TalkJunkie

This is precisely the way to win me over to visiting PajamasMedia sites more often – beer. POLITICSCENTRAL, a beta level podcast project of PajamasMedia, is slated to be a “civil . . thoughtful discourse on our views and aspirations.” Apparently Howard Dean will never be a featured guest.

Tammy Bruce says she will be seriously involved with the enterprise. One of the initial posted interviews is her discussion with Senator Rick Santorum about his tough re-election campaign. Tammy presents her view of the project on her blog Tammy Bruce.com. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit and Instawife Dr. Helen, are two of the key contributors to the project, bringing their Glenn and Helen Show to to PoliticsCentral. Other current shows include interviews with John McCain and the Israeli Ambassador to the US, Daniel Ayalon. And other topics involve North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, business trends, the ‘08 election and America’s health care system. But Enough fluff.

The real important interview right now on the site is a look at micro brewing from Knoxville’s Downtown Grill & Brewery. Glenn and Helen speak with the Grill’s brewers about how they got started there, Downtown’s products and some history of local brewing. I haven’t heard the Glenn & Helen Show in awhile, and I’m impressed. Many podcasts are so stilted. Glenn and Helen sound polished and relaxed. But they didn’t mention how much sampling they might have done.

For people interested in brewing, the restaurant business or bringing excitement to downtown areas it’s a fun listen. And once in awhile its nice to hear a show with no screaming or doubletalk and a clear exit strategy of empty bottles. BEER HERE.

No, I’m not predicting a miracle. I don’t get that type of inside information. And if I did, I’d be on a daytrading website right now instead of talking about radio.

Bill Handel does the early morning show on KFI in Los Angeles, that’s 8am til noon est. Handel is one of several radio hosts who have had a run-in with CAIR, representatives of one of the somewhat less liberal theologies. One of his guests for this Friday, which is Good Friday, is Jesus Christ. Perhaps the discussion will include the subjects of religious freedom and political correctness.

Now, Jesus Christ has his own show, which I’ve listened to a few times, but not religiously. His is a Sunday gig, also on KFI, which airs Sunday mornings from 9am til noon, eastern time. The premise of his program is: “What if… today, you could talk to Him, laugh with Him…cry with Him? Not just through prayer, but through the radio…”

I’m not going to describe the program besides passing on that official show info, because that really explains the program best. It’s not a bad listen for a Sunday morning while you’re picking up the beer cans, tortilla chips and god knows what else. But you can hear him first this Friday, supposedly during the first hour, on the Handel show.

WFAN adds its sports and talk programming to the streaming mix Tuesday, April 11. The streaming officially begins with a special internet-only Mike and the Mad Dog show for Tuesday afternoon at 3:00pm est.

The FAN begins its weekday daytime broadcasting with Imus from 5:30 until 10am. Imus is followed each day by Joe Benigno. Other regulars include Steve Somers, Mike and the Mad Dog, Tony Paige, Kevin Burkhardt, Evan Roberts and Chris Carlin. Weekends offer Steve Somers, Mark Malusis, Bob Salter, Ed Randall, Ed Coleman, Richard Neer and Ann Liguori. Detailed bios are provided on the site for all the FAN personalities.

Much of the scheduling varies with live sports coverage, most of which cannot be streamed. You can go right to their schedule page to see the current weeks programming. Oh, and the stream sounds great. :)

from Sunday

I been busy. I can report that sampling the following beers in one afternoon in no way diminishes one’s interest in talk radio. I started the afternoon at The Celebration of The Suds in Atlantic City with Magic Hat HIPA because I’ve already enjoyed their #9 and the goal was trying new beers.

What follows may or may not be the precise order or precise list or precise anything. Barley Creek Angler Black and I think, Antler Brown Ale. Young’s – Old Nick, Young’s Special London and Winter Warmer. Blue Ridge Rainbow Trout ESB. Chimay’s Grand Reserve and Cinq Cents. Rogue Arrogant Bastard Ale. Abita Old Scratch. Allagash Dubbel. Brookly Brewery’s Smoked Porter, Brooklyn Pale Ale and Fortitude Lager.

Off in the corner was a booth from some upstart company, Anheuser something. I wandered over. It didn’t smell like beer, so I tried one that might have the best chance of tastink like beer – the BareKnuckle Stout. Somewhat beerlike, but I don’t think this outfit has much of a future. Working my way back up to speed, I moved to Sam Adams Brown Ale, and requested a ticket for a later tasting of Sam Adams Utopia.

I grabbed a salted pretzel and since they didn’t have any Mountain Dew I thought I’d test whether pretzels and beer can compliment each other. That works fime. Lancaster Brewing provided me some Hop Hog and Lancaster Milk Stout – mmsmooth – Got Stout? I think I also had their Strawberry Wheat or ah somebody’s strawberry something. I had Tun Tavern’s somewhat unusual BarleyWine. Back to Adamsams for the special pour of their Utopia. Strong alcohol smell, I mean “aroma” – yeah aroma. The tast made me think sherry while others say brandy. Someone mor beerliterate than I had this information- packed post on a beerboard – “this is an ass-kicker of a “beer.” Do I even know what beer is anymore? Do I care? How does one rate this beer fairly? I sure don’t know.” There – exactly. It’s supposadyly 27 thousand percnet alcholol, requires special financing and according to Adam website, “Utopias can not be sold in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, and West Virginia.”

Back to beer. Heavyweight coeerced me into their Perkuno’s Hammer, a porter from the Baltic region of New Jersey. Also their B’iere d’Art Ale. And of course some Lunacy Belgian-Style Ale. I don’t know what the hell else I had at what was basiclly a six hour open bar forall of 25 bucks. Wonderful event. Of course sampling these in a different order or making subsitutions might bring different results – this requires much testing. I can also recommend finishing with dinner at Cuba Libre – good plantain soup and of course, drinks. I not drivin – I probbably shoudlnt’ be drivin for a few days.

Now it isn’t. I thought I had this Saturday morning autotainment show on the schedule but apparently I screwed up. I’ve corrected that. Its not as if this show isn’t available on more than a few stations.

Tom and Ray Magliozzi’s Car Talk has been informing and entertaining on NPR since 1987 but began ten years before that at Boston University’s WBUR. Now on over 588 stations, the brothers have also put out a Car Talk book and newspaper column which appears in over 200 newspapers. The column, Click and Clack Talk Cars is named after their radio alter-egos, Click and Clack, The Tappet Bros. The show has also been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.

Between them, according to Wikipedia, the brothers have degrees in general science, chemical engineering, and an MBA and Ph.D in management, and were commencement speakers at MIT. The program was honored with a Peabody award in 1992, sharing award time that year with Daniel Schorr, Jerry Seinfield and Bill Cosby. They’ve appeared on The Tonight Show, Letterman, CBS Evening News, The Today Show and 60 Minutes. They say they’re still waiting for the big time, with an invite from Regis and Kelly. So apparently the two have some sort of credentials, Tom and Ray I’m talking about, not Regis and Kelly.

So if your vehicle has some kind of weird smell or mysterious whirring sound coming from the cragameter or whatever when you make right turns, who you gonna call? No, not Regis. Click and Clack, Tom and Ray are the ones to call when they’re on the air and not in the Harvard Square office of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe. Because evidently these guys also know something about cars and such and freely “espouse all kinds of solutions – a small fraction of which may actually be correct.” In truth, they pretty quickly divine likely solutions, (as if I would know), attributed by one of them on this weeks show to his disengagement from the thought process.

The show is now on my weekend grid for the Saturday broadcast at 10am est. The current show is also archived by segment and available for listening all week from the website at cartalk.com. And if your car question can’t wait til next Saturday, then try their active bulletin board discussions.

Feeling “bent” or just want another way to get tanked, then ScubaRadio may be just the answer. Want tips on proper use of the diver peeing flag or have a hankering for some safety sausage, then you should buddy up with your radio or computer and listen to ScubaRadio.

Now on the Saturday schedule live at 3pm est., this nearly ten-year-old show is heard by about half a million people a week. Join Greg the divemaster as he reports from dive events throughout the country. Last week’s show included an interview about wreck diving in Michigan – winter wreck diving in Michigan – chopping first through 15 inches of ice kind of winter diving. And you might have thought chainsaws were not essential dive equipment.

After following that story with an ad for diving in the Bahamas (more my kind of weather) it was back north to a report from Alaska about whales stalking fishing boats to rob their long lines. It seems fishing boat engines are now a whale siren for free eats, maybe a sort of revenge for hunts of the past.

The show’s website scubaradio.com includes a listening archive of past shows so you really can listen anytime. Whether you dive or never get your feet wet, the show offers some cool listening, sometimes icy cool.

Heard about these on Tom Gresham’s Gun Talk. Now these beat the hell out of the primitive block of wood and nail contraptions I used years ago. Gresham’s right, these are a really cool gift anytime.

The manufacturer was talking about how the state of Kaleefornya won’t let him sell at hobby shows because after all these are “guns.” And naturally he gets some interesting reactions from the politically correct types elsewhere and is sometimes even asked to pack up and leave shows much to the consternation of the customers. But he still manages to sell “thousands” of these beauties to real Americans.

Lets see, should I order one of those 50 Caliber pistols or go for the AK-47 or M-16? Ammo (rubber bands) for the 50 are about half the cost of bands, I mean ammo, for the rifles. However this ammo can be fired over and over and over. I’ll need some quality spinning targets and I already have safety glasses, although I don’t recall the Duke ever wearing safety glasses.

Gresham is at guntalk.com. Weaponry can be found at C3GM.com

Cigars, beer and streudel on the Oktoberfest edition of the Cigar Dave Show.

Noon – 2:oo here.

Neal Boortz had a Clintonite guest on this morning predicting a nomination controversy for the administration’s pick for the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Mention immigration and enforcement and controversy and you’ve got my attention. Googling brought me this WAPO article. Nominee Julie Myer’s “uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” Ok, that doesn’t look good, but what else? “She married Chertoff’s current chief of staff, John F. Wood, on Saturday.” Sheesh.

Myers has a barely adequate resume, has some supporters who are involved with ICE and seems to be able to convert doubters to possible supporters. According to the Post, “The most pointed questioning came from Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), who said during the hearing that he wanted to meet with Chertoff to discuss Myers’s qualifications. Voinovich went so far as to tell Myers that her résumé indicates she is not qualified for the job. But Voinovich has since met with Myers and is now likely to support her, his spokeswoman said yesterday.” Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, representing several thousand ICE employees, lauded Myers’s government experience. “That organization . . . is on some days almost dysfunctional,” Pasco said. “I think Julie may be just the person to pull people and functions together to get them working right for a change.”

What I’m Thinking – Will this government be more or less likely to enforce immigration laws? Back to WAPO – “It appears she’s got a tremendous amount of experience in money laundering, in banking and the financial areas,” said Charles Showalter, president of the National Homeland Security Council, a union that represents 7,800 ICE agents, officers and support staff. “My question is: Who the hell is going to enforce the immigration laws?”

And that turned me to my trusted expert on these matters. Malkin’s subtle reaction to her “qualifications – “Oh, give me a ^*&%$# break and a half!” Michelle goes on to refer readers to her previous pick for Department of Homeland Security chief and says, “He’d make a worthy pick now for ICE.” She also quotes a recent e-mail she received, “. . unfortunately the majority of DHS is being run by hacks, snot nose youngsters who couldn’t find an illegal alien in Tijuana, and other “connected” people with no knowledge, experience, or business being in the Homeland Security sector. . . the next time some illegal aliens commit a terrorist act on U.S. soil, people are going to be scrutinizing her resume.” This is year five – the administration should be getting these things right. Nominees should not be adequate or even good, they need to be the absolute best available.