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	<title>MACinations &#187; News</title>
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		<title>Who employs these idiots ?</title>
		<link>http://www.macinations.net/2010/07/07/who-employs-these-idiots/</link>
		<comments>http://www.macinations.net/2010/07/07/who-employs-these-idiots/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Jul 2010 01:40:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>moldor</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.macinations.net/?p=522</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(With thanks to @paulhadlow) Thursday, 24th January 2002 (Derek Guille broadcast this story on his afternoon program on ABC radio.) In March 1999 a man living in Kandos (near Mudgee in NSW, Australia ) received a bill for his as yet unused gas line stating that he owed $0.00. He ignored it and threw it away.  In April he received another [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<pre style="text-align: center;">(With thanks to <a href="http://twitter.com/paulhadlow">@paulhadlow</a>)</pre>
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<td width="100%"><strong>Thursday, 24th January 2002</strong></p>
<p>(Derek Guille broadcast this story on his afternoon program on ABC radio.)</p>
<p>In March 1999 a man living in Kandos (near Mudgee in NSW, Australia ) received a bill for his as yet unused gas line stating that he owed <strong>$0.00</strong>.</p>
<p>He ignored it and threw it away.  In April he received another bill and threw that one away too.</p>
<p>The following month the gas company sent him a very nasty note stating that they  were going to cancel his gas line if he didn&#8217;t send them <strong>$0.00</strong> by return mail.</p>
<p>He called them, talked to them, and they said it was a computer error and they would take care of it.</p>
<p>The following month he decided that it was about time that he tried out the troublesome gas line figuring that if there<br />
was usage on the account it would put an end to this ridiculous predicament.</p>
<p>However, when he went to use the gas, it had been cut off.</p>
<p>He called the gas company who apologised for the computer error once again and said that they would take care of it.  The next day he got a bill for <strong>$0.00</strong> stating that payment was now <strong>overdue</strong>.</p>
<p>Assuming that having spoken to them the previous day the latest bill was yet another mistake, he ignored it, trusting that the company would be as good as their word and sort the problem out.</p>
<p>The next month he got a bill for $0.00. This bill also stated that he had 10 days to pay his account or the company would have to take steps to recover the debt.</p>
<p>Finally, giving in, he thought he would beat the gas company at their own game and mailed them a cheque for <strong>$0.00</strong>.<br />
The computer duly processed his account and returned a statement to the effect that he now owed the Gas company nothing at<br />
all.</p>
<p>A week later, the manager of the Mudgee branch of the Westpac Banking Corporation called our hapless friend and asked him<br />
what he was doing writing cheque for <strong>$0.00</strong>.</p>
<p>After a lengthy explanation the bank manager replied that the <strong>$0.00</strong> cheque had caused their cheque processing software to fail.  The bank could therefore not process ANY cheques they had received from ANY of their customers that day because the cheque for $0.00 had caused the computer to crash.</p>
<p>The following month the man received a letter from the gas company claiming that his cheque had bounced and that he now owed them $0.00 and unless he sent a cheque by return mail they would take immediate steps to recover the debt.</p>
<p>At this point, the man decided to file a debt harassment claim against the gas company.  It took him nearly two hours to convince the clerks at the local courthouse that he was not joking.</p>
<p>They subsequently helped him in the drafting of statements which were considered substantive evidence of the aggravation and difficulties he had been forced to endure during this debacle.</p>
<p>The matter was heard in the Magistrate&#8217;s Court in Mudgee.</p>
<p>The gas company was ordered to:</p>
<ol>
<li>Immediately rectify their computerised accounts system or show cause, within 10 days, why the matter should not be referred to a higher Court for consideration under Company Law.</li>
<li>Pay the bank dishonour fees incurred by the man.</li>
<li>Pay the bank dishonour fees incurred by all the Westpac clients whose cheques had been bounced on the day our friend&#8217;s had been processed.</li>
<li>Pay the claimant&#8217;s court costs; and</li>
<li>Pay the claimant a total of $1500 per month for the 5 month period, March to July inclusive as compensation for the aggravation they had caused their client to suffer.</li>
</ol>
<p>And all this over <strong>$0.00</strong>.</p>
<p>This story can also be viewed on the ABC website.</p>
<p>Who employs these idiots??</p>
<p>Remember, these &#8220;people&#8221; walk among us and breathe the same air we do.</td>
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		<title>Best. Worldcup. Sign. Ever.</title>
		<link>http://www.macinations.net/2010/06/17/best-worldcup-sign-ever/</link>
		<comments>http://www.macinations.net/2010/06/17/best-worldcup-sign-ever/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:05:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>moldor</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.macinations.net/?p=489</guid>
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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-490" title="Shove this, you little dictator" src="http://www.macinations.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/world-cup-sign.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="322" /></p>
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		<title>The Vanity of Global Warming</title>
		<link>http://www.macinations.net/2010/03/09/the-vanity-of-global-warming-2/</link>
		<comments>http://www.macinations.net/2010/03/09/the-vanity-of-global-warming-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:58:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>moldor</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.macinations.net/?p=335</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For those who think that mankind is devastating the planet by causing global warming, it&#8217;s a myth, but it keeps the greenies and tree-huggers in business, otherwise they would become redundant. For instance, one day&#8217;s emission of sulphur dioxide and other gases from the volcanic eruption of Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines a few years [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>For those who think that mankind is devastating the planet by causing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming">global warming</a>, it&#8217;s a myth, but it keeps the greenies and tree-huggers in business, otherwise they would become redundant. For instance, one day&#8217;s emission of <a href="http://www.airqualityontario.com/science/pollutants/sulphur.cfm">sulphur dioxide</a> and other gases from the volcanic eruption of <a href="http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/southeast_asia/philippines/pinatubo.html">Mt Pinatubo</a> in the Philippines a few years ago put more ozone-destroying elements into the atmosphere than the combined pollution caused by man in the past 40 million years.</p>
<p>Mankind can&#8217;t compete with nature when it comes to pollution, as there are thousands of <a href="http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/world.html">active volcanoes</a> throughout the planet, all spewing out greenhouse gases. Go to <a href="http://www.rotoruanz.com/">Rotorua</a> in New Zealand and you can smell it all day and night, 365 days of the year. If you think we are suffering from global warming because of something that mankind is doing, ask yourself why the <a href="http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/M/Marspoles.html">polar icecaps on Mars</a> are melting? Maybe there&#8217;s a secret colony of humans on Mars, polluting whatever vestige of atmosphere is on the Red Planet. Or could it just be the sun going through its usual <a href="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html">cycle of increasing and decreasing energy</a>? That&#8217;s the real reason, but let&#8217;s not get in the way of the greenies and their agendas.</p>
<p>The truth is that global warming, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer">ozone layer</a> breakdown and other so-called man-created worldwide changer to the environment is a gigantic load of crap, driven by people who have made a profession out of being <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmentalism">environmentalists</a>. The following article by journalist <a href="http://timblair.net/">Tim Blair</a> really says it how it is.</p>
<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;</p>
<p><strong>The Vanity of Global Warming</strong><br />
<strong>By Tim Blair</strong></p>
<p>December 02, 2006</p>
<p>Human beings are vain creatures, given to imagining we are able to influence events far beyond our control.</p>
<p>An aunt of mine believes, for example, she can cause English wickets to fall during <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/tms/default.stm">Test matches</a> by doing her ironing.</p>
<p>Her family was looking pretty sharp last week. Even their socks were ironed.</p>
<p>As superstitions go, hers is a mild one. By contrast, <a href="http://www.uq.edu.au/">Queensland University</a> student Sarah Bishop believes she can influence the weather.</p>
<p>The 22-year-old will <a href="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20813610-1702,00.html">walk 1000km from Brisbane to Sydney</a> next month in a bold bid to adjust the planet&#8217;s temperature.</p>
<p>&#8220;I just figure it&#8217;s really easy to sit around and complain that other people aren&#8217;t doing anything about it,&#8221; the young environmentalist told reporters.</p>
<p>&#8220;But if I&#8217;m not doing anything I&#8217;m exactly the same as everybody.&#8221;</p>
<p>Can&#8217;t have that. So Sarah&#8217;s trek &#8211; she aims to collect Kyoto-supporting signatures along the way, which she&#8217;ll deliver to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirribilli_House">Kirribilli House</a> once in Sydney &#8211; will demonstrate the power of an environmentalist over the environment.</p>
<p>As her website <a href="http://www.globaldawning.org/">www.globaldawning.org</a> says: &#8220;One committed young Australian can make a difference.&#8221;</p>
<p>Sorry, Sarah. Nothing you do will make any difference at all to the climate. (Also, <a href="http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000651.html">there is no Santa Claus</a>.) Check the stats. Australia contributes just 1.4 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s assume, just for fun, that each of us generates an equal amount of that overall figure. Sarah&#8217;s contribution comes to just 0.00000007%.</p>
<p>Sarah could become completely carbon neutral (ie, cease to exist) tomorrow, and the Great Greenhouse Gods wouldn&#8217;t even notice. Forget raising awareness of global warming; global warming needs to be made aware of Sarah.</p>
<p>But let&#8217;s leave Sarah alone. She&#8217;s well-intentioned, if not particularly aware of humanity&#8217;s scale relative to the whole planet.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s look instead at the effect an entire nation has on global warming. Here&#8217;s the <a href="http://calsun.canoe.ca/Columnists/">Calgary Sun&#8217;s Licia Corbella</a>: &#8220;What would happen if Canada were never to produce another man-made CO2 molecule ever again?</p>
<p>&#8220;If every man, woman and child never exhaled again and therefore never produced anymore hated CO2, what would be the effect?</p>
<p>&#8220;What would happen if all Canadians just disappeared and therefore all that hated machinery and technology that makes survival through a Canadian winter possible, just sat idle? No cars driving around, no need to heat homes or turn on lights. No more plants and factories. What would the effect on the global climate be?</p>
<p>&#8220;Absolutely nothing at all.&#8221;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s because Canada produces just 2 per cent of global warming gases &#8211; just a fraction more than Australia.</p>
<p>These amounts are miniscule. They are practically immeasurable in the overall context of global emissions.</p>
<p>Think on this awhile: if a vengeful <a href="http://www.pantheon.org/articles/g/gaia.html">Gaia</a> were to smite both Canada AND Australia out of existence, that would reduce by only 3.4 per cent of these warming gases some believe are killing the planet.</p>
<p>We&#8217;re talking about a combined total of 53 million people, millions of houses, millions of cars, millions of factories and dams and computers and televisions and everything else that makes for modern, affluent, civilised nations.</p>
<p>Completely removing them would make next to no difference at all, global-warming wise. So imagine how little effect a council recycling scheme has, for example. Or how pointless would be the purchase of a hybrid electric car.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s add <a href="https://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/nz.html">New Zealand</a> to the list of nations to be scrubbed out under my Appease the Environment policy.</p>
<p>Suddenly, our gas amount of 3.4 per cent leaps to 3.6 per cent (New Zealand&#8217;s contribution of global warming gases to the world&#8217;s total is, by one estimate, only 0.2 per cent). Sarah Bishop&#8217;s happy stroll to Sydney begins to look kind of pointless, does it not? Especially when you consider that her primary aim is to convince the government to sign up for magical Kyoto goodness.</p>
<p>You&#8217;d think New Zealand&#8217;s pitiful greenhouse output (c&#8217;mon, Kiwis! Get working! This planet isn&#8217;t going to warm itself, you know!) would make it a winner under the <a href="http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html">Kyoto Protocol</a>, but no; that&#8217;s not how Kyoto works.</p>
<p>The protocol measures a nation&#8217;s greenhouse output against it OWN output in 1990. So we end up with a situation whereby clean little non-polluting New Zealand &#8211; which produces more greenhouse gases than it did 16 years ago &#8211; is penalised, possibly by as much as $1.5 billion.</p>
<p>Which could end up, via Kyoto logic, going to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia">Russia</a>. You remember Russia; they&#8217;re the guys who brought us such environmental triumphs as <a href="http://www.chernobyl.co.uk/">Chernobyl</a>.</p>
<p>Little wonder that some in New Zealand regret ever signing on to this accursed Protocol of the Damned. Even our Canadian pals, who were among the first to embrace Kyoto, are having second thoughts.</p>
<p>In September the <a href="http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/bio.asp?id=47">Canadian environment minister Rona Ambrose</a> admitted her nation couldn&#8217;t meet its Kyoto emissions-reduction target. In fact, Canadian emissions are now running at 27 per cent higher than in 1990.</p>
<p>Run these lines past the likes of earnest Sarah and the usual response will include claims that we&#8217;ve got to do something about the climate because last year or last summer or last Tuesday was the &#8220;hottest in recorded history&#8221;.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s another perspective-building figure: &#8220;recorded history&#8221; (the last 200 years or so) represents just 0.000004 per cent of the planet&#8217;s entire 4.6 billion year existence. This joint&#8217;s been around a long time. We&#8217;ll barely make a dent in it.</p>
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