Karl Pilkington has a new blog: Karlology
September 17, 2008
If you don’t know who Karl Pilkington is, I don’t want to talk to you.*
But if you do know who Karl Pilkington is, you’ll want to do two things, straight away: visit his blog http://www.karlpilkington.com/blog/ and go to iTunes and get The Ricky Gervais Show: The Complete Fifth Season with Ricky Gervais, Steve Merchant and Karl Pilkington. The first series of this podcast won the distinction of being the most downloaded podcast in history, featured in the Guinness Book of World Records.
*Eric Clapton once said in an interview that he was such a blues fanboy back in the early 1960s, “If you didn’t know who Robert Johnson was, I didn’t want to talk to you.”
Get your Fix of British & Irish Accents via Internet Radio
August 30, 2008
I’ll admit to some Anglophilia if you’ll cop to the fact that you don’t use your car’s directional signals as often as you know you should.
Here’s a free way to listen to those delightful accents via Internet radio broadcasts.
Just Go Out and Play? Not for Today’s Kids
August 28, 2008
Rosa Brooks in the Los Angeles Times makes the case that kids’ lives today are over-structured and micro-managed. I agree completely.
Increasingly, American children are in a lose-lose situation. They’re forced, prematurely, to do all the un-fun kinds of things adults do (Be over-scheduled! Have no downtime! Study! Work!). But they don’t get any of the privileges of adult life: autonomy, the ability to make their own choices, use their own judgment, maybe even get interestingly lost now and then.
Here’s the complete article.
Site-Specific Conditioning Can Cause Fatal Drug Overdose
August 17, 2008
There is some evidence that drug addicts can die from using their usual dosage of drugs in a novel setting. There is a conditioned tolerance that develops from using an addictive drug like heroin in a familiar place. But taking that same dose elsewhere might kill you. Here’s a link to the original research in Pub Med from the Harm Reduction Journal.
While I’m a severe critic of almost all complimentary and alternative medicine, here is a case study that adds support for a negative placebo effect based on setting and expectation. The brain’s ability to affect our health is a topic that’s often abused by CAM practitioners when they sell their techniques to the public. But that doesn’t mean there’s not a demonstrated effect. Most people don’t understand the placebo effect and how many CAM procedures operate only at the level of a placebo. Clearly the mind does influence how chemicals react in our bodies. . .
The idea of the placebo in modern times originated with H. K. Beecher. He evaluated 15 clinical trials concerned with different diseases and found that 35% of 1,082 patients were satisfactorily relieved by a placebo alone (“The Powerful Placebo,” 1955). Other studies have since calculated the placebo effect as being even greater than Beecher claimed. For example, studies have shown that placebos are effective in 50 or 60 percent of subjects with certain conditions, e.g., “pain, depression, some heart ailments, gastric ulcers and other stomach complaints.”* And, as effective as the new psychotropic drugs seem to be in the treatment of various brain disorders, some researchers maintain that there is not adequate evidence from studies to prove that the new drugs are more effective than placebos.
from The Placebo Effect, The Skeptic’s Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions by Robert Todd Carroll
George Orwell diaries online in blog format
August 3, 2008
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) was one of the greatest writers and thinkers of the 20th century. If you don’t agree, then get the hell out. To my mind he’s in that select group of authors whose work can be profitably read and re-read. (Who else is on that list? For me, it includes A.J. Liebling, Aldous Huxley, Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Parker and Dashiell Hammett).
Now from the Orwell archive at University College in London comes material from his diaries in blog format. The NY Times did an article on it and you can connect directly to the diaries at orwelldiaries.wordpress.com.
Pad Thai in a box. . .hardly
May 9, 2008
No, this isn’t the back page of Consumer Reports (but this is the sort of thing they typically run there). Above you’ll see the Pad Thai For Two recipe, from A Taste of Thai a product with the claim of “Real Thai — Real Easy.”
It may easy, but buyers should note that of 10 ingredients require to make the dish, only 2 are in the $3.99 Pad Thai for Two box. You need to bring vegetable oil, eggs, scallions, peanuts, bean sprouts, cilantro,lime wedges, 1/2 pound of chicken (or shrimp or pork) to the party in order to make this dish.
After I’ve bought all that I think I’ll just get my own noodles and a jar of sauce. . .Thanks for very little, A Taste of Thai.
Zebras are reactionaries, Antelopes are missionaries, Pigeons plot in secrecy. . .
April 6, 2008
I grew up on Simon & Garfunkel and for days now this old tune of theirs has been rattling around in my brain, At the Zoo, lyrics below.
According to the 1997 liner notes to their Old Friends album, Paul Simon toyed wth the idea of changing the song Mrs. Robinson to Mrs. Roosevelt, the landmark 1967 film The Graduate’s most famous song. Director Mick Nichols replied, “Don’t be ridiculous! We’re making a movie here! It’s Mrs. Robinson!”
Mrs. Robinson: Benjamin.
Benjamin: Yes?
Mrs. Robinson: Isn’t there something you want to tell me?
Benjamin: Tell you?
Mrs. Robinson: Yes.
Benjamin: Well, I want you to know how much I appreciate this. Really.
Mrs. Robinson: The number.
Benjamin: What?
Mrs. Robinson: The room number, Benjamin. I think you ought to tell me that.
Benjamin: Oh, you’re absolutely right. It’s 568.
Mrs. Robinson: Thank you.
Benjamin: You’re welcome. Well. . .I’ll see you later, Mrs. Robinson.
Someone told me
It’s all happening at the zoo.
I do believe it,
I do believe its true.
Its a light and tumble journey
From the East Side to the Park;
Just a fine and fancy ramble
To the zoo.
But you can take the crosstown bus
If its raining or its cold,
And the animals will love it
If you do.
Somethin’ tells me
Its all happening at the zoo.
The monkeys stand for honesty,
Giraffes are insincere,
And the elephants are kindly but
They’re dumb.
Orangutans are skeptical
Of changes in their cages,
And the zookeeper is very fond of rum.
Zebras are reactionaries,
Antelopes are missionaries,
Pigeons plot in secrecy,
And hamsters turn on frequently.
What a gas! You gotta come and see
At the zoo.
— Paul Simon
Songza.com — Search for Any Song by Any Artist, Click and Play it, like “More Werewolves of Alabama”
April 1, 2008
I’ve been run down
I’ve been lied to
I don’t know why,
I let that mean woman make me a fool
She took all my money,
wrecks my new car
Now she’s with one of my good time buddies,
they’re drinkin’ in some cross town bar
I came of age in the late 60s/early 70s and thus bent, ever has the twig grown.
Like many of my generation that means that I was trained to respond emotionally, viscerally, psychologically, and sexually to certain pitches, tones and vibrations of a crying, singing, talking AMPLIFIED ELECTRIC GUITAR.
Especially when AMPLIFIED ELECTRIC GUITAR is combined in rolling riffs that build to a feverish pitch and then explode in a shower of cascading golden nails of liquid sound.
I’m sure you know exactly what I mean.
Now I’ve learned of a site called Songza.com that does, within limits, allow you to do exactly as the headline above says. Far freaking out, man.
Sometimes I feel
Sometimes I feel
like I’ve been tied
to the Whipping Post
tied to the Whipping Post
tied to the Whipping Post
Good Lord, I feel like I’m dyin’
Sometimes I think the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who have listened to the Allman Brothers Band’s half-bour live performance of “Whipping Post” recorded at the Fillmore East in 1970 behind a head full of prime acid . . .and all the rest of you guys.
Metaphorically speaking.
And I said “Obie, I don’t think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on.” He said, “Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car.”
ALSO, you must check out AudioDiles’ More Werewolves of Alabama, also available on Songza.com, a mash-up of Boston, Lynard Skynard and Warren Zevon and their songs “More than a Feeling,” “Sweet Home Alabama” & “Werewolves of London.”
Turn it up.
Ben Stein’s “Expelled” the Movie: Exposed! Lies, Distortions and that Old Time Religion
April 1, 2008
Ben Stein, attorney, author, Nixon speechwriter, game show host, actor, commercial pitch man and formerly thought to be both educated and intelligent, is fronting a new documentary called Expelled. His involvement in this project proves that there are deficits in his education, if not his intelligence.
I’m disappointed because I only knew of him as a media figure with an eclectic résumé and my impression was that he was a clever, witty guy with a great dead pan face. His new film Expelled tries to make the case that there is a conspiracy, controlled by Big Science, to shove Darwinism down everyone’s throat and squelch anyone who dares to defy this orthodoxy. And you know what Darwinism leads to, doncha? Evolution in the classroom, dancing on Sundays, a complete breakdown of social norms, Nazism. . .!
If you’ve followed the Creation Science slash Intelligent Design controversy in recent years you probably know that it’s all a shrouded campaign by the forces of Darkness to put Biblical Science on on equal footing with Real Science, done by serious looking men with bad hair cuts in lab coats, in the nation’s classrooms.
This movement, to replace science with old messianic folklore, makes me so angry all I can say is, all I can say is, “This Side Up. Push Gently to Open.” When I get that angry I can’t think straight.
Anyhow, the campaign is on to expose Expelled so we’re doing our bit here. Dr. Eugenie Scott and the National Center for Science Education’s official response to Ben Stein’s Expelled is here.
She also gave a great interview about her own involvement with Expelled on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast (Podcast #140 3/26/2008).
What, you mean you don’t listen to the SGU each and every week? Don’t admit a thing like that here, pal.
Seriously, this is a great science podcast that’s a project of the good people at the New England Skeptical Society, or NESS to her initiates in association with SkepChick.org and the James Randi Educational Foundation.
P.Z. Meyers, biologist, professor and real scientist living in Minnesota, gives his side of being featured in the movie but tossed out of a free screening, here.
Richard Dawkins’ review is here.
As far as I’m concerned, you should never mess with Richard Dawkins. If you don’t know who he is, I’ll put it this way: he’s the Steve McQueen of evolutionary biologists. If I were a teen age girl, I’d have his poster up on my bed room wall.
“Let me tell you something, kid. In the carny you don’t ask nothing. And you’ll get told no lies.”
March 22, 2008
Carny #1: How can a guy sink so low?
Carny #2: He reached too high. . .
If you’ve never read Nightmare Alley (1946) by William Lindsay Grisham or seen it’s screen adaptation (1947) with Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell you won’t understand the passion it inspires in its devotees. Many in my generation saw it as a kid on it’s infrequent TV appearances, were mentally scarred for life and sought out screenings for ever after.
I had a similar experience with the indie cult classic, Carnival of Souls. Saw it once on TV in the early sixties, burned into my brain for life. Both pictures had fallen out of distribution for a number of years only to be revived first at art houses then as VHS and DVD releases. Nightmare Alley never had an official VHS release, but was available in that format as a bootleg from eBay and others.
“I sometimes think that if I have any real talent it is not literary but a sheer talent for survival. I have survived three busted marriages, losing my boys, war, tuberculosis, Marxism, alcoholism, neurosis, and years of freelance writing. Just too mean and ornery to kill, I guess.” –William Lindsay Grisham
The novel is in print today in a collection called Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s and 40s. This omnibus treasure – which should be on every American’s bookshelf – includes The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain; They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? by Horace McCoy; Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson; The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing, I Married a Dead Man by Cornell Woolrich and Gresham’s Nightmare Alley.
If you haven’t got ’em, buy ’em today! I was right about the comet!
Pete Krumbein: Throughout the ages, man has sought to look behind the veil that hides him from tomorrow. And through the ages, certain men have looked into the polished crystal… and seen. Is it some quality of the crystal itself, or does the gazer merely use it to turn his gaze inward? Who knows? But visions come. Slowly shifting their forms… visions come. Wait. The shifting shapes begin to clear. I see fields of grass. . .rolling hills. . .and a boy. A boy is running barefoot through the hills. A dog is with him. A. . .DOG. . .is. . .with. . .him.
Stanton Carlisle: Yes. . .go on. . .his name was Jib. Go on!
Pete Krumbein: [Choked laughter] Humph. See how easy it is to *hook* ’em!
More to Come on William Lindsay Grisham. . .
