Galaxy Poll has ALP ahead 55 to 45 in two party preferred terms. A great achievement for a corrupt, inept party without a policy, which the ALP is, compared to an effective hard working government which is effectively opposed by a partisan press. One bets no one who supports the ALP could list substantial reasons for their support. Interestingly, the corrupt and inept opposition were described by the media as 'furniture' when Rudd had his second tilt at failure as a leader.
Abbott's plan for paid parental leave is opposed by many. It is a worthy policy from the social conservative side of politics. The ALP ended the baby bonus which was designed as a poor person's paid parental leave, after they bankrupted treasury. Mr Abbott has a plan that pays for the policy. Those that oppose it hate families and should be held responsible for families that fail while struggling because of it.
ICAC is still asking for permission to over reach in persecuting prosecutor Cuneen. As discussed yesterday, Cuneen has not done anything wrong. ICAC want to investigate the allegation that Cuneen advised her son's girlfriend to avoid being breathalysed. But the girl had been blood tested at a hospital and found to have had no drugs or alcohol. The allegation relates to a personal issue, not a public one, and so there is no corruption to be investigated by the ICAC. But they are still spending lots of money to ask for permission to do so. One can only assume the ICAC want to be wound up for abuse of power.
ABC is said to be staging Hunger Games style employee contests to see who will be made redundant. Generally reality tv is badly done, but this could be watchable. James Dellingpole writes that the ABC are so far to the left they make the BBC look like Fox News.
Fairfax's Canberra Times issues a correction, writing that an earlier story described someone as being pro life when they are pro choice. It is reminiscent of the Simpson's cop saying he gets DUI (drunk and under the influence) and DOA (dead on arrival) confused. A poor worn out woman walks into the police station and asks to see her husband who was reported as DUI ..
The American Academy of Religion has a President who is an ethicist. She has decided to discourage flying to conferences, well banning actually, for a year, so as to make a statement regarding global warming. It seems kind of fitting, as AGW is religious, but not reasoned.
Australian Imam declares Muslims can drink alcohol. Can they also oppose terrorism?
Historical perspectives on this day
In 43 BC, Marcus Tullius Cicero was assassinated. In 574, Emperor Justin II retired due to recurring seizures of insanity. He abdicated the throne in favour of his general Tiberius, proclaiming him Caesar. In 1703, the Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, made landfall. Winds gusted up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people died. In 1724, Tumult of Thorn: Religious unrest was followed by the execution of nine Protestant citizens and the mayor of Thorn (Toruń) by Polish authorities. In 1732, the Royal Opera House opened at Covent Garden, London, England. In 1776, Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, arranged to enter the American military as a major general. In 1787 Delaware became the first state to ratify the United States Constitution. In 1862, American Civil War: Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas. In 1869, American outlaw Jesse James committed his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.In 1917, World War I: The United States declared war on Austria-Hungary. In 1930, W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts telecasted video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The telecast also included the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show. In 1936, Australian cricketer Jack Fingleton became the first player to score centuries in four consecutive Test innings. In 1941, World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy carried out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (For Japan's near-simultaneous attacks on Eastern Hemisphere targets, see December 8.) In 1946, A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, killed 119 people, the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history. In 1949, Chinese Civil War: The government of the Republic of China moved from Nanking to Taipei, Taiwan. In 1962, Prince Rainier III of Monaco revised the principality's constitution, devolving some of his power to advisory and legislative councils. In 1963, Instant replay made its debut during an American Army–Navy football game. In 1965, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously revoke mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.
In 1971, Pakistan President Yahya Khan announced the formation of a coalition government with Nurul Amin as Prime Minister and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Deputy Prime Minister. In 1972 Imelda Marcos survived an assassination attempt using a bolo knife against her. Also, Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, was launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they left the Earth. In 1975, Indonesian invasion of East Timor: The invasion began. In 1982, in Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr., became the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States. In 1983, an Iberia Airlines Boeing 727 collided with an Aviaco DC-9 in dense fog while the two airliners were taxiing down the runway at Madrid–Barajas Airport, killing 93 people. In 1987, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 crashed near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shot his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shot both pilots and himself. In 1988, Spitak Earthquake: In Armenia an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale killed more than 25,000, injured 30,000 and left 500,000 homeless out of a population of 3,500,000. Also, Yasser Arafat recognised the right of Israel to exist.
In 1993, the Long Island Rail Road massacre: Passenger Colin Ferguson murdered six people and injured 19 others on the LIRR in Nassau County, New York. In 1995, the Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34. In 1999, A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.: The Recording Industry Association of America sued the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster, alleging copyright infringement. In 2003, the Conservative Party of Canada was officially registered, following the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. In 2005, Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 924 who allegedly claimed to have a bomb, was shot and killed by a team of U.S. federal air marshals at Miami International Airport. Also, Ante Gotovina, a Croatian army general accused of war crimes, was captured in the Playa de las Américas, Tenerife, by Spanish police. In 2006, a tornado struck Kensal Green, North West London, seriously damaging about 150 properties. In 2007, the Hebei Spirit oil spill began in South Korea after a crane barge that had broken free from a tug collided with the Very Large Crude Carrier, Hebei Spirit.
2013
Mike Carlton often gets things wrong, but as with the political execution of Greiner, that is all that is needed to be successful in pulling down a conservative leader. Wikipedia calls Carlton's lies 'criticism.' To understand Carlton, is to know he did not go to university. He isn't that bright. He gets away with things, because he doesn't understand what he should have done. Carlton was a cadet journalist for the ABC in 1963, age seventeen. He has even been sacked by Sydney Morning Herald, being that unreliable. They hired him back .. for being able to make up attacks on conservatives, he is reliable. But his figures are rubbery. Getting back to it, Cameron should have called for Arafat's death. But he didn't do that either. ABC seem keen to threaten public servants who are effective in fighting crime. They have revealed the location of the home of a person leading the fight against organised crime. One hopes that the ABC News division is part of that target circle. When asked about their decision, ABC blustered, and retroactively obscured some details. One can understand the ABC's antagonism, however, as the spouse of the crime fighter is not the same gender as the crime fighter. ABC apparently stands for Anyone but Conservatives.
Finally, we know why Electoral Office in WA lost votes. It isn't corruption. It is incompetence. Reform of the process, allowing online voting, is possible. And cheaper. As well, removing the stupid laws restricting free speech would not harm minorities. Despite fear mongering. Were there gay marriage in NSW, I would not feel compelled to marry a man. Were there free speech, I still would not feel the need to be crude.
===
This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
===
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
Or the US President at
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-change-this-injustice#
or
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-injustice-faced-david-daniel-ball-after-he-reported-bungled-pedophile-investigation-and/b8mxPWtJ or http://wh.gov/ilXYR
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.
===
Happy birthday and many happy returns to those born on this day, along with
- 521 – Columba, Irish missionary, monk, and saint (d. 597)
- 903 – Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, Persian astronomer (d. 986)
- 1545 – Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, English husband of Mary, Queen of Scots (d. 1567)
- 1598 – Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Italian sculptor and painter (d. 1680)
- 1637 – Bernardo Pasquini, Italian composer (d. 1710)
- 1823 – Leopold Kronecker, German mathematician (d. 1891)
- 1863 – Richard Warren Sears, American businessman, co-founded Sears (d. 1914)
- 1932 – Ellen Burstyn, American actress
- 1942 – Harry Chapin, American singer-songwriter (d. 1981)
- 1943 – Nick Katz, American mathematician
- 2003 – Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange
December 7: Day of the Little Candles in Colombia; Armed Forces Flag Day in India; Pearl Harbor Day in the United States
- 43 BC – Cicero, widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists, was killed after having been proscribed as an enemy of the state.
- 1815 – Michel Ney, Marshal of France, was executed by a firing squad near Paris' Jardin du Luxembourg for supporting Napoleon.
- 1972 – The crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft took the photograph "The Blue Marble" (pictured), the first clear image of an illuminated face of Earth, on their way to the Moon.
- 1999 – The Recording Industry Association of Americafiled a lawsuit against the peer-to-peer file sharingnetwork Napster, alleging the service facilitated widespread copyright infringement.
- 2007 – A crane barge that had broken free from a tug boater's shed into an oil tanker near Daesan, South Korea, causing the country's worst-ever oil spill.
Matches
- 43 BC – Marcus Tullius Cicero is assassinated.
- 574 – Emperor Justin II retires due to recurring seizures of insanity. He abdicates the throne in favor of his general Tiberius, proclaiming him Caesar.
- 1703 – The Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, makes landfall. Winds gust up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people die.
- 1724 – Tumult of Thorn: Religious unrest is followed by the execution of nine Protestant citizens and the mayor of Thorn (Toruń) by Polish authorities.
- 1732 – The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London, England.
- 1776 – Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, arranges to enter the American military as a major general.
- 1787 – Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas.
- 1869 – American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.
- 1917 – World War I: The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.
- 1930 – W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts telecasts video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The telecast also includes the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.
- 1936 – Australian cricketer Jack Fingleton becomes the first player to score centuries in four consecutive Test innings.
- 1941 – World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy carries out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleetand its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (For Japan's near-simultaneous attacks on Eastern Hemispheretargets, see December 8.)
- 1946 – A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, kills 119 people, the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history.
- 1949 – Chinese Civil War: The government of the Republic of China moves from Nanking to Taipei, Taiwan.
- 1962 – Prince Rainier III of Monaco revises the principality's constitution, devolving some of his power to advisory and legislative councils.
- 1963 – Instant replay makes its debut during an American Army–Navy football game.
- 1965 – Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously revoke mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.
- 1972 – Imelda Marcos survives an assassination attempt using a bolo knife against her.
- 1971 – Pakistan President Yahya Khan announces the formation of a coalition government with Nurul Amin as Prime Minister and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Deputy Prime Minister.
- 1972 – Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.
- 1975 – Indonesian invasion of East Timor: The invasion begins.
- 1982 – In Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr., becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.
- 1983 – An Iberia Airlines Boeing 727 collides with an Aviaco DC-9 in dense fog while the two airliners are taxiing down the runway at Madrid–Barajas Airport, killing 93 people.
- 1987 – Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 crashes near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shoots his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shoots both pilots and himself.
- 1988 – Spitak Earthquake: In Armenia an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale kills more than 25,000, injures 30,000 and leaves 500,000 homeless out of a population of 3,500,000.
- 1988 – Yasser Arafat recognizes the right of Israel to exist.
- 1993 – The Long Island Rail Road massacre: Passenger Colin Ferguson murders six people and injures 19 others on the LIRR in Nassau County, New York.
- 1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.
- 1999 – A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.: The Recording Industry Association of America sues the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster, alleging copyright infringement.
- 2003 – The Conservative Party of Canada is officially registered, following the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
- 2005 – Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 924 who allegedly claimed to have a bomb, is shot and killed by a team of U.S. federal air marshals at Miami International Airport.
- 2005 – Ante Gotovina, a Croatian army general accused of war crimes, is captured in the Playa de las Américas, Tenerife, by Spanish police.
- 2006 – A tornado strikes Kensal Green, North West London, seriously damaging about 150 properties.
- 2007 – The Hebei Spirit oil spill begins in South Korea after a crane barge that had broken free from a tug collides with the Very Large Crude Carrier, Hebei Spirit.
Hatches
- 521 – Columba, Irish missionary, monk, and saint (d. 597)
- 903 – Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, Persian astronomer and author (d. 986)
- 1302 – Azzone Visconti, Italian ruler, founded Milan (d. 1339)
- 1545 – Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, English-Scottish husband of Mary, Queen of Scots (d. 1567)
- 1561 – Kikkawa Hiroie, Japanese daimyo (d. 1625)
- 1598 – Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Italian sculptor and painter (d. 1680)
- 1643 – Giovanni Battista Falda, Italian architect and engraver (d. 1678)
- 1637 – Bernardo Pasquini, Italian organist and composer (d. 1710)
- 1724 – Louise of Great Britain (d. 1751)
- 1764 – Claude Victor-Perrin, Duc de Belluno, French general and politician, French Minister of War (d. 1841)
- 1784 – Allan Cunningham, Scottish author and poet (d. 1842)
- 1791 – Ferenc Novák, Hungarian-Slovene priest and poet (d. 1836)
- 1792 – Abraham Jacob van der Aa, Dutch author and academic (d. 1857)
- 1801 – Johann Nestroy, Austrian actor and playwright (d. 1862)
- 1810 – Josef Hyrtl, Hungarian-Austrian anatomist and biologist (d. 1894)
- 1810 – Theodor Schwann, German physiologist and biologist (d. 1882)
- 1823 – Leopold Kronecker, Polish-German mathematician and academic (d. 1891)
- 1838 – Thomas Bent, Australian politician, 22nd Premier of Victoria (d. 1909)
- 1847 – Deacon White, American baseball player and manager (d. 1939)
- 1860 – Joseph Cook, English-Australian miner and politician, 6th Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1947)
- 1862 – Paul Adam, French author (d. 1920)
- 1863 – Felix Calonder, Swiss soldier and politician, 36th President of the Swiss Confederation (d. 1952)
- 1863 – Pietro Mascagni, Italian composer (d. 1945)
- 1863 – Richard Warren Sears, American businessman, co-founded Sears (d. 1914)
- 1873 – Willa Cather, American author and poet (d. 1947)
- 1879 – Rudolf Friml, Czech-American pianist, composer, and academic (d. 1972)
- 1884 – John Carpenter, American sprinter (d. 1933)
- 1885 – Mason Phelps, American golfer (d. 1945)
- 1885 – Peter Sturholdt, American boxer (d. 1919)
- 1887 – Ernst Toch, Austrian-American composer and songwriter (d. 1964)
- 1888 – Joyce Cary, Irish author (d. 1957)
- 1888 – Hamilton Fish III, American captain and politician (d. 1991)
- 1894 – Freddie Adkins, English illustrator (d. 1986)
- 1902 – Hilda Taba, Estonian architect, author, and educator (d. 1967)
- 1903 – Danilo Blanuša, Croatian mathematician, physicist, and academic (d. 1987)
- 1904 – Clarence Nash, American voice actor and singer (d. 1985)
- 1904 – Konstantin Sokolsky, Russian-Latvian singer (d. 1991)
- 1905 – Gerard Kuiper, Dutch-American astronomer and academic (d. 1973)
- 1907 – Fred Rose, Polish-Canadian politician and spy (d. 1983)
- 1909 – Nikola Vaptsarov, Bulgarian poet (d. 1942)
- 1910 – Duncan McNaughton, Canadian high jumper (d. 1998)
- 1910 – Louis Prima, American singer-songwriter, trumpet player, and actor (d. 1978)
- 1910 – Edmundo Ros, Trinidadian-English singer-songwriter and bandleader (d. 2011)
- 1912 – Daniel Jones, Welsh composer (d. 1993)
- 1913 – Kersti Merilaas, Estonian author and poet (d. 1986)
- 1915 – Leigh Brackett, American author and screenwriter (d. 1978)
- 1915 – Eli Wallach, American actor (d. 2014)
- 1916 – Jean Carignan, Canadian fiddler (d. 1988)
- 1919 – Lis Løwert, Danish actress (d. 2009)
- 1920 – Tatamkulu Afrika, South African poet and author (d. 2002)
- 1920 – Fiorenzo Magni, Italian cyclist (d. 2012)
- 1920 – Walter Nowotny, Austrian-German soldier and pilot (d. 1944)
- 1921 – Pramukh Swami Maharaj, Indian guru and scholar
- 1923 – Intizar Hussain, Indian-Pakistani author and scholar
- 1923 – Ted Knight, American actor (d. 1986)
- 1924 – Jovanka Broz, Croatian-Serbian colonel (d. 2013)
- 1924 – John Love, Zimbabwean race car driver (d. 2005)
- 1924 – Mário Soares, Portuguese historian, lawyer, and politician, 17th President of Portugal
- 1925 – Hermano da Silva Ramos, French-Brazilian race car driver
- 1927 – Jack S. Blanton, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 2013)
- 1927 – Helen Watts, Welsh opera singer (d. 2009)
- 1928 – Noam Chomsky, American linguist and philosopher
- 1930 – Christopher Nicole, Guyanese-English author
- 1930 – Hal Smith, American baseball player
- 1931 – Allan B. Calhamer, American game designer, created Diplomacy (d. 2013)
- 1932 – Curt Brasket, American chess player (d. 2014)
- 1932 – Ellen Burstyn, American actress and singer
- 1932 – Paul Caponigro, American photographer
- 1932 – Rosemary Rogers, Sri Lankan-American journalist and author
- 1932 – J. B. Sumarlin, Indonesian economist and politician, 17th Indonesian Minister of Finance
- 1933 – Krsto Papić, Croatian director and screenwriter (d. 2013)
- 1937 – Thad Cochran, American soldier, lawyer, and politician
- 1937 – Kenneth Colley, English actor, director, and screenwriter
- 1938 – Bud Spangler, American drummer, composer, and producer (d. 2014)
- 1939 – Blackie Dammett, American actor and author
- 1940 – Stan Boardman, English comedian and actor
- 1940 – Gerry Cheevers, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1941 – Melba Pattillo Beals, American journalist and activist
- 1942 – Harry Chapin, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1981)
- 1942 – Alex Johnson, American baseball player
- 1942 – Peter Tomarken, American game show host and producer (d. 2006)
- 1943 – Susan Isaacs, American author and screenwriter
- 1943 – Nick Katz, American mathematician and academic
- 1943 – Göran Lennmarker, Swedish politician
- 1943 – Bernard C. Parks, American police officer and politician
- 1943 – John Bennett Ramsey, American father of JonBenét Ramsey
- 1944 – Jamiel Chagra, American drug trafficker (d. 2008)
- 1944 – Daniel Chorzempa, American organist and composer
- 1944 – Miroslav Macek, Czech dentist and politician
- 1945 – Marion Rung, Finnish singer
- 1947 – Johnny Bench, American baseball player and sportscaster
- 1947 – Tony Thomas, American screenwriter and producer
- 1947 – Garry Unger, Canadian ice hockey player and sportscaster
- 1947 – Anne Fine, British children and adult author
- 1948 – Gary Morris, American singer and actor
- 1948 – Mads Vinding, Danish bassist
- 1949 – James Rivière, Italian jeweler
- 1949 – Tom Waits, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
- 1950 – Ron Hynes, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1952 – Susan Collins, American politician
- 1952 – Georges Corraface, French actor and producer
- 1952 – Eckhard Märzke, German footballer and manager
- 1954 – Mary Fallin, American politician, 27th Governor of Oklahoma
- 1954 – Mark Hofmann, American murderer
- 1954 – Mike Nolan, Irish singer (Bucks Fizz and Brooks)
- 1955 – Priscilla Barnes, American actress and producer
- 1955 – John Watkins, Australian educator and politician, 14th Deputy Premier of New South Wales
- 1956 – Larry Bird, American basketball player and coach
- 1957 – Tom Winsor, English lawyer and civil servant
- 1958 – Tim Butler, English bass player and songwriter (The Psychedelic Furs and Love Spit Love)
- 1958 – Lillie McCloud, American singer-songwriter
- 1958 – Rick Rude, American wrestler (d. 1999)
- 1959 – Barbara Wilshere, English actress
- 1960 – Craig Scanlon, English guitarist and songwriter (The Fall)
- 1961 – Mario Miethig, German footballer
- 1962 – Alain Blondel, French decathlete
- 1962 – Grecia Colmenares, Venezuelan-Argentinian actress
- 1962 – Imad Mughniyah, Lebanese resistance leader and freedom fighter
- 1963 – Barbara Weathers, lead singer of R&B vocal group, Atlantic Starr
- 1963 – Theo Snelders, Dutch footballer and coach
- 1964 – Roberta Close, Brazilian model and actress
- 1964 – Patrick Fabian, American actor
- 1964 – Peter Laviolette, American ice hockey player and coach
- 1965 – Dorien de Vries, Dutch sailor
- 1965 – Colin Hendry, Scottish footballer and manager
- 1965 – Jeffrey Wright, American actor
- 1966 – C. Thomas Howell, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1966 – Shinichi Ito, Japanese motorcycle racer
- 1966 – Andres Kasekamp, Canadian-Estonian historian and academic
- 1967 – Tino Martinez, American baseball player, coach, and sportscaster
- 1967 – Katsuya Terada, Japanese illustrator and cartoonist
- 1968 – Mark Geyer, Australian rugby player and sportscaster
- 1969 – Andrea Claudio Galluzzo, Italian historian and archaeologist.
- 1969 – Patrice O'Neal, American comedian and actor (d. 2011)
- 1970 – Carmen Campuzano, Mexican model and actress
- 1971 – Vladimir Akopian, Azerbaijani-Armenian chess player
- 1971 – Chasey Lain, American porn actress
- 1972 – Hermann Maier, Austrian skier
- 1972 – Tammy Lynn Sytch, American wrestler and manager
- 1973 – Terrell Owens, American football player and actor
- 1973 – Fabien Pelous, French rugby player and coach
- 1973 – Damien Rice, Irish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Juniper and Bell X1)
- 1973 – Charles Carl Roberts, American murderer (d. 2006)
- 1974 – Nicole Appleton, Canadian singer and actress (All Saints and Appleton)
- 1974 – Kang Full, South Korean illustrator
- 1974 – Panagiotis Liadelis, Greek basketball player
- 1974 – Voldemārs Lūsis, Latvian javelin thrower
- 1974 – Manuel Martínez Gutiérrez, Spanish shot putter
- 1975 – Jamie Clapham, English footballer and coach
- 1976 – Alan Faneca, American football player
- 1976 – Ivan Franceschini, Italian footballer
- 1976 – Brent Johnson, Canadian football player
- 1976 – Georges Laraque, Canadian ice hockey player and politician
- 1976 – Vanessa Lorenzo, Spanish model
- 1976 – Sunny Sweeney, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1976 – Benoît Tréluyer, French race car driver
- 1977 – Luke Donald, English golfer
- 1977 – Eric Chavez, American baseball player
- 1977 – Dominic Howard, English drummer and producer (Muse)
- 1978 – Shiri Appleby, American actress
- 1978 – Chad Dukes, American radio host
- 1978 – Frankie J, Mexican-American singer-songwriter and producer (Kumbia Kings)
- 1978 – Mr. Porter, American rapper and producer (D12)
- 1979 – Sara Bareilles, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress
- 1979 – Jennifer Carpenter, American actress
- 1979 – Lampros Choutos, Greek-Italian footballer
- 1979 – Ayako Fujitani, Japanese actress
- 1979 – Derek Ramsay, English-Filipino actor and model
- 1980 – John Terry, English footballer
- 1982 – Chrispa, Greek singer
- 1982 – Jack Huston, English actor
- 1983 – Mike Mucitelli, American Bellator Fighter
- 1984 – Aaron Gray, American basketball player
- 1984 – Robert Kubica, Polish race car driver
- 1984 – Milan Michálek, Czech ice hockey player
- 1984 – Luca Rigoni, Italian footballer
- 1985 – Dean Ambrose, American wrestler
- 1986 – Billy Horschel, American golfer
- 1987 – Aaron Carter, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor
- 1988 – Nathan Adrian, American swimmer
- 1988 – Emily Browning, Australian actress and singer
- 1988 – Angelina Gabueva, Russian tennis player
- 1988 – Asia Ray Smith, American actress
- 1988 – Butsakon Tantiphana, Thai actress and singer
- 1989 – Nicholas Hoult, English actor
- 1989 – Caleb Landry Jones, American actor
- 1989 – Alessandro Marchi, Italian footballer
- 1990 – Aleksandr Menkov, Russian long jumper
- 1990 – Yasiel Puig, Cuban baseball player
- 1990 – Urszula Radwańska, Polish tennis player
- 1991 – Eugenio Pisani, Italian racing driver
- 1991 – Dori Sakurada, Japanese actor, singer, and dancer
- 1994 – Yuzuru Hanyu, Japanese figure skater
- 2003 – Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange
Despatches
- 43 BC – Cicero, Roman philosopher, lawyer, and politician (b. 106 BC)
- 283 – Pope Eutychian
- 983 – Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 955)
- 1254 – Pope Innocent IV (b. 1195)
- 1279 – Bolesław V the Chaste, Polish husband of Kinga of Poland (b. 1226)
- 1295 – Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Gloucester, English soldier (b. 1243)
- 1498 – Alexander Hegius von Heek, German poet (b. 1433)
- 1562 – Adrian Willaert, Dutch-Italian composer and educator (b. 1490)
- 1649 – Charles Garnier, French missionary and saint (b. 1606)
- 1672 – Richard Bellingham, English-American lawyer and politician, 8th Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (b. 1592)
- 1683 – Algernon Sidney, English philosopher and politician, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (b. 1623)
- 1723 – Jan Santini Aichel, Czech architect, designed the Pilgrimage Church of Saint John of Nepomuk and Karlova Koruna Chateau (b. 1677)
- 1725 – Florent Carton Dancourt, French actor and playwright (b. 1661)
- 1772 – Martín Sarmiento, Spanish monk, scholar, and author (b. 1695)
- 1775 – Charles Saunders, English admiral and politician (b. 1715)
- 1793 – Joseph Bara, French soldier (b. 1779)
- 1815 – Michel Ney, German-French general (b. 1769)
- 1817 – William Bligh, English admiral and politician, 4th Governor of New South Wales (b. 1745)
- 1842 – Thomas Hamilton, Scottish philosopher and author (b. 1789)
- 1874 – Constantin von Tischendorf, German academic and scholar (b. 1815)
- 1879 – Jón Sigurðsson, Icelandic politician, 1st Speaker of the Parliament of Iceland (b. 1811)
- 1894 – Ferdinand de Lesseps, French businessman and diplomat, co-developed the Suez Canal (b. 1805)
- 1899 – Juan Luna, Filipino painter and sculptor (b. 1857)
- 1902 – Thomas Nast, German-American cartoonist (b. 1840)
- 1906 – Élie Ducommun, Swiss journalist and educator, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1833)
- 1913 – Luigi Oreglia di Santo Stefano, Italian cardinal (b. 1828)
- 1917 – Ludwig Minkus, Austrian violinist and composer (b. 1826)
- 1938 – Anna Marie Hahn, German-American murderer (b. 1906)
- 1941 – Attack on Pearl Harbor:
- Mervyn S. Bennion, American captain (b. 1887)
- Herbert C. Jones, American soldier (b. 1918)
- Isaac C. Kidd, American admiral (b. 1884)
- Thomas James Reeves, American soldier (b. 1895)
- Franklin Van Valkenburgh, American captain (b. 1888)
- 1946 – Sada Yacco, Japanese actress and dancer (b. 1871)
- 1947 – Tristan Bernard, French author and playwright (b. 1866)
- 1947 – Nicholas Murray Butler, American philosopher and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1862)
- 1949 – Rex Beach, American author, playwright, and water polo player (b. 1877)
- 1956 – Huntley Gordon, Canadian-American actor (b. 1887)
- 1960 – Clara Haskil, Swiss pianist (b. 1895)
- 1969 – Lefty O'Doul, American baseball player and manager (b. 1897)
- 1969 – Eric Portman, English actor (b. 1903)
- 1970 – Rube Goldberg, American cartoonist, sculptor, and author (b. 1883)
- 1975 – Thornton Wilder, American author and playwright (b. 1897)
- 1977 – Peter Carl Goldmark, Hungarian-American engineer (b. 1906)
- 1978 – Alexander Wetmore, American ornithologist and paleontologist (b. 1886)
- 1980 – Darby Crash, American singer-songwriter (Germs and Darby Crash Band) (b. 1958)
- 1981 – Ava Helen Pauling, American activist (b. 1903)
- 1982 – Will Lee, American actor (b. 1908)
- 1983 – Fanny Cano, Mexican actress and producer (b. 1944)
- 1984 – Charles Ray Hatcher, American serial killer (b. 1929)
- 1984 – LeeRoy Yarbrough, American race car driver (b. 1938)
- 1985 – J. R. Eyerman, American photographer and journalist (b. 1906)
- 1985 – Robert Graves, English author and poet (b. 1895)
- 1985 – Potter Stewart, American soldier and jurist (b. 1915)
- 1989 – Haystacks Calhoun, American wrestler and actor (b. 1934)
- 1990 – Joan Bennett, American actress and singer (b. 1910)
- 1990 – Dee Clark, American singer (b. 1938)
- 1990 – Jean Duceppe, Canadian actor (b. 1923)
- 1990 – Jean Paul Lemieux, Canadian painter (b. 1904)
- 1993 – Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Ivoirian politician, 1st President of Ivory Coast (b. 1905)
- 1993 – Wolfgang Paul, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1913)
- 1994 – J. C. Tremblay, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1939)
- 1995 – Kathleen Harrison, English actress (b. 1892)
- 1997 – Billy Bremner, Scottish footballer and manager (b. 1942)
- 1998 – John Addison, English-American composer (b. 1920)
- 1998 – Martin Rodbell, American biochemist and endocrinologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1925)
- 2000 – Vlado Gotovac, Croatian poet and politician (b. 1930)
- 2003 – Carl F. H. Henry American journalist and theologian (b. 1913)
- 2003 – Azie Taylor Morton, American politician, 36th Treasurer of the United States (b. 1933)
- 2004 – Frederick Fennell, American conductor and educator (b. 1914)
- 2004 – Jerry Scoggins, American singer and guitarist (b. 1913)
- 2004 – Jay Van Andel, American businessman, co-founded Amway (b. 1924)
- 2005 – Rigoberto Alpizar, Costa Rican-American shooting victim (b. 1961)
- 2005 – Bud Carson, American football player and coach (b. 1931)
- 2005 – Lucy d'Abreu, Indian-Scottish super-centenarian (b. 1892)
- 2006 – Jeane Kirkpatrick, American diplomat, 16th United States Ambassador to the United Nations (b. 1926)
- 2006 – Jay McShann, American singer and pianist (b. 1910)
- 2008 – Marky Cielo, Filipino actor and dancer (b. 1988)
- 2008 – Herbert Hutner, American banker and lawyer (b. 1908)
- 2009 – Mark Ritts, American actor and puppeteer (b. 1946)
- 2010 – Elizabeth Edwards, American lawyer and author (b. 1949)
- 2010 – Gus Mercurio, American-Australian actor (b. 1928)
- 2011 – Harry Morgan, American actor and director (b. 1915)
- 2012 – Abu-Zaid al Kuwaiti, Kuwaiti-Pakistani terrorist (b. 1965)
- 2012 – P. J. Carey, American baseball player and manager (b. 1953)
- 2012 – Thomas Cornell, American painter and illustrator (b. 1937)
- 2012 – Gilbert Durand, French anthropologist and academic (b. 1921)
- 2012 – Ammar El Sherei, Egyptian accordion player, composer, and academic (b. 1948)
- 2012 – William F. House, American physician and otologist (b. 1923)
- 2012 – Irene Hughes, American psychic (b. 1920)
- 2012 – Roelof Kruisinga, Dutch physician and politician, Dutch Minister of Defence (b. 1922)
- 2012 – Jeni Le Gon, American actress, singer, and dancer (b. 1916)
- 2012 – Ralph Parr, American colonel and pilot (b. 1924)
- 2012 – Marty Reisman, American table tennis player and author (b. 1930)
- 2012 – Saul Steinberg, American businessman (b. 1939)
- 2013 – Vinay Apte, Indian actor (b. 1951)
- 2013 – Juan Carlos Argeñal, Honduran journalist (b. 1970)
- 2013 – Józef Kowalski, Ukrainian-Polish captain (b. 1900)
- 2013 – Jacob Matlala, South African boxer (b. 1962)
- 2013 – Édouard Molinaro, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1928)
- 2013 – Allen Rosenberg, American rower and coach (b. 1931)
- 2013 – Dharmavarapu Subramanyam, Indian actor and singer (b. 1954)
- 2013 – Michael Vetter, German author, poet, and composer (b. 1943)
- 2013 – Chick Willis, American singer and guitarist (b. 1934)
2014
- Armed Forces Flag Day (India)
- Christian feast day:
- Eve of the Immaculate Conception-related observances:
- Day of the Little Candles, begins after sunset (Colombia)
- Quema del Diablo, begins after sunset. (Guatemala)
- International Civil Aviation Day (International)
- National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (United States)
- Spitak Remembrance Day (Armenia)
- Student Day (Iran)
Hockey’s going nowhere, just like Turnbull
Piers Akerman – Saturday, December 06, 2014 (11:05pm)
BEFORE the silly season gets any sillier, it should be noted Joe Hockey is not about to be shifted from Treasury, there won’t be a Cabinet reshuffle early in the New Year, and the record shows the Abbott government finished the year well ahead of its deluded opponents.
Continue reading 'Hockey’s going nowhere, just like Turnbull'ICAC is refusing to accept it was wrong
Miranda Devine – Saturday, December 06, 2014 (11:02pm)
NOW that ICAC has been brought to its knees by the NSW Court of Appeal, we see that the corruption body’s hounding of crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen and her family is state oppression worthy of the East German secret police.
Continue reading 'ICAC is refusing to accept it was wrong'PINKO PANSY PAIN
Tim Blair – Sunday, December 07, 2014 (2:29am)
Low levels of love from James Delingpole for our tax-swilling luxury leftists:
Australia’s national broadcaster ABC has reportedly been staging brutal, Hunger-Games-style contests in order to decide which of its excess staff are for the chop.If this is the plan I don’t think it’s going to work. The people at ABC are all, basically, Capitol-style pansy sybarites. They wouldn’t know what to do with a bow and arrow or a gun because they mostly eat tofu and think that hunting is for savages. None of them would make a dash for all those exciting weapons and supplies in the Cornucopia at the beginning. Instead, they would run squealing for their lives into the forest where they would quickly succumb to Flat White deprivation or be eaten by Australia’s totally out-of-control population of saltwater crocodiles. Or, if they fled into the sea, by Australia’s out-of-control killer shark population.Those of you who think I am being unduly unsympathetic towards my hapless fellow journalists’ plight clearly haven’t experienced ABC at close quarters. I have. ABC swings so far to the left it makes the BBC look like Fox News.
Please read on. Meanwhile, $291,505 per year tax drain and half-hour per week 7.30 NSW presenter Quentin Dempster has finally ended his ABC career:
The cast and crew of 7.30 NSW wave goodbye – will we ever see the likes of this again?
Let’s hope so. More broadly, minor budget cuts and ABC boss Mark Scott’s digital obsession continue breaking ABC minds. Witness this excruciating Walkleys speech from Mrs Tony Jones:
Between them, Mrs Jones and her husband scarf down more than half a million dollars of your taxes every year. With this sort of cash at stake, is it any wonder that state-pampered pansies – who previously worried about the gap between rich and poor – are now turning on each other? (Of interest in the above clip: our old friend Mike Carltonappears at the 25 second mark, looking regally unamused among his tax-enriched ABC friends. Hopefully he used an appropriate tone of voice when dealing with the lowly servants.)
Between them, Mrs Jones and her husband scarf down more than half a million dollars of your taxes every year. With this sort of cash at stake, is it any wonder that state-pampered pansies – who previously worried about the gap between rich and poor – are now turning on each other? (Of interest in the above clip: our old friend Mike Carltonappears at the 25 second mark, looking regally unamused among his tax-enriched ABC friends. Hopefully he used an appropriate tone of voice when dealing with the lowly servants.)
UPDATE. Leftist media organisations operating in the free market aren’t doing so well eitther.
ANGES SANS AILES
Tim Blair – Sunday, December 07, 2014 (12:14am)
Warmism moves ever closer to becoming a full-blown faith:
If the bioethicist Laurie Zoloth, the president of the American Academy of Religion, has her way, she’ll be remembered as the woman who canceled her organization’s conference, which every year attracts a city’s worth of religion scholars.Two weeks ago, at her organization’s gathering, which is held jointly with the Society for Biblical Literature and this year drew 9,900 scholars, Dr. Zoloth used her presidential address to call on her colleagues to plan a sabbatical year, a year in which they would cancel their conference. In her vision, they would all refrain from flying across the country, saving money and carbon. It could be a year, Dr. Zoloth argued, in which they would sacrifice each other’s company for the sake of the environment.
Frankly, it doesn’t sound like all that much of a sacrifice.
“Every year, each participant going to the meeting uses a quantum of carbon that is more than considerable. Air travel, staying in hotels, all of this creates a way of living on the earth that is carbon intensive. It could be otherwise.”
Yes. Yes, it could.
Because in her own field, bioethics, she frequently talks with scientists, she was aware that religion scholars were lagging in their attention to climate change.“I decided it was the core moral issue of our time,” Dr. Zoloth said on Nov. 22, the day before her big speech. “And I had one chance to really say I don’t know the answer — we don’t know the answer, and we’re faced with this. The scientists on my campus are frantic about this science. Every scientific panel I went to was filled with incredibly anxious scientists.” And they kept asking about her religion colleagues: What are you doing?
Do scientists in other fields seek similar religious assistance? Has a tectonic geologist ever asked a priest for any theories on, say, strata stability?
So as she planned ahead for the 2014 conference, she encouraged the program chairmen, who coordinate the hundreds of small panels that make up the main business of the conference, to seek out papers that dealt with the environment and climate change.
Think of all the fun they’ll be missing next year, with no conference to visit. Naturally, like all warmies, Dr. Zoloth is something of an authoritarian:
Dr. Zoloth didn’t win all the victories she sought. A vegetarian, she was unable to persuade her fellow organizers to keep the conference catering meat-free. When asked why others resisted, she shook her head and said, “I don’t know. They just couldn’t imagine it.”
This might be an appropriate location for any future religio-climate gatherings. In the meantime, get proper jobs, you talk-festing, leaf-chewing, planet-worrying, Jesus-screaming academic deadbeats.
(Via Chris P.)
THE CHOICE PENALTY
Tim Blair – Saturday, December 06, 2014 (10:22pm)
A curious correction from Fairfax’s Canberra Times:
An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Ms Gallagher was pro-life. She is pro-choice.
They might want to try that again. “Choice” is not the opposite of “life”.
On The Bolt Report today, December 7
Andrew Bolt December 07 2014 (10:18am)
On the year’s final The Bolt Report on Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm.
Editorial: Calling out the wreckers
My guest: Christopher Pyne, Education Minister and Leader of the House
The panel: former Labor campaign guru Bruce Hawker and Janet Albrechtsen of The Australian
NewsWatch: Sharri Markson, media editor of The Australian.
The real battle and who’s ahead. The Palmer United Senator who could surprise. Is the Senate a time bomb? Who flopped and must go? Joe Hockey in strife.
The videos of the shows appear here.
===Editorial: Calling out the wreckers
My guest: Christopher Pyne, Education Minister and Leader of the House
The panel: former Labor campaign guru Bruce Hawker and Janet Albrechtsen of The Australian
NewsWatch: Sharri Markson, media editor of The Australian.
The real battle and who’s ahead. The Palmer United Senator who could surprise. Is the Senate a time bomb? Who flopped and must go? Joe Hockey in strife.
The videos of the shows appear here.
Australia’s contribution to Islam: booze
Andrew Bolt December 07 2014 (5:59am)
If there’s a mufti anywhere who reckons Muslims have a right to a beer or good red, it has to be an Australian:
(Thanks to reader Larry.)
===Mostafa Rashed, Imam of Sydney mosque in Australia, made a religious edict saying wine is not banned in Islam.Makes you proud to be an Australian. Assimilation may be working, after all.
Rashed considers Quranic verses merely ban drunkenness, not the wine itself.
In a talk show aired on the privately-owned Al-Tahrir TV channel on Friday, Rashed said that prophet sayings on banning of wine are weak, thus it’s not mandatory to follow them.
“This is an edict that I am responsible for,” he said adding that a small amount of wine does not lead to drunkenness and that heaven includes rivers of wine.
(Thanks to reader Larry.)
Galaxy: Labor ahead 55 to 45
Andrew Bolt December 07 2014 (5:47am)
The Galaxy poll confirms the Abbott Government is in near-fatal trouble:
===Tony Abbott risks becoming a one-term prime minister unless he lifts the Government’s fortunes, with Labor opening up a 10-point lead — 55:45 — on a two-party preferred basis.
Getting taxpayers to pay for nannies doesn’t make Abbott’s leave scheme that much better
Andrew Bolt December 07 2014 (5:22am)
Tony Abbott bows to the criticism that his paid parental leave system is too generous to the rich:
For heaven’s sake. The economy is sinking and we still get new taxes for this kind of stuff?
UPDATE
More detail:
===WEALTHY mums will be banned from big payouts under Tony Abbott’s paid parental leave scheme, and the savings will be used to make childcare more affordable for all.,,But immediately the effect is spoiled:
The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal that Mr Abbott has agreed in principle to consider a new means test and an even lower cap on the current maximum payout of $50,000.
The overhaul of the scheme is likely to fund the extension of the 50 per cent childcare rebate for the first time to carers working in the family home, including qualified nannies.We’re paying now for the nannies of the rich?
For heaven’s sake. The economy is sinking and we still get new taxes for this kind of stuff?
The existing 1.5 per cent levy on Australia’s largest companies to fund the PPL will stand despite the changes, which will anger big business.But maybe I’m out of touch with the entitlement culture. The Sunday Herald Sun approves:
TONY Abbott’s decision to deny wealthy mums $50,000 payouts under his paid parental leave scheme and devote the cash to childcare funds is a no-brainer…Voting ourselves extra goodies when there’s actually less money, not more?
Critics argue that extending the childcare rebate to care in the home would only help wealthy women.
But it is shiftworkers including nurses, police and average working mums with larger families who would really benefit from the flexibility of a style of assistance like family day care in their own homes.
UPDATE
More detail:
This would mean those who use carers working in the family home, such as nannies and family daycare workers, would be eligible for the 50 per cent rebate.
“More affordable childcare helps with the cost of living; and flexibility and accessibility in the system will make life so much easier for many families,” Mr Abbott said.
The Age lets green carpetbaggers sponsor its global warming coverage
Andrew Bolt December 07 2014 (4:58am)
Astonishing. Green carpetbaggers now pay The Age to report on global warming.
The story, by reporter Marcus Priest:
So this is the global warming industry flying a sympathetic reporter it’s picked to report for The Age on a Lima global warming conference.
Is The Age insane?
Try this alternative.
===The story, by reporter Marcus Priest:
Peru climate talks drift off target as Bishop flies inThe credit:
As Julie Bishop and Andrew Robb prepare to arrive in Lima to represent Australia at the annual United Nations climate negotiations, deep divisions are emerging over whether a deal to be reached in Paris next year will include legally binding targets. The US says national targets should be voluntary – a position that has won the support of leading Australian economist Ross Garnaut.
But the European Union has claimed that voluntary targets will not provide the necessary long-term certainty to make the cuts in carbon dioxide emissions needed to prevent dangerous climate change. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has now made a similar argument, saying a deal without legally binding commitments would be nothing more than aspirations.
Marcus Priest was flown to Lima by the Clean Energy Council as the winner of its 2013 media award.The Clean Energy Council represents 550 business involved in renewable energy and energy efficiency, which directly profit from the global warming scare. Marcus Priest reporter is a former advisor to a Gillard Labor minister and a global warming crusader.
So this is the global warming industry flying a sympathetic reporter it’s picked to report for The Age on a Lima global warming conference.
Is The Age insane?
Try this alternative.
Big Tobacco flies a chain-smoking reporter it’s honoured to report for The Age on a New York conference on passive smoking.
ABC sets standard
Andrew Bolt December 07 2014 (4:51am)
James Delingpole warns Britain:
===ABC swings so far to the left it makes the BBC look like Fox News.
===
Post by Matt Granz.
===
Post by Jill Blakeway.
===
===
A bit like the atheists view of God ..
===
===
Everyday sadists: Inside the mind of an online troll http://t.co/niH2sxsZou via @theage
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) December 7, 2014
===
A remarkable man .. https://t.co/hepVkESIvZ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) December 7, 2014
===
Red Dwarf was real? Dieter loses 64kg in months — by eating curry every day for breakfast http://t.co/ksJCOuKzHM via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) December 7, 2014
===
It is hard on children to deny them meaning as deconstructivist left do .. http://t.co/UUcUjXbNj9 via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) December 7, 2014
===
Hey babe, I don't smoke .. Researchers link smoking to loss of Y chromosome http://t.co/hprhNoPxZK via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) December 7, 2014
===
Darwin award! Fish gotta swim .. Ohio police confirm Rashaun McCrae died playing Russian Roueltte http://t.co/ZrpfvPnlzb via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) December 7, 2014
===
US hostage killed in failed rescue http://t.co/TjB7hgQg4B via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) December 6, 2014
===
Jane Austen letter on display in UK http://t.co/KCQkVHnHlO via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) December 6, 2014
===
LAPD to investigate Bill Cosby underage sex claim http://t.co/kj1Py0iME3 via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) December 6, 2014
===
He has supported corruption and blocked good legislation. Nick Xenophon starting his own party NXT http://t.co/z64YDnsvA7 via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) December 6, 2014
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Australian cop’s daughter Kalynda Davis and Peter Gardner may face firing squad in China for alle... http://t.co/9DjrjIahYn via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) December 6, 2014
===
these hysterics are not funny. GMO is safe. Autism Bomb: Herbicide Causes Autism- Expanded Consciousness http://t.co/fAqO4pt2Ap via @po_st
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) December 6, 2014
===
It isn't race .. it is gang related http://t.co/Pv2eHzrJ9Q
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) December 6, 2014
=== Posts from last year ===
MISTAKEN MIKE
Tim Blair – Saturday, December 07, 2013 (5:48pm)
SMH veteran Mike Carlton republishes a claim that British Prime Minister David Cameron once sought Nelson Mandela’s execution:
One small problem: it isn’t true. Carlton has form when it comes to weak research.
One small problem: it isn’t true. Carlton has form when it comes to weak research.
AUSTRALIAN BIKIE CORPORATION
Tim Blair – Saturday, December 07, 2013 (4:15pm)
For no good reason at all, the ABC reveals the location of a crime fighter’s house:
Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has accused the ABC of “flippant and irresponsible” coverage of the government’s war on bikie gangs after it broadcast pictures of the house of the man co-ordinating the government’s campaign, and named the suburb and house number.
Andrew Bolt summarises:
The ABC thinks nothing of publishing spying secrets which cause great harm for no gain, but which put pressure on a Liberal prime minister. Now the ABC thinks nothing of showing where a crime fighter and his family live, again potentially causing great harm for no gain, but putting pressure on a Liberal National Party leader.And this from an ABC which goes ballistic when a newspaper merely reveals how much taxpayers are paying its top stars.
By contrast, note how properly cautious is this ABC staffer not to expose his precise address:
When the time came to downsize after 15 years in the large family home in leafy Hawthorn, Radio National presenter and author Jonathan Green and his wife, publisher Sally Heath, were keen for something smaller, closer to the city.
THE MADIBA TEST
Tim Blair – Saturday, December 07, 2013 (5:13am)
Those who refer to Nelson Mandela by his clan name of Madiba are fantastic poseurs.
UPDATE. Meredith Burgmann:
I had long thought about what I would say to Madiba if I was ever to meet him.
My son and I were home in Nashville; the only ones awake early on a Sunday morning. We sat on the couch and watched as Madiba was set free.
A free South Africa at peace with itself. That’s an example to the world, and that’s Madiba’s legacy to the nation that he loved.
UPDATE II. From the Financial Times:
Desmond Tutu, his friend and fellow Nobel peace laureate, was one of the first to question the world’s sanctification of “Madiba” – his clan name and how he liked to be known. Archbishop Tutu appreciated long before it became a commonplace that the cult of Mandela risked blinding people to the colossal problems facing South Africa. “He is only one pebble on the beach, one of thousands,” he said halfway through Mandela’s term in office. “Not an insignificant pebble, I’ll grant you that, but a pebble all the same.”
Stuff-up, not conspiracy in WA vote. An apology from Palmer?
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (9:32am)
It all seems a bit slack, although not the conspiracy that Clive Palmer recklessly claimed - a slur for which he should apologise:
===ELECTORAL Commissioner Ed Killesteyn is under pressure to resign after a strongly worded report by former AFP commissioner Mick Keelty lashed “parlous” arrangements that led to the loss of 1375 Senate ballot papers from Western Australia..(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
Mr Keelty condemned a “loose planning culture” and a “complacent attitude towards ballot papers”, along with a “lack of detail . . . in the planning and conduct of operations in WA"…
“The loss of the ballots was in all probability the result of a chain of seemingly minor but entirely and easily avoidable errors and omissions. “Each of these events on its own may or may not have been significant; but taken as a whole they indicate a loose electoral environment in WA in which the loss of ballots was more likely to occur and less likely to be detected.”
Anyone But Conservatives for breakfast
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (7:21am)
Would it really kill Fran Kelly - or the ABC - to let a conservative share her taxpayer-funded pulpit?
UPDATE
Roger Franklin checks the ABC’s charter line-by-line against its performance and wonders who is actually minding the shop.
A must read. You’ll want to sign the petition afterwards.
(Thanks to reader Peter.)
===UPDATE
Roger Franklin checks the ABC’s charter line-by-line against its performance and wonders who is actually minding the shop.
A must read. You’ll want to sign the petition afterwards.
(Thanks to reader Peter.)
The rise of the modern savage
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (7:02am)
I suspect we have been in denial about a feral culture, made more primitive by the social freedoms demanded by the strong:
===In July last year, locals in a quiet valley in south-western NSW were startled to see three police four-wheel drives, a police bus and an ambulance bouncing up an old stock route towards a remote timbered block, tucked away from the road.Read on, but not if you are squeamish.
Police and child protection officers left with 12 children under the age of 16 in what is shaping as one of the most serious child abuse cases in Australia. The children were malnourished, filthy, could barely talk, had appalling hygiene and had been living without electricity and running water. What emerged is a truly horrific case of child sex abuse and intergenerational incest. As the royal commission on child abuse within institutions gets under way, the events at this farm highlight what many say is a far more serious threat to children: sexual abuse within the family.
Scaring gays into giving up their free speech
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (5:39am)
Diversity Council of Australia CEO Nareen Young has no faith in freedom - or in her fellow citizens:
Like so many modern Leftists, Young has inordinate faith in process and in laws administered by a caste of people just like her for the molding of people not like her. These restrictions are actually called “protections”, even though they involve not protecting your rights but removing them. As I say, the Left want to the virtues due to libertarians even as they act as authoritarians:
No one I know who supports these reforms thinks the insults Young lists are “acceptable”, “OK” or not offensive. What is offensive is the suggestion that this argument about the RDA is about making such insults “OK”. On the contrary, they were not socially acceptable before the law was passed and will not be after.
The truth is that there are many things more powerful - yet more democratic and less chafing - than the law to enforce good manners and I expect they to remain powerful. These are the social sanctions that are present in every healthy community.
Take some recent examples. There is no clear law against calling a female Prime Minister a witch. But see what happened when one protester at a rally against the carbon tax did just that. Fellow protesters told him to remove his sign, which was condemned in Parliament and in countless newspaper articles, TV reports and radio broadcasts. I attacked it, too, and it’s remarkable how rarely similar signs appeared at later rallies.
That collective disapproval of the sign had a far greater effect than a prosecution under the law would have achieved. Had the man with the sign instead been charged the would have become - rightly - a martyr and other citizens would have been absolved of their duty to speak out and robbed of their power to pass judgment. The state would have nationalised morality. The public would have turned from jurors to subjects.
I don’t think that is healthy - and that is without considering the danger of such laws against free speech of the kind Young defends. Do we really trust judges and the political class with a power that lets them impose their particular and sometimes arbitrary sense of morality on everyone else, deciding which of their favorites may speak and which of their bete noirs must be silenced? In this way does a democracy become dictatorial.
No, gays and lesbians have nothing to lose but their chains in this debate. No horde of gay-haters would suddenly feel freer to vilify - and nor would the rest of us be any slower to fight back. Manners, after all, are for us all to defend and decide. All respect to Young, but I’d rather leave that work to the many us than limit it to the few of her.
UPDATE
Tim Wilson makes some highly relevant points in urging other gays and lesbians to stand up for free speech:
===To be clear, I support free speech. I support the right of everyone – in print, in art, in public demonstration and specifically, in public life – to express opinions and participate in community debate. But…But she doesn’t. Ah, the yes-but argument of the modern Leftist, who badly wants a medal for being a defender of free speech even when they want to ban it. They want to be hailed as virtuous while sinning.
Like so many modern Leftists, Young has inordinate faith in process and in laws administered by a caste of people just like her for the molding of people not like her. These restrictions are actually called “protections”, even though they involve not protecting your rights but removing them. As I say, the Left want to the virtues due to libertarians even as they act as authoritarians:
These protections have their legal basis in the various Acts of the Human Rights Commission (and in their state-based equivalents) that protect all of us from being victims of discrimination and harassment at work.Young tries to scare gays and lesbians into believing the Abbott Government’s planned repeal of parts of the Racial Discrimination Act will unleash a torrent of abuse - and against them, too:
If the RDA is amended to remove section 18C that makes it unlawful to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people because of their race, does that mean that words like ‘wog’, ‘gook’, ‘slope’, ‘kike’ or ‘coon’ become acceptable in the course of the working day or night?This is almost as obscene as it is absurd.
What next? Will equivalent sections of the Sex Discrimination Act be repealed so that describing a co-worker as a ‘slut’, ‘hag‘, ‘silly cow‘ or ‘bitch’ is not deemed to be offensive? It is pretty clear where this could be heading for the LGBTI community.... I mean, really, if ‘Abo’, ‘coon’, ‘dago’ or ‘slope’ are ok, the inevitable question from some quarters will be why are ‘the gays’ being so sensitive?
No one I know who supports these reforms thinks the insults Young lists are “acceptable”, “OK” or not offensive. What is offensive is the suggestion that this argument about the RDA is about making such insults “OK”. On the contrary, they were not socially acceptable before the law was passed and will not be after.
The truth is that there are many things more powerful - yet more democratic and less chafing - than the law to enforce good manners and I expect they to remain powerful. These are the social sanctions that are present in every healthy community.
Take some recent examples. There is no clear law against calling a female Prime Minister a witch. But see what happened when one protester at a rally against the carbon tax did just that. Fellow protesters told him to remove his sign, which was condemned in Parliament and in countless newspaper articles, TV reports and radio broadcasts. I attacked it, too, and it’s remarkable how rarely similar signs appeared at later rallies.
That collective disapproval of the sign had a far greater effect than a prosecution under the law would have achieved. Had the man with the sign instead been charged the would have become - rightly - a martyr and other citizens would have been absolved of their duty to speak out and robbed of their power to pass judgment. The state would have nationalised morality. The public would have turned from jurors to subjects.
I don’t think that is healthy - and that is without considering the danger of such laws against free speech of the kind Young defends. Do we really trust judges and the political class with a power that lets them impose their particular and sometimes arbitrary sense of morality on everyone else, deciding which of their favorites may speak and which of their bete noirs must be silenced? In this way does a democracy become dictatorial.
No, gays and lesbians have nothing to lose but their chains in this debate. No horde of gay-haters would suddenly feel freer to vilify - and nor would the rest of us be any slower to fight back. Manners, after all, are for us all to defend and decide. All respect to Young, but I’d rather leave that work to the many us than limit it to the few of her.
UPDATE
Tim Wilson makes some highly relevant points in urging other gays and lesbians to stand up for free speech:
Section 18C represents ‘special’ rights for a certain group of people, not ‘equal’ rights.
The simple reality is that some individuals from different cultural, ethnic or national backgrounds don’t accept people being same-sex attracted, and make it known. If section 18C is allowed to stand they can throw hostile verbal bombs at LGBTI Australians, but retreat to the protections of 18C should LGBTI Australians respond.
Fourth, it fundamentally undermines the human right to free speech… Arguably the most important [right] is free speech, because it is necessary to protect all other human rights… We should preserve the right to speak out, mock them and ridicule them for the stupidity of their comments or the hate in their heart… As LGBTI Australians know: haters gonna hate. So we should defend our human right to speak out, defend ourselves and ridicule narrow-mindedness without fear.
No Government should help an SPC Ardmona that will not help itself
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (5:26am)
I share Grace Collier’s surprise:
UPDATE
Terry McCrann on another failing business paying high wages which also wants more government help:
===INDUSTRY Minister Ian Macfarlane made an incomprehensible decision this week. After talks with Coca-Cola Amatil, a taxpayer-funded three-person panel was created to advise on a request from SPC Ardmona for assistance. The panel’s charter includes “workplace practices, productivity” and “product range”.As for a Coalition government hiring Greg Combet…
Labor Party heavy and former ACTU secretary Greg Combet is one of the appointees - he is going to advise on enterprise bargains with the unions. No doubt Combet will arrange the visuals of chastened unions announcing Holden-style faux pay cuts as the precursor to subsidies…
Macfarlane foresees the panel helping with other distressed businesses such as Simplot…
The union movement must be laughing its head off… Enterprise bargaining is the main reason that Holden, Toyota, Simplot and SPC Ardmona are in strife. These companies seek government subsidies because they need money for the inflated wages and conditions they have agreed to pay but cannot afford… Government policy on industry assistance should be this: if a company is paying its workforce more than the award wage, then it must not receive taxpayer assistance under any circumstances.
UPDATE
Terry McCrann on another failing business paying high wages which also wants more government help:
Whatever else happens, Qantas’s international business is ultimately unsustainable… None of this denies the two sets of burdens imposed on Qantas. Its uneconomic operational cost structure, courtesy of the burdens of national carrier and domestic residence, and the Qantas Sale Act limitations on its shareholdings…
In sum and in short, the Qantas Sale Act limitations should go. Qantas international with them. Jetstar becomes our Australia-Qantas national carrier… Qantas and Virgin can then be left to go at each other in the domestic market.
There was no deal, Demetriou said. The charges weren’t dropped
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (5:19am)
I really don’t see how Andrew Demetriou’s word can be taken seriously again with a record like this, and I suggest he won’t stay much longer as head of the AFL.
===Warmists slapped with a cold sardine
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (4:53am)
Cold sardines? This isn’t what warming alarmists were expecting. The New Scientist reports:
Western Canada’s sardine fleet returned with no fish this month. The loss of the fishery, normally worth CAN$32 million (US$30.7 million), took many by surprise..As far south as California the fishermen are complaining of cold water:
Pacific sardine populations fluctuate with water temperature. Colder water means fewer fish. Temperatures last fell in the 1940s, but heavy fishing continued, devastating the stock and ending fishing until sardines returned when waters warmed in the 1980s. “We think this is set to happen again,” says Zwolinski, who tracked the population over the past century. He found that sardines have reproduced less since waters cooled in the 1990s.
Federal fisheries managers slashed upcoming West Coast sardine harvests by two-thirds while scientists try to get a better handle on indications the population is significantly dwindling… Populations typically drop when ocean temperatures get colder, as they have lately in conjunction with a climatic condition known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.A bit of warming would do food supplies the world of good.
UPDATE
Michael Fumento in the New York Post:
The 2013 [US] hurricane season just ended as one of the five quietest years since 1960. But don’t expect anyone who pointed to last year’s hurricanes as “proof” of the need to act against global warming to apologize; the warmists don’t work that way.(Thanks to reader Jono and others.)
Warmist claims of a severe increase in hurricane activity go back to 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. The cover of Al Gore’s 2009 book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” even features a satellite image of the globe with four major hurricanes superimposed. Yet the evidence to the contrary was there all along. Back in 2005 I and others reviewed the entire hurricane record, which goes back over a century, and found no increase of any kind.
ABC first reveals spy secrets, now shows where crime fighter lives
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (4:37am)
I covered this yesterday, and still can’t believe it actually happened:
There is a pattern here. The ABC thinks nothing of publishing spying secrets which cause great harm for no gain, but which put pressure on a Liberal prime minister. Now the ABC thinks nothing of showing where a crime fighter and his family live, again potentially causing great harm for no gain, but putting pressure on a Liberal National Party leader.
And this from an ABC which goes ballistic when a newspaper merely reveals how much taxpayers are paying its top stars.
The ABC is out of control.
===QUEENSLAND Premier Campbell Newman has accused the ABC of “flippant and irresponsible” coverage of the government’s war on bikie gangs after it broadcast pictures of the house of the man co-ordinating the government’s campaign, and named the suburb and house number.How could Mellor’s address and footage of his house have been remotely relevant in the first place? Do stories about the ABC come with pictures of Mark Scott’s home, street number included? And how much more insane is the ABC’s report when its subject - correction, target - is coordinating a fight against bikie gangs?
After the ABC report on the 7pm news on Thursday night about the appointment of former military officer Bill Mellor to head the government’s anti-bikie Strategic Monitoring Team, Mr Newman ... contacted [ABC boss Mark] Scott directly and he also wrote to Tony Abbott on the matter, claiming in his letter to the Prime Minister that the ABC broadcast “seriously and maliciously undermined the security and safety of a Queensland government employee”.
“The reprehensible actions of ABC employees involved in this incident brought Mrs Mellor to tears and sparked a swift review of the family’s personal security arrangements, including a decision by the Commissioner of Police to immediately provide police protection,” the letter says. “There can be no justification, especially given the ABC’s Code of Practice 2013, for broadcasting details and images of his residence.
“The response that local ABC has provided to this issue underscores my view that they are treating government, police and crime agency concerns about criminal gang activity in a flippant and irresponsible manner.” By late yesterday the ABC had written back to both Mr Newman and Mr Mellor, and said in the letter they regretted the footage that identified Mr Mellor’s house.
There is a pattern here. The ABC thinks nothing of publishing spying secrets which cause great harm for no gain, but which put pressure on a Liberal prime minister. Now the ABC thinks nothing of showing where a crime fighter and his family live, again potentially causing great harm for no gain, but putting pressure on a Liberal National Party leader.
And this from an ABC which goes ballistic when a newspaper merely reveals how much taxpayers are paying its top stars.
The ABC is out of control.
In defence of Peta Credlin
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (4:14am)
I am not saying all the criticisms of Peta Credlin - or, more properly, the very narrow concentration of power and advice in the Prime Minister’s office - are wrong. I’ve said plenty on 2GB about this myself this week.
But Peter van Onselen is right: many of those criticisms are over the top or unbalanced:
===But Peter van Onselen is right: many of those criticisms are over the top or unbalanced:
SINCE the Coalition was elected to government, criticisms of Tony Abbott’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin, have come thick and fast.I have no problem with a Prime Minister wanting to vet senior staff appointments. I agree this process may undermine the authority of ministers who deserve to be trusted and it should not be quite this draconian. But, then again, I was surprised by one minister’s choice of a very senior staffer, and think the government was well served by the committee - including Credlin - which knocked it back.
Disgruntled MPs upset with demotion (or a lack of promotion) have blamed her. Frontbenchers and backbenchers alike who have had staffing selections knocked back by the infamous “star chamber” have criticised Credlin’s “controlling” ways…
... the criticisms of Credlin should be more accurately targeted at the elected MPs (especially ministers) who either put forward poor suggestions in the first place, or lack the resolve to argue their case to win the day…
Much has been made of Senate leader Eric Abetz failing to win support for his chief of staff in opposition (and long-time senior adviser throughout the Howard years), Chris Fryer, becoming chief of staff in government.... If Abetz seriously believed Fryer should have been appointed, as the third most-senior member of the government he needed to insist on the appointment being made.
That’s what Health Minister Peter Dutton did ..
Before becoming opposition leader, Abbott was well known for his ill-discipline… Credlin’s arrival in Abbott’s political life changed that...
ABC out of control: now showing where a Liberal-appointed crime-fighter lives
Andrew Bolt December 06 2013 (7:46pm)
The ABC is now lured by its partisan politics into sheer bastardry, showing on TV the home of the man picked by Queensland Premier Campbell Newman to fight criminal bikie gangs.
Here’s how the story unfolds.
Newman appoints a man he served under at Duntroon 31 years ago:
The ABC, which had little problem with Bligh’s husband, runs with the pack:
Premier Newman has rung the ABC boss, Mark Scott, to protest. A public apology has yet not been issued.
The ABC is out of control.
UPDATE
Absolutely astonishing, and worse than I thought. Reader Rolf:
UPDATE
Reader Michael has checked the tape:
===Here’s how the story unfolds.
Newman appoints a man he served under at Duntroon 31 years ago:
Brigadier Bill Mellor is a “highly decorated officer with an impeccable record” and the right person to lead the government’s war on criminal gangs, Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie said.Clive Palmer disgraces himself - big surprise - with yet another lunatic conspiracy theory:
The retired Brigadier was transferred from his role as a flood recovery co-ordinator, to head up the government’s Strategic Monitoring Team… Premier Campbell Newman served under the Brigadier during his time in the armed services, but Brigadier Mellor had distinguished himself post-military through roles such as heading up the southern Queensland flood recovery effort.
Federal MP for Fairfax Clive Palmer told ABC Radio that Brigadier Mellor’s appointment was ”tantamount to a Gestapo”.Mellor has a distinguished record of service:
“Changing legislation, employing ex-Army people to run judicial functions, I think it’s very bad to have military people in police positions in society,” Mr Palmer said.
Brigadier Mellor commanded the Australian Force in Somalia and was a key player in the strategic planning for the Australian intervention in Timor.But Labor and its allies - who thought nothing of having the husband of then Premier Anna Bligh head a government department - sniff a mate-ocracy:
Brigadier Mellor is the Deputy Chairman of the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Queensland and a trustee of the General Douglas Macarthur Museum in Queen Street in Brisbane.
The ABC, which had little problem with Bligh’s husband, runs with the pack:
The retired Army officer appointed by Queensland Premier Campbell Newman to oversee the state’s controversial crackdown on bikies will be paid more than $200,000 for his year-long appointment.Then on its main 7pm Queensland bulletin last night, the ABC named the suburb Mellor lives in and repeatedly showed the street view of his home. Remember, this is a man appointed to help fight criminal bikie gangs.
Further details emerged about Brigadier Bill Mellor’s role as the Opposition and the head of the Queensland Police Union separately expressed concerns about the appointment and its implications for law enforcement in the state.
“It is very concerning ... it should be the role of the Police Commissioner,” Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk told the ABC.
“[Brigadier Mellor] has been a senior military officer but law enforcement is a completely different ball game.
“We don’t need the military running this state, thank you very much.”..
Ms Palaszczuk said it was a further example of Mr Newman “appointing his mates” to senior positions.
Premier Newman has rung the ABC boss, Mark Scott, to protest. A public apology has yet not been issued.
The ABC is out of control.
UPDATE
Absolutely astonishing, and worse than I thought. Reader Rolf:
And they actually showed the street number, a large brass number on a rendered brick post. I did not notice any pixellation in the shot of his house.Why didn’t the ABC just paint a target on Mellor’s forehead?
UPDATE
Reader Michael has checked the tape:
Andrew, Can confirm that the original ABC news report showed 3 separate shots of Brig Bill Mellor’s house including a close up of the street number on the letter box. At the same time, a voiceover revealed the name of the suburb.
After complaint lodged, the ABC kept the story online but advised that they had pixelated the number on the letterbox and removed the reference to suburb. Now this is the residence of the key public servant tasked with coordinating the effort against criminal motorcycle gangs. The ABC must explain what benefit they hoped to derive from identifying Mr Mellor’s family home, and how they believed doing so would in any way serve the public interest.
Four boats this week, after five in five weeks
Andrew Bolt December 06 2013 (7:39pm)
Four boats this week - not a good one - as the head of Operation Sovereign Borders reveals in today’s press conference:
===In summary, during this reporting period, 162 illegal maritime arrivals, six crew, and 27 people whose status is yet undetermined on four suspected illegal entry vessels were or will shortly be transferred to Department of Immigration and Border Protection Authorities on Christmas Island.That said, the Immigration Minister still notes a steep decline in arrivals:
For weeks we have been warning that smugglers will try to lift their tempo of ventures in this final window before the monsoon, and that is what we have seen in this past week. Conditions have been favourable for such ventures and the Government will not be surprised if further ventures are attempted in the few weeks remaining before the monsoon formally sets in.
Notwithstanding these latest arrivals, the decline in illegal arrivals by boat since Operation Sovereign Borders remain at below 80 per cent of what they were in the previous period following the Regional Resettlement Arrangement under the former Government up until the commencement of Operation Sovereign Borders.
Mark Kenny: Abbott simply “heartless” for not giving dying Holden more wasted millions
Andrew Bolt December 06 2013 (7:23pm)
The daily Fairfax Abbott-hate. If Tony Abbott handed yet more subsidies to Holden, would Fairfax’s Mark Kenny then attack him for keeping corporate welfare while slashing everything else?:
Nowhere in the piece, of course, is any argument on how taking taxes from good businesses to prop up a dying one leaves workers and taxpayers better off. Nowhere does Kenny address today’s revelation - that Ministers understand Holden will close its doors regardless, meaning no bailout will work.
Abbott’s just heartless. End of today’s stupid story.
===A doctrinal aversion to industry assistance within the economic power grouping of the Abbott government threatens to make the Prime Minister look not just heartless, but impotent.For Kenny, the argument is all about having a heart, not a brain. And so Abbott is accused not just of looming “heartless”, but of having “glib indifference”, lacking “national leadership” and appearing “cavalier”.
By portraying itself as slave to larger economic and historical forces than it can control when it comes to Holden’s likely closure, the government risks striking the wrong policy responses and the wrong political tone.
Like his translucent “direct action” policy on global warming in which almost nobody can find substance, the Prime Minister appears at best only half-committed to averting a clear and present crisis for thousands of people whose livelihoods derive directly from the automotive sector. Asked his intentions on Friday, the best Tony Abbott could offer, in an interview with Melbourne’s 3AW, was: “… there’s not going to be any extra money over and above the generous support the taxpayers have been giving the motor industry for a long time...”
Nowhere in the piece, of course, is any argument on how taking taxes from good businesses to prop up a dying one leaves workers and taxpayers better off. Nowhere does Kenny address today’s revelation - that Ministers understand Holden will close its doors regardless, meaning no bailout will work.
Abbott’s just heartless. End of today’s stupid story.
===
Finally, some semblance of reality vs the Mandela "saint" myth. Flaws are great. It shows one is human.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/behind-the-myth-mandela-wore-his-halo-loosely-20131206-hv4p4.html
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This four-legged bandit was caught by a South Carolina convenience store's security camera shoplifting things like pig ears, beef bones, dog food and treats. See the canine-incriminating footage here:
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Andy Trieu.
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Dana Nuccitelli who, with (UN)Skeptical Science's John Cook wrote a paper on "consensus" that has been torn to shreds, seems on a path of self-destruction with his twitter account.
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/remind-me-dana-nuccitelli-who-are.html
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An enormous alien planet — one that is 11 times more massive than Jupiter — was discovered in the most distant orbit yet found around a single parent star.
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David Bowles
http://davidbowles.us/music/bare/
===A fantastic, short piece exploring how protest-related arrests are rising along with foreign investment. These arrests allow the Burmese government to silence those shining a light on the military's influence in Burma's economy and politics.
"[M]any of these charges have targeted individuals and groups whose protests threaten to spotlight highly sensitive issues like the extractives industry, the Kachin conflict, meager salaries and workplace abuse of factory employees, etc – in short, the issues that are most sensitive to the government and military and its close network of business tycoons and prized foreign investors."
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http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/155973/2013/12/05/
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http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=334125
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““I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.” John 10:14-15NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
Morning
"As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly."
1 Corinthians 15:48
1 Corinthians 15:48
The head and members are of one nature, and not like that monstrous image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. The head was of fine gold, but the belly and thighs were of brass, the legs of iron, and the feet, part of iron and part of clay. Christ's mystical body is no absurd combination of opposites; the members were mortal, and therefore Jesus died; the glorified head is immortal, and therefore the body is immortal too, for thus the record stands, "Because I live, ye shall live also." As is our loving Head, such is the body, and every member in particular. A chosen Head and chosen members; an accepted Head, and accepted members; a living Head, and living members. If the head be pure gold, all the parts of the body are of pure gold also. Thus is there a double union of nature as a basis for the closest communion. Pause here, devout reader, and see if thou canst without ecstatic amazement, contemplate the infinite condescension of the Son of God in thus exalting thy wretchedness into blessed union with his glory. Thou art so mean that in remembrance of thy mortality, thou mayest say to corruption, "Thou art my father," and to the worm, "Thou art my sister"; and yet in Christ thou art so honoured that thou canst say to the Almighty, "Abba, Father," and to the Incarnate God, "Thou art my brother and my husband." Surely if relationships to ancient and noble families make men think highly of themselves, we have whereof to glory over the heads of them all. Let the poorest and most despised believer lay hold upon this privilege; let not a senseless indolence make him negligent to trace his pedigree, and let him suffer no foolish attachment to present vanities to occupy his thoughts to the exclusion of this glorious, this heavenly honour of union with Christ.
Evening
"Girt about the paps with a golden girdle."
Revelation 1:13
Revelation 1:13
"One like unto the Son of Man" appeared to John in Patmos, and the beloved disciple marked that he wore a girdle of gold. A girdle, for Jesus never was ungirt while upon earth, but stood always ready for service, and now before the eternal throne he stays not His holy ministry, but as a priest is girt about with "the curious girdle of the ephod." Well it is for us that he has not ceased to fulfil his offices of love for us, since this is one of our choicest safeguards that he ever liveth to make intercession for us. Jesus is never an idler; his garments are never loose as though his offices were ended; he diligently carries on the cause of his people. A golden girdle, to manifest the superiority of his service, the royalty of his person, the dignity of his state, the glory of his reward. No longer does he cry out of the dust, but he pleads with authority, a King as well as a Priest. Safe enough is our cause in the hands of our enthroned Melchizedek.
Our Lord presents all his people with an example. We must never unbind our girdles. This is not the time for lying down at ease, it is the season of service and warfare. We need to bind the girdle of truth more and more tightly around our loins. It is a golden girdle, and so will be our richest ornament, and we greatly need it, for a heart that is not well braced up with the truth as it is in Jesus, and with the fidelity which is wrought of the Spirit, will be easily entangled with the things of this life, and tripped up by the snares of temptation. It is in vain that we possess the Scriptures unless we bind them around us like a girdle, surrounding our entire nature, keeping each part of our character in order, and giving compactness to our whole man. If in heaven Jesus unbinds not the girdle, much less may we upon earth. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth.
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Today's reading: Daniel 3-4, 1 John 5 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Daniel 3-4
The Image of Gold and the Blazing Furnace
1 King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, sixty cubits high and six cubits wide, and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. 2 He then summoned the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials to come to the dedication of the image he had set up. 3 So the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials assembled for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and they stood before it.
4 Then the herald loudly proclaimed, “Nations and peoples of every language, this is what you are commanded to do: 5 As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. 6 Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace....”
Today's New Testament reading: 1 John 5
Faith in the Incarnate Son of God
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9 We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 10Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life....
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Joseph [Jō'zeph]—may god add orincreaser.
- Poetic description of the descendants of Joseph the son of Jacob (Deut. 33:13).
- The Father of Igal, one of the spies sent by Moses into Canaan (Num. 13:7).
- A son of Asaph ( 1 Chron. 25:2, 9).
- A man of the family of Baniwho had taken a foreign wife (Ezra 10:42).
- A priest of the family of Shebaniah in Joaakim’s time (Neh. 12:14).
- Ancestor of Joseph, Mary’s husband ( Luke 3:24).
- Another ancestor of Joseph in the same line (Luke 3:26).
- A more remote ancestor of Joseph, Mary’s husband (Luke 3:30).
- A disciple nominated with Matthias to take the place of Judas Iscariot among the disciples. Matthias was chosen ( Acts 1:23). This Joseph must have been a commendable Christian since he was nominated as an apostle.
- The eleventh son of Jacob and first of Rachel, and one of the most outstanding men of the Bible, meriting honorable mention (Gen. 30:24, 25).
The Man Whose Dream Came True
The story of this young man who went from pit to palace and from rags to riches, never loses its charm for young and old alike. It would take a book itself to fully portray all the vicissitudes and virtues of Joseph, who kept his record clean. All that we can do in our treatment of him is to suggest a few aspects of his character for development.
Joseph was a youthful dreamer and his dream came true ( Gen. 37:5-9; 41:42-44).
Joseph labored as a slave, but was faithful in hard places (Gen. 39:1-6, 20-23).
Joseph enjoyed the presence of God and won the confidence of his master (Gen. 39:2, 4).
Joseph had physical beauty, but it was never a snare to him (Gen. 39:6).
Joseph resisted temptation. His godless mistress could not seduce him. Grace was his to flee youthful lusts. Thus he did not commit a “great wickedness” (Gen. 39:7-13).
Joseph was silent amid foul accusations and the appearance of guilt and unjust punishment (Gen. 39:14-20).
Joseph was unspoiled by sudden prosperity. When days of honor followed days of humiliation, he did not yield to pride (Gen. 41:14-16).
Joseph the interpreter of dreams proved that “prison walls do not a prison make.” He acknowledged his dependence upon God for illumination, proving that he was not a mere dreamer but an interpreter of dreams (Gen. 40).
Joseph manifested great wisdom, brotherly love, filial devotion and utter submission to God ( Gen. 43:20; 45:8, 14, 23; 47:7). He knew how to return good for evil ( Gen. 50:16-21). If we cannot have all the gifts of Joseph, who is a perfect type of Christ, we can certainly covet all his graces. If we cannot have his greatness, we can certainly emulate his goodness.
R. W. Moss says, “A very high place must be given Joseph among the early founders of his race. In strength of right purpose he was second to none, whilst in graces of reverence and kindness, of insight and assurance, he became the type of a faith that is at once personal and national ( Heb. 11:22), and allows neither misery nor a career of triumph to eclipse the sense of Divine destiny.”
11. The husband of Mary, and foster-father of our Lord (Matt. 1:16-24; 2:13; Luke 1:27; 2:4-43; 3:23; 4:22; John 1:45; 6:42).
The Man of Wood and Nails
It is somewhat unique that two Josephs were associated with Christ, one at His birth and the other at His death. Both of these godly men gave Jesus of their best. In this section we think of Joseph the carpenter, who was present at the manger when Jesus was born, even though he was not His father. While Christ came as the Son of Man, He was never a son of a man.
Joseph’s presence at Christ’s birth witnesses to a severe test that had emerged triumphant. Mary was the pure young woman he had fallen in love with, and was about to make his wife. Yet the Child she was about to bear would not be his. Seeing her “great with child,” without fanfare Joseph was minded to put her away. He never acted rashly with his espoused, although he was baffled by her condition. This serves for all time as an example of godly wisdom and tender consideration for others.
Bitterly disappointed that Mary had apparently betrayed him, yet believing, he made no haste. As a praying man he waited upon God, and his love for and patience with Mary were rewarded. God understood his mental difficulties and rewarded Joseph’s conscientious attitude toward Mary by revealing His redemptive plan. God never fails those who carry their anxieties to Him. Joseph received a direct and distinct revelation from God, and at once his fears were banished, and his line of duty made clear.
Tenderly he cared for his dear one as if the Child she was bearing were his own. Overawed by the mystery of it all, that his beloved Mary had been chosen as the mother of the Lord he as a devout Jew had eagerly anticipated, we can imagine how he would superintend every detail of the Nativity.
What holy thoughts must have filled the mind of Mary’s guardian. Where suspicion regarding Mary’s purity once lurked, strong faith now reigned as he looked into the lovely face of Mary’s Child. At last God’s promises had been fulfilled and before him was the Babe through whom God’s covenants would be established.
When it became necessary because of Herod’s hatred to flee into Egypt, Joseph cared for Mary and her first-born Son with reverent devotion until tidings came that Herod was dead, and that they could safely return to their own land. While a shroud of secrecy covers the thirty years Christ spent at home, we can be sure of this, that between Jesus and Joseph there was an affection strong and deep.
Briefly stated, we have these glimpses of Joseph:
I. He was “a son of David” and could claim royal or priestly descent (Matt. 1:20).
II. His family belonged to Bethlehem, David’s city.
III. He followed the trade of carpenter, and doubtless taught Christ how to use wood and nails (Matt. 13:55).
IV. He was a pious Israelite, faithful in all the ordinances of the Temple (Luke 2:22-24, 41 , 42).
V. He was a kindly, charitable man, treating Mary gently in her time of need (Matt. 1:19; Luke 2:1-7).
VI. He was faithful in his care of Christ, and deserved to be called His “father” ( Luke 2:33. John 1:45; 6:42).
VII. He never appears in the Gospels after Christ was twelve years of age and became “a son of the Law” (Luke 2:41-51 ), which may suggest that he died during the interval. This would explain why Jesus at His death asked John to care for His mother.
VIII. He died, tradition says, at the age of 111 years, when Jesus was but eighteen years of age.
12. Joseph of Arimathaea, a secret disciple of Jesus, whose unused grave was surrendered to Jesus. Thus the One born in a virgin womb was buried in a virgin tomb (Matt. 27:57-60; Mark 15:43; Luke 23:50; John 19:38).
The Man Who Gave His Grave to Jesus
This wealthy and devout Israelite, a member of the Sanhedrin, lived in a city of Jews (Luke 23:51 ). It is to the provision he made for the body of Christ that Isaiah had reference when he said, “He made His grave with the rich” (Isa. 53:9). Of this renowned Joseph we discover:
1. He was an honorable counselor (Mark 15:43). Because of his adherence to the Law and integrity of life he was a member of the governing body known as the Sanhedrin.
II. He looked for the kingdom of God. Immersed in Old Testament Scriptures, he anticipated the reign of the promised Messiah.
III. He was “a good man and just” (Luke 23:50, 51). As the Bible never uses words unnecessarily, there must be a distinction between “good” and “just.” As a “good man” we have his own internal disposition—what he was in himself. As a “just man” we have his external conduct—what he was towards others. His just dealings were the fruit of the root of his goodness. His was the belief that knew how to behave.
IV. He was a secret disciple (John 19:38). Joseph of Arimathaea was similar to Nicodemus in his respect for our Lord as a man, admiration for Him as a teacher, belief in Him as the Christ, and yet, till now, his lack of confessing Him before men. Dreading the hostility of his colleagues on the Sanhedrin, he kept his faith secret.
V. He begged the body of Jesus ( Matt. 27:58). As soon as Jesus was dead, Joseph hastened to Pilate for permission to inter His body. David Smith observes that when the condemnation of Jesus was over—a condemnation in which Joseph took no part—he realized how cowardly a part he had played and, stricken with shame and remorse, plucked up courage and went in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. It was common for friends of the crucified to purchase their bodies, which would otherwise have been cast out as refuse, and give them decent burial ( Mark 15:45).
VI. He gave his grave to Christ (Matt. 27:59, 60 ). With lingering reverence Joseph paid his last respects to the One he admired, and in the hour of sorrow helped the friends and not the foes of the righteous Sufferer. Joseph had a garden close to Calvary, where he had hewn a smoothed and polished tomb in the side of the rock as his own last resting place, in which, aided by Nicodemus, he buried the linencovered and perfumed body of Christ.
VII. Joseph, legend tells us, was sent to Britain by Philip the Apostle, and founded the Church of Glastonbury. Medieval chroniclers delighted to tell of the staff Joseph stuck into the ground. The staff supposedly took root, brought forth leaves and flowers and became the parent of all the Glastonbury thorns from that day to this.
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