Monday, January 08, 2018

Mon Jan 8th Todays News

Don't give up on hope. UNICEF aims to blacklist IDF for child abuse. Constituents of UNICEF are child abusers. IDF is one of the world's most effective defence forces which faces child abusers. Oprah Winfrey is highly lauded for Golden Globes speech. She did not mention the economy, foreign trade or immigration issues. Yet the emotional children are asking her to run for President after she declared herself a black woman. 

By misrepresenting his past, he effectively models and mentors for all illegal refugees. It would not surprise me if Turnbull reached out before going cold on Nelly Yoa. Democrats put a cage wall around Philadelphia for their election conference. Real people could not get through. Democrats are not the party to represent their constituents. Democrats are driven by elites who are not trustworthy. A gay couple drove 120 miles past 67secularly owned bakeries, and 6 owned by Muslims, to get to a bakery owned by Christians. Because nothing says your beliefs are being violated better than violating other people's beliefs.

Musical instruments, crafted and loved are maintained lovingly. A musician has paid Alitalia to hand carry their original 17th century Lewis viola da gamba, onto a craft as part of the journey. But the company did not do that and the instrument was ruined. One hopes Myrna Herzog gets more than value, but damages. 

Outrageous claims are being levelled at Craig McLachlan, which he denies. He played a role recently in the Rocky Horror Picture Show, a stage production. Who would have thought an actor being in character could be misunderstood? Maybe when year 6's do a production in a safe schools environment the kinks will be ironed out? 

Breitbart are reporting on Twitter bullying a conservative comedian Eric Golub. 

Trump trolls world leaders in a picture. The picture shows world leaders crossing arms to hold hands. Trump is not crossing his hands. People that hate trump say Trump is too stupid to cross hands. The look of concentration on Malcolm Turnbull's face is telling. Turnbull is clearly smart enough to cross arms. Just smart enough. But people that hate Trump have no issue circulating the photo. But correctly note how Trump is trolling world leaders and FB has labelled the photo as Spam.

I am a decent man and don't care for the abuse given me. I created a video raising awareness of anti police feeling among western communities. I chose the senseless killing of Nicola Cotton, a Louisiana policewoman who joined post Katrina, to highlight the issue. I did this in order to get an income after having been illegally blacklisted from work in NSW for being a whistleblower. I have not done anything wrong. Local council appointees refused to endorse my work, so I did it for free. Youtube's Adsence refused to allow me to profit from their marketing it. Meanwhile, I am hostage to abysmal political leadership and hopeless journalists. My shopfront has opened on Facebook.
























































































Here is a video I made Ken Lee

"Without You" is a song written by musicians Pete Ham and Tom Evans of British rock group Badfinger. According to ASCAP, the ballad has been recorded by more than 180 artists and has made many appearances on the Billboard Hot 100, including the number one position. Beatle Paul McCartney once described the ballad as "...the killer song of all time."


=== from 2017 ===
Miranda Devine on 3AW (and 2GB and many other stations, filling in for Steve Price) admitted the NSW government was good, but for some over reach. This is true. NSW Government has eliminated debt and invested strongly in infrastructure. The government is still faced with a partisan public service and judiciary that has endemic corruption issues. NSW Liberal Party is divided and as well as needing to reform the public service and judiciary so they become competent and independent, needs to maintain probity. My question yesterday about finding a competent left wing government anywhere in Australia, or the world, was not addressed. Some made the classic gambit "No government is good" when that is not true. Conservative government has got working features and claims to competence which can be seen objectively. So in order to make it easier, I'll open the survey to any time in recorded history, and anywhere in the world, for a state or federal government. Has there ever been a competent left wing government anywhere in the world?  Who ran it? What were their achievements? 
=== from 2016 ===
Too much credibility is given mob like Islamic groups. Around the world, police are intimidated, and so fail to police. In Germany a group of a thousand openly molest women on New Years Eve. In London a rapist gang are almost protected by police because of their cultural back ground. In Australia, a gang rapist appeals a sentence successfully. A woman dressed in clothing obscuring ID is allowed to drive illegally, even after police pull her over. And she falsely alleges police brutality when asked to provide ID. 

When NYC was at her worst, after decades of neglect and Democrat government, it was considered impossible to fix her. But Zero Tolerance under a GOP government cleaned her up. The police had been given the authority to police. The world has been put under intense pressure, not because of Islam, as some say, but because Civil Libertarians have acted to prevent a safe level of policing. Civil Libertarians are not protecting rights, although they claim to. They are protecting thugs, rapists and terrorists. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
=== from 2015 ===
It is remarkable how history is reflected in the current day. On this day in 1697, twenty year old Thomas Aikenhead, from Edinborough, was hanged for blasphemy. What he said, according to the indictment was
"That ... the prisoner had repeatedly maintained, in conversation, that theology was a rhapsody of ill-invented nonsense, patched up partly of the moral doctrines of philosophers, and partly of poetical fictions and extravagant chimeras: That he ridiculed the holy scriptures, calling the Old Testament Ezra's fables, in profane allusion to Esop's Fables; That he railed on Christ, saying, he had learned magick in Egypt, which enabled him to perform those pranks which were called miracles: That he called the New Testament the history of the imposter Christ; That he said Moses was the better artist and the better politician; and he preferred Muhammad to Christ: That the Holy Scriptures were stuffed with such madness, nonsense, and contradictions, that he admired the stupidity of the world in being so long deluded by them: That he rejected the mystery of the Trinity as unworthy of refutation; and scoffed at the incarnation of Christ."
Many would consider the words mild and salient. Of interest is the take on Islam. Had he been executed eighty five years earlier, he'd have been burned at the stake, as the previous convicted blasphemer had been. Thomas Babington Macaulay said of Aikenhead's death that "the preachers who were the poor boy's murderers crowded round him at the gallows, and... insulted heaven with prayers more blasphemous than anything he had uttered."
We live in different times, Thomas' hero prophet has apparently approved the use of terrorism to address alleged blasphemy of newspaper Charlie Hebdo. In England, Thomas' execution was the last state sanctioned one for blaspheme, although there are recent attempts by one death cult to bring them back. 

Todays atrocities were committed by three who claimed to be aligned with Al Qaeda. The youngest, 18 years old, turned himself in. Two brothers, one 32 years old and the other 34 are said to be holed up in a siege. Twelve were killed at Charlie Hebdo as the three came in with assault rifles and a grenade launcher. On exiting, they killed a police officer who also happened to be Muslim. One likes to think that the Islamic world will line up in support of the policeman against the death cult. One might not agree with what Charlie Hebdo wrote, but yet defends to the death their right to write it. #illwrite4u

Another thing worthy of noting on this day in 1835 was the US national debt was zero for the last time. Pax Obama has resulted in a lot of death and debt. 
From 2014
One can almost hear Shirley Bassey belting out in tribute to Al Gore "Mr Cold Finger" .. his heart is cold. For him to profit, the poorest die miserable deaths of deprivation when their basic needs are not met. Important resources, some $trillion internationally, is spent trying to reduce production world wide. This skews wealth away from the poorest .. which is the exact opposite of what socialists claim they want, but then their understanding of economics is weak. Economics is not a zero sum game where wealth can be redistributed from the rich and the economic pie is static in size. Wealth redistribution from rich to poor weakens investment and does not help the poor. Paradoxically, for socialists, secure wealth for the rich makes poor people better off. But in those circumstances, socialists find it hard to exploit the poor for political power. So it is in the interests of socialists to keep poor people poor. 
Historical perspective on this day
In 307, Jin HuidiChinese Emperor of the Jin Dynasty, was poisoned and succeeded by his son Jin Huaidi. 387, Siyaj K'ak' conquers Waka. 871, Alfred the Great led a West Saxon army to repel an invasion by Danelaw Vikings. 1297, François Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, led his men to capture the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco, establishing his family as the rulers of Monaco. 1455, the Romanus Pontifex was written. 1499, Louis XII of Francemarried Anne of Brittany. 1697, last execution for blasphemy in Britain; of Thomas Aikenhead, student, at Edinburgh. 1734, premiere performance of George Frideric Handel's Ariodante at the Royal Opera HouseCovent Garden. 1746, Second Jacobite RisingBonnie Prince Charlieoccupied Stirling. 1790, George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address in New York, New York

In 1806, Cape Colony became a British colony. 1811, An unsuccessful slave revolt was led by Charles Deslondes in St. Charles and St. James, Louisiana. 1815, War of 1812Battle of New Orleans – Andrew Jackson led American forces in victory over the British. 1835, the United States national debt was zero for the only time. 1863, American Civil WarSecond Battle of Springfield 1867, African American men were granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C. 1877, Crazy Horse and his warriors fought their last battle against the United States Cavalry at Wolf MountainMontana Territory.  1889, Herman Hollerith was issued US patent#395,791 for the 'Art of Applying Statistics' — his punched card calculator. 

In 1904, the Blackstone Library was dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library system. 1906, a landslide in Haverstraw, New York, caused by the excavation of clay along the Hudson River, killed 20 people. 1912, the African National Congress was founded. 1918, President Woodrow Wilson announced his "Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I. 1920, the steel strike of 1919 ended in a complete failure for the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers labor union. 1940, World War II: Britain introduced food rationing. 1945, World War II: Philippine Commonwealth troops under the Philippine Commonwealth Army units entered the province of Ilocos Sur in Northern Luzon and attacked Japanese Imperial forces. 1956, Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries were killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them. 1961, in France a referendum supported Charles de Gaulle's policies in Algeria. 1962, the Harmelen train disaster killed 93 people in the Netherlands. 1963, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" in the United States. 

In 1971, bowing to international pressure, President of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhuttoreleased Bengali leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from prison, who had been arrested after declaring the independence of Bangladesh. 1973, Soviet space mission Luna 21 was launched. Also 1973, Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate began. 1975, Ella T. Grasso became Governor of Connecticut, the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States other than by succeeding her husband. 1977, Three bombs exploded in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Unionwithin 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings were attributed to an Armenian separatist group. 1979, the tanker Betelgeuse exploded in Bantry BayIreland. 1981, a local farmer reported a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France, claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time". 1982, the break up of AT&TAT&Tagreed to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions. 1989, Kegworth air disasterBritish MidlandFlight 92, a Boeing 737-400, crashed into the M1 motorway, killing 47 of the 126 people on board. 1989, beginning of Japanese Heisei period. 1994, Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakovon Soyuz TM-18 left for Mir. He would stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space. 1996, an Antonov An-32 cargo aircraft crashed into a crowded market in KinshasaZaire, killing up to 237 on the ground; the aircraft's crew of 6 survived the crash. 

In 2002, president George W. Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act. 2003, Turkish Airlines Flight 634 crashed near Diyarbakır AirportTurkey, killing the entire crew and 70 of 75 passengers. Also 2003, US Airways Express Flight 5481 crashed at Charlotte-Douglas Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina, killing all 21 people on board. 2004, the RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, was christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II. 2005,  the nuclear sub USS San Francisco collided at full speed with an undersea mountain south of Guam. One man was killed, but the sub surfaced and was repaired. 2009, a 6.1-magnitude earthquake in northern Costa Rica killed 15 people and injured 32. 2010, Gunmen from an offshoot the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda attacked the bus carrying the Togo national football team on its way to the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, killing three. 2011, the attempted assassination of ArizonaRepresentative Gabrielle Giffords and subsequent shooting in Casas Adobes, Arizonaat a Safeway grocery store, for which Jared Lee Loughner is subsequently arrested, kills six people and wounds 13, including Giffords.
=== 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.
===
I am publishing a book called Bread of Life: January

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

January is the first of the anticipated year-long work of thirteen books. One for each month and the whole year. It costs to publish. It (Kindle version) should retail at about $2US online, but the paperback version would cost more, according to production cost.
If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofund.me/27tkwuc
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with AugustSeptemberOctober, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows a free kindle version.

List of available items at Create Space
Happy birthday and many happy returns Doug Cummins and to those others born on this day, across the years, along with
Herman Hollerith
Much can be achieved disguised as a monk. Herman has let your vote count. Steel should never be theft. Many were lost in the war on poverty. Togo still field their team. Let's party. 
Deaths
===
Tim Blair 2018

===
Miranda Devine

Australia must help Christian refugees persecuted by ISIS

Taking in Christian refugees is essential, writes Miranda Devine. They will protect us against creeping Islamism because they know its warning signs. 
RENDEZVIEW 8 Jan  447 comments

Oh, Alan. The customer comes first — not the CEO

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce was among hundreds of passengers stranded in Dubai on NYE but he jumped on the first flight home, writes Miranda Devine. That’s not a good look.
RENDEZVIEW 7 Jan
===
Piers Akerman

Big play by Indonesian army general

THE current imbroglio with Indonesia highlights the failure of our military and our intelligence services to understand the intricacies of Indonesian politics.
PIERS AKERMAN 8 Jan
===

SENATORIAL SENDING STRUGGLE

Tim Blair – Friday, January 08, 2016 (5:08pm)

Immigration minister Peter Dutton isn’t the only politician to suffer recent telephone trouble. Here’s a text transcript detailing Labor senator Sam Dastyari’s attempts to file a Daily Telegraph column on fuel prices: 
Sam: What is your email?
Sam: Sent. A few too many words!
Tim: Hasn’t come through – maybe check that email address. 
Some time later: 
Tim: Still haven’t received it mate.
Sam: Oh god. Sent a while back. So sorry. Did it come?
Tim: Still not yet. Did you maybe send it to 2010? With your magical  time-travel phone?
Sam: Hahaha – too soon. 
Following further exchanges and email clarification, the column eventually arrived.
UPDATE. Van Badham stars in one of the most elaborately-planned yet least-attended anti-Dutton protests you will ever see. It’s worth watching the linked video, however, because it finally solves the mystery of how frightbats fly. Turns out they’re equipped with bingo wings.
===

LIZZIE’S LOST LOVE

Tim Blair – Friday, January 08, 2016 (1:44pm)

Just 44 days ago, Elizabeth Farrelly was madly in love with Malcolm Turnbull’s gigantic brain: 
Already, after only a few weeks, the country feels different. The air itself has a new edge. And that edge has a name. Intelligence …
Malcolm is different. His intelligence has light in it … Malcolm speaks to us not as a rabble of blithering chimps wanting their buttons pushed but as grownups, capable of considered argument, reasoned reflection and conscientious decision. 
Things have since changed
What’s in doubt is his judgment. The federal ministry, personally chosen by Turnbull, seems disproportionately populated by gropers, leakers, fibbers, fools, frauds, dickheads and dopes. 
But enough about Sydney Morning Herald staff. We need to hear more from Elizabeth on Turnbull’s illuminated, air-changing intellect.
===

BETTER TO DIE ON YOUR FEET

Tim Blair – Friday, January 08, 2016 (12:53pm)

One year after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Mark Steyn salutes those who fell
When everyone else is on their knees, the guy standing up kinda stands out. 
Of course, leftist “je suis Charlie” types have since returned to their default kneeling position.
===

SHE’S AN EDSEL

Tim Blair – Friday, January 08, 2016 (12:34pm)

Even her fellow lefties tire of Clementine Ford: 
Clem Ford tries to own Chris Kenny, makes complete idiot of herself. 
Hit the above link to discover the source of Fairfax columnist Ford’s latest problem: a simple sentence that she somehow totally misunderstood. Being in a state of perma-rage evidently degrades comprehension. Clementine’s victories – such as they are – generally come at the expense of those several rungs beneath her on the power and privilege ladders; against members of her own media class, she’s practically winless.
===

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN

Tim Blair – Friday, January 08, 2016 (12:41am)

Before Cologne there was Paris
A woman has made a lucky escape after a group of men sexually assaulted and attempted to rape her on a Paris train, reports say.
The 28-year-old woman was initially travelling in an empty carriage on an RER train in Paris on the night of December 9th when around ten men had got on the train at Montparnasse station …
Three of the men, reported to be Afghan refugees, followed her and soon began to assault her. One of them strangled her with her scarf and another held a knife to her face while the three men began to undress her …
By chance at the next station another passenger boarded the train and intervened to protect the victim. He managed to scare off the attackers.
Police were able to catch two of the alleged perpetrators thanks to the help of CCTV footage at the Montparnasse station. They were both Afghani refugees, aged 19 and 45 years old, men who the victim was able to identify, Le Parisien reported. 
Via Dylan Kissane, who emails: “This behavior needs to stop: maybe the Mayor of Paris can produce some sort of code of conduct to prevent women traveling on trains alone where they only encourage this sort of violence.”
UPDATE: 
At least 47 people were killed on Thursday when Libya’s worst bomb attack since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi hit a police training centre as hundreds of recruits gathered for a morning meeting.
No group immediately claimed the attack in the town of Zliten, but suicide blasts and car bombings have increased in Libya as Islamist militants have taken advantage of the North African country’s chaos to expand their presence. 
Then again, it could have been any one of Libya’s many brutal Presbyterian terrorist cells.
UPDATE III: 
A man shot dead by Parisian police as he tried to attack a police station on the first anniversary of the jihadist assault on Charlie Hebdo had a meat cleaver, an Islamic State emblem and a “fake” suicide vest.
The man, who was apparently of Moroccan origin and aged around 20, was also heard to shout “Allahu Akbar” as he approached the police station in the multi-ethnic neighbourhood in the north of the capital, the interior ministry said. 
===

END PRIMATE INEQUALITY NOW

Tim Blair – Friday, January 08, 2016 (12:31am)

Privileged gorillas get to talk about climate change while lowly monkeys aren’t even allowed to own copyright.
(Via J.F. Beck.) 
===

IS WOOD. IS GOOD.

Tim Blair – Friday, January 08, 2016 (12:20am)

At the 7:45 mark, a startling detail about the post-war German diet: 
Here is the factory near Arnsberg where liver sausage, made entirely from wood, is produced for the German civilians. Beechwood is used, but the product can also be made from pine. Ten tons a week is produced here and sold to the Germans in place of fish or meat. 
Take a look:

German-born Australian academic Raimond Gaita mentions this delightful dish in one of his books.
===

My chance at last to do a John Cargher - on Monday at 1pm

Andrew Bolt January 08 2016 (10:45am)

As a boy on the Eyre Peninsula I felt a bit marooned, culturally speaking. But there was one lifeline that had a huge impact on me - John Cargher’s Singers of Renown, broadcast every Saturday afternoon by the ABC.
Cargher presented his program for an astonishing 42 years, introducing literally generations of Australians like me to opera. Amazingly, he’d left school at 13 to work in a factory. Cargher died of cancer in 2008 just four days after announcing his retirement. This was the famous theme music of his show (from 22:42):
I once had the huge good fortune of bumping into him at the Melbourne ABC studios and stammering out my appreciation for the gift he’d given me. He generously had lunch with me in the cafeteria, where I committed a faux pas. I crassly asked him to nominate the best tenor. I now understand perfectly his answer: that it was impossible to rank singers as crudely as that, since each voice was unique.
Anyway, I mention all that because I’ve finally got the chance to do a Cargher. A new friend, Ron Deane, presents an opera show on a community radio station on the Mornington Peninsula,PPFM at 98.7, and has asked me to come on Monday’s show for a chat and a playlist.
I am so excited. Listen to us here on Monday at 1pm.
I’ll post my playlist after the big day. It will include one of the greatest performances of one of most famous Neapolitan songs, composed by an American and sung by a Corsican. Plus there’s a duet, absolutely wonderful, that Cargher introduced to me, and a tribute to a soprano I once worked with who was one of the nicest people I ever met - and who would have been a great star had she not died so young. 
===

Refugee scandal: How Germany’s politicians and police betrayed German women

Andrew Bolt January 08 2016 (10:15am)

The mass attacks on German women by Muslim immigrants has exposed a common and cowardly evasion of duty by politicians and journalists of the West - a refusal to report the truth about crime by immigrants:
On New Year’s Eve, about 400 to 500 young men had gathered outside the city’s main train station and its famed Gothic cathedral by 9 p.m. Two hours later, their number had risen to at least 1,000, and many were drunk and out of control… 
That night, a few crying distraught women turned to the police for help, describing that they had been fondled and/or robbed on the square in front of the main train station by young, drunk men that looked North African or Arab…
At around nine a.m. on New Year’s Day, the Cologne police in a press statement described the night as “relaxed” and mostly peaceful - an assessment they soon had to correct as a grave misinterpretation…

Sporadic reports of harassment and sexual assaults started emerging on Facebook, and a local paper quoted two young women who recounted groping and theft, as well as the police force’s apparent helplessness. 
As January 2 - Saturday - drew to a close, 30 women had registered criminal complaints for sexual harassment and theft… On Monday, the German press started to pick up on the story. At a press conference, Cologne police reported on their findings, which chief of police Wolfgang Albers termed “a new dimension of crime.” 
The number of criminal complaints has now risen to 120, and includes two alleged rapes.
Yet journalists were no better than the police:
The events have since come to dominate German media, but following a barrage of complaints on social media that the New Year’s Eve events were deliberately under-reported amid fears they would encourage anti-immigrant sentiment, Germany’s public broadcaster, ZDF, was forced to apologise for its decision not to report on the attacks until Tuesday, four days after they had occurred. 
“The news situation was clear enough,” the show’s deputy chief editor, Elmar Thevessen, wrote on the Heute (Today) programme’s Facebook page. “It was a mistake of the 7pm Heute show not to at least report the incidents."… He said at a time when people were concerned about the future of German society, after so many refugee arrivals, that it was wrong to “pussy-foot around with the truth” rather than “reflect reality”.
This is part of that reality in Germany now - attacks on women not just in Cologne but in major cities across Germany:
Hundreds of sexual assaults on women, including harassment, molestation and rapes, were reported to police in Cologne, Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Munich and Düsseldorf. The women said the perpetrators were mostly Arab and north African migrants.
And this is also part of that reality:
Alarmingly, a spokesman for police in the nearby city of Dusseldorf said officers there have identified more than 2,000 suspects of North African origin in connection with organized theft offences since the start of 2014.
Ignore the excuses and evasions still made by some German politicians and police:
Cologne’s mayor, Henriette Reker, told reporters: “It’s completely improper… to link a group that appeared to come from North Africa with the refugees.” Her comments were echoed by Wolfgang Albers, Cologne’s police chief, who said it was “absolutely inadmissible” to speculate that the perpetrators were refugees. 
In fact:
A local newspaper, Cologne’s Express, reports that fifteen asylum-seekers from Syria and Afghanistan who had “only been in Germany for a few weeks” were briefly held by police in connection with the on New Year’s Eve sex attacks… 
“We arrested 15 people. These people have been in Germany for only a few days or weeks,” said an unnamed officer. “Of these 15 people 14 are from Syria and one from Afghanistan...”
And the key point is surely this: that whether most of perpetrators came last year or years earlier, they and most new “refugees” come from a culture with very different attitudes to women.
Now even Germany’s Chancellor admits - too late - there could actually be a dangerous clash of cultures now that she’s let in a million illegal immigrants in a single year:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the mass sexual assault of women by groups of men in Cologne is part of a pattern and for the first time suggested a possible link with migrants… 
“The events there raise very serious questions that go beyond Cologne – whether there are connections, common patterns of behaviour and is there something like contempt for women among certain groups,” Ms Merkel told a news conference in Berlin.  
But the infuriating and disgraceful fact is that this clash was evident for years - and would have been more obvious had so many politicians not tried to hide it and so many journalists refused to report it:
Iraqis, Iranians, Turks and Somalis are dramatically overrepresented among convicted rapists in Denmark. More than half of convicted rapists in 2010 have immigrant backgrounds, according to official data from Statistics Denmark… Immigrants and their descendants account for only ten percent of the Danish population.
And In Sweden, which took in more than 100,000 illegal immigrants last year: 
Twenty-one research reports from the 1960s until today are unanimous in their conclusions: Whether or not they measured by the number of convicted rapists or men suspected of rape, men of foreign extraction were represented far more than Swedes. And this greater representation of persons with a foreign background keeps increasing: 
- 2000s – 2.1 to 19.5 times as often as Swedes
In Germany, too, there was evidence that immigration of men from the Muslim Third World was putting women in Germany in increased danger - again, a fact that German authorities tended to cover up. This report is from the Gatestone Institute in September:
A growing number of women and young girls housed in refugee shelters in Germany are being raped, sexually assaulted and even forced into prostitution by male asylum seekers… 
At the same time, growing numbers of German women in towns and cities across the country are being raped by asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Many of the crimes are being downplayed by German authorities and the national media, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.
On August 18, a coalition of four social work organizations and women’s rights groups sent a two-page letter to the leaders of the political parties in the regional parliament in Hesse, a state in west-central Germany, warning them of the worsening situation for women and children in the refugee shelters. The letter said: 

“The ever-increasing influx of refugees has complicated the situation for women and girls at the receiving center in Giessen (HEAE) and its subsidiaries… The consequences are numerous rapes and sexual assaults...”
After several blogs ... drew attention to the letter, the LandesFrauenRat (LFR) Hessen, a women’s lobbying group that originally uploaded the politically incorrect document to its website, abruptly removed it on September 14, without explanation…
Meanwhile, parents are being warned to look after their daughters. Police in the Bavarian town of Mering, where a 16-year-old-girl was raped on September 11, have issued a warning to parents not to allow their children to go outside unaccompanied. They have also advised women not to walk to or from the train station alone because of its proximity to a refugee shelter.
In the Bavarian town of Pocking, administrators of the Wilhelm-Diess-Gymnasium have warned parents not to let their daughters wear revealing clothing in order to avoid “misunderstandings” with the 200 Muslim refugees housed in emergency accommodations in a building next to the school. The letter said: 

“The Syrian citizens are mainly Muslim and speak Arabic. The refugees have their own culture. Because our school is directly next to where they are staying, modest clothing should be worn in order to avoid disagreements. Revealing tops or blouses, short shorts or miniskirts could lead to misunderstandings.”
A local politician quoted by Die Welt newspaper said:
“When Muslim teenage boys go to open air swimming pools, they are overwhelmed when they see girls in bikinis. These boys, who come from a culture where for women it is frowned upon to show naked skin, will follow girls and bother them without their realizing it. Naturally, this generates fear.”
Eager to seem good, many journalists have ignored their primary duty - to tell the truth. And now Germany will pay.
UPDATE
And don’t forget that greatest threat that’s been imported:
Police shot and killed a man wearing a fake explosive vest who threatened them with a butcher’s knife at a Paris police station on Thursday, a year almost to the minute after two Islamic extremists burst into the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 11 people and unleashing a bloody 12 months in the French capital. 
The Paris prosecutor’s anti-terrorism unit opened an investigation after police found a cell phone, a piece of paper with an emblem of the Islamic State group, and “an unequivocal written claim of responsibility in Arabic” with the man’s body, the prosecutor’s office said.... The man at the police station is believed to have cried out “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.” 
UPDATE
Don’t think Australia’s politicians, police and media are any more likely to tell you the truth about immigrant crime.
Remember how then Victoria Police chief Christine Nixon falsely claimed Sudanese refugees were “under-represented” in crime rates? How Labor frontbencher Mark Dreyfus falsely claimed the crime-riddled “multicultural” community of Dandenong was actually ”harmonious”?  How our police refuse to release information on the ethnicity of criminals even when it might help us to catch criminals or understand and prevent new trends in crime?  How reporters also regularly omit ethnic or religious descriptors which would help us to understand crimes with a clearly cultural dimension, or even to help identify and catch (immigrant) suspects? How the Melbourne media failed to report a brawl by about 200 Africans in the middle of Melbourne on New Year’s Eve in 2003?  How a senior ABC presenter said she knew of no ”links of people who have come in as refugees and then committed terrorist offences” - a bizarre statement best explained by the reluctance of many ABC journalists to actually report such links?
UPDATE
Now Switzerland is reporting the same phenomenon:
In Switzerland, about six women have reported being sexually molested and robbed during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Zurich after being surrounded by groups of men… A total of about six women now say they were sexually assaulted after entering a “crowd of multiple men with dark coloured skin,” police in the biggest Swiss city said in a statement.
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How untrustworthy Obama betrayed Israel and destroyed peace in the Middle East

Andrew Bolt January 08 2016 (10:00am)

Michael Oren, the historian and Israel’s former ambassador to Washington, gives a fascinating interview in which Barack Obama is revealed as a snake - particularly when it comes to dealing with Israel.
For instance:
Israel had no advance warning of [Obama’s 2009] Cairo speech. Complete shock.... [O]n the previous day, on May 18, 2011, I was in the White House, and I asked, “OK, what’s in the speech?” There was a lot of excitement around the speech. This was going to be the president’s major address about the Arab Spring, which had broken out five months earlier in Egypt… 
I had long anticipated that the administration may say something about [a peace deal involving some kind of return to] the ‘67 borders, but I received assurance that it wasn’t going to be there. And roughly a quarter of the speech of May 19 was about the ‘67 borders, and it became the headline. The headline in the New York Times was, “President Obama Endorses the ‘67 Borders.” The rest of the speech, about the Arab Spring, went virtually unreported. …
Now, for Israel, this was a major development… Our major highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem runs through the ‘67 borders. The ‘67 borders includes our holiest site, the Western Wall. It puts the Palestinian state’s borders within mortar range of Israel’s airport. Very problematic. … 
So again, it pushed the Palestinians away from the table, but also created great problems for the prime minister, and it was a breach of trust… We’re talking about the lives of our kids here. You’ve got to be able to be able to put your trust in somebody, and particularly in your best ally.
Other examples are given.
Oren adds:
Israel was also stunned to learn that Mr. Obama offered to sponsor a U.N. Security Council investigation of the settlements and to back Egyptian and Turkish efforts to force Israel to reveal its alleged nuclear capabilities. 
Joe Pollack:
The most explosive passage in Michael Oren’s new book on the frayed U.S.-Israel relationship is ... about Obama himself. 
Struggling to understand how Obama – who has genuine empathy for Israel, Oren says – could adopt policies and postures so hostile to the Jewish state, Oren turns to Obama’s first memoir, Dreams from My Father.
What he reads shocks him: 

More alarming for me still were Obama’s attitudes towards America. Vainly, I scoured Dreams from My Father for some expression of reverence, even respect, for the country its author would someday lead. Instead, the book criticizes Americans for their capitalism and consumer culture, for despoiling their environment and maintaining antiquated power structures. Traveling abroad, they exhibited “ignorance and arrogance"–the very shortcomings the president’s critics assigned to him.
More from Pollack on Oren’s book,  Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide:
Because Obama sees nothing special about America, its dominance in the world presents a moral problem for him. As president, Oren notes, Obama set out to solve that problem by courting America’s enemies and shunning its allies… The result was nearly incessant pressure on Israel.
Oren writes how Obama’s approach to [a deal on Iran over its nuclear weapons program] for example, set the stage for clashes with Israel, which has no room for error in gauging Iran’s intentions…

Oren writes, bitterly: “Most disturbing for me personally was the realization that our closest ally had entreated with our deadliest enemy on an existential issue without so much as informing us....”
Obama also erred in (belatedly) embracing the Arab Spring, Oren writes – a posture that Israeli officials described as “madness,” given the likely radical Islamist takeover. In demanding that then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak leave office “now,” Oren says, Obama undermined the value of the U.S. as an ally.
He adds: “That single act of betrayal – as Middle Easterners, even those opposed to Mubarak, saw it – contrasted jarringly with Obama’s earlier refusal to support the Green Revolution against the hostile regime in Iran.” ...
The wild fluctuations in Obama’s foreign policy continued in Syria, where Hillary Clinton called dictator Bashar Assad a “reformer,” in spite of gruesome evidence to the contrary. Eager to appease Iran, the Obama administration quietly tried to keep Assad in power before flip-flopping…
Oren ... points out, when Netanyahu tried to give Obama what he wanted, his efforts were barely acknowledged. 
For example, when Netanyahu gave a speech endorsing a Palestinian state in 2009 – becoming the first Likud prime minister to do so – the White House ignored him. Instead, the pressure on Israel continued, causing the Palestinians to dig in and refuse to compromise… 
Oren sums up: Obama sabotaged any hope of a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians:
The fact of the matter is that there was a direct correlation between the amount of pressure put publicly on Israel and the settlements and the reluctance of the Palestinians to negotiate. And eventually they just walked away from the table.
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Our China syndrome

Andrew Bolt January 08 2016 (7:49am)

If China falls, it will take Australia with it:
A loss of confidence in the ability of Beijing to manage the downturn in the Chinese economy has sent shares plunging for the fifth successive day, amid fears it will spark a new bout of global ­instability. 
As legendary investor George Soros warned of a “crisis” to rival the global downturn in 2008, the Australian sharemarket slumped another 2.3 per cent to take investor losses to $87 billion in the first four trading sessions of the year…Chinese authorities yesterday closed the Shanghai sharemarket for the second time this week, after the price fall hit the 7 per cent level ruled as the maximum permitted in any one trading day. Markets were also rattled by a sharp fall in the Chinese currency.
And:
The Australian dollar has fallen to a three month low as concerns about the Chinese economy push the currency and share markets even lower this week.
But what is our political class doing about cutting spending? Restoring a Budget surplus to at least give us a fighting fund? Reforming our workplaces to make us more competitive?
Instead, the timid Turnbull Government is turning from even the easiest challenges, as former deputy Treasury secretary Des Moore notes:
Immediately following the publication by Justice Heydon of the Royal Commission on Trade Union Governance and Corruption, on 30 December the government issued a press release by the joint team of Turnbull, Brandis and Cash acknowledging the assessment of “a ‘widespread’ and ‘deep seated’ culture of lawlessness among many union officials. It also said it would submit improved legislation on regulating the construction industry and (separately) on the governance of trade unions. It promised to give full and careful consideration to the recommendations in the final report and “announce a detailed response to the public in early 2016”.   
Four out of the twelve parts of Volume 2 of the final report contained critical commentary on the behaviour of the CFMEU. One such commentary (on CFMEU Queensland) provides an idea of the tone, viz 
“The mass destruction of documents by the CFMEU Queensland was as great a danger to the rule of law as any threat of violence on a building site, any illegal strike, any corrupt payment, any blatant non-compliance with legal standards”.
Potential criminal offences were listed and 10 CFMEU officials or former officials were listed as referrals for possible prosecution.
Today’s Australian reports that, notwithstanding the widespread corruption and criminality revealed in the report, Employment Minister Michaelia Cash had indicated that the government would “not move to deregister the CFMEU but will instead seek to transform the ‘perverse culture’ and ‘mindset’ across the construction industry"… It appears that, as the report did not recommend deregistering, the government has decided there should be no deregistration come what may. The report itself offer some support for this viz “Cancelling the registration of the whole union may have a disproportionate effect on union members who have not been ­involved in illegal activity”.
But this seems an odd comment for the government to accept as a basis for a decision on the treatment of the CFMEU: would investors in a project be allowed to keep their investment if they were not involved in the criminal activity which caused the project to collapse? The large number of CFMEU members who have participated in marches may have included some who have not been involved in illegal activity but they certainly supported it and would have been well aware of the lawless action being taken by their union. 
More importantly, the decision and other comments by Minister Cash, doubtless with guidance from Turnbull, in the attached seem to be sending the “soft” signal before the detailed response to the report is made. She is wrong, for example, to imply that lawless action is confined to the construction industry and that legislative reform of the regulatory arrangements in that industry should be the principal aim. 
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Paris attack has assailed our freedom

Piers Akerman – Thursday, January 08, 2015 (8:20pm)

ONCE again, masked murderers shouting “Allahu Akbar” have conducted a barbaric attack on a group of Westerners, slaughtering 10 civilians and two security officers. 

 Continue reading 'Paris attack has assailed our freedom'
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PARIS ATTACK LATEST

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 08, 2015 (12:06pm)

Three suspects identified
They were named as brothers Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, both French nationals in their early 30s, and 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, whose nationality is unclear.
The brothers have been named in media reports as Saïd, 34, and Cherif Kouachi, 32. They are believed to have grown up in the same neighbourhood as the Charlie Hebdo newsroom.
It is understood the brothers returned to France from Syria last year. Cherif may have served prison time in 2008 for involvement in an Iraqi jihadist group operating out of France.
The youngest member, said to be Hamyd Mourad, 18, is believed to be on the run in Reims.
The regional newspaper L’Union-L’Ardennais in Reims states a search by heavily armed police and helicopters is continuing in the city and that one of the suspects is believed to be a local. 
Here’s today’s edition of German newspaper BZ.
UPDATE. Salman Rushdie
Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect. 
UPDATE I. The New Yorker‘s George Packer
A religion is not just a set of texts but the living beliefs and practices of its adherents. Islam today includes a substantial minority of believers who countenance, if they don’t actually carry out, a degree of violence in the application of their convictions that is currently unique. Charlie Hebdo had been nondenominational in its satire, sticking its finger into the sensitivities of Jews and Christians, too – but only Muslims responded with threats and acts of terrorism. 
Do read on.
UPDATE III. The police officer executed in the street by the Charlie Hebdo killers was a Muslim:
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PARIS ATTACKED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 07, 2015 (11:57pm)

Ten people killed by Islamic terrorists in central Paris: 
At least 10 people have been killed by gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs and a rocket-launcher, after they opened fire in the offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, Paris prosecutors say ...
The French president Francois Hollande headed to the scene of the attack and the government said it was raising France’s security level to the highest notch.
“This is a terrorist attack, there is no doubt about it,” Mr Hollande said. 
Sky News reports that the killers screamed “Allahu Akbar” as they commenced their attack.
UPDATE. The death toll is now said to be 12, and the killers are on the loose. The murderers shouted “we have avenged the prophet” during the bloodshed.
UPDATE II. Fairfax seems to think there is some doubt about this being a terrorist attack:

UPDATE III. The UK Telegraph
At least 12 people were killed, including cartoonists Charb, Wolinksi, Cabu and Tignous …
The Islamic terrorists reportedly called out their victims by name. And then they killed cartoonists and writers.
UPDATE IV. Mike Carlton in August: 
“Every journalist in town will tell you that you cross the Jewish lobby, the Israel lobby, the Likud lobby at your peril.” 
Tell it to the staffers at Charlie Hebdo, Mike. If you can find any who are still alive.
UPDATE V
A police source told Libération newspaper that an “organised commando”, two “calm and determined gunmen, went directly up to the editorial room and knew their target in advance.”
“It was Charb they were targeting. The two attackers looked for him in the room, shouting, ‘Where is Charb?’ Where is Charb?’
“They killed him then sprayed everyone else,” he said … 
UPDATE VI. Claire Berlinski speaks for the West. (Via Instapundit.)
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In their defence, they are egged on by media too .. the current two brothers who committed this assault were said to be uncommitted to Islam until after the press went hysterical over Abu Graib and the invasion of Iraq. Those terrorists read our press and see their idiocy legitimised.
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The Australian Greens applaud this cold-blooded murder in the strongest possible terms.

We stand against the people of France and the global press today. We stand in defiance of freedom of expression and against the unspeakable and terrifying violence that was the Mohammad cartoon drawn by Charlie Hebdo. 

Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with all those affected by this brutal drawing.

The cartoon was an inhumane and heartless atrocity that had no basis in our legal system and went against everything we stand for as a progressive society. 

To all the staff of Charlie Hebdo, their families and friends and the people of Paris and France: you brought this upon yourselves the moment you decided to offend someone. 

- The Aussie Greens

Satire .. but we don't know if t is satire of, or by the Greens===

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A century ago, Australians and Frenchmen were in the trenches of the Western Front fighting and dying to defend France and uphold the freedoms cherished by us both. And our servicemen and women are together in freedom's fight today.

We are heartbroken by the news from Paris and our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families and the people of France whose liberty and security has been so grievously attacked in the terrorists' massacre of the staff of the newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris yesterday.

This attack was a murderous assault on civilisation and in particular on one of its key foundations - a free and independent press. It was an attack on every free society and on every journalist, every cartoonist, every newspaper, every broadcaster.

Thousands of Parisians have filled the Place de la Republique to show their solidarity, their compassion, their love of liberty and their determination not to be intimidated by terrorists and their cult of hate and death. 

"Je suis Charlie" their signs read.

From Australia, and around the world, we can all say today "Nous sommes aussi Charlie."
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The Government condemns the atrocity in Paris overnight.
The thoughts of all Australians are with the families of those who have lost their lives in this barbaric act.
Freedom of expression is the cornerstone of a free society.
The Government will continue to do all it can to protect our community from terrorism.
Our National Terrorism Alert level remains at High, which means a terrorist attack is likely.
Our security agencies are assessing the situation for security implications to Australia but there is no information to suggest that there is an imminent threat to Australia as a result of the Paris atrocity.
All Australians should remain vigilant, and again, I urge people who see or hear something that they feel is not right, to contact the National Security Hotline immediately on 1800 123 400.
Australia stands with the people and the government of France at this difficult time.
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regarding Palin/McCain/ Romney not directly challenging over the issues, I feel that political convention would have restrained them. They are spokespeople, not tyrants, and they would have to talk within agreed bounds. Without that, politics goes downhill very fast. This does not dispute the voracity of Shoebat, but positions it.
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TOO COLD FOR POLEYS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 08, 2014 (4:51am)

polar pig hits the US, and a polar bear moves inside.
UPDATE. In other bear news
Alright, Bao Bao, this is your big moment. The world is watching. Time to shine. Do your species proud! 
UPDATE II. This is what a millionaire American warmist looks like when you mock his religion:


“Oh, no no no no no …
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This anti-speeding ad from New Zealand will haunt you
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/this-antispeeding-ad-from-new-zealand-will-haunt-you/story-fnixwvgh-1226797541715
WWW.NEWS.COM.AU
ANTI-SPEEDING ads have been done to death, which is perfectly appropriate when you consider how many people die every year because of speeding.
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www.news.com.au
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mentalfloss.com
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www.news.com.au
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" The country's biggest health insurer was valued at $4 billion during the Howard government years and its sale is expected to help pay down government debt, which is forecast to peak at $400 billion within four years.
"I strongly believe that the private sector owning commercial assets will bring about a lot more productive use of the assets than government ownership of the assets," Mr Sims said."

SELLING THE FARM TO PAY FOR GREEN LABOR'S SIX YEARS OF ECONOMIC VANDALISM.
www.smh.com.au

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foxnewsinsider.com
Well, they did vote for Obama .. ed
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 Joseph Campbell
"My general formula for my students is ‘Follow your bliss.’ Find where it is, and don’t be afraid to follow it … If the work you are doing is the work that you chose to do because you are enjoying it, that’s it. But if you think, 'Oh no, I couldn’t do that!' that’s the dragon locking you in. 'No, no, I couldn’t be a writer,' or 'No, no, I couldn’t possibly be doing what So-and-so is doing.' 

"Any world is a valid world if it’s alive. The thing to do is to bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find in your own case where the life is and become alive yourself."

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
Yes Joseph. One can only wonder at all those who cheated themselves by not doing what they wanted. - ed
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"The suspects rounded up Tuesday are accused of scamming millions in disability benefits by falsely claiming to suffer from stress-relates illnesses."

www.theblaze.com
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Tom Waits .. showing a horse drawing of a horse leaping to freedom http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FVp2ipKEJw
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Today in Rangoon, hundreds of Burmese journalists protested the unjust sentencing of a local reporter. Said organizer Myint Kyaw: "If we keep silent about this case, it will set a precedent and more journalists may be imprisoned later in similar circumstances under criminal charges.”

In related news, the Burmese government is warning a local journal that published pieces critical of President Thein Sein to abide by so-called "media ethics."

www.irrawaddy.org
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dcclothesline.com
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Conservative politics isn't monolithic, like leftwing politics, but instead diverse in opinion and emphasis. It is ok to disagree on small things. Of course, the papers call such diversity disunity .. ed
www.smh.com.au
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news.investors.com
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www.jewsnews.co.il
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www.israelhayom.com
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www.gatestoneinstitute.org
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israelisoldiersmother.blogspot.com
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www.nytimes.com
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www.frontpagemag.com
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english.chosun.com
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www.breakingisraelnews.com
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www.nytimes.com
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www.embooks.com
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calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.se
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pjmedia.com
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www.virtualjerusalem.com
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www.israelnationalnews.com
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www.israelnationalnews.com
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calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.se
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www.jpost.com
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pjmedia.com
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pjmedia.com
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www.jpost.com
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www.jpost.com
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“Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” -Ephesians 5:1-2
Following a parent’s example is natural. Even orphaned children try to, with those they imprint on. And God is the ultimate Father. He loves us and indulges us. And so it is natural to want to copy Him. 

But How? How does one follow Jesus? Should they attempt signs and wonders? Except signs and wonders are the pointers, the revelation of who Jesus was. Signs and wonders are not what Jesus calls us to do in following him, but being witnesses. The Holy Spirit still does perform signs and wonders today. But how does one follow Jesus?

We will die. Giving our life to the Lord is a small part of the choices we make. We must make it our life in devotion to Him. Work hard. Be trustworthy. Raise a family. Be kind. Be generous. Raise your children to know the Lord. Remember, there is always more to do, but don’t despair. For the Lord knows our heart and sees your choices. 
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

January 7: Morning
"For me to live is Christ." - Philippians 1:21
The believer did not always live to Christ. He began to do so when God the Holy Spirit convinced him of sin, and when by grace he was brought to see the dying Saviour making a propitiation for his guilt. From the moment of the new and celestial birth the man begins to live to Christ. Jesus is to believers the one pearl of great price, for whom we are willing to part with all that we have. He has so completely won our love, that it beats alone for him; to his glory we would live, and in defence of his gospel we would die; he is the pattern of our life, and the model after which we would sculpture our character. Paul's words mean more than most men think; they imply that the aim and end of his life was Christ--nay, his life itself was Jesus. In the words of an ancient saint, he did eat, and drink, and sleep eternal life. Jesus was his very breath, the soul of his soul, the heart of his heart, the life of his life. Can you say, as a professing Christian, that you live up to this idea? Can you honestly say that for you to live is Christ? Your business--are you doing it for Christ? Is it not done for self- aggrandizement and for family advantage? Do you ask, "Is that a mean reason?" For the Christian it is. He professes to live for Christ; how can he live for another object without committing a spiritual adultery? Many there are who carry out this principle in some measure; but who is there that dare say that he hath lived wholly for Christ as the apostle did? Yet, this alone is the true life of a Christian--its source, its sustenance, its fashion, its end, all gathered up in one word--Christ Jesus. Lord, accept me; I here present myself, praying to live only in thee and to thee. Let me be as the bullock which stands between the plough and the altar, to work or to be sacrificed; and let my motto be, "Ready for either."
Evening
"My sister, my spouse." - Song of Solomon 4:12
Observe the sweet titles with which the heavenly Solomon with intense affection addresses his bride the church. "My sister, one near to me by ties of nature, partaker of the same sympathies. My spouse, nearest and dearest, united to me by the tenderest bands of love; my sweet companion, part of my own self. My sister, by my Incarnation, which makes me bone of thy bone and flesh of thy flesh; my spouse, by heavenly betrothal, in which I have espoused thee unto myself in righteousness. My sister, whom I knew of old, and over whom I watched from her earliest infancy; my spouse, taken from among the daughters, embraced by arms of love, and affianced unto me forever. See how true it is that our royal Kinsman is not ashamed of us, for he dwells with manifest delight upon this two-fold relationship. We have the word "my" twice in our version; as if Christ dwelt with rapture on his possession of his Church. "His delights were with the sons of men," because those sons of men were his own chosen ones. He, the Shepherd, sought the sheep, because they were his sheep; he has gone about "to seek and to save that which was lost," because that which was lost was his long before it was lost to itself or lost to him. The church is the exclusive portion of her Lord; none else may claim a partnership, or pretend to share her love. Jesus, thy church delights to have it so! Let every believing soul drink solace out of these wells. Soul! Christ is near to thee in ties of relationship; Christ is dear to thee in bonds of marriage union, and thou art dear to him; behold he grasps both of thy hands with both his own, saying, "My sister, my spouse." Mark the two sacred holdfasts by which thy Lord gets such a double hold of thee that he neither can nor will ever let thee go. Be not, O beloved, slow to return the hallowed flame of his love.
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Magog 

[Mā'gŏg] - expansion or increase of family.
The second son of Japheth and founder of descendants occupying Magog, or Scythia (Gen. 10:21 Chron. 1:5Ezek. 38:2; 39:6;Rev. 20:8 ). The grandson of Noah was the father of those Josephus calls the "Magogites," and those the Greeks call "Scythians." When Ezekiel used the terms Gog and Magog, he used them in a historical sense of the future, referring to the Prince of the Northern Confederacy and his scope of rule, and they are thus literally to be understood. Gog is the symbolic designation for the future head of all nations embraced within the Northern Confederacy (Ezek. 38; 39 ). Magog is the symbolic territory covered. When the Apostle John uses the terms it is to describe the wicked on the earth at the close of Christ's millennial reign, and is thus to be symbolically understood. Gog and Magog in the Book of Revelation are to be thought of in a moral, not a geographical sense (Rev. 20:8).
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Today's reading: Genesis 18-19, Matthew 6:1-18 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Genesis 18-19

The Three Visitors
1 The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground....

Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 6:1-18

Giving to the Needy
1 "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

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