It
is the start of the holiday season in the northern hemisphere and in common
with many others 80 is indulging in indolence
(even more than usual) This is indolence as defined by the New Shorter Oxford
Dictionary thus - "The inclination to avoid exertion or trouble; love of ease,
laziness; idleness." This does not mean material is uncollected, websites
unscrutinised, sacred cows unprepared for the barbecue, by no means - it is
just happening at a slower rate, detectable only by time lapse photography.
Holiday Hits
In
the meantime here are a few sites that may be worthy of your attention.
Firstly try
Pink Unicorns - it is
certainly not what the name may lead you to assume. Featured on the
ASKE
links page (with much other good stuff) a wide range of subjects is covered
with an emphasis on "alternative therapies". Well worth some moments of your
time, sadly this site does not seem to be currently maintained.
As a
child (and more recently) 80, like others,
yearned for a Buck Rogers style "antigravity" belt. Well, this man at
American
Antigravity and his chums claim to have working
prototypes of "lifters" and even have videos to show these devices in action.
Funny that they don't submit them for independent verification.....
80 detects a distinctly fishy odor here. For a
surprisingly uncritical report from Wired click
here and to buy (!) a 6 feet long "Applied Electrogravitics Beamship"
click here. The
inimitable James "Amazing" Randi
has this observation "If this device is "antigravity,"
then a pogo stick and a crow are both antigravity items, as well."
Check out Randi's weekly newsletter.
Even in a
quick roundup such as this 80 would be remiss in
neglecting another of humankind's bizarre inventions - religion. A while back
(Jesus Aliens
Robosnakes - Jan 99) Earl Doherty's fascinating website
The Jesus Puzzle - Was
There No Historical Jesus? was visited. (Now there's a title to catch the
attention of the bible-thumpers.) Intelligent, well argued and researched it
has grown a great deal and more than merits a second mention. It is strange
that the earliest writer in the New Testament canon, Paul, had no interest
in Jesus and his message as depicted in the (much later) gospels, but preached
about a Christ more akin to those deities featured in the mystery cults of the
time - just what is going on here? Go to Doherty's pages to get one very
plausible explanation. Also from Doherty and of interest to readers of
80 is Age Of
Reason - do take a look.
Loco Parentis
Children are particularly vulnerable to things told to
them by adults. Many may not agree but 80 feels
little bothered by Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. These are
harmless whimsies that are left behind by adolescence - or should be. This
site is something else - a betrayal of children's trust at the very least.
Psychic Kids, apparently perpetrated by
a child herself, Llaël Espaze Maffitt, backed up
by her mother, Nancy Baumgarten features "Llaël’s
Spiritual Communications".
" I
see and talk to many spirit friends. Some are angels, or are from different
galaxies. Animal spirits visit as well as dolphins, elves and dwarves. I also
self-heal using my eyes and hands. "
Llaël Espaze Maffitt
To give an example, click on
Omniverse: Soul Rays, Mother
of All (first setting your nause filter on HIGH). Here you will find a
mish-mash of New Age, "intuitive", touchy-feely adolescent tosh. So what, you
may well say. What does it matter if this child's thoughts and frankly painful
doggerel is published on a website apparently endorsed by her mother?
It matters because the next generation on this planet is going to need rather
more than intuition and poems about talking dolphins to cope with the danger
the universe and humankind's rapacious stupidity presents, now and in the
future.
It was the benefits of science and technology that gave
a breathing space to those in the favored countries of the world, a breathing
space wasted by raising a well-intentioned but woefully ill-equipped
generation. The threats to the world and its inhabitants (some of which,
indeed have come about from the misuse of technology) are not going to be
countered by sloppy wishful thinking and talking to angels but by education
and the application of rational thinking. Imagine, if you will, a plant
disease that, say, threatened the world's cereal production. Who would be best
placed to counter such a thing, someone trained in the biological sciences or
someone who talks to
Plant Kingdom
Angels? In case you know little or nothing of these angels here is a short
quotation to enlighten you -
"Chi-Chi's are 4 -5" tall. They
are the ones that I saw all over the floor last week. They're very connected
with the plant kingdom. They are so cute and they are one of the angel types
which have boys and girls. The girls have a really, really light tint of
green and the boys are light pink."
"The Pintetteros are the ones that
I saw sliding down Eric Bergland's harp a couple of years ago. They are
always in couples. Girls wings are a tint of green, and the boys are pink."
There, that's alright then, who needs a PhD in plant
biology when we have the angels on our side? Ignorant, self-indulgent,
dangerous drivel, anyone? This is sad enough without Nancy Baumgarten, Llaël’s
mother's page on
Meta-Parenting. A look at this brings hope to 80's
cynical soul - a hope that this woman is an isolated nutter. Sadly even a
cursory reading of this worrying bunkum shows that this is not the case.
Bottom Feeding
On a lighter note here is another example of enlightened
parenting - Jacqueline Stallone's
Starpower! (Yes, it IS the mother of one our greatest living thespians)
Here you can exchange your hard-earned pay for such essentials as a
Starpower Biorhythm Report (12 months chart only
$39.95) or maybe a Starpower Numerology Report (a
snip at $19.95). Rather more mysterious is the For Men
Only Lotion ($17.95) - which, it is claimed, works by "enhancing
man's attractive natural scent". 80 suggests
bathing may be a good, cheap alternative. Perhaps it is this stuff that gives
Jacqueline's famous offspring his phenomenal acting range. Here is a message,
from the man himself, about his mom......
"My marvelous, extraordinary,
irrepressible, unpredictable mother has a vast array of talents. Without
question, her greatest talent is her ability to foresee the future. She has
successfully predicted every major event in my life through her uncanny
mastery of the ancient art of Astrology. The truth is the only thing that
matters to her, and to tell the truth is the only thing she knows how to do."
Sylvester Stallone.
Which brings us to her latest offering -
Rumpology. Let the lady describe this fascinating
discipline herself -
"Just as your fingerprints,
palms, soles, and ears tell a story, so does your rump. Or shall we say, your
fanny. The lines, crevices, and folds of your fanny can, to the trained eye,
reveal your personality, fate, and future in luck and love. So they thought in
ancient India and Babylon and so today.
Send us a print of your fanny (a
fanny-gram, if you will) by either using a photocopier or a legible ink print
on white paper (please use washable ink). Include your initials and your date
of birth along with a check or postal money order for $100, or use your credit
card and our shopping cart (coming soon) to place your order on-line.
You'll receive a personalized report of 30 pages or more covering your journey
through the coming year based on the pattern of the lines, folds, and crevices
of your fanny-gram. We'll return your fanny-gram, too, which you may want to
frame as a family keepsake when the fates smile on you."
You couldn't make this stuff up...................
Finally, before you despair completely and run off to
join a cult take a look at Dr Stephen Baird and the
Oppossums Of Truth at
Scientific Gospel.com (download some song samples) and return to
EvolveFish.com (what do you mean you've not been there already!) where you
can spend the change from your Rumpology reading on some great and killingly
funny merchandise - look for the "One Nation Under God" poster................
“Objectivity cannot be equated with
mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences
and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny — and also in a
willingness to revise or abandon your theories when the tests fail (as they
usually do).” Stephen Jay Gould
“Scientific claims must be testable; we
must, in principal, be able to envision a set of observations that would
render them false. Miracles cannot be judged by this criterion, as Whitcomb
and Morris have admitted. But is all creationists writing merely about
untestable singularities? Are arguments never made in proper scientific form?
Creationists do offer some testable statements, and these are amenable to
scientific analysis. Why, then, do I continue to claim that creationism isn't
science? Simply because these relatively few statements have been tested and
conclusively refuted.” Stephen Jay Gould
"The most erroneous stories are those we
think we know best--and therefore never scrutinize or question." Stephen Jay
Gould
"Good and kind people outnumber all
others by thousands to one. The tragedy of human history lies in the enormous
potential for destruction in rare acts of evil, not in the high frequency of
evil people. Complex systems can only be built step by step, whereas
destruction requires but an instant. Thus, in what I like to call the Great
Asymmetry, every spectacular incident of evil will be balanced by 10,000 acts
of kindness, too often unnoted and invisible as the "ordinary" efforts of a
vast majority." Stephen Jay Gould
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and
free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will
be." Thomas Jefferson
"Human history becomes more and more a race between education
and catastrophe." H. G. Wells (quoted before but well worth repeating and
dedicated in particular to Llaël Espaze Maffitt and that fine example of
responsible parenting, her mom, Nancy Baumgarten.)
