The Australian rural landscape is uniquely suited to sheep and wool production is this country's largest and most important form of land use. There are over 70,000 wool-producing properties spread across Australia.Individual flocks range from a few hundred to as many as 100,000 or more sheep, with some three quarters of all sheep run in flocks of 3,000 or more.More than 80 per cent of all Australian sheep are pure Merino with most of the remainder at least part Merino blood. Merino is grown primarily for its heavy fleeces of fine wool.Although the Australian Merino derives its name and basic appearance from the Spanish breed, it is a distinct breed in its own right, developed and adapted in Australia to the specific conditions of this country.Merino sheep were brought to Australia from the Cape Colony, England, Saxony (South East Germany), France and America.In the development of Australian sheep flocks, Merinos of all types were introduced, and through selection and crossbreeding, and with particular attention to the impact of the environment on both animal and fleece, the Australian Merinos that we now know were developed.Today there are four basic strains:The Peppin brothers near Deniliquin, in the Riverina, established the "Waganella" sheep stud in 1861. It seems clear that Merinos of both Spanish and French origin were introduced and the influence of a French "Rambouillet" ram, called Emperor, is widely acknowledgedugg boots as one of the most important events in the development of the Peppin stud. As much as 70 per cent of today's Australian Merinos are said to be directly descended from the Peppin-developed sheep.The Peppin Merino is particularly prevalent in the sheep flocks of Queensland, on the slopes and plains of NSW, through the north of Victoria and the mixed farming areas of South Australia and Western Australia. It can also be found in significant numbers in the higher rainfall areas of Victoria, Tasmania and NSW.The Peppin Merino has a large frame and long legs, which make it an efficient forager in dry inland regions.Its heavy fleece falls in the mid-range of Merino wool qualities, with a high wool grease content, which protects the wool from the environment and gives it a creamy colour. The Merino sheep introduced into Australia soon after settlement were only able to produce one to two kilograms of wool each year. Today, a Peppin Merino stud ram of today may produce up to 20 kilograms of wool, and it is not unusual for commercial animals to produce up to 10 kilograms of wool each year.

Former Telecom chief Theresa Gattung has made her return to the corporate world. This time it won't be telephone technology she is talking up, but New Zealand's wool industry.Gattung was yesterday named chairwoman of The Wool Company, which is undergoing a complete remake under the guidance of high-profile businessman and PGG Wrightson chairman Craig Norgate. The other Wool Company directors will be Norgate, Alan McConnon, John Perriam and Keith Sutton.It's a year since Gattung resigned from Telecom, leaving with a $5 million payout after nearly 13 years with the company. She spent eight of those as chief executive. She left without any specific plans of where to go to next but many expected her to pursue a career overseas - after all where could she go after leading New Zealand's biggest listed company?But yesterday Gattung said she had decided to get on board the new venture because she believed it was important and wanted tougg boots lend her skills to helping turn around New Zealand's poorly performing wool industry "I don't want to see this industry die. This is a moment in time where I can help. I don't need to do this. I'm doing this because I want to, because I think it matters." Reluctant to talk about exactly what she has been up to over the past year Gattung turned to humour to fend off questions. "I have had a wonderful year off. I went horse riding in Argentina but didn't come back with an Argentinian man - more is the pity," she joked.Sources around Wellington, where she lives, tell that she has been throwing herself into charity work, including helping to raise $1 million for the re-homing of Wellington's SPCA animal shelter.But at yesterday's launch, Gattung made it clear she was not back to talk about her private life or what has happened at Telecom since her departure but about her new focus on the wool industry. Appearing in a 100 per cent wool suit, Gattung said wool was a product she supported.She said despite New Zealand being the world's biggest single producer of strong wool (the wool used to make carpets and rugs), returns at the farm gate were lousy. Demand for cheaper synthetic carpets had seen the market go from being 95 per cent wool products and 5 per cent synthetic to the reverse over the past 30 years. But, she said, the growing price of oil meant the cost of manufacturing synthetic carpets was being driven up and the price difference between it and wool was narrowing.

Whoever coined the expression "sleep like a baby" obviously hasn't spent very much time around infants. Babies are not renowned for their positive sleeping habits. They wake up every few hours to eat if they need to be changed. Sometimes they fuss between feedings and some even cry incessantly. To sleep like a baby suggests a night of frequent disruptions and discomfort.The amazing thing about babies is not their ability to sleep but their parents' ability to put up with the lack thereof. A miracle of hardwiring, we jump at the piercing sound of a baby's cry (specially formulated by the Almighty to be impossible to ignore) and run to attend to his/her needs.We feed on demand, burp on demand, change on demand. We are completely devoted slaves from day one. Only the Almighty could have created such a phenomenon.And from our children we learn the depth and potential of our love and capabilities. We know that we can go long hours without sleep. We know that if our children need us, we have a reservoir of strength within us that we can draw on. And that we will continue to draw even as the reservoir runs dry.We know from those middle-of-the-night trips to the Emergency Room that our love is boundless, that there are no limits to what we would do foourchildren.ugg boots We know from our struggles with children over so many issues -- physical, psychological, you name it -- that we will never give up, that there are unplumbed depths to our love, that we have strength we didn't even recognize.And part of the blessing of having children is gaining this understanding, is learning who we could be and what we could do if we fully understood the untapped potential of each human being.Another part of the blessing is what we learn about our relationship with the Almighty. For as much as we love our children (As I used to tell my kids "I love you so much I can't take it!"), He loves us more. As much as we would do for our children (and we've all heard the stories of superhuman acts of strength by parents to save their endangered children), He would do more. And as much as we never give up on our children, the Almighty believes in us even more. He sees our potential more clearly, He knows our abilities. He recognizes the goodness in our souls. We think that we are doing all the giving when we parent. But this is what parenting gives us -- a true and deep recognition of the good in all of us. And the knowledge that there are no limits to our ability to act on it.

Elementary teachers will be testing classrooms with mould testing kits because of fears that excessively high mould levels in Lambton Kent schools are compromising the health and safety of students and school staff. “The Lambton Kent District School Board continues to deny there is a serious mould problem in their schools,” said Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) first vice-president David Clegg. “It’s unfortunate that we have reached this point, said Clegg. “We don’t believe that these kits provide the ultimate in mould testing technology, but at least it will offer our members some help in determining whether their school is safe.” According to ETFO, testing done at Ridgetown Public School in early March indicated mould levels of 5587 spores per cubic metre in one classroom. ugg bootsThis compares with the ambient mould level (what is considered normal) of 173 spores per cubic metre. Mould levels were also higher than normal in three other Ridgetown classrooms that were tested. “The high mould levels are very disturbing,” said Clegg. “Equally disturbing is the fact that the Board did not conduct any testing, and didn’t close the classroom with the highest mould level, until a teacher filed a work refusal.” This is not the first time that ETFO has expressed concerns about mould in Lambton Kent elementary school classrooms. In early March, ETFO obtained test results from 14 schools that indicated mould was present in six Lambton schools and in three Kent schools. Clegg said that earlier in the year, the Board provided ETFO with conflicting test results for other schools. Some tests revealed a possible danger, while others conducted later by the same firm seemed to contradict their initial findings. “The school board has continually ignored teachers’ requests to have an independent testing firm conduct higher level testing in schools to ensure the safety of students and teachers. The Board says their schools are safe. We think test results suggest otherwise”, said Clegg. “Until independent testing is done, teachers and parents will never know for sure that the classrooms are safe.” The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario represents more than 70,000 public elementary school teachers and education workers across Ontario and is the largest teacher federation in Canada.

The tax honesty movement (THM) is not a person or a single organization. The THM is a belief or way of thinking based upon freedom and accountability. The term "The Tax Honesty Movement" was coined in the mid 1990's, by an unknown author, to describe this growing segment of our society. There are some who have studied tax law, the Constitution, and Supreme Court tax cases, and have come to the conclusion that not everyone is subject to individual income tax. But more to the point is that they desire our government to answer the questions posed to them to show where the law makes the ordinary citizen liable for that tax and where in the Constitution they derive that power. This belief is founded upon the fact that Americans, as the rightful and just sovereigns of this nation, demand an open transparent government that is answerable to them, their creator, "We the People". In particular - honesty by the government on issues relating to taxation of the American people.There are some who may be shocked to learn that the income tax, which is applied to people's wages, is a rather recent occurrence in American history. For the first 150 years of our nation there was no income tax. In fact, the first few times the government tried to enact such a scheme, the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional (1850-1913). If it was unconstitutional then, why is it constitutional now?In the late 1800's and early 1900's, there were a number of corporate tax cases which ruled what was and what was not "income." In general the government can only tax via two methods - either directly or indirectly. Article 1, Section 9, of the Constitution says a direct tax is a tax that is levied directly upon a person or property, and therefore, it must be apportioned among the states based on the states population. (A primary reason we have a national census.) An indirect tax is levied upon a privilege or an action, such as a corporation, or a sales tax on certain products or business.Congress passed the Income Tax Act of 1894 which taxed rental income from real estate. In 1895, the Supreme Court ruled the act unconstitutional, as it was a direct tax and must be apportioned.In 1913 Congress passed the Sixteenth Amendment which authorized taxation of incomes without apportionment. To which incomes did this relate? As with all things in the legal world, context is everything; in the 1943 case of Halvering V. Edison Bros. Stores, the court stated that neither the Treasury Department nor Congress could "tax as income that which is not income within the meaning of the 16th Amendment." What then is 16th Amendment income? In Corn V Fort, the court ruled "The individual, unlike the corporation, cannot be taxed for the privilege of existing", and "the individuals Right to live and own property are natural rights for the enjoyment of which an excise cannot be imposed." In Stratton's Independence, LTD V. Howbert, 1913, the Supreme Court stated that the 1909 corporate Tax Act "was an excise tax upon the conduct of business in a corporate capacity... measuring however, the amount of tax by the income of the corporation." Also, in the 1921 case of Merchants' Loan & Trust Co. V Smietanka the court stated, the word income must be given the same meaning in ALL income tax legislation as was given in the Corporate Tax Act of 1909. This being the case all "income" tax is based on "corporate" income. Within the 1909 Corporation Tax Law (Chap. 6, 36 stat. 11), it states that the income tax was levied "with respect to the carrying on or doing business by such a corporation..." It is therefore settled that 16th Amendment income must deal with corporate income. As wages are a person's property, and the right to work and own property cannot be taxed without apportionment, the direct tax against individual wages is unconstitutional.

We’ve all heard that “To err is human, to forgive divine,” but how many of us realize the truth behind that old adage? We tend to make more than our share of mistakes, and most of our compatriots show that they are 100 percent human and zero percent divine by never letting us forget our trespasses. And in case you’re a manager or superior of some kind, the divinity aspect goes flying out the window. There are eyes watching you from all directions, waiting to see if you’ll trip up, either over your own feet or over those extended by others. Being the perfect manager is akin to walking on a minefield, you have to watch your every step carefully or you risk being blown off your pedestal and/or losing the respect of your subordinates. The rules to succeed are simple, mostly a concoction of a large amount of common sense and a smaller dose of shrewdness and people sense. But what with common sense being not all that common, we’ve prepared a list of mistakes that we think should feature high on any manager’s avoidance list. And without further ado, here they are:

 

In a daring high-seas rescue, US Navy SEAL snipers killed three Somali pirates and freed the American sea captain who had offered himself as a hostage to save his crew. The operation was a victory for the world's most powerful military, but angry pirates vowed yesterday to retaliate.Those threats raised fears for the safety of some 230 foreign sailors still held hostage in more than a dozen ships anchored off the coast of lawless Somalia."From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them (the hostages)," Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old pirate, said from one of Somalia's piracy hubs. "(US forces have) become our No 1 enemy."News of Captain Richard Phillips' rescue caused his crew in Kenya to break into wild cheers and brought tears to the eyes of those in Phillips' hometown of Underhill, Vermont, half a world away from the Indian Ocean drama.President Barack Obama called Phillips' courage "a model for all Americans" and said he was pleased with the rescue, but added the United States still needed help from other countries to deal with piracy and to hold pirates accountable.The stunning resolution to a five-day standoff came on Sunday in a daring nighttime assault in choppy seas. Pirates had agreed to let the USS Bainbridge tow their powerless lifeboat out of rough water.Vice Admiral Bill Gortney said Phillips, 53, was tied up and in "imminent danger" of being killed because a pirate on the lifeboat held an AK-47 assault rifle to the back of his head.At that, the commander of Bainbridge made the split-second decision to order Navy snipers to shoot at the lifeboat, about 25-30 meters away, taking aim at the pirates' heads and shoulders.Phillips was not hurt in several minutes of gunfire and the US Navy's 5th Fleet said he was resting comfortably on a US warship after receiving a medical exam.Phillips deflected praise. "I'm just the byline. The real heroes are the Navy, the SEALs, those who have brought me home," Phillips said by phone to Maersk Line Limited President and CEO John Reinhart.