dimland radio 7-22-17 show notes

A Little More About Amelia Earhart

Last week I mentioned a Ric Gillespie being connected to the whole Earhart survived her last flight theorizing. He is. However, he's not pushing the idea that she and her navigator were taken prisoner by the Japanese military. His idea is more romantic.

 

For more skeptical takes on that bad photograph that doesn't show Earhart check out the Skeptoid Podcast and Ben Radford's analysis written for CSI.

A Little Talk About Psychic Predictions
 

I wondered what good the predictions of psychics do. The predictions are only realized to have been correct after the event - it's called retrofitting or retrodicting. Nostradamus predicted Hitler, it is said. He didn't, but people retrofit his predictions after Hitler pulled his shenanigans. Even if he had predicted Hitler, which he didn't, what good did it do? It didn't prevent Hitler, the Nazis, or World War II.

 

Two More Police Shootings That Have Us Scratching Our Heads

 

In Minneapolis, two police involved shooting have gotten plenty of attention. In one incident two dogs were shot. The dogs were not killed, but it appears that they didn't deserve to be shot. It's hard to say for certain. The videos from the homeowners security camera and the officer body cam don't appear to show the dogs acting aggressively. So, shooting them seemed unjustified.

However, there is no audio, so we don't know if the dogs might have been growling. The first dog was wagging its tail, but a wagging tail doesn't always mean the dog should be considered friendly and approachable. It's hard to know what the dogs might do and was going through the mind of that officer.

 

It's even harder to figure out what was going on in the mind of another Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed a woman who had called 911 to report a possible rape. Justine Damond, an Australian woman living with her fiance in Minneapolis, heard what she thought was a rape occurring near their house, so she called 911.

 

The officers who arrived were said to have been startled by a loud noise just prior to Damond approaching the driver's side of the patrol car. The officer seated in the passenger seat, reached across with his weapon in hand. He shot and killed her.

 

How does that happen? As a Facebook friend pointed out, they were responding to a report of a woman being raped and a woman approaches the car, um, might she not be the victim of the rape? What the hell?

 

There are plenty of people wanting to know how this could have happened, including the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

 

Follow the links to learn more: here and here. 

 

Top Three Cool Things Of The Week

Here are the Top Three Cool Things that I spotted this week.

 

3) The Minnesota Twins are in a rough stretch of 12 games coming out of the All Star break. They face the Houston Astros, the Hated Yankees, the Detroit Tigers, and the LA Dodgers. Detroit shouldn't be as challenging. As of this writing their record through eight game of the rough stretch is 8-8. I'll take a .500 record.

 

2) Look at the picture Gene Simmons, founding member of the rock band Kiss, recently getting some exercise. He's 67. My Facebook friend Julie Lynn summed up the image brilliantly, thus:

 

"I wanna rock and roll all night... and get a moderate amount of exercise in sturdy shoes and stay hydrated as befits a man of my advanced years every day."

 

1) My friend Chris Brown's math whiz son Ethan was national television demonstrating his Magic Square. Pretty damn cool!

 

Also Mentioned On The Show

Ouija boards and the ideomotor effect.

 

Movie Recommendation: Creepshow (1982)

As a tribute to George Romero, who the world lost very recently, I thought I'd recommend his anthology film of macabre tales. It's an homage to EC Comics, the publisher of horror, suspense, sci-fi, and crime comic books in the 1950s. I think the film captures the look, feel, and attitude of those comic books.

 

Watch for Stephen King, who wrote the film, as a yokel who has a meteor crash on his land. There's a dancing Ed Harris and an F-bomb dropping EG Marshall.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Keep It Dark' by Genesis & 'Tears' by Chameleons UK

Second ad break bumpers: 'Help Me Sombody' by Brian Eno/David Byrne & 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' by The Police 

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

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

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 9-12-15 show notes

Report To Court

Just before I sat down to record this show, I found something pretty scammy in my email. It was a notice from "State Court" that I appear. The English was a bit awkward and there was no indication as to which court I needed to appear before nor was there any reason given for my appearance.

 

There was an attachment which I was instructed to open. I didn't. I read the notice on the show and then deleted the obvious scam email.

Remembering 9/11

It's an annual occurrence. The swallows return to Capistrano each fall. The cherry blossoms bloom in Washington DC each spring. And, every year for the past 14 years, the "truthers" take to the social media to convince the "sheeple" that 9/11 was an inside job.

 

This is the latest example of 9/11 conspiracy logic that I spotted on Facebook.

They site the usual anomalies or what they think are inconsistencies in the reporting of the events of that day. Jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel. There's no way 19 hijackers armed with box cutters could pull this off. The Jews all stayed home that day. What's his name said, "Pull it." The Pentagon couldn't have been hit by a plane. Building 7! Blah. Blah. Blah.

 

And on it goes. There's little hope of getting them to face reality.

 

Here is what the evidence tells us about what happened on September 11, 2001 and how the conspiracy theorists are so wrong. And here is what a former "truther" has to say about Building 7. He is a former "truther", so it may be possible for others to see the light. And this from Popular Mechanics.

 

I also talked about what I remember of that day and the fearful strangeness of the days that followed.

 

Politics

I'm no expert in politics. Frankly, I'm just plain tired of the whole us versus them scenario that any political system made up of humans can't help but create. I see a lot of Left against Republican stuff on my Facebook. Which obviously means that most of my FB friends tend to be politically liberal.

 

I commented on a posting on the liberal site PoliticusUSA by Sarah Jones, was detailing a speech given by Sen. Al Franken before the Senate explaining his support of the Iran nuclear deal. What he said seemed reasonable to me.

 

Something Ms Jones said gave me pause: "Maybe it's not possible for Republicans to learn from their Iraq decision, because they don't view it as a mistake to invade a sovereign nation on a lie." (Emphasis added by me.)

 

There it was again. This Bush lied bullshit. Ms Jones appears to forget that nearly every Democrat was on board with using military force against Iraq, including VP Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Here is an admittedly conservative source listing Democrats "lying" about Iraq.

 

I usually ask: If Bush lied and he knew there were no stockpiles of WMD, why didn't he and the evil genius Dick Cheney make certain that the weapons inspectors found some? Why didn't they assigned some special black ops unit to bring in some biological and chemical weapons containers and plant them so as to be found later?

 

But, on a closer read, Ms Jones does seem to be indicating the Democrats have learned "from their Iraq decision" when it comes to the handling of Iran.

 

As always, however, when it comes to politics I have to admit it's possible that I am wrong.

Gone Jetta Gone

 

Our Jetta at a healthier, happier time.

After more than a year and a half of sitting in the garage, we finally got our VW Jetta out and parked on the street to be towed away as a donation to a local school. It was quite a chore and my wife and I owe big thanks to my younger brother, Steve. He made it possible to get the dead vehicle out of our lives.

 

10 points, Steve!

 

Star Trek: DS9's Lowest Moment

Regular listeners to my show know I really like baseball. I can't play it, but I love to watch it.

 

Regular listeners to my show will also know I like Star Trek. The Next Generation series is my favorite. No other captain can top Picard.

 

I just recently finished watching the Deep Space 9 series for the first time. I'm not sure why I wasn't interested in it when it originally aired, but I saw it was streaming (not for free) on Netflix. I figured I'd watch it and it would be like a new Star Trek series to me.

 

Overall, I enjoyed the series. It had a few awkward moments, but when the war with the Dominion heated up, the show got pretty darn good.

 

BUT, they produced quite a clinker in their final season. In an episode meant to lighten the tension of a season long war, the producers decided to have the characters take part in a baseball game.

 

Not since I saw what was claimed to be a baseball game in that sparkly vampires movie, had I seen such a ludicrous depiction of the Great American Past-time. It was awful.

 

First of all, according to Star Trek, there is no baseball in the 24th Century. What?! Why live in the future? But Captain Sisko and his son still like the game and play it in the holo-suites (don't ask me to explain). An old rival stops by DS9 and Sisko finds out the rival and his crew (all Vulcans) have been playing baseball regularly (don't ask me to explain). Sisko issues a challenge to a game pitting DS9's best players against the Vulcan's best. The DS9 crew then have TWO WEEKS to learn all the rules and how to play the game.

 

What ensues is absolutely ridiculous. Almost impossible to watch, but I forced myself. Our heroes do lose to the Vulcans by a score of 10 - 1. But, realistically the Vulcan's score should have been much, much higher.

 

This clip with a U2 song, not sure why, will give you some idea of what I went through watching the show. This clip without U2 might do even better.

 

It was horrible.

Movie Recommendations: None

I went on too long about that Star Trek assault on the greatest game ever. I didn't get to a recommendation, so you are on your own. 

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Bonneville' by The dB's & 'Jordan, MN' by Big Black

Second ad break bumpers: 'Los Angeles' by X &  'Cooks County' By The Who

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.