Wednesday, November 02, 2016

Wed Nov 2nd Todays News

IPA Review features a Mikayla Novak article “Bourgeois Equality” review of Deirdre McClosky’s “Bourgeois Equality: How ideas, not capital or institutions enriched the world.” Today there is patchy growth within a material world of unprecedented growth. The world has never known it to be as good as it is now. Fewer people are in poverty worldwide than at any time in the past. We are producing more food than we ever have. We are educating more people than we ever have. Yet leading economies are struggling. The article does a facile survey of the past, but word count is an issue and clearly the book covers the material with rigour.

One observation that is never made is that the economies struggling most are led by the left. Obama is dismissed by those who want to portray the US as struggling as being a figurehead who is impotent to effect positive change because the position of President can’t do much. In fact GOP Presidents manage to achieve much, and are criticised for it. Obama has been a real presence in damaging the economy, limiting the defence forces and dividing the nation on race and income. Any decent review of history would show similar with Clinton, Carter, LBJ and Kennedy. Any decent review would show strong responses from Nixon, Reagan, Bush (41) and Bush (43). Bush (43) is openly despised by Obama yet even as a lame duck Bush (43) achieved much more than O (44) with a troop surge and spending increase in financial crisis.

Instead of making the observation, economic theory is presented which fails to tell the story or address apparent facts. Libertarians seem hung up on examining the cutting edge between conservatives and leftists in the great dialog. But the problem is conservatives (if they are competent) address the issue of institutional asset maintenance, and leftists try to tear down those institutions. There is currently no intellectual coherence to leftist action, so studying them is unproductive. In Australia, there is a need for a strong Labor Party which stands on values which support the struggling workers. But it currently is a corrupt organisation which exploits the poorest workers in a parody of what it should be. The world needs conservatives to have government in France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Canada and USA. The Great exhaustion can be dealt with if just some of them have effective government.

Australia is poorly positioned to capitalise on a Trump Presidency with both the foreign affairs Minister Julie Bishop and the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull talking out to personalise antipathy to Trump. One understands they prefer Hillary Clinton because they prefer working with corruption. They had insisted Abbott give over $10 million aid to the Clinton Foundation in 2014, and rolled Abbott after he stopped the payments. But neither Bishop nor Turnbull has explained how Australia will be better off with a corrupt Clinton as President, compared to a GOP backed Trump. Trump is not Reagan. Trump is very good at negotiations and knows how to run an executive team. Reagan was more reliant on insiders from GOP. Trump can deliver on promises better than Turnbull can. Turnbull has portrayed himself as being a good business executive. With Trump as President we will see a real one. Trump would never have put himself in the ridiculous position Turnbull has. All Turnbull can do now, constructively, is resign.

Meanwhile Trump’s progressive opponent is loved by the press and demonstrably corrupt. And the Libertarian candidate is trying to find Aleppo. Or a head of state.
Rumour now runs internationally that the apparent Saudi Spy who partners Hillary Clinton kept a life insurance policy of emails left in her ex husband’s computer. And the FBI found it. And so the insurance policy has been cashed in early. And the FBI investigating a witch on Halloween have found incriminating evidence on her familiar’s Weiner.

One person who knows how to profit from central planning is Hillary Clinton. The Chicago Tribune is withdrawing support from her, and suggesting that Democrats replace Hillary. But corrupt news, like the Tribune, knew everything now known about Hillary as they supported her days ago. Maybe they are only backing a tribe, but not a policy? And Maybe they want to find another crook. I note that press, who had accepted Hillary's corruption, are now denouncing her Saudi Spy Handler

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 ===
Abuse of power is legal unless called out. Shredding evidence of a gang rape of an under age Aboriginal girl in detention is illegal (There is no legal age for sex, she was under the age of consent too). However, Rudd will not be prosecuted for it. He had the power of authority that allowed him to do the act, although he did not possess the authority to do it. His authority was not his position as cabinet secretary, because another cabinet secretary, were they working for the LNP would have been both persecuted and prosecuted for doing it. Rudd's authority was the ALP badge. It is not the sole instance of that badge allowing abuse of power. When Gillard allegedly gave her client union powers to extort money from business, that was an abuse of power too which wasn't fully prosecuted. Or when Shorten allegedly abused work choices to steal member money that has not been fully prosecuted. Or in contrast, Thomson has not been prosecuted in the same way Jackson is being persecuted and the big difference is the ALP badge. Jackson lost her badge. 

Internationally, it is not the ALP badge, but the media support of a leftwing agenda which allows abuse of power. Otherwise Truman would have faced hard questions over dropping two atomic bombs on civilians. Or Kennedy would face hard questions over selling out his partner for peace in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Or Johnson would have faced hard questions over his assassination of allies, or supporting corrupt allies. Or Carter would face tough questions for giving chemical weapons to Iraq. Or Bill Clinton would have to explain the deaths of former friends who could finger him for corruption, or his dropping bombs on civilians in Yugoslavia. Or Obama would have to explain how he came to sacrifice for no reason his people in Benghazi while dancing with Beyonce. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
From 2014
ICAC desperate to be dismantled before it has to investigate ALP. The investigation into Margaret Cuneen is arguably an abuse of power. The allegation is that the senior crown prosecutor counselled her son's girlfriend to pretend to have chest pains so as to avoid being breathalysed at the scene of an accident. It is documented the girl had her blood tested and was found to have no alcohol in her. But someone has been able to interest the ICAC to investigate when they have previously accepted a former Attorney General walking out of hospital with his own blood samples. The difference being that the former AG who later died as a drunk and was smashed as he crashed his car was an ALP member and the ICAC only investigates 2% of cases sent its way. Even had Cuneen's son's girlfriend been drunk, and the allegation true, the ICAC's charter isn't for it to investigate public figures on private matters. Cuneen denies even giving the unnecessary advice. Clearly the ICAC has a significant faction wanting to have the organisation busted. The investigation into the Liberal Party resembles a witch hunt in which the Liberals appear to be clean, but with a few new members making naive mistakes. Meanwhile the unreformed ALP is still dripping with corruption.
Art is?
Art and how others see it is dependent on who sees it. ISIL planted their flag on top of a dirt mountain in Syria. It was bombed. The image of the explosion is a work of art that Tim Blairs notes is better than Sydney Council's many attempts at spending big on art. The ABC has suggested using humour to combat terrorism, by looking at acts of terror and carrying on normally. Almost as if they don't have a stake in what is taken and lost. Maybe they will grieve the ISIL flag on top of that dirt mountain.
Islamic Art 
Feminists might note ISIL killing seven women, or women fighting ISIL. Among those murdered were a lawyer who had not gone to school in her first eighteen years, but studied and became senior enough that she could refuse to charge families of Iraqi detainees in US military institutions. Certainly ironic then that she was killed by those she defended. Female warriors among the Kurds have been effective against ISIL monsters.

Multiple marriages by Boko Haram of their captured school girls shows Michelle Obama's awareness raising is working to raise awareness. It certainly hasn't helped the female hostages. Brothers for Life gang finished. Jailed or killed by their own. A gang of Lebanese and Afghan refugees. We can thank the ALP who have deemed it important for their electoral success to import radical Islam. But the most elevated art work is that of a former Gosford Anglican Minister whose bigotry has seen the membership of his church plummet, but Rod Bower is now Arch Deacon. Rod likes drowning new migrants who have been subjected to piracy. He also likes taxes on plant food and would limit plant food around the world if he could. He doesn't seem to know much about God, but that might not have anything to do with his occupation of social activism.
ALP art
Bracket creep is to do with income tax. As inflation drives up prices and wages, a larger portion of wages are claimed. The answer to bracket creep is tax reform. But the ALP has blocked spending cuts. So the government will need to use the extra funds from bracket creep to fuel the budget. Meanwhile ALP in Victoria still protects CFMEU from investigation and criticism where it can. The Royal Commission into Union Corruption has found the union boss should be charged with blackmail. But the Victorian ALP leader has kept the CFMEU embedded in the ALP. 
Left wing art
Preachy Age piece ignores two salient facts that contradict it. The issue is AGW and the Age presents an impressive list of facts and figures, but fails to mention that warming has paused for sixteen years and there is nothing that can responsibly be done about it at the moment. 

Stolen Generation myths are challenged by primary research in Adelaide where letters from the eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds are being transcribed and posted online. The evidence shows nothing consistent with the stolen generation myth. 

Sport achievements
Western Sydney Wanderers win marred by sober crowds rioting. The Wanderers did not even exist as a team a few years ago, and now have risen to win the Asia Cup for soccer. A great achievement. However, the fans have marred it with poor behaviour. 
From 2013
"US President Barack Obama views lies as legitimate political tools. He uses lies strategically to accomplish through mendacity what he could never achieve through honest means.

Obama lies in both domestic and foreign policy.

On the domestic front, despite Obama’s repeated promises that Obamacare would not threaten anyone’s existing health insurance policies, over the past two weeks, millions Americans have received notices from their health insurance companies that their policies have been canceled because they don’t abide by Obamacare’s requirements.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board explained that Obama’s repetition of this lie was not an oversight. It was a deliberate means of lulling into complacency these Americans who opted to buy their insurance themselves on the open market, in order to stick them with the burden of underwriting Obamacare.

In the editorialist’s words, “The [healthcare] exchanges need these customers [whose private policies are being canceled] to finance Obamacare’s balance sheet and stabilize its risk pools. On the exchanges, individuals earning more than $46,000 or a family of four above $94,000 don’t qualify for subsidies and must buy overpriced insurance. If these middle-class Obamacare losers can be forced into the exchanges, they become financiers of the new pay-as-yougo entitlement.”

Sure there is an outcry now about Obama’s dishonesty and the way he has used lying to take away from an unwilling public a right it would never have knowingly surrendered, but it is too late. There is no chance of revoking the law until at 2017, when Obama leaves office.

And by then, everyone will have been forced to accept what they consider unacceptable or be fined and lose all health coverage." from Caroline Glick. I suggest you read her full column. 
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.
===
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
===
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 Stephen Xie and Quoc Trinh. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
November 2: All Souls' Day (Western Christianity); Day of the Dead in Mexico
King Saud of Saudi Arabia
Although we are divided, we are two united. The fight against the deadly emus continues. Bare is the back without a brother to defend it. We are big, and size pays. Don't take criticism too personally. Let us party. 
Deaths
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Tim Blair

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Andrew Bolt

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HUMOURLESS JACKOFFS

Tim Blair – Monday, November 02, 2015 (2:24pm)

It’s taken some time, but a few on the left are finally becoming a little weary of their team’s tiresome moralising. US talk show host Bill Maher, for one, has had it with those who exist only to indulge in “fake outrage”.
Specifically, Maher is furious over politically-correct complaints about Halloween costumes. “Halloween is supposedto be politically incorrect,” Maher said on his Friday night show. “That’s why we say ‘trick or treat’ instead of ‘placate and coddle’.”

PC Americans believe hobo costumes, among others, should be banned because they are insensitive. Maher’s response: 
“Banning a hobo costume doesn’t make the homeless feel better. It makes you feel better. This is the lazy liberalism in which scolding has become a substitute for actually doing something. And here’s the thing, reasonable people see self-righteous liberal busybodies trying to leech the fun out of everything and they say, ‘I’m going to vote Republican, because I just can’t stand being on the same team as these humourless jackoffs.’
“Speaking of whom, the costume they have been wringing their hands over since August is the Caitlyn Jenner. What message does it send? None. It doesn’t send any message, except, if this guy is transitioning, he’s got a long way to go.”
(Continue reading Humourless Jackoffs.)
UPDATE. The ABC’s Natasha Robinson is upset. So is some guy in Canberra.
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EXPLORE THE TERM “PATRIARCHY”

Tim Blair – Monday, November 02, 2015 (1:11am)

A new feminist course will soon be offered in Victorian high schools: 
The course, which has been aligned with the Victorian curriculum, and is aimed at male and female secondary students, includes about 30 lessons on systemic sexism, the objectification of women, and the link between gender inequality and violence against women.
Students taking the course are asked to reflect on their experience of objectification, compare images of famous men and women in the media, deconstruct sexist cartoons, and debunk “hairy armpit” myths about feminists.
They explore the term “patriarchy”, and examine statistics on the gender wage gap, violence against women, and female representation in sport. 
Naturally, this all began in Fitzroy. Teacher Briony O’Keeffe says that the three male students enrolled in her pilot class initially found the experience confronting: “It’s like when you understand that you’re privileged because you’re a white person.” On a positive note, perhaps the kids will get to hear Lola, which by 2015 standards is probably considered hideously transphobic or something.
(Via Martin L.)
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WE MUST DO LESS

Tim Blair – Sunday, November 01, 2015 (11:42pm)

The Spectator‘s Rod Liddle on Europe’s fake refugees: 
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. 
Click the following link to observe a man literally chuck a wobbly when confronted by Liddle’s argument.
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Not just the handguns are imported

Andrew Bolt November 02 2015 (8:04pm)

The crackdown shouldn’t be just on guns, of course, but perhaps also on the kind of culture that uses them so freely:
POLICE will push for a further gun clampdown in the wake of a series of shootings including six since Friday… 
Acting Commander Peter De Santo said ... “The shootings are not at random and are usually drug related and at the current time we believe they are associated around gang activity, middle eastern organised crime figures and their links into the outlaw motorcycle gangs.”
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Which journalists will call bull on Shorten’s warming hype?

Andrew Bolt November 02 2015 (7:17am)

Global warming - propaganda


LABOR leader Bill Shorten will test the honesty of journalists this week when he tours Pacific Islands he claims are drowning.
Will they dare report that most of the islands are in fact growing or stable? Or will they again prove they cannot be trusted to tell the truth about the global warming scare?
Shorten and deputy Tanya Plibersek plan to visit Kiribati and the Marshall Islands.
As the gullible Sydney Morning Herald announced: “Labor wants to put climate change at the centre of public debate in the run-up to a major United Nations summit in Paris later this year.
“Low-lying Kiribati and Marshall Islands are among the nations most at threat from rising sea levels”
This “drowning island” scare has been a favourite of warmists since Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in 2006 claimed the melting ice caps had caused such a rise in sea levels that “the citizens of these Pacific nations have all had to evacuate to New Zealand”.
Completely false.
(Read full article here.)
UPDATE
ABC AM:Fail.
Sydney Morning Herald: Fail.
ABC News: Fail. 
===

How much longer before journalists finally challenge these false prophets?

Andrew Bolt November 02 2015 (7:00am)

Global warming - dud predictions

2007:
Andrew Bolt: I’m telling you, there’s a lot of fear out there. So what I do is, when I see an outlandish claim being made...so Tim Flannery suggesting rising seas this next century eight stories high, Professor Mike Archer, dean of engineering at the University of NSW… 
Robyn Williams [ABC chief science reporter]: Dean of science.
Andrew Bolt: Dean of science...suggesting rising seas this next century of up to 100 metres, or Al Gore six metres. When I see things like that I know these are false. You mentioned the IPCC report; that suggests, at worst on best scenarios, 59 centimetres.
Robyn Williams: Well, whether you take the surge or whether you take the actual average rise are different things. Andrew Bolt: I ask you, Robyn, 100 metres in the next century...do you really think that?  Robyn Williams: It is possible, yes. The increase of melting that they’ve noticed in Greenland and the amount that we’ve seen from the western part of Antarctica, if those increases of three times the expected rate continue, it will be huge.
2012:
Al Gore’s trek to Antarctica with global warming activists Richard Branson, NASA’s James Hansen and Climategate’s Kevin Trenberth among many others, is designed to alarm the public that somehow something is amiss there. Gore is warning of a melting continent. 
”The ice on land is melting at a faster rate and large ice sheets are moving toward the ocean more rapidly. As a result, sea levels are rising worldwide,” Gore wrote on January 31 during his visit to Antarctica
But in 2015:
A new NASA study found that Antarctica has been adding more ice than it’s been losing, challenging other research, including that of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that concludes that Earth’s southern continent is losing land ice overall. 
In a paper published in the Journal of Glaciology on Friday, researchers from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Maryland in College Park, and the engineering firm Sigma Space Corporation offer a new analysis of satellite data that show a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001 in the Antarctic ice sheet. That gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.
(Thanks to reader wesley61 and many others.)
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Paris climate festival: paying to pretend to stop a warming they pretend is catastrophic

Andrew Bolt November 02 2015 (6:55am)

UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol describes the real game at the Paris climate negotiation in December:
Tol predicted that the UN climate summit will “ultimately proven to be a futile effort” and achieve nothing more than “sending people to Paris for no apparent reason other than to keep these people well-travelled.” 
Tol, an economist and statistician, is the Professor of the Economics of Climate Change at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam and he is ranked among the “top 50 most-cited climate scholars”. He has well over 200 publications in academic journals…
”The discussion is now about money. How much do rich countries need to pay poor countries to pretend to reduce emissions?” According to Tol: “Climate policy has been about rewarding allies with rents and subsides rather than emission reduction.”
(Thanks to reader fulchrum.) 
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Labor counting on children to save it. Who else would?

Andrew Bolt November 02 2015 (6:46am)

BILL Shorten can’t impress the adults. So now he wants to let children vote as well.
After all, they’re still reckless enough to vote Labor.
What better explanation for the Labor leader’s bizarre declaration that he wants to now let 16 and 17-year-olds vote, too?
How strange. Why trust schoolchildren with decisions on raising and spending hundreds of billions of dollars?
We now need the help of the least experienced, least trained, least knowledgeable and most reckless and excitable part of our citizenry to run this place?
But how predictable that Labor should say yes.
(Read full article here.) 
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ABC makes mock of Abbott, ignore the catastrophe he’s warned against

Andrew Bolt November 02 2015 (6:19am)

The ABC’s Insiders gives a considered view of Tony Abbott’s speech in London, widely praised in Britain:
RICHARD DI NATALE, GREENS LEADER: I just want to say a few words today about Tony Abbott’s ill-advised international tour. 
CHEVY CHASE, COMEDIAN (National Lampoon’s European Vacation): Hey, look, kids: there’s Big Ben and there’s Parliament.
ANNOUNCER: My Lords, secretaries of state.
MALCOLM TURNBULL, PRIME MINISTER: Tony’s given a speech.
TONY ABBOTT, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: All countries that say, “Anyone who gets here can stay here,” are now in peril.
BILL SHORTEN, OPPOSITION LEADER: I’m not sure that Tony Abbott on a victory lap giving a Margaret Thatcher lecture is exactly what Europe needs to solve its problems.
CHEVY CHASE (National Lampoon’s European Vacation): Big Ben, Parliament again.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: His views are in hot demand everywhere in the world.
TONY ABBOTT: No country or continent can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself.
CHEVY CHASE (National Lampoon’s European Vacation): I can’t seem to get over to the left, honey. RICHARD DI NATALE: It’s not a healthy thing.
Pathetic. Abbott hatred has reached insane levels, nearly two months after he was toppled.
And this hatred is peddled by the country’s biggest media organisation, using your taxes - and in breach of a law saying it must be balanced and impartial.
Meanwhile, European political leaders are confronting the terrible consequences of not doing what Abbott rightly says is urgent:
The Swedish Foreign Minister has claimed her country is facing collapse due to the mass influx of refugees as the migrant crisis deepens… 
It is expected that Sweden [population 10 million] will take in around 190,000 migrants by the end of 2015. In the first nine months of the year, more than 73,000 people applied for asylum in Sweden.
And Mrs Wallstrom said in an interview: ‘I think most people feel that we cannot maintain a system where perhaps 190,000 people will arrive every year - in the long run, our system will collapse...”
Already Sweden has seen a spate of anti-immigrant riots and protests. It also has, on the other hand, seen a lot of Muslim riots and a startling rise in rapes by foreigners.
In Germany, which has also seen riots by both illegal immigrants and anti-immigrants, a fresh concern:  more than 7000 illegal immigrants have vanished from the reception centres in Brandenburg alone. Who were they? What are they doing? What is the security risk?
Maybe Insiders can set all that to funny music in its next show?
UPDATE
The Abbott hatred is unmoored from any reality.
Cut & Paste:
Paul Bongiorno lists his litany of complaints about Tony Abbott’s Margaret Thatcher lecture in The Saturday Paper, including: 
The denigration of Islam.
That denigration in full. The relevant extracts from the speech: 
(Thatcher’s) focus — were she still with us — would be the things of most consequence … winning the fight in Syria and Iraq ... and asserting Western civilisation against the challenge of militant Islam … a caliphate seeking to export its apocalyptic version of Islam right around the world … The challenge of militant Islam needs more than a military solution … You can’t arrest your way to social harmony — but homegrown terrorism does need a strong security response. Of course, the overwhelming majority of Muslims don’t support terrorism — but many still think that death should be the punishment for apostasy. Of course, the true meaning of Islam is a matter for Muslims to resolve — but everyone has a duty to support and protect those decent, humane Muslims who accept cultural diversity.
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill, Mark M and fulchrum.) 
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Can we help these 800 to move to some country better suited to them?

Andrew Bolt November 02 2015 (6:04am)

There were 800 at the meeting? And they don’t want to join or pledge allegiance to Australia?
So who let them and their families enter? Why did they come?
Australian Muslims should not have to submit to an oppressive campaign of “forced assimilation” such as singing the national anthem­ or pledging support for democratic values in the citizenship oath, Islamist activist group Hizb ut-Tahrir has told its followers. 
The call came at a conference in Sydney yesterday where Muslims were encouraged to make use of printed material which recommends “refusing to partake in any of the government’s counter-terror­ism programs and initiatives”, and says co-operation with spy agencies “is outright haram (forbidden).”
A slick magazine handed out to the 800 or so attendees recommends exposing ASIO’s “predatory tactics” publicly, because “the best way to send cockroaches scurrying is to turn on the lights.” The Hizb ut-Tahrir conference held in Bankstown in Sydney’s west, entitled Innocent Until Proven Muslim, was the group’s strongest yet in condemning what it claimed was a brutal campaign by the government and security agencies to oppress Muslims and force them into compliance. 
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Disability payment blowout has a long, long way to go

Andrew Bolt November 02 2015 (5:31am)

It is hard to believe we are this sick, but not that we are this slack:
The Disability Support Pension has reached an “unsustainable” point as the $17 billion welfare program outstrips inflation and puts a growing burden on taxpayers, triggering a new vigilance in the federal government to curb the growth. 
The spending is growing faster than the Australian population and forcing a greater contribution from those who stay in the workforce, according to government figures that counter claims that the trend presents no threat.
Worried that past reforms will not do enough to fix the problem, the government is warning that payments to more than 800,000 disability support pensioners have grown by 7.6 per cent on average every year for the past decade, far ahead of inflation.
We have about 15.4 million people of working age. Are one in 19 Australians really too disabled to work?
Well, maybe so. Maybe we’re really not as slack as I’ve long assumed.
Either that, or Germany really is the ludicrously generous social security honeypot that is rightly luring millions from the Third World:
In 2013, 10.2 million people with an officially recognised disability were living in Germany, representing 13 percent of the total population, according to the Federal Statistical Office. The majority, roughly 7.5 million people, is severely disabled, while 2.7 million people suffered from a moderate disability in Germany, as the figures showed.
Britain has around 6 million adults of working age on disability pensions , or 15 per cent of people of working age.
Seems there’s plenty of scope for our disability payments to really blow out. This is a warning that the national disability insurance scheme could become an even greater money pit.  
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Training the state’s future naggers

Andrew Bolt November 02 2015 (5:25am)

Name a job that students of this new Victorian high school subject will be trained for that does not involve future nagging financed by taxpayers’ dollars:
The course, which has been aligned with the Victorian curriculum, and is aimed at male and female secondary students, includes about 30 lessons on systemic sexism, the objectification of women, and the link between gender inequality and violence against women. 
Students taking the course are asked to reflect on their experience of objectification, compare images of famous men and women in the media, deconstruct sexist cartoons, and debunk “hairy armpit” myths about feminists.
They explore the term “patriarchy”, and examine statistics on the gender wage gap, violence against women, and female representation in sport. 
A pointer to a poorer, more strident, more resentful and less happy future. 
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Who will the ICAC hunt next?

Miranda Devine – Saturday, November 01, 2014 (11:11pm)

GENERAL moral decline has created a rage for royal commissions and corruption watchdogs and all sorts of integrity units to compensate for the lack of integrity in public and private life.
But the remedy may turn out to be worse than the disease. 

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Who will the ICAC hunt next?'
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CAN’T BLAME ALCOHOL

Tim Blair – Sunday, November 02, 2014 (4:59pm)

A demonstration of Saudi sportsmanship during (and after) the match between Western Sydney Wanderers and Al-Hilal at King Fahd Stadium: 
Some of the Wanderers had expected a hostile environment, and they got one. Boos and green laser lights targeted them, particularly goalkeeper Ante Covic, named most valuable player of the match …
Al Hilal fans hurled bottles and shoes – a Middle Eastern insult – over the heads of riot police and towards the players from whom they had expected so much. 
There was also spitting and a headbutt.
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NEXT TIME, TRY A GIANT MILK CRATE

Tim Blair – Sunday, November 02, 2014 (2:56am)

In an apparent attempt to construct a Sydney Council-style outdoor art statement, creative Islamic State representatives install an ISIS flag on a Syrian dirt mountain. Critical response is both immediate and overwhelmingly negative:



Of course, it could be argued that the response presented a bolder artistic vision than did the original installation. Arts-minded types are invited to discuss the finer points of both works in comments.
(Via bingbing)
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ANGLED ARCHDEACON

Tim Blair – Sunday, November 02, 2014 (2:14am)

Tilty Gosford preacher Rod Bower has been promoted to archdeacon – and he maintains his compassionate head tilt, as always:



(Via Geoff) 
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A MATTER OF POSSIBLE INTEREST TO FEMINISTS

Tim Blair – Sunday, November 02, 2014 (2:10am)

Islamic State’s war against women: 
Last month in the Iraqi city of Mosul, where 2 million people live, ISIS reportedly executed several notable women, including lawyers, physicians, activists and politicians for various reasons. Among them was a famous lawyer who refused to charge the families of the Iraqi detainees in the U.S. military detention facilities between 2003 and 2011.
The Iraqi writer Mushriq Abbas says Samira Salih al-Nuaimi was born in 1963. She was illiterate until the age of 18, when she enrolled in a class and learned how to read and write, after which she earned two bachelor’s degrees, in literature and law. Because of her continued criticism of ISIS on social media and in person, she was arrested and tortured for five days and then killed in public in Mosul. 
Kurds – many of them female – are fighting back: 
At least 300 ISIL militants were killed and scores of ISIL vehicles captured in clashes between the pershmerga and ISIL militants, according to Colonel Z. Sheikh Vasani, a peshmerga commander on the Mahmur front.
“We are fighting with weapons sent by France and Germany. We took control of at least 60 villages around the Al Mahmur district. We can carry out an operation on Mosul if our superiors command it,” Vasani said. 
(Via Instapundit)
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AWARENESS RAISED

Tim Blair – Sunday, November 02, 2014 (2:00am)

Multiple marriages in Nigeria: 
Boko Haram has claimed the 219 schoolgirls it kidnapped in Nigeria earlier this year have converted to Islam and been married off …
The schoolgirls were kidnapped from the remote northeast town of Chibok in Borno state in April, raising global awareness about the group whose five-year insurgency in northern Nigeria has claimed an estimated 13,000 lives. 
Bad luck for the girls, but at least awareness has been raised. Boko Haram is the new global warming.
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MUTUAL ADMIRATION

Tim Blair – Sunday, November 02, 2014 (1:00am)

(Via Colonel Sanders) 
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On the Bolt Report today, November 2

Andrew Bolt November 02 2014 (5:59am)

On The Bolt Report on Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm.
Attorney-General George Brandis, Janet Albrechtsen, Sean Kelly and Piers Akerman.
There will be plenty on boats, Gillard, Peris and useless taxes. Plus why the Foreign Minister is no feminist and why a power station is beautiful.
The videos of the shows appear here.
UPDATE
I apologise for Channel 10 not running the 4pm encore.  There was some confusion about what would follow the basketball, I believe. Very sad.
UPDATE
INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE BRANDIS
ANDREW BOLT, PRESENTER: The Abbott Government last year set up a royal commission to investigate union corruption, including an old scandal involving the Australian Workers Union. That involved Julia Gillard when she was a solicitor, helping her then-boyfriend, AWU official Bruce Wilson, set up a slush fund called the Australian Workers Union Workers Reform Association. He used that to siphon off money from bosses that was meant for his union. Gillard claimed she knew nothing about those rip offs and Wilson did not give her any money or pay for her renovations. JULIA GILLARD, FORMER PRIME MINISTER (SEPTEMBER): I checked my receipts and expenditures and satisfied myself that I had paid for all of the work at my Abbotsford property. ANDREW BOLT: On Friday, the counsel assisting the royal commission, Jeremy Stoljar, recommended a finding that Gillard be cleared of any crime, but Wilson be charged. He also said Wilson had, in fact, paid for Gillard’s renovations.
Joining me is the Attorney-General, George Brandis. Thanks for your time.
GEORGE BRANDIS, ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Good morning, Andrew.
ANDREW BOLT: So, was this investigation worth it?
GEORGE BRANDIS: Well, first of all, it’s important to make the point that this was not an inquiry into Julia Gillard. This was an inquiry into systemic corruption across the trade union movement, in
particular, some unions like the HSU and the CFMEU. Now, the recommendations that the counsel assisting Mr Stoljar made to the royal commissioner last week were very comprehensive, and I wouldn’t want to focus too much of the public discussion on what he had to say about Julia Gillard because, in a sense, that was a very small element of the work of the royal commission. But, that being said, I do think that the conclusions that counsel assisting the royal commission came to about Julia Gillard were very damning indeed.
ANDREW BOLT: Well, I was struck by Jeremy Stoljar saying, “Julia Gillard’s legal work on creating this slush fund was questionable,” his word, “Which helped her then-boyfriend get away with this fraud”, you know, naming it Australian Workers’ Union Workplace Reform Association, when it had nothing to do with the union, for example. “Questionable”, is that how you’d describe it?
GEORGE BRANDIS: Well, to describe the conduct of a lawyer, in dealing with money and setting up a series of arrangements through which money is channelled as “questionable”, I think, is a very serious thing to say indeed.
ANDREW BOLT: How questionable did you find her conduct, from your reading of the evidence?
GEORGE BRANDIS: Well, look, I don’t want… particularly want to be a commentator on what the royal commission might ultimately find, but I think it’s enough to say that the conclusions Mr Stoljar came to, and that he has recommended be adopted as findings by the royal commissioner, certainly justify the concerns that people like Julie Bishop, Tony Abbott and others raised in the last parliament about Julia Gillard’s conduct at the time.
ANDREW BOLT: In February, you said you were preparing a police task force to work with this royal commission. This week, nine months later, the Prime Minister announced this task force to investigate corruption involving, particularly, building unions close to Victorian Labor, like the CFMEU. Now, why that delay? Is it to coincide with this month’s Victorian election?
Icon Arrow Continue reading 'On the Bolt Report today, November 2'
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When governments won’t cut, you must pay

Andrew Bolt November 02 2014 (5:56am)

Samantha Maiden:
But imagine for a moment that the Abbott government was planning on increasing taxes by $25 billion over the next four years. Imagine that average income earners on $80,000 a year face being pushed into the second highest tax bracket next year. Imagine that average workers face paying $3,800-a-year in extra taxes if nothing changes. Not a $400-a-year for high income earners under the deficit levy but $3,800-a-year. 
As it turns out, that’s a fact, not the fantasy scenario you may imagine. It’s exactly what is going to happen in Australia’s tax system as a result of bracket creep without tax reform. 
This is very bad. The answer is to cut spending. Bet we’re told we should just broaden the tax base instead. 
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Sense of humour tested

Andrew Bolt November 02 2014 (5:49am)

ABC presenter Jonathan Green:
Could be any day now ... the sudden indiscriminate smack of a terrorist attack. 
Our best defence is of course our cultured reason. Our tolerance. Our audacious confidence in the fundamental goodness of others. Maybe even our sense of humour.
Just keep smiling in that tolerant way:
Last month in the Iraqi city of Mosul, where 2 million people live, ISIS reportedly executed several notable women, including lawyers, physicians, activists and politicians for various reasons. Among them was a famous lawyer who refused to charge the families of the Iraqi detainees in the U.S. military detention facilities between 2003 and 2011. 
The Iraqi writer Mushriq Abbas says Samira Salih al-Nuaimi was born in 1963. She was illiterate until the age of 18, when she enrolled in a class and learned how to read and write, after which she earned two bachelor’s degrees, in literature and law. Because of her continued criticism of ISIS on social media and in person, she was arrested and tortured for five days and then killed in public in Mosul. 
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Who let them in?

Andrew Bolt November 02 2014 (5:39am)

Many Muslim Lebanese were let into Australia as refugees during the Lebanese civil war. Then we took in Afghans.
It hasn’t been painless:
After six on-and-off years of waging war on Sydney’s streets, police declared the Brothers for Life gang dead this week with all key members behind bars or allegedly killed by their own. 
“I’d like to think this is the final nail in the coffin,” Homicide Squad commander Michael Willing said this week following the charging of leader Farhad Qaumi, 33, with two murders.
The toll has been high. More than 300 charges have been laid against 21 members including extortions, home invasions and cocaine supply. The internal war resulted in two murders, 11 shootings, two knee-cappings and several bashings…
Qaumi “utilised fear and physical violence to recruit and control young members of the Afghan community into committing violent acts, supplying drugs and perpetrating multiple shootings, in a bid to overpower the Bankstown chapter, whose members are primarily of Lebanese background,” according to the police statement of facts on the gang obtained by The Sun-Herald.
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CFMEU still talks through Labor

Andrew Bolt November 02 2014 (5:28am)

Why does Victorian Labor let the CFMEU have a say on its policies?
Victorian Labor leader Daniel Andrews has refused to distance himself from the CFMEU in the wake of the royal commission being told that the union’s boss should be charged with blackmail. 
With one month until the state election, Mr Andrews’ links to the construction union have been called into question after counsel assisting the royal commission into trade unions formally recommended charges against state secretary John Setka… The opposition leader’s Socialist Left faction welcomed the CFMEU back into Labor ranks a few years ago, giving it the power to influence state policy and help determine who gets preselected for seats in parliament.
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Warmist piece missing the only two figures that count

Andrew Bolt November 02 2014 (5:18am)

Another preachy Age report on global warming absolutely choked with figures and statistics- except for the two most important:
.... greenhouse gas emissions may have to fall to a net zero ... About 500 delegates… due to be signed at a UN summit in Paris in late 2015 ... the result of seven years assessing the latest published science ... net zero ... Australian government has a target of cutting its emissions to 5per cent below 2000 levels by 2020 ... abolished a legislated 80per cent cut by 2050 ... a $2.55 billion budget fund ... 5 per cent target… goal of limiting a rise in average temperatures to 2 degrees ... 30 pages long ... three reports of more than 1000 pages ... halve their emissions by 2030 ... 2 degree target ... European Union agreed to a 40 per cent cut ... Obama wants US power plants to cut emissions by 30 per cent ... 95per cent sure that man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause of warming since 1950.
Missing stat 1: the world’s atmosphere has not in fact warmed for some 16 years.
Missing state 2: anything Australia does would have around zero effect on the world’s temperature.
Why were these two stats missing? 
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What “stolen generations”? What herding onto missions?

Andrew Bolt November 02 2014 (5:02am)

Blog reader Joe Lane’s tireless research gets public acknowledgement in The Australian:
HISTORICAL evidence shows a “black armband” version of Australian history is deeply flawed and that Aborigines were not “herded” on to missions, driven from their lands or had countless children stolen from their families, ­researcher Joe Lane says.

Mr Lane, 72, an independent ­researcher based in Adelaide, has so far transcribed about 9000 pages of primary source material dating from the 1840s, including letters, journals and royal commission evidence, and posted it all on his firstsources website. 
He began his research in the 1980s, when he came across the late-1880s journals of George ­Taplin, a missionary who set up the Point McLeay Mission on Lake ­Alexandrina in South Australia. Mr Lane has transcribed the journals, kept in the State Library of South Australia.
Recently, he has been typing up more than 20,000 pieces of correspondence of the Protector of Aborigines in South Australia from 1840 to 1912.
“They are packed full of information ... most academics simply don’t know about this goldmine of information, which just doesn’t support the current indigenous studies narrative,” Mr Lane told The Australian yesterday.
Mr Lane, who formerly worked in a support role for indigenous students at the University of South Australia, has reached some controversial conclusions: he believes the material does not support narrative of indigenous history being taught in schools and universities; that Aboriginal people were “herded” on to missions; driven from their lands; and had countless children stolen from families.
He said that from 1840 more than 80 per cent of the Aboriginal population lived away from missions, across the state, while the total number of full-time staff of the Aborigines Department was one — the Protector — whose main task was to establish and ­supply up to 40 ration depots.
Mission staff “rarely numbered more than three or four”.
“People came and went as they chose ... there does not seem to be any evidence of ‘herding’ or any obvious intention to ever do so."…
School records from 1880 to 1960, uncovered by Mr Lane, showed only a small number of children had been brought to missions. One mission’s records between 1880 and the 1900s showed only eight children out of a roll of 200 over those years had been brought to the mission, he said… “From the record, there does not seem to be any concerted effort to take children from their families,” Mr Lane said.
The material on the “stolen generations” particularly conforms with what courts have found and my own researches suggest.
But the dominant narrative of brutally racist colonisation and mass child-theft will be hard to remove from the universities, no matter how many documents are uncovered:
University of Adelaide associate professor Robert Foster, who specialises in South Australian Aboriginal history, yesterday said Mr Lane’s conclusions, “rather oversimplifies three otherwise quite complex phenomena”. 
“What Mr Lane is saying is not untrue, but it is how you choose to spin it ...”
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Roger FroikinIsrael Muse Portal (NEWS)
THE CURRENT OBAMA-NETANYAHU CONFLICT IS A BIT MORE COMPLICATED THAN THE PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS MIGHT MAKE IT SEEM.
Friends do not always have identical interests. They can disagree at times. There has been times when the US and Israel disagreed. History shows that more often than not, Israel gave in and went with whatever the Americans wanted. The record shows that doing what the White House wanted more often than not, had short term results at best, long term bad results most often - both for US and Israeli interests.
In Lebanon, israel got involved at the suggestion of some in the US Administration, and when the publicity got "difficult", the US suddenly switched approaches and demanded that israel withdraw. In the first Lebanese war, Israel backed off when the West made certain assurances. The assurances turned out to be hot air. The Second Lebanese War ended with US and European promises that Hezbollah would never be allowed to rearm. How did that work out?
Israel withdrew from Gaza, under US pressure, with the US promising that such a withdrawal would lead to a change on the Arab side that would lead to peace. How did that promise work out?
Now, Netanyahu is being attacked by the Obama White House, being called stubborn, short-sighted, and worse, for refusing to compromise Jewish rights and security when the Arab side refuses to do anything that would lead to peace. Fatah and Hamas have not been partners, and the Americans and Europeans still demand that Israel back off, make concessions, give up Jewish rights, to a dictatorial regime that still calls for Israel's death and the exclusion of Jews, even from Jewish Holy Places.
Given the record, is Netanyahu stubborn --- or is the US Administration arrogant and overbearing while offering nothing new but pressure?
When Obama ran for president, he deplored the idea (or claimed to) of an America that acted imperial, making demands, getting into everyone's business, and pressuring for short term gains that created long term problems.
Yet, here he is, doing that very thing with Israel. Endangering Israel's security and setting Israel and the region up for massive war at some stage.
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Q: If Obamacare is the law, why aren't the president, congress, supreme court, all the gov't people who've designed it, not included? Isn't a law intended for all Americans, not just some?
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Larry Pickering
ONYA BIKE CAMPBELL!

Why is it that Queensland premiers believe they are a law unto themselves? Our Constitution provides a treasured right of assembly and a right to freedom of association, as surely as it did to those violent uni students in Melbourne and the coming unions’ furor over Abbott’s IR.

Finks, Hell’s Angels, Bandidos, and the outrageous Mongols all engage in criminal activity, as do unions, but all are either clubs or associations and you cannot jail an association or a club. An individual must first be charged, found guilty by a court of law and then punished by the judiciary within legal parameters placed on it.

Campbell Newman proposes to distort our judicial system. Even his Attorney General (whose only qualification is that he was once a conveyancing clerk) should know the law has to be applied equally to all.

If criminal organisations are to be outlawed the first cab off the rank should be the NSW Right of the Labor Party, then the Catholic Church followed by Green councils.

Newman takes “guilt by association” to dizzying heights. Even those who aid and abet in a criminal act are afforded common law (comparable) justice.

To propose those who belong to a certain criminal group must suffer “incomparably severe” justice falls foul of our Constitution and the Discrimination Act. The High Court won’t hesitate to uphold any appeal.

Newman is playing with his donger if he believes the law can be applied unequally.
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Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin
PRAY ALONG.
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 this month, no matter what my circumstances are. I am full of Your power and I’m ready to become everything you created me to be.As you pray along,May the Lord bless you and keep you.May the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you.May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.May He favor you this month in Jesus Name,Amen.
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Look out Look out through eyes of faith and see your dreams coming to pass. See yourself walking in abundance in every area of life this month.God bless you.
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Unbelievable facts
People with higher intelligence tend to have a harder time falling asleep at night because of increased brain activity.
I sleep like a baby - ed
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It is time for Netanyahu to reveal what Obama keeps threatening to do to us.
For details, read my column in today's Jerusalem Post.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Column-One-Obamacare-victims-and-Israel-330307
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Frank Severino
I would rather ask a dumb question and receive a good answer, than not ask the question and perpetuate a dumb idea.
I prefer asking good questions, but there you go - ed
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Pastor Rick Warren
"... Wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, and wanting to appear important, has nothing to do with the Father." 
1 John 2:16 (The Message)
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EVERYDAY God asks you to do things that feel impossible so that you have to trust him. It's a test. #FaithOverFeelings
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Terri Noscov
To SAVE this recipe, be sure to click SHARE so it will store on your personal page
Ingredients
Crust
2 cups finely crushed graham crackers (use nice biscuits in aust)
2 tablespoons sugar (if using nice biscuits in aust disregard this sugar)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Filling
4 packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 pinch salt
1 cup sour cream
1 cup heavy cream
4 large eggs
1 each of liquid food colors (blue, yellow, green, red)


Directions
1 Preheat oven 180/350F degrees. Before you get started with the crust, make sure your 9 inch springform pan is water tight. I do this by carefully wrapping a few layers of foil on the outside of the pan, so water cannot get into the pan. Be careful not to rip the foil or water will get into your cake and ruin it!

2 Mix crushed crackers, 2 tablespoons sugar, the cinnamon and salt together in a bowl. Then mix in butter with your clean fingers, until crumbs are pea sized.

3 Press all of the graham cracker mixture into the prepared springform pan. Press it down firmly in the pan. I like to use a measuring cup for this, which makes it easy to get around the edges. You should have an even, flat crust.

4 Bake the crust for 10 minutes on a low oven rack. Remove from the oven, and cool completely before continuing. Turn oven temperature down to 160/325 degrees.

5 To make filling, cut cream cheese into pieces and add to a mixing bowl. Whip until smooth, maybe 4 minutes. Then add 1-1/3 cups sugar, and continue to beat until smooth again, another 4-5 minutes. Next, add vanilla, salt, sour cream and heavy cream; beat until smooth. Add in 1 egg at a time, beating briefly between each egg.

6 Once the mixture is well combined and very smooth, divide evenly into 6 dishes. Add food color to each dish to get the desired colors. (Red = 25 drops of red, Orange = 18 drops yellow + 6 drops red, Yellow = 18 drops yellow, Green = 18 drops green, Blue = 18 drops blue, Violet = 18 drops red Blue Mountain Cocoa Drops

7 Pour colored mixtures into cooled crust. Start with red filling, and slowly pour it right in the center of the crust. Continue to build the rainbow by pouring the fillings directly in the center. This will create layers so that each slice has some of each color.

8 Place cheesecake into a baking dish on oven rack, and fill baking dish with boiling water about 1 inch up the side of the springform pan.

9 Bake at 160/325 degrees in the water bath for 1 hour and 40 minutes to 1 hour 50 minutes or until set but still jiggles slightly 2 inches from the edge. If cheesecake begins to brown on top, cover loosely with foil during last 5 minutes of baking.

10 Turn off the oven, open the oven door a crack, and let the cake cool in the oven for 1 hour. The slow cooling will help it not crack.

11 Then loosely wrap the dish in foil so the foil isn't touching the top of the cake and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

12 When ready to remove cake, run a clean narrow knife around the edge of the dish, remove the foil, unlock the spring, and carefully lift off the outer ring.

13 Serve either alone or with a cherry/raspberry sauce. It's so rich and creamy that it really doesn't need a topping.

Hey Everyone, I am posting some awesome daily recipes and tips for weight loss at Tezza's Skinny Buddies! Feel free to follow for some great ideas!
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“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,”Ephesians 1:18 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"The church in thy house."
Philemon 2

Is there a Church in this house? Are parents, children, friends, servants, all members of it? or are some still unconverted? Let us pause here and let the question go round--Am I a member of the Church in this house? How would father's heart leap for joy, and mother's eyes fill with holy tears if from the eldest to the youngest all were saved! Let us pray for this great mercy until the Lord shall grant it to us. Probably it had been the dearest object of Philemon's desires to have all his household saved; but it was not at first granted him in its fulness. He had a wicked servant, Onesimus, who, having wronged him, ran away from his service. His master's prayers followed him, and at last, as God would have it, Onesimus was led to hear Paul preach; his heart was touched, and he returned to Philemon, not only to be a faithful servant, but a brother beloved, adding another member to the Church in Philemon's house. Is there an unconverted servant or child absent this morning? Make special supplication that such may, on their return to their home, gladden all hearts with good news of what grace has done! Is there one present? Let him partake in the same earnest entreaty.
If there be such a Church in our house, let us order it well, and let all act as in the sight of God. Let us move in the common affairs of life with studied holiness, diligence, kindness, and integrity. More is expected of a Church than of an ordinary household; family worship must, in such a case, be more devout and hearty; internal love must be more warm and unbroken, and external conduct must be more sanctified and Christlike. We need not fear that the smallness of our number will put us out of the list of Churches, for the Holy Spirit has here enrolled a family-church in the inspired book of remembrance. As a Church let us now draw nigh to the great head of the one Church universal, and let us beseech him to give us grace to shine before men to the glory of his name.

Evening


"And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."
Matthew 24:39
Universal was the doom, neither rich nor poor escaped: the learned and the illiterate, the admired and the abhorred, the religious and the profane, the old and the young, all sank in one common ruin. Some had doubtless ridiculed the patriarch--where now their merry jests? Others had threatened him for his zeal which they counted madness--where now their boastings and hard speeches? The critic who judged the old man's work is drowned in the same sea which covers his sneering companions. Those who spoke patronizingly of the good man's fidelity to his convictions, but shared not in them, have sunk to rise no more, and the workers who for pay helped to build the wondrous ark, are all lost also. The flood swept them all away, and made no single exception. Even so, out of Christ, final destruction is sure to every man of woman born; no rank, possession, or character, shall suffice to save a single soul who has not believed in the Lord Jesus. My soul, behold this wide-spread judgment and tremble at it.
How marvellous the general apathy! they were all eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, till the awful morning dawned. There was not one wise man upon earth out of the ark. Folly duped the whole race, folly as to self-preservation--the most foolish of all follies. Folly in doubting the most true God--the most malignant of fooleries. Strange, my soul, is it not? All men are negligent of their souls till grace gives them reason, then they leave their madness and act like rational beings, but not till then.
All, blessed be God, were safe in the ark, no ruin entered there. From the huge elephant down to the tiny mouse all were safe. The timid hare was equally secure with the courageous lion, the helpless cony as safe as the laborious ox. All are safe in Jesus. My soul, art thou in him?
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Today's reading: Jeremiah 24-26, Titus 2 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Jeremiah 24-26


Two Baskets of Figs

1 After Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah and the officials, the skilled workers and the artisans of Judah were carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the LORD showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the LORD. 2One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early; the other basket had very bad figs, so bad they could not be eaten.

3 Then the LORD asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”
“Figs,” I answered. “The good ones are very good, but the bad ones are so bad they cannot be eaten.”
4 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 5 “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians. 6 My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. 7 I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart....

Today's New Testament reading: Titus 2

Doing Good for the Sake of the Gospel
1 You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. 2 Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.
3 Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
6 Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. 7In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness 8 and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.
9 Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, 10 and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive....
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Gemariah

[Gĕma rī'ah] - jehovah hath fulfilled oraccomplishment of the lord.

  1. A prince, son of Shaphan the scribe and brother of Ahikam (Jer. 36:10-25). This scribe sought in vain to keep King Jehoiakim from burning the roll.
  2. A son of Hilkiah, sent by King Zedekiah as ambassador to Nebuchadnezzar. He also carried a letter from Jeremiah to the captive Jews (Jer. 29:3).
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