I'm contributing to QUORA, a question and answer site that can be a bit addictive.
What are some ways of teachers to find out how smart their students are?
In neither public nor private schools is it the responsibility of a teacher to ‘find out how smart’ their students are. Teachers are mandated by the state and authorities to teach the curriculum. They should facilitate and extend, not judge. They should show discerning judgement.
A teacher may want to see if a student has achieved an objective. They might test their student, either through written, verbal or observational means.
I tell my students things, and sometimes, often, they don’t want to know. But stretching a student to achieve more does not mean they are comfortable. Riddles, puzzles, jokes, historical facts. Things that challenge accepted wisdom and promote critical thinking. One can agree or disagree. That shows a student’s mental agility.
JFK was killed by secret service by accident. Truman should not have dropped an atom bomb on civilians once. Equity arguments never promote equality. Herodotus exaggerated in his History. AGW is not real and the treatment of it is corrupt.
When I was in year 8 my teachers were very concerned for my welfare. I was very fat and disinterested in the material they gave me. So my year adviser, who was my English teacher organised that I sit an IQ test given by the school counsellor. No pressure, they reassured me having taken me out of class and assured me of privacy I’d not known I’d needed. I’d been in Australia under two years, having left USA soon after a sister died from a long illness. My parents had divorced and my dad had blamed me in court for his assaulting me a number of times. The court had then given him part custody of me. I read books and kept to myself.
The Australian based test I treated as a joke. I was certain where Sydney was, but mixed up with Perth, Brisbane and Hobart. Kosciusko sounds similar to Kangaroo and might be a marsupial. I was scored with an IQ of 85 and my privacy was respected so that my mother was telephoned and told I would never achieve much but I could be happy as a street sweeper. My mother was a teacher, my father a college professor, I had read over a hundred books including the entire Three Musketeer series, Illiad and Odyssey, Robert Graves Greek Myths and Legends and Watership Down and so my parents questioned the result and then me.
I was given another test, assured I could relax and everything would be dealt with privately. This one was US standard and I happened to know things in it. President Carter had a daughter named Amy. American Indians were called Indian by mistake. Thomas Jefferson was a hypocrite. They assured me my IQ was 145 and asked me to list the books I’d read .. it numbered over a hundred.
But regardless of the result, it meant nothing. What would the school do with that knowledge? I was a mess in ways the school would never address. Meanwhile, I got interested in Math and History ..
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. Williams was given those titles when elected in 2014. It is difficult to find what value she has been to Dandenong, but clearly the ALP see her as the future. Williams is offering more help for rough sleepers in Dandenong. Why are people sleeping rough in Dandenong? There is insufficient capacity for a Christian Congregation of size. However, Christian congregations take on work supporting a community. It doesn't require government handouts. Williams is not supporting Dandenong with this measure, but herself.
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.
I am a decent man and don't care for the abuse given me. I created a video raising awareness of anti police feeling among western communities. I chose the senseless killing of Nicola Cotton, a Louisiana policewoman who joined post Katrina, to highlight the issue. I did this in order to get an income after having been illegally blacklisted from work in NSW for being a whistleblower. I have not done anything wrong. Local council appointees refused to endorse my work, so I did it for free. Youtube's Adsence refused to allow me to profit from their marketing it. Meanwhile, I am hostage to abysmal political leadership and hopeless journalists. My shopfront has opened on Facebook.
Here is a video I made Taken
From Invisible Dyad 9, competition
Many many thanks to Frozen Entropy for his production, guitar and all round brilliance.
=== from 2017 ===
Some things should not happen, but they do. I started working for a distributor of children's books recently, and had my eyes opened. The distributor sources titles from the UK, and sells library quality books at about a third of retail price to schools and libraries. They mainly work in children's picture books, but also offer reader series (including modified Shakespeare titles) and non fiction books. All new titles meeting rigorous standards. One comment I hear from some in charge of book purchases is "What about Australian titles?" The Australian market is too small. The quality of their books is not the same for the price. Many Australian titles get printed in the UK anyway and sold here in Australia cheaper than Australian printed editions.
One hopes that Amazon selling from Dandenong will revolutionise the market. Maybe I'll be able to sell my titles without the expensive shipping and handling tax. Just as with artists who would rather cut their own throats before letting conservatives claim a good idea, Australian publishers have been partisan and incompetent in marketing. I love Australia and would love to sell books here. Ridgy Didge quality Aussie books at a reasonable price.
On this day in 30 BC, Cleopatra is said to have committed suicide by getting an asp snake to bite her breast. Or maybe she was killed by order of Octavian who had killed her son and pushed her lover, Antony, to suicide. A surprising fact is that although she was ethnically Macedonian, she was also ethnically Egyptian, as has been seen by examining her sister's tomb. So while some may feel that over generations, petty court jealousy would have prevented the mixing of race, it hadn't. She was the last Pharaoh. With her death, the nation of Egypt was extinguished and absorbed into Roman Empire. Over the years, her people would be converted to Christianity, and then Islam, they are essentially the same people, descended from those in that mighty empire. And yet today, they are nothing like their ancestors in wisdom and nobility. But they could be ..
In 1121, Georgian King David IV tricked an improbable victory over the Seljuk overlords. David asked to have a discussion. At the meeting, he slaughtered the delegates while his army in a pincer movement took on the flanks. He left a bolt hole. An estimated 55000 Georgian troops took out ten times their number, allowing David to seize what would later be the Georgian Capital. In 1480 at the Battle of Otranto, Ottoman troops beheaded 800 Christians who refused to convert to Islam. It has been suggested in modern times that it was not as what was written at the time, but the result of a fight. However, forensic analysis has shown some of the victims were women and children and it was likely the result of what was described by writers of the day in Italy, an atrocity. In 1624 the council advising Louis XIII were arrested leaving Cardinal Richelieu the principal minister. In 1676 King Phillip's War was finished when Wampanoag Chief Metacomet (aka Phillip) was shot dead by Praying Indian (vis a converted Christian) John Alderman. Alderman was allowed to keep and display the head and a hand, which he did, for cash. In 1687, in what is now Hungary, at the Second Battle of Mohács, Charles V of Lorraine had the Ottoman forces, about equal in number, on quiche. In 1851, Isaac Singer patented his sewing machine. In 1877, Asaph Hall discovered the Martian moon Deimos. In 1883 the last Quagga died in captivity in Holland. It was a bit like a Zebra and a horse, striped in front, but not in back. Hunted by Boers to extinction. In 1944 in Italy, Waffen SS troops killed 560 people in a village. The village was never rebuilt, but a museum stands for the atrocity. In 1950, North Koreans killed 75 US POWs. In 1952, the Soviet Union killed thirteen Jewish intellectuals in Moscow. In 1958, Art Kane commemorated a Great Day in Harlem by photographing in black and white 57 notable jazz musicians. In 1976, between 1000 and 3500 so called Palestinians were killed in Lebanon during the civil war. In 1981, Microsoft released their first personal computer. In 1982, Mexico sparked a debt crisis by announcing she couldn't pay her debt. In 1990, Sue, the most complete skeleton of a T-Rex was discovered. In 1992, Canada, US and Mexico complete the NAFTA free trade agreement. In 2000, The Kursk sank during a military exercise.
1624 – The president of Louis XIII of France's royal council is arrested, leaving Cardinal Richelieu in the role of the King's principal minister.
1676 – Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoagwar chief, ending King Philip's War.
1687 – Battle of Mohács: Charles of Lorraine defeats the Ottoman Empire.
1765 – Treaty of Allahabad is signed. The Treaty marks the political and constitutional involvement and the beginning of Company rule in India.
1793 – The Rhône and Loire départments are created when the former départementof Rhône-et-Loire is split into two.
1806 – Santiago de Liniers, 1st Count of Buenos Aires re-takes the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina after the first British invasion.
1831 – French intervention forces William I of the Netherlands to abandon his attemptto suppress the Belgian Revolution.
1851 – Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.
1883 – The last quagga dies at the Natura Artis Magistra, a zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1898 – The Hawaiian flag is lowered from ʻIolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawaii to the United States.
1914 – World War I: The United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit.
1914 – World War I: The Battle of Halen a.k.a. Battle of the Silver Helmets a clash between large Belgian and German cavalry formations at Halen, Belgium.
1944 – Waffen-SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.
1944 – Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people were killed indiscriminately or in mass executions.
1944 – Alençon is liberated by General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.
1950 – Korean War: Bloody Gulch massacre: American POWs are massacred by North Korean Army.
1952 – The Night of the Murdered Poets: Thirteen prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.
1953 – The first testing of real thermonuclear weapon (not test devices): The Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of "RDS-6s" (Joe 4), the first Soviet thermonuclear bomb.
1953 – The 7.2 Ms Ionian earthquake shakes the southern Ionian Islands with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Between 445 and 800 people were killed.
1960 – Echo 1A, NASA's first successful communications satellite, is launched.
1964 – South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country's racist policies.
1969 – Violence erupts after the Apprentice Boys of Derry march in Derry, Northern Ireland, resulting in a three-day communal riot known as the Battle of the Bogside.
1976 – Between 1,000 and 3,500 Palestinians are killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War
1977 – The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
1977 – The Sri Lanka Riots:, targeting the minority Sri Lankan Tamils, begin, less than a month after the United National Party came to power. Over 300 Tamils are killed.
1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.
1985 – Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520, to become the worst single-plane air disaster.
1990 – Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found to date, is discovered by Sue Hendrickson in South Dakota.
1992 – Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
1994 – Major League Baseball players go on strike, forcing the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
2000 – The Russian Navy submarine Kursk explodes and sinks in the Barents Seaduring a military exercise, killing her entire 118-man crew.
2015 – At least two massive explosions kill 173 people and injure nearly 800 more in Tianjin, China.
One hopes that Amazon selling from Dandenong will revolutionise the market. Maybe I'll be able to sell my titles without the expensive shipping and handling tax. Just as with artists who would rather cut their own throats before letting conservatives claim a good idea, Australian publishers have been partisan and incompetent in marketing. I love Australia and would love to sell books here. Ridgy Didge quality Aussie books at a reasonable price.
On this day in 30 BC, Cleopatra is said to have committed suicide by getting an asp snake to bite her breast. Or maybe she was killed by order of Octavian who had killed her son and pushed her lover, Antony, to suicide. A surprising fact is that although she was ethnically Macedonian, she was also ethnically Egyptian, as has been seen by examining her sister's tomb. So while some may feel that over generations, petty court jealousy would have prevented the mixing of race, it hadn't. She was the last Pharaoh. With her death, the nation of Egypt was extinguished and absorbed into Roman Empire. Over the years, her people would be converted to Christianity, and then Islam, they are essentially the same people, descended from those in that mighty empire. And yet today, they are nothing like their ancestors in wisdom and nobility. But they could be ..
In 1121, Georgian King David IV tricked an improbable victory over the Seljuk overlords. David asked to have a discussion. At the meeting, he slaughtered the delegates while his army in a pincer movement took on the flanks. He left a bolt hole. An estimated 55000 Georgian troops took out ten times their number, allowing David to seize what would later be the Georgian Capital. In 1480 at the Battle of Otranto, Ottoman troops beheaded 800 Christians who refused to convert to Islam. It has been suggested in modern times that it was not as what was written at the time, but the result of a fight. However, forensic analysis has shown some of the victims were women and children and it was likely the result of what was described by writers of the day in Italy, an atrocity. In 1624 the council advising Louis XIII were arrested leaving Cardinal Richelieu the principal minister. In 1676 King Phillip's War was finished when Wampanoag Chief Metacomet (aka Phillip) was shot dead by Praying Indian (vis a converted Christian) John Alderman. Alderman was allowed to keep and display the head and a hand, which he did, for cash. In 1687, in what is now Hungary, at the Second Battle of Mohács, Charles V of Lorraine had the Ottoman forces, about equal in number, on quiche. In 1851, Isaac Singer patented his sewing machine. In 1877, Asaph Hall discovered the Martian moon Deimos. In 1883 the last Quagga died in captivity in Holland. It was a bit like a Zebra and a horse, striped in front, but not in back. Hunted by Boers to extinction. In 1944 in Italy, Waffen SS troops killed 560 people in a village. The village was never rebuilt, but a museum stands for the atrocity. In 1950, North Koreans killed 75 US POWs. In 1952, the Soviet Union killed thirteen Jewish intellectuals in Moscow. In 1958, Art Kane commemorated a Great Day in Harlem by photographing in black and white 57 notable jazz musicians. In 1976, between 1000 and 3500 so called Palestinians were killed in Lebanon during the civil war. In 1981, Microsoft released their first personal computer. In 1982, Mexico sparked a debt crisis by announcing she couldn't pay her debt. In 1990, Sue, the most complete skeleton of a T-Rex was discovered. In 1992, Canada, US and Mexico complete the NAFTA free trade agreement. In 2000, The Kursk sank during a military exercise.
=== from 2016 ===
People don't want Trump as President because he is "Crazy. All over the place. He says things he cannot do. He can't be trusted in a responsible position." By way of contrast, "Hillary is a known quantity. A safe pair of hands. She had the Secretary of State position and we know what she is like." We forget that Obama said of George Bush's Presidency that the outrageous spending was irresponsible. At the time, US debt was some $8 trillion. and now the next President will inherit a debt burden for children of $20 trillion. The Obama legacy with Nancy Pelosi leading the congress into ruin. But Pelosi is no longer in charge. Obamas spending has been curbed, partly by him hollowing out the military. He told Romney that the modern military "Don't use sabres anymore" but that might be because they can't afford them. Words matter. Trump has said some things that are difficult to accept. But he, and a GOP administration, can be trusted not to kill military officials through neglect and incompetence. Trump will not abuse email servers for corrupt reasons. Trump will not surround himself with people who will die after whistleblowing. Trump will not allow foreign states influence if they pay him lots. Trump will not lie about his dealing with the FBI. Hillary Clinton is a doormat and a known failure. She will tell you that it is impossible to cut spending. Meanwhile, Trump will make America great again.
=== from 2015 ===
Jacqui Lambie has thrown her own son in front of the bus of public opinion. She has denounced him as an ice addict and listed ways she doesn't trust him. If she were in the ALP, she might make him a senior public servant. Or cry to a camera. Instead she pats herself on the back and calls it tough love. But none of that matters as the media report on #abbottphobia so as to focus on their agenda. Media don't want to hear about cutting spending as it embarrasses them as they supported throwing away $600 billion during ALP government years. They refuse to notice that Gillard and Wong walk both sides of the SSM street. Lambie is not independent. She is ALP in all but name. Or acumen.
From 2014
A tragedy today as Robin Williams has killed himself at age 63 (yesterday according to local time). It is famous that he was bipolar depressive and had taken drugs as a young man. He had much to live for. The world grieves. But the loss is personal. Friends and family have been denied an opportunity to watch him age disgracefully. His legacy of being a great man, a fine comedian an observant and caring person is secure. No one could do what he did, or give what he gave. One beautiful piece is related to a performance he gave on Good Will Hunting to Matt Damon's character. "It's not your fault."
ADL are accused of taking the identity of a private citizen and posting terrorist and racist comments and attributed them to that private citizen. They have circulated the meme that resulted in spreading it widely through social media. The result is their victim has lost their job (temporarily, maybe) has received death threats and has had their private life exposed. It turns out that the victim is a non practising Muslim, and that incurs a death penalty in some Islamic nations, depending on the interpretation of what 'non practicing' means. And a few people claiming to be new to the unfolding issue ask questions like 'Who are the ADL?' and 'What have they done wrong?' Some have posted inflammatory and divisive posts. One recent poster made the erroneous claim that Islamic peoples were asked to contact call back radio and speak against terrorism. Many did, but the poster claimed none did and challenged others to express outrage. The thing is, the issue of terrorism is much bigger than Muslim baiting. I do not know if the private citizen did or did not make a post which the ADL claims. I do know it was wrong of the ADL to spread the meme and I hope that they are properly penalised for their transgression. I do not know what a virtuous Islamic state looks like in the modern world. I know Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, visualised such a state when he spoke of Pakistan championing freedom of religion, the rule of law, freedom of speech and so on. It takes a lot of money and good will to create a modern state with such fine principles. Iraq has been betrayed by an incompetent President Obama who has allowed Iran to corrupt her processes. Maybe Obama has hoped to profit from the failure, regardless of why, it is a tragedy. But for Islamofascism to fail, such a state must come into being. It cannot be Palestine, which has no right to exist as a state, but should be made part of Israel and dissenters placed in Jordan or dispersed as refugees.
ADL are accused of taking the identity of a private citizen and posting terrorist and racist comments and attributed them to that private citizen. They have circulated the meme that resulted in spreading it widely through social media. The result is their victim has lost their job (temporarily, maybe) has received death threats and has had their private life exposed. It turns out that the victim is a non practising Muslim, and that incurs a death penalty in some Islamic nations, depending on the interpretation of what 'non practicing' means. And a few people claiming to be new to the unfolding issue ask questions like 'Who are the ADL?' and 'What have they done wrong?' Some have posted inflammatory and divisive posts. One recent poster made the erroneous claim that Islamic peoples were asked to contact call back radio and speak against terrorism. Many did, but the poster claimed none did and challenged others to express outrage. The thing is, the issue of terrorism is much bigger than Muslim baiting. I do not know if the private citizen did or did not make a post which the ADL claims. I do know it was wrong of the ADL to spread the meme and I hope that they are properly penalised for their transgression. I do not know what a virtuous Islamic state looks like in the modern world. I know Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, visualised such a state when he spoke of Pakistan championing freedom of religion, the rule of law, freedom of speech and so on. It takes a lot of money and good will to create a modern state with such fine principles. Iraq has been betrayed by an incompetent President Obama who has allowed Iran to corrupt her processes. Maybe Obama has hoped to profit from the failure, regardless of why, it is a tragedy. But for Islamofascism to fail, such a state must come into being. It cannot be Palestine, which has no right to exist as a state, but should be made part of Israel and dissenters placed in Jordan or dispersed as refugees.
Historical perspective on this day
1099 – First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeat Fatimid forces led by Al-Afdal Shahanshah. This is considered the last engagement of the First Crusade.
1121 – Battle of Didgori: The Georgian army under King David IV wins a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi.
1164 – Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din Zangi defeats the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch.
1323 – Signature of the Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod Republic, that regulates the border between the two countries for the first time.
1499 – First engagement of the Battle of Zonchio between Venetian and Ottomanf leets.
1121 – Battle of Didgori: The Georgian army under King David IV wins a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi.
1164 – Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din Zangi defeats the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch.
1323 – Signature of the Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod Republic, that regulates the border between the two countries for the first time.
1499 – First engagement of the Battle of Zonchio between Venetian and Ottomanf leets.
1624 – The president of Louis XIII of France's royal council is arrested, leaving Cardinal Richelieu in the role of the King's principal minister.
1676 – Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoagwar chief, ending King Philip's War.
1687 – Battle of Mohács: Charles of Lorraine defeats the Ottoman Empire.
1765 – Treaty of Allahabad is signed. The Treaty marks the political and constitutional involvement and the beginning of Company rule in India.
1793 – The Rhône and Loire départments are created when the former départementof Rhône-et-Loire is split into two.
1806 – Santiago de Liniers, 1st Count of Buenos Aires re-takes the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina after the first British invasion.
1831 – French intervention forces William I of the Netherlands to abandon his attemptto suppress the Belgian Revolution.
1851 – Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.
1883 – The last quagga dies at the Natura Artis Magistra, a zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1898 – The Hawaiian flag is lowered from ʻIolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawaii to the United States.
1914 – World War I: The United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit.
1914 – World War I: The Battle of Halen a.k.a. Battle of the Silver Helmets a clash between large Belgian and German cavalry formations at Halen, Belgium.
1944 – Waffen-SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.
1944 – Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people were killed indiscriminately or in mass executions.
1944 – Alençon is liberated by General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.
1950 – Korean War: Bloody Gulch massacre: American POWs are massacred by North Korean Army.
1952 – The Night of the Murdered Poets: Thirteen prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.
1953 – The first testing of real thermonuclear weapon (not test devices): The Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of "RDS-6s" (Joe 4), the first Soviet thermonuclear bomb.
1953 – The 7.2 Ms Ionian earthquake shakes the southern Ionian Islands with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Between 445 and 800 people were killed.
1960 – Echo 1A, NASA's first successful communications satellite, is launched.
1964 – South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country's racist policies.
1969 – Violence erupts after the Apprentice Boys of Derry march in Derry, Northern Ireland, resulting in a three-day communal riot known as the Battle of the Bogside.
1976 – Between 1,000 and 3,500 Palestinians are killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War
1977 – The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
1977 – The Sri Lanka Riots:, targeting the minority Sri Lankan Tamils, begin, less than a month after the United National Party came to power. Over 300 Tamils are killed.
1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.
1985 – Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520, to become the worst single-plane air disaster.
1990 – Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found to date, is discovered by Sue Hendrickson in South Dakota.
1992 – Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
1994 – Major League Baseball players go on strike, forcing the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
2000 – The Russian Navy submarine Kursk explodes and sinks in the Barents Seaduring a military exercise, killing her entire 118-man crew.
2015 – At least two massive explosions kill 173 people and injure nearly 800 more in Tianjin, China.
=== 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 Kevin Pham-Le. Born on the same day as Karl Faber (1773), Klara Hitler (1860), Edith Hamilton (1867), Cecil B. DeMille (1881), Harry Hopman (1906), Guy Gibson (1918), Norris & Ross McWhirter (1925), George Soros (1930), Mark Knopfler (1949) and Jesinta Campbell (1991). On your day, 1676 – Puritans and their Native American allies killed Wampanoag sachem Metacomet (known as "King Philip"), essentially ending King Philip's War.
1883 – The last known quagga, a subspecies of the plains zebra, died at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam.
1952 – Thirteen Jewish poets in Moscow were executed for espionage based on false confessions.
1969 – Riots erupted in the Bogside area of Derry and spread across much of Northern Ireland.
2000 – The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy exploded and sank in the Barents Sea during a military exercise. A hundred years before the war of independence, Americans killed King Philip. What was the quagga good for anyway? I would cheerfully lock up ever socialist to get back those thirteen poets. A party began in Ireland. Oscar is a lousy name for a submarine. Just sayin' ..
1883 – The last known quagga, a subspecies of the plains zebra, died at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam.
1952 – Thirteen Jewish poets in Moscow were executed for espionage based on false confessions.
1969 – Riots erupted in the Bogside area of Derry and spread across much of Northern Ireland.
2000 – The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy exploded and sank in the Barents Sea during a military exercise. A hundred years before the war of independence, Americans killed King Philip. What was the quagga good for anyway? I would cheerfully lock up ever socialist to get back those thirteen poets. A party began in Ireland. Oscar is a lousy name for a submarine. Just sayin' ..
- 1503 – Christian III of Denmark (d. 1559)
- 1604 – Tokugawa Iemitsu, Japanese shogun (d. 1651)
- 1644 – Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Bohemian-Austrian violinist and composer (d. 1704)
- 1647 – Johann Heinrich Acker, German pastor and educator (d. 1719)
- 1686 – John Balguy, English philosopher (d. 1748)
- 1696 – Maurice Greene, English organist and composer (d. 1755)
- 1774 – Robert Southey, English poet (d. 1843)
- 1773 – Karl Faber, Prussian historian (d. 1853)
- 1831 – Helena Blavatsky, Russian theosophist and scholar (d. 1891)
- 1856 – Diamond Jim Brady, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1917)
- 1859 – Katharine Lee Bates, American poet and author (d. 1929)
- 1860 – Klara Hitler, Austrian mother of Adolf Hitler (d. 1907)
- 1867 – Edith Hamilton, German-American author and educator (d. 1963)
- 1880 – Radclyffe Hall, English poet, author, and activist (d. 1943)
- 1880 – Christy Mathewson, American baseball player and manager (d. 1925)
- 1881 – Cecil B. DeMille, American director and producer (d. 1959)
- 1886 – Keith Murdoch, Australian journalist (d. 1952)
- 1887 – Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1961)
- 1891 – C. E. M. Joad, English philosopher and broadcaster (d. 1953)
- 1904 – Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia (d. 1918)
- 1906 – Harry Hopman, Australian tennis player and coach (d. 1985)
- 1918 – Guy Gibson, Indian-English pilot, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1944)
- 1925 – Norris McWhirter, Scottish publisher and activist co-founded the Guinness World Records (d. 2004)
- 1925 – Ross McWhirter, Scottish publisher and activist, co-founded the Guinness World Records (d. 1975)
- 1929 – Buck Owens, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Buckaroos) (d. 2006)
- 1930 – George Soros, Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist, founded the Soros Fund Management
- 1930 – Jacques Tits, Belgian-French mathematician
- 1949 – Mark Knopfler, Scottish-English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Dire Straits and The Notting Hillbillies)
- 1954 – Pat Metheny, American guitarist and songwriter (Pat Metheny Group)
- 1961 – Roy Hay, English guitarist, keyboard player, and composer (Culture Club)
- 1969 – Tanita Tikaram, German-English singer-songwriter
- 1971 – Pete Sampras, American tennis player
- 1977 – Park Yong-ha, South Korean singer and actor (d. 2010)
- 1991 – Jesinta Campbell, Australian model, Miss Universe Australia 2010
- 1993 – Luna (singer), South Korean actress, singer, and dancer (f(x))
- 1996 – Torri Webster, Canadian actress
- 30 BC – Cleopatra, Egyptian queen (b. 69 BC)
- 1424 – Yongle Emperor of China (b. 1360)
- 1577 – Thomas Smith, English diplomat and scholar (b. 1513)
- 1827 – William Blake, English poet and painter (b. 1757)
- 1941 – Bobby Peel, English cricketer (b. 1857)
- 1944 – Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., American pilot (b. 1915)
- 1973 – Walter Rudolf Hess, Swiss physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
- 1982 – Henry Fonda, American actor, singer, and producer (b. 1905)
- 2014 - Robin Williams, bipolar sufferer, comedian (b. 1951)
Piers Akerman
‘Turnbull is not the prime minister for these times’
PIERS AKERMAN MALCOLM Turnbull has the political nous of a gnat and is squandering the nation’s conservative legacy as surely as did his Labor predecessors Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, Piers Akerman writes.
===Tim Blair
SHE GETS KNOCKED DOWN, SHE GETS UP AGAIN
If Chelsea Roffey was a Brazilian soccer wimp, she’d be in hospital for the next ten days at least.
===Andrew Bolt
HOW DOES JACINTA PRICE STAY STRONG AGAINST THIS HATE?
They do "welcome to country" ceremonies or dance for the Governor General. They preach for reconciliation. But to Jacinta Price they show complete savagery and misogyny - threats, wishes for her death and rape fantasies so vile that I cannot repeat them. Why do some of these men still get government gigs? I name them. WARNING: FOUL LANGUAGE ALERT
===ONCE A LONE WOLF, ALWAYS A LONE WOLF
Tim Blair – Friday, August 12, 2016 (4:43pm)
Canadian cops take down an Islamic militant:
A former Winnipeg man who was a known Islamic State sympathizer is dead following a police operation late Wednesday in the southern Ontario community of Strathroy.Aaron Daniel Driver, 24, formerly of Charleswood, was living in Strathroy, 225 kilometres west of Toronto, after agreeing to a peace bond earlier this year that stopped him from communicating with Islamic State and other terrorist groups.Driver was killed inside a Strathroy home and was suspected of plotting a suicide bomb attack in an unnamed major Canadian city. He was acting alone, media reported.
One year ago, Driver’s dad spoke to media:
“When he was living at home, he was very secretive; a lone wolf. He didn’t bring friends over, never talked about where he was going and what he was doing,” Driver’s father said.
We know what he’s doing now. Absolutely nothing.
GETTING OFF LIGHTLY
Tim Blair – Friday, August 12, 2016 (3:35pm)
NO TICK FOR CHICK FLICK
Tim Blair – Friday, August 12, 2016 (2:30pm)
The all-female remake of Ghostbusters is set to post a $US70 million loss:
As of August 7, Ghostbusters had earned just under $US180 million at the global box office, including $US117 million in North America. While the film still hasn’t opened in a few countries, including France, Japan and Mexico, THR cites box-office experts as saying the film will have trouble getting to $US225 million.
The number of people renting the 1984 film has soared over the summer.
UPDATE. Unlike the movie itself, Milo Yiannopolous’s review seems right on the money:
Ghostbusters is terrible. It’s more obvious than the reading on an EKG-meter in Zuul’s bedroom. The only frame of reference in which this movie functions is as a meta-movie, in which the Ghostbusters franchise is treated like a vampire in a Hammer Horror from the 60s. The beloved franchise from our childhood with a stake driven through its heart, head chopped off, body burned and buried at a crossroads …This, unlike any movie I’ve ever seen before, seems to have been conceived entirely out of spite, with the result that its plot is largely irrelevant.
Except for one telling element of that plot: the female ghostbuster gang ends up receiving government funding. As Milo notes: “Like all feminists, they can only survive by sucking on the teat of Big Government.”
UPDATE II. Vanity Fair‘s Laura Bradley:
It’s discouraging to imagine future conversations that focus simply on how much the movie made, rather than what it imagined for the future of women in film.
This person has obviously never spoken to any studio executive in her entire life.
FRIDAY SONGBOARD
Tim Blair – Friday, August 12, 2016 (12:45pm)
A sweet tune from Los Lobos. Here’s the studio version.
AFHALAL
Tim Blair – Thursday, August 11, 2016 (7:22pm)
Yay for diversity:
The AFL is offering 10 “diversity trainee” positions worth $34,000 a year exclusively to Muslim youthas part of a Federal Government-funded program.To be eligible for the positions, which span a range of areas including social media, administration, finance and marketing, applicants must “be from Muslim background”, and “have recently completed secondary school”.
That second requirement blatantly discriminates against Islamic refugees.
UPDATE. The AFL’s Islamic diversity trainees are sure going to love this:
The AFL says it wants to start a conversation about discrimination against LGBTI people ahead of its first pride match this weekend.The game between St Kilda and Sydney will be played on Saturday night and goal umpires will wave rainbow flags.St Kilda players will wear guernseys with rainbow-coloured numbers for the match, while the Swans will wear rainbow-coloured socks.
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan explains:
“We’re not trying to be the social leader on everything, but issues come up from time to time that we need to lead on and this is one of them,” he said.
He shouldn’t try to be a social leader on anything. He runs a football league. There’s a clue in the name.
Bomb blast in Thailand. UPDATE: Wave of bombings
Andrew Bolt August 12 2016 (4:03pm)
Bomb blasts in Thailand, with suspicions already that Muslim insurgents were responsible:
More bombings today in Thailand, apparently part of a coordinated onslaught:
===“Double-tap” bomb explosions outside a neighbourhood bar Thursday night killed one woman and wounded at least 19 people in the Prachuap Khiri Khan province resort…Background:
Reporters on the scene said via Twitter two bombs hidden in plant pots 50 metres apart were detonated by mobile phones at about 10pm and 10.20…
The second bomb exploded 20 minutes after the first. This “double-tap” is common in the deep South, where insurgents set off one bomb, then explode a second, often larger device to maximise casualties among officials who arrive to investigate, as well as curious bystanders.
Another bombing took place earlier on Thursday in the southern province of Trang, killing one person and injuring six, according to Thai press reports. It was unclear if it was related to the Hua Hin blasts.UPDATE
Trang is on the fringes of Thailand’s deep south, where a low-level Muslim separatist insurgency has killed more than 5,000 since 2004.
More bombings today in Thailand, apparently part of a coordinated onslaught:
All of the bombs were reportedly detonated by mobile phone signals…(Thanks to reader Daniel.)
Two bombs went off in front of Surat Thani police stations. Two more hit Phuket. A bomb was suspected to have started a major fire at a Nakhon Si Thammarat supermarket.
In Surat Thani, a bomb exploded in front of the marine police office, and another in front of the main police station in the town.
The first of the two blasts, exactly 30 minutes and 400 metres apart, killed one man and wounded three other bystanders.
Modern “diversity”: no Buddhists or Jews may apply
Andrew Bolt August 12 2016 (11:14am)
This is the opposite of diversity. I mean, can Christians, Hindus, Jews or Buddhists apply?
===The AFL is offering 10 “diversity trainee” positions worth $34,000 a year exclusively to Muslim youthas part of a Federal Government-funded program.Why is the Turnbull Government promoting one faith above all others?
Richo gives up on Turnbull
Andrew Bolt August 12 2016 (10:40am)
Graham Richardson on the fall of Malcolm Turnbull:
===In less than a year an electorate too accustomed to electing duds has realised this bloke has not a remote clue how to lift them or the economy out of the doldrums…
In incredibly quick succession, dramas around Rudd’s doomed bid for the top job at the UN and a hastily convened and twice fouled-up royal commission had many of us in despair. How is it possible that failing to support Rudd was allowed to become a defeat for Turnbull’s deputy, Julie Bishop, and a test of his own leadership strength under the constant battering and leaking of the right wing of his party? How could it run so long and do so much damage?…
Who could be surprised therefore when another stuff-up took place this week that was once again handled poorly?… The already contentious census had been attacked for weeks, if not months, over the security of the data it would collect. You would be entitled to think therefore that the PM would have had the Australian Bureau of Statistics boss and the minister responsible for the census, Michael McCormack, in his office to rev them up about the need for Tuesday’s census to work and be drama-free. Once again the PM had to trot up to another news conference to explain a most embarrassing failure.
The pattern was tragically following on from Turnbull’s propensity to get a response wrong. For a full day he defended the ABS until it became obvious that such a stance was hopeless… A full 24 hours on, the PM began to distance himself from the ABS… If this is the best our leadership can manage then what will happen when trying to pass legislation to bring into effect the budget measures of 2016? It is less than nine months until the next budget and we have, courtesy of the Turnbull double dissolution, an ever more difficult Senate crossbench, emboldened by their reinforced importance. What can Australians expect to happen now when their government has blundered its way from crisis to crisis and has managed to deliver a parliament so unpredictable that business can’t make short or long-term plans about taxes, interest rates or industrial relations reform?
Human Rights Commission destroys two of our most important human rights
Andrew Bolt August 12 2016 (10:32am)
Chris Merritt is correct. The race discrimination commissioner is hopeless biased and has confirmed that the semi-judicial Human Rights Commission is acting both as policeman and judge - as well as witch-hunter-in-chief:
It must go.
(Thanks to reader George.)
===Tim Soutphommasane has encouraged people to lodge complaints with the commission about Bill Leak’s cartoon last week depicting an Aboriginal policeman returning a delinquent Aboriginal youth to his equally delinquent Aboriginal father.The Human Rights Commission is now a menace to two of our most important human rights - to free speech and a fair trial.
The problem is that the commissioner has prejudged those complaints: Leak, according to Soutphommasane’s public statements, is guilty and people should feel free to complain.
Those complaints will all go to Soutphommasane’s organisation, where every official knows that one of those at the top has already made up his mind.
That means any attempt by the commission to deal with complaints about Leak’s cartoon is now vulnerable to challenge for a perception of bias.
It must go.
(Thanks to reader George.)
Populist or prudent? Either way, badly handled
Andrew Bolt August 12 2016 (9:53am)
Glenda Korporaal accuses the Turnbull Government of populism:
===The “preliminary” decision by Scott Morrison to block Chinese-backed bids for a stake in the Ausgrid lease will send shock waves around the world.Bob Carr agrees:
The Treasurer said the transactions were “contrary to the national interest, in accordance with the required provision on the grounds of national security”.
Ranking Hong Kong’s Cheung Kong, which has operated here for decades in various arms from infrastructure to electricity and mobile phones, alongside State Grid, a Chinese government-owned electricity company, as somehow being against Australia’s national interest is ignorant, if not gobsmacking…
Cheung Kong has nothing to do with the mainland Chinese government and is a long-term investor in Australia.
Should we who drive through Sydney’s Cross City Tunnel or the Lane Cove Tunnel, built by CKI, or use Vodafone or other power assets owned by the group, worry that our national security may have been breached all this time?… State Grid also has operated in Australia for years, with electricity assets in South Australia and Victoria and a 19.9 per cent stake in SP AusNet. So why does this security issue emerge now?
Former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr..., director of the Australia-China relations institute at University of Technology Sydney, questioned whether the Treasurer’s preliminary decision was supported by analysis from the Foreign Investment Review Board, suggesting it was a political response to xenophobia unleashed at the election.Why did this same Turnbull Government allow the Chinese companies to be shortlisted for the bidding?
“The Treasurer’s decision yesterday is a huge concession — the first major policy sacrifice — to the witches’ Sabbath of xenophobia and economic nationalism stirred up in the recent federal election,” he told The Australian.
Mr Carr, a former Labor foreign minister, questioned how the bid from the Chinese state-owned State Grid could raise national security risks when it had already purchased distribution assets in South Australia and Victoria.
NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian ... pointed out there were a number of potential bidders only in December and it was the federal government which shortlisted them.Tony Boyd:
Morrison ... allowed the largest single government privatisation in Australian history to continue for nine months before inserting himself into the process on national security grounds.John Durie:
Unfortunately, Morrison is cementing a reputation in the business world for spectacular backflips. Business can no longer have any certainty about how important policy decisions will play out in Canberra.
Morrison’s Ausgrid decision has cast a cloud over the ownership of the country’s entire electricity network. About 90 per cent of the poles and wires assets are under foreign control. The bulk of that foreign ownership is in the hands of the two entities barred from owning half of Ausgrid: CK Holdings and State Grid of China.
The decision was atrocious and reveals the extent to which Scott Morrison will let politics intervene in good policy.On the other hand, Greg Sheridan:
That repeated willingness to do so is a damning indictment on the government and gives business little reason to be confident of rational policy from Canberra now that 11 crossbenchers control the Senate…
Clearly Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing’s Cheung Kong Infrastructure was knocked out for the sake of convenience, so it wouldn’t look like the government was blocking a bid by a Chinese state-owned enterprise (State Grid). On any logical ground CKI is clearly a very different commercial beast to a state-owned asset…
The government’s mishandling of the NSW electricity sales has produced contradictory decisions in a matter of months in relation to State Grid. Last year, it was cleared to bid for heavy voltage power transmission in NSW and yesterday it was blocked in buying 50 per cent of the poles and wires that take the electricity into households… Indeed, State Grid was cleared as a potential bidder for the earlier Transgrid asset sold by the NSW government last year.
Just what sort of national security issue has emerged in the past few weeks is any one’s guess and the suspicion is it is total nonsense and a front for a politically appealing decision for the populist members of the Nationals and Senate crossbench… If competition issues were the reason for the government’s concern this could have been made known 12 months ago when the bids were first raised with Canberra.
Scott Morrison ... took advice from our relevant national security agencies and he made the right decision for the right reasons.(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
This has nothing to do with xenophobia, anti-Chinese sentiment, protectionism, the rise of Pauline Hanson and Nick Xenophon or hostility to foreign investment. It has everything to do with national security…
If a foreign government provides the central computer equipment in critical infrastructure, it is almost impossible to stop it inserting so-called backdoor entry points that allow it later, in any confrontation or emergency, to disable the infrastructure or even control it… That we have been slack in allowing Beijing to acquire too much ownership and control of infrastructure in the past is no reason for being equally slack in future.
Book floats
Andrew Bolt August 12 2016 (9:10am)
My book is living large, visiting Ho Chi Minh City, Santorini, London, Lake Como, Ithaca, Scotland, the Bay of Naples, Dubrovnik, Fiji, Aileron, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and the Andes, as well as attending a christening in Newcastle.
It has traveled on the Ghan and worked in Kalgoorlie and Condabri, Queensland, before invading Australia’s most Left-wing Parliament - an experience which convinced one reader at the Katharine River Mango Farm to try teaching even a donkey to understand what’s in it.
Now reader Mike takes it for a cruise off the Whitsunday Islands:
UPDATE
Several Queensland readers in particular have reported delays of a few days in receiving the book. I am advised that Australia Post is having some issues. I apologise for the inconvenience. We have chased up every complaint of a delay and made certain everyone got their book. No one has or will miss out.
===It has traveled on the Ghan and worked in Kalgoorlie and Condabri, Queensland, before invading Australia’s most Left-wing Parliament - an experience which convinced one reader at the Katharine River Mango Farm to try teaching even a donkey to understand what’s in it.
Now reader Mike takes it for a cruise off the Whitsunday Islands:
To reward the sailor in your life, order the book here. The fourth edition of the Bolt Bulletin, available to on-line buyers, will go out next week.
UPDATE
Several Queensland readers in particular have reported delays of a few days in receiving the book. I am advised that Australia Post is having some issues. I apologise for the inconvenience. We have chased up every complaint of a delay and made certain everyone got their book. No one has or will miss out.
The death of debate
Andrew Bolt August 12 2016 (9:10am)
Several disturbing questions are raised by this story:
What does it say about many of my colleagues that I’m seen as so beyond the pale in questioning Islam? Anyone seeing my interview with Trad would have to concede we had a civil and informed discussion.
Or is the word “informed” the clue? Here is a review of what happened.
I note that I am increasingly being non-personned in debates with the Left and fellow travelers. Global warming alarmists and even the Labor environment spokesman refuse to debate me. Some Aboriginal spokesmen active within the ABC have tried to stop the screening of a documentary I shot with Linda Burney on indigenous recognition. Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten refuse to be interviewed.
Strange. Again, anyone watching my interviews will know I do not yell or heckle or treat guests with contempt. Yet I somehow frighten the people above in a way that, say, the ABC does not.
===The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils is facing mounting calls for an overhaul… A week into his new role as AFIC president, [Keysar] Trad is facing criticism over his first media appearance — last week’s interview with conservative columnist Andrew Bolt on Sky News.If Trad is attacked for even talking to me, what does that say about the willingness of some Muslims engage in genuine debate?
Mr Trad has been widely criticised on social media, including accusations that he was out of touch in propagating the idea that radicalisation and terrorism were key issues to Muslim Australians.
One prominent Muslim psychologist slammed his decision to be interviewed by Mr Bolt, calling for a boycott of AFIC.
Mr Trad has been asked by several of AFIC’s state-based constituent groups for clarification of his call for radicals to be jailed. But Mr Trad, who was appointed to head up the embattled federation on August 3, stood by his comments, telling The Australian Muslims had a responsibility to discuss their religion, even with critics.
What does it say about many of my colleagues that I’m seen as so beyond the pale in questioning Islam? Anyone seeing my interview with Trad would have to concede we had a civil and informed discussion.
Or is the word “informed” the clue? Here is a review of what happened.
I note that I am increasingly being non-personned in debates with the Left and fellow travelers. Global warming alarmists and even the Labor environment spokesman refuse to debate me. Some Aboriginal spokesmen active within the ABC have tried to stop the screening of a documentary I shot with Linda Burney on indigenous recognition. Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten refuse to be interviewed.
Strange. Again, anyone watching my interviews will know I do not yell or heckle or treat guests with contempt. Yet I somehow frighten the people above in a way that, say, the ABC does not.
Then don’t come
Andrew Bolt August 12 2016 (8:48am)
Wrong question:
===MUSLIM children required to sing the Australian national anthem at school is “forced assimilation”, the spokesman from radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir said yesterday.No, the question is: if one does not share those values, why should we let him into this country?
Uthman Badar, speaking at an Innocent Until Proven Muslim forum, made the statement to hundreds of supporters in Bankstown… Another spokesman, Hamzah Quereshi, told The Daily Telegraph: “The Australian anthem is based upon a particular view in history, it is a reading of history, and it is a statement which conforms to particular values. Now, if one does not share those values, why would they express it?
This is more than just ‘tough love’
Miranda Devine – Wednesday, August 12, 2015 (12:20am)
Jacqui Lambie’s heart might be in the right place but I’d hate to be her son, hearing his mother tell the world about his ice addiction, how he stole from her and how she kicked him out of home.
Continue reading 'This is more than just ‘tough love’'
Australia: the world’s most over-regulated nanny state
Miranda Devine – Wednesday, August 12, 2015 (12:18am)
Announcing a crackdown on restive inmates last week, prisons boss Peter Severin looked like he was posing for the latest Police Academy spoof movie.
Continue reading 'Australia: the world’s most over-regulated nanny state'WE WERE ONLY NINETEEN
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 12, 2015 (5:05am)
In 2013, academics at Concordia University set out to determine the exact levels of global warming achieved by individual countries since the industrial revolution. Last year their results were published. Australia’s contribution to global warming turned out to be just six thousandths of a single degree, ranking us merely nineteenth out of twenty industrialised nations:
This and other inconvenient truths are why the ABC and their climate alarmist chums so frequently resort to the per capita deceit, as the ABC again did yesterday:
This and other inconvenient truths are why the ABC and their climate alarmist chums so frequently resort to the per capita deceit, as the ABC again did yesterday:
Of the top 15 emitters, Australia is the largest emitter per capita.
Note the qualifier. Back in the day, Australia was routinely described as a straight-up per capita emissions monster. Now, following mockery of our per capita brutality, climate child-frighteners are forced to refine their deception. Soon they’ll be reduced to claiming that Australia is the largest emitter per capita of nations whose names contain at least five vowels.Greens leader Richard Di Natale isn’t bothered by such fine distinctions, and the ABC is happy to push his wildly inaccurate view:
Meanwhile, in Canberra:
Meanwhile, in Canberra:
Australia will adopt an “economically responsible” target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 26 and 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030 ...Tony Abbott said the government was striving for “jobs and growth” in every sector of government and “climate change is no different” …Bill Shorten told his Labor caucus: “Mr Abbott’s Liberals are arguing about the best way to drag Australia backwards on climate change.”The Greens party room also discussed the government’s target. The party’s MPs agreed it was “an all-around science fail” and they “all nodded vigorously”, a senior source said.
These ridiculous people are wasting massive amounts of time and money over literally nothing.
(Via Howard Juno.)
FINE SHINE
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 12, 2015 (3:45am)
Australian beer makers are changing their labels. Perhaps they could draw some inspiration from this US booze brewer:
GAY BASHERS
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 12, 2015 (3:05am)
As the government debates same-sex marriage:
Victoria’s family violence royal commission has heard that about one in three lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender Australians has been in an abusive relationship.
It’s a form of equality, I suppose.
(Via J.F. Beck.)
FIRE AT WILL
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 12, 2015 (2:38am)
Zimbabwe has lifted a ban on big-game hunting less than two weeks after the death of Cecil the lion …The country suspended hunting on August 1 in the area surrounding Hwange National Park. This was where Cecil was killed by Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer with a bow in an incident that provoked international outrage.Just 10 days after the moratorium was imposed, the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority said it had been be axed across most of that area.
(Via Adam I.)
SMALL CHANGE, BIG CASH
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 12, 2015 (2:19am)
Even Australia’s powerhouse dance sector is nothing – nothing – compared to the gigantic climate change sector:
The $1.5 trillion* global “climate change industry” grew at between 17 and 24 percent annually from 2005-2008, slowing to between 4 and 6 percent following the recession with the exception of 2011’s inexplicable 15 percent growth …That also includes the climate change consulting market, which a recent report by the journal estimates at $1.9 billion worldwide and $890 million in the U.S.Included in this sub-segment, which the report shows is one of the fastest growing areas of the climate change industry, are environmental consultants and engineers, risk managers, assurance, as well as legal and other professional services.Figures for the climate change consulting market are expected to more than double in the next five years …
Big Oil hasn’t seen numbers like these since the days of Rockefeller and Getty. One important difference: Big Oil actually built things. Things like, well, everything.
* Must be wrong, surely.
TAX BOX
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 12, 2015 (1:46am)
How long after it might be newsworthy does the ABC build and display a cardboard box?
Answer: seven days. Incidentally, that could be the most expensive cardboard box ever constructed – and it only received ten seconds of air time.
Answer: seven days. Incidentally, that could be the most expensive cardboard box ever constructed – and it only received ten seconds of air time.
THE ISIS ISLE
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 12, 2015 (1:05am)
Tasmania has apparently fallen to Islamic State:
American writer, broadcaster and comedian David Sedaris is coming to Australia for his third spoken-word tour.Perhaps bravely, the openly gay performer is taking his show to Tasmania for the first time.
What a very odd claim. In any case, if Sedaris is concerned by Tasmania’s new fundamentalist Muslim overlords, here are some locations to avoid.
(Via Chris Poole.)
PAY DOCKED
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 12, 2015 (12:55am)
Stupid wharfies cop impressive intimidation fees:
The Maritime Union of Australia has been ordered to pay thousands of dollars in penalties and compensation to five employees named as “scabs” in posters distributed at Fremantle port …On Tuesday, the MUA was ordered to pay a total penalty of $80,000 while assistant secretary Will Tracey was ordered to pay a penalty of $15,000. They must also jointly pay $20,000 compensation to each of the four men who worked during the strike, and $40,000 to the other man.
Not so long ago, union membership was compulsory on Australian docks and many other worksites. The MUA just can’t let their good times go.
Why such rudeness, Penny?
Andrew Bolt August 12 2015 (5:28pm)
For all her recent talk about love and marriage, Labor’s Penny Wong seems to have trouble observing even the most basic of social courtesies:
===Cutting emissions will amount to 26 per cent of bugger all
Andrew Bolt August 12 2015 (4:52pm)
Tim Blair notes how very,very little difference Australia has made to global warming since the start of the Industrial Revolution until about 18 years ago, when the warming stopped:
===In 2013, academics at Concordia University set out to determine the exact levels of global warming achieved by individual countries since the industrial revolution… Australia’s contribution to global warming turned out to be just six thousandths of a single degree, ranking us merely nineteenth out of twenty industrialised nations:The question: if that pathetically small figure is our total sum to warming over 200 years, what even smaller difference will we make by cutting our emissions now? Why do both the Liberals and Labor refuse to tell us?
Which donations? Where?
Andrew Bolt August 12 2015 (11:51am)
Some answers would be nice:
===Independent MP Andrew Wilkie declared an election campaign budget surplus of $4446.24 in December 2013 but has not publicly accounted for where this money went.(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
Mr Wilkie, who has made virtue out of attacking other politicians for accepting donations deemed to be “dirty money” and “with the expectation of payback”, yesterday said he welcomed “media scrutiny of my parliamentary business”.
The federal MP for the Tasmanian seat of Denison informed the Australian Electoral Commission on December 23, 2013, that the campaign surplus was as a result of higher than anticipated public funding. He said the funds would be “donated to appropriate community causes”.
But when asked by The Australian yesterday to disclose which “causes” received the money, how much they received and when they received it, he refused to provide details… The Australian yesterday revealed that Mr Wilkie had accepted donations from businessman Douglas Dickinson and the Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers, who would both benefit from policy changes he advocated.
Compare these interviews. Tell me again that joke about the ABC being balanced
Andrew Bolt August 12 2015 (11:38am)
Liberals get heckled, Greens get a pass. Welcome to your ABC, openly breaking the law that says it must be impartial.
Let’s compare how ABC AM host Michael Brissenden, already criticised this week by an independent ABC reviewer for his partiality, now interviews Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Greens Senator Christine Milne on the same topic over two successive days. Note how only the extremist with the craziest plan is allowed to speak endlessly without being badgered or questioned.
Brissenden with Christine Milne yesterday:
Continue reading 'Compare these interviews. Tell me again that joke about the ABC being balanced'
===Let’s compare how ABC AM host Michael Brissenden, already criticised this week by an independent ABC reviewer for his partiality, now interviews Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Greens Senator Christine Milne on the same topic over two successive days. Note how only the extremist with the craziest plan is allowed to speak endlessly without being badgered or questioned.
Brissenden with Christine Milne yesterday:
Continue reading 'Compare these interviews. Tell me again that joke about the ABC being balanced'
Why is Abbott vilified by journalists for giving same-sex marriage crusaders their great chance?
Andrew Bolt August 12 2015 (11:22am)
The hysterical denunciation of Tony Abbott by ABC and Fairfax journalists over his party’s debate yesterday on same sex marriage doesn’t get more stupid than this:
Why not the acknowledgement that on these numbers that even a conscience vote may not have seen a same sex marriage bill pass Parliament?
Instead of these fake tears and rages, why not praise Abbott instead for guaranteeing that Australia will in fact have same sex marriage in the next term of Parliament, if public support for it is as journalists repeatedly insist? Abbott’s strong preference, backed by his party, for a popular vote on the issue should see Australia deliver the conclusive public endorsement that Ireland’s referendum did, to the cheers of activists here.
So why these false claims that Abbott has killed same sex marriage?
Why this vilification and hatred of him from people claiming to represent love?
UPDATE
At least 76 of the 150 members of the House of Representatives would be needed to pass a law for same-sex marriage.
Let’s assume from last night’s party room speeches that more than two thirds of the Coalition’s 90 members would vote against same sex marriage. A number of those who spoke for a conscience vote were actually against same sex marriage).
Let’s also add perhaps 10 Labor MPs plus Bob Katter in the against column:
In the Senate, 39 of the 76 Senators could block a same sex marriage bill. To Labor’s 17 against, add John Madigan and at least two thirds of the Coalition’s 33 senators. That is probably enough.
So a conscience vote was by no means a certain path of getting same sex marriage. Abbott’s popular vote is actually the activists’ best chance, so why not thank him?
UPDATE
For a disgraceful leading question, freighted with false and offensive assumptions and presumption of evil, check out Peter van Onselen’s question to Liberal frontbencher Bruce Billson today:
===Where was this denunciation when Julia Gillard blocked any vote for same sex marriage?
Why not the acknowledgement that on these numbers that even a conscience vote may not have seen a same sex marriage bill pass Parliament?
Instead of these fake tears and rages, why not praise Abbott instead for guaranteeing that Australia will in fact have same sex marriage in the next term of Parliament, if public support for it is as journalists repeatedly insist? Abbott’s strong preference, backed by his party, for a popular vote on the issue should see Australia deliver the conclusive public endorsement that Ireland’s referendum did, to the cheers of activists here.
So why these false claims that Abbott has killed same sex marriage?
Why this vilification and hatred of him from people claiming to represent love?
UPDATE
At least 76 of the 150 members of the House of Representatives would be needed to pass a law for same-sex marriage.
Let’s assume from last night’s party room speeches that more than two thirds of the Coalition’s 90 members would vote against same sex marriage. A number of those who spoke for a conscience vote were actually against same sex marriage).
Let’s also add perhaps 10 Labor MPs plus Bob Katter in the against column:
The survey found that 43 of 55 lower house Labor MPs - or 78 per cent - are now prepared to vote for same sex marriage, with six votes not clear and six more MPs opposed. In 2012, the figure was 38 of 71 MPs in support, or 53.5 per cent.That is around a tie in the Lower House - far too slim a margin to be sure of anything.
In the more conservative Senate, 17 of 25 Labor senators, or 68 per cent, would vote for the reform today, with one senator’s position unconfirmed and seven expected to oppose. In 2012, 16 of 31 Labor senators, or 52 per cent, voted for the reform.
In the Senate, 39 of the 76 Senators could block a same sex marriage bill. To Labor’s 17 against, add John Madigan and at least two thirds of the Coalition’s 33 senators. That is probably enough.
So a conscience vote was by no means a certain path of getting same sex marriage. Abbott’s popular vote is actually the activists’ best chance, so why not thank him?
UPDATE
For a disgraceful leading question, freighted with false and offensive assumptions and presumption of evil, check out Peter van Onselen’s question to Liberal frontbencher Bruce Billson today:
Explain to me why it’s an acceptable thing the number of young Australians who are homosexual that will commit suicide between now and when the government finally gets its act together to have a plebiscite on this issue?False assumptions:
- that Liberals think it “acceptable” that young homosexuals kill themselves.You don’t get much lower than that.
- that young homosexuals will kill themselves simply and only because the Liberals will wait some two or three years to hold a plebiscite on gay marriage.
Gay marriage vote an Abbott triumph
Andrew Bolt August 12 2015 (12:36am)
A huge victory for the Prime Minister on many levels:
- it shows Abbott read the mood of the Coalition better than his chief rivals, and, indeed, many journalists.
- the vote was overwhelming, which should put the issue to bed until the election, giving the Coalition clear air at last.
- the idea of a referendum or plebiscite on gay marriage after the election shows the Coalition is not resisting the public will but giving the public true ownership of the issue, and the means to decisively resolve it.
- Abbott was consultative throughout.
- Abbott kept faith with voters and especially most Liberal supporters.
- Shorten will seem to not trust the public will by preferring a vote instead by the political class.
- Turnbull was against the majority of his colleagues on yet another social issue.
Another winner is Scott Morrison, now Abbott’s natural and patient heir. Morrison on my show was the first minister I can recall who supported a plebiscite on this issue.
But to repeat: a massive win by Abbottt on an issue that in the hands of an alternative leader could have torn the party apart.
===THE Abbott Government will not grant its MPs a free vote on same-sex marriage — killing off any chance of the law being passed in the life of this Parliament.Why the vote was a triumph for Abbott (as well as good for the Liberals):
A referendum on the issue is now a possibility after the next election, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who had ruled the proposal out three months ago, telling the party room the proposal was “extraordinarily attractive.’’
At the end of a marathon, 5 1/2 hour meeting, Mr Abbott said the party had overwhelmingly voted to maintain its current position — a binding vote opposed to same-sex marriage…
“At this moment in particular, the last thing you should do is dud the people who voted for you and there was a strong view in the party room today,” Mr Abbott said.
“If we were to drop the policy, even if we were to adjust the policy to the extent of having a free vote, a lot of people who voted for us were going to feel dudded."…
“Whether or not you support same-sex marriage, whether or not you support the concept of marriage which has been around since time immemorial ... this is quite properly something that may well be decided by the Australian people, something that should be a matter for all of us rather than a matter simply for some of us,” he said.
About 70 MPs spoke against a free vote, including frontbenchers Eric Abetz, Kevin Andrews, Peter Dutton, Bruce Billson, Warren Truss and Barnaby Joyce.
There were 32 who spoke in support, including Malcolm Turnbull, Christopher Pyne, Greg Hunt, Michael Keenan, Josh Frydenberg, Simon Birmingham, Kelly O’Dwyer, Scott Ryan, Darren Chester and Marise Payne.
- it shows Abbott read the mood of the Coalition better than his chief rivals, and, indeed, many journalists.
- the vote was overwhelming, which should put the issue to bed until the election, giving the Coalition clear air at last.
- the idea of a referendum or plebiscite on gay marriage after the election shows the Coalition is not resisting the public will but giving the public true ownership of the issue, and the means to decisively resolve it.
- Abbott was consultative throughout.
- Abbott kept faith with voters and especially most Liberal supporters.
- Shorten will seem to not trust the public will by preferring a vote instead by the political class.
- Turnbull was against the majority of his colleagues on yet another social issue.
Another winner is Scott Morrison, now Abbott’s natural and patient heir. Morrison on my show was the first minister I can recall who supported a plebiscite on this issue.
But to repeat: a massive win by Abbottt on an issue that in the hands of an alternative leader could have torn the party apart.
The Left are hiding from the horrors
Miranda Devine – Tuesday, August 12, 2014 (7:37pm)
BEHOLD the brain explosions of cognitive dissonance as the apologist Left tries to ignore the images of Wiley Park native Khaled Sharrouf and his severed head-toting son. The convicted terrorist has taken his five children on a jihad tour of Syria to indoctrinate them into the savagery of the Islamic State.
Continue reading 'The Left are hiding from the horrors'
Liberal Party caught in Labor’s old trap
Miranda Devine – Tuesday, August 12, 2014 (7:35pm)
ICAC has spread the taint of corruption from Labor’s industrial strength venality to the Liberals’ pathetic slush fund envelopes.
Continue reading 'Liberal Party caught in Labor’s old trap'
Gammy a defective product, to be disposed of at will
Miranda Devine – Tuesday, August 12, 2014 (7:34pm)
I GUESS you can’t expect much from a convicted child sex offender. But David Farnell, the infamous biological father of surrogate baby Gammy, couldn’t have been more repulsive in his blubbering 60 Minutes interview Sunday night.
Continue reading 'Gammy a defective product, to be disposed of at will'
HE SEEMS UPSET FOR SOME REASON
Tim Blair – Tuesday, August 12, 2014 (7:31pm)
Denounced by Mike Carlton:
A giggling, sniggering, undergraduate halfwit with no journalistic cred whatever.
Pretty close, Mike, but I’m actually an employed, giggling, sniggering, undergraduate halfwit with no journalistic cred whatever.
Annoyingly, I’ll now have to write a book just so I can use Carlton’s cover endorsement.
SHOCK ‘N’ ROLL
Tim Blair – Tuesday, August 12, 2014 (4:13pm)
A Sydney family is torn apart over the small matter of a severed head:
Khaled Sharrouf’s brother believes Australia should simply “forget” about a photo of his young nephew holding the severed head of a Syrian soldier.As the shocking image of Sharrouf’s son travelled around the world on Monday, Mostafa Sharrouf, a stonemason from Sydney’s western suburbs, said: “He’s gone, forget about it. He’s forgotten about youse. I’m sure you’ve seen much worse than that.”
Well, of course. Almost every other day my nieces send me pictures of themselves carrying around human heads. It must be one of those online fads that so amuse the younger folk. The young boy’s grandfather, however, is rightly horrified:
Peter Nettleton, the father of Sharrouf’s Anglo-Australian wife, Tara Nettleton, said he was“devastated” by the shocking image, which generated worldwide media attention and near-universal revulsion.
Sharrouf’s pal Mohamed Elomar, his comrade in head-choppery, continues to rejoice:
On a Twitter account believed to be that of fellow ex-Sydney Islamic State fighter Mohamed Elomar, the former boxer appeared giddy while celebrating his close friend’s growing notoriety over the disturbing images.“What a flaming ripper ayyy beauty mate love it,” Elomar said in a reply to a link to media reporting on the photos. “Keep them heads rolling.”
It’s all too much for the ABC’s Jonathan Green, who wishes the picture would just roll away.
NEW MANAGEMENT
Tim Blair – Tuesday, August 12, 2014 (2:31pm)
It’s a frightbat takeover:
Investors may wish to consider Margo’s previous management efforts before signing on. Still, she’d probably do better than the current mob.
Investors may wish to consider Margo’s previous management efforts before signing on. Still, she’d probably do better than the current mob.
ROBIN WILLIAMS
Tim Blair – Tuesday, August 12, 2014 (11:32am)
Global audiences first encountered the whipsong comic genius of Robin Williams during his 1978 guest appearance on Happy Days. The cast were just as startled. “Here I am playing this man of very few words and I’m watching brilliance explode like fireworks every 10 or 15 seconds,” Happy Days star Henry Winkler told The Hollywood Reporter yesterday.Williams maintained that brilliance for decades, even as he battled depression and substance abuse problems. Those demons finally conquered Williams, but not before his creation of an astonishing and lasting artistic legacy. Susan Schneider, Williams’s wife, said in a media statement: “As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin’s death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions.”Those moments sprang from a uniquely calibrated comedic mind. Winkler yesterday recalled that the original scripts for Williams’s Mork & Mindy program were around 15 pages shorter than usual sitcom scripts, because there was no need to write any jokes. Instead, they repeatedly featured this simple notation: “Robin will do something here.” And he did, for 36 more years, on stage, television and the big screen.
Check the company Craig Laundy keeps. He’s a Liberal?
Andrew Bolt August 12 2014 (6:37pm)
Craig Laundy was one of the Liberal MPs loudest in opposing the restoration of our free speech, helping to defeat the reform of the Racial Discrimination Act.
No wonder: 10 per cent of the voters in his seat are Muslim, and Muslim leaders demanded we keep our gag.
But maybe Laundy will argue that, no, he was against free speech out of principle, not cheap self interest.
In that case I invite other Liberals to check out the ideological company Laundy now keeps and to ask him precisely which Liberal values he represents:
Here is an example of Jake Lynch’s politics - and the anti-Israel bias of this agitator for sanctions against Israel.
Here is an example of the politics of Antony Loewenstein - and his anti-Israel activism.
Here is an example of Aftab Malik’s politics - and his anti-Israel polemics.
Here is an example of Peter Manning’s politics - and his astonishing anti-American bias:
===No wonder: 10 per cent of the voters in his seat are Muslim, and Muslim leaders demanded we keep our gag.
But maybe Laundy will argue that, no, he was against free speech out of principle, not cheap self interest.
In that case I invite other Liberals to check out the ideological company Laundy now keeps and to ask him precisely which Liberal values he represents:
Here is an example of Peter Slezak’s politics - and the anti-Israel bias of this advocate for sanctions against Israel.
Here is an example of Jake Lynch’s politics - and the anti-Israel bias of this agitator for sanctions against Israel.
Here is an example of the politics of Antony Loewenstein - and his anti-Israel activism.
Here is an example of Aftab Malik’s politics - and his anti-Israel polemics.
Here is an example of Peter Manning’s politics - and his astonishing anti-American bias:
I FOUND September 11 so shocking. But equally shocking was how quickly it became an iconic event ... But as I thought more deeply in the following weeks, I had some sympathy for boxer Anthony Mundine’s brutal response: “They brought the attacks on themselves.”Exactly where are “Liberals” like Craig Laundy taking the Liberal party?
Costello: If we must be gagged before they help stop terrorism, we really are in danger
Andrew Bolt August 12 2014 (6:05pm)
Peter Costello puts it very well:
===Last Tuesday the Government announced proposals that, it said, would help to charge and prosecute such people and stop them going overseas to engage in terrorism in the first place. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said we need to get everyone on “Team Australia” and support the measures. He said that dropping changes to Section 18C would help to do that.And even worse, I don’t really see this surrender of our rights working.
I dont’ know about this “Team Australia” stuff. As far as I am concerned when it comes to stopping terrorism, it is not a matter of “getting on the team”. Stopping terrorism means protecting people — children, relatives, friends and neighbours and, yes, people of different ethnic backgrounds or different religions — from senseless random brutal killing. That’s a real human right: the right not to be murdered in the name of someone else’s political cause or twisted version of religion.
Some have argued that leaving Section 18C will make it easier for some people to join “Team Australia” in the fight against terrorism. Really? To suggest that somebody, anybody, would decline to co-operate in the fight against terrorism because they didn’t like the repeal of a section like this in the Racial Discrimination Act is truly frightening. Does the Government believe there are community leaders whose commitment to their fellow citizens and the values of a civilised society is so weak they will not co-operate in preventing terror and murder if Section 18C is repealed? If that is the case we really do have a problem.
Foreign Press Association (finally) attacks Hamas for threatening journalists in Gaza
Andrew Bolt August 12 2014 (11:20am)
Finally a belated admission from the Foreign Press Association of the way Hamas terrorists manipulated a largely cowed foreign media
It worked:
The FPA protests in the strongest terms the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists in Gaza over the past month.Why have almost none of the journalists embedded in Hamas territory said this much in their reports?
The international media are not advocacy organisations and cannot be prevented from reporting by means of threats or pressure, thereby denying their readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground.
In several cases, foreign reporters working in Gaza have been harassed, threatened or questioned over stories or information they have reported through their news media or by means of social media. We are also aware that Hamas is trying to put in place a “vetting” procedure that would, in effect, allow for the blacklisting of specific journalists. Such a procedure is vehemently opposed by the FPA.
It worked:
A foreign correspondent, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Yedioth Aharonoth’s Daniel Batini (August 7, 2014) that “First, Hamas said its spokesmen could only be interviewed in the courtyard of the Al-Shifa’a Hospital in Gaza City. That meant there were long lines of correspondents waiting for interviews, and as a result they watched the bleeding wounded arriving at the hospital for treatment. That [system] created exactly the impression Hamas wanted, of an immediate emergency situation and a human and humanitarian catastrophe.Second, Hamas never allowed foreign correspondents access to military sites attacked by Israel, whether they were bases, rocket launching sites or other targets. The organization’s dead and wounded operatives were not photographed and therefore, from a media point of view, they do not exist. All that serves Hamas’ objective of representing all the casualties as civilians. Third, it was obvious that Hamas was firing rockets from civilian areas, but Hamas operatives forbid camera teams from filming them, because they did not want to reveal the tactic or the locations of the launch sites.”We deduced as much last Sunday:
===
What terrorism risk, asks Scott Burchill on the ABC
Andrew Bolt August 12 2014 (10:51am)
Scott Burchill is senior lecturer in International Relations at Deakin University and claims Muslim terrorists are just an “excuse for increasing surveillance powers” for our security agencies.
“Excuse”?
Isn’t the right word “reason”?
Burchill also claims the link has not been established between Australian jihadists fighting overseas and their posing a risk on their return, because the jihadists’ agenda “is about events on the ground and issues in Syria and Iraq and not in fact in the West itself”:
Note also that the ABC presenters barely challenge him. But what else would you expect from Virginia Trioli?
===“Excuse”?
Isn’t the right word “reason”?
Burchill also claims the link has not been established between Australian jihadists fighting overseas and their posing a risk on their return, because the jihadists’ agenda “is about events on the ground and issues in Syria and Iraq and not in fact in the West itself”:
I don’t the Government has clearly explained the connection between those going off to fight to create the Caliphate in Iraq and Syria and what they would do coming back to Australia.Really?
Attorney-General Senator George Brandis yesterday warned the returned fighters posed a “significant threat"… Senator Brandis said lessons learned from Afghanistan revealed the true extent of the danger now.Is Burchill, a man of the Left, describing the world as he’d wish it or the world as it is?
He said about 30 Australians went to Afghanistan to fight, and of the 25 who returned 19 were “involved in the preparation of a mass casualty terrorist attack on Australian soil”, eight of whom were prosecuted and convicted.
Note also that the ABC presenters barely challenge him. But what else would you expect from Virginia Trioli?
Three examples:
Others say even worse was a response Trioli gave a week after the (September 11) bombing to a caller who asked: ``Could it be possible that some Right-wing group within the (US) military itself did this?’’And:
Replied Trioli: ``That’s true. I think it’s probably fair to say though, that no matter what you might think of the FBI and the other intelligence services in America, if they had any inkling of that I think something of that would have come out by now. I don’t rule it out. I think it’s quite a possibility.’’
``It was an important point made by a really interesting Afghani American writer that I read the other day, which was that until America understands its own hegemony and understands to what extent it has absolutely controlled and oppressed and run the international agenda for so many years, no-one is going to really want to talk to them.’’And:
``This is possibly a realistic example: Despite the fact that George W. Bush and everyone else have in their view identified Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect, which is what they call him, what if that involved bringing him somewhere, absolutely safely, sitting down with him, treating him like a human being and talking about it, and then Osama bin Laden going home again, not bombing the hell out of bin Laden? ``That’s the suggestion: Talk to him, understand their anger, listen to them.’’
ABC, so dependent on taxes, campaigns against source of our wealth
Andrew Bolt August 12 2014 (10:42am)
An IPA study confirms the ABC is against the source of much of our wealth:
===The analysis of 2359 reports broadcast on the ABC over six months before March 15 this year found 15.9 per cent of stories on coalmining and 12.1 per cent of those about coal-seam gas mining were favourable, while 53 per cent of those on renewable energy were favourable.Jo Nova cuts loose:
It also found 31.6 per cent of stories on coal mining and 43.6 per cent of stories on coal-seam gas were unfavourable, while only 10.8 per cent of stories on renewable energy were unfavourable.
To put a perspective on it, coal is Australia’s largest exporter industry, producing 33% of our energy and a whopping 75% of our electricity. (Wind and solar produce all of 1%.) The coal industry provides the ABC with funds, via tax, while the wind and solar industries are a net drain on the public purse. The cheapest way to reduce CO2 (and by a whopping 15%) looks like being an upgrade for our coal fired plants so they are like the hot new Chinese plants. But how important is reducing CO2 to the ABC? Apparently it’s not quite as important as cheering on other big-government babies.(Thanks to readers Rocky and James.)
We can debate the environmental pluses and minuses of coal, but the economic case is a lay down misere. Renewables are anywhere from 200% to 500% more expensive.
No, Bill Shorten. Not “every” Australian was shocked
Andrew Bolt August 12 2014 (10:09am)
Labor leader Bill Shorten on the picture of an Australian boy - son of a Sydney jihadist - holding the severed head of a Syrian man:
But Labor should stop feeding us comforting lies.
“Every”?
(Thanks to reader Me2.)
===First of all, I think every Australian was shocked to their core at that dreadful image of the former Australian citizen Kahled Sharrouff and his son and that dreadful image on the front page of The Australian.“Every"?
Khaled Sharrouf’s brother believes Australia should simply “forget” about a photo of his young nephew holding the severed head of a Syrian soldier.“Every"? From 27:00 of this interview with Wassim Haddad, a friend of Sharrouf who runs the al-Risalah Islamic Centre in Bankstown:
As the shocking image of Sharrouf’s son travelled around the world on Monday, Mostafa Sharrouf, a stonemason from Sydney’s western suburbs, said: “He’s gone, forget about it. He’s forgotten about youse. I’m sure you’ve seen much worse than that.”
My first impression of it was just another attack or another way to sell some more papers, by using Islam in this way. Whether a lot of us agree with that or agree with the image itself, that’s two different things… Am I shocked? I’m shocked by all sorts of photos that happen around the world, not only this photo. You’ve got to understand that this is a war zone, so ob it’s a whole set of rules there, a whole different ball game. To be honest, with all the fighting against muslims in the past 10 years or so, we’ve sort of become immune to these sort of photos being, that we’re always seeing muslims in the same sort of predicament, for example we see muslim kids and Muslim women and men being tortured or we see photos of this, so we’ve become immune from both sides, from our own people, and from seeing images of other people.Many Muslim leaders have indeed condemned this image.
But Labor should stop feeding us comforting lies.
“Every”?
(Thanks to reader Me2.)
Robin Williams dead
Andrew Bolt August 12 2014 (9:47am)
A genius, but I was always struck by how desperate Williams was to please:
===Robin Williams has been found dead aged 63, of apparent suicide… He had died of asphyxia, according to the Marin Country Sheriff’s Department…If you, or someone you know needs help, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Williams’ agent Mara Buxbaum said in a statement: “Robin Williams passed away this morning. `He has been battling severe depression of late...’’
How Media Watch tried to save Mike Carlton from those Jews
Andrew Bolt August 12 2014 (8:25am)
Congratulations to Media Watch. Great spin!
As my NewsWatch noted on Sunday, Media Watch last week failed to say a word about the Sydney Morning Herald’s scandalously anti-Semitic cartoon or the offensive Mick Carlton column it decorated.
But as I suspected, the ABC just needed the time to think of a way to spin the indefensible into an attack on its preferred villains. And - bingo: Media Watch last night indeed spun furiously, whispering its criticism of anti-Semitism but bellowing its fury with the Murdoch and Jewish forces which took out a mate.
First, it beat Mike Carlton with the fluffiest of feather dusters, making sure to praise him to the skies:
Claims Barry:
But job seemingly done, Barry turned to the real villains of his piece - the wicked critics who brought down this mate. First, there’s Murdoch newspapers, which Barry likened to terrorists:
But it matters all right. And I dare say almost every Jewish ABC viewer can now see the difference it makes, too.
===As my NewsWatch noted on Sunday, Media Watch last week failed to say a word about the Sydney Morning Herald’s scandalously anti-Semitic cartoon or the offensive Mick Carlton column it decorated.
But as I suspected, the ABC just needed the time to think of a way to spin the indefensible into an attack on its preferred villains. And - bingo: Media Watch last night indeed spun furiously, whispering its criticism of anti-Semitism but bellowing its fury with the Murdoch and Jewish forces which took out a mate.
First, it beat Mike Carlton with the fluffiest of feather dusters, making sure to praise him to the skies:
... one of the marquee columnists at Fairfax Media ... the veteran journalist ... one of Australia’s most popular—if polarising—left-wing columnists ... passionate ... one of its most popular columnists ... a brave and powerful voice ... whether you liked Carlton’s column or not—and most of the time I did ...In fact, Barry made Carlton’s column seem flawed only by an excess of righteous anger, and said nothing of the anti-Jewish slur - “typical Jewish bigot” - Carlton used against angry readers:
… eloquent, angry and sometimes intemperate column—in which Carlton used the words fascism, and genocide—which in my view was wrong… he was absolutely wrong to abuse his readers. And he can hardly complain about his fate.But there was also the Herald’s cartoon. This time Barry deflected by absurdly trying to equate these two cartoons - the anti-Semitic one run by the Herald and the anti-terrorist one run by the Murdoch Australian:
Claims Barry:
But we couldn’t help noting that an equally contentious cartoon by Bill Leak in The Australian —which was so righteously ripping into its rival—did not create anything like such a fuss…What a deceitful analogy. One cartoon attacks all Jews as killers and bombers, the other attacks only terrorists. How on earth is there a moral equivalance?
So was The Australian’s cartoon any less objectionable than that one in the Herald that caused so much grief? Especially since Le Lievre based his cartoon on photos of Israelis watching the bombing of Gaza and, reportedly, cheering.
But job seemingly done, Barry turned to the real villains of his piece - the wicked critics who brought down this mate. First, there’s Murdoch newspapers, which Barry likened to terrorists:
Soon afterwards, [Carlton] was telling the Guardian’s Amanda Meade , who worked for The Australian for many years, that it was not just the Jewish community that had caused the Herald to lose its nerve… And sure enough, over on The Australian’s website at about this time, the paper’s media editor Sharri Markson was indeed claiming the credit for Carlton’s scalp… Next day, neither The Australian nor the Daily Telegraph could hide its glee… And if you hadn’t already got the message that media wars in Australia can almost match the Middle East for ferocity, the Tele then threw a few bombs at Carlton’s employer as well… In the end, the weight of hate was far too much for Fairfax to bear.... The Telegraph had in fact defaced this image of a victim in the Boston Marathon bombing [adding Carlton’s face]… an unconvincing apology from the Telegraph’s editor…Then there are those bullying Jews:
... taking sides against Israel in the Australian media—as [Carlton] did—can be a dangerous business.... In a long and considered statement, [far-Left Age cartoonist Michael] Leunig also argued: “ I think we need to be careful of getting rid of the truth speakers because that’s their job. It’s the cartoonists who have traditionally stood up for persecuted minorities whether they be Jews in the 1930s or Palestinians today.” ... those more critical of Israel are more wary of doing so.... Ten years after he first ran into flak over Israel and Palestine, Michael Leunig flew into another firestorm in 2012 with this allegedly anti-Semitic cartoon: “First they came for the Palestinians and I did not speak out because I was not a Palestinian.” .... It would be terrible in this country if debate were to be shut down because cartoonists or columnists were bullied into silence.ABC boss Mark Scott suggested it did not matter that all Media Watch hosts in the show’s 25 years have been of the Left. ABC presenters did their job impartially.
But it matters all right. And I dare say almost every Jewish ABC viewer can now see the difference it makes, too.
Enemies of free speech won the battle, but are losing the war
Andrew Bolt August 12 2014 (8:11am)
Nick Cater:
===IF Andrew Bolt’s show trial was supposed to teach him a lesson it plainly didn’t work, judging from the tone of his questions to Labor’s Richard Marles on Sunday morning.The interview:
Cater notes Marles’ tut-tutting response to my question on Muslim terrorism in Australia and whether we need to limit immigration from the Middle East, but sees hope:
The survival of clause 18C will ultimately prove a hollow victory. The chances of its illiberal provisions being exploited again in a case like the one brought against Bolt are practically zero.And Cater doubts that the groups who defended 18C truly represent mainstream Australia:
The toxic influence of the Bolt case on the climate of public debate is recognised as a price too high to pay by the wiser heads on both sides of the cultural divide. The case started a backlash that destroyed the Gillard government’s restrictive anti-discrimination legislation and gave the Abbott government the motivation to reshape the Human Rights Commission.... Brandis, it should be noted, played a key part in both those achievements… [F]or the first time in decades the rights industry is fighting to hold its ground rather than planning its next grand adventure.
... most of the thousands of submissions the Attorney-General received favoured the status quo.. . Who can tell whether the views of, say, the West Australian Somali Cultural Awareness Association were broadly in line with those of the public? Ditto the views of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Reference Group, the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, the Australian Tamil Congress, the Australian Lawyers Alliance, Aboriginal Legal Service of WA (Inc), the Muslim Legal Network, the WA Muslim Lawyers Association and many, many more.
Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane ... told readers of The Age that the objections had “not just come from multicultural and Aboriginal communities”.
“The legal profession, human rights experts, psychologists and public health professionals have all objected to weakening laws against racial vilification.” Indeed, we had rather expected they would. The repeal of 18C was a disruption to the grievance industry’s business model that they could not countenance.
Newspoll: Labor leads 52 to 48, but lead has halved
Andrew Bolt August 12 2014 (7:41am)
Tony Abbott halves Labor’s lead:
In Queensland, courage - and prudent spending cuts - are finally being rewarded:
===THE Coalition’s primary vote has jumped back to 40 per cent for the first time since April, regaining lost ground from its unpopular budget in the biggest single rise in support for the Abbott government in its 11 months in power.UPDATE
And Tony Abbott’s focus on international affairs has boosted his stocks in the head-to-head comparison with Bill Shorten for the third consecutive poll, helping him take back the lead as preferred prime minister for the first time in four months…
Labor’s primary vote dropped ... to a three-month low of 34 per cent, virtually the same as its election-losing result of 33.3 per cent… In two-party-preferred terms, Labor continues to be ahead, 52 per cent to 48 per cent, which is a 5.5 per cent swing to the ALP since the election. However, the eight-point lead it enjoyed a fortnight ago has been halved.
In Queensland, courage - and prudent spending cuts - are finally being rewarded:
QUEENSLAND voters are warming to the Liberal National Party government … In a ReachTel survey of almost 1900 voters, ... 52 per cent said they would vote for the LNP and 48 per cent chose Labor.
Mass immigration and the Left have brought Jew-hatred back to the West
Andrew Bolt August 12 2014 (7:01am)
Muslim protesters in Holland fly the flags of the Islamic State, chanting “Al Maut, Al Maut, Al Maut al Yahud” - “Kill, Kill, Kill the Jews.”
UPDATE
And in our own universities...
===A demonstration at The Hague in the Netherlands on July 24 featured the Islamic State flag alongside chants of ”death to the Jews,” prompting 17,500 people to sign a petition calling on the mayor of The Hague to resign, as he had failed to clampdown on the use of the flag.In Italy, another cry to kill the Jews:
Aldelbar, an imam in the town of San Dona di Piave in northern Italy, appeared in the video to launch into a diatribe against the Jews, in which he said: “Oh Allah, bring upon them that which will make us happy. Count them one by one, and kill them one by one.”In Germany, another call to kill the Jews:
In a sermon at Berlin’s Al-Nur Mosque on Friday, Sheikh Abu Bilal Ismail ... urged God “to destroy the Zionist Jews … to kill every last one of them and not have pity on any of them … Shake the ground under their feet, make them suffer.” He also said Jews “act like sole rulers of the entire world and disseminate corruption.”In Qatar, a sermon urging Allah to kill the Jews, one by one:
A Qatari religious leader used his Friday sermon last week to pray to Allah to ”kill [the Jews] the very last one.” Sheik Tareq Al-Hawwas’ sermon was aired on Qatar TV, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).Brendan O’Neill on how the Left is whipping along the anti-Semitism unleashed by mass immigration from the Third World:
However, it seems pretty clear to me that much of the left in Europe and America is becoming more anti-Semitic, or at least risks falling into the trap of anti-Semitism, sometimes quite thoughtlessly. In the language it uses, in the ideas it promotes, in the way in which it talks about the modern world, including Israel, much of the Left has adopted a style of politics that has anti-Semitic undertones, and sometimes overtones....I’d suggest also this: which nation most clearly shows white in conflict with brown, Western civilisation in conflict with the Oriental; capitalism in conflict with the tribal; reason in conflict with the “romantic”, the strong in conflict with the weak? In every fault line, Israel is on the opposite side to a certain kind of tribal Leftist. Israel is once again the canary in the coal mine of civilisation.
Much of today’s anti-Israel protesting has a conspiracy-theory feel to it, with its talk about powerful lobby groups designing wars behind closed doors in order to isolate Israel’s enemies and boost Israel’s fortunes. And this is in keeping with Left-wing politics generally, today. The Left has increasingly embraced a conspiracy-theory view of the world. It is now very common to hear Leftists talk about the “cabals of neocons” who control world affairs, or the “cult of bankers” who wreak havoc on our economies, or the Murdoch Empire that “orchestrates public life from the shadows” (to quote Labour MP Tom Watson)…
It is not an accident that the three key planks of the Left-wing outlook today – the anti-Israel anti-war sentiment, the shallow anti-capitalism of Occupy, and the worship of those who leak info from within the citadels of power – should all have had issues with anti-Semitism. It is because the left, feeling isolated from the public and bereft of any serious means for understanding modern political and economic affairs, has bought into a super-simplistic, black-and-white, borderline David Icke view of the world as a place overrun and ruled by cabals and cults and sinister lobby groups.
And who has always, without fail, been the final cabal, the last cult, to find themselves shouldering the ultimate blame for the warped, hidden workings of politics, the economy and foreign turmoil? You got it – the Jews.
UPDATE
And in our own universities...
Matthew Lesh from the Australasian Union of Jewish Students told Tom Elliott they’ve had a “phenomenal” experience on campus in the past two weeks.(Thanks to reader John.)
“What’s happening on the other side of the world is directly impacting Jewish students in the most disgusting and despicable manner,” he said.
“We’ve seen across campuses, across Melbourne, even across Australia, what would be classed as anti-semitism in any understanding being carried out against Jewish students simply because Jewish students are associated with Israel.
“Some of the things that we’re hearing on campus at the moment are beyond reprehensible. “You’ve got fundamental bullying of people just because of their views, their religious beliefs.”
<Behind a façade of enlightened sympathy for the Arab side, the international community and our Left in essence treat Arabs as an immature, petulant aggregate of primitives who cannot be counted upon to behave sensibly but must be conciliated with endless gifts.>
===
Civilised people regard torture, along with terror, as wrong. The Left have forgotten that. - ed
Why do we inflict torture on each other so much? We have been doing it from the earliest of times. In Syria rival groups are inflicting the most indescribable and barbaric pain on each other (and let us not forget that Assad’s sub-humans started torturing and castrating children). If the reason for this cruelty were to try to get information that might lead to saving lives, this might arguably leave some room for mitigation. But all I see is primitive sadism and barbarism regardless of what the victims themselves may have inflicted on others. I am completely opposed to any torture. It says something very disturbing about those who inflict it.
Torture is not just the inflicting of pain. We can do that to ourselves in the gym. (more at link)
===
Quit trashing Obama’s accomplishments. He has been the first in more areas than any other President before him. Here is a list of his impressive accomplishments:
First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.
First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.
First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.
First President to violate the War Powers Act.
First President to violate the War Powers Act.
First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.
First President to spend a trillion dollars on “shovel-ready” jobs when there was no such thing as “shovel-ready” jobs.
First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.
First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.
First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S. – including those with criminal convictions.
First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.
First President to tell a CEO of a major corporation (Chrysler) to resign.
First President to terminate Americas ability to put a man in space.
First President to cancel the National Day of Prayer and to say that America is no longer a Christian nation.
First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.
First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.
First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke out on the reasons for their rate increases.
First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.
First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).
First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.
First President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal).
First President to fire an inspector general of AmeriCorps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.
First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.
First President to surround himself with radical left wing anarchists.
First President to golf 73 separate times in his first two and a half years in office, 102 to date.
First President to hide his medical, educational and travel records.
First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.
First President to go on multiple “global apology tours” and concurrent “insult our friends” tours.
First President to go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesdayevening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayers.
First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.
First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.
First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S. – including those with criminal convictions.
First President to tell a CEO of a major corporation (Chrysler) to resign.
First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.
First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.
First President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal).
First President to surround himself with radical left wing anarchists.
First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.
First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.
First President to fly in a personal trainer from Chicago at least once a week at taxpayer expense.
First President to repeat the Holy Quran; tell us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.
First President to tell the military men and women that they should pay for their own private insurance because they “volunteered to go to war and knew the consequences.”
Then he was the First President to tell the members of the military that THEY were UNPATRIOTIC for balking at the last suggestion.
First President to tell the military men and women that they should pay for their own private insurance because they “volunteered to go to war and knew the consequences.”
Then he was the First President to tell the members of the military that THEY were UNPATRIOTIC for balking at the last suggestion.
First President to side with a foreign nation over one of America’s 50 states (Mexico vs Arizona).
How is this hope and change working out for you?
There are few in the world who would have attempted those. None of which seem wise - ed===
“More of our troops are coming home. We’ll be down to 34,000 this winter. By the end of next year, in just 17 months, the transition will be complete, Afghans will take full responsibility for their security, and our war in Afghanistan will be over,” the president said.
“…After our nation was attacked, you were some of the very first conventional forces in Afghanistan, racing in hundreds of miles by helicopter, toppling that regime and driving al-Qaeda from its camps.”
Before his address, Obama met with wounded warriors and Gold Star families, as well as local Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Susan Davis (D-Calif.) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.). It was his first visit to the base.
Because of the “9/11 generation,” Obama said, “we are accomplishing what we set out to do” — citing first the death of Osama bin Laden.
“Because of you, al-Qaeda’s top ranks have been hammered. The core of al-Qaeda, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is on the way to defeat,” he said.
Obama Living the dream? - ed===
OBAMA DECRIES SETTLEMENT ACTIVITY, confirms Indyk headed to IsraelSpecial envoy to meet with diplomatic officials in Jerusalem before heading to Jericho for another round of discussions By Times Of Israel Staff and AP August 8, 2013,
http://
===
If, perchance, you decided to search for the weather forecast for London on the BBC Weather website you would also be offered the additional option of checking out the weather in the country in which that city is situated.
AGW believers .. and politics .. ed
===
Meanwhile, research on how precious opals were formed in Australia could provide astrobiologists with insight as to what may have happened on the surface of Mars, says Sydney University scientist Patrice Rey.
Precious opal is predominantly found in the red earth of the Great Artesian Basin in central Australia, within 50 meters of the surface.
Rey says it has long been a mystery why there was so much precious opal in the Great Artesian Basin, but almost nowhere else on Earth. He thinks it is because the Great Artesian Basin was once filled by the Eromanga Sea, which at its peak covered about 60 percent of the Australian continent.
Rey discovered that opal, was the result of a process in the drying out of the Eromanga Sea which began approximately 100 million years ago. This weathering is unusual on Earth, however it has been seen on Mars, which would suggest that it shares some other features with the Great Artesian Basin, including types of rocks, a similar history of flooding then drying out, mineralogy and color.
"It costs billions of dollars to send rovers and orbiters to Mars," Rey said in media comments. "Therefore, looking right here on Earth for ancient and modern analogs to Mars' environment is key to carrying on research in greater detail and explore the role biology has in weathering processes."
===
Positive news story masks real issue .. recession in France pushes money into banks away from investment. - ed
Top French bank BNP Paribas turned in a 4.7 per cent drop in earnings to 1.76 billion euros ($A2.61 billion) for the April to June period, a much smaller fall than had been expected by the market.
Meanwhile, Credit Agricole reported that its second-quarter profits soared 60 per cent to 1.39 billion euros and Societe Generale also largely beat expectations at 955 million euros.
"They are good results in general for the three banks" even if the asset sales and write downs they undertook last year to react to the eurozone crisis made for difficult comparisons, said Gabriella Serres, an analyst at Aurel BGC brokerage.
The price of shares in BNP Paribas has risen by 3.4 per cent since the reporting season began two weeks ago, while Credit Agricole's shares rose by 12.4 per cent, and Societe Generale's shot up by 17.4 per cent.
Meanwhile, the overall CAC 40 index has risen by 2.7 per cent.
===Quote of the day-
''Sometimes I've had to use notes myself. The problem with the Prime Minister wasn't that he was reading from the notes. The problem was the notes weren't worth reading,'' - Tony Abbott.
===
Holly Sarah Nguyen
Loving Father, help me to guard my inclinations. May I be able to appreciate that though I maybe restless from ambition, I also may be restless through discontent. Correct my life, that my desires may meet the true demands of my soul. Strengthen me with the power of calmness, that "I may go softly all my years", even though I walk through the bitterness of sorrow. Amen.
The devil is laughing - ed
Even if some of the children might be fortunate enough to find loving homes, turning these children into gifts, treated as objects -- slaves -- is just as dehumanizing as the terrible alternatives from which they are supposedly being protected. It is not a problem that is being fixed.
In Pakistan, a country beset by problems of violence, poverty and illiteracy, a famous anchorman, Aamir Liaquat Hussain, a religious Muslim as well as a local sex symbol, hosts a "The Price is Right" type of show, call "Gift from God". During Ramadan, it is aired seven hours a day, and the grand prize is a newborn baby.
A special prize for special days. Win and take home a small child. Hussain explains that, in any event, they are "abandoned children that are condemned to grow up in the street, only to be enlisted by terrorists and to end their days as suicide bombers. We offer them an alternative. What is wrong with that?"
===The activists do not care about the Palestinians' suffering as much as they are interested in advancing their anti-Israel agenda. They rarely have anything good to offer the Palestinians.
Hamas has finally admitted that it is the Egyptians, and not Israel, who have turned the Gaza Strip into a "big prison."
Ghazi Hamad, a senior official with the Hamas-controlled foreign ministry, was quoted this week as saying that the Gaza Strip has been turned into a "big prison as a result of the continued closure of the Rafah border crossing by the Egyptian authorities since June 30."
Hamad said that since then, the number of Palestinian travelers at the Rafah terminal has dropped from 1,200 to 200 per day.
===E BOOK (Pdf File Full Download To Your Computer You Do NOT Read On Line) Asymmetrical Rocket Warfare and State sponsors of terrorism. Such states do not have to declare war upon their opponent, fight through a proxy and can strike where, when and how at their own choosing. In the age of Asymmetrical Rocket Warfare, the tiny state of Israel is in the center of this storm. This chapter facilitates a more thorough insight towards understanding the magnitude of the deadly threat of these weapons and CBRN. This is a primer for understanding SCUD missiles, Kassam Rockets, cruise missiles, UAVs, solid-fueled, liquid-fueled, hyper-sonic, subsonic, and stealth Capabilities
http://
===
This is an atrocity. You and all these victims deserve love, and life. Instead there is injustice and terrorism. It is unacceptable that the UN, EU and US seem to endorse the terror. - ed
9-Aug-13: Twelve years after the Hamas attack on the Sbarro pizza restaurant, Jerusalem
===
Somehow the Arab world doesn't seem to care about dying Palestinian Arabs if their deaths cannot be blamed on Jews.
===
<More people died in the Battle of Okinawa on both sides than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 9 out of 10 buildings were destroyed. As much as a third of the island’s population committed suicide, fled into caves that were bombed, were used as human shields and were killed when American soldiers found themselves unable to distinguish between Japanese soldiers posing as civilians and actual civilians.
It does not take much to imagine what trying to capture Honshu would have looked like. Take the worst horrors of Vietnam and keep multiplying until you run out of imagination. If you run low, remember that at Okinawa the military was handing out grenades to civilians and its home defense plans involved encouraging the civilian population to commit suicide attacks.> For me, it still doesn't excuse the dropping of the bomb on civilians. But I feel it is excused because a Democrat did it. - ed
Phil Box What the, Oh come on, no one should ever apologise for dropping those bombs that in reality saved far far more lives on both sides of the conflict by ending the war.
David Daniel Ball That is not a shared sentiment
Phil Box No one will ever see eye to eye on everything.
John Tran It is hard to imagine an alternative, but so hard to think as human beings we can justify killing even one innocent.. for anything
Dan Roe ·
Actually the guys who decided to drop those bombs (as well as fire bombing many other cities) actually thought hard about killings scores of civilians.
"LeMay said, 'If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.'" - Robert S McNamara
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOCYcgOnWUM
The fog of War - Lesson 5 HQ (日本語字幕)www.youtube.com
Robert S. McNamara's 5th lesson in "The Fog of War"'s movie : "Proportionality s...See more
David Daniel Ball McNamara was an apologist for other Democrat failures .. more bombings and less use of troops is the Dem way. Truman both abrogated responsibility for the decisions .. saying it was a military call .. and claimed defiantly that he wouldn't lose sleep over it. The reason for the earlier firebombing of Dresden and wider Germany was more political than strategic, because the division of Europe was related to claimed territory during the war. So pacifying the population to allow faster troop access was the political imperative. Had a Republican done it they would have been carpeted long ago.
Dan Roe ·
We armchair critics can think and analyze all we like, but the truth is that war is war and desperate people do desperate things... People die both military and civilian, ultimately there are no rules in war and history is told by the victorious.
David Daniel Ball I disagree Dan. There are rules in all things civilised .. including war. The shooting of civilians in Yugoslavia during the break up were war crimes. The action by Nato to hit a command tent was sanctioned. Those that break rules in war are subject to war crimes trials .. unless they are Democrat Presidents.
Dan Roe ·
No, i'd have to disagree, you can't blame everything on another binary political party...
Remember they gave Kissenger a Nobel Peace Prize for the secret bombings of Cambodia...
David Daniel Ball I've not forgotten that .. the difference is clear and related to emphasis .. remember, the Democrat initiated war was being prosecuted to their agenda. To exonerate war criminals because of balance is absurd. But then Israel was forced to release terrorists who'd committed murder recently .. for peace.===
<A great piece by Paul Sheehan about the political race and how both political leaders (yes, even Rudd, in my book) deserve some respect, not flippant comments about how boring and uninspiring politics is. If leaders are "boring" and "scripted", it's only because they are nit-picked over every statement they make for a "gotcha" gaffe.
Apathetic types should heed the wise words of Plato -
“One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
― Plato >
===
We were driving home from a family gathering one evening this past May with my husband’s 95-year-old grandmother, Frieda, a Holocaust survivor from a small town outside Warsaw. I told her I’d been spending a lot of time on genealogy websites, immersed in tracing the trajectories of my immigrant relatives, most of whom—lured by the promise of America—had left Eastern Europe long before World War II. I had always thought Frieda’s family’s story was not as flush with immigrant tales; most of her relatives had stayed in Poland, which is precisely why Frieda had so few relatives. She and her late husband Chaim had survived the war by fleeing to Russia in November of 1939. They spent the next six years doing forced labor under increasingly dismal and treacherous conditions. They were the only members of their immediate families to have lived.
And so I asked Frieda what she had heard about America as a child. Did people talk about wanting to go there?
“I didn’t know very much. We didn’t talk about it,” she said. She shrugged dismissively.
And then, almost as an afterthought, she added: “My mother’s two older sisters went there. She was supposed to go, too, but the First World War broke out.”
My pulse quickened. In the 14 years I had known her, I had heard numerous stories about Frieda’s past recounted in vivid detail. But I couldn’t recall her ever once mentioning two aunts in America. And Frieda wasn’t someone who could afford to have two aunts unaccounted for.
===Beautiful and informative. I prefer the message of family to revolutionary salvation through works. Family is generational and regenerative. Transformation suggests cutting and removing. A difference of emphasis in service to God. - ed
Shortly before my twenty-fifth birthday my wife and I started a non-denominational church in the living room of our rented duplex just off the campus of Syracuse University. Eleven people attended our first service.
Twenty-three years later we have the privilege of pastoring a church of over 3,300 members that enjoys the distinction of being one of the most racially diverse congregations in the America.
When our church first began, we wanted to be a part of a revolution.
We wanted to reach the un-churched twenty-somethings of our generation.
We wanted to build a church that would transcend the barriers of race, economics, and social status.
===
She was buried 9000 years ago in Bäckaskog in Kiaby, Skåne at the age of 45. The funeral took place in springtime, birch and hazel was in bloom.
The Bäckaskog woman is the oldest and most famous skeleton found in Sweden. In her grave a spear head was found. It was suitable for hunting and fishing, made of bone and sharp flint blades. Because of the grave goods archaeologists first thought she was a man.
The Bäckaskog woman is the oldest and most famous skeleton found in Sweden. In her grave a spear head was found. It was suitable for hunting and fishing, made of bone and sharp flint blades. Because of the grave goods archaeologists first thought she was a man.
She lived at a time when the climate was warm and humid with dense forests of oak, elm and ash trees. Fishing became more important as the sea level rose and new lagoons were created near her living territory.
She was found alone, no other graves were discovered nearby. In life she had given birth to several children so maybe they followed her to the final rest.
She was found alone, no other graves were discovered nearby. In life she had given birth to several children so maybe they followed her to the final rest.
Persistent Item URL: kulturarvsdata.se/shm/object/html/222358
===MEDIA RELEASE - “These answers, by both potential Prime Ministers, are totally unsatisfactory.
FRED NILE CONDEMNS MR RUDD’S 100 DAY PROMISE CONCERNING LEGAL SAME-SEX HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE
The Rev Fred Nile, leader of the Christian Democratic Party, has strongly condemned Mr Rudd’s promise to introduce same-sex homosexual marriage legislation within 100 days should he be re-elected as Prime Minister.
“Sadly, Mr Abbott avoided giving a clear answer to the same-sex marriage question and said it would be up to the newly elected Party Room if he is elected as Prime Minister” said Rev Nile.
“These answers, by both potential Prime Ministers, are totally unsatisfactory.
“This means the Australian voters, who oppose legal same-sex homosexual marriage, have no option but to vote one for the Christian Democratic Party Federal Candidates and then the party of their choice. We can make this Federal Election a referendum on same-sex-homosexual marriage by voting 1 CDP” stated Rev Nile.
The Christian Democratic political party is firmly opposed to same-sex-homosexual marriage as it fully supports Australia’s historic, traditional marriage between a man and a woman.
“Mr Rudd’s performance in this first TV debate was well below his usual standard, especially his change of position in support of same-sex homosexual marriage which he previously strongly opposed” said Rev Fred Nile MLC.
#teamnile
I'm really disappointed by this. It makes Christians look politically naive or stupid. It isn't a political issue right now so Abbotts stance is the same but smarter. However, to actually address the issue .. Take away the states right to define marriage. States can't do it well. They don't know how. Let churches make the call. The only thing the state should do is civil union. - ed
===
Old old old. The last twenty generations of my female ancestors got a man by saying they had a bun in the oven. - ed
Audrey Shulman seems to think so, anyway. In an attempt to snag a boyfriend, the LA-based blogger has been bringing cakes into bars - the assumption being that men will flock over at the promise of baked goods. She calls the process "cakebarring" - and it seems to be working pretty well.
===
The quagga is an extinct subspecies of the plains zebra that lived in South Africa. Its name is derived from its call, which sounded like "kwa-ha-ha". The quagga is believed to have been around 257 cm (8 ft 5 in) long and 125–135 cm (4 ft 1 in–4 ft 5 in) tall at the shoulder. It could be distinguished from other zebras by its limited patterning of primarily brown and white stripes, mainly on the front part of the body. Little is known about its behaviour but it may have gathered in herds of 30–50 individuals. They were once found in great numbers in the Karoo of Cape Province and the southern part of the Orange Free State in South Africa. After Dutch settlement of South Africa began, the quagga was heavily hunted, and it competed with domesticated animals for forage. Some specimens were taken to European zoos (one pictured in London Zoo, 1870), but breeding programmes were not successful. It was extinct in the wild by 1878, and the last quagga died in Amsterdam on 12 August 1883. The quagga was the first extinct animal to have its DNA analysed, and the Quagga Project is trying to recreate its pelage characteristics by selectively breeding Burchell's zebras. (Full article...)
===
- 1121 – Georgian-Seljuk wars: Forces led byDavid the Builder decisively won the Battle of Didgori, driving Ilghazi and the Seljuk Turks out of Georgia.
- 1323 – Sweden and the Novgorod Republicsigned the Treaty of Nöteborg to temporarily end the Swedish–Novgorodian Wars.
- 1877 – American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered Deimos, the smaller of the two moons of Mars.
- 1944 – After a week of indiscriminate killing of civilians inWola, Warsaw, Poland, SS General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski ordered that any remaining Poles be sent to labour or concentration camps.
- 1981 – The IBM Personal Computer (pictured), the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardwareplatform, was introduced.
- 1099 – First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeat Fatimid forces led by Al-Afdal Shahanshah. This is considered the last engagement of the First Crusade.
- 1121 – Battle of Didgori: The Georgian army under King David IV wins a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi.
- 1164 – Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din Zangi defeats the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoliand the Principality of Antioch.
- 1323 – Signature of the Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod Republic, that regulates the border between the two countries for the first time.
- 1492 – Christopher Columbus arrives in the Canary Islands on his first voyage to the New World.
- 1499 – First engagement of the Battle of Zonchio between Venetian and Ottoman fleets.
- 1624 – The president of Louis XIII of France's royal council is arrested, leaving Cardinal Richelieu in the role of the King's principal minister.
- 1676 – Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.
- 1687 – Battle of Mohács: Charles of Lorraine defeats the Ottoman Empire.
- 1765 – Treaty of Allahabad is signed. The Treaty marks the political and constitutional involvement and the beginning of Company rule in India.
- 1793 – The Rhône and Loire départments are created when the former département of Rhône-et-Loire is split into two.
- 1806 – Santiago de Liniers, 1st Count of Buenos Aires re-takes the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina after the first British invasion.
- 1831 – French intervention forces William I of the Netherlands to abandon his attempt to suppress the Belgian Revolution.
- 1851 – Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.
- 1865 – Joseph Lister, British surgeon and scientist, performs 1st antiseptic surgery.
- 1883 – The last quagga dies at the Natura Artis Magistra, a zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
- 1898 – The Hawaiian flag is lowered from ʻIolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawaii to the United States.
- 1914 – World War I: The United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit.
- 1914 – World War I: The Battle of Halen a.k.a. Battle of the Silver Helmets a clash between large Belgian and German cavalry formations at Halen, Belgium.
- 1944 – Waffen-SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.
- 1944 – Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people are killed indiscriminately or in mass executions.
- 1944 – Alençon is liberated by General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.
- 1948 – Babrra massacre: About 600 unarmed members of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement are shot dead on the orders of the Chief Minister of the North-West Frontier Province, Abdul Qayyum Khan Kashmiri, on Babrra ground in the Hashtnagar region of Charsadda District, North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Pakistan.
- 1950 – Korean War: Bloody Gulch massacre: American POWs are massacred by North Korean Army.
- 1952 – The Night of the Murdered Poets: Thirteen prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.
- 1953 – The first testing of a real thermonuclear weapon (not test devices): The Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of "RDS-6s" (Joe 4), the first Soviet thermonuclear bomb.
- 1953 – The 7.2 Ms Ionian earthquake shakes the southern Ionian Islands with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Between 445 and 800 people are killed.
- 1960 – Echo 1A, NASA's first successful communications satellite, is launched.
- 1964 – South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country's racist policies.
- 1969 – Violence erupts after the Apprentice Boys of Derry march in Derry, Northern Ireland, resulting in a three-day communal riot known as the Battle of the Bogside.
- 1976 – Between 1,000 and 3,500 Palestinians are killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War
- 1977 – The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
- 1977 – The Sri Lanka Riots:, targeting the minority Sri Lankan Tamils, begin, less than a month after the United National Party came to power. Over 300 Tamils are killed.
- 1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.
- 1985 – Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520, to become the worst single-plane air disaster.
- 1990 – Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found to date, is discovered by Sue Hendricksonin South Dakota.
- 1992 – Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
- 1994 – Major League Baseball players go on strike, forcing the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
- 2000 – The Russian Navy submarine Kursk explodes and sinks in the Barents Sea during a military exercise, killing her entire 118-man crew.
- 2015 – At least two massive explosions kill 173 people and injure nearly 800 more in Tianjin, China.
- 1452 – Abraham Zacuto, Jewish astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, rabbi and historian (d. 1515)
- 1503 – Christian III of Denmark (d. 1559)
- 1506 – Franciscus Sonnius, Dutch counter-Reformation theologian (d. 1576)
- 1591 – Louise de Marillac, co-founder of the Daughters of Charity (d. 1660)
- 1599 – Sir William Curtius FRS, German magistrate, English baronet (d. 1678).
- 1604 – Tokugawa Iemitsu, Japanese shogun (d. 1651)
- 1626 – Giovanni Legrenzi, Italian composer (d. 1690)
- 1629 – Archduchess Isabella Clara of Austria, Austrian archduchess (d. 1685)
- 1644 – Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Bohemian-Austrian violinist and composer (d. 1704)
- 1686 – John Balguy, English philosopher and author (d. 1748)
- 1696 – Maurice Greene, English organist and composer (d. 1755)
- 1762 – George IV of the United Kingdom (d. 1830)
- 1773 – Karl Faber, Prussian historian and academic (d. 1853)
- 1774 – Robert Southey, English poet and author (d. 1843)
- 1831 – Helena Blavatsky, Russian theosophist and scholar (d. 1891)
- 1852 – Michael J. McGivney, American priest, founded the Knights of Columbus (d. 1890)
- 1856 – Diamond Jim Brady, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1917)
- 1857 – Ernestine von Kirchsberg, Austrian painter and educator (d. 1924)
- 1859 – Katharine Lee Bates, American poet and author (d. 1929)
- 1860 – Klara Hitler, Austrian mother of Adolf Hitler (d. 1907)
- 1866 – Jacinto Benavente, Spanish playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1954)
- 1866 – Henrik Sillem, Dutch target shooter, mountaineer, and jurist (d. 1907)
- 1867 – Edith Hamilton, German-American author and educator (d. 1963)
- 1870 – Henry Reuterdahl, Swedish-American artist (d. 1925)
- 1871 – Gustavs Zemgals, Latvian politician, 2nd President of Latvia (d. 1939)
- 1876 – Mary Roberts Rinehart, American author and playwright (d. 1958)
- 1877 – Albert Bartha, Hungarian general and politician, Hungarian Minister of Defence (d. 1960)
- 1880 – Radclyffe Hall, English poet, author, and activist (d. 1943)
- 1880 – Christy Mathewson, American baseball player and manager (d. 1925)
- 1881 – Cecil B. DeMille, American director and producer (d. 1959)
- 1883 – Martha Hedman, Swedish-American actress and playwright (d. 1974)
- 1883 – Marion Lorne, American actress (d. 1968)
- 1885 – Jean Cabannes, French physicist and academic (d. 1959)
- 1885 – Keith Murdoch, Australian journalist (d. 1952)
- 1885 – Juhan Simm, Estonian composer and conductor (d. 1959)
- 1887 – Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1961)
- 1889 – Zerna Sharp, American author and educator (d. 1981)
- 1891 – C. E. M. Joad, English philosopher and academic (d. 1953)
- 1891 – John McDermott, American golfer (d. 1971)
- 1892 – Alfred Lunt, American actor and director (d. 1977)
- 1897 – Maurice Fernandes, Guyanese cricketer (d. 1981)
- 1899 – Ben Sealey, Trinidadian cricketer (d. 1963)
- 1902 – Mohammad Hatta, Indonesian politician, 1st Vice President of Indonesia (d. 1980)
- 1904 – Idel Jakobson, Latvian-Estonian NKVD officer (d. 1997)
- 1904 – Tamás Lossonczy, Hungarian painter (d. 2009)
- 1904 – Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia (d. 1918)
- 1906 – Harry Hopman, Australian tennis player and coach (d. 1985)
- 1906 – Tedd Pierce, American animator, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1972)
- 1907 – Gladys Bentley, American blues singer (d. 1960)
- 1907 – Joe Besser, American actor (d. 1988)
- 1907 – Boy Charlton, Australian swimmer (d. 1975)
- 1907 – Benjamin Sheares, Singaporean physician and politician, 2nd President of Singapore (d. 1981)
- 1909 – Bruce Matthews, Canadian general and businessman (d. 1991)
- 1910 – Yusof bin Ishak, Singaporean journalist and politician, 1st President of Singapore (d. 1970)
- 1910 – Jane Wyatt, American actress (d. 2006)
- 1911 – Cantinflas, Mexican actor, screenwriter, and producer (d. 1993)
- 1912 – Samuel Fuller, American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 1997)
- 1913 – Richard L. Bare, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2015)
- 1914 – Gerd Buchdahl, German-English philosopher and author (d. 2001)
- 1914 – Ruth Lowe, Canadian pianist and songwriter (d. 1981)
- 1915 – Michael Kidd, American dancer and choreographer (d. 2007)
- 1916 – Ioan Dicezare, Romanian general and pilot (d. 2012)
- 1916 – Edward Pinkowski, American writer, journalist and Polonia historian
- 1917 – Oliver Crawford, American screenwriter and author (d. 2008)
- 1918 – Sid Bernstein, American record producer (d. 2013)
- 1918 – Guy Gibson, Anglo-Indian commander and pilot, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1944)
- 1919 – Margaret Burbidge, English-American astrophysicist and academic
- 1919 – Vikram Sarabhai, Indian physicist and academic (d. 1971)
- 1920 – Charles Gibson, American ethnohistorian (d. 1985)
- 1920 – Percy Mayfield, American R&B singer-songwriter (d. 1984)
- 1922 – Fulton Mackay, Scottish actor and playwright (d. 1987)
- 1922 – Miloš Jakeš, Czech communist politician
- 1923 – John Holt, Jamaican cricketer (d. 1997)
- 1924 – Derek Shackleton, English cricketer, coach, and umpire (d. 2007)
- 1924 – Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistani general and politician, 6th President of Pakistan (d. 1988)
- 1925 – Dale Bumpers, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 38th Governor of Arkansas (d. 2016)
- 1925 – Guillermo Cano Isaza, Colombian journalist (d. 1986)
- 1925 – Donald Justice, American poet and writing teacher (d. 2004)
- 1925 – Norris McWhirter, Scottish publisher and activist co-founded the Guinness World Records (d. 2004)
- 1925 – Ross McWhirter, Scottish publisher and activist, co-founded the Guinness World Records (d. 1975)
- 1925 – George Wetherill, American physicist and academic (d. 2006)
- 1926 – John Derek, American actor, director, and cinematographer (d. 1998)
- 1926 – Joe Jones, American R&B singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2005)
- 1927 – Porter Wagoner, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2007)
- 1928 – Charles Blackman, Australian painter and illustrator
- 1928 – Bob Buhl, American baseball player (d. 2001)
- 1928 – Dan Curtis, American director and producer (d. 2006)
- 1929 – Buck Owens, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2006)
- 1930 – George Soros, Hungarian-American businessman and investor, founded the Soros Fund Management
- 1930 – Kanagaratnam Sriskandan, Sri Lankan engineer and civil servant (d. 2010)
- 1930 – Jacques Tits, Belgian-French mathematician and academic
- 1931 – William Goldman, American author, playwright, and screenwriter
- 1932 – Dallin H. Oaks, American lawyer, jurist, and religious leader
- 1932 – Charlie O'Donnell, American radio and television announcer (d. 2010)
- 1932 – Sirikit, Queen mother of Thailand
- 1933 – Parnelli Jones, American race car driver and businessman
- 1933 – Frederic Lindsay, Scottish author and educator (d. 2013)
- 1934 – Robin Nicholson, English metallurgist and academic
- 1935 – John Cazale, American actor (d. 1978)
- 1936 – Kjell Grede, Swedish director and screenwriter (d. 2017)
- 1937 – Walter Dean Myers, American author and poet (d. 2014)
- 1938 – Jean-Paul L'Allier, Canadian journalist and politician, 38th Mayor of Quebec City (d. 2016)
- 1939 – George Hamilton, American actor
- 1939 – Pam Kilborn, Australian track and field athlete
- 1939 – David King, South African chemist and academic
- 1939 – Sushil Koirala, Nepalese politician, 37th Prime Minister of Nepal (d. 2016)
- 1939 – Roy Romanow, Canadian lawyer and politician, 12th Premier of Saskatchewan
- 1940 – Eddie Barlow, South African cricketer and coach (d. 2005)
- 1941 – L. M. Kit Carson, American actor, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2014)
- 1941 – Réjean Ducharme, Canadian author and playwright
- 1941 – Dana Ivey, American actress
- 1942 – Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt, German physician and author
- 1945 – Dorothy E. Denning, American computer scientist and academic
- 1945 – Ron Mael, American keyboard player and songwriter
- 1946 – Terry Nutkins, English television host and author (d. 2012)
- 1948 – Siddaramaiah, Indian lawyer and politician, 22nd Chief Minister of Karnataka
- 1948 – Graham J. Zellick, English academic and jurist
- 1949 – Panagiotis Chinofotis, Greek admiral and politician
- 1949 – Mark Knopfler, Scottish-English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1949 – Lou Martin, Northern Irish pianist, songwriter, and producer (d. 2012)
- 1949 – Alex Naumik, Lithuanian-Norwegian singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2013)
- 1949 – Rick Ridgeway, American mountaineer and photographer
- 1950 – Jim Beaver, American actor, director, and screenwriter
- 1950 – August "Kid Creole" Darnell, American musician, bandleader, singer-songwriter, and record producer
- 1951 – Klaus Toppmöller, German football manager and former player
- 1952 – Daniel Biles, American associate justice of the Kansas Supreme Court
- 1954 – Rob Borbidge, Australian politician, 35th Premier of Queensland
- 1954 – Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong businessman and politician, 3rd Chief Executive of Hong Kong
- 1954 – Ibolya Dávid, Hungarian lawyer and politician, Minister of Justice of Hungary
- 1954 – François Hollande, French lawyer and politician, 24th President of France
- 1954 – Pat Metheny, American jazz guitarist and composer
- 1956 – Lee Freedman, Australian horse trainer
- 1956 – Bruce Greenwood, Canadian actor and producer
- 1956 – Sidath Wettimuny, Sri Lankan cricketer
- 1957 – Friedhelm Schütte, German footballer
- 1958 – Jürgen Dehmel, German bass player and songwriter
- 1959 – Kerry Boustead, Australian rugby league player
- 1959 – Amanda Redman, English actress
- 1960 – Laurent Fignon, French cyclist and sportscaster (d. 2010)
- 1960 – Greg Thomas, Welsh-English cricketer
- 1961 – Roy Hay, English guitarist, keyboard player, and composer
- 1961 – Mark Priest, New Zealand cricketer
- 1963 – Kōji Kitao, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 60th Yokozuna
- 1963 – Campbell Newman, Australian politician, 38th Premier of Queensland
- 1963 – Sir Mix-a-Lot, American rapper, producer, and actor
- 1964 – Txiki Begiristain, Spanish footballer
- 1964 – Michael Hagan, Australian rugby league player and coach
- 1965 – Peter Krause, American actor
- 1966 – Tobias Ellwood, American-English captain and politician
- 1967 – Andy Hui, Hong Kong singer-songwriter and actor
- 1967 – Andrey Plotnikov, Russian race walker
- 1967 – Regilio Tuur, Dutch boxer
- 1968 – Thorsten Boer, German footballer and manager
- 1968 – Ülar Mark, Estonian architect
- 1969 – Aga Muhlach, Filipino actor and politician
- 1969 – Stuart Williams, Nevisian cricketer
- 1970 – Aleksandar Đurić, Bosnian footballer
- 1970 – Charles Mesure, English-Australian actor and screenwriter
- 1970 – Toby Perkins, English businessman and politician
- 1970 – Jim Schlossnagle, American baseball player and coach
- 1970 – Anthony Swofford, American soldier and author
- 1971 – Michael Ian Black, American comedian, actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1971 – Rebecca Gayheart, American actress
- 1971 – Pete Sampras, American tennis player
- 1972 – Demir Demirkan, Turkish singer-songwriter and producer
- 1972 – Mark Kinsella, Irish footballer and manager
- 1972 – Takanohana Kōji, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 65th Yokozuna
- 1972 – Gyanendra Pandey, Indian cricketer
- 1973 – Jonathan Coachman, American basketball player, wrestler, and sportscaster
- 1973 – Mark Iuliano, Italian footballer and manager
- 1973 – Todd Marchant, American ice hockey player and coach
- 1974 – Matt Clement, American baseball player and coach
- 1974 – Karl Stefanovic, Australian television host
- 1975 – Casey Affleck, American actor
- 1976 – Pedro Collins, Barbadian cricketer
- 1976 – Mikko Lindström, Finnish guitarist
- 1976 – Henry Tuilagi, Samoan rugby player
- 1976 – Antoine Walker, American basketball player
- 1977 – Plaxico Burress, American football player
- 1977 – Jesper Grønkjær, Danish footballer
- 1977 – Park Yong-ha, Korean actor (d. 2010)
- 1978 – Chris Chambers, American football player
- 1978 – Hayley Wickenheiser, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1979 – D. J. Houlton, American baseball player
- 1979 – Ian Hutchinson, English motorcycle racer
- 1979 – Cindy Klassen, Canadian speed skater
- 1979 – Austra Skujytė, Lithuanian pentathlete
- 1980 – Javier Chevantón, Uruguayan footballer
- 1980 – Maggie Lawson, American actress
- 1980 – Dominique Swain, American actress
- 1980 – Matt Thiessen, Canadian-American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1981 – Tony Capaldi, Norwegian-Northern Irish footballer
- 1981 – Djibril Cissé, French footballer
- 1982 – Boban Grnčarov, Macedonian footballer
- 1982 – Alexandros Tzorvas, Greek footballer
- 1983 – Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Dutch footballer
- 1983 – Kléber Giacomance de Souza Freitas, Brazilian footballer
- 1983 – Manoa Vosawai, Italian rugby player
- 1984 – Bryan Pata, American football player (d. 2006)
- 1985 – Danny Graham, English footballer
- 1985 – Franck Moutsinga, German rugby player
- 1986 – Andrei Agius, Maltese footballer
- 1986 – Kyle Arrington, American football player
- 1987 – Vanessa Watts, West Indian cricketer
- 1988 – Tyson Fury, English boxer
- 1988 – Matt Gillett, Australian rugby league player
- 1989 – Tom Cleverley, English footballer
- 1989 – Hong Jeong-ho, South Korean footballer
- 1989 – Sunye, South Korean singer
- 1990 – Mario Balotelli, Italian footballer
- 1990 – Marvin Zeegelaar, Dutch footballer
- 1990 – Martin Zurawsky, German footballer
- 1991 – Jesinta Campbell, Australian model
- 1991 – Sam Hoare, Australian rugby league player
- 1992 – Cara Delevingne, English model and actress
- 1992 – Isabella Escobar, Guatemalan tennis player
- 1992 – Jacob Loko, Australian rugby player
- 1992 – Teo Gheorghiu, Swiss pianist and actor
- 1993 – Ewa Farna, Czech singer-songwriter
- 1993 – Luna, South Korean singer, actress and presenter
- 1996 – Julio Urías, Mexican baseball player
- 1998 – Stefanos Tsitsipas, Greece tennis player
- 1999 – Matthijs de Ligt, Dutch footballer
- 30 BC– Cleopatra, Egyptian queen (b. 69 BC)
- 792 – Jænberht, archbishop of Canterbury
- 875 – Louis II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 825)
- 960 – Li Gu, chancellor of Later Zhou (b. 903)
- 961 – Yuan Zong, emperor of Southern Tang (b. 916)
- 1222 – Vladislaus III, duke of Bohemia
- 1295 – Charles Martel, king of Hungary (b. 1271)
- 1319 – Rudolf I, duke of Bavaria (b. 1274)
- 1315 – Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick, English nobleman
- 1335 – Prince Moriyoshi, Japanese shogun (b. 1308)
- 1399 – Demetrius I Starshy, Prince of Trubczewsk (in battle) (b. 1327)
- 1424 – Yongle, emperor of the Ming Empire (b. 1360)
- 1484 – Sixtus IV, pope of the Catholic Church (b. 1414)
- 1546 – Francisco de Vitoria, Spanish theologian (b. 1492)
- 1577 – Thomas Smith, English scholar and diplomat (b. 1513)
- 1588 – Alfonso Ferrabosco the elder, Italian-English composer (b. 1543)
- 1602 – Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, Mughal vizier and historian (b. 1551)
- 1612 – Giovanni Gabrieli, Italian organist and composer (b. 1557)
- 1638 – Johannes Althusius, German jurist and philosopher (b. 1557)
- 1674 – Philippe de Champaigne, Belgian-French painter and educator (b. 1602)
- 1689 – Pope Innocent XI (b. 1611)
- 1778 – Peregrine Bertie, 3rd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, English general and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Lincolnshire (b. 1714)
- 1809 – Mikhail Kamensky, Russian field marshal (b. 1738)
- 1810 – Étienne Louis Geoffroy, French pharmacist and entomologist (b. 1725)
- 1822 – Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, Irish-English politician, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (b. 1769)
- 1827 – William Blake, English poet and painter (b. 1757)
- 1829 – Charles Sapinaud de La Rairie, French general (b. 1760)
- 1848 – George Stephenson, English engineer and academic (b. 1781)
- 1849 – Albert Gallatin, Swiss-American ethnologist, linguist, and politician, 4th United States Secretary of the Treasury (b. 1761)
- 1851 – John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune, British lawyer and activist (b. 1801)
- 1861 – Eliphalet Remington, American inventor and businessman, founded Remington Arms (b. 1793)
- 1864 – Sakuma Shōzan, Japanese scholar and politician (b. 1811)
- 1865 – William Jackson Hooker, English botanist and academic (b. 1785)
- 1891 – James Russell Lowell, American poet and critic (b. 1819)
- 1896 – Thomas Chamberlain, American colonel (b. 1841)
- 1900 – Wilhelm Steinitz, Austrian chess player and theoretician (b. 1836)
- 1901 – Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, Finnish-Swedish botanist, geologist, mineralogist, and explorer (b. 1832)
- 1904 – William Renshaw, English tennis player (b. 1861)
- 1914 – John Philip Holland, Irish engineer, designed HMS Holland 1 (b. 1840)
- 1918 – William Thompson, American archer (b. 1848)
- 1921 – Pyotr Boborykin, Russian playwright and journalist (b. 1836)
- 1922 – Arthur Griffith, Irish journalist and politician, 3rd President of Dáil Éireann (b. 1871)
- 1924 – Sándor Bródy, Hungarian journalist and author (b. 1863)
- 1928 – Leoš Janáček, Czech composer and educator (b. 1854)
- 1934 – Hendrik Petrus Berlage, Dutch architect, designed the Beurs van Berlage (b. 1856)
- 1935 – Friedrich Schottky, German mathematician and academic (b. 1851)
- 1940 – Nikolai Triik, Estonian painter, illustrator, and academic (b. 1884)
- 1941 – Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon, English soldier and politician, 56th Governor General of Canada (b. 1866)
- 1941 – Bobby Peel, English cricketer and umpire (b. 1857)
- 1943 – Vittorio Sella, Italian photographer and mountaineer (b. 1859)
- 1944 – Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., American lieutenant and pilot (b. 1915)
- 1952 – David Bergelson, Ukrainian author and playwright (b. 1884)
- 1955 – Thomas Mann, German author and critic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1875)
- 1955 – James B. Sumner, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1887)
- 1959 – Mike O'Neill, Irish-American baseball player and manager (b. 1877)
- 1964 – Ian Fleming, English spy, journalist, and author (b. 1908)
- 1966 – Artur Alliksaar, Estonian poet and author (b. 1923)
- 1967 – Esther Forbes, American historian and author (b. 1891)
- 1973 – Walter Rudolf Hess, Swiss physiologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
- 1973 – Karl Ziegler, German chemist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1898)
- 1978 – John Williams, English motorcycle racer (b. 1946)
- 1979 – Ernst Boris Chain, German-Irish biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)
- 1982 – Henry Fonda, American actor (b. 1905)
- 1982 – Salvador Sánchez, Mexican boxer (b. 1959)
- 1983 – Theodor Burchardi, German admiral (b. 1892)
- 1984 – Ladi Kwali, Nigerian potter (b. 1925)[1]
- 1985 – Kyu Sakamoto, Japanese singer-songwriter (b. 1941)
- 1985 – Manfred Winkelhock, German race car driver (b. 1951)
- 1986 – Evaline Ness, American author and illustrator (b. 1911)
- 1988 – Jean-Michel Basquiat, American painter (b. 1960)
- 1989 – William Shockley, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1910)
- 1990 – Dorothy Mackaill, English-American actress (b. 1903)
- 1992 – John Cage, American composer and theorist (b. 1912)
- 1996 – Victor Ambartsumian, Georgian-Armenian astrophysicist and academic (b. 1908)
- 1996 – Mark Gruenwald, American author and illustrator (b. 1953)
- 1997 – Jack Delano, American photographer and composer (b. 1914)
- 1999 – Jean Drapeau, Canadian lawyer and politician, 37th Mayor of Montreal (b. 1916)
- 2000 – Gennady Lyachin, Russian captain (b. 1955)
- 2000 – Loretta Young, American actress (b. 1913)
- 2002 – Enos Slaughter, American baseball player and manager (b. 1916)
- 2004 – Godfrey Hounsfield, English biophysicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1919)
- 2005 – John Loder, English sound engineer and producer, founded Southern Studios (b. 1946)
- 2006 – Victoria Gray Adams, American civil rights activist (b. 1926)
- 2007 – Merv Griffin, American actor, singer, and producer, created Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune (b. 1925)
- 2007 – Mike Wieringo, American author and illustrator (b. 1963)
- 2008 – Christie Allen, English-Australian singer (b. 1954)
- 2008 – Helge Hagerup, Norwegian playwright, poet and novelist (b. 1933)
- 2009 – Les Paul, American guitarist and songwriter (b. 1915)
- 2010 – Isaac Bonewits, American Druid, author, and activist; founded Ár nDraíocht Féin (b. 1949)
- 2010 – Guido de Marco, Maltese lawyer and politician, 6th President of Malta (b. 1931)
- 2010 – Richie Hayward, American drummer and songwriter (b. 1946)
- 2010 – André Kim, South Korean fashion designer (b. 1935)
- 2011 – Robert Robinson, English journalist and author (b. 1927)
- 2012 – Jimmy Carr, American football player and coach (b. 1933)
- 2012 – Jerry Grant, American race car driver (b. 1935)
- 2012 – Joe Kubert, Polish-American illustrator, founded The Kubert School (b. 1926)
- 2012 – Édgar Morales Pérez, Mexican engineer and politician
- 2012 – Alf Morris, English politician and activist (b. 1928)
- 2013 – Tereza de Arriaga, Portuguese painter (b. 1915)
- 2013 – Hans-Ekkehard Bob, German soldier and pilot (b. 1917)
- 2013 – Pauline Maier, American historian and academic (b. 1938)
- 2013 – David McLetchie, Scottish lawyer and politician (b. 1952)
- 2013 – Vasiliy Mihaylovich Peskov, Russian ecologist and journalist (b. 1930)
- 2014 – Lauren Bacall, American model, actress, and singer (b. 1924)
- 2014 – Futatsuryū Jun'ichi, Japanese sumo wrestler (b. 1950)
- 2014 – Kongō Masahiro, Japanese sumo wrestler (b. 1948)
- 2015 – Jaakko Hintikka, Finnish philosopher and academic (b. 1929)
- 2015 – Stephen Lewis, English actor and screenwriter (b. 1926)
- 2015 – Meshulim Feish Lowy, Hungarian-Canadian rabbi and author (b. 1921)
- 2015 – John Scott, English organist and conductor (b. 1956)
- 2016 – Juan Pedro de Miguel, Spanish handball player (b. 1958)
- 2017 – Bryan Murray, Canadian ice hockey coach (b. 1942)
- Christian feast day:
- Glorious Twelfth (United Kingdom)
- HM the Queen's Birthday and National Mother's Day (Thailand)
- International Youth Day (United Nations)
- Russian Air Force Day (Russia)
- Russian Railway Troops Day (Russia)
- Sea Org Day (Scientology)
“I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.” Psalm 119:14 NIV
===
Morning
Numbers of Christians can view the past with pleasure, but regard the present with dissatisfaction; they look back upon the days which they have passed in communing with the Lord as being the sweetest and the best they have ever known, but as to the present, it is clad in a sable garb of gloom and dreariness. Once they lived near to Jesus, but now they feel that they have wandered from him, and they say, "O that I were as in months past!" They complain that they have lost their evidences, or that they have not present peace of mind, or that they have no enjoyment in the means of grace, or that conscience is not so tender, or that they have not so much zeal for God's glory. The causes of this mournful state of things are manifold. It may arise through a comparative neglect of prayer, for a neglected closet is the beginning of all spiritual decline. Or it may be the result of idolatry. The heart has been occupied with something else, more than with God; the affections have been set on the things of earth, instead of the things of heaven. A jealous God will not be content with a divided heart; he must be loved first and best. He will withdraw the sunshine of his presence from a cold, wandering heart. Or the cause may be found in self-confidence and self-righteousness. Pride is busy in the heart, and self is exalted instead of lying low at the foot of the cross. Christian, if you are not now as you "were in months past," do not rest satisfied with wishing for a return of former happiness, but go at once to seek your Master, and tell him your sad state. Ask his grace and strength to help you to walk more closely with him; humble yourself before him, and he will lift you up, and give you yet again to enjoy the light of his countenance. Do not sit down to sigh and lament; while the beloved Physician lives there is hope, nay there is a certainty of recovery for the worst cases.
Evening
"Consolation." There is music in the word: like David's harp, it charms away the evil spirit of melancholy. It was a distinguished honour to Barnabas to be called "the son of consolation"; nay, it is one of the illustrious names of a greater than Barnabas, for the Lord Jesus is "the consolation of Israel." "Everlasting consolation"--here is the cream of all, for the eternity of comfort is the crown and glory of it. What is this "everlasting consolation"? It includes a sense of pardoned sin. A Christian man has received in his heart the witness of the Spirit that his iniquities are put away like a cloud, and his transgressions like a thick cloud. If sin be pardoned, is not that an everlasting consolation? Next, the Lord gives his people an abiding sense of acceptance in Christ. The Christian knows that God looks upon him as standing in union with Jesus. Union to the risen Lord is a consolation of the most abiding order; it is, in fact, everlasting. Let sickness prostrate us, have we not seen hundreds of believers as happy in the weakness of disease as they would have been in the strength of hale and blooming health? Let death's arrows pierce us to the heart, our comfort dies not, for have not our ears full often heard the songs of saints as they have rejoiced because the living love of God was shed abroad in their hearts in dying moments? Yes, a sense of acceptance in the Beloved is an everlasting consolation. Moreover, the Christian has a conviction of his security. God has promised to save those who trust in Christ: the Christian does trust in Christ, and he believes that God will be as good as his word, and will save him. He feels that he is safe by virtue of his being bound up with the person and work of Jesus.
===
Today's reading: Psalm 81-83, Romans 11:19-36 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Psalm 81-82
1 Sing for joy to God our strength;
shout aloud to the God of Jacob!
2 Begin the music, strike the timbrel,
play the melodious harp and lyre.
shout aloud to the God of Jacob!
2 Begin the music, strike the timbrel,
play the melodious harp and lyre.
3 Sound the ram's horn at the New Moon,
and when the moon is full, on the day of our festival;
4 this is a decree for Israel,
an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
5 When God went out against Egypt,
he established it as a statute for Joseph....
and when the moon is full, on the day of our festival;
4 this is a decree for Israel,
an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
5 When God went out against Egypt,
he established it as a statute for Joseph....
Today's New Testament reading: Romans 11:19-36
19 You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in." 20 Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
22 Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. 23 And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24 After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
===
Levi
[Lē'vī] - joined or adhesion.
[Lē'vī] - joined or adhesion.
- Another name for Matthew, the one-time Roman tax-gatherer (Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27, 29). See MATTHEW.
- An ancestor of Jesus Christ(Luke 3:24).
- Another ancestor of Jesus Christ (Luke 3:29).
- The third son of Jacob by Leah. Levi had three sons, and died in Egypt at the age of 137 (Gen. 29:34; 46:11; Exod. 6:16). His descendants, the Levites, had care of the sanctuary. The Book of Leviticus describes their ministry.
The Man of Isolation
Isolation is a feature in the history of Levi, quite as much as it characterizes Simeon, with whom he is paired. The capacity to stand alone made Simeon and Levi conspicuous among their brethren in their attack upon the Shechemites, and proved a valuable instrument for the work of the Lord. The tribe of Levi was fitted by the discipline of trial to discharge a most important duty in Israel - a duty which made Levi second in importance to none but Judah, whose forerunner and counterpart he was formed to be. Levi stands before Judah in the prophecies of Jacob - Judah before Levi in the blessings of Moses, the man of God.
"The true Levites," says Dr. C. H. Waller, "are the men who have been made lonely among their brethren that they may live alone with Jehovah, and so dwell as the families of others that they may unite them to the family of God."
Levi came under the ban of Jacob, who, in his prophecy set Simeon and Levi under a "curse." To the patriarch they were bad brothers.
Dr. Dinsdale Young has a telling chapter on Simeon and Levi in which he elaborates on these features:
I. They constituted an unholy brotherhood - they had a common disposition (Gen. 49:5).
II. They had unhallowed belongings ( Gen. 49:5) - sinful homes and perverted instruments.
III. They drew from their father a heart-felt prayer (Gen. 49:6). Reviewing their sinful courses, the dying father prays for them.
IV. Their father uttered a righteous imprecation upon their sin. Jacob did not curse them, but their sin (Gen. 49:7).
V. A just judgment was pronounced upon them, "I will divide them" (Gen. 49:7 ). Though divided and scattered, they were not cut off from the promised land. Theirs was not the abundant entrance of others, yet they were privileged to enter.
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