986 – Byzantine–Bulgarian Wars: The Bulgarians defeated the Byzantine forces at the Gate of Trajan near present-day Ihtiman, with Byzantine Emperor Basil II barely escaping.
1807 – Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat, the world's first commercially successful paddle steamer, went into service on the Hudson River in New York.
1945 – Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed the independence of Indonesia, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.
1980 – Two-month-old Australian Azaria Chamberlain was taken from her family's campsite at Uluru by a dingo, for which her mother would be convicted of murder.
1999 – A 7.5 Mw earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, killing over 17,000 people and leaving approximately half a million people homeless. You defeated the Byzantines. You've set the steam boat in motion. You have independence. You make the right sacrifices. You make the ground shake. Party on.
===
LOSING IT
Tim Blair – Saturday, August 17, 2013 (2:23pm)
When the going gets tough, the left turns ugly. Extremely ugly. Here’s a typically pleasant contribution:
Kevin Rudd’s social media experts must be ever so proud.
Kevin Rudd’s social media experts must be ever so proud.
===
THE LION BARKS TONIGHT
Tim Blair – Saturday, August 17, 2013 (2:21pm)
Chinese car manufacturers are known for their crafty duplicates. Now the nation’s zoos are trying the same tactic:
A Chinese zoo’s supposed “African lion” was exposed as a fraud when the dog used as a substitute started barking.
===
PENRITH PROPHECY
Tim Blair – Saturday, August 17, 2013 (1:56pm)
The Wall Street Journal reviews Kevin Rudd’s election trajectory:
Initial signs were positive. Mr. Rudd’s policy pledges, including changes to an unpopular carbon tax and a harder line on refugees, has helped Labor draw neck and neck with the Liberal-National coalition in the polls.Worryingly for Mr. Rudd, that momentum appears to have ground to a halt.“I have been a Labor voter for the past 25 years, but I want to see some changes,” said Koon Kim, 63, who runs his own framing business in Penrith …“I voted Labor all my life,” said Susan Firmstone, a 63-year-old retiree. “I don’t think I will be this year.” She blames rising government borrowing for her change of heart …Labor hasn’t given up in Lindsay. Its local candidate, David Bradbury, insisted that many voters still hadn’t made up their minds.“I would rather spend more time persuading people than being Nostradamus,” he said.
Labor’s Nostradumbass can’t even predict his own vote. In February 2012, he was Julia Gillard’s biggest fan:
“I support Prime Minister Julia Gillard and it would be fair to say I am one of her strongest supporters. I support the Prime Minister, she’s doing a great job in difficult circumstances.”
Mr Bradbury joked he was prepared to get a tattoo if that would end speculation that he was wavering in his support for the Prime Minister.“I don’t know what I have to do to go beyond that. If it means getting a tattoo I’d consider it.”
And then he voted for the return of Kevin Rudd.
===
PRECIOUS PEDALS
Tim Blair – Saturday, August 17, 2013 (1:36pm)
The extremely sensitive cycling community is crying again.
UPDATE. Speaking of cyclists:
A lost generation of former senior Labor ministers has gone missing in action during the 2013 campaign, either travelling overseas or keeping low profiles as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd battles for re-election.Greg Combet appeared this week in French newspaper Le Progres during a holiday to the village of Journans where he has been enjoying solitary bike rides in the hills of the picturesque region in the east of the country.“Journans is recognised for the quality of life and the tranquillity of its environment,” Le Progres reports.
“His commitment to the Labor Party took him into the upper echelons of power.”Mr Combet, whose grandfather emigrated to Australia from France, reportedly stayed at the home of his cousin Pascale Combet.An online translation of the French-language article offers this quote from Combet: “I come from a people’s medium and I fought to climb the ranks.”Now he’s climbing French mountainsides on a bike.
===
CARTOON OF THE WEEK
Tim Blair – Saturday, August 17, 2013 (12:32pm)
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has angrily hung up on Sydney talkback radio host Ben Fordham during a tense interview concerning asylum seekers.The senator fumed after an aggressive Mr Fordham said her refugee policy “stinks” and was a “laughing stock”.“I don’t know why you bother to invite me on to interview me,” she told Mr Fordham. “You can have your own opinions. Don’t invite me back on your show just so can sit on your soapbox.“You can do that without inviting people on your show. I’m sure you do it day in, day out.”Click.
===
The Bolt Report tomorrow
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (6:32pm)
On The Bolt Report tomorrow on Network 10 at 10 and 4pm.
Coalition frontbencher Christopher Pyne and panellists Amanda Vanstone and Gary Johns.
The moment Rudd’s campaign died.
The twitter feed.
The place the videos appear.
Coalition frontbencher Christopher Pyne and panellists Amanda Vanstone and Gary Johns.
The moment Rudd’s campaign died.
The twitter feed.
The place the videos appear.
===
Will Rudd now attack his candidate for Swan for ogling?
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (11:01am)
Kevin Rudd damned Tony
Abbott for noting one of his candidates had sex appeal. He should have a
word with one of his own candidates for noting a voter has sex appeal, too.
UPDATE
Reader MarcH wonders why Fairfax didn’t use this picture instead. His candidate wasn’t the only one needing a talking to.
UPDATE
Reader MarcH wonders why Fairfax didn’t use this picture instead. His candidate wasn’t the only one needing a talking to.
===
Labor steals Abbott’s chips
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (10:09am)
Stealing someone’s chips is not the way to win their vote:
But while 23-year-old Mark Allen was happy to provide the nourishment, he said he would be voting for Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.It’s kind of a metaphor. Labor is stealing the Opposition’s chips, too.
“I think the other guy’s going to do a better job,” Mr Allen said “He’s a bit more stable in my mind.”
First Treasurer Chris Bowen claimed he was the one who listed a cancer drug on the PBS:
VOTERS in Chris Bowen’s western Sydney electorate have received leaflets claiming the Treasurer delivered the listing of a life-saving cancer drug [Herceptin] on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, even though the medicine was added to the PBS during Tony Abbott’s tenure as health ministerNow Boy on a Bike notes another Labor MP eating Abbott’s chips:
UPDATE
We got an election pamphlet from John Murphy recently. A big chunk of it tells the story of a local woman who had cancer, was treated with a drug called Herceptin and obviously lived to tell the tale…
What this pamphlet doesn’t tell you is that Herceptin was put onto the PBS when Tony Abbott was Minister for Health. How’s that for misogyny - approving a very expensive drug that only benefits women.
Bowen insists he, not his Labor colleague, made Tony Abbott do what both are claiming credit for:
Yesterday Mr Bowen’s spokesman insisted Mr Abbott would not have listed the drug in August 2006 if Mr Bowen hadn’t launched a petition in his electorate in March that year.How many other Labor MPs are claiming credit for Abbott’s work?
“Local residents will well remember the unprecedented 2006 campaign led by Chris Bowen in western Sydney that garnered overwhelming support, delivering a petition of 30,000 signatures and starting a groundswell of support for the issue,” Mr Bowen’s spokesman said…
Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton disputed Mr Bowen’s claim, saying the decision to list Herceptin on the PBS was undertaken by Mr Abbott, “based on independent advice of the independent Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee”
“The process is undertaken at arm’s length from government to ensure its independence,” he said.
(Thanks to readers Gab and Frances.)
===
Greens no longer preferred
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (8:47am)
The child senator seems set to exit Parliament, hopefully making room for an adult who does not mistake crying for thinking:
Then, independent senator Nick Xenophon weighed in in South Australia, opting for an open ticket that split his preferences between the Coalition and the ALP, shutting out the Greens’ rising star Sarah Hanson-Young.As Xenophon has discovered, the Greens have made themselves pariahs among the rational:
Senator Xenophon, who has been intensely lobbied by the Greens to support Senator Hanson-Young over the Liberals, said yesterday the Greens’ public campaign had “spectacularly backfired’’.Others are also distancing themselves:
“The feedback I got was extraordinary, I had several hundred calls saying not to put the Greens above the major parties,’’ he said.
“It was very strong sentiment.’’
And, yesterday, as Milne took her campaign north to announce a $176 million assistance package for the Great Barrier Reef, a deal was stitched up between Labor and Katter’s Australian Party to cut the Greens out of the hotly contested race for the final Senate spot in Queensland.Lovely.
===
Palmer no real professor. No real real politician, either
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (8:43am)
“Professor” Clive
Palmer is a buffoon whose decision to run for Prime Minister will make
him an even bigger laughing stock than he is already, thanks to the
scrutiny he now invites:
CLIVE Palmer ... calls himself Professor Palmer in his company’s letters to other businesses and governments. He is referred to as Professor Palmer in legal documents and formal filings in the Queensland Supreme Court. His website profiles, brochures and other promotional paraphernalia are adorned with the alliterative moniker, Professor Palmer.
But the Queensland property tycoon and political aspirant - who is also commonly referred to as a “mining magnate” (even though he does not mine anything); a National Living Treasure (after his staff were instructed to vote online for him); and an appointee as Secretary-General of the World Leadership Alliance (after he had tipped more than $500,000 into the coffers of the sponsoring group, Club de Madrid) - might have pushed his professorial title too far.
Gold Coast’s Bond University, which bestowed the honorary accolade of “adjunct professor” on Mr Palmer in recognition of “goodwill, positive endeavours and support” of the institution, rather than any academic prowess, wants him to stop misusing the privilege. The edict comes amid complaints from other senior academics who earned their stripes after long years of study.
University spokeswoman Terri Fellowes said: “We have clearly communicated to Mr Palmer the appropriate use of academic titles ... we are confused ourselves as to why Mr Palmer and other parties make continual reference to him as Professor Palmer...”
===
Another dumb promise to waste more money on Holden
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (8:25am)
Labor election strategy
has been off-key, with promises that seem unfocussed ($5 million to
redevelop the Hobart showground), a re-do (extra money for the kind of
trades training centres Rudd promised before), half-baked (an uncosted
promise of a free trade zone in the NT) or lost in the frenzy (the
huge $450 million promise Rudd made two weeks ago to offer more places
for out-of-hours care at schools).
Now this:
It seems a second effort:
Now this:
KEVIN Rudd will today unveil a $500 million boost to car industry funding to the end of the decade and promise $300m a year beyond 2020 as Labor seeks to turn the September 7 election into a “referendum on the future of the car industry”.The trouble is that the handout seems just a fix of a Rudd blunder:
The government makes the commitment as it seeks to calm industry anger over its decision to tighten the fringe benefits tax regime for company cars, which the industry argues could slash sales of locally manufactured vehicles by 20 per cent.
It seems a second effort:
The government offered a further $200m to the motor industry on the eve of the election campaign, and introduced a directive that only Australian-made motor vehicles were to be purchased for the commonwealth fleet.It seems a money fiddle, with new funding not actually coming until five years from now:
The scheme will be funded from existing allocations, with no additional funds needed until 2018.It seems exactly the kind of unaffordable corporate welfare that has spectacularly failed to stop massive job losses in the car industry:
Former Productivity Commission chairman Gary Banks said this week that the motor industry had managed to extract subsidies from the government better than producing vehicles.And it may not work anyway:
Professor Banks said that calling subsidies “co-investment” was unbelievable, given that any dividends paid by the manufacturers would go offshore to their parent companies.
The Productivity Commission has estimated that every job “saved” in the motor industry costs taxpayers about $300,000.
In April, Holden revealed it had received $2.2bn in federal handouts in the past 12 years to support $32bn of investment.
The new agreement will come into play if Holden’s board in Detroit commits to build two models in Australia from 2016.Labor is all out of ideas.
Holden chairman Mike Devereux last night called on the next government to revamp industry policy. “We can’t survive as a local manufacturer unless we reduce our costs by being as efficient and globally competitive as possible,” Mr Devereux said.
===
ABC just can’t let go
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (8:15am)
ABC AM is
today still replaying Tony Abbott’s “suppository of all wisdom” verbal
slip of five days ago, as if that utterly trivial verbal slip from one
of the most articulate politicians in Parliament is actually a
significant campaign issue.
For God’s sake.
For God’s sake.
===
Abbott’s new trinity - the angels checking his books
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (8:12am)
The fuss over Liberal
costings is over the top given the massive blowout in Labor’s Budget -
and now the NBN. It strikes me as wiser to punish blowouts than merely
insist on costings. Let fear of retribution guide politicians towards
prudence.
But the Coalition is making as sure as it can that the numbers add up:
But the Coalition is making as sure as it can that the numbers add up:
AMONG senior Liberals they’re known as “the three angels” - a trio of experts ensuring that the Coalition’s election costings add up…
One of the group is Len Scanlan, former auditor-general of Queensland and now an independent consultant, who helped to verify the costing of Liberal National Party promises before Campbell Newman’s team was swept to power in that state last year.
It will be difficult for Labor to undermine Scanlan’s credibility because, just before he retired as head of the Audit Office in 2004, the then Queensland premier, Peter Beattie, warmly praised his contribution to “the fostering of good government and sound public practices"…
The second of Hockey’s angels is Peter Shergold, now an academic, who spent more than 20 years as a senior federal public servant, five of them as head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet…
Geoff Carmody is the third member. A former Treasury official, he was co-founder of the economic forecasting and modelling firm, Access Economics, which helped cost Labor’s policies when Kim Beazley was leader.
Hockey has been working with Scanlan, Shergold and Carmody since the beginning of the year…
A crucial decision was to use the new Parliamentary Budget Office - modelled on the Congressional Budget Office in the US - rather than submitting policies to be costed by Treasury. Where Treasury would simply check figures, the PBO has worked with the Opposition, extracting information from government departments and explaining forecasting assumptions to help achieve the desired result.
===
Oops. PNG to take only a “quota” of Rudd’s boat people
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (7:42am)
Kevin Rudd’s PNG fix springs another leak. Who would have guessed that he pretended it was more than it was:
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
Papua New Guinea has denied the two central elements of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s tough new asylum-seeker policy - that PNG will settle all those determined to be refugees and that none will end up in Australia.So what is PNG’s quota?
PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill says he has not agreed to settle all asylum seekers who are found to be refugees after processing on Manus Island and that Australia will need to take back a share of them.
‘’There is no agreement that all genuine refugees will be settled in PNG,’’ Mr O’Neill told The Saturday Age.
He said PNG would work with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to engage with other countries willing to take part in resettling those refugees.
‘’That includes Australia, New Zealand and all the other countries who are signatories to the UN conventions on refugees,’’ he said....
Mr Rudd insisted during the election debate last Sunday evening that there was ‘’one simple principle’’ in his new regime under which all asylum seekers arriving by boat are now being diverted to PNG and would be settled there. But Mr O’Neill said that while PNG was willing to help with resettling refugees, it could only take ‘’our quota’’.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
===
Stunning Lindsay poll: a vote for sex appeal. UPDATE: Huge swings in marginals to Coalition
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (7:39am)
Tony Abbott’s “sex appeal” joke - pilloried as a “gaffe” and “sexist” by the likes of Kevin Rudd and Laurie Oakes - may have helped produce a landslide:
Tony Abbott’s “sex appeal” candidate, Fiona Scott, is poised for a landslide victory in the litmus-test western Sydney seat of Lindsay with a stunning 60% of the primary vote, according to a Guardian Lonergan poll.Abbott’s victory could represent a cultural switch from sanctimony to normal.
Scott’s huge lead over the sitting member, the assistant treasurer, David Bradbury, who has held the marginal seat since 2007, surprised even the pollster…
The poll, with a margin of error of 3.7%, was taken the night after an exuberant Abbott campaigning in the mortgage-belt seat likened his candidate to former Liberal member Jackie Kelly because they were both “young”, “feisty” and “I can probably say they have a bit of sex appeal”.
Moreover, add this result to the 60 to 40 thrashing that another poll this week predicted for former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie in the marginal seat of Forde and the signs are that Kevin Rudd could lead Labor to a defeat almost as bad as the one he was brought in to prevent.
UPDATE
More signs of a landslide to come:
... polls in Fairfax Media suggest former Queensland Labor premier Peter Beattie will lose his bid for Forde as will fellow “Captain’s Pick” Jason Yat-Sen Li in Sydney’s Bennelong. Treasurer Chris Bowen is behind in his western Sydney seat of McMahon as is former senator Matt Thistlethwaite in Kingsford Smith....Garrett held Kingsford-Smith with a 5.2 per cent margin - just to give you an indication of the size of the swing there.
The JWS Research survey in The Australian Financial Review shows the recruitment of Mr Beattie has backfired with the former premier on 40 per cent against 60 per cent for the Liberal National Party’s Bert van Manen…
The Reachtell survey in The Sydney Morning Herald shows Mr Bowen behind the Coalition 47 per cent to 53 per cent. Mr Li is trailing Liberal incumbent John Alexander in John Howard’s old seat of Bennelong by a massive 35 per cent to 65 per cent, and Mr Thistlethwaite is behind in Peter Garrett’s old eastern Sydney seat by 48 per cent to 52 per cent.
Bowen holds McMahon by 7.8 per cent. If that swing in McMahon was uniform in NSW (which is unlikely), Labor could lose at least 12 seats in that state alone. Add also the two rural independent seats that Newspoll confirms will return to the Coalition.
In fact, Jaymes Diaz’s stunned mullet act this week shows the Liberals the price of picking a dud candidate (whose father is influential in the local branches). He’s managed to cancel any swing to the Coalition in Greenway, leaving the seat with Labor if the poll figures are repeated at the election. What a goose. And Daryl Melham is clinging on in Banks.
UPDATE
All losses, and probably no gains according to a JSW Research poll of four Coalition marginal seats and four Labor:
Labor’s election prospects are looking grim with a poll of eight of the nations’ most marginal electorates showing it will struggle to take any seats off the Coalition on September 7 to offset its own expected losses.The poll shows Labor will lose Corangamite in Victoria. Aston, a Coalition marginal in that state, has gone from line ball to 63 per cent to 37 - a result which suggests the Coalition could pick up other seats as well.
Rudd will not even pick up Brisbane, the Coalition’s most marginal seat in his home state.
UPDATE
Rudd isn’t the campaigner he was, and now must know his real job is just the grim one he was actually elected to do - minimise the losses:
KEVIN Rudd is losing this election. Behind the confident veneer of a man known for his relentless determination and cracking pace as he criss-crosses the country to woo voters is a growing despair…(Thanks to readers Baldrick and Peter.)
The election pledge this week to cut corporate tax in the Northern Territory as a way of attracting investment was a typical Rudd surprise: it smacked of improvisation, possibly an idea cooked up on the Prime Minister’s campaign plane…
Despair about Labor’s prospects has infected the most senior levels of the party. The test for Rudd is whether he can remain insulated against the downbeat mood around him…
Rudd was not involved in the year-long campaign planning overseen by [ALP secretary George] Wright under Gillard’s leadership. He doesn’t have a close relationship with Wright. He often feels they are trying to run the campaign to a pre-prepared Gillard script that won’t fly with the new regime…
The toughest job for Hawker in the campaign’s remaining three weeks will be to ensure that Rudd, showing signs of exhaustion after non-stop travel, stays mentally focused until election day… Rudd’s tiredness had become plain to see as he occasionally appeared to lose track while speaking on the hustings at schools and other public gatherings. This time he is older, heavier and less fit than he was first time around.
But there has been no sign this time around that his management is as dysfunctional as it was then: Rudd appears to be keeping his mood under control.
===
Some Labor MPs would rather holiday than campaign
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (7:30am)
Some Labor politicians have chosen the election campaign to go on holiday overseas - or on “business”:
A LOST generation of former senior Labor ministers have gone missing in action during the 2013 campaign, either travelling overseas or keeping low profiles as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd battles for re-election.(Thanks to reader The Village Idiot (Reformed).)
Greg Combet appeared this week in French newspaper Le Progres during a holiday to the village of Journans where he has been enjoying solitary bike rides in the hills of the picturesque region in the east of the country…
His former ministerial colleague Stephen Conroy, who also quit cabinet following Mr Rudd’s return but who is remaining in politics, is currently in the United States attending an internet conference…
Former school education minister Peter Garrett, who vowed never to serve under Mr Rudd, even if he was invited, has been spending time in the Northern Territory since the election was called.
===
Why does Rudd keep warning against policies that work?
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (6:21am)
Kevin Rudd warns against cutting his kind of wild spending and borrowing - as Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron did:
In Queensland:
UPDATE
On the other hand, there’s the Labor way - as represented by Peter Beattie, Kevin Rudd’s choice of candidate for Forde:
It is time for proven national economic leadership ... Mr Abbott’s alternative economic policy is to copy the British Conservatives - launch a national slash-and-burn austerity drive and drive the economy into recession as happened in Britain. A double-dip and almost a triple-dip recession in the United Kingdom.But in Britain:
British Prime Minister David Cameron may be close to pulling off one of the most significant feats of his premiership: delivering a solid economic recovery ahead of a 2015 election…Kevin Rudd warns against cutting his kind of wild spending and borrowing - as Queensland’s Premier Kevin Newman did:
After cutting Britain’s biggest budget deficit since World War Two by a third, Cameron leads what could be the fastest growing major economy in the European Union this year…
Britain’s $2.5 trillion economy grew by 0.6 percent in the second quarter after a 0.3 percent rise in the first quarter, putting it on course to grow by at least 1.4 percent this year.
That would be the strongest annual growth since 2010, the year Cameron forced Labour’s Gordon Brown from office...
He targeted Queensland Premier Campbell Newman’s 14,000 public service job cuts as the sort of austerity drive voters could expect from an Abbott-led government.
“Just look at what Mr Newman’s Liberal National Party has done in Queensland, where they said nothing about it upfront, they said they’ll have a commission of audit and then, lo and behold, 4000 health workers were sacked in one state alone,” Mr Rudd said.
In Queensland:
KEVIN Rudd has been thrown on the defensive on economic management after a surprise fall in full-time jobs offset by strong growth in Queensland that challenges his warnings about the damage from the state Liberal National Party government’s “austerity” cuts…Kevin Rudd warns against cutting his kind of wild spending and borrowing - as Victoria’s Premier Jeff Kennett did:
In a challenge to one of Labor’s key election strategies in Queensland, the latest figures showed the state gained 18,500 jobs and saw its unemployment rate fall from 6.3 per cent to 5.9 per cent…
UBS economist Scott Haslem said Queensland was the nation’s “standout” performer, and Commonwealth Bank economists noted the state’s “buoyant” conditions.
“[Tony Abbott] regards Jeff Kennett as representing a `golden age’, and he therefore embraces that as his model for the future,” the Prime Minister said today.In Victoria:
“In the period that Mr Kennett was premier of Victoria, 300 public schools were closed, 9000 teachers and school staff were sacked, 3500 nurses were sacked, 17 hospitals were closed, 800 police officers were sacked, 45,000 public servants were sacked, unemployment peaked at 12.3 per cent, and state taxes ended up being the second highest in Australia...”
Over the next seven years, what became known as the ‘Kennett Revolution,’ radically altered Victoria’s profile.And:
In came the Grand Prix; up went the casino; City Link; taxi reform; an arts renaissance and The Melbourne Exhibition Centre, still known as “Jeff’s Shed”.
And just as memorable are the more controversial legacies; the widespread privatisation of assets and closure of public schools…
It resulted in reducing a $31 billion state debt to just $6 billion.
IAN HENDERSON: On the crucial jobs front, Saul Eslake says Victoria now enjoys top billing among the states.(Thanks to reader Steve.)
Victoria has been better at generating jobs than any other state with employment growth averaging 2.4 per cent per annum compared with the national average of 2 per cent and throughout the period of the Bracks Government, the unemployment rate in trend terms has been below the national average. And at 5.8 per cent in October, is the lowest of any state, except NSW.
IAN HENDERSON: Much of the credit for the state’s revival should go to Jeff Kennett and the reforms his Government implemented to the state’s economy and its public finances.
A decade ago, Victoria was truly the nation’s basket case with the worst economic performance and the highest unemployment of just about any state in Australia and it took some difficult years to overcome the legacy of that period.
UPDATE
On the other hand, there’s the Labor way - as represented by Peter Beattie, Kevin Rudd’s choice of candidate for Forde:
How former-Premier Peter Beattie and the trade unions wrecked Queensland(Thanks to readers Kev’s Neighbour and Rusted One.)
...Despite his jovial exterior, Queenslanders will remember Beattie as the premier who helped set up Queensland for a colossal fall. His weird return invites an examination of chaos of failures in the Beattie-Bligh era.
Beattie turned Queensland’s public sector into a sheltered workshop for unionists where rorts and sweetheart deals flourished. And we’re still feeling the pain…
The size of the public service jumped by 40 per cent from June 2000 to June 2012 and was unsustainable… At that time there were 243,250 people on the payroll representing 205,332 full-time equivalent positions…
By 2012, wages and related costs of maintaining the public service soared to $18.2 billion, or 38.9 per cent of the Queensland government’s total recurrent expenses.
(There are now 193,683 full-time equivalents, new workforce profiles show.)
Costello quoted from Public Service Commission documents revealing only 68 per cent of employee roles “were essential for service delivery"…
The spirit of the age is revealed in an official government directive to senior staff in September 2000 while Beattie was premier.
“The Queensland Government has made a commitment to encourage union membership among its employees,’’ it began…
The letter continued: “Passive acceptance by agencies of membership recruitment activity by unions does not satisfy the requirements of the agreement. Encouragement requires agencies to take a positive, supportive role.’’…
Absenteeism soared while productivity slumped. Unionism led to complex arrangements and inefficiencies…
In the next year or so, state debt will top $81 billion. Interest payments alone will be $11.6 million a day or almost $500,000 an hour.
Beattie has a hide asking for another turn in Parliament.
===
Behind Egypt’s bloodshed: being elected does not make extremists safer
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (5:26am)
Adam Garfinkle says Egypt’s army decided to strike now before the Muslim Brotherhood became too strong:
We can condemn the killings in Egypt and mourn the death there of democracy. But for Aly to present the events as simply a clash between a brutal military and their elected victims is a gross and deceptive simplification - a tale as fanciful as another Aly subscribes to, of Muhammad riding to heaven on a winged horse to take dictation from God.
As always, the truth is both grittier and more complex.
I suspect they recognized that the longer they waited to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood encampments the better prepared the MB would be to resist. And they have resisted, and are still doing so. Several score policemen are dead among the many hundreds of MB protestors in Cairo and around the country. So are hundreds of mostly innocent Copts, who have no recourse but to be on the wrong side of the Brotherhood’s murderous intolerance. Indeed, spending energy and resources to kill Coptic civilians and burn down their churches while Muslim police are bearing down on you with shotguns furnishes about the best example there can be of how MB fanaticism completely swamps its capacity for rational planning of any kind.Eric Trager reminds us that democracy can be just another way of imposing authoritarian rule - or an utterly incompetent one:
I think Washington’s fascination with the Brotherhood is the product of a search for an Islamist organization that reflects the “culture” of the Middle East and isn’t violent. There is a lack of appreciation for the fact that just because an organization doesn’t lead with violence doesn’t mean it’s going to be moderate or democratic or capable of governing… My view is that far from finding an Islamic justification for democracy, they were simply redefining democracy in a way that wasn’t democratic but sounded good to the West…David P Goldman on the naivety of Washington and the media when Islamists cloak themselves with a democratic mandate:
MJT: Why do you think General Sisi removed Morsi? ...
Eric Trager:… First, we had a massive outpouring against Morsi due to his frankly undemocratic rule of the country and his bid to consolidate power for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Second, Morsi completely lost control of the state. By the time the protests started on June 30, he didn’t control anything. He didn’t control the police and he obviously didn’t control the military. He didn’t control any of the institutions of government, and it made his presidency untenable. So the military stepped in…
The military believes it not only has to remove Morsi, it has to decapitate the entire organization. Otherwise, the Brotherhood will re-emerge and perhaps kill the generals who removed it from power…
MJT: How much support do you think the Muslim Brotherhood actually lost since it won the election?
Eric Trager: It has lost substantial public support. Think back to the early presidential elections in 2012. Morsi only won five million votes, which was 25 percent of the votes cast… The Brotherhood’s power is not derived from mass public support and it never has been. It is derived from its exceptional organization capabilities on one hand, and the fact that the rest of Egypt is deeply divided and highly disorganized on the other…The Muslim Brotherhood wants to consolidate power in Egypt and then create a global Islamic state. It’s a key part of their ideology and their rhetoric. They talk about it with me. They can’t be our partners.
Such is the absurdity of both parties’ stance towards Egypt: the Egyptian military is doing America’s dirty work, suppressing a virulently anti-modern, anti-Semitic and anti-Western Islamist movement whose leader, Mohammed Morsi, famously referred to Israelis as “apes and pigs.” It did so with the enthusiastic support of tens of millions of Egyptians who rallied in the streets in support of the military. And the American mainstream reacted with an ideological knee jerk. America’s presence in the Middle East has imploded…On Channel 10’s The Project last night I noted ABC presenter Waleed Aly make an impassioned plea for sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood (as well as an attack on further attempts to stop what’s in effect illegal immigration into Australia, predominantly by Muslims). He was given a supportive hearing by the rest of the panel. It was a chilling moment - and it was not the only occasion when nice Mr Aly has sided with or run interference for Islamists.
America’s credibility in the Middle East, thanks to the delusions of both parties, is broken, and it cannot be repaired within the time frame required to forestall the next stage of violence. Egypt’s military and its Saudi backers are aghast at American stupidity. Israel is frustrated by America’s inability to understand that Egypt’s military is committed to upholding the peace treaty with Israel while the Muslim Brotherhood wants war. Both Israel and the Gulf States observe the utter fecklessness of Washington’s efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
We can condemn the killings in Egypt and mourn the death there of democracy. But for Aly to present the events as simply a clash between a brutal military and their elected victims is a gross and deceptive simplification - a tale as fanciful as another Aly subscribes to, of Muhammad riding to heaven on a winged horse to take dictation from God.
As always, the truth is both grittier and more complex.
(Via Instapundit.)Behind Egypt’s bloodshed: being elected does not make extremists safer
Andrew Bolt August 17 2013 (5:26am)
Adam Garfinkle says Egypt’s army decided to strike now before the Muslim Brotherhood became too strong:
We can condemn the killings in Egypt and mourn the death there of democracy. But for Aly to present the events as simply a clash between a brutal military and their elected victims is a gross and deceptive simplification - a tale as fanciful as another Aly subscribes to, of Muhammad riding to heaven on a winged horse to take dictation from God.
As always, the truth is both grittier and more complex.
(Via Instapundit.)
I suspect they recognized that the longer they waited to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood encampments the better prepared the MB would be to resist. And they have resisted, and are still doing so. Several score policemen are dead among the many hundreds of MB protestors in Cairo and around the country. So are hundreds of mostly innocent Copts, who have no recourse but to be on the wrong side of the Brotherhood’s murderous intolerance. Indeed, spending energy and resources to kill Coptic civilians and burn down their churches while Muslim police are bearing down on you with shotguns furnishes about the best example there can be of how MB fanaticism completely swamps its capacity for rational planning of any kind.Eric Trager reminds us that democracy can be just another way of imposing authoritarian rule - or an utterly incompetent one:
I think Washington’s fascination with the Brotherhood is the product of a search for an Islamist organization that reflects the “culture” of the Middle East and isn’t violent. There is a lack of appreciation for the fact that just because an organization doesn’t lead with violence doesn’t mean it’s going to be moderate or democratic or capable of governing… My view is that far from finding an Islamic justification for democracy, they were simply redefining democracy in a way that wasn’t democratic but sounded good to the West…David P Goldman on the naivety of Washington and the media when Islamists cloak themselves with a democratic mandate:
MJT: Why do you think General Sisi removed Morsi? ...
Eric Trager:… First, we had a massive outpouring against Morsi due to his frankly undemocratic rule of the country and his bid to consolidate power for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Second, Morsi completely lost control of the state. By the time the protests started on June 30, he didn’t control anything. He didn’t control the police and he obviously didn’t control the military. He didn’t control any of the institutions of government, and it made his presidency untenable. So the military stepped in…
The military believes it not only has to remove Morsi, it has to decapitate the entire organization. Otherwise, the Brotherhood will re-emerge and perhaps kill the generals who removed it from power…
MJT: How much support do you think the Muslim Brotherhood actually lost since it won the election?
Eric Trager: It has lost substantial public support. Think back to the early presidential elections in 2012. Morsi only won five million votes, which was 25 percent of the votes cast… The Brotherhood’s power is not derived from mass public support and it never has been. It is derived from its exceptional organization capabilities on one hand, and the fact that the rest of Egypt is deeply divided and highly disorganized on the other…
The Muslim Brotherhood wants to consolidate power in Egypt and then create a global Islamic state. It’s a key part of their ideology and their rhetoric. They talk about it with me. They can’t be our partners.
Such is the absurdity of both parties’ stance towards Egypt: the Egyptian military is doing America’s dirty work, suppressing a virulently anti-modern, anti-Semitic and anti-Western Islamist movement whose leader, Mohammed Morsi, famously referred to Israelis as “apes and pigs.” It did so with the enthusiastic support of tens of millions of Egyptians who rallied in the streets in support of the military. And the American mainstream reacted with an ideological knee jerk. America’s presence in the Middle East has imploded…On Channel 10’s The Project last night I noted ABC presenter Waleed Aly make an impassioned plea for sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood (as well as an attack on further attempts to stop what’s in effect illegal immigration into Australia, predominantly by Muslims). He was given a supportive hearing by the rest of the panel. It was a chilling moment - and it was not the only occasion when nice Mr Aly has sided with or run interference for Islamists.
America’s credibility in the Middle East, thanks to the delusions of both parties, is broken, and it cannot be repaired within the time frame required to forestall the next stage of violence. Egypt’s military and its Saudi backers are aghast at American stupidity. Israel is frustrated by America’s inability to understand that Egypt’s military is committed to upholding the peace treaty with Israel while the Muslim Brotherhood wants war. Both Israel and the Gulf States observe the utter fecklessness of Washington’s efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
We can condemn the killings in Egypt and mourn the death there of democracy. But for Aly to present the events as simply a clash between a brutal military and their elected victims is a gross and deceptive simplification - a tale as fanciful as another Aly subscribes to, of Muhammad riding to heaven on a winged horse to take dictation from God.
As always, the truth is both grittier and more complex.
(Via Instapundit.)
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NBN disaster grows: another $5 billion
Andrew Bolt August 16 2013 (9:53pm)
Labor’s NBN blows out by another $5 billion - or more than $200 for every single Australian:
NBN Co has discovered a $5 billion blowout in its construction costs, partly caused by contractors demanding more money.
The Australian Financial Review understands NBN Co chief operating officer Ralph Steffens briefed senior executives at the company about the surprise construction cost increase on Thursday.
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Peter Olsen
I get the point. It doesn't excuse modern day terrorism - ed
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On Friday, Palestinian Islamisists chanted in support of ousted president Mohammed Morsi and against Egyptian Defense Minister Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who they accuse of collaborating with the US and killing his own people for the sake of the Jews.
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Peter Olsen
Recently I came across another one of the many blogs inviting me to list any way that Muslims had hurt me lied to me, cheated me, mistreated me, or anything else unpleasant or illegal. Supposedly the blog was public but I couldn't make my entry, so I'll make it here.
About eleven years ago I was laid off when my employer, a research boutique, lost out on a contract. A few days after I left, I received a call from a Muslim former co-worker. He and the two other Muslims in the office had taken up a collection to help me with my COBRA medical payments. That's what I know about Muslims.
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Martin Waterhouse
"Max."
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4 her
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Loose Diamonds photographed to show size in relationship to a 5 cent coin and a pair of diamond tweezers — at Diamond Imports.
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Learning how to be kind to ourselves
is important. When we look into our
own hearts and begin to discover
what is confused and what is
brilliant, what is bitter and what is
sweet, it isn’t just ourselves that
we’re discovering. We’re discovering
the universe. When we discover the
buddha that we are, we realize that
everything and everyone is Buddha.
We discover that everything is awake,
and everyone is awake. Everything
and everyone is precious and whole
and good. When we regard thoughts
and emotions with humor and
openness, that’s how we perceive the
universe.
~Pema Chödron~
is important. When we look into our
own hearts and begin to discover
what is confused and what is
brilliant, what is bitter and what is
sweet, it isn’t just ourselves that
we’re discovering. We’re discovering
the universe. When we discover the
buddha that we are, we realize that
everything and everyone is Buddha.
We discover that everything is awake,
and everyone is awake. Everything
and everyone is precious and whole
and good. When we regard thoughts
and emotions with humor and
openness, that’s how we perceive the
universe.
~Pema Chödron~
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A new video from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the Red Planet's two tiny moons eclipsing each other in an otherworldly skywatching first.http://oak.ctx.ly/r/a0qk
This illustration provides a comparison for how big the moons of Mars appear to be, as seen from the surface of Mars, in relation to the size that Earth's moon appears to be when seen from the surface of Earth.
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October 21, 2012
In 2010 those problems surfaced meaningfully as indicated in the below voter fraud post from an earlier Charlotte Conservative Examiner article:
Perhaps in an effort to promote North Carolina as one of the healthiest States in the Nation, this latest voter twist comes to us from Susan Myrick of the Civitas Institute in North Carolina--not to be confused with Rep. Sue Myrick of NC who is unrelated. In a radio interview with local WBT Anchor Tara Servatious, Susan reports that she has been keeping track of the number of votes in North Carolina of individuals over the age of 110 years and apparently we have quite a few, over 410 of the 110 year olds--to be exact-- actually voted via absentee ballot on October the 28th. Yes indeed, now it would appear that good ole NC has the market cornered on the Centenarian vote.
At latest count, Susan has garnered a total Absentee Ballot vote of over 2,660 people over the age of 110. Someone contact the Guiness Book and warm up the Ford, the Fountain of Youth exists and its right here in lovely NC. It's no wonder people are moving here in droves--maybe the use of tobacco isn't such a bad thing after all? But, on a more serious note, with all of the irregularities going on all over the place, we can now begin to wonder about a few things.
Apparently those ultra-healthy seniors over 110 have aged and are now astoundingly over 112 years old, and are still able to make it to the polls ahead of time.
According to a post originally from the Silence Dogood political blog report, there were at least 758 individuals over the age of 112 who had either risen from their respective graves, or otherwise, to vote once again for the Democrats in charge, who might apparently have also guaranteed them an ever-lasting vote for life and beyond.
In visiting the political tracking site, we later found the same story in evidence, except the number of centenarian voters had increased measurably to 832 voters over the age of 112. Of these voters, over 70% were slated as Democrats, with a diminutive 25% counted as Republicans. The rest were unaffiliated.
When peering a little more deeply at the numbers we find that an astounding 2,374 people between the ages of 94 and 100 have already voted in the NC election to date. While an even more astounding 832 votes came from those individuals aged 112. However,according to the Guinness book of world records, the oldest living person in the world, at present, lives in Japan and is 114 years old. It would seem obvious that, according to the NC vote registry, this old fellow might be nudged aside in the near future, especially considering the crop of spry 112 year-olds seemingly alive and well in the old North State.
In fact, two of the 112 year aged voters were mail-in ballots from overseas; ostensibly vacationing to escape the now bitterly polarized political contest, and who can blame them?
But it gets worse when we note from another concerned voter, who indicated the following explanation, which goes but one full measure further to explain what's happening in NC during this voting season of , perhaps, persistent political zombies:
I overheard a nice lady about 70 telling her friend the following: "Yes, I voted today.""Going back tomorrow too.""They took us to a place that don't ask names and don't write nothing down. They give $20 each time."She then handed her friend a card I couldn't see and told her friend to call the number.
This same tipster later sent a message indicating that he had, indeed, contacted the local election center, who immediately patted him upon the head graciously for being a good citizen with a promise to check on it again much later, in due course.
Obviously there is a problem, one in which voter ID might clearly provide a solution. A thing that only the Democratic party swears against at any cost, and for reasons becoming quite obvious.
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Michelle Malkin
I'll be speaking in Orlando, Fla., at AFP's Defending the American Dream conference on Aug 30-31. Hope to see you there!http://defendingthedream.org/
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Things have got to be tense at the U.S. State Department as countries like Egypt and Syria continue to spiral into total chaos. More than 700 people have been reported dead since violent clashes began in Egypt on Wednesday, including at least 64 on Friday, and the department will face several key decisions in the near future that will have far-reaching implications for the United States.
So how does the man who heads the State Department unwind during a stressful time like this? He goes kiteboarding in Nantucket, Mass.
TheBlaze has obtained exclusive photos of Secretary of State John Kerry’s kiteboarding adventure in Nantucket – and at 69-years-old, you have to admit, his skills are pretty impressive:
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I met some wonderful souls during my trip back to England... this joyful little fellow is right up there.... a rare and wonderful breed of speckled pig... we became good pals...
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Malcolm Turnbull
Nobody should make fun of Kevin confusing Holden with Ford & instead extend the same understanding he showed Beazley when he got his Roves mixed up.
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Pastor Rick Warren
"It's better to be content with what you have than always be struggling for more, which is like chasing the wind." Ecclesiastes 4:6
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The Greens policies are void of detail and hide the true radical agenda of the party. Join the campaign against them http://ow.ly/nCMYg
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Pastor Rick Warren
Nothing you do can make God stop loving you, because His love is based on WHO HE IS (his character) not what you do (your conduct).
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Pastor Rick Warren
“Courage isn't having the strength to go on – it's going on when you don’t have any strength.” – Napoleon
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Jonathan Pollard, who has spent more than 27 years and more than 10,000 days in American prison, is breaking his silence.
In an opinion piece sent to theJerusalem Post, which will appear on Friday, Pollard criticizes the Israeli government “over the past 60 years” on issues such as evicting Jewish communities, releasing murderous terrorists and his own situation.
"Israel is the only country in the world that ever voluntarily evicted citizens from their homeland in order to give the land to its enemies, and the only country that ever voluntarily destroyed the homes and businesses of its citizens, broke promises and shattered their lives,” Pollard wrote.
Referring to his personal story, he wrote, "Israel holds the world record forbetraying those who were loyal to it. It is the only country in the world that ever willingly cooperated in a lawsuit against its intelligence agent, refused to give him asylum, turned over documents to incriminate him, denied knowing him and then allowed him to rot in prison for decades.”
Pollard also spoke about Israel releasing terrorists as a “gesture” to the Palestinian Authority ahead of peace talks, saying, “A sovereign state which can desecrate the dead by releasing murderers and torturing bereaved families, in principle, gives up and throws away the moral foundation of its existence."
He added, "Many of those released were serving life sentences for multiple heinous crimes. The blood of the victims cries out from their graves over the lack of human decency. Their cries are not being heard. The bereaved families of the victims asked and begged not to release the savage murderers of their loved ones. Their pleas were ignored. No one in Israel sees the broken hearts that are bleeding continuously over their losses.”
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Israel is not forbidden to Palestinians, but the Palestinian territory is forbidden to Israelis
"This road leads to Area "A" under the Palestinian authority the entrance for Israeli citizens is forbidden, dangerous to your lives and is against the Israeli law"
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‘Shame on you’: Stacey Dash calls out Oprah on Fox News diss, Emmett Till comparison ==>http://twitchy.com/2013/
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Bill O’Reilly has been in the headlines for weeks now because his well-articulated Talking Points Memos have focused on the harsh realities African Americans face in this country and called out the so-called leaders of the black community for not speaking up. O’Reilly has earned a good amount of praise for his remarks, but he has also weathered a large amount of criticism from the likes of Al Sharpton and others. Well, last night O’Reilly apparently reached his breaking point
“Bill O’Reilly I think pretty much had it last night,” Glenn said to open the radio show this morning. “I don’t think Bill has ever really played this game, but he’s been around this game and he just broke the rules. And here’s what the game is: I had been told when I was in the mainstream media, ‘Look, Glenn. You know, we take a pound of flesh from them and then we all go out and have dinner. That’s the way the game is played.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m not playing a game and these things are lies.’ Again, I don’t play that game. If it’s a lie, it’s a lie and I’m not playing that game.”
“I have a feeling that’s what happened with Bill O’Reilly last night because Bill O’Reilly could have played this card a long time ago,” he continued. “Another thing I learned in the media is don’t play all your cards… When they’re playing the game and they’re coming to shoot you in the head, you better keep your powder dry until you really need it. Last night, some of the powder was used from Bill O’Reilly because he was sick to death of Al Sharpton.”
Glenn played the audio of O’Reilly’s take down of Sharpton from last night’s O’Reilly Factor:
O’REILLY: This time a few days ago we did a story about the food stamp fraud in the USA. As part of that story, we featured Jason the surfer. There he is, young, man, healthy. Gets thousands of dollars worth of food stamps every year, even while he surfs all day long. He doesn’t care about workin’.
And here’s what I said about it: This guy is a parasite, and my contention is that the Obama administration is encouraging parasites to come out and, you know, take as much as they can with no remorse, and this is how a country declines. This is how we become a weak nation.
So that was pretty clear statement about Jason the surfer and the failure of the federal government to regulate who gets entitlements from the taxpayer, right? Pretty straightforward. Here’s how Al Sharpton spun it.
SHARPTON: Bill O’Reilly is going back to one of his favorite talking points: Attacking the poor. Here’s his latest rant about people on food stamps. Parasites. The poor are parasites. We’ve heard these kinds of attacks before.
O’REILLY: Sharpton obviously taking my comments totally out of context. Not even mentioning Jason the surfer and basically not telling the truth, once again. The guy does this all the time. And here’s the crusher on Sharpton. He’s been portraying me as a racist and a brutalizer of the poor. A few years ago Sharpton told me that his charity in Harlem, New York was out of money and that it could not provide Christmas presents and Christmas dinners to hundreds of poor people in Harlem. So I gave Sharpton a $25,000 donation to provide the gifts and the food. I never mentioned it because it wasn’t necessary to mention it. But now it is. To prove exactly what kind of person Al Sharpton is.
Watch the video of O’Reilly’s remarks HERE.
“That is not ‘Let’s go have dinner.’ That is a declaration of war,” Glenn said. “Congratulations, Bill O’Reilly… Now, Bill O’Reilly gets a lot of crap, I think, because he doesn’t put up with crap… I think he’s had enough.”
This situation extends far beyond Bill O’Reilly and Al Sharpton. In the last few months alone, there have been several examples of the left attempting to destroy people. “How many people does the left have to destroy,” Glenn asked.
Paula Deen’s career is essentially over. The Missouri State rodeo clown now finds himself without a job.Philadelphia Eagle wide receiver Riley Cooper continues to face backlash despite his apology.
“How many people have to have their lives destroyed before people wake up and say this isn’t a game? This is not a game. This is a zero sum game,” Glenn said. “The game has changed. They are going to take you out because they sense blood in the water. They are so out-of-control with their egos… so those who are just like, ‘Let’s just play the game, just get along. We always get along.’ That’s over, gang. That’s over. And I think Bill O’Reilly is smart enough to get it.”
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As the Egyptian government attempts to disband supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi, a wave of devastating violence has swept through the country. The AP has reported that 638 people have been confirmed killed and nearly 4,000 are injured. It’s now being uncovered that much of this violence is being committed against Christians and their institutions.
This morning on radio, Glenn gave his listeners a rundown of the institutions that have been attacked and what is happening to the Christian Egyptians as their nation unwinds into chaos — something the mainstream media has been deafeningly silent on.
The President gave a statement on the issue on Thursday, in which he stated:
“The United States strongly condemns the steps that have been taken by Egypt’s interim government and security forces,” Obama said. “We deplore violence against citizens.”
Unfortunately, it’s not simply the “interim government” that is engaging in serious violence. It’s his so-called “nonviolent” pals that he helped initially win office, the Muslim Brotherhood.
The supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood have reportedly called for a ‘day of rage’ (non-violent, of course), yet the president and many in Congress are still considering sending aide to the country.
“I would just like you to keep these churches in your prayers because the front page of TheBlaze has a picture of one of these churches in Egypt that has been burned down,” Glenn said. ”So just keep these people and these churches in your prayers. In Egypt these are the churches that have just been burned down by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Father Maximus churches, the St. George Church, the Good Shepherd’s Monastery where the nuns were attacked and burned. The Angel Michael Church and the St. George Coptic Orthodox church have been burned.”
Sadly that’s just a small portion of the churches that have come under attack or been destroyed.
“It’s really sad — awful,” Pat responded after hearing a portion of the list.
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Simply everything comes from there,
Where the flowers stand eternal,
Dizzying blooms that whirl the filth
From the human heart.
They come dashing petals to the ground,
Shaking out those twisted, blissful buds.
—from "Flower Song Convocation," song XVII of the Aztec codex Cantares Mexicanos
translated from the Nahuatl by David Bowles
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Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin
The Importance of Prayer-A Must for Christian Believers.Through prayers Christians relate their minds, feelings, emotions, desires and inadequacies, while God communicates answers, assurance and His supremacy to the believers.Experience the love of God.You are blessed.
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That technology is thousands of years old - ed
NFC - near-field communication - was meant to be the next big thing. But, allowing payments or communication without touch being necessary has proved a difficult market to crack.
Spencer Kelly reports on how one company is hoping placing NFC technology in jewellery will make people more likely to invest in the technology itself, testing a ring that can unlock everything from a phone to a front door.
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- 986 – Byzantine–Bulgarian Wars: TheBulgarians defeated the Byzantine forces at the Gate of Trajan near present-day Ihtiman, with Byzantine Emperor Basil II barely escaping.
- 1807 – Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat, the world's first commercially successful paddle steamer, went into service on the Hudson River in New York.
- 1945 – Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed the independence of Indonesia, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.
- 1980 – Two-month-old Australian Azaria Chamberlain was taken from her family's campsite at Uluru by a dingo, for which her mother would be convicted of murder.
- 1999 – A 7.5 Mw earthquake struck northwestern Turkey(damage pictured), killing over 17,000 people and leaving approximately half a million people homeless.
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Events
- 310 – Pope Eusebius is banished by the Emperor Maxentius to Sicily, where he dies, perhaps from a hunger strike.
- 682 – Pope Leo II succeeds Pope Agatho as the 80th Pope.
- 986 – Byzantine–Bulgarian Wars: Battle of the Gates of Trajan – The Bulgarians under the Comitopuli Samuel and Aron defeat the Byzantine forces at the Gates of Trajan, with Byzantine Emperor Basil II barely escaping.
- 1424 – Hundred Years' War: Battle of Verneuil – An English force under John, Duke of Bedford defeats a larger French army under the Duke of Alençon, John Stewart, and Earl Archibald of Douglas.
- 1549 – Battle of Sampford Courtenay – The Prayer Book Rebellion is quashed in England.
- 1560 – The Roman Catholic Church is overthrown and Protestantism is established as the national religion in Scotland.
- 1585 – Eighty Years' War: Siege of Antwerp – Antwerp is captured by Spanish forces under Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, who orders Protestants to leave the city and as a result over half of the 100,000 inhabitants flee to the northern provinces.
- 1585 – A first group of colonists sent by Sir Walter Ralegh under the charge of Ralph Lane lands in the New World to createRoanoke Colony on Roanoke Island, off the coast of present-day North Carolina.
- 1597 – Islands Voyage: Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and Sir Walter Raleigh set sail on an expedition to the Azores.
- 1807 – Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat leaves New York, New York, for Albany, New York, on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
- 1862 – American Indian Wars: The Dakota War of 1862 begins in Minnesota as Lakota warriors attack white settlements along the Minnesota River.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Major General J.E.B. Stuart is assigned command of all the cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
- 1863 – American Civil War: In Charleston, South Carolina, Union batteries and ships bombard Confederate-held Fort Sumter.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Gainesville – Confederate forces defeat Union troops near Gainesville, Florida.
- 1883 – The first public performance of the Dominican Republic's national anthem, Himno Nacional.
- 1907 – Pike Place Market, a popular tourist destination and registered historic district in Seattle, Washington, opened.
- 1908 – Fantasmagorie, the first animated cartoon, created by Émile Cohl, is shown in Paris, France.
- 1914 – World War I: Battle of Stallupönen – The German army of General Hermann von François defeats the Russian force commanded by Paul von Rennenkampf near modern-day Nesterov, Russia.
- 1915 – Jewish American Leo Frank is lynched for the alleged murder of a 13-year-old girl in Marietta, Georgia, United States.
- 1915 – A Category 4 hurricane hits Galveston, Texas with winds at 135 miles per hour (217 km/h).
- 1918 – Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moisei Uritsky is assassinated.
- 1942 – World War II: U.S. Marines raid the Japanese-held Pacific island of Makin (Butaritari).
- 1943 – World War II: The U.S. Eighth Air Force suffers the loss of 60 bombers on the Schweinfurt–Regensburg mission.
- 1943 – World War II: The U.S. Seventh Army under General George S. Patton arrives in Messina, Italy, followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.
- 1943 – World War II: First Québec Conference of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and William Lyon Mackenzie King begins.
- 1943 – World War II: The Royal Air Force begins Operation Hydra, the first air raid of the Operation Crossbow strategic bombing campaign against Germany's V-weapon program.
- 1945 – Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaim the independence of Indonesia, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.
- 1947 – The Radcliffe Line, the border between Dominion of India and Dominion of Pakistan is revealed.
- 1950 – Hill 303 massacre: American POWs were massacred by the North Korean Army.
- 1953 – Addiction: First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous in Southern California.
- 1958 – Pioneer 0, America's first attempt at lunar orbit, is launched using the first Thor-Able rocket and fails. Notable as one of the first attempted launches beyond Earth orbit by any country.
- 1959 – Quake Lake is formed by the magnitude 7.5 1959 Yellowstone earthquake near Hebgen Lake in Montana.
- 1959 – Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, the much acclaimed and highly influential best selling jazz recording of all time, is released.
- 1960 – Decolonization: Gabon gains independence from France.
- 1962 – East German border guards kill Peter Fechter, 18, as he attempts to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin becoming one of the first victims of the wall.
- 1969 – Category 5 Hurricane Camille hits the U.S. Gulf Coast, killing 256 and causing $1.42 billion in damage.
- 1970 – Venera program: Venera 7 launched. It will later become the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet (Venus).
- 1977 – The Soviet icebreaker Arktika became the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.
- 1978 – Double Eagle II becomes first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it lands in Miserey, France near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Presque Isle, Maine.
- 1980 – Azaria Chamberlain disappears, at Ayers Rock, Northern Territory, probably taken by a dingo, leading to what was then the most publicized trial inAustralian history.
- 1982 – The first Compact Discs (CDs) are released to the public in Germany.
- 1988 – President of Pakistan Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash.
- 1998 – Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House internMonica Lewinsky. On the same day he admits before the nation that he "misled people" about the relationship.
- 1999 – A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes İzmit, Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000.
- 2004 – The National Assembly of Serbia unanimously adopts new state symbols for Serbia: Bože pravde becomes the new anthem and the coat of arms is adopted for the whole country.
- 2005 – The first forced evacuation of settlers, as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, starts.
- 2005 – Over 500 bombs are set off by terrorists at 300 locations in 63 out of the 64 districts of Bangladesh
- 2008 – American swimmer Michael Phelps becomes the first person to win eight gold medals in one Olympic Games.
- 2009 – An accident at the Sayano–Shushenskaya Dam in Khakassia, Russia, kills 75 and shuts down the hydroelectric power station, leading to widespread power failure in the local area.
Births
- 1473 – Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York (d. 1483)
- 1556 – Alexander Briant, English martyr (d. 1581)
- 1578 – Francesco Albani, Italian painter (d. 1660)
- 1601 – Pierre de Fermat, French mathematician (d. 1665)
- 1629 – John III Sobieski, Polish king (d. 1696)
- 1686 – Nicola Porpora, Italian composer (d. 1768)
- 1753 – Josef Dobrovský, Czech linguist (d. 1828)
- 1768 – Louis Desaix, French general (d. 1800)
- 1786 – Davy Crockett, American soldier and politician (d. 1836)
- 1786 – Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (d. 1861)
- 1794 – Prince Alexander of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, German priest (d. 1849)
- 1828 – Jules Bernard Luys, French neurologist (d. 1897)
- 1840 – Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, British poet and writer (d. 1922)
- 1844 – Menelik II of Ethiopia (d. 1913)
- 1863 – Gene Stratton-Porter, American author (d. 1924)
- 1866 – Mahbub Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VI, Indian 6th Nizam of Hyderabad (d. 1911)
- 1866 – Julia Marlowe, English actress (d. 1950)
- 1873 – John A. Sampson, American gynecologist (d. 1946)
- 1877 – Ralph McKittrick, American golfer and tennis player (d. 1923)
- 1878 – Reggie Duff, Australian cricketer (d. 1911)
- 1880 – Percy Sherwell, South African cricketer (d. 1948)
- 1887 – Charles I of Austria (d. 1922)
- 1887 – Marcus Garvey, Jamaican journalist and activist, founded Black Star Line (d. 1940)
- 1888 – Monty Woolley, American actor (d. 1963)
- 1890 – Stefan Bastyr, Polish pilot (d. 1920)
- 1890 – Harry Hopkins, American politician, 8th United States Secretary of Commerce (d. 1946)
- 1893 – Mae West, American actress (d. 1980)
- 1895 – Aris Maliagros, Greek actor (d. 1984)
- 1896 – Leslie Groves, American military engineer (d. 1970)
- 1896 – Oliver Waterman Larkin, American historian and author (d. 1970)
- 1904 – Mary Cain, American newspaper editor and politician (d. 1984)
- 1904 – Leopold Nowak, Austrian composer (d. 1991)
- 1909 – Larry Clinton, American trumpet player and bandleader (d. 1985)
- 1911 – Mikhail Botvinnik, Russian chess player (d. 1995)
- 1911 – Martin Sandberger, German military officer (d. 2010)
- 1913 – Mark Felt, American agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (d. 2008)
- 1913 – Oscar Alfredo Gálvez, Argentine race car driver (d. 1989)
- 1913 – Rudy York, American baseball player (d. 1970)
- 1914 – Bill Downs, American broadcast journalist and original "Murrow Boy" (d. 1978)
- 1914 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., American politician (d. 1988)
- 1916 – Moses Majekodunmi, Nigerian politician (d. 2012)
- 1918 – Evelyn Ankers, Chilean-American actress (d. 1985)
- 1919 – Georgia Gibbs, American singer (d. 2006)
- 1920 – Maureen O'Hara, Irish actress and singer
- 1921 – Geoffrey Elton, German-English historian (d. 1994)
- 1922 – Roy Tattersall, England cricketer (d. 2011)
- 1926 – Valerie Eliot, British businesswoman, wife and editor of TS Eliot (d. 2012)
- 1926 – George Melly, English singer (d. 2007)
- 1926 – Jean Poiret, French actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 1992)
- 1926 – Jiang Zemin, Chinese politician
- 1928 – T. J. Anderson, American composer, conductor, and educator
- 1928 – Willem Duys, Dutch tennis player, sportscaster, and producer (d. 2011)
- 1929 – Jimmy Donley, American singer-songwriter (d. 1963)
- 1929 – Francis Gary Powers, American pilot (d. 1977)
- 1930 – Harve Bennett, American television and film producer and screenwriter
- 1930 – Ted Hughes, British poet laureate (d. 1998)
- 1932 – V. S. Naipaul, Trinidadian-British writer, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1933 – Glenn Corbett, American actor (d. 1993)
- 1933 – Mark Dinning, American singer (d. 1986)
- 1933 – Gene Kranz, American NASA flight director and manager
- 1934 – João Donato, Brazilian pianist and composer
- 1935 – Oleg Tabakov, Russian actor
- 1936 – Floyd Red Crow Westerman, American actor, singer, and activist (d. 2007)
- 1937 – Ronnie Butler, Bahamian singer
- 1937 – Spiros Focás, Greek actor
- 1938 – Abu Bakar Bashir, Indonesian cleric
- 1938 – Theodoros Pangalos, Greek politician
- 1939 – Luther Allison, American guitarist (d. 1997)
- 1940 – Eduardo Mignogna, Argentinian director (d. 2006)
- 1941 – Jean Pierre Lefebvre, Canadian director
- 1942 – Muslim Magomayev, Soviet and Azerbaijani singer
- 1943 – Robert De Niro, American actor
- 1943 – John Humphrys British broadcaster and journalist
- 1943 – Dave "Snaker" Ray, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Koerner, Ray & Glover) (d. 2002)
- 1945 – Rachel Pollack, American science fiction author
- 1944 – Larry Ellison, American businessman, co-founded the Oracle Corporation
- 1946 – Martha Coolidge, American film director
- 1946 – Patrick Manning, Trinidadian-Tobagonian politician, 4th and 6th Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago
- 1947 – Sylvia Nasar, German-American economist and author
- 1947 – Jennifer Rhodes, American actress
- 1948 – Rod MacDonald, American singer-songwriter
- 1949 – Norm Coleman, American politician
- 1949 – Julian Fellowes, British member of the House of Lords, actor, director, and writer
- 1951 – Robert Joy, Canadian actor
- 1951 – Alan Minter, English boxer
- 1951 – Elba Ramalho, Brazilian singer
- 1952 – Aleksandr Maksimenkov, Russian footballer and coach (d. 2012)
- 1952 – Nelson Piquet, Brazilian race car driver
- 1952 – Mario Theissen, German motorsport director
- 1952 – Guillermo Vilas, Argentinian tennis player
- 1953 – Mick Malthouse, Australian footballer and coach
- 1953 – Kevin Rowland, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Dexys Midnight Runners)
- 1953 – Herta Müller, Romanian-German poet and novelist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1954 – Andrés Pastrana Arango, Colombian politician, 38th President of Colombia
- 1954 – Eric Johnson, American guitarist, songwriter, and producer
- 1955 – Richard Hilton, American businessman
- 1956 – Gail Berman, American film executive, co-founded BermanBraun
- 1956 – Álvaro Pino, Spanish cyclist
- 1957 – Robin Cousins, British figure skater
- 1957 – Ken Kwapis, American director and screenwriter
- 1957 – Laurence Overmire, American poet and actor
- 1958 – Belinda Carlisle, American singer-songwriter, and author (The Go-Go's)
- 1958 – Fred Goodwin, British banker
- 1958 – Kirk Stevens, Canadian snooker player
- 1959 – Jonathan Franzen, American author
- 1959 – David Koresh, American cult leader (d. 1993)
- 1959 – Chika Sakamoto, Japanese voice actress and singer
- 1959 – Eric Schlosser, American journalist and author
- 1960 – Stephan Eicher, Swiss singer-songwriter (Grauzone)
- 1960 – Sean Penn, American actor and director
- 1961 – Russell T. McCutcheon, Canadian scholar
- 1961 – Larry B. Scott, American actor
- 1962 – Gilby Clarke, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Guns N' Roses, Rock Star Supernova, and Candy)
- 1962 – John Marshall Jones, American actor
- 1962 – Buddy Landel, American wrestler
- 1962 – Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss, German actor and director
- 1963 – Shankar, Indian director and producer
- 1963 – Jon Gruden, American football coach
- 1964 – Colin James, Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1964 – Maria McKee, American singer-songwriter
- 1966 – Maysa Leak, American singer and producer (Incognito)
- 1966 – Rodney Mullen, American skateboarder
- 1966 – Don Sweeney, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1967 – David Conrad, American actor
- 1968 – Andrew Koenig, American actor, director, and writer (d. 2010)
- 1968 – Ed McCaffrey, American football player
- 1968 – Helen McCrory, British actress
- 1969 – Christian Laettner, American basketball player
- 1969 – Donnie Wahlberg, American singer, actor, and producer (New Kids on the Block)
- 1970 – Jim Courier, American tennis player
- 1970 – Rupert Degas, English actor
- 1970 – Øyvind Leonhardsen, Norwegian footballer
- 1971 – Uhm Jung-hwa, South Korean singer and actress
- 1971 – Ed Motta, Brazilian singer and musician
- 1971 – Jorge Posada, Puerto Rican baseball player
- 1971 – Shaun Rehn, Australian footballer
- 1972 – Habibul Bashar, Bangladeshi cricketer
- 1974 – Tony Hajjar, Lebanese-American drummer (At the Drive-In and Sparta)
- 1974 – Nicola Kraus, American novelist
- 1975 – Giuliana Rancic, Italian-American journalist and actress
- 1976 – Scott Halberstadt, American actor
- 1976 – Geertjan Lassche, Dutch journalist
- 1977 – Nathan Deakes, Australian race walker
- 1977 – William Gallas, French footballer
- 1977 – Thierry Henry, French footballer
- 1977 – Mike Lewis, Welsh guitarist (Lostprophets and Public Disturbance)
- 1977 – Tarja Turunen, Finnish singer-songwriter and composer (Nightwish)
- 1978 – Nelson Medina, peruvian artist.
- 1978 – Karena Lam, Hong Kong actress
- 1978 – Ebon Moss-Bachrach, American actor
- 1978 – Vibeke Stene, Norwegian singer (Tristania)
- 1979 – Marcus Patric, English actor
- 1979 – Antwaan Randle El, American football player
- 1980 – Keith Dabengwa, Zimbabwean cricketer
- 1980 – Jan Kromkamp, Dutch footballer
- 1980 – Daniel Güiza, Spanish footballer
- 1980 – Lene Marlin, Norwegian singer-songwriter
- 1981 – Kristin Adams, American television host
- 1982 – Cheerleader Melissa, American wrestler
- 1982 – Phil Jagielka, English footballer
- 1982 – Mark Salling, American actor, singer-songwriter, and guitarist
- 1983 – Dustin Pedroia, American baseball player
- 1984 – Dee Brown, American basketball player
- 1984 – Garrett Wolfe, American football player
- 1985 – Yū Aoi, Japanese actress
- 1985 – Brock Kelly, American actor
- 1986 – Rudy Gay, American basketball player
- 1986 – Bryton James, American actor and singer
- 1986 – Tyrus Thomas, American basketball player
- 1987 – Kemp Muhl, American model, actress, and singer
- 1987 – Matthew Shultz, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Cage the Elephant)
- 1988 – Aidan Coleman, Irish jockey
- 1988 – Bianca Collins, American actress
- 1988 – Brady Corbet, American actor
- 1988 – Erika Toda, Japanese actress
- 1989 – Elena Hight, American snowboarder
- 1989 – Frederick Lau, German actor
- 1989 – Lil B, American rapper (The Pack)
- 1990 – Colin Bates, American actor
- 1990 – Lauren Diewold, Canadian actress
- 1990 – Rachel Hurd-Wood, English actress
- 1991 – Austin Butler, American actor and singer
- 1991 – Qory Sandioriva, Indonesian model, Puteri Indonesia 2009
- 1992 – Alex Elisala, New Zealand-Australian rugby player (d. 2013)
- 1992 – Britani Knight, American wrestler
- 1993 – Cinta Laura, German-Indonesian actress and singer
- 1993 – Madison McReynolds, American actress
- 1993 – Sarah Sjöström, Swedish swimmer
- 1994 – Taissa Farmiga, American actress
- 1996 – Ella Cruz, Filipino actress
Deaths
- 1153 – Eustace IV, Count of Boulogne (b. 1130)
- 1304 – Emperor Go-Fukakusa of Japan (b. 1243)
- 1324 – Irene of Brunswick, Empress of Constantinople (b. c. 1293)
- 1338 – Nitta Yoshisada, Japanese samurai (b. 1301; died in battle)
- 1405 – Thomas West, 1st Baron West (b. 1335)
- 1433 – Jan of Tarnów, Polish nobleman (b. 1367)
- 1510 – Edmund Dudley, English statesman (b. 1462)
- 1657 – Robert Blake, English admiral (b. 1599)
- 1673 – Regnier de Graaf, Dutch physician and anatomist (b. 1641)
- 1676 – Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, German novelist (b. 1621)
- 1720 – Anne Dacier, French scholar (b. 1654)
- 1723 – Joseph Bingham, English scholar (b. 1668)
- 1768 – Vasily Trediakovsky, Russian poet (b. 1703)
- 1785 – Jonathan Trumbull, American politician (b. 1710)
- 1786 – Frederick the Great, Prussian king (b. 1712)
- 1834 – Husein Gradaščević, Bosnian rebel leader (b. 1802)
- 1838 – Lorenzo Da Ponte, Italian librettist and poet (b. 1749)
- 1850 – José de San Martín, Argentine general (b. 1778)
- 1861 – Alcée Louis la Branche, American politician (b. 1806)
- 1870 – Perucho Figueredo, Cuban poet, musician, and activist (b. 1818)
- 1875 – Wilhelm Bleek, German linguist (b. 1827)
- 1880 – Ole Bull, Norwegian violinist and composer (b. 1810)
- 1896 – Bridget Driscoll, first British car accident fatality (b. 1852)
- 1897 – William Jervois, British military engineer, diplomat and colonial administrator, 10th Governor-General of New Zealand (b. 1821)
- 1901 – Edmond Audran, French composer (b. 1842)
- 1903 – Hans Gude, Norwegian painter (b. 1825)
- 1909 – Madan Lal Dhingra, Indian freedom fighter (b. 1883)
- 1918 – Moisei Uritsky, Russian activist and statesman (b. 1873)
- 1920 – Ray Chapman, American baseball player (b. 1891)
- 1924 – Tom Kendall, Australian cricketer (b. 1851)
- 1925 – Ioan Slavici, Transylvanian-Romanian journalist and writer (b. 1848)
- 1935 – Charlotte Perkins Gilman, American activist and writer (b. 1860)
- 1935 – Adam Gunn, American decathlete (b. 1872)
- 1940 – Billy Fiske, American pilot (b. 1911)
- 1945 – Reidar Haaland, Norwegian police officer and soldier (b. 1919)
- 1949 – Gregorio Perfecto, Filipino jurist and politician (b. 1891)
- 1954 – Billy Murray, American singer (b. 1877)
- 1958 – Arthur Fox, American fencer (b. 1878)
- 1962 – Peter Fechter, German Berlin Wall escapee (b. 1944)
- 1964 – Happy Felsch, American baseball player (b. 1891)
- 1969 – Otto Stern, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888)
- 1970 – Rattana Pestonji, Thai director and producer (b. 1908)
- 1971 – Maedayama Eigorō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 39th Yokozuna (b. 1914)
- 1971 – Wilhelm List, German field marshal (b. 1880)
- 1973 – Conrad Aiken, American author (b. 1889)
- 1973 – Jean Barraqué, French composer (b. 1928)
- 1973 – Paul Williams, American singer and choreographer (The Temptations) (b. 1939)
- 1976 – William Redfield, American actor (b. 1927)
- 1979 – John C. Allen, American roller coaster designer (b. 1907)
- 1979 – Vivian Vance, American actress (b. 1909)
- 1983 – Ira Gershwin, American songwriter (b. 1896)
- 1987 – Rudolf Hess, German nazi politician (b. 1894)
- 1987 – Shaike Ophir, Israeli actor (b. 1929)
- 1987 – Gary Chester, Italian drummer (b. 1924)
- 1988 – Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistani politician, 6th President of Pakistan (b. 1924)
- 1988 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., American politician (b. 1914)
- 1988 – Victoria Shaw, Australian-American actress (b. 1935)
- 1990 – Pearl Bailey, American actress and singer (b. 1918)
- 1992 – Al Parker, American porn actor, director, and producer (b. 1952)
- 1993 – Feng Kang, Chinese mathematician (b. 1920)
- 1994 – Luigi Chinetti, Italian-American race car driver (b. 1901)
- 1994 – Jack Sharkey, American boxer (b. 1902)
- 1995 – Howard E. Koch, American screenwriter (b. 1902)
- 1995 – Ted Whitten, Australian footballer and coach (b. 1933)
- 1998 – Władysław Komar, Polish athlete (b. 1940)
- 1998 – Raquel Rastenni, Danish singer (b. 1915)
- 1998 – Tadeusz Ślusarski, Polish pole vaulter (b. 1950)
- 2003 – Mazen Dana, Palestinian journalist (b. 1962)
- 2004 – Thea Astley, Australian writer (b. 1925)
- 2004 – Gérard Souzay, French singer (b. 1918)
- 2005 – John Bahcall, American astrophysicist (b. 1934)
- 2006 – Shamsur Rahman, Bangladeshi poet and journalist (b. 1929)
- 2007 – Jos Brink, Dutch actor, producer, and author (b. 1942)
- 2007 – Bill Deedes, British journalist and politician (b. 1913)
- 2007 – Eddie Griffin, American basketball player (b. 1982)
- 2008 – Franco Sensi, Italian businessman (b. 1926)
- 2010 – Francesco Cossiga, Italian politician, 8th President of Italy (b. 1928)
- 2012 – Aase Bjerkholt, Norwegian politician (b. 1915)
- 2012 – Pál Bogár, Hungarian basketball player (b. 1927)
- 2012 – Lou Martin, Irish pianist, songwriter, and producer (b. 1949)
- 2012 – Shirley W. Palmer-Ball, American politician (b. 1930)
- 2012 – Victor Poor, American engineer, developed the Datapoint 2200 (b. 1933)
- 2012 – Patrick Ricard, French businessman (b. 1945)
- 2012 – Willem G. van Maanen, Dutch journalist (b. 1920)
- 2012 – John Lynch-Staunton, Canadian politician (b. 1930)
Holidays and observances
- Christian Feast Day:
- Independence Day, celebrates the proclamation of Indonesia's independence from Japan in 1945.
- Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Gabon from France in 1960.
- Portunalia (Roman Empire)
- Prekmurje Union Day (Slovenia)
- San Martin Day (Argentina)
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“Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”2 Corinthians 7:1 NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
Morning
"Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name."
Psalm 29:2
Psalm 29:2
God's glory is the result of his nature and acts. He is glorious in his character, for there is such a store of everything that is holy, and good, and lovely in God, that he must be glorious. The actions which flow from his character are also glorious; but while he intends that they should manifest to his creatures his goodness, and mercy, and justice, he is equally concerned that the glory associated with them should be given only to himself. Nor is there aught in ourselves in which we may glory; for who maketh us to differ from another? And what have we that we did not receive from the God of all grace? Then how careful ought we to be to walk humbly before the Lord! The moment we glorify ourselves, since there is room for one glory only in the universe, we set ourselves up as rivals to the Most High. Shall the insect of an hour glorify itself against the sun which warmed it into life? Shall the potsherd exalt itself above the man who fashioned it upon the wheel? Shall the dust of the desert strive with the whirlwind? Or the drops of the ocean struggle with the tempest? Give unto the Lord, all ye righteous, give unto the Lord glory and strength; give unto him the honour that is due unto his name. Yet it is, perhaps, one of the hardest struggles of the Christian life to learn this sentence--"Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be glory." It is a lesson which God is ever teaching us, and teaching us sometimes by most painful discipline. Let a Christian begin to boast, "I can do all things," without adding "through Christ which strengtheneth me," and before long he will have to groan, "I can do nothing," and bemoan himself in the dust. When we do anything for the Lord, and he is pleased to accept of our doings, let us lay our crown at his feet, and exclaim, "Not I, but the grace of God which was with me!"
Evening
"Ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit."
Romans 8:23
Romans 8:23
Present possession is declared. At this present moment we have the first fruits of the Spirit. We have repentance, that gem of the first water; faith, that priceless pearl; hope, the heavenly emerald; and love, the glorious ruby. We are already made "new creatures in Christ Jesus," by the effectual working of God the Holy Ghost. This is called the firstfruit because it comes first. As the wave-sheaf was the first of the harvest, so the spiritual life, and all the graces which adorn that life, are the first operations of the Spirit of God in our souls. The firstfruits were the pledge of the harvest. As soon as the Israelite had plucked the first handful of ripe ears, he looked forward with glad anticipation to the time when the wain should creak beneath the sheaves. So, brethren, when God gives us things which are pure, lovely, and of good report, as the work of the Holy Spirit, these are to us the prognostics of the coming glory. The firstfruits were always holy to the Lord, and our new nature, with all its powers, is a consecrated thing. The new life is not ours that we should ascribe its excellence to our own merit; it is Christ's image and creation, and is ordained for his glory. But the firstfruits were not the harvest, and the works of the Spirit in us at this moment are not the consummation--the perfection is yet to come. We must not boast that we have attained, and so reckon the wave-sheaf to be all the produce of the year: we must hunger and thirst after righteousness, and pant for the day of full redemption. Dear reader, this evening open your mouth wide, and God will fill it. Let the boon in present possession excite in you a sacred avarice for more grace. Groan within yourself for higher degrees of consecration, and your Lord will grant them to you, for he is able to do exceeding abundantly above what we ask or even think.
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Today's reading: Psalm 94-96, Romans 15:14-33 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Psalm 94-96
O God who avenges, shine forth.
2 Rise up, Judge of the earth;
pay back to the proud what they deserve.
3 How long, LORD, will the wicked,
how long will the wicked be jubilant?
4 They pour out arrogant words;
all the evildoers are full of boasting.
5 They crush your people, LORD;
they oppress your inheritance.
6 They slay the widow and the foreigner;
they murder the fatherless.
7 They say, "The LORD does not see;
the God of Jacob takes no notice."
all the evildoers are full of boasting.
5 They crush your people, LORD;
they oppress your inheritance.
6 They slay the widow and the foreigner;
they murder the fatherless.
7 They say, "The LORD does not see;
the God of Jacob takes no notice."
Today's New Testament reading: Romans 15:14-33
Paul the Minister to the Gentiles
14 I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. 15 Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
17 Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. 18 I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done- 19 by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. 20 It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation....
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Judas, Juda, Jude
[Jū'das] - praise of the lord.
[Jū'das] - praise of the lord.
1. The disciple surnamed Iscariot, who betrayed the Master and then hanged himself. He was the only one of the Twelve who was not a Galilean. He acted as treasurer of the apostolic band (John 6:71; 12:6; 13:26, 29).
The Man Who Was Guilty of a Horrible Crime
The Gospels represent the betrayal of Christ by Judas as a horrible, diabolical crime. And it stands out as the darkest deed in human history. The word "betray" is a remarkable one meaning "to deliver up." This is what Judas did - delivered up Jesus. Yet such a dastardly action was overruled, for Jesus was delivered by the determinate counsel of God.
Judas is a strange character and everything about his choice and conduct is mysterious. Why was he chosen? All we can say in answer is in the declaration, "that the scriptures might be fulfilled" (Matt. 26:56 ). The greater mystery is, why did Christ choose you and me to be His followers? Think of these features:
I. Judas'terrible crime was predicted (Ps. 109:5-8; Acts 1:16).
II. His cruel bargain was foretold (Zech. 11:12, 13).
III. He became a devil incarnate. "One of you is a devil." As Jesus became God-incarnate, Judas became the devil-incarnate.
IV. He is called "a son of perdition." Because the same designation is used of the Man of Sin, some writers feel that this grim figure will be Judas incarnate ( 2 Thess. 2:3).
V. He was a thief. He kept the bag which represented responsibility. Christ chose Judas as treasurer for the Twelve because of his commercial instinct and business acumen, but he prostituted his gift. His very endowment became a snare. A blessing was turned into a curse.
VI. He betrayed Christ with a kiss. The hatefulness of his crime reached its limit when he gave the enemies of Christ the symbol of affection. How wicked is the human heart - deceitful above all things!
VII. He was the recipient of divine patience. Why he persisted in following Christ we cannot say. All we can do is marvel at the love and patience of Christ as He bore with Judas for three years. He knew all along that this so-called disciple would betray Him, yet He kept the door open. Even when He met Judas after his contract with the foes of Christ, He greeted him as "friend." We would have scorned the traitor and hissed "enemy" or "traitor." Not so Christ, who is patient toward all men.
VIII. He went out to his own place (Acts 1:25 ). It was in self-excommunication. Christ did not excommunicate Judas - He only ratified the choice. Up to the last He gave Judas a chance to halt and turn from his wickedness. But when the die had been cast, Jesus said, "What thou doest, do quickly."
We leave our glimpse of the despicable man of the Bible with two lessons in mind:
The journey into sin gains momentum. We never know where a wrong path may end. Sin only needs opportunity to carry us to its utmost depths.
It is sadly possible to be associated with Jesus, to hear His gracious words, witness His wonderful works, yet refuse Him our heart's allegiance and be ultimately lost.
2. Half-brother of Jesus , brother of James and writer of the epistle known by his name (Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3; Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13; Jude 1). See JUDE.
3. An apostle also known as Lebbeus or Thaddeus (John 14:22).
4. A Galilean who stirred up sedition shortly after the birth of Christ (Acts 5:37).
5. One with whom Paul lodged in the street called Straight (Acts 9:11).
6. The prophet surnamed Barsabas, sent with Silas to Antioch (Acts 15:22, 27).
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