News & Politics

Recession?? It's all in your heads

ChristiRose — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:05 EDT

According to McCain & Bush:

The long wait for a loved one's remains

MiraAngel — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:12 EDT

No Offensive comment is allowed here ....

Suicide bombing rocks Iraqi city

imeninme — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:25 EDT

Fifteen people have been killed and 39 wounded by a female suicide bomber in the northern Iraqi city of Baquba. The bomber detonated the device in front of a group of policemen at the entrance to a local government and law courts complex. Security officials say al-Qaeda AND OTHER ISLAMIC TRORIST GROP has recruited women bombers because they are often subjected to lighter security checks than men.

Chemical blaze kills 30 in Iran

imeninme — Mon, 26 May 2008 11:20 EDT

An explosion and fire at a chemical plant near the city of Arak in central Iran has killed 30 people and injured 38, Iranian media report. A container holding 60,000 litres of flammable products exploded during welding work nearby and the fire quickly spread

the day when daddy went to blow up some innocent people

aNgRYl0gik — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:58 EDT

"A home video of London suicide bomber Mohammad Siddique Khan bidding goodbye to his baby daughter has been shown to a jury at Kingston Crown Court." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7364628.stm "And I'm doing what I'm doing for the sake of Islam, not, you know, it's not for materialistic or worldly benefits."

Syrian nuclear reactor

imeninme — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:52 EDT

الموقف الاسرائيلي من صفقة التبادل �

sandykan — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:58 EDT

israil IRan Usa russia

kingafg — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:20 EDT

who well win the game

HOLY #%@&*#^!!!!!!!

pussymiezi — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:43 EDT

Man 'used teen's head as bowling ball' Wed 16th July 2008 A man stabbed a teenager to death before cutting off his head and using it as a puppet and a bowling ball, a court has been told. James Patrick Roughan, 28, has pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court in Brisbane to murdering 17-year-old Morgan Jay Shepherd on March 29, 2005. Instead, he pleaded guilty to a charge of accessary to murder after the fact, but the crown rejected the plea and is proceeding with a murder trial. Roughan also pleaded guilty to one count of interfering with a corpse. Mr Shepherd's headless body was found in a shallow grave near Dayboro, west of Brisbane, on April 1, 2005. The court was on Wednesday told the teenager died after being stabbed more than 133 times, and that his head had been sawn off. Prosecutor David Meredith told the court Roughan and his friend, Christopher Clark Jones, 24, had murdered Mr Shepherd after becoming embroiled in an argument during a drinking session at Roughan's home in Sandgate, north of Brisbane. In his opening address, Mr Meredith told the jury several witnesses would testify that they overheard Jones and Roughan boasting about the killing. He said one witness would say Jones spoke of holding Mr Shepherd down and stomping on him several times before both he and Roughan stabbed him with a knife. Mr Meredith said Jones also told friends that Roughan used the head like a puppet and a bowling ball, which Roughan denied. The court was told the pair enlisted a friend to help dispose of the body, and that they later drove back to Dayboro to bury the body more carefully. Three people have already been sentenced for helping to dispose of the corpse. Mr Meredith said Roughan and Jones blamed each other for the "thrill kill", but that "both of them were equally involved" in the death. He said the "barbaric" killing appeared to have had no motive, but may have been fuelled by the consumption of alcohol. The trial continues.

Pricey petrol does a world of good

pussymiezi — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 04:22 EDT

Finally. I’ve always seen higher petrol prices as having pros outweighing the cons, but people who agree are few and far between. Gaurav Sodhi Sydney Morning Herald 29 May 08 There was a time when supermarket dockets were but fiddly bits of paper that were carelessly crumpled and binned. But a strange thing is happening at checkouts across the country. People are receiving their dockets gratefully, folding them carefully, and saving them safely to get a four-cents-a-litre discount on petrol. Soaring fuel prices have turned the humble supermarket docket from mere bits of paper into hallowed relief from record oil prices. The high price of oil is changing consumer behaviour and attitudes elsewhere. You can see the signs of this throughout the economy, from queues at petrol stations on Tuesdays to increased crowding on trains and buses. It’s the price system at work: consumers of petrol have responded to high prices by changing demand patterns. The resulting petrol probity is what the government and opposition risk distorting with their simplistic and damaging proposals to cut the fuel excise. A price is more than just a number: it is a powerful signal to both consumers and producers about the future. When a good is in short supply, its price rises. This signals to consumers that they should use less of it and signals to producers they should make more of it. There is also a signal sent to clever firms and individuals to innovate and come up with substitutes and efficiency gains. All this happens with a simple change of digits. With crude oil clocking daily records, prices are sending a pretty powerful signal, and people are already acting on it. To see this, start by looking at the effect on demand. We are buying different cars. Last year the Toyota Corolla was the most popular car in the country, breaking the 12 year run of sales leadership by the Holden Commodore.The fastest growing sector of the new car market is small cars. Diesel cars, which five years ago accounted for about 1% of sales, now account for nearly 10%. The second hand car market is also changing. Prices of V8s and SUVs are falling as buyers seek more fuel-efficient vehicles. Bicycle sales have soared. This is exactly what should happen in a period of high prices. To protect consumers from higher prices using measures that reduce the price of fuel – by cutting the fuel excise, for instance - adds to the demand and leads to higher prices. The old economists’ cliché that the solution to higher prices is higher prices holds true here. Some will no doubt say that taxes on petrol are themselves distortions in price. But because petrol prices by themselves don’t include the cost of pollution, congestion, noise and other externalities, taxes are a justifiable way of capturing those costs and including them in the price. Producers have responded to changes in the demand for petrol, too. Every major car company now has a hybrid program to supply the market with hi-tech, fuel-efficient cars. Celebrities such as Sting are buying the Tesla Roadster, which is among the few all-electric cars in production, in record numbers. In the US, Honda has just released its first fuel cell car, which emits zero emissions. All these innovations have emerged because of high fuel prices and are proof that price signals are doing their job. Distorting the price signal would reverse these trends and enshrine the dominance of petrol engine vehicles. This would have important implications for climate change as well. One of the first things the Rudd government did in office was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, signaling an intention to reduce carbon emissions. Whether it is through a fancy cap and trade mechanism or by other means, the only way to reduce carbon emissions is to pay more for energy. Petrol prices must rise. So why are politicians falling over each other to make them cheaper? The proposed petrol price tax ‘relief’ is bad policy. This is not only because it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars and barely have an effect on the end user. More importantly, it sends the wrong signal to consumers and producers at a time when high prices appear to be here to stay. By pretending it can control petrol prices the government is continuing to peddle the lie that it can control everything. It will also perpetuate the illusion that the way we have lived in the past- driving big, inefficient cars- is the way we should live in the future. Prices signal otherwise. ========================================================= I'm not particularly opposed to cutting excise tax (out of all their little brain farts its certainly the best option - compared to cutting the frickin GST! lol), but i just disagree with all the fuss kicked up about it. As far as Rudd’s 2010 emissions trading scheme goes, I cant help saying that all it is, is yet another symbolic move to appease the superficial observers. Some people are unaware that the coalition government had already mapped out a plan to have an emissions scheme possibly by 2011; 2012 at the latest. The fact that the people who bitch and moan about high petrol prices are usually the same people jumping inanely onto the environmental bandwagon, just goes to show how unsubstantiated their opinions are. Emissions trading is important for a number of reasons. But it’s not something to be rushed into unprepared, in a rather transparent attempt to outdo a certain predecessor.