One result of the fracturing of institutional assets and the promotion of division through minorities is sexual assault. Just as a policeman asking for ID is grounds for racial vilification claims, asking for sex can have unintended consequences. NSW is springing into action, not addressing the issue, but changing the means of expressing consent. The result will be it is easier for lawyers to view evidence in case of dispute. It is probably naive of me to say getting married to each other might inform consent? And domestic abuse is wrong. Is it really so hard to say it is wrong for a twenty something guy to have sex with a teen in a back alley and she was so drunk she couldn't stay conscious? Will the new law address the issue?
Church leadership in Australia is at a bad low. Cardinal Pell is representative of the glory of the Catholic Church under John Paul II. Brian Houston does a great job with Hillsong, but the leadership of Anglicans and Uniting is sad and depressing, with one expecting to hear them call for AGW support or collections in support of socialism in place of God. Would it surprise anyone if a prominent charity was found to be giving money to terrorists in so called Palestine? Supporting BDS? One does not have to be Jewish to recognise the Holocaust was wrong, but one expects people supporting God would never facilitate it. Historically, good work of missionaries in Australia is now despised by support of the dangerous myth of a stolen generation where it is supported that sexual abuse of children by their relatives is cultural. Maybe those Christian leaders supporting Gaia need to be reminded that Jesus killed a tree. Read my book Bread of Life for a view on Christianity today. If you don't want to kill a tree, read it on kindle.
A daily column on what the ALP have as a policy, supported by a local member, and how it has 'helped' the local community. I'll stop if I cannot identify a policy. Feel free to make suggestions. Contact me on FB, not twitter. I have twitter, but never look at it.
Gabrielle Williams was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Carers and Volunteers, working with the Minister for Housing, Disability and Ageing and the Minister for Families and Children. I am running a campaign against Williams for the seat of Dandenong. The ALP have proposed laws changing fundraising in campaigning for their benefit, at expense of taxpayers who will fund it increasingly, or Victorians who will endure it increasingly. My campaign is low cost, I will approach private business and people on the street or through social media. In my last three campaigns I raised no money and paid all expenses. But the ALP want to fix it so that if I have no expenses to declare they will not pay me a return for votes, even if I exceed 4% of votes. Further, they propose capping private donations to $1k, but allowing unions to funnel any amount directly to the ALP through special provision. Also, along with Williams winning the seat and taking her constituents for granted, the ALP will give themselves $10k for each seat they have to maintain their office. That money is to go to any sitting member, including Liberal or Greens (Nationals? DLP?) but not to any independent who does not get the numbers to have a seat. So my campaign on Education, Crime and Employment in Dandenong gets stifled and Williams campaign on social inclusion, school child gender dysphoria, and AFL tickets for criminals, gets heavily promoted.
As part of the November 24th Vic election campaign I have a petition I want to bring before the Opposition Leader Matthew Guy. I believe Matthew will be the next premier of Victoria and so I am petitioning him as I raise the issues of Employment, Crime and Education in Dandenong. I am also seeking money for my campaign. I don't have party resources, and so my campaign is on foot, and on the internet. Any money I receive that is not spent on the campaign will go to Grow 4 Life. I am asking questions like "What do you love about Dandenong?" and "If you could change something in Dandenong to make it better, what would it be?" I'm not limiting the questions to state issues. I'm happy to discuss anything, and get things done.
Here is a video I made Fat Old Hugh Grant
He never says anything, but he says it all. Comedy.
David Ball10 years ago
Yep there is a point. It is a mimic of Hugh Grant's on screen work .. he talks around the point and, endearingly, never gets to it. You'll notice this if you look at any of his films .. he is a genius. Sorry I'm not, but this is also a joke ;)
boumqueefster5 years ago
really great video well done very funny and witty
really great video well done very funny and witty
=== from 2017 ===
Some things should not happen, but they do. There is discussion regarding Scott Ludlum, WA Green senator who has been found to have been illegally elected, should pay back his salary and entitlements. He has dual nationality, and has signed documents clearly stating he doesn't. More saliently, what of the political party that failed to properly vet him? Scott has been party to some appallingly bad senate decisions during his nearly ten years in the federal senate. Can his bad legislation be overturned? He came to Australia age 3, and now, forty four years later, has not notably become more responsible.
In 484 BC, dedication of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in ancient Rome. Castor and Pollux were twins, according to Greek Legend. Castor was the son of the king of Sparta, while Pollux was the son of Zeus. Ancient Greeks hadn't got a strong handle on things, Helen of Troy and her twin Sister Clytamnestra were twin half sisters. One feels Leda had a legendary birth. Rome, at this time had recently fought a battle against her last king with the armies of her new republic. The republic won, but only after Castor and Pollux were seen to help in battle, and again spotted during the triumph celebration. 756, An Lushan Rebellion: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang was ordered by his Imperial Guards to execute chancellor Yang Guozhong by forcing him to commit suicide or face a mutiny. He permitted his consort Yang Guifei to be strangled by his chief eunuch. General An Lushan had other members of the emperor's family killed. Such few words mask the tragedy. An Lushan had been highly prized by the Tang emperor. He had been given an enormous house, beautiful furniture and immense trust which he betrayed. The elderly emperor fled to secure countryside with his court. But the court panicked, blaming his chancellor who had antagonised An Lushan. They also hated his cousin and her sisters. Imagine how the Tang Emperor felt having to order the killing of his concubine to preserve his worthless life? 1099, First Crusade: Christian soldiers took the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final assault of a difficult siege. 1149, the reconstructed Church of the Holy Sepulchre was consecrated in Jerusalem. 1207, King John of England expelled Canterbury monks for supporting Archbishop Stephen Langton. 1240, Swedish–Novgorodian Wars: A Novgorodian army led by Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes in the Battle of the Neva. 1381, John Ball, a leader in the Peasants' Revolt, was hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of King Richard II of England.
In 1410, Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War: Battle of Grunwald – the allied forces of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeated the army of the Teutonic Order. 1685, Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth was executed at Tower Hill, England after his defeat at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. 1741, Aleksei Chirikov sighted land in Southeast Alaska. He sent men ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska. 1789, Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, was named by acclamation Colonel General of the new National Guard of Paris. 1799, the Rosetta Stone was found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.
1815, Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered aboard HMS Bellerophon. 1823, a fire destroyed the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, Italy. 1834, the Spanish Inquisition was officially disbanded after nearly 356 years. 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School, discounting Biblical miracles and declaring Jesus a great man, but not God. The Protestant community reacted with outrage.
In 1910, in his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gave a name to Alzheimer's disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer. 1955, Eighteen Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by thirty-four others. 1966, Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnam began Operation Hastings to push the North Vietnamese out of the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. 1975, Space Race: Apollo–Soyuz Test Project featured the dual launch of an Apollo spacecraft and a Soyuz spacecraft on the first joint Soviet-United States human-crewed flight. It was both the last launch of an Apollo spacecraft, and the Saturn family of rockets. 1979, U.S. President Jimmy Carter gave his so-called malaise speech, where he characterised the greatest threat to the country as "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation" but in which he never used the word malaise.
1997, in Miami, Florida, serial killer Andrew Cunanan gunned down Gianni Versace outside his home. 2002, "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pled guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and to possession of explosives during the commission of a felony. Also 2002, Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan handed down the death sentence to British born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life terms to three others suspected of murdering The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
In 484 BC, dedication of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in ancient Rome. Castor and Pollux were twins, according to Greek Legend. Castor was the son of the king of Sparta, while Pollux was the son of Zeus. Ancient Greeks hadn't got a strong handle on things, Helen of Troy and her twin Sister Clytamnestra were twin half sisters. One feels Leda had a legendary birth. Rome, at this time had recently fought a battle against her last king with the armies of her new republic. The republic won, but only after Castor and Pollux were seen to help in battle, and again spotted during the triumph celebration. 756, An Lushan Rebellion: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang was ordered by his Imperial Guards to execute chancellor Yang Guozhong by forcing him to commit suicide or face a mutiny. He permitted his consort Yang Guifei to be strangled by his chief eunuch. General An Lushan had other members of the emperor's family killed. Such few words mask the tragedy. An Lushan had been highly prized by the Tang emperor. He had been given an enormous house, beautiful furniture and immense trust which he betrayed. The elderly emperor fled to secure countryside with his court. But the court panicked, blaming his chancellor who had antagonised An Lushan. They also hated his cousin and her sisters. Imagine how the Tang Emperor felt having to order the killing of his concubine to preserve his worthless life? 1099, First Crusade: Christian soldiers took the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final assault of a difficult siege. 1149, the reconstructed Church of the Holy Sepulchre was consecrated in Jerusalem. 1207, King John of England expelled Canterbury monks for supporting Archbishop Stephen Langton. 1240, Swedish–Novgorodian Wars: A Novgorodian army led by Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes in the Battle of the Neva. 1381, John Ball, a leader in the Peasants' Revolt, was hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of King Richard II of England.
In 1410, Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War: Battle of Grunwald – the allied forces of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeated the army of the Teutonic Order. 1685, Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth was executed at Tower Hill, England after his defeat at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. 1741, Aleksei Chirikov sighted land in Southeast Alaska. He sent men ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska. 1789, Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, was named by acclamation Colonel General of the new National Guard of Paris. 1799, the Rosetta Stone was found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.
1815, Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered aboard HMS Bellerophon. 1823, a fire destroyed the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, Italy. 1834, the Spanish Inquisition was officially disbanded after nearly 356 years. 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School, discounting Biblical miracles and declaring Jesus a great man, but not God. The Protestant community reacted with outrage.
In 1910, in his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gave a name to Alzheimer's disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer. 1955, Eighteen Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by thirty-four others. 1966, Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnam began Operation Hastings to push the North Vietnamese out of the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. 1975, Space Race: Apollo–Soyuz Test Project featured the dual launch of an Apollo spacecraft and a Soyuz spacecraft on the first joint Soviet-United States human-crewed flight. It was both the last launch of an Apollo spacecraft, and the Saturn family of rockets. 1979, U.S. President Jimmy Carter gave his so-called malaise speech, where he characterised the greatest threat to the country as "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation" but in which he never used the word malaise.
1997, in Miami, Florida, serial killer Andrew Cunanan gunned down Gianni Versace outside his home. 2002, "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pled guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and to possession of explosives during the commission of a felony. Also 2002, Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan handed down the death sentence to British born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life terms to three others suspected of murdering The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
=== from 2016 ===
A little girl was killed today, clutching a doll, watching fireworks in celebration of freedom. Bastille Day in France is a celebration of the overthrow of tyranny and the foundation of Democracy in Modern Europe. The Bastille only housed seven inmates at the time and in the actual defence of it, only one soldier was killed, and some 98 attackers. The commander of the Bastille was lynched and more blood was shed. The importance of the Bastille lay in the symbolic value of it being royal, and it having incarcerated writers and pamphleteers in the recent past, before it was liberated. The little girl killed today was one of eighty known at the time of writing this. More may follow who were injured by a jihadi in a truck. He was from Tunisia, 31 years old and armed with guns, grenades and the like. He wanted to kill that girl. And he wanted to kill the others too. What had France ever done to him? Had France helped him? There is a myth about terrorists having reasons for their activity. They do. They serve Satan. As do their defenders. There is a new tyranny in France at the moment. Political correctness, which excuses terrorism, is a threat to the existence of France. And France needs the spirit of the siege of the Bastille to overthrow the tyranny and rid themselves of terrorists.
Vive France
Vive France
=== from 2015 ===
It is worth remembering how bad Jimmy Carter was as President. He gave his "Malaise Speech on this day in 1979. He hadn't used the word malaise, but described it well, "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation." Carter was religious, but in political terms a terrible socialist who had not protected the important institutions he had been given as sacred trust as President. And in failing to protect cultural assets, he threatened the world with bad policy. Obama is a kindred spirit and the malaise felt through the US now is an expression of that. A dangerous policy of Obama has become a deal for Iran. Iran will be allowed to manufacture a large nuclear power station capable of producing nuclear weapons. The power station has no other purpose, as, were it to manufacture energy and medical isotopes efficiently it would be smaller. And the US will help Iran build ballistic missiles to launch those weapons in ten years. It is an awful deal for anyone who prizes world peace. It is also an example of the new cold war which Obama has reinstated. China and Russia are rising as regional powers to bully smaller nations. Iran and her victims are no more than pawns.
Children of the Unabomber are demanding we return to times past they view as utopia. A time with people being old in their forties, with 50% death rates for babies. A time where 20% of women die in childbirth. A time without dental care, or eye care. A time when there aren't fat people because they have died. A time with no medication for diabetes, arthritis or cancer. A time when food was cooked using a log fire, or excrement. They are insane.
Bill Shorten is continuing to obfuscate on policy. ALP are determined to introduce a price on carbon dioxide, which is little different to their tax. A tax on plant food. A tax hurting the poorest the most. They feel it is a vote winner, if only they can sneak it past the electorate.
Children of the Unabomber are demanding we return to times past they view as utopia. A time with people being old in their forties, with 50% death rates for babies. A time where 20% of women die in childbirth. A time without dental care, or eye care. A time when there aren't fat people because they have died. A time with no medication for diabetes, arthritis or cancer. A time when food was cooked using a log fire, or excrement. They are insane.
Bill Shorten is continuing to obfuscate on policy. ALP are determined to introduce a price on carbon dioxide, which is little different to their tax. A tax on plant food. A tax hurting the poorest the most. They feel it is a vote winner, if only they can sneak it past the electorate.
From 2014
I don't often focus on those who died, it is the life of a person that is testament to their character. But time stretches things, and alters meaning, and it is important to revisit what happened. Some despise the Crusades, pointing to the futile and death and despair, linked to religion. But that final assault of the first Crusade in 1099 led to the foundation of a remarkable jewel, a European nation in the Middle East with knights and castles and peoples speaking French. The dreams of those people being realized fifty years after on the same day with a reconstructed church. But while those people died with their dream intact, the dream did not last as long as two hundred years. It is worth thinking of that while considering a fractured United States in the 1860's and her great leader, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln died, and his dream of a United States was being realized. He left behind children. But one child died on this day in 1871, Tad Lincoln. Tad was only 18 years old. He had not been well educated, as he had had a speech impediment and cleft lip and was reputed to be impulsive and unrestrained. He was known to interrupt meetings in the white house and even charge visitors to see his dad. When his father was assassinated, Tad was taken to see his dying dad, and aftterwards is recorded as having said "Pa is dead. I can hardly believe that I shall never see him again. I must learn to take care of myself now. Yes, Pa is dead, and I am only Tad Lincoln now, little Tad, like other little boys. I am not a president's son now. I won't have many presents anymore. Well, I will try and be a good boy, and will hope to go someday to Pa and brother Willie, in Heaven."
Tad's passing was not the end of the Lincoln line. The last recorded Lincoln was Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith who died in 1985. There is a disputed son of Robert's but it is a mistake to link mere property and progeny as being Lincoln's heritage. It is Liberty. The freedom of anyone to prosper regardless of colour, or creed. And it is not linked solely to the US, but to all lands aligned with her. And so on this day a young man trying to be good went to be with his family. But today, we have the liberty to be with our living ones.
John Ball was executed on this day. He was hung, drawn and quartered. As an itinerant preacher, Ball, inspired by the work of Wycliffe, had preached of egalitarian values during a time of high taxation. The then King Richard II was about fourteen years old and ruling with the aid of advisers who were infighting for political power. Richard II's grandfather had England fighting an expensive war with France. Much credit is given the young king for facing his rebellious subjects. However, John's preaching was inconsistent with what England could accept, he called for an end to serfdom. Serfdom would end in England, but it needed the civil war to end the old world. In some ways, the execution of John was the beginning of the English Civil War known as the War of the Roses.
The Rosetta Stone was found on this day, 1799 by French soldiers of Napoleon. It had been made circa 200 BC during the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes. It is a decree, the same decree, in three different languages. Two thousand years after it was made, no one knew how to read Egyptian hieroglyphs anymore. However, two of the languages were known, and because it was the same text, it became the key to understanding how Egyptian was written. And so now all the writing in Egypt is available for the world to learn about what life was like back then.
The Rosetta Stone was found on this day, 1799 by French soldiers of Napoleon. It had been made circa 200 BC during the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes. It is a decree, the same decree, in three different languages. Two thousand years after it was made, no one knew how to read Egyptian hieroglyphs anymore. However, two of the languages were known, and because it was the same text, it became the key to understanding how Egyptian was written. And so now all the writing in Egypt is available for the world to learn about what life was like back then.
Historical perspective on this day
In 484 BC, dedication of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in ancient Rome. 756, An Lushan Rebellion: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang was ordered by his Imperial Guards to execute chancellor Yang Guozhong by forcing him to commit suicide or face a mutiny. He permitted his consort Yang Guifei to be strangled by his chief eunuch. General An Lushan had other members of the emperor's family killed. 1099, First Crusade: Christian soldiers took the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final assault of a difficult siege. 1149, the reconstructed Church of the Holy Sepulchre was consecrated in Jerusalem. 1207, King John of England expelled Canterbury monks for supporting Archbishop Stephen Langton. 1240, Swedish–Novgorodian Wars: A Novgorodian army led by Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes in the Battle of the Neva. 1381, John Ball, a leader in the Peasants' Revolt, was hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of King Richard II of England.
In 1410, Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War: Battle of Grunwald – the allied forces of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeated the army of the Teutonic Order. 1482, Muhammad XII was crowned the twenty-second and last Nasrid king of Granada. 1685, Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth was executed at Tower Hill, England after his defeat at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. 1741, Aleksei Chirikov sighted land in Southeast Alaska. He sent men ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska. 1789, Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, was named by acclamation Colonel General of the new National Guard of Paris. 1799, the Rosetta Stone was found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.
In 1806, Pike expedition: United States Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike began an expedition from Fort Bellefontaine near St. Louis, Missouri, to explore the west. 1815, Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered aboard HMS Bellerophon. 1823, a fire destroyed the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, Italy. 1834, the Spanish Inquisition was officially disbanded after nearly 356 years. 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School, discounting Biblical miracles and declaring Jesus a great man, but not God. The Protestant community reacted with outrage. 1870, Reconstruction Era of the United States: Georgia became the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union. Also 1870, Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory were transferred to Canada from the Hudson's Bay Company, and the province of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories were established from these vast territories. 1888, the stratovolcano Mount Bandai erupted killing approximately 500 people, in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
In 1910, in his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gave a name to Alzheimer's disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer. 1916, in Seattle, Washington, William Boeingand George Conrad Westervelt incorporated Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing). 1918, World War I: The Second Battle of the Marne began near the River Marne with a German attack. 1920, the Polish Parliament established Silesian Voivodeship before the Polish-German plebiscite. 1922, Japanese Communist Party was established in Japan. 1927, Massacre of July 15, 1927: Eighty-nine protesters were killed by the Austrian police in Vienna.
In 1954, first flight of the Boeing 367-80, prototype for both the Boeing 707 and C-135 series. 1955, Eighteen Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by thirty-four others. 1959, the steel strike of 1959 began, leading to significant importation of foreign steel for the first time in United States history. 1966, Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnam began Operation Hastings to push the North Vietnamese out of the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. 1971, the United Red Army was founded in Japan. 1974, in Nicosia, Cyprus, Greek Junta-sponsored nationalists launched a coup d'état, deposing President Makarios and installing Nikos Sampson as Cypriot president. 1975, Space Race: Apollo–Soyuz Test Project featured the dual launch of an Apollo spacecraft and a Soyuz spacecraft on the first joint Soviet-United States human-crewed flight. It was both the last launch of an Apollo spacecraft, and the Saturn family of rockets. 1979, U.S. President Jimmy Carter gave his so-called malaise speech, where he characterised the greatest threat to the country as "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation" but in which he never used the word malaise.
In 1980, a massive storm tore through western Wisconsin, causing US$160 million in damage. 1983, Orly Airport attack was launched by Armenian militant organisation ASALA at the Paris-Orly Airport in Paris; it left 8 people dead and 55 injured. 1996, a Belgian Air Force C-130 Hercules carrying the Royal Netherlands Army marching band crashed on landing at Eindhoven Airport. 1997, in Miami, Florida, serial killer Andrew Cunanan gunned down Gianni Versace outside his home. 2002, "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pled guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and to possession of explosives during the commission of a felony. Also 2002, Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan handed down the death sentence to Britishborn Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life terms to three others suspected of murdering The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. 2003, AOL Time Warner disbanded Netscape. The Mozilla Foundation was established on the same day 2006, Twitter was launched, becoming one of the largest social media platforms in the world.
In 1410, Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War: Battle of Grunwald – the allied forces of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeated the army of the Teutonic Order. 1482, Muhammad XII was crowned the twenty-second and last Nasrid king of Granada. 1685, Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth was executed at Tower Hill, England after his defeat at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. 1741, Aleksei Chirikov sighted land in Southeast Alaska. He sent men ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska. 1789, Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, was named by acclamation Colonel General of the new National Guard of Paris. 1799, the Rosetta Stone was found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.
In 1806, Pike expedition: United States Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike began an expedition from Fort Bellefontaine near St. Louis, Missouri, to explore the west. 1815, Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered aboard HMS Bellerophon. 1823, a fire destroyed the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, Italy. 1834, the Spanish Inquisition was officially disbanded after nearly 356 years. 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School, discounting Biblical miracles and declaring Jesus a great man, but not God. The Protestant community reacted with outrage. 1870, Reconstruction Era of the United States: Georgia became the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union. Also 1870, Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory were transferred to Canada from the Hudson's Bay Company, and the province of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories were established from these vast territories. 1888, the stratovolcano Mount Bandai erupted killing approximately 500 people, in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
In 1910, in his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gave a name to Alzheimer's disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer. 1916, in Seattle, Washington, William Boeingand George Conrad Westervelt incorporated Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing). 1918, World War I: The Second Battle of the Marne began near the River Marne with a German attack. 1920, the Polish Parliament established Silesian Voivodeship before the Polish-German plebiscite. 1922, Japanese Communist Party was established in Japan. 1927, Massacre of July 15, 1927: Eighty-nine protesters were killed by the Austrian police in Vienna.
In 1954, first flight of the Boeing 367-80, prototype for both the Boeing 707 and C-135 series. 1955, Eighteen Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by thirty-four others. 1959, the steel strike of 1959 began, leading to significant importation of foreign steel for the first time in United States history. 1966, Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnam began Operation Hastings to push the North Vietnamese out of the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. 1971, the United Red Army was founded in Japan. 1974, in Nicosia, Cyprus, Greek Junta-sponsored nationalists launched a coup d'état, deposing President Makarios and installing Nikos Sampson as Cypriot president. 1975, Space Race: Apollo–Soyuz Test Project featured the dual launch of an Apollo spacecraft and a Soyuz spacecraft on the first joint Soviet-United States human-crewed flight. It was both the last launch of an Apollo spacecraft, and the Saturn family of rockets. 1979, U.S. President Jimmy Carter gave his so-called malaise speech, where he characterised the greatest threat to the country as "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation" but in which he never used the word malaise.
In 1980, a massive storm tore through western Wisconsin, causing US$160 million in damage. 1983, Orly Airport attack was launched by Armenian militant organisation ASALA at the Paris-Orly Airport in Paris; it left 8 people dead and 55 injured. 1996, a Belgian Air Force C-130 Hercules carrying the Royal Netherlands Army marching band crashed on landing at Eindhoven Airport. 1997, in Miami, Florida, serial killer Andrew Cunanan gunned down Gianni Versace outside his home. 2002, "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pled guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and to possession of explosives during the commission of a felony. Also 2002, Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan handed down the death sentence to Britishborn Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life terms to three others suspected of murdering The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. 2003, AOL Time Warner disbanded Netscape. The Mozilla Foundation was established on the same day 2006, Twitter was launched, becoming one of the largest social media platforms in the world.
=== 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 Jason J-Fo, Dominic Philibert, Ivan Ly, Michael Ta and Krista Tamba. Born on the same day, across the years. A day on which in 1240, A Novgorodian army led by Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes on the Neva River near Ust-Izhora, present-day Russia. 1799, French soldiers uncovered the Rosetta Stone in Fort Julien, near the Egyptian port city of Rashid. 1815, Aboard HMS Bellerophon, Napoleon surrendered to Royal Navy Captain Frederick Lewis Maitland to finally end the Napoleonic Wars. 1959, Five hundred thousand American steelworkers went on strike, closing nearly every steel mill in the country. 1983, Armenian extremist organization ASALA bombed the Turkish Airlines check-in counter at Orly Airport as part of its campaign for the recognition of and reparations for the Armenian Genocide. Who doesn't enjoy the taste of Swedes? Unlocking the code of hidden languages may seem adventurous, but nothing like the rush of accepting Napoleonic surrender. Those metalworkers didn't give up and neither should the Armenians. Cheers for the day.
- 1273 – Ewostatewos, Ethiopian monk (d. 1352)
- 1573 – Inigo Jones, English architect, designed the Queen's House (d. 1652)
- 1606 – Rembrandt, Dutch painter (d. 1669)
- 1638 – Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1693)
- 1779 – Clement Clarke Moore, American author, poet, and educator (d. 1863)
- 1850 – Francesca S. Cabrini, Italian-American nun and saint (d. 1917)
- 1858 – Emmeline Pankhurst, English activist (d. 1928)
- 1864 – Marie Tempest, English actress and singer (d. 1942)
- 1865 – Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, Irish-English publisher, founded the Amalgamated Press (d. 1922)
- 1871 – Kunikida Doppo, Japanese author (d. 1908)
- 1905 – Dorothy Fields, American songwriter (d. 1974)
- 1918 – Brenda Milner, English-Canadian neuropsychologist
- 1919 – Iris Murdoch, Irish-English philosopher and author (d. 1999)
- 1930 – Jacques Derrida, French philosopher (d. 2004)
- 1934 – Harrison Birtwistle, English composer
- 1946 – Linda Ronstadt, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress (Stone Poneys and Free Creek)
- 1947 – Peter Banks, English guitarist and songwriter (Yes, The Syn, and Flash) (d. 2013)
- 1949 – Trevor Horn, English singer-songwriter, keyboard player, and producer (The Buggles, Art of Noise, and Producers)
- 1950 – Colin Barnett, Australian politician, 29th Premier of Western Australia
- 1950 – Arianna Huffington, Greek-American author and journalist, founded The Huffington Post
- 1951 – Jesse Ventura, American wrestler, actor, and politician, 38th Governor of Minnesota
- 1956 – Ian Curtis, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Joy Division) (d. 1980)
- 1961 – Forest Whitaker, American actor, director, and producer
- 1976 – Gabriel Iglesias, American comedian and actor
- 1976 – Diane Kruger, German-American actress and model
- 1991 – Yuki Kashiwagi, Japanese singer and actress (AKB48 and French Kiss)
- 1993 – Håvard Nielsen, Norwegian footballer
- 1274 – Bonaventure, Italian bishop and saint (b. 1221)
- 1381 – John Ball, English priest (b. 1338)
- 1871 – Tad Lincoln, American son of Abraham Lincoln (b. 1853)
- 1904 – Anton Chekhov, Russian physician and author (b. 1860)
- 1958 – Julia Lennon, English mother of John Lennon (b. 1914)
- 1977 – Donald Mackay, Australian activist (b. 1933)
- 1815 – Aboard HMS Bellerophon(pictured), Napoleon surrendered to Royal Navy Captain Frederick Lewis Maitland to finally end the Napoleonic Wars.
- 1870 – Manitoba and the Northwest Territories were established following the transfer of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory from the Hudson's Bay Company to Canada.
- 1910 – In his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gave a name to Alzheimer's disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer.
- 1983 – Armenian extremist organization ASALA bombed the Turkish Airlines check-in counter at Orly Airport as part of its campaign for the recognition of and reparations for the Armenian Genocide.
- 2009 – Caspian Airlines Flight 7908 crashed in northwestern Iran, killing all 168 people aboard.
My my, on Bellerophon Napoleon did surrender. Rupert didn't mind. I forget why it was named after him. Please don't bomb to spread ideas. Only fly quality. Let's party.
Piers Akerman 2018
If you don’t back The Don, you’re a problem
PIERS AKERMAN DONALD Trump is giving global leaders a long overdue lesson in realpolitik. On the world stage, he is the only Western politician making a difference, Piers Akerman writes.
===Miranda Devine 2018
The secret that made the Thai cave rescue possible
MIRANDA DEVINE HEROISM and a triumph of science saw the Wild Boars and their coach safe, but this extraordinary mission was propelled by the qualities that make humanity great, writes Miranda Devine.
Trump’s blunt truth about the death of Europe
MIRANDA DEVINE ANGELA Merkel’s virtue signalling has weakened the European Union, fuelled Brexit and spurred the far-right. The US President is the only one with the audacity to say it, writes Miranda Devine.
What should be done about gun control in NSW?
MIRANDA LIVE IN THE wake of shooting in West Pennant Hills — where teen siblings Jack and Jennifer Edwards were murdered by their father — Miranda Devine asks Police Minister Troy Grant what more can be done. She also speaks to News Corporation reporter Paul Toohey about the amazing Thai cave rescue operation.
Cave kids were exposed to ‘nightmare conditions’
MIRANDA LIVE The rescued boys trapped for two weeks in Thailand may have been exposed to dangerous cave diseases, an expert has warned.
What happens next for the Thai cave boys
MIRANDA LIVE Most of the boys are out of the cave, but the rescue isn’t over yet. The challenges they face have only just begun. Miranda Live will explore the physical and psychological toll this trauma will take on the kids - and reporter Paul Toohey crosses live from the rescue site. Tune in from 4pm.
Lauren Southern’s Australian visa approved
BAN CONTROVERSIAL YouTube star Lauren Southern says Australia has placed an “unprecedented” number of hurdles to stop her entering the country.
Inside the Thai cave rescue plan
MIRANDA LIVE Listen to Miranda Devine as she crosses live to reporter Paul Toohey in Thailand as authorities rush to save the remaining students trapped in a cave. Catch up on the show here.
THIS IS NOT A TRIBUTE
Tim Blair – Friday, July 15, 2016 (6:12pm)
After so many repetitions, these events are now actually insults. They are not about the victims. They are about the mourners. They are indulgent displays of emotion that serve only to generate soothing feelings of moral comfort and to mask what should be a united and righteous fury:
Tonight’s attendees should consider this. While you see every lit candle as a poignant reminder of life’s tragic fragility, Islamic State sees them as post-game bonus points.
Tonight’s attendees should consider this. While you see every lit candle as a poignant reminder of life’s tragic fragility, Islamic State sees them as post-game bonus points.
RESPECT RICHARD’S DIVERSITAH
Tim Blair – Friday, July 15, 2016 (3:09pm)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump:
This is war.
Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton:
It’s clear we are at war with these terrorist groups and what they represent.
French Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve:
We are at war with terrorists who are extremely violent and want to strike us at all cost.
Australian Greens leader Richard Di Natale:
Our thoughts are with the people of France after another shocking act of violence towards their peaceful country.On behalf of the Australian Greens I extend our sincere condolences to the victims, their loved ones, and all those who will be forever changed by what they experienced today.This horrendous crime occurs at a time when the world is still reeling from the senseless acts of violence in Istanbul and Dallas. In the face of attacks like this we must strengthen our commitment to peaceful democracy, respect for diversity and building cohesion in our global community.
UNLIKE 80 PEOPLE IN FRANCE, JONATHAN IS STILL STANDING
Tim Blair – Friday, July 15, 2016 (3:03pm)
In the wake of Nice, where the death toll is now at least 80, the ABC’s Jonathan Green stands by these words:
Our best defence is of course our cultured reason. Our tolerance. Our audacious confidence in the fundamental goodness of others.
Jonathan’s defence theory may be sound, but we should really run some tests to fully establish its validity. He’s already armed with cultured reason. I’ll hire the truck.
NICE ATTACKED
Tim Blair – Friday, July 15, 2016 (12:03pm)
A Bastille Day massacre in the south of France:
More than 70 people are believed dead after a truck ploughed into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in the French city of Nice in what police are now calling a terror attack.French newspaper Le Figaro is reporting at least 78 people have been killed and another 16 are critically injured …Witnesses have said the truck zigzagged down the street in an attempt to cause maximum damage.The French public prosecutor has confirmed the investigation has been taken over by anti-terrorist investigators …Le Figaro has reported guns and grenades were found by police in the truck after the driver was shot dead.Witnesses said the truck accelerated before it hit the crowd.Another witness said the driver of the truck exited and started shooting at police and the terrified crowd.
UPDATE. An earlier report from the Sydney Morning Herald: “The reason for the crash remains unclear.”
UPDATE II. “The driver of the truck was a 31-year-old Nice resident of Tunisian origin, le Figaro is reporting.”
UPDATE III. Hillary Clinton: “It’s clear we are at war with these terrorist groups and what they represent.”
UPDATE IV. Just following orders:
UPDATE IV. Just following orders:
Two years ago the IS spokesman Mohammed al-Adani, in a speech, called for the killing of disbelievers, including in Australia, using any means whatsoever, such as “run him over with your car”.“If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian or a Canadian, or any of the other disbelievers waging war (against us), including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah and kill them in any manner or way however it may be. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife or run him over with your car or throw him down from a high place or choke him or poison him,” al-Adani said at the time.
This is the third time Islamic murderers have used a truck as their weapon since 2014.
UPDATE V. “Many of the dead were children, French President Francois Hollande said … A second suspect is thought to have fled the scene and is believed to be on the run.”
UPDATE. Andrew C. comments from Nice:
I’ve been a reader of your blog for years. I was about 70 metres away from where the truck stopped. Had just finished watching the fireworks and hung around for a band on stage nearby, when suddenly, people screamed and started sprinting away. With Paris not that long ago we were all thinking “gunmen, shooting people”, and I think most of the crowd was as well, so we ran. Seeing thousands of people fleeing in pure terror is something I’ll never forget. France is a welcoming and lovely nation and it doesn’t deserve this.
STRAW DOGS
Tim Blair – Friday, July 15, 2016 (4:25am)
An extract from the Special Commission of Inquiry into the Greyhound Racing Industry in New South Wales, the report that convinced Mike Baird to ban greyhound racing:
The evidence shows that 40% of those greyhounds whelped never make it to the race track. As one breeder stated, “Dogs who don’t have the instinct [to chase] or the tools to be a consistent winner – well a good handler can spot it a mile away ... Most of the time I’d drown the pups.” In the greyhound industry, this mass slaughter of young and older greyhounds bred for the purpose of greyhound racing, and which are subsequently destroyed either prior to being named or raced, or upon retirement from racing, is euphemistically called “wastage” or euthanasia.
That breeder’s comment is credited to a 2008 study subsequently cited last year by the Australian Working Dog Alliance in their “Review & Assessment of Best Practice, Rearing, Socialisation, Education & Training Methods for Greyhounds in a Racing Context.” So it’s relatively recent and applies to Australia, right?
Wrong.
The comment comes from a 2005 report by Canadian academics Michael Atkinson and Kevin Young, and is from an American breeder identified only as Ernie. His full remarks reveal that he was discussing practices undertaken some years prior to the report’s decade-old publication:
Culling happens, it really does. As a breeder, one of the skills you acquire is the ability to look at a pup and watch its gait for potential. Dogs who don’t have the instinct [to chase] or the tools to be a consistent winner, well, a good handler can spot it a mile away. From time to time, a pup might have poor eyesight or be born blind, and that’s the worst … When a dog has no place in the business at all, you face an ugly task. We won’t risk letting the puppy go to a pet store or family, because they might breed it and get a champion from one of the litters. So, to save time and money on a dog, it, and any of its siblings in a similar condition, are culled … Most of the time, I’d drown the pups or, towards my last few years breeding them, I’d go to a local vet. No one I know tortures the dogs or neglects them, though. There’s no need for it.
Baird’s ban relied, at least in part, on abbreviated testimony from an unknown man somewhere in the US who was talking about something that happened before he stopped breeding greyhounds. Seems a flimsy basis upon which to outlaw an entire industry.
(Via Ray Hadley, who broke this story yesterday morning. Further greyhound controversy coverage and other report errors are in the Daily Telegraph.)
UPDATE. A precise summary from Warren Mundine.
FRIDAY SONGBOARD
Tim Blair – Friday, July 15, 2016 (4:21am)
All I wanna do is take your money.
IT’S INEXPLICABLE
Tim Blair – Friday, July 15, 2016 (4:10am)
An interesting demographic development:
The highest birthrate in Australia by nationality belongs to Lebanese mothers, who have an average 4.03 children – an anomaly experts have trouble explaining because the birthrate in Lebanon is only 1.74.
Must be something to do with terrible Australian racism.
THE QUESTION WE’RE ALL ASKING
Tim Blair – Friday, July 15, 2016 (3:50am)
Deep thoughts from Waleed Aly:
The question for me is not whether Pokémon Go is an ethical game, but what is the ethically informed way of playing Pokémon Go?
That’s a tough one, Waleed. Maybe the ethically informed way of playing Pokémon Go is to blame it on American conservatives.
NOBODY FIGHTS IN A TUXEDO
Tim Blair – Friday, July 15, 2016 (3:31am)
It’s not the sort of gentleman’s club I’m familiar with, but it’s still a great idea:
A teacher in South Carolina is going above and beyond to help young boys in his community become young gentlemen …Every Wednesday nearly 60 students at Memminger Elementary School dress for success and meet for the “Gentleman’s Club.”Raymond Nelson is the student support specialist at Memminger Elementary in Downtown Charleston, South Carolina. He works with at-risk children and over winter break thought of an idea to teach his students life lessons.“I was thinking maybe if I have the boys dress for success,” Nelson said to WCSC. “When was the last time you saw someone fighting in a tuxedo?”
Nelson teaches his kids the essential gentlemanly basics: how to shake hands, make eye contact, open doors, address their elders and so on. We could do with similar courses in Australia.
(Via Jason.)
Another terrorist attack in France. At least 70 reported dead
Andrew Bolt July 15 2016 (10:24am)
At least 70 people are reported dead after a truck loaded with arms and grenades ploughes into a crowd in Nice during Bastille Day celebrations, with the driver shooting at police.
Pro-Islamic State groups are celebrating, but we don’t yet know what motivated the attack.
An apparently Muslim witness interviewed by CNN - in an interview rebroadcast by the ABC - suggests this might have been the work of “an alienated” person “under pressure”. That kind of blame-shifting no longer works and is dangerous.
If this is another Islamist attack, I cannot see how Western countries can do anything other than halt mass immigration from the Muslim Third World. This is a civilisational threat.
===Pro-Islamic State groups are celebrating, but we don’t yet know what motivated the attack.
An apparently Muslim witness interviewed by CNN - in an interview rebroadcast by the ABC - suggests this might have been the work of “an alienated” person “under pressure”. That kind of blame-shifting no longer works and is dangerous.
If this is another Islamist attack, I cannot see how Western countries can do anything other than halt mass immigration from the Muslim Third World. This is a civilisational threat.
Turnbull’s $1 million shows his policy stank
Andrew Bolt July 15 2016 (9:12am)
Malcolm Turnbull’s own wallet is the proof that he lies when he claims his super changes did not affect the election. Sharri Markson:
===Turnbull donated $1 million of his own money to bail out the Liberal Party during the federal election campaign, so desperate was the party for finances…(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
The party was so desperate for funds midway through the eight-week campaign that it frantically approached powerful donors. Billionaire James Packer was one prominent businessman approached multiple times by senior party figures and individual candidates during the campaign.
The Australian understands the Liberal Party ... is now either in debt or broke, pending incoming funds from pledges made during the final week of the campaign…
Neither Mr Turnbull nor the Liberal Party denied that he had made a $1m donation to help salvage the campaign’s finances…
Apart from disorganisation in the Liberal Party headquarters, the Coalition’s superannuation policy is being blamed as another reason fundraising dollars dried up. Self-funded retirees, in particular, declined to donate or volunteer to the party. One senior Liberal source said: “To say it (super) had no impact is ludicrous. Donations dried up, there was tremendous anger.”<
Greens dying at last
Andrew Bolt July 15 2016 (9:02am)
Is Richard Di Natale the Meg Lees of the Greens? Or has the green religion simply peaked? Simon Benson:
Been there, prayed to that. Heaven did not come. Nor did Armageddon.
===OF all the excuses offered for their abysmal election outcome, the Greens leader Richard Di Natale’s has to take the cake.Since the 2010 election, the Greens have lost more than a third of their Senate vote. Power prices have meanwhile shot up, the disasters predicted by warmist extremists have failed to come and standards of living have fallen.
The reason the Greens did so badly, he claims, is because they themselves fell victim to a protest vote ... [P]eople have come to regard them as a major party.
And because this election was about protesting against major parties, the Greens suffered a similarly ignominious hiding as the Liberals and Labor…
As of yesterday counting in the Senate revealed a swing against the Greens of almost one per cent.
It stands to lose possibly three Senate spots… Its dream of a lower house crusade was also crushed. They couldn’t even win the seat of Batman from the bumbling Labor frontbencher David Feeney…
Backing Malcolm Turnbull’s Senate voting reforms may come to be seen as a grave error of judgement by the Greens on a par with the Democrats support for GST in 2001.
And its taste for power over participatory democracy may very well be its undoing…
The Greens saw opportunity in the senate voting reforms for it to increase its number in the Senate by cleaning up the micro-parties.
Its support for the reforms ensured its passage while costing it the campaign donations of the CFMEU because of the reciprocal arrangement of a double dissolution election based on the restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission…
The irony that the Greens appear to have failed to recognise is that in its pursuit of being a major player, its appeal for voters diminishes…
No one seriously wants the Greens in power. A JWS post-election poll, first revealed two weeks ago in the Daily Telegraph confirmed ... almost a third of all people who admitted voting Greens – which assumes there are a lot more who are too ashamed to admit they did – did so only as a protest against another party.
Been there, prayed to that. Heaven did not come. Nor did Armageddon.
IS recruiter cried: Syria is “the end of the world”
Andrew Bolt July 15 2016 (8:07am)
Spread the word on the streets of Lakemba:
===Before Mohammad Ali Baryalei came to be known as the most senior Australian member of Islamic State, he sobbed during a phone call from the Middle East as he asked: “Why would you want to live this rubbish for?”Baryalei was one of several refugees Australia took in and who turned to terrorism.
A cache of intercepted telephone calls .... were presented as evidence during the trial of Hamdi Alqudsi, who was on Tuesday found guilty of aiding men to fight in Syria’s brutal civil war…
In one phone call with Alqudsi, made in June 2013, Baryalei ... describes how he saw his “commander” die.
“We were on the road and he jumped and we were looking at him, as we were looking at him, as we were looking at him, we just saw the bullets go straight through him,” Baryalei says in the call.
When asked how that made him feel, Baryalei replies: “I don’t know man. I was confused. I was, at one bit, I started crying because I ... I just saw him. He was, like, giving, like you know, he was just taking breaths.”
The same call ends with an emotional Baryalei struggling to find words. “I don’t want to be here man,” he says. “I’m over it. I’m over it. Why would you wanna live this rubbish for? ... I don’t know bro, it’s the end, you know how they say, end of the world, bro, it’s the end of the world.”
THE UNABOMBER’S CHILDREN
Tim Blair – Wednesday, July 15, 2015 (1:04pm)
My favourite Deep Green Resistance member is the woman who wants a return to conditions during “the first four million years” of human existence, when everybody “participated”.
She’s wearing adult braces, which weren’t exactly a common feature of the pre-civilisation era:
The extreme green movement is nudging ever closer to a form of fascism. There is not much difference between words once deployed in the service of preserving a master race and words now deployed in the service of preserving a master planet.
The extreme green movement is nudging ever closer to a form of fascism. There is not much difference between words once deployed in the service of preserving a master race and words now deployed in the service of preserving a master planet.
(Via Eli Greenblatt)
UPDATE. The great David Thompson identifies an old friend:
The third lady to speak, the one with all-natural, not-at-all-technological adult braces, is Ms Lierre Keith, a former radical vegan and now self-described “gender abolitionist” whose strange mental adventures have previously entertained us.Ms Keith and her associates wish to wage “decisive ecological warfare” against… well, the rest of us, and to “disrupt and dismantle industrial civilisation,” with “complete economic collapse” as the path to salvation. When not signalling their intellectual wattage by calling for the “abolition” of masculinity and “whiteness,” and the “abolition” of the United States, “an illegitimate settler nation,” Deep Green Resistance very much like the idea of “sabotaging infrastructure” and cutting power lines, thereby leaving tens of thousands of people without light and heat.Such measures would, apparently, encourage “class consciousness.” Elderly people in remote locations would no doubt embrace the finer points of revolutionary eco-socialism as they shivered in the dark and the feeling left their limbs.
Hit David’s site for all the links within the above.
QUESTION ANSWERED
Tim Blair – Wednesday, July 15, 2015 (12:27pm)
A brief email conversation with a reader who did not enjoy Monday’s climate change column:
Geoff M.: And obviously the Pope is an idiot too.Tim: Yes. Yes, he is.
A FRIGHTBAT’S FATE
Tim Blair – Tuesday, July 14, 2015 (6:54pm)
An Australian woman is fined $3600 and faces deportation following an internet incident in Abu Dhabi:
In February, Jodi Magi, 39, took a photo of a car in her Abu Dhabi apartment block that was parked across two disabled parking spaces, without any disability stickers.She blacked out the number plate and put the photo on Facebook, drawing attention to the seemingly selfish act, but not providing any identifying details or names.However, someone in the apartment block complained to police and the case went to an Abu Dhabi court in June.Ms Magi, who has lived in Abu Dhabi since 2012, said she was forced to sign multiple documents in Arabic without any translation.Two weeks ago she was found guilty of “writing bad words on social media about a person” and told she would be deported.
Magi has previously displayed bad words on social media about a person. Here she is in her F*** Tony Abbott t-shirt:
Perhaps now she’ll appreciate a culture that does not imprison you for political expression, however infantile it may be.
Perhaps now she’ll appreciate a culture that does not imprison you for political expression, however infantile it may be.
(Via Pastor Sauceplease)
The deal will slow Iran but not stop it
Andrew Bolt July 15 2015 (7:07pm)
It seems that the deal the US and Europe have struck with Iran over its nuclear program means:
Relevant parts of the deal:
Continue reading 'The deal will slow Iran but not stop it'
===- Iran does not have to dismantle its basic nuclear infrastructure.This strikes me as dangerous.
- Iran needs to wait just 15 years before most of the supervision stops.
- arms embargoes on Iran, a fascist power sponsoring leading terrorist groups, end after just five years.
- the sanctions will gradually lift, and the challenge will be to reimpose them if there’s a breach of the deal by Iran.
- surprise inspections of suspect sites other than the agreement’s designated site are severely limited, with Iran given the power to delay them by 24 days.
- breaches of the deal by Iraq are meant to see sanctions “snap back”, but the UN has 65 days before agreeing to reimpose the ones it voted for.
Relevant parts of the deal:
Continue reading 'The deal will slow Iran but not stop it'Non-responsive Bill
Andrew Bolt July 15 2015 (11:47am)
James Jeffrey:
===Last week we paid some attention to the royal commissioner Dyson Heydon and his apparent shock at encountering pollie speak. “A lot of your answers are non-responsive, some are responsive, but then you add something that isn’t responsive,” he told Bill Shorten ...Too true, as the transcript shows:
But if he was hoping to have some sort of reforming effect, he would have been disappointed yesterday.
JOURNALIST: Do you think that the Shenhua mine should be built?(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
SHORTEN: Labor will rely upon the best science evidence. Clearly there’s a lot of concern, legitimate concern out there by agricultural land users in the Liverpool Plains. I think the Government needs to, you know, they can’t keep passing the buck and blaming the New South Wales Government, the Federal Government should stop blaming New South Wales. You’ve got Mr Hunt and you’ve for the Prime Minister saying, Mr Abbott saying this is not prime agricultural land; you’ve got Mr Joyce saying this is prime agricultural land – they both can’t be right. It’s time for the Government to stop fighting amongst itself and start focusing on the future jobs of Australians including in agriculture and renewable energy and all the other important jobs of the future which this Government just simply isn’t focused on. Thanks everyone.
JOURNALIST: Do you support the proposal or not? SHORTEN: Well we want to – we want to see the scientific evidence is and we want to see the Government provide the information to us, but one thing is for sure, this Government doesn’t know what to do with the Liverpool Plains and they’re busy blaming each other and I just want them to get on and focus on the jobs of the future, not just fighting each other. Thanks everyone, see you later.
Children deserve a better guardian
Andrew Bolt July 15 2015 (11:42am)
What is wrong with Families SA?
===A DRUNK mother has been jailed for the “unfathomable and deplorable” abuse of her son which a judge says Families SA could have, but failed to, prevent.In the very same week:
District Court Judge Paul Muscat today jailed the woman for four years, with a 20-month non-parole period, for beating, bashing, throwing and biting her son, two.
He said the woman was clearly unfit to be a mother and was solely responsible for the child’s torment — but welfare agencies had not resolved the issue when they had the chance.”
Since 2012, there were a number of notifications (to Families SA) and all were recorded as ‘closed, no action’,” he said.
“I don’t understand why that was so ... from what I’ve read you were simply unfit to mother your son...”
Judge Muscat later said a report he had requested from Families SA showed the department had never even considered removing the toddler from his mother.
“Families SA’s response (to my request) was about as disappointing as it (the department) was in dealing with the 19 notifications made to it concerning the child,” he said.
FAMILIES SA workers criticised in a coronial inquest into the death of Chloe Valentine have not been disciplined for their handling of the case.(Thanks to reader WaG311.)
The Education and Child Development Department reviewed the actions of 11 Families SA staff involved in the case, in response to the findings of the coronial inquest.
The review recommended that eight of the 11 employees — those criticised by Coroner Mark Johns — be given counselling in a one-on-one session with department chief Tony Harrison…
Four-year-old Chloe died in 2012, following more than 20 notifications to Families SA about concerns for her welfare…
A number of staff who worked with Chloe had since been promoted to supervisor positions, but none had been demoted…
Why is the ABC running this blatant global warming deceit?
Andrew Bolt July 15 2015 (11:26am)
How does the ABC justify this astonishing deceit?
To illustrate a story on global warming, allegedly caused by man’s emissions of invisible carbon dioxide and methane, it shows Chinese factories spewing out all kinds of grit, soot and chemicals that have nothing at all to do with warming, and resemble nothing found here.
That is simply deceit. That, or astonishing ignorance.
Then, of course, we get alarmist Peter Doherty talking about deaths from heat without adding that deaths from cold are actually more common, plus interview with medical students who imagine things might get even worse.
Scares, false claims, cherry picking and vague imaginings. And this forms the material for another ABC report.
Global warming surely represents the greatest failure of journalism in our lifetime.
(Thanks to reader Brian.)
===To illustrate a story on global warming, allegedly caused by man’s emissions of invisible carbon dioxide and methane, it shows Chinese factories spewing out all kinds of grit, soot and chemicals that have nothing at all to do with warming, and resemble nothing found here.
That is simply deceit. That, or astonishing ignorance.
Then, of course, we get alarmist Peter Doherty talking about deaths from heat without adding that deaths from cold are actually more common, plus interview with medical students who imagine things might get even worse.
Scares, false claims, cherry picking and vague imaginings. And this forms the material for another ABC report.
Global warming surely represents the greatest failure of journalism in our lifetime.
(Thanks to reader Brian.)
Radical unions pay Greens protection money
Andrew Bolt July 15 2015 (8:24am)
The Greens are financed by Australia’s most militant unions, who are getting the protection they paid for:
===The Greens, who are standing in the way of the Coalition’s two key industrial relations bills, received more than $500,000 in the 2013-14 financial year from unions, including the militant Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and the Maritime Union of Australia.How much of this kind of money was funnelled to the Greens?
The Australian Electoral Commission’s latest financial disclosure returns reveal five unions, led by the Electrical Trades Union, contributed a total of $567,766 to the Greens in 2013-14…
The Greens remain opposed to two previously rejected pieces of legislation that raise governance standards in trade unions and revive the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which the government will test again when parliament resumes next month.
The head of the construction union’s ACT branch, Dean Hall, has been drawn into new allegations that officials barged on to worksites without proper authorisation, engaged in standover tactics, oversaw workplace shut-downs and pushed about site managers.Why are Labor and the Greens running a protection racket for the CFMEU? Paul Kelly is staggered:
Meeting in Canberra, the trade union royal commission heard further evidence of business owners paying money to former Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union organiser Halafihi “Fihi” Kivalu.
Fihi is alleged to have extorted in excess of $150,000 from business owners who were led to believe the payments were necessary to obtain or retain work with cash at times being handed over in white unsealed envelopes.
Chinese gyprock and plastering businessman Jian Yu He (known as “Jackie") told the hearing he paid $5000 cash in two instalments to Fihi, a sum he negotiated down from $10,000. On both occasions, he said he handed over the cash while sitting in Fihi’s car with the then union official.
“(Fihi) said without paying, it’s possible that I cannot stay in Canberra for work,” Mr He told the commission.
The Labor Party has become more, not less, encumbered by the unions. This dependence is financial, factional and structural. Union financial backing is critical for elections…
The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union… recently faced a $3.55 million payout to Grocon for its sustained, reckless and damaging blockades of building sites in several states in 2012. The Federal Court found the union had “outrageous disregard” for industrial law and norms…
Evidence to the Dyson Heydon-led royal commission this week heard that a lead CFMEU organiser allegedly extorted more than $150,000 from construction businesses in Canberra in return for favoured treatment.
The money was often provided in white unsealed envelopes and counsel assisting, Jeremy Stoljar SC, said coming evidence would reveal “alleged corrupt payments, standover and intimidation tactics”.
The unions and Shorten denounce the commission as a witch-hunt…
The former ALP government abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission, a move that unleashed more coercion and intimidation on sites…
Abbott has used the evidence surrounding the royal commission to argue for his government’s two bills before the parliament. They are the ABCC bill and the Registered Organisations bill, another election commitment, that ensures office holders in registered organisations (unions and employer bodies) are subject to the same legal sanctions that apply to corporations… One has already been rejected by the current Senate. The ABCC bill is before the new Senate for the first time… Labor’s problem is apparent: its institutional partner, main financial source and talent pool for MPs is a union movement some of whose biggest players (think CFMEU) have a business model heavily dependent on coercion and law-breaking.
Labor, maddened by the warming hoax, plans another useless carbon tax
Andrew Bolt July 15 2015 (8:10am)
How mad is Labor? How crazed with the global warming religion?
Consider.
Labor was destroyed when the Gillard Government imposed a carbon tax.
A carbon tax costs money and jobs but makes no measurable difference to global warming.
Global warming seems to have paused, with no real rise in atmospheric temperature for some 18 years.
The catastrophes predicted by global warming scientists have not emerged. We have not seen worse or more cyclones, we have not seen falls in food harvests, we have not seen an increase world wide in droughts.
Most low-lying islands once thought vulnerable to inundation through global warming are in fact stable or growing in size.
Some a few scientists now warn not of global warming but a mini ice age in 15 years.
So a carbon tax is electoral poison and a costly and useless response to a problem that may well not exist anyway.
Yet:
===Consider.
Labor was destroyed when the Gillard Government imposed a carbon tax.
A carbon tax costs money and jobs but makes no measurable difference to global warming.
Global warming seems to have paused, with no real rise in atmospheric temperature for some 18 years.
The catastrophes predicted by global warming scientists have not emerged. We have not seen worse or more cyclones, we have not seen falls in food harvests, we have not seen an increase world wide in droughts.
Most low-lying islands once thought vulnerable to inundation through global warming are in fact stable or growing in size.
Some a few scientists now warn not of global warming but a mini ice age in 15 years.
So a carbon tax is electoral poison and a costly and useless response to a problem that may well not exist anyway.
Yet:
The Opposition Leader faces a ferocious government assault and his biggest test of political will after the leak of Labor’s plans to resurrect a version of the carbon pricing scheme which contributed to its defeat in 2013.Some Labor frontbenchers know this is madness. But global warming makes believers so crazed and intolerant that trying to argue against this within Labor is useless. Besides, see how many journalists won’t hear a word of criticism of the warming faith either.
Labor’s leaked plan looks like a version of an emissions trading scheme linked to other international schemes which at today’s prices would give us a carbon price of around $8-$10…
Leaked internal policy documents reportedly show Labor is planning a carbon pricing scheme with emissions caps that would apply to the electricity sector and a separate scheme which would apply to the rest of the economy. Labor could also take a higher emissions reduction target to the next election if it considers the post 2020 target that is to be revealed by the Abbott Government next month too low.
With Labor like this, what chance of saving the country?
Andrew Bolt July 15 2015 (8:07am)
A truth of economic reform - it tends not to happen unless the Left grows up and is given the consolation of power. Or as Terry McCrann puts it:
===IN A critical aspect what’s happening with Greece is a telling replay of what happened in Australia through the mid-1980s.By that measure we are stuffed twice over.
Simply, that the best way to get the tough decisions taken is to have them framed from the Left in government and supported by the Right in opposition. When they instead come from a government of the Right they tend to run into aggressive and even visceral opposition from the Left.
It tends to be a two-stage process, starting with the Left first getting mugged by reality.
Our money to that family?
Andrew Bolt July 15 2015 (8:03am)
Seriously? And secret, too?
Has the Williams family paid compensation to all the relatives of those that Carl Williams had killed?
===SLAIN gangland figure Carl Williams’ only daughter Dhakota will receive a secret six figure payout over his jail house death…What a joke.
The payout was struck on Tuesday after a two-year battle by the Williams’s to get compensation for the mental harm Williams’ death in custody caused them. The maximum payout Dhakota, 14, was able to claim was $371,000… It is believed she will get less than half that amount, which will be put in trust until she turns 18-years-old.
Has the Williams family paid compensation to all the relatives of those that Carl Williams had killed?
This is Bob Katter, MP
Andrew Bolt July 14 2015 (9:31pm)
Bob Katter is a member of the Australian Parliament. He also is an embarrassment to it.
Here he is tonight attacking the Government for allegedly antagonising Indonesia by asking for mercy for two Australian drug traffickers:
===Here he is tonight attacking the Government for allegedly antagonising Indonesia by asking for mercy for two Australian drug traffickers:
...it’s again and again and again they seem to be wanting to pick a fight and have an antagonism with Indonesia.
Well, maybe, maybe they would have a different viewpoint if, when they were 18, handed a rifle and had to give two telephone numbers because we were at war with Indonesia - and that was my situation - maybe they’d have a different attitude if they came from north Queensland where, in the last war, we were handed over to the Japanese under the Brisbane line. Maybe they’d have a different attitude.
You couldn’t make this stuff up. Today, the Abbott government began their witch hunt to silence millions of Australians...
Posted by Greenpeace Australia Pacific on Tuesday, 14 July 2015
Today is Malala Yousafzai's 17th birthday.At age 14, Malala was shot point blank in the head by the Taliban, just for...
Posted by Amnesty International Australia on Saturday, 12 July 2014
He's a true gamer !
Posted by Interesting Engineering on Thursday, 21 August 2014
Further to last post what do you make of the Daily Telegraph's front page today? Surely whomever in the Shadow cabinet leaked this wanted this sort of coverage?
Posted by Latika M Bourke on Tuesday, 14 July 2015
===
I'd rather see Mayweather fight Bert from Sesame Street then Berto pic.twitter.com/egGiiKZNOx
— The Holy HEEL (@BloodstainLane) July 15, 2015
===
MARGO’S GREATEST HITS
Tim Blair – Tuesday, July 15, 2014 (5:58am)
In celebration of Margo Kingston’s narrow lead in the continuing great frightbat election, here’s a poll to decide her finest contribution to journalism, politics and Kafkaesque surrealist comedy:
FUNDING OR DEATH
Tim Blair – Tuesday, July 15, 2014 (5:28am)
According to Fairfax, there is a direct link between reduced government funding for awards nights and Aboriginal suicide:
The Aboriginal founder of the Deadly Awards, the annual celebration of indigenous achievement, was shattered last month when he learnt that he would lose federal funding worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.Gavin Jones, 47, was found dead on his farm at Goulburn on Saturday. While his family did not want to discuss the nature of his death, they and his friends were aware of his devastation at the loss of funding affecting his ventures, which had spawned radio and television productions, the national Deadly Vibe magazine, the annual Deadly Awards, sport, dance and hip-hop events, and much more.
Jones’s death is tragic, but connecting it to budget decisions about prizes is obscene.
DUCK RABBOTT DUCK
Tim Blair – Tuesday, July 15, 2014 (4:11am)
Outrage! A hateful conservative issues a threat to Julia Gillard:
Do I have a message for Julia Gillard? Yep. Duck.
Wait! Relax, everybody. It’s just tax-funded official state millionaire comedian Andrew Denton, and his threat was actually directed towards Tony Abbott instead of Gillard. So it doesn’t matter.
FOUR HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES OF JAUNTY
Tim Blair – Tuesday, July 15, 2014 (4:06am)
Here’s a jaunty tune to start your day.
SO MUCH STUPID
Tim Blair – Tuesday, July 15, 2014 (4:03am)
A quick list of things we can expect from global warming.
(Via Nos Lapre)
There will be a carbon tax again under a government Shorten leads
Andrew Bolt July 15 2014 (9:22am)
Bill Shorten’s vow: there will be a kind of carbon tax under a government I lead:
Let’s fact check just some of the many claims made yesterday by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten:
Claim: “We were right to listen to the scientific world.”
In fact: Labor is not listening at all to the scientists who say the world’s temperature has stayed flat for some 16 years. Even the IPCC now implicitly concedes its models may have overestimated climate sensitivity. This means our gases may not be warming the planet as much as many once believed.
Claim: “We are not skeptics.”
In fact, that is not a virtue. Absolute, unquestioning belief belongs to religion, not science.
Claim: “Only one party in Australia has a serious, substantial and credible climate change policy – the Australian Labor party.”
In fact, Labor’s policy is not serious, substantial of credible. It commits to making Australians spend many billions of dollars a year to make no practical difference to the climate. Even the most generous assessment of the effect of Lanbor’s policy, by IPCC scientist Professor Roger Jones, admit that at best Labor’s policy would at best cut the world’s expected temperature in 2100 by just 0.0038 degrees. And if, as now seems clear, the planet is even less sensitive to our emissions, the difference would be even less.
Claim: “There is no doubt our earth is warming and our seas rising – or that humankind is the cause.”
In fact, the planet has not warmed for around 16 years. Even the IPCC says humankind is not “the” cause of the warming last century but just one of the causes, and admits there is some doubt it is the biggest cause.
Claim: “Each of the last three decades has been warmer on average than any other in modern times and 13 of the 14 hottest years on record have occurred in the 21st Century.”
In fact, Shorten is largely correct, but deliberately omits the most important fact about those temperatures - that there has been no further warming over the past 16 years or so, despite a vast increase in emissions. This is contrary to global warming theory and predictions:
Claim: “Sea levels have risen by about 20cm on average over the past century – and the rate of increase has been much greater in recent decades. There is no evidence to refute any of this ...”
In fact, Shorten is exaggerating the acceleration and the certainty. As the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says, “records and research show that sea level has been steadily rising at a rate of 0.04 to 0.1 inches per year since 1900. This rate may be increasing. Since 1992, new methods of satellite altimetry (the measurement of elevation or altitude) indicate a rate of rise of 0.12 inches per year.” Moreover, a recent study concludes the rate of rise has actually dropped, from a rise of 3.4 mm per year during the 1990s, to 2.4 mm per year from 2003-2011, or a slowdown of about 30 per cent.
Claim: “And if we do not act, the consequences will be severe.”
In fact, the consequences will be virtually identical whether we act or not. Labor’s policies will make no identifiable difference to our climate.
Claim: “It is predicted we will endure more droughts, more bushfires and more floods, more storms – more extremes.”
In fact, “it is predicted” are weasel words. Anything can be predicted and has been. But the latest IPCC report denies much of what Shorten claims. It said it had “not enough evidence” to have anything more than “low confidence” there had been more droughts, “low confidence” there had been more hail or thunderstorms, “low confidence” there had been more floods and “low confidence for a clear trend in storminess”. In fact, “evidence suggests slight decreases in the frequency of tropical cyclones making landfall in the North Atlantic and the South Pacific”. Shorten is just scare-mongering, and ignoring the science.
Claim: “Indeed we are already seeing more extreme weather events, influenced by the warming experienced thus far.”
In fact, that is bull, unsupported by evidence. See above.
Claim: “Since we put a price on pollution two years ago, emissions in the energy sector – the main industry covered by the carbon tax – have dropped by 10.4 per cent”
In fact, this is cause largely by the relative collapse of manufacturing in Australia.
Claim: “[Renewable energy agency] ARENA grants are also supporting Australian researchers investigating new and more efficient energy sources: Tidal Energy in Portland… Geothermal energy in the Cooper Basin.”
In fact, wave generators subsidised by ARENA have sunk. The geothermal project in the Cooper Basin subsidised by Labor has flopped.
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill, red breast and PaulC.)
===TONY Abbott and Bill Shorten have set battlelines for another election campaign on carbon pricing, with Labor vowing to fight for “a serious, credible climate change policy’’ and the Prime Minister warning that the carbon tax will return under Labor.If Labor now now questions the savings, why did it make the very same claims a year ago?
The carbon tax repeal bills passed the House of Representatives with Clive Palmer’s support last night and are set to pass the Senate this week, leaving Labor and the Greens as the only opposition to axing the carbon tax. The Opposition Leader said Labor supported a “flexible and viable’’ emissions trading scheme…
Mr Abbott’s claim of a $550 gain from total abolition of the carbon tax is based on Treasury modelling used by Labor in government to support its carbon tax scheme. Kevin Rudd cited the same modelling to promise axing the carbon tax and moving to an ETS would see families $380 better off as the carbon price fell from $25.40 to $6.UPDATE
Let’s fact check just some of the many claims made yesterday by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten:
Claim: “We were right to listen to the scientific world.”
In fact: Labor is not listening at all to the scientists who say the world’s temperature has stayed flat for some 16 years. Even the IPCC now implicitly concedes its models may have overestimated climate sensitivity. This means our gases may not be warming the planet as much as many once believed.
Claim: “We are not skeptics.”
In fact, that is not a virtue. Absolute, unquestioning belief belongs to religion, not science.
Claim: “Only one party in Australia has a serious, substantial and credible climate change policy – the Australian Labor party.”
In fact, Labor’s policy is not serious, substantial of credible. It commits to making Australians spend many billions of dollars a year to make no practical difference to the climate. Even the most generous assessment of the effect of Lanbor’s policy, by IPCC scientist Professor Roger Jones, admit that at best Labor’s policy would at best cut the world’s expected temperature in 2100 by just 0.0038 degrees. And if, as now seems clear, the planet is even less sensitive to our emissions, the difference would be even less.
Claim: “There is no doubt our earth is warming and our seas rising – or that humankind is the cause.”
In fact, the planet has not warmed for around 16 years. Even the IPCC says humankind is not “the” cause of the warming last century but just one of the causes, and admits there is some doubt it is the biggest cause.
Claim: “Each of the last three decades has been warmer on average than any other in modern times and 13 of the 14 hottest years on record have occurred in the 21st Century.”
In fact, Shorten is largely correct, but deliberately omits the most important fact about those temperatures - that there has been no further warming over the past 16 years or so, despite a vast increase in emissions. This is contrary to global warming theory and predictions:
Claim: “Sea levels have risen by about 20cm on average over the past century – and the rate of increase has been much greater in recent decades. There is no evidence to refute any of this ...”
In fact, Shorten is exaggerating the acceleration and the certainty. As the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says, “records and research show that sea level has been steadily rising at a rate of 0.04 to 0.1 inches per year since 1900. This rate may be increasing. Since 1992, new methods of satellite altimetry (the measurement of elevation or altitude) indicate a rate of rise of 0.12 inches per year.” Moreover, a recent study concludes the rate of rise has actually dropped, from a rise of 3.4 mm per year during the 1990s, to 2.4 mm per year from 2003-2011, or a slowdown of about 30 per cent.
Claim: “And if we do not act, the consequences will be severe.”
In fact, the consequences will be virtually identical whether we act or not. Labor’s policies will make no identifiable difference to our climate.
Claim: “It is predicted we will endure more droughts, more bushfires and more floods, more storms – more extremes.”
In fact, “it is predicted” are weasel words. Anything can be predicted and has been. But the latest IPCC report denies much of what Shorten claims. It said it had “not enough evidence” to have anything more than “low confidence” there had been more droughts, “low confidence” there had been more hail or thunderstorms, “low confidence” there had been more floods and “low confidence for a clear trend in storminess”. In fact, “evidence suggests slight decreases in the frequency of tropical cyclones making landfall in the North Atlantic and the South Pacific”. Shorten is just scare-mongering, and ignoring the science.
Claim: “Indeed we are already seeing more extreme weather events, influenced by the warming experienced thus far.”
In fact, that is bull, unsupported by evidence. See above.
Claim: “Since we put a price on pollution two years ago, emissions in the energy sector – the main industry covered by the carbon tax – have dropped by 10.4 per cent”
In fact, this is cause largely by the relative collapse of manufacturing in Australia.
Claim: “[Renewable energy agency] ARENA grants are also supporting Australian researchers investigating new and more efficient energy sources: Tidal Energy in Portland… Geothermal energy in the Cooper Basin.”
In fact, wave generators subsidised by ARENA have sunk. The geothermal project in the Cooper Basin subsidised by Labor has flopped.
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill, red breast and PaulC.)
Importing hatred: warning of a Bali-style bombing
Andrew Bolt July 15 2014 (9:14am)
Why did we import this danger and vilify those who tried to warn against it?
===A SENIOR member of parliament’s high-powered intelligence and security committee has warned a Bali-style terrorist attack is inevitable on Australian soil and the risk of an incident is “accelerating"…
Labor MP Anthony Byrne raised the alarm in parliament yesterday, revealing the view of the intelligence community was that an attack on home soil of the magnitude of the 2002 Bali bombing — which claimed the lives of 202 people including 88 Australians — was not only possible but now probable… The Daily Telegraph revealed last month Mr Brandis was planning to adopt up to 41 of 43 recommendations from a bipartisan report last year of the JPCIS that called for greater surveillance powers for ASIO… Spy chiefs are concerned the government is moving too slowly at a time when there were heightened warnings about domestic terrorist events and links to Australians fighting with jihadists in Iraq and Syria.
Reith: who could trust Palmer?
Andrew Bolt July 15 2014 (8:09am)
Former Minister Peter Reith:
===The idea that Clive Palmer and his PUPs would be a positive force for good policy has taken a beating. The other senators are worth talking to and negotiating with but I have grave doubts about the government dealing with Palmer. He constantly contradicts himself, revels in creating uncertainty and lives for personal aggrandisement and opposition to the Coalition.Who could trust a word this man says?:
No-one ... should forget that only as recently as November, Palmer said “he would be abstaining from voting in the House of Representatives on the carbon tax repeal legislation to avoid a potential conflict of interest”. He then said, “I’m applying company standards and stepping out of this debate as there’s currently a potential conflict of interest"… Sunday’s press reported Palmer’s office saying that although the amendments agreed over the weekend looked fine “it would be up to Mr Palmer to approve them”.
Mr Palmer owes an explanation to the Parliament and to the people… But he is not just breaching basic standards. Last week Palmer concocted a series of nonsense excuses for opposing the repeal of the carbon tax. And when Palmer refused to answer questions about his integrity, attacked fiscal reform and promoted new red tape it seemed obvious it’s unlikely he can be trusted on anything.
Bringing the Middle East and its hatreds to Sydney
Andrew Bolt July 15 2014 (7:43am)
Scenes from an anti-Israel protest - or Jew-hating festival - in Sydney on Sunday:
Mass immigration has brought with it a virulent anti-semitism and a minority that shows a dangerous allegiance to groups which preach and practice extreme violence.
UPDATE
This racism, in our midst, is not remarked upon by the ABC.
The racism of Hamas, the rulers of Gaza, is also not remarked upon by the ABC, although it’s screamed out in not just its deeds but its charter, in black and white:
More of the same from the ABC, which puts Israel under a scrutiny that Hamas terrorists are excused:
Reader Gaucho:
The Jews of Australia - and anyone who prizes civilisation - should know the Greens are their enemy. From the speech to the anti-Israel rally by Greens MP Lee Rhiannon, ignoring the jihadist flags flying in front of her:
(Thanks to readers Daniel and CA.)
===As you see, this protest featured the yellow flag of the Hezbollah terrorist group, the black flag of the Taliban and jihadism, signs likening Israel to Nazi Germany and signs claiming the Jews are actually descended from the Turkic Khazar empire, and therefore have no historic connection with the land of Israel.
Mass immigration has brought with it a virulent anti-semitism and a minority that shows a dangerous allegiance to groups which preach and practice extreme violence.
UPDATE
This racism, in our midst, is not remarked upon by the ABC.
The racism of Hamas, the rulers of Gaza, is also not remarked upon by the ABC, although it’s screamed out in not just its deeds but its charter, in black and white:
For our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave… The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:But the ABC was last night red hot on the alleged racism of Israel - a racism it assumes as fact - after the murder of a Palestinian teenager:
“The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: 0 Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree.” (cited by al-Bukhari and Muslim)…When Islam will retake possession of [the means to] guide the life [of the Muslims], it will wipe out those organizations which are the enemy of humanity and Islam…
With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others… They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests…
...they were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate… They were behind World War II… It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it… The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion… It is behind the drug trade and alcoholism… There is no way out except pooling together all the forces and energies to face this despicable Nazi-Tatar invasion.
SARAH FERGUSON: At the same time though, a number of leading Israeli writers, including Chemi Shalev, said it wasn’t a response to the killing of the young settlers, for example, but something bigger in Israel, an unchecked racism. Does Netanyahu at the same time take responsibility for allowing that racism to continue unchecked?And it apparently assumes the poverty and militancy of Arab extremists is due simply to “inequality” - and one due not to Muslim Arab culture, moreover, but Jewish oppression:
SARAH FERGUSON: It’s not just writers talking about this. The former head of your own internal security service, the Shin Bet, Yuval Diskin, issued a scathing attack on your government just a couple of days ago for failing to deal with these issues, for failing to deal with Arab inequality in Israel, for allowing more settlement building. He knows what’s going on inside your country, doesn’t he?Then comes a barrage of questions implying that Israel is the aggressor, careless with Palestinian lives and needing to negotiate with a terrorist group whose charter in fact insists the only solution is the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews:
MARK REGEV: He’s of course entitled to his opinion and he’s got a very clear political position in opposition to my Prime Minister and that’s his right in our democracy… Our Declaration of Independence promises equality for all our citizens and we are determined to get there, to make sure that all Israelis have an equal chance…
SARAH FERGUSON: The reality on the ground is obviously not that and this is what Yuval Diskin is saying, that the - whatever is the result of this bombing campaign - and we’ll come to it in just a second - that the enormous pressures in the West Bank and inside Israel will remain whatever happens as a result…
SARAH FERGUSON: Let’s just talk about the rocket attacks. Why would Israeli bomb a home for the disabled in Gaza?… There was a rocket attack on the home of the Gaza police chief. He has known sympathies to Hamas. At the same time, a number of children were killed in that attack. Do you take enough care to avoid those casualties, ‘cause it appears the answer is no?… You’re now talking about a potential ground offensive. The question I think that everybody is asking outside Israel and outside Gaza, Mark Regev, on behalf of your government is: where does this end?… You’re going to have to sit down with Hamas in order to secure that solution. Do you accept that?UPDATE
More of the same from the ABC, which puts Israel under a scrutiny that Hamas terrorists are excused:
Gosh, anyone would think Israel started firing rockets first. Hayden Cooper, the ABC’s Lateline, July 10:UPDATE
ISRAEL launched the operation Protective Edge on Tuesday and its army said it had hit more than 300 targets overnight, raising the total number of strikes so far to 750. Hamas has launched its own rockets across Israel, which have triggered sirens in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, but there have been no Israeli deaths so far.Lateline guest tweeter Sarah Joseph, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash University, July 10:
750 strikes on Gaza from Israel. Unsure how many rockets from Gaza.The facts. Israeli Defence Force spokesperson tweets during Lateline:
PALESTINIAN terrorists in Gaza have fired 96 rockets at Israel today, and 442 in the past three days.
Reader Gaucho:
The big difference between Israel and Hamas is, Israel uses its missiles to protect its people Hamas uses its people to protect its missiles.UPDATE
The Jews of Australia - and anyone who prizes civilisation - should know the Greens are their enemy. From the speech to the anti-Israel rally by Greens MP Lee Rhiannon, ignoring the jihadist flags flying in front of her:
The root causes of the conflict are the decades-long illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza....Bloody scary, this apologia for a terrorist group’s tactics.
Israel is targeting the civilians of Gaza in these bombings and that is why it’s shameful and they are the war crime we condemn ... I don’t want to see rockets going into Israel but what we know is that this is a war of an oppressor Israel, against the oppressed the Palestinians. This is not a war of equal players and that is why we are united here in condemning Israel’s actions.
(Thanks to readers Daniel and CA.)
Why do refugee activists tell such untruths?
Andrew Bolt July 15 2014 (7:17am)
“Refugee” activists claim to be more moral. Then why all these false claims and exaggerations? Do moral people feel they don’t need to tell the truth - or say sorry?
Nick Cater:
===Nick Cater:
By world standards Sri Lanka is not a particularly oppressive place… Nevertheless, the myth refuses to die. The return of the refugees was like sending Jews back to Nazi Germany, Malcolm Fraser unhelpfully suggested…
Operation Sovereign Borders? More like “Operation Slaughter”, says ABC presenter Waleed Aly who writes: “By sending asylum-seekers into the arms of the Sri Lankan navy we’re returning them to their torturers.”
Yet even Aly admits — in the last paragraph when he thinks we’ve stopped reading — that “it’s entirely possible these people are economic migrant (sic) and not refugees"…
Compassion is not an ideology; it’s a form of piety, an expression of an uncommon moral sensitivity that separates the righteous from the herd… Compassion requires victims, vulnerable people worthy of our benevolence, or at least our benevolent thoughts…
Hence the eagerness of the intelligentsia to believe that a “suicide wave” was sweeping Christmas Island, despite authoritative accounts to the contrary…
It began on Tuesday with a press release from Ian Rintoul of the Refugee Action Coalition claiming: “Up to 10 mothers in the family camp have attempted suicide in the last two days on Christmas Island.”
That evening, [president Gillian] Triggs put the authority of the Human Rights Commission behind the story, telling ABC viewers: “We’ve had reports that have been confirmed during the day that 10 women have attempted suicide.”
On Wednesday, The Age couldn’t resist beating up the story further: “A wave of attempted suicides has swept Christmas Island as 12 mothers tried to kill themselves in the belief their then-orphaned children would have to be settled in Australia.” From then the story started to collapse… There had been only one suicide attempt from a woman who had survived, and she wasn’t a mother.
Fairfax’s sick headline: ‘Deadly Awards founder Gavin Jones dies after funding cut’
Andrew Bolt July 15 2014 (6:19am)
The Sydney Morning Herald blames Tony Abbott and his government for the death of an Aboriginal activist:
UPDATE
So proud of the smear that they highlight it on the home page:
===The Aboriginal founder of the Deadly Awards, the annual celebration of indigenous achievement, was shattered last month when he learnt that he would lose federal funding worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.Jones’ death is tragic. Blaming his death on losing government grants is despicable.
Gavin Jones, 47, was found dead on his farm at Goulburn on Saturday. While his family did not want to discuss the nature of his death, they and his friends were aware of his devastation at the loss of funding affecting his ventures, which had spawned radio and television productions, the national Deadly Vibe magazine, the annual Deadly Awards, sport, dance and hip-hop events, and much more… Vibe Australia said it had been informed in June that funds for the Vibe Project would be redirected to federal government programs that deliver “frontline” services from July 1.
UPDATE
So proud of the smear that they highlight it on the home page:
(Via Tim Blair.)
If Leyonhjelm is a true libertarian, why not allow polygamy, too?
Andrew Bolt July 15 2014 (12:59am)
Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm wants same-sex marriage legalised, arguing marriage is a private matter:
Truth is that marriage - the institution, tradition and ceremony - are indeed all public matters. Marriage is a social, not private, construct to bind men to women for the sake of their children, so that the next generations are properly socialised to the benefit of all.
Then there is this problem with Leyonhjelm’s argument: if your choice of partner is entirely a private matter, and state intrusion on that choice silly and petty, then why have any state definition of marriage at all?
Why not allow polygamy and incestuous marriage as well? Isn’t that the true libertarian position?
===Another important lesson, this time from Roman law, is that marriage is a private matter (it’s part of private law, not public law, in civilian countries). The state simply provides a legal framework, particularly in the event of divorce or intestacy. It is difficult to resist the argument that defining the gender of people getting married is intrusive as well as silly and petty.If marriage is a private matter then why ask the state or church to bless it? Just choose your partner and, if you must, draw up a legal document to formalise it. Indeed, gays can already register relationships. But why then demand the rest of us acknowledge your partnership as a marriage?
Truth is that marriage - the institution, tradition and ceremony - are indeed all public matters. Marriage is a social, not private, construct to bind men to women for the sake of their children, so that the next generations are properly socialised to the benefit of all.
Then there is this problem with Leyonhjelm’s argument: if your choice of partner is entirely a private matter, and state intrusion on that choice silly and petty, then why have any state definition of marriage at all?
Why not allow polygamy and incestuous marriage as well? Isn’t that the true libertarian position?
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Pastor Rick Warren
We attract what we are. Judgmental, small-minded, mean-spirited bloggers build tribes of petty people. Gracious people attract gracious people.
===Holly Sarah Nguyen
The easy way to pray!!!!
Everyone is busy and they never find time for prayer, but they do have time to talk to themselves when doing daily tasks, and driving themselves bananas, as they can't find answers.. How about flicking that conversation with yourself and talk to Jesus instead... You can talk to him when your driving, its hands free and safe, whilst your hanging out the washing, in a meeting and the list goes on.... He is always there for a 1 on 1 and its honestly better than talking to yourself, that drives anyone insane!!!! so go on give it a go, flick it around and talk to Jesus... He is the best listener, adviser, healer, guide and so much more... That's the way I roll..
==="Kindness is my number one attribute in a human being," says Dahl. "I'll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity of anything else. If you're kind, that's it."
===
Andreas Herrmann
„Es gibt keine Grenzen. Nicht für den Gedanken, nicht für die Gefühle. Die Angst setzt die Grenzen.“ Ingmar Bergmann
trans <There are no limits. Not for the idea, not the feelings. The fear is the limit.>
===Precisely what was it that constituted his good behaviour? - ed
===
David Hoang
Doesn't matter what others say about you. What matters is do you know who you are in Christ
===Thanks to Matthew Allen ..
Fool me once (Kevin07) shame on you.
Fool me twice (Julia10) shame on me.
Fool me thrice (Kevin13) I'm a labor voter.>
===
"Is there anything the ALP wouldn't do?" I asked myself that question, and then it struck me .. they would never govern responsibly. - ed
===
Holly Sarah Nguyen
Today I will do what is possible. I will leave all that seems impossible to GOD!!
===
July 15: Seventeenth of Tammuz (Judaism, 2014); Festino of Saint Rosalia in Palermo, Italy; Chūgen/Bon Festival in Japan
- 1410 – The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeated the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Grunwald, the decisive engagement of the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War.
- 1799 – French soldiers uncovered the Rosetta Stone(pictured) in Fort Julien, near the Egyptian port city ofRashid.
- 1910 – In his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gave a name to Alzheimer's disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer.
- 1966 – Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnam beganOperation Hastings to push the North Vietnamese out of theVietnamese Demilitarized Zone.
- 1997 – American spree killer Andrew Cunanan gunned down fashion designer Gianni Versace in Miami, Florida.
- 484 BC – Dedication of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in ancient Rome
- AD 70 – Titus and his armies breach the walls of Jerusalem. (17th of Tammuz in the Hebrew calendar).
- 756 – An Lushan Rebellion: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang is ordered by his Imperial Guards to execute chancellor Yang Guozhong by forcing him to commit suicide or face a mutiny. General An Lushan has other members of the emperor's family killed.
- 1099 – First Crusade: Christian soldiers take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalemafter the final assault of a difficult siege.
- 1149 – The reconstructed Church of the Holy Sepulchre is consecrated in Jerusalem.
- 1207 – King John of England expels Canterbury monks for supporting Archbishop Stephen Langton.
- 1240 – Swedish–Novgorodian Wars: A Novgorodian army led by Alexander Nevsky defeats the Swedes in the Battle of the Neva.
- 1381 – John Ball, a leader in the Peasants' Revolt, is hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of King Richard II of England.
- 1410 – Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War: Battle of Grunwald: The allied forces of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeat the army of the Teutonic Order.
- 1482 – Muhammad XII is crowned the twenty-second and last Nasrid king of Granada.
- 1685 – Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth is executed at Tower Hill, England after his defeat at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685.
- 1741 – Aleksei Chirikov sights land in Southeast Alaska. He sends men ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska.
- 1789 – Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, is named by acclamation Colonel General of the new National Guard of Paris.
- 1799 – The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.
- 1806 – Pike expedition: United States Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike begins an expedition from Fort Bellefontaine near St. Louis, Missouri, to explore the west.
- 1815 – Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders aboard HMS Bellerophon.
- 1823 – A fire destroys the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, Italy.
- 1834 – The Spanish Inquisition is officially disbanded after nearly 356 years.
- 1838 – Ralph Waldo Emerson delivers the Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School, discounting Biblical miracles and declaring Jesus a great man, but not God. The Protestant community reacts with outrage.
- 1862 – The CSS Arkansas, the most effective ironclad on the Mississippi River, battles with Union ships commanded by Admiral David Farragut, severely damaging three ships and sustaining heavy damage herself. The encounter changed the complexion of warfare on the Mississippi and helped to reverse Rebel fortunes on the river in the summer of 1862.
- 1870 – Reconstruction Era of the United States: Georgia becomes the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.
- 1870 – Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory are transferred to Canada from the Hudson's Bay Company, and the province of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories are established from these vast territories.
- 1888 – The stratovolcano Mount Bandai erupts killing approximately 500 people, in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
- 1910 – In his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gives a name to Alzheimer's disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer.
- 1916 – In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing and George Conrad Westervelt incorporate Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing).
- 1918 – World War I: The Second Battle of the Marne begins near the River Marne with a German attack.
- 1920 – The Polish Parliament establishes Silesian Voivodeship before the Polish-German plebiscite.
- 1922 – Japanese Communist Party is established in Japan.
- 1927 – Massacre of July 15, 1927: Eighty-nine protesters are killed by the Austrian police in Vienna.
- 1946 – State of North Borneo, today in Sabah, Malaysia, annexed by the United Kingdom.
- 1954 – First flight of the Boeing 367-80, prototype for both the Boeing 707 and C-135 series.
- 1955 – Eighteen Nobel laureates sign the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by thirty-four others.
- 1959 – The steel strike of 1959 begins, leading to significant importation of foreign steel for the first time in United States history.
- 1966 – Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnam begin Operation Hastings to push the North Vietnamese out of the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone.
- 1971 – The United Red Army is founded in Japan.
- 1974 – In Nicosia, Cyprus, Greek junta-sponsored nationalists launch a coup d'état, deposing President Makarios and installing Nikos Sampson as Cypriot president.
- 1975 – Space Race: Apollo–Soyuz Test Project features the dual launch of an Apollo spacecraft and a Soyuz spacecrafton the first joint Soviet-United States human-crewed flight. It was both the last launch of an Apollo spacecraft, and the Saturn family of rockets.
- 1979 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter gives his "malaise speech".
- 1983 – An attack at Orly Airport in Paris is launched by Armenian militant organisation ASALA; leaving eight people dead and 55 injured.
- 1996 – A Belgian Air Force C-130 Hercules carrying the Royal Netherlands Army marching band crashes on landing at Eindhoven Airport.
- 1997 – Fashion designer Gianni Versace is murdered by serial killer Andrew Cunanan outside the front gate of his Casa Casuarina mansion.
- 1998 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil MP S. Shanmuganathan is killed by a claymore mine.
- 2002 – "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and to possession of explosives during the commission of a felony.
- 2002 – Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan hands down the death sentence to British born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life terms to three others suspected of murdering The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
- 2003 – AOL Time Warner disbands Netscape. The Mozilla Foundation is established on the same day.
- 2006 – Twitter is launched, becoming one of the largest social media platforms in the world.
- 2014 – A train derails on the Moscow Metro, killing at least 24 and injuring more than 160 others.
- 2016 – Factions of the Turkish Armed Forces attempt a coup.
- 980 – Ichijō, Japanese emperor (d. 1011)
- 1273 – Ewostatewos, Ethiopian monk and saint (d. 1352)
- 1353 – Vladimir the Bold, Russian prince (d. 1410)
- 1359 – Antonio Correr, Italian cardinal (d. 1445)
- 1442 – Boček IV of Poděbrady, Bohemian nobleman (d. 1496)
- 1455 – Queen Yun, Korean queen (d. 1482)
- 1471 – Eskender, Ethiopian emperor (d. 1494)
- 1478 – Barbara Jagiellon, duchess consort of Saxony and Margravine consort of Meissen (d. 1534)
- 1573 – Inigo Jones, English architect, designed the Queen's House (d. 1652)
- 1600 – Jan Cossiers, Flemish painter (d. 1671)
- 1611 – Jai Singh I, maharaja of Jaipur (d. 1667)
- 1613 – Gu Yanwu, Chinese philologist and geographer (d. 1682)
- 1606 – Rembrandt, Dutch painter and etcher (d. 1669)
- 1631 – Jens Juel, Danish politician and diplomat, Governor-general of Norway (d. 1700)
- 1631 – Richard Cumberland, English philosopher (d. 1718)
- 1638 – Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1693)
- 1704 – August Gottlieb Spangenberg, German bishop and theologian (d. 1792)
- 1779 – Clement Clarke Moore, American author, poet, and educator (d. 1863)
- 1796 – Thomas Bulfinch, American mythologist (d. 1867)
- 1799 – Reuben Chapman, American lawyer and politician, 13th Governor of Alabama (d. 1882)
- 1800 – Sidney Breese, American jurist and politician (d. 1878)
- 1808 – Henry Edward Manning, English cardinal (d. 1892)
- 1812 – James Hope-Scott, English lawyer and academic (d. 1873)
- 1817 – Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet, English engineer, designed the Forth Bridge (d. 1898)
- 1827 – W. W. Thayer American lawyer and politician, 6th Governor of Oregon (d. 1899)
- 1848 – Vilfredo Pareto, Italian economist and sociologist (d. 1923)
- 1850 – Frances Xavier Cabrini, Italian-American nun and saint (d. 1917)
- 1858 – Emmeline Pankhurst, English activist (d. 1928)
- 1864 – Marie Tempest, English actress and singer (d. 1942)
- 1865 – Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, Irish-English publisher, founded the Amalgamated Press (d. 1922)
- 1865 – Wilhelm Wirtinger, Austrian-German mathematician and theorist (d. 1945)
- 1867 – Jean-Baptiste Charcot, French physician and explorer (d. 1936)
- 1871 – Doppo Kunikida, Japanese journalist, author, and poet (d. 1908)
- 1880 – Enrique Mosca, Argentinian lawyer and politician (d. 1950)
- 1887 – Wharton Esherick, American sculptor (d. 1970)
- 1892 – Walter Benjamin, German philosopher and critic (d. 1940)
- 1893 – Enid Bennett, Australian-American actress (d. 1969)
- 1893 – Dick Rauch, American football player and coach (d. 1970)
- 1894 – Tadeusz Sendzimir, Polish-American engineer (d. 1989)
- 1899 – Seán Lemass, Irish soldier and politician, 4th Taoiseach of Ireland (d. 1971)
- 1902 – Jean Rey, Belgian lawyer and politician, 2nd President of the European Commission (d. 1983)
- 1903 – Walter D. Edmonds, American journalist and author (d. 1998)
- 1903 – K. Kamaraj, Indian journalist and politician (d. 1975)
- 1904 – Rudolf Arnheim, German-American psychologist and author (d. 2007)
- 1905 – Dorothy Fields, American songwriter (d. 1974)
- 1905 – Anita Farra, Italian actress (d. 2008)
- 1906 – R. S. Mugali, Indian poet and academic (d. 1993)
- 1906 – Rudolf Uhlenhaut, English-German engineer (d. 1989)
- 1909 – Jean Hamburger, French physician and surgeon (d. 1992)
- 1911 – Edward Shackleton, Baron Shackleton, English geographer and politician, Secretary of State for Air (d. 1994)
- 1913 – Cowboy Copas, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1963)
- 1913 – Hammond Innes, English journalist and author (d. 1998)
- 1913 – Abraham Sutzkever, Russian poet and author (d. 2010)
- 1914 – Akhtar Hameed Khan, Pakistani economist, scholar, and activist (d. 1999)
- 1914 – Howard Vernon, Swiss-French actor (d. 1996)
- 1915 – Albert Ghiorso, American chemist and academic (d. 2010)
- 1915 – Frankie Yankovic, American musician (d. 1998)
- 1915 – Kashmir Singh Katoch, Indian army officer
- 1916 – Sumner Gerard, American politician and diplomat (d. 2004)
- 1917 – Robert Conquest, English-American historian, poet, and academic (d. 2015)
- 1917 – Joan Roberts, American actress and singer (d. 2012)
- 1917 – Nur Muhammad Taraki, Afghan journalist and politician (d. 1979)
- 1918 – Bertram Brockhouse, Canadian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2003)
- 1918 – Brenda Milner, English-Canadian neuropsychologist and academic
- 1919 – Fritz Langanke, German lieutenant (d. 2012)
- 1919 – Iris Murdoch, Irish-born British novelist and philosopher (d. 1999)
- 1921 – Jack Beeson, American pianist and composer (d. 2010)
- 1921 – Henri Colpi, Swiss-French director and screenwriter (d. 2006)
- 1921 – Robert Bruce Merrifield, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2006)
- 1921 – Jean Heywood, British actress
- 1922 – Leon M. Lederman, American physicist and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1922 – Jean-Pierre Richard, French writer
- 1923 – Francisco de Andrade, Portuguese sailor
- 1924 – Jeremiah Denton, American admiral and politician (d. 2014)
- 1924 – Marianne Bernadotte, Swedish actress and philanthropist
- 1925 – Philip Carey, American actor (d. 2009)
- 1925 – Taylor Hardwick, American architect, designed Haydon Burns Library and Friendship Fountain Park (d. 2014)
- 1925 – D. A. Pennebaker, American documentary filmmaker
- 1925 – Evan Hultman, American politician
- 1925 – Antony Carbone, American actor
- 1925 – Pandel Savic, American football player (d. 2018)
- 1926 – Driss Chraïbi, Moroccan-French journalist and author (d. 2007)
- 1926 – Leopoldo Galtieri, Argentinian general and politician, 44th President of Argentina (d. 2003)
- 1926 – Raymond Gosling, English physicist and academic (d. 2015)
- 1926 – Sir John Graham, 4th Baronet, English diplomat
- 1927 – Nan Martin, American actress (d. 2010)
- 1927 – Carmen Zapata, American actress (d. 2014)
- 1927 – Håkon Brusveen, Norwegian cross-country skier
- 1928 – Carl Woese, American microbiologist and biophysicist (d. 2012)
- 1928 – Viramachaneni Vimla Devi, Indian parliamentarian
- 1929 – Charles Anthony, American tenor and actor (d. 2012)
- 1929 – Francis Bebey, Cameroonian-French guitarist (d. 2001)
- 1929 – Ian Stewart, Scottish racing driver
- 1930 – Jacques Derrida, Algerian-French philosopher and academic (d. 2004)
- 1930 – Richard Garneau, Canadian journalist and sportscaster (d. 2013)
- 1930 – Stephen Smale, American mathematician and computer scientist
- 1930 – Einosuke Akiya, Japanese Buddhist leader
- 1931 – Clive Cussler, American archaeologist and author
- 1931 – Joanna Merlin, American actress and casting director
- 1931 – Jacques-Yvan Morin, Canadian lawyer and politician, Deputy Premier of Quebec
- 1932 – Ed Litzenberger, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2010)
- 1933 – Guido Crepax, Italian author and illustrator (d. 2003)
- 1933 – M. T. Vasudevan Nair, Indian author and screenwriter
- 1934 – Harrison Birtwistle, English composer and academic
- 1934 – Eva Krížiková, Czech actress
- 1934 – Risto Jarva, Finnish director and producer (d. 1977)
- 1935 – Donn Clendenon, American baseball player and lawyer (d. 2005)
- 1935 – Alex Karras, American football player, wrestler, and actor (d. 2012)
- 1935 – Ken Kercheval, American actor and director
- 1936 – George Voinovich, American lawyer and politician, 65th Governor of Ohio (d. 2016)
- 1937 – Prabhash Joshi, Indian journalist (d. 2009)
- 1938 – Ernie Barnes, American football player, actor, and painter (d. 2009)
- 1938 – Carmen Callil, Australian publisher, founded Virago Press
- 1938 – Barry Goldwater, Jr., American lawyer and politician
- 1939 – Aníbal Cavaco Silva, Portuguese economist and politician, 19th President of the Portuguese Republic
- 1940 – Denis Héroux, Canadian director and producer (d. 2015)
- 1940 – Ronald Gene Simmons, American sergeant and convicted murderer (d. 1990)
- 1940 – Robert Winston, English surgeon, academic, and politician
- 1942 – Vivian Malone Jones, American civil rights activist (d. 2005)
- 1943 – Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Northern Irish astrophysicist, astronomer, and academic
- 1944 – Millie Jackson, American singer-songwriter
- 1944 – Jan-Michael Vincent, American actor
- 1945 – David Arthur Granger, Guyanese politician, 9th President of Guyana
- 1945 – Peter Lewis (musician), American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1945 – Jürgen Möllemann, German soldier and politician, Vice-Chancellor of Germany (d. 2003)
- 1946 – Linda Ronstadt, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
- 1946 – Hassanal Bolkiah, Sultan of Brunei
- 1947 – Peter Banks, English guitarist and songwriter (d. 2013)
- 1947 – Lydia Davis, American short story writer, novelist, and essayist
- 1947 – Pridiyathorn Devakula, Thai economist and politician, Thai Minister of Finance
- 1947 – Roky Erickson, American singer-songwriter and musician
- 1948 – Twinkle, English singer-songwriter (d. 2015)
- 1948 – Dimosthenis Kourtovik, Greek anthropologist and critic
- 1948 – Artimus Pyle, American rock drummer and songwriter (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
- 1949 – Carl Bildt, Swedish politician and diplomat, Prime Minister of Sweden
- 1949 – Trevor Horn, English singer-songwriter, keyboard player, and producer
- 1949 – Richard Russo, American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter
- 1950 – Colin Barnett, Australian economist and politician, 29th Premier of Western Australia
- 1950 – Arianna Huffington, Greek-American journalist and publisher (The Huffington Post)
- 1951 – Gregory Isaacs, Jamaican-English singer-songwriter (d. 2010)
- 1951 – Jesse Ventura, American wrestler, actor, and politician, 38th Governor of Minnesota
- 1952 – David Pack, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1952 – Celia Imrie, English actress
- 1952 – Terry O'Quinn, American actor
- 1952 – Marky Ramone, American drummer and songwriter
- 1952 – Johnny Thunders, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1991)
- 1953 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haitian priest and politician, 49th President of Haiti
- 1953 – Sultanah Haminah, Malaysian royal consort
- 1953 – Mohamad Shahrum Osman, Malaysian politician
- 1953 – Alicia Bridges, American singer-songwriter
- 1954 – John Ferguson, Australian rugby league player
- 1954 – Jeff Jarvis, American journalist and blogger
- 1954 – Giorgos Kaminis, American-Greek lawyer and politician, 78th Mayor of Athens
- 1954 – Mario Kempes, Argentinian footballer and manager
- 1956 – Ian Curtis, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Joy Division)
- 1956 – Nicholas Harberd, British botanist, educator and academician
- 1956 – Barry Melrose, Canadian ice hockey player, coach, and sportscaster
- 1956 – Steve Mortimer, Australian rugby league player, coach, and administrator
- 1956 – Joe Satriani, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1956 – Wayne Taylor, South African race car driver
- 1958 – Gary Heale, English footballer and coach
- 1958 – Mac Thornberry, American lawyer and politician
- 1959 – Vincent Lindon, French actor, director, and screenwriter
- 1960 – Kim Alexis, American fashion model
- 1961 – Lolita Davidovich, Canadian actress
- 1961 – Jean-Christophe Grangé, French journalist and screenwriter
- 1961 – Scott Ritter, American soldier and international weapons inspector
- 1961 – Forest Whitaker, American actor
- 1962 – Nikos Filippou, Greek basketball player and manager
- 1962 – Michelle Ford, Australian swimmer
- 1963 – Brigitte Nielsen, Danish-Italian actress
- 1963 – Steve Thomas, English-Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1965 – Alistair Carmichael, Scottish lawyer and politician, Secretary of State for Scotland
- 1965 – Gero Miesenböck, Austrian neuroscientist and educator
- 1965 – David Miliband, English politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
- 1966 – Jason Bonham, English singer-songwriter and drummer
- 1966 – Irène Jacob, French-Swiss actress
- 1967 – Adam Savage, American actor and special effects designer
- 1967 – Elbert West, American singer-songwriter (d. 2015)
- 1968 – Eddie Griffin, American comedian, actor, and producer
- 1969 – Ain Tammus, Estonian footballer and coach
- 1970 – Tarkan Gözübüyük, Turkish bass player and producer
- 1972 – Scott Foley, American actor
- 1973 – Brian Austin Green, American actor
- 1975 – Cherry, American wrestler and manager
- 1975 – Danny Law, English cricketer
- 1975 – Ben Pepper, Australian basketball player
- 1976 – Steve Cunningham, American boxer
- 1976 – Marco Di Vaio, Italian footballer
- 1976 – Diane Kruger, German actress and model
- 1976 – Gabriel Iglesias, Mexican-American comedian and voice actor
- 1977 – André Nel, South African cricketer
- 1977 – Lana Parrilla, American actress[1]
- 1977 – John St. Clair, American football player
- 1977 – Ray Toro, American singer-songwriter and guitarist[2]
- 1978 – Miguel Olivo, Dominican baseball player
- 1979 – Laura Benanti, American actress and singer
- 1979 – Alexander Frei, Swiss footballer
- 1979 – Edda Garðarsdóttir, Icelandic footballer
- 1979 – Renata Kučerová, Czech tennis player
- 1980 – Reggie Abercrombie, American baseball player
- 1980 – Jonathan Cheechoo, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1980 – Julia Perez, Indonesian singer and actress (d. 2017)
- 1981 – Alou Diarra, French footballer
- 1981 – Petros Klampanis, Greek bassist and composer
- 1981 – Marius Stankevičius, Lithuanian footballer
- 1982 – Alan Pérez, Spanish cyclist
- 1982 – Neemia Tialata, New Zealand rugby player
- 1982 – Aída Yéspica, Venezuelan model and actress
- 1983 – Nelson Merlo, Brazilian race car driver
- 1983 – Will Rudge, English cricketer
- 1983 – Heath Slater, American wrestler
- 1984 – Angelo Siniscalchi, Italian footballer
- 1984 – Veronika Velez-Zuzulová, Slovak skier
- 1985 – Sanjeev, Tamil actor
- 1986 – Tyler Kennedy, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1988 – Riki Christodoulou, English racing driver
- 1989 – Steven Jahn, German footballer
- 1989 – Alisa Kleybanova, Russian tennis player
- 1989 – Anthony Randolph, American basketball player
- 1990 – Zach Bogosian, American ice hockey player
- 1990 – Damian Lillard, American basketball player
- 1991 – Danilo, Brazilian footballer
- 1991 – Derrick Favors, American basketball player
- 1991 – Evgeny Tishchenko, Russian boxer
- 1992 – Tobias Harris, American basketball player
- 1992 – Hokutōfuji Daiki, Japanese sumo wrestler
- 1992 – Wayde van Niekerk, South African sprinter
- 1993 – Håvard Nielsen, Norwegian footballer
- 756 – Yang Guifei, consort of Xuan Zong (b. 719)
- 998 – Abū al-Wafā' Būzjānī, Persian mathematician and astronomer (b. 940)
- 1015 – Vladimir the Great, Grand prince of Kievan Rus' (b. c. 958)
- 1274 – Bonaventure, Italian bishop and saint (b. 1221)
- 1291 – Rudolf I of Germany (b. 1218)
- 1299 – King Eric II of Norway (b. c. 1268)
- 1381 – John Ball, English Lollard priest
- 1388 – Agnes of Durazzo, titular Latin empress consort of Constantinople (d. 1313)
- 1397 – Catherine of Henneberg, German ruler (b. c. 1334)
- 1406 – William, Duke of Austria
- 1410 – Ulrich von Jungingen, German Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights (b. 1360)
- 1445 – Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scotland
- 1542 - Lisa del Giocondo, subject of Leonardo da Vinci's painting Mona Lisa (b. 1479)
- 1544 – René of Châlon (b. 1519)
- 1571 – Shimazu Takahisa, Japanese daimyo (b. 1514)
- 1609 – Annibale Carracci, Italian painter and illustrator (b. 1560)
- 1614 – Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme, French soldier, historian, and author (b. 1540)
- 1655 – Girolamo Rainaldi, Italian architect (b. 1570)
- 1685 – James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, Dutch-English general and politician, Governor of Kingston-upon-Hull (b. 1649)
- 1750 – Vasily Tatishchev, Russian ethnographer and politician (b. 1686)
- 1765 – Charles-André van Loo, French painter (b. 1705)
- 1767 – Michael Bruce, Scottish poet and composer (b. 1746)
- 1789 – Jacques Duphly, French harpsichord player and composer (b. 1715)
- 1828 – Jean-Antoine Houdon, French sculptor (b. 1741)
- 1839 – Winthrop Mackworth Praed, English poet and politician (b. 1802)
- 1844 – Claude Charles Fauriel, French philologist and historian (b. 1772)
- 1851 – Juan Felipe Ibarra, Argentinian general and politician (b. 1787)
- 1857 – Carl Czerny, Austrian pianist and composer (b. 1791)
- 1858 – Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov, Russian painter (b. 1806)
- 1883– General Tom Thumb, American circus performer (b. 1838)
- 1885 – Rosalía de Castro, Spanish author and poet (b. 1837)
- 1890 – Gottfried Keller, Swiss author, poet, and playwright (b. 1819)
- 1898 – Jean-Baptiste Salpointe, French-American archbishop (d. 1825)
- 1904 – Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright and short story writer (b. 1860)
- 1919 – Hermann Emil Fischer, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
- 1929 – Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian author, poet, and playwright (b. 1874)
- 1930 – Leopold Auer, Hungarian violinist, composer, and conductor (b. 1845)
- 1931 – Ladislaus Bortkiewicz, Russian-German economist and mathematician (b. 1868)
- 1932 – Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven, South African poet and politician (b. 1873)
- 1933 – Irving Babbitt, American scholar, critic, and academic (b. 1865)
- 1933 – Freddie Keppard, American cornet player (b. 1890)
- 1940 – Eugen Bleuler, Swiss psychiatrist and physician (b. 1857)
- 1940 – Robert Wadlow, American giant, 8"11' 271 cm (b.1918)
- 1942 – Wenceslao Vinzons, Filipino lawyer and politician (b. 1910)
- 1944 – Marie-Victorin Kirouac, Canadian botanist and academic (b. 1885)
- 1946 – Razor Smith, English cricketer and coach (b. 1877)
- 1947 – Walter Donaldson, American soldier and songwriter (b. 1893)
- 1948 – John J. Pershing, American general (b. 1860)
- 1953 – Geevarghese Mar Ivanios, Indian archbishop, founded the Order of the Imitation of Christ (b. 1882)
- 1957 – James M. Cox, American publisher and politician, 46th Governor of Ohio (b. 1870)
- 1957 – Vasily Maklakov, Russian lawyer and politician (b. 1869)
- 1959 – Ernest Bloch, Swiss-American composer and academic (b. 1880)
- 1959 – Vance Palmer, Australian author and critic (b. 1885)
- 1960 – Set Persson, Swedish politician (b. 1897)
- 1960 – Lawrence Tibbett, American singer and actor (b. 1896)
- 1961 – John Edward Brownlee, Canadian lawyer and politician, 5th Premier of Alberta (b. 1884)
- 1965 – Francis Cherry, American lawyer and politician, 35th Governor of Arkansas (b. 1908)
- 1966 – Seyfi Arkan, Turkish architect (b. 1903)
- 1974 – Christine Chubbuck, American journalist (b. 1944)
- 1976 – Paul Gallico, American journalist and author (b. 1897)
- 1977 – Donald Mackay, Australian businessman and activist (b. 1933)
- 1979 – Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Mexican academic and politician, 29th President of Mexico (b. 1911)
- 1981 – Frédéric Dorion, Canadian lawyer, judge, and politician (b. 1898)
- 1982 – Bill Justis, American saxophonist, songwriter, and producer (b. 1926)
- 1986 – Billy Haughton, American harness racer and trainer (b. 1923)
- 1988 – Eleanor Estes, American librarian, author, and illustrator (b. 1906)
- 1989 – Laurie Cunningham, English footballer (b. 1956)
- 1990 – Zaim Topčić, Yugoslav and Bosnian writer (b. 1920)
- 1990 – Margaret Lockwood, English actress (b. 1916)
- 1990 – Omar Abu Risha, Syrian poet and diplomat, 4th Syrian Ambassador to the United States (b. 1910)
- 1991 – Bert Convy, American actor, singer, and game show host (b. 1933)
- 1992 – Hammer DeRoburt, Nauruan educator and politician, 1st President of Nauru (b. 1922)
- 1992 – Chingiz Mustafayev, Azerbaijani journalist and author (b. 1960)
- 1997 – Justinas Lagunavičius, Lithuanian basketball player (b. 1924)
- 1997 – Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer, founded Versace (b. 1946)
- 1998 – S. Shanmuganathan, Sri Lankan politician (b. 1960)
- 2000 – Louis Quilico, Canadian opera singer and educator (b. 1925)
- 2001 – C. Balasingham, Sri Lankan lawyer and civil servant (b. 1917)
- 2003 – Roberto Bolaño, Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet, and essayist (b. 1953)
- 2003 – Elisabeth Welch, American actress and singer (b. 1904)
- 2006 – Robert H. Brooks, American businessman, founder of Hooters and Naturally Fresh, Inc. (b. 1937)
- 2006 – Alireza Shapour Shahbazi, Iranian archaeologist and academic (b. 1942)
- 2008 – György Kolonics, Hungarian canoe racer (b. 1972)
- 2010 – James E. Akins, American politician and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (b. 1926)
- 2011 – Googie Withers, British-Australian actress (b. 1917)
- 2012 – Boris Cebotari, Moldovan footballer (b. 1975)
- 2012 – Tsilla Chelton, Israeli-French actress (b. 1919)
- 2012 – Grant Feasel, American football player (b. 1960)
- 2012 – David Fraser, English general (b. 1920)
- 2012 – Celeste Holm, American actress and singer (b. 1917)
- 2012 – Yoichi Takabayashi, Japanese director and screenwriter (b. 1931)[3]
- 2013 – Ninos Aho, Syrian-American poet and activist (b. 1945)
- 2013 – Henry Braden, American lawyer and politician (b. 1944)
- 2013 – Tom Greenwell, American lawyer and judge (b. 1956)
- 2013 – Earl Gros, American football player (b. 1940)
- 2013 – Noël Lee, Chinese-American pianist and composer (b. 1924)
- 2013 – Meskerem Legesse, Ethiopian runner (b. 1986)
- 2013 – John T. Riedl, American computer scientist and academic (b. 1962)
- 2014 – Óscar Acosta, Honduran author, poet, and diplomat (b. 1933)
- 2014 – James MacGregor Burns, American historian, political scientist, and author (b. 1918)
- 2014 – Saúl Lara, Spanish footballer (b. 1982)
- 2014 – Edward Perl, American neuroscientist and academic (b. 1926)
- 2014 – Robert A. Roe, American soldier and politician (b. 1924)
- 2015 – Masahiko Aoki, Japanese-American economist and academic (b. 1938)
- 2015 – Wan Li, Chinese politician, 4th Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China (b. 1916)
- 2015 – Aubrey Morris, British actor (b. 1926)
- 2015 – Dave Somerville, Canadian singer (b. 1933)
- 2017 – Martin Landau, American film and television actor (b. 1928)
- Bon Festival (Kantō region, Japan)
- Christian feast day:
- Abhai (Syriac Orthodox Church)
- Bonaventure
- Dispersion of the Apostles (No longer officially celebrated by the Catholic Church)
- Donald of Ogilvy
- Edith of Polesworth
- Edith of Wilton
- Plechelm
- Quriaqos and Julietta
- Swithun
- Vladimir the Great (Eastern Orthodox; Catholic Church)
- July 15 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Earliest day on which Birthday of Don Luis Muñoz Rivera can fall, while July 21 is the latest; celebrated on the third Monday of July. (Puerto Rico)
- Earliest day on which Galla Bayramy can fall, while July 21 is the latest; celebrated on the third Sunday of July. (Turkmenistan)
- Earliest day on which Marine Day can fall, while July 21 is the latest; celebrated on the third Monday of July. (Japan)
- Earliest day on which President's Day (Botswana) can fall, while July 21 is the latest; celebrated on the third Monday of July.
- Elderly Men Day (Kiribati)
- Festival of Santa Rosalia (Palermo, Sicily)
- Social Media Giving Day
- Sultan's Birthday (Brunei Darussalam)
“If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.” John 15:10 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
Morning
God's altar was to be built of unhewn stones, that no trace of human skill or labour might be seen upon it. Human wisdom delights to trim and arrange the doctrines of the cross into a system more artificial and more congenial with the depraved tastes of fallen nature; instead, however, of improving the gospel carnal wisdom pollutes it, until it becomes another gospel, and not the truth of God at all. All alterations and amendments of the Lord's own Word are defilements and pollutions. The proud heart of man is very anxious to have a hand in the justification of the soul before God; preparations for Christ are dreamed of, humblings and repentings are trusted in, good works are cried up, natural ability is much vaunted, and by all means the attempt is made to lift up human tools upon the divine altar. It were well if sinners would remember that so far from perfecting the Saviour's work, their carnal confidences only pollute and dishonour it. The Lord alone must be exalted in the work of atonement, and not a single mark of man's chisel or hammer will be endured. There is an inherent blasphemy in seeking to add to what Christ Jesus in His dying moments declared to be finished, or to improve that in which the Lord Jehovah finds perfect satisfaction. Trembling sinner, away with thy tools, and fall upon thy knees in humble supplication; and accept the Lord Jesus to be the altar of thine atonement, and rest in him alone.
Many professors may take warning from this morning's text as to the doctrines which they believe. There is among Christians far too much inclination to square and reconcile the truths of revelation; this is a form of irreverence and unbelief, let us strive against it, and receive truth as we find it; rejoicing that the doctrines of the Word are unhewn stones, and so are all the more fit to build an altar for the Lord.
Evening
Let us learn from Mary Magdalene how to obtain fellowship with the Lord Jesus. Notice how she sought. She sought the Saviour very early in the morning. If thou canst wait for Christ, and be patient in the hope of having fellowship with him at some distant season, thou wilt never have fellowship at all; for the heart that is fitted for communion is a hungering and a thirsting heart. She sought him also with very great boldness. Other disciples fled from the sepulchre, for they trembled and were amazed; but Mary, it is said, "stood" at the sepulchre. If you would have Christ with you, seek him boldly. Let nothing hold you back. Defy the world. Press on where others flee. She sought Christ faithfully--she stood at the sepulchre. Some find it hard to stand by a living Saviour, but she stood by a dead one. Let us seek Christ after this mode, cleaving to the very least thing that has to do with him, remaining faithful though all others should forsake him. Note further, she sought Jesus earnestly--she stood "weeping". Those tear-droppings were as spells that led the Saviour captive, and made him come forth and show himself to her. If you desire Jesus' presence, weep after it! If you cannot be happy unless he come and say to you, "Thou art my beloved," you will soon hear his voice. Lastly, she sought the Saviour only. What cared she for angels, she turned herself back from them; her search was only for her Lord. If Christ be your one and only love, if your heart has cast out all rivals, you will not long lack the comfort of his presence. Mary Magdalene sought thus because she loved much. Let us arouse ourselves to the same intensity of affection; let our heart, like Mary's, be full of Christ, and our love, like hers, will be satisfied with nothing short of himself. O Lord, reveal thyself to us this evening!
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Today's reading: Psalm 10-12, Acts 19:1-20 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Psalm 10-12
1 Why, LORD, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak,
who are caught in the schemes he devises.
3 He boasts about the cravings of his heart;
he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD.
4 In his pride the wicked man does not seek him;
in all his thoughts there is no room for God.
5 His ways are always prosperous;
your laws are rejected by him;
he sneers at all his enemies.
6 He says to himself, "Nothing will ever shake me."
He swears, "No one will ever do me harm."
who are caught in the schemes he devises.
3 He boasts about the cravings of his heart;
he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD.
4 In his pride the wicked man does not seek him;
in all his thoughts there is no room for God.
5 His ways are always prosperous;
your laws are rejected by him;
he sneers at all his enemies.
6 He says to himself, "Nothing will ever shake me."
He swears, "No one will ever do me harm."
Today's New Testament reading: Acts 19:1-20
Paul in Ephesus
1 While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2 and asked them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?"
They answered, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit."
3 So Paul asked, "Then what baptism did you receive?"
"John's baptism," they replied....
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Noah, Noe
[Nō'ah] - rest.
[Nō'ah] - rest.
1. The son of Lamech of the posterity of Seth - the tenth from Adam. He died at the age of 950 years (Gen. 5:29, 30, 32; 6:8). The LXX version says that the name is a play on the statement, "This same shall give us rest."
The Man Who Built the Ark
Nothing is known of the early life of Noah, who first appeared on the scene when he was five hundred years old. Evidently his father, Lamech, was a religious man and gave his son a fitting name, meaning rest . This much we do know about Noah, he lived in a time when men were universally corrupt, so much so that God said He would destroy the human race (Gen. 6:1-7).
In the midst of an age of moral darkness, Noah was perfect in his generation. He walked with God and had a life radiant with righteousness. Intimate with God, he learned of His purpose to destroy mankind (Heb. 11:7), and was given the strange and almost impossible task of building a vessel large enough to shelter his family and a pair of all the birds and the beasts of that time.
Noah set about the tremendous work of the Ark's construction. Daily he had to endure the ridicule of the godless. At last the waters of judgment covered the earth, but all within the Ark were safe and saved. What a striking illustration the Ark affords of Christ, who preserves us from the flood of divine judgment. Here is an outline for the pastor to extend:
I. Noah walked with God in spite of surrounding iniquity (Gen. 6:8-12). There were saints in Caesar's household.
II. Noah was obedient when appointed to a difficult task (Gen. 6:14-21; 7:5).
III. Noah was remembered by God and delivered from death (Gen. 8:1). Romans 8:1 tells where we rest.
IV. Noah, by faith, worked out his salvation (Heb. 11:7). SeePhilippians 2:12.
V. Noah warned his neighbors of impending judgment. (2 Peter 2:5). See Ezekiel 33:1-20.
VI. Noah built the first recorded altar ( Gen. 8:20). See Hebrews 13:10.
VII. Noah was honored by God with an everlasting covenant (Gen. 9:12-17). See Hebrews 9:15.
2. Also the name of a daughter of Zelophehad, the grandson of Gilead (Num. 26:33).
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