Just a little over a year ago Tony Abbott said that paid maternity leave would create Second Class Mothers, those that decided to stay at home to look after their children. I’m left wondering why Mr. Abbott has now changed his view saying that if he was to win the next election he would slug big business a 1.7% tax levy to pay for a six month maternity leave scheme.

It’s not at all surprising that Australia’s business groups reject his plans saying that it is unfair to expect them to pay for what is essentially a social policy. Honestly I tend to agree with them. They’ve already got to pay for payroll tax, leave loading as well as contributing to employees superannuation. You would think with the amount of companies moving their operation overseas because the cost of producing the same product in Australia is getting too expensive that Abbott would re-think his plan of adding another expense to those who employ Australians.

Let’s face it, competition is rough and we have to compete not only with the local market but with overseas markets as well. Adding unwarranted costs to our companies only make it that much harder to compete. Sure they can lift the price of goods to cover their costs but that in itself could price their goods out of the market and then the only other option for them would be to cut costs, meaning the slashing of jobs, or as a last resort closing up shop and going elsewhere, something that those in Port Lincoln are aware of now that John West is moving their cannery operation to Thailand.

If the Government want paid maternity then they should budget for it and not put another cost onto Australian Companies.

This is a warning to any Aussies that received the email that I’ve posted below. It’s not from RevenueSa at all and is merely out to get your details so they can rip you off. While it may look legitimate it is definitely one of those phishing emails that are always landing in our inbox these days.

I took a chance and clicked on the attachment, the things that I do for my readers just to see what it contained. I must admit the form was very professional and the bit at the end that says;

Important: The tax law imposes heavy penalties for giving false or misleading information.

I declare that:
All the information I have given on this tax return, including any attachments, is true and correct.

may well fool the uninitiated into divulging their personal information, but please, if you receive the following email, disregard it immediately and simple trash it, it’s nothing but BS!

Warning

Tax return
2009 – 2010
Recalculation of you tax refund

ATTN: Dear Applicant

After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $314.79
Your Application Code: 731948115, complete the tax return form attached to this message.
After completing the form, submit the form by clicking the SUBMIT button on form and allow us 5-9 business days in order to process it.

Our head office address can be found on our official web site.

Note: For security reasons, we recommend that you close your browser after you have finished accessing your refund status.
- For security reasons, we will record your ip-address and date.
- Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicted.

Sincerely,
RevenueSA

Again, this email is utter bullshit, do not, I repeat DO NOT fill out the attached form, delete it immediately. How do I know? Well, apart from it reeking of SCAM, while it listed the return email address as www.revenuesa.sa.gov.au, after checking properties I noticed it had the following ‘return path’ www.revenuesa.sa.gov.au@abacoap.net! Pretty suss huh?

Here is an interesting email for you, that I received today. It’s obviously of the phishing type but I’m not sure how it intends to suck anybody in. It links to a legitimate site, probably so that it lends some sort of authority to the email itself, but it’s so full of crap you’d have to be a moron to believe it to be anything but utter bullshit.

It seems that this one is using some sort of scare tactics but it’s so full of crap that I doubt that anyone would believe for a moment it was intended for them, but then again, you never know. Here’s the email, I’d be interested in your opinion of it.

Dr.  Mark Tunde,
Executive Director in African Department and Debt Reconciliation Officer
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Plot 39, Ozumba Mbadiwe Street Victoria Island Lagos Nigeria.
http://www.imf.org

Dear Sir/ Madam,

Re: Intercepted Transfer worth Eleven Million Dollars ($11,000,000)

It has come to our notice in our Headquarters building (I.M.F) that your impending funds from Africa, which was Intercepted worth Eleven Million Dollars ($11,000,000) has been released to you ,we noticed that you made several attempt to transfer your funds but to no avail. Our investigation continued to the African Department (I.M.F). The monitoring team gave an unsatisfactory report to your transaction; hence the chairman is presently under investigation for conspiracy with your representative with intension to divert your funds.

You are advised to desist from contacting anyone including your agent or representative in these regard, International Monetary Fund has taken full responsibility to transfer your fund to you, respond to these mail by providing your full below;

YOUR FULL NAME:
YOUR ADDRESS:
YOUR TELEPHONE/FAX NUMBER:
YOUR OCCUPATION:

You can also give me a call as soon as possible for an oral discussion. Direct Telephone Line: +2348062226888

Yours Faithfully,

Dr.  Mark Tunde,
Executive Director African Department
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Direct Telephone Line: +2348062226888

So what do you make of that one? Would you fall for it?

I haven’t posted one of these for awhile, you know the ones of the deceased estate where you’re promised a fortune if you follow the instructions.

I am the above named person from Chile. I am married to Mr David soo Santos who worked with Chile Embassy for seven years before he died .We were married for years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only two weeks. Before his death we were both born again Christians. Since his death I decided not to r e-marry or get a child outside my Matrimonial home which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of (four Million seven hundred thousand United State Dollars) as safe deposit with a vault house.

Presently, this money is still deposited as safe deposit with vault house .Recently; my Doctor told me that I would not last for the next four months due to cancer Problem. Though what disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Having known my condition I decided to donate this Fund to church or better still a Christian individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct here in.To fund orphanages and widows propagating the word of God and to ensure that the house of God is maintained. The Bible made us to understand that blessed is the hand that giveth.

I took this decision because I don’t have any child that will inherit this Money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I don’t want my husband’s hard earned money to be misused by unbelievers. I don want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly manner. Hence the reason for taking this bold decision. I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. The lord he will fight my case and I shall hold my peace. I don’t need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health and because of the presence of my husband’s relatives around me always. I don’t want them to know about this development.

With God all things are possible As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the vault house I will also issue you a letter of authority that will prove you as the original- beneficiary of this Fund. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life.

Any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing for a church or Christian individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly
as I stated herein Hoping to hearing from you. I have set aside 10% for you and for your time and 5% for any expenses if there is any then remaining balance for the word of God.

Remain blessed in the name of the Lord.

Yours in Christ,

Mrs Christina soo Santos
Email: yourabloodyidiotifyoufallforthis@yahoo.com.hk

Not bad huh, she wants to give it to a good Christian and so she sends out a random email so that any Tom, Dick or Harry atheist, murderer, wife beater or pedophile can accept the money to use in whichever misbegotten  way they like.

In case you haven’t worked it out, this email is bullshit so don’t go getting sucked in by replying to it.

I’ve done a couple of posts on how I think Labor’s gone around the bend in allowing meat from countries infected with the mad cows disease into Australia from March the 1st. Why I Think Rudd Is A Bloody Idiot and Has Kevin Rudd And The Labor Party Been Infected By Mad Cows Disease both stated my disgust at Rudd and his labor cronies as they make no attempt to put a stop to this stupidity.

What I find real upsetting is the fact that I’ve yet to hear Tony Abbott’s stance on this. This would be a real vote winner for the Liberal party and yet they’ve been rather quiet. At least the Greens, Nationals and Independent senator Nick Xenophon have all expressed concern, Nick Xenophon going as far as to accuse the Government of doing a “backroom deal” with the US.

Honestly Mr Abbott, where the bloody hell are you on this important matter. There’s less than a week left and we haven’t heard a peep out of you. If you would only stand up for your fellow Australians and Australia’s clean meat industry I’m sure you would secure a lot of votes.

I understand that we should be trading with out overseas neighbours but we should be doing it on our terms not theirs. Anyone that wants to export products to Australia should face the same rigorous measures that our Australian farmers and manufacturers have to face. Anything less would put unfair pressures on all Australians.

Come to think of it you should also have a crack at changing our labeling laws. the way they are at the moment we think we’re buying Aussie products when in actual fact we’re not. That’s bullshit mate and you know it. If you want to win the next election then you’re going to have to toughen up and stand up for what is right for Australia and that means not bending over for all those countries trying to shaft us Aussies by exporting their crap with no quality control.

Rudd’s turning into a joke, don’t you get sucked into his wake.

Aussies have long been known for their charm and all round toughness. We’ve got Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin, may he rest in peace, as our mentors. Our tough environment has a lot to do with it, the fact that we have to fight through through the political bullshit on our daily basis, a task made all the harder by the red tape that we are inflicted with.

Rather than trying to make things easier for ourselves, the Aussie male is constantly on the lookout for ways to increase our toughness, because that’s the way our Aussie sheilas like us. They don’t want Woose for a boyfriend, they want a man! Just to show you the lengths that we Aussies go to retain that tough exterior, just check out this commercial of the latest toilet paper to hit our shelves.

This is just a quick post about my first Squidoo page. Although I actually started a lens almost two years ago, it wasn’t until I actually had the need to bring it to the final stage of publishing that I finally completed it. I’ve explained the reason for doing that in my Necessity The Mother Of Invention And How It Relates To Blogs where it explains how people find a way to do things when there is a specific need for getting it done. In my case the need was to help promote and market a new venture I was getting into.

I would dare to say that most of you may be familiar with Squidoo, but for those of you who aren’t all that familiar with it I would highly recommend that you check it out. If you take my lens, that’s what they call them, as an example you will see how I’ve used it to promote several of the posts on my blogs. This gives those posts extra link juice, as Squidoo is highly respected by the major search engines, as well as the good possibility of sending targeted traffic to those posts. We all know how important targeted traffic can be.

So, if you haven’t seen my lens yet why not go on over and have a look, if for no other reason than to see how handsome I am

So, go on over there, and if your feeling generous you can rate and fav it for me and I will do the same for one of your lenses. Just leave a link to your lens in the comment.

Those of you who are my regular readers would realize that although I post a lot of what is wrong with the world I also like to mix things up a bit by adding news articles, jokes and anything else that comes to mind that I find interesting.

As you all know there are a lot of Internet scams out there and I post about it here every time I come across one. Having said that I’ve also discovered that there are a lot of legitimate ways to make money on the net, and I post about a lot of those on WassupBlog.

My latest post over there, about the potential to make money on the search for people phenomena is all about one such system which I think could be a real winner. Did you know that 30% of Google searches are people search related? There’s lot’s of reason that people resort to Google, it could be anything from finding a long lost friend to that asshole that skipped town without paying what he owed you.

Is it a scam? I don’t think so, partly because Tissa Godavitarne, the guy that started it all goes so far as to paste his IRS Form 1099, required by law to report income, on the Net as well as giving contact details. As you know most scam artists publish false details so that they can not be traced.

They have a forum that very busy, and they are all out to help each other, paying it forward, and you may find that this complete Beginners Guide may provide some useful information as to how it works and how dedicated they are.

Anyway, I’m giving it a whirl and although there is a free option I’ve decided to go for the paid version, only 10 bucks per month which is basically a hosting package via Global Domains so that I could have my own domain, thereby giving me added advantages for promotion, such as choosing the right keywords. I urge you to take a look at my people search engine Sires People Search, so that you can see exactly what I am talking about. Don’t worry the landing page is completely harmless and I won’t make a dime from you having a look.

Like I said, I’ve only just started promoting this, and I wouldn’t even be promoting it if I thought it was suss, but if I find that it’s not completely legit you can be assured that I will be posting about it.

If you have any questions please leave a comment.

Whenever a Labor MP comes across a group of people who are irate about the way labor is governing South Australia they always like to blame it on the Liberals as being some sort of Liberal political stunt. Whether it’s because of the St. Clair land swap deal or the selling of the Chelsea Cinema, both local council problems, for some reason according to Labor, the Liberals are involved.

Only last week the Attorney-General Michael Atkinson tried to introduce a law that was almost draconian in nature, something that you would expect from a communist state and not from a democratic country such as Australia. Atkinson tried to introduce censorship laws that would force people to use their real name, along with their post code, when they were commenting on the internet, via blogs etc., during an election. He defended this law saying that it would prevent people putting bogus claims on the internet under phony names. On Radio 5AA while talking to Leon Byner he claimed the new law was necessary to prevent people such as Aaron Fornarino. Apparently Aaron regularly posts comments on AdelaideNow and according to Atkinson he doesn’t exist and was an obvious Liberal Party plant.

Turns out Aaron Fornarino does exist and lives in his electorate. Naturally after this major stuff up and because of the huge uproar from everyone he did a huge back flip over the whole thing.

Well, it seems that another Labor MP, not wishing to be outdone for stupidity by her colleague, decides to put her foot firmly in her mouth while passing a public rally defending mental health and sexual abuse issues. I’m pretty sure she did not know this video existed when Hon JENNIFER RANKINE MP was talking to Leon Byner on Radio 5AA. She insisted the rally was organized by the Liberals when it fact it wasn’t. it was actually organized by some independents but no, she would have none of that!

As you can see from the video, the public are none to pleased with what she had to say. The angry uproar prevents us from hearing all of her spin but what is clearly heard is her saying “Happy to address a Liberal Party Rally”. When will they get it through their thick heads that  there are people out their, who are not affiliated with the Liberal party, that are not happy with the way certain things are being handled by the current Labor Government.

Scams are rife everywhere on the net so why should it be any different with Twitter. For those of you who are not aware of Twitter I reckon you must have been hibernating somewhere and it’s now time for you to wake up and listen to the Tweets. Be careful who you follow though because it could be sweet music to your ears or it could excruciating babble.

Twitter would have to be the most popular social networking site that allows users to send and read short messages, up to 140 characters, that are known as tweets. Before telling you of an honest and legitimate what in which Twitter users can make money I want you to read this special report depicting a Twitter Scam! It’s sounds like nothing more than a pyramid scheme where you have to pay to get involved and then you make money by ripping other people off by sucking them into the same scheme.

The thing is there are a lot of legitimate ways to make money on the Net, and including Sponsored Tweets!  Sponsored Tweets act as an intermediary between you and the advertisers who will pay you for tweets. There are some who may be worried about losing followers if they start tweeting Sponsored Tweets but there is no need to worry because all Tweets have to be mandatory disclosed, this from their ethics page.

SponsoredTweets.com facilitates an open relationship between our Tweeters and Advertisers. The Tweeters that engage in a sponsored tweets program are required to disclose their relationship with marketers in their communications with other consumers. Our platform programmatically requires disclosure from all participants, applying standards and compliance system wide.

We comply with FTC regulations that state, “When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience) such connection must be fully disclosed.”

The way it works is, once a member, you get a DM, or email whichever you choose, from an advertiser wanting you to tweet their product or service. You would then decide whether or not it’s one you would promote. If you’re agreeable you would tweet the ad with the relevant prefix letting your followers know that the tweet is a sponsored one. Sometimes the tweet will not be published until the ad is approved, but once it’s out there you will be paid.

As you have complete control over what you tweet you only tweet the ones you are happy with, and as long as you don’t go crazy no-one is going to mind. Some of them may even fit in within your niche adding value to your tweets.

How much does it cost to join? Nothing, it is absolutely free! Anyone can be a member as long as they fulfill the following criteria.

- 60 days on Twitter
- 100 Tweets
- 100 Followers

Most Twitter users would be able to have instant access. If you’re not a twitter member you could be missing out on a lot of fun as well as having the opportunity to make a bit of extra cash. For those of you who are new to Twitter I highly recommend you read 50+ Awesome Twitter Tips To Become A Pro.