Friday, November 06, 2015

Fri Nov 6th Todays News

The HRC have missed an appalling abuse in Australia. Australia gets about $15 billion a year from foreign students. They are not all wealthy. Some work sweatshop conditions that are forced on them, despite the exploitive conditions placed on their VISA. Universities make them claim they don't work too much. But they can't defer university fees, and get no discounts on public transport. They have to share accommodation and when they work there is no tax relief that is available to locals. They can be easily manipulated by shady characters. Some turn to prostitution. Some work 70 hour weeks for as little as $10 an hour cash in hand. And they face jealous local students with claims of cheating that are bogus. Similar exploitation occurs in other first world nations too. But it is a problem that is not easily addressed. Because those students who do their three years of study while working impossible hours walk away with a prized degree. But one outrageous issue is the illegal practice of universities of posting fees, accepting students, and then raising them. So that a student can be told to expect $10k per semester which they budget for overseas. Then they find it is $10,200 when they get here. They they find it is $10,700 when they register. Then they are charged $11,500 at time of payment. 

 For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
=== from 2014 ===
ALP is bad
Whitlam to be honoured by a city named after him? And even conservatives support it? Remember, even his funeral suffered from a failure of central planning. The best one might say of him as PM is that he wasn't as bad as Rudd or Gillard. All three PMs were serving at a time when the public wanted change from conservative governments, but all the public got was betrayal, corruption and incompetence marked by substantial debt. All three PMs had their reigns marked by deaths of people related to their policy. Whitlam probably killed more innocent people than Rudd or Gillard. From Balibo 5, Vietnamese refugees, Cambodian peoples oppressed by the people Gough embraced and people in disaster zones while Gough was on holiday, Gough achieved more. Rudd had his pink batt deaths, some soldiers and a bungled assassination attempt in Timor as well as refugees. Gillard seemed to feel that drowning refugees was compassionate too. Any conservative who lauds Gough needs to hand in their conservative credentials and run as an independent. ABC's Jonathan Green tweeted his love for Whitlam's funeral. Many good people have looked forward to it too. 

Cate Blanchett's claim she had free tertiary education is fact checked. She hadn't. She is welcome to thank Gough Whitlam, but his lousy policy stopped scholarships for high achieving students and cost the tax payer too much so that it was stopped. Meanwhile Cate is regularly not washing her hair to save the planet. 

Andrew Carswell, of the Sydney Daily Telegraph, lists some of the dead beat professional activists who stop billions of dollars of investment annually because of their socialist beliefs. 

The ALP is accepting money and policy advice fro the CFMEU. Gillard withdrew legal protections of oversight from the CFMEU. Don't vote for the ALP until they reform. 

Fairfax slimed Newscorp journalist Sharri Markson, claiming she had been evicted from an Emirates tent at the Melbourne cup for harassing ABC's Barrie Cassidy. The truth is the emirates did not evict her or try to, but Cassidy did ask an executive producer to get her removed. Cassidy had not wanted to be interviewed when drinking free grog. 
Democrats fail their constituents
Another terrorist attack in Israel. This time by a terrorist Obama ordered free for peace. They still managed to kill a policeman before being killed. 

Islamic peoples on Q&A showed that even moderates were buying an inflamed since of victimhood. What about the greatness of Islam? What about pride and the belief they are better than their worst?

Dutch intelligence warns of the rising threat of Islamic violence related to Jihadism. As Bolt notes "True, most Muslims will not support the jihadists. But as we’ve seen here, remarkably few will condemn them, preferring to condemn instead government attempts to fight them."

Another bonus from GOP taking Senate next January is Obama failing to get through an ETS. He promised one in '08. He also said the oceans would slow and the planet heal.

The Abbott government is good, but it will not survive if it cannot sell itself. Addressing the issue of Hamidur Rahman might be a good start. Obama is a lame duck because, although he had popular support, people are suffering from his policies, most people. Obama's policies have given him no political leverage in his second term, even so, he could work with GOP and save his legacy. Or he could fight with the GOP and be forever remembered for failure. Just like Gough. 
From 2013
Babylon 5 was written by Joe Michael Straczynski. JMS wrote a few years ago about a basic premise of story telling. Two threads run through an episode as thesis and antithesis, leading to synthesis. Watching Blue Bloods this morning, I was struck as a policeman kills a guy who suicides by cop, calling the police to his location and waving a gun at school kids. The second thread involves the NY Mayor not testifying at a trial, he is witness for, in an election year. In the first thread, the cop is troubled after he killed the suicide. Why would a person do that? But in thread analysis, there is humor .. people want the Mayor to lie before an election, and not commit suicide politically. This feeds into analysis of the US President .. voters want him to lie .. but want the media to pursue it .. they want the chase, not a political suicide. I feel the hardest thing Israel can do .. and the best course for her atm, is to do nothing, because she is not being given good alternatives. I can't see a better alternative to Netanyahu in the Israeli parliament. This isn't to say criticism of him is wrong. But it does suggest it is overstated. Netanyahu must not commit political suicide. 

Over a million dollars had been spent, a few years ago, rehabilitating a horse with a broken leg. It took months. When it was over, the horse was led from the pool in which it had been standing .. tripped on some moss, broke a leg, and was put down. One day there will be rehabilitation options for race horses. But it is easier to put a man on the moon. But, what can be done with Obama. If he were a race horse .. 
=== Publishing News ===
This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August, September, October, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows the purchase of a kindle version for just $3.99 more. 

List of available items at Create Space
===
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.

Happy birthday and many happy returns Karen Chu, Dave Imms and Stacy Host. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
November 6: Guru Nanak Gurpurab (Sikhism, 2014); Constitution Day in the Dominican Republic (1844); Finnish Swedish Heritage Day in Finland
Portrait of George Eliot by François D'Albert Durade
You are first. George did her best. Poland has many intellectual elite. Washington has begun production. Be considerate of other's safety. Let us party.
Deaths
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GEORGE BARRIS

Tim Blair – Friday, November 06, 2015 (2:42pm)

Custom car king George Barris, creator of the Batmobile and many other celebrated designs, has died at 89. Readers may recall Barris as the genius behind Supervan, everyone’s favourite solar-powered 1970s sex wagon.
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RED KERRY QUITS

Tim Blair – Friday, November 06, 2015 (2:33pm)

An internal ABC memo: 
Kerry O’Brien has decided to leave Four Corners at the end of the current season, after five years in the presenter’s chair. 
Translation: five years of giving brief introductions and closing remarks. Total airtime over those five years: probably fewer than four hours. 
As Kerry told his Four Corners colleagues today: “I have been extremely proud to be associated with Four Corners for the past five years. No other brand has been as enduring or as respected in Australian television and I have felt enormously privileged to be a part of it all again, albeit in a part-time capacity.
“This is not retirement for me. I have more than enough to get on with. It’s taken me this long to write my first book so I figure I’d better start now if I want to complete a second. I also have other ideas, which may offer the opportunity to work again with the ABC …”
He has set the agenda and broken stories for decades with integrity and passion. Above all else, he has held the powerful to account and let no office or authority deter his aim of getting answers to questions that mattered to Australians. Kerry has inspired and fostered many journalism careers, pioneered new programs and told this nation’s story. 
(Via the Ultimo Mole.)
===

A PAT ON THE HEAD FOR RONE

Tim Blair – Friday, November 06, 2015 (10:22am)

The Age applauds: 
Melbourne street artist Rone has struck a blow for women in sport, refusing to feature men in an AFL-inspired mural he was commissioned to paint in Docklands. 
In fact, Rone has struck a blow for women watching sport. I wonder how he’d cope with a self-portrait.
(Via JJ.)
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TROUBLE FOR TONY AND TANYA

Tim Blair – Friday, November 06, 2015 (2:48am)

An interesting challenge for two senior Laborites. They can either move left to secure their local seats at the expense of future leadership ambitions, or they can move right to secure those leadership ambitions at the possible expense of their local seats: 
The Greens could win the Labor strongholds of Grayndler and Sydney if the party received Liberal preferences at the next election, according to a Parliamentary Library analysis of proposed new federal electoral boundaries.
The research, based on voting in the NSW state election in March, shows the Greens securing more than 55 per cent of the two-party vote in both of the heavily redrawn seats.
While there are several important caveats about the possible double upset, the analysis suggests that if the Liberals were tempted to give the Greens preferences, Labor would need to devote extra resources to protect heartland seats currently held by two of its highest-profile and most senior MPs, Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek. 
If Anthony and Tanya play this the wrong way, it could end up looking like the execution of Elmo:

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HUMAN vs BOGAN

Tim Blair – Thursday, November 05, 2015 (1:46pm)

Battle is joined in New Hampshire’s council elections: 
Two candidates are competing for the Ward 6A City Council spot in the Nov. 3 election – it’s between incumbent Donna Bogan and Rochester resident named Human …
Human, of 402C Portland St., formerly named David Montenego, had changed his legal name to “human,” all lower case, in 2012. His preference was to have the “H” in his name capitalized for this article. He said he changed his name as a way to let people know what he stands for.
“I’m a human being looking out for rights of other human beings,” he said.
Human describes himself as patient, intelligent, and a good problem solver who is knowledgeable about how the government operates …
He is currently unemployed. 
The election has now been decided. Did Human beat Bogan for that prize council gig? Or is Human still unemployed?

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'HUMAN vs BOGAN'
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On The Bolt Report on Sunday, November 8

Andrew Bolt November 06 2015 (2:09pm)

Editorial:  Sceptics rule, OK. A little gloating is in order. A few scaremongers to be named and shamed.

My guest: Finance Minister Mathias Cormann.

The panel: Former Treasurer Peter Costello and former NSW Labor Treasurer Michael Costa. Has the tax debate gone off the rails? And the bouncy Turnbull and the dancing Shorten - which is worse. Plus more unions scandals.
NewsWatch: Piers Akerman of the Daily Telegraph. Why journalists swallowed the warming scare. And is the media’s love affair with Turnbull in any danger of ending?

The videos of the shows appear here.
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This GST plan just looks like a tax grab

Andrew Bolt November 06 2015 (8:50am)

If Malcolm Turnbull offered a straight swap - increase the GST to 15 per cent in exchange for cutting tax rates by the equivalent $30 billion - I’d be right on board. That would give taxpayers more freedom and incentive, and probably encourage investment, too.
But I have no faith that any such swap can be negotiated, given all the screams of self-interest from people wanting a share of that GST hike, given the Senate and given Turnbull’s apparent allergy to criticism.
Graham Richardson is right:
The first problem will be the reaction of the states. Technically the support of the states is not necessary but in the real world it would be foolish to proceed without substantial support coming from them…
The commonwealth wants to lower tax rates, increase pensions and welfare payments in general just for a start. The states had expected the extra money would go to them as they struggled to raise any more revenue to pay for existing services…
Victoria remains implacably opposed to any GST increase and Queensland’s opposition is almost as strident… If the commonwealth set about gouging the lion’s share of the increase, then even the Liberal states would dig in.
The next problem is the Senate. Labor and the Greens lie in wait and I just can’t see the likes of Jacqui Lambie, Ricky Muir or Glenn Lazarus voting for it. There must be no complacency in counting the other crossbench senators as being in favour of the increase either. To go through all the pain and still face a hostile Senate does make the word “courageous” look like it is right on the money.
Labor and the Greens will run exactly the same campaigns against the increase as they did when it was proposed by John Howard. They will say it is a regressive tax that will hit low to middle-income families. The Liberals will counter with promises that a compensation package will be presented that will protect Labor’s target audience…
[Treasurer Scott] Morrison must remember that only a few short weeks ago he told us that Australia has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. To promote a massive tax grab such as this cannot do a great deal for his credibility…
UPDATE
The best contribution from a Liberal to the tax debate recently has actually been from backbencher Angus Taylor, who surely deserves higher office:
The first problem is spending. Cut it.
The tax rates are too high. Cut them.
If you want the GST to go up, do not raise the overall tax take.
Health spending needs to be restrained.
Spoken without tortured sailing metaphors or waffle.
Summed up in his opinion piece:
Few things excite politicians more than spending money and cutting ribbons. Few things annoy voters more than tax hikes, especially if the extra tax is supporting government spending addictions.
Across the world, governments have resolved this dilemma by accumulating debts, passing the buck to future generations. Australian state governments are on to a better trick — convince the federal government to raise taxes, and then get hold of the money.
As we debate a higher GST, distinguish between two very different motives. The first is pure. Raise GST and give all the money back by reducing other taxes (especially eliminating income tax bracket creep, company tax and stamp duty) and the necessary welfare adjustments. This is good policy which will drive investment, savings, work participation and growth.
The second is more cynical. Give the money to the states so they can avoid confronting their demons — the desperate need for productivity improvements in public services like health and education. In the past, federal government grants have allowed the states to delay this crucial work by generously funding their in­efficient and highly unionised health and education systems.
Bottom line:
We shouldn’t be considering an increase in the overall tax burden on Australians when we have barely started the necessary reforms to drive out government waste.
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The Liberals should not doom Albanese

Andrew Bolt November 06 2015 (7:13am)

The Liberal decision-making should be simple: is Australia safer with Greens MPs in Parliament or Labor?
The Greens could win the Labor strongholds of Grayndler and Sydney if the party received Liberal preferences at the next election, according to a Parliamentary Library analysis of proposed new federal electoral boundaries.
The research, based on voting in the NSW state election in March, shows the Greens securing more than 55 per cent of the two-party vote in both of the heavily redrawn seats…
[T]he analysis suggests that if the Liberals were tempted to give the Greens preferences, Labor would need to devote extra resources to protect heartland seats currently held by two of its highest-profile and most senior MPs, Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek.
Resist that temptation. The Liberals would serve Australia badly if they helped Greens into power. 
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And these children want power

Andrew Bolt November 06 2015 (6:55am)

Bertrand Russell, winner of the Nobel Prize of Literature, on the fraud of the idealist activist:
Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.
Student activists of Sydney University - most of the Left - yesterday demonstrated Russell’s axiom:
A meeting on Thursday night upheld at least this last tradition, descending into chaos, with police called to investigate a “stolen” mobile phone and scuffles allegedly taking place as people were barricaded outside the room.
The meeting had been called to elect the executive members of the 2015 Students’ Representative Council (SRC), but was shrouded in controversy after student political factions - an integral part of student politics - reneged on a power-sharing deal.
Members of Labor Right (Student Unity), another Labor faction called Sydney Labor Students and Liberal factions had attempted to stall the meeting and have it declared inquorate, because they had been locked out of a power-sharing deal by factional rivals.

Almost two hours after the meeting was due to start, no voting had taken place, and the electricity was cut off, plunging the room into darkness for about 20 minutes. The meeting was later told that the power switch had been flicked deliberately.
When the lights came back on and the meeting resumed, executive positions on the council were duly won by members of Grassroots (a faction roughly aligned with the Greens), National Labor Students (the Labor left), Socialist Alternative and independents - who had formed a coalition…
Campus security guards were also present outside the room for much of the meeting, which was almost shut down by the returning officer, Paulene Graham, after a near-constant stream of interjections, yelling and abuse by newly-elected councillors and observers. At one point, some students yelled “pigf---er” when a Liberal student was called to accept his place on council.
(Thanks to reader Nick.) 
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Damn. Warming might not destroy the world, after all. Bugger

Andrew Bolt November 06 2015 (6:40am)

James Delingpole thought that the postponement of the end of the world would please climate scientists.
But, no, their anger is that of the wolf denied its prey:
You might think this would be great news for all those scientists who have been warning us over the last few years about the impending horrors of “man-made global warming” but in fact they are not happy about it, not one bit.
Here for example is Dr Jay Zwally, the lead author of this week’s surprising Nasa study that confirms that the Antarctic is gaining far more ice than it is losing.
“I know some of the climate deniers will jump on this and say this means we don’t have to worry as much as some people have been making out. It should not take away from the concern about climate warming.”
Does that sound to you like a neutral scientific opinion? Do you sense any relief at the good news that the climate apocalypse of melting ice caps and rising sea levels may not be quite so imminent after all? No, me neither. 
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The intellectuals’ feral hatred of Thatcher

Andrew Bolt November 06 2015 (6:25am)

Historian Paul Johnson on the second volume of Charles Moore’s biography of Margaret Thatcher:

Intellectuals, whom I define as those who think ideas are more important than people, are notorious for getting politics wrong, nowhere more strikingly so than in the case of Mrs Thatcher. Ideas do not have votes, whereas people do. Intellectuals, under which heading I include pseudo-intellectuals, cultural bureaucrats and similar oddities, absolutely hated her, at no time more passionately than during and after the Falklands War, which naturally they were hoping she would lose.
Although the BBC reporters on the spot were (as usual) wonderfully objective, the bureaucrats in Broadcasting House were solidly hostile. I don’t think I ever made her so angry as once, partly as a tease, I said: “The trouble with you, Margaret, is that you are so pro-BBC.” “There’s nobody who hates the BBC more than I do,” she shouted.
The record shows she was right to do so. The BBC ran seven Falklands dramas, all of them anti-Thatcher. Another play, by Ian Curteis, was pro-Thatcher, but when the BBC realised this they cancelled it. The head of plays, Peter Goodchild, told Curteis he objected to scenes showing Mrs Thatcher writing letters of sympathy to the widows of dead servicemen. Instead he wanted a scene in which the Tories discussed the electoral advantages of war. Curteis refused, and the programme was scrapped. Michael Grade, controller of BBC One, claimed the play was not good enough. (It was eventually transmitted after her death as a “historical curiosity”.)
Mrs Thatcher is the point at which all snobberies meet: intellectual snobbery, social snobbery, the snobbery of Brooks’s, the snobbery about scientists among those educated in the arts, the snobbery of the metropolis about the provincial, the snobbery of the South about the North, and the snobbery of men about women.
Jonathan Raban said she was “a total philistine . . . to her, paintings, books and ideas were just so much Black Forest Gateau”. David Hare said she had “no sense of personal morality”. Alan Bennett accused her of “bossy sexual ignorance . . . an assertive aunt, a kind of maiden aunt who knows all about marriage”. Mary Warnock, the philosophy don, said: “Watching her choose clothes at Marks & Spencer, there was something quite obscene about it.” Jonathan Miller claimed “she had the diction of a perfumed fart”. Charles Moore, surveying the evidence, remarks that there was a kind of visceral depth to the feeling of the intellectuals about her. As Ian McEwan put it: “It was never enough to dislike her. We liked disliking her.” Many of the songs written about her by pop groups are too obscene to reproduce. One, celebrating the IRA’s attempt to murder her in Brighton, showed a record cover of her with her arms and legs blown off. Another song, from the stage version of Billy Elliot, choruses, “Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher, we all celebrate today ‘cos it’s one day closer to your death.”
As against this, there is equally no doubt that she transformed the country in many ways, and profoundly. We should all be grateful to her. By concentrating on how she was perceived by the intellectual elite, we can see how foolish it is to look to them for guidance on serious matters. 
It’s curious how the Left tends to hate the greater Prime Ministers and Presidents - Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, John Howard and even Labor’s Tony Blair.
It continues. The fashion editor of the far-Left Guardian gloats over the snooty decision of the Victoria and Albert Museum to reject the offer of the clothes of the country’s first female Prime Minister - and one of the greatest:


In a newspaper article in January 1975, Margaret Thatcher described private property as “one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom”. So it seems appropriate that her handbags, suits and necklaces will be sold for cold, hard cash to the highest bidder, rather than being saved for the nation.
(Note: while the sane and serious Janet Albrechtsen’s face features on the video above, she is no Abbott hater. But check the first reaction to Thatcher’s death from another panellist.) 
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Murder shop

Andrew Bolt November 06 2015 (6:14am)


In Gaza, a celebration of Jew-murder:
A clothing store in Gaza City named Hitler 2 is displaying mannequins with knives strapped to their hands as an homage to the upsurge in stabbing attacks on Israelis by Palestinians.
Hijaz Abu Shanab, a 20-year-old shopper, said: “The name of the shop is ‘Hitler’ and I like him because he was the the most anti-Jewish person...”
Jews being stabbed in Israel, now students in the US. Potential links will be explored:
The University of California Merced student who stabbed four people on Wednesday was identified on Thursday as Faisal Mohammad, a Muslim freshman from Santa Clara… In the attack Wednesday, Mohammad wounded two students, a female student adviser and a construction worker who was taking part in a remodeling project on campus; the wounds of all four were defined as non-life-threatening.
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Safety-first no-chase policy kills

Andrew Bolt November 06 2015 (6:03am)

Not chasing cars also costs lives:
A STOLEN high-powered Audi involved in a fatal hit-run crash was spotted by police just days before, but they could not chase it under the force’s strict new pursuit policy.
The Herald Sun can reveal the car came to police attention three times in St Kilda and Richmond in the days before the carnage in Taylors Lakes, which killed 25-year-old Gisborne man Tim Jellis…
After hitting a Corolla and instantly killing Mr Jellis, three balaclava-clad men fled the scene, with one allegedly ­hailing a taxi…
The Herald Sun has been told that soon after the restricted pursuit policy was enforced, offenders drove into an inner-suburban police station carpark and did burnouts.
Officers were forced to watch from inside the station, unable to pursue the offenders.
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Mates rates in NUW scandal

Andrew Bolt November 06 2015 (5:39am)

What an obscene waste of members’ money, even if true. That’s $270,000 paid to a mate to fix an inconsequential dispute that Derrick Belan and Sam Dastyari could have resolved in a simple chat over a coffee:
Labor senator Sam Dastayari was involved in allowing more than $270,000 in union funds to be paid to a former state MP to “bring peace” between the discredited National Union of Workers and the NSW ALP, the trade union royal commission was told ­yesterday.
Former NSW Labor MP Paul Gibson revealed Senator Dastayari’s role while explaining why he had been paid $271,566 by the NUW from 2012 to last year.
Mr Gibson, a long-time friend of the father of former NUW state secretary Derrick Belan, said the NSW ALP and the union had been estranged for 25 years “and my job was to make sure that both union and ALP worked together”.
He said the payments were under a verbal arrangement with Mr Belan that was “probably backed” by Senator Dastayari to “bring together” the parties, and was “very successful"…
His comments raise further questions about the misuse of union funds and came after records released by the commission reveal that Mr Belan’s credit card paid for thousands of dollars in spending on dating websites Match.com and Cupid, were used at a tattoo parlour and an indoor skydiving centre, and to pay off a $1000 loan at a pawnbroker over a few months last year…
Asked by counsel assisting the commission “whose idea was it to enter into this consultancy?”, Mr Gibson replied: “It was probably Derrick’s and I think it was probably backed up by Sam.”
Mr Gibson conceded that he was paid beyond the point when “harmony was reached in my mind”, probably in late 2013.
Senator Dastyari told The Australian last night: “Paul, as far as I was concerned, was managing the political relationship with the union.”
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Turnbull at sea with metaphor

Andrew Bolt November 05 2015 (7:59pm)

Malcolm Turnbull was going to tell us just what tax reforms he had in mind:
Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison will today lay down markers for a tax reform plan to take to the election, using their first major economic addresses to declare the system must provide incentives rather than hold ­people back.
Opening the Rebuilding Foundations for Reform conference, sponsored by The Australian and the Melbourne Institute, the Prime Minister will call for the ­nat­ion to seek “a big national goal”. And he will say Australia needs to embrace change as he vows to lead a government that will be “brave enough and smart enough” to make the most of ­opportunities.
Nominating tax reform as a central challenge, Mr Turnbull will call for a grown-up debate…
But this is what he delivered:
So reform, since that is the topic of your conference, should not be seen as a once in a decade or two convulsion, accompanied by a hyperbolic scare campaign.
Rather it should be seen as a change of political culture that sees us like the sailor, surrounded by the uncertainty of the sea and the wind, who knows only two things for sure - where she needs to go and that she has the skill to get there.
Sometimes the sailor reaches the mark with rapid ease, her sails big bellied in a following wind; sometimes with slow and deliberate tenacity, sails close hauled, tacking into the teeth of a gale.
But her vision is as clear as her destination is certain. How to get there and how quickly is the measure of her skill.
As we focus on our future course, it requires us above all to be open and honest about our circumstances, understanding and explaining both the challenges and the opportunities…
Adjust, tweak, agility is the key, the objective is what we’re all about. Remember we are like that sailor of whom I spoke, we know where we want to go. We are surrounded by uncertainties and we have to adjust our course, our tactics, our policies to get there.
Oh, and remember that promise - made when he challenged Tony Abbott - to junk three-word slogans? Turnbull has delivered. He’s cut the slogans to one word instead:
And that is why we are not trying to reduce complex issues to slogans…
Adjust, tweak, agility is the key… Agility in today’s world, in a world of volatility is absolutely key… we must acquire not just the skills but the culture of agility
Loves that slogan, yet the press gallery that mocked Abbott for his slogans cheerfully accept Turnbull’s:
image
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WHITLAM CITY

Tim Blair – Thursday, November 06, 2014 (12:40pm)

If just three years as Prime Minister is enough to give you naming rights over a city, shouldn’t half the Eastern seaboard already be named after Robert Menzies? 
He may be a Labor hero but Gough Whitlam’s legacy is so strong even Liberal politicians want to re-name a city in his honour.
Labor’s Blacktown mayor Stephen Bali applied to name a new suburb and a new North West Rail Link station after the late Gough Whitlam last week.
But his Liberal colleagues want to go further and make Blacktown Gough’s town by calling it Whitlam City. 
There’s one possible way this could work: make Whitlam City a kind of idiot theme park, where Whitlam-era policies are exclusively applied throughout. People would visit to witness the bedlam and be reminded why Whitlam was rejected three times by the electorate. Elsewhere, James Morrow observes: 
Does anyone else find it ironic that Whitlam’s memorial service was marred by a failure of central planning? 
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STOPPISTS

Tim Blair – Thursday, November 06, 2014 (2:52am)

Britain has its swampies and the US has Occupy, but for sheer ignorant malevolence neither bunch of pointless deadbeats can match Australia’s Travelling Stop-Everything Roadshow. Hit that link for Andrew Carswell’s roundup of our world-standard moveable malcontents, who make it their business to block business in every remote region they infest.
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SO FAR AS I KNOW

Tim Blair – Thursday, November 06, 2014 (2:47am)

Of all the people I’ve dined with in the company of John and Janette Howard, Mark Steyn is the only one to have ever recorded a cover version of Ted Nugent’s Cat Scratch Fever. 
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Another terror attack in Israel. UPDATE: And another

Andrew Bolt November 06 2014 (8:31pm)

Another terrorist attack on civilians in Israel and again praised by Hamas, the Islamist rulers of Gaza:
At least one person has died and 13 others have been injured after a Palestinian man rammed a car into a crowd on a light rail platform in east Jerusalem Wednesday in what Israeli police describe as a terror attack… 
The driver slammed his car into the train platform in east Jerusalem first, backed out and proceeded to drive away, hitting several cars along the way, according to authorities. He then got out of the car and attacked a group of civilians and police officers on the side of the road with a metal bar before he was shot and killed…
The incident was the second attack in Jerusalem involving a car running over people in two weeks. On Oct. 22, a Palestinian driver plowed his car into a crowd of people near a light rail station, killing two people, including a three-year-old girl… “We praise this heroic operation,” said Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum. “We call for more such ... operations.” 
Will the Greens now condemn Hamas as they condemn Israel for defending itself from it?
UPDATE
Yet another:
A Palestinian driving a large commercial vehicle rammed into three IDF soldiers standing near a pillbox by al-Arroub in the West Bank on Wednesday night. 

The three soldiers were wounded in the attack near a Palestinian refugee camp close to the Gush Etzion Junction, one suffering moderate-to-severe injuries and the other two moderately wounded. 
(Thanks to reader Rocky.)                      
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Truth incomplete: Cate Blanchett claims she’s a beneficiary of Whitlam’s “free” education

Andrew Bolt November 06 2014 (9:53am)

Cate Blanchett at the memorial service for Gough Whitlam, whose government ended when she was just six years old:
When I heard Gough Whitlam had died, I was filled with an inordinate sadness. A great sorrow. I wasn’t even in school when his primeministership was ended. Why was I so sad? His public presence over the course of my life was important, but he was no show pony. So what had gone? 
The loss I felt came down to something very deep and very simple. I am the beneficiary of free, tertiary education. When I went to university I could explore different courses and engage with the student union in extracurricular activity. It was through that that I discovered acting.
Blanchett was born in 1969. She studied at Melbourne University from 1987 before dropping out and eventually switching to the National Institute of Dramatic Art, from which she graduated in 1992.
Her first, abandoned stint at uni may indeed have been free, but most of Blanchett’s tertiary education was not.
The Hawke Government realised handing free tertiary education to the middle classes was unaffordable and unfair to the poor. In 1988,  Labor reintroduced fees  and the legislation makes clear that Blanchett did not qualify for exemption from the fees that applied from 1989.
And how fair would it have been for the taxes of struggling Australians to go to giving free tertiary education for a woman wealthy enough to attend Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School and then Methodist Ladies’ College?
Was it fair to hit struggling taxpayers for the funds that allowed young Cate to splash on going to bands?:
I am the beneficiary of good, free healthcare, and that meant the little I earned after tax and rent could go towards seeing shows, bands, and living inside my generation’s expression.  
(Thanks to reader CA of WA.)  
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Forget a carbon tax from Obama

Andrew Bolt November 06 2014 (9:20am)

Remember Barack Obama’s madly messianic boast in 2008 when Democrats made him their presidential candidate?
This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal.
Greg Sheridan says global warmists here can now go weep over what American voters have just done there, giving Republicans control of Congress:
Obama now faces a frustrating final two years in which he may need to exercise the presidential veto to protect his unpopular healthcare package… 
For Australia, one of the most important consequences of the election is that it cements an implacable congressional majority against any US carbon tax or emissions trading scheme.
The US joins Canada, Japan and Australia — and of course the entire developing world — in rejecting a carbon tax or ETS as the primary national response to climate change… Obama could never live up to the emotionalism, hype, hysteria and transcendent expectation of his election in 2008. Finally, Icarus fell to earth.
Charles Krauthammer:
The National Weather Service has upgraded the election from tropical storm to tsunami, especially the results of the governorships. If you look at the bluest states in the country, Maryland, Illinois, Massachusetts, all gone Republican ... I think the president’s reaction is going to be aggressive. He doesn’t like being ignored as he was in the run-up [to the Mid-terms] and he’s going to hate becoming irrelevant.
(Thanks to readers the Old and Unimproved Dave and Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Why does Labor take cash from this dirty union?

Andrew Bolt November 06 2014 (9:01am)

image
WHY is Labor taking money from a union buried under allegations of thuggery, blackmail, intimidation, death threats and links to organised crime?
Why did Labor under Julia Gillard agree to get workplace police off the back of this union, the CFMEU?
And why does Victorian Labor under Daniel Andrews still let the CFMEU help decide party policy and candidates?
You wonder why union corruption has been so flagrant, involving even a former Labor national secretary, Michael Williamson?

One reason is the protection some union spivs get from parts of Labor.
Another? Voters keep electing a party which should be punished for consorting with lawless lowlifes.
Watch this month’s Victorian election and see if it happens again.
No party with respect for the law should be where Victorian Labor is today — especially not after last week’s submission to the royal commission into union corruption by its counsel assisting, Jeremy Stoljar.
(Read full article here.)    
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Wonderful!

Andrew Bolt November 06 2014 (8:46am)

I’m not sure quite what ABC presenter Jonathan Green’s tweet demonstrates - the ABC’s wonderful love of Labor or Green’s wonderful crawling to boss Mark Scott:
image
Meanwhile, Green busies himself with retweeting Labor propaganda:
image
The ABC balanced?
The ABC is out of control.  
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Muslim audience does ABC no favors

Andrew Bolt November 06 2014 (8:01am)

Islamism

 THE ABC’s plan: confront Attorney-General George Brandis with an audience stacked with “moderate” Muslims and make him hop.
It took precautions. It did not select extremists to ask questions — no jihadists who’d illustrate the danger the Abbott Government is battling. Despite that, last Monday’s Q&A backfired spectacularly.
It simply confirmed concerns that too many Muslims have a group loyalty and inflamed sense of victimhood that made them the sea in which jihadists swim.
One reason it backfired was that Brandis was brilliant in defending the Government’s anti-terrorism strategy. But what really undid the exercise was the audience which grabbed the ABC’s microphone.
(Read full article here.) 
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Cate Blanchett washes her hair of warming scare

Andrew Bolt November 06 2014 (8:01am)

 Cate Blanchett fronted a wildly deceptive ad telling the rest of us to say yes to a carbon tax to stop global warming, which we’re told will cause huge rises in sea levels.
And she announced she was making her own little sacrifices. In 2007 Blanchett claimed global warming was causing droughts so severe that she often skipped washing her hair:
THE drought has hit so hard that even one of the world’s most glamorous women is doing it tough, resorting to not washing her hair. 
“I actually have little races with myself, thinking ‘Oh no, I’m not washing my hair. I only need to have a two-minute shower’,” Blanchett revealed. Blanchett and Australian Conservation Foundation director Don Henry visited the [North Pine] dam – presently at just 16 per cent of capacity – to see the effects of the drought and to share her passionate views about climate change.
Yet now, for all the talk of rising sea levels and having to cut our use of water and dirty power:
image 
Cate Blanchett and her Sydney Theatre Company artistic director husband, Andrew Upton, have secured a Hawkesbury River retreat with jacaranda vista… It comes with a spa, sauna, terraced gardens and a pontoon...
When Blanchett acts like she talks I’ll take more seriously her claims that global warming is a threat.
UPDATE
The North Pine Dam’s current level: 64.8 per cent full. Total SE Queensland dam supplies:  82.5 per cent full. One more dud prediction.
(Thanks to readers derFred, philj and others.) 
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Who cares if true? Fairfax slimes Sharri Markson with ABC help

Andrew Bolt November 06 2014 (8:01am)

The Age and  Sydney Morning Herald  claimed The Australian’s Sharri Markson was evicted from the Emirates’ Melbourne Cup marquee after requesting an interview with ABC presenter Barrie Cassidy.
Four consecutive refusals later, both Cassidy and the Emirates people had decided enough was enough and suggested Markson should leave, which she did.
How Fairfax would like that to be true - just as it would like global warming to be actually happening. But there were not four refusals, not any eviction and not any attempt to check the facts:
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Samantha Maiden sums up:
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Sharri is my NewsWatch guest on Sunday’s The Bolt Report.
Oh, and note the tight colleagial bond between the ABC and Fairfax? Ideology makes them as one against The Australian.
(Thanks to readers PB and John.) 
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Dutch intelligence service warns: jihadism a rising threat to Dutch “democratic legal order”

Andrew Bolt November 06 2014 (7:33am)

Islamism

From a  new report by the Dutch intelligence service, the AIVB:
The number of Dutch jihadists travelling to Syria to join the conflict there has increased substantially since late 2012. About 130 have left so far, almost thirty have already returned and fourteen have been killed in the fighting. The AIVD counts several hundred people in the Netherlands as supporters of this exodus, including a number who are prepared to make the journey but have yet to do so. They are maintaining a constant stream of propaganda in support of the jihadist ideology and so contributing to wider radicalisation. Several thousand people support the cause… 
The AIVD believes that fighters returning from Syria pose a potential risk. They have witnessed acts of extreme violence, or even take part themselves… It is not inconceivable that international jihadist organisations are sending returnees back to Europe with orders to carry out terrorist attacks here…
For adherents unable or unwilling to join the armed struggle in Syria or elsewhere, social media offers a form of involvement that allows them to identify themselves as jihadists… without actually having to fight. After all, the movement also considers ‘dawah’—preaching the ‘call to Islam”—a form of jihad…
Dutch jihadists are convinced that the caliphate is not some utopian dream but an achievable reality for Syria and other Muslim nations—and even for the Netherlands… Tellingly, Muslims in the Netherlands who openly oppose joining the Syrian conflict and challenge the highly intolerant and antidemocratic dogma of jihadism have found themselves increasingly subject to physical and virtual intimidation. The potential threat this movement poses to the Dutch democratic legal order and society is therefore greater than ever before.
(My emphasis.)
The unstated conclusion is absolutely clear. Any Western society with a large Muslim minority has imported not just a security challenge but an ideology opposed to every freedom and faith that gives it its identity.
True, most Muslims will not support the jihadists. But as we’ve seen here, remarkably few will condemn them, preferring to condemn instead government attempts to fight them.
(Thanks to reader Brian.) 
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Think survival, not succession

Andrew Bolt November 06 2014 (7:23am)

Scott Morrison really has some colleagues worried:
TONY Abbott has warned his cabinet not to take anything for granted and senior ministers have told colleagues to cease jostling over political territory and stop “jockeying”. 
After months of internal competition between senior cabinet ministers over public-service turf wars and long-term ambitions to be the “heir apparent”, the Prime Minister told ministers at Monday’s cabinet meeting in Melbourne to concentrate on their jobs and take nothing for granted…
A cabinet minister told The Australian yesterday that normal ambitions and anxieties of MPs who had been overlooked was understandable but competition between senior ministers “was at a whole new level”. Another cabinet minister said it was ridiculous that, a year into what should be at least a two-term Abbott government there was positioning to become the heir apparent to Mr Abbott… In the past four months internal Liberal tensions have risen as Joe Hockey, Scott Morrison and Julie Bishop have been seen to be competing to be the successor to Mr Abbott as prime minister and over ministerial responsibilities.
Morrison is clearly an under-used resource now that the boats have essentially stopped.
That said, it is true that ministers of a government behind in the polls should worry more about survival than succession. 
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The travelling job-killing show

Andrew Bolt November 06 2014 (7:17am)

The Daily Telegraph:
THEY are the smug mugs that are holding NSW to ransom — a clutch of professional protesters that hike from one mining town to the next, killing jobs and damaging the economy.
Magnificent pen portraits:
image
More here.
(Via Tim Blair, who is frank.) 
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"First she complains about being teased for looking like a boy then starts spewing hatred about colored people.
"I want to be black"... "I don't want the negative response of being black"
"black people give aids....ebola, should ban them from coming to our country."
"Black people should not exist."
The title of this video needs to be changed. Television doesn't create racism, it was taught to her by the people around her, parents, friends, others like-minded. I'm definitely not influenced by television to hate someone of a different ethnic background. She does know a bit when she said she wanted to be black but doesn't want the negative responses of being black. Well it comes with being colored (different) in this country and not only blacks experience it. Unfortunately, people like her can't see pass skin color and resort to being racist when they are not happy with themselves. If she knows that blacks face lots of negativity just for being black, then she should have stopped there but of course we are the problem in this world and shouldn't exist. Sorry God doesn't agree with you and therefore we are still here. Honey, you can change your hairstyle so that the negative comments stop, but we cannot change our colour." LH===
Sultana Rivkah Davda
Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi

A person can choose any facet which needs fixing, although some take priority as they are central and of essence because of their tremendous impact on improving ones overall spiritual state (for example, Torah study for men, modesty for women, being in a Torah environment, coming close to and honoring Rabbis, keeping kosher, observing Shabbat and the like). In fact, the choice is personal and greatly varies from one individual to another. Each person should examine himself and determine which are the personal and important areas that need improvement for his spiritual growth.
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Six Days in October
http://www.aish.com/jw/id/Six-Days-in-October.html
Nineteen years ago Nachshon Wachsman was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists.
<While burying his young son, Yehuda Wachsman was worried that his death might have brought about a crisis of faith amongst the hundreds of thousands who had prayed for his safe rescue. Just like a father cannot always give a child everything he wants, Yehuda explained, so God our Father cannot always give us what we most want.
Our prayers did not go unanswered, he explained, but this time, for reasons we humans cannot understand, the answer was “no.” But those millions of prayers uttered during the last week on his son’s behalf, were not in vain, nor were the tears shed pointlessly. Tears are never wasted. We don’t know when God will use them to save another soul.
How many times since that tragic, unforgettable week have I quoted Yehuda Wachsman’s words, often to myself? No we don’t always get what we pray for. We may not know if what we want is really the best for us. But, like Yehuda Wachsman who accepted the ultimate ‘no,’ we have to accept that we don’t make that final decision.>
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Roma Downey
When you plant a seed of love, it is You that blossoms...
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Three bikini baristas arrested at Washington espresso stand
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/30/21253054-three-bikini-baristas-arrested-at-washington-espresso-stand?lite=obnetwork

Three scantily dressed baristas were arrested Wednesday at an espresso stand in Washington state after public complaints about inappropriate conduct, police said. The three women, who sold coffee drinks at the drive-through Hillbilly Hotties stand along a busy road in Everett, no …
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Sarah Palin
ng to the Faith & Freedom Coalition in Iowa this Saturday and launching the tour for my new book coming out next week! It's time to STAND UP, America, and declare good tidings & great joy! It's to our nation's detriment if we shy away from this battle & let the PC police win!>

See this article:
http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/05/hundreds-will-protest-islam-lovefest-history-textbook-foisted-on-high-school-students/
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“This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.” Romans 13:6 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper."
Isaiah 54:17
This day is notable in English history for two great deliverances wrought by God for us. On this day the plot of the Papists to destroy our Houses of Parliament was discovered, 1605.
"While for our princes they prepare
In caverns deep a burning snare,
He shot from heaven a piercing ray,
And the dark treachery brought to day."
And secondly--today is the anniversary of the landing of King William III, at Torbay, by which the hope of Popish ascendancy was quashed, and religious liberty was secured, 1688.
This day ought to be celebrated, not by the saturnalia of striplings, but by the songs of saints. Our Puritan forefathers most devoutly made it a special time of thanksgiving. There is extant a record of the annual sermons preached by Matthew Henry on this day. Our Protestant feeling, and our love of liberty, should make us regard its anniversary with holy gratitude. Let our hearts and lips exclaim, "We have heard with our ears, and our fathers have told us the wondrous things which thou didst in their day, and in the old time before them." Thou hast made this nation the home of the gospel; and when the foe has risen against her, thou hast shielded her. Help us to offer repeated songs for repeated deliverances. Grant us more and more a hatred of Antichrist, and hasten on the day of her entire extinction. Till then and ever, we believe the promise, "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper." Should it not be laid upon the heart of every lover of the gospel of Jesus on this day to plead for the overturning of false doctrines and the extension of divine truth? Would it not be well to search our own hearts, and turn out any of the Popish lumber of self-righteousness which may lie concealed therein?

Evening

"Be thankful unto him, and bless his name."
Psalm 100:4
Our Lord would have all his people rich in high and happy thoughts concerning his blessed person. Jesus is not content that his brethren should think meanly of him; it is his pleasure that his espoused ones should be delighted with his beauty. We are not to regard him as a bare necessary, like to bread and water, but as a luxurious delicacy, as a rare and ravishing delight. To this end he has revealed himself as the "pearl of great price" in its peerless beauty, as the "bundle of myrrh" in its refreshing fragrance, as the "rose of Sharon" in its lasting perfume, as the "lily" in its spotless purity.
As a help to high thoughts of Christ, remember the estimation that Christ is had in beyond the skies, where things are measured by the right standard. Think how God esteems the Only Begotten, his unspeakable gift to us. Consider what the angels think of him, as they count it their highest honour to veil their faces at his feet. Consider what the blood-washed think of him, as day without night they sing his well deserved praises. High thoughts of Christ will enable us to act consistently with our relations towards him. The more loftily we see Christ enthroned, and the more lowly we are when bowing before the foot of the throne, the more truly shall we be prepared to act our part towards him. Our Lord Jesus desires us to think well of him, that we may submit cheerfully to his authority. High thoughts of him increase our love. Love and esteem go together. Therefore, believer, think much of your Master's excellencies. Study him in his primeval glory, before he took upon himself your nature! Think of the mighty love which drew him from his throne to die upon the cross! Admire him as he conquers all the powers of hell! See him risen, crowned, glorified! Bow before him as the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, for only thus will your love to him be what it should.
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Today's reading: Jeremiah 34-36, Hebrews 2 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Jeremiah 34-36

Warning to Zedekiah
1 While Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army and all the kingdoms and peoples in the empire he ruled were fighting against Jerusalem and all its surrounding towns, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Go to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am about to give this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down. 3 You will not escape from his grasp but will surely be captured and given into his hands. You will see the king of Babylon with your own eyes, and he will speak with you face to face. And you will go to Babylon.
4 “‘Yet hear the LORD’s promise to you, Zedekiah king of Judah. This is what the LORD says concerning you: You will not die by the sword; 5 you will die peacefully. As people made a funeral fire in honor of your predecessors, the kings who ruled before you, so they will make a fire in your honor and lament, “Alas, master!” I myself make this promise, declares the LORD.’”
6 Then Jeremiah the prophet told all this to Zedekiah king of Judah, in Jerusalem, 7 while the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and the other cities of Judah that were still holding out—Lachish and Azekah. These were the only fortified cities left in Judah....

Today's New Testament reading: Hebrews 2

Warning to Pay Attention
1 We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2 For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3 how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
Jesus Made Fully Human
5 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has testified:
“What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
a son of man that you care for him?
7 You made them a little lower than the angels;
you crowned them with glory and honor
8 and put everything under their feet....”
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