Today I’m chatting about Haiti. To understand why many people are concerned about the USA sending thousands of marines into Haiti after the recent earthquake, you have to understand the history between these two countries. Of course, you won’t hear much of this in the mainstream media, as they tend to have amnesia. However a little research shows that America has had its corporate paws all over Haiti for a century and the Haitian people have suffered as a result.

My first No Illusions podcast for 2010! Today I’m talking about the Australian Government’s “clean feed” with three guys who know a lot more about it than I do: Stephen Collins (@trib), Peter Black (@peterblackQUT) and Jim Stewart (@jimboot). This episode was recorded with a live studio audience. Well, okay, they weren’t in a studio, they were on my uStream channel, but I’ve always wanted to say that.

Rangan Srikhanta is the Executive Director, One Laptop per Child Australia. On this show he chats with me about their efforts to get laptops into the hands of kids living in remote regions of Australia. The idea to speak with OLPC came out of a recent Geeks Who Care meeting we had in Brisbane. OLPC have a terrific program running called the “Window of Opportunity Initiative” which enables all of us to contribute to getting these wonderful devices out where they are needed.

Yvonne Adele (aka Ms Megabyte) is a Melbourne-based entrepreneur and founder of Ideas While You Sleep – an overnight brainstorming service for business utilising hundreds of clever global brains. It’s a brilliant idea for helping small and large businesses around the globe leverage the power of crowd-sourcing. It’s so terrific I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of it first. 

Episode 1 of the new show!

The No Illusions Podcast examines the truth about how we’re living our lives.

Today’s guest is Fiona Patten, the founder of The Australian Sex Party. That’s a political party, not a tupperware party. And they are SERIOUS. They have a great set of policies that I endorse, including ending the internet filter and holding a Royal Commission into child sexual abuse by religious institutions. They have two candidates in upcoming elections and Fiona herself is running for Peter Costello’s old seat of Higgins in Victoria. Fiona is running against the Greens Candidate – THE Clive Hamilton, architect of the Rudd Govt’s evil internet filtering plan.

Keep up to date on their progress by following the Aust Sex Party on Twitter.

Bill Liao is one of those people who makes you realize that you aren’t trying hard enough. He chatted with me recently about two of his current projects – neo.org and WeForest.com. Bill explains how he is building a new organization with resources and partners to reforest 20 Million Square Kilometers of the Earth in order to cool the planet. Check out the videos on WeForest.com and the Voices Of Neo podcast as well.

If you want to support independent media and this show, please click on the link below to learn how you can become part of the TPN500!

The Podcast Network is supported by:

neo.org - a social network with a purpose – to transform the world by enabling people to transform themselves

and

our first TPN Patron – Tony Kynaston.

I was an early follower of @GayMarriageAus because I’m a big supporter of gay marriage rights. I was delightfully surprised, though, to find out that the person behind it is a 17 year old high school student, Rebecca. I chatted with her recently about why she’s supporting gay rights.

We also talked about The Australian Sex Party (who will be guests on the show in coming weeks) and the current legislation in Australia pertaining to gay rights.

If you want to support independent media and this show, please click on the link below to learn how you can become part of the TPN500!

The Podcast Network is supported by:

neo.org - a social network with a purpose – to transform the world by enabling people to transform themselves

and

our first TPN Patron – Tony Kynaston.

My guest today is David Nicholls, the President of the Atheist Foundation of Australia and the co-ordinator of the 2010 Global Atheist Conference which is being held in Melbourne in March 2010.

Do you want an independent media?

The Podcast Network is supported by:

neo.org - a social network with a purpose – to transform the world by enabling people to transform themselves

and

our first TPN Patron – Tony Kynaston.

Today my guest is Mike Snyder (@mambomike282), a listener of the show who owns a security firm in Washington state. As a Christian, he wanted to challenge me on the subject of evolution and religion, and so we went for it.

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The Podcast Network is supported by:

neo.org - a social network with a purpose – to transform the world by enabling people to transform themselves

and

our first TPN Patron – Tony Kynaston.

A few days ago I had a chance to chat with Jon Dee, founder of Planet Ark and the new Do Something! initiative, about his life and goals. We talked about everything from his involvement in Rock Aid Armenia (where he pulled together a list of top Brit Rockers to perform a charity concert and record a new version of Deep Purple’s “Smoke On The Water” to raise funds for earthquake victims in Armenia) to deciding, with friend Aussie tennis pro Pat Cash, to start Planet Ark, and his new venture Do Something!, which aims to create positive social and environmental change.

Here’s the version of Smoke On The Water that Jon produced back in 1992!

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The Podcast Network is supported by:

neo.org - a social network with a purpose – to transform the world by enabling people to transform themselves

and

our first TPN Patron – Tony Kynaston.

David Horn works with Microsoft in Seattle and is one of the organisers of the 2009 Space Elevator Conference. What is a “space elevator”, I hear you ask? Only the coolest idea you’ve ever heard! Imagine a day in the not-too-distant future where getting into space involves jumping into something like a luxury train that travels VERTICALLY – up into the air – traveling along a ‘ribbon’ made of carbon nanotubes – for a week until you get outside of the earth’s gravitational pull and THEN you jump in your space vehicle, which is attached to the other end of the ribbon, detach, and get flung into space via centrifugal force!

Links:
Wikipedia entry on Space Elevators.

Book your ticket for the 2009 Space Elevator Conference here.

Music:
Chris Garneau
“Fireflies” (mp3)
from “El Radio”
(Absolutely Kosher)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at Napster
Stream from Rhapsody
More On This Album

Wolfgang Puck is one of the most famous chefs in the world.

Antony Van Couvering is the founder of Minds + Machines.

On today’s show they chat with me about their bid to own the new “top level domain” – .FOOD.

Do you want an independent media?

The Podcast Network is supported by:

neo.org - a social network with a purpose – to transform the world by enabling people to transform themselves

and

our first TPN Patron – Tony Kynaston.

I am privileged today to have, as guests on the show, the director and subject of the film that won the Grand Jury Prize award in the U.S. documentary category at the Sundance Film Festival this year (which makes Ondi the first and only two time Grand Jury Prize winner in Sundance history!).

The film is called “We Live In Public”, “the story of the Internet’s revolutionary impact on human interaction as told through the eyes of internet pioneer and visionary Josh Harris. As far back as the early 90s, Harris predicted a future dominated by life online and created the companies that were direct predecessors to MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. The tale turns ugly when his underground NYC bunker housing dozens of permanent “citizens” and outfitted with hundreds of surveillance cameras is busted by FEMA as a millennial cult — Harris decides to take the experiment a step further and in doing so becomes a media casualty.”

We Live In Public (Official Site)

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Delicate Noise
“Filmezza” (mp3)
from “Filmezza”
(Lens Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store

Tim Freke is the co-author (with his writing partner Peter Gandy) of many books about the Jesus myth – including THE JESUS MYSTERIES and THE LAUGHING JESUS. I chatted with him recently about one of their books “The Gospel of the Second Coming”, a marvelous book that manages to combine humour and insight – it explains the Jesus myth as a Gnostic parable. As Tim points out during our chat – nobody really thinks there was an historical “good Samaritan” or “prodigal son”. They are understood to be parables. Tim explains that the whole Jesus story is a series of parables wrapped up in another parable – the parable of Jesus himself.

Click on the above image to order your copy today from BookDepository (free shipping!).

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My guests today help me explore some of the alternatives to the “Big Four” banks in Australia. Let’s say that you, like me, want to completely disassociate yourself from the Big Four – where do you turn? Are there alternatives in Australia?

Yes, say my guests:

Andrew Hadley, COO, Credit Union Australia
Tony Beck, Group Manager, Corporate Affairs, ME Bank (Members Equity)

They both belong to organisations that can provide all of the same services that you get from your bank – and they will do it with less fees and with much more customer service. Why? Both organisations are owned by their members instead of shareholders. In CUA’s case, they are owned by their customers. In ME’s case, they are owned by a group of superannuation firms which, in turn, are owned by their members.

So both organisations exist to provide good service – not solely for the sake of returning profits to shareholders. And, judging by their NPS scores, it makes a difference.

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Today’s music is by:

Rick Estrin & The Nightcats
“U B U” (mp3)
from “Twisted”
(Alligator Records)

Buy at Amazon

In this, the latest show in my series trying to show that the Jesus story is probably a myth or hoax, my guest is a PhD student at the University of Helsinki in the field of biblical study. He chatted with me recently about the evidence to support the theory that there once was a man called Jesus about whom the stories we know of as the Christian bible were constructed around.

Interestingly, Francis doesn’t seem to believe the biblical stories and yet considers himself a Catholic.

If you want to hear my other shows about the historicity of Jesus, check out this page.

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Abigail Washburn & The Shanghai Restoration Project
“Sala” (mp3)
from “Afterquake”
(Undercover Culture Music)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at Napster
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Puretracks
More On This Album

My guest on today’s show is Michael Doneman – one part business coach, one part social activist, one part guru.

Over the last few months his name has come up in a startling variety of conversations I’ve had with people. These people have a few things in common – they are very bright, have a sparkle in their eye, are entrepreneurs, think they can change the world – and they are students of Doneman.

Michael explains the basis of his business / school, Edgeware, where he teaches something he calls “ethical entrepreneurship” and we discuss the future of capitalism.

This is also the first interview in my series where I intend to interview Brisbane’s Best Minds. If you want to nominate someone to be interviewed as part of this series, please submit their details here.

Further links:

John Gray video

Edgeware site

Follow Michael Doneman on Twitter

Do you want an independent media?

Abigail Washburn & The Shanghai Restoration Project
“Sala” (mp3)
from “Afterquake”
(Undercover Culture Music)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at Napster
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Puretracks
More On This Album

My guest today is Jabiz R. Born in Iran, raised in America, now living in Qatar, Jabiz is an educator and blogger. I’ve really enjoyed some of his posts about Iran lately so I invited him onto the show.

Last week I wrote a post on the recent report out of Ireland about the true extent of child abuse committed by the Catholic Church from the ’30s through to the ’70s.

A few people on Twitter tried to suggest there was no connection between abuse in Ireland and in Australia, so I invited Dr Wayne Chamley from Broken Rites onto the show. Broken Rites is an Australian advocacy group that works with victims of religious child abuse. He believes that if we had a Royal Commission into Catholic child abuse in this country we would discover TENS OF THOUSANDS of victims.

By the way folks, don’t forget – if you are looking for an easy way to listen to the G’Day World archives (all 381 episodes!), and you’ve got iTunes installed, go to our page on iTunes. While you’re there, give the show a quick review!

Hey folks, apparently I screwed up the track alignment in show 381 (about banks) so there is a fair amount of overlapping of voices. (Thanks to Anthony Voevodin for letting me know!)
I’ve re-edited the show and fixed it up, and I’m attaching it here.

By the way folks, don’t forget – if you are looking for an easy way to listen to the G’Day World archives (all 381 episodes!), and you’ve got iTunes installed, go to our page on iTunes. While you’re there, give the show a quick review!

UPDATE: The original audio for this show had a problem (overlapping tracks) so I’ve re-uploaded it here.

We hate banks. (see my recent poll) It’s true. You know it. I know it. The only people who don’t seem to know it are the banks themselves. Although, I suspect they DO know it – they just don’t care. They’ve had an effective oligopoly for so long they think they can just say and do whatever they want and we’ll just sit here and take it.

Well I’m not taking it anymore. I’m going to do a series of shows exploring why we hate banks so much and what the alternatives are. We have a voice. Let’s use it to change things.

Today on the show I interview three people – Jen Storey from Online Banking Review, Mike Jarocki from Credit Card Finder, and Owen Davies, Group Manager, Corporate Affairs, Bendigo Bank, the bank that Aussies seem to actually like a bit.

Show sponsor:

In 1992, Melbourne businesswoman Yvonne Bornstein and her husband Daniel went to Russia on a business trip. They were kidnapped at the airport and tortured for 11 days in captivity while their captors held them for random. They were finally rescued in a joint operation by the FBI and the KGB. Yvonne joined me on G’Day World Live tonight to tell her story – what they went through and how she has dealt with it in the years since.

links:
Yvonne’ website.
Yvonne is on Twitter!
NYTimes article from 1992.
Melbourne Herald Sun article from 1992.
“Burned”, the novelization of her story, just released.

“Eleven Days Of Hell”, Yvonne’s book.

Are you a member of the TPN500?

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in a cafe here in Brisbane, reading, thinking about how unlikely it was that Chrissy and I were both in Ajaccio at the same time last year. How, statistically, we should never have met. And then I started thinking about what lead me there… about all of the little events that happened over my life that put me in Ajaccio in July 2008. So I started to jot down this mindmap, tracing each event back in time to the event that had to happen, HAD TO HAPPEN, in order for me to end up in Ajaccio.

Listen to the podcast if you want to know more.

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For the last six years, Dr Paul Twomey (born in Dalby QLD, raised in Brisbane) has been running the interwebs. SRSLY. As CEO / President of ICANN, he’s been the guy who makes sure all of the tubes and pipes are clean and smooth. I got to chat with him for 15 minutes last week about the biggest surprises and challenges he’s had while in the job. If you’ve never heard my interview with Vint Cerf, ICANN founder and one of the guys who literally invented the internet, check it out here.

Paul Twomey

That was the subject of a debate I was part of last week, run by AIMIA QLD. There were four of us on the panel and I was part of the “NO” team. Not by choice. It was fun and tough to make a case AGAINST the mobile phone, especially as I love my iPhone to bits.

Anyway, this show is a live recording of the event.

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Today’s guest is the founder of the WORLD SUPERHERO REGISTRY, a website deals with the actual incorporation of the superhero archetype into daily life. His superhero name is KEVLEX (a portmanteau of “kevlar” and “spandex”).

(note: this isn’t Kevlex – photo courtesy of Toastie14)

We talked about what it takes to be a superhero in the real world. Fascinating stuff.

You too can be a superhero by becoming a member of the TPN500!

Dr Philip Nitschke, PhD, MBBS, BSc (Hons) is the Founder and Director of Exit International, the world’s leading Voluntary Euthanasia and end-of-life choices information and advocacy organisation.

A few days after recording this interview, Philip and his wife were detained at London’s Heathrow airport for nine hours and denied access to a lawyer. During the interview he mentioned spending more time in the UK – after this week’s experience, he is reconsidering.

This is the recording from the live show I did last Tuesday. Find out how you can be part of the G’Day World Live experience here.

My guest on the show is Steve McDonald from a company called Transcendence.

Steve has consulted in change management, strategic planning and organisational development in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors since 1998. His professional background spans the defence, aviation and emergency services industries.

He came on the show to explain to me what Spiral Dynamics is all about.

Steve is blogging about change at http://www.eman8.net

Follow Steve on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevemc1

Every now and again I get to chat with someone who has been an inspiration to me for many years – Noam Chomsky, Ray Kurzweil, Doc Searls, Leo Sayer, John Romero, Vint Cerf – and this is another of those episodes.

Kalle Lasn is the founder of Adbusters magazine and author of the books Culture Jam and Design Anarchy. He is the CEO of the Blackspot Anticorporation. For 20 years, Kalle has been trying to buy space on TV networks around the world to show Adbusters’ anti-consumerism commercials such as these:

He is continually rejected by the networks who refuse to take his money and show his ads on the ground that it will offend their larger advertisers. So Kalle has been fighting them in the courts to try to get equal access to the airwaves and, after 20 years of the cases being dismissed by the courts, he’s finally had a win. He joined me recently to talk about it.

Follow Adbusters on Twitter!

Adbusters are the folks behind “Buy Nothing Day”. I shot some video of folks promoting BND in Melbourne back in 2006:

On G’Day World Live this week my guest was Fi Bendall from Bendalls Group. Fi is one of Australia’s best known digital strategists who has worked with clients from MTV to Amnesty. She came on to chat about how social media is challenging corporate cultures in Australia and what needs to happen before those companies will be ready to embrace things like Twitter. You can follow Fi on Twitter.

G’Day World Live broadcasts every Tuesday evening, 8pm AEST. Join in the fun! Lately it’s been running for about four hours – I play guitar and we talk about all the things you’re not supposed to talk about in polite company – from politics to religion, sex, social media and single malt whisky.

And finally, please support TPN’s April drive! We need your support!

If you want to keep TPN on the air, please show your support. If just the listeners of this show contributed $20 a month, I could fund TPN indefinitely! Is the information and entertainment you get from TPN worth a bottle of cheap wine?

Tara Hunt, author of the new book “The Whuffie Factor”, chats with me about whuffie – what it is, what we do with it, and how it changes the game.

Follow Tara on Twitter or her blog and read about the book here.

If you want to join me in celebrating
Vanini Day, then join the club.

If you want to listen to some of my other podcasts on the history of Jesus, see this page.

And finally, please support TPN’s April drive! We need your support!

If you want to keep TPN on the air, please show your support. If just the listeners of this show contributed $20 a month, I could fund TPN indefinitely! Is the information and entertainment you get from TPN worth a bottle of cheap wine?

My guest today is Dr Greg Clarke (PhD), Honorary Associate, Dept of Ancient History, Macquarie University
and Director of the Centre for Public Christianity.

We talk about the survey that the CPX has recently sponsored that finds that 55 per cent of Australians don’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead but only 11 per cent doubt that Jesus was a real historical figure. As you know, I am one of those 11 per cent. So Greg and I also had a chat about the lack of evidence (as I see it) for the existence of Jesus. As Greg works in the Dept of Ancient History I thought he could confirm for me that my basic facts are correct. As you’ll hear, that was like drawing blood from a stone.

Here are the census stats for religion in Australia.

If you want to join me in celebrating
Vanini Day, then join the club.

If you want to listen to some of my other podcasts on the history of Jesus, see this page.

And finally, please support TPN’s April drive! We need your support!

If you want to keep TPN on the air, please show your support. If just the listeners of this show contributed $20 a month, I could fund TPN indefinitely! Is the information and entertainment you get from TPN worth a bottle of cheap wine?

OMFG. Last night I did a live show with my most-excellent co-host Mr Nick Hodge and WE TALKED FOR FOUR HOURS. I kid you not. I only recorded the first THREE HOURS and I present them to you here (well the audio version anyway – to see the video you have to turn up on the night). Oh and this audio recording only has two of the five live numbers I performed during the show. One was in the pre-show festivities (”Come On Eileen”) and there were a couple during the post-show wind-down (including “Ship Song”by Nick Cave).

During this four hour marathon, Nick and I discussed:

Australia’s National Broadband Network

America’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Whether or not Nick is an atheist or an agnostic

The financial crisis scam and what we might replace capitalism with

The ethics of veganism

The Church of LOTU

The historicity of Jesus (or lack thereof)

And much, much more.

Listen to the full three hours – if you dare.

Tune in to future live shows every Tuesday night at 8pm here.

Irwin Zalkin is a US attorney whose firm, The Zalkin Law Firm PC, specializes in clergy sexual abuse cases. He joins me to talk about the recent news that the Vatican can be sued in a United States court over alleged molestation by its priests.

If you want to keep TPN on the air, please show your support. If just the listeners of this show contributed $20 a month, I could fund TPN indefinitely!

On today’s show I get to chat with one of the most powerful men in Hollywood – Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of Dreamworks Animation – about their new film MONSTERS V ALIENS and the introduction of their new 3D technology. I also chat with the director of the film, Conrad Vernon.

Today I had the pleasure to catch up once again with G’Day World regular Dr Peter Ellyard, futurist, environmentalist, and author of “Designing 2050: Pathways To Sustainable Prosperity On Spaceship Earth” which is published by TPN TXT. Buy your copy now!

I chatted with Peter today about the recent IPCC report, Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme and whether or not we are all doomed, as George Monbiot is suggesting. Peter told me that our politicians and media are focusing on the wrong thing. We shouldn’t be just thinking about reducing emissions, we should be talking about MINING THE SKY.

As always, I just loved talking to Peter. He never fails to inspire. He’s now on Twitter (I gave him a crash course today), so make sure you follow him. And we also have a Facebook group for Peter call “The Future Makers Club“, make sure you sign up for that as well.

If you are a journalist, blogger, twitterer or podcaster and you’d like a review copy of Designing 2050, please email me.

This episode was recorded LIVE on Tuesday March 17, 2009. We have an audience following in a chat room on the G’Day World uStream page and my guests include:

Ian Kath – The Polyamorist
Nick Beaugeard – The Climate Change Skeptic
and
Kate Edwards – The Polyamory Skeptic

They are all featured in today’s show!

On today’s show I just have another little heart-to-heart chat with anyone out there who is still listening. Among other things, I talk about:

The State of TPN’s finances

The threat of marketing spam on Twitter

Obama’s plan for Cuba

Sean Penn’s interviews with Chavez and Raul Castro

Obama’s encourage of stem cell research

Some talk about my book Debunking Christianity For Dummies and why it’s important to debate Christians in public

My review of CS Lewis’ book ‘Mere Christianity‘

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If you read comics at all, you’re probably know who Ben Templesmith is already. If you don’t read comics – then why not?

Anyway, Templesmith is an Australian-born comic book artist / writer who now lives and works in the USA where is perhaps best known for his work on 30 DAYS OF NIGHT (which he co-created and which was subsequently turned into a hit Hollywood film), WORMWOOD, HELLSPAWN and FELL (which is authored by Warren Ellis, perhaps the best known comic book writer working today).

Ben has a new book THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES which just came out, as well as a new comic GROOM LAKE and a one-off DOCTOR WHO.

I chatted with him recently about how you become a world-famous comic book artist and what motivates his art.

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My guest today is Mara Bun, CEO of Green Cross Australia. According to their site:

Green Cross Australia is a new national NGO that works on the frontline of climate change: the human dimension. We anticipate and resolve conflicts over natural resources that put our environment at risk, and we foster sustainable partnerships between business, government and the community. We prepare communities for environmental impacts in Australia and overseas. This ranges from the impact of fires, floods and environmental disasters on Australian cities to the mass displacement of populations due to rising sea levels.

Pretty topical, with the floods in QLD and the fires in VIC. Mara talks about her background (which is an interesting story) and the vision of Green Cross.

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Today my guests are Omar Kalifa, Managing Director, and Cinnamon Pollard, Partnership and Marketing Manager, of a new social networking site that is bring officially launched today called LIVEWIRE. According to their site:

Livewire is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Starlight Children’s Foundation and is supported by funding from the Australian Government under the Clever Networks Program and in-kind contributions from Starlight and Livewire partners.

Together we are working towards keeping children & young people living with illness or disability connected

It’s estimated there are over 400,000 children and young people aged 10-21 years old coping with the impact of living with a serious illness, a chronic condition or a disability in Australia.

While I think a social networking community for young people with serious illnesses is a good thing, I am concerned that this site has cost $14.7 million to set up, with half of that money coming from the Federal Government. I asked Omar and Cinnamon where the money went.

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When I was visiting my girl Chrissy in Seattle last October, I met her best friend Jed Montgomery. The four of us (including Jed’s partner Chris) had some vigorous debates about American politics. I was trying to make my point that for all of Obama’s intelligence and oratory, at the end of the day he’s a member of the Democratic Party. In the last 60 years, the Democrats have provided a pretty appalling list of Presidents:

Harry Truman – Among other things, authorized the only use of nuclear weapons on a civilian population in history

John Kennedy – Among other things, authorized the attempted invasion of Cuba, nearly brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, was sleeping with Marilyn Monroe, etc.

Lyndon Johnson – Among other things, escalated the Vietnam war. Possibly implicated in the Kennedy assassination.

Jimmy Carter – Actually, a pretty good guy, defender of human rights.

Bill Clinton – Bombed and starved the people of Iraq, decided the best way to spend his days in the White House was to get blowjobs and stick cigars up an intern’s vag.

So… will Obama be another Jimmy Carter? Or… one of the others?

Anyway, Jed joins me on the show today to talk about our hopes and concerns for the Obama administration.

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You’ve seen it in the news over the last month. On December 27, Israel broke a six-month truce with Hamas (the democratically-elected leaders of the Palestinian people living in Gaza) and launched a three-week long attack on the small, densely-populated region.

Palestinian casualties – 1,400 dead including more than 400 children and 100 women. Israeli casualties – 12 Israeli soldiers and 3 civilians.

My guest on this show is Antony Loewenstein, Sydney-based journalist, author and blogger.

Read more:

David Rose article in Vanity Fair

Henry Siegman, director of the US Middle East Project in New York, former national director of the American Jewish Congress and of the Synagogue Council of America, article “Israel’s Lies”

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A note about this show:

With the help of my two assistants Tim Grainger and Jonathan Hewlett, we ran a LIVE TWITSTREAM of the interview through the gdayworld twitter account. We asked people to submit questions via Twitter during the interview and I fed those back to Antony during our call. It was my first attempt at podcast twinterviewing and the results were interesting.

Thanks to Darryl King from iReckon for seeding the filthy idea into my head over coffee a few days ago.

As some of you know, the main source of my income at the moment is producing podcasts for companies and government departments. Check this site for the basic pitch. I can produce podcasts for anyone anywhere in the world. Obviously video podcasts are limited to where I can get with my camera, but I’ve been recording audio interviews with international guests since 2004.

Who needs a podcast? Anyone in:

- Marketing
- PR
- HR
- Training
- Internal Comms

Especially in this time of financial tightening, podcasting is a tool more companies should be using. It’s a very cost-effective way to reach the key members of your audience on a weekly basis. And, of course, if you’re going to produce social media, you should work with someone who has actually some experience producing media for large audiences and isn’t just all talk.

There are a few different kinds of podcasts my clients tend to be using at the moment:

1. The External “Transparency” podcast – this kind of podcast aims to make a client more accessible to their clients. It can be either video or audio and involves me doing interviews with people inside the company about what they (and their division) actually do. This typically suits a very large org that wants to soften or humanise it’s image. The strategy is that their clients/customers will subscribe to the podcast to get a better understanding of what each of the divisions is working on and how best to engage with them.

2. The External “Value-Add” podcast – this kind of podcast usually has content completely unrelated to the actual services and products of the org, but which is designed to be valuable to the target audience. Typically it might involve interviews with world leaders in the same field. Each podcast is wrapped with an audio or video header and footer, “This podcast is brought to you by….”, to keep the client’s message and brand in front of their audience every week.

3. The Internal Management podcast – this podcast involves video or audio interviews with members of the management team (CEO, CFO, COO, HR Director, etc) on a regular basis to go out to the employees via their intranet. It allows the senior leadership of an org to efficaciously communicate business updates with their teams around the country and world on a weekly basis and in a personable manner. It might also involved interviews with employees throughout the business. Who are they? What do they do? What is their focus? This is a great tool for encouraging cross-collaboration in large orgs.

4. The External Product/Service podcast – this podcast has to be handled cleverly. Most people aren’t going to subscribe to a podcast that’s just a marketing vehicle UNLESS it’s actually cool and informative or very funny. Often the best way to handle this kind of podcast is to get your customers involved. Get THEM talking about or demonstrating your products and services. Make it about THEM, not about you.

Demographics: There’s a common misconception that podcast audiences are still only the young tech savvy folks. While this was probably true back in 2004/5, it certainly isn’t any longer. The success of Apple’s iPods and iPhones, combined with the marketing of podcasts by mainstream media like the ABC, has actually skewed the demographic to a 40+ audience (according to the surveys I run on TPN’s audience each year).

So, here’s how you can help – if you know of anyone who might be interested in using my services, make sure you point them in my direction. In addition, if you email me the names, email addresses and telephone numbers of the people in your company that fulfill the above roles, I’ll contact them directly and give them the pitch (ideally using you as a point of introduction but, if you’re not comfortable with that, I’ll leave your name out of it).

Here are my contact details to make it easy:

Cameron Reilly
CEO, The Podcast Network
tel: +61 400455334
email: cameron@thepodcastnetwork.com

Thanks for your support!

TPN needs your help. Support indy media by donating a small amount of money towards TPN’s operating costs each month. For the price of a latte you can make the world a better place by supporting original indy media.

Click here for the TPN Pledge.

(Thanks to Bob Seal for the toon!)

Back in May 2007 I was fortunate enough (thanks to Stan Relihan’s efforts) to score an interview with the great Vint Cerf, the father of the Internet. It was a wonderful conversation and definitely one of my favourite interviews. I hope you enjoy it (again).

Rapper Greydon Square joins me again on the show to talk about his new album The CPT Theorem.

If you haven’t heard of 27 year-old Greydon before (or heard my first interview with him), his story is interesting: he grew up (as Eddie Collins) in a Group Home in Compton, California, got involved with a gang at a young age, was busted for a crime, and given the choice of prison or joining the US Army. He chose the latter and ended up in the US Army in 2001 and Iraq in 2004. During this time he was a committed Christian who studied the Bible. The more he studied the Bible the more questions he had about his religion which lead to his becoming an atheist, with many of the lyrics of his rap songs focus on atheism and the skeptic inquiry. He also is completing a physics major. His fans include Richard Dawkins, Penn Jillette… and yours truly.

This time, instead of focusing on his atheism, I wanted to talk to Greydon about how he writes his music. He’s a one man band – producer, composer, lyricist, performer, businessman. And, as you’ll here on the tracks I’ve laid into the interview, his shit is excellent.

You can buy his albums through iTunes or from the link on his MySpace.

Well folks… it’s 2009 and I’m going through the archives, still trying to piece together the missing shows. I’m re-discovering lots of old shows myself and thinking “wow, I should listen to that one again”. And so, while I’m busy trying to fix stuff, I thought I’d plug a few of the old shows that you may have missed or may need to listen to again.

In August 2007 I had Dr John Demartini on my show for the first time. He’s a motivational speaker and author from the USA who is different from the usual folks. He actually seems be about more than just ‘rah rah’ and PMA. His ideas have some grounding in science. I think I need to listen to this episode on a more regular basis myself. Hope you enjoy it (again).

————

If you want an independent media, you can support TPN by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

First show for 2009!

Steve Sammartino, who you may remember from our earlier shows (see: G’Day World #336 – The Sammartino Method (aka How To Get Rich Slowly and Surely)), joins me again tonight to revisit the investment strategy he discussed with us back in July 2008. Now that the world is in the worst financial crisis we’ve seen in decades, does his strategy of “invest in the index and hold” still work?

Steve Sammartino is the founder of Rentoid (see G’Day World #306) and also shares his wisdom on the Start Up Blog.

Vanguard Tools

Steve’s “Grow Some Veggies” Blog entry

————

If you want an independent media, you can support TPN by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

Forgive me folks. It’s been a month since my last G’Day World. What can I tell ya? I’ve been focusing on making enough cash to keep this thing running. I’ve done a few Napoleon and Biography shows as well, because they were seriously running behind. And, as you know, we’ve had a few technical dramas. However, I’m back! And it’s a good one.

Phil Gomes is VP with Edelman Digital, senior advisor to the Society for New Communications Research, and a cachaca connoisseur. He was in Australia last week and I caught up with him over the phone.

I asked him what Edelman’s clients are doing with blogs, podcasts, twitter and what his views are on ethics in PR. And, of course, we talked about cachaca.

Phil’s blog.

Phil’s Cachaca blog.

————

If you want an independent media, you can support TPN by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

Have you donated yet to the TPN Pledge Drive? Help support independent media!

Today’s interview features Wayne Denning, Managing Director of Brisbane-based media company, Carbon Media.

I caught up with Wayne to chat about the issues currently surrounding Aboriginal people in Australia and what I feel is a particularly insidious form of racism on the part of most white Australians. As a former manager at ATSIC and now the owner of a media company that produces a lot of indigenous programming, Wayne has insights into the reality of the current situation and he shared some of those with me over coffee at a local cafe near QUT.

American Teen is a terrific documentary about 5 high school seniors in a small American town struggling with their last year of school and figuring out who they are and what they want to do with their lives.

On today’s show I chat with the director of American Teen, Academy Award nominee Nanette Burstein.

Have you donated yet to the TPN Pledge Drive? Help support independent media!

My guest today on G’Day World is once again Australian journalist and author Antony Loewenstein. Antony was on a couple of months ago to discuss his excellent book “The Blogging Revolution” and today he has come back on to discuss Kevin Rudd’s desire to censor the internet and we discuss a range of things we can all do to try and stop it from happening.

Links to further reading:

Antony’s blogs:

The Blogging Revolution

antonyloewenstein.com

Other articles:

Government uploads hypocrisy with internet censorship (The Age)

Somebody Think Of The Children

Open Australia’s feed for ‘internet filtering’

Managing Director of iiNet, Michael Malone, calls Stephen Conroy “… the worst Communications Minister we’ve had in the 15 years since the [internet] industry has existed.”

Dear TPN listeners, viewers and friends,

You know that we spend a LOT of time producing our shows for you.

And as we aren’t making money out of advertising, we’d like to ask for your support to help us keep TPN running. We have real costs in IT support, hardware, bandwidth, etc., as well as our time and effort. For the last four years, we’ve covered these costs ourselves. Outside a small amount of advertising that we have run, the majority of TPN’s costs have been covered by myself and the TPN hosts have donated their time.

Now, we know that paying for online content is probably new to some of you. You are used to getting it for free.

However, we do ask you to think about the idea of the people funding their own media. We all know that if corporate advertising is the main source of funding for the media, it influences the kinds of media that is produced and the messages they carry. We don’t want that kind of media to be the only kind out there. We want an independent media, run by the people and for the people.

If you want to support our efforts to bring you intelligent and entertaining content, please consider one of our donation plans listed here at the TPN Pledge Drive page.

Your support is appreciated!

cheers,
Cameron

While I was in Seattle last month, my good mate Buzz Bruggeman (CEO of the best application for Windows EVER – Activewords… why the hell hasn’t Microsoft bought him out yet??), took me to meet another friend of his, T. A. McCann, CEO of Gist.com, a start-up (funded by Paul Allen’s Vulcan) that integrates your email, social networking sites, and news searches to provide you with a dashboard that keeps you informed about news items relating to people who are important to you and to help you get more control over your email.

Today’s show is the latest in my series examining the Christian charity Mercy Ministries and it’s relationship with the Gloria Jean’s Coffee chain and the evangelical Christian church Hillsong.

My guest today is an Australian woman who is using the pseudonym “Sarah Mac” to protect her identity. She spent 8 months as a voluntary patient at Mercy’s now-closed center on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast and her story is horrifying. She tells me she was subjected to punishments if she forgot to take her medication, denied regular access to friends, family and qualified therapists, and kept in solitary confinement when she finally decided to leave Mercy. She left feeling worse about herself than when she entered and tried to commit suicide a few weeks later. She has since met with Mercy’s founder Nancy Alcorn and received an unconvincing apology. Despite her experiences, Sarah remains a Christian.

Despite her obvious discomfort is talking about her experience, Sarah was brave enough to share it with me in the hope that it will help other girls think twice about the decision to enter Mercy.

This is her story.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

Dr David Skellern is the CEO of NICTA, Australia’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Centre of Excellence. He’s also an engineer and entrepreneur, who sold a company he co-founded (Radiata) to Cisco in 2001.

I caught up with him for 10 minutes a couple of weeks ago for a chat about why ICT R&D in Australia’s top ICT companies is pathetically low and about why Aussie kids aren’t studying IT.

If you want an independent media, you can support TPN by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

My guest on show #350 is American author (who now lives in Ireland) Richard J Moore, author of “Escaping The Matrix“. I was introduced to Richard’s work recently via an article he wrote about Russia, Georgia and South Ossetia.

Richard tells me that the kind of government we have in the USA, UK and Australia isn’t really democracy – and he suggests a way forward to creating the world’s first true democracies.

Here’s a list of sites where you can read Richard’s writing and subscribe to his regular news alerts.

Richard’s “newslog” Google Group
http://cyberjournal.org
http://www.governourselves.org/
http://escapingthematrix.org/
http://www.wakingthephoenix.org/

If you want an independent media, you can support TPN by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

Antony Loewenstein is an a Sydney-based freelance journalist, author and blogger whose latest book, The Blogging Revolution, is “a colourful and revelatory account of bloggers around the globe who live and write under repressive regimes – many of them risking their lives in doing so.”

{Photo:Bryan Siebel}

Sources of global dissident blogs:

Global Voices Online

Wordpress.com:tag:dissident

If you want an independent media, you can support TPN by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

Meeting Everett True isn’t what you’d expect.

When I went to his house a few weeks ago, I expected to be confronted by Spider Jerusalem in the flesh. Instead I was greeted by someone looking like a middle-aged accountant. Quite the anti-climax.

But the man is still the man. Who is Everett True, I hear you ask? Is he:

a. the man who introduced Kurt Cobain to Courtney Love?
b. the first music critic outside of Seattle to do a story on Nirvana?
c. the man who outraged the Australian music industry by denouncing some top Aussie bands as
“abominations against nature” and suggesting the local music press are all sycophants?
d. the man who wrote the definitive biography on The White Stripes?
e. the man who writes a regular column for VillageVoice.com and The Guardian?
f. the publisher of PLAN B magazine?

If you answered “all of the above”, then you’re a complete smart-ass as it wasn’t even one of the options. But yeah you’d be right.

Listen in as we discuss the future of the music business, why Nirvana was “the most overrated band of all time” and The White Stripes would be nothing without Meg.

This is what he looked like back then:

Please support the show by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

Ahh…. Microsoft. I love ya. Where do they get so many folks who can’t cope once they lose their powerpoint cheat sheet?

In the first of a series of interviews with Microsoft folks from the last couple of weeks, today I present a few interviews I did at their TechEd 2008 event in Sydney.

In order of appearance, I chat with:

Gary Gross, Director of Customer Partner Connection Mobile Information Worker Division;
Michael Kordahi and Shane Morris, Evangelists for Silverlight (and other stuff);
Reed Schaffner, Product Manager, Microsoft Office

We talk about why Apple is kicking Microsoft’s ass on the mobile front; why the porn industry isn’t using Silverlight; and why Microsoft Office is (or isn’t) boring.

Please support the show by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

Today I’m chatting with Karen Paterson, Head of live! Services at Vodafone Australia and David Loiterton, Managing Director, Australia, Omnifone, about the new service just launched in Australia called MusicStation.

Here’s the blurb from the press release:

==== START EVIL PRESS RELEASE ====

Vodafone Australia today launched MusicStation, Australia’s first unlimited mobile music download service, available exclusively to Vodafone customers.

Vodafone MusicStation provides unlimited access to a catalogue of over one million tracks, from Amy Winehouse to the Zutons, for a flat fee of $2.75 per week, with no download fees. Major record labels
including Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Music and Warner Music Group,
along with a range of local and independent artists including Shock, Liberation Music, All Killer, Blue Pie,
Destra and MGM, contribute to the MusicStation catalogue.

At launch, MusicStation is available to download on nine handsets: LG KU990 Viewty, Nokia 6121 classic, Nokia E65, Nokia N73, Nokia N95 8GB, Sony Ericsson C902, Sony Ericsson W880i, Sony Ericsson W890i, and the Nokia 6210 Navigator. The Nokia 6210 comes with the MusicStation application preloaded.

==== END EVIL PRESS RELEASE ====

Disclaimer (or lack of one) – Because I know you’re a cynical bunch, I always disclose financial deals or whatever when I do these kinds of PR shows. In this case I wasn’t paid to do the interview but they are sending me a handset to test the service. I don’t have it yet though, so my questions are based on the press kit. I agreed to have them on the show because I like the idea of all-you-can-eat music download services although I have a few concerns about how they are bringing this particular one to market.

Please support the show by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

I’ve been a big fan of Ayn Rand’s work since I first read “The Fountainhead” when I was about 20. I quickly read everything of hers I could get my hands on and I re-read both “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” every couple of years. I’ve wanted to do a show on her work for years.

However… this interview with Epstein was pretty disturbing. It started off okay as we talked about her work but then Alex started talking about the foreign policy of the United States and I was shocked at how extremely right-wing his views are. Rand was a huge believer in individual rights however Epstein’s view seems to be that the indigenous people of countries such as the Middle East, the Americas and Australia HAVE no rights. Personally I think the views he expounded in the latter half of the show represent the worst kind of American imperialist thinking and do NOT accurately represent Rand’s philosophy. But that’s just my opinion.

Listen and tell me your thoughts.

Alex Epstein has a BA in Philosophy from Duke University and is an analyst focusing on business issues at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.

Please support the show by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

My guest on #344 is Ben Witherington III, an evangelical Biblical scholar and lecturer on New Testament Studies, who is currently Professor on the New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky.

In our discussion, Prof. Witherington makes a case for the historicity of the New Testament and for the existence of Jesus. While he seems to agree with me on certain facts (eg that Mark, Matthew, Luke and John are anonymous documents and that Paul was not an eyewitness), he makes the argument that they can be treated as eyewitness testimonies.

During the show, you’ll notice a couple of times when Ben caught me off-guard and I’ve added my later thoughts into the show, after I had a chance to read up on his claims. I’ve put some links to further information on those issues below:

1st Century Historians Who Strangely Don’t Mention Jesus
The Acts of Pilate
Who Wrote The Gospel Of John?

If you haven’t heard my previous show with Robert M Price (who argues that Jesus is a mythological character), then you can find it here.

Please support the show by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

I’m going to make my interviews available to businesses who want to re-distribute them from their site.

Watch the video and click here for more info.

My guest today is Robert M Price, a Professor of Theology and Scriptural Studies at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary in Miami Gardens, Florida. He is a fellow of the Jesus Seminar and the author of many books and articles on religion. Some of you may remember Robert from his appearance in the documentary The God Who Wasnt There.

Robert joins me today to examine the historical case for Jesus. We examine the evidence for the standard arguments Christians have for believing that Jesus existed:

• Are the New Testament Gospels or Paul’s letters really eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life?
• Are there any non-Christian contemporary accounts of Jesus’ life?
• Is there any evidence for the Resurrection?
• Is it true that there is more evidence for Jesus than any other person in history?
• Is it logical that because we have multiple versions of Jesus’ life that is must be true (what is known as the “multiple attestation” argument)?
• If Jesus didn’t exist, why does everybody think he did?

You can find out more about Robert on his site and you can listen to his podcast, The Bible Geek.

This show is the long-awaited follow-up to my interview with Australian Christian historian and theologian  John Dickson that I did in January 2007.

Please support the show by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

I had the very great pleasure of hanging out with Pastor Dr Craig Johnson in Paris back in July. We had a terrific time, including some very great laughs walking through the Louvre. Craig is an Evangelical Protestant clergyman. He is the founder and Pastor of Bethel Christian Fellowship in Agoura Hills, California.  He is  currently the host of two weekly television programs: Another Cable Show about God and The Veritas Forum, and he has authored three books: Nehushtan: The Enemy of Revival; The Alexander Code: Alexander the Great and the Hidden Prophecies of the Bible; and Tardemah: The Deep Sleep that Awakens Your Dreams. He has degrees in Theology and Philosophy.

While in Paris, we talked a great deal about Hitler and the roots of Antisemitism, something Craig happens to know quite a lot about.

So, following on from this blog post I did recently, we chatted today about the roots of Hitler’s worldview and whether or not Hitler and the Nazi’s were Christians. I, of course, take the position that Hitler and the National Socialist Party were Christians – Craig argues they were not.

My main references are:

This list of quotes from Hitler’s speeches and writings in which he professes his Christian beliefs here.

The official National Socialist Party Platform which states:

“24. We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: common utility precedes individual utility.”

I think Hitler was just trying to bring Matthew 13:49-50 to life:

After all, didn’t he build furnaces of fire?

Craig references a book called “Hitler’s Table Talk”, which is a series of statements Hitler said in private meetings, which were apparently recorded and transcribed. You can download a copy of “Hitler’s Table Talk” here. But you should first read this analysis of the book’s English translation which claims that the English version has been deliberately translated to sound much more anti-Christian than the original German. Also read this post which explores the credibility of the men who discovered and translated the document. The bottom line seems to be that Hitler definitely believed in Jesus but thought the version of Christianity developed by Paul of Tarsus was akin to Communism. Hitler also believed he was following in Jesus’ footsteps by attacking the Jews. So the question is – does that make him a Christian or not?

Please support the show by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

ANGUS, THONGS AND PERFECT SNOGGING is the new film by British director Gurinder Chadha (BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM, BRIDE AND PREJUDICE). The star of the film is 16 year-old Georgia Groome.

I chatted with Georgia today about life, acting and finishing her A levels. I also tried to get her to do a duet with me of “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better” from ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, but then I failed to remember the lyrics and she totally PWND me.

Please support the show by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.

I don’t know how many of you listen to my Biography podcast, but the episode we recorded today is, I think, pretty interesting, so i hope you don’t mind me throwing it into this feed.

Today we tackle two subjects – Egyptian Pharoah Akhenaten (aka Amenhotep IV) and Moses. Originally we were going to do Moses but as he is (according to the majority of secular scholars) a mythological figure and not historical, I didn’t want to get into the same trouble we did when we talked about Helen of Troy.

And then I remembered Akhenaten. Like Moses, Akhenaten was the founder of a monotheistic religion. In fact, he is considered the first person to conceive of monotheism or, at least, to put it into practice on a wide scale. He pre-dated Moses (or at least when Moses would have lived had he actually existed) by 300 – 900 years, depending on where you posit the Moses stories. And, unlike Moses, we have proof Akhenaten lived. However, we only discovered his story in the 19th century, as the record of his reign and the reign of his successors, his wife Nefertiti and his son/step-son Tutenkhamen, were eradicted from the official records, possibly because of his attempts to usher in monotheism into Egypt.

You can read the rest of the shownotes here.

This morning I was given an opportunity to interview Hilary Mine, Alcatel-Lucent’s Managing Director Australasia and North Asia, about the launch of the Alcatel-Lucent Broadband Environment Challenge 2008 they did this morning in Melbourne with Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

The Challenge looks to award the Eckermann-TJA Prize ($10,000 provided by Alcatel-Lucent) for the best paper on broadband telecommunications applications and/or solutions that have the potential to deliver significant benefits to environmental sustainability.

Hilary and I discussed how the Challenge came together (this is its second year) and some of the ways that broadband might be able to contribute positively to environmental sustainability. Hilary mentioned that she telecommutes one day a week to show her senior team that it is possible and practical. I think more large Australia companies should be encouraging their staff to telecommute. As I mention in the show, we were talking about this stuff back at Ozemail in 1996 and it surprises me that it isn’t more commonplace yet.

More information about the competition can be found at www.tsa.org.au. Entries close Monday 6 October 2008.

To be completely up front (as you know I always am), this is a paid gig and my client is Alcatel-Lucent.

Subscribe now to the TPN update email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes on TPN in one easy-to-read format!

Today my guests is Donnie Maclurcan, Executive Director of Project Australia, a national organisation helping people launch ideas that seek to create positive social change within communities.

Donnie tells me how the idea came together, how it all works, and what they are trying to do. He’s a terrific example of someone who has taken the bit between his teeth and is putting action behind the dream of a better country.

If you’re wondering about the new intro music, it’s Dies Irae from Mozart’s REQUIEM, a favourite of mine. The lyrics actually come from an old Catholic hymn which starts off:

Dies iræ! dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla!

Day of wrath! O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophets’ warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning!

I love the piece of music (one of my dreams has always been to put together an annual live performance of it) and the lyrics are kind of fitting, don’t you think?

A list of all G’Day World episodes here!

Subscribe now to the TPN update email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes on TPN in one easy-to-read format!

On today’s show I’m joing by Sophie Peer, China Campaign Co-ordinator for Amnesty International, Fi Bendall from the Bendall Group, and Ben Barren, social media baron, to discuss the online campaign Amnesty have run over the last 3 weeks to raise awareness of China’s human rights record. The campaign asked Australian bloggers to unite and support their Chinese counterparts who have been banned, blocked, denied and imprisoned by the Chinese government for using the Internet to express their right to freedom of speech. The destination site for the campaign was UNCENSOR.com.au. The other site they recommend on the show is Stilgherrian’s blog.

Subscribe now to the TPN update email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes on TPN in one easy-to-read format!

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

One of the wonderful people I met while in Ajaccio was Allon Klebanoff, an Israeli historian who is the closest thing to a “Renaissance Man” that I’ve ever met. Allon gave a terrific presentation on naval art during Napoleonic times at the Congress and, over much alcohol and good food during five days, we discussed religion, politics, art, wine, women… and music, which is the subject of today’s show.

I asked Allon what he’d like to talk about on his first appearance on G’Day World, what his number #1 passion is, and he said “Buck”. I first thought that he was a fan of 70’s Sci Fi, but I soon learned that “Buckkkh” is how one is supposed to pronounce “Bach”. In this very long episode (90 minutes) you will hear Allon talk about Bach’s life and career as well as get treated to a number of musical pieces by Bach (as prescribed by Allon) including (in order of appearance):

Suite No. 2 in B Minor, BWV 1067: VII. Badinerie – Trevor Pinnock

Suite No. 3 in D, BWV 1068: II. Air РMusica Antiqua K̦ln

Italian Concerto in F, BWV 971: III. Presto – Trevor Pinnock

Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, BWV 1047: I. – Trevor Pinnock

Saint John Passion, BWV 245 (Excerpts): Herr, Unser Herrscher

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565: I. Toccata – Helmut Walcha

Toccata, Adagio & Fugue in C Major, BWV 564: II. Adagio – Marie-Claire Alain

The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080: Contrapunctus 1 РMusica Antiqua K̦ln

The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080: Contrapunctus 2 РMusica Antiqua K̦ln

Now I warn you – Allon is a funny guy. He doesn’t listen to rock, rap or jazz. He is VERY particular about the things that he is passionate about. And he’s a walking encyclopedia. I’m not sure I managed to get him to answer my main question “Why is Bach important?”, though I did ask him several times. Or maybe I just don’t understand. Anyway… strap yourself in and get ready to BACH.

Steve Sammartino is not only the founder of Rentoid.com (see G’Day World #306), he’s also one of the smartest money managers that I’ve ever met.

By age 33, Steve had built up a big enough share portfolio to be able to quit his corporate marketing job and live completely on the dividends. That was two years ago. Today, he tells me how he did it – and how you can do it to. Steve’s system is foolproof and doesn’t require you to know anything about shares or companies or the market. He calls it a “set and forget” system. I call it “The Sammartino Method” and I think we should all listen to this show over and over again. Then we should play it to our kids. Steve’s system is so simple and basic that everyone can do it. As he says in the show “All it takes is discipline.”

If you aren’t financially independent (and I’m not), then you can’t ever really be in control of your lifestyle. Steve will never have to work another day in his life if he doesn’t want to. Imagine the choices you would have in your life if you were in that situation in ten years.

The two books that Steve recommends you read are:

• The Intelligent Investor
• A Random Walk Down Wall Street

Subscribe now to the TPN update email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes on TPN in one easy-to-read format!

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

Today’s show is a continuation of the examination I’ve been doing around the relationship and practices of Gloria Jean’s Coffee, Hillsong Church and Mercy Ministries. Today’s guest is a former resident of Mercy Ministries in the United States. She spent 7 months inside Mercy about 8 years ago and is still today too frightened of them to use her real name, so she is using the alias “Vickie Lucas”. Vickie tells me about how she entered Mercy trying to find help for her bulimia nervosa condition but instead of psychological and clinical treatment, she was subjected to exorcisms, neglect and emotional abuse. She talks about how she was chastised in public by Mercy founder Nancy Alcorn, who claims to be a lifelong celibate, for getting her haircut – apparently according to Mercy that’s a clear sign she is possessed by demons making her into a lesbian.

The quotes contained in this show by Nancy Alcorn and Peter Irvine are taken from this video by The Cynic Sage.

Subscribe now to the TPN update email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes on TPN in one easy-to-read format!

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

In 1980, at age ten, I bought my very first LP record – “Living In A Fantasy” by Leo Sayer. I listened to it constantly – 20 years later I bought it on CD and today it’s always on my iPod. Leo has had several Number One hits around the world, “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” (a U.S. Grammy winner for the year’s best Rhythm and Blues Song), the romantic ballad, “When I Need You” (1977), which reached number one in both the UK and U.S.

He also had remakes of Bobby Vee’s “More Than I Can Say” (his fourth UK number 2 hit, and in the U.S., number 2 pop and number one in the adult contemporary chart), and Buddy Holly’s “Raining In My Heart” (1979) and “Orchard Road” in 1983. In the U.S., three of his singles – “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” (1977), “When I Need You,” (1977) and “More Than I Can Say” (1980) – were certified gold.

This morning he chatted with me for an hour from the city he now calls home – Sydney, Australia.

Check out his official site, LeoSayer.com, for updates on his touring schedule and to read his blog updates.

Buy his new album “Don’t Wait Until Tomorrow” and “Living In A Fantasy” from iTunes:

Subscribe now to the TPN update email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes on TPN in one easy-to-read format!

Subscribe now to the weekly update email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes on TPN in one easy-to-read format!

======================================================

My guest today is Matt Norman.

Matt is an Aussie actor/director/producer who has a new documentary coming out called “Salute The Movie” (watch the trailer here). It tells the story of his uncle Peter Norman. Now, if you’re like me, you probably haven’t heard the name before but you probably do recognize this photo:

Peter Norman is the white guy. He was an Aussie Olympian who won the Silver Medal in the Men’s 200 metre race at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. The two athletes with him on the podium were Tommie Smith and John Carlos. They both raised their fists in the “Black Power” salute. Peter gave his support by wearing the OPHR (Olympic Project for Human Rights) badge.

All three were booed when they left the podium and then ostracized in their respective countries for having the audacity to use this opportunity to make a political statement. All three were punished severely by their respective Olympic organizations and in Peter’s case, he was not picked for the ‘72 Olympics, even though he came third in the trials.

This story is, of course, extremely relevant today, when Australian and American Olympic athletes are again being gagged by their respective organizations with respect to using the Olympics as an opportunity to speak out about China’s human rights abuses in Tibet and Darfur. Will any of them athletes have the balls to speak out? Or will they allow themselves to be gagged?

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

Subscribe now to the weekly update email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes on TPN in one easy-to-read format!

======================================================

My guest today is Peter Singer.

He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE), University of Melbourne. Outside academic circles, Singer is best known for his book Animal Liberation, widely regarded as the touchstone of the animal liberation movement.

I invited him onto the show to talk about the recent news from Spain that they will soon probably extend basic legal rights to all non-human hominids, an idea that has been driven by an organization that Peter co-founded, The Great Ape Project. We also talk about the basic ethics of utilitarianism and how the best thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint is to stop eating meat.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

My guests tonight are a couple from Melbourne who we’ll call “Bazza” and “Shazza”. For the last five years they were franchisees with Gloria Jean’s Coffee. They’ve come on to discuss their experience.

As regular readers will know, I’ve been taking an interest in Gloria Jean’s over the last few years (read earlier posts here), especially in the relationship between Gloria Jean’s Coffee, Hillsong Church and Mercy Ministries.

As you might be aware, there have been allegations over the last six months that Mercy Ministries has been treating it’s clients (mostly “troubled” young women) with techniques including exorcisms and prayer readings.

Even Gloria Jean’s Global Marketing Manager has commented on the blog in an attempt to provide their side of the story.

So I was pleased when Bazza and Shazza agreed to come on to share an insider’s story.

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

If you’re wondering what the opening quotes are from on today’s show, it’s the opening lines from Rimbaud’s “A Season In Hell”.

Tonight’s guests – Katherine Szuminska & Matthew Landauer – are the founders of OpenAustralia.org, a recently-launched site which makes politics more transparent.

Based on the British site TheyWorkForYou, OpenAustralia.org scrapes Hansard and makes it much more accessible. You can find out who your local MP is and then subscribe to email alerts whenever they say something in Parliament. And that’s just the beginning. Kat & Matt have a number of exciting features they intend to bring to the site in the next year or two.

This is their first interview.

ONLY ONE DAY LEFT TO ENTER THE RUNNING FOR THE POSTER!

Don’t miss out on winning the signed Indiana Jones IV poster (Australian listeners only I’m afraid) – subscribe now to the weekly update email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes on TPN in one easy-to-read format!

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

Other music in today’s episode:

Curro , Curro
“El Bueno, El Feo Y El Malo” (mp3)
from “Silba A Ennio Morricone”
(DiscMedi)

More On This Album

Michael Brook
“Earth Alone” (mp3)
from “An Inconvenient Truth – Soundtrack”
(bigHelium/Canadian Rational)

More On This Album

On the show today, something a little different – I’m interviewed by Rob McNealy from StartUpStoryRadio.com. Before I throw to the interview, I talk about some recent blog posts, including the OpenAustralia and Registry of Members’ Interests issue, the Gloria Jean’s story and the future of the newspaper industry.

Don’t miss out on winning the signed Indiana Jones IV poster (Australian listeners only I’m afraid) – subscribe now to the weekly update email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes on TPN in one easy-to-read format!

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

Today I got to chat with another person I admire – Stephen Mayne. As I’m sure most of you will know, Stephen is the founder of Crikey.com.au. These days he is also running a video podcast “The Mayne Report” where he takes his video crew into Annual General Meetings for some of Australia’s largest companies and asks the questions other finance journalists are too scared to ask. He is also a co-founder of Kwoff.com, an Aussie news aggregation service.

Stephen has been using his media properties for the last decade to fight corruption and incompetence in Australian politics and corporations. He has fought the good fight AND became a millionaire when he sold Crikey a few years ago. So he’s living proof that you can focus on making a positive difference and also make some money along the way.

Today I capture some of that background, dig into the roots of his activism, discover how big business uses fake defamation lawsuits to pay kickbacks to friendly politicians, and learn about Stephen’s plans for his shareholder activism network.

And if you’re wondering who Patricia Piccinini is, check out these examples of her work!

And is it just me, or does Stephen carry a very striking similarity to the famous portrait of Joshua Smith by William Dobell?

The G’Day World theme music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

Today I talk about what I’ve learned recently from the following books:

• Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (2003)
• The Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers by Paul Kennedy (1988)
• Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky (2002)

I also talk about

• an alternative to Hiroshima
• the Roadrunner supercomputer
• why a high IQ is linked to atheism
• my ideas for an Australian version of TED
• the future of media
• why science needs a celebrity makeover

Today’s music:

Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)

More On This Album

Dosh
“If You Want To, You Have To” (mp3)
from “Wolves and Wishes”
(anticon)

More On This Album

I just finished reading Tim Weiner’s book “Legacy Of Ashes: The History Of the CIA” and thought I should talk more about it. I think this is one of the most important books that have come out in the last decade. Why? Listen to the show to find out. I start by reading out a list of countries that the CIA has committed acts of terrorism and violence in, either directly or indirectly, over the last 60 years. It’s a long, long list.

Please buy and read the book.

The music on today’s show is “Echoplex” from the new Nine Inch Nails album “THE SLIP“, which is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.

NIN encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc..

ROCK ON TRENT REZNOR!

This is the longer audio piece from my chat with Jonathan Oxer. Jonathan has an RFID chip embedded in his arm which he can use to operate electronic devices in his house. Why? Listen and find out. If you haven’t yet seen the video to go with it, it’s here.

Keep up to date with Jon’s experimentation on his blog.

As a result of all the media interest in his high-tech home, Jonathan is set to host a new TV show called SuperHouse which will go to air later this year. Check out www.superhouse.tv to find out more.

The music on today’s show is “Demon Seed” from the new Nine Inch Nails album “THE SLIP“, which is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.

NIN encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc..

ROCK ON TRENT REZNOR!

You’ve heard me say I don’t believe in free will. Well tonight I’ve got world famous author, speaker, psychologist and memeticist Dr Susan Blackmore on the show to explain why SHE doesn’t believe in free will either. We discuss the reductionist perspective, what neuroscientists she’s interviewed believe, and how to live your life once you’ve discarded the idea of free will completely.

Read Sue’s blog

Buy Sue’s book The Meme Machine

The music on today’s show is “Discipline” from the new Nine Inch Nails album “THE SLIP“, which is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.

NIN encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc..

ROCK ON TRENT REZNOR!

In #323 I welcome back a previous G’Day World guest, one of my favourite scientists, Dr Aubrey de Grey.

Aubrey is the founder of The Methuselah Foundation, a non-profit 501c(3) organization committed to the acceleration of progress toward a cure for age-related disease, disability, suffering, and death.

They are running a special conference on aging at UCLA from June 27 – 29 and the Friday night session, with three hours of speeches from leaders in the field, is FREE. Book tickets here.

If you want to learn more about SENS, here’s a link to the show I did with Aubrey back in August 2005:
G’Day World #42 – Aubrey de Grey

The music on today’s show is “1,000,000″ from the new Nine Inch Nails album “THE SLIP“, which is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.

NIN encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc..

ROCK ON TRENT REZNOR!

My first show for a month!!! I explain why the big break on the show.

But the main topic for today is Myanmar, or what the ignorant Western media insist on calling Burma. As you’ve heard, they were hit recently by a terrible cyclone and there are potentially 100,000 people dead and millions homeless. Western aid is having trouble getting there because the Myanmar government won’t let them in.

But why? That’s what I ask on today’s show. How did Myanmar get to this place? What is it’s history?

Listen to the show to learn about the role in Myanmar’s history of the British military dictatorship, American gas interests and foreign spies infiltrating NGOs and charities, and then 6 o’clock news might make more sense.

Links:

Chevron’s involvement connected to HR abuses in Burma

Aid groups shelter spies

Condi Rice’s relationship with Chevron

Wikipedia’s entry on Myanmar

Today’s music:

Up The Empire
“Volcano” (mp3)
from “Light Rides the Super Major”
(The Cougar Label)

Buy at Cougar Label Shop
Buy at Amazon.com

I’m back this week with my first show from Brisbane!! Today it’s just me talking about TPN’s recent technology woes, my decision not to take venture capital, communism, the origins of the concept of family, an up date on my personal coach, Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Work Week, The Spider And The Starfish, and more!

Today’s music is:

Presidents Of The United States Of America
“Sharpen Up Those Fangs” (mp3)
from “These Are The Good Times People”
(Cooking Vinyl)

More On This Album

Jamais Cascio is a San Francisco Bay Area-based writer and ethical futurist. He joins me today to talk about our growing reliance on online social networks and the net in general as forms of identity management. What are some of the consequences of putting your personal information online or – perhaps scarier – taking them off?

Links:

• Jamais’ blog at Open The Future.
• My earlier podcast with Jamais from June 2007.
• THE TRUTH MACHINE by James Halperin.
• The all-new TPN Weekly Review – subscribe via RSS or email (fill in the below box) to get a weekly list of all of the new episodes of TPN podcasts in one easy-to-read format!

Today’s Track:

Barry Adamson
“Who Killed Big Bird?” (mp3)
from “Stranger On The Sofa”
(Central Control)

Buy at Official Barry Adamson website
Buy at iTunes Music Store

Today we have a return of the “Cam Heart To Heart” show – aka “the rant” – where I don’t bother with a guest, I just tell you about what’s been on my mind lately. Today I talk about getting myself a performance coach, about reading up on Carl Jung, on Karl Marx, the Russian Revolution and ask, yet again, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING WITH YOUR LIVES???

In the background I’m playing these songs:

Bauhaus
“International Bullet Proof Talent” (mp3)
from “Go Away White”
(Cooking Vinyl)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Bauhaus
“Too Much 21st Century” (mp3)
from “Go Away White”
(Cooking Vinyl)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Presidents Of The United States Of America
“Sharpen Up Those Fangs” (mp3)
from “These Are The Good Times People”
(Cooking Vinyl)

More On This Album

Presidents Of The United States Of America
“So Lo So Hi” (mp3)
from “These Are The Good Times People”
(Cooking Vinyl)

More On This Album

The Undertones
“She’s So Sweet” (mp3)
from “Dig Yourself Deep”
(Cooking Vinyl)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Bill Liao is one of those guys I just love to talk to. He’s smart, successful, humble, visionary – and nice to boot. Just who the hell does he think he is?

Apart from being a successful serial entrepreneur and a co-founder of Xing.com (a massive social networking site based in Europe), Bill is also driving an amazing project called Declare! where he’s encouraging everyone to make a “Declaration of Global Citizenship”. I spoke to Bill earlier today about his background, his motivation, his vision for the human race and what we’d all do if we’re ever taken over by lizard aliens from another planet. Strap yourselves in kids – this show is pretty awesome.

• Bill’s profile

• Bill on Twitter

The music track today is:

310
“Fortuitous Bounce” (mp3)
from “Sixes and Sevens”
(Conduit Records)
Buy at Amazon
More On This Album

Jeremy Toeman is an expert in digital media and consumer technology. Over the past ten years he has designed, built, and marketed numerous award-winning products in the “convergence” space, including the Slingbox.

In December 2007, JT arranged for 25 SF geeks, including Ryan Block from Engadget and Robert Scoble from , to do some volunteering work at the San Francisco Food Bank. I caught up with Jeremy for a chat yesterday about “Geeks Doing Good”, his motivation to volunteer, why geeks should give back more, etc.

Today’s Track:

Barry Adamson
“Who Killed Big Bird?” (mp3)
from “Stranger On The Sofa”
(Central Control)

Buy at Official Barry Adamson website
Buy at iTunes Music Store

“THE DESERTER” is an ambitious novel by Peter Bourne. It explores the tensions between Israel and Palestine through the relationship of an Israeli doctor, who has been in England for 20 years after a fight with his father, and his siblings, when he returns home to Jerusalem for his father’s funeral. I really enjoyed the way Peter used the story between the family to explore the many facets of the Israel-Palestine conflict. I recommend the book, especially if you don’t know much about the situation over there and you are looking for an accessible entry point into becoming familiar with the issues.

The song today is “Hasta Siempre Comandante Che Guevara” by Carlos Puebla.

A few weeks ago I was introduced to Aussie entrepreneur Maria Sipka (and her husband JC) over breakfast in Yarraville by Ryan Trainor (G’Day World #280). We had a great chat and a few days ago I chatted to her from her home in Barcelona. Maria has a fascinating story – born in Bratislava, Slovakia, immigrated to Australia when she was a child, in her early twenties she learned how to leverage lots of investment properties and then decided it wasn’t all about money and went on a search for a greater purpose. This has lead her to Barcelona and her new start-up, Linqia, a meta-search site for online communities and groups, which has just gone into public beta.

We talk about Linqia, “The Starfish And The Spider“, zen buddhism, her recent wedding in New Delhi (see above photo) and her motto that “The person you are in five years is determined by the books you read and the people you associate with”.

The music on this episode includes:

Black Violin
“Brandenburg” (mp3)
from “Black Violin”
(Di Versatile, Inc)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

Cowboy Elvis, Cowboy Elvis
“The Bartender’s Song” (mp3)
from “Only the Lonely…”
(RecEDGe Records)

More On This Album

My guest today s Randall Cameron, National Sales Manager for My Virtual Home, a software company in Brisbane with an amazing product. It allows you to build a 3D virtual representation of your home – in ten minutes. With no need for any understanding of CAD. It’s brilliant.

If you want to download the software (500mb), use the link below and type in Coupon Code = “PCN” for a 25% discount.

My guest today is Jane Mason, a strategy consultant in London who is an expert on using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to help teams maximize their potential. We chat about the background of MBTI, what all of the dichotomies mean, how it’s used in a corporate situation as well as ways to use it in your every day life to get along better with the people around you.

I’m an INTP. What type are you?

Become part of the G’Day World conversation.

TPN now has a HQ in Second Life! Add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends (that’s me). I’d be happy to show you around and help you find your SL legs.

If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.

You can show your love by buying me stuff from my Amazon wish list.

If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!

• Subscribe to TPN::G’day World by Email
• If you use iTunes, click here.
• If you use another aggregator, grab our RSS feed here.
• If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this description in Wikipedia.

310
“Fortuitous Bounce” (mp3)
from “Sixes and Sevens”
(Conduit Records)

Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at Napster
Buy at Amazon
]]> http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2008/02/06/gday-world-313-jane-mason-on-myers-briggs/feed/ 20 00:01:01 My guest today is Jane Mason, a strategy consultant in London who is an expert on using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to help teams maximize ... My guest today is Jane Mason, a strategy consultant in London who is an expert on using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to help teams maximize their potential. We chat about the background of MBTI, what all of the dichotomies mean, how it's used in a corporate situation as well as ways to use it in your every day life to get along better with the people around you. I'm an INTP. What type are you? Become part of the G'Day World conversation. TPN now has a HQ in Second Life! Add "Cameron Switchblade" to your friends (that's me). I'd be happy to show you around and help you find your SL legs. If you're a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G'DAY WORLD GROUP. You can show your love by buying me stuff from my Amazon wish list. follow cameronreilly at http://twitter.com If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don't miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment! Subscribe to TPN::G'day World by Email If you use iTunes, click here. If you use another aggregator, grab our RSS feed here. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read this description in Wikipedia. 310 "Fortuitous Bounce" (mp3) from "Sixes and Sevens" (Conduit Records) Buy at Rhapsody Buy at Napster Buy at Amazon Podcast The Podcast Network no No http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2008/02/04/gday-world-313-wayne-turmel-on-great-web-meetings/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2008/02/04/gday-world-313-wayne-turmel-on-great-web-meetings/#comments Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:13:48 +0000 Cameron Reilly http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2008/02/04/gday-world-313-wayne-turmel-on-great-web-meetings/

I’m sure you have all sat in “virtual” meetings at your place of work that would have bored a monk. I remember sitting in on “virtual team meetings” in my Microsoft days when I and other members of the team would be playing each other on XBOX Live while our manager droned on. It doesn’t have to be that way and my guest today will tell you why.

W. Wayne Turmel (aka dubdub) is the host of TPN’s Cranky Middle Manager and Working Week podcasts, as well as a stand-up comedian, author, manager…. and in 2008 he adds a new title to his portfolio – entrepreneur. We had a chat recently about his new business, Great Web Meetings, about becoming an entrepreneur, and other things.

Wayne has a long history as a presenter, trainer and expert in management and communication skills. He has taught Presentation Skills and Sales to Fortune 500 clients in his role as Director of Faculty for Communispond.

Become part of the G’Day World conversation.

TPN now has a HQ in Second Life! Add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends (that’s me). I’d be happy to show you around and help you find your SL legs.

If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.

You can show your love by buying me stuff from my Amazon wish list.

If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!

• Subscribe to TPN::G’day World by Email
• If you use iTunes, click here.
• If you use another aggregator, grab our RSS feed here.
• If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this description in Wikipedia.

310
“Fortuitous Bounce” (mp3)
from “Sixes and Sevens”
(Conduit Records)

Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at Napster
Buy at Amazon
More On This Album