Two Canberra Raiders NRL players have been suspended pending a police investigation into a pursuit through Bruce last night.
According to AAP, Todd Carney and Steve Irwin are the suspended players.
ACT Police say a 20-year-old man handed himself into the City Police Station last night, and faces three charges including failing to stop when directed by police, negligent driving and driving whilst disqualified.
Whilst AAP, the Raiders, ACT Police and the NRL have failed to name the twenty year old, it is clear from the Raiders website that Todd Carney is twenty years old, and Steve Irwin is twenty-three.
As there is an ongoing police investigation here, comments will not be allowed on this post, and I remind you that the traffic offences are only alleged at this stage.
Thanks to 2GB’s Continuous Call Team via 2CC for the tip-off.
Update 3:52pm: Added link to public version of AAP article. End Update
Well my theory about the Titans not being able to handle the wet at the Dragons home ground was accurate!
Anyway I was just wondering what you think of Seven's new morning show, "The Morning Show" with Kylie Gillies and Larry Emdur. I just don't think that is a good combination and I doubt it will see the end of August, however I would be happy if Larry hosts half an hour of it from the Wheel Of Fortune studio, perhaps Kylie could spin the letters? I think the morning is a great timeslot for Wheel Of Fortune!
I’m starting to wonder whether I have any hope of finishing above 50% in the NRL, especially now that the number of correctly tipped AFL matches has reached the same level as the NRL despite having had 14 less matches to tip.
Just a quick reminder that Grass Roots screens on ABC Television at 12:05am (see this post from last week for details). Don’t worry if you missed the first episode, you’ll catch up fairly quickly.
During the week I told you all about how I was happy with the budget, and Maritz, a Russian lady who now lives here, did much the same thing, however a poll out today shows that had an election been held yesterday, John Howard would have lost his seat to Maxine McKew. Of course political polls run in the last week (especially those with a sample group of 800 people) are of minimal value and we won’t really start to see the budget reaction until next weekend, but it does make for a fun headline…especially seeing as an incumbent prime minister hasn’t lost their seat since 1929.
One poll that is valuable though is last week’s Weekly Poll:
I was actually asked during the week why there wasn’t an option for “Exactly eight hours”…well people don’t really sleep like that, they might get eight hours sleep, but it will usually be just over, or just under…as it turned out, it was probably just under. The winning result was no surprise, and “Between eight and ten” was no surprise for second, but the number of people who regularly get less than four hours of sleep is a worry. It seems that very few get the luxury of the other end of the scale, and I can honestly say I wouldn’t want to sleep that much.
Today I purchased some items from a department store which offers those petrol discounts if you spend a certain amount, and I, for a change, actually spent enough to get one of those discounts. I then had a look on the back of the receipt at some of the offers, the least valuable of which was a free coffee…this got me thinking, 60 litres of petrol discounts is $2.40, whereas a cup of coffee is about three dollars.
In that case, why would I want to surrender the docket for the petrol discount when I can surrender it for a choice of half a dozen more valuable things?
And I wonder how much the department store marked up the prices to cover the petrol discount?
This week’s Friday Funny was sent to 2UE’s John Kerr by George in Queanbeyan
A Minneapolis couple decided to go to Florida to thaw out during a particularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the same hotel where they spent their honeymoon 20 years earlier. Because of hectic schedules, it was difficult to coordinate their travel plans. So, the husband left Minneapolis and flew to Florida on Thursday, with his wife flying down the following day. The husband checked into the hotel. There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an email to his wife. However, he accidentally left out one letter in her email address, and without realising his error, sent the email.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned home from her husband’s funeral. He was a minister who was called home to glory following a heart attack. The widow decided to check her email expecting messages from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she screamed and fainted. The widow’s son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:
To: My loving wife
Subject: I’ve arrived
I know you’re surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now and you are allowed to send emails to your loved ones. I’ve just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then. Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.
P.S. sure is devilishly hot down here!!!!!
Do you have something you would like to contribute to Friday Funnies? If so, email it to samuel@samuelgordonstewart.com. All contributions welcome!
NRL Round 9 Sea Eagles v Eels Sharks v Broncos Knights v Warriors Cowboys v Panthers Rabbitohs v Raiders Roosters v Titans Tigers v Dragons Storm v Bulldogs
AFL Round 7 Kangaroos v Bombers Magpies v Blues Power v Tigers Lions v Crows Saints v Swans Cats v Eagles Bulldogs v Demons Dockers v Hawks
Well I have to agree that all of these media organisations joining forces to protect freedom of information is a good thing, but I think you and Jason Morrison are right that having the company executives standing side by side presenting speeches reminiscent of politicians was the wrong way to present the story. Perhaps if we are lucky we will get all of the big names from the media outlets, people who are actually recognised by the general public, standing side by side at the next press conference…and I think you would find that the public would trust the collective stance of Kerry O'Brien, John Laws, Alan Jones, Ray Martin, Piers Ackerman and others more than a bunch of company executives. If you could get them all to stand up together, I think the public would take notice.
Of course I think Yes Minister did a very good job of showing the quick shift away from open government in politicians' minds following an election win, in the episode "Open Government". If I remember correctly they came to the conclusion that they supported open government…as long as it was in the public interest. They defined the "public interest" in a later episode where Jim Hacker MP wanted to stop an embarrassing interview from being aired by the BBC…from memory it went something like this:
Jim Hacker MP: "Well it's not in my interest, and I represent the public, therefore it's not in the public interest!".
What drives me nuts is the way cinemas advertise a movie to start at a certain time, yet the pre-movie ads start five minutes later, and the movie starts at least twenty minutes after the advertised start time.
I wouldn't mind if the ads started on time, but it's just plain annoying having the ads start late and then the movie start really late.
I found the interview you had about television programming practices after the 7:30 news to be quite interesting, and it certainly explains why I don't watch much television any more…the stations that are targeting me are putting on shows I either don't like or just don't want to see (for example CSI, good show but it's far too predictable and I'm bored with it), and the other networks are trying to catch a different demographic with shows I'm even less interested in.
Apart from that I think television programming in general, especially during prime time, is getting worse. I remember a time not that many years ago when I would be excited about the shows that were going to be on at night…now I'm regularly missing shows I do like because good shows are far too intermittent and I'm usually doing other things. I used to be able to remember what shows were on by routine, but now it's a matter of "show a" followed by two hours of doing something else and hopefully remembering that "show b" is on at 10:30 (and the show will probably be ten to fifteen minutes late anyway).
What I'm noticing now is that a lot of the good shows are being pushed back to really late at night, and then get shuffled around so much that I'm better off just buying the DVD.
It looks like Maritz (I could have been certain there was an S and another R in that name), a seemingly very polite Russian lady who has recently been emailing various radio presenters, has found this website due to a photo of 2UE presenter Paul Makin, and would like to share her thoughts about the federal budget with us. I was tempted to add this as a comment to my budget editorial, but Maritz has put so much effort in to her letter, and sent it to letters@samuelgordonstewart.com, that it should get front page prominence as a Letter To The Editor.
Dear Mr. Samuel,
I have been writing this email and the similar ones to the good people on the 2UE and the 2CC but I do not have the blog and would like people to see it in the fullness please. I found you by the picture of the lovely Mr. Paul Makin from the 2UE and I hope you can be able to please be assiting of the helpfulness please. This I think is my better letter so far and it was to Mr. John Stanley earlier. He read some little bits of it which was nice, he made it clearer than I can.
I am writing to you to let you know of my thoughts about the nice budgets of the government man Mr. Costello last night.
As the lady previously from the Russia I feel very privileged to be in this country of the wealthyness to spend the money on the things that need the spending on them without causing the issued to the budgets. Many of the spendings are on the things of very good like education and roads, and the tax cuts and payments are the very nice as well. I think, although I have not been here for all of that long, that I Mr. Costello is the very clever man for all he has done.
I am becoming the citizen of this country in later month July and I think the budget from Mr. Costello provings that I have made the decision correctly for moving to this country.
Please be having a lovely day.
From Maritz
Ms Maritzkrozlavsky Throrglasnishozly
This is your chance to set the agenda on Samuel’s Blog, all you have to do is send a Letter To The Editor to letters@samuelgordonstewart.com. Your letter can be about almost anything, and it can be from any part of the opinion spectrum, as long as there is some point to your letter. I don’t have to agree with your letter, but I am moderating, so the usual no defamation etc rules apply. For more details click here.
I know this is a bit short notice, but I have a spare ticket (courtesy of 2UE and 2CC’s At The Movies with Dale Sinden and Simon Foster, Sundays 6pm) to tonight’s 7pm screening of Perfect Stranger with Bruce Willis and Halle Berry at Hoyts in Woden.
For some crazy reason I am opening up the offer to all of you, first one to request it by email to samuel@samuelgordonstewart.com gets the ticket.
The only condition is that you must be able to get to the cinema by 6:55pm, other than that you can do what you want, you don’t have to sit with me if you don’t want to…and if you’re really deranged you could even get the ticket and just walk out the door…although why you would do that is beyond me.
If I get no interest by 6:15pm then the offer is closed.
More details for the lucky recipient of the ticket.