Last one, I promise.

“Peter Costello is the world’s greatest hypothetical.”

Just now on Insiders the Boltmonster got all “don’t silence me” when Annabelle Crab tried to move the conversation on after he ranted about climate change stats for a bit too long. Then she showed us once again why she rocks.

Crabb: “Andrew, it’s heroic to present a graph that looks like this (indicates upward slope with arm) and say that it represents cooling.”

Bolt: “But since ‘96 the…”

Crabb: “But when the trend is so clearly once way you can’t pick an arbitrary point and…

Bolt: “But, spit, gurgle, blurrrrg…”

Crabb: “Andrew, I read your blog and I think it’s great. But this is not the time for this debate.”

Cut to George Megalogenis pissing his pants laughing.

Just now on Insiders.

“[Brendan] Nelson’s just saying… What I think Nelson’s saying, before he went on holidays and therefore became much more consistent…”

(source)

I’ve spent all week shortlisting songs for my entry in the GrodsCorp Muxtape Challenge and it’s bloody difficult work. I think I’ve narrowed it down to about 20 or 25 tracks which is still well above the twelve song limit.

So just a reminder that you should use this weekend to finalise your Muxtape playlist, upload the songs to the website, and email your URL to grodscorp [at] grods [dot] com by Monday. (Wednesday at the absolute latest since Spock’s got an extension.) Feel free to include a few lines of explanation to go with your Muxtape and be sure to give me your blog’s URL for linky purposes.

Happy muxing!

There was this girl, right. John Surname met her and told me she was a solid four star tap. Impressed, I asked Craig — who had also met this girl — for his opinion, and he awarded a solid no tap.

How can this be? Can two red-blooded males (well, one red-blooded and one slightly pink-blooded — I’ll let you decide which is which) score the same girl so incredibly differently and both be telling the truth? Is this normal? Does it indicate a problem with men, with the tapology theory, or both?

For the record, I reckon she’s a two star tap.

The Editor, John Surname, Jeremy Sear and Craig discuss:

* World Youth Day and World Youth Day in the media
* B. Hussein Obama on the cover of The New Yorker
* John McCain off the intertubes
* Ask A Barman
* Funniest things on the internets

** Because Ant Rogenous is at home desperately downloading the podcast recording he missed, use only the “Play in popup” link or the “Download” link. **

 

 GrodsThink 24 (15 July 08) [33:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Remember how I ranted a few months ago about totally un-1337 people and organisations lamely embracing technology to try and sell their message?

Even religion — smarting from the way that younger generations are beginning to turn away in droves — is embarrassing itself by attempting to use technological tools to reconnect with tha kidz. The Catholic Church has well and truly entered the 1990s by discovering the power of mobile phone SMS. They have been sending text messages to worshippers in the false hope that using semi-literacy for Bible passages will bring them instant cred.

Well, now the Pope has sent his first text message. And it’s an apostrophe FAIL.

“Young friend, God and his people expect much from u because u have within you the Fathers (sic) supreme gift: the Spirit of Jesus - BXVI.”

Aaaaargh!!1!

I was listening to ABC Radio National on the wireless last week and some dude from some anti-religious group said “are you seriously trying to tell me that there will be 400,000 young people all in the one place, all having a good time, and none of them will get together?”

I turned to Craig, who was with me at the time, and we said in unison: “World Youth Fuckfest.”

Today Cardinal George Pell took time out from rallying against evil condom usage and evil non-marital sex to implore the “western world” (read: not the muzzies) to have more sex.

One blogger supports “George Peel” (sic) and his call for non-muzzies to start “rootin” (sic), and is now planning his last minute trip to Sydney. No need to pack the “dinger’s” (sic).

Howdy, Grodsters. I’ve been quite busy and distracted this last week (as evidenced by my complete lack of posts) but I’ve been formulating a totally awesome plan for us all to get to know each other better. When you arrive, ladies can get changed in the bedroom, gentlemen need to put their keys in this bowl…

Just kidding. It’s the GrodsCorp Muxtape Challenge!!1!

What’s a Muxtape? It’s an online version of the cassette mix tapes that we all used to make in the 80s and 90s and share around with our friends. Remember how you used to spend ages agonising over song choice, sequence and duration restrictions, and then spend even longer fiddling with a dual deck cassette player’s pause and record buttons? Well Muxtape is much easier to use — you just upload 12 mp3 songs that are smaller than 24MB each and organise them into your desired sequence. Simple.

So the GrodsCorp Muxtape Challenge is to create a mix tape that best showcases you and your musical tastes. Either dip into your old favourites, upload new stuff that you’re into, or mix it up a bit. Just make sure the finished product represents you. Then email the URL of your Muxtape to grodscorp [at] grods [dot] com by next Monday (21 July) so I can reveal all GrodsReaders’ Muxtapes in the one post.

Garn then. Have at it.

The Editor, John Surname, Ant Rogenous, Jeremy Sear and Craig discuss:

* The Garnaut Report
* Art vs. kiddie porn (round two)
* World Youth Day sex propaganda
* Ask A Barman
* Funniest things on the intertubes

** Because Jeremy Sear is flogging Wii Fit to death, use only the “Play in popup” link or the “Download” link. **

 

 GrodsThink 23 (8 July 2008) [31:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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GrodsThink recording tonight. Time for you to suggest questions for Ask A Barman, and to tell us about the funniest thing you’ve seen on the intertubes this week.

Get thee to the comments.

Brendan Nelson has withdrawn the coalition’s support for an emissions trading scheme in the absence of similar schemes in the USA, China and India — a “pre-Howard position on climate change” as one journalist beautifully put it. Despite the fact that developing countries are never going to consider emissions trading if developed countries are not prepared to lead the way, Andrew Bolt thinks it’s a great policy from Nelson and the coalition.

Another brave but politically savvy call by the Opposition Leader… And Nelson’s demeanour in announcing this was also right. No histrionics, but still with a sense of moral purpose.

Nelson’s demeanour was right? Let’s take a look at the good doctor’s demeanour and moral purpose in making his policy announcement.

QUESTION: Are you saying there should be no emissions trading scheme until the post Kyoto arrangements are hammered out and China and India are committed?

DR NELSON: We must be ready to implement an emissions trading scheme as a market-based solution to address climate change and Australia’s contribution to it…

He then continues to dither for two more paragraphs, before providing a more solid answer to the next question.

QUESTION: Dr Nelson [inaudible] clear, regardless of when the start date of am emissions trading scheme would be, if we got to it and China, India and the US were not signed on, you would say that we should not start the scheme?

DR NELSON: We should not start an emissions trading scheme in Australia until we are absolutely confident that it is ready to commence and also that the rest of the world has a start date for dealing with climate change itself.

Okay. But there’s more detail needed.

QUESTION: Dr Nelson you appear to be adopting a sort of a pre-Howard position on climate change; that you’re not even committed to an emissions trading scheme in 2011-12 in the absence of further agreement at Copenhagen. Is that correct and have you given any thought at all to the detail? For example, would you support a slow start to a scheme if it did get up and running with fixed low prices for permits in the early years? Or alternatively the phasing in of different industries?

DR NELSON: Well, again the Coalition’s position has been for the best part of a decade that the whole world has to act…

Then two more paragraphs containing no details about how Doc Nelson thinks Australia should act.

QUESTION: So you’re no longer committed to a 2012 start date for an emissions trading scheme?

DR NELSON: Well again, we have always said that there has to be a genuinely global response…

So, “no” then?

QUESTION: Yes but Dr Nelson, that’s a [inaudible] change of policy… You’re saying that you’ve changed the policy?

DR NELSON: Well, what I’m saying to you is that there has to be a genuinely global response to climate change. That has always been our position. It always will be. Australia acting alone will be an exercise in environmental futility that will be destructive to our economic future. That has always been our position and it continues to be so. We would, we would expect…

QUESTION: But the answer is yes.

DR NELSON: No it’s not.

You poor, poor man, Brendy. I feel sorry for you.

QUESTION: And in the absence of a global agreement at that meeting, your commitment to an emissions trading in 2012 is subject to that, is that what you’re saying?

DR NELSON: Again…

QUESTION: It’s just a little unclear.

DR NELSON: Again, we will annunciate (sic) our policy, under my leadership, once we have carefully examined the Garnaut Report, the green paper, the other sources of expert advice that we are taking, and we’ll have a well-considered approach to it.

Australia can’t wait for you to annunciate (sic) your policy, Dr Dither.

But there was one more humiliation waiting for the opposition “leader”.

QUESTION: Dr Nelson, you say, you say you’re worried about the Greens in the Senate, but aren’t you throwing the emissions trading scheme’s future into their hands if you aren’t prepared to negotiate with the Labor Government and provide your numbers in the Senate to an emissions trading scheme.

DR NELSON: Well you’re putting words in my mouth and that’s not true.

If I could just say one other thing in relation to the Art Monthly photographs…

As usual, when the going gets tough Brendan Nelson resorts to schoolyard retorts and changes of topics. And this is the respectable demeanour and moral purpose that so impressed Andrew Bolt. “Hmm. Have we (correction: I) misjudged the man? Is he growing into leadership material, after all?” asks Bolta.

Not likely.

First there was You Watch.

QUESTION: You want to Prime Minister, how are you going to turn that polling [9% preferred Prime Minister rating in Newpoll] around?

DR NELSON: You watch.

Then there was Rohan Fitzgerald.

QUESTION: What do you believe that you can offer the Gippsland people that the Nationals can’t?

DR NELSON: Rohan Fitzgerald.

And then there was the Blanchett Test

…Kevin Rudd found the time to go and visit Cate Blanchett’s new baby. If he has got the time to do that, he has got the time to meet pensioners and seniors organisations including those people protesting in Melbourne and actually listen to what they have to say.

I mean [Rudd]’s got the time to go and visit Cate Blanchett’s new baby and that’s terrific and take a gift, and if he’s got time to do that then he or indeed the relevant Minister should be, Stephen Conroy should be getting onto Australia Post and saying look we’ve got a big issue in Traralgon about place of the post office.

But now we’ve got two new ones:

The Solar Panel Defence
Whenever a question about climate change or the emissions trading scheme gets too hard, Bren-doc pulls out the Solar Panel Defence.

If Mr Rudd is able to botch something as relatively simple as solar panels on our roofs it’s hard to have confidence that he is going to be able to completely redesign Australia’s economy to deal with climate change.

[…]

And Mr Rudd seems to be in a hurry to push through an emissions trading scheme very quickly, and in the process risks botching it in the same way that he’s botched other things such as solar panels on roofs…

[…]

If Mr Rudd can’t get solar panels on roofs right, I doubt that we have confidence in him to get this major transformation in our economy right.

The Hockey Distraction
This one’s awesome. You can almost hear Nelson’s head imploding as the Hockey Distraction non-sequitur comes out of his mouth.

QUESTION: Does it disturb you that one of the candidates, Jamie Briggs, who was John Howard’s adviser on IR and other things is having used against him his advocacy of WorkChoices as, by other Liberals in Mayo, is that [inaudible] is that something that would be best left behind?

DR NELSON: Well the only response I’d put to that is that one of my greatest mates with whom I share digs in Canberra is Joe Hockey, and he was the Minister. So there you go.

“So there you go.” Take that, you parasitic journos.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Kevin Rudd has only been Prime Minister for 7 months, yet today’s release of 3 separate job vacancy indices clearly shows that the economy is rapidly losing momentum.