Mr Abbott spoke well and strongly to the Canberra Press Gallery at their luncheon, today. But tellingly, what he said is no different to what he has said. Media had presented the speech as do or die, but the reality is that Mr Abbott is not under threat, has not done poorly, has been responsible, but has been cut by partisan media knives over .. nothing. One of the 'nothing' issues has been the knighthood of Prince Phillip which no one disputes is due to Prince Philip on just one of his philanthropic projects, "The Duke of Edinburgh Awards" which has been developing Australian Youth for some sixty years. Another 'nothing' issue is the family leave payments Mr Abbott has shelved. Such an award as maternity leave is a conservative issue, and naturally the ALP don't want it. Under Howard the great nation of Australia could give money to people to buy houses and to have babies .. and still there were budget surpluses. ALP grossly mis spent the budget in government and made record deficits even after dropping both the housing and the baby bonus. People should be mad at the ALP for dumping something that provides for strong families and a healthy Australia. But that would mess with the partisan media narrative. Mr Abbott, having survived this shadow boxing match will be much stronger as a result of this encounter.
Queensland election is not yet certain. It is possible for the LNP to form a minority government, and possible for the ALP to form a minority government. ALP will find it easier as they have more seats. Tellingly it will be minor parties who make the decision. One might be Pauline Hanson. Another is the Katter Australia Party. While both will have responsibility, neither can be said to be responsible. Poor Queensland will have to suffer because of bad media journalism. Today it was announced Greste would be freed from Egypt. Many kudos are due to Mr Abbott. It is doubtful the media will acknowledge that.
Queensland election is not yet certain. It is possible for the LNP to form a minority government, and possible for the ALP to form a minority government. ALP will find it easier as they have more seats. Tellingly it will be minor parties who make the decision. One might be Pauline Hanson. Another is the Katter Australia Party. While both will have responsibility, neither can be said to be responsible. Poor Queensland will have to suffer because of bad media journalism. Today it was announced Greste would be freed from Egypt. Many kudos are due to Mr Abbott. It is doubtful the media will acknowledge that.
2014
The Tet offensive was a desperate coordinated attack on South Vietnam by North Vietnamese forces with Chinese expertise. Chinese generals advocated large strikes with land armies, Mao Zedong had advocated guerrilla warfare. A two day cease fire had been agreed to. As part of the guerrilla war, Lem was to find South Vietnamese police officers and their families and kill them. It is alleged he was successful. He was captured and interrogated before the famous scene with General Loan.
The picture and video was used by the peace movement to justify their anti war stance, without compassion for the victims of those they supported.
Daniel Pearl was a journalist for the Wall Street Journal. He was tracking leads from shoe bomber Richard Reid to Pakistan. He had Jewish ancestry and was Jewish. In Pakistan, he was captured by terrorists who made him read a card before beheading him and showing the film to the press. The card Daniel read had to do with his Jewish heritage, but the threat given by the terrorists was to all foreign journalists entering Pakistan. Pearl was not a spy. He was not a 'target.' He was a victim of terror. Much has been made of his heritage, but if he had been an Islamic rapist in Sydney, nothing would be made of his heritage.
There are myriad ways that the international press legitimise terror by not labelling it correctly. Daniel Pearl was an innocent victim of terror. Lem was a terrorist who was summarily executed. Same day, across the years, and the press collectively fail to report the facts.
Historical perspectives on this day
In 506, Alaric II, eighth king of the Visigoths promulgated the Breviary of Alaric (Breviarium Alaricianumor Lex Romana Visigothorum), a collection of "Roman law". 962, Translatio imperii: Pope John XII crowned Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, the first Holy Roman Emperor in nearly 40 years. 1032, Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor became King of Burgundy. 1141, the Battle of Lincoln, at which King Stephen was defeated and captured by the allies of Empress Matilda, presented her with the unfulfilled opportunity to become the first queen of medieval England. 1207, Terra Mariana, comprising present-day Estonia and Latvia, was established. 1461, Wars of the Roses: The Battle of Mortimer's Cross was fought in Herefordshire, England.In 1536, Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza founded Buenos Aires, Argentina. 1542, Portuguese forces under Cristovão da Gama captured a Muslim-occupied hill fort in northern Ethiopia in the Battle of Baçente. 1653, New Amsterdam (later renamed The City of New York) was incorporated. 1709, Alexander Selkirk was rescued after being shipwrecked on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. 1848, Mexican–American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. Also 1848, California Gold Rush: The first ship with Chinese immigrants arrived in San Francisco. 1868, Pro-Imperial forces captured Osaka Castle from the Tokugawa shogunate and burned it to the ground. 1876, the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball was formed. 1887, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day was observed. 1899, the Australian Premiers' Conference held in Melbourne decided to locate Australia's capital city, Canberra, between Sydney and Melbourne.
In 1901, funeral of Queen Victoria. 1913, Grand Central Terminal was opened in New York City. 1914, Charlie Chaplin's first film appearance, Making a Living premiered. 1920, the Tartu Peace Treaty was signed between Estonia and Russia. Also 1920, France occupied Memel. 1922, Ulysses by James Joyce was published. 1925, Serum run to Nome: Dog sleds reached Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod race. 1933, working as maids, the sisters Christine and Léa Papin murdered their employer's wife and daughter in Le Mans, France. The case was the subject of a number of French films and plays. 1934, the Export-Import Bank of the United States was incorporated. 1935, Leonarde Keeler tested the first polygraph machine. 1943, World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad came to conclusion as Soviet troops accepted the surrender of 91,000 remnants of the Axis forces. 1957, Iskander Mirza of Pakistan laid the foundation-stone of the Guddu Barrage. 1959, Dyatlov Pass incident 1966, Pakistan suggested a six-point agenda with Kashmir after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965.
In 1971, Idi Amin replaced President Milton Obote as leader of Uganda. Also 1971, the international Ramsar Convention for the conservation and sustainable utilisation of wetlands was signed in Ramsar, Mazandaran, Iran. 1972, the British embassy in Dublin was destroyed in protest at Bloody Sunday. 1976, the Groundhog Day gale hit the north-eastern United States and south-eastern Canada. 1980, reports surface that the FBI was targeting allegedly corrupt Congressmen in the Abscam operation. 1982, 1982 Hama Massacre: the government of Syria attacked the town of Hama. 1987, after the 1986 People Power Revolution, the Philippines enacted a new constitution. 1988, Auntie Anne's was founded by Anne F. Beiler in Lancaster, Pennsylvania 1989, Soviet war in Afghanistan: The last Soviet armoured column left Kabul. 1990, Apartheid: F. W. de Klerk announced the unbanning of the African National Congress and promised to release Nelson Mandela. 2000, first digital cinema projection in Europe (Paris) realised by Philippe Binant with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by Texas Instruments. 2004, Swiss tennis player Roger Federer became the No. 1 ranked men's singles player, a position he would hold for a record 237 weeks. 2007, the worst flooding in Indonesia in 300 years begins.
===
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.
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August https://www.createspace.com/4124406, October https://www.createspace.com/5106951, 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.
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.
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August https://www.createspace.com/4124406, October https://www.createspace.com/5106951, 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.
===
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.
I have begun a bulletin board (http://theconservativevoice.freeforums.net) which will allow greater latitude for members to post and interact. It is not subject to FB policy and so greater range is allowed in posts. Also there are private members rooms in which nothing is censored, except abuse. All welcome, registration is free.
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 Harry Lime and Daniel Ung. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
- 1208 – James I of Aragon (d. 1276)
- 1457 – Peter Martyr d'Anghiera (d. 1526)
- 1494 – Bona Sforza, Italian wife of Sigismund I the Old (d. 1557)
- 1522 – Lodovico Ferrari, Italian mathematician (d. 1565)
- 1600 – Gabriel Naudé, French librarian and scholar (d. 1653)
- 1829 – William Stanley, English inventor and engineer (d. 1909)
- 1861 – Solomon R. Guggenheim, American businessman and philanthropist, founded the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (d. 1949)
- 1882 – James Joyce, Irish writer (d. 1941)
- 1887 – Pat Sullivan, Australian-American animator and producer (d. 1933)
- 1905 – Ayn Rand, Russian-American author and philosopher (d. 1982)
- 1933 – Orlando "Cachaito" López, Cuban bassist (Buena Vista Social Club) (d. 2009)
- 1942 – Graham Nash, English-American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Hollies, Crosby & Nash, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
- 1947 – Farrah Fawcett, American actress (d. 2009)
- 1948 – Al McKay, American guitarist, songwriter, and producer (Earth, Wind & Fire)
- 1963 – Eva Cassidy, American singer and guitarist (d. 1996)
- 1977 – Shakira, Colombian singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
- 1995 – Arfa Karim, Pakistani student and computer programmer (d. 2012)
February 2: Groundhog Day in Canada and the United States
- 962 – Pope John XII crowned Otto the Great as Holy Roman Emperor, the first in nearly 40 years.
- 1536 – An expedition to the New World led by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Mendoza founded what is now Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 1848 – The Mexican–American War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gave 1.36 million square kilometres (530,000 sq mi) of Mexican territory known as the Mexican Cession to the United States in exchange for US$15 million.
- 1943 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army captured 91,000 tired and starving German soldiers, ending the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the bloodiest battles in human history.
- 1990 – President F. W. de Klerk (pictured) declared the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Matches
- 506 – Alaric II, eighth king of the Visigoths promulgates the Breviary of Alaric (Breviarium Alaricianumor Lex Romana Visigothorum), a collection of "Roman law".
- 962 – Translatio imperii: Pope John XII crowns Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, the first Holy Roman Emperor in nearly 40 years.
- 1032 – Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor becomes King of Burgundy.
- 1141 – The Battle of Lincoln, at which King Stephen was defeated and captured by the allies of Empress Matilda, presenting her with the unfulfilled opportunity to become the first queen of medieval England.
- 1207 – Terra Mariana, comprising present-day Estonia and Latvia, is established.
- 1461 – Wars of the Roses: The Battle of Mortimer's Cross is fought in Herefordshire, England.
- 1536 – Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 1542 – Portuguese forces under Cristovão da Gama capture a Muslim-occupied hill fort in northern Ethiopia in the Battle of Baçente.
- 1653 – New Amsterdam (later renamed The City of New York) is incorporated.
- 1709 – Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being shipwrecked on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
- 1848 – Mexican–American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed.
- 1848 – California Gold Rush: The first ship with Chinese immigrants arrives in San Francisco.
- 1868 – Pro-Imperial forces captured Osaka Castle from the Tokugawa shogunate and burned it to the ground.
- 1876 – The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball is formed.
- 1887 – In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day is observed.
- 1899 – The Australian Premiers' Conference held in Melbourne decides to locate Australia's capital city, Canberra, between Sydney and Melbourne.
- 1901 – Funeral of Queen Victoria.
- 1913 – Grand Central Terminal is opened in New York City.
- 1914 – Charlie Chaplin's first film appearance, Making a Living premiered.
- 1920 – The Tartu Peace Treaty is signed between Estonia and Russia.
- 1920 – France occupies Memel.
- 1922 – Ulysses by James Joyce is published.
- 1925 – Serum run to Nome: Dog sleds reach Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod race.
- 1933 – Working as maids, the sisters Christine and Léa Papin murder their employer's wife and daughter in Le Mans, France. The case is the subject of a number of French films and plays.
- 1934 – The Export-Import Bank of the United States is incorporated.
- 1935 – Leonarde Keeler tests the first polygraph machine.
- 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad comes to conclusion as Soviet troops accept the surrender of 91,000 remnants of the Axis forces.
- 1957 – Iskander Mirza of Pakistan lays the foundation-stone of the Guddu Barrage.
- 1959 – Dyatlov Pass incident
- 1966 – Pakistan suggests a six-point agenda with Kashmir after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965.
- 1971 – Idi Amin replaces President Milton Obote as leader of Uganda.
- 1971 – The international Ramsar Convention for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands is signed in Ramsar, Mazandaran, Iran.
- 1972 – The British embassy in Dublin is destroyed in protest at Bloody Sunday.
- 1976 – The Groundhog Day gale hits the north-eastern United States and south-eastern Canada.
- 1980 – Reports surface that the FBI is targeting allegedly corrupt Congressmen in the Abscam operation.
- 1982 – 1982 Hama Massacre: the government of Syria attacks the town of Hama.
- 1987 – After the 1986 People Power Revolution, the Philippines enacts a new constitution.
- 1988 – Auntie Anne's is founded by Anne F. Beiler in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
- 1989 – Soviet war in Afghanistan: The last Soviet armoured column leaves Kabul.
- 1990 – Apartheid: F. W. de Klerk announces the unbanning of the African National Congress and promises to release Nelson Mandela.
- 2000 – First digital cinema projection in Europe (Paris) realized by Philippe Binant with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by Texas Instruments.
- 2004 – Swiss tennis player Roger Federer becomes the No. 1 ranked men's singles player, a position he will hold for a record 237 weeks.
- 2007 – The worst flooding in Indonesia in 300 years begins.
Hatches
- 1208 – James I of Aragon (d. 1276)
- 1455 – John, King of Denmark (d. 1513)
- 1457 – Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, Italian-Spanish historian (d. 1526)
- 1494 – Bona Sforza, Italian wife of Sigismund I the Old (d. 1557)
- 1502 – Damião de Góis, Portuguese philosopher (d. 1574)
- 1506 – René de Birague, Italian-French cardinal and politician (d. 1583)
- 1522 – Lodovico Ferrari, Italian mathematician (d. 1565)
- 1600 – Gabriel Naudé, French librarian and scholar (d. 1653)
- 1613 – Noël Chabanel, French missionary (d. 1649)
- 1621 – Johannes Schefferus, Swedish author (d. 1679)
- 1650 – Pope Benedict XIII (d. 1730)
- 1650 – Nell Gwyn, English actress (d. 1687)
- 1669 – Louis Marchand, French organist and composer (d. 1732)
- 1677 – Jean-Baptiste Morin, French composer (d. 1745)
- 1695 – William Borlase, English geologist (d. 1772)
- 1695 – François de Chevert, French general (d. 1769)
- 1700 – Johann Christoph Gottsched, German author and critic (d. 1766)
- 1711 – Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg (d. 1794)
- 1714 – Gottfried August Homilius, German organist and composer (d. 1785)
- 1717 – Ernst Gideon von Laudon, Austrian field marshal (d. 1790)
- 1754 – Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, French politician, Prime Minister of France (d. 1838)
- 1782 – Henri de Rigny, French admiral and politician (d. 1835)
- 1786 – Jacques Philippe Marie Binet, French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (d. 1856)
- 1802 – Jean-Baptiste Boussingault, French chemist (d. 1887)
- 1803 – Albert Sidney Johnston, American general (d. 1862)
- 1829 – Alfred Brehm, German zoologist (d. 1884)
- 1829 – William Stanley, English engineer (d. 1909)
- 1841 – François-Alphonse Forel, Swiss limnologist and hydrologist (d. 1912)
- 1842 – Julian Sochocki, Polish mathematician (d. 1927)
- 1849 – Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav, Slovak poet and playwright (d. 1921)
- 1851 – José Guadalupe Posada, Mexican illustrator (d. 1913)
- 1860 – Curtis Guild, Jr., American politician, 43rd Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1915)
- 1861 – Solomon R. Guggenheim, American businessman and philanthropist, founded the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (d. 1949)
- 1862 – Émile Coste, French fencer (d. 1927)
- 1866 – Enrique Simonet, Spanish painter (d. 1927)
- 1873 – Leo Fall, Austrian composer (d. 1925)
- 1873 – Konstantin von Neurath, German diplomat, 13th Minister of Foreign Affairs for Germany(d. 1956)
- 1875 – Fritz Kreisler, Austrian-American violinist and composer (d. 1962)
- 1878 – Alfréd Hajós, Hungarian swimmer (d. 1955)
- 1878 – Joe Lydon, American boxer (d. 1937)
- 1880 – Frederick Lane, Australian swimmer (d. 1969)
- 1881 – Orval Overall, American baseball player (d. 1947)
- 1882 – Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (d. 1944)
- 1882 – James Joyce, Irish author and poet (d. 1941)
- 1883 – Johnston McCulley, American author (d. 1958)
- 1886 – William Rose Benét, American poet (d. 1950)
- 1887 – Ernst Hanfstaengl, German businessman (d. 1975)
- 1887 – Pat Sullivan, Australian-American animator and producer (d. 1933)
- 1889 – Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, French general (d. 1952)
- 1890 – Charles Correll, American actor (d. 1972)
- 1892 – Tochigiyama Moriya, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 27th Yokozuna (d. 1959)
- 1893 – Cornelius Lanczos, Hungarian mathematician and physicist (d. 1974)
- 1893 – Raoul Riganti, Argentinian race car driver (d. 1970)
- 1893 – Damdin Sükhbaatar, Mongolian military leader (d. 1924)
- 1895 – George Halas, American football player and coach (d. 1983)
- 1895 – Robert Philipp, American painter (d. 1981)
- 1896 – Kazimierz Kuratowski, Polish mathematician and logician (d. 1980)
- 1897 – Howard Deering Johnson, American businessman, founded Howard Johnson's (d. 1972)
- 1900 – Willie Kamm, American baseball player (d. 1988)
- 1901 – Jascha Heifetz, Lithuanian violinist (d. 1987)
- 1902 – Newbold Morris, American lawyer and politician (d. 1966)
- 1904 – Bozorg Alavi, Iranian author and activist (d. 1997)
- 1905 – Ayn Rand, Russian-American author and philosopher (d. 1982)
- 1908 – Wes Ferrell, American baseball player (d. 1976)
- 1909 – Frank Albertson, American actor (d. 1964)
- 1912 – Millvina Dean, English civil servant and cartographer (d. 2009)
- 1912 – Burton Lane, American songwriter and composer (d. 1997)
- 1913 – Poul Reichhardt, Danish actor (d. 1985)
- 1914 – Eric Kierans, Canadian economist and politician (d. 2004)
- 1915 – Abba Eban, South African-Israeli politician and diplomat, 1st Israel Ambassador to the United Nations (d. 2002)
- 1915 – Stan Leonard, Canadian golfer (d. 2005)
- 1915 – Khushwant Singh, Indian journalist and author (d. 2014)
- 1916 – Xuân Diệu, Vietnamese poet (d. 1985)
- 1917 – Đỗ Mười, Vietnamese politician, 5th Prime Minister of Vietnam
- 1918 – Hella Haasse, Dutch author (d. 2011)
- 1919 – Lisa Della Casa, Swiss soprano (d. 2012)
- 1919 – Georg Gawliczek, German footballer and manager (d. 1999)
- 1923 – Jean Babilée, French dancer and choreographer (d. 2014)
- 1923 – James Dickey, American poet and author (d. 1997)
- 1923 – Bonita Granville, American actress (d. 1988)
- 1923 – Red Schoendienst, American baseball player, coach, and manager
- 1923 – Liz Smith, American journalist
- 1923 – Clem Windsor, Australian rugby player and surgeon (d. 2007)
- 1924 – Elfi von Dassanowsky, Austrian-American singer, pianist, producer (d. 2007)
- 1925 – Elaine Stritch, American actress and singer (d. 2014)
- 1926 – Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, French politician, 20th President of France
- 1927 – Stan Getz, American saxophonist (d. 1991)
- 1927 – C. R. Krishnaswamy Rao, Indian civil servant (d. 2013)
- 1927 – Doris Sams, American baseball player (d. 2012)
- 1928 – Jay Handlan, American basketball player (d. 2013)
- 1928 – A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., American judge, author, and activist (d. 1998)
- 1929 – Sheila Matthews Allen, American actress and producer (d. 2013)
- 1929 – George Band, English mountaineer (d. 2011)
- 1929 – Věra Chytilová, Czech actress, director, and screenwriter (d. 2014)
- 1931 – Dries van Agt, Dutch politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
- 1931 – Les Dawson, English comedian and author (d. 1993)
- 1931 – Glynn Edwards, Malaysian-English actor
- 1931 – John Paul Harney, Canadian educator and politician
- 1931 – Judith Viorst, American journalist and author
- 1931 – Hillel Zaks, Polish-born Israeli rabbi (d. 2015)
- 1932 – Arthur Lyman, American vibraphone player (d. 2002)
- 1932 – Robert Mandan, American actor
- 1933 – M'el Dowd, American actress and singer (d. 2012)
- 1933 – Tony Jay, English actor (d. 2006)
- 1933 – Orlando "Cachaíto" López, Cuban bassist (Buena Vista Social Club) (d. 2009)
- 1934 – Khalil Ullah Khan, Bangladeshi actor (d. 2014)
- 1935 – Evgeny Velikhov, Russian physicist
- 1936 – Duane Jones, American actor (d. 1988)
- 1937 – Don Buford, American baseball player
- 1937 – Anthony Haden-Guest French-English journalist, poet, and critic
- 1937 – Remak Ramsay, American actor
- 1937 – Tom Smothers, American comedian, actor, and singer (Smothers Brothers)
- 1938 – Norman Fowler, English journalist and politician
- 1938 – Gene MacLellan, Canadian singer-songwriter (d. 1995)
- 1939 – Dale T. Mortensen, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2014)
- 1939 – Metin Oktay, Turkish footballer (d. 1991)
- 1940 – Alan Caddy, English guitarist and producer (Johnny Kidd & the Pirates and The Tornados) (d. 2000)
- 1940 – Thomas M. Disch, American author and poet (d. 2008)
- 1940 – Wayne Fontes, American football player and coach
- 1940 – David Jason, English actor
- 1941 – Terry Biddlecombe, English jockey (d. 2014)
- 1941 – Lee Redmond, American woman with the longest fingernails
- 1942 – Bo Hopkins, American actor
- 1942 – Graham Nash, English-American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Hollies, Crosby & Nash, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
- 1942 – Jang Sung-taek, North Korean politician (d. 2013)
- 1943 – Susan Hanson, English actress
- 1944 – Andrew Davis, English organist and conductor
- 1944 – Karen Foss, American journalist
- 1944 – Geoffrey Hughes, English actor (d. 2012)
- 1945 – John Eatwell, Baron Eatwell, English economist and academic
- 1946 – John Armitt, English engineer
- 1946 – Blake Clark, American comedian and actor
- 1946 – Alpha Oumar Konaré, Malian politician, 3rd President of Mali
- 1946 – Constantine Papadakis, Greek-American businessman and academic (d. 2009)
- 1947 – Greg Antonacci, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1947 – Farrah Fawcett, American actress (d. 2009)
- 1948 – Ina Garten, American chef and author
- 1948 – Al McKay, American guitarist, songwriter, and producer (Earth, Wind & Fire)
- 1948 – Roger Williamson, English race car driver (d. 1973)
- 1949 – Duncan Bannatyne, Scottish businessman and philanthropist
- 1949 – Yasuko Namba, Japanese mountaineer (d. 1996)
- 1949 – Brent Spiner, American actor
- 1949 – Ross Valory, American bass player (Journey and The Storm)
- 1950 – Osamu Kido, Japanese wrestler
- 1950 – Libby Purves, English journalist and author
- 1950 – Barbara Sukowa, German actress
- 1950 – Genichiro Tenryu, Japanese wrestler
- 1951 – Vangelis Alexandris, Greek basketball player and coach
- 1951 – Ken Bruce, Scottish radio host
- 1952 – John Cornyn, American politician
- 1952 – Rick Dufay, American guitarist and songwriter (Aerosmith)
- 1952 – Park Geun-hye, South Korean politician, 11th President of South Korea
- 1952 – Carol Ann Susi, American actress (d. 2014)
- 1953 – Duane Chapman, American bounty hunter
- 1953 – Jerry Sisk, Jr., American gemologist, co-founded Jewelry Television (d. 2013)
- 1954 – Christie Brinkley, American model and actress
- 1954 – Hansi Hinterseer, Austrian skier, actor, and singer
- 1954 – Nelson Ne'e, Solomon Islander politician (d. 2013)
- 1954 – John Tudor, American baseball player
- 1955 – Leszek Engelking, Polish poet and author
- 1955 – Virginia Leng, Maltese horse rider
- 1955 – Bob Schreck, American comic book writer and editor
- 1955 – Kim Zimmer, American actress
- 1957 – Phil Barney, Algerian-French singer-songwriter
- 1958 – Michel Marc Bouchard, Canadian playwright
- 1960 – Jari Porttila, Finnish journalist
- 1961 – Abraham Iyambo, Namibian politician (d. 2013)
- 1961 – Lauren Lane, American actress
- 1961 – Steve Penney, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1962 – Philippe Claudel, French director
- 1962 – Andy Fordham, English darts player
- 1962 – Luke Johnson, English businessman
- 1962 – Paul Kilgus, American baseball player
- 1962 – Michael T. Weiss, American actor
- 1963 – Eva Cassidy, American singer and guitarist (d. 1996)
- 1963 – Kjell Dahlin, Swedish ice hockey player
- 1963 – Philip Laats, Belgian martial artist
- 1963 – Stephen McGann, English actor
- 1965 – Carl Airey, English footballer
- 1965 – Naoki Sano, Japanese wrestler and mixed martial artist
- 1966 – Andrei Chesnokov, Russian tennis player
- 1966 – Robert DeLeo, American bass player, songwriter, and producer (Stone Temple Pilots, Army of Anyone, and Talk Show)
- 1966 – Michael Misick, Caicos Islander politician, Premier of the Turks and Caicos Islands
- 1967 – Artūrs Irbe, Latvian ice hockey player
- 1967 – Laurent Nkunda, Congolese general
- 1968 – Sean Elliott, American basketball player
- 1968 – Scott Erickson, American baseball player
- 1968 – Thomas Teige, German martial artist and actor
- 1968 – Simon Wickham-Smith, English singer, astrologer, and academic
- 1969 – Dana International, Israeli singer-songwriter
- 1969 – Valeri Karpin, Russian footballer
- 1970 – C. Ernst Harth, Canadian actor
- 1970 – Nikolaos Michopoulos, Greek footballer
- 1970 – Roar Strand, Norwegian footballer
- 1970 – Jennifer Westfeldt, American actress and screenwriter
- 1971 – Rockwilder, American rapper and producer
- 1971 – Michelle Gayle, English singer-songwriter and actress
- 1971 – Isaac Kungwane, South African footballer (d. 2014)
- 1972 – Melvin Mora, Venezuelan baseball player
- 1972 – Aleksey Naumov, Russian footballer
- 1973 – Andrei Luzgin, Estonian tennis player and coach
- 1973 – Aleksander Tammert, Estonian discus thrower
- 1973 – Marissa Jaret Winokur, American actress and singer
- 1975 – Todd Bertuzzi, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1975 – Donald Driver, American football player
- 1975 – Vaggelis Koutsoures, Greek footballer
- 1975 – Ieroklis Stoltidis, Greek footballer
- 1976 – Lori Beth Denberg, American actress
- 1976 – James Hickman, English swimmer
- 1977 – Shakira, Colombian singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
- 1977 – Libor Sionko, Czech footballer
- 1978 – Eden Espinosa, American actress and singer
- 1978 – Annabel Ellwood, Australian tennis player
- 1978 – Barry Ferguson, Scottish footballer
- 1978 – Rich Sommer, American actor
- 1978 – Faye White, English footballer
- 1979 – Urmo Aava, Estonian race car driver
- 1979 – Christine Bleakley, Irish television host
- 1979 – Fani Chalkia, Greek hurdler
- 1979 – Klaus Mainzer, German rugby player
- 1979 – Shamita Shetty, Indian actress
- 1979 – Irini Terzoglou, Greek shot putter
- 1980 – Angela Finger-Erben, German journalist
- 1980 – Teddy Hart, Canadian wrestler
- 1980 – Gucci Mane, American rapper and producer
- 1980 – Oleguer Presas, Spanish footballer
- 1981 – Salem al-Hazmi, Saudi Arabian terrorist, hijacker of American Airlines Flight 77 (d. 2001)
- 1981 – Michelle Bass, English model and singer
- 1981 – Gemma Collins, English television personality
- 1982 – Sergio Castaño Ortega, Spanish footballer
- 1982 – Kelly Mazzante, American basketball player
- 1982 – Brandy Talore, American porn actress
- 1983 – Ronny Cedeño, Venezuelan baseball player
- 1983 – Carolina Klüft, Swedish heptathlete and jumper
- 1983 – Jordin Tootoo, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1983 – Vladimir Voskoboinikov, Estonian footballer
- 1983 – Alex Westaway, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Fightstar)
- 1984 – Renn Kiriyama, Japanese actor
- 1984 – Rudi Wulf, New Zealand rugby player
- 1985 – Masoud Azizi, Afghan sprinter
- 1985 – Kristo Saage, Estonian basketball player
- 1985 – Silvestre Varela, Portuguese footballer
- 1986 – Gemma Arterton, English actress
- 1987 – Anthony Fainga'a, Australian rugby player
- 1987 – Saia Fainga'a, Australian rugby player
- 1987 – Gerard Piqué, Spanish footballer
- 1987 – Javon Ringer, American football player
- 1987 – Jill Scott, English footballer
- 1987 – Martin Spanjers, American actor
- 1991 – Nathan Delfouneso, English footballer
- 1992 – Lammtarra, American race horse (d. 2014)
- 1992 – Joonas Tamm, Estonian footballer
- 1992 – Danielle White, American singer-songwriter and actress (American Juniors)
- 1993 – Jake Cassidy, Welsh footballer
- 1993 – Ravel Morrison, English footballer
- 1995 – Paul Digby, English footballer
- 1995 – Arfa Karim, Pakistani student and computer programmer (d. 2012)
Despatches
- 619 – Laurence of Canterbury, English archbishop
- 1124 – Bořivoj II, Duke of Bohemia (b. 1064)
- 1218 – Konstantin of Rostov (b. 1186)
- 1250 – Eric XI of Sweden (b. 1216)
- 1260 – Sadok and 48 Dominican martyrs from Sandomierz
- 1294 – Louis II, Duke of Bavaria (b. 1229)
- 1448 – Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Egyptian jurist and scholar (b. 1372)
- 1461 – Owen Tudor, Welsh soldier (b. 1400)
- 1512 – Hatuey, Caribbean tribal chief
- 1529 – Baldassare Castiglione, Italian author and diplomat (b. 1478)
- 1580 – Bessho Nagaharu, Japanese daimyo (b. 1558)
- 1594 – Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Italian composer (b. 1525)
- 1648 – George Abbot, English author (b. 1603)
- 1660 – Gaston, Duke of Orléans (b. 1608)
- 1660 – Govert Flinck, Dutch painter (b. 1615)
- 1661 – Lucas Holstenius, German geographer and historian (b. 1596)
- 1675 – Ivan Belostenec, Croatian linguist and lexicographer (b. 1594)
- 1688 – Abraham Duquesne, French admiral (b. 1610)
- 1704 – Guillaume de l'Hôpital, French mathematician (b. 1661)
- 1712 – Martin Lister, English physician (b. 1639)
- 1714 – John Sharp, English archbishop (b. 1643)
- 1723 – Antonio Maria Valsalva, Italian anatomist (b. 1666)
- 1768 – Robert Smith, English mathematician (b. 1689)
- 1769 – Pope Clement XIII (b. 1693)
- 1802 – Welbore Ellis, 1st Baron Mendip, English politician, Secretary of State for the Colonies (b. 1713)
- 1804 – George Walton, American lawyer and politician, Governor of Georgia (b. 1749)
- 1904 – William Collins Whitney, American financier and politician, 31st United States Secretary of the Navy (b. 1841)
- 1904 – Ernest Cashel, American-born outlaw and Canadian fugitive (b. 1882)
- 1905 – Henri Germain, French banker and politician, founded Le Crédit Lyonnais (b. 1824)
- 1907 – Dmitri Mendeleev, Russian chemist (b. 1834)
- 1909 – Carlo Acton, Italian pianist and composer (b. 1829)
- 1913 – Gustaf de Laval, Swedish engineer (b. 1845)
- 1918 – John L. Sullivan, American boxer (b. 1858)
- 1919 – Julius Kuperjanov, Estonian lieutenant (b. 1894)
- 1925 – Antti Aarne, Finnish historian and academic (b. 1867)
- 1925 – Jaap Eden, Dutch speed skater and cyclist (b. 1873)
- 1926 – Vladimir Sukhomlinov, Russian general (b. 1848)
- 1932 – Agha Petros, Assyrian general (b. 1880)
- 1939 – Bernhard Gregory, German chess player (b. 1879)
- 1942 – Ado Birk, Estonian lawyer and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Estonia (b. 1883)
- 1942 – Daniil Kharms, Russian playwright (b. 1905)
- 1942 – Hugh D. McIntosh, Australian businessman (b. 1876)
- 1945 – Alfred Delp, German priest and philosopher (b. 1907)
- 1945 – Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, German economist and politician (b. 1884)
- 1945 – Johannes Popitz, Prussian politician (b. 1884)
- 1948 – Thomas W. Lamont, American banker (b. 1870)
- 1948 – Bevil Rudd, South African runner (b. 1894)
- 1950 – Constantin Carathéodory, Greek mathematician (b. 1873)
- 1952 – Callistratus of Georgia, Georgian patriarch (b. 1866)
- 1954 – Hella Wuolijoki, Finnish author (b. 1886)
- 1956 – Charles Grapewin, American actor (b. 1869)
- 1956 – Truxtun Hare, American football player and hammer thrower (b. 1878)
- 1956 – Pyotr Konchalovsky, Russian painter (b. 1876)
- 1957 – Grigory Landsberg, Russian physicist (b. 1890)
- 1961 – Anna May Wong, American actress (b. 1905)
- 1962 – Shlomo Hestrin, Canadian-Israeli biochemist (b. 1914)
- 1968 – Tullio Serafin, Italian conductor (b. 1878)
- 1969 – Boris Karloff, English actor (b. 1887)
- 1970 – Lawrence Gray, American actor (b. 1898)
- 1970 – Bertrand Russell, English mathematician and philosopher, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1872)
- 1972 – Natalie Clifford Barney, American author, poet, and playwright (b. 1876)
- 1973 – Hendrik Elias, Belgian politician (b. 1902)
- 1974 – Imre Lakatos, Hungarian philosopher (b. 1922)
- 1975 – Gustave Lanctot, Canadian historian (b. 1883)
- 1979 – Sid Vicious, English singer and bass player (Sex Pistols, Vicious White Kids, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and The Flowers of Romance) (b. 1957)
- 1980 – William Howard Stein, American biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911)
- 1982 – Paul Desruisseaux, Canadian lawyer and politician (b. 1905)
- 1983 – Sam Chatmon, American singer and guitarist (Mississippi Sheiks) (b. 1897)
- 1986 – Gino Hernandez, American wrestler (b. 1957)
- 1987 – Carlos José Castilho, Brazilian footballer (b. 1927)
- 1987 – Alistair MacLean, Scottish author (b. 1922)
- 1988 – Marcel Bozzuffi, French actor (b. 1929)
- 1989 – Ondrej Nepela, Slovak figure skater (b. 1951)
- 1989 – Arnold Nordmeyer, New Zealand politician (b. 1901)
- 1990 – Paul Ariste, Estonian linguist and academic (b. 1905)
- 1990 – Joe Erskine, Welsh boxer (b. 1934)
- 1992 – Bert Parks, American actor and singer (b. 1914)
- 1993 – François Reichenbach, French director and screenwriter (b. 1921)
- 1995 – Thomas Hayward, American tenor (b. 1917)
- 1995 – Fred Perry, English tennis player (b. 1909)
- 1995 – Donald Pleasence, English actor (b. 1919)
- 1996 – Gene Kelly, American actor, singer, dancer, and director (b. 1912)
- 1997 – Erich Eliskases, Austrian chess player (b. 1913)
- 1997 – Sanford Meisner, American actor (b. 1904)
- 1998 – Haroun Tazieff, French geologist (b. 1914)
- 1999 – David McComb, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Triffids and The Blackeyed Susans) (b. 1962)
- 2002 – Paul Baloff, American singer-songwriter (Exodus) (b. 1960)
- 2002 – Claude Brown, American author (b. 1937)
- 2003 – Lou Harrison, American composer and educator (b. 1917)
- 2004 – Bernard McEveety, American director and producer (b. 1924)
- 2005 – Max Schmeling, German boxer (b. 1905)
- 2007 – Vijay Arora, Indian actor (b. 1944)
- 2007 – Billy Henderson, American singer (The Spinners) (b. 1939)
- 2007 – Joe Hunter, American pianist (The Funk Brothers) (b. 1927)
- 2007 – Filippo Raciti, Italian police officer (b. 1967)
- 2007 – Masao Takemoto, Japanese gymnast (b. 1919)
- 2007 – Eric Von Schmidt, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1931)
- 2008 – Barry Morse, English-Canadian actor (b. 1918)
- 2008 – Katoucha Niane, Guinean model and author (b. 1960)
- 2011 – Defne Joy Foster, Turkish actress (b. 1975)
- 2011 – Margaret John, Welsh actress (b. 1926)
- 2012 – Joyce Barkhouse, Canadian author (b. 1913)
- 2012 – Frederick William Danker, American lexicographer and scholar (b. 1920)
- 2012 – George Esper, American journalist and academic (b. 1932)
- 2012 – Dorothy Gilman, American author (b. 1923)
- 2012 – James F. Lloyd, American pilot and politician (b. 1922)
- 2013 – Abraham Iyambo, Namibian politician (b. 1961)
- 2013 – John Kerr, American actor and lawyer (b. 1931)
- 2013 – Chris Kyle, American Navy Seal (b. 1974)
- 2013 – Lino Oviedo, Paraguayan general and politician (b. 1943)
- 2013 – Pepper Paire, American baseball player (b. 1924)
- 2013 – P. Shanmugam, Indian politician, 13th Chief Minister of Puducherry (b. 1927)
- 2013 – Walt Sweeney, American football player (b. 1941)
- 2013 – Guy F. Tozzoli, American architect (b. 1922)
- 2014 – Gerd Albrecht, German conductor (b. 1935)
- 2014 – Tommy Aquino, American motorcycle racer (b. 1992)
- 2014 – Eduardo Coutinho, Brazilian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1933)
- 2014 – Philip Seymour Hoffman, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1967)
- 2014 – Bunny Rugs, Jamaican singer (Third World and Inner Circle) (b. 1948)
- 2014 – Werner Husemann, German soldier and pilot (b. 1919)
- 2014 – Luis Raúl, Puerto Rican comedian and actor (b. 1962)
- 2014 – Nigel Walker, English footballer (b. 1959)
2015
- Anniversary of Treaty of Tartu (Estonia)
- Christian feast day:
- Constitution Day (Philippines)
- Day of Youth (Azerbaijan)
- Earliest day on which Shrove Monday can fall, while March 8 is the latest; celebrated on Monday before Ash Wednesday(Christianity), and its related observances:
- Bun Day (Iceland)
- Fastelavn (Denmark/Norway)
- Rosenmontag (Germany)
- Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple or Candlemas (Western Christianity), and its related observances:
- A quarter day in the Christian calendar (due to Candlemas). (Scotland)
- Celebration of Yemanja (Candomblé)
- La Chandeleur or Crêpe Day (France)
- Our Lady of Navigators (Brazil)
- Virgin of Candelaria (Tenerife, Spain)
- Groundhog Day (United States and Canada)
- Inventor's Day (Thailand)
- World Wetlands Day (International)
END OF CERTAINTIES
Tim Blair – Monday, February 02, 2015 (1:07pm)
Besides the Newman government, a few other things were wiped out in Queensland on Saturday night.
Continue reading 'END OF CERTAINTIES'UNLOCK THE MAGIC
Tim Blair – Monday, February 02, 2015 (11:46am)
Forget American Sniper or any other so-called blockbusters. The film I’m most looking forward to is a Byron Bay thriller called Who Unlocked the Gate?
Continue reading 'UNLOCK THE MAGIC'GAIA’S GANGSTERS
Tim Blair – Monday, February 02, 2015 (4:13am)
UK journalist David Rose experiences climate activist compassion:
I’ve never supported the British National Party or the Ku Klux Klan. I’ve never belonged to the Paedophile Information Exchange, or denied the Holocaust, or made a penny from the banking crash.But if you read The Guardian newspaper’s website, you might think otherwise. A commentator on it urged my own children to murder me.He did so because of one of the many stories I’ve written for this newspaper about climate change. I first reported on the subject nearly six years ago: my article was about the ‘climategate’ scandal, where leaked emails showed university scientists were trying to cover up data that suggested their claim the world is hotter than at any time in the past 1,300 years may be wrong …Last week on Twitter, someone else wrote that he knew where I lived, and posted my personal phone numbers.
(Via PJ)
GWAYNDLER TWEMBLER
Tim Blair – Monday, February 02, 2015 (3:34am)
The Courier-Mail‘s Paul Syvret models the latest in Anthony Albanese action wear:
Readers may recall that Albanese’s lower lip was trembling as he delivered his line about fighting Tories. Kind of diminished the moment.
Readers may recall that Albanese’s lower lip was trembling as he delivered his line about fighting Tories. Kind of diminished the moment.
UPDATE. In other lefty media news, Mike Carlton takes a swing at two election night veterans:
Did Sky REALLY have Richardson and Kroger on their election coverage? It’d be Statler and Waldorf from The Muppets.
For the record, Graham Richardson is four years younger than Carlton. Michael Kroger is 12 years younger.
BEWARE OF THE CLOG PEOPLE
Tim Blair – Monday, February 02, 2015 (3:21am)
Remiss of me not to mark the return of Andrew Bolt. In related news, the Dutch have plans for you.
GLENN DOWN
Tim Blair – Monday, February 02, 2015 (3:17am)
Glenn Wheeler, one of the funniest and sweetest people you could ever meet, is in an induced coma following a scooter accident:
The 54-year-old 2GB and Channel 7 presenter was on his way to work at the radio station when he was hit by a Mitsubishi wagon …Wheeler’s family released a statement today saying he was facing a “long road to recovery.”“The impact left him with a severed artery in one leg and other significant injuries to various parts of his body.“There’s some bleeding on the brain but scans have come back with encouraging results,” the statement read.
Wish him well. He’s one of the good guys.
MAYBE SHE’S AMAZED
Tim Blair – Monday, February 02, 2015 (1:09am)
Watch amazing Annastacia Palaszczuk say “amazing” an amazing ten times in just a few amazing minutes:
Amazingly, Palaszczuk has never had a real job:
Amazingly, Palaszczuk has never had a real job:
One of the criticisms levelled at the Opposition leader is that she has scant “real-life” full-time work experience outside of politics – although she did complete a summer clerkship in a law firm in 1997-98 …“There are lots of different perceptions of real-life experience. My first job was at the Inala Plaza selling jewellery; I’ve seen all sorts of life; I’ve studied overseas; I’ve worked hard in my community; I can sit down with anyone from any sort of background and have a chat; I’m involved in community organisations.”
So she’s some kind of community organiser? Good luck, Queensland.
UPDATE. Another massively qualified Queensland Labor MP:
Kate Jones was a few years ahead of me at Kelvin Grove High. She was really good in the school musical.
POLEYS UNPOLLED
Tim Blair – Monday, February 02, 2015 (12:34am)
Poor poley bears are the Queensland Liberals of the animal kingdom.
(Via Jill)
SOON APPEARING IN ANOTHER COURT
Tim Blair – Sunday, February 01, 2015 (11:42pm)
A refugee enthusiast invades the court during the Australian Open final:
These people don’t really understand the concept of borders, do they? Nice knuckle tatts, though.
These people don’t really understand the concept of borders, do they? Nice knuckle tatts, though.
(Via Patrick H., who emails: “Protesters just get more attractive by the minute – and I’ve only had one bourbon!")
Pauline Hanson leads in race for Queensland seat
Andrew Bolt February 02 2015 (7:23pm)
She’s plucky, and a lot better than Clive Palmer and the Greens, whose own bids for seats in the Queensland have failed::
===PAULINE Hanson’s race for the seat of Lockyer in the state election is not over yet...More fool the major parties, who continue to treat Hanson as a pariah:
With 77.5 per cent of the vote counted, Ms Hanson has 54.6 per cent of votes after preferences.
Both the ALP and LNP refused to do preferences deals with Ms Hanson with only The Katter Australia Party doing a preference swap with her.
Sickly green
Andrew Bolt February 02 2015 (2:01pm)
At least it’s morally consistent, even to the point of potentially sick-making:
===The owner of a popular Dickson vegetarian restaurant was morally opposed to wiping out a cockroach infestation because it would have involved “killing little insects”.
Abbott’s speech: the verdict
Andrew Bolt February 02 2015 (1:39pm)
Tony Abbott’s speech to the National Press Club was billed as critical to his survival.
Verdict: It was very good.
Abbott chose not to do what some commentators urged and do a huge mea culpa, begging forgiveness for errors. He chose instead to show himself as an unbowed and undeterred leader, firm and passionately focussed on the national interest in the face of great challenges.
He warned his colleagues that Australians had voted to end Labor’s instability and did not want more of it from the Liberals. They should not be making a bad situation worse. They should not panic but hold their ground.
His concessions were to scrap the paid parental leave scheme as unaffordable, leave the awarding of future knighthoods to the Council for the Order of Australia and be more collegial.
Abbott stressed that the Australian people should hire and fire leaders, and tt had elected him, Abbott, to fix the economy. That’s a message to the plotters. Julie Bishop in particular will not want to seem another Julia Gillard.
Abbott also pointed out that an Abbott Government would keep the carbon tax scrapped and Shorten’s Labor wouldn’t. This, in turn, could be read as a warning to backers of warmist Malcolm Turnbull. Electing him leader would remove a key point of difference with Labor.
One more thing: Abbott made crystal clear with words and demeanour that he will not resign. That ends the fantasy pushed by some backbenchers, who know they don’t have the numbers or courage for a challenge.
Lots of Ministers attended the speech to support Abbott. That’s another sign that Abbott is going nowhere soon.
ABC gloats
Andrew Bolt February 02 2015 (11:31am)
ABC presenter Jon Faine:
UPDATE
Social Services Minister Scott Morrison calls out more soft-on-Labor spin from the ABC:
===Campbell Newman has been shown the door by the entire electorate of Queensland.Entire?
Faine then makes a series of misleading comments on unemployment (as in denying the decline of manufacturing had hit the jobs market already) while interviewing Liberal frontbencher Josh Frydenberg. Faine then reads his text feed from like-minded listeners to shower Frydenberg with electronic-graffiti abuse.
UPDATE
Social Services Minister Scott Morrison calls out more soft-on-Labor spin from the ABC:
SCOTT MORRISON: ... And yes we’ve attracted our share of criticism and there are some things that we wish went better and there are some things we wish we were able to pass through the Senate, and that hasn’t happened. And when that happens the Government, as the Prime Minister was outlining last year, you have to reset, you have to refocus and I think you have to proceed at a pace of reform which gets the jobs done that you can bring the Australian people along with. But you’ve got to have a plan and you’ve got to be acting on that plan. Now that’s how you get things done. Bill Shorten has no plan. He expects to just sail into the next election. I’m noticing Bill Shorten’s getting pretty cocky at the moment. But you know if he wants to get that cocky he better be able to back it up with a plan.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: You can’t really blame him the way you’re going at the moment though can you? I mean is this the last chance…
SCOTT MORRISON: Well if you want to give him that leave pass Michael you may, but I’m certainly not going to give him that leave pass and I don’t think the Australian people will give him a leave pass for being cocky about the fact that he thinks he will inevitably become prime minister and it will be thrown at his feet.
Never again? Ask Iran
Andrew Bolt February 02 2015 (8:52am)
Charles Krauthammer on the new Jew-hatred in Europe:
===Amid the ritual expressions of regret and the pledges of “never again” on Tuesday’s 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a bitter irony was noted: Anti-Semitism has returned to Europe. With a vengeance.Richard Millet gives more examples:
It has become routine. If the kosher-grocery massacre in Paris hadn’t happened in conjunction with Charlie Hebdo, how much worldwide notice would it have received? As little as did the murder of a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse. As little as did the terror attack that killed four at the Jewish Museum in Brussels…
Jew-hatred is back, recapitulating the past with impressive zeal. Italians protesting Gaza handed out leaflets calling for a boycott of Jewish merchants. As in the 1930s. A widely popular French comedian has introduced a variant of the Nazi salute. In Berlin, Gaza brought out a mob chanting, “Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone!” Berlin, mind you…
From the Jewish point of view, European anti-Semitism is a sideshow. The story of European Jewry is over. It died at Auschwitz. Europe’s place as the center and fulcrum of the Jewish world has been inherited by Israel. Not only is it the first independent Jewish commonwealth in 2,000 years. It is, also for the first time in 2,000 years, the largest Jewish community on the planet.
The threat to the Jewish future lies not in Europe but in the Muslim Middle East, today the heart of global anti-Semitism, a veritable factory of anti-Jewish literature, films, blood libels and calls for violence, indeed for another genocide.
The founding charter of Hamas calls not just for the eradication of Israel but for the killing of Jews everywhere. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah welcomes Jewish emigration to Israel — because it makes the killing easier: “If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.’’ And, of course, Iran openly declares as its sacred mission the annihilation of Israel… Former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, known as a moderate, once characterized tiny Israel as a one-bomb country…
On the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz, mourning dead Jews is easy. And, forgive me, cheap. Want to truly honor the dead? Show solidarity with the living — Israel and its 6 million Jews. Make “never again” more than an empty phrase. It took Nazi Germany seven years to kill 6 million Jews. It would take a nuclear Iran one day.
Tuesday was the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, but Tuesday night at the London School of Economics – at a joint Palestine Society and Feminist Society event – Israelis were portrayed as rapists. Also at the event, those who killed Israelis were applauded…
Rana B. Baker, a student at SOAS who also writes for the Electronic Intifada, said Leila Khaled‘s “hijacking of planes was amazing."…
Baker reserved her highest admiration for Sana’a Mehaidli, who she said “deserves a standing ovation.” She described how, in 1985 in south Lebanon, Mehaidli “drove a car full of explosives and blew it up near an Israeli convoy killing two Israeli soldiers and injuring between 10 and 12 more."…
Baker concluded by saying that Mehaidli’s “will calls for men and women to armed struggle against a colonial regime based on violence.”
Zena Agha portrayed Israelis as rapists of Palestinian women [see footage above]. She said that “in Israel the view of Palestinian women is very derogatory and that rape had become a very prevalent idea. Rape for Israelis was almost a weapon of war against Palestinian women."…
She urged the student audience not to adopt western narratives about Hamas, Hezbollah, and ISIS, etc. who, she said, are all referred to as “terrorists.” She complained that “calling Hamas ‘terrorists’ robs them of any agency and delegitimizes them."…
And the event was chaired by Aitemad Muhanna-Matar, a research fellow at the LSE’s Middle East Centre, who said that the Palestinians had no choice “but to sacrifice their bodies” ...
Will voters let politicians save Australia from becoming another Greece?
Andrew Bolt February 02 2015 (8:05am)
Can Australia save itself from economic decline, or are voters now too addicted to handouts?
Henry Ergas:
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
===Henry Ergas:
Just a few weeks ago, Victorians turfed out a first-term Coalition government widely chided for being faint-hearted. Now Queenslanders have inflicted the same fate on a government no one could accuse of undue timidity…Cut & Paste:
(T)he Newman government proved more than willing to make the tough decisions. Public spending, which in Labor’s last decade was growing by more than 6 per cent a year in real terms, actually fell in the LNP’s first two budgets and was then set to only grow at a sustainable 1.2 per cent annually.
Thanks to that expenditure restraint, the government was able to achieve a remarkable $8 billion budget turnaround in just four years, allowing an expected return to surplus in 2015-16. And as the budget moved into the black, a credible strategy was in place to bring the state’s liabilities, which had increased under Labor from 100 per cent of revenues in 2001 to 174 per cent in 2012, back to prudent levels…
But ... the message is clear: with a footloose electorate no longer erring on the side of giving first-term governments another chance, reforming governments simply cannot afford to make any mistakes. Unfortunately, the Abbott government’s problem is that it has already made so many. And with its political capital exhausted, it now faces an extraordinarily challenging second budget, made all the more difficult by a deteriorating international environment…
It is surely breathtaking that a government spending more than any Australian government ever has, and proposing to continue to do so, allowed itself to be typecast as tight-fisted and uncaring. But that is inevitable if it persists in confusing retrenchment with reform.
The new normal for economics? Don Aitken blogs, January 29:Mark Ludlow on Queensland Labor’s plan to win an election by promising not to make big savings:
THERE has been a marked reluctance by the ALP, the parliament and the mass media to accept that the six-year Labor government spent far too much, and that it committed future governments to a continuation of that spending. The expectation that tightening our belt is really unnecessary, because Australia is doing well in comparison to other countries, seems a tad on the loony side to me, whoever says it. And it is loonier still when you look at the great decline in mining revenue, and the number of companies in that sector that are closing down mines, laying off people or having other troubles…Bill Shorten follows the new line, Insiders, ABC TV, yesterday:...
(P)eople seeing Tony Abbott, Campbell Newman, cuts to schools, cuts to hospitals, cuts to public services and I think that’s the nub of the issue. It’s the way that both levels of Liberal government have conducted themselves.So does ACTU chief Ged Kearney in her media release from yesterday:
QUEENSLANDERS have sent a clear message to the Newman and Abbott governments that they will not sit back while health, education, public services and workers’ rights are attacked. ACTU President Ged Kearney said nurses, teachers, doctors, paramedics and public servants were just some of the tens of thousands of Queensland workers that made their voices heard. “Tony Abbott is taking Australia where Campbell Newman took Queensland — slashing public sector jobs, cutting services and attacking rights at work”.
Although the final result may not be known for a few days, it is likely Labor will be able to scrape into majority government or will have to form a minority government with independents. If this happens, Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk faces a quick reality check…But reader Tim is less pessimistic than most:
Labor’s opposition to the LNP’s $37 billion asset sales plan may have won them votes, but it leaves them with the prospect of trying to turn around the state’s finances without the most effective weapon.
State debt is tipped to top $80 billion by 2017-18. Without asset sales, the only way to chew into that to reclaim the AAA credit rating, is through government cuts to services or raising taxes. The real challenge for Labor and Palaszczuk starts now. And it will be a lot harder than a 26-day summer election campaign.
Andrew, I think you are wrong to say that voters hate austerity. Jeff Kennett romped home to a massive victory in his second election. Howard managed a second victory despite bigger cuts overall than the current government is proposing, and while proposing a great big new tax on everything (the GST).Good point, although I should point out that I have not at all dissembled about Abbott’s broken promises, which I’ve said from the start have been a terrible mistake.
Communicating your reasons and ideas will not work if the public is no longer listening.
How about a simple rule. Promise what is achievable and try very hard not to break those promises. Abbott would have easily won the last election whilst proposing modest cuts to education, the ABC and so on. He is being punished because he lied. Yes he dissembles (and so do you) about it being qualified, but people know they were lied to. The weasel-words and wriggling only make it worse.
Maybe a new leader will allow Australians to start listening again, and that they will like what they hear.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
Abbott still the best hope
Andrew Bolt February 02 2015 (7:18am)
Greg Sheridan:
Dennis Shanahan:
===TONY Abbott is still the best man to lead the Liberal Party, and the nation, through a difficult and unstable time in our politics.UPDATE
Abbott’s character and past career suggest he can do it, but only after a major mea culpa to the nation, and to his party…
Abbott must use today’s Press Club speech to make a new bargain with the people. Like Bob Hawke and Peter Beattie, he must acknowledge and apologise for the failures in his leadership style to date, show he understands he has been part of the problem and then commit to a new course that will address the nation’s core troubles…
The Australian people are social conservatives, but not social reactionaries. Never mention the monarchy again. The paid parental leave scheme is a dog with no support in the party. Chuck it overboard.
Peta Credlin is a fine and talented person, but it is utterly unsustainable to have a staffer with this public profile.
Julie Bishop, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison, Greg Hunt, Josh Frydenberg and other frontbenchers have great political skills. Bring them on the inside of every decision with significant political consequences.
The electorate doesn’t like the government’s performance so far, therefore, change the government’s performance.
But don’t enter that dark world of leadership chopping and changing and all the instability that goes with it.
Dennis Shanahan:
TONY Abbott is in big trouble. But the Prime Minister isn’t terminal — yet....Paul Kelly:
After mistakes and missteps since this time last year Abbott has no leeway for further errors from his colleagues or the public.
SENIOR Liberals disillusioned with Tony Abbott have raised an alternative trifecta — Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister, Julie Bishop staying on as deputy and Foreign Minister, and Scott Morrison as treasurer…
The hope is to restructure mid-term on a platform that has at least some prospect of projecting a tenable “new-look” government…
There are no easy options as alternatives to Abbott and still no serious candidates. The fear is that Turnbull cannot unite the conservative side of politics, that Bishop lacks the economic mastery to succeed and that Morrison is too inexperienced for the top job…
The notion that Abbott as prime minister and Joe Hockey as Treasurer can be jointly and smoothly eliminated with the government marching stable, united and effective into the future under a new team is the sort of fantasy reserved for desperate and brainless backbenchers…
The party’s preferred position is that Abbott succeed as Prime Minister. Senior ministers, Bishop and Turnbull, are declaring support for Abbott. But much of this support is conditional…
Yet accepting Turnbull would torment the conservative wing of the Liberal Party. It would raise the threat of an even more bitter internal division. A party room execution of Abbott would fuel the risk of an eventual revolt from the conservative base.
Abbott’s mistakes are nothing compared to Labor’s
Andrew Bolt February 02 2015 (7:13am)
Enough of this frenzy of hate. Cut Tony Abbott some slack for making a harmless mistake.
Yes, I, too, said it was “very, very, very stupid” for the Prime Minister to make Prince Philip a knight on Australia Day.
I meant politically stupid for making Abbott seem so out of touch and arbitrary.
Yet Abbott’s mistake is nothing compared to ones many of his media critics dismissed or even cheered - mistakes by Labor leaders Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd which cost hundreds of lives, thousands of jobs and billions of dollars.
For instance, in 2008 Prime Minister Rudd, implementing a plan drafted by deputy Gillard, scrapped our tough border laws.
Result: 50,000 boat people were lured here, and 1200 drowned. Taxpayers got a $12 billion bill.
So how did political commentators respond?
Continue reading 'Column - Abbott’s mistakes are nothing compared to Labor’s'
===Yes, I, too, said it was “very, very, very stupid” for the Prime Minister to make Prince Philip a knight on Australia Day.
I meant politically stupid for making Abbott seem so out of touch and arbitrary.
Yet Abbott’s mistake is nothing compared to ones many of his media critics dismissed or even cheered - mistakes by Labor leaders Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd which cost hundreds of lives, thousands of jobs and billions of dollars.
For instance, in 2008 Prime Minister Rudd, implementing a plan drafted by deputy Gillard, scrapped our tough border laws.
Result: 50,000 boat people were lured here, and 1200 drowned. Taxpayers got a $12 billion bill.
So how did political commentators respond?
Continue reading 'Column - Abbott’s mistakes are nothing compared to Labor’s'Just as well Queensland voters didn’t get a say on Ange Postecoglou
Andrew Bolt February 02 2015 (6:49am)
Reader erasmus:
===Let’s conflate the two major events of the weekend. Ange Postecoglou inherited a mess; the Socceroos were in turmoil. From the moment he took over, he made tough decisions. He discarded a generation of players who had served Australia well and replaced them with young, untried players and introduced a new, high possession, attacking style of play.
Results were slow in coming. He was heavily criticised for both his selections and his game plan. He was criticised for going to the World Cup with an untried squad. After the World Cup, he persisted with the same group of players, rotating them and giving as many of his chose few as much game time as possible, often resting star players like Tim Cahill. Losses followed losses, even against ordinary opposion. Australia slipped to their lowest ever FIFA ranking. Critisism mounted. The tweets, of course, demanded his head on a platter. Had he been the Premier of Queensland he would have been sacked.
Australian football is fortunate that the FFA are not as petulant as the Queensland (and Australian) electorate. They recognised that Ange Postecoglou wasn’t coaching the team just for the next game, but for the next generation. And because of the tough stance that Ange Postecoglou took in regard to the players he picked and the game plan they played, Australia won the Asian Cup. But with an electorate as childish in regard to tough but necessary policies as the one we now have in Australia, it is looking less and less likely that Australia will be capable of winning the Asian century.
Miss Judgement - Rita Panahi
Finally (finally!) a decent performance from the PM. Press Club speech was the first time in a long time we've heard him speak freely and with conviction. Of course hardline lefties won't acknowledge that he can do anything right but most voters are centre left or centre right and far more open-minded than the lunatic fringe.
But will it make a difference and why did it take so bloody long?
Finally (finally!) a decent performance from the PM. Press Club speech was the first time in a long time we've heard him speak freely and with conviction. Of course hardline lefties won't acknowledge that he can do anything right but most voters are centre left or centre right and far more open-minded than the lunatic fringe.
But will it make a difference and why did it take so bloody long?
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Post by Matt Granz.
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Post by Matt Granz.
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Post by Andy Trieu.
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Post by Matt Granz.
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I liked a @YouTube video http://t.co/lGrK3Vr8Uv STANLEY MYERS Cavatina
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 2, 2015
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The change coming for these ‘exploited’ Aussies http://t.co/LOaJqTv6L1 via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 2, 2015
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Obama Needs to Put On “Big Boy Pants” with Netanyahu - Israel News http://t.co/oczXgHyVkR via @binalerts
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 2, 2015
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It'll happen as soon as processed .. I hope they are charged rent, or nuisance fees or something http://t.co/pEKS0znmRJ via @newscomauHQ
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 2, 2015
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Vegetarian restaurateur did not want to kill cockroaches on moral grounds http://t.co/8vhUkdF9qt via @theage
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 2, 2015
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QLD was warned .. Victoria's credit rating threatened by decision to rip up East West Link contract http://t.co/v9Ru1Jw7jm via @theage
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 1, 2015
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Europe’s carbon-trading was supposed to be solution to global warming. Instead, it became a playground for gangsters https://t.co/wu4udiXXYi
— David Daniel Ball (@DaOddBall67) February 1, 2015
=== Posts from last year ===
PM must tear up any thoughts of a treaty
Piers Akerman – Saturday, February 01, 2014 (9:47pm)
PRIME Minister Tony Abbott reopened debate about recognition of Aboriginal Australians in the Australian Constitution when he chose Australia Day to reiterate his government’s commitment to preparing a draft of a formal wording by September.
Continue reading 'PM must tear up any thoughts of a treaty'Family’s fight to escape tragedy
Miranda Devine – Saturday, February 01, 2014 (11:29pm)
THE freckled face of 13-year-old Jordan Rice made headlines around the world when he died with his mother in a flash flood that hit Toowoomba three years ago.
Continue reading 'Family’s fight to escape tragedy'
several great articles here - ed
===RACIST HAT
Tim Blair – Sunday, February 02, 2014 (4:30pm)
“I found this hat for sale at my local ‘cheap crap’ shop this morning,” writes reader Waxing Gibberish. “Should I beoffended or is it OK because the people selling the hat were Chinese?”
EVERYTHING SHE TOUCHES
Tim Blair – Sunday, February 02, 2014 (11:13am)
Julia Gillard, during her recent Dubai speech:
The majority of Australians when polled say that they do want Australia to become a republic.
Support for an Australian republic has collapsed to a 20-year low, with just 39.4 per cent of Australians saying they support a republic.
THEY WANT ACTION NOW
Tim Blair – Sunday, February 02, 2014 (11:05am)
An email went out on Friday from “Cole, Zoe, Opal and the QLD Leadership Team” of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, urging the movement’s claimed 90,000 followers to protest against Tony Abbott in Brisbane:
Tomorrow is our chance to get out, get on our feet, and show Abbott and his cronies that we support ambitious climate action, and that we want climate action now!
And here’s the turnout:
(Via Habib, who reports that the dismal protest “still got air time on every network, despite there being more punters in the pie shop than involved in this fracas. 10AM on a Saturday was always going to be a big ask.")
(Via Habib, who reports that the dismal protest “still got air time on every network, despite there being more punters in the pie shop than involved in this fracas. 10AM on a Saturday was always going to be a big ask.")
And the dolphin makes 13
Andrew Bolt February 02 2014 (5:45pm)
The Australian Youth Climate Council urges its alleged 90,000 members to rally in Brisbane today to show Tony Abbott how much “we want climate action now”.
By an astonishing coincidence, the turnout showed about as much demand for climate actionas the amount of warming we’ve actually had.
I hope Abbott was watching.
===By an astonishing coincidence, the turnout showed about as much demand for climate actionas the amount of warming we’ve actually had.
I hope Abbott was watching.
The Cat catches three mice
Andrew Bolt February 02 2014 (3:30pm)
The Cat catches the mice of disinformation.
No, Harry Clarke, the pause in warming is not a falsehood and not mentioned merely by those fabled corrupt “deniers” in the pay of Big Tobacco (sic).
No, Insiders, it’s not false to say the SPC workers can get sick leave paid out (upon redundancy) or can get overtime.
No, Age/ABC/SBS, if you are going to hail Labor’s same-sex marriage campaign as a key election issue and big vote-winner, you can’t dodge the obvious conclusions when Labor’s vote gets hammered.
I’ve been worrying lately that there are just too many of “them” to fight. Thank heavens for a good Cat. Please feed it.
UPDATE
Reader the Old and Unimproved Dave:
===No, Harry Clarke, the pause in warming is not a falsehood and not mentioned merely by those fabled corrupt “deniers” in the pay of Big Tobacco (sic).
No, Insiders, it’s not false to say the SPC workers can get sick leave paid out (upon redundancy) or can get overtime.
No, Age/ABC/SBS, if you are going to hail Labor’s same-sex marriage campaign as a key election issue and big vote-winner, you can’t dodge the obvious conclusions when Labor’s vote gets hammered.
I’ve been worrying lately that there are just too many of “them” to fight. Thank heavens for a good Cat. Please feed it.
UPDATE
Reader the Old and Unimproved Dave:
Not too many to fight, Andrew. Simply a target-rich environment.Reader Alan of Sydney:
Where the ABC has come unstuck this time is that, for the first time in 40-odd years, conservatives have had enough - and are pushing back - hard! This is what is is discombobulating the ABC as never before. They’ve never had to deal with a large and angry commentariet that says “no, what you are saying is biased and untrue”. Frankly, the ABC don’t have a clue of how to deal with “conservative resistance”.
Wrong answer
Andrew Bolt February 02 2014 (7:23am)
This picture in 1999 of a man helping 16-year-old Andrew Johnson shoot up convinced the Carr Labor Government and many media outlets for some bizarre reason that a free heroin injecting centre was the answer:
So how did it work out for Johnson?
Not so good at all. Nor, indeed, for his three children, now in care.
But read today’s article at the link. Still not the slightest awareness that the wrong lesson was learned from that picture:
Dr Marianne Jauncey, medical director at the injecting centre, insists there is ‘’always hope’’. ‘’...[Johnson] is still only halfway through his story. While he is alive, there is a chance.’’Tell that to his parents:
‘’He’s beyond help now,’’ his mother, Roseanna, says. ‘’The police say we would be better off trying to forget we have a son.’’
The ABC’s Jon Faine says he’s not biased. Really? Click these links
Andrew Bolt February 02 2014 (6:07am)
Jon Faine claims he’s not biased, because the ABC also offended Bob Hawke by questioning his decision to help liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein:
But for those who need more evidence, here are some links about the completely ”unbiased” Jon Faine, a prominent Leftist in an ABC which lets only Leftists host its main current affairs shows, Note particularly Faine’s explicit refusal to cover the Climategate scandal, so embarrassing to his warmist cause, and the reprimand he earned from the ABC for his unprofessional hostility to reporters uncovering Julia Gillard’s role in the AWU slush fund scandal, now the subject of a police investigation. (Gillard insists she did nothing wrong.)
And, just for a laugh, who can forget his serious suggestion that the Herald Sun have a ”cleansing” of conservative columnists to mark the election of the Rudd Government?
Note. I do not criticise Faine for being biased. I criticise him for pretending he isn’t. We all have our biases, which inform our judgements on what is important and what is credible. My argument with the ABC is not that it gives a platform for Leftist presenters to decide what to cover and how, but that it denies the same opportunities to conservatives.
UPDATE
A Reachtel poll suggests the public are now onto a bias that for too long was not called out:
This perception of bias is likely to grow. Not only is the ABC’s bias more strident than I have ever known, conservatives are more angry and prepared to challenge it. The ABC brand is slowly crumbling.
(Thanks to reader Peter.)
===I remember Bob Hawke getting tetchy with us when he thought we were less than enthusiastic over his determination to participate in the first Gulf War.Strange definition of unbiased, really, to note that both Labor and Liberal think you’re too much to the Left. But this is how Faine interprets it:
We know, as does the audience, that when we cop it from everyone we are getting it about right.Faine is by no means a bad broadcaster, and I’d listen to him any day above his rivals. But the claim that he’s not biased is simply preposterous and I cannot tell if Faine is just trying to fool us or is just fooling himself. I suspect the latter, given that in the very same piece he likens Tony Abbott’s criticism of ABC bias to the real censorship and physical intimidation of journalists under the Putin government. Abbott equals Putin? Seriously, Jon?
But for those who need more evidence, here are some links about the completely ”unbiased” Jon Faine, a prominent Leftist in an ABC which lets only Leftists host its main current affairs shows, Note particularly Faine’s explicit refusal to cover the Climategate scandal, so embarrassing to his warmist cause, and the reprimand he earned from the ABC for his unprofessional hostility to reporters uncovering Julia Gillard’s role in the AWU slush fund scandal, now the subject of a police investigation. (Gillard insists she did nothing wrong.)
And, just for a laugh, who can forget his serious suggestion that the Herald Sun have a ”cleansing” of conservative columnists to mark the election of the Rudd Government?
Note. I do not criticise Faine for being biased. I criticise him for pretending he isn’t. We all have our biases, which inform our judgements on what is important and what is credible. My argument with the ABC is not that it gives a platform for Leftist presenters to decide what to cover and how, but that it denies the same opportunities to conservatives.
UPDATE
A Reachtel poll suggests the public are now onto a bias that for too long was not called out:
.Overall, 32.2 per cent believed the ABC was biased towards the Labor Party, while just 8.2 per cent said it was biased towards the Coalition.Reachtel should have also asked how much the ABC was biased to the Greens.
This perception of bias is likely to grow. Not only is the ABC’s bias more strident than I have ever known, conservatives are more angry and prepared to challenge it. The ABC brand is slowly crumbling.
(Thanks to reader Peter.)
The elite confounded. Republic not so inevitable, after all
Andrew Bolt February 02 2014 (5:39am)
Everyone at the best and most elite parties agrees a republic is not just a good thing but inevitable. From 2008:
Incidentally, here is one more example of how governments - often with media help - can manipulate perceptions so that what is widely rejected can seem what is widely accepted.The 2020 Summit was among the most brazen attempts yet to defraud us and I was shocked so many media executives and stars took part in this farce.
UPDATE
Julia Gillard last month, showing again her famous talent for reading the public will:
===KEVIN RUDD ... said the desire for a republic at the 2020 summit was overwhelming and “there was a sense of inevitability” about it…Labor luvvies should get out more:
Of the 100 members of the [summit’s governance] group, everyone voted for a republic except for the former governor-general William Deane, who abstained, and the Liberal senator George Brandis, who opposed.
Support for an Australian republic has collapsed to a 20-year low, with just 39.4 per cent of Australians saying they support a republic.I suspect opponents are actually rejecting the elitists and dividers pushing the republic as much as they are rejecting the republic itself.
Support was lowest among older Australians and Generation Y voters, with people aged 35 to 65 most supportive of abandoning the monarchy. An exclusive ReachTEL poll of more than 2100 Australians, conducted on Thursday night for Fairfax, shows 41.6 per cent oppose the country becoming a republic...
Incidentally, here is one more example of how governments - often with media help - can manipulate perceptions so that what is widely rejected can seem what is widely accepted.The 2020 Summit was among the most brazen attempts yet to defraud us and I was shocked so many media executives and stars took part in this farce.
UPDATE
Julia Gillard last month, showing again her famous talent for reading the public will:
The majority of Australians when polled say that they do want Australia to become a republic.
ABC orders reporters to stop hypeing boat people stories
Andrew Bolt February 02 2014 (5:04am)
It says plenty about the ABC’s bias that this edict needed to be sent to ABC reporters:
===Head of ABC news content Gaven Morris ... instructed senior staff, including director of news Kate Torney and ABC News 24 editor Tony Hill, to provide advice to their teams about reporting on ‘’incidents at sea’’…The edict has already had an effect. This is the ludicrous story the ABC published on Friday about an asylum seeker complaining the navy sprayed him during what turned out to be a fight over his boat’s sabotaged engines:
‘’As you know, we currently have a set of claims by asylum seekers our editorial teams are continuing to work hard to get an accurate account of and to verify,’’ he wrote.
‘’During this process all our output should reflect the basic facts before us … we don’t need to interpret them beyond what we know, nor should be [sic] editorialising or seeking to add adjectives or any flourish. ‘’We’re not seeking to describe or embellish the allegations with descriptions like torture or mistreatment or violence and we’re not reporting whether we have proved or disproved anything the media has previously reported - the allegations and responses stand for themselves.’’
New details have emerged about asylum seeker claims that Australian sailors mistreated them during a boat interception operation earlier this month.This is how it was quickly rewritten:
New details have emerged about a boat interception operation earlier this month …
The Adventures of Dunsterforce
Andrew Bolt February 02 2014 (12:40am)
It is 1918. Lionel Dunsterville, Rudyard Kipling’s best friend from school, is now a Russian-speaking general in charge of a small force of soldiers, including Australians, on a ship. He writes:
A British General on the Caspian, the only sea unploughed before by British keels, on board a ship named after a South African Dutch President and whilom enemy, sailing from a Persian port under the Serbian flag to relieve from the Turks a body of Armenians in a revolutionary Russian town.An incredible story, and in passing a tribute to the British public schools which gave even boys destined for the army a classical education. Also a challenge to the popular prejudice that reckons British officers of World War One to be dunderheads of little imagination.
If anyone can tell me how I can lay my hands on an original hard copy edition, I’d be grateful.
UPDATE
Thanks to the many readers who sent me links to sellers of the book. Appreciated.
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“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” - Deuteronomy 6:4-5
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
February 1: Morning
"They shall sing in the ways of the Lord." - Psalm 138:5
The time when Christians begin to sing in the ways of the Lord is when they first lose their burden at the foot of the Cross. Not even the songs of the angels seem so sweet as the first song of rapture which gushes from the inmost soul of the forgiven child of God. You know how John Bunyan describes it. He says when poor Pilgrim lost his burden at the Cross, he gave three great leaps, and went on his way singing--
"Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be
The Man that there was put to shame for me!"
Believer, do you recollect the day when your fetters fell off? Do you remember the place when Jesus met you, and said, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love; I have blotted out as a cloud thy transgressions, and as a thick cloud thy sins; they shall not be mentioned against thee any more forever." Oh! what a sweet season is that when Jesus takes away the pain of sin. When the Lord first pardoned my sin, I was so joyous that I could scarce refrain from dancing. I thought on my road home from the house where I had been set at liberty, that I must tell the stones in the street the story of my deliverance. So full was my soul of joy, that I wanted to tell every snow-flake that was falling from heaven of the wondrous love of Jesus, who had blotted out the sins of one of the chief of rebels. But it is not only at the commencement of the Christian life that believers have reason for song; as long as they live they discover cause to sing in the ways of the Lord, and their experience of his constant lovingkindness leads them to say, "I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth." See to it, brother, that thou magnifiest the Lord this day.
"Long as we tread this desert land,
New mercies shall new songs demand."
"Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be
The Man that there was put to shame for me!"
Believer, do you recollect the day when your fetters fell off? Do you remember the place when Jesus met you, and said, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love; I have blotted out as a cloud thy transgressions, and as a thick cloud thy sins; they shall not be mentioned against thee any more forever." Oh! what a sweet season is that when Jesus takes away the pain of sin. When the Lord first pardoned my sin, I was so joyous that I could scarce refrain from dancing. I thought on my road home from the house where I had been set at liberty, that I must tell the stones in the street the story of my deliverance. So full was my soul of joy, that I wanted to tell every snow-flake that was falling from heaven of the wondrous love of Jesus, who had blotted out the sins of one of the chief of rebels. But it is not only at the commencement of the Christian life that believers have reason for song; as long as they live they discover cause to sing in the ways of the Lord, and their experience of his constant lovingkindness leads them to say, "I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth." See to it, brother, that thou magnifiest the Lord this day.
"Long as we tread this desert land,
New mercies shall new songs demand."
Evening
"Thy love to me was wonderful." - 2 Samuel 1:26
Come, dear readers, let each one of us speak for himself of the wonderful love, not of Jonathan, but of Jesus. We will not relate what we have been told, but the things which we have tasted and handled-of the love of Christ. Thy love to me, O Jesus, was wonderful when I was a stranger wandering far from thee, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Thy love restrained me from committing the sin which is unto death, and withheld me from self-destruction. Thy love held back the axe when Justice said, "Cut it down! why cumbereth it the ground?" Thy love drew me into the wilderness, stripped me there, and made me feel the guilt of my sin, and the burden of mine iniquity. Thy love spake thus comfortably to me when, I was sore dismayed--"Come unto me, and I will give thee rest." Oh, how matchless thy love when, in a moment, thou didst wash my sins away, and make my polluted soul, which was crimson with the blood of my nativity, and black with the grime of my transgressions, to be white as the driven snow, and pure as the finest wool. How thou didst commend thy love when thou didst whisper in my ears, "I am thine and thou art mine." Kind were those accents when thou saidst, "The Father himself loveth you." And sweet the moments, passing sweet, when thou declaredst to me "the love of the Spirit." Never shall my soul forget those chambers of fellowship where thou has unveiled thyself to me. Had Moses his cleft in the rock, where he saw the train, the back parts of his God? We, too, have had our clefts in the rock, where we have seen the full splendours of the Godhead in the person of Christ. Did David remember the tracks of the wild goat, the land of Jordan and the Hermonites? We, too, can remember spots to memory dear, equal to these in blessedness. Precious Lord Jesus, give us a fresh draught of thy wondrous love to begin the month with. Amen.
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Jesaiah, Jeshaiah
[Jēsā'iah,Jē shā'iah] - jehovah is opulent or hath saved.
1. A son of Hananiah and grandson of Zerubbabel (1 Chron. 3:21). 2. A son of Jeduthun and a musician in David's time (1 Chron. 25:3, 15).
3. A Levite, son of Rehabiah and grandson of Eliezer, son of Moses (1 Chron. 26:25).
4. A son of Athaliah and head of his father's house at Elam, who with seventy males returned from Babylon with Ezra (Ezra 8:7).
5. A Merarite included in the above seventy (Ezra 8:19).
6. A son of Benjamin, the father of Ithiel whose descendants dwelt in Jerusalem (Neh. 11:7).
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Today's reading: Exodus 27-28, Matthew 21:1-22 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Exodus 27-28
The Altar of Burnt Offering
1 "Build an altar of acacia wood, three cubits high; it is to be square, five cubits long and five cubits wide. 2 Make a horn at each of the four corners, so that the horns and the altar are of one piece, and overlay the altar with bronze. 3 Make all its utensils of bronze--its pots to remove the ashes, and its shovels, sprinkling bowls, meat forks and firepans....Today's New Testament reading: Matthew 21:1-22
Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King
1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away."
4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
5 "Say to Daughter Zion,'See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'"
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