Blog Storm

Airport parking must be a lucrative business, reading a news report about a group of workers at a parking facility A.B. Won Pat Guam International Airport might have pocketed $57,000 from the airport. What they did is not lower the barrier as cars go through, this way the computer doesn’t count every car entering to parking lot, they then pocket some of the parking fees.

Not sure what the period of time is, but still that’s a lot of raised barriers, did they not have CCTV, it’s an airport after all, terror alerts and all that!

To steal that amount of money the airport parking companies must be making millions.

A bit of research later-

This is unbelievable, can only imagine the relief this couple has now!

From JS ONLINE

So long, bankruptcy; next stop, debt-free

Lucy Backman was left with no credit cards after she and her husband declared bankruptcy last year.

So that makes her a deliciously ironic grand prize winner in a sweepstakes sponsored by MasterCard, a contest she more or less entered by accident.

Her prize: $350,000, which is more than four times the credit card debt that put them in bankruptcy court. High medical bills from a car crash had thrown their finances into a tailspin.

“I still plan on keeping my job,” said Backman, 39, of St. Francis.

John Howard won a fourth term based on a demeaning and deceptive campaign, former Liberal Party president John Valder said.

Mr Valder, who backed the campaign of former intelligence analyst and Greens candidate Andrew Wilkie in Mr Howard’s Sydney seat of Bennelong, said he wanted the return of a Liberal government but without Mr Howard.

“John Howard has been so deceptive, he’s won a great victory in this campaign,” Mr Valder told ABC Television.

“But I certainly don’t admire the methods by which he achieved it, which is a lowering and lowering of standards to the point where he demeaned himself by using the lowest form of marketing, telemarketing.

I’m up bright and early tomorrow morning to work as a polling officer at the Federal elections. It’s tedious, tiring work, and a long day, but I like it and the pay’s nothing to be sneezed at. I have to be realistic and predict a Coalition retain, with a resurgence of Greens Party popularity and the subsequent Labor preferences to make it a close one and cause a few marginal seats to switch hands, but a Howard reinstallment nonetheless. But hey, you never know until it happens.

In 48 hours the election will be all over. Oh god, Howard’s gunna win, I just know it. I can’t stand it. He needs to go. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s a liar. He’s a fear-mongerer. He doesn’t care. It’s all about the history books. People are too fucking dumb to see through his bullshit. I’ve never been so emotional about removing a government. Please, please get rid of him. I can’t bear it.

Mr Islam said the decision to deny him entry on grounds of national security was “very serious and wholly unfounded” and he wants an explanation.

His Washington-bound flight was diverted to Maine on Tuesday and he was told to leave the country by the FBI.

He said a legal process had been put in place to find out what had happened.

In a statement Mr Islam said: “Never would I believe that such a thing could happen in the ‘land of the free’ - unfortunately, it did.

Dude, you got what you deserved. I mean, Yusuf Islam? That stupid beard? What the fuck were you thinking? And Tea For The Tillerman totally sucked balls.

1. How did you start blogging? Why do you keep at it?
Oh, I have to write or I go insane. Seriously, I have these long, complex, stream-of-consciousness dreams which cause me to wake up exhausted unless I tap them beforehand. If it’s not this drivel, it’s some verbalised, semi-cogent, ejaculatory tirade at a politician whose face just flashed across the tv news, a dark and disturbing work of fiction in a tattered scrapbook buried in my drawer. At least this way I don’t feel like the serial killer in Se7en.

SMH’s Margo Kingston publishes an interesting letter from a journalistic colleague staying in the US which sheds light on the experiences of an Australian observing the 2004 Presidential elections first-hand. It’s good to see that, contrary to the nagging of my own self-deprecative skepticism, it appears that a hemispheric buffer zone hasn’t affected my own objectivity to any noticeable degree.

Dear Margo,
I have found myself in what feels the bizarre position of travelling in the US at this time. It is bizarre in that I am witnessing the US election campaign and talking to Americans, at the same time as the nuances of what is going in Australian election are lost to me. Of course there is virtually no reference to Australia in the US media.

There is for all practical purposes no real difference in the stated objectives of Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry. It’s tweedle dee or tweedle dumb. Why waste your vote on one or the other when the effective end result would be the same?
Yeah, but why Mel Gibson?

If you’re pleased with the way things are and want 4 more years of the same then, by all means, vote for Mr. Bush. If in some way or another you think that Mr. Kerry will improve the situation then be sure to vote for him. But if you believe that our country should embark on a different, more positive course then consider making the effort to write in Mel Gibson for President on Nov. 2.
Yeah, but why Mel Gibson?

Someone finally asks everyone’s favourite red-body-paint-and-horn-wearing graphic design entrepreneur and general man-about-town Normal Bob Smith a most burning question.

I just wanted to ask if you are a religous man, like catholics or christians.

Perhaps I’m being optimistic, but you think they would’ve figured it out by now…

from Sydney Morning Herald

A 10-year federal ban on assault weapons expires today in the United States, allowing Americans to buy AK-47s and Uzis at their local gun stores.

“George Bush gave police officers his word that he would keep the ban,” Kerry said, “but when it came time to extend it, Bush’s powerful friends in the gun lobby asked him to look the other way. He just couldn’t resist, and he said ‘Sure’. He chose to make the job of terrorists easier and make the job of America’s police officers harder.”

The law prohibited the manufacture and distribution of 19 kinds of semiautomatic firearms that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition while allowing such guns already in circulation to remain there.

Reality check: Idol beats leaders’ debates

Australian Idol beat the debate between Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Mark Latham in the battle for TV ratings last night.

Ratings figures released today show Network Ten’s Australian Idol won the 7.30pm timeslot nationally with 1.98 million viewers, with the debate coming in second with 1.47 million viewers.

Don’t expect me to take the moral highground; I was watching my Sopranos DVDs. Howard: “Vote for me and we’ll keep fighting the War on Terror!” Latham: “Vote for me and I’ll lower your taxes!” Spare me.