Dimland Radio

dimland radio 7-2-11 show notes

Can We Drop The “Under God”

No “under god?” We’re going to hell!

I talked about how the phrase “under god” should be dropped from the Pledge of Allegiance. The words were forced in the Pledge in 1954 and essentially made the notion of “one nation indivisible” divisible, because including the two words excludes polytheists, non-theists and those who believe in a different god

Read about the Pledge here and a humanist’s reaction to Religious Right’s reaction to NBC not saying “under god” when the Pledge was recited during the US Open coverage here.

A Tale Of Reckless Fireworks Usage

Years ago, a couple friends and I acquired some very powerful and illegal fireworks to celebrate our nation’s birthday. We went to great lengths (well, distance) to get them. We drove all the way to South Dakota from the Twin Cities instead of just heading to Wisconsin.

I tell the story of the beer-influenced decision to blow up our beer cooler. Boy, it blowed up good. We were fortunate to not suffer any injuries.

This video clip will give you an idea of what an m200 firecracker sounds like.

This Week’s Dubious Item

Imagine Lennon voting for Reagan, I wonder if you can. I can’t.

Some fellow is claiming that John Lennon was a Reagan Republican in the later days of the former Beatles’ life. I’m not so sure about that. I can see John being less interested in his activism, but becoming a Reaganite? I doubt it.

Read the dubious report here.

It’s Not True: The Coriolis Effect And Flushing Toilets

Clockwise? Must be in the southern hemisphere. Well, not necessarily.

It’s not true that where you are on the planet affects which direction the water flushes from your toilet. The Coriolis forcing deals more with weather systems, hurricanes rotate counter clockwise north of the Equator and clockwise south of it. Your toilet flushes in the direction it was designed to flush.

Michael Palin of Monty Python fame was taken in by a con artist’s trick of draining water. In the BBC series ‘Pole To Pole’, Palin shows us a fellow demonstrating the effect in a small Kenyan town on the Equator. The fellow is playing a trick.

Learn about the Coriolis Effect and how Palin was fooled here.

Movie Recommendation: Michael Palin: Around The World In 80 Days

Yes, I know. It’s not a movie, but it’s very good and worth watching. Michael Palin attempts to travel around the world in much the same way as Phileas Fogg does in the Jules Verne novel. It’s wonderful and available on Netflix.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Independence Day’ by Urban Guerrillas & ‘Only In America’ by Naked Raygun
Second ad break bumpers: ‘Little America‘ by REM & ‘America Is Waiting’ by Brian Eno/David Bryne
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

dimland radio 6-25-11 show notes

Yard Work and Grad Party

It was supposed to be a sunny day, but the grey overcast sky proved the weather man wrong. Anyway, we were still able to get out in the yard and cut our lilac shrub down to size. Later Hayden and I attended a graduation party.

Just For Men

“Maybe I should just shave?”

I reviewed the silliness of the ad campaign for the Just For Men hair & beard coloring. The ads are pretty asinine, especially the bread ads with the former pro athletes. “No play for Mr. Grey!” Look, if you don’t want a grey beard, don’t have a beard.

And here is the scary Randy Johnson throwing a pitch that nails an unfortunate seagull. The fatal pitch is right at the beginning of the clip, then what follows is some fairly amateur attempt at humor. I stop after watching the pitch.

Best Evidence For Bigfoot – Not Exactly

Probably smears made by… a bear

The investigative group Sanger Paranormal held a press conference at which they said they would reveal the best evidence for bigfoot’s existence since the 1967 Patterson/Gimlin film. What they had were some photographs of what is more likely smears created by a curious bear than a bigfoot and some DNA that needed testing. They said they needed five grand to get the DNA tested.

Well, we’re still waiting for that evidence

You can read more here and here.

Expelled For Sale

Exposed: No Science Allowed

The film company that produced ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,’ a documentary of dubious facts, has gone bankrupt. So the Ben Stein hosted pro-creationism film is up for auction. A pro-science group is raising money in an attempt to buy the film and all its production materials (including unused portions of interviews with pro-science folks).

Want to help science set this film straight? You can donate here and learn more about the inaccuracies and misrepresentations here.

Evolution is science! Intelligent Design (creationism) is not!

I Know What I Saw

Turns out they really don’t know what they saw.

The documentary by James Fox entitled ‘I Know What I Saw’ is about finding answers to the UFO question. What are they? Extraterrestrial? Secret government military aircraft? Or something natural that people simply misidentify? Well, the film doesn’t answer the question. No surprise there.

I give my impressions on the film. Chock full of anecdotes and eyewitness testimony. Many “credible” witnesses including pilots (and I mean a LOT of pilots) and law-enforcement give their anecdotes. Very little other evidence is given. There are some photographs and video, but they aren’t very convincing.

‘I Know What I Saw’ is on Youtube and Netflix.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Wild Blue Yonder’ by The Screaming Blue Messiahs & ‘Jools And Jim’ by Pete Townshend
Second ad break bumpers: ‘Spring Collection‘ by The Vapors & ‘Nothing Turns Out Right’ by The Mofos
Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook’ by $5 Fiddle

dimland radio 6-18-11 show notes

No Oil On The Dipstick, That Can’t Be Good

Yep, the Friday before the Friday before this show we discovered that our car was low on oil. Two quarts low! And during the panic of figuring out what to do, I dropped the F-bomb in front of my seven year-old son. It’s quite a tale.

Last Week’s Guest Benjamin Radford: A Clarification

Skeptic, Scientific Paranormal Investigator: Benjamin Radford

My interview with Ben Radford raised a couple objections from a listener. I took some time to address the objections and replay the segment to be sure to clarify what was said. If people still object after I addressed it, I did what I could and stand by what we said.

You can learn more about Benjamin Radford here.

Project Alpha

Project Alpha members: Banachek, Edwards & Randi

I took some time to review James Randi’s Project Alpha. Project Alpha involved sending two young magicians pretending to be psi extraordinaires to be tested by scientists. The two young fellows (Banachek and Michael Edwards) had the scientists completely fooled.

Yep, believe it or don’t but well-educated, serious scientists can be fooled. Get more details here.

Jesus Changes Woman’s DNA!

“Man! I’m tellin’ ya! If you believe in him, Jesus will change your DNA! You can believe me…I have tattoos.”

I ran across this video on the YouTube. It features the cool, rock’n’roll preacher, Damon Thompson, doing his preachy thing in front of an audience young people. He lays on a doozey of a tale. He relates an anecdote of an Oklahoma woman having been busted for a crime with DNA evidence and how the authorities were going to use a second grab of her DNA to get her for another crime. However, between DNA extractions she was saved by Jesus and he changed her DNA! Apparently, god wants this woman to get away with committing crime.

Of course the entire tale is anecdotal, Thompson expects his flocks to just take him at his word. He doesn’t even name the woman and he doesn’t give the name of his follower who told him the story. This is not good evidence for the power of god.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Der Komissar’ by Falco & ‘All Those Years Ago’ by George Harrison
Second ad break bumpers: ‘Precious‘ by The Jam & ‘Lord, I Hope This Day Is Good’ by Don Williams
Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook’ by $5 Fiddle

dimland radio 6-11-11 show notes

A Little Talk About The Weather

Up here in the North Star state (Minnesota in case you didn’t know) we had an interesting stretch of weather. Tuesday (June 7th) the high temperature in the Twin Cities was 103 degrees! That’s a new record high period. The previous record high was 102 degrees set in July 1988.

The more interesting bit is that two days later the high temperature barely got to 60 degrees. Weather in Minnesota. Go figure.

A Guest! Benjamin Radford

Skeptic, Scientific Paranormal Investigator: Benjamin Radford

That’s right, I had Benjamin Radford as my guest. That’s the second big time skeptic I’ve had on my show. (The first was George Hrab.) We talk about skepticism, investing the paranormal scientifically, and more. Ben even suggests a couple movies for your viewing pleasure.

You can learn more about Benjamin Radford here.

Benjamin Radford’s Movie Recommendations: Bug (2006) & Falling Down (1993)

I have not seen Bug. I have seen Falling Down, but it has been quite some time. Both movies have been put on my Netflix queue.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘I Ran (So Far Away)’ by Flock Of Seagulls & ‘Bonneville’ by The dB’s
Second ad break bumpers: ‘Desperately‘ by Don Williams & ‘Smalltown Boy’ by Bronski Beat
Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook’ by $5 Fiddle

dimland radio 6-4-11 show notes

‘Live’ Reports And The Local News

I touched upon something local TV news stations like to do. It’s the “live” reports. However, the only live part is the reporter introducing a video piece that was put together much earlier.

A Little Talk About Music, Cool And Awful

One of the greatest songs by the greatest rock band ever!

I talked about my musical snobbery and about teaching my son about good music and crap music. I played a video of The Who playing ‘Baba O’Riley’ for him. His reaction was tepid. Then I played videos for two of the worst songs ever: ‘We Built This City’ by Starship and Meat Loaf’s ‘I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)’. Sheer crap. He kind of liked the Starship pile of drek. I haf no zon!

This song can be described by a word that rhymes with city.

Watch the greatness here. Watch the crap (if you dare) here and here. And here is the trailer for ‘Streets Of Fire’, a film I mentioned during my talk on crap music.

“Psst! My songs suck.”

Band Of Brothers And The Pacific – Compare And Contrast

My wife and I just watched the HBO miniseries The Pacific. The Pacific is sort of the companion piece of HBO’s Band Of Brothers. I talked at length about the differences between the two series and actual campaigns of WWII. Both series are good, although I prefer Band Of Brothers.

Big Mac Attack!

25,000 and counting

Don Gorske has eaten over 25,000 Bic Macs since May 17, 1972. Yep, that’s a record. Nope, he doesn’t have high cholesterol and he isn’t morbidly obese. Gorske was featured in ‘Super Size Me’, so I took the time to bring up some of the skepticism about the Morgan Spurlock’s Oscar nominated documentary. Other people have tried the eating only fast food for a month experiment with much different results than Spurlock’s. Where Spurlock gained a lot of weight and had other physical issues, these other folks lost weight and were quite healthy.

Check out Don Gorske’s achievement here. Learn more about ‘Super Size Me’ here. Watch ‘Bowling For Morgan’ here. And there’s more here and here.

It’s Not True: Mr. Rogers

Everyone’s favorite neighbor

Well, there are some weird tales out there about Mr. Rogers. I mentioned a couple of them. He wasn’t a sniper in Viet Nam, nor did he sport tattooed arms. A check of Snopes.com will clear that up.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Pretty Green’ by The Jam & ‘St. Vitus Dance’ by Bauhaus
Second ad break bumpers: ‘Brass Monkey‘ by Beastie Boys & ‘The Everyday Story Of Smalltown’ by XTC
Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook’ by $5 Fiddle