Friday, January 16, 2015

Fri Jan 16th Todays News

On Bolt Report a new policy is that any Islam post can only be on the pinned leader. Normal rules apply in that if it is merely foul and abusive it will be deleted. Otherwise comments are welcome. Daniel Katz has previously posted some beauties .. 
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The best known Australian in the world is an ethnically Vietnamese girl, Natalie Tran, or Community Channel. She is humorous, self deprecating and talented. She makes social observations and now, after many years, she has taken a stand on an issue that is utterly reasonable, but she is being torn apart for. She said it was ridiculous for religious people to tie young girls with bombs to blow up others. So as to not point the finger at any one religion, she stated she wasn't a fan of any of them. She is an atheist. Not in the Dawkins mould where anyone who is not atheist is a fantasist by definition, Tran has made the personal choice not to believe in God. One might disagree with that view, but her right to have it is absolute. It is an informed point of view, with many corrupt (so called) Christians contributing to it, from the KKK and IRA, through the hating Westboro Baptist, Gosford Anglican or Tim Costello or Fred Nile. Tran has examples of stupid and compromised people who speak out on issues they don't understand. With free speech, one might listen to Tran and present a different front to her showing that religion is not as she knows it, and that God is real. Instead, some ridiculously outraged 'fans' have abused her. Free speech is not mere abuse. 

On this day in 27 BC Octavian took on the title Augustus, which is Latin for Majestic. It is connected with the word Augury and some said that Rome was founded after Romulus' august augury. The day marks the beginning of imperial Rome and the passing of the republic. Many believed the republic did not truly pass. Many died believing that. Some things are known of the Maya, although much was destroyed of there culture by conquistadors and the passing of time. In 378, General Siyaj K'ak' conquered land in what is now Guatemala. During this time he highly influenced Maya with culture from Mexico, but it is not known precisely how that influence was made. In 1412, the Medici family were made official bankers of the Papacy. In 1492, the first grammar for Spanish was presented to the Spanish Queen Isabella I .. and in 1605, the first edition of book one of Don Quixote by Cervantes was published in Madrid. In 1707, the Scottish parliament passed legislation allowing the creation of Great Britain. 

In 1862, the Hartley Colliery mining disaster resulted in legislation changes to make mines safer. The US modernised her civil service in 1883. In 1919, the US ratified the prohibition 18th amendment. In 1939, sensing an opportunity to promote Hitler, the IRA began a campaign of bombing and sabotaging in England. In 1942, Actress Carol Lombard died when TWA flight 3 crashed, killing all 22 on board. Fantasist Orson Welles was to claim it had been shot down by Germans, but it had failed from navigational error flying from Las Vegas to California over an inconvenient mountain range. In 1945, Hitler went to his bunker. In 1956, Egyptian President Nasser, armed with a Nazis developed military, threatened to take so called Palestine. In 1969 a Czech student burned himself alive to protest the Soviet Union occupation. On the same day, the Soviet Union performed the first of transferring crew via spacewalk between craft. In 1991, the first Gulf War began. In 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia took off on her final journey. No one could have helped the damaged craft, and she burned up on re entry. 
2014
New Zealand is beautiful. I cannot thank her enough for snowing in summer. Sydney hasn't done that for me recently. Meteorologists called some white stuff falling in Turramurra a decade ago "Soft Hail" which is apparently warmer than snow .. We need a Poley Dancer .. a dancer for money .. heat waves in Australia could be made a thing of the past with a Bradfield scheme .. Still, there is a blast of cold coming from highly paid climate scientists claiming the world is warming.

A shot is heard around the world. Rumour has it that an unidentified police source that might be from Indonesia thinks an Australian defence person has discharged a weapon without hitting their target. Further evidence, were it needed, that training has suffered under the ALP in the armed services. Become a climate champion. Change your lights to plasma TVs. Keep the oven hot. If a light is out, replace that TV set. Burn a candle or ten for Maurice Newman.

Historical perspectives on this day 
In 27 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus was granted the title Augustus by the Roman Senate, marking the beginning of the Roman Empire. 378, General Siyaj K'ak' conquered Tikal, enlarging the domain of King Spearthrower Owl of Teotihuacán. 550, Gothic War: The Ostrogoths, under King Totila, conquered Rome after a long siege, by bribing the Isaurian garrison. 929, Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III established the Caliphate of Córdoba.

In 1120, the Council of Nablus was held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. 1362, a storm tide in the North Sea destroyed the German city of Rungholt on the island of Strand. 1412, the Medici family was appointed official banker of the Papacy. 1492, the first grammar of the Spanish language was presented to Queen Isabella I. 1547, Ivan IV of Russia aka Ivan the Terrible became Czar of Russia. 1556, Philip II became King of Spain. 1572, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk was tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England. 1581, the English Parliament outlawed Roman Catholicism. 1605, the first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes is published in Madrid, Spain. 1707, the Scottish Parliament ratified the Act of Union, paving the way for the creation of Great Britain. 1761, the British capture Pondichéry, India from the French. 1780, American Revolutionary War: Battle of Cape St. Vincent. 1786, Virginia enacted the Statute for Religious Freedom authored by Thomas Jefferson.

In 1809, Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of La Coruña. 1847, John C. Frémont was appointed Governor of the new California Territory. 1862, Hartley Colliery Disaster: 204 men and boys killed in a mining disaster, prompted a change in UK law which henceforth required all collieries to have at least two independent means of escape. 1878, Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)Battle of Philippopolis: Captain Aleksandr Burago with a squadron of Russian Imperial army dragoons liberated Plovdiv from Ottoman rule. 1883, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, established the United States Civil Service, was passed. 1896, Defeat of Cymru Fydd at South Wales Liberal Federation AGM, Newport, Monmouthshire.

In 1900, the United States Senate accepts the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 in which the United Kingdom renounced its claims to the Samoan islands. 1909, Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole. 1919, Temperance movement: The United States ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, authorising Prohibition in the United States one year after ratification. 1920, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated was founded on the campus of Howard University. 1920, the League of Nations held its first council meeting in Paris, France. 1924, Eleftherios Venizelos became Prime Minister of Greece for the fourth time. 1939, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) began a bombing and sabotage campaign in England.

In 1942, Crash of TWA Flight 3, killed all 22 aboard, including film star Carole Lombard. 1945,  Adolf Hitler moved into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker. 1956, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt vowed to reconquer Palestine. 1964, Hello, Dolly! (musical) starring Carol Channing opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 2,844 performances. 1969, Czech student Jan Palach committed suicide by self-immolation in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in protest against the Soviets' crushing of the Prague Spring the year before. Also 1969, Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 perform the first-ever docking of manned spacecraft in orbit, the first-ever transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another, and the only time such a transfer was accomplished with a space walk. 1970, Buckminster Fuller received the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects. 1979, the last Iranian Shah fled Iran with his family for good and relocated to Egypt.

In 1986, first meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force. 1991, the Coalition Forces went to war with Iraq, beginning the Gulf War (U.S. Time). 1992, El Salvador officials and rebel leaders signed the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City, Mexico ending the 12-year Salvadoran Civil War that claimed at least 75,000 lives. 2001, Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards. Also 2001, US President Bill Clinton awarded former President Theodore Roosevelt a posthumous Medal of Honor for his service in the Spanish–American War. 2002, the UN Security Council unanimously established an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and the remaining members of the Taliban. 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia took off for mission STS-107 which would be its final one. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on re-entry. 2005, Romanian university lecturer and novelist Adriana Iliescu gave birth at 66 to her daughter Eliza, breaking the record for the oldest birth mother in the world. 2006, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was sworn in as Liberia's new president. She became Africa's first female elected head of state. 2013, an estimated 41 international workers were taken hostage in an attack in the town of In Aménas, Algeria.
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This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
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Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August https://www.createspace.com/4124406 or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows the purchase of a kindle version for just $3.99 more. 
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For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball

Or the US President at
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-change-this-injustice#
or
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-injustice-faced-david-daniel-ball-after-he-reported-bungled-pedophile-investigation-and/b8mxPWtJ or http://wh.gov/ilXYR

Mr Ball, I will not sign your petition as it will do no good, but I will share your message and ask as many of friends who read it, to share it also. Let us see if we cannot use the power of the internet to spread the word of these infamous killings. As a father and a former soldier, I cannot, could not, justify ignoring this appalling action by the perpetrators, whoever they may; I thank you Douglas. You are wrong about the petition. Signing it is as worthless and meaningless an act as voting. A stand up guy would know that. - ed

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


I have begun a bulletin board (http://theconservativevoice.freeforums.netwhich will allow greater latitude for members to post and interact. It is not subject to FB policy and so greater range is allowed in posts. Also there are private members rooms in which nothing is censored, except abuse. All welcome, registration is free.
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Happy birthday and many happy returns to those born on this day, across the years, along with
"Battle off Cape St Vincent, 16 January 1780" by Francis Holman
You deserve your title. Any victory can change the revolution. We must change the way we do things.  To the Bunker, and meet my friend Archie. Remember Jan Palach. Let's party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
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2015
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POODLE LADY STRIKES AGAIN

Tim Blair – Friday, January 16, 2015 (11:32am)

Whether she’s riding her bicycle, avoiding parked trucks, walking her dog or trying to book a flight, Elizabeth Farrelly invariably encounters some form of transport trouble. And now it’s happened again
It’s Sunday afternoon. I’m walking the dog on Cleveland Street. The traffic is relatively light and the footpath outside the Greek Orthodox church relatively cluttered – three poles, two palm trees, one oncoming pedestrian with full set of golf clubs, and a standard poodle (mine). 
Natch. 
Behind me sounds a bicycle bell. It gets louder, faster, more insistent every second. In fact, it sounds increasingly bad-tempered. Yet, given Golf-club Guy, dopey poodle and fixed paraphernalia, inside four linear metres, I cannot let a bike past without actually stepping into the carriageway. Plus, to be honest, I shouldn’t have to. 
Queen Elizabeth, as we know, never steps aside
Within 20 seconds of Golf-club Guy’s passing, there’s the unmistakable sound of collision. I turn to see Golf-club standing, gobsmacked, and Bike Bloke on the ground – large, middle-aged, helmetless, red-faced, shouting. I stand, astonished. Which is when Bike Bloke starts on me.
“And you, ya f-----g c---!” he roars, straight to full throttle. “You could’ve got outta the way! You’re just a great big f-----g c---!”
I explain politely that there was limited room on the path and rather a lot of room on the road, where he, a cyclist, belongs. 
This latest incident bears remarkable similarities to a previous Farrelly clash: “Anzac Day, mid-morning. A quiet street on quieter day. I’m poodle-walking. Dog’s a little wide, footpath’s a little narrow, so between us we occupy it. Behind me comes the jolly yet peremptory ‘tring!’ of a bicycle bell. Ignore it. Beside me, the road is empty, as is its designated cycle lane.” On that occasion, the angry cyclist followed the initial dispute with a belated rejoinder ("Don’t be so rude, lady!"). The pattern is repeated: 
He cycles off. I walk on. After a few second he returns.
“You’re Elizabeth Farrelly, aren’t you?” he screams. 
Lizzie’s brilliantly regal response: 
I say this is irrelevant to the discussion in hand. 
Our favourite columnist really should start wearing a Russian-style dash cam on her head. Farrelly is a one-woman reality show just waiting to happen.
UPDATE. Reader Brad checks Google Street View’s image of the Farrelly conflict zone, and discovers it has enough space to walk THREE dogs:

image
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HEBDO II AVERTED

Tim Blair – Friday, January 16, 2015 (10:49am)

Two dead following terror raids in Belgium: 
Belgian police have killed two men in a fierce gunfight – foiling a major and imminent terror attack in the country, according to authorities.
They died in the eastern town of Verviers during one of 10 raids as part of an investigation into Islamist extremists returning from fighting in Syria.
As police closed in near a train station, the suspects opened fire with automatic weapons and there was an intense shootout for several minutes before the pair were killed, said a prosecutor …
The website of La Meuse newspaper quoted an unidentified police officer as saying: “We’ve averted a Belgian Charlie Hebdo.” 
Meanwhile, in Sydney
Controversial Islamic preacher Junaid Thorne has warned his “brothers” to be secretive after his western Sydney home was raided by police yesterday …
The 25-year-old is expected to attend a Hizb ut-Tahrir rally in Lakemba tomorrow night “We Will Not Abandon Our Prophet”. 
None of this has anything to do with Islam.
UPDATE. Solitary Melbourne-raised Canis lupus Suhan Rahman
I say stuf the peaceful protests. Spill blood, young aussies

They say ‘were all charlie.’ I say that means uze all deserve death and worse.
Let the heads fly and blood flow.
May allah accept the french brothers who terrorised france. Day by daywe will bring the war home to you.

No matterr how much they try they cant stop the influence. They can lok mee away but by that time i vee already f… the world.
Rahman is now running with the pack in Syria: 
His distraught father Lutfur Rahman told The Daily Telegraph Rahman had brought “shame” on the family. 
I’ll say. That spelling is atrocious.
UPDATE II. Several Australia-connected wolves of loneliness are arrested in Malaysia.
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remember a scientist visiting my elementary school to tell us of global cooling circa '76 in Princeton NJ. They had cool chemical lights that were lit by breaking the internal seals. We were told that there was only a decade of gas left to power cars. And a futuristic TV series had scientists in a futuristic camper van that ran on solar power .. Thing is, I was sanguine with it. As I am with less heat needed for toast. But other kids shivered in their boots bemoaned losing life to nuclear strikes and enjoyed listening to KISS.
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It is a fantasy/drawing .. I didn't think anything *could* be *wrong* with fantasy .. even if same sex lions and deer
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DH
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don't fall for it ..===


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What’s hot is the alarmism back home

Andrew Bolt January 16 2014 (6:56am)

Global warming - propaganda

Back last night from New Zealand, where tour operators on the South Island were apologising for the unseasonal cold, with summer snow falling on mountains from Southland to Kaikoura. In Queenstown, though, a tourist from Chicago still gloated to me how he’d dodged therecord-breaking cold gripping the US:
But back in Melbourne I am plunged back in the same global warming madness, with a local heat wave treated by warmists as a proxy for a world-wide heating. The Climate Council of professional alarmist Tim Flannery once again hypes the scare with the ABC’s help: 
Heatwaves in Australia are becoming more frequent, hotter and are lasting longer, a report released today by the Climate Council says.
The interim findings of the report, Australian Heatwaves: Hotter, Longer, Earlier and More Often, come as southern Australia swelters through a heatwave. 
After notching up two consecutive days over 40 degrees Celsius, Melbourne is on track to record its second-longest heatwave since records began in the 1830s… The longest heatwave in Melbourne was in 1908, when there were five consecutive days over 40C.
Decades of man-made warming and we still can’t beat a 1908 record? 
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Still waiting for warming - and a sorry

Andrew Bolt January 16 2014 (6:33am)

Richard Kerr in Science, flagship publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, talked to warmist scientists convinced global warming would resume within five years:
The blogosphere has been having a field day with global warming’s apparent decade-long stagnation… 
The latest response from the climate community comes in State of the Climate… [in] the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Climate researcher Jeff Knight and eight colleagues at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, U.K., first establish that—at least in one leading temperature record—greenhouse warming has been stopped in its tracks for the past 10 years… But natural climate variability in the model has its limits. Pauses as long as 15 years are rare in the simulations, and “we expect that [real-world] warming will resume in the next few years,” the Hadley Centre group writes.
And that resumption could come as a bit of a jolt, says Adam Scaife of the group, as the temperature catches up with the greenhouse gases added during the pause…
Solar physicist Judith Lean of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., and climate modeler David Rind of GISS reached the same conclusion in a peer-reviewed 15 August paper in Geophysical Research Letters…
Researchers may differ about exactly what’s behind recent natural climate variability, but they agree that no sort of natural variability can hold off greenhouse warming much longer. “Our prediction is that if past is prologue, the solar component will turn around and lead to rapid warming in the next 5 years,” says Rind. 
Climate modeler David Smith of the Hadley Centre, who was not involved in the State of the Climate analysis, says his group’s climate model forecasts—made much the way weather forecasts are made—are still calling for warming to resume in the next few years as ocean influences reverse...
Time’s up.  Kerr wrote that five years ago. And sill no warming.
What would it take for warmist scientists to admit they were wrong?
Well, more than mere evidence, suggests Maurice Newman:
The IPCC was bound to be captured by the green movement. After all, it is a political body. It is not a panel of scientists but a panel of governments driven by the UN. Its sole purpose is to assess the risks of human-induced climate change. It has spawned industries. One is scientists determined to find an anthropogenic cause. Another is climate remediation. And, naturally, an industry to redistribute taxes to sustain it all. With hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, this cartel will deny all contrary evidence. Its very survival depends on it. But the tide is turning and Mother Nature has signalled her intention not to co-operate.
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POLEY DANCER

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 16, 2014 (2:47pm)

There are no words.
(Via Jaki)
I'm your poley dancer. A dancer for money. Do what you want me to do. - ed
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NAVY ACCUSED

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 16, 2014 (2:45pm)

A totally believable claim from an impeccable source
Indonesian authorities have quoted the asylum seekers on board saying Australian navy personnel fired shots as part of the operation to turn around the boat carrying 25 people …
A local police commissioner from southern Java, who did not want his name or his district published, has told Fairfax Media that villagers plucked a number of asylum seekers from the water a week ago, on January 8, after their boat was turned back by Australia.
The officer, quoting one of those on board, Snilul, 25, from Bangladesh, said the navy had “shot into the air just to scare them”. 
Naturally, leftoids fell for it. They’re seething like hot rats. Never mind this, from immigration minister Scott Morrison: 
“Without commenting on any specific alleged incident I can confirm that no shots have been fired at any time by any persons involved in Operation Sovereign Borders since the operation commenced,” he said in a statement. 
Leftoids aren’t listening to him. They prefer secondhand claims passed on by “a local police commissioner from southern Java, who did not want his name or his district published”.
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I’M A CLIMATE CHAMPION

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 16, 2014 (4:45am)

The latest Greens email to their tragic supporters:

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Yet Sophie is somehow still alive despite all those years of superheated horror. Her email launches the Greens’ fantastic new climate champion campaign: 
The Abbott Government wants to demolish our clean energy laws – legislation we know is working to halt global warming. 
This is a lie. Australian legislation cannot change the planet’s temperature. 
Currently, the Greens are standing in the way of Abbott ramming his roll-back through the Senate. 
Sophie! Language! 
Becoming a climate champion means you’ll be the first to know about campaign actions and opportunities in the coming months. We’ll send you a Climate Champion toolkit with everything you need to build awareness and support in your community. 
A climate champion toolkit … how absolutely darling. I’ve already applied for mine, and strongly encourage all of my fellow climate champions to join in. We want our climate champion toolkits now.
UPDATE. Links dropped out earlier, possibly due to climate change. Or maybe the Greens don’t want us in their climate champion club. Try them again. 
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ALL ABOARD

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 16, 2014 (4:40am)

Pirelli’s fancy 50th anniversary calendar has nothing on this:

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Note the Winfield cigarettes ad. Order here to satisfy all of your hot 1970s bus action needs, or select from an extensive calendar range featuring road trains, trams and … huts. 
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BUTTOCKS OF SHAME

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 16, 2014 (2:44am)

David Thompson’s latest examination of leftist pain includes the phrases “intersectional revolutionary movement” and “performativity of gender”.
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MINISTER FOR SNOOP

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 16, 2014 (2:17am)

Immigration minister Scott Morrison no doubt anticipated one or two elements of his current job: hypocritical heckling from those whose policies killed more than one thousand asylum seekers, for example, and crybaby complaints from reporters who never bothered covering illegal boat arrivals when Labor was in power. But he probably didn’t expect thismagnificent ministerial moment: 
“Snoop Dogg has a visa,” Mr Morrison told reporters in Canberra. 
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PARTY OVER

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 16, 2014 (1:49am)

Maurice Newman, the man who made Jonathan Holmes so angry he could barely concentrate, continues his pursuitof climate berserkers: 
The IPCC was bound to be captured by the green movement. After all, it is a political body. It is not a panel of scientists but a panel of governments driven by the UN. Its sole purpose is to assess the risks of human-induced climate change. It has spawned industries. One is scientists determined to find an anthropogenic cause. Another is climate remediation. And, naturally, an industry to redistribute taxes to sustain it all. With hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, this cartel will deny all contrary evidence. Its very survival depends on it. But the tide is turning and Mother Nature has signalled her intention not to co-operate.
In the meantime, childish personal attacks on those who point out flaws in IPCC reasoning and advice only increase scepticism. They are no substitute for empirical evidence and are well into diminishing returns. The party’s over. 
Not much fun these days either for Lord Stern, the bumbling British warmist who doesn’t know anything aboutCadillacs and China.
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The 'Mona Lisa', originally by Da Vinci, now recreated ...
Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa men have loved you ..
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they don't take drugs ..
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John 8:31-32

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
January 15: Morning
"Do as thou hast said." - 2 Samuel 7:25
God's promises were never meant to be thrown aside as waste paper; he intended that they should be used. God's gold is not miser's money, but is minted to be traded with. Nothing pleases our Lord better than to see his promises put in circulation; he loves to see his children bring them up to him, and say, "Lord, do as thou hast said." We glorify God when we plead his promises. Do you think that God will be any the poorer for giving you the riches he has promised? Do you dream that he will be any the less holy for giving holiness to you? Do you imagine he will be any the less pure for washing you from your sins? He has said "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Faith lays hold upon the promise of pardon, and it does not delay, saying, "This is a precious promise, I wonder if it be true?" but it goes straight to the throne with it, and pleads, "Lord, here is the promise, Do as thou hast said.'" Our Lord replies, "Be it unto thee even as thou wilt." When a Christian grasps a promise, if he does not take it to God, he dishonours him; but when he hastens to the throne of grace, and cries, "Lord, I have nothing to recommend me but this, Thou hast said it;'" then his desire shall be granted. Our heavenly Banker delights to cash his own notes. Never let the promise rust. Draw the sword of promise out of its scabbard, and use it with holy violence. Think not that God will be troubled by your importunately reminding him of his promises. He loves to hear the loud outcries of needy souls. It is his delight to bestow favours. He is more ready to hear than you are to ask. The sun is not weary of shining, nor the fountain of flowing. It is God's nature to keep his promises; therefore go at once to the throne with "Do as thou hast said."
Evening
"But I give myself unto prayer." - Psalm 109:4
Lying tongues were busy against the reputation of David, but he did not defend himself; he moved the case into a higher court, and pleaded before the great King himself. Prayer is the safest method of replying to words of hatred. The Psalmist prayed in no cold-hearted manner, he gave himself to the exercise--threw his whole soul and heart into it--straining every sinew and muscle, as Jacob did when wrestling with the angel. Thus, and thus only, shall any of us speed at the throne of grace. As a shadow has no power because there is no substance in it, even so that supplication, in which a man's proper self is not thoroughly present in agonizing earnestness and vehement desire, is utterly ineffectual, for it lacks that which would give it force. "Fervent prayer," says an old divine, "like a cannon planted at the gates of heaven, makes them fly open." The common fault with the most of us is our readiness to yield to distractions. Our thoughts go roving hither and thither, and we make little progress towards our desired end. Like quicksilver our mind will not hold together, but rolls off this way and that. How great an evil this is! It injures us, and what is worse, it insults our God. What should we think of a petitioner, if, while having an audience with a prince, he should be playing with a feather or catching a fly?

Continuance and perseverance are intended in the expression of our text. David did not cry once, and then relapse into silence; his holy clamour was continued till it brought down the blessing. Prayer must not be our chance work, but our daily business, our habit and vocation. As artists give themselves to their models, and poets to their classical pursuits, so must we addict ourselves to prayer. We must be immersed in prayer as in our element, and so pray without ceasing. Lord, teach us so to pray that we may be more and more prevalent in supplication.
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Today's reading: Genesis 36-38, Matthew 10:21-42 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Genesis 36-38

Esau's Descendants
This is the account of the family line of Esau (that is, Edom).
2 Esau took his wives from the women of Canaan: Adah daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Oholibamah daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite-- 3 also Basemath daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth.
4 Adah bore Eliphaz to Esau, Basemath bore Reuel, 5 and Oholibamah bore Jeush, Jalam and Korah. These were the sons of Esau, who were born to him in Canaan.
6 Esau took his wives and sons and daughters and all the members of his household, as well as his livestock and all his other animals and all the goods he had acquired in Canaan, and moved to a land some distance from his brother Jacob. 7 Their possessions were too great for them to remain together; the land where they were staying could not support them both because of their livestock. 8 So Esau (that is, Edom) settled in the hill country of Seir.

Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 10:21-42

21 "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 22You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 23 When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
24 "The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. 25 It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!

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