Thursday, March 27, 2014

Thu Mar 27th Todays News

Two conservative leaders have spoken, apparently taking oppositional stances to federal government policy. Mr Howard has said he would not have implemented an honours system and would not accept one. Mr O'Farrell has said that racism needs to be opposed. What they have said is not wrong, but highlights points of differences the media are expanding on for no good reason. 

 Section 18c addressing racism is failed legislation that does not address it. It is an enemy to free speech. To oppose the legislation is not the same as supporting racism. Bigots like  Tanya Plibersek have been able to abuse Israel and a former Israeli conservative leader despite the legislation existing, showing that anti semitism is not addressed by the legislation. Andrew Bolt had a public discussion which was silenced when a person took exception to something most reasonable people would ignore. For me, it is telling that Mr O'Farrell has not seen clearly my own issue, which calls into question his judgement. But, it is true, no one likes racism. The best way to combat racism is a public spotlight, and a law which limits free speech will not do that. Because even with the law, abuses occur. 

 Mr Howard failed to address bias within the ABC. There is a theory of cultural assets which is different to the theory of minority covenant. At the moment, noisy minorities dominate and skew public proceedings, so that institutions which support society are damaged. Cultural assets, if they are built and respected and maintained, heal rifts opened by damage to culture. It isn't possible to support every minority, some are oppositional. However, by supporting cultural assets, everyone can be catered for. Including minorities. An honours system is a cultural asset. It doesn't do anything that might hurt a minority, but it supports a society and culture which when functioning right allows everyone to prosper. I'm sorry Mr Howard doesn't see that. 

 For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell 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 http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/nsw-premier-barry-o-farrell-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball?
===

Hatches
Happy birthday and many happy returns Michael Lee and Helen Huang. Born on the someday, across the years. Not April 1st. One asks if your parents were really trying ..
Matches
Despatches
===


===
Howard's position is valid and commensurate with Abbott's. He hasn't said Abbott should not have done it, he merely said he would not have done it. I respectfully point out Howard failed to address the ABC bias and so failed to end institutional corrosion. There is nothing wrong with Knights and Dames, but there is something right with an institution which supports society. We need to support institutional assets because when we do so everyone benefits, including those unwashed dragged kicking and screaming.  - ed
=== Posts from last year ===

===

It was an honour and privilege to catch up with the Deputy Leader of the Federal Opposition, The Hon Julie Bishop MP today.
Whilst Labor is divided and dysfunctional the Coalition remains united in it’s positive plan for the future of Australia. A plan achievable due to the calibre and expertise of highly respected Liberal politicians such as Julie.
It was a pleasure to meet you today Julie and thank you for your support in Dobell. — with Jim Picot, Ken Duncan, Julie Bishop and Julie Bishop MP.
===

===

===

===

===

===

4 her, so she can see how I see her
===

Hanks bonds with son in fake drunk pictures
===

===

Real Hollywood Heroes: Charlton Heston Speaks at Harvard Law School (Video)

That scares me to death, and it should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason. You are the best and the brightest. You, here in this fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River. You are the cream. But I submit that you and your counterparts across the land are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge. And as long as you validate that and abide it, you are, by your grandfathers’ standards, cowards.

http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/charlton-heston-speaks-harvard-law-school/
===

Time wasting activity #257
Do you think he found his photo?
===

===

Meanwhile @ the Chicago Teachers Union...
===

The eruption of Krakatoa in August 1883 was one of the most deadly volcanic eruptions of modern history with more than 36,000 estimated deaths. Learn more about the Krakatoa Volcano:http://oak.ctx.ly/r/3ckl

Below, an 1888 lithograph of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa.
===

Under Labor’s record debt, the interest payments this year alone on this debt stack up to $7 billion. This would be enough to fund the NDIS.
===

Labor likes to compare Australia's debt to other countries like Greece. The reality is that under the Labor government we have gone from having no debt to over $150 billion net debt in just five years.
===

Congrats to Dom Rhodes who just made his 1000th phonecall. Here is State Director Mark Neeham presenting Dom with his tshirt & hat as thanks for his hard work.Thanks Dom! 

Join our phone call challenge today and help us get Australia back on track! http://www.nsw.liberal.org.au/get_involved
===

This is Labor's counter argument. Don't let the Liberals continue their shameless scare campaign on Australia's modest debt levels.
The debt isn't even necessary. It isn't as if they are doing something worthwhile with it. Worse service than Howard government .. ed
===

===

In the small town of Eden, N.Y., the recent appearance of mysterious circles in a frozen pond has residents baffled. What do you think caused these circles? http://oak.ctx.ly/r/3cl0
===

Absolutely gorgeous Spring Day here in North Fork!!
===

Climate models are not good enough

Only a few climate models were able to reproduce the observed changes in extreme precipitation in China over the last 50 years. This is the finding of a doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Climate models are the only means to predict future changes in climate and weather.

“It is therefore extremely important that we investigate global climate models’ own performances in simulating extremes with respect to observations, in order to improve our opportunities to predict future weather changes,” says Tinghai Ou from the University of Gothenburg’s Department of Earth Sciences.

Tinghai has analysed the model simulated extreme precipitation in China over the last 50 years.

“The results show that climate models give a poor reflection of the actual changes in extreme precipitation events that took place in China between 1961 and 2000,” he says. “Only half of the 21 analysed climate models analysed were able to reproduce the changes in some regions of China. Few models can well reproduce the nationwide change.”

For more : http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/25/climate-models-arent-good-enough-to-hindcast-says-new-study/
===

Breaking Dawn. San Francisco wakes up under a high fog covered sky. — at Kirby Cove.
===

4 her
===

The Monthly given the XXX factor

Andrew Bolt March 27 2013 (3:00pm)

Brilliant. Tim Blair and his readers kindly rework The Monthly’s cover to make it closer to the zeitgeist.
I can’t decide whether the third cover on Blair’s list is the best, or this one:
image
===

MONTHLY REFINED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, March 27, 2013 (1:26pm)

The Monthly recently celebrated the Prime Minister’s feisty feminism. Sadly, the magazine’s right-on rejoicing was quickly undermined by the PM herself, who turns out to be a fan of bunny-suitedradio pigs. Readers to the rescue! Here’s Smike’s updated cover image:

image

And from Jaki:

image

David of Riverina:

image
===



Girl rocks a Hendrix song on a Korean instrument called gayageum

=== Todays posts ===

WORK CONTINUES

Tim Blair – Thursday, March 27, 2014 (12:33pm)

Wednesday’s workers are still sending many excellent images. New galleries will be posted tonight. Meanwhile, I’m distracted by other work - please consider this an open thread. 
===

Howard no to Knights

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (10:37am)


Not a helpful comment on a move not necessarily helpful, either:
Former Liberal prime minister John Howard does not agree with Tony Abbott’s decision to reinstitute knights and dames into the Australian honours system, saying he stands by his long-held view that such a move would be considered “somewhat anachronistic”, even by conservatives.
Mr Howard indicated that because of his views, and the fact that he never entered politics to receive honours, it was unlikely he would accept a knighthood should one ever be offered.
===

How free speech is meant to work. The ABC demonstrates a freedom its presenters would deny me

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (8:36am)

Free speech



I note the ABC collective is in furious agreement that the Abbott Government’s attempts to allow more free speech must be defeated. It would encourage racists. We need to fight alleged racists by banning them from speaking rather than let them speak and either damn themselves or be damned.
As Lateline sums up the changes:

Attorney-General George Brandis is drafting changes to the Racial Discrimination Act which will give people the right to make comments that are racist, offensive or insulting.
This is terrible. Ask the ABC’s Jonathan Green:
Why is it defending the right of people to be bigots?
So I was puzzled to see this film (watch it above) being screened by the same ABC this week:
image
In it, Louis Theroux lets racists talk perfectly freely, without contradiction or condemnation, to explain their hatred of other “races” and their desire for apartheid. They are even allowed to express hate-speech, again quite freely and usually without a word of condemnation. Among many examples:
I’d rather have some pants made out of a white man’s skin.
And:
We’re going to take down the white man.
And:

The white race is absolutely disagreeable to get along with in peace. No other people on the face of the earth have been able to get along with white people since white people have been on our planet.
Then there is this conversation between Theroux and the late black Muslim leader Khalid Abdul Muhammad over a white convert to Islam called Muhammed. It is the kind of conversation which in Australia led to the banning of two of my articles, but which the ABC this week felt free to screen and which, of course, it will get away with:
Theroux: [To Muhammed:] You I would consider white. [To Khalid Abdul Muhammad:] Would you consider Muhammed black or white?
Khalid Abdul Muhammad: I consider Muhammed as a member of the original family of our people and I see Muhammed as looking quite different from you. I can tell the difference…
Theroux: The general point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think we’re that different under the skin and so
Khalid Abdul Muhammad: Let’s stop a second. If we deal with biology, genetics we have to be different under the skin. Your characteristics would not be recessive according to the law of genetics and and mine would not be strong or dominant.
Theroux: I just ask because Muhammed does not look to me, I don’t know, I don’t think he looks like a black man
Khalid Abdul Muhammad: His hair is different. He has nappy hair. He has strong features. You have the keen, narrow features, the Nordic features. You’ve got that interesting nose
Theroux: What does that mean?
Khalid Abdul Muhammad:  Let it go. Feel like you’re lucky.
Of course, this kind of debate - on how people choose their “racial” identity - should be possible, But for some of us it is not, and the ABC is extremely selective in deciding who should be free to speak and who may not.
Some ABC presenters are now deceitfully suggesting I am indeed free to discuss such things, too, and only had articles on this banned because of my “mistakes”. I am not free to discuss just what those “mistakes” were or were not, but note this: the judge said, bottom line, one mistake I made was to say people I wrote about had a choice: they could choose to identify with any or none of the various ethnic or “racial” identities of their ancestors.  Decide for yourself what freedom that now allows me. My lawyers have their own views.
(Thanks to reader BRB.) 
===

Herald thinks identifying the wanted shooters would be racist

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (8:23am)


The Daily Telegraph passes on police appeals to help find men wanted over a shooting:
AN innocent bystander is fighting for life this morning after being shot in the chest during what may have been a heated argument between two groups of men in Sydney’s west…

Police say they are looking for four males.
One of the males has been described as being of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern appearance, with a thin build, a small amount of facial hair and tattoos across his body, including one on his face.
A second male is described as being of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern appearance, with a short and thin build, a beard and tattoos.
The Sydney Morning Herald would rather alleged shooters not be identified than risk confirming a stereotype:

Two men have been shot in what police suspect was a bungled armed robbery by a group of men, including one with a facial tattoo, in a residential street in Sydney’s west.
One of the injured men, who is aged in his 50s, is believed to have been shot in the chest when he came out of his house on Lansdowne Street in Merrylands to investigate an argument he heard....
Detectives have set up crime scenes at the petrol station and on Lansdowne Street, and are looking for four men over the shootings.
One of the men has a thin build, a small amount of facial hair and tattoos across his body, including one on his face.
The second man has a short, thin build, a beard and tattoos.
===

Playing up in class after a report full of Fs

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (8:18am)


Paul Sheehan on Labor’s strange denial:

Anyone watching the proceedings of Parliament on Wednesday, during which [Julie] Collins was thrown out by the speaker for impersonating a schoolgirl chortling and sledging in class, may be struck by the way the political class is increasingly divorced from reality. It applies to all parties but is stark in the current insular model of the ALP, which lost last year’s federal election, just lost office in Tasmania, just lost its majority in South Australia, was smashed in the last NSW election, was smashed in the last Queensland election and lost office in the last Victorian election. It even lost its majority in the ACT in 2012.
It’s been the same for the Greens, with a series of heavy defeats in federal, state and local government elections, including a disaster in one of its strongholds, Canberra, where it lost three of its four seats in the 2012 ACT Legislative Assembly elections.Yet none of these clear messages from the electorate appears to have made a scintilla of difference to either of the parties pummelled by the voters. We know they care deeply about losing, because Labor and the Greens desperately need control of the public sector to service their bases, but it appears increasingly and depressingly obvious they are terminally inward-looking, and preoccupied with tactical skirmishing and scorched earth rejectionism.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Free speech stops bigots better than none

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (8:06am)

Free speech

THE question from a shocked ABC presenter summed up what really divides the people yelling at each other about racism and free speech.
“Is it going to be possible to shout ‘ape’ at Adam Goodes at a football match?” fretted PM’s Mark Colvin.

In Colvin’s question we had the real divide with the Abbott Government’s proposal this week to reform the Racial Discrimination Act and allow freer debate, especially about racial politics.
No, this is not what much of the media claims — an argument between people who want more free speech and those who want less racism.
I actually want both, as does every member of the Abbott Government.
The real debate is about trust. The divide is between those who trust the Australian people and those who fear them. Between those who think Australians are basically decent and those convinced we’re riddled with racists chewing at the bit.
Colvin’s anxious question to two human rights commissioners on Tuesday shows he’s on the fear side. But the very question he put — “Is it going to be possible to shout ‘ape’ at Adam Goodes at a football match?” — suggests the truth he does not see.
For a start, it always has been possible to shout “ape” at Goodes, the Sydney Swans Aboriginal champion, and last year someone did. What happened next should have reassured Colvin completely.
(Read full article here.) 
===

Palmer spends another $3 million to defend his crumbling power

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (7:56am)


Niki Savva on Clive Palmer’s desperate bid to be a player in the Senate:
It is estimated his Palmer United Party could end up spending more than $3 million in the WA Senate by-election campaign in an effort to secure one seat. That’s ... more than the Liberal and Labor parties will outlay individually…
As well as TV and print advertising, Palmer has swamped households with DVDs — made in China — featuring large slabs of Clive, and letters.
If Palmer succeeds, it will go down as one of his smarter investments. He will not only have a toehold in the west, he will be able to bend the government to his will in the upper house…
In a best-case scenario for the Coalition government, if it holds its three WA seats, it will have 33 senators. If Labor and the Greens win one each and another micro party (not PUP) wins one, then Labor/Greens, plus two PUPs, will have 37.
The government needs 39 to pass legislation, so it will need other crossbenchers, including senator-elect Sir Ricky Muir, elected under the banner of the Motoring Enthusiast Party, who could break free at some point from the PUP pack.
Alternatively, if the Liberals lose a seat, Labor wins two, Greens one and PUP one, it would give Labor, Greens and PUP 39 senators.
That has the potential to make it a dogs’ life for the government. Puppies would rule.
I think it is not just desire for power that’s driving Palmer. It is also fear of losing it after the Tasmanian debacle:

Palmer began that campaign claiming he would win outright, finished by predicting he would secure seven or eight seats, and ended with none on an average vote of about 5 per cent.
Liberals reckon familiarity did not win respect… They estimate Palmer spent $1m?in Tasmania, matching the major parties on advertising.
If Palmer does this badly again in Western Australian, his two Senators and Ricky Muir will realise he can’t save them at the next election. His brand is going backwards and they will not want to go backwards with it. Their survival will depend far more on their own performance, and even that is unlikely to get them re-elected. But pride and self-preservation would suggest they do trust themselves more than they trust their patron. Palmer will therefore find it much harder to control them and act like the power player he’s desperate to be.
So Palmer’s WA campaign is not just to win power but to preserve it. 
===

Buying off a republican

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (7:42am)


If calling yourself a Queens Counsel earns you higher fees than being a Senior Counsel, just maybe there’s a respect for an institution you shouldn’t lightly trash: 
No lustre to royal orders. Sky News on Tuesday:

DAVID Speers: [Shadow Attorney General] Mark Dreyfus … your reaction to the return of knights and dames in Australia?
Dreyfus: … We now see Tony Abbott rushing back to the 19th century in his desire to rebadge …
Speers: He’s said that this will restore a grace note in our society ... add some lustre to the orders as well. You don’t see any lustre to the phrase “Sir Mark Dreyfus"…?
Dreyfus: No, strangely enough, I think there is magnificent lustre ­associated with being a Companion of the Order of Australia … I don’t think we need anything else.
Except for QCs. Sky News’ Australian Agenda, March 16:
CHRIS Merritt: So you favour the term QC?
Dreyfus: No, I don’t, although I am a QC ... for me it was a commercial decision to leave it as QC because I thought that it was something that people identified with.
===

No, not all Aboriginal leaders agree with bans on free speech

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (7:07am)

Free speech

An important intervention:

Indigenous leader Sue Gordon, the retired magistrate who led the Northern Territory intervention, has backed the Abbott government’s changes to racial discrimination laws, arguing the suppression of racism only makes it worse, driving it underground…

Dr Gordon said the repression of free speech was damaging to race relations and she agreed with Attorney-General George Brandis that people had the right to be bigots. “I think sometimes there is too much emotion in this topic and people need to just look at it calmly,” she said.
“I agree with what Brandis said. People do have a right in this country, you can’t suppress everything.”
Dr Gordon was backed by Anthony Dillon, a researcher at the Australian Catholic University who identifies as a part-Aboriginal Australian. In an article in The Australian today, he writes that political correctness has gone overboard.
“Political correctness, with regard to people who identify as Aboriginal Australians, has reached the ridiculous stage where one can be accused of being racist simply by questioning the motives of some people who identify as being Aboriginal,” Mr Dillon says.
Dillon argues:

Politcal correctness, with regard to people who identify as Aboriginal Australians, has reached the ridiculous stage where one can be accused of being racist simply by questioning the motives of some people who identify as being Aboriginal.
Or there is the obvious elephant in the room. Why is it that someone with multiple ancestries chooses to build their identity around being Aboriginal, when having only one of your 16 great-great-grandparents being Aboriginal qualifies you to claim being Aboriginal? People are free to identify how they wish, but they should not be surprised when they are questioned about it.
===

Next human rights party should be in Koo Wee Rup

Andrew Bolt March 27 2014 (12:03am)

Culture wars

OUR Human Rights Commission is meant to be against “discrimination, harassment and bullying based on a person’s ... social origin”.
But it seems very discriminating indeed, especially when choosing where to hold its parties.

As the Herald Sun revealed this week, the commission blew $60,000 on an awards night party in December at the swish Museum of Contemporary Art, overlooking the Sydney Opera House.
Asked if that was appropriate, especially for a night themed on problems of poverty and disadvantage, commission president Gillian Triggs bristled.
“I really do take umbrage at the idea that somehow because you’re a human rights body you’ve got to do things in some sort of shabby way …
“We don’t want to be in a village hall in Koo Wee Rup just because we haven’t got a lot of money.”
In fact, Koo Wee Rup does have a “village hall” — the town’s football club — which was used last year for a “Gangsters’ Paradise” fundraiser that seems from the video to have been a blast.
(Read full article here.) 
===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

===

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===
Dry Bones cartoon. I love the series
===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===

Post by David Daniel Ball.

===
President Jiang Zemin of China
===

Events[edit]

Births[edit]

Deaths[edit]

Holidays and observances[edit]

===
“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him,” - Philippians 1:29
===
Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Jesus said unto them, If ye seek me, let these go their way."
John 18:8
Mark, my soul, the care which Jesus manifested even in his hour of trial, towards the sheep of his hand! The ruling passion is strong in death. He resigns himself to the enemy, but he interposes a word of power to set his disciples free. As to himself, like a sheep before her shearers he is dumb and opened not his mouth, but for his disciples' sake he speaks with almighty energy. Herein is love, constant, self-forgetting, faithful love. But is there not far more here than is to be found upon the surface? Have we not the very soul and spirit of the atonement in these words? The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, and pleads that they must therefore go free. The Surety is bound, and justice demands that those for whom he stands a substitute should go their way. In the midst of Egypt's bondage, that voice rings as a word of power, "Let these go their way." Out of slavery of sin and Satan the redeemed must come. In every cell of the dungeons of Despair, the sound is echoed, "Let these go their way," and forth come Despondency and Much-afraid. Satan hears the well-known voice, and lifts his foot from the neck of the fallen; and Death hears it, and the grave opens her gates to let the dead arise. Their way is one of progress, holiness, triumph, glory, and none shall dare to stay them in it. No lion shall be on their way, neither shall any ravenous beast go up thereon. "The hind of the morning" has drawn the cruel hunters upon himself, and now the most timid roes and hinds of the field may graze at perfect peace among the lilies of his loves. The thunder-cloud has burst over the Cross of Calvary, and the pilgrims of Zion shall never be smitten by the bolts of vengeance. Come, my heart, rejoice in the immunity which thy Redeemer has secured thee, and bless his name all the day, and every day.

Evening

"When he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
Mark 8:38
If we have been partakers with Jesus in his shame, we shall be sharers with him in the lustre which shall surround him when he appears again in glory. Art thou, beloved one, with Christ Jesus? Does a vital union knit thee to him? Then thou art today with him in his shame; thou hast taken up his cross, and gone with him without the camp bearing his reproach; thou shalt doubtless be with him when the cross is exchanged for the crown. But judge thyself this evening; for if thou art not with him in the regeneration, neither shalt thou be with him when he shall come in his glory. If thou start back from the black side of communion, thou shalt not understand its bright, its happy period, when the King shall come, and all his holy angels with him. What! are angels with him? And yet he took not up angels--he took up the seed of Abraham. Are the holy angels with him? Come, my soul, if thou art indeed his own beloved, thou canst not be far from him. If his friends and his neighbours are called together to see his glory, what thinkest thou if thou art married to him? Shalt thou be distant? Though it be a day of judgment, yet thou canst not be far from that heart which, having admitted angels into intimacy, has admitted thee into union. Has he not said to thee, O my soul, "I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness?" Have not his own lips said it, "I am married unto thee, and my delight is in thee?" If the angels, who are but friends and neighbours, shall be with him, it is abundantly certain that his own beloved Hephzibah, in whom is all his delight, shall be near to him, and sit at his right hand. Here is a morning star of hope for thee, of such exceeding brilliance, that it may well light up the darkest and most desolate experience.
===

Today's reading: Joshua 22-24, Luke 3 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Joshua 22-23

Eastern Tribes Return Home
1 Then Joshua summoned the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh 2 and said to them, "You have done all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and you have obeyed me in everything I commanded. 3 For a long time now--to this very day--you have not deserted your fellow Israelites but have carried out the mission the LORD your God gave you. 4 Now that the LORD your God has given them rest as he promised, return to your homes in the land that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you on the other side of the Jordan. 5 But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you: to love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to keep his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul...."

Today's New Testament reading: Luke 3

John the Baptist Prepares the Way
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar--when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene-- 2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
"A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
5 Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
6 And all people will see God's salvation....'"
===

Today's Lent reading: Mark 10-12 (NIV)

View today's Lent reading on Bible Gateway
Divorce
1 Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.
2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
3 "What did Moses command you?" he replied.
4 They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away."
5 "It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. 6 "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 7 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."
===

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)