"We have an abundance of energy - but the world's highest power prices; an abundance of land - and property prices to rival Hong Kong's; some of the world's smartest people - yet with school rankings behind Kazakhstan.
We need to make Australia work again - because our country, plainly, is not working as it should. We are letting ourselves down. We are not what we should be; and we know it."
Mr Abbott generously gave his time to talk to IPA members, and not just speak his thoughts and run. And Mr Abbott gives oxygen which the government needs.
In 350, Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, was defeated and killed in Rome by troops of the usurper Magnentius. Neither reigned long as Constantius II dealt with Magnentius three years later. 763, the Byzantine army of emperor Constantine V defeated the Bulgarian forces in the Battle of Anchialus.1520, Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés fought their way out of Tenochtitlan. 1559, King Henry II of France was mortally wounded in a jousting match against Gabriel de Montgomery. 1688, the Immortal Seven issue the Invitation to William (continuing the English rebellion from Rome), which would culminate in the Glorious Revolution.
In 1934, the Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, took place. 1936, Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia appealed for aid to the League of Nations against Italy's invasion of his country. 1937, the world's first emergency telephone number, 999, was introduced in London. 1963, Ciaculli massacre: a car bomb, intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco, killed seven police officers and military personnel near Palermo.
In 1971, the crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft were killed when their air supply escaped through a faulty valve. It is difficult to overstate the tragedy. The mission to dock with a space station and stay there for weeks was successful. They kept fit on a treadmill twice a day. But on re entry, a pressure valve no one could access was left open in space. They died in seconds on re entry.
I am very good and don't deserve the abuse given me. I created a video raising awareness of anti police feeling among western communities. I chose the senseless killing of Nicola Cotton, a Louisiana policewoman who joined post Katrina, to highlight the issue. I did this in order to get an income after having been illegally blacklisted from work in NSW for being a whistleblower. I have not done anything wrong. Local council appointees refused to endorse my work, so I did it for free. Youtube's Adsence refused to allow me to profit from their marketing it. Meanwhile, I am hostage to abysmal political leadership and hopeless journalists. My shopfront has opened on Facebook.
Here is a video I made Up Hill
Christina Georgina Rossetti (5 December 1830 -- 29 December 1894) was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems. She is best known for her long poem Goblin Market, her love poem Remember, and for the words of the Christmas carol In the Bleak Midwinter.
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.
=== from 2016 ===
It is possible that the ALP will win the election on Saturday and that should scare people. Because the DelCon movement have advocated splitting the senate vote and sending a message to those remaining idiots who installed Turnbull over Abbott, the senate is likely to be ALP friendly too. Turnbull's foolish decision to go for a double dissolution means that all of Abbott's gains get wiped out. So as a service to the community, The Conservative Voice will list reasons to not vote for the ALP or their proxies who call themselves independents.
- The AWU corruption scandal which brought on the double dissolution. Shorten is heavily involved in his time as union leader. Also Fair Work has been set up badly and is not an effective guard. To give the ALP the reigns of power again is to give in to another term of ineffective workplace relations. That will damage Australia badly, crippling her businesses who employ people.
- Bad for the economy, promising to spend over $120 billion dollars on two policies alone, neither of which are effective. But then promising to balance the budget too. And yet admitting to lying outrageously about Medicare because they feel that is clever politics.
- Border Security. ALP have killed people with expensive bad policy.
- Too close to extremist Muslims, too distant from people who are good.
- Hostile to church interests, but not a friend to gays either.
- NSW Corruption with ICAC still not taking on the majority of corrupt ALP members from their 16 years in power.
- Victorian corruption, with jobs for the union mates and the destruction of CFA volunteer firefighters. ALP have killed people with incompetence in recent years.
- Queensland corruption and South Australian too, all related to entrenched ALP that are supported by independents.
=== from 2015 ===
Greece will default on her repayments today. The left wing Greek Government has promised her people that they can default and stay in the European Union. As if people can work but not be paid, so long as they aren't Greek. And that is wrong. The cost of the lie of the Greek government is a nervous world market which devalues because the stakes are so high. Europe should boot Greece. The campaign against austerity is dangerous and should not be accepted. There will be market pain if Greece leaves the union, but it is nothing to the pain if others feel that austerity can be rejected with impunity.
Joe Hockey's defamation win is only a slap on the wrist for the partisan media who would willingly cut their own throats to secure a win against conservatives. There was no need for the personal attack of the defamatory headline, but it was made for no other purpose but to attack the treasurer. And if the Fairfax press had any credibility they would pay the money and issue an apology. Instead they are un-penitent and are examining the possibility of appealing. One hopes they appeal and lose badly.
Joe Hockey's defamation win is only a slap on the wrist for the partisan media who would willingly cut their own throats to secure a win against conservatives. There was no need for the personal attack of the defamatory headline, but it was made for no other purpose but to attack the treasurer. And if the Fairfax press had any credibility they would pay the money and issue an apology. Instead they are un-penitent and are examining the possibility of appealing. One hopes they appeal and lose badly.
From 2014
The 1876 election had seen the election of GOP Hayes based on a compromise. The military was pulled out of the South, ending reconstruction efforts and toppling state GOP governments. White Democrats would make the south one party and would isolate and prey upon African Americans. But in terms of populism, that was ok. Then James was elected and what followed was to James' credit in 1881, and a tragedy too. James was a GOP man too, but he had better control and discipline than Hayes. James Garfield would reform the US public service and purge corruption from the post office. He appointed african americans to prominent federal positions, promoted civil rights and education as a means to a free and fair electorate. And then, two hundred days into office, he was assassinated by a nut job.
The nut job was like any other extreme right wing idiot that ever lived. Born in illinois, to an ethnically French family of Huguenot, Guiteau had been given $1000 and instructed to study in New York by his father. He had listening issues, and struggled as a student. He dropped out and joined a religious cult, but struggled to find his place. He went to Boston and got an easily achieved legal license, but was a failure as a barrister, managing to enrage most of his clients. Next, Guiteau turned to theology and stole material from the cult from which he had been booted. Then he decided to support GOP people. He begged Hayes for political favours, and then Garfield. Garfield had opposed corruption. So Guiteau decided to shoot him.
Guiteau chose a pearl handled revolver for reasons of posterity. He picked his moment, approached Garfield from behind and shot him twice. Garfield would probably have survived but for the medical treatment he received by doctors that had not sterilised their surgery equipment or hands, as would be routine ten years later. It took eleven weeks for Garfield to die. In defence, Guiteau would claim that he was not guilty because "The doctors killed him, I just shot him." The defence failed, and so on this day in 1882, nine months after the shooting, Guiteau was hung. On the morning of his hanging, Guiteau wrote a poem.
He was the only right wing extremist to assassinate a President of the US. He seemed incapable of rational thought, his application of poetry on a par with another right wing terrorist (McVey) who claimed he was the captain of his soul. Guiteau's case was one of the first attempts at an insanity defence in the US for a high profile case. At nine months he was the longest survivor of an assassination of a US President.
The nut job was like any other extreme right wing idiot that ever lived. Born in illinois, to an ethnically French family of Huguenot, Guiteau had been given $1000 and instructed to study in New York by his father. He had listening issues, and struggled as a student. He dropped out and joined a religious cult, but struggled to find his place. He went to Boston and got an easily achieved legal license, but was a failure as a barrister, managing to enrage most of his clients. Next, Guiteau turned to theology and stole material from the cult from which he had been booted. Then he decided to support GOP people. He begged Hayes for political favours, and then Garfield. Garfield had opposed corruption. So Guiteau decided to shoot him.
Guiteau chose a pearl handled revolver for reasons of posterity. He picked his moment, approached Garfield from behind and shot him twice. Garfield would probably have survived but for the medical treatment he received by doctors that had not sterilised their surgery equipment or hands, as would be routine ten years later. It took eleven weeks for Garfield to die. In defence, Guiteau would claim that he was not guilty because "The doctors killed him, I just shot him." The defence failed, and so on this day in 1882, nine months after the shooting, Guiteau was hung. On the morning of his hanging, Guiteau wrote a poem.
I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad,
I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad,
I am going to the Lordy,
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
I am going to the Lordy.
I love the Lordy with all my soul,
Glory hallelujah!
And that is the reason I am going to the Lord,
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
I am going to the Lord.
I saved my party and my land,
Glory hallelujah!
But they have murdered me for it,
And that is the reason I am going to the Lordy,
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
I am going to the Lordy!
I wonder what I will do when I get to the Lordy,
I guess that I will weep no more
When I get to the Lordy!
Glory hallelujah!
I wonder what I will see when I get to the Lordy,
I expect to see most glorious things,
Beyond all earthly conception
When I am with the Lordy!
Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!
I am with the Lord.
Historical perspective on this day
In 350, Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, was defeated and killed in Rome by troops of the usurper Magnentius. 763, the Byzantine army of emperor Constantine V defeated the Bulgarian forces in the Battle of Anchialus. 1422, Battle of Arbedo between the duke of Milan and the Swiss cantons. 1520, Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortésfought their way out of Tenochtitlan. 1521, Spanish forces defeated a combined French and Navarrese army at the Battle of Noáin during the Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre. 1559, King Henry II of France was mortally wounded in a jousting match against Gabriel de Montgomery. 1651, The Deluge: Khmelnytsky Uprising – the Battle of Beresteczko ended with a Polish victory. 1688, the Immortal Seven issue the Invitation to William (continuing the English rebellion from Rome), which would culminate in the Glorious Revolution. 1758, Seven Years' War: The Battle of Domstadtl took place. 1794, Native American forces under Blue Jacket attack Fort Recovery.
In 1805, the U.S. Congress organised the Michigan Territory. 1860, the 1860 Oxford evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History took place. 1864, U.S. PresidentAbraham Lincoln granted Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation". 1882, Charles J. Guiteau was hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield. 1886, the first transcontinental train trip across Canada departed from Montreal. It arrived in Port Moody, British Columbia on July 4. 1892, the Homestead Strike began near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In 1905, Albert Einstein published the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduced special relativity. 1906, the United States Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act. 1908, the Tunguska event occurred in remote Siberia. 1912, the Regina Cyclone hit Regina, Saskatchewan, killing 28. It remains Canada's deadliest tornado event. 1917, World War I: Greece declared war on the Central Powers. 1921, U.S. President Warren G. Harding appointed former President William Howard Taft Chief Justice of the United States. 1922, in Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado signed the Hughes-Peynado agreement, which ended the United States occupation of the Dominican Republic.
In 1934, the Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, took place. 1936, Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia appealed for aid to the League of Nations against Italy's invasion of his country. 1937, the world's first emergency telephone number, 999, was introduced in London 1944, World War II: The Battle of Cherbourg ended with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces. 1953, the first Chevrolet Corvette rolled off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan. 1956, a TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 collided above the Grand Canyon in Arizona and crashed, killing all 128 on board both airliners. 1960, Congo gained independence from Belgium. 1963, Ciaculli massacre: a car bomb, intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco, killed seven police officers and military personnel near Palermo. 1966, the National Organization for Women, the United States' largest feminist organisation, was founded. 1968, Pope Paul VIissued the Credo of the People of God.
In 1971, the crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft were killed when their air supply escaped through a faulty valve. Also 1971, Ohio ratified the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, reducing the voting age to 18, thereby putting the amendment into effect. 1972, the first leap second was added to the UTC time system. 1977, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organizationdisbanded. 1985, thirty-nine American hostages from the hijacked TWA Flight 847 were freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days. 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bowers v. Hardwick that states could outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults. 1990, East Germany and West Germany merged their economies. 1997, the United Kingdom transferssovereignty over Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.
In 1805, the U.S. Congress organised the Michigan Territory. 1860, the 1860 Oxford evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History took place. 1864, U.S. PresidentAbraham Lincoln granted Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation". 1882, Charles J. Guiteau was hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield. 1886, the first transcontinental train trip across Canada departed from Montreal. It arrived in Port Moody, British Columbia on July 4. 1892, the Homestead Strike began near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In 1905, Albert Einstein published the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduced special relativity. 1906, the United States Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act. 1908, the Tunguska event occurred in remote Siberia. 1912, the Regina Cyclone hit Regina, Saskatchewan, killing 28. It remains Canada's deadliest tornado event. 1917, World War I: Greece declared war on the Central Powers. 1921, U.S. President Warren G. Harding appointed former President William Howard Taft Chief Justice of the United States. 1922, in Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado signed the Hughes-Peynado agreement, which ended the United States occupation of the Dominican Republic.
In 1934, the Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, took place. 1936, Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia appealed for aid to the League of Nations against Italy's invasion of his country. 1937, the world's first emergency telephone number, 999, was introduced in London 1944, World War II: The Battle of Cherbourg ended with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces. 1953, the first Chevrolet Corvette rolled off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan. 1956, a TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 collided above the Grand Canyon in Arizona and crashed, killing all 128 on board both airliners. 1960, Congo gained independence from Belgium. 1963, Ciaculli massacre: a car bomb, intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco, killed seven police officers and military personnel near Palermo. 1966, the National Organization for Women, the United States' largest feminist organisation, was founded. 1968, Pope Paul VIissued the Credo of the People of God.
In 1971, the crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft were killed when their air supply escaped through a faulty valve. Also 1971, Ohio ratified the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, reducing the voting age to 18, thereby putting the amendment into effect. 1972, the first leap second was added to the UTC time system. 1977, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organizationdisbanded. 1985, thirty-nine American hostages from the hijacked TWA Flight 847 were freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days. 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bowers v. Hardwick that states could outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults. 1990, East Germany and West Germany merged their economies. 1997, the United Kingdom transferssovereignty over Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.
=== 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.
===
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
- 1286 – John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey, English politician (d. 1347)
- 1685 – John Gay, English poet and playwright (d. 1732)
- 1899 – Harry Shields, American clarinet player (d. 1971)
- 1917 – Susan Hayward, American actress and singer (d. 1975)
- 1917 – Lena Horne, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2010)
- 1919 – Ed Yost, American inventor, invented the hot air balloon (d. 2007)
- 1936 – Nancy Dussault, American actress and singer
- 1939 – José Emilio Pacheco, Mexican poet and author (d. 2014)
- 1941 – Peter Pollock, South African cricketer and author
- 1943 – Florence Ballard, American singer (The Supremes) (d. 1976)
- 1944 – Glenn Shorrock, English-Australian singer-songwriter (Little River Band, The Twilights, Axiom, Esperanto, and Birtles Shorrock Goble)
- 1953 – Hal Lindes, American-English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Dire Straits)
- 1960 – Murray Cook, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Wiggles and Bang Shang a Lang)
- 1963 – Rupert Graves, English actor
- 1966 – Mike Tyson, American boxer and actor
- 1973 – Chan Ho Park, South Korean baseball player
- 1982 – Andy Knowles, English drummer (Franz Ferdinand and Skuta)
- 1983 – Cheryl Cole, English singer-songwriter, dancer, and model (Girls Aloud)
- 1986 – Allegra Versace, Italian-American businesswoman
- 1992 – Lamb Gaede, American singer (Prussian Blue)
- 1992 – Lynx Gaede, American singer (Prussian Blue)
- 1997 – Iryna Shymanovich, Belarusian tennis player
Deaths
- 350 – Nepotianus, Roman ruler
- 1660 – William Oughtred, English mathematician (b. 1575)
- 1882 – Charles J. Guiteau, American preacher and lawyer, assassin of James A. Garfield (b. 1841)
- 1961 – Lee De Forest, American inventor, invented the audion tube (b. 1873)
- 1559 – During a jousting match, Gabriel Montgomery of the Garde Écossaise mortally wounded King Henry II of France (pictured), piercing him in the eye with his lance.
- 1859 – French acrobat Charles Blondin crossed Niagara Gorge on a tightrope, turning him into one of the world's most famous tightrope walkers.
- 1894 – London's Tower Bridge, a combined bascule and suspension bridge over the River Thames, opened.
- 1960 - The Belgian Congo received its independence from colonial rule, beginning a period of instability that ended with the installation of a dictatorship under Joseph-Désiré Mobutu in 1965.
- 1987 – The Royal Canadian Mint introduced the Canadian one-dollar coin, commonly known as the Loonie.
I see. We crossed that chasm. That bridge towers. We have independence, and a dictator. Our currency is luny. Let's party.
===Tim Blair
NEVER MIND THE BOLLARDS
Andrew Bolt
HE MAY BE SLIGHTLY EXAGGERATING
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 30, 2016 (7:49pm)
Psychologist Paul Stevenson pinpoints the exact moment:
Where did we go wrong? Did anybody see it happen? The day democracy walked out the door. The day we lost our freedom of speech. The day we stopped being Australian.Well, I saw it. It was …
When the word guy was outlawed? When the Press Council began investigating publications for things they hadn’tpublished? When journalists decided that clothes were a forbidden topic? Read on to discover the shocking truth!
MAD COW
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 30, 2016 (2:32pm)
“Brexit means U.K. even more of a basket case than US,” claims former New Yorker editrix Tina Brown. “Just returned from London where civil war raged in every family. Crazy, scary times.”
UPDATE. Britain will starve! Tim Worstall considers the most ridiculous Brexit panic yet:
It’s extremely difficult to believe that any one could seriously credit this contention that Brexit, the process of Britain leaving the European Union, could lead to the UK not being able to feed itself. The entirely mindboggling argument is that Britain currently imports much of its food from the European Union. This is true of course. The brain warping part that follows is that because Britain leaves the European Union it will no longer be able to import food from the European Union.What?I’m sorry but what? The detritus from what bong habit caused this mental spasm? What appalling misunderstanding of trade has led to the thought (thought! Pah!) that because we might not want to share a government with them any more, them across the Channel, they will therefore refuse to sell us stuff? Which -ish has caused this gibber?
Read on.
UPDATE II. Another Brexit myth demolished:
On Friday as the U.K., Europe and the wider world were coming to terms with the shock decision, the Washington Post reported: “Many Britons may not even know what they had actually voted for.” This assertion — along with the mocking headline “The British are frantically Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it” — was based on a tweet posted by Google based on information from its Trends tool, which analyzes in real time what people are searching for …The problem with using Google Trends as an indication of anything other than a relative increase or decrease over previous norms is that it doesn’t give the whole picture. Yes, there may have been a big spike in searches about what happens if the U.K. leaves the EU, but compared with what? Were there hundreds of thousands of people searching Google for these answers? Millions?It turns out the figure is likely to be less than 1,000 people, or 0.001 percent of the population.
SNACK POLICE
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 30, 2016 (2:21pm)
An urgent law enforcement issue in New Jersey:
On June 16, police were called to an unlikely scene: an end-of-the-year class party at the William P. Tatem Elementary School in Collingswood.A third grader had made a comment about the brownies being served to the class. After another student exclaimed that the remark was “racist,” the school called the Collingswood Police Department, according to the mother of the boy who made the comment.The police officer spoke to the student, who is 9, said the boy’s mother, Stacy dos Santos, and local authorities.Dos Santos said that the school overreacted and that her son made a comment about snacks, not skin color.
FOREIGN CUSTOM EXPLAINED
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 30, 2016 (3:42am)
In Britain, people are now wearing safety pins to indicate they didn’t bother to vote in last Thursday’s Brexit referendum.
It also means you’re allowed to hit them. Readers may prefer to follow an alternative custom.
UPDATE. Counselling is now available:
An NHS trust has offered staff free counselling to help them cope with the Brexit result.District nurses and carers providing community and mental health services in South East London and Kent have been told they can take the sessions to manage their concerns about the referendum.
Britain’s financial sector seems to be dealing with it well enough:
The FTSE 100 has surged through the level it closed at last Thursday, recovering all of the ground it had lost in the wake of the Brexit vote.
UPDATE II. Remember Antony Beevor’s claim that Brexit would make Britain the world’s most hated nation? Think again, old chap.
IMAGINE NO EUCALYPTUS
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 30, 2016 (3:35am)
Attention, Elizabeth Farrelly! Recently the University of NSW callously murdered two trees – and one of them could have been a rare and sacred Yoko gum:
What’s happened to Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree?Last Thursday, UNSW knocked down two trees, including a young eucalyptus tree, from its property on Albion Avenue.Outraged residents have been calling the Wentworth Courier ever since, certain the young eucalypt was one of Yoko Ono’s Wish Trees from her first Australian solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney from November 2013 to February 2014 …At the end of the exhibition, Yoko’s six lemon-scented eucalyptus Wish Trees were distributed by MCA to individuals and institutions connected with the museum.
Obviously, due to insidious Yoko involvement, all of those institutions have since broken up. But where was Elizabeth and her team of tree weepers when this atrocity took place?
SCOTTY MOORE
Tim Blair – Thursday, June 30, 2016 (12:24am)
Brisbane launch to come
Andrew Bolt June 30 2016 (5:20pm)
Readers have asked me for a launch for my new book - with book signings - in Brisbane, too.
That is now being organised for early August. Details to come next week.
Also coming next week, a second Bolt Bulletin - a post-election edition - will be sent to readers who buy my book online. The book will be mailed free.
The IPA tells me the other launches it is organising will sell out. Book while there are still seats:
===That is now being organised for early August. Details to come next week.
Also coming next week, a second Bolt Bulletin - a post-election edition - will be sent to readers who buy my book online. The book will be mailed free.
The IPA tells me the other launches it is organising will sell out. Book while there are still seats:
Book here for the Sydney launch of my new book on July 15, with friends Rowan Dean, editor of the Spectator Australia, and IPA boss John Roskam chatting with me on stage.
Book here for the Melbourne launch on July 22, again with Rowan, John and me.
Book here for the Adelaide launch at Senator Cory Bernardi’s Conservative Leadership Foundation on July 29.
Brexit didn’t hurt that much after all
Andrew Bolt June 30 2016 (1:30pm)
How they panicked when Britain voted to leave the European Union. How the Remain camp gloated with their I-told-you-so:
===But now look at the markets:
Banks and other financial companies led another broad surge in US stocks, turning the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index slightly positive for the year.Were all those people preaching doom - costing investors worry and wealth - just playing chicken? Or were they genuinely clueless?
It was the second rally in two days for the stock market, which had been rattled since Friday by investor concerns over Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.
Those worries eased on Wednesday as traders shifted money back into stocks. The gains over Tuesday and Wednesday erased more than half of the losses US markets suffered in the two-day slide that kicked off on Friday.
Britain’s stock market has recouped all its losses in the same stretch, but other major markets in Europe and Asia have yet to bounce back fully. Markets in France, Germany, Japan and Hong Kong have gotten back about half the ground they lost; Brazil’s has recouped about three-quarters.
Abbott will win another election
Andrew Bolt June 30 2016 (1:14pm)
Terry McCrann:
===Australia is really being asked to vote for an Abbott government or a Rudd+Gillard one. You might ostensibly be voting for Turnbull or Shorten, but you will be getting the policies of their predecessors.
Labor must dump Andrews over this despicable deal
Andrew Bolt June 30 2016 (11:09am)
Lies, secret deals, private fixes - the CFA sellout exposes the very worst of the Andrews Government and the way our institutions ride roughshod over the public:
Labor must sack Daniel Andrews soon. This one issue shames all who go along with it and risks killing the Government if not resolved soon.
UPDATE
Has Andrews no shame? What damage will he do the CFA to pay off his hard-Left union mates?
They shame the entire Labor front bench by their example. In fact, just one person should lose their job over this - Daniel Andrews.
===AN EMAIL has exposed desperate backroom dealing between Dan Andrews’s top bureaucrat and Australia’s chief industrial judge to better protect Country Fire Authority volunteers, the very day the Premier was publicly claiming the 60,000-strong army had nothing to worry about.It is despicable for this Socialist Left Government to hand control of CFA volunteers to a hard-Left union. Even worse is that the Government lies about what it has done.
The emergence of Fair Work Commission president Iain Ross’s role in secret talks on the controversial union takeover of the CFA undermines the integrity of the process, after the Premier championed Mr Ross’s colleague, Commissioner Julius Roe, as an “independent umpire’’.
As significant union veto issues were thrashed out in the secret meeting, the Premier was telling state parliament on the same day that “nothing in any agreement should or will adversely impact volunteers’’…
The email reveals Mr Ross acknowledged the proposed EBA gave the United Firefighters Union vetos on CFA operations, not in a previous enterprise bargaining agreement… Mr Ross ... proposed the CFA sign “a joint statement of intent” with the UFU to allay volunteer firefighters’ fears of being sidelined.
This was set out in a three-page memo entitled “Recommendations tabled by Ian (sic) Ross at a meeting chaired by Chris Eccles 2016-6-9”....
The Herald Sun can reveal the memo proposed a way to deal with the impact of new “provisions in the Agreement which require consultation and agreement” of the UFU, including the employment of a dispute resolution officer. Mr Ross suggested that “if there is evidence of a pattern of agreement being withheld” the matter could also be referred to the commission.
Labor must sack Daniel Andrews soon. This one issue shames all who go along with it and risks killing the Government if not resolved soon.
UPDATE
Has Andrews no shame? What damage will he do the CFA to pay off his hard-Left union mates?
THE CFA’s chief fire officer Joe Buffone has quit “in disgust” over the CFA pay dispute.So many fine people have put the CFA above their self-interest and have quit rather than give in to Andrews’ coup.
Mr Buffone has formally tendered his resignation this morning, saying his role had been compromised by the industrial agreement…
“In my opinion I am now in circumstances where my ability to effectively carry out my role is compromised by an industrial agreement,” he said…
“I believe the agreement will tie the hands of those who are obliged by law protect the safety of Victorians."…
Former emergency services minister Jane Garrett resigned rather than back the deal, which the CFA says will give veto powers to the United Firefighters Union. The CFA board was sacked and CFA CEO Lucinda Nolan also resigned.
They shame the entire Labor front bench by their example. In fact, just one person should lose their job over this - Daniel Andrews.
David Cameron has learned what Malcolm Turnbull will: the base will have its revenge
Andrew Bolt June 30 2016 (9:53am)
Dominic Lawson has a very interesting lesson for Malcolm Turnbull:
Be very worried if you are a Liberal member:
===...if it were not for David Cameron’s decision to legalise marriage between people of the same sex — a measure I supported — Britain would not now be on her way out of the EU.UPDATE
It is now largely forgotten, but Cameron’s insistence on pushing through a Bill to legalise gay marriage — which eventually passed in 2013 — caused consternation within the Conservative Party.
The proposal, which had not been in the Tories’ 2010 election manifesto, was vehemently opposed by about half of his parliamentary party — who happened also to be the most Eurosceptic — and appalled countless members of local Conservative associations…
Remarkably, Cameron had been completely taken aback by the reaction of party members.
The Lib Dem Education Minister in the Coalition, David Laws, recorded in his diary that Cameron exclaimed: ‘Gay marriage has been a disaster. It has totally split my party.’
And the PM confided it had been ‘a big mistake to upset the Tory base’.
So how was he to win back their affections — or at least prevent more mass defection to Ukip? By offering the one thing he thought would ‘shoot Ukip’s fox’ — an in-or-out referendum on our EU membership. And indeed, Laws’ diary later quotes Cameron saying to Nick Clegg, when the then Deputy PM questioned the sense of risking such a vote: ‘You may be right, Nick, but what can I do? My backbenchers are fantastically Eurosceptic and I’ve got Ukip breathing down my neck.’
Be very worried if you are a Liberal member:
(Thanks to reader Dominic - another one.)
The top five campaign disasters that decided this miserable election
Andrew Bolt June 30 2016 (9:50am)
TWO things make this election campaign the worst in our modern history: the lies and the stuff-ups.
The lies you already know. They start with the biggest of all: that we can afford the massive spending shamelessly promised by both Labor and the Liberals.
Yet it’s the blunders that actually tell the tale of this miserable campaign and which will decide it on Saturday — and also decide the kind of government you will unfortunately get.
From a long list of campaign mistakes, misspeaks and pratfalls, I have picked the five biggest and most telling disasters.
Counting down, disaster five is Labor’s boat blunders, the dozens of Labor candidates who turned out to have attacked the tough border policies Labor claims now to support.
(Read the five top disasters here.)
===The lies you already know. They start with the biggest of all: that we can afford the massive spending shamelessly promised by both Labor and the Liberals.
Yet it’s the blunders that actually tell the tale of this miserable campaign and which will decide it on Saturday — and also decide the kind of government you will unfortunately get.
From a long list of campaign mistakes, misspeaks and pratfalls, I have picked the five biggest and most telling disasters.
Counting down, disaster five is Labor’s boat blunders, the dozens of Labor candidates who turned out to have attacked the tough border policies Labor claims now to support.
(Read the five top disasters here.)
Abbott: budget repair an issue not “developed” in this campaign
Andrew Bolt June 30 2016 (9:49am)
Both major parties are promising more spending, more taxes and more debt in this disgraceful election. Fresh from being trashed by Malcolm Turnbull twice in a week, Tony Abbott offers the most guarded criticism:
===“This has been an election campaign where a lot of the issues have been touched on without really being developed,” he said. “Obviously there is a huge budget repair job that needs to be done. National security has played almost no part in this campaign, even border security has been just an intermittent visitor to the campaign. So I guess if those really big issues aren’t front and centre, less substantial stuff will be front and centre.”
The great pork-barrel election that dooms us to dangerous debt
Andrew Bolt June 30 2016 (9:27am)
The spending to save Malcolm Turnbull has been a disgrace, matched only by Labor’s own spendathon.
David Uren:
===David Uren:
Bill Shorten’s sackful of policy promises includes spending measures totalling $34 billion across the next four years. That is about $2200 for every one of our 15.5 million enrolled voters…Pork barrelling on a grand scale:
The Coalition’s spending promises of $3.4bn look to be a snip at only $220 a vote, but that is not the full story. The decision to spend $35bn building frigates and another $50bn building submarines in Adelaide was driven by the need to shore up vulnerable South Australian Coalition seats, while the company tax cuts add another $4.9bn to the deficit across the next four years.
Much of the Coalition’s election spending has been targeted at shoring up individual sitting members. In electorates where the Coalition is worried — such as Leichhardt, held by Warren Entsch in far north Queensland, or Eden-Monaro, held by Peter Hendy in southern NSW — it is spending between $60 million and $70m on sundry projects. That translates to almost $1000 of taxpayer funds for every voter....
[A]ll this vote-buying should stop… And even if it did pull a hundred or so votes across the line in marginal electorates, it is a partisan corruption of government.
With the budget in deficit to the tune of about $40bn a year almost continuously since the financial crisis, politicians should be focusing on how they plan to wind back spending… The Coalition talks about getting spending down as a share of gross domestic product but is pledging its hopes of doing so on passing stalled savings through the Senate and on a rapid acceleration of nominal economic growth (the value of all goods and services). Neither appears likely… Labor derides the Coalition’s so-called “zombie measures”: savings from 2013-14 that have not passed the Senate. The Parliamentary Budget Office puts their value at $12.3bn across the next four years and $50bn across the next decade.
The Turnbull government has pledged to spend $859m on 73 infrastructure projects in Coalition-held seats and only four Labor-held seats benefit…Result? The Liberals actually aren’t spending much less than Labor at all. Jacob Greber:
The projects have all been announced since the 3 May budget and are detailed in the Coalition’s costing document released on Tuesday by the treasurer, Scott Morrison, and the finance minister, Mathias Cormann…
The seat held by the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, New England, is a major beneficiary, receiving grants for the Armidale airport roundabout, Inverell shire traffic flow improvements, the Jewry Street bridge, the Munsie bridge upgrade, Scone bypass, Tenterfield heavy vehicle bypass and an upgrade of Tamworth regional airport...
(A)nalysis by The Australian Financial Review of the tax and spending projections of both sides of politics indicates the Coalition is almost certain to match Labor’s spending levels unless it ramps up cuts or succumbs to the draw of higher taxes…(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill and GWpete.)
In analysis that underscores how permanent the expansion in government spending as proportion of GDP is likely to become, the 2016 budget papers and Labor’s 10-year fiscal plan released on Sunday confirm there is almost no difference between the two sides on spending, which will remain at levels normally associated with recession or economic downturns.
Under Labor, payments as a proportion of GDP will stay above 25.7 per cent though to 2026-27, when they hit 25.8 per cent, the same as where they start in 2015-16.
The Liberal-National party’s spending outlook is virtually identical, with outlays edging down only slightly by 2026-27 to 25.4 per cent of GDP.
The difference by 2026-27, in today’s dollars, is about $6.4 billion, or 1.5 per cent of total Commonwealth spending in 2015-16.
On taxes, the contrasts are more substantial. Labor’s tax levels will climb to a record 26.4 per cent of GDP by 2026-27 from 23.5 per cent in 2015-16…
The government’s total tax take will climb to 25.6 per cent of GDP in 2026-27, an increase worth almost $34 billion in 2016 terms, but still $12.8 billion less than Labor…
A consequence of the projections is that Labor can forecast larger, if modest, long-run surpluses, whereas the Coalition’s projected windfalls of around 0.1 or 0.2 per cent of GDP are essentially rounding errors… Labor, which hasn’t challenged the Financial Review’s calculations, pointed out this week that the Coalition’s outlook relies on it passing around $15 billion in so-called “zombie measures” left over from the 2014 budget, and still subject to being approved by next Senate.
Turnbull trashes Abbott again
Andrew Bolt June 30 2016 (9:19am)
He can’t help himself. Trashing Tony Abbott so often shows he either fears Abbott or is totally graceless:
(Thanks to reader TazSpinZone.)
===Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has taken a thinly veiled swipe at his predecessor, declaring he takes advice from his ministers instead of powerful people in his office.Not very collegiate at all.
It appeared to be a dig at Tony Abbott, whose close relationship with his chief of staff Peta Credlin has been cited as one of the reasons he lost the top job in his first term as prime minister.
Mr Turnbull has opened up about his own past mistakes over red wine and ravioli as he sat down with Annabel Crabb for the ABC’s Kitchen Cabinet…
Those who think he can be a dictator don’t get it - it’s a collegiate system…“My principal advisers are my ministers, not powerful people in my office.”
(Thanks to reader TazSpinZone.)
Global cooling is scarier
Andrew Bolt June 30 2016 (9:13am)
Bored with the old global warming scare? Have a new one - the far more scary prospect of global cooling:
===The sun has gone blank twice this month… According to scientists, this unsettling phenomenon is a sign we are heading for a mini ice age.(Thanks to reader Terry G and many others.)
Meteorologist and renowned sun-watcher Paul Dorian raised the alarm in his latest report.
“The blank sun, the second time this month, is a sign that the next solar minimum is approaching and there will be an increasing number of spotless days over the next few years. At first, the blankness will stretch for just a few days at a time, then it’ll continue for weeks at a time, and finally it should last for months at a time when the sunspot cycle reaches its nadir. The next solar minimum phase is expected to take place around 2019 or 2020.”
Given that the sun is the main driver of all weather and climate, the sinister sounding “blankness” to which Mr Dorian refers has some experts predicting a “Maunder Minimum” phase similar to one which began in 1645 and which is referred to as the “Little Ice Age"…
Mr Dorian’s findings back research by professor Valentina Zharkova of Northumbria University, who warned that a predicted sharp decline in solar activity between 2020 and 2050 was a sign another ice age was coming.
Meet Dr Activist
Andrew Bolt June 30 2016 (8:51am)
Trust no one but yourself in an election campaign. Believe nobody:
===The doctor who fronts the ACTU- funded Medicare television advertisement saying he is not a member of a political party has been a left-wing political activist for 40 years.
Drummoyne Medical Centre’s Robert Marr, who appears in the advertisement claiming there will be healthcare cuts under the Turnbull government, has a long history of political campaigning, including calling for John Howard to be investigated by the International Criminal Court for sending Australian troops to Iraq, lobbying against the Coalition in the 1993 federal election and arguing against private health insurance.
“I’m not in any political party but I have been a family GP for over 40 years and I’ve seen how important Medicare is right since its introduction,’’ Dr Marr says at the start of the advertisement…
[But] Dr Marr appeared at a media event with Bill Shorten on May 22 to promote Labor’s health policies. Labor’s candidate for the Sydney seat of Reid, Angelo Tsirekas, shared a photo of the Opposition Leader and Dr Marr on Facebook captioned: “It was great to have Bill Shorten visit Reid over the weekend and talk to our local doctor Robert Marr about Labor’s health policies’’.
Dr Marr declined to comment when asked last night how he could claim to be politically impartial while appearing in a photo-shoot with Mr Shorten. He asked The Australian to contact his media adviser, Tim O’Halloran from communications agency Essential Media, which conducts research and campaigns for the ACTU along with the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and GetUp!
The ABC’s “defence” of free speech is a joke
Miranda Devine – Tuesday, June 30, 2015 (6:22am)
The decision by the ABC to close ranks and deploy its resources to defend the indefensible on Monday night only seals its fate in the mind of the public. No contrition, no apology, no remedial action. Just defiance, diversion, and attack.
Something is rotten in the ABC.
Henry Ergas explains:
Merely hours after the managing director of the ABC claimed Zaky Mallah had the same right to appear on Q&A as Charlie Hebdo had to publish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, the Islamists showed the world exactly how much use they have for freedom of expression.
The 54-year-old chief executive whose severed head was placed on the fence of an American-owned factory in France; the 38 people, mostly Western tourists, who were butchered at Sousse in Tunisia; the 25 others who lost their lives in a suicide attack on one of the largest Shia mosques in Kuwait City: they won’t have the chance to debate whether Muslim extremists should be given a platform. But the jihadists’ apologists will. And if Mark Scott has his way, they will do so at Australian taxpayers’ expense.Not that taxpayers have any choice; unlike the “News Ltd tabloids” Scott accused of not “pursuing a rational discourse”, we are all forced to pay the ABC’s costs. As to what it does with those funds, that, Scott maintains, is a matter for the ABC and it alone: anything else, he said last Thursday in a speech to the Centre for Corporate Public Affairs, would make us no different from “North Korea and Russia, China and Vietnam”.
Continue reading 'The ABC’s “defence” of free speech is a joke'
JOE WINS
Tim Blair – Tuesday, June 30, 2015 (2:50pm)
===THE DRAGON WITH THE GIRL TATTOO
Tim Blair – Tuesday, June 30, 2015 (3:19am)
Fire-breathing frightbat Clementine Ford did not care for Sunday’s gentle review of her online behaviour. The seething sulphur-scented South Australian subsequently issued a tsunami of sullen smears, including this:
Such an allegation really should be supported with evidence. Not that I can recall any such comments – helpful critics would surely have already highlighted them – but I’d point out my legal advice while running sites ten years ago was specifically NOT to moderate or edit comments, as that would denote authorship or approval and therefore attach legal liability. Clementine may struggle to understand; she has problems with complicated law-talkin’ stuff.
Such an allegation really should be supported with evidence. Not that I can recall any such comments – helpful critics would surely have already highlighted them – but I’d point out my legal advice while running sites ten years ago was specifically NOT to moderate or edit comments, as that would denote authorship or approval and therefore attach legal liability. Clementine may struggle to understand; she has problems with complicated law-talkin’ stuff.
Our favourite Fairfax columnist is far more comfortable screeching on Twitter like a crazy person:
Nice piece in Tim Blair’s blog about my so-called hypocrisy. Tim, I’m never going to sleep with you – get over me.I’m guessing the point is that he’s got a giant woody for me and can’t come to terms with it.Tim Blair must be an incredibly sad and lonely man if this is the way he gets his jollies. Pathetic.Srsly, is there anything sadder than a middle aged man obsessed with the activities of younger women online?The really sad thing is that News Corp is so bereft of ideas and talent that they pay Tim Blair to write a daily blog about his misogyny.
Wow. All that (and much more) just for quoting Ford’s own words. Imagine how much angrier Clementine would be if I blamed her for words written by someone else.
THE MAN WHO NEVER RETURNED
Tim Blair – Tuesday, June 30, 2015 (1:24am)
An urban folk legend is celebrated in song:
If the ABC won’t reform, it must be slashed - or privatised
Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (3:56pm)
The ABC has shown zero understanding of - or genuine contrition for - it’s decision to help a Islamist convicted of threatening to kill to ambush a government minister.
So if Janet Albrechtsen is right and the ABC refuses to reform, what then?
===So if Janet Albrechtsen is right and the ABC refuses to reform, what then?
It is the height of arrogance to treat independence as untethered from responsibility. Yet that arrogance is entrenched orthodoxy at the ABC. I saw it first-hand as a board member when issues about bias and balance were routinely dismissed as editorial interference. Trying to dislodge the ABC’s cultural arrogance is near impossible when so many people there treat legal obligations as pesky nuisances easily swatted away.
The cultural arrogance is evident too from the fact just about every error of judgment by the ABC veers left. When was the last time the ABC went too far by indulging a pro-Israeli position? When did it last make an error of judgment by being too sceptical about global warming? The ABC staff members who indulge in this kind of cultural arrogance do so because they can.
Shorten just got shakier
Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (3:43pm)
Bill Shorten may not be as safe as we - and he - assumed:
(Thanks to readers brett t r and Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
===Rules designed to protect Bill Shorten, or any future Labor boss, from a leadership challenge have not been incorporated into the ALP’s revised national constitution. This leaves Mr Shorten, and any future leader, vulnerable to a challenge by a simple vote by MPs to change the caucus rules adopted in 2013. There is no recourse to the party’s national executive or conference, given the constitution is silent on this issue.This is bad news for the Liberals.
The party’s proposed constitution, obtained by The Australian, does not enshrine rules adopted by the Labor caucus in 2013 that require a petition signed by 60 per cent of MPs to force a leadership vote in opposition, or 75 per cent in government.
The document, prepared by the ALP national rules committee and circulated by the party’s national secretariat, includes a new section outlining how the parliamentary leader is to be elected, but not how they can be removed.
(Thanks to readers brett t r and Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
Is it because the police might be harder than the public?
Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (3:32pm)
A bit sus:
===THE Australian Federal Police have revealed the mother-in-law of terrorist Khaled Sharrouf, who is campaigning to bring home her wayward daughter and grandchildren from Syria, has never spoken to an AFP officer about securing the Sydney family’s return.(Thanks to readers Paul and Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
The revelations raise questions about the claims by Karen Nettleton, aired on the ABC last night, that she had spoken on regular occasions to the AFP about bringing home Sharrouf’s wife Tara and three grandchildren, including the young boy who was pictured posing with a severed head. The AFP confirmed that Tara Nettleton, Sharrouf’s wife, had not contacted the AFP either.
Mrs Nettleton has made further allegations that the AFP had initially told her they would help but then rescinded the offer…
AFP Assistant Commissioner Neil Gaughan ... said it would be impossible for the AFP to help anyone in Syria considering it was a war zone and there was no effective police force there with which it could it co-operate…
It is understood Mrs Nettleton has been in contact with the NSW Police. It has also been revealed that Immigration Minister Peter Dutton had written to the ABC urging them not to broadcast the claims about the Sharrouf family wanting to return for fears it may endanger their lives if Islamic State terrorists deemed them to be deserters.
Hockey wins defamation case against Fairfax
Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (3:02pm)
Joe Hockey took a big gamble but has won - although I’m not sure how much money he’ll have made after legal costs for those bits of his case that he lost:
===Treasurer Joe Hockey has won a defamation case against Fairfax Media.I would say the Sydney Morning Herald would be even more determined now to destroy this Treasurer and this Government, but how much worse could it get?
The Federal Court has been examining whether Mr Hockey’s reputation was damaged by a series of reports last year from Fairfax, including an article headlined “Treasurer for sale”.
Justice Richard White found that a poster headline and tweets reading “Treasurer for sale” were defamatory.
Mr Hockey was awarded $200,000 in damages. All other claims made by Mr Hockey were dismissed.
One of these men is a leader
Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (8:32am)
Compare leadership styles.
Tony Abbott, 27 April 2012:
===Tony Abbott, 27 April 2012:
Within a week of taking office, I would give new orders to the navy that, where it is safe to do so, under the usual chain-of-command procedures, based on the advice of commanders-on-the-spot, Indonesian flagged, Indonesian crewed and Indonesian home-ported vessels without lawful reason to be headed to Australia would be turned around and escorted back to Indonesian waters.Bill Shorten, 29 June 2015:
JOURNALIST: Will Labor adopt the Government’s boat turn back policy?(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
SHORTEN: Labor believes in a compassionate approach to refugees and a constructive approach to asylum seekers. Labor are the people who started regional resettlement to help break the people smugglers’ model. I am determined to make sure that never again do the seaways between Java and Christmas Island become the opportunity for people smugglers to put unsuspecting people into unsafe boats and drown at sea. That is our position.
JOURNALIST: Do you want a boat turn back policy as part of your policy? SHORTEN: Part of the dilemma with boat turn back policy is that the Government insists in shrouding it in secrecy. We want to see what the actual policies are and how they are actually working. Our first priority is the safety of refugees, genuine refugees but also discouraging the people smugglers, making sure that we can put them out of business. The Government has too much secrecy in the way it conducts its business.
Feral culture
Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (8:19am)
===How feminism has fallen
Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (8:06am)
Tim Blair merely quoted a string of examples of the repetitive and foul-mouthed abuse of angry feminist Clementine Ford. She takes this as evidence of Blair wanting to sleep with her.
===Will Steffen demonstrates how to hide a decline
Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (8:00am)
Nick Cater is absolutely right to wonder whether warming alarmist Will Steffen tortures all his data like this to reach his pet conclusions:
===Climate scientist Will Steffen ... was galvanised by an opinion poll published in The Canberra Times that found ACT residents were going cold on the proposal to build a tramline in the federal capital.Cater concludes:
When the ACT government surveyed taxpayers 10 months ago 55 per cent thought it was a good idea. Now, according to a Reachtel poll of 1446 territory residents, support has fallen to lest than 39 per cent while more than 46 per cent oppose it....
Steffen and co-author Barbara Norman spotted the outlier.
“Only 15.8 per cent of intending Liberal voters support light rail,” Steffen and Norman wrote in The Canberra Times last Thursday, “while for all other groups (Labor, Greens, Others and Undecided) support for light rail varied between 42 per cent and 63.5 per cent.
“That anomalously low level of support among Liberal voters immediately caught our attention and prompted us to reanalyse the poll results.”
The “strong skew” of Liberal-leaning respondents, claimed Steffen, “can easily generate a misleading impression of what the poll numbers are actually showing”. Steffen and Norman’s solution was to remove 446 Liberal voters from the result.
The result of this “reanalysis”, claim the authors, is that 51.9 per cent support light rail, 3.2 per cent oppose and 14.9 per cent are undecided…
[UPDATE: Steffen later corrected his typo on the oppose figure to 32.2 per cent] Write Steffen and Norman: “For the more than two-thirds of Canberrans who are not intending to vote for the Liberals, there is very strong support for light rail, a nearly 20 per cent lead over those who oppose it.”
This insight into Steffen’s methodology may cause us to look afresh at his startling claims about climate change and his forecasts for the end of the world as we know it.
Q&A is not sorry at all, and the ABC won’t reform
Andrew Bolt June 30 2015 (6:36am)
It is the ultimate yes-but-no - the ABC saying it made a mistake in putting to air Islamist extremist Zaky Mallah but then deploying its vast state-supplied resources to argue it actually did nothing wrong.
And get stuffed.
Last night’s Q&A showed that mealy-mouthed yes-but-no at its worst. After this performance by host Tony Jones can anyone tell what Jones actually thinks the show got wrong?
Here is the ABC’s original apology:
Indeed, all during last night’s show he made clear he believed Mallah put questions we should discuss, arguing the ABC had a duty to present “a diversity of perspectives so that over time no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded nor disproportionately represented”.
Jones and the ABC have not conceded for a second the central objection of critics: that it was a mistake simply to give Mallah a platform, and particularly a platform to attack the Government.
Jones did not acknowledge that giving a platform to Mallah, an al Qaeda sympathiser who was jailed for threatening to kill ASIO officers after assembling a small arsenal, rewarded and seemingly legitimised his crime, gave Mallah an undeserved and dangerous prominence and showed other extremists they, too, could be famous by following Mallah’s path.
None of that was addressed by Jones. In fact, he sought to dismiss or minimise this misjudgement in two astonishing ways.
First, he attacked panellist Paul Kelly, a critic of Mallah’s appearance, by drawing a false equivalence between Q&A giving Mallah a platform to attack the Government over its counter-terrorism plans and Kelly’s The Australian once interviewing Mallah as a repentant jihadist. Jones could not see the critical difference between promoting an Islamist’s defiance and publicising his repentance.
Jones second attempt to minimise its misjudgement came when he did identify one - and the only - specific error he believes Q&A made in inviting Mallah:
No apology for inviting Mallah on the basis of the criminal past. No apology for presenting this extremist as a man with a reasonable point. No apology for anything Mallah said. No apology for having over time cultivated the kind of audience that applauded Mallah.
And, of course, no apology for the flagrant and unlawful bias of the ABC. We see it manifest again, with Australia’s biggest media organisation - paid by taxpayers and obliged, as Jones said, to present “a diversity of perspectives” - campaigning now against critics of its appalling behaviour. Count the ABC staff running to the aid of Jones and managing director Mark Scott - Annabel Crabb, chief courtier Jonathan Green, Emma Alberici. Fran Kelly, Barrie Cassidy, Alison Carabine, Rafael Epstein and more.
This groupthink reaction actually demonstrates the key problem with the ABC that produced this terrible Mallah misjudgement - an cultural antagonism to conservatives, an often reflexive sympathy with enemies of the West and above all a tribal hostility to ABC critics.
Again, take last night - Jones letting the defenders of the ABC and/or Mallah on the panel (Dr Anne Aly, Lawrence Kraus and Tanya Plibersek) speak virtually without interruption and at great length, yet constantly heckling the ABC’s two critics (Tim Wilson and Paul Kelly). Plus a wildly unrepresentative audience applauding the defenders and horselaughing the critics.
Or take the partisan sneering of ABC presenter Jonathan Green on Twitter:
UPDATE
No, not sorry at all. Paul Barry on Media Watch was just one long apologia, with almost all the criticism leveled at the ABC’s critics.
===And get stuffed.
Last night’s Q&A showed that mealy-mouthed yes-but-no at its worst. After this performance by host Tony Jones can anyone tell what Jones actually thinks the show got wrong?
Here is the ABC’s original apology:
In attempting to explore important issues about the rights of citizens and the role of the Government in fighting terrorism, the Q&A program made an error in judgement in allowing Zaky Mallah to join the audience and ask a question.Jones last night repeated this ambiguous admission:
The ABC itself has acknowledged that an error was made in having Mr Zaky Mallah live in the studio.But why? Was it because Mallah then said something on Q&A he shouldn’t have? Jones did not say. In fact, last night he did not identify a single comment from Mallah as one he should not have put to air.
Indeed, all during last night’s show he made clear he believed Mallah put questions we should discuss, arguing the ABC had a duty to present “a diversity of perspectives so that over time no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded nor disproportionately represented”.
Jones and the ABC have not conceded for a second the central objection of critics: that it was a mistake simply to give Mallah a platform, and particularly a platform to attack the Government.
Jones did not acknowledge that giving a platform to Mallah, an al Qaeda sympathiser who was jailed for threatening to kill ASIO officers after assembling a small arsenal, rewarded and seemingly legitimised his crime, gave Mallah an undeserved and dangerous prominence and showed other extremists they, too, could be famous by following Mallah’s path.
None of that was addressed by Jones. In fact, he sought to dismiss or minimise this misjudgement in two astonishing ways.
First, he attacked panellist Paul Kelly, a critic of Mallah’s appearance, by drawing a false equivalence between Q&A giving Mallah a platform to attack the Government over its counter-terrorism plans and Kelly’s The Australian once interviewing Mallah as a repentant jihadist. Jones could not see the critical difference between promoting an Islamist’s defiance and publicising his repentance.
Jones second attempt to minimise its misjudgement came when he did identify one - and the only - specific error he believes Q&A made in inviting Mallah:
The Q&A team were not aware at the time Zaky Mallah appeared of the very offensive and misogynistic tweet that he put out about two female journalists.Had we known, we would have rejected his participation.Pardon? An astonished Paul Kelly immediately nailed the twisted standards:
We’re told that would have ruled him out of the program, but the fact that he had been prosecuted with terrorism, the fact that he had admitted that he threatened Australian officials and wanted to kill them, the fact that he’d served time, that he had a weapons arsenal, that he was conducting a campaign to publicise jihad nonetheless, that’s OK… Well, it’s not OK.But it is OK for the ABC, of course, which now seems utterly unrepentant, after all.
No apology for inviting Mallah on the basis of the criminal past. No apology for presenting this extremist as a man with a reasonable point. No apology for anything Mallah said. No apology for having over time cultivated the kind of audience that applauded Mallah.
And, of course, no apology for the flagrant and unlawful bias of the ABC. We see it manifest again, with Australia’s biggest media organisation - paid by taxpayers and obliged, as Jones said, to present “a diversity of perspectives” - campaigning now against critics of its appalling behaviour. Count the ABC staff running to the aid of Jones and managing director Mark Scott - Annabel Crabb, chief courtier Jonathan Green, Emma Alberici. Fran Kelly, Barrie Cassidy, Alison Carabine, Rafael Epstein and more.
This groupthink reaction actually demonstrates the key problem with the ABC that produced this terrible Mallah misjudgement - an cultural antagonism to conservatives, an often reflexive sympathy with enemies of the West and above all a tribal hostility to ABC critics.
Again, take last night - Jones letting the defenders of the ABC and/or Mallah on the panel (Dr Anne Aly, Lawrence Kraus and Tanya Plibersek) speak virtually without interruption and at great length, yet constantly heckling the ABC’s two critics (Tim Wilson and Paul Kelly). Plus a wildly unrepresentative audience applauding the defenders and horselaughing the critics.
Or take the partisan sneering of ABC presenter Jonathan Green on Twitter:
Breaking: Charismatic, thoughtful conservative booked for Q&A. (Green’s tweet includes a photo of an empty chair.)As for Aly, please tell me why she keeps getting a gig on Q&A and why the government pays her salary:
Dr Anne Aly, an expert in extremism at Curtin University in Western Australia, said she had spoken to Mr Mallah about working with her organisation “People against Violent Extremism”.And while this scandal goes on and on, where is the board which we pay to make the ABC live by its charter? It still hasn’t met and board members still won’t say a word:
“Yes he’s said some shitty stuff but he’s also said some good stuff as well. And the shitty stuff he says, it’s because he’s not groomed, he’s not media savvy, and he’s not politically savvy.
The Australian believes the board will meet in person this week. ABC board members referred inquiries to the corporate department, which did not comment.The Abbott Government is now presented with the truth: the ABC is not apologetic and will not fix its unlawful bias. So what to do about it?
UPDATE
No, not sorry at all. Paul Barry on Media Watch was just one long apologia, with almost all the criticism leveled at the ABC’s critics.
... attack mode ... a barrage of condemnation from all the usual suspects ... led by the shockjocks at Sydney’s Radio 2GB ... all lined up for a kicking ... similar broadside came from the ABC’s tireless critics at News Corp ... all screamed in unison that the ABC were terrorists or on the terrorists’ side ... Murdoch’s army of columnists and editorial writers by and large then fell in behind to complete the attack ... hue and cry ... a lynch mob ... baying for blood again ... the pack ... appallingly tasteless cartoon… deaf ears ... critics at News Corp certainly won’t let that happen ... another barrage ... ABC’s battle with its critics ...For the ABC, Barry had only the mildest of criticism, also of that yes-but-no kind:
It was that Mallah had been allowed to come on live—rather than record his question—so ... what he said or perhaps did could not be controlled. And given his background we agree that was a mistake. But we also believe that in a program about terror it was reasonable to have him on.In fact, Barry says not even Mallah’s vile tweets recommending two prominent female columnists be “gang banged on Sunrise” should have ruled him out:
And in January this year he tweeted that two News Corp columnists were quote whores who needed to be gangbanged.
Which some defenders of the ABC believe should have ruled him out… Had Q&A been holding a debate about rape we would agree with that view. But it was not. It was about terror and stripping people like Mallah of their citizenship.
Shooting Herons...I was privileged to join up with local wildlife photographer Martyn Green a couple of days ago. Had...
Posted by Matt Granz on Monday, 29 June 2015
Romantic Horoscope --->...
Posted by Astro Ulagam on Friday, 27 March 2015
Tanya Plibersek says religion is a great way to tell stories. It's a luxury to contemplate your life #QandA
Posted by Q&A on Monday, 29 June 2015
"Tanya Pilbersek, Deputy Leader of the Federal Labor Party - "I don't think there is a heaven or hell", "I don't think there is life after death" and the best one yet "Religion is a really good way to tell stories" hahahaha oh my God I just remembered the picture of her visiting the Assyrian Church of the East with Chris Bowen (another atheist) they must hate that they have to pretend to respect Christians." ZT
===
ALL MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS AND SAINTS I want you to judge this picture in two ways. This seems to be a very depressed?...
Posted by Alecia Letmeencourageyou Hudson on Monday, 29 June 2015
===
The PillarI seriously might have more share worthy images from my one day at White Sands NM than from my three weeks of storm chasing. The place is amazing.
Posted by Matt Granz on Monday, 29 June 2015
Posted by Zig Ziglar on Friday, 15 May 2015
A man saw a woman sleeping in the dirt outside his house...so he built her a place to live!www.artFido.com/popular-art
Posted by artFido - fetching art on Friday, 15 May 2015
When was the last time you got into a heated debate over the incorrect use of words?
Posted by Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing on Monday, 29 June 2015
Posted by Zig Ziglar on Friday, 5 June 2015
===
CANS OF TIME
Tim Blair – Monday, June 30, 2014 (2:50pm)
Last week’s request for culturally significant kitchen artefacts delivered a bounty of old-timey consumables, beginning with Gordon F.’s September 2013 memorial:
“Here’s my culturally significant artefact from last year’s election,” writes Gordon. “It’s slowly mummifying in my fruit bowl. Funny thing, I’m quite sure the real Kevin O’Lemon is looking younger and younger.”
“Here’s my culturally significant artefact from last year’s election,” writes Gordon. “It’s slowly mummifying in my fruit bowl. Funny thing, I’m quite sure the real Kevin O’Lemon is looking younger and younger.”
Continue reading 'CANS OF TIME'
THE MYTHERS
Tim Blair – Monday, June 30, 2014 (2:40pm)
Full marks for insight to Julia Gillard. According to a new book, the ex-PM had this to say on the morning after she was dumped by Labor for her rival Kevin Rudd: “This has been contentless, it’s been all about ego and personalities.”
The Australian public had come to that conclusion some months previously, but it’s nice that Gillard eventually caught up.
Continue reading 'THE MYTHERS'
FOUNTAIN OF TRIUMPH
Tim Blair – Monday, June 30, 2014 (2:23pm)
I was raised in Victoria, so will always claim that AFL is a superior code to rugby league. Yet even I now concede that when it comes to scandals, the NRL has the AFL beat.
Continue reading 'FOUNTAIN OF TRIUMPH'
NOBODY WINS
Tim Blair – Monday, June 30, 2014 (1:49pm)
A superb letter to the SMH:
Like many of your respondents in Friday’s letters section, I read Elizabeth Farrelly’s article, ‘’In Tim-speak, we women should shut up’’, but with a slightly different take.While I understand the need to call out sexism, especially when it’s personal, I could not really understand why a sophisticated and cultivated writer would bother crossing swords with an intellectual nobody like Tim Blair. Surely, like a toddler’s tantrum, the rantings of the likes of Mr Blair are best ignored.
Yet Elizabeth cannot resist. Like a truck blocking a bicycle lane, there is no ignoring the intellectual nobody.
JUSTIFY THIS
Tim Blair – Monday, June 30, 2014 (1:09pm)
Last week it was announced that an Islamic extremist would deliver this speech at the Sydney Opera House: “Honour killings are morally justified.” The speech was subsequently cancelled, which must really annoy everybody involved, because now they’ve missed a perfect news angle:
A young couple murdered in Pakistan barely a week after they had married for love were killed as a warning to other girls not to marry without the permission of their parents, according to witnesses.Residents of Satrah, Punjab, said relatives of the bride slit their throats and forced children to watch as they bled to death.
Too bad. This would have been a lovely discussion point for culturally-sensitive Opera House attendees.
(Via Brat)
The throatcutters of the Socialist Alternative
Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (4:50pm)
The Socialist Alternative is a Marxist group claiming to represent more moral people.
In fact, as I’ve noted many times, it is a natural home of the thug and the vicious. Socialist Alternative members have this year physically attacked Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, physically intimidated and shouted down former Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella as she gave a university lecture, vilified a daughter of the Prime Minister and shut down debate on the ABC’s Q&A.
Now this:
Realise these are barbarians.
And one final thought: remember how the Left used to complain, on the basis of a Ditch the Witch sign, that no prime minister had ever been abused as badly as Julia Gillard?
(Thanks to many readers.)
===In fact, as I’ve noted many times, it is a natural home of the thug and the vicious. Socialist Alternative members have this year physically attacked Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, physically intimidated and shouted down former Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella as she gave a university lecture, vilified a daughter of the Prime Minister and shut down debate on the ABC’s Q&A.
Now this:
Note well the savagery of these totalitarians. Imagine a society in which they were allowed real power.
Realise these are barbarians.
And one final thought: remember how the Left used to complain, on the basis of a Ditch the Witch sign, that no prime minister had ever been abused as badly as Julia Gillard?
(Thanks to many readers.)
Newman Government now behind in polls
Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (5:43am)
Sloppy politics, indiscipline and high-handedness has made it much harder for the Queensland Newman Government to sell the necessarily harsh medicine - and a dangerous populist is cleaning up:
===Two years after scoring the biggest election win in Australian history, the latest Newspoll shows the LNP is trailing Labor by 49 per cent to 51 per centafter preferences, a swing of almost 14 percentage points since the victory.Michael McKenna:
Primary support has plummeted from the 49.7 per cent support it received at the March 2012 election to just 32 per cent — including an 8 per cent fall since the previous Newspoll in March.
But the latest voters to abandon the Newman government are not turning to Labor — the state opposition’s primary support has declined by 2 per cent to 34 per cent in the past three months. Instead, support for independents and, to a lesser extent, Clive Palmer’s Palmer United Party, has jumped from 15 per cent in March to 24 per cent, with the Greens remaining static on 8 per cent.
This is a government that has a good story but seems unable to tell it. The economy is turning around, with growth forecast to double next year and a surplus on the horizon. The health and education sectors are free of the scandals that plagued them under Labor.
But the pugnacious Premier has turned off many voters with his “with me or against me’’ tone. In February, Newman privately conceded his government had “scared people’’ with its public service cuts and last year’s crackdown on bikies… There was [lately] the brawl with doctors over contracts, with lawyers over bikies and worrying changes to the Crime and Misconduct Commission and political donation laws and, finally, with the judiciary over the new chief justice.
Al Gore and Clive Palmer’s nice little earner
Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (5:24am)
AL Gore, the world’s most famous global warming guru, last week used Australia to trash what’s left of his reputation.
The Nobel prize-winning alarmist didn’t just tell his disciples here more astonishing falsehoods about the climate of the kind that’s good for his business. (See here for his latest whoppers.)
Gore also meddled in our climate politics to the undisclosed benefit of his business partners, and against the interests of Australians.
And in return for a favour, he falsely praised coal baron Clive Palmer as a planet-saver, when Palmer was in fact destroying our biggest schemes to tackle global warming.
This fraud started on Wednesday, when Palmer presented Gore at a press conference called to announce whether he’d help the Abbott Government axe the carbon tax.
The warmist journalists there, notably from Fairfax newspapers and the ABC, were completely fooled by the surprise appearance of their warmist god.
(Read full article here.)
===The Nobel prize-winning alarmist didn’t just tell his disciples here more astonishing falsehoods about the climate of the kind that’s good for his business. (See here for his latest whoppers.)
Gore also meddled in our climate politics to the undisclosed benefit of his business partners, and against the interests of Australians.
And in return for a favour, he falsely praised coal baron Clive Palmer as a planet-saver, when Palmer was in fact destroying our biggest schemes to tackle global warming.
This fraud started on Wednesday, when Palmer presented Gore at a press conference called to announce whether he’d help the Abbott Government axe the carbon tax.
The warmist journalists there, notably from Fairfax newspapers and the ABC, were completely fooled by the surprise appearance of their warmist god.
(Read full article here.)
What Gore got wrong. Again
Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (5:20am)
FORMER US vice-president Al Gore got rich by predicting global warming doom — but also got reckless.
His film, An Inconvenient Truth, was found by a British judge to have nine significant errors, and Gore may have become even more unreliable.
Here are just some of the astonishingly false claims Gore made in a lecture last week to Climate Reality Project presenters in Melbourne.
(Read full article here.)
===His film, An Inconvenient Truth, was found by a British judge to have nine significant errors, and Gore may have become even more unreliable.
Here are just some of the astonishingly false claims Gore made in a lecture last week to Climate Reality Project presenters in Melbourne.
(Read full article here.)
Just another day on the globe we’re told is warming to hell
Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (5:05am)
Jo Nova:
===Nils-Axel Mörner has a new paper out (his 589th). For 60 years he has been tracking the coastlines close to him, and carefully isolated the exact part which appears to be the most stable. From that he shows that the real sea-level rise in Northern Europe is less than 1 millimeter a year since 1890. This is less that the 1.6mm trend in 182 NOAA tide gauges, and far below the estimates of the IPCC reports.There is also no sign of acceleration in sea-levels for the last 50 years…Meanwhile, there’s record sea ice around Antarctica:
If anything, Nils work shows how difficult it is to measure true sea-level rise on land that shifts.
The new record anomaly for Southern Hemisphere sea ice, the ice encircling the southernmost continent, is 2.074 million square kilometers and was posted for the first time by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s The Cryosphere Today early Sunday morning.(Thanks to reader Rocky.)
New Labor speaks
Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (5:00am)
Christian Kerr on the Labor Senator the Leftist media adopted as the heroine in her battle against fellow Labor Senator Joe Bullock, a conservative:
===DESPITE all the attention she grabbed in the special Senate election back in April, Labor’s Louise Pratt was virtually ignored when she gave her valedictory speech last week. So let the record show: Pratt thanked the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, the Maritime Union of Australia, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, the Community and Public Sector Union, the Electrical Trades Union, the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union, Emily’s List and other party groups. About the only mob she missed were the voters.
ABC standards up in smoke
Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (5:00am)
The ABC sets the standard once again:
===THE ABC appears to have shrugged its shoulders over an internet video in which its high-profile star Wil Anderson appears to smoke marijuana.Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:
A spokesman from the ABC said there was “no comment” yesterday relating to the video of Anderson apparently using pipes and a bong to smoke marijuana, during an interview on the online US show Getting Doug With High.
AB, just as well Anderson’s a pot-smoking ABC presenter rather than a cigar-smoking conservative politician. ABC News Breakfast might think the matter at least worthy of a Facebook post otherwise.
Can Palmer honor his promise to Gore?
Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (4:33am)
Clive Palmer gave Al Gore a reward for blessing his destruction of the carbon tax - a promise to defend the Renewable Energy Target that forces us to use expensive wind and solar power.
As I explained yesterday, Gore’s investment business involved with super funds that are heavy investors in exactly those sorts of projects:
===As I explained yesterday, Gore’s investment business involved with super funds that are heavy investors in exactly those sorts of projects:
But Jacqui Lambie may rebel against her string-pulling leader:
TONY Abbott and his cabinet face new pressure on climate policy, with 25 Coalition MPs urging a reduction in the Renewable Energy Target and a key Palmer United Party senator-elect breaking ranks to call for Tasmania to be exempt from the scheme.The Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party’s Ricky Muir - and his assertive new staffer - could rebel against Palmer, too:
The 25 Coalition MPs, comprising about half the government backbench in the lower house, have written to Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane calling for the RET to be dramatically scaled back to enable a full exemption for the aluminium industry…
Tasmanian PUP senator-elect Jacqui Lambie broke ranks with her leader to call for changes to the RET… Ms Lambie ... warned she would seek exemptions from the RET for businesses in her home state of Tasmania, underlining the potential for the balance-of-power party to split.
While Ms Lambie insisted her PUP colleagues understood her position, Mr Palmer yesterday reaffirmed the party’s commitment to the existing target to source 20 per cent of the nation’s energy needs from renewable sources such as wind and solar power by 2020.
In a challenge to the agenda set out by Clive Palmer, the AMEP senator-elect is refusing to signal his position on any issue ahead of debate on the floor of the Senate.Back in March, Palmer was actually against the RET:
Mr Muir and his adviser, Glenn Druery, held their first detailed talks with the government late last week and appear likely to meet the Prime Minister in Canberra in the coming days… While the AMEP has declared its solidarity with the Palmer United Party, this does not force Mr Muir to vote with Mr Palmer’s group on key issues, including climate change and spending cuts.
CLIVE Palmer has been pounced on for contradicting his lead candidate for the West Australian Senate election over renewable energy targets.What a blight on the landscape:
Palmer United Party’s Dio Wang said on Tuesday that the existing Renewable Energy Target ... was the right scheme for maintaining and improving the nation’s environment, and should stay as it is… Mr Palmer said he believed the target should be voluntary. “We don’t agree with people being compelled to do anything,” he told reporters.
Clive Palmer’s decision to protect the Renewable Energy Target – leaving it as the government’s default climate change policy – is expected to lead to the equivalent of 40 new wind farms around Australia...And what a waste:
With the carbon tax set to be repealed, all that remains of the greenies’ grand design is the RET; but preliminary modelling for the RET review estimates that over the period to 2040, the RET increases electricity costs by $12.8bn. Since the abatement it causes could be purchased internationally for some $2bn, over 80 per cent of that $12.8bn is pure waste.(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
From India? Then no
Andrew Bolt June 30 2014 (4:26am)
We should be be accepting alleged refugees from a democracy such as India:
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
===Sri Lankan high commissioner Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe pledged his government’s continued support for the border protection policies of “close friend” Australia, including the swift return of boatpeople, amid claims that 153 Tamils were being held aboard an Australian vessel close to Christmas Island after a two-week journey from India.But be sure there will be a concerted effort from some in the media to use this as a battering ram to smash open our doors again.
There were reports yesterday that two asylum-seeker boats had been intercepted by border protection authorities — including the one from India, which refugee advocates said had encountered mechanical problems, and a second from Indonesia with about 50 passengers… Sri Lankan human rights lawyer and refugee advocate Lakshan Dias said in the past 12 months Australia had deported numerous formerly India-based Sri Lankan Tamil asylum-seekers to Sri Lanka.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)
===
===
===
===
===
===
===
===
===
===
===
===
===
===
Dr John Mendoza, the former Chief Executive of the Mental Health Council and of the Australian Sports Drug Agency, told Adelaide radio that in his opinion Kevin Rudd was a sociopath. Heavy language, not repeated in other media although they reported some of his diagnosis.John Mendoza, who resigned as Rudd’s mental health adviser, says the former PM is “not fit for office” and he will “leave the country” if Rudd returns to The Lodge. “There was constantly work being done on ridiculous timetables,” he says. “There’s a litany of discarded policy and wasted effort during the Rudd years. The public was never told the truth.”
Mendoza told ABC radio yesterday he quit from the Mental Health Council because Mr Rudd’s leadership was dysfunctional, erratic and chaotic.
Kevin Rudd’s one-time senior adviser on mental health says the former prime minister was removed from the top job for his “own wellbeing”.
“The Australian public is now starting to understand that he (Mr Rudd) wasn’t knifed in the back, in fact he was removed for his own wellbeing and the Government of the country had to function,” Professor Mendoza said.
Extraordinary stuff. And it might just explain a lot.
===
I'm not asking for help. I'm just venting. Thursday I realized I was having a gout attack. Usually, I just keep to bed for a day and it goes. But I've now been bed ridden for two days and it looks like hanging around. It is my left knee, which is unusual. I know how to navigate around my right one. But I sat in a chair at 2:30 am and couldn't get out of it until 9:30. Then I am assaulted on the net by a former student who wants to be helpful but who isn't. I know far more about this than he does. And a former friend starts making really bizarre attacks .. It is lucky I don't own a gun. The pain is so intense! I'd do something I would regret .. But one thing I don't regret is embracing God. Prayer support would be good.
===
- 1651 – Khmelnytsky Uprising: Ukrainian Cossacks and theirCrimean Tatar allies were annihilated by a Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth army in the Battle of Berestechko, probably the largest land battle in the17th century.
- 1860 – Seven months after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, several prominent British scientists and philosophers participated in an evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum in Oxford, England.
- 1934 – Adolf Hitler violently purged members of the Sturmabteilung, its leader Ernst Röhm (pictured), and other political rivals in the Night of the Long Knives, executing at least 85 people.
- 1974 – Municipal workers in Baltimore, Maryland, went on strikeseeking higher wages and better conditions.
- 2007 – In an attempted terrorist attack, a car loaded with propanecanisters was driven into the terminal of Scotland's Glasgow International Airport and set ablaze.
- 350 – Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, is defeated and killed in Rome by troops of the usurper Magnentius.
- 763 – The Byzantine army of emperor Constantine V defeats the Bulgarian forces in the Battle of Anchialus.
- 1422 – Battle of Arbedo between the duke of Milan and the Swiss cantons.
- 1520 – Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés fight their way out of Tenochtitlan.
- 1521 – Spanish forces defeat a combined French and Navarrese army at the Battle of Noáin during the Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre.
- 1559 – King Henry II of France is mortally wounded in a jousting match against Gabriel, comte de Montgomery.
- 1651 – The Deluge: Khmelnytsky Uprising: The Battle of Berestechko ends with a Polish victory.
- 1688 – The Immortal Seven issue the Invitation to William (continuing the English rebellion from Rome), which would culminate in the Glorious Revolution.
- 1758 – Seven Years' War: The Battle of Domstadtl takes place.
- 1794 – Native American forces under Blue Jacket attack Fort Recovery.
- 1805 – The U.S. Congress organizes the Michigan Territory.
- 1859 – French acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
- 1860 – The 1860 Oxford evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History takes place.
- 1864 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation".
- 1882 – Charles J. Guiteau is hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield.
- 1886 – The first transcontinental train trip across Canada departs from Montreal. It arrives in Port Moody, British Columbia on July 4.
- 1892 – The Homestead Strike begins near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
- 1905 – Albert Einstein sends the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduces special relativity, for publication in Annalen der Physik.
- 1906 – The United States Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act.
- 1921 – U.S. President Warren G. Harding appoints former President William Howard Taft Chief Justice of the United States.
- 1922 – In Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado sign the Hughes–Peynado agreement, which ends the United States occupation of the Dominican Republic.
- 1934 – The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place.
- 1936 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia appeals for aid to the League of Nations against Italy's invasion of his country.
- 1937 – The world's first emergency telephone number, 999, is introduced in London
- 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Cherbourg ends with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces.
- 1953 – The first Chevrolet Corvette rolls off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan.
- 1956 – A TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 collide above the Grand Canyon in Arizonaand crash, killing all 128 on board both airliners.
- 1959 – A United States Air Force F-100 Super Sabre from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, crashes into a nearby elementary school, killing 11 students plus six residents from the local neighborhood.
- 1960 – Congo gains independence from Belgium.
- 1963 – Ciaculli bombing: a car bomb, intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco, kills seven police officers and military personnel near Palermo.
- 1966 – The National Organization for Women, the United States' largest feminist organization, is founded.
- 1968 – Pope Paul VI issues the Credo of the People of God.
- 1971 – The crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft are killed when their air supply escapes through a faulty valve.
- 1972 – The first leap second is added to the UTC time system.
- 1974 – The Baltimore municipal strike of 1974 begins.
- 1977 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization disbands.
- 1985 – Thirty-nine American hostages from the hijacked TWA Flight 847 are freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days.
- 1986 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Bowers v. Hardwick that states can outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults.
- 1990 – East Germany and West Germany merge their economies.
- 1997 – The United Kingdom transfers sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.
- 2013 – Nineteen firefighters die controlling a wildfire in Yarnell, Arizona.
- 2015 – A Hercules C-130 military aircraft with 113 people on board crashes in a residential area in Medan, Indonesia, resulting in at least 116 deaths.
- 156 BC – Wu of Han, seventh emperor of the Chinese Han Dynasty (d. 87 BC)
- 1286 – John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey, English magnate (d. 1347)
- 1468 – John, Elector of Saxony (d. 1532)
- 1470 – Charles VIII of France (d. 1498)
- 1478 – John, Prince of Asturias, Son of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile (d. 1497)
- 1503 – John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony (d. 1554)
- 1533 – Martín de Rada, Spanish missionary (d. 1578)
- 1588 – Giovanni Maria Sabino, Italian organist, composer, and educator (d. 1649)
- 1628 – Miguel de Molinos, Spanish mystic (d. 1696)
- 1641 – Meinhardt Schomberg, 3rd Duke of Schomberg, German-English general (d. 1719)
- 1685 – John Gay, English poet and playwright (d. 1732)
- 1688 – Abu l-Hasan Ali I, ruler of Tunisia (d. 1756)
- 1722 – Jiří Antonín Benda, Czech composer, violinist and Kapellmeister (d. 1795)
- 1755 – Paul Barras, French soldier and politician (d. 1829)
- 1789 – Horace Vernet, French painter and academic (d. 1863)
- 1791 – Félix Savart, French physicist and psychologist (d. 1841)
- 1801 – Frédéric Bastiat, French economist and theorist (d. 1850)
- 1803 – Thomas Lovell Beddoes, English poet, playwright, and physician (d. 1849)
- 1807 – Friedrich Theodor Vischer, German author, poet, and playwright (d.1887)
- 1817 – Joseph Dalton Hooker, English botanist and explorer (d. 1911)
- 1843 – Ernest Mason Satow, English orientalist and diplomat (d. 1929)
- 1864 – Frederick Bligh Bond, English architect and archaeologist (d. 1945)
- 1884 – Georges Duhamel, French author and critic (d. 1966)
- 1889 – Archibald Frazer-Nash, English motor car designer, engineer and founder of Frazer Nash (d. 1965)
- 1890 – Paul Boffa, Maltese physician and politician, 5th Prime Minister of Malta (d. 1962)
- 1891 – Man Mountain Dean, American wrestler and sergeant (d. 1953)
- 1891 – Ed Lewis, American wrestler and manager (d. 1966)
- 1891 – Stanley Spencer, English painter (d. 1959)
- 1892 – Pierre Blanchar, Algerian-French actor and director (d. 1963)
- 1893 – Walter Ulbricht, German soldier and politician (d. 1973)
- 1895 – Heinz Warneke, German-American sculptor and educator (d. 1983)
- 1899 – Madge Bellamy, American actress (d. 1990)
- 1906 – Anthony Mann, American actor and director (d. 1967)
- 1907 – Roman Shukhevych, Ukrainian general and politician (d. 1950)
- 1908 – Winston Graham, English author (d. 2003)
- 1911 – Czesław Miłosz, Polish novelist, essayist, and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2004)
- 1912 – Ludwig Bölkow, German engineer (d. 2003)
- 1912 – Dan Reeves, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1971)
- 1913 – Alfonso López Michelsen, Colombian lawyer and politician, 24th President of Colombia (d. 2007)
- 1913 – Harry Wismer, American sportscaster (d. 1967)
- 1914 – Francisco da Costa Gomes, Portuguese general and politician, 15th President of Portugal (d. 2001)
- 1914 – Allan Houser, American sculptor and painter (d. 1994)
- 1917 – Susan Hayward, American actress (d. 1975)
- 1917 – Lena Horne, American actress, singer, and activist (d. 2010)
- 1917 – Willa Kim, American costume designer (d. 2016)
- 1919 – Ed Yost, American inventor of the modern hot air balloon (d. 2007)
- 1920 – Eleanor Ross Taylor, American poet and educator (d. 2011)
- 1925 – Fred Schaus, American basketball player and coach (d. 2010)
- 1926 – Paul Berg, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1926 – David Berglas, American magician and mentalist
- 1927 – James Goldman, American screenwriter and playwright (d. 1998)
- 1930 – Thomas Sowell, American economist, philosopher, and author
- 1931 – Yo-Yo Davalillo, Venezuelan baseball player and manager (d. 2013)
- 1931 – Andrew Hill, American pianist and composer (d. 2007)
- 1933 – Tomislav Ivić, Croatian football coach and manager (d. 2011)
- 1933 – M. J. K. Smith, English cricketer and rugby player
- 1933 – Orval Tessier, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1933 – Joan Murrell Owens, American educator and marine biologist (d. 2011)
- 1934 – Harry Blackstone Jr., American magician and author (d. 1997)
- 1935 – John Harlin, American pilot and mountaineer (d. 1966)
- 1936 – Assia Djebar, Algerian-French author and translator (d. 2015)
- 1936 – Nancy Dussault, American actress and singer
- 1936 – Tony Musante, American actor and screenwriter (d. 2013)
- 1936 – Dave Van Ronk, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2002)
- 1937 – Larry Henley, American singer-songwriter (d. 2014)
- 1939 – Tony Hatch, English pianist, composer, and producer
- 1939 – Barry Hines, English author and screenwriter (d. 2016)
- 1939 – José Emilio Pacheco, Mexican poet and author (d. 2014)
- 1940 – Mark Spoelstra, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2007)
- 1941 – Peter Pollock, South African cricketer and author
- 1942 – Robert Ballard, American lieutenant and oceanographer
- 1942 – Ron Harris, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1943 – Florence Ballard , American pop/soul singer (The Supremes) (d. 1976)
- 1943 – Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Indian director and screenwriter
- 1944 – Raymond Moody, American parapsychologist and author
- 1944 – Glenn Shorrock, English-Australian singer-songwriter
- 1944 – Ron Swoboda, American baseball player and sportscaster
- 1949 – Uwe Kliemann, German footballer, coach, and manager
- 1949 – Andy Scott, Welsh singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1951 – Stanley Clarke, American bass player and composer
- 1952 – Athanassios S. Fokas, Greek mathematician and academic
- 1952 – David Garrison, American actor and singer
- 1953 – Hal Lindes, American-English guitarist and film score composer
- 1954 – Stephen Barlow, English organist, composer, and conductor
- 1954 – Pierre Charles, Dominican educator and politician, 5th Prime Minister of Dominica (d. 2004)
- 1954 – Serzh Sargsyan, Armenian politician, 3rd President of Armenia
- 1954 – Wayne Swan, Australian academic and politician, 14th Deputy Prime Minister of Australia
- 1955 – Brian Vollmer, Canadian singer
- 1956 – Volker Beck, German hurdler and coach
- 1956 – David Lidington, English historian, academic, and politician, Minister of State for Europe
- 1956 – David Alan Grier, American actor, singer, and comedian
- 1957 – Bud Black, American baseball player and manager
- 1957 – Sterling Marlin, American race car driver
- 1958 – Esa-Pekka Salonen, Finnish conductor and composer
- 1959 – Vincent D'Onofrio, American actor
- 1959 – Daniel Goldhagen, American political scientist, author, and academic
- 1959 – Brendan Perry, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
- 1959 – Sakis Tsiolis, Greek footballer and manager
- 1959 – Sandip Verma, Baroness Verma, Indian-English businesswoman and politician
- 1960 – Jack McConnell, Scottish educator and politician, 3rd First Minister of Scotland
- 1961 – Lynne Jolitz, American computer scientist and programmer
- 1961 – Clive Nolan, English musician, composer and producer
- 1962 – Tony Fernández, Dominican baseball player
- 1962 – Julianne Regan, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1963 – Olha Bryzhina, Ukrainian sprinter
- 1963 – Rupert Graves, English actor, director, and screenwriter
- 1963 – Yngwie Malmsteen, Swedish guitarist and songwriter
- 1964 – Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg
- 1964 – Mark Waters, American director and producer
- 1965 – Steve Duchesne, Canadian-American ice hockey player and coach
- 1965 – Anna Levandi, Russian figure skater and coach
- 1965 – Gary Pallister, English footballer and sportscaster
- 1965 – Mitch Richmond, American basketball player
- 1966 – Mike Tyson, American boxer and actor
- 1967 – Patrik Bodén, Swedish javelin thrower
- 1967 – David Busst, English footballer and manager
- 1967 – Victoria Kaspi, American-Canadian astrophysicist and academic
- 1968 – Phil Anselmo, American singer-songwriter and producer
- 1969 – Sanath Jayasuriya, Sri Lankan cricketer and politician
- 1969 – Uta Rohländer, German sprinter
- 1969 – Sébastien Rose, Canadian director and screenwriter
- 1970 – Brian Bloom, American actor and screenwriter
- 1970 – Antonio Chimenti, Italian footballer and manager
- 1970 – Mark Grudzielanek, American baseball player and manager
- 1971 – Monica Potter, American actress
- 1972 – Sandra Cam, Belgian swimmer
- 1973 – Ümit Davala, Turkish footballer and manager
- 1973 – Chan Ho Park, South Korean baseball player
- 1973 – Frank Rost, German footballer and manager
- 1974 – Hezekiél Sepeng, South African runner
- 1975 – James Bannatyne, New Zealand footballer
- 1975 – Ralf Schumacher, German race car driver
- 1978 – Ben Cousins, Australian footballer
- 1978 – Patrick Ivuti, Kenyan runner
- 1978 – Claudio Rivalta, Italian footballer
- 1979 – Sylvain Chavanel, French cyclist
- 1980 – Rade Prica, Swedish footballer
- 1980 – Seyi Olofinjana, Nigerian footballer
- 1980 – Ryan ten Doeschate, Dutch cricketer
- 1981 – Can Artam, Turkish race car driver
- 1981 – Matt Kirk, Canadian football player
- 1981 – Barbora Špotáková, Czech javelin thrower
- 1981 – Ben Utecht, American football player
- 1982 – Lizzy Caplan, American actress
- 1982 – Ignacio Carrasco, Mexican footballer
- 1982 – Mitch Maier, American baseball player
- 1982 – Delwyn Young, American baseball player
- 1983 – Marcus Burghardt, German cyclist
- 1984 – Fantasia Barrino, American singer-songwriter and actress
- 1985 – Trevor Ariza, American basketball player
- 1985 – Michael Phelps, American swimmer
- 1985 – Cody Rhodes, American wrestler
- 1985 – Fabiana Vallejos, Argentinian footballer
- 1986 – Alicia Fox, American wrestler, model, and actress
- 1986 – Fredy Guarín, Colombian footballer
- 1986 – Nicola Pozzi, Italian footballer
- 1986 – Allegra Versace, Italian-American businesswoman
- 1987 – Ryan Cook, American baseball player
- 1987 – Andrew Hedgman, New Zealand runner
- 1989 – Asbel Kiprop, Kenyan runner
- 1989 – Steffen Liebig, German rugby player
- 1989 – David Myers, Australian footballer
- 1994 – Rhys Jones, Welsh sprinter
- 1997 – Iryna Shymanovich, Belarusian tennis player
- 1998 – Tom Davies, English footballer
Births[edit]
- 350 – Nepotianus, Roman ruler
- 710 – Erentrude, Frankish abbess
- 888 – Æthelred, archbishop of Canterbury
- 1181 – Hugh de Kevelioc, 5th Earl of Chester, Welsh politician (b. 1147)
- 1224 – Adolf of Osnabrück, German monk and bishop (b. 1185)
- 1278 – Pierre de la Broce, French courtier
- 1337 – Eleanor de Clare, English noblewoman (b. 1290)
- 1364 – Arnošt of Pardubice, Czech archbishop (b. 1297)
- 1468 – Lady Eleanor Talbot, English noblewoman
- 1538 – Charles II, Duke of Guelders (b. 1467)
- 1522 – Johann Reuchlin, German humanist and Hebrew scholar (b. 1455)
- 1607 – Caesar Baronius, Italian cardinal and historian (b. 1538)
- 1660 – William Oughtred, English minister and mathematician (b. 1575)
- 1666 – Alexander Brome, English poet and playwright (b. 1620)
- 1670 – Henrietta of England (b. 1644)
- 1704 – John Quelch, English pirate (b. 1665)
- 1708 – Tekle Haymanot I of Ethiopia (b. 1706)
- 1709 – Edward Lhuyd, Welsh botanist, linguist, and geographer (b. 1660)
- 1785 – James Oglethorpe, English general and politician, 1st Colonial Governor of Georgia (b. 1696)
- 1796 – Abraham Yates Jr., American lawyer and politician (b. 1724)
- 1857 – Alcide d'Orbigny, French zoologist and paleontologist (b. 1802)
- 1882 – Charles J. Guiteau, American preacher and lawyer, assassin of James A. Garfield (b. 1841)
- 1882 – Alberto Henschel, German-Brazilian photographer and businessman (b. 1827)
- 1890 – Samuel Parkman Tuckerman, American organist and composer (b. 1819)
- 1913 – Alphonse Kirchhoffer, French fencer (b. 1873)
- 1916 – Eunice Eloisae Gibbs Allyn, American correspondent, author, and poet (b. 1847)
- 1917 – Antonio de La Gándara, French painter and illustrator (b. 1861)
- 1917 – Dadabhai Naoroji, Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and an early Indian political and social leader (b. 1825)
- 1919 – John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1842)
- 1932 – Bruno Kastner, German actor, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1890)
- 1934 – Karl Ernst, German soldier (b. 1904)
- 1934 – Erich Klausener, German soldier and politician (b. 1885)
- 1934 – Gustav Ritter von Kahr, German lawyer and politician, Minister-President of Bavaria (b. 1862)
- 1934 – Gregor Strasser, German lieutenant and politician (b. 1892)
- 1934 – Kurt von Schleicher, German general and politician, 23rd Chancellor of Germany (b. 1882)
- 1941 – Yefim Fomin, Belarusian politician (b. 1909)
- 1941 – Aleksander Tõnisson, Estonian general and politician, 5th Estonian Minister of War (b. 1875)
- 1948 – Prince Sabahaddin, Turkish-Swiss sociologist and academic (b. 1879)
- 1949 – Édouard Alphonse James de Rothschild, French financier and polo player (b. 1868)
- 1951 – Yrjö Saarela, Finnish wrestler and coach (b. 1884)
- 1953 – Elsa Beskow, Swedish author and illustrator (b. 1874)
- 1953 – Charles William Miller, Brazilian footballer and civil servant (b. 1874)
- 1954 – Andrass Samuelsen, Faroese politician, 1st Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands (b. 1873)
- 1956 – Thorleif Lund, Norwegian actor (b. 1880)
- 1959 – José Vasconcelos, Mexican philosopher and politician (b. 1882)
- 1961 – Lee de Forest, American inventor, invented the audion tube (b. 1873)
- 1966 – Giuseppe Farina, Italian race car driver (b. 1906)
- 1966 – Margery Allingham, English author of detective fiction (b. 1904)
- 1968 – Ernst Marcus, German zoologist (b. 1893)
- 1971 – Georgi Asparuhov, Bulgarian footballer (b. 1943)
- 1971 – Herbert Biberman, American director and screenwriter (b. 1900)
- 1971 – Georgy Dobrovolsky Ukrainian pilot and astronaut (b. 1928)
- 1971 – Nikola Kotkov, Bulgarian footballer (b. 1938)
- 1971 – Viktor Patsayev, Kazakh engineer and astronaut (b. 1933)
- 1971 – Vladislav Volkov, Russian engineer and astronaut (b. 1935)
- 1973 – Nancy Mitford, English journalist and author (b. 1904)
- 1973 – Vasyl Velychkovsky, Ukrainian-Canadian bishop and martyr (b. 1903)
- 1974 – Vannevar Bush, American engineer and academic (b. 1890)
- 1976 – Firpo Marberry, American baseball player and umpire (b. 1898)
- 1984 – Lillian Hellman, American author and playwright (b. 1905)
- 1985 – Haruo Remeliik, Palauan politician, 1st President of Palau (b. 1933)
- 1995 – Georgy Beregovoy, Ukrainian general and astronaut (b. 1921)
- 1995 – Gale Gordon, American actor and voice artist (b. 1906)
- 1996 – Lakis Petropoulos, Greek footballer and manager (b. 1932)
- 2001 – Chet Atkins, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (b. 1924)
- 2001 – Joe Henderson, American saxophonist and composer (b. 1937)
- 2002 – Chico Xavier, Brazilian medium and author (b. 1910)
- 2003 – Buddy Hackett, American actor and comedian (b. 1924)
- 2003 – Robert McCloskey, American author and illustrator (b. 1915)
- 2007 – Sahib Singh Verma, Indian librarian and politician, 4th Chief Minister of Delhi (b. 1943)
- 2009 – Pina Bausch, German dancer, choreographer, and director (b. 1940)
- 2009 – Harve Presnell, American actor and singer (b. 1933)
- 2012 – Michael Abney-Hastings, 14th Earl of Loudoun, English-Australian politician (b. 1942)
- 2012 – Yitzhak Shamir, Israeli politician, 7th Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1915)
- 2012 – Michael J. Ybarra, American journalist and author (b. 1966)
- 2013 – Alan Campbell, Baron Campbell of Alloway, English lawyer and judge (b. 1917)
- 2013 – Akpor Pius Ewherido, Nigerian politician (b. 1963)
- 2013 – Kathryn Morrison, American educator and politician (b. 1942)
- 2013 – Thompson Oliha, Nigerian footballer (b. 1968)
- 2013 – Keith Seaman, Australian politician, 29th Governor of South Australia (b. 1920)
- 2014 – Frank Cashen, American businessman (b. 1925)
- 2014 – Paul Mazursky, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1930)
- 2014 – Željko Šturanović, Montenegrin lawyer and politician, 31st Prime Minister of Montenegro (b. 1960)
- 2015 – Charles W. Bagnal, American general (b. 1934)
- 2015 – Robert Dewar, English-American computer scientist and academic (b. 1945)
- 2015 – Arthur Porter, Canadian physician and academic (b. 1956)
- 2015 – Leonard Starr, American author and illustrator (b. 1925)
Deaths[edit]
- Christian feast day:
- Armed Forces Day (Guatemala)
- Asteroid Day (International observance)
- General Prayer Day (Central African Republic)
- Independence Day (Democratic Republic of the Congo), celebrates the independence of Democratic Republic of the Congo from Belgium in 1960.
- Navy Day (Israel)
- Philippine–Spanish Friendship Day (Philippines)
- Revolution Day (Sudan)
- Teachers' Day (Dominican Republic)
Holidays and observances[edit]
“The LORD will vindicate me; your love, LORD, endures forever— do not abandon the works of your hands.” Psalm 138:8 NIV
===
Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon
Morning
Let us not imagine that the soul sleeps in insensibility. "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise," is the whisper of Christ to every dying saint. They "sleep in Jesus," but their souls are before the throne of God, praising him day and night in his temple, singing hallelujahs to him who washed them from their sins in his blood. The body sleeps in its lonely bed of earth, beneath the coverlet of grass. But what is this sleep? The idea connected with sleep is "rest," and that is the thought which the Spirit of God would convey to us. Sleep makes each night a Sabbath for the day. Sleep shuts fast the door of the soul, and bids all intruders tarry for a while, that the life within may enter its summer garden of ease. The toil-worn believer quietly sleeps, as does the weary child when it slumbers on its mother's breast. Oh! happy they who die in the Lord; they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them. Their quiet repose shall never be broken until God shall rouse them to give them their full reward. Guarded by angel watchers, curtained by eternal mysteries, they sleep on, the inheritors of glory, till the fulness of time shall bring the fulness of redemption. What an awaking shall be theirs! They were laid in their last resting place, weary and worn, but such they shall not rise. They went to their rest with the furrowed brow, and the wasted features, but they wake up in beauty and glory. The shrivelled seed, so destitute of form and comeliness, rises from the dust a beauteous flower. The winter of the grave gives way to the spring of redemption and the summer of glory. Blessed is death, since it, through the divine power, disrobes us of this work-day garment, to clothe us with the wedding garment of incorruption. Blessed are those who "sleep in Jesus."
Evening
"Howbeit, in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart."
2 Chronicles 32:31
2 Chronicles 32:31
Hezekiah was growing so inwardly great, and priding himself so much upon the favour of God, that self-righteousness crept in, and through his carnal security, the grace of God was for a time, in its more active operations, withdrawn. Here is quite enough to account with the Babylonians; for if the grace of God should leave the best Christian, there is enough of sin in his heart to make him the worst of transgressors. If left to yourselves, you who are warmest for Christ would cool down like Laodicea into sickening lukewarmness: you who are sound in the faith would be white with the leprosy of false doctrine; you who now walk before the Lord in excellency and integrity would reel to and fro, and stagger with a drunkenness of evil passion. Like the moon, we borrow our light; bright as we are when grace shines on us, we are darkness itself when the Sun of Righteousness withdraws himself. Therefore let us cry to God never to leave us. "Lord, take not thy Holy Spirit from us! Withdraw not from us thine indwelling grace! Hast thou not said, I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day'? Lord, keep us everywhere. Keep us when in the valley, that we murmur not against thy humbling hand; keep us when on the mountain, that we wax not giddy through being lifted up; keep us in youth, when our passions are strong; keep us in old age, when becoming conceited of our wisdom, we may therefore prove greater fools than the young and giddy; keep us when we come to die, lest, at the very last, we should deny thee! Keep us living, keep us dying, keep us labouring, keep us suffering, keep us fighting, keep us resting, keep us everywhere, for everywhere we need thee, O our God!"
===
Ahilud
[Ahī'lud] - a brother of one born.
[Ahī'lud] - a brother of one born.
- The father of Jehoshaphat, the recorder under David and Solomon (2 Sam. 8:16; 20:24; 1 Kings 4:3; 1 Chron. 18:15).
- Father of Baana, one of Solomon's twelve purveyors (1 Kings 4:12).
===
Today's reading: Job 14-16, Acts 9:22-43 (NIV)
View today's reading on Bible GatewayToday's Old Testament reading: Job 14-16
1 "Mortals, born of woman,are of few days and full of trouble.
2 They spring up like flowers and wither away;
like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.
3 Do you fix your eye on them?
Will you bring them before you for judgment?
4 Who can bring what is pure from the impure?
No one!
5 A person's days are determined;
you have decreed the number of his months
and have set limits he cannot exceed.
6 So look away from him and let him alone,
till he has put in his time like a hired laborer.
Today's New Testament reading: Acts 9:22-43
22 Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah.
23 After many days had gone by, there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him, 24 but Saul learned of their plan. Day and night they kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him. 25 But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall....
===
