Back To the Bad Old Days

Dumb and Dumber

There is nothing more ludicrous than the re-emergence in New Zealand of  what economic historians call Muldoonism.  For our overseas readers, Robert Muldoon was a dominant Prime Minister in New Zealand in the late sixties and seventies.  Muldoon commenced with a self-stated belief in free markets, only to end up with an economy more controlled and regulated than Poland and Hungary, which at that time were Communist states.  

Ironically, it was an incoming Labour government which stripped away Muldoonism's  awful costly failures and re-committed the country to free markets.  Now, however, the present government is acting more and more like Muldoon and actively returning the country to centralist control.  If allowed to continue, this will wreak a terrible price. 

Here is the latest example of economic distortion, waste, and inefficiency championed by our political masters.  As is always the case, it "picks winner" which means that the government now queers the pitch in favour of its specially favoured flavours-of-the-month.  Here is where the high cost of government meddling stamps inefficiency and rising prices upon society.

Canadian PM More and More Despised by Canadians

Trudeau is Making Canada a ‘Totalitarian State’

Doctors' Group Speaks Up

LifeSiteNews

NEWFOUNDLAND, June 14, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – An international doctors’ group has asked Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to stop persecuting doctors for their religious beliefs.

Trudeau’s policies are transforming Canada into a “totalitarian state” and corrupting the integrity of its medical profession, MaterCare International executive director Dr. Robert Walley told the prime minister in a June 8 open letter.  The Newfoundland-based MaterCare is an international association of obstetricians and gynaecologists working to improve maternal health in developing countries, presently in Kenya. 

Walley's letter castigated Trudeau for his “overbearing attitude against religious people and their employment in our country.”  It urged the prime minister to “end the discrimination of religious people and support equality in the workforce” in Canada.  “We want Trudeau to lift the lid on this pressure cooker he has created around our profession,” Walley elaborated in an email to LifeSiteNews.  “We are asking that he, at the very minimum, not actively pursue and persecute people who have religious beliefs and live them.”

Walley told Trudeau in his letter that the prime minister’s “dictatorial policies” have led to active discrimination against doctors who believe in the sanctity of human life.

Daily Meditation

How to Plead for Unbelievers

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. (Romans 10:1)

John Piper

Paul prays that God would convert Israel. He prays for her salvation! He does not pray for ineffectual influences, but for effectual influences. And that is how we should pray too.

We should take the new covenant promises of God and plead with God to bring them to pass in our children and our neighbors and on all the mission fields of the world.

God, take out of their flesh the heart of stone and give them a new heart of flesh (Ezekiel 11:19). Circumcise their heart so that they love you (Deuteronomy 30:6)! Father, put your Spirit within them and cause them to walk in your statutes (Ezekiel 36:27). Grant them repentance and a knowledge of the truth that they may escape from the snare of the devil (2 Timothy 2:25–26). Open their hearts so that they believe the gospel (Acts 16:14)!

When we believe in the sovereignty of God — in the right and power of God to elect and then bring hardened sinners to faith and salvation — then we will be able to pray with no inconsistency, and with great biblical promises for the conversion of the lost.

Thus God has pleasure in this kind of praying because it ascribes to him the right and honor to be the free and sovereign God that he is in election and salvation.

"Made in China 2025"

Free Trade With China is an Oxymoron

Trump's looming trade war with China begs an interesting question: is it possible for a Communist government to enter into a meaningful and genuine free trade agreement?  It's arguable that no communist government, such as China, can meaningfully participate in free trade when the economy is at the command and control of the state.

This is the argument being pushed now by the Trump administration and it is one which demands careful thought.  Much of the Chinese economy represents command and control: the price of money is set by the state; mass production of favoured goods is heavily subsidised by the state; the state controls the demand for goods and services; and the state substantially controls the labour market.  When a non-statist government enters into a free trade agreement with a communist state, the price signals of goods and services are inevitably distorted and of little use.  There is nothing "fair" about them.  They are certainly not "free".  Therefore, free trade with a communist state (or a strongly fabian socialist state) is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms from the outset.

Western nations by-and-large understand that state subsidies and state picked "winners" are an immediate contradiction against free trade.  However, the recent push by Western nations to enter into global and regional multi-national talks in an attempt to secure global free trade agreements is both short sighted and contradictory.  When it involves agreements with communist command-and-control economies it is even more the case. 

President Donald Trump announced on June 15 that he would go ahead with the proposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, doubling down on his promise to level the playing field and defend against improper intellectual property theft by China.

China retaliated hours later by announcing its own 25-percent tariffs on $50 billion worth of U.S. products. The implementation timeline largely mirrors the United States,’ with tariffs focusing on agricultural imports.  The Trump administration vowed that the United States would pursue additional tariffs once China retaliates in kind.  The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) described the goods subject to the 25 percent tariffs as “Chinese imports containing industrially significant technologies, including those related to China’s ‘Made in China 2025’ industrial policy.”

The new tariffs will be implemented in two stages. The first list contains 818 products worth $34 billion which will go into effect on July 6, with another round of goods worth $16 billion to be implemented after a period of public consultation. . . . [Epoch Times]

The "Made in China 2025" policy is a deliberate attempt by the Chinese Communist state to become technologically self-sufficient.

More Sensationalist Codswallop

Shock! Antarctica Still Doing Just Great

James Delingpole
Breitbart

Antarctic melting faster than evah!

This has been the global warming scare story of the week, heavily promoted by the usual suspects, including Time, CBS, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the New York Timesand, inevitably, the BBC.

Here is the BBC version:

Antarctica is shedding ice at an accelerating rate.

Satellites monitoring the state of the White Continent indicate some 200 billion tonnes a year are now being lost to the ocean as a result of melting.

This is pushing up global sea levels by 0.6mm annually – a three-fold increase since 2012 when the last such assessment was undertaken.

Scientists report the new numbers in the journal Nature.

Governments will need to take account of the information and its accelerating trend as they plan future defences to protect low-lying coastal communities.

The researchers say the losses are occurring predominantly in the West of the continent, where warm waters are getting under and melting the fronts of glaciers that terminate in the ocean.

“We can’t say when it started – we didn’t collect measurements in the sea back then,” explained Prof Andrew Shepherd, who leads the Ice sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (Imbie).

“But what we can say is that it’s too warm for Antarctica today. It’s about half a degree Celsius warmer than the continent can withstand and it’s melting about five metres of ice from its base each year, and that’s what’s triggering the sea-level contribution that we’re seeing,” he told BBC News.

So it’s over, right? The Warmunists were right, the deniers were wrong and global warming is a super serial crisis we need to deal with NOW not the day after tomorrow…

Actually no.

Daily Meditation

Longing for God’s Law

Ligonier Ministries

A survey by George Gallup Jr. revealed a startling trend in our culture. According to Gallup, the evidence seems to indicate that there are no clear behavioral patterns that distinguish Christians from non-Christians in our society. We all seem to be marching to the same drummer, looking to the shifting standards of contemporary culture for the basis of what is acceptable conduct. What everybody else is doing seems to be our only ethical norm.

This pattern can emerge only in a society or a church wherein the law of God is eclipsed. The very word law seems to have an unpleasant ring to it in our evangelical circles.

Let’s try an experiment. Read the passages from Psalm 119 that accompany this devotion. Try to crawl into the skin of the writer and experience empathy. Try to feel what he felt when he wrote these lines thousands of years ago.

Does this sound like a modern Christian? Do we hear people talk about longing passionately for the law of God? Do we hear our friends expressing joy and delight in God’s commandments?

Coram Deo

Do you long passionately for God’s law? Do you express joy and delight in His commandments?

Passages for Further Study

Psalm 119:97
Psalm 119:11–12
Psalm 119:131

Laughter The Best Medicine

Idiots Running the Asylum

In a world of PC madness coupled with the all dominant Plan pressed down upon us by our noble leaders there is plenty of opportunity for mockery and laughter.  It's the sort of medicine George Orwell would have prescribed for all freedom loving people.

This example originates in the UK, and notification comes via the NZ Herald.

Sweltering Builders Wear Dresses

Avoid Stupid Health and Safety Laws

Boiling builders who were told they were not allowed to wear shorts while working in 26C heat managed to keep cool by wearing skirts.  The brickies - who were working in Chertsey, Surrey in the UK - were horrified by new health and safety rules forbidding shorts.



But when they realised they could get around the ban by wearing women's clothing thanks to gender equality regulations, they showed up for work in skirts and dresses, the Daily Mail reports.  The workers said they were also inspired by schoolboys who wore skirts to get around a ban on shorts.
The workers said they were also inspired by schoolboys who wore skirts to get around a ban on shorts.



Simon Miles, 45, wore his wife's denim skirt while working on the Bellway Homes site, telling The Sun: "Shorts were made for brickies".  "I was going to find another job and some of the other lads were really struggling and uncomfortable in jeans. We gathered it was a health and safety issue. 
"But we realised that as there were women working in offices on the same site in skirts, they couldn't stop us doing the same." 

Irony of Ironies

A Strange Tale 

How the FBI’s Anti-Trump Bias Helped Elect Trump

David French
National Review Online

The decision to prioritize the Russia investigation ended up harming Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
If you wade through the entire inspector general’s report, consider the content and tone of the FBI correspondence quoted within it, and ponder the timeline, you will finally get an answer to the key question I,  and millions of Americans, have asked: If key members of the FBI were actually biased against Donald Trump, why did the FBI so dramatically damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the last days before the election? Why did it draft a letter to Congress announcing that it was reopening its email investigation a month after it found Anthony Weiner’s laptop, a letter that detonated like a bomb in the campaign and had a measurable effect on Hillary’s polling?

Now we know. The decisions leading up to that moment were influenced by a toxic stew of anti-Trump bias and institutional self-interest. The combination of those two factors sent an FBI torpedo straight at the SS Hillary, blasting another hole in a ship that was already taking on water.


The vast majority of the report simply reaffirms and amplifies previous reporting. It provides an interesting window into the shock and concern inside the FBI when Barack Obama appeared to prejudge the case and exonerate Hillary. It details how the FBI focused on Hillary’s alleged intent, even though one of the relevant statutes imposes criminal penalties for mere “gross negligence,” when it declined to recommend Espionage Act charges against her. And it provides a blow-by-blow account of James Comey’s defiant decision to depart from DOJ policy and practice and make an independent announcement of the FBI’s recommendation.

But then, when the story moves into the fall, things change.

Daily Meditation

Who Killed Jesus?

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

John Piper

One of my friends who used to be a pastor in Illinois was preaching to a group of prisoners in a state prison during Holy Week several years ago. At one point in his message, he paused and asked the men if they knew who killed Jesus.

Some said the soldiers did. Some said the Jews did. Some said Pilate. After there was silence, my friend said simply, “His Father killed him.”

That’s what the first half of Romans 8:32 says: God did not spare his own Son but handed him over — to death. “This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). Isaiah 53 puts it even more bluntly, “We esteemed him stricken, smitten by God. . . . It was the will of the Lord to crush him; he (his Father!) has put him to grief” (Isaiah 53:4, 10).

Or as Romans 3:25 says, “God put [him] forward as a propitiation by his blood.” Just as Abraham lifted the knife over the chest of his son Isaac, but then spared his son because there was a ram in the thicket, so God the Father lifted the knife over the chest of his own Son, Jesus — but did not spare him, because he was the ram; he was the substitute.

God did not spare his own Son, because it was the only way he could spare us. The guilt of our transgressions, the punishment of our iniquities, the curse of our sin would have brought us inescapably to the destruction of hell. But God did not spare his own Son; he gave him up to be pierced for our transgressions, and crushed for our iniquities, and crucified for our sin.

This verse is the most precious verse in the Bible to me because the foundation of the all-encompassing promise of God’s future grace is that the Son of God bore in his body all my punishment and all my guilt and all my condemnation and all my blame and all my fault and all my corruption, so that I might stand before a great and holy God, forgiven, reconciled, justified, accepted, and the beneficiary of unspeakable promises of pleasure forever and ever at his right hand.

Confusion, Misdirection, and Minimisation of Crime

An Immoral Compass With a Bent Needle

We wonder how many New Zealand males have walked up to a female and groped her buttocks.  In law this constitutes an assault.  We are confident that such criminal actions have been rare--when the entire population is taken into account.  

A prisoner has been convicted of just such an assault upon a female prison officer.  Immediately a serious matter becomes even more serious.  He attacked someone in authority over him, thus breaching the command and control conditions of incarceration.  Thus the assault is not just a sexual assault of a male assaulting a female, it also was a rejection and rebellion against lawful state authority.

The prisoner in this case was on a Third Strike.

Merkel's Attempt to Expunge Guilt Over the Past Is Failing

German Government Teetering on Collapse

Merkel’s Immigration Policies Rile Coalition Partners

The Blaze

Angela Merkel’s government is teetering on collapse as the German chancellor spars with her coalition partners over policies on immigration and asylum seekers.

What is happening?

The coalition between Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the Bavarian Christian Social Union is split over the latter’s new proposal to limit asylum seekers at the country’s borders, Fox News reported.

In 2015, Merkel began an “open door” policy for migrants that allowed about 1 million refugees into the country. The migration has slowed over the past two years, but Germany still receives about 11,000 new asylum-seekers each month, the report states.

Merkel, regarded by some as “the most powerful woman in the world and de facto leader of the European Union,” is facing opposition from the Alternative for Germany, a right-leaning group. The AfD became the third-largest party in Germany after the 2017 federal election.

Horst Seehofer, the CSU interior minister, whose party is facing regional elections in October, is calling for Germany to turn away refugees who have also registered in other European countries. Also, Seehofer supports blocking asylum-seekers whose applications were previously rejected by Germany.

Daily Meditation

Perceiving the Power of Preaching

Ligonier Ministries

Every Sunday morning we observe a strange phenomenon in our cities, towns, and villages. Millions of people leave their homes, take respite from their jobs and recreation, and gather in church buildings for services of worship. People sit quietly and listen while one person stands before them and gives a speech. We call the speech a sermon, homily, or meditation.

What’s going on here?

The power of preaching is found in the Spirit working with the Word of God and through the Word of God. God promises that His Word will not return to Him void. Its power is located not in the eloquence or erudition of the preacher but in the power of the Spirit. Preaching is a tool in the hands of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is a supernatural being, the third person of the Trinity. His presence in preaching is what makes it a supernatural event.

Salvation is a divine achievement. No man can save himself. God sovereignly ordains not only the end (salvation) but the means to the end (preaching). We conclude then that what is going on Sunday morning when the Word of God is truly preached is a divine drama of redemption.

Coram Deo

Thank God for the supernatural power of preaching that effected the drama of redemption in your life.

A Just Law Will Remain A Bit Longer

Three Strikes and You Won't Get Out

New Zealand's Three Strikes Law has been saved--at least for now.  The minor coalition party, NZ First had campaigned on retaining Three Strikes.  This week the party informed the Labour Minister of Justice, Andrew Little that it would not be supporting repeal--and so the Government lacks the votes to remove it.  

We are thankful.  But the Left Wing are not happy.  They have trumpeted forth the argument that money ought to be invested into prisons to rehabilitate prisoners, not to keep them incarcerated.  In putting this argument to the electorate they regrettably commit a childish fallacy.  Building an argument upon a false dichotomy fails miserably to win the case. 

The argument runs like this: rehabilitation of prisoners is essential if we are to build a stellar community.  Money spent upon rehabilitation prisoners is an investment in the future.  It is an affirmation of good will towards those who have made a bad start in life.  It makes sense that if you can interdict a prisoner going deeper and deeper over to the dark side, you save lost of public money in the long term.  Thus to its many merits fiscal rectitude can be added.  All of these evidences and arguments are both valid and good. 

But, Three Strikes does not deny the importance of such efforts and social investment.

Old News--But Essential Nonetheless

FBI Corrupted By Its Senior Leadership

For those of our readers who follow US politics and have some knowledge of the US Justice Department and the FBI you will find a lot of damning material recently released by the Justice Department's inspector general report into the conduct of the FBI.  It reveals a shocking anti-Trump, pro-Hillary bias endemic to the agency's related investigations.

Now this has been both suspected and alleged by various parties and agencies of government and politicians for a long, long time.  On Thursday 14th June, the Inspector General's [IG] report was released.  Mollie Hemingway, Senior Editor of The Federalist has written a summary.  Keen students of the ineptitude, corruption, bias, and arrogance of the FBI will find all of the proof and evidence you want to establish "beyond reasonable doubt" that the senior leadership FIB has indeed become politicised, has been thoroughly anti-Trump, and in the tank for the Democrats.  [Note, however, that indictment is pointed at senior leadership in the FBI, not the rank and file.]

OK--so it's "Old News".  But it's more than that: it is now proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Daily Meditation

How Much God Wants to Bless You

The LORD will again take delight in prospering you. (Deuteronomy 30:9)

John Piper

He does not bless us begrudgingly. There is a kind of eagerness about the beneficence of God. He does not wait for us to come to him. He seeks us out, because it is his pleasure to do us good. God is not waiting for us, he is pursuing us. That, in fact, is the literal translation of Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life.”

God loves to show mercy. Let me say it again. God loves to show mercy. He is not hesitant or indecisive or tentative in his desires to do good to his people. His anger must be released by a stiff safety lock, but his mercy has a hair trigger. That’s what he meant when he came down on Mount Sinai and said to Moses, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Exodus 34:6).

God is never irritable or edgy. His anger never has a short fuse. Instead he is infinitely energetic with absolutely unbounded and unending enthusiasm for the fulfillment of his delights.

This is hard for us to comprehend, because we have to sleep every day just to cope, not to mention thrive. We go up and down in our enjoyments. We get bored and discouraged one day and feel hopeful and excited another.

We are like little geysers that gurgle and sputter and pop erratically. But God is like a great Niagara — you look at it and think: surely this can’t keep going at this force for year after year after year.

That’s the way God is about doing us good. He never grows weary of it. It never gets boring to him.

Secret Deals in Dirty Back Rooms

Our Lords and Masters

When it comes to killing off New Zealand's oil and gas industry, Prime Minister Ardern has no high ground.  It was a secret decision without consultation.  It was the product of ideological closed minds, cemented in cant.  It was the outcome of a cabal--all extremists, all wanting to prove a point, all filled with self-righteous certainty, all ignorant.

For all the power held by bureaucrats to frustrate decision-making with inconvenient advice or warnings of unintended consequences, sometimes a very small group of people simply decide something will happen, and that is that.

So it turns out to be the case with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's decision to end new offshore oil exploration in New Zealand.   Since Ardern led a group of Cabinet colleagues into the Beehive theatrette to announce the move on April 12, there has been mounting speculation about just how little detailed analysis was undertaken behind the move.  It had already become clear that key agencies (Ministry for the Environment and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade) had provided no advice.

Officials at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment had been openly grumbling to the industry that they were being side-lined.  National leader Simon Bridges said he had been told by officials that they were explicitly being asked not to provide advice on the decision (something the Government denies).  But only on Tuesday did New Zealand learn that whatever advice was provided, it ultimately meant nothing.  [Hamish Rutherford, Stuff]

It was a fact-free decision.  Taken in secret.  The balance of data points to greater environmental degradation (if that is what presses your buttons) as a result of not taking oil and gas supplies off the coast of Taranaki, in New Zealand's territorial waters.  Far better to import gas, albeit the embarrassing fact that it does not burn as cleanly as our own, thus further degrading the environment.  Albeit, also, the greater cost of imported oil and gas, to say nothing of the higher environmental degradation as a result of having to ship it to the far off Antipodes.

The dirty-back-room dealers included Ardern herself, Megan Woods (Minister of Energy and Resources), and greenist James Shaw.  There will be other hangers-on, no doubt.

But this is not how Government should be done.  To be clear, while there are many people who remain sceptical, the balance of opinion in New Zealand, including corporate opinion, is that climate change is real and has to be addressed.  The sooner we get on the road to a cleaner economy, the easier the path will be.

In that way, even reasonable opponents of the prime minister's move may respect that this administration and future ones will be forced to make difficult choices.  But process matters and this is a major decision, which could impact New Zealand's energy security in years to come.

What a travesty that such a benign, valuable industry has been killed stone dead by ideological ratbags.  There will be downstream industries and their owners and employees who will be hit hard.  The economic cost to Taranaki will be enormous.

Ardern and the Greens have taken the first steps towards a Luddite future in New Zealand.  They have and will be guilty of doing us all great damage.  We expect that net migration with Australia will turn sharply in Australia's favour as a result.

Let's hope every voter in the Taranaki region punishes our arrogant Masters the next time the ballot boxes are rolled out, and for next ten elections thereafter.  They deserve it.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Revoice, Bundling, and the Borders of Celibacy

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

[This piece deals with the growing trend of evangelical Reformed Christians to make peace and room for Christians who want to walk half a step beyond the pagan world. Ed.]

INTRODUCTION:

One of the good things coming out of the Revoice conference is that it is making us thrash out a number of things we should have thrashed out years ago. It is making us confront the fact that these things should have been confronted a long time ago.

“For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you” (1 Cor. 11:19).

The whole thing has made it obvious how far the rot has advanced and, in a related point, how long the rotting has to have been going on. “This is really bad, ma’am. These termites have et clean through all your floor joists. Must’ve moved in right after Noah landed.”

RESPONSES:

The basic take of the Revoice organizers is that being same-sex-attracted is a morally neutral condition, and that as long as these attractions are not acted upon, there is no sin. What such persons should do, as the thinking goes, is to come to grips with the fact that they are required by the scriptural standard to remain celibate, and that they should therefore figure out how to use their legitimate gayness that exists on this side of any sexual consummation in the service of the church. In the words of the promotional material for the conference, “What queer treasure, honor, and glory will be brought into the New Jerusalem at the end of time (Rev. 21:24-26)?”

There have been a number of able responses to all this. I would mention Phil Johnson, and Owen Strachan, and Fred Butler, and Kevin De Young, and Denny Burk, and Todd Pruitt, and various writers behind the multiple posts at Warhorn.

What it all boils down to is the plain fact that the Scriptures do not just condemn sin when it has finally gotten to the brink of giving birth to death (Jas. 1:15). Sin is condemned as sin long before it gets to the point of action. Sin is condemned by Scripture in the inception, long before it does anything. Sin is condemned for what it is, and it is what it is as soon as the egg is fertilized.

The Government's Attack Upon Free Trade

New Zealand Risks Being Swatted Out of the Way

Ouch. Amazon is standing up to the lordly Aussie and New Zealand governments. They are saying, if you want us to collect your piddly taxes at considerable expense to us, we will ban you citizens from shopping on Amazon sites. Only the "inferior" Aussie site will be available. We think that Australian consumers who are banned from shopping at Amazon US will be highly indignant. And the blame falls squarely on the Aussie government, in the first instance, then upon the New Zealand government next year. 

 Amazon Tax Move Could Leave Government Searching For a 'Plan B'


Tom Pullar-Strecker
Stuff

The Government's plan to require foreign firms to collect GST on goods they ship to New Zealanders from October next year – its so-called "Amazon tax" – is suddenly in genuine trouble.  Australia is the canary down this particular coalmine, and right now that canary is looking pretty poorly.

If you listened to New Zealand retailers, you might think this was the last country in the world to close down a loophole under which consumers can buy low-value items from overseas without paying sales tax.  It is fair for them to grumble. New Zealand's $400 tax-free threshold for most goods crossing the border is relatively high by international standards and they have been dealt a bad hand in that regard.

But the solution the New Zealand and Australian governments have come up with to create a level-playing field for local retailers – requiring foreign firms to collect GST on their behalf at the point of sale – is untested.  Amazon has decided that rather than go to that trouble, it will instead block Australians from buying products through its main website.  Instead, Australians will only be allowed to shop at Amazon Australia, which for years at least looks set to offer only an inferior range of goods at higher prices.

Not So Fast . . .

Grading the Singapore Summit

By Jonah Goldberg
National Review Online


How to grade the Singapore summit? I think the most fair-minded answer is that it’s too soon to tell, but there’s every reason in the world to be deeply skeptical that Kim will make good on his commitments to “de-nuclearize.” Why? Because: North Korea has promised to do exactly that — with far more specificity — in the past. The actual paper agreement that Trump and Kim signed is not just worthless on its own, it’s less than worthless given that it literally recycles past worthless promises as if they are new ones.

That’s contrary to the opinions of a lot of people on Twitter and TV who think — and feel — that this is Trump’s masterstroke. This isn’t a criticism of Trump. It’s just a simple recognition of reality. The Norks have bamboozled everyone else who extracted promises from them. By all means, let’s hope for the best. But North Korean duplicity is normal.

Moreover, there’s good reason to believe that if Kim were sincere about getting rid of his nukes, his own regime would kill him.

Daily Meditation

Pursuing God

Ligonier Ministries

Albert Einstein was once asked by a student, “Dr. Einstein, how many feet are there in a mile?” To the utter astonishment of the student, Einstein replied, “I don’t know.”

The student was sure the great professor was joking. Surely Einstein would know a simple fact that every schoolchild is required to memorize. But Einstein wasn’t joking. When the student pressed for an explanation of this gap in Einstein’s knowledge, he declared, “I make it a rule not to clutter my mind with simple information that I can find in a book in five minutes.” Einstein was not interested in trivial data. His passion was to explore the deep things of the universe. His passion for mathematical and physical truth made him a pivotal fixture in modern world history.

We are called to similar passion, a passion to know God. A thirst for the knowledge of God should drive us to drink deeply at the fountain of Scripture. We are equipped with more than enough unholy passions. Our appetite for lesser things at times threatens to consume us. Yet few of us are in danger of being consumed by a passion for God. The Scripture says of Jesus that zeal for His Father’s house consumed Him. In His humanity, Jesus was a man of passion. He was neither hostile nor indifferent toward the knowledge of His Father. He was a man driven in His pursuit of God.

Coram Deo

Are you driven by an undying passion in your pursuit for God? If not, ask Him to rekindle your desire.

The End of the Beginning?

Coming Up Trumps

Trump proved the media and the Left wrong.  He apparently achieved far more than they had ever thought possible in his session with North Korea's  Kim Jong-un.  

Kim's acceptance of complete de-nuclearisation was a concession many thought was impossible.  Now, however, will come the long dark road of proving up on the promises.  Trump has also indicated that North Korea is going to move on human rights issues.

Later, responding to a direct question from John Roberts of Fox News about human rights, Trump said that the issue had been discussed — though he admitted it had not been as prominent as denuclearization. “They will be doing things” to improve the country’s human rights situation, he said.

He also said later that he would not remove sanctions on North Korea without “significant improvement” on human rights.  The president also said that the issue of kidnapped Japanese citizens had been discussed but had not been included in the document signed by both sides due to time constraints.  [Breitbart]

This, to  our minds, is as critical as the nuclear threat.

Running It Tough

Trump, Kim, and the Boys in the Camps

By Jay Nordlinger
National Review Online




President Trump did an excellent thing at the State of the Union address last January. He honored Ji Seong-ho, an almost superhuman defector from North Korea. Ji escaped the country on crutches. I saw him at the Oslo Freedom Forum a couple of weeks ago. As I wrote, “he projects an air of ebullience. I can’t help thinking he is happy to be alive.”

Trump has said some shocking things in recent hours. For example, he said the following about Kim Jong-un: “He is very talented. Anybody who takes over a situation like he did at 26 years of age and is able to run it, and run it tough. I don’t say he was nice or say anything about it. He ran it, few people at that age — you could take one out of 10,000, could not do it.”

It is unclear how old Kim is. Probably, he was 28 when he inherited the dictatorship. But that is a triviality.

He has certainly “run it tough,” if that’s the way you want to characterize Kim’s rule over North Korea. His father chose him for his dictatorial mettle.

Daily Meditation

The Deeper Our Troubles Go . . . 

The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.  Psalm 126:3

Charles H. Spurgeon

Some Christians are sadly prone to look on the dark side of everything, and to dwell more upon what they have gone through than upon what God has done for them. Ask for their impression of the Christian life, and they will describe their continual conflicts, their deep afflictions, their sad adversities, and the sinfulness of their hearts, yet with scarcely any allusion to the mercy and help which God has vouchsafed them.

But a Christian whose soul is in a healthy state, will come forward joyously, and say, "I will speak, not about myself, but to the honour of my God. He hath brought me up out of an horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings: and he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. The Lord hath done great things for me, whereof I am glad."

Such an abstract of experience as this is the very best that any child of God can present. It is true that we endure trials, but it is just as true that we are delivered out of them. It is true that we have our corruptions, and mournfully do we know this, but it is quite as true that we have an all-sufficient Saviour, who overcomes these corruptions, and delivers us from their dominion. In looking back, it would be wrong to deny that we have been in the Slough of Despond, and have crept along the Valley of Humiliation, but it would be equally wicked to forget that we have been through them safely and profitably; we have not remained in them, thanks to our Almighty Helper and Leader, who has brought us "out into a wealthy place."

The deeper our troubles, the louder our thanks to God, who has led us through all, and preserved us until now. Our griefs cannot mar the melody of our praise, we reckon them to be the bass part of our life's song, "He hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad."

Worse Than a Magician's Cheap Trick

James Shaw Amongst the Feeble Minded

We cannot restrain ourselves from chortling at the way the present (new) New Zealand government has thrown itself and its reputation into fighting the greatest of all evils ever to afflict humanity--yes . . . yes . . . CLIMATE CHANGE!  The louder they incant the daily bleat, the more desperate and pathetic they sound.

A few nights ago, for example, the leader of the Green Party, James Shaw was telling us that the measures he and his acolytes were pushing would save billions upon billions of dollars over the next fifty years.  He was actually animated and excited by the prospect.  This tells us one of two things: either James Shaw is a circus act or he actually believes this stuff.  But the merest sliver of common sense would have told him that throwing such "data" about future savings is rubbish.  It is merely a repetition of that old confidence trick: put a number of something and suddenly it becomes real.

Were we to affirm that there were now 40,378 lepers in the world, most would immediately regard this as hard scientific fact.  Why?  Because numbers are regarded as being hard facts.  If a number is put to something, it is assumed that someone has observed, measured, and counted.  It exudes veracity.  And if we added that unless drastic actions were taken today to fight climate change, in thirty years we would be looking at 95,346 lepers in the world, it would be accepted without question.  It would have to be true.  You can only get such numbers if it were true.  And therefore climate change is a real, real, real thing.  It has numbers to back it up, and numbers, as we all know, don't lie; they are scientific.  And so the circular argument runs, faster than a buzz saw.

Poor old James, though.

Daily Meditation

Longing for Fellowship

Ligonier Ministries

We speak of God as the immortal, invisible, all-wise God. This string of attributes gives some comfort and no small amount of dismay.

That God is immortal makes me glad. It means simply that He cannot and therefore will never die. I need not worry that He will ever wear out or be replaced. His throne is established forever. He reigns eternally in His omnipotence. That is good news for a perishing humanity.

I rejoice also that He is all-wise. This sets Him apart from every man. It was Aristotle who taught that in the brain of every wise man could be found the corner of the fool. There is no foolish corner in the mind of God. I find solace in the certain truth that the One who rules the affairs of the universe is not given to blunders or lapses into incompetency. I rejoice in God’s wisdom and in His everlasting power.

It is His persistent invisibility that saddens me. It is difficult for sensual creatures to enjoy fellowship with One who cannot be seen, heard, tasted, touched, or smelled. God remains beyond my senses. How then, can I ever relate to Him with intimacy? My heart longs for fellowship with Him. I long to hear His voice as the sound of many waters and to catch one glimpse of His refulgent glory.

Coram Deo

Does your heart beat with a passion to hear the voice of God? Would you sell every possession to be able to walk in a garden alone with Jesus?

The Consequences of Repealing "Three Strikes"

Nowhere to Hide

The present mess of a government is fomenting plans to dump NZ's highly effective Three Strikes Law.  In doing so, it is going to end up taking huge political risks.  David Farrar, at Kiwiblog has pointed out the nature of the risks about to be undertaken. 

He presents three reasons why it is so politically risky, albeit an ideologically rich vein for the Left.

The first is that the Three Strikes Law has strong public support. 

The net support (support less opposition) is:

All NZers +48%
National voters +65%
NZ First voters +39%
Labour voters +38%
Green voters +16%

A second reason is that the consequences of repeal will be bloody, if not mortal for the innocents who get attacked and preyed upon by the recidivist violent criminals released back into the community.  The harm will be obvious.  The repeal, then, represents a clear and present danger to innocent people.  It is a very clear "cause and effect" situation. 

Moreover, the one's responsible for this harm will be clearly identifiable: it will rest on the shoulders of the Minister of Justice, the Labour Party of which he is member, and all politicians who vote for repealing Three Strikes.  We will, as the saying goes, "know who you are", and we are coming to get you via the ballot box.

The biggest problem is that if the law gets repealed, those who vote to repeal the law can be held accountable for crimes committed by second strikers released early.

With most law changes, you can’t know for certain that a law change led to that criminal being out on the streets. Changes to maximum sentences, to bail eligibility etc can’t allow you to conclude with certainity that the criminal who bashed or raped someone would have been in or out of prison before the law change. Because Judges and the Parole Board use discretion in deciding each case.

But the three strikes law is all about removing that discretion. It is about certainty. So one will be able to say “This crime would never have happened if Politician A had not voted to change the law”.  Let’s take an example. Say a second striker is given a nine year jail sentence for a rape. Under the current law they must serve the full nine years. If the law is repealed, they can be let out anytime between three years and nine years.

If they get let out after say six years and then a month later rape someone else, it will be crystal clear that the law change allowed that rape to happen. It won’t be the fault of the Parole Board. It will be the fault of the MPs who voted to repeal three strikes.  If the law is repealed, it is almost beyond doubt that some second strikers will get parole and go on to commit horrible crimes while on parole. The MPs who vote to repeal three strikes will not know what hit them when this happens.

A third reality is that repealing Three Strikes won't achieve diddley squat in terms of reducing prison numbers--which is one of the major objectives identified by the Minister of Justice.

Another reason repealing three strikes is stupid, is because it will free up almost no prison space. First strikers do not server longer under this law – only second and third strikers. At best there are probably only 100 to 150 more people still in prison due to the three strikes law. Compare that to the almost 2,000 more due to the bail changes.

In fact as the reoffending rate of strike offences is down since the three strikes law passed, it is possible repealing the law could increase the prison population.

So in summary MPs who vote to repeal three strikes will:

Be voting against a very popular piece of legislation with both Labour and NZ First voters

• Be making a law change that will allow victims to conclude with certainty that their assailant was only able to beat/rape them because of this law change
• Will make almost no difference to the overall prison population
• You would have to have an electoral death wish to vote for it.

But, despite all this, Leftist do-gooders know what's best for us all.  The carnage they will face at the ballot box in two years time will be the appropriate form of utu.  By then the bloody consequences of letting out recidivist violent offenders early will be painted across the sky.  The electorate will, indeed, want vengeance and will know without a skerrick of doubt who is responsible and who is to blame. 

From Bob McCoskrie's Blog

Supreme Court Rules in Favour of Baker

Endorses His Decision Not To Make A Wedding Cake for Homosexual Couple

by McBlog2

Family First Comment: Great decision….

“Government hostility toward people of faith has no place in our society, yet the state of Colorado was openly antagonistic toward Jack’s religious beliefs about marriage. The court was right to condemn that. Tolerance and respect for good-faith differences of opinion are essential in a society like ours. This decision makes clear that the government must respect Jack’s beliefs about marriage.”#FreeToBelieve

The US Supreme Court yesterday ruled for a Colorado baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple.  In an opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy that leaves many questions unanswered, the court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had not adequately taken into account the religious beliefs of baker Jack Phillips.

In fact, Kennedy said, the commission had been hostile to the baker’s faith, denying him the neutral consideration he deserved. While the justices split in their reasoning, only Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented….

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Kristen Waggoner, who represented Phillips, praised the ruling. “Government hostility toward people of faith has no place in our society, yet the state of Colorado was openly antagonistic toward Jack’s religious beliefs about marriage,”she said “The court was right to condemn that. Tolerance and respect for good-faith differences of opinion are essential in a society like ours. This decision makes clear that the government must respect Jack’s beliefs about marriage.”

Daily Meditation

Glorify God in Your Body

You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

John Piper

“Worship” is the term we use to cover all the acts of the heart and mind and body that intentionally express the infinite worth of God. This is what we were created for.

Don’t think worship services when you think worship. That is a huge limitation which is not in the Bible. All of life is supposed to be worship.

Take breakfast, for example, or midmorning snacks. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Now eating and drinking are about as basic as you get. What could be more real and human?

Or take sex, for example. Paul says the alternative to fornication is worship.

Flee fornication. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)

Or take death for a final example. This we will do in our body. In fact, it will be the last act of the body on this earth. The body bids farewell. How shall we worship in that last act of the body? We see the answer in Philippians 1:20-21. Paul says that his hope is that Christ would be exalted in his body by death. Then he adds, “For to me to die is gain.” We express the infinite worth of Christ in dying by counting death as gain.

You have a body. But it is not yours. “You have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”

You are always in a temple. Always worship.

False Charges That Make No Sense

Hate Speech Charges Are Nonsensical


There are plenty of folk, it seems, who think that the following indicative sentence is hate speech: "if anyone is a homosexual (or supports, encourages, promotes, or defends) homosexuality and refuses to repent of his sin and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, seeking His forgiveness, that person will fall under God's eternal judgement."

The Bible is God's eternal and inerrant revelation to mankind.  At least Christians believe so.  Its testimony and indictment of homosexuality is clear and plain, along with every transgression of the Ten Commandments.  It is also clear that if any man, woman, or child repent (or turn away) from sin and seek God's forgiveness and mercy as offered to them by the Christ, the Saviour of the world, their sins will be forgiven and they will inherit eternal life.

To express such things, we are now told, is hate speech.  This is a strange allegation indeed.

Crooked Thinking

NZ Human Rights Commission On A Bender

Professor Paul Moon
AUT University

Anyone hoping that the current purge of the Human Rights Commission will go far enough to flush out the hubris at its core is likely to be disappointed.

Indeed, despite staff changes, and a damning report into its culture, the commission will continue with its march towards introducing a damaging change to our society: its plan to make what it calls "disharmonious speech" aimed at religions an offence.

What makes this audacious and unwanted encroachment on our right to speak and think freely all the more insidious is that this proposed ban on "disharmonious speech" would not apply equally to the criticism of all religions.

The open season on attacking Christianity, for example, would remain, with its followers responding, as their faith requires, by turning the other cheek. Instead, the commission is explicit that this proposed free-speech ban would only apply to the sort of disharmonious comments that are "targeted at the religion and beliefs of ethnic minority communities" in New Zealand.

There are several troubling aspects of this plan. Firstly, the commission is moving from protecting people from unpleasant speech (which itself is dubious) to protecting ideas from criticism. If a belief is so fragile that some disharmonious comments might damage it, then maybe the adherents of that belief ought to reconsider its worth rather than seek to shield it from scrutiny.

Secondly, the commission is conflating religion with ethnicity, which is an appalling case of stereotyping.