Posts filed under 'General News'
China’s bureau of meteorology are under strict orders to make sure that it doesn’t rain on the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in August:
CHINESE weather boffins say they have stopped the rain from falling in experiments aimed at guaranteeing a dry opening ceremony at August’s Olympic Games.
With no roof on the showpiece Bird’s Nest stadium, the Beijing Meteorological Bureau has been charged with developing methods of preventing wet weather spoiling what promises to be a spectacular start to the Games on the evening of August 8.
“Our experiments with rain mitigation have been aimed at light rain,” said Zhang Qian, head of weather manipulation at the bureau.
“With heavy rain it is more difficult. The results with light rain have been satisfactory.”
But if this is the best the weather manipulation people can do, then we’ll be lucky if a typhoon doesn’t hit the Olympics:
GUANGZHOU, China (AFP) — Millions of Chinese workers battled for a precious train ticket home Sunday as authorities flew in emergency supplies to areas stranded by the worst weather in 50 years.
Food and medical supplies were airlifted to the snowbound southwestern province of Guizhou and neighbouring Hunan where many people have been without power for more than a week, the official Xinhua news agency said.
[..]
The blizzards and icy temperatures that have lasted nearly three weeks now have stranded millions of people at airports, railway stations and bus depots in China’s south, central and eastern regions.
The weather has destroyed crops, hit industrial production, disrupted coal and food supplies and led to power blackouts, for a bill estimated at around 7.5 billion dollars, according to official figures.
At least 105 million out of the country’s 1.3 billion population have been affected and more than 60 have been killed, the government says.
Or perhaps it’s me that should be worried, the department of weather manipulation will probably unleash a cyclone on Canberra now that I’ve had a go at them.
Samuel
February 4th, 2008 at 10:11am
Once again it’s the 26th of January. If I ever manage to get my hands on a time machine, I would love to go back to the 26th of January 1788 so that I can watch the landing of the first fleet.
The national anthem.
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/AdvanceAustraliaFair.mp3]
Download MP3.
Enjoy your day, and the long weekend.
Samuel
January 26th, 2008 at 05:47am
Final list as at 6:52pm.
Australian of the year: Lee Kernaghan – Country music singer
Senior Australian of the year: David Bussau – A micro-finance specialist who works to help poverty-stricken communities around the world.
Young Australian of the year: Casey Stoner – 21 year-old World MotoGP champion
Local Hero of the year: Jonathon Welch – founder and leader of The Choir of Hard Knocks
Samuel
January 25th, 2008 at 06:49pm
A long weekend is usually a pretty good business period for the petrol companies, and a great excuse for them to mark up the prices.
For Shell though, this long weekend is not so good. Courtesy of livenews.com.au:
Shell service stations across the state ran out of certain types of fuel today, just ahead of the Australia Day long weekend.
The unplanned shut-down of two major units at the Clyde refinery caused the shortage.
Shell was forced to close pumps all over Australia as drivers hit the roads for a three-day weekend.
All premium unleaded has run out and only limited supplies of regular unleaded and diesel are still available.
It’s probably going to annoy a handful of motorists who pull in to a Shell service station, only to be forced to drive away without refuelling, but for the vast majority of motorists it’s a nice piece of poetic justice. Let’s just hope that don’t put the prices up after the long weekend to make up for the lost sales.
Samuel
January 25th, 2008 at 05:00pm
It almost sounds like a typical piece of spam…”Hello, my name is Jerome, I work for a French bank and I need your help to get $8 billion out of the country”. Well Jerome, if you want to send me a cheque…
It’s being called one of the biggest frauds in history. A junior employee of France’s second largest bank, The Societe General, has been accused of stealing about $8 billion dollars. Thirty-one year old Jerome Kerviel is the suspect, and he seems to have disappeared…or as news.com.au put it, “Mr Kerviel could not be reached for comment”.
The story is a tad confusing, with nobody, it seems, knowing whether Jerome profited personally from the debacle, or exactly how much he apparently defrauded the bank of. It would appear that Jerome has the authorities and the press chasing their tales.
One thing is for sure though, the all-powerful “they” that rule out lives say that money can’t buy you friends, and in the few hours after Jerome’s identity was revealed his list of friends on Facebook dropped from eleven to four. Could just be me, but I’m suspicious of the seven that un-befriended him, I mean that’s a billion dollars a piece if they’re all in it together.
As for me, I’m just waiting for the email from Jerome…
Samuel
January 25th, 2008 at 10:12am
And again it’s a day late. Martin, who has been trying to get me to link to his site since late last year…I’m still not sure that there is much reason to link to his site so we’ll just call it a birthday present.
Happy Birthday Martin.
Incidentally, looking back through the archives I can see one other link to Martin’s website, does anybody want to locate it? A small undetermined prize is on offer (Naturally Martin is ineligible to enter).
Samuel
January 16th, 2008 at 10:34pm
No, not for me, for Loadedog and his housemates.
It would appear that Loadedog is for one reason or another shortly about to become homeless having been given his marching orders from his residence in Reid after five years living there.
Loadedog has made a public request for a rental property, his specifications follow:
…we need a house to rent somewhere in the inner north of Canberra. Ideally it’d be close to Civic, on a block big enough to host the Backanalia, with a large shed, 2-4 bedrooms (at around $150 per room) and have a separate lounge/rumpus/studio large enough to host podcasts (around 5×4 metres is adequate).
Anybody who knows of (or has) such a residence on offer is requested to contact Loadedog either by email or through a comment on his blog.
Samuel
January 7th, 2008 at 11:26pm
Just hours after Indigenous Affairs minister Jenny Macklin told Sky News that the federal government has no intention of setting up a compensation fund for the stolen generation, federal finance minister Lindsay Tanner has told Sky News that victims of the Stolen Generation can take legal action against the government if it fails to establish a compensation fund.
Is this really the same man who told Sky News today that the government needs to keep a tight control on spending to try and prevent future interest rate rises?
Mr. Tanner seems to be just a tad confused about what constitutes “spending”.
Samuel
January 7th, 2008 at 01:54pm
Apart from the obvious reason that I did not steal children and therefore I have nothing to apologise for, we have the latest revelation that Aboriginal leaders are looking for legal representation so that they can launch a billion dollar class action against the federal government to compensate the stolen generation.
I will be more than happy to publicly distance myself from any apology to the stolen generation. It was a bad idea in my mind when I first heard about it as a child, and my opinion has only changed in the direction of it being an even worse idea ever since.
Samuel
January 7th, 2008 at 10:08am
Chris welcome.
The login, please. Download now, we have a backup cpanel registration. Ceramics, the result was confirmed.
Basic information, download cpanel results, “he said. Ceramic box left in the database, then for them. Firstly, export, import, and then on top of the page beonrodeu” another name and save the file “We have decided, Pressure, pressure, the pressure and gzip compression, and then click “Back”.
I have no problem writrcom_smf databases. Compression. Because the structure and the problems of language, the 20-megabyte files can be compressed, the standard 157 MB 157 MB unpacking. The structural problems, and the language.
Remember to get a comprehensive database on exports for the national elections, and not in the query of the database, it is a very important meeting of the cartel WordPress.
If you have trouble downloading information in the combination. Return slowly into the database, you can add additional information on this topic was discussed. Costumes?
Another problem was the case, please.
January 5th, 2008 at 04:53am
Whilst I would have preferred Pakistan to go ahead with their January 8 election, February 18 seems like a reasonable date. It’s not an overly long delay, it gives the electoral commission time to repair damaged infrastructure and it gives the late Benazir Bhutto’s family some extra time to make sure her political party is ready for the election.
As long as it isn’t delayed again, I think this is a reasonable decision.
Samuel
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:43pm
I am very disappointed by the death of Benazir Bhutto, she was one of the few people with the ability to return some sanity to the administration of Pakistan. Her death is a tragedy, but now that her family have stepped up to the plate to lead her political party to the next election, delaying the election because of Mrs. Bhutto’s death would be another tragedy.
I am concerned about one part of the fallout of this tragedy. For some reason, whether she was killed by gunshots, the explosion, or hitting her head on a lever as she tried to avoid the gunshots and explosion seems to matter. Why? What difference does it make? The poor woman is dead, and if there hadn’t been an assassination attempt, she wouldn’t be dead. Who cares which part of it killed her, the poor woman is dead because she was assassinated.
For once I agree with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the best way to honour the memory of Benazir Bhutto is for the Pakistani elections to go ahead as scheduled.
Samuel
December 31st, 2007 at 09:11am
Tim Webster just interviewed the person responsible for Sydney’s New year’s Eve fireworks display. After hearing the interview I have a theory about what we will see on the Harbour Bridge.
During the interview he mentioned something about “a new way of counting down”, and when asked what would be on the bridge he responded that he couldn’t tell us, but it would have “something to do with time…a timepiece”.
My theory is that the bridge will be used to countdown, either with fireworks set to form the various numbers from ten down, or possibly with a clock in which the second hand will light up with fireworks as it counts down to midnight.
I was planning to sit in bed and finish reading Stan Zemanek’s book on New Year’s Eve, but then I realised that I will be working until midnight. I will therefore be able to avoid seeing any of the fireworks (I’ll be ensuring that my TV Tuner is at home), and will count out the last five seconds of 2007 and the first moment of 2008 with the top of the hour time pips on 2CC.
Samuel
December 27th, 2007 at 11:12am
I’m sorry to bring the mood of Christmas night down a notch, but I have just heard the dreadful news that Jim Angel, semi-retired radio newsreader, has died due to a stroke.
Jim Angel at 2SM in 1978. Picture courtesy Wayne Mac’s “Don’t Touch That Dial”. According to Wayne, Jim was Sydney’s longest serving radio journalist, working at 2SM, 2UE and 2GB and heard on relay on many regional New South Wales stations from 1964 to 2000.
According to 2UE program director Greg Byrnes who was talking to Clive Robertson about it a short time ago, Jim passed away last night (December 24).
I remember hearing Jim and his remarkable voice reading the news when I was younger, and I remember my high school music teacher commenting on his wonderful voice one morning.
According to radioinfo, Jim was aged 67.
My thoughts and prayers go out to Jim’s family.
It was written on the Southern Cross Syndication schedule for the John Laws Morning Show that John Laws would occasionally crash the news for an important guest. I think Jim Angel could very well be the only newsreader who has had his news bulletin crashed by a presenter, only to become the important guest. Courtesy of Fairfax’s MyTalk website, here is the famous occasion where John Laws crashed the 9:32 news update and got Jim Angel to sing Winchester Cathedral.
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/JimAngelWinchesterCathedral.mp3]
Download Link
Due to this news I am going to make a late change to tonight’s Musicians Of The Week award and dedicate it to the memory of Jim Angel, a man who was more than willing to provide his rendition of “Winchester Cathedral”, a song I think was best performed by Buckingham. Coincidentally I’m fairly certain that this was Jim’s preferred version.
Winchester Cathedral
You’re bringing me down
You stood and you watched as
My baby left town
You could have done something
But you didn’t try
You didn’t do nothing
You let her walk by
Now everyone knows just how much I needed that gal
She wouldn’t have gone far away
If only you’d started ringing your bell
Winchester Cathedral
You’re bringing me down
You stood and you watched as
My baby left town
Oh-bo-de-o-do oh-bo-de-o-do
Oh-bo-de-o-do de-do- duh
After a couple hours going nuts trying to find a photo of Jim Angel anywhere online, it finally occurred to me that I have Wayne Mac‘s excellent book Don’t Touch That Dial in a book shelf downstairs, and if anything would have a photo of Jim, it would be that book. Sure enough a check of the index and a flick to the pages which mention Jim, and there was a nice big photo of him. Thanks Wayne, I owe you!
It was interesting searching online for the photo. Radioinfo, news.com.au and AAP Image haven’t got one…Jim’s voice, but not his photo, appears on the website of Highland FM, a community radio station he has been presenting Breakfast on recently, and Sky News’ website has a picture of John Laws.
Rest in peace Jim, and my deepest condolences to your family.
(Last updated 2:14am 26/Dec/2007)
Samuel
December 25th, 2007 at 08:20pm
It’s been a while since I published one of my news bulletins for Australian Independent Radio News on here, and whilst I could easily pick one from Saturday I would much rather do something different, and instead publish a report I filed a few hours ago instead. It’s not an overly important story on a national basis, but with tomorrow being Christmas and hopefully a slow news day, there is a chance it will get a run.
Suggested intro: For the second time in just over a month Canberra’s Lake Burley Griffin is closed due to health concerns. Samuel Gordon has more.
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/samuelairnewsdecember2007.mp3]
Download Link
Incidentally, this audio is not for reproduction without the express written permission of either Samuel Gordon-Stewart or Australian Independent Radio News.
Samuel
December 24th, 2007 at 11:37pm
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