dimland radio 2-20-16 show notes

Amy's Jury Duty And Hayden's Step Into More Independence

So, Amy had jury duty for the first time this past week. She got on a jury and deliberated on a civil case making the determination of the amount of damages to award a fellow injured in a car accident. I won't go into all the details, but the fellow was asking for half a million in addition to the medical costs of $23,000.

 

I think the best way to say whose side the jury was more sympathetic to will be to tell you what they decided to award the plaintiff. He was asking for $523,000, they awarded him $43,000. The plaintiff really didn't establish he deserved much more. Amy didn't want to give him anything, but agreed with the other jurors that $20,000 in addition to the $23,000 in medical costs was fair. Even the defendant's lawyer suggested they thought an additional $25,000 would have been fair. The jury came in under that, so you know for whom they felt more sympathy.

 

Our dilemma was that we have a 12 year-old son. Amy meets him at the bus stop each day and walks him home. Perhaps we are over-protective. We decided to give Hayden the chance to get himself from the bus to and in the house on his own. He would also call me at work to let me know he made it.

 

He did fine. But I was pretty anxious up until I got his call.

Shame On You Celebrators Of Scalia's Death

Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly, leaving a vacancy on the US Supreme Court. Many have stated how shocked and saddened they are by his death. However, his death was also greeted by more than a few of my Facebook friends' expressions of joy. Shame on them!

 

This is all part of that tribalism that disgusts me so. Scalia was conservative. His opinions were conservative. So, of course, some of my FB friends who tend to be very liberal couldn't stand him. They painted him as one of the worst people ever. And they were relieved when he died.

 

A law professor, Paul Campos, has written a piece for Salon.com voicing his displeasure at people lauding Scalia as a brilliant jurist. Campos disagrees and sites a few examples of what he thinks show Scalia not being so brilliant and having phony principles.

Well, Campos is a law professor and I'm just some ignorant cartoonist with an internet radio show to which no one listens, so what do I know about Scalia and his juristic brilliance?

 

However, the person who wrote the following must certainly know better than I and, maybe, even a law professor writing for Salon.com. She wrote, 

 

"...'We are different, we are one,' different in our interpretation of written texts, one in our reverence for the Constitution and the institution we serve. From our years together at the DC Circuit, we were best buddies. We disagreed now and then, but when I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, the opinion ultimately released was notably better than my initial circulation. Justice Scalia nailed all the weak spots - the 'applesauce' and the 'argle bargle' - and gave me just what I needed to strengthen the majority opinion. He was a jurist of captivating brilliance [emphasis mine] and wit, with a rare talent to make even the most sober judge laugh. The press referred to his 'energetic fervor,' 'astringent intellect,' 'peppery prose,' 'acumen,' and 'affability,' all apt descriptions. He was eminently quotable, his pungent opinions so clearly stated that his words never slipped from the reader's grasp."

 

I'm sure Prof. Campos disagrees with this statement. Well, he's the law professor who writes for Salon.com and the person who wrote this was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She's just a US Supreme Court justice who has known and served with Justice Scalia for decades. So,what does she know?

 

Read the statements of the Justices of the US Supreme Court on the death of their colleague here.

 

Jared Allen Rides Off Into The Portrait Format

ARRRGGGGGHH!!!

 

Landscape! Landscape!

 

If you are going to announce your retirement from the NFL by making a video of you riding off into the sunset (or just riding off) as it's done in the Westerns, make god damn certain the person taking the video holds the camera the right way!

 

Westerns are filmed in landscape! Not portrait!

Dawkins Is Re-invited To NECSS And Has A Stroke

No, he didn't have a stroke because of the re-invitation. The stroke did happen after Richard Dawkins received an apology and a re-invitation to appear at NECSS. This has been quite a roller coaster. NECSS seems to have been having difficulty figuring out how to deal with divisive people such as Dawkins. Although, why is he divisive? Is he really divisive?

NECSS, I'm sure, had been getting an earful ever since they first announced Dawkins was a guest speaker.

 

Anyway, he's been re-invited and those who were pissed off by his invitation, but happy with his dis-invitation, are probably pissed off again. Oh, well. I guess they won't be attending NECSS.

 

And neither will Richard Dawkins. He had that stroke.

 

Did I Dream This?

Was it all just a dream? Did I see that Charlie Sheen had returned to the Dr. Oz show to follow up on the whole quack HIV/AIDS cure that snake oil salesman, Samir Chachoua was selling? Did I see Dr. Oz and Sheen's doctor calling out Chachoua for his claims? Did I see Dr. Oz showing and responding to clips from Bill Maher's HBO show Real Time, on which Maher lapped up all of Chachoua's bullshit? Did I see that?

 

Maybe I did. If so, kudos to Dr. Oz. Damn! Did I just say that?

 

Movie Recommendation: Sleuth (1972)

 

2oth Century Fox

I may have recommended this one before, but I blogged about it this week on Warehouse Find, the official blog of Nostalgia Zone, so I'm recommending it again.

 

It's terrifically entertaining. The acting is a treat and the twists and turns are great fun. Watch this movie!

 

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Creatures Of Love' by Talking Heads & 'He Stopped Loving Her Today' by George Jones

Second ad break bumpers: 'Lonely Is As Lonely Does' by The dBs &  'Achin' To Be' by The Replacements

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 2-6-16 show notes

A Tale Of Snow

I began the show with a lengthy (and maybe boring) recap of all the shoveling I did in the aftermath of Minnesota's latest snowstorm. We didn't get dumped on by the amounts that the East Coast suffered a couple weeks ago, so it was an admittedly easier task. Still, it was a fair bit of snow clearing that needed to be done.

B.o.B. Thinks The Earth Is Flat. NdGT To The Rescue...

I hadn't heard of rapper B.o.B. before I spotted he had outed himself as a Flat Earther. Which is something he has in common with internet personality Tila Tequila. So, B.o.B. took to Twitter to show his ignorance and Neil deGrasse Tyson took to Twitter to attempt to help the rapper come into the light.

 

It became kind of a deal on the internet and wound up as an amusing segment on Comedy Central's The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore.

I took the opportunity to mention that our ancient ancestors figured out that our planet is a sphere. They didn't need to go into space to figure it out, they just made simple observations. Aristotle could see that some stars were not visible in the night sky as observers went farther to the North. He surmised that the Earth must be round. Eratosthenes made measurements of shadows cast by the sun at high noon on the Summer Solstice and discovered the farther North one went the longer the shadows grew. He, too, surmised the Earth must be round and he even did some math to figure out its circumference. He was pretty damn close. And he did it all without the help of Google.

 

HIV Positive Charlie Sheen Consults A Quack, Dimland Radio Science Zero Bill Maher Promotes That Quack

By now, most everyone who knows who Charlie Sheen is knows that he went public with being HIV positive. It wasn't the most shocking of news given what we've heard about Sheen's lifestyle. He went on the standard science-based medications and his viral load dropped to undetectable levels. Undetectable, but not gone.

Enter the quack. Samir Chachoua has some pretty quacky ideas about how to treat HIV/AIDS. Don't use what science has given us, use milk from arthritic goats. Yeah, that's the ticket. So, Sheen eschews actual medicine for this unproven snake oil and surprise! his viral load goes back up.

 

Enter Dr. Oz. Of all people, Dr. Oz comes on the scene to get Charlie back on the rails. Sheen was a guest on Oz's show on which he admitted being a "human guinea pig" for Chachoua's treatment. To Dr. Oz's credit, he along with Sheen's actual doctor had a kind of intervention to convince the Hollywood bad boy to get back on his meds. Sheen agreed and later began tweeting negatively about Chachoua.

 

Enter Dimland Radio Science Zero Bill Maher. Maher had Chachoua as a guest on his HBO show Real Time. Maher has a problem accepting science when it comes to medicine and pharmaceuticals. He believes "Western medicine" hasn't done shit in 50 years about cancer, for instance. Which just isn't true. Detection methods have improved. Treatments have gotten more effective. Survival rates have increased.

 

What great advancements have there been in homeopathy, naturopathy, iridology, reflexology, chiropractic, magnet therapy, acupuncture, aromatherapy in the last 50 years, eh, Bill?

 

Science blogger Orac wrote a lengthy, comprehensive piece on this whole affair. You came read it here.

 

Movie Recommendation: None

 

I ran out of time. You are on your own this week.

 

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Pride' by Echo & The Bunnymen & 'Spinning Round' by Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

Second ad break bumpers: 'YYZ' by Rush &  'The Wait' by Killing Joke

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.