In defence of the faithful for the new year. Not just one religion, the faithful come from Western religions and Eastern philosophy. But as Herodotus observed in his inquiry into the world of the fifth century BC, The Histories, faithful people tend to be good people everywhere. He distanced his comment from zealots. He travelled the world and wrote about what he saw. We know he lied about things too. But his simple observation regarding the faithful has as much truth today as it did then. The faithful would offer Herodotus food, drink and advice. He sought local knowledge, and when he came to a new town or village, it was the faithful he could rely on. Those who cared little for faith also cared little for strangers who were poor. The same might be said today, but for the confusion of the description faithful being applied to zealots and jihadists who, rather than following a God, seem to make up self serving rules. Some will be quick to denounce all Islam as jihadist, but they arent. And not all so called Christians know Christ. Some Christian parents are enduring the pain of their child suiciding over the issue of gender conformity. The press are quick to blame the parents. Maybe the parents are responsible for the dysfunction, but the extreme response of suicide suggests more is at play. Possibly the child had unrealistic expectations of what gender reassignment would mean. No one gets all they want all the time in life. But, while it is the case that aid organisations have a secular outreach, they are often funded by the faithful. The New Year is a change of number, but also a time for reflection and evaluation. You arent a greater person for having faith, or a lesser person for being Atheist. But you are responsible for your choices and behaviour. And you have been too. The Indian Philosopher Deepak Chopra said regardless of where you are, you are there because of choices you made. Happy New Year. 2013 I was about 15 years old when my father said I could achieve a more balanced political view if I were to watch what the politicians and parties said, and looked to see if they kept their promises. I had said to him that I thought Greiner was a Wide Mouthed Frog which he had been labelled by papers in 83. I was a lefty as my mother wanted me to be. about 31 years later .. here is what I have seen. On budgets, ALP have never balanced a budget. They had a surplus a few times, long ago, but they have spent big on things that are useless, and have promised to spend bigger when they were desperate. Unsworth promised a birthday cake for Darlinghurst if he were elected over Greiner. On corruption, ALP have had all the running. There were a few Liberal ministers who shipped on military vessels some colour tv sets for themselves and lost their positions under Fraser, but compare that with involvement in drug trade, pedophilia, theft, extortion, murder, organised crime and a press that wont investigate when the ALP are involved, and the ALP win the category. On increased wages for fair work, ALP have cut pay on average, while the Libs have increased pay on average, about 2% each way, so that voting conservative has meant a 4% wage boost each year. On work conditions, ALP tend to kill workers, soldiers, casual employees, railway fatalities. Natural disasters tend to be badly managed under ALP, or inflamed. cf floods, fires, cyclones. On police, ALP promise more police on the streets, but they blow their budgets and so there are fewer where they are needed. The producers have worked hard to obscure it, but note the lack of will in police when the ALP are in government as seen in Underbelly productions, or the will that police have to support individuals under conservatives. Teachers and schools are promised much by the ALP, but it is always resulting in them being taken for granted. Large classrooms are not the problem, but dysfunctional schools are. ALP spend big on education, but rarely is it well directed. Meanwhile conservatives have worked to keep the systems from falling apart. Australian schools arent bad, when the office ladies arent too busy making gender neutral pupil records. Blowing billions on bad computers or school halls that are overpriced is not a kept promise to anyone. Health is a boom industry with an ageing population and improved but expensive care, and medicare would not work had Howard not made important decisions in everyones interest, or had Greiner not saved the state from falling into the black holes ALP led the others to in the late 80s. Roads, railways infrastructure, NBN, the promises the ALP make are broad, but fail. NBN is not as effective as wireless. It is very expensive. Roads under ALP are poor .. compare the sound of travelling NSW roads and their bumps with Victorian ones .. the big difference is NSW usually has an ALP government while Victoria is usually Liberal. The last time NSW and Australian governments were Liberal the Opera House and Snowy Mountain scheme were completed. Last time NSW and Australian governments were both ALP and both disavowed responsibility for education, hospitals etc etc. Environment and dams are built by conservative governments and Australia is a wet continent in the north, and dry in the south. With a significant body of fresh water in central Australia summer heat waves emanating from a heated central Australia would not happen. The population could increase safely. ALP build desalination plants. Migration under conservatives is high, as it should be, and far safer Welfare is better directed under Liberals to poor people. ALP point to what they call middle class welfare but the figures show the ALP spend more .. on more people. Aboriginal welfare under Howard was effective with the intervention. But the white activists benefit under ALP. Happy New Year, folks. And Australians should be pleased with their shiny new federal government Historical perspectives on this day In 406, Vandals, Alans and Suebians crossed the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gaul. 535, Byzantine general Belisarius completed the conquest of Sicily, defeating the Gothic garrison of Palermo (Panormos), and ending his consulship for the year. 1225, the Lý dynasty of Vietnam ended after 216 years by the enthronement of the boy emperor Trần Thái Tông, husband of the last Lý monarch, Lý Chiêu Hoàng, starting the Trần dynasty. 1229, James I of Aragon the Conqueror entered Medina Mayurqa (now known as Palma, Spain) thus consummating the Christian reconquest of the island of Majorca. 1501, the First Battle of Cannanore commenced. 1600, the British East India Company was chartered. 1660, James II of England was named Duke of Normandy by Louis XIV of France. 1687, the first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope. 1695, a window tax was imposed in England, causing many householders to brick up windows to avoid the tax. 1757, Empress Elizabeth I of Russia issued her ukase incorporating Königsberg into Russia. 1759, Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness. 1775, American Revolutionary War: Battle of Quebec: British forces repulsed an attack by Continental Army General Richard Montgomery. 1790 Efimeris, the oldest Greek newspaper of which issues have survived till today, was published for the first time. 1796, the incorporation of Baltimore as a city. In 1831, Gramercy Park was deeded to New York City. 1853, a dinner party was held inside a life-size model of an iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owenin south London, England. 1857, Queen Victoria chose Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of Canada.1862, American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signed an act that admitted West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two. Also 1862, American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River began near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. 1878, Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in 1879. 1879, Thomas Edison demonstrated incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey. 1906, Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar signed the Persian Constitution of 1906. 1907, the first New Years Eve celebration was held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in New York, New York. 1909, Manhattan Bridge opened. 1923, the chimes of Big Ben were broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC. 1944, World War II: Hungary declared war on Nazi Germany. Also 1944, World War II: Operation Nordwind, the last major German offensive on the Western Front began. 1946, president Harry S. Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II. In 1951, the Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe. 1955, General Motors became the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year. 1960, the farthing coin ceased to be legal tender in the United Kingdom. 1961, RTÉ, Irelands state broadcaster, launched its first national television service. 1963, The Central African Federation officially collapsed, subsequently becoming Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia. 1965, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, leader of the Central African Republic army, and his military officers began a coup détat against the government of President David Dacko. 1967, the Youth International Party, popularly known as the Yippies, was founded. 1981, a coup détat in Ghana removed President Hilla Limanns PNP government and replaced it with the Provisional National Defence Council led by Flight lieutenant Jerry Rawlings. 1983, the AT&T Bell System was broken up by the United States Government. Also 1983, in Nigeria a coup détat led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari ended the Second Nigerian Republic. 1986, a fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, killed 97 and injured 140. 1988, Pittsburgh Penguins Mario Lemieux became the only National Hockey League player to score goals in five different ways: even strength, shorthanded, power play, penalty shot, and empty net, during an 8–6 win over the New Jersey Devils. 1988, first Winter Ascent of Lhotse (8,516m) by Krzysztof Wielicki (solo). In 1991, all official Soviet Union institutions had ceased operations by this date and the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. 1992, Czechoslovakia was peacefully dissolved in what was dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. 1994, this date is skipped altogether in Kiribati as the Phoenix Islands and Line Islands changed time zones from UTC−11:00 to UTC+13:00 and UTC−10:00 to UTC+14:00, respectively. Also 1994, the First Chechen War: Russian army began a New Years storming of Grozny. 1998, the European Exchange Rate Mechanism froze the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone, and established the value of the euro currency. 1999, first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigned from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor. Also 1999, the United States Government handed control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties. Also 1999, Indian Airlines Flight 814 hijacking ended after seven days with the release of 190 survivors at Kandahar Airport, Afghanistan. 2004, the official opening of Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper at that time in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 ft). 2009, both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occurred. 2010, Tornadoes touch down in midwestern and southern United States, including Washington County, Arkansas; Greater St. Louis, Sunset Hills, Missouri, Illinois, and Oklahoma, with a few tornadoes in the early hours. A total 36 tornadoes touched down, resulting in the deaths of nine people and $113 million in damages. 2011, NASA succeeded in putting the first of two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory satellites in orbit around the Moon. === This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up. === Editorials will appear in the History in a Year by the Conservative Voice series, starting with August https://createspace/4124406 === For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball Or the US President at https://change.org/p/barack-obama-change-this-injustice# or https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-injustice-faced-david-daniel-ball-after-he-reported-bungled-pedophile-investigation-and/b8mxPWtJ or wh.gov/ilXYR Douglas Sutherland-Bruce via David Daniel Ball Mr Ball, I will not sign your petition as it will do no good, but I will share your message and ask as many of friends who read it, to share it also. Let us see if we cannot use the power of the internet to spread the word of these infamous killings. As a father and a former soldier, I cannot, could not, justify ignoring this appalling action by the perpetrators, whoever they may; I thank you Douglas. You are wrong about the petition. Signing it is as worthless and meaningless an act as voting. A stand up guy would know that. - ed Lorraine Allen Hider I signed the petition ages ago David, with pleasure, nobody knows what its like until theyve been there. Keep heart David take care. I have begun a bulletin board (theconservativevoice.freeforums.net) which will allow greater latitude for members to post and interact. It is not subject to FB policy and so greater range is allowed in posts. Also there are private members rooms in which nothing is censored, except abuse. All welcome, registration is free.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 09:25:16 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015