Save Christmas

.
I have read various reports that Santa Claus was banned from a school because the non Christian children would feel left out.

I don’t know how anyone can come to that conclusion.

Santa Claus is not a Christian icon, he is a symbol of what Christmas has evolved into. For many people Christmas is a day for being with your family and friends and also giving them presents.

Quite simply while some Christians still celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus Christ many people don’t look at that side of it.

Christmas with Santa has been part of Australian tradition and culture for many years and there is no genuine reason for trying to suppress it.

Unless perhaps you’re trying to get your name in the news.

Demands are made for people to show tolerance to other cultures and traditions. For that to be taken seriously it has to work both ways.

Tolerance and respect must be shown for the culture and traditions that are already here and have been for a long time.

I don’t want a tradition I have enjoyed for many years to be suppressed because someone can’t tell the difference between a religious icon and a commercial one.
.

Some Attitudes That Undermine Safety And Supervision.

.
There's unfortunately a long list of tragic accidents that have happened through a simple lack of care or the use of self serving logic.

One such recent tragedy was in NSW where an 8 year old girl drowned at a swimming carnival. The teachers there were supposed to be supervising and there were some lifeguards there as well whose duties also included manning the pools canteen at the time.

If they are manning the canteen they aren't lifeguards, they're only lifeguards when they are they are watching over the people in the pool and doing nothing else. And I do not believe teachers receive lifeguard training so they aren't lifeguards either and therefore not qualified to supervise large numbers of children in a pool.

There's no real excuse for many of the tragedies that happen because we have all of human experience to draw upon to tell us what we should and shouldn't do.

Unfortunately other tragedies have happened and keep happening because some people will ignore the absolute basics that will prevent mishaps because they end up ignoring certain established safety guidelines or using self serving logic to justify to themselves unsafe behaviour.

Here’s a few of those attitudes and the reality of what can happen if these attitudes are adopted.

“It’s only for a second” as in a door that should be shut being open or children left unsupervised.

It’s not for a second, it’s always for a longer period. The only thing that takes a second is a child getting into some sort of trouble.

“It’s unlikely to happen” as in a particular type accident, bad situation or an abduction.

This “unlikely to happen” appears to be translated into “It can’t happen” because the “unlikely to happen” attitude is used to justify behaviour that undermines safe practices. Then what is unlikely to happen does actually happen.

“It hasn’t happened yet”, also as in a particular type accident, bad situation or an abduction.

The “It hasn’t happened” attitude is also used to justify behaviour that undermines safe practices. Then what hasn’t happened actually does happen it is too late to take the measures to stop it happening to begin with.

Be safe and be realistic, it really takes very little effort and can save a lot of grief.
.

Private land to be seized for housing

.
From the Sydney Morning Herald
MATTHEW MOORE URBAN AFFAIRS EDITOR
March 12, 2010

THE state government is rushing to prepare laws to create a development authority with sweeping powers to compulsorily acquire and rezone privately owned land for resale to developers.

With Sydney's population set to grow 40 per cent to 6 million in the next 25 years, the government has decided it needs a metropolitan development authority to buy privately owned land near rail and bus routes for medium- and high-density housing.

Legislation for the new authority, believed to be the first of its kind in Australia, will be introduced before June in an attempt to increase housing construction rates, which are the lowest on record even though the city's population is growing at the fastest rate since the 1960s.

(Full Story)

Stephen Albin, the chief executive of the Urban Development Institute, a developer group, said while landowners should receive some compensation for increased value from rezoning, they should not receive it all.

''Developers are taking the risk … these landowners are not taking risk. Government has decided for the good of the city, for the good of the community, development must occur.”

Someone can own something but he thinks they have to get less than is fair for it so someone else can make a profit from it.

Developers are taking the risk? Of course they are, that's how capitalism works, if they want the profit they take the risk. It's not down to private land owners to subsidise someone else’s enterprise.

These landowners are not taking risk? Well why would they? They didn't ask to be part of the venture.

The rationale behind the authority and the compulsory acquisition provision is community benefit?

Something that is for the benefit of the community is usually paid for by the community, not just a few of its members, in this case private land owners.

It's the same as acquiring land for a road or a railway?

No it's not, it appears it's mainly for the benefit of a developers profit.

People don’t buy homes so developers can benefit.

Taking someone’s land should only be for a genuine benefit to the common good such as when they built the Harbour Bridge or if the army urgently needs land during war time and the owners involved should be compensated fairly for the inconvenience such a venture places upon them. Such decisions shouldn’t be taken lightly and it should not be done just so someone else can profit.

Whether or not the housing developments can be considered for the greater good is debatable, one thing is certain and that is a developers profit is not for the common good and that profit is no one else’s responsibility but their own.

.

Super Idea?

.

There are still calls out there for Superannuation (Super) funds to be forced to invest in infrastructure projects despite the fact that Super funds are in reality accounts held in trust and therefore private money.

To force that money to be invested in specific areas is something for a planned economy which is something Australia doesn’t have.

Unlike other financial accounts that are available such as term deposits Super does not come with a fixed interest rate. That being the case Super needs to be free to be invested where the highest return can be gained.

In any case I’m not sure how there can be a return for money that is ‘invested’ in infrastructure projects, especially ones that lose money. (Lane Cove Tunnel faces sale as losses spiral)

What would they say to people whose money was forced to invest in a failed project? How would they tell someone their retirement money is a much lower amount than what it should have been? Would it be “Whoopsie, my bad!”?

Whatever was said it wouldn’t help the people who would lose out on such a deal.

Super isn’t just sitting there doing nothing, Super is doing something, it is doing exactly what invested money is supposed to be doing and that is growing wealth for the holders of the accounts so their retirements can be better funded.

Super has no other function outside of this.

You can’t offer an IOU to people either, the money has to be invested to get a return. Uninvested money does not make money and if you’re paying outgoing fund members using money from incoming members then it would appear you are operating a ponzi scheme.

I for one don’t want any less of a return on my Super to pay for the wish lists of others.

.

ANZAC Day, Honour The Brave, Honour The Fallen

The Enterprise Part 2

Following on from ‘The Enterprise Of The World’ article regarding Collective Employee/Enterprise Agreements and the sleight of hand that appears to be used in those agreements where the claim is made by employers that if they are supposedly paying more money then the employer should gain something from that like increased productivity and/or have working conditions or employee rights altered in the employers favour.

In trading off conditions for a pay rise it may help to think of the conditions in question as having a monetary value as well.

Just say each condition is worth $20,000. You are then asked to give up some of these conditions to pay for a pay rise that’s worth maybe $500 a year.

In other words you are giving your employer something of yours, and well below its true value, to pay for a pay rise that won’t keep up with inflation.

Basically you pay for your own pay rise, sort of like if you have to buy your own birthday presents.

And when there are no more conditions to trade off what will you do then?

Remember the true value of money is in the purchasing power it has. If you can’t buy as much with your wage as you could the year before you are being paid less in real terms.

Businesses don’t give more of the product or the service they offer when they raise their prices, nor do they trade anything off for that extra money so why should anyone else?

Just Drive

Text Motivation

Get the message?

The Enterprise Of The World

Something for you to remember during the negotiations for your next enterprise agreement.

When your employer says that if they are paying more money out in wages they expect increased productivity just remember this is businesses way to get more productivity for what is essentially the same amount of money.

What is involved in the equation is the actual face value of the money used, the spending power or overall value of money and inflation.

The overall value of money is related to the spending power of the money and what inflation does is makes that value less than what it previously was so if increases in wages are tied to increased productivity then the organisation gets more out of the money that they are spending even though they are essentially paying essentially the same price in real terms. While the face value of the whole sum of money they give out is higher than previously the actual spending power of the individual units of money is worth less due to inflation so the extra money in the wage increase just brings the spending power of the whole sum of money to what it was before inflation.

Because prices are going up the businesses are essentially taking in the same monetary value that they were previously taking in before inflation. Overall value wise it's the same even though the face value is more. Since monetary value and face value of money are different things business use both value outlooks interchangeably to suit their own argument. The previously mentioned business argument that if they have to spend more money they should get more for it refers to face value of money, not the actual overall value of the money.

And on the other side of the coin if wages are not increased to match inflation then business gets the same productivity for less money in real terms. The actual face value of the money is the same but the spending power of that money is less and because of inflation the business is taking in more money.

Remember that next time you vote for your next enterprise agreement.

Tell The World

An Oz Central Public Service Announcement For The World

This was received via email, I'm not sure about the validity of the story itself but the warning is sound.

----------------------------------------

ALL FAMILY MEMBERS SHOULD READ THIS ESPECIALLY CHILDREN!

These crooks are getting very good!

A lady has changed her habit of how she lists her names on her mobile telephone after her handbag was stolen.

Her handbag, which contained her mobile telephone, credit card, purse, etc., was stolen. Twenty minutes later she called her husband, from a pay telephone telling him what had happened.
Her husband said, 'I have just received your text asking about our pin number and I have replied a little while ago.'

When they rushed down to the bank, the staff told them all the money was already withdrawn.

The thief had actually used the stolen mobile telephone to text her husband in the contact list and got hold of the pin number.

Within twenty minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.

Moral of the lesson:

Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list.

Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Mum, Dad, etc.,

And very importantly, when sensitive information is being asked for through texts, CONFIRM by calling back.

Also, when you are being text by friends or family to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them.

If you do not reach them, be very careful about going places to meet 'family and friends' who text you.

PLEASE PASS THIS ON.

I never thought about THAT!

As of right now, do you have 'home' named on the mobile?

----------------------------------------

Tell The World

The Scams Keep Coming

Facebook hit by Nigerian 419 scam

By John E. Dunn , TechWorld , 11/10/2008

Scammers are trawling Facebook for victims using a convincing twist on the notorious 'Nigerian 419' scam.

Normally, 419 scams are easy to spot and involve e-mail requests for money from supposedly rich individuals in countries such as Nigeria, from which the fraud gets its name. The latest Facebook attack is much craftier, however, because it hijacks the identities of real people known to Facebook members, asking for money under an apparently plausible guise.

An Australian news site reports that one Google Australian employee who was contacted using the social networking site by a person known to her, asking for $500 dollars to allow him to return home from Lagos, Nigeria, where he claimed to be stranded.

She became suspicious that the contact was bogus only after noting subtle irregularities in the fraudster's use of Australian English. "After chatting further, words such as "cell" instead of "mobile phone" tipped Wells off that she was not talking to her friend but someone who had taken over his account," the report said.

"Many Facebook users don't even know how many friends they have on the site, let alone what they are all doing and where they are, and this is providing the scammers with a new vector of attack" said Graham Cluley of Sophos, the company that unearthed this particular scam. (Read Full Story Here)

People will often freely give out their own personal details and those of their friends and family in an enviroment where it would be better not to. The solution here is stop giving out that information. Then scammers won't have as much information to successfully carry out their scams.

Unfortunately when it comes to scams many people think that somehow they won't become a victim even though the all warning signs are there. They'll often come up with some self serving logic to make themselves think that doing the wrong thing is OK when they do it and when they come across a scam it's not a scam, they'll be fine. This particular scam is a little more clever than most scams but the common warning for the Internet is beware of anyone asking you for money.

How To Forward Email

This was received via email, if everyone followed the basic steps outlined here then we'd be getting a lot less spam and virus attacks.

HOW TO FORWARD E-MAIL APPROPRIATELY

A friend who is a computer expert received the following directly from a system administrator for a corporate system. It is an excellent message that ABSOLUTELY applies to ALL of us who send e-mails. Please read the short letter below, even if you're sure you already follow proper procedures.

Do you really know how to forward e-mails? 50% of us do; 50% DO NOT.

Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses & names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every e-mail address that has come across his computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


How do you stop it? Well, there are several easy steps:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


(1) When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). That's right, DELETE them. Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second You MUST click the "Forward" button first and then you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message. If you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the message at all.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


(2) Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the TO: or CC: fields for adding e-mail addresses. Always use the BCC: (blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This is the way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address. If you don't see your BCC: option click on where it says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC: and that's it, it's that easy. When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients" in the "TO:" field of the people who receive it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


(3) Remove any "FW :" in the subject line. You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


(4) ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual e-mail you are reading. Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 10 pages to read the one page with the information on it? By Forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to open many e-mails just to see what you sent.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


(5) Have you ever gotten an email that is a petition? It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire address book. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses. A FACT: The completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein. If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than a laundry list of names and email address on a petition. (Actually, if you think about it, who's supposed to send the petition in to whatever cause it supports? And don't believe the ones that say that the email is being traced, it just isn't so!)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


(6) One of the main ones I hate is the ones that say that something like, "Send this email to 10 people and you'll see something great run across your screen." Or, sometimes they'll just tease you by saying something really cute will happen IT ISN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!!!! (Trust me, I'm still seeing some of the same ones that I waited on 10 years ago!) I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either, they get trashed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


(7) Before you forward an Amber Alert, or a Virus Alert, or some of the other ones floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most of them are junk mail that's been circling the net for YEARS! Just about everything you receive in an email that is in question can be checked out at Snopes. Just go to http://www.snopes.com or http://www.TruthOrFiction.com/search.htm


It's really easy to find out if it's real or not. If it's not, please don't pass it on.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses.

Finally, here's an idea!!! Let's send this to everyone we know (but strip my address off first, please). This is something that SHOULD be forwarded.

Tell The World!

The Price

Vigilantism

Reported at Nine MSN

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=450018

Trip wire to stop bike hoons condemned

Saturday Apr 19 08:44 AEST
Trip wire strung at head height in an Adelaide Park to deter hoons on motorised minibikes could have hurt children and other park users, a local official said.

Playford deputy mayor Glenn Docherty said minibike riders had been a constant problem in Cambridge Terrace Linear Reserve in Adelaide's north, and their "hoon" behaviour had angered local residents.

But the use of trip wire - which had been placed across a walking track - was not the way to solve the problem, he said.

"My biggest concern is for people who use the park legitimately," Mr Docherty said. "You have kids who ride their mountain bikes, and people who walk their dogs."

Although the minibikes were illegal in the park, Mr Docherty said he did not want to see the riders get hurt.

He urged residents to contact police if they saw minibike riders in the park, and not to take the law into their own hands.

"Vigilantism is not what we want in the community," Mr Docherty said.

Mr Docherty said police had removed the wire.

-------------------------------------------------

Vigilantism is not wanted but I have a feeling there’ll be more of it to come, there was an incident on the NSW Central Coast where after someone drove into a crowd people attacked the driver screaming “kill him”.

If you ask why they would do that and why would they string trip wires in Adelaide and why I think there’ll be more vigilantism, the answer is because of the breakdown of law and order that’s happening everywhere.

The lack of law enforcement as in people not being arrested and gaoled for any real period of time when they break the law has many people disillusioned. If the law isn’t going to take action then people will do it themselves.

Goodbye to a Real Friend

22 years is a long time to have a pet and after 22 years my pet was more than just a pet.

He was my friend, my precious friend.

So when looking into how I may pay my proper respects to my friend I considered a few options, I wanted to be realistic and also I wanted to properly honour my friend,

So I chose cremation. My precious friend was cremated and I scattered his ashes in one of his favourite places to sit.

Of course I had to find someone to do this for me.

And the people I found where perfectly suited for this task. I wanted my precious friend to be treated with the respect he deserved and I wanted the appropriate level of respect towards my feelings in this sad time. Pets Eternal Peace, http://www.petseternalpeace.com.au , provided that. They came for my pet, cremated him and bought him home to me, they were happy to hear a few anecdotes about my friend and see a few pictures as well.

I could have had him placed in an urn but I wanted to symbolically set him free by scattering his ashes so my friend came home in a scatter box affixed with a white rose and a plaque with a few details about him.

Very respectful and more than I expected, I was very pleased with the care my friend received on his last journey.

I scattered his ashes, farewell my friend.

The scatter box is still here though; it’s quite useful for holding the pictures of my friend.

Thank you Pets Eternal Peace, my friend deserved the best and I’m happy to say you exceeded my expectations.

And thank you to my friend.