=== from 2015 ===
American foreign policy under Obama has been to build a cold war against China and Russia so as to stabilise regions. North Korea, Ukraine, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan have all seen expressions of the policy. Cold war is effective and doesn't work. It gets innocent people killed and run over by bureaucracy without natural justice remedies. Today Turkey shot down a Russian plane with unprecedented aggression, and then left the pilots and rescue teams at the mercy of killers that the US has backed. Those killers have claimed one body and killed a rescue helicopter pilot. Obama's Thanksgiving response was to pardon Turkey. But what Turkey has done is a crime against humanity. Turkey had an obligation to those pilots, and should have wanted them to face justice. And Obama has embroiled the US in a world war through cold war policy, and should face justice for that crime. And Australia no longer has a PM who stands up in international matters.
For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
Thanksgiving Message.
To my daughter, and to others. Thanksgiving is celebrated in the USA and Canada, but it is more than just my favourite two words. I like to give, but can't really share much that is meaningful at the moment. Except for my love of God. God is real. Some don't see Him and they point to things that are ridiculous and make claims that are absurd. The God Atheists don't believe in does not exist. But God lives and moves in your life and is powerful. You do much. Make it a priority to find out who God is. He blesses you. You can find out about Him without compromising your daily needs. And it will enrich your life. It is my gift to you, and my way of thanking Him. Remember on thanksgiving that you are loved by God, and he has a plan for you that will prosper you. I may not advertise it well. Yet I point to my thirteen books, and many more in planning. And I say to you, should I die tonight, I am proud of what I have achieved with His blessing. And I could not have done it without Him. And He is not done with me yet.
From 2014
Mismanagement.
White Ribbon Day is about ending violence against women, including domestic violence. Men do not beat up women, but the ugly creatures are male. Usually not very bright males who cannot compete with decent people. They probably like getting smashed drunk and take drugs, making them fun at parties for comic value. They might feel they are successful at sleeping with lots of women, but struggle with intimacy where they try to be controlling. Women in relationships with such creatures may feel isolated. The secret to overthrowing the oppression is to be a friend, but some women isolate themselves. A tragic recent example might be the polynesian girl who left her baby in a drain. The baby was discovered after five days, but survived. The woman, now in jail awaiting a court appearance was so isolated, although living with her parents, that apparently none noticed she had given birth or without the child. How alone can one woman be? ABC management will move heaven and earth to save their home grown 1%ers. Their lawless, clueless, overpaid presenters, mostly living in Sydney's North and Eastern suburbs, or CBD. They have very refined opinions they insist others share, but they work very hard to ensure are the same as each others. A 5% efficiency for another group would mean delaying a computer project a few months, or having a smaller, Sydney University themed Christmas Party. But at the ABC it means sacking any of the subnormals who don't live in Sydney or earn enough to be truly valued. Also it means funnelling the savings into expanding their competition with commercial companies while sacrificing their core values of diversity and balance.
Australian parliament in question time and the ALP leader asks Mr Abbott about a broken promise regarding an ABC cut. The Liberal Party made clear prior to the election that substantive funding would remain but there would be efficiency cuts. The 5% cut to the ABC maintains that promise, But ALP are unwilling to understand that. Shorten repeatedly asks the question and calls it a broken promise. His party had been $30 billion off budget and have blocked cuts since. The ALP debt has to be paid for. Shorten's apparent popularity stems from him saying anything at all without being responsible. It was the same policy that saw the ALP have four leaders in three years while stumbling from crisis to crisis in office. But the ABC has a special place in Shorten's heart, and he has promised if he is ever elected to government he would restore funding to the ALP regardless of efficiency. Shorten's party has seen a $600 billion turnaround in Australia's fortunes. No wonder he doesn't understand the answer to his own questions. But the question remains, why doesn't the ABC understand those answers? Assuming they aren't compromised in supporting a mate, they must be incompetent.
Meanwhile in the US Obama has a plan to ensure he is irrelevant moving forward, by antagonising the new congress and attempting what he would never dare to when he had responsibilities. His incompetence is making it very difficult for the doormat, Hilary. Hilary might be very popular as an alternative to other Democrats, but unpopular when compared to any Republican. Hilary's problem, apart from being a doormat to any alpha male, is that Obama has isolated her. Someone needs to be her friend and help her leave politics. Meanwhile Obama has fired Chuck Hagel after championing him two years ago. Whatever has happened, it isn't Hagel's fault, because it wasn't his idea. He doesn't have them. He is a victim of mismanagement. A mismanagement that has raised the deficit to almost $18 trillion US. Obama had declared Bush was an 'Economic Vandal' when the debt was $8 trillion during a war.
From 2013
On the 50th anniversary of the death of JFK, Obama has celebrated by threatening the world. The deal with Iran to allow them to develop plutonium, which only has a purpose as a weapon, is a threat to world peace as big as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Iran funds terrorism. Already, Iranian missiles rain on Israel, the safest state in the world for a Muslim. Should Iran develop a nuclear warhead they will use it for terror. The intended bombing will not be like those when Democrats nuked civilians in Japan. Japan was at war at the time with the world. This bomb will be intended for people who provide aid to the needy and develop their land and educate all peoples. But the Iran deal does not merely let Iran develop the bomb, it will pay them money to do it. Iranian people currently oppressed by their terrorist government will not benefit. Why would Obama make such a bad deal? Maybe a hint can be found in what those people held slave in London for 30 years came together for. They were Marxists. The legacy of socialism is slavery. Cheers on the anniversary of JFK's untimely death. Also CS Lewis and the birth of Dr Who. I would trade all of JFK's fine words for him to have never been elected. And count it gain. As with Obama.
At last, at a climate conference, Australia has sent adults who won't let down little Gracie, but responsibly counsel against spending money badly. Salient questions should be put to Gore. It is like adults white washing graffiti. ABC worry about the gap between rich and poor. It would be less if their socialist journalists were paid less. Turnbull is defending them, for now. Indonesia does a dummy spit, but what can be said for the polls in Australia? ALP are a house divided. ALP have compromised national security. ALP have no constructive policy. Yet the polls show they are popular? ALP would have people be slaves like those in London.
At last, at a climate conference, Australia has sent adults who won't let down little Gracie, but responsibly counsel against spending money badly. Salient questions should be put to Gore. It is like adults white washing graffiti. ABC worry about the gap between rich and poor. It would be less if their socialist journalists were paid less. Turnbull is defending them, for now. Indonesia does a dummy spit, but what can be said for the polls in Australia? ALP are a house divided. ALP have compromised national security. ALP have no constructive policy. Yet the polls show they are popular? ALP would have people be slaves like those in London.
Historical perspective on this day
In 571 BC, Servius Tullius, king of Rome, celebrated a triumph for his victory over the Etruscans. In 1034, Máel Coluim mac Cináeda, King of Scots, died. Donnchad, the son of his daughter Bethóc and Crínán of Dunkeld, inherited the throne. In 1120, the White Shipsank in the English Channel, drowning William Adelin, son and heir of Henry I of England. In 1177, Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and Raynald of Châtillon defeated Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard. In 1343, a tsunami, caused by an earthquake in the Tyrrhenian Sea, devastated Naples (Italy) and the Maritime Republic of Amalfi, among other places. In 1487, Elizabeth of York was crowned Queen of England. In 1491, the siege of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, began. In 1667, a deadly earthquake rocked Shemakha in the Caucasus, killing 80,000 people. In 1755, King Ferdinand VI of Spain granted royal protection to the Beaterio de la Compañia de Jesus, now known as the Congregation of the Religious of the Virgin Mary. In 1758, French and Indian War: British forces captured Fort Duquesne from French control. Later, Fort Pitt would be built nearby and grow into modern Pittsburgh. In 1759, an earthquake hit the Mediterranean destroying Beirut and Damascusand killing 30,000-40,000. In 1783, American Revolutionary War: The last British troops left New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris. In 1795, Partitions of Poland: Stanisław August Poniatowski, the last king of independent Poland, was forced to abdicate and was exiled to Russia.
In 1826, the Greek frigate Hellas arrived in Nafplion to become the first flagship of the Hellenic Navy. In 1833, a massive undersea earthquake, estimated magnitude between 8.7-9.2, rocked Sumatra, producing a massive tsunami all along the Indonesian coast. In 1839, a cyclone slammed India with high winds and a 40-foot storm surge, destroying the port city of Coringa (which has never been completely rebuilt). The storm wave sweeps inland, taking with it 20,000 ships and thousands of people. An estimated 300,000 deaths resulted from the disaster. In 1863, American Civil War: Battle of Missionary Ridge: At Missionary Ridge in Tennessee, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant broke the Siege of Chattanoogaby routing Confederate troops under General Braxton Bragg. In 1864, American Civil War: A group of Confederate operatives calling themselves the Confederate Army of Manhattanstarted fires in more than 20 locations in an unsuccessful attempt to burn down New York City. In 1874, the United States Greenback Party was established as a political partyconsisting primarily of farmers affected by the Panic of 1873. In 1876, American Indian Wars: In retaliation for the American defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, United States Armytroops sacked Chief Dull Knife's sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River.
In 1905, Prince Carl of Denmark arrived in Norway to become King Haakon VII of Norway. In 1915, Albert Einstein presented the field equations of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences. In 1917, World War I: German forces defeat Portuguese army of about 1200 at Negomano on the border of modern-day Mozambique and Tanzania. In 1918, Vojvodina, formerly Austro-Hungarian crown land, proclaimed its secession from Austria–Hungary to join the Kingdom of Serbia. In 1926, the deadliest November tornadooutbreak in U.S. history struck on Thanksgiving Day. Twenty-seven twisters of great strength were reported in the Midwest, including the strongest November tornado, an estimated F4, that devastates Heber Springs, Arkansas. There were 51 deaths in Arkansas alone, 76 deaths and over 400 injuries in all. In 1936, in Berlin, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, agreeing to consult on measures "to safeguard their common interests" in the case of an unprovoked attack by the Soviet Union against either nation. The pact is renewed on the same day five years later with additional signatories.
In 1940, World War II: First flight of the de Havilland Mosquito and Martin B-26 Marauder. In 1941, HMS Barham was sunk by a German torpedo during World War II. In 1943, World War II: Statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina was re-established at the State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1947, Red Scare: The "Hollywood Ten" were blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios. Also, New Zealand ratified the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom. In 1950, the Great Appalachian Storm of November 1950, known at the time as the "Storm of the Century", strikes New England with hurricane force winds resulting in massive forest blow-downs and storm surge damage along the Northeast coast including New York City. This storm also brings blizzard conditions to the Appalachian Mountains and Ohio Valley, becoming one of the worst storms of all time. Three hundred fifty-three people die in the event. In 1952, Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London. It would become the longest continuously-running play in history. Also, Korean War: After 42 days of fighting, the Battle of Triangle Hill ended as American and South Korean units abandoned their attempt to capture the "Iron Triangle". In 1958, French Sudan gained autonomy as a self-governing member of the French Community. In 1960, the Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic were assassinated.
In 1970, in Japan, author Yukio Mishima and one compatriot commit ritualistic seppuku after an unsuccessful coup attempt. In 1973, George Papadopoulos, head of the military Regime of the Colonels in Greece, was ousted in a hardliners' coup led by Brigadier General Dimitrios Ioannidis. In 1975, Suriname gained independence from the Netherlands. In 1977, former Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., was found guilty by the Philippine Military Commission No. 2 and was sentenced to death by firing squad. In 1981, Pope John Paul II appointed Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 1984, thirty-six top musicians gathered in a Notting Hill studio and recorded Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. In 1986, Iran–Contra affair: U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese announced that profits from covert weapons sales to Iran were illegally diverted to the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua. In 1986, the King Fahd Causeway was officially opened in the Persian Gulf.
In 1987, Typhoon Nina pummelled the Philippines with category 5 winds of 165 mph and a surge that destroyed entire villages. At least 1,036 deaths were attributed to the storm. In 1992, the Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia voted to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with effect from January 1, 1993. In 1996, an ice storm struck the central U.S., killing 26 people. A powerful windstorm affected Florida and winds gust over 90 mph, toppling trees and flipping trailers. In 1999, the United Nations established the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to commemorate the murder of three Mirabal sisters for resistance against the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. In 2000, the 2000 Baku earthquake, with a Richter magnitude of 7.0, left 26 people dead in Baku, Azerbaijan, and became the strongest earthquake in the region in 158 years. In 2008, Cyclone Nisha struck northern Sri Lanka, killing 15 people and displacing 90,000 others while dealing the region the highest rainfall in nine decades. In 2009, Jeddah floods: Freak rains swamped the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during an ongoing Hajj pilgrimage. Three thousand cars were swept away and 122 people perished in the torrents, with 350 others missing.
In 1826, the Greek frigate Hellas arrived in Nafplion to become the first flagship of the Hellenic Navy. In 1833, a massive undersea earthquake, estimated magnitude between 8.7-9.2, rocked Sumatra, producing a massive tsunami all along the Indonesian coast. In 1839, a cyclone slammed India with high winds and a 40-foot storm surge, destroying the port city of Coringa (which has never been completely rebuilt). The storm wave sweeps inland, taking with it 20,000 ships and thousands of people. An estimated 300,000 deaths resulted from the disaster. In 1863, American Civil War: Battle of Missionary Ridge: At Missionary Ridge in Tennessee, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant broke the Siege of Chattanoogaby routing Confederate troops under General Braxton Bragg. In 1864, American Civil War: A group of Confederate operatives calling themselves the Confederate Army of Manhattanstarted fires in more than 20 locations in an unsuccessful attempt to burn down New York City. In 1874, the United States Greenback Party was established as a political partyconsisting primarily of farmers affected by the Panic of 1873. In 1876, American Indian Wars: In retaliation for the American defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, United States Armytroops sacked Chief Dull Knife's sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River.
In 1905, Prince Carl of Denmark arrived in Norway to become King Haakon VII of Norway. In 1915, Albert Einstein presented the field equations of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences. In 1917, World War I: German forces defeat Portuguese army of about 1200 at Negomano on the border of modern-day Mozambique and Tanzania. In 1918, Vojvodina, formerly Austro-Hungarian crown land, proclaimed its secession from Austria–Hungary to join the Kingdom of Serbia. In 1926, the deadliest November tornadooutbreak in U.S. history struck on Thanksgiving Day. Twenty-seven twisters of great strength were reported in the Midwest, including the strongest November tornado, an estimated F4, that devastates Heber Springs, Arkansas. There were 51 deaths in Arkansas alone, 76 deaths and over 400 injuries in all. In 1936, in Berlin, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, agreeing to consult on measures "to safeguard their common interests" in the case of an unprovoked attack by the Soviet Union against either nation. The pact is renewed on the same day five years later with additional signatories.
In 1940, World War II: First flight of the de Havilland Mosquito and Martin B-26 Marauder. In 1941, HMS Barham was sunk by a German torpedo during World War II. In 1943, World War II: Statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina was re-established at the State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1947, Red Scare: The "Hollywood Ten" were blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios. Also, New Zealand ratified the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom. In 1950, the Great Appalachian Storm of November 1950, known at the time as the "Storm of the Century", strikes New England with hurricane force winds resulting in massive forest blow-downs and storm surge damage along the Northeast coast including New York City. This storm also brings blizzard conditions to the Appalachian Mountains and Ohio Valley, becoming one of the worst storms of all time. Three hundred fifty-three people die in the event. In 1952, Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London. It would become the longest continuously-running play in history. Also, Korean War: After 42 days of fighting, the Battle of Triangle Hill ended as American and South Korean units abandoned their attempt to capture the "Iron Triangle". In 1958, French Sudan gained autonomy as a self-governing member of the French Community. In 1960, the Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic were assassinated.
In 1970, in Japan, author Yukio Mishima and one compatriot commit ritualistic seppuku after an unsuccessful coup attempt. In 1973, George Papadopoulos, head of the military Regime of the Colonels in Greece, was ousted in a hardliners' coup led by Brigadier General Dimitrios Ioannidis. In 1975, Suriname gained independence from the Netherlands. In 1977, former Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., was found guilty by the Philippine Military Commission No. 2 and was sentenced to death by firing squad. In 1981, Pope John Paul II appointed Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 1984, thirty-six top musicians gathered in a Notting Hill studio and recorded Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. In 1986, Iran–Contra affair: U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese announced that profits from covert weapons sales to Iran were illegally diverted to the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua. In 1986, the King Fahd Causeway was officially opened in the Persian Gulf.
In 1987, Typhoon Nina pummelled the Philippines with category 5 winds of 165 mph and a surge that destroyed entire villages. At least 1,036 deaths were attributed to the storm. In 1992, the Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia voted to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with effect from January 1, 1993. In 1996, an ice storm struck the central U.S., killing 26 people. A powerful windstorm affected Florida and winds gust over 90 mph, toppling trees and flipping trailers. In 1999, the United Nations established the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to commemorate the murder of three Mirabal sisters for resistance against the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. In 2000, the 2000 Baku earthquake, with a Richter magnitude of 7.0, left 26 people dead in Baku, Azerbaijan, and became the strongest earthquake in the region in 158 years. In 2008, Cyclone Nisha struck northern Sri Lanka, killing 15 people and displacing 90,000 others while dealing the region the highest rainfall in nine decades. In 2009, Jeddah floods: Freak rains swamped the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during an ongoing Hajj pilgrimage. Three thousand cars were swept away and 122 people perished in the torrents, with 350 others missing.
=== Publishing News ===
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.
===
I am publishing a book called Bread of Life: January.
Bread of Life is a daily bible quote with a layman's understanding of the meaning. I give one quote for each day, and also a series of personal stories illustrating key concepts eg Who is God? What is a miracle? Why is there tragedy?
January is the first of the anticipated year-long work of thirteen books. One for each month and the whole year. It costs to publish. It (Kindle version) should retail at about $2US online, but the paperback version would cost more, according to production cost.If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofund.me/27tkwuc
Bread of Life is a daily bible quote with a layman's understanding of the meaning. I give one quote for each day, and also a series of personal stories illustrating key concepts eg Who is God? What is a miracle? Why is there tragedy?
January is the first of the anticipated year-long work of thirteen books. One for each month and the whole year. It costs to publish. It (Kindle version) should retail at about $2US online, but the paperback version would cost more, according to production cost.If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofund.me/27tkwuc
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August, September, October, 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 a free kindle version.
List of available items at Create Space
The Amazon Author Page for David Ball
UK .. http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B01683ZOWGFrench .. http://www.amazon.fr/-/e/B01683ZOWG
Japan .. http://www.amazon.co.jp/-/e/B01683ZOWG
German .. http://www.amazon.de/-/e/B01683ZOWG
Happy birthday and many happy returns Peter Huynh. Born on the same day across the years, as
Deaths
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Tim Blair
Andrew Bolt
Prince Charles falls for crackpot theory
Miranda Devine – Wednesday, November 25, 2015 (12:38am)
OF all the crackpot theories that periodically grip humanity, the claim that Islamic State terrorism is a product of climate change takes the cake.
Continue reading 'Prince Charles falls for crackpot theory'Who are the real bigots?
Miranda Devine – Wednesday, November 25, 2015 (12:37am)
Why does Jacqui Lambie get a free pass when she makes bigoted anti-Muslim statements?
Continue reading 'Who are the real bigots?'Russia threatens Turkey with “serious consequences”
Andrew Bolt November 25 2015 (8:12am)
Tensions are high:
It gets worse:
There are conflicting reports about whether the Russian pilots are dead or alive.
Dead, says the local Turkmen commander:
===RUSSIA has told Turkey to prepare for “serious consequences” for shooting down its jet. But Barack Obama says Turkey was within its rights to fire.UPDATE
Speaking at a meeting with Jordanian King Abdullah II in Sochi, a tense-looking Mr Putin branded the shooting down of the aircraft a “stab in the back” by “accomplices of terrorists…
The fighter jet was shot down Tuesday on the Syrian border by two Turkish F-16s warplanes.... Ankara claimed it had violated Turkish airspace 10 times within a five-minute period…
Syrian opposition sources said one pilot was dead and another missing. Mr Putin has said that a Russian solider was killed while searching for the missing pilots....
“Our plane was shot down over the territory of Syria by an air-to-air missile from a Turkish F-16 jet. It fell in Syrian territory four kilometres from the border with Turkey,” Mr Putin said.
“Our pilots and our plane did not in any way threaten Turkey."…
Mr Obama said Turkey “has a right to defend its territory and its airspace.”
He said Russia is operating very close to the Turkish border as it goes after moderate opposition groups that are supported by Turkey and a wide range of countries.
The president says that if Russia would instead concentrate its airstrikes on the Islamic State group, then mistakes would be “less likely to occur."…Turkey and Russia have long been at loggerheads over the Syrian conflict, with Ankara seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad while Moscow does everything to keep him in power.
A radar track released by the Turkish military purports to show the downed Russian Su-24 fighter passing over Turkish territory before it was shot down.UPDATE
The track contradicts an earlier statement from the Russian Defence ministry, saying: “During all flight time, the plane was flying only within the borders of Syrian territory. Objective monitoring data shows it.” However, even if the radar image is genuine, it shows a flight track that would put the plane over Turkish territory for only a few seconds.
It gets worse:
A Russian rescue helicopter has been shot down by Syrian rebels while searching for pilots missing after Turkey downed a Russian jet.UPDATE
The helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in a government-held area in Syria’s Latakia province. A Syrian insurgent group, which uses U.S. Tow missiles, said its fighters hit the helicopter with an anti-tank missile.
There are conflicting reports about whether the Russian pilots are dead or alive.
Dead, says the local Turkmen commander:
Turnbull uses petrol when he needs oil
Andrew Bolt November 25 2015 (7:51am)
The old Malcolm Turnbull is back. His petulant overreaction to policy suggestions from Tony Abbott threatens to split a party he must unite:
Must conservative MPs now not speak to each other under the Turnbull regime?
===Yesterday Turnbull was seen to be giving his predecessor a “slap down” in his national security address to parliament suggesting there was no room for “gestures or machismo” and ridiculed any idea of a “unilateral” Australian invasion of Syria or a “Western-led invasion”....A measure of the Turnbull camp’s paranoia is this story yesterday in The Age:
Retorts from Julie Bishop, Defence Minister Marise Payne and now Turnbull rejecting “unilateral” action were barbed but misleading in that Abbott had not suggested unilateral action or a mass invasion.
Even as Turnbull said the response to the Paris terror attacks “must be as clear eyed and strategic”, it was “not a time for gestures or machismo” and there was no support “for a large US-led Western army to attempt to conquer ISIL” in Iraq or Syria, the outrage grew that he was putting up a “straw man” argument against Abbott. While supporters of Turnbull and the Foreign Minister see the public calls for tough action on Syria from Abbott as “sniping”, conservatives argue it is not the leaking and white-anting that undermined Abbott but public policy debate…
Liberal MPs are dangerously starting to form sides again with damaging leaks and claims about Abbott wanting to “come back” and conspiring at lunches countered with suggestions that Turnbull’s supporters are overreacting and want to see Abbott “not just politically dead but buried and cremated” to paraphrase Abbott’s own words. Apart from feeding the suspicion and sense of vendetta Turnbull’s put-down to Abbott diverted from his main security message, that fighting terror was the priority, that Islamic State had to be defeated in Syria and that Australia, with no imminent plans for sending troops, would consider allies’ requests.
Liberal MPs are increasingly frustrated by a “resistance movement” that has sprung up around former prime minister Tony Abbott.Dutton has held these lunches for 14 years. How bizarre that Turnbull’s camp now sees them as sinister. It’s not like they are secret meetings at Peter Hendy’s house to plot the toppling of the Prime Minister.
They’re also questioning why a like-minded group of conservative MPs have been attending lunches on Tuesdays in parliamentary sitting weeks that are organised by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton… Mr Abbott, Mr Dutton, Mr Nikolic and Mr Sukkar all attended the latest lunch on Tuesday, with the former prime minister bringing cake for his colleagues.
Must conservative MPs now not speak to each other under the Turnbull regime?
Struggling Palmer in “critical” grab for cash
Andrew Bolt November 25 2015 (7:45am)
Clive Palmer seems to be in a lot of trouble. First his party disintegrates, and now his finances seem shaky, too:
===Mr Palmer yesterday launched a “critical” grab for cash from his estranged Chinese business partner Citic, with his senior legal counsel Simon Couper QC asking the WA Supreme Court to hold a trial next week…
In recent weeks, Mr Palmer has put his Cessna Citation private jet up for sale and has raided the coffers of resources company Gladstone Pacific and the body corporate at his Coolum resort. Mineralogy also recently held talks with the Queensland government over the prospect of emergency funding assistance to Mr Palmer’s Queensland Nickel refinery. Mr Couper, who has previously told the court that the failure of China’s Citic to pay disputed royalties to Mr Palmer from Citic’s Sino Iron project in WA was causing Mineralogy cash flow “problems”, said it was “critical” for Mineralogy that the matter was heard as quickly as possible given a looming “drop-dead date”.
The science says Prince Charles is a fool to blame global warming for the Islamic State
Andrew Bolt November 25 2015 (7:36am)
Prince Charles blames the rise of the Islamic State not on Islam but man-made global warming:
2001:
The International Food Policy Research Institute warns that overpopulation and overstocking in the arid Middle East will make droughts worse:
Australian researchers predict global warming will actually bring more rain to key parts of the Middle East:
Syria gets a drought - like it so often does - albeit one more prolonged than most:
The drought ends, and Israel proves that rich and free societies can easily survive what poor tyrannies next door cannot:
We’re reminded that far worse has happened in Syria before, without man-made emissions being blamed:
In fact, the IPCC concedes there is little evidence that global warming (which has paused for 18 years) has brought more droughts around the world:
The harvest in Syria this year is again good, leading the United Nations World Food Programme to plead for a ceasefire to let farmers bring it in and transport the food to where it’s needed.
2015:
More evidence that global warming is not causing food shortages but, if anything, record harvests. The US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service/ has just reported that the world’s wheat production has just set “a new record” and world corn production “is up”. Rice production is only very slightly below the record harvests of 2013/2014. Corn production this year in Turkey, Syria’s northern neighbour, sets a record.
Similar picture from the International Grains Council of increasing food production in this era of “global warming”:
So let’s sum up. There’s been no statistically significant warming for 18 years. No one is sure whether more warming will bring more rain or less to the Middle East. There is little evidence that warming of world over the last century has brought more droughts, although Syria had a bad drought that ended four years ago, before the rise of the Islamic State. Democratic Israel survived the drought without difficulty. Syria is much more vulnerable to drought with so many more poor farmers and livestock. Syria has had worse droughts before. World food crops are actually increasing.
Prince Charles is a reckless scaremonger and denier of the science.
===The Syrian crisis that is spreading terror across the world was prompted by climate change, the Prince of Wales has claimed…Let’s fact-check this claim.
‘Some of us were saying twenty-something years ago that if we didn’t tackle these issues you would see ever greater conflict over scarce resources and ever greater difficulties over drought, and the accumulating effect of climate change, which means that people have to move. ‘There’s very good evidence indeed that one of the major reasons for this horror in Syria, funnily enough, was a drought that lasted for about five or six years, which meant that huge numbers of people in the end had to leave the land.’
2001:
The International Food Policy Research Institute warns that overpopulation and overstocking in the arid Middle East will make droughts worse:
Drought is a recurrent and often devastating threat to the welfare of countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) where three - quarters of the arable land has less than 400 mm of annual rainfall, and the natural grazings, which support a majority of the 290 million ruminant livestock, have less than 200 mm. Its impact has been exacerbated in the last half century by the human population increasing yearly at over 3%, while livestock numbers have risen by 50% over the quinquennium.2008:
Australian researchers predict global warming will actually bring more rain to key parts of the Middle East:
The prospect of climate change sparking food shortages and water wars in the Middle East is less likely than previously thought, with new UNSW research suggesting that rainfall will be significantly higher in key parts of the region.2010:
Syria gets a drought - like it so often does - albeit one more prolonged than most:
2011:
The drought ends, and Israel proves that rich and free societies can easily survive what poor tyrannies next door cannot:
“Israel is no longer drying up and the severe drought ended two years ago,” Water Commissioner Alexander Kushnir told “Globes TV” today [October 2, 2013]. “We’re emerging from the drought, and the water sector has stabilized at a supply rate for the next 10-15 years.”2013:
We’re reminded that far worse has happened in Syria before, without man-made emissions being blamed:
The Akkadian empire flourished in the third millennium BC. Sometime around 2,200 BC drought hit, the lands dried and people migrated from urban centres. The government then collapsed, and the mighty empire began to falter in a series of calamities collectively referred to as the third-millennium Mesopotamian urban crisis.2013:
In fact, the IPCC concedes there is little evidence that global warming (which has paused for 18 years) has brought more droughts around the world:
In summary, the current assessment concludes that there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century.... Based on updated studies, AR4 conclusions regarding global increasing trends in drought since the 1970s were probably overstated.2015:
The harvest in Syria this year is again good, leading the United Nations World Food Programme to plead for a ceasefire to let farmers bring it in and transport the food to where it’s needed.
2015:
More evidence that global warming is not causing food shortages but, if anything, record harvests. The US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service/ has just reported that the world’s wheat production has just set “a new record” and world corn production “is up”. Rice production is only very slightly below the record harvests of 2013/2014. Corn production this year in Turkey, Syria’s northern neighbour, sets a record.
Similar picture from the International Grains Council of increasing food production in this era of “global warming”:
Conclusion:
So let’s sum up. There’s been no statistically significant warming for 18 years. No one is sure whether more warming will bring more rain or less to the Middle East. There is little evidence that warming of world over the last century has brought more droughts, although Syria had a bad drought that ended four years ago, before the rise of the Islamic State. Democratic Israel survived the drought without difficulty. Syria is much more vulnerable to drought with so many more poor farmers and livestock. Syria has had worse droughts before. World food crops are actually increasing.
Prince Charles is a reckless scaremonger and denier of the science.
France declares a war without soldiers
Andrew Bolt November 25 2015 (6:43am)
French President Francois Hollande on November 16, three days after the Islamic State massacred 229 people in Paris:
One reason it does not dare send a single soldier is that it has admitted 6 million Muslims, some of whom might react badly.
===France is at war… We are in a war against jihadist terrorism, which threatens the entire world.French President Francois Hollande yesterday:
France will not intervene militarily on the ground.How many wars has France declared without daring to send a single soldier to fight?
One reason it does not dare send a single soldier is that it has admitted 6 million Muslims, some of whom might react badly.
Malcolm Turnbull calls it “weak”. The Islamic State then strikes again
Andrew Bolt November 25 2015 (6:19am)
Malcolm Turnbull yesterday, channelling Waleed Aly:
If the Islamic State is “weak”, which terrorist group in history has been “strong”? If the Islamic State is armed mainly with mobile phones, how did it kill so many people?
Is Turnbull serious enough about this threat?
UPDATE
Now this:
===By most measures, however, ISIL is in a fundamentally weak position. We must not be fooled by its hype. Its ideology is archaic, but its use of the Internet is very modern. ISIL has many more smartphones than guns, more twitter accounts than fighters. It does not command broad-based legitimacy even in those areas under its direct control. It is encircled by hostile forces. It is under military pressure.As Turnbull spoke:
Islamic State claimed a Tuesday attack that Egypt’s state media said killed four people at a hotel in the Sinai Peninsula, including a judge and a prosecutor supervising parliamentary elections, as the government continues to battle a growing insurgency there…This “fundamentally weak” Islamic Sate has in the past two months:
The Egyptian military said three militants had been involved in the siege. A suicide bomber attempted to drive a vehicle into the Swiss Inn hotel in the town of Al Arish… He was killed when police shot at him, detonating the explosive-laden vehicle, the military’s statement said. Another assailant, wearing an explosive vest, tried to blow himself up inside the hotel’s kitchen, but was killed by security forces. A third militant who gained access to the hotel’s rooms fired randomly at guests, killing a judge, the statement said. Two others killed were policemen.
- Killed 130 people in Paris.The Islamic State also controls territory in Syria and Iraq containing 8 million people.
- Killed 32 people in Turkey in a suicide bombing.
- Killed 43 people in a suicide bombing in Beirut.
- Killed 224 people by blowing up a Russian jet in Egypt.
- Had Brussels in lockdown for four days, causing huge financial losses.
If the Islamic State is “weak”, which terrorist group in history has been “strong”? If the Islamic State is armed mainly with mobile phones, how did it kill so many people?
Is Turnbull serious enough about this threat?
UPDATE
Now this:
An explosion has hit a bus carrying presidential guards in Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, killing at least 12 people, officials said.
President Beji Caid Essebsi has declared a 30-day state of emergency and the capital is under curfew.
No group has yet said it was behind the attack.
Tunisia has been targeted by the Islamic State group, including an attack by a gunman on the beach resort of Sousse in June, killing 38 people. The North African state is believed to be the biggest exporter of jihadis, with the authorities saying at least 3,000 of its nationals are fighting in Iraq and Syria.
Turkey shoots down Russian jet
Andrew Bolt November 24 2015 (8:05pm)
Russia says the SU-24 fighter jet was in Syrian territory, not Turkish, so this could get very ugly:
===Turkey has shot down a Russian military jet which it says violated its airspace near the Syrian border…
Various reports described the plane as coming down in hostile Syrian territory, and the fate of the two pilots on board was unknown.
CNN Turk published images purporting to show two pilots parachuting safely to the ground, and reported that two helicopters had been sent from Turkey to retrieve them… Last week, Ankara summoned the Russian ambassador to protest the bombing of Turkmen villages on the Syrian border. Turkey has traditionally protected the area, whose people are of mixed Syrian and Turkish descent.
ONE-PERCENTERS SAVED
Tim Blair – Tuesday, November 25, 2014 (2:27am)
ABC managing director Mark Scott’s statement to staff:
My thoughts go out firstly to those who are losing their jobs. As other companies in the media sectorhave found, structural change can have painful personal consequences. We anticipate that more than 400 people – close to ten per cent of our ongoing workforce – face redundancy as we adjust our activities. We regard the changes as vital to securing the long term health of the organisation but I acknowledge that is no comfort to those who may lose their positions.
Three points:
• The ABC is not a “company in the media sector”. A wholly government-funded ideological and financial handbrake on the nation, yes, but a company, no.
• Cuts of just five per cent over five years do not require Scott’s level of “structural change”, nor do they justify Community and Public Sector Union boss Michael Tull claiming the government has “forced” the ABC “to slash one in 10 jobs from its workforce.” Which leads to the third point:
• How do five per cent budget cuts become ten per cent job cuts? Maybe because the ABC is sacrificing regional funding in order to safeguard the one per cent: Sydney’s wealthiest ABC tax hoovers. Just a theory. In other ABC developments, Phillip Adams wonders why no major ABC television types have appeared at recent rallies:
… the absence of ABC TV’s stars remains conspicuous and curious …
Possibly they’ve been crowded out by the ABC’s real stars: Labor leaders, Greens senators and union hacks. In Canberra, a fellow ABC fan laments his tragic “loose”:
Too bad he didn’t learn anything about spelling or apostrophes. “Looses” instead of “loses” is a shockingly common error. Here is another, courtesy of angry emailer Phil W.:
Too bad he didn’t learn anything about spelling or apostrophes. “Looses” instead of “loses” is a shockingly common error. Here is another, courtesy of angry emailer Phil W.:
All bets are on Abbott being a one term leader and no amount of bias reporting from you and your mates will help him at the next election.
That would be biased reporting, Phil. Discover the difference here.
THEY’VE EARNED IT
Tim Blair – Tuesday, November 25, 2014 (2:22am)
Chatting at the SCG on Sunday with a senior cricket identity who mentioned that ground organisers face a dilemma over this summer’s England-Afghanistan World Cup match. Who should get the home team dressing rooms? England has apparently never been granted that honour. Might this be the first time?
I argued in favour of Afghanistan. Of the two represented nations, it has fewer Islamic fundamentalists.
PEOPLE WHO DON’T LIKE PEOPLE
Tim Blair – Tuesday, November 25, 2014 (2:17am)
Many hobbies involve collecting things, which is fine, except that most of these collections draw from finite sources – old coins, stamps, the Elgin Marbles and so on.
It’s much more fun when supplies are both old and newly-occurring. This is why I collect stupid things said and done by left-wing types. Particularly prized are moments when leftists reveal they really don’t have all that much in common with the common folk they claim to support.
Continue reading 'PEOPLE WHO DON’T LIKE PEOPLE'NO SLOW DAYS AT THE ABC
Tim Blair – Tuesday, November 25, 2014 (1:42am)
Fifteen years ago I was driving to the Telegraph‘s office to run the news desk solo for the first time. I not only had no prospective front-page story, but nothing for pages two through to 15. It might have been Sydney’s slowest-ever news day, and I was going to get fired for it.
Then the radio announced that John F. Kennedy Jr’s small aircraft had vanished on a flight to Martha’s Vineyard. Tragic news, obviously, but also massive news.
Of course, one organisation’s slow news day can be another’s bonanza. It all depends on priorities.
Continue reading 'NO SLOW DAYS AT THE ABC'REAL WOMEN DRIVE V8 UTES
Tim Blair – Tuesday, November 25, 2014 (1:03am)
A powerful feminist statement spotted in my old home town:
Also from Werribee – but now in Surry Hills – quality glassware for quality drinks:
Also from Werribee – but now in Surry Hills – quality glassware for quality drinks:
MARION BARRY
Tim Blair – Tuesday, November 25, 2014 (12:58am)
Remembering Marion Barry, the original and still the best crack-smoking North American city mayor, now dead at 78.
CAN’T STOP A 44
Tim Blair – Tuesday, November 25, 2014 (12:51am)
Sweet. After winning the final Grand Prix of the year, 2014 F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton was told by his team to select ‘driver default 44’ on his in-car computer. This image then appeared on Hamilton’s steering wheel display.
Government considers move against Gillian Triggs
Andrew Bolt November 25 2014 (3:41pm)
Gillian Triggs cannot credibly lead any inquiry into this Government, in my opinion:
UPDATE
Watch Gillian Triggs giving evidence to the committee on November 20. It is a complete disaster.
===THE Abbott government has “great concerns” about the behaviour of Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs and will “take the matter forward”, according to Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister Josh Frydenberg.Add to that this further unreliability over the facts and the evidence which Triggs is meant to be impartially considering:
And Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says the HRC’s inquiry into children in detention “risks being a complete waste of taxpayers’ money” in the wake of controversy over how it was established.
Appearing before the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee last week, Professor Triggs revealed she had decided to hold the inquiry early last year, but delayed it because of what she claimed was the possibility of an early election.
After initially denying she discussed it with the then Labor government, she admitted under questioning that she had raised it separately with two Labor immigration ministers…
Referring to “contradictions in the evidence”, Mr Frydenberg ... said: “It is going to be up to (Attorney-General) George Brandis to take this matter forward, but there are many questions that need to be answered.”
[In July], for instance, she claimed “we’ve had reports that have been confirmed during the day that 10 women have attempted suicide” on Christmas Island.(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
False. There has been only one case of self-harm by a woman that could with any credibility be described as “attempted suicide"…
Triggs also claimed last month she’d visited the detained children on Christmas Island and “almost all of them, including the adults, were coughing, were sick, were depressed, unable to communicate (and) weak”, which made her want to ask: “What’s going on? Why is this child not being treated?”
False again. Sick children are indeed being treated and the Government hotly disputes Triggs’ claim that almost every detained child on Christmas Island is sick…
Triggs insisted “the people on Christmas Island are being detained in a prison effectively” because on her three visits she had noticed “you cannot get into any of the sections without going through armed guards”.
That infuriated the Immigration Department secretary Martin Bowles, who protested at Triggs’ “emotive statements"…
“We do not have armed guards, President. I would like you to acknowledge that."… But if the head of an inquiry can see armed guards where there are none, and a prison where there are only pool fences, what else is she imagining about what she’s supposed to impartially judge?
UPDATE
Watch Gillian Triggs giving evidence to the committee on November 20. It is a complete disaster.
Phil Hughes serious after hit by bouncer
Andrew Bolt November 25 2014 (3:00pm)
Pray for the best:
CRICKETER Phil Hughes is gravely ill after being struck on the head in the Sheffield Shield match at the SCG today.Terrible:
Doctors attempted to resuscitate the batsman on the wicket and stopped the medical van on the boundary to continue treatment soon after.
An ambulance arrived 35 minutes after the accident and is treating Hughes, 25, in front of the members stand.
Hughes was 63 not out at the time he was hit in the head from a short ball by Sean Abbott.
He appeared stunned by the blow, standing at the crease before falling to the ground.
After appearing to be struck in the head Hughes stood, looked at his feet and crashed face-first into the pitch.
The new racism: this time the villains are not white. UPDATE: Wilson cleared
Andrew Bolt November 25 2014 (10:56am)
The most dangerous racism now in the US comes a black community that cannot accept a jury verdict that a white man might be innocent:
UPDATE
St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Robert McCulloch says a grand jury has decided “no probable cause exists” on all five indictments against Wilson.
He says Wilson was responding to burglary call, came across Brown walking with friend in the middle of the road. Wilson told Brown to go to sidewalk. Brown didn’t. Wilson then saw Brown carrying cigarettes. He blocked the road with his car. Words were exchanged. Witnesses reported a tussle between the two men, with Wilson still in the car. Wilson fired two shots at Brown as he sat in the car. Brown then ran, and Wilson got out of his car and chased. Shots were fired.
McCulloch says witnesses who claimed their seen Wilson standing over Brown and shooting him in the back were contradicted by the autopsies. Witnesses changed their stories after contradicted, and others admitted they’d actually seen nothing. Some say Brown had his hands in the air, others not. Some say Brown stood still when challenged, others that he charged Wilson full on.
Brown’s blood was found metres past where he later fell. Brown’s blood and DNA were also found on Wilson’s clothing and gun, and inside and outside Wilson’s car. 12 shots in all were fired, two from the car.
Wilson was later found with redness and swelling on his face.
UPDATE
Let’s not ennoble or licence this with talk of marginalisation and justice. Cars have now been torched, windows smashed and shops looted.
===In Ferguson the community is waiting to hear whether the grand jury will indict Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot dead Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in August…There is a sickness here. This is tribal. If Wilson were black would the mob demand he pay, regardless of the evidence showing his innocence?
On everyone’s mind was the prospect of more violence if Darren Wilson was not indicted.
After the shooting in August, demonstrators clashed with heavily armed police on the streets for days.
The protests were often violent. Shops were looted and a petrol station burnt down. Outside, activists swelled the ranks of locals, with some provoking fights… Leaks from the grand jury testimony, including the official autopsy report, indicate there may be no indictment… Missouri State Governor Jay Nixon has already declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard.
UPDATE
St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Robert McCulloch says a grand jury has decided “no probable cause exists” on all five indictments against Wilson.
He says Wilson was responding to burglary call, came across Brown walking with friend in the middle of the road. Wilson told Brown to go to sidewalk. Brown didn’t. Wilson then saw Brown carrying cigarettes. He blocked the road with his car. Words were exchanged. Witnesses reported a tussle between the two men, with Wilson still in the car. Wilson fired two shots at Brown as he sat in the car. Brown then ran, and Wilson got out of his car and chased. Shots were fired.
McCulloch says witnesses who claimed their seen Wilson standing over Brown and shooting him in the back were contradicted by the autopsies. Witnesses changed their stories after contradicted, and others admitted they’d actually seen nothing. Some say Brown had his hands in the air, others not. Some say Brown stood still when challenged, others that he charged Wilson full on.
Brown’s blood was found metres past where he later fell. Brown’s blood and DNA were also found on Wilson’s clothing and gun, and inside and outside Wilson’s car. 12 shots in all were fired, two from the car.
Wilson was later found with redness and swelling on his face.
UPDATE
Let’s not ennoble or licence this with talk of marginalisation and justice. Cars have now been torched, windows smashed and shops looted.
Lambie could help drive down the price of warming alarmism
Andrew Bolt November 25 2014 (10:48am)
More hope for the Abbott Government to wind back the cost of warming alarmism:
===Senator David Leyonhjelm is counting crossbench votes for a new plan to wind back the renewable energy target (RET) after Jacqui Lambie indicated she could vote for changes if the government makes concessions over defence force pay.(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
The government ... has failed to convince Labor and the Palmer United party to back changes – and Labor walked out of talks on the issue earlier this month.
Lambie ... has publicly advocated including existing Tasmanian hydro projects in the RET…
She has said she will vote against all government legislation until the prime minister agrees to increase the recent below-inflation defence force pay offer. But it is possible changes to the RET could be presented as a private senator’s bill rather than as government legislation, which may allow it to bypass Lambie’s voting edict…
Liberal Democratic party senator Leyonhjelm and Family First senator Bob Day support a reduction in the RET and Day told Guardian Australia he strongly supported Lambie’s call for the inclusion of existing hydro in the scheme.
Independent senator John Madigan has supported a reduction in the RET and both he and South Australian senator Nick Xenophon have argued it has allowed for too much investment in wind power at the expense of other kinds of renewables such as geothermal. This could leave Motoring Enthusiast senator Ricky Muir with the deciding vote on the issue. He recently recommitted to voting alongside PUP senators to oppose any changes to the scheme, but he is being heavily lobbied by all sides of the argument. Lambie also indicated she would be open to discussions with the government about its so-far thwarted plan to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
Taxpayers will pay plenty for Daniel Andrews’ debts
Andrew Bolt November 25 2014 (9:59am)
Daniel Andrews leads an old-style Labor party dominated by vested interests, as I warned on Monday, and taxpayers will pay.
Pleasing green voters in the inner city could cost $1.1 billion:
===Pleasing green voters in the inner city could cost $1.1 billion:
VICTORIANS face a $1.1. billion compensation payout to the consortium building East West Link if Labor abandons the project.Then there’s the cost of pleasing the ambulance union:
Government sources have revealed the first details of the top-secret compensation clauses in the confidential East West contract…
The formula includes the money being contributed by the consortium, both debt and equity, at the time the contracts are terminated. It also includes lost profits and returns that would have been earned during the 25-year contract to construct and operate the road link… The compensation payout would come on top of $1.5 billion in federal funds that Victoria has received for the project, which it would have to return to Canberra…
Just last week, Mr Andrews said: “Labor’s advice is the contract is not worth the paper it’s written on.”
He has based this view on legal advice from former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein, QC… But according to Allan Myers, QC, one of Australia’s leading commercial barristers, the East West contracts are almost certainly valid even if the Supreme Court decides in favour of the councils on the planning approval.
Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews also said he would sack the Ambulance Victoria board on Monday if elected.
His funding package does not include the cost of pay increases [for ambulance paramedics], which could reach 32 per cent for some paramedics…
Speaking before a room of paramedics on Monday, Mr Andrews said: “I have no confidence in an Ambulance Victoria board that sits by and hides ambulance response times, sits by and sees ambulance response times get worse and worse.” ...
[Health Minister David] Davis ... claimed the pledge to sack the Ambulance Victoria board was ordered by unions. “This declaration amounts to a union takeover of Ambulance Victoria,” he said.
Mark Scott guts the best of the ABC to play digital games
Andrew Bolt November 25 2014 (8:42am)
Media Watch last night glossed over this pea-and-thimble trick by ABC boss Mark Scott:
The Australian doesn’t miss - either the trick or the flawed strategy behind it:
Even former Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes is puzzled:
===Scott claims that ALL the $250 million Canberra Cut as he called it WILL be found from back-office savingsWhich means Scott is blaming Canberra for some cuts he actually intended to make all along.
But programming will also be cut by $20 million a year to fund the ABC’s investment in digital and mobile.
The Australian doesn’t miss - either the trick or the flawed strategy behind it:
Scott has used the demand for efficiencies at the ABC — required of all government agencies at a time of fiscal consolidation — as cover to expand his digital empire.... [B]ut the ABC was created to be a market-failure service provider, first and foremost, offering the services other outlets can’t or won’t…UPDATE
Start-ups like Mamamia and Buzzfeed, the entry of Guardian Australia and others, and expansion into apps by traditional media, among other innovations, mean there is more media competition than ever. The ABC is not there to compete against and crowd out new and existing entrants in ultra-competitive areas… [Scott] and his management cabal have been pumping ever more scarce resources into online magazines and opinion hub The Drum, while draining funds from those core services where the ABC has no peer.
Consider the groundbreaking and agenda-setting Lateline. It has been denuded of firepower in recent years.... Instead of putting more resources into this program’s news gathering, Scott and co are now relegating it to the second rank of News24. Here is a clear case of market failure. Not long ago, the three commercial television networks screened late-night news programs, starting at 10.30. But the networks, under immense financial pressure, have vacated the field. Only the ABC can fill the void, yet it is retreating from this important space.
The same goes for the eight state and territory-based weekly 7.30 programs, which are being axed. The very opposite should happen.... The ABC’s foray into digital media services has been going on for a decade. But it was only last year that the Gillard government quietly changed the ABC charter to formalise the digital surge by Scott. Digital is now “a core function” of the ABC according to its board. Clearly, the charter needs a rewrite… Just as governments have retreated from running banks and airlines, there is no need to have taxpayers’ funds tied up in those services that the private sector does well, at lower cost…
Even former Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes is puzzled:
Of course, Mark Scott’s radical cuts to ABC output are in the headlines – cuts far more radical, Malcolm Turnbull would have us believe, than the government’s “modest” efficiency requirements justify. Certainly, they are puzzling to this outsider: they seem almost designed to alienate still further the ABC’s enemies in the Coalition, and to undercut its Coalition allies.
State-based TV journalism, regional radio and decentralised production are all expensive – but they are surely the last, rather than the first elements of the ABC’s overall service that should be cut.
The public has chosen. Murdoch wins, Cromwell loses
Andrew Bolt November 25 2014 (7:26am)
Murdoch-hating Leftist James Cromwell on the ABC (of course):
UPDATE
One reason for Murdoch’s success is that he enjoys a debate, and his outlets reflect it. A Cromwell insists Murdoch imposes his opinions when in fact his outlets tend to employ more Leftists than his rivals employ conservatives.
Compare:
Number of conservative columnists employed by The Age:
The point is: why doesn’t the ABC show the same commitment to plurality that Murdoch does, when, unlike Murdoch, it is actually legally obliged to?
The conclusion is: the Left doesn’t actually want debate, and its real beef with Murdoch is that he does.
===ACTOR James Cromwell: I disagree with Mr Murdoch on almost every position that he seems to take ... If you don’t believe in what Rupert Murdoch stands for and what Rupert Murdoch says don’t buy his bloody paper! That’s very simple.The public has spoken. Given the choice, they prefer to buy Murdoch’s papers:
News Corp Australia accounts for 33% of the newspaper titles that have sales audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulation… News Corp Australia titles account for 59% of the sales of all daily newspapers,That is why the Left is so insistent that taxpayers fund the ABC at unprecedented levels. They want taxpayers forced to subsidise opinions that most will not buy if given the choice.
UPDATE
One reason for Murdoch’s success is that he enjoys a debate, and his outlets reflect it. A Cromwell insists Murdoch imposes his opinions when in fact his outlets tend to employ more Leftists than his rivals employ conservatives.
Compare:
Number of conservative columnists employed by The Age:
Zero (unless you count the fortnightly Amanda Vanstone, actually a contributer, not staffer, and a small-l liberal)Number of conservative hosts of mainstream current affairs shows employed by the ABC:
Zero (unless you count the weekly Counterpoint program on the little-heard Radio National hosted by Amanda Vanstone)Number of conservatives among the six people on last night’s Q&A:
Zero (unless you include the ubiquitous token, Amanda Vanstone).Leftist columnists in Murdoch’s Australian newspapers:
Phillip AdamsI could go on. And note, I am even excluding people such as Paul Kelly and Alan Kohler, who on social issues would tend to lean Left but on economics more dry.
Troy Bramston
Tory Shepherd
Susie O’Brien
Laurie Oakes
David Penberthy
Anthony Sharwood
Jack the Insider
Joe Hildebrand
Malcolm Farr
Terry Sweetman
Paul Syvret
Dennis Atkins
Graham Richardson
Claire Harvey
Peter Brent
Errol Simper
Tristan Edis
Peter van Onselen (depending on the wind)
The point is: why doesn’t the ABC show the same commitment to plurality that Murdoch does, when, unlike Murdoch, it is actually legally obliged to?
The conclusion is: the Left doesn’t actually want debate, and its real beef with Murdoch is that he does.
Obama could destroy Hillary
Andrew Bolt November 25 2014 (7:09am)
Barack Obama, now more radical as well as more ineffectual, is destroying the chances of Hillary Clinton. Douglas E. Schoen and Patrick H. Caddell:
===Mrs. Clinton’s putative bid for the Democratic presidential nomination is already running into trouble. The national exit poll from the recently completed midterm elections showed her with less than a majority of voters (43%) saying she would make a good president. When pitted against an unnamed Republican candidate, Mrs. Clinton lost 40% to 34%…
And that was before President Obama launched a defiant post-midterm campaign discarding political compromise and unilaterally doubling down on his unpopular policies…
The latest indication of the president’s politically damaging approach was his move on Thursday to unilaterally grant amnesty to an estimated five million illegal immigrants. A Rasmussen poll released Nov. 18 found that 53% of likely voters opposed the amnesty without congressional approval, while 34% approved....
Another source of trouble for Democrats: The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which is enormously popular—59% of Americans are in favor, 31% against, according to a Pew poll this month. With the project so heavily favored, the president could score an easy win by backing the pipeline, but instead he has aligned himself with the elitist, environmentalist left led by billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer.
Mr. Obama’s willingness to disregard the public’s wishes will hurt Mrs. Clinton in particular. The president’s former secretary of state is already struggling to forge an independent identity without disowning the president…
And if that weren’t enough, foreign policy—which should be a selling point for the former secretary of state—will be a minefield. The president seemingly has no coherent strategy to deal with Islamic State terrorists in Iraq and Syria, no coherent strategy for dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘s bellicosity in Eastern Europe, and no coherent strategy for dealing with the Iranian nuclear program....
All of these foreign-policy dead zones have roots in Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state… With President Obama now courting a constitutional crisis over his unilateral action on immigration reform, the Democratic Party is losing popularity by the day… Barack Obama could end up beating Hillary Clinton yet again.
Floundering Obama dumps his Defense Secretary
Andrew Bolt November 25 2014 (6:51am)
Chuck Hagel struggled even at his confirmation hearings last year, where he displayed all the faults for which he’s now being dismissed:
===CNN reports that even Democrat senators were “very surprised” and “perplexed” by Hagel’s performance and “shocked” at how “ill-prepared” he seemed.Now he’s out, a scapegoat for an equally passive and inadequate president:
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel handed in his resignation on Monday under pressure, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama’s Democratic majority in the Senate and the struggles of his national security team to respond to an onslaught of global crises…
The officials characterized the decision as a recognition that the threat from the militant group Islamic State will require different skills from those that Mr. Hagel, who often struggled to articulate a clear viewpoint and was widely viewed as a passive defense secretary, was brought in to employ.
Mr. Hagel, a combat veteran who was skeptical about the Iraq war, came in to manage the Afghanistan combat withdrawal and the shrinking Pentagon budget in the era of budget sequestrations. Now, however, the American military is back on a war footing, although it is a modified one. Some 3,000 American troops are being deployed in Iraq to help the Iraqi military fight the Sunni militants of the Islamic State, even as the administration struggles to come up with, and articulate, a coherent strategy to defeat the group in both Iraq and Syria.
More Jews attacked in Jerusalem. UPDATE: Britain warns of worst-ever threat
Andrew Bolt November 25 2014 (6:14am)
Yet another attack in Jerusalem, a front line in the battle against jihadism:
Mass immigration from the Third World has turned Britain into another front-line state:
===A Jewish man in his 40s is in moderate-to-serious condition after being stabbed in the upper torso Monday evening, while another man sustained light wounds, police said, when both were attacked by a group of Arab assailants near the Old City’s Jaffa Gate.UPDATE
According to Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, police “strongly believe the stabbing was a terrorist attack.”
Mass immigration from the Third World has turned Britain into another front-line state:
In a significant upgrading to counter terrorism laws, Home Secretary Theresa May has revealed the nation has combated 40 major terrorist plots since the 2005 bombings of London’s transport network including assassinations of ambassadors, “marauding Mumbai-style gun attacks”, aTerrorism is on the rise, and Muslim nations are the main source and main victims:
But she said the worst was yet to come with Islamic State, also known as ISIS, posing a greater threat to national security than anytime before or after the 9/11 attacks in the US that saw worldwide threats by al-Qaeda. She said the nation faced the greatest terror threat in its history, eclipsing the decades-long assaults by the IRA in the 1980s and al-Qaeda in the 2000s.
In 2013, nearly 18,000 people around the world were killed in terrorist attacks, a 61-percent increase from the prior year, according to the recently published annual Global Terrorism Index report.Those figures do not include the victims of Muslim sectarian wars.
Most of the terrorist incidents were concentrated in only a handful of countries – Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria – collectively accounting for nearly 15,000, or 82 percent, of the fatalities, the report noted… By comparison, the index showed that the United States had nine incidents last year, resulting in six fatalities.
Clive Palmer now faces questions about $23 million
Andrew Bolt November 25 2014 (5:37am)
Hedley Thomas:
===THE scale of the fraud alleged against Clive Palmer is tipped to almost double to about $23 million, the total amount of Chinese cash allegedly siphoned by Mr Palmer and his companies from a bank account set up to fund operations of a port for iron ore exports.(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
A police investigation into an alleged fraud by Mr Palmer over more than $12m of the Chinese funds is also expected to examine claims he fabricated documents to conceal the conduct…
But records show Mr Palmer’s company, Mineralogy, billed the Chinese government-owned companies for about $23m in three years, the money sent by Beijing and spent by Mr Palmer. Little if any of the money appears to have been spent on port management services, as claimed by Mr Palmer’s company, which has not been in control or possession of the port at Cape Preston in remote WA… A civil “breach of trust” trial over the $12m-plus that he allegedly fraudulently siphoned is due to start in the Supreme Court in Brisbane tomorrow.
Barry O’Farrell quits
Andrew Bolt November 24 2014 (9:01pm)
O’Farrell, the former NSW Premier, has quit politics. One bottle of wine, one untruth to ICAC and a distinguished career is now over.
===
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/11/20/gate-to-hell-guardians-recovered-in-turkey/?intcmp=features
===
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/11/the_truth_behind_china_ending_one-child_policy.html
======
http://mobile.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/mothertobe-hits-her-baby-bump-with-hammer-to-show-my-babys-hard/story-fnet085v-1226767725372
=== - 571 BC – Servius Tullius, king of Rome, celebrates a triumph for his victory over the Etruscans.
- 885 – Siege of Paris: Viking forces sail the Seine River with a fleet of 300 longships and lay siege to Paris.
- 1034 – Máel Coluim mac Cináeda, King of Scots, dies. His grandson, Donnchad, son of Bethóc and Crínán of Dunkeld, inherits the throne.
- 1120 – The White Ship sinks in the English Channel, drowning William Adelin, son and heir of Henry I of England.
- 1177 – Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and Raynald of Châtillon defeat Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard.
- 1343 – A tsunami, caused by an earthquake in the Tyrrhenian Sea, devastates Naples and the Maritime Republic of Amalfi, among other places.
- 1487 – Elizabeth of York is crowned Queen of England.
- 1491 – The siege of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, ends with the Treaty of Granada.
- 1667 – A deadly earthquake rocks Shemakha in the Caucasus, killing 80,000 people.
- 1755 – King Ferdinand VI of Spain grants royal protection to the Beaterio de la Compañia de Jesus, now known as the Congregation of the Religious of the Virgin Mary.
- 1758 – French and Indian War: British forces capture Fort Duquesne from French control. Later, Fort Pitt will be built nearby and grow into modern Pittsburgh.
- 1759 – An earthquake hits the Mediterranean destroying Beirut and Damascus and killing 30,000-40,000.
- 1783 – American Revolutionary War: The last British troops leave New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris.
- 1795 – Partitions of Poland: Stanisław August Poniatowski, the last king of independent Poland, is forced to abdicateand is exiled to Russia.
- 1826 – The Greek frigate Hellas arrives in Nafplion to become the first flagship of the Hellenic Navy.
- 1833 – A massive undersea earthquake, estimated magnitude between 8.7-9.2, rocks Sumatra, producing a massive tsunami all along the Indonesian coast.
- 1839 – A cyclone slams India with high winds and a 40-foot storm surge, destroying the port city of Coringa (which has never been completely rebuilt). The storm wave sweeps inland, taking with it 20,000 ships and thousands of people. An estimated 300,000 deaths result from the disaster.
- 1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Missionary Ridge: At Missionary Ridge in Tennessee, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant break the Siege of Chattanooga by routing Confederate troops under General Braxton Bragg.
- 1864 – American Civil War: A group of Confederate operatives calling themselves the Confederate Army of Manhattanstarts fires in more than 20 locations in an unsuccessful attempt to burn down New York City.
- 1874 – The United States Greenback Party is established as a political party consisting primarily of farmers affected by the Panic of 1873.
- 1876 – American Indian Wars: In retaliation for the American defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, United States Army troops sack Chief Dull Knife's sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River.
- 1905 – Prince Carl of Denmark arrives in Norway to become King Haakon VII of Norway.
- 1915 – Albert Einstein presents the field equations of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
- 1917 – World War I: German forces defeat Portuguese army of about 1200 at Negomano on the border of modern-day Mozambique and Tanzania.
- 1918 – Vojvodina, formerly Austro-Hungarian crown land, proclaims its secession from Austria–Hungary to join the Kingdom of Serbia.
- 1926 – The deadliest November tornado outbreak in U.S. history kills 76 people and injures more than 400.
- 1936 – In Berlin, Germany and Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, agreeing to consult on measures "to safeguard their common interests" in the case of an unprovoked attack by the Soviet Union against either nation. The pact is renewed on the same day five years later with additional signatories.
- 1940 – World War II: First flight of the de Havilland Mosquito and Martin B-26 Marauder.
- 1941 – HMS Barham is sunk by a German torpedo during World War II.
- 1943 – World War II: Statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina is re-established at the State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- 1947 – Red Scare: The "Hollywood Ten" are blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios.
- 1947 – New Zealand ratifies the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom.
- 1950 – The Great Appalachian Storm of November 1950 impacts 22 American states, killing 353 people, injuring over 160, and causing US$66.7 million in damages (1950 dollars).
- 1952 – Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London. It will become the longest continuously-running play in history.
- 1952 – Korean War: After 42 days of fighting, the Battle of Triangle Hill ends as American and South Korean units abandon their attempt to capture the "Iron Triangle".
- 1958 – French Sudan gains autonomy as a self-governing member of the French Community.
- 1960 – The Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic are assassinated.
- 1966 – First television link between Australia and the UK.
- 1970 – In Japan, author Yukio Mishima and one compatriot commit ritualistic seppuku after an unsuccessful coup attempt.
- 1973 – George Papadopoulos, head of the military Regime of the Colonels in Greece, is ousted in a hardliners' coup led by Brigadier General Dimitrios Ioannidis.
- 1975 – Suriname gains independence from the Netherlands.
- 1977 – Former Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., is found guilty by the Philippine Military Commission No. 2 and is sentenced to death by firing squad. He is later assassinated in 1983.
- 1981 – Pope John Paul II appoints Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
- 1984 – Thirty-six top musicians gather in a Notting Hill studio and record Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.
- 1986 – Iran–Contra affair: U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese announces that profits from covert weapons sales to Iran were illegally diverted to the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
- 1986 – The King Fahd Causeway is officially opened in the Persian Gulf.
- 1987 – Typhoon Nina pummels the Philippines with category 5 winds of 165 mph and a surge that destroys entire villages. At least 1,036 deaths are attributed to the storm.
- 1992 – The Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia votes to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with effect from January 1, 1993.
- 1996 – An ice storm strikes the central U.S., killing 26 people. A powerful windstorm affects Florida and winds gust over 90 mph, toppling trees and flipping trailers.
- 1999 – A 5-year-old Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez, is rescued by fishermen while floating in an inner tube off the Florida coast.
- 1999 – The United Nations establishes the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to commemorate the murder of three Mirabal sisters for resistance against the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.
- 2000 – The 2000 Baku earthquake, with a Richter magnitude of 7.0, leaves 26 people dead in Baku, Azerbaijan, and becomes the strongest earthquake in the region in 158 years.
- 2008 – Cyclone Nisha strikes northern Sri Lanka, killing 15 people and displacing 90,000 others while dealing the region the highest rainfall in nine decades.
- 2009 – Jeddah floods: Freak rains swamp the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during an ongoing Hajj pilgrimage. Three thousand cars are swept away and 122 people perish in the torrents, with 350 others missing.
- 2015 – Pope Francis makes his first official visit to Africa.
- 1075 – Emperor Taizong of Jin (d. 1135)
- 1562 – Lope de Vega, Spanish playwright and poet (d. 1635)
- 1577 – Piet Pieterszoon Hein, Dutch admiral (d. 1629)
- 1609 – Henrietta Maria of France (d. 1669)
- 1638 – Catherine of Braganza (d. 1705)
- 1666 – Giuseppe Giovanni Battista Guarneri, Italian violin maker (d. 1740)
- 1703 – Jean-François Séguier, French astronomer and botanist (d. 1784)
- 1752 – Johann Friedrich Reichardt, German composer and critic (d. 1814)
- 1753 – Robert Townsend, American spy (d. 1838)
- 1758 – John Armstrong, Jr., American general and politician, 7th United States Secretary of War (d. 1843)
- 1778 – Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, English author and activist (d. 1856)
- 1787 – Franz Xaver Gruber, Austrian organist and composer (d. 1863)
- 1814 – Julius Robert von Mayer, German physician and physicist (d. 1878)
- 1815 – William Sawyer, Canadian merchant and politician (d. 1904)
- 1817 – John Bigelow, American lawyer and politician, United States Ambassador to France (d. 1911)
- 1835 – Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1919)
- 1841 – Ernst Schröder, German mathematician and academic (d. 1902)
- 1843 – Henry Ware Eliot, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1919)
- 1844 – Karl Benz, German engineer and businessman, founded Mercedes-Benz (d. 1929)
- 1845 – José Maria de Eça de Queirós, Portuguese-French journalist and author (d. 1900)
- 1846 – Carrie Nation, American activist (d. 1911)
- 1858 – Alfred Capus, French journalist, author, and playwright (d. 1922)
- 1862 – Ethelbert Nevin, American pianist and composer (d. 1901)
- 1862 – Gustaf Söderström, Swedish tug of war competitor, shot putter, and discus thrower (d. 1958)
- 1865 – Kate Gleason, American engineer, businesswoman, and philanthropist (d. 1933)
- 1867 – Talaat Harb, Egyptian economist, founded the Banque Misr (d. 1941)
- 1868 – Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse (d. 1937)
- 1869 – Ben Lindsey, American lawyer and judge (d. 1934)
- 1870 – Winthrop Ames, American director, producer, and playwright (d. 1937)
- 1872 – Robert Maysack, American gymnast and triathlete (d. 1960)
- 1873 – Albert Henry Krehbiel, American painter and illustrator (d. 1945)
- 1874 – Joe Gans, American boxer (d. 1910)
- 1876 – Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (d. 1936)
- 1877 – Harley Granville-Barker, British actor, director and playwright (d. 1946)
- 1880 – John Flynn, Australian minister and pilot, founded the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia (d. 1951)
- 1880 – Elsie J. Oxenham, English author (d. 1960)
- 1881 – Jacob Fichman, Romanian-Israeli poet and critic (d. 1958)
- 1881 – Pope John XXIII (d. 1963)
- 1883 – Harvey Spencer Lewis, American mystic and author (d. 1939)
- 1887 – Nikolai Vavilov, Russian botanist and geneticist (d. 1943)
- 1889 – Reşat Nuri Güntekin, Turkish author and playwright (d. 1956)
- 1890 – Isaac Rosenberg, English soldier and poet (d. 1918)
- 1891 – Ōnishiki Uichirō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 26th Yokozuna (d. 1941)
- 1893 – Joseph Wood Krutch, American author and critic (d. 1970)
- 1895 – Wilhelm Kempff, German pianist and composer (d. 1991)
- 1895 – Helen Hooven Santmyer, American poet and author (d. 1986)
- 1895 – Ludvík Svoboda, Czech general and politician, 8th President of Czechoslovakia (d. 1979)
- 1896 – Albertus Soegijapranata, Indonesian archbishop (d. 1963)
- 1896 – Virgil Thomson, American composer and critic (d. 1989)
- 1898 – Debaki Bose, Indian actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 1971)
- 1898 – Aarne Viisimaa, Estonian tenor and director (d. 1989)
- 1900 – Rudolf Höss, German SS officer (d. 1947)
- 1901 – Arthur Liebehenschel, German SS officer (d. 1948)
- 1902 – Eddie Shore, Canadian-American ice hockey player and coach (d. 1985)
- 1904 – Lillian Copeland, American discus thrower and shot putter (d. 1964)
- 1904 – Toni Ortelli, Italian composer and conductor (d. 2000)
- 1905 – Samiha Ayverdi, Turkish mystic and author (d. 1993)
- 1906 – Alice Ambrose, American philosopher and logician (d. 2001)
- 1907 – John Stuart Hindmarsh, English race car driver and pilot (d. 1938)
- 1909 – P. D. Eastman, American author and illustrator (d. 1986)
- 1911 – Roelof Frankot, Dutch painter and photographer (d. 1984)
- 1913 – Lewis Thomas, American physician, etymologist, and educator (d. 1993)
- 1914 – Joe DiMaggio, American baseball player and coach (d. 1999)
- 1914 – Léon Zitrone, Russian-French journalist (d. 1995)
- 1915 – Augusto Pinochet, Chilean general and politician, 30th President of Chile (d. 2006)
- 1915 – Armando Villanueva, Peruvian politician, 121st Prime Minister of Peru (d. 2013)
- 1916 – Peg Lynch, American actress and screenwriter (d. 2015)
- 1917 – Luigi Poggi, Italian cardinal (d. 2010)
- 1917 – Alparslan Türkeş, Cypriot-Turkish colonel and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey (d. 1997)
- 1919 – Norman Tokar, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1979)
- 1920 – Ricardo Montalbán, Mexican-American actor, singer, and director (d. 2009)
- 1920 – Noel Neill, American actress (d. 2016)
- 1922 – Shelagh Fraser, English actress (d. 2000)
- 1922 – Ilja Hurník, Czech composer and playwright (d. 2013)
- 1922 – Fernance B. Perry, Portuguese-American businessman and philanthropist (d. 2014)
- 1923 – Mauno Koivisto, Finnish banker and politician, 9th President of Finland
- 1923 – Art Wall Jr., American golfer (d. 2001)
- 1924 – Paul Desmond, American saxophonist and composer (d. 1977)
- 1924 – Sybil Stockdale, American activist, co-founded the National League of Families (d. 2015)
- 1924 – Takaaki Yoshimoto, Japanese poet, philosopher, and critic (d. 2012)
- 1926 – Poul Anderson, American author (d. 2001)
- 1926 – Jeffrey Hunter, American actor and producer (d. 1969)
- 1926 – Ranganath Misra, Indian lawyer and jurist, 21st Chief Justice of India (d. 2012)
- 1927 – John K. Cooley, American journalist and author (d. 2008)
- 1929 – Judy Crichton, American director and producer (d. 2007)
- 1931 – Nat Adderley, American cornet and trumpet player (d. 2000)
- 1932 – Takayo Fischer, American actress and singer
- 1933 – Kathryn Crosby, American actress and singer
- 1935 – Robert Berner, American geologist and academic (d. 2015)
- 1936 – Trisha Brown, American dancer and choreographer
- 1938 – Erol Güngör, Turkish sociologist and psychologist (d. 1983)
- 1938 – Rosanna Schiaffino, Italian actress (d. 2009)
- 1939 – Martin Feldstein, American economist and academic
- 1940 – Reinhard Furrer, Austrian-German physicist and astronaut (d. 1995)
- 1940 – Joe Gibbs, American football player and coach
- 1940 – Jan Jongbloed, Dutch footballer and coach
- 1940 – Karl Offmann, Mauritian politician, 3rd President of Mauritius
- 1940 – Shyamal Kumar Sen, Indian jurist and politician, 21st Governor of West Bengal
- 1940 – Percy Sledge, American singer (d. 2015)
- 1941 – Christos Papanikolaou, Greek pole vaulter
- 1941 – Gerald Seymour, English journalist and author
- 1941 – Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi, Pakistani spiritual leader and author
- 1942 – Bob Lind, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1942 – Mimis Papaioannou, Greek footballer and manager
- 1943 – Jerry Portnoy, American singer-songwriter and harmonica player
- 1944 – Ben Stein, American actor, television personality, game show host, lawyer, and author
- 1944 – Michael Kijana Wamalwa, Kenyan lawyer and politician, 8th Vice President of Kenya (d. 2003)
- 1945 – Gail Collins, American journalist and author
- 1945 – Patrick Nagel, American painter and illustrator (d. 1984)
- 1945 – George Webster, American football player (d. 2007)
- 1946 – Marc Brown, American author and illustrator
- 1946 – Mike Doyle, English footballer (d. 2011)
- 1947 – Jonathan Kaplan, French-American director and producer
- 1947 – John Larroquette, American actor
- 1948 – Jacques Dupuis, Canadian lawyer and politician, 14th Deputy Premier of Quebec
- 1948 – Lars Eighner, American author
- 1949 – Kerry O'Keeffe, Australian cricketer and sportscaster
- 1950 – Chris Claremont, English-American author
- 1950 – Giorgio Faletti, Italian author, screenwriter, and actor (d. 2014)
- 1950 – Alexis Wright, Australian author
- 1951 – Bucky Dent, American baseball player and manager
- 1951 – Charlaine Harris, American author and poet
- 1951 – Bill Morrissey, American singer-songwriter (d. 2011)
- 1951 – Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Spanish author and journalist
- 1951 – Johnny Rep, Dutch footballer and manager
- 1952 – Crescent Dragonwagon, American author and educator
- 1952 – John Lynch, American businessman and politician, 80th Governor of New Hampshire
- 1952 – Gabriele Oriali, Italian footballer and manager
- 1953 – Graham Eadie, Australian rugby league player and coach
- 1953 – Mark Frost, American author, screenwriter, and producer
- 1953 – Jeffrey Skilling, American businessman
- 1955 – Don Hahn, American director and producer
- 1955 – Kurt Niedermayer, German footballer and manager
- 1955 – Connie Palmen, Dutch author
- 1955 – Bruno Tonioli, Italian dancer and choreographer
- 1957 – Bob Ehrlich, American lawyer and politician, 60th Governor of Maryland
- 1959 – Charles Kennedy, Scottish journalist and politician (d. 2015)
- 1959 – Steve Rothery, English guitarist and songwriter
- 1960 – Amy Grant, American singer-songwriter
- 1960 – John F. Kennedy Jr., American lawyer, journalist, and publisher (d. 1999)
- 1961 – Paul Comstive, English footballer (d. 2013)
- 1962 – Scott Cam, Australian carpenter and television host
- 1962 – Gilbert Delorme, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1962 – Hironobu Sakaguchi, Japanese game designer, founded Mistwalker
- 1962 – Jimon Terakado, Japanese comedian and actor
- 1963 – Kevin Chamberlin, American actor and director
- 1963 – Holly Cole, Canadian singer and actress
- 1963 – Chip Kelly, American football player and coach
- 1963 – Bernie Kosar, American football player and sportscaster
- 1964 – Mark Lanegan, American singer-songwriter
- 1965 – Cris Carter, American football player, coach, and sportscaster
- 1965 – Dougray Scott, Scottish actor and producer
- 1966 – Tim Armstrong, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1966 – Stacy Lattisaw, American R&B singer
- 1967 – Anthony Nesty, Surinamese swimmer
- 1967 – Gregg Turkington, Australian comedian and singer
- 1968 – Jacqueline Hennessy, Canadian actress and journalist
- 1968 – Jill Hennessy, Canadian actress and singer
- 1968 – Erick Sermon, American rapper and producer
- 1969 – Kim Ofstad, Norwegian drummer and composer
- 1971 – Christina Applegate, American actress, singer, dancer, and producer
- 1971 – Magnus Arvedson, Swedish ice hockey player and coach
- 1971 – Göksel Demirpençe, Turkish singer-songwriter
- 1972 – Deepa Marathe, Indian cricketer
- 1973 – Steven de Jongh, Dutch cyclist
- 1973 – Octavio Dotel, Dominican baseball player
- 1973 – Erick Strickland, American basketball player
- 1973 – Eddie Steeples, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
- 1974 – Kenneth Mitchell, Canadian actor
- 1975 – Abdelkader Benali, Moroccan-Dutch journalist and author
- 1976 – Clint Mathis, American soccer player and coach
- 1976 – Donovan McNabb, American football player and sportscaster
- 1976 – Olena Vitrychenko, Ukrainian gymnast and coach
- 1977 – Guillermo Cañas, Argentinian tennis player
- 1977 – Marcus Marshall, Australian race car driver
- 1978 – Ringo Sheena, Japanese singer-songwriter and producer
- 1979 – Michael Lehan, American football player
- 1980 – John-Michael Liles, American ice hockey player
- 1980 – Josh Mathews, American wrestler and sportscaster
- 1980 – Aaron Mokoena, South African footballer
- 1980 – Alviro Petersen, South African cricketer
- 1980 – Nick Swisher, American baseball player
- 1980 – Steffen Thier, German rugby player
- 1981 – Xabi Alonso, Spanish footballer
- 1981 – Lee Bum-ho, South Korean baseball player
- 1981 – Barbara Pierce Bush, American activist
- 1981 – Jared Jeffries, American basketball player
- 1981 – Chevon Troutman, American basketball player
- 1983 – Kirsty Crawford, Scottish singer-songwriter and actress
- 1983 – Jhulan Goswami, Indian cricketer
- 1984 – Peter Siddle, Australian cricketer
- 1985 – Remona Fransen, Dutch pentathlete
- 1986 – Katie Cassidy, American actress
- 1986 – Craig Gardner, English footballer
- 1988 – Nodar Kumaritashvili, Georgian luger (d. 2010)
- 1988 – Jay Spearing, English footballer
- 1989 – Tom Dice, Belgian singer-songwriter
- 1990 – Rye Rye, American rapper, dancer, and actress
- 1990 – Everton Heleno dos Santos, Brazilian footballer
- 1991 – Jamie Grace, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actress
- 1991 – Luca Tremolada, Italian footballer
- 1991 – Kevin Woo, American-South Korean singer and dancer
- 1992 – Ana Bogdan, Romanian tennis player
- 1993 – Danny Kent, English motorcycle racer
Births[edit]
- 311 – Pope Peter I of Alexandria
- 734 – Bilge Khagan, Turkic emperor (b. 683)
- 1034 – Malcolm II of Scotland (b. 954)
- 1185 – Pope Lucius III (b. 1097)
- 1326 – Prince Koreyasu, Japanese shogun (b. 1264)
- 1374 – Philip II, Prince of Taranto (b. 1329)
- 1456 – Jacques Cœur, French merchant and banker (b. 1395)
- 1517 – Marcus Musurus, Greek philosopher and scholar (b. 1470)
- 1560 – Andrea Doria, Italian admiral (b. 1466)
- 1626 – Edward Alleyn, English actor, founded Dulwich College (b. 1566)
- 1694 – Ismaël Bullialdus, French astronomer and mathematician (b. 1605)
- 1700 – Stephanus Van Cortlandt, American lawyer and politician, 10th Mayor of New York City (b. 1643)
- 1748 – Isaac Watts, English hymnwriter and theologian (b. 1674)
- 1755 – Johann Georg Pisendel, German violinist and composer (b. 1687)
- 1785 – Richard Glover, English poet and politician (b. 1712)
- 1865 – Heinrich Barth, German explorer and scholar (b. 1821)
- 1884 – Hermann Kolbe, German chemist and academic (b. 1818)
- 1885 – Thomas A. Hendricks, American lawyer and politician, 21st Vice President of the United States (b. 1819)
- 1885 – Alfonso XII of Spain (b. 1857)
- 1909 – Edward P. Allen, American lawyer and politician (b. 1839)
- 1920 – Gaston Chevrolet, French-American race car driver and businessman (b. 1892)
- 1925 – Vajiravudh, Siam king (b. 1880)
- 1944 – Kenesaw Mountain Landis, American lawyer and judge (b. 1866)
- 1948 – Kanbun Uechi, Japanese martial artist, founded Uechi-ryū (b. 1877)
- 1949 – Bill Robinson, American actor and dancer (b. 1878)
- 1950 – Mao Anying, Chinese general (b. 1922)
- 1950 – Johannes V. Jensen, Danish author and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1873)
- 1950 – Gustaf John Ramstedt, Finnish linguist and diplomat (b. 1873)
- 1956 – Alexander Dovzhenko, Ukrainian-Russian director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1894)
- 1957 – Prince George of Greece and Denmark (b. 1869)
- 1959 – Gérard Philipe, French actor (b. 1922)
- 1961 – Hubert Van Innis, Belgian archer (b. 1866)
- 1963 – Alexander Marinesko, Russian lieutenant (b. 1913)
- 1965 – Myra Hess, English pianist and educator (b. 1890)
- 1968 – Upton Sinclair, American novelist, critic, and essayist (b. 1878)
- 1968 – Paul Siple, American geographer and explorer (b. 1908)
- 1970 – Yukio Mishima, Japanese author, actor, and director (b. 1925)
- 1972 – Henri Coandă, Romanian engineer, designed the Coandă-1910 (b. 1886)
- 1973 – Laurence Harvey, Lithuania-born English actor (b. 1928)
- 1974 – Nick Drake, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1948)
- 1974 – U Thant, Burmese lawyer and diplomat, 3rd Secretary-General of the United Nations (b. 1909)
- 1981 – Jack Albertson, American actor and singer (b. 1907)
- 1984 – Yashwantrao Chavan, Indian lawyer and politician, 5th Deputy Prime Minister of India (b. 1913)
- 1985 – Geoffrey Grigson, English poet and critic (b. 1905)
- 1985 – Franz Hildebrandt, German pastor and theologian (b. 1909)
- 1987 – Harold Washington, American lawyer and politician, 51st Mayor of Chicago (b. 1922)
- 1989 – Alva R. Fitch, American general (b. 1907)
- 1990 – Merab Mamardashvili, Georgian philosopher and academic (b. 1930)
- 1991 – Eleanor Audley, American actress and voice artist (b. 1905)
- 1995 – Léon Zitrone, Russian-French journalist (b. 1914)
- 1997 – Hastings Banda, Malawian physician and politician, 1st President of Malawi (b. 1898)
- 1998 – Nelson Goodman, American philosopher and academic (b. 1906)
- 1998 – Flip Wilson, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter (b. 1933)
- 1999 – Valentín Campa, Mexican union leader and politician (b. 1904)
- 2000 – Hugh Alexander, American baseball player and scout (b. 1917)
- 2001 – Harry Devlin, American painter and illustrator (b. 1918)
- 2002 – Karel Reisz, Czech-English director and producer (b. 1926)
- 2004 – Ed Paschke, American painter and academic (b. 1939)
- 2005 – George Best, Northern Irish footballer (b. 1946)
- 2005 – Richard Burns, English race car driver (b. 1971)
- 2006 – Luciano Bottaro, Italian author and illustrator (b. 1931)
- 2006 – Valentín Elizalde, Mexican singer-songwriter (b. 1979)
- 2006 – Phyllis Fraser, American actress and publisher, co-founded Beginner Books (b. 1916)
- 2006 – Kenneth M. Taylor, American lieutenant and pilot (b. 1919)
- 2007 – Peter Lipton, American philosopher and academic (b. 1954)
- 2010 – Alfred Balk, American journalist and author (b. 1930)
- 2010 – Peter Christopherson, English keyboard player, songwriter, and director (b. 1955)
- 2010 – C. Scott Littleton, American anthropologist and academic (b. 1933)
- 2010 – Bernard Matthews, English businessman, founded Bernard Matthews Farms (b. 1930)
- 2011 – Vasily Alekseyev, Russian weightlifter and coach (b. 1942)
- 2011 – Coco Robicheaux, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1947)
- 2012 – Earl Carroll, American singer (b. 1937)
- 2012 – Lars Hörmander, Swedish mathematician and educator (b. 1931)
- 2012 – Dave Sexton, English footballer and manager (b. 1930)
- 2012 – Dinah Sheridan, English actress (b. 1920)
- 2012 – Jim Temp, American football player and businessman (b. 1933)
- 2013 – Lou Brissie, American baseball player (b. 1924)
- 2013 – Ricardo Fort, Argentinian businessman (b. 1968)
- 2013 – Bill Foulkes, English footballer and manager (b. 1932)
- 2013 – Chico Hamilton, American drummer and bandleader (b. 1921)
- 2013 – Egon Lánský, Czech journalist and politician (b. 1934)
- 2013 – Al Plastino, American author and illustrator (b. 1921)
- 2014 – Irvin J. Borowsky, American publisher and philanthropist (b. 1924)
- 2014 – Sitara Devi, Indian actress, dancer, and choreographer (b. 1920)
- 2014 – Petr Hapka, Czech composer and conductor (b. 1944)
- 2014 – Denham Harman, American biogerontologist and academic (b. 1916)
- 2015 – O'Neil Bell, Jamaican boxer (b. 1974)
- 2015 – Jeremy Black, English admiral (b. 1932)
- 2015 – Svein Christiansen, Norwegian drummer and composer (b. 1941)
- 2015 – Lennart Hellsing, Swedish author and translator (b. 1919)
- 2015 – Elmo Williams, American director, producer, and editor (b. 1913)
Deaths[edit]
- Christian feast day:
- Evacuation Day (New York) (New York City, New York, United States)
- Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Suriname from the Netherlands in 1975.
- International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
- National Day (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
- Teachers' Day (Indonesia)
- The beginning of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, which ends on December 10.
- Vajiravudh Memorial Day (Thailand)
Holidays and observances[edit]
“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”Colossians 2:6-7 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
Morning
Broad rivers and streams produce fertility, and abundance in the land. Places near broad rivers are remarkable for the variety of their plants and their plentiful harvests. God is all this to his Church. Having God she has abundance. What can she ask for that he will not give her? What want can she mention which he will not supply? "In this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things." Want ye the bread of life? It drops like manna from the sky. Want ye refreshing streams? The rock follows you, and that Rock is Christ. If you suffer any want it is your own fault; if you are straitened you are not straitened in him, but in your own bowels. Broad rivers and streams also point to commerce. Our glorious Lord is to us a place of heavenly merchandise. Through our Redeemer we have commerce with the past; the wealth of Calvary, the treasures of the covenant, the riches of the ancient days of election, the stores of eternity, all come to us down the broad stream of our gracious Lord. We have commerce, too, with the future. What galleys, laden to the water's edge, come to us from the millennium! What visions we have of the days of heaven upon earth! Through our glorious Lord we have commerce with angels; communion with the bright spirits washed in blood, who sing before the throne; nay, better still, we have fellowship with the Infinite One. Broad rivers and streams are specially intended to set forth the idea of security. Rivers were of old a defence. Oh! beloved, what a defence is God to his Church! The devil cannot cross this broad river of God. How he wishes he could turn the current, but fear not, for God abideth immutably the same. Satan may worry, but he cannot destroy us; no galley with oars shall invade our river, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.
Evening
"Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man."
Proverbs 24:33-34
Proverbs 24:33-34
The worst of sluggards only ask for a little slumber; they would be indignant if they were accused of thorough idleness. A little folding of the hands to sleep is all they crave, and they have a crowd of reasons to show that this indulgence is a very proper one. Yet by these littles the day ebbs out, and the time for labour is all gone, and the field is grown over with thorns. It is by little procrastinations that men ruin their souls. They have no intention to delay for years--a few months will bring the more convenient season--to-morrow if you will, they will attend to serious things; but the present hour is so occupied and altogether so unsuitable, that they beg to be excused. Like sands from an hour-glass, time passes, life is wasted by driblets, and seasons of grace lost by little slumbers. Oh, to be wise, to catch the flying hour, to use the moments on the wing! May the Lord teach us this sacred wisdom, for otherwise a poverty of the worst sort awaits us, eternal poverty which shall want even a drop of water, and beg for it in vain. Like a traveller steadily pursuing his journey, poverty overtakes the slothful, and ruin overthrows the undecided: each hour brings the dreaded pursuer nearer; he pauses not by the way, for he is on his master's business and must not tarry. As an armed man enters with authority and power, so shall want come to the idle, and death to the impenitent, and there will be no escape. O that men were wise be-times, and would seek diligently unto the Lord Jesus, or ere the solemn day shall dawn when it will be too late to plough and to sow, too late to repent and believe. In harvest, it is vain to lament that the seed time was neglected. As yet, faith and holy decision are timely. May we obtain them this night.
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Today's reading: Ezekiel 22-23, 1 Peter 1 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Ezekiel 22-23
Judgment on Jerusalem’s Sins
1 The word of the LORD came to me:
2 “Son of man, will you judge her? Will you judge this city of bloodshed? Then confront her with all her detestable practices 3and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: You city that brings on herself doom by shedding blood in her midst and defiles herself by making idols, 4 you have become guilty because of the blood you have shed and have become defiled by the idols you have made. You have brought your days to a close, and the end of your years has come. Therefore I will make you an object of scorn to the nations and a laughingstock to all the countries. 5 Those who are near and those who are far away will mock you, you infamous city, full of turmoil....
Today's New Testament reading: 1 Peter 1
1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, 2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood:
Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Praise to God for a Living Hope
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time....
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Rechab [Rē'chăb]—companionship, a horseman or square.
- A son of Rimmon, a Beerothite, captain of the band who slew Ish-bosheth in his bed, and who was put to death by David (2 Sam. 4:2-9).
- Father of Jehonadab and founder of a tribe known as the “Rechabites” ( 2 Kings 10:15,23).
The Man Who Vowed to Be Separate
This particular order had its rise in the religious revival that took place under Elijah and Elisha. The tenets of the followers of Rechab were a reaction and a protest against the luxury and license which under Jezebel and Ahab threatened to destroy the simplicity of the ancient nomadic life of Israel. Accordingly, the Rechabites vowed to drink no wine, nor build houses, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyards, but dwell in tents all their days. They were to remember they were strangers in the land. For 250 years they adhered faithfully to their rules but were driven from their tents when in 607 b.c.Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah.
Of these noteworthy people, whose high moral example was specially commended by God, Dr. Dinsdale Young elaborates on these points:
I. They honored the memory of the good.
II. They were marked by great simplicity of life.
III. They were worshipers of Jehovah.
IV. They maintained their integrity amid surrounding degeneracy.
V. They had their principles severely tested.
VI. They received special blessing.
May all of us be found among God’s true Rechabites!
3. A descendant of Hemath a Kenite (1 Chron. 2:55).
4. The father of Malchiah, a chief man who, after his return from exile, helped to repair the wall of Jerusalem (Neh. 3:14).
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