Sunday, September 15, 2013

Sun Sep 15th Todays News

The left have strange ideas about success. Obama has found more dithering over Syria, by putting off a resolution until halfway through next year. UN like that delay. Syrian victims of violence might not feel it is acceptable, but you can't please everyone. In Australia, the PM elect has elected to stay in barracks with his security detail while the PM's ACT residence is being maintained. Deputy Liberal Leader Julie Bishop has cancelled first class airfares in favour of business class flights on ministerial journeys. Rudd hasn't said that he would resign yet, but his heart doesn't seem to be in it with the perks gone. Antony Lowenstein despairs that the GFC did not deliver enough pain to keep his people in office. Gillard recognises that the Copenhagen junket hurt the AGW lobby, but hasn't yet worked out how. 
People said the Australian economy was being destroyed by the left. In fact, it was being badly damaged. Good policy can address it, but the lost opportunity for all of Australia is difficult to accurately describe .. a Bradfield scheme could have been funded several times over permanently lowering the temperature on very hot days and watering the central Australian desert with fresh water. But instead we have corruption issues we have to negotiate. The federal pedophile investigation began in NSW, without the inquiry looking into Education at this time .. what has schooling to do with young people? 
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Happy birthday and many happy returns Marco Polo (1254), William Howard Taft (1857), Joseph Lyons (1879), Agatha Christie (1890), Tommy Lee Jones (1946), Prince Harry of Wales (1984), Heidi Montag (1986) and Jake Cherry (1996). Born on the same day, across the years. On your day, International Day of Democracy; Independence Day in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua (1821); Battle of Britain Day in the United Kingdom
1440 – French knight Gilles de Rais, one of the earliest known serial killers, was taken into custody upon an accusation brought against him by the Bishop of Nantes.
1831 – The John Bull, the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world, ran for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.
1916 – Tanks, the "secret weapons" of the British Army during the First World War, were first used in combat at the Battle of the Somme in Somme, Picardy, France, leading to strategic Allied victory.
1944 – American and Australian forces landed on the Japanese-occupied island of Morotai, starting the Battle of Morotai.
1963 – A bomb planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan exploded in the 16th Street Baptist Church, an African American Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, US, killing four children and injuring at least 22 others.
My brother, fishing often caught fish by gills. And he is quite fit and determined, as John Ball should be. Tanks are great for tropical fish. The battle has begun. Remember to despise the KKK and all such bigots. Show compassion for their victims.
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How Greens and Labor destroy economies

Piers Akerman – Sunday, September 15, 2013 (5:00am)

DESPITE the determined efforts of the nation’s largest media organisation, Our ABC, and the rapidly diminishing Fairfax Group, to promote the electoral fortunes of the skulking leaker Julian Assange and the economy-destroying Greens, voters spectacularly rejected the blatant propagandising.
Assange, still evading Swedish warrants from his hide-out in Ecuador’s London embassy, appears to have attracted 0.08 per cent of the quota needed to win a Senate seat despite the support he received from Radio National, Q & A and other taxpayer-funded programs.
If the ABC is providing the programming its audience demands, the Assange result says a lot about the ABC audience.
Similarly with the Greens. Nationally, the whingers’ party saw its vote fall by nearly 3.5 per cent to 8.34 per cent.
To best illustrate the Green disease and to partially explain the electorate’s disenchantment with Labor, look the example of the Apple Isle.
In Tasmania, the State in which the Greens have had more engagement with taxpayers than in any other region except the Peoples’ Republic of Canberra, the Green vote was spectacularly halved, down by 8.75 per cent to just 8.07 per cent.
Labor’s vote in Tasmania was also smashed with dramatic swings against sitting Labor MPs which reflected not only the national disgust with the ALP but also the abhorrence Tasmanians feel for the State branch which, in true Labor form, broke its 2010 election promise not to form a minority government with the Greens and has suffered for its dishonesty ever since.
Before the poll, Labor’s David Bartlett promised not to do a deal with the Greens to stay in power, saying it was “a deal with the devil”.
Cutely, he reversed that call and plighted his troth to Tasmanian Greens leader Nick McKim after a trust-building bike ride up Mount Wellington.
McKim is now Minister for Sustainable Transport (that must ?mean? bike riding) as well as Corrections and Education Minister in the minority government.
Yesterday, Tasmania achieved a rare double. It not only recorded the highest unemployment level (8.6 per cent) in the nation, it was also found to rank highest in terms of the number of people with key risk factors for heart disease and stroke.
Since Labor and the Greens formed the minority government they promised not to in 2010, 10,000 full-time jobs have been lost. They have managed to wreck the State budget, with this year’s forecast to be the worst budget deficit on record ($400 million).
They have devastated Tasmania’s forestry industry through an infamous “peace deal” which did not actually deliver peace (protests are continuing), and the promised pulp mill is a pipe dream.
Tens of thousands of Tasmanians remain unemployed.
Meanwhile the Greens enjoy the patronage of well-heeled, well-intentioned elite sponsors like Greens donor Graeme Wood, founder of Wotif, whose $1.6 million donation to the Greens is the largest given by an individual in Australian political history.
Labor is supported by Jan Cameron, founder of the Kathmandu chain and owner of the now-bankrupt Chickenfeed shops, who gave Labor a $45,000 cheque. Together, they bought the Triabunna woodchip mill in 2011 and shut it down to pressure the forest industry into signing up to the notorious “peace” deal.
The Greens and their deep-pocketed sponsors promised those thrown out of work would all be retrained to work in eco-friendly industries. It didn’t happen.
The Greens are also responsible for destroying the once proud Tasmanian company Gunns and scaring away potential white-knight investor Chandler.
Last weekend, Tasmanians showed how they felt about federal Labor and its Green ally. In Bass, the swing against Labor was 11 per cent, in Braddon it was 10 per cent, in Lyons it was 13.7 per cent and in Denison (held by Independent Andrew Wilkie who was doublecrossed by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard) it was 14.4 per cent.
The loss of the federal seats of Bass, Braddon and Lyons was Labor’s worst result in Tasmania since 1990. In Triabunna, home of the now defunct woodchip mill, the swing to the Liberals was 26.7 per cent. The State election, due next March, should be worth watching.
But till then, look to Canberra to see whether federal Labor or the federal Greens have learnt anything from the route suffered in Tasmania or whether they both continue their giddy rush to irrelevancy. 

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Cue sneering

Miranda Devine – Sunday, September 15, 2013 (7:06am)

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THE only news organisation paid for by the sweat and toil of the average taxpayer does a fine line in sneering derision.
Take the ABC’s treatment of new minor party Senate candidates, such as the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party’s Ricky Muir, shamed for not owning a suit, and once flinging kangaroo poo on a home video.
The Commodore-loving unemployed sawmill worker and father of five is described by a former boss as a “good, loyal, honest bloke.” His aim is, “to be the voice for everyday Australians”.
Good for him. He should wear the latte set’s scorn as a badge of honour. 

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It’s all Abbott’s fault

Miranda Devine – Sunday, September 15, 2013 (7:05am)

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BUSHFIRES have started, and so has a rearguard action to beat up the role of climate change. So absurd are the climate zealots and so bitter their politics that they even blame Tony Abbott, seeing he opposed the carbon tax.
The letters pages of the Fairfax press were full of it: “Bushfires with loss of property and injuries in the second week of spring and Tony Abbott thinks he has a mandate to stop the emissions trading scheme and close down the Climate Commission,” wrote Averil Drummond of Pennant Hills.
Twitter was worse: “Would you like a carbon tax with your bushfires, Sydney?… I nominate [Abbott’s] electorate of Warringah to burn down first,’’ tweeted Darryl Snow, who happens to be former president of the Fire Brigade Employees Union, a self-described “thug” who “Fights Tories”.
Might be more useful to don a pair of overalls and actually fight a fire. 

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Bullying Jaymes

Miranda Devine – Sunday, September 15, 2013 (7:02am)

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THE bullying of failed Liberal candidate Jaymes Diaz continues apace, as he submits himself to ridicule by the Chaser crowd.
His campaign media performances were unimpressive but in 2010 he came within a few hundred votes of victory, making Greenway NSW’s most marginal seat.
This time, the viciousness of Labor and GetUp was something to behold. Scare posters appeared, for instance, painted in dripping bloody red saying “Diaz is a joke” or “What is Jaymes Diaz hiding?” in giant block letters.

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Justice for Zoe threatened by ideology

Miranda Devine – Sunday, September 15, 2013 (7:01am)

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BRODIE Donegan was eight months pregnant when she was mowed down by a drug-addled driver, high on methadone and valium, near her Ourimbah home. Her unborn child died.
The baby girl, Zoe, was stillborn because the placenta that sustained her with oxygen was ruptured by the force of the impact which pinned her mother against a tree for three hours on Christmas Day 2009.
Zoe’s heart was still beating when Brodie arrived at hospital, but by the time doctors performed a caesarean section, she was dead.
Brodie, partner Nick Ball, and their two year old daughter Ashlee were left to hold their two kilogram baby girl, perfect except for a cut on her lip from resuscitation attempts.
“She was still warm and she looked and felt and smelt like any other newborn, “ Brodie wrote in a victim impact statement to the court 15 months later. “She just was not breathing.”
The driver served just nine months in jail for the grievous bodily harm to Brodie, whose spine, pelvis, hips and foot were fractured.
But there existed no criminal charge for police to apply over the death of the 32-week foetus Zoe.
Under criminal law, Zoe had never existed, except as an appendage of her mother’s body.
“You just get to list the baby with the injuries,” says Brodie, 33, who has tried valiantly for almost four years to achieve legal recognition that her daughter’s life mattered.
Zoe’s Law, due before NSW Parliament on Thursday, would “recognise the existence of the foetus of a pregnant woman that is of at least 20 weeks gestation” and allow an offender to be charged with grievous bodily harm to the foetus, not just to the pregnant women, which is the current law in NSW.
The private member’s bill, authored by Brodie’s local Liberal MP on the Central Coast, Chris Spence, specifically exempts “anything done in the course of a medical procedure,” such as abortion, or anything done “with the consent of the pregnant woman”.
But it has become the latest battleground in the abortion wars, as trigger-happy activists itch for a fight in a new conservative era.
They believe Zoe’s Law is a “slippery slope” towards restricting abortion. They are terrified it represents a “conceptual change” which would see the foetus regarded as a person in its own right.
To their consternation, Brodie is unreservedly pro-choice, and wants nothing to do with the abortion debate.
But she and Nick knew their daughter existed because they held her and grieve for her to this day.
They were also obliged under state and federal laws to give Zoe a name, apply for a birth certificate and death certificate, and hold a funeral; they were eligible for the baby bonus and parental leave, as is every parent of a foetus which dies from 20 weeks gestation.
“It’s strange to plan a funeral for a baby [whose death] no one is going to be charged for,” says Brodie.
Brodie never wanted to be dragged into the abortion debate when Christian Democrats leader Fred Nile took it on himself to introduce a form of Zoe’s Law, without her permission.
“We didn’t want our daughter’s name on something that had to do with abortion.”
So she asked Spence to craft a bill to override Nile’s attempt.
Spence’s argument is logical, dispassionate and persuasive. His bill is morally neutral on abortion.
Yet the opposition has been so ferocious he was forced last week to delay the bill and Brodie has found herself pitted against the full might of the feminist lobby, with NSW MPs and organisations such as the Women’s Electoral Lobby, Family Planning NSW and Destroy the Joint, combining to defeat the law.
“We are so hesitant to go near this because of the [feminist] lobby,” says Spence. “They’ve built this nucleus to protect a woman’s right to choose and then they’ve put a 100km exclusion zone around it. Anything that breaches the exclusion zone will be shot down.”
The abortion lobby needs to find a new way of framing their argument rather than just shutting down the debate. And it doesn’t get much lower than denying a grieving mother justice for her child.

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TOO BUSY FOR SYDNEY

Tim Blair – Saturday, September 14, 2013 (7:32pm)

According to experts, this week’s Sydney fires were something to do with global warming and moves to abandon the carbon tax. But now we have the actual causes
Arson, hazard reduction, and downed power lines sparked the damaging bushfires that tore through Sydney’s west earlier this week.
Rural Fire Service and police chiefs on Friday released investigations into the blazes that destroyed property and threatened homes in Sydney’s west and the Blue Mountains on Tuesday. 
Global warming was otherwise occupied by fomenting conflict in Syriareducing Swedish glaciers and eating brains.

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ALL NON-GREEK TO THEM

Tim Blair – Saturday, September 14, 2013 (7:27pm)

The Age thinks that Sophie Mirabella is Italian:

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(Via several readers who are aware of Mirabella’s Greek heritage)

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GOOD OLD DAYS

Tim Blair – Saturday, September 14, 2013 (7:25pm)

Antony Loewenstein despairs
The global financial crisis in 2008 should have been a golden age for the left … 
They can’t win even when the right is losing.

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12 of 26

Tim Blair – Saturday, September 14, 2013 (7:02pm)

Tonight’s 50-over match is the 12th game in a double-summermulti-format struggle for cricket supremacy. On the overall results table, Australia currently trails “draws” but maintains a handy one-win break over “matches abandoned”:
England: Five wins, 3815 runs
Three draws
Australia: Two wins, 3687 runs
One match abandoned

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The Bolt Report today

Andrew Bolt September 15 2013 (9:30am)

On The Bolt Report at 10am and 4pm:  Labor’s Richard Marles, plus Michael Kroger and John McTernan.
And quote of the week - from a buffoon who seems to have trouble sorting fact from fiction.

The twitter feed.
The place the videos appear.
UPDATE
Professor Judith Sloan is upset:

Gosh, I nearly choked on my muesli when I heard the proposition that Bill Shorten is a pro-business candidate.  I think it was McTernan spouting this nonsense on The Bolt Report.  (Bill is more pro-Jools than Albo, I guess).
Pro-business – my arse.
He was one of the worst Workplace Relations Minister we have ever had.  He bent over backwards to pile up pro-union provisions and enacted them.  He picked the ‘eyes’ from the post-implementation report on the Fair Work Act which the government commissioned using a panel of reliable friendlies.
The only change left unaccomplished was the return to compulsory arbitration – on the unions’ wishlist – and he was have enacted this if he had the time.
And some of the new inclusions in the FWA are completely unworkable tosh – eg. the anti-bullying provisions.
His stacking of the Fair Work Commission is nothing short of a national disgrace – lobbing in pro-union, pro-Labor candidates to outrank appointees made by the Howard government.
UPDATE
Reader Frances:

Michael Kroger’s comment re four current leaders of the ALP is the funniest thing I’ve heard all week! 

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IPCC now cooling on warming

Andrew Bolt September 15 2013 (6:08am)

Matt Ridley says the new IPCC report will still exaggerate the likely warming - but its estimates are now falling:
I refer to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) “fifth assessment report,” part of which will be published on Sept. 27…
I have had a glimpse of the key prediction at the heart of the document. The big news is that, for the first time since these reports started coming out in 1990, the new one dials back the alarm. It states that the temperature rise we can expect as a result of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide is lower than the IPPC thought in 2007.
Admittedly, the change is small, and because of changing definitions, it is not easy to compare the two reports, but retreat it is. It is significant because it points to the very real possibility that, over the next several generations, the overall effect of climate change will be positive for humankind and the planet.
Specifically, the draft report says that “equilibrium climate sensitivity” (ECS)—eventual warming induced by a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which takes hundreds of years to occur—is “extremely likely” to be above 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), “likely” to be above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and “very likely” to be below 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 Fahrenheit). In 2007, the IPPC said it was “likely” to be above 2 degrees Celsius and “very likely” to be above 1.5 degrees, with no upper limit. Since “extremely” and “very” have specific and different statistical meanings here, comparison is difficult.
Still, the downward movement since 2007 is clear…
A more immediately relevant measure of likely warming has also come down: “transient climate response” (TCR)—the actual temperature change expected from a doubling of carbon dioxide about 70 years from now, without the delayed effects that come in the next century. The new report will say that this change is “likely” to be 1 to 2.5 degrees Celsius and “extremely unlikely” to be greater than 3 degrees. This again is lower than when last estimated in 2007 ("very likely” warming of 1 to 3 degrees Celsius, based on models, or 1 to 3.5 degrees, based on observational studies).
Most experts believe that warming of less than 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels will result in no net economic and ecological damage. Therefore, the new report is effectively saying (based on the middle of the range of the IPCC’s emissions scenarios) that there is a better than 50-50 chance that by 2083, the benefits of climate change will still outweigh the harm.
Warming of up to 1.2 degrees Celsius over the next 70 years (0.8 degrees have already occurred), most of which is predicted to happen in cold areas in winter and at night, would extend the range of farming further north, improve crop yields, slightly increase rainfall (especially in arid areas), enhance forest growth and cut winter deaths (which far exceed summer deaths in most places). 

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So Gillard, at least, noticed - even if she did not understand

Andrew Bolt September 15 2013 (5:55am)

Professor Sinclair Davidson says this is the most telling sentence in Julia Gillard’s long essay on how she one the great political arguments:
The circus in Copenhagen and “climategate” fed scepticism.
Remember how Climategate was largely ignored or dismissed by the mainstream media, especially on the Left? 

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New PM dosses down with the police

Andrew Bolt September 15 2013 (5:33am)

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Not just good politics, but a good sign:
TONY Abbott has decided to bunk with Australian Federal Police recruits in a $120-a-night flat while renovations are conducted at the possum-infested prime ministerial residence The Lodge…
Perhaps most importantly for the fitness fanatic, the student quarters also include an impressive gym…
Mr Abbott rejected the other options on offer: a $3,000 a week dress circle rental in the nation’s capital. Mr Abbott currently stays at the five-star Hotel Realm.
Providing proper security to the Prime Minister was the biggest problem in finding a temporary new abode, with many options requiring significant security upgrades if AFP officers were to properly protect the PM. For that reason, staying a hotel was swiftly discounted as an option.
UPDATE
Julie Bishop also rejects the high-living ways of the previous Labor government - the party of the working class:

Incoming foreign minister Julie Bishop has already clashed with her department over luxury hotel accommodation on an upcoming trip to New York.
The minister-elect told Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade bureaucrats to slash the cost of the trip after they planned to book $1850-a-night rooms at a swish Manhattan hotel for an entourage of dozens…
It is understood departmental bosses want to take a delegation of 23 public servants to the United Nations leaders’ summit on September 19-20 along with two ministers and three of their staff with the travelling party staying at the four-star Westin Midtown Hotel. The department planned to put Ms Bishop and her colleagues in a suite at the Westin as part of an accommodation package worth $132,048.

But the incoming minister, who has yet to be sworn in, told her department she wanted to stay in an ordinary room and that they should ditch the idea of the suite and that, for future reference they should not book her in first-class on international flights.

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Father,I thank You for looking beyond the surface and seeing the real me. Thank You for placing Your potential on the inside of me. Help me to know You more and see You more clearly so I can follow Your ways all the days of my life in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin
He Looks Beyond the Surface.
The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.(1 Samuel 16:7, NIV)
Your Creator can see things in you that other people cannot see. Sometimes people will try to push you down or make you feel insignificant. Sometimes our own thoughts will try to convince us that we don’t measure up. But God looks beyond the surface, beyond the mistakes you’ve made, beyond what somebody said about you and sees your incredible value.

You may think, “You have messed up. I have blown it. I have failed. I’m all washed up.” No, God still sees more in you. God doesn’t just see what you are; He sees what you can become. You may have made some mistakes, but God still sees victory on the inside of you. People may have tried to push you down, but God sees you rising higher.Start believing that you are redeemed, restored, talented and valuable. Even if you have made mistakes, believe that there is more in store. God’s not finished with you. He looks beyond the surface and sees your potential. God bless you.

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Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin
HOW IS YOUR HEART?
The word "heart" can be found often in the Scriptures. Rightly so. And, when it does, it seldom simply means the organ, the muscle in our chest that pumps and pumps.Interestingly, the Bible also speaks about God having a heart. It does that in Hosea 11. One of our passages read earlier, Ezekiel, prophesies about that wonderful forward looking truth, "A new heart and a new spirit in you..." We’re to receive a heart of "flesh" and not a "stone" one.

Jesus speaks about the seed of the gospel and its life-changing ability falling on the fertile ground of a "noble and good heart" with the resulting fruit and life change. Well, we want to ask, what kind of heart is that heart of flesh that Ezekiel promised that God would be giving us? What kind of heart is "the pure of heart" that Jesus talks about in the beatitudes in Matthew 5’s Sermon on the Mount? Let’s take a look on the Scriptures so that we can test our own. Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV) says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" So,how is your heart? I urge you to Love God with all Your Heart, Soul, Mind & Strength.God bless you.

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Pastor Rick Warren 

All weekend, I'm teaching NEVER WASTE YOUR PAIN! How to use it for God's 5 purposes in your life. http://bit.ly/ZvjGI9
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He sold his girlfriend?
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New York Port Authority Bus Terminal

POLICE in the US trying to subdue an emotionally disturbed man accidentally shot two female bystanders outside New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal Saturday night.
Police shot one woman in her leg as she hobbled with her four-wheeled walker; a second woman was grazed in the buttocks, police told the New York Post.
The officers may have opened fire - pulling off three shots, according to witnesses - in the mistaken belief that the deranged man was armed after a pedestrian shouted, "He's got a gun!"
A bullet to the leg sent the first unidentified woman sprawling to the sidewalk grate, still clutching her walker.
She was transported to Bellevue Hospital, where Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was heading last night to speak to her, police said.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world-news/new-york-police-accidentally-shoot-two-bystanders-while-trying-to-subdue-man/story-fndir2ev-1226719572178#ixzz2exdkFuDW

That trolley will be useful for her, when she heals .. ed
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"Saturday's incident is the latest in a string of cross-border rocket attacks that have escalated as Hezbollah's involvement in Syria's brutal conflict has increased.

Initially Hezbollah said it wanted only to defend 13 Syrian villages along the border where Lebanese Shiites live, and the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine near Damascus, which is revered by Shiites around the world."

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/171900#.UjUjsBaXtSU

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Ah, my love it is spring! I am wondering, praying .. where is that on switch for that radar you mentioned? I think it has been turned off. Is it a software switch? I must find out about that operating system .. ed
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Dai Le

Finally with my DAWN  and my boss Andrew Rohan MP for Smithfield as well with Fairfield Youth Committee.
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William Cooper: a great aboriginal 

http://m.theage.com.au/national/aboriginal-campaigner-took-up-a-faraway-fight-for-the-oppressed-20081107-5k8e.html
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Dr Dennis Jensen MP has been the member for Tangney in the the House of Representatives since 2004. A PhD in Materials Science and Physics and former research scientist, he has the highest scientific qualifications of all MPs and Senators. He has made major contributions in the areas of defence and science and would make an excellent science minister.
But columnist Peter van Onselen abused him in the Sunday Telegraph on 15September, 2013, as a "star twit'' for daring to aspire to this role. You see, he doesn't accept without reservation the theory that global warming is principally caused by carbon dioxide emissions from human activities. Presumably he should believe the Australian government can change this by imposing a job exporting tax on CO2, including one tied to a shonky CO2 market manipulated by Brussels-based bureaucrats and politicians. But didn't the Australian people reject this in the election?

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Instead of working to improve the economy, Congress is wasting time passing these 25 ridiculous bills.
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Heroic rescue: A man saves a mother and daughter trapped on the roof of their car as deadly floods continue to sweep through Colorado.http://tinyurl.com/khhrxlz
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Pastor Rick Warren'
This weekend we add NEW SERVICES and NEW TIMES at ALL Saddleback campuses. Here's the list: http://bit.ly/191Iblw Saturday services at Lake Forest are now 4:00 and 6:00 pm, (30 minutes earlier now)

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Garage door motor finally fixed. Found the motor mounting bolts dug into the steel roller shaft, unable to hold the motor locked in the place. The mounting bolts would have been in that location for over 10 years.
Nods sagely. ed
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The Bible Series

"Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth." -Jesus
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James Calore
I may have made the greatest discovery since sliced bread: popcorn cooked in bacon fat. Unbelievable goodness!
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Larry Pickering
JULIA DUMPS HER 'BLOKE'... for Greener pastures

Left wing on-line rag ‘The Guardian’ yesterday was told by a shattered Julia Gillard that, “Labor unambiguously sent a very clear message that it cared about nothing other than the prospects of survival of its members of parliament at the polls."

Now there’s a bit more Julia woolly thinking for you because if your MPs don’t survive you may as well go fishing or knitting, or even lecturing at Adelaide Uni!

Scathing criticism of her former colleagues was peppered with her own feelings: “It brought forth a pain that hits you like a fist, pain so strong you feel it in your guts, your nerve endings... I watched the election results by myself.”

Well, according to an insider, not exactly by yourself Julia.

The estate agency handling the sale of the house with a $2 mil price tag had initially surveyed residents in the immediate area asking if Julia would be welcome in the up-market South Brighton beachside suburb.

“Not only did no-one object”, Pickering Post was told, “but there was a good level of excitement about having the famous redhead as a neighbour.”

One resident in the same street suggested her house value might even appreciate. Really?

Oh well, things must usually be boring in South Brighton because the whole suburb is now abuzz with Gillard goss.

Apparently Tim hasn’t made the Xmas card list, much less the lady’s boudoir list.

Julia’s new companion is a “lady friend” who moved in prior to Julia’s arrival.

I cannot identify the “lady friend” from various descriptions but it certainly isn’t her sister... and it appears her mum has also taken up residence.

But poor little red Reuben is nowhere to be seen.

Honestly, I couldn’t give a stuff about Julia’s preferences, good luck to her, but it seems the concocted farce of the Timmy dalliance was no less of a political PR stunt than the Rudd PR stunt Julia now complains of!

Actually, Julia has been quite open about promoting switch-hitting from her Uni student days and Adelaide (along with sister city Hobart) is a comfy nest for gay commos and loony Green activists... the sort of CV that will get you on the short list for a ‘lecturing’ job at the local Uni.

But I tend to link the word “Julia” to the word “disingenuous” because her Adelaide Uni professorial pals recently claimed, “Australia’s southern States will be inundated from alarming southern pole ice-melt. People in SA wetlands will need to relocate”, they warned.

Perhaps Julia doesn’t believe in global warming after all, or she would never have chosen a beachside suburb like the “soon to be inundated” South Brighton.

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Pastor Rick Warren
You can now watch our service online ANY HOUR of your day! It repeats 168 times a wk, every hour, from ANYWHERE in the world!
Join me: http://www.saddleback.com/onlinecampus

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Happy Sunday everyone! 

Quote of the day: you gotta live to be truly alive 
big score for vampire diaries - ed
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It says Liar .. -ed
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President Vladimir Putin had the audacity to tell America that it is not exceptional and then after arming Israel's enemies to the tee, tried to show his false concern for Israel's existence. What a liar!!!

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/13833#.UjVocRYlUsw
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4 her
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"Clinton's State told Benghazi was a 'terrorist attack' minutes after it began" The Examiner, September 3, 2013 (thanks to Lynn)
Just minutes after 35 jihadists crashed through the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, nearly one year ago, the facility got word to the State Department, FBI and Pentagon that terrorists were attacking, according to a forthcoming book that provides the fullest review of the assault to date. 
  In “Under Fire, the Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi,” it is revealed that an unidentified security official in the Benghazi compound protecting Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens messaged the U.S. embassy in Tripoli: “Benghazi under fire, terrorist attack.” Stevens and three others died that night. according to authors Fred Burton, a former State Diplomatic Security agent and Samuel Katz, an author and expert on international special operations and counterterrorism.

 In Clinton's defence it was an election time and Obama was dancing with Beyonce. So hard to know what is the right thing to do in the moment. But looking back, it might not seem popular. ed
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The Arab Spring has recalibrated the regional system by ushering in a tri-axial Middle East.
Turkish-Iranian posturing on Syria, with Ankara arguing for more than limited strikes against the regime and Tehran saying that whoever strikes President Bashar al-Assad must bear the consequences, serves as a harbinger for the birth of a new Middle East order.
Just as World War 1 transformed the Middle East by ending the Ottoman rule and creating contemporary nation states, so the Arab Spring has recalibrated this regional system by ushering in a tri-axial Middle East composed of: a Turkey-Kurdish-Muslim Brotherhood (MB) axis; an Iran-Shiite axis; and a Saudi Arabia-pro-status quo monarchies axis.
In this fluid re-alignment, nation states will technically not disappear, but borders will increasingly be transcended by these axes as they contest regimes across the region in pursuit of installing their respective allies.
Forces representing Iran's aggrandizing foreign policy, Turkey's pro-MB alignment and the Saudis' desire to keep the region's remaining regimes in place will grind against each other, cutting across existing borders and churning tensions, stoking sectarianism in the name of achieving their realist motivations.
The novelty is not in the competition, but in the way this rivalry is playing out.
In the pre-Arab Spring period, dominant Muslim nations of the region -- Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia -- challenged each other by standing for different models of statecraft and often promoting opposing values. Nevertheless, this competition did not usually turn acutely violent, with the exceptions of Lebanon, a weak state that was always exposed to regional and sectarian rivalries, and Iraq, where the Saudis and Iranians took advantage of the post-2003 vacuum to back warring Sunni and Shiite militia.
The tumult of the Arab Spring, however, has been a game-changer in expanding the scale and scope of these regional rivalries. Firstly, the uprisings weakened the authoritarian states in the region, thus providing new venues for them to play out. The Syrian civil war is a case in point.
Secondly, Egypt's paralysis has taken it out of the four-way regional game. Violent political polarization has transformed Egypt from "the anchor of the Arab world" into yet another theater for regional competition among the three remaining Muslim powers: Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Turkey, too, has changed. Under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, Ankara has abandoned its Kemalist world view. Once shunned as a hardline Islamist party but recently rehabilitated, the AKP sees itself as a model forward for the MB and has engaged regional MB parties to this end. Ataturk's Turkey used to look at the Middle East from the West. The new Turkey has embraced a new stance towards the region, looking at it from the AKP's pro-MB vantage point.
The AKP elites believe that if they could moderate and come to power through democratic elections in Ankara, like-minded Egyptian and Syrian MBs should be able to do the same in Cairo and Damascus. Hence, Turkey's dream: a region ruled by MB parties, looking to Turkey for guidance. This explains why Ankara is aghast at Washington's response to the ouster of the government of Mohamed Morsy, issuing a very rare public rebuke of Washington that harshly blamed the U.S. and the West for the bloodshed in Egypt.
While Washington has accepted the MB's ouster in Egypt, pro-status quo forces in the region, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and United Arab Emirates have actually supported military intervention against the MB. These monarchies abhor the tumult of the Arab Spring. The Saudis dislike the idea of an Islamic democracy led by the MB, because they still see it as tumultuous and destabilizing.
Iran meanwhile has taken advantage of the Arab Spring to mobilize a contemporary Shiite "mythomoteur." Tehran has cast the pro-democracy uprising against the Assad regime in Syria as a Sunni uprising against minority Alawites, an outlier sect of Shiism, and then used this to play to the persecution syndrome of the region's Shiites, mobilizing them from Iraq to Lebanon into Syria to rally behind the cause of propping up the Assad regime. Iran also supports the minority Shiite rebels in Yemen, who oppose a Saudi-backed government there. At the same time, the Saudis have cracked down on a pro-democracy uprising by Bahrain's majority Shiites.
These moves have helped trigger sectarian chasms in the region, especially in the northern Fertile Crescent. This arch being home to three weak states, namely Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, is accordingly the prime theater for regional rivalries, whose borders are increasingly bleeding together. The Shiites of the northern Fertile Crescent are coalescing with each other and with Iran in ways not seen before in living memory.
Turkey, whose regime change policy in Syria has been undermined by Iran, has entered the Fertile Crescent competition, throwing its support behind the Syrian and Iraqi MB parties. This move has cast Ankara and Damascus as enemies, and also cooled ties between Ankara and Baghdad, where the government is run by Shiites that Turkey considers Iran's peons.
The Iraqi Kurds, wary of the emerging central government rule in Baghdad, have taken advantage of the situation and edged closer towards Ankara, building on the nascent energy corridor already being developed between them. The Syrian Kurds, too, are seeking Turkey's protection. Turkey's recent peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which holds sway among not just Turkish Kurds but also Syrian Kurds, will help this rapprochement.
At the same time though, Turkey's MB policy has been, for the time being, upended. The Brotherhood has fallen from government in Egypt, failed to elect its candidate to lead the Syrian opposition, and has been sidelined in Libya. Qatar, which had hitherto allied itself with Ankara to fund MB style parties, appears to be changing its heart after an unexpected change in leadership in Doha.
The tri-axial Middle East includes tactical alliances. In Syria, for instance, although Turkey and the Saudis support different camps in the opposition, they are, nevertheless, united against Iran. At the same time, Ankara and Riyadh challenge each other in Egypt where Turkey stands with Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood party and the Saudis with General Sisi's government.
This leaves a tri-axial Middle East, in which Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia oppose each other in shifting alliances, vying to set a new regional order. Moving forward, it is unclear whether Riyadh will continue to use its financial and political leverage amongst Sunni regimes, particularly monarchies, to sustain its status quo posture.
For Iran, Syria is the linchpin of its effort to extend beyond Shia-governed Iraq, and will determine whether it can be a broader strategic hegemon or remain relatively contained. And non-Arab Turkey, by standing for just the MB anywhere in the region, will see its influence wax and wane as each national revolution unfolds, though Ankara's clout among the Kurds may be more permanent.
The U.S. has squandered the Arab Spring by not siding with liberal democracy, an agenda promoted by none of the three regional powers. Citizens across the region have once again returned to chanting anti-U.S. slogans to explain their tumult and plight. Moving forward, Washington must navigate the new Middle East. Otherwise, the region's political and ideological map will be redrawn by more influential anchor states.
Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family Fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute. Parag Khanna is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

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September 12th, 2013 | Posted by WorldTribune.com
Out of Lebanon: UN faces imminent pullout of EU peacekeepers
Special to WorldTribune.comhttp://www.worldtribune.com/2013/09/12/out-of-lebanon-un-faces-imminent-pullout-of-eu-peacekeepers/
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It isn't a policy .. it is a lifestyle ed
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"Left-wing donors have directed their funding more towards frameworks that articulate/ propagate political agendas, such as the New Israel Fund, J Street and Peace Now.

Right-wing donors by contrast have focused funding on the far-more tangible: purchasing buildings from Arab owners, acquiring land, preserving and protecting sites of significance for Jewish heritage and so on. These of course are all worthy causes, but they will have little lasting value if the Left continues to control the discourse.

A plausible case can be made that disproportionate emphasis on enterprises such has these has allowed the Left to hijack the agenda and control the discourse, while leaving the major strategic front unattended – or at least, under-attended." - Martin Sherman

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Over the past week, President Barack Obama and his senior advisers have told us that the US is poised to go to war against Syria. In the next few days, the US intends to use its air power and guided missiles to attack Syria in response to the regime's use of chemical weapons in the outskirts of Damascus last week.
The questions that ought to have been answered before any statements were made by the likes of Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel have barely been raised in the public arena. The most important of those questions are: What US interests are at stake in Syria? How should the US go about advancing them? What does Syria's use of chemical weapons means for the US's position in the region? How would the planned US military action in Syria impact US deterrent strength, national interests and credibility regionally and worldwide? Syria is not an easy case. Thirty months into the war there, it is clear that the good guys, such as they are, are not in a position to win.
Syria is controlled by Iran and its war is being directed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and by Hezbollah. And arrayed against them are rebel forces dominated by al-Qaida.
As US Sen. Ted Cruz explained this week, "Of nine rebel groups [fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad], seven of them may well have some significant ties to al-Qaida."
With no good horse to bet on, the US and its allies have three core interests relating to the war. First, they have an interest in preventing Syria's chemical, biological and ballistic missile arsenals from being used against them either directly by the regime, through its terror proxies or by a successor regime.
Second, the US and its allies have an interest in containing the war as much as possible to Syria itself.
Finally, the US and its allies share an interest in preventing Iran, Moscow or al-Qaida from winning the war or making any strategic gains from their involvement in the war.
For the past two-and-a-half years, Israel has been doing an exemplary job of securing the first interest. According to media reports, the IDF has conducted numerous strikes inside Syria to prevent the transfer of advanced weaponry, including missiles from Syria to Hezbollah.
Rather than assist Israel in its efforts that are also vital to US strategic interests, the US has been endangering these Israeli operations. US officials have repeatedly leaked details of Israel's operations to the media. These leaks have provoked several senior Israeli officials to express acute concern that in providing the media with information regarding these Israeli strikes, the Obama administration is behaving as if it is interested in provoking a war between Israel and Syria. The concerns are rooted in a profound distrust of US intentions, unprecedented in the 50-year history of US-Israeli strategic relations.
The second US interest threatened by the war in Syria is the prospect that the war will not be contained in Syria. Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan specifically are threatened by the carnage. To date, this threat has been checked in Jordan and Lebanon. In Jordan, US forces along the border have doubtlessly had a deterrent impact in preventing the infiltration of the kingdom by Syrian forces.
In Lebanon, given the huge potential for spillover, the consequences of the war in Syria have been much smaller than could have been reasonably expected. Hezbollah has taken a significant political hit for its involvement in the war in Syria. On the ground, the spillover violence has mainly involved Shi'ite and Shi'ite jihadists targeting one another.
Iraq is the main regional victim of the war in Syria. The war there reignited the war between Sunnis and Shi'ites in Iraq. Violence has reached levels unseen since the US force surge in 2007. The renewed internecine warfare in Iraq redounds directly to President Barack Obama's decision not to leave a residual US force in the country. In the absence US forces, there is no actor on the ground capable of strengthening the Iraqi government's ability to withstand Iranian penetration or the resurgence of al-Qaida.
The third interest of the US and its allies that is threatened by the war in Syria is to prevent Iran, Russia or al-Qaida from securing a victory or a tangible benefit from their involvement in the war.
It is important to note that despite the moral depravity of the regime's use of chemical weapons, none of America's vital interests is impacted by their use within Syria. Obama's pledge last year to view the use of chemical weapons as a tripwire that would automatically cause the US to intervene militarily in the war in Syria was made without relation to any specific US interest.

Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/obamas-bread-and-circuses?f=syria#ixzz2expVYUxS
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Ditherer in Chief failed to address basic questions before declaring intent for war - ed
===
Christopher Columbus bids farewell to his son Diego at Palos, Spain, before embarking on his first voyage on August 3, 1492.

Everybody knows the story of Columbus, right? He was an Italian explorer from Genoa who set sail in 1492 to enrich the Spanish monarchs with gold and spices from the orient. Not quite. For too long, scholars have ignored Columbus’ grand passion: the quest to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims.
During Columbus’ lifetime, Jews became the target of fanatical religious persecution. On March 31, 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella proclaimed that all Jews were to be expelled from Spain. The edict especially targeted the 800,000 Jews who had never converted, and gave them four months to pack up and get out.
The Jews who were forced to renounce Judaism and embrace Catholicism were known as “Conversos,” or converts. There were also those who feigned conversion, practicing Catholicism outwardly while covertly practicing Judaism, the so-called “Marranos,” or swine.
Tens of thousands of Marranos were tortured by the Spanish Inquisition. They were pressured to offer names of friends and family members, who were ultimately paraded in front of crowds, tied to stakes and burned alive. Their land and personal possessions were then divvied up by the church and crown.
Recently, a number of Spanish scholars, such as Jose Erugo, Celso Garcia de la Riega, Otero Sanchez and Nicholas Dias Perez, have concluded that Columbus was a Marrano, whose survival depended upon the suppression of all evidence of his Jewish background in face of the brutal, systematic ethnic cleansing.
Columbus, who was known in Spain as Cristóbal Colón and didn’t speak Italian, signed his last will and testament on May 19, 1506, and made five curious — and revealing — provisions.
Two of his wishes — tithe one-tenth of his income to the poor and provide an anonymous dowry for poor girls — are part of Jewish customs. He also decreed to give money to a Jew who lived at the entrance of the Lisbon Jewish Quarter.
On those documents, Columbus used a triangular signature of dots and letters that resembled inscriptions found on gravestones of Jewish cemeteries in Spain. He ordered his heirs to use the signature in perpetuity.
According to British historian Cecil Roth’s “The History of the Marranos,” the anagram was a cryptic substitute for the Kaddish, a prayer recited in the synagogue by mourners after the death of a close relative. Thus, Columbus’ subterfuge allowed his sons to say
Kaddish for their crypto-Jewish father when he died. Finally, Columbus left money to support the crusade he hoped his successors would take up to liberate the Holy Land.
Estelle Irizarry, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University, has analyzed the language and syntax of hundreds of handwritten letters, diaries and documents of Columbus and concluded that the explorer’s primary written and spoken language was Castilian Spanish. Irizarry explains that 15th-century Castilian Spanish was the
“Yiddish” of Spanish Jewry, known as “Ladino.” At the top left-hand corner of all but one of the 13 letters written by Columbus to his son Diego contained the handwritten Hebrew letters bet-hei, meaning b’ezrat Hashem (with God’s help). Observant Jews have for centuries customarily added this blessing to their letters. No letters to
outsiders bear this mark, and the one letter to Diego in which this was omitted was one meant for King Ferdinand.
In Simon Weisenthal’s book, “Sails of Hope,” he argues that Columbus’ voyage was motivated by a desire to find a safe haven for the Jews in light of their expulsion from Spain. Likewise, Carol Delaney, a cultural anthropologist at Stanford University, concludes that Columbus was a deeply religious man whose purpose was to sail to Asia
to obtain gold in order to finance a crusade to take back Jerusalem and rebuild the Jews’ holy Temple.
In Columbus’ day, Jews widely believed that Jerusalem had to be liberated and the Temple rebuilt for the Messiah to come.
Scholars point to the date on which Columbus set sail as further evidence of his true motives. He was originally going to sail on August 2, 1492, a day that happened to coincide with the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av, marking the destruction of the First and
Second Holy Temples of Jerusalem. Columbus postponed this original sail date by one day to avoid embarking on the holiday, which would have been considered by Jews to be an unlucky day to set sail. (Coincidentally or significantly, the day he set forth was the very day that Jews were, by law, given the choice of converting, leaving
Spain, or being killed.)
Columbus’ voyage was not, as is commonly believed, funded by the deep pockets of Queen Isabella, but rather by two Jewish Conversos and another prominent Jew. Louis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez advanced an interest free loan of 17,000 ducats from their own pockets to help pay for the voyage, as did Don Isaac Abrabanel, rabbi
and Jewish statesman.
Indeed, the first two letters Columbus sent back from his journey were not to Ferdinand and Isabella, but to Santangel and Sanchez, thanking them for their support and telling them what he had found.
The evidence seem to bear out a far more complicated picture of the man for whom our nation now celebrates a national holiday and has named its capital.
As we witness bloodshed the world over in the name of religious freedom, it is valuable to take another look at the man who sailed the seas in search of such freedoms — landing in a place that would eventually come to hold such an ideal at its very core.

A new light on a great man - ed
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bros
A good dog shows affection .. ed
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Is that legal without a plastic bag and scoop? ed
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Australia Election

Oh how the sanctimonious Left bemoaned the slightest criticism of Julia Gillard. Egged on by Gillard’s own rants, and abetted by heavy-hitting propagandists such as David Marr and Robert Manne, the leftist blogosphere and Twitterverse manufactured a strange demonology, wherein Tony Abbott and his supporters were transformed into a misogynistic army of haters.
Such character assassination remains the most overused technique from the Left’s current playbook: A deliberate reverse ad hominem manoeuvre whereby genuine political disagreements from opponents are spun to appear as personal hate-motivated slurs. Media attack dogs for the Obama administration overuse this tactic so often it borders on the comical. You don’t want Obamacare? You’re a racist! Want to keep your guns? How racist! Think tax rates are too high? Racist! You’re a Republican? RACIST!
While Gillard once complained of her internet detractors being ‘misogynists and nutjobs’, the recent federal election demonstrated, more than ever, on just what side of the political fence most of the web’s crazies reside. Andrew Bolt has already commented on the rapid appearance of hate-filled Facebook pages that sprang up post-election.
Including: ‘Tony Abbott should be assassinated’ and ‘Tony Abbott should just die’. A reader of Bolt’s blog was able to track the location of the Facebook user who created the assassinate Abbott page: a trade union hall. No real surprises there. One suspects Bolt was also aware of, but too much of a gentleman to even mention, other disgraceful Facebook hate pages such as ‘Furiously Masturbating To Tony Abbott’s daughters’, or the more innocuous sounding, but equally disgusting page titled ‘Tony Abbott’s Daughters.’ Both are filled with the vilest of sexual descriptions, including incest and bestiality, depraved fantasies that seem to resonate in the souls of too many sickos on the Left.
Like millions across this great land, I watched the election results on Saturday 7 September. One eye on the TV — as my friend Carlos surfed between the various channels’ coverages — the other on Facebook and Twitter. As heartening as the results coming through the TV may have been, the reactions from lefty netizens were beyond disturbing. I don’t exaggerate when I say much of what I read was unpublishable. A slew of deviant comments similar to those on the Facebook pages mentioned above filled my screen. Rage at how the majority of their fellow Australians had voted. Crass sexualised commentary aimed at Abbott’s wife and daughters. Even threats of rape and violence. Just despicable. A smattering of some of the more moderate tweets in this vein follows. In keeping with the Left’s relentless assertion of Abbott’s misogyny, it seems fitting to focus on those of a misogynist bent:
‘I don’t know much about art but I think you’re way, way ahead of your time’
‘I don’t know much about art but I think you’re way, way ahead of your time’
@MusicMelbMary: ‘What would Tony Abbott do if one of his daughter’s became a prostitute?’ @AndyDwyerSays: ‘Tony Abbott’s daughters now snorting lines off toilets at Lib HQ #ausvotes’. @MichelleBlogna: ‘Can’t wait for a leaked sex tape of the @TonyAbbottMHR daughters #ElectionProject’. @mffyrg ‘Shower @TonyAbbottMHR’s repulsive daughters with rotten fruit and veg at every opportunity. The Whores of @LiberalAus.’ @vila900 ‘Tony Abbot’s [sic] daughters look like men. Ugly. #TonyAbbott’. @JcliffordSmith: ‘Tony Abbott’s daughters look like trannies 2nite #ausvotes’. @bernietb: ‘Tony Abbott groping his daughters live on national TV’. @dailydoseofjess: ‘Tony Abbott’s daughters glad they can finally stop playfully stroking their dad’s chest.’ @JazzyAds: ‘Tony Abbott lusts after his daughters. Margie looks like a man, no wonder perv Tony can’t keep his hands off them. #tonyabbott #pervtony’.
Again, as disgraceful as the above tweets may be, they pale in comparison to much of the abject filth that appeared on Twitter and Facebook attacking Abbott and his female family members. But don’t expect outrage from lefty moralists anytime soon. Any more than they ever criticised the treatment of Sophie Mirabella, who was a regular victim of internet abuse. (Indeed, when she looked set to lose her seat, multiple tweeters and Facebookers exclaimed in malicious delight: ‘The Witch Is Dead!’)
And what about the late, great, Margaret Thatcher, whose actual death was celebrated by glee-filled and hate-riddled leftists both on the web and on British streets? How about the relentless vilification of Pauline Hanson? Or the despicable belittlement of Sarah Palin? Hello progressive defenders of the sisterhood? Are you there? Any accusations of misogyny? Of course not. Any woman right of centre — or, as our most recent federal election as proven, even the female family of a centre-right politician — is grist for the Left’s vindictive mill.
When the practice of demonising your opposition is encouraged by Labor’s leadership and intellectual vanguard, it should come as no surprise that their goose-stepping followers start reaching for torches, pitchforks and nooses. Contra the wailing and finger-pointing of the Left, it’s not News Limited, Alan Jones, or even their great Satan — Tony Abbott — who are responsible for the ugly divisiveness in modern Australia.
The paranoid strain in Australian political thought originates from the Left’s own propaganda machine, long geared to portraying the ‘unelectable’ Liberal leader as a misogynistic, homophobic, racist monster. Thank God that most of Australia didn’t fall for their lies. But a seething minority of true believers and fellow travellers, their own souls overflowing with the hatred they project onto others, are still drunk on the poisonous propaganda they have long consumed. It is almost a case study demonstrating why the Left are always so ready to accuse others of the politics of hate. Because they know exactly what it looks like. And if they ever have to check, verification is always just a mirror away.
This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 

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Barack Obama has been running around the country taking credit for an “economic recovery”, but the truth is that things have not gotten better under Obama.  Compared to when he first took office, a smaller percentage of the working age population is employed, the quality of our jobs has declined substantially and the middle class has been absolutely shredded.  If we are really in the middle of an “economic recovery”, why is the homeownership rate the lowest that it has been in 18 years?  Why has the number of Americans on food stamps increased by nearly 50 percent while Obama has been in the White House?  Why has the national debt gotten more than 6 trillion dollars larger during the Obama era?  Obama should not be “taking credit” for anything when it comes to the economy.  In fact, he should be deeply apologizing to the American people.
And of course Obama is being delusional if he thinks that he is actually “running the economy”.  The Federal Reserve has far more power over the U.S. economy and the U.S. financial system than he does.  But the mainstream media loves to fixate on the presidency, so presidents always get far too much credit or far too much blame for economic conditions.
But if you do want to focus on “the change” that has taken place since Barack Obama entered the White House, there is no way in the world that you can claim that things have actually gotten better during that time frame.  The cold, hard reality of the matter is that the U.S. economy has been steadily declining for over a decade, and this decline has continued while Obama has been living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
It is getting very tiring listening to Obama supporters try to claim that Obama has improved the economy.  That is a false claim that is not even remotely close to reality.  The following are 33 shocking facts which show how badly the U.S. economy has tanked since Obama became president…
#1 When Barack Obama entered the White House, 60.6 percent of working age Americans had a job.  Today, only 58.7 percent of working age Americans have a job.
#2 Since Obama has been president, seven out of every eight jobsthat have been “created” in the U.S. economy have been part-time jobs.
#3 The number of full-time workers in the United States is still nearly 6 million below the old record that was set back in 2007.
#4 It is hard to believe, but an astounding 53 percent of all American workers now make less than $30,000 a year.
#5 40 percent of all workers in the United States actually make less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968.
#6 When the Obama era began, the average duration of unemployment in this country was 19.8 weeks.  Today, it is 36.6 weeks.
#7 During the first four years of Obama, the number of Americans “not in the labor force” soared by an astounding 8,332,000.  That far exceeds any previous four year total.
#8 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the middle class is taking home a smaller share of the overall income pie than has ever been recorded before.
#9 When Obama was elected, the homeownership rate in the United States was 67.5 percent.  Today, it is 65.0 percent.  That is the lowest that it has been in 18 years.
#10 When Obama entered the White House, the mortgage delinquency rate was 7.85 percent.  Today, it is 9.72 percent.
#11 In 2008, the U.S. trade deficit with China was 268 billion dollars.  Last year, it was 315 billion dollars.
#12 When Obama first became president, 12.5 million Americans had manufacturing jobs.  Today, only 11.9 million Americans have manufacturing jobs.
#13 Median household income in America has fallen for four consecutive years.  Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.
#14 The poverty rate has shot up to 16.1 percent.  That is actually higher than when the War on Poverty began in 1965.
#15 During Obama’s first term, the number of Americans on food stamps increased by an average of about 11,000 per day.
#16 When Barack Obama entered the White House, there were about 32 million Americans on food stamps.  Today, there are more than 47 million Americans on food stamps.
#17 At this point, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless.  This is the first time that has ever happened in our history.  That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.
#18 When Barack Obama took office, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $1.85.  Today, it is $3.53.
#19 Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
#20 Health insurance costs have risen by 29 percent since Barack Obama became president, and Obamacare is going to make things far worse.
#21 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.
#22 According to economist Tim Kane, the following is how the number of startup jobs per 1000 Americans breaks down by presidential administration
Bush Sr.: 11.3
Clinton: 11.2
Bush Jr.: 10.8
Obama: 7.8
#23 In 2008, that total amount of student loan debt in this country was 440 billion dollars.  At this point, it has shot up to about a trillion dollars.
#24 According to one recent survey, 76 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
#25 During Obama’s first term, the number of Americans collecting federal disability insurance rose by more than 18 percent.
#26 The total amount of money that the federal government gives directly to the American people has grown by 32 percent since Barack Obama became president.
#27 According to the Survey of Income and Program Participation conducted by the U.S. Census, well over 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government.
#28 As I wrote about the other day, American households are now receiving more money directly from the federal government than they are paying to the government in taxes.
#29 Under Barack Obama, the velocity of money (a very important indicator of economic health) has plunged to a post-World War II low.
#30 At the end of 2008, the Federal Reserve held $475.9 billion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds.  Today, Fed holdings of U.S. Treasury bondshave skyrocketed past the 2 trillion dollar mark.
#31 When Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent.  Today, it is up to 101 percent.
#32 During Obama’s first term, the federal government accumulated more new debt than it did under the first 42 U.S presidents combined.
#33 When you break it down, the amount of new debt accumulated by the U.S. government during Obama’s first term comes to approximately$50,521 for every single household in the United States.  Are you able to pay your share?

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If you place 32 metronomes on a static object and set them rocking out of phase with one another, they will remain that way indefinitely. Place them on a moveable surface, however, and something very interesting (and very mesmerizing) happens.
The metronomes in this video fall into the latter camp. Energy from the motion of one ticking metronome can affect the motion of every metronome around it, while the motion of every other metronome affects the motion of our original metronome right back. All this inter-metranome "communication" is facilitated by the board, which serves as an energetic intermediary between all the metronomes that rest upon its surface. The metronomes in this video (which are really just pendulums, or, if you want to get really technical, oscillators) are said to be "coupled."
The math and physics surrounding coupled oscillators are actually relevant to a variety of scientific phenomena, including the transfer of sound and thermal conductivity. For a much more detailed explanation of how this works, and how to try it for yourself, check out this excellent video by condensed matter physicist Adam Milcovich.

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C. H. Spurgeon
He that reads his Bible to find fault with it will soon discover that the Bible finds fault with him.

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Techelet
Click here to watch: The Mystery Of Tekhelet 
Take a fascinating journey through history in search of the ancient blue dye, Tekhelet.
The 25 minute movie, richly filmed, travels through 3000 years of Jewish history. Watch scuba divers collecting the snails of Tekhelet off the coast of Israel. Observe Bedouin shepherds shearing sheep. Participate in sophisticated chemical analysis of the dyes as well as the actual dyeing of Tekhelet in a 2500 year old Tekhelet factory.
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A 12+ minute film about the Jewish People, an eternal nation. The spiritual revival of the nation is happening today in Israel. This is one of Ari and Jeremy's best videos this year.
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On April 2, 2009, an Arab terrorist with an axe killed Shlomo Nativ, a 13-year old boy in a small Jewish community in Gush Etzion. This film, made by the Nativ family, highlights one of the most unique and mysterious capacities of the Jewish Soul -- the capacity to turn the most awful tragedies into powerful wellsprings of vitality and joy. 
This film helps us experience a mystery beyond words that resides deep inside each one of us.
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FULL MOVIE: Against All Odds: In The Search of Miracles

In this 1:41 minute film, experience the modern miracles of Israel through the eyes of a seasoned journalist, Michael Greenspan, and explore the question: Why has Israel survived against all the odds? The reenactments are top-quality and the riveting stories will have you glued to your seat as you watch miracles occurring in the Holy Land of the State of Israel!
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Battlefield Detectives – Israel’s Six Day War

This 45 minute film will blow you away! At 7:45 a.m. on June 5, 1967, Israel launched the most successful preemptive air strike in military history. How did this tiny state manage to overcome an Arab enemy that had twice as many soldiers, three times as many tanks, and four times as many airplanes? With firsthand testimony from combatants and military planners plus access to key figures in the intelligence world, gain insights into the meticulous preparations that the Israeli military undertook in the 1960s.
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If you love Israel you will love watching this touching movie.
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INSPIRING! A Life of Giving
Click here to watch: INSPIRING! A Life of Giving
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May we all be inspired to be givers throughout our lives!
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Awesome music video showing the power of Israel being ONE nation, even with such diversity!!! That is our true strength as a people!
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The Story of Jonah as Told by The Cutest Little Girl
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This must be one of the best video presentations that clearly explains international law and the legal case for Israel and Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria. Definitely watch this to have a better understanding of international law so you can talk about Israel's situation intelligently with others.
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"Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.” Philippians 2:1-2 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"There were also with him other little ships."
Mark 4:36
Jesus was the Lord High Admiral of the sea that night, and his presence preserved the whole convoy. It is well to sail with Jesus, even though it be in a little ship. When we sail in Christ's company, we may not make sure of fair weather, for great storms may toss the vessel which carries the Lord himself, and we must not expect to find the sea less boisterous around our little boat. If we go with Jesus we must be content to fare as he fares; and when the waves are rough to him, they will be rough to us. It is by tempest and tossing that we shall come to land, as he did before us.
When the storm swept over Galilee's dark lake all faces gathered blackness, and all hearts dreaded shipwreck. When all creature help was useless, the slumbering Saviour arose, and with a word, transformed the riot of the tempest into the deep quiet of a calm; then were the little vessels at rest as well as that which carried the Lord. Jesus is the star of the sea; and though there be sorrow upon the sea, when Jesus is on it there is joy too. May our hearts make Jesus their anchor, their rudder, their lighthouse, their life-boat, and their harbour. His Church is the Admiral's flagship, let us attend her movements, and cheer her officers with our presence. He himself is the great attraction; let us follow ever in his wake, mark his signals, steer by his chart, and never fear while he is within hail. Not one ship in the convoy shall suffer wreck; the great Commodore will steer every barque in safety to the desired haven. By faith we will slip our cable for another day's cruise, and sail forth with Jesus into a sea of tribulation. Winds and waves will not spare us, but they all obey him; and, therefore, whatever squalls may occur without, faith shall feel a blessed calm within. He is ever in the centre of the weather-beaten company: let us rejoice in him. His vessel has reached the haven, and so shall ours.

Evening

"I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin."
Psalm 32:5
David's grief for sin was bitter. Its effects were visible upon his outward frame: "his bones waxed old"; "his moisture was turned into the drought of summer." No remedy could he find, until he made a full confession before the throne of the heavenly grace. He tells us that for a time he kept silence, and his heart became more and more filled with grief: like a mountain tarn whose outlet is blocked up, his soul was swollen with torrents of sorrow. He fashioned excuses; he endeavoured to divert his thoughts, but it was all to no purpose; like a festering sore his anguish gathered, and as he would not use the lancet of confession, his spirit was full of torment, and knew no rest. At last it came to this, that he must return unto his God in humble penitence, or die outright; so he hastened to the mercy-seat, and there unrolled the volume of his iniquities before the all-seeing One, acknowledging all the evil of his ways in language such as you read in the fifty-first and other penitential Psalms. Having done this, a work so simple and yet so difficult to pride, he received at once the token of divine forgiveness; the bones which had been broken were made to rejoice, and he came forth from his closet to sing the blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven. See the value of a grace-wrought confession of sin! It is to be prized above all price, for in every case where there is a genuine, gracious confession, mercy is freely given, not because the repentance and confession deserve mercy, but for Christ's sake. Blessed be God, there is always healing for the broken heart; the fountain is ever flowing to cleanse us from our sins. Truly, O Lord, thou art a God "ready to pardon!" Therefore will we acknowledge our iniquities.
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Today's reading: Proverbs 19-21, 2 Corinthians 7 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Proverbs 19-21

1 Better the poor whose walk is blameless
than a fool whose lips are perverse.
2 Desire without knowledge is not good—
how much more will hasty feet miss the way!
3 A person’s own folly leads to their ruin,
yet their heart rages against the LORD.
4 Wealth attracts many friends,
but even the closest friend of the poor person deserts them.
5 A false witness will not go unpunished,
and whoever pours out lies will not go free.
6 Many curry favor with a ruler,
and everyone is the friend of one who gives gifts....

Today's New Testament reading: 2 Corinthians 7

1 Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
Paul’s Joy Over the Church’s Repentance
2 Make room for us in your hearts. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have exploited no one. 3 I do not say this to condemn you; I have said before that you have such a place in our hearts that we would live or die with you. 4 I have spoken to you with great frankness; I take great pride in you. I am greatly encouraged; in all our troubles my joy knows no bounds.
5 For when we came into Macedonia, we had no rest, but we were harassed at every turn—conflicts on the outside, fears within. 6 But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, 7 and not only by his coming but also by the comfort you had given him. He told us about your longing for me, your deep sorrow, your ardent concern for me, so that my joy was greater than ever....
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Elkanah

[Ĕl'kănah] - god hath created or is jealous, possessing.
  1. A Levite of the family of Kohath and brother of Assir and Abiasaph (Exod. 6:24; 1 Chron. 6:23).
  2. The father of the prophet Samuel, and a descendant of No. 1 in the fifth generation (1 Sam. 1:1-23; 2:11, 20; 1 Chron. 6:27, 34).
  3. A descendant of Levi through Kohath ( 1 Chron. 6:25, 36).
  4. A descendant of Kohath (1 Chron. 6:26, 35). Perhaps the same person as No. 3.
  5. An ancestor of Netophathite villagers (1 Chron. 9:16).
  6. A Korhite who joined David at Ziklag (1 Chron. 12:6).
  7. A Levite, doorkeeper of the Ark (1 Chron. 15:23). Perhaps the same as No. 6.
  8. An officer in king Ahaz'household and second only to the king, who was slain when Pekah invaded Judah (2 Chron. 28:7).
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September 14, 2011
Greed is Contagious
Today's Truth
Tell those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which will soon be gone. But their trust should be in the living God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and should give generously to those in need; always being ready to share with others whatever God has given them. By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of real life" (1 Timothy 6:17-19, NLT).
Friend to Friend
It was a holiday weekend and I was determined to find the best sale in town - so I headed to the mall. Evidently, everyone else had the same idea because the mall parking lot was crammed full. Horns were honking. People were racing into various entrances, an anxious look on their faces. I wanted to cruise the mall, roll down my window and shout, "Seriously? It is only a sale, people!" As I drove on, I thought about the harried scene I had just witnessed and my thoughts turned to the ugly subject of greed. Greed is contagious. If we spend time with people who are prone to jealousy and greed, it will be easier for us to be jealous and greedy as well.
When anyone in my house gets sick, they know what is coming. War! I immediately launch an all-out battle against sickness and germs. I head to the store in order to stock up on necessary supplies. The list is usually the same; juice, soup, crackers, yogurt, throat lozenges, tissues, cold medicine and last, but certainly not least, several cans of Lysol. I then implement my battle plan. The "sickie" is confined to their quarters. They are allotted one bathroom, one sofa and one bedroom for the duration of their illness. The ailing one is not to enter any other area of the barracks ... uh, house ... without my permission. I then go room to room; spraying every surface that they may have touched or even thoughtabout touching. While the patient is allowed to continue breathing, I tend to follow the feeble one around, spraying the air that borders those breaths. This procedure continues until the patient is completely well. I know. I am obnoxious but I am also successful more times than not. I do not want to catch their disease and feel it is my personal responsibility to quarantine the sick ones in order to halt the progression of the illness.
Greed is a noxious disease, one that demands immediate and fierce spiritual quarantine. We must be careful that we do notcatch the spirit of greed and steer clear of those people who are carriers of this deadly disease.
Greed is an inside job, invading our thoughts and then taking up residence in a discontented heart as it opens the door for other deadly sins. Proverbs 4:23 issues a clear warning when it says: "Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do" (NLT). Greed and honesty cannot exist in the same heart and God wants us to give with an honest heart.
"I know, my God, that you test people's hearts. You are happy when people do what is right. I was happy to give all these things. I gave with an honest heart" (1 Chronicles 29:17, NCV).
In this verse "honest" literally means "with integrity." To give with integrity is to give the right thing at the right time, to the right person for the right reason. The reason for giving should always originate in love - God's love - a love that has been given to us in order for us to give it away in His name. The circle of giving is a circle of love and it all started with God when He gave His one and only Son, Jesus Christ.
We are loved, so we give love and because we give love, we receive more love. Matthew 7:2 says "the amount you give to others will be given to you" (NCV). Luke 6:38 offers a clear picture of God's giving plan. "Give and you will receive. You will be given much. Pressed down, shaken together, and running over, it will spill into your lap.The way you give to others is the way God will give to you" (NCV). What and how we give determines what and how much we receive.
We simply cannot out-give God! I have heard it said that the Lord loves a cheerful giver but that He will even accept it from a grouch. I have also heard it said that plenty of people are willing to give God credit but few are willing to give Him cash. The truth is that the Father looks past the gift and examines the heart behind the gift. The motive of the heart determines the acceptability of the gift.
Let's Pray
Father, my heart and life are so often filled with greed and discontent. Right now, I choose to take my eyes off of "things" and focus on what You want for my life. Thank You for all that You have given to me and for what You have done in my heart. I praise You, knowing that in You I have everything I need. Please teach me how to give in a way that pleases and honors You.
In Jesus' name,
Amen.
Now it's Your Turn
Read and meditate on Paul's words in Philippians 4:12-13: "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength." What impact do these verses have on an attitude of greed?
We need to understand that greed will destroy our peace and contentment. Examine your life, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal every area of greed. Confess your greed as sin and choose against it while looking for ways to practice "Kingdom" giving. Ask yourself the following questions:
  • What areas of my life are most affected by greed?
  • What are my idols?
  • What "things" or "desires" do I need to give up so that greed will have no grip on my life?
  • What specific ways can I begin to practice "Kingdom" giving?
  • What is the first step I should take in order to guard against greed?
More from the Girlfriends
Looking for a Bible Study that is both practical and powerful? Check out Mary's E-Book Bible Studies. Each one includes a study guide that you can download for your personal use or for a small group study.
Come As You Are is Mary's NEW Online Bible Study that begins September 26! The most common invitation offered by Jesus Christ is simply to "come." He doesn't ask us to fix what is wrong or expect us to clean up our lives. That is His responsibility. Jesus loves us just as we are and when we come to Him with a "yes" in our hearts, He lovingly transforms the broken places into beautiful scars of healing and new life. Enroll before October 1 and access to all 2011 lessons. Need a friend? Connect with Mary on Facebook or through email.
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P31Header
Melissa Taylor
September 14, 2011
My Thoughts vs. God's Word
Melissa Taylor
"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." John 10:10 (NKJV)
Do you ever question if you are good enough? Are you more likely to dwell on what's wrong with you than what's right with you?
One day I realized I was scrutinizing myself to find out what my problem was. The more I picked myself apart, the more it dawned on me another voice was egging me on; the voice of the enemy, Satan. As I listened to his lies, my sense or worth and security were zapped.
For a long time I didn't even recognize him for who he was. The negative thoughts and deceitful suggestions simply sounded like my own voice.
The Bible opens with a serpent slithering into the lives of Adam and Eve. He filled their heads with lies they believed which separated them from God. Jesus, too, was tempted by this liar. He was ready though, with the Word of God, to defeat the evil one.
We too can have this weapon in our arsenal. As we fill our hearts and minds with Truth, we can defeat the lies we tell ourselves and the lies Satan whispers to our hearts.
When I compare my negative thoughts to God's Word, the differences amaze me:
My thoughts: I want to give up.
God's Word: Be committed. Matthew 5:33-37
My thoughts: I'll feel lost.
God's Word: He watches my paths and establishes my ways. Proverbs 5:214:26
My thoughts: No one loves me.
God's Word: He loves me more than life. John 3:16
My thoughts: I'm ugly.
God's Word: I'm wonderfully made. Psalm 139:14
My thoughts: I'm all alone and no one understands me.
God's Word: He will never leave me. He has plans for my life. Deuteronomy 31:6Jeremiah 29:11
My thoughts: I'm just not good enough.
God's Word: I was created in His image. Genesis 1:26
Are you ready to replace lies with God's truth, so when the enemy tries to slither back in with false accusations, you'll be ready to combat him with what God's Word says about you?
To get started, evaluate your thoughts and pray for wisdom to distinguish the voice of the enemy. Condemning thoughts that steal your confidence of who you are in Christ aren't from God. Let's commit today to renew our mind with the Word of God each day, and replace those worn-out, deceitful lies with Truth.
Dear Lord, thank You for Your life-giving truth. Please fill me with Your Word so that I can live in freedom and confidence! In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Related Resources:
Dive into God's Word with Melissa's Online Bible study ofA Confident Heart by Renee Swope. Click here to be a part of this powerful study and community!
You won't want to miss the dynamic A Confident HeartConference Call Series either! To purchase the seriesclick here.
What others are saying about A Confident Heart:
• This book pierced my heart, as no other reading, hearing, or experience has.
• This is so what I need! I love how you remind us to pray God's Word. His truth is only what makes a difference with toxic thoughts.
• I felt like you were writing about me. I find myself not doing things that would bring joy because of not being good enough. This book describes how I have felt all my life.
We invite you to join thousands of others participating in Melissa's Online Bible Study! Visit her blog to sign up and also enter to win a free Conference Call Series for you and a friend!
When you purchase resources through Proverbs 31 Ministries, you touch eternity because your purchase supports the many areas of hope-giving ministry we provide at no cost. We wish we could, but we simply can't compete with prices offered by huge online warehouses. Therefore, we are extremely grateful for each and every purchase you make with us. Thank you!
Application Steps:
Read the verses in this devotion and write down what God's Word says.
Reflections:
Are my thoughts reflective of who God's Word says I am?
If not, what are one or two I will begin to change by memorizing some of the verses above?
Power Verses:
Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things." (1984 NIV)
Romans 8:1, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (NIV)
© 2011 by Melissa Taylor. All rights reserved.
Proverbs 31 Ministries
616-G Matthews-Mint Hill Road
Matthews, NC 28105
www.Proverbs31.org
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“What are social games?” you might ask. You’ve almost certainly heard them spoken of before; they’re easily accessible games that are played over social networks like Facebook and smart phones like iPhones. Their easy access and ubiquity has allowed social gaming to rise dramatically in popularity in recent years.
For most players, social games are a pleasant and momentary diversion from the rigors of daily life. Social games can also function as a low-stress, low-cost, and low-maintenance means of interacting with friends and family. Their subject matters may vary greatly, but, by and large, social games have historically provided rather light fare as far as content is concerned, exploring simple themes like farming and cooking or exploiting tired tropes like gangsters and vampires.
But, what if a social game could be more than just a fleeting distraction? What if a social game could carry a positive message, one that was driven by values and a sense of morality?
Noah’s Ark is a new Facebook game that allows players to experience firsthand one of the best-known stories from the Old Testament. To assist Noah in his preparations for the great flood, players collect animals, gather resources and work towards building the Ark. Players interact with friends and help each other out, building relationships and enriching the game experience with positive social interaction. There’s also a daily trivia feature that teaches and tests your knowledge about the story of Noah, his family, and the building of the Ark.
The Noah’s Ark game is designed to be played by all audiences and can be played for free.
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A Sense of God's Timing

Today's reading: 1 Samuel 24
Two leaders locked in a death struggle-with one refusing to fight
1 Samuel 24:11-12 "I have not wronged you, but you are hunting me down to take my life. May the LORD judge between you and me."
In the winter of 1777, America had two armies. One lived in comfortable homes in Philadelphia. The other camped in the snow in the hills to the northwest, at a place called Valley Forge. One showed impeccable discipline. The other tried desperately to keep its untrained recruits from deserting. One was supplied by ship with every luxury. The other fought frostbite because its soldiers had no boots.
In sum, one army had everything it could want to weather a cold winter and a war, while the other hung by a thread. Who could have thought, seeing the two, that within three years the army with nothing would defeat the army with everything?
The impoverished American army could never go head-on against the crack British forces. But it could always outwait them. George Washington's army had the support of the American people, while the British army, for all its strength, was far from home. The British had to win decisively, putting an end to the rebellion. The Americans merely had to survive and outlast them.
Washington was a military genius not at battle tactics, but at a more fundamental necessity: encouraging his men to fight on. One-quarter of them died of cold and disease that bitter winter at Valley Forge. Only his personal strength held the miserable army together. That was the key to victory.
Two Kings in Israel
David and his followers lived in a similar situation. Saul was the right and proper king, living in luxury. David had been secretly anointed as his replacement, but he lived in the desert, scrabbling to survive. Saul had a professional army, David a small band composed of family members and an assortment of outlaws.
Twice Saul accidentally fell into David's hands, but David refused to kill him. He felt that would violate God's will. He would not use his sword to become king. He fought not to win but to survive.
Survival was not easy. You can read between the lines of 1 Samuel 21-31 and see a great drama unfolding. Saul is clearly deteriorating. Can David hold on long enough to outlast him?
At first David ran from one place to another, alone and completely vulnerable. Then, after a few hundred supporters joined him, the local people turned the rebels in twice (see 1 Samuel 23:1926:1). Perhaps they feared that Saul would slaughter them the way he had the Nob priests (see 1 Samuel 22:6-23).
David survived and managed to keep his army intact. He even built popular support by providing military protection to his neighbors. But eventually he saw that his position was impossible. "One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul," he thought (1 Samuel 27:1). He left Israel and became, with his army, a hired soldier for one of the Philistine kings.
Sooner or later David's double-agent act would have been found out. In fact, when the Philistines planned a major military effort against Israel, David barely escaped having to fight his own people.
Time on His Side
David believed God's promise even when his situation looked very bad. He would wait for God's timing. God had anointed him king, and he trusted God to vindicate him.
A sense of timing, people say, is essential to leadership. You must know when to act boldly and when to wait patiently; when to bend and when to stand firm. David had that critical sense of timing because he trusted God's control of events.

Life Question

  • What makes you impatient? What can you learn about patience from David's life?
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