can do, instead of rehearsing the hurt, is to pray for that person and speak blessing over them.

Remember that forgiveness is for you. Letting go of bitterness is for you. Don’t let the past hold you back from what God has in store for your future any longer. Get past the past by choosing right thoughts because God has victory and blessing in store for your future.God bless you.
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Father, today I choose to release every care and concern into Your loving hands. I refuse to worry and choose to trust.Do not pass me by. Fill me with Your peace. Show me Your ways as I surrender every area of my heart and life to You in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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How do you turn things over to God? Start by making the choice and declaring your resolve. Simply say, “Father, I choose to let You be God of this situation. I take my hands off. I trust You.” Then, choose to worship Him. Worship is one of the best ways to set your heart and mind in the right place. You can’t worry and worship at the same time. Worship is a sign that you are trusting God; worry is a sign that you are trying to control things.Let God be God.The Scripture says,“Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him.”(Psalm 37:7, NKJV)

Today, take the pressure off yourself and turn things over to God. Give Him control and let Him take your setbacks and turn them into comebacks. Remember, the God who holds the universe holds you in the palm of His hand. Trust Him and let God be God in every area of your life.God bless you.
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Pass me not, O gentle Savior,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.

[Chorus:]
(I'm calling)
Savior, Savior,
(Why don't you)
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.

Let me at Thy throne of mercy
Find a sweet relief,
Kneeling there in deep contrition;
Help my unbelief.

[Chorus]

Trusting only in Thy merit,
Would I seek Thy face;
Heal my wounded, broken spirit,
Save me by Thy grace.

[Chorus]

Thou the Spring of all my comfort,
More than life to me,
Whom have I on earth beside Thee?
Whom in heav'n but Thee?
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LEARN FROM LIFE’S TESTS. Throughout life God puts people to test to help them grow in faith and obedience to His will. The Lord put Abraham to test in order to determine how mature was his faith and obedience. In order for God to use us He first requires that we completely yield our mind, emotions and will to Him. For this reason God said, “To obey is better than sacrifice.” Once the Lord knew that Abraham would obey Him in the most extreme ways, He knew that the man of God could use him as a model for many others to follow in the faith. God only multiplies those people who are faithful in little things before He uses them to accomplish great things for His kingdom’s purposes. Abraham’s willingness to offer Isaac as a sacrifice is a foreshadowing of how God offered Christ as a supreme sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. No wonder Jesus said, “Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for His friends.” (John 15:13) God bless u.
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There are times when God’s commands may not make human sense to our way of thinking, but we should trust and obey His will in all situations. Instant obedience is the only kind of obedience that God want from us, delayed obedience is disobedience. Whoever strives to withdraw from obedience, withdraws from Grace.

After the Lord had miraculously given Abraham a son named Isaac, the Lord tested Abraham and said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” (Gen. 22:1,2) 

Because Abraham had committed himself by covenant to obey the Lord and had consecrated Isaac to the God by circumcision, he did as he was instructed. When we trust and obey the Lord we can be sure that God will bless us. Moses wrote, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our people forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” (Deut. 29:29) Obedient to the Word is the key to success.God bless you.
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WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF ARABIA, EURABIA AND THE REST OF THE WORLD.

THERE ARE MANY MUSLIMS WHO WILL NEVER APPPRECIATE " NATIONAL MUSLIM APPRECIATION MONTH " BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN KILLED BY MUSLIMS.

AS FOR THE REST OF US INFIDELS AND KAFIRS WE APPRECIATE NOT BEING KILLED BY MUSLIMS.

THE APOSTATE MUSLIM POTUS CALIPHATE BARRY SHOULD BE GRATEFUL THAT SHARIA HAS NOT CONDEMNED HIM TO THE SAME FATE AS OTHER APOSTATES THEREFORE HE TOO WOULD APPRECIATE THE LENIENCY EXTENDED TO HIM BY THOSE WHO ARE COMMANDED TO KILL APOSTATE MUSLIMS.

http://nationalreport.net/obama-declares-november-national-muslim-appreciation-month/

Washington, DC — President Barack Obama held a press conference to announce that he is declaring the month of November ‘National Muslim Appreciation Month’.

“The Muslim community deserves our full acceptance and respect,” Obama told reporters. “We have killed millions of Muslims overseas since the September 11th attacks. They are not all bad. In fact most of them are good. So from now on, November will be a month to celebrate the Muslim community, the Sunnah and the Quran.”
Khaled Matei who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood‘s Freedom and Justice Party told CNN he is pleased with Obama and his actions. “I spoke with President Obama by telephone yesterday and personally thanked him for what he is doing for the Muslim community,” Matei said. “This is definitely a step in the right direction I explained to him. Praise Allah.”

Obama informed reporters about his future plans for helping Muslims around the world. “I will be working with Congress in making it easier for Muslims to earn a Green Card and achieve American citizenship,” Obama said. “Currently as it stands, obtaining a Visa or Green Card for a Muslim is very difficult. There are too many background checks in place and I plan to fix that.” Obama continued, “Muslims are hardworking people who are just looking to live the American Dream like the rest of us. Mr. Matei of the Muslim Brotherhood assured me they want to come to this country to help us, not harm us.”

Obama finished the press conference by explaining to reporters how happy he is with America. “Folks, there is no way we could have had a ‘National Muslim Appreciation Month’ 20 years ago. That really says a lot about the growth and progress of this great country.”

‘National Muslim Appreciation Month’ begins November 1st and will end at midnight on November 30th. For any questions or comments please contact the 24-hour National Muslim Appreciation Hotline at (785) 273-0325.

- See more at: http://nationalreport.net/obama-declares-november-national-muslim-appreciation-month/#sthash.JT50joqc.dpuf

But what he says is factually wrong. The US has never had a policy of killing Muslims. Further, the US army does not kill many .. and when she does she is accountable. The accusation that the US has killed millions of Muslims is rhetoric. In fact, the US has prevented the deaths of many Muslims threatened by Islamic terrorists. What Obama says is offensive, and not something I can support - ed
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Pastor Rick Warren
Standing in a grocery story line just now, I saw PEOPLE magazine's interview of Kay and me. I pray it helps others who struggle with depression, mental illness, or suicide, but when I saw the photos of Matthew, I broke down and sobbed
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This weekend I am really eager to share a message called "HOW TO BE HAPPY NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS" based on Philippians 1:12-30. It's Part 2 of my series "The Habits of Happiness" as we go verse-by-verse through Philippians. Join us at one of our 8 campuses or online athttp://www.saddleback.com/
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So many people are miserable because they think happiness come from self-gratification. It actually comes from self-sacrifice.
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Dumped? You need to forget about the one who forgot about you. Refocus on God. "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted." Psalm 34:18
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Depression teaches us that we cannot always trust our emotions or our thoughts. In darkness, we learn that only God can always be trusted.
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Scientists stumble on a form of matter that is like a light sabre.
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DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH
LUMEN GENTIUM
SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS
POPE PAUL VI
ON NOVEMBER 21, 1964
CHAPTER I
THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH
1. Christ is the Light of nations. Because this is so, this Sacred Synod gathered together in the Holy Spirit eagerly desires, by proclaiming the Gospel to every creature,(1) to bring the light of Christ to all men, a light brightly visible on the countenance of the Church. Since the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race, it desires now to unfold more fully to the faithful of the Church and to the whole world its own inner nature and universal mission. This it intends to do following faithfully the teaching of previous councils. The present-day conditions of the world add greater urgency to this work of the Church so that all men, joined more closely today by various social, technical and cultural ties, might also attain fuller unity in Christ.

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IMMIGRATION Minister Scott Morrison has finally responded to questions over an asylum seeker boat which sank off the coast of Indonesia.
Mr Morrison said Australian authorities were initially in charge of the search for the asylum seeker vessel after receiving a phone call about the incident yesterday morning.

Initial reports placed the vessel 25 nautical miles off the Indonesian coast, inside the Indonesian search and rescue region, but a Border Protection Command aircraft and a merchant vessel responding to an all ships broadcast were unable to find it.

The search and rescue operation is now being handled by Indonesian authorities, Mr Morrison said.

"Australian Government officials in Jakarta are seeking additional information from their Indonesian counterparts, including seeking to confirm where the vessel foundered. It is believed to have gone down in Indonesian territory."

He said Australian authorities would continue to provide whatever help was required by the Indonesian government but could not say what assistance was currently being offered.
Earlier today, Prime Minister Tony Abbott ignored reporters seeking information on up to 90 deaths after an asylum boat sank off the coast of Indonesia.
Up to 70 asylum seekers are still missing, feared drowned, after their boat broke up and sank en route to Australia.
At least 22 people, mostly children, are confirmed drowned after the boat, which was believed to be carrying about 120 passengers, struck rough seas on Friday off the coast of Java.
One of the passengers, a Lebanese man, had reportedly lost his pregnant wife and eight children in the disaster.
Just 25 of those aboard had been rescued before efforts to locate survivors were postponed last night due to failing light. The remainder were still in the water.
The boat broke up after it began taking on water about 6pm AEST.
The tragedy unfolded as the government sought to return two rescued groups to Indonesia.
Prime Minister, Mr Tony Abbott, ignored reporters when asked about the tragedy shortly after he addressed a sporting function this morning.


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/abbott-flees-reporters-after-asylum-seekers-drown-on-way-to-australia/story-fncynjr2-1226728862846#ixzz2gBCbImkG
ALP refuse to apologise for more deaths - ed===
Students at Universities and Colleges all over Canada have come together to denounce Zionism and the State of Israel at an event called Israel Apartheid Week or IAW.
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Current Gallery on all Photographs

Please click on below link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/307958525882739/photos/

Jewellery & Gemstone Gallery

Colour your world with gemstones !

A Gallery of Jewellery, Diamond News,Gems & Gemology promoted bywww.diamondimports.com.au
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Vanessa-Mae - perfect weekend

In an ideal world, I’d spend every weekend at my home in Zermatt in Switzerland. It’s a dream of a place. In winter I go skiing on Saturdays and Sundays when the slopes are quieter due to changeover day for tourists, and in summer I hike up into the mountains at sunset, just as the village is settling down to dinner. My chihuahua, Max, will come with me. He has to do 10 steps to every two of mine but he is super-sporty and can easily run up to 2,500m. I’ll pack us both jumpers, just in case we get lost, and I’ll spend the evening taking photographs of the Matterhorn. Every day that mountain looks different.
I’ve been skiing since I was four years old – the same length of time I’ve been playing violin – and my boyfriend, [Lionel Catelan, a wine dealer], is a big skier too. He’s very patriotic towards the ski resort of Val d’Isère in France, because that is where he is from, but we both fell in love with Zermatt when we came here on a ski trip in 2005. It wasn’t an altogether positive experience. We got robbed at the train station and found the people a little unfriendly, but the stunning natural scenery and the Matterhorn more than made up for this. After that we came back to Zermatt whenever we could, summer and winter.
I’d wanted to live in the mountains since I was 14 and in 2009, I finally thought “what the heck” and bought a place in Zermatt. I’d been renovating a house in London for about four years and it still wasn’t finished. It still isn’t. Every weekend I’d walk past it and feel depressed. Given I didn’t have children to think about, I figured I didn’t have anything keeping me there.
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Yasmine Lebbe
When He made the world, He made two ways to repair each thing: With harshness or with compassion. With a slap or with a caress. With darkness or with light.

“And G‑d looked at the light and saw that it was good.” Darkness and harsh words may be necessary. But He never called them good.

Even if you could correct another person with harsh words, the One Above receives no pleasure from it. When He sees his creatures heal one another with caring and with kindness, that is when He shines His smile upon us.

-From the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory.

Your Daily Dose of Wisdom from Chabad.org
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“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Happy art thou, O Israel; who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord!"
Deuteronomy 33:29
He who affirms that Christianity makes men miserable, is himself an utter stranger to it. It were strange indeed, if it made us wretched, for see to what a position it exalts us! It makes us sons of God. Suppose you that God will give all the happiness to his enemies, and reserve all the mourning for his own family? Shall his foes have mirth and joy, and shall his home-born children inherit sorrow and wretchedness? Shall the sinner, who has no part in Christ, call himself rich in happiness, and shall we go mourning as if we were penniless beggars? No, we will rejoice in the Lord always, and glory in our inheritance, for we "have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but we have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." The rod of chastisement must rest upon us in our measure, but it worketh for us the comfortable fruits of righteousness; and therefore by the aid of the divine Comforter, we, the "people saved of the Lord," will joy in the God of our salvation. We are married unto Christ; and shall our great Bridegroom permit his spouse to linger in constant grief? Our hearts are knit unto him: we are his members, and though for awhile we may suffer as our Head once suffered, yet we are even now blessed with heavenly blessings in him. We have the earnest of our inheritance in the comforts of the Spirit, which are neither few nor small. Inheritors of joy forever, we have foretastes of our portion. There are streaks of the light of joy to herald our eternal sunrising. Our riches are beyond the sea; our city with firm foundations lies on the other side the river; gleams of glory from the spirit-world cheer our hearts, and urge us onward. Truly is it said of us, "Happy art thou, O Israel; who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord?"

Evening

"My Beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him."
Song of Solomon 5:4
Knocking was not enough, for my heart was too full of sleep, too cold and ungrateful to arise and open the door, but the touch of his effectual grace has made my soul bestir itself. Oh, the longsuffering of my Beloved, to tarry when he found himself shut out, and me asleep upon the bed of sloth! Oh, the greatness of his patience, to knock and knock again, and to add his voice to his knockings, beseeching me to open to him! How could I have refused him! Base heart, blush and be confounded! But what greatest kindness of all is this, that he becomes his own porter and unbars the door himself. Thrice blessed is the hand which condescends to lift the latch and turn the key. Now I see that nothing but my Lord's own power can save such a naughty mass of wickedness as I am; ordinances fail, even the gospel has no effect upon me, till his hand is stretched out. Now, also, I perceive that his hand is good where all else is unsuccessful, he can open when nothing else will. Blessed be his name, I feel his gracious presence even now. Well may my bowels move for him, when I think of all that he has suffered for me, and of my ungenerous return. I have allowed my affections to wander. I have set up rivals. I have grieved him. Sweetest and dearest of all beloveds, I have treated thee as an unfaithful wife treats her husband. Oh, my cruel sins, my cruel self. What can I do? Tears are a poor show of my repentance, my whole heart boils with indignation at myself. Wretch that I am, to treat my Lord, my All in All, my exceeding great joy, as though he were a stranger. Jesus, thou forgivest freely, but this is not enough, prevent my unfaithfulness in the future. Kiss away these tears, and then purge my heart and bind it with sevenfold cords to thyself, never to wander more.
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Today's reading: Isaiah 3-4, Galatians 6 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Isaiah 3-4

Judgment on Jerusalem and Judah
1 See now, the Lord,
the LORD Almighty,
is about to take from Jerusalem and Judah
both supply and support:
all supplies of food and all supplies of water,
2 the hero and the warrior,
the judge and the prophet,
the diviner and the elder,
3 the captain of fifty and the man of rank,
the counselor, skilled craftsman and clever enchanter.
4 “I will make mere youths their officials;
children will rule over them.”
5 People will oppress each other—
man against man, neighbor against neighbor.
The young will rise up against the old,
the nobody against the honored....

Today's New Testament reading: Galatians 6

Doing Good to All
1 Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.3 If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. 4 Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, 5 for each one should carry their own load. 6 Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor.
7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers....
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Abimelech

 [Ăbĭm'elĕch] - father of the king.
1. A king of Gerar in the time of Abraham (Gen. 20; 21:22-32; 26:1-16, 26-31).

The Man Who Rebuked Another for Lying

Abimelech would have taken Sarah, Abraham's wife, into his harem, but learning that she was the wife of another, returned her uninjured. Abraham appears here in a bad light. He deceived Abimelech, but when found out was justly rebuked by the God-restrained Abimelech. Certainly the righteous should rebuke the ungodly ( 1 Tim. 5:20), but how sad it is when the ungodly have just reason for rebuking the righteous. What a degradation it was for Abraham, then, to be rebuked by a heathen king!
Abraham sought to palliate his deception by claiming that Sarah was actually his half sister, daughter of the same father but not the same mother (Gen. 20:12, 16).
A lie if half a truth
Is ever the worst of lies.
Abraham was the more blameworthy because he had done the same thing before ( Gen. 12) and had suffered much in the same way as upon this occasion. How grateful Abimelech was for the dream warning him of his danger! The covenant made with Abraham is somewhat significant -
I. It was proposed by Abimelech who, although knowing how Abraham had failed God, yet saw how favored he was of God (Gen. 21:22).
II. It revealed certain distrust of Abraham. Abimelech requested Abraham not to be tempted to sin in such a direction again (Gen. 21:23).
III. It was meant to secure Abraham's good will. The king desired the favor of the wandering pilgrim who had failed to act kingly. Abraham consented to the king's request (Gen. 21:24).
IV. It gave Abraham the opportunity of rebuking Abimelech. The matter of the stolen well had to be put right. Wrong had to be repudiated before a covenant could be agreed upon (Gen. 20:9; 21:23, 26).
V. It secured for Abraham the inheritance of Beer-sheba, "the well of oath," which possession the patriarch sanctified ( Gen. 21:27-33).
2. The son of Gideon by a concubine in Shechem who belonged to a leading Canaanite family (Judg. 8:30, 31; 9; 10:1).

The Man Who Was Bramble King

This Abimelech, who made the first attempt to set up a monarchy in Israel, is known as "The Bramble King." But his violent and ill-fated reign over Israel only lasted for three years. After the death of Gideon his father, Abimelech took seventy pieces of silver from his mother's people with which he hired vain and light persons to follow him. He slew seventy persons of his father's house. Jotham, the youngest son of Gideon, who is also called Jerubbaal, hid himself and when Abimelech was proclaimed king by the men of Shechem, he revealed himself and warned the Shechemites against Abimelech in a parable about trees, from whence he received his nickname as "Bramble King." What a tragic death this would-be king of Israel suffered (Judg. 9:53, 54)! A fitting end, surely, for one who sowed a Biblical city with salt (Judg. 9:45).
3. Son of Abiathar, the high priest in David's time (1 Chron. 18:16). Also known as Ahimlech.
4. A name given to Achish, King of Gath (according to Ellicott), to whom David fled (1 Sam. 21:10).
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