Mon, 11 Feb 2008

Real estate agents sue Google for links to stories about them

From Boing Boing:
Real estate agents Mark Forytarz and Paul Castran of Castran Gilbert in Victoria Australia have filed a defamation lawsuit against Google..... .. for a story that Neil Jenman has been inviting them to sue him over, but they wont.

Posted at: 21:06 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Wed, 05 Sep 2007

all sorts of STUPID, INTRUSIVE security checks, but they don't even check passports against the list of stolen passports

For those that still believe the Anti-Terror laws are more about protecting us than about simply giving government greater powers to further their own agenda this is mind-blowing.

link to Mr Sqiggles page on this that excerpts various ABC and other resources, from his politics of fear page.

Posted at: 08:38 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Sat, 01 Sep 2007

The Great Iraq Swindle

All of this has pretty much been said before, at length, elsewhere and ignored by the mainstream media, but good to see it all summed up succinctly in this Rolling Stone Article.

Posted at: 15:39 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Wed, 22 Aug 2007

Brethren meet PM in his office

Brethren meet PM in his office From TheAge. Says it all really.

Posted at: 08:08 | category: /rants/religion | # | 0 comments

Businesses Owned by Exclusive Brethren in Australia

These secretive virulent meme complex infestation carriers are secretly but actively combating positive progress in Australia. They evidently control a network of businesses in Australia, but which ones?

Posted at: 08:06 | category: /rants/religion | # | 1 comments

Wed, 25 Jul 2007

The Australian Government is a Terrorist Organisation

Says it all here really.

Posted at: 13:07 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Fri, 06 Jul 2007

PET HATES: BAG SEARCH POLICIES

OK.. In an airport there are security issues and contraband smuggling and just general safety and quarantine to think of, searching the bags is fine. But.. in a discount supermarket? - hey I am innocent til proven guilty sorry! The Law trumps store policy every time, no matter what you say. Solution: go next door and buy the same crap from another supermarket.

Posted at: 19:17 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Mon, 02 Jul 2007

more google double standards?

"So, apparently HMOs criticizing Michael Moore is okay, but random-guy-with-a-website criticizing a large corporation is not okay. 'Democratic,' indeed." more at boingboing

Posted at: 21:09 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Sun, 18 Mar 2007

"He's a Christian guy. He made lots of Christian CDs."

Police said a motorist beat a former Soviet political prisoner to death with a rock Thursday at a New Jersey highway rest stop after the victim declined to buy his religious CDs. link to article

Posted at: 01:13 | category: /rants/religion | # | 0 comments

Mon, 05 Mar 2007

When God Sanctions Killing, The People Listen

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070223143009.htm

Posted at: 19:17 | category: /rants/religion | # | 0 comments

Sun, 07 Jan 2007

nearly a year later, a hint to why they screwed up?

Despite having closed my easystreet membership a long time ago I just got a letter from them advising me of some changes to their service - that makes a reference to other previous letters I never got. Interestingly this letter is a) 2 weeks late, and b) addressed to the right street address but wrong state and postcode.

So I can theorise, despite me calling them up and clarifying my postal address over the phone the first time it became obvious they lost the cheque, that all this time they sent it to the wrong address or something?

Now have moved to a just as easy to use (if not easier) online savings account via BankWest at www.abetterdeal.com.au that even has a higher interest rate than easystreet. So at least some good came of all of this.

Posted at: 15:57 | category: /rants/easystreet | # | 0 comments

Sun, 31 Dec 2006

No More Saddam

Appears this CIA asset finally overstayed his welcome:
http://www.bushflash.com/thanks.html

While Iraqi blog Baghdad Burning wrote just before his killing:
That is Iraq right now. The Americans have done a fine job of working to break it apart. This last year has nearly everyone convinced that that was the plan right from the start. There were too many blunders for them to actually have been, simply, blunders. The 'mistakes' were too catastrophic. The people the Bush administration chose to support and promote were openly and publicly terrible- from the conman and embezzler Chalabi, to the terrorist Jaffari, to the militia man Maliki. The decisions, like disbanding the Iraqi army, abolishing the original constitution, and allowing militias to take over Iraqi security were too damaging to be anything but intentional.

Posted at: 14:36 | category: /rants | # | 2 comments

Sat, 30 Dec 2006

2006 Darwin Awards - Priest Tries to walk on water, drowns

In August, a congregation's 35-year old pastor insisted one could literally walk on water, if only one had enough faith.

more information

Posted at: 23:32 | category: /rants/religion | # | 0 comments

Mon, 25 Dec 2006

Happy Hijacked Festival!

Yuletide, quoted from Wikipedia:
Many of the symbols associated with the modern holiday of Christmas such as the burning of the Yule log, the eating of ham, the hanging of boughs, holly, mistletoe, etc. are apparently derived from traditional northern European Yule celebrations. When the first missionaries began converting the Germanic peoples to Christianity, they found it convenient to provide a Christian reinterpretation for popular feasts such as Yule and allow the celebrations themselves to go on largely unchanged, versus trying to confront and suppress them. The Scandinavian tradition of slaughtering a pig at Christmas (see Christmas ham), and not in the autumn, is probably the most salient evidence for this. The tradition derives from the sacrifice to the god Freyr at the Yule celebrations. Halloween and Easter are likewise assimilated from northern European pagan festivals.

Posted at: 02:05 | category: /rants/religion | # | 0 comments

Mon, 20 Nov 2006

2006 Victorian Elections

greens victoria

Posted at: 01:42 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Fri, 27 Oct 2006

"kings of Werribee" prank dvd download torrent must be a high demand item at the moment

This very dodgy effort from some sad cases documenting themselves committing apparently criminal acts ranging from typical teenage pranks to serious crime is kind of predictable that it would have happened somewhere in the world. But still a low point that it happened in Victoria. And if it isn't anything illegal on it as some claim deal they should put a torrent up on the 'net somewhere to demonstrate.

Posted at: 20:48 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Tue, 06 Jun 2006

"God will save me" says man just before jumping into Lion enclosure and getting mauled to death.

KIEV (Reuters) - A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.

"The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said.

"A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery."

-- links to yahoo and BBC story.

Posted at: 08:48 | category: /rants/religion | # | 0 comments

Fri, 12 May 2006

EVIL BIBLE

Sites like EVIL BIBLE.com are great, laying out some of the repugnant and annoying things about religion in a clear, punchy in your face manner.

Found while googling around after reading about the crimes of Internet Evangelist and Bible Basher Charles Michael Balfe

Posted at: 22:14 | category: /rants/religion | # | 0 comments

Sun, 30 Apr 2006

google double standards?

Laddish and cheeky Thailand oriented blog Mango Sauce gets revenue killed by Google despite google obviously makes way more dosh than mango sauce of sexually oriented advertising.. hypocrisy++

Posted at: 01:46 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Sun, 23 Apr 2006

hero of the moment

Posted at: 02:15 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Sun, 26 Mar 2006

Religious tolerance - UK vs Afghanistan

Interesting to compare the struggle of Shabina Begum in the UK with Abdur Rahman in Afghanistan.. maybe they should trade places and they both will be happy?

Meanwhile, in the US it seems those loving gentle Xtians have declared open season on any Atheists who dare stick to their opinions.

Posted at: 14:56 | category: /rants/religion | # | 0 comments

end of the mess

Well the cheque finally arrived, 14 days late. Strangely enough it was sent by "express post", when EasyStreet insisted to me on the phone they had sent it normal post, and they dont send cheques any other way? Sounds like the left hand doesn't know what the right had is doing there. The "Express Post" even has a tracking number on it that can be used to trace it's course through the postal system.. completely useless of to anybody when nobody knows this.

The picture is an error I got just then when logging in to see whats up with their online banking.. kind of sums it all up really.

Posted at: 13:34 | category: /rants/easystreet | # | 0 comments

Wed, 08 Mar 2006

ongoing shambles with easystreet finance

It's now wednesday morning, and suprise suprise, no cheque. Called up and stopped the cheque, have arranged finance elsewhere, time to move on from the slow motion trainwreck that is dealing with easystreet before ending up as more collateral damage. Easystreet staff suprisingy unsuprised by all this mess, I wonder how often their procedures cause this kind of mess to happen?

Posted at: 08:34 | category: /rants/easystreet | # | 0 comments

Fri, 03 Mar 2006

It's now Friday after the Monday when they claimed to have sent the cheque

and I have not got anything. Despite "easy street" financial services insisting on this being the only way their auditors allow them to send money there is no way for them to prove to me that the money has actually been sent.. though of course they have not hesitated to start charging me interest. Seller of car starting to get agitated as he needs the dosh for his own purposes.. I am feeling guilty and depressed at continually having to fob him off with the old "cheque is in the mail", one of the most sorry excuses to use but have no choice. To add injury to insult my current car has now decayed to a state where I don't feel safe driving it on a freeway, I have to rent a car to get to work. Thanks guys! Amazing customer service!

Posted at: 19:53 | category: /rants/easystreet | # | 0 comments

Thu, 02 Mar 2006

still a victim of easystreet's terrible procedures

it's now 4 days after the cheque has allegedly been sent and still no sign of it. My car has now died so I can't drive it to work, seller of the new car getting more and more impatient, and easystreet's attitude is tough luck. Not happy. Despite them messing it up initially they have made no attempt to expedite it, instead sending via the slowest and least trackable way possible so as to save a few cents. Thanks guys! Really great customer service! I'll be sure to tell everyone I meet how impressed I am!

Posted at: 12:53 | category: /rants/easystreet | # | 0 comments

Tue, 28 Feb 2006

easystreet financial services not very easy

yes, this is a whinge. in the big picture this is not of consequence but it is bugging the hell out of me.

I had a need to upgrade my car unfortunately, so organised a loan from easystreet financial services. As I know I am fairly impatient I wanted to get the loan all approved before setting out to search for a car as I wanted to be able to pay for it in the spot. After a car was found, then came the delays as it turns out they had somehow not finished my application and still had stuff to do. It is now nearly 2 weeks after I got the following email from them (and a week after I assured the seller I had the money right at hand) and still no cheque: 

 We advise that we have received the documentation required and your
 loan is ready to be funded. Once you have found a car contact us with
 the name of who you wish to buy the car from and we will print a cheque
 for the requested amount.
Generally I have been happy with EasyStreets low cost online services but looks like anything that needs human attention is destined to end up a shambles.

Posted at: 18:09 | category: /rants/easystreet | # | 1 comments

Wed, 22 Feb 2006

SUPPORT DENMARK

Posted at: 23:17 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Thu, 09 Feb 2006

those cartoons...

.. were published IN EGYPT in November to not a whisper of offence or protest. Seems to make a difference when you have a tour of troublemaking immans with a few extra fake cartoons thrown in touring to whip up trouble against the infidels... (who did pay for all those Danish flags? where did they get them?)

Meanwhile here are a few peace loving happy joy joy cartoons from arab countries.

On a a lighter note here are some funny sites

Posted at: 20:55 | category: /rants/religion | # | 0 comments

Tue, 27 Dec 2005

SkypeOut Sounds Terrible

I have been attempting to use SkypeOut to try and call Nan in Thailand. The sound quality is shockingly bad, and I know the problem occurs on the skype side, not (mostly) the Thai mobile phone network.
A pity as skype itself (i.e. skype to skype communication) has very good sound quality.

Posted at: 01:17 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Wed, 14 Dec 2005

Rally Against Racism! Sunday 18th

(sent to me via email, lets counter the negative propaganda)

It's time for ALL Australians to Unite Against Racism!

The Unite Against Racism Rally

WHEN: Sunday 18th December 2005

TIME: 1pm

WHERE: Town Hall Square

After a marathon meeting at UTS last night, NUS (National Union of Students) and other associated community and cultural groups think it's time that the countless thousands of Sydney-siders who DID NOT like what they saw last weekend in Cronulla took to the streets to make their voice heard.

We need to send the strongest possible message to the rest of Australia and to the rest of the world that those 5000 people who rioted at Cronulla do not speak for us.

As such we need to quadruple their number, rain hail or shine!

Spam this out to everyone you know! Lets get down there and show the world that we ain't a nation of redneck dic*heads.

Posted at: 14:51 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Mon, 24 Oct 2005

Remember Petey

Excerpt from the blog of a serving US soldier who suddenly got all official linish once it got attention. Rememeber they are fighting for freedom of speech!

I heard about this school the other day. It's a massive school; the third largest in the state. And it's very elite. It's a public school, but people all over clamber to get in because it has a really good reputation. And it's a well-deserved reputation, too. The school has an awesome football team, and it's students are among the most industrious and entrepreneurial when compared to their peers elsewhere. It is the most influential school in the state, and is the permanent host to the regional district schoolboard. Of them, it is also the wealthiest and most diverse, boasting classes in every discipline that attract students from all over the place. Despite all these fine qualities, though, the school is falling apart from the inside, and is on the verge of collapse.

The root of the problem can be traced to the school's charter, which stipulates the student body must elect a peer to act as Chancellor. The Chancellor chairs the powerful Advisory Committee, another elected body. Together, they maintain and adjudicate policy under the intense scrutiny of the student body and the school newspaper. The headmaster plays absolutely no role in the school's functions and, in fact, was divested of power by the charter. The system's genius beckoned students from far and wide. The message was clear: anyone could come to this school to study and participate in the process of making studying better for everyone. It was perfect. Until one day...

One day, a bunch of students got together and decided that the headmaster wasn't playing a large enough role in the way things were getting done. Together, they were able to get a like-minded Chancellor elected. The student body reeled in horror. It had gotten complacent and forgot about it's civic duties, allowing the new Chancellor to slide through by a narrow margin. At the same time, though, something horrible happened. The team mascot, "Petey" (a peacock, chosen for his pride and beauty) was murdered, his corpse nailed to the front entrance. It took weeks to bleach the blood off the white gates.

Word spread quickly that a neighboring school harbored kids with bad attitudes, and that they were responsible for the peacockicide. The plot thickened, though, when it was revealed that these kids were also supplying the large bulk of cigarettes to the Chancellor and his school. For many years, the students there had been addicted to massive quantities of cigarettes, and they came almost exclusively from the offending school. In fact, the Chancellor himself was very good friends with some of the cigarette suppliers. Of course, his own students weren't aware of this, and they lapped it up like kitties on spilled milk when he told them, "what the other school needs is a good trouncing by our awesome football team."

Sadly, nobody told the Chancellor that the other school only played cricket. But off they went anyway - quarterback and all - to an "away" game on the other side of the state. When they got there, it shocked everyone when they didn't win. In fact, on the front page of the school newspaper was a photograph of the nervous and bewildered quarterback scratching his head. Beneath him, the caption: "what the hell is a wicket?" Unfortunately, the Chancellor didn't recognize defeat, and even as the other team piled up one run after the other, he gave an interview in which he said that sending a football team to a cricket match was the right thing to do because, "those are the bastards that got Petey"!

At the same time, the price of cigarettes was skyrocketing and the student body was more addicted than ever. The regional district schoolboard was loosing patience with the Chancellor, and slowly each of the board members inched away. In an effort to distance themselves from the insanity of a football team lost in the middle of a cricket match, a disgusting cigarette addiction, and plummeting popular support in their own schools, they turned their backs, one-by-one, on the Chancellor.

Meanwhile, back home, the Chancellor had to abandon a wildly unpopular plan to appease the alumni who had become a huge red mark in his balance sheets. Worse, he had to deal with the student body who, jarred from their relative acquiescence, had assembled a foundation of support. Shocked at the changes made to the school charter giving hall monitors new and broad powers in the wake of Petey's murder, the school newspaper began leaking stories about abuses.

Finally, surrounded by unpopular sentiment at home and in other schools, the Chancellor decided to make the football game his main focus once again. Under the scrutiny of the whole student body, regional board members, the parent teacher associations of several schools and under the watchful eye of the headmaster, he threw away the chance to set the record straight. Instead, he justified sending a football team to a cricket match. "Remember Petey", he said. "Remember how I did this for us because they got Petey. It was the right thing to do then, and it's the right thing to do now. We went over there to play a game of football and, damn it, we're going to win a game of football. Nevermind they are playing cricket. Nevermind they are winning. Nevermind the score is 1,740 runs to nil. Nevermind all that; those bastards got Petey!"

Posted at: 08:48 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Sun, 16 Oct 2005

Sieg Heil Howard

Enter the Police State.

Somehow I dont think these puntive new measures will apply to anybody who advocated the invasion of a country on false pretenses .. or any of the terrorism supported by the US government

Posted at: 16:06 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Sat, 24 Sep 2005

God is for Suckers

Amazing wordpress blog site, has a lot of the interesting scraps of info I wish I had the time n assorted religious topics to trawl the net for:
http://gods4suckers.net/

Posted at: 14:41 | category: /rants/religion | # | 0 comments

Wed, 14 Sep 2005

they said it was about the terrorists..

But oppose them peacefully and they will lock you up as a terrorist.. .with no legal recourse. Howard Uber Alles?

Posted at: 23:29 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Wed, 07 Sep 2005

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees"

Bush - "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees"

compare with: .. "Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great."...
...
"It's not if it will happen," says University of New Orleans geologist Shea Penland. "It's when."

from National Geographic of October 2004

Posted at: 00:15 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Tue, 06 Sep 2005

well it isn't tooooooo incorrect..

You scored as atheism. You are... an atheist, though you probably already knew this. Also, you probably have several people praying daily for your soul. Instead of simply being "nonreligious," atheists strongly believe in the lack of existence of a higher being, or God.

atheism

75%

Satanism

67%

agnosticism

54%

Paganism

29%

Judaism

21%

Buddhism

21%

Christianity

8%

Islam

8%

Hinduism

4%

Which religion is the right one for you? (new version)
created with QuizFarm.com

Posted at: 13:39 | category: /rants/religion | # | 2 comments

Fri, 26 Aug 2005

Utah Techno Party Wrecked

yet more examples of the USA sliding towards totalitarianism, though compared to stuff like Guantanamo Bay this is relatively trivial.

Posted at: 23:13 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Sun, 07 Aug 2005

USA - Convert or go to Jail

So much for freedom of religion.

Posted at: 13:35 | category: /rants/religion | # | 0 comments

Sat, 09 Jul 2005

London 7/7 attack

Signs of basic goodness .. via Boing Boing

Signs of being an arsehole:
"I mean, my first thought when I heard [about the London bombings]...'Hmmm, time to buy.'"

Posted at: 19:42 | category: /rants | # | 0 comments

Tue, 05 Jul 2005

Obvious Hoax fallen for by the followers of Yet Another Meme Complex

If they can fall for this one so easily what else have they been suckered into? .. not that others haven't been suckered in either.

Posted at: 21:35 | category: /rants/religion | # | 0 comments