Sunday, July 28, 2013

Sun Jul 28th Todays News

Happy birthday and many happy returns to those born on this day. They include Beatrix Potter (1866), Karl Popper (1902), Earl Tupper (1907), Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929), Garfield Sobers (1936) and Richard Wright (1943). On this day, World Hepatitis Day; Independence Day in Peru (1821); Parents' Day in the United States (2013). 1540 – King Henry VIII of England had his chief minister Thomas Cromwell executed for treason and heresy.
1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien de Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, architects of the Reign of Terror, were executed after having been arrested the previous day.
1932 – U.S. President Herbert Hoover ordered the eviction of the "Bonus Army"—a group of veterans who were occupying government property to demand immediate payment for money owed.
1995 – Two followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh were convicted for the attempted assassination of the United States Attorney for the District of Oregon.
2005 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army announced an end to its armed campaign to overthrow British rule in Northern Ireland to create a United Ireland. You help your friends, but try not to lose your head doing it. You make decisions, try to make them ones that won't have you before a tribunal deciding on the death penalty. You may be popular, but you still have to pay bills. Don't assassinate government figures .. Orange won't protect you if you wear it. Ask yourself, "What were the IRA paid for the peace?"

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Idea only Lefties could love

Piers Akerman – Sunday, July 28, 2013 (12:47am)

On June 27, just a month ago yesterday, Kevin Rudd was returned to the prime ministership by desperate Labor MPs trying to salvage something from the debris of the Gillard Labor-Green-Independent minority government.

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End child protection apartheid

Miranda Devine – Sunday, July 28, 2013 (7:31am)

IN response to last week’s column on tragic Kiesha Weippeart, bashed to death by her mother at six, a social worker contacted me.
She wanted to add her voice to the chorus demanding an end to the child protection apartheid which condemns indigenous children to subpar care.
For fear of creating another “stolen generation” state and federal agencies persist with policies which keep indigenous children too long in abusive homes, and require indigenous foster carers, despite chronic shortages.
In Kiesha’s case, a court overturned a decision she be kept in foster care for reasons which are shrouded in secrecy but which are suspected to include her indigenous heritage.
“We work with this every single day,” said the NSW Family and Community Services caseworker, who asked to remain nameless.
“If little Kiesha was not Aboriginal she would be alive and well today, thriving and being cared for by loving carers. Her mother would not have been given the opportunity to murder her.
“Caseworkers do their best to keep families together but when this puts a child at risk of serious harm we have no choice but to keep that child safe and sometimes that requires removing the children from their family.
“[We] make recommendations to the court, but in the end that magistrate who has never met the children, and never seen the abuse they have endured, makes whatever decision they feel like.
“The fallout from the stolen generation and National Apology is a ridiculous. Aboriginal placement principle policy that we have to follow constantly leaves Aboriginal children in unsafe situations.
“This policy shows Aboriginal children that they are second-class citizens because the abuse and neglect they endure has to far exceed that of a white Australian child before we act.
“This policy restores Aboriginal children to unsafe situations or to family members that are not fit to look after a dog, let alone a vulnerable child, just because they are Aboriginal.
“This policy removes children from loving, safe, secure foster families and places them back with ‘family’ just because they are Aboriginal.
“The same families that have generations of severe abuse and neglect are given the opportunity to continue this.  How can this be in a child’s best interests?” 

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Here’s an idea: give rather than take

Miranda Devine – Sunday, July 28, 2013 (12:49am)

SOMETIMES, in all the political push and shove about asylum seekers, we can lose sight of the fact that Australia is one of the world’s most generous countries when it comes to welcoming refugees.
This is an achievement of which we can be proud, and which has enriched our country beyond all measure; for it is in giving that you receive.
Take, for example Sam Eisho. An Assyrian Christian civil engineer, he arrived as a penniless refugee from Iraq in 1999 and built a thriving construction business in western Sydney, signing $8 million contracts, and employing 40 people and 100 subcontractors.
So grateful was he to his adopted country that, when success came, he walked into a Centrelink office in 2009 with a cheque for $18,681.43, to repay the welfare money he had received.
When he reached the top of the queue, the cashier was flummoxed.
“I said: ‘This is a cheque I want to pay you guys’. The lady said, ‘Oops, this is the first time I have seen this.’ “
Eisho said: “You can get the experience now.”
She said: “This is going to be the first and last one.”
After much discussion, he was told to make out the cheque to the “Collector of Public Money” which he sent, along with a letter saying:
“I came to Australia destitute and so was assisted by Centrelink for quite some months.
“Eventually, due to the great opportunities in this land, I was able to find work, and then after some time, set up my own business.
“My appreciation for the opportunities of this country are always on my lips. I always feel deep within me the need to repay the money that I received.”
His gesture remained private until last week, when the Business Insider website wrote about him, sparking a flurry of interest from around the world.
Sam, 42, has reluctantly embraced the publicity to send a message: “Let’s all think how can we pay something to Australian society rather than getting from it.”
His personal story is one of hope and inspiration.
He credits his success to the attitude instilled by the uncle who brought him up in Mosul, northern Iraq, after he was orphaned at age two.
“I always learned from my uncle: don’t think too much about the dollar. Always think about the quality of your work, the quality of your behaviour, and money will come to you.’ I never thought I would be successful like today. I never had any ulterior motives or aim to get here.”
His uncle and aunt were always kind, making sure he didn’t feel less loved than their own children.
“I feel they have done their best not to differentiate (in) the way they treat me.”
His uncle now has cancer, so Sam flew him to Germany for the best medical treatment money can buy, as part of his mission to repay the kindness of a lifetime.
It was when he was 23 that Sam came into conflict with Saddam Hussein’s forces. He arrived at a security checkpoint on the border with Kurdistan where he wanted to visit relatives. The guards told him he could not take cash, a roundabout way of robbing him. Disgusted, he threw the money on the ground.
But because the notes bore Saddam’s image, he had committed a grave act of disrespect against the dictator. “I’m thinking ‘now why did I do that?’ I knew how bad they are, how easy to kill me, just one bullet.”
Luckily, a friend he hadn’t seen from university days, who had become an intelligence officer, happened to be at the checkpoint
and rescued him.
But his days in Iraq were numbered. Two weeks after marrying his childhood friend, Rhonda, the pair bought passports and drove across the border to Istanbul where they paid a people smuggler to take them to Greece in a removal truck.
Three to four people at a time, they squeezed into one-metre square boxes, with heavy furniture placed on top to deter border inspectors.
After 18 hours in the dark, “no drinking, no eating, no toilet ... we had enough.” Sam and three young men in his box managed to push the lid up enough for him to squeeze out, just in the nick of time. When he released his wife from the box where she was hiding with some children, she was close to suffocating.
Once in Athens, he and Rhonda claimed asylum and stayed for four years working in a mattress factory until their humanitarian visa to Australia came though.
They arrived in Sydney on May 1, 1999, where he studied for his builder’s licence, put an ad in the paper for a construction job, and applied to Coles for work as a checkout operator. He had to sit an aptitude test of 100 maths questions. It was supposed to take one hour. He finished it in 15 minutes and was offered a job immediately.
When Rapid Construction called, he walked out of Coles and never looked back. He started laying tiles and dreamed of starting his own business, but never had enough cash.
An aunt in America came to the rescue in 2003 with a loan of $US25,000, which he has since repaid twice over.
“I was very successful. But I was always thinking ‘when am I going to pay Centrelink?’ “ he said.
His debt repaid, he continues to give back, whether joining the CEO sleepout, donating to his children’s school, or employing underprivileged people.
His upbeat philosophy propels him to repay what he sees as his ongoing debt to Australia. In turn, he says it makes him happy.
“I feel good when I have paid back someone. Then I go to bed and the pillow is just fantastic. This is the big secret in life - treat others the way you want to be treated,” he said.
Clever Australia to have done a good turn to Sam and others who are eternally grateful for the second chance. People whose hard work and irrational optimism drives them over obstacles, who teach us never to take blessings for granted.
That is Sam’s gift to us.

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REIN DELAY

Tim Blair – Sunday, July 28, 2013 (2:27pm)

Following the Rudds’ surprise Afghanistan visit, the ABC reports
Ms Rein became the first wife of an Australian prime minister to visit a war zone. 
AAP makes an identical claim
The bigger surprise was the presence of Therese Rein – the first wife of a serving PM ever to visit a war zone. 
And the Age
This is the first time a wife of a serving Australian prime minister has travelled to a war zone to visit the servicemen and women on active duty. 
This seems to be wrong. According to the Australian War Memorial’s photographic archives, Bettina Gorton beat Therese Rein by 45 years: 
Nui Dat, South Vietnam. 1968-06. Bettina Gorton, wife of the Prime Minister, signs the visitors book of the Sergeants’ Mess at the 1st Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR), during a five hour visit to South Vietnam’s Phuoc Tuy Province. With her is Sergeant Brian Tobin of Holsworthy, NSW. Mrs Gorton accompanied her husband on a tour of Australian units serving in Vietnam. 
Mrs Gorton and her husband even went swimming at a Vung Tau beach.
(Via Veteran of Brisbane)

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STAIRWAY TO KEVIN

Tim Blair – Sunday, July 28, 2013 (12:21pm)

We now have a Department of Rock
Days after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd attended a live music fund-raising dinner in Melbourne, he has announced the federal government will spend $560,000 over three years on a new National Office for Live Music. The money will also pay for a national task force to produce a strategy to support live music. 
And who hosted this dinner in Melbourne, where Rudd was convinced to hand over your money? Why, none other than our favourite little middle-aged tax absorber
Mr Rudd attended Marieke Hardy’s Dream Dinner on Tuesday night, a fund-raiser for the SLAM (Save Our Live Music) campaign … 

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TOO CLOSE TO CALL – SO RUDD DOESN’T

Tim Blair – Sunday, July 28, 2013 (5:09am)

Labor draws level in the latest poll: 
Federal Labor’s primary support is up two points to 40 per cent, surpassing Julia Gillard’s 2010 election vote for the first time, a Galaxy poll shows.
The coalition remains on 44 per cent, according to the poll in The Sunday Telegraph.
On a two party preferred basis, voters were split 50-50. 
Yet still the Prime Minister won’t call an election, preferring a flight to Afghanistan over a drive to Yarralumla: 
The surprise trip is one of the reasons why the PM has jettisoned the August 31 election option – he will not be back in Australia this weekend to visit the Governor General until late today and will not be visiting her on Monday.
The Prime Minister is understood to have regarded it as important to visit the region before officially declaring the start of a federal election campaign. 
Check out Kevni’s serious warzone face:

image

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Another boat

Andrew Bolt July 28 2013 (4:35pm)

Another boat, claiming to be in trouble, reports reader Jeff of FNQ:

Another vessel with 60 POB is in trouble approximately 300 km NNE of Christmas Island off the coast of West Java (Ujung Genteng area). AMSA issued a Marine Safety Information message at 1507 EST: 
MAYDAY RELAYFM RCC AUSTRALIA 280507Z JUL 2013 AUSSAR 2013/5088INDIAN OCEAN - CHART AUS 4071 INDIAN OCEAN NORTHERN PARTVESSEL WITH 60 PERSONS ON BOARD REPORTED TO BE BROKEN DOWN AND TAKING ON WATER IN POSITION 07-45.5S 106-07.1E AT 280427UTC. REQUEST VESSELS WITHIN 6HRS REPORT BEST ETA AND INTENTIONS TO THIS STATION OR RCC AUSTRALIA

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As if we used to have so many such brawls

Andrew Bolt July 28 2013 (3:29pm)

I wish these news reports had included information I believe is highly relevant to motive and to public interest considerations, not least involving our immigration and refugee programs:
A MAN has been stabbed after a large brawl outside a function centre in the early hours of this morning.
Police believe more than 80 people were involved in the fight in Albion, in Melbourne’s west, at 3am, with most fleeing as officers arrived on scene…
Victoria Police said those involved, believed to be two groups, were not co-operating with detectives.
The nature of such a brawl - two groups warring - suggests immediately some tribal identification. The refusal to talk to police suggests also a lack of identification with symbols of our community.
And, indeed, police say the brawl occurred between people attending a Liberian National Day celebration and others from another African group.
I think we should have been told.  

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The Bolt Report today

Andrew Bolt July 28 2013 (11:40am)





And here’s the full, unedited interview - featuring clashes on global warming science and the cost of Kevin Rudd’s PNG “solution”. Rudd also explains why he came on the show:

Repeated on Channel 10 at 4pm. 
The twitter feed.
The place the videos appear.
UPDATE

THE BOLT REPORT
28 JULY 2013
INTERVIEW WITH KEVIN RUDD
ANDREW BOLT, PRESENTER: Today - head-to-head with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, as his boat people deal collapses.
ANDREW BOLT, INTERVIEW: I just asked you a fairly simple question.
KEVIN RUDD: And I have given you a very direct answer.
ANDREW BOLT: No, you haven’t.
KEVIN RUDD: Absolutely direct, and a responsible answer.
ANDREW BOLT: Will we see - will we see fewer boats before the election?
KEVIN RUDD: I have given you a responsible answer. I don’t intend-
ANDREW BOLT: You don’t know.
ANDREW BOLT, PRESENTER: I’m Andrew Bolt and this is The Bolt Report. Kevin Rudd has done what Julia Gillard never dared - he’s come on The Bolt Report. I give him credit. He says Labor shouldn’t marginalise conservatives, it should engage. But the news is suddenly not so good for the Prime Minister. Newspoll this week showed Labor’s vote falling. Rudd’s sugar hit seems over. Worse, his promise a week ago to send all boat people to Papua New Guinea is already in trouble. More than 1,200 people have since arrived - three times more than can be held for now at PNG’s one detention centre at Manus Island. Just before he flew to Afghanistan, Kevin Rudd talked to me in Perth.
ANDREW BOLT, INTERVIEW: Prime Minister, thank you for coming on the show.
KEVIN RUDD: Thanks for having me, Andrew.
ANDREW BOLT: Prime Minister, in 2008 you scrapped our tough border laws. Now, an Australian Federal Police report compiled around September in that same year warned that people smugglers, and I’m quoting, “will market recent changes to Australia’s immigration policy to entice potential illegal immigrants.” Now, that report was sent to your department in March. Why did you not follow that advice and heed that warning?
KEVIN RUDD: Well, the first thing, Andrew, and you would accept this as a conservative, is that there is a thing called a democracy. We went to the 2007 election with a set of policies, including the abolition of the then Pacific Solution. We obtained a majority. People knew exactly what we were proposing to do, and we did it. Secondly, having formed the Government, we received in the subsequent years multitudes of advice from all sorts of different government agencies. I’m not familiar with the one you just referred to, nor would you logically expect me to be familiar with, if it went to my department. But the bottom line is we observed a change in circumstances over the subsequent years. As I’ve said elsewhere, probably around the 2009-10 point is where we should have adjusted policy earlier. 
ANDREW BOLT: I’m saying though that that warning was sent to your department in March of 2009, only months later. Again in 2008, the year you did this, the International Organisation of Migration in Indonesia warned, “people smugglers have clearly noted there has been a change in policy and they’re testing the envelope.” Wasn’t scrapping the border laws your most catastrophic mistake?
KEVIN RUDD: As I just said before, we operated on the base of the mandate we received from the Australian people in the 2007 election. And had we not done so, you and others would have criticised us for not honouring our word to the Australian people. Secondly, circumstances then changed.
ANDREW BOLT: Well, they did change.
KEVIN RUDD: And I quite readily admitted that we should have adjusted probably in the period of 2009-10, or begun to adjust, and I’ve gotta say 20-20 hindsight is easy. And whatever the reports-
ANDREW BOLT: That’s not hindsight. These are warnings.
KEVIN RUDD: One of the reports that you referred to, or both of them, in fact, would have been part of a multitude of reports coming to the Government with differing analyses of what was transpiring at the time. And you know as well as I do if you run a Government, you head a Government, you don’t see all the reports which come in. They are assessed by your agencies, and there would have been many of them.
ANDREW BOLT: Well you’re saying that you were doing merely what the voters had asked you to do in 2007.
KEVIN RUDD: It’s called the democratic mandate.
ANDREW BOLT: Well, before the 2007 election, you said, “Labor’s policy is that if people are intercepted on the high seas, then these vessels should be turned around.” Maybe the voters expected you to honour that promise?  

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Galaxy poll: it’s 50/50

Andrew Bolt July 28 2013 (5:31am)

Galaxy gives Kevin Rudd fresh hope - but not the lead he’d like to call an election now:

On a two party preferred basis voters are split 50:50 - raising the possibility of another hung parliament depending on the swings in individual seats.
It seems to me extremely unlikely Rudd will dash to Yarralumla for an August 31 election date - but he’s still got a day left to do it on his return from Afghanistan:

The surprise trip is one of the reasons why the PM has jettisoned the August 31 election option – he will not be back in Australia this weekend to visit the Governor General until late today and will not be visiting her on Monday.

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Rudd to the Right

Andrew Bolt July 28 2013 (5:11am)

Kevin Rudd in 2010:

...this party and Government will not be lurching to the right ...
Kevin Rudd’s Government as another election draws near:

Young job seekers would be forced into tough army-style boot camps in order to qualify for the dole Young job seekers would be forced into tough army-style boot camps in order to qualify for the dole, under an election policy being considered by the Rudd government.
A week ago:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announces plan to relocate all refugees who arrive by boat to Papua New Guinea
And before that:

KEVIN Rudd has “terminated’’ the Federal Government’s carbon tax

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Indonesia not against an Abbott plan

Andrew Bolt July 27 2013 (8:42am)

There will be a deal between Indonesia and an Abbott Government to intercept boats, however Labor huffs and some journalists now scoff:
THE minister in charge of Indonesia’s navy has declared his government does not oppose Australia turning back asylum-seeker boats, but has insisted the two nations must talk about the policy and warned against any unilateral action.

Indonesia’s Defence Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said yesterday his navy lacked resources and had to police illegal logging and fish poaching as well as deploying boats to the southern part of Java, the main departure point for asylum-seekers.

Asked if Indonesia opposed the Coalition’s plan to turn back boats, Dr Purnomo said: “I didn’t say that we don’t want it. I said let’s talk and sit down, you know, but we don’t want to see the unilateral action.”

As Dr Purnomo became the latest regional representative to be drawn into Australia’s political turmoil over border-protection policies, it emerged that more than 1200 asylum-seekers on 16 boats had made it to the Australian territories of Christmas and Cocos Islands in the seven days since Kevin Rudd announced his Papua New Guinea Solution…

The number of asylum-seekers taken into immigration detention since Mr Rudd’s announcement last night stood at 1260.
I think Indonesia has hinted often enough what the deal would be - more resources. More ships.
Greg Sheridan:
Offshore processing of asylum-seekers on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island has been the official policy of the Labor government since it signed a memorandum of understanding with PNG in August 2011. In a few days, we will reach the second anniversary of that agreement.

And what is the capacity of the Manus Island facilities today? About 300 people. It took the Gillard government more than a year to transfer anyone to Manus, and since last year only a handful of people have gone there.

These facts are incredible.
Even more incredible is the idea that Rudd can get enough beds at Manus in time:
The Rudd government’s plan to ship future boat asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea is in danger of unravelling because a new processing centre at the heart of the strategy is unlikely to be finished on schedule.

Construction industry sources say it is impossible to complete the 600-bed facility on Manus Island before the promised deadline of next January.

The PNG government has still not granted title over the land earmarked for the centre, key construction contracts have not been awarded and no work has been started at the site or on a road connecting it with the island’s airport.

Hornibrook NGI, the Lae construction company expected to win one of the largest subcontracts, has still not been given detailed specifications needed to finish its bid for the work…

A senior PNG construction manager said Perth-based engineering company Decmil, which has won the $137 million Immigration Department contract to build the centre, would not be able meet the January deadline. ‘’These guys have got no chance of getting this done,’’ the manager said.

‘’The wheels are going to fall off this. There is no way they will get close to that target date.’’
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 

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Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin
God, Reveal Yourself To Me
He revealed his character to Moses and his deeds to the people of Israel.Psalms 103:7
He revealed His love to Moses and the children of Israel. Paul writes to the Church, “And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.” God revealed His love to David. Look at what he writes, “He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies. He fills my life with good things. He is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. His unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.May you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.God bless you.

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Pastor Rick Warren
Humility isn't denying your strengths; it's being honest about your weaknesses.

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4 her
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We know how hard Monday mornings can be, so we're running a giveaway every week for the next 4 weeks to cure your Mondayitis! 

First up, a free Bacon and Egg McMuffin...but be quick, only 1,000 available, per restaurant, between 7am - 10am!
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<Can't even get the bribes right. The lowlight was a ham-fisted attempt by Kevin Rudd to splash $100 million around the state as pre-election sweeteners which was actually previously budgeted forestry compensation funding.

Glaringly, this "jobs and growth package" was so quickly cobbled together that nobody at the launch knew how many jobs it was likely to create.>
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Hollyscoop: Beyoncé made headlines after PepsiCo Inc. hired the diva to endorse the soda company in a multi-year deal for an estimated $50 million.
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Golden Wattle by the riverside at the end of the street.
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With the Australian apple and pear industry on its knees struggling to compete against foreign imports, it has just been revealed that the largest apple and pear grower and packer in the country paid $350,000 for Labor’s carbon tax last year.
This is just another example that Labor don’t have a clue about the damage they are causing.

How is an Australian apple & pear grower meant to compete against foreign imports, when the Labor Government forces the Australian producer to pay $350,000 a year in Carbon Tax, while the foreigner producer pays $0 ??

And remember, that’s just last year tax at $23 per tonne – for this year, Labor have INCREASED the tax to $24.15 per tonne.

If an enemy nation attacked us to try and destroy one of our wealth producing industries with the same effect - we’d be a war.

But the real tragedy is that according to the latest polls, half of Australian voters want to re-elect the Labor Government controlled by Rudd the Wrecker, that has not only caused this damage, but plans to see the tax increase further by 57% from this year rate to $24.15 to $38 per tonne by 2019 - and then skyrocket to $350 a tonne.

Surely as a nation we are not that stupid. 

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 Bess Nungarrayi Price MLA :: Member for Stuart'

Here's the speech I delivered to LNP Lady’s Convention, Brisbane 18th July 2013

I was born under a tree near Yuendumu about 300 kilometres north west of Alice Springs. I was my mother’s ninth child. My parents were around ten or eleven years old when they first saw a white man. In the ten years before I was born my mother lost four sons in infancy. The nineteen fifties were a hard time for mothers in the desert.

A baby daughter had also been taken from her. Mum was told that her daughter had died. We think she was taken because she was one of twins. Twins were not welcome in the old days in the desert. Sometimes my people left one of them to die because two babies could not be cared for by one mother at the same time. My mother would not have done that but she wasn’t asked. The baby was taken to the Santa Teresa Mission and given to an Arrernte family to raise. I didn’t meet her until I was seventeen. The Arrernte told us that she was still alive and she came to us to meet her family when she was about thirty years old.

Mum told me that she left me on the ground for a snake to take because she didn’t want me. My aunt was there as the midwife. She took me and cared for me. Then my older sister looked after me until my mother was ready to take me and care for me. They all lived in the same camp. Now I understand what had happened to Mum. She would have had what is now called post natal depression. She had a lot of reasons to feel depressed. In later years my Mum apologised to me. I never stopped loving her and she never really stopped loving me.

I survived meningitis when I was six years old. I lived my childhood in a traditional humpy – we call them yujuku – that my parents built for us. Yuendumu was a happy place when I was a kid. Everybody was clean, everybody worked, life was organised and predictable. I got my first job when I was fifteen and I have worked ever since.
The missionary was a tough old Baptist. He was a survivor of Changi prison of war camp. He didn’t try to destroy our old ways but tried to build on them. If a fight started in the camp he would march into the middle of it ignoring the spears and boomerangs and axes and tell every body to go home. And they would put down their weapons and go home. He was loved and respected by everyone.

I was supposed to go to my promised husband when I was thirteen. He was already married to my older sister. I refused and my father and promised husband let me get away with that so I could finish my education. This was very rare in my community. It was normal for young girls to be badly beaten if they didn’t want to go to their promised.

I married another and was a mother by the time I was fourteen. My first marriage was very violent. My husband would beat me badly when he was drunk in front of my in laws who did nothing to help me. I left him to marry my present husband when I was eighteen. Then I lost my son to leukaemia when he was only ten. Mum died five years ago now. When she died she had outlived eight of her eleven children and another has died since, the one who was taken away from us. We Aboriginal women know what hard times are.

We got our freedom in the sixties and seventies. We got the right to vote, the freedom to drink alcohol. We got bilingual and bicultural education. We got self-determination. That was like giving us a car without teaching us how to drive. We were not ready for it. We also got unemployment, boredom, unearned sit down money and the grog – then after that ganja.

We got feuding and domestic violence and we started getting very sick. My kidneys collapsed completely in 1986. My brother saved me by donating one of his kidneys to me. He is now on dialysis himself. My people’s health has just got worse and worse since then. Too many of my close relatives now have diabetes, heart disease, or kidney failure. Far too many of my loved ones have died from avoidable diseases. I have lost three brothers to alcohol. I have lost a 21 year old niece to alcohol.

Too many of my loved ones have been murdered. Three of my sisters died from heart disease or cancer within three weeks this year. Two of my nieces – both young mothers – were killed by their husbands this year alone. One of my nephews, an orphan whose father died from renal failure and mother was stabbed to death – was arrested and locked up last week.

Another of my nephews was hospitalised with renal failure last week as well. I could tell you about problems like this for the rest of the day but I hope you get the point already. It is very painful for me to talk about all this.

Many of these health problems can be solved if my people made the right choices but there are many that are a mystery to me. When my kidneys collapsed I was a teetotaller, I didn’t smoke, I ate a healthy diet and was very fit. I have played sport all of my life. It is all very complicated and hard to work out.

One thing that would be easier to stop now is violence and sexual abuse. I decided to get into politics to do something to help protect our women and kids and to help improve their lives. Not all Aboriginal men are violent. I am not a feminist. I am not interested in what whitefellas call gender wars.

My father, my old promised husband and my brothers were not violent towards their wives. They loved their kids and tried their best for them. I have been happily married for over thirty years. But violence against women and abuse of kids is so common that it is a crisis. I have been a victim of it and too many of my young female relatives have gone to an early grave because of it.

Ending the violence against women is the best thing we can do for our men as well. A man who beats his wife is no man at all. I want to get our young men out of jail as well. Too many of them are in there because of the way they treat their women.

The one thing that makes it so hard to do something about all of this is what you call political correctness – the unwillingness to admit the truth and the attempt to close down those, like me, who want to tell the truth.

You will hear people who call themselves human rights activists trying very hard to avoid the truth. Tom Calma who was Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner said that a promised wife had the right to refuse to go to a promised husband. I was a promised wife and can tell you that this is nonsense. I got away with it because my father spoiled me and my promised husband was a good man who wasn’t interested in violence. He gave me permission to marry my present husband and told me that he would be happy to marry me if I wanted to come back to him. He was a gentleman and a philosopher. But most of the young women I knew did not have the easy way out that I had. Many were seriously beaten and I was told as a girl that some were killed.

Mick Gooda, the present Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, has told the world that violence against women was never part of ‘our culture’. I have the scars to prove him wrong. He is not talking about my culture. Violence against women has been part of all traditional cultures. It was part of whitefella culture until very recently. But whitefellas have admitted they had a problem and tried to do something about it. I am asking that we need to do the same. That’s all I’m asking.

Some of our men have admitted that. At a conference on Aboriginal Men’s Health in Alice Springs in 2008 from all over northern Australia issued a media release apologizing for violence against women and abuse of children. They told us that they needed our love and support. They asked for support from the rest of Australia and from governments to turn that apology into action.

It seems to me that these brave and caring Aboriginal men were ignored by the Aboriginal organisations, by governments, by human rights organisations and by the media. They were not being politically correct. They were supposed to act like victims and find a way to blame whitefellas and governments for all the problems not apologise for the wrong done in their names and ask for support to fix the problems.

I supported the NT intervention because I was sick of burying my loved ones. I saw the results of the sexual abuse of kids in my own extended family. I was so sickened by all of this that I was thrilled when Mal Brough and John Howard said that they would do something about it. Since then a lot has been watered down. The Intervention has not solved our problems although it has done some good.

If my people had supported it and then advised the government how to go about it properly much more would have been achieved. Instead we have had all of this opposition to it from people who know absolutely nothing about the problems we face and what is going on in the Northern Territory. The protestors have made it much harder to achieve its objectives.

I was nicknamed ‘the Intervention Woman’ in my own country. During the election campaign for the NT Legislative Assembly my nephew, the then Labor member for Stuart, told the electors that the Intervention was still going because of me. He used the slogan ‘No more Intervention’. He didn’t mention that it was a Labor government that had passed the Stronger Futures Legislation extending a watered down version of the Intervention for several more years.

Even with this campaign I beat my nephew with an 18 and a half per cent swing in an electorate that has a 73 per cent Aboriginal population. In three electorates, including my own, only Aboriginal candidates representing three different parties stood for election. I beat two Aboriginal men to win my seat. Those who vilify me ignore all this. And they have not been elected by my people to represent them.

The CLP won the election because of the votes of the bush Aboriginal people. Around 30 per cent of the Territory’s population is Aboriginal. We brought the CLP to power with five Aboriginal members of our Government. Three of us are women. Four of us speak an Aboriginal language as a first language. Our Chief Minister is a Koori from New South Wales, the first Aboriginal leader of any government in our history.

But we are not there to divide the Northern Territory. We are one community. I am a proud Territorian and an Australian as well as a proud Warlpiri. We are there to make sure that our people benefit from the balanced and sustainable development of our country. We want the benefits that all other Australians enjoy because they are Australians. We want our kids to prosper and have choices.

Even though we Aboriginal Territorians are so powerful politically, even though our people voted for us, our views are ignored by those who think they know better than the Aboriginal voters of our electorates. Because I want to be part of one community with all other Territorians, because I want to tell the truth about my people’s problems, because I want to tell the truth about violence against women and sexual abuse of kids, because I want it all to stop I have been vilified by white radicals who want to control us and Aboriginal activists on the east coast who want my people to blame whitefellas for all their problems.

One of them is your very own Tiga Bayles who is an Aboriginal broadcaster based here in Brisbane. He calls me ‘Best Price’ because he wants everybody to believe that I am in politics only to make money. He calls me a ‘head nodding Jacky Jacky who says only what the government wants me to say’. He has influence. The Indigenous Support Unit at Griffith University refused to allow me to visit there with Malcolm Cole the LNP candidate for Moreton while I was in Brisbane. A taxpayer funded institution of higher learning is apparently so afraid of me, a Warlpiri grandmother, that it won’t allow me to come and talk to the students and staff.

Is that what Aboriginal freedom fighters fought for all these years? Well I have news for Mr Bayles, as long as our women are being murdered, as long as our kids are being abused, as long as our young men are filling the jails, as long as all of our people are dying of avoidable disease I will speak out. And I will not be asking for his permission to do it. I don’t nod my head to everything the government says. I joined the government along with four Aboriginal colleagues and our people voted for us. I am part of the government. The likes of Mr Bayles can’t accept that.

I want to keep the best of our culture but not at the price of political separation from the rest of Australia. I want to keep our language but not at the price of ineffective and sub standard education for our kids. I want our kids to have the same choices as other Australian kids. I want our people to live good, healthy and happy lives.

I want the killing of our women and the abuse of our kids to stop and I want to do that with the support of the rest of Australia. I don’t hate whitefellas and blame them for all of our problems. After all I’m married to one and I know that they aren’t supermen – they have problems too. I don’t hate men, I am not a feminist. My father was the best father a young girl could have. My brothers were good non-violent loving men. My promised husband was a good, wise, non-violent, loving man.

But if you want to know about the problems that women have then talk to women, give us a voice. Don’t ask men even if they are Social Justice Commissioners. Don’t trust men who try to speak for us or who try to shut us down. And never accept excuses for violence and abuse.

Racism, colonialism, frontier violence, unemployment, low education levels, poor health - none of these are excuses for the victimisation of the most vulnerable in our communities. Ending the violence is the best thing that we can do for all of us, women, kids and men.

===
This woman is incredibly brave, and the sad and pathetic discrimination she faced 40 years ago disgusts me. It did make my heart go pitter-pat when at 1:30 Mr. Jerk Face gets the most epic STFU from a NOOB ever.
It reminds me that it would improve the sport to allow women to compete in Rugby League - ed
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At jenner by the sea.
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At Goat Rock Beach.
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A symbol of hope in Africa
Niankoro Yeah Samake (About this sound Pronunciation ) (born February 27, 1969) is a social entrepreneur and politician from OuelessebougouMali. Samake is the executive director of the Empower Mali Foundation, the current mayor of Ouelessebougou, Vice President of Mali's League of Mayors, and is a candidate in the coup-interrupted 2012 Malian presidential election.
File:NiankoroYeahSamake.JPG
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Holly Sarah Nguyen
When the mountain seems to tough to take, I just smile and remember that God made the mountain and can move it or give me the strength to climb it.

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Zaya Toma
Loving the vibe in Parramatta today, campaigning for Martin Zaiter, Liberal Candidate for Parramatta with the Young Libs — with Simon Fontana and 2 others.

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4 her
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I titled this one "What the Hay" — at Mount Diablo State Park.
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Stephen E Hughes
In this book, Tadros ties the story of the Copts to that of their motherland, Egypt. In providing a clear understanding of who the Copts are, including their long history, he sheds light on how the Coptic community’s struggle to modernize is inevitably intertwined with Egypt’s quest for modernity. In Egypt’s ongoing struggle to reconcile the Islamic faith with modern ideas and practices, Tadros explains that the Copts have been secluded from the public sphere even under Egypt’s most liberal order. The hopes unleashed by the fall of the Mubarak regime have come to naught as the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power posed a colossal challenge to Copts. Now with the fall of President Morsi, Egypt’s Copts continue to face enormous challenges because they are being held responsible by the Islamists for their fall from power.

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Fatah & Hamas are given billions of dollars in aid to take care of the Arab Palestinians, yet they do nothing and sit silent as the people they are charged to take care of are slaughtered
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I'll have an apple - ed
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4 her
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united with israel alerts                              newsletter
Israel Alert Newsletter 19 Av 5773July 26, 2013
 
TEL AVIV - The 106 American children on an El Al flight that arrived Monday July 22nd has broken a record for the largest number of youngsters moving to Israel on a single flight, says Yael Katsman, spokeswoman for the Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization that helps thousands of Jewish immigrants make Israel their home.
The children who arrived, the youngest of whom is two months old, are among a total of 2,500 North American immigrants moving to Israel this summer. Also on the flight are 13 olim who have signed up to join the Israel Defense Forces. With this flight, Nefesh B'Nefesh has now welcomed over 35,000ew immigrants to Israel.
Click here to read more>> 
JERUSALEM - You need a wife, a husband, or perhaps just a job. You want a baby, maybe. Your favorite uncle has cancer, and you are hoping you can do something, anything, to ease his pain. Batya Burd is betting even the believers among you haven't a prayer. Or rather, you haven't the time - and the access - to deliver the sort of prayer she has in mind.
Burd, who gave up a future as a Toronto corporate lawyer for a pious existence just steps from the Western Wall, has a novel suggestion. ...she and her team of 40 Torah-observant Jewish worshippers are ready to pray at God's last known address, for that which ails you.
Click here to read more>> 
The majority of Israeli terror victims are opposed to releasing terrorists in order to jump start peace negotiations with the Palestinians. So says Mark Belzberg, Chairman of One Family, an Israeli organization which assists Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism.
Belzberg is responding to a US suggestion that Israel release Palestinian terrorists from the pre-Oslo period as a goodwill gesture to encourage the Palestinian Authority to negotiate with Israel.

King David Palace
Archaeologists Discover King David's Palace
Hebrew University Professor Yossi Garfinkel and Israel Antiquities Authority's Sa'ar Ganor recently uncovered what they believe was King David's Palace at Khirbet Qeiyafa, a fortified city in Judea identified with the biblical city of Sha'arayim.
Archaeologists have spent the last seven years on the site, discovering unprecedented evidence of the nature of King David's reign. "The ruins are the best example to date of the uncovered fortress city of King David," Garfinkel and Ganor say.
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Devil's Arithmetic
The Devil's Arithmetic

Watch this award winning movie written by writer, producer Robert Avrech. This is one of the best movies on the Holocaust to use with the younger generation.
Summary: Hannah Stern is a young Jewish girl living in the present day. She is bored by her relative’s stories about the past and not looking forward to the Passover Seder. She says she is tired of remembering. When Hannah symbolically opens the door for the prophet Elijah, she is transported back in time to 1942 in Poland of World War II.

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This film helps us experience a mystery beyond words that resides deep inside each one of us.
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July 28World Hepatitis DayIndependence Day in Peru (1821);Parents' Day in the United States (2013)
Maximilien de RobespierreLouis Antoine de Saint-Just

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Events[edit]

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“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,”Hebrews 12:1 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Exceeding great and precious promises."
2 Peter 1:4
If you would know experimentally the preciousness of the promises, and enjoy them in your own heart, meditate much upon them. There are promises which are like grapes in the wine-press; if you will tread them the juice will flow. Thinking over the hallowed words will often be the prelude to their fulfilment. While you are musing upon them, the boon which you are seeking will insensibly come to you. Many a Christian who has thirsted for the promise has found the favour which it ensured gently distilling into his soul even while he has been considering the divine record; and he has rejoiced that ever he was led to lay the promise near his heart.
But besides meditating upon the promises, seek in thy soul to receive them as being the very words of God. Speak to thy soul thus, "If I were dealing with a man's promise, I should carefully consider the ability and the character of the man who had covenanted with me. So with the promise of God; my eye must not be so much fixed upon the greatness of the mercy--that may stagger me; as upon the greatness of the promiser--that will cheer me. My soul, it is God, even thy God, God that cannot lie, who speaks to thee. This word of his which thou art now considering is as true as his own existence. He is a God unchangeable. He has not altered the thing which has gone out of his mouth, nor called back one single consolatory sentence. Nor doth he lack any power; it is the God that made the heavens and the earth who has spoken thus. Nor can he fail in wisdom as to the time when he will bestow the favours, for he knoweth when it is best to give and when better to withhold. Therefore, seeing that it is the word of a God so true, so immutable, so powerful, so wise, I will and must believe the promise." If we thus meditate upon the promises, and consider the Promiser, we shall experience their sweetness, and obtain their fulfilment.

Evening

"Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"
Romans 8:33
Most blessed challenge! How unanswerable it is! Every sin of the elect was laid upon the great Champion of our salvation, and by the atonement carried away. There is no sin in God's book against his people: he seeth no sin in Jacob, neither iniquity in Israel; they are justified in Christ forever. When the guilt of sin was taken away, the punishment of sin was removed. For the Christian there is no stroke from God's angry hand--nay, not so much as a single frown of punitive justice. The believer may be chastised by his Father, but God the Judge has nothing to say to the Christian, except "I have absolved thee: thou art acquitted." For the Christian there is no penal death in this world, much less any second death. He is completely freed from all the punishment as well as the guilt of sin, and the power of sin is removed too. It may stand in our way, and agitate us with perpetual warfare; but sin is a conquered foe to every soul in union with Jesus. There is no sin which a Christian cannot overcome if he will only rely upon his God to do it. They who wear the white robe in heaven overcame through the blood of the Lamb, and we may do the same. No lust is too mighty, no besetting sin too strongly entrenched; we can overcome through the power of Christ. Do believe it, Christian, that thy sin is a condemned thing. It may kick and struggle, but it is doomed to die. God has written condemnation across its brow. Christ has crucified it, "nailing it to his cross." Go now and mortify it, and the Lord help you to live to his praise, for sin with all its guilt, shame, and fear, is gone.
"Here's pardon for transgressions past,
It matters not how black their cast;
And, O my soul, with wonder view,
For sins to come here's pardon too."
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Today's reading: Psalm 43-45, Acts 27:27-44 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 43-45

1 Vindicate me, my God,
and plead my cause
against an unfaithful nation.
Rescue me from those who are
deceitful and wicked.
2 You are God my stronghold.
Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?
3 Send me your light and your faithful care,
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to the place where you dwell.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the lyre,
O God, my God.

Today's New Testament reading: Acts 27:27-44

The Shipwreck
27 On the fourteenth night we were still being driven across the Adriatic Sea, when about midnight the sailors sensed they were approaching land. 28 They took soundings and found that the water was a hundred and twenty feet deep. A short time later they took soundings again and found it was ninety feetdeep. 29 Fearing that we would be dashed against the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for daylight. 30 In an attempt to escape from the ship, the sailors let the lifeboat down into the sea, pretending they were going to lower some anchors from the bow. 31 Then Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, "Unless these men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved." 32 So the soldiers cut the ropes that held the lifeboat and let it drift away....
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John

[Jŏhn] - jehovah hath been gracious.
  1. A kinsman of Annas the High Priest (Acts 4:6).
  2. A son of Mary, sister of Barnabas, and surnamed Mark (Acts 12:12, 25; 13:5, 13; 15:37). SeeMARK.
  3. The son of Zacharias and Elisabeth, who appeared as the forerunner of Christ, and who was beheaded by Herod ( Matt. 3:1, 4, 13).

The Man Who Was Plain But Powerful

With the appearance of John the Baptist we have the burial of the Old Dispensation and the emergence of the New. We seem to see his rugged figure standing with arms outstretched, as with one hand he takes the Old Testament, and with the other holds the New, and who, through his ministry, makes the transition from Law to Grace. He was the foreclosure of the old and the forerunner of the new. Perhaps we can helpfully gather the witness of John around these salient features:
I. His parentage. John came as the child of promise and was born in a city of Judah when his parents were old, and his mother long past conception (Luke 1:7, 13, 39). His parents were of priestly descent, his mother being a kinswoman of Mary the mother of our Lord (Luke 1:36).
II. His ascetic affinities. John, as a man of the desert, knew what it was to practice self-denial (Matt. 3:4 ). A Nazarite from his birth, he developed self-reliance and spiritual strength as he communed with God in the desert solitudes he loved (Luke 1:15). He was a plain man in every way, akin to Elijah whom many took him for.
He was plain of dress. He dressed simply, his raiment consisting of camel's hair, that is, either a robe of camel's skin or cloth woven from camel's hair. What a humble habit compared with the luxurious robes of soft wool worn by the fashionable and great of his time!
He was plain of food . No sumptuous dishes for this Elijah-like prophet. It was on rough food he thrived. Vegetable honey exuding from fig-trees and palms, and edible locusts, classed among the flying, creeping things the Israelites were allowed to eat (Lev. 11:22), formed his diet (Matt. 3:4). John the Baptist could subscribe to the words of a devout Englishman of a past century:
I shall be spare of sleep, sparer of diet, and sparest of time that, when the days for eating, drinking, clothing, and sleeping shall be no more, I may eat of my Saviour's hidden manna, drink of the new wine in my Father's kingdom, and inherit that rest which remaineth for the people of my God for ever and ever.
He was plain of speech. Living near to nature, he heard God's voice in solitude as well as in Scripture. Familiar with the Old Testament, he made frequent use of its picturesque language (Luke 3:17; Isa. 66:24; with Amos 9:6 ). After his sojourn in the desert, brooding over the need and peril of his time, he came forth to speak of barren trees fit only for burning - vipers fleeing before the flaming scrub. John saw in his desert surroundings much that symbolized his nation's calamity and which lent color to his solemn warnings of impending doom.
There is a great deal we would like to say about this man sent from God who had the privilege of acting as the forerunner and then as the baptizer of Jesus, who said of him that he was greater than a prophet. Space, however, forbids a full exposition of this mighty character in the Bible's portrait gallery. The preacher might be able to expand the following features: his self-denial (Matt. 3:4); courage (Matt. 3:7; 14:4); powerful preaching (Mark 1:5); humility ( Mark 1:7); holiness (Mark 6:20); burning zeal (John 5:35); honor (Matt. 11:11); ministry of witness (John 10:41); preparatory work (Matt. 11:10); testimony ( John 1:29-36); results (Matt. 9:14); death ( Matt. 14:10), of which Spurgeon said, "John was the first Baptist Minister to lose his head through dancing."
4. John, the son of Zebedee and Salome, the fisherman who became the beloved disciple, The Apostle of Love.

The Man Whom Jesus Loved

This younger brother of James has the rare distinction of being known as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." The original of his name means, "whom Jehovah loves" and John's experience corresponded to his name. From the many references to this honored disciple we can gather these facts:
He was a native of Bethsaida in Galilee.
His godly parents were probably cousins of Christ, and John was their youngest son.
His mother followed Christ, ministered unto Him, was at the Cross and among those who went to anoint the body of Christ with sweet spices.
His father was a fisherman owning his own vessel and prosperous enough to hire servants.
John himself was also a successful fisherman.
He was called to discipleship while plying his nets.
He was the youngest of the disciples, the Benjamin among the Twelve.
He was one of the select triumvirate, Christ's inner cabinet of three, Peter and James being the other two.
He was surnamed by Christ as a son of "Boanerges" because of his prophetic zeal and resolution to witness for Christ.
He was treated by Christ with greater familiarity than the others enjoyed.
He sat next to Christ at the Last Supper.
He was intrusted with the care of the mother of Jesus.
He died when he was almost one hundred years of age.
He wrote the gospel and three epistles bearing his name, and also the Book of Revelation. How true are Wesley's words of John the Beloved:
A Caesar's title less my envy moves
Than to be styled the man whom Jesus loves;
What charms, what beauties in his face did shine
Reflected ever from the face divine.
From manifold references in the four gospels, the Acts and Revelation, the preacher can develop these traits in John's character: his natural energy (Mark 3:17); his intolerance (Mark 9:38); his vindictiveness (Luke 9:54); his ambition (Mark 10:35-37); his eagerness to learn ( John 13:23; I John 2:9); his sympathy (John 19:26); his love (1 John 4:7-21).
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Renee Swope
July 27, 2011
Measuring Up
Renee Swope
"When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise."2 Corinthians 10:12b (NIV)
Do you ever compare yourself to others and feel like you don't quite measure up? Maybe you think you're not as smart, capable, personable, or as godly as they are.
It is so easy to think that if we had more or knew more, we'd be secure. But the truth is, even people who "have it all" still struggle with feelings of insecurity. The Bible opens with the story of a woman who had everything, but it wasn't enough (Genesis 2).
God had established Eve's worth as His child and the crown of His creation. He also gave Eve every woman's desire: intimacy, beauty, security, significance, and purpose. Yet Satan conjured up feelings of insecurity by getting Eve to take her eyes off what she had and focus on what she didn't have.
Boy, can I relate. Like Eve, I've heard Satan's whispers telling me I'm not all I could be - or should be. One day I was reading her story in Genesis 2 and I noticed that his questions and suggestions were intended to plant seeds of doubt in Eve's heart. He wanted her to doubt God and herself.
The enemy's whispers tempted Eve to try to "be" more and "have" more by seeking significance apart from God's provision. He convinced her something was missing in her life and that the forbidden fruit would make her be "like God."
It was a foolish comparison, but all comparisons are. Yet don't we do it all the time? If only I was like her...if only I had a house like hers, a husband like hers, a job like hers...if only my children behaved like hers...If only _______, then I'd feel significant, satisfied and secure.
In today's key verse, Paul warns us that those who "measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves with themselves, are not wise" (2 Cor. 10:12NIV). Comparison will always leave us feeling like we don't measure up. We can try to do more and be more, yet it's never enough.
If only Eve had focused on who she was and what she had as a child of God. If only we could too.
Yet Satan wants us to focus on our flaws and feelings of inadequacy, then exhaust our energy figuring out how to hide them. But we don't have to go along with his schemes. Instead we can recognize his lies, refute his temptations with truth, and focus on God's acceptance, security, and significance. Then we can thank God for His provision and His promises that remind us of who we are in Him:
I am accepted...
Ephesians 1:3-8 I have been chosen by God and adopted as His child.
Colossians 1:13-14 I have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins.
Colossians 2:9-10 I am complete in Christ.
I am secure...
Romans 8:28 I am assured that God works for my good in all circumstances.
Romans 8:31-39 I am free from condemnation. I can't be separated from God's love.
Philippians1:6 I am confident God will complete the good work He started in me.
I am significant...
Ephesians 2:10 I am God's workmanship.
Ephesians 3:12 I may approach God with freedom and confidence.
Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
Lord, thank You that in Christ I'm accepted, secure and significant. When I'm tempted to find my significance and security apart from Your provision and promises, help me recognize Satan's lies, refuse his temptations and stand firm in my faith. Remind me that such confidence as this is mine through Christ - not that I am competent in myself to claim anything for myself, but competence comes from Him. In Jesus' Name, Amen. (see 1 Peter 5:92Corinthians 3:4-5)
Related Resources:
This devotion is taken in part from chapter 6 of Renee Swope's book: A Confident Heart: How to Stop Doubting Yourself & Live in the Security of God's Promises. To find out more or order your copy, click here.
Visit Renee's new website for a wonderful list of "Our Identity in Christ" Bible verses and enter to win her"Contagious Confidence" give-away!
Application Steps:
When you're tempted to use the measuring stick of comparison - be sure to measure UP by focusing upward on Christ - whose you are and who you are in HIM!
Reflections:
"The more you reaffirm who you are in Christ, the more your behavior (and beliefs) will begin to reflect your true identity!" Dr. Neil T. Anderson
Power Verses:
1 Peter 5:9, "Stand firm against him [the devil], and be strong in your faith. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are. (NLT)
2 Corinthians 3:4-5, "Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God." (NIV)
© 2011 by Renee Swope. All rights reserved.
Proverbs 31 Ministries
616-G Matthews-Mint Hill Road
Matthews, NC 28105
www.Proverbs31.org
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July 27, 2011
The Fiery Furnace
Today's Truth
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze (Isaiah 43:2 NIV).
Friend To Friend
One of the most beautiful pictures of trusting in the sovereignty of God is in the story of three young Jewish men: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. These three lads refused to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar's idol. The punishment for such rebellion against the king was death in a fiery furnace. When the young men were taken before the king just before facing death, they respectfully explained:
The God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. (Daniel 3:17-18)
That is a faith that's real - truly tried by fire. God can deliver me, but if He chooses not to, I'll serve Him anyway. God can heal me, but if He doesn't, I love Him regardless.
The young men were thrown into the furnace. Their refusal to bow to the King's request infuriated Nebuchadnezzar. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual and commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie the young men up and toss them into the flames. The flames were so hot, the soldiers who took the bound boys to the furnace died in its heat. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walked into the flames and the King stood by to watch.
"Didn't we throw three men in the furnace," the King asked in amazement.
"Look, I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods" (Daniel 3:25).
That was enough for the king to have a change of heart. He ordered the door opened, and the three young men walked out of that furnace without a singed hair on their heads or a hint of smoke on their clothes!
We can be sure of this, my friend - when walking through the fiery trials of life, we are never alone. Jesus is right there with us all the way. A little smoke and fire doesn't bother Him one little bit.
Let's Pray
Dear Lord, thank You that I never have to walk through the fiery trials of life alone. You promised that You will never leave me, and I cling to that truth today. Also, thank You for sending friends to walk through the flames with me! They are some of my most treasured gifts. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Now It's Your Turn
Describe one of the fiery trials in your life that you have had to walk through?
How was God's presence manifested in the "flames?"
Do you have a friend who needs someone to walk through a fiery trial with her?
Do you desire to have friends like the three young men in this story? If so, ask God to send you one or two friends with a strong faith with whom you can lock arms.
Gwen, Mary and I are so thankful that you have allowed us to walk through life with you. You are a blessing!
More From The Girlfriends
Fiery trials come in all shapes and sizes with varying degrees of heat. But no matter what the trial, there is always a lesson to be learned. God can use it for good (Romans 8:28). Let's not waste our sorrows, but turn them around and use them for good! To learn more on how to do just that see Sharon's book,Your Scars are Beautiful to God: Finding Peace and Purpose in the Hurts of Your Past.
Seeking God?
Click here to find out more about
how to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Girlfriends in God
P.O. Box 725
Matthews, NC 28106
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Midsummer greetings from Bible Gateway! Here's the latest news:

How Do We Know Jesus Is the Messiah?

Who did Jesus claim to be, and how can we know if those claims are true? Christians believe that Jesus is God's son and that he saves us from sin--but what's the evidence on which that belief is based? What does the Bible really teach about Jesus?

Whether you're a Christian, a skeptic, or anywhere in between, these are important questions that need answering. And to help you find the answers, we're excited to announce a new series of free email reflections: Investigating the Bible. Every week,Investigating the Bible will ask and answer a new "tough question" about Jesus Christ, using material from the NIV Case for Christ Study Bible . Each reflection is written by author and apologist Lee Strobel, a former atheist who set out to collect all the evidence about Jesus Christ--and who now shares that evidence with anyone else searching for answers.

If you've ever had questions or doubts about Jesus' claims,Investigating the Bible will equip you with everything you need to decide for yourself--by examining each piece of Biblical evidence for Jesus' claims, you'll see what Jesus said about himself, what his actions demonstrated about him, and how all of that fits into the Bible's prophecies about the Messiah.

Investigating the Bible begins tomorrow; sign up now!

Get to Know Your Bible Better

You've probably noticed that we're adding a lot of email newsletters and devotionals lately. You may have also noticed that many of these newsletters complement each other quite nicely. If the new Investigating the Bible newsletter interests you, check out these other resources as well:
  • Investigating Faith : also written by Lee Strobel, this newsletter explores the reasons for faith in Christ. In each issue, Lee answers tough faith questions from readers and shares his own insights into Christianity and apologetics.
  • Insights for Students: Biblical insights and wisdom written especially for students (but relevant to anyone who wants to understand the Bible better).
  • The Heart of the Story: a series of video reflections by Randy Frazee about the challenge of Biblical illiteracy in the church... and the ways you can get to know your Bible as never before.
You can sign up for any or all of these at our Newsletters pagealong with Investigating the Bible.

That's all for this week. Thanks, as always, for your continued support of Bible Gateway!

Sincerely,
the Bible Gateway team
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The Crash: Rebellion, nakedness, hiding and shame

Read Genesis 3
Genesis 3:3: But God did say, "You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die."
"The Fall" theologians call it, but the event this chapter describes is really more like a crash. Although Adam and Eve have everything a person could want in Paradise, still a thought nags at them: Are we somehow missing out? Is God keeping something from us? Like all of us, they cannot resist the temptation to reach out for what lies beyond them.
Said journalist and author G.K. Chesterton, "There is only one doctrine that can be empirically verified: the doctrine of original sin." Genesis gives few details about the first sin. Many people mistakenly assume sex is involved, but something far more basic is at stake. God has labeled one tree, just one, off-limits. The real issue is, Who will set the rules-humans or God? Adam and Eve decide in favor of themselves, and the world has never been the same.
The underlying message of Genesis goes against some common assumptions about human history. According to these chapters, the world and humanity have not been gradually evolving toward a better and better state. On the contrary, long ago we wrecked against the rocks of our own pride and stubbornness.
Nobody, including God, has been satisfied with human beings since that time. Though created good, humans disobeyed God right from the beginning, and we've been suffering the consequences ever since. Genesis helps us understand why the universe is so strikingly lovely, yet so terribly tragic. It is lovely because God made it. It is tragic because he trusted it to us-and we failed.
Did God Really Say?
Adam and Eve react to their sin as anyone reacts to sin. They rationalize, try to explain themselves and look for someone else to take the blame. The author of Genesis pointedly notes that they also feel the need to hide. They hide from each other by making coverings for themselves because they sense, for the first time, a feeling of shame about being naked. Perhaps the greatest change of all occurs in their relationship with God. Previously, they had walked and talked freely with God in the garden, much as one would with a friend. Now, when they hear God's voice, they hide.
The three questions God asks Adam and Eve apply to anyone in hiding: (1) Where are you? (And why are you hiding from me?) (2) Who told you that you were naked? (And why did you believe somebody else, not me?) (3) What is this that you have done? (And are you ready to take responsibility for it?)
Genesis 3 tells of other profound changes that affect the world because the creatures choose their own way rather than their Creator's: suffering multiplies, work becomes harder, and a new word-death-enters human vocabulary. Perfection is spoiled forever. All wars, all violence, all broken relationships, all grief and sadness trace back to this one monumental day in the Garden of Eden.

Life Question

Have you ever felt hemmed in or stifled by one of God's commands? How have you responded to this feeling?

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Explore Further

Today's reading is from theNIV Student Bible
by Zondervan


A proven, common sense approach to studying the Scriptures appeals to high school and college readers (and students of all ages).


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