My nomination for Casey and Heather’s “Jerk Of The Week” on KXNT.
Your “Jerk of the Week” submission
Comrade Barry Bamster
Why should this person be the “Jerk of the Week”?
For lying about saving jobs (amongst other things) in his hilarious news conference last night. The unemployment rate is rising, not falling Comrade!
Your Name (Optional)
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Jerk Of The Week airs on KXNT Las Vegas shortly after 6pm Thursday (11am Friday Canberra time). Update: Now delayed until tomorrow for various reasons. End Update
And if you missed the Bamster’s press conference…here it is. This is the speech component, not the 11 questions “answered” in an hour bit.
If you’ve recently eaten at McDonald’s, you probably don’t want to read this…but I am forced to wonder how you find this in a machine.
A 40-year-old woman has been found dead in a machine at a Southern California food processing plant that is a major supplier for McDonald’s restaurants.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives say the woman’s body was found early Tuesday at Golden State Foods in the City of Industry, an east Los Angeles suburb. Investigators believe her death was accidental.
No other details were given about her death or about the woman except that she was an employee.
The Irvine-based company has distribution centers across the nation. Its Web site says the company supplies McDonald’s and developed the sauce for the restaurant’s Big Mac in the 1960s.
Ick! I’m so glad that I decided against eating there a few hours ago. Reading this after eating there would have been quite unpalatable.
(With thanks to Tammy for the link to the story, no matter how much it disturbs me)
President Obama causes eastern western Europe and Canada to view America more favourably…why am I not surprised when his political views are in line with their leftist leanings. It’s the people who are actually affected by his domestic policies who are the ones who are slowly but surely starting to dislike him.
As an Aussie, I have great confidence in the US, just not in Mr. Obama…but that could have something to do with the fact that I pay attention to US media reports and not just the reports which filter through to the media over here.
I’m enjoying your new show. Have a great weekend…looking forward to your call of Dogs V Eels on Saturday.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
Oops, I accidentally wrote “eastern Europe” in that email when I meant to write “western Europe”. As for the story in question, it comes from the Pew Research Center (complete with American spelling)
The image of the United States has improved markedly in most parts of the world, reflecting global confidence in Barack Obama. In many countries opinions of the United States are now about as positive as they were at the beginning of the decade before George W. Bush took office. Improvements in the U.S. image have been most pronounced in Western Europe, where favorable ratings for both the nation and the American people have soared. But opinions of America have also become more positive in key countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, as well.
[..]
opinions of the U.S. among Muslims in the Middle East remain largely unfavorable, despite some positive movement in the numbers in Jordan and Egypt. Animosity toward the U.S., however, continues to run deep and unabated in Turkey, the Palestinian territories and Pakistan.
Patient dumping and sub-standard healthcare is what the Obama team, under the guidance of now-First Lady Michelle Obama, created in Chicago, as Ainsley Earhardt reports in a special investigation for the Hannity program.
I was most interested to see that even people from Obama’s side of politics are pushing for an official investigation.
So if this is what they created in Chicago, what will the Obamacare socialised health care plan do for the entire US nation?
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) was urged to step in last week after Coles and Woolworths promoted new discounts of up to 40 cents a litre of petrol when consumers spent $300 on groceries.
It provoked a consumer frenzy, but independent service stations called foul, accusing the duopoly of trying to drive smaller competitors out of the market.
The ACCC’s petrol commissioner Joe Dimasi on Thursday said that after close inspection, there was nothing dodgy about the offer.
“We have formed the view that these one-off promotions do not breach the Trade Practices Act,” he said in a statement.
“Other players in the market have the ability to match the short term competitive pressures of companies such as Coles and Woolworths.
“This is competition operating in the interests of Australian consumers.”
Marie El-Khoury, owner of the BP service station on Sunnyholt Rd at Blacktown, continued her campaign against oil companies and supermarket giants by dropping petrol prices to 49.9 cents per litre between 7.30am (AEDT) and 8.30 on Thursday.
Last October, she led a group of independent stations across Sydney in dropping prices by 40 cents per litre for four hours to protest what they said were anti-competitive practices by oil giants.
During Thursday’s discount hour, Ms El-Khoury said she served hundreds of customers and sold thousands of litres of petrol, losing about 60 cents per litre.
A stunt which was repeated in May. If she, and her independent colleagues, can have temporary massive discounts, then so can the big players.
I should point out that the October, March and May stunts were in protest against the fact that petrol is being sold by major retailers (Caltex Woolworths and Shell Coles) at a lower regular price than the wholesale price at which many of the independent retailers can buy the product. It had nothing to do with massive discounts.
When it comes to massive discounts though, the real questions is whether the ACCC would have come to the same conclusion if Coles and Woolworths were offering the discounts permanently. In my view, they would have reached the same conclusion, because the retailers offering the massive discounts would have to lose many truckloads of money before they would be able to force smaller retailers to go out of business, and the smaller retailers could potentially offer a more attractive discount anyway, by virtue of not requiring people to spend an exorbitant amount in a related store first, and by using this discount and the expected increase in sales as justification to buy a larger volume of wholesale petrol at a cheaper price.
Ultimately I think the biggest problem for the smaller petrol retailers is that, because of their size, it’s just not viable for wholesalers to sell products cheaply to them, as the overheads on their individual orders are greater than the overheads, relatively speaking, on the orders of the larger retailers. What the smaller retailers need to do, and have shown an ability to do in the mass discounts of October, is co-ordinate their efforts…perhaps it’s about time that the smaller retailers formed an IGA (Independent Grocers of Australia) type alliance, where they remain independent, but work together under a single banner on promotions and wholesale purchases.
Protectionism favouring small retailers is not the solution here. The free market works, you just have to know how to play it to your advantage.
Australian scientists have found a way to boost crop yields in a move they say could help feed and clothe millions of people in a time of climate crisis.
Researchers at the University of Newcastle have found that by knocking out a gene from the genetic code of a tomato plant, it grows sweeter fruit and longer-lasting leaves.
Associate Professor Yong-Ling Ruan, from the University’s School of Environmental and Life Sciences, says the same technique could be used in a range of plants to boost crop yield and shelf-life.
OK, so it’s not quite the same, but you have to admit that there are some similarities to Tomacco:
Tomacco was originally a fictional plant that was a hybrid between tomatoes and tobacco, from the 1999 episode [of The Simpsons] “E-I-E-I-(D’oh)”.
The method used to create the tomacco in the episode is fictional. In the episode, the tomacco was accidentally created by Homer Simpson when he planted and fertilized his tomato and tobacco fields with plutonium. The result is a tomato that apparently has a dried, gray tobacco center, and, although being described as tasting terrible by many characters, is also immediately and powerfully addictive. The creation is promptly labeled “tomacco” by Homer and sold in large quantities to unsuspecting passersby.
A cigarette company, Laramie Tobacco Co., seeing the opportunity to legally sell their products to children, offers to buy the rights to market tomacco, but Homer refuses. Eventually, all of the tomacco plants are eaten by farm animals — except for the one remaining plant, which later goes down in an explosive helicopter crash with the cigarette company’s lawyers.
2CC and 2CA are on the lookout for a new senior journalist, which sadly means that Jane Turner (who is, in my opinion, Canberra’s best newsreader) is leaving. I would like to see Jane take over the anchor role on WIN News, but alas she isn’t sticking around this fair city. I will miss Jane’s dulcet tones and professionalism, as well as her wit which was evident when conversing with program hosts.
I wish Jane the best of luck for the future.
Anyhoo, in Jane’s absence, the following needs to be filled:
Senior Journalist
The Capital Radio Newsroom is searching for someone to manage and lead our news team.
The successful applicant will lead a full-time team of 3 and require the following:
Previous experience in managing a newsroom or at least 5 years news experience.
Outstanding people skills and be able to manage and direct news staff in a competitive market.
Strong presentation and writing skills.
A passion for news and be across local, national and international issues.
To be able to communicate with our audience via our talk station and adult music station.
This is a rare opportunity to join our group at a senior level.
If you have a passion for news and for making great radio, send your CV, demo in MP3 format and cover note outlining your news experience to:
Peter Davidson
Program Director
Talking Canberra 1206 2CC
I take all peculiar stories[1] from China with a grain of salt as I figure that they are just a result of the state-run media’s propaganda machine.
As for the underwear thief[2]…I’m assuming that I don’t want to know how he smuggled them out of the store?
Best wishes,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
The stories referred to in this email had been mentioned by Andrew’s producer a few minutes before I wrote the email. For your amusement, I’ve tracked down the stories and included them below.
A 14-YEAR-OLD boy drank gasoline for five years to obtain “energy” – just as his idols “Bumble Bee” or “Optimus Prime” do in “Transformers,” the Sichuan-based West China Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.
After the boy, in Yibin City, southwest Sichuan Province, had watched the animated TV series, he began to drink gasoline to become a “valiant fighter” like “Optimus Prime,” his father told the newspaper.
“He began to drink gasoline five years ago, when we found he liked smelling lighter fuel,” he said.
The boy’s mother owned a grocery stall, selling small goods such as lighters.
In 2004, she often found lighters missing two or three days after she’d bought them. She later found that her son had been stealing them.
The parents talked to their son and asked him not to do it again. “But afterwards we found our motorcycle’s gasoline was always disappearing, and one day when we found the boy had drunk a half bottle of gasoline stolen from the motorcycle, we were too shocked to say anything,” the father said.
German police uncovered over 1,000 pairs of underpants and more than 100 pairs of swimming trunks after catching a thief nabbing another three pairs for his collection.
The 46-year-old man was caught Sunday pinching three pairs of pants from a sports hall in the western town of Gelnhausen. Police then came across the enormous collection of underwear while searching his flat.
I had a strange dream the other night which started off with me walking through a door in to a corridor which had many doors…many many doors. I walked to the end of the corridor and opened the door on the right which took me in to a meeting room which was rather well lit, in no small part due to opaque white windows which were on the edge of the building and presumably facing north to catch the sunlight. The building seemed to be a strange amalgam of my old GPs second-last surgery, the Civic office of a place where I used to work but am not allowed to name, and the office set for the first and second seasons of ABC medical/legal drama MDA.
I sat down at the meeting table thinking that I could use a cup of coffee, and was followed by a number of other people who had also come for the meeting. The meeting was attended by a number of people with whom I used to work at a previous workplace, some of whom no longer work there, one person from my school days, and was chaired by the Chairman of 1WAY FM’s board.
The meeting didn’t appear to have any purpose, but everyone seemed to have a strong view about whatever it was that was being discussed, with most views being dismissed by the chairman as “not having anything to do with diagrams”. A few minutes in to the meeting, and mid-argument about crayon colours, a number of people walked in to the room to join the meeting late. They were chastised by the chairman for being late but were quickly forgiven when it became apparent that they had brought coffee…enough for them and for the chairman.
At this point I lost it, drew a picture of a cup of coffee, and stormed out. I was joined by everyone else who didn’t have coffee (they, for some reason, were carrying their pictures of cups of coffee). They announced that they were going to get a cup of coffee from the coffee stand outside the front gate of the school grounds, as it has now become apparent that the amalgam building was actually the refurbished first floor of Ainslie Primary School, replacing the area where the library used to be. I, however, decided to get coffee from the house on the corner, across the road, with the green fence, as they had a dog (this dog used to stand up at the fence and bark, quite menacingly, at people who walked past, when I was in primary school).
To get there, I started spinning around in circles whilst walking. Once I got to the fence I realised that the people there had moved out a long time ago, and that I should go to the coffee stall outside the school fence, so I span over to there and somehow beat everyone else there…however I let them buy coffee first as I was very dizzy. The coffee stall was staffed by twins who both happened to look like my year six teacher Mrs. Brophy, except with blonde hair, and they both decided to charge me double for my coffee because I didn’t have a nice picture of a cup of coffee on me. I decided to pay by singing, at which point the dream ended.
The dream was strange…but at least it wasn’t another dream in which I was being chased around by a lunatic with an axe. I had another one of those dreams the other night but I don’t remember the details.
I love job ads, despite the fact that most of them are of no use to me. The main reason I love them is because so many of them are written so badly that they are highly amusing.
Currently we are looking for a person who is outstanding and happy with fast and team- work environment.
[..]
Compliment Criteria.
[..]
Assist Exe. Producer and Line Producer, Assist over all filming production procedure on location site.
[..]
The successful applicant will:
– Enjoy some hard works with co-operative mind.
– Control the balance between relaxes phase and fast working season.
But my favourite line of all…
“better don’t” just sounds like it’s supposed to read “better not”, which makes me wonder what happens if I do apply for it.
I am do the write of from the Port Augusta today which is good town of South Australia and nice break place from the long time of drivings as I have been do the much travel in the Queensland and Northern Territory before doing come to here. I did do pass through the town of Coober Pedy which was much in the intersting and as most of people do live under the ground.
I am to be drive to Adelaide tomorrow and then do see some of the Victoria beofre I am come home in later times this week. I am hoping to see the lovely town Melbourne of before do come home.
This has been lovely trip on the drivings and I have seen much of the Australia and have been do meet many good people of outback who are mostly of the very nice. I am do much miss of Slavcatchski and will be do ring to lovely neighbour Mrs. Lesley of Next door in shortly to be do see of wellness.
I am do hope that all is well for you.
From Maritz
Ms. Maritzkrozlavsky Throrglasnishozly
I just listened to all of Andrew Moore’s new “Wake Up Sydney” show on 2GB and I have to say that I like the idea of the format, but it needs a bit of work before it can reach its potential.
Traditionally, overnight talk radio is a combination of very long shifts and lengthy conversations with callers. This works well to the extent that not a lot of people are listening overnight, and those that are tend to like the more intimate and detailed nature of the shows, however it suffers from the problem of the shows just being too long, making it far too easy for audiences to switch off.
Andrew’s new show strikes me as an attempt to revive the 3am “dead hour” in which calls tend to be scarce, resulting in long rambling conversations just to keep the interactivity going, by running a fast paced news oriented show where listener interaction isn’t crucial, but certainly helpful. The show appears to be aimed at people who start work early in the morning (presumably people starting work between 4am and 5am) who probably don’t have much time to call in, but would like to hear about what’s going on in the world rather than hear a caller rambling about something (not that all 3am talkback radio callers do that…but the 3am to 5am talkback block does tend to invoke a lot of “mildly incomprehensible calls about not much”, with the calibre of call starting to pick up from around 4:30.
I was impressed with Andrew’s show, especially the “remember when” segment where he chatted with 2GB’s “Money News” host Ross Greenwood about the history of ATMs and life before the ATM (I reckon that segment was pre-recorded…but only because I doubt that Ross would have woken up to chat about ATMs at 3:40…it did sound live though), and the two interviews on the subject of the Jakarta bombing. Between these segments Andrew probably read half of the AAP Newswire, a handful of emails, and took two or three calls (I have the honour of being the first caller to the show, which is a bit like having the honour of being the first person to set off the theft detector at Big W in Civic, although the latter was accidental).
The faster format does make the lower amount of interactivity very noticeable though, especially straight after a slower, more traditional overnight show. They probably both have the same amount of callers and emailers, but the faster format, at that hour at least, does make it feel like the host is carrying the show and filling time a bit with some of those news stories, as the listener contributions aren’t dwelled upon as they would be in a slower format. (Sorry, dense sentence, I’m tired and just want to make my point).
Ultimately I think the format has merit and is an interesting break from the traditional overnight show, and it will probably appeal to people who are waking up that early. I think it probably needs an extra interview or segment on standby to break the “newsreader audition” feel that bits of the show have, but with weekdays available to pre-record bits and pieces, I don’t think that will pose a problem. And to the same extent, a slightly news story heavy show on Mondays would be a good lead-out for the weekend…I just don’t think it will work every day of the week. Perhaps the solution is to have Harley Carnes and Adam Gilchrist (breakfast show US and UK correspondents respectively) on the show on a rotating basis?
Anyway, I liked the show. I think it, like any new format, needs a bit of ironing out, but I think 2GB have a winning format here…I just pity Andrew having to start work in the very small hours of the morning so that he is prepared for a 3:30 on-air start, and then having to back up with sport news on the breakfast show. Starting work at 3am or so for a breakfast show is bad enough, but starting at 1am or thereabouts is something which I would prefer to not think about.
Wake Up Sydney with Andrew Moore can be heard from 3:30am to 5am on 2GB
This week’s award goes to John Williamson, and the feature song is Old Man Emu.
Let me tell you of an interview with an Old Man Emu
He’s got a beak and feathers and things, but the poor old fella ain’t got no wings
“Aren’t you jealous of the wedge-tail eagle?” – dom ba da littra da da da
(Spoken in tempo) “While the eagle’s flying round and round, I keep my two feet firmly on the ground
Now I can’t fly, but I’m telling you, I can run the pants off a kangaroo”.
doo dee ba doo doo doo , boo da da doot doo doo doo
He can’t fly, but I’m telling you, he can run the pants off a kangaroo.
Well he was the model for the fifty cents – oom ba da littra da da da
The designer should have had more sense – oom ba da littra da da da
“If you take a look, it’ll prove to you, ha ha ha I ran the pants off that kangaroo”.
Doo dee ba doo doo doo…Boo da da doot doo doo..
Take a look it’ll prove to you, he ran the pants off the kangaroo.
He can’t loop the loop like a cockatoo – Oom ba da littra da da da
Swoop and toss like an albatross – Oom ba da littra da da da
“You silly galah, I’m better by far, than a white cockatoo or a budgerigar;
They squeak and squawk and try to talk, why me and them’s like cheese and chalk”
Ba da da Doo dee ba doo doo doo…Boo da da doot doo doo doo
He can’t fly but I’m telling you, he can run the pants off a kangaroo…
Well the last time I saw Old Man Emu – Oom ba da littra da da da
He was chasing a female he knew – Oom ba da littra da da da
As he shot past I heard him say “She can’t fly, but I’m telling you
She could run the pants off a kangaroo”. –
Ba da da Doo dee ba doo doo doo Doo dee ba doo doo doo
She can’t fly but I’m telling you, she can run the pants off a kangaroo
Well there is a moral to this ditty – Oom ba da littra da da da
Thrush can sing but he ain’t pretty – Oom ba da littra da da da
Duck can swim, but he can’t sing, nor can the eagle on the wing
Emu can’t fly, but I’m telling you, he can run the pants off a kangaroo.
Well the kookaburra laughed and he said “It’s true, oom ba da littra da da da,
Ha Ha Ha Ha Hah Hoo, He can run the pants off a kangaroo Hoo Ha Ha Ha Ha Hah Hoo Ha Ha Ha Ha Hah”
Billy Graham is one person who I have been suspicious of for quite some time. There’s just something about him which, to me, doesn’t seem right. I suppose the easiest way to summarise my feeling is that I’m not convinced that he comes in earnest or that he believes a lot of what he says.
Billy Graham, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the name, is one of the most famous (perhaps the most famous) evangelists of the last hundred years. He is an Evangelical Christian from North Carolina.
Dixon, who died in Washington in 1997, was at one time the most celebrated psychic in America, if not the English-speaking world. She was also a fixture in Washington, a grand doyenne who corresponded with presidents and was one of Nancy Reagan’s astrologers. She grew wealthy as a nationally syndicated columnist and author of seven books. Her most famous prediction was the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
[..]
On July 26, virtually everything the prognosticator owned in her Dupont Circle townhouse will be sold to the highest bidder. After a five-day exhibition starting Tuesday, all of the items — Dixon’s 19th-century alms box, files of typed transcripts of her visions, her Chanel hats, 80 pieces of furniture and her 1993 datebook filled with celebrity birthdays and astrological notations — will be sold to the highest bidder.
[..]
Dixon kept everything. There are several letters from Ronald Reagan to Dixon and her husband, James, a Washington real estate executive who died in 1984, plus books, letters and telegrams from Billy Graham, Brigitte Bardot, Betty Ford, John Glenn, Joan Crawford, Richard Nixon and Harry Truman.
(emphasis mine)
Psychic activity, a form of Divination, is outlawed many times in The Bible, indeed Deuteronomy 18:12 says:
For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.
And yet here we have Billy Graham writing to this psychic many times.
I’ve made up my mind, you can draw your own conclusions.
Every now and then an idea strikes me which is so utterly stupid, that it could make a high rating television show. This one occurred to me while I was reading one of Steady Eddie’s Facebook posts where he gives Ten’s new show The 7pm Project a maximum lifespan of three weeks (which, incidentally, is the amount of time I gave Nine’s horrid attempt at reviving Wheel Of Fortune) and noted that it will disappear when Masterchef returns anyway.
As much as I hate cooking shows and wish Masterchef would die, his mention of Masterchef and The 7pm Project in the same sentence gave me an idea.
Chatty news shows seem to struggle to survive outside of morning timeslots, recent examples include The Catch Up on Nine and This Afternoon which was also on Nine, but cooking shows, especially when mixed with a reality format, seem to flourish, so my idea is this.
A chatty news show based in a kitchen, where the hosts are cooking and explaining their cooking while discussing the news issue of the day. Optionally you could have judges who taste the food. Importantly the audience can “vote off” hosts and have them replaced with “contestants”, so eventually the show would be entirely hosted by “regular, ordinary, everyday people” discussing the news of the day whilst cooking. Optionally, prizes could be available to the person who produces the best food each night, as judged by the judges, and for certain lengths of time that each contestant is able to stay on the show without being voted off. The best cook each night should be immune from being voted off that night.
I think it would rate, but I wouldn’t watch it as I’m not a fan of reality game shows or cooking shows (which is probably why it would rate…a lot of shows that I hate, rate really well).
