My grandmother was not euthanised. But on my last visit to her, she was in constant unremitting pain. I asked the nurse if anything could be done. She died that night. The nurse appeared at the funeral. He was worried I might suspect him of something. I set the poor guy's mind at ease. It is ok. Now throw into the equation euthanasia laws. Then family squabbling over assets. And what if some had agreed to euthanasia but others had not? And that is what would happen for a 99 yo dying woman.
The proposed Victorian legislation is ill conceived. We don't need legal approval to kill people. I'm sure it happens, but it must not be placed on the slippery slope of legalisation. The result of legalisation is that there would be injustice in which murder would be made legal. The idea of suffering people wanting to die and let loved ones have their assets is nothing compared to the enormity of people wanting to kill relatives for their assets. The European experience seems to reinforce the view that euthanasia is for the sad and lonely, not the terminally ill in unremitting pain.
I would have eased my grandmother's pain, had I been able to. I had not seen her for some six months before she died, after my mother had exploited her for my contact details. The day I saw her was just after my Dad had seen her too, and a few others. She had wrapped up things. She sang with me "Irish Eyes" and a few other numbers, and made me promise I would see her soon. There was no rush. It is ok to die old and blessed. We don't need government permission, or assistance.
Help me contact the Australian federal education minister to get my free, easily introduced plan to improve Science and Math education in Australia.
My plan is simple. Responsible people within the school or learning institution identify the bottom of middle third students in rankings who lack basic skills in numeracy, literacy, and facts related to core areas of Math and Science. Those students are given individual instruction and make up material. Students who fail to participate are dropped from the program. Students without parental permission are also dropped from the program.
The result is that some of those students become capable, but also, they tend to help students from the lower third they tend to associate with. It is an easy system to implement, and works even in dysfunctional schools. Data and tracking can be obtained through NAPLAN. I have successfully piloted this at a Met South West Sydney HS which benefited from it immediately.
=== from 2015 ===
The French extreme right are profiting from terrorist attacks and bad management of the French left. Had conservatives presented a responsible front it would have been them. The reactionary left have placed a distant third in regional elections. In the US Obama has made a point of speaking on the first day of Hannukah and not acknowledging Jews. Obama doesn't want to blame Islam for Jihadism which hit San Bernardino, but he wants to blame all gun users for the guns the Jihadis illegally obtained. Meanwhile Malcolm Turnbull is announcing $200 million for science which is to hit Mr Abbott for not choosing a science Minister. Meanwhile Mr Abbott bought a refrigerator and the media, who hate him, made it a newsworthy event by reporting it. They probably wanted to ask him about Mr Turnbull's announcement for 'science.'
For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
From 2014
There is no need for a ministerial reshuffle because not a lot is wrong with the federal government, but a lot is right. They have been given little credit because of a hostile senate where senators who promised the voter they had a vision for Australia have said that they don't want to discuss why they would oppose government legislation and don't have an alternative policy addressing the pressing needs of Australia. Joe Hockey, treasurer, has been overly criticised for producing a proportionate budget which addressed issues. Apparently 75% has been passed, but all of the savings need to be passed for Australia to avoid the embarrassment of her children living worse than their parents. Mr Hockey has been told he hasn't explained things well enough, or sold things well enough to the voting public or the partisan press. In fact it is not possible to sell anything to the partisan press. Fantasists and trouble makers are suggesting that talented ministers like Morrison or Turnbull should take the treasury. There would be no benefit for Australia were that to happen, as it would destabilise the government.
Galaxy Poll has ALP ahead 55 to 45 in two party preferred terms. A great achievement for a corrupt, inept party without a policy, which the ALP is, compared to an effective hard working government which is effectively opposed by a partisan press. One bets no one who supports the ALP could list substantial reasons for their support. Interestingly, the corrupt and inept opposition were described by the media as 'furniture' when Rudd had his second tilt at failure as a leader.
Abbott's plan for paid parental leave is opposed by many. It is a worthy policy from the social conservative side of politics. The ALP ended the baby bonus which was designed as a poor person's paid parental leave, after they bankrupted treasury. Mr Abbott has a plan that pays for the policy. Those that oppose it hate families and should be held responsible for families that fail while struggling because of it.
ICAC is still asking for permission to over reach in persecuting prosecutor Cuneen. As discussed yesterday, Cuneen has not done anything wrong. ICAC want to investigate the allegation that Cuneen advised her son's girlfriend to avoid being breathalysed. But the girl had been blood tested at a hospital and found to have had no drugs or alcohol. The allegation relates to a personal issue, not a public one, and so there is no corruption to be investigated by the ICAC. But they are still spending lots of money to ask for permission to do so. One can only assume the ICAC want to be wound up for abuse of power.
ABC is said to be staging Hunger Games style employee contests to see who will be made redundant. Generally reality tv is badly done, but this could be watchable. James Dellingpole writes that the ABC are so far to the left they make the BBC look like Fox News.
Fairfax's Canberra Times issues a correction, writing that an earlier story described someone as being pro life when they are pro choice. It is reminiscent of the Simpson's cop saying he gets DUI (drunk and under the influence) and DOA (dead on arrival) confused. A poor worn out woman walks into the police station and asks to see her husband who was reported as DUI ..
The American Academy of Religion has a President who is an ethicist. She has decided to discourage flying to conferences, well banning actually, for a year, so as to make a statement regarding global warming. It seems kind of fitting, as AGW is religious, but not reasoned.
Australian Imam declares Muslims can drink alcohol. Can they also oppose terrorism?
Galaxy Poll has ALP ahead 55 to 45 in two party preferred terms. A great achievement for a corrupt, inept party without a policy, which the ALP is, compared to an effective hard working government which is effectively opposed by a partisan press. One bets no one who supports the ALP could list substantial reasons for their support. Interestingly, the corrupt and inept opposition were described by the media as 'furniture' when Rudd had his second tilt at failure as a leader.
Abbott's plan for paid parental leave is opposed by many. It is a worthy policy from the social conservative side of politics. The ALP ended the baby bonus which was designed as a poor person's paid parental leave, after they bankrupted treasury. Mr Abbott has a plan that pays for the policy. Those that oppose it hate families and should be held responsible for families that fail while struggling because of it.
ICAC is still asking for permission to over reach in persecuting prosecutor Cuneen. As discussed yesterday, Cuneen has not done anything wrong. ICAC want to investigate the allegation that Cuneen advised her son's girlfriend to avoid being breathalysed. But the girl had been blood tested at a hospital and found to have had no drugs or alcohol. The allegation relates to a personal issue, not a public one, and so there is no corruption to be investigated by the ICAC. But they are still spending lots of money to ask for permission to do so. One can only assume the ICAC want to be wound up for abuse of power.
ABC is said to be staging Hunger Games style employee contests to see who will be made redundant. Generally reality tv is badly done, but this could be watchable. James Dellingpole writes that the ABC are so far to the left they make the BBC look like Fox News.
Fairfax's Canberra Times issues a correction, writing that an earlier story described someone as being pro life when they are pro choice. It is reminiscent of the Simpson's cop saying he gets DUI (drunk and under the influence) and DOA (dead on arrival) confused. A poor worn out woman walks into the police station and asks to see her husband who was reported as DUI ..
The American Academy of Religion has a President who is an ethicist. She has decided to discourage flying to conferences, well banning actually, for a year, so as to make a statement regarding global warming. It seems kind of fitting, as AGW is religious, but not reasoned.
Australian Imam declares Muslims can drink alcohol. Can they also oppose terrorism?
From 2013
Mike Carlton often gets things wrong, but as with the political execution of Greiner, that is all that is needed to be successful in pulling down a conservative leader. Wikipedia calls Carlton's lies 'criticism.' To understand Carlton, is to know he did not go to university. He isn't that bright. He gets away with things, because he doesn't understand what he should have done. Carlton was a cadet journalist for the ABC in 1963, age seventeen. He has even been sacked by Sydney Morning Herald, being that unreliable. They hired him back .. for being able to make up attacks on conservatives, he is reliable. But his figures are rubbery. Getting back to it, Cameron should have called for Arafat's death. But he didn't do that either.
ABC seem keen to threaten public servants who are effective in fighting crime. They have revealed the location of the home of a person leading the fight against organised crime. One hopes that the ABC News division is part of that target circle. When asked about their decision, ABC blustered, and retroactively obscured some details. One can understand the ABC's antagonism, however, as the spouse of the crime fighter is not the same gender as the crime fighter. ABC apparently stands for Anyone but Conservatives.
Finally, we know why Electoral Office in WA lost votes. It isn't corruption. It is incompetence. Reform of the process, allowing online voting, is possible. And cheaper. As well, removing the stupid laws restricting free speech would not harm minorities. Despite fear mongering. Were there gay marriage in NSW, I would not feel compelled to marry a man. Were there free speech, I still would not feel the need to be crude.
ABC seem keen to threaten public servants who are effective in fighting crime. They have revealed the location of the home of a person leading the fight against organised crime. One hopes that the ABC News division is part of that target circle. When asked about their decision, ABC blustered, and retroactively obscured some details. One can understand the ABC's antagonism, however, as the spouse of the crime fighter is not the same gender as the crime fighter. ABC apparently stands for Anyone but Conservatives.
Finally, we know why Electoral Office in WA lost votes. It isn't corruption. It is incompetence. Reform of the process, allowing online voting, is possible. And cheaper. As well, removing the stupid laws restricting free speech would not harm minorities. Despite fear mongering. Were there gay marriage in NSW, I would not feel compelled to marry a man. Were there free speech, I still would not feel the need to be crude.
Historical perspective on this day
In 43 BC, Marcus Tullius Cicero was assassinated. In 574, Emperor Justin II retired due to recurring seizures of insanity. He abdicated the throne in favour of his general Tiberius, proclaiming him Caesar. In 1703, the Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, made landfall. Winds gusted up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people died. In 1724, Tumult of Thorn: Religious unrest was followed by the execution of nine Protestant citizens and the mayor of Thorn (Toruń) by Polish authorities. In 1732, the Royal Opera House opened at Covent Garden, London, England. In 1776, Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, arranged to enter the American military as a major general. In 1787 Delaware became the first state to ratify the United States Constitution. In 1862, American Civil War: Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas. In 1869, American outlaw Jesse James committed his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.
In 1917, World War I: The United States declared war on Austria-Hungary. In 1930, W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts telecasted video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The telecast also included the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show. In 1936, Australian cricketer Jack Fingleton became the first player to score centuries in four consecutive Testinnings. In 1941, World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy carried out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (For Japan's near-simultaneous attacks on Eastern Hemisphere targets, see December 8.) In 1946, A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, killed 119 people, the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history. In 1949, Chinese Civil War: The government of the Republic of China moved from Nanking to Taipei, Taiwan. In 1962, Prince Rainier III of Monaco revised the principality's constitution, devolving some of his power to advisory and legislative councils. In 1963, Instant replay made its debut during an American Army–Navy football game. In 1965, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras Isimultaneously revoke mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.
In 1971, Pakistan President Yahya Khan announced the formation of a coalition government with Nurul Amin as Prime Minister and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Deputy Prime Minister. In 1972 Imelda Marcos survived an assassination attempt using a bolo knife against her. Also, Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, was launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they left the Earth. In 1975, Indonesian invasion of East Timor: The invasion began. In 1982, in Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr., became the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States. In 1983, an Iberia Airlines Boeing 727collided with an Aviaco DC-9 in dense fog while the two airliners were taxiing down the runway at Madrid–Barajas Airport, killing 93 people. In 1987, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 crashed near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shot his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shot both pilots and himself. In 1988, Spitak Earthquake: In Armenia an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale killed more than 25,000, injured 30,000 and left 500,000 homeless out of a population of 3,500,000. Also, Yasser Arafat recognised the right of Israel to exist.
In 1993, the Long Island Rail Road massacre: Passenger Colin Ferguson murdered six people and injured 19 others on the LIRR in Nassau County, New York. In 1995, the Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34. In 1999, A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.: The Recording Industry Association of America sued the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster, alleging copyright infringement. In 2003, the Conservative Party of Canada was officially registered, following the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. In 2005, Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 924 who allegedly claimed to have a bomb, was shot and killed by a team of U.S. federal air marshals at Miami International Airport. Also, Ante Gotovina, a Croatian army general accused of war crimes, was captured in the Playa de las Américas, Tenerife, by Spanish police. In 2006, a tornado struck Kensal Green, North West London, seriously damaging about 150 properties. In 2007, the Hebei Spirit oil spill began in South Korea after a crane barge that had broken free from a tug collided with the Very Large Crude Carrier, Hebei Spirit.
In 1917, World War I: The United States declared war on Austria-Hungary. In 1930, W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts telecasted video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The telecast also included the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show. In 1936, Australian cricketer Jack Fingleton became the first player to score centuries in four consecutive Testinnings. In 1941, World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy carried out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (For Japan's near-simultaneous attacks on Eastern Hemisphere targets, see December 8.) In 1946, A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, killed 119 people, the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history. In 1949, Chinese Civil War: The government of the Republic of China moved from Nanking to Taipei, Taiwan. In 1962, Prince Rainier III of Monaco revised the principality's constitution, devolving some of his power to advisory and legislative councils. In 1963, Instant replay made its debut during an American Army–Navy football game. In 1965, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras Isimultaneously revoke mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.
In 1971, Pakistan President Yahya Khan announced the formation of a coalition government with Nurul Amin as Prime Minister and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Deputy Prime Minister. In 1972 Imelda Marcos survived an assassination attempt using a bolo knife against her. Also, Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, was launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they left the Earth. In 1975, Indonesian invasion of East Timor: The invasion began. In 1982, in Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr., became the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States. In 1983, an Iberia Airlines Boeing 727collided with an Aviaco DC-9 in dense fog while the two airliners were taxiing down the runway at Madrid–Barajas Airport, killing 93 people. In 1987, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 crashed near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shot his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shot both pilots and himself. In 1988, Spitak Earthquake: In Armenia an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale killed more than 25,000, injured 30,000 and left 500,000 homeless out of a population of 3,500,000. Also, Yasser Arafat recognised the right of Israel to exist.
In 1993, the Long Island Rail Road massacre: Passenger Colin Ferguson murdered six people and injured 19 others on the LIRR in Nassau County, New York. In 1995, the Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34. In 1999, A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.: The Recording Industry Association of America sued the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster, alleging copyright infringement. In 2003, the Conservative Party of Canada was officially registered, following the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. In 2005, Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 924 who allegedly claimed to have a bomb, was shot and killed by a team of U.S. federal air marshals at Miami International Airport. Also, Ante Gotovina, a Croatian army general accused of war crimes, was captured in the Playa de las Américas, Tenerife, by Spanish police. In 2006, a tornado struck Kensal Green, North West London, seriously damaging about 150 properties. In 2007, the Hebei Spirit oil spill began in South Korea after a crane barge that had broken free from a tug collided with the Very Large Crude Carrier, Hebei Spirit.
=== 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 to those born on this day, along with
December 7: Day of the Little Candles in Colombia; Armed Forces Flag Day in India; Pearl Harbor Day in the United States
Deaths
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Tim Blair
Andrew Bolt
PROBLEM IDENTIFIED
Tim Blair – Monday, December 07, 2015 (4:50am)
“It might just be that America is the problem,” declares the ABC’s Jonathan Green above a picture of US Republican politician Michele Fiore and her family – most of whom are armed, and none of whom have ever shot or killed anybody.
UPDATE. Following what Iowahawk accurately describes as a “big splashy gun ad on the front page of the NY Times”, firearm sales are way up:
Gun sales have been spiking in the United States for weeks, especially following the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. Wednesday that left 14 people dead.Many California gun stores have seen a rush on guns after the San Bernardino shooting …
Makes sense. If you’re under attack, it’s probably better to use your own weapon rather than to wait for the police to arrive with theirs.
UPDATE II. If Chicken Marlton‘s little cartoon is correct, then more guns bring about a corresponding increase in gun violence:
But this does not appear to be true. The US has millions more guns than ever before:
But this does not appear to be true. The US has millions more guns than ever before:
The number of privately owned firearms increased from 192 million in 1994 to 310 million in 2009.
Yet gun violence is massively reduced:
Fewer Americans are dying as a result of gun violence – a shift that began about two decades ago.In 1993, there were seven homicides by firearm for every 100,000 Americans, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By 2013, that figure had fallen by nearly half, to 3.6 …
There are increases in certain areas, however. Such as gun-free zones.
A SOUND INVESTMENT
Tim Blair – Monday, December 07, 2015 (4:41am)
Print may be slowly dying, but a certain online operation isn’t doing so well either:
Guardian Australia’s losses have blown out to $14 million. Not bad for a purely online endeavour that doesn’t have to fork out for ink, trucks, petrol and anything remotely original or exciting in its dire weekly gossip column The Weekly Beast. Financial accounts obtained by Diary for the 12 months ended June 30, 2015 show the losses are up from $6m in the prior corresponding period despite a 64 per cent rise in sales to $6.2m. Journalists, overheads and traffic-acquisition costs are pushing up operating costs as digital ad rates fall through the floor …The insufferable hypocrisy of the paper saw its publisher Guardian Media Group last year sell its stake in Trader Media Group to Apax Partners for around £600m to bankroll its loss-making newspapers and website. We wonder if it has ever occurred to The Grauniad’s climate warriors that they are funded by fossil-fuel-guzzling cars?
The Guardian‘s losses in the UK are even greater, lately running at around £19.1m. Combined with the Australian figure, they’ll have chewed through that Auto Trader bonus in about 22 years.
(Story corrected. My initial figures were Guardian-level wrong. Apologies, and thank you to accurate readers.)
ELDERLY HOUSE INVADER GOES GREEN
Tim Blair – Monday, December 07, 2015 (4:22am)
“A friend of mine just took his small children to see Santa and they were given this bit of propaganda,” emails James Morrow. “Hit the page buttons to see Santa put up recycling posters and serve the reindeer organic food!”
Enjoy your compulsory eco-swill, ignorant slave creatures!
Enjoy your compulsory eco-swill, ignorant slave creatures!
ALL CREDIT TO TREACHER
Tim Blair – Sunday, December 06, 2015 (9:24pm)
Sadly, I am not the author of the extremely prescient quote widely attributed to me across Twitter. That line was originally posted as a comment at my site by Angus Jung, pen name of the future Jim Treacher.
Stop the boats or lose the votes. Borders matter in France, too
Andrew Bolt December 07 2015 (5:42pm)
The Right triumphs when the Left refuses to address well-founded fears:
===The far-right Front National has made a significant breakthrough in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks, winning the opening round of regional elections and coming top in half of France’s regions.
The spectacular showing is the highest ever performance for the anti-immigration, anti-European party and, if it maintains the strong lead in in next week’s second round, it could reshape France’s political landscape…
With 95% of ballots counted, the far-right party topped the poll nationwide with 28.6% of the vote, compared to only 11% in the last regional elections in 2010. The FN also came top in six out of 13 mainland French regions – a historic moment for the far right which has never before held the leadership of a French region… Nicolas Sarkozy’s rightwing Les Républicains party came second and the Socialist party came third.
Palmer in strife: ABC’s favorite “billionaire” in “worse than perilous” position
Andrew Bolt December 07 2015 (4:05pm)
The buffoon, for too long a cancer in our politics, is going the way I predicted even in the days when he was hyped by the ABC:
===Clive Palmer’s business empire is in a “worse than perilous” financial position, his own lawyer says, and could soon appoint administrators to its Queensland Nickel refinery near Townsville.
Is Malcolm Turnbull behind even Barack Obama in confronting radical Islam?
Andrew Bolt December 07 2015 (3:16pm)
Barack Obama has very belatedly toughened his rhetoric today (Australian time) in his address to the US nation on terrorism. He also left Malcolm Turnbull looking even weaker.
On getting Muslim leaders to reform Islam
===On getting Muslim leaders to reform Islam
Unlike Turnbull, Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg criticised the Grand Mufti for blaming the West for terrorism:On describing the Islamic State - correctly - as a death cult
Josh Frydenberg [said] that “a problem within Islam” is to blame for recent terrorist attacks and extremist activity....Mr Frydenberg warned the country was “not winning the battle of hearts and minds” of the Muslim community and launched a stinging rebuke of the Grand Mufti of Australia, declaring the nation’s most senior Islamic cleric had made a “graphic” leadership failure after the violence in Paris.But Turnbull rebuked Frydenberg - and even told a journalist he’d done so:
But Barack Obama today:
As on other stops of his recent travels, [Turnbull’s] message was about working with the Muslim community.
On Sunday morning in Sydney, however, Frydenberg had a warning for that same community. His remarks, including a rebuke to the nation’s peak Islamic leader, did not fit easily with Turnbull’s more inclusive tone. Turnbull phoned from Malta to talk to Frydenberg as soon as he could. Some characterise the call as an expression of concern at the way the Resources Minister had raised the issue.
...an extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities. This is a real problem that Muslims must confront, without excuse. Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and al Qaeda promote; to speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity.
Malcolm Turnbull refuses. From October:On the threat of the Islamic State
Malcolm Turnbull has declined to describe Islamic State as a “death cult”. The phrase was a favourite of the prime minister’s predecessor Tony Abbott when speaking about Daesh.Barack Obama accepts. From today:
“I’ll use my own language: ISIL or Daesh is a violent, extremist terrorist organisation which is a threat both regionally and globally,” Mr Turnbull told 3AW radio on Tuesday.
They are thugs and killers, part of a cult of death ...
Turnbull in July:On sending special forces to fight the Islamic State
The threat posed by the Islamic State terror group should not be overstated, ... Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said. In a speech that strikes a jarringly different tone from recent remarks by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Mr Turnbull said .... “Just as it is important not to underestimate, or be complacent about, the national security threat from Daesh, it is equally important not to overestimate that threat....”....Turnbull last month:
He said Islamic State was “not Hitler’s Germany, Tojo’s Japan or Stalin’s Russia” and despite the terror group’s own aspirations to world domination, “we should be careful not to say or do things which can be seen to add credibility to those delusions”. The speech stands in obvious contrast to the tone struck by Mr Abbott in recent weeks, when the Prime Minister has said Islamic State is “coming after us” ....
By most measures, however, ISIL is in a fundamentally weak position. We must not be fooled by its hype.But Obama today:
Our nation has been at war with terrorists since al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11.... Over the last few years, however, the terrorist threat has evolved into a new phase… And as groups like ISIL grew stronger amidst the chaos of war in Iraq and then Syria, and as the Internet erases the distance between countries, we see growing efforts by terrorists to poison the minds of people like the Boston Marathon bombers and the San Bernardino killers.
For seven years, I’ve confronted this evolving threat each morning in my intelligence briefing.... And I know that after so much war, many Americans are asking whether we are confronted by a cancer that has no immediate cure. Well, here’s what I want you to know: The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it. Finally, if Congress believes, as I do, that we are at war with ISIL, it should go ahead and vote to authorize the continued use of military force against these terrorists.
Malcolm Turnbull on November 23 mocked and misrepresented Tony Abbott’s suggestion to send some special forces to fight the Islamic State:Turnbull’s big mistake has been to treat Islamic radicalism as an issue in which to distinguish himself from Abbott.
Yesterday Turnbull was seen to be giving his predecessor a “slap down” in his national security address to parliament suggesting there was no room for “gestures or machismo” and ridiculed any idea of a “unilateral” Australian invasion of Syria or a “Western-led invasion”.... Even as Turnbull said the response to the Paris terror attacks “must be as clear eyed and strategic”, it was “not a time for gestures or machismo” and there was no support “for a large US-led Western army to attempt to conquer ISIL” in Iraq or Syria, the outrage grew that he was putting up a “straw man” argument against Abbott.Barack Obama on December 1 agreed to send special forces to fight in Iraq and Syria:
The United States is deploying ‘specialised’ troops in Iraq to fight the Islamic State group, including by leading raids against the jihadists over the border in Syria, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter says.
Speaking to the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, the Pentagon chief said that a ‘specialised expeditionary targeting force’ was being deployed in Iraq to help Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces battle IS....
He said the special forces would also be able to intervene in neighbouring Syria, where Washington has already announced it is sending about 50 special operations troops. ‘These special operators will over time be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence, and capture ISIL leaders,’ he said.
Liberals know the North Sydney result is actually bad
Andrew Bolt December 07 2015 (8:30am)
It is astonishing how mild the media coverage has been of an anti-government swing in North Sydney on Saturday that is actually worse than the one three months ago in Canning - the one the Turnbull camp predicted would and should topple Tony Abbott.
Simon Benson unspins the spin:
===Simon Benson unspins the spin:
SENIOR Coalition MPs have privately conceded that the 13 per cent swing against the government in the North Sydney by-election to replace Joe Hockey will come as a “shock” to Malcolm Turnbull.Michael Warren Davis isn’t surprised that Trent Zimmerman recorded such a poor result in taking over from Joe Hockey:
Despite suggestions that the swing was in line with dire predictions, polling in the lead-up to the by-election pointed to a swing of between 6 and 7 per cent.
With the Liberal campaign to retain the seat featuring Mr Turnbull as the drawcard, party insiders have also admitted that it was a big swing, and would require deeper analysis. It is estimated the Liberal Party spent $600,000 to retain a seat considered unlosable.
“I think (Malcolm) will be shocked,” one senior Liberal MP said. “This was not in line with what we were expecting."… (S)ources said local factors, and the natural backlash from voters being forced to front an early poll, could not explain away the entire result.
I’m not a Liberal, and I couldn’t give two licks about Liberal Party internal affairs. So the inevitable Zimmerman ascendency didn’t irk me on any factional grounds. It just struck me as a travesty of true democracy… What can Trent Zimmerman claim to have really done with his life, except climb the greasy poll of the Liberal Party’s Left faction?…(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
But the fact is that Zimmerman was hugely unpopular with many North Sydney voters. Accusations of a stitch-up abounded during the pre-selection process, with devious strategems employed to exclude pre-selectors who might have supported other candidates. Then came the 13+% swing against the Libs on election day, an absolutely appalling result in a blue ribbon seat Labor didn’t even contest. ...
(H)ow on God’s earth did the Liberal Party’s bosses expect North Sydney voters — among the most loyal in the country — to react to their seat being used as a reward for devoted service to a faction?...[The voters] like to feel that, when they show good faith to one party or another, they’ll be rewarded with candidates to make them proud.
I went to a Warringah Liberals Christmas Party this year, and the merry makers were bursting with appreciation for Tony Abbott. When he took the stage to give a very gracious, conciliatory address, the applause and cheers were deafening. He had represented them well, and despite his ouster they couldn’t have been more pleased to call him their local member…
Did the Liberal Party deliver that same quality of candidate in Trent Zimmerman? No. It didn’t even try. The party foisted a hardcore lackey on the electorate and smugly assumed it would give him the dutiful rubber stamp. I can understand why some Liberals wish the vote had gone otherwise. We’re going to see the same swing against Liberal candidates in safe seats every time they’re pre-selected solely on their merits as hacks (especially when the ascent of the unworthy is by despicable means).
Turnbull promises even more spending as deficit rises
Andrew Bolt December 07 2015 (8:24am)
We’re sliding even deeper into debt:
There is something of the Kevin Rudd about this man.
===In the mid-year update in a fortnight, Treasurer Scott Morrison will most likely unveil an underlying cash deficit in 2015-16 of $40.3 billion – some $5.2 billion more than foreshadowed in the budget and a significant deterioration from last year’s deficit of $37.9 billion, [Deloitte Access Economics partner Chris] Richardson estimates.Yet last week:
Malcolm Turnbull has promised to spend “at least” $1 billion helping vulnerable nations cope with climate change...And now today:
Malcolm Turnbull’s $1 billion innovation and science package to be unveiled today will deliver about $100 million in extra funding for the CSIRO and provide capital gains tax holidays for investing in start-up enterprises.Why is Turnbull promising so much more spending when he should instead be cutting it?
There is something of the Kevin Rudd about this man.
The ABC gives another soapbox to warming alarmists. And don’t mention the duds!
Andrew Bolt December 07 2015 (8:22am)
The ABC’s Radio National Breakfast this morning continued its astonishingly one-sided series on global warming to hype the hucksterism of Paris.
Today’s effort - a report on possible “solutions” to global warming that quotes only professional alarmist Tim Flannery, global warming activist Erwin Jackson, alarmist scientist David Karoly and a warmist scientist from the CSIRO.
This is not reporting but propagandising.
Not one sceptic. Not one sceptical scientist. Not one mention of Tim Flannery’s previous dud claims about strategies to “stop” global warming, like this one, from 2007, spruiking a geothermal project in South Australia in which Flannery had shares and which the Rudd Government subsidised:
===Today’s effort - a report on possible “solutions” to global warming that quotes only professional alarmist Tim Flannery, global warming activist Erwin Jackson, alarmist scientist David Karoly and a warmist scientist from the CSIRO.
This is not reporting but propagandising.
Not one sceptic. Not one sceptical scientist. Not one mention of Tim Flannery’s previous dud claims about strategies to “stop” global warming, like this one, from 2007, spruiking a geothermal project in South Australia in which Flannery had shares and which the Rudd Government subsidised:
We should switch to “green” power instead, said Flannery, who recommended geothermal - pumping water on to hot rocks deep underground to create steam.In fact, the technology was so plagued with difficulty that Geodynamics has virtually given up on the South Australian project after investors took an absolute caning over the eight years since Flannery flogged the “hot rocks” technology he claimed was “relatively straightforward”:
“There are hot rocks in South Australia that potentially have enough embedded energy in them to run Australia’s economy for the best part of a century,” he said. “The technology to extract that energy and turn it into electricity is relatively straightforward.”
No mention, either, in the Radio National Breakfast report of another wild Flannery plan that he’s since abandoned:
He once flirted with geoengineering when he realised that the trajectory of ever-increasing carbon emissions this century was putting the world on a course for a catastrophic 4C increase in global average temperatures. But he has since realised that measures such as putting sulphur particles in the atmosphere to cut out sunlight are far too dangerous.So why did the ABC this morning treat Flannery as the guru of warming solutions?
How much longer before the media is no-go for conservatives?
Andrew Bolt December 07 2015 (7:28am)
The Press Council, already a tool of the Left to harass conservatives and other critics of the Left, has moved even further to the Left:
===At the Council’s quarterly meeting on 27 November in Sydney, members unanimously endorsed the appointment of Chris Graham as the first Council representative for smaller constituent bodies for a period of three years. Graham, the Editor of New Matilda, had been elected previously by the Council’s smaller constituent bodies to represent them.Here is Chris Graham on Tony Abbott, likening him to a rapist and serial killer:
Watching Tony Abbott ‘woe is me’ his way through his mercifully last performance reminded me of American serial killer Ted Bundy’s final media appearance, just hours before he was executed for the murders of at least 30 women and children. Except that amongst his own deep self-pity, Bundy also showed contrition – or at least made an effort to feign it - and acknowledged his own level of personal responsibility. Needless to say, Abbott committed no such crimes. But he sure as hell hurt a lot more people than Bundy could ever dream of.Chris Graham on conservative journalist Tim Blair:
News Limited crazie Tim Blair …Chris Graham on the mourning for the victims of the Paris jihadist attacks:
But how do we explain our identification with French suffering and our apparent indifference to Lebanese suffering? Or more to the point, how do we explain our indifference to the suffering of people we perceive as different, Lebanese, African, Hazara, Muslim…. Brown people.Chris Graham on the Islamist murder of journalists at Charlie Hebdo:
Are you one of those people who leapt in to back French magazine Charlie Hebdo earlier this year? Did you hashtag ‘Je Suis Charlie’? Blindly? Without really knowing what the publication actually represents?And Chris Graham’s role in the illegal leaking of information about a perfectly legal scholarship to a daughter of Tony Abbott:
If you did, you might be feeling a little, well, ripped off right now.
In their latest edition, the ‘great defenders of free speech’ have featured a front page cartoon mocking Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed up on a Turkish beach recently, sparking international outrage at he treatment of refugees.... Charlie Hebdo was at the centre of western outrage in January this year, when gunmen – upset at the magazine’s constant mocking of the prophet Mohammed – burst into their headquarters in Paris and murdered 12 people, including editor Stéphane Charbonnier.
Freya Newman was working as a library assistant in May when she illegally accessed student records at the Whitehouse Institute of Design. She discovered details of a $60,000 scholarship given to the Prime Minister’s daughter Frances Abbott to study at the fashion and design school. Freya Newman allegedly leaked the documents to the online publication, New Matilda. The editor is Chris Graham… Chris Graham won’t confirm or deny he received any information from Freya Newman.This man is now part of the official media police force?
Fact-checking the hucksterism in Paris
Andrew Bolt December 07 2015 (6:47am)
Bjorn Lomborg on the hucksterism at the Paris global warming talks:
It is truth-telling like that which has scandalously led Australian academics to ban Lomborg from teaching at their universities, and for the Turnbull Government to submit to that ban - that sin against reason and debate.
UPDATE
More hucksterism, via the ABC:
UPDATE
Shame on the ABC and Channel Nine for using clips of the smog in China to illustrate news reports over the weekend on global warming. This is either deliberate deceit or astonishing ignorance.
Man-made global warming is primarily linked to our emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide - all invisible gases - and not to the emission of carbon soot or other visible pollutants of the kind that cause smog.
As the IPCC itself says of Long-Lived Greenhouse Gases:
(Thanks to readers WaG311 and Low Profile.)
===Here in Paris, there are many well-meaning people who believe that we need strong carbon cuts and green energy production subsidies now and for many years to come, to get the world to move towards tackling climate change.
But at the same time, these same people argue that solar and wind is already competitive, or that this moment is just around the corner. Those two arguments are incompatible…
United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres says: “Combined with investments in battery storage, renewables are now truly competitive with fossil fuels even for grid-connected electricity”.
If her claim is true, solar and wind should dominate energy markets soon. After all, people do not burn fossil fuels to annoy people like Figueres. They do so because it is cheap and reliable....
But that leaves the question of why Figueres is urging “a clear commitment to century-long action” on climate change? Quite possibly it is because the claim that renewables are competitive simply isn’t true.
It is truth-telling like that which has scandalously led Australian academics to ban Lomborg from teaching at their universities, and for the Turnbull Government to submit to that ban - that sin against reason and debate.
UPDATE
More hucksterism, via the ABC:
Tuvalu’s prime minister says his country is being expected to provide unreasonably robust scientific evidence to prove it is a victim of climate change to qualify for international support.But not even his own people seem to believe they face imminent doom:
Enele Sosene Sopoaga issued another stark warning to fellow negotiators at the Paris climate talks that without a binding deal to limit global warming, his tiny Pacific island nation could be wiped out.
But there hasn’t been a dramatic exodus just yet. The New Zealand immigration department sets aside 75 places a year in a lottery for migrants from Kiribati, and at the moment it can’t fill them.No wonder. As the warmist New Scientist reported with surprise this year:
Funafuti atoll, which includes the capital of Tuvalu, is an islet archipelago in the tropical Pacific Ocean made from coral debris washed up from an underlying reef by waves, winds and currents. Over the past 60 years the sea has risen by around 30 centimetres locally,sparking warnings that the atoll is set to disappear.
But Paul Kench of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and colleagues found no evidence of heightened erosion. After poring over more than a century’s worth of data, including old maps and aerial and satellite imagery, they conclude that 18 out of 29 islands have actually grown.
As a whole, the group grew by more than 18 hectares, while many islands changed shape or shifted sideways.
UPDATE
Shame on the ABC and Channel Nine for using clips of the smog in China to illustrate news reports over the weekend on global warming. This is either deliberate deceit or astonishing ignorance.
Man-made global warming is primarily linked to our emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide - all invisible gases - and not to the emission of carbon soot or other visible pollutants of the kind that cause smog.
As the IPCC itself says of Long-Lived Greenhouse Gases:
The total radiative forcing of the Earth’s climate due to increases in the concentrations of the LLGHGs CO2, CH4 and N2O, and very likely the rate of increase in the total forcing due to these gases over the period since 1750, are unprecedented in more than 10,000 years (Figure TS.2)… The radiative forcing due to these LLGHGs has the highest level of confidence of any forcing agent.The US Environmental Protection Agency puts it in simpler English:
Greenhouse gases from human activities are the most significant driver of observed climate change since the mid-20th century… Carbon dioxide accounts for most of the nation’s emissions…News reports which illustrate stories on global warming with footage of soot cannot be trusted.
(Thanks to readers WaG311 and Low Profile.)
Tell Abbott his instincts are correct
Andrew Bolt December 07 2015 (6:45am)
My tip: Tony Abbott is staying in politics. He knows he is needed.
===Unionists arrested
Andrew Bolt December 06 2015 (9:46pm)
November 16:
===The boss of the militant Victorian construction union branch, John Setka, has slammed the trade union royal commission after the inquiry dropped its investigation into corruption allegations against him, declaring “we’re not criminals”.December 6:
In a rare radio interview this morning, Mr Setka conceded recent revelations from the Commission over credit card fraud at the National Union of Workers had been “eye-opener” but branded the inquiry “as unbiased as the Collingwood cheer squad”....
During a friendly exchange, Melbourne radio host Jon Faine on ABC 774 suggested the inquiry had sought to bury news absolving Mr Setka of corruption “late on a Friday” — despite the commission releasing counsel’s submissions at 3.40pm.
“The royal commission was, as much as anything, set up because of activities allegedly conducted by Mr Setka,” Faine told listeners. That’s why, Faine said, it was “astonishing” that counsel had released submissions that essentially cleared Mr Setka “after the newspapers had been sent to the printer”.
Victorian construction union boss John Setka and his deputy Shaun Reardon have been dramatically arrested and charged with blackmail over a bitter industrial dispute with Boral…I don’t get the impression that the CFMEU and its mates treat allegations of union wrongdoing seriously enough:
The unionists have been charged with a count of blackmail each over the pressure by the Construction, Foresty, Mining and Energy Union on supplier Boral during the union’s long-running industrial war with construction firm Grocon… The charges stem from Taskforce Heracles, a joint Victorian and federal police unit which investigates cases referred from the Royal Commission into Trade Union Corruption and Governance.
Construction union national secretary Dave Noonan said Mr Setka, 51, and Mr Reardon, 47, would plead “not guilty”. He slammed the arrests as “overkill"…
“The community expects more of the police. We should be able to trust that our police are not doing the grunt work of a Government desperate to mount an attack on the working rights of people in this country.”
Hockey’s going nowhere, just like Turnbull
Piers Akerman – Saturday, December 06, 2014 (11:05pm)
BEFORE the silly season gets any sillier, it should be noted Joe Hockey is not about to be shifted from Treasury, there won’t be a Cabinet reshuffle early in the New Year, and the record shows the Abbott government finished the year well ahead of its deluded opponents.
Continue reading 'Hockey’s going nowhere, just like Turnbull'ICAC is refusing to accept it was wrong
Miranda Devine – Saturday, December 06, 2014 (11:02pm)
NOW that ICAC has been brought to its knees by the NSW Court of Appeal, we see that the corruption body’s hounding of crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen and her family is state oppression worthy of the East German secret police.
Continue reading 'ICAC is refusing to accept it was wrong'PINKO PANSY PAIN
Tim Blair – Sunday, December 07, 2014 (2:29am)
Low levels of love from James Delingpole for our tax-swilling luxury leftists:
Australia’s national broadcaster ABC has reportedly been staging brutal, Hunger-Games-style contests in order to decide which of its excess staff are for the chop.If this is the plan I don’t think it’s going to work. The people at ABC are all, basically, Capitol-style pansy sybarites. They wouldn’t know what to do with a bow and arrow or a gun because they mostly eat tofu and think that hunting is for savages. None of them would make a dash for all those exciting weapons and supplies in the Cornucopia at the beginning. Instead, they would run squealing for their lives into the forest where they would quickly succumb to Flat White deprivation or be eaten by Australia’s totally out-of-control population of saltwater crocodiles. Or, if they fled into the sea, by Australia’s out-of-control killer shark population.Those of you who think I am being unduly unsympathetic towards my hapless fellow journalists’ plight clearly haven’t experienced ABC at close quarters. I have. ABC swings so far to the left it makes the BBC look like Fox News.
Please read on. Meanwhile, $291,505 per year tax drain and half-hour per week 7.30 NSW presenter Quentin Dempster has finally ended his ABC career:
The cast and crew of 7.30 NSW wave goodbye – will we ever see the likes of this again?
Let’s hope so. More broadly, minor budget cuts and ABC boss Mark Scott’s digital obsession continue breaking ABC minds. Witness this excruciating Walkleys speech from Mrs Tony Jones:
Between them, Mrs Jones and her husband scarf down more than half a million dollars of your taxes every year. With this sort of cash at stake, is it any wonder that state-pampered pansies – who previously worried about the gap between rich and poor – are now turning on each other? (Of interest in the above clip: our old friend Mike Carltonappears at the 25 second mark, looking regally unamused among his tax-enriched ABC friends. Hopefully he used an appropriate tone of voice when dealing with the lowly servants.)
Between them, Mrs Jones and her husband scarf down more than half a million dollars of your taxes every year. With this sort of cash at stake, is it any wonder that state-pampered pansies – who previously worried about the gap between rich and poor – are now turning on each other? (Of interest in the above clip: our old friend Mike Carltonappears at the 25 second mark, looking regally unamused among his tax-enriched ABC friends. Hopefully he used an appropriate tone of voice when dealing with the lowly servants.)
UPDATE. Leftist media organisations operating in the free market aren’t doing so well eitther.
ANGES SANS AILES
Tim Blair – Sunday, December 07, 2014 (12:14am)
Warmism moves ever closer to becoming a full-blown faith:
If the bioethicist Laurie Zoloth, the president of the American Academy of Religion, has her way, she’ll be remembered as the woman who canceled her organization’s conference, which every year attracts a city’s worth of religion scholars.Two weeks ago, at her organization’s gathering, which is held jointly with the Society for Biblical Literature and this year drew 9,900 scholars, Dr. Zoloth used her presidential address to call on her colleagues to plan a sabbatical year, a year in which they would cancel their conference. In her vision, they would all refrain from flying across the country, saving money and carbon. It could be a year, Dr. Zoloth argued, in which they would sacrifice each other’s company for the sake of the environment.
Frankly, it doesn’t sound like all that much of a sacrifice.
“Every year, each participant going to the meeting uses a quantum of carbon that is more than considerable. Air travel, staying in hotels, all of this creates a way of living on the earth that is carbon intensive. It could be otherwise.”
Yes. Yes, it could.
Because in her own field, bioethics, she frequently talks with scientists, she was aware that religion scholars were lagging in their attention to climate change.“I decided it was the core moral issue of our time,” Dr. Zoloth said on Nov. 22, the day before her big speech. “And I had one chance to really say I don’t know the answer — we don’t know the answer, and we’re faced with this. The scientists on my campus are frantic about this science. Every scientific panel I went to was filled with incredibly anxious scientists.” And they kept asking about her religion colleagues: What are you doing?
Do scientists in other fields seek similar religious assistance? Has a tectonic geologist ever asked a priest for any theories on, say, strata stability?
So as she planned ahead for the 2014 conference, she encouraged the program chairmen, who coordinate the hundreds of small panels that make up the main business of the conference, to seek out papers that dealt with the environment and climate change.
Think of all the fun they’ll be missing next year, with no conference to visit. Naturally, like all warmies, Dr. Zoloth is something of an authoritarian:
Dr. Zoloth didn’t win all the victories she sought. A vegetarian, she was unable to persuade her fellow organizers to keep the conference catering meat-free. When asked why others resisted, she shook her head and said, “I don’t know. They just couldn’t imagine it.”
This might be an appropriate location for any future religio-climate gatherings. In the meantime, get proper jobs, you talk-festing, leaf-chewing, planet-worrying, Jesus-screaming academic deadbeats.
(Via Chris P.)
THE CHOICE PENALTY
Tim Blair – Saturday, December 06, 2014 (10:22pm)
A curious correction from Fairfax’s Canberra Times:
An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Ms Gallagher was pro-life. She is pro-choice.
They might want to try that again. “Choice” is not the opposite of “life”.
On The Bolt Report today, December 7
Andrew Bolt December 07 2014 (10:18am)
On the year’s final The Bolt Report on Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm.
Editorial: Calling out the wreckers
My guest: Christopher Pyne, Education Minister and Leader of the House
The panel: former Labor campaign guru Bruce Hawker and Janet Albrechtsen of The Australian
NewsWatch: Sharri Markson, media editor of The Australian.
The real battle and who’s ahead. The Palmer United Senator who could surprise. Is the Senate a time bomb? Who flopped and must go? Joe Hockey in strife.
The videos of the shows appear here.
===Editorial: Calling out the wreckers
My guest: Christopher Pyne, Education Minister and Leader of the House
The panel: former Labor campaign guru Bruce Hawker and Janet Albrechtsen of The Australian
NewsWatch: Sharri Markson, media editor of The Australian.
The real battle and who’s ahead. The Palmer United Senator who could surprise. Is the Senate a time bomb? Who flopped and must go? Joe Hockey in strife.
The videos of the shows appear here.
Australia’s contribution to Islam: booze
Andrew Bolt December 07 2014 (5:59am)
If there’s a mufti anywhere who reckons Muslims have a right to a beer or good red, it has to be an Australian:
(Thanks to reader Larry.)
===Mostafa Rashed, Imam of Sydney mosque in Australia, made a religious edict saying wine is not banned in Islam.Makes you proud to be an Australian. Assimilation may be working, after all.
Rashed considers Quranic verses merely ban drunkenness, not the wine itself.
In a talk show aired on the privately-owned Al-Tahrir TV channel on Friday, Rashed said that prophet sayings on banning of wine are weak, thus it’s not mandatory to follow them. “This is an edict that I am responsible for,” he said adding that a small amount of wine does not lead to drunkenness and that heaven includes rivers of wine.
(Thanks to reader Larry.)
Galaxy: Labor ahead 55 to 45
Andrew Bolt December 07 2014 (5:47am)
The Galaxy poll confirms the Abbott Government is in near-fatal trouble:
===Tony Abbott risks becoming a one-term prime minister unless he lifts the Government’s fortunes, with Labor opening up a 10-point lead — 55:45 — on a two-party preferred basis.
Getting taxpayers to pay for nannies doesn’t make Abbott’s leave scheme that much better
Andrew Bolt December 07 2014 (5:22am)
Tony Abbott bows to the criticism that his paid parental leave system is too generous to the rich:
For heaven’s sake. The economy is sinking and we still get new taxes for this kind of stuff?
UPDATE
More detail:
===WEALTHY mums will be banned from big payouts under Tony Abbott’s paid parental leave scheme, and the savings will be used to make childcare more affordable for all.,,But immediately the effect is spoiled:
The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal that Mr Abbott has agreed in principle to consider a new means test and an even lower cap on the current maximum payout of $50,000.
The overhaul of the scheme is likely to fund the extension of the 50 per cent childcare rebate for the first time to carers working in the family home, including qualified nannies.We’re paying now for the nannies of the rich?
For heaven’s sake. The economy is sinking and we still get new taxes for this kind of stuff?
The existing 1.5 per cent levy on Australia’s largest companies to fund the PPL will stand despite the changes, which will anger big business.But maybe I’m out of touch with the entitlement culture. The Sunday Herald Sun approves:
TONY Abbott’s decision to deny wealthy mums $50,000 payouts under his paid parental leave scheme and devote the cash to childcare funds is a no-brainer…Voting ourselves extra goodies when there’s actually less money, not more?
Critics argue that extending the childcare rebate to care in the home would only help wealthy women. But it is shiftworkers including nurses, police and average working mums with larger families who would really benefit from the flexibility of a style of assistance like family day care in their own homes.
UPDATE
More detail:
This would mean those who use carers working in the family home, such as nannies and family daycare workers, would be eligible for the 50 per cent rebate.
“More affordable childcare helps with the cost of living; and flexibility and accessibility in the system will make life so much easier for many families,” Mr Abbott said.
The Age lets green carpetbaggers sponsor its global warming coverage
Andrew Bolt December 07 2014 (4:58am)
Astonishing. Green carpetbaggers now pay The Age to report on global warming.
The story, by reporter Marcus Priest:
So this is the global warming industry flying a sympathetic reporter it’s picked to report for The Age on a Lima global warming conference.
Is The Age insane?
Try this alternative.
===The story, by reporter Marcus Priest:
Peru climate talks drift off target as Bishop flies inThe credit:
As Julie Bishop and Andrew Robb prepare to arrive in Lima to represent Australia at the annual United Nations climate negotiations, deep divisions are emerging over whether a deal to be reached in Paris next year will include legally binding targets. The US says national targets should be voluntary – a position that has won the support of leading Australian economist Ross Garnaut.
But the European Union has claimed that voluntary targets will not provide the necessary long-term certainty to make the cuts in carbon dioxide emissions needed to prevent dangerous climate change. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has now made a similar argument, saying a deal without legally binding commitments would be nothing more than aspirations.
Marcus Priest was flown to Lima by the Clean Energy Council as the winner of its 2013 media award.The Clean Energy Council represents 550 business involved in renewable energy and energy efficiency, which directly profit from the global warming scare. Marcus Priest reporter is a former advisor to a Gillard Labor minister and a global warming crusader.
So this is the global warming industry flying a sympathetic reporter it’s picked to report for The Age on a Lima global warming conference.
Is The Age insane?
Try this alternative.
Big Tobacco flies a chain-smoking reporter it’s honoured to report for The Age on a New York conference on passive smoking.
ABC sets standard
Andrew Bolt December 07 2014 (4:51am)
James Delingpole warns Britain:
ABC swings so far to the left it makes the BBC look like Fox News.
===
MISTAKEN MIKE
Tim Blair – Saturday, December 07, 2013 (5:48pm)
SMH veteran Mike Carlton republishes a claim that British Prime Minister David Cameron once sought Nelson Mandela’s execution:
One small problem: it isn’t true. Carlton has form when it comes to weak research.
One small problem: it isn’t true. Carlton has form when it comes to weak research.
AUSTRALIAN BIKIE CORPORATION
Tim Blair – Saturday, December 07, 2013 (4:15pm)
For no good reason at all, the ABC reveals the location of a crime fighter’s house:
Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has accused the ABC of “flippant and irresponsible” coverage of the government’s war on bikie gangs after it broadcast pictures of the house of the man co-ordinating the government’s campaign, and named the suburb and house number.
Andrew Bolt summarises:
The ABC thinks nothing of publishing spying secrets which cause great harm for no gain, but which put pressure on a Liberal prime minister. Now the ABC thinks nothing of showing where a crime fighter and his family live, again potentially causing great harm for no gain, but putting pressure on a Liberal National Party leader.And this from an ABC which goes ballistic when a newspaper merely reveals how much taxpayers are paying its top stars.
By contrast, note how properly cautious is this ABC staffer not to expose his precise address:
When the time came to downsize after 15 years in the large family home in leafy Hawthorn, Radio National presenter and author Jonathan Green and his wife, publisher Sally Heath, were keen for something smaller, closer to the city.
THE MADIBA TEST
Tim Blair – Saturday, December 07, 2013 (5:13am)
Those who refer to Nelson Mandela by his clan name of Madiba are fantastic poseurs.
UPDATE. Meredith Burgmann:
I had long thought about what I would say to Madiba if I was ever to meet him.
My son and I were home in Nashville; the only ones awake early on a Sunday morning. We sat on the couch and watched as Madiba was set free.
A free South Africa at peace with itself. That’s an example to the world, and that’s Madiba’s legacy to the nation that he loved.
UPDATE II. From the Financial Times:
Desmond Tutu, his friend and fellow Nobel peace laureate, was one of the first to question the world’s sanctification of “Madiba” – his clan name and how he liked to be known. Archbishop Tutu appreciated long before it became a commonplace that the cult of Mandela risked blinding people to the colossal problems facing South Africa. “He is only one pebble on the beach, one of thousands,” he said halfway through Mandela’s term in office. “Not an insignificant pebble, I’ll grant you that, but a pebble all the same.”
Stuff-up, not conspiracy in WA vote. An apology from Palmer?
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (9:32am)
It all seems a bit slack, although not the conspiracy that Clive Palmer recklessly claimed - a slur for which he should apologise:
===ELECTORAL Commissioner Ed Killesteyn is under pressure to resign after a strongly worded report by former AFP commissioner Mick Keelty lashed “parlous” arrangements that led to the loss of 1375 Senate ballot papers from Western Australia..(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
Mr Keelty condemned a “loose planning culture” and a “complacent attitude towards ballot papers”, along with a “lack of detail . . . in the planning and conduct of operations in WA"…
“The loss of the ballots was in all probability the result of a chain of seemingly minor but entirely and easily avoidable errors and omissions. “Each of these events on its own may or may not have been significant; but taken as a whole they indicate a loose electoral environment in WA in which the loss of ballots was more likely to occur and less likely to be detected.”
Anyone But Conservatives for breakfast
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (7:21am)
Would it really kill Fran Kelly - or the ABC - to let a conservative share her taxpayer-funded pulpit?
UPDATE
Roger Franklin checks the ABC’s charter line-by-line against its performance and wonders who is actually minding the shop.
A must read. You’ll want to sign the petition afterwards.
(Thanks to reader Peter.)
===UPDATE
Roger Franklin checks the ABC’s charter line-by-line against its performance and wonders who is actually minding the shop.
A must read. You’ll want to sign the petition afterwards.
(Thanks to reader Peter.)
The rise of the modern savage
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (7:02am)
I suspect we have been in denial about a feral culture, made more primitive by the social freedoms demanded by the strong:
===In July last year, locals in a quiet valley in south-western NSW were startled to see three police four-wheel drives, a police bus and an ambulance bouncing up an old stock route towards a remote timbered block, tucked away from the road.Read on, but not if you are squeamish.
Police and child protection officers left with 12 children under the age of 16 in what is shaping as one of the most serious child abuse cases in Australia. The children were malnourished, filthy, could barely talk, had appalling hygiene and had been living without electricity and running water. What emerged is a truly horrific case of child sex abuse and intergenerational incest. As the royal commission on child abuse within institutions gets under way, the events at this farm highlight what many say is a far more serious threat to children: sexual abuse within the family.
Scaring gays into giving up their free speech
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (5:39am)
Diversity Council of Australia CEO Nareen Young has no faith in freedom - or in her fellow citizens:
Like so many modern Leftists, Young has inordinate faith in process and in laws administered by a caste of people just like her for the molding of people not like her. These restrictions are actually called “protections”, even though they involve not protecting your rights but removing them. As I say, the Left want to the virtues due to libertarians even as they act as authoritarians:
No one I know who supports these reforms thinks the insults Young lists are “acceptable”, “OK” or not offensive. What is offensive is the suggestion that this argument about the RDA is about making such insults “OK”. On the contrary, they were not socially acceptable before the law was passed and will not be after.
The truth is that there are many things more powerful - yet more democratic and less chafing - than the law to enforce good manners and I expect they to remain powerful. These are the social sanctions that are present in every healthy community.
Take some recent examples. There is no clear law against calling a female Prime Minister a witch. But see what happened when one protester at a rally against the carbon tax did just that. Fellow protesters told him to remove his sign, which was condemned in Parliament and in countless newspaper articles, TV reports and radio broadcasts. I attacked it, too, and it’s remarkable how rarely similar signs appeared at later rallies.
That collective disapproval of the sign had a far greater effect than a prosecution under the law would have achieved. Had the man with the sign instead been charged the would have become - rightly - a martyr and other citizens would have been absolved of their duty to speak out and robbed of their power to pass judgment. The state would have nationalised morality. The public would have turned from jurors to subjects.
I don’t think that is healthy - and that is without considering the danger of such laws against free speech of the kind Young defends. Do we really trust judges and the political class with a power that lets them impose their particular and sometimes arbitrary sense of morality on everyone else, deciding which of their favorites may speak and which of their bete noirs must be silenced? In this way does a democracy become dictatorial.
No, gays and lesbians have nothing to lose but their chains in this debate. No horde of gay-haters would suddenly feel freer to vilify - and nor would the rest of us be any slower to fight back. Manners, after all, are for us all to defend and decide. All respect to Young, but I’d rather leave that work to the many us than limit it to the few of her.
UPDATE
Tim Wilson makes some highly relevant points in urging other gays and lesbians to stand up for free speech:
===To be clear, I support free speech. I support the right of everyone – in print, in art, in public demonstration and specifically, in public life – to express opinions and participate in community debate. But…But she doesn’t. Ah, the yes-but argument of the modern Leftist, who badly wants a medal for being a defender of free speech even when they want to ban it. They want to be hailed as virtuous while sinning.
Like so many modern Leftists, Young has inordinate faith in process and in laws administered by a caste of people just like her for the molding of people not like her. These restrictions are actually called “protections”, even though they involve not protecting your rights but removing them. As I say, the Left want to the virtues due to libertarians even as they act as authoritarians:
These protections have their legal basis in the various Acts of the Human Rights Commission (and in their state-based equivalents) that protect all of us from being victims of discrimination and harassment at work.Young tries to scare gays and lesbians into believing the Abbott Government’s planned repeal of parts of the Racial Discrimination Act will unleash a torrent of abuse - and against them, too:
If the RDA is amended to remove section 18C that makes it unlawful to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people because of their race, does that mean that words like ‘wog’, ‘gook’, ‘slope’, ‘kike’ or ‘coon’ become acceptable in the course of the working day or night?This is almost as obscene as it is absurd.
What next? Will equivalent sections of the Sex Discrimination Act be repealed so that describing a co-worker as a ‘slut’, ‘hag‘, ‘silly cow‘ or ‘bitch’ is not deemed to be offensive? It is pretty clear where this could be heading for the LGBTI community.... I mean, really, if ‘Abo’, ‘coon’, ‘dago’ or ‘slope’ are ok, the inevitable question from some quarters will be why are ‘the gays’ being so sensitive?
No one I know who supports these reforms thinks the insults Young lists are “acceptable”, “OK” or not offensive. What is offensive is the suggestion that this argument about the RDA is about making such insults “OK”. On the contrary, they were not socially acceptable before the law was passed and will not be after.
The truth is that there are many things more powerful - yet more democratic and less chafing - than the law to enforce good manners and I expect they to remain powerful. These are the social sanctions that are present in every healthy community.
Take some recent examples. There is no clear law against calling a female Prime Minister a witch. But see what happened when one protester at a rally against the carbon tax did just that. Fellow protesters told him to remove his sign, which was condemned in Parliament and in countless newspaper articles, TV reports and radio broadcasts. I attacked it, too, and it’s remarkable how rarely similar signs appeared at later rallies.
That collective disapproval of the sign had a far greater effect than a prosecution under the law would have achieved. Had the man with the sign instead been charged the would have become - rightly - a martyr and other citizens would have been absolved of their duty to speak out and robbed of their power to pass judgment. The state would have nationalised morality. The public would have turned from jurors to subjects.
I don’t think that is healthy - and that is without considering the danger of such laws against free speech of the kind Young defends. Do we really trust judges and the political class with a power that lets them impose their particular and sometimes arbitrary sense of morality on everyone else, deciding which of their favorites may speak and which of their bete noirs must be silenced? In this way does a democracy become dictatorial.
No, gays and lesbians have nothing to lose but their chains in this debate. No horde of gay-haters would suddenly feel freer to vilify - and nor would the rest of us be any slower to fight back. Manners, after all, are for us all to defend and decide. All respect to Young, but I’d rather leave that work to the many us than limit it to the few of her.
UPDATE
Tim Wilson makes some highly relevant points in urging other gays and lesbians to stand up for free speech:
Section 18C represents ‘special’ rights for a certain group of people, not ‘equal’ rights.
The simple reality is that some individuals from different cultural, ethnic or national backgrounds don’t accept people being same-sex attracted, and make it known. If section 18C is allowed to stand they can throw hostile verbal bombs at LGBTI Australians, but retreat to the protections of 18C should LGBTI Australians respond.
Fourth, it fundamentally undermines the human right to free speech… Arguably the most important [right] is free speech, because it is necessary to protect all other human rights… We should preserve the right to speak out, mock them and ridicule them for the stupidity of their comments or the hate in their heart… As LGBTI Australians know: haters gonna hate. So we should defend our human right to speak out, defend ourselves and ridicule narrow-mindedness without fear.
No Government should help an SPC Ardmona that will not help itself
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (5:26am)
I share Grace Collier’s surprise:
UPDATE
Terry McCrann on another failing business paying high wages which also wants more government help:
===INDUSTRY Minister Ian Macfarlane made an incomprehensible decision this week. After talks with Coca-Cola Amatil, a taxpayer-funded three-person panel was created to advise on a request from SPC Ardmona for assistance. The panel’s charter includes “workplace practices, productivity” and “product range”.As for a Coalition government hiring Greg Combet…
Labor Party heavy and former ACTU secretary Greg Combet is one of the appointees - he is going to advise on enterprise bargains with the unions. No doubt Combet will arrange the visuals of chastened unions announcing Holden-style faux pay cuts as the precursor to subsidies…
Macfarlane foresees the panel helping with other distressed businesses such as Simplot…
The union movement must be laughing its head off… Enterprise bargaining is the main reason that Holden, Toyota, Simplot and SPC Ardmona are in strife. These companies seek government subsidies because they need money for the inflated wages and conditions they have agreed to pay but cannot afford… Government policy on industry assistance should be this: if a company is paying its workforce more than the award wage, then it must not receive taxpayer assistance under any circumstances.
UPDATE
Terry McCrann on another failing business paying high wages which also wants more government help:
Whatever else happens, Qantas’s international business is ultimately unsustainable… None of this denies the two sets of burdens imposed on Qantas. Its uneconomic operational cost structure, courtesy of the burdens of national carrier and domestic residence, and the Qantas Sale Act limitations on its shareholdings…
In sum and in short, the Qantas Sale Act limitations should go. Qantas international with them. Jetstar becomes our Australia-Qantas national carrier… Qantas and Virgin can then be left to go at each other in the domestic market.
There was no deal, Demetriou said. The charges weren’t dropped
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (5:19am)
I really don’t see how Andrew Demetriou’s word can be taken seriously again with a record like this, and I suggest he won’t stay much longer as head of the AFL.
===Warmists slapped with a cold sardine
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (4:53am)
Cold sardines? This isn’t what warming alarmists were expecting. The New Scientist reports:
Western Canada’s sardine fleet returned with no fish this month. The loss of the fishery, normally worth CAN$32 million (US$30.7 million), took many by surprise..As far south as California the fishermen are complaining of cold water:
Pacific sardine populations fluctuate with water temperature. Colder water means fewer fish. Temperatures last fell in the 1940s, but heavy fishing continued, devastating the stock and ending fishing until sardines returned when waters warmed in the 1980s. “We think this is set to happen again,” says Zwolinski, who tracked the population over the past century. He found that sardines have reproduced less since waters cooled in the 1990s.
Federal fisheries managers slashed upcoming West Coast sardine harvests by two-thirds while scientists try to get a better handle on indications the population is significantly dwindling… Populations typically drop when ocean temperatures get colder, as they have lately in conjunction with a climatic condition known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.A bit of warming would do food supplies the world of good.
UPDATE
Michael Fumento in the New York Post:
The 2013 [US] hurricane season just ended as one of the five quietest years since 1960. But don’t expect anyone who pointed to last year’s hurricanes as “proof” of the need to act against global warming to apologize; the warmists don’t work that way.(Thanks to reader Jono and others.)
Warmist claims of a severe increase in hurricane activity go back to 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. The cover of Al Gore’s 2009 book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” even features a satellite image of the globe with four major hurricanes superimposed. Yet the evidence to the contrary was there all along. Back in 2005 I and others reviewed the entire hurricane record, which goes back over a century, and found no increase of any kind.
ABC first reveals spy secrets, now shows where crime fighter lives
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (4:37am)
I covered this yesterday, and still can’t believe it actually happened:
There is a pattern here. The ABC thinks nothing of publishing spying secrets which cause great harm for no gain, but which put pressure on a Liberal prime minister. Now the ABC thinks nothing of showing where a crime fighter and his family live, again potentially causing great harm for no gain, but putting pressure on a Liberal National Party leader.
And this from an ABC which goes ballistic when a newspaper merely reveals how much taxpayers are paying its top stars.
The ABC is out of control.
===QUEENSLAND Premier Campbell Newman has accused the ABC of “flippant and irresponsible” coverage of the government’s war on bikie gangs after it broadcast pictures of the house of the man co-ordinating the government’s campaign, and named the suburb and house number.How could Mellor’s address and footage of his house have been remotely relevant in the first place? Do stories about the ABC come with pictures of Mark Scott’s home, street number included? And how much more insane is the ABC’s report when its subject - correction, target - is coordinating a fight against bikie gangs?
After the ABC report on the 7pm news on Thursday night about the appointment of former military officer Bill Mellor to head the government’s anti-bikie Strategic Monitoring Team, Mr Newman ... contacted [ABC boss Mark] Scott directly and he also wrote to Tony Abbott on the matter, claiming in his letter to the Prime Minister that the ABC broadcast “seriously and maliciously undermined the security and safety of a Queensland government employee”.
“The reprehensible actions of ABC employees involved in this incident brought Mrs Mellor to tears and sparked a swift review of the family’s personal security arrangements, including a decision by the Commissioner of Police to immediately provide police protection,” the letter says. “There can be no justification, especially given the ABC’s Code of Practice 2013, for broadcasting details and images of his residence.
“The response that local ABC has provided to this issue underscores my view that they are treating government, police and crime agency concerns about criminal gang activity in a flippant and irresponsible manner.” By late yesterday the ABC had written back to both Mr Newman and Mr Mellor, and said in the letter they regretted the footage that identified Mr Mellor’s house.
There is a pattern here. The ABC thinks nothing of publishing spying secrets which cause great harm for no gain, but which put pressure on a Liberal prime minister. Now the ABC thinks nothing of showing where a crime fighter and his family live, again potentially causing great harm for no gain, but putting pressure on a Liberal National Party leader.
And this from an ABC which goes ballistic when a newspaper merely reveals how much taxpayers are paying its top stars.
The ABC is out of control.
In defence of Peta Credlin
Andrew Bolt December 07 2013 (4:14am)
I am not saying all the criticisms of Peta Credlin - or, more properly, the very narrow concentration of power and advice in the Prime Minister’s office - are wrong. I’ve said plenty on 2GB about this myself this week.
But Peter van Onselen is right: many of those criticisms are over the top or unbalanced:
===But Peter van Onselen is right: many of those criticisms are over the top or unbalanced:
SINCE the Coalition was elected to government, criticisms of Tony Abbott’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin, have come thick and fast.I have no problem with a Prime Minister wanting to vet senior staff appointments. I agree this process may undermine the authority of ministers who deserve to be trusted and it should not be quite this draconian. But, then again, I was surprised by one minister’s choice of a very senior staffer, and think the government was well served by the committee - including Credlin - which knocked it back.
Disgruntled MPs upset with demotion (or a lack of promotion) have blamed her. Frontbenchers and backbenchers alike who have had staffing selections knocked back by the infamous “star chamber” have criticised Credlin’s “controlling” ways…
... the criticisms of Credlin should be more accurately targeted at the elected MPs (especially ministers) who either put forward poor suggestions in the first place, or lack the resolve to argue their case to win the day…
Much has been made of Senate leader Eric Abetz failing to win support for his chief of staff in opposition (and long-time senior adviser throughout the Howard years), Chris Fryer, becoming chief of staff in government.... If Abetz seriously believed Fryer should have been appointed, as the third most-senior member of the government he needed to insist on the appointment being made.
That’s what Health Minister Peter Dutton did ..Before becoming opposition leader, Abbott was well known for his ill-discipline… Credlin’s arrival in Abbott’s political life changed that...
ABC out of control: now showing where a Liberal-appointed crime-fighter lives
Andrew Bolt December 06 2013 (7:46pm)
The ABC is now lured by its partisan politics into sheer bastardry, showing on TV the home of the man picked by Queensland Premier Campbell Newman to fight criminal bikie gangs.
Here’s how the story unfolds.
Newman appoints a man he served under at Duntroon 31 years ago:
The ABC, which had little problem with Bligh’s husband, runs with the pack:
Premier Newman has rung the ABC boss, Mark Scott, to protest. A public apology has yet not been issued.
The ABC is out of control.
UPDATE
Absolutely astonishing, and worse than I thought. Reader Rolf:
UPDATE
Reader Michael has checked the tape:
===Here’s how the story unfolds.
Newman appoints a man he served under at Duntroon 31 years ago:
Brigadier Bill Mellor is a “highly decorated officer with an impeccable record” and the right person to lead the government’s war on criminal gangs, Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie said.Clive Palmer disgraces himself - big surprise - with yet another lunatic conspiracy theory:
The retired Brigadier was transferred from his role as a flood recovery co-ordinator, to head up the government’s Strategic Monitoring Team… Premier Campbell Newman served under the Brigadier during his time in the armed services, but Brigadier Mellor had distinguished himself post-military through roles such as heading up the southern Queensland flood recovery effort.
Federal MP for Fairfax Clive Palmer told ABC Radio that Brigadier Mellor’s appointment was ”tantamount to a Gestapo”.Mellor has a distinguished record of service:
“Changing legislation, employing ex-Army people to run judicial functions, I think it’s very bad to have military people in police positions in society,” Mr Palmer said.
Brigadier Mellor commanded the Australian Force in Somalia and was a key player in the strategic planning for the Australian intervention in Timor.But Labor and its allies - who thought nothing of having the husband of then Premier Anna Bligh head a government department - sniff a mate-ocracy:
Brigadier Mellor is the Deputy Chairman of the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Queensland and a trustee of the General Douglas Macarthur Museum in Queen Street in Brisbane.
The ABC, which had little problem with Bligh’s husband, runs with the pack:
The retired Army officer appointed by Queensland Premier Campbell Newman to oversee the state’s controversial crackdown on bikies will be paid more than $200,000 for his year-long appointment.Then on its main 7pm Queensland bulletin last night, the ABC named the suburb Mellor lives in and repeatedly showed the street view of his home. Remember, this is a man appointed to help fight criminal bikie gangs.
Further details emerged about Brigadier Bill Mellor’s role as the Opposition and the head of the Queensland Police Union separately expressed concerns about the appointment and its implications for law enforcement in the state.
“It is very concerning ... it should be the role of the Police Commissioner,” Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk told the ABC.
“[Brigadier Mellor] has been a senior military officer but law enforcement is a completely different ball game.
“We don’t need the military running this state, thank you very much.”..
Ms Palaszczuk said it was a further example of Mr Newman “appointing his mates” to senior positions.
Premier Newman has rung the ABC boss, Mark Scott, to protest. A public apology has yet not been issued.
The ABC is out of control.
UPDATE
Absolutely astonishing, and worse than I thought. Reader Rolf:
And they actually showed the street number, a large brass number on a rendered brick post. I did not notice any pixellation in the shot of his house.Why didn’t the ABC just paint a target on Mellor’s forehead?
UPDATE
Reader Michael has checked the tape:
Andrew, Can confirm that the original ABC news report showed 3 separate shots of Brig Bill Mellor’s house including a close up of the street number on the letter box. At the same time, a voiceover revealed the name of the suburb.
After complaint lodged, the ABC kept the story online but advised that they had pixelated the number on the letterbox and removed the reference to suburb. Now this is the residence of the key public servant tasked with coordinating the effort against criminal motorcycle gangs. The ABC must explain what benefit they hoped to derive from identifying Mr Mellor’s family home, and how they believed doing so would in any way serve the public interest.
Four boats this week, after five in five weeks
Andrew Bolt December 06 2013 (7:39pm)
Four boats this week - not a good one - as the head of Operation Sovereign Borders reveals in today’s press conference:
===In summary, during this reporting period, 162 illegal maritime arrivals, six crew, and 27 people whose status is yet undetermined on four suspected illegal entry vessels were or will shortly be transferred to Department of Immigration and Border Protection Authorities on Christmas Island.That said, the Immigration Minister still notes a steep decline in arrivals:
For weeks we have been warning that smugglers will try to lift their tempo of ventures in this final window before the monsoon, and that is what we have seen in this past week. Conditions have been favourable for such ventures and the Government will not be surprised if further ventures are attempted in the few weeks remaining before the monsoon formally sets in.
Notwithstanding these latest arrivals, the decline in illegal arrivals by boat since Operation Sovereign Borders remain at below 80 per cent of what they were in the previous period following the Regional Resettlement Arrangement under the former Government up until the commencement of Operation Sovereign Borders.
Mark Kenny: Abbott simply “heartless” for not giving dying Holden more wasted millions
Andrew Bolt December 06 2013 (7:23pm)
The daily Fairfax Abbott-hate. If Tony Abbott handed yet more subsidies to Holden, would Fairfax’s Mark Kenny then attack him for keeping corporate welfare while slashing everything else?:
Nowhere in the piece, of course, is any argument on how taking taxes from good businesses to prop up a dying one leaves workers and taxpayers better off. Nowhere does Kenny address today’s revelation - that Ministers understand Holden will close its doors regardless, meaning no bailout will work.
Abbott’s just heartless. End of today’s stupid story.
===A doctrinal aversion to industry assistance within the economic power grouping of the Abbott government threatens to make the Prime Minister look not just heartless, but impotent.For Kenny, the argument is all about having a heart, not a brain. And so Abbott is accused not just of looming “heartless”, but of having “glib indifference”, lacking “national leadership” and appearing “cavalier”.
By portraying itself as slave to larger economic and historical forces than it can control when it comes to Holden’s likely closure, the government risks striking the wrong policy responses and the wrong political tone.
Like his translucent “direct action” policy on global warming in which almost nobody can find substance, the Prime Minister appears at best only half-committed to averting a clear and present crisis for thousands of people whose livelihoods derive directly from the automotive sector. Asked his intentions on Friday, the best Tony Abbott could offer, in an interview with Melbourne’s 3AW, was: “… there’s not going to be any extra money over and above the generous support the taxpayers have been giving the motor industry for a long time...”
Nowhere in the piece, of course, is any argument on how taking taxes from good businesses to prop up a dying one leaves workers and taxpayers better off. Nowhere does Kenny address today’s revelation - that Ministers understand Holden will close its doors regardless, meaning no bailout will work.
Abbott’s just heartless. End of today’s stupid story.
Finally, some semblance of reality vs the Mandela "saint" myth. Flaws are great. It shows one is human.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/behind-the-myth-mandela-wore-his-halo-loosely-20131206-hv4p4.html
===
This four-legged bandit was caught by a South Carolina convenience store's security camera shoplifting things like pig ears, beef bones, dog food and treats. See the canine-incriminating footage here:
http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/12/06/shoplifting-dog-caught-red-pawed-stealing-treats
===
Andy Trieu.
http://vimeo.com/81160524
===Dana Nuccitelli who, with (UN)Skeptical Science's John Cook wrote a paper on "consensus" that has been torn to shreds, seems on a path of self-destruction with his twitter account.
theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/remind-me-dana-nuccitelli-who-are.html
===
An enormous alien planet — one that is 11 times more massive than Jupiter — was discovered in the most distant orbit yet found around a single parent star.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/12/06/giant-alien-planet-discovered-in-most-distant-orbit-ever-seen/
===
David Bowles
http://davidbowles.us/music/bare/
===A fantastic, short piece exploring how protest-related arrests are rising along with foreign investment. These arrests allow the Burmese government to silence those shining a light on the military's influence in Burma's economy and politics.
"[M]any of these charges have targeted individuals and groups whose protests threaten to spotlight highly sensitive issues like the extractives industry, the Kachin conflict, meager salaries and workplace abuse of factory employees, etc – in short, the issues that are most sensitive to the government and military and its close network of business tycoons and prized foreign investors."
http://asiancorrespondent.com/116873/why-are-more-than-250-activists-facing-trial-in-burma/
===
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/155973/2013/12/05/
===
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/kerry-comes-with-bad-news-israel-security-at-top-of-us-agenda/2013/12/05/
===
http://www.jta.org/2013/12/03/news-opinion/politics/lapse-in-launch-of-nukes-deal-gives-iran-an-edge-some-say
===
http://www.jta.org/2013/12/05/news-opinion/from-the-archive-nelson-mandela-and-the-jews?utm_source=Newsletter+subscribers&utm_campaign=a84476a795-JTA_Daily_Briefing_12_06_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2dce5bc6f8-a84476a795-25375673
===
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/174873#.UqL_h6WLNa8
===
http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=334125
===
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/174874
===
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/174866
===- 43 BC – Marcus Tullius Cicero is assassinated.
- 574 – Byzantine Emperor Justin II retires due to recurring seizures of insanity. He abdicates the throne in favor of his general Tiberius, proclaiming him Caesar.
- 1703 – The Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, makes landfall. Winds gust up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people die.
- 1724 – Tumult of Thorn: Religious unrest is followed by the execution of nine Protestantcitizens and the mayor of Thorn (Toruń) by Polish authorities.
- 1732 – The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London, England.
- 1776 – Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, arranges to enter the American military as a major general.
- 1787 – Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas.
- 1869 – American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.
- 1917 – World War I: The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.
- 1930 – W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts telecasts video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The telecast also includes the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.
- 1936 – Australian cricketer Jack Fingleton becomes the first player to score centuries in four consecutive Test innings.
- 1941 – World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy carries out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (For Japan's near-simultaneous attacks on Eastern Hemisphere targets, see December 8.)
- 1946 – A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, kills 119 people, the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history.
- 1949 – Chinese Civil War: The Government of the Republic of China moves from Nanking to Taipei, Taiwan.
- 1962 – Prince Rainier III of Monaco revises the principality's constitution, devolving some of his power to advisory and legislative councils.
- 1963 – Instant replay makes its debut during the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
- 1965 – Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously revoke mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.
- 1971 – Pakistan President Yahya Khan announces the formation of a coalition government with Nurul Amin as Prime Minister and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Deputy Prime Minister.
- 1972 – Imelda Marcos survives an assassination attempt using a bolo knife against her.
- 1972 – Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.
- 1982 – In Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr., becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.
- 1983 – An Iberia Airlines Boeing 727 collides with an Aviaco DC-9 in dense fog while the two airliners are taxiing down the runway at Madrid–Barajas Airport, killing 93 people.
- 1987 – Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 crashes near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shoots his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shoots both pilots and himself.
- 1988 – Spitak earthquake: In Armenia an earthquake measuring 6.8 (surface wave magnitude) kills more than 25,000, injures 30,000 and leaves 500,000 homeless out of a population of 3,500,000.
- 1993 – 1993 Long Island Rail Road shooting: Passenger Colin Ferguson murders six people and injures 19 others on the LIRR in Nassau County, New York.
- 1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantisduring Mission STS-34.
- 1999 – A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.: The Recording Industry Association of America sues the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster, alleging copyright infringement.
- 2003 – The Conservative Party of Canada is officially registered, following the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
- 2005 – Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 924 who allegedly claimed to have a bomb, is shot and killed by a team of U.S. federal air marshals at Miami International Airport.
- 2015 – The JAXA probe Akatsuki successfully enters orbit around Venus five years after the first attempt.
- 521 – Columba, Irish missionary, monk, and saint (d. 597)
- 903 – Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, Persian astronomer and author (d. 986)
- 1302 – Azzone Visconti, Italian ruler, founded Milan (d. 1339)
- 1545 – Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, English-Scottish husband of Mary, Queen of Scots (d. 1567)
- 1561 – Kikkawa Hiroie, Japanese daimyo (d. 1625)
- 1598 – Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Italian sculptor and painter (d. 1680)
- 1643 – Giovanni Battista Falda, Italian architect and engraver (d. 1678)
- 1637 – Bernardo Pasquini, Italian organist and composer (d. 1710)
- 1764 – Claude Victor-Perrin, Duc de Belluno, French general and politician, French Minister of War (d. 1841)
- 1784 – Allan Cunningham, Scottish author and poet (d. 1842)
- 1791 – Ferenc Novák, Hungarian-Slovene priest and poet (d. 1836)
- 1792 – Abraham Jacob van der Aa, Dutch author and academic (d. 1857)
- 1801 – Johann Nestroy, Austrian actor and playwright (d. 1862)
- 1810 – Josef Hyrtl, Hungarian-Austrian anatomist and biologist (d. 1894)
- 1810 – Theodor Schwann, German physiologist and biologist (d. 1882)
- 1823 – Leopold Kronecker, Polish-German mathematician and academic (d. 1891)
- 1838 – Thomas Bent, Australian businessman and politician, 22nd Premier of Victoria (d. 1909)
- 1847 – Deacon White, American baseball player and manager (d. 1939)
- 1860 – Joseph Cook, English-born Australian politician, 6th Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1947)
- 1862 – Paul Adam, French author (d. 1920)
- 1863 – Felix Calonder, Swiss soldier and politician, 36th President of the Swiss Confederation (d. 1952)
- 1863 – Pietro Mascagni, Italian composer and conductor (d. 1945)
- 1863 – Richard Warren Sears, American businessman, co-founded Sears (d. 1914)
- 1873 – Willa Cather, American author and poet (d. 1947)
- 1879 – Rudolf Friml, Czech-American pianist, composer, and academic (d. 1972)
- 1884 – John Carpenter, American sprinter (d. 1933)
- 1885 – Mason Phelps, American golfer (d. 1945)
- 1885 – Peter Sturholdt, American boxer and painter (d. 1919)
- 1887 – Ernst Toch, Austrian-American composer and songwriter (d. 1964)
- 1888 – Joyce Cary, Irish author and painter (d. 1957)
- 1888 – Hamilton Fish III, American captain and politician (d. 1991)
- 1892 – Stuart Davis, American painter and academic (d. 1964)
- 1893 – Fay Bainter, American actress (d. 1968)
- 1894 – Freddie Adkins, English author and illustrator (d. 1986)
- 1902 – Hilda Taba, Estonian architect, author, and educator (d. 1967)
- 1903 – Danilo Blanuša, Croatian mathematician, physicist, and academic (d. 1987)
- 1904 – Clarence Nash, American voice actor and singer (d. 1985)
- 1905 – Gerard Kuiper, Dutch-American astronomer and academic (d. 1973)
- 1907 – Fred Rose, Polish-Canadian politician and spy (d. 1983)
- 1909 – Nikola Vaptsarov, Bulgarian poet and author (d. 1942)
- 1910 – Duncan McNaughton, Canadian high jumper and geologist (d. 1998)
- 1910 – Louis Prima, American singer-songwriter, trumpet player, and actor (d. 1978)
- 1910 – Edmundo Ros, Trinidadian-English singer-songwriter and bandleader (d. 2011)
- 1912 – Daniel Jones, Welsh captain and composer (d. 1993)
- 1913 – Kersti Merilaas, Estonian author and poet (d. 1986)
- 1915 – Leigh Brackett, American author and screenwriter (d. 1978)
- 1915 – Eli Wallach, American actor (d. 2014)
- 1920 – Tatamkhulu Afrika, South African poet and author (d. 2002)
- 1920 – Fiorenzo Magni, Italian cyclist (d. 2012)
- 1920 – Walter Nowotny, Austrian-German soldier and pilot (d. 1944)
- 1921 – Pramukh Swami Maharaj, Indian guru and scholar
- 1923 – Intizar Hussain, Indian-Pakistani author and scholar
- 1923 – Ted Knight, American actor (d. 1986)
- 1924 – John Love, Zimbabwean race car driver (d. 2005)
- 1924 – Mário Soares, Portuguese historian, lawyer, and politician, 17th President of Portugal
- 1924 – Bent Fabric, Danish pianist and composer
- 1925 – Hermano da Silva Ramos, French-Brazilian race car driver
- 1926 – Leon Kossoff, English painter and illustrator
- 1926 – William John McNaughton, American bishop
- 1927 – Jack S. Blanton, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 2013)
- 1927 – Helen Watts, Welsh opera singer (d. 2009)
- 1928 – Noam Chomsky, American linguist and philosopher
- 1928 – Mickey Thompson, American racing driver (d. 1988)
- 1930 – Christopher Nicole, Guyanese-English author
- 1930 – Hal Smith, American baseball player
- 1931 – Allan B. Calhamer, American game designer, created Diplomacy (d. 2013)
- 1932 – Ellen Burstyn, American actress
- 1932 – Oktay Ekşi, Turkish journalist and politician
- 1932 – Rosemary Rogers, American journalist and author
- 1932 – J. B. Sumarlin, Indonesian economist and politician, 17th Indonesian Minister of Finance
- 1933 – Krsto Papić, Croatian director and screenwriter (d. 2013)
- 1935 – Armando Manzanero, Mexican musician, singer and composer
- 1937 – Thad Cochran, American soldier, lawyer, and politician
- 1937 – Stan Boardman, English comedian
- 1938 – Bud Spangler, American drummer, composer, and producer (d. 2014)
- 1939 – Blackie Dammett, American actor and author
- 1940 – Gerry Cheevers, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1941 – Melba Pattillo Beals, American journalist and activist
- 1942 – Harry Chapin, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1981)
- 1942 – Alex Johnson, American baseball player (d. 2015)
- 1942 – Peter Tomarken, American game show host and producer (d. 2006)
- 1943 – Susan Isaacs, American author and screenwriter
- 1943 – Nick Katz, American mathematician and academic
- 1943 – Bernard C. Parks, American police officer and politician
- 1943 – John Bennett Ramsey, American businessman and pilot
- 1944 – Daniel Chorzempa, American organist and composer
- 1944 – Miroslav Macek, Czech dentist and politician
- 1946 – Kirsti Sparboe, Norwegian singer and actress
- 1947 – Johnny Bench, American baseball player and sportscaster
- 1947 – Anne Fine, English author
- 1947 – James Keach, American actor, producer, and director
- 1947 – Tony Thomas, American screenwriter and producer
- 1947 – Garry Unger, Canadian ice hockey player and sportscaster
- 1949 – James Rivière, Italian sculptor and jeweler
- 1949 – Tom Waits, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
- 1950 – Ron Hynes, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2015)
- 1952 – Susan Collins, American politician
- 1952 – Georges Corraface, Greek actor and former president of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival
- 1952 – Eckhard Märzke, German footballer and manager
- 1954 – Mary Fallin, American businesswoman and politician, 27th Governor of Oklahoma
- 1955 – John Watkins, Australian educator and politician, 14th Deputy Premier of New South Wales
- 1956 – Larry Bird, American basketball player and coach
- 1956 – Anna Soubry, British politician
- 1957 – Tom Winsor, English lawyer and civil servant
- 1958 – Tim Butler, English bass player and songwriter
- 1958 – Rick Rude, American wrestler and sportscaster (d. 1999)
- 1959 – Barbara Wilshere, South African-English actress
- 1960 – Craig Scanlon, English guitarist and songwriter
- 1961 – Dawn Sears, American singer-songwriter (d. 2014)
- 1962 – Alain Blondel, French decathlete
- 1962 – Jeffrey Donaldson, Northern Irish politician
- 1962 – Imad Mughniyah, Lebanese activist (d. 2008)
- 1963 – Theo Snelders, Dutch footballer and coach
- 1964 – Patrick Fabian, American actor
- 1964 – Peter Laviolette, American ice hockey player and coach
- 1965 – Colin Hendry, Scottish footballer and manager
- 1965 – Jeffrey Wright, American actor
- 1966 – C. Thomas Howell, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1966 – Shinichi Ito, Japanese motorcycle racer
- 1966 – Kazue Itoh, Japanese actress
- 1966 – Andres Kasekamp, Canadian-Estonian historian and academic
- 1967 – Tino Martinez, American baseball player, coach, and sportscaster
- 1967 – Katsuya Terada, Japanese illustrator
- 1968 – Mark Geyer, Australian rugby player and sportscaster
- 1968 – Filip Naudts, Belgian photographer
- 1969 – Andrea Claudio Galluzzo, Italian historian and archaeologist.
- 1971 – Vladimir Akopian, Azerbaijani-Armenian chess player
- 1972 – Hermann Maier, Austrian skier
- 1972 – Tammy Lynn Sytch, American wrestler and manager
- 1973 – İbrahim Kutluay, Turkish basketball player
- 1973 – Hack Meyers, American wrestler and trainer (d. 2015)
- 1973 – Terrell Owens, American football player and actor
- 1973 – Fabien Pelous, French rugby player and coach
- 1973 – Damien Rice, Irish singer-songwriter, musician and record producer
- 1974 – Nicole Appleton, Canadian singer and actress
- 1974 – Kang Full, South Korean illustrator
- 1974 – Panagiotis Liadelis, Greek basketball player
- 1974 – Voldemārs Lūsis, Latvian javelin thrower
- 1974 – Manuel Martínez Gutiérrez, Spanish shot putter and actor
- 1975 – Jamie Clapham, English footballer and coach
- 1976 – Alan Faneca, American football player
- 1976 – Ivan Franceschini, Italian footballer
- 1976 – Brent Johnson, Canadian football player
- 1976 – Georges Laraque, Canadian ice hockey player and politician
- 1976 – Derek Ramsay, Filipino-British actor, model and television personality
- 1976 – Sunny Sweeney, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1976 – Benoît Tréluyer, French race car driver
- 1977 – Eric Chavez, American baseball player and sportscaster
- 1977 – Luke Donald, English golfer
- 1977 – Dominic Howard, English drummer and producer
- 1978 – Donny Alamsyah, Indonesian actor
- 1978 – Shiri Appleby, American actress, director, and producer
- 1978 – Frankie J, Mexican-American singer-songwriter and producer
- 1979 – Sara Bareilles, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress
- 1979 – Lampros Choutos, Greek-Italian footballer
- 1979 – Ayako Fujitani, Japanese actress and screenwriter
- 1980 – John Terry, English footballer
- 1982 – Jesse Johnson, American actor
- 1983 – Mike Mucitelli, American mixed martial artist
- 1984 – Aaron Gray, American basketball player
- 1984 – Robert Kubica, Polish race car driver
- 1984 – Milan Michálek, Czech ice hockey player
- 1984 – Luca Rigoni, Italian footballer
- 1985 – Dean Ambrose, American wrestler
- 1986 – Billy Horschel, American golfer
- 1987 – Aaron Carter, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor
- 1988 – Nathan Adrian, American swimmer
- 1988 – Angelina Gabueva, Russian tennis player
- 1989 – Alessandro Marchi, Italian footballer
- 1990 – Aleksandr Menkov, Russian long jumper
- 1990 – Yasiel Puig, Cuban baseball player
- 1990 – Urszula Radwańska, Polish tennis player
- 1991 – Eugenio Pisani, Italian race car driver
- 1991 – Dori Sakurada, Japanese actor, singer, and dancer
- 1994 – Yuzuru Hanyu, Japanese figure skater
- 1998 – Tony Yike Yang, Canadian pianist
Births[edit]
- 43 BC – Cicero, Roman philosopher, lawyer, and politician (b. 106 BC)
- 283 – Pope Eutychian
- 983 – Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 955)
- 1254 – Pope Innocent IV (b. 1195)
- 1279 – Bolesław V the Chaste, Polish husband of Kinga of Poland (b. 1226)
- 1295 – Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Gloucester, English soldier (b. 1243)
- 1498 – Alexander Hegius von Heek, German poet (b. 1433)
- 1562 – Adrian Willaert, Dutch-Italian composer and educator (b. 1490)
- 1649 – Charles Garnier, French missionary and saint (b. 1606)
- 1672 – Richard Bellingham, English-American lawyer and politician, 8th Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (b. 1592)
- 1683 – Algernon Sidney, English philosopher and politician, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (b. 1623)
- 1723 – Jan Santini Aichel, Czech architect, designed the Pilgrimage Church of Saint John of Nepomuk and Karlova Koruna Chateau (b. 1677)
- 1725 – Florent Carton Dancourt, French actor and playwright (b. 1661)
- 1772 – Martín Sarmiento, Spanish monk, scholar, and author (b. 1695)
- 1775 – Charles Saunders, English admiral and politician (b. 1715)
- 1793 – Joseph Bara, French soldier and drummer (b. 1779)
- 1803 – Küçük Hüseyin Pasha, Turkish admiral and politician (b. 1757)
- 1815 – Michel Ney, German-French general (b. 1769)
- 1817 – William Bligh, English admiral and politician, 4th Governor of New South Wales (b. 1745)
- 1842 – Thomas Hamilton, Scottish philosopher and author (b. 1789)
- 1874 – Constantin von Tischendorf, German theologian, scholar, and academic (b. 1815)
- 1879 – Jón Sigurðsson, Icelandic scholar and politician, 1st Speaker of the Parliament of Iceland (b. 1811)
- 1894 – Ferdinand de Lesseps, French businessman and diplomat, co-developed the Suez Canal (b. 1805)
- 1899 – Juan Luna, Filipino painter and sculptor (b. 1857)
- 1902 – Thomas Nast, German-American cartoonist (b. 1840)
- 1906 – Élie Ducommun, Swiss journalist and educator, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1833)
- 1913 – Luigi Oreglia di Santo Stefano, Italian cardinal (b. 1828)
- 1917 – Ludwig Minkus, Austrian violinist and composer (b. 1826)
- 1941 – Attack on Pearl Harbor:
- Mervyn S. Bennion, American captain (b. 1887)
- Frederick Curtice Davis, American soldier (b. 1915)
- Julius Ellsberry, American soldier (b. 1922)
- John C. England, American soldier (b. 1920)
- Edwin J. Hill, American sailor (b. 1894)
- Ralph Hollis, American soldier (b. 1906)
- Herbert C. Jones, American soldier (b. 1918)
- Isaac C. Kidd, American admiral (b. 1884)
- Robert Lawrence Leopold, American soldier (b. 1916)
- Herbert Hugo Menges, American soldier (b. 1917)
- Thomas James Reeves, American soldier (b. 1895)
- Aloysius Schmitt, American priest and sailor (b. 1909)
- Robert R. Scott, American sailor (b. 1915)
- Peter Tomich, American sailor (b. 1893)
- Robert Uhlmann, American soldier (b. 1919)
- Franklin Van Valkenburgh, American captain (b. 1888)
- Eldon P. Wyman, American soldier (b. 1917)
- 1947 – Tristan Bernard, French author and playwright (b. 1866)
- 1947 – Nicholas Murray Butler, American philosopher and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1862)
- 1949 – Rex Beach, American author, playwright, and water polo player (b. 1877)
- 1956 – Huntley Gordon, Canadian-American actor (b. 1887)
- 1956 – Reşat Nuri Güntekin, Turkish author and playwright (b. 1889)
- 1960 – Ioannis Demestichas, Greek admiral and politician (b. 1882)
- 1960 – Clara Haskil, Swiss pianist (b. 1895)
- 1962 – Kirsten Flagstad, Norwegian opera singer (b. 1895)
- 1969 – Lefty O'Doul, American baseball player and manager (b. 1897)
- 1969 – Eric Portman, English actor (b. 1903)
- 1970 – Rube Goldberg, American cartoonist, sculptor, and author (b. 1883)
- 1975 – Thornton Wilder, American novelist and playwright (b. 1897)
- 1975 – Hardie Albright, American actor (b. 1903)
- 1976 – Paul Bragg, American nutritionist (b. 1895)
- 1977 – Paul Gibb, English cricketer and umpire (b. 1913)
- 1977 – Peter Carl Goldmark, Hungarian-American engineer (b. 1906)
- 1977 – Georges Grignard, French race car driver (b. 1905)
- 1978 – Alexander Wetmore, American ornithologist and paleontologist (b. 1886)
- 1979 – Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, English-American astronomer and astrophysicist (b. 1900)
- 1984 – LeeRoy Yarbrough, American race car driver (b. 1938)
- 1985 – J. R. Eyerman, American photographer and journalist (b. 1906)
- 1985 – Robert Graves, English poet, novelist, critic (b. 1895)
- 1985 – Potter Stewart, American soldier and jurist (b. 1915)
- 1989 – Haystacks Calhoun, American wrestler and actor (b. 1934)
- 1990 – Joan Bennett, American actress (b. 1910)
- 1990 – Jean Paul Lemieux, Canadian painter and educator (b. 1904)
- 1992 – Richard J. Hughes, American politician, 45th Governor of New Jersey, and Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court (b. 1909)
- 1993 – Abidin Dino, Turkish-French painter and illustrator (b. 1913)
- 1993 – Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Ivoirian physician and politician, 1st President of Ivory Coast (b. 1905)
- 1993 – Wolfgang Pauli, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1913)
- 1995 – Kathleen Harrison, English actress (b. 1892)
- 1997 – Billy Bremner, Scottish footballer and manager (b. 1942)
- 1998 – John Addison, English-American composer and conductor (b. 1920)
- 1998 – Martin Rodbell, American biochemist and endocrinologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1925)
- 2003 – Carl F. H. Henry American journalist and theologian (b. 1913)
- 2003 – Azie Taylor Morton, American educator and politician, 36th Treasurer of the United States (b. 1933)
- 2004 – Frederick Fennell, American conductor and educator (b. 1914)
- 2004 – Jerry Scoggins, American singer and guitarist (b. 1913)
- 2004 – Jay Van Andel, American businessman and philanthropist, co-founded Amway (b. 1924)
- 2005 – Bud Carson, American football player and coach (b. 1931)
- 2006 – Jeane Kirkpatrick, American academic and diplomat, 16th United States Ambassador to the United Nations (b. 1926)
- 2008 – Herbert Hutner, American banker and lawyer (b. 1908)
- 2010 – Elizabeth Edwards, American lawyer and author (b. 1949)
- 2011 – Harry Morgan, American actor (b. 1915)
- 2012 – Roelof Kruisinga, Dutch physician and politician, Dutch Minister of Defence (b. 1922)
- 2012 – Ralph Parr, American colonel and pilot (b. 1924)
- 2012 – Marty Reisman, American table tennis player and author (b. 1930)
- 2012 – Saul Steinberg, American businessman and financier (b. 1939)
- 2013 – Édouard Molinaro, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1928)
- 2013 – Allen Rosenberg, American rower and coach (b. 1931)
- 2013 – Chick Willis, American singer and guitarist (b. 1934)
- 2014 – Brian Roy Goble, Canadian singer-songwriter (b. 1957)
- 2014 – Mark Lewis, American author and educator (b. 1954)
- 2015 – Jesse C. Deen, American soldier and politician (b. 1922)
- 2015 – Gerhard Lenski, American sociologist and academic (b. 1924)
- 2015 – Hyron Spinrad, American American astronomer and academic (b. 1934)
- 2015 – Peter Westbury, English race car driver (b. 1938)
Deaths[edit]
- Armed Forces Flag Day (India)
- Christian feast day:
- Eve of the Immaculate Conception-related observances:
- Day of the Little Candles, begins after sunset (Colombia)
- Quema del Diablo, begins after sunset. (Guatemala)
- International Civil Aviation Day (International)
- National Heroes Day (East Timor)
- National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (United States)
- Spitak Remembrance Day (Armenia)
- Student Day (Iran)
Holidays and observances[edit]
““I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.” John 10:14-15NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
Morning
The head and members are of one nature, and not like that monstrous image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. The head was of fine gold, but the belly and thighs were of brass, the legs of iron, and the feet, part of iron and part of clay. Christ's mystical body is no absurd combination of opposites; the members were mortal, and therefore Jesus died; the glorified head is immortal, and therefore the body is immortal too, for thus the record stands, "Because I live, ye shall live also." As is our loving Head, such is the body, and every member in particular. A chosen Head and chosen members; an accepted Head, and accepted members; a living Head, and living members. If the head be pure gold, all the parts of the body are of pure gold also. Thus is there a double union of nature as a basis for the closest communion. Pause here, devout reader, and see if thou canst without ecstatic amazement, contemplate the infinite condescension of the Son of God in thus exalting thy wretchedness into blessed union with his glory. Thou art so mean that in remembrance of thy mortality, thou mayest say to corruption, "Thou art my father," and to the worm, "Thou art my sister"; and yet in Christ thou art so honoured that thou canst say to the Almighty, "Abba, Father," and to the Incarnate God, "Thou art my brother and my husband." Surely if relationships to ancient and noble families make men think highly of themselves, we have whereof to glory over the heads of them all. Let the poorest and most despised believer lay hold upon this privilege; let not a senseless indolence make him negligent to trace his pedigree, and let him suffer no foolish attachment to present vanities to occupy his thoughts to the exclusion of this glorious, this heavenly honour of union with Christ.
Evening
"One like unto the Son of Man" appeared to John in Patmos, and the beloved disciple marked that he wore a girdle of gold. A girdle, for Jesus never was ungirt while upon earth, but stood always ready for service, and now before the eternal throne he stays not His holy ministry, but as a priest is girt about with "the curious girdle of the ephod." Well it is for us that he has not ceased to fulfil his offices of love for us, since this is one of our choicest safeguards that he ever liveth to make intercession for us. Jesus is never an idler; his garments are never loose as though his offices were ended; he diligently carries on the cause of his people. A golden girdle, to manifest the superiority of his service, the royalty of his person, the dignity of his state, the glory of his reward. No longer does he cry out of the dust, but he pleads with authority, a King as well as a Priest. Safe enough is our cause in the hands of our enthroned Melchizedek.
Our Lord presents all his people with an example. We must never unbind our girdles. This is not the time for lying down at ease, it is the season of service and warfare. We need to bind the girdle of truth more and more tightly around our loins. It is a golden girdle, and so will be our richest ornament, and we greatly need it, for a heart that is not well braced up with the truth as it is in Jesus, and with the fidelity which is wrought of the Spirit, will be easily entangled with the things of this life, and tripped up by the snares of temptation. It is in vain that we possess the Scriptures unless we bind them around us like a girdle, surrounding our entire nature, keeping each part of our character in order, and giving compactness to our whole man. If in heaven Jesus unbinds not the girdle, much less may we upon earth. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth.
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Today's reading: Daniel 3-4, 1 John 5 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Daniel 3-4
The Image of Gold and the Blazing Furnace
1 King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, sixty cubits high and six cubits wide, and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. 2 He then summoned the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials to come to the dedication of the image he had set up. 3 So the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials assembled for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and they stood before it.
4 Then the herald loudly proclaimed, “Nations and peoples of every language, this is what you are commanded to do: 5 As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. 6 Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace....”
Today's New Testament reading: 1 John 5
Faith in the Incarnate Son of God
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9 We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 10Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life....
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Joseph [Jō'zeph]—may god add orincreaser.
- Poetic description of the descendants of Joseph the son of Jacob (Deut. 33:13).
- The Father of Igal, one of the spies sent by Moses into Canaan (Num. 13:7).
- A son of Asaph ( 1 Chron. 25:2, 9).
- A man of the family of Baniwho had taken a foreign wife (Ezra 10:42).
- A priest of the family of Shebaniah in Joaakim’s time (Neh. 12:14).
- Ancestor of Joseph, Mary’s husband ( Luke 3:24).
- Another ancestor of Joseph in the same line (Luke 3:26).
- A more remote ancestor of Joseph, Mary’s husband (Luke 3:30).
- A disciple nominated with Matthias to take the place of Judas Iscariot among the disciples. Matthias was chosen ( Acts 1:23). This Joseph must have been a commendable Christian since he was nominated as an apostle.
- The eleventh son of Jacob and first of Rachel, and one of the most outstanding men of the Bible, meriting honorable mention (Gen. 30:24, 25).
The Man Whose Dream Came True
The story of this young man who went from pit to palace and from rags to riches, never loses its charm for young and old alike. It would take a book itself to fully portray all the vicissitudes and virtues of Joseph, who kept his record clean. All that we can do in our treatment of him is to suggest a few aspects of his character for development.
Joseph was a youthful dreamer and his dream came true ( Gen. 37:5-9; 41:42-44).
Joseph labored as a slave, but was faithful in hard places (Gen. 39:1-6, 20-23).
Joseph enjoyed the presence of God and won the confidence of his master (Gen. 39:2, 4).
Joseph had physical beauty, but it was never a snare to him (Gen. 39:6).
Joseph resisted temptation. His godless mistress could not seduce him. Grace was his to flee youthful lusts. Thus he did not commit a “great wickedness” (Gen. 39:7-13).
Joseph was silent amid foul accusations and the appearance of guilt and unjust punishment (Gen. 39:14-20).
Joseph was unspoiled by sudden prosperity. When days of honor followed days of humiliation, he did not yield to pride (Gen. 41:14-16).
Joseph the interpreter of dreams proved that “prison walls do not a prison make.” He acknowledged his dependence upon God for illumination, proving that he was not a mere dreamer but an interpreter of dreams (Gen. 40).
Joseph manifested great wisdom, brotherly love, filial devotion and utter submission to God ( Gen. 43:20; 45:8, 14, 23; 47:7). He knew how to return good for evil ( Gen. 50:16-21). If we cannot have all the gifts of Joseph, who is a perfect type of Christ, we can certainly covet all his graces. If we cannot have his greatness, we can certainly emulate his goodness.
R. W. Moss says, “A very high place must be given Joseph among the early founders of his race. In strength of right purpose he was second to none, whilst in graces of reverence and kindness, of insight and assurance, he became the type of a faith that is at once personal and national ( Heb. 11:22), and allows neither misery nor a career of triumph to eclipse the sense of Divine destiny.”
11. The husband of Mary, and foster-father of our Lord (Matt. 1:16-24; 2:13; Luke 1:27; 2:4-43; 3:23; 4:22; John 1:45; 6:42).
The Man of Wood and Nails
It is somewhat unique that two Josephs were associated with Christ, one at His birth and the other at His death. Both of these godly men gave Jesus of their best. In this section we think of Joseph the carpenter, who was present at the manger when Jesus was born, even though he was not His father. While Christ came as the Son of Man, He was never a son of a man.
Joseph’s presence at Christ’s birth witnesses to a severe test that had emerged triumphant. Mary was the pure young woman he had fallen in love with, and was about to make his wife. Yet the Child she was about to bear would not be his. Seeing her “great with child,” without fanfare Joseph was minded to put her away. He never acted rashly with his espoused, although he was baffled by her condition. This serves for all time as an example of godly wisdom and tender consideration for others.
Bitterly disappointed that Mary had apparently betrayed him, yet believing, he made no haste. As a praying man he waited upon God, and his love for and patience with Mary were rewarded. God understood his mental difficulties and rewarded Joseph’s conscientious attitude toward Mary by revealing His redemptive plan. God never fails those who carry their anxieties to Him. Joseph received a direct and distinct revelation from God, and at once his fears were banished, and his line of duty made clear.
Tenderly he cared for his dear one as if the Child she was bearing were his own. Overawed by the mystery of it all, that his beloved Mary had been chosen as the mother of the Lord he as a devout Jew had eagerly anticipated, we can imagine how he would superintend every detail of the Nativity.
What holy thoughts must have filled the mind of Mary’s guardian. Where suspicion regarding Mary’s purity once lurked, strong faith now reigned as he looked into the lovely face of Mary’s Child. At last God’s promises had been fulfilled and before him was the Babe through whom God’s covenants would be established.
When it became necessary because of Herod’s hatred to flee into Egypt, Joseph cared for Mary and her first-born Son with reverent devotion until tidings came that Herod was dead, and that they could safely return to their own land. While a shroud of secrecy covers the thirty years Christ spent at home, we can be sure of this, that between Jesus and Joseph there was an affection strong and deep.
Briefly stated, we have these glimpses of Joseph:
I. He was “a son of David” and could claim royal or priestly descent (Matt. 1:20).
II. His family belonged to Bethlehem, David’s city.
III. He followed the trade of carpenter, and doubtless taught Christ how to use wood and nails (Matt. 13:55).
IV. He was a pious Israelite, faithful in all the ordinances of the Temple (Luke 2:22-24, 41 , 42).
V. He was a kindly, charitable man, treating Mary gently in her time of need (Matt. 1:19; Luke 2:1-7).
VI. He was faithful in his care of Christ, and deserved to be called His “father” ( Luke 2:33. John 1:45; 6:42).
VII. He never appears in the Gospels after Christ was twelve years of age and became “a son of the Law” (Luke 2:41-51 ), which may suggest that he died during the interval. This would explain why Jesus at His death asked John to care for His mother.
VIII. He died, tradition says, at the age of 111 years, when Jesus was but eighteen years of age.
12. Joseph of Arimathaea, a secret disciple of Jesus, whose unused grave was surrendered to Jesus. Thus the One born in a virgin womb was buried in a virgin tomb (Matt. 27:57-60; Mark 15:43; Luke 23:50; John 19:38).
The Man Who Gave His Grave to Jesus
This wealthy and devout Israelite, a member of the Sanhedrin, lived in a city of Jews (Luke 23:51 ). It is to the provision he made for the body of Christ that Isaiah had reference when he said, “He made His grave with the rich” (Isa. 53:9). Of this renowned Joseph we discover:
1. He was an honorable counselor (Mark 15:43). Because of his adherence to the Law and integrity of life he was a member of the governing body known as the Sanhedrin.
II. He looked for the kingdom of God. Immersed in Old Testament Scriptures, he anticipated the reign of the promised Messiah.
III. He was “a good man and just” (Luke 23:50, 51). As the Bible never uses words unnecessarily, there must be a distinction between “good” and “just.” As a “good man” we have his own internal disposition—what he was in himself. As a “just man” we have his external conduct—what he was towards others. His just dealings were the fruit of the root of his goodness. His was the belief that knew how to behave.
IV. He was a secret disciple (John 19:38). Joseph of Arimathaea was similar to Nicodemus in his respect for our Lord as a man, admiration for Him as a teacher, belief in Him as the Christ, and yet, till now, his lack of confessing Him before men. Dreading the hostility of his colleagues on the Sanhedrin, he kept his faith secret.
V. He begged the body of Jesus ( Matt. 27:58). As soon as Jesus was dead, Joseph hastened to Pilate for permission to inter His body. David Smith observes that when the condemnation of Jesus was over—a condemnation in which Joseph took no part—he realized how cowardly a part he had played and, stricken with shame and remorse, plucked up courage and went in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. It was common for friends of the crucified to purchase their bodies, which would otherwise have been cast out as refuse, and give them decent burial ( Mark 15:45).
VI. He gave his grave to Christ (Matt. 27:59, 60 ). With lingering reverence Joseph paid his last respects to the One he admired, and in the hour of sorrow helped the friends and not the foes of the righteous Sufferer. Joseph had a garden close to Calvary, where he had hewn a smoothed and polished tomb in the side of the rock as his own last resting place, in which, aided by Nicodemus, he buried the linencovered and perfumed body of Christ.
VII. Joseph, legend tells us, was sent to Britain by Philip the Apostle, and founded the Church of Glastonbury. Medieval chroniclers delighted to tell of the staff Joseph stuck into the ground. The staff supposedly took root, brought forth leaves and flowers and became the parent of all the Glastonbury thorns from that day to this.
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