GDAY WORLD #169 – Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette

Doug LaFollette

It’s my great pleasure today to have Doug La Follette on the show. Doug is a United States academic, environmental activist, and politician. He is the current Secretary of State of Wisconsin. Known as an environmental activist before running for public office, in 1970 he was a Wisconsin organizer of the first Earth Day for Gaylord Nelson, and co-founded Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade (now known as Clean Wisconsin) with Peter Anderson.

We talk about the history of the environmental movement, how you can figure out the global warming facts from the climate change disinformation, and what you and I can do to make a difference.

To get the facts, Doug recommends these websites:
STEPHEN H. SCHNEIDER, CLIMATOLOGIST
THE HEAT IS ON

1% of internet users download podcasts daily

In today’s news:

The Pew Internet and American Life Project said Wednesday that 12 percent of Internet users have downloaded a podcast, an increase from 7 percent earlier in the year.

However, only about 1 percent said they download a podcast on a typical day — unchanged from the survey earlier this year. The rest do so less frequently, perhaps only once.

link

I read this as “lots of upside”. 🙂

Stop laughing – it isn’t funny

That’s what Jerry Seinfeld had to say to Letterman’s audience during Michael Richards’ apology.
The full interview is now up on YouTube.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dufHYw-W6j4]

He can swim – get over it

God it shits me when the media in this country go apeshit over someone because of their sporting prowess. Ian Thorpe has retired from competitive swimming. Frak, with the blanket media coverage this morning you’d think peace had been declared in the middle east. Actually I don’t think that would get this much press.

Channel 7’s Sunrise show has declared it “Thorpe Day”. Get over it people. He can swim. Yeah – pretty fast. Great. Wonderful. Do you realize he kicks his feet for a living? That’s it. That’s his contribution to the world. Kicking his really big feet fast. Is this reason to get all slobbery over him like teenage girls at a Robbie Williams concert?

Bigger news this morning is that Robert Altman died aged 81. He directed 87 films and TV shows since 1951, including classics such as MASH, McCabe and Mrs Miller, Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts (I still fondly remember Julianne Moore’s full frontal doing the ironing)… oh and Popeye. Altman was Mr Ensemble. He had the ability to pull together a large cast of character actors and bring them together into a cohesive ensemble. If you haven’t seen those films, treat yourself this weekend.

GDAY WORLD #168 – Fight The Jolt!

To celebrate the TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF G’DAY WORLD this month I’m introducing the new new format. Helping me out today is my good good buddy Shane Williamson and his crapola microphone.

Shownotes:

Male chimps like a bit of MILF. – link

The concept of the “jolt” from Kalle Lasn’s book “Culture Jam”. – link

“Most Iraqis wish Saddam would be back in power now that they lived out the hardships of the occupation. The Americans did nothing but loot our oil and kill our people.” – link

fringâ„¢ uses your existing mobile internet data plan to make peer-to-peer VoIP calls, send instant messages and communicate with PC based VoIP applications such as Skype and Google Talk, at no extra cost. – link

BACKGROUND TRACK:

Polymorphic Convolutions

Download “Somptin Happnin'” (mp3)
from “Polymorphic Convolutions”
by Various Artists
Electronic Soundscapes

MUSIC TRACK:

Hall of Justus: Soldiers of Fortune

Download “Keep It To The Side” (mp3)
from “Hall of Justus: Soldiers of Fortune”
by Hall Of Justus
Hall Of Justus/ABB Records

best blog headline of the day

I do love a well-crafted headline… today’s winner is “This racism is making me thirsty.“, Ms Fits’ post on Michael Richards’ racist outburst from stage during his stand-up routine. I *still* haven’t been able to watch this on video. The link to AOL Video that Ms Fits has doesn’t work for me – you guys able to see this? Or find it on YouTube?

Pick My New Phone

Well it’s official. I hate my two-year-old XDAii. It’s hard-reset on me about 6 times during the last month. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t trust it enough to put any data in it. So it’s time to get a new phone. I’m finally going to get off the Microsoft Office crack as well. My XDAii is the only thing keeping me using Office and I’m determined to move 100% to using free, online services such as Google Calendar.

I’m also going to dump my mobile service provider, Optus, because their customer service sucks ass. My two year plan expires in December (coincidentally just as my phone dies???) and when I rang them up two months ago to make sure they cancelled my plan on the expiration date, their customer service rep I spoke with told me he couldn’t go that and that I’d need to ring them back closer to the date.
ME: “Why? I’m telling you now.”
DUMP OPTUS REP: “Because I can’t remember to cancel it.”
ME: “You don’t have, like, a COMPUTER you can put the information into?”
DUMP OPTUS REP: “Our systems aren’t set up for that.”
ME: “You guys made a $600 million profit last year and you don’t have systems that work?”
DUMP OPTUS REP: “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

So anywhoo… I’m thinking about getting a Nokia e61 on Three so I can use Skype over wifi via the Soonr client.

Here’s my phone wishlist:

– wifi
– 2MP+ camera
– expandable memory (pref SD card but MicroSD will do)
– quadband so it works in the US
– bluetooth that works
– can access my gmail and google calendar on it
– speakerphone
– GPS which will work with a mapping service

I think the Nokia hits all of these except the phone.

Ewan? Shane?

Rolling Stone interviews Sacha Baron Cohen

From Dan Krause over at Box Office Weekly:

There’s this guy, Sacha Baron Cohen, who is connected to Borat in some way… I think he’s his agent. Anyway, Baron Cohen gave an interview with Rolling Stone about Borat, and why you people are missing the point. And he’s right, of course.

First of all, understand that Baron Cohen NEVER interviews as himself. Even when he was doing publicity for TALLEDEGA NIGHTS he created an overbearing actor character for the publicity tour. So this is a big deal. It is the rare person who has been in the room with him and didn’t find themselves interfacing with Ali G. or Bruno or Borat.

The excerpt from the interview that is online is terrific. Apparently Baron Cohen has not done one single interview as himself in the UK since he became well-known in 1998. As Dan says, there is finally a reason to buy a copy of Rolling Stone magazine again.