Sunday, February 22, 2015

Sun Feb 22nd Todays News

On Bolt Report an ongoing policy is that any Islam post can only be on the pinned leader. Normal rules apply in that if it is merely foul and abusive it will be deleted. Otherwise comments are welcome.  
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Galileo was a genius and an experimental scientist and a fool. His discovery that weight was independent of acceleration was counter intuitive and brilliantly illustrated. Also, his criticism of those who believed the universe revolved around the Earth was brilliant. Part of Galileo's problem was what also made up his genius. He was abrasive and rude and refused to accept simple graces which allow friendship to grow. One of his patrons who gave him much he indulged in, to pursue his study, he humiliated in print. As a result he lost a patron and one who might have defended him against the heresy charge he faced. On this day in 1632, Galileo published his dialog on two chief world systems. 

 Galileo knew what he was doing. Bill Shorten does not. And it is obvious. Shorten does not have a policy on any issue. If Shorten had a policy then he would pass items through the senate in line with that policy. Instead, Shorten, the ALP Leader, opposes everything. When Mr Abbott was in opposition, he passed the majority of bills which allowed the government of the day to function, opposing only bills that were not worthy. However Shorten is harming Australia by opposing needed legislation. And Shorten has lied when asked to say what his position is on things. He lies about what the government is attempting, and Shorten is given too much credit by journalists who refuse to challenge his lies. Shorten is not Galileo, but he is rude and abrasive. The result has been the mediocre politician that is former treasurer, Bowen, does not even look competent in interview. Bowen could not name the bottom tax threshold for individuals and missed other detail that is simply expected of a competent politician with that portfolio. But as bad as Bowen is, there is an obvious explanation for his inability, and it isn't his follow up lie the next day saying that he really knew but hadn't said. The problem for Bowen is that he can't discuss policy because at the moment there is none for the ALP. Bowen wants to look stupid rather than break ranks with the ALP. 

 The ALP have another problem that is policy related. Too many ALP members are anti semitic bigots. They hate Israel and have no problem with Jew killing. So that Jews do not feel safe in states run by the ALP. The reason for the problem is that the ALP are courting jihadists. Not Islamic peoples, but jihadists bent on killing others. Offending ALP members speak in a code of 'anti zionism' or 'peace in the middle East,' but the result of their statements is death to Jewish peoples and promotion of jihadism. It is that disease which saw former NSW ALP Leader Robertson fall after surviving corruption allegations and even a failure to report an attempted bribery by an assassinated businessman, when Robertson discovered he had given a jihadist killer a reference. Bob Carr apparently split with Gillard over Israel and, so called, Palestine. 

 It is a problem for the ALP (and Greens) but it isn't limited to them. There is a culture of anti Semitism pre dating WW2, but flowering under Nazis. The political left are using words and just as with Galileo, these words hurt and scar. There are jihadists in the world who are recruiting the same way Communists did in the past. By poisoning the minds of the young. It is not normal to be a bigot. Being a bigot who hates Jews is not a small character flaw. Impotent Islamic leaders are defending jihadis just as left wing political ones are. Sometimes excusing the activity and sometimes supporting it. And so Danish Muslims mourn a jihadist terrorist and not the victims. 

 Global Warming or ABC propaganda? On the mostly cool evenings, it feels like propaganda. Yet it is propaganda which celebrities like Caton support. Caton opposes gas drilling, and he raises the issue of it by having a large gas BBQ. 

 Liberal party leakers are hurting the party, not helping Turnbull. The leaks are intolerable. Bishop and Turnbull must step aside. 
2014
The upcoming movie Noah is attracting criticism. It stars Russell Crowe and some critics are saying that his performance is too dark for a depiction of the end of the world. The producers are still road testing the endings before test audiences. Different Christian authorities are disputing aspects of the film. The text that the story is based on is bare, and leaves much to be imagined. For mine, the most objectionable aspect is the emphasis on climate change and overpopulation. Neither of which were biblical issues in the event. The wrong religion has been sourced. But Hollywood won't admit that, instead they have to claim that there wasn't enough singing and dancing. And another biblical text is seen being repeated, with Sodom and Gomorrah. 

Today is an anniversary of a powerful act of God, in a legal sense. The NZ city of Christchurch, home to friends of mine, was humbled by an earthquake on this day in 2011. Three years on and she is rebuilding, but there is still pain. One friend of mine recounted how their parents had a collection of crystal glass figurines. An earlier earthquake had damaged much, but the figurines were ok. But on this day, in 2011, the figurines were no more. Landmarks over a hundred years old were taken. It is a reminder that nothing is owned by anyone forever. Do not build your homes on sand. 

Some will argue about the existence of religious stories, including biblical accounts. Personally, I can think of few things more stupid than hoping to find Noah's Ark. I am a fundamentalist Christian, I believe in the word of God. But I respectfully point out the Bible is not a science textbook, but a text from many authors, inspired by God, writing of man's relationship with God. The Mosaic stories are not first hand accounts of events, but based on older stories illustrating how God revealed himself to his chosen people. The precise meaning of Noah's flood is not the archaeological event of a flood, but the salient point that God tired of people rejecting Him and took his anger out on creation .. and promised his faithful not to do so again. The correlation with Christchurch 2011 called an act of God is a legal definition for insurers, not a religious statement for her people. Which isn't to say God wasn't present. I believe he was. And although my friends lost their crystal glass, and have much to rebuild, they kept everything they will value for eternity.
Historical perspectives on this day 
In 705, Empress Wu Zetian abdicated the throne, restoring the Tang Dynasty. 1316, Battle of Picotin between Ferdinand of Majorca and the forces of Matilda of Hainaut 1371, Robert II becomes King of Scotland, beginning the Stuart dynasty. 1495, King Charles VIII of France entered Naples to claim the city's throne. 1632, Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was published. 1651, St. Peter's Flood: A storm surge flooded the Frisian coast, drowning 15,000 people. 1744, War of the Austrian Succession: The Battle of Toulon began. 1797, the Last Invasion of Britain began near Fishguard, Wales.

 In 1819, by the Adams–Onís Treaty, Spain sold Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars. 1821, Greek War of Independence: Alexander Ypsilantis crossed the Prut river at Sculeni into the Danubian Principalities. 1847, Mexican–American War: The Battle of Buena Vista – 5,000 American troops defeated 15,000 Mexicans. 1848, the French Revolution of 1848, which would lead to the establishment of the French Second Republic, began. 1853, Washington University in St. Louis was founded as Eliot Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. 1855, the Pennsylvania State University was founded in State College, Pennsylvania (as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania) 1856, the Republican Party opened its first national meeting in Pittsburgh.

 In 1862, Jefferson Davis was officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia. He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on February 18, 1861. 1872 the Prohibition Party held its first national convention in Columbus, Ohio, nominating James Black as its presidential nominee. 1879, in Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opened the first of many of 5 and dime Woolworth stores. 1889, United States President Grover Cleveland signed a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states. 1899, Filipino forces led by General Antonio Luna launched counterattacks for the first time against the American forces during the Philippine–American War. The Filipinos failed to regain Manila from the Americans.

 In 1904, the United Kingdom sold a meteorological station on the South Orkney Islands to Argentina, the islands are subsequently claimed by the United Kingdom in 1908. 1909, the sixteen battleships of the Great White Fleet, led by USS Connecticut, returned to the United States after a voyage around the world. 1915, World War I: Germany instituted unrestricted submarine warfare. 1921, after Russian forces under Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg drove the Chinese out, the Bogd Khan was reinstalled as the emperor of Mongolia. 1924, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge became the first President to deliver a radio broadcast from the White House.

 In 1942, World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as the Japanese victory became inevitable. 1943, World War II: Members of the White Rose resistance, Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst were executed in Nazi Germany. 1944, World War II: American aircraft mistakenly bombed the Dutch towns of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede and Deventer, resulting in 800 dead in Nijmegen alone. Also 1944, World War II: The Soviet Red Army recaptured Krivoi Rog. 1948,  Communist revolution in Czechoslovakia. 1957, Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam survived a communist shooting assassination attempt in Ban Me Thuot. 1958, Egypt and Syria joined to form the United Arab Republic. 1959, Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500.

 In 1972, the Official Irish Republican Army detonated a car bomb at Aldershot barracks, killing seven and injuring nineteen others. 1973, Cold War: Following President Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China, the two countries agreed to establish liaison offices. 1974, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit began in Lahore, Pakistan. Thirty-seven countries attend and twenty-two heads of state and government participate. It also recognised Bangladesh. 1974, Samuel Byck tried and failed to assassinate U.S. President Richard Nixon. 1979, independence of Saint Lucia from the United Kingdom. 1980, Miracle on Ice: In Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeated the Soviet Union hockey team 4–3. 1983, the notorious Broadway flop Moose Murders opened and closed on the same night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. 1986, start of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines.

 In 1994, Aldrich Ames and his wife were charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union. 1995, the Corona reconnaissance satellite program, in existence from 1959 to 1972, was declassified. 1997, in Roslin, Scotland, scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly had been successfully cloned. 2002, Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was killed in a military ambush. 2006, at least six men staged Britain's biggest robbery, stealing £53m (about $92.5 million or €78 million) from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent. 2011, New Zealand's second deadliest earthquake struck Christchurch, killing 185 people. Also 2011, Bahraini uprising: Tens of thousands of people marched in protest against the deaths of seven victims killed by police and army forces during previous protests. 2012, a train crash in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killed 51 people and injured 700 others. 2014, President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine was impeached by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by a vote of 328-0, fulfilling a major goal of the Euromaidan rebellion.
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This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
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Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August https://www.createspace.com/4124406, October https://www.createspace.com/5106951, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows the purchase of a kindle version for just $3.99 more. 
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For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball

Or the US President at
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-change-this-injustice#
or
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-injustice-faced-david-daniel-ball-after-he-reported-bungled-pedophile-investigation-and/b8mxPWtJ or http://wh.gov/ilXYR
Douglas Sutherland-Bruce via David Daniel Ball
Mr Ball, I will not sign your petition as it will do no good, but I will share your message and ask as many of friends who read it, to share it also. Let us see if we cannot use the power of the internet to spread the word of these infamous killings. As a father and a former soldier, I cannot, could not, justify ignoring this appalling action by the perpetrators, whoever they may; I thank you Douglas. You are wrong about the petition. Signing it is as worthless and meaningless an act as voting. A stand up guy would know that. - ed

Lorraine Allen Hider I signed the petition ages ago David, with pleasure, nobody knows what it's like until they've been there. Keep heart David take care.

I have begun a bulletin board (http://theconservativevoice.freeforums.net) which will allow greater latitude for members to post and interact. It is not subject to FB policy and so greater range is allowed in posts. Also there are private members rooms in which nothing is censored, except abuse. All welcome, registration is free.
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Happy birthday and man happy returns Irene Marija Podrebersek and Murielle Sassine. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
USS Connecticut BB-18
Your people are loyal. We have food coma. We are fleet. Bill declassified the cigar. Don't over regulate, but do apply brakes. Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2015
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Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen suffers huge deficit in credibility

Piers Akerman – Sunday, February 22, 2015 (12:47am)

Australians have tragically short memories.
Whenever a senior Opposition spokesman appears, they should remember that they are watching a member of a failed and disgraced government lacking all credibility.
Opposition Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen’s embarrassing performance last week delivered a sharp reminder of how dismal Labor was in office, particularly in regard to economic affairs.
A former treasurer, a former assistant treasurer, he could not tell veteran 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones the level of the tax-free threshold during an interview with former Labor kneecapper Graham Richardson on Sky TV.
What was worse though, and largely ignored by the Labor-friendly media, was the fact that just last weekend he described the nation’s debt and deficit problems as “just ­rhetoric”.
There is simply not a worthwhile economist who would agree with him.
Australia is on a trajectory to a crippling debt burden that will crush the dreams of future generations and it is largely due to unfunded promises locked in by the catastrophically dysfunctional Labor governments of which Bowen was a member.
Instead of admitting he didn’t know the answer to Jones’ question Bowen waffled through a series of agonising segues into nonsensical cul-de-sacs of illogic.
He had been asked the simplest of questions by Jones: “Firstly, if you’re then going to change the tax structures, you might prove that you’re a treasurer of real merit and detail, can you outline to everyone out there what are the various tax levels at what point we pay so much in tax if you’re an income earner. So, for example, at what point do we pay nothing for tax? No tax at all?”
Bowen made at least eight attempts to duck the question and sounded like an idiot.
As Richardson, who tried to run interference for his hapless ALP colleague even as Bowen floundered through the interview, wrote on Friday in The Australian his father’s advice was always “when you stuff up, get out and get out quick”.
Someone should have given Bowen the same tip.
Little wonder that the other former failed Labor treasurer still in parliament, Wayne Swan, has largely learnt to keep his flapping gums still when economic matters are discussed.
Swan promised to deliver a surplus no less than 500 times during his time in the Treasury portfolio and actually delivered five straight deficits.
In his first Budget speech in 2008, he claimed Labor was on target to deliver the “largest budget surplus as a share of GDP in nearly a decade”.
Unfortunately, instead of the promised $21.7b surplus, he delivered a deficit of $27b.
The following year, he again promised to bring the budget back into surplus and pay down debt in the middle term. He actually managed to more than double his earlier deficit and run it up to $55b.
Like Bowen now, Swan didn’t know when to stop. He promised surpluses and delivered deficits.
Swan’s credibility rating is zero. But Bowen, his replacement in 2013, has proved to be just as hopeless and has not learnt anything in Opposition.
In one of his first letters to Treasurer Joe Hockey in November 2013, he confused the net debt with the gross debt, demonstrating that he has as much knowledge of finance as he has of tax rates.
Then he tried to verbal Hockey by alleging that Hockey had “falsely” claimed former PMs chaired the Expenditure Review Committee even though he (Bowen) had actually attended ERC meetings in 2008 when he was assistant treasurer and one of his own prime ministers, Kevin Rudd, chaired the committee.
Bowen then claimed Hockey had used leaked Cabinet documents to make his argument, but that too was utter humbug as information freely available on the public record shows that former Labor PM Bob Hawke also chaired the ERC (for all but one year of his time as PM) as did John Howard in 1996.
Of course, both those prime ministers had a greater understanding of economics and the budget than Bowen or the two Labor prime ministers he served, Rudd and Julia Gillard.
Yet Bowen, who also famously and falsely claimed that Australia was in surplus during 2010, the year when the biggest deficit in modern Australian history was recorded, is warmly welcomed unquestioningly onto the ABC’s flagship programs and treated as if he actually has some credibility.
Whenever he appears in public or in the media, his presence should be accompanied by a large notice reminding the young and those with indifferent memories that as the minister for Fuelwatch he presided over a $20 million program that did nothing to reduce the effect of rising fuel prices on consumers. It should also mention that he blew millions on Grocery­Choice, only to dump it before it was fully set up.
And that as immigration minister, he was responsible for $5.2bn — or around 45 per cent — of Labor’s total $11.6bn Border Protection blowout as 24,886 people on 395 boats arrived on his watch.
To paraphrase George ­Santayana, voters who forget the past are condemned to ­repeat it.
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Is the world really warming, or did you just trust the ABC?

Andrew Bolt February 22 2015 (3:36pm)

SCARE ONE:
Cameron Goodison compares a typical ABC global warming scare with the easy-to-check truth:

Recently the Australian Goyder Institute released a report detailing the effects of climate change on rainfall in South Australia. The result:

‘Climate change will halve inflow to SA’s biggest reservoir.’
- The ABC
To make such a alarming statement one would think the ABC has done its research. They must have first done a quick Google search of the average annual rainfall for the region to see if there is any sort of noticeable downward trend that would give such a statement some degree of credibility.
So Goodison checks the most obvious and easiest check of all - the actual rainfall records so far:
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And then Goodison has some fun, explaining just how the ABC would have satisfied itself that this scare, too, was fit to report.
SCARE TWO:
Let’s try the same exercise with this scare, again breathlessly reported:
Climate change is impacting our environment in unprecedented ways. Now, though, scientists have found that in the coming decades, at least one-quarter of the world’s wheat production will be lost to extreme weather from climate change if no adaptive measures are taken.
Actually, this scare - that global warming to cut food crops - has been peddled for at least 15 years already, But the simplest of checks suggest that this, scare, too seems in defiance of the real world data so far, as Jo Nova demonstrates:
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(Via Watts Up With That.)  
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The Bolt Report today, February 22

Andrew Bolt February 22 2015 (1:00pm)

On the The Bolt Report on Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm.
Guests:  Jeremy Jones, Bruce Hawker, Michael Kroger and Miranda Devine. 
Is Bill Shorten ready? Could you vote for the kind of Liberals now peddling despicable smears against Tony Abbott? A lesson on dealing with ABC journalists who are in your face. And Jews now fleeing Europe.
The videos of the shows appear here.
UPDATE
Oops. Sorry. Forgot to put this up.  
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Hundreds of Danish Muslims mourn Islamist killer

Andrew Bolt February 22 2015 (5:54am)

An Islamist in Copenhagen kills one man at a free-speech rally and then murders a Jew at a synagogue.
Police shoot him dead, and his funeral is attended by 500 mourners:

This cannot end well for Europe.
(Thanks to reader Harald.) 
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Caton’s barbecue

Andrew Bolt February 22 2015 (5:49am)

Michael Caton fronts a campaign against coal and gas mining, along with the “Knitting Nanas against Gas” group (true!).
He then promises to hold a barbie for supporters. Guess what fuels the flames:
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(Thanks to Eagle Dan) 
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Any Liberal party led by such leakers is not worth supporting

Andrew Bolt February 22 2015 (5:39am)

So the Prime Minister tried to keep an election promise. This is now leaked against him with an extra twist by enemies with no shame or honor:
A SECRET plan to kick millionaires off the aged pension was shelved by the Abbott Government’s budget razor gang in favour of slashing the indexation of payments for every pensioner in Australia.
The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that cabinet’s budget razor gang was asked to consider reforms to slash pension payments to wealthy seniors last year by changing the taper rate.
In another stunning leak from the nation’s most powerful cabinet committee, senior ministers have confirmed they agonised that the Prime Minister would be accused of kicking seniors off the pension and breaking a clear election promise not to cut pensions.
Instead, Treasury proposed a change to the indexation arrangements for all pensioners _ meaning the rate of increase would effectively be slowed _ from 2017.
“They got political, and said we won’t break the promise if we don’t do this until 2017,’’ a Liberal source said.
The leakers clearly want another candidate - almost certainly Malcolm Turnbull - to replace Abbott. These are people prepared to betray, smear, deceive and exaggerate to get their way, if the recent leaks about Abbott allegedly costing the lives of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran and wanting to invade Iraq are any guide.
This is far beyond legitimate criticism or an expectation that Abbott will fail. This is vicious sabotage.
I wouldn’t think a Liberal party run by their kind is worth supporting. 
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Islamism is the new communism

Andrew Bolt February 22 2015 (5:29am)

Totalitarianism appeals particularly to the young. Islamism in that sense is much like Nazism and communism, attracting the well-educated as well as the welfare-takers.
In Britain:
Police are appealing for help to find three schoolgirls who have gone missing and are thought to have travelled to Turkey with the intention of crossing the border into Syria…
Police fear the girls, all pupils at the Bethnal Green Academy, in east London, might be heading to join terror group Isil - Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as Islamic State…
Commander Richard Walton, of Scotland Yard’s counter terrorism unit, described the girls as “straight A students” and “normal girls”.
In Australia:
A Perth university student has left Australia to join the Islamic State terrorist group, becoming the first known recruit for the militants from Western Australia.
Muhammed Sheglabo migrated from Libya in 2010 and had been studying economics at Murdoch University.
Then there’s the usual cannon fodder and misfits:
A federal investigation into the welfare status of Australian foreign fighters, prompted last year by revelations in The Telegraph, shows 96 per cent had been on welfare benefits when they fled to the Middle East.
Most had continued to collect payments from Australian taxpayers while training with Islamic State to become terrorists intent on wanting to kill Australians. 
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Just another $999,999,990 to go

Andrew Bolt February 22 2015 (5:18am)

image
I’ll believe these activists mean it when they’ve returned not this handful of coins but the full $1 billion:
Abbott’s comments, that Australia gave $1 billion in aid to Indonesia following the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami have angered many in [Aceh] province who say that humanitarian aid and law are different things.
Anger is growing amid the suggestions that the aid money can now be used as a bargaining chip in trying to save the lives of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
Acehnese have begun posting photographs of coins, with the words coins for Australia next to them and one tweet shows a group of Acehnese all putting money into a cardboard box, saying “Aceh people happily try to return your money @TonyAbbottMHR”.
It’s also helpful to know that Aceh doesn’t actually need Australian aid any more. Could save us plenty. 
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Time the Left realised their words are now bullets

Andrew Bolt February 21 2015 (6:10pm)

A particularly fine Media Watch Dog blog from Gerard Henderson this week. In it, he gives two examples of the dangerous irresponsibility of the Left in this post-Hebdo world.
The first involves ABC presenter Fran Kelly’s decision to give a platform to Uthman Badar, representative of the pro-jihadist extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which preaches hatred of Jews, democracy and Australia and refuses to condemn the Islamic State. Here is a sample of Hizb ut Tahrir’s preaching in Sydney:
To supposedly balance Badar, Kelly invited Greg Barton from Monash University. What followed was another PR triumph - for Hizb ut-Tahrir:
Discussion focused on the Prime Minister’s statement on national security scheduled for next Monday – and, in particular, on what approach Tony Abbott might take to the radical Sunni Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Uthman Badar dominated the discussion by weight of political force. Professor Barton appeared to go under-the-bed and had little of substance to say. Fran Kelly made a few tentative points critical of Hizb ut-Tahrir – with the emphasis on tentative.
Neither Kelly nor Barton objected when Hizb ut-Tahrir’s man in Australia equated Muslim Australians fighting with the so-called Islamic State (with which Australia is at war) with a Jewish Australian serving time in the Israeli Defence Force in defence of a democratic state (which has good relations with Australia).
Neither Kelly nor Barton mentioned Uthman Badar’s past rationalisation of so-called honour killings where Muslim women are killed by other Muslims. Moreover, when Badar complained about Muslims being killed in the Middle East and North Africa, neither Kelly nor Barton mentioned that the overwhelming majority of Muslim dead are victims of the Shia-Sunni religious war within Islam.
Fran Kelly did mention ISIS’s campaign against the Assad regime in Syria. But she did not mention that Assad was aligned with the Shia. During all this, the learned professor was “out-to-lunch”. Despite the fact that it was only breakfast time.
If RN Breakfast is going to invite Uthman Badar into its studio, it should insist that he should do battle with someone who has the ability and courage to contest his radical views. Michael Danby, the Labor MP for Melbourne Ports, could have engaged Badar in a debate this morning. Barton was too timid and Kelly seems to reserve her on-air aggression for Coalition cabinet ministers like Scott Morrison (last Tuesday’s Kelly/Morrison interview refers).
I wonder whether Kelly suffers from the “nice” racism - that fear of saying a deservedly cross word to even the most unpleasant Muslim, in this case, for fear of seeming racist. Or maybe, like too many of the Left, she shares too many of an Islamists critiques of Western democracy to pick enough bones in Hizb ut-Tahrir’s carcase.
Whatever, this pandering and permitting of an extremist to proselytise on the national broadcaster is not just stupid but potentially lethal.
Likewise with tweets like this - dangerous in ways Burnside should know, if he set aside for a moment his ideological blinkers:
Sorry to see Andrew Bolt stirring up Islamophobia today on his blog. People like Bolt and Abbott are the real threat to our way of life.
Henderson is equally astonished:
How about that? According to J.B. A.O. QC, the likes of Andrew Bolt and Tony Abbott “are the real threat to our way of life”. Not the Aussie Sunni lads who have headed from Down Under to places in Syria and Iraq to behead Shia Muslims. Not the Shia then Sunni Man Haron Monis who engaged in kidnap and murder on Phillip Street in Sydney. Not the likes of Melbourne based one-time welfare recipient Abdul Nacer Benbrika who conspired to launch terrorist attacks on public targets. And not Numan Haider who attempted to murder two police officers in suburban Melbourne.
Not any one of them. According to Julian Burnside AO QC, “the real threat” to Australia’s way of life comes from the Prime Minister and a News Corp columnist.
I recommend readers note well what Isi Leibler told me this week about the dangerous cover that the Left now gives the Islamists.
More good reading from Henderson here, and I recommend you bookmark his site. 
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Post by Australian Jewish Communal Lobby.

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Post by Holly Sarah Nguyen.

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Post by Unbelievable facts.

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Post by Timothy Ly.

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Post by Larry Pickering.

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=== Posts from last year ===

I hope Jane Hutcheon isn’t made to pay for not flying at my throat

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (12:24pm)

I am astonished and grateful that the ABC just let me speak yesterday without ringing a leper’s bell over my head, peppering me with attempted gotchas, running abusive Twitter graffiti over the screen or inserting repeated reminders to viewers of my manifest evil and unfitness for polite company - the kind of thing I got earlier in the week from ABC 774..
I now worry for Jane Hutcheon, host of One Plus One, who is coming under some criticism for letting me on her show. I suspect she will get even more for not trying to nail me to the floor and flay me, preferring instead to let me try to explain what I believe and why, for better or worse.
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The full interview can be seen here. I’d thank Jane personally for treating me like a normal guest, but I worry she’d then fret over whether she’d been too soft.
UPDATE
Thanks for all who wrote in today (even the couple with criticisms). Bowled over by your kindness. 
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Why did a Labor Government protect Craig Thomson? A question for the royal commission

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (12:15pm)

Jacqueline Maley is perfectly correct on an issue I believe the royal commission must investigate: 
Labor had literally years to deal with the problem [of Craig Thomson]. Allegations had been swirling [about his corruption] for a long time even before Fairfax’s reporting. Fair Work Australia started its own investigation in 2010.
Any party official who had done due diligence would have detected the stench that surrounded Thomson, and yet he was preselected twice - once in 2007 and again in 2010. The only conclusion voters, and Labor Party members (who ultimately ended up paying [nearly $350,000 in legal expenses] for Thomson’s expensive legal frolic) can reach is that Labor knew, but it didn’t care.
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:
AB, in light of the phone call industrial registrar Doug Williams says he received from Gillard’s chief of staff in 2009, it would be fair to say Labor knew and certainly did ‘care’ - just in a different sense to the way most fair-minded people would care. 
And while Maley is correct in saying FWA didn’t start its investigation until 2010, it would be fairer to say it should have finished it in 2010, after Doug Williams’ work on the matter a year earlier.
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Steyn bites Mann

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (12:04pm)

Wonderful. Mark Steyn is countersuing Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann for suing him over some of the mockery Mann so richly deserves:
As a result of Plaintiff’s campaign to silence those who disagree with him on a highly controversial issue of great public importance, wrongful action and violation of the Anti-SLAPP Act, Steyn has been damaged and is entitled to damages, including but not limited to his costs and the attorneys’ fees he has incurred and will incur in the future in defending this action, all in an amount to be determined at trial, but in any event, not less than $5 million, plus punitive damages in the amount of $5 million.
Steyn’s new book -  Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech And The Twilight Of The West - is available here.
(Thanks to reader ev425128.) 
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The Left’s all-in brawl for personal advantage … and a nice mirror

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (11:51am)

Socialist Julie Burchill has had enough of the new tribalism of the Left - the “intersectionality” of different interest groups struggling for advantage:
It’s easy for me to sentimentalise those days when the trade unions held sway, chiming as they did with the calf country of my communism, but whatever their beery and sandwichy limits, they were far better than what replaced them; the politics of diversity. While working-class left-wing political activism was always about fighting the powerful, treating people how you would wish to be treated and believing that we’re all basically the same, modern, non-working-class left-wing politics is about… other stuff. Class guilt, sexual kinks, personal prejudice and repressed lust for power…  
[Mine] was an instinctive desire to defend the socialism of my dead father. Because intersectionality is actually the opposite of socialism! Intersectionality believes that there is ‘no such thing as society’ — just various special interests. In my opinion, we only become truly brave, truly above self-interest, when fighting for people different from ourselves. My hero as a kid was Jack Ashley — a deaf MP who became the champion of rape victims. These days, the likes of those who went after Suzanne would probably dismiss him as a self-loathing cis-ableist. Intersectionality, like identity politics before it, is pure narcissism. 
(Thanks to reader the Old and Unimproved Dave.) 
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Does the Abbott Government really want its own cabinet documents exploited by a Shorten Government?

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (11:42am)

Wrong way, go back: 
The Abbott government will make cabinet documents from the former government available to the royal commission into the abandoned home insulation scheme in an unprecedented move that could provoke a legal challenge. 
Attorney-General George Brandis outlined the plan to make cabinet documents available in a letter to his predecessor, Mark Dreyfus, who says it turns 113 years of established practice on its head.. Lawyers representing former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard and several former cabinet ministers who have been summoned to appear before the commission are believed to be considering legal action, which would see the courts decide if cabinet confidentiality should be waived in the public interest.
This royal commission already looks far too much like victors’ justice. Breaching a tradition of cabinet confidentiality will further that impression, and make the reality of it more likely in future.
It could also have a dangerously chilling effect on cabinet deliberations in future.  
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Labor lies to claim credit for stopping the boats

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (11:26am)

Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles says Labor deserves the credit for the boats stopping:
RICHARD MARLES: ... The policy difference which has had the effect is the PNG arrangement which Labor put in place and the best thing that this Government is doing is continuing on prosecuting the PNG arrangement.
Richard Marles last year said Labor wouldn’t turn back the boats as the Abbott Government promised:
Indonesia has been consistent all along in saying they didn’t want to see boats turned back, which was why we always felt that Tony Abbott going to the election this year with a policy of turning the boats back was simply pie in the sky. It was never going to happen as an ongoing policy because Indonesia didn’t want it… It is impossible for Australia to dictate terms to Indonesia on this. They are our neighbours.
Inescapable conclusion? That Labor would never have been able to stop the boats as the Abbott Government has:
NAVAL and Customs patrol vessels have turned or towed at least three asylum-seeker vessels back towards Indonesia in the past fortnight.... 
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday no asylum-seeker boats had made it to Australia for 64 days.... Mr Morrison said in the corresponding 64-day period in 2012-13, 1847 people arrived on 32 boats.
Labor needs to be called out on its farcical suggestion it would have succeeded as the Abbott Government now has.
(Thanks to reader Peter.) 
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Our health crisis is as simple as 3, 10, 15

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (11:23am)

Reader Andrew of Randwick on the only figures we need to know in this debate on our massive health spending:
The question is not about the $6 contribution.The question should be about the numbers: 3, 10 and 15.
- GDP and thus taxes are growing at 3%
- Overall health costs are growing at 10%
- Sub-set diagnostics costs are growing at 15% (because they are now there and legal warfare)
Those three numbers are the question. Unless we change, the whole government budget will be taken over by health spending. 
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A decade on, and McGuinness was right to warn of Mark Scott

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (11:14am)

Media Watch Dog pays tribute to the acuteness of the late P.P. McGuinness, who in 2006 wrote this warning that the appointment of Mark Scott as managing director of the ABC promised no change to the over-mighty state broadcaster’s Leftist bias:
Scott is ... a guarantee of one thing. While he is at the helm, the ABC will not change its editorial culture… 
Scott will not be idle. He is an able exponent of management change and of organisational change. The already quite extensive activity of the ABC in the rapid technical development of broadcasting and of related areas will continue. No doubt he will, as a believer in organisational growth, support the imperialistic drive that has taken the ABC into areas far beyond its original brief and often beyond the limits of its legislative charter…
So the ABC remains in safe hands. There is no revolutionary, no ideologue, no hot-eyed burning reformer to disturb its ageing and placid dissemination of the small-l liberal platitudes of the past 30 years.
The feminists, the gay-rights advocates, the ecumenical searches for the meaning of life, the anti-Catholics, the advocates of Papuan independence, the supporters of Fidel Castro and similar Third World dictators and murderers, the America haters can rest secure. So can the Howard haters, long protected by McDonald at the ABC. After all, Scott has protected for years that rabid, elderly hater of Howard, Alan Ramsey at the SMH, as he declines in perpetual hymns of Keatingesque hate (only the other day he called Howard a toad). He has allowed The Age to dispose of any semblance of balance, not even pretending to occasional balance on the opinion page (but, like the SMH, never in the news or letters pages). 
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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If global warming were really serious there’d be no need for these lies

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (9:13am)

Professor Bjorn Lomborg agrees man is heating the planet - but he’s still astonished that so many UN and OECD officials tell untruths about global warming:
Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan takes the prize for the most extreme rhetoric, claiming not curbing global warming is “a terrible gamble with the future of the planet and with life itself"… 
Both Annan and [Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the OECD last month] cited Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines last November as evidence of increased climate-change-related damage.
Never mind that the latest report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found “current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century” and reported “low confidence” that any changes in hurricanes in recent (or future) decades had anything to do with global warming…
Similarly, Gurria tells us that Hurricane Sandy, which slammed into New York City in 2012, is an example of inaction on climate change, costing the US “the equivalent of 0.5 per cent of its GDP” each year.
In fact, the US currently is experiencing the longest absence of intense landfall hurricanes since records began in 1900, while the adjusted damage cost for the US during this period, including Hurricane Sandy, has fallen slightly.
[United Nations climate chief, Christiana] Figueres claims “that current annual losses worldwide due to extreme weather and disasters could be a staggering 12 per cent of annual global GDP”.
But the study she cites shows only a possible loss of 1 per cent to 12 per cent of gross domestic product in the future, and this is estimated not globally but within just eight carefully selected, climate-vulnerable regions or cities…

Figueres sees “momentum growing towards” climate policies as countries such as China “reduce coal use”. In the real world, China accounts for almost 60 per cent of the global increase in coal consumption from 2012 to 2014, according to the International Energy Agency… Figueres’s weak grasp on the facts has led her not only to conclude China is “doing it right” on climate change, but also to speculate that China has succeeded because its “political system avoids some of the legislative hurdles seen in countries including the US”. In other words, the UN’s top climate official seems to be suggesting an authoritarian political system is better for the planet. 
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ABC lacks the balance of Fox News

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (9:06am)

Gerard Henderson, who will be my first guest on the new NewsWatch segment of the Bolt Report from Sunday week, makes a comparison:
THE ABC declines to acknowledge the point. But a greater plurality of views can be heard on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel in the US than on the taxpayer-funded broadcaster in Australia. The ABC does not have one conservative presenter or producer or editor for any of its prominent television or radio or online outlets… 
The difference between the ABC and Fox News is perhaps most marked in their coverage of the media.
Since the ABC1 Media Watch program began in 1989, it has had a succession of leftist or left-of-centre presenters who use the public broadcaster as a pulpit from which they lay down the law on journalistic standards: namely, Stuart Littlemore, Richard Ackland, Paul Barry, David Marr, Liz Jackson, Monica Attard, Jonathan Holmes and Barry (again).
Littlemore ... boasted in his book The Media and Me (ABC, 1996) how, as a journalist on This Day Tonight (the predecessor of 7.30), he had used the public broadcaster to campaign against “conservative values” in general and the Coalition in particular. Marr, when presenter of Media Watch, declared that “the natural culture of journalism” is “soft leftie” and anyone who did not fit into this category should “find another job” ...
Fox News’s coverage of journalism involves a debate with experienced commentators expressing varying positions. Last weekend MediaBuzz focused on the media’s coverage of Hillary Clinton. Presenter Howard Kurtz presided over a debate between the left-of-centre Michelle Cottle and the right-of-centre Amy Holmes, with panellist Lauren Ashburn taking a neutral position. Kurtz facilitated the discussion, while refraining from preaching.
Memo to self: invite ABC boss on as a guest for NewsWatch. 
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Can one in 18 Australians really be too sick to ever work?

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (8:50am)

Australia has just over 15 million people of working age. I find it impossible to believe that832,000 of them - or one in every 18 - are too sick to ever do a stroke of work when this is a rich country with an excellent health system:
NEW surge in the number of disability pensioners to record levels will spark an Abbott government push for a radical welfare restructure that diverts people with mental illnesses from becoming permanent DSP recipients. 
The latest figures show there were 832,024 DSP recipients in December, a rise of more than 10,000 since June last year and eclipsing the previous record of 831,908 in December 2011.
The number of DSP recipients with a mental illness has increased by about 90,000 over the past 10 years, to 256,380…
Confronted with widespread calls for the government to lift the general unemployment payment by $50 a week, Mr Andrews said he conceded there were vast differences between the payment rates of Newstart Allowance and the DSP but said the government was not in a position to raise the dole payment because of the fiscal position. “It is a perverse incentive for people to get on the DSP because the payment is higher,” Mr Andrews said.
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Shorten’s problem: he’s insincere and can’t fake sincerity

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (7:46am)

Bill Shorten’s problem has long been that he can’t fake sincerity. That problem becomes crippling when his policies aren’t sincere, either.
Dennis Shanahan: 
Labor’s response under Bill Shorten as Opposition Leader has been to oppose a royal commission into union corruption, adopt the ACTU’s feeble line of suggesting it’s just a “few bad apples”, accuse the Abbott government of wanting to “cut to the bone” and to blame the Coalition for the failure of Holden, Toyota and Alcoa, accusing the Prime Minister of not caring for workers or fighting for jobs. 
It is also Labor’s strategy to continue to support the carbon tax and, with the Greens, prevent its repeal, along with the mining tax, in the Senate despite a resounding loss at the election last year…

Shorten’s political line on jobs is that “one job has been lost every three minutes under the Abbott government”, that Joe Hockey “goaded” Holden into leaving Australia and that there should have been federal government assistance for Holden and the SPC Ardmona cannery in Victoria. This line is failing the “pub test”. It goes against common sense and voters demonstrably don’t believe it or support the intentions.  
It’s actually even worse. Shorten is defending the unpopular carbon tax his party before the election actually promised to scrap. He’s opposing $5 billion in spending cuts his party before the election actually promised to pass. He’s attacking the Government for a 6 per cent unemployment rate that Labor in government itself predicted. He’s denouncing union corruption while fighting a royal commission to root it out. He’s blaming the government for car makers closing when the first two big ones to fall fell under Labor.  He’s giving Labor policies the credit for the Government stopping the boats these past nine weeks when Labor never managed to achieve that feat itself in its last five years in government. He attacked the Government for not giving SPC Ardmona a $25 million subsidy when the company has since admitted it could survive without it.
Shorten record is shocking, exposing him as a mere opportunist. What makes that charge so deadly is that opportunistic and insincere is exactly the reputation he must shrug, having first knifed Kevin Rudd to install Julia Gillard, and then, after swearing loyalty to Gillard, knifing Gillard to install Rudd. 
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Will warmists keep quoting Rupert Murdoch, their guru?

Andrew Bolt February 22 2014 (12:10am)

Somehow I doubt warmists will keep quoting Rupert Murdoch at me, and will try to forget they ever did. But let’s remind them…
In 2006 the Sydney Morning Herald gleefully announced a convert to its cause:
Rupert Murdoch, powerfully converted to the climate change cause, says that business and government need to confront it and that the Kyoto Protocol should be rewritten… 
The conversion of Mr Murdoch, whose media empire includes The Times, The Australian, The New York Post and Fox News, and who is a not infrequent guest of prime ministers and presidents, is a radical shift from his previous scepticism.Even though he was still not entirely certain about it, “the planet deserves the benefit of the doubt”, he said. 
The Left ever since have demanded Murdoch journalists and other sceptics fall into line with the warmists’ new hero:
Entrepreneur Dick Smith, at the launch of his book on population policy, declared this week that Murdoch’s Australian newspapers were defying their boss’s global warming stand ("give the planet the benefit of the doubt") and needed bringing to heel. Murdoch, in short, had to tell us what to write.
“Rupert, I ask you to come back to Australia,” Smith cried. “Come back and take the reins, your editors are losing the plot and need to be reminded that you accept we must transform the way we use energy and that we need to act now.” 
ABC hosts cited Murdoch as their new authority to cow even politicians into silence:
The ABC’s Jon Faine this morning gave [sceptic] Senator Steve Fielding a taste of the treatment he must expect from the ABC’s global warming faithful.... He asked whether Fielding’s “religious approach” was interfering with his thinking.

He demanded to know why Fielding did not agree with Rupert Murdoch and give the planet “the benefit of the doubt”. (Mudoch, incidentally, is the one authority Faine cited.) 
Even professional alarmist Tim Flannery cited Murdoch as his muse: 
To quote Rupert Murdoch, ‘You’ve got to give the planet the benefit of the doubt’...
I’m afraid even John Howard was quoting Rupert Murdoch to justify his desperate conversion before his 2007 defeat:
We should, in the words of Rupert Murdoch, give the planet the benefit of the doubt, given the dangers of climate change. 
In 2009 then Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull quoted him, too, to demand his party back Labor’s emissions trading scheme:
If we were to, if this legislation is knocked back Kevin Rudd will have no choice but to go to a double dissolution election… The party would be, look we would be wiped out.... 
You know, as Rupert Murdoch famously said, and Rupert Murdoch is a hard-headed, naturally sceptical person I think as we all know, he said you’ve got to give the planet the benefit of the doubt, and that is the only responsible course of action.
Senator Nick Xenophon was still quoting Murdoch as recently as last week:
My view is this: I do believe that climate change is real and that we need to – as Rupert Murdoch once famously said – give the planet the benefit of the doubt.
And ABC and Fairfax journalists looked forward to me dropping my own scepticsm and mockery of Earth Hour in deference to my boss:
Last November, while in Japan, [Murdoch] announced his change of heart [on global warming]. “… I believe it is now our responsibility to take the lead on this issue,” he said then… 
So News Corp cutting back to zero emissions would be the equivalent, Murdoch said, of turning off London for five days. It was an interesting analogy, given some of his columnists in Australia had criticised Earth Hour ... The Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt, a climate change sceptic, seemed exasperated that anyone would think the announcement would change his mind.
As I said in 2006: 
Now, critics who once scoffed that I merely wrote on Murdoch’s alleged orders are demanding to know why this time I have not. 
The ABC’s Media Watch complains I’m “resisting”. ABC host Jon Faine protests that I’m an “idiot” for holding out. Age gossip writers insist I’m “nutty”. 
So how many Leftists will today urge sceptics and Murdoch employees to heed the latest and best thoughts of the man they once quoted so freely?
image
Murdoch’s comments apply specifically to the claimed links between global warming and the snow and rain we’re now seeing. But I suspect he has noted the failure of the planet to warm as predicted, and rightly concluded it’s the warmists we should doubt instead.   
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It is tragic. Mental illness/depression is no joke. She was beautiful. And strong. And she told her story before she left. But I would have preferred she grew old, and experienced the joy of life. - ed
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“The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” -Romans 13:9-10
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
February 21: Morning
"He hath said." - Hebrews 13:5
If we can only grasp these words by faith, we have an all-conquering weapon in our hand. What doubt will not be slain by this two-edged sword? What fear is there which shall not fall smitten with a deadly wound before this arrow from the bow of God's covenant? Will not the distresses of life and the pangs of death; will not the corruptions within, and the snares without; will not the trials from above, and the temptations from beneath, all seem but light afflictions, when we can hide ourselves beneath the bulwark of "He hath said"? Yes; whether for delight in our quietude, or for strength in our conflict, "He hath said" must be our daily resort. And this may teach us the extreme value of searching the Scriptures. There may be a promise in the Word which would exactly fit your case, but you may not know of it, and therefore you miss its comfort. You are like prisoners in a dungeon, and there may be one key in the bunch which would unlock the door, and you might be free; but if you will not look for it, you may remain a prisoner still, though liberty is so near at hand. There may be a potent medicine in the great pharmacopoeia of Scripture, and you may yet continue sick unless you will examine and search the Scriptures to discover what "He hath said." Should you not, besides reading the Bible, store your memories richly with the promises of God? You can recollect the sayings of great men; you treasure up the verses of renowned poets; ought you not to be profound in your knowledge of the words of God, so that you may be able to quote them readily when you would solve a difficulty, or overthrow a doubt? Since "He hath said" is the source of all wisdom, and the fountain of all comfort, let it dwell in you richly, as "A well of water, springing up unto everlasting life." So shall you grow healthy, strong, and happy in the divine life.
Evening
"Understandest thou what thou readest?" - Acts 8:30
We should be abler teachers of others, and less liable to be carried about by every wind of doctrine, if we sought to have a more intelligent understanding of the Word of God. As the Holy Ghost, the Author of the Scriptures is he who alone can enlighten us rightly to understand them, we should constantly ask his teaching, and his guidance into all truth. When the prophet Daniel would interpret Nebuchadnezzar's dream, what did he do? He set himself to earnest prayer that God would open up the vision. The apostle John, in his vision at Patmos, saw a book sealed with seven seals which none was found worthy to open, or so much as to look upon. The book was afterwards opened by the Lion of the tribe of Judah, who had prevailed to open it; but it is written first--"I wept much." The tears of John, which were his liquid prayers, were, so far as he was concerned, the sacred keys by which the folded book was opened. Therefore, if, for your own and others' profiting, you desire to be "filled with the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding," remember that prayer is your best means of study: like Daniel, you shall understand the dream, and the interpretation thereof, when you have sought unto God; and like John you shall see the seven seals of precious truth unloosed, after you have wept much. Stones are not broken, except by an earnest use of the hammer; and the stone-breaker must go down on his knees. Use the hammer of diligence, and let the knee of prayer be exercised, and there is not a stony doctrine in revelation which is useful for you to understand, which will not fly into shivers under the exercise of prayer and faith. You may force your way through anything with the leverage of prayer. Thoughts and reasonings are like the steel wedges which give a hold upon truth; but prayer is the lever, the prise which forces open the iron chest of sacred mystery, that we may get the treasure hidden within.
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Tryphena and Tryphosa
Scripture Reference: Romans 16:12
Name Meaning: Delicate or dainty one
As Paul links these two Christian ladies together, we shall think of them as one-which they were in many ways. Probably they were twin sisters in the flesh, as well as in Christ, or very near relatives, and belonged to the same noble Roman family. They must have been conspicuous in the service of the church at Rome-perhaps deaconnesses-otherwise Paul would not have singled them out for his expression of gratitude for their devoted labor in the Lord.
Their names, characteristically pagan, are in contrast to their significance. Having a similar resemblance in appearance and constitution, if twins, they were given names having a like meaning. Being of noble birth they "lived delicately," that is, in plenty and pleasure and luxury. Lightfoot says that, "It was usual to designate members of the same family by derivatives of the same root." "Delicate" may, of course, refer to physical weakness, and as tender and delicate women, Tryphena and Tryphosa stand out as early examples of incessant and arduous labors in the service of the church.
Whether of gentle and refined manners, or delicate in health, or both, these active workers carved a niche for themselves in Paul's portrait gallery of saints. Early Christian inscriptions in cemeteries used chiefly for the servants of the emperor contain both of these female names, and so can be identified as being among "the saints of Caesar's household" (Philippians 4:22). How we bless God for the record of those early "honourable women which were Greeks" (Acts 17:12) who became humble followers of the Lamb!
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Felix 
[Fē'lĭx] - happy, prosperous.
A cruel Roman governor of Judea, appointed by the Emperor Claudius, whose freedman he was (Acts 23:24-26; Acts 24:2-27; Acts 25:14). Felix is described by Tacitus as a bad and cruel governor, even though the title of "most excellent" was given to him.
The Man Who Procrastinated
As a true preacher, Paul pressed home the truth until it pricked the conscience of Felix so much so that he "trembled." He did not resent Paul's plain speaking but postponed the interview "till a more convenient season." Such a "convenient season," however, did not come, and Felix became a type of many whose consciences are stirred by the preached Word, but whose hopes of eternal security are ruined by a like procrastination. The two sworn enemies of the soul are "Yesterday" and "Tomorrow."
Yesterday slays its thousands. Past sins plunge many into darkness and despair. Priceless opportunities were trampled upon, and the harvest is past. But God says there is mercy still and free forgiveness through repentance.
Tomorrow slays its tens of thousands. Vows, promises, resolutions are never fulfilled. "Some other time," many say, when urged to repent and believe. They fail to realize that now is the acceptable time. How pitiful it is that the convenient season never dawns for them! The pathway to their hell is strewn with good resolutions, and as they cross "The Great Divide," the mocking voice cries out: "Too late! Too late!"
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Today's reading: Numbers 1-2, Mark 3:1-19 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Numbers 1-2

The Census
1 The LORD spoke to Moses in the tent of meeting in the Desert of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt. He said: 2"Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one. 3 You and Aaron are to count according to their divisions all the men in Israel who are twenty years old or more and able to serve in the army...."

Today's New Testament reading: Mark 3:1-19

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath
1 Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. 2 Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3 Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Stand up in front of everyone."
4 Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent....


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