Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Tue 1st Jan Todays News

Happy birthday and many happy returns Sok Leang Meach,Phong PhamJohn KanePaul Goddard and Trang Nguyen. 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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Routing paths of the internet

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During the Middle Ages under the influence of the Christian Church, many countries moved the start of the year to one of several important Christian festivals — December 25 (the Nativity of Jesus), March 1, March 25 (the Annunciation), or even Easter. Eastern European countries (most of them with populations showing allegiance to the Orthodox Church) began their numbered year on September 1 from about 988.
In England, January 1 was celebrated as the New Year festival, but from the 12th century to 1752 the year in England began on March 25 (Lady Day). So, for example, the Parliamentary record notes the execution of Charles I as occurring on January 30, 1648, (as the year did not end until March 24), although modern histories adjust the start of the year to January 1 and record the execution as occurring in 1649.
Most western European countries changed the start of the year to January 1 before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. For example, Scotland changed the start of the Scottish New Year to January 1 in 1600. England, Ireland and the British colonies changed the start of the year to January 1 in 1752. Later that year in September, the Gregorian calendar was introduced throughout Britain and the British colonies. These two reforms were implemented by the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750.
January 1 became the official start of the year as follows:

[edit]Events

[edit]Births

[edit]Deaths

[edit]Holidays and observances


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Happy New Year

Piers Akerman – Tuesday, January 01, 2013 (7:10am)

Welcome to 2013.
Roller coasters won’t be in it.
With an election due, be prepared for the most outrageous stunts, diversions and extraordinary character assassinations this nation has ever seen.
If you thought last year was a Barry Crocker, 2013 will put it in the shade.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard is test marketing her campaign strategy.
Typically, it will be based on lies and a gross misinterpretation of history.
Just remember, there is a carbon dioxide tax and there is not a surplus.
That’s what happens to Labor promises.
As for the NDIS, introducing a Bill is not the same as enacting legislation and putting an idea that has bi-partisan support forward is not the same as presenting a fully-funded policy.
The Magic Pudding era is over for Labor.
The Opposition has put forward a series of workable policy options but everything they offer they do so with the necessary caution - they must staunch the reckless spending that has brought Australia into historic levels of debt before they can proceed to rebuild the nation.
Happy New Year and hang on!

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Star’s star illuminates airport curfew stupidity

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, January 01, 2013 (7:18pm)

WHY did The Star casino spend upwards of $600,000 to fly Leonardo DiCaprio and pals to Sydney for New Year’s Eve? 

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LABOR WOMEN SILENCED

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 01, 2013 (7:43pm)

The only interesting thing Jenny Macklin has ever said, and it gets cut
Families Minister Jenny Macklin has said she could live on the dole of just $35 a day, but her answer has been omitted from the transcript of a press conference issued by her office.
Asked this morning whether she could live on the Newstart allowance of $246 a week, Ms Macklin told reporters ‘‘I could.’’
But when Ms Macklin’s office later issued a transcript of the press conference, held at a hospital in the Minister’s Melbourne electorate, both the question and answer were recorded ‘‘inaudible.’’ 
The same terrible thing happened last year to attorney general Nicola Roxon. Who is silencing these influential women?

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TITLE CLAIMED

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 01, 2013 (7:38pm)

I take issue with “may be”.

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GARDEN TALK

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 01, 2013 (7:37pm)

During his recent Hamas visit, Australia’s mufti el grande met Palestinian minister of religious affairsIsmail Radwan. Here’s peaceful Ismail in action a few years back:



Ismail and Australia’s mufti appear to have a shared interest in trees and rocks.

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THE ZERO-SUM COMMUNITY

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 01, 2013 (7:28pm)

It’s a curious thing. Leftists are supposed to be the caring, sharing part of the political fraternity. In point of historical fact, it is an easy thing to demonstrate that their caring has always been more a rhetorical than an actual strategy and that their sharing has been accomplished overwhelmingly with other people’s goods.
That said, however, there is still the fact that Leftists are hailed by their enablers as the non-crabby politicians, the people who come into office promising two things: More and Free.
How odd it is, then, that they should also be the folks who harbor an unshakeable belief that the universe is a stingy, scarcity-driven machine whose iron law is that if A does well, B must do poorly. 
They do seem a grouchy bunch. Perhaps this is due to tiredness brought about by arguing from a weak position. Leftists are like a lawyer defending a clearly guilty client. Facts are against them, so they must resort to other tactical devices.
(Via Instapundit)

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WHEN OOMPA-LOOMPAS ATTACK

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 01, 2013 (3:16pm)

Nearly 100 people charged in Sydney during New Year’s Eve. And in England
Two men dressed as Oompa-Loompas from the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory are being hunted by police after they allegedly attacked a man on a night out …
The two Oompa-Loompas were with another man and a woman with dark hair who had a dress split at the side.
But a Norfolk Police spokesman said it was believed that only the Oompa-Loompas took part in the attack. 
The others were just Oompa-Loompa enablers.
UPDATE. 356 people arrested in Victoria.

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COMMON FOLK GROUNDED

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 01, 2013 (12:29pm)

The SMH’s Catherine Armitage imagines Sydney life in 2050: 
Flying reverts to a premium-priced luxury in the low-carbon economy. 
Catherine seems to think this is a good thing.

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I get it that dumping and stealing costs millions from charity and is a terrible waste. I like to think that the law could be amended to make it easier to prosecute offenders. However, that concern is secondary to me with charity at the moment. Charity do an important job better than government. But the dysfunctional Gillard government has hurt charity very badly and a Current Affair hasn't covered it. What has happened is that Fair Work Australia has lifted the pay of social workers without the government lifting support for charity. This means that charity has to do more with much less. I know a highly qualified and needed social worker who isn't working because, although needed, the charity can no longer afford him. - ed
Trashy New Year===
Hubris from graceless Obama threatens bill's passage - ed 
Senate approves fiscal crisis deal after missed deadline, bill goes to House

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It took a GOP man to realise the proposition the US is “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” - ed
The Emancipation Proclamation's unforgettable lesson about presidential power===

Do you believe that God is someone whose goodness you cannot always trust and so need to bargain with, or do you believe that He is a God whose goodness and generosity you can always count on? Join Joseph Prince in this thought-provoking message and see the generosity of our Lord in the parable of the vineyard workers. Learn how having a good opinion of the Lord will cause good things to come your way even if you are the "eleventh-hour worker". You'll find the Lord unfairly good toward you and exceeding your wildest expectations!

Find us at:
http://www.facebook.com/JosephPrince
http://www.twitter.com/JosephPrince
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Read this woman's eyewitness account of the loss of freedom in her native Austria: 

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December 22, 2012 - “What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard or read in history books,” she likes to tell audiences.

“I am a witness to history.

“I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history.

If you remember the plot of the Sound of Music, the Von Trapp family escaped over the Alps rather than submit to the Nazis. Kitty wasn’t so lucky. Her family chose to stay in her native Austria. She was 10 years old, but bright and aware. And she was watching.

“We elected him by a landslide – 98 percent of the vote,” she recalls.

She wasn’t old enough to vote in 1938 – approaching her 11th birthday. But she remembers.

“Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.”

No so.

Hitler is welcomed to Austria

“In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unem- ployed. We had 25 percent inflation and 25 percent bank loan interest rates.

Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were go- ing from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs.

“My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily.’

“We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933.” she recalls. “We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living.

Austrian girls welcome Hitler

“Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group – Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone in Germany was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back.

“Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.

“We were overjoyed,” remembers Kitty, “and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and
everyone was fed.

Austrians saluting

“After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.

“Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support his family. Many women in the teach- ing profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been re- quired to give up for marriage.

“Then we lost religious education for kids

Poster promoting "Hitler Youth"

“Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school.. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,’ and had physical education.

“Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail.”
And then things got worse.

“The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free.

“We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.

“My mother was very unhappy,” remembers Kitty. “When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination.

“I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing.

A pro-Hitler rally

“Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time, unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler.

“It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of hu- manistic philosophy.

“In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death.

“Women who stayed home to raise their families didn’t have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.

“Soon after this, the draft was implemented.

Young Austrians

“It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps,” remembers Kitty. “During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys.

“They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines.
“When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat.
“Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.

“When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately es- tablished child care centers.
“You could take your children ages four weeks old to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, seven days a week, under the total care of the government.

“The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.

“Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna..
“After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything.

“When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full.

“If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the med- ical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.

“As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80 percent of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families.

“All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

“We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables.
“ Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because peo- ple might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands.

“Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.

“We had consumer protection, too

Austrian kids loyal to Hitler

“We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, and then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.

“In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated.

“So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good man- ual work.

“I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van.

“I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months.

“They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.

“As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.

“Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.

“No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.

“Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.”

“This is my eye-witness account.

“It’s true. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.

“America is truly is the greatest country in the world. “Don’t let freedom slip away.

“After America, there is no place to go.”

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The claim that Hawke's government was reformist is misleading. Changes were made agreeable to both sides of the political divide, but they weren't well implemented and improvements were ignored for political reasons. The result being a net fall in real wages across the years of about 2% per annum between '83 and '96 .. ALP years where workers and families suffer - ed
Cabinet papers released, reveal Hawke-Keating GST debate===

5 yrs in Prison??? $10,000.00 fine????/ Shame!!!! He needs to be applauded!! Make this go viral!! Share!!!

This is messed up

Valley marine calls himself to duty at an Elementary school. Sgt. Craig Pusley wears his desert camo fatigues...no weapons...just him. Took it upon himself to go to the nearby school and stand watch outside. The school loved it. The principal thanked him. No pay..no breaks...just his heart felt need to do this. His reward? Marine Corp Reservists says he violated protocol bt wearing his fatigues and not his dress uniform in public. Facing $10,000 fine and 5 years in prison. Also getting a "dishonorable" stamp on his "honorable" discharge. He served 2 tours in iraq, in Baghdad and Ramadi. One in Helmand province of Afghanistan before leaving active duty.

Now he is writing a letter to the President apoligizing for his actions.

WAKE UP! This man is a wonderful outstanding brave hero in my book and to think for a second that his heart felt need to go stand in front of his little neighborhood school was wrong. Screw you! The President should be sending him a Thank you letter.

So I salute you Sgt. Craig Pusley. Thank you!

This is something I would like to see go viral. Let's stand up and say Thank you to this man who didn't think twice...he followed his heart and there is no crime in doing that.

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Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for December 24th. Enjoy!

From the Blog

Did NBC’s David Gregory violate DC gun law on Meet the Press?

As Prof. William Jacobson noted, the answer to the question in the title appears to be “yes” — unless the magazine Gregory was holding on Meet the Press today while lecturing NRA president Wayne LaPierre was a prop...

WSJ: Obama told Boehner if no agreement is reached he’ll use inaugural/SOTU speeches to blame Republicans

This pretty much amounts to an empty threat, because no matter what happens, Obama will blame Republicans anyway...

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