Technical Difficulties

I have not officially podfaded yet, friends, but my PC has. Programming will be interrupted until I once again have a working machine. I apologize for the inconvenience. Yes, the website is down too for the moment, I was unable to pay the bill online because I don't have a computer at home. Uh... if you want to get things up and running sooner than later, send money. Meanwhile I'm still writing and so you'll probably get some really strange and un-topical shows when things re-commence.

Coming up on this weekend's show:

• The Black Moses
• Chocolate Moses
• Some other kind of Moses?

Fact Check had an interesting article http://www.factcheck.org/specialreports/cognitive_science_and_factcheckorg_or_why_we.html explaining somewhat the reason behind why they do what they do and it comes down to this:

"a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology by the University of Southern California’s Peter Kim shows that meeting a charge (regardless of its truth or falsity) with silence increases the chances that others will believe the claim. Giving false claims a free pass, in other words, is more likely to result in false beliefs "

There's not much more I can add to that. Just keep it in mind. When people make false assertions around you, when people say things that seem wrong, stop them. Point out their error or ask them to prove their assertions. Make them stop and think. It might not change their mind, it might not change their lives but it just might make some cumulative difference when combined with others.

Remember the only thing holding us back from being the people we'd like to be, is us.

The Case of the Flight of the Bumblebees (Recap)

I think that show pretty much spoke for itself but if you're curious to find out what else those people do you can find them at:

http://daphneandtamara.libsyn.com/
http://isfullofcrap.com/
http://www.blakslee.com/

Also, the whole thing was set off by either the New York Times Science Podcast or the National Geographic Science Podcast where they talked about Colony Kill, possible causes and the fact that some people were breaking out the conspiracy theories because no masses of dead bees have been found.

The reason why, in case you're curious, is that whatever doesn't evaporate gets eaten. They're all protein and water.

GOOD TIMES (redux)

Look at me updating on time like a good boy, how unusual!

• The Santana bit is completely true.
• On the Blackwater Vs. Private Contractors issue I should point out that some of the private contractors are doing jobs where they are being paid great sums of money for risky work that isn't security related and some people feel that the military might be able to better do some of these jobs. However it's not like they constitute a private Bushista Army. Sorry Lefties, you're a little whack on this one.
• The angel bit came from an Idea I had while dealing with some irrational customer at work. I suggested that we hire a group of actors to play prophets/religious figures etc. to tell people to do what all of our focus tested instructions and FAQs tell them when it was pointed out... perhaps by me, that people tend to only listen to what they agree with even when it comes to Commandments. And thusly the Angel/Devil mixup was born
• The GAO piece wasn't really about the war per se just about the ministerial aspects of reforming the govt and govt services. Still, you can get an RSS feed or daily email with all the new GAO reports every day and it's almost always interesting albeit pedantic.
  

Goodbye Marcel & Republican Dance Party (recap)

First of all, sorry about the lack of bloggage lately but A. my internet has been spotty, B. I've been busy, and of course C. I'm not sure anyone's actually reading this.

• The pantomime sketch

I'm not sure exactly how well this one worked, I'll be honest. I like the idea of pantomiming the completely intangible but I think it may have run a little too long. Good idea, perhaps not the best execution.

• Marceau by the Sea

This is written and performed by Freereed Freenote who is my second life neighbor. She currently has a little podcast where she reads her stories and you can find that here: http://freereedstorytime.podomatic.com/ She also wrote this next piece

• The Artist's Kaddish for Marcel Marceau Mangel

She actually has a whole gallery set up in Second Life dedicated to the memory of M. Mangel who has touched her life quite deeply.

• Chicken Fried Watermelon

This comes from two things: Some people I saw stereotyping themselves in such a way as to make Bill Cosby fly into a murderous rage and Romney, Rudy, McCain, and that other guy ignoring the debate on matters of race because they had "scheduling conflicts"

• Paranoia

I was reading this article http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nyroc245387882sep24,0,2760679.story and it struck me as a perfect halloween tale of terror. Well... it would be perfect if it weren't true. Notice though that no actual explanation was ever given as to who was following her and there were never any charges filed so it's possible that Flynn is making this up.

• Blackwater (Cheney Mix)

Tom of Footnote http://footnote.libsyn.com/ suggested doing a parody of the Doobies about the latest Blackwater news. Seriously, the provisional Govt. said, "get out" but the U.S. said, "nope we need them". If the Iraqi government had insisted and we stayed we would've absolutely been seen as colonial occupiers so the Iraqis said, "Okay okay, you can stay".

The Cheney clip is from a recently YouTubed video from 94. It's nothing Cheney hasn't said before and the actual clip is 4 minutes long but I didn't edit out any context or anything. Mind you, I'm not saying with 100% certainty that our involvement in Iraq and Mr. Cheney's change of heart (so to speak) is because former companies of his and many of his pals and cronies are profiting monetarily from our continued presence 'in country'. I'm just saying it's a plausible explanation and there aren't many of those to go around.