Skippy's in Germany!

JA!

I'm not lying!

You may be as baffled as I was when I first saw this headline in the newspaper but hold on a moment and let me explain. Hopefully things can begin to make sense, or if it doesn't don't worry.

A Kangaroo was seen last Monday night bounding his way about on the main street of Siegburg, Germany confusing local residents and passes by as they may have thought they were in the outback rather than their local sausage market.

All joking aside, the Kangaroo actually boxed it's way out of it's enclosure and decided to go for an afternoon stroll around the neighbourhood. Police and fire officers had to pursue a Kangaroo chase through the town, dodging emergency crews who tried to lure the strict herbivore with dog food. Firefighters later were fortunately able to capture the relative of Skippy with a net. The Australian marsupial was taken to the nearby vet and was checked over being declared unharmed. The Kangaroo was given a shelter to stay in, while efforts were made at trying to find it's owner.

Later the Kangaroo was claimed by it's owner, who kept two of the Australian marsupials – named Tequilla and Sunrise – as housepets.

Under Australian legislation it has been illegal to export live kangaroos or wallabies since 1982.
Police were checking with customs officials whether the kangaroos were legally imported.

The only reason I decided to post this story onto the blog was because, this blatantly is not your usual every day story. Then while I was finding this story incredibly humorous and fascinating I began to evaluate the story in closer detail. I had begun to think, was the Kangaroo trying to escape for a particular reason other than that it could smell next door's dinner? Maybe that they were being ill treated or that they were being kept in cruel confinement with no attention at all.

"What's that Skippy?"
"You're in trouble."

Celebrities and Politics

There has been a rising number of celebrities involving themselves in the political world. Some actors and actresses in the USA have decided to take it upon themselves to help represent those in the running for President.
What I don't understand is what most go through these people's minds when they decide to involve themselves in something they are best to stay away from. Many of these celebrities are role models for young and old people alike, and if somebody sees their favourite actor or actress is 'Voting for Obama!' then they might just 'Vote for Obama!' too.
I don't think they see the influence they have over people, because it is a major one.
Yes, you can support somebody in the running. Yes, you can be as interested in politics as you like. But it is when they involve themselves in it, it aggravates me. Either they are very naive or completely understand what they are doing.

"Are we all going to die next Wednesday?"

If you take a look at page 15 in the Daily Mail last Thursday (04.09.8) you would see the words “Are we all going to die next Wednesday?” written in big letters and a picture that looked like a black hole.
At first, I did not bother to read the article, but when my host sister saw this, she asked with an anxious voice: “Are we actually going to die?” I had to see what this was.

300ft under the Swiss-French border, near Geneva, CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) has built an 18 mile long train- sized tunnel. They are going to (hopefully) reveal the secrets of the atom, the forces and the particles that make up our universe.

The reason for the headline is that a few people think that there is a small chance that the experiment will cause the making of a mini-black hole, which will swallow the Earth. That is scenario one. The second scenario is that the experiment will cause a chain reaction in the fabric of space and time, and that it will rip apart the entire universe.

I think that by using that headline and that picture, the author of the article managed to get people interested. The problem is that kids, like my host sister, misinterpret it and that made them scared. I assume that the author’s intentions were to tell us how absurd the scenarios are, not to scare us.
In my opinion this is a great example for how the media has got the possibility to misguide and shape us.

However, I think I will keep my fingers crossed on Wednesday, just to be sure.

Not pretty enough

I recently read an article on internet that really shocked me. The article was about the opening ceremony of the olympic games in Beijing. Under the ceremony, that we saw on tv, a little girl was singing a Chinese song, and her voice was just amazing. But in the article that I read on internet, was it standing that the girl that we saw on tv, didn't "own" the voice. The girl we saw was just mimeing the song. The truth was that the leaders of the ceremony didn't think the girl that had the most beautiful voice and won the audition, was pretty enough to join the opening ceremony, so they found a girl that they thought was more pretty, and they let her "sing" in the ceremony.

As I wrote before, did this really shock me, because I don't think this is the way it should be. I mean (and I'm sure many others also do) that it's not the way you look that matter, but how you are inside.

Advert to stop knife crime

An advert made to shock teenagers out of their minds about the growing fact of knife crime and carrying knifes is being released to somehow stop teenagers from using knifes as a act of defence.
With the rising amount of gang crime within youngsters and the trauma of the result of a knife being carried then being used for attack brings the police and government to the conclusion of having to 'Do something'.
The question is will an advert made to shock really work? With the advert only being shown to pupils in schools and not being broad casted on to Tv sets in the home you can't help to think if this advert will be hitting the minds of the right people.
I think that the advert Will make teenagers involved in gangs think about what they are doing before they act. However i think that maybe the advert won't be reaching the right cultures and community's that it needs to. I don't think that the threat of harsher consequences contained in the advert if caught with carrying a knife is really going to bother the minds of the people who are set out to possibly harm people.
Overall i think that the advert is a good idea but i think it could be changed to something that will be more effective in the long term.

Two million workers 'exploited'

I recently read a news article that informed me that up to two million workers in Britain are at risk of exploitation due to their social class and work status. Research has found that some employees are being paid £1 per hour working 70 hours a week and some are even facing sexual abuse! I think everyone should work in a safe environment and be paid a fair price, so this article shocked me, especially the part about the sexual abuse, as being an employee myself i just presume my work place is a safe place to be and didn't think anything like that could happen until i read this article. 

The union body has described this situation as a 'national scandal' and the Government has said that it was boosting penalties for rouge employers. The setting up of a special Fair Employment Commission to enforce workers rights has been made aware to the public work force through a campaign. This is a very serious matter and action is being taken. Penalties are being boosted and enforced and the amount of agency inspectors to investigate abuse is being doubled. The new regulations also ensure that employers couldn't unfairly deduct accommodation and other expenses from peoples wages.

I believe these regulations must be increased and brought out quickly as this is a very unfair and serious matter.

 

Arabian Stunner

As you may all have already heard, Arabian billionaire Suleiman al-Fahim, took the reins from Shinawatra at the board for Manchester City Football Club. Now thats good that Man City finally sorted their finacial status after Shinawatra screwed everything up for them what his fraud and so forth, but having an Emirati billionaire is just insane. It just shows you that Man City are so despeerate for silverware, or even just recognition in the footballing world that they would employ walking bank as chairman. I am starting to see a pattern in english football; I mean it's just like when man Utd were taken over by American millionaire Malcolm Glazer. He had absolutely no clue about football, yet he stayed on. That or Chelsea's Roman Abramovic. This is certainly worrying me personally as a football fan. What will become of football in 25 years? Will they forget about the football completely?

Clean up your act FA or football's gonna go to pot!