Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Tue Mar 18th Todays News

American Express was founded on this day in 1850, making the world a little smaller and better for travellers. The world is very big. So big that when Tiberius died, the Senate amended his will by making Caligula emperor. Caligula was what the press now call a popular choice. Caligula would treat the roman Senate with the same contempt of a Craig Thomson addressing the parliament. Still, Rome was capable of correcting her mistakes, as they did on this day in 235 with Alexander Severus and his mother. In 1834, England made a big mistake sending 6 trade unionists to Australia. The suffering continues. On this day in 1922, Ghandi was sentenced to 6 years prison for civil disobedience. He served two. Today, we suffer from similar sentencing issues. Had it happened today, no doubt Willessee would bargain on behalf of Seven in an attempt to let Ghandi trade on the fame garnered by civil disobedience. For his part, Ghandi might have to wear a "fuck you Tony" T-shirt. To paraphrase Hawke addressing the UN, fucking Gillard would be first prize of a lottery. Tickets given to ALP backbenchers. Multiple entry winners. The silly old bugger. 

 Winning the longest ever hide and seek game, on this day in 1989, was a 4400 year old mummy found near the pyramid of Cheops. Their prize seems similar to Hawke's one, the brain matter scooped through a hole in the nose, and then covered up. East Germans got to vote for unification with a richer, better state on this day in 1990, echoing Crimea today. But the glory went to a white man in South Africa who had the grace to offer a vote in 1992. It seems sad and nasty that divisive socialists have not honoured the graciousness. But there is hope that there never was under apartheid. 
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?
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Hatches
Happy birthday and many happy returns Phuc Le and Jorge Rodas. Born the same day Neighbours was first broadcast in 1985, although a different year for you? Actually, Phuc's birthday is belated, he could turn US dollars green, yesterday. 
Matches
Despatches
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PUT IT ON A SIGN

Tim Blair – Tuesday, March 18, 2014 (12:13pm)

As succinctly as he is able, John Birmingham describes the March in Marchers: 
… a gathering of the randomly but deeply aggrieved to give voice to the anger of people increasingly feeling themselves to be utterly powerless in the face of the social and political re-engineering of their country to serve the interests of powerful corporations and the true elites … 
The full sentence includes another 41 words.
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TURN IT UP

Tim Blair – Tuesday, March 18, 2014 (4:18am)

Formula One’s new eco-tech engines sound like sad robots working in an industrial laundry. It’s an unappealing sonic combination of dull mechanical racket and Dyson testing lab. And the volume is weak: 
The boss of the Australian grand prix is threatening legal action against the governing body because he thought Sunday’s event “wasn’t loud enough” …
Australian Grand Prix chief executive Andrew Westacott is threatening legal action and claims that because the new Formula One cars with V6 engines are quieter than previous years, there is a potential breach of contract.
“It’s about getting what you paid for, and we don’t believe what he got there [at the Albert Park] was what we paid for,” he told Neil Mitchell. 
Readers were warned of this three years ago when F1 first proposed an engine shrinkage.
UPDATE. Hear for yourselves:

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ANTI-PSYCHOTIC DONUT

Tim Blair – Tuesday, March 18, 2014 (4:16am)

Several of these might come in handy at the next family dinner. And that’s just for me.
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CLARISSA DICKSON WRIGHT

Tim Blair – Tuesday, March 18, 2014 (3:55am)

The wonderful Clarissa Dickson Wright, last of the Two Fat Ladies, has died at just 66.
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ENDLESS LOVE

Tim Blair – Monday, March 17, 2014 (10:59pm)

Naturally, the Holy Gillard Choir receives taxpayer funding:

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Voters tell Abbott: keep your word and we’ll cop it

Andrew Bolt March 18 2014 (5:25pm)

The real winner in last Saturday’s elections in Tasmania and South Australia? Tony Abbott, says Terry McCrann:
I know, as politicians and commentators claim repeatedly, state elections are not about federal issues…
[But] let’s take Labor at its word. These elections were all about Abbott: South Australian voters backed him 53-47 per cent; and Tasmania even more resoundingly with 53 per cent of first preferences. Labor and the Greens were shredded.
Also, add that to the Griffith by-election where the Prime Minister (and true, a very good local candidate) scored a rare by-election swing to the Government — and they did so, against Labor’s imprecations, and the easy option of being able, to ‘send a message to Canberra’, and to Abbott in particular…
Now, he’s proved such a ‘successful’ focus of Labor attack, that he’s managed to ‘lose’ Labor every state and territory government, bar the ‘beltway cocooned ACT’, and if not also South Australia, only because of an outrageous gerrymander ...
We’ve already seen ... the government’s ‘tough decisions’ to refuse SPC and Qantas what they wanted… What’s again got lost in the hysteria, is that Abbott’s tactical instincts proved best. To have taken the all-too easy path of handing SPC $25 million and Qantas a ‘costless’ debt guarantee would have undermined the necessary tough decisions those companies had to make…
The big thing that flows from all this, is that the Prime Minister has gained an increasingly powerful mandate to take tough and decisive action.
The two state elections and the Griffith by-election have given him the most useful mandate of it all — one where the voters have had a second, and all-too easy, chance to fall prey to scare campaigns, and instead increased their support.
Clearly, the success in ‘stopping the boats’ has been of huge, huge, benefit to the Government and to Abbott in particular, in winning post-election respect and confidence.
The message is twofold: deliver on your promises, and we’ll cop the tough decisions. 
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Will power destroy these independents as it did Windsor and Oakeshott?

Andrew Bolt March 18 2014 (5:23pm)

Two independents risk becoming the Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor of South Australia:
VOTERS in the electorates of two independents who loom as kingmakers overwhelmingly want them to deliver a Liberal government in a likely hung State Parliament.
Exclusive Advertiser-Galaxy polls taken last night show a combined 60 per cent of respondents in the seats of Fisher (Happy Valley) and Frome (Port Pirie), want a conservative government.
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Who is selecting our immigrants? Are they doing a good job?

Andrew Bolt March 18 2014 (10:28am)

Not for the first time do I doubt our immigration program - and refugee intake - is working in the best interests of Australians:

TWENTY-SEVEN people have been arrested in major pre-dawn police raids targeting a Middle Eastern organised crime syndicate in Melbourne’s northern and western suburbs.
The raids, executed after investigations by Santiago Taskforce, involved 44 properties in suburbs including Altona North, Campbellfield, Truganina and Sunshine.
Note: all those arrested are entitled to the presumption of innocence. 
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No case yet for Sinodinos to step aside

Andrew Bolt March 18 2014 (10:13am)

Yes, something about Australian Water Holdings smells to high heaven and needs investigating, but at this stage what is the specific allegation against Arthur Sinodinos?:
ASSISTANT Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos stood to gain up to $20 million if a deal between a private infrastructure group in which he held shares and the publicly owned Sydney Water went through, the NSW Independent Commission against Corruption has heard.
On the first day of hearings into whether former NSW Labor MPs Eddie Obeid, Joe Tripodi and Tony Kelly misused their positions to favour Australian Water Holdings, it was revealed that Australian Water Holdings tried to seek favours from both sides of politics and paid donations to the Liberal Party out of the money it overcharged Sydney Water Corporation…

Asked if he would step aside as Assistant Treasurer, a spokeswoman for Senator Sinodinos, a former chief of staff to John Howard while he was prime minister, said he would be a witness and was looking forward to assisting the ICAC.
Labor – through a backbencher - says this alone requires Sinodinos to step aside:
Labor backbencher Kelvin Thomson said the Senator should step aside while the matter is investigated.
“These are very unsatisfactory arrangements,” he said.
“It’s clear that the Liberal Party understands that these are dodgy dealings.
“It’s handed back the campaign donation it received as a consequence of the dealings.
“I think that it’d be in the best interests of the integrity of the system if Senator Sinodinos were to step aside.”
But what precisely is alleged to be Sinodinos’s offence? That he got himself a well-paid job with a big success fee is no crime. And other than that, nothing at all improper is alleged against him.
Sure, more may emerge and I do not deny everything about this company needs investigation.
But right now there is not even an allegation of impropriety against Sinodinos, let alone proof of one.
There are no grounds for Sinodinos to step aside, and it should be beneath Labor to suggest there is. 
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SBS gives Abbott an opening in the culture wars

Andrew Bolt March 18 2014 (9:39am)

Culture wars, Media

The Abbott Government has a chance to redress bias at SBS, with the three members of the board - one a former Labor adviser - not winning reappointment, and two of the four-member board selection committee appointed by Labor needing replacement.
I have some hope that this Government has a sharper understanding of the culture wars and a more comprehensive black book than was obvious with the Howard Government. Tony Abbott, George Brandis and Chris Pyne seem particularly adept at this kind of work. 
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A dilemma for many Greens voters

Andrew Bolt March 18 2014 (9:38am)

The planet or the pot?

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Worse even than the French?

Andrew Bolt March 18 2014 (9:17am)

Britain’s mighty James Delingpole concludes:

...there’s no lefty quite so despicable as an Aussie lefty.
Discuss. 
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Repeal Day: digging us out from under a mountain of laws

Andrew Bolt March 18 2014 (8:56am)

Maurice Newman, chairman of the Prime Minister’s business advisory council, on cutting the paper chains that bind us:
If Australia’s labour laws are largely off the table for the time being, and if the Senate is mindlessly hostile to urgent reductions in energy costs, the Abbott government’s options are restricted. One it will pursue is Repeal Day, on March 26.
Initially this will involve axing 8000 regulations, some going back 100 years, said to save at least $1bn annually. Repeal Day will be annual…
What seems clear is that it will be more difficult to repeal the Coalition’s 8000 regulations than it was for the Labor government to introduce 21,000 of them in the past six years. 
Judith Sloan on the paper tyrants:
WHENEVER Anthony Albanese, former government leader of the House of Representatives, bragged about how many bills had been passed by parliament during Labor’s terms in office, I would break out into a cold sweat.
Take this boast: “as of December 2011 the government had passed 254 bills through the parliament compared to just 108 bills in the first year of the Howard government.” ...
Many of these regulations were ill-considered, badly drafted and, in some instances, completely unworkable.
Both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, when in the top job, were only too happy to exempt new legislation from the requirement for a Regulation Impact Statement. There were some 80 exemptions and missing statements during the Labor years of government.
In the hit list for Repeal Day:

- Removal of the need for medical practitioners to have multiple provider numbers;
- Streamlining of the approval for the prescription of certain drugs by the Department of Health;
- Dramatically reducing the reporting requirements on universities;
- Altering the coverage and content of gender equality reporting by private businesses;
- Reducing the regulatory reach of the Therapeutic Goods Administration, particularly with regard to over-the-counter medicines;
- Streamlining environmental approval processes based on partnerships between the federal and state governments.
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Watching them towed back, I actually felt relief

Andrew Bolt March 18 2014 (8:44am)

Boat people policy

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I do not criticise the ABC at all for the way it presented a video made by boat people who were towed back to Indonesia by our navy. I am simply surprised that the boat people behind the video thought this was a good way to get public support for their bid to enter Australia illegally:
GEORGE ROBERTS: After Arash Sedigh was refused entry to Australia through the skilled migration program, they came to Indonesia to apply for resettlement as refugees, but gave up waiting and turned to people smugglers.
ARASH SEDIGH: We decided to go there in illegal way, to make them accept us… When Customs come inside our wooden boat, I just ask them, “Please, please help us. Would you please take us in a safe place?” They just shouted on me, “Shut up, shut up, sit down!”
GEORGE ROBERTS: Arash Sedigh became angry after demanding a doctor to treat sick passengers and a pregnant woman.
ARASH SEDIGH:  ... I couldn’t tolerate. I told them, “I will kill you if you don’t take us to that ship. I have nothing to lose. I will kill you. Believe me....”
GEORGE ROBERTS: As their boat foundered, the asylum seekers were taken onboard the Australian Customs ship the Triton…
ARASH SEDIGH: They pushed us, they punched us, when we were just asking for our rights. They just told us, “Shut down, shut down - sit down, shut up. Sit down, shut up.” And ...
GEORGE ROBERTS: Is that because asylum seekers were protesting or being violent?
ARASH SEDIGH: Yeah, sometimes protesting, sometimes asking for some rights…

GEORGE ROBERTS: Australian Customs had deployed a new weapon in the campaign: a fleet of high-tech orange lifeboats…

ARASH SEDIGH: After that, they took me from the water, they pushed me into the orange boat…
GEORGE ROBERTS: On the morning of 5th February, the Triton towed the orange lifeboat towards Indonesia… As they got closer to Indonesia, the Australians cut them loose… Arash Sedigh provided a running commentary on the journey [on the video].
ARASH SEDIGH (on asylum seeker boat): They put us in this f**king orange boat and sent us back to Indonesia. And the Navy was escorting that ship until today. ... F**k Australia. ... I said to them, “You are criminals”. If later on you said why they do that to America on September 11, you should know the cause of it is your very deeds. Remember 9-11 for United States. All the world should know why. Australian Government, Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison, Immigration - all of them are the smugglers.
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MAN (on asylum seeker boat): F**k Australia!
I understand the extreme disappointment at being turned back, but why the threats of another September 11? If Sedigh and his fellow passengers were allowed here, would they make such threats again if denied anything else, such as a job or welfare or loan?    
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Even Labor and the Greens never meant these laws to muzzle us as they now do

Andrew Bolt March 18 2014 (8:44am)

Free speech

Nick Cater says no one predicted that racial discrimination laws would actually be used to silence legitimate debate simply on the grounds of offence:

AUSTRALIAN magistrates have always tended to take a dim view of people who threaten to throw bricks through other people’s windows. Nevertheless, Paul Keating insisted the law should go further.
“Why do we need a racial hatred bill?” John Laws asked the then prime minister in 1994.
“Because basically having people running around saying ‘I’m going to throw a brick through your window or burn your building down because of your race’ should be an offence,” replied Keating....
Importantly, however, in Keating’s view racial vilification was explicitly linked to an act of physical violence to a person or their property.
There was no suggestion that the provisions could be used to redress hurt feelings or against the likes of Andrew Bolt.... If the 1995 amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act had reflected these sentiments there would be little reason to repeal it....
The Keating government was expressly warned by the then Human Rights and Equal Opportunity commissioner, Irene Moss, not to legislate against the causing of offence.
In her influential 1991 report on HREOC’s National Inquiry on Racist Violence, Moss advised against following the model adopted in New Zealand where section 9C of the Race Relations Act had been “widely used and even abused by individuals complaining of insults or remarks of a relatively trivial nature"…
As it turned out, the proposed amendments to the Crimes Act were a step too far even for the Greens, who sided with the Coalition to block them in the Senate.
“It will create a crime of words,” the Greens’ Christabel Chamarette told the Senate.
“This will take the legislation across a certain threshold into the realm of thought police.”
The changes to the RDA were passed, however, with the shoddily worded section 18C unamended. Thus, for the past 19 years, it has been a civil offence “to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” a person or group on the grounds of national identity.
It is a legislative dog’s dinner that Attorney-General George Brandis is now obliged to clear up.
Read on. Cater discovers Tony Abbott’s concern with such laws dates from his maiden speech. And Cater, like me, is heartened by signs the Government will not back off from its proposed reforms, although Labor and the Greens seem set in the Senate to keep us muzzled. 
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Human rights lawyer Burnside loves the thought of drowning Abbott

Andrew Bolt March 18 2014 (8:28am)

Celebrity “human rights” lawyer Julian Burnside says people who send rude messages have something wrong with them:
It occurred to me then that the passion which drove their initial hostility was the mark of people who were alienated from the community: they were accustomed to being ignored, so they fall to shouting abuse as a way of getting attention. Just once listen to them, and they quickly fall back to observing the ordinary rules of civil behaviour.
This is not just an argument for good manners: I think it goes much deeper. Too many people in our community feel alienated from it and that alienation is unstable: it tends not to self-correct, but to amplify itself…
There are many reasons why members of the community become alienated from it. They may have been dealt a bad hand: they have been born poor, they have been badly educated, they have a mental or physical disability, they have bad luck in employment, they make bad choices which lead them into a hopeless life.
Does Burnside suffer a mental disability or lead a hopeless life? I ask because of some of his recent tweets, including one nominating his favorite anti-Abbott sign at last weekend’s “March in March” festival of hate:
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And, of course, this was this infamous little “joke”, followed by an unconvincing apology:
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Not for the first time I wonder whether the houses of the Left have mirrors. 
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ABC makes the smallest apology it could get away with

Andrew Bolt March 18 2014 (6:53am)

The ABC’s apology did not go far enough, failing to include a specific acknowledgement that claims I’d subjected Dr Misty Jenkins to “foul abuse” and driven her from “public life” were utterly false.  But it is a start:
THE ABC last night apologised to Daily Telegraph columnist Andrew Bolt over claims from Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton on Q&A last week that he was racist. Host Tony Jones made the apology for comments accusing Bolt last week of racial vilification during a discussion about racial discrimination laws.
“Marcia Langton publicly said she did not think he was a racist. As a result the ABC apologises for broadcasting her comments,” Jones said last night.
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Just two days to design a $2 billion disaster which killed four men

Andrew Bolt March 17 2014 (6:53pm)

This just screams of Kevin Rudd in every detail:
KEVIN Rudd’s department gave two environment department staffers just two days to secretly cost and assess the risks of its scheme to deliver pink batts to every uninsulated Australian home.
Environment Department Assistant-Secretary Mary Wiley-Smith ...  told the commission she’d received a call late on the Friday of the Australia Day long weekend in 2009 from a Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet staffer.
She was told she and another environment department official had to cost and consider the risks of two massive government programs by the Monday — which was a public holiday.
This, too, is pure Rudd:
Ms Wiley-Smith ... also confirmed she and her fellow bureaucrat were told to keep the matter confidential and they could not ring industry representatives to seek advice.
The rush, the thought-bubble process, the lack of consultation, the lack of consideration for staff, the lack of process - exactly what also gave us the NBN white elephant, Grocery Watch, Fuel Watch, overpriced school halls, an underfunded school computer program, unbuilt superclinics and more than 1000 dead boat people. 
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=== Posts from Last Year ===

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Out: Tebowing and Eastwooding: In: The Palin Liberty Pose! ==> http://twitchy.com/2013/03/17/out-tebowing-and-eastwooding-in-the-palin-liberty-pose/
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My friends going to those areas .. be well. Achieve your mission. May the Lord bless you and smile on the work
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I'd say the Creator has a special fondness for little birds (even ordinary ones like sparrows)...
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Boss Hoss for those on wheelchair !! 
More Details ►► http://bit.ly/1165nAI ◄◄
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20 Dangerously Powerful Bible Prayers 

Here are 20 powerful prayers that these
believers in the Bible prayed...and when they did God's power showed up!

READ MORE ► http://r.beliefnet.com/rprayer2ILJO
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The original 'Iron Lady' Golda Meir became Israel's 1st female Prime Minister on March 17, 1969. We salute her memory and the impact she has made on Israel's history.http://unitedwithisrael.org/ 
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"North Tower, Golden Gate Bridge" - San Francisco, California
March 13, 2013 (yeah 3/13/13)

Watching the sun come up on my morning walk. It was fun to run into lots of other people this particular morning... I wonder who I will see tomorrow.

This is a 3+ minute exposure. When I am out shooting, I have no problem, doing something different - it doesn't matter who is watching :)

~joe
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4 her, so she can see how I see her
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Mother of Cake!
http://vip.me/AAgXhB-JhiA
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No one said protecting Israel from dusk till dawn was going to be an easy mission. Our soldiers are on the borders 24/7 doing what's right, not what's easy. 
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WHY? - Larry Pickering

While many Aussies are more concerned that our Test batsmen couldn’t hit the water if they fell out of a boat, the remainder are stunned at what our Government is actually proposing.

Control of the Press is first cab off the rank when a totalitarian regime wrests power from its people. 

Those of us who actually care are walking around shocked that this Government is embarking on yet another suicide mission.

There is one lone international voice in support of Gillard’s Press “reforms”... Fiji’s military ruler Frank Bainimarama.

The leader of this Military junta said, “We are flattered Australia has followed us and proposed a crackdown on Press freedom.”

Yet Gillard herself was highly critical of the Fijian military regime when she said, "... all steps need to be taken to restore democracy to Fiji". Mmmm.

Forget the rhetoric, if Gillard wants a Government-appointed “advocate" overseeing the Press Council, you simply need to ask, “Why?”

The tiresome bleatings of Albanese, Conroy and others, wholly supported by Gillard, mean nothing when the question, “Why?” is asked.

Why, if the Government doesn’t wish to have control of the media, does it want a self-appointed “advocate”? Why?

Is this “advocate” meant to be merely making cups of tea for Press Council members?

He (or more likely she) will have the power to render the Press Council toothless and a puppet of the Government via its appointed “advocate”.

Let’s see now, who would make an excellent “advocate”? Bob Brown? Paul Howes? Maybe Tim Mathieson or Quentin Bryce?

Why does this Government lust after such insidious power? The answer in a nutshell is a hatred of News Ltd.

The ALP conveniently forgets that in 2007 The Australian, Daily Telegraph and Courier-Mail all advocated a vote for Rudd, only the Herald Sun and the Advertiser supported the coalition.

But now the nation has witnessed the diabolical disaster that is this Government, it should stick with it out of loyalty? Crumbs!

Historically all newspapers have endorsed political Parties prior to an election. That opinion is confined to an Editorial but it does waft over into news as journalists are not immune to the thesis of their boss.

But Murdoch newspaper Editors have often taken opposing views which leads one to believe there never was a blanket instruction.

I have never known of one in my years with Murdoch even when he supported Whitlam.

Regardless, the biggest question of all is why would any Government pick a fight to the death with the Press six months out from a general election?

Surely it must be the impetuosity of a deranged Administration with a screw loose!

Then again, this is the Gillard Government.
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British Government Abandons Climate Change Education For Children Under The Age Of 14http://ow.ly/j6Ysp
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March 18: Flag Day in Aruba (1976)
Adolphe Thiers
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Events[edit]

Births[edit]

Deaths[edit]

Holidays and observances[edit]

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“A psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.” -Psalm 23:1-3
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
March 17: Morning
"Remember the poor." - Galatians 2:10
Why does God allow so many of his children to be poor? He could make them all rich if he pleased; he could lay bags of gold at their doors; he could send them a large annual income; or he could scatter round their houses abundance of provisions, as once he made the quails lie in heaps round the camp of Israel, and rained bread out of heaven to feed them. There is no necessity that they should be poor, except that he sees it to be best. "The cattle upon a thousand hills are his"--he could supply them; he could make the richest, the greatest, and the mightiest bring all their power and riches to the feet of his children, for the hearts of all men are in his control. But he does not choose to do so; he allows them to suffer want, he allows them to pine in penury and obscurity. Why is this? There are many reasons: one is, to give us, who are favoured with enough, an opportunity of showing our love to Jesus. We show our love to Christ when we sing of him and when we pray to him; but if there were no sons of need in the world we should lose the sweet privilege of evidencing our love, by ministering in alms-giving to his poorer brethren; he has ordained that thus we should prove that our love standeth not in word only, but in deed and in truth. If we truly love Christ, we shall care for those who are loved by him. Those who are dear to him will be dear to us. Let us then look upon it not as a duty but as a privilege to relieve the poor of the Lord's flock--remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Surely this assurance is sweet enough, and this motive strong enough to lead us to help others with a willing hand and a loving heart--recollecting that all we do for his people is graciously accepted by Christ as done to himself.
Evening
"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." - Matthew 5:9
This is the seventh of the beatitudes: and seven was the number of perfection among the Hebrews. It may be that the Saviour placed the peacemaker the seventh upon the list because he most nearly approaches the perfect man in Christ Jesus. He who would have perfect blessedness, so far as it can be enjoyed on earth, must attain to this seventh benediction, and become a peacemaker. There is a significance also in the position of the text. The verse which precedes it speaks of the blessedness of "the pure in heart: for they shall see God." It is well to understand that we are to be "first pure, then peaceable." Our peaceableness is never to be a compact with sin, or toleration of evil. We must set our faces like flints against everything which is contrary to God and his holiness: purity being in our souls a settled matter, we can go on to peaceableness. Not less does the verse that follows seem to have been put there on purpose. However peaceable we may be in this world, yet we shall be misrepresented and misunderstood: and no marvel, for even the Prince of Peace, by his very peacefulness, brought fire upon the earth. He himself, though he loved mankind, and did no ill, was "despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Lest, therefore, the peaceable in heart should be surprised when they meet with enemies, it is added in the following verse, "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Thus, the peacemakers are not only pronounced to be blessed, but they are compassed about with blessings. Lord, give us grace to climb to this seventh beatitude! Purify our minds that we may be "first pure, then peaceable," and fortify our souls, that our peaceableness may not lead us into cowardice and despair, when for thy sake we are persecuted.
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Lamech 
[Lā'mech] - overthrower, a strong young man or who is stuck.
A son of Methusael of the race of Cain, who had two wives, Adah and Zillah. It is not difficult to trace in the moral character of Lamech a close resemblance to Cain. We can detect the same haughty spirit, the same self-confidence, the same disregard of human life, the same absence of reverence for God. His address to his wives is that of one who glories in his self-strength and vigor (Gen. 4:18-24).
A son of Methuselah, and father of Noah. This antediluvian was of the race of Seth (Gen. 5:26-31) and an ancestor of Christ (Luke 3:36).
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Today's reading: Deuteronomy 30-31, Mark 15:1-25 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Deuteronomy 30-31

Prosperity After Turning to the LORD
1 When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations, 2 and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, 3 then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. 4 Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back....

Today's New Testament reading: Mark 15:1-25

Jesus Before Pilate
1 Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, made their plans. So they bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.
2 "Are you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate.
"You have said so," Jesus replied.
3 The chief priests accused him of many things. 4 So again Pilate asked him, "Aren't you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of."
5 But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed....

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Today's Lent reading: Matthew 19-20 (NIV)

View today's Lent reading on Bible Gateway
Divorce
1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"
4 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' 5 and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? 6So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate...."



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