Thursday, December 13, 2012

Thu 13th Dec Todays News

Happy birthday and many happy returns Vicky GuanVasthi M QuezadaJana Foley and Theodore Mallos. Born on the same day, across the years. Remember, birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live

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The Army of the Potomac crossing the Rappahannock during the Battle of Fredericksburg
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Events

[edit]Births

[edit]Deaths

[edit]Holidays and observances

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Slipper case raises issue of motive for inquiry

Piers Akerman – Thursday, December 13, 2012 (5:50pm)

IN tossing out the sexual harassment case brought against former federal Speaker Peter Slipper by his ex-staffer James Ashby, Federal Court judge Steven Rares boldly identified a political plot to damage Slipper. 
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Assange has ABC support but remains in hiding

Piers Akerman – Thursday, December 13, 2012 (6:32am)

HIDEAWAY Australian Julian Assange wants to run for the Senate.
Apparerently he plans to run on a policy of openness in government.
There is no doubt that there are the necessary 500 idiots prepared to back him should he seek to register a political party with the Australian electoral commission – after all, the Greens are registered and there appears to be no shortage of fools as Labor still enjoys the support of almost a third of those surveyed.
But Assange is still hiding from justice in the Ecuadoran embassy in London.
He fears extradition to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning in relation to some alleged sex offences. So much for the libertarian Swedes.
What he and his supporters fear is that the United States may extradite him if he ever gets to Sweden and put him on trial over the Wikileaks publication of US military secrets among thousands of hacked cables.
Assange has attracted the usual claque of high-profile supporters anxious to display their moral vanity no matter the cause.
His health may or not be deteriorating.
The Australian government has offered to assist in case of medical emergency, including monetary assistance but Assange is dissatisfied with the level of support offered.
The ABC is promoting Assange and his cause.
Need anymore be said? 
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EXPLAINING TO DO

Tim Blair – Thursday, December 13, 2012 (2:28pm)

Independent MP Rob Oakeshott in October, following Peter Slipper’s resignation as speaker: 
His text messages were obscene, offensive, and indefensible. As someone who believes that we are each responsible for our own behaviour, I believe Mr Slipper made the right decision. 
Independent MP Rob Oakeshott now
The Tony Abbotts, the Christopher Pynes, the Dave Gillespies, they’ve got some explaining to do as to why this was top of the pops for them in 2012 as the issue to pursue for the Liberal National party when there are so many other issues of national significance. 
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RULE MISSED

Tim Blair – Thursday, December 13, 2012 (2:24pm)

Booted from the Sydney Morning Herald for plagiarism, columnist Tanveer Ahmed bides his time
The editor was perfectly reasonable and said plagiarism was the worst offence in journalism and he couldn’t be seen to be publishing me. He was cordial, professional and supportive and wished me well for the future, suggesting people in the media have short memories and I could resume writing in a few months. 
Apparently we need more regulation, as usual: 
It is important to keep in touch with the norms of any social or professional group and this requires regular contact, mentorship, peer review, etc. This is something I have always had as a doctor, but journalism being a loose, unregulated trade, I will be more careful to make sure I have these things in place when I involve myself in the media in the future. 
Fairfax sure can pick ‘em.
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NO PEACE FOR YOU

Tim Blair – Thursday, December 13, 2012 (2:22pm)

The Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies might consider a name change
It seems safe to say that Hebrew University professor Dan Avnon thinks of himself as one of the good guys—and rightly so. He’s spent a considerable part of his career promoting coexistence between Jewish and Arab Israelis. In 2001, he even created a high school program that enables religious and secular Jews to study together with Arabs—no small feat in Israel, where the three populations generally study apart.
So it came as a rude awakening when Sydney University’s Center for Peace and Conflict Studies refused his request to work together, simply on the grounds that he’s Israeli. The Center’s Associate Professor Jake Lynch wrote in an email: “I and the Center have nothing against you personally, and your research sounds interesting and worthwhile. But we support the boycott campaign against Israel, and that includes the call for an academic boycott of Israeli universities.”
Let’s just abbreviate it to “The Centre for Conflict”.
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GALS OF INFLUENCE

Tim Blair – Thursday, December 13, 2012 (3:11am)

Fairfax’s lame poll omitted many obvious candidates, so here is your chance to properly vote for ... 
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Sue Gillard to show how mad her law is

Andrew BoltDECEMBER132012(2:27am)

Civil Liberties Australia (CLA) warn the PM herself could be in trouble for calling Opposition Leader Tony Abbott a misogynist if proposed amendments to anti-discrimination laws take effect - although Julia Gillard has the protection of Parliamentary privilege…

CLA chief executive officer Bill Rowlings has lashed out at the proposed amendments to anti-discrimination laws which make it unlawful to “offend” people.
His attack follows ABC chairman Jim Spigelman’s scathing appraisal this week – he said that the laws could breach our international obligations to freedom of speech.
Mr Rowlings highlighted the absurd things that such laws could cover.
“If you said the word (Juliar) to Ms Gillard’s face, she might take you to court under proposed anti-discrimination laws, for she would surely find it personally offensive,” he said…

“This anti-discrimination stuff is dangerous. To stay safe, you really have to shut your mouth,” he said. 

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Column - The public sorts out 2DayFM

Andrew BoltDECEMBER132012(2:12am)

IF there’s one thing the 2Day FM prank call disaster proves, it’s that the public can be trusted to punish the wicked media.
Consider the fallout since British nurse Jacintha Saldanha killed herself, having three days earlier been tricked by 2Day FM hosts Mel Greig and Michael Christian, who were pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles.

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Not today but soon

Andrew BoltDECEMBER132012(1:56am)

I promised to say what I thought of a Press Council process I have gone through. We are unable to publish today an article I have written on this, but plan to next week. I hope you’ll look out for it, because these are serious issues.
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Column - Stealing our words

Andrew BoltDECEMBER132012(1:53am)

ONLY one of the following two statements is a joke, but who can tell in this tide of bull?
First, here’s the Prime Minister: “My dear remaining fellow Australians. The end of the world is coming . . .
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REMEMBER THIS LADY!!!

Look at this lady - Let us never forget!
The world hasn't just become wicked...it's always been wicked.
The prize doesn't always go to the most deserving.


Irena Sendler
Died 12 May 2008 (aged 98)
Warsaw, Poland

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a plumbing/sewer specialist.

She had an 'ulterior motive'.

She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews (being German).

Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids).

She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.

The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.

She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.

After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family.

Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize.

She was not selected.

President Obama won one year before becoming President for his work as a community organizer for ACORN

and

Al Gore won also --- for a slide show on Global Warming.

In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER

I'm doing my small part by forwarding this message.

I hope you'll consider doing the same...

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.

This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated!

Now, more than ever, with Iran, and others, claiming the HOLOCAUST to be 'a myth'.

It's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.

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Do you remember Bob Carr ? Our Australian foreign minister

He presented Sydney Peace Prize to Palestinian Hanan Ashrawi

Doing the Right thing is no longer an option


by Michael Danby
The Daily Telegraph
December 12, 2012 12:00AM


BACK in the late '70s, Bob Carr used to run ideological training schools for social democrats when he was an industrial officer at the NSW Trades and Labour Council. I should know. I was his first recruit from Victoria. (His third was Peter Costello - oops.)

Later, when Carr was a journalist with the Bulletin and Victorian Labor was controlled by the socialist Left, Bob would joke that he felt like hooking my telephone calls to the PA system, so I could broadcast from "Soviet occupied Victoria".

In the good old days he knew that it wasn't enough to be a member of the Labor Right faction and simply dismiss your opponents by saying: "Bag ya head, you're a bloody Com!"

He knew that an unprincipled "whatever it takes" mentality was a fatal weakness in the struggle for the soul of the Labor Party in the decades leading up to the end of Soviet communism.

As NSW premier he ‘Bob Carr’ awarded the Sydney Peace Prize to Palestinian ideologue Hanan Ashrawi. As the only major figure in the Australian Jewish community to defend his actions, I used the Voltaire argument, namely his right to say things with which others disagreed.

After his departure as premier I didn't pay much attention to Carr, except to lament to other Labor moderates around the country about the absence of beliefs in some NSW "comrades".

There are clever and capable Labor figures in NSW, such as Paul Howes, Tony Burke, Chris Bowen and Luke Foley, but any examination of some state MPs shows a debilitating quality of most of the NSW Right in the post-Keating era.

Parliament last month saw a switch in Australia's stance at the UN creation of a Palestinian state after Julia Gillard's pro-Israel position was challenged and then overturned by Carr and others.

Yet when Carr was premier he would never have permitted treasurer Michael Egan ringing around trying to get the numbers to sell NSW power stations.

Such action would not have been tolerable - even if Egan was right. It is unacceptable in a cabinet for a minister to act - to use Gough Whitlam's immortal description - like Tiberius on the telephone, organising numbers against his or her leader.

*Some caucus members worry about every Palestinian - who is, by aid dollars per capita, the most highly subsidized minority in the world, including $350 million of Australian taxpayer funds.

By contrast, poor gentle Tibet gets little sympathy. More than 80 Tibetans have burned themselves to death in the past 18 months as a result of Chinese oppression.

Tibetans launch terrorist attacks on no one. They acquire no Iranian missiles to attack Chinese cities; they strap on no suicide vests to blow up no children on school buses.

Yet the Tibetans can't get a meeting with our Foreign Minister and they don't get a dollar from the UN.

We avert our eyes when a real power like China crushes under its boot an ancient people like the Tibetans. Yet our Foreign Minister asks of the Palestinian vote at the UN: "How will I explain this on the steps of the mosque at Lakemba?"

Nor are there any caucus resolutions over the 200,000 in the living death of North Korean concentration camps or the 300,000 African Muslims of Darfur butchered by their Islamist government in Sudan.

But the ostensible, domestic motivations for our changed vote are the most troubling aspect of the debate inside the Labor Party during the final week of parliament. It is self-defeating to suggest, as was widely claimed, that voters in western Sydney (who swung against the NSW Labor Party by 30-40 per cent at the last state election) will be influenced by votes at the UN.

Corruption at the heart of both the Left and Right of NSW Labor and the clear lack of infrastructure, particularly in western Sydney, are the real turn-off in Sydney seats. Phoning around, then speaking on the matter and ultimately threatening to speak against the Prime Minister is unforgivable behavior for any minister in any cabinet government.

However, at the end of the day, Carr can do as he likes.

Thanks to the fundamental power shift that Kevin Rudd engineered, members of the federal parliamentary Labor Party gave up the rights we had for a century - to elect the ministry.

Whether Labor wins or loses the next election, this right of the caucus should be restored.

Michael Danby is Labor MP for Melbourne Ports

WE REALLY NEED TO TAKE NOTE OF WHOM WE CAN TRUST, as well as WHO & WHAT WE ARE DEALING WITH !

GOOD TO REMEMBER WHO AND WHAT WE ARE DEALING WITH




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