dimland radio 7-11-15 show notes

Gone But Not Idle

The show has been away for a couple weeks, because of the Fourth of July holiday, but I was still busy. The company I work for started cleaning a new building (NASTY! More on that later.) and I posted five blogs.

The blog topics:

Never Founds: Lime Spiders & Black Flag

A special post for the Stuck in the 80s blog about George Hrab's podcast featuring his acoustic version of Yes' '90125.

Warehouse Find had two posts: Comic book artist Tom Sutton and his work on 'Werewolf By Night' & Abe Vigoda and my older brother's birthday.

NASTY NASTY Building

The janitorial service I work for started a new property, which is a good thing, but that building had been grossly neglected. I went on about just how bad the restrooms were to get cleaned up. The restrooms were thick with dust and the toilets and urinals were disgusting. There were 11 restrooms. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the restroom in 'Trainspotting' (see picture). A few of the worst restrooms were 2s, most were 3s, and one was a 5.

Not as bad as this, but close.

The rent must have been exceedingly cheap for the tenants to put with that quality of clean.

Yuck!

You Won't Accept My Claim Without Good Evidence! Open Your Mind!

I talked about skepticism and the open mind. I reminded listeners that skeptics (big S, little S, whatever) have open minds, they just require better evidence than anecdotes and other fuzzy evidence. I had a friend make the remark that the Skeptoid Podcast gets "smarmy and belittling" toward people who have beliefs and ideas unproven by science.

Ah, the arrogance.
 
Sharon Hill of Doubtful News wrote a nice piece about this open mind argument.

Movie Recommendations: An Honest Liar (2014)

An excellent documentary about the life and work of the world's best known (or most notorious depending on your bias) skeptic, James Randi. It profiles his early career in magic and as an escape artist through his work fighting the fakers. Much of the film's material was familiar to me, but still enjoyable. If you call your blood boiling watching Peter Popoff apply his con enjoyable.

We do get something unexpected in the final third of the film. Apparently, Randi is correct. No matter how intelligent or learned they are, anyone can be fooled. Even Randi. 

 

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Guess I Must Have Been In Love With Myself' by Pete Shelley & 'And I Moved' by Pete Townshend

Second ad break bumpers: 'But I'm Different Now' By The Jam & 'Eye In The Sky' by Alan Parsons Project

Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle

That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here

dimland radio 6/13/15 show notes

Better Late Than Never

This was the show that was supposed to play last week. I'm not entirely certain why it didn't play as scheduled, but I think I might have screwed something up. But, I guess better late than never, because I think this was one of my better shows.

Doubtful News Dropped My Name!

 

So, in late May a video of an odd looking object floating through the skies of New Zealand was captured on video through the window of a jet airliner. What was this UFO (remember the U stands for unidentified)? Some have suggested it was the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

 

Someone had posted an image of His Holy Noodleness on the Facebook group page Group of Fort. The person was curious as to what it was and what the other members of the group thought of it.

As it so happened, just a day or two prior to that posting a FB friend of mine had posted a link to the YouTube video of the hoaxer showing how he created the image. With that bit of good info available, I linked to it in the comment thread.

Sharon Hill, the curator of the Doubtful News website, posted on Doubtful News the hoax reveal and yours truly got himself a nice thank you.

Pretty cool beans!

Bitch About The First Pitch

I wondered why there was a change in how baseball conducted the ceremonial first pitch. In the old days, the first pitch was thrown from the stands, not the mound. Maybe that was just for presidents. Anyway, I did some research and it looks like Ronald Reagan was the first sitting president to take to the mound for that first pitch.

 

Thanks, Obama!

Speaking Of Politics

 

I took a moment to suggest that politics can get otherwise fine skeptics to fall victim to their own political bias. One such skeptic who is very left in his politics tried to shrug off a recent poll that shows that George W Bush now has a better approval rating than President Obama. He suggested the sample size was small and skewed by being done mostly by landline phone calls.

 

I suggested that had the poll showed Obama ahead of W, that particular skeptic probably wouldn't have had an issue with sample size or landlines. He would likely just accept it as a given. "Of course, Obama is more popular than Bush. Duh!"

 

Thanks, Obama! 

 

A Selfie Brings The Hurt To ISIS

 

Looks Photoshopped, he isn't looking at the camera, and image is not the selfie in question.

 

Now I wasn't saying that a selfie taken by a member of ISIS didn't help the US military in selecting a target. I was suggesting that the image in the article on the ISIS selfie probably was constructed for the article.

 

I thought the image looked Photoshopped, that the terrorist wasn't looking at the camera, and my biggest problem was that the selfie image was a third person (or should that be second person?) point of view and not the selfie itself.

Sleep Paralysis And Fringe Thinking

 

I'm not a psychologist. I may be completely wrong, but that didn't stop me from talking about how folks who tend to believe fringe or conspiratorial ideas will accept opposing ideas as long as those ideas also conflict with the "official" story. I also pointed out that even though the majority of experts in some field can be in complete opposition to the idea of one crank, fringe thinkers and conspiracists will hold the crank's idea up as the real story.

 

And I talked about a recent guest on the internet show Paradigm Shift and his alien abduction experience. I never heard of him or his claims, but in the break before he told his story I had pretty much nailed every aspect of his claim.

However, I did this with just myself as a witness. So, you'll just have to take my word for it and I understand if you remain skeptical.

 

But the reason I could be so accurate was because the fellow was describing all the classic symptoms of sleep paralysis. I also told about the experience I had with my own bout of sleep paralysis.

 

Movie Recommendations: None

 

I didn't have time this week, so you are on your own.

 

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus

First ad break bumpers: 'You've Got Everything Now' by The Smiths & 'You Know Better Than I Know' by Pete Shelley
Second ad break bumpers: 'You Took' By The Church & 'You'll Have To Go Sideways' by The Soft Boys

Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle

That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here

dimland radio 6-1-13 show notes

Open Mind?

 

Once again the skeptic (me) has to explain the whole open mind concept.  Having an open mind mean being willing to consider a claim, not necessarily to accept that claim.  I read Sharon Hill's (Doubtful News) blog about who is open minded, the skeptic or the believer.  If you've listened to my show for any amount of time, you'd know what I think.

 

Never Found In The 80s: Husker Du

 

This band is from St. Paul, MN, but I'm sure you've heard they are from Minneapolis.  That happens all the time.  People not from Minnesota think our only city is Minneapolis.  I makes me so... Sorry, I'm from St. Paul.  We get a little touchy about the whole Minneapolis thing.  Anyway, I wrote about Husker Du and included a concert video clip.  I was at that concert!  You can see my piece on this never found band at the Stuck in the 80s blog.

Why I Hate The NY Yankees (And You Should, Too)

Sure, there are plenty of reasons to hate the Yankees, but while watching Ken Burns: Baseball I finally pinpointed my main reasons: the 1960 World Series and Stephen Jay Gould.  If you weren't listening you can download the show from the Z Talk Radio archive and get the details.

 

Movie Recommendation: Ken Burns: Baseball

 

PBS

Well, as long as I was talking about it already I figured I should recommend this excellent documentary series.  It and its follow-up The Tenth Inning are streaming on Netflix.  I watched this series a few times now.  It demonstrates why baseball is the greatest game ever devised.  Ever.  Period.

Music heard on the show (These songs are linked above)...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus

First ad break bumpers: 'The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill' & 'I Apologize' by Husker Du
Second ad break bumpers: 'The Killing Jar' by Siouxsie & the Banshees & 'Sweet Water Pools' by The Screaming Blue Messiahs
Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle

That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.