A motoring writer has allegedly been clocked driving a $400,000 Ferrari at more than 230km/h on a West Australian road.
Police say traffic officers pulled over 57-year-old Australian Financial Review motoring writer Rod Easdown in the West Australian wheatbelt on Monday.
The V8 Ferrari California convertible he was driving, worth more than $400,000 and reportedly one of only two in Australia, has been impounded for seven days under WA’s tough anti-hoon legislation.
A News Ltd website reported a number of motoring writers were to test drive the car in WA.
Well, that’ll slow down the reviews in more ways than one. (Sorry, I just don’t have anything serious to say about this…the story doesn’t really need commentary anyway).
So 2CC have a new website again. I’m starting to have trouble keeping up with the almost annual changes to the layout of their website, but I have to admit that I do like the clean and simple design of the new site, even if I don’t understand what everything on there is supposed to do.
Here’s the new site.
The main difference to the front page from my perspective is the “now, next, then, later” box is gone. I’ll miss that box, but considering that each “now, next, then, later” box was a separate image, I can understand why they would get rid of it…any change to the program line-up would have meant editing at least four images. The “what’s happening at the station” box has been given a more prominent spot, and the “listen live” links are also much more prominent, as are 2CC’s latest podcasts which are also now easier to play, as the page for each podcast has a Flash MP3 player on it.
The right-side bar is interesting, as under the opinion poll box they have a weather and stock market box.
I like these, but I haven’t got the faintest clue what the dropdown box on the stock market report is supposed to do. I tried the various options and couldn’t see any difference. I’m sure that it has a function…it’s just not obvious to me. I could ask what it does (I think I will, and report back), but unless it’s blindingly obvious and I’m just thick, it could probably use some kind of description on the page. Other than that, I think it’s great, especially if the aim is to get people to use the 2CC website as their homepage. Update: I have been informed that the menu relates to how many stocks the graph compares at any given time. If you enter some stocks in to the box next to the menu, they will be graphed. Quite a nifty little feature. End Update
Another improvement is the presenter menu. It easily fits on one screen now rather than stretching to well below the bottom of the screen.
And the presenter page looks good too, having dismissed the 2UE photo backgrounds and only kept the heads of the presenters.
Also of some interest is the fact that the Tradies Post ads have a much more prominent spot and are easier to navigate.
On the whole, I think the new site is great, but there is one thing that I just don’t get. The new site has search engine friendly URLs. For example, Tim Webster’s page on the old site was at http://www.radio2cc.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=46 and on the new site it’s at http://www.radio2cc.com/presenters/tim-webster.html and yet for some reason, 2cc.net.au is still one giant frame serving up content from radio2cc.com. If it were me, I’d turn one of the domains in to a redirect rather than doing the horrid frame nonsense. I’d move the whole site over to the 2cc.net.au domain and turn radio2cc.com into a redirect to 2cc.net.au (or, if moving the site isn’t viable for whatever reason, do the opposite). It just doesn’t make any sense to me why, now that search engine friendly URLs are in place, they would want to use frames to hide long convoluted URLs from the address bar.
Dear to hello for the readings from town of sunny Cunnamulla in the Queensland which is town of much lovly for doing stop of visit on the holiday although there have been some of the clouds.
I have been do enjoy the drivings of to many places in of different of the Australia for doing good see of places as I have been doing want for since arriving here from the England after the Russia. I am think it is good to be do of see the places as I am proud citizen and must be do much of knowings as it is country of the wonderful and very good.
Here is photo yesterdayof taken in the near Bourke of animals with farmer. He did do think I was funny lady with stories of recipes to the all of pets. He did much nice the helpings of problem with car and was also of nice to be having make lunch with and we did swap of the recipes of cooking.
(Samuel writes: I can’t find the photo. I don’t think she uploaded it)
He has nice lady wife who does knittings and has cat. I did do draw diagram of the knitting instructions for wool coat of cat which I have done make for nice cat Slavcatchski although I am not think temperatures are of the colds therefor coat of cat and I am also gace revipe for the lemon and mango of tea.
I am do write of from computer in the Cunnamulla but must be do go as I have done write of the emails in time taking for the to Mother of Russia and lovely neighbour of next door Mrs. Lesley and she does do say that nice cat Slavcatchski is of good but doing naughty in the chasings.
Please be do of lovely. I am hope to be write in of time next wek from holiaday.
From Maritz.
Ms. Maritzkrozlavsky Throrglasnishozly
Alexa Longueira was walking down a Staten Island block and was getting ready to text message when she fell into an open sewer manhole, MyFOX NY reports.
Longueira suffered mild cuts and bruises and is expected to recover.
The teen’s mother says workers told her they left the manhole open and unattended for just seconds while they went to fetch some cones from their truck.
[..]
The Longueira family says they plan on filing a lawsuit.
So, let me get this straight…person walks down the street, not looking where they are going, falls down a hole, and wants the government to pay them for it? Wow, the logic of the people on this planet is getting weirder.
The local youth was charged with possess dangerous thing with intent to injure and intimidate police.
“Possess dangerous thing”? Not an “implement”, “object” or “item”, but a “thing”. It’s just not the sort of language you expect law writers to use is it?
Mind you, the rest of the press release was bizarre as well:
About 1:20pm, the male allegedly entered the police station and threatened staff with a bottle containing a concoction of chemicals.
After allegedly attempting to ignite the contents, the teenager was arrested and in the interests of public safety an exclusion zone was established around the premises.
Trying to ignite a “bottle containing a concoction of chemicals” to what end? And do we have any idea what sort of chemicals they were…do we even know if they were dangerous? Is it possible that the male merely was being threatening and had a bottle on non-dangerous stuff?
It’s such a shame that this case went to the Children’s Court, because the actual details of it would have been fascinating.
I haven’t seen them do this before. YouTube is currently completely down for maintenance. YouTube pages are all redirecting to a “down for maintenance” page, and embedded videos are failing to display.
One hopes that this doesn’t last for too long.
Update 9:44pm: Still partially down according to the YouTube people…but I can’t work out what isn’t back online! End Update
And the feature song is Dizzy. As for the video, I think this one is the best of the lot in terms of sound quality on YouTube…not much I can do about the twenty seconds of buzz at the beginning before the song starts though.
Dizzy
I’m so dizzy my head is spinning
Like a whirlpool it never ends
And it’s you girl makin’ it spin
You’re making me dizzy
First time that I saw you girl, I knew that I just had to make you mine
But it’s so hard to talk to you with fellows hangin’ round you all the time
I want you for my sweet pet, but you keep playing hard to get
I’m going round in circles all the time
Dizzy
I’m so dizzy my head is spinning
Like a whirlpool it never ends
And it’s you girl makin’ it spin
You’re making me dizzy
I finally got to talk to you and I told you just exactly how I felt
Then I held you close to me and kissed you and my heart began to melt
Girl you’ve got control on me, ’cause I’m so dizzy I can’t see
I need to call a doctor for some help
Dizzy
I’m so dizzy my head is spinning
Like a whirlpool it never ends
And it’s you girl makin’ it spin
You’re making me dizzy my head is spinning
Like a whirlpool it never ends
And it’s you girl making it spin
You’re making me dizzy
You’re making me dizzy
I’m so dizzy
GPS thinks I’m in a town called Narva, on the border of Estonia & Russia
Don’t worry, it’s just a result of the world getting sucked in to the black hole created by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s “global-euro-world-dollar-cent-yen-paso-Medvedev” world currency.
One of the many bizarre things to come out of the G8-and-then-some talkfest is this odd suggestion from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev…the hoary old chestnut of the single world currency has been floated again.
The Russian leader proudly displayed the coin, which bears the English words “United Future World Currency”, to journalists after the summit wrapped up in the quake-hit Italian town of L’Aquila.
Medvedev said that although the coin, which resembled a euro and featured the image of five leaves, was just a gift given to leaders it showed that people were beginning to think seriously about a new global currency.
“In all likelihood something similar could appear and it could be held in your hand and used as a means of payment,” he told reporters. “This is the international currency.”
Yes Mr. Medvedev, we all want to share in Zimbabwe’s inflation rate. Yes Mr. Medvedev, we want to start World War Three with the negotiations over how many “global-euro-world-dollar-cent-yen-paso-Medvedevs” our existing currencies should be worth. Yes Mr. Medvedev, I believe so strongly, utterly and thoroughly convincingly that this couldn’t possibly have anything to with the fact that an Aussie dollar can buy 25 of your Rubles whatsoever…you would never suggest anything just to get rid of that awful figure.
I have emailed the article to Maritz in the hopes that she has something to say on the matter in her column tomorrow. Although, I’m not sure if she will see the email as I think she has already left for her holiday. I hope she does though, because she isn’t a fan of Dmitry Medvedev.
Thanks to Heather Kydd for bringing this story to my attention.
Skillful piloting may have prevented a disaster for President Obama and his campaign last summer, a former federal safety official said Friday.
A report released by the National Transportation Safety Board indicates an inflated slide may have pressed against critical control cables, forcing the emergency landing of Obama’s campaign plane on July 7, 2008.
The slide inflated inside the tail cone of the campaign’s McDonnell Douglas MD-81 shortly after takeoff from Chicago’s Midway International Airport, the report said.
Investigators found evidence that the slide and a broken walkway railing inside the tail cone may have pressed against elevator cables that run the length of the plane. The cables are used to control whether the plane points up or down.
The plane’s flight crew struggled to level the aircraft’s nose, which continued to point upward after takeoff, but regained control by manipulating the control column and adjusting the trim on the plane’s tail, the report said. However, the flight crew noted the pitch control pressure required to level the airplane was higher than normal, the report said.
Former NTSB member John Goglia said the problem, had it continued, had the potential to cause a stall “at a critical point in flight.”
“It did have the potential of causing a catastrophic event,” Goglia said.
[..]
At the time of the incident, the pilot told passengers they were never in danger, and the Federal Aviation Administration said no emergency had been declared.
However, audiotapes released about a month later showed that after the pilot discovered he no longer had full control of the plane, he told an air traffic controller: “At this time we would like to declare an emergency, and also have CFR (crash equipment) standing by in St. Louis.”
Asked which runway he wanted to use, the pilot replied, “Well, which one is the longest?”
When you consider how long the average lifespan of a commercial aeroplane is compared to a consumer motor vehicle, and the fact that aeroplanes have a considerably larger chance of disaster should something go wrong (based on speed and height of travel, plus the higher number of people on board), it is absolutely amazing the amount of skill from pilots, engineers, air traffic controllers etc which goes in to generally keeping us all safe, and averting disaster when things do go wrong.
It’s just unfortunate that it takes somebody of a high profile to be involved in a close call for us to recognise the skill involved, and in this particular case, the considerable ability to stay calm under pressure, as the joking of the pilots proves.
This year in my area, the phone books were due to be replaced by April, however none have arrived as yet, and we’re already in to July. I can only assume that word of my disgust has finally reached the phone book deliverers, and they decided to get even.
The good news for me is that they failed to get even. There is an apartment block a couple blocks away which did receive their phone books earlier this year, in large piles dumped underneath their mailboxes. I noticed this a few months ago on one of my 3am walks, and have been keeping an eye on the piles since then. It has amused me that very few of the phone books have been picked up by the residents of the apartment block…I suppose that people in this apartment block are quite happy to rely on electronic telephone directories.
Anyway, I decided last night to relieve them of one of these sets of phone books as, after three months, I think it’s safe to say that the people of the apartment block aren’t going to need them.
So, if word of their failed revenge takes as long to reach the phone book deliverers, as did word of my disgust at their standard of dress, then I look forward to seeing what revenge they come up with in the year 2012.
Kevin Rudd has signed on the dotted line on behalf of Australia, despite the fact that Australia is not a part of the G8.
AUSTRALIA has signed off on a global deal to restrain global warming to two degrees which could mean Australia must do more to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
Errr, no. Greenhouse gas emission continue to skyrocket, but temperatures haven’t risen for about a decade, in fact they seem to be going down.
Anyway, the science of it (which Kevin Rudd and his “G8 and then a few” buddies clearly don’t understand) to one side, if they’re serious about this, it’s a serious worry.
Australian climate expert Will Steffen says limiting warming to two degrees means a global atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases of not more than 450 parts per million.
And for the world to reach that, Australia must cut emissions by 25 per cent by 2020, and by 80 per cent by 2050, he says.
[..]
Australia has promised to cut emissions by 5 to 25 per cent by 2020, and by 60 per cent by 2050.
The existing (albeit thankfully unpassed by parliament) targets are damaging enough. If they go ahead with the greater cuts, we might as well all pack up and go to a country with a sane government, and take our money with us. In fact, it looks like that’s what Kevin Rudd wants us to do:
Mr Rudd said international progress on climate change at talks in Italy represented “modest” but significant steps.
Meanwhile Mr. Rudd is using the hot air of non-binding agreements to try and ram through his Emission Trading Scheme.
The G8 had provided strong support to emissions trading schemes as a good way to reduce emissions, Mr Rudd said, adding the federal opposition should take note of this and pass the government’s scheme.
The forum aimed at making progress ahead of key UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December, which is due to ink a new climate pact.
“Right now I don’t think we are on track to get an agreement at Copenhagen,” Mr Rudd told [Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen]. “There are too many problems.”
It looks like I won’t need to lose any sleep over the economic consequences of the “G8 and then some” communiqué after all.
Metro has arrested a local father for letting his eleven year old son drive after he had too much to drink. The man and his son were stopped near Boulder Hwy and Twain. The man was arrested for suspicion of DUI and child endangerment and the child was released to a relative.
I’m struggling to work out whose driving would have been more dangerous. Over to the the courts to sort that one out now.
My moratorium on mentioning things which are related specifically to the Capital Radio Network has been lifted for the weekend, for reasons which will become apparent shortly.
I’m glad that it has been lifted, because there are two voice on 2CC this morning that I quite like hearing on the radio. Newsreader Jane Turner who is normally heard on weekdays, and Southern Cross Ten’s presenter on the State Focus program, and former regular presenter on 2CC, Mike Frame. Two voices that I haven’t heard on the same day for a very long time…too long in fact.
By now you have probably heard that Jerry Seinfeld has filmed an ad for the Greater Building Society of Newcastle (which, I should note, has many branches across New South Wales and Queensland), only the third business for which Seinfeld has ever done an ad, the others being Microsoft and American Express.
Well, this just isn’t the sort of thing you can keep under wraps, especially when you film in on the streets of New York. Back on the 11th of May, YouTube user Jchief117 noted that “Jerry Seinfeld was in Cedahurst, NY filming a 30 second commercial for Greater, a bank in Australia” and recorded two videos to prove it:
And yet it still takes a press release two months later for the media to notice.
If The Greater Building Society were an American company, the gossip magazines and tabloids would have been all over this on May 12.
