# Time Mag Person Of The Year



## Davey Jones (Dec 9, 2013)

*Oh gimme a break.
*The top 4 finalists to be announce Wednesday are
Barack Obama
Pope Francis
President Hassan Rouhana
Miley Cyrus

The other contenders were
Bashar Assad
Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder)
Sen Ted Cruz
Kathleen Sebelius (Health and Human services secretary)
Edward Snowden
Edith Windsor (gay rights activist)


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## Ozarkgal (Dec 9, 2013)

What is their criterion for anointing someone with this dubious title?


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## Anne (Dec 9, 2013)

*Miley Cyrus??!!!  *   Oh for pity's sake.......


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## Jillaroo (Dec 9, 2013)

_She had millions of views for her song Wrecking Ball and i love the song, but don't like the way she is acting of late_


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## Jackie22 (Dec 9, 2013)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Person_of_the_Year

A list of all the persons of the year since 1927 which includes every president that served.


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## SifuPhil (Dec 9, 2013)

I'm still upset that Stalin made it twice but Hitler only made it once ...


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## Diwundrin (Dec 9, 2013)

Don't seem fair duzzit?

Time's only criteria seems to be whose head sold the most mags.

I know the Womens mags here ran P.Dianna pics on the front page as often as they could get away with it because the enthralled would buy the damned silly thing to read some garbage about her current doings.

I'm backing Miley.


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## drifter (Dec 9, 2013)

Of those names listed, my pick of the litter would be Edward Snowden.


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## Diwundrin (Dec 9, 2013)

Due to the present problems Snowden has caused us down here I'd nominate him for the Annual Bin Laden Memorial Burial at Sea Award!


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## drifter (Dec 9, 2013)

What problems has he caused you, down there?


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## Anne (Dec 9, 2013)

Shipper said:


> Barack Obama should be a shoe-in because he already has a Nobel Peace prize. Oh, I forgot that he won that before he had done anything. Come to thing about it, he still hasn't done anything.



You noticed that, too!!!!   


Yes Di; what about Snowden???


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## Diwundrin (Dec 9, 2013)

drifter said:


> What problems has he caused you, down there?



You mean other than costing 'zillions' in trade deals with our touchy Asian neighbours who are now blackmailing us over getting caught spying on them via and thanks to the US network? 

Causing us to 'lose face' that has taken decades to build up in the business and politics scene in Asia?
(Not just for dubious ethics of spying, they know we all do that to each other, but for being naff enough at it to get caught! )

 Giving Indonesia the perfect opportunity to renege on the immigration deals we had in place to curtail the flotillas of refugees leaving Indo for here and overloading the processing centres far beyond what we can handle, just to put us in our place and make their President look the 'strong leader' to the voters up there? 

 Causing the East Timorese, who we 'liberated' from Indonesia decades ago and have been supporting on our budget ever since to now sue us to get the treaty overturned because we were spying on their meetings about stating terms and they want their oil fields back which is what we've been funding them with so they can then sell it China or someone while still expecting us to feed them anyway?  

Oh and getting 220million bomb happy Muslim Indos a days boat trip away offended more than usual with us to flag burning level for spying on their President and his wife's cell phone conversations? 
 That the kind of thing you mean?  ... noooo, Snowden's caused no trouble for us at all!


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## drifter (Dec 9, 2013)

I had no idea. I thought the Aussies ran a clean, transparent government. I suppose Snowden did embarrass a few people in his own government, also. Naughty boy, that Snowden. That's why he ought to be named Time's Man of the Year.


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## Anne (Dec 9, 2013)

Guess our news media forgot to inform us on all that....well, yeah, that might be a reason he'd be nominated for Time.


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## dbeyat45 (Dec 10, 2013)

I'm surprised that Al Gore didn't get a look in ..... after all, look how much he has brought down the temperature in the US lately.  
:sorry:  but not much :wink:.


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## Diwundrin (Dec 10, 2013)

Drifter, anyone who thinks a clean transparent Government  can last more than a week on this planet is kidding themself.   Even the Vatican can't do that.



Not surprised it wasn't mentioned in  your media Anne, I doubt anyone there would want to hear about it for varying reasons.

I don't give a toss about the embarrassment, I do give one about Asia's use of it impacting on our economic future. 

What did we do to Snowden except trust that information received via an intelligence sharing deal with America would be kept securely out of the hands of fwits like him and the newspapers??  

Unlike many I fail to see the benefit of the general public knowing what  the hell the spooks are up to.  It's a filthy game and that's the only  way it can be played.  
 We really don't need to know. It will just shatter our illusions and depress us, and how would knowing benefit us?

 We never can be aware of all the ramifications of a situation and will make noises pushing naive decisions that choose ethically instead of logically.   We've had an example of Twitter trending animal rights activists manouevering a soft silly government into making a decision that not only cost billions but actually made the plight of the animals far worse than the original protest was about. Gawd help us if we start running foreign policy according to Twitter trends.

We should let hard decisions be made by those who know what's really going on and not just spend 10 minutes a day reading a headline or a protest banner and pronouncing ourselves as the rightful arbiters of clandestine operations.

Those who want to hobble their own forces to  pander to some whim of ethical appearances are seriously disadvantaging  themselves and their Nation.  The person adhering to the M. of  Queensbury Rules in a street brawl won't walk away unscathed, if at  all.  That glitter and goodness is just the mask that Nations wear, they  can't, and don't operate on goody 2shoes rules. Never did, never can. Why on Earth do we still get surprised by that?  Do we think Walt Disney is directing things or something?

How can people in the US who are okay with blowing away intruders get all gaspy when it comes to their spooks doing it?  I don't quite get that I must admit.


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## Old Hipster (Dec 10, 2013)

Davey Jones said:


> *Oh gimme a break.
> *The top 4 finalists to be announce Wednesday are
> Barack Obama
> Pope Francis
> ...


Man just think of how honored the other nominees must feel to actually be named right along side Miley Cyrus. That would sure make my day.

When I was checking the weather today on-line I couldn't help but see that Miley was named MTV's artist of the year. This is indeed the day that music died.

Oh wait maybe I read the title of this thread wrong, surely it must be Skank Magazine person of the year. Nope. 

This to me in the last nail in the coffin of society, we can't really sink any lower than this. We have hit rock bottom.


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## rkunsaw (Dec 10, 2013)

I'm suspicious of anyone who cares what time magazine thinks.


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## JustBonee (Dec 10, 2013)

Anne said:


> *Miley Cyrus??!!!  *   Oh for pity's sake.......



My exact thought!


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## Davey Jones (Dec 10, 2013)

Im guessing flipping a coin Fridays night at Skippys Bar.



Ozarkgal said:


> What is their criterion for anointing someone with this dubious title?


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## Davey Jones (Dec 10, 2013)

Well somebody has to take over Madonna's place.




Jillaroo said:


> _She had millions of views for her song Wrecking Ball and i love the song, but don't like the way she is acting of late_


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## SifuPhil (Dec 10, 2013)

rkunsaw said:


> I'm suspicious of anyone who cares what time magazine thinks.



_TIME_ used to be a very informative and authoritative source - I wonder when they went wrong?


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## That Guy (Dec 10, 2013)

The evil of repression and phony Disney World rears its ugly head . . .


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## SifuPhil (Dec 10, 2013)

To be fair, there have been many child stars that were cute as bugs when they were young - think Judy Garland, for one - but later developed into drug-addicted, brain-addled messes. 

This is just the latest version of Hollywood gone wrong.


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## JustBonee (Dec 11, 2013)

Pope Francis did get the honor,  but Miley Cyrus wasn't far behind. 


http://poy.time.com/2013/12/11/person-of-the-year-pope-francis-the-peoples-pope/







dbeyat45 said:


> I'm surprised that Al Gore didn't get a look in ..... after all, look how much he has brought down the temperature in the US lately.
> :sorry: but not much :wink:.



Whatever has happened with Al Gore?    Don't hear anything about him.


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## Davey Jones (Dec 11, 2013)

Was hoping Snowden would win it...


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## SifuPhil (Dec 11, 2013)

I wonder what kind of party _Il Papa_ is throwing right now ... probably careening through the Vatican on a wrecking ball. nthego:


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## drifter (Dec 11, 2013)

Well, I never even thought of the Pope. I think it was a good selection. Hip,hip, hooray!


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## drifter (Dec 11, 2013)

*Di said:
How can people in the US who are okay with blowing away intruders get all gaspy when it comes to their spooks doing it? I don't quite get that I must admit.

*If I were on a jury trying Snowden, I would vote not guilty. I suppose it's all this stuff about the Patriot Act and all this NSA snooping and spying on it's own citizen and all this police state stuff and all this lack of trust between our peoples, and lack of trust of people for their government, seemingly making the government an enemy of it's own citizenry, I can only wish Snowden well. I neither hold nor wish Australia any ill will.


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 11, 2013)

I would vote not guilty for Snowden too, and wish him well.


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## dbeyat45 (Dec 11, 2013)

Snowden should be caught, hung, drawn, quartered, guillotined and shot .... as an example to anybody else thinking of betraying their oath of allegiance.


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## drifter (Dec 11, 2013)

I disagree... He pointed out where this country has gone haywire. I suspect we've more more spy's in our own government spying on our own people than there are terrorist in the world.


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## dbeyat45 (Dec 11, 2013)

What about your home-grown nutters who want to participate in mass murder and bombings ... who's going to keep an eye on them?  
We don't know how many "bad things" have been foiled, do we?


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## Diwundrin (Dec 12, 2013)

drifter said:


> *Di said:
> How can people in the US who are okay with blowing away intruders get all gaspy when it comes to their spooks doing it? I don't quite get that I must admit.
> 
> *If I were on a jury trying Snowden, I would vote not guilty. I suppose it's all this stuff about the Patriot Act and all this NSA snooping and spying on it's own citizen and all this police state stuff and all this lack of trust between our peoples, and lack of trust of people for their government, seemingly making the government an enemy of it's own citizenry, I can only wish Snowden well. I neither hold nor wish Australia any ill will.



I can't disagree about your view of the NSA or for that matter our own ASIO spying on their own citizenzry.... to a point. 
 I do though take exception to anyone's Spooks  involving friendly Nations in intelligence sharing operations and then failing to protect those allies with a reasonable degree of security. 

 Had Snowden done a neat sniping job on the domestic spying aspects of the NSA then fine, your business to sort out.  
But he didn't, he chose to fire a shotgun, loaded with other Nations' secrets,  with his eyes shut and with no regard to who was in the line of fire internationally. 
His actions could only hurt his own Country and it's Allies so what was his agenda exactly??  

 Angela got antsy about her phone being hacked but how much did Germany suffer financially over the whole fiasco?  
We never got an apology for our trade deals dunking by the NSA's stuff up, we just got shrugged off as collateral damage by Obama.  Not headline worthy enough?  Or doesn't it matter when it's only your friends who get hurt?

I don't think Assange is any too popular in the US is he??   He's one of our ferals who spilled America's beans, was Snowden payback?? 
 How the US views Assange is how we feel about Snowden!

Assange though is at least a civilian!  He took no oaths of allegiance.  He was a serving member of nothing but himself.  
He hacked bribed and coerced his own way into information, which is yet another embarrassment to US intelligence security wallahs, but he wasn't simply handed access to it by a security chief. Snowden was misjudged trustworthy enough to access and  give whatever he wanted to whoever he pleased when had a bad hair day.  

Assange was never trusted by anyone, since he was caught hacking as a teenager. But obviously Snowden was.
  Assange got into their data banks despite their prior knowledge of him, his agenda, and his skills over decades. 
It's mindblowing that they couldn't stop him!  If he can get through the firewalls and loyalty of security forces then how much do you  think China knows??  

The only favours these two have done us it to disabuse us of the notion that our spooks are as good as they'd have us believe and that they have things under control.  That only happens in novels, TV and movies.  They're struggling, and the last thing our 'team' needs is their own side handicapping them with goody 2 shoes fantasies of fair play.

Like many I wavered on judging Assange, hero or villain.  Logic wanted to hang him, the faint glimmer of rebel went Yea.  Leaning towards hanging lately.

If the information either of them released ever stood a chance of altering attitudes globally then maybe a point could be made.  But it didn't.  I was disastrously damaging to only one bloc, ours.  It was treason/betrayal/pure bloody minded egotistical and malevolent one-upmanship or whatever,  but a 'good thing?'      NO,  I can't see it as that, sorry.

It isn't only all about the US' domestic Government policies, this stuff-up goes a lot wider than that.


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 12, 2013)

dbeyat45 said:


> What about your home-grown nutters who want to participate in mass murder and bombings ... who's going to keep an eye on them?
> We don't know how many "bad things" have been foiled, do we?



The NSA, the government to keep an eye on them...or indirectly be the cause of the mass murders and bombings?  We know very little of what bad things have been foiled, along with the bad things that have been carried out by the "watchers".


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## drifter (Dec 12, 2013)

Most of the home grown nutters as you call them are not known until they pull the trigger some where, usually in schools where the only ones who can know are fellow students. You down under know about as much abut these a we do. On the other hand, anything our feds say they have prevented is merely an attempt to justify all the expense of this listening in everywhere. I doubt they prevented anything. I think we had a better system before we created the Homeland Security.


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## dbeyat45 (Dec 12, 2013)

> ..... along with the bad things that have been carried out by the "watchers"


 Touché SeaBreeze.


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## drifter (Dec 12, 2013)

Now back to Di and all the damage Mr Snowden had done to her and her country. This might be a good place to point out that I am not all knowing nor all seeing even though I may sometime project that I have that ability. I didn't realize the fallout would be so wide, the collateral damage so great. I thought the most that would happen is that some countries would suffer a little embarrassment. So in view of that oversight and in view of the fact I could not convict Mr. Snowden, should I be called to serve on a jury of his peers.  I stand defenseless and may be in for a good tongue lashing or a few strokes of the cane.


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 12, 2013)

Snowden, article...http://www.whistleblower.org/blog


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## Diwundrin (Dec 13, 2013)

I wasn't 'having a go' at you Drifter, never, just pointing out that not all sides of things are aired fairly very often, they sure weren't in this case.  Not in the States anyway, but then that is what you are all antsy about in the first place isn't it?

It's a vexed question and the baby and the bathwater are damned hard to separate when you want to throw the system out.

SB that is all very fine for Snowden to spout lyrical about his good intent but much of the information released had little to do with 'home' security and more to do with stirring up ill feelings and extortion opportunities among foreign Nations.

America is only the centre of the World to Americans, the rest of us aren't all marching to the same drum. Close, but the beat differs sometimes.

 This is why a forum like this is so damned valuable.  It allows us to understand viewpoints and how and why different opinions are held beyond what we are being fed by our own puppet masters and media. We can discover what they're up to via roundabout chatter, that's why the Internet is banned in some places.  Make the most of it while it lasts.

 But there's a limit to everything, even to freedom of the press if a scoop brings disastrous consequences to the community as a whole.  Who gets to arbitrate on that?  That is the crux of it all isn't it?  I doubt we'll have a say in that for long.

The Snowden's of the world seem to think that other Nations will all have some kind of enlightened epiphany and suddenly start playing by their 'nicer' rules.  (of Queensbury?)
That ain't gonna happen!  Ever.  That's Pollyanna stuff.  No Nation can afford to be Pollyanna.

[ramble]
Was focus on M.E. bomb fetishes a cause or an effect?   I think we all suspect that the 'War on Terror' is a cover for a far more complex agenda, but what ya gonna do about it?  Call it off?  Let 'em think they've 'won'?  How much cheekier will they get then?  Or go in harder and lose more lives and spend more money we don't have?  Or settle for relying on espionage to keep us at least in touch with what might be going on, or down?  

You think you have a problem with Mexican drug runners?  Try living next door to 220million Muslims who hang Australians for carrying dope but allow terrorist bomber's bosses who orchestrated blowing 82 of us away in Bali to get away with 2 years in jail because they did it for Allah. 

 We aren't supposed to spy on them??  Really?  They are sending boatloads of unidentifiable, majority Moslem refugees down here now. 
 Only by closely working with them on an intelligence level allows us to at least know who is heading here.  Snowden blew that tenuous and hard won collaboration to pieces. They can't be seen to be working with us now or their own touchy populace would be outraged.  they've withdrawn their own surveillance of refugees now and will let them all go unchecked.  I might add that's despite us throwing them the lazy billion in 'foreign aid' to cover their expenses. 
Thanks a lot Snowden.

Is it just me or does this homeland surveillance thing seem to be ramping up in  relation to population density and mixing and the speed of global transport?  Would you have this problem  if it wasn't for the terrorism card?  Was it the cause, or the effect?

The bigger the crowd, the harder it is to control.   If you have a sparse and/or reasonably homogenous population you are are only going to need a 'Bobby' with a night stick.  Condense them into bigger, mixed agenda and harder to control crowds and you breed SWAT squads.  

Same with the spooks I'd guess.  
Spies ain't spies if they are at home are they? They're 'investigators.'   So where do you draw the line about finding foreign spies?  If (I'm not sure who's who over there so forgive errors in acronyms)... Say the CIA knows Charlie, a Maester bombmaker's little cousin,  is flying in. 
Are they supposed to stand idly by at the airport because it's not their territory any more?  Don't they then have to involve the FBI to take care of local baddies?  How would the FBI know who his contacts were if the CIA weren't allowed to tell them?  There has to be an overlap in jurisdiction.  It can't work without that. They can't stop Charlie coming in if he's got no form, that wouldn't be 'ethical' or PC by Pollyanna rules.   So, how would any of them know where Charlie's old boyhood pal lives so they can keep an eye on Charlie if they weren't 'spying' locally?  How would they even know that his pal was in the States?

So what's the next move?  Turn loose a new Security Authority who can work unilaterally?  There lies dragons!  But what's the alternative?
I think we need to get over the fantasy that rights, ethics and principles are the sole reason for existence or that premise will be tested by those Nations who don't think so.  Pollyannas will not fare well.   

The world is too far gone to expect those old biblically ethical values to control it, they simply won't.  Adapt or die.  None of us want to live in Big Brother World but it's going to be that one or Mad Max's.  Take your pick and place your bets folks.

Civilization isn't what it was a century ago we have to acknowledge that. Technology alone has changed us beyond what our great grandparents could have ever imagined.  Their rules worked for their world, and although their World had remained largely unchanged for centuries,  we must recognize that it has changed drastically in this last one.  We may dream of better kinder times but should remain aware that the odds are against them returning.  The Snowdens are simply fanning the flames on a wildfire.

Go watch Blade Runner and Gattica and maybe Soylent Green again and get used to the idea. 



[/ramble]  I've run out of cynicism, I'll have to go and reload.


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## SifuPhil (Dec 13, 2013)

Funny that you mention _Blade Runner_ ... when it came out in '82 I was shocked at how much the street scenes looked like NYC. The fashions were a little off and of course they weren't selling replicant snakes - but people WERE wearing veils and they WERE selling cheap knock-offs of brand-name electronics. 

Alas, my search for Pris was a failure, but I did run into a couple of Rachaels.


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## Diwundrin (Dec 13, 2013)

I think of Blade Runner and those 'sky ads' whenever I see a laser show on a building or artificial smoke or water mist screen. I think the in-your-face ads bothered me more than the replicants and 'lifestyle'.


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## That Guy (Dec 13, 2013)

dbeyat45 said:


> Snowden should be caught, hung, drawn, quartered, guillotined and shot .... as an example to anybody else thinking of betraying their oath of allegiance.



. . . just like those turn-coat Germans who defied Hitler . . .


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## SifuPhil (Dec 13, 2013)

Diwundrin said:


> I think of Blade Runner and those 'sky ads' whenever I see a laser show on a building or artificial smoke or water mist screen. I think the in-your-face ads bothered me more than the replicants and 'lifestyle'.



Oh, you mean like ...


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## Diwundrin (Dec 13, 2013)

Yeah, like that. 

 

Is it just me or is that just illuminated graffiti?  It's every bit and more annoying to look at, desecrates architecture and trashes the landscape. 
So why just pick on graffiti taggers?


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## SifuPhil (Dec 13, 2013)

Diwundrin said:


> Yeah, like that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well, it's corporate-sponsored, electronic graffiti - all the difference in the world.  

I have to admit that, at least back in the day, walking through there at night was like attending a light show at a concert. Even better if you were under the influence of any one of several easily-procured psychotropic compounds at the time - you could stand in the middle of 42nd Street and Broadway, watch the pretty lights and listen to all the car horns going off at once ...


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## dbeyat45 (Dec 14, 2013)

A story about one of the nominees here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...aracks-joking-with-Danish-prime-minister.html


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