A Coke marketing campaign gone wrong.
I can't help but link to this post about a Coca Cola marketing campaign that was .. well, just a little wrong on a few fronts.
MI6 gets sloppy
Secret files, photos and plans have been found on a camera bought on eBay in the UK for £17. The files included profiles on al-Qaeda members, weapons plans and even Guantanamo Bay detainee’s. My only explanation can be that an MI6 operative put the wrong memory card in their camera before selling it. Obviously they don’t pay MI6 op’s enough or they wouldn’t need to sell the camera.
Now, this was in the news a week ago. I’ve been slack, I know.
Silly Spammer
For ages I have wondered what the point of some spam messages was. They didnt ask for anything and they did not include a link in the message. I just always thought that it was just some kids thinking they were being funny.
Well, apparently I was wrong. These spammers want you to send them an email so they can try to coax you into sending them money. Sounds silly, like, who would do that? But, as previously mentioned, a lot of people seem to fall for it.
Anyway, I am a pro member on seomoz.org and one of the members of that site decided to reply to a message that most seomoz members received. And, well, read it yourself. Funny stuff.
Cuts to welfare for parents of truants?
GetUp today has posted to its blog about the Governments plan to cut assistance to the families of truants.
My comment on the blog is the first one and I will copy it here;
Christian
August 26th, 2008
I had a relatively rough childhood. My dad left, my mum had terminal cancer and as a young teen, I was not keen on school and I just didn't go. We had truant offices come around and try to make me go, they threatened us with fines and all sorts of things. I felt stupidly guilty because I wanted to be near my mum who was really sick (and I think she wanted me there too, but would never say that - she urged me to go to school). In the end, it didn't work but surely made our lives so much more stressful. School was never understanding of our situation and I never felt I could delve into my issues with them anyway. Maybe thats what the government should look at improving? Had the government cut the piddly amount of assistance they were giving my mum, it would have been devastating. I can see this causing a lot of issues for a lot of desperate families and I daresay it will cause domestic violence in a lot of those households.
That pretty much sums up my thoughts on the plan. I think that more time, money and effort should be spent trying to give kids a more supportive environment to grow up in.
Surely it would not only cause fewer issues for families in these situations, but provide more jobs if there were to be more community centres and local hands-on assistance. Manly’s Youth Centre has (or, maybe, had) a program called HELP (Helping Early Leavers Program) which was extremely beneficial to me when I was about 14 and this type of thing needs to be more widely available and people need to be aware that these things exist. But, this is the governments response to programs like HELP.
Things need to change, and now.
Stupid Australians
Apparently Australians send, on average, $3M to Nigeria PER MONTH!
These people don’t deserve their money back, let the Nigerians keep it.
Protesters arrested in Sydney for annoyances.
Members of PETA have been arrested in Sydney under the new ‘anti-annoyance-of-pilgrams’ laws. Granted they were half naked, but its still a huge injustice towards civil liberties.
Big Brother Axed!
Channel 10 has confirmed the axing of Big Brother after a dwindling viewer count this season. I personally was a big fan of Big Brother until this season (I even watched evictions online when travelling in the UK and France) but this year when it was hosted by Kyle & Jackie O, it started dying for me. The final nail in the coffin was when one of the house mates was Corey Delaney (Wikipedia wont even have a page on this guy – his page redirects to the BB2008 page) and a guest house mate was Pamela Anderson. God help me, I have never seen a greater example of ‘scraping the barrel’.
There is speculation of a series return in 2010, but I’m not holding my breath. Even if it does come back, unless they get Gretel back, it’ll be shit.
Big Brother dumps Gretel Killeen.
Axe Finally Falls on Big Brother.
Further regulations for WYD
All protesters must have their T-Shirts, banners, placards, everything pre-approved by police or risk being arrested.
Apparently freedom of speech has a price.
Pope demos need our blessing, say police.
Redbubble have a thread for t-shirt designs about these rules.
Here is my fave so far;
