As the world prepares to confront what may have been an act of terrorism taking down a Malaysian Airlines flight 777 aircraft, with 239 feared dead, it is worth remembering tragedy is not always from terror. This incident might well be terrorist, but the focal point suggesting it, stolen passports from an Italian and an Austrian could also be something expected on *any* international flight not in the US. The US spends a lot of money on security. People wishing to flee nations are common. It isn't hard to think of a reason why people might anonymously wish to leave Malaysia. We don't yet know what happened. One thing we are certain of, is that many on that flight were loved, and will be missed.
It used to be believed that the only way to get truthful testimony from a peasant was to torture them. Low people weren't close to God, and so were easily mislead by the devil. Such ridiculous spiritualism was from the dark ages, and by the time of enlightenment France, 1762, it was a different reason for one to be tortured. Jean Calas was a protestant in Catholic France. One of his sons had converted to Catholicism. But another was found dead in the family home. Calas was accused of killing his son for wanting to convert. Calas' defence was to claim that his son had suicided and the family had relaid the body so as to make it look like a murder. Suicides in those times were crimes which might stigmatise a family. The local magistrate tortured Calas, pulling his limbs out of their sockets, and forcing more than 17 litres of water down his throat. He was tied to a cross, and all of his limbs broken twice by an iron rod. Still he claimed innocence. So he was killed on the wheel aged 64.
The celebrated writer Voltaire heard of the case, and two years later, examined the evidence. The son had had gambling debts he couldn't pay which were to force him out of university. So The King pardoned the father, on this day, posthumously. I dispute the assertion that this is an example of religious intolerance, feeling it is merely intolerance which could have happened for any reason, and religion was the focus. The magistrate was dismissed. If enough people sign my petition, maybe, one day, some ALP figures will answer for their crimes.
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Happy birthday and many happy returns Tania Tu Phuong Huynh and Cally Tran. Born on the same day, across the years. Remember, birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
- 1213 – Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy (d. 1271)
- 1454 – Amerigo Vespucci, Italian cartographer and explorer (d. 1512)
- 1627 – John Bowne, English-American activist (d. 1695)
- 1727 – Johann Gottlieb Preller, German cantor, composer, and surveyor (d. 1786)
- 1824 – Amasa Leland Stanford, American businessman and politician, founded Stanford University (d. 1893)
- 1892 – Vita Sackville-West, English author, poet, and gardener (d. 1962)
- 1934 – Yuri Gagarin, Russian pilot and astronaut (d. 1968)
- 1943 – Bobby Fischer, American chess player (d. 2008)
- 1945 – Robert Calvert, English singer-songwriter (Hawkwind) (d. 1988)
- 1966 – Tony Lockett, Australian footballer
- 1993 – Larnell Cole, English footballer
Matches
- 141 BC – Liu Che, posthumously known as Emperor Wu of Han, assumes the throne over the Han Dynasty of China.
- 632 – The Last Sermon (Khutbah, Khutbatul Wada') of Prophet Muhammad.
- 1009 – First known mention of Lithuania, in the annals of the monastery of Quedlinburg.
- 1500 – The fleet of Pedro Álvares Cabral leaves Lisbon for the Indies. The fleet will discover Brazil which lies within boundaries granted to Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas.
- 1566 – David Rizzio, private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland.
- 1765 – After a campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in1762 on the charge, though his son may have actually committed suicide.
- 1796 – Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.
- 1841 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the United States v. The Amistad case that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.
- 1842 – Giuseppe Verdi's third opera, Nabucco, receives its première performance in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost opera writers.
- 1842 – The first documented discovery of gold in California occurs at Rancho San Francisco, six years before the California Gold Rush.
- 1847 – Mexican–American War: The first large-scale amphibious assault in U.S. history is launched in the Siege of Veracruz.
- 1862 – American Civil War: The USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships.
- 1908 – Inter Milan was founded on Football Club Internazionale, following a schism from the Milan Cricket and Football Club.
- 1916 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against the border town of Columbus, New Mexico.
- 1925 – Pink's War: The first Royal Air Force operation conducted independently of the British Army or Royal Navy begins.
- 1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to Congress, the first of his New Deal policies.
- 1945 – The Bombing of Tokyo by the United States Army Air Forces begin, one of the most destructive bombing raids in history.
- 1946 – Bolton Wanderers stadium disaster at Burnden Park, Bolton, England, kills 33 and injures hundreds more.
- 1954 – McCarthyism: CBS television broadcasts the See It Now episode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy", produced by Fred Friendly.
- 1959 – The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
- 1960 – Dr. Belding Hibbard Scribner implants for the first time a shunt he invented into a patient, which allows the patient to receive hemodialysis on a regular basis.
- 1961 – Sputnik 9 successfully launches, carrying a human dummy nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich, and demonstrating that Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight.
- 1977 – The Hanafi Siege: In a thirty-nine-hour standoff, armed Hanafi Muslims seize three Washington, D.C., buildings, killing two and taking 149 hostage.
Despatches
- 1202 – Sverre of Norway (b. 1145)
- 1996 – George Burns, American actor and singer (b. 1896)
- 1997 – Terry Nation, Welsh author and screenwriter (b. 1930)
Taswegians should dump their government and their voting system. Pronto!
Piers Akerman – Sunday, March 09, 2014 (8:29am)
ANYONE looking at Tasmania must conclude the island state is a political and economic basket case.
Unfortunately, the preposterous Hare-Clark voting system Tasmanians have adopted to elect the 25 members of its House of Assembly is going to make it extremely difficult to reverse that situation even if the Liberal Opposition leader Will Hodgman defeats Labor Premier Lara Giddings as expected at next weekend’s election.
Hare-Clark is an optional proportional voting system. Unless you’re a political scientist that won’t mean a lot.
Like most dysfunctional systems, it was designed by well-intentioned individuals.
In this case, 19th-century British political scientist Thomas Hare, who wanted a system that would give proportional representation to all classes in the UK so minorities would not be excluded from the House of Commons or other assemblies.
His plan was taken up by Tasmanian attorney-general Andrew Inglis Clark, who after a couple of attempts managed to get parliament to agree to a trial of proportional representation in 1896.
It was dumped in 1901 then resurrected six years later. It should have been left in the graveyard where fine theories but lousy practices are buried.
The only other assembly to adopt it in Australia has been the ACT’s legislature.
It is complex and not easily understood. To make matters worse and even more confusing for voters, Tasmania bans how-to-vote cards and distribution of electoral material on polling day.
The Hare-Clark system is not well suited to the Westminster system, where the government usually has a clear majority of seats, the opposition has a few and minor parties and independents sit on the cross benches.
In Tasmania, each of the five electorates returns five MPs. To be sure of being elected, an individual candidate must obtain a “quota” of 16.6 per cent of the total vote.
That makes it easy for minor party candidates like the Greens. The five Green candidates need only win 16.6 per cent of the vote between them and one of them will be elected.
But it makes it very difficult for a political party to win enough seats to form government in its own right.
To do that, a party needs to win three of the five seats in three of the five electorates, and two of the five seats in the other two electorates.
But to be sure of winning three seats in an electorate a party needs to win 50 per cent of the vote. If a party falls just a little short of 50 per cent it will win only two seats, meaning the electorate will return two Liberal MPs, two Labor and one Green.
Under Hare-Clark a miss is as good as a mile. You definitely win two seats with 33 per cent of the vote but you are likely to miss out on winning three with 48 per cent.
According to the published polling, the Greens will win four seats.
The Palmer United Party is the only other minor party that could possibly win a seat. If they did win one, it would be in Braddon and they would take it from Labor.
But while PUP, the Tasmanian Nationals and other parties are unlikely to win any seats for themselves, they could easily win seats for Labor and the Greens by stripping votes from the Liberals.
That’s why the Liberals say a vote for any minor party is a vote for another Labor-Green minority government.
Labor It is aiming to win nine seats and hoping the Greens will win four. This would give Labor and the Greens 13 seats between them and enable them to form a government.
Announcing the election in January, Giddings said Labor would not have Greens in cabinet again.
But on the same day Nick McKim said the Greens would be there. Giddings repeatedly refused to rule out doing another deal with the Greens but said she would not enter into a power-sharing agreement with them.
Tasmanians know that a “no power-sharing agreement” does not mean “no deal”.
The Liberals have consistently for the past four years said they will not govern in minority.
This gives Tasmanians a clear choice — a majority Liberal government able to implement its long-term plan for the state, or another four years of Labor-Green minority government and all the uncertainty and lack of action that brings.
History has demonstrated that Tasmania’s experiments with minority governments have been ruinous for the state.
They lack the authority to make the major changes Tasmania needs with every single decision held hostage to the whims of the minor parties.
Tasmanians should seriously consider their circumstances, consider their future and consider dumping their voting system after dumping the current government.
Bolt Report today
Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (10:54am)
The Bolt Report today. Joining me - Labor’s Anthony Albanese, Michael Kroger and Cassandra Wilkinson.
And our new NewsWatch segment, this week with Rowan Dean.
Among the topics: Abbott’s religious war, Green believers mocked, Qantas, the ABC and how Putin proved Obama wrong on global warming.
On Network 10 at 10 am and 4pm.
The videos of the show appear here.
===And our new NewsWatch segment, this week with Rowan Dean.
Among the topics: Abbott’s religious war, Green believers mocked, Qantas, the ABC and how Putin proved Obama wrong on global warming.
On Network 10 at 10 am and 4pm.
The videos of the show appear here.
Albo defies the critics. Or so I hope …
Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (9:25am)
Politics academic Peter Brent has a bizarre intolerance of debate, and wonder how much of it he permits students:
It seems 239 people died yesterday, including six Australians. Time to make a political point:
===UPDATE
It seems 239 people died yesterday, including six Australians. Time to make a political point:
Imagine if Bush had goofed like Obama #163
Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (6:22am)
If George W Bush couldn’t spell R-E-S-P-E-C-T would we have heard the
end of it? It’s all about preferred media naratives, isn’t it?
Remember: only Republicans get mocked for bad spelling:
===Remember: only Republicans get mocked for bad spelling:
Or maybe journalists simply assume the Left can’t be expected to be academic....
Shorten’s challenge: don’t take Labor back a century
Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (6:14am)
Peter Van Onselen is right to warn Bill Shorten to stop dragging Labor backwards - although Paul Howe’s idea of a Big Unions compact with Big Business is actually little better:
===[Paul] Howes has lead the charge publicly (and privately) for Labor to modernise: to consider a new industrial relations compact between business and the unions, to shift Labor back to the reforming style of the 1980s when Bob Hawke and Paul Keating ran Labor. Howes is making few friends with his campaign, but he will be on the right side of history…(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
Shorten’s approach is unashamedly short term, seeking to maximise popularity and minimise the risks that go with embracing reform. But if the polls get worse for Shorten, and he hasn’t built an alternative vision for running the country, he’ll be extremely vulnerable…
Shorten has become captive of a new system for electing the party leader which exposes his unpopularity among the party membership. He is trying to rectify that by embracing populism.
When Bob Hawke and Paul Keating turned Labor into a modern party with reforming credentials, it was highly controversial but it left a rich legacy. That’s what Shorten needs to shoot for — as suggested by Howes — but at the moment he is doing no such thing.
Hit on seniors health care card now market tested
Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (5:15am)
The fact that almost
nothing has leaked from the audit commission’s interim report suggests
the Abbott Government wanted this idea market tested:
Oops. It wasn’t a leak, I’m told. Just good digging.
===RETIREES face a crackdown on eligibility for the Seniors Health Care Card, which guarantees discount medicine and cash payments, under secret recommendations in the Abbott Government’s Audit Commission report…UPDATE
Thousands of self-funded retirees — 290,000 nationwide — get discounts on PBS medicines, GP visits and hearing aids, and receive a seniors supplement cash payment of $858 a year when they qualify for the card.
The report has questioned the tax-free status of super income for the purposes of determining taxable income and eligibility for the scheme.
Retirees must earn less than $50,000 a year to qualify for the card. Crucially, however, income from super investments is tax-free and not included as taxable income for the purposes of determining eligibility.
As a result, seniors can draw income from super investments of $100,000 a year, for example, and still be eligible for the card and discount $6 medicines.
There is no asset test for the seniors card and retirees living in $1 million houses can qualify for cheap prescriptions as long as their annual taxable income is below the threshold.
Oops. It wasn’t a leak, I’m told. Just good digging.
How the Left destroyed Tasmania
Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (5:03am)
Maurice Newman,
chairman of Tony Abbott’s highly influential Business Advisory Council,
on the ruination of Tasmania by the Left:
===Tasmania is also a stronghold of the Greens. Its politics are a reflection of voters’ dependence on government. Over 70 per cent of Tasmanians rely on taxpayers for a living. More than 36 per cent of households derive their sole or primary income from a commonwealth government payment, while 25 per cent depend on a state government job or related business. Another 10 per cent are employed in the private sector where the state is the dominant customer.So you’d think such an island would be desperate to develop private sector jobs. Instead:
This reliance on government is despite Tasmania’s dependable water supply, fertile agricultural lands, highly prospective mineral provinces, reliable energy supply, vast renewable timber plantations and a demonstrated ability to engage in high-value manufacturing. But rather than create the conditions that would exploit these comparative advantages, successive governments, both federal and state, have seen political gain in preserving Tasmania as the mendicant isle…One of federal Labor’s policies was to protect union jobs at the cost of many others:
It has pursued progressive socialist policies and an environmental agenda that have shunned economic activity. Because the majority of Tasmanians look to government for a living, they have had little incentive to change
Being an island, one of the great challenges for Tasmania is transport… The Productivity Commission has issued a draft report confirming that Tasmania is inefficiently structured and an incredibly expensive place to move product.Nick Cater says the Coalition has plans for that law:
One of the most obvious factors driving the high cost of transport is Bass Strait and the punitive effects of national coastal shipping laws introduced by the Gillard government in July 2012. These were intended to encourage Australian-registered ships crewed exclusively by Australians. They drove foreign-flagged vessels out of the market. The cost of these laws fell disproportionately on Tasmania, where 99 per cent of all freight travels by sea.
An early casualty is likely to be the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Act that requires foreign-registered ships carrying domestic freight to apply for temporary licences and deliver award wages and conditions. The result, as the Productivity Commission noted in January, has reduced competition and increased freight prices.
Bell Bay Aluminium told the commission its freight costs to Tasmania had risen from $18.20 a tonne to $29.70 since the legislation became law in 2012, a rise of 63 per cent.
Sorry to Forrest
Andrew Bolt March 09 2014 (4:59am)
An apology eight years later tells me:
===A: damage done.
B: huge costs.
On 11/12 March 2006, an article published on pages 41 and 44 of the weekend edition of The Sydney Morning Herald contained statements and opinions about Andrew Forrest and his conduct as a director of Fortescue Metals Group Limited. The Herald acknowledges that the allegations against Mr Forrest have proved to be totally unfounded. The Herald retracts them unreservedly and sincerely apologises to Mr Forrest for any distress, harm and damage the article may have caused him, his family and friends.
Greens Senator is introduced to some facts
Andrew Bolt March 08 2014 (6:10pm)
Queensland Environment Minister Andrew Powell, using facts, takes apart Greens Senator Larissa Waters, using overheated rhetoric. Here’s two of many examples in the debate:
===LARISSA WATERS: What I think a better example is Gladstone where we had 46 million cubic metres dredged there from that harbour where people have gotten sick and the fishing industry has had to close because the harbour is so toxic. Eleven million cubic metres of that was then dumped offshore in the Reef’s waters and you’d be hard pressed to find a scientist that says something didn’t go terribly wrong.Here’s an example of a Green apparently believing the rightness of their cause permits them to say any damn thing. For that same reason, of course, few Green believers will have their thinking changed an iota by seeing Waters humbled.
ANDREW POWELL: Matthew again the science says a very different story around Gladstone Harbour. There have been independent reviews, there have been scientific studies done. What the Senator hasn’t alluded that the reason there were sick fish in the harbour was because of the extreme weather events of 2011 and the amount of fish that came over the Yawonga Dam into the harbour, the fact that the harbour, that is a poorly flushed harbour was basically fresh water for an extended period of time and that a large amount of fish in a small area, with low food stock, meant that some of them got sick. That is what the science tells us and I think the Senator needs to be clear and factual with the people of Queensland around what is the true impacts on the Reef and how we need to resolve them.
LARISSA WATERS: Minister, with respect, the science that you’re referring to was paid for by both your Government or the ports corporation and the science that I’m referring to…
ANDREW POWELL: And so the Senator is now calling into question the CSIRO which is a fairly game call.
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Diana Vreeland. "You Don't Have to Be Pretty. You don't owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked "female"."
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PLEASE ASK ANY LOGICAL PERSON FROM THE LEFT OR RIGHT THIS SIMPLE QUESTION....
HERE IS A SIMPLE QUESTION.. WITH A VERY LOGICAL ANSWER....
If a man grew up with communist Grandparents and a leftist Mother, who "married" a Muslim Socialist from Kenya, ( Maybe!! But no proof!! ) and was mentored by a Black Communist agitator on the FBI list in his teens ( Frank Marshal Davis) was promoted and helped by James Bowman a Communist Sympathizer ( Valerie Jarretts Father) and lived in Indonesia as a Muslim in his younger years, then came to America and was financed through College by Khalid Mansour (a PRO PALESTINIAN ANTI ISRAELI BIGOT) through the Saudi Government and then joined the Church of Black Liberation Theology run by Reverend Jeremiah Wright for 20 years and also became a Radical follower of Saul Alinsky... and befriended Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dorn.. (the Weather Underground Bombers) ...and then became the Lawyer for Acorn and then wehen he ran for elected office was endorsed by the Communist Party of America in his first run...made Valerie Jarrett who was Born in Shiraz Iran his main adviser...and openly announced that he wants to "FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORM THE UNITED STATES...."
YOU THINK THIS MAN LOVES AMERICA THE WAY IT IS..... OR DO YOU THINK HE MIGHT WANT TO CHANGE IT TO HIS WAY OF THINKING ???
Hmmmmmmmmm THINK ABOUT IT AND SHARE THIS WONT YOU !!
I Have a strong suspicion unless we do something about it this is not going to end well for regular Americans!
(BTW....THIS IS A REAL MAP OF OBAMA'S NEIGHBORHOOD IN 1995.
BEAR IN MIND HE KNOWS ALL THESE PEOPLE WELL. YOU HANG WITH THOSE YOU ASSOCIATE WITH!
Obama was neighbors with Farrakhan back in Hyde Park, and attended his “Million Man March” in 1995)
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Happy International Women's Day!
To celebrate, here are a few female scientists that you might not have heard of (but definitely should have). I haven't included Marie Curie, because as much as we all love her, she is the automatic "female scientist" that always springs to mind and I think it's time we branched out.
1. Ada Lovelace
Analyst, metaphysician, and founder of scientific computing. Read more about her life here:http://bit.ly/V3im
2. Rosalind Franklin.
Biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer who made critical contributions to the understanding of the fine molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. She received no credit for her contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA. More on her life: http://bit.ly/4CJMC0
3. Rachel Carson
Marine biologist and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement. More on her life: http://bit.ly/16f4Hcm
4. Lise Meitner
A physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. She was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission, but was overlooked for the Nobel Prize in favour of male colleagues. More on her life: http://bit.ly/3js4zk
5. Cecilia Payne
Astronomer and astrophysicist who, in 1925, proposed in her Ph.D. thesis an explanation for the composition of stars in terms of the relative abundances of hydrogen and helium. More on her life: http://bit.ly/n4RNqS
6. Mary Anning
A paleontologist who made many important finds in the Jurassic marine fossil beds at Lyme Regis in Dorset. More on her life: http://bit.ly/rGXKq
<You probably need to look a little deeper into the life of Rachel Carson and the Silent spring. Evidence has come to light that a lot of what she got up to was fabricated and that indeed the banning of DDT has had many not so beneficial effects. The banning indeed was more a product of lobbying and convincing a court as to the deleterious effects rather than actual effects.>
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Oakes verbals Abetz
Andrew BoltMARCH092013(7:01am)
Abbott had also declined to condemn - even to comment on - another front-bencher’s attempt to link asylum seekers and paedophiles in the public mind.
What actually happened, when Senator Eric Abetz fielded questions about residents in, say, an aged care facility being informed if asylum seekers are to be housed with them:
Journalist: The Government doesn’t inform the community when paedophiles are released from prison (inaudible) so why should they-
Abetz: Well, there is a register in relation to those sex offenders and the community has spoken in relation to that, but they do want a register and communities do want to be notified, and if I might say, you know, I wouldn’t put the two in the same category necessarily.
A journalist made the link. Abetz refuted it. Oakes then accuses Abetz.
A wonderful game.
Unemployed First Bloke furious at sharing footy privileges with an Opposition Leader
Andrew BoltMARCH092013(8:05am)
Tim Mathieson, an eager user of freebies at the footy, is upset to see Opposition Leader Tony Abbott also given VIP treatment:
After attending an AFL clash at the MCG as a guest of the Richmond Football Club, Mr Mathieson emailed its chief executive, Brendon Gale, copying in the Prime Minister’s office, to complain about the Opposition Leader’s access to the team’s inner sanctum and his prominent seating at a pre-game function.
Mr Mathieson demanded that Mr Gale raise the matter with the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Ben Hubbard.
His fiery outburst occurred on a Sunday evening after the Dreamtime AFL match between Essendon and Richmond on May 19 last year...
Mate u need to speak with Ben Hubbard on why abboott [sic] was taken down to the rooms ... .it’s just not on. Who authorised it. it was a shocker ... this sort of crap has to be addressed ASAP ... .also why the dons had abbott his chief of staff and his 2 daughters on the head table is a disgrace ... .
Gillard wasn’t there, but Mathieson brought along an old friend to enjoy the hospitality to which Mathieson has eagerly accustomed himself:
Mr Mathieson is a fanatical supporter of the Richmond “Tigers"… Richmond has accommodated Mr Mathieson’s requests for tickets, hospitality and memorabilia since his move into The Lodge.
At the Dreamtime game in Melbourne, the first bloke invited ABC Insiders host Barrie Cassidy to join him on the Richmond table. Both men visited the Richmond room before the contest, where they crossed paths with Mr Abbott, who was a guest of Essendon’s chairman David Evans...
A SUMMER afternoon watching cricket from the catered comfort of the chairman’s room at the Gabba in Brisbane cheered members and guests as they settled in for the one-day international between Australia and Sri Lanka.
Lips curled disapprovingly, however, when Tim Mathieson breezed in with three mates and his son Kane. The First Bloke’s untucked, open-necked denim shirt irked some sticklers keen to enforce the formal dress code, but forbearance prevailed amid whispered speculation about who had invited the party of five described by one of those present as “a motley crew”.
Over dinner their boisterous criticism of the Liberal Party grated on conservative ears. The mates ribbed Mathieson about his previous Coalition connections (his first wife, Diane Stark, worked briefly for former National Party MP Bruce Lloyd). His group included a former used car salesman who has been in the odd scrape, but what rankled an observer that day in mid-January was not so much the visitors’ backgrounds as their lack of deference. “It was a fairly unedifying performance,” according to a businessman seated at their table. “Given Tim Mathieson was there primarily because of the Prime Minister you’d expect a bit of grace. It is not as if he was paying his own way.”
No:
Tim Mathieson has not been in paid work since 2009, when Melbourne property developer and Labor benefactor Albert Dadon put him briefly on the payroll selling luxury apartments.
The list of freebies Mathieson has had to declare shows he can work hard when it comes to finding a free seat:
His registry since 2009 reads like a sports junkie’s almanac. He’s present at almost every major event on the Australian calendar: Formula 1 Grand Prix; Derby Day; Oaks Day; Twenty20 games; Test Matches; the Australian Open; State of Origin; the Bradman Oration; Sports Australia Hall of Fame dinner; final series for AFL and NRL. Cricket Australia and Richmond Football Club have been generous providers of tickets, hospitality and memorabilia.
Exactly what is the Sharks’ crime?
Andrew BoltMARCH092013(9:21am)
Benjamin Koh says it’s not clear that what the Cronulla Sharks are accused of is actually illegal doping. He goes through the pharmacology and the rules:
In last month’s Australian Crime Commission report into organised crime and drugs in sport, thymosin was listed as a substance used in injury recovery, but the report seemed to be conflicted in terms of thymosin’s legality in sport.
The ACC report listed it as an unregulated substance that is prohibited under section S2 of WADA’s list of substances prohibited in-competition.
But the report also referred to it as a substance prohibited only if “subject to the form used” – a statement on legality which presumably (but not clearly) refers to how the substance is administered (intravenously, by intramuscular means, or orally).
Read on.
This all reeks of violation of due process.... The players and the club need support from the best legal eagles and medical authorities that money can buy.
The real Julia is Pauline
Andrew BoltMARCH092013(11:39am)
One of these speeches was made by Pauline Hanson in 1997. The other was made by Julia Gillard this week.
Try to tell the difference between this:
I want to see our unemployment queues dwindle down to what they should be and give Australians the jobs first, instead of allowing other people onto Australia’s shores.
We will support your job and put Aussie workers first.... I have a plan to deliver… To stop foreign workers being put at the front of the queue with Australian workers at the back.
Apparently the woman Labor vilified as a racist a decade ago is now Gillard’s muse:
The PM did not so much as blush when her anti-foreign worker sentiments were endorsed by Pauline Hanson. Gillard said: “That is a matter for her.”
Labor strategists regarded praise from the former One Nation leader not as cause for embarrassment, but as an indication of success in getting their message to the target constituency.
If that is so, could Labor now apologise to Hanson for having so viciously attacked her? Some Labor membership forms would be a nice gesture.
Tim’s Tony tanty
Miranda Devine – Saturday, March 09, 2013 (3:54am)
THIS story from Chris Kenny and Kate Legge suggests a rather inappropriate sense of entitlement from the Prime Minister’s partner Tim Mathieson:
AN email obtained exclusively by The Weekend Australian reveals Julia Gillard’s partner, Tim Mathieson, sought to involve her office in pressuring a major sporting club to freeze out Tony Abbott.
After attending an AFL clash at the MCG as a guest of the Richmond Football Club, Mr Mathieson emailed its chief executive, Brendon Gale, copying in the Prime Minister’s office, to complain about the Opposition Leader’s access to the team’s inner sanctum and his prominent seating at a pre-game function.
“Mate u need to speak with Ben Hubbard on why abboott was taken down to the rooms ... “ Mr Mathieson fumed. “ ... it’s just not on Who authorised it < it was a shocker it was a Don's function and he should not have gone down there… this sort of crap has to be addressed ASAP ... .also why the dons had abbott his chief of staff and his 2 daughters on the head table is a disgrace ... ."Richmond has accommodated Mr Mathieson's requests for tickets, hospitality and memorabilia since his move into The Lodge.At the Dreamtime game in Melbourne, the first bloke invited ABC Insiders host Barrie Cassidy to join him on the Richmond table. Both men visited the Richmond room before the contest, where they crossed paths with Mr Abbott, who was a guest of Essendon's chairman David Evans.
... Government sources say Mr Mathieson has a habit of firing off emails and texts to Ms Gillard's personal staff when he senses a perceived injustice.
Kate Legge’s magazine profile makes for excruciating reading.
Curse of the mummy bloggers
Miranda Devine – Saturday, March 09, 2013 (4:43pm)
ONE thing we have learned about Mummy bloggers this week is that they are very good at taking umbrage.
All week they railed against being called mummy bloggers. They insisted indignantly that being invited to dinner with the Prime Minister in Rooty Hill had nothing to do with any political agenda.
On their blogs, on Twitter, on any website that would listen, out came the mummies to denounce those who dared call them mummy bloggers.
Guilty as charged.
But I do not know why bloggers who happen to be mothers who happen to write about their children would pretend to be anything else.
There is nothing to be ashamed of. “Mummy blogger” is an accurate description of a genre of online writing that is proving increasingly lucrative. It is not a pejorative.
These women blog about parenting, relationships, school lunches, cupcakes, baby names, water births and getting rid of pantry moths.
The best manage to tap into a daily conversation women have been having with each other for time immemorial.
The most successful attract thousands of readers and make a decent living from companies keen to sell to their niche audiences. In fact, so lucrative has mummy blogging become for a select few that they have had to hire an agency to manage all the product placement deals.
Good for the mummy bloggers. Good for anyone who manages to make a dollar online.
But if mummy bloggers who reject the description feel what they are doing is not respectable, they should find another line of business.
And when you are invited for a private tete-a-tete with the prime minister, don’t pretend it is because she wants to learn how to fold napkins.
Julia Gillard is wooing mummy bloggers to win the votes of their female readers. It is about neutralising Tony Abbott’s beefed up image as an average family man with three daughters.
Ironically, her attacks on Abbott as a misogynist are what led to the extra publicity for his family.
Presumably, photos of Gillard and partner Tim Mathieson frolicking at The Lodge with their new dog were designed to counter the Opposition leader’s family friendly image.
The same goes for Gillard’s new catch phrase “modern family”, new Twitter avatar featuring her with a child, and more prominent role for Mathieson, sadly cut short after his “small Asian female doctor” gaffe.
For the Prime Minister the Mummy blogger demographic is her base, instinctively antagonistic to Abbott, and understandably she wants to keep it that way.
Unfortunately her timing last week was woeful. The imagery of a prime minister eating Alaskan King Crab in a private dining room with a group of women who live on the lower north shore, northern beaches, Blue Mountains and the Southern Highlands, was not helpful to the Labor cause.
Warren Brown’s cartoon “The Real Julias” said it all. It showed Gillard dining at the Rooty Hill RSL with five identikit Mummy bloggers: “It’s great to be out mingling with everyday Australians”.
What attracted the ridicule wasn’t that the women were mummy bloggers. It wasn’t even that one had the same red hair and glasses. It was that Gillard had gone to western Sydney with the express purpose of communing with Labor’s supposed heartland and then had studiously avoided contact with locals, except in the most stage-managed circumstances.
The quarantine reached farcical heights when TV stations, which had set up temporary studios inside the RSL, found Gillard would not walk 50 metres to the club across a covered forecourt for interviews. Instead a camera had to be dispatched to the Novotel and the prime minister’s words were beamed next door via satellite.
It had TV technicians shaking their heads.
But far worse at the start of the week was the snub to veterans who staged a respectful protest outside the Novotel over the prime minister’s refusal to meet them to discuss military pensions.
For three days the Diggers “called out to the fleeting lady but she just went into her car,” says Alf Jaugietis, executive director of the Defence Force Welfare Association
After a critical story in The Daily Telegraph, the men were finally invited into the Novotel on Thursday for a cup of tea with the PM. Those present described an “amicable” 20-minute meeting during which Gillard promised to meet them later this month in Canberra with Minister for Defence Materiel, Mike Kelly, a former Australian Army lawyer.
The Diggers’ concern is that military pensions are not linked to cost of living increases so their real value has been falling for 20 years.
Jaugietis, 70, a retired air force engineer, says they were forced to protest outside the Novotel because the government was ignoring them, despite promises from Kelly.
“He did nothing. We’re pretty snarky with him. He promised it would happen in the next budget.”
But the veterans have since been told there will be nothing for them in May. Jaugietis is hopeful that Gillard will understand their plight.
“We’re not asking for something special,” he said. “We’re just asking to be treated like aged pensioners.”
With a new generation of veterans returning from a decade of war in Afghanistan, Iraq and East Timor, their welfare needs to be our top priority.
I know young returned soldiers with chronic injuries, who have been treated very shabbily, at the mercy of a defence health system which they say is “falling apart”.
Budget cuts mean they have been denied proper treatment.
“More effort is put into retiring a Land Rover than an injured soldier,” says one.
Our veterans have risked everything for their nation and now their nation must fulfill its side of the bargain.
If the Prime Minister had invited those Diggers waiting outside the Novotel for dinner on Monday night instead of the mummy bloggers, she would have earned respect rather than ridicule.
Gillard isn’t playing ball
Piers Akerman – Saturday, March 09, 2013 (4:33pm)
THE federal ALP’s “say anything, do anything” policy is catching up with it. The rapid-fire release of stunt announcements has been the hallmark of both the Rudd and Gillard governments at an enormous cost to the nation.
- 1009 – The first known record of the name of Lithuaniaappeared in an entry in the annals of the Quedlinburg Abbey (in modern Germany).
- 1776 – The Wealth of Nations by Scottish political economistAdam Smith (bust pictured) was first published, becoming the first modern work in the field of economics.
- 1847 – Mexican–American War: The Siege of Veracruz began, the first large-scale amphibious assault conducted by United States military forces.
- 1944 – World War II: As part of the Battle of Narva, the Soviet Air Forcesheavily bombed Tallinn, Estonia, killing up to 800 people, mostly civilians.
- 1959 – Barbie, the world's best-selling doll, debuted at the American International Toy Fair in New York City.
Events[edit]
- 141 BC – Liu Che, posthumously known as Emperor Wu of Han, assumes the throne over the Han Dynasty of China.
- 632 – The Last Sermon (Khutbah, Khutbatul Wada') of Prophet Muhammad.
- 1009 – First known mention of Lithuania, in the annals of the monastery of Quedlinburg.
- 1230 – Bulgarian tsar Ivan Asen II defeats Theodore of Epirus in the Battle of Klokotnitsa.
- 1276 – Augsburg becomes an Imperial Free City.
- 1500 – The fleet of Pedro Álvares Cabral leaves Lisbon for the Indies. The fleet will discover Brazil which lies within boundaries granted to Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas.
- 1566 – David Rizzio, private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland.
- 1765 – After a campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in1762 on the charge, though his son may have actually committed suicide.
- 1796 – Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.
- 1811 – Paraguayan forces defeat Manuel Belgrano at the Battle of Tacuarí.
- 1841 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the United States v. The Amistad case that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.
- 1842 – Giuseppe Verdi's third opera, Nabucco, receives its première performance in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost opera writers.
- 1842 – The first documented discovery of gold in California occurs at Rancho San Francisco, six years before the California Gold Rush.
- 1847 – Mexican–American War: The first large-scale amphibious assault in U.S. history is launched in the Siege of Veracruz.
- 1862 – American Civil War: The USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships.
- 1896 – Prime Minister Francesco Crispi resigns following the Italian defeat at the Battle of Adowa.
- 1908 – Inter Milan was founded on Football Club Internazionale, following a schism from the Milan Cricket and Football Club.
- 1910 – The Westmoreland County coal strike, involving 15,000 coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers, begins.
- 1916 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against the border town of Columbus, New Mexico.
- 1925 – Pink's War: The first Royal Air Force operation conducted independently of the British Army or Royal Navy begins.
- 1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to Congress, the first of his New Deal policies.
- 1944 – World War II: Japanese troops counter-attack American forces on Hill 700 in Bougainville in a battle that would last five days.
- 1944 – World War II: Soviet Army planes attack Tallinn, Estonia.
- 1945 – The Bombing of Tokyo by the United States Army Air Forces begin, one of the most destructive bombing raids in history.
- 1945 – World War II: A coup d'état by Japanese forces in French Indochina removes the French from power.
- 1946 – Bolton Wanderers stadium disaster at Burnden Park, Bolton, England, kills 33 and injures hundreds more.
- 1954 – McCarthyism: CBS television broadcasts the See It Now episode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy", produced by Fred Friendly.
- 1956 – Soviet forces suppress mass demonstrations in the Georgian SSR, reacting to Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy.
- 1957 – A magnitude 8.3 earthquake in the Andreanof Islands, Alaska triggers a Pacific-wide tsunami causing extensive damage to Hawaii and Oahu.
- 1959 – The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
- 1960 – Dr. Belding Hibbard Scribner implants for the first time a shunt he invented into a patient, which allows the patient to receive hemodialysis on a regular basis.
- 1961 – Sputnik 9 successfully launches, carrying a human dummy nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich, and demonstrating that Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight.
- 1967 – Trans World Airlines Flight 553, a Douglas DC-9-15, crashes in a field in Concord Township, Ohio following a mid-air collision with a Beechcraft Baron, killing 26.
- 1976 – Forty-two people die in the 1976 Cavalese cable car disaster, the worst cable-car accident to date.
- 1977 – The Hanafi Siege: In a thirty-nine-hour standoff, armed Hanafi Muslims seize three Washington, D.C., buildings, killing two and taking 149 hostage.
- 1989 – Financially troubled Eastern Air Lines filed for bankruptcy.
- 1991 – Massive demonstrations are held against Slobodan Milošević in Belgrade.
- 1997 – Comet Hale–Bopp: Observers in China, Mongolia and eastern Siberia are treated to a rare double feature as an eclipse permits Hale-Bopp to be seen during the day.
- 2011 – Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights.
Births[edit]
- 1213 – Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy (d. 1271)
- 1285 – Emperor Go-Nijō of Japan (d. 1318)
- 1454 – Amerigo Vespucci, Italian cartographer and explorer (d. 1512)
- 1564 – David Fabricius, German astronomer and theologian (d. 1617)
- 1568 – Aloysius Gonzaga, Italian saint (d. 1591)
- 1627 – John Bowne, English-American activist (d. 1695)
- 1695 – Martín Sarmiento, Spanish monk and scholar (d. 1772)
- 1720 – Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, English politician (d. 1790)
- 1727 – Johann Gottlieb Preller, German cantor, composer, and surveyor (d. 1786)
- 1737 – Josef Mysliveček, Czech composer (d. 1781)
- 1749 – Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, French journalist and politician (d. 1791)
- 1753 – Jean Baptiste Kléber, French general (d. 1800)
- 1758 – Franz Joseph Gall, German neuroanatomist and physiologist (d. 1828)
- 1763 – William Cobbett, English journalist and author (d. 1835)
- 1806 – Edwin Forrest, American actor and philanthropist (d. 1872)
- 1814 – Taras Shevchenko, Ukrainian poet (d. 1861)
- 1815 – David Davis, American politician and jurist (d. 1886)
- 1820 – Samuel Blatchford, American jurist (d. 1893)
- 1824 – Amasa Leland Stanford, American businessman and politician, founded Stanford University (d. 1893)
- 1833 – Frederick A. Schroeder, German-American businessman and politician (d. 1899)
- 1839 – Phoebe Knapp, American organist and composer (d. 1908)
- 1856 – Eddie Foy, Sr., American actor and dancer (d. 1928)
- 1856 – Tom Roberts, English-Australian painter (d. 1931)
- 1877 – Stuart Stickney, American golfer (d. 1932)
- 1884 – Johan Salonen, Finnish wrestler (d. 1938)
- 1886 – Kenneth Edwards, American golfer (d. 1952)
- 1887 – Fritz Lenz, German geneticist (d. 1976)
- 1887 – Phil Mead, English cricketer (d. 1958)
- 1890 – Rupert Balfe, Australian footballer (d. 1915)
- 1890 – Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Soviet Union (d. 1986)
- 1891 – José P. Laurel, Filipino politician, 3rd President of the Philippines (d. 1959)
- 1892 – Vita Sackville-West, English author, poet, and gardener (d. 1962)
- 1894 – Frank Arnau, German author (d. 1976)
- 1900 – Prince Aimone, Duke of Aosta (d. 1948)
- 1902 – Will Geer, American actor (d. 1978)
- 1903 – Bernarda Bryson, American painter and lithographer (d. 2004)
- 1904 – Paul Wilbur Klipsch, American engineer (d. 2002)
- 1905 – Gerard Helders, Dutch politician (d. 2013)
- 1909 – Derk Bodde, American sinologist and historian (d. 2003)
- 1910 – Samuel Barber, American pianist and composer (d. 1981)
- 1912 – Francis Hovell-Thurlow-Cumming-Bruce, 8th Baron Thurlow, English diplomat (d. 2013)
- 1915 – Johnnie Johnson, English pilot (d. 2001)
- 1918 – George Lincoln Rockwell, American sailor and politician, founded the American Nazi Party (d. 1967)
- 1918 – Mickey Spillane, American author (d. 2006)
- 1919 – Cengiz Dağcı, Ukrainian author and poet (d. 2011)
- 1920 – Frank J. Dixon, American immunologist (d. 2008)
- 1921 – Carl Betz, American actor (d. 1978)
- 1921 – Dimitris Horn, Greek actor (d. 1998)
- 1923 – James L. Buckley, American politician
- 1923 – André Courrèges, French fashion designer
- 1923 – Walter Kohn, Austrian-American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1923 – Nicola Zaccaria, Greek opera singer (d. 2007)
- 1928 – Gerald Bull, Canadian engineer (d. 1990)
- 1929 – Desmond Hoyte, Guyanese politician, 3rd President of Guyana (d. 2002)
- 1929 – Zillur Rahman, Bangladeshi politician, 19th President of Bangladesh (d. 2013)
- 1930 – Ornette Coleman, American saxophonist and composer
- 1930 – Taina Elg, Finnish-American actress and dancer
- 1931 – Thore Skogman, Swedish actor and singer (d. 2007)
- 1931 – Sam Williams, American football player (d. 2013)
- 1932 – Walter Mercado, Puerto Rican astrologer and actor
- 1932 – Keely Smith, American singer
- 1933 – Mel Lastman, Canadian businessman and politician, 62nd Mayor of Toronto
- 1933 – Reinhard Lettmann, German bishop (d. 2013)
- 1933 – Lloyd Price, American singer-songwriter
- 1933 – David Weatherall, British physician and researcher
- 1934 – Del Close, American actor, author, and educator (d. 1999)
- 1934 – Yuri Gagarin, Russian pilot and astronaut (d. 1968)
- 1934 – Marlene Streit, Canadian golfer
- 1934 – Joyce Van Patten, American actress
- 1935 – Andrew Viterbi, American engineer and businessman, co-founded Qualcomm Inc.
- 1936 – Mickey Gilley, American singer-songwriter and pianist
- 1936 – Marty Ingels, American actor
- 1936 – Tom Sestak, American football player (d. 1987)
- 1937 – Bernard Landry, Canadian lawyer and politician, 28th Premier of Quebec
- 1937 – Harry Neale, Canadian ice hockey coach and sportscaster
- 1937 – Brian Redman, English race car driver
- 1938 – Lill-Babs, Swedish singer and actress
- 1940 – Raúl Juliá, Puerto Rican-American actor (d. 1994)
- 1941 – Ernesto Miranda, American criminal, inspired the Miranda rights (d. 1976)
- 1942 – John Cale, Welsh singer-songwriter, violist, and producer (The Velvet Underground and Theatre of Eternal Music)
- 1942 – Mark Lindsay, American singer-songwriter, saxophonist, and producer (Paul Revere & the Raiders)
- 1943 – Bobby Fischer, American chess player (d. 2008)
- 1943 – Charles Gibson, American journalist
- 1943 – Trish Van Devere, American actress
- 1943 – David Matthews, English composer
- 1944 – Lee Irvine, South African cricketer
- 1944 – Paul C. P. McIlhenny, American businessman (d. 2013)
- 1945 – Robert Calvert, English singer-songwriter (Hawkwind) (d. 1988)
- 1945 – Dennis Rader, American serial killer
- 1945 – Robin Trower, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Procol Harum and The Paramounts)
- 1946 – Alexandra Bastedo, English actress (d. 2014)
- 1946 – Jim Cregan, English guitarist and songwriter (Blossom Toes, Streetwalkers, and Family)
- 1947 – Richard Adams, Filipino-American activist (d. 2012)
- 1947 – Keri Hulme, New Zealand author
- 1948 – Emma Bonino, Italian politician
- 1948 – Jeffrey Osborne, American singer and drummer (L.T.D.)
- 1948 – Chris Thompson, English singer and guitarist (Manfred Mann's Earth Band and Night)
- 1949 – Jaime Lyn Bauer, American actress
- 1949 – Neil Hamilton, English politician
- 1949 – Tapani Kansa, Finnish singer
- 1950 – Doug Ault, American baseball player (d. 2004)
- 1950 – Howard Shelley, British concert pianist
- 1950 – Danny Sullivan, American race car driver
- 1951 – Zakir Hussain, Indian tabla player, composer, and actor
- 1951 – Michael Kinsley, American journalist
- 1951 – Helen Zille, South African politician, 7th Premier of the Western Cape
- 1952 – Bill Beaumont, English rugby player
- 1954 – Bobby Sands, Irish politician (d. 1981)
- 1955 – Teo Fabi, Italian race car driver
- 1955 – Pat Murphy, American science fiction author
- 1955 – Ornella Muti, Italian actress
- 1955 – Józef Pinior, Polish politician
- 1956 – Mark Dantonio, American football player and coach
- 1956 – Shashi Tharoor, Indian politician
- 1956 – David Willetts, English politician
- 1957 – Faith Daniels, American journalist
- 1957 – Mark Mancina, American composer
- 1957 – Mona Sahlin, Swedish politician
- 1958 – Linda Fiorentino, American actress
- 1958 – Martin Fry, English singer-songwriter (ABC and Vice Versa)
- 1958 – Jack Kenny, American screenwriter and producer
- 1958 – Peeter Võsu, Estonian politician
- 1958 – Branko Vukelić, Croatian politician, 11th Minister of Defence for Croatia (d. 2013)
- 1959 – Tom Amandes, American actor and director
- 1959 – Lonny Price, American actor, screenwriter, and director
- 1960 – Finn Carter, American actress
- 1961 – Mike Leach, American football player and coach
- 1961 – Rick Steiner, American wrestler
- 1961 – Darrell Walker, American basketball player
- 1962 – Jan Furtok, Polish footballer
- 1962 – Pete Wishart, Scottish singer and politician (Big Country and Runrig)
- 1963 – Ivan Henjak, Australian rugby player
- 1963 – Terry Mulholland, American baseball player
- 1963 – David Pogue, American columnist
- 1963 – Jean-Marc Vallée, Canadian director and screenwriter
- 1964 – Juliette Binoche, French actress and dancer
- 1964 – Herbert Fandel, German football referee
- 1964 – Phil Housley, American ice hockey player
- 1964 – Valérie Lemercier, French actress, singer, director
- 1964 – Aleksandr Puštov, Russian-Estonian footballer and manager
- 1964 – Steve Wilkos, American police officer and talk show host
- 1965 – Brian Bosworth, American football player
- 1965 – Benito Santiago, Puerto Rican baseball player
- 1966 – Brendan Canty, American drummer and songwriter (Fugazi)
- 1966 – Tony Lockett, Australian footballer
- 1966 – Michael Patrick MacDonald, Irish-American author and activist
- 1967 – Maria Bakodimou, Greek TV presenter
- 1968 – Maggie Aderin-Pocock, English space scientist
- 1968 – Youri Djorkaeff, French footballer
- 1968 – Brian Heidik, American reality show contestant, winner of Survivor: Thailand
- 1968 – Johnny Kelly, American drummer (Type O Negative, Danzig, A Pale Horse Named Death, and Seventh Void)
- 1968 – Robert Sledge, American bass player (Ben Folds Five)
- 1969 – Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, American basketball player
- 1969 – Kimberly Guilfoyle, American television host
- 1969 – Stefie Shock, Canadian singer-songwriter
- 1970 – Martin Johnson, English rugby player
- 1970 – Shannon Leto, American drummer and actor (Thirty Seconds to Mars and The Wondergirls)
- 1970 – Stephen Phillips, English politician
- 1970 – David Guido Pietroni, Italian director and producer
- 1971 – C-Murder, American rapper and actor
- 1971 – Emmanuel Lewis, American actor
- 1971 – Diego Torres, Argentinian singer-songwriter and actor
- 1972 – Spencer Howson, Australian radio host
- 1972 – Jean Louisa Kelly, American actress and singer
- 1972 – Kerr Smith, American actor
- 1973 – Aaron Boone, American baseball player
- 1975 – Roy Makaay, Dutch footballer
- 1975 – Didiayer Snyder, Australian model, author, and interior designer
- 1975 – Chaske Spencer, American actor
- 1975 – Juan Sebastián Verón, Argentinian footballer
- 1976 – Yamila Diaz-Rahi, Argentinian model
- 1976 – Ben Mulroney, Canadian television host
- 1977 – Radek Dvořák, Czech ice hockey player
- 1978 – MickDeth, American bass player (Eighteen Visions, Bleeding Through, and Clear) (d. 2013)
- 1978 – Lucas Neill, Australian footballer
- 1979 – Iryna Charnushenka-Stasiuk, Belarusian long jumper (d. 2013)
- 1979 – Melina Perez, American wrestler and actress
- 1980 – Chingy, American rapper and actor
- 1980 – Trent Croad, Australian footballer
- 1980 – Matthew Gray Gubler, American actor
- 1981 – Antonio Bryant, American football player
- 1981 – Anders Nøhr, Danish footballer
- 1981 – Clay Rapada, American baseball player
- 1982 – Mirjana Lučić-Baroni, Croatian tennis player
- 1983 – Clint Dempsey, American soccer player
- 1983 – Ioannis Masmanidis, German footballer
- 1983 – Maite Perroni, Mexican singer-songwriter and actress (RBD)
- 1983 – Wayne Simien, American basketball player
- 1984 – Brian Cusworth, American basketball player
- 1984 – Joe Gilgun, English actor
- 1984 – Abdoulay Konko, French footballer
- 1984 – Julia Mancuso, American skier
- 1985 – Brent Burns, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1985 – Jesse Litsch, American baseball player
- 1985 – Rachel Nabors, American illustrator
- 1985 – Parthiv Patel, Indian cricketer
- 1986 – Brittany Snow, American actress and singer
- 1987 – Bow Wow, American rapper and actor
- 1988 – Alodia Gosiengfiao, Filipino model, actress, and singer
- 1989 – Artem Borodulin, Russian figure skater
- 1989 – Kim Tae-yeon, South Korean singer, dancer, and actress (Girls' Generation)
- 1990 – Daley Blind, Dutch footballer
- 1990 – Bilel Ifa, Tunisian footballer
- 1990 – Tatsuki Machida, Japanese figure skater
- 1990 – Aras Özbiliz, Turkish footballer
- 1991 – Domo Genesis, American rapper (Odd Future)
- 1991 – Brenna O'Brien, Canadian actress
- 1992 – Luis Armand Garcia, American actor
- 1993 – Larnell Cole, English footballer
Deaths[edit]
- 1202 – Sverre of Norway (b. 1145)
- 1422 – Jan Želivský, Czech priest (b. 1380)
- 1440 – Frances of Rome, Italian nun and saint (b. 1384)
- 1566 – David Rizzio, Italian secretary (b. 1533)
- 1649 – James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton, Scottish politician (b. 1606)
- 1649 – Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland, English soldier (b. 1590)
- 1661 – Cardinal Mazarin, Italian-French politician, Prime Minister of France (b. 1602)
- 1709 – Ralph Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu, English diplomat (b. 1638)
- 1808 – Joseph Bonomi the Elder, Italian architect, designed the Piercefield House and St James' Church (b. 1739)
- 1810 – Ozias Humphry, English painter (b. 1742)
- 1825 – Anna Laetitia Barbauld, English poet, author, and critic (b.1743)
- 1851 – Hans Christian Ørsted, Danish physicist (b. 1777)
- 1888 – William I, German Emperor (b. 1797)
- 1895 – Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Austrian journalist and author (b. 1836)
- 1897 – Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, Afghan ideologist and activist (b. 1838)
- 1897 – Sondre Norheim, Norwegian skier (b. 1825)
- 1905 – Nikolai Anderson, German philologist (b. 1845)
- 1918 – Frank Wedekind, German playwright (b. 1864)
- 1926 – Mikao Usui, Japanese spiritual leader, founded Reiki (b. 1865)
- 1937 – Paul Elmer More, American journalist and critic (b. 1864)
- 1944 – Jaan Kikkas, Estonian weightlifter (b. 1892)
- 1945 – Margot Frank, German-Dutch holocaust victim (b. 1926)
- 1947 – Evripidis Bakirtzis, Greek Army officer and politician (b. 1895)
- 1947 – Jhaverchand Meghani, Indian poet (b. 1896)
- 1948 – Edgar de Wahl, Baltic German linguist (b. 1867)
- 1949 – Charles Bennett, English runner (b. 1870)
- 1954 – Eva Ahnert-Rohlfs, German astronomer (b. 1912)
- 1954 – Vagn Walfrid Ekman, Swedish oceanographer (b. 1874)
- 1960 – Jack Beattie, Irish politician (b. 1886)
- 1964 – Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, German general (b. 1870)
- 1966 – Pablo Birger, Argentinian race car driver (b. 1924)
- 1969 – Abdul Munim Riad Egyptian general (b. 1919)
- 1971 – Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria (b. 1902)
- 1974 – Earl Wilbur Sutherland Jr., American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1915)
- 1975 – Gleb W. Derujinsky, Russian-American sculptor (b. 1888)
- 1983 – Faye Emerson, American actress (b. 1917)
- 1983 – Ulf von Euler, Swedish physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)
- 1985 – Harry Catterick, English footballer and manager (b. 1919)
- 1988 – Kurt Georg Kiesinger, German politician, 3rd Chancellor of Germany (b. 1904)
- 1989 – Robert Mapplethorpe, American photographer (b. 1946)
- 1991 – Jim Hardin, American baseball player (b. 1943)
- 1992 – Menachem Begin, Israeli politician, 6th Prime Minister of Israel, recipient of the Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1913)
- 1993 – Bob Crosby, American singer (b. 1913)
- 1993 – C. Northcote Parkinson, English historian and author (b. 1909)
- 1994 – Charles Bukowski, German-American author and poet(b. 1920)
- 1994 – Eddie Creatchman, Canadian wrestler, referee, and manager (b. 1928)
- 1994 – Maurice Purtill, American drummer (Glenn Miller Orchestra) (b. 1916)
- 1994 – Fernando Rey, Spanish actor (b. 1917)
- 1994 – Gilbert Rondeau, Canadian politician (b. 1928)
- 1996 – George Burns, American actor and singer (b. 1896)
- 1996 – Harold Baigent, New Zealand actor (b. 1916)
- 1997 – Jean-Dominique Bauby, French journalist and author (b. 1952)
- 1997 – The Notorious B.I.G., American rapper (Junior M.A.F.I.A.) (b. 1972)
- 1997 – Terry Nation, Welsh author and screenwriter (b. 1930)
- 1999 – Harry Somers, Canadian composer (b. 1925)
- 2000 – Jean Coulthard, Canadian composer and educator (b. 1908)
- 2000 – Ivo Robić, Croatian singer-songwriter (b. 1923)
- 2001 – Louiza Podimata, Russian-Greek actress (b. 1920)
- 2003 – Stan Brakhage, American director (b. 1933)
- 2003 – Bernard Dowiyogo, Nauruan politician, 2nd President of Nauru (b. 1946)
- 2004 – Gerald Deskin, American psychologist (b. 1929)
- 2004 – Rust Epique, American guitarist and painter (Crazy Town and pre)Thing) (b. 1968)
- 2004 – Albert Mol, Dutch actor and author (b. 1917)
- 2005 – Chris LeDoux, American singer-songwriter (b. 1948)
- 2005 – Kurt Lotz, German businessman (b. 1912)
- 2005 – István Nyers, Hungarian footballer (b. 1924)
- 2005 – Jeanette Schmid, Czech-Austrian whistler (b. 1924)
- 2006 – Tom Fox, American activist (b. 1951)
- 2006 – Geir Ivarsøy, Norwegian programmer, co-founded Opera Software ASA (b. 1957)
- 2006 – John Profumo, English politician (b. 1915)
- 2006 – Laura Stoica, Romanian singer-songwriter and actress (b. 1967)
- 2007 – Brad Delp, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Boston, RTZ, and Beatlejuice) (b. 1951)
- 2007 – Glen Harmon, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1921)
- 2007 – Jeanne Hopkins Lucas, American politician (b. 1935)
- 2010 – Willie Davis, American baseball player (b. 1940)
- 2010 – Doris Haddock, American activist (b. 1910)
- 2011 – David S. Broder, American journalist (b. 1929)
- 2012 – Peter Bergman, American comedian and actor (b. 1939)
- 2012 – Joy Mukherjee, Indian actor and director (b. 1939)
- 2013 – Tengiz Amirejibi, Georgian pianist (b. 1927)
- 2013 – David Farmbrough, English bishop (b. 1929)
- 2013 – Max Jakobson, Finnish journalist and diplomat (b. 1923)
- 2013 – Larry Martin, American paleontologist (b. 1943)
- 2013 – Viren J. Shah, Indian politician, 21st Governor of West Bengal (b. 1926)
- 2013 – A. R. Shaw, American educator and politician (b. 1922)
- 2013 – Merton Simpson, American painter (b. 1928)
Holidays and observances[edit]
- Christian Feast Day:
- Teachers' Day or Eid Al Moalim (Lebanon)
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” - 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
March 8: Morning
"We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." - Acts 14:22
God's people have their trials. It was never designed by God, when he chose his people, that they should be an untried people. They were chosen in the furnace of affliction; they were never chosen to worldly peace and earthly joy. Freedom from sickness and the pains of mortality was never promised them; but when their Lord drew up the charter of privileges, he included chastisements amongst the things to which they should inevitably be heirs. Trials are a part of our lot; they were predestinated for us in Christ's last legacy. So surely as the stars are fashioned by his hands, and their orbits fixed by him, so surely are our trials allotted to us: he has ordained their season and their place, their intensity and the effect they shall have upon us. Good men must never expect to escape troubles; if they do, they will be disappointed, for none of their predecessors have been without them. Mark the patience of Job; remember Abraham, for he had his trials, and by his faith under them, he became the "Father of the faithful." Note well the biographies of all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and you shall discover none of those whom God made vessels of mercy, who were not made to pass through the fire of affliction. It is ordained of old that the cross of trouble should be engraved on every vessel of mercy, as the royal mark whereby the King's vessels of honour are distinguished. But although tribulation is thus the path of God's children, they have the comfort of knowing that their Master has traversed it before them; they have his presence and sympathy to cheer them, his grace to support them, and his example to teach them how to endure; and when they reach "the kingdom," it will more than make amends for the "much tribulation" through which they passed to enter it.
Evening
"She called his name Ben-oni (son of sorrow), but his father called him Benjamin (son of my right hand)." - Genesis 35:18
To every matter there is a bright as well as a dark side. Rachel was overwhelmed with the sorrow of her own travail and death; Jacob, though weeping the mother's loss, could see the mercy of the child's birth. It is well for us if, while the flesh mourns over trials, our faith triumphs in divine faithfulness. Samson's lion yielded honey, and so will our adversities, if rightly considered. The stormy sea feeds multitudes with its fishes; the wild wood blooms with beauteous flowerets; the stormy wind sweeps away the pestilence, and the biting frost loosens the soil. Dark clouds distil bright drops, and black earth grows gay flowers. A vein of good is to be found in every mine of evil. Sad hearts have peculiar skill in discovering the most disadvantageous point of view from which to gaze upon a trial; if there were only one slough in the world, they would soon be up to their necks in it, and if there were only one lion in the desert they would hear it roar. About us all there is a tinge of this wretched folly, and we are apt, at times, like Jacob, to cry, "All these things are against me." Faith's way of walking is to cast all care upon the Lord, and then to anticipate good results from the worst calamities. Like Gideon's men, she does not fret over the broken pitcher, but rejoices that the lamp blazes forth the more. Out of the rough oyster-shell of difficulty she extracts the rare pearl of honour, and from the deep ocean-caves of distress she uplifts the priceless coral of experience. When her flood of prosperity ebbs, she finds treasures hid in the sands; and when her sun of delight goes down, she turns her telescope of hope to the starry promises of heaven. When death itself appears, faith points to the light of resurrection beyond the grave, thus making our dying Ben-oni to be our living Benjamin.
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Philip
[Phĭl'ĭp] - warrior or a lover of horses.
1. One of the twelve apostles, a native of Bethsaida in Galilee (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18). Tradition has it that he was the one who requested of Jesus that he might first go and bury his father (Matt. 8:21-22).
The Man of a Timid, Retiring Disposition
Unlike Andrew and John, Philip did not approach Jesus, but waited till He accosted him and invited him to join His company. Andrew and John found Jesus - Jesus found Philip, whose name is a Greek one both by custom and derivation. A Jewish name he must have had, since all the apostles were Jews, but what it was remains unknown.
In three lists Philip is bracketed with Nathanael as companion and fellow worker. Both were Galileans. This Philip must not be confused with Philip the Deacon, considered below. We never read of the later Philip before Pentecost, nor of Philip the Apostle after Pentecost.
The conversion and call of Philip are expressed simply: "Jesus ... findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me" (John 1:43). The call to faith and to follow came at once, and Philip was ready for both. The impressive feature of his conversion is that as soon as Christ found him, Philip sought to bring others to Christ. The convert became a soul winner. "Come and see," he said to Nathanael, and he won his friend.
When the hungry multitude gathered around Christ at the Sea of Galilee, Philip was tested by Christ (John 6:5 ). Philip was singled out for a test of his faith, and for a great opportunity, which he lost, and with it lost a blessing. Instead of telling the Master that He was able to feed the hungry crowd, Philip made a mental calculation of how much food would be necessary to give each person a portion, and how much it would cost, and declared the project to be impossible. The seeking Greeks were led to Philip but although he sympathized with their request to see Christ, he was afraid and almost lost another opportunity (John 12:21 ). Yet Philip experienced familiar friendship with Jesus, for did He not call him by name? Slow to apprehend truth, he missed much, but Jesus had nothing but kind words for him (John 14:8). Tradition tells us that Philip died as a martyr at Heirapolis.
2. A son of Herod the Great and husband of Herodias. This was the royal Philip, who, disinherited by his father, lived a private life (Matt. 14:3;Mark 6:17; Luke 3:19).
3. Another son of the above Herod who was tetrarch of Iturea (Luke 3:1).
4. One of the seven deacons of the Church at Jerusalem who had four daughters (Acts 6:5; 8; 21:8).
The Man Who Loved to Evangelize
Philip was not content to serve tables, he loved to preach the Word, and was most successful in revival work. He was not a man to act on his own authority. He was a God-sent and Spirit-controlled evangelist (Acts 8:26-30). When the Spirit said, "Go," he obeyed with alacrity.
I. After the martyrdom of Stephen, Philip preached in Samaria with great success (Acts 8:4-8).
II. He led the Ethiopian to Christ and was the means of introducing Christianity to a heathen country (Acts 8:26-39).
III. He preached from city to city until he reached Caesarea (Acts 8:40).
IV. His four daughters were also preachers.
V. He had a godly home (Acts 21:8), in which Paul loved to stay, for he and Philip were like-minded.
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Today's reading: Deuteronomy 4-6, Mark 11:1-18 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Deuteronomy 4-6
Obedience Commanded
1 Now, Israel, hear the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. 2 Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you....
Today's New Testament reading: Mark 11:1-18
Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King
1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, 2 saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' say, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly....'"
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