At the moment if you could kidnap the top 6 in the Liberal Party and hold them to ransom, you'd be lucky to get 50c.

Horse 1052 - 2012 is Bunk

Before the media decides to spin its wheels with hype about this 2012 movie or whatever it is, let me state quite categorically that the world will not end on December 21, 2012. I have documentary evidence to prove it.

1. Pepsi Perfect

"Huh? What's that?" I hear you ask... well actually I don't hear you ask since a) I don't know who you are and b) this is the medium of text and to be perfectly honest unless you have some sort of text-to-speech program then of itself text will not speak.
"Huh? What's that?" I hear metaphorically you ask... that's better.

I want you to cast your minds back to that brilliant documentary series Back to the Future; specifically in Part II when Marty McFly walks into the Cafe 80's and order said Pepsi Perfect (see below).


I ask you, how is Marty McFly able to walk into the Cafe 80's on October 26th, 2015, if the world had ended in 2012? Obviously 2012 was followed by 2013, 2014, 2015 etc.

2. People Cashing In

"Huh? What's that?"

http://www.2012officialcountdown.com/
I'm ready to take action! I'm tired of all the misinformation surrounding 2012.
I'm ready to learn the truth about 2012 and get real information. I understand that for the locked-in low price I'm getting unlimited and instant download access to the entire package...
bla bla bla, what is this really about? Ahah!
NOW: $49.95
GET INSTANT ACCESS NOW!
Click Here To Pay By Credit Card

I'd like to ask you "Official Countdown" people, why you have the gall to charge people $49.95 for something that's unpreventable? In if fact the world is going to end on December 21, 2012 (and I note that no-one is even sure of the date of this) then isn't that money better off in everyone else's hand anyway? What you are in effect is stealing their money so that you can presumably live it up in the mean time.

I have heard all sorts of theories about why the world is going to end in 2012, and most of them revolve around the Mayan Long Calendar. Most sensibly Sandra Noble, the executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Fla. has said that to render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting is "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in."


3. It Doesn't Make Sense

Logically the very existence of a doomsday implies that there is a supreme being / God / god(s). Using those same rules of logic, why would that supreme being tell of the time that they were going to return and end it all?

If anything that would by inference negate any cause to live moral, upright and just lives because just like a group of teenagers at home whilst their parents are away, it would give them the freedom to act exactly how they felt like and then just clean the place up at the last minute. Alternatively if there wasn't any hope for these people, then you'd have to assume that this supreme being was pretty heartless for creating humanity in the first place.
Logically it follows that actually telling humanity the date in which the world is coming to an end implies either that the supreme being is either stupid or heartless.

Thankfully this isn't the case:

Matthew 24:36-39
But the exact day and hour? No one knows that, not even heaven's angels, not even the Son. Only the Father knows. The Arrival of the Son of Man will take place in times like Noah's. Before the great flood everyone was carrying on as usual, having a good time right up to the day Noah boarded the ark. They knew nothing—until the flood hit and swept everything away.

"Huh? What's that?"

At this exact moment in time, everyone is pretty well much free to do whatever they like*... and be held accountable for it, because although December 21, 2012 probably isn't the date that Christ will return to judge the living and the dead, He is coming. The next question is what do you do about it? And is it appropriate?

*everyone was carrying on as usual, - that seems to be quite apt to describe what's going on right now eh?

Horse 1050a - additional

As quickly as Erin Jones' "Grant Blog" appeared, it is being pulled back into the scumspawn from whence it came. It is now a mass of white space, broken links and text. Which all goes to prove that a scam is still a scam...
http://www.erinsgrantblog.com/?c=au&aff=sg&id=vcsuc

or a great steaming pile of electronic kaka.

Horse 1051 - Stupid News for Stupid People

Mr Murdoch has spent the best part of the last fortnight having a giant whinge because people are accessing his news websites and aren't paying for the privilege. After attacking both the BBC and the ABC as well as Deutsche Welle and Japan's NHK, he now intends to place a so called "pay-wall" around his websites so that people can not gain access unless they pay. He has even threatened companies like Google and Yahoo that he intends to debar them from displaying News Corp news articles via their news feeds.

In Australia, people are most likely to get onto the internet via one of two service providers; those being Optusnet and Telstra Bigpond. People already pay their internet service provider to get onto the internet, why should consumers in principle be asked to then pay again?

My second question of Rupert is "Why do we want top pay?"

I had a look at the "Most Popular" box at http://www.news.com.au/ and found the following:

1. Climate expert 'cheered' by Aussie's death
2. Facebook bikini photo 'cut insurance'
3. Bouncer's foot almost severed by machete
4. Australian Idol winner announced
5. Rann slams 'malicious' sex talk
6. New baby joy for mother of murdered trio
7. 'JFK nephew barred from communion'
8. ADHD guidelines pulled after drug scandal
9. Rare Charles Darwin book found in toilet
10. School mistress 'had sex with students'

To be honest I didn't even read any of them (nor do I intend to) but do any of these news stories seem like "quality journalism" to you? Mind you I do ask the question as to why these are the most popular? As time goes on, people are voluntarily reading less; and progressively becoming more stupid. The "Most Popular" stories at news.com.au are the natural outcome of this.

Is that the fault of the media selling less intelligent crud, or is it the fault of society generally because they are not prepared to think? I still haven't worked out the answer to this.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2009/s2745070.htm
Rupert Murdoch: The fact is there's not enough advertising in the world to go around to make all the websites profitable. We'd rather have fewer people coming to our website but paying.

The bottom line is the bottom line. Murdoch is after all a businessman and it does cost money to produce journalism; the fact remains that he does have the right to ask for payment for that product. In that respect, then taking money from stupid people is probably fine.

Horse 1050 - Erin's Amazing Grant Checks

I love it when spam comes through my inbox; I especially love it when the author of that spam clearly didn't bother to do any research at all. This then is said email:

http://www.erinsgrantblog.com/?c=au&aff=sg&id=vcsuc

My name is Erin and I'm from Sydney, Australia. I figured out a way to get free cash from grants. Here's the situation, each year billions in grants are given out to people like me and you. The thing is, most people don't think they qualify for a grant and never apply, this makes it easier for the people who actually try.

Below is a picture of the actual grant check I received in the mail:



Does anyone else see three critical errors with the email?

Firstly, before we even look at the the photograph itself, there is the certain problem of receiving a grant check from the government. We happen to live in Australia, and as such in Australia we don't actually have grant "checks", unless of course we are making sure something is correct, or perhaps threatening an opponent's king in chess. No, in Australia the instrument used to transfer monies from one person to another is a "cheque".

Since Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755, the British Commonwealth more or less standardised its spelling of the word cheque, and the Americanism check didn't actually appear until Noah Webster's blatant vandalism of the English language with his American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828

Oops.

Secondly, if you look at the picture supplied, this clearly does not look like any cheque ever written by the Reserve Bank of Australia. Grant Cheques would be brown in colour, they certainly do not feature the Australian flag on them, nor are they emblazoned with Maple Leaves and they most definately not endorsed by the Receiver General for Canada.

Oops.

Thirdly, if you follow any of the links within the website (and I do mean website, for although it does say Erin's Grant Blog, it clearly isn't a blog, since there are no new posts, none of them are dated etc.) you are redirected to:

http://www.successgrants.com/index.php

This website is plastered with the American Flag, the White House, and Benjamin Franklin's face smiling at us from several US $100 bills (I used that term in deference to the fact that in Australia, a banknote is a note and not a bill, since a bill is essentially a demand notice to pay).

Oops.

So Miss Erin Jones (if that is indeed your real name), quite contrary to what you have suggested in that "If I can save you some time and grief, the stuff I did here is free to get started and took me a long time to research." you haven't done any research at all. In fact, me with barely 8 seconds of "research" have concluded, that your blog (which isn't a blog at all) is a) trying to sell me something and b) a great steaming pile of electronic kaka.

Of course it does suggest that the fact that I'm finding holes in spam, must mean that today is a very boring day indeed.

Horse 1049 - Silver Arrows

http://www.brawngp.com/readstory.asp?bgp=j%C1%AA%C0rZ%7Cg

Mercedes-Benz will enter the Formula 1 World Championship with its own team, beginning with the 2010 season, and Daimler AG and McLaren Group will change their form of cooperation with effect as of 13 November 2009. This was announced by Daimler AG today.

http://media.daimler.com/dcmedia/0-921-657499-1-1253028-1-0-0-0-0-1-13472-614322-0-1-0-0-0-0-0.html?TS=1258409891618

Nobody wasted any time with this one. It seems as though the media people probably already have everything printed in lieu of the next international motor show. Ross Brawn must've known something and that's why he was cagey about his dealings with Richard Branson and his Virgin Group. As it is, it leaves Brawn GP as the most successful team in GP history, having secured the World Driver's Championship with Jensen Button and the World Constructors Championship for 2009, thus Brawn GP leave the sport being the only team in history with a 100% success record.

You can of course expect over the next few months images of Fangio and Moss though I suspect that they may want to sort of gloss over the events of the 1955 Le Mans 24 Hour Race when Pierre Levegh's Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR crashed and killed 84 spectators, and nor do I think that they'd show Mark Webber and Peter Dumbreck's mishaps in the 1999 Le Mans 24 Hour Race when they both flipped their Mercedes-Benz CLRs during the car's only competitive outing. Though the car which they'll most likely show will be 722, another Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR which Moss used to win the 1955 Mille Miglia and Targo Florio.




For me this is a trip down a Nostalgia Lane that had already been long demolished before I was even born. Mercedes had built some truly glorious Grand Prix cars in the 1930s but from 1955 until 1985 Mercedes-Benz' official involvement in motorsport was nil. It wasn't until 1995 that they returned to Formula One, and then they didn't really show their colours until 1996.

Speaking of that colour, the "Silberpfeile" or Silver Arrows, is a story which legend would suggest is pure accident and was the result of shaving off the paint from a Grand Prix car to make it comply with a weight limit. Whatever the case, both Audi and Mercedes-Benz both list Silberpfeil-Grau, or Silver Arrow Grey as a colour that they sell their road cars in, but as far as GP racing is concerned...

...the Silver Arrows are back.

Horse 1048 - When the Wall Came Down

The 9th of November 1989 will live long in people's memory as it was primarily a day of decreased geography, and when two countries once again became one.

The events of that cold day in Berlin meant little to me as an 11 year old. I was far away and safe on the other side of a television set, but I imagine that the effects of that day would be immensely changing for the people that lived there.

People of Berlin in some cases had been separated from even members of their own family since 1961, and that morning and day as people moved again between two halves of a previously divided city, would have been very strange. The U-Bahn and S-Bahn underground trains that would have previously passed through so called "phantom" stations, where the railway lines passed underground into another country and then back out again, now stopped at these stations for the first time in 28 years.

The wall itself was a physical symbol of the "iron curtain" which had descended across the Continent from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic.



The then Conservative PM Margaret Thatcher said:
"We do not want a united Germany. This would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security."
Admittedly President Mitterrand of France warned Margaret Thatcher privately that a reunited Germany might “make even more ground than Hitler had” only a few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, newly declassified documents reveal. So it certainly seems that the prospect of a reunited Germany scared Western Europe.

It is a credit to the German people though that the reunification process went reasonably smoothly. The expected drag on West Germany's economy never really happened, because the work ethic of Prussia which was firmly in the East, put paid to that.

If anything, one Germany I think has showed the world that it is possible to peacefully acheive something great. The people of Ireland, Palestine and Korea aught to take note of this, because there is far more joy in breaking down barriers than erecting them.

Aside:
9th November was also the date of Der Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) which in 1938 saw about 500 Jews murdered and a further 25,000-30,000 placed into concentration camps to eventually be murdered. I bet that the GDR Politbüro
were keen to have that story of history quietly pasted over.