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I wish all my readers a very very happy and prosperous year ahead. I would like to thank all my linkers my linkers and especially Google engineers for their support and encouragement. Without which I do not think this blog would have been what it is today. ranking as #5 on Google and everywhere else …

This is one of the best comeback lines of all time. It is a portion of National Public Radio (NPR) interview between a female broadcaster and US Marine Corps General Reinwald who was about to sponsor Boy Scouts visiting his military installation.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER: So, General Reinwald, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?

GENERAL REINWALD: We’re going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery, and
shooting.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Shooting! That’s a bit irresponsible, isn’t it?

GENERAL REINWALD: I don’t see why, they’ll be properly supervised on the rifle range.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Don’t you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?

GENERAL REINWALD: I don’t see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER: But you’re equipping them to become violent killers.

GENERAL REINWALD: Well, ma’am, you’re equipped to be a prostitute, but you’re not one, are you?

The radio went silent and the interview ended. You gotta love the Marines!

PS: It has been the worst and the best of holliday seasons. Christmas Eve with Bawa and Dial Holly Day with Richard and June. Catching up with Gabbie and friends from Holland UK. Dinner with Michael Parkinson at Swell Bronte etc … even swimming in swelly seas with Mal at Bronte. But it also involved going to funerals and spending time at hospitals is something we had to do, but life must go on …

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I have been sitting on this joke for quite some time. Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks did it too. He became rich really rich like us ;-)
… I drove by big houses and would wonder who lived there. What did they do for a living? How did they make their money? Someday, I would tell myself, I would live in a house like that. Every weekend I would do it. I worked jobs I didn't like. I worked jobs I loved, but had no chance of being a career. I worked jobs that barely paid the rent. I had so many jobs my parents wondered if I would be stable. Success and Motivation

Media Dragon denies they knew spinach was a performance enhancing drug
I'm rich, I'm sport and computer lover.I pick up on the web everything in which I recognize me. This is the world that sorrounds me ;-) Herewithin we detail the many schemes and scams by which our rich have become _incredibly_ rich, our poor poorer and the rest of us left struggling to get by

The internet retailer you choose just might, without disclosure, install software on your computer to snoop on your web browsing. Would you believe it could be one of the country’s oldest retailers Brian Krebs at the Security Fix blog has this story
“It’s a cold case 3500 years old”, are the opening words to this fascinating documentary. Ancient Egypt was the very center of world power, and managed through hieroglyphs to convey that rich history to us in the modern world. The Pharaohs and the dynasties are for the most part better documented than modern leaders. Our Presidents and their legacy lives on in the form of artifacts left in their usually very ornate tombs and pyramids.
• Cold River’s destiny. The book will read you … It’s a cold case 3500 years old ; It would be so nice if something made sense for a change 7 Surreal Urban Street Art Installation Projects: Brad Downey Brings Wonderland to Life
• · Warren Buffett has been all over the business press recently suggesting that the very rich, those on the Forbes 400 list, are taxed advantageously to the rest of the workforce. That it makes no sense that his tax bill as a percentage of income is lower than that of his secretary or housekeeper. Warren Buffett , Taxes and the Presidency ; In Internet nothing is created, everything is copied
• · · We're doing a series of astrological predictions for the 2008 Presidential candidates. War! Terror! Weirdness! Covering the War on Terror, War on Drugs and General Weirdness Death by 1000 Papercuts ; You spend too much time sat in your bedroom, on your PC Are you sure you couldn’t have found the time, Swallowed your pride and admitted your jealousy one of my city’s many front men
• · · · Now to some rubbish on the net … The Derrty Truth is updated daily with celebrity news and fodder for social commentary; Pages and pages filled with sleepless celebrity gossips, daily star tracks and latest photo shoots. Life should be too short for this … Thousand Gossips Blogs ; Our Bollywood covers all the latest happenings in Bollywood and does not indulge in tabloid journalism Our Bollywood

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We are drowning in information
and starved for knowledge.
-John Naisbitt, Chairman of The Naisbitt Group

My favourite time of year is the period between Christmas and New Year. It's like a week of Sundays. No one expects any work to get done, the streets are empty, the pressure is off. Just getting dressed feels like an accomplishment Why I love Christmas

At this special time with family and friends I love stories that remind me of what’s important in life. It’s also about the power of friendship and of family…and maybe not taking life so seriously. The transnational family, nourished by email, chatrooms, long-distance calls and SMSs has increasingly become a feature of migrant communities. The Best Gifts Are Simply Love And Understanding

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"I'm not saying it's The Da Vinci Code, but there are aspects to it that make you think of it. There's a lot of art, a lot of history and a lot of religion in it." Borders' Zan Farr says it's her "personal favorite" of the season. Cold River - Winter books preview: Warmth, fire and chills await book lovers this season

The harmonic richness of Newspaper Cold River Book Coverage, Ups and Downs A flood of reviews geared for 2008 V Grinch Stole Christmas
Chicago Sun Times books editor Teresa Budasi wrote about the Grinch Who Stole the Books Section, telling readers on Dec. 23 "the Books section in its current form will cease to exist after today," citing "the economic climate of the news business." Reduced weekly book coverage has been merged into the Sunday Show section of the paper, along with other arts and entertainment coverage.

As Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas celebrates its 50th anniversary -- complete with a new retrospective edition (Random House, 82 pages, $24.99) that includes 32 pages of commentary and archival images on the history of the Grinch -- the Books section in its current form will cease to exist after today.

• How the Grinch stole the Books section ; On the other hand, next week the New Orleans Times-Picayune "will debut The Reading Life, which will feature expanded coverage of books and the New Orleans literary scene each week on the cover of Friday's Living section" instead of Sunday coverage. They promise "new features devoted to book clubs and reading groups, literary movers and shakers, and expanded bestseller lists." Reading Life: THE BELLS IN THEIR SILENCE
• · Bookish pessimists are elitist and wrong: the Internet is good for you. Stars in the Net sky ; Ever vigilant, the mass media dug into a critical social issue and rooted out the information in their never-ending quest to guarantee the people’s right to know. Oops! The media did it again; In Cold River The characters always want what they don’t have.
• · · Identity theft is something that has been around as long as fraud itself. A gram of caution is worth a ton of remedy ; “My house is just a huge expensive brick weighing me down”, writes a homeowner on a Swiss political blog. The Swiss are home free
• · · · Anorak of Cold River Links To Things: Best Of The Web; It was probably inevitable. As one of Tony Soprano's sidekicks observed in a classic episode of the TV series, the two most resilient sectors of the economy are organised crime and certain aspects of showbusiness. The aspects, that is, known as the world's oldest profession - now mixing it with the world's newest technologies Organised Crime ; The Minister for Ports and Waterways, Joe Tripodi, yesterday appointed Mr Greiner to develop a new system for accessing the port amid lengthy ship queues Greiner to tackle coal ship standoff