It is almost that time again, when mankind should find peace and treat others the way they always should.

That is what I think at Christmas time, I hope that a small smile at a stranger, a kind word, a helping hand or just being there is enough to show others that it is the little things in life that make it special.

I don't need expensive gifts, I do need to give though it makes my Christmas for me, to see joy and smiles from others. Some people could never understand this, that is those who need to receive always.

This year I want to start from the first of December, I want to give something every day until Christmas, it may not be big but I am going to try.

May you all enjoy your silly season !!!

Our daughter and her Scottish boyfriend have been planning to come to Oz next July/August. He has just been laid off as a result of the recession. They are both very stressed at this turn of events, and are deciding this weekend whether to bring forward their plans to come to Oz. We talked to our daughter for three hours on Windows Live Messenger webcam yesterday. (Gotta love this net, don't you. It is a real boon for those of us with kids scattered around the globe.) We told her to put a positive spin on things. If they come back to Oz and find they can't get work, then we will support them while they take the opportunity to upgrade their skills at Uni/TAFE. We tell them that our parents lived through wars and a depression and still came out the other side. They can too. And they will.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/stressed-workers-swig-to-escape/2008/11/23/1227375020502.html

Stressed workers swig to escape

Shannon Molloy | November 23, 2008

Concern about the global economic crisis and job security is driving stressed city workers to seek comfort in the bottom of a glass.

Pubs and hotels across Brisbane have reported a recent spike in patron numbers, particularly among the white-collar crowd after work.

What might have once been an end-of-week ritual is now occurring more frequently, and sometimes on a daily basis, publicans say.

The Grand Central Hotel's Matt Coorey believes many punters have cut back on luxuries such as dining out but are unwilling to kick the happy hour habit.

"Having a beer after work is about catching up with your mates after being in the office all day," Mr Coorey said.

"People are cutting back in so many other areas but an after-work drink is still pretty affordable; it might be seen as a perk or reward after a hard day.

"They come in and the blokes who work up the road are all here . . . there's a strong sense of camaraderie. You take that away and there's not a lot left at the moment - life would become pretty mundane."

Despite the gloomy economic outlook, Mr Coorey said the mood in his watering hole was surprisingly upbeat and many would rather talk about other things than dwell on the inevitable.

On the Sunshine Coast, Surfair Hotel general manager Mike Tyson has noticed a rise in the number of weekend visitors from Brisbane who are seeking a break from city fatigue.

A growing number of city slickers are getting away from the hustle and e bustle of their Monday-to-Friday lives for some respite, he believes.

"People aren't splurging; it's a pretty affordable break," he said.

"They're just ducking away for the weekend for a little bit of relief.

"It's a cliche but people love the beach and love the chance to break away from the norm and de-stress a bit."

A recent study commissioned by counselling service Lifeline found 91 per cent of Australians reported they felt stress in their lives.

More than 70 per cent of respondents cited work as their biggest cause of stress, and two-thirds indicated they were worried about their finances.

Commenting on the results, Professor Ian Hickie, of the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Research Institute, said people should take steps to address the toll that stress was taking on their wellbeing.

"We must develop strategies to deal with and reduce the level of stress in our lives," Professor Hickie said. "Prolonged exposure to chronic and unrelenting stress is a killer."

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rupert-cornwell/rupert-cornwell-coolly-calmly-obama-is-putting-together-a-remarkable-team-1031240.html

Rupert Cornwell: Coolly, calmly, Obama is putting together a remarkable team

Out of America: Even senior Republicans admit that – on paper, at least – the president-elect is assembling a very impressive administration

Sunday, 23 November 2008

This is the hour of a Democratic restoration in Washington, but – with the possible exception of Hillary Clinton's "I do" of political marriage to Barack Obama – the most telling political words here last week may have been some grudging praise uttered by a Republican.

Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is as canny and crusty a Senate minority leader as they come. But even he confided to reporters that the new administration was "off to a good start". If McConnell is impressed, then Obama must be doing something right. In fact, three weeks after he secured the job, he's yet to make a serious misstep. If yesterday's flurry of reports are correct about Clinton and other impending cabinet appointments, then the president-elect is putting together one of the most impressive administrations of recent times – and doing so with a method and unflappability that can only bode well.

The formal announcement that Clinton will be the next secretary of state will only be made after this week's Thanksgiving holiday. But every piece of the puzzle is in place.

Her husband's complex financial and global philanthropic activities have been vetted. Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, gave his warm anticipatory blessing to the appointment on Friday, as did Henry Kissinger before him.

How quickly the barbs of the campaign trail are forgotten. Was it only a few months ago that Obama was deriding his rival's foreign policy experience as consisting of "having tea with ambassadors' wives" – while she was saying that his amounted to "a single speech in 2002" opposing the Iraq war? When he did not offer her the vice-presidential spot on the ticket last summer, it seemed as if the longest-running political soap opera of modern times was finally over. After defeating her in the primaries, Obama conspicuously did not make Hillary his vice-presidential running mate. Hillary, it seemed, would be content with toiling in the Senate vineyard, and US presidential politics would live quietly ever after. Not so. The soap is back on the air. Will the professional and personal lives of the two Clintons intersect? Will Bill make mischief with foreign policy freelancing?

Obama's motives are under the microscope. Some see him as trying to head off a potential rival in 2012; others see it as an attempt to heal party divisions. But judging by his other rumoured cabinet picks, he's done the blindingly obvious. He's had the self-confidence to pick the best person for the job, Clintonian baggage and all.

By the standards of most transitions, this one is far ahead of schedule. Arguably the most important single appointment, that of White House chief of staff, came within days of Obama's victory. Early this week the names of other future White House aides emerged, among them David Axelrod, his chief campaign strategist, and Gregory Craig, an old Clinton hand named as White House counsel.

Now the cabinet is taking shape, and its composition bears now traditional Obama hallmarks. Few of the names are surprises, all are respected figures of proven talent, and most have the credentials to reach across divides, at a time when the US has never been in greater need of bipartisanship at home and bridge-building abroad.

On Friday afternoon, when word leaked that Timothy Geithner was in line to become treasury secretary, the Dow Jones surged 400 points in an hour. As head of the New York Federal Reserve, Geithner has played a vital role in handling the Wall Street meltdown and would be a seamless replacement for the departing Henry Paulson. Not only is Geithner a Democrat who has perforce worked closely with a Republican administration, but he speaks Mandarin – suggesting an expert hand will be on the US tiller of "Chimerica", the crucial global relationship of this economic age.

For attorney general, the country's top legal and law enforcement official, Obama is looking to Eric Holder, who was number two at the Justice Department during Bill Clinton's second term. The one blemish on a glittering résumé is his role in the controversial pardons issued by Clinton when he left office.

The likely national security team, meanwhile, oozes experience. James Jones, tipped to be national security adviser, is a former marine general and supreme commander of Nato, well placed to nurture relations with Europe. Word is that Robert Gates, whose low-key competence at the Pentagon has earned him the respect of many Democrats, may well stay on there, for a year at least. "As a competent, credible team, it can't be faulted," says Ray DuBois, a former senior Pentagon official under Donald Rumsfeld.

The domestic appointments look similarly astute. Janet Napolitano, the Governor of Arizona, is Obama's apparent choice to run the sprawling Homeland Security Department. Tom Daschle, a former Senate majority leader, will be pushing healthcare reform as health and human services secretary. Bill Richardson would bring a new drive to the job of commerce secretary.

If the rumour mill is correct, the Obama administration will be one of the most impressive on paper assembled by a recent president. But talent is not everything, and high hopes are easily dashed. Half a century ago, "the best and the brightest" led the US into the Vietnam disaster. Closer to home, Harold Wilson's Labour government of 1974 is an equally sobering example. Wilson himself, Jim Callaghan, Denis Healey, Roy Jenkins, Tony Crosland, Shirley Williams, Peter Shore and the rest had intellect and political heft to die for. But they are identified with one of the most dismal periods in post-war British history. There's no guarantee that the team assembled by Barack Obama won't prove a similar disappointment. As even Mitch McConnell conceded, however, the new kid's off to a pretty good start.

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12638668

Folks,

Gitmo is one of the poisoned chalices Obama has inherited from Dubya. Clearly, his people know it and he knows it, too.

I do believe that the American people will have a choice to make: let natural justice take its course or maintain surveillance on the die-hard nutjobs now being detained at Gitmo until such time that society deems them to be harmless.

Down here, we recently had our own misguided Gitmo alumnus - David Hicks - complain that his court-ordered surveillance was stopping him from getting on with his life. The conditions of his surveillance include:
- Not being able to leave the country;
- Not being allowed access to phones or the internet;
- Being allowed to live anywhere in Australia provided the police are aware of his location;
- Having to report to the police twice a week on his activities.

I personally do not think that those conditions are unreasonable, especially when you consider what he had been up to - training with the Taliban and fighting our troops on foreign soil. I've argued before that he was probably just an ignorant and misguided twat who got caught up with the wrong crowd and was in the wrong place when the situation became deadly serious in the post-9/11 world.

Those still at Gitmo - especially that Khaled Sheikh Mohamad - are killers of the highest order. Any sense of meting out natural justice must be balanced against the body of evidence that tags these individuals as nothing more than mass killers who wouldn't blink for one second.

More than anything, Obama has a job to convince Americans that being fair also has to be balanced off with firmness. I have no doubt that there will be difficult, dark days ahead for democracy when this issue is addressed.

This really is the shitty end of a very clumsy, neanderthal US foreign policy borne from decisions made post-9/11.

Ninja

 

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24693483-12377,00.html

Firefighters rescue cow from septic tank

That is how I feel sometimes inside, I have a lot to be grateful for a Woman that loves me a job that pays well and friends that care.

Yet I still get that feeling, I think it is because I can't share in the way I want, it is hard and no matter how much I convince myself it isn't the reality reminds me.

I am not complaining just voicing thoughts in my mind, the day will come when all will be as a normal relationship should be or at least so I can share until then I just have to deal with the emptiness.

There once was a baby who stayed in hospital for a long time. and didn't get to have a bath for a very long time. he got really stinky and all the plants turned brown and looked unhappy.

 

 

After being checked out by DR Little I, he was given the ok to have a bath.

He was really scared as it was going to be his first bath ever!

 

 

It didn't take long before the little boy decided that it wasn't too bad.

 

After his bath he had a bottle and was laid down to sleep.

He didn't like this, He wanted to go back into the bath.

 

Soon he had a stretch as he was very tired, after all it has been a big day.

 

 

and he now smells so nice that all the plants turned green and are happy.

The End.

 

It has taken me a week to write this post as I haven't been well. I am thinking I am still recovering from a big weekend and also the huge change in weather this week. I am still not well but hopefully when the weather settles again so will I.

Anyway the good thing is I was reasonably well while in Melbourne and we got to spend time with our little family. Including dinner at Hannah and Greg's with all of the children except Ben who stayed home. Our other two grandchildren also didn't make it down because they are still too young to visit William.

I was the lucky one on Saturday, I got to have the only nurse of William for the day.

By the end of the day they had managed to lower his oxygen concentration on his CPAP down to 21% which is equivalent to breathing air.