by cameron | Apr 19, 2007 | Christianity, Melbourne, Uncategorized
How’s this for a cool way to enter the office each day?

Apparently this is the the Headquarters of Red Bull in London. Pretty brilliant huh. See more images here. (via PureProfile’s blog).
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Yesterday I had the privilege of listening to Phillip Goodman speak at the offices of E&Y in Melbourne. Goodman is the owner of clothing manufacturer/retailer Rivers. Wow. What a story. He talked for 30 or 40 minutes about how he started and built the company. Totally brilliant story. I invited him onto G’Day World as a guest for our “Melbourne’s Leaders” series but he declined. Apparently he avoids the press and prefers to stay under the radar, which I kind of understand. But if you ever get a chance to hear him speak, grab it. I can’t begin to tell you how many terrific anecdotes this guy has. It inspired me for the rest of the day.

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Yesterday I listened to Thomas Friedman’s recent talk at POPtech about “why this isn’t your parent’s energy crisis”. It’s brilliant. He explains how the USA is funding BOTH sides of the “War On Terrorism” by continuing to buy ever-larger energy purchases from countries in the Middle East who then donate large chunks of the money to Islamic fundamentalist organisations who, in turn, attack the US and US interests. He suggests that the only way to break the back of this addiction is to move as quickly as possible to green, renewable sources of energy.
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This image of Cho Seung-Hui from the video he sent to NBC is pretty interesting. Anyone else see a John Woo homage? I also love Cho’s rationale for his killing rampage:
“Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ to inspire generation of the weak and the defenceless people.”
How many times have I said here that Christianity was a violent religion that inspired (even justified) violence? The fact that the media is carrying this quote from Cho and everyone just accepts his rationale is interesting in itself.
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.â€
Matthew 10


But you have to admire the resolve of the NRA in situations like this. Despite the rest of the world thinking the US are completely frakking NUTS for allowing the amount of guns they have on the street, the NRA obviously enough photos of US Congressmen and women engaged in sexual congress with furry mammals that they just breeze through situations like this.
Did you see that they are actually GIVING guns away this week in Virginia?
They are calling it the “Bloomberg Gun GiveAway”. On Thursday two gun shops in the state of Virginia will stage a prize draw. Anyone spending more than $100 in either Bob Moates’ stores or Old Dominion Guns and Tackle will be entered, and the first prize a free handgun or rifle worth $900.
(link)
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by cameron | Mar 22, 2007 | Uncategorized
This story captured my attention this morning:
Jury awards Procter and Gamble $19 million over devil worship rumors.
Four Amway distributors who spread satanic worship rumors about Procter & Gamble have the devil to pay – more than $19 million worth.
A federal jury in Salt Lake City made that damage award to the household products company, which had pursued its claims for more than a decade in the courts.
U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart, who presided over the 10-day trial, has the option of adding interest to the $19,250,000 award.
The jury’s Friday verdict came after a dozen years of litigation. P&G filed suit against Randy Haugen of Ogden and three other distributors in 1995. The company charged the four had disseminated the devil-worship hoax through Amway’s voice-mail system.
P&G said the Amway quartet passed along the false story that P&G’s president had told a television talk show that his company was affiliated with the Church of Satan.
That never happened. But the Cincinnati-based maker of laundry detergent, soap, shampoo, toothpaste and other products claims the rumors still cost it millions of dollars in sales.
The Amway defendants say they merely repeated a rumor they believed at the time to be true.
One of the defendants was Randy Haugen, a “Diamond” in Dexter Yager’s group. On his website, someone has written:
The outcome was disappointing, and we still believe in the outstanding character and integrity of Randy Haugen.
Riiight. OutSTANDING character. He spread a rumour that P&G worshiped Satan. AND HE WAS SERIOUS.
Here’s a link to a transcript of the original voicemail message. That’s pretty… whacky. Here’s my point: what kind of person hears a story like that and thinks to themselves “yeah, that sound probable. I’ll pass it on.”????
Of the $20mill fine, Haugen’s website says:
That’s a far cry from the $5 billion P&G had demanded, and frankly leaves them with very little to show for a wasteful and spiteful decade of mean-spirited litigation.
“Mean-spirited”? Hmmm. Perhaps they were being told what to do by…. someone who cannot be named? And I don’t mean Voldemort.
It’s not just these Amway guys spreading the rumour. While searching for the P&G logo that a lot of the rumours center on, I found this site “The Swift Report“. This is from 2005:

A coalition of Christian groups is calling on the Department of Justice to block the proposed merger between Procter & Gamble and razor giant Gillette because of P&G’s ties to the Church of Satan. If the corporate marriage is approved, the new corporation will be the largest in the world to be controlled by Satan worshippers.
The groups, which include the Campaign for Families, Defend Our Marriages and the Coalition for Traditional Values, are asking the Department of Justice to block the merger on the grounds that it will give an unfair advantage to Satan in the battle of good vs. evil. The American Family Association submitted its own complaint, objecting to Procter’s support for what it calls “the homosexual agenda.”
“…an unfair advantage to Satan in the battle of good vs. evil.” Where do they get this stuff? If these people want to see the face of evil, all they need to do is look in the mirror.
Oh yeah, you have to be careful of that “homosexual agenda”. Didn’t you know? They are trying to make us all like them.
The part of the Swift site I like the most, though, is the survey which asks:
Which homosexual word in the National Spelling Bee did you find most offensive?
- mansuetude
- spheterize
- enclitic
- rubasse
- ouvert
Not being homosexual myself, I had to turn to the dictionary to discover what some of these words meant (okay, ALL of the words).
mansuetude : Gentleness of manner; mildness. (Note: isn’t that how Christians describe Jesus? Gentle of manner? Are they suggesting he was homosexual? Hmmmm. He did look like a bit of a girl. Okay – with hormone problems.)
spheterize : To make something one’s own: appropriate. (Note: as in “I’m going to spheterize me some of that spunky bloke’s ass.”)
enclitic : A clitic that is attached to the end of another word. In Give ’em the works, the pronoun ’em is an enclitic. Of course, as you all know, a “clitic” is: An unstressed word, typically a function word, that is incapable of standing on its own and attaches in pronunciation to a stressed word, with which it forms a single accentual unit. Examples of clitics are the pronoun ’em in I see ’em and the definite article in French l’arme, “the arm.†(Note: I think the homosexual use of this is “Oh, check out that big ol’ ‘omo over there with the pink boa around his neck.”)
rubasse : A variety of quartz colored ruby red by its iron-oxide content. (Note:… nope, I got nuthin’.)
ouvert : adj.- ballet : having an open stance or movement. (Note: “Oh I do love to get it on with men while they ouvert.”)
To be really homosexual, one must be able to use these words in a sentence.
Example: “Although I consider myself mansuetude, I must admit to the desire to spheterize certain gentlemen while they ouvert and the very thought of it makes me turn the colour of rubasse and lapse into enclitic use of certain pronouns.”
Ah, the Christians. They give me a reason to get up in the morning.
Disclaimer: I did the whole Amway thing for a few years back in the early 90s. The whole overwhelming “Christian values” of it always bothered the hell out of me. I struggled with it and finally quit. I did meet some great people though and I never had a problem with the business model. I do know some homosexuals. And when I first saw the film clip to Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga”, I did think Roger Taylor looked pretty cute in his wig and dress.
by cameron | Mar 20, 2007 | freedom of speech
Scenario: A student stands out the front of a high school with a banner reading “Bong Hits 4 Jesusâ€.
Question: Should he be allowed to? Can the school expel him on the grounds that his message is “pro-drug”? Or is that a violation of his freedom of speech? Can the student sue the Principal of the school for violating his free speech?
This is a real case going on in Alaska at the moment. Education Week has great coverage here. The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing the case and the justices are split.
For my money, this should be clear-cut – this is about speech, not drugs. Our public institutions, such as schools, may have anti-drug policies, but TALKING about drugs isn’t DOING drugs. It’s back to my argument about Nitschke. Our freedom to talk about subjects, as offensive as those subjects might be considered by certain members of society, is fundamental to a free society. As soon as we relax our stance on this issue, we’re on a slippery slope.
Your thoughts?
by cameron | Mar 20, 2007 | Melbourne, Podcast, Uncategorized
Big shout outs tonight to my old buddy Shane Williamson for chucking some cash into the Shave thing. Thanks mate. Oh and thanks Jesus. Shane recently sold a copy of the infamous Microsoft Bob on ebay for the princely sum of $15.50. I’ve often thought about when the time will be right for me to auction off some of my Microsoft memorabilia so as to maximize the return on my investment. When they are finally acquired by Google perhaps?
Another big shout out to my homies from Tassie – Bruce “The” Moyle and Q-Dog – from the Cool Shite crew. They were in Melbourne today for some event and we caught up for a quick bite afterwards. Always good to geek out with Bruce about movies and TV and as this was the first time I’ve met Q-Dog in person I was surprised to learn he isn’t gay after all. They have a real score on their show this week – an interview with Edgar Wright director of HOT FUZZ, the new Simon Pegg – Nick Frost comedy (the guys behind SHAUN OF THE DEAD). When I asked how they managed to get Edgar on the show they cockily informed me that HE contacted THEM. Bastards. Complete bastards.
by cameron | Mar 17, 2007 | Podcast, science vs religion
Robert M. Price is professor of theology and scriptural studies at Coleman Theological Seminary and professor of Biblical Criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute. He was also featured in THE GOD WHO WASN’T THERE. DJ Grothe had Robert on the Point of Inquiry podcast last week and he totally demolishes the historical argument for the Jesus hypothesis. You have to listen to this interview. It’s terrific. I wish I’d heard this before I had John Dickson on the show. Price is incredibly articulate on the subject. I’d love to have him on my show but there is no way I could do a better job than DJ did with this. I’d love to see how Christians respond to these arguments. Perhaps I should try to get Dickson and Price on the show together for a discussion?
By the way, DJ and his producer Thomas Donnelly are coming on G’DAY WORLD this week for a chat. I’m looking forward to that.