I had been driving down the Hume Highway near Yass, in rural NSW, when I came across this rather unique advertising for the Yass McDonald’s hamburger restaurant. Have a look at it and see what you think!
After the restaurant went 24 hours, the sign changed but not much!
If you liked the post below called “God Returns to New Zealand” about Mr Frosty and the BMX Kid, you are going to love this short film too!
This is the winning short film created and directed by Andres Borghi, who also stars in the film.
There has been some discussion about Andres being from Argentina, but in my opinion he has captured the real essence of 100% Pure New Zealand in this feature.
What do you think?
This video is called “Mr. Frosty and the BMX Kid”, and is a short film about a Moari boy who meets God near Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand.
It’s only three minutes long but it’s very funny and a tribute to New Zealand. See for yourself, Cuz!
Great, eh Bro!
The Australian media is at it again!
Schapelle Corby who has achieved hero status with the assistance of the Australian media, received another six months off her twenty year sentence for good behaviour. This is on top of the 8 months of remissions received each year, and after Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last year granted her clemency on humanitarian grounds and slashed her sentence by five years.
Furthermore, now a recommendation for parole has been sent to the Indonesian government with a condition that the parole must be served at an address in Bali, most probably with her sister, Mercedes. This could see her released in 2014.
Of course this news whipped the Australian media into a frenzy again, relating to all “Schapelle’s strict bail conditions revealed”; “How Schapelle will live in Bali”; “Schapelle Corby must undertake moral and religious training” and “Schapelle to design swimwear in Bali” and a miriad of other permutations of this theme.
Only one of articles I read chose to remind us that Schapelle Corby is a convicted drug courier who received twenty years imprisonment in Kerobokan prison for the 2004 attempt to smuggle more than 4.1kg of marijuana into Bali concealed in the bag of a boogie board.
In real terms the 20 year sentence initially received will end up actually being more like 10 years.
Now I know that it will be argued by some that 20 years was too long a sentence, and conditions in Indonesian prisons are squalid and overcrowded, and while all this may be true; but it must be remembered that she was found guilty of drug smuggling in a country where the penalty for this crime could be death. When you travel in a country, you are bound by the laws and customs of that country. Equally, when you commit crimes in that country, you are also bound by the laws and punishments of that country. Even if they are more draconian than those at home.
I suppose what bothers me most however, is that the Australian media continue to make Corby out to be hard done by, to sanitise her crimes and try to elevate her status to that of a cult hero like a modern day Ned Kelly. And it should be remembered that he too was a thief, bank robber, bushranger and a murderer. But then I guess this is what sells womens magazines back in Australia.
In Corby’s case, has justice been done? You be the judge.
The light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the stop line, even though he could have beaten the red light by continuing through the intersection.
The woman tailgating was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration, as she missed her chance to get through the intersection, dropping her mobile phone and her makeup.
As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up.
He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell.
After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.
He said, ”I’m very sorry for arresting you. But you see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, giving the guy in front of you the finger, and swearing at him. I noticed the ‘What Would Jesus Do’ bumper sticker, the ‘Choose Life’ number plate holder, the ‘Follow Me to Sunday-School’ bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the boot lid, so naturally I assumed you had stolen the car.”
But there is still the matter of the mobile phone and the make-up!
Shultz! Shultz! Schnelle General Abbott ist kommen!
However, what can you expect from the The Daily Telegraph when most of their high-profile journalists are politically conservative.
A Roy Morgan credibility survey found that 40 per cent of journalists polled viewed News Limited newspapers as Australia’s most partisan media outlet, ahead of the ABC on 25 per cent.
At the Australian Federal Election in 2010, the Telegraph endorsed the Liberal-National Party Coalition and Tony Abbott.
Need I say more!
Source: The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 8/08/2013
I don’t often read the literature that accompanies the outlandish annual council rates sent by Newcastle City Council.
But this time I did.
I found this bizarre article contained within “Council News”. It is entitled “Changes to fridge/freezer pick up” and it goes this way:
From 1 June 2013, Council will no longer be collecting fridges and freezers as part of the bulk waste kerbside collection due to the refrigerant gases that can potentially be harmful to the environment if released in an uncontrolled manner.
The article goes on to offer five different ways for the ratepayer to dispose of the unwanted machines, all of which involve the ratepayer doing the removal, rather than Council.
How does the ratepayer removing the old fridges and freezers change the chance of the refrigerant gases escaping from these machines and being harmful to the environment? I would suggest that there would be a greater chance of the release of gases occurring when fridges and freezers moved by people using differing modes of transports from vans to trailers, and any release of gases certainly would be “uncontrolled”.
Council picking up these articles in a van or truck would have a lesser chance of gas escape when handled by professional Council officers.
I suspect the real reason for this move has little to do with the chance of refrigerant gas escape, but more to do with the costs of maintaining the service and the abrogation of their responsibilty to protect the environment.
‘Coroner condemns paramedics who refused to save drowning man in ditch ‘for health and safety reasons‘. This is the heading of an article appearing in the UK Mail Online from 18 July.
It appears that the paramedics refused to enter water to try and rescue the injured man, with the result that he drowned. The Coroner is reported as saying ‘I was brought up in a country where men risked their own lives to save the lives of others. That was a period in our history which has almost ceased. I do praise the actions of PC Day, who dived in, but by that stage it was too late.’
We can and do make heroes of emergency responders who risk their lives to save others, but there does have to be some point where the risk is too great and trying to save the life of one does not warrant risking the lives of others. We cannot know from this distance, what the ‘right’ decision was but it is heartening to note that the ambulance authority agrees that the paramedics made the right decision. There also appears to be some confusion that the first emergency service on the scene is there to do all the work required, which simply cannot be the case. The paramedics we can assume, were trained to deliver advanced life support to those that need it, not to rescue people from a ditch ’5ft, with knee-deep mud at the bottom’, any more than a fire brigade is there to rescue someone from a cliff when there is a cliff rescue unit to be called (see ‘Legal confusion leads to unnecessary death’) or that the police at a fire are there to extinguish the fire (see Eburn, M.,‘Emergency services and health and safety’ (2012) 8(1) Crisis Response 10-13).
It does not appear that the Coroner’s report is available online so I can’t comment on the precise facts or the Coroner’s finding. The law does not however, require that the government save everyone that can be saved. It appears this man died because his friend was two times over the legal blood alcohol limit and drove the car off the road.
Source: Michael Eburn – Australian Emergency Law – July 26, 2013
Please read this post in comparison the the last post in respect of the UK paramedic team that refused to assist a dying man because of OH&S concerns:
Those concerned that OHS rules will inhibit rescue may like to read this story from the New Zealand Herald – Rescue heroes: ‘We had to do something’.
It is unlikely that an inspector appointed under New Zealand’s Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 would prosecute any of these officers, even though there is a duty on each employee ”take all practicable steps to ensure (a) the employee’s safety while at work…” (s 19).
Section 2A tells us that “all practicable steps” … means all steps to achieve the result that it is reasonably practicable to take in the circumstances, having regard to—
(a)the nature and severity of the harm that may be suffered if the result is not achieved; and
(b) the current state of knowledge about the likelihood that harm of that nature and severity will be suffered if the result is not achieved; and
(c) the current state of knowledge about harm of that nature; and
(d) the current state of knowledge about the means available to achieve the result, and about the likely efficacy of each of those means; and
(e) the availability and cost of each of those means.The result to be achieved in these cases was the rescue of those whose lives were under dire threat. The nature and severity of the harm that may be suffered if the result (rescue) was not achieved was death; the rescuers may well have had knowledge both about the risk and the ideal way to make a safer rescue but they also knew that it was not an ideal world and waiting for further rescue tools was not an option. Equally we can see the rescuers were not reckless, in the car accident the rescuers didn’t proceed once they were exposed to electricity, they rethought the issue and came up with another solution; ‘a fibreglass pole to lift the live line off the car’.The legislation in New Zealand is very similar to the work health and safety legislation in Australia, which also requires an employee and employer to take reasonably practical steps to reduce risks to health and safety. In NSW the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) s 18 says “reasonably practicable” , in relation to a duty to ensure health and safety, means that which is, or was at a particular time, reasonably able to be done in relation to ensuring health and safety, taking into account and weighing up all relevant matters including:
(a) the likelihood of the hazard or the risk concerned occurring, and
(b) the degree of harm that might result from the hazard or the risk, and
(c) what the person concerned knows, or ought reasonably to know, about:
(i) the hazard or the risk, and
(ii) ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, and
(d) the availability and suitability of ways to eliminate or minimise the risk, and
(e) after assessing the extent of the risk and the available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, the cost associated with available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, including whether the cost is grossly disproportionate to the risk.If the scenario reported in New Zealand happened in NSW then the Act appears to direct attention to the risk which is both death to the victim and the rescuer, but the degree of harm was the death of the victim but the rescuers appear to have been attentive (at least the firefighters) to a risk of injury and backed off when affected by electricity, and again they considered ways to deal with the risk.
In either country it’s unlikely anyone would be prosecuted but one has to also concede there is a real politik to that, it’s hard to prosecute someone in the name of the Crown when the Crown via the Governor General has just honoured them with a reward.
Source: Michael Eburn, Australian Emergency Law, 30 June 2013
A UK coroner lashed out at paramedics who refused to get into a water-filled ditch to help a dying man because of health and safety concerns.
Road accident victim Michael Thornton was lifted on to dry land only when a policeman arrived, by which time it was too late to save him.
At the inquest into the 30-year-old farmer’s death coroner Michael Rose declared: ‘I will not say what I think of health and safety regulations. I was brought up in a country where men risked their lives to save the lives of others.’
Mr Thornton was knocked unconscious when the Land Rover in which he was a passenger crashed on the Somerset Levels and flipped into the 10ft-wide drainage ditch. His two friends managed to haul him on to the side of the upturned vehicle and attempted to revive him. But they were unable to carry him up the slippery banks.
When two male paramedics arrived they made a snap ‘risk assessment’ and refused to get into the water to help. In stark contrast, a policeman who arrived minutes later went straight into the water and pulled Mr Thornton on to the road.
His death is the latest in a series of cases in recent years in which ‘risk assessments’ stopped emergency crews from going to the aid of victims, in some cases costing lives.
Mr Rose, coroner for West Somerset, said: ‘I was brought up in a country where men risked their own lives to save the lives of others. That was a period in our history which has almost ceased. I do praise the actions of PC Day, who dived in, but by that stage it was too late.’
At the inquest in Taunton last week, Mr Rose recorded an accidental death verdict and did not say if Mr Thornton could have been saved if the paramedics had gone in.
The paramedics’ employers insist the crew had to stay dry to provide ‘advanced life support’ such as defibrillation, which could have proved fatal for everyone at the scene if carried out too close to the water.
The inquest heard that Mr Thornton, from East Brent, Somerset, had been drinking with friends Jason Cheal and Matthew Braddick, 27, at a pub in Brent Knoll before the accident last November. Mr Braddick was nearly twice over the alcohol limit as he drove them home just after midnight in his Land Rover Discovery. He crashed into the ditch in Rooksbridge on the Somerset Levels near Weston-super-Mare, claiming later that he had swerved to avoid an animal in the road. Many unlit roads in the area are lined by ditches, or ‘rhynes’, which in winter are often filled with water and can be dangerous to motorists.
Mr Braddick was later convicted of drink-driving and banned from the road for three years but Mr Rose said he did not think that alcohol was the main cause of the accident. He said they had not been doing over 30mph and may well have swerved to avoid an animal. The ditch depth was not measured but is estimated at 5ft, with knee-deep mud at the bottom. The ambulance response time was not mentioned at the inquest but it was not thought to have been delayed.
‘If the legislation wasn’t quite so stringent then perhaps the man could have been saved.’
South Western Ambulance Trust extended its condolences but said it was ‘confident the crew made an appropriate risk assessment and administered the best possible care’. A spokesman added: ‘They would have been unable to administer any higher standard of life support on an upturned vehicle, in the middle of the water, than that which was already being performed by the individual on scene.’ The crew were concerned by the unknown depth of the water. If one of them got into trouble, it would have affected the treatment they could provide, the spokesman said. ‘The clinical preference would always have been to wait for the fire service to rescue the patient from the water. There is no question the paramedics made exactly the right choices and performed admirably.’
Tory councillor for neighbouring Cheddar, Dawn Hill, said: ‘Your natural instinct would be to jump in and help. It is very sad that health and safety laws stop paramedics from doing their job.’
My thoughts on this incident
What do you think?
Source: Daily Mail (online) 18/07/2013 by Martin Robinson; Photo by Steve Roberts, SWNS.com
George Brown is a decorated soldier and health professional and 40 year veteran in the field of emergency nursing and paramedical practice, both military and civilian areas. He has senior management positions in the delivery of paramedical services. Opinions expressed in these columns are solely those of the author and should not be construed as being those of any organization to which he may be connected.
He was born in the UK of Scottish ancestry from Aberdeen and a member of the Clan MacDougall. He is a member of the Macedonian community in Newcastle, and speaks fluent Macedonian. While this may seem a contradiction, it is his wife who is Macedonian, and as a result he embraced the Macedonian language and the Orthodox faith.
His interests include aviation and digital photography, and he always enjoys the opportunity to combine the two. Navigate to his Flickr site to see recent additions to his photo library.
Џорџ Браун е украсени војник и професионално здравствено лице и 40 годишен ветеран во областа на за итни случаи старечки и парамедицински пракса, двете воени и цивилни области. Тој има високи менаџерски позиции во испораката на парамедицински услуги. Мислењата изразени во овие колумни се исклучиво на авторот и не треба да се толкува како оние на било која организација тој може да биде поврзан.
Тој е роден во Велика Британија на шкотскиот потекло од Абердин и член на Kланот MacDougall. Тој е член на македонската заедница во Њукасл, и зборува течно македонски. Иако ова можеби изгледа контрадикција, тоа е неговата сопруга кој е македонски, и како резултат научил македонскиот јазик и ја примија православната вера.
Неговите интереси вклучуваат авијација и дигитална фотографија, и тој секогаш ужива во можност да се комбинираат двете. Отиди до неговиот Фликр сајт да видите последните дополнувања на неговата слика библиотека.
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