Those that are badly abused for being conservative can't reply the same way. They just have to be better than their opponents. The result can sometimes be startling, as when Red Kerry lookout Rudd's glass jaw with a simple question. Gillard subsequently rolled Rudd .. and the rest is history. Red Kerry stepped away from the 7:30 report. Still, the 7:30 report has not improved. But getting back to the point, the best way to deal with abuse is to be competent. Heckling can be destabilising and should never be encouraged. The demolition of Premier Nick Greiner is a shining example of how heckling can succeed to damage much. Hot heads are wanting to advise Mr Abbott. Better to allow Mr Abbott to do what is right.
$6 billion did little to reduce Australia's production of plant food. Eiffel tower is beautiful, but the light tribute to Mandela has not yet happened. One suspects that a computer game will not overthrow capitalism, but cashed up developers are welcome to try. Just don't label it educational. Obama has now ruled it is legal to hunt endangered birds with a wind mill. Fairfax stereotypes the image of a female. ABC pays a woman less than any man. Lefties use children as fodder for marketing. Fairfax targets a female conservative with misogynistic heckling campaign.
Friendly reminder. This is a discussion page, not a shared anger site. We argue ideas and politely disagree by providing substance. I note some have recently taken to posting abusive style material from ADL type sites. It is ok for you to hold those opinions, but the unsubstantiated abuse they spread isn't helpful for discussion. Before posting an item that states that Presbyterians are raping Martian Women because of their religious beliefs, ask yourself if you are posting something that is verifiable or merely outraged opinion. It will save me from having to direct my team to delete it .. and you.
Presbyterian youths aren't used to Martian customs .. they view their summer dress as a cat views its' dinner .. .. and yet they live among Martians, enjoying their lifestyle and income when it suits them, then go off to fight in Presbyterian wars that Martians have nothing to do with. There are basically two types of Presbyterians. One type believes in spiritual matters in which their central prophet will one day be restored to them, the other believe in very little, but are pragmatic in decision making. The spiritualists are more numerous around the world. The pragmatists tend to be excellent dictators in the fascist mould. I note some Martians praise some Presbyterians. "They don't kill many of us. The others are worse." Some say the US President was raised and remains a Presbyterian. Although there is pictorial evidence and a ghost written biography, most Martians feel he is really an apostate with atheist tendencies .. which is a perfect description for most Presbyterians who scuff Pork rolls, drink liquor and generally carouse with opposite gender animals they call pets when their youthful males aren't buggering each other. ===
Happy birthday and many happy returns to those born on this day, including
- 65 BC– Horace, Roman poet (d. 8 BC)
- 1542 – Mary, Queen of Scots (d. 1587)
- 1724 – Claude Balbastre, French composer and organist (d. 1799)
- 1765 – Eli Whitney, American inventor, invented the cotton gin (d. 1825)
- 1861 – William C. Durant, American businessman, founded General Motors and Chevrolet (d. 1947)
- 1865 – Jean Sibelius, Finnish composer (d. 1957)
- 1894 – James Thurber, American author and illustrator (d. 1961)
- 1922 – Lucian Freud, German-English painter (d. 2011)
- 1925 – Sammy Davis, Jr., American actor, singer, and dancer (d. 1990)
- 1936 – David Carradine, American actor (d. 2009)
- 1943 – Jim Morrison, American singer-songwriter and poet (The Doors and Rick & the Ravens) (d. 1971)
- 1959 – Mark Steyn, Canadian-American author and critic
- 1961 – Ann Coulter, American lawyer and author
- 1982 – Nicki Minaj, Trinidadian-American rapper
- 1996 – Teala Dunn, American actress
Matches
- 395 – Later Yan is defeated by its former vassal Northern Wei at the Battle of Canhe Slope.
- 757 – Du Fu returns to Chang'an as a member of Emperor Xuanzong's court, after having escaped the city during the An Lushan Rebellion.
- 1432 – The first battle between the forces of Švitrigaila and Sigismund Kęstutaitis is fought near the town ofOszmiana (Ashmyany), launching the most active phase of the Lithuanian Civil War.
- 1596 – Luis de Carabajal the younger, one of the first Jewish authors in the Americas, died in an auto-da-féduring the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico City.
- 1660 – A woman (either Margaret Hughes or Anne Marshall) appears on an English public stage for the first time, in the role of Desdemona in a production of Shakespeare's play Othello.
- 1813 – Premier of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.
- 1854 – In his Apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogmatic definition ofImmaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was conceived free of original sin.
- 1927 – The Brookings Institution, one of the United States' oldest think tanks, is founded through the merger of three organizations that had been created by philanthropist Robert S. Brookings.
- 1941 – World War II: Japanese forces simultaneously invade Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies. (SeeDecember 7 for the concurrent attack on Pearl Harbor in the Western Hemisphere.)
- 1953 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his "Atoms for Peace" speech, which leads to an American program to supply equipment and information on nuclear power to schools, hospitals, and research institutions around the world.
- 1980 – John Lennon is murdered by a deranged fan in front of The Dakota in New York City
Despatches
- 592 – Sushun, Japanese emperor
- 1793 – Madame du Barry, French mistress of Louis XV of France (b. 1743)
- 1864 – George Boole, English mathematician and philosopher (b. 1815)
- 1885 – William Henry Vanderbilt, American railroad executive and philanthropist (b. 1821)
- 1894 – Pafnuty Chebyshev, Russian mathematician (b. 1821)
ABC audience in for a shock
Piers Akerman – Sunday, December 08, 2013 (1:19am)
EXPECT astonishment from the ABC’s vast national audience when the federal government places trade-union slush funds front-and-centre of a major inquiry in the New Year.
The rusted-on viewers and listeners will be bewildered because the taxpayer-funded state-owned broadcaster has imposed a regimen of strict censorship on the key element in the inquiry - the misuse of money from the AWU association which was established with the assistance of legal advice from former Prime Minister Julia Gillard when she was a partner in the Victorian Labor law firm Slater & Gordon.
Those who don’t take their news solely from the ABC would be well aware that the Victorian police are conducting a major inquiry into Ms Gillard’s role in the establishment of the Australian Workers’ Union Workplace Reform Association by her then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson and his AWU mate Ralph Blewitt in 1992.
Early last week, The Australian newspaper revealed that Fair Work Commissioner and former AWU boss Ian Cambridge has given sworn evidence of “gross irregularities” in the union slush fund that Ms Gillard advised on.
Wilson, who was in a long-term relationship with Ms Gillard in the 1990s is the target of a police investigation and Victorian fraud squad detectives have already seized files from Slater & Gordon, files which Wilson claims should be subject to client-lawyer privilege.
The detectives are seeking to establish whether the documents were created in furtherance of a fraud, which would render void the privilege claim and make them available as evidence.
The court heard Mr Cambridge had provided “substantial evidence” in his affidavit about misappropriation of union funds by Ms Gillard.
Lawyer Ron Gipp, representing lead fraud squad detective Ross Mitchell, said Mr Cambridge’s evidence “puts it beyond any doubt” that there were “gross irregularities” in the funding of the association, which Ms Gillard referred to as a “slush fund” in an exit interview before she left Slater & Gordon.
He said statements from Mr Blewitt - “essentially a full confession by a co-accused” - describe the slush fund as a “scam”.
Ms Gillard has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and said she had no knowledge of the fund’s operations other than it was a “slush fund” for the re-election of union officials.
Money from the fund was used to purchase the Fitzroy house in Mr Blewitt’s name at a 1993 auction, which Ms Gillard attended with Mr Wilson, who subsequently lived in the property.
Slater & Gordon handled the conveyancing and helped provide finance.
That’s the background for ABC fans who have been kept in the dark and goes someway to explaining why many other Australians not affected by the ABC’s news blackout are watching every legal move in this case.
In her exit interview with Slater & Gordon on September 1, 1995, Ms Gillard said: “It’s common practice, indeed every union has what it refers to as a re-election fund, slush fund”.
Whether every union does indeed have a slush fund is something the federal government should be looking into, and probably will, informed as it is by the material being developed by the ongoing AWU investigation.
Even without an official inquiry, it has emerged that money was used from a union slush fund known as the McLean Forum to finance campaigns in internal elections in the TWU’s Queensland branch and to bankroll candidates in the Flight Attendants Association of Australia and the Health Services Union’s NSW Branch.
Sums of at least $500,000 were reportedly spent in the TWU’s Queensland campaign.
It was reported in March that a fund known as Industry 2020 donated funds for HSU elections and a 2008 article in The Sydney Morning Herald noted that former Prime Minister Julia Gillard “was a guest speaker at the inaugural fundraising lunch for the Industry 2020 fund at Flemington racecourse, which generated about $250,000 with nearly half that profit”.
In that article it was also suggested that “two other fundraisers have been held for Industry 2020, including a small event at Melbourne’s Greek Museum in Melbourne last year attended by (current Opposition leader) Mr (Bill) Shorten”.
The Age reported in May that ASIC records in May showed that Industry 2020 was a registered company under Mr Cesar Melhem’s sole directorship. Mr Melhem was formerly the AWU Victorian Secretary but is now a Victorian Labor MP, a more recent search however indicated that two companies, Industry 2020 Pty Ltd and Industry 2020 Ltd are both under voluntary external administration.
Two weeks ago, The Age reported that the nation’s largest construction union, the CFMEU, had used a drug and alcohol charity to raise up to $1 million for union activities.
It has also been revealed that the Queensland branch of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Union has for a decade had an undisclosed internal slush fund - wrongly promoted to contributors as being tax deductible - to support union boss, Mr Chris Ketter’s, re-election as State Secretary of the union. Mr Ketter was the ALP’s lead Senate candidate in Queensland at the 2013 election.
The ongoing court case against former Labor MP and former HSU boss Craig Thomson over his alleged misuse of trade union funds has given added impetus to the need for a wider investigation into trade unions and their handling of members’ funds.
The establishment of slush funds, the practice Ms Gillard regards as “common place” and carried out by “every union” must be examined to ensure that such operations are held to the same exacting standards of governance as organisations which hold investors’ money.
Trade union members deserve to know who is responsible for holding their compulsory contributions and how their cash is being spent.
For too long, the union bosses have insisted that the Labor Party turn a blind eye to union activities.
Next year, the ALP must be given the opportunity to demonstrate it truly has the workers’ interests at heart.
It will send a disgraceful message if it doesn’t champion the broadest inquiry into the operation of slush funds and the union movement’s handling of members’ money more generally.
Surely it has nothing to hide?
Why the Left takes joy in foul abuse
Miranda Devine – Sunday, December 08, 2013 (1:20am)
SO Joy Burch, the Education minister of the ACT, publishes a tweet describing her federal counterpart Christopher Pyne as a c**t - and gets away with it.
Her excuse for retweeting the foul abuse is that she is inexperienced on Twitter, despite the fact she has been publishing her thoughts on the social media site for four years, during which time she has written 1161 tweets.
“I haven’t finessed my social skills, my Twitter skills on this,” she said, while considering an offer by the University of Canberra for remedial social media training.
In other words, Burch has published six tweets a week for the past four years and she still hasn’t worked out how to use Twitter.
Slow learner, much?
Her boss, fellow feminist and Emily’s Lister Katy Gallagher, the ACT Chief Minister, accepted Burch’s explanation that the tweet - which she later deleted - was a mistake.
Her boss, fellow feminist and Emily’s Lister Katy Gallagher, the ACT Chief Minister, accepted Burch’s explanation that the tweet - which she later deleted - was a mistake.
“I also believe that she has done the right thing and accepted responsibility for what happened ... and has offered an apology to Minister Pyne,’’ she said.
We all make mistakes. But imagine if the roles were reversed. Imagine if Pyne had used the most obscene word in the English language, describing an intimate portion of the female anatomy, in reference to Burch. He would be crucified. Twitter would be ablaze! The destroy-the-jointers would be apoplectic. The entire Abbott government would be implicated.
“If I had done that, before my head hit the pillow [Thursday night] I would have resigned or been sacked,” Pyne says.
“If it was me saying such a thing, the howls from the left would be cacophonous.”
But there has been barely a peep against Burch, who also happens to be the ACT’s Minister for Women. Moving right along. No double standards here.
That’s the Left for you, hysterical overreaction when it suits them, benign tolerance when it doesn’t. If you’re on their side, anything goes. If you’re a conservative, a minefield of ‘isms lie in wait - sooner or later you will be accused of sexism, racism, elitism, homophobia and misogyny.
Of course, the upside is that conservatives become battle - hardened and vigilant while their establishment foes grow sloppy and complacent.
The truth is that Burch doesn’t like Pyne because he is an ideological enemy and a fearsome warrior.
In fact there are few politicians as tough. Pyne relishes combat. As the much-loved youngest of five children growing up in Adelaide, he learned his skills at a family dining table where vigorous debate was nightly sport.
The photograph that had Burch and comrades so furious that they called him “c**t” last week shows Pyne smirking, or, as one tweeter put it, “smugly loitering”, in the background of one of those ranting press conferences NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli held about Gonski funding.
This was supposed to be the moment when Pyne was on the ropes, chastised by the media for executing backflips, supposedly humiliated by Prime Ministerial intervention, and yet here he was looking exceedingly pleased with himself.
How infuriating for his enemies!
Having unwisely promised to match the extra billions pledged by Labor before the election under the so-called Gonski model of redistributing education funding, the Abbott government is stuck with it.
But don’t expect Pyne to capitulate.
He knows giving extra billions to the very state education bureaucracies that have presided over a decline in standards over the past decade of record funding increases is no answer to our woes.
The latest OECD rankings show Australian students have fallen even further behind their peers in 65 industrialised nations, dropping out of the top ten for reading, maths and science for the first time.
The test results released last week show Australian 15-year-old students ranked 13th in reading last year, down from 9th in 2009; 19th in maths, down from 14th; and 17th in science, down from 10th. An earlier report showed the reading skills of our Year 4 students are the worst of every English-speaking country tested.
This sorry result is despite the fact Australia increased spending on schools by more than 40 per cent last decade.
More money does not automatically mean better education.
In fact it can make things worse, if you are just entrenching the progressive education ideology that has infected teacher training for decades, and which fails disadvantaged children the most.
Pyne understands completely.
“The failing in education is not money,” he says. “[What’s needed is] an acceptance that what we’ve been doing for decades doesn’t work. Child-centred learning, whole language teaching of reading, acceptance of failure, is not going to get our students to the top of the tree around the world.”
The federal government doesn’t control what happens in schools. But what Pyne can control is teacher quality, the single biggest determinant of student success.
“We are going to intervene in the training of our teachers ... to ensure that [when they graduate]from university they are properly trained in how to teach students to read, and to do so from phonics, through orthodox teaching methods.”
He has lots of other plans too, from expanding direct instruction to ensuring principal autonomy, all of which is anathema to the progressive education establishment.
He should wear their foul abuse as a badge of honour.
THE PRICE OF POINTLESSNESS
Tim Blair – Sunday, December 08, 2013 (4:41am)
So much pain, so little gain:
Labor’s $6 billion carbon tax reduced Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by less than 0.1 per cent…The official register of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions will reveal that in the financial year before the carbon tax was introduced Australia produced 546.2 million tonnes of emissions. After the carbon tax was introduced, the emissions dropped to just 545.9 million tonnes.
For the planned removal of this pointless and destructive gesture tax, Ross Gittins apologises to his grandchildren. Who don’t exist. Meanwhile, distressed warmies may be calmed by snow in December.
LIGHT ON FACTS
Tim Blair – Sunday, December 08, 2013 (4:08am)
An illuminating note from Dylan Kissane in France:
I saw your post on Mike Carlton’s Mandela fact-checking problems and looked over his Twitter stream. He also re-tweeted Lisa Wilkinson who was in awe of the Eiffel Tower in Paris being lit in South African colours to honour Mandela while Tony Abbott still wouldn’t even lower the Parliament House flag:
Thing is – and take it from someone in France – the news broke early morning here and the Eiffel Tower doesn’t light up during the day. The picture that Lisa was in awe of and that Mike fell for was frommonths ago.
Dylan is right. The New York Times, which also fell for the Eiffel Tower story, now runs this correction:
An earlier version of this article included an erroneous description of the Eiffel Tower in a reference to mourning for Nelson Mandela. The Eiffel Tower was bathed in white floodlights, not the colors of South Africa. (Photographs showing the Eiffel Tower floodlit in those colors, circulated via Facebook and Twitter and widely reported by news agencies, were from earlier dates, including July 18, 2013, Mr. Mandela’s 95th birthday.) The reference has been removed.
We now await similar corrections from Lisa and Mike.
MO POWER
Tim Blair – Sunday, December 08, 2013 (3:52am)
He bowls to the left, he bowls to the right, that Mitchell Johnson completely destroys England in the Second Test:
Johnson’s delightful non-verbal farewell to first-ball victim Jimmy Anderson particularly amused teammate Ryan Harris:
Australia currently holds a 530-run lead with two days to play. England’s combined total from three completed innings in this series: just 481. Only a timely Mandela tribute can save England now.
Johnson’s delightful non-verbal farewell to first-ball victim Jimmy Anderson particularly amused teammate Ryan Harris:
Australia currently holds a 530-run lead with two days to play. England’s combined total from three completed innings in this series: just 481. Only a timely Mandela tribute can save England now.
THE KIDS WILL LOVE IT
Tim Blair – Sunday, December 08, 2013 (3:42am)
LEGAL EAGLES
Tim Blair – Sunday, December 08, 2013 (3:33am)
Fresh from its healthcare success, the Obama administration legislates for eagle purée:
In a decision that highlights the clash between two cherished environmental goals — producing green energy and preserving protected wildlife — federal officials announced Friday that some wind power companies will be allowed to kill or injure bald and golden eagles for up to 30 years without penalty…[Vice president of public affairs for the American Wind Energy Association Peter] Kelley said the new regulations would “increase the protection of eagles and will help develop more wind farms, a leading solution to climate change, which is the No. 1 threat to all eagles and all wildlife.”
They have to destroy the eagles in order to save them.
WOMAN STEREOTYPED
Tim Blair – Saturday, December 07, 2013 (11:39pm)
Fairfax’s favourite scowly lady makes a front page appearance in today’s Age;
A TinEye search turns up a dozen or so Fairfax uses of the stern stock image woman, mostly in the SMH:
I blame sexism.
A TinEye search turns up a dozen or so Fairfax uses of the stern stock image woman, mostly in the SMH:
I blame sexism.
The case against Peta Credlin - three strikes and Fairfax is out of control
Andrew Bolt December 08 2013 (9:27am)
Here are some of the Fairfax media’s main criticisms lately of Peta Credlin, Tony Abbott’s chief of staff, now a hate figure of the Left that once decried the “misogyny” of critics of Julia Gillard.
At least three senior Coalition ministers have had key staff appointments vetoed by a committee run out of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s office.. The committee is chaired by Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews and includes Special Minister of State Michael Ronaldson, Mr Abbott’s chief and deputy chief of staff Peta Credlin and Andrew Hirst, and Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss’s chief of staff, David Whitrow.Perton over-ruled? Good job, Peta.
Mr Hockey’s choice for a personal adviser on foreign investment decisions, former Victorian state MP Victor Perton, was overruled by Mr Abbott’s office in October...
The Prime Minister Tony Abbott has ordered ... all cabinet ministers to take personal responsibility for approving official travel by departmental officials, whether individuals or delegations, where the proposed cost exceeded $20,000. He directed that he must be consulted about any proposed travel, whether by an individual or a delegation, that exceeded $50,000…Cracking down on gold-plated travel and junkets? To the criticism of the same Fairfax media that for months tried to beat up expense “scandals” by Liberal MPs. Good job, Peta.
Coalition ministers, aides and senior public service executives have privately condemned the directive as “unworkable”, “ridiculous” and showing “a complete ignorance of the practical realities of government”.
Mr Abbott has already clamped down on travel by Coalition MPs who are required to seek approval from his chief of staff Peta Credlin at least four weeks before overseas study trips or sponsored travel…
Coalition ministerial staff described the instructions as part of “the controlling tendencies of the Prime Minister’s office”.
Fairfax Media has been told Mr Morrison, who has been running tightly controlled weekly briefings about the Coalition’s ‘’stop the boats’’ policy, Operation Sovereign Borders, was chided by Ms Credlin as they left a cabinet meeting last month.
In the exchange Ms Credlin spoke about Mr Morrison’s poor performance during a recent news conference.
According to cabinet sources, Mr Morrison did not take the criticism well and expressed frustration that he was not allowed to say much at his press appearances.
According to one source who witnessed the exchange, Ms Credlin shot right back at Mr Morrison with: ‘’We will tell you what you can say and what you can’t say.’’
Morrison’s performance was indeed below his best, as I said on 2GB recently. He’s since adjusted and is going very strongly. Good job, Peta.
But, wait.
Has Fairfax had to resort now to peddling false rumors to fill up this pathetic charge sheet against Credlin?
What is the paper’s evidence for alleging Credlin “chided” Morrison or for claiming Morrison “did not take the criticism well” before Credlin “shot back” that he should say what he was told?
Just anonymous “cabinet sources” plural or an anonymous “source” singular. (I suspect the singular source is the truth of it.)
Against the say-so of Fairfax’s one unnamed source we have this:
Mr Morrison’s spokesman said the account was ‘’complete rubbish’’. The office of the Prime Minister described the account of the meeting with Mr Morrison as “untrue”.Morrison has insisted to me the story is “completely false” and the alleged incident “never happened”.
I’m calling bull on the Fairfax claim.
So the Fairfax case now against Credlin is that she has kyboshed a staff appointment for good reason, she cracked down on travel junkets and one anonymous source falsely claims she actually gave what would have been good and useful advice to Morrison.
This is a bad record? Some people seem to be having trouble with a strong woman - and it sure isn’t Abbott.
Fairfax is out of control.
Naughty children: who’d be safe in a world led by such haters?
Andrew Bolt December 08 2013 (8:32am)
Bertrand Russell:
===Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.I wonder what the world would look likewere the child revolutionaries in our universities - licensed by their idealism to indulge in hatred, abuse and violence - ever given real power. France during the Terror? China during the Cultural Revolution? The island in Lord of the Flies?:
Preaching tolerance, screaming abuse.
Preaching morality, screaming abuse
Andrew Bolt December 08 2013 (7:57am)
Tell us again how poor Julia Gillard faced abuse and disrespect of the kind no Liberal or male PM would have to endure:
Protesters gathered at a hotel where Prime Minister Tony Abbott was due to speak have vowed to hold rallies every time the prime minister is in Melbourne.Let’s see if any Labor MP stands near one of these T shirts.
About 100 people stood outside the Melbourne Park Hyatt on Thursday night ahead of Mr Abbott’s address, shouting chants and waving signs to protest a raft of coalition government policies.
Many of the protesters wore black T-shirts printed with the words “F*** Tony Abbott”.
PS: There are three great benefits of such shirts - much like those designed by an Age columnist and promoted by The Age. First, those wearing them advertise up front that they are just foul-mouthed haters with whom reasoning is pointless. Second, they’ll struggle to get on television - at least in family-friendly hours. Third, they’ll alienate more voters than they will attract.
UPDATE
So which kind of people would associate themselves with such an abusive and intolerant protest?
Another organiser, Roz Ward, said the group, Rapid Organised Anti-Abbott Response Network (ROAR), was a collective of union members and socialist groups that formed immediately after the election.Well, not actually the whole Abbott agenda, obviously. For instance, Ward would quite support Abbott continuing to fund La Trobe University so she can keep drawing a state salary to go with the one provided by the Victorian Department of Education and Department of Health:
“We oppose the whole Abbott agenda,” Ms Ward told AAP.
Ms Roz WardWhat is it with such people that they are most angry with those politicians most likely to create the wealth that supplies the taxes that supply their salaries?
Youth Program Coordinator, Gay and Lesbian Health, Safe Schools Coalition Victoria
Faculty of Health Sciences
School of Public Health and Human Biosciences
Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society
(Thanks to reader John.)
Joy Burch excused the abuse the Left would never take from a Liberal
Andrew Bolt December 08 2013 (7:49am)
Miranda Devine on an unusual “mistake” - and an unusual silence from the Left:
===SO Joy Burch, the Education minister of the ACT, publishes a tweet describing her federal counterpart Christopher Pyne as a c**t - and gets away with it.(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
Her excuse for retweeting the foul abuse is that she is inexperienced on Twitter, despite the fact she has been publishing her thoughts on the social media site for four years, during which time she has written 1161 tweets.
“I haven’t finessed my social skills, my Twitter skills on this,” she said… Slow learner, much?…
We all make mistakes. But imagine if the roles were reversed. Imagine if Pyne had used what I view as the most obscene word in the English language, describing an intimate portion of the female anatomy, in reference to Burch. He would be crucified. Twitter would be ablaze! The destroy-the-jointers would be apoplectic. The entire Abbott government would be implicated.
“If I had done that, before my head hit the pillow [Thursday night] I would have resigned or been sacked,” Pyne says."If it was me saying such a thing, the howls from the left would be cacophonous.”
But there has been barely a peep against Burch, who also happens to be the ACT’s Minister for Women.
Labor will drown in all this slush
Andrew Bolt December 08 2013 (7:42am)
Piers Akerman predicts an inquiry:
===EXPECT astonishment from the ABC’s vast national audience when the federal government places trade-union slush funds front-and-centre of a major inquiry in the New Year.Piers very kindly helps ABC viewers who missed all the fun by explaining the latest twists of a police inquiry that would have been daily fodder for ABC news bulletins had it been held into an alleged scam involving Tony Abbott:
The rusted-on viewers and listeners will be bewildered because the taxpayer-funded state-owned broadcaster has imposed a regimen of strict censorship on the key element in the inquiry - the misuse of money from the AWU association which was established with the assistance of legal advice from former Prime Minister Julia Gillard when she was a partner in the Victorian Labor law firm Slater & Gordon.
Victorian police are conducting a major inquiry into Ms Gillard’s role in the establishment of the Australian Workers’ Union Workplace Reform Association by her then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson and his AWU mate Ralph Blewitt in 1992.(Thanks to reader lol.)
Early last week, The Australian newspaper revealed that Fair Work Commissioner and former AWU boss Ian Cambridge has given sworn evidence of “gross irregularities” in the union slush fund that Ms Gillard advised on…
The court heard Mr Cambridge had provided “substantial evidence” in his affidavit about misappropriation of union funds…
Lawyer Ron Gipp, representing lead fraud squad detective Ross Mitchell, said Mr Cambridge’s evidence “puts it beyond any doubt” that there were “gross irregularities” in the funding of the association, which Ms Gillard referred to as a “slush fund” in an exit interview before she left Slater & Gordon.
He said statements from Mr Blewitt - “essentially a full confession by a co-accused” - describe the slush fund as a “scam”.
Ms Gillard has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and said she had no knowledge of the fund’s operations other than it was a “slush fund” for the re-election of union officials.
Did Snowden know precisely the damage he’d cause the West - and not its rivals?
Andrew Bolt December 08 2013 (7:16am)
Reader Tabitha says new
evidence suggests Edward Snowden is indeed a traitor who knew exactly
what he was leaking - and what he would keep secret:
===Rolling Stone recently published a largely sympathetic article on Snowden and [his journalist contact Glenn] Greenwald. But there is some interesting detail tucked in amongst it all.How much are the Left-wing papers publishing Snowden’s stolen intelligence mere pawns in a bigger game to damage the West?
My bold throughout:
“ ‘How long had the source been planning this?’ Greenwald thought. Just the organization of the material alone would have taken months, if not longer. Each memory stick had an elaborate filing system. ‘On the front page were, let’s say, 12 files. You click on one of the files and there are 30 more files. You click on one of those files and there are six more, and finally you got the documents. And every last motherf...ing document that he gave us was incredibly elegant and elegant and beautifully organized.’ Greenwald had no doubt that the leaker had read every page; not a single one was misfiled. ‘It’s 1,000 percent clear that he read and very carefully processed every document that he gave us by virtue of his incredibly anal, ridiculously elaborate electronic filing system that these USB sticks contained.’ All the way to Hong Kong, over a 16-hour flight, Greenwald pored through the materials. ‘There was stuff on what’s going on in Iraq, in Afghanistan, with the drone program, spying on our allies, the technology of how this works, the intelligence budget – every possible thing, all completely f...ing secret, and I’m just reading through it at my leisure on the plane’.”That actually DAMNS Snowden. Such meticulous organisation would mean that Snowden knew he for example ”stole 58,000 documents containing names and other personal details about British intelligence operatives, as well as information about this country’s [Britain’s] spying techniques and capabilities”. When you add that to the detail on Australia’s intelligence operations, and the detail on and attempts to harm the US (with leaks like the Swedes gathering intelligence on Russia for the US), the admission of an “elaborate electronic filing system” makes Snowden even more the traitor.
And here’s James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) quoted two pages later in the Rolling Stone article:
“ ‘This is a carefully constructed narrative,’ says James Lewis of CSIS. ’They’ve got documents pertaining to foreign spying against the U.S., but not a single one of those has been released. Instead, this is scripted to lead you to a certain outcome, that it’s just the U.S. doing this. The fact that they haven’t released these documents makes me very suspicious. They’re spinning as much as the U.S. government is’.”
Labor’s $6 billion carbon tax made no difference
Andrew Bolt December 08 2013 (7:08am)
And by how much did the world’s temperature fall?
But I have no trouble believing this tax made little real difference to emissions, given even Labor promised businesses that if they sat out the initial pain, the carbon tax would fall to Europe’s much lower price by 2015. So why change?
But once again, emissions is just a misleading proxy measure of the real game.The real question should be: what difference to the world temperature has our carbon tax made so far?
The answer? Indistinguishable from zero. All pain, no gain.
The fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes is nothing in comparison to this colossal exercise in collective self-deception.
===LABOR’S $6 billion carbon tax reduced Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by less than 0.1 per cent…In truth, the measurement is not quite fair. Would our emissions have in fact grown a lot without the tax?
The official register of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions will reveal that in the financial year before the carbon tax was introduced Australia produced 546.2 million tonnes of emissions. After the carbon tax was introduced, the emissions dropped to just 545.9 million tonnes.
But I have no trouble believing this tax made little real difference to emissions, given even Labor promised businesses that if they sat out the initial pain, the carbon tax would fall to Europe’s much lower price by 2015. So why change?
But once again, emissions is just a misleading proxy measure of the real game.The real question should be: what difference to the world temperature has our carbon tax made so far?
The answer? Indistinguishable from zero. All pain, no gain.
The fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes is nothing in comparison to this colossal exercise in collective self-deception.
The AFL’s kind of justice
Andrew Bolt December 08 2013 (6:41am)
Sinclair Davidson notes two more passages in coverage of the AFL’s unravelling deal with Essendon which stink.
First, this allegation that the AFL has asked for a dodgy financial arrangement to prevent AFL boss Andrew Demetriou from seeming like he misled the public (again?) in insisting coach James Hird would not be paid during his suspension:
===First, this allegation that the AFL has asked for a dodgy financial arrangement to prevent AFL boss Andrew Demetriou from seeming like he misled the public (again?) in insisting coach James Hird would not be paid during his suspension:
It is understood that in a bid to resolve the impasse, the AFL suggested to Essendon that it should pay Hird off the books. Essendon and Hird rejected the idea.Then this suggestion of a recovered memory of an AFL warning to Hird:
AFL integrity officer Brett Clothier provided a detailed account of the August 5, 2011, meeting in an email to Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority investigators on July 17 this year. The account was included in ASADA’s interim report to the AFL two weeks later and relied on to establish Hird’s “early awareness” of substances at the centre of the supplements scandal.Davidson is suspicious.
Mr Clothier’s evidence was added to the brief within hours of The Age publishing an allegation that Hird was warned by the AFL against the use of peptides in late 2011. …
It is understood Mr Clothier’s relatively brief, contemporaneous notes taken of the meeting contained no mention of a warning. In his email nearly two years later, shortly after midday on July 17, Mr Clothier provided more expansive detail.
Andy Trieu
Thanks Belinda Adams from #Thevoice for performing tonight at #HopeafterHaiyan and sharing #RickyMartin stories lol
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Current Gallery on all Photographs
Please click on below link:
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Jewellery & Gemstone Gallery
Colour your world with gemstones !
A Gallery of Jewellery, Diamond News,Gems & Gemology promoted by www.diamondimports.com.au
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4 her
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Faces of the #IDF: Private Daniella Lerman (19) is in combat training for the Caracal Battalion, a combat unit for both women and men in the Israeli army. “I chose this job because I wanted to utilize my skills to the fullest.”
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Ah, Victoria. Besides annoying the commuter with train delays, long wait times, faulty readers and overpriced tickets, we now have the bonus of..unlawful infringement notices!
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/state-warned-on-myki-fines-20131207-2yyfb.html
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<Do what makes you happy are you with who makes you smile laugh as long as you breath love as long as you live>
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<"Here are seven quotes from the leader that are less likely to be published as his life is honored and his death commemorated in the mainstream media…..">
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The New Mexico State Police officer who fired shots at a minivan full of children during a chaotic October traffic stop has been fired as its revealed that he was a mentor in a nonviolence program.> I'm on the cop's side .. momentary lapse. .. there are five children here in need of a responsible adult - ed
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2519755/Police-officer-shot-minivan-children-FIRED-following-internal-investigation.html#ixzz2mq0xPuAi
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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Another great newsletter re Ocean Warming from Carbon Sense's Viv Forbes.
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/the-ocean-thermometer.html
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Marinel Pretzles
When you leave the apartment, you see the ocean, you smell it in the air.
This is the most beautiful place I have ever lived in. One day..
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The greens lab experiment to develop a sustainable human succeeds with this forest friendly spineless hermaphrodite. Bob Brown is rumored to have donated some of his DNA
I see the resemblance - ed===
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World's largest gold mine
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Aprille Love
Speaking at the Banag Banag Association Christmas Party today. #charityevent#help4haiyan
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http://www.israellycool.com/2013/12/07/shirley-temper-and-friends-sing-christmas-carols-for-idf-soldiers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Israellycool+%28Israellycool%29
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Wind Chime Bridge in Denmark
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Andy Trieu
Excited to host Hope after Haiyan Charity Concert tonight. Such a great cause. There will be an amazing line up of acts, entertainer's of the year, big bands, and 100% of proceeds go to Australian Red Cross 4pm Spectrum Darlinghurst. Come!#RedCross
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Bob Carroll
My cousin's wedding cake is awesome!
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Snowflake - The albino gorilla
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Although Nelson Mandela's memory resonates from his remarkable life,he was a complex, yet flawed character.
He should not be elevated to sainthood.
If he'd been gracious with his enemies when he was elevated I'd have been more impressed. But he embraced the terrorists after leaving terrorism behind. He didn't thank the conservatives who saved him from being executed or had him freed after putting pressure on his captors. He leaves behind a South Africa that is healing, but the divisions of socialism also leave scars. - ed
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"It is much harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle." -Jesus
Dive deeper into The Bible Series:http://bit.ly/16PwvSM
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Sarah Palin
"Happy, happy, happy!" Thanks to the Robertson family and the Duck Commander team for welcoming us to West Monroe, LA!#GoodTidingsAndGreatJoy
Photo by Shealah Craighead
===Photo by Shealah Craighead
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http://www.smh.com.au/world/murdoch-reportedly-fuming-over-blair-and-deng-friendship-20131125-2y4kw.html
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The executive editor of The New York Times, Bill Keller, sees "unmistakable" similarities between the campaigns of Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela. Oh, really? ~bil2lay
Read here: http://www.politico.com/
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Daniel Katz
Perhaps they should get their news from facebook like the rest of us.>
Diane Feinstein says the unsayable
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2013/12/03/diane-feinstein-says-the-unsayable/?fb_action_ids=10152476601999899&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%2210152476601999899%22%3A551969441559312%7D&action_type_map=%7B%2210152476601999899%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D
Feinstein: Jihadists will stop hating the West only when they achieve Shariah law
===Three networks, two nights, one EPIC movie premiere.
The Bonnie & Clyde Movie Event will premiere Sunday on A&E Television Network, HISTORY, andLifetime at 9/8c.
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Get creative & make these Strawberry Santas this weekend!
http://bit.ly/19kUeev
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Ali Kadhim
051213 / Day 6 - A day exploring a new city without a map, without my family (who've been actively taking care of us) and with no mobile coverage. I had a general sense of where certain landmarks were but I was keen to travel unknown routes just to see where it could lead me. Getting lost and finding your way back again does wonders for the soul, and you'll feel liberated by letting go of everything you believed you once needed. In the long run, you appreciate everything much more, and in the moment you'll discover you can survive on very little.
As so many of us continue to live life pursuing predictable outcomes, we forget to open ourselves up to the endless possibilities of the world, both seen and unseen, both known and unknown, to experience a form freedom that's truly beyond words. #1world1love #team9lives#skatetheworld #stayhungry #stayfearless#followyourinstincts #thailand
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Affirmative! 4 K-9s spotted at the new#DoctorWho Pop Up Shop in Australia! Aww…http://bbc.in/AusPopUp
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Sounds like my rice pudding - ed===
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There were 2 Trees in the Garden Of Eden.... The Tree Of Life... and The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good and Evil.... Notice that the wrong tree involves "knowledge" of this world and those things that are considered to be Good and/or Evil.... Knowledge... Learning Of The Mind.... The Feeling Of Needing To "Understand" Is Usually Rooted In Unbelief and Doubt and Especially Fear.... Trying to "understand" is our source of Security instead of God's Love and Faithfulness being our Security.... We Falsely Think That "Controlling Everything and Everybody Around Us Will Bring Security and Happiness"..... But It Never Does..!!! The Right Tree To Eat From Is The Tree Of God's Life.... The Tree Of Life.... Partaking Of "The Life Of God' and Resting In God's Faithfulness and Love.... Learning Spiritual Truth instead of Head Knowledge.... Growing In Spiritual Strength instead of Mental Strength... Learning To ""Walk By Faith and Not By Sight""..!!!
Careful, brother. I want to encourage you, but I most point out that it isn't humble to stand before the Lord and say "I did not eat of that fruit." Instead, we have been blessed through grace. We have *some* knowledge, but not all of it. And we are to use it too, not bury it. My father knows my heart. I might see the devil, but I will hold fast to my father, the Lord. - ed===
Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin
Have you ever wondered what God thinks when he sees you?
God has a mind of his own which has not been influenced by the people who don’t like you, God’s thoughts about you are not influenced by how you think about yourself, nor has God’s thinking concerning you been prejudiced by how you may have messed up before you came to Christ or how you may have blown it this week?
When David considered the wonders of God’s creation he was amazed that God was mindful of men, women and children. David was astounded that God cared so much about men, women and children. The simple reason God thinks so much about you is because he loves you and because He loves you so much he is making a fantastic job of making you the best person you can possibly be.
Here are just few things that God reveals about what he thinks about you and why he thinks that way;
God made you, you are His workmanship - you are wonderfully made
Ps 139:13-14 ...For you created my inmost being.... I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
You are deeply loved Jer 31:3 The LORD...says: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”
You are not rejected Isa 41:9 “...I have chosen you and have not rejected you.”
You are precious in God’s sight Is 43:4 … you are precious and honoured in my sight, and …I love you
You are the ‘apple’ of God’s eye Zec 2:8 ...This is what the LORD Almighty says…whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye
You are forgiven Luke 5:20 When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”You are God’s friend John 15:15 “.... I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” So in all,He loves you so much.God bless you.
===God has a mind of his own which has not been influenced by the people who don’t like you, God’s thoughts about you are not influenced by how you think about yourself, nor has God’s thinking concerning you been prejudiced by how you may have messed up before you came to Christ or how you may have blown it this week?
When David considered the wonders of God’s creation he was amazed that God was mindful of men, women and children. David was astounded that God cared so much about men, women and children. The simple reason God thinks so much about you is because he loves you and because He loves you so much he is making a fantastic job of making you the best person you can possibly be.
Here are just few things that God reveals about what he thinks about you and why he thinks that way;
God made you, you are His workmanship - you are wonderfully made
Ps 139:13-14 ...For you created my inmost being.... I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
You are deeply loved Jer 31:3 The LORD...says: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”
You are not rejected Isa 41:9 “...I have chosen you and have not rejected you.”
You are precious in God’s sight Is 43:4 … you are precious and honoured in my sight, and …I love you
You are the ‘apple’ of God’s eye Zec 2:8 ...This is what the LORD Almighty says…whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye
You are forgiven Luke 5:20 When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”You are God’s friend John 15:15 “.... I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” So in all,He loves you so much.God bless you.
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http://www.michaelfreund.org/14080/iran-geneva-deal
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http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/long-lost-1913-film-of-jews-in-israel.html
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2013/11/the-geneva-agreement-with-iran-a-foreign-policy
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http://schanzer.pundicity.com/14114/us-and-iran-see-nuclear-deal-differently
===And what more do we have to give away in return? I'm sure this also comes with a price tag.
http://
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http://newsblaze.com/story/20131206125246nurg.nb/topstory.html
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http://www.timesofisrael.com/germany-israel-sign-multimillion-dollar-arms-deal/
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http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.co.il/2013/12/when-israel-finds-itself-in-american.html
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http://www.israellycool.com/
To see children who have been taught such hatred is sad. Unless they break free they have nothing to look forward to except lives filed with pain and no child deserves that.
carols-for-idf-soldiers/
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The utter and maddening audacity, indeed. A sovereign nation is not an American owned entity, existence or even a disregarded pet; hence, a "US blueprint and Kerry set to press ahead with plans for Jerusalem, borders, refugees….."
After security plan, ‘Kerry to present US blueprint for deal on all core issues’ - The Times of Israel
Continue to the link, reading this and more articles at ...….http://paper.li/
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- 1854 – In his apostolic constitutionIneffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX (pictured)proclaimed the dogmatic definition of theImmaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was conceived free oforiginal sin.
- 1941 – The Holocaust: The Chełmno extermination camp in occupied Poland, the first such Nazi camp to kill the Jews of the Ghetto Litzmannstadt and the Warthegauby poison gas, began operating.
- 1963 – After being hit by a lightning strike while in aholding pattern, Pan Am Flight 214 crashed near Elkton, Maryland, US, killing all 81 people on board.
- 1987 – Arab–Israeli conflict: An Israeli army tank transporter killed four Palestinian refugees and injured seven others during a traffic accident at the Erez Crossing on the Israel–Gaza Strip border, sparking theFirst Intifada.
- 2009 – Bombings carried out by the Islamic State of Iraqin Baghdad, Iraq, killed 127 and injured 448.
Events[edit]
- 395 – Later Yan is defeated by its former vassal Northern Wei at the Battle of Canhe Slope.
- 757 – Du Fu returns to Chang'an as a member of Emperor Xuanzong's court, after having escaped the city during the An Lushan Rebellion.
- 1432 – The first battle between the forces of Švitrigaila and Sigismund Kęstutaitis is fought near the town ofOszmiana (Ashmyany), launching the most active phase of the Lithuanian Civil War.
- 1560 – The city of Guarulhos is founded.
- 1596 – Luis de Carabajal the younger, one of the first Jewish authors in the Americas, died in an auto-da-féduring the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico City.
- 1660 – A woman (either Margaret Hughes or Anne Marshall) appears on an English public stage for the first time, in the role of Desdemona in a production of Shakespeare's play Othello.
- 1813 – Premier of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.
- 1854 – In his Apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogmatic definition ofImmaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was conceived free of original sin.
- 1907 – King Gustaf V of Sweden accedes to the Swedish throne.
- 1912 – Leaders of the German Empire hold an Imperial War Council to discuss the possibility that war might break out.
- 1914 – World War I: A squadron of Britain's Royal Navy defeats an inferior squadron of the Imperial German High Seas Fleet in the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
- 1927 – The Brookings Institution, one of the United States' oldest think tanks, is founded through the merger of three organizations that had been created by philanthropist Robert S. Brookings.
- 1941 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares December 7 to be "a date which will live in infamy", after which the U.S. declares war on Japan.
- 1941 – World War II: Japanese forces simultaneously invade Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies. (SeeDecember 7 for the concurrent attack on Pearl Harbor in the Western Hemisphere.)
- 1949 – The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is established to provide aid to Palestinian refugees who left their homes during the 1948 Palestinian exodus.
- 1953 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his "Atoms for Peace" speech, which leads to an American program to supply equipment and information on nuclear power to schools, hospitals, and research institutions around the world.
- 1962 – Workers at four New York City newspapers (this later increases to nine) go on strike for 114 days.
- 1963 – Pan Am Flight 214, a Boeing 707, is struck by lightning and crashes near Elkton, Maryland, killing all 81 people on board.
- 1966 – The Greek ship SS Heraklion sinks in a storm in the Aegean Sea, killing over 200.
- 1969 – An Olympic Airways Douglas DC-6 strikes a mountain outside of Keratea, Greece, killing 90—the worst crash of a DC-6.
- 1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Navy launches an attack on West Pakistan's port city of Karachi.
- 1972 – United Airlines Flight 553, a Boeing 737, crashes after aborting its landing attempt at Chicago Midway International Airport, killing 45. The crash is the first-ever loss of a Boeing 737.
- 1974 – A plebiscite results in the abolition of monarchy in Greece.
- 1980 – John Lennon is murdered by a deranged fan in front of The Dakota in New York City.
- 1982 – In Suriname, several opponents of the military government are killed.
- 1987 – The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is signed.
- 1987 – Frank Vitkovic shoots and kills eight people at the Australia Post building in Melbourne, before jumping to his death.
- 1987 – The Alianza Lima air disaster occurs.
- 1987 – An Israeli army tank transporter kills four Palestinian refugees and injures seven others during a traffic accident at the Erez Crossingon the Israel–Gaza Strip border, sparking the First Intifada.
- 1988 – A United States Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II crashes into an apartment complex in Remscheid, Germany, killing 5 people and injuring 50 others.
- 1991 – The leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine sign an agreement dissolving the Soviet Union and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States.
- 1991 – The Romanian Constitution is adopted in a referendum.
- 1998 – Eighty-one people are killed by armed groups in Algeria.
- 2004 – The Cuzco Declaration is signed in Cuzco, Peru, establishing the South American Community of Nations.
- 2007 – Three unidentified gunmen storm an office of Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party in Balochistan. Three PPP supporters are killed.
- 2009 – Bombings in Baghdad, Iraq, kill 127 and injure 448.
- 2010 – With the second launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and the first launch of the SpaceX Dragon, SpaceX becomes the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft.
- 2010 – The Japanese solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS passes the planet Venus at a distance of about 80,800 km.
Births[edit]
- 65 BC– Horace, Roman poet (d. 8 BC)
- 1542 – Mary, Queen of Scots (d. 1587)
- 1574 – Maria Anna of Bavaria, German wife of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1616)
- 1626 – Christina, Queen of Sweden (d. 1689)
- 1678 – Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole, English diplomat (d. 1757)
- 1699 – Maria Josepha of Austria, Austrian wife of Augustus III of Poland (d. 1757)
- 1708 – Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1765)
- 1724 – Claude Balbastre, French composer and organist (d. 1799)
- 1730 – Jan Ingenhousz, Dutch physician, physiologist, and botanist (d. 1799)
- 1731 – František Xaver Dušek, Czech composer (d. 1799)
- 1756 – Maximilian Francis of Austria, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne (d. 1801)
- 1765 – Eli Whitney, American inventor, invented the cotton gin (d. 1825)
- 1795 – Peter Andreas Hansen, Danish astronomer (d. 1874)
- 1815 – Adolph Menzel, German painter and illustrator (d. 1905)
- 1816 – August Belmont, Prussian-American financier and politician (d. 1890)
- 1817 – Christian Emil Krag-Juel-Vind-Frijs, Danish politician, 10th Prime Minister of Denmark (d. 1896)
- 1818 – Charles III, Prince of Monaco (d. 1889)
- 1822 – Jakov Ignjatović, Serbian author (d. 1889)
- 1832 – Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Norwegian author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1910)
- 1860 – Amanda McKittrick Ros, Irish author and poet (d. 1939)
- 1861 – William C. Durant, American businessman, founded General Motors and Chevrolet (d. 1947)
- 1861 – Aristide Maillol, French sculptor and painter (d. 1944)
- 1861 – Georges Méliès, French director (d. 1938)
- 1862 – Georges Feydeau, French playwright (d. 1921)
- 1864 – Camille Claudel, French illustrator and sculptor (d. 1943)
- 1865 – Rüdiger von der Goltz, German general (d. 1946)
- 1865 – Jacques Hadamard, French mathematician (d. 1963)
- 1865 – Jean Sibelius, Finnish composer (d. 1957)
- 1874 – Ernst Moro, Austrian physician (d. 1951)
- 1875 – Frederik Buch, Danish actor (d. 1925)
- 1880 – Johannes Aavik, Estonian philologist (d. 1973)
- 1886 – Diego Rivera, Mexican painter (d. 1957)
- 1886 – Albert Üksip, Estonian actor, botanist and translator (d. 1966)
- 1890 – Bohuslav Martinů, Czech composer (d. 1959)
- 1892 – Marcus Lee Hansen, American historian (d. 1938)
- 1894 – E. C. Segar, American cartoonist (Popeye) (d. 1938)
- 1894 – James Thurber, American author and illustrator (d. 1961)
- 1894 – Marthe Vinot, French actress (d. 1974)
- 1899 – John Qualen, Canadian actor (d. 1987)
- 1900 – Ants Oras, Estonian writer and translator (d. 1982)
- 1900 – Sun Li-jen, Chinese general (d. 1990)
- 1902 – Wifredo Lam, Cuban painter (d. 1982)
- 1908 – John A. Volpe, American politician, 2nd United States Secretary of Transportation (d. 1994)
- 1909 – Lesslie Newbigin, English bishop and theologian (d. 1998)
- 1909 – Gratien Gélinas, Canadian actor, director, and producer (d. 1999)
- 1911 – Nikos Gatsos, Greek poet and songwriter (d. 1992)
- 1913 – Delmore Schwartz, American poet (d. 1966)
- 1915 – Ernest Lehman, American screenwriter (d. 2005)
- 1916 – Richard Fleischer, American director (d. 2006)
- 1918 – Gérard Souzay, French opera singer (d. 2004)
- 1919 – Peter Tali Coleman, American politician, 43rd Governor of American Samoa (d. 1997)
- 1919 – Julia Robinson, American mathematician (d. 1985)
- 1922 – Lucian Freud, German-English painter (d. 2011)
- 1922 – Jean Ritchie, American singer-songwriter
- 1923 – Rudolph Pariser, Chinese-American chemist
- 1924 – Lionel Gilbert, Australian historian and author
- 1925 – Sammy Davis, Jr., American actor, singer, and dancer (d. 1990)
- 1925 – Carmen Martín Gaite, Spanish author (d. 2000)
- 1925 – Jimmy Smith, American organist (d. 2005)
- 1927 – Ferdie Pacheco, American physician
- 1927 – Vladimir Shatalov, Soviet cosmonaut and general
- 1928 – Bill Hewitt, Canadian sportscaster (d. 1996)
- 1928 – Ulric Neisser, German-American psychologist (d. 2012)
- 1930 – Julian Critchley, English author and politician, MP for Aldershot (d. 2000)
- 1930 – Maximilian Schell, Austrian-Swiss actor and director
- 1931 – Bob Arum, American boxing promoter, founded Top Rank
- 1933 – Flip Wilson, American comedian and actor (d. 1998)
- 1935 – Dharmendra, Indian actor
- 1935 – Tatiana Zatulovskaya, Israeli chess player
- 1936 – David Carradine, American actor (d. 2009)
- 1936 – Michael Hobson, American publisher
- 1937 – James MacArthur, American actor (d. 2010)
- 1937 – Arne Næss, Jr., German-Norwegian mountaineer and businessman (d. 2004)
- 1939 – Red Berenson, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1939 – Jerry Butler, American singer-songwriter (The Impressions)
- 1939 – James Galway, Irish flute player
- 1939 – Dariush Mehrjui, Iranian director, screenwriter, and producer
- 1939 – Soko Richardson, American drummer (Kings of Rhythm and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers) (d. 2004)
- 1940 – Brant Alyea, American baseball player
- 1941 – Ed Brinkman, American baseball player
- 1941 – Bob Brown, American football player
- 1941 – Duke Cunningham, American politician and convicted fraudster
- 1941 – Bobby Elliott, English drummer (The Hollies)
- 1941 – Geoff Hurst, English footballer
- 1943 – Slick, American wrestling manager
- 1943 – Jim Morrison, American singer-songwriter and poet (The Doors and Rick & the Ravens) (d. 1971)
- 1943 – Bodo Tümmler, German runner
- 1943 – Mary Woronov, American actress
- 1943 – Larry Martin, American paleontologist (d. 2013)
- 1943 – James Tate, American poet
- 1944 – George Baker, Dutch singer-songwriter
- 1944 – Ted Irvine, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1944 – Vince MacLean, Canadian politician
- 1945 – John Banville, Irish author and journalist
- 1946 – John Rubinstein, American actor, composer, and director
- 1946 – Sharmila Tagore, Indian actress
- 1947 – Chava Alberstein, Israeli singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1947 – Gregg Allman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Allman Brothers Band and Hour Glass)
- 1947 – Gérard Blanc, French singer and guitarist (d. 2009)
- 1947 – Thomas R. Cech, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1947 – Kati-Claudia Fofonoff, Finnish author
- 1948 – Luis Caffarelli, Argentine-American mathematician
- 1949 – Mary Gordon, American author and academic
- 1949 – Nancy Meyers, American director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1949 – Ray Shulman, English violinist, guitarist, and producer (Simon Dupree and the Big Sound and Gentle Giant)
- 1949 – Robert Sternberg, American psychologist
- 1950 – Rick Baker, American makeup artist
- 1950 – Tim Foli, American baseball player
- 1950 – Dan Hartman, American singer-songwriter and producer (Edgar Winter Group) (d. 1994)
- 1951 – Bill Bryson, American author
- 1951 – Richard Desmond, English publisher and businessman, founded Northern & Shell
- 1951 – Jan Eggum, Norwegian singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1952 – Khaw Boon Wan, Malayan-Singaporean politician, Minister of National Development of Singapore
- 1952 – Steve Atkinson, English-Hong Kong cricketer
- 1953 – Kim Basinger, American actress, singer, and producer
- 1953 – Roy Firestone, American sportscaster and journalist
- 1953 – Norman Finkelstein, American academic, author, and activist
- 1953 – Sam Kinison, American comedian and actor (d. 1992)
- 1954 – Harold Hongju Koh, American lawyer, scholar and politician
- 1954 – Frits Pirard, Dutch cyclist
- 1954 – Gadowar Singh Sahota, Indian wrestler
- 1955 – Milenko Zablaćanski, Serbian actor, director, and scriptwriter (d. 2008)
- 1955 – Kasim Sulton, American bass guitarist, keyboardist, and vocalist (Utopia)
- 1956 – Warren Cuccurullo, American guitarist (Duran Duran, Missing Persons, TV Mania, and Chicanery)
- 1956 – Andrew Edge English drummer (Thompson Twins, Uropa Lula, and Savage Progress)
- 1957 – Phil Collen, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Def Leppard, Girl, Man Raze, Tush, and Dumb Blondes)
- 1958 – Rob Curling, Malayan-English journalist
- 1958 – Bob Greene, American physiologist
- 1958 – Thongchai McIntyre, Thai singer and actor
- 1959 – Stephen Jefferies, South African cricketer
- 1959 – Mark Steyn, Canadian-American author and critic
- 1960 – Lim Guan Eng, Malaysian politician, 4th Chief Minister of the State of Penang
- 1961 – Ann Coulter, American lawyer and author
- 1961 – Mikey Robins, Australian comedian and television host
- 1962 – Berry van Aerle, Dutch footballer
- 1962 – Steve Elkington, Australian golfer
- 1962 – Marty Friedman, American-Japanese guitarist, songwriter, and television host (Megadeth, Cacophony, and Hawaii)
- 1962 – Nikos Karageorgiou, Greek footballer
- 1962 – Wendell Pierce, American actor
- 1963 – Greg Howe, American guitarist, composer, and producer
- 1963 – Toshiaki Kawada, Japanese wrestler
- 1964 – James Blundell, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1964 – Teri Hatcher, American actress
- 1964 – Chigusa Nagayo, Japanese wrestler
- 1964 – Mike Ruiz, Canadian-American model, photographer, and director
- 1965 – David Harewood, English actor
- 1965 – Carina Lau, Hong Kong actress
- 1965 – Theo Maassen, Dutch comedian and actor
- 1966 – Sinéad O'Connor, Irish singer-songwriter
- 1967 – Jeff George, American football player
- 1967 – Andy Kapp, German curler
- 1967 – Kotono Mitsuishi, Japanese voice actress
- 1967 – Darren Sheridan, English footballer and manager
- 1967 – Junkie XL, Dutch musician and producer
- 1968 – Michael Cole, American sportscaster
- 1968 – Mike Mussina, American baseball player
- 1969 – Steve Van Wormer, American actor
- 1970 – Me Phi Me, American rapper
- 1972 – Marco Abreu, Angolan footballer
- 1972 – Indrek Allmann, Estonian architect
- 1972 – Édson Ribeiro, Brazilian sprinter
- 1972 – Frank Shamrock, American mixed martial artist
- 1973 – Doron Bell Jr., Canadian actor
- 1973 – Corey Taylor, American singer-songwriter (Slipknot, Stone Sour, and Junk Beer Kidnap Band)
- 1974 – Cristian Castro, Mexican singer
- 1974 – Tony Simmons, American football player
- 1974 – Nick Zinner, American guitarist (Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Head Wound City)
- 1975 – Kevin Harvick, American race car driver
- 1976 – Brettina, Bahamian-American singer-songwriter and actress
- 1976 – Reed Johnson, American baseball player
- 1976 – Dominic Monaghan, German-English actor
- 1977 – Elsa Benítez, Mexican model and television host
- 1977 – Sébastien Chabal, French rugby player
- 1977 – Priit Narusk, Estonian skier
- 1977 – Ryan Newman, American race car driver
- 1978 – John Oster, Welsh footballer
- 1978 – Frédéric Piquionne, French footballer
- 1978 – Anwar Siraj, Ethiopian footballer
- 1978 – Ian Somerhalder, American actor
- 1978 – Vernon Wells, American baseball player
- 1979 – Daniel Fitzhenry, Australian rugby league footballer
- 1979 – Johan Forssell, Swedish politician
- 1979 – Raymond Lam, Hong Kong actor and singer
- 1979 – Ingrid Michaelson, American singer-songwriter
- 1979 – José Peña, Venezuelan sprinter
- 1979 – Christian Wilhelmsson, Swedish footballer
- 1980 – Lisa Kelly, American trucker and reality television personality
- 1981 – Jeremy Accardo, American baseball player
- 1981 – Simon Finnigan, English rugby player
- 1981 – Philip Rivers, American football player
- 1982 – Alfredo Aceves, American baseball player
- 1982 – Halil Altıntop, Turkish footballer
- 1982 – Hamit Altıntop, Turkish footballer
- 1982 – Chrisette Michele, American singer-songwriter
- 1982 – Nicki Minaj, Trinidadian-American rapper
- 1982 – Noelle Pikus-Pace, American skeleton racer
- 1982 – Jimmy Rave, American wrestler
- 1982 – DeeDee Trotter, American runner
- 1983 – Neel Jani, Swiss race car driver
- 1983 – Liu Song, Chinese snooker player
- 1984 – Greg Halford, English footballer
- 1984 – Badr Hari, Dutch kick-boxer
- 1985 – Meagan Duhamel, Canadian figure skater
- 1985 – Dwight Howard, American basketball player
- 1985 – Oleksiy Pecherov, Ukrainian basketball player
- 1986 – Amir Khan, English boxer
- 1986 – Kate Voegele, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actress
- 1987 – Jana Juričová, Slovak tennis player
- 1989 – Drew Doughty, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1989 – Jen Ledger, English drummer (Skillet)
- 1991 – Anne Brown, Acomplished Typographer
- 1993 – Jordan Obita, English footballer
- 1993 – AnnaSophia Robb, American actress and singer
- 1994 – Raheem Sterling, English footballer
- 1995 – Jordan Ibe, English footballer
- 1996 – Teala Dunn, American actress
Deaths[edit]
- 592 – Sushun, Japanese emperor
- 765 – Ja'far al-Sadiq, 6th of the Twelve Imams (b. 702)
- 899 – Arnulf of Carinthia, King of East Francia (b. 850)
- 1626 – John Davies, English poet (b. 1569)
- 1632 – Philippe van Lansberge, Flemish astronomer (b. 1561)
- 1638 – Ivan Gundulić, Croatian poet (b. 1589)
- 1643 – John Pym, English politician (b. 1583)
- 1649 – Noël Chabanel, French missionary (b. 1613)
- 1680 – Henry Pierrepont, 1st Marquess of Dorchester, English politician (b. 1606)
- 1691 – Richard Baxter, English clergyman (b. 1615)
- 1695 – Barthélemy d'Herbelot, French Orientalist (b. 1625)
- 1709 – Thomas Corneille, French playwright (b. 1625)
- 1722 – Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine, German wife of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (b. 1652)
- 1744 – Marie Anne de Mailly, French mistress of Louis XV of France (b. 1717)
- 1745 – Etienne Fourmont, French Orientalist (b. 1683)
- 1746 – Charles Radclyffe, English Jacobite courtier and soldier (b. 1693)
- 1756 – William Stanhope, 1st Earl of Harrington, English politician and diplomat (b. 1690)
- 1768 – Jean Denis Attiret, French painter and missionary, Painter to the Emperor of China (b. 1702)
- 1779 – Nathan Alcock, English physician (b. 1707)
- 1793 – Madame du Barry, French mistress of Louis XV of France (b. 1743)
- 1811 – Eliza Poe, English-American actress (b. 1787)
- 1830 – Benjamin Constant, Swiss-French politician and author (b. 1767)
- 1859 – Thomas De Quincey, English author (b. 1785)
- 1864 – George Boole, English mathematician and philosopher (b. 1815)
- 1869 – Narcisa de Jesús, Ecuadorian Catholic laywoman and saint (b. 1832)
- 1885 – William Henry Vanderbilt, American railroad executive and philanthropist (b. 1821)
- 1894 – Pafnuty Chebyshev, Russian mathematician (b. 1821)
- 1903 – Herbert Spencer, English philosopher (b. 1820)
- 1907 – Oscar II of Sweden (b. 1829)
- 1914 – Maximilian von Spee, German admiral (b. 1861)
- 1917 – Mendele Mocher Sforim, Russian author (b. 1836)
- 1918 – Josip Stadler, Croatian priest, 1st Archbishop of Vrhbosna (b. 1843)
- 1936 – Simplicio Godina, Filipino conjoined twin (b. 1908)
- 1938 – Friedrich Glauser, Swiss author (b. 1896)
- 1940 – George Lloyd, English-Canadian bishop and theologian (b. 1861)
- 1952 – Charles Lightoller, English officer on the RMS Titanic (b. 1874)
- 1954 – Gladys George, American actress (b. 1904)
- 1954 – Joseph B. Keenan, American attorney and politician (b. 1888)
- 1958 – Tris Speaker, American baseball player (b. 1888)
- 1963 – Sarit Thanarat, Thai politician, 11th Prime Minister of Thailand (b. 1908)
- 1966 – Ward Morehouse, American critic and columnist (b. 1899)
- 1971 – Ernst Krenkel, Soviet Arctic explorer and radio operator (b. 1903)
- 1971 – Eleni Ourani, Greek poet (b. 1896)
- 1975 – Gary Thain, New Zealand bass player (Uriah Heep) (b. 1948)
- 1978 – Golda Meir, Russian-Israeli politician, 4th Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1898)
- 1980 – John Lennon, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and activist (The Beatles, Plastic Ono Band, The Quarrymen, and The Dirty Mac) (b. 1940)
- 1982 – Marty Robbins, American singer-songwriter and race car driver (b. 1925)
- 1982 – December murders in Suriname:
- Bram Behr, Surinamese journalist, founded the Communist Party of Suriname (b. 1951)
- André Kamperveen, Surinamese footballer and politician, 1st President of the Caribbean Football Union (b. 1924)
- 1983 – Slim Pickens, American actor and rodeo performer (b. 1919)
- 1984 – Luther Adler, American actor (b. 1903)
- 1984 – Robert Jay Mathews, American white nationalist leader, founded The Order (b. 1953)
- 1991 – Kimberly Bergalis, American HIV victim (b. 1968)
- 1991 – Buck Clayton, American trumpet player (b. 1911)
- 1992 – William Shawn, American magazine editor (b. 1917)
- 1993 – Yevgeny Minayev, Russian weightlifter (b. 1933)
- 1994 – Antônio Carlos Jobim, Brazilian composer, musician, and singer (b. 1927)
- 1996 – Howard Rollins, American actor (b. 1950)
- 1996 – Kashiwado Tsuyoshi, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 47th Yokozuna (b. 1938)
- 1997 – Bob Bell, American clown (Bozo the Clown) (b. 1922)
- 1998 – Michael Craze, English actor (b. 1942)
- 1999 – Péter Kuczka, Hungarian poet (b. 1923)
- 2000 – Milić od Mačve, Yugoslav painter (b. 1934)
- 2001 – Mirza Delibašić, Bosnian basketball player (b. 1954)
- 2001 – Don Tennant, American advertising executive (b. 1922)
- 2003 – Rubén González, Cuban pianist (Buena Vista Social Club and Estrellas de Areito) (b. 1919)
- 2004 – Dimebag Darrell, American guitarist and singer-songwriter (Pantera, Damageplan, and Gasoline) (b. 1966)
- 2005 – Georgiy Zhzhonov, Russian actor and author (b. 1915)
- 2006 – Martha Tilton, American singer (b. 1915)
- 2006 – José Uribe, Dominican baseball player (b. 1959)
- 2007 – Gerardo García Pimentel, Mexican journalist (b. 1983)
- 2008 – Kerryn McCann, Australian runner (b. 1967)
- 2008 – Oliver Postgate, English animator, puppeteer and writer (b. 1925)
- 2008 – Robert Prosky, American actor (b. 1930)
- 2009 – Kenneth Biros, American murderer (b. 1958)
- 2009 – Luis Días, Dominican singer-songwriter, guitarist, and composer (b. 1952)
- 2012 – Jagannathan, Malayalam actor (b. 1938)
- 2012 – Jerry Brown, American football player (b. 1987)
- 2012 – Arnold Dean, American radio host (b. 1930)
- 2012 – Yvonne Kennedy, American politician (b. 1945)
- 2012 – Ambrose Madtha, Indian archbishop (b. 1955)
- 2012 – Charles Martin, American politician (b. 1931)
- 2012 – Khan Sarwar Murshid, Bangladeshi educator and diplomat (b. 1924)
- 2012 – Walter Newman, American soldier and civic leader (b. 1921)
- 2012 – Bill Prest, Australian politician (b. 1926)
Holidays and observances[edit]
- Bodhi Day (Japan)
- CARICOM-Cuba Day (Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Cuba)
- Christian Feast Day:
- Feast of the Immaculate Conception (public holiday in several countries, a Holy Day of Obligation in others)
- Clement of Ohrid (Julian Calendar)
- Eucharius
- Richard Baxter (US Episcopal Church)
- Romaric
- Festa da Conceição da Praia, celebrating Yemanjá, Queen of the Ocean (Salvador, Bahia)
- Festival of Lights (Lyon)
- Constitution Day (Romania)
- Constitution Day (Uzbekistan)
- National Youth Day (Albania)
- Student's Day (Bulgaria)
- Afflux (Discordianism)
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;” John 11:25 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
Morning
"Base things of the world hath God chosen."
1 Corinthians 1:28
1 Corinthians 1:28
Walk the streets by moonlight, if you dare, and you will see sinners then. Watch when the night is dark, and the wind is howling, and the picklock is grating in the door, and you will see sinners then. Go to yon jail, and walk through the wards, and mark the men with heavy over-hanging brows, men whom you would not like to meet at night, and there are sinners there. Go to the Reformatories, and note those who have betrayed a rampant juvenile depravity, and you will see sinners there. Go across the seas to the place where a man will gnaw a bone upon which is reeking human flesh, and there is a sinner there. Go where you will, you need not ransack earth to find sinners, for they are common enough; you may find them in every lane and street of every city, and town, and village, and hamlet. It is for such that Jesus died. If you will select me the grossest specimen of humanity, if he be but born of woman, I will have hope of him yet, because Jesus Christ is come to seek and to save sinners. Electing love has selected some of the worst to be made the best. Pebbles of the brook grace turns into jewels for the crown-royal. Worthless dross he transforms into pure gold. Redeeming love has set apart many of the worst of mankind to be the reward of the Saviour's passion. Effectual grace calls forth many of the vilest of the vile to sit at the table of mercy, and therefore let none despair.
Reader, by that love looking out of Jesus' tearful eyes, by that love streaming from those bleeding wounds, by that faithful love, that strong love, that pure, disinterested, and abiding love; by the heart and by the bowels of the Saviour's compassion, we conjure you turn not away as though it were nothing to you; but believe on him and you shall be saved. Trust your soul with him and he will bring you to his Father's right hand in glory everlasting.
Evening
"I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some."
1 Corinthians 9:22
1 Corinthians 9:22
Paul's great object was not merely to instruct and to improve, but to save. Anything short of this would have disappointed him; he would have men renewed in heart, forgiven, sanctified, in fact, saved. Have our Christian labours been aimed at anything below this great point? Then let us amend our ways, for of what avail will it be at the last great day to have taught and moralized men if they appear before God unsaved? Blood-red will our skirts be if through life we have sought inferior objects, and forgotten that men needed to be saved. Paul knew the ruin of man's natural state, and did not try to educate him, but to save him; he saw men sinking to hell, and did not talk of refining them, but of saving from the wrath to come. To compass their salvation, he gave himself up with untiring zeal to telling abroad the gospel, to warning and beseeching men to be reconciled to God. His prayers were importunate and his labours incessant. To save souls was his consuming passion, his ambition, his calling. He became a servant to all men, toiling for his race, feeling a woe within him if he preached not the gospel. He laid aside his preferences to prevent prejudice; he submitted his will in things indifferent, and if men would but receive the gospel, he raised no questions about forms or ceremonies: the gospel was the one all-important business with him. If he might save some he would be content. This was the crown for which he strove, the sole and sufficient reward of all his labours and self-denials. Dear reader, have you and I lived to win souls at this noble rate? Are we possessed with the same all-absorbing desire? If not, why not? Jesus died for sinners, cannot we live for them? Where is our tenderness? Where our love to Christ, if we seek not his honour in the salvation of men? O that the Lord would saturate us through and through with an undying zeal for the souls of men.
===Today's reading: Daniel 5-7, 2 John 1 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Daniel 5-7
The Writing on the Wall
1 King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them. 2 While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. 3 So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. 4 As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone.
5 Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. 6 His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his legs became weak and his knees were knocking.
7 The king summoned the enchanters, astrologers and diviners. Then he said to these wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing and tells me what it means will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around his neck, and he will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom....”
Today's New Testament reading: 2 John 1
1 The elder,
To the lady chosen by God and to her children, whom I love in the truth—and not I only, but also all who know the truth— 2because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:
3 Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.
4 It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. 5And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love....
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Issachar [Ĭs’sakar]—there is here orreward.
1. The ninth son of Jacob and the fifth by Leah. Of Issachar as an individual not a word is recorded after his birth (Gen. 30:18; 49:14, 15; Deut. 33:18, 19).
The Man Who Couched Down
The birth of Issachar was regarded by his mother as a kind of payment from the hand of God, “God hath given me my hire,” said Leah, “because I have given my maiden to my husband: and she called his name Issachar” (that is, hire). In Jacob’s blessing to Issachar, he is described as a “strong ass couching down between two burdens,” or “between the sheep-folds.” Two things are here mentioned as a pair, meaning they belong to each other; they are on either hand of Issachar, as necessary accompaniments to each other and to him. Between them his lot is cast.
When Israel was at war against Jabin, king of Canaan ( Judg. 4), Reuben was at ease among the sheepfolds (Judg. 5:16), but the princes of Issachar fought valiantly, jeopardizing their lives unto death (Judg. 5:18). Then it is said that the children of Issachar had an understanding of the times and knew what Israel ought to do.
The strong-boned ass used with the cart, because of its capacity for bearing heavy burdens, was the apt figure used by Jacob to represent Issachar’s great strength, a strength revealed on the field of battle. The love of ease, however, made the people of Issachar unwilling to use their strength at all times in the interests of their country. They couched down in luxury and the restfulness of a rural life. The tragedy overtaking many is their couching down when they ought to be rising up. Their prosperity induces indolence, and like the rich fool in the parable, they take their ease ( Luke 12:19). The voice from heaven still cries, “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion” (Amos 6:1).
2. A Levite doorkeeper of the Tabernacle in David’s time (1 Chron. 26:5).
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KINGDOM
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end. -Luke 1:32-33
Christmas represents a beginning that only makes sense if we comprehend the end. The beginning is a child-a humble birth in an earthy stable. But the end... The end is an explosion of divine glory bright enough for the whole world to see-like the birth of new star. The end is a kingdom. Jesus came to forward the kingdom of God, to open people's eyes to the power of God, to make it the central reality of their lives. "His kingdom will never end."
Contrast this with King Herod, who sought to protect his kingdom by trying to eliminate any potential rival to his throne. What Herod didn't understand was that by killing all the baby boys in Bethlehem, he was not protecting his kingdom, but showing its weakness and fearfulness. In the wake of God's kingdom and power, all human power is simply water dribbling through cupped hands, no matter how steadfast the grasp.
The kingdom of Christ is different; it will never end. There is no rival to his authority, though unbelievers will always abound. There is no one sitting at the right hand of God except Christ. No other authority was present when the earth was created, and no other will be there when the final judgment comes.
Christmas is a celebration of the coming of a kingdom. Powerful. Life-changing. Overwhelming. Don't ever think that Christmas is a way for us to wrap God up in a package, put a bow on it, and keep the whole thing under our control. A way for us to avoid God except for those extra-special religious seasons.
The first Christmas was the arrival of a king. Rulers from the east knew it, so they came to present gifts. King Herod knew it, which is why he ordered all the baby boys in Bethlehem to be killed. It is the Battle of Bethlehem, the beginning of a war in which the King of Kings is intent to take back territory that belonged to him all along, and to sweep people like us into a new benevolent kingdom.
Prayer for today:
Dear God, help me to live these days with a knowledge that you are reigning in this broken world as king. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
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