Thu Jul 17th Todays News

With the world first repeal of ridiculously bad Carbon Dioxide tax legislation, Australia can breathe freely. The tax had been implemented despite no government running on a platform to install it. Now that it is repealed, opposition leader Bill Shorten is promising to campaign for one next election. Some say we have lost the chance to lower world temperatures by an estimates 0.0038 degrees celcius over the next hundred years, and so we are all going to die. Others say it was a wasteful redistribution of money which penalised industry unfairly. 

Anti semitic bigots are saying Israel is not allowed to defend herself. They are wrong. Israel is entitled to protect her people from killers, or stone throwers, or vandals and thieves. However, the bigots need to be confronted, to justify why they have used a position of authority to harm civilians. What has happened is a war crime and is something that significant figures in the UN, European parliament and US Government have condoned, along with significant international media. It is unbelievable that such an inquiry into those figures will occur any time soon. But until it happens, the significant governments of the world have unclean hands. Significant points that many do not know are 

1. There is no Palestine. Palestine is a Roman word to describe a secular administration of Jewish peoples in the Middle East, which is what Israel is now. 
2. So called Palestinians are ethnically Jordanian. They lost a civil war in 1967 and called themselves Palestinian with the encouragement of arab governments keen to not have to host refugee civil warriors. 
3. The land that Palestinians inhabit was designated as Israeli but was seized by Jordan before it was handed over in 1948. 
4. Israel has been over cautious in her dealings with terrorists. She doesn't kill them, but imprisons them. And often has been made to free them for peace. 
5. Terrorist activity against Israel is disproportionate. Killing people indiscriminately is not justified. 
6. The largest killer of Islamic peoples in the Middle East is Islamic peoples. 
7. Israel pays for aid to Palestine, and generously runs and funds hospitals and provides energy, business and supplies. 
8. Palestinian authorities syphon aid dollars and buys weapons for terrorists. 
9. Palestinian leaders have become rich as their peoples crumble in the indignity of poverty. 
10. Palestinian authorities allow the lynching of their peoples on any pretext, often on untested assertions of spying. Further, they have kidnapped and killed Israelis. 
11. Israel, as a secular administration, meets all the requirements of the Balfour Proclamation and so there is no need for a second state. 

On this day 180, we know Christians had been in North Africa because twelve were executed there. In 1203, a crusade got sidetracked and sacked Constantinople with the aim of uniting the Eastern and Western churches. In 1429, Joan of Arc successfully got a French King crowned. Sadly for her, her life was a trade off. In 1453, England lost the last battle of the hundred year war, and all of her European lands, exempt Calais, which would be lost when Mary I entrusted her husband to defend it a hundred years later. In 1717, gloriously, King George I of England sailed down the Thames with 50 musicians premiering George Frideric Handel's Water Music. In 1794, we had the reminder that secular authority is not the same as atheist administration, with the slaughter of sixteen Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne, 10 days prior to the end of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. In 1918, Communists killed the Tsar and his family. 1945, Churchill was alone against Stalin at Potsdam while the idiot Truman condemned over a hundred million European peoples, unlucky enough to live in the East, to tyranny. In 1955, Disneyland opened. In 1976, Some African nations boycotted the Olympics because of New Zealand. 
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For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball

Douglas Sutherland-Bruce via David Daniel Ball

Mr Ball, I will not sign your petition as it will do no good, but I will share your message and ask as many of friends who read it, to share it also. Let us see if we cannot use the power of the internet to spread the word of these infamous killings. As a father and a former soldier, I cannot, could not, justify ignoring this appalling action by the perpetrators, whoever they may;I thank you Douglas. You are wrong about the petition. Signing it is as worthless and meaningless an act as voting. A stand up guy would know that. - ed

Lorraine Allen Hider I signed the petition ages ago David, with pleasure, nobody knows what it's like until they've been there. Keep heart David take care.

I have begun a bulletin board (http://theconservativevoice.freeforums.net) which will allow greater latitude for members to post and interact. It is not subject to FB policy and so greater range is allowed in posts. Also there are private members rooms in which nothing is censored, except abuse. All welcome, registration is free.

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Happy birthday and many happy returns Isaac Watts (1674), John Wilbur (1774), James Cagney (1899), Fred Ball (1915) and Donald Sutherland (1935). Born on the same day, across the years. On your day, in 1453, The Battle of Castillon, the last conflict of the Hundred Years' War, ended with the English losing all landholdings in France, except Calais. 1771, Dene men, acting as a guide to Samuel Hearne on his exploration of the Coppermine River in present-day Nunavut, Canada, massacred a group of about 20 Copper Inuit. 1936, Nationalist rebels attempted a coup d'état against the Second Spanish Republic, sparking the Spanish Civil War. 1973, Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last King of Afghanistan, was ousted in a coup by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery. 1981, A structural failure caused a walkway at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, US, to collapse killing 114 people and injuring 216 others. Your hymn raises hope, which when all else is lost, retains Calais. And if the structure about you fails, if you lose your crown, if your plan fails, you can resort to the defiant snarl "You dirty rat."
Matches

• 180 – Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed for being Christians. This is the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world.
• 1203 – The Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople by assault. The Byzantine emperor Alexios III Angelos flees from his capital into exile.
• 1402 – Zhu Di, better known by his era name as the Yongle Emperor, assumes the throne over the Ming Dynasty of China.
• 1429 – Hundred Years' War: Charles VII of France is crowned the King of France in the Reims Cathedral after a successful campaign byJoan of Arc
• 1453 – Battle of Castillon: The last battle of Hundred Years' War, the French under Jean Bureau defeat the English under the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is killed in the battle in Gascony.
• 1717 – King George I of Great Britain sails down the River Thames with a barge of 50 musicians, where George Frideric Handel's Water Music is premiered.
• 1762 – Catherine II becomes tsar of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia.
• 1771 – Bloody Falls Massacre: Chipewyan chief Matonabbee, traveling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on his Arctic overland journey, massacres a group of unsuspecting Inuit.
• 1791 – Members of the French National Guard under the command of General Lafayette open fire on a crowd of radical Jacobins at the Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution, killing as many as 50 people.
• 1794 – The sixteen Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne are executed 10 days prior to the end of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.
• 1867 – Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the first dental school in the U.S. that is affiliated with a university.
• 1899 – NEC Corporation is organized as the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital.
• 1917 – King George V issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British Royal Family will bear the surname Windsor.
• 1918 – Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are murdered by Bolshevik Chekists at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
• 1918 – The RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM U-55; 5 lives are lost.
• 1932 – Altona Bloody Sunday: A riot between the Nazi Party paramilitary forces, the SS and SA, and the German Communist Party ensues.
• 1933 – After successfully crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the Lithuanian research aircraft Lituanica crashes in Europe under mysterious circumstances.
• 1936 – Spanish Civil War: An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain starts the civil war.
• 1944 – World War II: Napalm incendiary bombs are dropped for the first time by American P-38 pilots on a fuel depot at Coutances, near Saint-Lô, France.
• 1945 – World War II: the main three leaders of the Allied nations, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin, meet in the German city of Potsdam to decide the future of a defeated Germany.
• 1948 – The South Korean constitution is proclaimed.
• 1955 – Disneyland is dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.
• 1975 – Apollo–Soyuz Test Project: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.
• 1976 – The opening of the Summer Olympics in Montreal is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the New Zealand team.
• 1979 – Nicaraguan dictator General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami, Florida.
• 1989 – First flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.
• 1998 – A diplomatic conference adopts the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing a permanent international court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.

Hatches

• 1487 – Ismail I of Iran (d. 1524)
• 1674 – Isaac Watts, English hymnwriter and theologian (d. 1748)
• 1698 – Pierre Louis Maupertuis, French mathematician and philosopher (d. 1759)
• 1714 – Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, German philosopher (d. 1762)
• 1763 – John Jacob Astor, German-American businessman (d. 1848)
• 1774 – John Wilbur, American minister (d. 1856)
• 1797 – Hippolyte Delaroche, French painter (d. 1856)
• 1831 – Xianfeng Emperor of China (d. 1861)
• 1839 – Ephraim Shay, American engineer, invented the Shay locomotive (d. 1916)
• 1870 – Charles Davidson Dunbar, Scottish bagpipe player (d. 1939)
• 1899 – James Cagney, American actor, singer, and dancer (d. 1986)
• 1912 – Art Linkletter, Canadian-American radio and television host (d. 2010)
• 1915 – Fred Ball, American actor (d. 2007)
• 1917 – Phyllis Diller, American comedian, actress, and singer (d. 2012)
• 1920 – Gordon Gould, American physicist, invented the laser (d. 2005)
• 1921 – Toni Stone, the first of three women to play Negro league baseball (d. 1996)
• 1923 – John Cooper, English car designer, co-founded the Cooper Car Company (d. 2000)
• 1933 – Keiko Awaji, Japanese actress (d. 2014)
• 1935 – Donald Sutherland, Canadian actor
• 1939 – Spencer Davis, Welsh singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Spencer Davis Group)
• 1940 – Tim Brooke-Taylor, English actor and screenwriter
• 1946 – Alun Armstrong, English actor
• 1950 – Damon Harris, American singer (The Temptations) (d. 2013)
• 1951 – Lucie Arnaz, American actress, singer, and dancer
• 1954 – J. Michael Straczynski, American author
• 1956 – Julie Bishop, Australian politician
• 1969 – Scott Johnson, American cartoonist
• 1975 – Darude, Finnish DJ and producer
• 1976 – Dagmara Dominczyk, Polish-American actress
• 1978 – Panda Bear, American singer-songwriter and keyboard player (Animal Collective and Jane)
• 1982 – Natasha Hamilton, English singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress (Atomic Kitten)
• 1986 – Dana, South Korean singer, dancer, and actress (The Grace)
• 1987 – Darius Boyd, Australian rugby player
• 2000 – Maria Aragon, Canadian singer

Despatches

• 521 – Magnus Felix Ennodius, Latin bishop and poet (b. 474)
• 924 – Edward the Elder, English king (b. 877)
• 1790 – Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher (b. 1723)
• 1887 – Dorothea Dix, American activist (b. 1802)
• 1912 – Henri Poincaré, French mathematician, physicist, and engineer (b. 1854)
• 1918 – people of the Shooting of the Romanov family
  • Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1901)
  • Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1899)
  • Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1895)
  • Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1897)
  • Alexandra Fyodorovna of Russia (b. 1872)
  • Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia (b. 1904)
  • Nicholas II of Russia (b. 1868)

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Somerset County Cricket Club's 2009 season saw the teamcompete in four English competitions: the first divisions of the County Championship and the NatWest Pro40 League, the Friends Provident Trophy, and the Twenty20 Cup. Somerset were in contention to win the County Championship until the last few weeks of the season, but the batting-friendly pitch at their home ground meant that they finished with too many draws to claim their first Championship title. Somerset were unbeaten in the group stage of the Friends Provident Trophy, but were eliminated in the first knock-out round, and finished runners-up by one point in the NatWest Pro40. In the Twenty20 Cup, Somerset finished as losing finalists, thus qualifying for the international Champions League Twenty20, where they were eliminated in the second group stage. Overall, Somerset had a successful season but fell short of winning any competitions, prompting their Director of Cricket Brian Rose to say "We've had enough of being cricket's nearly men." Marcus Trescothick (pictured)topped the national batting tables and was named by the Professional Cricketers' Association as Player of the Year and Most Valuable Player of the Year. (Full article...)

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Proud to have an Australian attitude to life

Piers Akerman – Thursday, July 17, 2014 (7:13pm)

HOW fitting that Rupert Murdoch should launch the world’s biggest-ever media takeover bid in the same week that his flagship national daily, The Australian, celebrates its 50th anniversary. 

 Continue reading 'Proud to have an Australian attitude to life'

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IT IS DONE

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 17, 2014 (12:57pm)

The stupidest and most dishonest tax in Australian legislative history is finally gone: 

The carbon tax is dead.

After almost 60 hours of debate, the Senate finally passed Tony Abbott’s repeal bills this morning. 

With the support of the three Palmer United Party Senators and three key Independents the Government succeeded in wiping the $7 billion a year tax from the statute books and fulfilling its key election promise.

A small applause rang through the Senate when the final vote was read out at 11.15am. The bill was passed with 39 in the affirmative and 32 against. 

It’s like stepping into the Enlightenment.

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THE NOSTRADAMUS PENSIONER

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 17, 2014 (4:50am)

Another prediction from former Fairfax and ABC columnist, Labor speechwriter and future seer Bob Ellis: 

When the Carbon Tax ends this morning or this afternoon … 

That was posted by Bob on July 15. The carbon tax, regrettably, is still in place. As it happens, Ellis once made a film about his early life under the title The Nostradamus Kid.

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CHILD HAS STYLE

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 17, 2014 (4:49am)

His post-park walk might be even cooler than the park itself:



(Via Jalopnik)

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WEIRD AL KNOWS GRAMMAR

Tim Blair – Thursday, July 17, 2014 (4:47am)

Helpful advice for all of us occasional word criminals:

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Carbon tax goes, snow falls. Sceptics celebrate

Andrew Bolt July 17 2014 (4:37pm)

Carbon tax, Culture wars, Politics - federal

On the day the carbon tax is repealed, the bible of global warming cries in the unusual snow:

UPDATE
Once - as the IPA points out - every political leader wanted a carbon tax of some sort, such was the warming hysteria:

Which politician dared stand against the united press gallery?:

Laurie Oakes, the Daily Telegraph: ‘Unless [Malcolm] Turnbull can bring the climate change dissidents to heel, the Liberals will face humiliation at the polls.’
Paul Kelly, the ABC1’s Insiders: ‘I mean frankly if [the Liberals] oppose [Turnbull’s amendments to the ETS], that would be signing their own political death warrant.’
Michelle Grattan, the Age: ‘It is in the Liberal party’s interests to vote for the ETS and get the climate change issue as much off the election agenda as possible.’
Peter Hartcher, the Sydney Morning Herald: Opposition to the ETS ‘will give the Rudd government a potential trigger for a double dissolution election. This would be devastating for the Coalition… The party faces electoral oblivion.’
The Weekend Australian’s front page: (28 November): ‘The Coalition faces an electoral wipeout [of at least 20 of its metropolitan seats] at next year’s federal election if the rebels led by Tony Abbott and Nick Minchin succeed in blocking the government’s climate change legislation.’

In the end it was Tony Abbott who decided to risk everything on fighting any form of carbon tax. On that platform he won the Liberal leadership by a single vote and fought two election campaigns.
Today he can announce the end of this “useless, destructive tax”:

And now everyone but the Greens and Labor is against the tax:

Government and Palmer United Party senators were joined by the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party’s Ricky Muir, Liberal Democratic Party’s David Leyonhjelm, Family First Party’s Bob Day and Democratic Labour Party’s John Madigan to vote in favour of the repeal.

Bizarrely, Labor is today promising to bring back a form of carbon tax:

Before the vote was taken, Labor leader Bill Shorten confirmed the issue of pricing carbon would not go away by stating categorically that Labor would go to the next election with an emissions trading scheme as policy.

The Government couldn’t be happier:

Christopher Pyne magnified the intention in his own inimitable way bellowing to Shorten across the dispatch box in Parliament ‘’we will hang this around your neck like a rotten stinking carcass ... you have given us a whole new lease of life’’.

UPDATE
Guess which Senator is having a tanty:

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Bill Shorten’s pet green project sinks

Andrew Bolt July 17 2014 (9:01am)

There was the usual fanfare about another green power scheme that needed millions of our dollars in subsidies:

Ocean Power Technologies (Australasia) Pty Ltd is seeking to develop a wave power station off the coast of Victoria near the city of Portland. The plant is expected to be built in three phases, with a total capacity of 19 megawatts. The Federal Government of Australia has awarded the project an AU $66.46 million grant under its REDP program to encourage new renewable energy technologies.

Labor leader Bill Shorten on Monday said this was the very kind of project the Australian Renewable Energy Agency had to fund with our dollars:

And [the Abbott Government] wants to get rid of ARENA too.
Right now, ARENA leads the way in supporting Australian environmental innovation and investing in Australian genius… ARENA grants are also supporting Australian researchers investigating new and more efficient energy sources: Tidal Energy in Portland.

Three days later, this news:

PLANS to build the world’s largest wave power project in Portland have been scrapped.
The $230 million bid to harness the ocean’s currents was dumped this week by Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) and it’s subsidiary Victorian Wave Partners…
Victorian Wave Partners and OPT Australasia director Gilbert George told The Standard yesterday the size of the project was simply too large and the parent company OPT Incorporated (OPTT), based in the United States, had decided to pull the plug following a review.

Four months ago another ARENA disaster:

A renewable energy company which received almost $5 million in federal grants has been put into administration… The target of most of the funding – the Oceanlinx 1MW Commercial Wave Energy Demonstrator, based in South Australia - sank last month and remains visible offshore at Carrickalinga…
In July 2012 Oceanlinx received just under $4 million dollars in funding from the Emerging Renewables Program (ERP). The program was administered by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to support the development of renewable energy technologies.

Shorten is insisting we need more of this kind of taxpayer-subsidised thing to pretend to stop a warming that actually stopped 16 years ago. 

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Bill Shorten’s four big fibs about his new carbon tax

Andrew Bolt July 17 2014 (8:12am)

Global warming - propaganda

THE hated carbon tax is finally being scrapped by Parliament, but what does the Opposition Leader now stupidly promise?
Incredible but true: there will be another carbon tax under a government Bill Shorten leads.
“The Parliament can vote for Labor’s emissions trading scheme today,” Shorten declared on Tuesday, piously adding this would ensure “there be no tears for humanity”.
No tears, that is, unless the sight of a grown politician telling porkies about the climate makes you cry.

Sure, Shorten is calling his tax an “emissions trading scheme”, with the price set by the market. But he could call it a ferret and it would still be tax — an extra charge on your power bills to “save” the planet.
Talk about a death wish. Global warming madness has already cost Labor two of its leaders (Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard) and the Liberals one (Malcolm Turnbull), yet Shorten seems determined to be the next.
How dumb is he? Or rather: how dumb is the public? Will voters really believe the untruths, half-truths and exaggerations Shorten trotted out on Tuesday to persuade them the planet is frying and that cutting emissions would save us from disaster?

Shorten’s claim: “We (Labor) were right to listen to the scientific world ... There is no doubt our Earth is warming.”

(Read full column here.)  

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Missiles from Israel bad, missiles to Israel good

Andrew Bolt July 17 2014 (7:54am)

Brendan O’Neill suspects anti-Semitism:

WHY are Western liberals more offended by Israeli militarism than by any other kind of militarism? It’s extraordinary. France can invade Mali and there won’t be loud, rowdy protests by peaceniks in Paris. David Cameron can order air strikes on Libya and British leftists won’t give over their Twitterfeeds to publishing gruesome pics of the Libyan civilians killed. Barack Obama can resume his drone attacks in Pakistan, killing 13 people in one strike last month, and Washington won’t be besieged by angry anti-war folk demanding “Hands off Pakistan”.
But the minute Israel fires a rocket into Gaza, radicals in all these Western nations will take to the streets, wave hyperbolic placards, fulminate on Twitter, publish the names and ages of everyone “MURDERED BY ­ISRAEL”, and generally scream about Israeli “bloodletting”. (When we bomb another country, it’s “war”; when Israel does it, it’s “bloodletting”.)
Anyone possessed of a critical faculty must at some point have wondered why missiles fired by the Jewish state are apparently more worthy of condemnation than missiles fired by Washington, London, Paris, the Turks, Bashar al-Assad, or anyone else.

But Israel’s “sin” is also that it is a rich country opposed by poor ones, a “white” people opposed by “brown”, a capitalist standard bearer opposed by the “oppressed”. It ticks almost very box in the Left’s demonology.
UPDATE

How Israel’s “Iron Dome” works:

As soon as enemy rockets are launched, Iron Dome’s radar tracks their trajectory, calculates their impact point and launches a missile which within seconds locks onto the rocket and shoots it down. Each interception costs about $60,000, but its architects claim to have saved Israel billions in physical damage and economic impact, as well as loss of life.
Some wonder if Iron Dome’s main problem is in fact a political one. The system’s success means that Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has been able to use Iron Dome to maintain his policy of conflict management, with less fear of retaliation. “Iron Dome has altered the calculus of Israel’s political echelons in ways they have yet to understand,” says a former senior official. “It allows Israel to resist internal public and military pressure for a quick end to the conflict, and keep bombing Gaza.”

But what protection does Israel have from the anti-Semitism spread by mass-migration into the lands of its former allies:

A demonstration in Frankfurt against Operation Protective Edge erupted into violence, with protesters tossing stones at the police.
According to the Frankfurter Rundschau paper, about 2,500 protesters appeared in downtown Frankfurt, screaming “God is great,” and slogans such as “freedom for Palestine” and “children-murderer Israel."… One sign at the rally was titled, “You Jews are Beasts."…
According to the Rundschau, student organization Left-SDS, Islamists and some members of the Neo-Nazi group National Socialists Rhein-Main attended the anti-Israel protest. Flags from Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Hamas were on display at the protest. Banners compared Prime Minister Netanyahu with Adolf Hitler…
In a bizarre act of cooperation, German journalist and publicist Thomas von der Osten-Sacken reported on the website of the weekly Jungle World that Frankfurt’s police allowed the demonstrators to use a police vehicle and loudspeaker to blast anti-Israeli slogans. According to a police statement, the authorities allowed the use of their equipment in order to deescalate the situation. 

(Thanks to reader doc molloy.) 

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Why is Labor destroying Australia even in Opposition?

Andrew Bolt July 17 2014 (7:54am)

What the hell does Labor think it’s up to?:

CHRIS RICHARDSON, DELOITTE ACCESS ECONOMICS: It looks as if we won’t get budget repair in Australia. Essentially, the Senate is not just blocking the budget for the next handful of years, but blocking the budget for the next decade. ... Across the next 10 years and once you add in the interest bill as well, you’re talking about $300 billion that the Senate is implying it will impose.

Yet some Liberals decide the Treasurer is a bigger target than Labor:

Joe Hockey’s threat to bypass the Senate by ordering spending cuts outside of parliamentary approval has touched off a new Labor scare campaign and sparked concerns within the government over the Treasurer’s judgment…
They revealed Mr Hockey’s move had not been part of the agreed government strategy for the day, which had been to press the opposition exclusively on the carbon tax repeal.
One senior figure asked why Mr Hockey had seen fit to open up another front. ‘’It was a gift to Labor … they did what you would do in that case and started picking us off, demanding that we say where the cuts will be. We would’ve done the same; it was an own goal,’’ the frontbencher said…

The complaints came after Mr Hockey used a series of interviews on Wednesday to toughen the budget rhetoric. ‘’If the Senate chooses to block savings initiatives, then we need to look at other savings initiatives that may not require legislation,’’ he said.

UPDATE

The wrecking continues:

THE $200 billion offshore oil and gas industry has been thrown into limbo after the Greens and Labor won support in the Senate to strike down ­several categories of ­foreign-worker visas.
The Australian Mines and Metals Association blasted the move as a “bloody-minded and irresponsible political stunt’’ that “directly endangered the jobs of thousands of Australians working in our critical offshore oil and gas sector by rendering essential work done by non-Australian nationals unlawful’’. The government was last night taking advice on how to work around the disallowance motion, which will affect workers in the offshore gas projects of northwestern Australia and Queensland…
Labor backed a Greens disallowance motion and it was carried with the support of the three Palmer United Party senators, the Democratic Labour Party’s John Madigan and the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party’s Ricky Muir…
AMMA executive director Scott Barklamb said ... “The disallowance impacts every offshore resources project in Australia — projects worth $200bn to our economy (that) employ upwards of 70,000 Australia people ... It doesn’t only invalidate those workers on short-term maritime crew visas — the intended target of the maritime unions’ misleading scare campaign — but all non-Australian residents on offshore resources activities including those working here for years on long-standing visa arrangements.”

(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 

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We’ve seen before how our jihadists turn their attention to Australia

Andrew Bolt July 17 2014 (7:41am)

Now why would ASIO want more surveillance powers?

The nation’s top spy has expressed concern about ‘‘tens’’ of former Australian jihadists who have already returned from fighting in the Middle East and who may now pose a terrorism threat at home.
ASIO director-general David Irvine also stepped up his call for controversial new laws forcing phone and internet companies to keep records of customers’ communications for up to two years, describing it as ‘‘absolutely crucial’’ to the spy agency’s future work…
The spy boss ... [said] that on top of the roughly 60 people fighting in the Middle East, there were ‘‘some tens of people who’ve already returned’’…
He also revealed there were ‘‘another 150 that we’re looking at here in Australia who have inclinations to support those ... extremist groups’’ – referring to the al-Qaeda offshoots the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and Jabhat al-Nusra.

Read the warning from the 30 Australians who went off to fight in Afghanistan:

About 30 Australians went to fight in Afghanistan, of whom 19 were suspected of involvement in terrorism when they returned home and eight were convicted.

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Christine Milne denies the warming science

Andrew Bolt July 17 2014 (7:31am)

Global warming - propaganda

Why does Greens leader Christine Milne deny the science of global warming?

Christine Milne, Senate, Tuesday: 

I THINK at some point we will have a website of climate criminals and I would have a few people to put on that list. It would include Dick Warburton, Brian Fisher, David Murray, Maurice Newman, Mitch Hooke and so you could go on, with Chris Mitchell, Gina Rinehart, Innes Willox, Ian Plimer, Rupert Murdoch, George Pell, Andrew Bolt, John Roskam, Martin Ferguson and so on and so forth. In years to come, those people will try to pretend that they did not tear down the climate bills, when they have and the record will clearly show it. ... To all those people partying around the corridors, enjoy it because it is your last stand. The fact is you have misjudged the temperature ... When we look at the temperature of the planet rising, let us look at the climate science. The fact of the matter is we are on track for four to six degrees of warming. That means people will not survive. Part of the world will be uninhabitable. There will be one million deaths per week for the next 90 years if it gets to 4 degrees.

What the 5th IPCC Assessment report actually says:

THE global mean surface temperature change for the period 2016-2035 relative to 1986-2005 will likely be in the range of 0.3C to 0.7C ... Global surface temperature change for the end of the 21st century is likely to exceed 1.5C relative to 1850 to 1900 for all ... scenarios except (one) ... and more likely than not to exceed 2C for (one other scenario) ...

IPCC AR5 notes the lack of warming since 1998:

THE rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998-2012) (is) 0.05 (-0.05 to +0.15)C per decade) which is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951-2012) (of) 0.12 (0.08 to 0.14)C per decade.

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Clive Palmer is destroying Abbott and Shorten

Andrew Bolt July 17 2014 (7:21am)

Niki Savva is in despair:

WHEN Clive Palmer crashes and burns, as he inevitably will, he will walk away from the wreckage blaming the giant conspiracy orch­estrated by the government and News Corp Australia, laughing out the side of his mouth at the two small figures scratching through the rubble: Tony Abbott looking for bits of vertebrae and Bill Shorten for an inner compass.
Palmer will take no responsibility for his own demise, or for his soiling of parliament and the inexcusable trashing of the reputations of people bound to impartially serve it and protect it from threats to its integrity from people like him.
The Prime Minister, perversely Zen-like, genuinely believes despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that all is well, or soon will be. The Opposition Leader at least appreciates the uniqueness of the situation but bristles at suggestions he should lift a finger to fix it, or that he bears any responsibility for the damage to the body politic, preferring to pose as an innocent bystander with little power to intervene.

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ABC barracks against Israel

Andrew Bolt July 17 2014 (7:15am)

WHY is the ABC barracking for Hamas, the terrorist group that runs Gaza and is firing rockets at Israel?
Of course, the ABC would deny it explicitly supports Hamas but it has sided with it against its enemy.
For instance, it portrays Israel as the aggressor as it bombs sites in Gaza used for launching rockets at civilian targets as far away as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
(Read full article here.) 

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Murdoch’s biggest deal yet

Andrew Bolt July 17 2014 (7:10am)

Rupert Murdoch is astonishing:

RUPERT Murdoch’s film and entertainment group 21st Century Fox is negotiating one of the world’s biggest media mergers, making an offer for Time Warner, owner of CNN, that would create a $US160 billion ($170 billion) media entertainment and sports juggernaut
Time Warner — which also owns movie and TV production giant HBO which creates globally successful series like Game of Thrones — is said to have rebuffed a $US80 billion ($85 billion) takeover bid, but that is likely to be just the opening stanza in what could create the largest media company in the world.
This deal would represent the biggest the 83-year-old Australian-born media titan has concluded after five decades of deals — from inheriting the Adelaide News to operations that span the globe.

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Cameron Government dumps warming zealot

Andrew Bolt July 17 2014 (12:28am)

Cheery news from Britain, where Prime Minister David Cameron has shuffled a warmist extremist out of his government:

The reshuffle has also seen energy and climate change minister, Greg Barker, resign. Barker was one of a few true Tory greens, who saw the danger of global warming and the opportunity of the fast-growing green economy. The replacements for Paterson, Barker, Fallon and Hague may yet surprise us, but as it stands the Conservative Party are set to go into the next election with a very different position on the environment than the “vote blue, go green” of 2010. They have got rid of the “green crap”.

The Financial Review’s Jim Pickard gets the message:

Greg Barker, the Tory climate minister – who posed with David Cameron in the Arctic eight years ago – is stepping down from the government in a vivid symbol of the Conservative party’s changing priorities. His position had become increasingly precarious as the Tory leadership is shifting away from its one-time pro-green rhetoric.

The new environment minister seems more rational:

The new set of Conservative environment and energy ministers announced on Tuesday bring a track record of opposing renewable energy, having fought against wind and solar farms, enthusiastically backed fracking and argued that green subsidies damage the economy. New energy minister, Matthew Hancock, signed a letter to David Cameron in 2012 demanding that subsidies for onshore wind farms were slashed. New environment secretary and former Shell employee, Liz Truss, dismissed clean renewable energy as “extremely expensive” and said it was damaging the economy. 

(Thanks to reader George. Via the Global Warming Policy Foundation.) 

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=== Posts from last year ===

4 her, so she can see how I see her




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Holly Sarah Nguyen

Dear God as I come before you tonight I thank you for another day of life. Thank you for your strength, love, favor and protection all throughout this day. Lord now I lift up every broken vessel, hurting heart, tired body or stressed soul right now. Turn around their day and grant them nothing but sweet peace. Renew, restore, refresh and uplift. Let your glory full their space. I ask these things in your precious name. Amen.

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Warwick Poulsen

"Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great man must, I think, have great sadness on earth..."

- Dostoevsky, "Crime and Punishment"...

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Sunset over Mount St. Helena. I have been struggling with this image since taking it last night. The trouble that I'm having is that it looks fake, even straight out of the camera, even though the manipulation has been minimal. I blame the clear sky along with the orange glow.

I decided to take the long way home from Santa Rosa last night and was greeted with a wonderful sunset over the Sonoma County vineyards. I spent much of my life in these parts and miss them, being that I don't get out that way as often as I would like. — in Calistoga, CA.
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Vines. — in Calistoga, CA.
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" The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind. " - Sigmund Freud
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like Hermione .. ed
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Are you a teacher? With the release and implementation of the Australian Curriculum, the Memorial is planning a series of educational web activities, teaching tools and stimulus materials that will allow us to help you. Most importantly we want to know what you need from us. Please read and comment on our blog and let us know where you are finding resource gaps and we will do our best to try and fill them.

http://www.awm.gov.au/blog/2013/07/17/education-australian-war-memorial/
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How does this explain the NSW Rugby League record vs Queensland?
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Pastor Rick Warren

I trust God completely, 

not because he always does what I want 

but because he always does what's right.

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Pastor Rick Warren

The more you fight a feeling, the more it controls you. Don't resist it, replace it.

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Pastor Rick Warren

Every time you make a bad choice, it becomes harder to make a good one.

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July 17: Feast day of the Scillitan Martyrs (Roman Catholic Church);Constitution Day in South Korea (1948)

• 1453 – The Battle of Castillon, the last conflict of the Hundred Years' War, ended with the English losing all landholdings in France, except Calais.
• 1863 – The New Zealand land wars resumed as British forces in New Zealand led by GeneralDuncan Cameron began their Invasion of the Waikato.
• 1918 – Russian Revolution: Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas II(pictured) and his family at Yekaterinburg.
• 1944 – Two ships laden with ammunition for World War II explodedat the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California, killing 320 sailors and civilians, and injuring more than 400 others.
• 1992 – Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the Manchester Metrolink, the first modern street running light rail system in the United Kingdom.

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Events[edit]

• 180 – Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed for being Christians. This is the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world.
• 1203 – The Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople by assault. The Byzantine emperor Alexios III Angelos flees from his capital into exile.
• 1402 – Zhu Di, better known by his era name as the Yongle Emperor, assumes the throne over the Ming Dynasty of China.
• 1429 – Hundred Years' War: Charles VII of France is crowned the King of France in the Reims Cathedral after a successful campaign byJoan of Arc
• 1453 – Battle of Castillon: The last battle of Hundred Years' War, the French under Jean Bureau defeat the English under the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is killed in the battle in Gascony.
• 1717 – King George I of Great Britain sails down the River Thames with a barge of 50 musicians, where George Frideric Handel's Water Music is premiered.
• 1762 – Catherine II becomes tsar of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia.
• 1771 – Bloody Falls Massacre: Chipewyan chief Matonabbee, traveling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on his Arctic overland journey, massacres a group of unsuspecting Inuit.
• 1791 – Members of the French National Guard under the command of General Lafayette open fire on a crowd of radical Jacobins at the Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution, killing as many as 50 people.
• 1794 – The sixteen Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne are executed 10 days prior to the end of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.
• 1856 – The Great Train Wreck of 1856 in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, kills over 60 people.
• 1867 – Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the first dental school in the U.S. that is affiliated with a university.
• 1896 – Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, the Indian sage, at age 16, spontaneously initiates a process of self-enquiry that culminates within a few minutes in his own permanent awakening.
• 1899 – NEC Corporation is organized as the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital.
• 1917 – King George V issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British Royal Family will bear the surname Windsor.
• 1918 – Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are murdered by Bolshevik Chekists at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
• 1918 – The RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM U-55; 5 lives are lost.
• 1932 – Altona Bloody Sunday: A riot between the Nazi Party paramilitary forces, the SS and SA, and the German Communist Party ensues.
• 1933 – After successfully crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the Lithuanian research aircraft Lituanica crashes in Europe under mysterious circumstances.
• 1936 – Spanish Civil War: An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain starts the civil war.
• 1938 – Douglas Corrigan takes off from Brooklyn to fly the "wrong way" to Ireland and becomes known as "Wrong Way" Corrigan.
• 1944 – Port Chicago disaster: Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, California, killing 320.
• 1944 – World War II: Napalm incendiary bombs are dropped for the first time by American P-38 pilots on a fuel depot at Coutances, near Saint-Lô, France.
• 1945 – World War II: the main three leaders of the Allied nations, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin, meet in the German city of Potsdam to decide the future of a defeated Germany.
• 1948 – The South Korean constitution is proclaimed.
• 1953 – The largest number of United States midshipman casualties in a single event results from an aircraft crash in Florida killing 44.
• 1955 – Disneyland is dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.
• 1962 – Nuclear weapons testing: The "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada National Security Site.
• 1968 – A revolution occurs in Iraq when Abdul Rahman Arif is overthrown and the Ba'ath Party is installed as the governing power in Iraq with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as the new Iraqi President.
• 1973 – King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.
• 1975 – Apollo–Soyuz Test Project: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.
• 1976 – East Timor is annexed, and becomes the 27th province of Indonesia.
• 1976 – The opening of the Summer Olympics in Montreal is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the New Zealand team.
• 1979 – Nicaraguan dictator General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami, Florida.
• 1981 – The opening of the Humber Bridge by Queen Elizabeth II in England, United Kingdom.
• 1981 – A structural failure leads to the collapse of a walkway at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri killing 114 people and injuring more than 200.
• 1985 – Founding of the EUREKA Network by former head of states François Mitterrand (France) and Helmut Kohl (Germany).
• 1989 – First flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.
• 1989 – Holy See–Poland relations are restored.
• 1996 – TWA Flight 800: Off the coast of Long Island, New York, a Paris-bound TWA Boeing 747 explodes, killing all 230 on board.
• 1996 – The Community of Portuguese Language Countries is founded.
• 1998 – Papua New Guinea earthquake: A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 3,183, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.
• 1998 – A diplomatic conference adopts the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing a permanent international court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
• 2001 – Concorde is brought back in to service nearly a year after the July 2000 crash.

Births[edit]

• 1487 – Ismail I of Iran (d. 1524)
• 1674 – Isaac Watts, English hymnwriter and theologian (d. 1748)
• 1698 – Pierre Louis Maupertuis, French mathematician and philosopher (d. 1759)
• 1714 – Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, German philosopher (d. 1762)
• 1744 – Elbridge Gerry, American politician, 5th Vice President of the United States (d. 1814)
• 1745 – Peter Ludwig von der Pahlen, Russian general (d. 1826)
• 1763 – John Jacob Astor, German-American businessman (d. 1848)
• 1774 – John Wilbur, American minister (d. 1856)
• 1797 – Hippolyte Delaroche, French painter (d. 1856)
• 1823 – Leander Clark, American businessman and politician (d. 1910)
• 1831 – Xianfeng Emperor of China (d. 1861)
• 1837 – Joseph-Alfred Mousseau, Canadian politician, 6th Premier of Quebec (d. 1886)
• 1839 – Ephraim Shay, American engineer, invented the Shay locomotive (d. 1916)
• 1845 – Hugo Treffner, German pedagogue (d. 1912)
• 1853 – Alexius Meinong, Ukrainian-Austrian philosopher (d. 1920)
• 1868 – Henri Nathansen, Danish playwright and director (d. 1944)
• 1870 – Charles Davidson Dunbar, Scottish bagpipe player (d. 1939)
• 1871 – Lyonel Feininger, German-American painter and illustrator (d. 1956)
• 1882 – James Somerville, English admiral (d. 1949)
• 1888 – Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Ukrainian-Israeli author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1970)
• 1889 – Erle Stanley Gardner, American lawyer and author (d. 1970)
• 1894 – Georges Lemaître, Belgian priest, astronomer, and cosmologist (d. 1966)
• 1898 – Berenice Abbott, American photographer (d. 1991)
• 1898 – Osmond Borradaile, Canadian cinematographer (d. 1999)
• 1898 – George Robert Vincent, American historian (d. 1985)
• 1899 – James Cagney, American actor, singer, and dancer (d. 1986)
• 1900 – Marcel Dalio, French actor (d. 1983)
• 1901 – Patrick Smith, Irish politician (d. 1982)
• 1901 – Luigi Chinetti, Italian-American race car driver (d. 1994)
• 1901 – Bruno Jasieński, Polish poet (d. 1938)
• 1902 – Arnold Pihlak, Estonian footballer (d. 1985)
• 1902 – Christina Stead, Australian author (d. 1983)
• 1910 – James Coyne, Canadian banker, 2nd Governor of the Bank of Canada (d. 2012)
• 1910 – Barbara O'Neil, American actress (d. 1980)
• 1910 – Frank Olson, American microbiologist (d. 1953)
• 1911 – Ted Anderson, English footballer (d. 1979)
• 1911 – Heinz Lehmann, German-Canadian psychiatrist (d. 1999)
• 1912 – Erwin Bauer, German race car driver (d. 1958)
• 1912 – Art Linkletter, Canadian-American radio and television host (d. 2010)
• 1913 – Bertrand Goldberg, American architect, designed the Marina City Building (d. 1997)
• 1913 – Marc Swayze, American author and illustrator (d. 2012)
• 1914 – Eleanor Steber, American operatic soprano (d. 1990)
• 1915 – Fred Ball, American actor (d. 2007)
• 1917 – Bijon Bhattacharya, Indian stage and film actor (d. 1978)
• 1917 – Lou Boudreau, American baseball player and manager (d. 2001)
• 1917 – Phyllis Diller, American comedian, actress, and singer (d. 2012)
• 1917 – Kenan Evren, Turkish general and politician, 7th President of Turkey
• 1917 – Christiane Rochefort, French author (d. 1998)
• 1918 – Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio, Guatemalan politician, President of Guatemala (d. 2003)
• 1918 – Red Sovine, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1980)
• 1920 – Gordon Gould, American physicist, invented the laser (d. 2005)
• 1920 – Juan Antonio Samaranch, Spanish businessman, 7th President of the International Olympic Committee (d. 2010)
• 1920 – Kenneth Wolstenholme, English sportscaster (d. 2002)
• 1921 – George Barnes, American guitarist (d. 1977)
• 1921 – Louis Lachenal, French mountaineer (d. 1955)
• 1921 – Mary Osborne, American guitarist (d. 1992)
• 1921 – Robert V. Remini, American historian and author (d. 2013)
• 1921 – Toni Stone, the first of three women to play Negro league baseball (d. 1996)
• 1921 – František Zvarík, Slovakian actor (d. 2008)
• 1923 – John Cooper, English car designer, co-founded the Cooper Car Company (d. 2000)
• 1924 – Olive Ann Burns, American author (d. 1990)
• 1924 – Garde Gardom, Canadian lawyer and politician, 26th Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia (d. 2013)
• 1925 – Jimmy Scott, American singer (d. 2014)
• 1926 – Édouard Carpentier, French-Canadian wrestler (d. 2010)
• 1927 – Trixie Gardner, Australian-born British politician
• 1927 – Kenneth Stowe, British civil servant
• 1928 – Vince Guaraldi, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 1976)
• 1928 – Joe Morello, American jazz drummer (d. 2011)
• 1929 – Sergei K. Godunov, Russian mathematician
• 1930 – Ray Galton, English television scriptwriter
• 1932 – Quino, Spanish-Argentinian cartoonist
• 1932 – Johnny Kerr, American basketball player and coach (d. 2009)
• 1932 – Wojciech Kilar, Polish composer (d. 2013)
• 1932 – Karla Kuskin, American author and illustrator (d. 2009)
• 1932 – Hal Riney, American businessman, founded Publicis & Hal Riney (d. 2008)
• 1933 – Keiko Awaji, Japanese actress (d. 2014)
• 1933 – Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, Maltese politician, 9th Prime Minister of Malta
• 1933 – Tony Pithey, South African cricketer (d. 2006)
• 1935 – Diahann Carroll, American actress and singer
• 1935 – Peter Schickele, American composer and educator
• 1935 – Donald Sutherland, Canadian actor
• 1938 – Hermann Huppen, Belgian author and illustrator
• 1939 – Andrée Champagne, Canadian actress and politician
• 1939 – Spencer Davis, Welsh singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Spencer Davis Group)
• 1939 – Ali Khamenei, Iranian politician, 2nd Supreme Leader of Iran
• 1940 – Tim Brooke-Taylor, English actor and screenwriter
• 1941 – Daryle Lamonica, American football player
• 1941 – Bob Taylor, English cricketer
• 1941 – Achim Warmbold, German race car driver
• 1942 – Gale Garnett, New Zealand-Canadian singer and actress
• 1942 – Connie Hawkins, American basketball player
• 1942 – Don Kessinger, American baseball player and manager
• 1942 – Peter Sissons, English journalist
• 1943 – LaVyrle Spencer, American author
• 1944 – Mark Burgess, New Zealand cricketer and footballer
• 1944 – Craig Sams, Canadian, British-based businessman
• 1944 – Catherine Schell, Hungarian-English actress
• 1944 – Carlos Alberto Torres, Brazilian footballer and manager
• 1945 – Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia
• 1945 – John Patten, British politician
• 1946 – Alun Armstrong, English actor
• 1947 – Joyce Anelay, British politician
• 1947 – Robert Begerau, German footballer and manager
• 1947 – Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
• 1947 – Wolfgang Flür, German drummer (Kraftwerk and Dyko)
• 1948 – Ron Asheton, American guitarist, songwriter, and actor (The Stooges, Destroy All Monsters, The New Order, and New Race) (d. 2009)
• 1948 – Luc Bondy, Swiss director
• 1949 – Geezer Butler, English bass player and songwriter (Black Sabbath, Geezer Butler Band, GZR, and Heaven & Hell)
• 1949 – Wayne Sleep, English dancer, choreographer and actor
• 1949 – Charley Steiner, American sportscaster
• 1950 – Derek de Lint, Dutch actor
• 1950 – Damon Harris, American singer (The Temptations) (d. 2013)
• 1950 – Phoebe Snow, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Sisters of Glory) (d. 2011)
• 1950 – P. J. Soles, German-American actress
• 1951 – Lucie Arnaz, American actress, singer, and dancer
• 1951 – Mark Bowden, American author
• 1951 – Andrew Robathan, English politician
• 1952 – David Hasselhoff, American actor, singer, and producer
• 1952 – Nicolette Larson, American singer (d. 1997)
• 1952 – Robert R. McCammon, American author
• 1954 – Angela Merkel, German politician, 8th Chancellor of Germany
• 1954 – J. Michael Straczynski, American author
• 1955 – Christopher Chappell, Canadian cricketer
• 1955 – Sylvie Léonard, Canadian actress
• 1955 – Paul Stamets, American mycologist and author
• 1956 – Julie Bishop, Australian politician
• 1956 – Robert Romanus, American actor
• 1956 – Bryan Trottier, Canadian-American ice hockey player and coach
• 1958 – Wong Kar-wai, Chinese director, producer, and screenwriter
• 1957 – Fern Britton, English television host
• 1958 – Thérèse Rein, Australian businesswoman, founded Ingeus
• 1959 – Pola Uddin, Bangladeshi-born British politician
• 1960 – Kim Barnett, English cricketer
• 1960 – Mark Burnett, English-American screenwriter and producer
• 1960 – Nancy Giles, American journalist and actress
• 1960 – Robin Shou, Hong Kong actor and martial artist
• 1960 – Dawn Upshaw, American soprano
• 1960 – Jan Wouters, Dutch footballer and manager
• 1961 – Guru, American rapper, producer, and actor (Gang Starr) (d. 2010)
• 1961 – Jeremy Hardy, English comedian and actor
• 1961 – Roy Pienaar, South African cricketer
• 1961 – Jonathan Potts, Canadian actor
• 1962 – Bill Sage, American actor
• 1963 – Regina Belle, American singer-songwriter and producer
• 1963 – Matti Nykänen, Finnish ski jumper
• 1963 – Letsie III of Lesotho
• 1963 – John Ventimiglia, American actor
• 1964 – Heather Langenkamp, American actress, producer and director
• 1964 – Rosemary Thomas, British diplomat
• 1965 – Craig Morgan, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
• 1965 – Santiago Segura, Spanish actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
• 1965 – Alex Winter, English-American actor, director, and screenwriter
• 1966 – Lou Barlow, American guitarist and songwriter (Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, and The Folk Implosion)
• 1966 – Sten Tolgfors, Swedish politician, 30th Minister of Defence for Sweden
• 1967 – Susan Ashton, American singer
• 1968 – Beth Littleford, American comedian and actress
• 1968 – Andre Royo, American actor
• 1968 – Bitty Schram, American actress
• 1969 – F. Gary Gray, American actor and director
• 1969 – Scott Johnson, American cartoonist
• 1969 – Jaan Kirsipuu, Estonian cyclist
• 1970 – Mandy Smith, English model and singer
• 1971 – Calbert Cheaney, American basketball player and coach
• 1971 – Cory Doctorow, Canadian author and activist
• 1971 – Wilma van Hofwegen, Dutch swimmer
• 1971 – Nico Mattan, Belgian cyclist
• 1971 – Aarne Ruben, Estonian writer
• 1972 – Elizabeth Cook, American singer and guitarist
• 1972 – Donny Marshall, American basketball player and sportscaster
• 1972 – Jason Rullo, American drummer (Symphony X and Redemption)
• 1972 – Jaap Stam, Dutch footballer
• 1972 – Eric Williams, American basketball player
• 1973 – Tony Dovolani, Albanian-American dancer
• 1973 – Eric Moulds, American football player
• 1973 – Liam Kyle Sullivan, American comedian and actor
• 1974 – Laura Macdonald, Scottish saxophonist and composer
• 1975 – Darude, Finnish DJ and producer
• 1975 – Harlette, Australian-English fashion designer
• 1975 – Andre Adams, New Zealand cricketer
• 1975 – Elena Anaya, Spanish actress
• 1975 – Cécile de France, Belgian actress
• 1975 – Carey Hart, American motorcycle racer
• 1975 – Paul Hinojos, American guitarist and songwriter (At the Drive-In, The Mars Volta, and Sparta)
• 1975 – Konnie Huq, English television host
• 1975 – Terence Tao, Australian-American mathematician
• 1976 – Luke Bryan, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
• 1976 – Gino D'Acampo, Italian chef and author
• 1976 – Dagmara Dominczyk, Polish-American actress
• 1976 – Matt Holmes, Australian actor
• 1976 – Eric Winter, American actor
• 1977 – Leif Hoste, Belgian cyclist
• 1977 – Lehmber Hussainpuri, Indian singer
• 1977 – Marc Savard, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1978 – Ricardo Arona, Brazilian mixed martial artist
• 1978 – Panda Bear, American singer-songwriter and keyboard player (Animal Collective and Jane)
• 1978 – Jason Jennings, American baseball player
• 1978 – Mike Knox, American wrestler
• 1978 – Trevor McNevan, Canadian singer-songwriter (Thousand Foot Krutch)
• 1978 – Émilie Simon, French singer-songwriter
• 1978 – Katharine Towne, American actress
• 1979 – Mike Vogel, American actor
• 1980 – Javier Camuñas, Spanish footballer
• 1980 – Ryan Miller, American ice hockey player
• 1981 – Hely Ollarves, Venezuelan runner
• 1981 – Elpida Romantzi, Greek archer
• 1981 – Raigo Toompuu, Estonian shot putter
• 1982 – Omari Banks, Anguillan cricketer
• 1982 – Natasha Hamilton, English singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress (Atomic Kitten)
• 1982 – René Herms, German runner (d. 2009)
• 1983 – Jessi Cruickshank, Canadian television host
• 1983 – Ryan Guettler, Australian motocross racer
• 1983 – Sarah Jones, American actress
• 1983 – Adam Lind, American baseball player
• 1984 – David Katoatau, I-Kiribati weightlifter
• 1984 – Asami Kimura, Japanese singer (Country Musume)
• 1984 – Samyr Laine, Haitian triple jumper
• 1984 – Sotiris Leontiou, Greek footballer
• 1985 – Tom Fletcher, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (McFly)
• 1985 – Loui Eriksson, Swedish ice hockey player
• 1985 – Neil McGregor, Scottish footballer
• 1986 – Dana, South Korean singer, dancer, and actress (The Grace)
• 1986 – Brando Eaton, American actor
• 1986 – DeAngelo Smith, American football player
• 1986 – Lacey Von Erich, American wrestler
• 1986 – Mojo Rawley, American wrestler
• 1987 – Jeremih, American singer-songwriter and producer
• 1987 – Darius Boyd, Australian rugby player
• 1987 – Jan Charouz, Czech race car driver
• 1988 – Summer Bishil, American actress
• 1988 – Guo Yue, Chinese table tennis player
• 1991 – Mann, American rapper
• 1992 – Taavi Rand, Estonian ice dancer
• 1998 – Felipe de Marichalar y Borbón, Spanish son of Infanta Elena, Duchess of Lugo
• 2000 – Maria Aragon, Canadian singer

Deaths[edit]

• 521 – Magnus Felix Ennodius, Latin bishop and poet (b. 474)
• 924 – Edward the Elder, English king (b. 877)
• 1070 – Baldwin VI, Count of Flanders (b. 1030)
• 1453 – John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, English commander (b. 1387)
• 1531 – Hosokawa Takakuni, Japanese commander (b. 1484)
• 1571 – Georg Fabricius, German poet and historian (b. 1516)
• 1588 – Mimar Sinan, Ottoman architect and engineer, designed the Sokollu Mehmet Pasha Mosque and Süleymaniye Mosque (b. 1489)
• 1645 – Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, English politician (b. 1587)
• 1704 – Pierre-Charles Le Sueur, French-American fur trader and explorer (b. 1657)
• 1709 – Robert Bolling, English-American planter and merchant (b. 1646)
• 1762 – Peter III of Russia (b. 1728)
• 1790 – Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher (b. 1723)
• 1791 – Martin Dobrizhoffer, Austrian missionary (b. 1717)
• 1793 – Charlotte Corday, French murderer (b. 1768)
• 1794 – John Roebuck, English chemist (b. 1718)
• 1845 – Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1764)
• 1878 – Aleardo Aleardi, Italian poet (b. 1812)
• 1879 – Maurycy Gottlieb, Ukrainian painter (b. 1856)
• 1881 – Jim Bridger, American mountain man and explorer (b. 1804)
• 1883 – Tự Đức, Vietnamese emperor (b. 1892)
• 1885 – Jean-Charles Chapais, Canadian politician (b. 1811)
• 1887 – Dorothea Dix, American activist (b. 1802)
• 1893 – Frederick A. Johnson, American banker and politician (b. 1833)
• 1894 – Leconte de Lisle, French poet (b. 1818)
• 1894 – Josef Hyrtl, Austrian anatomist (b. 1810)
• 1907 – Hector Malot, French author (b. 1830)
• 1912 – Henri Poincaré, French mathematician, physicist, and engineer (b. 1854)
• 1918 – people of the Shooting of the Romanov family
  • Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1901)
  • Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1899)
  • Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1895)
  • Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1897)
  • Alexandra Fyodorovna of Russia (b. 1872)
  • Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia (b. 1904)
  • Nicholas II of Russia (b. 1868)
• 1928 – Giovanni Giolitti, Italian politician, 13th Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1842)
• 1928 – Álvaro Obregón, Mexican politician, 39th President of Mexico (b. 1880)
• 1935 – Nie Er, Chinese composer (b. 1912)
• 1935 – George William Russell, Irish poet and painter (b. 1867)
• 1944 – William James Sidis, American mathematician (b. 1898)
• 1945 – Ernst Busch, German field marshal (b. 1885)
• 1946 – Draža Mihailović, Serbian general (b. 1893)
• 1950 – Evangeline Booth, English 4th General of The Salvation Army (b. 1865)
• 1950 – Antonie Nedošinská, Czech actress (b. 1885)
• 1959 – Billie Holiday, American singer-songwriter and actress (b. 1915)
• 1959 – Eugene Meyer, American businessman and publisher (b. 1875)
• 1961 – Ty Cobb, American baseball player and manager (b. 1886)
• 1967 – John Coltrane, American saxophonist and composer (Miles Davis Quintet) (b. 1926)
• 1974 – Dizzy Dean, American baseball player and sportscaster (b. 1910)
• 1975 – Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Georgian author (b. 1893)
• 1980 – Don "Red" Barry, American actor and screenwriter (b. 1912)
• 1980 – Boris Delaunay, Russian mathematician (b. 1890)
• 1987 – Yujiro Ishihara, Japanese actor and singer (b. 1934)
• 1987 – Kristjan Palusalu, Estonian wrestler (b. 1908)
• 1988 – Bruiser Brody, American football player and wrestler (b. 1946)
• 1989 – Itubwa Amram, Nauruan pastor and politician (b. 1922)
• 1991 – John Patrick Spiegel, American psychiatrist (b. 1911)
• 1994 – Jean Borotra, French tennis player (b. 1898)
• 1995 – Juan Manuel Fangio, Argentinian race car driver (b. 1911)
• 1996 – Victims of TWA Flight 800
  • Michel Breistroff, French ice hockey player (b. 1971)
  • Marcel Dadi, Tunisian-French guitarist (b. 1951)
  • David Hogan, American composer (b. 1949)
  • Jed Johnson, American interior designer and director (b. 1948)
  • Pam Lychner, American real estate agent and activist (b. 1959)
• 1996 – Chas Chandler, American bass player and producer (The Animals) (b. 1938)
• 1998 – Lillian Hoban, American author and illustrator (b. 1925)
• 2000 – Zhao Lirong, Chinese actress (b. 1928)
• 2001 – Katharine Graham, American publisher (b. 1917)
• 2003 – David Kelly, Welsh scientist (b. 1944)
• 2003 – Rosalyn Tureck, American pianist and harpsichord player (b. 1914)
• 2003 – Walter Zapp, German inventor, invented the Minox (b. 1905)
• 2004 – Pat Roach, English wrestler and actor (b. 1937)
• 2005 – Laurel Aitken, Jamaican singer (b. 1927)
• 2005 – Geraldine Fitzgerald, Irish-American actress (b. 1913)
• 2005 – Edward Heath, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1916)
• 2005 – Gavin Lambert, English screenwriter and author (b. 1924)
• 2005 – Joe Vialls, Australian journalist and theorist (b. 1944)
• 2006 – Sam Myers, American singer-songwriter (b. 1936)
• 2006 – Mickey Spillane, American author (b. 1918)
• 2007 – Júlio Redecker, Brazilian politician (b. 1956)
• 2007 – Grant Forsberg, American actor (b. 1959)
• 2008 – Larry Haines, American actor (b. 1918)
• 2009 – Walter Cronkite, American journalist (b. 1916)
• 2009 – Leszek Kołakowski, Polish philosopher (b. 1927)
• 2010 – Larry Keith, American actor (b. 1931)
• 2011 – David Ngoombujarra, Australian actor (b. 1967)
• 2012 – Ottorino Pietro Alberti, Italian archbishop (b. 1927)
• 2012 – Richard Evatt, English boxer (b. 1973)
• 2012 – Mrinal Gore, Indian politician (b. 1928)
• 2012 – Forrest S. McCartney, American general (b. 1931)
• 2012 – Ms. Melodie, American rapper (b. 1964)
• 2012 – İlhan Mimaroğlu, Turkish-American composer (b. 1926)
• 2012 – Morgan Paull, American actor (b. 1944)
• 2012 – William Raspberry, American journalist (b. 1935)
• 2012 – Marsha Singh, Indian-English politician (b. 1954)
• 2012 – Wahengbam Nipamacha Singh, Indian politician (b. 1930)
• 2012 – William L. Wainwright, American politician (b. 1947)
• 2013 – Henri Alleg, English-French journalist (b. 1921)
• 2013 – Peter Appleyard, English-Canadian vibraphone player and composer (b. 1928)
• 2013 – Vincenzo Cerami, Italian screenwriter and producer (b. 1940)
• 2013 – Don Flye, American tennis player (b. 1933)
• 2013 – Ian Gourlay, English general (b. 1920)
• 2013 – Briony McRoberts, English actress (b. 1957)
• 2013 – David White, Scottish footballer and manager (b. 1933)

Holidays and observances[edit]

• Christian Feast Day:
  • Alexius of Rome (Western Church)
  • Cynehelm
  • Cynllo
  • Jadwiga of Poland
  • Martyrs of Compiègne
  • Magnus Felix Ennodius
  • Marcellina
  • Piatus of Tournai
  • Romanov sainthood (Russian Orthodox Church)
  • Speratus and companions
  • July 17 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
• Constitution Day (South Korea)
• Independence Day (Slovakia)
• King's Birthday (Lesotho)
• World Day for International Justice (International)

===

“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.”Colossians 2:9-10 NIV

===

Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"They gathered manna every morning."
Exodus 16:21

Labour to maintain a sense of thine entire dependence upon the Lord's good will and pleasure for the continuance of thy richest enjoyments. Never try to live on the old manna, nor seek to find help in Egypt. All must come from Jesus, or thou art undone forever. Old anointings will not suffice to impart unction to thy spirit; thine head must have fresh oil poured upon it from the golden horn of the sanctuary, or it will cease from its glory. To-day thou mayest be upon the summit of the mount of God, but he who has put thee there must keep thee there, or thou wilt sink far more speedily than thou dreamest. Thy mountain only stands firm when he settles it in its place; if he hide his face, thou wilt soon be troubled. If the Saviour should see fit, there is not a window through which thou seest the light of heaven which he could not darken in an instant. Joshua bade the sun stand still, but Jesus can shroud it in total darkness. He can withdraw the joy of thine heart, the light of thine eyes, and the strength of thy life; in his hand thy comforts lie, and at his will they can depart from thee. This hourly dependence our Lord is determined that we shall feel and recognize, for he only permits us to pray for "daily bread," and only promises that "as our days our strength shall be." Is it not best for us that it should be so, that we may often repair to his throne, and constantly be reminded of his love? Oh! how rich the grace which supplies us so continually, and doth not refrain itself because of our ingratitude! The golden shower never ceases, the cloud of blessing tarries evermore above our habitation. O Lord Jesus, we would bow at thy feet, conscious of our utter inability to do anything without thee, and in every favour which we are privileged to receive, we would adore thy blessed name and acknowledge thine unexhausted love.

Evening

"Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time is come. For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof."
Psalm 102:13-14

A selfish man in trouble is exceedingly hard to comfort, because the springs of his comfort lie entirely within himself, and when he is sad all his springs are dry. But a large-hearted man full of Christian philanthropy, has other springs from which to supply himself with comfort beside those which lie within. He can go to his God first of all, and there find abundant help; and he can discover arguments for consolation in things relating to the world at large, to his country, and, above all, to the church. David in this Psalm was exceedingly sorrowful; he wrote, "I am like an owl of the desert. I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top." The only way in which he could comfort himself, was in the reflection that God would arise, and have mercy upon Zion: though he was sad, yet Zion should prosper; however low his own estate, yet Zion should arise. Christian man! learn to comfort thyself in God's gracious dealing towards the church. That which is so dear to thy Master, should it not be dear above all else to thee? What though thy way be dark, canst thou not gladden thine heart with the triumphs of his cross and the spread of his truth? Our own personal troubles are forgotten while we look, not only upon what God has done, and is doing for Zion, but on the glorious things he will yet do for his church. Try this receipt, O believer, whenever thou art sad of heart and in heaviness of spirit: forget thyself and thy little concerns, and seek the welfare and prosperity of Zion. When thou bendest thy knee in prayer to God, limit not thy petition to the narrow circle of thine own life, tried though it be, but send out thy longing prayers for the church's prosperity, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem," and thine own soul shall be refreshed.

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Today's reading: Psalm 16-17, Acts 20:1-16 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Psalm 16-17

A miktam of David.

¹ Keep me safe, my God,
for in you I take refuge.

² I say to the LORD, "You are my Lord;
apart from you I have no good thing."
³ I say of the holy people who are in the land,
"They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight."
⁴ Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.
I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods
or take up their names on my lips.

⁵ LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure.
⁶ The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
⁷ I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
⁸ I keep my eyes always on the LORD.
With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

...read the rest on Bible Gateway

Today's New Testament reading: Acts 20:1-16

Through Macedonia and Greece

¹ When the uproar had ended, Paul sent for the disciples and, after encouraging them, said goodbye and set out for Macedonia. ² He traveled through that area, speaking many words of encouragement to the people, and finally arrived in Greece, ³ where he stayed three months. Because some Jews had plotted against him just as he was about to sail for Syria, he decided to go back through Macedonia. ⁴He was accompanied by Sopater son of Pyrrhus from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, Timothy also, and Tychicus and Trophimus from the province of Asia. ⁵ These men went on ahead and waited for us at Troas. ⁶ But we sailed from Philippi after the Festival of Unleavened Bread, and five days later joined the others at Troas, where we stayed seven days....

...read the rest on Bible Gateway