A Playground for the Demented
I just want to shout out a belated Merry Christmas to all of you living in the Southern Hemisphere. I sometimes forget that aside from living upside down your seasons are reversed. So best wishes to you and your families and a joyous New Year to all.
If you have any type of high-speed internet listening to audio or watching video is not much of a problem. If like me you are on dial up with no hope of doing better there are issues. Depending on the quality and size of the original file I often recompile it to lower the bit rate. At 32 kbs even I can hear these shows in real time. There are some audio files that degrade too much when listened to at that speed. When I find one of those I change the bit rate to 48 kbs.
At that rate for a radio episode I need to start the program and then pause the player for a few minutes to build up the look ahead cache. If you have the same problem; start the show; hit pause; and take a look at the links I usually include with each show. The program will load in the background and by the time you finish you should be able to listen to the episode without any waits or dropouts.
By L. Sprague de Camp, the short story this week’s first segment of Old Time Radio is based on is a classic in the field.
Heinlein - de Camp - Asimov
Prolific and influential: during World War II, he worked at the Philadelphia Naval Yard with fellow authors Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein; two other authors who will be featured on Old Time Radio in webcasts to come.
From the Wikipedia – “De Camp had the mind of an educator, and a common theme in many of his works is a corrective impulse regarding similar previous works by other authors. A highly rational and logical thinker, he was frequently disturbed by what he regarded as logical lapses and absurdities in others’ writings.”
And so, heard first on the X-1 radio program, the the Old Dog Network proudly brings back for your listening enjoyment — A Gun For a Dinosaur!
Another slightly edited version of a post I made at the Junk Science Forum.
Form The Center for Science in the Public Interest (some of the public perhaps, but count me out), comes this message:
CSPI to Sue McDonald’s If It Continues Using Toys to Market Junk Food to Children
Using Toys to Promote “Happy Meals” Is Unfair, Deceptive & Illegal, Group Says, Citing State Laws
June 22, 2010WASHINGTON—Tell it to the judge, Ronald: A nutrition watchdog group will sue McDonald’s if the fast-food chain continues to use toys to promote Happy Meals. According to the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, using toys to lure small children into McDonald’s is unfair and deceptive marketing and is illegal under various state consumer protection laws. CSPI today served McDonald’s a notice of its intent to sue, fulfilling a legal requirement of several states in which CSPI might bring the lawsuit.
“McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children,” said CSPI litigation director Stephen Gardner. . .
Standing on a playground and handing out candy or not; McDonalds is one of the most well known strangers in history I would think.
The next couple of quotes need to be set apart as they are a models of their type. The first comes from a clearly over-matched mother who perhaps might have been better served by majoring in home economics rather than project management. Or maybe she could look at raising children as an ongoing project. Both quotes borrow heavily from the “We have to do it for the Children” theme—to which I answer, “Well just what have the children done for me lately?”
“McDonald’s makes my job as a parent more difficult,” said Sheila Nesbitt, 36, a project manager from Champlin, MN, and a parent of a six-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl. . . . My kids always want to go to McDonald’s because of the toys. I try my best to educate my kids about healthy eating but it’s hard when I am competing against the allure of a new Shrek toy.” . . .
If there were only a certified professional class of child care professionals why a mother would be free to pursue her own career without putting the little darlings at risk.
And from the Litigator in Chief — CSPI litigation director Stephen Gardner
. . . “McDonald’s marketing has the effect of conscripting America’s children into an unpaid drone army . . .
Imagine the horror if the Drone Army were given something really bad, instead of tiny Shreks they were given toy Guns!
Actually the CSPI should just lay down the gauntlet and sue all producers selling food that people like to eat because horrors of horrors, for as they say:
…when children or parents order Happy Meals they are given French fries 93 percent of the time…
Mistery Girl #5
Some may think this a shameless attempt to lure comments — but that is not the case. Mystery Girl #5 is the wife of a very important politician. One whose upcoming election will affect all of us. Also this photo is rather recent. From an ideological standpoint I vote for the guy, though some others may do so for different reasons.
So — Who is Mystery Girl #5? Take a guess in the comments.
To find out who last week’s Mystery Girl was, and a week from today the answer to this week’s question, — Go Here!
One of my favorite radio shows, it went on to become one of the longest running television programs in history.
From The Museum of Broadcast Communications:
Ozzie and Harriet started out on radio, a medium to which bandleader Ozzie Nelson and his singer/actress wife Harriet Hilliard had gravitated in the late 1930s, hoping to spend more time together than their conflicting careers would permit. In 1941 they found a permanent spot providing music for Red Skelton’s program, a position that foundered when Skelton was drafted in 1944. In that year, the energetic Ozzie Nelson proposed a show of his own to network CBS and sponsor International Silver–a show in which the Nelsons would play themselves.
Early in its run, the radio Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet jettisoned music for situation comedy. Ozzie Nelson himself directed and co-wrote all the episodes, as he would most of the video shows. On radio it ran from 1944 to 1952.
Let’s go back in time and listen to one particular episode; one that seems to me the inspiration for the Old Dogs favorite greeting. The words are spoken just after the 25 minute mark.
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
For the last eight weeks the Old Dog Network has been pleased to bring you episodes of the old time radio program The Adventures of Superman. With the conclusion of the last installment we will present selections from some of the other programs from the era before television began eroding our visual imagination.
If you wish to continue listening to Superman the link goes to a repository of the old radio programs.
The Tuesday installment of commercial free Old Time Radio on the Old Dog Network.
Superman Episode Fifteen
Left to Die
Tune in again on Friday.
Mystery Girl #4
This weeks Mystery Girl should be the easiest guess yet. Here she is, before becoming famous, working at a plant building target drones during WWII while her husband was serving overseas. There is an interesting story concerning that factory I will talk about when her name is revealed.
One of the most famous women of her generation and equally famous to this day. Who is Mystery Girl #4?
To find out who last week’s Mystery Girl was, and a week from today the answer to this week’s question, — Go Here!
Tomorrow I will post a new Mystery Girl but I am going to give a big hint concerning last week’s. The OldDog knew who Mystery Girl #3 was from the start, because he recognized this song, perhaps even this video.
Now you could look up the song but the voice is so distinctive. So here it is and a last chance to guess.
This is the recent test flight of the Scram Jet X-51 carried aloft by a fifty year old B-52. The image that starts the video is one of a standard ShipKiller M-5 as used in the FutureVerse. The evolutionary path that goes from here to there is an interesting one.
The whoop, whoop, whoop, the sound of the helicopter, beat its own tattoo, as we headed westward across the Gulf, searing into my brain the constant repetition of a time worn truth. Sprinkled motes in azure hue, tired, aged by time, scudded before the wind under a leaden sky, merging as if preordained before dissolving once again; alone, each its own protector and guide. One does not choose the destination yet arrives all the same; arrives with the scars of a thousand minor battles, some won, some lost, some merely forgotten . . . awaiting resolution in a life yet to come.
The machine settles lower and begins to circle; the spiral brings constant change, revealing sights unseen; a window into one’s soul, and a test of one’s mettle. Having seen I order the pilot return to shore, and prepare myself for a task unfinished. But who can be certain, when smothered, disturbed in her sleep under a mile of tears, even the Earth bleeds?
Dreams of My Presidency. Due Dec.1, 2012, and available by preorder only.
Friday and time for another installment of Superman.
Superman Episode Fourteen
The Plane to Canyon City
Back again once more on Tuesday.
That might just as well be the title to an article appearing at the Politico website.
This is another reprint of a post I made at the Junk Science Forum:
Gulf fuels new energy-bill push
By Mike Allen | 6/14/10 8:51 AM EDTPresident Barack Obama and his Democratic allies plan a major new push for a broad global warming bill, fueled in part by public outrage over the BP disaster, according to top aides.
Joel Benenson, a pollster for the Democratic National Committee and Obama’s presidential campaign, argues in a new briefing for top Capitol Hill officials that a comprehensive energy bill “could give Democrats a potent weapon to wield against Republicans in the fall.”
“In the aftermath of the spill, people firmly believe Congress needs to do more than just make BP pay. Even when pressed with opposition messaging that now is not the time for some ‘job killing energy tax,’ people coalesce around comprehensive clean energy reform. Consequently, support for a comprehensive energy bill is very high. With the right messaging, that support holds strong in the face of harsh opposition attacks.” . . .
. . . Benenson’s briefing argues that “Making BP Pay Isn’t Enough.” His recommended “messaging architecture”: First, “frame the opposition” as “Big Oil and corporate polluters who have blocked energy reform for decades” and “politicians protecting the special interests that fund their campaigns.” Second, “illustrate the costs of our dependence: …
This is just like BP never gave a dime to the Obama campaign or the Democratic party. Read the whole article, there is something to disagree with in every paragraph.
Let me try and remember — Who was that Senator from Nevada who was against Yucca Mountain as a site for storage of nuclear byproducts? Or the the one against wind farms off Martha’s Vineyard.
And isn’t it Conservative Republicans who are always against opening federal lands for drilling? Yep, this is the kind of attack the Dem can really make a case for by showing the hypocrisy of those evil conservatives.
The only thing Berenson omits is the part about blaming Bush. But I suppose by now that goes without saying,
The ODB will be six months old in another week and surprisingly even though this is the first post I can recall mentioning the country directly almost a third of our traffic comes from that bastion of Internet activity Russia. And not only that the vast majority of the comments, like 20 for every 1 in English are from that same vast expanse of prodigious users of the net.
Every time I see the .ru at he end of a domain name it makes me want to sing! — Who R U, Who who, Who who. — But I digress.
Now this is unfortunate in a way. I like comments, but I do not read Russian. So when the comments are submitted and the first one goes into moderation I end up emailing the sender asking for a rewrite in English but they never reply. It must be that their knowledge of English is as bad as mine when it comes to Russian. Even so, and assuming they can not read a word of what we post here, they keep coming back!
Thank you and Das Vidanya! (I heard someone say that in in a movie once, it’s the only Russian I know, not sure what it means so I hope it fits.)