For some, at the moment, the Sex Party has more credibility.
=== from 2015 ===
Bronwyn Bishop has walked from the Speaker's position of Australia's lower house. She wasn't pushed by Mr Abbott who wasn't able to sack her anyway. Bill Shorten has said her resignation is an admission of guilt. Shorten had said previously that she was guilty. Shorten seems to not understand what guilt is. Guilt is omitting to declare $40k donation. Bishop was innocent of charges, but had used her expenses for travel to travel. The charges may seem excessive, but politicians are expected to do stunts. It isn't the same as the UK Labor Lord who blew it on coke and prostitutes. Palmer has volunteered to be speaker. Palmer has volunteered for independents to be speaker. Palmer is not serious. Palmer has no problem blowing $30 billion in tax cuts last financial year. Tax payer money gone forever and Palmer has the hide to claim legitimate expenses were wrong? Bishop was the best Speaker Australia had had in over 6 years. Australia owes her a thank you.
Whomever the next speaker is they have big shoes to fill. Only a saint can get through the ALP performance and not lose patience. In the lower house, ALP numbers are insufficient to change much through numbers. So they have a policy of bad behaviour which gets them evicted. They then accused the speaker of bias. Naturally the press have played dumb. Maybe Philip Ruddock will be the next speaker. He is a saint.
Whomever the next speaker is they have big shoes to fill. Only a saint can get through the ALP performance and not lose patience. In the lower house, ALP numbers are insufficient to change much through numbers. So they have a policy of bad behaviour which gets them evicted. They then accused the speaker of bias. Naturally the press have played dumb. Maybe Philip Ruddock will be the next speaker. He is a saint.
From 2014
Not sending kids to school is child abuse. The Human Rights Commission is short on facts regarding asylum seekers. Gosford Anglicans no longer seem to worship God, but left wing ideals. Small but steady progress is being made by those seeking MH17 bodies. Pearson disgraces herself with hubris over gold, declaring her coach as being mean and not liked by anyone. These stories and more follow.
Before Tiberius was Ceaser, ruling with a vicious iron fist, he was a general. On this day, 8BC, the General Tiberius had a victory over Dalmatae over the river Bathinus. The name Dalmatae loosely translates as 'Sheep.' Even then, Tiberius was called bad. Any fool can have a theory. The deposed Patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius is thought to have been the originator of Nestorianism. Nestorianism is the heretical belief that Christ was not God. On this day in 435, the Roman Emperor Theodosius II sentenced Nestorius to an Egyptian monastery. In 881, France beat some Vikings, and later a song (Ludwigslied) was made about it by some Germans. Maybe, some day, someone will write a song how the Waratahs beat the Crusaders last night. It doesn't happen often and almost did not happen at all, being very close, 33 to 32 with the last score being made with seconds to the end of the game.
Columbus set sail from Spain on this day in 1492. In 1527, the first English letter was sent in America from John Rut to Henry VIII. Rut was seeking the North West Passage. He didn't find it. In 1678 the first known boat, Le Griffon, was built on one of the great lakes. In 1852, Harvard beat Yale in the first annual race between them. In 1860, the second Maori war began in New Zealand. In 1900, The Firestone Tyre and Rubber company was founded. In 1907, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (remember the name) fined Standard Oil of Indiana a record $29.4 million for illegal rebating to freight carriers; the conviction and fine are later reversed on appeal. In 1914, Germany declared war on France. In 1921, Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis confirmed the ban of the eight Chicago Black Sox, the day after they were acquitted by a Chicago court. Landis was probably unfair on a few of the players, and also was probably responsible for delaying integration in baseball. In 1936, Jesse Owens won the 100 m dash. In 1946, Santa Claus Land, the first amusement park, opened in the US. In 1948 Whittaker Chambers accused Alger Hiss of being a communist and a Soviet spy. He was probably both, but it upset other communist Soviet spies when it was said so. In 1958 the USS Nautilus journeyed beneath the arctic ice cap. In 1977 the US Senate began hearings on MKUltra. On the same day Tandy began selling personal computers.
Before Tiberius was Ceaser, ruling with a vicious iron fist, he was a general. On this day, 8BC, the General Tiberius had a victory over Dalmatae over the river Bathinus. The name Dalmatae loosely translates as 'Sheep.' Even then, Tiberius was called bad. Any fool can have a theory. The deposed Patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius is thought to have been the originator of Nestorianism. Nestorianism is the heretical belief that Christ was not God. On this day in 435, the Roman Emperor Theodosius II sentenced Nestorius to an Egyptian monastery. In 881, France beat some Vikings, and later a song (Ludwigslied) was made about it by some Germans. Maybe, some day, someone will write a song how the Waratahs beat the Crusaders last night. It doesn't happen often and almost did not happen at all, being very close, 33 to 32 with the last score being made with seconds to the end of the game.
Columbus set sail from Spain on this day in 1492. In 1527, the first English letter was sent in America from John Rut to Henry VIII. Rut was seeking the North West Passage. He didn't find it. In 1678 the first known boat, Le Griffon, was built on one of the great lakes. In 1852, Harvard beat Yale in the first annual race between them. In 1860, the second Maori war began in New Zealand. In 1900, The Firestone Tyre and Rubber company was founded. In 1907, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (remember the name) fined Standard Oil of Indiana a record $29.4 million for illegal rebating to freight carriers; the conviction and fine are later reversed on appeal. In 1914, Germany declared war on France. In 1921, Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis confirmed the ban of the eight Chicago Black Sox, the day after they were acquitted by a Chicago court. Landis was probably unfair on a few of the players, and also was probably responsible for delaying integration in baseball. In 1936, Jesse Owens won the 100 m dash. In 1946, Santa Claus Land, the first amusement park, opened in the US. In 1948 Whittaker Chambers accused Alger Hiss of being a communist and a Soviet spy. He was probably both, but it upset other communist Soviet spies when it was said so. In 1958 the USS Nautilus journeyed beneath the arctic ice cap. In 1977 the US Senate began hearings on MKUltra. On the same day Tandy began selling personal computers.
Historical perspective on this day
Not done
=== 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.
===
Thanks to Warren for this advice on watching Bolt
Warren Catton Get this for your PC or MAC https://www.foxtel.com.au/foxtelplay/how-it-works/pc-mac.html Once you have installed it start it up and press Live TV you don't need a login to watch Sky News!
===
I am publishing a book called Bread of Life: January.
Bread of Life is a daily bible quote with a layman's understanding of the meaning. I give one quote for each day, and also a series of personal stories illustrating key concepts eg Who is God? What is a miracle? Why is there tragedy?
January is the first of the anticipated year-long work of thirteen books. One for each month and the whole year. It costs to publish. It (Kindle version) should retail at about $2US online, but the paperback version would cost more, according to production cost.If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofund.me/27tkwuc
Bread of Life is a daily bible quote with a layman's understanding of the meaning. I give one quote for each day, and also a series of personal stories illustrating key concepts eg Who is God? What is a miracle? Why is there tragedy?
January is the first of the anticipated year-long work of thirteen books. One for each month and the whole year. It costs to publish. It (Kindle version) should retail at about $2US online, but the paperback version would cost more, according to production cost.If you have a heart for giving, I fundraise at gofund.me/27tkwuc
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August, September, October, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4 The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows a free kindle version.
List of available items at Create Space
The Amazon Author Page for David Ball
UK .. http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B01683ZOWGFrench .. http://www.amazon.fr/-/e/B01683ZOWG
Japan .. http://www.amazon.co.jp/-/e/B01683ZOWG
German .. http://www.amazon.de/-/e/B01683ZOWG
| Happy birthday and many happy returns Christine Madelene and David Ba. Born on the same day, across the years, as Alfred Deakin (1856), Rupert Brooke (1887), P. D. James (1920), Tony Bennett (1926), Martin Sheen (1940), Martha Stewart (1941), Isaiah Washington (1963), Sonny Bill Williams (1985) and Kim Hyung-jun (1987). On your day Independence Day in Niger (1960); Flag Day in Venezuela 1492 – Christopher Columbus sets sail from Palos de la Frontera, Spain. 1527 – The first known letter from North America is sent by John Rut while at St. John's, Newfoundland. 1913 – A strike by agricultural workers in Wheatland, California, US, degenerated into a riot, one of the first major farm labor confrontations in California. 1914 – World War I: Germany declares war against France. 1916 – Irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement was hanged at London's Pentonville Prison for treason for his role in the Easter Rising, a rebellion to win Irish independence from Britain. 1949 – The Basketball Association of America agreed to merge with the National Basketball League to form the National Basketball Association. 2005 – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Mayor of Tehran, began his term as the sixth President of Iran. 2007 – Former Deputy Director of the Chilean secret police Raúl Iturriaga was captured after having been on the run following a conviction for kidnapping. I'm sure you have nothing to do with kidnapping and torture. But that Iranian madman might have been an opportunity. Basketball is all very well, if you like cheering in crowds. A foreigner was hanged for treason .. go figure. Germany disputed France .. always going to be futile. Like that strike by agricultural workers .. things ground to a halt. This is a letter to you .. your ship sails.
Deaths
|
SUCCESS AFTER SUCCESS FOR MALCOLM
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 03, 2016 (7:14pm)
Malcolm Turnbull on election night:
“As voters went to the polls ... there were text messages being sent to thousands of people across Australia saying that Medicare was about to be privatised by the Liberal Party.“It said it came from Medicare.“An extraordinary act of dishonesty; no doubt the police will investigate.”
That investigation is now complete:
In a statement today an AFP spokesman said: “The AFP received a referral on Saturday 2 July 2016 in relation to the receipt of text messages allegedly sent from Medicare. This matter was evaluated by the AFP, no commonwealth offences were identified.“This matter is now considered finalised and no further comment will be made.”
Great call, Malcolm. And in the latest Senate developments:
Malcolm Turnbull will be dealing with a Senate crossbench bigger — and potentially more cumbersome — than the one he sought to extinguish.
There is no situation that Turnbull cannot make worse. What might he be planning next?
Mr Turnbull will meet with Labor leader Bill Shorten in Sydney on Thursday to discuss the same-sex marriage plebiscite and the indigenous recognition referendum.
Uh-oh. On current form, this will end up with Turnbull demanding that all Wiradjuri men marry each other and recognising lesbians as Australia’s original inhabitants. It is also further evidence of the government obsessing over fringe issues. As Andrew Bolt previously noted:
The Turnbull Government is fiddling with trivialities while the economy is sinking. Name one thing of substance it has achieved in 11 months in office.
Not an easy question, is it?
SITE UNSEEN
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 03, 2016 (3:07pm)
A number of readers locally and abroad are experiencing difficulties viewing this site. Technicians are working on a fix. Meanwhile, US reader Smike – who hasn’t seen a new post here since last week – emails from sunny New Hampshire:
Please advise your readers that we can hear the laughter, the clinking glasses, the great time being had by all, even from more than 10,000 miles away.Do show some kindness and try to keep it down.
John P. found that this solution overcame his viewing issues. Sadly, it didn’t work for old Smikey.
SYNCHRONISED INCINERATION
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 03, 2016 (1:59pm)
Beautiful work from a couple of artistic Sri Lankan wind turbines:
(Via Chris P, who emails: “It will be an Olympic sport next.")
(Via Chris P, who emails: “It will be an Olympic sport next.")
RUDD RULES
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 03, 2016 (5:08am)
If accurate, this is fantastically hilarious:
Cabinet was 11 to 10 in favour of Kevin Rudd’s bid to compete to be the next United Nations’ secretary-general, sources have told Fairfax Media.The sources said Nationals Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said he would support whatever decision Malcolm Turnbull supported. This is when the Prime Minister aborted the cabinet discussion and said he would make a “captain’s call” instead.He eventually rebuffed Mr Rudd’s quest to compete for the prestigious international position, telling him he lacked the “interpersonal skills” to run for the job.Fairfax Media has also learnt that the night before the cabinet discussion, Mr Turnbull told his ministers he did not want to have to stare down the barrel of a camera and say Mr Rudd was a fit and proper person for the job.But at the next day’s cabinet meeting, his ministers either failed to pick up on his coded directive or ignored it …
Let’s assume, for the sake of fun, that this account is at least somewhere near precise. It means that:
• This government has no political or moral compass.
• Malcolm Turnbull has no authority, beyond his ability as PM to impose rule.
• Cabinet leaks more than the Bismarck.
• The Coalition government is more supportive of Kevin Rudd than it is of the Prime Minister.
• Australia’s economy is currently a second-level issue. At best.
Also, consider this: without the UN to aim for, what might Rudd aim for next?
UPDATE. Fergus Hunter:
This decision has seen multiple accounts published of confidential cabinet discussions. Cabinet leaks are considered rare, undesirable and a measure of government instability.It doesn’t bode well for a Prime Minister whose election campaign was latterly defined by a promise of stable, majority Coalition government. One month after the election, he is putting out fires all over the place.
Or, more accurately, he’s attempting to put fires out.
WEDNESDAY NOTICEBOARD
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 03, 2016 (4:02am)
Leonardo DiCaprio will host Hillary Clinton at a Los Angeles fundraiser later this month:
The event on Aug. 23 is priced at $33,400-per-person and is billed as a “Conversation with Hillary.”
Hillary Clinton hasn’t held a press conference since December 4, 2015 – 240 days ago.
GARBAGE AT THE OLYMPICS? WHAT ARE THE ODDS?
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 03, 2016 (3:54am)
Alarming news from Rio:
Athletes using Olympic water sport venues are taking extraordinary precautions as sites passed safe for swimming by the World Health Organisation were found to be contaminated with sewage, bacteria and garbage.
Aside from those International Olympic Committee members, however, the venues were relatively clean.
CAVES ON THE RUN
Tim Blair – Wednesday, August 03, 2016 (3:34am)
“The Sydney Morning Herald thinks that the Jenolan Caves are in western New South Wales,” emails reader Keith M:
“Well, they are west of the Blue Mountains,” Keith continues. “In eastern New South Wales.”
“Well, they are west of the Blue Mountains,” Keith continues. “In eastern New South Wales.”
On The Bolt Report and radio tonight - Keysar Trad
Andrew Bolt August 03 2016 (4:22pm)
On The Bolt Report on Sky News Live at 7pm tonight:
===Editorial - Mick Gooda must step down. An activist cannot be a judge or royal commissioner.On 2GB, 3AW and 4BC with Steve Price from 8pm.
My guests:
Keysar Trad, the new president of our top Muslim body. On his plans and his controversial past.Podcasts of the show here. Facebook page here.
In Straight Talk, Mark Latham on Julian Burnside and Donald Trump.
The panel: former Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella and former Julia Gillard adviser Nicholas Reece, now public policy fellow at Melbourne University. Huffing and puffing at the banks and other failures of this political system.
Listen live here. Talkback: 131 873. Listen to all past shows here.
Any more sightings of Turnbull’s Loch Ness Mojo?
Andrew Bolt August 03 2016 (10:39am)
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill goes in search of Malcolm Turnbull’s elusive mojo.
Steven Scott, 29 February:
===Steven Scott, 29 February:
One senior Liberal who is close to Mr Turnbull told The Courier Mail the PM had been “waffling” too much in Parliament and was not delivering a clear message… “He’s got to get his mojo back.”Mungo MacCallum, 22 March:
So having at last crossed his Rubicon as Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull will have to find his mojo and his moxie.Madonna King, 13 April:
Malcolm Turnbull’s lost his mojo, and the Australian public along with it.Tony Walker, 19 April:
“If Malcolm doesn’t get his mojo back then they’re in deep [sh_t],” said [a] Labor strategist.Mark Kenny, 5 May:
“Malcolm’s got his mojo back,” enthused one cabinet figure on day two of the big post-budget sell. That he had lost his “mojo” so quickly after achieving his life’s destiny is itself concerning…Patrick Durkin, 10 May:
Then came an awkward interview with Sky News political editor David Speers on Thursday [5 May].
Speers: So, the company tax plan, what is it going to cost of 10 years?
Turnbull: “Well, we have not – the Treasury has not identified the dollar cost of that particular item.”
It got worse. Much worse
Louise Mahler, who coaches politicians and global corporate leaders ... says Mr Turnbull ... has lost his mojoDaniela Ritorto, 26 June:
Malcolm Turnbull appeared to have his mojo back [at the Turnbull Coalition Team official campaign launch].Nick Alexander, 2 July:
Before his mojo returned this week, Malcolm Turnbull’s every footfall on the hustings looked likely to land in a fresh, steaming PR disaster, and his walkabout in the key seat of Lindsay was no exception.Matthew Knott, 3 July:
“We thought [Turnbull] had his mojo back ... “ a Coalition MP sighed on Sunday [3 July], as the spectre of a hung parliament grew.Niki Savva, 28 July:
(W)hen the Prime Minister announced a royal commission [it] was a sign his mojo had kicked back inPeter of Bellevue Hill:
AB, for a bloke who supposedly has ‘mojo’, Turnbull seems to spend an awful lot of time without it. Maybe there’s more chance of the gallery catching a glimpse of the Loch Ness Monster than confirming a sighting of Malcolm with his mojo?
No whites need apply
Andrew Bolt August 03 2016 (10:27am)
Reader Andrew receives this racist email from Melbourne University:
It will get worse. In one university in the US, a student leader has been suspended for not being racist enough:
(Thanks to reader WaG311.)
===Andrew is astonished to find that after all his studies, he is still not qualified for university jobs - or those that carry this racist caveat:
To think, I studied for over 8 years, obtaining a double major Bachelor degree with first class honours, completed a PhD in Classical Archaeology at Melbourne uni in 3.5 years (comprising 3 volumes) with the requirement of reading academic standard German, French, Italian, Ancient Greek (and some conversational Arabic). Field supervised excavations in Turkey and Jordan, undertook sessional lecturing at Melbourne - receiving excellent student reviews, published an academic book and book chapters, in addition to highly-regarded journal articles....UPDATE
If only my parents declared that I was indigenous.
It will get worse. In one university in the US, a student leader has been suspended for not being racist enough:
The vice president of the University of Houston Student Government Association (SGA) has been suspended after a furious reaction to her social media posting that #AllLivesMatter.Absolutely astonishing - first, that a respectful difference of opinion is banned by a university, and, second, that a new racism may not be challenged.
University of Houston (UofH) SGA Vice President Rohini Sethi received a 55-day suspension along with other disciplinary actions from the student government board after she made a Facebook post that said, “Forget #BlackLivesMatter; more like #AllLivesMatter."…
Sethi made the post on the evening 5 Dallas-area police officers were assassinated during a Black Lives Matter protest rally....
A few days later, after receiving negative pushback from other social media users, Sethi apologized for her posting…
She continued to explain saying, “Visually we are black, white, tan, and a hundred shades between but we are all human, thus I believe that all lives matter. Let’s all come together through conversations to reach unity....”
Sethi’s “punishment” initially included a 50-day suspension that will begin on August 1. That suspension was increased to 55 days before it was made public. She must also attend a Libra Project diversity workshop and attend at least three cultural events per month. She is required to write a “reflection letter” and make a public presentation to the September Senate meeting.
(Thanks to reader WaG311.)
Turnbull Government fiddling as economy sinks and superannuants suffer
Andrew Bolt August 03 2016 (10:15am)
As I said in my
editorial last night, the Turnbull Government is fiddling with
trivialities while the economy is sinking. Name one thing of substance
it has achieved in 11 months in office:
===Financial Review agrees:
The Reserve Bank of Australia ... has cut its key policy instrument to levels where further reductions will have minimal impact in the event of another genuine crisis. That has raised the possibility that the next step could bring an Australian version of quantitative easing, with the central bank buying the debt of the central government owned by foreign investors in order to weaken the dollar.Judith Sloan says we’re in deep trouble and some people are already hurting:
That, in turn, would highlight Australia’s debauched fiscal policy. Australia entered the GFC with healthy budget surpluses and no net Commonwealth debt. So all arms of macro policy - interest rates, the exchange rate and fiscal policy - could be used to cushion the blow. But, now, Australia is failing to properly deal with an entrenched budget deficit. Global ratings agencies have put Australia on notice of losing our AAA sovereign credit rating.
ustralia could respond to this dilemma by purposefully seeking to revive productivity growth to help shield it from the global currency war and protect the nation’s modern prosperity. Instead, the political system is squabbling over the shrinking of the national income pie generated by the collapse of the iron ore price....
The Turnbull government has quickly been diverted into political argy-bargies, such as over the Northern Territory prison system and the ambitions of Kevin Rudd.
So Australia’s credible central bank is being forced to compensate for the failures of the Australian political system as it gets sucked, bit by bit, toward the extreme policy populism gripping major northern hemisphere political democracies. Record low interest rates are no reason to celebrate: they are a sign that something is wrong.
Pushing interest rates to historically low levels and expecting business investment to magically pick up just looks insane, particularly as there is so little room to move in terms of interest rates should economic conditions significantly deteriorate (we are just running a bit below par at the moment).Jennifer Hewett agrees:
There is also the point that many potential investors are spooked by historically low interest rates: things must be really bad, it’s not a good time to invest is the take-home message…
But for retired people, every cut to the cash rate makes life a little more difficult. After all, older people are advised to reweight their portfolios as they age, to reduce the risk exposure. This must invariably mean more interest-bearing securities. But each time the RBA reduces the cash rate, the return that retired people can earn falls even further.
There are several messages in recent events for our Treasurer… [W]ith his radical measures to increase tax on superannuation still on the table, he needs to factor in the increasing difficulty that self-funded retirees (and others reliant on interest income) are having without being hit with higher taxes.
Inflation may indeed be extremely low but those who have done their income calculations based on traditional returns are only becoming more agitated.Which means the Turnbull Government, both through accident and design, is shredding confidence in super.
That only adds to their fury over the government’s (and Labor’s) complicated new proposals on superannuation. A million bucks sure ain’t what it used to be.
If relatively safe investment returns are currently more like 2 per cent, for example, that adds up to a grand total of $20,000 a year when the single aged pension is currently around $22,000 including supplements.
It’s an object lesson in the benefits of spending savings fast enough to quickly get well under the new lower assets test limits for access to at least a part pension. Alternatively, it’s an inducement to take on riskier investments to try for better returns.
A good read for Ho Chi Minh City
Andrew Bolt August 03 2016 (10:01am)
My book is living better than I am, visiting Santorini, London, Lake Como, Ithaca, Scotland, the Bay of Naples, Dubrovnik, Fiji, Aileron and the Andes. In between, it’s done some work in Kalgoorlie and the coal seam gas fields of Condabri, Queensland.
Now Worth Fighting For is hanging out in Vietnam with reader John Tyrrell, who drops me a line:
The third edition of the Bolt Bulletin, available to on-line buyers, went out last week. The fourth will go out to on-line buyers some time in August.
===Now Worth Fighting For is hanging out in Vietnam with reader John Tyrrell, who drops me a line:
Here is your book at the Saigon Saigon rooftop bar of the Caravelle Hotel, looking down on the Opera House and the Hotel Continental Saigon in Ho Chi Minh city.
To buy a copy for the traveler in your life, go here. A second edition will be printed soon, so don’t wait if you want one of the remaining first editions.
The third edition of the Bolt Bulletin, available to on-line buyers, went out last week. The fourth will go out to on-line buyers some time in August.
The rise of the neo-fascists
Andrew Bolt August 03 2016 (8:59am)
Another sign of the rise of the neo-fascists - Leftist authoritarians and racists resorting to mob violence:
===A young white man wearing one of Donald Trump’s red ‘Make America Great Again!” hats was violently forced out of New York City’s City Hall Park by a screaming Leftist racist mob of predominantly self-described ‘black and brown’ activists–all while police stood by and did nothing.
Gold-medal sewage
Andrew Bolt August 03 2016 (8:36am)
Passed safe because the consequences of a fail would cost too much?
===Athletes using Olympic water sport venues are taking extraordinary precautions as sites passed safe for swimming by the World Health Organisation were found to be contaminated with sewage, bacteria and garbage.
Officials moving sailing or rowing boats are using gloves, medical staff are on standby to treat any cuts, and athletes, who have been urged not to open their mouths if they fall in, are showering after leaving the water.
Stitch-up: Turnbull Government makes an activist a royal commissioner
Andrew Bolt August 03 2016 (7:26am)
It is scandalous that the Turnbull Government could appoint an activist to co-head a royal commission and with a straight face claim his bias is appropriate and no problem. This is a complete stitch-up:
By any measure, Gooda has disqualified himself as an impartial judge of the issues.
Yet the Attorney General has so betrayed one of the key principles of the administration of justice - and is so desperate not to be embarrassed by the resignation of a second commissioner - that he actually praises Gooda’s bias as a qualification for the role, no doubt calculating that Gooda’s bias is just the kind he wanted:
Brandis has prostituted his values as the chief law officer of the land.
This is a disgrace. Gooda must go. If Brandis does not see this, he might have to consider his own position, too.
UPDATE
And this is the other royal commissioner chosen by Attorney General Brandis and the Prime Minister:
===Indigenous leader Mick Gooda has been warned to leave emotion at the door as he takes up his role as royal commissioner, with prison officers fearing they already have been convicted by public outrage over the treatment of juveniles in the Northern Territory justice system…In fact, Gooda did more than tweet a condemnation of the NT Country Liberal Party Government, whose conduct he will now be asked to judge. He also gave a press conference vilifying it:
Mr Gooda has described a comment he made last week — calling for the NT government to be sacked over abuses at the Don Dale detention centre — as an “emotional response” to the material aired by Four Corners…
Australian Prison Officers Association president Brian Newman said Mr Gooda’s passion for indigenous youth issues raised questions about his capacity to lead the commission impartially.
“Emotion is not something to carry into an inquiry where you’re expected to assess the facts,” said Mr Newman, who is also indigenous. “Our concern will be, where does Mr Gooda’s passion stop?
“Will it stop at the juncture where he is faced with the real potential that there is no single entity responsible for the challenges confronting our people daily, but rather, the entire culture of incarcerating children from sometimes the worst imaginable, most often heartbreakingly oppressive backgrounds?”
Mr Gooda, who is not a lawyer but has a background in indigenous health and social affairs, retreated from last week’s comment, saying “in the clear light of day, I probably wouldn’t think that’’.
The modus operandi of the Northern Territory government is this: shoot the messenger, discredit the report and demonise the kids so people think it’s OK for that treatment to occur.Gooda has repeated his claim that the NT Government is incompetent:
Let’s have another intervention and put an administrator in the Northern Territory cos it looks to me like they’re incapable of managing anything up there.Gooda has also assumed the alleged abuse still continues and has claimed the NT resisted reform to its detention centres - both claims persuasively debunked on my show last night by Mark Payne, the Northern Territory’s Corrections Commissioner, who will almost certainly be called as a witness before Gooda into just these issues:
An emotional Mr Gooda spoke of his horror at seeing teenage boys being sprayed with tear gas and hooded and restrained at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin…Gooda is not a lawyer. His key qualification is that he has Aboriginal ancestry and is an activist - the very opposite of impartial. Indeed, he has already prejudged the issue, declaring the Northern Territory Government so guilty of the allegations he is yet to probe that it must be sacked. He has damned it as vindictive, incompetent and resistant to any reform.
Mr Gooda said the footage proved little had changed in the Northern Territory despite a royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody 25 years ago, an inquiry into child protection in the Northern Territory 10 years ago and three separate investigations into the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.
By any measure, Gooda has disqualified himself as an impartial judge of the issues.
Yet the Attorney General has so betrayed one of the key principles of the administration of justice - and is so desperate not to be embarrassed by the resignation of a second commissioner - that he actually praises Gooda’s bias as a qualification for the role, no doubt calculating that Gooda’s bias is just the kind he wanted:
Senator Brandis suggested the comment actually bolstered his qualifications for the role, rather than raising a potential conflict.Excuse me, Attorney General, but surely you mean “the way in which the system allegedly treats indigenous youth”?
“You will not find an indigenous leader in this country who hasn’t had some sharp and strong things to say about the way in which the system treats indigenous youth,” he told the ABC.
Brandis has prostituted his values as the chief law officer of the land.
This is a disgrace. Gooda must go. If Brandis does not see this, he might have to consider his own position, too.
UPDATE
And this is the other royal commissioner chosen by Attorney General Brandis and the Prime Minister:
Royal commissioner Margaret White is no stranger to the emotionally charged atmosphere of juvenile justice, having sparked a political firestorm over her lenient sentencing of an Aboriginal boy for manslaughter in 1994.I believe I can predict the key findings of this royal commission even before a single witness has been called.
The case centred on a 16-year-old from Cherbourg, an indigenous community in southeast Queensland, who had killed and robbed a publican, Dermot Tiernan, during a riot in nearby Murgon a year earlier.
Ms White, then a Supreme Court judge, incensed many politicians by sentencing the boy to three years’ probation, under supervision in Brisbane, to get him away from the “boring hopelessness” of Cherbourg.
In her sentencing remarks, Ms White recognised the “great deal of racial tension” between Cherbourg’s residents and their neighbours in mostly white Murgon. “The community is offering no future for its young and no real ties with its Aboriginal culture. This position offers no hope or prospects for the future,” she said…
The boy, who had served nine months on remand, was considered a good prospect for rehabilitation despite his record of obscene language, disorderly conduct, breaking and entering, wilful destruction, assault causing bodily harm and assaulting officers…
Despite Ms White’s best intentions, the boy who killed Mr Tiernan was not rehabilitated and has led a life of alcohol-fuelled violence that culminated in a brutal assault in 2013 which left his de facto spouse with three broken ribs and a punctured lung.
Plotter paid
Andrew Bolt August 03 2016 (7:23am)
Your taxes, Malcolm Turnbull’s payola for a plotter:
===Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has thrown a key supporter a lifeline, employing recently dumped MP Peter Hendy as his chief economist.
Dr Hendy was turfed out by the voters of ultra-marginal electorate Eden-Monaro at the July election, with Labor’s Mike Kelly emerging victorious and ending the seat’s famed bellwether reputation.
It was at Dr Hendy’s Queanbeyan home - a short drive from Parliament House - that the Turnbull camp held crucial planning discussions leading up to the coup against former prime minister Tony Abbott.
Half of Cabinet wanted to back Rudd
Andrew Bolt August 02 2016 (9:07pm)
It turns out that 11 of Malcolm Turnbull’s Cabinet of 23 backed Kevin Rudd’s bid to head the United Nations and only 10 said no.
Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce then said he’d go with whatever Turnbull decided, and Turnbull decided against, making the final count 12 against Rudd and 11 for.
Wow.
Voting for were Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, of course, Marise Payne, Christopher Pyne, Steve Ciobo, George Brandis, Simon Birmingham, the Nationals Darren Chester, Nigel Scullion and - this is disappointing - the self-described conservative Christian Porter, plus two others whose names I don’t yet know.
That was some revolt against what in the end was Turnbull’s desire. And a hell of a distraction when the economy is in trouble.
===Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce then said he’d go with whatever Turnbull decided, and Turnbull decided against, making the final count 12 against Rudd and 11 for.
Wow.
Voting for were Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, of course, Marise Payne, Christopher Pyne, Steve Ciobo, George Brandis, Simon Birmingham, the Nationals Darren Chester, Nigel Scullion and - this is disappointing - the self-described conservative Christian Porter, plus two others whose names I don’t yet know.
That was some revolt against what in the end was Turnbull’s desire. And a hell of a distraction when the economy is in trouble.
OLD MACDONALD’S SMARM
Tim Blair – Monday, August 03, 2015 (4:21am)
According to former Age managing director and ex-ABC presenter Ranald Macdonald:
The government-enforced cuts in funding and continual pressure on the ABC from the right – promoted enthusiastically by the Murdoch media conglomerate and the broadcaster’s commercial rivals – have ensured that the ABC cannot now carry out its charter responsibilities …
In fact, cuts to the ABC have been minuscule and pressure from News Corp is all about the ABC meeting its charter responsibilities. But Ranald, now sufficiently addled to become “a new member of the ABC Friends organisation”, is welcome to his cardigan-warmed fantasies.
AN EXPERT VIEW
Tim Blair – Monday, August 03, 2015 (2:59am)
To cap off a perfect week of outrage, on Saturday little Zaky Mallah offered his Twitter opinion on the Adam Goodes racism saga.
“Good to see The Age and SMH supporting Adam Goodes,” wrote Mallah, the ABC-endorsed terrorist supporter and former Q & A guest, following Fairfax’s celebration of the Sydney Swans champ.
“However, Goodes attitude on the field can be childish, provocative and needs to mature!”
When it comes to childish provocation and the need for maturity, few speak with greater authority than Zaky Mallah. He’s an acknowledged expert in the field.
Mallah’s infantile outburst expertise may have come in handy if we’d needed a judge to separate the Goodes controversy from last week’s other major scandal.
For all of Australia’s fury over AFL crowds and Goodes, however, there was no way it was ever going to equal the global hostility that greeted the news of Cecil the lion’s murder by Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer.
Racism debates in Australia tend mostly to end up with rich white people shouting at each other. That was the way it went with the Goodes story, which was always going to be a hard sell in Europe and the US, where top-level athletes endure rather more brutal audience and media attention than anything witnessed here.
The Cecil saga, on the other hand, had no ambivalence about it at all. Here was Cecil, the most beloved big cat since the Paddle Pop lion, happily wandering around a Zimbabwean national park when evil Dr Palmer, assisted by two local guides, lured old Cec into the open and shot him with a bow and arrow.
It helped, of course, that Palmer comes from a US state so white that the first syllable spoken there after “yo” is always “gurt”.
(Continue reading An Expert View.)
EQUALITY EQUALS ENVY
Tim Blair – Monday, August 03, 2015 (2:45am)
In Seattle, a caring businessman tries to do good:
Dan Price, chief of credit-card payment processing firm Gravity Payments, raised his employees’ salaries to $US70,000 …He wasn’t thinking about the political clamour over low wages or the growing gap between rich and poor, he said. He was just thinking of the 120 people who worked for him and, let’s be honest, a bit of free publicity. The idea struck him when a friend shared her worries about paying both her rent and student loans on a $US40,000 salary. He realised a lot of his own employees earned that or less.
The outcome would have given Milton Friedman a knowing smile:
A few customers, dismayed by what they viewed as a political statement, withdrew their business. Others, anticipating a fee increase – despite repeated assurances to the contrary – also left. While dozens of new clients, inspired by Price’s announcement, were signing up, those accounts will not start paying off for at least another year. To handle the flood, he has had to hire a dozen additional employees – now at a significantly higher cost – and is struggling to figure out whether more are needed without knowing for certain how long the bonanza will last.Two of Price’s most valued employees quit, spurred in part by their view that it was unfair to double the pay of some new hires while the longest-serving staff members got small or no raises. Some friends and associates in Seattle’s close-knit entrepreneurial network were also piqued that Price’s action made them look stingy in front of their own employees.Then potentially the worst blow of all: Less than two weeks after the announcement, Price’s older brother and Gravity co-founder, Lucas Price, citing longstanding differences, filed a lawsuit that potentially threatened the company’s very existence. With legal bills quickly mounting and most of his own paycheque and last year’s $US2.2 million in profits plowed into the salary increases, Dan Price said, “We don’t have a margin of error to pay those legal fees.”
As Friedman was aware, it’s never a good idea to put equality before freedom.
Dan Price, 31, tells the New York Times that things have gotten so bad he’s been forced to rent out his house …“I’m working as hard as I ever worked to make it work,” he told the Times in a video that shows him sitting on a plastic bucket in the garage of his house. “I’m renting out my house right now to try and make ends meet myself.”
RETURN TO THE POD
Tim Blair – Monday, August 03, 2015 (2:34am)
My usual extra Monday columns today give way to a piece by His Excellency Baron Waqa MP, President of the Republic of Nauru – well worth your attention, by the way. To compensate for any Blair deprivation, please enjoy a replay of Friday’s prize-winning* podcast with me and Joe Hildebrand.
*No prizes have been or will be awarded for this podcast.
No, this reconciliation does not mean peace but permanent division. Not “we” but “them” and “us”
Andrew Bolt August 03 2015 (2:30pm)
It is enough to break your heart, not least because there are now very few media outlets left who have the wit or the courage to resist.
The fact is that the Adam Goodes controversy has been whipped up into a race issue, and then used as a weapon to demand race-based changes and divisions that will divide this country as never before.
And here is another fact - that the reconciliation movement does not work for true reconciliation, where race is irrelevant. It works for permanent division, which race a permanent wall. Peace is not the goal; only, at best, an armistice.
Too gloomy? Then interpret this for me in a way that gives hope.
First this:
===The fact is that the Adam Goodes controversy has been whipped up into a race issue, and then used as a weapon to demand race-based changes and divisions that will divide this country as never before.
And here is another fact - that the reconciliation movement does not work for true reconciliation, where race is irrelevant. It works for permanent division, which race a permanent wall. Peace is not the goal; only, at best, an armistice.
Too gloomy? Then interpret this for me in a way that gives hope.
First this:
Indigenous leaders Noel Pearson and Patrick Dodson have united behind calls for substantive change to the main body of Australia’s Constitution, with Mr Pearson warning that most indigenous Australians would reject mere “preambular embroidery”.Then this:
The pair, who are two of the country’s most respected Aboriginal figureheads, have joined to effectively push for a new or reformed head of powers for the benefit of indigenous peoples, and for the removal of outdated constitutional elements that are seen by many as racist.
Mr Dodson sees this as separate from questions about Aboriginal sovereignty or a treaty between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the rest of the country…
“We need indigenous Australians to get their head around this thing and to see if we can forge a consensus among our people so that, when we do go out and consult with the rest of Australia, we’ve got a very clear position,” Mr Pearson said…
At the Garma Festival this weekend, both Mr Pearson and Mr Dodson spoke about the booing of indigenous AFL star Adam Goodes.
Mr Pearson said attendant commentary had left him “consumed with rage”, and that he was questioning how well he knew his fellow Australians
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has sparked fury among Aboriginal leaders after rejecting proposals for indigenous conventions ahead of a referendum on Constitutional recognition.And it now seems to be dawning on the Prime Minister that all I warned of is coming to pass - and that what he understood as “reconciliation” looks nothing like what Aboriginal “leaders” have in mind. The letter Abbott sent:
Mr Abbott’s office faxed the letter to Patrick Dodson and Noel Pearson on Friday night…
Mr Dodson and Mr Pearson wrote to the Prime Minister a fortnight ago asking him to support a series of indigenous conventions to ensure Aboriginal backing and full understand of the complex models on the table for recognition…
But the entire recognition project now stands in jeopardy of losing indigenous support after Mr Pearson, Mr Dodson and even the normally carefully measured Mr Gooda expressed their anger at the prime minister’s rebuttal of the proposals for an indigenous-led process.
Abbott’s instincts here are right. But the genie is out of the bottle.
Sorry to the AFL. You’ve acted with more courage than I suggested
Andrew Bolt August 03 2015 (10:40am)
I must apologise to the AFL’s chairman and chief executive. On yesterday’s show I helped to give the impression that the AFL had been an active party to demonising critics of Adam Goodes as simply racist.
That is unfair and not true, and it turns out that several AFL commissioners as actually as alarmed as I am by the gross simplification of the issue. They are aware that Goodes was unnecessarily divisive and provocative, and some of the reaction is the crowd rejecting his overreach.
Yet the way this is reported in The Australian suggests these commissioners are close to being demonised as racists themselves in this media-led witchhunt:
The attack on the good faith of the commissioners who dissent from the media Left’s race crusade is deeply unfortunate. Those of us who do dissent should be entitled to have genuinely held views based on experience, evidence and moral principle. When we say the booing is not fundamentally racist (albeit mean) it is not because we are lying or in “denial” but because that is what we have concluded from the evidence and the apparent chain of causation.
It strikes me that despite all the hysterical abuse by journalists of those who saw Goodes’ war dance as provocative - charging a white crowd while waving an imaginary spear - it seems that even Goodes’ strongest defenders privately accept it was a mistake. Goodes teammate Lewis Jetta on the weekend celebrated his goal by performing an Aboriginal dance, too, but without charging the crowd as he had the week before. And without last week’s imaginary spear, either.
I would bet that Goodes won’t again perform that war challenge to spectators either. Goodes’ defenders should publicly acknowledge that what they defended should not be repeated.
UPDATE
No dissent may be tolerated. Anyone with an honestly held difference of opinion must be driven out of the AFL. Patrick Smith of The Australian, drunk on sanctimonry:
The history of Salem, though, is not comforting.
===That is unfair and not true, and it turns out that several AFL commissioners as actually as alarmed as I am by the gross simplification of the issue. They are aware that Goodes was unnecessarily divisive and provocative, and some of the reaction is the crowd rejecting his overreach.
Yet the way this is reported in The Australian suggests these commissioners are close to being demonised as racists themselves in this media-led witchhunt:
The Adam Goodes race debate has exposed deep divisions and inadequate leadership within the AFL Commission, with the game’s governing body split over whether bigotry is fuelling the abuse of the Sydney Swans star and whether Goodes is to blame.I would guess that former players on the commission are more likely to think Goodes provoked much of the response by his own actions, and not by his race. After all, they’d know that crowd best, having performed before it for many years of their lives.
The divisions within the commission were laid bare during a meeting on Tuesday, with both chairman Mike Fitzpatrick and chief executive Gillon McLachlan uncertain over how best to respond to the crowd baiting that has caused Goodes to consider his involvement in the game.
The AFL’s failure to acknowledge that Goodes is being racially abused and condemn those supporters responsible has bitterly disappointed some commission members, who want stronger action, and frustrated the Sydney Swans.
The Australian understands the nine-person commission is split into three camps.
Some commissioners accept racism is deeply embedded in the abuse of Goodes, an Aboriginal footballer who has taken a strong stance on indigenous issues, including racism.
Others believe the abuse is not racially loaded and that he is just the last in a long line of footballers, black and white, to cop the wrath of opposition supporters.
Some commissioners were critical of Goodes. This minority holds Goodes responsible for his own abuse because of his conduct on and off the field, including, most recently, performing a spear dance after kicking a goal. The split, which is reflective of the broader public divide, explains the AFL’s insipid response to an issue that presents a direct threat to its greatest social achievement: the advancement of indigenous people through Australia’s national football code.
The attack on the good faith of the commissioners who dissent from the media Left’s race crusade is deeply unfortunate. Those of us who do dissent should be entitled to have genuinely held views based on experience, evidence and moral principle. When we say the booing is not fundamentally racist (albeit mean) it is not because we are lying or in “denial” but because that is what we have concluded from the evidence and the apparent chain of causation.
It strikes me that despite all the hysterical abuse by journalists of those who saw Goodes’ war dance as provocative - charging a white crowd while waving an imaginary spear - it seems that even Goodes’ strongest defenders privately accept it was a mistake. Goodes teammate Lewis Jetta on the weekend celebrated his goal by performing an Aboriginal dance, too, but without charging the crowd as he had the week before. And without last week’s imaginary spear, either.
I would bet that Goodes won’t again perform that war challenge to spectators either. Goodes’ defenders should publicly acknowledge that what they defended should not be repeated.
UPDATE
No dissent may be tolerated. Anyone with an honestly held difference of opinion must be driven out of the AFL. Patrick Smith of The Australian, drunk on sanctimonry:
Goodes is a victim of deliberate racism and determined racists. The commissioners who cannot see that fact — about the size of Uluru — should step down from the commission immediately. They are of no use to anyone never mind our indigenous community.I wonder what it will take before the witchhunters finally go so far that even the timid rise in rage against them.
The history of Salem, though, is not comforting.
Why has the Left abandoned this principle?
Andrew Bolt August 03 2015 (10:33am)
The Australian Law Reform Commission on the need to protect even child criminals from being publicly named and shamed:
UPDATE
It is argued that Goodes actually pleaded for mercy for the girl he singled out at the MCG, an actually that snowballed to this day, and that publishing the full quote from his press conference the next day would show he did not pick on her at all:
But wait. We still have here a 13 year old that even Goodes admits deserves no blame and is “innocent”.
Yet Goodes picked her out the night before (thinking at the time, as he said, she was about 14) and summonsed security to deal with her, all in the full glare of the TV pictures which showed her face. He then kept her waiting for two hours at the ground, after she’d been questioned by police, before he got around to dealing with the matter and saying he would not press charges. He then called a press conference the next day calling her the “face” of racism. All the sweet words afterwards may reflect well on Goodes but do not remove the humiliation of the girl.
Imagine your own child at 13. Would you be mollified by Goodes’ generous words afterwards after that child had been publicly dealt with as this one was?
===69.85 The privacy of children and young people inside the courtroom has attracted more judicial and legislative protection than the privacy of children in other circumstances.[99] Both the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC) and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice 1985 (the Beijing Rules) refer specifically to a young person’s right to privacy at all stages of juvenile justice proceedings.[100] Rule 8.1 of the Beijing Rules notes that this is ‘in order to avoid harm being caused to her or him by undue publicity or by the process of labelling’. The rule is explained in the official commentary.Why have so many people of the Left who would echo every word of the above not spoken in defence of that principle for one 13-year-old girl not even charged with breaking the law?
Young persons are particularly susceptible to stigmatization. Criminological research into labelling processes has provided evidence of the detrimental effects (of different kinds) resulting from the permanent identification of young persons as ‘delinquent’ or ‘criminal’. Rule 8 also stresses the importance of protecting the juvenile from the adverse effects that may result from the publication in the mass media of information about the case (for example, the names of young offenders, alleged or convicted).[101]69.86 Concerns also have been raised about the psychological damage that a child or young person involved in, or associated with, other kinds of cases might experience if identified in the media. This could include particularly difficult family law cases, child welfare cases, or high profile criminal law cases where the defendant has children who might suffer as a result of publication of the name or image of the accused.[102] Stigma also may attach, for example, to immigration cases involving refusal of visas or applications for government payments.[103]
UPDATE
It is argued that Goodes actually pleaded for mercy for the girl he singled out at the MCG, an actually that snowballed to this day, and that publishing the full quote from his press conference the next day would show he did not pick on her at all:
Racism had a face – and it was a 13-year-old girl. To be able to make a stand myself and say ‘racism has a face’ last night and, you know, it was a 13-year-old girl but it’s not her fault. She’s 13, she’s still so innocent, I don’t put any blame on her. Unfortunately it’s what she hears, the environment she’s grown up in that has made her think it’s okay to call people names. I can guarantee you right now she would have no idea, you know, how it makes anyone feel by calling them an ape … But I think the person that needs the most support is the little girl, you know. People need to get around her, she’s 13, she’s uneducated.Some of those sentiments indeed go to Goodes’ credit, and some of what he said is undoubtedly true.
But wait. We still have here a 13 year old that even Goodes admits deserves no blame and is “innocent”.
Yet Goodes picked her out the night before (thinking at the time, as he said, she was about 14) and summonsed security to deal with her, all in the full glare of the TV pictures which showed her face. He then kept her waiting for two hours at the ground, after she’d been questioned by police, before he got around to dealing with the matter and saying he would not press charges. He then called a press conference the next day calling her the “face” of racism. All the sweet words afterwards may reflect well on Goodes but do not remove the humiliation of the girl.
Imagine your own child at 13. Would you be mollified by Goodes’ generous words afterwards after that child had been publicly dealt with as this one was?
Nova Peris calls for my sacking
Andrew Bolt August 03 2015 (8:05am)
Nova Peris wants the Prime Minister to make News Corp sack me:
That is freaky. And worse will be that hardly a single political commentator will attack her for these sinister views.
But it may suit Peris to have me silenced on this topic:
PS
I do remember another politician wanted me out of my job for making statements which - had he and his allies in the Gillard Government listened instead of threatened - could have saved the lives of another 1000 boat people who later drowned.
Likewise, listening to my arguments on the “stolen generations” could have actually saved Aboriginal lives, too - the lives of defenceless children left in deadly danger.
This disposition of the Left to censor the inconvenient is extremely troubling.
UPDATE
You would think Peris, a graduate of the Rapid Creek Primary School, could see a fellow student there as just another Australian, and not a member of a separate “race”.
===Commentator Andrew Bolt should have been sacked for saying the stolen generation was a myth, Northern Territory senator Nova Peris said…That’s the kind of country Peris wants? Where politicians sack journalists who don’t toe the line?
“(Prime Minister) Tony Abbott could have picked up a phone and said ‘sack this person, he is a disgrace to this country’.”
That is freaky. And worse will be that hardly a single political commentator will attack her for these sinister views.
But it may suit Peris to have me silenced on this topic:
Peris’ official Labor biography does state: “Her mother, grandmother and grandfather are all members of the ‘stolen generations’.”Some links for background material here.
But she could correct that. After all, the Federal Court found in its famous “stolen generation” test case the “evidence does not support a finding that there was any policy of removal of part-Aboriginal children such as that alleged” — at least in the territory.
Moreover, in an interview with activist Anne Summers, Peris said her mother, Joan, and three siblings were actually sent to a Catholic mission after their mother developed typhoid and couldn’t look after them.
Joan later chose to stay with foster parents in Adelaide, and when she returned to Darwin found her mother was a very heavy drinker.
The same interview told how Peris’ grandfather, of Aboriginal and Filipino descent, was given up by his mother. To be abandoned by your mother is tragic, but to be saved by strangers is not to be “stolen”.
PS
I do remember another politician wanted me out of my job for making statements which - had he and his allies in the Gillard Government listened instead of threatened - could have saved the lives of another 1000 boat people who later drowned.
Likewise, listening to my arguments on the “stolen generations” could have actually saved Aboriginal lives, too - the lives of defenceless children left in deadly danger.
This disposition of the Left to censor the inconvenient is extremely troubling.
UPDATE
You would think Peris, a graduate of the Rapid Creek Primary School, could see a fellow student there as just another Australian, and not a member of a separate “race”.
The Australian should apologise for this shameful doctoring of my quote. UPDATE: And Miranda’s, too
Andrew Bolt August 03 2015 (7:35am)
Someone in The Australian still seems to resent my criticism of the paper’s utterly false “unilateral invasion” story and its dangerous and incoherent support of a race-based change to the constitution.
Having already tried to intimidate me and suggest editors silence me, it now joins in a media pack attack over the Goodes issue with some deceptively selective quotation - a weak and contemptible smearing:
Shameful.
This is not the first time that I’ve wondered whether The Australian has lost its head and its direction. The fact that it is increasingly at serious odds with its readership (check, this time, the comments under its latest Goodes editorial) just makes the problem worse.
UPDATE
Read Miranda Devine’s full comments in context and you will see the Australian has misrepresented her, too, in order to trash her.
That would be poor form against anyone, but against a News Corp colleague? Against a conservative who better represents the newspaper’s base? Against someone who has brought sense to the debate?
How The Australian mocked Devine:
What the hell is going on with that paper?
UPDATE
I note that the Cut & Paste article which framed me and Miranda has not accepted any comments from readers such the last unflattering ones, posted around 9am. Perhaps it would not be good to demonstrate how much the Australian is alienating its readers. The comments under Patrick Smith’s latest diatribe, though, give some taste of it.
===Having already tried to intimidate me and suggest editors silence me, it now joins in a media pack attack over the Goodes issue with some deceptively selective quotation - a weak and contemptible smearing:
Andrew Bolt feels the same way too. On his blog, yesterday.Read the full quotation from the blog item the Australian has deceptively abridged and it becomes crystal clear that I did not contradict myself at all:
I did not say Goodes was wrong to “stand up” to a girl racially abusing him.
On 7.30, ABC television, July 30:
How (the booing) would be best stopped ... is for Adam Goodes to say, “Look, I did overreact. We mustn’t forget there are - we’re all human beings, we’re all together in this.” And singling out a girl for public humiliation like that I thought was wrong.
Or in the immortal words of Little Britain’s Vicki Pollard: No, but, yeah, but, no, but, yeah, but, no, but, yeah.
No, I did not say Goodes was wrong to “stand up” to a girl racially abusing him, but wrong to so publicly humiliate a child barely out of primary school - a girl who’d already been identified on national television, frogmarched out by security, detained for two hours, threatened with charges and vilified as a racist, only to be called by Goodes the next day the “face” of racism.How does The Australian excuse distorting my clear meaning with this quote-doctoring? Why is it joining in the very kind of pack hysteria and media sliming that my item described?
Shameful.
This is not the first time that I’ve wondered whether The Australian has lost its head and its direction. The fact that it is increasingly at serious odds with its readership (check, this time, the comments under its latest Goodes editorial) just makes the problem worse.
UPDATE
Read Miranda Devine’s full comments in context and you will see the Australian has misrepresented her, too, in order to trash her.
That would be poor form against anyone, but against a News Corp colleague? Against a conservative who better represents the newspaper’s base? Against someone who has brought sense to the debate?
How The Australian mocked Devine:
Goodes not wrong: let him apologise…Omitted by The Australian in its zeal to smash Devine was the bit where she identified precisely what she thought Goodes could apologise for, while excusing him of blame for how officials behaved. What Devine actually wrote:
The treatment of the girl who abused him was not [Goodes’] doing. Devine continues:
Goodes singled out a 13-year-old after she called him an “ape” … What happened next was not Goodes’ fault … Goodes, to his credit, said she shouldn’t be blamed.But he should make some act of atonement? More Devine:
An apology for the way she was treated would go a long way.
You can applaud Goodes for his initial reaction to call out racism. His mistake was to demand match officials take action against the girl after he saw how young she was.Note also this critical point: Devine in this article does not say that apology should necessarily come from Goodes himself. Why did The Australian make it seem she had?
He was standing next to her, and by his own admission saw she was young. He guessed 14. In fact, she had just turned 13 the previous week.
What happened next was not Goodes’ fault but speaks volumes about rotten AFL officialdom.
The girl was detained for more than two hours till past midnight… Those waxing lyrical about the incident wouldn’t have sat still while their weeping child was frogmarched by security guards past the jeering crowd.
This is what is so infuriating about the debate. The central injustice is what was done to the underprivileged child of a single mother on a disability pension. It can’t be erased, even in a good cause.
The next day, after she had been publicly vilified, Goodes, to his credit, said she shouldn’t be blamed and he didn’t want to “press charges”. But not before he delivered the immortal line: “Racism has a face and it is a 13-year-old girl.”
A million words won’t erase that either. But an apology for the way she was treated would go a long way.
What the hell is going on with that paper?
UPDATE
I note that the Cut & Paste article which framed me and Miranda has not accepted any comments from readers such the last unflattering ones, posted around 9am. Perhaps it would not be good to demonstrate how much the Australian is alienating its readers. The comments under Patrick Smith’s latest diatribe, though, give some taste of it.
Why do the Greens damn only the Jewish wall?
Andrew Bolt August 03 2015 (7:20am)
All built for the same reason, but only one of these walls is routinely condemned by journalists, politicians and activists as a crime against humanity:
===Turkey and Tunisia, both recently hit by deadly terror attacks, are the latest to announce huge investments in border barriers, joining Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Israel among countries fortifying their borders… Saudi Arabia has pumped over $3 billion into its “Great Wall” security system that separates its north from Iraq. The wall includes observation towers with cameras and motion detectors.The Saudi one:
But will the Greens rage against this Muslim wall as it rages against the Jewish one?:
The Australian Greens call for:
...The immediate dismantling of the seraration [sic] barrier and wall....It violates the Geneva Convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The creation
of this artificial border has undermined peace negotiations. Palestinians who live near the wall have their movement and livelihoods severely restricted.
The Age fishes in the sewer
Andrew Bolt August 03 2015 (7:13am)
Publishing abuse of Bronwyn Bishop by Leftists hiding behind fake names on Twitter surely is a low for even The Age, even if it omitted the nastiest stuff.
This is not reporting but confirming a paper’s bias.
===This is not reporting but confirming a paper’s bias.
Warmist media thinks it’s rude to ask the cost
Andrew Bolt August 03 2015 (6:47am)
Chris Kenny on a dangerous tendency of the warmist media to dismiss questioning of cost as a “scare”:
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
===When Bill Shorten announced a new target to deliver 50 per cent of the nation’s electricity needs from renewable energy by 2030 — along with the reintroduction of an emissions trading scheme — he was quick to warn about the inevitable fear and loathing…So shut up and pay up, and do not dare even ask “how much?”
Many in the media took Shorten’s cue. There was no way they were going to play into any spurious “scare campaign” by asking frightening questions like how much Labor’s renewables pledge might cost.
A couple of days later on Insiders, Barrie Cassidy said “the government has ALREADY gone to town on that (the renewables target)”.
“Well I think this reaction is entirely hysterical,” said Lenore Taylor from The Guardian. “It’s an aspirational target for 2030...”
Later Cassidy returned to the issue; “except it does expose them, though, to an attack on the cost of electricity”.
“It hasn’t been costed yet,” protested Taylor…
Soon RN Breakfast was running a similar, reassuring theme after Tony Abbott had generously offered his own costing of Labor’s pledge at up to $60 billion.
“What happened to the PM’s plea last week that we start having conversations, not scare campaigns,” asked Fran Kelly.
“Oh it lasted about four days I guess Fran, didn’t it,” laughed Phil Coorey from The Australian Financial Review…
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
My Australia
Andrew Bolt August 03 2015 (12:35am)
THIS cannot be Australia — this country that journalists scream is full of racists booing footballer Adam Goodes just for being Aboriginal.
It’s rotten with “endemic racism”, bellows ABC host Jonathan Green.
It’s just pretending to be tolerant, agrees Age columnist Waleed Aly, but turns nasty when “minorities demonstrate that they don’t know their place”.
Pardon? That’s my Australia?
Of course, I’m not Aboriginal. I have not felt the racial abuse copped by people I know, such as former Labor president Warren Mundine, who last week revealed he was in therapy to deal with it.
Still, I’ve had a taste of public vilification. Just in the past week, The Age, Canberra Times, ABC and The Roar published abuse of me from “anti-racists” so vile that all four have agreed to remove or edit them. As for Twitter, don’t look.
I mention that not to get your sympathy, let alone to trivialise racism — a sin against our common humanity.
I do it to make two points. First, there are many kinds of hatreds, some now socially licensed by anti-racists viciously drunk on sanctimony. None of us are perfect, even the fingerpointers, and never will be.
But second, collectively, we’re not bad, and never have been. And I say that even after being at the wrong end of this public stoning.
No, Australia is far, far better than all the screaming and posturing over Goodes would have you think.
But I’m biased. See, I have an unshakable faith in Australia that comes from growing up in lots of it.
(Read full article here.)
===It’s rotten with “endemic racism”, bellows ABC host Jonathan Green.
It’s just pretending to be tolerant, agrees Age columnist Waleed Aly, but turns nasty when “minorities demonstrate that they don’t know their place”.
Pardon? That’s my Australia?
Of course, I’m not Aboriginal. I have not felt the racial abuse copped by people I know, such as former Labor president Warren Mundine, who last week revealed he was in therapy to deal with it.
Still, I’ve had a taste of public vilification. Just in the past week, The Age, Canberra Times, ABC and The Roar published abuse of me from “anti-racists” so vile that all four have agreed to remove or edit them. As for Twitter, don’t look.
I mention that not to get your sympathy, let alone to trivialise racism — a sin against our common humanity.
I do it to make two points. First, there are many kinds of hatreds, some now socially licensed by anti-racists viciously drunk on sanctimony. None of us are perfect, even the fingerpointers, and never will be.
But second, collectively, we’re not bad, and never have been. And I say that even after being at the wrong end of this public stoning.
No, Australia is far, far better than all the screaming and posturing over Goodes would have you think.
But I’m biased. See, I have an unshakable faith in Australia that comes from growing up in lots of it.
(Read full article here.)
In case you missed Dallas Scott
Andrew Bolt August 03 2015 (12:23am)
Hundreds of viewers have told me how impressed they were with my guest on yesterday’s show, blogger Dallas Scott.
For those who missed it, here is the interview:
===For those who missed it, here is the interview:
And here is his Black Steam Train blog. You will find there thoughtful and insightful articles making points virtually no newspapers now dare publish.
Abbott was loyal to Bishop to a fault. A serious fault
Andrew Bolt August 03 2015 (12:01am)
TONY Abbott has paid a high price for his loyalty to Speaker Bronwyn Bishop. Waiting until today to have her resign was a disastrous miscalculation that has damaged the Prime Minister.
It was clear nearly three weeks ago that Bishop had to go, or at least give a damn good explanation for charging taxpayers $5000 to fly in a helicoptor to a Liberal fundraiser.
Neither happened. Bishop tried to brazen it out and Abbbott refused to demand his friend and ally resign.
That decision, not supported by any of the three big rivals for his job - frontbenchers Malcolm Turnbull, Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison - has exposed flaws in Abbott’s judgment.
(Read full article here.)
Not sending kids to school is child abuse
Piers Akerman – Saturday, August 02, 2014 (10:19pm)
THE appalling conditions in which many among Australia’s Aboriginal population exist is an indictment on our nation.
Continue reading 'Not sending kids to school is child abuse'Asylum spin’s out of whack on facts
Miranda Devine – Saturday, August 02, 2014 (10:20pm)
WE haven’t seen such an obsessive focus on children in detention centres since the Howard era. After six years of silence, while Labor was busy packing detention centres to overflowing with record numbers of children, the Human Rights Commission has suddenly discovered the issue.
Continue reading 'Asylum spin’s out of whack on facts'Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians (died 911) became ruler of English Mercia shortly after the death of its last king, Ceolwulf II, in 879. His rule was confined to the western half, as eastern Mercia was then part of the Viking-ruled Danelaw. Æthelred's origin is unknown, and he was first recorded as the probable leader of an unsuccessful Mercian invasion of Wales in 881. Shortly afterwards, he marriedÆthelflæd, a daughter of King Alfred the Great of Wessex, and submitted to Alfred's lordship, an important step towards the unification of England in the next century. In the 890s the Vikings renewed their attacks, and in 893 Æthelred led a joint force of Mercians, West Saxons and Welsh to a decisive victory over the Vikings at the Battle of Buttington. He spent much of the decade fighting the Vikings in cooperation with Alfred's son, the future Edward the Elder. Historians disagree whether Æthelred governed Mercia as Alfred's deputy or whether he was a ruler of a semi-independent territory. Æthelred died in 911 and was succeeded by his widow, and then briefly by his daughter, before Mercia was annexed by Edward the Elder in 918. (Full article...)
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OUR FATHER, WHO TILTS IN GOSFORD
Tim Blair – Saturday, August 02, 2014 (10:36pm)
Check out the Compassionate Head Tilt on Father Rod Bower. The allegedly Anglican PC priest emphasises his tilty stance with a haughty dash of Superiority Sneer.
The Bolt Report today, August 3
Andrew Bolt August 03 2014 (5:49am)
On Channel 10 at 10am and 4pm…
My guest: Environment Minister Greg Hunt.
The panel: Tim Wilson and Kimberley Kitching.
NewsWatch: The Daily Telegraph’s Miranda Devine.
The videos of the shows appear here.
UPDATE
THE BOLT REPORT
3 AUGUST 2014
INTERVIEW WITH ENVIRONMENT MINISTER GREG HUNT
ANDREW BOLT, PRESENTER: Environment Minister Greg Hunt, this week, approved a huge mine in central Queensland, the Carmichael mine, the biggest in the country. So rich, it should earn $300 billion over its lifetime. That means, not just thousands of jobs, but tens of billions in royalties to pay for hospitals, schools, the arts. But when the ABC’s 7.30, this week, reported on how the coal should be shipped out, taken by barges to a loading dock out near the Barrier Reef for transshipment, well, every single one of the five people it interviewed was against it. There was the environmental activist, a fisherman, a UNESCO World Heritage official, a reef fish supplier, a local home owner. The ABC even ran the anti-mine ad from the GetUp! activist group. Well, for balance, I now have Environment Minister Greg Hunt. Thanks for your time.
GREG HUNT, ENVIRONMENT MINISTER: Good morning, Andrew.
ANDREW BOLT: Don’t you get the sick of ABC preaching anti-mine stuff like that?
GREG HUNT: I try to be pretty zen about these things.
ANDREW BOLT: First, some facts. Will shipping the coal out by barge to a ship, this transshipment, actually threaten the reef?
GREG HUNT: Well, the answer is no. Let me put this very clearly, there are a number of ways that material can be moved. One of them which, of course, the anti-coal activists, the hard left, have historically argued for was transshipping. They said, you don’t have to do any dredging that way. The port is 40 kilometres from the reef. The mine is 500 kilometres from the coast. If you listen to the extreme left, the people who have always argued for electricity to reduce poverty, now, they’re against the electricity, and now they are pretending that a mine, which is 500 kilometres from the coast, in the outback, in remote areas, is somehow where the reef is. So, there are ways of doing this which has been done for decades and decades which have no impact, we wouldn’t have approved it otherwise. But, at the end of the day, this is about providing electricity to up to 100 million people in India. Obviously, there’s an enormous benefit for Australian families and communities. But, in India, where 100 million people can be lifted out of poverty, where there can be electricity for hospitals and schools, of course the hard left, the extreme left, are silent about that, they effectively demonise the people that are bringing folk out of poverty, and I think it’s time that they have an honest conversation.
ANDREW BOLT: You know what struck me as interesting about that ABC footage? They interviewed… one of the people they interviewed, that we saw in that little package, warning against the
transshipment, was the UNESCO’s Fanny Douvere, who said it raised more potential for damages to the reef. Excuse me, but is that the same Fanny Douvere who, two years ago, said transshipment could be less impacting on the environment than dredging the port? You know, getting all these plumes of dirt in the water, and all that? And that this technique, that this port is looking at, the mine is looking at, should be evaluated? Is that the same person?
GREG HUNT: Well, yes, it is, and, of course -
ANDREW BOLT; Funny!
GREG HUNT: The hard left groups have been arguing against any dredging, except when it was proposed under Labor. For example, we took what was a 38 million tonne proposal that Anna Bligh trumpeted as a superterminal. Our final decision was for a one twelfth the size proposal. The extreme left, the hard left, the GetUps of the world, were silent under Labor, and then they were radicalised
when it was one twelfth. And they may have presented that to some of the international groups, but let’s be clear. Everybody has said, that if you can do this with less impact, that’s great. Now, we’ve done it with one twelfth of what Labor proposed, but you’d never hear that from the extreme left.
ANDREW BOLT: But, have you told UNESCO to explain why it says one thing in a report, like this transshipment movement of coal, have a look at it, it’s probably good for the environment, and then goes tells the ABC the exact opposite? Have you asked them to explain this intervention?
GREG HUNT; Yes, I have, because –
ANDREW BOLT: And?
GREG HUNT: Two years ago there was a very clear statement that this was precisely the sort of low-impact model which they thought Australia should consider. It’s been put forward for consideration, no determination, no decision, but it’s been put forward for consideration, and –
ANDREW BOLT: What’s their excuse, then?
GREG HUNT: We did ask them to explain the, should we say, inconsistency between what was a desperately-needed measure two years ago, and what was suddenly raised now. To be fair, they have said they were misrepresented by the ABC. I spoke to the deputy head of the World Heritage Committee, who said that the quote was taken out of context. It was a general statement of principle, that things need to be assessed. They were adamant that they were badly misrepresented by the ABC 7.30, and that, if you read the original transcript, it was a statement made in the general, which was then attributed to the specific. I’ll take them on their word on that. But I’m sure that they will see that we are moving from a high-impact model under Labor to a low-impact model under us, and we’re dealing with something which is 500 kilometres inland, not on the coast as the GetUps and the extreme left of the Australian political scheme would have people believe.
ANDREW BOLT: The green groups’ real beef is that more coal means more carbon dioxide, which means more global warming. You’re a warmist, doesn’t that worry you too? Won’t this giant mine, with all this coal, make hot days hotter?
Continue reading 'The Bolt Report today, August 3'Report: parental leave scheme deferred
Andrew Bolt August 03 2014 (5:03am)
I’d strip the Government’s agenda to its essentials - and to what might actually get through the Senate:
===Legislation for Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s prized $5.5 billion paid parental leave scheme has been quietly shelved and is unlikely to be put to Parliament this year, sources have revealed…
Treasurer Joe Hockey said in June that PPL legislation would be introduced ‘‘soon’’ and described as ‘‘absurd’’ suggestions the policy had been stalled due to internal unrest.But a government source said the scheme had been placed in the “too-hard basket” because the Coalition was fighting on too many fronts and struggling to get its basic budget measures passed by the Senate.
Warmists now warn: global warming means fewer cyclones. Panic!
Andrew Bolt August 03 2014 (4:46am)
Australia hasn’t had so few tropical cyclones for many centuries, says Jonathan Nott of James Cook University. But the strange thing is that Nott claims this was actually predicted by warmists all along:
Is there a reason for that silence?
===Our CAI for Australia shows that seasonal TC activity is at its lowest level since the year 500AD in Western Australia and 1400AD in Queensland and this decline in activity has been most pronounced since about 1960AD. This reduction in activity reflects the forecasts of TC behaviour for the Australian region from a suite of the most recent global climate models except this decrease appears to be occurring many decades earlier than expected.Pardon? So global warming models actually predicted global warming would give us a decrease in tropical cyclones? Then why did the alarmists pretend the very opposite?
Here is Bob Brown in 2011 after Cyclone Yasi:I didn’t hear a single climate scientist tell Brown and Milne that, no, global warming would give us fewer cyclones, not more.
GREENS leader Bob Brown says the coal mining industry should foot the bill for the Queensland floods because it helped cause them…Here is new Greens leader Christine Milne on Yasi :
“It’s the single biggest cause - burning coal - for climate change and it must take its major share of responsibility for the weather events we are seeing unfolding now,” he said in Hobart today.
Firstly to the natural disasters occurring around the country, particularly in Queensland… But it’s time for parliamentarians to recognise that we are going to be living with extreme weather events every year from now on. We can’t say where, we can’t say when, but what we know in a world that is increasingly warming, we are going to see more extreme events.
Is there a reason for that silence?
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This patch-up job threatens Labor's chancesBY:PAUL KELLY, EDITOR-AT-LARGE From: The Australian August 03, 2013
THIS is the ugly reality of governing today. Kevin Rudd's election campaign now confronts slower growth, higher unemployment, weaker terms of trade, fractured business confidence and more tax increases to repair the latest in a long line of Labor's misjudgments on the economy.
It is a bad way to start an election. The economy is in worse shape than Labor expected just 10 weeks ago in its May budget. The downside risks are greater. Labor has misread the economic trajectory yet again. Its economic credibility has taken a further hit.
This mini-budget is strictly an election eve patch-up job. It is a huge break for Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey. It makes Rudd's campaign challenge on the economy far more daunting. It has a deeper policy message: to be credible, Rudd needs a more far-reaching economic reform agenda than anything Labor has produced so far.
This statement reveals what private-sector think tanks have argued for several years: Australia's budget is in structural difficulty on both the revenue and spending side. How many patch-ups jobs before Labor confronts the magnitude of the problem?
New Treasurer Chris Bowen has been given a poisoned chalice. It is extraordinary and embarrassing that just four weeks into the new 2013-14 year, Labor has been forced to significantly recast its May budget, its core forecasts and its return-to-surplus timetable.
The figures constitute a humiliation: the May budget forecast an $18 billion deficit for this year but the revised figure is $30bn.
The political optics for Rudd and Bowen are high-risk. Labor is campaigning on jobs, yet the unemployment rate is revised upwards from 5.75 per cent to 6.25 per cent for two years. Labor is campaigning on growth, yet the growth rate is revised down from 2.75 per cent to 2.5 per cent. Labor is campaigning on better ties with business, yet these decisions have provoked bitter critiques from business and finance. Finally, Labor is campaigning on its economic record, yet the return to surplus has now been deferred by another year to 2016-17, having been deferred for a further three years in the May budget after the failure to hit surplus in 2012-13. Just as bad, the new timetable is hardly credible.
Abbott and Hockey now have documented evidence of Labor's failure. The forecasts point to a deteriorating economy that strikes at the heart of Labor's jobs mantra. Bowen said the mini-budget revealed "not a crisis but a transition". He's right. But the odds on crisis continue to shorten. The problem is that the statement from Bowen and Finance Minister Penny Wong merely reinforces the existing criticism about Labor despite the political shift from Julia Gillard to Rudd.
Labor is locked into chronic "catch-up" economic policy as the economy is shown to be in worse shape than it predicts. Its election game plan is obvious: it waits on the Reserve Bank to further cut interest rates while mobilising its failures - its ongoing budget deficits - as a virtue to run a scare against Abbott as the fiscal hardliner and recession specialist.
The risk is this document reinforces Labor's political vulnerability - its policy-on-the-run scramble, its addiction to tax increases, a tobacco excise that privileges healthy lifestyle over the hip-pocket concerns of working-class men, a levy on bank "savings" recruited to a fiscal fix, plus the announced fringe benefits tax changes.
Every way you look, it's a patch-up job. Bowen and Wong have done their best. But they are starting from the wrong place at the wrong time. It is hard to imagine a nastier setting. For Bowen, it is a ruthless initiation.
Rudd underestimates Labor's problems on the economic front. This week the Business Council of Australia released a 10-year action plan warning that "Australia is at a crossroads" and calling for policies to restore business confidence and competitiveness. The mini-budget suggests Labor just doesn't get it.
Labor's budget credibility is so damaged that even its revised forecasts are disbelieved. With growth now slowing, Labor forecasts a kick back to 3 per cent next year and another shallow (that means hardly credible) surplus in 2016-17.
The head of consultancy Macroeconomics, Stephen Anthony, rejects Labor's new $4bn return-to-surplus forecast in 2016-17, saying his modelling points to an estimated $19bn deficit that year.
"We think the situation is significantly worse than this document concedes," Anthony says. "We continue to look at serious structural problems with the budget."
But Anthony's most lethal remark concerns the May budget: "The message now is that the government and Treasury should have 'fessed up at budget time to the real situation.
"We have finished up where most of the private forecasters were in May."
The BCA is incredulous about the Bowen-Wong mini-budget. "Let's be clear, the government's fiscal strategy is not on track," its chief executive Jennifer Westacott says.
The business lobby didn't believe Swan's May budget surplus pledge by 2015-16 and, as Westacott says, that scepticism is now proven correct. Unsurprisingly, the BCA says a "credible and believable fiscal strategy" demands fundamental changes to the structure of government spending but "there is little or no evidence of this". In short, the statement is not believable.
"I do not believe these numbers," Hockey said. Why wouldn't he? The opposition Treasury spokesman said he didn't believe the May budget numbers and was proved right within 10 weeks. Many private forecasters won't believe these latest revisions either. This situation is extremely damaging for Labor, the Treasury and investment confidence.
Bowen and Wong faced a $33bn revenue writedown since May over the forward estimates. This should not have happened. Courtesy of the Treasury it has become Gillard's dagger into Rudd's hopes. The budget was too optimistic on both the terms of trade and nominal gross domestic product growth.
The Rudd cabinet, on Bowen's advice, decided it would be counterproductive to match the revenue shortfall with spending cuts to honour Swan's 2015-16 surplus pledge. That was the correct decision. However, it will not gainsay growing alarm about Labor policy. The problem is Labor's addiction to fiscal incrementalism and its inability in recent times to confront the scale and depth of the budget dilemma. This is not a one-off. It is a systemic problem that originates with the 2010 and 2011 budgets.
Labor has misread the nature of the post-global financial crisis economic recovery. It was too optimistic on the terms of trade, too optimistic on the revenue forecasts, it spent too much, it misjudged the budget bottom line and it failed to prioritise the policy settings for competitiveness.
The upshot on election eve is that Bowen and Wong made savings across the forward estimates of $17bn offset by spends worth $9bn for net savings of $8bn. Yet the saves are rear-end loaded, with $6.8bn coming in the final year 2016-17 of the forward estimates. By contrast, real spending leaps ahead a whopping 5.7 per cent in the current year, an election time quicksand.
The political and morality tale for Rudd is exquisite. Remember, for three years the Gillard loyalists have damned Rudd for the terrible 2010 inheritance he left Gillard: on climate change, the mining tax and boats.
You won't have to listen too hard for a new thunder: it is the Rudd loyalists damning Gillard and Swan for the 2013 inheritance they have left Rudd: a budget falling off a cliff and an economy slowing too fast. The budget, of course, should be in surplus now given that Australia has experienced a once-in-a-century terms-of-trade boom.
Rudd wants to paint an optimistic picture of Australia's economic transition beyond the resources boom. His problem, however, is the growing criticism of Labor's record and the electoral implications of the slowing economy, a reality impinging across most sectors of the economy.
The numbers in this economic statement on jobs, growth, deficits and debt will frame the Abbott-Hockey campaign. It is a gift to them.
Their message will be that Labor - Rudd or Gillard - cannot be trusted on the economy.
It is true there are doubts about Abbott and Hockey, yet the accumulated critique of Labor is assuming daunting dimensions. Rudd wants to build bridges with business. But listen to what business was saying yesterday: those bridges are burning.
"The economic statement has seen a continuation of the muddle-through approach characterised by ad hoc and rushed proposals that simply hasn't worked in the past," Westacott says on behalf of the BCA. "The measures announced will do little to rebuild confidence."
The Australian Industry Group's head Innes Willox says: "Today's announcements demonstrate once and for all that Australia's existing tax base and spending priorities are not sustainable."
These are damning attacks. They border on open declarations of no confidence in Labor. The chasm between Labor and business is only getting deeper.
Beyond this, Anthony warns that restoring the budget is a much tougher task than Labor recognises. He says the terms-of-trade projections remain too optimistic. He laments the absence of plans to address the structural problem on the spending side. Anthony says his modelling showed a cumulative budget deficit across the forward estimates (including 2012-13) of $106bn and a budget this year in a heavy structural deficit of $44bn.
The moral is obvious: both Rudd and Abbott can campaign only as fiscal conservatives.
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Pastor Rick Warren
Governments just say what's legal. God says what's right. Laws change. Truth doesn't.
===ALP have blown out the budget by more than $1.3 Billion a week since the budget was handed down ten weeks ago. Rudd had said he had learned from his first term. His first term he only spent $100 million a day. Now he is approaching $200 million a day. Just like Weiner, Rudd can't hide his talent. - ed
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U.S. President Barack Obama gave a commitment to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, to take action “in the coming months” regarding theIranian nuclear threat, in exchange for Israel's agreement to renew “peace talks” with the Palestinian Authority (PA), a security source told Arutz Sheva.
The source said, however, that Obama did not reach a specific agreement with Netanyahu, but gave only a general commitment. The source added that it was not clear if the commitment was given in exchange for the very fact that Israel-PA negotiations are being held, or if it is conditional on their success.
Netanyahu's agreement to release terrorist murderers from Israeli jails appears to derive from the same agreement. Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon appears to have been hinting at this when he said Monday that “Perhaps, one day, the strategic considerations that stood behind the decision to free the Palestinian prisoners will be revealed.”
In recent months, Obama has been dragging out the process of reaching a decision on a strike in Iran that would damage its nuclear weapons program. This indecision has affected Israel, too, since even a unilateral Israeli strike requires full cooperation from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
The White House released a statement Friday in which it said: "President Obama called Prime Minister Netanyahu today to commend his leadership and courage in resuming final status negotiations with the Palestinians. The President underscored that while the parties have much work to do in the days and months ahead, the United States will support them fully in their efforts to achieve peace. The two leaders agreed to continue the close coordination between the United States and Israel on this and other regional issues."
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Social Television, a web channel sponsored by the New Israel Fund, has been encouraging its viewers to take part in protests against the Praver plan for legalizing Bedouin communities in the Negev. The pre-planned riots took place Thursday and had an extremely violent nature.
The riots were led by radical Arab MKs Hanin Zouabi and Jamal Zahalka (Balad) at Wadi Ara in Israel's north-central region, and also took place at Lehavim Junction in the Negev.
In Wadi Ara, 18 rioters were arrested because of violence. In the Negev, two Arabs were arrested after rocks were thrown.
Police expected rioters to try and block Highway 65, and prevented them from doing so by showing up in large forces. MK Zahalka was asked Thursday by a television reporter if the rioters intended to block the road. He smiled and said that “the youths will do what they want.” He is the same MK who told Jewish MKs, in a Knesset debatethat took place a few hours earlier, that the Arabs “were here before you and will be here after you are gone,” prompting a response from the prime minister.
The Social Television web news broadcast, which can be seen below (in Hebrew), directs its viewers to take part in the demonstrations and points them to the Facebook page that organizes them. It also includes footage from previous violent riots, including riots at Jerusalem's Damascus Gate that involved serious violence against Jewish motorists.
The Social Television broadcast includes an interview with a lawyer from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), another NIF-sponsored group, who backs the rioters and criticizes police for their alleged violence against the rioters.
At least one Jewish man was stabbed at or near the location of the Damascus Gate riots, and more or less simultaneously with them.
Riots by Israel's Arabs accompanied the outbreak of the terror war often referred to as “the Second Intifada” in September and October of 2000. Much of the rioting focused on Highway 65, which was blocked for several days. Riots of the type that took placeThursday can easily, therefore, turn into strategic threats on Israel's sovereignty within pre-1967 lines.
The newscast includes a report on leftists who have been summoned to “interviews” with the Shin Bet, and directs them to information on how to handle themselves. The ACRI lawyer, Sharona Elyahu-Hai, explains that ACRI has filed a High Court motion against these Shin Bet interviews.
The New Israel Fund is co-chaired by Martin Indyk, who has been chosen by U.S. President Barack Obama to be the mediator in “peace talks” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
===Are American weapons being used by jihadists in the Sinai?
Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2013/07/are_american_weapons_being_use.php#ixzz2auH8d6MN
Since the ouster of Mohammed Morsi from the presidency of Egypt on July 3, there has been a noticeable uptick in the number of attacks against security personnel and installations in the Sinai Peninsula. Eight army checkpoints were attacked on Monday alone, according to Ma'an News Agency.
New claims from Egypt's Interior Ministry suggest that in an attack over the weekend, a US-made missile may have been fired by militants at a security installation in el Arish.
Jihadists attacked the Egyptian security headquarters in northern Sinai ostensibly using an American-made ballistic missile, Egypt's interior ministry said early Monday morning.Along with its statement, the Interior Ministry released three photos of the alleged missile, which appears to be labeled as an AGM-114F.
In a statement posted on its official Facebook page, the ministry said the missile, which it said was made by the US, hit the third floor of the building in the city of el-Arish on Sunday evening, injuring three soldiers.
Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2013/07/are_american_weapons_being_use.php#ixzz2auH5HlMB
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I think the risk of invasion is ridiculously low and the issue is only raised by the Age to misdirect from the fact that the ALP is gutting defence and that is bad even if we aren't going to be invaded. When Hawke asked then Chinese Premier Deng Xiaopeng if instead of executing his people he could send some of the more militant democracy advocates to Australia Deng asked him "How many million do you want?" The issue of defence is more than mere risk of invasion. Our ability to be able to support law and order in the Pacific and work with allies is diminished by the ALP cuts. - ed
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I won't fly on that airline. I have standards too. - ed
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Pay, or be euthanised? - ed
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38 years old .. but not mature enough to discuss things? - ed
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Click to see what Democrat Charlie Rangel is calling Tea Partiers...>
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My new series "GETTING THROUGH WHAT YOU'RE GOING THROUGH" begins this weekend with "When Your World Collapses." Join us onlinehttp://bit.ly/HnE6ib or at one of our 10 campuses.
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Pastor Rick Warren
If you only consider how your actions will affect you, life will be bitter and miserable.
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http://t.co/5yzcStRLCs > J John
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- 1852 – The inaugural Harvard–Yale Regatta—the first intercollegiate sports event in the United States—was held on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire.
- 1900 – The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, a pioneer in the mass production of automobile tires, was founded by Harvey Firestone (pictured) in Akron, Ohio, US.
- 1929 – Jiddu Krishnamurti, believed to likely be the messianic"World Teacher", shocked the Theosophy movement by dissolving the Order of the Star, the organisation established to support him.
- 1940 – World War II: Italy began their invasion of British Somaliland.
- 2007 – Former Deputy Director of the Chilean secret police Raúl Iturriaga was captured after having been on the run following a conviction for kidnapping.
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- 8 – Roman Empire general Tiberius defeats the Dalmatae on the river Bathinus.
- 435 – Deposed Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius, considered the originator of Nestorianism, is exiled by Roman Emperor Theodosius II to a monastery in Egypt.
- 881 – Battle of Saucourt-en-Vimeu: Louis III of France defeats the Vikings, an event celebrated in the poem Ludwigslied.
- 1031 – Olaf II of Norway is canonized as Saint Olaf by Grimketel, the English Bishop of Selsey.
- 1342 – The Siege of Algeciras commences during the Spanish Reconquista.
- 1492 – Christopher Columbus sets sail from Palos de la Frontera, Spain.
- 1527 – The first known letter from North America is sent by John Rut while at St. John's, Newfoundland.
- 1601 – Long War: Austria captures Transylvania in the Battle of Goroszló.
- 1645 – Thirty Years' War: The Second Battle of Nördlingen sees French forces defeating those of the Holy Roman Empire.
- 1678 – Robert LaSalle builds the Le Griffon, the first known ship built on the Great Lakes.
- 1778 – The theatre La Scala is inaugurated.
- 1795 – Treaty of Greenville is signed.
- 1811 – First ascent of Jungfrau, third highest summit in the Bernese Alps by brothers Johann Rudolf and Hieronymus Meyer.
- 1852 – Harvard University wins the first Boat Race between Yale University and Harvard. The race is also the first American intercollegiate athletic event
- 1859 – The American Dental Association is founded in Niagara Falls, New York.
- 1860 – The Second Maori War begins in New Zealand.
- 1900 – The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is founded.
- 1903 – Macedonian rebels in Kruševo proclaim the Kruševo Republic, which exists only for ten days before Ottoman Turks lay waste to the town.
- 1907 – Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis fines Standard Oil of Indiana a record $29.4 million for illegal rebating to freight carriers; the conviction and fine are later reversed on appeal.
- 1913 – A major labour dispute, known as the Wheatland hop riot, starts in Wheatland, California.
- 1914 – World War I: Germany declares war against France, while Romania declares its neutrality.
- 1921 – Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis confirms the ban of the eight Chicago Black Sox, the day after they were acquitted by a Chicago court.
- 1929 – Jiddu Krishnamurti, tagged as the messianic "World Teacher", shocks the Theosophy movement by dissolving the Order of the Star, the organisation built to support him.
- 1936 – Jesse Owens wins the 100 metre dash, defeating Ralph Metcalfe, at the Berlin Olympics.
- 1936 – A fire wipes out Kursha-2 in the Meshchera Lowlands, Ryazan Oblast, Russia, killing 1,200 and leaving only 20 survivors.
- 1940 – World War II: Italian forces begin the invasion of British Somaliland.
- 1946 – Santa Claus Land, the world's first themed amusement park, opens in Santa Claus, Indiana, United States.
- 1948 – Whittaker Chambers accuses Alger Hiss of being a communist and a spy for the Soviet Union.
- 1949 – The Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League finalize the merger, that would create the National Basketball Association
- 1958 – The nuclear submarine USS Nautilus travels beneath the Arctic ice cap.
- 1959 – Portugal's state police force PIDE fires upon striking workers in Bissau, Portuguese Guinea, killing over 50 people.
- 1960 – Niger gains independence from France.
- 1961 – The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded by the merger of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federationand the Canadian Labour Congress.
- 1972 – The United States Senate ratifies the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
- 1975 – A privately chartered Boeing 707 strikes a mountain peak and crashes near Agadir, Morocco, killing 188.
- 1977 – The United States Senate begins its hearing on Project MKUltra.
- 1977 – Tandy Corporation announces the TRS-80, one of the world's first mass-produced personal computers.
- 1981 – Senegalese opposition parties, under the leadership of Mamadou Dia, launch the Antiimperialist Action Front – Suxxali Reew Mi.
- 1997 – Oued El-Had and Mezouara massacre in Algeria; a total of 116 villagers killed, 40 in Oued El-Had and 76 in Mezouara.
- 2001 – The Real IRA detonates a car bomb in Ealing, London, England, United Kingdom injuring seven people.
- 2004 – The pedestal of the Statue of Liberty reopens after being closed since the September 11 attacks.
- 2005 – President of Mauritania Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya is overthrown in a military coup while attending the funeral of King Fahd in Saudi Arabia.
- 2005 – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad becomes President of Iran.
- 2007 – Former Deputy Director of the Chilean secret police Raúl Iturriaga is captured after having been on the run following a conviction for kidnapping.
- 2010 – Widespread rioting erupts in Karachi, Pakistan, after the assassination of a local politician, leaving at least 85 dead and at least 17 billion Pakistani rupees (US$200 million) in damage.
- 2014 – A 6.1 magnitude earthquake kills at least 617 people and injures more than 2,400 in Yunnan, China.
Births[edit]
- 1491 – Maria of Jülich-Berg (d. 1543)
- 1509 – Étienne Dolet, French scholar and translator (d. 1546)
- 1692 – John Henley, English minister and poet (d. 1759)
- 1734 – Naungdawgyi, Burmese king (d. 1763)
- 1766 – Aaron Chorin, Hungarian rabbi and author (d. 1844)
- 1770 – Frederick William III of Prussia (d. 1840)
- 1803 – Joseph Paxton, English gardener and architect, designed The Crystal Palace (d. 1865)
- 1808 – Hamilton Fish, American lawyer and politician, 26th United States Secretary of State (d. 1893)
- 1811 – Elisha Otis, American businessman, founded the Otis Elevator Company (d. 1861)
- 1817 – Archduke Albrecht, Duke of Teschen (d. 1895)
- 1832 – Ivan Zajc, Croatian composer, conductor, and director (d. 1914)
- 1840 – John Bigham, 1st Viscount Mersey, English jurist and politician (d. 1929)
- 1850 – Reginald Heber Roe, English-Australian swimmer, tennis player, and academic (d. 1926)
- 1856 – Alfred Deakin, Australian lawyer and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1919)
- 1860 – William Kennedy Dickson, French-Scottish actor, director, and producer (d. 1935)
- 1863 – Géza Gárdonyi, Hungarian author and journalist (d. 1922)
- 1867 – Stanley Baldwin, English businessman and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1947)
- 1871 – Vernon Louis Parrington, American historian and scholar (d. 1929)
- 1872 – Haakon VII of Norway (d. 1957)
- 1886 – Maithili Sharan Gupt, Indian poet and playwright (d. 1964)
- 1887 – Rupert Brooke, English-Greek soldier and poet (d. 1915)
- 1890 – Konstantin Melnikov, Russian architect, designed the Rusakov Workers' Club (d. 1974)
- 1891 – Marguerite Nichols, American actress (d. 1941)
- 1894 – Harry Heilmann, American baseball player and sportscaster (d. 1951)
- 1895 – Allen Bathurst, Lord Apsley, English politician (d. 1942)
- 1895 – Neva Morris, American super-centenarian (d. 2010)
- 1896 – Ralph Horween, American football player and coach (d. 1997)
- 1899 – Louis Chiron, Monacan race car driver (d. 1979)
- 1900 – Ernie Pyle, American soldier and journalist (d. 1945)
- 1900 – John T. Scopes, American educator (d. 1970)
- 1901 – John C. Stennis, American lawyer and politician (d. 1995)
- 1901 – Stefan Wyszyński, Polish cardinal (d. 1981)
- 1902 – Regina Jonas, German rabbi (d. 1944)
- 1902 – David Buttolph, American film composer (d. 1983)
- 1903 – Habib Bourguiba, Tunisian journalist and politician, 1st President of the Republic of Tunisia (d. 2000)
- 1904 – Clifford D. Simak, American journalist and author (d. 1988)
- 1905 – Dolores del Río, Mexican-American actress and singer (d. 1983)
- 1905 – Franz König, Austrian cardinal (d. 2004)
- 1907 – Lawrence Brown, American trombonist and composer (d. 1988)
- 1907 – Ernesto Geisel, Brazilian general and politician, 29th President of Brazil (d. 1996)
- 1909 – Walter Van Tilburg Clark, American author and educator (d. 1971)
- 1911 – Alex McCrindle, Scottish actor and producer (d. 1990)
- 1913 – Mel Tolkin, Ukrainian-American screenwriter and producer (d. 2007)
- 1916 – Shakeel Badayuni, Indian poet and songwriter (d. 1970)
- 1916 – José Manuel Moreno, Argentinian footballer and manager (d. 1978)
- 1917 – Les Elgart, American trumpet player and bandleader (d. 1995)
- 1918 – James MacGregor Burns, American historian, political scientist, and author (d. 2014)
- 1918 – Sidney Gottlieb, American chemist and theorist (d. 1999)
- 1918 – Larry Haines, American actor (d. 2008)
- 1918 – Eddie Jefferson, American singer-songwriter (d. 1979)
- 1920 – Max Fatchen, Australian journalist and author (d. 2012)
- 1920 – P. D. James, English author (d. 2014)
- 1920 – Charlie Shavers, American trumpet player and composer (d. 1971)
- 1920 – Elmar Tampõld, Estonian-Canadian architect (d. 2013)
- 1921 – Richard Adler, American composer and producer (d. 2012)
- 1921 – Hayden Carruth, American poet and critic (d. 2008)
- 1921 – Marilyn Maxwell, American actress and singer (d. 1972)
- 1922 – John Eisenhower, American historian, general, and diplomat, 45th United States Ambassador to Belgium (d. 2013)
- 1923 – Jean Hagen, American actress (d. 1977)
- 1923 – Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria (d. 2012)
- 1924 – Leon Uris, American soldier and author (d. 2003)
- 1925 – Marv Levy, American-Canadian football player, coach, and manager
- 1926 – Rona Anderson, Scottish-English actress (d. 2013)
- 1926 – Tony Bennett, American singer and actor
- 1926 – Anthony Sampson, English journalist and author (d. 2004)
- 1927 – Gordon Scott, American actor (d. 2007)
- 1928 – Cécile Aubry, French actress, director, and screenwriter (d. 2010)
- 1928 – Henning Moritzen, Danish actor (d. 2012)
- 1930 – James Komack, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1997)
- 1933 – Pat Crawford, Australian cricketer (d. 2009)
- 1934 – Haystacks Calhoun, American wrestler and actor (d. 1989)
- 1934 – Michael Chapman, English bassoon player (d. 2005)
- 1934 – Jonas Savimbi, Angolan general, founded UNITA (d. 2002)
- 1935 – John Erman, American actor, director, and producer
- 1935 – Georgy Shonin, Ukrainian-Russian general, pilot, and astronaut (d. 1997)
- 1935 – Vic Vogel, Canadian pianist, composer, and bandleader
- 1936 – Jerry G. Bishop, American radio and television host (d. 2013)
- 1936 – Edward Petherbridge, English actor
- 1937 – Steven Berkoff, English actor, director, and playwright
- 1937 – Roland Burris, American lawyer and politician, 39th Illinois Attorney General
- 1937 – Tom Georgeson, English actor
- 1937 – Duncan Sharpe, Pakistani-Australian cricketer
- 1938 – Terry Wogan, Irish-English radio and television host (d. 2016)
- 1939 – Jimmie Nicol, English drummer (The Spotnicks and Colin Hicks & The Cabin Boys)
- 1939 – Apoorva Sengupta, Indian general and cricketer
- 1940 – Lance Alworth, American football player
- 1940 – Martin Sheen, American actor and producer
- 1940 – James Tyler, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 2010)
- 1941 – Beverly Lee, American singer (The Shirelles)
- 1941 – Martha Stewart, American businesswoman, publisher, and author, founded Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
- 1943 – Béla Bollobás, Hungarian-English mathematician and academic
- 1943 – Princess Christina, Mrs. Magnuson of Sweden
- 1943 – Steven Millhauser, American author and academic
- 1944 – Nino Bravo, Spanish singer (d. 1973)
- 1945 – Eamon Dunphy, Irish footballer and journalist
- 1946 – Robert Ayling, English businessman
- 1946 – Jack Straw, English lawyer and politician, Shadow Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- 1946 – Syreeta Wright, American singer-songwriter (d. 2004)
- 1946 – John York, American bass player, songwriter, and producer
- 1947 – Ralph Wright, English footballer
- 1948 – Jean-Pierre Raffarin, French lawyer and politician, 166th Prime Minister of France
- 1949 – Philip Casnoff, American actor and director
- 1949 – B. B. Dickerson, American bass player and songwriter (War)
- 1949 – Sue Slipman, English politician
- 1950 – Linda Howard, American author
- 1950 – John Landis, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
- 1950 – Jo Marie Payton, American actress and singer
- 1950 – Ernesto Samper, Colombian economist and politician, 29th President of Colombia
- 1951 – Marcel Dionne, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1951 – Jay North, American actor
- 1952 – Osvaldo Ardiles, Argentinian footballer and manager
- 1953 – Ian Bairnson, Scottish saxophonist and keyboard player (The Alan Parsons Project, Pilot, and Keats)
- 1954 – Michael Arthur, English physician and academic
- 1954 – Gary Peters, English footballer and manager
- 1956 – Kirk Brandon, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Theatre of Hate, Spear of Destiny, and Dead Men Walking)
- 1956 – Todd Christensen, American football player and sportscaster (d. 2013)
- 1956 – Dave Cloud, American singer-songwriter and actor (d. 2015)
- 1956 – Balwinder Sandhu, Indian cricketer and coach
- 1957 – Bodo Rudwaleit, German footballer and manager
- 1957 – Kate Wilkinson, New Zealand lawyer and politician, 11th New Zealand Minister of Conservation
- 1958 – Lindsey Hilsum, English journalist and author
- 1958 – Ana Kokkinos, Australian director and screenwriter
- 1959 – Martin Atkins, English drummer and producer (Public Image Ltd, Ministry, and Killing Joke)
- 1959 – Mike Gminski, American basketball player and sportscaster
- 1959 – John C. McGinley, American actor and producer
- 1959 – Koichi Tanaka, Japanese chemist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1960 – Tim Mayotte, American tennis player and coach
- 1960 – Gopal Sharma, Indian cricketer
- 1961 – Molly Hagan, American actress
- 1961 – Nick Harvey, English politician, Minister of State for the Armed Forces
- 1961 – Lee Rocker, American bassist (Stray Cats)
- 1963 – Frano Botica, New Zealand rugby player and coach
- 1963 – James Hetfield, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Metallica, Spastik Children, and Leather Charm)
- 1963 – David Knox, Australian rugby player
- 1963 – Ed Roland, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Collective Soul and Ed Roland and the Sweet Tea Project)
- 1963 – Lisa Ann Walter, American actress, producer, and screenwriter
- 1963 – Isaiah Washington, American actor and producer
- 1964 – Lucky Dube, South African singer and keyboard player (d. 2007)
- 1964 – Nate McMillan, American basketball player and coach
- 1964 – Kevin Sumlin, American football player and coach
- 1964 – Abhisit Vejjajiva, English-Thai economist and politician, 27th Prime Minister of Thailand
- 1966 – Brent Butt, Canadian actor, producer, and screenwriter
- 1966 – Gizz Butt, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Prodigy, The Destructors, English Dogs, Janus Stark, Sabbat, The More I See)
- 1966 – Eric Esch, American wrestler, boxer, and mixed martial artist
- 1967 – Mathieu Kassovitz, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, founded MNP Entreprise
- 1967 – Skin, English singer and guitarist (Skunk Anansie)
- 1968 – Rod Beck, American baseball player (d. 2007)
- 1969 – Doug Overton, American basketball player and coach
- 1970 – Stephen Carpenter, American guitarist and songwriter (Deftones, Sol Invicto, and Kush)
- 1970 – Gina G, Australian singer
- 1970 – Masahiro Sakurai, Japanese video game designer, created Super Smash Bros. and Kirby
- 1970 – Alejandro Alcondez, Mexican/American actor, screenwriter, film producer and film director
- 1971 – Forbes Johnston, Scottish footballer (d. 2007)
- 1971 – Will Muschamp, American football player and coach
- 1971 – DJ Spinderella, American DJ, rapper, and producer (Salt-N-Pepa)
- 1972 – Sandis Ozoliņš, Latvian ice hockey player and politician
- 1973 – Jay Cutler, American bodybuilder
- 1973 – Nikos Dabizas, Greek footballer
- 1975 – Wael Gomaa, Egyptian footballer
- 1975 – Argyro Strataki, Greek heptathlete
- 1976 – Troy Glaus, American baseball player
- 1977 – Tom Brady, American football player
- 1977 – Justin Lehr, American baseball player
- 1977 – Óscar Pereiro, Spanish cyclist and footballer
- 1978 – Joi Chua, Singaporean singer-songwriter and actress
- 1978 – Mariusz Jop, Polish footballer
- 1978 – Jenny Tinmouth, English motorcycle racer
- 1978 – Dimitrios Zografakis, Greek footballer
- 1979 – Evangeline Lilly, Canadian model and actress
- 1980 – Nadia Ali, Libyan-American singer-songwriter (iiO)
- 1980 – Dominic Moore, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1980 – Tony Pashos, American football player
- 1980 – Brandan Schieppati, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Bleeding Through, Eighteen Visions, and Throwdown)
- 1980 – Hannah Simone, Canadian television host and actress
- 1981 – Fikirte Addis, Ethiopian fashion designer
- 1981 – Travis Bowyer, American baseball player
- 1981 – Pablo Ibáñez, Spanish footballer
- 1981 – Erlend Tvinnereim, Norwegian tenor
- 1982 – Kaspar Kokk, Estonian skier
- 1982 – Jesse Lumsden, Canadian bobsledder and football player
- 1982 – Damien Sandow, American wrestler
- 1983 – Ryan Carter, American ice hockey player
- 1983 – Mark Reynolds, American baseball player
- 1984 – Yasin Avcı, Turkish footballer
- 1984 – Sunil Chhetri, Indian footballer
- 1984 – Carah Faye Charnow, American singer-songwriter (Shiny Toy Guns and Versant)
- 1984 – Matt Joyce, American baseball player
- 1984 – Ryan Lochte, American swimmer
- 1984 – Chris Maurer, American singer and bass player (Suburban Legends)
- 1985 – Brent Kutzle, American bass player and producer (OneRepublic)
- 1985 – Ats Purje, Estonian footballer
- 1985 – Sonny Bill Williams, New Zealand rugby player and boxer
- 1986 – Charlotte Casiraghi, Monacan journalist, co-founded Ever Manifesto
- 1987 – Kim Hyung-jun, South Korean singer, dancer, and actor (SS501)
- 1987 – Juri Kurakin, Estonian ice dancer
- 1987 – Chris McQueen, Australian rugby league player
- 1988 – Denny Cardin, Italian footballer
- 1988 – Leigh Tiffin, American football player
- 1989 – Jules Bianchi, French race car driver (d. 2015)
- 1989 – Sam Hutchinson, English footballer
- 1989 – Nick Viergever, Dutch footballer
- 1990 – Jourdan Dunn, English Fashion Model
- 1992 – Gamze Bulut, Turkish runner
- 1992 – Gesa Felicitas Krause, German runner
- 1992 – Diāna Marcinkēviča, Latvian tennis player
- 1992 – Aljon Mariano, Filipino basketball player
- 1992 – Lum Rexhepi, Finnish footballer
- 1992 – Karlie Kloss, American Fashion Model
- 1993 – Ola Abidogun, English sprinter
- 1993 – Yurina Kumai, Japanese singer (Berryz Kobo and Guardians 4)
- 1994 – Esther Earl, American author, internet vlogger, online personality and a Nerdfighter
- 1995 – Victoria Kan, Russian tennis player
Deaths[edit]
- 1460 – James II of Scotland (b. 1430)
- 1527 – Scaramuccia Trivulzio, Italian cardinal
- 1546 – Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Italian architect, designed the Apostolic Palace (b. 1484)
- 1546 – Étienne Dolet, French scholar and translator (b. 1509)
- 1562 – John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford, English son of Elizabeth de Vere, Countess of Oxford (b. 1516)
- 1604 – Bernardino de Mendoza, Spanish commander and diplomat (b. 1540)
- 1621 – Guillaume du Vair, French lawyer and author (b. 1556)
- 1712 – Joshua Barnes, English historian and scholar (b. 1654)
- 1720 – Anthonie Heinsius, Dutch politician (b. 1641)
- 1721 – Grinling Gibbons, Dutch-English sculptor and woodcarver (b. 1648)
- 1761 – Johann Matthias Gesner, German scholar and academic (b. 1691)
- 1773 – Stanisław Konarski, Polish poet and playwright (b. 1700)
- 1780 – Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, French epistemologist and philosopher (b. 1715)
- 1792 – Richard Arkwright, English engineer and businessman (b. 1732)
- 1797 – Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, English field marshal and politician, Colonial Governor of Virginia (b. 1717)
- 1805 – Christopher Anstey, English author and poet (b. 1724)
- 1819 – Simon Knéfacz, Croatian monk and author (b. 1752)
- 1835 – Wenzel Müller, Austrian composer and conductor (b. 1767)
- 1839 – Dorothea von Schlegel, German author and translator (b. 1763)
- 1857 – Eugène Sue, French author and politician (b. 1804)
- 1866 – Gábor Klauzál, Hungarian politician, Hungarian Minister of Agriculture (b. 1804)
- 1867 – Philipp August Böckh, German historian and scholar (b. 1785)
- 1877 – William B. Ogden, American businessman and politician, 1st Mayor of Chicago (b. 1805)
- 1879 – Joseph Severn, English painter (b. 1793)
- 1894 – George Inness, American painter (b. 1825)
- 1916 – Roger Casement, Irish poet and activist (b. 1864)
- 1917 – Ferdinand Georg Frobenius, German mathematician and academic (b. 1849)
- 1920 – Peeter Süda, Estonian organist and composer (b. 1883)
- 1922 – Ture Malmgren, Swedish journalist and politician (b. 1851)
- 1924 – Joseph Conrad, Polish-born British novelist (b. 1857)
- 1925 – William Bruce, Australian cricketer (b. 1864)
- 1929 – Emile Berliner, German-American inverter and businessman, invented the phonograph (b. 1851)
- 1929 – Thorstein Veblen, American economist and sociologist (b. 1857)
- 1936 – Konstantin Konik, Estonian surgeon and politician, 19th Estonian Minister of Education (b. 1873)
- 1942 – Richard Willstätter, German-Swiss chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1872)
- 1949 – Ignotus, Hungarian poet and author (b. 1869)
- 1954 – Colette, French novelist and journalist (b. 1873)
- 1958 – Peter Collins, English race car driver (b. 1931)
- 1959 – Herb Byrne, Australian Australian rules footballer (b. 1887)
- 1964 – Flannery O'Connor, American short story writer and novelist (b. 1925)
- 1966 – Lenny Bruce, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter (b. 1925)
- 1968 – Björn Berglund, Swedish actor (b. 1904)
- 1971 – Ernst Eklund, Swedish actor (b. 1882)
- 1972 – Giannis Papaioannou, Turkish-Greek composer (b. 1913)
- 1973 – Richard Marshall, American general (b. 1895)
- 1974 – Edgar Johan Kuusik, Estonian architect and interior designer (b. 1888)
- 1975 – Andreas Embirikos, Greek poet and photographer (b. 1901)
- 1977 – Makarios III, Cypriot archbishop and politician, 1st President of the Republic of Cyprus (b. 1913)
- 1977 – Alfred Lunt, American actor and director (b. 1892)
- 1979 – Bertil Ohlin, Swedish economist and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1899)
- 1979 – Angelos Terzakis, Greek author and playwright (b. 1907)
- 1983 – Carolyn Jones, American actress (b. 1930)
- 1990 – Betty Amann, German-American actress (b. 1905)
- 1995 – Ida Lupino, English-American actress, singer, director, and screenwriter (b. 1918)
- 1995 – Edward Whittemore, American soldier and author (b. 1933)
- 1996 – Jørgen Garde, Danish admiral (b. 1939)
- 1997 – Pietro Rizzuto, Italian-Canadian lawyer and politician (b. 1934)
- 1998 – Alfred Schnittke, Russian composer and journalist (b. 1934)
- 1999 – Rod Ansell, Australian hunter (b. 1953)
- 1999 – Byron Farwell, American historian and author (b. 1921)
- 2000 – Joann Lõssov, Estonian basketball player and coach (b. 1921)
- 2001 – Christopher Hewett, English-American actor and director (b. 1922)
- 2002 – Carmen Silvera, Canadian-English actress and singer (b. 1922)
- 2003 – Roger Voudouris, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1954)
- 2004 – Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer and painter (b. 1908)
- 2004 – Bob Murphy, American sportscaster (b. 1924)
- 2005 – Françoise d'Eaubonne, French author and poet (b. 1920)
- 2006 – Arthur Lee, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Love) (b. 1945)
- 2006 – Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, German-English soprano and actress (b. 1915)
- 2007 – John Gardner, English author (b. 1926)
- 2007 – Peter Thorup, Danish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Collective Consciousness Society and The Beefeaters) (b. 1948)
- 2008 – Skip Caray, American sportscaster (b. 1939)
- 2008 – Erik Darling, American singer-songwriter (The Weavers, The Tarriers, and The Rooftop Singers) (b. 1933)
- 2008 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian novelist, dramatist and historian, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1918)
- 2009 – Nikolaos Makarezos, Greek soldier and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of Greece (b. 1919)
- 2010 – Bobby Hebb, American singer-songwriter (b. 1938)
- 2011 – William Sleator, American author (b. 1945)
- 2011 – Bubba Smith, American football player and actor (b. 1945)
- 2012 – Frank Evans, American baseball player, coach, and manager (b. 1921)
- 2012 – Martin Fleischmann, Czech-English chemist and academic (b. 1927)
- 2012 – Paul McCracken, American economist and academic (b. 1915)
- 2012 – John Pritchard, American basketball player (b. 1927)
- 2013 – John Coombs, English-Monacan race car driver and businessman (b. 1922)
- 2013 – Jack English Hightower, American lawyer and politician (b. 1926)
- 2013 – Jack Hynes, Scottish-American soccer player and manager (b. 1920)
- 2013 – John Palmer, American journalist (b. 1935)
- 2014 – Miangul Aurangzeb, Pakistani captain and politician, 19th Governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (b. 1928)
- 2014 – Edward Clancy, Australian cardinal (b. 1923)
- 2014 – Dorothy Salisbury Davis, American author (b. 1916)
- 2014 – Kenny Drew, Jr., American pianist and composer (b. 1958)
- 2014 – Lydia Yu-Jose, Filipino political scientist and academic (b. 1944)
- 2015 – Robert Conquest, English-American historian, poet, and academic (b. 1917)
- 2015 – Mel Farr, American football player and businessman (b. 1944)
- 2015 – Coleen Gray, American actress (b. 1922)
- 2015 – Margot Loyola, Chilean singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1918)
- 2015 – Johanna Quandt, German businesswoman (b. 1926)
Holidays and observances[edit]
- Anniversary of the Killing of Pidjiguiti (Guinea-Bissau)
- Armed Forces Day (Equatorial Guinea)
- Christian feast day:
- George Freeman Bragg, W. E. B. Du Bois (Episcopal Church)
- Lydia of Thyatira
- Myrrhbearers (Lutheran Church)
- Nicodemus
- Olaf II of Norway (Translation of the relic)
- Stephen (Discovery of the relic)
- Waltheof of Melrose
- August 3 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Esther Day (United States)
- Flag Day (Venezuela)
- Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Niger from France in 1960.
- National Guard Day (Venezuela)
- George Freeman Bragg, W. E. B. Du Bois (Episcopal Church)
- Lydia of Thyatira
- Myrrhbearers (Lutheran Church)
- Nicodemus
- Olaf II of Norway (Translation of the relic)
- Stephen (Discovery of the relic)
- Waltheof of Melrose
- August 3 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
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“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” James 1:22NIV
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
Morning
"Who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will."Ephesians 1:11
Our belief in God's wisdom supposes and necessitates that he has a settled purpose and plan in the work of salvation. What would creation have been without his design? Is there a fish in the sea, or a fowl in the air, which was left to chance for its formation? Nay, in every bone, joint, and muscle, sinew, gland, and blood-vessel, you mark the presence of a God working everything according to the design of infinite wisdom. And shall God be present in creation, ruling over all, and not in grace? Shall the new creation have the fickle genius of free will to preside over it when divine counsel rules the old creation? Look at Providence! Who knoweth not that not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father? Even the hairs of your head are all numbered. God weighs the mountains of our grief in scales, and the hills of our tribulation in balances. And shall there be a God in providence and not in grace? Shall the shell be ordained by wisdom and the kernel be left to blind chance? No; he knows the end from the beginning. He sees in its appointed place, not merely the corner-stone which he has laid in fair colours, in the blood of his dear Son, but he beholds in their ordained position each of the chosen stones taken out of the quarry of nature, and polished by his grace; he sees the whole from corner to cornice, from base to roof, from foundation to pinnacle. He hath in his mind a clear knowledge of every stone which shall be laid in its prepared space, and how vast the edifice shall be, and when the top-stone shall be brought forth with shoutings of "Grace! Grace! unto it." At the last it shall be clearly seen that in every chosen vessel of mercy, Jehovah did as he willed with his own; and that in every part of the work of grace he accomplished his purpose, and glorified his own name.
Evening
"So she gleaned in the field until even."Ruth 2:17
Let me learn from Ruth, the gleaner. As she went out to gather the ears of corn, so must I go forth into the fields of prayer, meditation, the ordinances, and hearing the word to gather spiritual food. The gleaner gathers her portion ear by ear; her gains are little by little: so must I be content to search for single truths, if there be no greater plenty of them. Every ear helps to make a bundle, and every gospel lesson assists in making us wise unto salvation. The gleaner keeps her eyes open: if she stumbled among the stubble in a dream, she would have no load to carry home rejoicingly at eventide. I must be watchful in religious exercises lest they become unprofitable to me; I fear I have lost much already--O that I may rightly estimate my opportunities, and glean with greater diligence. The gleaner stoops for all she finds, and so must I. High spirits criticize and object, but lowly minds glean and receive benefit. A humble heart is a great help towards profitably hearing the gospel. The engrafted soul-saving word is not received except with meekness. A stiff back makes a bad gleaner; down, master pride, thou art a vile robber, not to be endured for a moment. What the gleaner gathers she holds: if she dropped one ear to find another, the result of her day's work would be but scant; she is as careful to retain as to obtain, and so at last her gains are great. How often do I forget all that I hear; the second truth pushes the first out of my head, and so my reading and hearing end in much ado about nothing! Do I feel duly the importance of storing up the truth? A hungry belly makes the gleaner wise; if there be no corn in her hand, there will be no bread on her table; she labours under the sense of necessity, and hence her tread is nimble and her grasp is firm; I have even a greater necessity, Lord, help me to feel it, that it may urge me onward to glean in fields which yield so plenteous a reward to diligence.
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Today's reading: Psalm 60-62, Romans 5 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Psalm 60-62
1 You have rejected us, God, and burst upon us;
you have been angry-now restore us!
2 You have shaken the land and torn it open;
mend its fractures, for it is quaking.
3 You have shown your people desperate times;
you have given us wine that makes us stagger.
4 But for those who fear you, you have raised a banner
to be unfurled against the bow....
Today's New Testament reading: Romans 5
Peace and Hope
1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us....
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James
[Jāmez] - supplanter.
[Jāmez] - supplanter.
1. The son of Zebedee, and the elder brother of John, and one of the Twelve (Matt. 4:21; 10:2; 17:1; Mark 1:19, 29; 3:17; 5:37; 9:2; 10:35; 41; 13:3; 14:33; Luke 5:10; 6:14; 8:51; 9:28, 54; Acts 1:13; 12:2). From the foregoing references several facts emerge:
James'father Zebedee, was a Galilean fisherman and prosperous, since he employed servants to assist in the management of his boats.
Zebedee had a house in Jerusalem and was known as a friend of the High Priest, Caiaphas, and his household. This would mark Him as a man of social position.
His mother's name was Salome, whom tradition says was a sister of the Virgin Mary, which may help to throw light upon the relation of her sons to the Master. This would also make James a cousin to Jesus after the flesh.
James worked in partnership with his father and brothers and was busy with his boats and nets when the call of Christ reached him.
His name is coupled with his brother John in the lists of the apostles, which could mean that when they were sent forth two by two, James and John would be paired. Evidently they were men of like spirit and disposition and received from Jesus the title "Sons of Thunder."
He was on terms of special intimacy with Christ, although he never attained the distinction of his brother John.
His life came to an untimely end when he was martyred by Herod Agrippa. The cup and the baptism of pain and death were his. Seventeen years passed between his call to service and his death. He was the second of the martyrs and the first of the apostles to give his life for Christ.
We have no word from his pen nor word he spoke unless Acts 4:24-30 be an exception, but James was content to be a disciple. He never sought fame, power, a great name. He had no ambition to be first.
2. The son of Alphaeus (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). We know little of this James apart from his own name and his father's name, coming to us under the double form of Alphaeus and Clopas (John 19:25 R. V.). Evidently he did nothing that needed any record. We do know that this son of Alphaeus was called the Little (not the Less ). Perhaps he was short of stature and to distinguish him from others of the same name he was known as "James the Little."
His mother was one of the devoted women who stood by the cross and visited the tomb.
He had a brother Joses, who was also a believer (Mark 15:40; 16:1; John 19:25).
Tradition says that he had been a tax-gatherer. It may be his father Alphaeus was the same Alphaeus who was the father of Levi the tax-gatherer, who became Matthew the Apostle.
3. The Lord's brother ( Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3; Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; 1 Cor. 15:7; Gal. 1:19; 2:9, 12; Jas. 1:1). Acute controversy has raged around whether this James was an actual brother of Christ and also one of the Twelve.
The Man with Camel's Knees
Because of his relationship to Christ we deem it necessary to devote a little more attention to this honorable James. How exactly was he related to the Lord? There are some writers who affirm that there are only two persons by the name of James in the New Testament and that the one we are presently considering was the son of Alphaeus and Mary the sister of our Lord's mother, that is, the James under No. 2. Various explanations have been given of this third James.
He was a child of Joseph by a former marriage. Those like the Roman Catholics, who argue for the perpetual virginity of Mary, are against our Lord having any natural relatives apart from His mother.
The word "brother" or "kinsman" is used loosely, and means "cousin," according to Jewish usage. If he was a son of the virgin Mary's sister, then he would be our Lord's cousin, or "cousin-brother," as the Indians express it.
He, being the natural son of Joseph and Mary after their marriage, was actually our Lord's half-brother. The language of the passages cited under this James indicates that he had a relationship with Christ within rather than without the immediate family of Joseph and Mary. In the remonstration with Christ concerning His preaching, the whole circumstance points to James as being one of Mary's sons ( Matt. 12:46-50). The facts are these:
I. He is spoken of as being among the sisters and brothers of Christ (Matt. 13:55, 56; John 2:12; 7:3, 10).
II. He was not a believer during our Lord's life. Along with the other children of Joseph and Mary, James did not accept the Messiah-ship of Jesus (Matt. 13:57; Luke 7:20, 21; John 7:5 ). There can be no doubt, however, that he did not remain unmoved by the goodness, unselfishness and example of Christ. Living with Him for almost thirty years must have left its impact upon James.
III. He was a witness of Christ's resurrection (1 Cor. 15:7). It would seem as if James was won to faith by a special manifestation of the risen Lord. Seen of James! Paul would only know of one "James," the one often alluded to in the Acts of the Apostles. The result of that glorious sight and conversation transformed James into a disciple and a believer. It is after this experience that we find "the brethren of the Lord" joined with "the apostles" and "the women" assembled together in the upper chamber (Acts 1:14).
IV. He became a pillar of the Church at Jerusalem, rising to eminence (Acts 12:17; 15:4-34; 21:18, 19; Gal. 2:1-10).
V. He became known for his piety and was named "James the Just." Tradition has it that he was a Nazarite from his mother's womb, abstaining from strong drink and animal food and wearing linen. We are told of his strict adherence to the law (Acts 21:17-26; Gal. 2:12).
VI. He was the writer of the epistle bearing his name, which has always been attributed to "James the Just." But such was his character that he styled himself not as the brother, but only theservant or "slave" of the Lord Jesus Christ. His epistle gives us an admirable summary of practical duties incumbent upon all believers.
VII. He was a man who believed in the power of prayer, as evidenced by the space he devotes to it in his epistle. Because of his habit of always kneeling in intercession for the saints, his knees became calloused like a camel's; thus he became known as "The Man with Camel's Knees."
VIII. He was cruelly martyred by the Scribes and Pharisees, who cast him from the pinnacle of the Temple. As the fall did not kill him, his enemies stoned him, finally dispatching him with a fuller's club (see Matt. 4:5; Luke 4:9). Across from the Valley of Jehoshaphat, there is a sepulcher called "The Tomb of St. James."
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