SPY GAMES AS PARENTS KEEP TABS ON KIDS
Some 41 per cent of Australian parents admitted to ‘spying’ on their children using social media. Digital security company AVG Technologies surveyed 4400 parents in 11 countries to see what kind of a record they kept of their children.
Michael McKinnon, Security Advisor at AVG (AU/NZ) Pty Ltd, said, “AVG’s latest research encourages us to consider whether Facebook and other social networking sites are creating a new kind of parental relationship, or whether we are in effect spying on our teens? These sites are providing parents with new methods to monitor what their kids are doing without necessarily having to be ‘heavy handed’ or to quiz their child directly.”
Just over half think schools are doing an adequate job at teaching Internet safety and skills.
So, what do you reckon?
REAL DOCTORS WARN AGAINST ‘GOOGLE DIAGNOSIS’
Actual doctors have warned would-be patients against diagnosing themselves on Google, saying it could have terrible counsequences.
NSW Australian Medical Association medical director Dr Robyn Napier said diagnosis through the popular search engine could have devastating consequences.
“It’s a serious problem,” she said. “When you take a symptom out of context of the whole body you can’t possibly diagnose.”
Some 80 per cent of Australians used the search engine to check their symptoms and decide what is wrong with them, sometimes without seeking any follow-up medical opinion.
– As Mia Freedman wrote, Google is not the same as science.
WORK COMPO FOR HOTEL SEX INJURY
Remember this one? Well, we have a winner.
A woman who was hit by a falling light fixture while having sex in her hotel room on a work trip has won compensation for the incident. Justice John Nicholas found she was injured ‘during the course of her employment’.
The light was attached to the wall above the bed. The male partner said in his statement they were ‘going hard’ and he wasn’t sure whether they bumped it or it fell off.
THE WEEK IN PICS: is a hotbed of sublime supermodels (she’s 83), amazing artists and photos that will boggle the mind.
HOCKEY SAYS AGE OF ‘ENTITLEMENT’ IS OVER
Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey has warned Australians need to wean themselves off welfare if the Australian Government is to remain on a solid economic footing. He even aimed his sights at the Howard Government which he said offered too much welfare to too many for short term political gain. His comments cited nations in Europe that spent close to 30 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product on welfare, health and pensions. The figure in Australia is about 16 per cent.
“We need to be ever vigilant. We need to compare ourselves with our Asian neighbours where the entitlements programs of the state are far less than in Australia,” he told Lateline.
He said the welfare measures under Howard were ‘fuelled by short-term electoral cycles and the political outbidding of your opponent’.
The Prime Minister leaped on the remarks, saying: “Mr Hockey was saying to Australian families that if you feel entitled to your family payments, that if you feel entitled to your child care support, if you feel entitled to things like Medicare, well you shouldn’t.
“Because Mr Hockey believes there should be widespread cutbacks to those very services and supports that families rely on.”
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said Hockey was making the ‘very obvious point’ that governments have to live within their means.
Homicide detectives are at the Melbourne home of Men at Work band member Greg Ham who was found dead yesterday morning. However police won’t say whether the circumstances of his passing are suspicious or not, only that there are ‘unexplained issues’. The band are most famous for their classic hit Down Under which was most recently the subject of a copyright infringement with a court finding the flute riff was almost exactly the same as the children’s song Kookaburra.
Top Comments
The thing that I get cross about when it comes to the people that I've known who were/are on welfare, is the way that they look at their financial situation.
If they get offered a job they always factor in and deduct their welfare payment before they look at what they would earn.
I am just making these figures up....
If they are getting $500 a fortnight welfare and the pay for the job is $650 a fortnight, they deduct $500 from $650 and say that they are not going to work for $150 a fortnight...that no one should expect them to work for $150 a fortnight, because who works for a low amount like that.
One thing may be that it may well not be worth the extra money. If you're getting Centrelink payments, you usually have concession cards for medications, public transport, some other stuff. If taking a job that pays a bit over what they receive cuts them off from that, it may mean they're ending up with the same amount?
Not saying it's right or wrong, just putting it out there as a method to their madness.
If welfare payments mean that it’s not worth it to get a real job, then welfare payments are too high.
You wrote...
“If taking a job that pays a bit over what they receive cuts them off from that, it may mean they’re ending up with the same amount?”
But if they can get a job that pays the same amount of course they should still take it. Welfare is meant to be a prop, not a “hey I get enough to live, why give up my life of leisure by working for the same amount”.
The more that people say that welfare should equal a reasonable standard of living the more people won’t give up the welfare to work for the same amount of money.
I think the key is to look at every situation individually. Are there people who turn down jobs when they shouldn't, or who don't look for jobs and just jot anything down in their diaries? Absolutely.
But put it this way. If you had the choice between struggling and eating 2 minute noodles on welfare payments, and struggling, eating 2 minute noodles and working a job that you hate, which would you choose? Some of us would be lean toward working, but I can vouch for something:
When you are trying find work and there are a more people than jobs, and particularly when you are skilled and being knocked back for jobs you are more than qualified to do, you end up depressed or mentally less than your best very quickly... and sometimes that means you don't care whether you work or not, sometimes you feel so low you don't want to get out of bed and function at all.
Lowering welfare payments so people can't meet the basic cost of living won't get them a job any faster. However I do think it would send people into a mentally unsound state faster and make them less able to actively seek work to the best of their ability. Really, in my opinion if the only job someone can get is one that pays less or the same as welfare, then that speaks more about the job situation in this country than it does about welfare, because welfare payments are lucky to cover the basic cost of living. For most people it doesn't even do that.
I think we have to remember that while we have probably all come across someone who has been receiving welfare payments that have had no desire to work or even played the system to their advantage, that it isn't the case for most people who have received or are receiving payments.
I don't mind a bit of Dr Google. I used Google to figure out what my silent migraines were (visual disturbances) which was confirmed by a doctor, and also diagnosed a bacterial infection which was confirmed by a doctor, and same antibiotics I was expecting were prescribed :D !
That said, I also do often come away thinking I have cancer ...