Across the world, papers will say there was a reason for the attack. But it is terrorism, and there was no reason. Some Christians will claim it is a sign of end times, but they are wrong, as they have been before about other atrocities. Some Muslims will claim it as a win. It isn't. God had nothing to do with this atrocity. But God will, one day, do something the terrorists and their spoon feeders do not see or understand. God will one day make this evil act lose its' sting. He will give back long, blessed lives to those who have lost it so young. He will heal those maimed. I know this to be true, for what He has done in my life. And what I have seen Him do in others lives. But I also know that believers have a duty right now, because God will make things right, but it is in our power to do right too. Prayer is part of what we can do. We can show love by practical help for those suffering. And we can overthrow the leadership that feeds the atrocity. The church leaders who promote terrorist activity, who endorse the killing of migrants through reckless abandon of borders. And I mean those of any religion who do such, including so called Christians. Don't hate Muslims because of this terrorism. Show the terrorists this atrocity is their loss too.
On this day, In 844, Battle of Clavijo: The Apostle Saint James the Greater was said to have miraculously appeared to a force of outnumbered Asturians and aided them against the forces of the Emir of Cordoba. The actual battle is fictional, only having references to it after three hundred years. 1430, Siege of Compiègne: Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to relieve Compiègne. The French king had distanced himself from her and while she was fighting on this day, the French garrison commander lowered the gates so she could not return to safety. She fought bravely before being pulled from her horse and surrendering. 1498, Girolamo Savonarola was burned at the stake in Florence, Italy. People who are close to God should be humble. Girolamo wasn't. He proclaimed special knowledge of end times. Sadly the special knowledge did not prevent him from being BBQ'ed.
In 1533, the marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon was declared null and void. He wouldn't maintain the fiction later, Henry VIII had decided his first wife had married and consummated with his older brother Arthur who predeceased him. This meant he could marry Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII had broken from the catholic church and founded the Anglican church to do this because his first wife, Catherine, had been able to convince the then Pope to not allow a divorce. Catherine had been a very good wife to Henry VIII and never deserved her poor treatment, but Anne deserved better than her lot too.
1568, the Netherlands declared their independence from Spain. Also 1568, Dutch rebellion led by Louis of Nassau, defeated Jean de Ligne, Duke of Arenberg, and his loyalist troops in the Battle of Heiligerlee, opening the Eighty Years' War. A great victory for the Dutch, but the cost was the loss of a brother of William I of Orange. 1609, Official ratification of the Second Charter of Virginia took place. 1618, the Second Defenestration of Prague precipitated the Thirty Years' War. Religious freedom was at issue at both defenestrations. The first in 1419 had been when the town hall was over run and several senior lawmakers and judges were thrown to their deaths through windows. The weak king had died soon after. In 1618, Protestants had three Catholic leaders to be thrown from the third story window, falling 21 metres and surviving. Some said after they were saved by dung. Others said they were saved by angels. Evidence suggests the former more likely. 1701, after being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd was hanged in London, England. Kidd appears to have been a loyal English subject and his hanging seems unjust. William Moore would probably disagree.
1844, declaration of the Báb the evening before the 23rd: A merchant of Shiraz announced that he was a Prophet and founded a religious movement that would later be brutally crushed by the Persian government. He was considered to be a forerunner of the Bahá'í Faith, and Bahá'ís celebrate the day as a holy day. 1948, Thomas C. Wasson, the US Consul-General, was assassinated in Jerusalem, Israel. He had tried to stop Arabs shelling the area shortly before an Arab sniper apparently shot him. 1992, Italy's most prominent anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three body guards were killed by the Corleonesi clan with a half-ton bomb near Capaci, Sicily. His friend and colleague Paolo Borsellino would be assassinated less than two months later, making 1992 a turning point in the history of Italian Mafia prosecutions.
I am very good and don't deserve the abuse given me. I created a video raising awareness of anti police feeling among western communities. I chose the senseless killing of Nicola Cotton, a Louisiana policewoman who joined post Katrina, to highlight the issue. I did this in order to get an income after having been illegally blacklisted from work in NSW for being a whistleblower. I have not done anything wrong. Local council appointees refused to endorse my work, so I did it for free. Youtube's Adsence refused to allow me to profit from their marketing it. Meanwhile, I am hostage to abysmal political leadership and hopeless journalists. My shopfront has opened on Facebook.
Here is a video I made Good News Week
Hedgehoppers Anonymous were a 1960s beat group from the United Kingdom. They formed in November 1963 as The Trendsetters, and became The Hedgehoppers the following year. Jonathan King took over their record production in 1965, and added "Anonymous" to their name when they said they were popular in Peterborough, and did not want to change their name completely.
Their major success was the King produced and written "It's Good News Week", issued on Decca. This song has also been used as the theme music for Good News Week, a satirical news-based comedy quiz show on Australian television which ran from 1996 to 2000 and has subsequently been revived in 2008. Four other singles were released by the group before the final line-up dissolved. Lack of further chart activity leaves them labelled as one-hit wonders.
http://conservativeweasel.blogspot.com/2011/05/good-news-week.html
=== from 2016 ===
I have moved to a good home. I leave behind the ice house. Dan Andrews would rather I lived with an ice addict, and that you should too.
For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
=== from 2015 ===
In opposition, Mr Abbott, dubbed 'Captain no' by the press, supported 87% of ALP legislation, opposing only things that were bad for Australia. In return, ALP in opposition under Bill Shorten support merely 35% of legislation. ALP oppose essential cuts needed to secure the economy so as to get a poll advantage for claiming the government cannot govern. Only one independent (Bob Day 90%) gives as good support to the current government as Mr Abbott gave the ALP. Nick Xenophon is only giving 30% support, and greens are giving 2% support.
Death cult is attacking Saudi Arabia who might be tiring of their US ally doing little. IS has a military parade and the parade ends without incident or air raid. Apparently it wasn't the first parade either.
ALP leader Bill Shorten has all the advantages of being unassailable as leader, except the talent needed to lead.
Heteronormative is a big word, but not a bad word. Most people are. It is natural. Cultural institutions tend to favour it. It is almost as if God wants it that way. But there are critics of such norms that claim much. Like if the world wasn't heteronormative then flying would have been invented sooner, and Rome would never have fallen. Or some such. Most people in their teens feel isolated. It is what teens do from their families before forging adult relationships. Only, with about 1% of the population Gay, Gays are isolated and there is truth to their pain. But that is not the fault of heteronormative culture, but of a society lacking in much grace, kindness or fellowship which results from strong institutional assets.
US state police in Massachusetts warn not to chase bears. It is sensible advice. Horatio Nelson as a young man went on an arctic exhibition, and while his ship was ice locked, was told of a polar bear nearby. So, against orders, he went to shoot the bear. He failed, and was reprimanded. Asked what he had tried to achieve, Nelson pushed out his lower lip and said he wanted to get a white fur coat for his father. These days, those ambitions are frowned on. And it is still dangerous.
Death cult is attacking Saudi Arabia who might be tiring of their US ally doing little. IS has a military parade and the parade ends without incident or air raid. Apparently it wasn't the first parade either.
ALP leader Bill Shorten has all the advantages of being unassailable as leader, except the talent needed to lead.
Heteronormative is a big word, but not a bad word. Most people are. It is natural. Cultural institutions tend to favour it. It is almost as if God wants it that way. But there are critics of such norms that claim much. Like if the world wasn't heteronormative then flying would have been invented sooner, and Rome would never have fallen. Or some such. Most people in their teens feel isolated. It is what teens do from their families before forging adult relationships. Only, with about 1% of the population Gay, Gays are isolated and there is truth to their pain. But that is not the fault of heteronormative culture, but of a society lacking in much grace, kindness or fellowship which results from strong institutional assets.
US state police in Massachusetts warn not to chase bears. It is sensible advice. Horatio Nelson as a young man went on an arctic exhibition, and while his ship was ice locked, was told of a polar bear nearby. So, against orders, he went to shoot the bear. He failed, and was reprimanded. Asked what he had tried to achieve, Nelson pushed out his lower lip and said he wanted to get a white fur coat for his father. These days, those ambitions are frowned on. And it is still dangerous.
From 2014
None in 2014 because of Government and public service corruption related to the petitions
Historical perspective on this day
In 844, Battle of Clavijo: The Apostle Saint James the Greater was said to have miraculously appeared to a force of outnumbered Asturians and aided them against the forces of the Emir of Cordoba. 1430, Siege of Compiègne: Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to relieve Compiègne. 1498, Girolamo Savonarola was burned at the stake in Florence, Italy.
In 1533, the marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon was declared null and void. 1568, the Netherlands declared their independence from Spain. Also 1568, Dutch rebellion led by Louis of Nassau, defeated Jean de Ligne, Duke of Arenberg, and his loyalist troops in the Battle of Heiligerlee, opening the Eighty Years' War. 1609, Official ratification of the Second Charter of Virginia took place. 1618, the Second Defenestration of Pragueprecipitated the Thirty Years' War. 1701, after being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd was hanged in London, England. 1706, Battle of Ramillies: John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defeated a French army under Marshal François de Neufville, duc de Villeroi. 1788, South Carolina ratified the United States Constitution as the eighth American state. 1793, Battle of Famars during the Flanders Campaign of the War of the First Coalition.
In 1829, Accordion patent granted to Cyrill Demian in Vienna, Austrian Empire. 1844, declaration of the Báb the evening before the 23rd: A merchant of Shiraz announced that he was a Prophet and founded a religious movement that would later be brutally crushed by the Persian government. He was considered to be a forerunner of the Bahá'í Faith, and Bahá'ís celebrate the day as a holy day. 1846, Mexican–American War: President Mariano Paredes of Mexico unofficially declared war on the United States. 1873, the Canadian Parliament established the North-West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
In 1900, American Civil War: Sergeant William Harvey Carney was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism in the Assault on the Battery Wagner in 1863. 1907, the unicameral Parliament of Finland gathered for its first plenary session. 1911, the New York Public Library was dedicated. 1915, World War I: Italy joined the Allies after they declare war on Austria-Hungary.
In 1932, in Brazil, four students were shot and killed during a manifestation against the Brazilian dictator Getúlio Vargas, which occurred in the city of São Paulo. Their names and surnames were used to form the MMDC, a revolutionary group that would act against the dictatorial government, especially in the Constitutionalist Revolution ("Revolução Constitucionalista", in Portuguese), the major uprising in Brazil during the 20th century. 1934, the American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. Also 1934, the Auto-Lite strikeculminated in the "Battle of Toledo", a five-day melée between 1,300 troops of the Ohio National Guard and 6,000 picketers. 1939, the U.S. Navysubmarine USS Squalus sank off the coast of New Hampshire during a test dive, causing the death of 24 sailors and two civilian technicians. The remaining 32 sailors and one civilian naval architect were rescued the following day. 1945, World War II: Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Schutzstaffel, committed suicide while in Allied custody. Also 1945, World War II: The Flensburg Government under Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz was dissolved when its members were captured and arrested by British forces at Flensburg in Northern Germany. 1948, Thomas C. Wasson, the US Consul-General, was assassinated in Jerusalem, Israel. 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was established and the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany was proclaimed.
In 1951, Tibetans signed the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet with China. 1958, the satellite Explorer 1 ceased transmission. 1967, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran and blockaded the port of Eilat at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping. 1970, Robert Stephenson's pioneering Britannia Tubular Bridge over the Menai Strait was catastrophically damaged by fire after standing for 120 years. 1992, Italy's most prominent anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three body guards were killed by the Corleonesi clan with a half-ton bomb near Capaci, Sicily. His friend and colleague Paolo Borsellino would be assassinated less than two months later, making 1992 a turning point in the history of Italian Mafia prosecutions. 1995, the first version of the Java programming language was released. 1998, the Good Friday Agreement was accepted in a referendum in Northern Ireland with 75% voting yes.
In 2002, the "55 parties" clause of the Kyoto Protocol was reached after its ratification by Iceland. 2004, part of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport's Terminal 2E collapsed, killing four people and injuring three others. 2006, Alaskan stratovolcano Mount Cleveland erupted. 2008, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) awarded Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca (Pulau Batu Puteh) to Singapore, ending a 29-year territorial dispute between the two countries. 2009, former South Korean presidentRoh Moo-hyun committed suicide, jumping from a 45-meter cliff in Bongha, Gimhae, South Korea. 2010, Jamaican police began a manhunt for drug lord Christopher Coke, after the United States requested his extradition, leading to three days of violence during which at least 73 bystanders were killed. 2012, Adam Lambert became the first openly gay artist to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Charts, with his album Trespassing. 2013, the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River collapsed in Mount Vernon, Washington. 2014, seven people, including the perpetrator, were killed and another 13 injured in a killing spree near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara.
In 1533, the marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon was declared null and void. 1568, the Netherlands declared their independence from Spain. Also 1568, Dutch rebellion led by Louis of Nassau, defeated Jean de Ligne, Duke of Arenberg, and his loyalist troops in the Battle of Heiligerlee, opening the Eighty Years' War. 1609, Official ratification of the Second Charter of Virginia took place. 1618, the Second Defenestration of Pragueprecipitated the Thirty Years' War. 1701, after being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd was hanged in London, England. 1706, Battle of Ramillies: John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defeated a French army under Marshal François de Neufville, duc de Villeroi. 1788, South Carolina ratified the United States Constitution as the eighth American state. 1793, Battle of Famars during the Flanders Campaign of the War of the First Coalition.
In 1829, Accordion patent granted to Cyrill Demian in Vienna, Austrian Empire. 1844, declaration of the Báb the evening before the 23rd: A merchant of Shiraz announced that he was a Prophet and founded a religious movement that would later be brutally crushed by the Persian government. He was considered to be a forerunner of the Bahá'í Faith, and Bahá'ís celebrate the day as a holy day. 1846, Mexican–American War: President Mariano Paredes of Mexico unofficially declared war on the United States. 1873, the Canadian Parliament established the North-West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
In 1900, American Civil War: Sergeant William Harvey Carney was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism in the Assault on the Battery Wagner in 1863. 1907, the unicameral Parliament of Finland gathered for its first plenary session. 1911, the New York Public Library was dedicated. 1915, World War I: Italy joined the Allies after they declare war on Austria-Hungary.
In 1932, in Brazil, four students were shot and killed during a manifestation against the Brazilian dictator Getúlio Vargas, which occurred in the city of São Paulo. Their names and surnames were used to form the MMDC, a revolutionary group that would act against the dictatorial government, especially in the Constitutionalist Revolution ("Revolução Constitucionalista", in Portuguese), the major uprising in Brazil during the 20th century. 1934, the American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. Also 1934, the Auto-Lite strikeculminated in the "Battle of Toledo", a five-day melée between 1,300 troops of the Ohio National Guard and 6,000 picketers. 1939, the U.S. Navysubmarine USS Squalus sank off the coast of New Hampshire during a test dive, causing the death of 24 sailors and two civilian technicians. The remaining 32 sailors and one civilian naval architect were rescued the following day. 1945, World War II: Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Schutzstaffel, committed suicide while in Allied custody. Also 1945, World War II: The Flensburg Government under Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz was dissolved when its members were captured and arrested by British forces at Flensburg in Northern Germany. 1948, Thomas C. Wasson, the US Consul-General, was assassinated in Jerusalem, Israel. 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was established and the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany was proclaimed.
In 1951, Tibetans signed the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet with China. 1958, the satellite Explorer 1 ceased transmission. 1967, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran and blockaded the port of Eilat at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping. 1970, Robert Stephenson's pioneering Britannia Tubular Bridge over the Menai Strait was catastrophically damaged by fire after standing for 120 years. 1992, Italy's most prominent anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three body guards were killed by the Corleonesi clan with a half-ton bomb near Capaci, Sicily. His friend and colleague Paolo Borsellino would be assassinated less than two months later, making 1992 a turning point in the history of Italian Mafia prosecutions. 1995, the first version of the Java programming language was released. 1998, the Good Friday Agreement was accepted in a referendum in Northern Ireland with 75% voting yes.
In 2002, the "55 parties" clause of the Kyoto Protocol was reached after its ratification by Iceland. 2004, part of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport's Terminal 2E collapsed, killing four people and injuring three others. 2006, Alaskan stratovolcano Mount Cleveland erupted. 2008, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) awarded Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca (Pulau Batu Puteh) to Singapore, ending a 29-year territorial dispute between the two countries. 2009, former South Korean presidentRoh Moo-hyun committed suicide, jumping from a 45-meter cliff in Bongha, Gimhae, South Korea. 2010, Jamaican police began a manhunt for drug lord Christopher Coke, after the United States requested his extradition, leading to three days of violence during which at least 73 bystanders were killed. 2012, Adam Lambert became the first openly gay artist to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Charts, with his album Trespassing. 2013, the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River collapsed in Mount Vernon, Washington. 2014, seven people, including the perpetrator, were killed and another 13 injured in a killing spree near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara.
=== 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 Wei Qi Adam Wang, Bich Trinh and Do Re Mon. Born on the same day, across the years. The same day, when in 1533 when the English Reformation began with Henry Viii divorcing his first wife. It was an act of compassion he didn't extend to his second.
- 635 – K'inich Kan B'alam II, Mayan king (d. 702)
- 1052 – Philip I of France (d. 1108)
- 1100 – Emperor Qinzong of Song (d. 1161)
- 1606 – Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz, Spanish mathematician and philosopher (d. 1682)
- 1617 – Elias Ashmole, English astrologer and politician (d. 1692)
- 1696 – Johann Caspar Vogler, German organist and composer (d. 1763)
- 1707 – Carl Linnaeus, Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist (d. 1778)
- 1718 – William Hunter, Scottish anatomist and physician (d. 1783)
- 1729 – Giuseppe Parini, Italian poet (d. 1799)
- 1734 – Franz Mesmer, Austrian physician (d. 1815)
- 1741 – Andrea Luchesi, Italian composer (d. 1801)
- 1790 – Jules Dumont d'Urville, French admiral and explorer (d. 1842)
- 1794 – Ignaz Moscheles, Czech pianist and composer (d. 1870)
- 1795 – Charles Barry, English architect, designed the Upper Brook Street Chapel and Halifax Town Hall (d. 1860)
- 1810 – Margaret Fuller, American journalist (d. 1850)
- 1820 – James Buchanan Eads, American engineer, designed the Eads Bridge (d. 1887)
- 1834 – Carl Bloch, Danish painter (d. 1890)
- 1883 – Douglas Fairbanks, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1939)
- 1915 – S. Donald Stookey, American chemist, invented CorningWare (d. 2014)
- 1917 – Edward Norton Lorenz, American mathematician and meteorologist (d. 2008)
- 1921 – James Blish, American author and critic (d. 1975)
- 1925 – Mac Wiseman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Foggy Mountain Boys)
- 1928 – Rosemary Clooney, American singer and actress (d. 2002)
- 1931 – Barbara Barrie, American actress and author
- 1933 – Joan Collins, English actress, singer, and author
- 1934 – Robert Moog, American businessman, invented the Moog synthesizer (d. 2005)
- 1938 – Johnny Ball, English radio and television host
- 1939 – Jack McCarthy, American poet (d. 2013)
- 1947 – Ann Hui, Hong Kong actress, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1951 – Anatoly Karpov, Russian chess player
- 1952 – Anne-Marie David, French singer
- 1958 – Drew Carey, American actor and game show host
- 1960 – Linden Ashby, American actor and martial artist
- 1966 – Graeme Hick, Zimbabwean-English cricketer
- 1967 – Philip Selway, English drummer and songwriter (Radiohead)
- 1970 – Yigal Amir, Israeli assassin of Yitzhak Rabin
- 1970 – Matt Flynn, American drummer and producer (Maroon 5)
- 1974 – Charlie Young, Taiwanese-Hong Kong actress and singer
- 1981 – Gwenno Saunders, Welsh singer and dancer (The Pipettes)
- 1983 – Heidi Range, English singer-songwriter (Sugababes and Atomic Kitten)
- 1988 – Vaness del Moral, Filipino actress and dancer
- 1992 – Asenate Manoa, Fijian-Tuvaluan runner
Deaths
- 779 – Dai Zong, Chinese emperor (b. 727)
- 1125 – Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1081)
- 1304 – Jehan de Lescurel, French poet and composer
- 1370 – Toghon Temür, last Khagan of the Mongol Empire (b. 1320)
- 1498 – Girolamo Savonarola, Italian friar and preacher (b. 1452)
- 1523 – Ashikaga Yoshitane, Japanese shogun (b. 1466)
- 1524 – Ismail I, Iran ruler (b. 1487)
- 1662 – John Gauden, English bishop (b. 1605)
- 1670 – Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1610)
- 1691 – Adrien Auzout, French astronomer (b. 1622)
- 1701 – William Kidd, Scottish pirate (b. 1645)
- 1749 – Abraham ben Abraham, Polish martyr (b. 1700)
- 1752 – William Bradford, English-American printer (b. 1663)
- 1754 – John Wood, the Elder, English architect, designed The Circus and Queen Square (b. 1704)
- 1857 – Augustin-Louis Cauchy, French mathematician and academic (b. 1789)
- 1868 – Kit Carson, American general (b. 1809)
- 1906 – Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian director, playwright, and poet (b. 1828)
- 1934 – Clyde Barrow, American criminal (b. 1909)
- 1934 – Bonnie Parker, American criminal (b. 1910)
- 1937 – John D. Rockefeller, American businessman and philanthropist, founded the Standard Oil Company and Rockefeller University (b. 1839)
- 1945 – Heinrich Himmler, German commander and politician (b. 1900)
- 1960 – Georges Claude, French engineer and inventor, created Neon lighting (b. 1870)
- 1988 – Aya Kitō, Japanese author (b. 1962)
- 1989 – Georgy Tovstonogov, Russian director and producer (b. 1915)
- 2014 – Michael Gottlieb, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1945)
- 1498 – Girolamo Savonarola of Florence was executed for heresy, uttering prophecies, sedition, and other crimes.
- 1701 – Scottish privateer William Kidd(pictured) was executed for piracy.
- 1895 – Representatives of the Astor Library and Lenox Library agreed to merge and form the New York Public Library, now the second-largest public library in the United States.
- 1951 – Delegates of the 14th Dalai Lama and the government of the newly established People's Republic of China signed the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, affirming Chinese sovereignty over Tibet.
- 2010 – Jamaica's military and police force began a manhunt for drug lord Christopher Coke, beginning three days of armed conflict with the Shower Posse cartel.
It is wonderful to be blessed by God, but one shouldn't lie about it. Kidd wasn't really a pirate. Our Library is big. The signature is right, but I did not give my house to that government. We have coke. Let's party.
Tim Blair
MANCHESTER ATTACKED
===Andrew Bolt
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN HETERONORMATIVE TRIGGER WARNINGS
Tim Blair – Saturday, May 23, 2015 (1:12pm)
In the Guardian – of course – they’re now worried about human rights abuses in fairy tales:
Is it ok that the prince kisses Sleeping Beauty without her permission? Does it make a difference that he is saving her life?
(Via Brat)
===
JUST A BAD IDEA
Tim Blair – Saturday, May 23, 2015 (1:09pm)
An official warning from Massachusetts police:
If you see a bear, LEAVE IT ALONE and call us. We certainly don’t need anyone going all Davy Crockett chasing it through the woods drunk with a dull hatchet. It is just a bad idea and not going to end well.
Words to live by.
===
RAPID SUNSET
Tim Blair – Saturday, May 23, 2015 (12:31pm)
Things move quickly in the solar power market. In other alternative energy news, people are stealing batteries from Pruis hybrids.
(Via Adam I.)
===
SUCCESS REJECTED
Tim Blair – Saturday, May 23, 2015 (11:15am)
Reader Carol Keeble sends a note on arts funding:
I was interested to read your article on the arts grants on Monday. You have a point.However, there is another issue at stake: the threat of withdrawal of funds from those recipients of grants genuinely promoting creativity.For many years I was on the Committee of the Children’s Book Council (N.S.W. Branch) and submitted applications for grants to the Australia Council to conduct a mentorship for aspiring writers of children’s and young adult fiction. For several years we were awarded the funds to do this. The money paid for the successful script submitter to be mentored by a well-known author.Many of these winners became successful, published writers thereafter. The program was working well.One year all this changed. We were told that our program was not sufficiently innovative. In other words, our recipe for success had not been “creatively” altered.It is my belief that the Australia Council (like so many other institutions) works on the premise that “change = progress”.What we need, I believe, is a more intuitively intelligent body of people allotting the grants – not an abolition of all arts funding.
Good call. It seems the only tradition adhered to by funding types is the tradition of taking money from taxpayers.
===
Islamic State now attacking the Saudis
Andrew Bolt May 23 2015 (12:11pm)
This is a very worrying development, although it might just make the Saudi stop the feeding of the jihadist beast:
A suicide bomber struck a mosque in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich eastern region, leaving at least 21 people dead in an attack on the kingdom’s Shiite minority that was claimed by Islamic State.
The attack took place in the town of Qudeih in Qatif province, the official Saudi Press Agency said. Islamic State said on Twitter that it was responsible. The jihadist group has carried out attacks in the past in the region, where most Saudi Shiites live.
===
On The Bolt Report tomorrow, May 24
Andrew Bolt May 23 2015 (10:52am)
On Channel 10 tomorrow at 10am and 3pm.
My guest: Parliamentary secretary Christian Porter, former WA Treasurer and now rising star in the Abbott Government..
Editorial: “Nope, nope, nope.” The best answer to give desperate boat people? Or is Bill Shorten right?
The panel: Janet Albrechtsen of The Australian Nicholas Reece, former adviser to Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
NewsWatch: Nick Cater, columnist of The Australian and head of the Menzies Research Centre.
Plenty to debate: the media and George Pell, the carbon tax is back, the silence of the churches, the fall of Bill Shorten and two excellent reasons for stripping the Australia Council of arts grants funding.
The videos of the shows appear here.
My guest: Parliamentary secretary Christian Porter, former WA Treasurer and now rising star in the Abbott Government..
Editorial: “Nope, nope, nope.” The best answer to give desperate boat people? Or is Bill Shorten right?
The panel: Janet Albrechtsen of The Australian Nicholas Reece, former adviser to Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
NewsWatch: Nick Cater, columnist of The Australian and head of the Menzies Research Centre.
Plenty to debate: the media and George Pell, the carbon tax is back, the silence of the churches, the fall of Bill Shorten and two excellent reasons for stripping the Australia Council of arts grants funding.
The videos of the shows appear here.
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The fall of Bill Shorten
Andrew Bolt May 23 2015 (10:42am)
David Crowe describes a Labor leader with nothing left to say:
Yesterday rival Anthony Albanese publicly denied wanting to take the leadership. And today, in the Herald Sun:
When reports emerged that three suspected jihadists wanted to return to Australia without going to jail, [Bill] Shorten talked of rehabilitation but offered no concrete position. “We’ll seek a briefing from the government,” he said. Yesterday, when asked about whether citizenship should be revoked for Australians involved in terrorism, he would not take a position on “specific hypotheticals” but promised a bipartisan approach. Expect this to be a big issue next week when the government takes a tougher approach to foreign fighters.In fact, Bill Shorten’s leadership is rapidly dying. All the signs are there, and not just falling poll numbers.
On the slaughter of cattle in Vietnam, Shorten complained about Barnaby Joyce being too concerned with Johnny Depp’s dogs but offered no real contrast with the government: “I don’t believe the trade should automatically be suspended, no, I don’t.” What else could he say after the lessons from Labor’s halt to the live cattle trade to Indonesia?
As news broke that Rohingya asylum-seekers were drifting in the Andaman Sea, Shorten had to be careful to avoid a direct clash with Abbott over whether to send ships to help them. “We’ll certainly ask for an update from the government,” he said. When questions over asylum-seekers shifted to whether Labor supported turning back boats, Shorten hedged. Asked three or four times about his policy, he tried to reframe the questions to limit them to the Rohingyas. “We need to see what the policies are in terms of how they’ve been working, in terms of regional approaches and attitudes to this,” he said. “We are the ones who pioneered having regional resettlement but, again, what I would say to the government is sit down and talk to us about this latest refugee crisis and tragedy. Are there any other questions?”
Yesterday rival Anthony Albanese publicly denied wanting to take the leadership. And today, in the Herald Sun:
Uh oh.
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Feral Greens
Andrew Bolt May 23 2015 (9:25am)
Without question, the real ferals in the Senate are the Greens:
Now which party and which crossbench Senator get the kindest run on the ABC?
A party with that voting record is no longer consulting reason but prejudice. Note also where Xenophon sits on the spectrum.
Now which party and which crossbench Senator get the kindest run on the ABC?
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Greg Craven’s “race” mistake
Andrew Bolt May 23 2015 (8:43am)
Greg Craven thinks there is nothing radical in dividing us by “race” and creating a separate kind of Parliament for one:
A starting point is to accept that sensible recognition of indigenous people somewhere in our wider constitutional arrangements is by no means the radical step sometimes portrayed....On that first proposal, let’s be clear. The idea is to remove the power to make race-based laws, only to replace them with the right to make race-based laws. It is a mere switcheroo, caused by a desire to demonise the constitution as racist but without losing what it actually allows - the passing of laws to benefit one “race”. Indeed, the Gillard Government’s Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians recommended the replacement clause actually entrench special rights for just one “race”, to “recognise” its “continuing cultures, languages and heritage”:
This is where the [Noel] Pearson proposal is genuinely brilliant. It combines minimal constitutional exposure with maximum moral impact.... The proposal has three main parts. First, as economically and tersely as possible, fix the race provisions of the Constitution, which are at best obsolete and embarrassing and at worst potentially dangerous. A fleabite of a referendum.
Second, solemnly enact a Declaration of Recognition, decorously and clearly expressing our recognition of indigenous people. But in an act or acts of parliament, not in the Constitution. Third, in a simple insertion into the Constitution, provide for a body of indigenous scrutiny to advise parliament and government on laws affecting indigenous people.
“Recognising that ... Australia (was) first occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples ... (and) respecting the continuing cultures, languages and heritage ... (and) the need to secure the advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples; the Parliament shall ... have power to make laws ... with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples...”This is not removing a race provision from the Constitution butstrengthening it.
Second, we’ve already passed an Act of Recognition, two years ago. Why is that not enough? Or is this move to change the constitution actually a Trojan horse for a more profound change?
In fact, even the proposed Declaration of Recognition is too much of a surrender of a critical principle: that we should be treated as individuals under the law, with equal standing and common rights, and not as representatives of a “race”, each with a different standing and different rights. That is simply the beginning of an apartheid form of government. The next, logical and inevitable step will be demands for treaties and sovereign rights, which we are already hearing.
Craven is wrong to reduce this part of the debate to merely one about the reach of the law. It is more crucially about the principle being surrendered. Craven in fact implicitly concedes this by assuring us (falsely, in my opinion) that we will be able to contain the damage of this surrender of principle by writing the “Declaration of Recognition” in a way that makes it merely symbolic, providing “simply no base for judicial activism”. Many activists will rightly argue that this is a fraud, and real action must follow such a profound concession that people with Aboriginal ancestry have a different status and relationship with this country as its “first people”. In truth, a Declaration of Recognition will not end an argument but start a thousand.
Lastly, creating a race-based Parliament should actually be anathema not just to conservatives but to the Left that once preached the “brotherhood of man”. Aren’t we all brothers and sisters under the skin, not to be divided by our wealth, rank, nation, colour or “race” , let alone those of our ancestors? Why now are we dividing ourselves by genealogy?
Craven may claim that an Aboriginal advisory body may “advise, but not dictate to government, inform but not instruct parliament”, but I have zero confidence that such a body will not in time demand more power and get it, not least thanks to activist judges.
But, again, the argument is not simply about power but principle. And again, Craven gives the game away by assuring us that his new Aboriginal parliament, written into our constitution, would be stripped of real power. He wants merely the form, not the content, and assumes Aboriginal activists and the Left will go along with this beads and blankets deal. I feel in my bones he is wrong. Once you accept that people with some Aboriginal ancestry as so different that they are not adequately represented by our Parliament of Australi and must have a further supervisory Parliament, you cannot logically deny that much more must follow. Separate laws? Separate taxes? Separate territories? Separate courts? (Oops, already have them.) Just this implied denigration of Parliament’s ability to represent all people, regardless of “race”, is damaging. What other “races” - what other breeds and creeds - will now say they, too, cannot be properly represented by Parliament?
But Craven hasn’t finished. He also dismisses my argument that the “first Australians” have been dead for tens of thousands of year, and that no one should today claim to be first merely on the grounds of who some of their ancestors were. He even has a shot at my Keeshond, a Dutch barge dog he calls “improbable”:
The argument that we are all “indigenous” because we were born here does not wash, even semantically. Sparrows are born every minute in Australia, but no-one seriously argues they are indigenous wildlife.Here we get to the heart of my difference with Craven. I do not believe the Aboriginal Australians I see are as different to me as an emu is to a sparrow. I do not see us eating different foods, walking different ways, building different homes, all dictated by the iron laws of biology and breed.
The truth is that all people have a reality that extends well before the moment of their physical birth. As an Australian of Irish descent, part of my soul always will dwell amid the stony walls of county Galway. It does not compromise my Australian identity, nor yours. The same is true of an old friend, profoundly Australian, who nevertheless insists on owning improbable mutts deriving from the same ancestral country as his own.
Nor do I see emus that look much like sparrows, and fly as high. I don’t see emus mating with sparrows, and happily nesting with them. And I certainly don’t look at non-Aboriginal Australians and think that if there were fewer of them there would be more food and nests for Aborigines.
In short, the analogy is false and offensive. I’d say even more, but Craven is a friend, even if he’s kicked my dog.
True, we do all have memories which bind us to different pasts, and we honor different associations. But the past should not be summoned to divide our present, and with iron laws of race written into our Constitution. We all now find ourselves together on this one continent. We have come here by different routes, but must now go forward together - or fall apart.
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This war is a joke if this parade is possible
Andrew Bolt May 23 2015 (8:22am)
The Islamic State reportedly holds a victory parade in Rutbah in broad daylight to celebrate its victory in Ramadi:
Exactly how seriously is this war being fought?
Not very at all:
UPDATE
It’s not as if the Islamic State hasn’t had these parades in Rutbah before:
Why didn’t the US and Australian air forces now in Iraq drop a bomb on that convoy?
Exactly how seriously is this war being fought?
Not very at all:
The US-led coalition against Islamic State has conducted 19 air strikes in the vicinity of the Iraqi city of Ramadi over the past 72 hours, a spokesman for the coalition said on Monday.Just six a day? Really?
UPDATE
It’s not as if the Islamic State hasn’t had these parades in Rutbah before:
(Thanks to reader Gab.)
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How our refugee program left us in danger. Seeming good, doing bad
Andrew Bolt May 23 2015 (7:52am)
Gerard Henderson on the bungling of our refugee program that has helped to put us in this danger:
More stats that suggest not all cultures are equal in producing wealth and power - and we live with the consequences:
(Thanks to readers Turtle of WA and John.)
The Lebanese Civil War of 1975-76 was under way when Fraser became prime minister…UPDATE
In late 1975, a group of influential [Lebanese] Maronite Australians approached Fraser and his immigration minister, Michael Mackellar, with a view to the government allowing some Lebanese Christians into the country to join their relatives....
To facilitate entry, the Fraser government decided to categorise them as refugees — this despite the fact they ... were not fleeing persecution but rather the difficulties of a civil war ...
In time, the Fraser government’s decision became known as the “Lebanon Concession"… All they had to do was to state that they were fleeing the civil war and that they had a relative in Australia, plus meet some health checks.
As it turned out, most Christians did not want to leave Lebanon in 1975-76… Instead, some Lebanese from deprived rural areas learned of Australia’s Lebanon Concession and decided to seek a better life in Australia. They comprised Sunnis from northern Lebanon and Shias from southern Lebanon… Few, if any, were rejected…
In September 1976, cabinet considered a report that stated that the Immigration Department had been “completely overstretched” by the demand and had lost control of the program.
Put simply, ... there was no satisfactory criteria for assessing whether applicants had a family relationship in Australia. The report said “the Lebanese have an extended family concept” that included not only nephews, nieces and cousins but also “the residents of their home village whom they may not have seen in years”.
More seriously, the September 1976 report expressed concern about “the possibility that the conflicts, tensions and divisions within Lebanon will be transferred to Australia”. This was a reference to the tension between Sunni and Shia Muslims…
By November 1976, according to cabinet records, Mackellar was warning his colleagues about “the declining quality of many of the Lebanese people being sponsored for entry under the (Lebanon Concession) relaxed entry requirements”. Mackellar’s report to cabinet was blunt, to say the least: “A high percentage is illiterate. Personal hygiene is poor … The balance between Muslim and Christian applicants has risen to 90 per cent Muslim.
“Large families of up to 18 children are applying. Identification of applicants is complicated… There is a high rate of nominations involving .... [people] without any regard to their economic viability, personal qualities or capacity for successful settlement.”
Meeting on November 30, 1976, the Fraser cabinet junked the Lebanon Concession, less than a year after it had been created…
The statistics tell the story. In 1971 there were about 3400 Lebanese-born Muslims in Australia. A decade later, the figure was 15,600. Most of the Muslim Lebanese who came to Australia as a consequence of the Lebanon Concession settled in southwest Sydney — mainly in the suburbs of Lakemba and Arncliffe. The numbers grew substantially due to family reunions and high birthrates…
Those who came to Australia under the Lebanon Concession had the misfortune to arrive during a decline in manufacturing jobs. There has been a very high level of unemployment among Australians of Muslim Lebanese background since the mid-70s and many of this group did not obtain maximum benefit from the Australian education system. Many who benefited from the Lebanon Concession — along with their children and grandchildren — have done well in Australia. But not all… Unfortunately, a small number of the children and grandchildren of these Lebanese Muslims have been attracted to extremism, others to crime.
More stats that suggest not all cultures are equal in producing wealth and power - and we live with the consequences:
These statistics should be decisive in determining our immigration and refugee intakes. Yes, we should no more to integrate people and combat racism, but until we prove we can better integrate minorities we already have it would be a mistake to bring in yet more of the same.
Domestically the struggle of many Muslims to infiltrate Australia’s economic mainstream is evident in poor employment outcomes, a mismatch between their relatively high skill and education rates and jobs secured, high welfare dependency, low home ownership and a high incidence of household poverty…
The issues seem particularly stark for certain origin countries. For example, only 16 per cent of Iraqi-born Australians have full-time jobs and 70 per cent are unemployed or not in the labour force. Numbers for Lebanese-born groups reveal similar issues, with 60 per cent unemployed or not in the labour force and 23 per cent in full-time employment against a national average of 39 per cent.
In contrast, the Vietnamese community, many of whom arrived controversially as so-called boatpeople in the refugee surge of the 1970s, have a full-time employment rate of 36 per cent, almost in line with the national average…
The integration problems of Lebanese Muslims in Australia have been well canvassed. A comprehensive study by Swinburne University of Technology, released in 2006, revealed half of this group aged between 25 and 64 were out of work. The income of Lebanese Muslims was half the national average…
A 2010 study by Christine Inglis of the University of Sydney of second-generation Lebanese and Turkish youth showed that, at the time of the 2006 census, only 22 per cent of second-generation Lebanese aged 18 to 35 were doing any form of study.
Muslim migrant groups also have high levels of welfare dependency. A 2011 report by the Immigration Department revealed 94 per cent of Afghan refugee households received Centrelink payments and the group had an employment rate of just 9 per cent.
The numbers were similar for Iraqi households, with only 12 per cent in employment after five years and a 93 per cent reliance on Centrelink....
The figures raise considerable future issues because the Muslim population grew 40 per cent between 2006 and 2011 and is tipped to rise from 476,291 in 2011 (2.2 per cent of the total population) to 714,000 by 2030. If the economic issues for Muslim communities cannot be resolved, it will become a proportionately larger social problem in Australia. This could exacerbate disillusionment and social factures that typically breed from poverty and isolation.
(Thanks to readers Turtle of WA and John.)
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Most not refugees, not Rohingya, not skilled
Andrew Bolt May 23 2015 (6:33am)
The Greens and Leftist activists insisted we should have taken them in as refugees. But why, and to do what?:
Indonesia has told Australia that most of the 7000 boatpeople stranded at sea in the region are not Rohingya asylum-seekers but illegal labourers from Bangladesh...
“They (Indonesia) believe there are about 7000 people at sea (and) they think about 30-40 per cent are Rohingya, the rest are Bangladeshi; and they are not, in Indonesia’s words, asylum-seekers, they are not refugees, they are illegal labourers, they’ve been promised or are seeking jobs in Malaysia,” [Foreign Minister Julie] Bishop told The Weekend Australian.
“They said the Rohingya have gone to Bangladesh and have mixed up with the Bangladeshis who are coming to Malaysia in particular for jobs."…
Myanmar’s… navy carried out its first rescue of an asylum-seeker boat, bringing 208 people to shore. “A navy ship found two boats … on May 21 while on patrol,” said Tin Maung Swe, a senior official in the western state of Rakhine, adding “about 200 Bengalis were on one of the boats”.
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Fewer grants, more dance. Good point, accidentally made
Andrew Bolt May 23 2015 (6:15am)
Seriously?:
Sadly, though, Eltham and the dancers are wrong. There hasn’t been a cut in arts funding, but merely a change in who doles out the dosh.
(Via the astonished Tim Blair.)
But wait: the Government cuts arts funding and the result is actually moredance in the streets? There’s a lesson here for taxpayers.
Sadly, though, Eltham and the dancers are wrong. There hasn’t been a cut in arts funding, but merely a change in who doles out the dosh.
(Via the astonished Tim Blair.)
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Buy Sheik Omran a mirror
Andrew Bolt May 23 2015 (5:13am)
Again, that lethal victimology. It’s our fault, you see:
Omran once described al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden, whose followers helped to kill Australians, as ”a good man in some ways, and not in other ways”.
But before that, Omran said ”I dispute any evil action linked to bin Laden”. He said ”I don’t believe that even September 11 from the beginning, I (don’t) believe it (was) done by any Muslim at all”.
Omran was accused by one Somali mother of turning her son into a hardliner, so that her son returned to Somalia to fight - and be killed.
In 2003 Omran had this conversation:
If Omran wonders why there’s this suspicion he finds so distressing, he should buy himself a mirror.
And he should ask himself this: if he takes such offence at some non-Muslims here merely being rude to Muslims, can he really be so damning when non-Muslims here take such offence at some Muslims here trying to kill non-Muslims - and some succeeding?
UPDATE
Sheik Omran, also known as Abu Ayman, talking about Israel and others who allegedly oppress Muslims:
Should Omran have been given such a sympathetic hearing today?
In his adopted home of Wollongong, [Jordanian immigrant] Abu Ayman — as his friends know the sheik — was a young man at peace. ... Australia’s most senior Salafist cleric says if he knew then what he does now, he wouldn’t have come at all [to Australia].Let’s add to that picture some more information which might explain why the warm welcome Omran admits he once received here as a young man has chilled - and why the problem lies more with him than the rest of us.
On a Saturday night in Coolaroo, an industrial northern Melbourne suburb where more people consider themselves Muslim than any other religion,[Sheik Mohammed Omran] speaks with disappointment, a tinge of bitterness and overwhelmingly a deep sense of dismay. He says he feels like a foreigner in his own country.
“If I knew that one day this would happen in Australia, I swear by the almighty God I will never step foot in my — in your — country,” he tells Inquirer from his office inside the Hume Islamic Youth Centre...Omran gestures to his adult son Osama, who is quietly serving tea to the older men in the room. “He feels he is not wanted because his name is Islamic. Everyone gets devastated by that."…
Omran, emir of the Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama’ah school of Islamic thought characterised by literal interpretations of the Koran, believes the global threat represented by Islamic State is exaggerated and the national security risk posed by Muslim Australians seeking to join its ranks is grossly overblown… . “How many Australians have been killed by terrorists? Skin cancer, breast cancer kill thousands every year.”
Mustafa Abu Yusuf, an adviser to the sheik and a spokesman for the ASWJ, goes further. He describes terrorism as a fabricated issue that cynically has been used by successive governments to create a Muslim bogeyman. “...If it wasn’t for the half-decent people in Australia most of the Muslim community would be pushed out on to the fringes.”
In raw numbers, the core problem of youth radicalisation is dwarfed by the scale of the federal government’s policy response. Intelligence agencies believe there are 104 Australians fighting for Islamist groups in Syria or Iraq. Between 20 and 30 people have been killed or in combat or murdered by their Islamic State comrades…
Sheik Omran does not like the word extremism. He prefers deviation…
Through his involvement at the Brunswick mosque and more recently the HYIC, Omran has known some of Australia’s most notorious deviants: Abdul Nacer Benbrika before he formed a terrorist cell; Harun Mehicevic before he established the hardline al- Furqan Centre in Melbourne’s southast; Melbourne teenager Numan Haider before he lunged at two counter-terrorism taskforce officers with a knife outside a suburban police station.
The sheik has been accused of his own deviations, most notably in describing Osama in Laden as a good man. Omran does not apologise for his past comments or previous associations. Nor does he consider himself a firebrand, as he is often described. Rather, he sees himself as a man grown old in a country that no longer as welcoming as it once was.
Omran once described al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden, whose followers helped to kill Australians, as ”a good man in some ways, and not in other ways”.
But before that, Omran said ”I dispute any evil action linked to bin Laden”. He said ”I don’t believe that even September 11 from the beginning, I (don’t) believe it (was) done by any Muslim at all”.
Omran was accused by one Somali mother of turning her son into a hardliner, so that her son returned to Somalia to fight - and be killed.
In 2003 Omran had this conversation:
Reporter: Is it a good Muslim’s duty to go and fight the coalition forces for jihad in Iraq at the moment?And now this man is a leader in his community?
Sheikh Mohammed Omran: I would say yes.
If Omran wonders why there’s this suspicion he finds so distressing, he should buy himself a mirror.
And he should ask himself this: if he takes such offence at some non-Muslims here merely being rude to Muslims, can he really be so damning when non-Muslims here take such offence at some Muslims here trying to kill non-Muslims - and some succeeding?
UPDATE
Sheik Omran, also known as Abu Ayman, talking about Israel and others who allegedly oppress Muslims:
Why this (??) in Gaza? Why? Because of you. If we have real Muslims, no one dare to touch you. One Muslim and they get. If they know there are a thousand, million Muslims will send their men to defend their people who will try or even think about it?… That is the difference between the glory and humiliation…Are you surprised that some in his centre have turned to jihadism? Is Omran surprised that he is treated with suspicion?
Already Gaza (??) writes their speeches in their blood. I don’t want anyone to speak on behalf of them. They already give the best speech on how the Muslims should be. And don’t think this is a real loss. The real loss in when we lose our souls… Maybe their blood will wake our numbness.
Should Omran have been given such a sympathetic hearing today?
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Do you write from imagination or experience?
Posted by Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing on Friday, 22 May 2015
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Leçon numéro 1 : Ne jamais se la raconter avant de monter sur le ring ! JAMAIS ! :)
Posted by minutebuzz on Friday, 19 December 2014
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Can you believe this headline?
By a vote of 104 to 4, the UN voted Israel as the world's worst violator of health rights.
This is the Israel that issued 27,000 permits for Gazans to receive medical treatment in Israel and elsewhere, that receives hundreds of wounded Syrians for urgent medical treatment, that is the first to open and operate a field hospital in earthquake stricken Nepal, and leaves it there as a gift to the Nepalese people. An Israel that saves the lives of millions worldwide with our scientific and medical innovation, and improves the health of even more.
If there is a global health problem in this world, it is the UN.
Does anyone know how to cure this poisonous and dangerously biased mad-house?
By a vote of 104 to 4, the UN voted Israel as the world's worst violator of health rights.
This is the Israel that issued 27,000 permits for Gazans to receive medical treatment in Israel and elsewhere, that receives hundreds of wounded Syrians for urgent medical treatment, that is the first to open and operate a field hospital in earthquake stricken Nepal, and leaves it there as a gift to the Nepalese people. An Israel that saves the lives of millions worldwide with our scientific and medical innovation, and improves the health of even more.
If there is a global health problem in this world, it is the UN.
Does anyone know how to cure this poisonous and dangerously biased mad-house?
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Labor is breaking cover – showing their true colours. What the Labor Party wants to do is bring back the carbon tax,...
Posted by Tony Abbott on Thursday, 21 May 2015
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TEAM GUY SEBASTIAN #SBSeurovision
Posted by Andy Trieu on Friday, 22 May 2015
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LIFE’S DEFINING MOMENT
Tim Blair – Thursday, May 23, 2013 (12:17pm)
SMH ultrasnob Elizabeth Farrelly, still fuming over a 2012 bicycle lane incident and her subsequent embarrassment, now tries a new angle:
A few months back, when I stopped to query a man who’d parked his removal truck across the cycle lane – the third such blockage in half a kilometre – he instantly upped the decibels.‘’Tell that to Clover,’’ he yelled. ‘’She’s such an educated woman.’’He was making some impressive leaps, real Alan Jones specials, from cycling to Clover Moore to education-as-insult, in order to collect them all in one elitist basket. What was he saying, exactly? Decently ignorant blokes drive utes? Good guys pollute? Thoughtfulness is unAustralian?Blogging about this I was immediately accused by a thousand foul-mouthed trolls of hating the proletariat. (I’m sorry, the what?) Of trying to get the poor truckie sacked or jailed so he couldn’t feed his countless hungry children. In fact, for all they knew, the driver was an unusually rude inner-city gay of private means, moving his own stuff into his penthouse as part of a fitness regime.So, who’s drawing the stereotypes here?
It’s taken her 274 days to come up with this bizarre diversionary argument. By comparison, simply getting off her bike and walking around the truck would have taken mere seconds.
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LEAF SENTENCE - DAY TWO
Tim Blair – Thursday, May 23, 2013 (12:13pm)
The Julian Assange of foliage continues its lonely inhabitation:
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NO MO FOMOCO
Tim Blair – Thursday, May 23, 2013 (12:06pm)
It’s over for the Blue Oval:
Ford Australia has announced the closure of its Broadmeadows car factory and Geelong engine plant by October 2016, a move that will cost 1200 people their jobs.Up to 1200 workers will go from the Broadmeadows and Geelong plants by October 2016 with full entitlements.
Ford CEO and president Bob Graziano told a media conference that “manufacturing is not viable for Ford in the long term.”Australia’s Ford operations have lost $600 million in Australia over five years.
The Falcon name is likely to be retired when local manufacturing ends. Ford’s Australian production history began in 1925.
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BLOOD ON HIS HANDS
Tim Blair – Thursday, May 23, 2013 (5:49am)
Islamist horror in the UK:
Two suspected terrorists were shot by armed police after attacking a pedestrian, believed to be a soldier, with a machete-style knife close to military barracks in an ‘Islamist attack’ …The BBC reported sources had told them the men were shouting “Allahu Akbar” as they carried out the attack and had filmed carrying it out.One witness, called James, told LBC radio: “We saw clearly two knives, meat cleavers, they were big kitchen knives like you would use in a butcher’s, they were hacking at this poor guy, we thought they were trying to remove organs from him …“They were just animals. They then dragged him from the pavement and dumped his body in the middle of the road.”
One of the killers then delivered this statement:
ITV’s voiceover obscured the murderer’s full message:
ITV’s voiceover obscured the murderer’s full message:
We have heard from a man - an attacker, who you see in the ITV News footgage - with a knife and blood on his hands, saying “...we swear by almighty Allah, that we will never stop fighting you. Until you leave us alone, your people will never be safe”.
The Guardian reports:
Brandishing a cleaver and a knife, and with the body of the victim lying yards away, the man said: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
Follow updates here.
UPDATE. British Muslims denounce the murder:
I can’t tell you how sick I am of having to tweet every time that these are NOT Muslims. This is NOT Islam. These are f***** up barbarians.
Key words: “Every time.”
UPDATE II. The BBC reports:
Footage has emerged showing a man wielding a bloodied meat cleaver and making political statements.
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CHECKER CHECKED
Tim Blair – Thursday, May 23, 2013 (4:01am)
Roger Franklin examines the beliefs of official ABC fact-checker Russell Skelton, who five years ago hailed the “great significance” of Kevin Rudd’s 2020 Summit:
For one weekend a national conversation took place about the future of the country without a bunch of once-influential marsupials shouting down discussion of significant policy issues.These are the possums of the conservative commentariat. They are an invasive, boisterous species. They make their nests within the pages of Quadrant magazine (an obscure journal with a circulation that is a fraction of the Kmart catalogue), and invade the columns of News Limited papers and the hollowed-out walls of right-wing think tanks.
He’ll fit in just fine at the ABC, don’t you think? Do read on. Further fact-checker fact-checking atThe Australian.
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JUNIOR PRESBYTERIANS AT PLAY
Tim Blair – Thursday, May 23, 2013 (3:42am)
Youth-based car-b-q activity in Sweden:
Groups of youth have smashed shop windows, set cars ablaze and burnt down a cultural center as the riots that started in one Stockholm suburb after a fatal police shooting spread to other low-income areas of the Swedish capital …Gangs of up to 60 youths also set fire to a school and a nursery and hurled rocks at police and fire fighters.
Prime Ministerial reaction:
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Reinfeldt said: “We’ve had two nights with great unrest, damage, and an intimidating atmosphere in Husby and there is a risk it will continue.“We have groups of young men who think that that they can and should change society with violence. Let’s be clear: this is not okay. We cannot be ruled by violence.”
To paraphrase Kofi Annan: “Sweden has recently acquired a significant youth population, and is not yet sure how to adjust to it.”
(Via Mr Bingley, who suspects the involvement of his fellow Presbyterians)
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CLOSE TO HOME
Tim Blair – Thursday, May 23, 2013 (3:39am)
The Prick flirts with cannibalism.
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APPLIANCES FOR THE PEOPLE
Tim Blair – Thursday, May 23, 2013 (3:26am)
The glorious revolution continues:
Cuba has authorized individual imports of appliances like air conditioners, refrigerators and microwave ovens, lifting a ban in place since 2005, when the measure was adopted amid a wave of energy shortages and blackouts.Cuban citizens can now bring up to two such appliances per person into the country for noncommercial purposes.
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Hazel Hawke dies
Andrew Bolt May 23 2013 (7:40pm)
She seems to have been a nice woman:
HAZEL Hawke, who was a popular first lady as the former wife of Labor’s longest serving prime minister Bob Hawke, has died.Sympathies to her family.
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“It is only you versus many people, you are going to lose”
Andrew Bolt May 23 2013 (3:36pm)
True courage from a woman who tried to help the soldier slaughtered by jihadists:
Ingrid Loyau-Kennett ... was a passenger on a number 53 bus which was travelling past the scene, and jumped off to check the soldier’s pulse.The women or the jihadists. Only one group represents civilisation.
“Being a cub leader I have my first aid so when I saw this guy on the floor I thought it was an accident then I saw the guy was dead and I could not feel any pulse.
“And then when I went up there was this black guy with a revolver and a kitchen knife, he had what looked like butcher’s tools and he had a little axe, to cut the bones, and two large knives and he said ‘move off the body’.
“So I thought ‘OK, I don’t know what is going on here’ and he was covered with blood. I thought I had better start talking to him before he starts attacking somebody else. I thought these people usually have a message so I said ‘what do you want?’…
“...he said ‘I killed him because he killed Muslims and I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan they have nothing to do there."… I started to notice more weapons and the guy behind him with more weapons as well. By then, people had started to gather around. So I thought OK, I should keep him talking to me before he noticed everything around him…
“I said ’right now it is only you versus many people, you are going to lose...’
“The other one was much shier and I went to him and I said ‘well, what about you? Would you like to give me what you have in your hands?’...” Mrs Loyau-Kennett was not the only woman to show extraordinary courage. Others shielded the soldier’s body as the killers stood over them.
UPDATE
From The Sun:
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Tasmania deep in debt: Giddings does a Gillard
Andrew Bolt May 23 2013 (3:29pm)
Labor’s new generation of leaders - not least the women - are reviving the party’s reputation for reckless spending and debt:
TASMANIA’s budget has plunged into record deficit, but the Labor-Greens government, facing an election within 10 months, has chosen ballooning debt rather than further savings to avoid a crisis.The profligacy of Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Anna Bligh and Giddings will take a generation to live down.
Premier and Treasurer Lara Giddings is this afternoon delivering a budget that outlines a deficit of $425m for the 2013-14 financial year, and a debt of $229m by 2014-15. Despite the budget crisis, the budget will see a pre-election spending increase of almost 3 per cent...
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Give us your money, the students cried
Andrew Bolt May 23 2013 (1:58pm)
Markkoh attends a protest demanding free education. He discovers protesters in bad need of some.
(Thanks to reader Daniel.)
(Thanks to reader Daniel.)
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The Left must cut its alliance with Islamism
Andrew Bolt May 23 2013 (9:25am)
Former Labor adviser Cassandra Wilkinson on the sinister alliance between the far Left and Islamism - like the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel that is backed by Greens MP:
The BDS presents itself as a reaction to the power of the state of Israel. In reality it is the most recent name for a centuries-old economic persecution of Jews for having the temerity to become educated and entrepreneurial despite their exclusion from many occupations, geographies and institutions…
During a recent visit by Israeli politicians, NSW Labor MLC Shaoquett Moselmane disgraced the house by accusing Israel of running torture camps and claiming Israel is driven by a, “craving to take over other people’s lands"… Moselmane is particularly guileless in his views but others in caucus apply more subtlety to their anti-Israel positions. Several ALP members of the NSW, Victorian and federal parliaments have refused to support resolutions to condemn the BDS…
The [pro-BDS] student protests at UNSW and Sydney University may seem trivial or childish—hardly a “potent force in politics”. However, when a significant minority of our political leaders supports these protests it begins to be possible for them to become potent. All social change, good or bad, begins at the margin…
The London Left is starting to examine the consequences of having made friends with the enemies of Israel. Seeing leading Left politicians such as Ken Livingstone posing with extremists who vilify homosexuals, women and Jews has British lefties such as Nick Cohen asking how a shared hatred of imperialism can paper over the differences between the radical Left and radical Islam.
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Ford to quit Australia. Government subsidies wasted
Andrew Bolt May 23 2013 (8:58am)
January 2012:
UPDATE
The Ford Falcon will continue to be produced in Melbourne until at least 2016 after a $103 million investment from the car company and the Victorian and Federal governments…January 2012:
The Commonwealth will provide $34 million… This funding will also see the Falcon produced at Broadmeadows in Melbourne to at least the end of 2016…July 2012:
The Prime Minister said today’s announcement was great news for the future of the automotive industry in Australia…
This is exactly the type of investment we identified at the Future Jobs Forum and the PM’s Manufacturing taskforce to help shore up the future of our manufacturing sector. It’s smart, it’s competitive and best of all it will secure jobs, not only in Victoria but also across the nation.
Ford Motor Co’s (F.N) Australian unit will announce plans later on Tuesday to cut up to 440 jobs at two production plants in Melbourne and nearby Geelong ...April 2013:
FORMER Ford president Jac Nasser says the demise of the struggling Australian carmaking industry appears inevitable in the face of a high dollar, high costs and excess overseas capacity…Today:
Former Mitsubishi managing director Graham Spurling said this week Holden’s manufacturing days were numbered. “For anybody like the Premier of South Australia to think they’re (Holden) going to stay here until 2022, as they say in that classic movie, ‘He’s dreaming, love’,” he told the ABC. “I also think Ford is on the cusp of shutting up shop as well.”
FORD is expected to announce a huge cut to its Australian operations from 2016.Rumors suggest Ford will cease production in Australia.
UPDATE
FORD will cease producing vehicles in Australia from October 2016, in a move that will cost 1200 jobs.
Company boss Bob Graziano announced the closure of Ford’s Broadmeadows and Geelong plants in Victoria while unveiling a $141 million after-tax loss for the year. He said the company had come to the conclusion that it was no longer viable to produce vehicles in Australia.
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A fact-checker after the ABC’s own heart
Andrew Bolt May 23 2013 (8:36am)
Is this the kind of fact-checking the ABC’s fact-checker will do?
Accuracy and integrity. Nick Leys, The Australian online, yesterday:Here is more on the “97 per cent” claim Skelton swallowed. A bit of the fact-checking we hope for from the ABC but so rarely see.
THE ABC has named senior Fairfax journalist Russell Skelton as the editor of its new fact checking unit ... head of current affairs Bruce Belsham (said:) “The ABC news division is delighted to attract to this position a journalist with Russell’s reputation for accuracy and integrity.”Is that a fact? Skelton tweets, May 15:
YES there really (i)s a 97 per cent scientific consensus on global warming.Let’s check. William Jasper, The New American, May 21:
THE actual number of studies ... that can be said to endorse the position that human activity is responsible for most of the experienced global warming is - get ready for this (drum roll ) - sixty-five. Yes, 65, or around half a per cent, not 97 per cent! And this minuscule number of strong endorsers is actually less than the number of sceptical scientific papers included in the (John) Cook study.Another fact? Skelton in The Age, September 19, 2011:
ALMOST 20 years have passed since Gerry Hand, a left-wing minister in the Hawke government, introduced mandatory detention. It is hard to think of a more toxic, socially damaging and costly public policy.More facts. Skelton in The Age, April 25, 2008:
THE 2020 Summit has been just such an exercise. For one weekend a national conversation took place about the future of the country without a bunch of once-influential marsupials shouting down discussion of significant policy issues. These are the possums of the conservative commentariat. They are an invasive, boisterous species. They make their nests within the pages of Quadrant magazine (an obscure journal with a circulation that is a fraction of the Kmart catalogue), and invade the columns of News Limited papers and the hollowed-out walls of right-wing think tanks.
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Our courts must stand up to the Muslim who sits
Andrew Bolt May 23 2013 (8:29am)
Magistrate Jacqueline Milledge was correct. Mohammed Issai Issaka was ”very disrespectful” in refusing to stand for her,
So she was wrong to not send him to the cells until he learned his manners.
Yes, credit to Milledge for at least challenging Issaka when he claimed this week his Muslim faith obliged him to stand for no person. Other magistrates and judges don’t.
But it is a pity it was a confrontation Isaaka won after half an hour.
Isaaka, charged over last year’s riot against an anti-Islamic YouTube video, had his defiance legitimised. He will inspire others who see Australian authorities as weak, and Islam as a powerful creed that justifies trampling on our laws and customs.
In this case the 44-year-old Lakemba immigrant trampled on a tradition – not law – of standing as a judge enters court.
This is not a mark of respect for the judge as a person. Isaaka was not, as he claimed, asked to stand for Ms Jacqueline Milledge.
He was asked to show respect for our rule of law – vital in turning individuals into a community, and tribes into a nation.
Does Isaaka understand that? He’s said to come from Africa. What does he think helped make Australia the safe and well-regulated haven that so many Africans and Muslims bust a gut to come to?
It is that we have laws which bind everyone, regardless of faith, color, wealth or place of birth. Equal protection under the law means we are judged on our merits, not identities.
This breaks down that dangerous temptation to play us-against-them games - to rob or bash Peter because he’s not in the tribe of Paul.
So it’s no surprise that Muslims who in the past refused to stand for our judges include some who feel so little duty to non-Muslim Australians that they plot to kill them.
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Modern immigration: Muslims butcher British soldier, torch Swedish buildings
Andrew Bolt May 23 2013 (8:26am)
In England, Muslim fanatics hacks a soldier to death and then boasts - in an English accent - to the cameras:
Brandishing a cleaver and a knife, and with the body of the victim lying yards away, the man said: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”“Our land”?
Speaking in a British accent, the man said: “We must fight them. I apologise that women had to witness this today. But in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don’t care about you.”
In Sweden, an imported Muslim underclass riots again (although many newspapers are still too polite to use descriptors):
Hundreds of youths set fire to cars and attacked police and rescue services in poor immigrant suburbs in three nights of rioting in Stockholm, Sweden’s worst disorder in years.The BBC is more frank:
Last night, a police station in the Jakobsberg area in the northwest of the city was attacked, two schools were damaged and an arts and crafts centre was set ablaze, despite a call for calm from Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt…
Some 15 percent of the population is foreign-born, the highest proportion in the Nordic region. Unemployment among those born outside Sweden stands at 16 per cent, compared with 6 per cent for native Swedes, according to OECD data. Among 44 industrialised countries, Sweden ranked fourth in the absolute number of asylum seekers, and second relative to its population, according to UN figures.
More than 80% of Husby’s 12,000 or so inhabitants are from an immigrant background, and most are from Turkey, the Middle East and Somalia.The Economist earlier this year:
Per Brinkemo ... runs an organisation that specialises in helping Somali refugees from the basement of a Rosengard block of flats… But he is no fan of government policies, pointing out that politicians have little sense of how difficult it is to integrate Somalis into Swedish society. They hail from nomadic societies where trust is reserved for the clan, literacy is rare and timekeeping is rudimentary. Three-quarters of Somali children drop out of school. “For Somali immigrants [coming to Sweden] is like being transported to Mars,” he says.It’s easy to blame a failure of government programs. It’s telling that such programs are needed in the first place, and it’s fanciful to imagine better ones would solve everything.
In the US:
AN Orlando, Florida man who was shot dead after attacking an FBI agent carried out a gruesome 2011 triple murder with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, NBC News reports.UPDATE
Ibragim Todashev, 27, and Tsarnaev murdered the three men in Massachusetts after a drug deal, NBC News reports, citing law enforcement sources…
Todashev, 27, is not suspected of playing a part in the Boston Marathon attacks, but confessed he was involved in a gruesome triple-murder before allegedly attacking an FBI agent with a knife and being shot dead, NBC News reported earlier.
Why all the claims of shock and surprise at the murder in London? Hadn’t Muslim protesters in Britain made it perfectly clear they see British soldiers as the enemy?
London, 2006 - did we really think this was just words, with no consequences?
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Fat white scribblers gotta just suck it up
Andrew Bolt May 23 2013 (8:20am)
AS AN ageing, fat, white journalist - and married - I am confused. In how many ways can I be insulted before the police are called?
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Abbott offers Labor-lite, plus honesty
Andrew Bolt May 23 2013 (8:18am)
IS this really what I want from an Abbott government? The same as Labor, only better?
The excitement among conservatives at the now near-certain defeat of the Gillard Government in September is cooling.
It is being replaced with the realisation that Opposition leader Tony Abbott is not promising big changes, social or economic.
He is instead doing a Kevin Rudd. Rudd campaigned successfully in 2007 as Liberal-lite – someone like John Howard, but fresher.
Likewise, for all his rhetoric, Abbott is campaigning as Labor-lite - without the stuff-ups.
The excitement among conservatives at the now near-certain defeat of the Gillard Government in September is cooling.
It is being replaced with the realisation that Opposition leader Tony Abbott is not promising big changes, social or economic.
He is instead doing a Kevin Rudd. Rudd campaigned successfully in 2007 as Liberal-lite – someone like John Howard, but fresher.
Likewise, for all his rhetoric, Abbott is campaigning as Labor-lite - without the stuff-ups.
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Labor’s surplus could be a $20 billion deficit
Andrew Bolt May 23 2013 (6:53am)
Labor’s “surpluses” will actually be deficits? You could have fooled me - not:
David Uren warns Treasury could be very wrong again:
Niki Savva blames the rose-coloured glasses of a Treasurer who believed his own bull:
Terry MCrann warns the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics predicts mining investment is about to go over a cliff:
THE nation’s finances are facing a deep structural challenge that could turn Labor’s promised budget surplus into a $20 billion deficit…Professor Judith Sloan isn’t buying the Big Government vision of Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson or attempts to blame the Howard Government:
...two independent reports from the Parliamentary Budget Office and the federal Treasury reveal a sharp decline in the structure of the budget that will last for most of the decade…
The simultaneous studies, which were released yesterday in an apparent coincidence, show that the deficit in 2016-17, when the government is promising a $6.7bn surplus, would be between $5bn and $22bn that year, were it not for the Treasury’s assumption that commodity prices would only fall very gradually. Deloitte Access Economics director Chris Richardson said the average estimate of a $16bn deficit in 2016-17 was a “stunning difference” from the official forecast.
So here is Parkinson’s view of the world. “As the economy expands, government expenditure has tended to expand with it and thus the scope of government services per person has increased, albeit remaining roughly constant as a share of GDP. We also know that health and pension expenditure are set to increase further as the population ages and as changes in preferences and technology drive increased expenditure on health services.”UPDATE
But here’s the thing - as the economy expands and per capita income rises, we should expect the role of government to diminish, not expand. As a consequence of being wealthier, the welfare bill should decline, at least relatively, and an increasing proportion of the population should purchase services privately....
This point links in with one of the key messages of the Treasury working paper and the PBO report: if it were not for those damned income tax cuts implemented through 2003-04 and 2008-09, all would be hunky dory. The PBO, for instance, attributes two-thirds of the structural budget deficits in the 10 years ending 2011-12 to the income tax cuts.
Are they kidding? Are we expected to believe that the government would not have spent those extra income tax receipts? ...
But one of the messages of the estimates of the structural budget balances produced by Treasury and the PBO this week cannot go unchallenged. This message is that the budgetary pickle we are in is really all the fault of Howard and Peter Costello. To be blunt, this is just rubbish. Even if we assume that Howard and Costello overspent by not producing even bigger cash surpluses, this government has had plenty of time to reverse the tax cuts and institute spending restraint. It has done neither.
David Uren warns Treasury could be very wrong again:
Treasury believes the continued urbanisation of China will keep Australia’s main exports in short supply, with only modest declines in coming years. Parkinson estimates there will be a 20 per cent fall in Australia’s export prices across the next 15 years, but they still will be about 50 per cent above their long-term averages…UPDATE
The one number that leaps off the pages of the latest budget documents is the forecast that the terms of trade will decline by no more than 0.75 per cent in the year ahead and a further 1.75 per cent in 2014-15. It is possible but, with iron ore prices having fallen by more than 20 per cent in the past six weeks, it doesn’t seem very likely. A rival outlook to the one Treasury presents is that China’s growth will slow by more than expected, and the metal intensity of its growth will slow more rapidly as the government reins in the massive infrastructure and property development of the past decade. If Treasury is wrong about China and demand for our resources, it will be wrong about everything else in the budget.
Niki Savva blames the rose-coloured glasses of a Treasurer who believed his own bull:
It is a myth that Treasury offered Peter Costello a range of forecasts during budget preparations and that he chose the most conservative…UPDATE
Swan also was not offered a choice of forecasts. That does not mean he and his office have not influenced a massaging upwards of the final numbers presented to him…
It is easy to picture what happens. Treasury officials discuss the landscape with Swan, who has returned from yet another International Monetary Fund or G20 finance ministers’ meeting with a rosier outlook of the world and Australia’s place in it. Treasury puts its more sombre view, gets a “come on guys, get real” response from the minister and—voila—the revenues end up higher and the deficit smaller. When this scenario was put to people in the know, they did not deny it. Also, Parkinson did not deny government influence on forecasting under questioning by opposition assistant Treasury spokesman Mathias Cormann in Senate estimates in February.
Terry MCrann warns the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics predicts mining investment is about to go over a cliff:
... in the past year, the [mining] boom had switched to money pouring into Australia to fund the construction of new projects that would generate the growth in future export earnings.
When those projects came into production, the increased volumes of exports were expected - hoped - to make up for lower prices…
But what we face is ... an investment cliff…
As BREE noted, in the past 12 months, about $150 billion of projects had either been delayed, cancelled or had “re-assessed development plans.”
Putting it all together, BREE expects that $268 billion committed investment figure to slip only gently to about $256 billion by the end of the year. But then it expects it to plummet to just $70 billion by 2017. The cliff. It comes in four years, if BREE is accurate.
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OMG it is real .. like big foot or Nessie! - ed
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After 168 Years, Potato Famine Mystery Solved
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BOATLOADS OF OYSTERS BUT WHICH ARE THE DODGY ONES?
The UK, and continental Europe, is feeling the wrath of the Islamic imperative: We infidels have no right to life and the question now being asked is whether it's time to take oysters off the menu.
Islamic spokespeople have denounced the Barbaric act of terrorism in London (as they always do) but of course they dutifully return to the mosques that preach the destruction of their politically correct hosts.
Some Western countries have banned Islamic immigration, others have always banned it and have escaped the worst of what Islam has to offer.
The word “Barbaric” conjures up lessons never learnt...
From the North African Barbary Coast in 395 AD, Barbarian tribes conducted murderous forays into the Roman Empire.
They also infiltrated Rome from the north but the mighty empire foolishly ignored the invasion as something that could be contained.
Soon, many Barbarians began to settle deep within the borders of the empire. It was allowed to happen despite the Barbarian culture openly embracing a bloodthirsty and arrogant war-like lifestyle.
Once they had infiltrated in sufficient numbers they attacked the city of Rome itself, slaughtering and raping Roman citizens, looting and laying waste to the Eternal City.
By 412 AD, they had gained sufficient momentum to attack Spain and parts of what is now France.
The Roman Empire, along with its mighty legions, was brought to its knees by the immigration of a subversive foreign culture.
Rome was to regret that it did not initially meet the Barbarian threat head on when it could easily have dealt with it.
Sixteen hundred years later we discard history in the name of politically correct multiculturalism.
And it’s not as if Islam hasn’t given us notice of what it intends to achieve.
A line in the sand needs to be drawn... and soon.
Some Western countries have banned Islamic immigration, others have always banned it and have escaped the worst of what Islam has to offer.
The word “Barbaric” conjures up lessons never learnt...
From the North African Barbary Coast in 395 AD, Barbarian tribes conducted murderous forays into the Roman Empire.
They also infiltrated Rome from the north but the mighty empire foolishly ignored the invasion as something that could be contained.
Soon, many Barbarians began to settle deep within the borders of the empire. It was allowed to happen despite the Barbarian culture openly embracing a bloodthirsty and arrogant war-like lifestyle.
Once they had infiltrated in sufficient numbers they attacked the city of Rome itself, slaughtering and raping Roman citizens, looting and laying waste to the Eternal City.
By 412 AD, they had gained sufficient momentum to attack Spain and parts of what is now France.
The Roman Empire, along with its mighty legions, was brought to its knees by the immigration of a subversive foreign culture.
Rome was to regret that it did not initially meet the Barbarian threat head on when it could easily have dealt with it.
Sixteen hundred years later we discard history in the name of politically correct multiculturalism.
And it’s not as if Islam hasn’t given us notice of what it intends to achieve.
A line in the sand needs to be drawn... and soon.
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- 1533 – The Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer (pictured) annulled Henry VIII's marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, beginning a chain of events that would culminate in the English Reformation.
- 1844 – Siyyid `Alí-Muhammad Shírází proclaimed that he was "the Báb", after a Shi`a religious concept, marking the beginning of the Bábí movement, the forerunner of the Bahá'í Faith.
- 1873 – The North West Mounted Police, the forerunner of theRoyal Canadian Mounted Police, was established to bring law and order to and assert Canadian sovereignty over theNorthwest Territories.
- 2008 – To resolve a 29-year-old territorial dispute, theInternational Court of Justice awarded Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca to Singapore.
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- 844 – Battle of Clavijo: The Apostle Saint James the Greater is said to have miraculously appeared to a force of outnumbered Asturians and aided them against the forces of the Emir of Cordoba.
- 1430 – Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to raise the Siege of Compiègne.
- 1498 – Girolamo Savonarola is burned at the stake in Florence, Italy.
- 1533 – The marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void.
- 1568 – Dutch rebels led by Louis of Nassau, defeat Jean de Ligne, Duke of Arenberg, and his loyalist troops in the Battle of Heiligerlee, opening the Eighty Years' War.
- 1609 – Official ratification of the Second Virginia Charter takes place.
- 1618 – The Second Defenestration of Prague precipitates the Thirty Years' War.
- 1701 – After being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London.
- 1706 – John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defeats a French army under Marshal François de Neufville, duc de Villeroy in the Battle of Ramillies.
- 1788 – South Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution as the eighth American state.
- 1793 – Battle of Famars during the Flanders Campaign of the War of the First Coalition.
- 1829 – Accordion patent granted to Cyrill Demian in Vienna, Austrian Empire.
- 1844 – Declaration of the Báb the evening before the 23rd: A merchant of Shiraz announces that he is a Prophet and founds a religious movement that would later be brutally crushed by the Persian government. He is considered to be a forerunner of the Bahá'í Faith, and Bahá'ís celebrate the day as a holy day.
- 1846 – Mexican–American War: President Mariano Paredes of Mexico unofficially declares war on the United States.
- 1873 – The Canadian Parliament establishes the North-West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
- 1900 – American Civil War: Sergeant William Harvey Carney is awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism in the Assault on the Battery Wagner in 1863.
- 1907 – The unicameral Parliament of Finland gathers for its first plenary session.
- 1911 – The New York Public Library is dedicated.
- 1915 – World War I: Italy joins the Allies, fulfilling its part of the Treaty of London.
- 1932 – In Brazil, four students are shot and killed during a manifestation against the Brazilian dictator Getúlio Vargas, which resulted in the outbreak of the Constitutionalist Revolution several weeks later.
- 1934 – Infamous American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.
- 1934 – The Auto-Lite strike culminates in the "Battle of Toledo", a five-day melée between 1,300 troops of the Ohio National Guard and 6,000 picketers.
- 1939 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Squalus sinks off the coast of New Hampshire during a test dive, causing the death of 24 sailors and two civilian technicians. The remaining 32 sailors and one civilian naval architect are rescued the following day.
- 1945 – World War II: Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Schutzstaffel, commits suicide while in Alliedcustody.
- 1945 – World War II: The Flensburg Government under Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz is dissolved when its members are captured and arrested by British forces.
- 1948 – Thomas C. Wasson, the US Consul-General, is assassinated in Jerusalem, Israel.
- 1949 – The Federal Republic of Germany is established and the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany is proclaimed.
- 1951 – Tibetans sign the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet with China.
- 1992 – Italy's most prominent anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three body guards are killed by the Corleonesi clan with a half-ton bomb near Capaci, Sicily. His friend and colleague Paolo Borsellinowill be assassinated less than two months later, making 1992 a turning point in the history of Italian Mafiaprosecutions.
- 1995 – The first version of the Java programming language is released.
- 1998 – The Good Friday Agreement is accepted in a referendum in Northern Ireland with roughly 75% voting yes.
- 2002 – The "55 parties" clause of the Kyoto Protocol is reached after its ratification by Iceland.
- 2004 – Part of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport's Terminal 2E collapses, killing four people and injuring three others.
- 2006 – Alaskan stratovolcano Mount Cleveland erupts.
- 2008 – The International Court of Justice (ICJ) awards Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca (Pulau Batu Puteh) to Singapore, ending a 29-year territorial dispute between the two countries.
- 2013 – The Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River collapses in Mount Vernon, Washington.
- 2014 – Seven people, including the perpetrator, are killed and another 14 injured in a killing spree near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara.
- 2015 – At least 46 people are killed as a result of floods caused by a tornado in Texas and Oklahoma.
- 2016 – Two suicide bombings, conducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, killed at least 45 potential army recruits in Aden, Yemen.
- 2016 – Eight bombings were carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in Jableh and Tartus, coastline cities in Syria. 184 people were killed and at least 200 people injured.
Births[edit]
- 635 – K'inich Kan Bahlam II, Mayan king (d. 702)
- 1052 – Philip I of France (d. 1108)
- 1100 – Emperor Qinzong of Song (d. 1161)
- 1127 – Uijong of Goryeo, Korean monarch of the Goryeo dynasty (d. 1173)
- 1330 – Gongmin of Goryeo, Korean ruler (d. 1374)
- 1606 – Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz, Spanish mathematician and philosopher (d. 1682)
- 1614 – Bertholet Flemalle, Flemish Baroque painter (d. 1675)
- 1617 – Elias Ashmole, English astrologer and politician (d. 1692)
- 1629 – William VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, noble of Hesse-Kassel (d. 1663)
- 1707 – Carl Linnaeus, Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist (d. 1778)
- 1718 – William Hunter, Scottish-English anatomist and physician (d. 1783)
- 1729 – Giuseppe Parini, Italian poet and educator (d. 1799)
- 1730 – Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia, Prussian prince and general (d. 1813)
- 1734 – Franz Mesmer, German physician and astrologer (d. 1815)
- 1735 – Charles-Joseph, 7th Prince of Ligne, Austrian field marshal and noble (d. 1814)
- 1741 – Andrea Luchesi, Italian organist and composer (d. 1801)
- 1789 – Franz Schlik, Austrian earl and general (d. 1862)
- 1790 – Jules Dumont d'Urville, French admiral and explorer (d. 1842)
- 1790 – James Pradier, French neoclassical sculptor (d. 1852)
- 1794 – Ignaz Moscheles, Czech pianist and composer (d. 1870)
- 1795 – Charles Barry, English architect, designed the Upper Brook Street Chapel and Halifax Town Hall (d. 1860)
- 1810 – Margaret Fuller, American journalist and critic (d. 1850)
- 1820 – James Buchanan Eads, American engineer, designed the Eads Bridge (d. 1887)
- 1820 – Lorenzo Sawyer, American lawyer and judge (d. 1891)
- 1824 – Ambrose Burnside, American general and politician, 30th Governor of Rhode Island (d. 1881)
- 1834 – Jānis Frīdrihs Baumanis, Latvian architect (d. 1891)
- 1834 – Carl Bloch, Danish painter and academic (d. 1890)
- 1837 – Anatole Mallet, Swiss mechanical engineer and inventor (d. 1919)
- 1837 – Józef Wieniawski, Polish pianist and composer (d. 1912)
- 1838 – Amaldus Nielsen, Norwegian painter (d. 1932)
- 1844 – `Abdu'l-Bahá, Iranian religious leader (d. 1921)
- 1848 – Otto Lilienthal, German pilot and engineer (d. 1896)
- 1855 – Isabella Ford, English author and activist (d. 1924)
- 1861 – József Rippl-Rónai, Hungarian painter (d. 1927)
- 1863 – Władysław Horodecki, Polish architect (d. 1930)
- 1864 – William O'Connor, American fencer (d. 1939)
- 1865 – Epitácio Pessoa, Brazilian jurist and politician, 11th President of Brazil (d. 1942)
- 1875 – Alfred P. Sloan, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1966)
- 1882 – William Halpenny, Canadian pole vaulter (d. 1960)
- 1883 – Douglas Fairbanks, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1939)
- 1884 – Corrado Gini, Italian sociologist and demographer (d. 1965)
- 1887 – Thoralf Skolem, Norwegian mathematician and theorist (d. 1963)
- 1887 – Nikolai Vekšin, Estonian-Russian sailor and captain (d. 1951)
- 1888 – Adriaan Roland Holst, Dutch writer (d. 1976)
- 1888 – Zack Wheat, American baseball player and police officer (d. 1972)
- 1889 – Ernst Niekisch, German educator and politician (d. 1967)
- 1890 – Herbert Marshall, English-American actor and singer (d. 1966)
- 1891 – Pär Lagerkvist, Swedish novelist, playwright, and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
- 1892 – Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer, British peer and grandfather of Diana Spencer (d. 1975)
- 1896 – Felix Steiner, Russian-German SS officer (d. 1966)
- 1897 – Jimmie Guthrie, Scottish motorcycle racer (d. 1937)
- 1898 – Scott O'Dell, American soldier, journalist, and author (d. 1989)
- 1898 – Josef Terboven, German soldier and politician (d. 1945)
- 1899 – Jeralean Talley, American super-centenarian (d. 2015)
- 1900 – Hans Frank, German lawyer and politician (d. 1946)
- 1900 – Franz Leopold Neumann, German lawyer and theorist (d. 1954)
- 1908 – John Bardeen, American physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)
- 1908 – Hélène Boucher, French pilot (d. 1934)
- 1910 – Margaret Wise Brown, American author and educator (d. 1952)
- 1910 – Hugh Casson, English architect and academic (d. 1999)
- 1910 – Scatman Crothers, American actor and comedian (d. 1986)
- 1910 – Artie Shaw, American clarinet player, composer, and bandleader (d. 2004)
- 1910 – Franz Kline, American painter and academic (d. 1962)
- 1911 – Lou Brouillard, Canadian boxer (d. 1984)
- 1911 – Paul Augustin Mayer, German cardinal (d. 2010)
- 1911 – Betty Nuthall, English tennis player (d. 1983)
- 1912 – Jean Françaix, French pianist and composer (d. 1997)
- 1912 – John Payne, American actor (d. 1989)
- 1914 – Harold Hitchcock, English visionary landscape artist (d. 2009)
- 1914 – Celestine Sibley, American journalist and author (d. 1999)
- 1914 – Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, English economist, journalist, and prominent Catholic layperson (d. 1981)
- 1915 – S. Donald Stookey, American physicist and chemist, invented CorningWare (d. 2014)
- 1917 – Edward Norton Lorenz, American mathematician and meteorologist (d. 2008)
- 1918 – Denis Compton, English cricketer and sportscaster (d. 1997)
- 1919 – Robert Bernstein, American author and playwright (d. 1988)
- 1919 – Ruth Fernández, Puerto Rican-American singer and politician (d. 2012)
- 1919 – Betty Garrett, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2011)
- 1920 – Helen O'Connell, American singer (d. 1993)
- 1921 – James Blish, American author and critic (d. 1975)
- 1921 – Humphrey Lyttelton, English trumpet player and composer (d. 2008)
- 1923 – Alicia de Larrocha, Catalan-Spanish pianist (d. 2009)
- 1924 – Karlheinz Deschner, German author and activist (d. 2014)
- 1925 – Joshua Lederberg, American biologist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2008)
- 1925 – Mac Wiseman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1926 – Basil Salvadore D'Souza, Indian bishop (d. 1996)
- 1926 – Joe Slovo, Lithuanian-South African politician (d. 1995)
- 1928 – Jeannie Carson, English-born American-based actress and singer
- 1928 – Rosemary Clooney, American singer and actress (d. 2002)
- 1928 – Nigel Davenport, English actor (d. 2013)
- 1928 – Nina Otkalenko, Russian runner (d. 2015)
- 1929 – Ulla Jacobsson, Swedish-Austrian actress (d. 1982)
- 1930 – Friedrich Achleitner, German poet and critic
- 1930 – Richard Anuszkiewicz, American painter and sculptor
- 1931 – Barbara Barrie, American actress
- 1932 – Kevork Ajemian, Syrian-French journalist and author (d. 1998)
- 1933 – Joan Collins, English actress
- 1933 – Ove Fundin, Swedish motorcycle racer
- 1934 – Robert Moog, American businessman, invented the Moog synthesizer (d. 2005)
- 1935 – Julian Grenfell, 3rd Baron Grenfell, English politician
- 1935 – Lasse Strömstedt, Swedish author (d. 2009)
- 1936 – Ingeborg Hallstein, German soprano and actress
- 1936 – Charles Kimbrough, American actor
- 1939 – Michel Colombier, French-American composer and conductor (d. 2004)
- 1939 – Reinhard Hauff, German director and screenwriter
- 1940 – Giles Gordon, Scottish author and agent (d. 2003)
- 1940 – Gérard Larrousse, French race car driver
- 1940 – Bjørn Johansen, Norwegian saxophnist (d. 2002)
- 1940 – Cora Sadosky, Argentinian mathematician and academic (d. 2010)
- 1942 – Zalman King, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2012)
- 1942 – Gabriel Liiceanu, Romanian philosopher, author, and academic
- 1942 – Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao, Indian director, screenwriter, and choreographer
- 1943 – General Johnson, American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2010)
- 1943 – Peter Kenilorea, Solomon Islands politician, 1st Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands (d. 2016)
- 1943 – Alan Walden, American businessman and manager, co-founded Capricorn Records
- 1944 – John Newcombe, Australian tennis player and sportscaster
- 1945 – Padmarajan, Indian director, screenwriter, and author (d. 1991)
- 1946 – David Graham, Australian golfer
- 1946 – Stephen Marks, English businessman
- 1947 – Bernard Comrie, English-American linguist and academic
- 1947 – Jane Kenyon, American poet and translator (d. 1995)
- 1948 – Myriam Boyer, French actress, director, and producer
- 1949 – Daniel DiNardo, American cardinal
- 1949 – Alan García, Peruvian lawyer and politician, 93rd President of Peru
- 1950 – Martin McGuinness, Irish republican and Sinn Féin politician, Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland
- 1951 – Anatoly Karpov, Russian chess player
- 1951 – Antonis Samaras, Greek economist and politician, 185th Prime Minister of Greece
- 1952 – Martin Parr, English photographer and journalist
- 1954 – Marvelous Marvin Hagler, American boxer and actor
- 1955 – Luka Bloom, Irish singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1956 – Ursula Plassnik, Austrian politician and diplomat, Foreign Minister of Austria
- 1956 – Buck Showalter, American baseball player, coach, and manager
- 1956 – Andrea Pazienza, Italian illustrator and painter (d. 1988)
- 1958 – Mitch Albom, American journalist, author, and screenwriter
- 1958 – Drew Carey, American actor, game show host, and entrepreneur
- 1958 – Lea DeLaria, American actress and singer
- 1959 – Daniel Alfredson, Swedish film director
- 1959 – Ryuta Kawashima, Japanese neuroscientist and academic
- 1959 – Marcella Mesker, Dutch tennis player and sportscaster
- 1963 – Viviane Baladi, Swiss mathematician
- 1964 – Ruth Metzler, Swiss lawyer and politician
- 1965 – Melissa McBride, American actress and casting director
- 1965 – Manuel Sanchís Hontiyuelo, Spanish footballer
- 1965 – Tom Tykwer, German director, producer, screenwriter, and composer
- 1966 – Graeme Hick, Zimbabwean-English cricketer and coach
- 1966 – Gary Roberts, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1967 – Luis Roberto Alves, Mexican footballer
- 1967 – Anna Ibrisagic, Swedish politician
- 1967 – Philip Selway, English drummer and songwriter
- 1968 – Guinevere Turner, American actress and screenwriter
- 1969 – Mindi Abair, American saxophonist and composer
- 1970 – Nanette Burstein, American director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1970 – Matt Flynn, American drummer and producer
- 1970 – Bryan Herta, American race car driver and businessman, co-founded Bryan Herta Autosport
- 1971 – George Osborne, English journalist and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer
- 1972 – Rubens Barrichello, Brazilian race car driver
- 1973 – Maxwell, American singer-songwriter and producer
- 1974 – Jewel, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actress, and poet
- 1974 – Ken Jennings, American computer scientist, author, and game show contestant
- 1974 – Manuela Schwesig, German politician, German Federal Minister of Family Affairs
- 1975 – Darren Styles, English record producer
- 1975 – Kim Sung-soo, South Korean actor and television host
- 1976 – Ricardinho, Brazilian footballer and manager
- 1976 – Sinha, Brazilian-Mexican footballer
- 1976 – Kelly Monaco, American model and actress
- 1977 – Ilia Kulik, Russian figure skater
- 1978 – Mike Gonzalez, American baseball player
- 1978 – Scott Raynor, American drummer
- 1979 – Rasual Butler, American basketball player
- 1979 – Brian Campbell, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1980 – Theofanis Gekas, Greek footballer
- 1980 – Chris Gethard, American actor and screenwriter
- 1981 – Pierre Lapointe, Canadian singer-songwriter and keyboard player
- 1982 – Tristan Prettyman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1984 – Hugo Almeida, Portuguese footballer
- 1985 – Sebastián Fernández, Uruguayan footballer
- 1985 – Wim Stroetinga, Dutch cyclist
- 1985 – Ross Wallace, Scottish footballer
- 1986 – Alice Tait, Australian swimmer
- 1986 – Alexei Sitnikov, Russian-Azerbaijani figure skater
- 1986 – Ruben Zadkovich, Australian footballer
- 1986 – Ryan Coogler, American film director and screenwriter
- 1987 – Gracie Otto, Australian actress, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1987 – Bray Wyatt, American wrestler
- 1988 – Morgan Pressel, American golfer
- 1988 – Rosanna Crawford, Canadian biathlete
- 1989 – Ezequiel Schelotto, Italian footballer
- 1990 – Kristína Kučová, Slovak tennis player
- 1990 – Dan Evans, British tennis player
- 1990 – Oliver Venno, Estonian volleyball player
- 1991 – Lena Meyer-Landrut, German singer-songwriter
- 1991 – Aaron Donald, American football player
- 1993 – Andy Janovich, American football player
- 1993 – Stephon Tuitt, American football player
- 1995 – Tyus Bowser, American football player
- 1996 – Katharina Althaus, German ski jumper
- 1997 – Joe Gomez, English footballer
- 1997 – Gustaf Nilsson, Swedish footballer
- 1997 – Sam Timmins, New Zealand basketball player
- 1997 – Pedro Chirivella, Spanish footballer
- 1997 – Coy Craft, American footballer
- 1998 – Sérgio Sette Câmara, Brazilian racing driver
- 1998 – Luca de la Torre, American footballer
- 1998 – Salwa Eid Naser, Bahraini track and field sprinter
- 1998 – Ross Cunningham, Scottish footballer
Deaths[edit]
- 230 – Pope Urban I
- 779 – Emperor Daizong of Tang (b. 727)
- 922 – Li Sizhao, Chinese general and governor
- 1125 – Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1081)
- 1304 – Jehan de Lescurel, French poet and composer
- 1370 – Toghon Temür, Mongol emperor (b. 1320)
- 1423 – Antipope Benedict XIII (b. 1328)
- 1498 – Girolamo Savonarola, Italian friar and preacher (b. 1452)
- 1523 – Ashikaga Yoshitane, Japanese shogun (b. 1466)
- 1524 – Ismail I, Iran ruler (b. 1487)
- 1591 – John Blitheman, English organist and composer (b. 1525)
- 1662 – John Gauden, English bishop (b. 1605)
- 1670 – Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1610)
- 1691 – Adrien Auzout, French astronomer and instrument maker (b. 1622)
- 1701 – William Kidd, Scottish pirate (b. 1645)
- 1749 – Abraham ben Abraham, Polish martyr (b. 1700)
- 1752 – William Bradford, English-American printer (b. 1663)
- 1754 – John Wood, the Elder, English architect, designed The Circus and Queen Square (b. 1704)
- 1783 – James Otis, Jr., American lawyer and politician (b. 1725)
- 1786 – Maurice, Count de Benyovszky, Hungarian explorer (b. 1746)
- 1813 – Géraud Duroc, French general and diplomat (b. 1772)
- 1815 – Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg, American clergyman and botanist (b. 1753)
- 1841 – Franz Xaver von Baader, German philosopher and theologian (b. 1765)
- 1855 – Charles Robert Malden, English lieutenant and explorer (b. 1797)
- 1857 – Augustin-Louis Cauchy, French mathematician and academic (b. 1789)
- 1868 – Kit Carson, American general (b. 1809)
- 1886 – Leopold von Ranke, German historian and academic (b. 1795)
- 1893 – Anton von Schmerling, Austrian politician (b. 1805)
- 1895 – Franz Ernst Neumann, German mineralogist, physicist, and mathematician (b. 1798)
- 1906 – Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian director, playwright, and poet (b. 1828)
- 1908 – François Coppée, French poet and author (b. 1842)
- 1920 – Svetozar Boroević, Croatian-Austrian field marshal (b. 1856)
- 1921 – August Nilsson, Swedish shot putter and tug of war competitor (b. 1872)
- 1934 – Clyde Barrow, American criminal (b. 1909)
- 1934 – Mihkel Martna, Estonian journalist and politician (b. 1860)
- 1934 – Bonnie Parker, American criminal (b. 1910)
- 1937 – John D. Rockefeller, American businessman and philanthropist, founded the Standard Oil Companyand Rockefeller University (b. 1839)
- 1938 – Frederick Ruple, Swiss-American painter (b. 1871)
- 1942 – Panagiotis Toundas, Greek composer and conductor (b. 1886)
- 1945 – Heinrich Himmler, German commander and politician, Reich Minister of the Interior (b. 1900)
- 1947 – Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, Swiss author and poet (b. 1878)
- 1949 – Jan Frans De Boever, Belgian painter and illustrator (b. 1872)
- 1956 – Gustav Suits, Latvian-Estonian poet and politician (b. 1883)
- 1960 – Georges Claude, French engineer and inventor, created Neon lighting (b. 1870)
- 1962 – Louis Coatalen, French engineer (b. 1879)
- 1963 – August Jakobson, Estonian author and politician (b. 1904)
- 1965 – Earl Webb, American baseball player and coach (b. 1897)
- 1966 – Demchugdongrub, Mongolian politician (b. 1902)
- 1975 – Moms Mabley, American comedian and actor (b. 1894)
- 1979 – S. Selvanayagam, Sri Lankan geographer and academic (b. 1932)
- 1981 – Gene Green, American baseball player (b. 1933)
- 1981 – Rayner Heppenstall, English author and poet (b. 1911)
- 1981 – George Jessel, American actor, singer, and producer (b. 1898)
- 1981 – David Lewis, Belarusian-Canadian lawyer and politician (b. 1909)
- 1986 – Sterling Hayden, American actor (b. 1916)
- 1988 – Aya Kitō, Japanese author (b. 1962)
- 1989 – Georgy Tovstonogov, Russian director and producer (b. 1915)
- 1989 – Karl Koch, German computer hacker (b. 1965)
- 1991 – Wilhelm Kempff, German pianist and composer (b. 1895)
- 1991 – Jean Van Houtte, Belgian academic and politician, 50th Prime Minister of Belgium (b. 1907)
- 1991 – Fletcher Markle, Canadian director, screenwriter, and producer (b. 1921)
- 1992 – Kostas Davourlis, Greek footballer (b. 1948)
- 1992 – Giovanni Falcone, Italian lawyer and judge (b. 1939)
- 1994 – Ray Candy, American wrestler and trainer (b. 1951)
- 1994 – Joe Pass, American guitarist and composer (b. 1929)
- 1994 – Olav H. Hauge, Norwegian poet (b. 1908)
- 1996 – Kronid Lyubarsky, Russian journalist and activist (b. 1934)
- 1998 – Telford Taylor, American general and lawyer (b. 1908)
- 1999 – Owen Hart, Canadian-American wrestler (b. 1965)
- 2002 – Sam Snead, American golfer and journalist (b. 1912)
- 2006 – Clifford Antone, American businessman (b. 1949)
- 2006 – Lloyd Bentsen, American colonel and politician, 69th United States Secretary of the Treasury (b. 1921)
- 2006 – Ian Copeland, Syrian-American talent agent (b. 1949)
- 2006 – Kazimierz Górski, Polish footballer and manager (b. 1921)
- 2008 – Nigel Anderson, Australian-born English soldier, landowner and politician (b. 1920)
- 2008 – Iñaki Ochoa de Olza, Spanish mountaineer (b. 1967)
- 2008 – Utah Phillips, American singer-songwriter and poet (b. 1935)
- 2009 – Roh Moo-hyun, South Korean soldier and politician, 9th President of South Korea (b. 1946)
- 2010 – José Lima, Dominican-American baseball player (b. 1972)
- 2010 – Simon Monjack, English director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1970)
- 2011 – Xavier Tondo, Spanish cyclist (b. 1978)
- 2012 – T. Garry Buckley, American soldier, pilot, and politician, 72nd Lieutenant Governor of Vermont (b. 1922)
- 2012 – Paul Fussell, American historian, author, and academic (b. 1924)
- 2012 – Hal Jackson, American journalist and radio host (b. 1915)
- 2012 – Joseph Lesniewski, American soldier (b. 1920)
- 2012 – William C. Wampler, American soldier and politician (b. 1926)
- 2013 – William Demby, American author (b. 1922)
- 2013 – Epy Guerrero, Dominican baseball player, coach, and scout (b. 1942)
- 2013 – Hayri Kozakçıoğlu, Turkish police officer and politician, 15th Governor of Istanbul Province (b. 1938)
- 2013 – Georges Moustaki, Egyptian-French singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1934)
- 2013 – Flynn Robinson, American basketball player (b. 1941)
- 2013 – Luis Zuloaga, Venezuelan baseball player (b. 1922)
- 2014 – Mikhail Egorovich Alekseev, Russian linguist and academic (b. 1949)
- 2014 – Michael Gottlieb, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1945)
- 2014 – Richard Kolitsch, German footballer (b. 1989)
- 2014 – Madhav Mantri, Indian cricketer (b. 1921)
- 2014 – Anand Modak, Indian composer and director (b. 1951)
- 2014 – Panagiotis Poikilidis, Greek wrestler (b. 1965)
- 2015 – Leo Berman, American businessman and politician (b. 1935)
- 2015 – Anne Meara, American actress, comedian and playwright (b. 1929)
- 2015 – Aleksey Mozgovoy, Ukrainian sergeant (b. 1975)
- 2015 – Alicia Nash, Salvadoran-American physicist and engineer (b. 1933)
- 2015 – John Forbes Nash, Jr., American mathematician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1928)
- Christian feast day:
- Constitution Day (Germany)
- Declaration of the Báb (Bahá'í Faith)
- Labour Day (Jamaica)
- Students' Day (Mexico)
- World Turtle Day
Holidays and observances[edit]
===
“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” -Galatians 5:13
===
Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
Morning
Changeful experience often leads the anxious believer to inquire "Why is it thus with me?" I looked for light, but lo, darkness came; for peace, but behold, trouble. I said in my heart, my mountain standeth firm; I shall never be moved. Lord, thou dost hide thy face, and I am troubled. It was but yesterday that I could read my title clear; today my evidences are bedimmed, and my hopes are clouded. Yesterday, I could climb to Pisgah's top, and view the landscape o'er, and rejoice with confidence in my future inheritance; today, my spirit has no hopes, but many fears; no joys, but much distress. Is this part of God's plan with me? Can this be the way in which God would bring me to heaven? Yes, it is even so. The eclipse of your faith, the darkness of your mind, the fainting of your hope, all these things are but parts of God's method of making you ripe for the great inheritance upon which you shall soon enter. These trials are for the testing and strengthening of your faith--they are waves that wash you further upon the rock--they are winds which waft your ship the more swiftly towards the desired haven. According to David's words, so it might be said of you, "So he bringeth them to their desired haven." By honour and dishonour, by evil report and by good report, by plenty and by poverty, by joy and by distress, by persecution and by peace, by all these things is the life of your souls maintained, and by each of these are you helped on your way. Oh, think not, believer, that your sorrows are out of God's plan; they are necessary parts of it. "We must, through much tribulation, enter the kingdom." Learn, then, even to "count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations."
"O let my trembling soul be still,
And wait thy wise, thy holy will!
I cannot, Lord, thy purpose see,
Yet all is well since ruled by thee."
Evening
"Behold, thou art fair, my Beloved."
Song of Solomon 1:16
Song of Solomon 1:16
From every point our Well-beloved is most fair. Our various experiences are meant by our heavenly Father to furnish fresh standpoints from which we may view the loveliness of Jesus; how amiable are our trials when they carry us aloft where we may gain clearer views of Jesus than ordinary life could afford us! We have seen him from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, and he has shone upon us as the sun in his strength; but we have seen him also "from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards," and he has lost none of his loveliness. From the languishing of a sick bed, from the borders of the grave, have we turned our eyes to our soul's spouse, and he has never been otherwise than "all fair." Many of his saints have looked upon him from the gloom of dungeons, and from the red flames of the stake, yet have they never uttered an ill word of him, but have died extolling his surpassing charms. Oh, noble and pleasant employment to be forever gazing at our sweet Lord Jesus! Is it not unspeakably delightful to view the Saviour in all his offices, and to perceive him matchless in each?--to shift the kaleidoscope, as it were, and to find fresh combinations of peerless graces? In the manger and in eternity, on the cross and on his throne, in the garden and in his kingdom, among thieves or in the midst of cherubim, he is everywhere "altogether lovely." Examine carefully every little act of his life, and every trait of his character, and he is as lovely in the minute as in the majestic. Judge him as you will, you cannot censure; weigh him as you please, and he will not be found wanting. Eternity shall not discover the shadow of a spot in our Beloved, but rather, as ages revolve, his hidden glories shall shine forth with yet more inconceivable splendour, and his unutterable loveliness shall more and more ravish all celestial minds.
===Today's reading: 1 Chronicles 16-18, John 7:28-53 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: 1 Chronicles 16-18
Ministering Before the Ark
1 They brought the ark of God and set it inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and they presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before God. 2 After David had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD. 3 Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each Israelite man and woman....
Today's New Testament reading: John 7:28-53
28 Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, "Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, 29 but I know him because I am from him and he sent me."
30 At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. 31 Still, many in the crowd believed in him. They said, "When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?"
32 The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him....
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