Monday, March 04, 2013

Mon 4th Mar Todays News


Happy birthday and many happy returns Henry Nguyen. Born on the day you got married .. at 14.
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Gillard: Ich bin ein Westie

Piers Akerman – Monday, March 04, 2013 (6:16am)

At the height of the Cold War, fifty years ago, John F. Kennedy declared: “Ich bin ein Berliner”.
Last night, Julia Gillard claimed “westie status” in an attempt to win the Western suburbs of Sydney.
Kennedy’s landmark speech gave assurance to the people of Berlin isolated by the Soviet blockade, and confronted the Soviet state, then led by Nikita Kruschev.
Gillard sought to win back the people of Western Sydney who have deserted Labor in its heartland and confront the Opposition, led by Tony Abbott.
Her pitch was part of the longest-running election campaign in the nation’s history.
Unlike Kennedy, the biggest threat facing Gillard and her party are the internal chaos for which she and other Labor MPs are responsible.
Labor’s first shot at itself was its decision to dump former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in June, 2010, in his first term.
Under Gillard, it has continued to bomb itself with broken lies and failed policies.
Her five-day Western suburbs sojourn is part of the carpet-bombing strategy and promises to be as disastrous.
Instead of “ich bin ein Berliner”, Gillard offered:  “For far too long, the community I made my home, the communities I represent, have been the kind of places people hurried through, not places where you stopped and stayed,” she said.
“Being from the west should never be viewed as being second rate.”
But few people in Western Sydney see themselves as second-raters and Gillard’s patronising address doesn’t resonate beyond a select audience of high-flying Labor insiders who have for years enjoyed patronage positions under the trade union-dominated Labor Party.
A sleep-in at the Rooty Hill Novotel or RSL will not change the way the people of Western Sydney think.
They have experienced Labor governments at both the State and federal level and have come to understand that the only solution is to dump Labor and its patronising approach to their problems.
If they are worried about dumping Labor, they need only pick up the newspaper and read more about Labor’s endemic corruption as symbolised by the unfolding Eddie Obeid hearings before the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption.
There the heart of modern Labor is on display.
As Gillard remarked last year to Labor followers: “We are us”.
Western Sydney residents, and other Australians across the nation, are justifiably telling the pollsters they no longer want to be “us”.

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Frances Perkins

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Events

[edit]Births

[edit]Deaths

[edit]Holidays and observances


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OR YOU COULD JUST BUY THE PAPER FOR $2

Tim Blair – Monday, March 04, 2013 (2:42pm)

This might be the most optimistic offer in publishing history: 
Own a piece of The Sydney Morning Herald’s history with a framed fine art print of the front page of the Herald’s first compact edition.
Strictly limited to 500 fine art digital reproductions, of which the first 100 newspapers will be printed with a number; this reproduction will be the number one reproduction. Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.
Printed on archival quality Museo Portfolio rag, which is a very smooth matte 100% cotton rag. 300gsm $330.00 (incl. GST) 
The print edition has the price at $330 plus GST, and that’s not the only mistake. There are only two stories on the historic first front page of the tabloid SMH. One carries the pointer “continued page 4” and the other is said to continue on page 12.
They actually continue on pages 5 and 13. Good start, Fairfax.
UPDATE. Day one dissent! SMH Daily Life editor Sarah Oakes rails against her section’s new name – Women’s Perspective: 
This title was not Daily Life’s decision. As the Editor I have waged an exhaustive campaign warning people of the social media apocalypse that would await us if it was called the wrong name. Begging to trade words like “female” for “women” or for us not to have a tagline at all.
Sadly though, this campaign failed. 
Oakes is now pleading with readers to suggest an alternative title. “First World Problems” might work.

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When government is the lobbyist is likes to pay

Andrew BoltMARCH042013(5:25pm)

Chris Berg of the IPA on his new paper: how governments pay pet lobby groups to lobby it on what it wants.

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Essential: as bad as ever

Andrew BoltMARCH042013(4:39pm)

The latest Essential Research poll offers not a skerrick of comfort for Labor: 
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Thanks to you

Andrew BoltMARCH042013(4:35pm)

Bouncing back fast from my long Christmas break, and with only 28 days in the month the figures are already strong. Which means your support is keeping this thing humming, for which I thank you: 
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A few bad polls later…

Andrew BoltMARCH042013(1:10pm)


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A decade of deficits, thanks to Labor

Andrew BoltMARCH042013(12:45pm)

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AUSTRALIA faces structural budget deficits “as far as the eye can see”, according to new economic modelling that will reinforce calls for a systemic review of government spending.
As Wayne Swan seeks savings to pay for big-ticket promises such as the national disability insurance scheme and the Gonski education reforms, modelling for the Minerals Council of Australia suggests that when the impacts of higher commodity prices and changes in the economic cycle are removed from the budget figures, the nation faces structural budget deficits until 2025 in the absence of policy changes.
Ex-Treasurers Peter Costello and Michael Costa on Wayne Swan:



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How Morrison and Abetz were framed

Andrew BoltMARCH042013(12:05pm)

My Herald Sun column here:
WANT a lesson on the Left’s politics of seeming? Look at how Scott Morrison and Eric Abetz were lynched last week.
The fuller version than the one published follows below this transcript of the Coalition’s immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, effortlessly swatting away gotcha questions onInsiders based on the presumption he’d said what he hadn’t:
BARRIE CASSIDY: How will you do it? How will you notify that asylum seekers move into the neighbourhood? Is it a letter box drop, how do you do it?
SCOTT MORRISON: As I said, the accommodation people are going into is arranged by the service providers. Now, those service providers have the opportunity to say in Macquarie University’s case have a requirement that people living in that facility are notified at the time. It’s not a very difficult exercise, Barrie.
My question is why wouldn’t they have a right to be notified if they’re living in that same facility. I mean that’s not an uncommon thing for people to expect if the Government has lost control of the detention centres and they’ve taken the decision to put people into the community and actually take out the lease, if you like, on that accommodation. So referring to here is the accommodation the Government is directly involved in purchasing and putting people into.
BARRIE CASSIDY: That works in terms of institution but if somebody moves into number five or number three or something in your street how will you notify them? Is that when the letter box drop comes in?
SCOTT MORRISON: Again Barrie, I’m referring to the arranged accommodation by the service providers. That’s what I’m referring to, that’s what my press release referred to. This is where the Government themselves through their service providers are taking out the lease. Where the Government, through their service providers, are entering into an arrangement with say Macquarie University or the University of Western Sydney or any number of these places.
I’ve also said this week that the police should be notified where people are being put into the community as well. Now that’s as much for these people’s own protection as anything else so the police are just aware of people in the community and why you wouldn’t consult the police or advise the police to again to me is a mystery and I think shows an absence of the Government thinking these things through which they never do.
They just make decisions on the run.
BARRIE CASSIDY: Why do residents then need to know? Why do they need to know? What sets asylum seekers apart? Why do they need to know they’re living next door to a asylum seeker?
SCOTT MORRISON: Well Barrie, why shouldn’t they know is my point. If I was the parent of a person living at Macquarie University then I don’t think it’s unreasonable that if Macquarie University has entered into an arrangement with the Government to house a reasonable number of people, that they should be advised of that.
BARRIE CASSIDY: Why?
SCOTT MORRISON: I mean that doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable thing for people to expect because people would otherwise be in detention, Barrie, and these people are the responsibility of the Minister for Immigration. They are in a special class because they would otherwise be in detention and the Minister for Immigration is responsible for them.
BARRIE CASSIDY: But they’re not in detention
SCOTT MORRISON: I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the Government to be forth right with people. The Government shouldn’t hide this information.
BARRIE CASSIDY: They’re not in detention because they’re criminals.
SCOTT MORRISON: They’re in detention, Barrie, because at that stage of the process we don’t know whether they’ve been found to be refugees or not, the refugee convention allows people to be detained while they’re determining their refugee status as a course. Secondly, their identity hasn’t been fully tested nor has the ASIO done full security checks on anyone who has been released.
There is a light touch based on who people say they are but as we know with more than 90 per cent of people turning up without documentation then I think these are reasonable, common sense safeguards, Barrie, and I think the community has a reasonable expectation the Government would have some sort of protocols or guidelines in place…
BARRIE CASSIDY: When you blocked families going to the funerals of those killed on Christmas Island.
SCOTT MORRISON: I did not do that, Barrie, as you know. What I suggested was those funerals could have taken place on Christmas Island and when I discovered that wasn’t possible those arrangements went forward. It was never my intention to separate those families from the funerals at any time. Another beat up which I think was very appallingly handled by the reporting.
My full column on the stitch-up and the shame of the Greens and Labor: 

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Gays have marriage equality already

Andrew BoltMARCH042013(11:56am)

A VERBAL trick is being played by activists and journalists trying to fool Australians into backing same-sex marriage.
See if you can pick the word game that’s blinding people to what’s really at stake.
Here is Finance Minister Penny Wong: “It is an undeniably ugly vein that runs deep in some of the arguments against marriage equality.’’
Spotted the trick yet? The one that’s just been called out by a surprisingly unimpressed Federal Court judge?
(Subscription required to read full article.)

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Bernardi dumped, yet polygamists prove him right

Andrew BoltMARCH042013(9:54am)

LIBERAL senator Cory Bernardi says he decided to resign as Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s parliamentary secretary for the good of the Coalition… 
Speaking on a gay marriage Bill in Federal Parliament last night, Mr Bernardi said: “Time and time again the same characters seek to tear down our institutions that have been built and have sustained our civilisation for thousands of years. The time has come to ask: when will it end?
“What is the next step?
“The next step, quite frankly, is having three people or four people that love each other being able to enter into a permanent union endorsed by society or any other type of relationship.”
Senator Bernardi went on to say accepting gay marriage could lead to accepting bestiality.
“There are even some creepy people out there and I say ‘creepy’ deliberately who are unfortunately afforded a great deal more respect than I believe they deserve,” he said.
Linking same-sex marriage to bestiality was offensive and a political howler. But in the Senate last week Bernardi gave fresh evidence suggesting his warning was well-founded when it came to polygamy: 
Three weeks ago Sydney’s City Hub reported on the establishment of the Polyamory Action Lobby, or PAL… And sure enough, PAL recently started a petition which reads:
The House of Representatives For too long has Australia denied people the right to marry the ones they care about. We find this abhorrent. We believe that everyone should be allowed to marry their partners, and that the law should never be a barrier to love. And that’s why we demand nothing less than the full recognition of polyamorous families.
So here we have it: a polyamorist lobby group petitioning parliament to allow polygamous marriage. To some, five months ago this was inconceivable....
But who is behind the Polyamory Action Lobby? PAL’s president is Brigitte Garozzo. PAL’s spokesman is Timothy Scriven. And Kieran Adair is also one of PAL’s founders. And what do these militant polyamorists have in common? I will tell you. They are all associated with the Greens. Brigitte Garozzo, also known as Brigitte McFadden is listed as the contact officer for the New South Wales Young Greens at the University of Sydney. Timothy Scriven describes his political views as ‘anarchism and revolutionary libertarian socialism’, though the University of Sydney Greens Facebook page last year said: 
Timothy Scriven is an active member of the Greens on Campus and on our executive…
Kieran Adair’s Twitter profile promotes the 2011 Greens New South Wales election campaign. Further, a ‘Kieran Adair’ said, on the New Matilda website when commenting on the 2011 annual Marxist conference, ‘I don’t identify as a socialist; I’m a Green.’…
Polyamorous marriage is on the agenda. Greens activists are now pushing publicly for it while other polyamorists are lying low, waiting to be the next cab off the rank—no doubt, I suspect, having been given a nod and a wink by other Greens, who are still advocating marriage for all.

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Fraser demonises vote person

Andrew BoltMARCH042013(9:45am)

Tony Abbott wants all Australians to be taught about Christianity, to be made to read the Bible.
BIBLE classes should be compulsory so children have a fundamental understanding of Christianity on leaving school, Tony Abbott says.
“I think everyone should have some familiarity with the great texts that are at the core of our civilisation,” said the Federal Opposition leader.
Malcolm Fraser deplores what he himself does: 
...both Liberal and Labor, have sought to demonise...

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Howard for GG?

Andrew BoltMARCH042013(8:33am)

John Howard would make a superb governer-general, but I suspect six years out of political office may be considered not quite enough:
“He would make an excellent governor-general. It’s his if he wants it,” one Liberal powerbroker told The Australian yesterday. “But the big question is: does he want it?”

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Never mind the last promises, Gillard has new ones

Andrew BoltMARCH042013(7:54am)

The last time Julia Gillard went to Rooty Hill campaigning - before the 2010 election - she made a raft of promises she didn’t keep. Eighteen of them, say the Liberals.
Yesterday I singled out four:
Ms Gillard’s 2013 version, delivered in western Sydney on Sunday, began with what she would not promise. ‘’We won’t promise the sun, the moon and the stars - we won’t fill every pothole or catch every crook,’’ she told an auditorium of the hopeful. ‘’But I am determined to deliver five things to make your life easier and improve your future.
‘’We will support your job and put Aussie workers first.’’
But then she couldn’t help herself - not in an election year.
The woman who last time promised a railway link she never delivered, this time hinted she’d promise a new road among five big goodies she had in mind:
In a speech last night at the University of Western Sydney, the Prime Minister ...
said the government would deliver high-speed broadband to the region, provide its children with a “world-leading education”, insure against disability and “help you manage the pressures of modern family life and modern society”.
“The grind of long daily commutes, on infrastructure that’s barely coping, on roads that need co-operation between governments . . . we’ll have more to say about that in coming days,” Ms Gillard said.
The Australian understands the government plans to make a major contribution to the road project known as WestConnex, which has already drawn the support of Tony Abbott. WestConnex includes a 33km link between Sydney’s west and the airport and Port Botany an extension of the M4 east. The Daily Telegraph newspaper reports today that Ms Gillard’s pledge of $1 billion-plus toward the state government project was based on strict conditions...
Deaf ears: 
Last night, the Seven Network reported on a ReachTel poll suggesting that 43.5 per cent of voters were less likely to vote Labor as a result of Ms Gillard’s blitz. It found 14.4 per cent were more likely to vote Labor and 42.1 per cent were unchanged.
As for this promise:
Labor would also launch the national disability insurance scheme in 17 weeks.
But where’s the money for the full $17 billion a year it’s expected to cost?

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Forget this small bounce for Baillieu. A scandal could finish him

Andrew BoltMARCH042013(7:31am)

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A key cause:
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Baillieu supporters will hope the slight improvement in the primary and two-party-preferred votes will be the beginning of a long-awaited resurgence.
With the two-party-preferred gap closing from 10 points to six and gathering evidence of Labor tanking federally, the Baillieu camp believes it has been through the worst of the political turbulence...
True, Baillieu’s strong performance against Julia Gillard on hospital funding made him look good. His old diffidence, taciturnity and inactivity has, at least, meant that when he does go the biff it stands out more. It does signal someone has crossed a line even for Ted. If he could find some energising cause ...
...early evidence is that the government is starting to fight on its traditional strengths of law and order and the economy.
It has had a significant win over the Gillard government on health funding…
Baillieu has back-ended his good news, which should include a vastly better budget bottom line and some signs of concrete action by way of much needed infrastructure. 
Good infrastructure announcements cannot be too long delayed. There comes a time when they sound as just election-time desperation. Promises impress less than cranes in the sky.
UPDATE
SECRET tapes lifting the lid on confidential dealings and payouts behind the police command crisis have rocked the Baillieu Government.
More than four hours of digital audio recordings and documents have emerged revealing former adviser Tristan Weston - who quit in the wake of an OPI report into the split between top cops Simon Overland and Sir Ken Jones - was paid $22,500 by the Liberal Party…
The tapes also reveal that Mr Weston was repeatedly offered help in finding a new job by the Premier’s most senior adviser, Tony Nutt - actions at odds with Ted Baillieu’s public assurances that his office was not assisting the former adviser....
The call to Mr Weston came a day after Mr Weston told Liberal Party state director Damien Mantach he was annoyed at Mr Ryan’s comments about him: “I think, you know, Peter Ryan tends to run off at the mouth, and it would be in his best interests not to, mate.”..
Mr Nutt’s offer, and other promises of assistance, were made both before and after October, 2011, when Mr Weston resigned following the OPI’s accusation he had run a campaign against police chief Simon Overland…
Last July, broadcaster Neil Mitchell put it to Mr Baillieu that Mr Weston had “taken a fall” and that Deputy Premier Peter Ryan was “up to his neck in it and to help square things off your people are trying to get him a job”.
Mr Baillieu replied: “I don’t believe that’s the case”, and “I just don’t think there’s any credibility to that scenario”.

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The Age and Sydney Morning Herald have today gone tabloid

Andrew BoltMARCH042013(7:18am)

Your reaction? No, don’t just vent, but critique. I’m interested.
UPDATE
My own take?
I haven’t yet seen the Herald, but the Age has done a terrible job for the first edition of its critical relaunch. The front page has a dull picture. There is a dull, generic blurb about a health liftout that is plain wasted space. The two stories featured are not must-read hard-news stories that will sell the paper off the stands: one disputing the causes of the Black Saturday fires and the other about banks allegedly being bastards.
Consider the difference: radio news in Melbourne is running hard on the Herald Sun’s front page about secret tapes catching out the Baillieu Government secretly offering sweeteners to a ministerial adviser it sacked in a scandal.
The Age’s back page, a huge selling point for a tabloid with so little display space for that first impression, has only a full-page ad.
The biggest story in the paper, measured by column inches, is The Age itself, a self-indulgence that makes the relaunch seem not a burst of vitality but an elegy. Page 2 is devoted to blurbs, promos and explanations for the change of format. Pages 20 and 21 are entirely spent on explaining and excusing the change. Pages 28 and 29 are a long essay and photo display of the history of The Age. Half of page 30 is an editorial explaining the changes.  That is five and half pages of 72 spent writing about The Age itself.
I suspect day one will have good sales as buyers check out the novelty factor. But this is a poor effort after all the months spent planning. A sharp improvement is necessary to save theThe Age as a printed product.  A sense of urgency. A bit more sass. A lot more personality.

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"Bernt Enghardts Orkester" Year 1967 - Pre ABBA
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The Waldo Grade View. I dedicate this one toChuck Doswell who wasn't all too happy to see the gigantic Sutro tower looming in the background of the earlier pic I posted from this same location. Here it is mostly hiding behind the fog.

It was a good hike up the steep trail to this spot with Miguel De La Cruz and Michael Gordon. We had a lot of laughs and we think that Michael just might be Paul Porter's long lost twin brother.

I've wanted to get this shot for a very long time. When we decided to leave our homes to meet up, the fog bank that was off shore suddenly came up over the headlands and engulfed the bridge entirely. There was some thought to maybe give up, but Miguel and Michael both thought there might still be a chance. When we arrived we found the fog bank receding. There was a lot of haze in the air, and the images I shot before this one turned out very low contrast.

…in other words, I'll be coming back to do this again.
 — at Golden Gate Bridge.
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faith without action is worthless. Truth became a stumbling block for my dad, who I recently discovered was a strong Christian until he married my atheist mum at age 21 (on his 21st birthday). I can't explain the Flood, or various miracles, but don't feel I have to. It is certainly the case that the concept of forgiveness has transformed cultures in the West, and the East lacked much as a result (cf Elizabeth Kim's 10000 Sorrows). Buddha acknowledged Christ, according to Eastern scripture. But I wouldn't say what the stories were for. I think humanity's relationship with God is what scripture shows. I would be a lesser person without prayer. Many atheists get upset when I say that, but they are the first to say that one should think first and act second. - ed
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Hellno Kitty
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Here is something that my friend and I were talking about awhile back and he brought it up, but now I notice it a lot.

For whatever reason, whenever I get an angry and irrational woman on my page, I often go to their page to see what the heck made them that way. I often find their page filled with Maya Angelo quotes, half-spiritual sounding quotes about peace and love, sometimes posts about how yoga relaxes them and lots of pictures of beautiful scenery with these low brow quotes about how we should all sing about peace and hope while holding hands.

I just have to laugh. Their page is full of preachy, feel good, emotional quotes, but their posts on my page and full of hate, anger and vulgarity.

Oh well, it is just an odd observation that I have made. I just have to laugh. I bet they have a "Coexist" bumper sticker on their car too.

~And yes, I am sure there are men that fit this description, but I notice mainly women.

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"A touching love story that might make you cry"

10th Grade :
As I sat there in English class, I stared at the girl next to me. She was my so called 'best friend'. I stared at her long, silky hair,and wished she was mine. But she didn't notice me like that, and I knew it.
After class, she walked up to me and asked me for the notes she had missed the day before.
I handed them to her. She said 'thanks' and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I want to tell her, I want her to know that I don't want to be just friends, I love her but I'm just too shy, and I don't know why.

11th grade :
The phone rang. On the other end, it was her. She was in tears, mumbling on and on about how her love had broke her heart. She asked me to come over because she didn't want to be alone, So I did. As I sat next to her on the sofa, I stared at her soft eyes, wishing she was mine. After 2 hours, one Drew Barrymore movie, and three bags of chips, she decided to go home.
She looked at me, said 'thanks' and gave me a kiss on the cheek..
I want to tell her, I want her to know that I don't want to be just friends,I love her but I'm just too shy, and I don't know why.

Senior year :
One fine day she walked to my locker.
"My date is sick" she said, "he's not gonna go" well, I didn't have adate, and in 7th grade, we made apromise that if neither of us had dates, we would go together just as 'best friends'. So we did. That night, after everything was over, I was standing at her front door step. I stared at her as She smiled at me and stared at me with her crystal eyes. Then she said- "I had the best time,thanks!"
and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Iwant to tell her, I want her to know that I don't want to be just friends, I love her but I'm just too shy, and I don't know why.

Graduation :
A day passed, then a week, then a month. Before I could blink, it wasgraduation day.
I watched as her perfect body floated like an angel up on stage to get her diploma. I wanted her to be mine-but
she didn't notice me like that, and I knew it. Before everyone went home, she came to me in her smock and hat, and cried as I hugged her. Then she lifted her head from my shoulder and said- 'you're my best friend, thanks' and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Iwant to tell her, I want her to know that I don't want to be just friends, I love her but I'm just too shy, and I don't know why.

Marriage :
Now I sit in the pews of the church.That girl is getting marriednow. and drive off to her new life,married to another man. I wantedher to be mine, but she didn't see me like that, and I knew it. But before she drove away, she came to me and said 'you came!'.
She said 'thanks' and kissed me on the cheek. I want to tell her, I want her to know that I don't want to be just friends,I love her but I'm just too shy, and I don't know why.

Death :
Years passed, I looked down at the coffin of a girl who used to bemy 'best friend'.
At the service, they read a diary entry
she had wrote in her high school years.
This is what it read:
'I stare at him wishing he was mine, but he doesn't notice me like that, and I know it. I want to tell him, I want him to know that Idon't want to be just friends, I love him but I'm just too shy, and I don't know why.
I wish he would tell me he loved me !.

........'I wish I did too'........
I thought to my self, and I cried

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In Sarasota, Florida one day before the presidential election on November 5th, 2012.
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Best passport stamping ever...
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"... proved oil reserves—vastly undercounts how much oil the U.S. actually contains. In fact, far from being oil-poor, the country is awash in vast quantities—enough to meet all the country’s oil needs for hundreds of years."
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/yes-we-can/
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GILLARD’S "PLAN" FOR WESTERN SYDNEY ROADS – what a joke.

PM Gillard’s “plan” for Western Sydney roads is just another example of how completely out of touch that Labor are – a complete an utter joke - just another meaningless promise.

Gillard has “promised” to provide $1 billion funding for the Sydney's West Connex motorway – but has tied the promise of funding to a series of “conditions”.

Firstly, those “conditions” add an extra $5 billion to $8 billion in additional costs to the project. This will just delay the project.

Secondly, Sydneysiders well remember a similar stunt in 2011 when Gillard promised $2.1 billion to finance the Parramatta to Epping rail link. We are still waiting, and not a cent has been delivered.

Thirdly, the NSW Premier (whom will need to build this) only heard about Gillard’s "plan” when he opened up today’s newspaper.

Gillard must think everyone in Western Sydney is stupid if she expects anyone to believe that her announcement today is anything but a charade, a media stunt - just another meaningless promise.

No wonder no one believes a word that Labor says.

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Echium at the Golden Gate — with Mike Oria atWaldo Grade Tunnel.
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…when evening had come, He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side.”… And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling…Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.—Mk 4:35, 37, 39

Before Jesus and His disciples set out to cross the Sea of Galilee in their little boat, He had already told them, “Let us cross over to the other side.”

That was why even amid a great storm in the middle of the sea, Jesus could still sleep peacefully. Our Lord had a plan, and nothing could disrupt it!

Though tired from a long day of teaching and ministering, Jesus’ love for His terrified disciples caused Him to arise and calm the storm. “Peace, be still!” He said, and immediately, the turbulent waters became as smooth as glass, and everyone made it safely to land.

Beloved, if you’re grappling with a challenging situation right now, take heart. The Prince of Peace resides in you, and has a plan of peace and hope for you (Jer 29:11). No matter how bad the storm is, you are not going under, but going over safely to the other side!
http://josephprince.com/

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Friend,
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Rick Santorum
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