Monthly Archives: March 2008

Biology Professor expelled from Creationist Propaganda Movie Showing

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This a wonderful little gem of a story: PZ Myers, associate professor of Biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris was prevented by the producers of a movie called ‘Expelled’ (in which he was interviewed) to attend a free showing. While this is not a clever thing to do and is bound to get you heaps of negative headlines, the irony of the whole incident is that Richard Dawkins – which must certainly be the creationists ueberenemy Number One – was allowed into the theatre and is now able to tell us what he thinks of the whole incident.

Medicine for, er, medics.

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A good podcast is not easy to produce. If you look at the list of my favourite podcasts, you’ll see that most of them are actually long established radio-shows that are being re-broadcast over the intarweb or snippets from established radio productions , thematically put together. The only true podcasts on that list is Leo Laporte’s take on ‘grumpy old men of the tech business’ that is the highly entertaining ‘This Week in Tech‘ (even the best girlfriend ever likes it as they never actually speak about anything technological) and everything2’s podcast. So, it seems that making a podcast is obviously more than just some person blathering on about some old rubbish. The Lancet’s podcast is one of the better ones: it presents the weekly articles of its parent’s publication in short order and adds an interview with one of the research teams. Full stop. The whole thing takes only 15 minutes (your average tube trip on the way to work) and hey, presto: you have something memorized that’s not only good for your own practice but also for bragging kudos in front of your colleagues.

What else do you want. So, the Lancet’s weekly podcast goes on the list.

Robert Fisk is right. Anthony Blair wasn’t.

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“To their monumental hubris, these little men who took us to war five years ago now prove that they have learnt nothing. Anthony Blair – as we should always have called this small town lawyer – should be facing trial for his mendacity. Instead, he now presumes to bring peace to an Arab-Israeli conflict which he has done so much to exacerbate.”

Continue reading over at The Independent.

I’m not gonna teach you how to sing like Robert Smith…

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There I was, solving some bog – standard quests on Morrowind listening to BBC Radio 6 and thinking ‘Bloody Hell, the new Cure single is pretty darn spiffing!”, when the bloke presenting the show mumbled something about this being the new single of an outfit called ‘Black Kids‘. Well, I may be not your typical BBC 6 listener, but I can tell a bloody ‘The Cure’ rip off if I hear one: the chap singing certainly went to the same ‘yodel school of singing’ that Robert Smith went to, and the arrangement sounds like vintage early eighties Cure. This is of course a compliment, and their single I’m not gonna to teach your boyfriend how to dance with you should be celebrated as the best bloody single of the year.

I smell platinum.

Korean Treats

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While the invasion of North Korea by the New York Philharmonics might have been a naive attempt at cultural diplomacy, it left us nevertheless with two wonderful new corners of the internet:

  • The Economist’s correspondent’s diary of his 4 days in Pyongyang, while accompanying the orchestra, and
  • a free (as in beer) flash movie of the whole concert, featuring Wagner’s Lohengrin Prelude and an absolutely stunning rendition of Dvorak’s Symphony Nr 9 (‘From the New World’. The one with the most beautiful English Horn solo ever). Good cinematography, great music, and all for free.

Thanks, Lorin.