Posted by Norm at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Posted by Norm at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Here is one of my favorite Irish folky artists. I cought him live in some obscure Pittsburgh locations several years running before I moved out west. He does a great version of Dirty Old Town that I can't get him to post online.

Posted by RedSeven at 3:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Glen Beck leaves me craving science.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Posted by RedSeven at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

• Class War

  This is by a new blog and promises Frank's unadulterated opinions. If Frank says it, I most likely agree, and you should too.



• Look up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's a spider?


• The trouble with trusting complex science

  There is no simple way to battle public hostility to climate research. As the psychologists show, facts barely sway us anyway



• Diagnosis, Therapy and Evidence

  When Dr. Novella recently wrote about plausibility in science-based medicine, one of our most assiduous commenters, Daedalus2u, added a very important point. The data are always right, but the explanations may be wrong. The idea of treating ulcers with antibiotics was not incompatible with any of the data about ulcers; it was only incompatible with the idea that ulcers were caused by too much acid. Even scientists tend to think on the level of the explanations rather than on the level of the data that led to those explanations.



• Shocking, just Shocking


• Why I'm Not a Humanist


• Help, I'm Being Repressed

Posted by Norm at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There isn't much room to be surprised by Beck. The man is unstable and if he started seeing smurfs in the middle of his show, I would say, "It was only a matter of time." and then I would wonder if he is only doing it for ratings. This latest gaff points out just how reckless he is. He essentially brands Christians Nazi/communists for wanting social justice.

I was reading about this on Roger Ebert's blog. i have been really enjoying his movie reviews and his blog entries.

"Jesus was a Nazi. So's your preacher" By Roger Ebert

Posted by RedSeven at 9:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

• Richard Dawkins debunks Noah's Ark


• Project Reason Video Contest Finalists


• Mark Roth: Suspended Animation

  Mark Roth studies suspended animation: the art of shutting down life processes and then starting them up again. It's wild stuff, but it's not science fiction. Induced by careful use of an otherwise toxic gas, suspended animation can potentially help trauma and heart attack victims survive long enough to be treated.



• Coffee Inhaler


• Quote of the Day

  I have a solution to your time theory: what if the earth is billions of years old but God didn’t create time until 6,000 years ago?

Posted by Norm at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Michael Lewis talks about a one-eyed man with Asperger's syndrome who made money by betting against the subprime mortgage market.

Posted by Norm at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Norm at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by RedSeven at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.—John Maynard Keynes

You may recall my recent encounter with black ice and solid objects. I've written a bit more about it here.

What I didn't write about was dealing with my insurance company. Don't get me wrong they were helpful throughout and paid the claim promptly, and I consider the settlement fair.

But, oh yes there is always a but isn't there? When I called a towing company, I asked how much it would cost for the tow. They quoted $75.00 a reasonable price; they didn't know it would be covered by insurance. When they discovered they would be reimbursed by insurance they increased the amount to $115.00. I only became aware of it when they failed to charge my credit card the $75.00 I'd agreed to.

I stopped by the lot where my car had been towed to inquire and asked for a copy of the bill. They gave me the copy and informed me that the Insurance company had already paid it when they had it towed to the salvage yard. When I looked at the bill, I discovered the higher amount.

Later when I arrived at the insurance company for my settlement check I informed them of the increased charge for the towing. The fellow, not my agent didn't seem concerned. I told him I understood that it wasn't much but that unnecessary payments such as that resulted in higher premiums for everyone. He made sympathetic sounds, but it was clear he didn't care.

He did have my agent call, and he was just as much an apologist for the way they did things as his fellow employee. "It's not an unreasonable charge," he said. "It's standard in the industry ," he said. "It's only $40.00," he said. Perhaps I should have pushed harder, asked to speak with his boss, but would it have made a difference? It was only $40.00, right?

Posted by Norm at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (48)

Posted by Norm at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Well, our Educations standards are sinking to the lowest common denominator. Texas being the lowest denominator. I hope this means that the rest of the country won't accept Texas text books. In the mean time, Conservative Christians are looking to remove that Deist Thomas Jefferson from American history, as well as that messy seperation of church and state/secular nation BS.

Here is one of the scary people

Here is some coverage of the current mess.

Conservative Bloc Prevails In Latest TX Textbooks Standards Vote

Another vote, another win for the conservative majority on Texas' State Board of Education.

The 11-4 vote today on the latest draft of Texas' high school history standards comes as the story has blown up, attracting intense media coverage from national outlets including the New York Times and Fox News, which reported live from Austin all week.

"In all honesty, it was a debacle for public education," says Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network, a liberal watchdog that tracks the board. Read More

Posted by RedSeven at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

• Weekly Ezine for Democrats (A weekly must read)


• Majority Rules (Mark Fiore animation)
• Texas Board of Education cuts Thomas Jefferson


• A Simple Country Murder


• You Call that Having Sex


• U.S. court rules again against vaccine-autism claims

  Vaccines that contain a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal cannot cause autism on their own, a special U.S. court ruled on Friday, dealing one more blow to parents seeking to blame vaccines for their children's illness.

Posted by Norm at 3:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'll start with a classical setting and move toward looser classical/folk fusions. Here goes:

Zoltan Kodály Peacock Variations: you might also try the Adam Fischer recordings with the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra and Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; those don't have available sound samples. Or star your quest on youtube here.

Béla Fleck, Jie-Bing Chen, V. M. Bhatt and others, Tabula Rasā: the 6 musicians got together and recorded elvated jam sessions with new and old tunes. The instruments are banjo (natch), mohan vin$#257;, erh-hu, mridangam, violin, and bānsuri. Let them take you where their imaginations roamed. Here's an intro to the recording on ye ol youtube (it also talks about Acoustic Planet).

Michael Portal and Richard Galliano Blow up. Portal plays bass and regular B flat clarinet, soprano sax, jazzophone, and bandonéon; Galliano plays accordion and piano - they perform originals, Piazzolla, and Pascoal.

I'll be combing over earlier posts for suggestions, and have a few for the coming weeks, but feel free to post themes to me. School's bearing down and my attention is divided. Enjoy everything above.

Posted by gypsy sister at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)