Monday, November 09, 2015

Mon Nov 9th Todays News

Andrew Bolt is tearing shreds off Dr Ben Carson over some media beat ups. One was a sermon he gave at church 17 years ago. The other is a claim he made in his youth about a scholarship offer. Both can be reasonably explained. The realities of archaeology aren't usually presented in sermons. Not because the Bible is not relevant as the word of God, but the Bible is not an archaeological textbook. Dr Carson's sermon on Joseph is not even contradicted by archaeology, save in the assertion that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. But even that could be talked around and made acceptable to the scientific community simply by saying that some large spaces were repurposed temporarily. But the truth acknowledged in the Bible itself is that the exact happenings of that time are not known, with scriptures lost for hundreds of years after King David's time. Another attack on Carson is to do with his supposed turning down a scholarship opportunity for West Point. It may not have been a formal offer at all, in which case there is no evidence. But so what? It is not the same as Clinton's not inhaling mojo. It is totally believable that Carson would have been an asset for West Point. 

 For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
=== from 2014 ===
 Trapped by Hubris
Celebrity enthusiasts for the ALP are out in force. Cate Blanchett has been delusional in her support for Whitlam. There is one thing Whitlam did which has lasted. He made Advance Australia Fair take the place of God Save the Queen as the national anthem. Lasting change which hasn't caused crippling debt but which was typically divisive and as subtle and devoid of intent as a spit in the eye. Noel Pearson also went to his happy place when speaking about Whitlam. The Whitlam Pearson spoke of would not be recognisable to his policy victims, were they to be able to have heard the speech. Whitlam's powerful influence in world politics resulted in the deaths of many Vietnamese, Cambodians, Timorise and Chinese. Whitlam's callous disregard of individuals in Australia is measured by the debt he saddled the nation in, optimistically viewing the children as a source of national income. 

Obama is helping the dismantling of the US Democrat party as a political force. Still, he can salvage a future if he changes his ways, and stops trying to divide America and destroy her institutions. He needs to let go of his vision .. it is what is weighing him down. 

Greens have a new policy in Australia that should save the world. Pee in the shower. Reminder, Milne did say the alternatives were mining coal or choosing death. Most sensible people choose to allow industry to mine coal. 

ABC seems disinterested in news of arrests on charges of an assassination attempt on the Queen. It took them time to report it and they played down the role of Islamo Fascists. David Marr on Insiders seemed vey keen to call it something else. Maybe he felt it was going to be another workplace accident, like that executed by US army psychologist Nidal Hassan. 
MH17 Shirtfronting
Journalists joke about Abbott facing Putin over MH17. But it is a terribly sad joke. I like and admire Mr Abbott and appreciate what he is doing to achieve any solace for relatives and loved ones of those killed through an act of terror. I feel that Russia is culpable, but not solely, and it concerns me that questions are not being asked of another culpable party, the Ukraine, because of political allegiance.

The hard questions Ukraine have not yet answered, and have not really been asked, is what role they played in having MH17 targeted? Why did they not warn Malaysia that there was a war zone? Were they playing a game with the Russian separatists which escalated? Why have they kept fighting and prevented investigation of the area?

Ukraine leadership has partly resigned following, obscuring their activity. But those questions need to be asked and publicly addressed for public confidence to be restored.
Historical items, on this day
In 694 at the Seventeenth Council of Toledo, Egica, a king of the Visigoths of Hispania, accused Jews of aiding Muslims, sentencing all Jews to slavery. Egica was 84 years old at the time and used to making ridiculous laws and customs which weren't followed outside of the capital city. However, the draconian legislation in this instance was genocidal. In 1494, the Family de' Medici were expelled from Florence. Politics without rules can be harsh. In 1520, more than 50 people were sentenced and executed in the Stockholm Bloodbath, where the Danish King having negotiated a truce where he was made King of Sweden too, broke many promises and executed those who had been in opposition.  In 1620, Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower sighted land at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In 1688, Glorious Revolution: William of Orange captured Exeter. The Glorious revolution was when the daughter of King James II, having married the Protestant William, gave William the throne from her father. This became the current line of Kings and Queens of England. In 1720, the synagogue of Yehudah he-Hasid was burned down by Arab creditors, leading to the expulsion of the Ashkenazim from Jerusalem. Note, it wasn't Judaism that the creditors were attacking, but debtors they had unfairly leveraged. In 1764, Mary Campbell, a captive of the Lenape during the French and Indian War, was turned over to forces commanded by Colonel Henry Bouquet. She was about ten years old when captured, and about sixteen when freed. She lived into her fifties and had seven children. In 1780, American Revolutionary War: In the Battle of Fishdam Ford a force of British and Loyalist troops failed in a surprise attack against the South Carolina Patriot militia under Brigadier General Thomas Sumter. In 1791, Foundation of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen. In 1793, William Carey reached the Hooghly River. In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte led the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire ending the Directory government, and becoming one of its three Consuls (Consulate Government).

In 1822, the Action of 9 November 1822 between USS Alligator and a squadron of pirateschooners off the coast of Cuba. Pirates lost a schooner, but managed to prevent a further chase by killing the US commander. In 1848, Robert Blum, a German revolutionary, was executed in Vienna. Robert had been a good guy, and his murder was wrong. In 1851, Kentucky marshals abducted abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, and took him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape. Calvin was a builder of the underground railroad. In 1857,  The Atlantic was founded in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1861, the first documented football match in Canada was played at University College, University of Toronto. In 1862, American Civil War: Union General Ambrose Burnside assumed command of the Army of the Potomac, after George B. McClellan was removed. In 1867, Tokugawa Shogunate handed power back to the Emperor of Japan, starting the Meiji Restoration. In 1872, the Great Boston Fire of 1872. In 1880, a large earthquake struck Zagreb and caused many casualties. One of them was the Zagreb Cathedral. In 1883, the Royal Winnipeg Rifles of the Canadian Forces (known then as the "90th Winnipeg Battalion of Rifles") was founded. In 1887, the United States received rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. In 1888, Mary Jane Kelly was murdered in London, widely believed to be the fifth and final victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper.

In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt was the first sitting President of the United States to make an official trip outside the country. He did so to inspect progress on the Panama Canal. In 1907, the Cullinan Diamond was presented to King Edward VII on his birthday. In 1913, the Great Lakes Storm of 1913, the most destructive natural disaster ever to hit the lakes, destroys 19 ships and kills more than 250 people. In 1914, SMS Emden was sunk by HMAS Sydney in the Battle of Cocos. In 1917, Joseph Stalin entered the provisional government of Bolshevik Russia. In 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicated after the German Revolution, and Germany was proclaimed a Republic. In 1921, The Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF), National Fascist Party, came into existence in Italy. In 1923, in Munich, Germany, police and government troops crushed the Beer Hall Putsch in Bavaria. The failed coup was the work of the Nazis. In 1935, the Congress of Industrial Organizations was founded in Atlantic City, New Jersey, by eight trade unions belonging to the American Federation of Labor. In 1937, Japanese troops took control of Shanghai, China. In 1938, the Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath died from the fatal gunshot wounds of Jewish resistance fighter Herschel Grynszpan, an act which the Nazis used as an excuse to instigate the 1938 national pogrom, also known as Kristallnacht (Crystal Night). In 1940, Warsaw was awarded the Virtuti Militari. The oldest medal currently being awarded. 

In 1953, Cambodia gained independence from France. In 1960, Robert McNamara was named president of Ford Motor Co., the first non-Ford to serve in that post. A month later, he resigned to join the administration of newly elected John F. Kennedy. In 1963, at Miike coal mine, Miike, Japan, an explosion killed 458, and hospitalised 839 with carbon monoxide poisoning. In 1965, several U.S. states and parts of Canada were hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13 hours in the Northeast Blackout of 1965. Also in 1965, the Catholic Worker Movement member Roger Allen LaPorte, protesting against the Vietnam War, set himself on fire in front of the United Nations building. In 1967, Apollo program: NASA launched the unmanned Apollo 4 test spacecraft atop the first Saturn V rocket from Cape Kennedy, Florida. Also in 1967, the first issue of Rolling Stone Magazine was published. In 1970, Vietnam War: The Supreme Court of the United States voted 6 to 3 against hearing a case to allow Massachusetts to enforce its law granting residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war. In 1979, Nuclear false alarm: the NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland detected a purported massive Soviet nuclear strike. After reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking the early warning radars, the alert was cancelled. In 1985, Garry Kasparov, 22, of the Soviet Union became the youngest World Chess Championby beating Anatoly Karpov, also of the Soviet Union. In 1989, Cold War: Fall of the Berlin Wall. Communist-controlled East Germany opened checkpoints in the Berlin Wall allowing its citizens to travel to West Germany. This key event led to the eventual reunification of East and West Germany, and fall of communism in eastern Europe including Russia. In 1993, Stari most, the "old bridge" in Bosnian Mostar built in 1566, collapsed after several days of bombing. In 1994, the chemical element Darmstadtium was discovered. In 1998, a US federal judge ordered 37 US brokerage houses to pay 1.03 billion USD to cheated NASDAQ investors to compensate for price-fixing. This was the largest civil settlement in United States history. In 1998, Capital punishment in the United Kingdom, already abolished for murder, was completely abolished for all remaining capital offences. In 2005, the Venus Express mission of the European Space Agency was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Also in 2005, Suicide bombers attacked three hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing at least 60 people. In 2007, the German Bundestag passed the controversial data retention bill mandating storage of citizens' telecommunications traffic data for six months without probable cause. In 2012, a train carrying liquid fuel crashed and burst into flames in northern Burma, killing 27 people and injuring 80 others.
From 2013
I am begging the PM of Australia, Mr Tony Abbott  or the Premier of NSW, Mr Barry O'Farrell  to come visit my unit, or send a delegate, soon. I have a claim on the PM's office. Gillard promised to address my issues through channel 7's Sunrise in '07. When she was campaigning in '10, she was escorted by my opponent Jason Clare. Gillard turned to election cameras and spoke of the dignity of work. It could have been a coded message to me. Clare has failed to represent me in parliament, and did not even campaign in '10, by arrangement with local press. I was campaigning on a social justice issue the press declined to report. I have claim on the Premier of NSW's office. A former school friend of mine who worked for some of the most corrupt ALP ministers was part of the office of Premier in '05 when he bragged to me he had written the 2004 NSW Teacher's Code of Conduct which was misused as an instrument to abuse me in '06. The office of NSW Premier has never accounted for its corrupt activity regarding me, parachuting a public servant into a mid level management position to target me for abuse. 

I am begging for the visit now, because I am losing things, extraordinary things, and there will never again be an opportunity to acknowledge the loss. 

I have a copy of Gladman's "Control and Teaching." It has pencilled in the front the name JP Rogers, a Principal of Sydney Boys High for some decades in the early 20th century. The book was a textbook given to beginning teachers in the nineteenth century and used in the early to mid twentieth century. A class teacher was given the book, and a class and instructed to teach. It is likely this was Roger's copy. 

I have a copy of Todhunter's "Trigonometry" from 1865. Trigonometry was what the British Empire used to survey India accurately before satellites. The book is probably an early Sydney University student's book. 

I have an education textbook on Motivation, edited by my father, the late Professor Samuel Ball. My dad was foundational educational evaluator of Sesame Street, as well as Pro Vice Chancellor of Sydney University and CEO of the Victorian BOS under Kennett. He wrote the original questions for Sale of the Century (actually, I think my step mum did). 
I have an early numbered copy of "Werewolves of Wynyard"a limited run print of short stories by friends on a theme of Sydney and a fantasy setting. I wrote Big Heart which incorporates elements of student life at a multi cultural suburban high school in the met south west of Sydney. Dealing with drugs and youth culture. 

If I can't give these away, I will have to throw them out. 

What has happened to me is wrong. It is something you will feel ashamed of if you fail to address it while you can. Please, find the time, or send a delegate ..  Dai Le or Zaya Toma are local councillors. 
=== 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.
===
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
===
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 Kevin Andrews, John Doan and Thuy Nguyen. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
November 9: Inventors' Day in Austria, Germany and Switzerland; Remembrance Sunday in the Commonwealth(2014); Muhammad Iqbal's Day in Pakistan
Berlin Wall
The alligator engaged. Sydney was victorious. Nazis celebrated by breaking things. You are the youngest undisputed world champion. The wall no longer separates us. Let's party. 
Deaths
===

THIS CALLS FOR AN URGENT SUMMIT IN PARIS

Tim Blair – Monday, November 09, 2015 (2:13pm)

Eventually someone, somewhere, in the far distant future, might be inconvenienced by global warming: 
Hundreds of millions of people around the world are living in places that could eventually be submerged by rising sea levels triggered by unchecked climate change, new global maps suggest.
An estimated 627 million people live in these places, including about 1.9 million in Australia and many more in the world’s great metropolises such as Tokyo, New York and Shanghai.
The rising seas won’t happen overnight, nor in anybody’s current lifetime. The global mapping project, carried out by the US group Climate Central, is based on huge sea-level rises that would not emerge for another 200 to 2000 years. 
Attention, anybody reading this during the 2215-4015 timespan. Please, for your own safety, commence walking very slowly inland. Meanwhile, anyone want to place a bet on what will happen first?
(Via Puzzled.)
UPDATE. Let’s hope the people of tomorrow appreciate all of our planet-saving sacrifices.
UPDATE II. A low-cost solution to the crisis. You’re welcome, great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren of people who haven’t even been born yet.
===

LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT

Tim Blair – Monday, November 09, 2015 (1:18pm)

A stolen cycle saga at the ABC: 
Walkley Award-winning journalist and former foreign correspondent Tim Palmer‘s expensive bicycle disappeared from the ABC parking lot in Sydney. Unable to find the bike, he reported it had been stolen.
To gain entry to the ABC’s carpark in Ultimo, an employee swipe card is used, or a security guard waves you through if there has been pre-approval by an ABC staff member. This made the disappearance of the bike perplexing as it indicated it was taken by someone who had access to the carpark. CCTV was also examined.
The man who removed Palmer’s bike was none other than the ABC’s business investigative journalist and friend Stephen Long.
It became a messy internal matter that ABC staff remain incredulous about. While he declined to comment, Long’s explanation to the ABC is that he thought the bike was going to be destroyed after an internal email warned bikes sitting idle would be disposed of. He apparently said it was simply a misunderstanding.
The ABC rejected involvement from police and chose to resolve the matter quietly and internally . 
Palmer’s bicycle is very distinctive. It’s surprising that his friend didn’t recognise it.
UPDATE. I suppose an #illridewithyou Twitter campaign would be deeply insensitive during Palmer’s bereavement. Maybe go with #putyourlocksout instead. Chris Kenny is having way too much fun with the ABC’s Grand Theft Ultimo.
UPDATE II. Found! Palmer’s missing bicycle turns up safe and sound.
===

BECAUSE THEY’RE TOKENS

Tim Blair – Monday, November 09, 2015 (1:01pm)

Leftists swooned when Canada’s child PM named his new cabinet: 
On Tuesday, the day of his swearing-in, Mr. Trudeau was asked why he believes it is important to have a cabinet in which half of the 30 ministers are women. He replied: “Because it’s 2015.” 
But Trudeau’s fans didn’t notice the fine print: 
Five of the 15 new female ministers have been given junior seats that support the work of other ministers, while all 15 men are full ministers in charge of their own departments. 
(Via James Morrow.)
===

Warming fail: the craziest rising-seas scare yet

Andrew Bolt November 09 2015 (6:48pm)

The Sydney Morning Herald should be embarrassed to run such a preposterous scare, which activists spoon-fed it:
Hundreds of millions of people around the world are living in places that could eventually be submerged by rising sea levels triggered by unchecked climate change, new global maps suggest.
An estimated 627 million people live in these places, including about 1.9 million in Australia and many more in the world’s great metropolises such as Tokyo, New York and Shanghai.
Shock! Run for the hills!
But, wait. A baby-step every decade should be more than enough:
The rising seas won’t happen overnight, nor in anybody’s current lifetime. The global mapping project, carried out by the US group Climate Central, is based on huge sea-level rises that would not emerge for another 200 to 2000 years.
In 2000 years? Imagine how fantastically richer and technology advanced humanity will be then. I suspect it will have figured how to flood-proof cities by then.
So what will trigger this possible apocalypse in the lives of our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren, or at least those too slow to climb 10 metres?
But a report that accompanies the maps, released on Monday, says this future would be locked in if global warming reached four degrees by 2100 - considered likely if the current level of emissions continued unabated.
Actually, a four degree rise by 2100 is highly unlikely of the current rate of no-warming continues unabated. Virtually no warming for 18 years will have to give way to the most incredible rise in the 85 years left.
So we have a wild scare based on an unlikely super-warming that might not take place for another 1000 years or more.
Really, the scaremongers are that desperate. 
===

But will Turnbull have the guts to stop this green lawfare against coal mines?

Andrew Bolt November 09 2015 (6:32pm)

This is ridiculous, an attempt to kill a massive job-creating mine through politically motivate green lawfare:
Indian energy giant Adani’s $16 billion Carmichael mine has been hit by another law suit, with the Australian Conservation Foundation challenging the Turnbull Government’s renewed environmental approval last month of the controversial project.
The ACF today filed the challenge in the federal court, accusing Environment Minister Greg Hunt of failing to consider the impact of “climate pollution’’ on the Great Barrier Reef from the mine’s coal that will be used to fire power stations in India.
It also claims Australia’s biggest-ever proposed mine could endanger the black-throated finch.
It is now the third animal to threaten construction of the mine.
In August, Mr Hunt asked the Federal Court to set aside his approval for Adani’s Carmichael coalmine after it emerged the department had failed to provide him with conservation advice on the impact on the yakka skink and the ornamental snake.
The aim is not necessarily to win these ludicrous legal actions but to impose crippling costs on Adani through delay. Nor is the aim to win the argument about global warming democratically - in the ballot box. One activist judge could now do a lot of damage.
I am now more sympathetic to the Abbott Government’s proposal to limit legal cases in such matters to those directly affected.
Mind you, there is one other option:  for the Turnbull Government to aggressively defend the claim in court - the claim that emissions from the Adani mine’s coals will be bad for the environment.
The emissions will in fact cause barely any measurable difference to the temperature, and even less to the reef. The much-predicted bleaching events we were told would destroy the reef have been far more scarce than predicted. If there is marginal warming, it is likely to help the planet green. 
But, of course, the Turnbull Government would not have the guts or integrity to argue these truths. Sadly.
And so the likelihood of big new minds opening, bring jobs and the revenue we need to pay for pensions, is fast decreasing. 
===

Which part of this story proves Chegeni should have been let in?

Andrew Bolt November 09 2015 (7:01am)

His death is tragic, but does nothing to change the argument that Fazel Chegeni was not someone we should have let stay:

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection has confirmed that the body of a detainee from the Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre has been found outside the rear boundary of the maximum-security facility on the Australian territory, two days after rumours began circulating among residents that there had been an escape.
The deceased man is believed by refugee advocates to be an Iranian Kurd who arrived by boat in 2010. There was no comment last night from the department on the possible cause of the man’s death.

Refugee advocate Ian Rintoul said the deceased man was Fazel Chegeni who had earlier been recognised as a refugee and was due to receive a protection visa a few years ago when he got into a fight at the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre.
Mr Rintoul said Mr Chegeni was convicted for his part in the violence, and spent more than a year in jail. At the completion of his sentence he was taken back into immigration detention…
There was speculation he took his own life but others wondered if he fell from the fence and died from those injuries.
Again, the death is sad. But Chegeni was:
- from Iran, not a war zone and not a country we should easily accept as a source of genuine refugees.
- someone who arrived here illegally, crossing many safe countries to reach richer Australia.
- convicted and jailed here for violence.
- possibly dead by accident.
How does any of that prove we should have let him in?
And now there are claims of riots on Christmas Island by other detainees. All involved have proved they are unworthy of admission. 
===

The truth about Turnbull’s magic tax

Andrew Bolt November 09 2015 (6:55am)

image
MALCOLM Turnbull is losing control over the tax debate. What he’s sold as tax reform has turned into a feeding frenzy for more of your money.
The new Prime Minister is hinting strongly that he’ll give us a higher or broader GST — a potentially $30 billion-a-year magic tax.
But like the Magic Pudding, Turnbull’s magic tax can apparently feed everyone without getting any smaller.

It’s somehow supposed to simultaneously:
PAY for cuts to personal tax rates that Treasurer Scott Morrison says are too high;
PAY the states more for education, too, according to another premier, Jay Weatherill;
PAY down the ballooning national debt, says Tony Shepherd, head of the Abbott government’s commission of audit; and
PAY for lots of compensation so “there is no disadvantage to the most vulnerable Australians”, adds Turnbull.
And it’s supposed to do this without leaving us with “a greater tax burden”, insists Morrison.
Wow. So here’s a tax reform that’s supposed to cost nothing and pay for everything. That is simply impossible. Ludicrous.
(Read full article here.)  
===

Ben Carson in trouble

Andrew Bolt November 09 2015 (6:44am)

Is there a media witchhunt against Ben Carson of the kind that Barack Obama never faced?
Probably.
Does one of the poll frontrunners for the Republican presidential nomination have troubling questions to answer?
Definitely:
... new reports of biographical inaccuracies are coming to light.
During the aftermath of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, for example, Carson — then, a junior at Detroit’s Southwestern High — claims to have heroically protected a few white students from anger-fueled attacks by hiding them in the biology lab, where he worked part time. But The Wall Street Journal could not confirm the account through interviews with a half-dozen of Carson’s classmates and his high school physics teacher. All of the students remembered the riot, but none could recall white students hiding in the biology lab…
It’s one of several biographical claims upon which Carson has relied in an effort to appeal to evangelical voters, who value the retired neurosurgeon’s personal journey from troubled youth to pious doctor....
In another anecdote, Carson wrote in his 1990 autobiography, “Gifted Hands,” that a Yale psychology professor had told his Perceptions 301 class their final exam papers had “inadvertently burned,” and that all 150 students would have to retake it. The new exam was much tougher, Carson wrote, and everyone besides him walked out of the class. Carson then recalled being approached by a photographer from The Yale Daily News and the professor, who Carson claimed told him the re-test was “a hoax” to see who was “the most honest student in the class.” Carson said the professor handed him a $10 bill.
No photo identifying Carson as a student ever ran in The Yale Daily News, however, according to The Wall Street Journal’s examination of archives, and no stories from that era mention a class called Perceptions 301. Furthermore, Yale Librarian Claryn Spies told The Wall Street Journal Friday that there was no psychology course by that name or class number during any of Carson’s years at the university....
CNN reported this week that Carson’s childhood friends and acquaintances could not recall the White House hopeful as a violent troublemaker in his youth — certainly not one who would’ve stabbed a friend, as Carson claims in “Gifted Hands,” had the blade not miraculously broken on a belt buckle. In response, Carson went on Fox News’ “The Kelly File” Thursday and said the person he tried to stab was a close relative who did not wish to come forward.
On Friday, meanwhile, Politico dug into Carson’s account that he was “offered a full scholarship” to West Point, but decided instead to pursue a career in medicine at Yale. A spokesperson for the prestigious military academy told Politico that the school had no record of Carson even applying, let alone gaining acceptance. Carson’s campaign later admitted that he never applied to West Point, but was given an offer based off his ROTC record during an informal meeting with a school representative.
There there is this:
Seventeen years ago, Ben Carson delivered a commencement address at Andrews University that featured a very unusual theory: Maybe Joseph built the pyramids to store grain…
He used Joseph to illustrate the point. “Here was a man who was basically able to save the entire world with his big thinking,” he mused. Joseph, in the biblical narrative, oversees the accumulation of grain reserves in Egypt sufficient to last through seven years of brutal famine… [He said:]

My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain. And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for a reason. And various scientists have said, “Well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how they were"—you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you.
The pyramids aren’t actually hollow. But Carson says he’s still sticking with his theory. 
===

Yes, the Islamic State is coming, however journalists scoff

Andrew Bolt November 09 2015 (6:31am)

WAKE up. We are at war. The bombing of a Russian jet in Egypt suggests Islamic State is no longer too far away to cause Australians trouble.
For too long, the media Left has been in denial.
Take Age columnist Waleed Aly, also a lecturer at Monash University Global Terrorism Research Centre, who last year claimed IS was just “a movement on the other side of the world that seems to be importing people rather than exporting them”.
Or take the many journalists who just five months ago mocked then prime minister Tony Abbott for warning “it’s coming after us”.
Those comments were savaged as “jarring” and “juvenile” by Australian reporter Niki Savva.
Channel 10’s Paul Bongiorno sniffed that they gave “credibility to the outfit’s delusional claim it was winning everywhere”.
Worse, Malcolm Turnbull, then a disloyal Abbott minister, gave a speech warning “we should be careful not to say or do things which can be seen to add credibility to (IS’s) delusions”.
(Read full column here.) 
===

The jihad against Jews continues

Andrew Bolt November 09 2015 (6:28am)

Another stabbing attack. How Israelis are meant to live alongside Palestinians is the big question.
UPDATE
More:

A Palestinian attacker rammed his vehicle into a group of Israelis standing at a hitchhiking station in the West Bank Sunday, wounding four of them before he was shot dead by paramilitary officers, Israeli police said…
Hours later, the military said an Israeli man showed up at a West Bank checkpoint with a wound to his stomach. He said he was stabbed while shopping in a Palestinian village.
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Morrison implies no more tax

Andrew Bolt November 09 2015 (6:13am)

The Treasurer sets this parameter on the free-for-all for the money raised by a higher GST:
In comments that will reassure the economic dries within the Liberal Party, Mr Morrison said: “We don’t want to see the tax burden increased on Australians, we don’t think the way you grow your economy is by increasing the tax burden.
So how he plans to raise the GST while at the same time cutting taxes, giving the states a share and (over-)compensating the poor remains to be seen. 
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What is it with the Left and violence?

Andrew Bolt November 09 2015 (6:10am)

In Italy, too:
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British jihadis suspected in Russian jet bombing

Andrew Bolt November 09 2015 (6:05am)

Another alarming development in what, if population moves and jihadism is not unchecked, could decades from now become a kind of civil war in the West:

A British intelligence agency overheard UK accents among Sinai Peninsula jihadists who were celebrating the downing of a Russian airliner that killed all 224 passengers and crew aboard.

The overheard accents imply “a definite and strong link” between British jihadis and the crash of the A321 airliner belonging to the Metrojet airline shortly after it took off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport on October 31, the British newspaper Sunday Express reported Sunday.
GCHQ, the British secret service comparable to America’s NSA and responsible for signals intelligence, picked up “chatter” by Sinai- and Egypt-based fighters with the Islamic State affiliate in the country that included English-speakers with accents hailing from UK cities London and Birmingham.
UK intelligence believes the British-born Islamists may have been a key part in planning what they describe as a sophisticated operation to plant a bomb on the plane, which carried mostly Russian tourists.
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A spoke in the ABC journalists’ wheel

Andrew Bolt November 09 2015 (5:57am)

An expensive bike is reported stolen at the ABC headquarters. Staff friction apparently ensues at the media collective.
And further down the link, a great and daunting gathering of the media Left. Makes me wonder how the few conservatives in the business manage to survive. 
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Piers Akerman: Blanchett and Whitlam fans are living in a land of make-believe

Piers Akerman – Saturday, November 08, 2014 (11:58pm)

ACTRESS Cate Blanchett epitomised her role as the poster girl for the age of self-delusional entitlement when she eulogised Gough Whitlam on Wednesday.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Piers Akerman: Blanchett and Whitlam fans are living in a land of make-believe'
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Miranda Devine: Noel Pearson has given better speeches than his tribute to Gough Whitlam

Miranda Devine – Saturday, November 08, 2014 (11:54pm)

NOEL Pearson’s eulogy to Gough Whitlam at the Sydney Town Hall last week was hailed instantly as the finest speech in Australian history. But the eye watering flattery does him no favours.
Pearson has given much better speeches, brave and truer to the way the world really works. And Whitlam nostalgia is the last thing to commend him as a future Prime Minister.
Whitlam personified the vicious ideological schism in Australia, and so his send-off was suitably marked by squabbles and uncouth partisanship.
There were the furious complaints of true believers who had booked tickets online and flown across the country only to find the organisers had stuffed up and the hall was full. It was an apt footnote for a Prime Minister who inspired with lofty ideas but couldn’t follow through with the all-important detail.
The booing and hissing of the “It’s Time crowd” outside as John Howard and Tony Abbott arrived was pure bogan panto. Whitlam would not have behaved as gracelessly but his reckless dismantling of the moral capital of his forebears spawned such incivility. 
Another stuff-up in the seating arrangements greeted the arrival of Julia Gillard. Borne down the aisle by a standing ovation, video footage captured the awkward moment when an usher gestured to her allocated seat and she realised it was right next to Kevin Rudd.
As Rudd stared stoically ahead, and Malcolm and Tamie Fraser stood waiting for her to squeeze past, Gillard bobbled back and forth, waving at a friend, not acknowledging the Frasers, leaving the usher in the aisle blinking at his seating plan. She stalled until a human buffer volunteered to sit next to her nemesis. For poor Rudd, who, alone among the four Labor PMs in the hall, barely elicited a clap from the crowd, the added indignity of a middle-aged version of Mean Girls must have stung.
Against all this, Pearson’s gifts of oratory were a balm, restoring the dignity befitting the occasion.
I have long admired Pearson’s willingness to reach beyond ideology. He sacrificed his place as the pin-up boy of progressive Australia by calling out the disaster of passive welfare and insisting the only solution to their social problems is for Aboriginal people to take responsibility for their own fate.
So I approached his speech with an open mind, to learn why this brilliant 49-year-old Bagaarrmugu man from the old Lutheran mission town of Hopevale so revered a prime minister who, to me, symbolises all the fakery and damaging illogic of the Australian left.
Pearson said it was not the 1967 referendum but laws enacted by Whitlam’s government eight years later which spelled freedom “from those discriminations that humiliated and degraded our people.”
I respect Pearson’s assessment of Whitlam’s legacy. But what I won’t accept is his assertion that Whitlam was virtually alone in being born to privilege yet able to understand the plight of those who aren’t.
“Only those who have known discrimination truly know its evil,” he said. “Only those born bereft truly know the power of opportunity. Only those accustomed to its consolations can deprecate a public life dedicated to its furtherance and renewal…
“This old man was one of those rare people who never suffered discrimination but understood the importance of protection from its malice.”
For starters, white skin and privilege don’t inoculate you from discrimination and heartbreak. They just don’t provide easy excuses.
I could say that Noel Pearson, a strong man with a deep voice and commanding presence could never understand what it is to be a hesitant young woman in a room of VIPs.
Or what it is to be an awkward boy with skewiff glasses and borderline Aspergers who won’t look people in the eye because of the shame he carries from schoolyard ostracism.
Empathy is what makes us human, the ability toimagine a life unlike our own, to understand another person’s anguish. It’s what differentiates us from animals. Its absence is evil.
You don’t have to walk in another person’s shoes to understand; you just have to be able to imagine.
Empathy is what allows male writers from Shakespeare to Tolstoy to imagine memorable female characters. Imagination is how white writers Harper Lee and Mark Twain and William Faulkner inhabited black characters, and added to the store of empathy in the world.
If Pearson thinks Whitlam is the rare privileged white person who understood discrimination, then he imagines an Australia devoid of empathy, which is a mean view of his fellow citizens.
If you believe in equality, you don’t tell Australians who weren’t in that hall, who voted Whitlam out of office in a historic landslide and who reject his myths that you doubt their empathy.
Because then there is no future for us to live in peace the way Martin Luther King envisaged, “when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last!”
The “I have a dream speech” was great and Pearson’s was not because King appealed to the “better angels” of our nature, not the insults which drive us apart. 
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The Bolt Report today, November 9

Andrew Bolt November 09 2014 (6:43am)

On The Bolt Report on Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm. 
Editorial: Whitlam memorial service - the political messages.. 
My guest: Top marketing guru David Chalke analyses the Islamic State’s propaganda videos. 
The panel: Australian columnist Niki Savva and former Labor strategist Bruce Hawker. 
NewsWatch: Sharri Markson, media editor of the The Australian. 
And lots more, including goldfish for Gillard, Palmer’s party imploding, Obama’s humiliation. And a great conservative cause launched. 

The videos of the shows appear here.
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Tell that joke to the families of the dead

Andrew Bolt November 09 2014 (5:51am)

Vladimir Putin supplied, encouraged and even reinforced the Ukrainian rebels who murdered 38 Australians by shooting down their jet with a missle from a launcher now believed to be hidden in Russia.
That’s the issue. But many writers of the Left have reduced this scandal and this tragedy to a joke to make Tony Abbott the punchline, mocking his furious determination to bring the guilty to justice.
Annabel Crabb:
So there will be no shirt-fronting. 
In a development reported on Friday, it has been decided that the super-heavyweight bout of the year, Abbott versus Putin, will no longer be the event drawcard of APEC 2014.
Political sketch writers, sports betting agencies and salty snack manufacturers are disgustedly tearing up their “Rumble in the Tundra” posters and submitting, with ill humour, to the will of global diplomacy, which is that APEC will deal only with economic issues and everybody is to be nice to Vladimir.
Team Australia now formally accepts the whole thing will be defused peaceably in Beijing next week instead, at a leaders’ meeting to be attended by both Mr Abbott and Mr Putin, at which Mr Abbott will speak to the Russian President but will be under no home-ground obligation to punch him out.
This is a little-used diplomatic manoeuvre known in the trade as “The Dicky”, or false shirt-front. The news generated mixed feelings on Friday, of course. There was disappointment among Mr Abbott’s more enthusiastic squad members, who - like the Prime Minister - have golden memories of fighting Trots in their student politics days, and for whom the prospect of some top-level biffski was as rejuvenating as a round of Botox.
Other reporters seem to think Abbott being cross about the murder of 38 Australians has damaged our relations with Russia more than has the Russian-enabled murders themselves:
Speaking to reporters in Beijing, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop rejected suggestions Mr Abbott’s threat to “shirt-front” Mr Putin had harmed relations between the two nations.
Abbott is dumb and laughable and crass to demand justice from Russia on behalf of the families of 38 murdered Australians?
Seriously? 
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Islamist plot against the Queen? ABC yawns

Andrew Bolt November 09 2014 (5:41am)

Four British Muslims are arrested over an alleged plot to kill the Queen.
Reader rossco:
As of midnight the ABC appears to have still not reported the assassination plot against the Queen [allegedly] targeted at the Remembrance Day celebrations. Checked at 7pm and midnight, despite it being out on many commercial and US websites before 6pm. 
An assassination plot against our head of state and the ABC doesnt report it. Is this because they don’t like who is our head of state, or because the story doesn’t line up with their attitude on the dangers of radical Islam? 
Reader Factfinder:
It took SBS News until 6:50pm to make first mention of the Muslim plot to kill Queen Elizabeth. This is 20 minutes into a one hour news service. (The last time I looked she is still nominally the Queen of Australia, I personally think that is an anachronism but still, she is what she is, and decent people would respect that). 
SBS belatedly conceded it may have something to do with ISIS. (That must have been a massive admission for them to admit that, yet they didn’t have the principles, decency or integrity to say the words Muslim or Islam ).
Yet in the meantime they devoted a considerable amount of time to Prince Charles and an interview he had with Molly Meldrum almost 4 decades ago and Prince Charles contribution to the 40th anniversary of the show ‘Countdown’. Talk about warped priorities.
Now for the shameless, and sadly predictable ABC, well, I switched over at 7pm sharp from SBS news onto ABC News which had already begun. They were telling us their headlines which included Abbott, Putin and the G20 etc but no mention of the plot to kill the Queen. Maybe I just missed it, switched over too late, maybe not. I then watched the rest of the ABC News until 7.30pm and yet, not one peep out of them about the Muslim plot to kill Queen Elizabeth.
Maybe it’s just not newsworthy anymore at their ABC. Unless the barbarians actually succeed, then the ABC would then be dragged kicking and screaming to admit what had occurred. No doubt they would spin it somehow into a denunciation of Israel, Abbott, the Western world in general. 
UPDATE
The arrests are certain. But other British media outlets believe the alleged target at this stage is a guess:
Four suspected Islamist terrorists have been arrested by armed police on suspicion of plotting attacks in the UK – amid fears of a Remembrance Sunday plot…

Police would not discuss whether the men had a specific target in mind but the timing of the raids raises the prospect that they may have been planning an incident on Remembrance Sunday.
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Obama helps destroy the Democrats

Andrew Bolt November 09 2014 (5:31am)

David Brooks on the scale of the Republican victory: 
(T)hey obviously won the Senate ... they have kept the House. 
But just in the states, I didn’t expect the governorships in all these Midwestern states ... Illinois ... Maryland… They control two-thirds of the governorships..  They control unprecedented levels of state legislators. They have now got a farm team across the country of rising politicians…
And so they have become, with two-thirds control of all these states, these governorships and now majority control in both houses of Congress ... the dominant governing party in the country…
(W)hat they do with it remain to be seen, but a lot of people have said, oh, the Republican [Party] is so extreme, it’s a dinosaur, and I have even said some of that, over-relying on some of the demographics. But they are the dominant party in this country right now. And how can you be out of the mainstream if you dominate that much?… The core problem for the Democrats is that ... they’re intellectually exhausted… (P)olitically, they obviously made a mistake by thinking demographics could carry them along the way and they didn’t actually need issues. And that was a consultants’ fantasy. And that hurt the Democrats.
Mark Shields:
(T)here were 256 Democrats in the House of Representatives the day that Barack Obama took oath of office in 2009. There will be about 185 six years in ... (T)he Senate goes from 60 Democrats to 45 ... (T)hose are numbers that are just of hemorrhage, dimensions and proportions. And it’s a real rejection of Democrats… 
(F)or Democrats, it’s a terrible, terrible, crushing defeat, and one that leaves them, I hope, engaged in serious introspection, because they went through a campaign where they had no economic message.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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New Greens policy: pee in the shower

Andrew Bolt November 09 2014 (5:25am)

Greens leader Christine Milne wants to bring the Greens into the 21st century:

THE Australian Greens will consider how to move their party into the modern, professional political era at their national conference. 
‘Greens Senator Larissa Waters wants the Greens to adopt the toileting habits of the 19th century::
image
(Thanks to reader Eagle Dan.) 
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Dean Hamstead
Find a job or collect the dole. But there's a third option, create your own job and then create jobs for others.
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The Forgotten History of the Diaspora’s Jewish Warriors
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/150417/the-diasporas-jewish-warriors
The historian Derek J. Penslar starts his masterful new book, Jews and the Military: A History, with an anecdote. He gave a lecture about Jewish soldiers at a synagogue in Toronto, in the presence of many who had seen fighting in World War II and the Korean War—conflicts that were some the most v...
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Time-lapse transformation of homeless vet will make you cry tears of joy
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/timelapse-transformation-of-homeless-vet-will-make-you-cry-tears-of-joy/story-fnixwvgh-1226756320101
IF THERE'S one thing that'll make you cry in a feel-good kind of way today, it's this.
Picture: YouTube/RobBlissCreative
Picture: YouTube/RobBlissCreative
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Tony Abbott ushers in age of a calmer, workable house
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/tony-abbott-ushers-in-age-of-a-calmer-workable-house/story-e6frg75f-1226756138313#mm-register
CALM. If there is one word Tony Abbott and most of his ministerial colleagues want to be associated with as they prepare for the opening of the 44th parliament next week, it is calm.
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Allyson Christy.
"According to a recent UN-commissioned report, 115,000 people have been killed in Syria and millions of others have been displaced in the past two years. Approximately 4.4 million Syrians are now living in extreme poverty, with half of the country unemployed.

Syria’s neighboring country, Israel, has been quietly aiding refugees, both sending supplies and providing Israeli hospital care and medical treatment to wounded Syrians – children and adults – caught in the crossfire.

The Israeli non-profit, IsraAid, has sent approximately $100,000 worth of supplies throughout the past year, and other Israeli groups comprised of private citizens, such as Hand in Hand, have also collected and sent clothing and supplies to Syrian refugees located in Jordan. IsraAid recently sent sacks of dry goods filled with lentils, powdered milk, pasta, and tea to Syrian refugees in Jordan.

The question remains whether the international community will take a loud and effective stand on the Syrian situation, or will allow Assad to continue to exert brutality and violence against his people." - Anav Silverman/Tazpit News Agency
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Louise DeKoven Bowen
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“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.””Joshua 24:15 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord."
Colossians 2:6

The life of faith is represented as receiving--an act which implies the very opposite of anything like merit. It is simply the acceptance of a gift. As the earth drinks in the rain, as the sea receives the streams, as night accepts light from the stars, so we, giving nothing, partake freely of the grace of God. The saints are not, by nature, wells, or streams, they are but cisterns into which the living water flows; they are empty vessels into which God pours his salvation. The idea of receiving implies a sense of realization, making the matter a reality. One cannot very well receive a shadow; we receive that which is substantial: so is it in the life of faith, Christ becomes real to us. While we are without faith, Jesus is a mere name to us--a person who lived a long while ago, so long ago that his life is only a history to us now! By an act of faith Jesus becomes a real person in the consciousness of our heart. But receiving also means grasping or getting possession of. The thing which I receive becomes my own: I appropriate to myself that which is given. When I receive Jesus, he becomes my Saviour, so mine that neither life nor death shall be able to rob me of him. All this is to receive Christ--to take him as God's free gift; to realize him in my heart, and to appropriate him as mine.
Salvation may be described as the blind receiving sight, the deaf receiving hearing, the dead receiving life; but we have not only received these blessings, we have received Christ Jesus himself. It is true that he gave us life from the dead. He gave us pardon of sin; he gave us imputed righteousness. These are all precious things, but we are not content with them; we have received Christ himself. The Son of God has been poured into us, and we have received him, and appropriated him. What a heartful Jesus must be, for heaven itself cannot contain him!

Evening

"The Master saith, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples?"
Mark 14:14
Jerusalem at the time of the passover was one great inn; each householder had invited his own friends, but no one had invited the Saviour, and he had no dwelling of his own. It was by his own supernatural power that he found himself an upper room in which to keep the feast. It is so even to this day--Jesus is not received among the sons of men save only where by his supernatural power and grace he makes the heart anew. All doors are open enough to the prince of darkness, but Jesus must clear a way for himself or lodge in the streets. It was through the mysterious power exerted by our Lord that the householder raised no question, but at once cheerfully and joyfully opened his guestchamber. Who he was, and what he was, we do not know, but he readily accepted the honour which the Redeemer proposed to confer upon him. In like manner it is still discovered who are the Lord's chosen, and who are not; for when the gospel comes to some, they fight against it, and will not have it, but where men receive it, welcoming it, this is a sure indication that there is a secret work going on in the soul, and that God has chosen them unto eternal life. Are you willing, dear reader, to receive Christ? then there is no difficulty in the way; Christ will be your guest; his own power is working with you, making you willing. What an honour to entertain the Son of God! The heaven of heavens cannot contain him, and yet he condescends to find a house within our hearts! We are not worthy that he should come under our roof, but what an unutterable privilege when he condescends to enter! for then he makes a feast, and causes us to feast with him upon royal dainties, we sit at a banquet where the viands are immortal, and give immortality to those who feed thereon. Blessed among the sons of Adam is he who entertains the angels' Lord.
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Today's reading: Jeremiah 43-45, Hebrews 5 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Jeremiah 43-45


1 When Jeremiah had finished telling the people all the words of the LORD their God—everything the LORD had sent him to tell them— 2 Azariah son of Hoshaiah and Johanan son of Kareah and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are lying! The LORD our God has not sent you to say, ‘You must not go to Egypt to settle there.’ 3 But Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you against us to hand us over to the Babylonians, so they may kill us or carry us into exile to Babylon.”
4 So Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers and all the people disobeyed the LORD’s command to stay in the land of Judah. 5 Instead, Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers led away all the remnant of Judah who had come back to live in the land of Judah from all the nations where they had been scattered. 6 They also led away all those whom Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard had left with Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan—the men, the women, the children and the king’s daughters. And they took Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch son of Neriah along with them. 7 So they entered Egypt in disobedience to the LORD and went as far as Tahpanhes.
8 In Tahpanhes the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: 9“While the Jews are watching, take some large stones with you and bury them in clay in the brick pavement at the entrance to Pharaoh’s palace in Tahpanhes. 10 Then say to them, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I will send for my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and I will set his throne over these stones I have buried here; he will spread his royal canopy above them. 11 He will come and attack Egypt, bringing death to those destined for death, captivity to those destined for captivity, and the sword to those destined for the sword. 12 He will set fire to the temples of the gods of Egypt; he will burn their temples and take their gods captive. As a shepherd picks his garment clean of lice, so he will pick Egypt clean and depart. 13 There in the temple of the sun in Egypt he will demolish the sacred pillars and will burn down the temples of the gods of Egypt....’”

Today's New Testament reading: Hebrews 5

1 Every high priest is selected from among the people and is appointed to represent the people in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness. 3 This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people.4 And no one takes this honor on himself, but he receives it when called by God, just as Aaron was.
5 In the same way, Christ did not take on himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him,
“You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.”
6 And he says in another place,
“You are a priest forever,
in the order of Melchizedek....”
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Gideon, Gedeon

 [Gĭd'eon, Gĕd'e on] - a cutting down, he that bruises or great warrior. A son of Joash of the family of Abiezer, a Manassite, who lived in Ophrah and delivered Israel from Midian. He is also called Jerubbaal, and judged Israel forty years as the fifth judge (Judg. 6; 7; 8).

The Man of Might and Valor


Without doubt Gideon is among the brightest luminaries of Old Testament history. His character and call are presented in a series of tableaux. We see:
I. Gideon at the flail. The tall, powerful young man was threshing wheat for his farmer-father when the call came to him to rise and become the deliverer of his nation. History teaches that obscurity of birth is no obstacle to noble service. It was no dishonor for Gideon to say, "My family is poor."
II. Gideon at the altar. Although humble and industrious, Gideon was God-fearing. His own father had become an idolator but idols had to go, and Gideon vowed to remove them. No wonder they called him Jerubbaal, meaning "Discomfiter of Baal."
III. Gideon and the fleece. Facing the great mission of his life, he had to have an assuring token that God was with him. The method he adopted was peculiar, but found favor with heaven, God condescending to grant Gideon the double sign. With the complete revelation before us in the Bible, we are not to seek supernatural signs, but take God at his Word.
IV. Gideon at the well. How fascinating is the incident of the reduction of Gideon's army from thirty-two thousand to ten thousand, then to only three hundred. Three hundred men against the countless swarms of Midian! Yes, but the few choice, brave, active men and God were in the majority. God is not always on the side of big battalions.
V. Gideon with the whip. Rough times often need and warrant rough measures. The men of Succoth and Penuel made themselves obnoxious, but with a whip fashioned out of the thorny branches off the trees, Gideon meted out to them the punishment they deserved.
VI. Gideon in the gallery of worthies. It was no small honor to have a niche, as Gideon has, in the illustrious roll named in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, where every name is an inspiration, and every character a miracle of grace.
Preachers desiring to continue the character-study of Gideon still further might note his humility (Judg. 6:15); caution (Judg. 6:17); spirituality (Judg. 6:24); obedience (Judg. 6:27); divine inspiration ( Judg. 6:34); divine fellowship (Judg. 6:36; 7:4, 7-9); strategy (Judg. 7:16-18); tact (Judg. 8:1-3); loyalty to God (Judg. 8:23); the fact that he was weakened by his very prosperity (Judg. 8:24-31).
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