Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Wed Jun 15th Todays News

In the wake of the Army picking on Liberal Parliamentarian Hastie over posting some tasteful pictures of himself in uniform, the Army has been very quiet over an ALP (Hugh McDermott, Member for Prospect in NSW) member who has worn incorrect service medals. He is allegedly allowed to use the letters Dr before his name, but the source of his credentials have not been verified by The Conservative Voice. Hugh McDermott claims the army has mistakenly not recorded his service details. He claimed in his maiden speech to parliament that he was a Corporal. Only he refuses to table his service record showing he had achieved that rank. Also, on ANZAC Day he wore WW2 medals. But he hasn't said whose medals they were or why he could wear them. One expects pride in service. But one also expects the ALP to be manipulative and loose with the truth. We know Hastie was captain in the Australian SAS. But it is doubtful McDermott was respected by his fellow squad members. McDermott joined the AWU and was given time to study law while sponging off his union mates. He is highly lauded by his union mates. He claims he admired the Jesuits who helped the vulnerable fight oppression, just as the unions didn't in WW2. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.  
=== from 2015 ===
Cold war rhetoric is broadening from Russia over Ukraine to China over man made islands in the South Sea and testing of a mach 10 rocket. It highlights Obama policy failure and strengths. Obama has failed to use US military supremacy and has never pointed to moral decency. Now, lowest common denominator type actions by small nations have spiralled to threaten world peace. So that North Korea is China's problem even as China is loathe to reign it in. Syria and Ukraine are Russian problems even as Russia is loathe to address it. Post superpower politics was well negotiated by President GHW Bush even as he was heavily criticised, but the nascent democracy in the Middle East has crumbled under Obama's hesitant Presidency. The ISIL leader was released from prison by Obama to pursue his agenda. So now Obama is returning to policy he openly despised in his youth, Power politics in a cold war. Obama will only talk about Ukraine as it is in Russia's sphere of influence. Reports of imminent war between the US and China are similar to the cold war rhetoric of the sixties under Kennedy and LBJ. Only back then, China was different, and the Soviet Union was different. A better President would promote good friends like India and Israel and show the advantages of freedom. 

Counter accusations created point to the unicorn of people smugglers allegedly paid to keep people off boats. We don't know exactly what happened in this case. But the ALP are keen to beat up the issue to obscure the fact Shorten is avoiding explaining his apparently corrupt activity as Union leader. One wouldn't be happy with queue jumpers being paid, but one does not know the circumstances either. If the criminal organisation that sent the boat people footed the bill, and now has to see the well remunerated victims returned, wishing another go, then that is funny. If these queue jumpers had paid $15k to $20k each and they came back short handed, that works too. One does not agree with what Mr Abbott has not done. Now, what about Mr Shorten?

Philae has awoken from her comet slumber. She is approaching the sun and open for research. Her mission was a partial success when she landed on a comet and reported on conditions there. But she was placed too far in shadow to retain power from her solar panels. But after months of being asleep, she has awakened to report she is now capable of finding out more about the comet she is on. 

Two young women, Chinese, jumped from a window sill on the fifth floor of a burning building in Bankstown, Sydney, in 2012. They had had no choice, as the building failed to meet building code regulations. The aluminium window sill had melted under the flames onto the hand of Yinvo Giang and she jumped. Connie Zhang jumped too, but we don't know why exactly, as she died when she hit the ground. Yinvo has suffered severe injury, so that she is currently in a wheel chair. She loves Australia and trusts Australia's justice system. However the building is still not meeting the regulation for fire safety. 


News.com.au reports after giving her evidence, a tearful Ms Jiang, who was learning to be an English as second language teacher, asked to make a statement to the inquest.
“I came to this country because I love Australia and I wanted to learn how to educate children.
“I think that’s the reason my friend (Ms Zhang) here as well.
“I trust your legal system. Please find out what happened to my friend.”
In 763 BC, Assyrians recorded a solar eclipse that was later used to fix the chronology of Mesopotamian history. 923, Battle of Soissons: King Robert I of France was killed and King Charles the Simple was arrested by the supporters of Duke Rudolph of Burgundy. Not much is known of the actual battle, except the victorious king was killed and the despised father in law to (Rollo) the future kings and queens of England was captured. 1184, King Magnus V of Norway was killed at the Battle of Fimreite. Magnus had tied together his fleet of craft, while the usurper Sverre Sigurdsson used his greater mobility to concentrate his attacks on one end of the fleet. The result was tethered ships were captured one by one. And then overfilled ships began to sink. The king was on one of the last craft to sink. His sons avenged him. 1215, King John of England put his seal to the Magna Carta. The snivelling and pathetic King John could have fought a civil war and died, and the kingdom would be reunited a different way. But, as history showed, the sealing of the Magna Carta was glorious. 1219, Northern CrusadesDanish victory at the Battle of Lyndanisse (modern-day Tallinn) established the Danish Duchy of Estonia. According to legend, this battle also marks the first use of the Dannebrog, the world's first national flag still in use, as the national flag of Denmark. 1246, with the death of Duke Frederick II, the Babenberg dynasty ended in Austria. 1300, the city of Bilbao was founded. 1312, at the Battle of Rozgony, King Charles I of Hungary won a decisive victory over the family of Palatine Amade Aba. 1389, Battle of Kosovo: The Ottoman Empire defeated Serbs and Bosnians. 1410, in a decisive battle at Onon River, the Mongol forces of Oljei Temur were decimated by the Chinese armies of the Yongle Emperor.

In 1502, Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Martinique on his fourth voyage. 1520, Pope Leo X threatened to excommunicate Martin Luther in papal bull Exsurge Domine. 1580, Philip II of Spain declared William the Silent to be an outlaw. William was also known as William of Orange. But he isn't the same as William III King of England. 1648, Margaret Jones was hanged in Boston for witchcraft in the first such execution for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 1667, the first human blood transfusion was administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys. His first two patients survived using animal blood, but two others died. It wasn't until 1902, when the four blood groups were identified that blood transfusions became relatively safe. 1752, Benjamin Franklin proved that lightning was electricity (traditional date, the exact date is unknown). 1775, American Revolutionary WarGeorge Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. 1776, Delaware Separation Day: Delaware voted to suspend government under the British Crown and separate officially from Pennsylvania. 1785, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, co-pilot of the first-ever manned flight (1783), and his companion, Pierre Romain, became the first-ever casualties (fatalities) of an air crash when their hot air balloon exploded during their attempt to cross the English Channel.

In 1804, New Hampshire approved the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratifying the document. 1808, Joseph Bonaparte became King of Spain. 1815, the Duchess of Richmond's ball was held in Brussels, "the most famous ball in history". The assembled were guarding for the possible rise of Napoleon. 1836, Arkansas was admitted as the 25th U.S. state. 1844, Charles Goodyear receives a patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber. 1846, the Oregon Treaty established the 49th parallel as the border between the United States and Canada, from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. 1859, Pig War: Ambiguity in the Oregon Treaty led to the "Northwestern Boundary Dispute" between United States and British/Canadian settlers. 1864, American Civil War: The Second Battle of Petersburg began. Also 1864, Arlington National Cemetery was established when 200 acres (0.81 km2) around Arlington Mansion (formerly owned by Confederate General Robert E. Lee) were officially set aside as a military cemetery by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. 1867, Atlantic Cable Quartz Lode gold mine located in Montana. 1877, Henry Ossian Flipper became the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy. 1878, Eadweard Muybridge took a series of photographs to prove that all four feet of a horse left the ground when it runs; the study became the basis of motion picture. 1888,  Crown Prince Wilhelm became Kaiser Wilhelm II; he would be the last Emperor of the German Empire. Due to the death of his predecessors Wilhelm I and Frederick III, 1888 is the Year of the Three Emperors. 1896, the deadliest tsunami in Japan's history killed more than 22,000 people.

In 1904, a fire aboard the steamboat SS General Slocum in New York City's East River killed 1,000. 1905, Princess Margaret of Connaught married Gustaf, Crown Prince of Sweden. 1909, representatives from EnglandAustralia and South Africa met at Lord's and formed the Imperial Cricket Conference. 1913, the Battle of Bud Bagsak in the Philippines ended. 1916, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America, making them the only American youth organisation with a federal charter. 1919, John Alcock and Arthur Brown completed the first nonstop transatlantic flight when they reach ClifdenCounty GalwayIreland. 1920, Duluth lynchings in Minnesota. Also 1920, a new border treaty between Germany and Denmark gave northern Schleswig to Denmark. 1934, the U.S. Great Smoky Mountains National Park was founded. 1936, first flight of the Vickers Wellington bomber. 1937, a German expedition led by Karl Wien lost sixteen members in an avalanche on Nanga Parbat. It was the worst single disaster to occur on an 8000m peak.

In 1940, World War IIOperation Ariel began – Allied troops started to evacuate France, following Germany's takeover of Paris and most of the nation. 1944, World War II: Battle of Saipan: The United States invaded Japanese-occupied Saipan. Also 1944, in the Saskatchewan general election, the CCF, led by Tommy Douglas, was elected and formed the first socialist government in North America. 1945, the General Dutch Youth League (ANJV) was founded in AmsterdamNetherlands. 1954, UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) was formed in BaselSwitzerland. 1970, Charles Manson went on trial for the Sharon Tate murders. 1972, Red Army Faction co-founder Ulrike Meinhof was captured by police in Langenhagen. 1978, King Hussein of Jordan married American Lisa Halaby, who took the name Queen Noor. 1985, Rembrandt's painting Danaë was attacked by a man (later judged insane) who threw sulfuric acid on the canvas and cuts it twice with a knife.

In 1991, in the Philippines, Mount Pinatubo erupted in the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th Century. In the end, over 800 people died. 1992, the United States Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Álvarez-Machaín that it was permissible for the United States to forcibly extradite suspects in foreign countries and bring them to the USA for trial, without approval from those other countries. 1994, Israel and Vatican City establish full diplomatic relations. 1996, the Provisional Irish Republican Army exploded a large bomb in the middle of ManchesterEnglandUnited Kingdom. 2001, leaders of the People's Republic of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. 2012, Nik Wallenda became the first person to successfully tightrope walk over Niagara Falls.
From 2014
I must choose my words carefully as the boy has died. I respect him, and wish it that others know of him. People talk about intelligence and bravery and resolution, throwing those words around as if they have little currency, and applying them to people in bizarre situations who merely want to live. Jacky's life was tragically short, but he had foreknowledge of it and he faced it. It is a tough thing for the young knowing they are going to die. Jacky did not face an evil scientist who did terrible things for knowledge or pride. What claimed Jacky was historical and even today, not perfectly understood. It was made famous in a movie, Lorenzo's Oil. Jacky had Adrenoleukodystrophy. 

ADL is from a chromosome, involving DNA. What it does is what the body naturally does. There is no known treatment that cures it, yet. It kills people by attacking the brain and central nervous system, reducing them to a vegetative state. Victims rarely live to their teens. Diet can help manage it for a time, as can stem cell therapy. Typically, sufferers have ADD type behaviours. Jacky was superior than a garden variety .. he was smart and capable of resisting temptation which others would succumb. I became aware of him when he was in year 8 and in a high level Mathematic class. He played chess at lunchtime in a room I had set aside for that purpose. He was a little shorter than average stature, but perfectly formed, and I recall him talking about getting a sick note to avoid a test and I suggested that that was not good behaviour. He told me he was sick, and suffered from ADL but hadn't shown symptoms yet .. but that he would die soon after he did show symptoms. He said that doctors had told him that he did not look sick, but that symmetric features sometimes showed good health, but sometimes, as with elfinism, meant someone was very sick. I clocked it mentally, as his year advisor told me it was true and the school knew about it, I didn't need to do anything administrative. 

After I left teaching I reengaged with Jacky on Facebook. He had become a university student studying computer science. He had led a normal life, but began to feel the onset of symptoms his specialists had warned him about towards the end of his first year. He had become a keen Magic the Gathering card player. He got special stem cell treatment, but the disease progressed quickly. Soon he struggled to even work on a computer. He wrote about what was happening to him. And then, surrounded by family and loved ones, he passed away. And while Jacky's early death is a tragedy, his life isn't. He is an inspiration. I am thankful I got to know Jacky when I was a teacher. Todays is his birthday. 
Historical perspective on this day
In 763 BC, Assyrians recorded a solar eclipse that was later used to fix the chronology of Mesopotamian history. 923, Battle of Soissons: King Robert I of France was killed and King Charles the Simple was arrested by the supporters of Duke Rudolph of Burgundy. 1184, King Magnus V of Norway was killed at the Battle of Fimreite. 1215, King John of Englandput his seal to the Magna Carta. 1219, Northern CrusadesDanish victory at the Battle of Lyndanisse (modern-day Tallinn) established the Danish Duchy of Estonia. According to legend, this battle also marks the first use of the Dannebrog, the world's first national flag still in use, as the national flag of Denmark. 1246, with the death of Duke Frederick II, the Babenberg dynasty ended in Austria. 1300, the city of Bilbao was founded. 1312, at the Battle of Rozgony, King Charles I of Hungary won a decisive victory over the family of Palatine Amade Aba. 1389, Battle of Kosovo: The Ottoman Empire defeated Serbs and Bosnians. 1410, in a decisive battle at Onon River, the Mongol forces of Oljei Temur were decimated by the Chinese armies of the Yongle Emperor.

In 1502, Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Martinique on his fourth voyage. 1520, Pope Leo X threatened to excommunicate Martin Luther in papal bull Exsurge Domine. 1580, Philip II of Spain declared William the Silent to be an outlaw. 1648, Margaret Jones was hanged in Boston for witchcraft in the first such execution for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 1667, the first human blood transfusion was administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys. 1752, Benjamin Franklin proved that lightning was electricity (traditional date, the exact date is unknown). 1775, American Revolutionary WarGeorge Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. 1776, Delaware Separation Day: Delaware voted to suspend government under the British Crown and separate officially from Pennsylvania. 1785, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, co-pilot of the first-ever manned flight (1783), and his companion, Pierre Romain, became the first-ever casualties (fatalities) of an air crash when their hot air balloon exploded during their attempt to cross the English Channel.

In 1804, New Hampshire approved the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratifying the document. 1808, Joseph Bonaparte became King of Spain. 1815, the Duchess of Richmond's ball was held in Brussels, "the most famous ball in history". 1836, Arkansas was admitted as the 25th U.S. state. 1844, Charles Goodyear receives a patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber. 1846, the Oregon Treaty established the 49th parallel as the border between the United States and Canada, from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. 1859, Pig War: Ambiguity in the Oregon Treaty led to the "Northwestern Boundary Dispute" between United States and British/Canadiansettlers. 1864, American Civil War: The Second Battle of Petersburg began. Also 1864, Arlington National Cemetery was established when 200 acres (0.81 km2) around Arlington Mansion (formerly owned by Confederate General Robert E. Lee) were officially set aside as a military cemetery by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. 1867, Atlantic Cable Quartz Lode gold mine located in Montana. 1877, Henry Ossian Flipper became the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy. 1878, Eadweard Muybridge took a series of photographs to prove that all four feet of a horse left the ground when it runs; the study became the basis of motion picture. 1888,  Crown Prince Wilhelm became Kaiser Wilhelm II; he would be the last Emperor of the German Empire. Due to the death of his predecessors Wilhelm I and Frederick III, 1888 is the Year of the Three Emperors. 1896, the deadliest tsunami in Japan's history killed more than 22,000 people.

In 1904, a fire aboard the steamboat SS General Slocum in New York City's East River killed 1,000. 1905, Princess Margaret of Connaught married Gustaf, Crown Prince of Sweden. 1909, representatives from EnglandAustralia and South Africa met at Lord's and formed the Imperial Cricket Conference. 1913, the Battle of Bud Bagsak in the Philippines ended. 1916, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America, making them the only American youth organisation with a federal charter. 1919, John Alcockand Arthur Brown completed the first nonstop transatlantic flight when they reach ClifdenCounty GalwayIreland. 1920, Duluth lynchings in Minnesota. Also 1920, a new border treaty between Germany and Denmark gave northern Schleswig to Denmark. 1934, the U.S. Great Smoky Mountains National Park was founded. 1936, first flight of the Vickers Wellingtonbomber. 1937, a German expedition led by Karl Wien lost sixteen members in an avalancheon Nanga Parbat. It was the worst single disaster to occur on an 8000m peak.

In 1940, World War IIOperation Ariel began – Allied troops started to evacuate France, following Germany's takeover of Paris and most of the nation. 1944, World War II: Battle of Saipan: The United States invaded Japanese-occupied Saipan. Also 1944, in the Saskatchewan general election, the CCF, led by Tommy Douglas, was elected and formed the first socialist government in North America. 1945, the General Dutch Youth League(ANJV) was founded in AmsterdamNetherlands. 1954, UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) was formed in BaselSwitzerland. 1970, Charles Manson went on trial for the Sharon Tate murders. 1972, Red Army Faction co-founder Ulrike Meinhof was captured by police in Langenhagen. 1978, King Hussein of Jordan married American Lisa Halaby, who took the name Queen Noor. 1985, Rembrandt's painting Danaë was attacked by a man (later judged insane) who threw sulfuric acid on the canvas and cuts it twice with a knife.

In 1991, in the Philippines, Mount Pinatubo erupted in the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th Century. In the end, over 800 people died. 1992, the United States Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Álvarez-Machaín that it was permissible for the United States to forcibly extradite suspects in foreign countries and bring them to the USA for trial, without approval from those other countries. 1994, Israel and Vatican City establish full diplomatic relations. 1996, the Provisional Irish Republican Army exploded a large bomb in the middle of ManchesterEnglandUnited Kingdom. 2001, leaders of the People's Republic of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. 2012, Nik Wallenda became the first person to successfully tightrope walk over Niagara Falls.
=== Publishing News ===
This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
===
Thanks to Warren for this advice on watching Bolt
Warren Catton Get this for your PC or MAC https://www.foxtel.com.au/foxtelplay/how-it-works/pc-mac.html Once you have installed it start it up and press Live TV you don't need a login to watch Sky News!
===
I am publishing a book called Bread of Life: January. 

Bread of Life is a daily bible quote with a layman's understanding of the meaning. I give one quote for each day, and also a series of personal stories illustrating key concepts eg Who is God? What is a miracle? Why is there tragedy?

January is the first of the anticipated year-long work of thirteen books. One for each month and the whole year. It costs to publish. It (Kindle version) should retail at about $2US online, but the paperback version would cost more, according to production cost.
If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofund.me/27tkwuc
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with AugustSeptemberOctober, 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 a free kindle version.

List of available items at Create Space
Happy birthday and many happy returns Bacon LuuJacky Dang and Davey Nguyen. Born on the same day, across the years. On this day in 1215, King John of England put his seal to Magna Carta. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge took a series of photographs to prove that all four feet of a horse leave the ground when it runs; the study became the basis of motion pictures. In 1919, After nearly 16 hours, the Vickers Vimy flown by John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown crash-landed in County Galway, Ireland, to complete the first non-stop transatlantic flight. Suggesting that there is adventure sealed with a big check. Jacky, thank you for sharing yourself in part of my life as a teacher. 
Deaths
June 15Flag Day in Denmark
Queen Noor of Jordan
They had an eclipse, but I couldn't see it. It was blocked. The duchess is generous. Nobody wins the pig war. Freedom can lead to tyranny. Don't erupt, chill. Let's party. 
===

Here’s a hate crime for you: Terrorism

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, June 15, 2016 (2:16am)

THE politically correct Left seems disappointed Orlando killer Omar Mateen turned out to be a Muslim and are ready to believe his father’s claim that the attack had nothing to do with religion.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Here’s a hate crime for you: Terrorism'
===

MILITANT PRESBYTERIANISM?

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 15, 2016 (4:10pm)

Apparently “radical Islam” isn’t precise enough:


Readers are invited to suggest more accurate terminology. 
===

EMMA REMEMBERS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 15, 2016 (4:00pm)

It doesn’t take much to turn the ABC’s Emma Alberici against female politicians. Seven entire years after then-Italian MP Giorgia Meloni sliced and diced Alberici in an interview before walking away, Alberici still holds a grudge
Giorgia Meloni shouldn’t run for Rome mayor & has nothing to do with motherhood 
If you say so, Emma. The ABC host has lately offered her views on events in the US.
===

PRIORITIES ESTABLISHED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 15, 2016 (3:50pm)

Attractive advertising once provided London Tube passengers with a better option than looking at depressed British people. Not any more
Sadiq Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor, announced Monday that “body shaming” advertisements will no longer be allowed in London’s public transport.
“As the father of two teenage girls, I am extremely concerned about this kind of advertising which can demean people, particularly women, and make them ashamed of their bodies. It is high time it came to an end,” Khan said.
The mayor added, “Nobody should feel pressurised, while they travel on the Tube or bus, into unrealistic expectations surrounding their bodies and I want to send a clear message to the advertising industry about this.” 
Sadiq is applying a virtual burqa to trains and buses.
===

MIGHTY BLOGS BANISH COMMIE TO CENTRELINK

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 15, 2016 (3:27pm)

Sorrowful supporters of semi-literate sweary socialist sackademic Martin Hirst insist that News Corp somehow engineered his dismissal
Within a week of La Trobe University reversing its decision to suspend Safe Schools Coordinator Roz Ward, Deakin University sacked another left wing academic. Journalism lecturer Martin Hirst was notified of his termination on 9 June.
Hirst is both a Marxist and a critic of the Murdoch media empire. His sacking is the result of a five year red-baiting campaign by Newscorp columnists with the express aim of driving him out of academia. After addressing the 2011 Finklestein enquiry into media regulation, Hirst was called by a Daily Telegraph reporter who asked “if [he is] or ever had been a communist”. He has since been the subject of attack articles by Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt and trolling from their supporters on his personal Twitter account. 
Please. Minor player Hirst was barely on my, or anybody’s, radar. Before his Deakin ousting, I’d mentioned him only a handful of times – once when he was sucked in by a sham academic publisher, again when he went all sad in Highgate Cemetary, and once more when the Guardian declared that Hirst’s job was safe. As much as I’d like to claim even a partial credit for his removal, this is all down to Martin himself.
===

GET UP AND GO

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 15, 2016 (2:19pm)

Brexit looms. Follow the Sun
We are about to make the biggest political decision of our lives. The Sun urges everyone to vote LEAVE.
We must set ourselves free from dictatorial Brussels.
Throughout our 43-year membership of the European Union it has proved increasingly greedy, wasteful, bullying and breathtakingly incompetent in a crisis.
Next Thursday, at the ballot box, we can correct this huge and historic mistake. 
The latest polls are encouraging.
===

SOMETHING IS HAPPENING HERE BUT HE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT IT IS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 15, 2016 (4:50am)

Leftists are not coping well with their belated realisation that Islamic extremists hate homosexuals every bit as much – if not considerably more – as they hate everything else to do with the liberated West. Guardian journalist Owen Jones fled a television interview the other day because he believed the host was denying that the Orlando slaughter was primarily due to homophobia: 
“At the end of the day this was a homophobic hate crime, as well as terrorism and it has to be called out, as I have to say, on Sky News and lots of news channels, there’s not been many LGBT voices that I’ve heard myself,” he said.
Host Mark Longhurst interjected and said the crime had been carried out against “human beings” who were “trying to enjoy themselves, whatever their sexuality.”

Mr Longhurst also said Mr Jones could not suggest the Orlando attack was “worse” than the murder of more than 100 people in Paris last November.
Mr Jones fired back that Mr Longhurst “could not understand” as he was not gay. He also said the presenters were trying to “deflect” the homophobic element of the attack.
When co-panelist and journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer suggested that the killer might have taken equal umbrage against her, “a gobby woman”, Mr Jones became increasingly exasperated. 
Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr Jones. A quick reminder: gays were killed by Islamic terrorists on September 11, in Bali, in Madrid, In London’s 2005 suicide bombings, in Sydney in 2014, and of course throughout Syria and Iraq every recent horrific day. Extremist Islam hates us, in our totality. Gay, straight, men, women, left, right, black, white, whatever.
As Sky News host Mark Longhurst said, Orlando’s savagery was carried out against human beings. Once leftists work this out, they may understand the gravity of their situation. It’s a situation shared by everybody not aligned with Islamic terrorism. Now choose your side.
===

CHARITABLE ACTS OF MURDER

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 15, 2016 (3:09am)

Ramadan – an annual event representing “a time to fast and devote a particular focus to prayer, purification and charitable acts” – continues to delight in 2016: 
A suspected Islamist who stabbed to death a police commander and his wife in France claimed he was following Isil’s call for lone wolf attacks during Ramadan, in a video posted online after the killing.
Larossi Abballa, a 25-year-old known to French security services, pledged allegiance to the leader of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in a 13-minute live broadcast on his Facebook account before warning that Euro 2016 would become a “graveyard” …
The attacker, who went to jail in 2013 for helping Islamist militants go to Pakistan and had been monitored by security services,repeatedly knifed the 42-year-old commander, named locally as Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, in the stomach late on Monday.
He then barricaded himself inside the house in Magnanville, a suburb some 40 miles west of Paris, taking the policeman’s partner and three-year-old son hostage. His partner, 36, an administrative police official, was found dead in the house with knife wounds to her neck. 
Their child survived. Abballa was heard on Facebook saying he didn’t know “what to do with it”. As in certain Australian states, French police officers will now be permitted to take home their service weapons. 
People who live near the murdered couple in leafy, suburban Magnanville are shocked and afraid.
“My son is also a policeman and he was a friend if the couple, said Huguette, 75. “They were together last Saturday at a party. My son has to live with fear now. It’s horrible. There are Islamists, too many Islamists in France and Europe. What will happen to the little boy? He may be psychologically affected as well as losing his parents. This area’s changing. As the older residents die, immigrants are moving in.”
Jacqueline, 82, said: “We don’t feel this is our home any more, it’s their home. At night we see Arabs in big cars parked in the streets, smoking hashish. And there are prostitutes too.” 
Abballa reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he murdered his first victim. Facebook will no doubt apologise for this terrible stereotype.
UPDATE
A man with known psychiatric problems stabbed a 19-year-old girl three times in western France on Tuesday, telling police he had heard voices ordering him to make a “sacrifice” for Ramadan, the Rennes prosecutor said.
The attack came a day after a jihadist killed a French police couple in a small town near Paris, in a stabbing inspired by the Islamic State group. 
===

AUTO INACTION

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 15, 2016 (1:19am)

Sadly, the weekly Australian motorsport newspaper Auto Action has closed after 45 years. As with everything else, the title’s prime occurred in the 1970s.
It’s at least the seventh publication I’ve appeared in – along with TruthSports Illustrated Australia, the local edition of Time, the UK IndependentWisden Australia and the Bulletin – that has either shut down entirely or ceased to run in print. Remarkably, Reader’s Digest Australia survives.
===
Yet another from this tiny, unrepresentative minority? Or something else?

Andrew Bolt –, Wednesday, June, 15, 2016, (11:51am)

Another arrest:
A SYDNEY teenager has been charged with planning a terror attack after police were alerted to a number of his social media posts.
The 17-year-old was arrested by members of the Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT) at his home at The Oaks, near Camden in Sydney’s south, last night and charged with one count of preparing for or planning a terrorist act.
The ABC is reporting that the boy wasn’t influenced by Islamist ideology, so let’s see what did motivate him.
UPDATE
A curious reticence:
It is understood the plot involved carrying out attacks on a number of public places throughout the city targeting a certain group of people.
UPDATE
Not the usual terrorist suspect at all:
However, his baffled and distraught family said the boy was not at all religious and was of Greek origin… A police statement mentions that the boy has a serious mental illness.
UPDATE
Who let him into the country?
A suspected Islamist who stabbed to death a police commander and his wife in France claimed he was following Isil’s call for lone wolf attacks during Ramadan, in a video posted online after the killing.
Larossi Abballa, a 25-year-old known to French security services, pledged allegiance to the leader of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in a 13-minute live broadcast on his Facebook account before warning that Euro 2016 would become a “graveyard” 
===

So not quite a lone wolf

Andrew Bolt –, Wednesday, June, 15, 2016, (11:50am)

At least one enabler, then:
OMAR Mateen’s wife reportedly tried to talk him out of the Orlando attack, but admits she drove him to Pulse nightclub and Disney World as he scouted out potential targets.
NBC reports that authorities are now weighing criminal charges against Noor Salman after she told the FBI she drove Mateen to Pulse and other sites, including Disney World, “to scope them out”.
She also admitted she was with Mateen when he bought his ammunition and holster, but she never contacted authorities.
===

Labor stronger in WA than when Abbott was PM. UPDATE:  Labor leads in latest poll

Andrew Bolt –, Wednesday, June, 15, 2016, (9:29am)

I still can’t see Labor picking up more than 10 seats, although the electorate seems so resentful that any last-minute issue could set it off.
But Labor friends in the campaign still hope for better, and today I read this:
Labor is on track to secure the largest number of seats it has held in Western Australia since 2001… Recent analysis of state-based opinion polls and individual seat polls by The Australian Financial Review shows the biggest swing against the Turnbull government is occurring in Western Australia, where the analysis shows a swing of as much as 10.6 per cent to Labor…
Using a conservative estimate that accounts for a margin of error of about 4.5 per cent, Labor would pick up the newly created seat of Burt, Hasluck and Cowan, where Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull campaigned on Tuesday. Labor is also hopeful it can secure Swan, where it needs a swing of 7.3 per cent… If achieved, a swing of 10.6 per cent to Labor could deliver the party up to six seats, including [Christian] Porter’s seat of Pearce… Labor currently holds three WA seats
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:

AB, another timely reminder that the Turnbull wreckers used a (hopelessly inaccurate) poll prediction of a 10 per cent 2pp swing in the Canning by-election as a justification to move against Abbott. How does the Liberal party room feel about a 10 per cent WA-wide swing under Turnbull? All good in the hood?
UPDATE
A breeze of hope for Labor:
Labor has edged ahead of the Coalition in a new poll with almost one in three voters rating the government “out of touch”. The latest Essential poll gives Labor a 51-49 two-party preferred lead. Labor’s primary vote of 37 per cent is 3.6 points above its 2013 result, while the Liberal-Nationals primary vote of 41 per cent is 4.6 per cent below the previous election. However, Labor would benefit from Greens preferences, with the minor party on 10 per cent of the primary vote. 
===

Daniel Andrews’ most shabby and costly union deal

Andrew Bolt –, Wednesday, June, 15, 2016, (8:51am)

Former Premier Jeff Kennett on the most terrible of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews three big mistakes - handing power over the Country Fire Authority volunteers to his militant union mates:
Daniel Andrews is engaged in a blatant payback to United Firefighters Union leader Peter Marshall. The UFU openly supported the ALP at the last election.
Victoria without volunteers is a state without a heart. Whether those volunteers are tourism guides, delivering meals on wheels, court workers, firefighters, volunteers in charitable organisations, members of the CWA, so the list goes on, the truth is without volunteers our state would be considerably poorer.

We do not have the financial capacity to replace volunteers with paid workers and you can’t replicate the warmth and generosity volunteers bring to their tasks.
The CFA is an extraordinary organisation. It has some paid officers among its ranks, but in the main it is a volunteer workforce of up to 60,000 Victorians that we depend upon to fight fires, big and small, in the outer suburbs and into our rural communities.
These are men and women, young and old, many representing generations of family volunteering.
That the Premier wants to put that workforce of volunteers offside and cede control of CFA operations to Peter Marshall is an affront to all volunteers — worse, it’s another sign of Andrews’s contempt and disregard for the position he holds.
===

Lucy Hone’s wonderful book

Andrew Bolt –, Tuesday, June, 14, 2016, (9:07pm)

I mentioned Lucy Hone’s book on my show tonight. You can order it here.
Lucy tells her story here.   
===

Turnbull: whites “invaded” this land. This “always will be Aboriginal land”

Andrew Bolt –, Tuesday, June, 14, 2016, (7:30pm)

I have warned conservatives about what Malcolm Turnbull would be like once elected.
You don’t actually need to wait that long after today’s presser:
JOURNALIST:
Do you agree that the colonisation of Australia can fairly be described as an invasion?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think it can be fairly described as that and I’ve got no doubt – and obviously our first Australians, Aboriginal Australians describe it as an invasion.
And never may people with no Aboriginal ancestors feel an equal right to call this home:
So this was and is and always will be Aboriginal land.
And so the racial division of this country proceeds, encouraged by the party many would have expected to resist. 
===

WHITE IS THE NEW BLACK

Tim Blair – Monday, June 15, 2015 (12:59pm)

Damn Americans. Just when it seemed Australian Belle Gibson was a certainty to win this year’s coveted Best Fakery award (western division, female category), along comes a Yank who has simply blown our Belle out of the water.
Gibson, you will recall, was the young woman who made headlines and a great deal of money by claiming to have treated her advanced brain cancer with food and alternative lifestyle therapies. It was a fantastically brazen, medically impossible story. Finally, Gibson confessed in April that her entire tale was a lie.
Rachel Dolezal, in the style of a true fakery champion, is offering no such admission.
(Continue reading White is the New Black.)
UPDATE. Dolezal has cancelled her appearance. For the second time, you might say.
===

NEXT THEY’LL HIDE HIS CAR KEYS

Tim Blair – Monday, June 15, 2015 (12:47pm)

British Muslim activist Asghar Bukhari exposes the Jews who stole his shoe
In his original Facebook post, which has since been removed, Mr Bukhari wrote: “Are Zionists trying to intimidate me: Someone came into my home yesterday while I was asleep.
“I don’t know how they got in, but they didn’t break in – the only thing they took was one shoe.”
He continued: “Now think about that, the only thing they took was a single shoe – they left one shoe behind to let me know someone had been there.
“Of course I can’t prove anything and that’s part of the intimidation. The game is simple – to make me feel vulnerable in my own home. It’s psychological. Neither can I do much about it.” 
According to Bukhari, this blatant Zionist shoe theft is not an isolated incident:

(Via Dan Lewis)
===

LOCAL RACHEL

Tim Blair – Monday, June 15, 2015 (12:10pm)

The ABC last year discovered an Australian Rachel Dolezal:



Via Nakkiah Lui, who also writes: 
In light of #RachelDolezal It should be acknowledged that Ethnjc Fraud a major issue in Aus Aboriginal community - w/ many holding meetings 
===

Whose world?

Andrew Bolt June 15 2015 (3:22pm)

Given recent events, would New Matilda like to rephrase?
UPDATE
Rachel Dolezal is not alone in the US. When race is a weapon of war, it’s no wonder some Americans switch sides.
UPDATE
Dolezal managed to get a scholarship from a historically black university by making them think she was black. Perhaps she got her inspiration from this 1986 movie, made when she was 8:
Soul Man (1986) ... 
To achieve his dream of attending Harvard, a pampered teen poses as a young black man to receive a full scholarship.
(Thanks to readers Jeremy and Jason.) 
===

How is Labor allowed to get away with pretending to be tougher on boat people?

Andrew Bolt June 15 2015 (3:15pm)

Am I missing something here?
All Question Time, and during a censure motion as well, one political party was raging against giving incentives to people smugglers and putting them in business.
That party was Labor, which itself offered so many incentives to people smugglers when it was in government that 50,000 people came over, paying some $500 million for the trip and costing us $11 billion..

The party they were attacking, on the other hand, is the Liberal Party, which in government has had just one boat arrive in a year and a half, and is now accused - without any proof - of paying people smugglers to turn one boat back to Indonesia.

And reporters are buying this astonishing hypocrisy? Are worrying about “incentives” and “pull factors” when no boats are actually coming, after denying Labor had offered incentives and “pull factors” when boats were arriving every few days?
Oh, yes, those “pull factors”. Remember how Labor once swore blind pull factors didn’t explain why boat people were coming.
I just don’t get it. The media should be laughing these people into silence. 
===

When black is white in race politics

Andrew Bolt June 15 2015 (8:52am)

(Note: because of Australia’s absurd laws against free speech - particularly the Racial Discrimination Act - I am unable on legal advice to make several important points, mention an academic survey and correct a popular falsehood.) 

RACHEL Dolezal is the face of modern race politics: a white academic who thrived by calling herself black.

This American race campaigner is what we get when we’re mad enough to think “race” is important and we must treat people differently depending on which they belong to.
Photos show Dolezal was once a freckled white girl with blue eyes and blonde straight hair before she transformed into an olive skinned woman with a mop of frizzled black hair.
According to her (white) father, Dolezal’s racial rebirth started when Washington’s Howard University — the “black Harvard” — “took her for a black woman” and gave her a scholarship.
Now 37, she is professor of Africana Studies at Eastern Washington University, teaching African-American culture and listing among her interests “African dance”.
What victim box doesn’t she tick?
(Read the abbreviated column here.
===

When will Four Corners give up this green porn?

Andrew Bolt June 15 2015 (8:29am)

Of course the ABC isn’t biased.
It’s just that the ABC just hates the stuff that keeps their top activists on the air - and in it, as Joe Aston points out
Usually, we’re the first to ignore vague pejoratives about the ABC’s independence (or alleged lack of it), but the vendetta the public broadcaster’s current affairs program Four Corners seems to have against the mining industry deserves attention… 
Kerry O’Brien will commute from Byron Bay to Sydney in Business class on Monday to read from an autocue for approximately 40 seconds before retiring to Royal Sydney Golf Club and then flying home the following day. This weekly service costs the taxpayer around $200,000 each year.
This week he will introduce a segment called The End of Coal, whose promos ask “will Australia be left on the wrong side of history?"…
(C)orrespondent Marian Wilkinson has already brought two segments to air suggesting the coal industry is threatening the Great Barrier Reef: one in September last year called Battle for the Reef ... and one in November 2011 called Great Barrier Grief.
In July 2014, Power to the People bemoaned Australia’s failure to embrace renewable energy despite a “revolution in power generation taking place across the globe”.
In May 2012, Casualties of the Boom documented how “massive mining developments are killing communities in regional Australia”.
In February 2011, The Gash Rush investigated “the cost to farmers and the environment” of the coal seam gas industry. April 2013’s Gas Leak! was no different.
But our personal favourite is April 2010’s A Dirty Business about “how the people of a once picturesque valley found themselves surrounded by coalmines, dust and toxic chemicals, while the state government ignores their pleas for help”. 
Anyone seeing a pattern here?
Marian Wilkinson? When will she post a correction to this alarmist tosh on Four Corners in 2008?:
 MARIAN WILKINSON: It could be the greatest change to the planet’s environment many of us will ever see… The Arctic sea ice is retreating as climate change advances.... 
DR TED SCAMBOS, NATIONAL SNOW AND ICE DATA CENTER USA: .... There’s a group that makes a very strong case that in 2012 or 13 we’ll have an ice-free Arctic, as soon as that…
MARIAN WILKINSON:  If you want to see climate change happening before your eyes, scientists will tell you, go to the ends of the earth, and that is why we are here in the Arctic Circle…

DR ROBIE MACDONALD, DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES AND OCEANS, CANADA: ... the modellers say that this ocean will be seasonally ice free for, initially they said by the end of this century, 2100....  And there was a very recent one when I was up on the Amundsen a couple of months ago. Do you know what it said? Maybe by 2013....
MARIAN WILKINSON: ... The more we burn oil, gas and coal, the more we clear land, the more greenhouse gases are being released adding to the Arctic warming… 
As the Louis ploughed through the thick sea ice we met one Arctic dweller already struggling with climate change - the polar bear… The US Government now estimates two thirds of its polar bear population could disappear within decades.
In fact, Arctic ice refuses to melt away:
Antarctic sea ice is way above the average extent:
And polar bears show no sign of dying away any time soon.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Don’t rely on police to tackle union intimidators

Andrew Bolt June 15 2015 (8:26am)

Paul Sheehan:
One of the disturbing things to come out of the royal commission into union corruption is the frequent uselessness of police. This is why a special agency was set up to police the building industry – and was removed by Labor and the Greens after they got into power. 
One shocking example of police inertia contained in the interim report of the commission: two union officials, John Setka and Shaun Reardon, left intimidating and insulting phone messages for a female government inspector.
The men’s phone numbers were identified. Their voices were recorded. They even left their names. The messages came late at night. They were clearly intimidating. A formal complaint was made to the Victoria Police. 
Taking action on this case would be like tracking a bleeding elephant in the snow. But Victoria Police took none.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

What’s new? Labor complained about paying people smugglers in 2002, too. But the boats stopped

Andrew Bolt June 15 2015 (7:50am)

Does the navy really sail around with $40,000 in the safe?
AUSTRALIAN spies may have been involved in paying people smugglers to turn their boats around as part of a classified­ operation to disrupt their movements, a senior intelligence­ source revealed… 
However, a senior intelligence source has told The Daily Telegraph that Australia’s foreign intelligence service ASIS had been engaged in covert disruption and intelligence operations which may have involved such payments....
“Put it this way, the navy doesn’t have authorisation to do such things nor do they sail around with safes full of US dollars in them,” the source said.
The opposition has demanded answers from the government over reports that a boat crew had been paid $[US]30,000 to turn around…
But Prime Minister Tony Abbott has refused to confirm or deny the reports, sticking to a longstanding practice of not commenting on operational matters…
Mr Abbott last Friday hinted at the possible involvement of national security agencies, rather than the navy or Immigration and Border Protection. ASIS operations are classified. 
“There are all sorts of things that our security agencies do ... that they need to do to protect our country and many of those things just should never be discussed in public,” he said.
Indeed, Labor was complaining about this kind of thing when the Howard Government ‘s successful border also stopping the boats - and before Labor let in more than 50,000 boat people.
Here is then Labor Senator John Faulkner in 2002:
The AFP agreed that there were a whole series of methods that could be used to prevent the departure of the vessel and that it was the “discretion of the liaison officer in Jakarta as to the best method to apply”.  There may be disruption of the transport of the passengers to the embarkation point, for instance, or the movement of the boat to that embarkation point… 
The Government has refused to confirm if the disruption programme in Indonesia ever extended to the physical interference of vessels…
The most concerning of these allegations is that AFP informant Kevin Enniss admitted, indeed boasted, to reporter Ross Coulthart and two colleagues that he had paid Indonesian locals on four or five occasions to scuttle people smuggling boats with passengers aboard. Mr Enniss claimed the boats were sunk close to land so everyone got off safely.
The AFP recently issued a press statement indicating that “Kevin Enniss has been formally interviewed since the Nine Network’s Sunday Program alleged his involvement in the sabotaging of vessels. He emphatically denies any such involvement”.  However the AFP did not indicate if Mr Enniss had told the Sunday crew that he had paid local Indonesians to scuttle four or five boats. 
The AFP recently confirmed, as a result of the Sunday Program revelations in February, that Mr Enniss was paid at least $25,000 by the AFP to be an informant. The AFP also admitted that they were aware that Mr Enniss purported to be a people smuggler and on at least one occasion took money from asylum seekers who thought they were buying a passage to Australia. Commissioner Keelty told Senate Estimates: “…we knew he was involved in people smuggling activities because he was telling us what was going on”.   
===

Go march on Bill Shorten instead

Andrew Bolt June 15 2015 (7:39am)

SO how will Australia’s cleaners celebrate this huge day — the International Justice for Cleaners Day?
If they listened to their union bosses — and what a catastrophe that’s been — they’ll march on the Australian Chamber of Commerce’s Melbourne headquarters.
Why? Because Victoria’s Trades Hall Council says these wicked bosses “want penalty rates abolished”.
But wait. If that’s the crime, why don’t the cleaners march instead on the office of Labor leader Bill Shorten, who on Friday was invited by the royal commission into union corruption to come explain himself?
(Read full article here.)   
===

A Fox News host would never have said it

Andrew Bolt June 15 2015 (7:02am)

 She says she “misspoke”. But somehow a CNN host called a Dallas gunman who shot at a police station “courageous” and “brave”.
(Thanks to reader Steve.) 
===

What this poll really proves is Fairfax’s poll reporting can’t be trusted

Andrew Bolt June 15 2015 (6:02am)

This is ludicrous. A month ago the Fairfax Ipsos poll claimed the Abbott Government was 50-50 with Labor, which was plainly unbelievable. As I said then:
I do suspect the electorate is a little more unforgiving than the IPSOS poll suggests">I do suspect the electorate is a little more unforgiving than the IPSOS poll suggests
Now the IPSO poll corrects - perhaps even overcorrects - but rather than simply say so (and thus admit its polls are unreliable) the Sydney Morning Herald pretends this actually marks a real shift in voter sentiment:
Voters are again drifting away from Tony Abbott after a brief post-budget pause amid a worsening housing affordability crisis and the government’s refusal to bend on popular social reforms such as same-sex marriage equality. 
The ... poll slump ... if continued would feed tensions within the Liberal Party over policy and presentation, and could even see the leadership question revisited… Labor’s share of the two-party-preferred vote after preferences now stands at 53 per cent to 47 per cent for the Coalition ... An immediate post-budget survey in May had the two sides level-pegging on 50/50. 
That said, I do think the media pile-on on Joe Hockey has hurt, not least because he did not counter it decisively.  
===

Fran Kelly: royal commission will let Bill Shorten shine again

Andrew Bolt June 15 2015 (12:42am)

No, of course the ABC isn’t biased.
It’s just that ABC host Fran Kelly seriously thinks Bill Shorten being summoned to the royal commission into union corruption is his chance to shine and show what a wonderful union he once lead, From Insiders yesterday:
MICHAEL STUTCHBURY: 
The irony here is, previously, it’s been the CFMEU in the dock and they’ve been in the dock for basically being outrageous and conducting illegal and often criminal activity and inflating wages, if you like. The AWU is now in the dock, ironically, for not looking after workers enough and I think the fact is that the system accommodates a rogue union – the CFMEU – which routinely breaks the law and its business model is based on breaking the law, it pays the Labor Party money – in Victoria it’s the largest donor – it’s really a disgrace. On the other hand, the bosses go to the AWU, which is a moderate union and in a lot of ways a perfectly good union, to get protection so they can do a deal with the boss and say, ‘Well, we’ll keep the CFMEU in’.
BARRIE CASSIDY:
That’s why they pay these union fees, to keep the CFMEU out of it.
MICHAEL STUTCHBURY:
Exactly. So you get complete outrage on one hand and then you get to get protection against that if you’re an employer and you get some dodge deals on the other hand.
FRAN KELLY: 
Doesn’t that work for Bill Shorten’s favour, that he comes in as the leader of the AWU at the time and says, ‘Ok, we’re a decent union, we’ve got decent workers, we want to do well, you pay us well and, you know, you can keep the CFMEU out’? I presume that’s the kind of discussion they had and can’t he make a meal of that at the Royal Commission? I’m just wondering. Beaconsfield Bill gets to shine through again. 
Of course there is a third option that Kelly has failed to consider in choosing between the CFMEU and AWU: “neither of the above”.
And a few other things don’t fit her incredibly generous view of the matter. As in: why get employers to pay for union memberships? Why disguise some of those payments as fees for health and safety courses? Why is the AWU asking Fair Work Australia for one of Shorten’s deals to be scrapped in the interests of the workers? And did workers miss out on payments they could have got through more effective representation, including, dare I say, by the CFMEU?
How can the ABC be allowed to continue like this? 
===
Boris Johnson
Look, I am no seismologist. But I cannot agree with the people of the Malaysian province who claim that a recent fatal tremor was nothing short of divine retribution.
The tribal folk in the neighbourhood of Mount Kinabalu say that local deities – the aki – took violent exception to a group of streaking European tourists, and in particular a young British woman who loosened her girdle and shook her naked breasts at the mountain. They say that the spirits quivered in corresponding outrage. They say that the great earth mother was so outraged that she uncorseted herself and wobbled the peaks with such fury that 18 people died.
I think on the whole that this is mumbo-jumbo, and that there is a perfectly good scientific explanation. And yet, I am afraid that we in 21st-century Britain are in no position to snigger at the tribes and their fit of irrational indignation. We have our own mystery gods these days. We have our own chthonic powers, and when someone is deemed to have said or done something to cause offence to the great and implacable Moloch of Political Correctness, then the priests and priestesses of that religion will sometimes react with a vindictiveness – and a total lack of reason – that is in itself a kind of anthropological marvel.
Take the case of that great and good man, Professor Sir Tim Hunt. This world-famous British biologist has consecrated his life to the study of cells, and in the early Eighties he was looking at some sea urchins when he made a breakthrough. He discovered cyclins – crucial proteins that help somehow with cell development. He has won the Nobel prize and just about every other award; and last week, at the age of 72, he was giving a light-hearted, off-the-cuff speech to some scientific journalists in Seoul. Those remarks have prompted such global outrage that he has been stripped of honorary positions both at University College London and the Royal Society. In an interview at the weekend, he said that he was “finished” and that his career was at an end.
What did he say, to make the plaster fall off the ceiling? Why did the seismograph yaw so crazily? Well, he was speaking flippantly, ironically – or so he thought – about men and women working together in the lab. Or rather, he spoke about his own experience. “Let me tell you about my trouble with girls,” he said. “Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry.”
Now the first two observations are surely uncontentious. Men fall in love with women, women fall in love with men. It’s been going on a long time, and thank goodness, because otherwise our species would die out. It is the third point – about crying – that has earned him the wrath of the Twittersphere, and the most venomous hatred.
The first question to ask, when someone is accused of saying something unacceptable – even in a semi-satirical way – is whether or not that statement is true. Is there any foundation to this casual assertion, that women cry more readily than men?
Well, yes, there is. Some men cry at the drop of a hat: Churchill was famously lacrimose. But the world’s leading expert on crying, Professor Ad Vingerhoets of Tilburg University, has shown that women on average cry 30-64 times a year, while men cry only between six and 17 times a year; and the Dutchman also claims that women cry for an average of six minutes, while men cry for only two to three minutes.
All sorts of biological explanations are offered. Men are said to have differently shaped tear ducts, for instance, and can therefore retain the tears for longer before they splash down the cheek. Women are said to have more prolactin, a hormone associated with weeping. I would have thought that all this stuff could be filed as the latest stunning discovery from the University of the Bleeding Obvious.
Whether you say it is a function of biology or social expectation, it is a fact that – on the whole – men and women express emotion differently. There is, in other words, a gender difference, and it should not be an offence to say that.
There are plenty of gender differences in education – many ways in which male and female students seem to respond differently to the pressures of the system. Last year saw record university admissions in Britain – more than half a million – which is a cause for rejoicing. What some have found more worrying, however, is the growing numerical lead enjoyed by women. There are far more female university entrants than male entrants – 58,000 more last year, leading the head of UCAS, Mary Curnock Cook, to say that men will have to be regarded as an “under-represented group”.
Women also tend to do better at university, with 72 per cent getting an upper second or better, compared with only 67 per cent of men. Girls outperform boys at A-level, and the gap at GCSE is the biggest for 10 years. The only conclusion is that boys, on the whole, are doing significantly less well at school than girls. Does this mean that they are thicker than girls? Of course not. The differences in performance between male and female students – whether in scientific labs or more generally – are nothing to do with innate ability, and everything to do with social and cultural expectations, and the way they are taught.
At the moment we are failing to unlock the talents of both sexes because we are failing to grasp that they are intellectually equal but in some ways emotionally different. Until we work out how to handle and how to compensate for these gender differences, we will continue to see too few female scientists, and too many male kids who are getting left behind by the system.
The first step is to recognise that these emotional differences do indeed exist, and to be honest about them. Sir Tim Hunt was doing what he has done all his life – pointing out a natural phenomenon he had observed. He did not deserve to be pilloried, and should be reinstated forthwith to his academic positions.
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The Thing in the Night As I started my way back home today I went and did a final chase which went less than good.  It...
Posted by Matt Granz on Sunday, 14 June 2015
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So Wrong....
Posted by KS1075 on Thursday, 11 June 2015
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Increasing youth unemployment a threat to the ongoing stability of the nation

Piers Akerman – Saturday, June 14, 2014 (11:10pm)

FORGET Generation X, Y and Z; the real threat to the ongoing stability of the nation is Generation M — M for Missing.
While the official employment figures for May look reasonable they mask an underlying and growing crisis.
The number of young people in employment is continuing to shrink at a steady rate.
Youth employment peaked in mid-2008.
Since then it has shrunk by more than more 7 per cent. That is, 140,000 young people have dropped out of the official record.
In some areas, youth unemployment is now more than twice the national average.
Under-employment of young Australians also ­exceeds that of the broader ­labour market, with around 30 per cent of young workers without work or sufficient hours of work.
The chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), Kate Carnell, says a lost generation is being created.
“The youth participation rate measures the number of young people in the work force in any form,” she said.
“If they’re getting the dole, they’re in the participation rate. But these young people have just disappeared. They’re not there. They’re not working or looking for work, they’re not earning or learning.”
Carnell thinks some may be working in the cash economy, others may be simply sitting on the family couch.
“There’s a clear disengagement and if they’re disengaged at 25, they’ll be disengaged at 45 and they’ll become long-term unemployed,’ she said.
The prospect of hundreds of thousands, if not future millions, floating in society constitutes a very real problem.
ACCI’s director employment, education and training, Jenny Lambert, said policy decisions by the previous federal government to reduce apprenticeship incentives and of state governments which have seen support funding for training in key entry level occupations fall dramatically have also failed young Australians.
And unions continue to hinder the chances of young people competing in the job market by seeking wage rises for apprentices and juniors.
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Lefties living in a parallel world

Miranda Devine – Sunday, June 15, 2014 (6:35pm)

IN an episode of the classic science fiction TV series, The Twilight Zone, astronaut Major Robert Gaines returns to Earth and discovers he has slipped into a surreal parallel universe in which everything looks the same but nothing makes sense. 

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Lefties living in a parallel world'
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THEY ARE CHANGING

Tim Blair – Sunday, June 15, 2014 (6:19am)

“Where will I live?” wonders a mutant dog/koala hybrid at yet another coal protest:

A better question: how will you live? An abomination like that surely isn’t viable, neither in kennel nor tree. Where did it come from? What does it eat? Why is it alive?
This could indicate a previously unnoticed species-morphing ability. It is possible that protesters are now beginning to … transform. Examine further evidence in the upper left corner of the same photograph:

This seems to be a bearded blonde woman wearing a miniskirt. She/he carries an appropriately astonished bear image, probably as a guide to his/her eventual appearance, once the shape-shifting is complete. Remain vigilant.
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BUDDY BEATS BANDANA

Tim Blair – Sunday, June 15, 2014 (6:01am)

Al Qaeda sorry man Peter FitzSimons can’t pick winners in radio or the AFL. Back in March, FitzSimons declared Lance Franklin a Buddy disaster for the Sydney Swans: 
The deal between the Swans and Franklin last year – whereby a club famous for its team-first, team-always culture put $10 million over nine years towards a 27-year-old party fiend with chronic knee problems who didn’t finish in the top 10 of the best and fairest in his last season with Hawthorn – might have been a tad close to the worst decision made by a sporting organisation since Balmain decided to get Alan Jones to coach them in 1989. 
Great call, raghead: 
Lance Franklin deserves another truckload of cash after single-handedly dragging the Swans over the line against top team Port Adelaide at the SCG.
In a spectacular performance before a near capacity crowd of 41,317, Franklin kicked the Swans’ last five goals as they fought gallantly to win a finals-like clash by just four points. 
You were saying, Peter?
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DAM DROUGHT OVER

Tim Blair – Sunday, June 15, 2014 (5:42am)

NSW is close to getting its first new dam in almost 30 years, with $300 million set aside in next week’s budget for a dam in the Central West of the state …
It will be the first built in the state since Split Rock at Tamworth in 1987, and is funded from the long-term lease of Port Waratah and Port Botany. 
Our tax-funded protest community will find some reason to oppose this.
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JULIA AHEAD 4-2

Tim Blair – Sunday, June 15, 2014 (5:26am)

Abbott: Mike, Canadia.
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WHO SAVES ME FROM DYING? MY PA!

Tim Blair – Sunday, June 15, 2014 (5:01am)

Useful parenting instructions for Fairfax’s Sam De Brito, whose child is needlessly terrified of global warming:

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TOTALLY RACIST

Tim Blair – Sunday, June 15, 2014 (4:49am)

Crikey‘s Bernard Keane identifies global warming’s racial component: 
There’s a certain inevitability about Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper standing shoulder-to-shoulder in an effort to stymie international action on climate change. That’s not just because they’re middle-aged white conservatives, which is defining demography of climate denialism?--?if CO2 caused baldness and erectile dysfunction climate change would have been addressed decades ago ... 
Mark Steyn responds
It’s good to know opposing climate change is, like everything else, totally racist. Like most people who drone on about middle-aged white men, Bernard Keane is a middle-aged white man. He doesn’t appear to be bald, but the erectile dysfunction of hockey-stick climate alarmism seems to be getting to him. 
Unlike YouTube viewers, who resolutely stay away from Keane and his fellow bores. Further from Steyn: Is Michael Mann a blood-drinking shape-shifting space lizard?
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RIDE BICYCLES, COMRADES

Tim Blair – Sunday, June 15, 2014 (3:32am)

The 425-horsepower CFMEU ute was prominent at recent anti-Abbott demonstrations in Melbourne. Apparently our unionist bruvvers have abandoned their previous save the planet campaign.
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CRAZY ATTRACTS CRAZY

Tim Blair – Sunday, June 15, 2014 (2:43am)

One of Bob Ellis’s valued readers exposes the great O. J. Simpson/World Cup conspiracy
OJ Simpsons wife and lover were killed the saturday immediately proceeding the opening of the (soccer) World Cup in the USA because gridion players and baseball players had been on strike for a year and there was a real chance these homegrown games would suffer permanent value impairment if soccer had been given clean airtime so despite the fact the victims had 50 plus defensive wound apiece in what was given the injuries sustained obviously a desperate struggle and Simpson had a simple working man nick on one finger the black guy was chased on TV and dramatically charged and the entire process managed to maximise the blackout of what was supposed to be soccers coming of age in the US of A 
So now you know.
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MISS METH

Tim Blair – Sunday, June 15, 2014 (2:40am)

There are Adelaide names and then there are Florida names.
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The Bolt Report today, June 15

Andrew Bolt June 15 2014 (6:00am)

My guest: Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on Iraq.  The panel: former Treasurer Peter Costello and former NSW Treasurer Michael Costa on the AWU scandal and more.
NewsWatch: Rowan Dean. Fact-checking the media narrative of a stumble-bum PM.
On Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm.
The videos of the shows appear here.
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Truss: voting for Palmer betrays democracy

Andrew Bolt June 15 2014 (5:55am)

I very much hope Truss is right:
NATIONALS leader Warren Truss reckons Clive Palmer could go the way of other political “saviours” such as Pauline Hanson… 
“Those who throw away their vote in some kind of protest are in fact ignoring their obligations to their democracy but also putting their country at risk.”
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Kind media outlet helps struggling Clinton daughter. Mum should be grateful

Andrew Bolt June 15 2014 (5:38am)

Chelsea Clinton’s mum, tipped to be the Democratic nominee for President, should be grateful for this astonishing largesse:
On Friday morning, Politico published on the previously unknown and “closely held” details of former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton’s contract with NBC News. According to the story, Clinton was given an annual salary of $US600,000 when she joined NBC News as a “special correspondent” in November 2011. Based on these figures, Clinton has earned about $US26,724 for each minute she subsequently appeared on air.
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ISIS leader was a US detainee

Andrew Bolt June 15 2014 (5:28am)

Just a little something to think about for all the libertarians who demanded detainees go free:
When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi walked away from a U.S. detention camp [in Iraq] in 2009, the future leader of ISIS issued some chilling final words to reservists from Long Island. 
“He said, ‘I’ll see you guys in New York,’” recalls Army Col. Kenneth King, then the commanding officer of Camp Bucca…
King had not imagined that in less that five years he would be seeing news reports that al-Baghdadi was the leader of ISIS, the ultra-extremist army that was sweeping through Iraq toward Baghdad.
UPDATE
Obama pulled US forces out of Iraq in 2011.
David French was a soldier in Iraq at the height of trouble:
I remember what Iraq was like in late 2008, when I left. My unit. . .had largely cleared out one of the last areas of al-Qaeda dominion in Iraq. At high cost we had taken thousands of square kilometers back from enemy control, broken the back of enemy resistance, and given the local population the chance to live something approaching a normal life. Want a measure of our success? 
When we arrived in November 2007, in Diyala Province (labeled the Islamic Caliphate of Iraq by the al-Qaeda forces in control) every time any convoy rolled out of the gate, it had a greater than 25 percent chance of enemy contact — IEDs, ambushes, or sniper fire. When we left in late September 2008, that chance was down to approximately 1 percent.
Good men died making that progress. Friends and brothers, all of them.
But that’s not to say that al-Qaeda was completely defeated. Even as we prepared to hand over the battle space to an incoming unit, al Qaeda struck one last blow – killing a very dear friend of mine when our troopers cornered a senior leader.
The bottom line was that Iraq was under control, but still in a state of low-intensity war. Iraqi forces, with the help of small groups of American advisers and — in extreme circumstances — American air power, were more than capable of handling large-scale threats from jihadists but weren’t yet capable of stopping all violence (and, indeed, may never have been). The situation was stable, and — here’s the key — sustainable. 
Yes, to sustain it would have required the continued presence of American troops, and those troops may have sustained occasional additional casualties, but that’s the price we pay to secure hard-won victories. 
UPDATE
Our immigration program remains of great concern:
The head of the al-Risalah Islamic Centre in Sydney, where both Sulayman and Cerantonio have lectured, Wissam Haddad, said Muslims were rejoicing at ISIS’s stunning gains. “There’s a feeling of joy,’’ Mr Haddad told The Weekend Australian.
(Thanks to reader David.) 
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Solar promise fried

Andrew Bolt June 15 2014 (5:02am)

I don’t wish embarrassment on the Environment Minister, the very nice Greg Hunt, but I am very grateful that the tap is finally being turned off the great global warming waste
Mr Hunt took his colleagues by surprise when he announced to an industry gathering last November that the Coalition was committed to its $500 million ‘’1 Million Solar Roofs’’ program.... 
But Mr Hunt’s ‘’shining beacon’’, a leftover from the 2010 election campaign, had not been approved by Prime Minister Tony Abbott or his top economic ministers ...

In his presentation to the Clean Energy Council on November 29 last year, the Environment Minister declared: ‘’The government will provide $500 million for the 1 Million Solar Roofs program. And a further $50 million each,’’ he added, would be given to ‘’the Solar Towns and Solar Schools programs’’…
Mr Hunt was ultimately forced to abandon all but $2 million of his $600 million in promised policies. 
The 2014-15 budget allocated no money for solar roofs and nothing for solar schools. Just $2.1 million was given to the solar towns policy despite Mr Hunt promising $50 million in November.
UPDATE
Plain sense said plainly:
TONY Abbott has visited the energy capital of the USA to insist he does not want the battle against climate change to limit the use of any type of fuel. 
Promoting his plan to scrap the carbon tax in front of an audience of energy executives in Houston, Texas, Mr Abbott said he wanted Australia to become a centre of cheap energy…
“Affordable, reliable energy fuels enterprise and drives employment,” Mr Abbott said… 
“For many decades at least coal will continue to fuel human progress as an affordable, dependable energy source for wealthy and developing countries alike.”
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" One of the IEI's minor investors is Australian news mogul Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch is interested in IEI because there are also massive deposits of oil shale in Australia. If IEI's pilot is successful, Australia will doubtlessly follow Israel's lead in developing its own energy independence through oil shale development."

Rupert at his age is way ahead of the rest of us as always.
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Allyson Christy
And too, a means at diversion under the shadows of scandals....

"United States military support for Syrian rebels will include small arms, ammunition and possibly anti-tank weapons, according to two officials familiar with the matter. The weapons will be provided by the CIA, the officials said.

On Thursday, the White House said Syria had crossed a "red line" with the use of chemical weapons against rebels and added -- without specifics -- that the United States would increase the "scale and scope" of support for the opposition.

"What we need, really, is weapons and ammunition, and especially anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles," Salim Idriss, the head of the rebel Free Syrian Army, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Friday." -CNN Breaking News

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Allyson Christy
Once again, a reminder that the World Council of Churches, sanctimoniously mounted atop a familiar high horse, spews a vitriolic agenda; one aimed at utilising and stirring tired pots of scapegoating, habitual lies drenched in centuries of foul hatred and a sustained lifeline connected to ignorance and stupidity.

To wit, herein.....

"Any honest and unbiased reader of the Bible knows otherwise, and should reject this anti-Jewish theology. Anybody, the WCC included, who singles Israel out as the sole villain that threatens world peace, who points fingers at Israel, the least troublesome element in the Middle East, is, by definition, anti-Semitic. Masquerading such sentiment as Christian love only adds insult to injury." - Tsvi Sadan, Israel Today

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June 15Father's Day in various countries (2014); Flag Day in Denmark
Jean-Baptiste Denys
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“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,”Philippians 3:20 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning


"Delight thyself also in the Lord."
Psalm 37:4

The teaching of these words must seem very surprising to those who are strangers to vital godliness, but to the sincere believer it is only the inculcation of a recognized truth. The life of the believer is here described as a delight in God, and we are thus certified of the great fact that true religion overflows with happiness and joy. Ungodly persons and mere professors never look upon religion as a joyful thing; to them it is service, duty, or necessity, but never pleasure or delight. If they attend to religion at all, it is either that they may gain thereby, or else because they dare not do otherwise. The thought of delight in religion is so strange to most men, that no two words in their language stand further apart than "holiness" and "delight." But believers who know Christ, understand that delight and faith are so blessedly united, that the gates of hell cannot prevail to separate them. They who love God with all their hearts, find that his ways are ways of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace. Such joys, such brimful delights, such overflowing blessednesses, do the saints discover in their Lord, that so far from serving him from custom, they would follow him though all the world cast out his name as evil. We fear not God because of any compulsion; our faith is no fetter, our profession is no bondage, we are not dragged to holiness, nor driven to duty. No, our piety is our pleasure, our hope is our happiness, our duty is our delight.

Delight and true religion are as allied as root and flower; as indivisible as truth and certainty; they are, in fact, two precious jewels glittering side by side in a setting of gold.

"'Tis when we taste thy love,

Our joys divinely grow,

Unspeakable like those above,
And heaven begins below."

Evening

"O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face ... because we have sinned against thee."
Daniel 9:8
A deep sense and clear sight of sin, its heinousness, and the punishment which it deserves, should make us lie low before the throne. We have sinned as Christians. Alas! that it should be so. Favoured as we have been, we have yet been ungrateful: privileged beyond most, we have not brought forth fruit in proportion. Who is there, although he may long have been engaged in the Christian warfare, that will not blush when he looks back upon the past? As for our days before we were regenerated, may they be forgiven and forgotten; but since then, though we have not sinned as before, yet we have sinned against light and against love--light which has really penetrated our minds, and love in which we have rejoiced. Oh, the atrocity of the sin of a pardoned soul! An unpardoned sinner sins cheaply compared with the sin of one of God's own elect ones, who has had communion with Christ and leaned his head upon Jesus' bosom. Look at David! Many will talk of his sin, but I pray you look at his repentance, and hear his broken bones, as each one of them moans out its dolorous confession! Mark his tears, as they fall upon the ground, and the deep sighs with which he accompanies the softened music of his harp! We have erred: let us, therefore, seek the spirit of penitence. Look, again, at Peter! We speak much of Peter's denying his Master. Remember, it is written, "He wept bitterly." Have we no denials of our Lord to be lamented with tears? Alas! these sins of ours, before and after conversion, would consign us to the place of inextinguishable fire if it were not for the sovereign mercy which has made us to differ, snatching us like brands from the burning. My soul, bow down under a sense of thy natural sinfulness, and worship thy God. Admire the grace which saves thee--the mercy which spares thee--the love which pardons thee!
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Timotheus, Timothy

[Tīmō'theŭs, Tĭm'o thy̆] - honored of god, worshiping god or valued of god.A young man of Lystra, son of Eunice, a Jewess, by a Greek father who was probably dead when Paul first visited the home (Acts 16:1).

The Man Who Confessed a Good Confession


As Paul contributes a full portrait of his spiritual son, many years his junior, let us string together the salient features of Timothy.

I. He was the child of godly heritage ( 2 Tim. 1:5). His mother was a Christian Jewess and the daughter of another devout Jewess, Lois. His Greek father's name is unknown. It may be that Eunice became a Christian when Paul visited Lystra, a town not far from Paul's birthplace, Tarsus.

II. He was a youthful reader of Scripture (2 Tim. 3:15). From a "babe" he had had knowledge of the Truth. How blessed children are if cradled in the things of God!

III. He was Paul's child in the faith (1 Cor. 4:17; 1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2 ). Probably Paul, a visitor of Timothy's house, led the young lad to Christ during his ministry in Iconium and Lystra since he refers to his persecutions there, which Timothy himself knew about (2 Tim. 3:10, 11). One writer suggests that when Paul recovered from his stoning at Lystra it was in Timothy's home he found shelter and succor.

IV. He was ordained as a minister of the Gospel (1 Tim. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6, 7). Conscious of Timothy's unique gifts, especially of evangelism (Rom. 16:21; 2 Tim. 4:5 ), it was fitting that Paul should choose him as a companion and fellow-worker. Faithfully he served Paul "as a son with his father," in the furtherance of the Gospel (Phil. 2:22). How indispensable he became to the apostle (Acts 17:14, 15; 18:5; 20:4)! Paul had no other companion so "like-minded" as Timothy, who enjoyed Paul's constant instruction (2 Tim. 2:3; 3:14).
V. He was an ambassador charged with difficult tasks. The responsible and delicate mission of restoring a backsliding church required both gift and grace (1 Cor. 14:17), as did the comfort of believers in the midst of tribulation (1 Thess. 3:2).
VI. He was co-sufferer with Paul in the afflictions of the Gospel (2 Tim. 1:8 ). Tradition says that Timothy died as a martyr for his faithfulness as a bishop in the reign of Domitian or Nerva. While attempting to stop an indecent heathen procession during the Festival of Diana, this God-honoring minister sealed his testimony with his blood. The two epistles Paul addressed to Timothy are rich in their pastoral counsel.
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Today's reading: Ezra 9-10, Acts 1 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Ezra 9-10


Ezra's Prayer About Intermarriage

1 After these things had been done, the leaders came to me and said, "The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices, like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians and Amorites. 2 They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness...."


Today's New Testament reading: Acts 1


Jesus Taken Up Into Heaven
1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
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