=== from 2015 ===
In the US, in San Bernadino, two or three crazed gunmen go on a killing spree at a facility for the disabled. This confuses the LA Times, which is so certain that the perpetrators will turn out to be white conservatives they print a US flag made of guns. The meme will last for years, but the perpetrators were a Middle Eastern couple that had a baby but may not have married. The male had flown to Saudi Arabia recently but had not seemed radicalised on his return by family members. He was allegedly a devout Muslim. He got upset at a staff Christmas party and returned with his cuddle buddy fully armed and armoured. No reason is apparent at the moment, but according to Australia's Mufti, Christmas parties can do that to peaceful Islamic peoples. Some say that the Mufti is wrong and jihadis are different to Islamic peoples, seeing as they are mainly gay, murderous, cross dressing, porn, alcohol and drug abusing, contemptuous of law, rapist, pedophilic and animal abusing people. But the Mufti apparently says that all Muslims are like that and jihadis don't bring Islam into disrepute.
For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
From 2014
Enemy of the ADF
ALP is the enemy of the ADF. Badged as a friend of the ADF, Kim Beazley, former ALP leader foisted the Collins Class submarines which were so bad that no other nation wanted to buy from the class. The loss of funds from the blowout cost Australia defence capability. After the Howard administration raised funds available to the ADF, the following Rudd/Gillard administrations cut the ADF's funds to beneath pre WW2 levels. But also, the ALP set up a special unit designed to weaken and discredit the ADF. ADF special forces were subject to scrutiny inappropriate to their function. Lots of soldiers died from mismanagement. Issues of a sexual nature were placed in the public arena in an attack on defence culture so as to save bad ALP ministers from criticism. Jason Clare placed weakened body armour on active forces and soldiers died. Naval forces who wanted to go to the aid of sinking vessels in international waters were warned off by the ALP so that asylum seekers drowned. Now, the ALP want the government to waste money on substandard ship building so as to protect union labour. The Collins Class submarines had an edge from expertise that Australia had gained from former South Vietnamese forces who were left without a government in '75, but those good people have retired now. Meaning production talent has gone while the price remains high. Jacquie Lambie interrupted Phil Hughes' funeral to be herself. She has shrilly demanded the government pay ADF forces above inflation when all government services will be subject to the same cost. The previous ALP administration have damaged the economy with substantial debt that must be repaid now, or it will be a stone weighing down the prospects of our children. Lambie could pass cuts which would make her demand possible, but she refuses to do that. Her voting pattern in the senate closely matches the ALP, and that is a betrayal to every one of her constituents who did not vote for the ALP, and voted for her. She also betrayed those mourning for Hughes. The nation will need to move on from the death of Hughes, and celebrate his life. The funeral was not the right time to grandstand.
Unreported issue discovered of death of migrants from ALP government. The ABC and SMH/Age have only just become aware that navy were 'suggested' not to save migrants on the high seas. Meanwhile ALP and Greens vote to keep some thirty thousand locked up by denying the legislation of temporary protection visas for those who survived the ALP's compassion. The ABC, in reporting the issue, substitute the policy which resulted in death from the ALP's to the current LNP's policy which is preventing it. Such a 'mistake' is a very nasty shot in the culture wars the ABC are engaged in.
Culture wars
A ridiculous senate is being lauded for preventing good legislation. Mr Abbott is being blamed for the blockage. But the blockers are feeling pain too. The ALP has decided that it can behave badly in the lower house and get themselves booted temporarily, but they don't do that in the upper house where they maintain numbers to block legislation. The ALP are also blocking all legislation without having an alternative policy. They refer to money trees, as if it is ok that every man woman and child is happy to pay interest of over $6k a year just to stand still. And not every man, woman or child works .. so the burden of paying ALP debt falls on fewer people. Meanwhile PUP, which began as a block of four, are a block of two, voting the same as the ALP. Lambie has become a true independent, and is voting as the ALP all on her own. Climate alarmists sidestep the truth. They claim that plant food is bad. They claim that it is important to reduce national reliance on carbon dioxide production. But they refuse to accept in Australia that which works over seas, like nuclear power or coal seam gas. Instead, climate alarmists are demanding bird killing windmills and solar power stations that don't reduce base load.
Jihadists report they are suffering in ISIL and want to go home. Their iPod is broken, or they are tired of toilet duty, or they don't like carrying dead mates out of the fighting. The left has made up numerous reasons for why jihadists do what they do. but apparently those excuses simply aren't motivating. And maybe they never were. Maybe Islamic peoples are not oppressed in the West.
Pyne pronounced it right, but ABC's Sales horselaughs and gets it wrong on Wang. But, even when corrected, there is no apology. Palmer conspiracies continue, listed by Bolt. Attempt to sue Bolt over nothing fails, and abuser is fined half a million dollars. Sometimes the law works.
From 2013
Getting angry and pressing for a favoured agenda isn't effective. It is the curse of populist government. It boils down to a number game, where people spoil a situation until what they want happens, and they hope no one else spoils that. So that the ALP remove the Pacific Solution in order to put forward there own. It was an attempt at rebranding. Only the ALP failed, because the Pacific Solution was the best policy. It wasn't put in place to break the ALP, but to be effective in stopping the people trade where poor desperate people were exploited by pirates and often drowned. ALP opposition to effective policy means that the ALP does not stand for effective policy on illegal immigrants. Such branding policy has failed in many places, like education, fair work, health care, unions and marriage, to name a few. Thing is, effective policy is not always obvious. The Pacific Solution came about only after much tragedy. Education and health policy are hundreds of years old, fine tuned through ages of debate and compromise. Allowing an angry person to thoughtlessly pursue their own agenda without regard to history or effective need is dangerous.
But the ALP have made Education their play thing and pursued a highly ineffective agenda. Modern education around the world began almost simultaneously in two separate places. The Madras System started in Madras circa 1792 when a headmaster (Dr Andrew Bell) of a school for orphans of British soldiers got a 12 year old boy, John Frisken, to teach the alphabet to much younger boys. Meanwhile Joseph Lancaster in England, began using older children to teach younger children. Both systems were adopted as models. One founded the British Foreign Service the other was adopted by the Catholic Church. In the 1870's, Britain began teacher training at university and dropped the Monitorial system. Teachers were supposed to model moral behaviour, as well as teach the basics. By early nineteenth century, kids were educated in Britain to year 8. After WW1, education in NSW was expected to be year 9, with university students being at school to year 11. Now there is discussion about a year 13.
Now, teachers are highly specialised. Science teachers don't even understand Global Warming theory. English teachers don't know how to teach reading. History teachers don't know when the White Australia Policy ended, and have fantasy stories about a stolen generation. But they need more money to teach less. So as to raise the standard. When did the ALP begin bending education away from the core purpose of teaching? Whitlam did a lot of damage, but a lot of bad things pre existed him. But if a good idea is put forward, so many people will denounce it so as to roll the dice of change.
But the ALP have made Education their play thing and pursued a highly ineffective agenda. Modern education around the world began almost simultaneously in two separate places. The Madras System started in Madras circa 1792 when a headmaster (Dr Andrew Bell) of a school for orphans of British soldiers got a 12 year old boy, John Frisken, to teach the alphabet to much younger boys. Meanwhile Joseph Lancaster in England, began using older children to teach younger children. Both systems were adopted as models. One founded the British Foreign Service the other was adopted by the Catholic Church. In the 1870's, Britain began teacher training at university and dropped the Monitorial system. Teachers were supposed to model moral behaviour, as well as teach the basics. By early nineteenth century, kids were educated in Britain to year 8. After WW1, education in NSW was expected to be year 9, with university students being at school to year 11. Now there is discussion about a year 13.
Now, teachers are highly specialised. Science teachers don't even understand Global Warming theory. English teachers don't know how to teach reading. History teachers don't know when the White Australia Policy ended, and have fantasy stories about a stolen generation. But they need more money to teach less. So as to raise the standard. When did the ALP begin bending education away from the core purpose of teaching? Whitlam did a lot of damage, but a lot of bad things pre existed him. But if a good idea is put forward, so many people will denounce it so as to roll the dice of change.
Historical perspective on this day
In 915, Pope John X was crowned Berengar I of Italy as Holy Roman Emperor. In 1799, War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Wiesloch – Austrian Lieutenant Field Marshal Anton Sztáray defeated the French at Wiesloch. In 1800, War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Hohenlinden – French General Moreau decisively defeated the Archduke John of Austria near Munich. Coupled with First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte's earlier victory at Marengo, this would force the Austrians to sign an armistice and end the war. In 1818, Illinois became the 21st U.S. state. In 1834, the Zollverein (German Customs Union) began the first regular census in Germany. In 1854, Battle of the Eureka Stockade: More than 20 gold miners at Ballarat, Victoria, were killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences. In 1898, the Duquesne Country and Athletic Club defeated an all-star collection of early football players 16-0, in what is considered to be the very first all-star game for professional American football.
In 1901, in a State of the Union message, U.S. President Theodore Rooseveltasked Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits". In 1904, the Jovian moon Himalia was discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at California's Lick Observatory. In 1910, modern neon lighting was first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show. In 1912, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia (the Balkan League) signed an armistice with the Ottoman Empire, temporarily halting the First Balkan War. (The armistice will expire on February 3, 1913, and hostilities would resume.) In 1919, after nearly 20 years of planning and construction, including two collapses causing 89 deaths, the Quebec Bridgeopened to traffic. In 1925, World War I aftermath: The final Locarno Treaty was signed in London, establishing post-war territorial settlements. In 1927, Putting Pants on Philip, the first Laurel and Hardy film, was released. 1944, Greek Civil War: Fighting broke out in Athensbetween the ELAS and government forces supported by the British Army. In 1959, the current flag of Singapore was adopted, six months after Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire.
In 1960, the musical Camelot debuted at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. It would become associated with the Kennedy administration. In 1964, Free Speech Movement: Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest of the UC Regents' decision to forbid protests on UC property. In 1967, at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, a transplant team headed by Christiaan Barnard carried out the first heart transplant on a human (53-year-old Louis Washkansky). In 1971, Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: Pakistan launched a pre-emptive strike against India and a full scale war began claiming hundreds of lives. In 1973, Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sent back the first close-up images of Jupiter. In 1976, an assassination attempt was made on Bob Marley. He was shot twice, but would play a concert only two days later. In 1979, in Cincinnati, 11 fans were suffocated in a crush for seats on the concourse outside Riverfront Coliseum before a Who concert. Also, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became the first Supreme Leader of Iran. In 1982, a soil sample is taken from Times Beach, Missouri, that would be found to contain 300 times the safe level of dioxin. In 1984, Bhopal disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killed more than 3,800 people outright and injured 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history. In 1989, Cold War: In a meeting off the coast of Malta, U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev released statements indicating that the Cold War between NATO and the Soviet Union would be coming to an end.
In 1990, the 1990 Wayne County Airport runway collision killed seven passengers and one crew member. In 1992, UN Security Council Resolution 794 was unanimously passed, approving a coalition of United Nations peacekeepers led by the United States to form UNITAF, with the task of establishing peace and ensuring that humanitarian aid was distributed in Somalia. In 1992, the Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea, carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude oil, ran aground in a storm while approaching A Coruña, Spain, and spilled much of its cargo. Also, a test engineer for Sema Group used a personal computer to send the world's first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague. In 1997, in Ottawa, Canada, representatives from 121 countries signed the Ottawa Treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty, however. In 1999, NASA lost radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft entered the Martianatmosphere. Also, six firefighters were killed in the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse fire in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 2005, XCOR Aerospace made the first manned rocket aircraft delivery of U.S. Mail in Kern County, California. In 2007, winter storms caused the Chehalis River to flood many cities in Lewis County, Washington, and close a 20-mile portion of Interstate 5 for several days. At least eight deaths and billions of dollars in damages were blamed on the floods. In 2009, a suicide bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, claimed the lives of 25 people, including three ministers of the Transitional Federal Government. In 2012, at least 475 people were killed after Typhoon Bopha, made landfall in the Philippines.
In 1901, in a State of the Union message, U.S. President Theodore Rooseveltasked Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits". In 1904, the Jovian moon Himalia was discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at California's Lick Observatory. In 1910, modern neon lighting was first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show. In 1912, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia (the Balkan League) signed an armistice with the Ottoman Empire, temporarily halting the First Balkan War. (The armistice will expire on February 3, 1913, and hostilities would resume.) In 1919, after nearly 20 years of planning and construction, including two collapses causing 89 deaths, the Quebec Bridgeopened to traffic. In 1925, World War I aftermath: The final Locarno Treaty was signed in London, establishing post-war territorial settlements. In 1927, Putting Pants on Philip, the first Laurel and Hardy film, was released. 1944, Greek Civil War: Fighting broke out in Athensbetween the ELAS and government forces supported by the British Army. In 1959, the current flag of Singapore was adopted, six months after Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire.
In 1960, the musical Camelot debuted at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. It would become associated with the Kennedy administration. In 1964, Free Speech Movement: Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest of the UC Regents' decision to forbid protests on UC property. In 1967, at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, a transplant team headed by Christiaan Barnard carried out the first heart transplant on a human (53-year-old Louis Washkansky). In 1971, Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: Pakistan launched a pre-emptive strike against India and a full scale war began claiming hundreds of lives. In 1973, Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sent back the first close-up images of Jupiter. In 1976, an assassination attempt was made on Bob Marley. He was shot twice, but would play a concert only two days later. In 1979, in Cincinnati, 11 fans were suffocated in a crush for seats on the concourse outside Riverfront Coliseum before a Who concert. Also, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became the first Supreme Leader of Iran. In 1982, a soil sample is taken from Times Beach, Missouri, that would be found to contain 300 times the safe level of dioxin. In 1984, Bhopal disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killed more than 3,800 people outright and injured 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history. In 1989, Cold War: In a meeting off the coast of Malta, U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev released statements indicating that the Cold War between NATO and the Soviet Union would be coming to an end.
In 1990, the 1990 Wayne County Airport runway collision killed seven passengers and one crew member. In 1992, UN Security Council Resolution 794 was unanimously passed, approving a coalition of United Nations peacekeepers led by the United States to form UNITAF, with the task of establishing peace and ensuring that humanitarian aid was distributed in Somalia. In 1992, the Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea, carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude oil, ran aground in a storm while approaching A Coruña, Spain, and spilled much of its cargo. Also, a test engineer for Sema Group used a personal computer to send the world's first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague. In 1997, in Ottawa, Canada, representatives from 121 countries signed the Ottawa Treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty, however. In 1999, NASA lost radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft entered the Martianatmosphere. Also, six firefighters were killed in the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse fire in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 2005, XCOR Aerospace made the first manned rocket aircraft delivery of U.S. Mail in Kern County, California. In 2007, winter storms caused the Chehalis River to flood many cities in Lewis County, Washington, and close a 20-mile portion of Interstate 5 for several days. At least eight deaths and billions of dollars in damages were blamed on the floods. In 2009, a suicide bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, claimed the lives of 25 people, including three ministers of the Transitional Federal Government. In 2012, at least 475 people were killed after Typhoon Bopha, made landfall in the Philippines.
=== 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 Sandra Flowers. Born on the same day, across the years
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Deaths
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Tim Blair
Andrew Bolt
GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE IS SAD
Tim Blair – Thursday, December 03, 2015 (2:41pm)
SAN BERNARDINO SUSPECT NAMED
Tim Blair – Thursday, December 03, 2015 (2:38pm)
The LA Times names a San Bernadino massacre suspect:
A man and a woman connected to a mass shooting that left 14 people dead and 17 wounded in San Bernardino were killed in a firefight with police officers after a car chase Wednesday, authorities said.Two law enforcement sources identified one of the deceased suspects as Syed Farook, an American citizen.Public records show a person named Syed R. Farook was employed by the San Bernardino County Health department as an environmental health specialist, but it was not clear if that was the same person involved in the shooting.The identity of the second person killed by police was not immediately known.
Note: this is not official confirmation of the gunman’s identity. In other reports:
The shooting occurred during a Christmas party being held by the San Bernardino County public health department, which had rented a room at the Inland Regional Center …At about 11:40 a.m., an officer told dispatchers a witness said a male left the building “out of the blue,” and 20 minutes later the shooting started. The witness said he matched the physical description of one of the shooters and was acting nervous before leaving.
More to come.
UPDATE. The New York Daily News:
A man who identified himself as Farook’s father told the Daily News his son worked as a health technician inspecting restaurants and hotels ...Farook said he hasn’t seen his son in some time.“He was very religious. He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back. He’s Muslim.”
Again, this is unconfirmed.
UPDATE II. Further from the LA Times:
Farook recently traveled to Saudi Arabia and returned with a new wife he met online. The couple had a baby and appeared to be “living the American dream,” said Patrick Baccari, a fellow food inspector who shared a cubicle with Farook.Baccari and Christian Nwadike said Farook, who worked with them for about three years, rarely started a conversation. But the tall, thin young man with a full beard was well liked and spent much of his time out in the field.They and other colleagues said Farook was a devout Muslim, but rarely discussed religion at work.
Farook’s wife – and co-suspect – has now been named:
Chief Jarrod Burguan of the San Bernardino police identified two suspects killed in a shootout with police officers as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27.They were married and the parents of a 6-month-old daughter, according to Mr. Farook’s brother-in-law, Farhan Khan …The police chief added that explosive devices were found at the scene of the shooting, the Inland Regional Center. They were later detonated by the authorities.
UPDATE III. Glenn Reynolds: “This is who they are. This is what they do. Left Spends Day In Coordinated Attack on Saying ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ For the Victims.” And from Mark Steyn:
Responding to the carnage in Paris, Barack Obama said that the most “powerful rebuke” you could send to the terrorists was to go ahead and hold the big climate conference as scheduled and show the killers that the world would not be deflected from talking about sea levels in the Maldives in the 22nd century. The President spoke at the conference yesterday. Today can be seen as a “powerful rebuke” to the fatuities of Obama.
Quite so.
TEENS BEING TEENS
Tim Blair – Thursday, December 03, 2015 (1:45pm)
Remember your playful teenage years, when all you cared about was violent fundamentalist revolution?
Muslim youth who have been charged with terrorism offences or targeted in recent counter-terrorism raids are merely teenagers being teenagers, a university lecturer has told an Islam conference.Psychcentral NSW’s Hanan Dover said the young men, arrested in the counter-terrorism raids following the shooting death of NSW Police employee Curtis Cheng and previous raids across Sydney and Melbourne, were targeted because of their natural teenage way of “acting out” and that their normal “teenage speak” was being criminalised.Ms Dover, who is an adjunct lecturer of religion at Western Sydney University and a community psychologist, yesterday defended the young men charged with terrorism on a discussion panel at the 2nd Australasian Conference on Islam Radicalisation and Islamophobia, claiming they had been treated unfairly.
Here’s Dover in 2002:
There is no changing the Quran. The Quran is a perfect guide for humanity. Human law nor science is above Allah …There is wisdom in Allah’s rulings and they do not change and He only gives us these restrictions for the benefit of humanity. So, it should be crystal clear even literally clear that Islam forbids homosexual behaviour.
She’s really got issues with the scary gays. Do read on.
Mass shooting in California
Andrew Bolt December 03 2015 (3:53pm)
Another terrible mass shooting in the United States:
There are reports of a possible explosive device. Also reports that the shooters, described as white, were wearing masks.
Something about this attack does not fit the pattern.
UPDATE
Evil:
The shooters struck at a Christmas party, for God’s sake.
Two suspects, a man and a woman, have been shot dead after a chase, during which pipe bombs were thrown by the suspects. A third person has been arrested, but it is unclear if he was involved.
Police said they can’t rule out terrorism.
But there’s also this:
Hmm. The name is ominous:
===Police are attending a shooting in California, with reports of 20 victims…The US is fixated on Islamist terrorism. It has more than enough domestic terrorism to tackle.
There may be up to three gunmen [a police spokesman] said, and the shooters were heavily armed and possibly wearing body armour.
There are reports of a possible explosive device. Also reports that the shooters, described as white, were wearing masks.
Something about this attack does not fit the pattern.
UPDATE
Evil:
At least 14 people have died in the massacre and at least 14 were wounded, San Bernardino police Chief Jarrod Burhuan told a media conference.UPDATE
Police say three white males are believed to have carried out the attack at the Inland Regional Centre, which is a centre for people with disabilities.
The shooters struck at a Christmas party, for God’s sake.
Two suspects, a man and a woman, have been shot dead after a chase, during which pipe bombs were thrown by the suspects. A third person has been arrested, but it is unclear if he was involved.
Police said they can’t rule out terrorism.
But there’s also this:
The chase came just four hours after assailants opened fire at a holiday party at the Inland Regional Center, a social services office that aids people with developmental disabilities.UPDATE
A senior federal official who is monitoring the case said investigators believe one of the shooters left the party after getting into an argument and returned with one or two armed companions.
Hmm. The name is ominous:
Multiple sources from multiple agencies identified one of the three attackers to NBC News as Syed R. Farook. NBC reports that another source said another person is believed to be Farook’s brother. The identity of the woman involved was unknown.More:
Farook’s father was shocked to learn of his son’s possible involvement in the attack.
“I haven’t heard anything,” the elder Syed Farook told the Daily News. “He was very religious. He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back. He’s Muslim.”
Macfarlane defects to Nationals
Andrew Bolt December 03 2015 (12:39pm)
Another sign of the growing division under Malcolm Turnbull:
Macfarlane supported Turnbull and got rewarded by being sacked for not being female.
Macfarlane is said to have been critical in persuading Turnbull this week not to sign an agreement at the Paris global warming talks to scrap fossil fuel subsidies, which green groups claim should include the diesel fuel rebate.
UPDATE
Reports that other Liberals could follow. Turnbull has a struggle on his hands to show he can unite the Liberals.
===Former industry minister Ian Macfarlane is set to defect from the Liberal Party to junior Coalition partners the Nationals, in a shock move that has significant ramifications for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.Brough’s spot?
Fairfax Media has been told that discussions have taken place between Mr Macfarlane and senior members of the Nationals’ leadership, including deputy leader Barnaby Joyce and, later on, party leader Warren Truss… There is an expectation in Nationals ranks that the move will mean the junior coalition partner will be able to claim another frontbench spot at the expense of a Liberal.
Macfarlane supported Turnbull and got rewarded by being sacked for not being female.
Macfarlane is said to have been critical in persuading Turnbull this week not to sign an agreement at the Paris global warming talks to scrap fossil fuel subsidies, which green groups claim should include the diesel fuel rebate.
UPDATE
Reports that other Liberals could follow. Turnbull has a struggle on his hands to show he can unite the Liberals.
Economy lifts, but where’s the business investment?
Andrew Bolt December 03 2015 (9:16am)
There is something brittle about a recovery based in part on building more apartments, not investment in something productive:
Terry McCrann:
===The economy is forging ahead in defiance of the biggest collapse in business investment and export prices seen outside a recession, with Scott Morrison banking on a revival of business expansion away from the mining sector to sustain growth through next year.But any growth is far better than none, and the falling dollar has helped us to sell our way something better than expected:
GDP growth of 0.9 per cent in the September quarter was driven by the best lift in exports in 15 years, a bigger-than-expected rise in consumer spending and a boom in housing — particularly apartment — construction. “The thing about a transition is you’re on your way to a better place and there is a strong place for us to go to and that’s where we’re heading,” the Treasurer said...
Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens said the September quarter growth had surpassed the bank’s forecast of 2.25 per cent and was “not too bad”. “Let’s not overplay the significance but the economy is growing, and I think the outlook continues for moderate growth,” he said.UPDATE
Terry McCrann:
THE “good” economic growth figures for the September quarter capture a simple, brutal reality about today’s, and even more, tomorrow’s Australia: after the resources boom we are getting poorer…
There’s a seeming contradiction or paradox in the GDP figures. We continue to record relatively strong growth in the economy. That’s, of course, “relative” to other developed economies which are barely staying out of recession....
Yet right now it’s become a sort of empty growth. In simple terms we are producing more but earning less; we are shipping off more and more of Western Australia to Japan and of course especially China and getting less per tonne and so more or less the same actual dollars overall…
But our incomes aren’t growing. This shows up in all, sorts of places — like wages, which are now growing at their lowest pace in 60 years and barely keeping up with (very low) inflation.
Cutting back on Anzac Day at Gallipoli? Didn’t we say we wouldn’t let the terrorists win?
Andrew Bolt December 03 2015 (9:00am)
Pardon? What happened to all that talk about not letting the terrorists win by changing how we live?
UPDATE
Louise Roberts:
===The government is considering cutting back on Anzac Day commemorations in Gallipoli next year because of the terror threat.Wrong.
Veterans Affairs Minister Stuart Robert said the Gallipoli dawn service, one of Australia’s most significant commemorative events, would remain.
But the government is consulting Turkey on whether the commemoration at Lone Pine, conducted during the Anzac Day morning, should be called off… “On reflection as there are risks to Australians and New Zealanders in attending multiple services, often over two days with little sleep with the Lone Pine service held in an exposed and isolated location, a review of the continuance of the Lone Pine service is appropriate,” he told parliament.
UPDATE
Louise Roberts:
Lone Pine is an exposed and isolated spot. History tells us that. Put yourself in the mind of those soldiers, of course naturally terrified about being slaughtered, weeping as they said their Hail Marys before lurching into the machine gun front line.(Via Paul Murray Live, on Sky News each week night at 9pm.)
But what a terrible contrast we present in our rush to change how we remember them.
We cannot let terrorists dictate our way of life or dilute our traditions on the basis of What If....No alert system can deliver 100 per cent perfect security but if we allow them to change how we love and how we respect, they have won.
Fiddling with Gallipoli is two fingers to our surviving vets from all conflicts. What’s next for the paranoid? Tweaking Christmas because Santa might run amok with a pump-action rifle and an Islamic state flag in a shopping mall?
Time for another Turnbull selfie
Andrew Bolt December 03 2015 (7:53am)
Malcolm Turnbull and fellow plotter Julie Bishop made mischief for Tony Abbott over Bronwyn Bishop’s expenses scandal. Is it time for karma?
30 July:
===30 July:
Bronwyn Bishop… has been engulfed in a furore over her use of taxpayer-funded political entitlements, after it was revealed that she spent $5,227 on a charter helicopter to travel a short distance from Melbourne to Geelong for a political fundraiser…2 December:
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull ... took to Twitter to publicise his own trip through Geelong… The tweets included a photo showing Mr Turnbull at South Geelong train station, on his way to Torquay…
In response to a question from a reporter about whether he had arrived in a helicopter he quipped: “There was no aerial component whatsoever."… “I understand that the Labor Party will seek to use this to destabilise Question Time for example, and I’m sure Speaker Bishop will take that into account as she considers her position,” Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told Channel Nine.
Julie Bishop ordered an empty VIP jet to fly from Canberra to Perth to collect her and her boyfriend from a charity dinner…Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:
It is believed taxpayers have been slugged $30,000 for the flight.
Should Labor use Question Time to have a go at Bishop’s $30K flight, can we assume she’ll consider her position?
Any Turnbull frontbenchers rumbling that Bishop’s position is untenable? And when can we expect Turnbull to shame Bishop by tweeting while aboard the Indian Pacific?
A familiar phrase, which had Abbott haters frothing
Andrew Bolt December 03 2015 (7:34am)
“Death cult” doesn’t seem so ridiculous, does it?
===Brough a cooked goose
Andrew Bolt December 03 2015 (7:31am)
MAL Brough should be sacked for being a goose who claims his “yes” actually means “no” — he didn’t break the law.
Mind you, Brough shouldn’t be Special Minister of State in the first place.
It looks like he got the job ahead of better talents just because he helped Malcolm Turnbull become Prime Minister.
And even after admitting on national TV last year to having done something possibly illegal in 2012, when he was trying to take the seat then held by disgraced Speaker Peter Slipper.
60 Minutes’ Liz Hayes asked Brough how parts of Slipper’s private diary had ended up in his hands, with the help of disgruntled Slipper staffer James Ashby.
(Read full article here.)
UPDATE
Laura Tingle:
===Mind you, Brough shouldn’t be Special Minister of State in the first place.
It looks like he got the job ahead of better talents just because he helped Malcolm Turnbull become Prime Minister.
And even after admitting on national TV last year to having done something possibly illegal in 2012, when he was trying to take the seat then held by disgraced Speaker Peter Slipper.
60 Minutes’ Liz Hayes asked Brough how parts of Slipper’s private diary had ended up in his hands, with the help of disgruntled Slipper staffer James Ashby.
(Read full article here.)
UPDATE
Laura Tingle:
(T)he problem for Malcolm Turnbull in the Brough affair is that it is rapidly shattering from one unpleasant political problem into a collection of equally dangerous shards.Mark Kenny:
Should Mal Brough stand down from his job as Special Minister of State while he is investigated by the Australian Federal Police? Of course he should. And for that matter, Wyatt Roy should probably do the same thing. They are being investigated by the coppers, for goodness sake. Brough’s house has been raided…
The problem the Prime Minister has now is that if Brough goes, it immediately opens the question of why Wyatt Roy is not also vulnerable… But if the unfortunate episode of Bronwyn Bishop and choppergate proved anything, it is that the 24-hour media cycle means that stories keep kicking over every time anybody has to front a media conference.
Brough ... is isolated and exposed. And so, therefore, is his boss… (F)ew Liberals did more than Brough to alchemise party room discontent over Tony Abbott into support for Turnbull…James Massola & Lisa Cox:
(N)otwithstanding [the] ongoing AFP investigation, Turnbull rewarded Brough with, of all posts, Special Minister of State - the singular portfolio concerned with the protection of MPs’ standards and the maintenance of parliamentary integrity. According to one senior minister, Brough’s position has become “unviable"… If Brough’s selection was heroic on Turnbull’s part, his removal, as now looks inescapable, will be a direct admission of flawed judgment by the new PM.
Liberal senator Cory Bernardi ... said that “in the end of the appointment of ministers is always a captain’s call”.(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
“I’m sure the current captain will take all events into consideration in determining Mr Brough’s future,” he said.
Why doesn’t the Left here say something about this persecution?
Andrew Bolt December 03 2015 (7:10am)
When will gay groups in Australia take up this fight? Their attacks on meek Christians are so passe, and so irrelevant when Islamists commit such barbarities:
BEFORE a crowd of men on a street in the Syrian city of Palmyra, the masked Islamic State group judge read out the sentence against the two men convicted of homosexuality: They would be thrown to their deaths from the roof of the nearby Wael Hotel....Not a word from Janet Rice, the Greens’ spokesman on gender identity. The closest I can find to a reaction to such horrors is this tweet calling for us to respond with love and kisses:
Notorious for their gruesome methods of killing, the Islamic State group reserves one of its most brutal for suspected homosexuals. Videos it has released show masked militants dangling men over the precipices of buildings by their legs to drop them headfirst or tossing them over the edge. At least 36 men in Syria and Iraq have been killed by IS militants on charges of sodomy, according to the New York-based OutRight Action International…
It began when IS militants blared on loudspeakers for men to gather. Then a black van pulled up outside the Wael Hotel, and Mallah and Salamah were brought out.
The first to be thrown off was Mallah. He was tied to a chair so he couldn’t resist, then pushed over the side.
He landed on his back, broken but still moving. A fighter shot him in the head. Next was Salameh. He landed on his head and died immediately. Still, fighters stoned his body, Omar said.
Turnbull driven crazy by Abbott phobia
Andrew Bolt December 03 2015 (6:59am)
US PRESIDENT Barack Obama this week did what Tony Abbott last month urged, sending US soldiers to fight ISIS.
How foolish does Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull look now, having just mocked Abbott’s “machismo”?
Conclusion: Turnbull and his media cheer squad must stop hyperventilating about the former prime minister.
It’s toxic, infantile and even dangerous. Abbott is gone, yet fear of him is driving the Turnbull Government crazy and pushing it in exactly the wrong direction – especially on national security.
Abbott last month suggested the US coalition send some soldiers, “preferably with Sunni states”, to help win the war against ISIS.
“This could involve … the deployment of special forces on the ground in support of local forces.”
If Turnbull had any judgment he would have backed Abbott’s suggestion or at least given his standard answer – that every idea is “on the table”.
Instead, paranoid about seeming weak where Abbott was strong, he overreacted badly.
(Read full article here.)
A Muslim calls for reform
Andrew Bolt December 03 2015 (6:25am)
I liked the call for a revolution in the Muslim community here, but it seems more a battle-cry for assets and positions rather than for the reform of Islam:
So this - from Kilani - is very good:
===The founder of Australia’s biggest Muslim media organisation has called for a “revolution’’ within the Islamic community, sweeping out the old guard of leaders who he says have become the “false face’’ of the nation’s Muslims.But the Mufti also repudiates violence. The problem is that he does not challenge the narrative that the wicked West is oppressing Muslims, and it’s a world of us against them.
Ahmed Kilani, who started the website Muslim Village, said the present crop of community leaders had become “irrelevant’’ not only to the community at large, but also to most Australian Muslims.
Mr Kilani said that with 75 per cent of Australian Muslims either being born in Australia or having come here at a young age, it no longer made sense to have key institutions, such as mosques and peak community groups, controlled by what he described as “ethnic tribes’’ from within the Muslim community....
“We need a revolution in leadership structures to allow generational and intellectual change.’’
Mr Kilani, who in addition to his work with Muslim Village has sat on the boards of Islamic schools and charities, said while some organisations were trying to transform, many had grown hopelessly out of touch with their grassroots base.
“They have become irrelevant,’’ Mr Kilani said. “Yet they control tens of millions of dollars of important community assets and are the false face of the Muslim community to greater Australian society.’’… [He] said all imams and community leaders should be made to sign a charter of values that unequivocally repudiated violence conducted in the name of Islam and called on all Muslims to participate in and contribute to the society in which they live.
So this - from Kilani - is very good:
We are also in denial that we have significant problems with a segment of our young men that is effecting the entire community. We represent 2% of the population, yet account for 10% of the crime rate and 7% of the prison population – sadly many of them for drug offences, gun and violent crimes. Why do we have some young people saying “this is Daar Al Harab I can do as I please to the kufar”, “I only follow Sharia law”, “We need to do Jihad brother!”. Yet they have no proper understanding of Islam and lack any Islamic manners. How did we reach this point and what are we doing to fix it? Alhamdulillah yes we now have Youth centers popping up everywhere, but major social problems are still not being addressed....But these recommendations from Kilani are less so:
We need to stop blaming the police, media, polticians, Jews, Zionists, the masons, the illumanati and realise that we have become what we are due to our own actions! Internal failings in all of us individually and apathy amongst all of us collectively has lead to this. Everyone complains yet only 1% are willing to make a difference!
Professional Advocacy and Media Monitoring – No professional advocacy body to defend against actions of over zealous police brutality, media discrimination and the rampant Islamophobia we are now facing that is challenging everything from Mosques, Schools, Halal foods to cemeteries. People like Mariam Veiszadeh, Lydia Shelly, Dr Zachariah Mathews and others having been doing an amazing job to combat it. Yet they are all unpaid and virtually unsupported…
Political Lobby – No professional lobby group to lobby political parties and harness the Muslim vote. A study conducted a few years ago showed that if Muslims used their votes wisely, their votes could be crucial in the outcome of up to 5 federal seats. This is incredibly significant and I can guarantee you if a full time professional body focused on lobbying and organising the Muslim vote was functioning effectively, no political party would dare blow the dog whistle and use Muslim bashing as an opportunistic vote winner every time they were down in the polls.
“Inequality” doesn’t seem to be driving these radicals
Andrew Bolt December 03 2015 (5:58am)
A Leftist economist claims “inequality” is causing jihadism, and it’s the West’s own fault:
But I can’t actually see evidence of the inequality that causes jihadism in the two homes raided in Sydney yesterday.
The raids:
===A year after his 700-page opus “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” stormed to the top of America’s best-seller lists, Thomas Piketty is out with a new argument about income inequality....Blaming the West rather than Islam or Muslims is a favorite of the Left, which makes it an apologist of the fascist theocrats trying to destroy the West.
The new argument...: Inequality is a major driver of Middle Eastern terrorism, including the Islamic State attacks on Paris earlier this month… Piketty is particularly scathing when he blames the inequality of the region, and the persistence of oil monarchies that perpetuate it, on the West: “These are the regimes that are militarily and politically supported by Western powers, all too happy to get some crumbs to fund their [soccer] clubs or sell some weapons. No wonder our lessons in social justice and democracy find little welcome among Middle Eastern youth.”
But I can’t actually see evidence of the inequality that causes jihadism in the two homes raided in Sydney yesterday.
The raids:
The homes of two well known Sydney families, the Hauochars and the Alameddines, were raided by police yesterday after Facebook threats [to shoot up Merrylands police station] were uncovered.The homes:
The Alameddines, relatives of the man accused of supplying the gun that killed Curtis Cheng, and the family of one-eyed Osman Haouchar, detained on returning from the Middle East last week, brawled just hours after the 26-year-old landed. Neither family would help police. Assistant Commissioner Mark Jenkins said raids were organised crime-related but there was no longer a definitive line between Middle Eastern organised crime and homegrown Islamic radicals. “The lines have blurred,” he said.
Sorry to Nick Cater. He spoke the cool truth
Andrew Bolt December 02 2015 (10:23pm)
I need to apologise to Nick Cater, my guest on last week’s Bolt Report. Nick noted that the Arctic ice had been increasing in extent in recent years. I “corrected” him by noting that the Antarctic ice had been at historic levels.
It turns out Nick was right as well:
My excuse - other than pleading ignorance - is much the one I gave for “correcting” him: a paranoia that warmists are watching to pounce on every little error in questioning their faith, while giving a pass to the wildest claims of a Tim Flannery or Bill Shorten.
Indeed, not one warmist pounced on my error in contradicting Nick.
Funny, that.
===It turns out Nick was right as well:
I apologise to Nick for saying he was wrong. The ice has indeed recovered lately.
My excuse - other than pleading ignorance - is much the one I gave for “correcting” him: a paranoia that warmists are watching to pounce on every little error in questioning their faith, while giving a pass to the wildest claims of a Tim Flannery or Bill Shorten.
Indeed, not one warmist pounced on my error in contradicting Nick.
Funny, that.
Labor is the real enemy of the ADF
Miranda Devine – Wednesday, December 03, 2014 (12:53am)
IT was nauseating to hear Bill Shorten championing pay rises for defence personnel this week.
Continue reading 'Labor is the real enemy of the ADF'Climate alarmists sidestepping the truth
Miranda Devine – Wednesday, December 03, 2014 (12:52am)
HIGH-PROFILE climate alarmists such as Wallaby flanker David Pocock and IPCC author Professor Colin Butler are the useful idiots of green hypocrisy.
Continue reading 'Climate alarmists sidestepping the truth'IPOD BROKEN
Tim Blair – Wednesday, December 03, 2014 (1:13pm)
Holy war is hell for dainty French jihadists in Syria:
In a series of letters seen by Le Figaro newspaper, some of the 376 French currently fighting in Syria have begged for advice on how to return. Others have complained that, rather than participating in a noble battle, they have been acting as jihadi dogsbodies.“I’ve basically done nothing except hand out clothes and food,” wrote one, who wants to return from Aleppo. “I also help clean weapons and transport dead bodies from the front. Winter’s arrived here. It’s begun to get really hard.”Another writes: “I’m fed up. They make me do the washing up.”One Frenchman whinged that he wanted to come home because he was missing the comforts of life in France.“I’m fed up. My iPod doesn’t work any more here. I have to come back.”A third wrote fearfully: “They want to send me to the front, but I don’t know how to fight.”
(Via Brat)
LITTLE-KNOWN GOVERNMENT CAUSED DEATH, DESPAIR
Tim Blair – Wednesday, December 03, 2014 (3:18am)
More than a year after the last federal election, and long after the Abbott government ended the deadly people-smuggling trade into Australia, the ABC discovers one or two problems with the previous government’s asylum seeker policies:
‘Fiona’ is a serving Navy officer, so the ABC must obscure her identity. She worked at the Northern Command in Darwin, which directed the Navy ships intercepting asylum seeker boats …Fiona said she was also aware of the level of indirect political pressure applied to border protection operations.She said the captains of naval ships were told not to board asylum seeker vessels until they were in Australian waters, and the crews and passengers were then subject to Australian migration law.She claims that on at least one occasion, an asylum seeker vessel sank as a result.“In the incident that I’ve described where the boat overturned and people died, that pressure came from Canberra,” she said.
Interesting. The ABC also found Navy officer “Michael”:
Another serving Navy officer, ‘Michael’, also said he witnessed occasions in which unseaworthy asylum seeker vessels were not boarded because of decisions made in Canberra.He said this pressure took the form of “suggestions” relayed to the captains of boats, rather than direct orders.“Our vessel was delayed 15 hours for a boarding on one occasion and we got reports in from surveillance aircraft that that vessel had sunk 13 hours ago,” he said.“All we found was probably a line about 70 miles long of bodies. We fished them out for as long as we could, ‘til we were full. And that wasn’t uncommon.”
Mentioned only once in this piece:
All of the personnel the ABC spoke to served on Operation Resolute during the Rudd/Gillard Labor governments.
Again, interesting. The ABC’s 7.30 at least mentioned Labor more than once, but the online copy contains this puzzling paragraph:
Men and women who served on Operation Resolute – the Navy’s contribution to Operation Sovereign Borders – have spoken publicly for the first time about what they have witnessed while boarding and intercepting asylum seeker vessels off Australia’s northern coast.
Operation Sovereign Borders was introduced by the Abbott government in 2013. It stopped the deaths and trauma referred to in this report. The ABC is more than a year late and a fact short.
UPDATE. Further from the ABC:
For the first time, we hear from some of the one in three Australian Defence Force members involved in Operation Sovereign Borders who have reported being deeply traumatised by what they’ve seen ...
Every individual interviewed in that piece describes events that took place under the Labor and prior to Operation Sovereign Borders.
(Via MiltonG)
UPDATE II. The ABC slyly removes that Operation Sovereign Borders reference:
For the first time, we hear from some of the one in three Australian Defence Force members involved in border protection operations who have reported being deeply traumatised by what they’ve seen …
(Via J.F. Beck)
ABC trawls for a government critic
Andrew Bolt December 03 2014 (7:44pm)
The ABC’s 7.30 makes the Abbott Government’s higher education bill - rejected by the Senate last night - seem a dog sold by a clown It interviews at length a vice-chancellor of a minor university who is damning of the reforms:
If Labor votes down a reform backed by 40 out of 41 university vice chancellors, isn’t the real story the bloody-mindedness of Labor, not the unfairness of the Coalition?
===STEPHEN PARKER, UNI. OF CANBERRA VICE-CHANCELLOR: Definitely, there are things that need to be looked at. But what we had was a surprise announcement on Budget night which contradicts assurances from what is now the Government two days before the election with the threat of a loss of research funding if we don’t agree. That is not the way for an honourable government or for a statesman with the best interests of higher education at heart to effect reforms. So if the gun is removed and we can have a proper conversation, then I’d be very happy to join them at the table…Education Minister Christopher Pyne is then interviewed by 7.30’s Leigh Sales and calls her out:
SABRA LANE: Stephen Parker’s the Vice-Chancellor of Canberra University. He’s critical of the universities’ peak lobby group, Universities Australia, for supporting the Government’s changes, saying it’s tantamount to a suicide pact. STEPHEN PARKER: I think they’ve sold their soul, they’ve sold out students and someone needs to say so clearly… I think [the Government needs] to withdraw their proposals and stop trying last-minute compromises, tacky things like $400 million for Tasmania, and then do what the Commission of Audit actually recommended, which was a 12-month debate about fee deregulation. We could possibly have pilot schemes, we could look at certain kinds of courses having fees deregulated first, we can model the impact on different kinds of students. This has been done far too fast and in a rushed way, which has just sapped confidence that the Government knows what it’s going with these reforms.
Well, surprisingly, Leigh, you’ve found the one vice chancellor who is publically opposed to these reforms out of 41. But the other 40 are in favour.If Parker was the one warming sceptic among 41 climate scientists the ABC would spurn him. But the one Abbott Government critic among 41 vice chancellors?
If Labor votes down a reform backed by 40 out of 41 university vice chancellors, isn’t the real story the bloody-mindedness of Labor, not the unfairness of the Coalition?
Labor, Greens vote to reward boat people yet again
Andrew Bolt December 03 2014 (1:50pm)
Make no mistake. Labor back in office will once more lure in the boats:
===The government faces another possible Senate defeat with Labor, the Greens, the Palmer United party and other crossbench senators insisting that 30,000 asylum seekers living in limbo in Australia receive the possibility of a permanent visa.Note, too, how Jacqui Lambie will vote against good policy again and again, regardless of the facts of the matter.
The immigration minister, Scott Morrison, sought to sway senators as debate on the new bill began, announcing he had agreed to increase the humanitarian intake from 13,750 to 18,750 in two years’ time, and to 20,000 in the following year. He also said he would allow people on temporary protection visas to leave the country for compassionate reasons, for example to visit a dying relative, if they did not travel to the country where they claimed they had been persecuted.
The newly independent Jacqui Lambie continued to say she would vote against all government legislation until it agreed to improve its offer for defence force pay.
ABC 7.30 knocks Pyne for pronouncing “Wang” correctly
Andrew Bolt December 03 2014 (1:09pm)
The ABC’s Leigh Sales tells Education Minister Christopher Pyne he’s wrong to pronounce PUP Senator Dio Wang’s surname “Wong”.
Other journalists immediately assume Pyne made a fool of himself:
Nine seconds into this interview with singer and actor Wang Leehom, you’ll hear how Wang is pronounced in Mandarin - and it’s “Wong”.
The president of the Senate introduces Dio Wang for his maiden speech. It’s “Wong”.
Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, editor of IMDiversity.com Asian American Village, says her name is pronounced “Wong”:
Reader PeterB corrects me:
More ignorant gloating as a journalist who is wrong mocks a man who is right:
UPDATE
Credit to Leigh Sales for posting this admission after asking Dio Wang himself how to pronounce his name:
I suspect Sales will acknowledge this on tonight’s show.
But the whole episode - with Twitter savaging Pyne and journalists on ninesm and Daily Mail horselaughing - shows the power of confirmation bias.
And fours hours on, the Daily Mail still hasn’t corrected its false headlines.
(Thanks to reader Jason Fong.)
===Other journalists immediately assume Pyne made a fool of himself:
Education Minister Christopher Pyne tried to give ABC 7.30 host Leigh Sales a lesson in Mandarin last night during an interview about the defeat of his education reform bill in the Senate.In fact, Pyne is right and his mockers the fools.
In an interview during which Pyne defended himself and his relationships with crossbench senators the minister pronounced Palmer United Senator Dio Wang’s name as “Dio Wong”.
“I have a great relationship with Glenn Lazarus and Clive Palmer and Dio Wong,” Mr Pyne said before being corrected by the host.
“I think it’s Dio Wang, actually,” Sales said.
“Well, some people pronounce it ‘Wang’, some people pronounce it ‘Wong’. “It depends on where you are in the spectrum,” Mr Pyne contended before suggesting it was a “very small thing” for the host to pick him up on.
Nine seconds into this interview with singer and actor Wang Leehom, you’ll hear how Wang is pronounced in Mandarin - and it’s “Wong”.
The president of the Senate introduces Dio Wang for his maiden speech. It’s “Wong”.
Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, editor of IMDiversity.com Asian American Village, says her name is pronounced “Wong”:
My surname is spelled “Wang,” but it is pronounced \wong\. When I was little, some people would get mad and scold that I was the one who was spelling or pronouncing my own name wrong. (Or “Wong.” Ha ha. Not funny.) The “a” in Wang is pronounced like “wander” or “want” or “wand.”Will Sales apologise to Pyne? (UPDATE - SEE END OF POST) By the way, Wang’s maiden speech was very good - wonderfully humble and moving in the dedication to Wang’s daughter, whose reaction is a delight. Wang’s family story is so very telling, and his anger at Tony Abbott’s unfortunate description of the “honourable” conduct of Japanese troops entirely understandable when he tells the history of the city of his birth. I rate Wang highly, despite the political company he unfortunately keeps:
UPDATE
Reader PeterB corrects me:
Andrew, I just want to pull you up on your last paragraph - Abbott’s remarks were about the Japanese submariners that attacked Sydney Harbour in 1942, not about Japanese troops in general. It was the leftists and their media that blew up Abbott’s comments in to something that they were not. You are perpetuating the myth by saying the same.UPDATE
More ignorant gloating as a journalist who is wrong mocks a man who is right:
Three errors in those headlines. Will the Daily Mail retract and apologise?
UPDATE
Credit to Leigh Sales for posting this admission after asking Dio Wang himself how to pronounce his name:
I suspect Sales will acknowledge this on tonight’s show.
But the whole episode - with Twitter savaging Pyne and journalists on ninesm and Daily Mail horselaughing - shows the power of confirmation bias.
And fours hours on, the Daily Mail still hasn’t corrected its false headlines.
(Thanks to reader Jason Fong.)
Jacqui Lambie hijacks Phillip Hughes’ tribute for a political stunt
Andrew Bolt December 03 2014 (12:21pm)
Contemptible. With Lambie it really is all about Lambie:
UPDATE
Lambie makes political capital from crashing the Hughes’ tributes:
===OUTSPOKEN senator Jacqui Lambie has interrupted Senate tributes for cricketer Phillip Hughes in a bid to force a rushed debate on her private bill to raise defence force pay.Look at Labor’s response… How dare it reward this vile behaviour?
In an attempt to hijack the government’s agenda in the final days of the parliamentary year, Senator Lambie cut short a move to honour the young cricketer who died last week.
Her move also coincided with preparations for a funeral in his hometown of Macksville.
After a few moments of confusion, the Senate agreed to finalise its tributes to Hughes with a minute’s silence.
Senator Lambie then moved to suspend all other business so that senators could debate her bill. The move was supported by Labor but was defeated 34-33.
UPDATE
Lambie makes political capital from crashing the Hughes’ tributes:
Glenn Lazarus shows the principle missing from Labor and the Greens:
Palmer adds to his bizarre conspiracy theories
Andrew Bolt December 03 2014 (10:26am)
Clive Palmer really believes his mad conspiracy theories. This is freaky:
===“I’m monitored, my phones are tapped every day,” Mr Palmer said.Clive’s conspiracies:
“We know that if we go back to inquiries in ASIO in the late ‘80s in the Senate that ASIO constantly monitors the top hundred wealthiest Australians...”
The CIA funds the Greens.
Rupert Murdoch’s then wife Wendy Deng “is a Chinese spy”.
Rupert Murdoch gives orders to journalist Hedley Thomas via Skype to get Palmer.
Murdoch’s papers are in a conspiracy to bring down Palmer.
Palmer’s Chinese partners are part of a conspiracy by Chinese “mongrels” to take over our ports and steal our natural resources.
Palmer is being bugged by ASIO.
A network of former soldiers is working for the Australian Electoral Commission, fiddling results.
Some major political party planted Jacqui Lambie in his own party and got her to act irrationally
Implacable in purpose, better in delivery
Andrew Bolt December 03 2014 (10:02am)
Good advice from John Ruddick, a former candidate for the federal presidency of the Liberal party:
UPDATE
Federal Liberal frontbencher Josh Frydenberg lists the 10 lessons of the Victorian Liberals’ defeat:
===Bad polling in the early stages of a government is an antidote to hubris. It toughens up the government for the long haul and the eventual recovery earns the respect of the nation. The key is to hold the line. As Margaret Thatcher said in the depths of her polling woes just over a year into her first term, “we shall not be diverted from our course. To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the ‘U-turn’, I have only one thing to say: ‘You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.’?”I’d differ in Ruddick only in this (or maybe he’d even agree) - to recall the great maxim from The Leopard, that for things to stay as they are, everything must change. In other words, the Government must stick to its firm purpose, but change everything about the way it delivers and sells. Same purpose, better means.
Today’s pundits look back on the Howard era as one long success story, but John Howard had acute political headaches in his first and second terms. Polling in year one was solid, but collapsed so badly in years two and three there were fears the government would be a one-term wonder. One Nation attracted many voters and gun ownership restrictions drove away others. Spending cuts, the waterfront dispute and changes to industrial relations and the GST were all unpopular. Seven ministers and Howard’s chief of staff resigned because of the code of ministerial conduct.
Labor hit the lead in year two of Howard’s first term with polls blowing out to 57-43 two-party preferred. Labor remained in front until election day. The second term was worse. A few months out from the 2001 election bookmakers offered $4 on Howard v $1.20 for Kim Beazley. From there polling firmed up until Howard could lose only to a Labor leader promising to be like him.
Pundits remember the Thatcher government and Reagan administration as a golden age of widespread support but, although those governments were popular for most of their time in office, initially their polling was dire. Eighteen months into Thatcher’s first term three cabinet ministers knocked on her door and suggested she resign. The Conservatives went on to win three more elections and convince British Labour to accept much of Thatcher’s agenda. Ronald Reagan’s approval near the first term halfway mark was 35 per cent with a disapproval of 56 per cent. Reagan remained in the polling doldrums for 18 months but made history in the 1984 US election by winning 49 out of 50 states ....
UPDATE
Federal Liberal frontbencher Josh Frydenberg lists the 10 lessons of the Victorian Liberals’ defeat:
One: Develop a clear narrative consistent with Liberal philosophy. Since its inception 70 years ago, the party has stood for smaller and more efficient government, the power of the individual and his or her entrepreneurship, opportunity and choice in health and education, and a safety net for those who can’t help themselves....Actually, that last point presents the Liberals with a dilemma. As Bill Shorten is proving, you can actually wreck everything you can and the Government still gets the blame. Why help the Government do the right thing when chaos is so rewarded?
Two: Communication is key.... Studies show that the average person reaches for their mobile device more than 100 times a day. Advertising via Facebook and Google is often more likely to connect with the swinging voter.
Three: Challenge the right of partisan unionists to openly campaign in uniform against the sitting government. It was outrageous to see hundreds of unionists stand on the booths and doorknock homes in their firefighting, paramedic and nursing uniforms. It was a clear breach of a century-old practice of public sector neutrality…
Four: Never let the public forget the failures of your political predecessors. The Brumby/Bracks years left Victorians with the myki, desalination plant and north-south pipeline fiascos. But those white elephants were such a distant memory that Victorians felt comfortable electing Labor again after such a short period of time.
Five: Disunity is death. Geoff Shaw got headlines for the wrong reasons and a great opportunity to govern with a majority in both Houses was missed…
Six: Avoid the fringe and play to the middle… Parties should always be conscious of the ground upon which elections will be decided…
Seven: Incumbency is providing a diminishing return.
Eight: Don’t leave election announcements too late because more people vote early. More than 1.1 million voters out of a base of 3.8 million voted before Saturday…
Nine: Regroup, renew. When the state Liberal Party reconvenes, it will select its new leader. That provides an opportunity to select a revitalised team with some new names.. Ten: There is always a silver lining. The rise of the Greens, and the strength of their challenge in the seat of Melbourne, will cause heartache for Labor. That is an opportunity for the Coalition, because there will be occasion where Labor will look to the Coalition for support against the Greens, knowing that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Too hot, too cold - an unworkable Senate
Andrew Bolt December 03 2014 (9:50am)
How could any government win against a Senate like this?
===While Liberal Democratic Party senator David Leyonhjelm rebuked ministers for not consulting him enough, Palmer United Party senator Glenn Lazarus complained of being contacted too often to discuss the government’s university reforms.How can Ministers negotiate with crossbenchers who refuse to even talk?
Senator Lazarus never agreed to meet [Education Minister Christopher] Pyne....
Liberals demand more talk before action
Andrew Bolt December 03 2014 (9:45am)
It is a good sign that Liberal MPs want more debate within the party before the Government hares off on another attack:
Related:
===FRUSTRATED backbench MPs have blocked an attempt to fast-track the Abbott government’s $20 billion medical research future fund in a show of strength amid growing despair at the way their leaders are communicating their economic strategy.It is better to thrash out problems with policies before they are released, not after.
The Coalition’s economics committee refused to approve a draft bill to set up the controversial fund in a blunt signal to ministers that it would not “rubber-stamp” fresh ideas after seeing the government struggle to argue for its existing reforms.
Related:
West Australian MP Ken Wyatt stood at one point and rebuked the “arrogance” of ministerial staff members, which some took as a coded reference to the centralisation of power in the ministerial wing. “The criticism that they’ve put barriers up around the Prime Minister is absolutely true,” an MP said. “They’ve put walls around him for their own benefit and that’s a big mistake.”
Another said the Prime Minister’s office should be consulting MPs about how to improve policies and political tactics. “There is a degree of paranoia there that is totally unwarranted and unnecessary because there’s no threat to Tony.”
It costs $500,000 to show you’re innocent
Andrew Bolt December 03 2014 (9:33am)
A win:
===A DISENDORSED Family First candidate’s attempts to sue columnist Andrew Bolt over an email sent to two people has backfired with a judge ordering him to pay $500,000 in legal costs…The list of cases this man has run.
“The defamatory imputations were trivial and obviously made under qualified privilege. If the claim was the first salvo in Mr Barrow’s threatened ‘innovative stormwave of defamation claims’ against Mr Bolt, then it has failed conspicuously,” Justice Forrest wrote in his judgment.
Why did the ABC protect Labor from the blame for these horrors?
Andrew Bolt December 03 2014 (7:21am)
A scandal is denounced by the ABC:
Strange, though. In this long story that remains the only mention of Labor, Rudd or Gillard. No mention is made of the Abbott Government actually stopping these horrors. The casual reader would probably assume from the report they are continuing.
Let’s now check the ABC 7.30 report of this alleged scandal:
So how does the ABC deal with a central fact in this story - that the “cruel” Abbott Government actually stopped the horror unleashed by the “kind” Labor Government?
No mention of this scandalous event occurring under the Gillard Labor Government, either:
To repeat. Deaths at sea under Labor: more than 1200. Deaths at sea under the Abbott Government: zero.
Why did the ABC go out of its way not to say so?
===Men and women who served on Operation Resolute - the Navy’s contribution to Operation Sovereign Borders - have spoken publicly for the first time about what they have witnessed while boarding and intercepting asylum seeker vessels off Australia’s northern coast. In a series of interviews with the ABC, they described the horrendous task of retrieving the bodies of dead asylum seekers and of coping with sick and distressed children in squalid conditions.Wait a minute. Operation Sovereign Borders? Bodies? Didn’t the Abbott Government’s Operation Sovereign Borders actually stop the boats and the drownings?
They also alleged decisions made in Canberra directly led to the deaths of asylum seekers.Deaths? Under this Government?
All of the personnel the ABC spoke to served on Operation Resolute during the Rudd/Gillard Labor governments.Ah. Now it becomes clear. This was a problem under Labor, not this government at all.
Strange, though. In this long story that remains the only mention of Labor, Rudd or Gillard. No mention is made of the Abbott Government actually stopping these horrors. The casual reader would probably assume from the report they are continuing.
Let’s now check the ABC 7.30 report of this alleged scandal:
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: ... Australian Defence Force members routinely witness large-scale human degradation and misery.This is misleading. All the allegations that follow - other than a complaint that the Liberals turned back boats - seem to date from Labor’s period. No sailors now “routinely witness” the ghastly things the ABC then describes. The boats have been stopped. This problem didn’t merely reach “its peak” under Labor. It occurred under Labor - until the Liberals ended the dying and this “large-scale human degradation and misery”:
Tonight, for the first time, some of those Australian men and women speak publicly about the traumatic experience of dealing with the surge of asylum seeker boats that reached its peak under the former Labor government.
They describe how they’ve suffered, their mistreatment by Defence and the political calculations that can determine who lives and who dies at sea.Deaths at sea under Labor? More than 1200. Under the Liberals: none.
TROY NORRIS: ... You’re just trying to do the best you can to get as many people out of the water as quickly as possible. There’s so many people on the water…All of this happened under Labor, which lured over the boats by weakening our border laws. All of it was stopped by the Abbott Government.
DAN OAKES: Often Troy Norris faced a different horror: retrieving the dead, including children.
TROY NORRIS: They become quite bloated, very unrecognisable and there’s only one way to pull them in and that’s to grab ‘em and, you know, try and chuck ‘em in the boat. And sometimes you’d go to pull these people in the boat and all you’d end up with is a handful of flesh. They’re just stripped to the bone…
‘GREG’, FORMER NAVY OFFICER: ... You jump on and you can smell three days’ worth of human faeces, you can smell vomit. There are children screaming, there are people crying, there are people - desperation, I would say. You know, I’d say maybe one in five has someone who’s deceased. There are other search and rescues where they haven’t been found in time and everyone’s dead when you get on there. Everyone, and, you know, they’ve been in the sun for a few days as well.
So how does the ABC deal with a central fact in this story - that the “cruel” Abbott Government actually stopped the horror unleashed by the “kind” Labor Government?
DAN OAKES: Under the Labor governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, the number of asylum seekers dramatically increased. In 2007, 148 people arrived by boat. By 2012, the figure was 17,000.Only half the story told.
No mention of this scandalous event occurring under the Gillard Labor Government, either:
‘GREG’: It was a very hot day. It was up to 45 degrees. We conducted this boarding, steamed the vessel to a buoy off Christmas Island, which it was secured to while we waited for someone to make a decision. But it was determined that, firstly, it wasn’t a good look to have a SIEV arriving on Australia Day [last year]. Secondly, there was no-one in the office to talk to who had the ability to make the decision without worrying about having to cover their own backside. So as a result, we sat on that boat with 90 - upwards of 90 men, women and children in 45-degree heat.... And we sat on that boat for six and a half hours to wait for darkness to fall so we were then able to unload the people without creating a stir. Without the media being able to know all the details of it.No mention that this occurred under Labor, too:
DAN OAKES: ‘Michael’ is a serving Navy member who ... says that people have died because of delays caused by Canberra. He describes an occasion when he was told to wait to board a vessel with disastrous consequences.Only near the very end of the show is Labor accused by name:
‘MICHAEL’, FORMER NAVY OFFICER: Our vessel was delayed 15 hours for a boarding on one occasion and we got reports in from surveillance aircraft that that vessel had sunk 13 hours ago and all we found was probably a line about 70 miles long of bodies....
DAN OAKES: He says decisions made by captains he served under was sometimes a result of indirect political influence. Sometimes, the results were fatal.
‘MICHAEL’: I can remember ...where a struggling boat of Rohingyas halfway to Christmas Island did all they could to comply with the boarding commander’s instructions, then we left them alone, 150 nautical miles from anywhere in a poorly-repaired boat.
DAN OAKES: According to ‘Michael’, the captain of the ship said the instruction to leave the first boat came from Canberra, with tragic consequences. ‘MICHAEL’: After we rendered the second boat assistance, we went back to where the previous boat was, 150 miles down. There was no sign of it.
‘FIONA’, NAVY OFFICER (Actor’s voice): There were times when we had crews that conducted boardings and saw the state of the vessel, which was largely overcrowded, and they would have concerns for the welfare of the people onboard. But they were told they were only to conduct a boarding to deliver necessary equipment, then they had to disembark and monitor. On one occasion at least, a vessel overturned and people died.Which minister? The ABC won’t say:
DAN OAKES: According to ‘Fiona’, the Labor government wanted the boats to enter Australian waters before being boarded so the crew and passengers would be subject to Australian migration law.
‘FIONA’ (Actor’s voice): That pressure came from Canberra. It was at a time of heightened political pressure leading up to the election and they didn’t want to conduct yet another boarding outside of waters where they would not get a conviction. So, there was pressure, certainly, from within the operations room at the headquarters that we were told the minister himself was standing in Border Protection Command and he did not want that boat to be boarded.
DAN OAKES: Former Labor government ministers contacted by 7.30 categorically denied any such interference.And even then, the Abbott Government is not thanked for ending this horror but criticised:
After Labor was ousted by the Coalition in September, 2013, according to ‘Fiona’, the new turnback policy deterred asylum seekers from risking their lives, but it simultaneously imperilled those who did try to reach Australia and were caught.Actually those lifeboats are unsinkable.
‘FIONA’ (Actor’s voice): Those boats are generally unseaworthy and overcrowded. To simply turn them back for the sake of policy and put them on those not-purpose-built lifeboats is putting women and children in danger and we could have taken them onboard.
To repeat. Deaths at sea under Labor: more than 1200. Deaths at sea under the Abbott Government: zero.
Why did the ABC go out of its way not to say so?
THE PRESS, THE PRESIDENT AND THE PLASTIC TURKEY
Tim Blair – Tuesday, December 03, 2013 (3:59am)
The recent 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination gave us all reason to again consider one of modern history’s great tragedies. But, aside from the inadvisability of travelling in an open car while there are communists in nearby buildings, there are few lessons to be learned from that dreadful day in Dallas.
Another anniversary, however, is loaded with helpful learning moments, especially for the media.
Continue reading 'THE PRESS, THE PRESIDENT AND THE PLASTIC TURKEY'NO TO MO
Tim Blair – Tuesday, December 03, 2013 (3:56am)
A bunch of guys grow moustaches. The left responds:
Movember is divisive, gender normative, racist and ineffective against some very real health issues.
Probably better if they just killed themselves.
WAR ON SHRUGS
Tim Blair – Tuesday, December 03, 2013 (3:49am)
Anti-sarc rules loom in the west:
Negative body language including shrugging shoulders, rolling eyes, deep sighing and finger-pointing is to be prohibited at a Perth council under new guidelines on behavior …According to the document, raising one’s voice, taunting or trying to undermine others’ arguments, or attacking a suggestion as “that’s a dumb idea” or “that won’t work” is in breach of the code.As are backbiting and complaining about others behind their backs, criticism of an individual or group and asking excessive or inappropriate questions.
If this legislation catches on, every household with children is headed to court.
(Via J.F. Beck)
ALL COST, NO BENEFIT
Tim Blair – Tuesday, December 03, 2013 (3:08am)
We’re living in an age of madness:
Climate-change policies are expected to cost Britain more than £80 billion by the end of the decade, as critics warn that the global-warming industry is spiralling out of control …Vast sums are being spent on initiatives ranging from climate-change officers in local councils to the funding of “low carbon” agriculture in Colombia at a cost of £15 million alone. Billions of pounds are also being added to fuel bills to pay for green policies.
On a positive note, at least the latest leftist belief system isn’t actively killing people.
What’s fair about Fair Work?
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (8:18am)
Judith Sloan on the outrageous stacking of the Fair Work Commission - not least by Bill Shorten as Workplace Relations Minister:
===Of the 27 appointments made by the Labor government, 18 were either union officials or Labor affiliates. And of these appointments, nearly one-third were at the presidential level. The FWC is now a ridiculously top-heavy organisation, with half of all the members at the presidential level.Let us pray that Employment Minister Eric Abetz can unpick the lock on the box in which the government has put him.
And just take a look at the salaries. The total annual remuneration of a vice-president is $534,000 and of a deputy president, it is $435,000. Even the more junior commissioners earn $358,000…
There is, of course, the possibility the appointees to the FWC will act in a detached and even-handed way. But, alas, it has not been the case. One member of the tribunal is so inclined to hand down lop-sided and prejudiced decisions that many of them are appealed… The Australian Mines and Minerals Association, the resources industry employer group, has outlined a number of areas of significant inconsistency. These include: whether employers have the right to test for drug and alcohol use by workers; whether accessing pornographic material is the basis for justified dismissal; whether assaulting a fellow worker is the basis for justified dismissal; whether annual leave can be cashed out; and whether individual flexibility agreements must actually deliver on their promise.
Boats slowing, but now Labor dismantles what’s working
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (8:08am)
Utterly bizarre. Has Labor learned nothing from the humanitarian, financial and security disaster it unleashed by scrapping such tough measures in 2008?
Now, with boats down to one a week, Labor tries to dismantle some of the policies which are clearly working:
===Now, with boats down to one a week, Labor tries to dismantle some of the policies which are clearly working:
THE Senate has scuttled the Coalition government’s reintroduction of temporary protection visas.So stupid.
Labor and the Greens teamed up on Monday night to pass a disallowance motion in the Senate, 36 votes to 26, to quash the controversial visas.
The coalition government reintroduced temporary protection visas via regulation in October as a key plank of its hardline Operation Sovereign Borders policy aimed at discouraging asylum-seeker boat journeys. It must now wait for six months to reintroduce regulation of the same substance.
Turnbull rebukes ABC, but only for helping the Guardian sell itself
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (7:59am)
Interesting, and more stinging coming from Malcolm Turnbull - although he’s confined his criticism to the ABC getting into bed with a commercial entity:
===COMMUNICATIONS Minister Malcolm Turnbull has told ABC managing director Mark Scott it was an error of judgment for the national broadcaster to join The Guardian to publish claims Australia tapped the phones of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife…
Mr Turnbull ... defended the legitimacy of the story. However, he said it was The Guardian’s story, not the ABC’s.
“They were going to publish it and they just basically wanted a partner to help them amplify their publication,” Mr Turnbull said…
Mr Turnbull suggested The Guardian, which launched its Australian web edition earlier this year, would have proposed the partnership with commercial considerations in mind… Mr Turnbull first raised his concerns with Mr Scott in a phone call he initiated last Monday.
A band you may well like
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (7:52am)
Reader Gary:
===About a year ago you shared my band’s video clip on your blog. The band is called Faith & Gasoline and the song, ”Reality Hurts”, dealt with freedom of speech and your recent trial. Thanks to your blog, we received over 100,000 views in under a fortnight and connected with listeners/readers from across Australia, as well as a few readers from Europe and the USA. We also met some interesting characters as we toured Vic, SA and NSW, who had recognised us from your blog! We have now released our second record, “Better Left Unsaid”, as well as a video clip for the title track. The video can be viewed here. And the CD can be purchased in our online store.
How to win $1000 from a Liberal Lord Mayor and make Melbourne a “city of literature”
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (7:09am)
This is cartoonist David Blumenstein with Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, a Liberal, who has just given him a $1000 prize as an “emerging writer” who will ”strengthen Melbourne’s status as a UNESCO City of Literature”:
The Left may have conquered the institutions, but it took the acquiescence of conservatives too eager to seem broadminded.
===The criteria for Blumenstein’s award for a graphic short story in the Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Awards:
General criteria (across all categories)The prize was for a story in Blumenstein’s cartoon book:
Literary merit and overall quality of authorshipGraphic short story
Originality of concept
Stylistic excellence
Readability
Clarity of purpose
Editorial excellence
Intent of work met by author
Professional presentation
All of the general criteria apply but also
Artistic merit
It contains personal stories of people who shit me off — many of them politicians. One of the stories is a thing about Andrew Bolt which won a Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing prize the other day.The prize-winning story was presented as the work of Blumenstein’s much younger brother:
Presenting this as the work of a not-so-bright year 10 student excused Blumenstein the crudity of language and thought of a playground:
All right, so the drawings aren’t great, the writing adolescent - but the politics are right on. And so a former Victorian Liberal leader rewards the sentiments of this “emerging writer” with $1000 taken from ratepayers.
The Left may have conquered the institutions, but it took the acquiescence of conservatives too eager to seem broadminded.
A conservative government should laugh such critics to scorn
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (7:03am)
Gerard Henderson has typically sound advice:
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
===The tenor of intensity with which many journalists dislike the Prime Minister and his colleagues is evident in the note which accompanies the current edition of The Monthly magazine. Editor John van Tiggelen quotes “one of the magazine’s most popular contributors” as declaring: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a cabinet of creeps; I can’t bear to take them seriously yet."…A tip: George Brandis could play a significant role in the culture war this government must fight. Malcolm Turnbull has all the firepower, too, but whose side would he actually join?
So much is the dislike of Abbott that it appears some commentators want his policies to fail even if this is damaging to Australia’s national interest. This is evident in the reporting of the documents stolen by Edward Snowden… It’s possible the overwhelmingly negative coverage may affect the Coalition at the next election. Or that the media’s apparent obsessions have little traction in the electorate. Despite promising starts, Howard only narrowly won his first election as prime minister in 1998 and Rudd did not even lead Labor to the 2010 campaign. Even so, the Coalition may need to consider whether its apparent tactic of low-profile engagement deserves reassessment.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
The warming religion will collapse from its sheer cost
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (6:46am)
How many billions of dollars have been squandered on pretending to do something about the weather? On placating the great Climate God?
Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
===Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
Global climate alarmism has been costly to society, and it has the potential to be vastly more costly. It also has been damaging to science, as scientists adjust both data and even theory to accommodate politically correct positions…For example:
There are past examples. In the U.S. in the early 20th century, the eugenics movement had coopted the science of human genetics and was driving a political agenda. The movement achieved the Immigration Restriction Act of 1923, as well as forced sterilization laws in several states. The movement became discredited by Nazi atrocities, but the American consequences survived well into the 1960s.
In the Soviet Union, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (1898-1976) promoted the Lamarckian view of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. It fit with Stalin’s megalomaniacal insistence on the ability of society to remold nature….
Global warming differs from the previous two affairs. Global warming has become a religion. A surprisingly large number of people seem to have concluded that all that gives meaning to their lives is the belief that they are saving the planet by paying attention to their carbon footprint… In contrast to Lysenkoism, Global Warming has a global constituency, and has successfully coopted almost all of institutional science. However, the cracks in the scientific claims for catastrophic warming are, I think, becoming much harder for the supporters to defend.
In fact:
“‘Real Risk of a Maunder Minimum ‘Little Ice Age’ announced the BBC this week, in reporting startling findings by Professor Mike Lockwood of Reading University. ‘Professor Lockwood believes solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years [raising the risk of a new Little Ice Age]…, explained Paul Hudson, the BBC’s climate correspondent. If Earth is spared a new Little Ice Age, a severe cooling as ‘occurred in the early 1800s, which also had its fair share of cold winters and cold summers is, according to him, ‘more likely than not to happen.”How much more waste before the cost becomes so crippling that it forces politicians to admit voters have been conned - and fleeced?
Climate-change policies are expected to cost Britain more than £80 billion by the end of the decade, as critics warn that the global-warming industry is spiralling out of control …(Thanks to reader fulchrum.)
Vast sums are being spent on initiatives ranging from climate-change officers in local councils to the funding of “low carbon” agriculture in Colombia at a cost of £15 million alone. Billions of pounds are also being added to fuel bills to pay for green policies.
Memo to the ABC: Edward Snowden is as much a “whistleblower” as Kim Philby
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (6:26am)
The ABC has decided on another adjective to describe the traitor Edwin Snowden:
But what crime? What corruption? What malpractice? And look at the damage done to the national security of his own country and that of its allies.
The ABC’s description of Snowden is loaded, inaccurate and informed by hostility to the security interests of the West and its citizens. Snowden is about as much a whistleblower as Kim Philby or Wilfred Burchett.
The ABC is out of control.
===The Guardian Australia has published secret documents from 2008, leaked by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden,...Here is how Whistleblowers Australia defines the term:
Whistleblowers Australia Inc. is an association for those who have exposed corruption or any form of malpractice...Here is how the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority defines it:
A ‘whistleblower’ is a person who exposes or brings to public attention an irregularity or a crime, especially from within an organisation.So the ABC is informing its audience as a matter of fact, not opinion, that Snowden, now granted asylum in Russia, has exposed corruption, crime or some malpractice in his country’s national security organisations. In the ABC’s language, Snowden is a hero.
But what crime? What corruption? What malpractice? And look at the damage done to the national security of his own country and that of its allies.
The ABC’s description of Snowden is loaded, inaccurate and informed by hostility to the security interests of the West and its citizens. Snowden is about as much a whistleblower as Kim Philby or Wilfred Burchett.
The ABC is out of control.
Round up these ma and pa throwbacks
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (4:49am)
What’s more worrying? That AWU boss Paul Howes thinks farming really is just a primitive “ma and pa” operation, or that a way of life “needs” to stop?
It essentially means the day of ma and pa farming in Australia needs to end.A phone call is made:
Senator Bill Heffernan ... said he made a “courtesy” phone call to express his views direct to Mr Howes late Sunday evening, which was met with blunt objection.
“He (Mr Howes) hung up actually because he was a bit upset that I’d called him on a Sunday night which was extraordinary,” he said.
“But I thought it was an extraordinary circumstance that he would demean the great institution of Australian family farmers with the comment that ma and pa farmers should get out.
“He obviously doesn’t understand farming and hasn’t had a real job ever in his life as a trade union person and doesn’t understand the issues or details around the ADM issue."…
He said farmers had made great advances over many decades in the uptake of on-farm technology and science to improve their operations.
“The bulk of family farmers are viable farmers and besides corporate farming in this country has had a history of going broke,” he said. “Farmers don’t pay themselves overtime like the ma and pa trade unions do.”
Abbott’s big pitch: why is Shorten standing between you and $550?
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (12:01am)
I’m not sure why Tony Abbott wasn’t given an auto-cue or better lighting, but the message is very effective.
And the point isn’t just that Labor is ignoring the clear wish of most Australians to scrap the carbon tax and save Australians an average of $550 a year. There is also this, as Paul Murray pointed out on Sky last night: Abbott in the space of a week realised he was making a mistake on school funding and changed course. Labor made a terrible mistake on the carbon tax and in three years still hasn’t been able to change.
===And the point isn’t just that Labor is ignoring the clear wish of most Australians to scrap the carbon tax and save Australians an average of $550 a year. There is also this, as Paul Murray pointed out on Sky last night: Abbott in the space of a week realised he was making a mistake on school funding and changed course. Labor made a terrible mistake on the carbon tax and in three years still hasn’t been able to change.
Time this Government showed it can also do tough
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (8:30am)
Each individual decision taken by the Abbott Government might just be defensible, but the pattern is a worry:
===One of the most senior figures of the Howard government and a leading figure of the Liberal Party’s conservative wing, Peter Reith, has accused Prime Minister Tony Abbott of orchestrating the veto of a $3.4 billion US bid for GrainCorp, which he described as the latest of several botched decisions.So this is more heartening:
Mr Reith called on the new government to show more leadership and resist the push for government subsidies and assistance for business, and raised concerns that the GrainCorp decision, which was supposed to have been made by Treasurer Joe Hockey, makes a bailout of Qantas Airways more likely.
“Hockey says it should be the subject of a national debate. Australia does not need a debate; we need a government that makes it clear it will not be wasting any more taxpayer money with subsidies for business and that its priority, as promised, is to return the budget to surplus ASAP,” he said.
“I never thought that the Abbott government would be the first Australian government to knock back an application to Foreign Investment Review Board from the business community of our close ally the United States."… Former treasurer Peter Costello criticised the decision on Sunday. On Monday, former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett said it had condemned Australia to be a “10th-order country” and “we are still back in the 18th century”.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has sought to dampen expectations that the government will offer financial help to Qantas to preserve its investment-grade credit rating, saying the airline has yet to tell politicians exactly what it wants…
‘’Maybe it wants to see the restrictions on ownership lifted,’’ he said on Brisbane radio. ‘’I’m not sure they really want to see a new government shareholding. And the trouble with providing a government loan guarantee is where does it stop?’’
Children diagnose discrimination in workplaces they’ve never seen
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (8:24am)
Children aged from 15 to 19 who’ve never had full-time jobs know exactly what’s wrong with the workplace:
===When [the survey of 15,000 youths is] carved up on gender lines, for [the] first time ever young women ranked equity and discrimination as the top issue facing the country, with female respondents indicating concerns about workplace discrimination, racism and gender inequality.Reader Jilly:
These girls have not yet experienced workplace situations, are not yet at Uni, live in a decade when women held every one of our highest public offices and are represented in the top level of success in private business of every kind - so where did they get this notion from?Good question. I have some strong suspicions.
Abbott finally unleashes
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (2:04pm)
A turn for the better in the Abbott Government’s communications strategy:
Now, if Speaker Bronwyn Bishop could seem less scared of the Oppositionn and demand less heckling and shouting, even better. It is a poor show when the Prime Minister and others need to remind her of standing orders or need to pause to make the point that the uproar is simply unacceptable. The Member for Parramatta in particular needs a few outings in the sin bin, and Tanya Plibersek’s shouting is surely too much.
Bishop, a classic conservative, thinks setting a good example in civility will impress the uncivil. Actually, a swish of the cane impresses the uncouth even more.
UPDATE
Better. A noisy Labor MP is thrown out.
Worse: Now Julie Bishop has to ask a “rude member” let her finish an answer. Where was Bronwyn Bishop?
UPDATE
Pyne then points out to the Speaker how rude a Labor MP just was to her. (Labor is treating Bishop with a labored patronisation.) She takes no action.
===- A keeping of the education funding promise (or close enough).Heartening.
- A far stronger performance - in fact, a good one - from Christopher Pyne on 7.30 last night.
- A good, aggressive performance from Tony Abbott in Question Time yesterday, without crossing that line into stridency that prime ministers must avoid.
- A press conference from Abbott today from a prime minister who at first held few.
- Some red meat in the press conference for Liberal voters, not least on the ABC.
Now, if Speaker Bronwyn Bishop could seem less scared of the Oppositionn and demand less heckling and shouting, even better. It is a poor show when the Prime Minister and others need to remind her of standing orders or need to pause to make the point that the uproar is simply unacceptable. The Member for Parramatta in particular needs a few outings in the sin bin, and Tanya Plibersek’s shouting is surely too much.
Bishop, a classic conservative, thinks setting a good example in civility will impress the uncivil. Actually, a swish of the cane impresses the uncouth even more.
UPDATE
Better. A noisy Labor MP is thrown out.
Worse: Now Julie Bishop has to ask a “rude member” let her finish an answer. Where was Bronwyn Bishop?
UPDATE
Pyne then points out to the Speaker how rude a Labor MP just was to her. (Labor is treating Bishop with a labored patronisation.) She takes no action.
Boats slowing, but now Labor dismantles what’s working
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (12:08pm)
Utterly bizarre. Has Labor learned nothing from the humanitarian, financial and security disaster it unleashed by scrapping such tough measures in 2008?
Now, with boats down to one a week, Labor tries to dismantle some of the policies which are clearly working:
THE Senate has scuttled the Coalition government’s reintroduction of temporary protection visas.So stupid.
Labor and the Greens teamed up on Monday night to pass a disallowance motion in the Senate, 36 votes to 26, to quash the controversial visas.
The coalition government reintroduced temporary protection visas via regulation in October as a key plank of its hardline Operation Sovereign Borders policy aimed at discouraging asylum-seeker boat journeys. It must now wait for six months to reintroduce regulation of the same substance.
UPDATE
So the Abbott Government brought back temporary protection visas. Labor last night sided with the Greens in the Senate to scrap them. This is how an ABC reporter then grills the Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison:
JANE NORMAN: Bringing back temporary protection visas was one of the Coalition’s key election commitments, the key plank of your border protection policy. So is this now a broken promise?(Thanks to reader F, as well as to reader Andrew for the graphic.)
How a Melbourne academic slimes us in Indonesia
Andrew Bolt December 03 2013 (11:51am
Indonesia’s elite are reacting with disproportionate hostility to Australia over the spying controversy, seemingly forgetful of so much help we have offered.
Now Melbourne University academic Professor Thomas Reuter eggs them on, with this virulently anti-Australian poison published in the Jakarta Post:
Australian troops were in Indonesia as a consequence of liberating Indonesia from the Japanese. Australia was actually a strong supporter of Indonesian independence from Dutch rule.
And if we are to get outraged by massacres in Bali, we should first be cross about mass killings of Indonesians by Indonesians in 1965, and of Australians by Indonesians in 2002. Have apologies been issued for either?
As for intervening in the Konfrontasi, it was only to protect Malaysia from Indonesian aggression, thanks to Sukarno. Why is that not mentioned?
Reuter’s research is handsomely funded by the Australian Research Council. Is such funding in our national interest? I resent every dollar of my taxes taken from me and given to him, when he’s spreading calumnies about Australia in a country where resentments can be lethal.
UPDATE
Reader Leo G says Reuter has form. In 2002 he suggested to a Parliamentary committee the Bali bombing might be the work not of al Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiyah, which would suit the wicked US. No, the Indonesian military might have done it:
=== Now Melbourne University academic Professor Thomas Reuter eggs them on, with this virulently anti-Australian poison published in the Jakarta Post:
After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Indonesia’s founding president Sukarno declared independence… Dutch prisoners of war, released by Indonesia, were armed and sent back on rampages against Indonesian civilians and police. Australian troops participated in the occupation of the outer islands, including Bali, and were involved in massacres.Australian troops massacred Indonesians in Bali? This is news to me. The evidence for this incendiary claim?
Australian troops were in Indonesia as a consequence of liberating Indonesia from the Japanese. Australia was actually a strong supporter of Indonesian independence from Dutch rule.
The British have since apologized for this cruel attempt to stifle the young nation’s struggle for freedom and sovereignty. Australia has not.How can we apologise for something for which no credible evidence seems to exist? Who, other than Reuter, has ever demanded we do apologise?
And if we are to get outraged by massacres in Bali, we should first be cross about mass killings of Indonesians by Indonesians in 1965, and of Australians by Indonesians in 2002. Have apologies been issued for either?
An undeclared war (the “Confrontation") began, and Australian troops participated. Covert operations into Indonesian Kalimantan began in 1964 under the code name Operation Claret. Attempts to assassinate Sukarno failed.Australians tried to assassinate Sukarno? Where’s the evidence? The most famous attempts to kill him came from an Indonesian air force officer and Islamist radicals. You could even blame Suharto for Sukarno’s death. But Australia?
As for intervening in the Konfrontasi, it was only to protect Malaysia from Indonesian aggression, thanks to Sukarno. Why is that not mentioned?
In 1965, Indonesia witnessed one of the greatest genocides of the 20th century, as army general Soeharto led a military coup against the left-leaning but essentially nationalist and non-aligned Sukarno government.Applause? Where in Australia was there “applause”? Australian politicians should perhaps have protested more, and they certainly favored the pro-West Suharto to the far-Left Sukarno. But cheering on the massacres?
Up to one million innocent Indonesian civilians were butchered over the following year at a rate of 1,500 people per day, to the applause of western powers including Australia.
The deep involvement of British and American intelligence in staging this bloody military coup, similar to the Pinochet takeover of Chile, is beyond reasonable doubt.In every bloody coup, blame the CIA. The true hallmark of the far-Left. The responsibility for the massacres remain with Indonesians themselves, with Suharto leading a coup against the erratic and dictatorial Sukarno, so economically incompetent that his country was plagued by famines and his people were advised to eat rats..
The lack of an apology for such consistent un-neighborly behavior may seem astonishing in the context of the “Asian Century” and needs to be understood as a direct consequence of the ongoing nature of these operations.“On going” involvements in assassination plots, coups and massacres? Is this academic serious? We are “un-neighbourly”? Australia? Which backed Indonesian independence, gives $500 million a year in aid, bailed out Indonesia in the Asian financial crisis and donated $1 billion after the terrible tsunami? Why was none of the good we do mentioned in a piece which reads like a hate-stirring slander sheet?
Reuter’s research is handsomely funded by the Australian Research Council. Is such funding in our national interest? I resent every dollar of my taxes taken from me and given to him, when he’s spreading calumnies about Australia in a country where resentments can be lethal.
UPDATE
Reader Leo G says Reuter has form. In 2002 he suggested to a Parliamentary committee the Bali bombing might be the work not of al Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiyah, which would suit the wicked US. No, the Indonesian military might have done it:
Media reports, citing US and Australian government soms, quickly pointed the finger of blame at the international terrorist network Al-Qaeda and ‘its local operatives. Little attention was given to the national let alone local socio-political context in which the attack had taken place. It was not sufficiently noted that attacks of a similar kind, if not scope, have occurred with increasing frequency since the collapse of Suharto’s military dictatorship in 1998. As a consequence, the tragedy of October 12 was co-opted prematurely and uncritically into the global political agenda and rhetoric of the United States government’s “War on Terror."…(Thanks to reader Mick.)
The problem in allocating blame for the Bali blast is that radical Islamic groups like Jemaah Islamiyah are not the only groups in Indonesia today who may be willing and capable of committing or supporting acts of terrorism, such as the recent attacks in Bali… Different groups even within the government’s own security forces have been fighting turf wars, with clashes between police and army forces reported from Java, Sumatra and Flores in recent months. A string of violent incidents bears testimony to increasing lawlessness and an expanding culture of political and economic violence, cutting across all sectors of society. This diffusion makes it difficult to pinpoint a single person or group as the likely perpetrators in any particular case.
- 915 – Pope John X crowned Berengar I of Italy as Holy Roman Emperor.
- 1799 – War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Wiesloch: Austrian Lieutenant Field Marshal Anton Sztáray defeats the French at Wiesloch.
- 1800 – War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Hohenlinden: French General Moreaudecisively defeats the Archduke John of Austria near Munich. Coupled with First ConsulNapoleon Bonaparte's earlier victory at Marengo, this will force the Austrians to sign an armistice and end the war.
- 1818 – Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state.
- 1834 – The Zollverein (German Customs Union) begins the first regular census in Germany.
- 1854 – Battle of the Eureka Stockade: More than 20 gold miners at Ballarat, Victoria, are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences.
- 1898 – The Duquesne Country and Athletic Club defeated an all-star collection of early football players 16-0, in what is considered to be the very first all-star game for professional American football.
- 1901 – In a State of the Union message, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt asks Congress to curb the power of trusts"within reasonable limits".
- 1904 – The Jovian moon Himalia is discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at California's Lick Observatory.
- 1910 – Modern neon lighting is first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show.
- 1912 – Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia (the Balkan League) sign an armistice with the Ottoman Empire, temporarily halting the First Balkan War. (The armistice will expire on February 3, 1913, and hostilities will resume.)
- 1919 – After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, including two collapses causing 89 deaths, the Quebec Bridge opens to traffic.
- 1920 – Following more than a month of Turkish–Armenian War, the Turkish dictated Treaty of Alexandropol is concluded.
- 1927 – Putting Pants on Philip, the first Laurel and Hardy film, is released.
- 1944 – Greek Civil War: Fighting breaks out in Athens between the ELAS and government forces supported by the British Army.
- 1959 – The current flag of Singapore is adopted, six months after Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire.
- 1960 – The musical Camelot debuts at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. It will become associated with the Kennedy administration.
- 1964 – Free Speech Movement: Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest of the UC Regents' decision to forbid protests on UC property.
- 1967 – At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, a transplant team headed by Christiaan Barnard carries out the first heart transplant on a human (53-year-old Louis Washkansky).
- 1971 – Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: Pakistan launches a pre-emptive strike against India and a full-scale war begins claiming hundreds of lives.
- 1973 – Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.
- 1976 – An assassination attempt is made on Bob Marley. He is shot twice, and plays a concert two days later.
- 1979 – In Cincinnati, 11 fans are suffocated in a crush for seats on the concourse outside Riverfront Coliseum before a Who concert.
- 1979 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini becomes the first Supreme Leader of Iran.
- 1982 – A soil sample is taken from Times Beach, Missouri, that will be found to contain 300 times the safe level of dioxin.
- 1984 – Bhopal disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.
- 1989 – Cold War: In a meeting off the coast of Malta, U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the Cold War between NATO and the Soviet Union may be coming to an end.
- 1992 – The Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea, carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude oil, runs aground in a storm while approaching A Coruña, Spain, and spills much of its cargo.
- 1992 – A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world's first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague.
- 1994 – The PlayStation was released in Japan
- 1997 – In Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, representatives from 121 countries sign the Ottawa Treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty, however.
- 1999 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martianatmosphere.
- 2005 – XCOR Aerospace makes the first manned rocket aircraft delivery of U.S. Mail in Kern County, California.
- 2007 – Winter storms cause the Chehalis River to flood many cities in Lewis County, Washington, and close a 20-mile portion of Interstate 5 for several days. At least eight deaths and billions of dollars in damages are blamed on the floods.
- 2009 – A suicide bombing at a hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, kills 25 people, including three ministers of the Transitional Federal Government.
- 2012 – At least 475 people are killed after Typhoon Bopha makes landfall in the Philippines.
- 2014 – The Japanese space agency, JAXA, launches the space explorer Hayabusa 2 from the Tanegashima Space Center on a six-year round trip mission to an asteroid to collect rock samples.
- 1368 – Charles VI of France (d. 1422)
- 1447 – Bayezid II, Ottoman sultan (d. 1512)
- 1560 – Jan Gruter, Dutch scholar and critic (d. 1627)
- 1596 – Nicola Amati, Italian instrument maker (d. 1684)
- 1616 – John Wallis, English mathematician and cryptographer (d. 1703)
- 1722 – Hryhorii Skovoroda, Ukrainian poet, composer, and philosopher (d. 1794)
- 1729 – Antonio Soler, Spanish composer and theorist (d. 1783)
- 1755 – Gilbert Stuart, American painter (d. 1828)
- 1793 – Clarkson Frederick Stanfield, English painter and academic (d. 1867)
- 1800 – France Prešeren, Slovenian poet and lawyer (d. 1849)
- 1826 – George B. McClellan, American general and politician, 24th Governor of New Jersey (d. 1885)
- 1833 – Carlos Finlay, Cuban epidemiologist and physician (d. 1915)
- 1838 – Cleveland Abbe, American meteorologist and academic (d. 1916)
- 1838 – Octavia Hill, English activist and author (d. 1912)
- 1842 – Phoebe Hearst, American philanthropist and activist (d. 1919)
- 1842 – Charles Alfred Pillsbury, American businessman, founded the Pillsbury Company (d. 1899)
- 1842 – Ellen Swallow Richards, American chemist, ecologist, and educator (d. 1911)
- 1857 – Joseph Conrad, Polish-English soldier and author (d. 1924)
- 1857 – Mathilde Kralik, Austrian pianist and composer (d. 1944)
- 1863 – Gussie Davis, African-American songwriter (d. 1899)
- 1864 – Herman Heijermans, Dutch author and playwright (d. 1924)
- 1867 – William John Bowser, Canadian lawyer and politician, 17th Premier of British Columbia (d. 1933)
- 1872 – Arthur Charles Hardy, Canadian lawyer and politician, Canadian Speaker of the Senate (d. 1962)
- 1872 – William Haselden, English cartoonist (d. 1953)
- 1875 – Max Meldrum, Scottish-Australian painter and educator (d. 1955)
- 1878 – Francis A. Nixon, American businessman (d. 1956)
- 1879 – Albert Asher, New Zealand rugby player (d. 1965)
- 1879 – Charles Hutchison, American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 1949)
- 1879 – Kafū Nagai, Japanese author and playwright (d. 1959)
- 1879 – Donald Matheson Sutherland, Canadian physician and politician, 5th Canadian Minister of National Defence (d. 1970)
- 1880 – Fedor von Bock, German field marshal (d. 1945)
- 1883 – Anton Webern, Austrian composer and conductor (d. 1945)
- 1884 – Rajendra Prasad, Indian lawyer and politician, 1st President of India (d. 1963)
- 1884 – Walther Stampfli, Swiss lawyer and politician, 50th President of the Swiss Confederation (d. 1965)
- 1886 – Manne Siegbahn, Swedish physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1978)
- 1887 – Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni, Japanese general and politician, 43rd Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1990)
- 1891 – Thomas Farrell, American general (d. 1967)
- 1894 – Deiva Zivarattinam, Indian lawyer and politician (d. 1975)
- 1895 – Anna Freud, Austrian-English psychologist and psychoanalyst (d. 1982)
- 1897 – William Gropper, American cartoonist and painter (d. 1977)
- 1899 – Hayato Ikeda, Japanese politician, 58th Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1965)
- 1900 – Ulrich Inderbinen, Swiss mountaineer (d. 2004)
- 1900 – Richard Kuhn, Austrian-German biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1967)
- 1901 – Glenn Hartranft, American shot putter and discus thrower (d. 1970)
- 1901 – Mildred Wiley, American high jumper (d. 2000)
- 1902 – Mitsuo Fuchida, Japanese captain and pilot (d. 1976)
- 1902 – Feliks Kibbermann, Estonian chess player and philologist (d. 1993)
- 1907 – Connee Boswell, American jazz singer (d. 1976)
- 1911 – Nino Rota, Italian pianist, composer, conductor, and academic (d. 1979)
- 1914 – Irving Fine, American composer and academic (d. 1962)
- 1918 – Abdul Haris Nasution, Indonesian general and politician, 12th Indonesian Minister of Defence (d. 2000)
- 1919 – Charles Lynch, Canadian journalist and author (d. 1994)
- 1921 – Phyllis Curtin, American soprano and academic (d. 2016)
- 1921 – John Doar, American lawyer and activist (d. 2014)
- 1922 – Len Lesser, American actor (d. 2011)
- 1922 – Eli Mandel, Canadian poet, critic, and academic (d. 1992)
- 1922 – Sven Nykvist, Swedish director and cinematographer (d. 2006)
- 1923 – Trevor Bailey, English cricketer and sportscaster (d. 2011)
- 1923 – Stjepan Bobek, Croatian-Serbian footballer and manager (d. 2010)
- 1923 – Moyra Fraser, Australian-English actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2009)
- 1924 – Wiel Coerver, Dutch footballer and manager (d. 2011)
- 1924 – F. Sionil José, Filipino journalist, writer and author
- 1924 – Roberto Mieres, Argentinian race car driver and sailor (d. 2012)
- 1924 – John Winter, Australian high jumper (d. 2007)
- 1925 – Kim Dae-jung, South Korean lieutenant and politician, 8th President of South Korea, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2009)
- 1925 – Ferlin Husky, American singer and guitarist (d. 2011)
- 1927 – Andy Williams, American singer (d. 2012)
- 1928 – Thomas M. Foglietta, American politician and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Italy (d. 2004)
- 1928 – Muhammad Habibur Rahman, Indian-Bangladeshi jurist and politician, Prime Minister of Bangladesh (d. 2014)
- 1929 – John S. Dunne, American priest and theologian (d. 2013)
- 1930 – Jean-Luc Godard, French-Swiss director and screenwriter
- 1930 – Raul M. Gonzalez, Filipino lawyer and politician, 42nd Filipino Secretary of Justice (d. 2014)
- 1930 – Yves Trudeau, Canadian sculptor
- 1931 – Franz Josef Degenhardt, German author and poet (d. 2011)
- 1931 – Jaye P. Morgan, American singer and actress
- 1932 – Corry Brokken, Dutch singer, lawyer, and judge
- 1932 – Takao Fujinami, Japanese lawyer and politician (d. 2007)
- 1933 – Paul J. Crutzen, Dutch chemist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1934 – Nicolas Coster, British-American actor
- 1934 – Viktor Gorbatko, Russian general, pilot, and astronaut
- 1934 – Abimael Guzmán, Peruvian philosopher and academic
- 1935 – Eddie Bernice Johnson, American nurse and politician
- 1937 – Bobby Allison, American race car driver and businessman
- 1937 – Morgan Llywelyn, American-Irish model and author
- 1937 – Binod Bihari Verma, Indian physician and author (d. 2003)
- 1938 – Jean-Claude Malépart, Canadian lawyer and politician (d. 1989)
- 1938 – Sally Shlaer, American mathematician and engineer (d. 1998)
- 1939 – John Paul, Sr., Dutch-American race car driver
- 1939 – David Phillips, English chemist and academic
- 1940 – Jeffrey R. Holland, American academic and religious leader
- 1942 – Pedro Rocha, Uruguayan footballer and manager (d. 2013)
- 1942 – Alice Schwarzer, German journalist and publisher, founded EMMA Magazine
- 1942 – David K. Shipler, American journalist and author
- 1943 – J. Philippe Rushton, English-Canadian psychologist and academic (d. 2012)
- 1943 – Joseph Franklin Ada, Guamanian lawyer and politician, 5th Governor of Guam
- 1944 – Ralph McTell, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1944 – Craig Raine, English poet, author, and playwright
- 1946 – Joop Zoetemelk, Dutch cyclist
- 1948 – Jan Hrubý, Czech violinist and songwriter
- 1948 – Maxwell Hutchinson, English architect and television host
- 1948 – Ozzy Osbourne, English singer-songwriter
- 1949 – John Akii-Bua, Ugandan hurdler (d. 1997)
- 1949 – Heather Menzies, Canadian-American actress
- 1949 – Mickey Thomas, American singer-songwriter
- 1950 – Alberto Juantorena, Cuban runner
- 1951 – Mike Bantom, American basketball player and manager
- 1951 – Ray Candy, American wrestler and trainer (d. 1994)
- 1951 – Rick Mears, American race car driver
- 1951 – Mike Stock, English songwriter, record producer, and musician
- 1952 – Don Barnes, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1952 – Benny Hinn, American evangelist and author
- 1953 – Franz Klammer, Austrian skier and race car driver
- 1953 – Rob Waring, American-Norwegian vibraphonist and contemporary composer
- 1954 – Grace Andreacchi, American-English author, poet, and playwright
- 1955 – Warren Jeffs, American religious leader
- 1956 – Ewa Kopacz, Polish physician and politician, 15th Prime Minister of Poland
- 1957 – Maxim Korobov, Russian businessman and politician
- 1959 – Eamonn Holmes, Irish journalist and game show host
- 1960 – Daryl Hannah, American actress and producer
- 1960 – Igor Larionov, Russian ice hockey player
- 1960 – Julianne Moore, American actress and author
- 1960 – Mike Ramsey, American ice hockey player and coach
- 1961 – Adal Ramones, Mexican comedian, actor, and producer
- 1962 – Richard Bacon, English banker, journalist, and politician
- 1962 – Nataliya Grygoryeva, Ukrainian hurdler
- 1963 – Joe Lally, American singer-songwriter and bass player
- 1963 – Terri Schiavo, American medical patient (d. 2005)
- 1964 – Darryl Hamilton, American baseball player and sportscaster (d. 2015)
- 1965 – Andrew Stanton, American voice actor, director, producer, screenwriter
- 1965 – Katarina Witt, German figure skater and actress
- 1966 – Flemming Povlsen, Danish footballer and manager
- 1966 – Irina Zhuk, Russian figure skater and coach
- 1967 – Marie Françoise Ouedraogo, Burkinabé mathematician
- 1968 – Brendan Fraser, American actor and producer
- 1968 – Montell Jordan, American singer-songwriter and producer
- 1969 – Bill Steer, English guitarist and songwriter
- 1970 – Paul Byrd, American baseball player
- 1970 – Lindsey Hunter, American basketball player and coach
- 1970 – Christian Karembeu, French footballer
- 1970 – Laura Schuler, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1971 – Frank Sinclair, English-Jamaican footballer and manager
- 1971 – Henk Timmer, Dutch footballer and manager
- 1971 – Vernon White, American mixed martial artist and wrestler
- 1972 – Danilo Goffi, Italian runner
- 1972 – Bucky Lasek, American skateboarder and race car driver
- 1972 – Saki Takaoka, Japanese actress
- 1973 – Holly Marie Combs, American actress and producer
- 1973 – MC Frontalot, American rapper
- 1973 – Sammy Leung, Hong Kong singer and actor
- 1974 – Lucette Rådström, Swedish journalist
- 1975 – Mickey Avalon, American rapper
- 1975 – Malinda Williams, American actress
- 1976 – Mark Boucher, South African cricketer
- 1976 – Silvia Fontana, American-Italian figure skater and coach
- 1976 – Gary Glover, American baseball player
- 1976 – Cornelius Griffin, American football player
- 1976 – Byron Kelleher, New Zealand rugby player
- 1976 – Tomotaka Okamoto, Japanese soprano
- 1976 – Todd Smith, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1977 – Chad Durbin, American baseball player
- 1977 – Troy Evans, American football player
- 1977 – Adam Małysz, Polish ski jumper and race car driver
- 1977 – Yelena Zadorozhnaya, Russian runner
- 1978 – Trina, American rapper and producer
- 1978 – Daniel Alexandersson, Swedish footballer
- 1978 – Jiří Bicek, Slovak ice hockey player
- 1978 – Bram Tankink, Dutch cyclist
- 1979 – Daniel Bedingfield, New Zealand-English singer-songwriter
- 1979 – Rock Cartwright, American football player
- 1980 – Anna Chlumsky, American actress
- 1980 – Jenna Dewan, American actress and dancer
- 1980 – Zlata Filipović, Bosnian author
- 1980 – Jim Sorgi, American football player and sportscaster
- 1981 – Ioannis Amanatidis, Greek footballer
- 1981 – Tyjuan Hagler, American football player
- 1981 – Edwin Valero, Venezuelan boxer (d. 2010)
- 1981 – David Villa, Spanish footballer
- 1982 – Manny Corpas, Panamanian baseball player
- 1982 – Michael Essien, Ghanaian footballer
- 1982 – Lewis Marnell, Australian skateboarder (d. 2013)
- 1982 – Franco Sbaraglini, Argentinian-Italian rugby player
- 1983 – Stephen Donald, New Zealand rugby player
- 1983 – Sherri DuPree, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1983 – James Ihedigbo, American football player
- 1983 – Kati Tolmoff, Estonian badminton player
- 1983 – Aleksey Drozdov, Russian decathlete
- 1984 – Hind Laroussi, Dutch singer
- 1984 – Avraam Papadopoulos, Greek footballer
- 1985 – László Cseh, Hungarian swimmer
- 1985 – Mike Randolph, American soccer player
- 1985 – Amanda Seyfried, American actress
- 1985 – Robert Swift, American basketball player
- 1985 – Marcus Williams, American basketball player
- 1987 – Michael Angarano, American actor, director, and screenwriter
- 1987 – Erik Grönwall, Swedish singer-songwriter
- 1987 – Brian Robiskie, American football player
- 1987 – Alicia Sacramone, American gymnast
- 1989 – Selçuk Alibaz, Turkish footballer
- 1990 – Sharon Fichman, Canadian-Israeli tennis player
- 1991 – Ekaterine Gorgodze, Georgian tennis player
- 1992 – Cristian Ceballos, Spanish footballer
Births[edit]
- 311 – Diocletian, Roman emperor (b. 244)
- 649 – Birinus, French-English bishop and saint (b. 600)
- 1154 – Pope Anastasius IV (b. 1073)
- 1265 – Odofredus, Italian lawyer and jurist
- 1533 – Vasili III of Russia (b. 1479)
- 1542 – Jean Tixier de Ravisi, French scholar and academic (b. 1470)
- 1552 – Francis Xavier, Spanish missionary and saint (b. 1506)
- 1610 – Honda Tadakatsu, Japanese general and daimyo (b. 1548)
- 1706 – Countess Emilie Juliane of Barby-Mühlingen (b. 1637)
- 1765 – Lord John Sackville, English cricketer and politician (b. 1713)
- 1789 – Claude Joseph Vernet, French painter (b. 1714)
- 1815 – John Carroll, American archbishop (b. 1735)
- 1845 – Gregor MacGregor, Scottish soldier and explorer (b. 1786)
- 1876 – Samuel Cooper, American general (b. 1798)
- 1882 – Archibald Tait, Scottish-English archbishop (b. 1811)
- 1888 – Carl Zeiss, German physicist and lens maker, created the optical instrument (b. 1816)
- 1890 – Billy Midwinter, English-Australian cricketer (b. 1851)
- 1892 – Afanasy Fet, Russian author and poet (b. 1820)
- 1894 – Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist, poet, and essayist (b. 1850)
- 1902 – Robert Lawson, New Zealand architect, designed the Otago Boys' High School and Knox Church (b. 1833)
- 1904 – David Bratton, American water polo player (b. 1869)
- 1910 – Mary Baker Eddy, American religious leader and author, founded Christian Science (b. 1821)
- 1912 – Prudente de Morais, Brazilian lawyer and politician, 3rd President of Brazil (b. 1841)
- 1917 – Harold Garnett, English-French cricketer (b. 1879)
- 1919 – Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French painter and sculptor (b. 1841)
- 1928 – Ezra Meeker, American farmer and politician (b. 1830)
- 1928 – Johan Olin, Finnish wrestler (b. 1883)
- 1934 – Charles James O'Donnell, Irish lawyer and politician (b. 1849)
- 1935 – Princess Victoria of the United Kingdom (b. 1868)
- 1939 – Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll (b. 1848)
- 1941 – Pavel Filonov, Russian painter and poet (b. 1883)
- 1949 – Maria Ouspenskaya, Russian-American actress and educator (b. 1876)
- 1952 – Rudolf Margolius, Czech lawyer and politician (b. 1913)
- 1955 – Cow Cow Davenport, American singer and pianist (b. 1894)
- 1956 – Manik Bandopadhyay, Indian author, poet, and playwright (b. 1908)
- 1956 – Alexander Rodchenko, Russian sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer (b. 1891)
- 1967 – Harry Wismer, American football player and sportscaster (b. 1913)
- 1969 – Mathias Wieman, German-Swiss actor (b. 1902)
- 1972 – William Manuel Johnson, American bassist (b. 1872)
- 1973 – Emile Christian, American trombonist, cornet player, and composer (b. 1895)
- 1979 – Dhyan Chand, Indian field hockey player and coach (b. 1905)
- 1980 – Oswald Mosley, English lieutenant and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (b. 1896)
- 1981 – Walter Knott, American farmer, founded Knott's Berry Farm (b. 1889)
- 1984 – Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin, Azerbaijani-Russian mathematician and academic (b. 1919)
- 1984 – Muharrem Ertaş, Turkish singer-songwriter (b. 1913)
- 1988 – Panos Gavalas, Greek singer (b. 1926)
- 1989 – Fernando Martín Espina, Spanish basketball player (b. 1962)
- 1989 – Connie B. Gay, American businessman, founded the Country Music Association (b. 1914)
- 1990 – Heino Mandri, Estonian actor (b. 1922)
- 1993 – Lewis Thomas, American physician, etymologist, and academic (b. 1913)
- 1996 – Georges Duby, French historian and author (b. 1919)
- 1998 – Pierre Hétu, Canadian pianist and conductor (b. 1936)
- 1999 – John Archer, American actor (b. 1915)
- 1999 – Scatman John, American singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1942)
- 1999 – Madeline Kahn, American actress and singer (b. 1942)
- 1999 – Horst Mahseli, Polish footballer (b. 1934)
- 1999 – Jarl Wahlström, Finnish 12th General of The Salvation Army (b. 1918)
- 2000 – Gwendolyn Brooks, American poet and educator (b. 1917)
- 2000 – Hoyt Curtin, American composer and producer (b. 1922)
- 2002 – Adrienne Adams, American illustrator (b. 1906)
- 2002 – Glenn Quinn, Irish-American actor (b. 1970)
- 2003 – David Hemmings, English actor, director, and producer (b. 1941)
- 2004 – Shiing-Shen Chern, Chinese-American mathematician and academic (b. 1911)
- 2005 – Frederick Ashworth, American admiral (b. 1912)
- 2005 – Herb Moford, American baseball player (b. 1928)
- 2007 – James Kemsley, Australian cartoonist and actor (b. 1948)
- 2008 – Robert Zajonc, Polish-American psychologist and author (b. 1923)
- 2009 – Leila Lopes, Brazilian actress and journalist (b. 1959)
- 2009 – Richard Todd, Irish-born British soldier and actor (b. 1919)
- 2010 – Abdumalik Bahori, Azerbaijani poet and author (b. 1927)
- 2011 – Dev Anand, Indian actor, director, and producer (b. 1923)
- 2012 – Jules Mikhael Al-Jamil, Iraqi-Lebanese archbishop (b. 1938)
- 2012 – Kuntal Chandra, Bangladeshi cricketer (b. 1984)
- 2012 – Fyodor Khitruk, Russian animator, director, and screenwriter (b. 1917)
- 2012 – Diego Mendieta, Paraguayan footballer (b. 1980)
- 2012 – Janet Shaw, Australian cyclist and author (b. 1966)
- 2013 – Paul Aussaresses, French general (b. 1918)
- 2013 – Reda Mahmoud Hafez Mohamed, Egyptian air marshal (b. 1952)
- 2013 – Ahmed Fouad Negm, Egyptian poet and educator (b. 1929)
- 2014 – Herman Badillo, Puerto Rican-American lawyer and politician (b. 1929)
- 2014 – Jacques Barrot, French politician, French European Commissioner (b. 1937)
- 2014 – Nathaniel Branden, Canadian–American psychotherapist and author (b. 1930)
- 2014 – Ian McLagan, English-American singer-songwriter and keyboard player (b. 1945)
- 2014 – James Stewart, Canadian mathematician and academic (b. 1941)
- 2015 – Gladstone Anderson, Jamaican singer and pianist (b. 1934)
- 2015 – Eevi Huttunen, Finnish speed skater (b. 1922)
- 2015 – Scott Weiland, American singer-songwriter (b. 1967)
Deaths[edit]
- Advocate's Day (India)
- Christian feast day:
- Doctors' Day (Cuba)
- United Nations' International Day of Persons with Disabilities (international)
Holidays and observances[edit]
“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.” Hebrews 1:1-2 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
The Lord's admiration of his Church is very wonderful, and his description of her beauty is very glowing. She is not merely fair, but "all fair." He views her in himself, washed in his sin-atoning blood and clothed in his meritorious righteousness, and he considers her to be full of comeliness and beauty. No wonder that such is the case, since it is but his own perfect excellency that he admires; for the holiness, glory, and perfection of his Church are his own glorious garments on the back of his own well-beloved spouse. She is not simply pure, or well-proportioned; she is positively lovely and fair! She has actual merit! Her deformities of sin are removed; but more, she has through her Lord obtained a meritorious righteousness by which an actual beauty is conferred upon her. Believers have a positive righteousness given to them when they become "accepted in the beloved" (Eph. 1:6). Nor is the Church barely lovely, she is superlatively so. Her Lord styles her "Thou fairest among women." She has a real worth and excellence which cannot be rivalled by all the nobility and royalty of the world. If Jesus could exchange his elect bride for all the queens and empresses of earth, or even for the angels in heaven, he would not, for he puts her first and foremost--"fairest among women." Like the moon she far outshines the stars. Nor is this an opinion which he is ashamed of, for he invites all men to hear it. He sets a "behold" before it, a special note of exclamation, inviting and arresting attention. "Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair" (Song of Sol. 4:1). His opinion he publishes abroad even now, and one day from the throne of his glory he will avow the truth of it before the assembled universe. "Come, ye blessed of my Father" (Matt. 25:34), will be his solemn affirmation of the loveliness of his elect.
Evening
Nothing can satisfy the entire man but the Lord's love and the Lord's own self. Saints have tried to anchor in other roadsteads, but they have been driven out of such fatal refuges. Solomon, the wisest of men, was permitted to make experiments for us all, and to do for us what we must not dare to do for ourselves. Here is his testimony in his own words: "So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." What! the whole of it vanity? O favoured monarch, is there nothing in all thy wealth? Nothing in that wide dominion reaching from the river even to the sea? Nothing in Palmyra's glorious palaces? Nothing in the house of the forest of Lebanon? In all thy music and dancing, and wine and luxury, is there nothing? "Nothing," he says, "but weariness of spirit." This was his verdict when he had trodden the whole round of pleasure. To embrace our Lord Jesus, to dwell in his love, and be fully assured of union with him--this is all in all. Dear reader, you need not try other forms of life in order to see whether they are better than the Christian's: if you roam the world around, you will see no sights like a sight of the Saviour's face; if you could have all the comforts of life, if you lost your Saviour, you would be wretched; but if you win Christ, then should you rot in a dungeon, you would find it a paradise; should you live in obscurity, or die with famine, you will yet be satisfied with favour and full of the goodness of the Lord.
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Today's reading: Ezekiel 42-44, 1 John 1 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Ezekiel 42-44
The Rooms for the Priests
1 Then the man led me northward into the outer court and brought me to the rooms opposite the temple courtyard and opposite the outer wall on the north side. 2 The building whose door faced north was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide. 3 Both in the section twenty cubits from the inner court and in the section opposite the pavement of the outer court, gallery faced gallery at the three levels. 4 In front of the rooms was an inner passageway ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long. Their doors were on the north. 5 Now the upper rooms were narrower, for the galleries took more space from them than from the rooms on the lower and middle floors of the building. 6 The rooms on the top floor had no pillars, as the courts had; so they were smaller in floor space than those on the lower and middle floors. 7 There was an outer wall parallel to the rooms and the outer court; it extended in front of the rooms for fifty cubits. 8 While the row of rooms on the side next to the outer court was fifty cubits long, the row on the side nearest the sanctuary was a hundred cubits long. 9The lower rooms had an entrance on the east side as one enters them from the outer court....
Today's New Testament reading: 1 John 1
The Incarnation of the Word of Life
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our joy complete.
Light and Darkness, Sin and Forgiveness
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
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Amasa [Ăm'asă]—burden-bearer.
- The son of David’s half-sister Abigail whom Absalom made captain of his rebel army (2 Sam. 17:25; 19:13; 20 ). Amasa was completely defeated by his cousin Joab in the forest of Ephraim (2 Sam. 18:6-8). David not only forgave Amasa but gave him Joab’s place (2 Sam. 19:13). Joab treacherously slew him (2 Sam. 20:9-12).
- The name of an Ephraimite who with others resisted the bringing into Samaria the Jews Ahaz had made prisoners ( 2 Chron. 28:12).
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