Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Tue Oct 25th Todays News

I am a little annoyed at formatting problems that are affecting my writing. It is related to new.com.au’s decision to change their blogs. I like to reply to them and keep the headlines for my historical review. I can then replay them year by year. But formatting Gremlins have struck, and whole paragraphs have been ‘eaten’ and gone without trace. And erasing formatting hasn’t helped to stabilise things. So now I write things off site and paste on site. But it still doesn’t help all things. Todays, column, which I typed the names Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt above their columns, but all but the first initial was ‘eaten’ and won’t let me type it back in. But those are niggles. I need to give thanks for things.

I thank the Liberal party and IPA (Institute for Public Affairs) for their tremendous support and work that allowed me to campaign in the local council elections recently. I’m not connected to the dysfunctional council and I found the mainstream media useless in understanding local issues. Neither the Libs nor the IPA supported me in any substantial way, but their very existence meant I was clued into things. The crime stats from the police showing the relative increase in crime during the life of the last council was significant. Council is not responsible for crime, but they can do things that make it easier to fight crime. Youth unemployment is one issue which feeds into crime statistics, yet Greater Dandenong frequently opposes development which would see young people employed, and restricts business trading with ridiculous red tape. The information I needed was from Liberal press releases and IPA publications like IPA Review. I don’t have to agree with everything either organisation says, but I find their writing provocative for my thought processes. I am sorry local news services are so poor. There is no excuse, but there are many reasons for it, with journalists stretched to cover items and editors biased and unapproachable. Many candidates for each position, and limited print space, means that a journalist cannot cover a campaign, but only focuses on pre identified candidates.

Donald Trump's speech at Gettysburg is frightening media. They have supported and protected insider corruption for a long time. Trump will clean up the festering wound, and make America great again. 
=== from 2015 ===
When Malcolm Turnbull trashed former leader Brendan Nelson, he did it with the aid of the press. He took no responsibility to the harm his actions did to the Liberal Party. It was all about Malcolm. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
From 2014
Yesterday this column posted on the issue of free speech after Lachlan Murdoch spoke about Keith Murdoch's efforts to end Gallipoli. The theory is not made up, but comes from other sources not mentioned, and is supposed to provoke debate. On the site 'Australian Political Debate-Open Forum' Evan Carter posted "Gobledook" a more enlightening riposte was posted by Russell Loye on Bolt Report Supporter's Group. Initially, the post had Russell wondering openly if his Aunty had a dick. Katrina Anthoney pointed out he hadn't addressed any arguments but had been openly sexual in abuse. Russell denied it was an opinion and instead compared it with a successful Hollywood screen play which was fictional. So the core arguments were restated to him and Russell responded with what had happened prior to Keith Murdoch's intervention. Russell, that reply of yours is gobbledegook. 

They say what they think

Frightbats don't want to be laughed at. But they make it so hard. Has anyone ever successfully not thought about what they thought about? Fright bats reported Tim Blair to the censors over the term "Frightbat" and the censors considered the issues. It was posted as satire and involved female columnists who had behaved badly. Censors listened to the arguments against, but decided they couldn't see it. It is true Frightbats say what they think, but maybe they haven't really thought about it. Not *really.* And none of them have successfully predicted the end of the world, or even a small town.

Plibersek plans to spread plague but is opposed by responsible people .. and supported by irresponsible ones. Australian volunteers are serving in Africa fighting Ebola. Plibersek wants Mr Abbott to order people there without an evacuation plan. Plibersek wants infected people brought to Australia without quarantine and forcing them into the general community. Such an irresponsible plan might be modelled on Obama's community organisation response. Naturally the AMA is critical of the government and in support of Plibersek.

Terrorist attack by Islamic wannabe in NYC. The crazed Islamic convert approached police and started swinging at them with an axe, seriously wounding two. Luckily they shot him dead before he killed others. Did he fail his Islam entry test? Someone in the Islamic community has sponsored him. Recently, in several 'lone wolf' engagements, family and friends of the convert have claimed the terrorist was quiet and a lovely person. Many of the converts are drug users and criminals who turn to terrorism. So where is the issue of redemption in Islam?

ALP embraces Whitlam's failure, and the friends of the ALP deny that Whitlam had any. His foolish, cold lack of compassion for those who suffered and died from his idealist positions should be red flags even for his supporters. Leadership positions within the ALP are protected. Vietnamese couldn't even kill to obtain one. But worse, the realisation that a solid budget is needed to underpin reform has been lost. Neither Hawke nor Keating had that, but they were also not as totally destructive as Gillard and Rudd had been. Seeming but not doing, no policy, corrupt opportunism the ALP is no different now than the worst of Whitlam's years. Unreformed. Nakedly obstructive and opportunistic.

Peter Carey conspiracy theorist and writer claims the CIA overthrew Gough Whitlam in 1975. In fact the Australian voters did that. The CIA never even polled.

Shorten declares he is Catholic in a fierce declaration against Catholic Policy on Gay Marriage. Shorten then declares that because he is Catholic he feels that the Liberal Party should support Gay Marriage. Personally, gay marriage should be 'legal' because it isn't up to government to decide conscience issues. Only secular administration should be government. An argument Shorten seems to not understand. There are many fine Catholic peoples in all walks of life. Shorten is not one of them.
Issues in isolation

Witch hunt for those who aren't left wing, where the new Salem witch hunt extends from totalitarians wishing to control thoughts. Brendan O'Neill asks "WHY is it bad to hack and expose photographs of a woman’s naked body but apparently OK to steal and make public the contents of a man’s soul?" A poet, Barry Spurr, has had his private emails hacked and published. He has had no opportunity to defend himself. His public views seem to be normal.

ABC stands for anything but conservative as a new show set to replace the 7:30 report is described as having a panel of left wing hosts. Meanwhile the ABC has spent big on the tax payer's dime to take a soccer tournament away from commercial tv. Meanwhile ABC is spending big on Google to promote their left wing programs.

Jim Molan wants to run as Liberal for the senate. He co authored the successful Sovereign Borders policy. And he has served as a Major General.
Tax and spend means poverty

Debt needs to be paid back, as Tony Abbott says "I said constantly before the election, and I have said frequently since the election, that our plan was to build a strong and prosperous economy for a safe and secure Australia…" ALP policy is for children and those yet to be born to pay for ALP whims. Currently the ALP is blocking about $30 billion in cuts.

Europe taxes prudence as the UK refuses to pay a bill to the EU for having higher growth than expected. It would be better for Europe to tax nations that under performed.
World Series Update

Royals take 2-1 lead over Giants in a close game where a single in the first innings proved the difference.
From 2013
What is in a name? The ABC refuse to accurately describe illegal arrivals to Australia, preferring the more emotive and political 'Asylum Seekers' so as to inflame argument and division. Weasel words defend their choice "Stylistically it is acceptable as anyone could claim asylum" Is that what US Democrats were doing in holding to big spending policies that push US debt beyond $17 trillion? Maybe Venezuela will welcome them. Cuba? Cuba passed a law on this day in 2004, banning US dollar transactions. So that is the Democrat plan? To wring the value out of the currency and then throw themselves onto Cuban health care? There is a name for those who raise taxes and spend irresponsibly. But the ABC won't use it.

Bob Carr defends his backflip on his promise to stay in office for many terms. It was an election promise. Much like that carbon tax thingy ALP are defending to their end. As issues go, it is certainly heating up in much the same way the world isn't. Gore sees a link between a cooler world and bush fires. It is just a piece of trivia, but fire fighters sometimes douse flames with carbon dioxide. So now AGW believers are trying to cure the world by taxing plant food and fire retardant. I would never call a disabled child retarded, but certainly those who claim to be scientists who spruik AGW hysteria are.

Mr Abbott is being criticised for being too slow. But every movement he has made is methodical, purposeful and effective. He hasn't been hysterical. For the ALP love media, this doesn't *look* like leadership. They yearn for the empty gestures and broken promises. The days when corruption could be excused as *doing something.* Will Soros sponsor Clinton for a presidential bid? It would be similar in nature to the backing of Rudd over Gillard, for much the same reasons, with much the same result.

Germany is upset the US was spying on them. Something allies don't do. Quite so.
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!
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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
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Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August, September, October, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows a free kindle version.

List of available items at Create Space
Happy birthday and many happy returns to those born on this day, including
1102 – William Clito, English son of Sybilla of Conversano (d. 1128)
1811 – Évariste Galois, French mathematician (d. 1832)
1825 – Johann Strauss II, Austrian composer (d. 1899)
1838 – Georges Bizet, French composer (d. 1875)
1881 – Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter and sculptor (d. 1973)
1895 – Levi Eshkol, Israeli politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1969)
1941 – Helen Reddy, Australian singer and actress
1944 – Jon Anderson, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Yes, Jon and Vangelis, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, and The Warriors)
2006 – Krista and Tatiana Hogan, Canadian conjoined twins
Charge of the Light Brigade
Dirk was here, and left a plate. A Cardigan is worn. The letter was a forgery. Edelweiss is soft and nice. Press the button to start the party. 
Deaths
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Only adoption can rescue abused kids

Miranda Devine – Saturday, October 24, 2015 (10:46pm)

A WOMAN who is 6½ months pregnant last week threatened to commit suicide unless she had an abortion. The 41-year-old mother-of-two told doctors at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne her life was in a “diabolical state”, with financial and relationship problems, and she couldn’t cope with ­another baby. 

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Only adoption can rescue abused kids'
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On The Bolt Report today, October 25

Andrew Bolt October 25 2015 (5:40am)



My guests today: Labor MP Michael Danby on what the media isn’t telling you about the jihadist attacks on Israel; former Labor advisor Nicholas Reece; Victorian Liberal Georgina Downer and Gerard Henderson, head of the Sydney Institute and columnist with The Australian.
Among the topics:  Is Malcolm Turnbull taking the party too far to the Left? Is he dodging the big debates? The latest boat-people beat up. The “negro” fuss. And much more.
The videos of the shows appear here.
UPDATE
Terrribly sorry, More vroom vrooms to disturb our schedule - for the last time this year, I am told.
The 10 am screening is as usual everywhere except in Perth, where it will be on at 11am on ONE.
The 3pm encore will be on One - not 10 - everywhere except Perth, where it will be on 10 at 4pm. 
===

Turnbull says he’s improved. He’d better have

Andrew Bolt October 25 2015 (4:40am)

Malcolm Turnbull says he’s become wiser and more mellow with hard experience. You’d very much hope that were true, given the picture painted of him in Paddy Manning’s new book:
At the Thursday party meeting [to decide the new Liberal leader after the 2007 election], Turnbull lost narrowly [to Brendan Nelson], by 42 to 45… 
Turnbull pledged his loyalty to Nelson but gave him absolutely none: he simply refused to accept the decision of the party room, and the undermining began immediately.
Just after Nelson gave his acceptance speech, he was in his office with federal director Brian Loughnane, Julie Bishop’s chief of staff Murray Hansen and a couple of his own staff… Suddenly the door was flung open, with force, and in stormed Turnbull, yelling at Nelson and poking his finger at him, almost right into his chest.
One person who was there recalls Turnbull calling Nelson a wimp, telling him his address was funereal, he should man up, lead the party to win the next election and on and on.... [S]omebody leaked news of the spat to the media… It got worse from there…
Soon afterwards, Turnbull called Nelson’s chief of staff, Peter Hendy, who later recalled Turnbull telling him that his job was to get Brendan to resign in the next few weeks because Brendan was hopeless and he would damage the Liberal brand so much that by the time, he, Turnbull, took over, the next election would be unwinnable…
In March 2008, Turnbull pulled his old trick, launching a new, comprehensive tax review at the Sydney Institute without telling his leader…
Nelson’s budget-in-reply speech actually went down well, which was no doubt galling to Turnbull, who had earlier proposed that he give the speech, in a break with convention, because he would “obviously” do a better job.
Nelson was finally enjoying his first bit of positive momentum as leader when, sure enough, that weekend, Turnbull’s email to Hendy turned up in The Sunday Telegraph.
Turnbull flat out denied leaking it…
In his relentless campaign against Nelson, Turnbull took disloyalty to extremes. Sources say that at a one-on-one meeting in Nelson’s Melbourne office in mid-2008, after a shadow cabinet meeting, Turnbull revealed he had had some private polling done on Nelson, and he had a net negative approval rating of 9 percentage points.
Nelson replied: “If that’s true, and I have no reason to believe you would deceive me, Malcolm, then you could be expelled from the party for that”. At that, Turnbull pulled back and the polling was never produced… Turnbull says this story is “completely untrue in every respect” ...
A doctor by profession, Nelson told journalist Peter Hartcher he genuinely believed Turnbull had a “narcissistic personality disorder … He says the most appalling things and can’t understand why people get upset. He has no empathy.” 
Turnbull had better hope there’s no Turnbull in his Ministry.
A more sympathetic extract from Manning’s book, on Turnbull’s childhood.
(Thanks to reader Steve.) 
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Liddle vs Schama: consequences vs feelings

Andrew Bolt October 25 2015 (4:21am)

 Simon Schama is a great historian. I love his books on the French and Dutch revolutions.
But one of the great disappointments from Schama is the disconnect between his analysis of historical events and contemporary ones. His great talent in Citizens, in particular, was to explore the disconnect between intentions and ghastly consequences, between fine feelings and facts.
Yet when it comes to contemporary events, such as the invasion of Europe this year by nearly 500,000 illegal immigrants, Schama no longer sees those disconnections, no longer makes those distinctions. He is into virtue signalling - more concerned with how good he seems than in how clearly he sees. And he does not even see what he seems is actually a frightful snob.
Example, this debate with Rod Liddle of The Spectator:
Simon ended a splenetic diatribe by calling me ‘suburban’, which raised a few eyebrows and indeed the accusation of snobbery… Talking about the ‘refugee’ crisis, the art historian divested himself of a stream of emotionally incontinent non-sequiturs — and it was when I pointed this out that he became incandescent with pique. 
The problem, as I saw it, was that Simon had simply not made any sense at all. It seemed to be sufficient to say that these people — the migrants — were ‘human beings’ and that feeling kindly disposed towards them was sufficient, in itself, to solve what many fear is the gravest crisis we have faced since the second world war.,,,
What I realised after that edition of Question Time is that the facts, the practicalities, the realities of the situation, do not matter one jot....
Eight months ago everybody was very worried about the number of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean sea, en route to western Europe in flimsy boats. The very voluble minority started screaming: we must do more! Send more boats! It was clear to me then — and to many others — that this would only exacerbate the problem, for the migrants and for us. More would drown because many more would set sail, expecting to be picked up. A more sensible solution — to deny access and deport any migrants arriving illegally by sea — had already been tried, and had worked, in Australia.
But we listened to the clamorous minority, despite their lack of reason and logic — and many more migrants have drowned as a consequence. We did the wrong thing…
And again, the imperviousness to reason. A largely Muslim charity recently reviewed the work its people had been doing to relieve the misery and squalor on the Sangatte refugee camp in Calais. A worker with the Human Relief Foundation visited the notorious ‘Jungle’ encampment and concluded, with some alarm, that 97 per cent were economic migrants rather than refugees. Further, they were almost exclusively fit young men who were not fleeing danger at all and were not in the least desperate.
An executive added: ‘I thought they had a valid reason [to be there]. They do not have a valid reason.’ The charity immediately curtailed its relief efforts. But present these facts to those who simply scream ‘Let them in!’ and ‘We must do more!’ and it makes not the slightest difference to their point of view; it washes over them without leaving so much as a trace.  
UPDATE
Meanwhile:
Since last Saturday 58,000 migrants, many fleeing the war in Syria, have arrived in Slovenia, shifting their route to the west after Hungary sealed off its borders.
(Thanks to reader Andrew R.) 
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Malcolm is just what you want Malcolm to be

Andrew Bolt October 24 2015 (10:32pm)

A clever analysis by Peter Munro of the various “exclusives” Malcolm Turnbull offered to the weekend newspapers.

The many types of Turnbull who emerged from the wide-ranging interrogations depended on your preferred publication. 
The nation needs to be “agile”, he pronounced, while displaying dexterity in tailoring his message to suit several different Saturday newspapers.
In the Herald and The Age, Mr Turnbull cast himself as the great optimist with little interest in “scare campaigns”. Over in The Australian, he became the union-busting boss chiding Labor to “come to its senses”.

The Australian Financial Review was instead treated to a prudent leader intent on delivering a surplus. Oh, not that he’s in any hurry to balance the budget, he told the Guardian.
Better to be fair than in the black, he counselled Guardian readers… So long, of course, as we have a strong surplus by 2023-24, he assured the AFR.
All up, the PM devoted many words to saying very little - offering scant detail of how Australia might fare under his brave new leadership. 
Read on. The comparisons are astonishing.
For instance:
“Fair is what it is all about. Fairness has got to be the key priority,” the PM confided to the Guardian. Mr Turnbull used the word “fair” five times in the interview, closely followed by “understand”, “consensus” and “cake”.
But to centre-Right  Australian:
Talk of tax breaks for top earners wafted above his “working table”. “It’s about jobs,” he declared, dispensing with any mention of the word “fair”.
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Now even Germaine Greer is the target of the new enemies of free speech

Andrew Bolt October 24 2015 (10:27pm)

Don’t you hate the yes-but-no defenders of free speech - the ones who actually are its enemies?
The new totalitarians - professional offence-takers - strike again, using their alleged superior sensitivity to shut down debates that might expose them as prats, pygmies and poseurs:

Germaine Greer has described a petition to ban her from speaking at a university event as a “put-up job”. 
The Australian feminist author is scheduled to appear at Cardiff University for a public lecture, Women & Power: The Lessons of the 20th Century.
But the university’s Students’ Union women’s officer Rachael Melhuish has launched an online petition urging the institution to cancel the event, citing Ms Greer’s views on transgender people.
“Greer has demonstrated time and time again her misogynistic views towards trans women, including continually misgendering trans women and denying the existence of transphobia altogether,” Ms Melhuish says in the petition.
”While debate in a university should be encouraged, hosting a speaker with such problematic and hateful views towards marginalised and vulnerable groups is dangerous. Allowing Greer a platform endorses her views, and by extension, the transmisogyny which she continues to perpetuate.” “While debate in a university should be encouraged...,” says someone who does not want to encourage it at all.
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FRIGHTBATTLE: JUDGMENT DAY

Tim Blair – Saturday, October 25, 2014 (2:26am)

Several furious feminists sent complaints to the Press Council following this site’s publication of a frightbat poll. The Press Council subsequently spent months considering the profound legal, moral and ethical issues involved, and yesterday finally handed down this official ruling: 
We received complaints about the aforementioned blog, in particular, that its subject poll of “Australia’s left-wing ladies” caused offence and placed gratuitous emphasis on their gender.
This information was relayed to the publication with respect to these points and more particularly, whether such a character was sufficiently justified in the public interest according to then applicable General Principles 7 and 8.
The publication responded that the matter concerns opinion and that of an columnist-blogger renowned for using satire and humour in relation to political and social commentary.
The publication also responded that the subjects of the poll often court controversy and offence and argue from feminist perspectives, such that their gender is a legitimate topic.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'FRIGHTBATTLE: JUDGMENT DAY'
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Hatchet attack on New York police was “terrorist attack”

Andrew Bolt October 25 2014 (9:39am)

Big surprise:
The man who attacked and wounded two New York City police officers with a hatchet on Thursday, was a self-radicalized convert to Islam and is believed to have acted alone, the city’s police commissioner said on Friday. William Bratton also said he is comfortable calling it a “terrorist attack.” 
The suspect, Zale Thompson, who was shot dead after assaulting the officers in broad daylight in the borough of Queens, had made anti-government postings on social media and visited websites associated with several radical Islamic groups, Commissioner Bill Bratton said at a press conference.
More: 
Thompson made anti-Western, anti-government and in some cases anti-white statements on social media, police said. 
He visited websites that focused on terror groups such as Al-Qaeda, the IS organization and the Shebab Islamists in Somalia.
Something in Islam seems to attract men of violence. 
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The Bolt Report tomorrow, October 26

Andrew Bolt October 25 2014 (9:30am)

On The Bolt Report on Channel 10 tomorrow at 10am and 4pm.
Editorial:  More jihadist attacks. How to fight back.
My guest:  former Greenpeace boss Dr Patrick Moore on global warming and other green frauds.
The panel: Michael Costa and Peter Costello - on jihadism, Whitlam’s real legacy and the economy.
NewsWatch:  Rowan Dean on the ABC in mourning.
And lots more, including: is Jacqui Lambie unAustralian?

The videos of the shows appear here.
UPDATE
Steve Kates has details of Patrick Moore’s speaking tour here - and plenty of praise for him, too. 
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Plibersek’s plan: expose health workers to ebola, then set them loose in Australia

Andrew Bolt October 25 2014 (9:14am)

Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek is insisting the government send health workers to ebola areas without guaranteed treatment if they get sick, and then bring them back to Australia with the virus possibly in their blood.

Plibersek’s monumental irresponsibility is captured neatly by an unlikely critic: 
TANYA Plibersek press release ­yesterday: 
FOR weeks now, Labor has been pressing the Abbott government to do more to fight the Ebola crisis at its source — in West Africa … We cannot afford to wait until Ebola reaches out to our region before Australia becomes part of the global effort to control this virus. The Abbott government’s uninterested, chaotic response ... is just not good enough.
Former Australian Medical Association president Kerryn Phelps on Twitter on October 17: 
I FULLY support Julie Bishop and Peter Dutton treading very carefully on Ebola. This is a time for pragmatism, not blind altruism.
Phelps’s tweet to Plibersek yesterday: 
EBOLA will spread faster if healthcare workers return home from West Africa within the incubation period
Plibersek epitomises the very worst of the modern Left - all seeming, without a thought to the actual doing. All ends, no means. A true child of Whitlam. 
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If you want Australia strong, you cannot accept this debt

Andrew Bolt October 25 2014 (9:07am)

Tony Abbott is publicly making the (correct) connection that Treasurer Joe Hockey tried to make between the war in Iraq and our security at home:
I said constantly before the election, and I have said frequently since the election, that our plan was to build a strong and prosperous economy for a safe and secure Australia… 
I have done more on a safe and secure Australia over the last few months, but it is important that we never neglect that strong and prosperous economy which is the foundation of a secure country that we want and need. 
A country crippled by debt cannot properly defend its interests, including its military ones. 
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The new Salem:  policing even our private thoughts

Andrew Bolt October 25 2014 (8:59am)

Brendan O’Neill on the new totalitarians, now policing even our private thoughts and word games:
WHY is it bad to hack and expose photographs of a woman’s naked body but apparently OK to steal and make public the contents of a man’s soul? 
This is the question that should burn in our minds in the wake of the Barry Spurr scandal.
For just a few weeks ago, when a hacker invaded the iCloud ­accounts of female celebs and ­rifled through their intimate snaps, there was global outrage… To peer into a woman’s most intimate moments was a “sexual violation”, said a writer for Guardian Australia…
Fast forward to last week, and some of the same people whose jaws hit the floor at the audacity of those who leaked these women’s private, unguarded pics were cheering the hacking of Spurr’s private, unguarded words.
Spurr, a professor of poetry at the University of Sydney, has had his private emails pored over and published by pseudo-radical, eco-miserabilist website New Matilda. In some of his emails, in what he has since claimed was a cheeky competition between him and his friends to see who could be the least PC, Spurr used words that would no doubt cause pinot gris to be spilled if they were uttered at a dinner party.
He described Tony Abbott as an “Abo lover”, referred to a woman as a “harlot”, called Nelson Mandela a “darky”, and used “Mussies” for Muslims and “chinky-poos” for Chinese. He now has been suspended by the university.
Many people will wince on reading those words. Just as we will have winced if we happened upon those photos of well-known women doing porno poses or ­engaging in shocking sex talk in videos shot by their boyfriends. And that’s because these behaviours, both Spurr’s knowingly outrageous banter and the act­resses’ knowingly sluttish poses, share something important in common: they were private acts, not intended for public consumption. They were things done or said between intimates, far from the eyes and ears of respectable ­society. Yet where right-on commentators and tweeters stood up for the right of famous women not to have their private nakedness splashed across the internet, they have relished in the exposure of Spurr’s soul to the panting, outraged mob.
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Labor cheering the worst of Whitlam

Andrew Bolt October 25 2014 (8:50am)

Paul Kelly says Gough Whitlam was a great reformer but autocratic and financially irresponsible. Sadly, Labor seems to be unlearning the lessons from his mistakes:
The more important story, however, is that Labor drew the correct conclusions from Whitlam’s failures: that it must transform its culture to become the party of economic management superiority (Hayden’s mantra as leader); that it had to become a tougher, more competent party in office; that it must use its ties with unions and win the support of capital; that it should limit government benefits via means testing; that it should never again allow the conservative parties to use the Constitution to destroy a Labor government; and that its internal processes must strengthen the cabinet against the caucus… 
The Hayden-Hawke-Keating generation with colleagues such as John Button, Peter Walsh and John Dawkins stuck by these changes. They had the brains and courage to grasp where Gough had gone wrong, announce the problems and fix them…
By contrast, there is precious little sign the Labor Party today can fathom its problems, let alone act on them. The saddest aspect this week was Labor’s elevation of free university education as one of Whitlam’s greatest feats. This is pathetic revisionism. It betrays the intellectual poverty that now besets Labor as it thrashes about, unable to properly assess the Whitlam or Hawke legacies. Free university education was a huge flop, failing as both an equity and financial policy and abandoned by the Hawke government for the superior Higher Education Contribution Scheme innovation. The idea today is consigned as a lunatic notion, the current policy of the Greens and Clive Palmer, yet romanticised by the Rudd-Gillard generation. It is a prime exhibit of the lack of tough, honest thinking that Labor now needs in its latest recovery quest.
UPDATE
The great Rowan Dean, my guest tomorrow on The Bolt Report on Channel 10:
Former prime minister Gough Whitlam’s childhood home in Kew, Melbourne, was saved from demolition on Thursday when the state intervened with a conservation order. 
Labor authorities also scrambled to have a “no demolition” order placed on Mr Whitlam’s most-prized asset, his political legacy, following numerous attempts by right-wing shock jocks and others to bring it crashing to the ground…
Fans of Mr Whitlam’s iconic construction believe his legacy should be preserved intact despite having been dangerously undermined by two freak landslides in 1975 and ‘77…
In unrelated news, students sitting their History HSC complained afterwards it was far too easy. Examples of the multiple choice questions include:
Who was responsible for abolishing slavery?
a) Lincoln b) Wilberforce c) Whitlam
Who dismantled apartheid?a) Mandela b) De Clerk c) Whitlam
Who cured the sick in the slums of Delhi?a) Theresa b) Gandhi c) Whitlam
UPDATE
Greg Sheridan:
WAS the Whitlam government of 1972 to 1975 a threat to Australian national security? 
Consider some of the bald facts. The Whitlam government nearly destroyed the Australian alliance with the US; it contained among its number dual members of the Labor Party and, secretly, the Communist Party; it earned the contempt of significant Asian leaders such as Lee Kuan Yew; it supported a communist victory in Vietnam, and betrayed and abandoned those Vietnamese who had worked for the Australian embassy and for Australian intelligence agencies during the Vietnam War; it frequently, though without any factual basis, alleged political conspiracy on the part of Australia’s intelligence agencies; and in a bizarre episode completely unique in Australian history, it used the commonwealth police to conduct a raid on ASIO headquarters in search of damning information that did not exist. And, worst of all, Gough Whitlam authorised a secret mission to get election funds for the ALP, to be paid into what was known as the leader’s slush fund, from the Iraqi Baath Socialist Party dictatorship in Baghdad, which was even then dominated by Saddam Hussein.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Anything But Conservative. UPDATE: And so wasteful…

Andrew Bolt October 25 2014 (8:19am)

I have often thought the ABC lacks TV current affairs shows with Left-wing hosts, and that tiny gap in its coverage is now being fixed:
The ABC is secretly planning a national news-chat show - inspired partly by commercial programs such as The Project - to replace its state-based editions of 7.30, Fairfax Media can reveal. 
The new program would be anchored by 7.30’s national presenter Leigh Sales, with Kitchen Cabinet host Annabel Crabb and comedian Dan Ilic touted as possible co-hosts or guests. It is likely to be produced by Sally Neighbour, 7.30’s executive producer, who is spearheading its development. 
The Greens and GetUp will be delighted.
The ABC doesn’t even pretend now to fulfil its charter.
UPDATE
What an outrageous waste of $700,000 of taxpayers money: 
COMMUNICATIONS Minister Malcolm Turnbull has demanded that ABC managing director Mark Scott and SBS chief executive Michael Ebeid explain why the two public broadcasters went head-to-head for the free-to-air broadcast rights to soccer’s Asian Cup. 
By competing against each other, the broadcasters increased the cost to taxpayers by about $700,000.
SBS submitted a bid of about $700,00 to broadcast the games, which begin in Australia in January, but the public broadcaster has been told its bid was unsuccessful.
The ABC, while still in final nego­tiations, is understood to be the successful candidate, with a proposed payment for the free-to-air broadcast rights of up to $1.4 million.
That is unforgiveable waste. It is also an argument for merging the ABC and SBS so they won’t compete again for programming.
It is also yet another sign that the ABC is simply too big and too unfocussed, using taxpayers’ subsidies to do what other media outlets - particularly commercial ones - would do anyway:
The ABC dominated headlines for a week when it implied its program Lateline could face the axe due to budget cuts but, as The Australian revealed on Friday, it is paying Google thousands of dollars for lead position on search terms such as “politics news”. On Tuesday, it outbid its commercial rivals to buy a Google search ad for Gough Whitlam’s death. 
Commercial media organisations were infuriated by Mr Scott’s use of taxpayer funds to drive traffic away from their news sites, which, unlike the government-funded broadcaster, rely on subscription and advertising revenue for survival.
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Carey corrected

Andrew Bolt October 25 2014 (8:01am)

Novelist Peter Carey trotted out his crazy conspiracy theory on the ABC’s 7.30 and was not challenged by host Leigh Sales:
Well, I mean, I’ve always been concerned about or angry about what happened to our country in 1975, where it is my belief and the belief of many serious journalists and writers that the US Government destabilised and helped overthrow our elected government. So, that’s something I don’t tend to forget terribly easily.... you know, the Americans - Americans overthrew our government…
Carey trotted out his crazy conspiracy theory again on ABC 774, and was not challenged by host Jon Faine:
We called it the coup at the time… The evidence is now pretty much available to anybody to say there was considerable American interference in the downfall of that Government.
But then Carey trotted out his crazy conspiracy theory on the ABC’s The Drum and finally was challenged - by host Steve Cannane and particularly by former Labor Minister Craig Emerson.  Gerard Henderson applauds:
Fancy this. On The Drum [on Thursday] night, an ABC presenter and an ABC guest challenged New York-based Australian novelist Peter Carey’s conspiracy theory that the CIA was involved in the dismissal of the Whitlam Labor government on 11 November 1975. 
Peter Carey looked confused – and had nothing to offer – as The Drum’s Steven Cannane and former Rudd/Gillard cabinet minister Dr Craig Emerson dismissed his Oliver-Stone-like conspiracy… 
Steve Cannane: The main source of these allegations [of CIA involvement in the Dismissal] is normally Christopher Boyce, who was a contractor for an organisation that helped transmit CIA communications. And he was the subject of that book The Falcon and The Snowman. He did a very interesting interview on Dateline with Mark Davis this year and he said: “I cannot sit here and prove it, but I believe it.” If even he [Boyce] can’t say it can be proved, how are you so sure about that? Peter Carey: Well I don’t know. He did a lot of time in jail for his actions.
Then it was Craig Emerson’s turn. 
Craig Emerson: I was a 21 year old Whitlam admirer ... (T)he Whitlam government was defeated ... because of the economy ... The Australian people voted very, very strongly to remove the Whitlam government… 
Peter Carey: [interjecting] That’s part of the truth of course. 
Craig Emerson: Well, I don’t think frankly that the CIA got to 10 million voters and told them how to vote. Whether or not they were involved in the actual dismissal process, I don’t think they [the CIA] inculcated to the Australian people [and said] “You should vote for Malcolm Fraser”.
Needless to say, Peter Carey had no response to Emerson’s criticism...
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Europe punishes reforming countries with a success tax

Andrew Bolt October 25 2014 (7:53am)

Here’s why Europe is a basket case. Countries which make the tough cuts and reforms to stimulate growth are then punished with a success tax to subsidise the countries which won’t:
BRITISH Prime Minister David Cameron insists he will not pay an additional contribution to the European Union of 2.1 billion euros ($A3.15 billion) at a time of increasing pressure at home for the UK to leave the bloc… 
Cameron said asking Britain for a top-up of some 20 per cent in its contributions on short notice “is an appalling way to behave. We are not paying that bill on the first of December.”
The Netherlands too has been asked for a big top-up, of 642 million euros, which Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem called “extremely surprising, unpleasantly surprising.” The EU executive Commission said ...  the gross domestic product of Britain and the Netherlands were “a lot higher than they thought themselves at the beginning of the year, so their contributions were revised upward.” 
The EU is just another inherently socialist institution, currently enjoying all the economic success normally associated with socialism.
(Thanks to reader Jono.) 
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Jim Molan running for Liberal preselection

Andrew Bolt October 25 2014 (7:42am)

I hope the Liberal Party shows it isn’t hostile to star talent:
MAJOR General Jim Molan, who commanded allied troops in Iraq in 2004 and who co-authored the Coalition’s controversial Operation Sovereign Borders policy, will run for Liberal Party preselection for the Senate. 
General Molan, who is an Officer of the order of Australia and has military decorations from Australia, the US and Indonesia, told The Weekend Australian he was putting himself forward in part because he admired the Abbott government.
UPDATE
The Molan style, from 2:54:
(Thanks to reader brett t.r.) 
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Frightbats insist we do not laugh at them

Andrew Bolt October 25 2014 (7:30am)

It is ominous that this country now has so little humour and such hostility to free speech that satire gets referred to the thought police for official investigation.
True, the Press Council is belatedly developing an aversion to censorship, but the process is increasingly the punishment - and Left knows it.
Shame on the frightbats responsible. 
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Pastor Rick Warren
Every frustration is an opportunity for innovation. Great ministries and companies arise out of unmet needs.
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What a disastrous Administration.

Report: White House working to stop Congress from siding with Netanyahu on Iran - Israel Hayom 

More articles....http://paper.li/allysonchristy/1338794440
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'Wear a headscarf or we will kill you': How the 'London Taliban' is threatening women and trying...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377780/London-Taliban-targeting-women-gays-bid-impose-sharia-law.html
An Asian woman who works in a pharmacy in east London was told to wear a veil or the shop would be boycotted. Later a man warned her she could be killed.
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“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"The trees of the Lord are full of sap."
Psalm 104:16

Without sap the tree cannot flourish or even exist. Vitality is essential to a Christian. There must be life--a vital principle infused into us by God the Holy Ghost, or we cannot be trees of the Lord. The mere name of being a Christian is but a dead thing, we must be filled with the spirit of divine life. This life is mysterious. We do not understand the circulation of the sap, by what force it rises, and by what power it descends again. So the life within us is a sacred mystery. Regeneration is wrought by the Holy Ghost entering into man and becoming man's life; and this divine life in a believer afterwards feeds upon the flesh and blood of Christ and is thus sustained by divine food, but whence it cometh and whither it goeth who shall explain to us? What a secret thing the sap is! The roots go searching through the soil with their little spongioles, but we cannot see them suck out the various gases, or transmute the mineral into the vegetable; this work is done down in the dark. Our root is Christ Jesus, and our life is hid in him; this is the secret of the Lord. The radix of the Christian life is as secret as the life itself. How permanently active is the sap in the cedar! In the Christian the divine life is always full of energy--not always in fruit- bearing, but in inward operations. The believer's graces are not every one of them in constant motion, but his life never ceases to palpitate within. He is not always working for God, but his heart is always living upon him. As the sap manifests itself in producing the foliage and fruit of the tree, so with a truly healthy Christian, his grace is externally manifested in his walk and conversation. If you talk with him, he cannot help speaking about Jesus. If you notice his actions you will see that he has been with Jesus. He has so much sap within, that it must fill his conduct and conversation with life.

Evening


"He began to wash the disciples' feet."
John 13:5

The Lord Jesus loves his people so much, that every day he is still doing for them much that is analogous to washing their soiled feet. Their poorest actions he accepts; their deepest sorrow he feels; their slenderest wish he hears, and their every transgression he forgives. He is still their servant as well as their Friend and Master. He not only performs majestic deeds for them, as wearing the mitre on his brow, and the precious jewels glittering on his breastplate, and standing up to plead for them, but humbly, patiently, he yet goes about among his people with the basin and the towel. He does this when he puts away from us day by day our constant infirmities and sins. Last night, when you bowed the knee, you mournfully confessed that much of your conduct was not worthy of your profession; and even tonight, you must mourn afresh that you have fallen again into the selfsame folly and sin from which special grace delivered you long ago; and yet Jesus will have great patience with you; he will hear your confession of sin; he will say, "I will, be thou clean"; he will again apply the blood of sprinkling, and speak peace to your conscience, and remove every spot. It is a great act of eternal love when Christ once for all absolves the sinner, and puts him into the family of God; but what condescending patience there is when the Saviour with much long-suffering bears the oft recurring follies of his wayward disciple; day by day, and hour by hour, washing away the multiplied transgressions of his erring but yet beloved child! To dry up a flood of rebellion is something marvellous, but to endure the constant dropping of repeated offences--to bear with a perpetual trying of patience, this is divine indeed! While we find comfort and peace in our Lord's daily cleansing, its legitimate influence upon us will be to increase our watchfulness, and quicken our desire for holiness. Is it so?
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Today's reading: Jeremiah 3-5, 1 Timothy 4 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Jeremiah 3-5


1 “If a man divorces his wife
and she leaves him and marries another man,
should he return to her again?
Would not the land be completely defiled?
But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers—
would you now return to me?” declares the LORD.
2 “Look up to the barren heights and see.
Is there any place where you have not been ravished?
By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers,
sat like a nomad in the desert.
You have defiled the land
with your prostitution and wickedness.
3 Therefore the showers have been withheld,
and no spring rains have fallen.
Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute;
you refuse to blush with shame.
4 Have you not just called to me:
‘My Father, my friend from my youth,
5 will you always be angry?
Will your wrath continue forever?’
This is how you talk,
but you do all the evil you can.”

Unfaithful Israel

6 During the reign of King Josiah, the LORD said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there. 7 I thought that after she had done all this she would return to me but she did not, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. 8 I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery. 9 Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood. 10 In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the LORD....

Today's New Testament reading: 1 Timothy 4

1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
6 If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. 7Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. 8 For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. 9 This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. 10 That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe....
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Miriam


The Woman Whose Jealousy Brought Judgment

Name Meaning - As a name Miriam belongs to a family of words having different root-form, all of which suggest "bitterness," Mary, Maria, Mariamne. Miriam, then, the same as Mary, meaning "bitterness," "rebellion" was apropos, for because of her jealousy, Miriam's fate was one of extreme bitterness.

Family Connections - Miriam was the eldest child of Amram and Jochebed, and the sister of Aaron and Moses. Says Bulwer, "I honour birth and ancestry when they are regarded as incentives to exertion, not title deeds to sloth." Miriam owed much to her ancestry. She was the daughter of godly parents and the sister of two of Israel's greatest figures. Josephus in his Antiquities informs us that Miriam became the wife of another well-known leader in Israel namely, Hur, one of the judges of the people when Moses was on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:14 ). This would make Miriam to be the grandmother of Bezaleel, the famous artist in the construction of the Tabernacle (Exodus 31:2 ). The Biblical narrative, however, suggests that Miriam remained in single blessedness all her days. "Miriam stands before us in an absolutely unsexual relation," says George Matheson: "there is neither marriage nor courtship. Her interests are not matrimonial! they are national. Her mission is not domestic, it is patriotic.... Miriam the unmarried is a heroine in an age when female celibacy was not a consecrated thing, in a Book where the nuptial tie is counted the glory of womanhood."

Some of the grandest women to benefit mankind were content to remain unmarried. Was there ever such a ministering angel in human form as Florence Nightingale, "The Lady of the Lamp," whose sacrificial work among the suffering soldiers during the Crimean War laid the foundation for the great reformation that took place in the hospitals of the world? Many noble women do not marry from sheer choice, as the biographies of some female missionaries and nurses testify. We see Miriam -

As a Clever Girl on the Banks of the River Nile
In dealing with Miriam's mother, Jochebed , we saw how Pharaoh had commanded all the male babies of the Israelites to be drowned in the Nile and how Jochebed took every possible precaution for her beautiful baby's safety. Out of the common reeds grown along the banks of the river she fashioned a small basket-boat, and making it watertight by an inside covering of clay and an outside protection of bitumen, laid the baby in its boat by the edge of the stream which she knew was frequented by the princess and her female court.
The anxious mother took the wise precaution of leaving the baby's sister, Miriam, nearby to mount guard over his safety (Exodus 2:4 ). Whether Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe in the stream or wash her clothes in it, we are not told. Among the reeds the little boat with its precious cargo was spotted and brought to the princess who, seeing the child, loved him. As he was lifted up, he cried. He wanted feeding. But who was to nurse the mite? Then came young Miriam's opportunity. Out of the shadows she stepped forth so innocently, and appearing to be curious at the screaming baby and puzzled princess, ask if she would like her to try and find a Hebrew nurse. Miriam kept her silence and did not reveal her relation to the baby and the nurse she secured. Thus the ready wit of Miriam, a girl of ten to twelve years old, saved her brother whom the Princess called Moses. When he became the great hero, how Miriam must have been grateful for her share in preserving her baby brother from the cruel fate of other Hebrew infants.
As a Gifted Poetess and Prophetess at the Red Sea
Miriam appears for the first time by name when she is called a "prophetess," and is identified as the sister of Aaron. Both her words and work were full of the inspiration of God and she is brought as a leader and pattern to the women of Israel. Prophets and prophetesses are those raised up by God and inspired by His Spirit to proclaim the will and purpose of God. It is at the Red Sea that we see Miriam standing out so prominently, proclaiming and singing the power and faithfulness of God. She, it was, who led the Israelite women in dancing and instrumental accompaniment as she sang the ode of praise and victory ( Exodus 15:20, 21). By this time Miriam was well past middle life. If she was about 12 years of age when Moses was born, and he spent 40 years in Egypt, then another 40 in the land of Midian before the dramatic episode of the Red Sea, then Miriam was an aging woman in that time when longevity was normal.
After the plague that fell upon Egypt, Pharaoh let God's people go. Moses, leader of the almost two million people, with his brother Aaron as high priest, and his sister Miriam as his chief singer, set out for the land of promise. God caused the waters to roll back and the Israelites passed through on dry ground, but as soon as they were through the waters rushed back and drowned the pursuing Egyptians. Miriam, the first poetess in the Bible, led the joyous acclamations of the multitude, and using her timbrel, sang, "Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." The Song of Moses and Miriam has been referred to as one of the oldest and most splendid natural anthems in the world. Whether Miriam composed the poem or not, we cannot tell. What we do know is that she wove the matchless, mighty ode of victory into the conscious life of the people.
Henry Van Dyke reminds us that, "The spirit and movement of the song are well expressed in the English verse of Thomas Moore's paraphrase:"
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumphed, - His people are free!
Sing - for the pride of the tyrant is broken;
His chariots, his horsemen, all splendid and brave, -
How vain was their boasting! the Lord hath but spoken,
And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave.
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumphed, - His people are free!
Praise to the Conqueror, praise to the Lord!
His word was our arrow, His breath was our sword.
Who shall return to tell Egypt the story
Of those she sent forth in the shew of her pride?
For the Lord hath looked out from His pillar of glory,
And all her brave thousands are dashed in the tide.
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumphed - His people are free!
This is a powerful verse. But there is even greater majesty and force in the form of the ode as it stands in the Book of Exodus. How grandly the antiphonal ascriptions of praise to Jehovah come into the description of the overthrow of Egypt's pride and power!
Jehovah is a man of war:
Jehovah is his name!
Thou didst blow with thy wind:
The sea covered them:
They sank as lead in the mighty waters.
Who is like unto thee among the gods, Jehovah?
Who is like unto thee?
Glorious in holiness!
Fearful in praises!
Doing wonders!
As the first of the sweet singers of Israel, Miriam sang for God, using her gift for the elevation of human souls into a higher life. A dreary wilderness faced the children of Israel, and Miriam knew that they would march better if they sang. So her song was one of cheer and full of the memory of all God had accomplished for His people. "The greatest stimulus for the crossing of Jordan is the fact that we have already crossed the Red Sea," wrote George Matheson. "It was wise in Miriam to begin with that Sea and over its prostrate waves to sound her first timbrel."
A Jealous Sister in the Wilderness
What a faithful mirror the Bible is of the characters it portrays! Blemishes, as well as beauties, are revealed. It tells the naked truth of those it describes. There is a blot upon almost all its portraits, and "its blots are as much a bit of the art as its beauties." A double feature of the failure of the Bible's heroes and heroines is that they are usually associated with middle life after the morning inspired with hope and courage unbounded is past, as in the case of Miriam. Further, such failures come where we should not expect them to overtake the otherwise true and noble. Miriam, for instance, rebelled against the mission of her life, namely, to protect and labor in partnership with Moses whom she had been the means of saving for his country. Miriam was, above all things, a faithful patriot, with a love for her country greater than the love for her renowned brother. It was because he was the chosen emissary of God to lead Israel out of bondage into freedom that she rebelled against him in a twofold way. Jealousy led Miriam to reject both the position of Moses as the leader of the host, and his partner in the wife he took unto himself. She found the management and marriage of Moses most irksome.
Miriam's greatest offense was her sarcastic rejection of the leadership of Moses. Hitherto, she had been a symbol of unity as she shared in the triumphs and hopes of Israel. Now, unfortunately, she is prominent as a leader of discord, division and discontent. It will be noted that Aaron is paired with his sister in the outburst against the acquisition and the authority of Moses. But by the order of the names it is evident that Miriam was the instigator and the spokeswoman in the revolt. "Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses" (Numbers 12:1 ). This is understandable because of the close bond of friendship between two who had never been parted. After Miriam as a young girl saved Moses' life, she scarcely saw him for almost 80 years, but with Aaron she had lived quietly at home. Now she takes the initiative in opposition against the younger brother, and uses his Cushite wife as a pretext to rebel against the superior authority of Moses. Her jealous heart led her to reject God's discrimination in favor of Moses against her and Aaron.
Thus personal jealousy and fear of their own respective leadership are mingled in their question, "Hath God indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath he not spoken also by us?" Miriam and Aaron aspired to a joint partnership in state power and in the government of Israel, and they failed. If Moses had erred in marrying his bride, it was a personal mistake and not a public crime. Miriam's chief error consisted in her effort to break down the God-given authority of Moses, and thereby imperil the unity and hope of the nation. Her fault then was greater than that of Moses, because it was an offense against the commonwealth.
It is true that Miriam had functioned as a prophetess and used Aaron as a prophet, but God had distinctly said, "My servant Moses is not so. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently and not in dark speeches." Such was God's elective sovereignty, and Miriam's sin was grievous in that she rebelled against what God had spoken. That such a sister should be jealous of her brother is beyond conception, but human nature even at it best is very frail. How true it is that "jealousy is the apprehension of superiority and the towering character of Moses doubtless disturbed the peace of Miriam." George Eliot has the phrase, "One of the torments of jealousy is that it can never turn away its eyes from the thing that pains it." Paul places "evil speaking" among the cardinal sins.
Moses, meekest of all men, acted as a deaf man who heard not, and as a dumb man who opened not his mouth. God had heard the complaints Miriam had voiced and He called the trio of leaders to meet Him at the tabernacle of the congregation. Taking up the defense of Moses, God spoke directly to Miriam and Aaron in no uncertain terms that they had not only hurt Moses but that they had failed in their duty toward Him. Moses received divine vindication as God's servant who had been faithful, and as the one whom He had chosen as the medium of a divine revelation. Then the rebellious sister and brother were reprimanded by God for speaking against His honored servant. How silenced the three must have been when, standing at the door of the tabernacle, they were silenced by the austerity and authority of the divine voice! In righteous wrath God withdrew from the holy place.
A Repentant Leper Outside the Camp
As the divine cloud left the tabernacle, the eyes of Aaron sought his beloved and forceful sister, and to his horror she had been smitten with leprosy - the foul disease that made the victim look like death, white as snow, a living corpse (Numbers 12:12 ). The proud, jealous prophetess was condemned to endure the most humiliating of diseases. While Aaron was united with Miriam in rebellion against Moses, judgment only fell upon Miriam which indicated that she had been the instigator, and had influenced her pliable brother. "Look at her in her rapture, like one out of the body with the joy of the Lord, at the Red Sea," says Alexander Whyte, "and now see to what her wicked heart and her wicked tongue have brought her. Look at her with her hand upon her throat, and with a linen cloth upon her lip, and with her hoarse, sepulchral noisome voice wandering far from the camp, and compelled to cry Unclean! Unclean! when any one came in sight."
How humiliating it must have been for Miriam to see people fleeing from her - the one who had before led them so triumphantly. Her judgment was swift and signal, even though hers was a temporary disgrace. Aaron and Moses, overcome with pity for their condemned sister and filled with brotherly love, prayed for Miriam that the punishment might pass from her. Prayer was heard on her behalf, and after her separation from the camp for seven days, she was healed of her leprosy. Evidently Miriam had the sympathy of the whole nation during her week of purification. Although she held up the progress of the host for those seven days, such was her popularity that "the people journeyed not [from Hazeroth] till Miriam was brought in again." When Moses came to write out the law in respect to leprosy, he mentioned his sister Miriam as an example (Deuteronomy 24:9). Thus her presumptuous effort to change the leadership of Israel ended in her humiliation and in the divine vindication of Moses as the undisputed leader of the people.
What happened to Miriam during her seven days without the camp as she bore the sorrow of seeing Israel's march to the Promised Land arrested because of her jealousy we are not told. Doubtless she was repentant, but her strength was broken and the gift of prophecy had left her. One also wonders what the thoughts of Moses' wife were during that lonely week as she thought of her sister-in-law punished and excluded because she condemned Moses for making her his wife. Further, had the confidence of Moses in Aaron and Miriam been so shaken as to make him walk alone? Restored to divine favor we would fain believe Miriam was noble and submissive through the rest of her days, even though we do not hear again of her until her death.
A Dying Saint at Kadesh
Alexander Whyte reckons that Miriam did not live long after that dread week, that she died not because of her old age, or the dregs of the leprosy, but of a broken heart. The Bible is silent as to any further service she rendered once the camp moved on. Had her sorrow crushed her song, and her presumption silenced her prophetic voice? This we do know, that as Moses was not permitted to enter the Land of Promise because "he spoke unadvisedly with his lips" at the rock, so Miriam because of her sin died before the entrance to Canaan, and was buried at Kadesh-barnea, where Israel mourned for her. She passed away at the eleventh hour of the completion of Israel's journey of forty years (Numbers 20:1). Tradition has it that she was given a costly funeral and buried on the mountain of Zin, and mourned for some 30 days. But her last resting place, like that of her great brother, Moses, is one of the secrets of God. As an epitaph for her grave, wherever she sleeps, we can inscribe "She sang the song of Moses: but it was also the song of the Lamb."
What are some of the lessons to be learned from the jealousy and ambition which were the drawbacks in Miriam's otherwise commanding character? First of all, we should learn to avoid the temptation to wield power at the expense of losing influence. Miriam had great influence in her sphere as prophetess and leader of the praises of Israel, but she was not content. She coveted equal power with Moses. Then is it not folly in trying to add to our prestige and dictating to others, as Miriam and Aaron when they gave vent to their feelings against Moses? The most impressive lesson to learn from Miriam is that it is injurious to our character to be discontented with our own distinction, and to jealously desire the higher place of honor which another holds. My soul, never forget that it was envy that crucified the Lord who personified humility!
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Ahithophel

[Ăhĭth'ophĕl] - brother of folly. One of David's privy counselors and father of one of David's heroes, a Gilonite (2 Sam. 15:12-34; 16:15-23; 17).

The Man Who Was Noted for His Advice


There was no one who could hold a candle to Ahithophel in his day as an able and famous politician. His counsel "was as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God" (2 Sam. 16:23 ). Such counsel was a proverb in Israel in David's time. Matthew Henry speaks of him as "a politic, thinking man and one that had a clear head, and a great compass of thought." Perhaps David and Ahithophel had been friends from their boyhood up and are before us in Psalms such as Pss 41:9; 55:13, 14.
Ahithophel, the wise and trusted counselor, however, was found unfaithful because he also thought of himself, and not of David. Ahithophel joined Absalom and advised the prince to take his father's harem (2 Sam. 15:12; 16:21 ). He advised pursuit of the fugitive monarch, but Hushai, another counselor, thwarted this move (2 Sam. 17:11)). Ahithophel was so disgusted over the collapse of his influence, for he could foresee that the insurrection against David was doomed to failure, that he went home a crestfallen man and set his affairs in order and hanged himself (2 Sam. 17:23).
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