">My Big World Of Crap

Its been 11 years since she was killed in that Paris car crash, but someone has found yet another way to profit from her death.  Turns out the company that owns the car she died in wants it back – so they can sell it.

The car, which cost £70,000 new, could fetch as much as £1 million, according to press reports, and that informal offers to buy the wreck had come from all over the world, mainly the US.

Why would you want to buy a car wreck – just because someone famous died in it?  What is the motive for wanting it – for the memories of Diana?  More likely to put it on show and charge people for the privilege of gawking at it.  Perhaps cut up the back seat, seat belt and carpet and sell swatches of blood stains as souvenirs?

A couple in the southern Sydney suburb of Miranda yesterday were having a spa bath installed in their newly renovated home.  This required a crane to lift the spa over the house and lower it into the bathroom (which must have been near the back of the house).  Graham and Jacqueline Leech were standing on their back deck guiding the crane driver as he lowered the spa into the bathroom when they noticed it moving too far to the right.    The crane then toppled over  - the boom crashed through the length of the house, lodging in the roof and also ripping down power lines.

The two-bedroom sandstone and weatherboard home - which the couple had nearly finished renovating - was completely destroyed.

Hope everyone is well insured!

Some people do have serious issues about breastfeeding.  So much that this heinous crime occupies the resources of security personnel and police in Adelaide.

Sharleen Salmon was followed by police and security officers through Marion shopping mall then questioned after a complaint over her expressing breast milk in a parents room. 

"They told me that a little kid had been running around in the parents room and had briefly seen what I was doing and had complained to its mum,’’

she said.

"The mum then complained to security and the cleaner came in to inspect what I was doing. They told me the complaint was that there was a topless woman eating her lunch in the parents room.

"It’s tough enough that I have to do this during my break, but for a complaint to be made about me doing it, is really upsetting.’’

Breastfeeding Association spokeswoman Tracey Kelly said many people were ignorant about expressing milk:

“This mother was very humiliated and something like this could have seen the end of her expressing milk or working.

“It’s already very stressful and then to have someone complain about it is absolutely traumatising. This centre, like many shopping centres, doesn’t even have a lockable door for mothers to go behind, they just have curtains.’’

Ms Salmon has made a complaint to the Equal Opportunity Commission and is awaiting a response.

Now I would have thought among other things, that:

1. the mum who owned the kid who was running around in the parents’ room ought to have known better than to let the kid roam wild in there
2. that she would have known that breastfeeding is a natural function and have been able to explain that to her child
3. that the cleaner, security and police should have told her to mind her own business and not waste everyone’s time.

According to police, Australians are losing $36m a year to Nigerian scammers.  And the problem is more extensive than that, because similar frauds are going through other countries.  The police say they struggle to get a handle on the issue because many incidents went unreported – no doubt people being scammed are often too embarrassed to own up to their stupidity.

It just staggers me to see people still falling for these scams.  To not know about them, you’d need to be living in a cave or something, or be incredibly stupid, gullible, greedy or all of those.  Hard to protect some people from themselves, it seems.

Hatred clearly runs strongly in Gaza. How’s this for a family feud? 29 dead, 60 wounded, plus homes and businesses burnt down. And its still not finished!

This feud is between the al-Masri’s and the Abu Taha’s. It started in 2005 when one of the former stopped at a roadside stall to buy a mango. The stallholder didn’t have change for $5, so the buyer did what most normal people would do - shot and killed the him.

“We want to kill one more to be equal,” a member of the Abu Taha clan told a researcher for International Crisis Group. But then the toll moved to 10 Abu Taha and 11 Masris dead - and the Masris vowed revenge.

Those Masri’s are an argumentative lot. In 2006 they went to war with another clan because one of the Masris, while driving a donkey-cart, collided with a car driven by a member of the equally powerful Kafarneh clan. 6 people were killed as neighbours who had lived side-by-side for decades turned guns on each other in the name of clan honour. Houses were sand-bagged and women who had married across clan lines on both sides were locked up while hundreds of gunmen fought it out for two months. The ongoing feud prompted the Masris to erect a four-metre-high wall around their enclave in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.

They are fighting on other fronts too, vowing to kill members of the Dughmush clan. Plus they are at loggerheads with Hamas, the political party/terrorist organisation that now controls Gaza. A clan leader said it needed to avenge the death of three of its fighters during the Hamas takeover, and said “the vendetta remains outstanding”.

Happy families they are not!

Technorati Tags: Gaza, Masri, Abu Taha, Kafarneh, Dughmush, clans, Hamas, Palestine

Who else is sick of the major Australian news story of the last week? The breakup of the relationship between Olympic swimmers, Eamon Sullivan and Stephanie Rice. I know I am. The TV news has been going on about it for days. Big fucking deal I say.

Both of them are clearly focussed on their sport at the moment, Sullivan appearing in a photo spread in GQ Australia, and Rice in FHM.

God knows why she’d want to be on the front cover of a wank magazine for teenage boys.

But regardless, I’d have thought these athletes would be better off getting results on the board in Beijing then going for the publicity, rather than the other way around. Seems arse about to me, and puts extra pressure on them to perform.

Personally I don’t think Australians should set expectations too high for our Olympic team - just a little reminder that a gold medal is their entry ticket back into the country should be motivation enough!!!

Technorati Tags: Stephanie Rice, Eamon Sullivan, Olympics, Beijing

Have you ever seen a bigger one?

Technorati Tags: big pussy, obese cat, Princess Chunk

You do need to be careful with what you type. It can be embarassing - eg working for the “pubic service” instead of the “public service”. And it can be expensive, but I doubt any of us have made a typo as expensive as this one a stockbroker made today in Sydney.

It wiped 85 points off the All Ordinaries index, and 82 points off the S&P/ASX200, prompting fears of a market crash.

The broker sold a series of QBE share parcels at between 0.1 cents and 0.2 cents per share at 2.20pm today, effectively taking the entire $20.2 billion market value of the global insurance giant out of the Australian Securities Exchange. QBE was trading at above $22.85 per share at the time.

Of course, many traders took advantage of this, making offers to buy the shares at 0.2 cents each.

The Stock Exchange immediately suspended QBE shares from trading, and some 9 minutes after the error was made, the Exchange cancelled all trades in QBE shares below $22.20.

Many stockbrokers said they recognised the plunge immediately as an error.

“There will be some red faces but the reality is there are human beings who push buttons,”

“These things are accidental.”

said Howard Elton of Intersuisse Stockbroking.

Mr Elton compared the gaffe to a pilot who overshoots a runway and lands a plane in the dirt.

“It doesn’t do his personal reputation anything great,”

he said.

I’m suspecting the guy who made the mistake went hom immediately to change his underwear, and will lie low for a while, hoping the whole thing will blow over quickly. Maybe he’s hoping for a market crash to happen for real to distract attention of market colleagues from his stuffup.

Technorati Tags: QBE Insurance, Australian Stock Exchange, ASX 200, All Ordinaries index

The controversy about the use of images of naked children in works of art has been hot in the media this week.

I’m of the view that sexualisation of children is a bad thing and images that serve that purpose are not appropriate. The picture in question is quite a nice photo, but in my view is something that belongs in the family’s own photo albums, not on display in the public domain. I don’t find anything at all sexual in a photo of a 6 year old child, but there are freaks around who do … why give them fodder for their fantasies? Also, I can’t see that children this young are able to give informed consent about the use of their images in the public domain.

Pictures of your children running around nude, or in the bath, or whatever, may be beautiful, and they may capture moments of great joy and fun. Fair enough, enjoy them with your family, even trusted friends. But I just don’t believe, knowing what we know about the presence of sickos in our communities, they are for widespread public consumption.

Now, for the big question - check out the girl (Olympia Nelson)’s father’s shirt and bow tie- art or porn?

FYI - possibly NSFW - you can see the picture at the centre of the controversy here.

Technorati Tags: Olympia Nelson, art, porn, child pornography, nude photos

Father Peter Confeggi, parish priest at Mount Druitt in Sydney’s weestern suburbs, has criticised the amount of money being spent on World Youth Day this month.

Others within the church have similar concerns about the six-day event, which will cost the church an estimated $150million and NSW taxpayers at least $86million.

Father Confeggi said his parish was one of the most disadvantaged in Sydney. He said the church and state funds could be directed elsewhere, including to the 120,000 people sleeping homeless in Australia or education of the disadvantaged. He said:

“To keep the church doors open here in Mount Druitt we scratch week after week after week,”

“The bottom line is this is a gross embarrassment to the church that I serve.”

and also it was an “utter scandal” that a chalice, Communion plate and vessel to hold Communion hosts - adorned by Argyle diamonds and being made for a rumoured six-figure sum - would be given to the Pope.

He also claimed there was large amount of dissatisfaction” with the spirituality that will be taught during the event, with many fearing it would be a right-wing brand of Catholicism.

I can’t comment on the theology of the Catholic church or World Youth Day, but it does seem to me that it is a shitload of money being spent on it that could be put to much better uses. Huge ceremonies and monument building do not sit well with me as where a church’s priorities should lie.

Technorati Tags: World Youth Day, Pope Benedict, Catholic Church, religion, Father Peter Confeggi