Bairnsdale Conservative: Fri Feb 6th Todays News

On Bolt Report an ongoing policy is that any Islam post can only be on the pinned leader. Normal rules apply in that if it is merely foul and abusive it will be deleted. Otherwise comments are welcome.
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NBC trusted journalist Brian Williams, confesses to lying for years and often about being on a helicopter which survived an RPG attack. There is still no evidence he is a conservative and so he might not get fired.

Two WA back benchers, Luke Simpkins and Don Randall, have declared they will nominate a spill motion for the leadership of the Liberal Party on Tuesday 10/2/15. In all likelihood the spill will elect Mr Abbott unopposed. It is possible another might choose to run against Mr Abbott. The leaks and undermining is not tenable for long term party survival in government. In 2007, such leaks as came from Costello and allegedly Turnbull, brought down the Howard government. It was, as Mr Howard later acknowledged, a mistake which Mr Howard made. But the Howard and Costello leadership tangle is very far from the Liberal Party's issues at the moment. There is a lot of front bench talent and back bench, but the problem the party has is getting legislation past the economic vandals of the Senate. In fact the government has done well, but for that issue, and have even successfully got key measures through the Senate. Although Mr Abbott has been put into a position of claiming Knighting the Duke of Edinburgh as a mistake, it wasn't, it was a healthy choice. The confected outrage shields the incompetent and corrupt Shorten from criticism.

There will always be some division in the conservative party, it is how it is constructed. Not all conservatives agree on everything all the time. However, the current levels of division are deliberate and the aim is to destabilise the leadership. Mr Turnbull was not a good leader of the party in the past. He had the loyalty of the party in being dedicated to conservative issues, but he didn't do that, embracing the carbon tax and faux excuse of anthropogenic global warming. The timing of it is abysmal for the Liberal Party, and it is likely to cruel election hopes in NSW as it did in Queensland and Victoria. Victoria's issues were partly self inflicted. The timing of it suggests it might not be Mr Turnbull behind it, but rather the partisan media inflating routine issues. It is never hard for a Liberal to be heard on any issue, all they need do is criticise the Liberal Party.

On this day in 1649, following the beheading of his dad, Charles I, Charles II was declared king by the parliament of Scotland, but not England or Ireland. England was to become a 'protectorate' for ten years. In 1685, Charles died and his brother James II became king on this day. In 1815, NJ gave the first railroad charter to inventor John Stevens. Stevens had fought under Washington before becoming an inventor who made the first steam locomotive and helped influence US Patent law. In 1819, Raffles founded Singapore. In 1820, former slaves, African Americans, 86 in number, were sent from NY to Liberia. In 1840, the signing of the treaty of Waitangi began NZ. In 1843, the first minstrel show began in the US. In 1851, Australia hosted the largest bush fires in history in a populous region (Victoria). In 1862, US Grant gave Union forces their first victory of the Civil War at Fort Henry Tennessee. In 1899, The treaty of Paris made peace between the US and Spain and called for the Hague to host an international arbitration court the next year. In 1918, British women over thirty years old, got the vote, thus denying it to all who had lied about their age. In 1952, following the death of her father, Elizabeth II became Queen Regnant at a tree house in Kenya (nine years later, Obama was born). In 1978, the Blizzard of 78 dumped snow on New England. In 1988, Michael Jordan inspired Air Jordan with a slam dunk.

2014

The massacre of My Lai was raised by Ray Martin recently on Q&A in the context of reporting stories. According to Ray, if the ABC were not biased, then such incidents would not be reported. So it is worth looking at what happened then, and how it was reported by the biased press of the day. It is worth remembering that the then President of the US was Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson. Johnson was more incompetent than Kennedy had been. As President, he disliked and distrusted the military. He once ordered a secret service agent to stand in the shower, and then urinated on him. It was apparently an accident by the secret service which had killed Kennedy. Press were keen to support Democrats and amplified the peace movement to let the President know 'what was really going on' in Vietnam. Johnson was keen to hold off Bobby Kennedy as President, but when Bobby was assassinated, LBJ retired after one term and one year. But as of Feb '68, LBJ was President and determined to keep the job and that meant resolving the fighting in Vietnam.

In Vietnam, the failed Tet Offensive had ruined the North's capacity to wage standing battles. But covert operations were still damaging. The guerrilla tactics included women and children and US troops were poorly equipped to handle the vagaries of civil war. A few villages were identified as being targets and orders were given which were ambiguous, but interpreted by some officers on the ground as 'kill everyone.' Some soldiers refused to follow orders, and attempted to hide some of the women and children, but failed.

Following the massacre, Democrat Congressmen Mendel Rivers, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, denounced the soldiers who had tried to save women and children as traitors. However, soldiers continued to protest the action and an investigation was held. The action was held on March 16th. On March 28th a report labelled it a success. Six months later, a soldier wrote to a general of their concern at the casual killing of civilians. Colin Powell was then appointed to investigate. It is claimed he attempted to whitewash it.

In March of '69, after LBJ had retired and Nixon was President, GOP Barry Goldwater urged the house armed services committee to investigate a letter he'd received from one of the soldiers who had been present at the massacre. Only after a report was tabled in November '69 was the incident reported. So why does Ray Martin believe that the bias of the ABC was essential for reporting on the massacre? Was it for covering up the massacre until a Republican was President?

Historical perspectives on this day

In 1649, the claimant King Charles II of England and Scotland was declared King of Great Britain, by the Parliament of Scotland. This move was not followed by the Parliament of England nor the Parliament of Ireland. 1685, James II of England and VII of Scotland became King upon the death of his brother Charles II. 1778, American Revolutionary War: In Paris the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce were signed by the United States and France signaling official recognition of the new republic. 1788, Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution.

In 1806, Battle of San Domingo: British naval victory against the French in the Caribbean. 1815, New Jersey granted the first American railroad charter to John Stevens. 1819, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founded Singapore. 1820, the first 86 African American immigrants sponsored by the American Colonization Society departed New York to start a settlement in present-day Liberia. 1833, Otto became the first modern King of Greece. 1840, signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, established New Zealand as a British colony. 1843, the first minstrel show in the United States, The Virginia Minstrels, opened (Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City). 1851, the largest Australian bushfires in a populous region in recorded history took place in the state of Victoria. 1862, American Civil War: forces under the command of Ulysses S. Grant and Andrew H. Foote gave the Union its first victory of the war, capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee in the Battle of Fort Henry. 1899, Spanish–American War: The Treaty of Paris, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain, was ratified by the United States Senate.

In 1900, the international arbitration court at The Hague was created when the Senate of the Netherlands ratified an 1899 peace conference decree. 1914, the Bondetåget, a peasant uprising in support of the monarchy, took place in Sweden 1918, British women over the age of 30 got the right to vote. 1919, the five-day Seattle General Strike began. 1922, the Washington Naval Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., limiting the naval armaments of United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy. 1934, Far-right leagues rally in front of the Palais Bourbon in an attempted coup against the French Third Republic, created a political crisis in France. 1942, World War II: The United Kingdom declared war on Thailand.

In 1951, the Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derailed near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. The accident killed 85 people and injured over 500 more. The wreck was one of the worst rail disasters in American history. 1952, Elizabeth II became queen regnant of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms upon the death of her father, George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a tree house at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya. 1958, eight Manchester United F.C. players and 15 other passengers were killed in the Munich air disaster. 1959, Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments filed the first patent for an integrated circuit. Also 1959, at Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile was accomplished. 1975, a crucial by-election was held in Kankesanthurai, Sri Lanka. 1976, in testimony before a United States Senate subcommittee, Lockheed Corporation president Carl Kotchian admitted that the company had paid out approximately $3 million in bribes to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. 1978, the Blizzard of 1978, one of the worst Nor'easters in New England history, hit the region, with sustained winds of 65 mph and snowfall of 4" an hour.

In 1981, the National Resistance Army of Uganda launched an attack on a Ugandan Army installation in the central Mubende District to begin the Ugandan Bush War. 1987, justice Mary Gaudron was appointed to the High Court of Australia, the first woman to be appointed. 1988, Michael Jordan made his signature slam dunk from the free throw line inspiring Air Jordan and the Jumpman logo. 1989, the Round Table Talks started in Poland, thus marking the beginning of overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe. 1996, Willamette Valley Flood of 1996: Floods in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, United States, caused over US$500 million in property damage throughout the Pacific Northwest. Also 1996, Birgenair Flight 301 crashed off the coast of the Dominican Republic, and all 189 people inside the airplane were killed. This was the worst accident/incident involving a Boeing 757. 1998, Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport. 2000, Second Chechen War: Russia captured Grozny, Chechnya, forcing the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria government into exile. 2012, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake hit near the central Philippines off the coast of Negros Island causing at least 51 deaths and injuring 112 others.

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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.
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Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August https://www.createspace.com/4124406, October https://www.createspace.com/5106951, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4 The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows the purchase of a kindle version for just $3.99 more.

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For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball

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

Douglas Sutherland-Bruce via David Daniel Ball

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

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

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

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Hatches

976 – Emperor Sanjō of Japan (d. 1017)
1347 – Dorothea of Montau, Prussian saint (d. 1394)
1612 – Antoine Arnauld, French mathematician, theologian, and philosopher (d. 1694)
1665 – Anne, Queen of Great Britain (d. 1714)
1695 – Nicolaus II Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician (d. 1726)
1721 – Christian Friedrich Heinecken, German child prodigy (d. 1725)
1744 – Pierre-Joseph Desault, French anatomist and surgeon (d. 1795)
1818 – Henry Litolff, English pianist and composer (d. 1891)
1838 – Henry Irving, English actor (d. 1905)
1838 – Yisrael Meir Kagan, Lithuanian rabbi (d. 1933)
1859 – Wilhelm Cohn, German chess player (d. 1913)
1895 – Babe Ruth, American baseball player (d. 1948)
1911 – Ronald Reagan, American actor and politician, 40th President of the United States (d. 2004)
1912 – Eva Braun, German wife of Adolf Hitler (d. 1945)
1917 – Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hungarian-American actress
1929 – Colin Murdoch, New Zealand pharmacist, invented the tranquilliser gun (d. 2008)
1931 – Rip Torn, American actor
1931 – James Bonk, American chemist and educator (d. 2013)
1945 – Bob Marley, Jamaican-American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Bob Marley & The Wailers) (d. 1981)
1949 – Mike Batt, English singer-songwriter and producer (The Wombles)
1951 – Huw Lloyd-Langton, English guitarist (Hawkwind, Widowmaker, and The Meads of Asphodel) (d. 2012)
1952 – Tim Blake, English electronic musician (Gong,Hawkwind, Crystal Machine )
1983 – Sreesanth, Indian cricketer

February 6: Sami National Day (Sami people); Waitangi Day in New Zealand (1840)

1851 – The largest bushfire in a populous region in Australian history swept across Victoria, resulting in approximately 5 million hectares burnt.
1922 – Britain, France, Japan, Italy and the United States signed the Washington Naval Treaty to avoid a naval arms race.
1952 – Elizabeth II (pictured) ascended to the thrones of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and three other Commonwealth countries upon the death of her father, George VI.
1976 – In testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee, Lockheed president Carl Kotchian admitted that the company had paid out approximately US$3 million in bribes to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.
2000 – Second Chechen War: Russia captured Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, forcing the separatist Chechen government into exile.

They burn for you. We have a treaty. We have a Queen. We caught the bribe. We have capital to burn. Let's party.
Matches

1649 – The claimant King Charles II of England and Scotland is declared King of Great Britain, by the Parliament of Scotland. This move was not followed by the Parliament of England nor the Parliament of Ireland.
1685 – James II of England and VII of Scotland becomes King upon the death of his brother Charles II.
1778 – American Revolutionary War: In Paris the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the United States and France signaling official recognition of the new republic.
1788 – Massachusetts becomes the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution.
1806 – Battle of San Domingo: British naval victory against the French in the Caribbean.
1815 – New Jersey grants the first American railroad charter to John Stevens.
1819 – Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founds Singapore.
1820 – The first 86 African American immigrants sponsored by the American Colonization Society depart New York to start a settlement in present-day Liberia.
1833 – Otto becomes the first modern King of Greece.
1840 – Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, establishing New Zealand as a British colony.
1843 – The first minstrel show in the United States, The Virginia Minstrels, opens (Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City).
1851 – The largest Australian bushfires in a populous region in recorded history take place in the state of Victoria.
1862 – American Civil War: forces under the command of Ulysses S. Grant and Andrew H. Foote give the Union its first victory of the war, capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee in the Battle of Fort Henry.
1899 – Spanish–American War: The Treaty of Paris, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain, is ratified by the United States Senate.
1900 – The international arbitration court at The Hague is created when the Senate of the Netherlands ratifies an 1899 peace conference decree.
1914 – The Bondetåget, a peasant uprising in support of the monarchy, takes place in Sweden
1918 – British women over the age of 30 get the right to vote.
1919 – The five-day Seattle General Strike begins.
1922 – The Washington Naval Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C., limiting the naval armaments of United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy.
1934 – Far-right leagues rally in front of the Palais Bourbon in an attempted coup against the French Third Republic, creating a political crisis in France.
1942 – World War II: The United Kingdom declares war on Thailand.
1951 – The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. The accident kills 85 people and injures over 500 more. The wreck is one of the worst rail disasters in American history.
1952 – Elizabeth II becomes queen regnant of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms upon the death of her father, George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a tree house at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya.
1958 – Eight Manchester United F.C. players and 15 other passengers are killed in the Munich air disaster.
1959 – Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit.
1959 – At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.
1975 – A crucial by-election is held in Kankesanthurai, Sri Lanka.
1976 – In testimony before a United States Senate subcommittee, Lockheed Corporation president Carl Kotchian admits that the company had paid out approximately $3 million in bribes to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.
1978 – The Blizzard of 1978, one of the worst Nor'easters in New England history, hit the region, with sustained winds of 65 mph and snowfall of 4" an hour.
1981 – The National Resistance Army of Uganda launches an attack on a Ugandan Army installation in the central Mubende Districtto begin the Ugandan Bush War.
1987 – Justice Mary Gaudron is appointed to the High Court of Australia, the first woman to be appointed.
1988 – Michael Jordan makes his signature slam dunk from the free throw line inspiring Air Jordan and the Jumpman logo.
1989 – The Round Table Talks start in Poland, thus marking the beginning of overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe.
1996 – Willamette Valley Flood of 1996: Floods in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, United States, causes over US$500 million in property damage throughout the Pacific Northwest.
1996 – Birgenair Flight 301 crashed off the coast of the Dominican Republic, and all 189 people inside the airplane are killed. This is the worst accident/incident involving a Boeing 757.
1998 – Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.
2000 – Second Chechen War: Russia captures Grozny, Chechnya, forcing the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria government into exile.
2012 – A 6.9 magnitude earthquake hits near the central Philippines off the coast of Negros Island causing at least 51 deaths and injuring 112 others.

Hatches

976 – Emperor Sanjō of Japan (d. 1017)
1347 – Dorothea of Montau, Prussian saint (d. 1394)
1452 – Joanna, Princess of Portugal (d. 1490)
1461 – Džore Držić, Croatian poet and playwright (d. 1501)
1465 – Scipione del Ferro, Italian mathematician (d. 1526)
1536 – Sassa Narimasa, Japanese samurai (d. 1588)
1577 – Beatrice Cenci, Italian murderer (d. 1599)
1582 – Mario Bettinus, Italian mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher (d. 1657)
1605 – Bernard of Corleone, Italian saint (d. 1667)
1608 – António Vieira, Portuguese philosopher (d. 1697)
1611 – Chongzhen Emperor of China (d. 1644)
1612 – Antoine Arnauld, French mathematician, theologian, and philosopher (d. 1694)
1639 – Daniel Georg Morhof, German author and scholar (d. 1691)
1643 – Johann Kasimir Kolbe von Wartenberg, Prussian politician, 1st Minister President of Prussia (d. 1712)
1664 – Mustafa II, Ottoman sultan (d. 1703)
1695 – Nicolaus II Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician (d. 1726)
1665 – Anne, Queen of Great Britain (d. 1714)
1721 – Christian Heinrich Heineken, German scholar (d. 1725)
1726 – Patrick Russell, Scottish surgeon (d. 1805)
1732 – Charles Lee, English-American general (d. 1782)
1736 – Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, German-Austrian sculptor (d. 1783)
1744 – Pierre-Joseph Desault, French anatomist and surgeon (d. 1795)
1748 – Adam Weishaupt, German philosopher (d. 1830)
1753 – Évariste de Parny, French poet (d. 1814)
1756 – Aaron Burr, American politician, 3rd Vice President of the United States (d. 1836)
1757 – Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Belarus-Polish poet, playwright, and politician (d. 1841)
1769 – Ludwig von Wallmoden-Gimborn, Austrian general (d. 1862)
1772 – George Murray, Scottish general and politician, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies (d. 1830)
1772 – Karl von Kügelgen, German painter (d. 1832)
1778 – Ugo Foscolo, Italian author and poet (d. 1827)
1781 – John Keane, 1st Baron Keane, Irish general (d. 1844)
1796 – John Stevens Henslow, English botanist and geologist (d. 1861)
1797 – Joseph von Radowitz, Prussian general and politician (d. 1853)
1799 – Imre Frivaldszky, Hungarian botanist and entomologist (d. 1870)
1800 – Achille Devéria, French painter (d. 1857)
1802 – Charles Wheatstone, English physicist (d. 1875)
1811 – Henry Liddell, English academic and author (d. 1898)
1818 – William M. Evarts, American lawyer and politician, 27th United States Secretary of State (d. 1901)
1818 – Henry Litolff, English pianist and composer (d. 1891)
1818 – Jenaro Quesada, 1st Marquis of Miravalles, Spanish general and politician (d. 1889)
1829 – Joseph Auguste Émile Vaudremer, French architect, designed the La Santé Prison and Saint-Pierre-de-Montrouge (d. 1914)
1830 – Daniel Oliver, English botanist (d. 1916)
1832 – John Brown Gordon, American politician, 53rd Governor of Georgia (d. 1904)
1833 – José María de Pereda, Spanish author (d. 1906)
1833 – J. E. B. Stuart, American general (d. 1864)
1834 – Edwin Klebs, German-Swiss pathologist (d. 1913)
1834 – Ema Pukšec, Croatian soprano (d. 1889)
1834 – Wilhelm von Scherff, German general (d. 1911)
1838 – Henry Irving, English actor (d. 1905)
1838 – Yisrael Meir Kagan, Lithuanian rabbi (d. 1933)
1839 – Eduard Hitzig, German neurologist (d. 1907)
1842 – Mary Rudge, English chess player (d. 1919)
1843 – Inoue Kowashi, Japanese politician (d. 1895)
1843 – Frederic William Henry Myers, English poet and philologist, co-founded the Society for Psychical Research (d. 1901)
1845 – Isidor Straus, German-American businessman and politician (d. 1912)
1847 – Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, American architect, designed the Plaza Hotel (d. 1918)
1849 – Ida Straus, German-American businesswoman (d. 1912)
1852 – C. Lloyd Morgan, English zoologist and psychologist (d. 1936)
1852 – Vasily Safonov, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1918)
1853 – Ignacij Klemenčič, Slovenian physicist (d. 1901)
1854 – Prince Thomas, Duke of Genoa (d. 1931)
1859 – Wilhelm Cohn, German chess player (d. 1913)
1861 – Nikolay Zelinsky, Russian chemist (d. 1953)
1864 – John Henry Mackay, Scottish-German philosopher and author (d. 1933)
1866 – Karl Sapper, German linguist and explorer (d. 1945)
1872 – Robert Maillart, Swiss engineer, designed the Salginatobel Bridge and Schwandbach Bridge (d. 1940)
1874 – Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, Indian religious leader, founded the Gaudiya Math (d. 1937)
1873 – Billy Gohl, American serial killer (d. 1927)
1875 – Leonid Gobyato, Russian general (d. 1915)
1876 – Henry Blogg, English fisherman and sailor (d. 1954)
1876 – Eugène-Henri Gravelotte, French fencer (d. 1939)
1878 – Walter B. Pitkin, American educator (d. 1953)
1879 – Othon Friesz, French painter (d. 1949)
1879 – Magnús Guðmundsson, Icelandic politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Iceland (d. 1937)
1879 – Edwin Samuel Montagu, English politician, Secretary of State for India (d. 1924)
1879 – Carl Ramsauer, German physicist (d. 1955)
1880 – Nishinoumi Kajirō II, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 25th Yokozuna (d. 1931)
1884 – Marcel Cohen, French linguist and scholar (d. 1974)
1887 – Josef Frings, German cardinal (d. 1978)
1892 – Maximilian Fretter-Pico, German general (d. 1984)
1892 – William Murphy, American physician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1987)
1893 – Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, Pakistani politician and diplomat, 1st Minister of Foreign Affairs for Pakistan (d. 1985)
1894 – Eric Partridge, New Zealand-English lexicographer (d. 1979)
1894 – Kirpal Singh, Indian religious leader (d. 1974)
1895 – Babe Ruth, American baseball player (d. 1948)
1897 – Louis Buchalter, American mobster (d. 1944)
1898 – Harry Haywood, American politician (d. 1985)
1898 – Alla Tarasova, Russian actress (d. 1973)
1899 – Ramon Novarro, Mexican actor (d. 1968)
1901 – Franziska Liebing, Swedish-German actress (d. 1989)
1901 – Ben Lyon, American actor (d. 1979)
1902 – George Brunies, American trombonist (d. 1974)
1903 – Claudio Arrau, Chilean pianist (d. 1991)
1905 – Władysław Gomułka, Polish politician (d. 1982)
1905 – Jan Werich, Czech actor and playwright (d. 1980)
1906 – Joseph Schull, Canadian playwright and historian (d. 1980)
1908 – Amintore Fanfani, Italian politician, 32nd Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1999)
1908 – Edward Lansdale, American general and CIA agent (d. 1987)
1908 – Michael Maltese, American actor, screenwriter, and composer (d. 1981)
1910 – Irmgard Keun, German author (d. 1982)
1910 – Carlos Marcello, Tunisian-American gangster (d. 1993)
1911 – Ronald Reagan, American actor and politician, 40th President of the United States (d. 2004)
1912 – Eva Braun, German wife of Adolf Hitler (d. 1945)
1912 – Christopher Hill, English historian and author (d. 2003)
1913 – Mary Leakey, English anthropologist (d. 1996)
1914 – Thurl Ravenscroft, American voice actor and singer (d. 2005)
1915 – Kavi Pradeep, Indian poet and songwriter (d. 1998)
1916 – John Crank, English mathematician and physicist (d. 2006)
1917 – Louis-Philippe de Grandpré, Canadian lawyer and jurist (d. 2008)
1917 – Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hungarian-American actress and singer
1918 – Lothar-Günther Buchheim, German author (d. 2007)
1919 – Takashi Yanase, Japanese poet and illustrator, created Anpanman (d. 2013)
1921 – Carl Neumann Degler, American historian and author (d. 2014)
1922 – Patrick Macnee, English actor
1922 – Denis Norden, English television host
1922 – Haskell Wexler, American director, producer, and cinematographer
1923 – Gyula Lóránt, Hungarian footballer and manager (d. 1981)
1924 – Billy Wright, English footballer (d. 1994)
1924 – Jin Yong, Chinese author
1925 – Donald Mitchell, English musicologist and academic
1925 – Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Indonesian author (d. 2006)
1926 – Walker Edmiston, American actor (d. 2007)
1927 – Gerard K. O'Neill, American physicist (d. 1992)
1928 – Allan H. Meltzer, American economist and academic
1929 – Pierre Brice, French actor
1929 – Colin Murdoch, New Zealand pharmacist, invented the tranquilliser gun (d. 2008)
1929 – Oscar Sambrano Urdaneta, Venezuelan author and critic (d. 2011)
1929 – Valentin Yanin, Russian historian and author
1930 – Lionel Blue, English rabbi and journalist
1930 – Jun Kondo, Japanese physicist
1931 – James Bonk, American chemist and educator (d. 2013)
1931 – Rip Torn, American actor
1931 – Mamie Van Doren, American actress and singer
1931 – Ricardo Vidal, Filipino cardinal
1932 – Camilo Cienfuegos, Cuban anarchist (d. 1959)
1932 – Heinz-Klaus Metzger, German critic and theorist (d. 2009)
1932 – François Truffaut, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1984)
1933 – Leslie Crowther, English comedian and actor (d. 1996)
1934 – Bernard Erhard, American voice actor (d. 2000)
1936 – Donnie Brooks, American singer (d. 2007)
1936 – Kent Douglas, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2009)
1936 – J. Howard Marshall III, American businessman
1938 – Fred Mifflin, Canadian admiral and politician
1939 – Jean Beaudin, Canadian director and screenwriter
1939 – Mike Farrell, American actor
1939 – Orlando Parga, Puerto Rican politician
1939 – Jair Rodrigues, Brazilian singer (d. 2014)
1940 – Tom Brokaw, American journalist
1940 – Petr Hájek, Czech mathematician
1940 – Jimmy Tarbuck, English comedian and actor
1941 – Stephen Albert, American composer (d. 1992)
1941 – Gigi Perreau, American actress
1941 – Spencer Silver, American chemist
1942 – Sarah Brady, American activist
1942 – Charlie Coles, American basketball player and coach (d. 2013)
1942 – Ahmad-Jabir Ahmadov Ismail oghlu, Azerbaijani philosopher and educator
1942 – James Loewen, American sociologist and historian
1942 – Tommy Roberts, English fashion designer (d. 2012)
1942 – Valentina Titova, Russian actress
1943 – Fabian Forte, American singer and actor
1943 – Ernie Field, English boxer (d. 2013)
1943 – Gayle Hunnicutt, American actress
1943 – Georgeanna Tillman, American singer and dancer (The Marvelettes) (d. 1980)
1944 – Christine Boutin, French politician
1944 – Willie Tee, American singer-songwriter, keyboard player, and producer (The Wild Magnolias) (d. 2007)
1944 – Michael Tucker, American actor
1945 – Bob Marley, Jamaican singer-songwriter and guitarist (Bob Marley and the Wailers) (d. 1981)
1945 – George Mudie, Scottish politician
1946 – Richie Hayward, American drummer and songwriter (Little Feat and Fraternity of Man) (d. 2010)
1946 – Kate McGarrigle, Canadian singer-songwriter and accordion player (Kate and Anna McGarrigle and Mountain City Four) (d. 2010)
1946 – Jim Turner, American politician
1947 – Richard Bowring, English orientalist and academic
1947 – Bill Staines, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1947 – Daniel Yergin, American author
1948 – Bunny Rugs, Jamaican singer (Third World and Inner Circle) (d. 2014)
1949 – Mike Batt, English singer-songwriter and producer (The Wombles)
1949 – Manuel Orantes, Spanish tennis player
1949 – Jim Sheridan, Irish director, producer, and screenwriter
1950 – Natalie Cole, American singer-songwriter and actress
1950 – Timothy M. Dolan, American cardinal
1951 – Margo, Irish singer
1951 – Marco Antônio, Brazilian footballer
1951 – Huw Lloyd-Langton, English guitarist (Hawkwind, Widowmaker, and The Meads of Asphodel) (d. 2012)
1951 – Jacques Villeret, French actor (d. 2005)
1951 – Kevin Whately, English actor
1952 – Tim Blake, English keyboard player (Gong and Hawkwind)
1952 – Viktor Giacobbo, Swiss actor, producer, and screenwriter
1952 – Ricardo La Volpe, Argentinian footballer, manager, and coach
1954 – Bob Sirois, Canadian ice hockey player
1955 – Michael Pollan, American journalist
1955 – Bruno Stolorz, French rugby player and coach
1956 – Nazan Öncel, Turkey's most successful and famous pop music and pop rock singers/songwriters
1957 – Andres Lipstok, Estonian economist and politician, Estonian Minister of Economic Affairs
1957 – Kathy Najimy, American actress
1957 – Simon Phillips, English drummer (Toto, Michael Schenker Group, 801, RMS, and PhD)
1957 – Robert Townsend, American actor and director
1958 – Cecily Adams, American actress (d. 2004)
1958 – Tim Dakin, English bishop
1958 – Barry Miller, American actor
1959 – Ken Nelson, English record producer
1960 – Jeremy Bowen, Welsh journalist
1960 – Megan Gallagher, American actress
1960 – Frank Jeske, German footballer (d. 1994)
1961 – Cam Cameron, American football coach
1961 – Bill Lester, American race car driver
1961 – Yury Onufriyenko, Ukrainian-Russian colonel, pilot, and astronaut
1961 – Yuko Kobayashi, Japanese voice actress
1962 – Stavros Lambrinidis, Greek politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Greece
1962 – Axl Rose, American singer-songwriter and producer (Guns N' Roses, Hollywood Rose, and Rapidfire)
1963 – David Capel, English cricketer
1963 – Scott Gordon, American ice hockey player and coach
1963 – Mike Hough, Canadian ice hockey player
1963 – Quentin Letts, English journalist and critic
1963 – Kevin Trudeau, American radio host and author
1964 – Gordon Downie, Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (The Tragically Hip)
1964 – Andrey Zvyagintsev, Russian actor and director
1965 – Jan Svěrák, Czech director
1966 – Rick Astley, English singer-songwriter
1967 – Anita Cochran, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1967 – Izumi Sakai, Japanese singer-songwriter (Zard) (d. 2007)
1968 – Adolfo Valencia, Colombian footballer
1968 – Akira Yamaoka, Japanese composer and producer
1969 – David Hayter, American actor and screenwriter
1969 – Masaharu Fukuyama, Japanese singer-songwriter, producer, and actor
1969 – Tim Sherwood, English footballer and manager
1970 – Per Frandsen, Danish footballer
1970 – Zhou Kehua, Chinese criminal and murderer (d. 2012)
1971 – Dana Eskelson, American actress
1971 – Brad Hogg, Australian cricketer
1971 – Carlos Rogers, American basketball player
1971 – Brian Stepanek, American actor
1972 – Stefano Bettarini, Italian footballer
1972 – David Binn, American football player
1973 – Jeff B. Davis, American actor and singer
1975 – Chad Allen, American baseball player
1975 – Orkut Büyükkökten, Turkish computer scientist and engineer, created Orkut
1975 – Brett Hawke, Australian swimmer
1975 – Tomoko Kawase, Japanese singer-songwriter and producer (The Brilliant Green and Tommy heavenly6)
1976 – Tanja Frieden, Swiss snowboarder
1976 – Kasper Hvidt, Danish handball player
1976 – Princess Marie of Denmark
1976 – Kim Zmeskal, American gymnast
1977 – Jason Euell, English footballer
1977 – Josh Stewart, American actor
1977 – Sergei Sychyov, Ukrainian-Estonian ice dancer
1978 – Yael Naim, French-Israeli singer-songwriter
1979 – Dan Bălan, Moldovan singer-songwriter and producer (O-Zone)
1980 – Ben Lawson, Australian actor
1980 – Mamiko Noto, Japanese voice actress
1980 – Conor O'Brian, American wrestler
1980 – Kim Poirier, Canadian actress, singer, and producer
1980 – Luke Ravenstahl, American politician, 58th Mayor of Pittsburgh
1981 – Ricky Barnes, American golfer
1981 – Calum Best, American-English model
1981 – Shim Eun-jin, South Korean singer (Baby V.O.X.)
1981 – Alison Haislip, American actress
1981 – Jens Lekman, Swedish singer-songwriter and guitarist
1981 – Ty Warren, American football player
1982 – Tank, Taiwanese singer-songwriter (Mandopop)
1982 – Jade Edmistone, Australian swimmer
1982 – Alice Eve, English actress
1982 – Elise Ray, American gymnast
1983 – Sreesanth, Indian cricketer
1983 – Melrose Bickerstaff, American model and fashion designer
1983 – Brodie Croyle, American football player
1983 – Dimas Delgado, Spanish footballer
1983 – Jamie Whincup, Australian race car driver
1983 – Myron Wolf Child, Canadian activist (d. 2007)
1984 – Darren Bent, English footballer
1984 – Piret Järvis, Estonian singer-songwriter and guitarist (Vanilla Ninja)
1984 – Antoine Wright, American basketball player
1985 – Kris Humphries, American basketball player
1985 – Joji Kato, Japanese speed skater
1985 – Yang Yu, Chinese swimmer
1985 – Crystal Reed, American actress
1986 – Dane DeHaan, American actor
1986 – Yunho, South Korean singer, dancer, and actor (TVXQ)
1986 – Alice Greczyn, American actress
1986 – Brendan Taylor, Zimbabwean cricketer
1987 – Luisa Värk, Estonian singer
1988 – Bailey Hanks, American actress and singer
1988 – Allison Holker, American dancer
1989 – Craig Cathcart, Irish footballer
1989 – Jonny Flynn, American basketball player
1989 – Natapohn Tameeruks, Thai actress
1990 – Adam Henrique, Canadian ice hockey player
1990 – Aida Rybalko, Lithuanian figure skater
1992 – Víctor Mañón, Mexican footballer
1993 – Tinashe, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress (The Stunners)
1993 – Teresa Scanlan, American model, Miss America 2011
1995 – Jong Up, South Korean singer and dancer (B.A.P)
1996 – Justina Mikulskytė, Lithuanian tennis player

Despatches

743 – Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, Muslim caliph (b. 691)
891 – Photios I of Constantinople (b. 810)
1215 – Hōjō Tokimasa, Japanese emperor (b. 1138)
1378 – Joanna of Bourbon (b. 1338)
1497 – Johannes Ockeghem, Flemish composer (b. 1410)
1515 – Aldus Manutius, Italian publisher, founded the Aldine Press (b. 1449)
1585 – Edmund Plowden, English lawyer and scholar (b. 1518)
1593 – Jacques Amyot, French author (b. 1513)
1593 – Emperor Ōgimachi of Japan (b. 1517)
1612 – Christopher Clavius, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1538)
1617 – Prospero Alpini, Italian physician and botanist (b. 1553)
1685 – Charles II of England (b. 1630)
1740 – Pope Clement XII (b. 1652)
1775 – William Dowdeswell, English politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (b. 1721)
1783 – Capability Brown, English gardener (b. 1716)
1793 – Carlo Goldoni, Italian playwright (b. 1707)
1806 – Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, French general (b. 1762)
1807 – John Reid, Scottish general (b. 1721)
1833 – Pierre André Latreille, French entomologist (b. 1762)
1834 – Richard Lemon Lander, English explorer (b. 1804)
1855 – Josef Munzinger, Swiss politician (b. 1791)
1899 – Alfred, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (b. 1874)
1899 – Leo von Caprivi, German politician, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1831)
1910 – Alfonso Maria Fusco, Italian priest (b. 1839)
1916 – Rubén Darío, Nicaraguan poet (b. 1867)
1918 – Gustav Klimt, Austrian painter (b. 1862)
1927 – Sam Maguire, Irish footballer (b. 1879)
1929 – Maria Christina of Austria (b. 1858)
1931 – Motilal Nehru, Indian lawyer and politician (b. 1861)
1938 – Marianne von Werefkin, Russian-Swiss painter (b. 1860)
1942 – Jaan Soots, Estonian general and politician, 7th Estonian Minister of War (b. 1880)
1950 – Georges Imbert, Alsatian chemist (b. 1884)
1951 – Gabby Street, American baseball player (b. 1882)
1952 – George VI of the United Kingdom (b. 1895)
1958 – victims of the Munich air disaster
- – Geoff Bent, English footballer (b. 1932)
- – Roger Byrne, English footballer (b. 1929)
- – Eddie Colman, English footballer (b. 1936)
- – Walter Crickmer, English footballer and manager (b. 1900)
- – Mark Jones, English footballer (b. 1933)
- – David Pegg, English footballer (b. 1935)
- – Frank Swift, English footballer and journalist (b. 1913)
- – Tommy Taylor, English footballer (b. 1932)
1963 – Abd el-Krim, Moroccan guerrilla leader (b. 1880)
1964 – Emilio Aguinaldo, Filipino general and politician, 1st President of the Philippines (b. 1869)
1966 – Narcisa de Leon, Filipino film producer (b. 1877)
1967 – Martine Carol, French actress (b. 1920)
1976 – Ritwik Ghatak, Bangladeshi-Indian director and screenwriter (b. 1925)
1976 – Vince Guaraldi, American singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1928)
1981 – Hugo Montenegro, American composer and conductor (b. 1925)
1981 – Frederica of Hanover (b. 1917)
1985 – James Hadley Chase, English-Swiss author (b. 1906)
1986 – Georges Cabana, Canadian archbishop (b. 1894)
1986 – Frederick Coutts, Scottish 8th General of The Salvation Army (b. 1899)
1986 – Dandy Nichols, English actress (b. 1907)
1986 – Minoru Yamasaki, American architect, designed the World Trade Center (b. 1912)
1987 – Julien Chouinard, Canadian lawyer, civil servant, and jurist (b. 1929)
1989 – André Cayatte, French director and lawyer (b. 1909)
1989 – Chris Gueffroy, German man attempted to climb the Berlin Wall (b. 1968)
1989 – Joe Raposo, American pianist and composer (b. 1937)
1989 – King Tubby, Jamaican DJ, producer, and composer (b. 1941)
1989 – Barbara W. Tuchman, American historian and author (b. 1912)
1990 – Jimmy Van Heusen, American composer (b. 1913)
1991 – Salvador Luria, Italian biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1912)
1991 – Danny Thomas, American singer, actor, and producer (b. 1914)
1993 – Arthur Ashe, American tennis player (b. 1943)
1994 – Joseph Cotten, American actor (b. 1905)
1994 – Jack Kirby, American author and illustrator (b. 1917)
1995 – James Merrill, American poet (b. 1926)
1996 – Guy Madison, American actor (b. 1922)
1997 – Roger Laurent, Belgian race car driver (b. 1913)
1998 – Falco, Austrian singer-songwriter (b. 1957)
1998 – José Marroquín Leal, Mexican actor and clown (b. 1933)
1998 – Carl Wilson, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Beach Boys) (b. 1946)
1999 – Danny Dayton, American actor (b. 1923)
1999 – Don Dunstan, Australian politician, 35th Premier of South Australia (b. 1926)
1999 – Jimmy Roberts, American tenor (b. 1924)
2001 – Fulgence Charpentier, Canadian journalist (b. 1897)
2001 – Filemon Lagman, Filipino theoretician and activist (b. 1953)
2002 – Max Perutz, Austrian biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1914)
2004 – Gerald Bouey, Canadian economist (b. 1920)
2005 – Lazar Berman, Russian pianist (b. 1930)
2005 – Karl Haas, German-American pianist, conductor, and radio host (b. 1913)
2006 – Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, American actor (b. 1925)
2007 – Lew Burdette, American baseball player (b. 1926)
2007 – Lee Hoffman, American author (b. 1932)
2007 – Len Hopkins, Canadian politician (b. 1930)
2007 – Frankie Laine, American singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1913)
2007 – Harry Webster, English engineer (b. 1927)
2007 – Willye White, American long jumper (b. 1939)
2008 – John McWethy, American journalist (b. 1947)
2008 – Tony Rolt, English race car driver and engineer (b. 1918)
2009 – Philip Carey, American actor (b. 1925)
2009 – James Whitmore, American actor (b. 1921)
2011 – Gary Moore, Irish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Skid Row and Thin Lizzy) (b. 1952)
2012 – Peter Breck, American actor (b. 1929)
2012 – Sharada Dwivedi, Indian historian and author (b. 1942)
2012 – Nuri Otay, Turkish businessman (b. 1957)
2012 – David Rosenhan, American psychologist and academic (b. 1929)
2012 – Antoni Tàpies, Spanish painter and sculptor (b. 1923)
2012 – Janice E. Voss, American engineer and astronaut (b. 1956)
2013 – Mo-Do, Italian singer-songwriter (b. 1966)
2013 – Chokri Belaid, Tunisian lawyer and politician (b. 1964)
2013 – Menachem Elon, Israeli jurist and educator (b. 1923)
2013 – Alden Mason, American painter (b. 1919)
2013 – Yahya Sulong, Malaysian comedian and actor (b. 1929)
2013 – René Vestri, French politician (b. 1938)
2013 – Douglas Warren, Australian bishop (b. 1919)
2014 – Vasiľ Biľak, Slovak politician (b. 1917)
2014 – Alison Jolly, American-English primatologist and zoologist (b. 1937)
2014 – Ralph Kiner, American baseball player and sportscaster (b. 1922)
2014 – Maxine Kumin, American author and poet (b. 1925)
2014 – Peter Philipp, German comedian and author (b. 1971)
2014 – Marty Plissner, American journalist (b. 1926)
2014 – Vaçe Zela, Albanian-Swiss singer and guitarist (b. 1939)

===
2015

Christian feast day:
International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (United Nations)
Ronald Reagan Day (California)
Sami National Day (Russia, Finland, Norway and Sweden)
Waitangi Day, celebrates the founding of New Zealand in 1840.

===

Libs’ nervous nellies giving Shorten free kick to Lodge

Piers Akerman – Friday, February 06, 2015 (1:13am)

TO steal a line from Crocodile Dundee “that’s not a knife — THAT’S a knife!” Fairfax and the ABC have been trying to make a “knife” out of rumblings from within the Liberal Party about Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s leadership. Pathetic. That’s not a knife.

Continue reading 'Libs’ nervous nellies giving Shorten free kick to Lodge'

===

THE EMPTY ENVELOPE

Tim Blair – Friday, February 06, 2015 (6:54pm)

A Canberra man has pleaded guilty to rape after tricking a prostitute into having sex with him for free:

Livas first had sex with the woman in October 2010 but didn’t have enough money to pay the full fee.

He vowed to pay the $50 he still owed her on their next encounter, which he booked later that month for $800.

Court documents allege he handed over a sealed envelope and stopped the woman from opening it …

The pair had sex but when the woman opened the envelope she found there was no money inside.

So he’s a thief and a liar – and also, by his own admission, a rapist, although there was no force or coercion involved beyond his broken promise to pay:

The woman recalled she cried uncontrollably as tears ran down her naked body when she realised she’d been deceived, as she read a victim impact statement in court on Friday.

“I felt internally violated, used and dirty. I felt sick,” she said.

In the days after the incident she couldn’t eat, sleep or think properly and she later developed post-traumatic stress disorder, she said.

She told the court she lost trust in her regular clients and her confidence in her ability to screen clients appropriately suffered …

“I am not a victim of my job,” she told the court.

“I am a real woman. I am a rape victim.”

Interesting case. For non-payment following services rendered, Akis Livas has been jailed for eight months. By contrast, a previous Canberra offender walked free after bashing and kicking a man into unconsciousness.

===

CANBERRA CHAOS, 2015 EDITION

Tim Blair – Friday, February 06, 2015 (12:36pm)

Today’s Daily Telegraph editorial examines Tony Abbott’s options. Also in federal politics, here’s Bill Shorten answering a yes/no question.

UPDATE:

Tony Abbott will face a vote on his leadership on Tuesday after two MPs formally requested a motion for a spill.

West Australian Liberal Luke Simpkins and another of his colleagues this morning co-signed a motion to call on a spill in the Liberal party room on Tuesday.

The motion was delivered to chief whip Phillip Ruddock and the Prime Minister’s office early this afternoon.

At this point, however, no leadership nominees.

UPDATE II. The Prime Minister’s response:

Tony Abbott says he and Julie Bishop will oppose the spill motion to be put to the party room on Tuesday …

“We are not the Labor party and we are not going to repeat the chaos of Labor years,” the Prime Minister said.

He said his colleagues Luke Simpkins and Don Randall were “entitled” to bring forward the spill motion but that they were defying what the Australian people had voted for.

“They are asking the party room to vote out the people they voted in,” Mr Abbott said.

Mr Abbott said he had spoken to Julie Bishop since news broke of the spill motion.

“We will stand together to call on party to defeat this motion,” Mr Abbott said of his deputy Ms Bishop.

Rolling coverage of this debacle here.

===

LYIN’ BRIAN

Tim Blair – Friday, February 06, 2015 (3:01am)

For more than a decade, $10 million per year NBC anchorman and managing editor Brian Williams –“one of the most trusted journalists of our time” – has repeatedly claimed to have been aboard a US military helicopter that was hit by enemy fire in Iraq in 2003. The detail of Williams’s tale is remarkable (fast forward to 3.00):

One small problem: the story told by Williams isn’t true. But that hasn’t stopped Williams from repeating it over and over and over again:

Last week he again recounted his bravery to the dwindling Nightly News audience. “The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq,” he said, “when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG.”

No. Never happened. John Hinderaker summarises events then and now:

There was, in fact, a helicopter that was struck by an RPG, but Williams wasn’t on it. His helicopter came in an hour later and landed without incident. Confronted with the facts, Williams recanted and apologized, chalking up his repeated error to the “fog of memory” after 12 years. No one is buying Williams’s apology, for several reasons: 1) it wasn’t 12 years ago when he started telling the story, but shortly after the event; 2) whether your helicopter was or was not hit by an RPG isn’t the sort of thing you are likely to be confused about; and 3) even the apology wasn’t candid. Williams wrote that “I was indeed on the Chinook behind the bird that took the RPG,” but failed to note that his helicopter was “behind the bird that took the RPG” by an hour.

That matter of the one-hour gap has been addressed by someone who knows the facts:

Flight engineer Lance Reynolds, who was on the helicopter that was hit, wrote: “Sorry dude, I don’t remember you being on my aircraft. I do remember you walking up about an hour after we had landed to ask me what had happened.”

Williams subsequently made that story his own. Most of the above links are via Instapundit, who also points to this claim from Williams following his coverage of Hurricane Katrina:

I accidentally ingested some of the floodwater. I became very sick with dysentery, our hotel was overrun with gangs, I was rescued from the stairwell of a five star hotel in New Orleans by a young police officer. We are friends to this day.

Seems very … detailed. On the basis of the Iraq story alone, of course, Williams should be fired. He is now revealed as the journalistic equivalent of Ward Reilly.

UPDATE. Brian Williams, Katrina superhero!

===

Spill vote against Abbott on Tuesday

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (1:50pm)

The spill is on:

A LEADERSHIP spill will be called against Tony Abbott on Tuesday as Liberal MPs declare their hand in a bid to replace him as Prime Minister.
Western Australian MP Luke Simpkins has written to all federal Liberals calling for the spill.
The motion would be seconded by fellow West Australian MP Don Randall.

Ominous for Abbott.
Simpkins’ email makes clear the contest is between two hard options:

In the last two weeks I have been inundated with emails and walk ins to my Electorate Office all questioning the direction the Government is being led in. The Knighthood issue was for many the final proof of a disconnection with the people.
These contacts have come from many people that I personally know and are firm supporters - in some cases they are booth workers as well. The last time this outpouring of concern happened was when we were being led to support the Rudd Government’s ETS and faced with this erosion of our base support we acted.

Simkins is saying the last time supporters revolted like this was against Turnbull and his warmist views. Yet he’s now the likely replacement.
Go figure.
UPDATE
How will Simpkins feel, serving under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull given he is a sceptic?

Is CO2, carbon dioxide, the great evil and upward forcer of global temperatures that the government assures us that it is? If it were, why is it that CO2 in the atmosphere increases some 800 years after the rise in temperature? Why is it that CO2 has continued to rise in the last 10 years but global temperatures have not risen?” (20 Sept 2011)

UPDATE
Abbott says Julie Bishop will join him in opposing any spill of leadership positions. That seems to kill the push for change - for now.

===

Labor starts the class war against Turnbull

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (11:48am)

Labor leader Bill Shorten is already dusting off Labor’s class-war lines against Malcolm Turnbull:

Malcolm Turnbull may wear nicer suits but he’s just a Tony Abbott in a nicer suit.

I despise class war talk from Labor, itself the darling of the guilty rich. But the Liberals will know how devastating it can be - especially against a target like Turnbull.

===

Abbott on a knife-edge

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (10:11am)

Key Abbott supporter Christopher Pyne falters:

CHRISTOPHER Pyne has given an extraordinary TV interview, admitting he doesn’t know if Tony Abbott can survive as PM.

He was responding to a Sky News report three ministers believe there will be a vote on Tuesday when the Liberals hold their first Canberra party room meeting of the parliamentary year.
“I can’t rule it out,” the Leader of the House told Nine Network early this morning…
When pressed on whether Mr Abbott will remain as prime minister, Mr Pyne replied: “Well I certainly hope so.”

Confrontation:

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull directly confronted Prime Minister Tony Abbott in a crunch meeting about the government’s woes before Wednesday’s cabinet meeting…

The Communications Minister ... pressed the Prime Minister on how the government would extricate itself from its current leadership woes.

It’s understood that in return, Mr Abbott repeated the key themes of his National Press Club speech. Mr Turnbull is said to have been “underwhelmed” by Mr Abbott’s reply.
Some sources suggested that Mr Abbott sought assurances from Mr Turnbull that he would not seek the leadership if a party-room vote occurred next Tuesday, though others disputed this.
Other sources suggested Mr Turnbull declined to offer unconditional support.

David Crowe:

Backbenchers are adamant there will be a spill motion on Tuesday but nobody has publicly volunteered to move or second it.
There is also a growing confidence that a candidate will emerge before Tuesday even though this has been primarily a backbench revolt.

Graham Richardson on frying pans and fires:

I do not doubt that Abbott does not have the support of a majority of his partyroom but, because this is all so undisciplined and unplanned, Turnbull doesn’t either. As usual, the disgruntled came out first, followed by the disloyal. Dennis Jensen, Warren Entsch and Mal Brough stirring the pot caused no surprises — they are in the first category.
Then came Arthur Sinodinos. I have always liked Arthur but his display shocked someone as experienced as I am in witnessing betrayal. The PM had kept open a ministerial spot to give Sinodinos a chance to reclaim his job. At NSW’s Independent Commission Against Corruption he looked stupid, greedy or both, but Abbott stayed loyal. Of all those prepared to publicly shaft Abbott, this bloke should have been the last in line.
It seems clear that sometime soon Malcolm will get the job that he has seen as his destiny since childhood. No matter that he achieved the lowest rankings of any Liberal leader in polling history. No matter that he ran with the Godwin Grech atrocity. No matter that he is committed to some form of carbon tax when his party won’t wear it. Desperate times they must be in the Liberal Party for Turnbull to be looked upon as the redeemer.
The PM may survive next Tuesday but I doubt he can hold off Turnbull.

Dennis Shanahan warns:

The Nationals and conservative Liberals who revolted against Turnbull in 2009 over his support for Kevin Rudd’s carbon pollution reduction scheme don’t believe he has changed…

Opposition to the carbon tax and Bill Shorten’s support for an ETS are the Coalition’s biggest negative weapon against the ALP going into the next election…
But guarantees of policy purity and continuity — whether in writing or not, and as genuine as Turnbull intends — do not solve the political problem of having a Prime Minister carrying the Coalition’s central attack against a carbon tax who Labor can show every day does not support the campaign in principle.
After all, Turnbull voted with Labor government MPs in February 2010 in support of Rudd’s ETS...

UPDATE
If true (and not just pot-stirring), it may well be the last straw for Abbott:

JULIE Bishop has told Malcolm Turnbull she would be happy to serve as his deputy… Sources have told News Corp Australia Mr Turnbull and Ms Bishop spoke via telephone yesterday about the party’s future leadership.

UPDATE
Bishop denies that this conversation took place. Some Liberal MPs are really are saboteurs.
UPDATE
Hmm. Pyne says this morning’s comments have been exaggerated and he’s firmly behind Abbott. Yet I have a vague suspicion that should Turnbull win, Pyne won’t suffer.

===

More snow when warmists predicted less - and even none

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (9:45am)

Global warming - dud predictions

The warmists predicted:

In 2000 Dr David Viner, of Britain’s Climatic Research Unit, claimed that within a few years winter snow would become “a very rare and exciting event” and “children just aren’t going to know what snow is”. In 2007 Sir John Houghton, former head of Britain’s Met Office, said “less snow is absolutely in line with what we expect from global warming”.

The reality this week:

Not only was this weekend’s blizzard the 5th largest snowstorm in the city’s history, it also made the past week the 8th snowiest week on record for Chicago.

More reality:

Five of the northern hemisphere’s six snowiest winters in the past 46 years have occurred since Viner’s prediction, according to Rutgers University Global Snow Lab numbers.

More warmist predictions of less snow, this time from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007:

IPCC FAQ 3.2 Observations show that changes are occurring in the amount, intensity, frequency and type of precipitation. More precipitation now falls as rain rather than snow in northern regions. For a future warmer climate, models project a 50 to 100% decline in the frequency of cold air outbreaks relative to the present in NH winters in most areas.

More predictions of less snow from the United States Environmental Protection Agency:

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will continue to increase unless the billions of tons of our annual emissions decrease substantially. Increased concentrations are expected to ... reduce ice and snow cover, as well as permafrost…
Key U.S. Projections… More precipitation is expected to fall as rain rather than snow, particularly in some northern areas.

Reality in 2013 - more snow:

With 67 percent of the contiguous U.S. covered by snow, the first day of 2013 marked the widest coverage of snow the U.S. has seen on Jan. 1 in the past ten years… The previous record was set in 2010,

Reality in 2014 - more snow:

Data from Rutgers University Global Snow Lab show that Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent exceeded 22 million square kilometers this fall (September, October, and November) exceeding the previous greatest fall extent recorded in 1976…
During November alone, North America had its most extensive snow cover on record, the Lower 48 had its most extensive snow cover on record, and Canada had its second most extensive snow cover on record,

More reality, as conceded by the US National Climatic Data Centre:

The Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent (SCE) during winter (December 2013–February 2014) was 46.2 million square km (17.8 million square miles), 660,000 square km (255,000 square miles) above the 1981-2010 average of 45.5 million square km (17.6 million square miles). This was the 18th largest winter SCE since records begain in 1967 for the Northern Hemisphere, but the smallest since the winter of 2008/09. This was also the seventh consecutive winter with above-average SCE for the Northern Hemisphere. Both North America and Eurasia had above-average winter SCE. Northern Hemisphere winter SCE has changed only slightly in the 48-year record, with a seasonal increase of about 0.4 percent per decade.

Something is seriously wrong with climate models that predict less snow when in fact we get more,

===

Turnbull will be destroyed as a climate hypocrite

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (8:41am)

If warmist Malcolm Turnbull is made Prime Minister he will be smashed by Labor for his long support for a planned emissions trading scheme - a kind of carbon tax set by the market.
This won’t just rob the Liberals of a critical point of difference with Labor, which still wants a form of carbon tax like the one Tony Abbott scrapped, bringing down power prices.
Turnbull will also be humiliated by Labor and the warmist media. He will be savaged as a hypocrite who is pushing the more limited “direct action” policies designed by sceptic Tony Abbott - policies he’s savaged as expensive, a con, reckless, short-term, ineffective, a fig leaf, lacking integrity and ripe for rorting.
Policies he now suddenly claims he supports.
Turnbull may well have assured conservative Liberals that he will not change the party’s direct action policies or force the party to become more warmist. But the guarantee he gave at a pub meeting yesterday is not only weak and unconvincing, but ridiculous:

We had a referendum on the emissions trading scheme in 2013 which was showed the resolve against it. It was then repealed and it was replaced by the direct action policy. Now some people have said ‘Malcolm doesn’t agree with the government’s [climate] policy and thinks it should be canned…
You can’t change your policies every two years or every three years. My view is we have the same targets, bipartisan targets, we’ve got a different mechanism. We’ve got to leave that as it is and as is consistent with our policy, in the event of there being a new global agreement we’ll review the existing policy. But the idea we would or should suddenly reinstate something we have abolished is ridiculous.

Hmm, “you can’t change your policies every two years or every three years” but you can change your prime minister after 18 months? Does Turnbull seriously think he can get away with arguing he can’t change policies he actually disagrees with simply because it’s silly to change what was decided by the past leader a year ago?
Labor will just chew him up. Here’s why Turnbull is opening himself up to attack as a hypocrite.

In 2009 Turnbull was furious with the global warming stand taken by the Liberals under Tony Abbott, and demanded the Liberals vote for an emissions trading scheme:

I am sure he won’t complain if I tell a few home truths about the farce that the Coalition’s policy, of lack of policy, on climate change has descended into.... The Liberal Party is currently led by people whose conviction on climate change is that it is ‘crap’ and you don’t need to do anything about it. Any policy that is announced will simply be a con, an environmental figleaf to cover a determination to do nothing…
Many Liberals are rightly dismayed that on this vital issue of climate change we are not simply without a policy, without any prospect of having a credible policy but we are now without integrity. We have given our opponents the irrefutable, undeniable evidence that we cannot be trusted. Not that anyone would doubt it, but I will be voting for the ETS legislation when it returns in February and if my colleagues have any sense they will do so as well

In 2010, Turnbull backed the rush to build expensive desalination plants (now most mothballed), demanded Australia lead the world in cutting in emissions and blasted the Liberals’ direct action policy, which pays emitters to cut their gasses:

… we are already experiencing the symptoms of climate change, especially here in Australia with a hotter and drier climate in the southern part of our nation. The rush to construct desalination plants is just one expensive testament to that.... Australia should be taking action now in advance of and in order to promote a global agreement… An Australian emissions trading scheme, with a carbon price set by the market, would improve business investment certainty…
The proposed ETS is a balanced, substantive and timely step forward on an issue of immense importance. By relying so heavily on market forces to address this very severe challenging problem, the ETS is far more in the great traditions of modern liberalism than any other available policy response… Schemes where bureaucrats and politicians pick technologies and winners, doling out billions of taxpayers’ dollars, neither are economically efficient nor will be environmentally effective.

In 2010 Turnbull blasted the Liberals’ direct action policies as reckless and ripe for rorting:

Having the government pick projects for subsidy is a recipe for fiscal recklessness on a grand scale. And there will always be a temptation for projects to be selected for their political appeal.

In 2011 Turnbull said the Liberals’ direct action policies were too expensive if you treated global warming as a genuine threat:

It is what it is. It is a policy where, yes, the Government does pick winners… If in fact climate change is proved to be not real, which some people obviously believe - I don’t. If you believe climate change is going to be proved to be unreal, then a scheme like that can be brought to an end.
....but it obviously - if you want to have a long-term solution to abating carbon emissions and to achieve - if you want to have a long-term technique of cutting carbon emissions, you know, in a very substantial way to the levels that the scientists are telling us we need to do by mid-century to avoid dangerous climate change, then a direct action policy where the Government - where industry was able to freely pollute, if you like, and the Government was just spending more and more taxpayers’ money to offset it, that would become a very expensive charge on the budget in the years ahead.

In 2013 Turnbull said he remained a supporter of emissions trading - a floating carbon tax - and the Liberals’ current direct action policy was not “long term”:

...the big difference between our [direct action] policy, apart from the fact it has a much lower cost than obviously the carbon tax at the moment, is that it is not designed to go any further than 2020… So it is not a long-term policy....

I think if you want to reduce your emissions over the very long-term, by which I mean, you know, 50 years or something, then you are going to have to have a long-term, market-based price on carbon..

Turnbull now claims he’ll take these same direct action policies to the election? Really?
Turnbull’s pride won’t let him be laughed at. Moreover, Turnbull’s guarantee to conservative MPs that he won’t change comes with a huge loophole - that “in the event of there being a new global agreement we’ll review the existing policy”,
What would Turnbull consider “a new global agreement”? One in Paris next year that merely mouths promises no one will actually meet? One which agrees that countries like ours have carbon taxes while giant India and China, our competitors, increase emissions for decades to come?
Turnbull will in fact change the Liberals’ policy at the first flimsy excuse. As he said in 2009:

I will not lead a party that is not as committed to effective action on climate change as I am.

Labor will hold him to that.
One more thing. Check what the quotes above reveal about Turnbull’s judgement and style. He fell for a global warming scare despite temperatures not rising for some 16 years. He endorsed hugely expensive desalination plants that had to be mothballed when the rains returned. He abused colleagues who did not agree with him, and refused to take seriously colleagues who were properly sceptical. He bungled the politics, turning his back on a critical point of difference with Labor that Abbott used to destroy two Labor prime ministers.
And now he’s on the brink of return.

===

Warmists are a bigger danger than warming

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (7:33am)

The global warming scare is killing people. Maurice Newman:

“ELDERLY person dies (of cold) every SEVEN minutes due to fuel poverty ‘scandal’?”
“2014 was the warmest year on record”
Two recent headlines: one is truthful, the other not…
It is a fact, [an] estimated 25,000 “excess winter deaths” across Britain will result from the inability of the poor to afford power because renewable energy policies have driven it beyond reach. One-third of those polled by Age UK worried how they would heat their homes.
Tragically, that first headline is true and the deaths continue.
It is the second one that lacks candour. Taken from a press statement issued by NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies, it was later acknowledged by director Gavin Schmidt that the release was only 38 per cent certain. The so-called record is well within the margin of error and it cannot be concluded it was the warmest year of the decade, let alone in recorded history. The more reliable satellite data put 2014 as likely the third or sixth warmest…
Canadian academic Ross McKitrick ... has written extensively on climate modelling, saying: “We will reach the 20-year mark with no trend in the satellite data at the end of 2015 and in the surface data at the end of 2017. With CO2 emissions continuing to rise, it will at that point be impossible to reconcile climate models with reality, and the mainstream consensus of how the climate system responds to greenhouse gases will begin breaking apart.”
Back in the real world, the poor are dying of the cold while the political elites and their friends bask in the warmth of cosy conferences, taxpayer subsidies and research grants...,

The climate change movement is rooted in power, money and emotion — not science. It is indecently obsessive and authoritarian. In fact, it’s the people behind this movement who pose the greatest threat to humanity, not the climate.

===

Is the media fanning the leadership flames?

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (7:18am)

Reader a happy little debunker:

Media saturation of leadership challenge? A quick internet search (the 20 day prior to the challenge + 1 day) shows news articles covering the 2012 challenge at 351.
The later challenge in 2013 attracted 384 news articles. This search included all news articles referencing ‘Julia Gillard’ or ‘Kevin Rudd’ and ‘leadership challenge’.
Current news articles for the latest speculation runs to 4260 news articles. An increase of over 500%.

Reader Cybrarian Pete says these figures aren’t complete:

A search of googlenews shows that for the 2013 leadership challenge alone there are over 3,271 articles. Debunker’s low article count of 384 articles for the 2013 challenge is further debunked by looking at the number of articles collated by a media monitoring service (recording approximately 3,040).

===

Syria - world headquarters of jihadist evil

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (7:14am)

Syria is now home to 20,000 foreign jihadists who are brutal, motivated and trained - and who could spread the Islamic State’s evil around the world:

About 20,000 foreign fighters have joined Islamic State in Syria and Iraq over the past two years, Western intelligence officials say. While virtually all nationalities are represented, countries such as Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Russia and France have produced some of the largest contingents…
The group’s military commander in Syria is Tarkhan Batirashvili, an ethnic Chechen from Georgia. The executioner in its videos, “Jihadi John”, is a Briton…
While foreign fighters are usually not drawn by financial considerations, in Raqqa they earn about $US800 ($1035), including special allowances, a month compared with $US400 a month for Syrian fighters, according to local residents and Syrian rebels whom Islamic State had tried to recruit. By contrast, rebels in the moderate, US-backed Free Syrian Army say they earn $US100 or less…
On the frontlines, the Free Syrian Army troops have learned to fear and respect these foreign fighters. Many have arrived in Syria with military experience from other jihadist battlefields. Others, driven by ideology, are simply far more willing to die than their enemies.

===

Post by Jacqui Lambie.

It is in her mind .. repulsive
===
Tony Abbott

As you know, two of my colleagues have called for a leadership spill of the two senior positions in our Party. They’ve called for a spill of my position as leader and they’ve called for a spill of Julie Bishop’s position as Deputy.

The first point to make is that they are perfectly entitled to call for this, but the next point to make is that they are asking the Party Room to vote out the people that the electorate voted in in September 2013.

I want to make this very simple point: we are not the Labor Party. We are not the Labor Party and we are not going to repeat the chaos and the instability of the Labor years.

So, I have spoken to Deputy Leader Julie Bishop and we will stand together in urging the Party Room to defeat this particular motion, and in so doing, and in defeating this motion to vote in favour of the stability and the team that the people voted for at the election.

We have a strong plan. It’s the strong plan that I enunciated at the Press Club this week and we are determined to get on with it – and we will.===

Post by Barry Shaw.

===

Post by George Takei.

My political theory of dog lovers = conservatives, cat lovers = lefties; illustrated in picture form. Unless you're the modern Australian Liberal Party - JF
===

Post by Matt Granz.

===

===

Post by KIIS 1065.

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Bolt is self serving here http://t.co/q6PxeCb96T
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 6, 2015

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Gina Rinehart dumps $300m worth of Fairfax shares http://t.co/mLGPdqxxzc
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 6, 2015

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Photo: A reminder of their achievements http://t.co/wbDQi9wjyn
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 6, 2015

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I feel outraged when Australia Post fails to deliver (no parcel received in Cabramatta, ever) THE EMPTY ENVELOPE http://t.co/8EBKHTZYpQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 6, 2015

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Meh, I'm more offended by Gosford Anglican or Westboro Baptist. billboard that will upset .. http://t.co/iXkrxO365x via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 6, 2015

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I believe I've been bugged. I get why it happens. Sydney siege cop may be fired http://t.co/wcnVyAgeQF via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 6, 2015

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... You can take the pee out of Pelosi but you can never take out the loser... http://t.co/KUGCWATagV via @nationaljournal
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 6, 2015

===

From the Jerusalem Post .. Islamic State selling, crucifying, burying children alive in Iraq
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 6, 2015

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Photo: "Mortal Sin- layers of cookie, vanilla cheesecake, chocolate mousse & marshmallow. One of these will... http://t.co/B3bmg6t5YJ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 6, 2015

=== Posts from last year ===

Sydney can be a city of barbarians

Piers Akerman – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (6:04pm)

THIS is a story of shame. Sydney’s shame and a sorry reflection on our slide into disgrace. It is also a horror story, a tale of outrageous behaviour towards a young woman who was critically ill. It is also every caring parent’s worst nightmare.

Continue reading 'Sydney can be a city of barbarians'

===

AUSTRALIAN BAKING CORPORATION

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (2:11pm)

The ABC sucks down more than $3 million in taxes every single day, but the state broadcaster’s constant pleading of poverty and victimisation has convinced a six-year-old girl to run a charity bake-off:

Six-year-old Isabelle from the Melbourne suburb of Diamond Creek became worried about the future of the ABC in January.

The past few months have seen the ABC attacked over its news reporting, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott commenting that many believe the Government-funded broadcaster “takes everyone’s side but Australia’s”.

The controversy has seen renewed calls for the ABC to have its funding reduced, or be privatised altogether.

Concerned by the reports young Isabelle organised a bake-off, raising $40 for the national broadcaster.

774 ABC Melbourne mornings presenter Jon Faine presented the cheque to ABC managing director Mark Scott live on air, while he was in the studio to take talkback.

The cheque was accompanied with a hand-written letter from the six-year-old.

“I love ABC,” says the letter. “Love from Isabelle.”

Instead of cringing with embarrassment, Mark Scott ($805,392) actually poses with the little girl’s cheque and uses the moment to push some ABC propaganda:

“That’s remarkable,” Mr Scott said.

“We know despite the noise in the news we operate with this enormous groundswell of support from the Australian people.

“Our most recent research shows that 85 per cent of the Australian people believe that the ABC provides a valuable service, that we’re the most respected media organisation in the country and one of the most respected organisations in the country.”

This might be one of the most ill-advised PR stunts in local media history.

(Via David B)

===

GREENOID GROUNDED

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (1:58pm)

Weepy eco-worrier Eric Holthaus describes his great sacrifice:

That September morning, after an emotional morning of tears and tweets, I decided to take action.

I’m never going to fly again.

My reason was simple: Flying used to be my biggest personal source of CO2 emissions. With a single action, I was able to cut my personal impact on climate change by nearly 50 percent.

Let’s see similar commitment from Australia’s carbon-blasting eco-community, beginning with Tim Flannery.

===

$46 MILLION OF SLOW

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (12:59pm)

This site, just a few hours after the ABC reported video “evidence” of asylum seeker torture:

All we have here is some burned hands. There is no evidence at all as to the cause.

It took the ABC’s Mark Scott ($805,392) and Kate Torney ($350,394) nearly two whole weeks – or $46,153,846 of ABC thinking time, considering the organisation’s $1.2 billion annual budget – to finally reach exactly the same conclusion:

The ABC’s initial reports on the video said that the vision appeared to support the asylum seekers’ claims. That’s because it was the first concrete evidence that the injuries had occurred. What the video did not do was establish how those injuries occurred.

Given how long it takes the ABC to process basic information, the delay over an apology is understandable. These people are simply slow.

===

BACON DELIVERY SYSTEM REPRESENTED

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (11:57am)

Fascinating legal developments in Queensland:

A man accused of animal cruelty for having a photo taken with a pig with its snout taped shut at the Gabba Ashes Test in Brisbane last year has been ordered to attend mediation …

The RSPCA will appear on behalf of the pig at the mediation in April.

(Via CL)

===

NOT HELPING

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (11:18am)

When your ex-client is on the verge of parole after serving nearly a decade for drug possession, it might not be the best time for this:

Schapelle Corby’s former lawyer, Kerry Smith-Douglas, says the convicted drug smuggler will celebrate her release from a Bali prison with a “big marijuana joint”.

Smith-Douglas later added:

“If the Indonesians can’t take a joke then that’s their problem.”

Or potentially Corby’s. Does anyone else pick up a similarity between the lawyer and Strangers With Candy‘s Jerri Blank?

===

HOWES ENDORSED

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (10:19am)

Wondering what to make of Paul Howes’s National Press Club speech? Consider this view, from Greens MP Adam Bandt:

“Paul Howes should resign as union secretary and join the Liberal party if he is going to just parrot Tony Abbott’s attack on people’s wages,” said Mr Bandt in a statement.

“On the same day the government is in the Fair Work Commission attacking people’s wages, Paul Howes is out there spinning Tony Abbott’s argument. Why is one of the most prominent union leaders in the country giving ammunition to Tony Abbott’s attack on Australian wages? It is a disgrace.”

There can be no higher praise. Here’s the whole speech.

===

POOR FINANCIAL PLANNING

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (10:13am)

Sometimes I regret not having children. Such as right now, for example, when I might be able to pay some of BMW Sydney’s service bill by selling the kids to organ harvesters.

===

NOBODY TALKING ABOUT THE TIMES

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (10:08am)

New York Times staff smash their own paper’s editorial page:

“The fact of the matter is the Wall Street Journal editorial page just kicks our editorial page’s ass. I mean there’s just no contest, from top to bottom, and it’s disappointing ...”

“[Editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal has] got 14 or 15 people plus a whole bevy of assistants working on these three unsigned editorials every day. They’re completely reflexively liberal, utterly predictable, usually poorly written and totally ineffectual. I mean, just try and remember the last time that anybody was talking about one of those editorials.”

Further on this from Roger L. Simon.

===

Just an ABC oversight, right?

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (5:47pm)

The Victorian Liberal Party today put up this YouTube clip of the rort-ridden CFMEU’s links to Labor.
The clip was quickly yanked off air, and the Victorian editor of ABC News gave this snippy explanation:

Hmm, OK. But why didn’t the ABC take the same action against these Labor ads?

===

ABC boss hides behind six-year-old Isabelle

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (4:51pm)

ABC boss Mark Scott this morning denied the ABC was too biased, and posed with this evidence of support:

The following story was then written by an ABC staffer who - like the ABC boss - seems not to see how pathetic it is to defend the ABC’s bias in news and current affairs by hiding behind the skirts of a six-year-old girl:

Six-year-old Isabelle from the Melbourne suburb of Diamond Creek became worried about the future of the ABC in January.
The past few months have seen the ABC attacked over its news reporting, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott commenting that many believe the Government-funded broadcaster “takes everyone’s side but Australia’s”.
The controversy has seen renewed calls for the ABC to have its funding reduced, or be privatised altogether.
Concerned by the reports young Isabelle organised a bake-off, raising $40 for the national broadcaster.
774 ABC Melbourne mornings presenter Jon Faine presented the cheque to ABC managing director Mark Scott live on air, while he was in the studio to take talkback.
The cheque was accompanied with a hand-written letter from the six-year-old.
“I love ABC,” says the letter. “Love from Isabelle.”
“That’s remarkable,” Mr Scott said. “We know despite the noise in the news we operate with this enormous groundswell of support from the Australian people...”

And I wouldn’t be surprised if Scott even banked Isabelle’s cheque. After all, an ABC which soaks up $1.2 billion a year of our money must really, really need the savings of six-year-olds, too.
Still, this isn’t a new strategy. As Tim Blair has noted before, the ABC and its Leftist allies routinely defend its currents affairs shows from claims of bias by warning children that conservatives are just out to squash the Bananas in Pyjamas:

(Thanks to reader Paul.)

===

Crossing a Lines

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (4:29pm)

Labor Senator Sue Lines displays all the courtesy for which the Left today is famous, and gets the comeuppance she deserves. After various snarky comments by Lines about the witness’s alleged lack of preparation, this finale:

Senator LINES: I will quote, on page 236—
Ms Tarrant : Senator, the submission is only 19 pages long, so I do not know what you are quoting from.

(Thanks to reader Nick.)

===

Is it true, or was it in The Age?

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (11:19am)

The Age prints a ludicrous opinion piece by John Legge - “educator, author and consultant” - replete with wild claims such as this:

Abbott, when asked about the Holden workers who will lose their jobs, said they should be grateful they were being liberated from slaving on an assembly line, moving to living off Newstart and Work for the Dole. If this sort of liberation will suit Holden workers on $60,000 per year including overtime, how much more delightful it should be for Productivity Commission analysts on three times that. It can’t happen soon enough.

Here is what Abbott actually said:

Mr Abbott has conceded that some workers will have difficulty finding new jobs.
“Some of them will find it difficult, but many of them will probably be liberated to pursue new opportunities and to get on with their lives,” he said. “We have to accept that what was right for people 10 years ago or 20 years ago is not necessarily going to be right or possible for them far into the future, and we do have to be prepared to adapt - individually and collectively.”

Doesn’t the Age check the truth of what it publishes? Doesn’t it care if its readers are told falsehoods?

===

We’re killing ourselves with green energy policies that make no difference to the climate

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (11:13am)

Global warming - general

Two things still amaze me - that we could have done something so pointlessly damaging, and that it’s taken years for our elite to wake up to our madness:

QUEENSLAND’S largest power generator will today declare that Australia is one of the world’s most expensive countries for energy and warn that the electricity market is being distorted by the carbon tax, mandatory renewables target and solar-rooftop subsidies.
After Stanwell took the extraordinary step yesterday of announcing it would mothball its biggest gas-fired power station and resurrect a coal facility built in the 1980s - sparking predictions that gas-fired power plants would be withdrawn in other states - it will today call for a scaling back of the renewable energy target.
Before the introduction of the carbon tax, the RET scheme and solar feed-in tariffs, the abundance of coal had made Australia a source of low-cost electricity, the company will say. “These policies appear to have been implemented for ideological reasons with little analysis of the impact on electricity prices and economic growth,” Stanwell chief executive officer Richard Van Breda will say.

The renewable energy target must go. It makes no difference to global temperatures and just makes power prices too high. We’re insane to have agreed to it in the first place, and it’s scary that so few journalists and even Liberals opposed it.

===

Shorten pays the price of ratting

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (11:06am)

I don’t think AWU boss Paul Howes much cares if he’s hurt former AWU boss Bill Shorten:

BILL Shorten has branded union leader Paul Howes’ plan for a new grand bargain on industrial relations as “a fantasy’’, saying there is not even a remote chance of it becoming reality while Tony Abbott is prime minister.
The Opposition Leader said he was all for consensus in the workplace but the Coalition wasn’t interested in sitting down with unions to resolve industrial issues.

Some necessary background:

[T]he AWU stuck to Gillard like glue - national president Bill Ludwig, former deputy prime minister Wayne Swan and national secretary Paul Howes, as well as the eight or so MPs aligned with the union.
Shorten’s problem is he played both sides of the contest, telling Gillard and her inner circle he was loyal while talking to Rudd behind the scenes…
The Shorten defection hit Howes hard. A mentoree of his predecessor as national secretary, he didn’t want to believe his mate would rat on the union.
On the night of Gillard’s toppling, Howes was red-eyed from a tearful response to events and Shorten’s betrayal.
Corridor gossip suggested he had to convince Ludwig not to fly to Canberra to strip Shorten of his union membership.

Abbott cleans up:

Mr Abbott was quick to draw a distinction between the AWU boss and the Opposition Leader.
“I certainly think that he’s pulled the rug out from underneath Bill Shorten’s scare campaign,” Mr Abbott said. “That was a very powerful assault on everything Bill Shorten’s been doing for the last few months.”

===

The Left: natural home of the barbarian

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (10:04am)

The foul language, intolerance and spitting hatred of the modern Leftist exposes the sham behind such preachers of peace and reconciliation. The hate-orgy that follows Deveny’s post is astonishing - an insight into a cultural barbarism. That Deveny has been so heavily nurtured by the ABC says much about the ABC’s decline.

===

Labor’s Griffith candidate “proud” of Labor “opening our borders”

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (9:40am)

Terri Butler, Labor’s candidate in this weekend’s Griffith by-election:

Labor has such a proud history of welcoming immigration, of opening our borders and encouraging people of all cultures to come her and that’s something I’m proud of.

Michael Smith:

Terri Butler might be happy about Labor’s proud history of “opening our borders and encouraging people from all cultures to come here” but I can’t imagine too many electors for the Seat of Griffith will be.

===

Bias makes the Australian Bloated Corporation even more dangerous

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (9:11am)

Media

THE ABC’s bias wouldn’t be so serious if the ABC wasn’t this dangerously big - bigger than is legal for any other media organisation.
Attention Tony Jones, Fran Kelly, Paul Barry, Virginia Trioli, Phillip Adams, Robyn Williams and the ABC’s other Leftist hosts.
Imagine if every single one of the main ABC current affairs shows were hosted not by the likes of you, as they now are.
Imagine them all hosted instead by me and fellow conservatives Janet Albrechtsen, Gerard Henderson, Tim Blair, Miranda Devine, Piers Akerman, Tom Switzer and Rowan Dean.
Imagine Four Corners no longer hosted by a former staffer of Gough Whitlam but of John Howard. Insiders no more hosted by a former staffer of Bob Hawke but of Tony Abbott.
Imagine the result: an ABC that no longer crusaded on boat people, same-sex marriage and global warming, but on free speech, climate scepticism and free markets.
Get it now?
(Read full article here.)

===

A party at the Corby joint

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (8:56am)

Karl Stefanovic interviews Kerry Smith-Douglas, Schappelle Corby’s former lawyer, about Corby’s impending release from a Bali prison midway through a 20-year sentence for smuggling marijuana:

Karl asked, “You must be a little bit excited by all this, not very far away now?’’.
Smith-Douglas replied: “Yes, it’s very exciting, there’s going to be a lot of parties going on once she is released, and I can’t wait’’
Karl: “Are you going to be having a party?’’
Smith-Douglas: “Oh you betcha’’…
Karl: “How do you think she will celebrate?’’
Smith-Douglas: “She’ll probably pop a cork of champagne and then roll up a big marijuana joint the size of a cigar and kick back and enjoy herself.’’…
Karl...: “You haven’t been smoking this morning have you?’’ Smith-Douglas replied with laughter: “My eyes are red, I know”.

It isn’t the first time Smith-Douglas has given us reason to doubt her client’s claims of innocence:

SCHAPELLE CORBY’S Australian lawyer has been sacked after saying she would not be surprised if the drugs Corby went to jail for carrying to Bali had belonged to Corby’s father.
This month, Kerry Smith-Douglas contradicted her own client’s claim that baggage handlers were responsible for the 4.2 kilograms of marijuana found in Corby’s boogie board bag in October 2004.

===

ABC wars: Turnbull now joins the party

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (8:44am)

Malcolm Turnbull defended ABC boss Mark Scott, denied the ABC was biased and refused to back Tony Abbott’s criticism of the ABC’s cultural hostility to our institutions.
But with the ABC itself now conceding (a tiny) fault and Liberal MPs with their tails up, the Communications Minister moves to bayonet the wounded:

Mr Turnbull said: ‘’The ABC has acknowledged that their reports were wrong. That is good. But this has caused enormous offence and an apology, in my view - just a suggestion - would be appropriate.’’

UPDATE
Nick Cater:

In the 1998 financial year the ABC drew $555,991,000 from the public purse, the equivalent of $853,467,000 in 2013 dollars.
In 2013, the ABC received $1,023,700,000 from Treasury, an increase of 20% over 15 years in real terms.
The result: more repeats and more overseas programs…
As Paul Keating once said:
We pay them more than the state of Tasmania. Do we get value for it? It’s a moot point.

(Figures at the link.)

===

So who is lying about SPC?

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (8:29am)

LIBERAL MP Sharman Stone calls Prime Minister Tony Abbott a “liar”, but who exactly is telling whoppers?
It’s already an ask to trust Stone when she evasively claimed on 2GB that “you can’t find a transcript ... of me saying the ‘l’ word”, despite earlier saying of Abbott: “It’s lying.”
So why trust her angry attacks on Abbott for rejecting a $25 million handout for SPC Ardmona, owned by Coca-Cola Amatil, when Stone is the cannery’s local member?
First, Stone claimed Abbott lied because he “explained as the reason for not supporting SPCA, which was basically awards and conditions”.
False.
(Read full article here.)

===

Abbott now getting it together

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (7:46am)

Niki Savva is right (although too critical of Abbott’s “home team” comment):

Abbott was doing his job, and appeared to have spent his break thinking about it. Since the political year resumed, he has shown he is beginning to get the hang of it. Not completely, not always, but certainly better than before…
Abbott has also benefited from issues breaking his way. Some of it is luck, some of it is luck he has created or helped along.
One issue where the government has absolute control is asylum-seekers. Like it or not - and the Greens and Labor clearly hate it, even though no boats mean no drownings - the policies are working.
If Abbott shows the same unswerving commitment and passion to fixing the budget deficit without killing the economy as he has to stopping the boats, and as he will to improving the lot of indigenous people, then he will have a handsome record as Prime Minister.

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Howes offers deal. Abbott will be smart to consider, wise to dump

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (7:41am)

Economy, Politics - federal

Paul Howes wants big business and big unions, aided by big government, to make a big deal to fix our future for us:

Union boss Paul Howes has dramatically undermined Bill Shorten’s depiction of the Abbott government as anti-worker, proposing unions enter into a new partnership with the Coalition and business to rein in high wages and lift productivity.
Calling for a ‘’grand compact’’ with business and the Abbott government and a new spirit of co-operation to echo the Hawke-Keating government’s accord with unions, Mr Howes stunned fellow unionists by railing against union propaganda and workers pricing themselves out of the market with high wage claims. Prime Minister Tony Abbott and some employer groups immediately welcomed the call from one of the nation’s most powerful union leaders for an end to workplace conflict through a return to a 1980s-style summit of business, government, and unions. But some employer groups, the opposition and fellow union officials rejected out of hand the radical suggestion of a deal to end what Mr Howes called the ‘’see-saw’’ of industrial relations policy in Australia.

It’s a vision with little detail, lots of fine sentiments ... and lots of threats:

“A grand compact is not just possible, it is desperately needed,’’ he told the National Press Club.
“A grand compact in which unions, business and government create an industrial engagement pursuant to agreed national goals; an industrial engagement that is a key organising imperative, and provides certainty ... on 10,15 and 20-year horizons.’’ Such a deal would acknowledge that productivity is a shared responsibility and making concessions in pursuit of shared goals was seen as a strength, not a weakness.

The threats are these:

- no plan or “key organising imperative” (????) can offer “certainty” on “20-year horizons”. History moves too fast. Economies riding high this year could be rocked the next. A Spanish miracle economy, fashionably green, can fast become a cripple. Howes is searching for certainties at a time when we need flexibilities instead.
- unions represent just 18 per cent of Australian workers, and just 13 per cent in the private sector. They do not have the right or moral authority to make any “grand compact” binding on the rest of us.
- a deal by big business and big unions will suit both, but neither group represents the the majority of Australians. Add big government and you have almost a kind of soft fascism. Remember when big miners signed a deal with big (Labor) government on the mining tax to the immediate benefit of both? Remember how small miners were clobbered under that deal, and Australian taxpayers got barely a penny? Remember also when big unions, big business and big (Labor) government agreed a carbon tax was a terrific compromise?

So why might Howes be offering this deal? Some context:

- we could be facing a fall in living standards as the bill comes for our debt binge. Unions will come under severe pressure to defend wages and conditions made in better times.
- Howes offers a deal now that a Labor government under union instruction is replaced by a Coalition one carrying a big hammer.
- and, of course, Howes may simply be worried that this country really is in trouble.

Mark Kenny is right to suggest Howes is pulling a rug from underneath Bill Shorten, which explains Tony Abbott’s quick embrace:

Like Howes, government and employers are also reading the mood. Their assessment is that Howes is proposing a return to the corporatism of the accord, where big unions, big employers and the government set the outcomes in order to deal unions back into the game.
And their response is to say this is not the workplace relations system in Australia any more. Still, with Bill Shorten characterising everything the government is proposing as anti-worker union-bashing, the olive branch being extended by Shorten’s successor at the AWU must feel like manna from heaven.

Shorten was asked on the ABC today if he’d known beforehand what Howes was about to say. He dodged giving an answer, which I must presume, then, is “no”. Mates no more.
And while I applaud Howes’ warm-fuzzies call for bosses and union leaders to be less confrontational, I recall how Howes himself has trawled for his members’ votes by playing the bovver boy:

On Wednesday he spoke of the need for a ‘’Grand Compact’’ between employers, unions and government and the need for a ‘’profound attitudinal shift’’. He felt uncomfortable about the government hectoring ‘’respected business leaders’’. Nice words.
But Howes, in 2011, delivered an inflammatory speech directed at a significant business that employs his members. Rio Tinto, he said, was ‘’sucking out the blood’’ of its workforce and ‘’monkeys’’ could do a better job running the miner. He told Rio Tinto’s bosses they ‘’cannot hide behind your slimy, grubby mates in the Coalition because we’re coming after you’’. They never really did come after them in the way Howes said they would. But that didn’t matter. There were plenty of headlines.

And members’ votes.

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What good does the ABC’s Australia Network do?

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (6:52am)

Why on earth are we wasting all this money on the ABC’s Australia Network? Greg Sheridan:

The money for the Australia Network does not come from the ABC. It comes from [the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade]. At the moment, DFAT’s global public diplomacy budget is about $5 million…
Founded by the Keating government, the Australia Network in all its guises has been a colossal waste of money and a complete, absolute failure as public policy…
I have been annoyed on occasion at what I see as an anti-Australian tic in much of the news and documentary stuff on the Australia Network, but that is merely its inevitable reflection of the political culture of its parent organisation, the ABC....

So long as Australia Network exists I don’t want it to become an organ of Australian state propaganda. But nor do I want it to make life harder for the Australian government by taking the ABC editorial line on asylum-seekers, climate change etc, which is opposed to the policies of the Australian government. There’s a simple solution. It doesn’t need to exist at all… In all of my countless trips to Asia I have never met an Asian who watches Australia Network. But half an eye is cast on it in a desultory fashion by Asian governments and some Asian news organisations. So while it has almost no capacity to do good, it has a substantial capacity to do harm.

I would just query this assertion of Greg’s:

But in reality there is absolutely no reason to have it at all. Our highly competent but resource-starved professional diplomats could do much more, much better targeted, with a proper public diplomacy budget.

I wouldn’t be so sure, given some ways it’s spending that cash, for instance on Muslim apologist Waleed Aly:

Lex Bartlem, Australian Ambassador to Lebanon:
Today is the last day of a tour that has taken you through the United Arab Emirates, SaudiArabia, Turkey and now to Beirut in Lebanon. We are delighted that you came. In most of those countries I know that you have met with academics, clerics, students, members of parliament, government officials and ministers. You came to speak to them about Islam in Australia—about its diversity, and about the community’s successes and problems.
Aly:

Firstly, let me say it has been a fantastic trip and a great opportunity, and I have to thank you for even thinking of inviting me.... What [people met on the trip] were trying to figure out, it seemed to me, was the relationship that Islam in Australia, or Muslims in Australia, or really anyone in Australia, has with the state…
Bartlem:
I know that we are hoping to get you back to the region in January to visit Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories.

The video DFAT posted of this interview had 30 views when I first linked to it this morning.

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Time to can SPC instead for misleading

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (6:32am)

Those who called Tony Abbott a liar should be asked to explain themselves:

In an SPC media release sent to all Coalition colleagues by Ms Stone yesterday, [SPC Ardmona] said the excessive redundancy payments had been trimmed back to 52 weeks in 2012. However, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union has confirmed that almost all of the plant’s more than 400 or so employees were employed under a previous enterprise agreement that provided for redundancy offour weeks’ pay for every year of service, up to a maximum of 104 weeks.

A company paying generous conditions can hardly expect taxpayers for a handout when the money is gone. I don’t think Stone should be forgiven for her false claims, either:

Dr Stone yesterday stood by her comments and continued to press for government assistance for the company, which has joined her in challenging the assertion of “overgenerous” entitlements at the company’s plants.
“Recent claims that SPC Ardmona is a ‘union shop’ or that the cause of its difficulties are because of ‘over generous’ allowances and conditions to staff are mistaken and need to be refuted by the facts,” SPC Ardmona said in its release. However, [AMWU food and confectionary division secretary Tom Hale] confirmed that at least 90 per cent of the company’s production staff were union members.

UPDATE
Grace Collier on the true deceivers:

No one is telling lies when they say the EBA must be altered. Anyone who says the EBA is blameless is the liar....
This week journalists claimed that SPC workers earned on average a modest $50,000. This is hardly possible given that base rates alone range from $48,538 to $61,359…
I estimate SPC labour costs are double what they should be because of direct costs as well as the cost of a wide range of productivity restrictions. Crucially, the EBA shows the ... union has been allowed too much control..
Harvest Freshcuts is a food processor. The plant at Bairnsdale is about the same distance away from Melbourne that Shepparton [SPC’s home] is. Its last EBA, just terminated, was much more appropriate than SPC’s and made with staff rather than a union. The working week is longer. Labour costs look a third lower. Conditions are much closer to or capped at award rates and wages are adjusted only by CPI.

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Reflexively liberal, utterly predictable

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (12:59am)

New York Times staff talk about the New York Times:

“The fact of the matter is the Wall Street Journal editorial page just kicks our editorial page’s ass. I mean there’s just no contest, from top to bottom, and it’s disappointing ...”
“[Editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal has] got 14 or 15 people plus a whole bevy of assistants working on these three unsigned editorials every day. They’re completely reflexively liberal, utterly predictable, usually poorly written and totally ineffectual. I mean, just try and remember the last time that anybody was talking about one of those editorials.”

What would Age staff privately say about Age editorials?

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The truth about Zionism

www.spiked-online.com

Today's fashionable loathing of Zionists is far from progressive.

Israel is the safest place in the Middle East for Islamic peoples not wanting to be killed by their neighbours. It is a modern democracy with its own ridiculous self hating left movement. Israel supports all peoples of any creed, whereas those that would eliminate Israel are often those who practice apartheid ..

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“For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.” - Psalm 33:4-5

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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

February 5: Morning

"The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." - 1 John 4:14

It is a sweet thought that Jesus Christ did not come forth without his Father's permission, authority, consent, and assistance. He was sent of the Father, that he might be the Saviour of men. We are too apt to forget that, while there are distinctions as to the persons in the Trinity, there are no distinctions of honour. We too frequently ascribe the honour of our salvation, or at least the depths of its benevolence, more to Jesus Christ than we do the Father. This is a very great mistake. What if Jesus came? Did not his Father send him? If he spake wondrously, did not his Father pour grace into his lips, that he might be an able minister of the new covenant? He who knoweth the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost as he should know them, never setteth one before another in his love; he sees them at Bethlehem, at Gethsemane, and on Calvary, all equally engaged in the work of salvation. O Christian, hast thou put thy confidence in the Man Christ Jesus? Hast thou placed thy reliance solely on him? And art thou united with him? Then believe that thou art united unto the God of heaven. Since to the Man Christ Jesus thou art brother, and holdest closest fellowship, thou art linked thereby with God the Eternal, and "the Ancient of days" is thy Father and thy friend. Didst thou ever consider the depth of love in the heart of Jehovah, when God the Father equipped his Son for the great enterprise of mercy? If not, be this thy day's meditation. The Father sent him! Contemplate that subject. Think how Jesus works what the Father wills. In the wounds of the dying Saviour see the love of the great I AM. Let every thought of Jesus be also connected with the Eternal, ever-blessed God, for "It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief."

Evening

"At that time Jesus answered." - Matthew 11:25

This is a singular way in which to commence a verse--"At that time Jesus answered." If you will look at the context you will not perceive that any person had asked him a question, or that he was in conversation with any human being. Yet it is written, "Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father." When a man answers, he answers a person who has been speaking to him. Who, then, had spoken to Christ? his Father. Yet there is no record of it; and this should teach us that Jesus had constant fellowship with his Father, and that God spake into his heart so often, so continually, that it was not a circumstance singular enough to be recorded. It was the habit and life of Jesus to talk with God. Even as Jesus was, in this world, so are we; let us therefore learn the lesson which this simple statement concerning him teaches us. May we likewise have silent fellowship with the Father, so that often we may answer him, and though the world wotteth not to whom we speak, may we be responding to that secret voice unheard of any other ear, which our own ear, opened by the Spirit of God, recognizes with joy. God has spoken to us, let us speak to God--either to set our seal that God is true and faithful to his promise, or to confess the sin of which the Spirit of God has convinced us, or to acknowledge the mercy which God's providence has given, or to express assent to the great truths which God the Holy Ghost has opened to our understanding. What a privilege is intimate communion with the Father of our spirits! It is a secret hidden from the world, a joy with which even the nearest friend intermeddleth not. If we would hear the whispers of God's love, our ear must be purged and fitted to listen to his voice. This very evening may our hearts be in such a state, that when God speaks to us, we, like Jesus, may be prepared at once to answer him.

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Today's reading: Exodus 36-38, Matthew 23:1-22 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Exodus 36-38

¹ So Bezalel, Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the LORD has given skill and ability to know how to carry out all the work of constructing the sanctuary are to do the work just as the LORD has commanded."

² Then Moses summoned Bezalel and Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the LORD had given ability and who was willing to come and do the work. ³ They received from Moses all the offerings the Israelites had brought to carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary. And the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. ⁴ So all the skilled workers who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left what they were doing ⁵ and said to Moses, "The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the LORD commanded to be done...."

...read the rest on Bible Gateway

Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 23:1-22

A Warning Against Hypocrisy

¹ Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: ² "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. ³ So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. ⁴They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them..."

...read the rest on Bible Gateway

Friday, February 06, 2015

Fri Feb 6th Todays News

Douglas Sutherland-Bruce via David Daniel Ball

Piers Akerman – Friday, February 06, 2015 (1:13am)

Tim Blair – Friday, February 06, 2015 (6:54pm)

Tim Blair – Friday, February 06, 2015 (12:36pm)

Tim Blair – Friday, February 06, 2015 (3:01am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (1:50pm)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (11:48am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (10:11am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (9:45am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (8:41am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (7:33am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (7:18am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2015 (7:14am)

Piers Akerman – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (6:04pm)

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (2:11pm)

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (1:58pm)

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (12:59pm)

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (11:57am)

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (11:18am)

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (10:19am)

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (10:13am)

Tim Blair – Thursday, February 06, 2014 (10:08am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (5:47pm)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (4:51pm)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (4:29pm)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (11:19am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (11:13am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (11:06am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (10:04am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (9:40am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (9:11am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (8:56am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (8:44am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (8:29am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (7:46am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (7:41am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (6:52am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (6:32am)

Andrew Bolt February 06 2014 (12:59am)

Today's reading: Exodus 36-38, Matthew 23:1-22 (NIV)

Today's Old Testament reading: Exodus 36-38

Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 23:1-22

A Warning Against Hypocrisy

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