Blog Marco

Disappointing. To see an institution linked with the Christian community to be smeared in the public media - yet again (again? Hillsong already has a controversial regard following mainstream publicity in Current Affairs TV programs). This time its a scandal involving Mercy Ministries:

A SECRETIVE ministry with direct links to Gloria Jean's Coffees and the Hillsong Church has been deceiving troubled young women into signing over months of their lives to a program that offers scant medical or psychiatric care, instead using Bible studies and exorcisms to treat mental illness.

Government agencies such as Centrelink have also been drawn into the controversy, as residents are required to transfer their benefits to Mercy Ministries. There are also allegations that the group receives a carers payment to look after the young women.

Nope, its not raining in Sydney now.. but the rains have increased our dams by 10.8 percent to 50 percent full (or is that 50 percent empty?) anyhow, the previous week of rains (and floods) have brought about 7 and half months worth of water to Sydney's drinking supply. The dams are now at their highest since May 2004 with about 180 millimetres of rain falling across the Warragamba catchment since June 7. "Over the past two weeks up to 320 millimetres of rain has fallen on Sydney's catchment areas, boosting the dams by 336 billion litres of water," said the Premier, Morris Iemma. "This is some of the best rain we've had in more than eight years."

Freaky... I wonder what drove this Engineering student to kill his fellow mates... Studying engineering could be hazardous to your health...

""A man who bludgeoned his two flatmates to death with a baseball bat has been sentenced to life imprisonment for their murders.

""The three University of NSW engineering students from Singapore had been living together when Tiwary, who owed one flatmate $5,000 in rent, bought a baseball bat and murdered them two hours apart, the court heard.

""In sentencing Tiwary today, Justice Michael Adams said there was nothing in the evidence which established a motive for the heinous crimes.

-- SMH

Qantas pilots delayed QF20 flight from Manila to Sydney via Brisbane the other day. How? They refused to remove their shoes for a security check at Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). The Australian pilots reportedly had argued with airport officials that they were being mistreated. The plane carrying 200 passengers left 70 minutes late after the two pilots yielded for the security check.

Security at the airport has been stepped up since the discovery of the plot to bomb planes flying from Britain to the US. In the last week, a local newspaper had reported that a security consultant was able to smuggle in C-4 explosives attached to the soles of hs shoes on a flight bound for southern Philippines. The consultant also claimed to have put together a bomb inside the plane's toilet. Were the Qantas pilots in the right for refusing security checks? Who gives? I think they should have submitted and they made such a big fuss for nothing, wasting 200 people's time. So what does that amount to? 200 people * 70 minutes is 14,000 minutes which is a total of 9.72 days of lost time for these people. ARGH!

After watching the Socceroos lose against Italy in the early hours of Tuesday morning, spare a thought for Lucas Neil who has admitted this in a recent interview: "I hold myself responsible for being involved in the incident." But... "Is it my fault? No."

"I'm not over it yet," Neill said before boarding a flight from Europe to Australia. "For the rest of my life it will eat away at me that we had a realistic opportunity to get to the semi-final of the World Cup. We had everything under control in the game. We knew that, whether it be in extra-time or on penalties, that we were going to beat a giant of world football. But it was all taken out of our control.

"I'm disappointed. I am gutted. Mentally, before the game, I thought that we were going to beat Italy. And then when we were playing the game, I knew we would. We were going to go on to bigger and better things. I might play in another World Cup but this squad will never ever be the same. The coach. The Guus factor. The team was very talented. There were so many great ingredients going into that team. We had momentum and great confidence. There was no expectation. We had the opportunity for more of a great adventure."

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Submitted by Marco on Sat, 01/07/2006 - 1:30pm.

It's 5 minutes to 3am and the Match with the Socceroos against Italy has finally ended. Italy won 1-0 in a controversial finish. Lucas Neil made a slide for the ball in the box tripping up an Italian player. A penalty shot was given to Italy and taken by Totti who made the shot. Only if Neil didn't trip up the player - just seconds before the game ended, could have seen the game been taken to extra time and possibly a penalty shoot out. It's been an interesting few weeks following the Socceroos, from their win against Uruguay last year, to their winning against the Asian Champions - Japan, while losing to Brazil and drawing against Croatia and finally ending theirWorld Cup campaign against Italy in this controversial finish. I say better luck next time. :) And Lucas Neil - your name will be forever etched in all the Soccer fans who stayed up late tonight!

Update 11:20am: I think I may have overreacted last night... The Socceroos deserve to be congratulated on how far they've gone in the World Cup this year. It's the referees' fault. That did not deserve a penalty!

Update 2124 hours: Here are some interesting articles about the match: You were robbed, says Brits: "Australians have already mastered rugby and cricket. Now they're world class at footie - as well as the barbie and the bar." And That wasn't a penalty: Hiddink

Yep... The Triad is still doing deals on Australia and are using kids to do their dirty work. This scam is linked with the phishing emails that attempt to get users to input their login details on their mockups of official websites. One of the bagmen is a recent graduate of the prestigious Trinity Grammar School... Read More

According to this news story, Richard Budlong, 56, was dismissed from his job at NCR Australia last year, after 31 years of service for storing pornography at his work computer. The pornographic images had been sent by senior managers so he was not overly concerned that he was breaking IT policy and argued NCR "had a workplace culture which tolerated the distribution of such material". Let this be a warning for all you perves ;P

A 20 year old woman from Sydney has suvived an eight storey fall. Full Story. "The woman, 20, suffered serious head injuries, and fractured both arms, both legs and her pelvis after falling from the eighth-floor of a unit block, says Ian Badham, executive director of NRMA CareFlight helicopter service." That is one serious fall. If you were to fall down an sustain major injuries, would you prefer to die or survive, but be severely screwed and be a burden on your loved ones?

At last! Scientists have discovered a bacteria-fighting compound 100 times more effective than penicillin - in wallaby milk. This new compound was tagged as AGG01 and is active against a wide variety of fungi and bacteria including antibiotic-resistant superbugs such as he hospital superbug MRSA, or golden staph, as well as ecoli, Streptococci, Salmonella, Bacillus subtilus, Pseudomonas spp, Proteus vulgaris, and Staphylococcus aureus. I hope we don't abuse the use of this antibiotic in future.

You've seen in in Hollywood movies before, you've heard stories about it but yet it still happens. I guess the same goes with speeding: you've been caught before, you know there are speed cameras everywhere, but you still put the pedal to the metal. I saw someone caught speeding in my local area on my daily walk; the police car was an unmarked Ford XR7, fully tinted windows. You would never have seen it coming. Anyway, back to the topic: drink spiking. There's an ongoing court case about drink spiking in Sydney.

I previously commented about Nigerian Scams. They aren't new and they still seem to catch a lot of people, even with all the media - newspapers, the Prime Time Current Affairs Programs and talkback radio. Who are these gullible and greedy people? Have they been living under a rock? Don't they hear about the stories of people who have been sucked into these scams? Or are they just too busy working their butt off for money that they have just lost their common sense? Who knows - because I know I'm not one of them. Queensland police are staggered by the amount gullible Aussies losing their investment money to scammers. Police estimate that the scam has earned more than $7 million from Queenslanders alone. According to news reports, professionals such as financail advisers, lawyers and university professors are getting sucked into scam. One person had even put $2.2 million towards the Nigerian scam.

Here's a new employment model that McDonald's is currently trialling in Britian. The concept of job sharing involves the one position where you as the employee is able to share your job and swap shifts without telling your boss. Each employee clocks on into the shift and is paid individually for the hours they worked into their account but it is essentially the one position. If the trial scheme proves successful, McDonald's said that it would expand the family job sharing scheme to include friends and cousins.

Dr Lester Brown, UN Environment Prize inner in 1987 and President of the Earth Policy Institute has warned that the growth in prosperity of China threatens to place intolerable burdens on the world's natural resource.

The factory of the world would have a per capita income equal that of the US by 2031 if the Chinese economy continues to grow at its current pace, he said. With a projected population of about 1.4 billion at that time, a China as prosperous as the US would:

* Burn 99 million barrels of oil a day, 18 per cent more than is now produced globally.

The Bureau of Meteorology yesterday predicted Sydney would reach a maximum temperature of 41 degrees, a level not seen on January 1 since records started being kept at Observatory Hill in 1858. In Liverpool, Penrith and Richmond, the mercury was expected to rise to 43 degrees.

"Looking back at the records, there haven't been that many days over 30 degrees [on New Year's Day], only five or six in all the years recorded, so it does stand out a bit."

The hottest New Year's Day ever recorded was in 1928 when the maximum temperature soared to 38.1 degrees while the second hottest day was in 1977, when 36.9 degrees was reached.

Records were expected to be smashed because the cool sea breezes that usually keep temperatures down in Sydney would disappear today, Mr Moore said.

Inland winds from the north and the west would gust up to 20 knots. Relief was not expected until midnight tonight when a classic southerly buster with winds of up to 30 knots would chase back the heat.