There are jobs out there for those who want to work. On the Sunny Coast the surf culture is huge and unemployment in that culture is massive. I remember 10 years ago my daughter cohabitated with a guy (name best forgotten) who was a surfer and unemployed. She worked 3 jobs, sometimes all three in the one day, to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. I raised her to know better than that and she eventually got wise. Drugs and surfing and drinking and fighting was his life. Probably still is. I have seen where the Government was going to crack down on dole bludging surfers in the past but it never seems to work for long.
Skeleton ends lover's row mystery September 27, 2007 - 12:32PM
A skeleton hanging out of a wrecked car may have ended the 22-year mystery of a man who disappeared after an argument with his girlfiend in New Zealand.
The car was found yesterday in thick forest off a road south of Auckland by a man hunting wild pigs, police said today.
The car appeared to have run off the road between there and the city of Rotorua and into thick vegetation before hitting a tree, they said.
Police believe the remains are of a 23-year-old man who had argued with his girlfriend in Rotorua, and crashed while driving home.
He was officially declared dead seven years after being reported missing in 1985.
Detective Sergeant Kevan Verry said police had been in contact with his family and there appeared to be nothing suspicious about the death. Details of the case were being checked before the man was formally identified.
Maddie media 'ignores our kids' By Adam Gartrell October 03, 2007 03:35pm
FEDERAL Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough has criticised the Australian media for fixating on stories like that of missing British girl Madeleine McCann while ignoring the terrible plight of the nation's indigenous children.
Mr Brough this week visited the remote West Australian Aboriginal town of Kalumburu, where about 15 men, including community leaders, were charged earlier this year with child sex abuse offences.
During his visit Mr Brough learned police were investigating allegations that several children, aged 11 to 15, had abused eight younger children. Several have since been charged.
Speaking at Melbourne University last night, Mr Brough said he was "appalled" that story did not make the front page of every newspaper in the country and dominate the TV news for days.
"What did was (abandoned baby) Catherine being left on the steps of a hospital here in Melbourne day after day, or the child that has disappeared in (Portugal) making a half-hour television program, yet these children don't actually count enough," he said.
"Now we have to confront ourselves and say, why is that?"
Mr Brough said the public had to be able to confront the depravity and dysfunction rife in so many indigenous communities.
"I'm passionate about it because I've taken the time to go into the town camps at night and see what is nothing less than a war zone in Australia and say what chance have these people got if we ignore them?"
Mr Brough said that unless the public understood the "depth of despair" in indigenous Australia the last remnants of indigenous culture would be lost.
Can't we do something about the aboriginals and also have sympathy for others.. I see his point we should be fixing our own country but he can't make us support aboriginals over uk'ers or anything. Nothing is stopping him ignoring madeleine......
TWO 11-year-old boys allegedly started a bushfire with a molotov cocktail in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, during a frantic day of firefighting across the state - hampered by soaring temperatures and strong winds.
The boys were in a gully off Falls Road, Wentworth Falls at 3.20pm (AEST) yesterday when a woman saw one of them throw an object which exploded, sparking a fire, police said.
The boys fled but were arrested a short time later at Wentworth Falls Railway Station.
Fire crews extinguished the bushfire, which burnt about half an acre of public land.
No one was injured and no property was damaged.
The 11-year-olds were taken to Katoomba Police Station where they were interviewed in the presence of their parents.
The youths were released into the custody of their parents and will be dealt with under the Young Offenders Act.
Hard day for fire crews
The arrests punctuated a busy day of firefighting across NSW .
In Sydney, a large blaze that tore through the Berowra area during the afternoon was largely contained to the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park.
Sydney's north was effectively cut off from the city after the fire blocked a large section of the F3 freeway, stranding commuters.
The situation was perilous in Oxford Falls on Sydney's Northern Beaches, with two helicopter water-bombers called in to back up 100 firefighters.
In the Bundjalung National Park near Evans Head on the North Coast, firefighters continued to battle a blaze that began on Monday. The fire, which burned more than 1200ha, is believed to have been deliberately lit.
Crews braced themselves for the worst yesterday but the high winds and temperatures were not as fierce as first feared.
Despite this, a National Parks and Wildlife Services spokesman said fires were unpredictable.
NSW Rural Fire Service spokesman Murray Hillan said more than 30,000ha had been burnt in recent days.
One home was destroyed at Salt Ash in Port Stephens on Monday, but Mr Hillan said no properties were under threat last night.
He described the result as a "fantastic effort" and paid tribute to those who helped to fight the fires.
Anger at arsonists
NSW premier Morris Iemma yesterday expressed anger towards fire bugs.
"It makes you sick. There are sadly too many people out there who don't get the message," Mr Iemma said.
North Coast resident Ruth Higginbottom, whose Salt Ash home was at risk yesterday, was furious at the arsonists responsible for many of the fires still burning.
Her neighbour Lenny Irwin called for mandatory and longer jail terms for people caught lighting bushfires.
The Bureau of Meteorology said the NSW bushfire season usually began around the October long weekend each year, but this year's was particularly harsh.
Sydney yesterday recorded its hottest October 3 day on record peaking at 34.8C at Observatory Hill.
Wind gusts of 89km/h were recorded at Sydney airport.
Power was also cut to about 700 homes on the Central Coast during the afternoon but was restored several hours later.
Its the whole system of how MOST children are brought up these days. When I was a child I really respected and feared my old man, he was firm but fair. I would not have dared going off the rails and answering back and doing things like kids these days do. These days kids are mollycoddled by their parents and society so most dont give a toss about crime and anti-social behavier. Hasnt it been proven over and over again that talking to a misbehaving child instead of punishment simply does not work.
Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
Men get 7000 lashes for sodomy From correspondents in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia October 04, 2007 08:56pm
TWO men in Saudi Arabia have been sentenced to 7000 lashes each after being convicted of sodomy and have received their first round of punishment in public, a newspaper said today.
The men, who were not identified, were meted out an unspecified number of lashes in public in the the southwestern city of Al-Bahah on Tuesday evening, the Al-Okaz daily reported.
They were then returned to prison where they are to be held until the full punishment is completed, the newspaper added, without saying how many sessions this would involve.
Homosexual acts are illegal in Saudi Arabia, which metes out strict punishment based on sharia, or Islamic law.
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty in the kingdom, with public beheading the common form of execution.
Its the whole system of how MOST children are brought up these days. When I was a child I really respected and feared my old man, he was firm but fair. I would not have dared going off the rails and answering back and doing things like kids these days do. These days kids are mollycoddled by their parents and society so most dont give a toss about crime and anti-social behavier. Hasnt it been proven over and over again that talking to a misbehaving child instead of punishment simply does not work.
I reckon the kids born after like 1992 are often way more bratty. Like my sisters. And friends siblings. Too commercialised.
Girls gaining fitness or losing innocence? EXCLUSIVE by Evelyne Yamine October 08, 2007 12:30am
CHILDREN as young as seven are pole dancing in a trend that has sparked outrage among family groups.
Pole fitness classes held in Sydney use poles to perform strengthening and flexibility exercises for teens and pre-teens.
But critics have condemned them as "sexualising young children" and risking exploitation by pedophiles.
Poledancing has spread from strip clubs to Hollywood and beyond, popularised by Tinseltown celebrities such as Kate Hudson, Teri Hatcher and most recently Britney Spears in her latest video clip.
Eleven-year-old Angela, who does up to three classes a week to gain strength after an illness, said she is much fitter.
"It's really fun and you get to learn a lot of different moves. People think it's pole dancing but it's not. It's great exercise," she said.
Her mother Julie yesterday defended her decision to allow Angela to undertake the classes, insisting they had increased her fitness and confidence after she was diagnosed with coeliac disease earlier this year.
She added she stays and watches her daughter each class.
"It's not slutty or anything. I've seen pole dancing on TV and they don't do anything like that here," the 42-year-old said.
"It's building up her strength after she got ill and it doesn't put too much pressure on her muscles. She's much stronger, healthier and more confident now."
But the Australian Family Association said the classes were grossly inappropriate. "There are plenty of exercise tools out there. Why choose a pole, the classic phallic symbol of the pornographic world?" spokeswoman Angela Conway said.
"It certainly provides a great opportunity for paedophiles to see the children in a sexual way. By putting children in a pole dancing exercise class you're teaching children a sexual body language that they don't know the meaning of but adults do," she said.
But Canterbury's Pole Fitness Studios owner Angela Perry said they do not teach children to pole dance but use the pole as a fitness tool. Ms Perry said PFS does not teach dance routines but uses moves derived from martial arts, gymnastics and the circus. Participants dress in casual shorts and tops and go barefoot during the classes.
"It's a shame people do not realise they are separate because it's depriving a lot of people from having fun with their fitness," she said.
Australian Federation of Parents and Citizens' Association head Sharryn Brownlee said: "Normally the P&C supports any sort of fitness regime to help kids get healthy but with the reputation of this industry, parents need to be very careful."
Rubik's Cube solved in 12.46 seconds Posted 3 hours 7 minutes ago Updated 2 hours 23 minutes ago
The 25th Rubik's Cube World Championships has been held in Budapest, Hungary. (Reuters: Laszlo Balogh)
Nakajima averaged 12.46 seconds in arranging the six different colours of the six-sided classic 3x3 cube, which has nine panels on each side to arrange.
He beat Andrew Kang of the United States and Mitsuki Gunji, a fellow Japanese national.
But Frenchman Thibaut Jacquinot still holds the world record of 9.86 seconds in the classic 3x3 event, which he set last May.
Hometown favourite Matyas Kuti, 14, set a world record in the larger 5x5 cube competition with an average time of 1:45:07.
Kuti also won in two other categories.
Anssi Vanhala of Finland won the feet-only challenge, aligning the colours of the 3x3 cube in 49.33 seconds.
Nearly 300 participants from 33 countries, including Australia, tried their hands and feet at the various titles on the 25th anniversary of the the first Rubik's Cube World Championships, which was also held in the Hungarian capital in 1982.
The Rubik's Cube became one of the cult objects of the 1980s and the toy is experiencing a revival these days with millions of cubes sold annually.
More than 300 million cubes have been sold to date and organisers says 12 million will go on the shelves this year alone.
The Rubik's Cube, an invention of Hungarian architect Erno Rubik, has been exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art and has been entered into the Oxford dictionary.
Strong Aussie dollar 'a mixed blessing' Posted 9 minutes ago
The Australian Industry Group (AI Group) says local manufacturers are becoming increasingly concerned about the strength of the Australian dollar, which reached a 23-year high today and is trading above 90 US cents.
Group chief executive Heather Ridout says it can be a mixed blessing for business.
"There's a lot of cheerleaders for a high Australian dollar, but people need to realise it's a mixed blessing," she said.
"It's a mixed blessing for companies that are trying to compete against imports which are cheaper because of the higher dollar.
"It's really tough for companies trying to export into markets where we've become less competitive, and frankly a whole range of industries - whether it's manufacturing or tourism, these sorts of issues are very relevant.
Rubik's cube with your feet in less than a minute :O That is cool! How can people solve it so fast!! I can't even solve it, I can only do like 2 sides, if that! :S
A mother left her three-year-old daughter at a central Queensland school to teach her a lesson after she was naughty, a court has been told.
The girl - who cannot be named for legal reasons - was found wandering alone around Glenmore State School in Rockhampton's north just before 10am (AEST) on Monday.
She was in state care while police searched for her mother, who was found about 8.15pm (AEST) Monday.
The woman, who cannot be identified, had been at the school with her six-year-old son and baby to inquire about enrolments after moving from Brisbane a week ago.
In the Rockhampton Magistrates Court on Tuesday, the 25-year-old woman faced one count of endangering a child.
She did not enter a plea.
Police prosecutor Senior Constable Shaun Janes told the court the woman had left her daughter behind after she refused to take her hand to cross the street.
He said the child did not know road rules and had a history of running across the street.
Defence solicitor Brian McGowran said his client was "having an exasperating time with her child".
"She expected her daughter to follow - when she went back there she wasn't there," Mr McGowran said.
He said she had intended to visit police the next day because she had two other children with her at the time.
"It was a way to overcome her daughter's tantrum, but went horribly wrong," he said.
Acting Magistrate Mark Morrow granted bail on the condition the woman report for a mental health assessment within 24 hours.
The case was adjourned to November 27 for committal mention.
The girl and her siblings remain in the care of the Department of Child Safety
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