Samoan women from the village of Samatau, now living in New Zealand, are rallying to support the woman who ten days ago, gave birth to a baby girl, in the toilet of a Pacific Blue 747 aircraft. The woman abandoned the new born child, leaving it in a rubbish bin in the aircraft, underneath bloodied paper towels. Baby Grace is now in the care of Child Youth and Family in New Zealand, after being discovered by a Samoan cleaner, who happened to be a nurse.

It is thought the baby was conceived in an earlier working visit to New Zealand. The woman is in custody. The police are charging her with abandonment and assault. She is likely to face a prison sentence of seven years if found guilty.

Pa’u Fereti Puni, an orator ‘Matai’ and representative of the Samatau people in Auckland says: “It is human to feel ashamed, especially with some of the opinions in newspapers and views aired on the radios and television, yet the Samatau people remain compassionate for one their daughters.”

Samoa is a land where most girls have their first sexual encounter at a very young age. Many have had a child before the age of 20. It therefore seems unlikely that this was the woman’s first child. Many Samaon women have very low self-esteem and virtually no self-awareness, particularly those from the lower economical and rural areas. Pa’u Fereti Puni says “The event was regrettable but everyone needs to learn from it, for the sake of their children.”

However, questions still need to be asked, as to how the woman managed to be on the plane when she was 9 months pregnant, as a general practice airlines do not carry pregnant women after the 7th month time frame of their pregnancy.

For the woman to give birth, to stay in the toilet for ten minutes after the plane landed in Auckland and to be able to clean herself up enough to leave the plane without any of the airline staff asking questions, leaves many questions still to be answered. One has also needs to ask, who needs to learn from this unfortunate incident? The family of the woman, the airline staff, the ground staff, those on duty in the airport, the other passengers on the plane, or the wider community in general?

Ebay is known as Cyber Space’s biggest auction house, yet some crazies walk its halls of influence and often get away with their over-the-top stunts. Following is a list of just some of the bizarre objects which have been auctioned.

·26 shrunken heads straight from an Jibaro Indian were auctioned on eBay.
·In 2007 an American guy tried to sell his soul on eBay for $1 million dollars.
·A man in Florida tried to auction part of his liver. It was pulled from the website, but not before it reached a whopping $5.7 million dollars. (It’s illegal to sell body parts over the Internet.)
· A mean, vicious, rubber duck that had bit and fought with a child, was sold for $107.
·Justin Timberlake’s, pop singer-songwriter, half eaten piece of French toast, his plate, the fork he used and the extra syrup was sold for $3,154 dollars.
·In April 2005 the rights to name a child was auctioned for $15,100 dollars. It was bought by an online casino and named the child after it, GoldenPalace.com
·A 27 year old sold an imaginary friend, Jon Malipieman, on eBay because he had outgrown him. The bids reached over $3,000 dollars.
·18 year old girl put her virginity up for sale to pay her college tuition. A business man paid Cary $10,000 dollars, but did not take her up on the service she offered.
·An ex-wife’s wedding dress was sold for $3,850
·The window frame from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F Kennedy, was sold for just over $3 million dollars.

Perhaps this cartoonist has the best idea of all:

Baby Grace was born in the toilet of a Pacific Blue airplane. Now her mother faces 7 years in jail if convicted of abandonment and assault.

The 29 year old-Samoan worker was returning to New Zealand for a second season to pick kiwifruit in New Zealand, when she gave birth to a baby daughter. The mother had stayed in the toilet for around 10 minutes after the plane landed in Auckland and the other passengers had left.

Officials picked the woman up in the airport, after a Samoan cleaner, who happened be a trained nurse, found the baby twenty minutes after the flight landed, in an airline rubbish tin.

We are all right to be horrified at the abandonment of the child, as baby Grace deserved a lot better. However, there are a lot of questions left unanswered.

·    How did a highly pregnant woman get taken on as a fruit picker in the first place? It is believed that baby Grace was conceived in New Zealand, during the previous fruit picking season.
·    Where was the mother during the early contractions? Sitting calmly in her seat surrounded by other passengers? Did the contractions really go unnoticed?
·    For those of you who have travelled in airplanes, you will be fully aware that a normal sized person has a great deal of difficulty of maneuvering in the planes tiny toilet areas. How did a nine month pregnant woman manage to contort herself, to give birth in that small a space?
·    How did the woman contain the sound of giving birth? Contractions are not for the faint hearted and the strongest of women will give an almighty yell as the head breaks through.
·    The greatest mystery of all is was the birth time a ten minute affair, if the women only remained in the toilet for ten minutes after the plane landed?
·    If not, was she in the toilet during the landing? Was she trying to bear down and give birth, during the pressure of the plane descending to earth? This would mean extreme opposing forces at work.
·    Why did the staff not hear the baby cry at birth?
·    What pressures were on the woman to make her discard a child she had carried for nine months?

Su’a William Sio, of Samoan descent, said: “Cultural stigma and the shame of bearing a child out of wedlock were to reasons why a mother might abandon her child. This can only be a reaction out of fear.”

Are airline staff so casual these days they do not register a woman in labour and a child being boen on their airline? If the woman had been stuck in the toilet, did not of the staff check the toilet after she finally left? We hear no word that maybe the airline staff had not been quite a vigilant as they should have been.

Baby Grace has to be the biggest miracle of all times, from every way you look at this incident.

Abandonment yes, that seems fair and square. But assault? Surely this woman needs help, not jail time? Perhaps the law is bound by its own weight, but let’s hope and pray an understanding judge will be in control, the day the woman has to appear in court. As for the miracle, Baby Grace, let’s hope she finds a really good home with loving parents.

Rick and Wendy have dedicated their time and effort to help with the education of chidren from the Lesser Developed Countries of the South Pacific. Take a few minutes to check out this exciting project. It could change your life as well.

The raw power of a major eruption from a submarine volcano on the Ring of Fire, in the South Pacific, has sent spectacular plumes of steam, gas, smoke and ash 15 – 25,000 feet in the air. “It’s a very significant eruption on quite a large scale,” says Kelepi Maf, Tong chief geologist. It is believed that several chambers of magma are feeding the volcano.

The volcano began erupting on Monday 16th March, after a series of earthquakes had hit the area. Professor Simon Turner, a geochemist at Macquarie University, Sydney, says “The quakes and the volcano eruption probably aren’t linked. It would mean the magma coming 110k to the surface in a few days and that would be fairly unlikely.”

By the 19th the underwater volcano had ejected so much lava it had formed the beginning of a new island, seven miles off the coast of Tongatapu, the main island of Tonga. A huge raft of pumice is floating about two miles north of the eruption. This new (ephemeral) island is still shrouded by smoke.

“Underwater volcanoes can be violent and have a strong climatic effect. The current exploding volcano isn’t getting into the stratosphere yet, but as it continues to grow that is possibility,” says Simon Turner.

The new island is thought to last several months, or even a few years, before it is eroded away by the action of waves. It is made up of pumice, a type of rock that is created when lava and gases erupt in comparatively shallow water, are rapidly cooled and fragmented. Pumice is so light it floats. It is expected the debris from the eruption will drift over to the southern coast of Fiji, clogging its beaches.

A team of scientists are on their way to observe the eruption and measure its impact on the area.

A small island was created in October 2006 in a similar eruption at Home Reef, measuring 800 m long by 400 m wide.

Scientists believe that about 75% of the world’s volcanic activity happens underwater in the world’s oceanic basins, anywhere from the surcease to depths of 2.5 miles. This makes it very difficult to detect. In June 2008 the eruptions of an undersea volcano was first caught on film. “It’s the first place where we’ve been able to observe an active volcanic eruption underwater, with a remotely operated vehicle,” said Bill Chadwick from the Oregon State University Hatfield Marine Science Center, in Newport. “Underwater you can see the gases a lot easier, so you have a much clearer view of what’s going on. Gases are hard to see in the air.”Also the pressure of water dampens the power of the explosive eruptions making it easier to observe much closer up, compared to land volcanoes.

The United Nations Development Programme in Fiji, is looking at placing a value on the time people spend on unpaid work. The report disclosed that women in Suva spend 58 hours a week on housework, compared to men who only spend 8 hours.

The report also showed that women in the tropical island nation of Vanuatu, voted the Happiest Country On Earth in 2006, have 25% less leisure time than men. (Who is kidding who, in a male dominated society?)
The manager of the UNDP Pacific Centre, says “It’s important to provide separated out data about the different roles men and women play in the community, if the UNDP is to understand how a particular policy might impact differently on different genders”. Without this kind of data, the Centre believes it would be difficult to design good policies or programs.

The word is out that people in general have 45 minutes more leisure time, per day, than they had 40 years ago. Half of that time is spent watching television (says some experts). The average person in a Western country devotes 2.5 hours a day to the relaxing hobby of watching television.

The following is a break down of an average person’s daily timetable, which was released in 2006 from an unknown source.

ACTIVITY                                    TIME SPENT BY GENDER, MARITAL STATUS

Men    Women    Married    Single
Phone calls, mail, email                            7 min    14 min      8  min    14 min
Caring for non-household members       13 min    15 min    13 min    14 min
Religious, civic duties                             16 min    21 min    20 min    17 min
Caring for family                                     20 min    43 min    45 min    17 mi
Educational activities                              28 min    26 min    7 min      51 min
Buying goods, services                           38 min     58 min    53 min    43 min
Eating, drinking                        1 hr 18 min    1 hr 11 min    1 hr 24min    1 hr 8 min
Household activities                 1 hr 20 min    2 hr 16 min    2 hr 8 min    1 hr 26 min
Work-related                                  4 hr 26 min    3 hr    4 hr 1 min    3 hr 18 min
Watching TV                            3 hr 28 min    2 hr 41 min    2 hr 24 min    2 hr 47 min
Personal care, sleep                 9 hr 13 min    9 hr 37 min    9 hr 8 min    9 hr 46 min

(If they serious about these figures then I am off the planet, as I am sure many of your are also!)

The Harris Poll published these results after a nationwide telephone survey, in 2004:
·    35% of adults preferred reading.
·    21% preferred to watch television
·    20% spend time with their family and friends

Harris Poll says these three activities have topped the list every year since 1995. However, it is believed that technology such as the Internet clearly influences the use of leisure time.

One has to question how these results were arrived at and their ability to truly represent an overall picture of life, either in 2006 or 2009.

It certainly feels the more ‘time-saving-devices’ you are presented with, you increasingly find you have less and less time to do the things you would really like to do. Time is your most valuable resource and must be used, protected, looked after and used wisely, just as you consider the use of any other valuable resource.

Here is another way you can help the overall picture in 2009. Help us to help give some really great kids a high school education. With out your aid, these high achieving primary school students will never get a chance to do the things they dream of doing. Take a few minutes to look at Win A Resort . It could change your life and give you more leisure time than you even dreamed of.

The storm of controversy continues as the renegade whistle blowing organization, Wikileaks revealed a list of websites, which are claimed to be on the Australian Communications and Media Authority, of AMCA’s, blacklist.

Conroy from the ACMA says “There are several addresses on the published renegade list that have never appeared on the official blacklist.” ACMA was considering handing the situation over to the Australian Federal Police.

Wikileaks has retaliated by telling the Australia n Chief Censor communications minister, Stephen Conroy to reel his neck in after the gaffe-prone politician threatened a police investigation. If the list is implemented as Communications Minister Stephen Conroy advocates, it would make Australia one of the strictest regulators of the Internet, among democratic countries. However, there are several Internet providers conducting trials with the filter until June.

The debate has risen over the proposal to put a filter on all Australians using the net. The government says it is an attempt to stamp out child pornography and sexual violence. However, it is well known that if you want to use these types of sites, there are lots of other ways to access them, through peer-to-peer networks or chat rooms. These cannot be covered by the filter.

The published black list contains around 2,400 Internet addresses, as of August 6th, 2008, but the ACMA claims the official blacklist contains only 1000 addresses. The Government has plans to extend the blacklist to 10,000 sites or more.

The published list includes a dental office, online poker parlours, a school cafeteria consultancy firm, a kennel and some YouTube links. There is a euthanasia site, fringe religions and even Christian sites, as well as the website of a tour operator, including several pages from Wikileaks.

The manager of Dental Distinction in Queensland, Australia, said “Their site was hacked into more than a year ago and visitors were temporarily redirected to an adult Web site.” The office quickly switched to a different Internet provider and has had no problems since.

Tuckshop and Canteen Management Consultants, also in Queensland, has never had any problems, but is said to be on the list. When the owner, Jocelyn Ashcroft contacted the ACMA they assured her she was not on the list. “Since the list is secret, how can you be sure ACMA is telling us the truth?”

Jim Wallace, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby, which supports the filtering system, says “The questions the controversy has risen over the published list has done nothing to change his opinion.”

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks says “Secret censorship systems are invariably corrupted.” The Thailand censorship list contains more than 120 sites classified as criticizing the royal family.

The argument over gun laws continues to rage around the globe, particularly after there has been some senseless shooting at a tourist attraction, killing 35 people, as happened in Tasmania, Australia in 1996, or after one of the numerous school shootings that have taken place in America since then. Discussions are even being held over the argument of arming teachers.

Anti-gun lobbyist group, the Coalition for Gun Control, admitted however, in January 2008, that gun laws offer no solution to the gang-related violence in Toronto.

Even football games can prove deadly when guns are involved. In a rural settlement, 120km south of Baghdad, an Iraqi footballer was fatally shot in the chest, when over exuberant team fans launched a blaze of gunfire at the conclusion of a successful match between two villages. A stray bullet from the celebration, ended Haider Hakem’s football career and took his life.

Yet it is not just guns, tourist spots, or schools that are dangerous. Going to church can also be deadly.

A 50 year old woman on the street in New York City, was injured from a randomly shot fiberglass arrow. Denise Delgado-Brown was wounded in the stomach as she was dropping off fellow churchgoers at a nursing home in the Bronx. Denise was reported as being stable, after undergoing surgery

While the now deceased film star Charlton Heston was a leading pro-gun lobbyist and there are strong arguments for both sides of the gun case, there are times when we all feel like doing some shooting ourselves, as is depicted here in More Computer Madness.

Life can be truly frustrating for most of us, particularly with the world wide financial crisis looming over our heads. There is however, a way out of your financial predicament. Spend a few minutes taking a look at a once in a lifetime Blue Moon Opportunity at Win a Resort. It could completely change your life and the lives of some really great kids.

Elderly Australian couple, took a rundown property, with fabulous views and over a three year period they renovated and built it into a small successful boutique holiday resort. Now they are giving away the million dollar property, located on a tropical island.

The couple came up with the out-of-the-box idea of raffling the property on the Internet, in order to give all the money away to provide education grants for local kids, who will never to go high school. Many of their parents cannot read or write and live on under $1 a day.

In Vanuatu, a Lesser Developed Country, that was voted the Happiest Country on Earth, there is no free education system. The government statistics say only 18% of the kids get to high school level. 55 % manage to get to level 6, but 26% never go to school at all.

The project sounded easy and doable. Wrong! First there came the world-wide financial melt down and the merchant bank they were using to process credit cards online, closed shop. Other banks wouldn’t touch this kind of Internet project in the current financial climate, particularly as it was located on a tropical island, that just happened to be a tax haven, in the South Pacific, that Sweden voted the Dream Holiday Destination.

Local government ministers agreed it was a wonderful idea, but bureaucracy added to the couple’s problems, as they battled to register the charity. All money received from the raffle, is held firmly in trust, oversighted by a board of well known local citizens and business people, allowing many kids to benefit from the self-sustaining project, now and in the years to come.

The couple paid to have two websites built, from their fast dwindling cash resources. Only to discover they were nothing more than templated blog sites, with very limited capabilities. Refusing to give up, the wife decided to enter the highly complicated and competitive world of Cyber Space. After just two hours tuition, she set about to learn how to master the professional web builder’s program, Dreamweaver. Many hours later and a lot more grey hairs, the web sites were completed and online.

Freelance journalists interviewed the couple, but popular magazines and TV stations simply said, “They aren’t a celebrity such as Nicole Kidman.” The elderly couple approached one or two of visiting celebrities to the island, on board the project, but always with the same result. “Yes, they would love to help,” when talking to the couple face to face. Yet as the weeks dragged by, nothing.

Still believing wholeheartedly in their project, they enrolled the first student into high school in January, 2009. “Seeing the beam of delight on her face when she was told she had a high school education grant, made it all worth while,” the husband said. Up until then, only her older brother would get an education. Maimona and her three sisters would for the most part, be left uneducated.

Now the couple must wait for the full results of their eighteen months of hard work, blood, sweat and tears to bear fruit. Work that will bring hope to these kids. How many high achieving students will be left stranded and abandoned, or how many will be given the opportunity of getting a high school education and the possibility of fulfilling their dreams?

Take a few minutes to check it out at Win a Resort. Not only will it help some great kids, it could also completely change your life. Someone will win this million dollar property for just a few dollars. You could also win the opportunity to visit Rick and Wendy for free and check the property out yourself.

As time goes by, words change their meanings through common use. This has never been more noticeable than in the world of the Internet and Cyber Space.

· There was a time when memory was something you lost with age, or illness. Now you can lose it at the touch of  the wrong button
· Memory couldn’t be upgraded and added to with a screwdriver wielding technician
· You used an application to apply for something, such as employment, a government benefit, or a bank loan
· A program used to be a TV show, or something you held in your hand at the opera, or ballet
· A cursor was a person who used profanity and to be totally avoided in polite company
· A keyboard was made up of black and white keys on an organ, or piano and used to produce music
· A web was a fragile home a spider spun to catch its prey. Now the ‘web’ catches a different kind of species
· Mail was delivered by a postman no matter what the weather was like
· A virus was flu that gave you a few of days off work. Now it is to be guarded against at all costs
· A mouse was simply a small grey furry animal that made women scream and jump on chairs
· Forums were held at conferences with well noted speakers spouted their knowledge
· The net was a fish, or butterfly catching tool
· A screen was used to create privacy
· A flat screen was a way to print a TShirt
· A monitor was South American iguana
· A camera was something you used to put film in
· A docking station and ports involved boats, or aeroplanes, boats or space ships
· Chips went with fish and were wrapped in newspaper
· Salt was something you put on your food, not something you use to listen to a computer
· A mother board involved washing and ironing
· A CD was a bank account you put your money into
· A hard drive was long trip on a very rough road
· A stick was made of wood and used to light fires

Now a chat room was a coffee shop where you gathered with your friends.  As to all the other mystical language that has become part of our everyday life, we think little about it. Terms like CPU (central processing unit), chat rooms, html and the source, networking and search engine optimization roll over our heads.

Finally there are a couple of areas we won’t enter into, which involve floppies. The 8 inch floppy became the 5 inch floppy, which then converted into the 3 ½ stiff disk, which has now become a flash. Fortunately the floppy lasted as little time in Cyber Space, as it does in the physical world and flashes are something you only used to see at high profile cricket or football matches.

Maybe you can add some other interesting terms to this lists, for the above list is far from exhausted.

For years we have been inundated with diet  and exercise programs, diet pills, expensive exercise machines, liposuction techniques, gastrointestinal surgery, bariatric surgery stimulation, even brain surgery, all in the attempt to lose that excessive baggage, called body fat. The breakthrough news is that there is an easy and healthy way to organically gain that dream weight and stay that way. It is called Ezy-Slim plant food supplement, that actually works.

This unique organic formulation uses 100% pure herbal and fruit fibre ingredients. It reduces body weight by tackling cellulite and eliminating subcutaneous fat deposits, plus other benefits.

Nancy Evans, leading nutritionist and aromatherapist says, “Obesity has replaced malnutrition in the Western world, yet it is something that can be easily overcome.” World Health Organization Surveys reveal that obesity may cut down life expectancy by 9 years.

You don’t have to live with that extra weight. Your confidence can be restored the Ezy way, by not only losing that excess baggage, but keeping it off, through healthy eating and gentle exercise.

Nancy has also produced an organic Ezy Slim body firming and toning gel, for those extra hard areas such as the thighs and abs. Click here to get a once in a lifetime Blue Moon Special Opportunity to win a holiday,  get a free sample of the Ezy Slim body firming gel, plus a full report on Ezy Slim. Limited offer only.