Archive for July 30th, 2009

Did I ever tell you that I like Traffic Infringement Notices and Defect Notices?

If I did, then I was lying.

A $90 fine for administrative nonsense, and defect notices for window tinting which is legal in New South Wales, but apparently not in the ACT, plus clear tail light covers (the bulbs produce red light…who cares if the covers are clear? I would have thought clear covers with red lights were a better and more noticeable option that red covers which have their shade of red altered by light bulbs which aren’t always very good at their job), and an exhaust which “might” be too noisy, but wasn’t actually tested before being defected.

Definitely a weird day.

Samuel

July 30th, 2009 at 11:06pm

Neil Mitchell Vs John Laws

A quite extraordinarily bizarre exchange between 3AW Morning Show host Neil Mitchell and retired 2UE Morning Show host John Laws, this morning on Neil’s show.

[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/NeilMitchellVJohnLaws20090730.mp3]
Download MP3
Audio courtesy of Crikey and copyright 3AW/Fairfax Radio Network.

Lawsie had a great career, but I seriously think he has gone a bit peculiar in his retirement, and I’m forced to wonder what possessed him to ring Neil…is he paying Media Monitors to alert him to mentions of himself? Or has “The Princess” merely grown weary of him talking to her instead of the country (as he said he would when he retired) and so he felt the need to call the most listened to show in Victoria?

I feel for Neil Mitchell who quite understandably had absolutely no idea what that was all about, or what John’s point was. I’m not convinced that John had any idea what his point was either. Perhaps that was the point…perhaps John was fulfilling a bet that he could still have his say, regardless of how trivial, on the radio and get the media interested in it. Today Tonight certainly were interested in it.

Congratulations John…now please go back to your retirement until you can be sensible. We both know that you’re a lot smarter than what you let on in that stupid exchange…you’re not doing yourself any favours.

And if you’re going to sue Neil, include me in your lawsuit would you? You have about as much chance of winning a lawsuit against me as you do against him.

Oh this has been a weird day.

Samuel

7 comments July 30th, 2009 at 10:42pm

Rush Limbaugh: Updated with Audio

First filed 3:02am
About half an hour ago I had the great pleasure of discussing government healthcare with Rush Limbaugh. It took half an hour of hitting “redial” and hearing two “this is not a free call” announcement per call to get through, but it was well worth it.

I took the decision yesterday that I had to call Rush regardless of how long it took to get through, after hearing him talking about the Obama administration’s proposed healthcare payment bundling for doctors…the similar bulk billing scheme has been such a massive success (sarcasm, if you hadn’t noticed) in Australia that I needed to draw the comparisons.

Many, many thanks to Rush’s staff for making me the first caller of the day.

I’ll grab the audio for you later, after it gets podcasted.

Update 5:42am: OK, here we go with audio. First though, one of the interesting things about being on a show with an estimated minimum audience of 14.75 million people (Talkers Magazine, based on Arbitron ratings data) is that people react. I’ve had some reaction on Facebook which has been great (I’ve never had a program director comment on one of my calls to talk radio before) and I’ve also been interested by some of the other reactions. “usazombie” on Twitter summed up my call thusly:

guy from au called rush Limbaugh and said things suck in au too

Well, sorta…close enough. The deranged people over at Media Matters who dedicate multiple people to scrutinising and commenting on every single second of the Limbaugh show in some bizarre effort to discredit him, declared me to be an “Aussie gentleman“…I was hoping for worse.

Rush took a call from an Aussie gentleman who said that Obama’s health care payment proposal sounds similar to the system they have in Australia, which is a mess. Wherever in the world socialism and liberalism has been tried, it hasn’t worked, said Rush, who asked if the caller can say with any knowledge whether Australian doctors are refusing to treat Medicaid patients. The caller said they’re not refusing treatment, they’re just opting out of the payment system. Rush said he has a friend in Australia right now who sent him this story about aborigines crashing a Wilderness Society party, which Rush said is just hilarious. The caller said it’s not just the aborigines who are upset with the Wilderness Society, a lot of people hate them because they’re shutting down the economy. Obama is doing the same thing here, said Rush. The caller wrapped things up by expressing his hope that the U.S. government follows Australia’s lead and doesn’t impose cap-and-trade. Rush said Harry Reid is trying to get it passed as part of the health care bill. It’s one of those things where they propose an amendment on Friday afternoon and have no debate. They’re going to try and get this done without anyone knowing about it because they know it’s in trouble.

One more break and Rush was back with a correction — it’s not cap-and-trade that they’re trying to sneak into the health care bill, it’s card check.

As deranged as Media Matters may be, they do provide a useful service just in case I need to check back over what day and time it was that Rush said something or referred to a story, long after the archives have disappeared from Rush’s site. At least they aren’t wasting their efforts entirely.

Anyhoo, without further ado, here’s my call to Rush. I’ve included the full segment as I think it leads in to the call quite nicely. If you want to skip ahead to the call, it starts at one minute and twenty seconds.
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/SamuelOnRushLimbaugh20090729.mp3]
Download MP3
Audio courtesy of, and copyright to, The Rush Limbaugh Show and Premiere Radio Networks

That was fun!
End Update

Samuel

2 comments July 30th, 2009 at 05:42am

I can’t tell if he is serious

It could just be a really good joke. This letter from this week’s editions of The Chronicle.

GOVERNMENT targets to slow and stabilise carbon emissions are universally and belatedly inefficient and will likely result in no northern hemisphere ice sheets, permanent El Nino conditions, a sea level rise of 10 metres, loss of the Amazon rainforest through drought and fire along with the Barrier Reef and salination of Kakadu this century.

The government’s approach to something for the environment lobby and something for the business lobby will fail. An action plan as great as that made in the Second World War, when Australia was prepared to spend a third of its economy on that national emergency is required.

John Keen
Page

(line breaks added for readability)

Sea levels rising by ten metres? I know that the ABC’s science guy did one claim it would be one hundred metres, but even ten metres is much higher than any official forecast.

But anyway, if the government’s move are “belated”, then why bother? Why not just adapt?

I seriously can’t tell if this letter was serious or a work of comic genius.

Samuel

July 30th, 2009 at 03:50am


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