The talk is delicately balanced, and in trying to upset the talks, G7 leaders attempted to exploit trade unfairness. Trump rejected the attempt, and this puts the US onside with NK. Meanwhile US Democrats oppose fixing unfair trade.
In NSW, ALP leader Luke Foley announces he does not want to be Premier. He chose the Queens's birthday to announce if he becomes Premier he will rename it. King's birthday? Looking for something else, Foley noticed that NSW government has removed the ridiculous Safe School program and Matthew Guy in Victoria has earned kudos from promising to remove the awful program. Foley says #MeToo to removing the already removed safe schools program. It doesn't mean NSW is safe from safe schools if they vote ALP next year. Gillard had promised to never implement a carbon tax. Foley is still representative of the last NSW ALP government.
An Archaeological mystery has come up over the carved wooden head found in Israel. From circa 900BC, the head appears to be of an Israelite king. Could it be a representation of David or Solomon?
Here is a video I made The Game
"Ginger Mick was a likeable rogue who, before he answered the call to arms to defend democracy, sold fresh rabbits in the streets of Melbourne. This book by CJ Dennis tells of his tender love for Rose and his experiences at war in North Africa. The verse is full of humour and pathos and truly captures the spirit of the era.
Contents:
INTRODUCTION
I. DUCK AN' FOWL
II. WAR
III. THE CALL OF STOUSH
IV. THE PUSH
V. SARI BAIR
VI. GINGER'S COBBER
VII. THE SINGING SOLDIERS
VIII. IN SPADGER'S LANE
IX. THE STRAIGHT GRIFFIN
X. A LETTER TO THE FRONT
XI. RABBITS
XII. TO THE BOYS WHO TOOK THE COUNT
XIII. THE GAME
XIV. "A GALLANT GENTLEMAN"
=== from 2017 ===
Some things should not happen, but they do. When I say I feel the Dan Andrews government is evil, it is not because I am politically oppositional to it. I don't agree with left wing principles, but were it the case that Andrews led Victoria responsibly I would accept as legitimate those policies that worked, and the creator of those policies. However, Andrews government does not stand for even basic left wing principles. I give an example of asbestos in schools. Asbestos was used in schools, in insulation, in fibro boarding and in paint until it was banned in the nineteen eighties because of it causing mesothelioma, an incurable cancer. It is alarming to think that schools still have it, but the reality is it is 'safe' while locked in blocks or paint, but dangerous in dust form. We know how to remove asbestos, and there are safety guidelines, but it is not cheap. Dan Andrews government has promised to remove all asbestos from schools. Only the Andrews government is hiding reports on which schools are affected and how the asbestos is being removed, if it is. The Matthew Guy conservative opposition are skeptical about the figures Andrews Government has set aside for dealing with the problem. And so the question needs to be asked is Andrews lying in reassuring parents about asbestos his government has not addressed, but promised to? Andrews may never have to face relatives of people affected by mesothelioma because of his government's lies. Then a debate of school girls happens where one, a Mc Rob's student, claims that her school cannot afford to remove asbestos they have on site. It is an excellent debating point and may not be true. Mc Robs is Victoria's leading school for female students. It would ruin their reputation were it to be widely circulated they knowingly have asbestos with their students, because those parents are unlikely to accept that risk. Andrews government lied over Country Fire Association arrangements with the firefighter's union. What is Andrew's government doing to state schooling?
In 1184 BC, Trojan War: Troy was sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes. 173, Marcomannic Wars: The Roman army in Moravia was encircled by the Quadi, who had broken the peace treaty (171). In a violent thunderstorm emperor Marcus Aurelius defeated and subdued them in the so-called "miracle of the rain". 631, Emperor Taizong of Tang, the Emperor of China, sent envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk in order to seek the release of enslaved Chinese prisoners captured during the transition from Sui to Tang from the northern frontier; this embassy succeeded in freeing 80,000 Chinese men and women who were then returned to China.
In 1509, Henry VIII of England married Catherine of Aragon. 1594, Philip II recognised the rights and privileges of the local nobles and chieftains in the Philippines, which paved way to the stabilisation of the rule of the Principalía (an elite ruling class of native nobility in Spanish Philippines). 1770, British explorer Captain James Cook ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef. 1898, the Hundred Days' Reform was started by Guangxu Emperor with a plan to change social, political and educational institutions in China, but was suspended by Empress Dowager Cixi after 104 days. The failed reform though led to the abolition of the Imperial examination in 1905.
1963, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam (North Vietnam's religious persecution was fine?). Also 1963, John F. Kennedy addressed Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would revolutionise American society. Proposing equal access to public facilities, end segregation in education and guarantee federal protection for voting rights. 1964, World War II veteran Walter Seifert ran amok in an elementary school in Cologne, Germany, killing at least eight children and two teachers and seriously injuring several more with a home-made flamethrower and a lance. 1968, Lloyd J. Old identified the first cell surface antigens distinguishing cells of different lineages, introducing the concept of cell surface antigens that could differentiate different cell types.
In 1184 BC, Trojan War: Troy was sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes. 173, Marcomannic Wars: The Roman army in Moravia was encircled by the Quadi, who had broken the peace treaty (171). In a violent thunderstorm emperor Marcus Aurelius defeated and subdued them in the so-called "miracle of the rain". 631, Emperor Taizong of Tang, the Emperor of China, sent envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk in order to seek the release of enslaved Chinese prisoners captured during the transition from Sui to Tang from the northern frontier; this embassy succeeded in freeing 80,000 Chinese men and women who were then returned to China.
In 1509, Henry VIII of England married Catherine of Aragon. 1594, Philip II recognised the rights and privileges of the local nobles and chieftains in the Philippines, which paved way to the stabilisation of the rule of the Principalía (an elite ruling class of native nobility in Spanish Philippines). 1770, British explorer Captain James Cook ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef. 1898, the Hundred Days' Reform was started by Guangxu Emperor with a plan to change social, political and educational institutions in China, but was suspended by Empress Dowager Cixi after 104 days. The failed reform though led to the abolition of the Imperial examination in 1905.
1963, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam (North Vietnam's religious persecution was fine?). Also 1963, John F. Kennedy addressed Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would revolutionise American society. Proposing equal access to public facilities, end segregation in education and guarantee federal protection for voting rights. 1964, World War II veteran Walter Seifert ran amok in an elementary school in Cologne, Germany, killing at least eight children and two teachers and seriously injuring several more with a home-made flamethrower and a lance. 1968, Lloyd J. Old identified the first cell surface antigens distinguishing cells of different lineages, introducing the concept of cell surface antigens that could differentiate different cell types.
=== from 2016 ===
A Greens activist demanded of Turnbull a promise regarding local hospital funding. He challenged her for receiving the dole. She immediately denied it and took offence. Only she had been on the dole. Instead of looking for work, she was soliciting hand outs. But the minds of many will be on the murder of Christina Grimmie by a guy who suicided immediately after. Christina had been a third place getter on the US version of the Voice in 2014. She was only 22 years old, immensely talented and hard working. We don't yet know why the gunman targeted her. But the violence is emblematic of Obama's failed presidency. We can't afford the politics of division. We need to embrace cultural assets. We need the next President to work to make America great again. And in Australia, we must be very careful, lest we end up with the bill.
For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
=== from 2015 ===
The hatred of the left to anything progressive in terms of prosperity is never ending. They long for the glory days to come when banks and financial institutions fail. Part of their current campaign against life is to oppose coal seam gas. It seems that Clive Palmer has paid Alan Jones to campaign against it. This suited Palmer in his successful campaign against the LNP in Queensland. But coal seam gas is the 'planet saving' substance timid environmental campaigners campaigning against Carbon Dioxide have yearned for. It burns clean. For all the fear generated about water tables, managed properly, Coal Seam Gas is safer than wind or solar power for the environment, for extraction and for function.
Cheating in high schools is becoming an issue with so many devices helpful in aiding it. Overseas, a boy dressed as a girl to help his girlfriend with a test. They were caught. That wasn't the fault of technology, but available online are essays on any subject, or smart phones with incredible functions. A Masterchef candidate was booted for keeping his phone in the competition. He had allegedly used it to get an advantage on acquiring ingredients. The question is how it is dealt with. It is important that pubic tests become cheaper to manage. It is also important that the creation process is given strong recognition, so those who acquire answers without thought don't prosper.
A boy walking in Martin Place is holding his father's hand as his dad pushes a pram. As images go it would be a great image celebrating fatherhood. Only the boy, who seems about seven or eight years old is carrying a Kalashnikov Rifle copy. It is fun for boys to play wars at home or in a private setting, but to carry it in public is reminiscent of the child abuse perpetrated by Hezbollah. And to do so metres away from the Sydney Siege is thoughtlessness of the father of the highest order. The issue of legality is tricky. If the child can carry that gun in public, can his older cousins? Can it be carried into a chocolate shop? Into a bank? Into parliament? And what happens if a policeman panics?
Cheating in high schools is becoming an issue with so many devices helpful in aiding it. Overseas, a boy dressed as a girl to help his girlfriend with a test. They were caught. That wasn't the fault of technology, but available online are essays on any subject, or smart phones with incredible functions. A Masterchef candidate was booted for keeping his phone in the competition. He had allegedly used it to get an advantage on acquiring ingredients. The question is how it is dealt with. It is important that pubic tests become cheaper to manage. It is also important that the creation process is given strong recognition, so those who acquire answers without thought don't prosper.
A boy walking in Martin Place is holding his father's hand as his dad pushes a pram. As images go it would be a great image celebrating fatherhood. Only the boy, who seems about seven or eight years old is carrying a Kalashnikov Rifle copy. It is fun for boys to play wars at home or in a private setting, but to carry it in public is reminiscent of the child abuse perpetrated by Hezbollah. And to do so metres away from the Sydney Siege is thoughtlessness of the father of the highest order. The issue of legality is tricky. If the child can carry that gun in public, can his older cousins? Can it be carried into a chocolate shop? Into a bank? Into parliament? And what happens if a policeman panics?
From 2014
Thinking of the future is not a luxury. It is an expectation of good government. People want their nation to prosper and that happens with careful planning. However, when Shorten invited someone to think of their future, he wasn't discussing prosperity, but threatening their welfare. That is not the behaviour of someone fit to be leader.
Reading on the history of the day, I find a fascinating reference to Eratosthenes who created a sieve for finding prime numbers by exhaustion. He also calculated the exact day Troy was sacked and burned .. today, 1184 BC. Alexander the Great died today, 323 BC. A stoic leader fought in a rainstorm and achieved a remarkable victory today, 173 AD. Marcus Aurelius had been leader when a failed peace treaty meant he was surrounded, isolated and inferior in number. Besieged and without water, Aurelius considered surrender .. and then the storm came and the soldiers had all the water they needed. A bit like when we were promised Global Warming would end rain .. but it didn't. As comparisons go, it fails, but is to me, irresistible.
In 631, the great Chinese Emperor Taizong of Tang sent an envoy with silk to an enemy and freed 80,000 Chinese peoples held prisoner. It wasn't charity. If the slavers had resisted he would have killed them all. In 1837, Boston remained at type, with rioting between Irish and Yankees. On this day in 1920, GOP discussed their leadership in a smoke filled room. The resulting presidencies would juggernaut a great period of prosperity. In '36, surrealists had an exhibition in London. In '37, on this day, Stalin executed eight of his generals. On this day in 1963, Democrat Governor Wallace stood in the door to prevent Black students from going to school. National guard would escort those students to school later that day. A buddhist monk burned himself to death in protest in Vietnam. JFK had a thought bubble about equal rights which Nixon implemented. I guess JFK was thinking of the future.
Reading on the history of the day, I find a fascinating reference to Eratosthenes who created a sieve for finding prime numbers by exhaustion. He also calculated the exact day Troy was sacked and burned .. today, 1184 BC. Alexander the Great died today, 323 BC. A stoic leader fought in a rainstorm and achieved a remarkable victory today, 173 AD. Marcus Aurelius had been leader when a failed peace treaty meant he was surrounded, isolated and inferior in number. Besieged and without water, Aurelius considered surrender .. and then the storm came and the soldiers had all the water they needed. A bit like when we were promised Global Warming would end rain .. but it didn't. As comparisons go, it fails, but is to me, irresistible.
In 631, the great Chinese Emperor Taizong of Tang sent an envoy with silk to an enemy and freed 80,000 Chinese peoples held prisoner. It wasn't charity. If the slavers had resisted he would have killed them all. In 1837, Boston remained at type, with rioting between Irish and Yankees. On this day in 1920, GOP discussed their leadership in a smoke filled room. The resulting presidencies would juggernaut a great period of prosperity. In '36, surrealists had an exhibition in London. In '37, on this day, Stalin executed eight of his generals. On this day in 1963, Democrat Governor Wallace stood in the door to prevent Black students from going to school. National guard would escort those students to school later that day. A buddhist monk burned himself to death in protest in Vietnam. JFK had a thought bubble about equal rights which Nixon implemented. I guess JFK was thinking of the future.
Historical perspective on this day
In 1184 BC, Trojan War: Troy was sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes. 173, Marcomannic Wars: The Roman army in Moravia was encircled by the Quadi, who had broken the peace treaty (171). In a violent thunderstorm emperor Marcus Aurelius defeated and subdued them in the so-called "miracle of the rain". 631, Emperor Taizong of Tang, the Emperor of China, sent envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk in order to seek the release of enslaved Chinese prisoners captured during the transition from Sui to Tang from the northern frontier; this embassy succeeded in freeing 80,000 Chinese men and women who were then returned to China. 786, a Hasanid Alid uprising in Mecca was crushed by the Abbasids at the Battle of Fakhkh. Idris ibn Abdallah fled to the Maghreb, where he later founded the Idrisid dynasty.
In 1118, Roger of Salerno, Prince of Antioch, captured Azaz from the Seljuk Turks. 1157, Albert I of Brandenburg, also called, The Bear (Ger: Albrecht der Bär), became the founder of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, Germany and the first Margrave. 1345, the megas doux Alexios Apokaukos, chief minister of the Byzantine Empire, was lynched by political prisoners. 1429, Hundred Years' War: start of the Battle of Jargeau. 1488, Battle of Sauchieburn: fought between rebel Lords and James III of Scotland, resulting in the death of the King.
In 1509, Henry VIII of England married Catherine of Aragon. 1594, Philip II recognised the rights and privileges of the local nobles and chieftains in the Philippines, which paved way to the stabilisation of the rule of the Principalía (an elite ruling class of native nobility in Spanish Philippines). 1770, British explorer Captain James Cook ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef. 1775, the American Revolutionary War's first naval engagement, the Battle of Machias, resulted in the capture of a small British naval vessel. 1776, the Continental Congressappointed Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence. 1788, Russian explorer Gerasim Izmailov reached Alaska.
In 1805, a fire consumed large portions of Detroit in the Michigan Territory. 1825, the first cornerstone was laid for Fort Hamilton in New York City. 1837, the Broad Street Riotoccurred in Boston, fuelled by ethnic tensions between Yankees and Irish. 1865, the Naval Battle of Riachuelo was fought on the rivulet Riachuelo (Argentina), between the Paraguayan Navy on one side and the Brazilian Navy on the other. The Brazilian victory was crucial for the later success of the Triple Alliance (Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina) in the Paraguayan War. 1892, the Limelight Department, one of the world's first film studios, was officially established in Melbourne, Australia. 1895, Paris–Bordeaux–Paris was sometimes called the first automobile race in history or the "first motor race". 1898, Spanish–American War: U.S. war ships set sail for Cuba. Also 1898, the Hundred Days' Reform was started by Guangxu Emperor with a plan to change social, political and educational institutions in China, but was suspended by Empress Dowager Cixi after 104 days. The failed reform though led to the abolition of the Imperial examination in 1905.
In 1901, the boundaries of the Colony of New Zealand were extended by the UK to include the Cook Islands. 1903, a group of Serbian officers stormed royal palace and assassinatedKing Alexander Obrenović and his wife queen Draga. 1907, George Dennett, aided by Gilbert Jessop, dismissed Northamptonshire for 12 runs, the lowest total in first-class cricket. 1917, King Alexander assumed the throne of Greece after his father Constantine I abdicated under pressure by allied armies occupying Athens. 1919, Sir Barton won the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win the U.S. Triple Crown. 1920, during the U.S. Republican National Convention in Chicago, U.S. Republican Party leaders gathered in a room at the Blackstone Hotel to come to a consensus on their candidate for the U.S. presidential election, leading the Associated Press to first coin the political phrase "smoke-filled room".
In 1935, inventor Edwin Armstrong gave the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, New Jersey. 1936, the London International Surrealist Exhibitionopened. 1937, Great Purge: The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin executed eight army leaders. 1938, Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Wuhan started. 1942, World War II: The United States agreed to send Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union. 1942, Free French Forces retreated from Bir Hakeim after having successfully delayed the Axis advance. 1944, USS Missouri, the last battleship built by the United States Navy and future site of the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, was commissioned. 1955, eighty-three spectators were killed and at least 100 were injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the deadliest ever accident in motorsports. 1956, start of Gal Oya riots, the first reported ethnic riot that targeted minority Sri Lankan Tamils in the Eastern Province. The total number of deaths was reportedly 150.
In 1962, Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly became the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island. 1963, American Civil Rights Movement: Governor of Alabama George Wallace defiantly stood at the door of Foster Auditoriumat the University of Alabama in an attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending that school. Later in the day, accompanied by federalised National Guard troops, they were able to register. Also 1963, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đứcburned himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam. Also 1963, John F. Kennedy addressed Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would revolutionise American society. Proposing equal access to public facilities, end segregation in education and guarantee federal protection for voting rights. 1964, World War II veteran Walter Seifert ran amok in an elementary school in Cologne, Germany, killing at least eight children and two teachers and seriously injuring several more with a home-made flamethrower and a lance. 1968, Lloyd J. Old identified the first cell surface antigens distinguishing cells of different lineages, introducing the concept of cell surface antigens that could differentiate different cell types.
In 1970, after being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisingtonofficially received their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first females to do so. 1971, the U.S. Government forcibly removed the last holdouts to the Native AmericanOccupation of Alcatraz, ending 19 months of control. 1978, Altaf Hussain founded the students' political movement All Pakistan Muhajir Students Organisation (APMSO) in Karachi University. 1981, a Richter scale 6.9 magnitude earthquake at Golbaf, Iran, killed at least 2,000. 1982, the Sentosa Musical Fountain was officially opened as part of the second phase of construction on the island of Sentosa, Singapore. 1987, Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant were elected as the first black Parliamentarians in Great Britain. 1998, CompaqComputer paid US$9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation in the then largest high-tech acquisition. 2001, Timothy McVeigh was executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing. 2002, Antonio Meucci was acknowledged as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress. 2004, Cassini–Huygens made its closest flyby of the Saturn moon Phoebe. 2008, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a historic official apology to Canada's First Nations in regard to a residential school abuse in which children were isolated from their homes, families and cultures for a century.
=== 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 Frank Zumbo. On your day, in 1594, Spain's King recognised the rights of local Philippine leaders to rule, so long as they converted to his religion. in 1776, a committee of five was made, including Adams, Jefferson and Franklyn, tasked to draft a declaration of independence. In 1955, 80 motor car enthusiasts were killed after a collision on the 23rd running of the 24 hour Le Mans. In 2008, Stephen Harper apologised to native american peoples who were forced to assimilate. You have the authority to lead, if you are the right religion, and if you are not, we are sorry. Enjoy your sport, safely.
- 1403 – John IV, Duke of Brabant (d. 1427)
- 1456 – Anne Neville, English wife of Richard III of England (d. 1485)
- 1588 – George Wither, English poet (d. 1667)
- 1672 – Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and composer (d. 1749)
- 1741 – Joseph Warren, American doctor and general (d. 1775)
- 1776 – John Constable, English painter (d. 1837)
- 1864 – Richard Strauss, German composer and conductor (d. 1949)
- 1908 – Francisco Marto, Portuguese child visited by the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima (d. 1919)
- 1910 – Jacques Cousteau, French biologist, author, and inventor, co-developed the aqua-lung (d. 1997)
- 1919 – Richard Todd, Irish-English actor and soldier (d. 2009)
- 1933 – Gene Wilder, American actor, director, and screenwriter
- 1936 – Jud Strunk, American singer-songwriter (d. 1981)
- 1950 – Graham Russell, English-Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist (Air Supply)
- 1950 – Bjarne Stroustrup, Danish computer scientist, created C++
- 1956 – Joe Montana. American football player
- 1956 – Simon Plouffe, Canadian mathematician
- 1965 – Manuel Uribe, Mexican computer repairman, world's heaviest man (d. 2014)
- 1975 – Choi Ji-woo, South Korean actress and model
- 1984 – Andy Lee, Irish boxer
- 1986 – Shia LaBeouf, American actor
- 1987 – TiA, Japanese singer
- 1988 – Jesús, Spanish footballer
- 1994 – Jessica Fox, French-born Australian canoeist
Deaths
- 1183 – Henry the Young King of England (b. 1155)
- 1727 – George I of Great Britain (b. 1660)
- 1796 – Samuel Whitbread, English brewer and politician, founded the Whitbread Company (b. 1720)
- 1936 – Robert E. Howard, American author (b. 1906)
- 1999 – DeForest Kelley, American actor and screenwriter (b. 1920)
- 2001 – Timothy McVeigh, American terrorist, conducted the Oklahoma City bombing (b. 1968)
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- 1594 – In the Philippines, Philip II of Spain recognized the right to govern of the Principalía, the local nobles and chieftains who had converted to Roman Catholicism.
- 1776 – The Second Continental Congress appointed Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence for Britain's Thirteen Colonies.
- 1917 – Alexander (pictured) was crowned King of Greece, succeeding his father Constantine, who had abdicated.
- 1955 – More than 80 people were killed after cars driven by Pierre Levegh and Lance Macklin collided during the 23rd running of the 24 Hours of Le Manssports car endurance race.
- 2001 - Timothy McVeigh, detonator of a truck bombin front of the Oklahoma federal building, was executed by lethal injection for using a weapon of mass destruction, among other charges.
- 2008 – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologised to the First Nations for past governments' policies of forced assimilation.
Philip recognised us! The committee of five seemed more balanced than the gang of four. Hail King Alex. It is better to be a driver than a fan. The Captain of his soul went walkabouts. I'm not sorry for what my ancestors did. Let's party.
Tim Blair 2018
AN INTERNATIONAL PARIAH? THEY WISH
This may come as a shock to all those Australians who’ve travelled overseas lately and been greeted happily wherever they’ve gone, but everybody hates us. And they’ve hated us for years.
ACCUSER ACCUSED
ABC comedian Tom Ballard strongly denies sexual assault allegations made against him by an aspiring performer.
THE ORIGINAL SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR
Tim Blair – Saturday, June 11, 2016 (4:22pm)
Great work by Bill Leak:
Political correctness has been thriving in the Islamic world since the seventh century. Not even the smuggest, most self-righteous social justice warrior in Australia today could hold a candle to Mohammed, who made the anti-guy guy David Morrison look like Rodney Rude …[Mohammed] advised his followers not to laugh because “laughing too much deadens the heart” and warned them off joking by saying: “A man may say something to make his companions laugh, and he will fall into Hell as far as the Pleiades because of it.” In other words, the reward for anyone telling jokes and making his mates laugh was to spend eternity burning in the fires of hell.
If you want to crack a gag at an Islamist open mic night you’ve got to make sure you stick within the guidelines as laid down in the Koran and Hadith. And that means “for humour to be in accordance with Islam, the joke should not insult anyone, should not frighten anyone, should be within the limits of Islamic tolerance, should tell the truth, should not be offensive, should not contain un-Islamic material or promote immorality or indecency”.Sound familiar?If you substitute PC for Islam in that set of rules you’ve got the rules governing humour as laid down by the progressive Left in the democracies of the modern world. Right there, in a nutshell. Except you’d have to leave out the one that demands you tell the truth because the primary purpose of PC is the avoidance of it.
Please read on. And then there’s Rebecca Shaw, obedient follower of Big Mo’s rules-based humour tradition.
===
STUDY NOW MAKES SENSE
Tim Blair – Saturday, June 11, 2016 (3:44pm)
Back in 2012, a widely-publicised study claimed conservatives were prone to psychosis and authoritarianism while leftists were more likely to be socially desirable. That study has now been corrected:
The authors regret that there is an error in the published version of “Correlation not Causation: The Relationship between Personality Traits and Political Ideologies” American Journal of Political Science 56 (1), 34–51. The interpretation of the coding of the political attitude items in the descriptive and preliminary analyses portion of the manuscript was exactly reversed.
Apparently this is merely a minor error.
(Via Simple Simon.)
===
SLAP AND CRACKLE
Tim Blair – Saturday, June 11, 2016 (2:44pm)
It’s a rockin’ Ramadanadingdong across Europe. First, in France:
A waitress in a cafe in central Nice has filed a police complaint after she was allegedly assaulted by two men because she refused to “stop serving alcohol” on the first day of the holy month of Ramadan …The waitress, a French 30-year-old of Tunisian origin, said she was serving drinks at Monday lunch on the terrace of the Vitis Café on Nice’s rue Lamartine, near the rue d’Anglais, when two men started haranguing her, insulting the young woman because she was serving alcoholic beverages to customers.“I was all alone in the bar when two passers-by suddenly appeared. They pointed to the bottles of alcohol behind the bar, then one of them told me in Arabic: ‘You should be ashamed of yourself serving alcohol in the Ramadan period …’The men launched into a tirade, calling her a “dirty whore” and left the cafe in a hurry. A few seconds later, however, the venue’s CCTV footage reportedly shows the two men turn round abruptly and one of them rush towards her and violently slap the waitress in the face, knocking her to the floor.
A massive fire at Düsseldorf’s major international trade fair grounds yesterday has been followed by reports that the blaze was set deliberately by migrants who were angry because of Ramadan.Officially, some 160 migrants were resident at hall 18 of the Messe Düsseldorf conference centre, but it was a facility plagued by racial conflict which had seen violence spark before. Düsseldorf’s Express newspaper reports these conflicts were not between European German staff and their guests, but between the predominantly Arab residents, and a minority of Afghans who sided with the security staff running the facility — who were mainly Iranian.According to the testimony of “several burly Moroccan refugees” which the paper had spoken to even as the hall burnt down, the Iranians employed by the German state to look after other migrants from around the world had “deliberately” not woken the Arabs up in time for their Ramadan breakfast.
Police have been called to the hall 89 times since the start of the year.
(Via Brat and Simon G.)
===
LIFE IN SANDERSLAND
Tim Blair – Saturday, June 11, 2016 (2:35pm)
Attention, Bernie Sanders fans! Did you know that there’s a perfect socialist community already established in the US? It costs nothing to join, provides free single-payer health care (including for spouses and families), free education, free vocational training, generous living allowances, rent assistance, payment for travel, moving costs and clothing, 40 days of paid leave every year and a lifetime pension. As well, it provides guaranteed equality of income between men and women.
There’s just one catch.
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SIXTY THOUSAND ARTS AND HUMANITIES EXPERTS
Tim Blair – Saturday, June 11, 2016 (2:11pm)
A climate call to arms from the Australian National University’s Elizabeth Boulton:
Climate communication needs to engage people at a philosophical, sensory and feeling level. People need to be able to feel and touch the new climate reality; to explore unfamiliar emotional terrain and be helped to conceive their existence differently.Under the global Future Earth initiative, a team of around 60,000 scientists and social scientists has been assembled to understand and report on the physical, tangible dimensions of the problem. I argue we need 60,000 arts and humanities experts to focus upon the intangibles – the communication, engagement and meaning-making aspects of the problem.
I argue we don’t need 60,000 arts and humanities experts. Full stop. But Boulton is convinced that her massive humanities force will bring about a new era of artistic wisdom:
Consider the artistic and cultural flourishing that accompanied the rise of Ancient Greece, supported by the agents of change Pericles and Alexander the Great.Or the Islamic Golden Age of the 8th and 9th centuries, which saw a boom in both art and science. Or the Enlightenment, which featured arrays of great scientists, philosophers, musicians and artists such as Galileo; Newton; Descartes; Spinoza; Kant; Hobbes; Voltaire; Goya; Bach and Mozart.If a new human civilisation is to emerge that can live within its ecological limits, artists and communicators must have a prominent place, alongside the great scientific and technological innovators of our times.
She’s talking about this. Stand aside, Galileo!
Humanity will never be able to defeat a threat it cannot perceive.
It’s even more difficult to defeat a threat that doesn’t exist.
(Via the IPA.)
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STRAP ON YOUR SKATES, GORDIE. YOU’RE GOIN’ IN
Tim Blair – Saturday, June 11, 2016 (1:05pm)
Ice hockey great Gordie Howe – who during his long career received 500 stitches just in his face – has died at 88.
Howe enjoyed a curious moment of post-career fame with a charming appearance in the third season of The Simpsons.
Howe enjoyed a curious moment of post-career fame with a charming appearance in the third season of The Simpsons.
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LOSING THE POINT
Tim Blair – Saturday, June 11, 2016 (12:41pm)
“We are at a momentous moment in the history of the full stop,” according to David Crystal, author of more than 100 books on language and a former master of original pronunciation at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre.
This site attempted, for a time, to uphold the centuries-long tradition of the full stop, but eventually yielded to the creeping forces of illiteracy. We’ll all miss it when it’s finally gone.
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No comment
Andrew Bolt June 11 2016 (6:23pm)
No comment for obvious reasons:
Indigenous-specific enrolments and scholarships at Australian universities are being awarded to students with “flimsy evidence’’ of their heritage, according to one of the nation’s leading Aboriginal academics.Look, I can’t help myself and must just say this: All this would be avoided - legal action, too - if we simply treated each other as individuals, race irrelevant. Bizarrely, though, to argue for non-racism is now denounced as racist.
Bob Morgan, head of the University of Newcastle’s indigenous Wollotuka Institute, has joined a push for tougher checks across the community of claims to Aboriginality and benefits, which in some cases are given on the back of a single statutory declaration.
A forum of native title holders, indigenous leaders and regulators in Sydney has been told of suspected rorting at universities, in the public service and in gaining access to government grants.
A national register of indigenous people was proposed by academic and activist Stephen Hagan and backed by the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council, Warren Mundine. Dr Hagan said the register was needed to stop “the problem of fake Aboriginals’’, which could include people on Federal Court-vetted records of native title claimants.
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Turnbull tells Hartcher to be patient
Andrew Bolt June 11 2016 (2:05pm)
Malcolm Turnbull shuns most conservative media outlets, but gives an interview to Fairfax Leftist Peter Hartcher to reassure him he really is still a man of the Left - but Hartcher misses some of the clues:
What a Hartcher overestimated is how much Turnbull could force his party to the Left before the election.
After the election, though, I’d bet Turnbull will try even harder against weaker opposition. Nothing in his interview suggests he will not.
“Turnbull confidants” were weeks ago already reassuring another Fairfax writer, Tony Walker, that “once re-elected in his own right, an agile and innovative prime minister will face down his internal party critics and redefine his leadership in a single bound”.
As reader Peter of Bellevue Hill notes, Turnbull is just telling Hartcher and the Left to be patient.
After resisting all efforts for months to get him to address the people’s disappointment, Malcolm Turnbull has confronted Australia’s letdown with his prime ministership. But the problem, he implies in an interview, is not him. It’s us.Just pause there. By “many” Hartcher actually means many on the Left, and many of Turnbull’s media cheer squad in particular.
The dominant change in Australia’s politics in the past half-year has been the collapse in his standing with the people. He has lost the approval of some 3.25 million voters in that time, based on the fall in his approval rating in the Fairfax Ipsos poll.
Many had expected a new activism on the issues Turnbull had long been associated with, but it grew increasingly clear that he represented status quo instead…
(P)rovided with three particulars in the interview – climate change, same sex marriage and the republic – Turnbull concurs that “those are the three issues that are often raised” with him by voters.That - by the way - is exactly the argument I have repeatedly put. The Left expected Turnbull to turn the Liberals into Labor-lite. He did try, but could never go the whole way - or not yet. And that’s when Hartcher misses the hint:
And? “If those are the three issues, my position has not changed” on any of them since taking the prime ministership…
“I remain committed to Australia becoming a republic,"…
“Everyone, I think, understands that I inherited a government position that there would be a plebiscite [on same-sex marriage]… I didn’t want it – it’s not part of our traditional parliamentary process."…
And the ... target of 26 to 28 per cent [emissions] reduction by 2030? “At the present time I’m satisfied that we can meet it with current suite of policies, recognising that we always have the option of buying international permits. But we are going to review [our policies] next year."…
So if Turnbull’s position on these three key, progressive issues hasn’t changed since taking the leadership, why have millions of Australian voters slumped into a slough of disappointment?…
Are progressives too impatient for change? Do voters fail to grasp the difference between what he can do as an MP and as party leader?
Do voters fail to grasp the difference between what he can do as an MP and as party leader?False. They read Turnbull correctly, as Turnbull himself does not dispute.
“Those are conclusions for you to draw,” Turnbull responds. “I’m not arguing with you.”
In other words, Australians misunderstood Turnbull. It was a case of mistaken political identity.
What a Hartcher overestimated is how much Turnbull could force his party to the Left before the election.
After the election, though, I’d bet Turnbull will try even harder against weaker opposition. Nothing in his interview suggests he will not.
“Turnbull confidants” were weeks ago already reassuring another Fairfax writer, Tony Walker, that “once re-elected in his own right, an agile and innovative prime minister will face down his internal party critics and redefine his leadership in a single bound”.
As reader Peter of Bellevue Hill notes, Turnbull is just telling Hartcher and the Left to be patient.
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Oops. Academics admit the thugs are actually on the Left, not Right
Andrew Bolt June 11 2016 (1:46pm)
It turns out the truth is actually that the Left is the natural home of the psychotic - and of people who project that psychosis on nice conservatives.
In 2012 three academics writing in the American Journal of Political Sciencereported that their suspicions about conservatives had been confirmed:
(Thanks to reader the Realist.)
In 2012 three academics writing in the American Journal of Political Sciencereported that their suspicions about conservatives had been confirmed:
In line with our expectations, P [for “Psychoticism"] (positively related to tough-mindedness and authoritarianism) is associated with social conservatism and conservative military attitudes…And people high on Social Desirability - just wanting to get along rather than control - were more likely of the Left, like most academics:
Finally, those higher in Social Desirability are also more likely to express socially liberal attitudes.But, whoops. The researchers now admit they got the results exactly the wrong way around:
A political-science journal that published an oft-cited study claiming conservatives were more likely to show traits associated with “psychoticism” now says it got it wrong. Very wrong.This explains why a Daniel Andrews, for instance, is of the Left. And it explains the Greens, too, of course. Authoritarians.
The American Journal of Political Science published a correction this year saying that the 2012 paper has “an error” — and that liberal political beliefs, not conservative ones, are actually linked to psychoticism.
“The interpretation of the coding of the political attitude items in the descriptive and preliminary analyses portion of the manuscript was exactly reversed,” the journal said in the startling correction.
“The descriptive analyses report that those higher in Eysenck’s psychoticism are more conservative, but they are actually more liberal; and where the original manuscript reports those higher in neuroticism and social desirability are more liberal, they are, in fact, more conservative.”
In the paper, psychoticism is associated with traits such as tough-mindedness, risk-taking, sensation-seeking, impulsivity and authoritarianism.
The social-desirability scale measures people’s tendency to answer questions in ways they believe would please researchers, even if it means overestimating their positive characteristics and underestimating negative ones…Brad Verhulst, a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher and a co-author of the paper, said he was not sure who was to blame.
(Thanks to reader the Realist.)
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Another university shuts down a sceptic
Andrew Bolt June 11 2016 (12:39pm)
It was already clear that our universities militantly enforce group think on global warming, after staff at two universities banned Bjorn Lomborg from teaching:
Meanwhile:
Does this fear of not being “collegial” explain why not a single academic went on the record in 2007 to denounce Professor Tim Flannery’s patently false claim that global warming meant our dams would dry and our rivers never flood?:
(Thanks to readers John Galt and MS.)
The Turnbull government has ditched its offer to spend $4 million on a research centre to be headed by “sceptical environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg.And:
Education Minister Simon Birmingham ... said his predecessor, Christopher Pyne, had decided in his last week in the job that the project was “unlikely to enjoy success and that the funds could be better utilised elsewhere”.
In May the University of Western Australia pulled out of its deal to create a “consensus centre” run Mr Lomborg and partly funded by the federal government after a backlash from staff.
Staff and students at Flinders University have warned of an angry backlash if controversial Danish academic Bjorn Lomborg is allowed to set up a research centre at the Adelaide institution.But this is an equally blatant attempt to stifle dissent from the group think:
When marine scientist Peter Ridd suspected something was wrong with photographs being used to highlight the rapid decline of the Great Barrier Reef, he did what good scientists are supposed to do: he sent a team to check the facts.Does the university serious believe that to prove a fellow academic wrong or misleading on global warming is the same as not being “collegial”?
After attempting to blow the whistle on what he found — healthy corals — Professor Ridd was censured by James Cook University and threatened with the sack. After a formal investigation, Professor Ridd — a renowned campaigner for quality assurance over coral research from JCU’s Marine Geophysics Laboratory — was found guilty of “failing to act in a collegial way and in the academic spirit of the institution”.
His crime was to encourage questioning of two of the nation’s leading reef institutions, the Centre of Excellence for Coral Studies and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, on whether they knew that photographs they had published and claimed to show long-term collapse of reef health could be misleading and wrong…
The photographs were taken near Stone Island off Bowen. A photograph taken in the late 19th century shows healthy coral. An accompanying picture supposedly of the same reef in 1994 is devoid of coral.. Professor Ridd said it was only possible to guess within a kilometre or two where the original photograph was taken and it would not be unusual to find great coral in one spot and nothing a kilometre away, as his researchers had done. Nor was it possible to say what had killed the coral in the 1994 picture.
Meanwhile:
A survey of reefs off north Queensland has found an increase in the amount of coral despite the recent bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef.UPDATE
Scientists from Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) examined 12 reefs off the Townsville coast, between Northern Hinchinbrook and Cape Bowling Green.
AIMS found 11 reefs had continued to recover since being damaged by Cyclone Yasi in 2011.
Scientists also found coral cover on seven of the reefs were at its highest levels since they were first surveyed 30 years ago.
Does this fear of not being “collegial” explain why not a single academic went on the record in 2007 to denounce Professor Tim Flannery’s patently false claim that global warming meant our dams would dry and our rivers never flood?:
Is that why no global warming scientist denounced Professor Flannery’s false claims that global warming meant Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide were on the brink of running out of water?
In 2005, Flannery predicted Sydney’s dams could be dry in as little as two years because global warming was drying up the rains, leaving the city “facing extreme difficulties with water"…Instead, Sydney’s main dam is today about full yet again. Brisbane’s dams are nearly 82 per cent full.
In 2008, Flannery said: “The water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009.”..
In 2007, Flannery predicted cities such as Brisbane would never again have dam-filling rains, as global warming had caused “a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas” and made the soil too hot, “so even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and river systems ... “…
In 2007, Flannery predicted ... “In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months.”
(Thanks to readers John Galt and MS.)
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Dictator Andrews destroys himself and Shorten in trying to give the CFA to the unions
Andrew Bolt June 11 2016 (11:45am)
The Herald Sun editorial is spot on. Socialist Left Premier Daniel Andrews is behaving like a political thug running a protection racket:
And for federal Labor this is a disaster. This illustrates exactly how much Labor is the tool of the worst of the union movement, prepared to destroy the public good to shore up union power. Federal Labor, note well, is shielding the hard-Left CFMEU from the workplace cop the Liberals want to bring back to tackle the thuggery and links to organised crime.
Result: Andrews has not just torched his own future. He has crippled federal Labor, too, destroying the chances of leader Bill Shorten picking up some three seats in Victoria.
(Thanks to reader TazSpinZone.)
DANIEL Andrews emerged from a day of political upheaval as the Great Dictator. In doing so, he may have ignited a revolt among the Country Fire Authority’s 60,000 volunteers that could cost him his own political career.This is shameful. It is also a warning. Look what this government will sacrifice to please its hard-Left union mates, of which the most powerful is the notorious CFMEU.
In an extraordinary succession of developments over the past week, after an early return from a trip to the United States, the Premier was humiliated by a split in his Cabinet as Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett refused to buckle to his demands… But yesterday, Ms Garrett was gone, forced to resign as Mr Andrews unleashed his ministerial attack dogs to swing the momentum in Cabinet back his way.
First, his Mr Fixit, Special Minister of State Gavin Jennings, was deployed to denigrate the CFA in its standoff against the takeover proposed by the hardline United Firefighters Union. The CFA board and the responsible minister, Ms Garrett, have fought for 1150 days against an agreement that would give the union veto rights over the management decisions of the CFA and the use of its resources.
There was also strong opposition to a demand that seven paid union firefighters be dispatched to any fire being attended by CFA volunteers.
The outcome was as plain as the first flames of a fire. The CFA would come under the control of the firefighters union, ending decades of proud and independent service by Victoria and Australia’s most respected volunteer organisation…
Now, Mr Andrews’s scorched earth politics would seem to have won the day with the CFA board summarily sacked at the Premier’s command…
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has promised to enact legislation declaring the Premier’s demands unlawful, should he win the federal election in July.
This has infuriated an increasingly arrogant Mr Andrews, who the Herald Sun believes is backing the UFU because of a deal he entered with the union in return for support at the 2014 state election. Union firefighters knocked on doors and handed out how-to-vote cards at polling booths for Labor while wearing their uniforms, their fire trucks parked in full view…
Not only was Mr Jennings thrown into the fray, but also Industrial Relations Minister Natalie Hutchins, who said Fair Work Commission president Iain Ross had lent his support to at least one aspect of the proposed agreement.
Ms Hutchins burnt her fingers, having to apologise in parliament for getting it wrong. She had “misquoted’’ the Fair Work president, she said....
The Premier has cowed his Cabinet. His claim that the CFA and its volunteers are at war with themselves is wrong. The war is with the Premier, who it seems will stop at nothing to achieve his ends.
Mr Andrews is a captive of his own ideology and a political agenda that bows to militant unionism over the unselfish, unswerving and unpaid service of independent firefighters.
The Great Dictator is trying to pass off his politics as democracy. They are nothing of the sort.
He claims he has the safety of the state as his priority, when clearly his priority is a politically driven outcome. The safety of Victorians, their homes and towns is at stake. This bushfire is all about personal politics. Shame on Mr Andrews
And for federal Labor this is a disaster. This illustrates exactly how much Labor is the tool of the worst of the union movement, prepared to destroy the public good to shore up union power. Federal Labor, note well, is shielding the hard-Left CFMEU from the workplace cop the Liberals want to bring back to tackle the thuggery and links to organised crime.
Result: Andrews has not just torched his own future. He has crippled federal Labor, too, destroying the chances of leader Bill Shorten picking up some three seats in Victoria.
(Thanks to reader TazSpinZone.)
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The difference between Abbott and Labor is two years … and counting
Andrew Bolt June 11 2016 (11:04am)
Why didn’t Labor support such savings back when Tony Abbott was trying to get the deficit under control? Why portray Abbott then as stupid, panicky and ruel, but hail Labor now as responsible?
Phil Coorey:
UPDATE
Laura Tingle makes a good point, but then - like many on the Left - treats tax increases as “savings”:
Phil Coorey:
Labor has announced new cuts and compromises worth $16 billion over a decade… The new measures announced Friday predominantly target family welfare, higher education, the private health insurance rebate and business tax cuts.Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill is right, of course:
Labor claims that on an overall basis, all its policies now announced will improve the budget bottom line by about $8.9 billion over four years and $105 billion over a decade. Regardless, the deficits over four yeas will still be larger than those under the Coalition’s policies.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said more cuts would be announced before the election.
The $16 billion in new cuts is comprised of 11 new savings measures worth $1 billion over four years and $6.1 billion over the decade. These include freezing the private health insurance rebate and the Medicare Levy Surcharge thresholds for another five years to 2026-27, saving $2.3 billion over the decade, and ceasing the rebate for natural therapies, saving another $704 million. Also Labor accepted $5 billion in cuts to higher education and R&D tax concessions that have been stuck in the Senate since the 2014 budget. It has agreed to now support ... the reduction in the R&D concession, worth $860 million over four years and $2.8 billion over a decade; lowering the indexation rate of funding for higher education grants to that of inflation, saving $119 million over four years and $3.7 billion over a decade; lowering from $54,126 to $50,638 the income threshhold at which graduates must start repaying their HECs debt, saving $9 million over four years and $129 million over a decade, and: ceasing student loan scheme assistance for some courses, saving $24 million over four years and $159 million over a decade. The remainder of the $16 billion comes from cuts to family welfare which do not go as far as those proposed by the government. Under Labor, a $750 end-of-year supplement paid to families eligible for family tax benefit A will be halved for those 137,000 eligible families earning a combined income over $100,000 and the threshold freezes for these supplements will be extended until 2019-20. Families will still be better off under this change than the Coalition proposals to end the supplements altogether for Family Tax Benefit A and B.
Cheered on by the gallery, Labor dined out on blocking Abbott cuts for two years - only to now concede that they are necessary.Once again, we see that the difference between a conservative and the Left is time. Two years, in this case. But meanwhile Abbott is punished for having been right too soon - or, rather, for being right too late, but still not as late as Labor and the media pack.
UPDATE
Laura Tingle makes a good point, but then - like many on the Left - treats tax increases as “savings”:
Treasurer Scott Morrison was pretty sniffily dismissive on Friday [of Labor’s savings announcements].
“All up ... they have announced a net improvement on their previous position of just $2.4 billion"…
However, we should put this into context. Morrison’s own budget managed to produce savings over four years of “just” $1.7 billion.
In a budget with total expenses of over $450 billion a year, we are not talking revolutionary change by either side, particularly at a time of a wobbly economic outlook and ratings risk.
Nonetheless, Labor has announced politically contentious savings greater than the Coalition during an election campaign. It should get kudos.... It is also now supporting $1 billion of so-called ‘zombie’ measures it was previously opposing in the Senate… Labor has confirmed it will ‘never, ever’ pass around $5.5 billion of the zombie savings, meaning there is a hole in the budget for whoever wins government, since those savings are already written in to the bottom line.
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Scott scorned
Andrew Bolt June 11 2016 (11:01am)
Fiona Scott can hardly complain of treachery:
Former Liberal Party member and Tony Abbott supporter, Marcus Cornish, who is running as an independent conservative in the crucial western Sydney seat of Lindsay, will preference Labor above the Liberal Party.(Thanks to reader Eagle Dan.)
Mr Cornish sensationally resigned from the party on the first full day of campaigning and accused the incumbent Liberal MP Fiona Scott of stabbing Tony Abbott in the back by voting for Malcolm Turnbull in last year’s leadership spill.
Mr Cornish, who is on Penrith Council, has listed the Labor Party seventh on preferences and the Liberal Party eighth, with the Christian Democratic Party and Australian Liberty Alliance in the number two and three positions.
There are 11 candidates contesting the seat and today Mr Cornish secured the top spot on the ticket in the ballot draw.
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Who let them in?
Andrew Bolt June 11 2016 (10:48am)
Yet again I ask: who let them in? Why are we running a refugee program that makes Australia less safe?
UPDATE
Same story in Germany. This is what they did even when under close surveillance and needing permission to stay:
Passengers on a North Melbourne tram were threatened by three machete-wielding men in a one-hour ordeal.And this is how ludicrously tender the police are to those abusing our hospitality:
About 20 people, including women and students, were on a route 57 tram on Thursday at the time and it took police an hour to contain the men following a tense stand-off.
A passenger told radio station 3AW those on the tram were “absolutely terrified” by the ordeal.
“The men were threatening to kill other passengers and were spitting on people,” caller John told host Tony Jones. “Their behaviour was absolutely disgraceful.”
He said the men were of African appearance and were aged in their 30s or 40s. The men were carrying a machete, which they kept passing to one another.
One of the men received penalty notices for being drunk and disorderly, possessing a controlled weapon and behaving in a offensive and insulting manner. Two of the men each also received a penalty notice for being drunk and disorderly. At this stage, the fourth man has not received a fine.What would the thugs conclude about the danger of breaking the law? What would the passengers conclude about the willingness of the political class to expose them to danger?
UPDATE
Same story in Germany. This is what they did even when under close surveillance and needing permission to stay:
German investigators believe a dispute over Ramadan meals led to a fire that gutted a shelter for 282 asylum seekers in the western city of Duesseldorf.Note which group turned to arson:
They say a group of men who were not fasting had complained that their lunch portions were too small.
Two North African men, aged 26, have been arrested and charged with arson… Damage has been estimated at €10m ($11m; £8m).
The hall was acting as an accommodation hub for men mainly from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and North Africa ...
When Ramadan started the situation reportedly became worse, and staff at the site were spat at and pelted with shoes.
Both Muslims and Christians were living there.(Thanks to readers Gab and Andrew.)
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Coal seam gas: How left-wing groups are closing Australia to business
Piers Akerman – Thursday, June 11, 2015 (5:46pm)
LEFT-WING pressure groups are closing Australia to business.
The latest blow to the economic wellbeing of the nation and future generations is the proposal by some members of the NSW National Party to buckle before Green extremists and oppose coal seam gas mining in the Northern Rivers region as outlined before the State election.
Continue reading 'Coal seam gas: How left-wing groups are closing Australia to business'
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SHEPHERDS FLOCKED
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 11, 2015 (7:23pm)
The world’s dumbest activists cop a whale-sized fine:
The US arm of anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd has agreed to pay $3.332 million to Japanese whalers for breaching a court injunction …Sea Shepherd’s board president Ethan Wolf said the group did not agree with the court’s finding but would pay the whalers the fine.He said it would not be paid from donations received from supporters.
Speaking of dumb: “Someone has to be the dumbest politician in Australia. Why is it sexist to nominate a top contender just because she’s a woman?”
(Via J.F. Beck)
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NO TELEMOVIE, NO JUSTICE
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 11, 2015 (3:30am)
Caroline Zielinski isn’t coping well with the decision by network chiefs not to fund a Julia Gillard telemovie:
Denying Gillard a telemovie is tantamount to denying her even the smallest of dignities against a merciless machine of hatred which would have ground a weaker person into the ground – literally …Much like Germany has been forced to grapple with its past – it can neither ignore it, nor celebrate it – Australia’s treatment of Julia Gillard should never be hidden …
Germany’s involvement in two world wars may have caused tens of millions of deaths, but surely Bill Shorten voting against Gillard in 2013 is at least equal to those atrocities.
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YOU SAY COW, I SAY SOW
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 11, 2015 (2:56am)
An email chat yesterday with not at all bitter and vengeful former News Corp employee Amanda Meade, now working for the Guardian:
Amanda: Hi Tim. I was listening to Chris Kenny’s show on Sky. Did you say SHY may get the code name “swamp cow” now she has revealed her code name is Raven? Cheers, AmandaTim: Hi, Amanda. Here’s the relevant section of the show. Cheers, TimAmanda: Yes thanks I have watched it but I couldn’t hear you very well and wanted to check if you said “swamp cow”. What does it mean anyway?Tim: It’s an homage to a celebrated Saturday Night live sketch from 1978, which is the only place I’ve ever previously heard the phrase.
Let’s see what Amanda does with this.
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If Hanson-Young is our dumbest politician, it’s not because her critics are sexist
Andrew Bolt June 11 2015 (5:39pm)
Sexist? Isn’t crying sexism now the last refuge of the scoundrel?:
Noticed how when a woman criticises a man that’s just criticism, but when a man criticises a woman, that’s “bullying” and “intimidation”?
Radio shock jock Ray Hadley and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton have been accused of “sexist claptrap” after playing a song on his show labelling Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young as the “Dumbest Politician in Australia"…Someone has to be the dumbest politician in Australia. Why is it sexist to nominate a top contender just because she’s a woman?
The Greens deputy leader Senator Larissa Waters said both men were involved in “sexist claptrap” by playing the song on air.
Noticed how when a woman criticises a man that’s just criticism, but when a man criticises a woman, that’s “bullying” and “intimidation”?
Ms Hanson-Young said Mr Dutton was engaging in intimidation.
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Abbott: wind farms are “visually awful”
Andrew Bolt June 11 2015 (11:57am)
First Joe Hockey was savaged for saying the bleeding obvious - that if you want to buy a house in Sydney, the first step is to get a good job.
Watch the media Left now faint in horror over Tony Abbott’s truism today:
Watch, and you will see again what I mean.
Watch the media Left now faint in horror over Tony Abbott’s truism today:
When I’ve been up close to these wind farms, there’s no doubt, not only are they visually awful, they make a lot of noise.I often say that in politics you can rely on your enemies to advertise your virtues more noisily than will your friends.
What we did recently in the Senate was reduce, Alan, reduce, capital R-E-D-U-C-E the number of these things that we are going to get in the future… Now I would frankly have liked to have reduced the number a lot more.
Watch, and you will see again what I mean.
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Unemployment down again
Andrew Bolt June 11 2015 (8:52am)
More very promising news for the Abbott Government:
The unemployment rate dropped to 6 per cent, following a downwardly revised 6.1 per cent result in April, according to official data…The Government must show gain for its pain. This is a sign - no more than that - that it will have something to boast about come the election.
Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast the unemployment rate to hold steady at 6.2 per cent in May… The jobless rate is now well below January’s 12-year high figure of 6.4 per cent...
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Are Hockey’s critics mad?
Andrew Bolt June 11 2015 (8:38am)
LABOR, the Greens and ABC and Fairfax journalists insist Treasurer Joe Hockey was “insensitive” and “insulting” when he dropped a “mighty clanger” in a “crazy rant”.
We’re told this buffoon had a “let them eat cake” moment when he suggested a “fantasy land” way to buy a house.
But here is all Hockey actually said during a press conference on Tuesday: “The starting point for a first-home buyer is to get a good job that pays good money.
“If you’ve got a good job and it pays good money and you have security in relation to that job, then you can go to the bank and you can borrow money and that’s readily affordable.”
What should Hockey have advised instead? That to buy your first house first find a lousy job that pays peanuts?
Or why not try shaking the magic money tree in the Government’s garden?
No, Hockey’s sin is to have confronted journalists with the plainest common sense: that if you want to buy the most expensive thing in your life, first get a steady job to pay for it.
(Read full article here.)
We’re told this buffoon had a “let them eat cake” moment when he suggested a “fantasy land” way to buy a house.
But here is all Hockey actually said during a press conference on Tuesday: “The starting point for a first-home buyer is to get a good job that pays good money.
“If you’ve got a good job and it pays good money and you have security in relation to that job, then you can go to the bank and you can borrow money and that’s readily affordable.”
What should Hockey have advised instead? That to buy your first house first find a lousy job that pays peanuts?
Or why not try shaking the magic money tree in the Government’s garden?
No, Hockey’s sin is to have confronted journalists with the plainest common sense: that if you want to buy the most expensive thing in your life, first get a steady job to pay for it.
(Read full article here.)
===
Gillian Triggs was right so should resign
Andrew Bolt June 11 2015 (8:13am)
LAST week proved it. Gillian Triggs should quit as Human Rights Commission president, but not because she once again said something wrong, exaggerated or biased.
No, she should quit because this taxpayer-funded activist this time made a reasonable point.
Triggs complained that the Abbott Government was going too far with a plan to let a minister — rather than a court — decide whether to strip a terrorist suspect of their Australian citizenship.
“No man is to be outlawed or exiled except by the law of the land,” Triggs protested. Fine words. But here is the problem: that Triggs said them meant they cut no ice.
The Government shrugged them off, and I suspect most voters either ignored what Triggs said or filed it under “there she goes again”.
See, even when Triggs is right she’s ineffective.
Worse, her entire commission, given $25 million a year to be our moral policeman, is now widely regarded as just a bunch of Leftist activists of no more account than a Julian Burnside, the “human rights” activist who at least hates the Government for free.
(Read full article here.)
No, she should quit because this taxpayer-funded activist this time made a reasonable point.
Triggs complained that the Abbott Government was going too far with a plan to let a minister — rather than a court — decide whether to strip a terrorist suspect of their Australian citizenship.
“No man is to be outlawed or exiled except by the law of the land,” Triggs protested. Fine words. But here is the problem: that Triggs said them meant they cut no ice.
The Government shrugged them off, and I suspect most voters either ignored what Triggs said or filed it under “there she goes again”.
See, even when Triggs is right she’s ineffective.
Worse, her entire commission, given $25 million a year to be our moral policeman, is now widely regarded as just a bunch of Leftist activists of no more account than a Julian Burnside, the “human rights” activist who at least hates the Government for free.
(Read full article here.)
===
Warren Mundine has destroyed the chances of a race-based Parliament. Praise him
Andrew Bolt June 11 2015 (7:30am)
Greg Sheridan comes to praise Warren Mundine - and bury Noel Pearson’s radical plan for an Aboriginal Parliament:
Warren Mundine has made a magnificent and devastating intervention in the debate on a referendum for indigenous recognition in the Constitution. He has surely destroyed any prospect of the Noel Pearson model of constitutional change getting approved.My own take back in September, when Pearson, aided by constitutional law expert Greg Craven, first floated his idea of an Aboriginal representative body, enshrined in the Constitution, to advise on all legislation affecting Aborigines:
In describing Pearson’s proposal for a separate declaration on indigenous recognition, as well as the creation within the Constitution of a special indigenous body that must be consulted on all legislation that affects indigenous people, as the most radical ever proposed for a referendum, as very dangerous and as entering bizarre territory, Mundine has surely ensured this option is dead…
Mundine has offered a splendid, historic reassertion of basic liberalism in racial and constitutional matters. He did this in a conversation with my colleague Chris Kenny on Sky TV last Sunday night....
When asked about the idea of a special constitutional body to advise on legislation affecting Aborigines, Mundine magnificently declared: “I have a legislative body already. It’s called the NSW parliament, it’s called the commonwealth parliament. I get the chance to vote in elections for those parliaments that make decisions. We’ve had more Aborigines going into state and federal parliament than ever before.”
Mundine, the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council, also said: “Either we’re all equal under the Constitution or we’re not."…
Mundine argues, incontrovertibly, that the objective has been to get race out of the Constitution and that the Pearson proposal would put race back into the Constitution. He describes the idea not only as radical but very dangerous, weird and unpredictable in its consequences…
If you cannot sell this proposal to Warren Mundine, you can’t sell it to middle Australia…
And of course, as Mundine argues, the referendum really has nothing to do with the key issues confronting Aborigines.
“Everyone’s confusing constitutional change with fixing everything,” he says. The real priorities, he argues, are jobs, education, school attendance rates, business formation, incarceration rates, crimes against women and children. None of these requires constitutional change. The truth is, though Mundine doesn’t go quite this far, the more the agenda of ever greater symbolism is embraced, the more Aboriginal leaders will be convinced advancement for Aborigines lies in ever more symbolism. This is a sterile and dangerous road.
In fact, Aborigines have a representative body already. It’s called the Australian Parliament. (There are also state parliaments and local councils.)
In that Parliament each Aborigine has the same say as each non-Aboriginal Australian. In that Parliament there are even Aboriginal politicians, including Ken Wyatt, Nova Peris and (she says) Jacqui Lambie.
What Pearson wants is a further parliament just for one “race”, to give members of that “race” more power than members of other “races”, and a different legal status.
This would dismember our polity and our community. No to racism. No to racial division. No to this racist change to our constitution.
===
Big Green pays for Fairfax warmist
Andrew Bolt June 11 2015 (6:58am)
The French Government pays for a Sydney Morning Herald warmist who bags his own country over global warming:
The difference?
Nicholas Hulot, ... a special envoy to the French president for the protection of the planet, said he was “saddened” by stance on climate change taken by Prime Minister Tony Abbott.And at the bottom of the story, this admission:
Peter Hannam is in France as a guest of the French government.Strange. The Sydney Morning Herald is outraged when a think-tank pays a sceptic yet happily accepts cash for a warmist.
The difference?
===
What did the bill from AWU actually buy? More votes for Shorten’s political rise?
Andrew Bolt June 11 2015 (6:53am)
This could be very damaging for Shorten, especially now that Labor members have half the vote in a leadership ballot:
UPDATE
More questions, including for GetUp:
Bill Shorten oversaw a controversial deal under which a Melbourne builder paid his union hundreds of thousands of dollars over a decade for its employees’ union dues.Shorten won’t comment, but will have to.
The deal, with builder Winslow Constructors has been criticised by current Australian Workers Union state secretary Ben Davis, who told the Royal Commission into union corruption it had “profoundly” weakened the union’s industrial position in the workplace.
Receipts and emails provided to the inquiry show that in 2005, Mr Shorten’s Australian Workers Union Victorian branch invoiced Winslow Constructors for $38,228.68 to pay for 105 union memberships. The invoice shows the AWU requesting payment from the company in 2004/5.
Separate documents indicate the payments continued at a similar rate the following financial year when Mr Shorten, now opposition leader, was still branch secretary.
Deals such as Winslow’s boosted the AWU membership numbers and, in turn, Mr Shorten’s factional power within the Labor Party, including over preselection of parliamentary candidates…
On Wednesday, a well-placed Winslow insider ... said it was well understood that the AWU would accept lower rates of pay and conditions, allowing the company to undercut its competitors.
UPDATE
More questions, including for GetUp:
Cleanevent was owned by the “old-money” Liberman family — via Jagen Nominees — when Victoria AWU entered into the 2010 deal to not take industrial action against Cleanevent in return for an annual payment of $25,000.
The royal commission into union corruption has heard that “side deal” saved Cleanevent $2 million a year in wages, while allowing Victoria AWU to create phantom members, artificially boosting its support base....
In 2006, Cleanevent and Victoria AWU entered into an enterprise bargaining agreement that, according to Cleanevent’s human resources head at the time, Michael Robinson, was “extremely favourable” for Cleanevent....
Even the Victoria AWU state secretary at the time, Cesar Melhem, has told the inquiry he now considers the [2006] deal to have been a poor one for Cleanevent’s workers…
Melhem on Monday stood down as upper house whip over the controversy, but remains a Labor member of Victoria’s Legislative Council.
The Australian can reveal that following that deal in July 2007, the Libermans’ Jagen made a $50,000 donation to left-wing political advocacy group GetUp!…
At the time of the donation GetUp! was a darling of trade unions…
Shorten was the immediate predecessor of Melhem as Victoria AWU state secretary [until 2006], and was national secretary of that union between 2001 and 2007.
He was also a director of GetUp! from 2005 until he legally resigned on March 3, 2007, four months before the group received the $50,000 donation from the Libermans…
A GetUp! spokesman said the organisation was not aware of any link between Shorten and the donation and directed The Australian to the Liberman family, which has declined to comment.
===
Cesar Melham’s troubled memory
Andrew Bolt June 11 2015 (12:08am)
Cesar Melham was forced to resign as a Labor Whip in the Andrews Government on Tuesday. Having been exposed trading workers conditions in change for a donation to the union may not fully explain that decision.
Let’s turn to the transcript of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption.
2 June 2015:
Let’s turn to the transcript of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption.
2 June 2015:
MR STOLJAR (Counsel Assisting):3 June 2015:
Q. Have you had any discussions with Mr [John-Paul] Blandthorn [former AWU official and now staffer to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews] recently?
MELHEM: I would have had discussions with him recently, yes, but - yes.
Q. When was the last time you spoke to him?
A. It would have been a few weeks ago, very brief discussions.
Q. A few weeks ago?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you give me a date?
A. No, I can’t give you the exact date, because --
Q. What was the purpose of the discussion?
A. Oh, basically I just - just work matters, nothing to do with this. Because Mr Blandthorn worked in the Premier’s Department, and I do visit that office from time to time for meetings and so forth, so - have I had discussions in relation to this? No. We were discussing other matters.
Q. Did you ask him about the evidence he might give in the Commission?
A. Absolutely not.
Q. This was a conversation you had with him in person, was it?
A. No, I think on the phone. I would have rang regarding some other matters, but not this one. I’ve not had any discussion with him in relation to his evidence whatsoever.
MR STOLJAR:
Q. When did you last speak to Mr Melhem?
BLANDTHORN: I received a phone call from him on about the 22nd of last month.
Q. 22 May?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Where were you?
A. I was in Minister Hutchins’ office.
Q. Was this a call on your mobile?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Doing the best you can, what did Mr Melhem say?
A. Mr Melhem asked me - he wanted to speak about the upcoming Royal Commission on three matters. The call lasted less than a minute. I didn’t want to engage, so I sort of said to him, “Mate, I can’t really talk now. I’m in a meeting. I don’t want to be talking on the phone.” He then said, “Look, you know, if the AWU’s struggling to pay your legal bills, there’s a fund with the Attorney General’s office”, or something. I said, “I really can’t be talking about this. I’ve got to go back to my meeting.”
Q. You began that answer by saying he wanted to speak about the upcoming Royal Commission on three matters.
A. Yes.
Q. Without summarising, can you just do your best to say exactly what he said when you answered the phone?
A. He said, “Hey, I hear you are being called before the Royal Commission in relation to Cleanevent, jockeys and netballers.” He then started to talk about - he went on to talk about - at that stage, I said, “Sorry, I’m unable to speak about this. I’m in a meeting. I’ve got to get back”, and that’s what happened.
Q. How long was the conversation?
A. It lasted less than a minute.
===
Genocide and Julia
Andrew Bolt June 11 2015 (12:04am)
Germany murdered 6 million Jews, Australians criticised Julia Gillard. Now a News Corp columnist urges us to confront our past, too:
(Thanks to reader James.)
Much like Germany has been forced to grapple with its past — it can neither ignore it, nor celebrate it — Australia’s treatment of Julia Gillard should never be hidden, and certainly not for reasons such as “Everyone hates Julia Gillard”.Incredible. And I was assured that the Murdoch media was conservative.
(Thanks to reader James.)
===
Here is a really stunning Diamond Engagement Ring with matching Diamond Wedding Band.....Both these rings were custom...
Posted by Diamond Imports on Wednesday, 10 June 2015
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“Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to...
Posted by Tim Andrews on Wednesday, 10 June 2015
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Lots of shelf clouds and sculpted clouds graced the Nebraska landscape today. 70 mile per hour winds were common. What...
Posted by Matt Granz on Wednesday, 10 June 2015
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Our Government restricts land for new developments, fails to build roads, restricts and fails to develop non-CBD areas...
Posted by Dean Hamstead on Wednesday, 10 June 2015
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THINK OF YOUR FUTURE
Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 11, 2014 (4:42pm)
This is big:
Labor leader Bill Shorten told a senior union official not to blow the whistle on dodgy dealings by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s union boss ex-boyfriend Bruce Wilson, a Royal Commission has heard.Former AWU Victorian branch official Robert Kernohan told the Royal Commission into trade union governance that he was “bloody horrified” by what he had discovered.The Commission heard Mr Kernohan was served with papers about a slush fund called the AWU Members Welfare Association that Mr Wilson is alleged to have used to pay for repairs to Ms Gillard’s house in Fitzroy.“It laid bare the whole sorry saga of the fraud perpetrated by Wilson. I was just horrified and couldn’t believe it. When I realised the extent of what was going on I felt sick in the stomach,” he said.
According to Kernohan, then-AWU boss Shorten told the former unionist to “move on”:
“Shorten cut me off, not in a nasty way, and he said words like, “Bob think of your future. There’s been a pay out, we are just all moving on.”
Bill’s call might turn out to be accurate, but not in the way he imagined.
UPDATE. As of 5pm, no mention of this at the ABC’s site. No mention at the top of ABC 24’s 5pm bulletin, either.
===
GREENS RIDE IN STYLE
Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 11, 2014 (1:10pm)
Greens senator Lee Rhiannon and Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi arrive at a climate-saving anti-coal protest. In an SUV.
===
DADDY THINKS YOU’RE DOOMED
Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 11, 2014 (12:42pm)
Fairfax’s Sam De Brito, father of a terrified child, reports:
A couple of Sundays ago, I was watching TV with my four-year-old daughter and we caught a news story about climate change. I zoned out and got us some chocolate from the kitchen but when we started to snuggle again she asked me “Will we die if the world gets too hot, daddy?”I said “of course not”, stuffed some chocolate in her mouth and changed the subject but her guileless concern stayed with me. Later I tweeted the conversation, asking my followers words to the effect “What do you say to a kid? ‘I won’t die. You might’?” …When I picked up my daughter from her mum’s house later in the week, my ex told me Noush had beencrying, saying the world was going to get too hot and we’d all die. We both went to work on her, explaining it wasn’t a certainty this would happen, and that we all had to do our part to help the planet.As I spoke the comforting white lies to her …
This is an intriguing glimpse into the doom-minded. Apparently De Brito believes he was lying when he told his little girl that death by warming wasn’t a certainty. If he’s so convinced about the planet’s looming fate, why did he have a kid in the first place? Besides consigning her to a cauldron, was De Brito unaware that children are only making things worse?
===
FAREWELL CLAUDIE
Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 11, 2014 (12:06pm)
Dreadfully sad news from our New Jersey friend Mr Bingley. Claude was one wonderful dog.
===
DOT MANIA
Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 11, 2014 (12:00pm)
Last Friday’s Age, and an earlier column by me:
===
7.30 picks an alarmist know-nothing to hector us on global warming
Andrew Bolt June 11 2014 (7:42pm)
The ABC is skewing its entire reporting of Tony Abbott’s trip to the US to conform to its global warming agenda. Its reports are all underpinned with unexamined (and false) assumptions: that global warming is critically important, that what Australia does is decisive, that global warming should be the focus of what essentially a business and trade trip, and that Barack Obama’s position in far superior to Abbott’s.
Tonight 7.30 interviews Democrat Henry Waxman who makes all the predictable and familiar alarmist points, even making the tired link between global warming “denialism” and denial of the link between smoking and cancer. That crassness alone should disqualify him as profoundly unserious.
But just to put Waxman’s credentials - or lack of them - in context, judge his grasp of science by this comment from an earlier interview:
Tonight 7.30 interviews Democrat Henry Waxman who makes all the predictable and familiar alarmist points, even making the tired link between global warming “denialism” and denial of the link between smoking and cancer. That crassness alone should disqualify him as profoundly unserious.
But just to put Waxman’s credentials - or lack of them - in context, judge his grasp of science by this comment from an earlier interview:
“We’re seeing the reality of a lot of the North Pole starting to evaporate, and we could get to a tipping point. Because if it evaporates to a certain point – they have lanes now where ships can go that couldn’t ever sail through before. And if it gets to a point where it evaporates too much, there’s a lot of tundra that’s being held down by that ice cap..”This is the US politician whose views the ABC thought we just had to have. We could have had any number of US politicians who are sceptics, but we had to have Waxman.
===
Claims in commission: union boss paid for Gillard’s renovations
Andrew Bolt June 11 2014 (6:56pm)
Michael Smith has the royal commission covered with reports on the evidence given by Bob Kernohan, Wayne Hem and builder Athol James, who says AWU official Bruce Wilson paid for the renovations he did to Julia Gillard’s house.
The Australian reports:
Then there was this:
The Australian reports:
A BUILDER who renovated Julia Gillard’s Melbourne home says she told him that her then boyfriend, former union official Bruce Wilson, was paying for the work.UPDATE
Athol James also said during sworn evidence to a royal commission today that he saw Mr Wilson hand to Ms Gillard “wads of notes” that amounted to a “large amount of cash” on at least two occasions, and she said she would pay him by cheque as Mr Wilson brought the cash.
The evidence to the royal commission into union corruption from Mr James directly contradicts the former Labor prime minister’s claims over the years that she paid for the renovations in the early 1990s herself.
The commission is investigating corruption allegations including the claim that money to pay for Ms Gillard’s home renovations was given to her by her then boyfriend, Australian Workers Union official Bruce Wilson, and that he took it from a union slush fund he had set up with the assistance of legal advice from Ms Gillard…
Both Ms Gillard and Mr Wilson have denied that money for the renovations came from Mr Wilson or Mr Wilson’s slush fund, called the AWU Workplace Reform Association…
Mr James told the commission ... early in his contact with Ms Gillard that she said Mr Wilson was paying for the work…
Wayne Hem, a former AWU official, told the commission today that he paid $5000 into Ms Gillard’s bank account on the orders of Mr Wilson in late 1995… Ms Gillard has said she had no recollection of this deposit.
Mr Hem said he was also accompanied an AWU official Bill “the Greek” Telikostoglou, a close associate of Mr Wilson, when they went to Ms Gillard’s house in mid-1995.
According to Mr Hem, he saw Mr Telikostoglou hand one of the painters an envelope that he assumed contained some money. He did not see the painter count the alleged money.
In early 1995, Mr Hem said he performed an errand for Mr Wilson by taking papers to Ms Gillard at Slater & Gordon that were allegedly related to the “AWU Welfare Fund”.
The welfare fund was another alleged slush fund, in addition to the AWU Workplace Reform Association, and Ms Gillard has had no alleged connection with it until now. Ms Gillard has denied any wrong doing over her legal advice on the Workplace Reform Association, or any other matter related to Mr Wilson.
Then there was this:
Labor leader Bill Shorten told a senior union official not to blow the whistle on dodgy dealings by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s union boss ex-boyfriend Bruce Wilson, a Royal Commission has heard.
Former AWU Victorian branch official Robert Kernohan told the Royal Commission into trade union governance that he was “bloody horrified” by what he had discovered.
The Commission heard Mr Kernohan was served with papers about a slush fund called the AWU Members Welfare Association that Mr Wilson is alleged to have used to pay for repairs to Ms Gillard’s house in Fitzroy.
“It laid bare the whole sorry saga of the fraud perpetrated by Wilson. I was just horrified and couldn’t believe it. When I realised the extent of what was going on I felt sick in the stomach,” he said…“Shorten cut me off, not in a nasty way, and he said words like, “Bob think of your future. There’s been a pay out, we are just all moving on.”
===
Islamists seize Iraq’s second-biggest city
Andrew Bolt June 11 2014 (6:47pm)
Ultimately it is for Iraq to defend itself against this religious brand of fascism, but Barack Obama’s weakness in both Syria and Iraq has not helped:
Islamist insurgents seized control of Iraq’s second-largest city on Tuesday in a brazen military operation that underscored the weakness of the central government across vast swaths of the country…But even now:
Mosul was captured by rebels from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS—a group that evolved from al Qaeda’s Iraq affiliate. The takeover of a major industrial and oil center and the main city in northern Iraq marked a major coup for a group that only months ago was operating in the country’s vast desert hinterlands.
It was the latest evidence of the disorganization that has beset Iraqi security forces since the U.S. military withdrew from the country in December 2011. It also underlined the determination of ISIS to establish an Islamic emirate encompassing the Iraqi-Syrian frontier, to weaken the already fragile Iraqi state and to expand the theater of the three-year-old civil war in neighboring Syria…
Following nine years of U.S.-led war, at a cost of thousands of lives and billions of dollars, the attacks touched off Republican criticism of the Obama administration’s failure to negotiate a security agreement that would have allowed the U.S. to keep troops in the country beyond 2011… U.S. counterterrorism officials said the attacks show the degree to which Islamist militants have established a revolving door between Iraq and Syria, with fighters flowing easily between the two countries and fueling conflict in both.
Pentagon officials said they don’t view the attack as a dangerous turning point that requires urgent action.
“It is important, we are watching it,” said Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Defense Department press secretary. “But our efforts to help them with counterterrorism is not something that we turn off-and-on like a light switch.”
===
What corruption inquiry? What allegations against Gillard?
Andrew Bolt June 11 2014 (6:35pm)
Complete uninterest from the ABC’s The World Today in the royal commission into union corruption and the allegations against Julia Gillard. News from Germany, Iraq, Manus and Britain is of far more importance, to judge from today’s menu:
Analysts warn Mosul takeover could lead to widespread regional destabilisation…
Iraq army was not prepared for ISIS, says former White House advisor…
International summit to end war rape…
Global growth forecast falls, but Australian dollar set to rise
Whistleblower warns of more violence if refugees settled on Manus Island
Pathologist gives autopsy testimony at Baden-Clay case
Suspending rogue MP will put intense pressure on speaker
Inequality report: Australians, including the PM, can no longer afford to ignore the problem
Rebel Nationals MPs argue PPL discriminates against rural women German cave rescue plumbs new depths
===
ABC protects Gillard yet again
Andrew Bolt June 11 2014 (9:30am)
What a joke. The only reference to the AWU slush fund scandal on the ABC News home page is a report on whether there’s a conspiracy to get Julia Gillard:
It is out of control.
(Thanks to reader old44.)
As Hedley Thomas put it to me last night. the ABC seems to be running a protection racket for Gillard.
It is out of control.
(Thanks to reader old44.)
===
Who do we trust on Abbott: Plibersek or Beazley?
Andrew Bolt June 11 2014 (9:04am)
Tony Abbott is “Nigel no-friends” overseas, claims Labor’s foreign affairs spokesman Tanya Plibersek, appealing to the Twitter creche.
Former Labor leader Kim Beazley begs to differ:
UPDATE
More praise from abroad, rather more significant than the utterly meaningless “gaffes” that have been so wildly beaten up by the media, like an instantly corrected reference to “Canadia”:
Former Labor leader Kim Beazley begs to differ:
AUSTRALIA’S Ambassador to the US Kim Beazley has revealed that the Obama administration was “intrigued” by Tony Abbott’s accomplishments in Asia and would now be looking to him to become their man in the region…The authentic voice of an adult.
“He has them somewhat intrigued,” Mr Beazley said in a rare interview on his assessment of the US/Australia relationship…
“And they are very interested in the Prime Minister’s visits to Asia…and what he has arranged in the region.
“They are intrigued by his relationship with the Japanese Prime Minister and the fact Australia is looking to do more and more with Japan and how he managed to balance that out with quite a reasonable dialogue with China.
“They think that was a little risk taking by the Australian Prime Minister….and he seemed to pull it off, so in their minds that is a plus… They see a bloke who has done pretty well in Asia in the last little while."…
Mr Beazley dismissed suggestions that President Obama, who Mr Abbott once described as leading one of the most left wing US administrations in 50 years, would offer a cool reception for the Australian PM… Mr Beazley also played down speculation that the two leaders would clash over climate change and President Obama’s recent announcement of a global action plan to cut greenhouse emissions. “I would be surprised if climate change weren’t discussed….but I wouldn’t expect it to be a clash,” he said.
UPDATE
More praise from abroad, rather more significant than the utterly meaningless “gaffes” that have been so wildly beaten up by the media, like an instantly corrected reference to “Canadia”:
The head of the world’s leading economic agency, Angel Gurria, has praised the Federal Government’s recent budget, calling it a ‘sustainable, durable solution’ to deficits.(Thanks to readers Ken, Jeff of FNQ, Mark S, Nathan, Josh, CA, Peter of Bellevue Hill, Ancient Marriner and others.)
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s secretary-general says that the budget highlights a serious commitment to maintain Australia’s stable government finances.
“We have seen with very great interest, and I think really with great expectations, that they are dealing very directly and decisively with the budget deficit,” he told ABC television’s The Business program.
===
Obama dodges blame for Bergdahl
Andrew Bolt June 11 2014 (8:59am)
If the Bergdahl release was a triumph, Obama wouldn’t be ducking the responsibility:
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel – not President Obama – executed the administration’s final call to proceed with the prisoner exchange of five ranking Taliban detainees for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, administration officials told Congress today in a classified briefing today.(Thanks to reader The Realist.)
“They indicated [it was] Secretary Hagel [who made the final call],” House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon, R-California, told reporters following the briefing Monday evening. “It was the president of the United States that came out [in the Rose Garden] with the Bergdahls and took all the credit and now that there’s been a little pushback he’s moving away from it and it’s Secretary Hagel?”
===
AWU scandal a crime, says commission’s counsel
Andrew Bolt June 11 2014 (7:42am)
The AWU slush fund scandal is formally exposed:
JULIA Gillard’s ex-boyfriend, former union official Bruce Wilson, should face criminal charges over the creation of sham invoices that led to hundreds of thousands of dollars being paid into a secret slush fund, a royal commission has heard.Witnesses are expected to differ on who paid for Gillard’s renovations:
Counsel assisting Jeremy Stoljar SC told the royal commission into union corruption yesterday that Mr Wilson, along with his then Australian Workers’ Union sidekick, the confessed bagman Ralph Blewitt, committed fraud and conspiracy offences that could bring up to 10 years in jail.
Mr Stoljar said it was Mr Wilson’s idea to create a slush fund called the Workplace Reform Association in 1992 for the purpose of issuing false invoices to the Thiess construction company.
Ms Gillard, the former Labor prime minister, was at the time Mr Wilson’s girlfriend and a salaried partner of legal firm Slater & Gordon. She had a role in helping Mr Wilson set up the Workplace Reform Association by providing legal advice, although she insists she did nothing wrong.
The association was meant to provide safety services to Thiess for its Dawesville Channel project near Perth, but Mr Stoljar said it did not engage in any genuine work…
In a 1995 formal interview with Slater & Gordon’s head partner, Peter Gordon, Ms Gillard admitted that she thought the association was a union “slush fund” for election purposes, but said she had no knowledge of its operations and did not play any role in the fund after providing legal advice to help set it up…
Ms Gillard did not tell fellow legal partners in 1992 about her role in providing legal advice for Mr Wilson. Nor did she create a file note — the usual practice — when she worked for the AWU as a Slater & Gordon solicitor at the same time. Ms Gillard left Slater & Gordon after her formal interview with Mr Gordon on the matter…
Evidence had been established that “does not seem controversial”, Mr Stoljar said, that money from the slush fund was used to partly fund the purchase of a house in the Melbourne suburb Fitzroy in Mr Blewitt’s name. Mr Wilson lived in the house…
Ms Gillard ... attended the auction with Mr Wilson and was involved in the drafting of a power of attorney document at Slater & Gordon giving him the authority to bid for it. She also arranged the conveyancing work by Slater & Gordon.
Mr Stoljar said evidence further established that money from the Wilson slush fund was also used to pay for renovations on another Melbourne house in Abbotsford owned by Ms Gillard — but he added “there is factual controversy about this”.
As prime minister in 2012, Ms Gillard insisted that she paid for the renovations herself… At one point the slush fund "association" held $156,849 in one bank account and $383,332.60 in a cheque account.
Melbourne builder Konstantinos Spyridis will provide evidence about building work he did at the offices of the Australian Workers Union in Carlton and at Ms Gillard’s property in the Melbourne suburb of Abbotsford. He says Ms Gillard paid for all the work he did at her home in 1994, according to Jeremy Stoljar, counsel assisting the royal commission ...Hedley Thomas is astonished by ABC presenter Jon Faine’s attempt to discredit the royal commission:
Another builder, Athol James, who helped with renovations at the house, will allege that he saw Ms Gillard’s then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson, hand cash to Ms Gillard to pay him for his work. Wayne Hem, a former employee of the AWU, will claim he deposited $5000 in cash into Ms Gillard’s bank account at the request of Mr Wilson.
...former AWU official and self-confessed bagman Ralph Blewitt ... told the royal commission last month he used $7000 from a union “slush fund” to pay for renovations to Ms Gillard’s house. Mr Blewitt, who has confessed to fraud, alleged he attended Ms Gillard’s home in 1994 and handed $7000 to a builder. He said Ms Gillard was home on the day but was not in the room when he handed over the cash.
While the ABC and many in the Canberra press gallery chose to run a protection racket of the former PM when these matters were in plain view, Stoljar takes evidence from credible witnesses — former union officials like Ian Cambridge, a serving Fair Work Commissioner; Bob Kernohan, a former AWU president in Victoria; and the tradesmen who received cash while renovating Gillard’s house in the 1990s…Former union lawyer Harry Nowicki on why he’s worked so hard on investigating the case:
Faine thinks it is professional journalism to ignore reams of corroborated evidence since 2012, then latch on to one self-serving witness statement — Wilson’s — and expend taxpayers’ resources in an on-air bid to imbue it with credibility.
Faine’s previous bias on the AWU scandal, which he calls a “house of cards”, was such that even the ABC found him guilty, following a separate and earlier admonishment from the ABC’s Media Watch. He now seems to believe Wilson’s statement to the royal commission, leaked to him and read on his radio show yesterday, is the real story.
Faine told listeners that in this statement, Wilson claims he was offered $200,000 to tell his story in 2012 to Harry Nowicki, a former union lawyer, and to make stuff up to the detriment of the serving PM. A vast right-wing conspiracy, anyone?
Nowicki, who was introduced to me in 2012 by a senior Labor figure, has been a seeker of truth. The idea that he would corruptly pay a corrupt union official to lie about corruption is ludicrous… Nobody would need to lie that there was a fraud; the evidence of the fraud is everywhere. But Nowicki turned over rocks, talked to witnesses, tracked down documents, lodged Freedom of Information applications and told the likes of Wilson they would be better off coming clean and telling the truth. In other words, a retired lawyer who once worked for the BLF has done what Jon Faine and the ABC have conspicuously failed to do.
HARRY NOWICKI: I think it’s important for the facts of this story to come out, because it is a link in the chain of Ms Gillard becoming Prime Minister.But this is not true, and I expect it is a memory slip:
How is it possible that someone involved in… in, in questionable behaviour becomes Prime Minister? Now that’s a political story, that’s not my story.
SARAH FERGUSON: Have you at any time discussed this case with members of the parliamentary Labor Party?Nowicki has in fact discussed this with a former Minister of the Gillard Government who was deeply concerned by the scandal.
HARRY NOWICKI: No.
SARAH FERGUSON: No-one?
HARRY NOWICKI: No-one, no.
SARAH FERGUSON: Past or present? HARRY NOWICKI: No, no.
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Pastor Rick Warren
God wants you to THINK wisely. You are to be "transformed by the renewal (not removal!) of you mind." Rom 12:2
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The headline is digital, but if you click on it it changes
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Anyone could benefit Eric has the skill and experience to teach you.
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Larry Pickering
SHORTEN A CHAMELEON FOR ALL SEASONS
A confidential US cable, discloses a secret meeting Bill Shorten had with the US Consul General in Melbourne on the 11th June 2009. The meeting, solely to present his Prime Ministerial credentials, was within the time-frame of the unions' decision to replace Rudd with either him or Gillard.
A desperate attempt to gain the nod over Gillard failed as his profile was not equal to her's of Deputy PM.
In the end, Bill Ludwig and the NSW Right opted for Gillard, at the same time giving Shorten an assurance he could consider himself heir apparent.
Seeking to pad a somewhat dull union CV, Shorten had discussed his political leanings and ambitions with the Consulate. His description of himself varied wildly from reality.
A US diplomat in attendance wrote, “Shorten was highly critical of current Australian union leadership. He was at pains to show he was business friendly. He said he had an MBA from Melbourne University and he kept talking about how close he was to the late cardboard king billionaire, Richard Pratt.
“He continually criticised union leaders saying he, unlike them, was willing to listen to business concerns.”
Shorten also told the diplomat that the Federal Government “already has plenty of duties” and that he, “did not want to see additional powers delegated to Canberra.”
In his written report back to Washington the Consul General wrote: “Shorten makes no bones about his ambitions. Despite his lukewarm relationship with Prime Minister Rudd, he struck us as highly ambitious but willing to wait (at least for a while) for his moment in the sun.”
Mmmm, it appears when appearing to be rational to the Yanks, Shorten’s Marxist views are nowhere to be seen.
This cable was buried in thousands of a Wikileaks bulk release.
In the end, Bill Ludwig and the NSW Right opted for Gillard, at the same time giving Shorten an assurance he could consider himself heir apparent.
Seeking to pad a somewhat dull union CV, Shorten had discussed his political leanings and ambitions with the Consulate. His description of himself varied wildly from reality.
A US diplomat in attendance wrote, “Shorten was highly critical of current Australian union leadership. He was at pains to show he was business friendly. He said he had an MBA from Melbourne University and he kept talking about how close he was to the late cardboard king billionaire, Richard Pratt.
“He continually criticised union leaders saying he, unlike them, was willing to listen to business concerns.”
Shorten also told the diplomat that the Federal Government “already has plenty of duties” and that he, “did not want to see additional powers delegated to Canberra.”
In his written report back to Washington the Consul General wrote: “Shorten makes no bones about his ambitions. Despite his lukewarm relationship with Prime Minister Rudd, he struck us as highly ambitious but willing to wait (at least for a while) for his moment in the sun.”
Mmmm, it appears when appearing to be rational to the Yanks, Shorten’s Marxist views are nowhere to be seen.
This cable was buried in thousands of a Wikileaks bulk release.
===
Retaliation?
Master Sgt. Nathan Sommers, who was told not to read books by conservative authors while in uniform, now faces charges -- which cropped up shortly after he went public with his complaints.
Sommers' attorney and retired Navy Commander John Bennett Wells said, "It's suspicious. No matter what's happening, it looks like a graduated attempt to build a case against him on some really ridiculous charges."
===
Quote of the day from Barry Shaw, The View from Israel.
"Israel is the one country in the Middle East that is not going up in flames , going down the drain, or going back to the Middle Ages, so leave us alone and stop telling us how terrible we are."
===
"Everything changes. Only God's love is permanent." -- Pastor Rick Warren
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Allyson Christy via Barry Shaw
"What a strange perverted world we live in. At a time when Bahrain calls Hezbollah a terrorist organization, and a Jordanian leader calls for jihad against them, it is cultured Europe that refuses to define Hezbollah as synonymous with terror." - Barry Shaw
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“Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die”
Love fulfills the law - ed
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The ETU demonstrates how low the Left will go
Andrew Bolt June 11 2013 (1:59pm)
The Electrical Trades Union digs deep into the sewer to run this full-page ad in the Courier Mail. If they really believe this stuff, they are mad. If they don’t, they are bad.
===
- 1594 – In the Philippines, Philip II of Spain recognized the right to govern of the Principalía, the local nobles and chieftains who had converted to Roman Catholicism.
- 1776 – The Second Continental Congress appointedThomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence for Britain's Thirteen Colonies.
- 1917 – Alexander (pictured) was crowned King of Greece, succeeding his father Constantine, who had abdicated.
- 1955 – More than 80 people were killed after Pierre Levegh and Lance Macklin collided during the 23rd running of the 24 Hours of Le Manssports car endurance race.
- 2008 – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologised to the First Nations for past governments' policies of forced assimilation.
- 1184 BC – Trojan War: Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes.
- 173 – Marcomannic Wars: The Roman army in Moravia is encircled by the Quadi, who have broken the peace treaty (171). In a violent thunderstorm emperor Marcus Aurelius defeats and subdues them in the so-called "miracle of the rain".
- 631 – Emperor Taizong of Tang, the Emperor of China, sends envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk in order to seek the release of enslaved Chinese prisoners captured during the transition from Sui to Tang from the northern frontier; this embassy succeeded in freeing 80,000 Chinese men and women who were then returned to China.
- 786 – A Hasanid Alid uprising in Mecca is crushed by the Abbasids at the Battle of Fakhkh. Idris ibn Abdallah flees to the Maghreb, where he later founds the Idrisid dynasty.
- 980 – Vladimir the Great consolidates the Kievan realm from Ukraine to the Baltic Sea. He is proclaimed ruler (knyaz) of all Kievan Rus'.
- 1011 – Lombard Revolt: Greek citizens of Bari rise up against the Lombard rebels led by Melus and deliver the city to Basil Mesardonites, Byzantine governor (catepan) of the Catepanate of Italy.
- 1118 – Roger of Salerno, Prince of Antioch, captures Azaz from the Seljuk Turks.
- 1157 – Albert I of Brandenburg, also called The Bear (Ger: Albrecht der Bär), becomes the founder of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, Germany and the first margrave.
- 1345 – The megas doux Alexios Apokaukos, chief minister of the Byzantine Empire, is lynched by political prisoners.
- 1429 – Hundred Years' War: Start of the Battle of Jargeau.
- 1488 – Battle of Sauchieburn: Fought between rebel Lords and James III of Scotland, resulting in the death of the king.
- 1509 – Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon.
- 1594 – Philip II recognizes the rights and privileges of the local nobles and chieftains in the Philippines, which paved way to the stabilization of the rule of the Principalía (an elite ruling class of native nobility in Spanish Philippines).
- 1748 – Denmark adopts the characteristic Nordic Cross flag later taken up by all other Scandinavian countries.
- 1770 – British explorer Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef.
- 1775 – The American Revolutionary War's first naval engagement, the Battle of Machias, results in the capture of a small British naval vessel.
- 1776 – The Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.
- 1788 – Russian explorer Gerasim Izmailov reaches Alaska.
- 1805 – A fire consumes large portions of Detroit in the Michigan Territory.
- 1825 – The first cornerstone is laid for Fort Hamilton in New York City.
- 1837 – The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, fueled by ethnic tensions between Yankees and Irish.
- 1865 – The Naval Battle of the Riachuelo is fought on the rivulet Riachuelo (Argentina), between the Paraguayan Navy on one side and the Brazilian Navy on the other. The Brazilian victory was crucial for the later success of the Triple Alliance(Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina) in the Paraguayan War.
- 1892 – The Limelight Department, one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.
- 1895 – Paris–Bordeaux–Paris, sometimes called the first automobile race in history or the "first motor race", takes place.
- 1898 – The Hundred Days' Reform, a planned movement to reform social, political, and educational institutions in China, is started by the Guangxu Emperor, but is suspended by Empress Dowager Cixi after 104 days. (The failed reform led to the abolition of the Imperial examination in 1905.)
- 1901 – The boundaries of the Colony of New Zealand are extended by the UK to include the Cook Islands.
- 1903 – A group of Serbian officers stormed the royal palace and assassinated King Alexander Obrenović and his wife, Queen Draga.
- 1917 – King Alexander assumes the throne of Greece after his father, Constantine I, abdicates under pressure from alliedarmies occupying Athens.
- 1919 – Sir Barton wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win the U.S. Triple Crown.
- 1920 – During the U.S. Republican National Convention in Chicago, U.S. Republican Party leaders gathered in a room at the Blackstone Hotel to come to a consensus on their candidate for the U.S. presidential election, leading the Associated Press to coin the political phrase "smoke-filled room".
- 1935 – Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, New Jersey.
- 1936 – The London International Surrealist Exhibition opens.
- 1937 – Great Purge: The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin executes eight army leaders.
- 1938 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Wuhan starts.
- 1942 – World War II: The United States agrees to send Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.
- 1942 – Free French Forces retreat from Bir Hakeim after having successfully delayed the Axis advance.
- 1944 – USS Missouri, the last battleship built by the United States Navy and future site of the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, is commissioned.
- 1955 – Eighty-three spectators are killed and at least 100 are injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the deadliest ever accident in motorsports.
- 1956 – Start of Gal Oya riots, the first reported ethnic riots that target minority Sri Lankan Tamils in the Eastern Province. The total number of deaths is reportedly 150.
- 1962 – Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island.
- 1963 – American Civil Rights Movement: Governor of Alabama George Wallace defiantly stands at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending that school. Later in the day, accompanied by federalized National Guard troops, they are able to register.
- 1963 – Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam.
- 1963 – John F. Kennedy addresses Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which would revolutionize American society by guaranteeing equal access to public facilities, ending segregation in education, and guaranteeing federal protection for voting rights.
- 1964 – World War II veteran Walter Seifert runs amok in an elementary school in Cologne, Germany, killing at least eight children and two teachers and seriously injuring several more with a home-made flamethrower and a lance.
- 1968 – Lloyd J. Old identified the first cell surface antigens that could differentiate among different cell types.
- 1970 – After being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first females to do so.
- 1971 – The U.S. Government forcibly removes the last holdouts to the Native American Occupation of Alcatraz, ending 19 months of control.
- 1978 – Altaf Hussain founds the student political movement All Pakistan Muhajir Students Organisation (APMSO) in Karachi University.
- 1981 – A magnitude 6.9 earthquake at Golbaf, Iran, kills at least 2,000.
- 1987 – Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant are elected as the first black MPs in Great Britain.
- 1998 – Compaq Computer pays US$9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation in the largest high-tech acquisition.
- 2001 – Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
- 2002 – Antonio Meucci is acknowledged as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress.
- 2004 – Cassini–Huygens makes its closest flyby of the Saturn moon Phoebe.
- 2007 – Mudslides in Chittagong, Bangladesh, kill 130 people.
- 2008 – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes a historic official apology to Canada's First Nations in regard to abuses at a Canadian Indian residential school.
- 2008 – The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is launched into orbit.
- 2012 – More than 80 people die in a landslide triggered by two earthquakes in Afghanistan; an entire village is buried.
- 2013 – Greece's public broadcaster ERT is shut down by then-prime minister Antonis Samaras.
- 2015 – Greece's public broadcaster ERT is reopened by then-prime minister Alexis Tsipras.
- 1403 – John IV, Duke of Brabant (d. 1427)
- 1431 – Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond (d. 1456)
- 1540 – Barnabe Googe, English poet and translator (d. 1594)
- 1555 – Lodovico Zacconi, Italian composer and theorist (d. 1627)
- 1572 – Ben Jonson, English poet, playwright, and critic (d. 1637)
- 1585 – Evert Horn, Swedish soldier (d. 1615)
- 1588 – George Wither, English poet (d. 1667)
- 1620 – John Moore, English businessman and politician, Lord Mayor of London (d. 1702)
- 1655 – Antonio Cifrondi, Italian painter (d. 1730)
- 1662 – Tokugawa Ienobu, Japanese shogun (d. 1712)
- 1672 – Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and composer (d. 1749)
- 1690 – Giovanni Antonio Giay, Italian composer (d. 1764)
- 1696 – James Francis Edward Keith, Scottish-Prussian field marshal (d. 1758)
- 1697 – Francesco Antonio Vallotti, Italian organist and composer (d. 1780)
- 1704 – Carlos Seixas, Portuguese harpsichord player and composer (d. 1742)
- 1709 – Joachim Martin Falbe, German painter (d. 1782)
- 1712 – Benjamin Ingham, American missionary (d. 1772)
- 1723 – Johann Georg Palitzsch, German astronomer (d. 1788)
- 1726 – Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain (d. 1746)
- 1741 – Joseph Warren, American physician and general (d. 1775)
- 1776 – John Constable, English painter and academic (d. 1837)
- 1797 – José Trinidad Reyes, Honduran philosopher and theorist (d. 1855)
- 1807 – James F. Schenck, American admiral (d. 1882)
- 1815 – Julia Margaret Cameron, Indian-Sri Lankan photographer (d. 1879)
- 1818 – Alexander Bain, Scottish philosopher and academic (d. 1903)
- 1829 – Edward Braddon, English-Australian politician, 18th Premier of Tasmania (d. 1904)
- 1832 – Lucy Pickens, American wife of Francis Wilkinson Pickens (d. 1899)
- 1842 – Carl von Linde, German engineer and academic (d. 1934)
- 1846 – William Louis Marshall, American general and engineer (d. 1920)
- 1847 – Millicent Fawcett, English academic and activist (d. 1929)
- 1861 – Alexander Peacock, Australian politician, 20th Premier of Victoria (d. 1933)
- 1864 – Richard Strauss, German composer and conductor (d. 1949)
- 1867 – Charles Fabry, French physicist and academic (d. 1945)
- 1871 – Stjepan Radić, Croatian lawyer and politician (d. 1928)
- 1876 – Alfred L. Kroeber, American-French anthropologist and ethnologist (d. 1960)
- 1877 – Renée Vivien, English-French poet and author (d. 1909)
- 1879 – Roger Bresnahan, American baseball player and manager (d. 1944)
- 1880 – Jeannette Rankin, American social worker and politician (d. 1973)
- 1881 – Spiros Xenos, Greek-Swedish painter (d. 1963)
- 1881 – Mordecai Kaplan, Lithuanian rabbi, founded Reconstructionist Judaism (d. 1983)
- 1888 – Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian-American anarchist and convicted criminal (d. 1927)
- 1889 – Hugo Wieslander, Swedish decathlete (d. 1976)
- 1894 – Kiichiro Toyoda, Japanese businessman, founded Toyota (d. 1952)
- 1895 – Nikolai Bulganin, Soviet politician (d. 1975)
- 1897 – Ram Prasad Bismil, Indian activist, founded the Hindustan Republican Association (d. 1927)
- 1899 – Yasunari Kawabata, Japanese novelist and short story writer Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1972)
- 1901 – Cap Fear, Canadian football player and rower (d. 1978)
- 1902 – Eric Fraser, British illustrator and graphic designer (d. 1983)
- 1903 – Ernie Nevers, American football player and coach (d. 1976)
- 1908 – Karl Hein, German hammer thrower (d. 1982)
- 1908 – Francisco Marto, Portuguese saint (d. 1919)
- 1909 – Natascha Artin Brunswick, German-American mathematician and photographer (d. 2003)
- 1910 – Carmine Coppola, American flute player and composer (d. 1991)
- 1910 – Jacques Cousteau, French biologist, author, and inventor, co-developed the aqua-lung (d. 1997)
- 1912 – James Algar, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1998)
- 1912 – William Baziotes, American painter and academic (d. 1963)
- 1912 – Mohammad Hassan Ganji, Iranian meteorologist and academic (d. 2012)
- 1913 – Vince Lombardi, American football player, coach, and manager (d. 1970)
- 1913 – Risë Stevens, American soprano and actress (d. 2013)
- 1914 – Jan Hendrik van den Berg, Dutch psychiatrist and academic (d. 2012)
- 1915 – Magda Gabor, Hungarian-American actress (d. 1997)
- 1915 – Nicholas Metropolis, American mathematician and physicist (d. 1999)
- 1917 – Joseph B. Wirthlin, American businessman and religious leader (d. 2008)
- 1918 – Ruth Aarons, American table tennis player and manager (d. 1980)
- 1919 – Suleiman Mousa, Jordanian historian and author (d. 2008)
- 1920 – Shelly Manne, American drummer, composer, and bandleader (d. 1984)
- 1920 – Hazel Scott, Trinidadian-American singer, actress, and pianist (d. 1981)
- 1920 – Keith Seaman, Australian lawyer and politician, 29th Governor of South Australia (d. 2013)
- 1922 – Jean Sutherland Boggs, Peruvian-Canadian historian, academic, and civil servant (d. 2014)
- 1922 – Michael Cacoyannis, Greek Cypriot director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2011)
- 1925 – Johnny Esaw, Canadian sportscaster (d. 2013)
- 1925 – William Styron, American novelist and essayist (d. 2006)
- 1926 – Carlisle Floyd, American composer and educator
- 1927 – Beryl Grey, English ballerina
- 1927 – John W. O'Malley, American Catholic historian, academic and Jesuit priest
- 1927 – Kit Pedler, English parapsychologist and author (d. 1981)
- 1928 – Queen Fabiola of Belgium (d. 2014)
- 1929 – Ayhan Şahenk, Turkish businessman (d. 2001)
- 1930 – Charles Rangel, American soldier, lawyer, and politician
- 1932 – Athol Fugard, South African-American actor, director, and playwright
- 1932 – Tim Sainsbury, English businessman and politician, Minister of State for Trade
- 1933 – Gene Wilder, American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2016)
- 1937 – Chad Everett, American actor and director (d. 2012)
- 1937 – Robin Warren, Australian pathologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1939 – Rachael Heyhoe Flint, Baroness Heyhoe Flint, English cricketer and journalist (d. 2017)
- 1939 – Jackie Stewart, Scottish race car driver and sportscaster
- 1942 – Parris Glendening, American politician, 59th Governor of Maryland
- 1943 – Henry Hill, American mobster (d. 2012)
- 1945 – Adrienne Barbeau, American actress
- 1947 – Richard Palmer-James, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1948 – Lalu Prasad Yadav, Indian politician, 20th Chief Minister of Bihar
- 1949 – Frank Beard, American drummer and songwriter
- 1950 – Lynsey de Paul, English singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress (d. 2014)
- 1950 – Graham Russell, English-Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1951 – Matthew Engel, English journalist and author
- 1951 – Yasumasa Morimura, Japanese painter and photographer
- 1952 – Yekaterina Podkopayeva, Russian runner
- 1952 – Donnie Van Zant, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1953 – Steve Bassam, Baron Bassam of Brighton, English politician
- 1953 – José Bové, French farmer and politician
- 1953 – Barbara Minty, American model
- 1954 – John Dyson, Australian cricketer
- 1954 – Johnny Neel, American singer-songwriter and keyboard player
- 1955 – Yuriy Sedykh, Ukrainian hammer thrower
- 1955 – Duncan Steel, English-Australian astronomer and author
- 1956 – Joe Montana, American football player and sportscaster
- 1956 – Simon Plouffe, Canadian mathematician and academic
- 1956 – Arthur Porter, Canadian physician and academic (d. 2015)
- 1956 – Jamaaladeen Tacuma, American bass player and bandleader
- 1958 – Barry Adamson, English singer and bass player
- 1959 – Hugh Laurie, English actor and screenwriter
- 1960 – Mehmet Oz, American surgeon, author, and television host
- 1962 – Mano Menezes, Brazilian footballer and coach
- 1963 – Gioia Bruno, American singer-songwriter
- 1963 – Sandra Schmirler, Canadian curler and sportscaster (d. 2000)
- 1964 – Jean Alesi, French race car driver
- 1964 – Kim Gallagher, American runner (d. 2002)
- 1965 – Georgios Bartzokas, Greek former professional basketball player
- 1966 – Bruce Robison, American country music singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1967 – João Garcia, Portuguese mountaineer
- 1968 – Alois, Hereditary Prince of Liechtenstein
- 1968 – Manoa Thompson, Fijian rugby player
- 1969 – Peter Dinklage, American actor and producer
- 1969 – Bryan Fogarty, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2002)
- 1969 – Olaf Kapagiannidis, German footballer
- 1971 – Vladimir Gaidamașciuc, Moldovan footballer
- 1971 – Liz Kendall, British politician
- 1971 – Kenjiro Tsuda, Japanese voice actor
- 1972 – Stephen Kearney, New Zealand rugby league player and coach
- 1973 – José Manuel Abundis, Mexican footballer and coach
- 1974 – Fragiskos Alvertis, Greek basketball player, coach, and manager
- 1976 – Reiko Tosa, Japanese runner
- 1977 – Geoff Ogilvy, Australian golfer
- 1978 – Joshua Jackson, Canadian-American actor
- 1979 – Ali Boussaboun, Moroccan-Dutch footballer
- 1981 – Emiliano Moretti, Italian footballer
- 1981 – Kristo Tohver, Estonian footballer and referee
- 1982 – Vanessa Boslak, French pole vaulter
- 1982 – Jacques Freitag, South African high jumper
- 1982 – Joey Graham, American basketball player
- 1982 – Stephen Graham, American basketball player
- 1982 – Eldar Rønning, Norwegian skier
- 1982 – Diana Taurasi, American basketball player
- 1983 – Chuck Hayes, American basketball player
- 1983 – José Reyes, Dominican baseball player
- 1984 – Andy Lee, Irish boxer
- 1984 – Vágner Love, Brazilian footballer
- 1985 – Tim Hoogland, German footballer
- 1986 – Sebastian Bayer, German long jumper
- 1986 – Shia LaBeouf, American actor
- 1987 – Marsel İlhan, Turkish tennis player
- 1987 – Didrik Solli-Tangen, Norwegian singer
- 1988 – Jesús Fernández Collado, Spanish footballer
- 1988 – Yui Aragaki, Japanese actress, voice actress, singer-songwriter, model, radio host
- 1989 – Maya Moore, American basketball player
- 1990 – Christophe Lemaitre, French sprinter
- 1991 – Daniel Howell English Internet celebrity
- 1993 – Brittany Boyd, American basketball player
- 1994 – Ivana Baquero, Spanish actress
- 1996 – Ayaka Sasaki, Japanese singer
- 1998 – Charlie Tahan, American actor
- 323 BC – Alexander the Great, Macedonian king (b. 356 BC)
- 573 – Emilian of Cogolla, Iberic saint (b. 472)
- 840 – Junna, emperor of Japan (b. 785)
- 884 – Shi Jingsi, general of the Tang Dynasty
- 888 – Rimbert, archbishop of Bremen (b. 830)
- 1183 – Henry the Young King of England (b. 1155)
- 1216 – Henry of Flanders, emperor of the Latin Empire (poisoned) (b. c. 1174)
- 1248 – Adachi Kagemori, Japanese samurai
- 1298 – Yolanda of Poland (b. 1235)
- 1323 – Bérenger Fredoli, French lawyer and bishop (b. 1250)
- 1345 – Alexios Apokaukos, chief minister of the Byzantine Empire
- 1347 – Bartholomew of San Concordio, Italian Dominican canonist and man of letters (b. 1260)
- 1446 – Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick (b. 1425)
- 1479 – John of Sahagun, hermit and saint (b. 1419)
- 1488 – James III of Scotland (b. 1451)
- 1557 – John III of Portugal (b. 1502)
- 1560 – Mary of Guise, queen of James V of Scotland (b. 1515)
- 1695 – André Félibien, French historian and author (b. 1619)
- 1712 – Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme (b. 1654)
- 1727 – George I of Great Britain (b. 1660)
- 1748 – Felice Torelli, Italian painter (b. 1667)
- 1796 – Samuel Whitbread, English brewer and politician, founded the Whitbread Company (b. 1720)
- 1847 – John Franklin, English admiral and politician (b. 1786)
- 1852 – Karl Bryullov, Russian painter (b. 1799)
- 1859 – Klemens von Metternich, German-Austrian politician, 1st State Chancellor of the Austrian Empire (b. 1773)
- 1879 – William, Prince of Orange (b. 1840)
- 1882 – Louis Désiré Maigret, French bishop (b. 1804)
- 1885 – Matías Ramos Mejía, Argentinian colonel (b. 1810)
- 1897 – Henry Ayers, English-Australian politician, 8th Premier of South Australia (b. 1821)
- 1903 – Nikolai Bugaev, Russian mathematician and philosopher (b. 1837)
- 1903 – Alexander I of Serbia (b. 1876)
- 1903 – Draga Mašin, Serbian wife of Alexander I of Serbia (b. 1864)
- 1911 – James Curtis Hepburn, American physician and missionary (b. 1815)
- 1913 – Mahmud Shevket Pasha, Ottoman general and politician, 279th Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire (b. 1856)
- 1914 – Adolphus Frederick V, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (b. 1848)
- 1920 – William F. Halsey, Sr., American captain (b. 1853)
- 1924 – Théodore Dubois, French organist, composer, and educator (b. 1837)
- 1927 – William Attewell, English cricketer (b. 1861)
- 1934 – Lev Vygotsky, Belarusian-Russian psychologist and theorist (b. 1896)
- 1936 – Robert E. Howard, American author and poet (b. 1906)
- 1937 – R. J. Mitchell, English engineer, designed the Supermarine Spitfire (b. 1895)
- 1941 – Daniel Carter Beard, American author and illustrator, founded the Boy Scouts of America (b. 1850)
- 1955 – Pierre Levegh, French race car driver (b. 1905)
- 1962 – Chhabi Biswas, Indian actor and director (b. 1900)
- 1963 – Thích Quảng Đức, Vietnamese monk and martyr (b. 1897)
- 1965 – Paul B. Coremans, Belgian chemist and academic (b. 1908)
- 1965 – José Mendes Cabeçadas, Portuguese admiral and politician, 9th President of Portugal (b. 1883)
- 1970 – Frank Laubach, American missionary and mystic (b. 1884)
- 1974 – Eurico Gaspar Dutra, Brazilian general and politician, 16th President of Brazil (b. 1883)
- 1974 – Julius Evola, Italian philosopher and author (b. 1898)
- 1976 – Jim Konstanty, American baseball player (b. 1917)
- 1979 – Alice Dalgliesh, Trinidadian-American author and publisher (b. 1893)
- 1979 – John Wayne, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1907)
- 1983 – Ghanshyam Das Birla, Indian businessman and politician (b. 1894)
- 1984 – Enrico Berlinguer, Italian politician (b. 1922)
- 1986 – Chesley Bonestell, American painter and illustrator (b. 1888)
- 1991 – Cromwell Everson, South African composer (b. 1925)
- 1994 – A. Thurairajah, Sri Lankan engineer and academic (b. 1934)
- 1995 – Rodel Naval, Filipino singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1953)
- 1996 – George Hees, Canadian politician (b. 1910)
- 1996 – Brigitte Helm, German-Swiss actress (b. 1908)
- 1998 – Nathan Cook, American actor (b. 1950)
- 1998 – Catherine Cookson, English author (b. 1906)
- 1999 – DeForest Kelley, American actor and screenwriter (b. 1920)
- 2001 – Timothy McVeigh, American terrorist (b. 1968)
- 2001 – Amalia Mendoza, Mexican singer and actress (b. 1923)
- 2003 – David Brinkley, American journalist and author (b. 1920)
- 2004 – Egon von Fürstenberg, Swiss fashion designer (b. 1946)
- 2005 – Vasco Gonçalves, Portuguese general and politician, 103rd Prime Minister of Portugal (b. 1922)
- 2005 – Anne-Marie Alonzo, Canadian playwright, poet, novelist, critic and publisher (b. 1951)
- 2006 – Neroli Fairhall, New Zealand archer (b. 1944)
- 2006 – Bruce Shand, English soldier (b. 1917)
- 2007 – Imre Friedmann, American biologist and academic (b. 1921)
- 2007 – Mala Powers, American actress (b. 1931)
- 2008 – Ove Andersson, Swedish race car driver (b. 1938)
- 2008 – Võ Văn Kiệt, Vietnamese soldier and politician, 5th Prime Minister of Vietnam (b. 1922)
- 2011 – Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Israeli physicist and engineer (b. 1947)
- 2011 – Seth Putnam, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1968)
- 2012 – Ann Rutherford, Canadian-American actress (b. 1917)
- 2012 – Teófilo Stevenson, Cuban boxer and engineer (b. 1952)
- 2013 – Miller Barber, American golfer (b. 1931)
- 2013 – Carl W. Bauer, American lawyer and politician (b. 1933)
- 2013 – Robert Fogel, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1926)
- 2013 – James Grimsley, Jr., American general (b. 1921)
- 2013 – Rory Morrison, English journalist (b. 1964)
- 2013 – Kristiāns Pelšs, Latvian ice hockey player (b. 1992)
- 2013 – Vidya Charan Shukla, Indian politician, Indian Minister of External Affairs (b. 1929)
- 2014 – Ruby Dee, American actress (b. 1922)
- 2014 – Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Spanish conductor and composer (b. 1933)
- 2014 – Susan B. Horwitz, American computer scientist, engineer, and academic (b. 1955)
- 2014 – Mipham Chokyi Lodro, Tibetan lama and educator (b. 1952)
- 2014 – Benjamin Mophatlane, South African businessman (b. 1973)
- 2014 – Carlton Sherwood, American soldier and journalist (b. 1947)
- 2015 – Jim Ed Brown, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1934)
- 2015 – Ornette Coleman, American saxophonist, violinist, trumpet player, and composer (b. 1930)
- 2015 – Ian McKechnie, Scottish footballer and manager (b. 1941)
- 2015 – Ron Moody, English actor and singer (b. 1924)
- 2015 – Dusty Rhodes, American professional wrestler (b. 1945)
- 2016 – Rudi Altig, German track and road racing cyclist (b. 1937)
- American Evacuation Day (Libya)
- Birthday of Prince Henrik (Denmark)
- Brazilian Navy commemorative day (Brazil)
- Christian feast day:
- Davis Day (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada)
- Kamehameha Day (Hawaii, United States)
- Student Day (Honduras)
“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”Colossians 3:13 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
Morning
If God had willed it, each of us might have entered heaven at the moment of conversion. It was not absolutely necessary for our preparation for immortality that we should tarry here. It is possible for a man to be taken to heaven, and to be found meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light, though he has but just believed in Jesus. It is true that our sanctification is a long and continued process, and we shall not be perfected till we lay aside our bodies and enter within the veil; but nevertheless, had the Lord so willed it, he might have changed us from imperfection to perfection, and have taken us to heaven at once. Why then are we here? Would God keep his children out of paradise a single moment longer than was necessary? Why is the army of the living God still on the battle-field when one charge might give them the victory? Why are his children still wandering hither and thither through a maze, when a solitary word from his lips would bring them into the centre of their hopes in heaven? The answer is--they are here that they may "live unto the Lord," and may bring others to know his love. We remain on earth as sowers to scatter good seed; as ploughmen to break up the fallow ground; as heralds publishing salvation. We are here as the "salt of the earth," to be a blessing to the world. We are here to glorify Christ in our daily life. We are here as workers for him, and as "workers together with him." Let us see that our life answereth its end. Let us live earnest, useful, holy lives, to "the praise of the glory of his grace." Meanwhile we long to be with him, and daily sing--
"My heart is with him on his throne,
And ill can brook delay;
Each moment listening for the voice,
Rise up, and come away.'"
Evening
Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega of the Bible. He is the constant theme of its sacred pages; from first to last they testify of him. At the creation we at once discern him as one of the sacred Trinity; we catch a glimpse of him in the promise of the woman's seed; we see him typified in the ark of Noah; we walk with Abraham, as he sees Messiah's day; we dwell in the tents of Isaac and Jacob, feeding upon the gracious promise; we hear the venerable Israel talking of Shiloh; and in the numerous types of the law, we find the Redeemer abundantly foreshadowed. Prophets and kings, priests and preachers, all look one way--they all stand as the cherubs did over the ark, desiring to look within, and to read the mystery of God's great propitiation. Still more manifestly in the New Testament we find our Lord the one pervading subject. It is not an ingot here and there, or dust of gold thinly scattered, but here you stand upon a solid floor of gold; for the whole substance of the New Testament is Jesus crucified, and even its closing sentence is bejewelled with the Redeemer's name. We should always read Scripture in this light; we should consider the word to be as a mirror into which Christ looks down from heaven; and then we, looking into it, see his face reflected as in a glass--darkly, it is true, but still in such a way as to be a blessed preparation for seeing him as we shall see him face to face. This volume contains Jesus Christ's letters to us, perfumed by his love. These pages are the garments of our King, and they all smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia. Scripture is the royal chariot in which Jesus rides, and it is paved with love for the daughters of Jerusalem. The Scriptures are the swaddling bands of the holy child Jesus; unroll them and you find your Saviour. The quintessence of the word of God is Christ.
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Joram
[Jō'ram] - jehovah is high.
[Jō'ram] - jehovah is high.
- A son of Toi, king of Zobah (2 Sam. 8:10). Called Hadoram, meaning "Hadah is exalted" (1 Chron. 18:10).
- A son of Jehoshaphat, who reigned for eight years (2 Kings 8:16-19; 11:2; 1 Chron. 3:11; Matt. 1:8). Called also Jehoram.
- A son of Ahab, king of Israel, who reigned for eleven years. With him the dynasty of Omri ceased ( 2 Kings 8:16-29). Called also Jehoram.
- A Levite, descendant of Eliezer the son of Moses (1 Chron. 26:25).
- One of the priests sent by Jehoshaphat to instruct the people (2 Chron. 17:8).
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Today's reading: 2 Chronicles 34-36, John 19:1-22 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: 2 Chronicles 34-36
Josiah's Reforms
1 Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years. 2 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and followed the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.
3 In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David. In his twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, Asherah poles and idols....Today's New Testament reading: John 19:1-22
1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3 and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they slapped him in the face.
4 Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, "Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him." 5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, "Here is the man!"
6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, "Crucify! Crucify!"
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