Friday, October 07, 2016

Fri Oct 7th Todays News

On this day in 1973, Israel endured an unprovoked attack from Egypt and Syria called the Yom Kippur war, as it started on a public holiday for Israel. For the first three days, Israel held their position. Then they made incursions deep into Syria and Egypt and by the 22nd October the UN had to step in to prevent Israel from further humiliating Soviet backed troops. The post WW2 Egyptian army had been modernised by a Hitler supporter, Otto Skorzeny, and Syria by Alois Brunner. Otto had been behind the Odessa File and worked for the CIA as an asset. Another Nazi product was Yassir Arafat. The tactics they employed against Israel had been developed as Werwölfe as well as conventional tactics. It is why aircraft were hijacked in the 1960's and '70s as a Palestinian tactic. 

It is also worth noting that Nazis exploited environmentalism in much the same way environmentalists do today. And the terrible blackout of South Australia is only a beginning of energy policy that is expensive and ineffective. 
=== from 2015 ===
Last year, Peter Costello wrote “Alienation” and “disadvantage” simply cannot explain why jihadist Numan Haider tried to kill two Melbourne police officers:
The trouble with explanations like this is that the facts get in the way. The family of Numan Haider left Afghanistan to migrate to Australia. Under the Taliban, Afghanistan was a hardline Islamic state. Coming to Australia meant getting away from that. 
And Australia was good to the family. They have a very nice house in a good suburb. The children received a good education. The taxpayers of Australia were pretty good to Numan Haider with schooling and services. The family lived in security and freedom — a lot more than Islamic State would ever give to a minority ethnic or religious group....
Deakin University student Tahmid Mirza, a jihadi propagandist and supporter of Islamic State, was quoted in the weekend press explaining why he has rejected this country, a country that gave him a home and an education: “… many Muslims have been harassed, betrayed and in fact lied to by the government and the so-called ‘security’ intelligence.”
In other words, he is a victim… The victims here are not the Yazidis of Northern Iraq facing genocide and extermination. The real victims are those who were taken in by Australia, given a home, healthcare, a free education and subsidised university places… 
This idea that Australia’s treatment of Muslims is to blame for terrorism is so fanciful you would wonder how anyone could believe it. But it is standard-issue opinion among university academics, ABC journalists and Greens senators. They act on the principle that “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”. Since they don’t like open liberal Western capitalist society, they feel natural support for those who regard themselves as at war with Western civilisation. The brutality of Islamic State does not seem to worry them nearly so much as the imagined “brutality” of the Australian Government.
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What Costello wrote then is true now. Only many foolish people are wanting to fight a different battle to what is described. To them, it is important to characterise the fight between Islam and the West. They believe the West would win such a fight. But they don't really want that bigger fight. They just want to vent against political correctness. But political correctness hampers the fight against Jihadism, the fight we have is not against political correctness, but jihadism. And Costello is right, their victim mentality does not stand up to scrutiny. 

We are not defenceless, who live in civilised society. But our tools aren't working for us at the moment. How would it be if a Journalist asked the jihadi's mother "How does it feel that your son brought Islam into disrepute?" No journalist would hesitate were they asking a similar question of a disgraced conservative. Or, how about asking one of the many impotent leaders "Why is it your people are allowed to bring Islam into disrepute?" How long could the impotent leader stand the smirks of their underlings? Of course we know the answer regarding the leaders, they are impotent (as Allah meant them to be?). We also know the mother's truthful reply is she doesn't really care for Islam, her children are devout ones. We must remember the jihadis are disgraceful. 

The battle against Jihadism will not be won by sarcasm, or by abrogation of responsibility. We must not accept the lie that it is inevitable. But we need Islamic peoples to end it. And that won't happen while Turnbull refuses to face the issue. Turnbull, the great communicator. Who has seized the PM's position from an effective PM, probably with Costello's help.  

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
From 2014
Issue of Islamic Alienation feeding Jihadism
Former treasurer Peter Costello has written compellingly on the myth of Islamic alienation feeding jihadism. The narrative provided by Fairfax Press or ABC has it that oppressed Islamic peoples in Western culture are driven to jihad to assert their values. Impotent Islamic leaders employ such rhetoric to feed their hold on power, and often embrace values expressed by terrorists. But many known western jihadists were not oppressed, but fed on a diet of welfare, higher education and entitlement entwined with victimhood. Living a great life of travel, big houses, expensive cars that they would never have imagined while working in their own nations of Pakistan, Afghanistan et al. Meanwhile we have enemies of ISIL claiming that ISIL are using US manufactured weapons given to them through aid. And we have the UN feeding victimhood by giving special rules for some. Palestinian refugees are not given the citizenship of the nations they are born in, unlike refugees elsewhere in the world, meaning that generations can call themselves refugees when they are not. 

Issue of alienation feeding unrest
Van Gogh's letter to a relative at age 27, ten years before his death, is compelling. He had achieved nothing and despaired of contributing to his world, but he was a man of passion. He recognised his weaknesses, but he persevered. At 27 he could not draw well. But by age 37 he was one of the greatest artists ever. Greatness needs perseverance. But the narrative of alienation fed by Fairfax media and the ABC is debilitating. We have a stolen generation myth which prevents good people of responsibly raising children, but allows the exploitation of children by evil people. We have entitled people taking and resenting ever being asked to give anything. We have people who use race to prevent justifying bad behaviour. When the government tries to help people exercise essential work skills, we have do gooders prevent them. 

Mixed issues
A royal commission which is investigating what the ABC denied was there, is asking for an extension  to collect more information, having too much and needing more time to find out how the construction industry has been impeded by Union corruption. A budget fix which is needed to restore balance is being blocked by the Greens, ALP and PUP, none of which have a policy addressing the issue. AGW hysterics gloomily face the fact that heating is not being hidden in the ocean either. The media are very keen to inflate the issue of Hillsong, Frank Houston and a serial pedophile allegation. Is there evidence of systemic corruption? None has been presented as yet. Finally there is a sad case of a she male murdered by her boyfriend, a chef. She had worked as a prostitute to send money back home to Indonesia. 
From 2013
The response of the press is slow to it, but the US is spending too much money on many things it doesn't need. The response of Obama is to raise spending and cut some things the US needs. Ridiculously, federal employees are impeding sightseers so as to prove how essential is the work they are not doing. But while they are not working, they know they will still be paid. Obama is being paid anyways. Some say the President gets paid too much. I disagree. A good President could be paid ten times more and still be worth more. A bad President could be paid nothing and still be an impost on the people.

The response of the press is slow to it, but NSW Opposition leader John Robertson owes the people of NSW, and the ICAC, an explanation of why he did not report a $3 million bribe by the assassinated McGurk. McGurk was apparently assassinated on the order of an ALP financier, and now that death looks, well, suspicious. One can imagine the conversation McGurk had with Robertson over the land Robertson did not own while McGurk was trying to spend $30 million. "Mate, I'll give you 10% to let the deal proceed. It is a good offer." "McGurk! I'm shocked! Obeid has got many more millions for saying no. Anyway, you don't pay me! You pay the slush fund .. get it? The slush fund!"

The press have been admirably quick in the wedding fee charged to taxpayers through expense accounts by members of parliament who were doing their parliamentary duty at said weddings. Unless those weddings were ALP junket trips .. those ones are fair game. As the ALP motto goes, "respect the slush fund"
Historical perspective on this day
Not done
=== 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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Thanks to Warren for this advice on watching Bolt
Warren Catton Get this for your PC or MAC https://www.foxtel.com.au/foxtelplay/how-it-works/pc-mac.html Once you have installed it start it up and press Live TV you don't need a login to watch Sky News!
===
I am publishing a book called Bread of Life: January. 

Bread of Life is a daily bible quote with a layman's understanding of the meaning. I give one quote for each day, and also a series of personal stories illustrating key concepts eg Who is God? What is a miracle? Why is there tragedy?

January is the first of the anticipated year-long work of thirteen books. One for each month and the whole year. It costs to publish. It (Kindle version) should retail at about $2US online, but the paperback version would cost more, according to production cost.
If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofund.me/27tkwuc
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with AugustSeptemberOctober, 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 a free kindle version.

List of available items at Create Space
Happy birthday and many happy returns David HuynhMysti ChiAndrew-Robert Riley and Simon Holland. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
13 BC – Drusus Julius Caesar, Roman son of Tiberius (d. AD 23)
1471 – Frederick I of Denmark (d. 1533)
1866 – Wlodimir Ledóchowski, Polish-Austrian religious leader, 26th Superior-General of the Society of Jesus (d. 1942)
1885 – Niels Bohr, Danish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1962)
1919 – Zelman Cowen, Australian politician and academic, 19th Governor-General of Australia (d. 2011)
1935 – Thomas Keneally, Australian author
1939 – Clive James, Australian television host and author
1943 – Oliver North, American military officer, author, and television host
1952 – Vladimir Putin, Russian politician, 4th President of Russia
2001 – Princess Senate Seeiso of Lesotho
Iskander Mirza
Lady Europe has won. Kent has been won. Ithaca was honoured. A brave stand was taken. Control is not the same as freedom in a Democracy. Which is why we party.
Deaths
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Tim Blair


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Andrew Bolt


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It was terrorism. Why won’t we admit it?

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, October 06, 2015 (11:31pm)

THE 15-year-old male of Middle Eastern background who dropped into Parramatta Mosque on Friday, before descending on NSW Police HQ brandishing a loaded gun, was wearing a long black cloak, and calling out “Allah Akbar”, before he put a bullet in the head of Curtis Cheng.
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From aggressors to nurturers in the blink of an eye

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, October 06, 2015 (11:29pm)

A striking feature of the NRL and AFL grand finals on the weekend was the hordes of babies and small children who came onto the field after the game in the arms of their warrior dads.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'From aggressors to nurturers in the blink of an eye'
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Climate change debate cracks

Miranda Devine – Sunday, October 04, 2015 (11:15pm)

A MATHEMATICAL discovery by Perth-based electrical engineer Dr David Evans may change everything about the climate debate, on the eve of the UN climate change conference in Paris next month.
A former climate modeller for the Government’s Australian Greenhouse Office, with six degrees in applied mathematics, Dr Evans has unpacked the architecture of the basic climate model which underpins all climate science.
He has found that, while the underlying physics of the model is correct, it had been applied incorrectly.
He has fixed two errors and the new corrected model finds the climate’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide (CO2) is much lower than was thought.
It turns out the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has over-estimated future global warming by as much as 10 times, he says.
“Yes, CO2 has an effect, but it’s about a fifth or tenth of what the IPCC says it is. CO2 is not driving the climate; it caused less than 20 per cent of the global warming in the last few decades”.
Dr Evans says his discovery “ought to change the world”.
“But the political obstacles are massive,” he said.
His discovery explains why none of the climate models used by the IPCC reflect the evidence of recorded temperatures. The models have failed to predict the pause in global warming which has been going on for 18 years and counting.
“The model architecture was wrong,” he says. “Carbon dioxide causes only minor warming. The climate is largely driven by factors outside our control.”
There is another problem with the original climate model, which has been around since 1896.
While climate scientists have been predicting since the 1990s that changes in temperature would follow changes in carbon dioxide, the records over the past half million years show that not to be the case.
So, the new improved climate model shows CO2 is not the culprit in recent global warming. But what is?
Dr Evans has a theory: solar activity. What he calls “albedo modulation”, the waxing and waning of reflected radiation from the Sun, is the likely cause of global warming.
He predicts global temperatures, which have plateaued, will begin to cool significantly, beginning between 2017 and 2021. The cooling will be about 0.3C in the 2020s. Some scientists have even forecast a mini ice age in the 2030s.
If Dr Evans is correct, then he has proven the theory on carbon dioxide wrong and blown a hole in climate alarmism. He will have explained why the doomsday predictions of climate scientists aren’t reflected in the actual temperatures.
“It took me years to figure this out, but finally there is a potential resolution between the insistence of the climate scientists that CO2 is a big problem, and the empirical evidence that it doesn’t have nearly as much effect as they say.”
Dr Evans is an expert in Fourier analysis and digital signal processing, with a PhD, and two Masters degrees from Stanford University in electrical engineering, a Bachelor of Engineering (for which he won the University medal), Bachelor of Science, and Masters in Applied Maths from the University of Sydney.
He has been summarising his results in a series of blog posts on his wife Jo Nova’s blog for climate sceptics.
He is about half way through his series, with blog post 8, “Applying the Stefan-Boltzmann Law to Earth”, published on Friday.
When it is completed his work will be published as two scientific papers. Both papers are undergoing peer review.
“It’s a new paradigm,” he says. “It has several new ideas for people to get used to.”
You heard it here first!
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THE GOBFATHER

Tim Blair – Wednesday, October 07, 2015 (1:06pm)

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull chose an unusual phrase yesterday to describe his knifing last month of former PM Tony Abbott.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'THE GOBFATHER'
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DOWN FROM 24 HOURS PER DAY

Tim Blair – Wednesday, October 07, 2015 (12:59pm)

Adelaide’s zombie hours have been drastically reduced:
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WHEN LEFT IS RIGHT

Tim Blair – Wednesday, October 07, 2015 (12:49pm)

Left-foot braking is a vastly-underrated skill. This chap, however, attempts to break with his right.
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PACK OF LONE WOLVES

Tim Blair – Wednesday, October 07, 2015 (11:32am)

The lopper squad busts open an alleged Islamic terror gang in Sydney’s west: 
At least three of the men arrested today in dawn terror raids across Sydney had been raided as part of last year’s Operation Appleby which targeted a cell which planned to behead a member of the publicin Sydney.
They include a 16-year-old school mate of Parramatta teen gunman Farhad Jabar and the schoolmate’s 18-year-old brother.
The brothers were arrested along with three other men this morning following Farhad’s terrorist attack on police headquarters and the murder of Curtis Cheng on Friday. 
Nothing that a bit of co-operation and inclusiveness can’t cure. At this point, basically all of the early official information on Friday’s murder – that the gunman was a lone operative, that there was no ongoing danger to the public, that it wasn’t terrorism and that Cheng was singled out – has proved inaccurate. And now there’s this
The weapon used by teen terrorist Farhad Jabar was believed to be sourced from a Middle Eastern crime gang and police suspect it was handed to the schoolboy at the Parramatta mosque.
Details about where he got the gun and its original source were established early in the investigation but the Telegraph was asked by police not to release details until after today’s raids. 
That single drop of Islam is becoming a flood.
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FRIGHTBAT FAVOURITE TO FOLD?

Tim Blair – Wednesday, October 07, 2015 (10:50am)

Despite winning the big Van Badham contract, American Apparel finds itself in a spot of bother
Clothing chain American Apparel has filed for voluntary bankruptcy under pressure from falling retail sales, huge debts and legal battles involving controversial founder Dov Charney. 
The frightbats need to get some crowdfunding happening.
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CAPTION CAPERS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, October 07, 2015 (10:24am)

I may have assisted in a small way with today’s Bill Leak cartoon:
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WAGE JUSTICE NOW

Tim Blair – Wednesday, October 07, 2015 (10:09am)

The wealth gap grows between whiny leftist Brits in the US and whiny leftist Brits in Australia: 
John Oliver gets paid $2 million annually to be on the air once a week for 30 minutes with a killer research and writing staff. 
By comparison, Paul Barry gets paid just $191,259 annually to be on the air once a week for 15 minutes with a … staff.
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DECADE CAPTURED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, October 07, 2015 (1:20am)

Yale University has published 170,000 Library of Congress photos taken in the US between 1935 and 1945. Just click on this map and keep clicking. To Yale’s credit, they’ve used captions written at the time. Some may be jarring to modern sensibilities, but they assist in providing the era’s feel. A quick batch of highlights:


Drinking at the bar, crab boil night, Raceland, Louisiana.


Dutch Gross, ex world war veteran, trapeze artist, airplane stunt man, friend of “Spike” Conner, the famous blood donner, and the only man to fall out of an airplane at 2000 feet and live (he fell on high tension wire) Better known as “the Flying Dutchman,” he has made a profession of operating businesses in one defense “boom” area after another. Now runs a small lunch room and grocery store at Kymulga, near Childersburg, Alabama.



Women selling ice cream and cake, Scotts Run, West Virginia.



Washington, D.C. Proprietor of a tombstone shop.



A restaurant in the Negro section of Belle Glade, Florida.
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Time journalists said sorry for saying last year’s raids were a stunt

Andrew Bolt October 07 2015 (6:48pm)

Police in September last year raided 25 homes in Sydney and Brisbane of suspected sympathisers of the Islamic State.

Many reporters were critical, and suggested Prime Minister Tony Abbott could be hyping the terrorism threat.
Q&A even broadcast a whole show of Muslims berating Attorney General George Brandis.
Q&A host Tony Jones:
Well, less than two months ago, police and security services launched Australia’s biggest ever counter terrorism raids. They focussed on the suburbs around Western Sydney, where we are tonight, and those raids the Government has - after those raids, the Government has passed tough new laws which, to quote the Prime Minister, shift the balance from freedom to security but some in this community say they’ve been unfairly targeted by the raids and by the rhetoric around Team Australia and the burqa ban. They’re not convinced the Government’s response will prevent home-grown terror. Some fear it will only make things worse. Well, tonight is an important opportunity to consider those concerns and to ask Senator Brandis some tough questions.  
Other journalists were more scathing:
TODAY’S anti-terror raids have attracted scepticism from some prominent Australian journalists on social media, who have tweeted about the operation being used as a distraction from domestic issues and the need for journalists to be careful in their reporting. 
Crikey’s political editor Bernard Keane has posted a series of tweets voicing his opinion on the raids, which begin: “Strange — I thought our security agencies were hamstrung against terrorism and unable to do their jobs without sweeping new powers …”
When he is taken to task by a Twitter user by the name @B_J_Raji, Mr Keane responds: “And you’re seriously suggesting the government hasn’t been hyping national security?...”
Wendy Bacon, a professorial fellow with the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism and contributor to Crikey, also said scepticism over the raids was “justified"… 
Fundamentalist Sunni political group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has made headlines for their extremist views and is campaigning for a global Islamic caliphate, said the timing of the counterterrorism raids were “suspect”. 
More of the same:
YESTERDAY’S anti-terrorism raids and Labor’s solid, bipartisan support for the security services and Australia’s commitment to Iraq have failed to dampen claims the Abbott government is “hyping up” terrorism fears to distract the public from its budget difficulties… 
Some queries continued, with Attorney-General George Brandis confronted on ABC radio with a listener’s claim that the government was using the terrorist plan as a distraction. ABC presenter Rafael Epstein asked: “Do you accept in any way the criticism that you’d rather be talking about this than a difficult budget?”. 
But more raids today hit some of the same homes:
Police allege the four men arrested in the counter-terrorism operation are directly linked to the fatal shooting of police accountant Curtis Cheng outside the Parramatta police HQ last Friday. 
Eighteen-year-old Raban Alou was arrested at Lane Street, Wentworthville, the same home where his older brother Kawa was arrested in sweeping raids in September last year and released without charge.
At Marsfield, police arrested another target of the September 2014 raids, 22-year-old Mustafa Dirani, a former student of Arthur Phillip High....
Police also returned this morning to the Guildford home of Omarjan Azari, who is in jail on a charge of conspiracy to murder after being arrested in last year’s raids.
The 2014 raids were sparked by a phone call to Azari in which Australia’s most senior Islamic State lieutenant, Mohammad Ali Baryalei, allegedly directed him to kill a random member of the public. 
Members of the group who were raided in 2014 and Baryalei, who has since been killed in Syria, were known to congregate at the Parramatta mosque where Farhad Jabar Khalil Mohammad spent several hours before he carried out last Friday’s attack.
This time journalists at the police press conference were not attacking police and politicians for overreacting but for under-reacting. Two reporters at the police press conference today demanded to know whether the police had been slack in their vigilance over these addresses and could have done more to stop the murder of Curtis Cheng.
Of course, the men must be presumed innocent. But some journalists so loud last year should be embarrassed. 
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Pretend it has nothing to do with Islam

Andrew Bolt October 07 2015 (9:00am)

Farhad Jabar went from his mosque to the Parramatta police station where he shot Curtis Cheng while shouting “Allahu akbar” - Allah is great.
In his backpack was a letter citing Islamic texts:
A LETTER found in Parramatta terrorist Farhad Habar’s backpack, which he dumped moments before gunning down a police finance worker on Friday afternoon, warns of extremist attacks and contains the threat “Let the blood flow on the street...” ... 
It is understood the letter contains Islamic extremist rantings and was found ­alongside material bearing the name of a Western Sydney ­Islamic bookstore.
The killing conformed with Koranic passages cited by the Islamic State to justify murder of non-believers:
Those quotations included this, from the Koran: “Kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush.” 
And this, also from the Koran, justifying the Islamic State’s liking for decapitation: “He the Exalted said: ‘So when you meet those who disbelieve (in battle), strike (their) necks’.”
But the denial of any religious dimension to this killing is astonishing. Here is Deputy Police Commissioner Nick Kaldas on the ABC’s 7:30 program last night:
NICK KALDAS: Certainly there is evidence to suggest that kids - without talking about any specific case - kids are doing this simply as a way to rebel. In a sense, they’re not really religiously driven. I wouldn’t say they’ve studied the Koran and come to some firm views. I wouldn’t say that they’ve got a philosophical view about why they’re doing what they’re doing. It is a rebellion...
Then there’s this deception:

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull: 

This appears to have been an act of politically motivated violence…
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop:
When a 15-year-old boy can be so radicalised that he can carry out a politically motivated killing or an act of terrorism, then it’s a time for the whole nation to take stock.
Even the NSW Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, repeats this deception: 
We believe his actions were politically motivated and therefore linked to terrorism.
UPDATE
How determined are Turnbull Government ministers to avoid mentioning “Islam”? From my interview on 2GB/3AW with Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, Assistant Minister for Multicultural Affairs:
Bolt: Why is Malcolm Turnbull – and Julie Bishop and Andrew Scipione –calling what happened politically motivated violence when the boy was shouting “Allah” when he shot the unfortunate police accountant? 
Fierravanti-Wells: Well, Andrew, I think the Prime Minister today in an interview and perhaps I misheard it referred to it as politically motivated and then said “and that’s terrorism”.
Bolt: Yes, the word that is missing here is ‘religious’.
Fierravanti-Wells: Well, Andrew I think there will be things that are going to come out as part of the inquiry …
Bolt: I find it amazing that he’s gone to a mosque, the mosque is raided, the police are looking at which preachers he may have heard, there is a potential links to it Islamic State, note the word Islamic, and also Hizb ut Tahrir, which is an Islamic group, and yet the government keeps calling it a politically motivated attack and not a religious one and I just want to know why.
Fierravanti-Wells: Well, I think Andrew that this is an ongoing investigation.  I’m sure that there will be a whole lot of details that are going to emerge and when those details emerge I think that picture will be clearer.
Bolt: So you think it is political, not religious.
Fierravanti-Wells: I’m just saying to you, Andrew, that this is just the initial phase of that investigation.
Bolt: Sure, but you still say it’s political.
Fierravanti-Wells: The Police Commissioner has made certain comments and we will wait when the NSW police have completed their investigation and then we will see very much what is the motivation. Look, there is no doubt that the motivation is very important issue. People want to know what motivates a 15-year-old boy to walk down a street…
Bolt: Shouting “Allah”.
Fierravanti-Wells: …shouting whatever he is alleged to have shouted.
Bolt: You see, you can’t even say what he is alleged to have shouted. He shouted Allah.
Fierravanti-Wells: He shouted what he shouted and did this and it is really important that we do understand what is the motivation.
Bolt: It seems to me that the Government is desperate not to mention Islam… Look, you may have a real reason not to want to talk about religion. 
Fierravanti-Wells: I don’t think that’s the issue. I think, Andrew, there is an admission and I think that commentators and commentators in the Muslim community do admit that they have a problem and I think that’s very important because you are not going to solve a problem and you’re not going to find practical solutions to the problem unless you actually do admit there are issues. 
(Thanks to reader Brian.) 
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Peter Garrett’s vivid story of a bribe. Oops: sudden memory fail

Andrew Bolt October 07 2015 (6:47am)

Did Peter Garrett make up this sensational stuff, or simply misremember? 

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: In the six years to 2014, declared donations from the poker machine industry to the Liberal and Labor parties amounted to more than $6 million… Tonight 7.30 reveals claims by the former Labor minister, Peter Garrett, of a possible bribery attempt involving thousands of dollars… 
PETER GARRETT, FORMER LABOR MINISTER: Soon after I was elected to the seat of Kingsford Smith, I attended an event which was put on to welcome me and others by the Clubs and the Hotels Association people. A representative came to me and handed almost straight away over an envelope which I took, thinking it might have been material or information or something of that sort - and, of course, looked at it and realised that it actually had money in it. How much: I’m not entirely sure. I didn’t count it. But it was hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.... But it was very much: “Ah, look, this is the normal course of business, you know? This is what we do and now you’re here. Here’s some money to help you and, you know, I’m sure we’re going to be friends.” But I gave it back…
ANDREW WILKIE: No one hands over literally bags of cash these days unless they’re up to something. And it shocks me coming from such a credible witness. I mean, there can be no doubt what former minister Garrett is saying. He wouldn’t be making this up.
JAMES THOMAS: 7.30 sought to clarify Peter Garrett’s story. But in a surprising about-face, the former minister’s recollection has now completely changed. The former minister now says that the envelope wasn’t full of cash but rather contained a cheque addressed to his electoral council. He also says that the event took place before he was elected, not after. Now, these are significant changes. A cheque is less likely to be used for a potential bribe. And if Mr Garrett had not yet been elected, the offence of attempting to bribe a public official would no longer apply…
JAMES THOMAS: Peter Garrett denies any motivation to change his story, other than his memory completely failed him. However, in the interview obtained by 7.30 he repeats the claim multiple times in great detail.
(Montage of raw footage)
PETER GARRETT: Handed me an envelope, which I took....I looked down and realised that it was full of money.
But then on examination: oh, hang on a minute, it’s got money in it.
It was money. It was filled with money. 
(Montage ends) 
Bizarre.
(Thanks to reader Brian.) 
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Britain’s Home Secretary: mass immigration is mostly pain, little gain

Andrew Bolt October 07 2015 (6:14am)

British Home Secretary Theresa May gives a remarkable speech on the danger of mass immigration to Britain. The media class will howl, but it is now urgent to end the cant:

[P]eople on both extremes of the debate – from the anti-immigration far right to the open-borders liberal left – conflate refugees in desperate need of help with economic migrants who simply want to live in a more prosperous society.  Their desire for a better life is perfectly understandable, but their circumstances are not nearly the same as those of the people fleeing their homelands in fear of their lives.  There are millions of people in poorer countries who would love to live in Britain, and there is a limit to the amount of immigration any country can and should take.  While we must fulfil our moral duty to help people in desperate need, we must also have an immigration system that allows us to control who comes to our country. 
Because when immigration is too high, when the pace of change is too fast, it’s impossible to build a cohesive society.  It’s difficult for schools and hospitals and core infrastructure like housing and transport to cope.  And we know that for people in low-paid jobs, wages are forced down even further while some people are forced out of work altogether.
Now I know there are some people who say, yes there are costs of immigration, but the answer is to manage the consequences, not reduce the numbers.  But not all of the consequences can be managed, and doing so for many of them comes at a high price.  We need to build 210,000 new homes every year to deal with rising demand.  We need to find 900,000 new school places by 2024.  And there are thousands of people who have been forced out of the labour market, still unable to find a job.
But even if we could manage all the consequences of mass immigration, Britain does not need net migration in the hundreds of thousands every year.  Of course, immigrants plug skills shortages and it’s right that we should try to attract the best talent in the world, but not every person coming to Britain right now is a skilled electrician, engineer or doctor.  The evidence – from the OECD, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee and many academics – shows that while there are benefits of selective and controlled immigration, at best the net economic and fiscal effect of high immigration is close to zero.  So there is no case, in the national interest, for immigration of the scale we have experienced over the last decade… 
It’s often said – usually by advocates of open-door immigration – that Britain is by definition a country of immigrants.  In fact, compared to the countries of the New World and compared to the countries of Europe with their shifting land borders, we have until recently always been a country of remarkable population stability.  The people who have moved here down the generations have played a massive part in making this country what it is – but we need our immigration system to continue that British tradition of gradual, moderate, sensible change.
May does not talk about cultural clashes, but she’s already been brave enough.
What government minister here would dare be so frank?
As you ponder that question, listen to my extraordinary interview last night with Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, the Assistant Minister for Multicultural Affairs, on why government ministers won’t even admit that the shooting of Curtis Cheng was religiously motivated, and not politically motivated, as they claim. Note that Fierravanti-Wells is of the Liberal Right. (The interview is in the last few minutes of the podcast.) 
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More of that very, very small minority arrested following Cheng murder

Andrew Bolt October 07 2015 (5:54am)

Not just a lone wolf, then:
POLICE have arrested five men in raids across Sydney’s west following Friday’s terrorist attack on police headquarters and the murder of Curtis Cheng...
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Jabar’s school shows we’ve got our immigration program wrong

Andrew Bolt October 07 2015 (5:10am)

Immigration should not be colonisation. We should bring in only so many immigrants and refugees as we can safely integrate - and assimilate.
But some schools have astonishingly high proportions of students from immigrant and refugee backgrounds. Many of those students do well, but the danger of such destabilising multiculturalism is that some students don’t integrate (into what?) but separate into tribes.
One such such is Arthur Phillip High School, which specialises in teaching refugee children.
It is also the school that taught Farhad Jabar, the 15-year-old Iranian who shot police accountant Curtis Cheng while shouting “Allah”:
Arthur Phillip High School 
Annual School Report 2014…
In 2014 1404 students enrolled at Arthur Phillip High School. More than 90% of students are from language backgrounds other than English. There are over forty different cultures represented in the school population… 
The Refugee Transition Program (RTP) supports refugee students in transition from intensive English Programs into mainstream high school and helps them plan their transition from school to further education, training or employment. 
Jabar is not the only student there who sees the police as a hostile force:

Relations between police and teenage boys from Arthur Phillip High School have been brittle for years… 
As the body of 15-year-old ­killer Farhad Jabar was released to his family, police arrested a ­student at the school yesterday morning, after he allegedly ­became “threatening” when he was stopped over explicit Facebook posts in which he wished death on “lil piggies”.
In a Facebook post, the teenager wrote: “Serves you right I hope them lil piggies get shot.”
In another, relating to NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione, he said: “Bahahja f..k you motherf..ker Yallah merryland police station is next hope they all burn in hell.”
Police last night laid six charges against the teen, including­ ­assaulting police, intimidating police, resisting arrest and using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend. Soon after, police ­reportedly ­seized two laptops from the boy’s Guildford home.
Earlier this year, the teenager posted lyrics on Facebook by American hip hop group N.W.A. from their hit protest song F..k Tha Police, highlighting the words “got it bad cause I’m brown and not the other colour so police think they have the authority to kill a minority"…
Other ­students at the school say they are often stopped and searched or moved on by authorities…
A school friend said he did not expect the 15-year-old [Jabar] to murder someone, but was “not shocked”.
“I think, maybe, radicalisation is getting bigger,” he said.
Another said: “They see those things happening overseas, so they get (angry).” 
Afghan students say they are often being moved on by authorities, or stopped and searched, when hanging back after school, when sitting outside the local ­library, when walking to Parramatta train station or when making their way to the Westfield’s shopping centre around the corner from the school… The reality, they say, is that they feel disenfranchised and bullied by authorities. 
And:

A spokeswoman for NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli last night confirmed the Muslim prayer group, held at lunchtime each Friday under teacher supervision at Arthur Phillip High School where Farhad Jabar was a student, had been reviewed following allegations pupils were preaching extremism at similar sessions at another school. 
It can also be revealed a fellow student at Jabar’s school, who cannot be named [and is not the one arrested yesterday], was a supporter of Islamic State and had been ordered to participate in a youth offenders conference after yelling abuse outside a Christian school and flying the terror group’s flag from a car window.

The incident occurred two days after the 15-year-old’s older brother, who was also a former student at Arthur Phillip High School, and a friend were targeted in anti-terrorism raids across Sydney.
Our refugee and immigration programs need a massive rethink. So does multiculturalism.
UPDATE
Multiculturalism is no longer just a concern of conservatives:
Muslim leaders often fail to back their rhetoric against individual acts of Islamic terror with concrete action, leading to a gulf that makes it more difficult to tackle radicalisation, according to Father Chris Riley, the founder of the successful charity Youth off the Streets. 
“You’ll hear them on radio when there’s a crisis,” he said, but they did not follow through with concrete programs. “They are so divided they can’t agree on anything,” he said. The federal government’s program to counter radicalisation of Muslims had been failing because it concentrated on “celebrating each other’s cultural differences”rather than integrating the young men with the broader community.
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Costello: the alienation excuse for jihadists won’t wash

Andrew Bolt October 07 2014 (1:14pm)

Peter Costello is right. “Alienation” and “disadvantage” simply cannot explain why jihadist Numan Haider tried to kill two Melbourne police officers:
The trouble with explanations like this is that the facts get in the way. The family of Numan Haider left Afghanistan to migrate to Australia. Under the Taliban, Afghanistan was a hardline Islamic state. Coming to Australia meant getting away from that. 
And Australia was good to the family. They have a very nice house in a good suburb. The children received a good education. The taxpayers of Australia were pretty good to Numan Haider with schooling and services. The family lived in security and freedom — a lot more than Islamic State would ever give to a minority ethnic or religious group....
Deakin University student Tahmid Mirza, a jihadi propagandist and supporter of Islamic State, was quoted in the weekend press explaining why he has rejected this country, a country that gave him a home and an education: “… many Muslims have been harassed, betrayed and in fact lied to by the government and the so-called ‘security’ intelligence.”
In other words, he is a victim… The victims here are not the Yazidis of Northern Iraq facing genocide and extermination. The real victims are those who were taken in by Australia, given a home, healthcare, a free education and subsidised university places… 
This idea that Australia’s treatment of Muslims is to blame for terrorism is so fanciful you would wonder how anyone could believe it. But it is standard-issue opinion among university academics, ABC journalists and Greens senators. They act on the principle that “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”. Since they don’t like open liberal Western capitalist society, they feel natural support for those who regard themselves as at war with Western civilisation. The brutality of Islamic State does not seem to worry them nearly so much as the imagined “brutality” of the Australian Government.
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Royal commission needs more time. So many rorts to check…

Andrew Bolt October 07 2014 (1:06pm)

Good:
THE Federal Government is set to extend the royal commission into trade union corruption for up to a year to give it more time to probe claims of criminal behaviour in the building industry. 
The Herald Sun believes that one of the key targets of the extended inquiry is likely to be Victoria’s white elephant desalination plant at Wonthaggi, which commission staff have begun investigating. Commissioner Dyson Heydon has requested an extension to his December 31 deadline after testimony from witnesses ran overtime.
I would also like the commission to investigate the conflict of interest involved in a Labor Government proposing an extravagent scheme to allegedly fix a government-hyped warming scare (warming will stop the rain) in which investors are union-backed super funds
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The ABC bias would be even more serious if ABC shows topped the ratings

Andrew Bolt October 07 2014 (11:59am)

The ABC’s news ratings are just an excuse to discuss a problem that would be even more serious if the ABC outrated all competitors. Truth is, the nation’s biggest media organisation is outrageously biased, despite its statutory to be balanced:
SHOWPIECE ABC news and current affairs programs are failing to pull strong audiences, ­according to ratings data released in response to senate estimates committee questioning. 
Lateline, Q&A;, Insiders and Four Corners do not appear in the list of the national broadcaster’s top 20 programs for the first six months of the year…
ABC news director Kate ­Torney yesterday hit back at comments from Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull last week that staff and viewers are entitled to question the broadcaster’s management over how $70 million in additional funding over three years it was awarded last year is being spent, insisting her division is providing “a substantial return on investment’’....
[But] Tasmanian MP Andrew ­Nikolic said the ratings “demonstrates the message I hear in my electorate every day: the ABC’s priorities and programming decisions, particularly in relation to their news and current affairs area, have lost touch with mainstream Australia’’…
True enough.
This was an own goal:
Ms Torney on The Drum website yesterday ... said the new ­national reporting team had delivered 293 stories in the first eight months of the year. Government figures pointed out this averaged out to little over one a day.
UPDATE
Paul Barry on Media Watch last night revealed again he consults his prejudices more than the evidence:
And let’s start with last year’s revelation that Australia’s security services eavesdropped on the Indonesian president and his wife:
“JUANITA PHILLIPS: It’s been revealed that Australian spying in Indonesia went all the way to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The ABC and the Guardian Australia have obtained top-secret documents showing spies monitored the President’s mobile phone as well as phones belonging to his wife and senior ministers ... — ABC, News, 18th November, 2013”
That report last November led to a huge row which saw Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones accuse the ABC and Guardian of treason.
That claim is false, and I have asked Barry for an on-air correction. I have never accused the ABC of treason, which is a crime. I have accused it of betraying our interests, which is substantially different thing.
UPDATE
On ABC bias, could Jon Faine have been any friendlier to Julia Gillard, any more supportive, any more flattering of her record and any more damning of her critics than he was in his one-hour chat to the former Labor Prime Minister on Melbourne 774 today?
Among friends, was Gillard.
(Thanks to reader WaG311.) 
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No, the missing heat isn’t hiding in the deep ocean, either

Andrew Bolt October 07 2014 (8:57am)

Global warming - dud predictions

NASA’s Jet propulsion Laboratory admits the atmosphere hasn’t been warming - and the “missing” heat isn’t hiding in the deep ocean, either:
The cold waters of Earth’s deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005, according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years. 
Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, analyzed satellite and direct ocean temperature data from 2005 to 2013 and found the ocean abyss below 1.24 miles (1,995 meters) has not warmed measurably… In the 21st century, greenhouse gases have continued to accumulate in the atmosphere, just as they did in the 20th century, but global average surface air temperatures have stopped rising in tandem with the gases. The temperature of the top half of the world’s ocean — above the 1.24-mile mark — is still climbing, but not fast enough to account for the stalled air temperatures. 
Bang goes that excuse, then.
But as always with warmists, even if the data contradicts the theory the theory is still true:
Study coauthor Josh Willis of JPL said these findings do not throw suspicion on climate change itself.
Of course not!
Bob Tisdale draws you a picture of the latest evidence that the global warming theory is falling to bits:
Meanwhile, the great warming pause continues in the atmosphere, too:
For how much longer can politicians ignore the science?
UPDATE
But when did science matter to academia’s public intellectuals, now huddled inside the latest Trojan horse outside the gates of capitalism? Nick Cater:
IN 1992 Robert Manne edited a book called Shutdown that ... attacked the policies of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, the “radical free-market economics” Manne believed was driving Australia to permanent recession. 
Manne later admitted that he didn’t know what he was talking about, telling the ABC’s Terry Lane in 2005: “I have never studied economics formally and found pretty quickly when I began to argue about economic rationalism or neoliberalism, I found myself out of my depth."…
[in] the latest edition of The Monthly,… Manne takes umbrage at Kelly’s Triumph and Demise…
“On dozens of occasions Kelly spices his narrative with irrational pronouncements from the songbook of climate-change denialism. He thinks that the warnings of the scientists are ‘alarmist’; that the problem of climate change is self-evidently not ‘a moral issue’; that climate change has become a Labor ‘faith’; that imagined catastrophes in the future provide ‘a poor basis for policy action now’; that only a political ‘mug’ would call upon people to make a ‘sacrifice’ for future generations; and, flatly, that ‘climate change was the priority for neither Australia nor the world at this point’.” 
Manne may not know much about economics, but he reckons he knows his climate science. 
(Thanks to reader Rocky.) 
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We should be free to say why Warren Mundine is both unfair and very wrong

Andrew Bolt October 07 2014 (9:33am)

The politics of race

Strange times. Warren Mundine can misrepresent my arguments against the new racism behind the proposed constitutional referendum, but a Federal Court ruling means I cannot correct him without exposing my employer to huge legal risks:
We’ve just had another divisive debate on the proposed repeal of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, triggered by the sanction of Andrew Bolt for articles he wrote about Aboriginal identity. Bolt also opposes constitutional recognition. He says we should move past race yet writes about Aboriginal identity through a lens of race, talking about skin colour and physical features; whether race is detectable from someone’s appearance; and questioning whether people who “look” Swiss, German or Scottish can identify as Aboriginal. But what exactly does a German, Swiss or Scot look like?
People who “look” Scottish, say, have no right to identify as Aboriginal? That is not my argument. It is the grossest caricature of it.  Perhaps if my articles were not banned, Mundine and others might better understand the argument I really did put and not the one they imagine or pretend.
There is also a very obvious response to make to this part of Mundine’s argument, not least to the part in bold, but the Federal Court ruling again makes this too dangerous:
Bolt has spoken about his own identity struggle as the Australian-born child of Dutch immigrants; of feeling like an outsider and of once considering himself Dutch. Now he regards himself as Australian but prefers to identify as an individual. He wishes there was no ethnicity, nationality or race. He believes we can “renounce our ethnic identity, because I have done that myself”. That’s his choice. But Bolt’s circumstances aren’t the same as those of indigenous Australians. My ancestors didn’t immigrate to Australia a generation ago. They’ve lived here since time immemorial. Why should I renounce my Bundjalung identity?
What Mundine says there demands to be argued with if we are to resist what I fear is a new and illegitimate racist division of our country.
I won’t argue, but will simply present what Mundine himself wrote in January:
In the mid-1850s, William Donovan migrated to NSW from County Cork, Ireland. As family legend has it, the Donovans were known as the ‘’Black Irish’’, many of whom left Ireland in search of a better future after losing their land to the British. Perhaps recognising a kindred spirit, William Donovan settled down with Catherine Marshall, a young Aboriginal woman. William and Catherine were my great-grandparents and it was through these Irish origins that Catholicism was introduced to my branch of the Mundine family. My father, Roy Mundine, converted to Catholicism when he married my mother, Dolly Donovan.
That should be the start of an important conversation about “race”, identity and choice.
But I do think I can say at least this: I don’t ask Mundine to renounce any identity to chooses. I ask only for my right to have and express my own opinion about it.
(Incidentally, I have never argued there should be no nationality, as Mundine claims.)
Still, whether I am right or wrong in all this, the real problem is surely that Mundine may freely put his argument, but those who disagree with him may not. That is surely an abomination.
No to racism. No to the racial division of our country. No to this change to our constitution.
And yes to free speech. 
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Fewer forms, more work-for-dole

Andrew Bolt October 07 2014 (9:21am)

One (good) step backwards, but two forwards:
A WIDESPREAD backlash has forced the Abbott government to back down from its draft plan to force unemployed people to apply for 40 jobs a month in order to receive the dole, and settle for the current requirement of 20 applications a month… 
The government has also decided to make young jobseekers carry out up to 25 hours a week of community work to keep dole payments, in a radical extension of mutual obligation… Almost $900 million will be spent on extending the work-for-the-dole scheme over the three years from next July. Jobseekers aged 30-49 will be required to do 15 hours’ work a week, while people aged 50-60 will be asked to do 15 voluntary hours a week of an approved activity. 
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The entitlement culture on wheels

Andrew Bolt October 07 2014 (9:02am)

 Actually her own fully-paid new car, too:
A MAN has been filmed furiously confronting a beggar he donated to daily, after he spotted the woman driving a new car. 
The foul-mouthed exchange, filmed by another woman who also claims to have been duped, took place at an Oklahoma service station where the elderly panhandler was seen in a 2013 red Fiat.
“This is crazy!” the man yells.
“You are asking for money in the middle of street and you drive a 2013 car?”
Gesturing with rage, the man says he gave the woman money every day, claiming to have skipped lunch one afternoon to give her $4.
“Listen, I work hard for my money. I don’t appreciate this s***. And that’s why people like you take advantage of people like me. This is bulls***!
“You drive a better car than me!”
The woman claims the car isn’t hers, and that her son is going to pick her up.
“So you’re telling me you’re not going to drive this car?” he fires back, threatening to “bust a window” if he sees her in the car again.
The video, which has been shared more than 50,000 times on Facebook, was uploaded by Brandi Newman. 
“I gave the lady in this video money the other day on Penn and 140th because she was holding a sign that said 78 year old widow needs money for food,” she captioned the clip. 
The woman still claims to be a victim:
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Who exactly are the “stolen” children the SA Liberals plan to compensate?

Andrew Bolt October 07 2014 (6:39am)

The "stolen generations"

This is bizarre -  no-questions compensation for a stolen generation that  no court can find:
NEW laws to compensate members of the Stolen Generations in South Australia are expected to pass parliament’s upper house next week, placing pressure on the state’s Labor government to support the move. 
The Greens and Family First have indicated support for the ­opposition bill, which will compensate Aborigines forcibly taken from their families.
If the bill is successful, South Australia will become the second state after Tasmania to compensate victims of government forced separation policies without the need for legal action.
The bill will provide ex gratia payments of between $20,000 and $50,000 from the state’s Victims of Crime fund.
A bipartisan parliamentary committee has concluded that the $15 million cost of the payments to up to 300 eligible claimants would be less than the cost to the state of defending legal action and would mean victims could avoid traumatic legal battles.
The $5 million Tasmanian scheme, established in 2006, paid 106 of 151 applicants between $25,000 and $40,000 each in compensation....
In 2007, Mr Weatherill, who was then Aboriginal affairs minister, said the government was closely examining a compensation fund for Stolen Generations victims following the ruling in which Bruce Trevorrow was awarded $525,000 for being removed from his family by the state’s Aboriginal Protection Board in 1957.

He was the first Stolen Generations victim to successfully sue an Australian government.
In fact, the SA Supreme Court ruled that Bruce Trevorrow was taken by a woman concerned for his welfare and in defiance of the law. Trevorrow was compensated precisely because he was the exception. There was actually no state-sanctioned stealing of children just because they were Aboriginal.
From the judgement:
Mrs Angas may have been well-intentioned ... but was well aware, or ought to have been aware, that the removal of the plaintiff from his family, and his placement with the Davies family, was undertaken in circumstances that were understood to be without legal authority, beyond power and contrary to authoritative legal advice. 
The Tasmanian scheme should not be an inspiration but a warning:
...three of the “stolen” Tasmanian Aborigines - Eddie Thomas, Heather Brown and Annette Peardon [- are] featured in Tasmanian Government ads. 
These are presumably the three people whose stories most clearly prove that Aboriginal children were stolen by racist officials from their families not because they were in danger, but because they were black.
So what do these three say themselves of how and why they were stolen?
Here’s Eddie Thomas: 

Thomas ... was taken from his grandmother when he was six months old. He and his brother and sister had been placed in her care when his mother died after his birth on Cape Barren Island, northeast Tasmania, in 1936. 
He believed his grandmother was duped into signing a consent form… 
Mother dead. Father unknown. Grandmother signs a consent form. Hmm.
Here’s Heather Brown: 

Brown, 63, broke down as she recalled the day she and six other children were taken from her family home. 
“Those people just came through our home and got me - I ran, there were children running everywhere,” she said. “It happened all at once. I was dazed. I didn’t talk for months afterwards.” 
She still does not know why she was taken from her parents at Wiltshire Junction, northwest Tasmania, or why she was not allowed to see them or her siblings while she grew up in a succession of foster families.
Even Brown says she doesn’t know why she was taken. So why assume she was stolen?
Here’s Annette Peardon: 

The story that we’ve learned and from some files, the charge was neglect for most mothers that lost their children, or the children were actually taken from them, and the charge was neglect. I myself was removed from Flinders Island with my brother and my mother, who’s now deceased, was actually in prison for three months hard labour for neglect of children.
Peardon says she can’t believe she was neglected, but at least concedes that this - not any racist policy to “breed out the color” - was the reason given for her removal. This, too, is no proof at all of a “stolen generation”.
One further detail about Peardon. She says the decision to remove her from her mother was wrong, yet she herself removed her two eldest children:

I gave my children to their non-Aboriginal father for their best interests at that time… 
Plus:
The ABC has found a fourth member of Tasmania’s “stolen generations” to get a payout from the Lennon Government. 
She is Debra Hocking, the Tasmanian spokesman of the Stolen Generations Alliance… Hocking’s story is the same, even when she tells it herself, on the friendly ABC Australia Talks show: 
I was born in South-East Tasmania in a family of five children and the welfare authorities removed myself and my other siblings when I was eighteen months of age and you have to understand that this isn’t recalled history, this is stuff that I’ve read from my government file, a lot of it, particularly in the early years. So we were removed on the grounds of neglect, and neglect back in those days could mean anything, it could mean that, you know, perhaps there wasn’t enough food in the cupboard and so you were being neglected, or perhaps, you know, the kids haven’t got shoes on so they’ve been neglected, and it was very dodgy, very dodgy guidelines on, you know, neglect.
What’s more, Hocking even told SBS television last year: 
In Tasmania there were no removal policies as such as there were in other areas around Australia…
The Tasmanian Government has not compensated members of the “stolen generations” - or at least not compensated anyone it can prove was stolen:
If you think I must be wrong, and that the Government must obviously have checked the stories of the claimants before handing them cash, consider this: That under the Act under which these payments were given, no claimant has to prove they were taken for racist rather than welfare reasons. It is enough that they were brought up by whites, even if it was to save their lives. From the Stolen Generations Act:
An applicant must: 
1. be an Aboriginal person within the meaning of the Aboriginal Lands Act 1995 
2. have been living on October 16, 2006, and 
3. have been admitted or declared as a child of the State, or a ward of the State, under the Infants Welfare Act 1935 or the Child Welfare Act 1960; on or before December 31, 1975, and remained a child of the State, or a ward of the State, for a continuous period of 12 months or more, and not in the care of an Aboriginal family during that period.
Their own children can also get payouts.  
In fact, the raw data alone suggests no policy at all in Tasmania of removing children from their parents just because they were Aboriginal:
The child Aboriginal wards existing in various documented years from 1969 to 1995 was in the range 20 to 40 per year. Half or more involved ‘neglect’, other causes were law-breaking, uncontrollable, own protection, and voluntary. As a guide, by 1975, wards were 0.8% of the Aboriginal population. 
I can understand why some politicians prefer to throw “compensation” at the “stolen generation” rather than fight claims in court. It may save legal costs and it makes them feel “compassionate”.
But there is a price to pay. The truth is being trashed, pride in our history destroyed, a victim culture created. And, of course, this “stolen generations” myth actually destroys the lives of children today

(Thanks to reader WaG311.) 
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Labor keeps blocking the fix we need even more

Andrew Bolt October 07 2014 (6:22am)

Yet Labor, the Greens and Clive Palmer insist there’s no Budget problem to fix:
GLOBAL economic woes will force the Abbott government to cut its budget outlook as Joe Hockey insists on making ­"realistic" forecasts in response to factors out of his control. 
The mid-year budget update will take a “hit” from slowing world growth and falling commodity prices in another sign of the government’s budget challenge amid a stand-off in the Senate over its reforms.
The Treasurer said the gov­ernment would have to rewrite the forecasts to account for lower ­prices for iron ore and coal, as the impact on the nation’s major exports flowed through to growth and revenue estimates in the midyear economic and fiscal outlook due in December… 
This means savings worth more than $30bn over four years will remain in the budget even as Labor, the Greens, the Palmer United Party and others block or delay them in the upper house. The existing measures including $5bn in university reforms, $2.2bn in fuel tax increases, $3.5bn in GP co-payment charges, $1.3bn in pharmaceutical benefit scheme charges, $9bn in welfare savings and $5bn in savings that Labor announced in government but now rejects in opposition.
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The most inspiring letter I have read

Andrew Bolt October 07 2014 (12:34am)


Vincent van Gogh is 27. He has utterly failed at everything - as an art dealer, teacher, student, preacher, even suitor. He is living in utter poverty, with no job and no home, and is estranged from his parents, friends, mentors and relatives.
He does not know what next to do. He certainly does not know he will be an artist. Indeed, he has not completed a single serious painting in his life, and done not one competent drawing to reveal his talent. What’s more, he does not know he has just 10 years left to live.
At this point, he breaks a long silence with his beloved brother Theo by writing one of the saddest, bravest and most inspiring letters I have ever read.
He admits he is in despair:
How then could I then be of any use to anyone? And so I am inclined to think the best and most sensible solution all round would be for me to go away and to keep my distance, to cease to be, as it were. 
He knows exactly how far he’s fallen:
It is true that I have forfeited the trust of various people, it is true that my financial affairs are in a sorry state, it is true that the future looks rather bleak, it is true that I might have done better, it is true that I have wasted time when it comes to earning a living, it is true that my studies are in a fairly lamentable and appalling state, and that my needs are greater, infinitely greater than my resources. But does that mean going downhill and doing nothing?
He feels a misfit:
I am a man of passions, capable of and given to doing more or less outrageous things for which I sometimes feel a little sorry. Every so often I say or do something too hastily, when it would have been better to have shown a little more patience… Now, one of the reasons why I have no regular job, and why I have not had a regular job for years, is quite simply that my ideas differ from those of the gentlemen who hand out the jobs to individuals who think as they do.
But he knows there is within him a hunger to know, to understand, to impart, to do something great - but what?
And I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it - keep going, keep going come what may. 
But what is your final goal, you may ask. That goal will become clearer, will emerge slowly but surely, much as the rough draught turns into a sketch, and the sketch into a painting through the serious work done on it, through the elaboration of the original vague idea and through the consolidation of the first fleeting and passing thought.
It simply cannot be that he had nothing to offer, no matter how often he has been told so:
...one cannot rid oneself of melancholy, one feels emptiness where there might have been friendship and sublime and genuine affection, and one feels dreadful disappointment gnawing at one’s spiritual energy, fate seems to stand in the way of affection or one feels a wave of disgust welling up inside. And then one says “How long, my God!”
Well, that’s how it is, can you tell what goes on within by looking at what happens without? There may be a great fire in our soul, but no one ever comes to warm himself by it, all that passers-by can see is a little smoke coming out of the chimney, and they walk on.
All right, then, what is to be done, should one tend that inward fire, turn to oneself for strength, wait patiently - yet with how much impatience! - wait, I say, for the moment when someone who wants to comes and sits down beside one’s fire and perhaps stays on? Let him who believes in God await the moment that will sooner or later arrive. 
Well, right now it seems that things are going very badly for me, have been doing so for some considerable time, and may continue to do so well into the future. But it is possible that everything will get better after it has all seemed to go wrong. I am not counting on it, it may never happen, but if there should be a change for the better I should regard that as a gain, I should rejoice, I should say, at last! So there was something after all!
He’s called an idler, but he knows he is working furiously in his mind, reading, thinking.... He has a great purpose - if only he could find it!
Then there is the other kind of idler, the idler despite himself, who is inwardly consumed by a great longing for action who does nothing because his hands are tied, because he is, so to speak, imprisoned somewhere, because he lacks what he needs to be productive, because disastrous circumstances have brought him forcibly to this end. Such a one does not always know what he can do, but he nevertheless instinctively feels, I am good for something! My existence is not without reason! I know that I could be a quite a different person! How can I be of use, how can I be of service? There is something inside me, but what can it be? He is quite another idler. If you like you may take me for one of those.
Not long after this van Gogh decided to learn how to draw. His efforts at this time showed little of what was to come:
A decade later van Gogh was dead. What glories he had done. 
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Coming right back at us in Iraq

Andrew Bolt October 07 2014 (12:01am)

Be very careful who you arm. You know, like the 5000 “moderate” Syrian militia members the US is getting to do its fighting in Syria:
In its campaign across northern Syria and Iraq, the jihadist group Islamic State has been using ammunition from the United States and other countries that have been supporting the regional security forces fighting the group, according to new field data gathered by a private arms-tracking organization. 
The data, part of a larger sample of captured arms and cartridges in Syria and Iraq, ... suggests that ammunition transferred into Syria and Iraq to help stabilize governments has instead passed from the governments to the jihadists, helping to fuel the Islamic State’s rise and persistent combat power…
More than 80 percent of the ammunition was manufactured in China, the former Soviet Union, the United States, post-Soviet Russia or Serbia. The organization’s analysis suggests that much of this ammunition was held by security forces in the region, and then commandeered by militants…
Among Conflict Armament Research’s findings were that 323 of the cartridges — nearly 19 percent — were from the United States… The ammunition is the standard cartridge for American M-4 and M-16 rifles, which, along with these classes of rifles, was widely distributed by the United States to Iraqi security forces during the latter years of the occupation.
This raises a very interesting question for Greens leader Christine Milne, who offered this shiny-eyed “solution”:
The situation in Iraq is complex and should be dealt with diplomatically, cutting off the supply of weapons and money to ISIS, and fostering an inclusive Iraqi government.
Since ISIS is primarily arming itself by defeating regional armies, precisely how do the Greens cut off that supply? Without firing a weapon, I mean.
(Thanks to reader outback.) 
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UN supports a tribal victimhood which could blow up the Middle East

Andrew Bolt October 07 2014 (12:02am)

The United Nations is feeding a dangerous victim culture by conferring permanent refugee status on millions of Palestinians who have been firmly settled for decades:
Here is a paradox: [United Nations Relief and Works Agency], the United Nations agency that manages the Palestinian refugee issue, follows rules that contradict United States law and policy, and its practices result in perpetuating and multiplying the refugee problem rather than resolving it… 
For example, almost two million Palestinians who have long been settled in Jordan and have for decades enjoyed Jordanian citizenship, are routinely counted as “refugees” by UNRWA, and the State Department supports it. This, in spite of the fact that, under U.S. law, a person who has citizenship in the country where he resides, and enjoys the protection of that state, cannot lawfully be eligible for refugee status…
Here is a second example: Another two million Palestinians already settled in the West Bank and Gaza, and who, by their own account, lived in the declared Palestinian state as its citizens under a Palestinian government, are registered as “refugees” by UNRWA. By American legal standards, these Palestinians are “firmly settled” and therefore ineligible for “refugee” status. Further, according to American policy reaffirmed by three Presidents, these Palestinians already reside in their own future state, the place where Palestinian refugees are meant to be settled. Yet the State Department supports UNRWA’s decision to count two million Palestinians well established in the West Bank and Gaza as “refugees,” too.
Here is a third example: Under U.S. laws and regulations, only an individual who was personally displaced, or is a spouse or an underage dependent of such an individual, can be eligible for refugee status or derivative refugee status. Grandchildren and great-grandchildren are specifically not entitled to inherit refugee status merely because their ancestor was a refugee.
But under UNRWA practices, any descendant of a male refugee, no matter how many generations and decades have passed, is automatically entitled to be counted as a “refugee.” More than 95% of today’s UNRWA “refugees,” in fact, were not even alive when Israel was born in 1948; were never personally displaced by Israel’s creation, and are listed by UNRWA as “refugees” only because of this peculiar practice of inheriting refugee status as a birthright .
This UN-supported intergenerational victimhood has lethal consequences.
UPDATE
Speaking of conferred victimhood, Cut & Paste gives a brutal correction to Fairfax columnists assuring readers that the Islamic State is to Islam what Hitler was to Christianity - or even less so.
(Thanks to reader the Village Idiot (Reformed).) 
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About 78 Iraqis died and another 166 were wounded by radical Islamic terrorists in attacks spreadthroughout Iraq on Saturday, according to counterterrorism analyst George S. Timmons.
The attacks included a large-scale suicide bombing that targeted Shiite Muslims on a pilgrimage while they were in Baghdad, the police and Middle East news media reported.
That bombing left 51 people, including the bomber, dead and 107 others wounded on Saturday evening when the bomber detonated his bomb-laden vest near the Shiite pilgrims in Adhamiya district of Baghdad, noted Timmons.
The pilgrims were on their way to a mosque in the the northern section of Baghdad, he added.
Also on Saturday evening, 11 Iraqis died and another 35 were wounded when another car bomb explodednear a popular cafe in the town of Balad, about 50-miles north of Baghdad.
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http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/professor-of-neuroeconomics-gregory-berns-reveals-dogs-are-people-too/story-fnjwkt0b-1226734174107
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Headline from Israel!
Only when the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state will there be peace.
Quote from Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister at the annual Bar Ilan Conference;
"Only when they recognize our right to exist in our sovereign state, our national home, only then will peace be possible."
In a half hour address he emphasized that the ongoing refusal to recognize the Jewish state has been the core of the conflict for the last ninety years.
THE LESSONS OF HISTORY.
In this address to the annual Bar Ilan Conference on October 6, 2013, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, recommended to the invited guests that they read William J. Durant’s book “The lessons of History.” He said this 
100 page book is a remarkable read for any leader wishing to understand the human condition. Here are two quotes I have researched from this book;
“In progressive societies the concentration[of wealth] may reach a point where the strength of number in the many poor rivals the strength of ability in the few rich; then the unstable equilibrium generates a critical situation, which history has diversely met by legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty.”
“The influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows. The character and contour of a terrain may offer opportunities for agriculture, mining, or trade, but only the imagination and initiative of leaders, and the hardy industry of followers, can transform the possibilities into fact...Man, not the earth, makes civilization.” 
Not bad for an author who died over 30 years ago.

On January 4, 2013, Mahmoud Abbas, spoke via video link on a wide screen to the masses in Gaza, who gathered to celebrate the founding of Fatah,(Arabic word for conquest)  otherwise known as the Palestine Liberation Organization
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SatLink Communications..
06 October '13..

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's Address at Bar-Ilan University on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies: "The State of Israel's Challenges", October 6, 2013.

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In his speech to the nation on Syria last week, the president twice emphasized that America is not the “world’s policeman.” According to polls, most Americans agree.
Unfortunately, however, relinquishing this role assures catastrophe, both for the world and for America.
This is easy to demonstrate. Imagine that because of the great financial and human price the mayors and city councils of some major American cities decide that they no longer want to police their cities. Individuals simply have to protect themselves.
We all know what would happen: The worst human beings would terrorize these cities, and the loss of life would be far greater than before. But chaos would not long reign. The strongest thugs and their organizations would take over the cities.
That is what will happen to the world if the United States decides — because of the financial expense and the loss of American troops — not to be the “world’s policeman.” (I put the term in quotes because America never policed the whole world, nor is it feasible to do so. But America’s strength and willingness to use it has been the greatest force in history for liberty and world stability.)
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Following the terror attack Saturday in which a terroristshot a nine-year-old girl in the neck at short range, an officialFacebook page run by Fatah praised the attacker, and predicted he would strike again.
The incitement has been reported by watchdog groupPalestinian Media Watch.
Fatah is the organization whose chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, is also Chairman of the PalestinianAuthority (PA), the body that rules over parts of Judea and Samaria since the early 1990s and with which Israel is conducting “peace talks.”
The administrator of the Facebook page makes a connection between the shooting Saturday, which occurred at Psagot, near El Bireh, and the killing of an IDF soldier by a sharpshooter in Hevron two weeks ago.
"The sharpshooter of Palestine has passed here,” the administrator writes. “He greeted Hevron and rested at El Bireh. Between these two parts of the homeland, he left a manly signature. He saluted and went on his way, and went on to a new place with a new signature, as he tells the tale of those who love the homeland.”
The Facebook page is named “Fatah – The Central Page.”
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu mentioned PA incitement when he spoke during the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday and shared his reaction to the terror attack the night before in which 9-year-old Noam Glick was shot at close range.
"The Israeli Government is treating the terrorist attack on the 9-year-old girl from Psagot very seriously. We are not at all pleased that our security and defense measures did not prevent this, during the calmest year in over a decade in terror attacks."
"We have identified an increase in terror attacks lately, and I must say, as long as their media incitement continues, the Palestinian Authority can not absolve themselves of responsibility for these events."
Netanyahu stressed that nothing will help the various inciters and murderers, because "we are here and we are here to stay."
However, he did not announce any ultimatum regarding the continued incitement, and did not say he would cease seeing the PA as a "peace partner."
"From the Government's office, I wish a complete and speedy recovery to little Noam, and extend my support to her family. We are all praying for peace and we support all of the residents of Psagot," Netanyahu summed up.

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Professor Abdul Hadi Palazzi, Director of the Istituto Culturale della Comunita Islamica Italiana (Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community) in Rome, who will speak on the sanctity of Jerusalem to the Jewish People.

The sources he intends to quote, from both the Bible and the Qur’an, indicate that, just as Mecca is sacred to Islam, so is Jerusalem sacred to Judaism. He sees no contradiction in the fact that Jerusalem, also sacred to the Muslims, should be under Jewish sovereignty.

As he tells us, he is no politician; he is merely giving us the benefit of his opinion as a theologian, a religious scholar: There is nothing wrong, he says, with Jerusalem being the undivided capital of the Jewish State, under Israeli sovereignty.

Here is ample illustration of my conviction that our ideas may be corroborated from various directions. 

And this is, I repeat, only one of the topics to be discussed here.

I am indebted to President Weizman for hosting the opening session of the seminar. Let me express the hope that our discussions will be interesting and fruitful.

Jerusalem: Three-Fold Religious Heritage for a Contemporary Single Administration

Any discussion of the problem of sovereignty over Jerusalem necessarily means involvement in a kind of investigation that has political, cultural, psychological and religious implications. For Jew or Muslim, religious or secular, thinking of Jerusalem means to feel reason and sentiment mingled together.
In this paper I do not want to enter into specific features directly connected with politics; but, as a Muslim scholar and man of religion, only to try and determine whether, from an Islamic point of view, there is some well-grounded theological reason that makes it impossible for Muslims to accept the idea of recognizing Jerusalem both as an Islamic holy place and as the capital of the State of Israel.

Professor Abdul Hadi Palazzi, Director of the Istituto Culturale della Comunita Islamica Italiana (Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community) in Rome, spoke on the sanctity of Jerusalem to the Jewish People.

The sources he quotes from, both the Bible and the Qur’an, indicate that, just as Mecca is sacred to Islam, so is Jerusalem sacred to Judaism. He sees no contradiction in the fact that Jerusalem, also sacred to the Muslims, should be under Jewish sovereignty.

There is nothing wrong, he says, with Jerusalem being the undivided capital of the Jewish State, under Israeli sovereignty.
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"Dignified Life Grant" for released prisoners awaits Abbas' approval
PM Hamdallah promises higher grants for prisoners


Official PA daily: 
"Money is not an immediate concern... the PA will pay at least 4,000 shekels a month to prisoners released after serving a long prison term, and considers them to be returning soldiers."
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=9735
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Recently, Palestinian Media Watch reported that the Palestinian Authority plans to give 5,000 released security prisoners who served more than 5 years in Israeli prisons a "Dignified Life Grant." Most of these prisoners are convicted terrorists. PMW also reported that this announcement of the grant, which will cost the PA budget $15 million this year, appeared in the official PA daily on the same day that the US announced it was contributing $148 million to the PA's budget.

Recently, PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah explained that these grants must be approved by PA Chairman Abbas before they can be paid:
"The Prime Minister noted that the 'Dignified Life Grant' for released prisoners requires a resolution issued by President Mahmoud Abbas in order to arrange its payment, as per the fifth article of the Palestinian Basic Law. He said that he has presented the subject of the grant to the President in preparation for legislation that will deal with the matter," reported the official PA daily.
The Prime Minister also stated that "an appropriate monetary payment will be made in the coming days to cover part of the prisoners' release grants."

In another statement Hamdallah emphasized the PA government's intention to raise the prisoners' grants:
"Hamdallah stressed that the government will make every possible effort to assist the prisoners, both by enlarging the grants they receive and by means of rehabilitation programs after their release."   
Hamdallah also vowed not to abandon "the brave prisoners":
"The government has not abandoned and will never abandon the brave prisoners who sacrificed years of their lives for the Palestinian cause and for our national goals..."
PMW has documented that the PA pays salaries to terrorists in prison.

Reporting on Israel's release of 26 prisoners in August as part of a goodwill gesture towards the PA, the official PA daily reported that these prisoners, who "received a hero's welcome... by senior [Palestinian] Authority officials and by their relatives" would receive grants:
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Is the west mug enough to fall for this? (Don’t all answer at once)

Posted by Melanie Phillips


It looks as if the strategy for Iran’s eventual victory over the west is now reaching its end game, and is playing out exactly as foretold in these columns.
Ever since it declared war upon the west in 1978, the Iranian regime has played the west for the suckers they are.
First, even though Iran repeatedly attacked it through terrorist atrocities against civilians or on the battlefield in Iraq, this supine western world turned the other cheek. Rather than respond appropriately to such acts, it pretended the ongoing Iranian war against the west, which was claiming the lives of US and British soldiers as well as hundreds of civilians, wasn’t happening at all.
Next, Iran was handed the supreme gift of President Obama who, by his vapid approach to a regime intent upon manufacturing a nuclear arsenal with which to achieve its murderous and genocidal ends, gave it the vital time it needed to spin its centrifuges as well as advance towards strategic domination of the Middle East.
Next, it finally got rid of its crude demagogue President Ahmadinejad, who had embarrassed the regime by revealing all too clearly its deep hatred towards the Jews and its psychopathic goal of wiping out Israel, and replaced him by the serpentine President Rohani, whose self-declared skill at playing the west for suckers was immediately demonstrated when western politicians purred with pleasure at his ‘moderation’.
This, of course, was the same ‘moderate’ Rohani who had helped Ayatollah Khomeini found the Iranian revolutionary terrorist regime in the first place; has expressed anti-Jewish views and lauded ‘the beautiful chant of “Death to America”’; defended Hezbollah as a ‘legitimate political group’ and called Israel a ‘terrorist nation’; and served as Chairman of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council from 1989 until 2005, during which time the Council is reported to have helped mastermind the 1994 bombing of the Jewish cultural centre in Buenos Aires and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia (although it is said Rohani was not personally involved in planning such attacks).
And then another great gift fell into the lap of the Iranian regime when President Obama, through his Syria debacle, effectively outsourced the role of policing the free world to its enemy – and Iran’s protector and arms supplier – President Putin, who instantly became the pivotal player in the Middle East.

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Antisemitism02

Here is an editorial that should run in every paper in Europe and the Arab world. Ali Salim is a Muslim based in the Middle East.
"Hatred of Jews" by Ali Salim September 16, 2013
We Muslims make the mistake of thinking Europeans really care about is, especially the Palestinians. We are wrong. Europeans simply hate the Jews more than they hate and fear us. The bitter truth is that Europeans usually intervene in a crisis only if it gives them an opportunity for Jew-bashing. It does not even mention Syria, or the rapes of women and children, and the beheadings, to say nothing of exploitation, discrimination, slavery, and other crimes against humanity.
No matter how hard or how often we Muslims try, we are never able finally to end the connection our lives seem to have with the lives of the Jews. Watching Arab and Islamic television, especially during the holy month of Ramadan, brings the viewer to the inescapable conclusion that we have no real lives of our own, no unity and no value: our only motivation is having the Jews as a common enemy, with our lives dependent on them. We treat the Jews the way the rabid Christian anti-Semites treated them in the Middle Ages, blaming them for every illness, tragedy and misfortune. We blame them for the failures of Islam while only we are at fault for the catastrophes that befall us.
Almost no Ramadan evening goes by without tedious "historical" dramas on Al-Jazeera and the other Arab TV channels, whose objective is to brainwash viewers with anti-Semitic propaganda. They deal with the Jews' denial of the Prophet Muhammad's message, Jewish attempts to poison him and their betrayal of him at the Battle of the Trench in Al-Medina. Almost all the series' end on the same note: the message is always that the fate of the Jews in the Palestine they stole from the Arabs will be the same as that Muhammad wreaked on them at Khybar, they will be slaughtered and their women and children will be sold into slavery.
That kind of incitement lends the Jews a Satanic power, it makes us think they can manipulate events around the world and are historically responsible for planning and carrying out every evil that exists. In reality, however, all it does is glorify their capabilities and achievements to the extent of turning them into a self-important legend. Thus we ourselves construct the myth of the genius of the Jews, their intellectual might and creative talents, while personally I am not entirely sure they deserve the reputation: they are mere mortals like everyone else, and often less.
In my opinion, the situation has reached such proportions within the nation of Islam that it is now a national mental illness, a collective obsession for which I see no cure. We accuse the Jews of wanting to rule the world, but one of the causes of our illness is that we expect Islam to take over the world.
Regression and the lack of social and governmental flexibility, along with poverty and ignorance, perpetuate the impotence of the nation of Islam and make it impossible for us to change, develop and progress -- a frustrating, ugly situation. While we have dreams of ruling the world, we wallow in disease and poverty, and we are behind the times in all the modern fields of endeavor. Our various regimes enjoy religious and tribal backing, that is why they are anti-democratic and cannot be saved. We find comfort only in recklessly bringing untold masses of children into a world with nothing to offer them.
The countries of western Europe were all lucky enough, or wise enough, to cast off the political rule of fanaticism in the Middle Ages and to separate church and state. Today Christianity is a normative social value, a matter of personal conscience, and it dictates and practices enlightenment rather than violence and oppression. The separation of church and state made it possible for Europeans – and Americans – to progress, and it gave them a tremendous advantage over the rest of the world. We, on the other hand, are still living in the Dark Ages.
The Christians' enlightened, moderate attitude toward the Islamic communities in European cities, which is partially a function of fear, causes our extremist Muslim brothers to escalate their violence toward the communities hosting them, mistakenly assuming that Christian moderation is the result of the weakness of Western society. The result is that as time passes Islamophobia grows greater.
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Several prominent Egyptian media sources are reporting that Malik Obama, half-brother to President Barack Obama is quickly becoming a person of interest in that country relative to his role with the Islamic Da’wa Organization (IDO) – based in bordering Sudan – and the larger Muslim Brotherhood umbrella group. Complaints have been filed with Egypt’s Prosecutor General that call for Malik to be put on Egypt’s terror watch list and brought in for questioning about his role in financing terrorism.
Egypt's Attorney General: Hisham Barakat
Egypt’s Attorney General: Hisham Barakat
The following is a direct translation from an article from Youm7:
“Dr. Ahmed Nabil Ganzory, in his capacity as lawyer and agent for Dr. Sadik Rauf Obeid, and resident in the United States of America, filed a complaint with Egypt’s Attorney General Hisham Barakat, against Malik Obama, accusing him of supporting terrorism in Egypt and for his involvement in managing the Islamic Da’wa Organization (IDO). The complaint also asks to include Chancellor Tahani Al-Jebali to substantiate claims against Obama
Complaint No. 1761 for the year 2013 reported to the Attorney General asked the Egyptian High Court to consider the suspicious activity of a group called the Islamic Da’wa Organization (IDO), which is owned and managed by Malik Obama. This group is now being investigated by international bodies and the attached evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that a close link exists between Malik Obama and some of the most notorious characters already wanted for their involvement in terrorism, as is consistent with the pictures and reports attached…
The complaint also asks the court to bring in Malik Obama – a resident of the United States – to be questioned in regards to the terrorist groups in Egypt, whether by inciting or participating with or in any form of support punishable by law. It seeks permission to declare Obama a defendant in his right outside Egypt diplomatically, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the case of non-appearance and compliance for the investigation, the complainant requests monitoring [Mr. Obama] by including his name on all Egyptian airports and ports, and take the necessary legal steps.” {emphasis ours}
Note that the complaint also calls for the inclusion of Tahani Al-Jebali, former Chancellor of the Constitutional Court of Egypt and current adviser. This is indeed significant because Jebali has already gone on public record with claims that Barack Obama’s brother is a major player with the Muslim Brotherhood. As we reported at the time, Jebali’s claims corroborated our claims, as does the aforementioned complaint.
Ganzory, the man who filed the complaint, is identified as an Egyptian constitutional law expert. He was recently interviewed by El-Balad TV and said the following during that interview:
“I have what it takes to convict Obama’s brother in financiering terrorism.”
He added…
“Malik Obama will be brought to face justice in Egypt if and when these charges are proven.”
Here is that interview (it is in Arabic but you can hear Ganzory say “Malik Obama” at the :17 mark):

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A volunteer with the Magen David Adom first aid service was forced on Sunday to remove his jacket with the organization’s emblem before he was allowed to enter the Temple Mount. The emblem of Magen David Adom is a red Star of David.
The volunteer, Yonatan Tal, recalled the incident in a conversation with Arutz Sheva.
"I went up to the Temple Mount as I usually do. The weather was cooler so I put on my jacket [with the Magen David Adom emblem],” said Tal, who pointed out that the compound had been packed with tourists. As his turn came to enter, recalled Tal, he was called aside by a police officer who ordered him to remove his jacket. When Tal asked why he had to remove his jacket in order to enter the Temple Mount, the officer argued that this was the procedure.
Tal, who refused to accept this answer, demanded to know if there is a prohibition to ascend the Temple Mount while wearing a jacket. "He (the officer) tried to avoid answering the question, but in the end he had to admit that he was ordering me to take off the jacket because of the red Star of David that is sewn on it.”
Tal noted that the order was puzzling, particularly because of the stepsthat had been taken by Magen David Adom to join the Red Cross and thereby receive international recognition. Furthermore, he noted, as a Magen David Adom volunteer who resides in the Judea and Samaria community of Beit Hagai, he often cooperates with the Red Crescent, yet is denied entry to the Temple Mount because he wears a jacket with Israel’s national symbol.
Following the conversation with the officer, Tal told Arutz Sheva, he wasforced to remove his jacket and only got it back when he left the compound. He called on Israelis to pressure the government to allow Jewish worship on the Temple Mount.
“If every one of us will devote one morning once a month and take the time to visit the Temple Mount, it will certainly change the situation and bring about a normal reality whereby Jews control the Temple Mount,” he said.
Tal’s experience on the Temple Mount is another example of Israeli police capitulating to the demands of the Waqf, which was left in charge of the Temple Mount after Israel liberated it during the 1967 Six Day War.
Police, in an attempt to appease the Waqf, limit the number of Jewish worshippers allowed on the Temple Mount at one time in order to prevent conflict with Muslim worshippers.

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http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/no-march-on-labour-day-public-holiday-20131007-2v2xw.html
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Diamond Imports sell the Highest Quality Certified Loose Diamonds at wholesale diamond prices to create beautiful diamond engagement rings.
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That was the exclamation of my 1-year-old as my husband tried to help him put the clean spoons back in the drawer. At the time, we thought it was cute how he was able to articulate what he wanted and so adamantly stand up for himself. Little did we know how much the intensity of that moment would permeate nearly every interaction we would have together over the next several years. Our son is a strong-willed child. His tenacious spirit and persistent personality often challenge our efforts in parenting him. Even the most mundane tasks become a battle, and not a day goes by in which our decisions aren’t questioned or countered. Like us, so many other parents find themselves in a similar situation; their children’s strong-willed temperaments can be difficult to connect with, difficult to guide, difficult to endure.
For parents of kids who are spirited or strong-willed, guiding them through their development while maintaining a connected relationship can be challenging. How is it possible to parent lovingly and effectively? Here are three leading principles in parenting a strong-willed child that will keep your relationship secure and embrace your child’s strong spirit.

Turn into the skid
If you’ve ever hit a skid while driving, you know that suddenly heading a different direction while out of your control is scary. Your first instinct may be to think, “No! This isn’t right; this isn’t the direction I need to go.” Your instinct might be to jerk the wheel back to your intended path. However, when your car is skidding, what is actually the most effective way to get back on the road? By turning into the skid first. Then you’re able to slow the momentum and gain some traction.
Dr. Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D. and author of Hold on to Your Kids, says that strong-willed children have similar reactions to a hard turn away from a skid. “Counterwill is an instinctive, automatic resistance to any sense of being forced,” says Dr. Neufeld. “It is triggered whenever a person feels controlled or pressured to do someone else’s bidding.” This is actually a positive attribute, as it protects children from being influenced or pressured from anyone to whom they do not have an emotional connection. When you find yourself at odds with your strong-willed child’s energy, find a way to join her where she is—in other words, turn into the skid—in order to redirect that momentum. Connect with your child by acknowledging her feelings and understanding her perspective:
  • I can tell that you’re really upset.
  • You are having such a fun time playing this game!
  • You are sad to say goodbye.
  • You feel very strongly about this.
  • You need to be able to make your own decisions.
  • You are feeling so angry right now.
  • You must feel like you don’t have any control.
  • You really want to play with your friends right now.
  • You were hoping to have a biscuit.
  • You love that toy, and you’re upset that you can’t have it.
  • You wish you didn’t have to get dressed right now.
  • You’d prefer to stay home today and not go anywhere.
  • Yeah, I can understand that.

For strong-willed children, the need to be heard and understood is especially important, as their energy can be so powerful in the opposite way. Coming alongside children through empathy, validation, and acceptance allows them to feel connected enough to steer their energy in the desired direction.

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Barak Obama Hussein II born in Kenya in 1961

This is the birth certificate of Barak Obama Hussein II, President of the United States of America, born in Kenya on August 4th, 1961. 

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Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin

PRAY ALONG.
Father in heaven,I thank You for making me a new creation. Thank You for empowering me to live as an overcomer. Thank You for Your Word which so beautifully directs my steps. Today I step forward in confidence knowing that You are with me. I shake off negative words from the past and choose to forgive those who have hurt me. Thank You for leading me into victory. I give this day to You and ask that You help me to fully understand the plan You have for me. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.
(2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV)

Everyone loves to get something new. But as a believer in Jesus, you’re not only getting something new, you are something new. You are a brand new creation. Your eternal being, your spirit, is re-created in Christ. The old is gone, the new has come. You may not necessarily feel new right away. That’s because the Bible tells us that we are to “work out” our salvation. That means you have to retrain your body and mind to act, think, speak and live according to God’s ways instead of the old habits you used to have. Don’t ever get stuck in the rut of thinking, “I’ll never change...that’s just the way I am.” No, the Bible says that the Spirit of God aids us in our weakness. He gives us strength to overcome. He empowers us to live as more than conquerors in this life.You are a new creation,God bless you.
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Heavenly Father, I know what you’ve put on the inside of me. By faith I see the dreams you’ve given me coming to pass, no matter what my circumstances are. I am full of Your power and I’m ready to become everything you created me to be. I choose to trust You with my whole heart. I know there is nothing too hard for You. Help me to stand strong in faith and keep me close to You all the days of my life, In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
(Hebrews 11:1, NKJV)

Are you expecting your dreams to come true? It’s important to look beyond present circumstances and believe for God’s best. Someone battling sickness may say, “I could never be healthy.” Or, “This report from the doctor says too many things are wrong with me.” What they don’t realize is their lack of faith is holding them back from receiving God’s best. They allow adversities to keep them from moving forward. And that’s just what the enemy wants, to keep your dreams from taking root and being fulfilled.

Our God-given dreams are like seeds planted deep within our hearts. For those dreams to grow, they must take root. Having faith for your dream means you believe it on the inside before it takes place on the outside. In other words, you’ve got to see those dreams coming to pass no matter what’s going on around you.

Get a vision on the inside of what God wants for you. He wants you to accomplish the plans He’s put in your heart. Look out through eyes of faith and see your dreams coming to pass. See yourself walking in abundance in every area of life.God bless you.
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Father, I invite You to dwell in my thoughts, heart and attitude. I choose to follow Your example and bring good to others. Help me to be a pure reflection of Your love in everything I do in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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Pastor Rick Warren
Dear friends who connect with me on INSTAGRAM (pastorRickWarren) where I post personal photos - this is a fun jab for you who feel compelled to always show us everything you eat!!
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God doesn't give his GRACE to be debated. He gives it to be enjoyed and freely given to others.
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One proof the Bible is no ordinary book is that it has survived all critics, every misuse, and 2000 years of bad preaching, yet it is still the most-read, most-translated, and most-purchased book. Nothing else comes close.
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Thousands of you have written to Kay or me over the past 2 weeks about mental illness in your family or the suicide of someone you love. Kay and I pray for you even when we can't respond to every note. We are working on a plan to help. WE LOVE YOU.

If you want to be on our personal mailing list about this subject, email the words MENTAL ILLNESS or SUICIDE to PastorRick@saddleback.com. God is with you, and we are in this together.

"For God doesn't give us a spirit of fear; He give us a spirit of POWER, and a spirit of LOVE, and A SOUND MIND." 2 Timothy 1:7
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“Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.”Isaiah 26:4 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst."
John 4:14

He who is a believer in Jesus finds enough in his Lord to satisfy him now, and to content him for evermore. The believer is not the man whose days are weary for want of comfort, and whose nights are long from absence of heart-cheering thought, for he finds in religion such a spring of joy, such a fountain of consolation, that he is content and happy. Put him in a dungeon and he will find good company; place him in a barren wilderness, he will eat the bread of heaven; drive him away from friendship, he will meet the "friend that sticketh closer than a brother." Blast all his gourds, and he will find shadow beneath the Rock of Ages; sap the foundation of his earthly hopes, but his heart will still be fixed, trusting in the Lord. The heart is as insatiable as the grave till Jesus enters it, and then it is a cup full to overflowing. There is such a fulness in Christ that he alone is the believer's all. The true saint is so completely satisfied with the all-sufficiency of Jesus that he thirsts no more--except it be for deeper draughts of the living fountain. In that sweet manner, believer, shalt thou thirst; it shall not be a thirst of pain, but of loving desire; thou wilt find it a sweet thing to be panting after a fuller enjoyment of Jesus' love. One in days of yore said, "I have been sinking my bucket down into the well full often, but now my thirst after Jesus has become so insatiable, that I long to put the well itself to my lips, and drink right on." Is this the feeling of thine heart now, believer? Dost thou feel that all thy desires are satisfied in Jesus, and that thou hast no want now, but to know more of him, and to have closer fellowship with him? Then come continually to the fountain, and take of the water of life freely. Jesus will never think you take too much, but will ever welcome you, saying, "Drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved."

Evening

"He had married an Ethiopian woman."
Numbers 12:1
Strange choice of Moses, but how much more strange the choice of him who is a prophet like unto Moses, and greater than he! Our Lord, who is fair as the lily, has entered into marriage union with one who confesses herself to be black, because the sun has looked upon her. It is the wonder of angels that the love of Jesus should be set upon poor, lost, guilty men. Each believer must, when filled with a sense of Jesus' love, be also overwhelmed with astonishment that such love should be lavished on an object so utterly unworthy of it. Knowing as we do our secret guiltiness, unfaithfulness, and black-heartedness, we are dissolved in grateful admiration of the matchless freeness and sovereignty of grace. Jesus must have found the cause of his love in his own heart, he could not have found it in us, for it is not there. Even since our conversion we have been black, though grace has made us comely. Holy Rutherford said of himself what we must each subscribe to--"His relation to me is, that I am sick, and he is the Physician of whom I stand in need. Alas! how often I play fast and loose with Christ! He bindeth, I loose; he buildeth, I cast down; I quarrel with Christ, and he agreeth with me twenty times a day!" Most tender and faithful Husband of our souls, pursue thy gracious work of conforming us to thine image, till thou shalt present even us poor Ethiopians unto thyself, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Moses met with opposition because of his marriage, and both himself and his spouse were the subjects of an evil eye. Can we wonder if this vain world opposes Jesus and his spouse, and especially when great sinners are converted? for this is ever the Pharisee's ground of objection, "This man receiveth sinners." Still is the old cause of quarrel revived, "Because he had married an Ethiopian woman."
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Today's reading: Isaiah 26-27, Philippians 2 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Isaiah 26-27



A Song of Praise
1 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strong city;
God makes salvation
its walls and ramparts.
2 Open the gates
that the righteous nation may enter,
the nation that keeps faith.
3 You will keep in perfect peace
those whose minds are steadfast,
because they trust in you.
Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.
5 He humbles those who dwell on high,
he lays the lofty city low;
he levels it to the ground
and casts it down to the dust.
6 Feet trample it down—
the feet of the oppressed,
the footsteps of the poor....

Today's New Testament reading: Philippians 2

Imitating Christ’s Humility
1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
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Moses

[Mō'zez] - drawn forth, taken out of the water or a sonThe youngest son of Amram and Jochebed, of the family of Kohath (Exod. 2:10-21; Acts 7:20-38; Heb. 11:24, 25).

The Man Who Was God's Friend


The great Hebrew leader and legislator was born at the time the king of Egypt had resolved on the destruction of every newly born male child among the Israelites. The story of his rescue from the water by Pharaoh's daughter, of her adoption of him as her own son and his royal upbringing has charmed our hearts from earliest years.

It would take a volume in itself to fully expound the virtues and vicissitudes of Moses the historian, orator, leader, statesman, legislator and patriot. His greatest honor, however, was the privilege of being known as "the friend of God." What holy intimacy existed between God and this prophet so supernaturally guided and aided in his life and labors! No wonder this mighty leader of Israel was David Livingstone's favorite Bible hero!
Moses lived for 120 years, a period divided into three sections of forty years each:
The first forty years - from his birth until the flight into Midian. As Pharaoh's son, Moses learned how to be somebody.
The second forty years - from the flight into Midian to the Exodus. In desert places he learned how to become a nobody.
The third forty years - from the Exodus to his own exodus. As the leader of God's hosts he learned that god was everybody - the One he could speak to face to face as a man speaks to his friends.
The remarkable life of Moses can be viewed under three more aspects:
I. The moment when he turned fully to God.
II. The moment when he absolutely broke with the world. The refusal and choice of Hebrews 11:24, 25 must be carefully noted. It is not enough to refuse - we must choose. We must back up a negative with a positive.
III. The moment when between himself and God there was the sprinkled blood, the blood of atonement.
Further, Moses, the Law-giver in Israel, supplies us with a fitting type of Christ. Taken together we have these similarities which pastors can develop:
Both were preserved from the perils of infancy (Exod. 2:2-10with Matt. 2:14, 15).
Both were tempted but had mastery over evil ( Exod. 7:11 withMatt. 4:1).
Both knew what it was to fast for forty days (Exod. 34:28 withMatt. 4:2). Solitude was their strength.
Both had power to control the sea (Exod. 14:21 with Matt. 8:26).
Both fed a multitude ( Exod. 16:26 with Matt. 14:20, 21).
Both had a radiant face (Exod. 34:35 with Matt. 17:2).
Both endured murmurings (Exod. 15:24 with Mark 7:2).
Both were discredited at home (Num. 12:1 with John 7:5).
Both were mighty intercessors ( Exod. 32:32 with John 17).
Both spoke as the oracles of God (Deut. 18:18 with John 7:46).
Both had seventy helpers (Num. 11:16, 17 with Luke 10:1).
Both established memorials ( Exod. 12:14 with Luke 22:19).
Both reappeared after death (Matt. 17:3 with Acts 1:3).
Moses gave us the first five books of the Old Testament, known as The Pentateuch . When Jesus said, "Moses wrote of me," He set His seal to the Mosaic authorship of these books. Moses died in the plains of Moab. At the ripe age of 120 years, while yet "his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated," God called His faithful servant to climb Nebo's lonely mountain, where, upon its summit he was kissed to sleep by the angels and God buried him - the only man in the Bible to have God as his undertaker (Deut. 34:6).
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