Life, How You Live It

Me, stopping Steve Irwin from swimming with that damn stingray

A few years ago, when I was living in the housing co-op and looking for a quick cookie recipe, I came across a blog post for something called “Norwegian Christmas butter squares.” I’d never found anything like it before: it created rich, buttery and chewy cookies, like a vastly superior version of the holiday sugar cookies I’d eaten growing up. About a year ago I went looking for the recipe again, and failed to find it. The blog had been taken down, and it sent me into momentary panic. 

Luckily, I remembered enough to find it on the Wayback Machine, and quickly copied it into a file that I’ve saved ever since. I probably make these cookies about once a month, and they last about five days around my voracious husband - they’re fantastic with a cup of bitter coffee or tea. I’m skeptical that there is something distinctively Norwegian about these cookies, but they do seem like the perfect thing to eat on a cold day. 

Norwegian Christmas Butter Squares

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 egg 1 cup sugar 2 cups flour 1 tsp vanilla ½ tsp salt Turbinado/ Raw Sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Chill a 9x13″ baking pan in the freezer. Do not grease the pan.

Using a mixer, blend the butter, egg, sugar, and salt together until it is creamy.  Add the flour and vanilla and mix using your hands until the mixture holds together in large clumps. If it seems overly soft, add a little extra flour. 

Using your hands, press the dough out onto the chilled and ungreased baking sheet until it is even and ¼ inch thick.  Dust the top of the cookies evenly with raw sugar.

And it is GREAT.

Drowned

Drowned while his mistress watched but didn’t call for help

Drowned and was eaten by a shark

Straight up just eaten by a shark

Kidnapped by the CIA or KGB

Assassinated by the CIA or the KGB

Assassinated by angry aussies who were against the Vietnam War

Chinese submarine

Kraken

Aliens

only gonna do this once bc i don't see many Australian cases on here.

This was Daniel James Morcombe. He was born one the 19th of December 1989, and he abducted and later died on the 7th of December 2003. He was 13 when he disappeared.

Daniel was abducted from an unofficial bus stop under the Keil Mountain Road overpass in the Woombye district of the Sunshine Cost, which was 2 kilometres or 1.2 mi north of a Big Pineapple on Sunday the 7th of December 2003. Morcombe planned to catch a bus that arrived at 1:34pm, to the Sunshine Plaza shopping centre for a haircut and to buy Christmas Gifts for his family, but he never came back.

There were witnesses that reported seeing Morcombe at around 2:10pm on the Nambour Connection Road under Keil Mountain Road overpass. The bus Daniel was meant to catch had broke down a few kilometres before he's stop, and ended up behind schedule, this meant that a replacement bus came to his stop and even though Daniel indicated he wanted the bus to stop, it kept going due to the fact that he's stop was only an unofficial bus stop and that it was delayed as well. The bus driver had radioed the depot and told another bus to go pick Daniel up but by the time the bus got there, Daniel was nowhere to be seen. Later it was reported that the bus driver and other witness saw a man standing behind a distance behind Morcombe and another man slightly further away at the time. When the second bus arrived three minutes later, Daniel and the man were nowhere to be seen.

The abduction and death of Daniel James Morcombe ended up being one of the most extensively investigated crimes Queensland history at the time. As of December the 12th, 2008, a total reward of A$1,000,000 ($250,000 from the Government and another $750,000 donated privately) had been offered. The privately donated portion of the reward expired at midnight on 31 May 2009. On this day, the Seven Network reported that a known paedophile (identified by the media as Douglas Jackway) could be of interest to the police. Jackway had been released from prison in 2003, one month before Morcombe's disappearance.

By early 2009, the investigation seemingly ran out of leads, but in May a full-size clay model of the man believed to be involved with the young boys disappearance and was placed at the spot where Daniel had disappeared. Within a few days there was mire than 300 tip-offs. In June 2009, the Queensland government came under criticism from Parliament over the release of Jackway from prison. One MP claimed the Supreme Court had presented clear evidence of his risk of reoffending. This publicity also prompted civil liberties groups to call for laws banning media outlets from naming people linked to criminal cases. In July 2009, the parents of Morcombe called for a coronial inquest in the hope of finding answers to their son's abduction and murder.

The Morcombes said that after 5½ years, it was time for an inquest. Of particular interest to the family were several criminals who had told police they knew who killed Morcombe and where his body was buried. A coronial inquest was held beginning in October 2010 and concluding in April 2011. The inquest called as witnesses the bus driver who had failed to stop for Daniel Morcombe at the Kiel Overpass location where he was waiting, a woman who had seen a man loitering near Daniel Morcombe, and several persons of interest.

On the 13th of August 2011, after an extensive Undercover Police Operation, Brad Peter Cowan was taken into custody and charged Daniels murder and other offences such as child stealing, deprivation of liberty, indecent treatment of a child under 16, and interfering with a corpse after having led undercover detectives to the site of Daniel’s remains. 

In 2006, Cowan was interviewed over the disappearance and had admitted to practice police that he had indeed traveled the same road that Daniel had disappeared from. He was on the same road that day because he was going to purchase Marijuana from his drug dealer. He had also confessed to having seen and approached Daniel to offer him a lift to the shopping Centre, having parked his car in a nearby carpark of the church he attended. Around this time, a white Mitsubishi Pajero was seized from a property on Russell Island. The vehicle was believed to have been involved in Morcombe's abduction after a witness at the coronial inquest in April 2011 reported seeing a vehicle of similar description parked 100 metres (330 ft) north of the site where Morcombe was last seen.

On the 21st of August 2011, two shoes and three human bones were found at a search site at Glass House Mountains. Forensic testing confirmed that the remains were Daniel Morcombe's. The shoes were similar to the ones that Morcombe was wearing when he disappeared. Underpants and a belt were also found. However, Morcombe also owned a distinctive fob style pocket watch with "dan" engraved on it, which has not been found.  By the end of the investigation, seventeen bones had been found, including a rib, hip, leg, arm and vertebrae. They were all confirmed as belonging to Morcombe using DNA from his toothbrush to make the match. As a result of the find, Morcombe's funeral was held at Siana Catholic Collage Siena on 7 December 2012. More than 2000 people attended it.

Later it was revealed that Daniel had been murdered almost certainly within the hour of his abduction.

Rest in Peace, Daniel Morcombe. you would of been 31 or 32 this year.

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» The Daniel Morcombe Foundation «

The Morcombe family started the "Daniel Morcombe Foundation", and put its resources into keeping Morcombe's disappearance in the public eye and trying to find out what happened to their son. The foundation is committed to educating children about personal safety and to raising awareness throughout Australia of the dangers of predatory criminals. These efforts are supported by the Australian media, especially on each anniversary of Morcombe's disappearance when a "Day for Daniel" is held to promote awareness of the vulnerability of children. An accompanying event is the "Ride for Daniel", which covers 50 km of the Sunshine Coast, held each year since 2005

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