Sat Oct 10th Todays News

Malcolm Turnbull, who staged a coup recently and took the PM's position from a much better man, has cracked a joke at a Liberal Party meeting, and been booed. His joke was to claim the Liberal Party had no factions, even though it was a Liberal Party faction which had undermined Mr Abbott. Turnbull has an opportunity to do things Abbott wouldn't. But Abbott would not have done things recklessly stupid and Turnbull, in showing a difference between himself and Mr Abbott, may have fallen into the same trap Mr Shorten has continuously. Doing something stupid in order to be different. It is a reminder of the time when Rudd had been told that there was nothing effective Australia could do about climate change and he said "We have to do something. And Australians will understand that."At the moment, the poor leadership of Turnbull has angry and uneducated Australians marching against 'political violence.' Political violence which threatens to have stray children shooting random good people in the back of the head and taunting survivors shouting political slogans like "Allahu Akbar" while waiting to be killed by good people. Meanwhile, people whom have received the leadership which Turnbull has abrogated don't seem to understand that such terrorism bring Islam into disrepute, and were it to happen in the land of their birth, might result in them being killed by a decision of a sharia court, which is the usual sentence for bringing Islam into disrepute. 

For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.

=== from 2014 ===

Climate Change Alarmism
Climate scientists chose the top 50 models of climate change and 95% of those models showed the Antarctic Sea Ice would decrease over the next thirty years. Instead, the sea ice has increased to record levels never before measured by satellite. Dr Guy Williams, a liar, says “In some ways it’s a bit counterintuitive for people trying to understand how global warming is affecting our polar regions, but in fact it’s actually completely in line with how climate scientists expect Antarctica and the Southern Ocean to respond..” All government is about choices in using resources. Either money is spent efficiently on power, or it is wasted, and denied for other purposes. As ANU has found. 

Great moments in Violence
A father and son in Sydney's North West have gone to a fight set up on Facebook and are now fighting for their lives. ALP has plans to pay for the war against ISIL. They will take it from our children. Idiots are arrested after trespassing on ASIO grounds. They were lucky not to be killed. Compassion, like that given by Italy's socialists has killed 3072 migrants so far this year. 

Injustice issues
Mr Bolt has been denied justice by a wrongful ruling on his case over 18c. He is not alone in facing injustice. I too have not been able to get satisfaction. Only there is a media black out on my issue which goes with an illegal employment black list. And while I'm sympathetic overAndrew's issue, and support him in his call to overturn the bad law of 18c, I sorely feel I have been sold down the river. Meanwhile senior ABC personnel proudly announce they abuse the ABC charter. However, they aren't alone in their bias. However, Channel 7 or Channel 9 don't rely on tax payer funds for their bias. 

From 2013

Police giving way to antisocial criminals is not good. Pats on the back to the Victoria Police for their improvement. But why was it ever otherwise? Police living in fear of litigation for their work in keeping the peace does not benefit the community, and never has. It comes back to the role of policing under government policy. and ALP policy is not friendly on good people. Good people are hurt as bad people run rampant. Consider that, when you think about defending the Green Pirates who assaulted a Russian installation on the high seas. Apparently those pirates had drugs too .. possibly recreational. I hope they can relax in their prison cells in Siberia. There is no such thing as a safe gangland shooting, and the bikie war being waged around Australia has links to ALP policy. From borders welcoming desperate people who risk death and pay pirates substantially well, to migrants who view good people as worthy of contempt and death for their religion, race or ethnicity. Through to policies that are soft on criminals and despise victims.

Many socialist leaders around the world are rich and privileged. France nearly had a socialist PM who thought nothing of using hard working migrant women for sex. It doesn't represent core conservative values, but as a protest against conservative values it is offensive to good people in the community. One doesn't want a PM who exercises power in that way, indulging in pleasuring themselves at the expense of their nation. Like Obama playing golf on the US dime, as he tries to foist a health system that would include the poorest ten million people without actually hiring a single doctor, but by vastly enlarging a bureaucracy. The truth is that one cannot own what they cannot afford. The GOP might meekly pass the bad bill, as Democrats beg them to, but eventually the US would have to stop .. and many more than 10 million would miss out. Obama wants Obamacare as a legacy, but it will be debt and despair instead.

Want to hear a bad joke? Try the Uniting Church. They have embraced the poor by becoming poor themselves .. I read somewhere God rewards those who are good with the detail ..

=== Publishing News ===

This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.

===

Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August, September, October, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows the purchase of a kindle version for just $3.99 more. 

List of available items at Create Space

• July
• June
• May
• April
• March
• February
• January
• December
• November
• October
• September
• August
• Collected writings

The Amazon Author Page for David Ball

===
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

Douglas Sutherland-Bruce via David Daniel Ball

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.

Happy birthday and many happy returns Timmy Lingy, Kimmy Do and Sarina Jane Kowalin. Born on the same day, across the years, along with
1344 – Mary of Waltham (d. 1362)
1599 – Étienne Moulinié, French composer (d. 1676)
1669 – Johann Nicolaus Bach, German composer (d. 1753)
1731 – Henry Cavendish, French-English scientist and philosopher (d. 1810)
1780 – John Abercrombie, Scottish physician (d. 1844)
1813 – Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer (d. 1901)
1819 – Heinrich Joseph Dominicus Denzinger, German theologian and author (d. 1883)
1825 – Paul Kruger, South African politician, 5th President of the South African Republic (d. 1904)
1837 – Robert Gould Shaw, American army officer (d. 1863)
1895 – Wolfram von Richthofen, German field marshal (d. 1945)
1917 – Thelonious Monk, American pianist and composer (d. 1982)
1924 – James Clavell, Australian author (d. 1994)
1924 – Ed Wood, American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer (d. 1978)
1940 – Winston Churchill, English politician (d. 2010)
1954 – David Lee Roth, American singer-songwriter, and producer (Van Halen)
1964 – Daniel Pearl, American journalist (d. 2002)
1974 – Assi Cohen, Israeli comedian and actor
1998 – Nash Aguas, Filipino actor

October 10: National Day in Fiji (1970) and Taiwan (1911)

• 1780 – One of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes on record struck the Caribbean Sea, killing at least 22,000 people over the next several days.
• 1846 – English astronomer William Lassell discovered Triton (pictured), the largest moon of the planet Neptune.
• 1897 – German chemist Felix Hoffman discovered an improved way of synthesizing acetylsalicylic acid(aspirin).
• 1911 – The Xinhai Revolution began with the Wuchang Uprising, marking the beginning of the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China.
• 1964 – The opening ceremony of the 1964 Summer Olympics took place in Tokyo, the first to be telecast live internationally via satellite.

You've survived the storm. You have the picture. You have the aspirin. The Republic is now. The event is televised. Let's party. 

• 1344 – Mary of Waltham (d. 1362)
• 1567 – Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain (d. 1597)
• 1599 – Étienne Moulinié, French composer (d. 1676)
• 1656 – Nicolas de Largillière, French painter (d. 1746)
• 1669 – Johann Nicolaus Bach, German organist and composer (d. 1753)
• 1678 – John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, Scottish colonel (d. 1743)
• 1684 – Antoine Watteau, French painter (d. 1721)
• 1700 – Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, French sculptor (d. 1759)
• 1731 – Henry Cavendish, French-English chemist, physicist, and philosopher (d. 1810)
• 1780 – John Abercrombie, Scottish physician and philosopher (d. 1844)
• 1813 – Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer (d. 1901)
• 1819 – Heinrich Joseph Dominicus Denzinger, German theologian and author (d. 1883)
• 1834 – Aleksis Kivi, Finnish author (d. 1872)
• 1837 – Robert Gould Shaw, American colonel (d. 1863)
• 1861 – Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian explorer, scientist, and humanitarian, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1930)

• 1863 – Helen Dunbar, American actress (d. 1933)
• 1870 – Louise Mack, Australian journalist, author, and poet (d. 1935)
• 1877 – William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, English businessman and philanthropist, founded Morris Motors (d. 1963)
• 1884 – Ida Wüst, German actress and screenwriter (d. 1958)
• 1885 – Walter Anderson, Belarusian-German ethnologist (d. 1962)
• 1889 – Han van Meegeren, Dutch painter (d. 1947)
• 1895 – Fridolf Rhudin, Swedish actor (d. 1935)
• 1895 – Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, German general (d. 1945)
• 1898 – Lilly Daché, French-American fashion designer (d. 1989)
• 1900 – Helen Hayes, American actress and singer (d. 1993)
• 1901 – Alberto Giacometti, Swiss sculptor and painter (d. 1966)
• 1902 – K. Shivaram Karanth, Indian journalist, author, and activist (d. 1997)
• 1903 – Vernon Duke, Russian-American composer and songwriter (d. 1969)
• 1906 – Paul Creston, American composer and educator (d. 1985)
• 1906 – R. K. Narayan, Indian author (d. 2001)
• 1908 – Johnny Green, American conductor and composer (d. 1989)
• 1908 – Mercè Rodoreda, Catalan author (d. 1983)
• 1909 – Robert F. Boyle, American production designer and art director (d. 2010)
• 1910 – Julius Shulman, American photographer (d. 2009)
• 1911 – Clare Hollingworth, English journalist and author
• 1914 – Ivory Joe Hunter, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 1974)
• 1915 – Harry Edison, American trumpet player (Count Basie Orchestra) (d. 1999)
• 1917 – Thelonious Monk, American pianist and composer (d. 1982)
• 1923 – Louis Gottlieb, American bass player (The Limeliters) (d. 1996)
• 1923 – Nicholas Parsons, English actor
• 1924 – James Clavell, Australian-American director, producer, screenwriter, and author (d. 1994)
• 1924 – Ludmilla Tchérina, French actress, ballerina, and choreographer (d. 2004)
• 1924 – Ed Wood, American actor, director, producer, screenwriter (d. 1978)
• 1926 – Oscar Brown, American singer-songwriter, playwright, and actor (d. 2005)
• 1926 – Richard Jaeckel, American actor (d. 1997)
• 1927 – Dana Elcar, American actor and director (d. 2005)
• 1927 – Jon Locke, American actor (d. 2013)
• 1927 – Thomas Wilson, American-Scottish composer (d. 2001)
• 1938 – Gloria Coates, American-German composer
• 1940 – Winston Churchill, English politician (d. 2010)
• 1946 – Anne Mather, English author
• 1946 – John Prine, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
• 1946 – Chris Tarrant, English radio and television host
• 1946 – Ben Vereen, American actor, singer, and dancer
• 1947 – Gary Beach, American actor and singer
• 1948 – Séverine, French singer and actress
• 1948 – Ed Volker, American singer-songwriter and keyboard player (The Radiators)
• 1953 – Midge Ure, Scottish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Slik, Rich Kids, Thin Lizzy, Visage, and Ultravox)
• 1954 – David Lee Roth, American singer-songwriter and producer (Van Halen and The David Lee Roth Band)
• 1954 – Patric Zimmerman, American voice actor
• 1956 – Amanda Burton, Irish actress and producer
• 1959 – Kirsty MacColl, English singer-songwriter (d. 2000)
• 1960 – Eric Martin, American singer-songwriter (Mr. Big and Tak Matsumoto Group)
• 1960 – Simon Townshend, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Casbah Club)
• 1961 – Scott Hoffman, American drummer (38 Special)
• 1961 – Martin Kemp, English singer-songwriter, bass player, and actor (Spandau Ballet)
• 1963 – Anita Mui, Hong Kong singer and actress (d. 2003)
• 1963 – Daniel Pearl, American journalist (d. 2002)
• 1964 – Crystal Waters, American singer-songwriter
• 1965 – Toshi, Japanese singer-songwriter and producer (X Japan)
• 1965 – Chris Penn, American actor (d. 2006)
• 1966 – Bai Ling, Chinese-American model, actress, and producer
• 1967 – Mike Malinin, American drummer and producer (Goo Goo Dolls)
• 1968 – DJ Skribble, American DJ, producer, and actor (Young Black Teenagers)
• 1972 – Dean Roland, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Collective Soul and Magnets and Ghosts)
• 1973 – Scott Morriss, English bass player and songwriter (The Bluetones)
• 1975 – Ihsahn, Norwegian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Emperor band, Thou Shalt Suffer, and Peccatum)
• 1978 – Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, American actress
• 1979 – Kangta, South Korean singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (H.O.T., S, and Kangta & Vanness)
• 1979 – Mýa, American singer-songwriter, producer, dancer, and actress
• 1979 – Wu Chun, Brunei-Taiwanese actor and singer (Fahrenheit)
• 1991 – Lali Espósito, Argentinian actress and singer (Teen Angels)
• 1994 – Bae Suzy, South Korean singer, dancer, and actress (Miss A)
• 1998 – Nash Aguas, Filipino actor

Deaths

• 19 – Germanicus, Roman general (b. 15 BC)
• 644 – Paulinus, English missionary and bishop
• 732 – Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, Yemeni general
• 1359 – Hugh IV of Cyprus (b. 1295)
• 1659 – Abel Tasman, Dutch merchant and explorer (b. 1603)
• 1691 – Isaac de Benserade, French poet (b. 1613)
• 1708 – David Gregory, Scottish mathematician and astronomer (b. 1659)
• 1714 – Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert, French economist (b. 1646)
• 1720 – Antoine Coysevox, French sculptor (b. 1640)
• 1723 – William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper, English politician, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1665)
• 1725 – Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil, French politician, Governor of New France (b. 1643)
• 1747 – John Potter, English archbishop (b. 1674)
• 1759 – Granville Elliott, English general (b. 1713)
• 1765 – Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (b. 1688)
• 1795 – Francesco Antonio Zaccaria, Italian historian and theologian (b. 1714)
• 1800 – Gabriel Prosser, American rebel leader (b. 1776)
• 1837 – Charles Fourier, French philosopher (b. 1772)
• 1857 – George Washington Parke Custis, American orator and playwright (b. 1781)
• 1911 – Jack Daniel, American businessman, founded Jack Daniel's (b. 1849)
• 1913 – Adolphus Busch, German-American brewer and businessman, co-founded Anheuser-Busch (b. 1839)
• 1963 – Roy Cazaly, Australian footballer and coach (b. 1893)
• 1963 – Édith Piaf, French singer-songwriter and actress (b. 1915)
• 1964 – Eddie Cantor, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor (b. 1892)
• 1982 – Jean Effel, French painter and journalist (b. 1908)
• 1983 – Ralph Richardson, English actor (b. 1902)
• 1985 – Yul Brynner, Russian-American actor, singer, and director (b. 1920)
• 1985 – Orson Welles, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1915)
• 2004 – Christopher Reeve, American actor, producer, and activist (b. 1952)
• 2009 – Stephen Gately, Irish singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor (Boyzone) (b. 1976)
• 2010 – Solomon Burke, American singer-songwriter and preacher (b. 1940)
• 2010 – Joan Sutherland, Australian-Swiss soprano (b. 1926)
• 2013 – Cal Smith, American singer and guitarist (b. 1932)

===

CALLING CARL KOLCHAK

Tim Blair – Saturday, October 10, 2015 (1:29pm)

Ace Fairfax detectives have assembled all the clues, but they just can’t seem to crack this case: 

Dressed in a tracksuit and alone, Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar arrived at Parramatta Mosque, knelt on the floor and began to pray …

Police believe it was at the mosque that Jabar met with several older teenagers and men later that afternoon, who passed to him a silver .38 Smith and Wesson handgun.

Jabar then changed into black robes and trousers … 

Only one man can possibly solve this confounding mystery. 

At around 4.30pm, police accountant Curtis Cheng walked out of the building, heading home to see his family for the long weekend. Jabar followed behind, handgun drawn, and shot him in the head from almost point-blank range.

Within minutes, Jabar too was dead, shot by one of three special constables who guard the building as he fired indiscriminately and shouted religious slogans …

There are pointers but no conclusive evidence about what motivated him to commit murder. 

Those puzzling “religious slogans” might be the key. If only there was some way to discover what they were.

===

PAY UP, TRAVOLTA

Tim Blair – Saturday, October 10, 2015 (4:22am)

Australian racing driver David Reynolds was fined $25,000 for one use of the phrase “pussy wagon”.

John Travolta used the same phrase in the soundtrack for Grease.

The Grease soundtrack has sold eight million copies.

Travolta owes Australian motor racing officials $200,000,000,000.

(Via alert soundtrack specialist Bill.)

===

ONE SIZE FITS ALL

Tim Blair – Saturday, October 10, 2015 (4:16am)

2014: 

National supermarket chain Woolworths has apologised for “inadvertently” stocking a singlet which says “if you don’t love it, leave” alongside a picture of the Australian flag in two of its stores …



The spokesman said the singlet had already been withdrawn from shelves. 

2015: 

Labor leader Bill Shorten: “If you really hate Australia, you should go.”

Parramatta Mosque chairman Neil El-Kadomi: “if you don’t like Australia, leave.”

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, as usual taking more words than anybody else to say the same thing: “It’s is not compulsory to live in Australia. If you find Australian values unpalatable, then there’s a big wide world out there.” 

===

HE WILL SOLVE THIS PROBLEM

Tim Blair – Saturday, October 10, 2015 (3:39am)

Australia’s Grand Mufti vowed four years ago he would master English: 

A much more important question, one everyone I speak to in preparing for this interview advises me to ask, concerns his poor command of English. How can he cope with the media, mainstream Australia and the diverse Muslim communities here if he has to do it through an interpreter?

This is something he has been asked a lot, he replies through his interpreter, Nasser Kat, saying he understands the importance of good English. ‘’I promise that, given time, I will solve this problem. I can understand 80 per cent of what is said and can reply, but I don’t feel that if I speak in English I will have the same speed, depth and richness that I speak in Arabic.’’ 

Four years later, and one week after Curtis Cheng was murdered by an Islamic terrorist, the Grand Mufti offered his speedy response. Through an interpreter. The Mufti, by the way, is a fan of Hamas. 

===

SILENCE OF THE ACTIVISTS

Tim Blair – Saturday, October 10, 2015 (3:34am)

Allegations of a concealed rape: 

A young, female ‘No Borders’ activist working in a migrant camp on the France-Italy border remained silent about her gang rape by Sudanese migrants for over a month because “the others asked me to keep quiet.”

Colleagues are alleged to have said that reporting the crime would set back their struggle for a borderless world. 

Could be a case of high-stakes grievance poker.

===

THE GREAT COMMUNICATOR

Tim Blair – Saturday, October 10, 2015 (3:02am)

Malcolm Turnbull is the Prime Minister for Good Times. He’s a fluent speaker when talking up Australia’s economic confidence or otherwise leading his own cheer squad, but present him with a policy challenge on any issue that might upset people and he hits the rotors. Just listen to Turnbull struggle through a chat about penalty rates:



That’s a man calculating potential political damage as he speaks. Turnbull is pathetic. 

(Via Jill.)

UPDATE. Mr Popularity hears from the Liberal party base:

===

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN

Tim Blair – Saturday, October 10, 2015 (1:17am)

Chaz Mostert is an astonishingly rapid young driver whose early practice pace led me to tip the 2014 Bathurst winner as a possible repeat champion in 2015.

Tonight Mostert is in hospital with a broken leg and wrist following a terrifying crash that recalled Dick Johnson’s race-ending 1980 wall ride:



Must be something about blue Fords and Bathurst. Several flag marshals were also injured. Video reveals just how close they were to a more serious outcome.

UPDATE. The mayhem continues. Miraculously, driver Damien Flack is believed to have suffered only – these things are relative – broken ribs and a punctured lung.

===

Turnbull jeered

Andrew Bolt October 10 2015 (9:54am)

Did I hear Malcolm Turnbull being jeered and groaned at by people at the NSW Liberal conference when he ludicrously claimed the Liberals had no factions and no back room deals? I had only my iPhone and am now in a plane, so can’t be sure. Not with this screaming baby behind me.
UPDATE
True, say readers, including Vivienne.

According to SkyNews: “Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been publicly ridiculed by a group NSW Liberals at the party’s state conference.He was met by howls of laughter for suggesting the party isn’t run by factions and backroom deals.”

UPDATE
Loved by the media, less so by his own party:

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull was booed by his own party members during an address at the Liberal Party State Council yesterday.

In a sign that some of the party faithful are still bitter about the axing of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Mr Turnbull was met by a chorus of laughter and jeers from sections of the crowd when he claimed the Liberal Party was “not run by factions”.
He was heckled again when he announced that the Liberals were not run by “backroom deals"…
In what is usually a Liberal Party love-in, the response to Mr Turnbull was remarkably negative and showed the discontent within the party’s NSW arm following its latest round of factional blood-letting.

Watch the fiasco here.
Big bloody surprise.
The absolutely astonishing thing about this is the total lack of self awareness that led Turnbull to say something so manifestly and preposterously false.
UPDATE
And to complete the humiliation, as Jason Morrison notes: “When a Prime Minister doesn’t get a standing ovation from his own Party but the bloke he rolled @TonyAbbottMHR does… there’s a message.”
What have they done? 

===

The silence of the feminists

Andrew Bolt October 10 2015 (8:10am)

Why isn’t the fight against ISIS a feminist issue? Why this near-silence in the face of the most horrific war on women seen in our lifetime?
ABC’s Four Corners revealed such ghastly crimes against women that any feminist who does not demand action betrays their deepest principles. 

===

ABC wants tip from Turnbull for making him Prime Minister

Andrew Bolt October 10 2015 (8:02am)

The ABC used its massive state power to destroy Tony Abbott and now wants its reward:

The ABC will try to seize on Tony Abbott’s demise as prime minister to push for fresh funding from the Turnbull government to pay for its news and current affairs services.
ABC managing director Mark Scott said on Friday that he would argue investing in the public broadcaster is a “sure bet” for the government given the “endless existential shocks” being experienced by commercial media outlets…
“As commercial media operations struggle with market forces and the slow decline of their business models, the role of the ABC, particularly in respect to news, is becoming increasingly vital to the health of our democracy and culture."…
The ABC is about to begin negotiations with the government for its next three-year funding agreement, to be announced in next year’s budget.
ABC management hopes the removal of Mr Abbott, a strong critic of the broadcaster, will allow it to claw back some of the $250 million slashed from the broadcaster last year…
Communications Minister Mitch Fifield said last month: “I don’t want to pre-empt where the triennial funding will end up, but look, we’re a government that recognises the important role that the ABC plays.”...He later said: “I don’t have any plans to change the funding for the ABC that has been previously announced.”

===

This “collaborative approach” means collaborating to deceive

Andrew Bolt October 10 2015 (8:00am)

Apparently the Turnbull Government’s new “collaborative” approach means pretending things are other than what they are. Religiously motivate violence is called “politically motivated”. Aggressive extremists are “disempowered”. Weak Muslim leadership is “strong”. And when the Grand Mufti of Australia refuses to call a jihadist attack “terrorism”, well, that’s just a “collaborative approach”.
Let me demonstrate.

AUSTRALIA’S Grand Mufti refused to label Friday’s fatal shooting at police headquarters a terrorist attack and blamed social media for teaching young Muslims extremist views.
Speaking through an interpreter one week after teenager Farhad Jabar opened fire on police headquarters in Parramatta, killing accountant Curtis Cheng, Dr Mohammad would not acknowledge the brutal murder as a terror attack, despite Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione and Premier Mike Baird calling it a terror incident.
“We are not an investigation agency, we cannot redefine or readapt what happened,” he said.
“We are not the agency that investigates and achieves what really happened. There’s not enough information so far about that. Without enough information, and given that we are not an investigating body, I cannot comment on that.”

Liberal MP Fiona Scott, asked on Sky News today about the Mufti’s refusal call terrorism “terrorism”:

I think that was welcome. It demonstrates the collaborate approach.

“Collaboration” apparently means we all agree not to mention the war.
UPDATE
Noticed how Turnbull has helped to turn the national conversation so that the real victims are Muslims and the real oppressors are nasty Australian rednecks?  

===

Spoiling Peter Reith’s lunch. But what am I meant to cheer?

Andrew Bolt October 10 2015 (7:27am)

Ouch:

In response, I have two questions for Peter Reith and the disappointed readers who lunched with him on Friday. Read them in Monday’s column. One is: what exactly should I be applauding?
(Thanks to reader Nathan.) 

===

Why they love Trump

Andrew Bolt October 10 2015 (6:38am)

You can kind of understand how Donald Trump is a gale of fresh air to Americans sick to the back teeth of the scripted and autocued slogan-mongers:

It’s when Trump has to talk about policies and world politics rather than himself that the conversation gets a bit fraught. But Trump is for people bored with politics. 

===

Turnbull, um, explains

Andrew Bolt October 10 2015 (6:14am)

Malcolm Turnbull in his first press conference as leader promised lots of explaining:

We need to have in this country, and we will have now, an economic vision, a leadership that explains the great challenges and opportunities that we face.... [Y]ou build confidence by explaining, as I said earlier, explaining what the problem is, making sure people understand it, and then setting out the options for dealing with it.... That’s the approach I have taken: Laying out what the issues are, getting the facts straight, explaining that and then presenting a path forward and then making the case for that path forward.  My firm belief is that to be a successful leader in 2015 – perhaps at any time – you have to be able to bring people with you by respecting their intelligence in the manner you explain things.  Now we’ve got some great leaders in Australia at the State-level, but let me just point to one international leader, John Key for example.  John Key has been able to achieve very significant economic reforms in New Zealand by doing just that.  By taking, by explaining complex issues and then making the case for them.

Small problem. Turnbull has, um, er, a problem - not always, of course - explaining things to, er, voters, and not just to, um, voters, sometimes also his colleagues, it must be said, in a way, that, that, um, doesn’t taken him, in a manner of speaking, er, on a Cook’s tour, if I may use that expression, of his passing thoughts - most of them involving this one: Oh, God, what if I offend someone?:

Via Tim Blair, who provides another example - of Turnbull trying to deliver the message “If you don’t love Australia, leave” while his brain is scouting anxiously for land mines:

It’s is not compulsory to live in Australia. If you find Australian values unpalatable, then there’s a big wide world out there. 

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Let’s talk those extremists into the ground

Andrew Bolt October 10 2015 (5:51am)

Malcolm Turnbull steps up his campaign against Islamist terrorism by promising more talk about it:

New co-ordinated strategies to prevent teenagers from falling under the spell of Islamic State will be a major focus of an urgent meeting convened by Malcolm Turnbull next week, as the Prime Minister steps up his response to the terror shooting of police worker Curtis Cheng.
Officials from federal and state police forces, intelligence services and other government agencies will meet in Canberra on Thursday to develop ways to better co-ordinate their ­approaches to countering violent extremism…

UPDATE
Journalists are trying to cover for Malcolm Turnbull’s astonishing failure of leadership over Islamist terrorism. On Sky News, for instance, one presenter claimed Turnbull’s message yesterday was both “strong” and “nuanced” - terms that rarely co-exist.
Dennis Shanahan is far closer to the mark:

Malcolm Turnbull has an irrepressible lawyer style, an instinctive sympathy for human rights arguments and a deliberate political strategy to be different from Tony Abbott.
All three traits have served him well in taking over office because he could appeal to those opposed to the former prime minister’s direct, abrasive style.
But now he is Prime Minister and has to deal with some tough topics, Turnbull will have to curb these tendencies and find a balance between caring compassion and tough-minded declarations.
Following the terror murder of police worker Curtis Cheng and the Coalition’s examination of programs for deradicalisation and countering violent terrorism, Turnbull had difficulty finding the balance between reassuring the general public and deterring an anti-Islamic backlash… Apart from turning a point about mutual respect being the Australian way and necessary to help fight Islamist radicalisation into a speech, Turnbull appeared uncertain and over-qualified his remarks.At one stage, as he edged towards telling people who didn’t like Australia to leave, he pulled back as he realised he was going where not even Abbott had gone. Turnbull needs to start saying less and keeping what he does say more direct.

What I found notable about Turnbull’s presser yesterday was that so much of his message was a lecture to non-Muslim Australians that seemed to assume many were irrational anti-Islamic bigots. He also repeated the falsehood that jihadism was ”politically motivated” rather than religiously motivated, although he did elsewhere in the press conference at least concede the attack was “motivated we believe by extremists’ political and religious views”.  And I was also struck by how often Turnbull had to refer to notes to give his message without stumbling, although the following excerpt is not the worst example of it:

Turnbull is right to be worried that tough talking about Islam might alarm the Muslim “leaders” he needs to help fight Islamist violence. But he should also worry that soft talking about Islam might alarm the non-Muslim Australians he needs to help fight any backlash.
And how much hope is there that there will be this cooperation from Muslim leaders? We’ve been looking for, pleading for, that cooperation for at least 14 years now, since the September 11 attacks in 2001.
UPDATE
Related. The Guardian’s Frankie Boyle on the leadership style of Jeremy Corbyn, British Labour’s new leader:

Corbyn took to the stage with his head like a haunted tennis ball, and the general air of a pigeon that had ­inherited a suit. His speech ­lasted 59 minutes, one minute for every ­Labour MP who would like to see him fed into a sausage ­machine. The new Labour leader ­insisted, “Leadership is about ­listening.” If leadership is about ­listening, the great political speeches would have been a little different. Churchill saying, “Can you tell me what you’d like to do on the beaches?” Or Martin Luther King, surrounded by civil right activists at the Lincoln Memorial: “Did everyone hear that? He said a dog came into his bedroom but it had the head of his dead mother … it sang the Camptown Races and then all his teeth fell out. That’s a great one. OK, hands up who’s got another dream?”

UPDATE
One problem with Turnbull’s plan to talk this terrorism thing into the ground is the Grand Mufti. Eighteen years after arriving here from Egypt and four years after he promised to master English in four years the Mufti still needs an interpreter. Something symbolic in that.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 

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Remember how the Left complained about misogynists harping on Gillard’s clothes?

Andrew Bolt October 10 2014 (5:10pm)

The Left really is making a circus of itself - and of the ABC. From another Gerard Henderson catalogue of recent examples of the ABC’s bias:

Just as Julia Gillard was embarking on a nationwide tour to promote her book My Story — along with a message that when she was prime minister there was too much focus on her gender, including her choice of clothes — James Valentine opened up his ABC 702 program last Tuesday with a discussion on Tony Abbott’s clothes. 
At the commencement of his program, James Valentine spent a full 20 minutes discussing the Prime Minister’s outfits. Or outfit. You see, according to Mr Valentine, Mr Abbott has only one suit along with one or perhaps two ties. The suit is blue and the tie either blue or grey. Really.
To push out the segment to 1.30pm comedian Shaun Micallef dropped into the studio to help out in discussing this BIG ISSUE. In time, the conversation was extended to Peta Credlin (the PM’s chief-of-staff) and Opposition leader Bill Shorten.
The combined intellects of Valentine and Micallef came to the conclusion that Mr Shorten is wont to wear red ties and that both the Prime Minister and the Opposition leader have less hair than once was the case. Golly. Their conclusion? Well Abbott and Shorten have “two ties and a full set of hair between them”. How funny can you get?
Oh yes, Valentine and Micallef also proposed that the Prime Minister should establish a “National Wardrobe Advisory Committee”. Really. Imagine, just imagine, what would have been said if — say — 3AW’s Neil Mitchell devoted 20 minutes to discussing Julia Gillard’s dress sense. But when it comes to a bloke named Abbott, anything goes. Can you bear it?

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Even when they’re wrong, climate scientists insist they are right

Andrew Bolt October 10 2014 (9:18am)

Global warming - dud predictions, Global warming - propaganda

This is a fact:

The world’s best 50 models were run and 95% of them have Antarctic sea ice decreasing over the past 30 years.

Instead, Antarctic ice over those 30 years increased to levels never before measured by satellites.
So this must be spin:

Dr Guy Williams, a sea ice scientist at the Tasmanian Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (Imas), says ... “In some ways it’s a bit counterintuitive for people trying to understand how global warming is affecting our polar regions, but in fact it’s actually completely in line with how climate scientists expect Antarctica and the Southern Ocean to respond..”

Both quotes are in the same story.
Truly, global warming is a faith-based theory you can never destroy with mere facts.
(Thanks to reader handjive.) 

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On The Bolt Report on Sunday, October 12

Andrew Bolt October 10 2014 (8:51am)

On The Bolt Report on Channel 10 on Sunday at 10am and 4pm.
Editorial:  The true danger of Hizb ut-Tahrir. How best to resist.
My guest: Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.
The panel: Cassandra Wilkinson and Michael Kroger.

NewsWatch:  The Daily Telegraph’s Miranda Devine.

The videos of the shows appear here.

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Importing the Middle East’s wars into the streets of Europe

Andrew Bolt October 10 2014 (8:30am)

Mass immigration into Europe means the immigration of some old conflicts, too:
 A vast demographic experiment - one that cannot be unwound - is now producing its results.
UPDATE
Coming in through the back door:

Italy’s Mediterranean Sea mission, which has rescued more than 90,000 migrants in the past year, will go on, the prime minister said on Friday… 
Italy has repeatedly called for the European Union to contribute more to its Mare Nostrum, or “Our Sea”, search-and-rescue mission, which costs the navy 9 million euros a month to run. So far, member states have not stepped up… Mare Nostrum began after more than 360 men, women and children drowned when their boat capsized a mile off the Italian island of Lampedusa.... It drew international media attention and led Pope Francis and human rights organisations to call for more global attention to the plight of migrants.

That conspicuous compassion had exactly the same deadly price as we saw here:

A record 3,072 migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean in rickety boats so far this year, against some 2,360 in 2013, the International Organisation for Migration said on Monday.

And, of course, there will be the friction involved in trying to absorb tens of thousands of people largely from tribal cultures and and a militant faith. 

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A second look at Richard Crichton

Andrew Bolt October 10 2014 (8:10am)

I know many readers aren’t mad on modernist art, and I was dubious, too. But seeing these works on the walls, dominating the space, I was seriously impressed. This was unique and vivid stuff that demanded you look and look again. And respond.

See more of Richard Crichton’s work here. Not all that much left on sale, though. 

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Hockey is right: Labor cannot back what it won’t pay for

Andrew Bolt October 10 2014 (8:02am)

Treasurer Joe Hockey on the $500 million a year bill for our war in Iraq: 

Everything comes at a cost… And if Bill Shorten truly is honest about his commitment to deliver bipartisan support in relation to our defence efforts in the Middle East, he will provide bipartisan support to pay for it

Tony Abbott won’t endorse: 

I’ve had numerous conversations with Bill about this and he is an Australian patriot. He fully understands the threat that ISIL poses.

Greg Sheridan attacks:

JOE Hockey made a bad mistake in linking national security to Labor’s approach to the budget. Tanya Plibersek was perfectly right to criticise him for it and frankly could well have gone beyond describing the comments as being in poor taste. 
Hockey’s misjudgement damaged Australia’s national interests and could well damage the government’s political interests.Tony Abbott genuinely values the bipartisan approach taken by Bill Shorten on national security. 

But wait. How can you wish the ends without wishing also the means? Isn’t this the central failure of Labor’s last six years in office, that its good intentions were not matched by the will to find the money to pay for them, leaving the Budget in tatters?
Abbott has reasons to want to seem above the fray, but Hockey is absolutely right. This ludicrous and childish fantasy of promising things you haven’t paid for must end. The world doesn’t work that way. If Labor backs this war it must indeed back some way to pay for it.
It is irresponsible to defend Labor’s Candy Man economics. 

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The ANU becomes a green seminary

Andrew Bolt October 10 2014 (7:49am)

Aren’t our universities meant to be secular organisations, where reason is free to roam?
Seems not: 

Kerry Brewster, reporter: The ANU has a billion-dollar investment fund. It says it’s behaving responsibly by divesting a small portion, $16 million, from seven Australian resource companies. 
Ian Young, vice-chancellor, Australian National University: For a ­university like ours, which is, for instance, a major researcher in environment and alternative energy, we need to be able to put our hand on our heart when we talk to our students, and to our alumni, and to our researchers, and be able to say that we’re confident that the sort of companies that we’re investing in are consistent with the broad themes that drive this ­university.

Andrew Montford says students will pay - unless taxpayers make up the difference:

If the universities are shifting their investments away from fossil fuels into presumably lower-yielding green assets, what is the knock-on effect on their ability to deliver research and education? Presumably there will be less money to spend on facilities across the board and so future students and academics will bear the brunt of the impact. Unless of course the university lobbying machine persuades the government that they are underfunded, in which case you and I end up paying for academia’s gesture.

(Thanks to reader Rocky.) 

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I’m just reporting what some other guy argues. It would probably be unlawful for me to agree

Andrew Bolt October 10 2014 (7:22am)

The politics of race

Mike Keane, an adjunct associate professor in human psychopharmacology, identifies the central error in the judgment:

At the core of the case of Eatock v Bolt was the issue of racial identity and how society should conceptualise those of mixed race. 
In his decision Justice Mordecai Bromberg writes: “Collectively, 18 individuals are named in the articles. Nine of those individuals gave evidence in this case. Each of them genuinely identifies as an Aboriginal person and has done so since their childhood ...”
Importantly, Justice Bromberg states “None of them ‘chose’ to be ­Aboriginal.”
In my view, identity, like any other form of consent, is a completely contemporary phenomenon. At each and every juncture you make an autonomous choice about how you identify.
You can change that choice whenever you like… So, I would consider that the complainants in the case actually did “choose to be Aboriginal” in how they self-identified…
Justice Bromberg’s standard would then create some bizarre and wholly unacceptable ethical precedents. Imagine what this principle, if logically extended to other forms of identity and ethics, would mean. Your upbringing would forever cast you in a certain identity. You were born a Catholic? Well, then society will hold you to it all through your adult life. And if you now want to identify as transgender? No, sorry, you’re not allowed…
People have the choice as how to identify. It is only reasonable to ask why people are breaking towards identifying a certain way. Why don’t they identify another way? It’s not about their race, which is fixed; it’s about identity…

So Justice Bromberg made an error.... Justice Bromberg’s decision in the Bolt case was ... ideologically charged intellectual sophistry… At a time when we are taking on the intolerance of Islamic State, Justice Bromberg’s decision would have us forever cast people to racial, religious and sexual identity from birth without the possibility of ever opting out. 

I cannot safely comment on this important public issue without first getting expensive legal advice, and should emphasise that the judge has ruled it was an error to say the claimants had a choice when they identified as Aboriginal.  I suspect I would be defying the law and the judgement to suggest I agree with Keane’s argument here and thought the same from the start.
I am banned from republishing the two articles which Keane refers to, which would put this argument in context.
But isn’t it mad that this serious discussion should put us in danger of having our writings declared unlawful and banned?
The Prime Minister can’t believe it, either: 

“Well certainly if poor old Andrew Bolt is prosecuted for a relatively mild piece…” Mr Abbott said. 
“If we are looking for objectionable speech, the kind of stuff we are hearing from Hizb ut-Tahrir is infinitely more objectionable than anything you’d ever hear from Andrew Bolt.”

I could do without the “poor old”, since I am not crying for myself but raging at the trashing of a freedom and the trampling of reason. But Abbot is right to be stunned, and I hope a Senate majority will one day allow him to do something about this. 

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ABC takes up the case of some very foolish protesters

Andrew Bolt October 10 2014 (6:56am)

Astonishingly, this was the lead story on the ABC’s 7.30 last night:

LOUISE MILLIGAN, REPORTER: This is one of Australia’s most secret places. Just an hour and a half out of Melbourne, Swan Island is a base for Australia’s Secret Intelligence Service, the overseas arm of the country’s spy network. 
BRIAN TOOHEY, JOURNALIST: It’s ASIS who runs the thing and it’s ASIS’s island, basically.
LOUISE MILLIGAN: The Defence Force’s crack commando squadron, the SAS, also uses Swan Island and no-one is allowed to go on without Defence or ASIS approval. But last week, a small group of anti-war protestors decided to try their luck, and in the small hours of Thursday morning, eight men made it onto the island.
GREG ROLLES, SWAN ISLAND PEACE CONVERGENCE: ... We decided to break cover and take some photos of us holding a banner that said “No more US wars"… We heard a car come screaming around the corner and two plain clothes men came out and rushed towards us. ... ... I had my hands in the air saying, “I’m a non-violent protestor and I won’t be resisting,” and that didn’t stop him from tackling me as hard as he could and crashing me into the ground.
LOUISE MILLIGAN: Greg Rolles still has the red marks around his wrists he says are from the cable ties his captor used to handcuff him.
GREG ROLLES: He then went on to put a bag - a hessian sack over my head. And after that was on, I heard one of the two men say, “Welcome to the bag, motherf**kers. ... I do remember saying at this point, “This is torture,” and he said “I don’t give a f**k.” And at that point he rolled me over onto my stomach and pulled down my pants and my underwear....
SAM QUINLAN, SWAN ISLAND PEACE CONVERGENCE: I was on the ground with a hessian bag over my head and hands cable-tied behind my back, and soon enough, I hear him start to cut, I hear a ripping sound, and long story short, basically from bottom to top with a knife. ... He said, “The reason I’m stripping you is to make sure you’re not a terrorist and you haven’t got any weapons on you,"… TIM WEBB, SWAN ISLAND PEACE CONVERGENCE: During the whole process we were being interrogated, just by being shouted at with questions like, “Do you know the seriousness of what you’ve done? Did you know that you’ve endangered the families of the SAS and anybody who works here? The women, the children, you’ve put them in danger.”

Then some deep frowning:

SARAH JOSEPH, CASTAN CANTRE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, MONASH UNI.: There is a prohibition on torture, inhuman, cruel and degrading treatment. That is an absolute prohibition; there are no exceptions allowed to that. I’m not sure that I would classify this as torture, but I think it is at the very least degrading treatment...

But, finally, sanity - of the kind that should have deep-sixed this non-story:

LOUISE MILLIGAN: As Special Forces join the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Australia’s terror alert is raised to high, the security of Swan Island has become even more sensitive.
NEIL JAMES, AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE ASSOCIATION: It’s a dumb idea to trespass on a government facility at any time, but it’s particularly dumb at the moment because of the increased terrorist alert. I can certainly think of circumstances and most Australians probably could too why at this time of increased alert it might have been necessary to search people for vandalism tools and weapons and why it might have been necessary to blindfold them in a sensitive facility…
LOUISE MILLIGAN: Given the very sort of tense national security climate at the moment, is it perhaps folly to draw attention to the fact that it’s quite easy to get onto Swan Island, this top secret military intelligence base?
SAM QUINLAN: Yeah, well, OK, yes. For a start, yes, it was a - I’d say easier than we suspected to get onto the island itself. ... But, look, we’re not - we’re not - we’re not sort of pro-ISIS or anything like that.
LOUISE MILLIGAN: Hypothetically, your actions could encourage someone who was pro-ISIS to perhaps try and get onto this island because they saw that, “Hey, these peace-loving protestors got on. Well, perhaps I could too.” SAM QUINLAN: Sure, sure. Yeah.

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How the ABC laughs … at its charter

Andrew Bolt October 10 2014 (6:31am)

Just a typical ABC comedy, “joking” that Liberals are Islamophobes and friends of the KKK, Tony Abbott a neo-Nazi with his own Wolf’s Lair, conservatives are ranters and the air force just a tool of America’s hypocritcal war in Iraq. Naturally, to appreciate the jokes further, you have to assume global warming is a menace, police are morons. Islamic fascism not a problem and nuclear waste a nightmare.
Naturally, the show has its fans - people better known for their ideological rigidity than their humor:

UPDATE
Mind you, you get the same preachiness from commercial TV shows, too. From Adam Boland, former producer of Channel Seven’s Sunrise, which went on a global warming crusade:

Some executives, including Michael [Pell], felt I was using [Weekend Sunrise] to preach a left-wing agenda. This was true to some extent but to me, it was warranted, given many other media outlets had moved so far to the right 

Still, Channel 7 is not taxpayer funded and is entitled to follow whatever Leftist handwagon it likes. The ABC, however…

(Thanks to readers Jason and Brett.) 

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What’s so social about that media?

Andrew Bolt October 10 2014 (6:09am)

It feels as though our society is losing its moorings:

A FATHER and son are fighting for their lives after they were stabbed during a horrific mass brawl set up on social media. 
The 41-year-old father and his son, 20, were attacked during a fight involving up to 30 people outside Rouse Hill Town centre in Sydney’s north-west… 

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LOS ANGELES –  What’s the difference between Hollywood’s fall movie selection and what the adult industry has to offer? Maybe not so much.

Critics are dubbing the current Tinseltown movie season as perhaps the “porniest ever” given the amount of sexually-charged movies coming out, touching on everything from statutory rape and sex addiction, to incest and even a little bit of necrophilia thrown in there for good measure.

“Too many current movies for this fall are tinged, or rather stained, by too many studios releasing meaningless, empty stories that seem to be more porn-like than film-like. Making movies that glorify porn addicts, child molesters, necrophiliacs who kill in order to have sex later only contributes to the decay of the moral compass of society,” filmmaker and media educator Nicole Clark told FOX411. “Too many people in our society have become desensitized.”

Some of the films make this year’s controversial “Spring Breakers” appear tame. So where to even start?

Daniel Radcliffe has shed his “Harry Potter” persona for the upcoming “Kill Your Darlings” with an exploration of homosexuality, masturbation and picking up older men in bar, and“Blue is the Warmest Color” continues to stir controversy in the U.S. as it is released in more and more film festivals. The French lesbian movie, which won the Cannes Film Festival, is being hailed for its artistic elements and passionate love story, but has been slapped with a NC-17 rating and includes a very graphic, lengthy sex scene. Technically in America, the relationship would be considered statutory rape.

But according to human behavior expert Patrick Wanis, sexually explicit content is everywhere – and it is simply a logical progression that the business of Hollywood would cash in by taking the cultural movement to the next level.

Only now? Anyone heard of Herod the Great? It ain't only movies or fiction - ed
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A 4,000-year-old human brain, preserved by a combination of mineral-rich soil, fire and something known as "corpse wax," has been found in Turkey.

The brain looks more like a piece of burned log, notes New Scientist, but it could unlock clues to the prehistoric mind. Found in the Bronze Age settlement of Seyitömer Höyük, western Turkey, the tissue was amid four skeletons dug up there between 2006 and 2011. Scientists from Haliç University, in Istanbul, who have been analyzing the brain, say special circumstances led to its preservation. The skeletons were found burned in a layer of sediment that also contained charred wood. It appears that an earthquake struck the region, flattened the settlement and buried the people before fire spread through the rubble, according to investigators.

"The level of preservation in combination with the age is remarkable," says Frank Rühli at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, who has examined medieval brain tissue. Rühli says that most archaeologists don't bother looking for the remains of brain tissue because they assume it is seldom preserved.

The flames likely consumed all the oxygen in the rubble and literally boiled the brains in their own fluids. With no moisture and no oxygen, the brains, though boiled and burned, were remarkably preserved for millennia. One other factor helped preserve the shape of the boiled soft tissue: The local soil is rich in potassium, magnesium and aluminum, which reacted with fatty acids from the human tissue to form a substance called adipocere, known to coroners as corpse wax.

It's not the first brain to survive thousands of years, but it may be the oldest. Two years ago, scientists found a 2,600-year-old brain in a bog, where oxygen-depleted water stopped it from breaking down. Another brain that outlived its host by a long, long time was that of an Inca child sacrificed 500 years ago. In that case, freezing temperatures atop an Andean mountain preserved the brain.

How thoughtful - ed
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IF found guilty, Chadi Jomaa should be considered the world's stupidest arsonist.
Police will allege in court that a man caught on CCTV skulking around the front of a Wentworthville shop moments before it spectacularly exploded on Tuesday morning was the shop's owner, Mr Jomaa, a person eight people risked their lives to save.

The 36-year-old, who broke both his legs, injured his pelvis and neck, and received burns to his face in the explosion, was refused bail at a bedside hearing at Royal North Shore Hospital yesterday.

The Pendle Hill man is accused of causing the explosion that devastated his Jomaa Market shop and a flat above - the blast blowing the resident out of the building and onto the footpath.

Police will allege Mr Jomaa bought 10 litres of petrol in a red plastic jerry can from the BP Service Station across the road from his shop at 4.10pm on Monday.
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BRITISH police will issue a computer-generated image of a new suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Sky News reports the was man seen near the Portuguese holiday apartment from where the then three-year-old British girl vanished in 2007.

As part of an appeal for fresh information, police are expected next week to release the picture and give details of the suspect's movements around the resort of Praia da Luz.

Scotland Yard would neither confirm nor deny the claims.

Police said in a statement that they wouldn't discuss the content on an upcoming appeal.

They said the appeal had been weeks in the planning.

"We will be asking for help from the public in a number of countries, delivered through a series of public appeals," the statement said.
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NATURE is a cruel storyteller. All too often, the cutest animals are the tastiest - and the easiest prey for predators. That spritely springbok, gambolling over an African savanna? That's a leopard's lunch. That turtle hatchling, struggling down to the shoreline? A seagull's snack.
But every so often, nature throws away its own cruel script, for something you could otherwise imagine being dreamt up around a Disney Corp roundtable.

It happened recently in South Africa.

Irish photographer David Jenkins was on board a shark-spotting boat tour off the coast of Cape Town when he spotted a young seal making a miraculous escape from the jaws of a Great White shark.

The seal was lifted out of the water by the attacking shark but landed on the predator's nose, before swimming off to safety.
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War usually conjures up images of bloodshed, violence and death. 

Rarely do we see the softer side of the life on the front line - and these stirring images give a glimpse of soldiers chatting with children, cleaning their weapons and caring for their animals.

The remarkable pictures in the annual Army Photographic Competition show Britain's soldiers at work and play.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2450971/Jamie-Peters-Armys-Combat-Camera-Team-photographer-captures-unseen-world.html#ixzz2hIh5jMS1
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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Azerbaijan's big presidential election, held on Wednesday, was anticipated to be neither free nor fair. President Ilham Aliyev, who took over from his father 10 years ago, has stepped up intimidation of activists and journalists. Rights groups are complaining about free speech restrictions and one-sided state media coverage. The BBC's headline for its story on the election reads "The Pre-Determined President." So expectations were pretty low.

Even still, one expects a certain ritual in these sorts of authoritarian elections, a fealty to at least the appearance of democracy, if not democracy itself. So it was a bit awkward when Azerbaijan's election authorities released vote results – a full daybefore voting had even started.

The vote counts – spoiler alert: Aliyev was shown as winning by a landslide – were pushed out on an official smartphone app run by the Central Election Commission. It showed Aliyev as "winning" with 72.76 percent of the vote. That's on track with his official vote counts in previous elections: he won ("won"?) 76.84 percent of the vote in 2003 and 87 percent in 2008.

<The awkward moment election results are made available - a day before voting starts.>
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If you get into an argument about press regulation this week, as the Privy Council unilaterally decides on the fate of the British press, I guarantee you this: it will be the Lefties among your acquaintances who will most vociferously champion state intrusion into the press, while the voices criticising such intrusion are far more likely to come from your Right-leaning mates.

It’s been like this since the Leveson Inquiry was first set up in 2011. The Left not only cheered this modern-day Star Chamber stuffed with the great and the good dictating to the press what its “culture and ethics” should be; they actually worked for it and on it. In his role as Hacked Off’s chief propagandist, Brian Cathcart, former New Statesman man,pretty much ghost-wrote Leveson’s 2,000-page screed against the wicked press. Lib Dem MP turned roving campaigner for censorship Evan Harris is another Leftie begging the state to rap the red-tops’ knuckles. Shami Chakrabarti, heroine of every Leftie with a conscience, actually sat on Leveson’s press-judging panel. The Guardian is, like a turkey marching for more Christmases, in favour of state meddling in the press. Radical Leftists, meanwhile, clog up Twitter with shrill demands that evil Uncle Rupert and his foul newspapers be taken down a peg or two by state officials.

Why are Leftists so spectacularly hostile to the principle of press freedom, which, very simply put, means having no state interference in the press? It wasn’t always like this. The radical folk that the modern Left claims to be descended from – from the Levellers to Karl Marx to the intellectual Leftists of the 20th century – were so in favour of press freedom that they were willing to sacrifice their lives for it.

The Levellers, the most radical political movement of the English Civil War, who demanded greater suffrage and religious tolerance, were implacably opposed to state licensing of the press. Only full press freedom would allow ordinary people to exercise their sovereign power against “Tyrannie”, these brilliant rabble-rousers declared. They argued that liberty of the press is “so essential unto freedom, as that without it, it’s impossible to preserve any nation from being liable to the worst of bondage”. Those words should ring in the ears of every Leftist currently giving an enthusiastic nod to the medieval Privy Council’s deliberations on the press’s freedoms.

Later, Thomas Paine, my personal hero, the corset-maker turned revolutionary pamphleteer who did so much to stir up the tradition-trampling revolutions in both America and France in the late 18th century, also argued for complete press freedom. He said state interference in the press was always more a “sentence on the public [than] the author”, because it effectively tells the public “they shall not think, they shall not read”. It’s the same today, where snooty officials’ desire to rein in red-top papers in particular is really about preventing the readers of those papers from seeing saucy or offensive things – Page 3 girls, anti-immigrant stories, so-called “Islamophobia” – and potentially acting on them. Paine knew very well how tyrannical state meddling in the freedom to press one’s ideas could be: in the 1790s an English court sentenced him to death in absentia for the “crime” of writing Rights of Man.

===

Madu Odiokwu Pastorvin

PRAY ALONG.
Abba Father,I thank You for giving me power, love and a sound mind. I open my heart to You and receive Your perfect love. Fill me with Your confidence and assurance to embrace everything You have for me. I come into agreement with You. I choose to align my words, my thoughts and my actions with Your Word which is a lamp to my feet and light to my path. I will hide Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You in Jesus’ name. Amen.

=

Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.”
(Matthew 18:19, NIV)

The Scripture talks about how when any two of us agree, it shall be done. That’s a promise that when we stand in faith with another believer, God will do what He said. Well, I believe that principle is true even in the negative. When the enemy puts a thought in your mind, if you agree, then your agreement is what gives it the power to come to pass. But if you don’t agree, you turn it around.

The thought says, “Your children are going to get into trouble.” “No, I don’t agree. My children will be mighty in the land. My children will fulfill their destiny.” You’ve just stopped that fear from coming to pass. The thought says, “You’d better not go out today. You’re going to have an accident.” “No, I don’t agree. God has a hedge of protection around me; a bloodline that the enemy cannot cross.”

Here’s the key: don’t come into agreement with the fear. If you don’t agree, the only way it can come to pass is if God gives it permission. Today, pay attention to what you’re coming into agreement with and don’t agree with fear.God bless you.

=

Father, I choose to honor You in all that I do.I thank You for Your Word which fills my heart with faith. I believe that You are good and You are a rewarder of those who seek after You.I acknowledge You and thank You for revealing Yourself to me. I choose to set the standard and do my very best. Thank You for the privilege to be Your representative. I love You and bless You in Jesus’ name! Amen.

=

FORGIVENESS.
Forgiveness is a word we both love and hate. It's a tremendous grace as it regards what God does with our confessed sins. When God forgives our sins it's like He presses the delete button on His Heavenly computer. And when He forgives us He doesn't send our sins to a temporary recycle bin just in case He needs to remind us of them. They're totally removed from the hard drive. That's what we love about the word forgiveness.It is more powerful than revenge.

But there's a facet of forgiveness that's more difficult for us to deal with. And that facet arises when God asks us to forgive those that trespass against us.The reason we struggle so much with forgiving others is because it runs contrary to our human nature. When someone offends us there's a natural tendency to resent it and often retaliate.Shakespeare said "to err is human but to forgive is divine.

But there's a communicable side to God that we can share. God is love and we can allow this virtue to flow through us. He is merciful, longsuffering, and kind and He wants us to exhibit these qualities. And then God is forgiving and He certainly wants us to emulate that.There are reasons God commanded us to extend forgiveness. Believe it or not, God isn't trying to persecute us; He's trying to bless us.Jesus said: "if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Think over it.God bless you.

=

My life is in shambles.
My family has gone to the dogs.
I can’t see how I’m going to pass that final.
I don’t know about my future.
WILL THEY EVER BE A VICTORY FOR ME?
The answer is YES.Why? BECAUSE OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD. SAY THAT WITH ME LIKE YOU MEAN IT. He is CREATOR and SUSTAINOR.You are blessed.

=

The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?(Psalm 27:1, NKJV)

With God on your side, there is nothing to be afraid of. Our attitude should always be, “The Lord protects me from danger. Why should I be afraid? Though an army surrounds me, though they attack me from every side, I may feel trapped. I don’t see a way out. Medical report doesn’t look good. My bank statement tells me I’m not going to make it. But that’s okay, God is still on the throne. Nothing I’m facing is a surprise to Him.”

Remember, the enemy doesn’t have the final say; God has the final say. And when you put your faith and trust in Him, He says, “I will always cause you to triumph.” Be strong and be of good courage. Keep God first place in your life and move forward in confidence knowing that He is working things out for your good.God bless you.

===
Pastor Rick Warren 

You can watch my LIVE morning Bible Studies at the#Exponential Conference both Wednesday and Thursday at 7:25 am (Pacific Standard Time) via this FREE webcast:http://bit.ly/Westwebcast

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Even though over 27,000 people have been baptized at Saddleback the past 10 years, I'm still deeply moved by EVERY single changed life. I laugh with some, and cry with others.

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There are over 10,000 near-Earth objects (NEOs) that have been identified so far — asteroids and comets of varying sizes that approach the Earth’s orbital distance to within about 28 million miles. Of the 10,000 discoveries, roughly 10 percent are larger than six-tenths of a mile in size — large enough to have disastrous global consequences should one impact the Earth.

This is one of them.

First discovered in February 1950, 1950 DA is a 1.1-kilometer-wide asteroid that was observed for 17 days and then disappeared from view. Then it was spotted again on Dec. 31, 2000 — literally on the eve of the 21st century. Coupled with radar observations made a few weeks later in March 2001 it was found that, along with a rather high rotation rate (2.1 hours), asteroid 1950 DA has a trajectory that will bring it very close to Earth on March 16, 2880. How close? Close enough that, within a specific 20-minute window, a collision can not be entirely ruled out.

Top 10 Ways to Stop an Asteroid

The image above was made from radar observations by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico in March 2001, when 1950 DA passed within 4.8 million miles of Earth. Is this the mug shot of a future continent-killer?

Radar analysis and research of 1950 DA performed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists J.D. Giorgini, S. J. Ostro, Don Yeomans and several others from JPL and other institutions revealed that the impact probability from 1950 DA in March 2880 is, at most, 1 in 300 based on what is known about the asteroid so far.

1 in 300 may sound like a slim chance, but actually this represents a risk 50% greater than that of the average hazard due to all other asteroids from now to then. 

Let Obama nuke it .. work out his aggression .. ed
===

Sarah Palin

Kudos to Sean Hannity for his hard hitting interview with Anthony Weiner. See video of it below.

Really, liberals, to think you supported this fine gent in Congress all those years with minions in the media propping him up? Hmmmmmm. I hope Weiner continues to be a spokesman for the liberal cause because his position pretty much says it all.

Just as interesting juxtaposition to show what average Americans think of members of Congress like Anthony Weiner and the permanent political class in D.C., I’m pasting below a letter that was posted online in various forums. It was apparently sent by a gentlemen in Washington state to his senators. I don’t know this gentleman and can’t verify the authenticity of the letter, but its words ring true with the sound wisdom of We the People.

Here’s the letter:

April 3, 2013
Senator Patty Murray
Senator Maria Cantwell
Washington, DC, 20510

Dear Senator:

I have tried to live by the rules my entire life. My father was a Command Sergeant Major, U.S. Army, who died of combat related stresses shortly after his retirement. It was he who instilled in me those virtues he felt important - honesty, duty, patriotism and obeying the laws of God and of our various governments. I have served my country, paid my taxes, worked hard, volunteered and donated my fair share of money, time and artifacts.

Today, as I approach my 79th birthday, I am heart-broken when I look at my country and my government. I shall only point out a very few things abysmally wrong which you can multiply by a thousand fold. I have calculated that all the money I have paid in income taxes my entire life cannot even keep the Senate barbershop open for one year! Only Heaven and a few tight-lipped actuarial types know what the Senate dining room costs the taxpayers. So please, enjoy your haircuts and meals on us.

Last year, the president spent an estimated $1.4 billion on himself and his family. The vice president spends $ millions on hotels. They have had 8 vacations so far this year! And our House of Representatives and Senate have become America's answer to the Saudi royal family. You have become the "perfumed princes and princesses" of our country.

In the middle of the night, you voted in the Affordable Health Care Act, a.k.a. "Obama Care," a bill which no more than a handful of senators or representatives read more than several paragraphs, crammed it down our throats, and then promptly exempted yourselves from it, substituting your own taxpayer-subsidized golden health care insurance.

You live exceedingly well, eat and drink as well as the "one percenters," consistently vote yourselves perks and pay raises while making 3.5 times the average U.S. individual income, and give up nothing while you (as well as the president and veep) ask us to sacrifice due to sequestration (for which, of course, you plan to blame the Republicans, anyway).

You understand very well the only two rules you need to know - (1) How to get elected, and (2) How to get re-elected. And you do this with the aid of an eagerly willing and partisan press, speeches permeated with a certain economy of truth, and by buying the votes of the greedy, the ill-informed and under-educated citizens (and non-citizens, too, many of whom do vote) who are looking for a handout rather than a job. Your so-called "safety net" has become a hammock for the lazy. And, what is it now, about 49 or 50 million on food stamps - pretty much all Democratic voters - and the program is absolutely rife with fraud with absolutely no congressional oversight?

I would offer that you are not entirely to blame. What changed you is the seductive environment of power in which you have immersed yourselves. It is the nature of both houses of Congress which requires you to subordinate your virtue in order to get anything done until you have achieved a leadership role. To paraphrase President Reagan, it appears that the second oldest profession (politics), bears a remarkably strong resemblance to the oldest.

As the hirsute first Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834 - 1902), English historian and moralist, so aptly and accurately stated, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." I'm only guessing that this applies to the female sex as well. Tell me, is there a more corrupt entity in this country than Congress?

While we middle class people continue to struggle, our government becomes less and less transparent, more and more bureaucratic, and ever so much more dictatorial, using Czars and Secretaries to tell us (just to mention a very few) what kind of light bulbs we must purchase, how much soda or hamburgers we can eat, what cars we can drive, gasoline to use and what health care we must buy. Countless thousands of pages of regulations strangle our businesses costing the consumer more and more every day.

As I face my final year, or so, with cancer, my president and my government tell me "You'll just have to take a pill," while you, Senator, your colleagues, the president, and other exulted government officials and their families will get the best possible health care on our tax dollars until you are called home by your Creator, while also enjoying a retirement beyond my wildest dreams, which of course, you voted for yourselves and we pay for.

The chances of you reading this letter are practically zero as your staff will not pass it on, but with a little luck, a form letter response might be generated by them with an auto signature applied, hoping we will believe that you, our senator or representative, has heard us and actually cares. This letter will, however, go online where many others will have the chance to read one person's opinion, rightly or wrongly, about this government, its administration and its senators and representatives.

I only hope that occasionally you might quietly thank the taxpayer for all the generous entitlements which you have voted yourselves, for which, by law, we must pay, unless, of course, it just goes on the $17 trillion national debt for which your children and ours, and your grandchildren and ours, ad infinitum, must eventually try to pick up the tab.

My final thoughts are that it must take a person who has either lost his or her soul, or conscience, or both, to seek re-election and continue to destroy this country I deeply love and put it so far in debt that we will never pay it off, while your lot improves by the minute, because of your power. For you, Senator, will never stand up to the rascals in your House who constantly deceive the American people. And that, my dear Senator, is how power has corrupted you and the entire Congress. The only answer to clean up this cesspool is term limits. This, of course, will kill the goose that lays your golden eggs. And woe be to him (or her) who would dare to bring it up.

Sincerely,
Bill Schoonover

Here’s the video of Hannity’s interview with Anthony Weiner:

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2733391205001/exclusive-anthony-weiner-talks-stalemate-strategy/?playlist_id=2114913880001

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This story is almost too awful to believe -- and it's taken a turn for the worse.  First teenager Justin Carter was jailed for making a bad joke on Facebook.  And now he's on SUICIDE WATCH.  

Let's try to make things better, and be sure that Justin knows that thousands of us stand with him.

According to his dad, while Justin was playing a video game "[S]omeone had said something to the effect of 'Oh you're insane, you're crazy, you're messed up in the head. To which [Justin] replied 'Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head, I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts,’ and the next two lines were 'lol and jk' [all sic]."

Even though it was a clear joke -- underscored by the shorthand for "laugh out loud" and "just kidding" -- a woman who saw the post reported Justin to the police.  Now he's in jail for making "terroristic threats" and faces $500,000 for bail and up to 8 years in prison!

And this weekend his dad told CNN: "He's very depressed, very scared, and ... concerned that he's not going to get out.... He's pretty much lost all hope."

Please sign our petition to Justin -- we'll deliver it to his family, and also to the people who are persecuting him.
===

===

If you needed another reason to oppose government run health care here’s one to make your blood boil.

from Forbes:

The federal government wants to reduce the number of Americans diagnosed each year with cancer. But not by better preventive care or healthier living. Instead, the government wants to redefinethe term “cancer” so that fewer conditions qualify as a true cancer. What does this mean for ordinary Americans — and should we be concerned?
On July 29, 2013, a working group for the National Cancer Institute (the main government agency for cancer research) published a paper proposing that the term “cancer” be reserved for lesions with a reasonable likelihood of killing the patient if left untreated. Slower growing tumors would be called a different name such as “indolent lesions of epithelial origin” (IDLE). Their justification was that modern medical technology now allows doctors to detect small, slow-growing tumors that likely wouldn’t be fatal. Yet once patients are told they have a cancer, many become frightened and seek unnecessary further tests, chemotherapy, radiation, and/or surgery. By redefining the term “cancer,” the National Cancer Institute hopes to reduce patient anxiety and reduce the risks and expenses associated with supposedly unnecessary medical procedures. In technical terms, the government hopes to reduce “overdiagnosis” and “overtreatment” of cancer.

read the rest

And why would the Obama administration want to re-define cancer?  Because starting tomorrow, Obamacare will begin subsidizing millions of Americans’ health insurance, and cancer tests and treatments are expensive.  

This is nothing more than a back-door, roundabout form of rationing.  It has nothing to do with improving health care or saving lives and everything to do with bureaucrats picking and choosing who gets what tests and treatments.

===
straight from XBox 360's Crysis 2
. Love the cynical putdown at the end.>===

Irishman Mark Boyle tried to live life with no income, no bank balance and no spending. Here’s how he finds it.

If someone told me seven years ago, in my final year of a business and economics degree, that I’d now be living without money, I’d have probably choked on my microwaved ready meal. The plan back then was to get a ‘good’ job, make as much money as possible, and buy the stuff that would show society I was successful.

For a while I did it – I had a fantastic job managing a big organic food company; had myself a yacht on the harbour. If it hadn’t been for the chance purchase of a video called Gandhi, I’d still be doing it today. Instead, for the last fifteen months, I haven’t spent or received a single penny. Zilch.

The change in life path came one evening on the yacht whilst philosophising with a friend over a glass of merlot. Whilst I had been significantly influenced by the Mahatma’s quote “be the change you want to see in the world”, I had no idea what that change was up until then. We began talking about all major issues in the world – environmental destruction, resource wars, factory farms, sweatshop labour – and wondering which of these we would be best devoting our time to. Not that we felt we could make any difference, being two small drops in a highly polluted ocean.

But that evening I had a realisation. These issues weren’t as unrelated as I had previously thought – they had a common root cause. I believe the fact that we no longer see the direct repercussions our purchases have on the people, environment and animals they affect is the factor that unites these problems.

It is nice that he is happy, but he is a selfish prick. The good things he enjoys is only possible because others have worked for him to show off his alternative lifestyle. If disaster happened and he couldn't feed himself he won't starve, because there are enough supporters for him to bail him out .. which isn't true if everyone did it. If everyone did it, there would be no caravan, not cookery items, nothing to barter for .. utterly selfish and entirely to salve his angst about society without contributing to it. - ed
<I would believe it more if he started from absolutely nothing. Its like scavenging after a zombie apocalypse.>
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IT'S NOT a month since the election, but there's already an epidemic of Abbott Derangement Syndrome.

The symptoms: an unshakable belief Tony Abbott is evil or a buffoon, even if your lying eyes tell you different.

Oh, and he's an expenses-rorting crook.

The most bizarre example of ADS occurred on the Sydney Morning Herald's website only today.

Under the headline "Vladimir Putin gives late Tony Abbott cold shoulder at APEC", theHerald suggested "a new iron curtain dropped between Russia and Australia" when the Prime Minister turned up late to the opening of the APEC meeting in Bali.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, seated next to Abbott, had been "frosty".

Yet directly under the headline was a video showing Putin and Abbott bantering and laughing.

It is now a sacred myth in Labor that no Prime Minister ever suffered more abuse and media misrepresentation than St Julia Gillard.

"Gillard has faced serial abuse as a woman on a scale I believe is unprecedented in modern politics," complained John McTernan, her communications director. But no one does hatred like the Left.

The same happened with Mr howard. Little Johnny .. Johnny say sorry .. and the bad rhetoric claimed scalps .. because Mr Howard had to demonstrate he was listening .. the current round of hypocrisy over expenses could claim scalps too .. over nothing .. hopefully sanity will prevail .. which is a more substantial hope under Howard than Gillard or Rudd. - ed
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• Israel is the only country that ever revived an unspoken language and established it as its national tongue.
• You may know that the Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth. But did you know that is that it is 850 feet lower than the next lowest place, which is Lake Assal, in Djibouti, Africa? That’s about 2.5 times as long as a typical American football stadium!
• With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and startups, Israel boasts the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world, outside of Silicon Valley.

(More at the link)
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A charismatic drunk? Sometimes the detail lets down the message. But the nature of man is fallen. Redemption is possible for anyone. Allen died a drunk, but the glory of Him he served goes on. - ed
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One week after the attack on Kaman Muslims in southern Arakan State that left 6 people dead and hundreds homeless, President Thein Sein has made no effort to curb anti-Muslim sentiment. 

The government and military have too much to gain from the coordinated "unrest," which can be used to justify dictatorial power and to give the military opportunity to reassert its draconian arm. Anti-Muslim sentiment has thus been freely allowed to spread throughout the country like an epidemic while Thein Sein points a weak & purposeless finger at "outsiders" plotting violence with impunity.
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Entries in a dog's journal:
8:00 am - OH BOY! MUM! MY FAVOURITE!
8:10AM – OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVOURITE
9:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVOURITE!
9:40 am - OH BOY! A WALK! MY FAVOURITE!
10:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVOURITE!
11:30 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVOURITE!
12:00 noon - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVOURITE!
1:00 PM - OH BOY! THE YARD! MY FAVOURITE!
1:30 PM - ooooooo. bath. bummer.
4:00 PM - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVOURITE!
5:00 PM - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVOURITE!
5:30 PM - OH BOY! DAD! MY FAVOURITE!

Entries in a cat's journal:
DAY 752 - My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the occasional piece of furniture. Tomorrow I may eat another house plant.
DAY 761 - Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded, must try this at the top of the stairs. In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair...must try this on their bed.
DAY 765 - Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body, in attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of, and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little cat I was...Hmmm. Not working according to plan.
DAY 768 - I am finally aware of how sadistic they are. For no good reason I was chosen for the water torture. This time, however, it included a burning foamy chemical called "shampoo." What sick minds could invent such a liquid? My only consolation is the piece of thumb still stuck between my teeth.
DAY 771 - There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise. More importantly I overheard that my confinement was due to MY power of "allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage.
DAY 774 - I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a half-wit. The bird, on the other hand, has got to be an informant, and speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal room his safety is assured. But I can wait; it is only a matter of time......
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Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Marine combat veteran, said there's an easy solution. But will the government listen?
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‘My country first’: James Woods doesn’t ‘expect to work again’ after brutally honest criticism of Obama ==> http://twitchy.com/2013/10/09/my-country-first-james-woods-doesnt-expect-to-work-again-after-brutally-honest-criticism-of-obama/
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To follow the rules of Trough, and not break the law, you need to be a member of the ALP, or own one. - ed
===
Since 1949, elite Mossad commandos hunt down the enemies of Israel. In 1960, the Israeli secret services differ significantly by removing the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. He was exfiltré Israel to be tried and sentenced to death. In 1972, under the leadership of Prime Minister Golda Meir, Mossad found and executed members of the Black September terrorist group, responsible for the death of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. In 1988, Abu Jihad, right arm of Yasser Arafat, head of the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine, is deleted in Tunis in his house. Former employees and relatives of victims back on these events and give their testimony.
===

(Reuters) - Russian investigators said on Wednesday they had found drugs aboard a Greenpeace ship used in a protest against offshore Arctic drilling and would press new charges against some of the 30 people being held for alleged piracy.

Greenpeace Russia mocked the accusation. "The Investigative Committee 'found' narcotics. We are waiting for it to find an atomic bomb and a striped elephant," it said on Twitter. "This is possible in Russia these days and can hardly surprise anybody."

In addition to drugs, the Investigative Committee said searches of the Arctic Sunrise, which was boarded by Russian coast guards after the September 18 protest at the Prirazlomnaya oil rig, had revealed equipment with potential military uses.

It also said investigators were trying to establish which of those being held were responsible for what it called attempts to ram coast guard boats, endangering the lives of their crew.

"In view of the data obtained while investigating the criminal case, charges ... are expected to be adjusted," the committee said. It said that "a number of detainees will be presented with charges of committing other grave crimes."

Russia arrested the 28 activists and two freelance journalists who were aboard the Dutch-registered Greenpeace vessel during the protest and has charged all of them with piracy, which is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The Investigative Committee said morphine and poppy straw, a ingredient for heroin and opiates, were found on the ship.

Greenpeace lawyer Alexander Mukhortov said that the vessel's American captain legally kept morphine in his safe for medical purposes and that the equipment cited by investigators was a sonar widely used for maritime expeditions.

CHARGES

The environmentalist group says the piracy charges are absurd and unfounded and that the conditions of detention for the detainees, who come for 18 countries, have in some cases violated their civil rights.

Kumi Naidoo, the head of Greenpeace, offered in a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin to move to Russia and stand as security for the release on bail of the detainees.

A Murmansk court refused to bail four Russians among those under arrest and appeals hearings against pre-trial detention of the 26 other detainees are due this week and next.

Putin has said the activists were clearly not pirates but that their protest did violate the law.

The group's lawyers say the charges might have been initially brought to justify forcibly boarding and seizing control of the ship and towing it to Murmansk.

The case has already upset Moscow's international ties, with the Netherlands launching legal proceedings against Russia, saying it had unlawfully detained the activists and others on the Dutch-registered icebreaker Arctic Sunrise.

Drugs are bad too .. like piracy ..  ed
===

• 680 – Battle of Karbala: Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, is decapitated by forces under Caliph Yazid I. This is commemorated by Muslims as Aashurah.
• 732 – Battle of Tours: Near Poitiers, France, the leader of the Franks, Charles Martel and his men, defeat a large army of Moors, stopping the Muslims from spreading into Western Europe. The governor of Córdoba, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, is killed during the battle.
• 1471 – Battle of Brunkeberg in Stockholm: Sten Sture the Elder, the Regent of Sweden, with the help of farmers and miners, repels an attack by King Christian I of Denmark.
• 1575 – Battle of Dormans: Roman Catholic forces under Henry I, Duke of Guise defeat the Protestants, capturing Philippe de Mornay among others.
• 1580 – Over 600 papal troops land at Dún an Óir, Ireland to support a rebellion.
• 1582 – Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
• 1631 – An Electorate of Saxony army takes over Prague.
• 1760 – In a treaty with the Dutch colonial authorities, the Ndyuka people of Suriname – descended from escaped slaves – gain territorial autonomy.
• 1780 – The Great Hurricane of 1780 kills 20,000–30,000 in the Caribbean.
• 1845 – In Annapolis, Maryland, the Naval School (later renamed the United States Naval Academy) opens with 50 midshipman students and seven professors.
• 1846 – Triton, the largest moon of the planet Neptune, is discovered by English astronomer William Lassell.
• 1868 – Carlos Céspedes issues the Grito de Yara from his plantation, La Demajagua, proclaiming Cuba's independence
• 1871 – The Great Chicago Fire: Chicago burns after a barn accident. The fire lasts from October 8 to October 10.
• 1897 – German chemist Felix Hoffmann discovers an improved way of synthesizing acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin).
• 1911 – The Wuchang Uprising leads to the demise of the Qing dynasty, the last Imperial court in China, and the founding of the Republic of China.
• 1913 – United States President Woodrow Wilson triggers the explosion of the Gamboa Dike thus ending construction on the Panama Canal.
• 1920 – The Carinthian plebiscite determines that the larger part of the Duchy of Carinthia should remain part of Austria.
• 1928 – Chiang Kai-shek becomes Chairman of the Republic of China.
• 1933 – United Airlines Boeing 247 mid-air explosion: A United Airlines Boeing 247 is destroyed by sabotage, the first such proven case in the history of commercial aviation.
• 1935 – A coup d'état by the royalist leadership of the Greek Armed Forces takes place in Athens. It overthrows the government of Panagis Tsaldaris and establishes a regency under Georgios Kondylis, effectively ending the Second Hellenic Republic.
• 1938 – The Munich Agreement cedes the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany.
• 1942 – The Soviet Union establishes diplomatic relations with Australia.
• 1943 – Double Tenth Incident in Japanese-controlled Singapore
• 1945 – The Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang signed a principle agreement in Chongqing about the future of post-war China. Later, the pact is commonly referred to as the Double Tenth Agreement.
• 1953 – Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea is concluded in Washington, D.C.
• 1957 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, after he is refused service in a Dover, Delaware restaurant.
• 1957 – The Windscale fire in Cumbria, U.K. is the world's first major nuclear accident.
• 1963 – France cedes control of the Bizerte naval base to Tunisia.
• 1964 – The opening ceremony of the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, is broadcast live in the first Olympic telecast relayed by geostationary communication satellite.
• 1967 – The Outer Space Treaty, signed on January 27 by more than sixty nations, comes into force.
• 1970 – Fiji becomes independent.
• 1970 – In Montreal, a national crisis hits Canada when Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte becomes the second statesman kidnapped by members of the FLQ terrorist group.
• 1971 – Sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, London Bridge reopens in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
• 1973 – Vice President of the United States Spiro Agnew resigns after being charged with evasion of federal income tax.
• 1975 – Papua New Guinea joins the United Nations.
• 1980 – A magnitude 7.3 earthquake occurs in the Algerian town of El Asnam. Around 3,500 die and 300,000 are left homeless.
• 1980 – FMLN is founded in El Salvador.
• 1985 – United States Navy F-14 fighter jets intercept an Egyptian plane carrying the hijackers of the Achille Lauro cruise ship, and force it to land at a NATO base in Sigonella, Sicily where they are arrested.
• 1986 – An earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale strikes San Salvador, El Salvador, killing an estimated 1,500 people.
• 1997 – An Austral Airlines DC-9-32 crashes and explodes near Nuevo Berlin, Uruguay, killing 74.
• 1998 – A Lignes Aériennes Congolaises Boeing 727 is shot down by rebels in Kindu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 41 people.
• 2008 – The 2008 Orakzai bombing kills 110 and injures 200 more.
• 2009 – Armenia and Turkey sign protocols in Zurich, Switzerland to open their borders.
• 2010 – The Netherlands Antilles are dissolved as a country.

Births[edit]

• 1344 – Mary of Waltham (d. 1362)
• 1470 – Selim I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520 (d. 1520)
• 1567 – Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain (d. 1597)
• 1599 – Étienne Moulinié, French composer (d. 1676)
• 1656 – Nicolas de Largillière, French painter (d. 1746)
• 1669 – Johann Nicolaus Bach, German organist and composer (d. 1753)
• 1678 – John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, Scottish colonel and politician, Lord High Commissioner to the Parliament of Scotland (d. 1743)
• 1684 – Jean-Antoine Watteau, French painter (d. 1721)
• 1700 – Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, French sculptor (d. 1759)
• 1731 – Henry Cavendish, French-English chemist, physicist, and philosopher (d. 1810)
• 1780 – John Abercrombie, Scottish physician and philosopher (d. 1844)
• 1794 – William Whiting Boardman, American judge and politician (d. 1871)
• 1813 – Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer (d. 1901)
• 1819 – Heinrich Joseph Dominicus Denzinger, German theologian and author (d. 1883)
• 1825 – Paul Kruger, South African politician, 5th President of the South African Republic (d. 1904)
• 1828 – Samuel J. Randall, American captain, lawyer and politician, 33rd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (d. 1890)
• 1830 – Isabella II of Spain (d. 1904)
• 1834 – Aleksis Kivi, Finnish author and playwright (d. 1872)
• 1837 – Robert Gould Shaw, American colonel (d. 1863)
• 1858 – Maurice Prendergast, American Painter (d. 1924)
• 1861 – Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian explorer, scientist, and humanitarian, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1930)
• 1863 – Helen Dunbar, American actress (d. 1933)
• 1864 – T. Frank Appleby, American businessman and politician (d. 1924)
• 1870 – Louise Mack, Australian journalist, author, and poet (d. 1935)
• 1877 – William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, English businessman and philanthropist, founded Morris Motors (d. 1963)
• 1884 – Nikolai Klyuev, Russian poet (d. 1937)
• 1884 – Ida Wüst, German actress and screenwriter (d. 1958)
• 1885 – Walter Anderson, Belarusian-German ethnologist and academic (d. 1962)
• 1889 – Han van Meegeren, Dutch painter (d. 1947)
• 1895 – Alfred Neuland, Estonian weightlifter (d. 1966)
• 1895 – Fridolf Rhudin, Swedish actor (d. 1935)
• 1895 – Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, German field marshal (d. 1945)
• 1898 – Lilly Daché, French-American fashion designer (d. 1989)
• 1900 – Helen Hayes, American actress and singer (d. 1993)
• 1901 – Alberto Giacometti, Swiss sculptor and painter (d. 1966)
• 1902 – K. Shivaram Karanth, Indian journalist, author, and activist (d. 1997)
• 1903 – Prince Charles, Count of Flanders (d. 1983)
• 1903 – Vernon Duke, Russian-American composer and songwriter (d. 1969)
• 1903 – Bei Shizhang, Chinese biologist and educator (d. 2009)
• 1905 – Aksella Luts, Estonian filmmaker and actress (d. 2005)
• 1906 – Paul Creston, American composer and educator (d. 1985)
• 1906 – R. K. Narayan, Indian author (d. 2001)
• 1908 – Johnny Green, American conductor and composer (d. 1989)
• 1908 – Mercè Rodoreda, Catalan author and poet (d. 1983)
• 1909 – Robert F. Boyle, American production designer and art director (d. 2010)
• 1910 – Julius Shulman, American photographer and environmentalist (d. 2009)
• 1911 – Clare Hollingworth, English journalist and author
• 1912 – Ram Vilas Sharma, Indian poet and critic (d. 2000)
• 1913 – Claude Simon, Malagasy-French author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)
• 1914 – Tommy Fine, American baseball player (d. 2005)
• 1914 – Ivory Joe Hunter, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 1974)
• 1915 – Harry Edison, American trumpet player (Count Basie Orchestra) (d. 1999)
• 1917 – Thelonious Monk, American pianist and composer (d. 1982)
• 1919 – Willard Estey, Canadian academic and jurist (d. 2002)
• 1919 – Gerry Gomez, Trinidadian cricketer (d. 1996)
• 1919 – Edgar Laprade, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2014)
• 1922 – Merv Pregulman, American football player (d. 2012)
• 1923 – Louis Gottlieb, American bass player (The Limeliters) (d. 1996)
• 1923 – Nicholas Parsons, English actor
• 1923 – Murray Walker, English journalist and sportscaster
• 1924 – James Clavell, Australian-American director, producer, screenwriter, and author (d. 1994)
• 1924 – Ludmilla Tchérina, French actress, ballerina, and choreographer (d. 2004)
• 1924 – Ed Wood, American actor, director, producer, screenwriter (d. 1978)
• 1925 – Great Antonio, Croatian-Canadian strongman, wrestler, and actor (d. 2001)
• 1925 – Francine Panehal, American politician (d. 2002)
• 1925 – Johnny Stompanato, American soldier and bodyguard (d. 1958)
• 1926 – Oscar Brown, American singer-songwriter, playwright, and actor (d. 2005)
• 1926 – Richard Jaeckel, American actor (d. 1997)
• 1927 – Dana Elcar, American actor and director (d. 2005)
• 1927 – Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, Indian singer (d. 2014)
• 1927 – Jon Locke, American actor (d. 2013)
• 1927 – Thomas Wilson, American-Scottish composer and educator (d. 2001)
• 1928 – Sheila Walsh, English author (d. 2009)
• 1929 – Herb Levinson, American actor (d. 2012)
• 1929 – Bernard Mayes, English-American journalist and academic (d. 2014)
• 1929 – Ayten Alpman, Turkish jazz and pop singer (d. 2012)
• 1930 – Eugenio Castellotti, Italian race car driver (d. 1957)
• 1930 – Yves Chauvin, French chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2015)
• 1930 – Harold Pinter, English actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2008)
• 1932 – Harry Smith, English footballer
• 1933 – Jay Sebring, American stylist and hair care businessman (d. 1969)
• 1935 – Khalil al-Wazir, Palestinian commander, founded Fatah (d. 1988)
• 1935 – André Bureau, Canadian lawyer and businessman
• 1936 – Judith Chalmers, English television host
• 1936 – Gerhard Ertl, German physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1937 – Bruce Devlin, Australian golfer and sportscaster
• 1937 – Peter Underwood, Australian lawyer and politician, 27th Governor of Tasmania (d. 2014)
• 1938 – Gloria Coates, American-German composer and painter
• 1938 – Oleg Gordievsky, Russian intelligence officer and author
• 1938 – Daidō Moriyama, Japanese photographer
• 1938 – Lily Tuck, French-American author
• 1939 – Joe Pitts, American captain and politician
• 1940 – Winston Churchill, English politician (d. 2010)
• 1941 – Peter Coyote, American actor
• 1941 – Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigerian author and activist (d. 1995)
• 1942 – Radu Vasile, Romanian historian and politician, 57th Prime Minister of Romania (d. 2013)
• 1943 – Frederick Barthelme, American author and screenwriter
• 1943 – Gillian Oliver, English nurse
• 1945 – Christopher Hill, English bishop
• 1946 – Charles Dance, English actor
• 1946 – Karlene Davis, Jamaican-English nurse
• 1946 – Giant Haystacks, English wrestler (d. 1998)
• 1946 – Naoto Kan, Japanese lawyer and politician, 61st Prime Minister of Japan
• 1946 – Peter Mahovlich, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
• 1946 – Anne Mather, English author and screenwriter
• 1946 – John Prine, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
• 1946 – Raymond Tallis, English physician, philosopher, author, and academic
• 1946 – Chris Tarrant, English radio and television host
• 1946 – Ben Vereen, American actor, singer, and dancer
• 1946 – Willard White, Jamaican-English actor and singer
• 1947 – Gary Beach, American actor and singer
• 1948 – Sue Campbell, Baroness Campbell of Loughborough, English academic and businesswoman
• 1948 – Séverine, French singer and actress
• 1948 – Ed Volker, American singer-songwriter and keyboard player (The Radiators)
• 1949 – Warren Burt, American-Australian experimental composer
• 1949 – Ioannis Gklavakis, Greek politician
• 1949 – Wang Wanxing, Chinese activist
• 1950 – Charlie George, English footballer
• 1950 – Nora Roberts, American author
• 1951 – Boboy Garovillo, Filipino singer and actor (APO Hiking Society)
• 1951 – Epeli Ganilau, Fijian general and politician, 16th Minister for Fijian Affairs
• 1951 – Hannes Maasel, Estonian politician
• 1952 – Dela Smith, English educator
• 1953 – Fiona Rae, Hong Kong-Scottish painter
• 1953 – Midge Ure, Scottish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Slik, Rich Kids, Thin Lizzy, Visage, and Ultravox)
• 1953 – Aleksander Veingold, Estonian chess player and coach
• 1953 – Gus Williams, American basketball player
• 1954 – Rekha, Indian actress and singer
• 1954 – Mohamed Mounir, Egyptian singer and actor
• 1954 – David Lee Roth, American singer-songwriter and producer (Van Halen and The David Lee Roth Band)
• 1954 – Fernando Santos, Portuguese footballer and manager
• 1954 – Patric Zimmerman, American voice actor
• 1956 – Amanda Burton, Northern Irish actress and producer
• 1956 – Fiona Fullerton, Nigerian-English actress and singer
• 1956 – Mark Gordon, American director and producer
• 1956 – David Hempleman-Adams, English businessman and adventurer
• 1957 – Rumiko Takahashi, Japanese author and illustrator
• 1958 – J. Eddie Peck, American actor
• 1958 – Tanya Tucker, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
• 1959 – Michael Cobley, English-Scottish author
• 1959 – Eric Fellner, English film producer
• 1959 – Kirsty MacColl, English singer-songwriter (d. 2000)
• 1959 – Bill Rammell, English academic and politician, Minister of State for the Armed Forces
• 1959 – Julia Sweeney, American actress, producer, and screenwriter
• 1959 – Bradley Whitford, American actor and producer
• 1960 – Ron Flockhart, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1960 – Eric Martin, American singer-songwriter (Mr. Big and Tak Matsumoto Group)
• 1960 – Paul Thiebaud, American art dealer (d. 2010)
• 1960 – Simon Townshend, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Casbah Club)
• 1961 – Jodi Benson, American actress and singer
• 1961 – Scott Hoffman, American drummer (38 Special)
• 1961 – Henrik Jørgensen, Danish runner
• 1961 – Martin Kemp, English singer-songwriter, bass player, and actor (Spandau Ballet)
• 1962 – Thomas Rusch, German photographer
• 1963 – Jolanda de Rover, Dutch swimmer
• 1963 – Anita Mui, Hong Kong singer and actress (d. 2003)
• 1963 – Daniel Pearl, American journalist (d. 2002)
• 1963 – Vegard Ulvang, Norwegian skier
• 1963 – Hülya Avşar, Turkish actress, pop folk singer, businesswoman, columnist, fashion designer, magazine editor, professional tennis player, and former beauty pageant titleholder
• 1964 – Quinton Flynn, American voice actor
• 1964 – Sarah Lancashire, English actress and director
• 1964 – Crystal Waters, American singer-songwriter
• 1965 – Toshi, Japanese singer-songwriter and producer (X Japan)
• 1965 – Chris Penn, American actor (d. 2006)
• 1965 – Rebecca Pidgeon, American-English singer-songwriter and actress
• 1966 – Tony Adams, English footballer and manager
• 1966 – Mohamed Elmoutaoikil, Moroccan activist
• 1966 – Bai Ling, Chinese-American model, actress, and producer
• 1966 – Derrick McKey, American basketball player
• 1967 – Michael Giacchino, American composer
• 1967 – Jonathan Littell, American-French author
• 1967 – Mike Malinin, American drummer and producer (Goo Goo Dolls)
• 1967 – Gavin Newsom, American politician, 49th Lieutenant Governor of California
• 1967 – Jacek Zieliński, Polish footballer and coac
• 1968 – Bart Brentjens, Dutch cyclist
• 1968 – Marinos Ouzounidis, Greek footballer and manager
• 1968 – DJ Skribble, American DJ, producer, and actor (Young Black Teenagers)
• 1968 – Feridun Düzağaç, Turkish rock music singer and songwriter, usually known for his pessimistic and melancholic songs
• 1969 – Francis Escudero, Filipino lawyer and politician
• 1969 – Brett Favre, American football player
• 1969 – Shawn Jamison, American basketball player and coach
• 1969 – Wendi McLendon-Covey, American actress, producer, and screenwriter
• 1969 – Dilsa Demirbag Sten, Swedish journalist and author
• 1970 – Dean Kiely, Irish footballer
• 1970 – Silke Kraushaar-Pielach, German sled racer
• 1970 – Corinna May, German singer
• 1970 – Mohammed Mourhit, Moroccan-Belgian runner
• 1970 – Matthew Pinsent, English rower and sportscaster
• 1971 – Graham Alexander, English-Scottish footballer and manager
• 1971 – Ian Bennett, English footballer
• 1971 – Evgeny Kissin, Russian pianist
• 1971 – Tiffany Mynx, American porn actress and director
• 1972 – Harvey Anderson, English-Sri Lankan cricketer
• 1972 – Jun Lana, Filipino director, producer, playwright, and screenwriter
• 1972 – Dean Roland, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Collective Soul and Magnets and Ghosts)
• 1972 – Alexei Zhitnik, Ukrainian-Russian ice hockey player
• 1973 – Mario Lopez, American actor and producer
• 1973 – Scott Morriss, English bass player and songwriter (The Bluetones)
• 1973 – Zach Thornton, American soccer player and coach
• 1974 – Asi Cohen, Israeli actor and screenwriter
• 1974 – Julio Ricardo Cruz, Argentinian footballer
• 1974 – Dale Earnhardt, Jr., American race car driver and actor
• 1974 – Lucy Powell, English politician
• 1974 – Chris Pronger, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1975 – Ihsahn, Norwegian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Emperor band, Thou Shalt Suffer, and Peccatum)
• 1975 – Ramón Morales, Mexican footballer and manager
• 1975 – Jacqueline Pirie, Scottish actress
• 1975 – Plácido Polanco, Dominican-American baseball player
• 1976 – Bob Burnquist, Brazilian-American skateboarder
• 1976 – Pat Burrell, American baseball player
• 1976 – Shane Doan, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1978 – Scott Dobie, English footballer
• 1978 – Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, American actress
• 1979 – Kangta, South Korean singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (H.O.T., S, and Kangta & Vanness)
• 1979 – Mýa, American singer-songwriter, producer, dancer, and actress
• 1979 – Wu Chun, Brunei-Taiwanese actor and singer (Fahrenheit)
• 1979 – Nicolás Massú, Chilean tennis player
• 1979 – Joel Przybilla, American basketball player
• 1979 – Hitomi Satō, Japanese actress
• 1980 – Sherine, Egyptian singer and actress
• 1980 – Blaž Emeršič, Slovenian ice hockey player
• 1980 – Casey FitzSimmons, American football player
• 1980 – Elvis Hammond, Ghanaian footballer
• 1980 – Tim Maurer, American singer-songwriter (Suburban Legends)
• 1980 – Lynn Hung, Hong Kong actress
• 1981 – Una Healy, Irish singer-songwriter and dancer (The Saturdays)
• 1981 – Michael Oliver, American actor
• 1981 – Gavin Shuker, English politician
• 1982 – Yasser Al-Qahtani, Saudi Arabian footballer
• 1982 – Amon Buchanan, Australian footballer
• 1982 – Hideki Mutoh, Japanese race car driver
• 1983 – Erik Santos, Filipino singer
• 1983 – Vusimuzi Sibanda, Zimbabwean cricketer
• 1983 – Nikos Spyropoulos, Greek footballer
• 1983 – Sherab Zam, Bhutanese archer
• 1983 – Tolga Zengin, Turkish footballer
• 1984 – Stephanie Cheng, Hong Kong singer
• 1984 – Lzzy Hale, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Halestorm)
• 1984 – Chiaki Kuriyama, Japanese actress and singer
• 1984 – Paul Posluszny, American football player
• 1984 – Troy Tulowitzki, American baseball player
• 1985 – Dominique Cornu, Belgian cyclist
• 1985 – Bronson Harrison, New Zealand rugby league player
• 1985 – Marina and the Diamonds, Welsh singer-songwriter and pianist
• 1985 – Sandra Záhlavová, Czech tennis player
• 1986 – Ezequiel Garay, Argentinian footballer
• 1986 – Nathan Jawai, Australian basketball player
• 1986 – Andrew McCutchen, American baseball player
• 1986 – Ellen Andrea Wang, Norwegian bassist
• 1987 – Rodjun Cruz, Filipino actor and dancer
• 1987 – Ryan Mathews, American football player
• 1987 – Colin Slade, New Zealand rugby player
• 1988 – Luis Cardozo, Paraguayan footballer
• 1988 – Shaun Fensom, Australian rugby league player
• 1988 – Brown Ideye, Nigerian footballer
• 1988 – Toby Smith, Australian-New Zealand rugby player
• 1989 – Emer Kenny, English actress and screenwriter
• 1989 – Aimee Teegarden, American actress and producer
• 1990 – Geno Smith, American football player
• 1990 – Krissel Valdez, Filipino singer
• 1991 – Gabriella Cilmi, Australian singer-songwriter and producer
• 1991 – Lali Espósito, Argentinian actress and singer (Teen Angels)
• 1991 – Manuel Giandonato, Italian footballer
• 1991 – Kim Seul-gie, South Korean actress
• 1991 – Xherdan Shaqiri, Swiss footballer
• 1991 – Michael Carter-Williams, American basketball player
• 1993 – Jayden Stockley, English footballer
• 1994 – Tereza Smitková, Czech tennis player
• 1994 – Bae Suzy, South Korean singer, dancer, and actress (Miss A)
• 1998 – Nash Aguas, Filipino actor, singer, and dancer

Deaths[edit]

• 19 – Germanicus, Roman general (b. 15 BC)
• 644 – Paulinus of York, English bishop and missionary
• 680 – Husayn ibn Ali, important figure in Islam (b. 626)
• 732 – Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, Yemeni general
• 827 – Pope Valentine
• 1359 – Hugh IV of Cyprus (b. 1295)
• 1659 – Abel Tasman, Dutch merchant and explorer (b. 1603)
• 1691 – Isaac de Benserade, French author and poet (b. 1613)
• 1708 – David Gregory, Scottish mathematician and astronomer (b. 1659)
• 1714 – Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert, French economist (b. 1646)
• 1720 – Antoine Coysevox, French sculptor (b. 1640)
• 1723 – William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper, English politician, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1665)
• 1725 – Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil, French politician, Governor of New France (b. 1643)
• 1747 – John Potter, English archbishop (b. 1674)
• 1759 – Granville Elliott, English general (b. 1713)
• 1765 – Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (b. 1688)
• 1795 – Francesco Antonio Zaccaria, Italian historian and theologian (b. 1714)
• 1800 – Gabriel Prosser, American rebel leader (b. 1776)
• 1806 – Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (b. 1772)
• 1827 – Ugo Foscolo, Italian author and poet (b. 1778)
• 1837 – Charles Fourier, French philosopher and academic (b. 1772)
• 1857 – George Washington Parke Custis, American author and playwright (b. 1781)
• 1872 – William H. Seward, American lawyer and politician, 24th United States Secretary of State (b. 1801)
• 1875 – Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Russian author, poet, and playwright (b. 1817)
• 1876 – Charles Joseph Sainte-Claire Deville, French geologist and meteorologist (b. 1814)
• 1893 – Lip Pike, American baseball player (b. 1845)
• 1901 – Lorenzo Snow, American religious leader, 5th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1814)
• 1911 – Jack Daniel, American businessman, founded Jack Daniel's (b. 1849)
• 1913 – Adolphus Busch, German-American brewer and businessman, co-founded Anheuser-Busch (b. 1839)
• 1913 – Katsura Tarō, Japanese general and politician, 6th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1848)
• 1914 – Carol I of Romania (b. 1839)
• 1922 – Andreas Karkavitsas, Greek author (b. 1866)
• 1927 – August Kitzberg, Estonian author and playwright (b. 1855)
• 1927 – Gustave Whitehead, German-American pilot (b. 1874)
• 1930 – Adolf Engler, German botanist and academic (b. 1844)
• 1940 – Berton Churchill, Canadian-American actor and singer (b. 1876)
• 1948 – Ted Horn, American race car driver (b. 1910)
• 1949 – Chikuhei Nakajima, Japanese naval officer, engineer, and politician, founded Nakajima Aircraft Company (b. 1884)
• 1953 – Erima Harvey Northcroft, New Zealand general, lawyer, and judge (b. 1884)
• 1957 – Karl Genzken, German physician (b. 1885)
• 1962 – Stancho Belkovski, Bulgarian-Polish architect (b. 1891)
• 1963 – Roy Cazaly, Australian footballer and coach (b. 1893)
• 1963 – Édith Piaf, French singer-songwriter and actress (b. 1915)
• 1964 – Eddie Cantor, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor (b. 1892)
• 1964 – Heinrich Neuhaus, Ukrainian-Russian pianist and educator (b. 1888)
• 1964 – Guru Dutt, Indian actor, director, and producer (b. 1925)
• 1966 – Charlotte Cooper, English tennis player (b. 1870)
• 1968 – Trevor Housley, Australian public servant (b. 1910)
• 1970 – Édouard Daladier, French captain and politician, 105th Prime Minister of France (b. 1884)
• 1971 – John Cawte Beaglehole, New Zealand historian and scholar (b. 1901)
• 1973 – Ludwig von Mises, Ukrainian-American economist and sociologist (b. 1881)
• 1974 – Werner Heyking, Danish actor (b. 1913)
• 1976 – Silvana Armenulić, Bosnian singer and actress (b. 1939)
• 1976 – Mirsada Mirjana Bajraktarević, Bosnian singer (b. 1951)
• 1977 – Angelo Muscat, Maltese-English actor (b. 1930)
• 1978 – Ralph Marterie, Italian-American trumpet player and bandleader (b. 1914)
• 1978 – Ralph Metcalfe, American sprinter and politician (b. 1910)
• 1979 – Christopher Evans, English psychologist, computer scientist, and author (b. 1931)
• 1979 – Paul Paray, French organist, composer, and conductor (b. 1886)
• 1982 – Jean Effel, French painter and journalist (b. 1908)
• 1983 – Ralph Richardson, English actor (b. 1902)
• 1985 – Yul Brynner, Russian-American actor, singer, and director (b. 1920)
• 1985 – Orson Welles, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1915)
• 1986 – Gleb Wataghin, Ukrainian-Italian physicist and academic (b. 1899)
• 1987 – Behice Boran, Turkish Marxist politician, author and sociologist (b. 1910)
• 1990 – Tom Murton, American penologist and activist (b. 1928)
• 1990 – Nikolaos Pavlopoulos, Greek sculptor (b. 1909)
• 1991 – Nickolaus Hirschl, Austrian wrestler (b. 1906)
• 1998 – Clark Clifford, American captain, lawyer, and politician 9th United States Secretary of Defense (b. 1906)
• 1998 – Marvin Gay, Sr., American Pentecostal minister and father and killer of singer Marvin Gaye (b. 1914)
• 1998 – Tommy Quaid, Irish hurler (b. 1957)
• 2000 – Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Sri Lankan politician, 6th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (b. 1916)
• 2001 – Eddie Futch, American boxer and trainer (b. 1911)
• 2001 – Vasily Mishin, Russian engineer (b. 1917)
• 2002 – Teresa Graves, American actress and singer (b. 1948)
• 2003 – Eila Hiltunen, Finnish sculptor (b. 1922)
• 2003 – Eugene Istomin, American pianist (b. 1925)
• 2004 – Ken Caminiti, American baseball player (b. 1963)
• 2004 – Christopher Reeve, American actor, producer, and activist (b. 1952)
• 2004 – Arthur H. Robinson, American geographer and cartographer (b. 1915)
• 2004 – Maurice Shadbolt, New Zealand author and playwright (b. 1932)
• 2005 – Wayne C. Booth, American educator and critic (b. 1921)
• 2005 – Milton Obote, Ugandan politician, 2nd President of Uganda (b. 1925)
• 2006 – Michael John Rogers, English ornithologist (b. 1932)
• 2006 – Ian Scott, Canadian lawyer and politician (b. 1934)
• 2007 – Mehmed Uzun, Turkish author (b. 1953)
• 2008 – Alton Ellis, Jamaican singer-songwriter (b. 1938)
• 2008 – Kazuyoshi Miura, Japanese businessman (b. 1947)
• 2009 – Stephen Gately, Irish singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor (Boyzone) (b. 1976)
• 2010 – Solomon Burke, American singer-songwriter and preacher (b. 1940)
• 2010 – Joan Sutherland, Australian-Swiss soprano and actress (b. 1926)
• 2011 – Jagjit Singh, Indian singer-songwriter (b. 1941)
• 2012 – Sam Gibbons, American captain and politician (b. 1920)
• 2012 – Alex Karras, American football player, wrestler, and actor (b. 1935)
• 2012 – Piotr Lenartowicz, Polish philosopher and educator (b. 1934)
• 2012 – Leo O'Brien, American actor (b. 1970)
• 2012 – Basil L. Plumley, American sergeant (b. 1920)
• 2012 – Mark Poster, American philosopher and educator (b. 1941)
• 2012 – Malcolm Sampson, English rugby player (b. 1940)
• 2012 – Amanda Todd, Canadian suicide victim (b. 1996)
• 2012 – Kyaw Zaw, Burmese commander and politician (b. 1919)
• 2013 – Scott Carpenter, American commander, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1925)
• 2013 – Tomoyuki Dan, Japanese voice actor (b. 1963)
• 2013 – Jan Kuehnemund, American guitarist (Vixen) (b. 1961)
• 2013 – Jay Conrad Levinson, American educator and author (b. 1933)
• 2013 – Sohei Miyashita, Japanese politician, Japanese Minister of Defense (b. 1927)
• 2013 – Kumar Pallana, Indian-American actor (b. 1918)
• 2013 – Jim Shumate, American fiddler (b. 1921)
• 2013 – Cal Smith, American singer and guitarist (b. 1932)
• 2014 – Olav Dale, Norwegian saxophonist and composer (Bergen Big Band) (b. 1958)
• 2014 – Damiana Eugenio, Filipino author and academic (b. 1921)
• 2014 – Valeri Karpov, Russian ice hockey player (b. 1971)
• 2014 – Lari Ketner, American football and basketball player (b. 1977)
• 2014 – Pavel Landovský, Czech actor, director, and playwright (b. 1936)
• 2014 – Geoff Miller, Australian public servant (b. 1942)
• 2014 – Ed Nimmervoll, Austrian-Australian journalist, historian, and author (b. 1947)

Holidays and observances[edit]

• Arbor Day (Poland)
• Capital Liberation Day (Vietnam)
• Christian feast day:
  • Cerbonius
  • Daniel Comboni
  • Paulinus of York (in England)
  • Vida Dutton Scudder (Episcopal Church)
  • Viktor of Xanten
  • October 10 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

• Double Ten Day (The National Day of Taiwan), celebrates outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising in 1911 that led to founding of the Republic of China in 1912
• Fiji Day, celebrates the independence of Fiji from United Kingdom in 1970
• Finnish Literature Day (Finland)
• Independence Day, commemorates the proclamation of Cuba's independence from Spain and the beginning of the Ten Years' War in 1868.
• Party Foundation Day (North Korea)
• World Day Against Death Penalty (international)
• World Mental Health Day (international)

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“It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.” Deuteronomy 13:4 NIV

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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Able to keep you from falling."
Jude 24

In some sense the path to heaven is very safe, but in other respects there is no road so dangerous. It is beset with difficulties. One false step (and how easy it is to take that if grace be absent), and down we go. What a slippery path is that which some of us have to tread! How many times have we to exclaim with the Psalmist, "My feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped." If we were strong, sure-footed mountaineers, this would not matter so much; but in ourselves, how weak we are! In the best roads we soon falter, in the smoothest paths we quickly stumble. These feeble knees of ours can scarcely support our tottering weight. A straw may throw us, and a pebble can wound us; we are mere children tremblingly taking our first steps in the walk of faith, our heavenly Father holds us by the arms or we should soon be down. Oh, if we are kept from falling, how must we bless the patient power which watches over us day by day! Think, how prone we are to sin, how apt to choose danger, how strong our tendency to cast ourselves down, and these reflections will make us sing more sweetly than we have ever done, "Glory be to him, who is able to keep us from falling." We have many foes who try to push us down. The road is rough and we are weak, but in addition to this, enemies lurk in ambush, who rush out when we least expect them, and labour to trip us up, or hurl us down the nearest precipice. Only an Almighty arm can preserve us from these unseen foes, who are seeking to destroy us. Such an arm is engaged for our defence. He is faithful that hath promised, and he is able to keep us from falling, so that with a deep sense of our utter weakness, we may cherish a firm belief in our perfect safety, and say, with joyful confidence,

"Against me earth and hell combine,

But on my side is power divine;

Jesus is all, and he is mine!"

Evening

"But he answered her not a word."
Matthew 15:23

Genuine seekers who as yet have not obtained the blessing, may take comfort from the story before us. The Saviour did not at once bestow the blessing, even though the woman had great faith in him. He intended to give it, but he waited awhile. "He answered her not a word." Were not her prayers good? Never better in the world. Was not her case needy? Sorrowfully needy. Did she not feel her need sufficiently? She felt it overwhelmingly. Was she not earnest enough? She was intensely so. Had she no faith? She had such a high degree of it that even Jesus wondered, and said, "O woman, great is thy faith." See then, although it is true that faith brings peace, yet it does not always bring it instantaneously. There may be certain reasons calling for the trial of faith, rather than the reward of faith. Genuine faith may be in the soul like a hidden seed, but as yet it may not have budded and blossomed into joy and peace. A painful silence from the Saviour is the grievous trial of many a seeking soul, but heavier still is the affliction of a harsh cutting reply such as this, "It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs." Many in waiting upon the Lord find immediate delight, but this is not the case with all. Some, like the jailer, are in a moment turned from darkness to light, but others are plants of slower growth. A deeper sense of sin may be given to you instead of a sense of pardon, and in such a case you will have need of patience to bear the heavy blow. Ah! poor heart, though Christ beat and bruise thee, or even slay thee, trust him; though he should give thee an angry word, believe in the love of his heart. Do not, I beseech thee, give up seeking or trusting my Master, because thou hast not yet obtained the conscious joy which thou longest for. Cast thyself on him, and perseveringly depend even where thou canst not rejoicingly hope.

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Today's reading: Isaiah 32-33, Colossians 1 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: Isaiah 30-31

The Kingdom of Righteousness

1 See, a king will reign in righteousness
and rulers will rule with justice.
2 Each one will be like a shelter from the wind
and a refuge from the storm,
like streams of water in the desert
and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.

3 Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed,
and the ears of those who hear will listen.
4 The fearful heart will know and understand,
and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.
5 No longer will the fool be called noble
nor the scoundrel be highly respected.
6 For fools speak folly,
their hearts are bent on evil:
They practice ungodliness
and spread error concerning the LORD;
the hungry they leave empty
and from the thirsty they withhold water.
7 Scoundrels use wicked methods,
they make up evil schemes
to destroy the poor with lies,
even when the plea of the needy is just.
8 But the noble make noble plans,
and by noble deeds they stand.

...read the rest on Bible Gateway

Today's New Testament reading: Philippians 4

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

2 To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father.

Thanksgiving and Prayer

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— 5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit....

...read the rest on Bible Gateway

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