===
David Hicks 'innocent'
There are elements of the US government that do not treasure freedom and undermine the government. Such is the case today where on the date that John Walker Lind was returned to the US and separately, Daniel Pearl was murdered in 2002, David Hicks, a former inmate of GITMO who had been found training with the Taliban has been declared 'innocent' by the US government. He had previously accepted his guilt of training with terrorists so as to be released. He has celebrity status among the left who prize his having faced US armed services and survived. He is invited to speaking engagements for things like 'festival of dangerous ideas' or writer's festivals where he proudly forgets activities he wrote to his home about, like being able to shoot people legally in former Yugoslavia. David was bankrolled by Amnesty International, who are not supposed to protect people who want to kill, but to defend prisoners of conscience. When David has spoken, he has displayed anti semitism in his stated beliefs, and understanding of world organisation and foreign affairs. So what precisely is it the US government finds Hicks innocent of? Apparently training with the Taliban is not, now, considered an act of terror by some in the US government.
Dan Andrews quietly removes industry protection from unions
We know that the building unions in Victoria have acted corruptly. We know they have used stand over tactics to extort money from business. We know they have used slush funds to make elections undemocratic. We know that they have diverted funds meant for their members to personal things. What we have not heard is the mainstream press questioning the government about what they will do to prevent it from getting worse. But now we have new Premier Dan Andrews actually making it worse by removing the protections business have of a body supervising Union activity. Special thanks to Dan Andrews for the next worker to die from compromised safety standards.
Qld election
The QLD ALP have not reformed from the same party which failed to insure from floods they created when they over filled a dam. They had over filled the dam after they assured the public that dams would never be filled again because of global warming. They have opposed sensible measure which have benefited Queensland. The LNP government have been opposed by the press and the ALP on every measure, and yet the have created sensible financial positions which will ensure prosperity for the future. ALP had claimed they would, but never did it. There is no good reason why the QLD Premier would lose his seat, based on performance. One week to go. Good luck Campbell Newman.
2014
On the same day John Walker Lind was returned to the US on FBI custody, Journalist Daniel Pearl was murdered by terrorists. On this day, in 2002. One cannot surrender to terrorism and expect justice. Appeasement does not work. Give a little, and terrorists will view their efforts as succeeding. There are no historical examples of success through appeasing terror. But terror is not addressed through terror. Terrorist peoples largely don't want to succeed or die. They want to be made to stop. The concept of restraint and proportionality might be politically expedient, but it isn't what stakeholders want (note, I deny terrorist leadership as stake holders). I invite readers to post where they feel I am wrong. Examples please.
Historical perspectives on this day
In 393, Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaimed his eight-year old son Honorius co-emperor. 971, in China, the war elephant corps of the Southern Han were soundly defeated at Shao by crossbow fire from Song Dynasty troops. 1368, in a coronation ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming Dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries. 1546, having published nothing for eleven years, François Rabelais published the Tiers Livre, his sequel to Gargantua and Pantagruel. 1556, the deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hit Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000. 1570, James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland, was assassinated by firearm, the first recorded instance of such. 1571, the Royal Exchange opened in London. 1579, the Union of Utrecht formed a Protestant republic in the Netherlands. 1656, Blaise Pascal published the first of his Lettres provincials.In 1719, the Principality of Liechtenstein was created within the Holy Roman Empire. 1789, Georgetown College, the first Catholic University in the United States, was founded in Georgetown, Maryland (now a part of Washington, D.C.) 1793, Second Partition of Poland. 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell was awarded her M.D. by the Geneva Medical College of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States' first female doctor. 1855, the 1855 Wairarapa earthquake and tsunami left 9 dead in New Zealand. Also 1855, the first bridge over the Mississippi River opened in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota, a crossing made today by the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. 1870, in Montana, U.S. cavalrymen killed 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, in what became known as the Marias Massacre. 1879, Anglo-Zulu War: the Battle of Rorke's Drift ended. 1897, Elva Zona Heaster was found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only case in United States history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction. 1899, the Malolos Constitution was inaugurated, establishing the First Philippine Republic. Also 1899, Emilio Aguinaldo was sworn in as President of the First Philippine Republic.
In 1900, Second Boer War: The Battle of Spion Kop between the forces of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State and British forces ended in a British defeat. 1904, Ålesund Fire: the Norwegian coastal town Ålesund was devastated by fire, leaving 10,000 people homeless and one person dead. Kaiser Wilhelm II funded the rebuilding of the town in Jugendstil style. 1909, RMS Republic, a passenger ship of the White Star Line, became the first ship to use the CQD distress signal after colliding with another ship, the SS Florida, off the Massachusetts coastline, an event that killed six people. The Republic sank the next day. 1912, the International Opium Convention was signed at The Hague. 1920, the Netherlands refused to surrender the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies. 1937, in Moscow, 17 leading Communists went on trial accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders. 1941, Charles Lindbergh testified before the U.S. Congress and recommended that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler. 1942, World War II: The Battle of Rabaul began, the first fighting of the New Guinea campaign. 1943, World War II: Troops of Montgomery's 8th Army captured Tripoli in Libya from the German-Italian Panzer Army. Also 1943, World War II: Australian and American forces finally defeated the Japanese army in Papua. Also 1943, Duke Ellington played at Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time. Also 1943, World War II: The Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse on Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal campaign ended. 1945, World War II: German admiral Karl Dönitz launched Operation Hannibal.
In 1950, the Knesset passed a resolution that stated Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. 1957, American inventor Walter Frederick Morrison sold the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, which later renamed it the "Frisbee". 1958, after a general uprising and rioting in the streets, President Marcos Pérez Jiménez left Venezuela. 1960, the bathyscaphe USS Trieste broke a depth record by descending to 10,911 metres (35,797 ft) in the Pacific Ocean. 1961, the Portuguese luxury cruise ship Santa Maria was hijacked by opponents of the Estado Novo regime with the intention of waging war until dictator António de Oliveira Salazar was overthrown. 1963, the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence officially began when PAIGC guerrilla fighters attacked the Portuguese army stationed in Tite. 1964, the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, was ratified. 1967, Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Côte d'Ivoire were established. Also 1967, Milton Keynes (England) was founded as a new town by Order in Council, with a planning brief to become a city of 250,000 people. Its initial designated area enclosed three existing towns and twenty one villages. 1968, North Korea seized the USS Pueblo, claiming the ship had violated its territorial waters while spying.
In 1973, President Richard Nixon announced that a peace accord had been reached in Vietnam. Also 1973, a volcanic eruption devastated Heimaey in the Vestmannaeyjar chain of islands off the south coast of Iceland. 1986, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted its first members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. 1997, Madeleine Albright became the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State. Also 1997, Greek Serial Killer Antonis Daglis was sentenced to thirteen consecutive life sentences, plus 25 years for the serial slayings of three women and the attempted murder of six others. 2001, five people attempted to set themselves on fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, an act that many people later claim was staged by the Communist Party of China to frame Falun Gong and thus escalate their persecution. 2002, "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh returned to the United States in FBI custody. Also 2002, reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan and subsequently murdered. 2003, final communication between Earth and Pioneer 10. 2012, a group of Gaddafi loyalists took control of part of the town of Bani Walid and flew the green flag after a battle with NTC forces left 5 dead and 20 injured.
===
This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
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Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August https://www.createspace.com/4124406 or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4 The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows the purchase of a kindle version for just $3.99 more.
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For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball
Or the US President at
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-change-this-injustice#
or
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-injustice-faced-david-daniel-ball-after-he-reported-bungled-pedophile-investigation-and/b8mxPWtJ or http://wh.gov/ilXYR
Mr Ball, I will not sign your petition as it will do no good, but I will share your message and ask as many of friends who read it, to share it also. Let us see if we cannot use the power of the internet to spread the word of these infamous killings. As a father and a former soldier, I cannot, could not, justify ignoring this appalling action by the perpetrators, whoever they may; I thank you Douglas. You are wrong about the petition. Signing it is as worthless and meaningless an act as voting. A stand up guy would know that. - ed
Lorraine Allen Hider I signed the petition ages ago David, with pleasure, nobody knows what it's like until they've been there. Keep heart David take care.
Happy birthday and many happy returns Joey Duong and Trangsta Meow. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
- 1350 – Vincent Ferrer, Spanish missionary and saint (d. 1419)
- 1786 – Auguste de Montferrand, French-Russian architect, designed Saint Isaac's Cathedral and Alexander Column (d. 1858)
- 1832 – Édouard Manet, French painter (d. 1883)
- 1855 – John Browning, American weapons designer, founded the Browning Arms Company (d. 1926)
- 1862 – David Hilbert, German mathematician (d. 1943)
- 1920 – Walter Frederick Morrison, American inventor, invented the Frisbee (d. 2010)
- 1928 – Jeanne Moreau, French actress, singer, screenwriter, and director
- 1944 – Rutger Hauer, Dutch actor
- 1954 – Richard Finch, American bass player, songwriter, and producer (KC and the Sunshine Band)
- 1994 – Wesley Jobello, French footballer
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- 1719 – Emperor Charles VI established Liechtenstein, the only principality in the Holy Roman Empire still in existence today.
- 1870 – American Indian Wars: The United States Army massacred a friendly band of Piegan Blackfeet in Montana Territory, resulting in about 200 deaths, mostly women, children, and elderly men.
- 1899 – Pursuant to the adoption of the Malolos Constitution and the establishment of the First Philippine Republic, Emilio Aguinaldo (pictured) was sworn in as the first President of the Philippines.
- 1915 – The Chilembwe uprising, regarded as a seminal moment in the history of Malawi, began as rebels, led by a minister, attacked local plantation owners.
- 1945 – German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz ordered the beginning of Operation Hannibal, which became one of the largest emergency evacuations by sea in history, with over 1 million people transferred over 15 weeks.
Matches
- 393 – Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his eight-year old son Honorius co-emperor.
- 971 – In China, the war elephant corps of the Southern Han are soundly defeated at Shao by crossbowfire from Song Dynasty troops.
- 1368 – In a coronation ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang ascends the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming Dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries.
- 1546 – Having published nothing for eleven years, François Rabelais publishes the Tiers Livre, his sequel to Gargantua and Pantagruel.
- 1556 – The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000.
- 1570 – James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland, is assassinated by firearm, the first recorded instance of such.
- 1571 – The Royal Exchange opens in London.
- 1579 – The Union of Utrecht forms a Protestant republic in the Netherlands.
- 1656 – Blaise Pascal publishes the first of his Lettres provinciales.
- 1719 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire.
- 1789 – Georgetown College, the first Catholic University in the United States, is founded in Georgetown, Maryland (now a part of Washington, D.C.)
- 1793 – Second Partition of Poland.
- 1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Geneva Medical College of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States' first female doctor.
- 1855 – The 1855 Wairarapa earthquake and tsunami leaves 9 dead in New Zealand.
- 1855 – The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota, a crossing made today by the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.
- 1870 – In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen kill 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, in what becomes known as the Marias Massacre.
- 1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: the Battle of Rorke's Drift ends.
- 1897 – Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only case in United States history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.
- 1899 – The Malolos Constitution is inaugurated, establishing the First Philippine Republic.
- 1899 – Emilio Aguinaldo is sworn in as President of the First Philippine Republic.
- 1900 – Second Boer War: The Battle of Spion Kop between the forces of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State and British forces ends in a British defeat.
- 1904 – Ålesund Fire: the Norwegian coastal town Ålesund is devastated by fire, leaving 10,000 people homeless and one person dead. Kaiser Wilhelm II funds the rebuilding of the town in Jugendstil style.
- 1909 – RMS Republic, a passenger ship of the White Star Line, becomes the first ship to use the CQD distress signal after colliding with another ship, the SS Florida, off the Massachusetts coastline, an event that kills six people. The Republic sinks the next day.
- 1912 – The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague.
- 1920 – The Netherlands refuses to surrender the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies.
- 1937 – In Moscow, 17 leading Communists go on trial accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders.
- 1941 – Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
- 1942 – World War II: The Battle of Rabaul begins, the first fighting of the New Guinea campaign.
- 1943 – World War II: Troops of Montgomery's 8th Army capture Tripoli in Libya from the German-Italian Panzer Army.
- 1943 – World War II: Australian and American forces finally defeat the Japanese army in Papua.
- 1943 – Duke Ellington plays at Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time.
- 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse on Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal campaign ends.
- 1945 – World War II: German admiral Karl Dönitz launches Operation Hannibal.
- 1950 – The Knesset passes a resolution that states Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
- 1957 – American inventor Walter Frederick Morrison sells the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, which later renames it the "Frisbee".
- 1958 – After a general uprising and rioting in the streets, President Marcos Pérez Jiménez leaves Venezuela.
- 1960 – The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 10,911 metres (35,797 ft) in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1961 – The Portuguese luxury cruise ship Santa Maria is hijacked by opponents of the Estado Novo regime with the intention of waging war until dictator António de Oliveira Salazar is overthrown.
- 1963 – The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence officially begins when PAIGC guerrilla fighters attack the Portuguese army stationed in Tite.
- 1964 – The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified.
- 1967 – Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Côte d'Ivoire are established.
- 1967 – Milton Keynes (England) is founded as a new town by Order in Council, with a planning brief to become a city of 250,000 people. Its initial designated area enclosed three existing towns and twenty one villages.
- 1968 – North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo, claiming the ship had violated its territorial waters while spying.
- 1973 – President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
- 1973 – A volcanic eruption devastates Heimaey in the Vestmannaeyjar chain of islands off the south coast of Iceland.
- 1986 – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.
- 1997 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State.
- 1997 – Greek Serial Killer Antonis Daglis is sentenced to thirteen consecutive life sentences, plus 25 years for the serial slayings of three women and the attempted murder of six others.
- 2001 – Five people attempt to set themselves on fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, an act that many people later claim is staged by the Communist Party of China to frame Falun Gong and thus escalate their persecution.
- 2002 – "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh returns to the United States in FBI custody.
- 2002 – Reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan and subsequently murdered .
- 2003 – Final communication between Earth and Pioneer 10.
- 2012 – A group of Gaddafi loyalists take control of part of the town of Bani Walid and fly the green flag after a battle with NTC forcesleft 5 dead and 20 injured.
Hatches
- 1350 – Vincent Ferrer, Spanish missionary and saint (d. 1419)
- 1688 – Ulrika Eleonora, Queen of Sweden (d. 1741)
- 1719 – John Landen, English mathematician (d. 1790)
- 1737 – John Hancock, American politician, 1st Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1793)
- 1745 – William Jessop, English engineer, built the Cromford Canal (d. 1814)
- 1752 – Muzio Clementi, Italian pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1832)
- 1780 – Georgios Karaiskakis, Greek general (d. 1827)
- 1783 – Stendhal, French author (d. 1842)
- 1786 – Auguste de Montferrand, French-Russian architect, designed Saint Isaac's Cathedral and Alexander Column (d. 1858)
- 1809 – Veer Surendra Sai, Indian activist (d. 1884)
- 1813 – Camilla Collett, Norwegian author and activist (d. 1895)
- 1828 – Saigō Takamori, Japanese samurai (d. 1877)
- 1832 – Édouard Manet, French painter (d. 1883)
- 1833 – Muthu Coomaraswamy, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician (d. 1879)
- 1840 – Ernst Abbe, German physicist (d. 1905)
- 1846 – Hermann Clemenz, Estonian chess player (d. 1908)
- 1855 – John Browning, American weapons designer, founded the Browning Arms Company (d. 1926)
- 1857 – Andrija Mohorovičić, Croatian meteorologist (d. 1936)
- 1862 – David Hilbert, German mathematician (d. 1943)
- 1870 – Ole Sæther, Norwegian target shooter (d. 1946)
- 1872 – Paul Langevin, French physicist (d. 1946)
- 1872 – Jože Plečnik, Slovenian architect, designed Plečnik Parliament (d. 1957)
- 1876 – Otto Diels, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1954)
- 1881 – Luisa Casati, Italian model (d. 1957)
- 1884 – Ralph DePalma, Italian-American race car driver (d. 1956)
- 1884 – George McManus, American cartoonist (d. 1954)
- 1894 – Jyotirmoyee Devi, Indian author (d. 1988)
- 1896 – Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (d. 1985)
- 1896 – Alf Hall, South African cricketer (d. 1964)
- 1897 – Subhas Chandra Bose, Indian activist and politician (d. 1945)
- 1897 – Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Austrian architect (d. 2000)
- 1897 – Ieva Simonaitytė, Lithuanian author (d. 1978)
- 1897 – William Stephenson, Canadian captain (d. 1989)
- 1898 – Sergei Eisenstein, Latvian-Russian director and screenwriter (d. 1948)
- 1898 – Randolph Scott, American actor (d. 1987)
- 1898 – Freda Utley, English scholar and author (d. 1978)
- 1899 – Glen Kidston, English race car driver and pilot (d. 1931)
- 1900 – William Ifor Jones, Welsh organist and conductor (d. 1988)
- 1901 – Arthur Wirtz, American businessman (d. 1983)
- 1903 – Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, Colombian politician, Mayor of Bogotá (d. 1948)
- 1907 – Dan Duryea, American actor (d. 1968)
- 1907 – Hideki Yukawa, Japanese physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
- 1910 – Django Reinhardt, Belgian guitarist and composer (Quintette du Hot Club de France) (d. 1953)
- 1912 – Boris Pokrovsky, Russian director (d. 2009)
- 1913 – Jean-Michel Atlan, French painter (d. 1960)
- 1913 – Wally Parks, American businessman, founded the National Hot Rod Association (d. 2007)
- 1915 – Arthur Lewis, Saint Lucian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)
- 1915 – Potter Stewart, American judge (d. 1985)
- 1916 – David Douglas Duncan, American photographer and journalist
- 1916 – Airey Neave, English colonel, lawyer, and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (d. 1979)
- 1918 – Gertrude B. Elion, American biochemist and pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1999)
- 1919 – Frances Bay, Canadian actress (d. 2011)
- 1919 – Hans Hass, Austrian biologist and diver (d. 2013)
- 1919 – Ernie Kovacs, American actor and game show host (d. 1962)
- 1919 – Bob Paisley, English footballer and manager (d. 1996)
- 1920 – Walter Frederick Morrison, American inventor, invented the Frisbee (d. 2010)
- 1923 – Cot Deal, American baseball player and coach (d. 2013)
- 1923 – Walter M. Miller, Jr., American author (d. 1996)
- 1924 – Frank Lautenberg, American politician (d. 2013)
- 1926 – Kyriakos Matsis, Cypriot EOKA member (d. 1958)
- 1926 – Bal Thackeray, Indian politician (d. 2012)
- 1927 – Lars-Eric Lindblad, Swedish-American businessman and explorer (d. 1994)
- 1927 – Jack Quinlan, American sportscaster (d. 1965)
- 1928 – Chico Carrasquel, Venezuelan baseball player (d. 2005)
- 1928 – Jeanne Moreau, French actress, singer, director, and screenwriter
- 1929 – Myron Cope, American sportscaster (d. 2008)
- 1929 – Patriarch Filaret, Ukrainian patriarch
- 1929 – Phillip Knightley, Australian journalist, author, and critic
- 1929 – John Polanyi, Canadian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1930 – William R. Pogue, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut (d. 2014)
- 1930 – Derek Walcott, Saint Lucian poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1932 – George Allen, English footballer
- 1932 – Larri Thomas, American actress and dancer (d. 2013)
- 1933 – Chita Rivera, American actress, singer, and dancer
- 1934 – Pierre Bourgault, Canadian journalist and politician (d. 2003)
- 1935 – Robert Parris Moses, American educator and activist
- 1935 – Tom Reamy, American author (d. 1977)
- 1935 – Teresa Żylis-Gara, Polish soprano
- 1936 – Riccardo Garrone, Italian businessman (d. 2013)
- 1936 – Brian Howe, Australian politician, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia
- 1936 – Jerry Kramer, American football player and sportscaster
- 1938 – Shohei Baba, Japanese wrestler (d. 1999)
- 1938 – Georg Baselitz, German painter and sculptor
- 1939 – Sonny Chiba, Japanese actor and martial artist
- 1939 – Arlene Golonka, American actress
- 1940 – Joe Dowell, American singer
- 1940 – Ted Rowlands, Baron Rowlands, Welsh politician
- 1940 – Johnny Russell, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2001)
- 1941 – Jock R. Anderson, Australian economist
- 1941 – João Ubaldo Ribeiro, Brazilian journalist, author, and academic (d. 2014)
- 1942 – Abdur Razzak, Indian-Bangladeshi actor and producer
- 1942 – Herman Tjeenk Willink, Dutch politician
- 1943 – Gary Burton, American vibraphone player
- 1943 – Gil Gerard, American actor
- 1944 – Rutger Hauer, Dutch actor
- 1945 – Richard Dearlove, English intelligence officer
- 1945 – Mike Harris, Canadian politician, 22nd Premier of Ontario
- 1946 – Arnoldo Alemán, Nicaraguan politician, President of Nicaragua
- 1946 – Boris Berezovsky, Russian-English businessman and mathematician (d. 2013)
- 1946 – Zvonko Bušić, Croatian terrorist, hijacker of TWA Flight 355 (d. 2013)
- 1946 – Don Whittington, American race car driver
- 1947 – Mary Arden, English judge
- 1947 – Tom Carper, American politician, 71st Governor of Delaware
- 1947 – Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesian politician, 5th President of Indonesia
- 1948 – David F. Ford, Irish theologian and academic
- 1948 – Anita Pointer, American singer-songwriter (The Pointer Sisters)
- 1949 – Joan Walley, English politician
- 1950 – Richard Dean Anderson, American actor, producer, and composer
- 1950 – Bill Cunningham, American bass player and keyboard player (The Box Tops)
- 1950 – Danny Federici, American accordion player (E Street Band) (d. 2008)
- 1950 – John Greaves, Welsh bass player and songwriter (Henry Cow, National Health, and The Lodge)
- 1950 – Suzanne Scotchmer, American economist and academic (d. 2014)
- 1951 – David Patrick Kelly, American actor
- 1951 – Michael R. Matz, American horse rider
- 1951 – Chesley Sullenberger, American pilot and captain
- 1952 – Omar Henry, South African cricketer
- 1953 – John Luther Adams, American composer
- 1953 – Raul Arnemann, Estonian rower
- 1953 – Alister McGrath, Irish priest, historian, and theologian
- 1953 – Antonio Villaraigosa, American politician, 41st Mayor of Los Angeles
- 1953 – Robin Zander, American singer and guitarist (Cheap Trick)
- 1954 – Franco De Vita, Venezuelan singer-songwriter
- 1954 – Richard Finch, American bass player, songwriter, and producer (KC and the Sunshine Band)
- 1954 – Edward Ka-Spel, English singer-songwriter (Legendary Pink Dots, The Tear Garden, and Mimir)
- 1957 – Caroline, Princess of Hanover
- 1957 – Lou Schuler, American journalist
- 1959 – Clive Bull, English radio host
- 1960 – Patrick de Gayardon, French sky diver (d. 1998)
- 1960 – Leilani Kai, American wrestler
- 1960 – Jean-François Sauvé, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1961 – Mas Selamat bin Kastari, Indonesian-Singaporean criminal
- 1962 – David Arnold, English composer
- 1962 – Aivar Lillevere, Estonian footballer and coach
- 1962 – Elvira Lindo, Spanish journalist
- 1962 – Richard Roxburgh, Australian actor
- 1963 – Gail O'Grady, American actress
- 1964 – Mariska Hargitay, American actress
- 1964 – Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyanese politician, 7th President of Guyana
- 1964 – Mario Roberge, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1965 – Thomas Adler, German footballer
- 1965 – Louie Clemente, American drummer (Testament)
- 1966 – Haywoode Workman, American basketball player
- 1967 – Naim Süleymanoğlu, Bulgarian-Turkish weightlifter
- 1968 – Petr Korda, Czech tennis player
- 1968 – Raul Olle, Estonian skier
- 1969 – Ariadna Gil, Spanish actress
- 1969 – Andrei Kanchelskis, Ukrainian-Russian footballer
- 1969 – Brendan Shanahan, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1970 – Brendan O'Connor, Irish singer and television host
- 1970 – Oleg Ovsyannikov, Russian ice dancer
- 1970 – Spyridon Vasdekis, Greek long jumper
- 1971 – Scott Gibbs, Welsh rugby player
- 1971 – Kevin Mawae, American football player
- 1971 – Marc Nelson, American singer-songwriter (Boyz II Men, Az Yet, and Blayse)
- 1971 – Adam Parore, New Zealand cricketer
- 1972 – Gavin Barwell, English politician
- 1972 – Ewen Bremner, Scottish actor
- 1972 – Lisa Snowdon, English model and television host
- 1972 – Marcel Wouda, Dutch swimmer
- 1973 – Dee Caffari, English sailor
- 1973 – Lanei Chapman, American actress
- 1973 – Tomas Holmström, Swedish ice hockey player
- 1974 – Sampsa Astala, Finnish singer-songwriter and drummer (Lordi and Stala & so.)
- 1974 – Joel Bouchard, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1974 – Rebekah Elmaloglou, Australian actress
- 1974 – Yosvani Pérez, Cuban baseball player
- 1974 – Richard T. Slone, English painter
- 1974 – Tiffani Thiessen, American actress
- 1975 – Phil Dawson, American football player
- 1975 – Tito Ortiz, American mixed martial artist
- 1976 – Brandon Duckworth, American baseball player
- 1976 – Angelica Lee, Malaysian-Taiwanese actress and singer
- 1976 – Tony Lucca, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor
- 1976 – Nigel McGuinness, English wrestler
- 1977 – Kamal Heer, Indian singer-songwriter
- 1979 – Larry Hughes, American basketball player
- 1979 – Dawn O'Porter, Scottish-English journalist
- 1979 – Juan Rincón, Venezuelan baseball player
- 1981 – Sarai, American rapper and actress
- 1981 – Rob Friend, Canadian footballer
- 1981 – Julia Jones, American actress
- 1982 – Patrick Levis, American actor
- 1982 – Wily Mo Peña, Dominican baseball player
- 1984 – Robbie Farah, Australian rugby player
- 1984 – Arjen Robben, Dutch footballer
- 1985 – Dong Fangzhuo, Chinese footballer
- 1985 – Doutzen Kroes, Dutch model and actress
- 1986 – Anne Foy, English actress and television host
- 1986 – José Enrique Sánchez, Spanish footballer
- 1986 – Steven Taylor, English footballer
- 1986 – Marc Laird, Scottish footballer
- 1987 – Felicia Brandström, Swedish singer
- 1988 – Alan Power, Irish footballer
- 1989 – April Pearson, English actress
- 1990 – Artjom Abramov, Estonian ice hockey player
- 1990 – Alex Silva, Canadian wrestler
- 1990 – Martyn Waghorn, English footballer
- 1992 – Diana Šatkauskaitė, Lithuanian handballer
- 1994 – Wesley Jobello, French footballer
- 1996 – Chachi Gonzales, American dancer
Despatches
- 1002 – Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 980)
- 1199 – Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur, Moroccan caliph (b. 1160)
- 1516 – Ferdinand II of Aragon (b. 1452)
- 1548 – Bernardo Pisano, Italian priest, scholar, and composer (b. 1490)
- 1549 – Johannes Honter, Romanian theologian (b. 1498)
- 1567 – Jiajing Emperor of China (b. 1507)
- 1570 – James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, Scottish son of James V of Scotland (b. 1531)
- 1622 – William Baffin, English explorer and navigator
- 1744 – Giambattista Vico, Italian philosopher and historian (b. 1668)
- 1785 – Matthew Stewart, Scottish mathematician (b. 1717)
- 1789 – Frances Brooke, English author and playwright (b. 1724)
- 1789 – John Cleland, English author (b. 1709)
- 1800 – Edward Rutledge, American politician, 39th Governor of South Carolina (b. 1749)
- 1803 – Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer, founded Guinness (b. 1725)
- 1805 – Claude Chappe, French engineer (b. 1763)
- 1806 – William Pitt the Younger, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1759)
- 1810 – Johann Wilhelm Ritter, German chemist and physicist (b. 1776)
- 1812 – Robert Craufurd, Scottish general and politician (b. 1764)
- 1820 – Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (b. 1767)
- 1833 – Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth, English admiral (b. 1757)
- 1837 – John Field, Irish pianist and composer (b. 1782)
- 1866 – Thomas Love Peacock, English author and poet (b. 1785)
- 1875 – Charles Kingsley English priest and author (b. 1819)
- 1883 – Gustave Doré, French engraver and illustrator (b. 1832)
- 1893 – José Zorrilla, Spanish poet and playwright (b. 1817)
- 1893 – Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II, American lawyer and politician, 16th United States Secretary of the Interior (b. 1825)
- 1921 – Mykola Leontovych, Ukrainian composer and conductor (b. 1877)
- 1922 – Arthur Nikisch, Hungarian conductor (b. 1855)
- 1923 – Max Nordau, Austrian physician and author (b. 1849)
- 1931 – Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina (b. 1881)
- 1937 – Orso Mario Corbino, Italian physicist (b. 1876)
- 1938 – Albertson Van Zo Post, American fencer (b. 1866)
- 1939 – Matthias Sindelar, Austrian footballer (b. 1903)
- 1943 – Alexander Woollcott, American actor and journalist (b. 1887)
- 1944 – Viktor Gusev, Russian poet (b. 1909)
- 1944 – Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter (b. 1863)
- 1956 – Alexander Korda, Hungarian-English director and producer (b. 1893)
- 1957 – Willie Edwards, American murder victim (b. 1932)
- 1963 – Józef Gosławski, Polish sculptor (b. 1908)
- 1966 – T. M. Sabaratnam, Sri Lankan politician (d. 1895)
- 1971 – Fritz Feigl, Austrian-Brazilian chemist and academic (b. 1871)
- 1973 – Alexander Onassis, American-Greek son of Aristotle Onassis (b. 1948)
- 1973 – Kid Ory, American trombonist, composer, and bandleader (b. 1886)
- 1976 – Paul Dupuis, Canadian actor (b. 1913)
- 1976 – Paul Robeson, American actor, singer, and activist (b. 1898)
- 1977 – Toots Shor, American businessman, founded Toots Shor's Restaurant (b. 1903)
- 1978 – Vic Ames, American singer (Ames Brothers) (b. 1925)
- 1978 – Terry Kath, American guitarist (Chicago) (b. 1946)
- 1978 – Jack Oakie, American actor (b. 1903)
- 1980 – Giovanni Michelotti, Italian car designer (b. 1921)
- 1981 – Samuel Barber, American composer (b. 1910)
- 1983 – Fred Bakewell, English cricketer (b. 1908)
- 1984 – Muin Bseiso, Palestinian-Egyptian poet (b. 1926)
- 1986 – Joseph Beuys, German sculptor (b. 1921)
- 1988 – Charles Glen King, American biochemist (b. 1896)
- 1989 – Salvador Dalí, Spanish painter (b. 1904)
- 1989 – Lars-Erik Torph, Swedish race car driver (b. 1961)
- 1990 – Allen Collins, American guitarist and songwriter (Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rossington Collins Band, and Allen Collins Band) (b. 1952)
- 1991 – Northrop Frye, Canadian author and critic (b. 1912)
- 1992 – Freddie Bartholomew, English actor (b. 1924)
- 1993 – Thomas A. Dorsey, American singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1899)
- 1993 – Keith Laumer, American author (b. 1925)
- 1994 – Nikolai Ogarkov, Russian field marshal (b. 1917)
- 1994 – Brian Redhead, English journalist and author (b. 1929)
- 1997 – Richard Berry, American singer-songwriter (The Flairs) (b. 1935)
- 1999 – Joe D'Amato, Italian director and cinematographer (b. 1936)
- 1999 – Jay Pritzker, American businessman (b. 1922)
- 1999 – Lincoln Thompson, Jamaican singer-songwriter (b. 1949)
- 2002 – Paul Aars, American race car driver (b. 1934)
- 2002 – Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist (b. 1930)
- 2002 – Robert Nozick, American philosopher (b. 1938)
- 2003 – Nell Carter, American actress and singer (b. 1948)
- 2004 – Bob Keeshan, American actor (b. 1927)
- 2004 – Helmut Newton, German-Australian photographer (b. 1920)
- 2005 – Morys Bruce, 4th Baron Aberdare, English politician (b. 1921)
- 2005 – Johnny Carson, American talk show host (b. 1925)
- 2006 – Chris McKinstry, Canadian scientist (b. 1967)
- 2007 – Syed Hussein Alatas, Malaysian sociologist and politician (b. 1928)
- 2007 – E. Howard Hunt, American CIA officer (b. 1918)
- 2007 – Ryszard Kapuściński, Polish journalist and author (b. 1932)
- 2007 – Tatiana Mamaki, Greek dancer and choreographer (b. 1921)
- 2009 – Robert W. Scott, American politician, 67th Governor of North Carolina (b. 1929)
- 2010 – Kermit Tyler, American air force officer (b. 1913)
- 2011 – Jack LaLanne, American fitness instructor, author, and television host (b. 1914)
- 2012 – Wesley E. Brown, American lawyer and jurist (b. 1907)
- 2012 – Anthony Capo, American mobster (b. 1959)
- 2012 – Marcel De Boodt, Belgian agriculturalist and academic (b. 1926)
- 2012 – Maurice Meisner, American historian, author, and academic (b. 1931)
- 2012 – Bingham Ray, American businessman, co-founded October Films (b. 1954)
- 2012 – Stig Vig, Swedish singer and bass player (Dag Vag) (b. 1948)
- 2013 – Ed Bouchee, American baseball player (b. 1933)
- 2013 – Józef Glemp, Polish cardinal (b. 1929)
- 2013 – Janice Knickrehm, American actress (b. 1925)
- 2013 – Dolours Price, Irish activist (b. 1951)
- 2013 – Juan Carlos Rosero, Ecuadorian cyclist (b. 1962)
- 2013 – Peter van der Merwe, South African cricketer and referee (b. 1937)
- 2013 – Jean-Félix-Albert-Marie Vilnet, French bishop (b. 1922)
- 2013 – Frank Zakem, Canadian businessman and politician (b. 1931)
- 2014 – Yuri Izrael, Russian meteorologist (b. 1930)
- 2014 – Mille Markovic, Serbian-Swedish boxer (b. 1961)
- 2014 – Riz Ortolani, Italian composer and conductor (b. 1926)
- 2014 – Charlie Osgood, American baseball player (b. 1926)
- 2014 – Jan Pesman, Dutch speed skater (b. 1931)
- 2014 – S. Sriskandarajah, Sri Lankan lawyer and judge (b. 1953)
- 2014 – Khin Yu May, Burmese actress and singer (b. 1937)
- Bounty Day (Pitcairn Island)
- Christian Feast Day:
- National Pie Day (United States of America)
Forgoing substance for style up north
Piers Akerman – Friday, January 23, 2015 (12:38am)
QUEENSLANDERS are just over a week away from what is really a no-brainer of an election. The choice they are being offered is, or should be, extremely clear. It is between an active reforming premier in Campbell Newman and an opposition leader, Annastacia Palaszczuk, who offers nothing but retrovision of the worst possible kind.
Continue reading 'Forgoing substance for style up north'IT’S GERMAN FOR GREENS
Tim Blair – Friday, January 23, 2015 (3:07pm)
Word of the day: Sitzpinkler.
FEEL LIKE BACON LOVE
Tim Blair – Friday, January 23, 2015 (2:28pm)
Newtown’s slide into vegetarian degeneracy is briefly halted:
Australia’s first Bacon Festival is being staged on February 9 at Cuckoo Callay, Newtown, with an eight-dish menu packed with piggy products designed to challenge your tastebuds.Expect to be dazzled by dishes including the Don’t Go Bacon My Heart beer-candied bacon and popcorn chicken burger and the What a Croque of Bacon (bacon, basil and vintage cheddar croquettes).
In other Sydney culinary news, the excellent Maloneys grocery on Crown Street is now stocked with all three varieties of Frank’s RedHot Sauce – Original, Buffalo and Xtra Hot. You need this miracle substance if you aim to cookthe world’s finest chicken wings. If you can’t find your Frank’s sauce at Maloneys, just ask always-helpful staffers Hamid or Asim.
THREE SPEECH
Tim Blair – Friday, January 23, 2015 (12:42pm)
Feminists and leftists in the UK and Australia rejoiced this week in the belief that the London Sun had ceased publishing topless page 3 girls. But there’s just one small problem ...
Continue reading 'THREE SPEECH'RIDERS ATTACKED
Tim Blair – Friday, January 23, 2015 (10:58am)
Recently trending on Twitter: the deceptively sweet-sounding phrase Je Suis Couteau. Although it refers to events on a bus, there has been no subsequent outbreak of “I’ll ride with you” heroics.
WORST OF THE WORST
Tim Blair – Friday, January 23, 2015 (10:41am)
The ABC’s Matt Brown and Mat Marsic locate and interview four Yazidi women who were held captive in northern Iraq by Australian jihadists Khaled Sharrouf and Mohammed Elomar:
It’s a miracle the women escaped, and for security reasons, we won’t describe how they did it. But, now that they’re free, they hope some day, somehow, the Australian Government will avenge them.‘LAYLA’ (voiceover translation): “If those terrorists are ever caught, they must make sure that they will never escape. I want them to punish those terrorists and torture them.”
After reading the whole transcript, you’ll be inclined to agree. The ABC, reporter Brown and cameraman Marsic deserve massive congratulations for this stunning piece.
Post by Liberal Victoria.
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Post by Matt Granz.
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Post by Dallas Beaufort.
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Post by Matt Granz.
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Post by Sharon Doorson.
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Have you heard ‘Immigrant Song (Zep Cover) By RayLaVeau’ by Ray La Veau on #SoundCloud? https://t.co/M153BfG4a5
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 23, 2015
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thug is seen spilling cash over the Tesco Express car park just seconds after looting the store http://t.co/DzvJGx7G8X
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 23, 2015
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Meh, ban? Stick it to them .. Is this the end of the selfie? http://t.co/p48BMQBJhz via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 23, 2015
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bad journalism led to claims .. Senior NSW policewoman denies spying claim http://t.co/gemEonhHyJ via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 23, 2015
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Utterly selfish and hurting the ones loved. Teen suicide note: ‘I was locked in’ http://t.co/MaemTuMJ6B via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 23, 2015
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Obama declares Taliban government status, not terrorists .. US says David Hicks is innocent, lawyer http://t.co/6Q9eTyuoIl
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 23, 2015
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It's time .. Malcolm Turnbull moves to deregulate Australia Post http://t.co/PZRSfReVcx
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 23, 2015
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Soccer will be the winner .. Asian Cup 2015: Iraq v Iran, coach calls for fans to be segregated http://t.co/ln6ROh4OT1
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 23, 2015
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Pho King Good .. Atlanta's 11 Most Extreme Dishes & Drinks | burgers http://t.co/hEv9Sv1uFo via @zagat
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 23, 2015
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Caller lied. Prime Minister told he’s the ‘world’s worst salesman’ by a Liberal voter on radio 3AW http://t.co/P7P4eEDA6H via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 22, 2015
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Photo: Impact of Australian conservative government policy. This is why the press are so keen to inflate... http://t.co/Um9wFgGyA4
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 22, 2015
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They were looking for men? Aust IS fighters raped, enslaved women http://t.co/vGrKKpYbo1 via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 22, 2015
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It always looks bad under a leftwing government. There r other alternatives. woman Europe's worried http://t.co/EtrCOt0I52 via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 22, 2015
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French Jew cleared of blood libel 344 years after execution http://t.co/s5fedWny3g via @timesofisrael
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) January 22, 2015
=== Posts from last year ===
READY, AIM, TOASTIE
Tim Blair – Thursday, January 23, 2014 (1:37pm)
As Wade Laube notes, the ABC considers video of asylum seeker burns to be proof of how the burns occurred. But Prime Minister Tony Abbott requires a higher evidentiary standard:
Asked if the aired footage constituted as evidence, Mr Abbott said: “Who do you believe?“Do you believe Australian naval personnel or do you believe people who were attempting to break Australian law? I believe Australian naval personnel.”
So do most sane people. However, given that so many completely credible and utterly trustworthy individuals are convinced that Australian naval personnel have variously shot at, burned and assaulted asylum seekers, it’s worth asking the question …
TURNEY RETURNS
Tim Blair – Thursday, January 23, 2014 (4:52am)
The Sydney Morning Herald‘s Nicky Phillips and Colin Cosier have thrown Antarctic tourism leader Chris Turney under the boat. They’re joined by the BBC’s Andrew Luck-Baker, a member of the expedition who also finds fault with the tour’s ice management:
Expedition leaders could have some tough questions to face about logistical shortcomings which may have put the vessel at increased risk of becoming trapped. These were operational errors and mishaps during a visit by scientists and tourists to a location close to the Antarctic shore on 23 December.Ship insurance companies along with the Australian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre will be keen to establish what happened and whether human error contributed to the Akademik Shokalskiy becoming trapped …Some of the paying passengers on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013 spoke unfavourably about the manner in which the situation at the islands was handled. Everyone I spoke to asked to be quoted anonymously, mindful of the considerable media interest that may await in Tasmania.“The teacher in me cringes at the logistics,” said one of the paying members of the expedition.Another said the expedition was run like a “boys own adventure” and expressed concern over what she believed was a lack of thorough briefing on safety procedures throughout the Antarctic leg of the expedition.Others I spoke to agreed that the expedition had its shortcomings in the logistics department.However, Terry Gostlow, a resident of Adelaide, said he wanted to praise expedition leader Chris Turney for mounting a privately funded Antarctic scientific expedition of which members of the public could be part and in which they could actively contribute as scientific assistants, if they chose.
Turney, now returned to Australia, appeared last night on the ABC. He isn’t a great television performer.
ORDER GIVEN
Tim Blair – Thursday, January 23, 2014 (4:13am)
ABC games nerd Daniel Golding demands:
Australia’s refugee policies should be compared, regularly and specifically, to Nazism and the Holocaust.
If you say so, Daniel.
BIGGEST MYSTERY
Tim Blair – Thursday, January 23, 2014 (3:42am)
She’s probably never lit a cigarette in her life, so why does fitness queen Michelle Bridges sound like a chain smoker?
FINAL SOLUTION LOOMS
Tim Blair – Thursday, January 23, 2014 (3:37am)
Guardian readers previously applied their collective intelligence to allegations that the Australian Navy fired at asylum seeker vessels. Now these experts consider claims of torture:
• My gut instinct is that the rhetoric of “illegal arrivals” is now being taken one step further. Logic says that it might be more effective if the navy were to apply a “Final Solution” to these “problem people” and be done with it. That’s where this is heading. Very scary.• Unacceptable injury caused by the navy. Don’t care what excuses the Navy and govt comes up with. Completely unacceptable.• the hate campaign to dehumanise asylum seekers has worked.• Probably just a coincidence that the government recently absolved all navy personnel of any responsibility for harm caused to asylum seekers in these operations.• What the Australian government is doing is unbelievably wrong in so many ways. Time to stop the madness, not the boats.• redneck navy plus the recent facebook posts, proof that they are encouraged to act this way• Australian officials often carry out cruel illegal acts especially when they are stressed.• War time operations have been invoked against unarmed vulnerable women, children and men.• As if shooting at women and children in the high seas and incarcerating them in disused phosphate mines without proper facilities are not enough.• When it comes to Scott Morrison, nothing would surprise me, the gutless wonder is a compulsive liar and bloody evil.• Mocking a burns patient for political gain is a ruthless and desperate act.• We grow closer to war with Indonesia every day this government is in power.• Often asylum seekers - in the stress of their condition and further stress of being forcibly expelled from countries - may not identify clearly, who perpetrators were. My theory is that they were indeed injured - likely by some special riot squad aboard the RAN boats.
And a brilliant suggestion:
• Time for the ABC to buy or hire a vessel … The vessel should be placed between Australia and Indonesia so there can be independent reporting of what is taking place.
Great idea. In fact, the vessel should be large enough to board at least 50 senior ABC presenters, who could float forever in this Guardian reader’s imagined single-lane ocean road between Indonesia and Australia.
LIQUID LAND
Tim Blair – Thursday, January 23, 2014 (3:06am)
This is an actual headline from Time, perceived by the left as a “small-c conservative mag”:
Readers, who are apparently now in a fluid state, are invited to describe their lives in our newly-liquefied nation.
Readers, who are apparently now in a fluid state, are invited to describe their lives in our newly-liquefied nation.
TOTAL FRACKING IDIOTS
Tim Blair – Thursday, January 23, 2014 (2:57am)
British anti-fracking protesters glue themselves to petrol pumps. At the wrong petrol station.
UNSINKABLE URSUS
Tim Blair – Thursday, January 23, 2014 (2:53am)
Ursus Bogus, the world’s favourite photoshopped poley bear, reappears at the Conversation:
Good old Bogus. He does get around.
Good old Bogus. He does get around.
(Via MiltonG)
SOMEBODY CALL THE ABC
Tim Blair – Wednesday, January 22, 2014 (10:03pm)
The ABC’s selective ear
Andrew Bolt January 23 2014 (4:16pm)
The ABC recently claimed it never reported mere allegations on matters of public importance- which it defined in this case as the involvement of Prime Minister Julia Gillard in the creation of a slush fund for her then boyfriend:
For instance, here’s part of one ABC letter to a viewer:
Now let’s contrast.
This week the ABC has had not the slightest hesitation in reporting - at great length and with great vehemence - improbable allegations that our navy tortured boat people:
===For instance, here’s part of one ABC letter to a viewer:
Reporting that the prime minister of the nation is under police investigation is an enormously significant call to make. It cannot be made on supposition, on rumour, or on hearsay…Here’s another:
According to The Australian they’ve been collecting files but you would expect any police investigation to gather up this sort of primary documentation. That does not mean Ms Gillard is under investigation. For all we know, the investigation could be into Ralph Blewitt, or Bruce Wilson or Slater & Gordon or any number of other individuals and entities.
The ABC is aware of these statements but we do not at this stage believe it warrants the attention of our news coverage. To the extent that it may touch tangentially on a former role of the Prime Minister, we know The Australian newspaper maintains an abiding interest in events 17 years ago at the law firm Slater & Gordon, but the ABC is unaware of any allegation in the public domain which goes to the Prime Minister’s integrity.Had the ABC made some calls it would have found out that the police investigation does indeed include in its scope the activities of Gillard, who insists she did nothing wrong.
Now let’s contrast.
This week the ABC has had not the slightest hesitation in reporting - at great length and with great vehemence - improbable allegations that our navy tortured boat people:
Yesterday, [the ABC] reported unproven claims that Australian navy personnel mistreated asylum-seekers by forcing them to grasp a hot engine in a boat turnback operation, causing “severe” burns. An “exclusively” supplied video showed minor hand damage. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison categorically denied the claims and later reports suggest the burns occurred before the vessel was intercepted, possibly as the vessel was sabotaged. Our navy personnel have, after all, saved the lives of hundreds of asylum-seekers. ABC bulletins also ran strongly with strident criticism from New York-based Human Rights Watch, labelling Australia’s measures “abusive” and accusing the government of “demonising” asylum-seekers. The national broadcaster continues to provide uncritical amplification of this predictable venting, setting itself as the moral conscience of a nation with a brutal government and insensitive populace.
Reading Kipling
Andrew Bolt January 23 2014 (2:00pm)
I’m reading with huge enjoyment Rudyard Kipling’s Something of Myself, a memoir he left incomplete when he died. (The final words on the last. unfinished page, describing his office: “Left and right of the table were two big globes, on one of which a great airman had once outlined in white paint those air-routes to the East and Australia which were well in use before my death.")
As a teenaged journalist Kipling worked in British India, a land he’d been born in and loved. He knew soldiers and shopkeepers, Christians, Hindus and Muslims, and he knew what it took to rule and the men on whom that duty fell. He knew because he was there and he saw:
I thought of today’s Leftists particularly - those furiously fighting for “compassionate” boat people policies that actually lured more than 1000 people to their deaths - when I read this excerpt:
===As a teenaged journalist Kipling worked in British India, a land he’d been born in and loved. He knew soldiers and shopkeepers, Christians, Hindus and Muslims, and he knew what it took to rule and the men on whom that duty fell. He knew because he was there and he saw:
Later I described openings of big bridges and such-like, which meant a night or two with the engineers; floods on railways — more nights in the wet with wretched heads of repair gangs; village festivals and consequent outbreaks of cholera or small-pox; communal riots under the shadow of the Mosque of Wazir Khan, where the patient waiting troops lay in timber-yards or side-alleys till the order came to go in and hit the crowds on the feet with the gun-butt (killing in Civil Administration was then reckoned confession of failure), and the growling, flaring, creed-drunk city would be brought to hand without effusion of blood, or the appearance of any agitated Viceroy...He saw from those early years how power worked, and how it seduced weak men from their even weaker principles:
One evening, while putting the paper to bed, I looked as usual over the [newpaper’s] leader. It was the sort of false-balanced, semi-judicial stuff that some English journals wrote about the Indian White Paper from 1932 to ‘34, and like them it furnished a barely disguised exposition of the Government’s high ideals. In after-life one got to know that touch better, but it astonished me at the time, and I asked my Chief what it all meant. He replied, as I should have done in his place; ‘None of your dam’ business,’ and, being married, went to his home. I repaired to the Club which, remember, was the whole of my outside world.Kipling was, of course, a conservative, like so many of the greatest writers. He knew the difference - moral and practical - between a man’s intentions and a man’s achievements, between a plan and its consequences, between a seeming and a doing. And in that difference he took the side of responsibility. A man owned his deeds.
As I entered the long, shabby dining-room where we all sat at one table, everyone hissed. I was innocent enough to ask; ‘What’s the joke? Who are they hissing?’ ‘You,’ said the man at my side. ‘Your dam’ rag has ratted over the Bill.’
It is not pleasant to sit still when one is twenty while all your universe hisses you. Then uprose a Captain, our Adjutant of Volunteers, and said: ‘Stop that! The boy’s only doing what he’s paid to do.’ The demonstration tailed off, but I had seen a great light. The Adjutant was entirely correct. I was a hireling, paid to do what I was paid to do, and—I did not relish the idea. Someone said kindly; ‘You damned young ass! Don’t you know that your paper has the Government printing-contract?’ I did know it, but I had never before put two and two together. A few months later one of my two chief proprietors received the decoration that made him a Knight. Then I began to take much interest in certain smooth Civilians, who had seen good in the Government measure and had somehow been shifted out of the heat to billets in Simla. I followed under shrewd guidance, often native, the many pretty ways by which a Government can put veiled pressure on its employees in a land where every circumstance and relation of a man’s life is public property. So, when the great and epoch-making India Bill turned up fifty years later, I felt as one re-treading the tortuous byways of his youth. One recognised the very phrases and assurances of the old days still doing good work, and waited, as in a dream, for the very slightly altered formulas in which those who were parting with their convictions excused themselves. Thus; ‘I may act as a brake, you know. At any rate I’m keeping a more extreme man out of the game.’ ‘There’s no sense running counter to the inevitable,’—and all the other Devil-provided camouflage for the sinner-who-faces-both-ways.
I thought of today’s Leftists particularly - those furiously fighting for “compassionate” boat people policies that actually lured more than 1000 people to their deaths - when I read this excerpt:
Laughing at you, Ben. And the more you abuse, the more we know you know you’re losing
Andrew Bolt January 23 2014 (12:55pm)
Abuse is what you resort to when the facts are against you. After all, there is no surer way to embarrass your foe in a debate than by proving him wrong.
So let’s see how, Ben Cubby, deputy editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, responds to my argument that yesterday’s article on Professor’s Chris Turney’s Antarctic disaster, while damning of the expedition leader, curiously omitted several highly relevant facts.
Here is what I wrote in introducing a excerpt from the Herald piece:
So how does Cubby respond to my points - that the piece failed to note Turney was a professor of climate change backed by a centre of climate change on an expedition to track climate change when he got trapped by an absence of climate change? With facts and argument, or with abuse and misrepresentation?
We are winning the debate and warmists such as Cubby have nothing left but venom.
UPDATE
A lot of warmists are keen to distance themselves and the global warming movement from Turney’s embarrassing expedition.
Before Turney got stuck in the sea ice he claimed was melting around the globe there were no complaints from the Australian and New Zealand organisations his website listed as supporters:
UPDATE
The Kauri Museum is an official supporter? Why?
===So let’s see how, Ben Cubby, deputy editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, responds to my argument that yesterday’s article on Professor’s Chris Turney’s Antarctic disaster, while damning of the expedition leader, curiously omitted several highly relevant facts.
Here is what I wrote in introducing a excerpt from the Herald piece:
Sydney Morning Herald reporter Nicky Phillips is a warmist whose past reports on the Ship of Fools, which got stuck in Antarctic ice, failed to mention those on board had actually claimed to be studying global warming.I could have gone further, of course, and asked why the Sydney Morning Herald’s piece didn’t note the essential foolishness behind the expedition - how its leaders had falsely claimed global warming had melted sea ice around the world only to get stuck in sea ice on a continent with more of it than usual. But I was very reasonable.
Today she and co-reporter Colin Cosier play the same trick again.
They have written a long report essentially blaming expedition leader Chris Turney for the expensive disaster, but once again fail to note the people trapped in ice were warmists out to prove man was melting it.
Phillips and Cosier fail to even report Turney’s academic title – Professor of Climate Change – or that he is an adjunct at the University of New South Wales’Climate Change Research Centre. What makes this omission even stranger is that the Climate Change Research Centre, home of prominent climate alarmists such as professors Andy Pitman, Matthew England and Steve Sherwood, is listed as an official supporter of the expedition.
Get the impression that warmists are trying to distance themselves from this propaganda disaster, that has had sceptics around the world laughing?
I’ve already noted that sceptic Steve McIntyre has identified December 23 as the day when the expedition’s biggest blunders were made.Phillips and Cosier, who were on the Aurora Australis which picked up Turney’s team nearly three weeks ago, now add more damning detail on that day – detail that tends to make Turney the fall-guy.
So how does Cubby respond to my points - that the piece failed to note Turney was a professor of climate change backed by a centre of climate change on an expedition to track climate change when he got trapped by an absence of climate change? With facts and argument, or with abuse and misrepresentation?
Sceptics talk facts, warmists just rage.
We are winning the debate and warmists such as Cubby have nothing left but venom.
UPDATE
A lot of warmists are keen to distance themselves and the global warming movement from Turney’s embarrassing expedition.
Before Turney got stuck in the sea ice he claimed was melting around the globe there were no complaints from the Australian and New Zealand organisations his website listed as supporters:
Nor were there complaints from the organisations Turney thanked for their support or “official stamp of approval”:
But now that Turney is the laughing stock of sceptics… Well, first there was this:
Tony Fleming, director of the Australian Antarctic Division tells Louise Maher the AAD wasn’t linked to the Australasian Antarctic Expedition despite an implication by the expedition head that he had an “official stamp of approval”.Now this:
Is Turney’s research into global warming conducted with any closer eye to detail?
UPDATE
The Kauri Museum is an official supporter? Why?
The return of the sceptic
Andrew Bolt January 23 2014 (11:51am)
Just six years ago the ABC’s Chaser team featured a map in their stage show indicating the whereabouts of the last sceptic in Australia. The single pink dot was placed right over my office.
That was just at the height of the warming madness, where few dared to express doubt and those who did were simply blanked from news coverage as blasphemers or random crazies.
But note, especially after 16 years of the planet failing to further warm as predicted, how scepticism has slowly gone mainstream. Respectable. A sign of independent thought.
Today two more examples. First this, from Don Aitkin, former vice chancellor of the University of Canberra, responding to a critic of sceptic Maurice Newman, the former ABC chairman:
===That was just at the height of the warming madness, where few dared to express doubt and those who did were simply blanked from news coverage as blasphemers or random crazies.
But note, especially after 16 years of the planet failing to further warm as predicted, how scepticism has slowly gone mainstream. Respectable. A sign of independent thought.
Today two more examples. First this, from Don Aitkin, former vice chancellor of the University of Canberra, responding to a critic of sceptic Maurice Newman, the former ABC chairman:
Australia’s Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb ... is not a Nobel Prize winner, but he was an exceedingly able experimentalist, a vice-chancellor in two universities, a senior bureaucrat and someone who is most travelled in the corridors of power. I have known him for more than twenty-five years…Then there’s the Facebook site of federal Liberal MP Craig Kelly:
The title of his op-ed is ’Surely CO2 is a culprit‘, and while he shouldn’t be blamed for it (it is usually the sub-editor who chooses the title for your essay, and I can’t recall ever being asked if I agreed when I had put in my work) the title does embody the whole spirit of the AGW scare: that there is a crime, and we know who dunnit. Professor Chubb’s essay carries through that theme. It is a rhetorical exercise, built around questions for which he doesn’t supply any answers, but for which the right answer is assumed, and will be obvious to any reader of the right persuasion.
Take this one. “We have pumped two trillion tonnes of a greenhouse gas, CO2, into our atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, at a rate faster than ever before. Why should we presume that it would have no effect?” The right answer is that we shouldn’t presume, and that the effects have been bad ones. Evidence? Well, I’m not aware of any substantial body of evidence that the effects have been bad ones, and the jury is still out on whether or not there have been any discernible effects at all that can be distinguished from natural variability....
There are six of these rhetorical questions, the kind that are put to you in cocktail party discussions. They are all part of the ‘precautionary principle’ approach to ‘climate change’, and their point is to put you on the defensive. In fact, the AGW scare is a hypothesis, and those who support it need to be able to defend it. The rest of us have no need of an alternative theory, nor are we obliged to answer these rhetorical questions.
The level of this contribution is really disappointing, given Professor Chubb’s undoubted intellect. Some of us, he says, aren’t worried that the planet’s temperature has gone up ‘by just a few tenths (0.9C) of a degree. I wonder if they’d be as sanguine if their core body temperature increased by the same few tenths of a degree’. How on earth is that comparison relevant? What if he’d made the same point about an increase in temperature in my house or my car? ...
What is really interesting is a passage towards the end, where he suggests that the ‘climate change’ debate should be ‘a healthy and constructive discussion based on all the empirical evidence, not bits of it…’ I and many others have been asking for that sort of discussion for years, and we might ask the Chief Scientist why he hasn’t initiated such a debate much earlier in his term. And why indeed is he talking that way now? My guess is that he can sense the shift in the winds. No one much is talking about ‘settled science’ any more in this field. The climate models have simply failed to predict the lack of significant warming despite the continual increase in CO2, and there is no obvious reason why the warming should resume its former trajectory.
What 7.30 forgot to add that makes the Ship of Fools such a joke
Andrew Bolt January 23 2014 (9:20am)
The ABC finally deals with the irony of the Ship of Fools being trapped by sea ice that the warmists on board claimed was actually meting away:
Fact: Total sea ice around the globe has expanded recently to above average levels:
The ABC failed in its report to note there has been no warming of the planet’s atmosphere in 16 years and sea ice around the world has expanded, not shrunk. These are the key points that make the Ship of Fools saga such an iconic story of global warming hysteria.
And of the media’s complicity.
===MATT PEACOCK: And, if Antarctic ice is really melting faster because of climate change, why then was there more sea ice in the bay where the ship became stuck?This is disingenuous and misleading, to put it mildly. It fits the self-serving narrative put out by expedition leader Chris Turney that global warming is melting sea ice everywhere except - unfortunately - just the bit of sea he was sailing in:
TONY FLEMING: A huge iceberg has grounded in Commonwealth Bay region and the Mertz Glacier Tongue has been knocked off by that iceberg and that led to a buildup of sea ice over many years, so there were specific conditions in the Commonwealth Bay region that aren’t related to climate change.
”Sea ice is disappearing due to climate change, but here ice is building up,” the Australasian Antarctic Expedition said in a statement.Here is what 7.30 last night failed to note in covering for the warming cause or giving Turney his chance to ramble and dissemble.
Fact: Total sea ice around the globe has expanded recently to above average levels:
Fact: Antarctic sea ice has increased in far more areas than around Commonwealth Bay (red dot):
Fact: The ice that trapped the Ship of Fools was not in Commonwealth Bay, trapped by an iceberg, but on the other side of the Mertz glacier:
The leader of the expedition, Chris Turney (also a secondary Climategate correspondent and co-signer of Lewandowsky’s multisignatory letter in the Conversation), claimed that the incident could not have been predicted. He said that they were trapped by a sudden “breakout” of multi-year ice ("fast ice") that had previously been part of the ice shelf and that there was no way that they could have anticipated this. Turney’s claim has been uncritically accepted by the climate community e.g. Turner of the British Antarctica Survey here.The ABC’s report was again misleading, even peddling global warming scares while reporting on this disastrous expedition of global warming scientists.
However, like other recent claims by Turney, this claim is bogus. In fact, Turney was trapped by sea ice that had been mobile throughout December 2013.... As discussed above, it seems beyond dispute that Turney was pinned by pack ice that was unstably perched to the northeast of Mertz Glacier and not by a sudden break of more or less ‘permanent’ shelf ice; that this “peninsula” of pack ice was highly exposed to the easterly gale that had already developed; and that heavy blowing of this (and other mobile ice) onto the southwest shore of the Mertz Glacier polynya was not only a possibility, but a probability, if not, near certainty.
The ABC failed in its report to note there has been no warming of the planet’s atmosphere in 16 years and sea ice around the world has expanded, not shrunk. These are the key points that make the Ship of Fools saga such an iconic story of global warming hysteria.
And of the media’s complicity.
Green power wilts in the heat
Andrew Bolt January 23 2014 (8:37am)
Alan Moran on the failure of green power in last week’s heatwave:
About zero.
How insanely irrational our political class has become.
===AEMO data shows that during heat wave conditions in the five days to 18 January this year, wind actually contributed 3 per cent of electricity supply across the Australian National Electricity Market. Nobody knows the contribution of roof top solar but it could not conceivably have been more than one per cent.And the difference that all this expensive and unreliable green power has made to global warming?
Overall, wind facilities amount to 3,300 megawatts of capacity, somewhat less than the Loy Yang brown coal power stations in Victoria or Macquarie Generation’s black coal facilities in the Hunter Valley. Windmills produced at an average of 23 per cent of their capacity during the January heat wave. This was below their year-long average of about 30 per cent because the hot spell, as is often the case, was characterised by still air…
The below par performance of windmills in high demand periods means they not only require a subsidy but are also less valuable than other plant because their availability is reduced when they are most needed and when the price is highest… Indeed, during the recent heat wave, wind power earned an average of $123 per megawatt hour in Victoria and $182 in South Australia while the average price was respectively $209 and $285 in the two states.
Investments in wind and other subsidised electricity generation, according to the renewable energy lobby group the Clean Energy Council, has been $18.5 billion. By contrast, the market value of comparable generating capacity in Macquarie Generation coal plants is said to be only $2 billion and a brand new brown coal plant of 3,300 megawatt capacity would cost less than $10 billion. Wind aficionados claim that such costings do not take into account that wind is free whereas fossil fuel plants have to pay for their energy. But that is also untrue. Wind plant maintenance is about $12 per megawatt hour which is more than the fuel plus maintenance costs of a Victorian brown coal power station.
About zero.
How insanely irrational our political class has become.
The depraved imagination of the Left
Andrew Bolt January 23 2014 (7:24am)
Many on the Left just want to believe our armed forces tortures and shoots directly at boat people, on the orders of evil Liberal politicians. So lurid is their fantasy that the ABC’s Daniel Golding can now barely distinguish between a democracy that safely stops boat people from coming - and drowning - and a totalitarian dictatorship which deliberately murders 6 million Jews:
Here are some counterfactuals for her - real facts to set against her imaginings of sailors tormented by the cruelties they must inflict on boat people under the orders of this heartless government.
It is the morality of the chronic self-pleasurer. Of the child.
===Australia’s refugee policies should be compared, regularly and specifically, to Nazism and the Holocaust.This vivid imagining by our Don Quixotes of the Left goes right to the top of the institutions they have captured. Here is Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs yesterday after the ABC showed her video of an asylum seeker with a burned hand who blamed our sailors for allegedly forcing him to hold a red-hot exhaust on his boat as punishment:
GILLIAN TRIGGS: Well, I have seen the very graphic pictures that you’ve produced, and they look horrific. We need to know the facts, I’m sure you and all your listeners would agree with that. We don’t know what the facts are, but at the moment things are looking very worrying. But at the same time I think we have to acknowledge that the Navy officials are very well trained, this is not the job they signed up for, they themselves are being traumatized by the ways in which they’re being required to treat people, so I frankly think we need objective, clear evidence.Triggs tries hard to seem a searcher for “objective, clear evidence”, yet:
- she fails to note the Navy’s denial of the claims or the objective implausibility of our sailors torturing boat people in front of witnesses, including their own colleagues, with their captain and officers in an escorting ship.Triggs’ imagination is running riot here.
- she falsely claims protecting our maritime borders from intrusion “is not the job [our Navy personnel] signed up for”.
- she claims without evidence that under the current policies sailors “themselves are being traumatized by the ways in which they’re being required to treat people”.
- she implies that the way our sailors are “being required to treat people” is indeed brutal.
Here are some counterfactuals for her - real facts to set against her imaginings of sailors tormented by the cruelties they must inflict on boat people under the orders of this heartless government.
- under Labor, more than a thousand boat people were lured to their deaths, and for a long time the Left simply looked away. Asked if her party took responsibility for these deaths, a consequence of the Left’s scrapping of our tough border laws in 2008. Greens child-Senator Sarah Hanson-Young airly declined: ”Accidents happen.” When I demanded Labor take responsibility for the dying, Greens leader Bob Brown demanded my resignation.The quality of thought of the Left has deteriorated grotesquely. Imagining has replaced analysis. Fantasy is preferred over fact. Policies which kill boat people are preferred over ones which stop them. How the Left feels is judged to be of far more significance than what it actually achieves.
- this catastrophic failure to stop the boats and the drownings is what actually angered and potentially traumatised our sailors. As the Australian last year reported:
NAVY insiders say there is “a growing and burning anger” among sailors on the frontline as they struggle to respond to the spiralling number of deaths and sinkings flowing from the government’s failed asylum-seeker policies…- what navy personnel didn’t sign up for was to run a taxi service for boat people, regularly picking them up within 100km from the Indonesian coast and bringing them to Australia.
A senior source inside the navy’s Armidale-class patrol boat fleet told The Australian yesterday Defence would face a steep spike in the number of post-traumatic stress disorders as young sailors bore witness to desperate people drowning in front of them.
“Just try to picture pulling body parts out of the ocean, because that’s what happens to bodies in the water for a few days, they pull apart at the seams,” said the patrol boat insider, who asked not to be named for fear of losing their job..
The Australian spoke yesterday to navy insiders and navy psychologists who painted a grim picture of flagging morale and anger among crew members involved in Operation Resolute, the joint Customs/navy operation tasked with intercepting asylum-seeker boats.
“There is a growing and burning anger among many of them about the position they have been placed in,” said one insider, who has spoken to crew members involved in recent interceptions of asylum-seeker boats.“They have seen bodies out there, they have seen women and children in terrible situations, they can’t come away from this without some emotional distress.”
It is the morality of the chronic self-pleasurer. Of the child.
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"The first step to getting something in life is that you not stay in the place you stand this moment"===
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“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” - Matthew 7:7-8
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
January 22: Morning
"Son of man, What is the vine tree more than any tree, or than a branch which is among the trees of the forest?" - Ezekiel 15:2
These words are for the humbling of God's people; they are called God's vine, but what are they by nature more than others? They, by God's goodness, have become fruitful, having been planted in a good soil; the Lord hath trained them upon the walls of the sanctuary, and they bring forth fruit to his glory; but what are they without their God? What are they without the continual influence of the Spirit, begetting fruitfulness in them? O believer, learn to reject pride, seeing that thou hast no ground for it. Whatever thou art, thou hast nothing to make thee proud. The more thou hast, the more thou art in debt to God; and thou shouldst not be proud of that which renders thee a debtor. Consider thine origin; look back to what thou wast. Consider what thou wouldst have been but for divine grace. Look upon thyself as thou art now. Doth not thy conscience reproach thee? Do not thy thousand wanderings stand before thee, and tell thee that thou art unworthy to be called his son? And if he hath made thee anything, art thou not taught thereby that it is grace which hath made thee to differ? Great believer, thou wouldst have been a great sinner if God had not made thee to differ. O thou who art valiant for truth, thou wouldst have been as valiant for error if grace had not laid hold upon thee. Therefore, be not proud, though thou hast a large estate--a wide domain of grace, thou hadst not once a single thing to call thine own except thy sin and misery. Oh! strange infatuation, that thou, who hast borrowed everything, shouldst think of exalting thyself; a poor dependent pensioner upon the bounty of thy Saviour, one who hath a life which dies without fresh streams of life from Jesus, and yet proud! Fie on thee, O silly heart!
Evening
"Doth Job fear God for nought?" - Job 1:9
This was the wicked question of Satan concerning that upright man of old, but there are many in the present day concerning whom it might be asked with justice, for they love God after a fashion because he prospers them; but if things went ill with them, they would give up all their boasted faith in God. If they can clearly see that since the time of their supposed conversion the world has gone prosperously with them, then they will love God in their poor carnal way; but if they endure adversity, they rebel against the Lord. Their love is the love of the table, not of the host; a love to the cupboard, not to the master of the house. As for the true Christian, he expects to have his reward in the next life, and to endure hardness in this. The promise of the old covenant was prosperity, but the promise of the new covenant is adversity. Remember Christ's words--"Every branch in me that beareth not fruit"--What? "He purgeth it, that it may bring forth fruit." If you bring forth fruit, you will have to endure affliction. "Alas!" you say, "that is a terrible prospect." But this affliction works out such precious results, that the Christian who is the subject of it must learn to rejoice in tribulations, because as his tribulations abound, so his consolations abound by Christ Jesus. Rest assured, if you are a child of God, you will be no stranger to the rod. Sooner or later every bar of gold must pass through the fire. Fear not, but rather rejoice that such fruitful times are in store for you, for in them you will be weaned from earth and made meet for heaven; you will be delivered from clinging to the present, and made to long for those eternal things which are so soon to be revealed to you. When you feel that as regards the present you do serve God for nought, you will then rejoice in the infinite reward of the future.
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Today's reading: Exodus 4-6, Matthew 14:22-36 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Exodus 4-6
Signs for Moses
1 Moses answered, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The LORD did not appear to you'?"
2 Then the LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?"
"A staff," he replied.
3 The LORD said, "Throw it on the ground."
Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. 4 Then the LORD said to him, "Reach out your hand and take it by the tail." So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. 5 "This," said the LORD, "is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob--has appeared to you...."
Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 14:22-36
Jesus Walks on the Water
22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.
27 But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."
28 "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."
29 "Come," he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
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