Bigfoot And The Soup
America has TV programmes dedicated to discovering Sasquatch or Bigfoot (but not the Yeti, of course, because everyone knows that the Yeti doesn’t exist. Silly!) This is because America has bad TV programmes. But America also has good TV programmes and one of them that I like – although I still can’t find anyone else in the UK who watches it – is The Soup on E! channel. The really good thing about The Soup is that it takes the time to find all the bad American TV programmes, take the piss out of them, and alert me to their presence so I can avoid them or, like I’m doing now, write about them. It’s a public service. Some of the recurring targets for a verbal assault from host Joel McHale include those aforementioned programmes about the imaginary creature – Finding Bigfoot and 10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty. It’s great to see some overt scepticism in an entertainment programme, delivered with wonderful sarcasm and humour. The Soup is well worth catching if you can. Programmes about Bigfoot… less...
Trouble At The Sunday Assembly
I never was a fan of the idea of The Sunday Assembly, an attempt to provide a non-religious alternative to church modelled very closely on church itself. It’s a bit like vegetarian burgers or sausages; why pretend to be something you’re not? Don’t look like a burger if you’re not a burger. Be your own foul-tasting thing. Have you thought about soya-based dodecahedrons? And it isn’t just the churchiness of the non-church that I don’t like. It’s the high profile, the publicity, the franchising of it as an organisation that smells bad to me. It smells like a business. Do the people attending see themselves as part of a community or as customers? Because I’ve got a sneaking suspicion they’re the latter no matter what they think. I help to run Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub and the SitP network functions differently. It’s more autonomous, not run from a central point or by a single person, has groups that grow and fade naturally, run by people who want to hear interesting talks and have interesting discussions with no aim to make a profit or form new groups or anything else really. Think of Skeptics in the Pub groups as terrorist cells, independent from one another but able to call on other cells for help, localised, inflicting education and intelligence on victims once a month in the company of alcohol. Think of Sunday Assembly groups as Subway stores, lovely to have around when you’re hungry but you’ve got to remember that their ultimate goal isn’t actually feeding you but increasing the bottom line in a ledger somewhere and finding new markets in which to invest. To reiterate: I’m not a fan of The Sunday Assembly. However, until recently I mostly ignored it as an entity. Just this week, though, I’ve read two interesting articles talking about the organisation. The first article was by Simon Clare – a fellow SitP organiser, running Horsham’s terrorist cell group – who explained why he had left the Sunday Assembly after ten services for Brighton’s franchise. There were developments at “Sunday Assembly Towers” (as the London team call themselves) that I felt that I could not announce to our congregation for fear of losing them. The moment that someone decides to hold back information from their congregation for fear they might disapprove or walk away, is the moment SA ceases to be a wholly positive movement. I love the idea of reclaiming the positive aspects of traditional churches for humanity, but those in charge of the Central SA group have lost sight of this aim, allowing SA to succumb to the same flaws that twisted...
Magnetic Power Insoles
Thanks to a tweet by Dr Adam Rutherford I was introduced to the amazing Lunavit Magnetic Power Insoles walk-a-netics. The insoles apparently work by combining reflexology – a thing that doesn’t work – with tiny magnets – things that have incredible power to affect your body if you are mostly made of iron, which you aren’t – to produce something that is more than the sum of its parts. Or, at least, you’d hope so since the parts add up to zero. The special silver-ion-surface also deodorizes and massages gently the foot when walking and standing. Ah, yes, the massaging ability of flat surfaces coated with metal. Have you ever noticed how just holding a coin makes your hand throb with massaging power? What’s that? No? How strange. It’s almost like inanimate objects have no ability to perform massaging on their own. I’m guessing that these magnetic insoles must have something else then that imbues them with power. What can that be? 130 bipolar arranged 600 gauss magnets I don’t know why this would be good but at least there are 130 of them and they’re bipolar. That’s very important. Far Infrared – FIR (permanent reflection of heat of 92.5%) Not temporary reflection you’ll note. That’s good. And not 100% because that sounds too good to be true and you might get suspicious. Also good. And it’s in the far infrared which is… good? Maybe. Unless your feet generate heat outside that range. Do you know if they do? No, I’ve no idea either. Energized in Germany Very important. You don’t want your magnetic power insoles energised just anywhere. Imagine if they’d been energised in, ooh, let’s say China. Sure, the magnetic energisation might appear to be exactly the same as magnetic ergisation throughout the rest of the universe but it’s China! It’s probably knock-off energisation energised in large factories by people working under poor – if energetic – conditions. I wouldn’t be surprised if the energisation stopped working after a while. I’m sure they make some good stuff but you do hear stories. Anyway, these magnetic power insoles are energised in Germany and that’s synonymous with quality. And you can always pop across the channel and complain if something goes wrong. But it won’t. Because Magnetic, that’s why. I’ll leave you to read about the Energystick on that same page. That, at least, appears to have a genuine use. Not necessarily the one advertised,...
UFOs And The Nation Of Islam
There are a lot of religions out there which is pretty strange if you’re an adherent to one that purports to proclaim the one and only truth with the one and only all-powerful creator at its midst. And because there are a lot of religions it’s not particularly feasible for anyone to keep track of them all so sometimes it comes as a bit of surprise to learn about a new one or learn some new fact about the practices of one you’d not been aware of before. So it is with the Nation of Islam, a religious movement I’d only really heard about through exposure to hip hop music, pictures of Louis Farrakhan, and Brother Mouzone from The Wire. I guess my assumption about the group was that they dressed well, spoke well, had a fondness for bow ties, and listened to Public Enemy; overall, a minor and perhaps eccentric branch of Islam, US-centric, with some unsavoury views of the world if Professor Griff was typical of the group members. Today, though, through one of my Google Alerts I learned something else about the Nation of Islam: its patriarch, Elijah Muhammed, apparently met God (which is nice) and God showed him his UFOs(*). This comes courtesy of this article written by Safiyyah Muhammad: Hollywood and the portrayal of UFOs. Another religious movement that features UFOs. Ah, that’s just wonderful. Of course, it’s easy to roll your eyes and mutter “really?” under your breath but when you think about it at least there’s some microscopic thread that attaches a UFO-based cult to reality (no, I’m not advocating anything put forward on Ancient Aliens). The same can’t be said for deities appearing as animals or bushes or swiftly covering planets in water as part of a benevolent genocide, to name but a few preposterous events. The aforementioned article isn’t a great read but by all means give it a go if you want to learn how much money Independence Day grossed at the box office and whether Minister Farrakhan’s favourite sci-fi movie is The Day The Earth Stood Still or Plan 9 From Outer Space(**). So what do we know about these UFOs and what evidence do we have for them? I’ll answer that latter question first with an interpretive dance that involves rolling on the floor and convulsing with mimed laughter, holding my sides tightly, and then leaping up to perform a move reminiscent of a Whirling Dervish at full speed in order to symbolise my innards spilling out in all directions, unable to remain within the confines of my body any longer as the muscles and tissue gives...
The Deadly Doppelganger
Does seeing one’s double mean imminent death? That’s the question being asked by a doctor of medicine and the question being answered by a dispenser of fantasy at the Philippine Daily Inquirer. First, from the doctor of medicine: I am a doctor of medicine She’s definitely a doctor of medicine. [I]n 2010, I met a psychic from whom I sought advice because I have been seeing a ghost in my sleep, and it feels real. For the record: I don’t want to get ill and be treated by doctors (of medicine) in the Philippines because some of them think dreams contain ghosts. Real ghosts, and not imaginary ghosts too. Last year, I was at my lowest point. I came across a spiritual healer who made me understand why I can read people’s minds (not literally, but I seem to know their intentions). That’s just like me. I can move things with my mind. Not literally, but I seem to be able to control my hand to shift objects at will. I find people to be magnetically drawn to me. She told me this is because I am an ’empath.’ And by ’empath’ she meant ‘metallic’ or ‘someone who wears a lot of copper’ apparently. She may be a doctor of medicine but I’d expect her to know a little bit about how magnetism works too otherwise she’d be a nightmare around scanning equipment. Our doctor of medicine also mentions a doppelganger and how “if a person’s double is seen, then he or she is going to die”. She wants to know if it’s true and then goes on to ask about bilocation. So, what answer does she get? Being a woman of science, you naturally would initially reject such an idea. But extra-sensory perception (ESP) or psychic powers are real, and there are now so many clinically proven studies and experiments on this subject which have been conducted by reputable scientists under scientifically controlled conditions. This is what’s known in the business (I forget which one) as “a paragraph filled with bullshit.” To start with I doubt our doctor of medicine would reject anything right now including her hospital being run by illuminati yetis and aliens being responsible for JFK’s assassination. And then there’s everything else. ESP isn’t real. Psychic powers aren’t real. Clinically-proven studies haven’t taken place. Experiments by reputable scientists under controlled conditions have only ever shown it’s crap. It doesn’t exist. It’s on a par with dream ghosts on the scale of fantasy rubbish. Then there was the 20-year-study of Remote Viewing conducted by physicists, doctors Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, at the former Stanford Research...
Sorcery And Papua New Guinea
From Radio New Zealand International comes news from Papua New Guinea’s sorcery violence-related conference, currently underway. Earlier this year Papua New Guinea repealed the 1971 Sorcery Act, making killings stemming from an accusation of witchcraft treatable as murder. This is, of course, a good thing. That act of law originally stated as fact that sorcery existed and evil sorcery was a crime, making accusations of sorcery a useful defence in murder cases brought before village courts. In the wake of a series of horrible incidents this year – a public burning of a young mother at the stake, a beheading of a retired teacher, and the kidnap and torture by hot irons of six women and one man – the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea Peter O’Neill set in motion the events that saw the law’s demise. RNZI states: [The secretary to the department of justice and attorney general, Lawrence Kalinoe] says the government’s ultimate goal is to dispel people’s belief in sorcery. […] But Dr Kalinoe says legislation is only part of the solution. “Some of these bad customs like sorcery have been maintained in the pretext that it’s part of our cultural heritage. It is for that reason I said, ‘Enough of this nonsense.’ I think we need to move on. Papua New Guinea is now much more enlightened than it was.” All good stuff and it’s nice to see Papua New Guinea moving in the right direction. Lawrence Kalinoe says belief in Christianity will do more for people than sorcery. Oh. So...
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