A Sydney taxi driver who pleaded guilty to raping three women between 2003 and 2007 was HIV-positive at the time, a court has heard.

Hassan Nagi, 38, battled for 15 months to keep his infected status a secret after he pleaded guilty to six counts of sexual assault in February 2009, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

It is believed Nagi did not know he was HIV-positive when he committed the three rapes and there is no reported evidence he infected his victims.

Nagi’s family believed he contracted the virus from a dentist but he had earlier admitted to having sex with prostitutes since he was 20 years old.

He pleaded guilty to raping three women who hailed his taxi, two of whom were heavily intoxicated at the time.

During the trial last year Nagi’s lawyer argued the taxi driver had the “man’s equivalent of nymphomania” and should not receive a harsh sentence because he did not bash the women during the rapes.

Nagi argued he should receive a lesser sentence because he would have trouble getting treatment for his HIV-positive status in prison and he could be subjected to prison brutality.

After a 15 month-fight to keep his infection a secret, Nagi will be sentenced for his crimes today.

This must be a joke…wanting a lesser sentence because you do not BASH your rape victims as well as raping them in the first place.

Okay I guess unless the jail sentence was for a lot more than the ‘normal’ amount for rapists….

But reading that sentence by itself sounds so stupid

The toilet. Probably one of the dirtiest places you come across…bar El Hadji Diouf

If you take a moment to think about it…

• All the germs from all the urine in and around the toilet (from non-so-perfect aimers)
• Faecal splash matter around the toilet, on the lid
• Germ splash matter all around the walls since apparntly the ‘flush’ sprays matter a few metres upwards (or so I remember from Mythbusters)
• The flush button is probably also really dirty because you always touch it
• The toilet roll holder as well since you come into contact
• And of course also the toilet scrubs would be especially filfthy

Now track what you do when you finish your business…

• You press the flush button
• You turn the light off by flicking the switch
• You touch the door handle to open the door
• You open the bathroom door so you can go in to wash your hands (if you have a toilet in your bathroom, skip this point)
• You turn the light on by flicking the bathroom switch
• You turn on the tap and wash your hands

Now read carefully….

• You use your clean hands to touch the DIRTY tap handles
• You use your now dirty hands and dirty them more by touching the light switch as you flick it off

Also everyone will now have dirty hands if they….

• Touch the handle of the bathroom
• Touch the handle of the toilet

So really, it’s probably ideal to TURN THE TAP ON before you enter the toilet, leave the light on (or stealth it in the dark bathroom) and the door open in the bathroom before you go to the loo.

Also, while you’re standing/sitting inside the toilet, you should do so in the DARK with the DOOR OPEN, so to minimise any germ transfer that other people in your family will have to encounter.

If you don’t want to do the above, could you argue there’s no point washing your hands?

But ANYWAYS to be more specific, Cahill and Kewell did not deserve red cards. They were both unintentional and red cards are just way too harsh.

In case you were living under a rock and didn’t watch the matches, judge for yourself:

Cahill red card (Aust v Germany): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcbLnnFcHlY

Kewell red card (Aust v Ghana): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxfcNKMdb_0

What’s worse is that other players (ie. those from other teams) aren’t red carded for committing similar or even WORSE fouls :

eg. in Aust v Ghana where a Ghana player tackles an Aust player from behind and only gets a yellow… and there is a FIFA rule that a tackle from behind is auto red card

or eg. the Serbian handballs in their first 2 matches where the player’s hand was fully outstretched and that was only a penalty + yellow… NO RED

Seriously… so angry!

I would write more, but I need to study for my exams.

PS. Duncan, put pictures in for me pls! Thanks

Assumptions

Just like my finance textbooks, i’m going to make some assumptions

1. There is no tax to be paid
2. There is no discounting of any cash flows

Subject cost

Okay so i’m going to assume the average subject costs $1000 each so that’s $16,000

Opportunity cost

For the years that you study extra (2 years), you forego the money you would get. i’m going to be fairly conservative and say this is $45,000 before tax. so that’s $90,000 for 2 years.

Total cost

So that’s $106,000 that you lose out already.

What do you have to earn extra to make this worthwile?

So let’s say if you were to graduate after 3 years, you’d start work at the age of 22. let’s say you continuously earn $45,000 (just to make things easier for me) every year and you retire at 60? (is this the normal retirement age?)

So you’d get 38 years of earning $45,000 = $1,710,000

If you do 5 years, for it to be even, you would have 36 years of $x – $106,000 (cost of extra subjects and opportunity cost) = $1,710,000

36(x) – 106,000 = 1,710,000

x = $50444

So basically you’d need to be paid ~$5000 every year for the rest of your life for this to be worth it….

But then i guess you have to take into account if a double degree and spring you into better jobs to begin with, and maybe it allows you to earn at a greater increasing rate compared with having a single degree…..

When you drink a can, you mouth actually touches the top of the can and also the side as well, which means there is a huge possibility you’re ingesting any germs that people had on their hands when they handled the cans (i.e. putting them into vendinc machines, taking them from the fridge to give to you, moving stock around).

It’s something that I’ve always done so I almost want to ignore and go on with my life because I don’t want to introduce some extra step when I drink out of a can of softdrink. I’ll chalk it up to a way for me to improve my immune system! But it does make me think why I’m careful with when bits of my (non-liquid) food touches the ground, when the edge of a softdrink can is probably just as dirty!

I must say I do not understand it when commentators or news reporters get angry at cricketers making a half century (which is 50 runs for all you non-cricketing fans) but not going on to make their century.

I keep hearing:

“But failed to go on to make a century…”

“Failed to carry on from a good start”

Hussey, for example has fallen victim to this. But what I don’t get is why half-century’ers are getting the stick…..when people who don’t even make 10 runs dont’ get mentioned.

To me, if I had to critisize someone, it’d be the players who are making ducks and single digit runs – not the ones who’ve made a half century!

Going to be bullet-pointing because I’m watching TV at the same time:

1. There are ratings for TV shows and movies – so why not games? It seems unfair that TV shows/movies can be allowed in Australia because they have a higher classification than MA15+ but computer games are not allowed to be rated for adults?
2. The argument that children may play R-rated games is silly because children can also watch R-rated movies and TV shows
3. Children’s access to R-rated games is no different to R-rated movies or TV shows
4. Adults should miss out just because children could potentially play R-rated games
5. The issue lies with parents – it is the parent’s job to monitor what their children watch
6. There is equal violence in TV shows and movies
7. Although there is an argument that there is more interactivity in computer games than TV shows/movies, it is also true that games are not as realistic as using real life people and realistic FX in TV shows/movies

Having said that, this probably won’t affect me…but there’s my long-dued rant!

I do not know if this has been said before, so I’m going to claim it for now!

Duncan’s First Law – Theory of Equality

1. If something is more than nothing…
2. Then nothing is less than something…
3. But if nothing is less than something…
4. Then nothing can be more than something…
5. So everything is the same!

Trippy yeah?!

Okay so this is useful in the following circumstances:

Richard Lambshank: Hey I usually eat a Big Mac. But I want a Quarter Pounder. How much is it Don Kabana?

Don Kabana: Well firstly, let’s establish that the Big Mac is something.  According to Duncan’s First Law of Equality, then if something is more than nothing, so nothing is lesser than something. But since something is more than nothing, then nothing is also not higher than something. So something is always constant. So everything’s the same.

Richard Lambshank: So basically all Maccas’ burgers are the same price?

Don Kabana: Yes

This way, if you need to make the tough decision to choose what to eat or what to buy, you can judge things on the basis of their quality…and not their price

Megan Fox recently said that working with Michael Bay (director of the Transformers movies) was like “working with Hitler”, so his crew members rushed to his defence and posted this letter on his website yesterday

This is an open letter to all Michael Bay fans. We are three crew members that have worked with Michael for the past ten years. Last week we read the terrible article with inflammatory, truly trashing quotes by the Ms. Fox about Michael Bay. This letter is to set a few things straight.

Yes, Megan has great eyes, a tight stomach we spray with glycerin, and an awful silly Marilyn Monroe tattoo plastered on her arm that we cover up to keep the moms happy.

Michael found this shy, inexperienced girl, plucked her out of total obscurity thus giving her the biggest shot of any young actresses’ life. He told everyone around to just trust him on his choice. He granted her the starring role in Transformers, a franchise that forever changed her life; she became one of the most googled and oogled women on earth. She was famous! She was the next Angelina Jolie, hooray! Wait a minute, two of us worked with Angelina — second thought — she’s no Angelina. You see, Angelia is a professional.

We know this quite intimately because we’ve had the tedious experience of working with the dumb-as-a-rock Megan Fox on both Transformers movies. We’ve spent a total of 12 months on set making these two movies.

We are in different departments; we can’t give our names because sadly doing so in Hollywood could lead to being banished from future Paramount work. One of us touches Megan’s panties, the other has the often shitty job of pulling Ms. Sourpants out of her trailer, while another is near the Panaflex camera that helps to memorialize the valley girl on film.

Megan has the press fooled. When we read those magazines we wish we worked with that woman. Megan knows how to work her smile for the press. Those writers should try being on set for two movies, sadly she never smiles. The cast, crew and director make Transformers a really fun and energetic set. We’ve traveled around the world together, so we have never understood why Megan was always such the grump of the set?

When facing the press, Megan is the queen of talking trailer trash and posing like a porn star. And yes we’ve had the unbearable time of watching her try to act on set, and yes, it’s very cringe-able. So maybe, being a porn star in the future might be a good career option. But make-up beware, she has a paragraph tattooed to her backside (probably due her rotten childhood) — easily another 45 minutes in the chair!

So when the three of us caught wind of Ms Fox, pontificating yet again in some publication (like she actually has something interesting to say) blabbing her trash mouth about a director whom we three have grown to really like. She compared working with Michael, to “working with Hitler”. We actually don’t think she knows who Hitler is by the way. But we wondered how she doesn’t realize what a disgusting, fully uneducated comment this was? Well, here let’s get some facts straight.

Say what you want about Michael — yes at times he can be hard, but he’s also fun, and he challenges everyone for a reason — he simply wants people to bring their ‘A’ game. He comes very prepared, knows exactly what he wants, involves the crew and expects everyone to follow through with his or her best, and that includes the actors. He’s one of the hardest working directors out there.

He gets the best from his crews, many of whom have worked with him for 15 years. And yes, he’s loyal, one of the few directors we’ve encountered who lowered his fee by millions to keep Transformers in the United States and California, so he could work with his own crew.

Megan says that Transformers was an unsafe set? Come on Megan, we know it is a bit more strenuous then the playground at the trailer park, but you don’t insult one of the very best stunt and physical effects teams in the business! Not one person got hurt!

And who is the real Megan Fox? She is very different than the academy nominee and winning actors we’ve all worked around. She’s as about ungracious a person as you can ever fathom. She shows little interest in the crew members around her. We work to make her look good in every way, but she’s absolutely never appreciative of anyone’s hard work. Never a thank you. All the crewmembers have stopped saying hi to Ms. Princess because she never says hello back. It gets tiring. Many think she just really hates the process of being an actress.

Megan has been late to the sets many times. She goes through the motions that make her exude this sense of misery. We’ve heard the A.D’s piped over the radio that Megan won’t walk from her trailer until John Turturro walks first! John’s done seventy-five movies and she’s made two!

Never expect Megan to attend any of the 15 or so crew parties like all the other actors have. And then there’s the classless night she blew off The Royal Prince of Jordan who made a special dinner for all the actors. She doesn’t know that one of the grips’ daughters wanted to visit their daddy’s work to meet Megan, but he wouldn’t let them come because he told them “she is not nice.”

The press certainly doesn’t know her most famous line. On our first day in Egypt, the Egyptian government wouldn’t let us shoot because of a permit problem as the actors got ready in make up at the Four Seasons Hotel. Michael tried to make the best of it; he wanted to take the cast and crew on a private tour of the famous Giza pyramids. God hold us witness, Megan said, “I can’t believe Michael is fucking forcing us to go to the fucking pyramids!” I guess this is the “Hitler guy” she is referring to.

So this is the Megan Fox you don’t get to see. Maybe she will learn, but we figure if she can sling insults, then she can take them too. Megan really is a thankless, classless, graceless, and shall we say unfriendly bitch. It’s sad how fame can twist people, and even sadder that young girls look up to her. If only they knew who they’re really looking up to.

But ‘fame’ is fleeting. We, being behind the scenes, seen em’ come and go. Hopefully Michael will have Megatron squish her character in the first ten minutes of Transformers 3. We can tell you that will make the crew happy!

— Loyal Transformers Crew