Bairnsdale Conservative: Tue May 7th Todays News

Happy birthday and many happy returns Jak Nu. Born the same day as the artistic tour de force known as "Heelys before you" (http://www.jakbox.co.nr/ ) because that is you. I am in awe of your talenthttp://www.youtube.com/feed/UCoRKL08V3O6pwzBahsAWxEA
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A relationship racing towards controversy

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, May 07, 2013 (7:20pm)

WHATEVER becomes of John Singleton’s complaints of conflict of interest involving his former horse trainer, Gai Waterhouse, and her bookmaker son Tom and husband Robbie, the family arrangements have always been controversial.

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RUNNIN’ TO A BLACK MAN

Tim Blair – Tuesday, May 07, 2013 (1:17pm)

Charles Ramsey, American hero, rescues three women from a decade of captivity.

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MIX-UP IN THE OFFICE

Tim Blair – Tuesday, May 07, 2013 (5:26am)

A welcome correction from Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes, following last week’s blunder-filled program:

Much appreciated. Also appreciated is that Holmes’s correction was offered voluntarily. Unfortunately, the rest of last night’s show was devoted to Media Watch‘s confused belief that Andrew Bolt is somehow compromised by his television work. Click for Bolt’s dealings with his ABC inquisitor. Speaking of television and compromise, here’s none other than Jonathan Holmes:

To be honest I tend not to do that kind of flip, mocking take on ABC programs that I may do about other programs. If anyone says you don’t treat other programs the way you treat ABC programs, well, to some extent, that’s unavoidably true.

Considering that the ABC claims to be the nation’s single-biggest employer of journalists, perhaps another organisation ought to be in charge of media watching.

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Wong and Plibersek not the right calibre

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (7:33pm)

Labor’s attack ladies try yet again to portray Tony Abbott as a woman-hater, this time by jumping on what seems the accidental use of the Lee Kuan Yew-like phrase “of that calibre” instead of “like that”:

“We do not educate women to higher degree level to deny them a career,” Mr Abbott said.
”If we want women of that calibre to have families, and we should, well we have to give them a fair dinkum chance to do so. That is what this scheme of paid parental leave is all about.”
Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said Mr Abbott’s comments were an insight into “his lack of respect for low income workers and women in particular”.
“Who exactly does Mr Abbott think are women of calibre? What does he think about women who are child care workers, nurses and community sector workers?” Ms Plibersek said.
“Are they of lower calibre than women who are law firm partners?”
Finance Minister Penny Wong took to Twitter to remark: “Am wondering who Abbott thinks the women not of calibre are? A woman’s calibre is not determined by what she earns.”

Do these women truly believe that’s what Abbott means? Or are they just trying to stir up hate?
Is this what they got into public life for?

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Maitland lies

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (4:15pm)

Former CFMEU boss John Maitland didn’t make a good start in giving evidence at the ICAC corruption hearing:

A FORMER union boss at the centre of an inquiry into a mining licence that made him millions has been caught lying in his opening evidence to a corruption inquiry.
John Maitland, a former head of the CFMEU, has begun giving evidence to the independent commission against corruption this morning, and was immediately played a covertly recorded phone conversation with a friend in which he revealed confidential details of an interview he gave with corruption investigators last year.
The phone conversation in July 2012 was between Mr Maitland and friend Arch Tudehope in which the two discussed specific questions asked by ICAC investigators about Mr Maitland’s relationship with former NSW Labor mining minister Ian Macdonald.
It is a criminal offence to divulge details of private ICAC questioning, and Mr Maitland was asked whether he had discussed the details with anyone. Mr Maitland denied he had.
After being played the tape and asked by counsel assisting Peter Braham SC asked: ”So you’ve already lied here this morning?‘’
Mr Maitland replied: “It appears so.”
“It not a great start?” Mr Braham asked.
“It doesn’t appear that way,” Mr Maitland replied.

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Penny Wong unspun

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (4:03pm)

Virginia Trioli gets tough on Finance Minister Penny Wong, especially when she tries the usual pivot to AbbottAbbottAbbott instead of explaining the government’s financial bungling:

How did you get this so wildly wrong?

Wong seems nonplussed.
Watch here.
Meanwhile the Reserve Bank cuts the official interest rate to its lowest level since 1959 - but that isn’t actually good news. From the Reserve Bank governor’s statement:

At its meeting today, the Board decided to lower the cash rate by 25 basis points to 2.75 per cent, effective 8 May 2013.
The global economy is likely to record growth a little below trend this year, before picking up next year…
Growth in Australia was close to trend in 2012 overall, but was a bit below trend in the second half of the year, and this appears to have continued into 2013. Employment has continued to grow but more slowly than the labour force, so that the rate of unemployment has increased a little, though it remains relatively low.
With the peak in the level of resources sector investment likely to occur this year, there is scope for other areas of demand to grow more strongly over the next couple of years.

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Palmer gets two more employees to run as his candidates

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (11:40am)

Clive Palmer is having trouble getting people stupid enough to run for his vanity political party. That, I suspect, is why he’s getting his employees to stand.
Last week Palmer announced one of his candidates would be the manager of his Coolum Resort.
Today, two more Palmer employees:

BILLIONAIRE businessman Clive Palmer has announced four more federal candidates for his United Australia Party (UAP).
The UAP candidates are senior business executive Clive Mensink for the seat of Dickson, sales executive Craig Gunnis for Ryan, small business owner Veronica Ford for Brisbane and IT executive Thor Prohaska for the seat of Petrie.

Mensink is manager and a director of one of Palmer’s companies, Mineralogy. Gunnis is a manager of another Palmer enterprise, the Palmer Motorama Vintage Car Museum.
This from the billionaire who claims he’s campaigning against vested interests in politics.

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How did Gillard’s shortfall explode from $7.5 billion to $17 billion in just four weeks?

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (10:38am)

Who the hell is doing the counting, or is Labor just making this up as it goes along?
On April 21, we’re told the Budget has lost $7.5 billion:

Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan says the budget revenue has taken a $7.5 billion “sledgehammer” hit because of twin factors - a high dollar and lower terms of trade…
“That’s caused a hit, like a sledgehammer to revenues in the budget, since the mid-year update of something like $7.5 billion,” Mr Swan told ABC TV ...

On April 28, Julia Gillard says, no, the Budget is actually down $12 billion:

The “bottom line for the budget bottom line” is this: the amount of tax revenue the Government has collected so far this financial year is already $7.5 billion less than was forecast last October.
Treasury now estimates that this reduction will increase to around $12 billion by the end of the financial year.

On May 7, Finance Minister Penny Wong says, wrong again, the Budget is down $17 billion:

Senator Wong also confirmed this morning the revenue shortfall for this financial year would be “significant”.
“The impact in the current financial year, between last year’s budget and this year’s budget looks to be is in the order of $17 billion...”

So in less that four weeks the government has gone from announcing a shortfall of $7.5 billion to $12 billion to $17 billion.
And next week?
This is utterly bizarre. Utterly chaotic. What has changed - twice - in the past month to justify such dramatic revisions?
UPDATE
A partial explanation: Wong has added to Gillard’s $12 billion the $4billion write-down from last October’s mid-year forecasts, and then added $1 billion extra.
From Swan’s MYEFO announcement last October:

This is driving a further write-down in tax receipts of almost $22 billion over the forward estimates, almost all from company tax and resource rent taxes, with a write-down of $4 billion in 2012-13 alone.

UPDATE
Is this the extra $1 billion Wong tacked onto the projected shortfall? Once again, Labor expected more than it got:

THE government has fallen about $1 billion short of the $3bn revenue windfall it had hoped to reap from the sale of valuable wireless spectrum to the nation’s leading telecoms companies.
After two weeks of secret bidding, Telstra, Optus and TPG Telecom have forked out a combined $2bn to acquire wireless spectrum in the government’s digital dividend auctions.

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Liberals talk tough on welfare - as they promise more

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (9:47am)

Tony Abbott’s ludicrously generous parental leave scheme - to be funded by a new levy - is rightly under fire. Abbott has also signed up for another levy, this time to pay for a disability package proposed by Julia Gillard.
A terrible start for a party which will go into government in September needing to fight what seems an inevitable fall in our standard of living.
So Joe Hockey at least ramps up the rhetoric:

THE Coalition has vowed to enforce a new “culture of self-reliance” to bring welfare spending under control as it faces a renewed debate over its economic platform because of the generosity of its $4.3 billion paid parental leave scheme.
Opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey yesterday outlined plans to wind back “universal access to payments” as he declared that governments should offer no more than what people could not do for themselves.

Yet this same party proposes to give working women up to $75,000 each to spend six months - but six months only - with their new baby.

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Global cooling in Q&A

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (9:33am)

Reader Stu is heartened:

Wow! Red letter day, Andrew - An extended Q&A packed with eager & enthusiastic students yielded not one question on climate change!.
Australia’s future in good hands.

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Paper chains

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (9:06am)

The IPA’s Julie Novak offers one measure of the explosion in government regulation:

[My chart] was the product of many months of hard, manual work to compile: the (gross) number of pages of primary legislation passed or assented in a given calendar year by commonwealth and state/territory governments. This flow measure is commonly used as a proxy (albeit an imperfect one) for regulatory burden.

(Link fixed.)

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DisabilityCare: this will cost a lot more than you’re told

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (8:57am)

Former Keating Government Minister Gary Johns doesn’t believe for a moment that the new DisabilityCare will cost the average taxpayer just $1 a day.
For a start, the government’s estimates of the net cost are already blown:

The [Productivity Commission] estimated that a further $6.5 billion (net) would be required in addition to the $7.1bn already spent annually on people with a disability - a 90 per cent increase. The Australian government actuary, however, has reworked the figures and suggests $10bn would be required, a 140 per cent increase.

Then there’s definition creep:

The government has agreed to fund the Productivity Commission recommended number of 411,250 people… In addition, a further 81,740 would receive early intervention support.
The ... profoundly disabled was a starting point in arriving at the commission figure. Others were ruled in or out on the basis of the permanence of the disability. Taxpayers should be aware that, in addition to profoundly disabled, the ABS estimates that there are 350,000 who have “severe core activity limitation”, many of whom have permanent conditions. This means that many are knocking on the door of the scheme. The pressure in future to include some of them will be immense…
Governments have failed to keep the number of Disability Support Pension claimants in check. The numbers have almost doubled in the past 20 years, and yet the rate of occupational injuries and disease has decreased dramatically from 21 per 1000 to 13 per 1000 since 1997.
The medicos who wave through the pensioner may wave through the disabled.

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If “John” is Julia, no wonder she’s broke

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (8:48am)

Terry McCrann on the Prime Minister’s bizarre theory of Julianomics:

The prime minister’s invention of John to explain the government’s budget position ... actually damned the government…
She started her little story by describing John ``employed in the same job throughout the last 20 years.’’
Reality? Who in 2013 Australia has been in the same job since 1993? ...
Yet despite that, to put it politely, lack of advancement, this John was given ``sizeable bonuses’’ from 2003 through 2007, each and every year. Why?
Then they stopped and he was told his income would now be going up by 5 per cent ``over the years to come’’…
First, again, why? Just for turning up to work each day? In the world of Gillard and Canberra, business success is taken as a given....
But true, now John’s been told he won’t get those promised increases for the next few years, but after that his income would get back up to where he ``was promised it would be.’’…
Only someone living in the cosy world of Canberra - on your money - could project such a picture of guaranteed, literally take-it-to-the bank - future prosperity… With no risk of his employer going broke…
Then the spectacular coup de grace: Gillard’s ludicrous projection of what is suggested for John. That he sell his home and car, drop his private health insurance ... and switch to ``two minute noodles!’’
Reality check, inside Gillard’s own bizarre fantasy. Her projection doesn’t have his income falling, it just stops going up.
Why on earth would anyone suggest he take such ludicrous actions? No-one’s suggesting that she and Swan should do anything remotely the equivalent with the budget…
And why on earth would he have to go the bank to get a loan, to get through to ``the time of higher income?’’
If he just brings his excess spending into line with his still very high income; after those years of big bonuses and then 5 per cent wage rises?

UPDATE
Cassandra Wilkinson introduces “John” to Don, and hopes the latter will inspire John to a more giving, dutiful and prudent life. Lovely piece.

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Gillard proposes, Abbott gets credit

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (8:46am)

With Newspoll leaving Labor down at 44 to the Coalition’s 56, it’s clear Julia Gillard can promise all she likes now - even a popular disability scheme - and it doesn’t matter.
In fact, it’s also clear that she’s being comprehensively outplayed by Tony Abbott, who sacrificed economic credibility by backing her levy but cemented his grip on victory:

The Prime Minister’s attempt to politicise the levy to fund DisabilityCare and jam Tony Abbott has backfired.
The Opposition Leader has politically neutralised one of Labor’s pillars for re-election and denied the Prime Minister a point of conflict and differentiation…
Gillard’s ploy of announcing a levy to fund the scheme, which she thought Abbott would oppose, was designed to lock an “uncaring” and “callous” Coalition into opposing DisabilityCare funding through the election campaign and build on Labor’s strength in the area.
Abbott’s acceptance of the levy - an obvious political response - destroyed that differentiation and his challenge to legislate immediately put Gillard on the back foot. Suddenly Abbott was ensuring certainty for the disabled.

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Gillard breaks another promise as she goes broke

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (8:03am)

It’s blown all our money, so the Gillard Government breaks yet another promise:

Finance Minister Penny Wong confirmed plans to drop the Family Tax Benefit Part A scheme on Sky News this morning.
“We are not in a position to proceed with the boost to the family tax benefits as a result of the revenue challenge the government is facing and the nation is facing,” she said…
The payment, which would have gone to 1.5 million families, was linked to the the mining tax, which is raising less money than originally forecast.

Last week it broke its promise not to increase the Medicare levy. All that money gone, and on what?
Despite its tax take this financial year rising more than 7.5 per cent, the Government spent all that and lots more that it foolishly expected:

The shortfall in forecast budget revenue will be between $60 billion and $80 billion from now to 2016, forcing the Gillard government to dump spending pledges, including $1.8 billion in family assistance.
Next week’s federal budget will reveal the total write-down in tax collections in the current financial year will amount to $17 billion, and rise to more than $20 billion in the next financial year.

UPDATE
Here are the false predictions and broken promises from the Budget speech Treasurer Wayne Swan delivered last May:

The ~~four years of surpluses~~ I announce tonight are a powerful endorsement of the strength of our economy, resilience of our people, and success of our policies.
In an uncertain and fast-changing world, we walk tall — as ~~a nation confidently living within its means~~
This Budget ~~delivers a surplus this coming year~~, on time, as promised, and ~~surpluses each year after that~~, strengthening over time.
It funds ~~new cost of living relief~~ for Australian families.
It ~~helps businesses invest, compete~~ and adapt to an economy in transition.
And it ~~finances~~ bold new policies to help Australians with a disability, the aged, and those who can’t afford dental care.
It does these things for a core Labor purpose:
To ~~share the tremendous benefits of the mining boom~~ with more Australians…
The deficit years of the global recession are behind us. ~~The surplus years are here~~…
Across the budget, by saving and redirecting $33.6 billion, ~~we’re balancing the books~~.
Making room for ~~$5 billion in new payments to households~~…
With ~~solid growth in real GDP of 3¼ per cent in 2012-13 and 3 per cent in 2013-14~~…
~~Unemployment is forecast to remain low at 5½ per cent~~ in the next two years; official interest rates are lower now than at any time under our predecessors; and ~~we have an investment pipeline of over $450 billion in the resources sector alone~~…
This has contributed to a deficit in 2011?12 of $44 billion, and means ~~net debt will now peak at 9.6 per cent of GDP~~, just a tenth of the level of the major advanced economies.

~~Delivering surpluses~~ when we have less tax revenue means we need to make substantial savings to pay for new initiatives.
It is these responsible decisions which ~~return the Budget to a $1.5 billion surplus in 2012-13~~, and ~~growing every year~~ after that…
So tonight, from the firm foundations of a ~~surplus budget~~, we announce new policies to ~~spread the benefits of this boom~~…
I am proud to announce a new Spreading the Benefits of the Boom package; ~~$3.6 billion to share the proceeds of the mining tax~~ with families and small businesses…
At the core of this package is ~~$1.8 billion in extra support for families~~ through more generous payments from July next year.
~~More than 1.5 million families will benefit from increases to Family Tax Benefit Part A, with nearly half taking home an extra $600 a year.~~…
Madam Deputy Speaker, the super reforms ~~funded by the mining tax~~ will help more Australians secure a better retirement, and give those on low incomes a better deal…
The ~~National Broadband Network is transforming our economy~~, and our $36 billion Nation Building programs are improving our road, rail and port networks.

Has any post-war Budget proved to be so catastrophically wrong and deceitful in so many ways so fast?

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The many errors of Jonathan Holmes, who proves me right

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (5:41am)

Jonathan Holmes last night devoted most of Media Watch last night to proving me right - that it is a platform for the Left.
For a start, would he have spent so much time attacking the views of a journalist of the Left as he did my own? Would he ever attack a journalist for being as critical of the political bent of, say, News Ltd, as I have that of the ABC?
I’ve never seen him do so and I suspect I never will, to judge from Holmes’ past comments:

To be honest I tend not to do that kind of flip, mocking take on ABC programs that I may do about other programs. If anyone says you don’t treat other programs the way you treat ABC programs, well, to some extent, that’s unavoidably true.

Last night Holmes also put the lie - accidentally - to the evasive defence ABC managing director Mark Scott offered when I pointed out that in the 24 years of the history of Media Watch not once had the ABC appointed a conservative as host, and that every one of the ABC’s main current affairs shows was likewise hosted by people of the Left.
Said Scott, speaking specifically of Holmes and four other ABC presenters (Phillip Adams, Tony Jones, Fran Kelly and Leigh Sales):

I don’t know what their personal views are.

He really doesn’t know that Adams was for decades a vocal member of Labor and a hater of “Tories”? That Jones is a warming evangelist? That Kelly is vehemently for same-sex marriage? It’s hard to imagine what more some of his presenters could do to advertise their political or ideological leanings or beliefs. Radio National host Jonathan Green actually hosted a party to celebrate the fall of John Howard, hanging up a Howard pinata for guests to bash with a stick.
And last night Holmes revealed his personal views on me (too inclined to categorise the Left), on the Left/conservative battle (we Leftists are just being rational), on ABC hosts (one of us believes in free speech and another in free markets), and global warming (the science is overwhelming and only ideological warriors would quibble).
It was, in short, the kind of show no conservative would ever have put to air.
But I won’t go through all those arguments again. I dealt with them in an exchange of emails with Holmes yesterday which you can read here.
What I will do instead is list the factual errors and misrepresentations Holmes perpetrated last night.

What Holmes got wrong:

But there are some – like News Ltd columnist and blogger Andrew Bolt, for example – who reckon we stuff up every week
False. I have never said - and do not believe - Media Watch stuffs up “every week”. This is Holmes not describing but caricaturing - the very thing he is accusing me of doing.

... or at least, that neither I, nor any of my predecessors, ever say the things that he would say, if only he had the job.
False. I have at times - last October, for example - praised what Media Watch has said, or said similar things myself. I’ve given credit when Media Watch has retreated from recycling Labor spin. Again, this is Holmes not describing but caricaturing.

Andrew’s world is a simple one. It has two boxes. There’s the one that right-minded people like himself inhabit, and there’s the box in which just about everybody else sits, which he calls “the Left”.
Actually, Jonathan, that is just projection. It’s the ABC that has two boxes. One is inhabited by right-minded journalists, and there’s the box inhabited by conservatives and “the Right”, none of whom must ever be given the running of a current affairs show, other than the minor Counterpoint, so named to explicitly warn it’s counter to everything else on the ABC.
The ABC’s view, to judge by the fruit, seems to be the one once proclaimed by former Media Watch host David Marr: ”The natural culture of journalism is a kind of vaguely soft left inquiry, sceptical of authority. I mean, that’s just the world out of which journalists come. If they don’t come out of this world, they really can’t be reporters. I mean, if you are not sceptical of authority – find another job. You know, just find another job.” I have never made such a distinction as this former Media Watch host has, dividing journalists between the Left and the bad.

My successor, who will not be Andrew Bolt but Paul Barry, had this to say next morning…

Paul Barry: I would certainly describe myself as to the left of Andrew Bolt, so on that basis I am left-wing. But in no other basis do I think I’m left-wing. I believe in the free market, I believe in freedom of speech, I believe actually in privatisation, I believe in an awful lot of things that would make me a free-marketeer and, you know, a liberal. So I don’t think that’s a valid criticism, and I have never decided anything by ideology… I look at the facts, I analyse what I see before me, and I call it as I see before me ...

That is a deeply misleading argument. Let me demonstrate: I would describe myself as more conservative than Paul Barry. But I believe in progressive taxation, legalised abortion and the right to membership of trade unions. I’m actually an agnostic and twice worked for Labor. I believe in an awful lot of things that would make me, you know, of the Left. I have never decided anything by ideology. I look at the facts, and I call it as I see before me. Only yesterday on the blog and on air I attacked Tony Abbott’s parental leave scheme.
But here is the difference. I openly declare the philosophical framework that informs my views. Barry does not.
Two more points. Note that Barry now regards freedom of speech as a hall-mark issue of conservatives, not the Left. That’s a worry. And note that of Media Watch’s seven hosts, Barry is the only one Holmes tries to suggest might not be of the Left. He can’t say of himself. Or of David Marr. Of of Stuart Littlemore. Or of Monica Attard. Or of… and on and on.

For example, in Andrew Bolt’s eyes, I’m apparently less left-wing than any of my esteemed predecessors in this chair
Andrew Bolt: I even shot a promo for him once saying that Jonathan, in my view, was the least biased of the hosts ... But, but, he still is of the Left… ... for example, he does get on his global warming hobby-horse at times, I think that’s fair enough.

False. I did not say Holmes was “less Left-wing” than other Media Watch hosts. I said precisely what I am quoted as saying - that he has been less biased, as in tried harder to be fair. In this case, however, he gave in to his worst instincts.

Now, Andrew Bolt and I disagree about global warming.
But to me, either the vast majority of the scientists who study this stuff are right, or they’re not. It’s a question of evidence, not politics.
Misleading, and constructively false. To me global warming is a question of evidence indeed, which is why I present so much of it on this blog. But is it so for Holmes? Note he does not say what it is that we disagree on, and does not say what the “vast majority of the scientists who study this stuff” say. That “vast majority” would tell Holmes that there has been no statistically significant warming for at least 15 years. That is a question of evidence, not politics. Why has Holmes never conceded this fact?

Yet whether or not you accept the reality of anthropogenic climate change seems to have become a test of whether you’re on the right or the left. Why, I don’t know, and I profoundly wish that weren’t so.
Holmes by implication suggests I am the one applying this test, and the global warming faithful are not. It is true, accepting conclusions based on unquestionable evidence should be a test not of Left vs Right but of reason vs unreason. But when the evidence is treated as irrelevant or hostile, it is fair to ask what else might be driving people to believe as they do. And there seems to me little doubt that political ideology is a huge driver of belief here. Why else is it that the more Left wing the party, the more fervent its belief in warming seems to be? The Greens are more stridently warmist than Labor, which is more so than the Liberals. The same phenomenon seems true in all Western countries.

And here’s another issue that seems to divide left and right, when it shouldn’t...the freedom of the press.
It’s a topic about which Andrew Bolt feels strongly – and he he seems to think that marks him out from the left…

Free Speech is Under Threat Never has the Australian media faced a threat as serious as this.
— Herald Sun, 14th September, 2011
That was back in September 2011, when Senator Stephen Conroy announced the Finkelstein Inquiry into print media regulation.
Those who had claimed that the Howard government threatened free speech were missing in action, Bolt claimed…

How loud they were back when there was no real threat, and only a Liberal Prime Minister to mock…
Where are these people now that the threat is real, and the politicians who rule us openly say they want to use state power to persecute journalists who criticise them?
— Herald Sun, 14th September, 2011
Two weeks later, a Federal court judge found that Andrew Bolt had breached the Racial Discrimination Act.
Bolt saw it, of course, as a dangerous limitation on his freedom of speech – and he framed it as conservatives versus ‘the multiculturalists’…
Well, Andrew, for what it’s worth, and much as I disliked your original columns, I called the court’s finding “a profoundly disturbing judgment”.
On the ABC’s Drum website, I wrote this :

It creates one particular area of public life where speech is regulated by tests that simply don’t apply anywhere else, and in which judges - never, for all their pontifications, friends of free speech - get to do the regulating.
— ABC Online, The Drum, 30th September, 2011
Maybe that means I’m not a lefty - or maybe, that people don’t fit neatly into Andrew’s boxes.
False dichotomy. It takes a collectivist to assume that a few dissenters disprove a generality. It is also a slur and false to again caricature me as someone who thinks everyone of the Left has identical views.
The facts: It was the Greens that called for an inquiry to punish the “hate media” for “bias”, especially in coverage of global warming. It was Labor which held that inquiry, backed by many journalists of the Left and staffed by academics of the Left. It was Labor which recently proposed draconian laws against a free press. It was academics of the Left who cheered them on. It was Labor who proposed draconian anti-discrimination laws limiting free speech. Again, academics and many journalists of the Left cheered them on, as did the Human Rights Commission. It was a Labor-drafted law that had me found guilty of expressing an unlawful opinion, and it is the Liberal party which proposes now to amend it.
True, Holmes did criticise the judgement, but he would know as well as I do that on the Left he was one of the few. The AWU’s Paul Howes also spoke out, for which I give him great credit. But so marked is the Left’s betrayal of free speech that new Media Watch host Paul Barry cites his support for free speech as evidence that he is not entirely of the Left. And Holmes even quotes him doing so, yet fails to draw the obvious conclusion.

But eighteen months later, when Communications Minister Stephen Conroy dropped his half-baked media regulation proposals on us, Andrew Bolt added his own special angle to the general condemnation…
No, Stephen, we don’t need a media supercop

The only real threat to diversity of opinion is one Mr Conroy won’t discuss: the vast expansion of the Left-leaning and government-funded ABC.
— Herald Sun, 14th March, 2013
As that great conservative hero, Ronald Reagan, famously said: “There you go again”.
This is Holmes arguing not with evidence but a sneer. Does he dispute the ABC is extending its reach? Does he dispute it is government-funded, and giving away for free what other media outlets must charge for to survive? Does he seriously dispute, as a Leftist himself, the ABC leans to Left? Why does he not engage with that argument?

Now Andrew Bolt, we understand, is one of the few journalists that Ms Rinehart respects and listens to.
He presents a program on the Ten Network, in which she is a major shareholder.
But the toughest thing he has written about [Rinehart issuing a subpoena to a Fairfax journalist to discover her source] to date is this ...

For a major shareholder of Fairfax and board member at Channel 10 to take action which could ultimately see one of her company’s own journalists jailed is indeed a terrible look. — Herald Sun, 16th March, 2013
But, he goes on to argue, this is not an attack on free speech. And he frames the argument, as usual, in terms of left versus right.
False. And a gross misrepresentation. I did not frame the argument over the subpoena as Left versus Right. I accused Eureka Street of doing so. As I said:

So why is Eureka Street going to town on this issue while staying silent on a far broader attack on a free press and the free speech - an attack not by an individual but by a government, and not on one journalist but all?
Again, Holmes misrepresented my argument in order to present a caricature of a hypocritical Right-winger, betraying his principles to please his proprietor.
Except, of course, Rinehart is not my proprietor, and I did indeed criticise her actions, not once but three times. If Rinehart did indeed do as Holmes smirked and listened to me, she would have dropped that subpoena.

Come on Andrew. Where’s the moral outrage? You’re normally so good at that.
Come on, Jonathan. Where is the integrity? Where the honesty? You’re normally so ... No, strike that.

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77.3 per cent of Labor’s figures are wrong

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (5:26am)

Last week we discovered Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor just made up figures to suit his spin:

Two weeks ago Immigration Minister Brendon O’Connor offered an exact, precise figure:

I believe that the areas where there’s been an illegitimate use of 457s numbers in the thousands… I would say it would exceed over ten thousand.
Trouble is:

However, the report provided to the minister late last year found little evidence that employers discriminated in favour of overseas workers.
O’Connor was asked on the ABC’s AM this morning where he got his 10,000 rorters figure from, when his department’s report says such rorting is “rare”. He refused to answer:

I’m making a forecast… We don’t have an exact, precise figure.
He did but he doesn’t.

Last night it was the turn of Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig:

CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: Joe Ludwig, welcome.
JOE LUDWIG, MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE: Welcome. Pleased to meet you again.
CHRIS UHLMANN: You say that the community can have confidence that 99 per cent of live export animals won’t be abused on their way to slaughter. Where do you get that figure from?
JOE LUDWIG: I’ve got complete confidence - and in fact I’d go further and say even 99.9....
CHRIS UHLMANN: Well as you’ve just said that 99.9 per cent of animals are not abused on their way to slaughter, where do you get that figure from? Is it yours or is it the department’s, is it based on an exhaustive survey or is it a sample?
JOE LUDWIG: What it is is the number of complaints that we receive…
CHRIS UHLMANN: Sure, minister. Can I stop you for a moment? I’m just trying to track down where you get this figure 99.9 per cent from. It’s an extraordinary degree of certainty. Where’s the data from?
JOE LUDWIG: It’s the confidence that I can inform you and the confidence that the statistics that the audits which are on the website demonstrate; again, it’s analogous, it’s about having confidence that this system delivers animal welfare outcomes. That’s the confidence I have in the system.

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Jonathan, it’s not just me who’s noticed

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (5:03am)

Free speech

Others are also onto Media Watch’s Jonathan Holmes and the Left’s abandonment of free speech:

LABOR is guilty of an unprecedented attack on freedom of speech and the traditional defenders of this right—the media and academia—are abandoning the field, opposition legal affairs spokesman George Brandis will say in a speech to the Sydney Institute this evening on what he calls “the freedom wars"…

Senator Brandis spoke of his relief at the government’s abandonment of its plans to create statutory media regulation and its withdrawal of what he called “bizarrely titled” anti-discrimination laws, which proposed to make expression of opinion actionable on the grounds that it might be insulting or offensive to other citizens and to reverse the onus of proof.
He warned that at the time the media laws were withdrawn from parliament, new legislation for the Australia Council was introduced that removed freedom of artistic expression as one of the values to be protected by the council…
“Intolerance is back in vogue; indeed, if you are a social engineer of left-wing activist of a particular hue, then intolerance of those whose thinking does not conform to your agenda is not a defect; it is a emblem of righteousness.”
Senator Brandis was bemused that last Friday’s press freedom dinner in Sydney, sponsored by the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, did not celebrate the defeat of plans for a statutory regulator.
He will attack comments made to him and opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull at the function by former Fairfax journalist David Marr over the Andrew Bolt case, as well as speeches by outgoing Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes and MEAA head Chris Warren.

UPDATE
Reader Ancient Marriner on a very ABC problem:

THE ABC says the decision to take Sydney TV newsreader Juanita Phillips off air on Friday night due to a conflict of interest was made “in the usual course” of business. Phillips was replaced as reader of the Friday night bulletin in NSW because of her relationship with federal minister Greg Combet, who was to be featured after that day giving evidence to the Independent Commission Against Corruption about his links with former CFMEU boss John Maitland.

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Close the gap - between the spin and deadly truth of Aboriginal Australia

Andrew Bolt May 07 2013 (12:01am)

Tony Thomas on burying a deadly dysfunction in Aboriginal society under a great heap of euphemisms:

Meanwhile, deep discussions about Reconciliations, constitutional recognitions, treaties, social justice, disadvantage and ‘negative social indicators’ continue, a type of national conversation that Peter Sutton dismisses as “yabber”. Professor Sutton is a linguist and anthropologist with a lifetime’s work for Aboriginal progress. He writes, “Such [bureaucratic] language…moves in a territory somewhere between euphemism, banality and propaganda. A murdered mother is not ‘disadvantaged’ – she has lost her life.”
Reconciliation, he says, has now “attracted the hideous Orwellian language of management-speak. In glossy-brochure land, in a galaxy far, far away, we were to read about governance, capacity building, partnerships, whole of government, benchmarks, stakeholders, leadership, targets, measureable outcomes, role models – and so it goes…It is the language of managerialist welfarism. But if you believe the media releases, it’s the Breakfast of Champions. And where is our Kurt Vonnegut when we need him?”
To pad out these official narratives, bureaucrats now insert colorful “Case Studies”, each involving an individual Aborigine who has become a success story thanks to Program XYZ. Of course, there is never a case study involving failures. Suggested case studies of failure:

In Alice Springs, there is quite a gap to be closed, with Aboriginal women there 80 times more likely to be hospitalised after assault than women living anywhere else.
There is so much persistent ear disease in the communities that 40% (urban) and 70% (remote) Aborigines have hearing loss and difficulties.
More than a third of the Indigenous children under 14 are in over-crowded housing. In remote communities, more than half the children live over-crowded.
About a third of the housing is also deficient in washing, sanitation and food storage and cooking facilities.[8] Even where new building and repair programs were active in the NT, housing occupancy would fall on average only from “the high to the early-teens” – presumably from about 18 to 13 people per house.
The rate of abuse and neglect confirmations nationally for Indigenous children under 17 years has risen from 2.2% of the Indigenous child population in 2002-03 to 4.2% in 2011-12. Protection orders similarly have risen from 2.3% to 5.5%.
In the NT in the decade to 2010, child removals grew from 175 to 555, a 215% increase, including a 40% increase in 2008-10. Worse, removals are forecast to escalate while availability of Aboriginal carers diminishes.

The normally level-headed Productivity Commission cites one bizarre finding that, despite appalling living conditions in remote communities, the settlements “also possessed protective factors that can safeguard children and families from psychological distress, such as spirituality and connection to land, family and culture.

Read on.

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Poll: voters fed up. UPDATE Newspoll shows Gillard disabled

Andrew Bolt May 06 2013 (10:02pm)

This will be far worse for Labor than the Liberals, if more votes are now locked in:

A national survey by Melbourne University also found most Australians believe the quality of leadership and the tone of debate is worse than usual. And 70 per cent lack confidence in the federal government, including almost half of Labor voters…
The survey, undertaken in March and April, found:

- 43 per cent say they usually take a ‘’good deal’’ of interest in politics, but just 36 per cent say they are now interested.
- 36 per cent say they have little or no interest in this year’s federal election.
- 58 per cent say the quality of federal leadership is ‘’noticeably worse’’ that it used to be.

UPDATE
Julia Gillard’s big disability package hasn’t done much for her poll numbers.
Essential Media has the gap widening: Labor 44 to the Coalition 56.

UPDATE
Newspoll says three quarters of voters like Gillard’s disability scheme, but it’s done nothing to make them vote for her:

According to the latest Newspoll survey, conducted exclusively for The Australian on the weekend, the Coalition’s primary vote is virtually unchanged from two weeks ago on 47 per cent as is Labor’s on 31 per cent. The Coalition’s lift of one point and Labor’s fall of one point were both within the margin of error and the Greens and “others” were unchanged on 10 and 12 per cent respectively. Based on preference flows at the 2010 election, the Coalition has kept a clear election-winning lead with 56 per cent to Labor’s 44 per cent.

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Determination will set you apart from the dreamers.
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4 her
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Dennis Jensen

Interest rates now below what Wayne Swan referred to as "emergency rates"! What's that say about the state of the economy?

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A brilliant illustration of why Keynesian economics fails. Government finance is not a zero sum game. Decreased regulation has often improved business outlook. - ed
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IS IT WELL WITH YOUR SOUL?

Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin

Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with your child? And the Shunammite woman answered,it is well. She was in deep pain over the dearth of her son but still picks courage to tell the man of God that,it is well.Today,i urge you to put your heavy load on Jesus and say to Him,it is well.

I am living, but I’m not doing the living, Paul cried out. “I’m dead. Christ is alive, and I am watching Him live His amazing life through me”. And then Paul gives us God’s definition of love: He says, “He loved me, and gave Himself for me.” That’s love: God giving Himself away for those who do not deserve it, cannot repay it, and may not understand it. That same Paul, in the midst of years of imprisonment, persecution, hardship, and the facing of certain death, used a prison cell as his personal post office, and wrote letters from his heart to the hearts of those outside who were wondering what kind of fear and frustration Paul was suffering from inside those cells of death.But Paul did not see it that way.He did not complain of his hardship.I believe that in his heart,he said,it is well.Today I say to all of you reading my message that,it is well with my soul.God bless you.
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Architect proposes disguising gas power station as a "green mountain"

Source: http://techandfacts.com/architect-proposes-disguising-gas-power-station-green-mountain/

-C.R

For more AMAZING stuff visit New Inventions, Modern Technology And Interesting Facts of 21st Century
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MOODY’S CONFIRMS AAA

Treasurer Mike Baird today welcomed the reaffirmation of NSW’s triple-A credit rating by Moody’s and said it was an endorsement of the NSW Government’s strong fiscal strategy.

“Today’s announcement by Moody’s confirms that the NSW Government is delivering strong, stable and responsible economic management,” said Mr Baird.

“The NSW Government has been working hard to protect its Triple-A credit rating. We have taken a number of difficult decisions to address the massive hit to our revenues and to control the State’s expenses, and we welcome the endorsement of this approach.”

Moody’s report states: “ New South Wales’ ratings reflect its diverse economic base, considerable budget flexibility, and secure and predictable grants from the Commonwealth. The ratings also take into account the state’s commitment to achieving budgetary redress over the medium term through a reduction in expenditure growth.

“While our tough decisions have not been popular, they have enabled us to put more jobs on the frontline, to invest in the infrastructure needed across this state, and to prioritise funding for major reforms like the NDIS and Gonski,” said Mr Baird.

“It’s pleasing that Moody’s has acknowledged the strength of NSW’s rating compared to most of the other states and territories.

“The positive impact of our recent ports transaction on strengthening our balance sheet has also been recognised, but it remains a financial balancing act.

“We inherited $55 billion of net debt, a $30 billion infrastructure backlog, and before the last Budget, NSW lost $5.2 billion in GST revenue.

“Responsible economic management is not easy, but this Government will continue to make the hard decisions, and the right decisions, to see our state’s finances return to a sustainable position,” Mr Baird said.
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I support live Cattle Exports, I support uranium mining and I support Coal Seam Gas. People who want to feel good, are intent on destroying productive industries that make money and provide the Government's with revenue through taxes. These are the same people who want to increase welfare payments and Government spending. How can people expect to cut the Government's revenue by shutting down things that make money and at the same time increase spending? Zaya Toma
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4 her
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Romeo and Juliet
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♥ Spring Cleaning Recipe for the Grout ♥

7 cups water, 1/2 cup baking soda, 1/3 cup lemon juice and 1/4 cup vinegar - throw in a spray bottle and spray your floor, let it sit for a minute or two... then scrub ♥

Join us here for more every day fun, tips, recipes, weight loss support & motivation :)
>>> http://bit.ly/Motivate-Me
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‘Til My John Wayne Comes Along – Shantell Ogden
- Music Video -

At this link:
http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/til-my-john-wayne-comes-along-shantell-ogden/
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From Area 51 to the Nazca lines, seen below, here are 10 of the strangest places on Earth:http://oak.ctx.ly/r/4rw0

Are there any other places that should have made the list?
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John Wayne and Claire Trevor
Stagecoach (1939)

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Independent-Film-News-and-Media/72095145358?sk=photos_stream
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Don't give up - ed
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Dark chocolate peanut butter
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Honor and majesty are [found] in His presence; strength and joy are [found] in His sanctuary.(1 Chronicles 16:27, AMP)

Do you need more strength and joy in your life? The Bible tells us that in God’s presence there is fullness of joy — the most abundant and complete. And when you have His joy, you have His supernatural strength. There’s nothing that can come against you when you are filled with the strength and joy of the Lord.

Notice this verse says that strength and joy are found in His sanctuary. One translation says they are found “where He is.” And do you know “where He is?” His Spirit is alive in every believer, but in His Word He promises that He inhabits, or manifests, in the praises of His people.So praise Him all the time.God bless you.

Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin

Abba Father, I bless You today.I adore You,I worship You.I bless Your Holy name. I thank You for Your goodness in my life. Thank You for filling me with Your strength and joy. I praise and worship You today and always, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Some of the Art on our salon walls. — at Colin Moxey Hairdressing.
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NASA's newest rover won't be exploring another planet, as the rover will stay close to home and explore Greenland's ice sheets to better understand how they form, and how quickly they may be melting. http://oak.ctx.ly/r/4oq5

Here, a prototype of the rover, GROVER, minus its solar panels, was tested in January 2012 at a ski resort in Idaho.
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"Will you take the path of ease?
Or will you choose a road filled with uncertainty and adventure?

Will you wilt under criticism?
Or will you carry on with conviction?

When it's tough will you give up?
Or will you be relentless?"

I heard these words spoken at a graduation ceremony today, the only words to click in my mind from the entire 1.5 hour event. CHARACTER DETERMINES DESTINY. Ali Kadhim
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Quick Pix: Judy Garland w/Video

http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/quick-pix-judy-garland-wvideo/

Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969) was an American actress, singer and vaudevillian. Described by Fred Astaire as “the greatest entertainer who ever lived” and renowned for her contralto voice, she attained international stardom throughout a career that spanned more than 40 years as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage. Respected for her versatility, she received a Juvenile Academy Award and won a Golden Globe Award as well as Grammy Awards and a Special Tony Award. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the remake of A Star is Born and for the Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg. She remains the youngest recipient (at 39 years of age) of the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in the motion picture industry.
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You are looking at some of the strongest boys, girls, men, and ladies we know in this area. Those who are devoted to becoming the best they can be through any and all circumstances. No complaints, no excuses, only hard work will be accepted. Pain is their friend and weakness is their enemy. ✊❤ #warriormentality #team9lives #9livesparkour
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God wants you to know and believe that He is wholly on your side, defending and taking care of you! Find out more in today's devotional and be blessed!http://bit.ly/12H0UDa
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In this video excerpt from the message of the year, catch a glimpse of why you can expect a bright future. Know that God will open and shut the right doors for your provision and protection!
http://josephprince.com/
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For the believer, God’s throne is not a throne of judgment. It is a throne of grace (Heb 4:16), a throne of unmerited favor.
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For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous. —Romans 5:19

Beloved, because your righteousness from the Lord is not based on what you’ve done, but what He has done at Calvary, you cannot lose your righteousness. And because you are righteous, healing and provision—blessings that belong to the righteous—belong to you! When you realize that you cannot earn your righteousness, you’ll realize that your failures cannot cause you to lose the righteousness you have in Christ either. Beloved, you are forever righteous, and therefore forever qualified for God’s blessings of healing, wholeness, good success and long life! Amen!
http://josephprince.com/
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Screen Shot 2013-02-15 at 5.00.24 PM5922-0

Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for May 6th. Enjoy!

Townhall: Whistleblower on White House Benghazi lies: My jaw hit the floor

Mark Krikorian: The Rubio Amnesty

Glenn Reynolds: Colonial cannibals and African goats

Twitchy: Anti-gun bigot Piers Morgan mocks, attacks Dana Loesch and family; Compares them to Newtown, Conn., shooter and mother

Twitchy: Breaking: Sharyl Attkisson tweets reveal Obama admin lies; US Special Forces stopped from going to Benghazi

Well, at least he kept it simple.

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May 7

1272 – The first session of the Second Council of Lyonwas held to discuss, among other issues, the pledge byByzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos to end theGreat Schism and reunite the Eastern church with the West.
1763 – Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa Native American tribe led an attempt to seize Fort Detroit and drive out the British settlers, marking the start ofPontiac's War.
1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre established the Cult of the Supreme Being as the new state religion of the French First Republic.
1915 – First World War: The German submarine Unterseeboot 20 torpedoed and sank the ocean liner RMS Lusitania (pictured), killing 1,198 on board.
1960 – Cold War: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced that his country was holding American pilot Francis Gary Powers, whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union six days earlier.
2007 – A team of Israeli archaeologists discovered the tomb of 1st century BC ruler of Judea Herod the Great.

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Events [edit]

351 – The Jewish revolt against Gallus breaks out. After his arrival at Antioch, the Jews begin a rebellion in Palestine.
558 – In Constantinople, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapses. Justinian I immediately orders that the dome be rebuilt.
1274 – In France, the Second Council of Lyons opens to regulate the election of the Pope.
1429 – Joan of Arc ends the Siege of Orléans, pulling an arrow from her own shoulder and returning, wounded, to lead the final charge. The victory marks a turning point in the Hundred Years' War.
1487 – The Siege of Málaga commences during the Spanish Reconquista.
1664 – Louis XIV of France inaugurates the Palace of Versailles.
1697 – Stockholm's royal castle (dating back to medieval times) is destroyed by fire. It is replaced by the current Royal Palace in the eighteenth century.
1718 – The city of New Orleans is founded by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville.
1763 – American Indian Wars: Pontiac's Rebellion begins – Chief Pontiac begins the "Conspiracy of Pontiac" by attacking British forces at Fort Detroit.
1794 – French Revolution: Robespierre introduces the Cult of the Supreme Being in the National Convention as the new state religion of the French First Republic.
1824 – World premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna, Austria. The performance is conducted by Michael Umlauf under the composer's supervision.
1832 – The independence of Greece is recognized by the Treaty of London. Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria is chosen King.
1840 – The Great Natchez Tornado strikes Natchez, Mississippi killing 317 people. It is the second deadliest tornado in United States history.
1846 – The Cambridge Chronicle, America's oldest surviving weekly newspaper, is published for the first time in Cambridge, Massachusetts
1847 – The American Medical Association is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1864 – American Civil War: The Army of the Potomac, under General Ulysses S. Grant, breaks off from the Battle of the Wilderness and moves southwards.
1895 – In Saint Petersburg, Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrates to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society his invention, the Popov lightning detector — a primitive radio receiver. In some parts of the former Soviet Union the anniversary of this day is celebrated as Radio Day.
1915 – World War I: German submarine U-20 sinks RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people including 128 Americans. Public reaction to the sinking turns many formerly pro-Germans in the United States against the German Empire
1915 – Japanese 21 Demands Ultimatum to China (Commemorated as National Day of Humiliation)
1920 – Kiev Offensive: Polish troops led by Józef Piłsudski and Edward Rydz-Śmigły and assisted by a symbolic Ukrainian force capture Kiev only to be driven out by the Red Armycounter-offensive a month later.
1920 – Treaty of Moscow: Soviet Russia recognizes the independence of the Democratic Republic of Georgia only to invade the country six months later.
1920 – The Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, opens the first exhibition by the Group of Seven.
1937 – Spanish Civil War: The German Condor Legion, equipped with Heinkel He 51 biplanes, arrives in Spain to assist Francisco Franco's forces.
1940 – The Norway Debate in the British House of Commons begins, and leads to the replacement of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with Winston Churchill three days later.
1942 – During the Battle of the Coral Sea, United States Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attack and sink the Japanese Imperial Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.
1945 – World War II: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document takes effect the next day.
1946 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (later renamed Sony) is founded with around 20 employees.
1948 – The Council of Europe is founded during the Hague Congress.
1952 – The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey W.A. Dummer.
1954 – Indochina War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat and a Vietnamese victory (the battle began on March 13).
1960 – Cold War: U-2 Crisis of 1960 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers.
1964 – Pacific Air Lines Flight 773, a Fairchild F-27 airliner, crashes near San Ramon, California, killing all 44 aboard; the FBI later reports that a cockpit recorder tape indicates that the pilot and co-pilot had been shot by a suicidal passenger.
1974 – West German Chancellor Willy Brandt resigns.
1986 – Canadian Patrick Morrow became the first person to climb each of the Seven Summits.
1992 – Michigan ratifies a 203-year-old proposed amendment to the United States Constitution making the 27th Amendment law. This amendment bars the U.S. Congress from giving itself a mid-term pay raise.
1992 – The Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on its first mission (STS-49).
1992 – Three employees at a McDonald's Restaurant in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, are brutally murdered and a fourth permanently disabled after a botched robbery. It is the first "fast-food murder" in Canada.
1994 – Edvard Munch's iconic painting The Scream is recovered undamaged after having been stolen from the National Gallery of Norway in February.
1998 – Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for $40 billion USD and forms DaimlerChrysler in the largest industrial merger in history.
1999 – Pope John Paul II travels to Romania becoming the first pope to visit a predominantly Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism in 1054.
1999 – Kosovo War: In Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, three Chinese citizens are killed and 20 wounded when a NATO aircraft bombs the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
1999 – In Guinea-Bissau, President João Bernardo Vieira is ousted in a military coup.
2000 – Vladimir Putin is inaugurated as president of Russia.
2002 – A China Northern Airlines MD-82 plunges into the Yellow Sea, killing 112 people.
2004 – American businessman Nick Berg is beheaded by Islamic militants. The act is recorded on videotape and released on the Internet.
2007 – Israeli archaeologists discover the tomb of Herod the Great south of Jerusalem.
2009 – Over 100 New Zealand Police officers begin a 40-hour siege of a lone gunman in Napier, New Zealand.

Births [edit]

1328 – Louis II, Elector of Brandenburg (d. 1365)
1530 – Louis, Prince of Condé, French general (d. 1569)
1605 – Patriarch Nikon, 7th patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church (d. 1681)
1643 – Stephanus Van Cortlandt, American politician (d. 1700)
1700 – Gerard van Swieten, Dutch physician (d. 1772)
1704 – Carl Heinrich Graun, German composer and tenor (d. 1759)
1711 – David Hume, Scottish philosopher and historian (d. 1776)
1724 – Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, Austrian general (d. 1797)
1740 – Nikolai Arkharov, Russian general (d. 1814)
1745 – Carl Stamitz, German composer (d. 1801)
1748 – Olympe de Gouges, French playwright and feminist revolutionary (d. 1793)
1756 – Thomas Linley the younger, English composer (d. 1778)
1763 – Józef Antoni Poniatowski, Polish prince (d. 1813)
1767 – Princess Frederica Charlotte of Prussia (d. 1820)
1774 – William Bainbridge, American commodore (d. 1833)
1787 – Jacques Viger, Canadian politician, 1st mayor of Montreal (d. 1858)
1812 – Robert Browning, English poet (d. 1889)
1826 – Varina Davis, American author, First Lady of the Confederate States of America (d. 1906)
1833 – Johannes Brahms, German composer (d. 1897)
1836 – Joseph Gurney Cannon, American politician (d. 1926)
1840 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer (d. 1893)
1847 – Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, English statesman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1929)
1857 – William A. MacCorkle, American politician (d. 1930)
1860 – Tom Norman, English businessman and showman (d. 1930)
1861 – Rabindranath Tagore, Indian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1941)
1867 – Władysław Reymont, Polish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1925)
1880 – Pandurang Vaman Kane, Bharat Ratna,Indian Sanskrit Scholor.(d.1972)
1881 – George E. Wiley, American racing cyclist (d. 1954)
1882 – Willem Elsschot, Flemish writer (d. 1960)
1885 – George 'Gabby' Hayes, American actor (d. 1969)
1891 – Harry McShane, Scottish socialist (d. 1988)
1892 – Archibald MacLeish, American poet, writer, and Librarian of Congress (d. 1982)
1892 – Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman, 1st President of Yugoslavia (d. 1980)
1893 – Frank J. Selke, Canadian ice hockey manager (d. 1985)
1899 – Alfred Gerrard, British sculptor (d.1998)
1901 – Gary Cooper, American actor (d. 1961)
1909 – Edwin H. Land, American scientist and inventor, co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation (d. 1991)
1911 – Ishirō Honda, Japanese director (d. 1993)
1912 – Pannalal Patel, Gujarati author (d. 1989)
1914 – Arthur Snelling, English civil servant and diplomat (d. 1996)
1916 – Huw Wheldon, English broadcaster and executive (d. 1986)
1917 – David Tomlinson, English actor (d. 2000)
1919 – La Esterella, Flemish singer (d. 2011)
1919 – Eva Perón, Argentine actress and First Lady, wife of Juan Perón (d. 1952)
1921 – Gaston Rébuffat, French mountaineer (d. 1985)
1922 – Lew Anderson, American actor and musician (d. 2006)
1922 – Darren McGavin, American actor (d. 2006)
1922 – Joe O'Donnell, American photographer and journalist (d. 2007)
1923 – Anne Baxter, American actress (d. 1985)
1924 – Albert Band, American director (d. 2002)
1926 – Val Bisoglio, Italian-American actor
1927 – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, German-American author and screenwriter (d. 2013)
1927 – Jim Lowe, American singer-songwriter
1928 – John Ingle, American actor (d. 2012)
1929 – Babe Parilli, American football player
1929 – Dick Williams, American baseball player, manager, and coach (d. 2011)
1930 – Totie Fields, American comedienne (d. 1978)
1931 – Teresa Brewer, American singer (d. 2007)
1931 – Gene Wolfe, American author
1932 – Jordi Bonet, Catalan-Canadian painter, muralist, and sculptor (d. 1979)
1932 – Pete Domenici, American politician
1933 – Johnny Unitas, American football player (d. 2002)
1933 – Nexhmije Pagarusha, Albanian singer and actress
1935 – Isobel Warren, Canadian author
1936 – Bobby Joe Green, American football player (d. 1993)
1937 – Claude Raymond, Canadian baseball player
1939 – Sidney Altman, Canadian biologist, Nobel laureate
1939 – Ruud Lubbers, Dutch politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
1939 – Johnny Maestro, American singer (Johnny Maestro & The Brooklyn Bridge) (d. 2010)
1939 – Jimmy Ruffin, American singer
1939 – Ruggero Deodato, Italian director, actor, and screenwriter
1940 – Angela Carter, English novelist and journalist (d. 1992)
1940 – Dave Chambers, Canadian ice hockey coach
1940 – Jim Connors, American radio personality (d. 1987)
1940 – Vasilis N. Triantafillidis, Greek comedian and actor
1941 – Catherine P. Saxton, English-American public relations executive
1943 – Terry Allen, American singer and painter
1943 – Harvey Andrews, English singer-songwriter and poet
1943 – Peter Carey, Australian author
1944 – Eva Norvind, Mexican actress (d. 2006)
1944 – Richard O'Sullivan, English actor
1945 – Christy Moore, Irish singer-songwriter and guitarist (Planxty and Moving Hearts)
1945 – Robin Strasser, American actress
1946 – Jerry Nolan, American drummer (The New York Dolls) (d. 1992)
1946 – Thelma Houston, American singer-songwriter and actress (Sisters of Glory)
1946 – Bill Kreutzmann, American drummer (Grateful Dead, The Other Ones The Dead, 7 Walkers, Rhythm Devils, and BK3)
1946 – Brian Turner, English chef
1946 – Michael Rosen, English poet
1946 – Marv Hubbard, American football player
1948 – Susan Atkins, American serial killer (d. 2009)
1949 – Kathy Ahern, American golfer (d. 1996)
1949 – Marilyn Cole, English model
1950 – Randall 'Tex' Cobb, American boxer and actor
1950 – Tim Russert, American journalist (d. 2008)
1951 – Robert Hegyes, American actor (d. 2012)
1951 – Bernie Marsden, English singer-songwriter, musician, and producer (Whitesnake, Paice Ashton Lord, and The Snakes)
1953 – Müslüm Gürses, Turkish arabesk singer and actor (d. 2013)
1953 – Pat McInally, American football player
1953 – Ian McKay, English soldier, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1982)
1953 – Frank Michael, Italian-born Belgian singer
1954 – Philippe Geluck, Belgian cartoonist
1954 – Amy Heckerling, American director
1955 – Clément Gignac, Canadian politician
1955 – Ben Poquette, American basketball player
1955 – Peter Reckell, American actor
1955 – Kevin Reed, American theologian
1955 – Axel Zwingenberger, German pianist and songwriter
1956 – Jan Peter Balkenende, Dutch politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
1956 – Anne Dudley, English composer
1956 – Nicholas Hytner, English director and producer
1956 – Jean Lapierre, Canadian politician and broadcaster
1957 – Ray Fernandez, American wrestler (d. 2004)
1957 – Ned Bellamy, American actor
1958 – Mark G. Kuzyk, American physicist
1959 – Barbara Yung Mei-ling, Hong Kong actress (d. 1985)
1959 – Michael E. Knight, American actor
1960 – Adam Bernstein, American director
1960 – Almudena Grandes, Spanish novelist
1961 – Hans-Peter Bartels, German politician
1961 – Phil Campbell, English guitarist and songwriter (Motörhead and Persian Risk)
1962 – Tony Campbell, American basketball player
1962 – Dominik Moll, German-French director and screenwriter
1963 – Johnny Lee Middleton, American musician and songwriter (Savatage and Trans-Siberian Orchestra)
1964 – Denis Mandarino, Brazilian composer, artist and writer
1964 – Doug Benson, American comedian
1964 – Ronnie Harmon, American football player
1964 – Leslie O'Neal, American football player
1965 – Owen Hart, Canadian wrestler (d. 1999)
1965 – Norman Whiteside, Irish footballer
1965 – Reuben Davis, American football player
1967 – Martin Bryant, Australian serial killer
1967 – Adam Price, Danish screenwriter and television chef
1967 – Joe Rice, American politician
1968 – Traci Lords, American actress
1968 – Lisa Raitt, Canadian politician
1969 – Eagle-Eye Cherry, Swedish singer-songwriter and musician
1969 – Jun Falkenstein, American director
1969 – Katerina Maleeva, Bulgarian tennis player
1969 – Rick Porras, American film producer
1970 – Kim Su-ro, South Korean actor
1971 – Horgh, Norwegian drummer (Immortal, Hypocrisy, and Grimfist)
1971 – Ivan Sergei, American actor
1971 – Dave Karpa, Canadian ice hockey player
1972 – Peter Dubovský, Slovak footballer (d. 2000)
1972 – Frank Trigg, American mixed martial artist
1973 – Kristian Lundin, Swedish songwriter, composer, and producer
1973 – Paolo Savoldelli, Italian cyclist
1974 – Breckin Meyer, American actor
1974 – Ian Pearce, English footballer
1975 – Jason Tunks, Canadian discus thrower
1975 – Nicole Sheridan, American pornographic film actress
1975 – Zee, American rapper and songwriter
1975 – Martina Topley-Bird, English singer-songwriter and musician
1976 – Calvin Booth, American basketball player
1976 – Andrea Lo Cicero, Italian rugby player
1976 – Michael P. Murphy, U.S. Navy SEAL, first Medal of Honor recipient in the Afghanistan War
1977 – Lisa Kelly, Irish singer (Celtic Woman)
1978 – Stian Arnesen, Norwegian musician and songwriter (The Kovenant, Dimmu Borgir, and Carpe Tenebrum)
1978 – Brian Clevinger, American author
1978 – Shawn Marion, American basketball player
1978 – Stephanie Pohl, German volleyball player
1979 – Katie Douglas, American basketball player
1980 – Johan Kenkhuis, Dutch swimmer
1980 – Kate Lawler, English model and DJ
1981 – Tim Connolly, American ice hockey player
1982 – Ákos Buzsáky, Hungarian footballer
1983 – DJ Row, Greek-American DJ
1984 – James Loney, American baseball player
1984 – Alex Smith, American football player
1984 – Drew Stanton, American football player
1984 – May7ven, Nigerian-English singer-songwriter, producer, dancer, and actress
1985 – Drew Neitzel, American basketball player
1985 – Dan Sweetman, Australian television host
1986 – Mark Furze, Australian actor
1986 – Matt Helders, English drummer (Arctic Monkeys and Mongrel)
1987 – Asami Konno, Japanese singer (former member of Morning Musume)
1987 – Michael Maidens, English footballer (d. 2007)
1987 – Jérémy Ménez, French footballer
1987 – Serge Gakpé, Togolese footballer
1988 – Natalie Mejia, American singer and dancer (Girlicious)
1989 – Master Shortie, English singer-songwriter, rapper, and producer
1990 – Yoon Bit-Garam, South Korean footballer
1992 – Alexander Ludwig, Canadian actor
1999 – Masaki Sato, Japanese singer (Morning Musume)
2000 – Maxwell Perry Cotton, American actor
2001 – Destiny Whitlock, American actress

Deaths [edit]

973 – Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 912)
1092 – Remigius de Fécamp, Benedictine monk, 1st bishop of Lincoln
1427 – Thomas la Warr, 5th Baron De La Warr, English churchman
1523 – Franz von Sickingen, German soldier (b. 1481)
1539 – Ottaviano Petrucci, Italian printer (b. 1466)
1615 – Sanada Yukimura, Japanese samurai (b. 1567)
1617 – David Fabricius, German astronomer (b. 1564)
1667 – Johann Jakob Froberger, German composer (b. 1616)
1682 – Feodor III of Russia (b. 1661)
1718 – Mary of Modena, wife of James II of England (b. 1658)
1793 – Pietro Nardini, Italian composer (b. 1722)
1800 – Niccolò Piccinni, Italian composer (b. 1728)
1805 – William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, Irish-English statesman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1737)
1825 – Antonio Salieri, Italian composer (b. 1750)
1840 – Caspar David Friedrich, German painter (b. 1774)
1868 – Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, English statesman, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1778)
1872 – Alexander Loyd, American politician, 4th Mayor of Chicago (b. 1805)
1876 – William Buell Sprague, American clergyman and author (b. 1795)
1887 – C. F. W. Walther, American Lutheran theologian (b. 1811)
1896 – H. H. Holmes, American serial killer (b. 1860)
1921 – Karl Mantzius, Danish theatre and film actor, theatre director and writer (b. 1860)
1922 – Max Wagenknecht, German composer (b. 1857)
1924 – Alluri Sita Rama Raju, Indian Freedom Fighter(b.1897)
1925 – William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, English industrialist, philanthropist, and politician (b. 1851)
1937 – Ernst A. Lehmann, German zeppelin captain (b. 1886)
1940 – George Lansbury, English politician and editor (b. 1859)
1941 – Sir James George Frazer, Scottish anthropologist (b. 1854)
1942 – Felix Weingartner, Yugoslavian conductor (b. 1863)
1946 – Herbert Macaulay, Nigerian politician (b. 1864)
1951 – Warner Baxter, American actor (b. 1889)
1978 – Mort Weisinger, American editor (b. 1915)
1986 – Jeffrey Mylett, American actor (b. 1949)
1987 – Colin Blakely, English actor (b. 1930)
1989 – Guy Williams, American actor (b. 1924)
1993 – Mary Philbin, American actress (b. 1903)
1995 – Ray McKinley, American drummer, singer and bandleader (Glenn Miller Orchestra) (b. 1910)
1998 – Allan McLeod Cormack, South African physicist, Nobel laureate (b. 1924)
1998 – Eddie Rabbitt, American singer-songwriter and musician (b. 1941)
2000 – Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., American actor (b. 1909)
2001 – Jacques de Bourbon Busset, French novelist, essayist, and politician (b. 1912)
2002 – Kevyn Aucoin, American makeup artist and photographer (b. 1962)
2002 – Robert Kanigher, American comic book writer and editor (b. 1915)
2002 – Seattle Slew, American racehorse (b. 1974)
2004 – Waldemar Milewicz, Polish reporter (b. 1956)
2005 – Tristan Egolf, American writer (b. 1971)
2005 – Peter W. Rodino, American politician (b. 1909)
2005 – Otilino Tenorio, Ecuadorian footballer (b. 1980)
2006 – Richard Carleton, Australian reporter (b. 1943)
2006 – Joan C. Edwards, American philanthropist (b. 1918)
2006 – Machiko Soga, Japanese actress (b. 1943)
2007 – Diego Corrales, American boxer (b. 1977)
2007 – Octavian Paler, Romanian writer and journalist (b. 1926)
2007 – Yahweh ben Yahweh, American cult leader, founded Nation of Yahweh (b. 1935)
2009 – David Mellor, English designer (b. 1930)
2009 – Danny Ozark, American baseball coach and manager (b. 1923)
2011 – Seve Ballesteros, Spanish golfer (b. 1957)
2011 – Willard Boyle, Canadian physicist (b. 1924)
2011 – Allyson Hennessy, Trindadian journalist (b. 1948)
2011 – Big George, English musician, composer, bandleader, and broadcaster (b. 1957)
2012 – Ferenc Bartha, Hungarian economist (b. 1943)
2012 – Jules Bocandé, Senegalese footballer (b. 1958)
2012 – Dennis E. Fitch, American pilot (b. 1942)

Holidays and observances [edit]

Christian Feast Day:
Radio Day, commemorating the work of Alexander Popov (Russia, Bulgaria)

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Tue May 7th Todays News