The priest and the policeman

This disturbing piece of news could easily have had a much more hilarious outcome.

Police charge selves with internet grooming

Over the last month, detectives pretending to be a 13-year-old girl on an internet chat site have been talking a 54-year-old priest from Liverpool.

Police say he was sexually explicit during the correspondence, and they arranged to meet the priest for the purpose of sexual activity.

However, in a bizarre twist, it turned out that the “priest” was actually a 13-year-old girl, posing as an old man.

Upon arriving at the rendezvous, police realised their mistake, and were forced place themselves under arrest. They charged themselves with using the internet to groom a person under 16 years of age.

The detectives will face Parramatta Local Court today.

Making money in the GFC

The last 12 months have been tough. Especially for certain multinationals who rely on a lot of people getting sick to make a buck. During uncertain economic times, it pays to turn up to work, and all of a sudden the population stays healthier than normal. What to do?

Imagine that you could get some of your boffins to develop a new strain of some common virus. Something highly infectious, but not too virulent (it would be immoral to kill too many people). You could introduce it to some out-of-the-way location (say, Mexico) so that you wouldn’t be traced. Then, because it’s not actually a very dangerous virus, you whip up a little media frenzy by contacting a friend (say, R. Murdoch* Rupert M.) who also wants to make a bit more money.

Because it’s a slow news month, the hype surrounding your new virus spreads around the world quicker that the actual ‘flu. Governments start panicking, installing heat sensors at airports, and gearing up for pandemic mode.

Luckily, you have already developed a drug that will prevent and treat your new virus. Gullible health ministers start to order millions of doses of your cure.

Step 3: profit.

Sounds far fetched? Think I should be breaking out the tinfoil hat? Or do you recall a history of dodgy practises in this industry?

I’ll be reserving my judgement on this one for now.

* Name changed to protect confidentiality

Fun facts with Fielding

Senator Steve Fielding is organising a climate change briefing, and is inviting the entire senate!

I can’t see how any responsible senator could vote on an emissions trading scheme without listening to what the world of science has to say on the issue.

Sen. Steve “the fact-finder” Fielding

Giving the seminar will be prominent climate-change denier and chief scientist for News Corp., Professor Bob Carter. To keep with this theme, I am organising a few briefing sessions of my own, that I invite you all to attend:

1. The holocaust, with David Irving
2. Evolution, with Sarah Palin
3. Accounting standards, with Kenneth Lay
4. How to organise informative seminars, with Steve Fielding

You get the picture.

The swine, the swine!

Just when you thought that the media hype surrounding the swine had died down, along comes reliable Joe Hildebrand.

UP to 10,000 New South Wales people could die of swine flu in a two-month period – more than double the rate of all other deaths – unless there is mass vaccination, experts warned.

Source: news.com.au

A quick glance down through the article reveals that the “expert” is actually a nine-year-old kid, and the “new modelling” was based on a game of hopscotch.

Meanwhile, the federal government is reportedly ordering 21 million vaccinations, to be delivered after the flu season is finished.

However, according to startling new modelling performed by experts at the North East Institute, the government could be wasting their money. Unless we act now, Joe Hildebrand’s scare story could in fact be blown out of the water. Allow me to demonstrate.

Using the popular disease vector modelling program Pandemic, we can see that if the swine flu takes hold, our population could be decimated with only 41 people remaining after three months!

If you want to be one of the remaining 41 people, I suggest it’s time to start reading this site. Bon voyage!

The war on bikies

With the recent media hype surrounding bikie violence, I have been contemplating delving into the fray myself. Thankfully, I was spared the effort by Nick, whose excellent article was published by newmatilda.com, as the leading story no less!

Before he brought his new laws to State Parliament in a surprise move on Thursday, Rees had lamented the possibility that he may not be able to ram them through the legislature at the speed of light, because if hurriedly drafted they might be subject to pesky judicial review.

Mr (Greg) Gregory Eugene SMITH, SC MP

The Shadow Attorney General:

This type of crime shows an anger and ignoring the normal rules of society by just disgracing people’s houses, by graffiti and shop windows and that.

I couldn’t have put it more good myself, but.

Shark attack

There has been a lot of hoo-ha in the media lately regarding the recent spike in shark attacks. Is it due to global warming? Or perhaps K-Rudd is to blame?

In order to clear up the confusion, I have conducted some in-depth research, which reveals some surprising results, graphed below.

Good news, humans: we’re still on top! Let’s all go back to our corners and calm down.

The 2009 broadsheet letter writing challenge

I regret to announce that Joel W. Courtney stormed to victory in last year’s competition, squeezing out Nicholas Broadbent by 120 points, with Sue Brian running a close third.

Here are the rules for the third annual broadsheet letter writing challenge:

1. Items published in a broadsheet newspaper receive one point per word.
2. If you have two items published in the same paper on the same day, you receive a 2x multiplier. Three items receives a 3x multiplier and so on.
3. You receive 0.5 points per word in any response to your item (your name must be specifically mentioned).
4. You cannot enter if your name is Sandra K. Eckersley from Marrickville.
5. To claim points, you need to blockquote your published contribution into the comments section of this page. You should also stick it on your fridge door as proof that you didn’t just make the whole thing up.
6. New rule (“diminishing returns”): your second item published in the same section of a paper will only receive 90% of the points, then 80% for the third, and 70% for the fourth and subsequent articles. Diversify, people!

Leaderboard

Joel Courtney, Haberfield: 77 points
Phillip Brian, Newtown: 74 points

Coming up this year…

Well, I hope that all you mammalian readers had a great 2008. It certainly was an eventful one for me.

Here is a preview of this year’s major stories on marsupialmusic.net:

Inane banter: the space-filling idle commentary about uninteresting fringe issues will continue to dominate during 2009. Could this be the most tugid year ever?

K-Rudd: we will continue to follow K-Rudd’s major policy failures and rampant committee-forming fetish. Towards the end of the year, we break an exclusive story revealing the true nature of Big Kev. Man or Machine? Stay tuned to find out.

USA: I will be presenting a unique journey through the mid-west to soak up as much US culture as humanly possible, during April and May. Huntin’ and fishin’ awaits.

Stilts and Houseboats: as politicians continue to procrastinate over how much sea levels have to rise before they agree that there is a problem, I will be launching a new site to equip you with all the advice and equipment needed to get through the water-logged future.

Socceroos: there will be big celebrations as we qualify for our second consecutive World Cup. There will be even more celebrations when we are drawn in the same group as Italy. Time for revenge!

I’ll see you there!

Royal North Shore Hospital

Greetings, fellow travellers in the NSW public health system. After spending 24 hours surrounded by a variety of old people producing a variety of interesting noises, I am now 100% qualified to write a critique on the the state of play in our hospitals. The critique will be in the form of a diary.

5:30pm Monday: I leave work and make my way towards the hallowed ANZAC memorial futsal ground, where tonight’s encounter is to take place. This is a semi-final against our nemesis team The Gunners. Last time we played them, one of their number was sent off for trying overly much to incapacitiate yours truly.

6:00pm Monday: Kickoff. The next 18 hours or so are not terribly clear in my mind, so I will try to fill in some blanks with heresay, speculation and rumour.

The Combat Wombats were outplaying The Gunners all over the park, however a few lucky shots and a handful of poor refereeing decisions saw us trailing by a couple of goals late in the second half. In an attempt to inspire a resurgence, I boldly left my goal in order to effect a clearance, however unfortunately a member of the opposite team took it upon himself to recklessly slide in to the challenge, leaving me on the ground, but more importantly winning the Wombats a penalty.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t convert, and The Gunners moved through to the final. At this point, it became apparent that I couldn’t see out of one eye, and didn’t know what my name was, and so the courageous Bec Sheehan stepped up to the plate and drove me to the hospital.

7:00pm Monday: We arrive at Royal North Shore Hospital, presumably at the emergency department. After searching my pockets for wads of cash, the triage nurse dumps we on a chair and says “suck it up, princess”. Bec kindly calls Sonia for me (despite the fact that I have, unbeknownst to myself, already called her several times), and within 20 minutes or so she arrives and Bec heads off to catch up with the rest of the team.

8:00pm Monday: We are still sitting in the waiting room in the emergency department, when I realise that I don’t know Sonia’s name. It soon becomes apparently that I don’t know the name of the company where I work, and I can’t remember which birds the Queen of Hearts used as croquet mallets. I get hauled up to the neurosurgeon for a CAT scan.

9:00pm Monday: We are back in another waiting room, awaiting the results of the scan. I have pins and needles up my arms and across my face, so Sonia amuses me by making me do finger exercises. I feel tired, so I decided to go to sleep on the floor.

10:00pm Monday:

Oh, how long has he been on the floor for?

11:00pm Monday: The nurses finally find a bed for me. I think I have been throwing up by this stage. I fall asleep for the night, and Sonia fires up her laptop to catch up on some important work. Oh yeah, at some stage someone must have stuck a needle in my hand because I’m now attached to a drip, as well as a heart monitor just like in the movies. Awesome.

6:00am Tuesday: I wake up, ready to go home. I remember Sonia’s name, but still have no idea what happened on Monday night.

8:00am Tuesday: Breakfast consists of Weet-bix, toast, the worst cup of tea I have ever had, fruit salad, orange juice and a piece of bread. Not too shabby for a hospital.

9:00am Tuesday: I get transferred to a ward. I get to lie back on the bed as it goes through all these doors, ER style. Double awesome.

10:00am Tuesday: The rest of the morning is spent doing these stupid post trauma amnesia tests, once an hour. In between, we go and sit in the sun and plan the USA trip next year. I take some phone calls from clients, but I can’t remember what they said any more.

12:00 noon Tuesday: Lunch consists of steamed silverside with parsley sauce. Ranksville.

2:00pm Tuesday: A new occupational therapists tries to restart all the PTA tests. Luckily I see what’s happening, and manage to move her along before I get trapped for another 4 hours in this hell-hole. I finally get discharged from the hospital, and Sonia drives me home.

It is now almost 48 hours later, and I’m still not sure what happened on Monday night. Also, I can’t remember details of any conversations I had today or yesterday. This is going to make catching up on work interesting. Anyway, thus endeth my first experience of being admitted to the emergency department. It was as pleasant as it was memorable.