EBAY RESTRICTIVE COMPETITION PRACTICES
Australia’s competition and consumer watchdog, the ACCC, is bringing action to bear against online auction giant eBay. By forcing the site’s sellers to use eBay owned PayPal for sales, eBay is restricting competition and enlarging their own profits through PayPal charges on top of the charges already placed on auctions.
There is a revolt against eBay in Australia with many users flocking to other online auction sites. There are however other users who continue to use eBay, even though they are not happy with the new eBay directives for swelling items on eBay.
I would expect the ACCC to ensure that eBay’s directives to use only PayPal are not carried through here in Australia. I would have to agree with the stand taken by the ACCC, even though I still use eBay myself. I have considered moving to another online auction site but it is difficult to leave the already established eBay site for lesser known alternatives and I think this is what eBay is planning on.
Currently eBay has further delayed it’s plans to fully implement their planned changes regarding the use of PayPal until after the ACCC has reached a decision.
POLAR ICE CAP GONE
According to reports today, it is more than likely that there will be no ice on the North Pole this northern summer. The northern ice pack has been steadily melting for years and this will be the first time in modern times that this type of event has occurred. According to the US scientist who is predicting this, there is a 50% probability of the event happening.
What amazes me is that people can still deny global warming and that human activity is to blame for the warming crisis. Surely this is further proof that global warming is occurring and that something needs to be done about it as soon as possible.
There will be dire consequences should global warming continue at it’s current rate, let alone the rapid increase in warming that is taking place. Certainly shipping will benefit from having a northern sea free of ice and Greenland may enjoy being able to plant more varied crops, but there are major problems with global warming. There will be continued water shortages across whole continents, major changes in environments and habitats, as well as the decline and probable extinction of certain species, such as the Polar Bear that needs ice to survive. Severe weather events are already growing in number around the world and bringing chaos to major cities and remote areas alike.
Now is the time to act and perhaps the rapidly rising fuel costs will force the necessary changes upon us.
REBECCA THERES MORRIS: 1984 - 2008
My dearest friend is gone, having died in her sleep on Wednesday morning the 25th June 2008. I am finding it incredibly hard to believe she is gone and that I can’t see or speak to her again. She was my dearest friend and the most important person in my entire life. It is hard to find words to describe the ache that I feel in my heart and mind and the massive void Rebecca’s death will leave in my life. She meant so much to me and she will always mean so much to me – what an amazing privilege it was for me to have known this incredible girl with the endearing and enduring smile.
I first met Rebecca in about January 2004 at Hawkins Masonic Village. It was her first job in nursing I believe and fuelled within her a desire and a passion for being a nurse. She had the respect of her fellow staff members immediately and engaged us all with her determination to be the very best nurse she could be, along with her wholehearted empathy for those she cared for. Even from these early days in her nursing career Rebecca showed qualities that proved the potential that was within her to be a great nurse, as well as a great person. Sadly we have been left without the quality nurse and person she would most certainly have become.
In those early days of 2004 Rebecca attended one of my fire safety lectures at Hawkins Masonic Village and I remember the attention she gave and that smile that emblazoned the room. She was a beautiful young woman who personified happiness in a very real and personal manner. Her desire for life and joy of living was captured in the smile that adorned her face in those first moments that I experienced the pleasure that was knowing my friend Rebecca.
I did not set out to become a friend of Rebecca’s, yet it was the overtures of her bubbly friendliness that drew me towards her and destined me to having a friend that I will cherish for the rest of my days. Though a friendship I did not immediately seek, her friendship soon became one that I would never want to part with and she soon became the most important person in my life.
At that very time when I met Rebecca I would have been quite happy to have signed out of life. I wanted the earth to stop spinning so I could step off and it was quite within the realm of possibility that I would have done so. Rebecca saved me and returned to me a desire to go on living. Her engaging personality enabled me to see the possibilities of life once again and we soon became close friends.
As the closest of friends with the greatest regard for each other, we still had our differences and difficulties as friends. Yet beneath the sometimes tumultuous circumstances of our friendship there was nothing that could separate us as friends. We were there for each other and life’s troubles became the melting pot for a life long friendship that would mean the world to me and more.
There were many times when Rebecca came to me for support through the greatest of personal difficulties and it was the same the other way as well. Our bond was cemented in the fires of hardship and a friendship forged that would endure all things cast in our way.
There was so much more to Rebecca then her smile and seemingly perpetual happiness. She struggled with what life threw at her, yet she never gave up. There were many great personal battles fought and many still being fought. She had her demons as we all do, yet it was a testimony to the quality of who Rebecca was that she continued to be a young woman who made an impact on all her knew her for good. There was potential in Rebecca to be far more than she already was and I looked forward to seeing that develop from the bud into full bloom. How tragic it is that the developing flower has been plucked at such an early stage in her development as a person. What a wonderful woman she would have become. Rebecca Morris was there in development and the fruit of who she was was beginning to be known by those who knew her best.
Rebecca was a star in the making, as well as being a star already. I have known no-one else that could be what Rebecca was and what she was becoming. Greatness loomed in the being of my friend and I longed to see her come out of the shadows and be seen in all her glory, to be known for who she truly was without the fears that so often plagued her inner peace and being.
I thank God I knew her and for what I could see beginning to form beneath the surface and for the future life she would live. Now I am heartbroken by the fact that my friend’s life has been so tragically cut short. My sorrow rends my heart and crushes my spirit. All I want to do is somehow fix everything and bring her back, but this time I cannot do it. The desire is more than there but the ability is greatly lacking. I have no power, no words, no nothing that can bring my friend back to me, to her friends and her family. I am so devastated by the loss of my friend and my heart’s sorrow cannot be silenced or stopped.
Time may ease the felt pain of my sorrow, but it will not remove the void that can never be filled by another. Rebecca was my friend and I will never forget her. She meant the world to me and continues to do so. I cannot forget her and I will not.
How much those times I spent with her are now to be guarded and embraced as cherished and precious moments which time will never prize from my heart and mind. They have become Rebecca to me and I will go to them when I need to spend time with her again. You will always be with me as long as I cherish these memories and I will never forget to do so, for I can never forget you.
Rebecca, you were my friend and I will never forget what you meant to me and who you were. My friend, forever. Thank you for being so.