Stoney Baloney

I'm asking this because a few months ago, my friend and I were planning a visit to the Netherlands because it's legal to--I mean.. er... it's a beautiful country. We would have gone last week, but I bailed on the trip before we booked the flights because of a number of things that caused financial difficulties. At the time, I was always saying things like "The universe has gotta be ******* with me big time, because what are the chances that all this could go wrong in a person's life so quickly?". The thing is we both have family in Malaysia and we planned to stop on the way back. I think you can figure out which flight we planned to take and how much we shat our pants when we heard the news.

So last weekend, I was talking to this friend at a party while tripping on shrooms and I felt like there was some omniscient force, not necessarily anything sentient, but just this overbearing force that existed. I don't know how to describe it, but even after I came down, I still feel like there has to be some higher entity out there. I'm considering the idea that this entity caused me to lose my job, get robbed, and all that because perhaps that was the only way that would make me bail out of the trip and not die in the crash.

All my life, I've vehemently denied the existence of any god up until now. I was wondering if any atheists are out there who've had the same thing happen to them. Or perhaps it was just the shrooms talking? Why am I feeling this? Any thoughts?

It was about 6 months ago when we were still on good terms that I lent my former friend $300. He had just returned to Australia from the US and needed some money to get re-settled (e.g. find a new house, job, etc). Being a friend, I told him the only interest he needed to pay was the CPI inflation and he'd have to start paying me back once he got a job. He never got a stable job and continued to borrow money. By June, he had racked up $910 of debt from me. At that point, I said that's it, no more lending till you pay me back every single dollar.

A couple of days after that, it was brought to my attention that a large portion of the money he borrowed he had spent on cigarettes, speed, crack and morphine. I then went and told him that if he failed to pay me back all of his debt by the end of August, I would rat him out to the police. That's when we had a major falling out.

Yesterday morning, he was found dead in his room after shooting up a lethal amount of speedballs with a suicide note which claimed that because I "blackmailed [him] into paying back [my money]" which "caused [him] great financial difficulties and led [him] into severe depression". He was 19; my age. His mum, having read the note, now wants compensation from me for allegedly contributing to her son's death.

Essentially, I want to know:

1. Will it be easy to win this case in court, should she take me to court?

2. Can I reclaim the $910 that is his outstanding debt?

So I'm doing a bit of accounting from a question sheet when I came across this question.

16. Which of the following statements regarding the work sheet is correct?

A. The drawings account appears in the income statement debit column.

B. The owner's capital account in the balance sheet credit column represents capital at the end of the accounting period.

C. Salaries payable appear in the credit column of the balance sheet.

D. Net profit is shown in the balance sheet debit column.

I answered B, because I actually couldn't decide whether the answer was B or C. The answer sheet is telling me the correct answer is C. What I'm trying to ask is why is the answer C and not B? My understanding is that both B and C are correct. Where am I going wrong?

Would you write it like 4/4/14 or the American way, 4/4/14?

I've always been asked these questions tons of times and I'm thinking surely there must be a name for it! An example of a question like this is "Do you think Jess is attractive?", where if the respondent says "yes", then it implies that he is interested in Jess and may result in embarrasment, but if he says "no", then it implies he thinks Jess is not attractive which may be interpreted to mean that Jess is ugly. In this situation, whatever the respondent answers, he will ultimately end up embarrasing himself.

For those of you who say this question is miscategorised, it's not. I've asked this question in the Law & Legal section as well, however, I want answers from the general public as well as answers from experts in the field, as discrimination is not exactly a black-and-white issue. This is mostly because there is dissoncance between what the legal definition of discrimination is and what it should be. So anyway, I'll explain my employment situation and I'd just like you to tell me if you think this is discrimination or not.

I'm 18 years old, working as a casual fast food employee. I used to be getting 25-30 hours per week under my previous employers who recently sold the store. The new owner has progressively been reducing my hours and it has now got to the point when I am only getting 8 hours this week. The majority of my hours have been given to 15-year-olds, who are $5 cheaper per hour and even cheaper on weekends and public holidays.

Just now, he forbeyed me from swapping my Tuesday shift with a 15-year-old's public holiday Monday shift and explicitly stated that the reason was because he will lose money if the swap were to occur. Although I perform the work of a level 2 fast food employee, both of us are paid as level 1 fast food employees, so my employer can't use his usual excuses for forbeying shift swaps, which are "We need at least one senior on duty for the Tuesday shift" or "This shift is meant to be a junior's shift and having a senior on is redundant." Set aside the fact that I'm not paid as a senior (level 2) when I should be, that's another tirade all together; I am quite certain that this is age discrimination because my employer is refusing to give me shifts because of my age.

I am not the only person at my workplace to be experiencing this problem. All the older staff members at my workplace are experiencing similar problems. This problem has been occurring since September last year when the changeover of owners happened. But before I approach Fair Work Australia, I would like to know if this constitutes as age discrimination. What are your thoughts? Do I have a good case?

I'm 18 years old, working as a casual fast food employee. I used to be getting 25-30 hours per week under my previous employers who recently sold the store. The new owner has progressively been reducing my hours and it has now got to the point when I am only getting 8 hours this week. The majority of my hours have been given to 15-year-olds, who are $5 cheaper per hour and even cheaper on weekends and public holidays.

Just now, he forbeyed me from swapping my Tuesday shift with a 15-year-old's public holiday Monday shift and explicitly stated that the reason was because he will lose money if the swap were to occur. Although I perform the work of a level 2 fast food employee, both of us are paid as level 1 fast food employees, so my employer can't use his usual excuses for forbeying shift swaps, which are "We need at least one senior on duty for the Tuesday shift" or "This shift is meant to be a junior's shift and having a senior on is redundant." Set aside the fact that I'm not paid as a senior (level 2) when I should be, that's another tirade all together; I am quite certain that this is age discrimination because my employer is refusing to give me shifts because of my age.

I am not the only person at my workplace to be experiencing this problem. All the older staff members at my workplace are experiencing similar problems. This problem has been occurring since September last year when the changeover of owners happened. But before I approach Fair Work Australia, I would like to know if this constitutes as age discrimination. What are your thoughts? Do I have a good case?

I live in Queensland, and I was listening to this presentation about Schoolies the other day. At one point, the presenter said that if a woman accuses a man of raping her, then it is up to the man to prove that he definitely did not rape the woman if he wishes to avoid a prison term. I find this surprising, unfair and hard to believe. Firstly, I was under the impression that you could only be found guilty if it was proved beyond reasonable doubt. And secondly, I always thought that in this country, everyone is innocent until proven guilty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfmother_%28album%2...

For their self-titled debut album released in 2006, the band released an Australian version of their album and an international version of their album. Yet, both of the albums contain almost exactly the same tracks except they're just in a different order. Why would Wolfmother, or any band do this?

If you said it should be lowered or raised, what age should it become? And why do you think this age is an appropriate age of consent?

Somebody told me that the bond is per person and not altogether as I previously thought. So if I'm sharing a house with 4 other people and it says "Bond is $1500" then does that mean each person pays $1500 or can we split it up amongst all 5 of us so each person pays $300?

My friends and I are planning to move out some time this year and I'm just wondering around how much we'd have to pay for utilities. There are 4 of us in total and we plan to rent a 3-bedroom house. I'm sorry if this question sounds a bit too generic. I checked on the Energy Australia website and I put in some information. It said the total would be about $4000 per year so that'd be about $70 per week which would make that about $18 per person per week. Does that figure sound about right?

3 years. :)

Left: a sliding door

Right: a hallway

Behind: my bed

I've given myself an economics problem because I've just learned about supply and demand elasticity, and I've confused myself.

A pizza parlour can supply consumers with a maximum of 30 pizzas per staff member per hour. The average amount spent by each customer is $10. This means that the supply is perfectly inelastic at 30 pizzas if the demand is 30 pizzas or less, and between 31 and 60 pizzas, the supply is perfectly inelastic at 60 pizzas. How would you draw a graph of quantity vs price to show that? I can't figure it out.

I came across the word and I didn't know what it was, so I looked it up. From what I've read, it doesn't actually seem like a bad idea. It seems like a good idea because that means the government spends less taxpayer money on welfare and more on other things. And it has people contributing to society instead of relying on welfare payments.

So why are people saying that workfare is a bad thing?

I became an Australian citizen last year and I have since then misplaced my citizenship certificate which contains my citizenship number (I think). I am required to write down my citizenship number on the electoral roll form because I will be 18 this coming election. Am I able to get a replacement certificate or do will I have to just keep looking for it until I find it?

I have been working at the store I work at for almost a year now and there's a store leader position available and I'm applying for it. In my letter expressing my interest though, what should I start the letter with? I don't want to say "dear" because it sounds too lame especially since the person I'm writing to and I are pretty chill with each other. But I don't want to say "To" or "Hi" because it sounds too unprofessional. What's the best way to start a letter applying for a job to a person you already know?