New from the "You'll Think I'm Making This Up, But I'm Not" Department, witches in Romania are up in arms about a new law that requires them to pay income tax on their earnings.
A rewrite of the tax code has included "witch, fortuneteller, and astrologer" as professions that are recognized as generating taxable income. Now, like any other self-employed person, the wand-and-broomstick contingent will owe taxes on the fees they charge (the tax rate is 16% in Romania). This, as you might imagine, has caused the Witches' Association of Romania, Local Kollective (WARLocK) to flip their tall pointy hats.
And you can bet they aren't just going to take this lying down. They threatened serious action. Romania's head witch, Bratara Buzea, concocted a magic potion made of cat feces and a dead dog. Besides the obvious deterrent effect that anything made of cat feces and dead dog would have, apparently this particular potion was meant to bring evil fortune to the lawmakers who voted for the new law.
"My curses always work," Buzea is quoted as saying. (One source stated that she "cackled" the words in a "smoky voice." I thought that was worth throwing in there, just for the added color.) Other witches hurled poisonous mandrake plants into the Danube River, chanting magic spells in the direction of Bucharest.
The lawmakers, of course, couldn't tolerate these kinds of threats. You don't just aim blobs of cat crap and dead dog at a congressperson, or throw random plants into a river, and somehow get away with it. So the elected officials who were thus threatened took immediate and direct action; they all came to work wearing purple.
Wearing purple, as we all know, wards off evil. (It's probably how the Queen Mum lived to such a ripe old age.) So the government officials came through the dangerous ordeal unscathed after all, which I know will come as a great relief to us all.
It's no wonder there was such a hue and cry. Creatures of darkness have a long history in Romania, and superstitions run rampant. Remember that this is where Dracula got his start (so the tax officials might have some competition in the bloodsucking business). Former Romanian president Nicolae Ceausescu even had his own personal witch, not that it did him much good; he was overthrown and he and his wife executed by firing squad. Maybe his witch ran out of mandrakes or something.
And in the interest of fairness, it bears keeping in mind that not every Romanian witch was angered at being expected to pay her fair share. Mihaela Minca, a witch in the town of Mogosoia, supports paying taxes. "It means that our magic gifts are recognized," she said. "Now I can open my own practice."
So, all in all, things seem to be settling down. This is good. I can imagine that it'd be hard to get anything done with cat poop, dead dogs, and plants being hurled about in the halls of government, not to mention hexes and so forth. (It would, however, make it much more interesting to watch C-Span.)
One has to wonder where all of this will end, however. It's a slippery slope. If "witches, fortunetellers, and astrologers" are now considered as professionals, pretty soon talk-radio hosts, advertising executives, and the members of the cast of Jersey Shore will expect to be recognized as productive members of society. After that, it's only a matter of time before Ann Coulter is granted "human being" status.
Can the death of civilization be far behind?
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
Four and twenty blackbirds
It sounds like something from The X-Files.
Shortly before midnight on New Year's Eve, about three thousand Red-winged Blackbirds started falling from the sky, near the town of Beebe, Arkansas. They were apparently dead before impact; one hit a police car, and another struck a woman out for a late-night walk with her dog.
The types of things this would immediately bring to mind -- poison, for example -- make no sense here. A poison that only affects blackbirds is ridiculous (although, to be honest, apparently a few Common Grackles were also killed; but still). If there'd been some kind of aerial spraying of a quick-acting toxin, you'd expect that lots of other animals would also have been killed. Once this was ruled out, other theories began to circulate -- that the birds had been awakened, and startled into flight, by fireworks, and had flown into buildings; that they had been killed by a weather-related event, such as a high altitude hailstorm; that they had been struck by lightning.
None of these seem to hold water.
The frightened-into-collision hypothesis doesn't match the scatter pattern made by the carcasses; I've seen video clips and still photos (check out a video here) and many of the birds didn't land anywhere near buildings. There aren't any tall buildings in Beebe, anyhow; and from the apparently random way they have fallen, they look to me like they were killed while still aloft and dropped to the ground, landing wherever they happened to land. The hailstorm and lightning-strike explanations don't line up with the fact that the birds showed no sign of external injuries; hail strikes hard enough to kill would break bones, and lightning would singe feathers. They seem to have simply... died, suddenly, mid-flight, and plummeted to the ground.
Necropsies performed today showed that many of the birds had internal blood clots sufficient to kill them; but this is by itself only a proximal cause. What caused the clots to form? It's hard to imagine anything that could happen to a bird in flight that could cause internal bleeding, much less something that could happen to cause internal bleeding in three thousand birds more-or-less simultaneously.
All of this has wildlife biologists scrambling for answers, and the townsfolk of Beebe are understandably spooked. One man, interviewed by the local news, said he's not going to let his children play outside until this is solved. One might accuse him of overreacting -- but honestly, isn't his fear justified? I know if I woke up one morning to find my front and back yards littered with dead birds, I'd be more than a little skeeved out.
Me, I'm wondering where this will all go. I'd lay even odds that we'll never figure out what caused the deaths, and it will be filed amongst scientists as one of those oddball phenomena which were never adequately explained -- and will become fuel to the fire to the conspiracy theorists and the-end-of-the-world-is-nigh types. Already there are websites claiming that this is a sign of the approaching End Times -- although I don't recall from my reading of Revelations anything about birds dying en masse.
In any case, keep your eye on the news, not to mention the sky. I'd imagine getting beaned by a dead blackbird would smart a little.
Shortly before midnight on New Year's Eve, about three thousand Red-winged Blackbirds started falling from the sky, near the town of Beebe, Arkansas. They were apparently dead before impact; one hit a police car, and another struck a woman out for a late-night walk with her dog.
The types of things this would immediately bring to mind -- poison, for example -- make no sense here. A poison that only affects blackbirds is ridiculous (although, to be honest, apparently a few Common Grackles were also killed; but still). If there'd been some kind of aerial spraying of a quick-acting toxin, you'd expect that lots of other animals would also have been killed. Once this was ruled out, other theories began to circulate -- that the birds had been awakened, and startled into flight, by fireworks, and had flown into buildings; that they had been killed by a weather-related event, such as a high altitude hailstorm; that they had been struck by lightning.
None of these seem to hold water.
The frightened-into-collision hypothesis doesn't match the scatter pattern made by the carcasses; I've seen video clips and still photos (check out a video here) and many of the birds didn't land anywhere near buildings. There aren't any tall buildings in Beebe, anyhow; and from the apparently random way they have fallen, they look to me like they were killed while still aloft and dropped to the ground, landing wherever they happened to land. The hailstorm and lightning-strike explanations don't line up with the fact that the birds showed no sign of external injuries; hail strikes hard enough to kill would break bones, and lightning would singe feathers. They seem to have simply... died, suddenly, mid-flight, and plummeted to the ground.
Necropsies performed today showed that many of the birds had internal blood clots sufficient to kill them; but this is by itself only a proximal cause. What caused the clots to form? It's hard to imagine anything that could happen to a bird in flight that could cause internal bleeding, much less something that could happen to cause internal bleeding in three thousand birds more-or-less simultaneously.
All of this has wildlife biologists scrambling for answers, and the townsfolk of Beebe are understandably spooked. One man, interviewed by the local news, said he's not going to let his children play outside until this is solved. One might accuse him of overreacting -- but honestly, isn't his fear justified? I know if I woke up one morning to find my front and back yards littered with dead birds, I'd be more than a little skeeved out.
Me, I'm wondering where this will all go. I'd lay even odds that we'll never figure out what caused the deaths, and it will be filed amongst scientists as one of those oddball phenomena which were never adequately explained -- and will become fuel to the fire to the conspiracy theorists and the-end-of-the-world-is-nigh types. Already there are websites claiming that this is a sign of the approaching End Times -- although I don't recall from my reading of Revelations anything about birds dying en masse.
In any case, keep your eye on the news, not to mention the sky. I'd imagine getting beaned by a dead blackbird would smart a little.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Science vs. common sense
A regular reader of my blog commented to me, rather offhand, "To read your posts, you sound awfully sure of yourself. A little arrogant, even."
I'll leave the last part to wiser heads than mine to answer; I may well have an arrogant streak, and in fact I've remarked more than once that to have a blog at all implies a bit of arrogance -- you have to believe, on some level, that what you think and write will be interesting to enough people to make it worth doing. But I'd like to leave my own personality flaws aside for a moment, and take a look at the first part of the statement, which is saying something quite different, I think.
In saying that I sound "sure of myself," the fellow who made the comment was saying, so far as I can tell, that I sound like I've got all the answers; that my pronouncements on ghosts and faces on pub walls and Florida Skunk Apes, and -- on a more serious level -- ethics, politics, philosophy, and religion, are somehow final pronouncements of fact. I come across, apparently, as if I'm the last word on the subject, that I've said "fiat lux" in a booming voice, and now all is light.
Nothing could be further from the truth, both in fact and in my own estimation.
It's because I have so little certainty in my own senses and my brain's interpretation of them that I have a great deal of trust in science. I am actually uncertain about most everything, because I'm constantly aware about how easily tricked the human brain is. Here are five examples of just how counter-intuitive nature is -- how easily we'd be misled if it weren't for the tools of science. I'll present you with some explanations of commonly-observed events -- see if you can tell me which are true and which are false based upon your own observations.
1) Homing pigeons, which can find their way home from amazing distances, are navigating using visual cues such as the positions of the sun and stars.
2) Herding behavior in collies and other sheepdogs is learned very young; herding-breed puppies reared by non-herding breed mothers (e.g. a collie puppy raised by a black lab mother) never learn to herd.
3) A marksman shoots a gun horizontally over a level field, and simultaneously drops a bullet from the same height as the gun barrel. The dropped bullet will hit the ground before the shot bullet because it has far less distance to cover.
4) Flowering plants are temperature-sensitive, and spring-flowering plants like daffodils and tulips recognize the coming of spring (and therefore time to make flowers) when the earth warms up as the days lengthen.
5) Time passes at the same rate for everyone; time is the one universal constant. No matter where you are in the universe, no matter what you're doing, everyone's clock ticks at exactly the same rate.
Ready for the answers?
All of them are false.
1) Homing pigeons are remarkably insensitive to visual cues. An experiment, conducted at Cornell University, showed that pigeons' tiny little brains allow them to navigate by picking up the magnetic field of the earth -- i.e., they have internal magnetic compasses. This ability, called magnetotaxis, is shared with only a few other species, including at least one species of motile bacteria.
2) Herding behavior in collies is entirely genetic, not learned (although they refine the skill with training). Most amazingly, it is caused by a single gene. A dog with that gene can be trained to herd; a dog without it can't. Scientists are still trying to figure out how one gene can control a complex behavior like herding ability. This sheds some interesting light on the nature-vs.-nurture question, though, doesn't it?
3) In this classic thought experiment, the two bullets hit the ground at precisely the same moment. Vertical velocity and horizontal velocity are entirely independent of each other; the fact that the one bullet is moving very quickly in a horizontal direction, and the other isn't, is completely irrelevant.
4) Temperature has very little to do with the timing of flowering, although a prolonged period of cold can slow down early-flowering plants some. It used to be thought that flowering plants were timing their flowering cycles based on relative day length, and whether day length was increasing or decreasing; this clearly has something to do with it, but the mechanism controlling it is still poorly understood.
5) The General Theory of Relativity, which has been experimentally confirmed countless ways, actually says exactly the opposite of this. What it does say is that the speed of light is constant in all frames of reference, and this has, as one of its bizarre outcomes, that time is completely relative. Not only might your clock be ticking at a different rate than mine, depending on our relative motion, but events that look simultaneous to you might look sequential to me. No wonder Einstein won the Nobel, eh?
All of this is just to indicate that our intuition, our "common sense," and even our sensory information, can sometimes be very misleading. Science is our only way out of this mess; it has proven itself, time and again, to be the very best tool we have for not falling into error because of the natural mistakes made by our brains, the fallacy of wishful thinking and confirmation bias, and being suckered by charlatans and frauds.
A charge levied against science by some people is that it changes; the "truths" of one generation may be different from those of the next. (I call this the "They Used to Believe the Earth Was Flat" argument.) Myself, I find this a virtue, not a flaw. Science, by its nature, self-corrects. Isn't it better to put your trust in a world view that has the capacity to fix its own errors, rather than one which promises eternal truths, and therefore doesn't change regardless of the discovery of contrary evidence?
I realize that this line of reasoning approaches some very controversial thin ice for many people, and I've no intent to skate any nearer to the edge. My own views on the subject are undoubtedly abundantly clear. I firmly believe that everyone buys into the world view that makes the best sense of his/her world, and it would be arrogant for me to tell another person to change -- the most I can do is to present my own understanding, and hope that it will sell itself on its own merits. And for me, the scientific model may not be perfect, but given the other options, it's the best thing the market has to offer.
I'll leave the last part to wiser heads than mine to answer; I may well have an arrogant streak, and in fact I've remarked more than once that to have a blog at all implies a bit of arrogance -- you have to believe, on some level, that what you think and write will be interesting to enough people to make it worth doing. But I'd like to leave my own personality flaws aside for a moment, and take a look at the first part of the statement, which is saying something quite different, I think.
In saying that I sound "sure of myself," the fellow who made the comment was saying, so far as I can tell, that I sound like I've got all the answers; that my pronouncements on ghosts and faces on pub walls and Florida Skunk Apes, and -- on a more serious level -- ethics, politics, philosophy, and religion, are somehow final pronouncements of fact. I come across, apparently, as if I'm the last word on the subject, that I've said "fiat lux" in a booming voice, and now all is light.
Nothing could be further from the truth, both in fact and in my own estimation.
It's because I have so little certainty in my own senses and my brain's interpretation of them that I have a great deal of trust in science. I am actually uncertain about most everything, because I'm constantly aware about how easily tricked the human brain is. Here are five examples of just how counter-intuitive nature is -- how easily we'd be misled if it weren't for the tools of science. I'll present you with some explanations of commonly-observed events -- see if you can tell me which are true and which are false based upon your own observations.
1) Homing pigeons, which can find their way home from amazing distances, are navigating using visual cues such as the positions of the sun and stars.
2) Herding behavior in collies and other sheepdogs is learned very young; herding-breed puppies reared by non-herding breed mothers (e.g. a collie puppy raised by a black lab mother) never learn to herd.
3) A marksman shoots a gun horizontally over a level field, and simultaneously drops a bullet from the same height as the gun barrel. The dropped bullet will hit the ground before the shot bullet because it has far less distance to cover.
4) Flowering plants are temperature-sensitive, and spring-flowering plants like daffodils and tulips recognize the coming of spring (and therefore time to make flowers) when the earth warms up as the days lengthen.
5) Time passes at the same rate for everyone; time is the one universal constant. No matter where you are in the universe, no matter what you're doing, everyone's clock ticks at exactly the same rate.
Ready for the answers?
All of them are false.
1) Homing pigeons are remarkably insensitive to visual cues. An experiment, conducted at Cornell University, showed that pigeons' tiny little brains allow them to navigate by picking up the magnetic field of the earth -- i.e., they have internal magnetic compasses. This ability, called magnetotaxis, is shared with only a few other species, including at least one species of motile bacteria.
2) Herding behavior in collies is entirely genetic, not learned (although they refine the skill with training). Most amazingly, it is caused by a single gene. A dog with that gene can be trained to herd; a dog without it can't. Scientists are still trying to figure out how one gene can control a complex behavior like herding ability. This sheds some interesting light on the nature-vs.-nurture question, though, doesn't it?
3) In this classic thought experiment, the two bullets hit the ground at precisely the same moment. Vertical velocity and horizontal velocity are entirely independent of each other; the fact that the one bullet is moving very quickly in a horizontal direction, and the other isn't, is completely irrelevant.
4) Temperature has very little to do with the timing of flowering, although a prolonged period of cold can slow down early-flowering plants some. It used to be thought that flowering plants were timing their flowering cycles based on relative day length, and whether day length was increasing or decreasing; this clearly has something to do with it, but the mechanism controlling it is still poorly understood.
5) The General Theory of Relativity, which has been experimentally confirmed countless ways, actually says exactly the opposite of this. What it does say is that the speed of light is constant in all frames of reference, and this has, as one of its bizarre outcomes, that time is completely relative. Not only might your clock be ticking at a different rate than mine, depending on our relative motion, but events that look simultaneous to you might look sequential to me. No wonder Einstein won the Nobel, eh?
All of this is just to indicate that our intuition, our "common sense," and even our sensory information, can sometimes be very misleading. Science is our only way out of this mess; it has proven itself, time and again, to be the very best tool we have for not falling into error because of the natural mistakes made by our brains, the fallacy of wishful thinking and confirmation bias, and being suckered by charlatans and frauds.
A charge levied against science by some people is that it changes; the "truths" of one generation may be different from those of the next. (I call this the "They Used to Believe the Earth Was Flat" argument.) Myself, I find this a virtue, not a flaw. Science, by its nature, self-corrects. Isn't it better to put your trust in a world view that has the capacity to fix its own errors, rather than one which promises eternal truths, and therefore doesn't change regardless of the discovery of contrary evidence?
I realize that this line of reasoning approaches some very controversial thin ice for many people, and I've no intent to skate any nearer to the edge. My own views on the subject are undoubtedly abundantly clear. I firmly believe that everyone buys into the world view that makes the best sense of his/her world, and it would be arrogant for me to tell another person to change -- the most I can do is to present my own understanding, and hope that it will sell itself on its own merits. And for me, the scientific model may not be perfect, but given the other options, it's the best thing the market has to offer.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Addenda and errata
In my post on the alleged haunting of Ballechin House, I made reference to an investigation into the affair by a member of the Society for Psychical Research. I commented that the members of this organization were "only surpassed in gullibility by people who think that the Syfy channel's Ghost Hunters is a non-fiction documentary."
This elicited a comment from one of my readers, to the effect that I "obviously don't know much about the Society for Psychical Research and its members."
Well, that may be putting it a bit strongly; I'd read quite a bit about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a prominent spiritualist and SPR member, and the Cottingley "fairy photographs," and perhaps unfairly had come to associate the entire society with this hoax. Nevertheless, I was honestly stung by this criticism, and I thought it only fair to do a bit of research and rectify not only the error in my post, but my own ignorance on the subject.
The Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882, and has as its explicit goal the scientific and unbiased exploration of purported psychic phenomena. Everything that I've been able to read on the subject of the Society - both that written by its members and those outside - indicates that when at all possible, it approaches each new instance of alleged haunting, telepathy, psychokinesis, and so on, with a skeptical eye, and it doesn't have a "dog in the race," so to speak -- its goal is to establish the phenomenon as true if so, and expose it as a hoax if it is one.
The SPR is still very active today, and was instrumental in the investigation of such well-known cases as the Enfield Poltergeist. This last is an interesting example -- the conclusion by the two SPR members who investigated it, Guy Lyon Playfair and Maurice Grosse, was that it was an actual haunting, even though two of the children who lived in the alleged haunted house admitted faking some of the events that occurred in it. (Read one account of the Enfield haunting here.)
As you might expect, I'm still of two minds with regards to the SPR and other organizations like it. On the one hand, I applaud their apparent skepticism; it's a great pity that all investigators of the paranormal don't approach such phenomena that way. The credulousness of the likes of Hans Holzer (whose career I'll save for a later post) only serves to muddy the waters and to make it less likely that any real paranormal occurrences, should they exist, will be believed.
On the other hand, I do take issue with the fact that the mere existence of the SPR lends credence to the whole field. The fact that there are now universities with "Departments of Parapsychology" is, to me, worrisome; to borrow a line from Richard Dawkins, it's a little like a university having a "Department of Fairyology." The oft-mentioned million-dollar challenge by James Randi, the award to be given to the first person who can demonstrate any sort of paranormal ability under scientifically controlled conditions, certainly gives lie to the contention that there's anything for a Department of Parapsychology to study.
On the SPR's home page (take a look at it here) is the quote from Carl Jung, "I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud." Well, perhaps. I'm perfectly willing to accept the idea of there being thousands of phenomena that science has yet to explain; science, at its best, is always pushing the envelope, moving outward into areas we don't yet understand. At the same time, the leap from "I can't explain this" to "it's the supernatural" is all too easy, and has proven time and again to ignore a more conventional explanation -- that the occurrence under investigation is in fact an altogether natural phenomenon, an optical or auditory illusion, or an example of human gullibility, credulousness, or outright fraud.
In conclusion, I hope this has rectified the regrettable error in my previous post. As far as my own thoughts, based on my now much-improved knowledge, I would label myself as guardedly in support of the SPR and its goals. If I still prefer James Randi's approach, I am perhaps to be forgiven; but between the two different ways of attacking the problem of paranormal phenomena, one can only hope that if there are such things out there, they will one day be given support by scientific means, and not just by easily faked or misinterpreted anecdotal "evidence."
This elicited a comment from one of my readers, to the effect that I "obviously don't know much about the Society for Psychical Research and its members."
Well, that may be putting it a bit strongly; I'd read quite a bit about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a prominent spiritualist and SPR member, and the Cottingley "fairy photographs," and perhaps unfairly had come to associate the entire society with this hoax. Nevertheless, I was honestly stung by this criticism, and I thought it only fair to do a bit of research and rectify not only the error in my post, but my own ignorance on the subject.
The Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882, and has as its explicit goal the scientific and unbiased exploration of purported psychic phenomena. Everything that I've been able to read on the subject of the Society - both that written by its members and those outside - indicates that when at all possible, it approaches each new instance of alleged haunting, telepathy, psychokinesis, and so on, with a skeptical eye, and it doesn't have a "dog in the race," so to speak -- its goal is to establish the phenomenon as true if so, and expose it as a hoax if it is one.
The SPR is still very active today, and was instrumental in the investigation of such well-known cases as the Enfield Poltergeist. This last is an interesting example -- the conclusion by the two SPR members who investigated it, Guy Lyon Playfair and Maurice Grosse, was that it was an actual haunting, even though two of the children who lived in the alleged haunted house admitted faking some of the events that occurred in it. (Read one account of the Enfield haunting here.)
As you might expect, I'm still of two minds with regards to the SPR and other organizations like it. On the one hand, I applaud their apparent skepticism; it's a great pity that all investigators of the paranormal don't approach such phenomena that way. The credulousness of the likes of Hans Holzer (whose career I'll save for a later post) only serves to muddy the waters and to make it less likely that any real paranormal occurrences, should they exist, will be believed.
On the other hand, I do take issue with the fact that the mere existence of the SPR lends credence to the whole field. The fact that there are now universities with "Departments of Parapsychology" is, to me, worrisome; to borrow a line from Richard Dawkins, it's a little like a university having a "Department of Fairyology." The oft-mentioned million-dollar challenge by James Randi, the award to be given to the first person who can demonstrate any sort of paranormal ability under scientifically controlled conditions, certainly gives lie to the contention that there's anything for a Department of Parapsychology to study.
On the SPR's home page (take a look at it here) is the quote from Carl Jung, "I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud." Well, perhaps. I'm perfectly willing to accept the idea of there being thousands of phenomena that science has yet to explain; science, at its best, is always pushing the envelope, moving outward into areas we don't yet understand. At the same time, the leap from "I can't explain this" to "it's the supernatural" is all too easy, and has proven time and again to ignore a more conventional explanation -- that the occurrence under investigation is in fact an altogether natural phenomenon, an optical or auditory illusion, or an example of human gullibility, credulousness, or outright fraud.
In conclusion, I hope this has rectified the regrettable error in my previous post. As far as my own thoughts, based on my now much-improved knowledge, I would label myself as guardedly in support of the SPR and its goals. If I still prefer James Randi's approach, I am perhaps to be forgiven; but between the two different ways of attacking the problem of paranormal phenomena, one can only hope that if there are such things out there, they will one day be given support by scientific means, and not just by easily faked or misinterpreted anecdotal "evidence."
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
A jewel of a scam
As if there weren't enough ways to prey upon the gullible, in the last few years there has been a dramatic rise in offers for "energy jewelry," which includes necklaces, bracelets, anklets, earrings, and so on, all of which are somehow supposed to improve your health. I thought this was worth investigating, so I did a Google search for "energy jewelry" -- and it resulted in over 42 million hits. Here are a few from the first page, chosen randomly:
EnergyMuse -- leading the world in holistic crystal energy healing and jewelry.
Jewelry to harmonize the body's energy fields, auras, and chakras!
Energy Shop jewelry, designed to fit your dreams! Each gemstone has been individually energy-charged and smudged.
Energy-ring.com specializes in energy healing gold and silver jewelry, and improves reiki, chakra, and psychic energy by using the Earth's magnetic field through induction coil rings.
And so forth. I checked a few of these sites to see about cost, and the prices seemed mostly to start at $25 - but they went as high as $1500!
So, the basic idea is, give us large quantities of money, and we'll send you a piece of jewelry. If you wear it, it'll harmonize your psychic energy fields (which don't exist), rearrange your chakras (which don't exist), and improve your aura (which also doesn't exist). One has to wonder if there's a money-back guarantee.
My all-time favorite fake-energy-jewelry vendor is Takionic.com. This company claims that their products "align the body's atoms" so that one can "tap into the limitless energy of the tachyon field." (Isn't the "tachyon field" one of the things Geordi LaForge was always blathering on about on Star Trek: The Next Generation, in situations where he had to explain why Data was suddenly remembering the future, or something? That and a "rip in the space-time continuum." "Captain, if we can introduce a tachyon field into the rip in the space-time continuum, I think we might just be able to return us to our own universe and stop Data from answering questions we haven't asked yet, all before the final credits." "Make it so, Mr. LaForge.")
Anyhow, Takionic.com has a variety of products that will allow you to access this unlimited energy source. It doesn't stop with jewelry -- oh, my, no. They have tachyon-capturing blankets, eyemasks, headbands, wristbands, night cream, massage oil, belts, scarves, sport suits, toothpaste, and water.
Yes, you read that right. They're selling you (not you personally, I hope) tachyon-infused water. For $35 for a 17-ounce bottle.
Me, I'm wondering if I missed my calling. If there are people out there who will buy a plastic bottle of tap water for $35, I'm thinking I could be making a helluva lot more money doing that than being a public school teacher.
Anyway, I hope you haven't already been bamboozled by any of these folks and their pseudoscience. I can categorically state that not one of the claims made by any of these folks -- not one -- has passed any kind of rigorous scientific test. So, the bottom line is, if you want to be healthy, then eat right, exercise, don't smoke, and don't drink and drive. Your jewelry may make you look nice, but it's not really going to help you out in any other way.
I'll just finish up by putting in a plug for the one bit of energy-jewelry that does perform as advertised. It is the Placebo Band, sold for just $2 at SkepticBros.com. It comes in many lovely bright colors, is labeled "PLACEBO," and has a nice holographic image of the SkepticBros logo on the front. It comes with the following disclaimer:
"Placebo Band doesn’t come preprogrammed in any way. If you wish to have your band 'imbedded with frequencies' we suggest placing the band prominently on top of or in front of the largest speaker you have while playing your absolute favorite song ( e.g. Groove Is In The Heart by Dee Lite). Not only will you have listened to something that improves your mood straight away but you will be reminded of the song and that good feeling every time you wear Placebo Band."
SkepticBros.com also promises to replace your Placebo Band for free if it explodes for any reason.
Who could pass up a deal like that?
EnergyMuse -- leading the world in holistic crystal energy healing and jewelry.
Jewelry to harmonize the body's energy fields, auras, and chakras!
Energy Shop jewelry, designed to fit your dreams! Each gemstone has been individually energy-charged and smudged.
Energy-ring.com specializes in energy healing gold and silver jewelry, and improves reiki, chakra, and psychic energy by using the Earth's magnetic field through induction coil rings.
And so forth. I checked a few of these sites to see about cost, and the prices seemed mostly to start at $25 - but they went as high as $1500!
So, the basic idea is, give us large quantities of money, and we'll send you a piece of jewelry. If you wear it, it'll harmonize your psychic energy fields (which don't exist), rearrange your chakras (which don't exist), and improve your aura (which also doesn't exist). One has to wonder if there's a money-back guarantee.
My all-time favorite fake-energy-jewelry vendor is Takionic.com. This company claims that their products "align the body's atoms" so that one can "tap into the limitless energy of the tachyon field." (Isn't the "tachyon field" one of the things Geordi LaForge was always blathering on about on Star Trek: The Next Generation, in situations where he had to explain why Data was suddenly remembering the future, or something? That and a "rip in the space-time continuum." "Captain, if we can introduce a tachyon field into the rip in the space-time continuum, I think we might just be able to return us to our own universe and stop Data from answering questions we haven't asked yet, all before the final credits." "Make it so, Mr. LaForge.")
Anyhow, Takionic.com has a variety of products that will allow you to access this unlimited energy source. It doesn't stop with jewelry -- oh, my, no. They have tachyon-capturing blankets, eyemasks, headbands, wristbands, night cream, massage oil, belts, scarves, sport suits, toothpaste, and water.
Yes, you read that right. They're selling you (not you personally, I hope) tachyon-infused water. For $35 for a 17-ounce bottle.
Me, I'm wondering if I missed my calling. If there are people out there who will buy a plastic bottle of tap water for $35, I'm thinking I could be making a helluva lot more money doing that than being a public school teacher.
Anyway, I hope you haven't already been bamboozled by any of these folks and their pseudoscience. I can categorically state that not one of the claims made by any of these folks -- not one -- has passed any kind of rigorous scientific test. So, the bottom line is, if you want to be healthy, then eat right, exercise, don't smoke, and don't drink and drive. Your jewelry may make you look nice, but it's not really going to help you out in any other way.
I'll just finish up by putting in a plug for the one bit of energy-jewelry that does perform as advertised. It is the Placebo Band, sold for just $2 at SkepticBros.com. It comes in many lovely bright colors, is labeled "PLACEBO," and has a nice holographic image of the SkepticBros logo on the front. It comes with the following disclaimer:
"Placebo Band doesn’t come preprogrammed in any way. If you wish to have your band 'imbedded with frequencies' we suggest placing the band prominently on top of or in front of the largest speaker you have while playing your absolute favorite song ( e.g. Groove Is In The Heart by Dee Lite). Not only will you have listened to something that improves your mood straight away but you will be reminded of the song and that good feeling every time you wear Placebo Band."
SkepticBros.com also promises to replace your Placebo Band for free if it explodes for any reason.
Who could pass up a deal like that?
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Footprints in the snow
The great blizzard of December 2010 has come and gone, but my upstate New York village received a mere dusting as compared to the 18 to 24 inches they got in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maine. In fact, this morning the sun came out for a bit, and yesterday's snow is beginning to melt, although at this time of year I figure that the comparative warmth is only a tease.
Watching the effect that the sun had on footprints I made yesterday while hauling firewood, as they widened from the clear indentations of a human wearing ridge-soled Timberland boots into diffuse, open blobs, put me in mind of one of the most peculiar legends of Merrie Old England. Perhaps you've not heard of it; if not, you may find it an interesting tale for a cold, snowy winter day.
Early in the morning on February 8, 1855 (so the story goes), the people of five small towns in south Devon -- Topsham, Lympstone, Exmouth, Teignmouth, and Dawlish -- woke to find a line of footprints in the snow. The London Times of February 16 reported on the story in detail:
The snow, as it melted, accentuated the strangeness of the prints, just as it did with the bootprints in my front yard. The resemblance to a cloven hoof, with its suggestion of the devil, became more pronounced, and the fear grew to near hysteria. Fortunately (or unfortunately, for those of us who like to know the solutions to mysteries) the events were never repeated, and never satisfactorily explained.
The Devon footprints were credited by some as a visitation not by Satan, but by one of his uniquely English cousins -- Spring-heeled Jack. Spring-heeled Jack was first sighted in London in 1837 by a businessman walking home from work. The gentleman described being terrified by the sudden appearance of a dark figure which had "jumped the high railings of Barnes Cemetery with ease," landing right in his path. The businessman wasn't attacked, and was able to keep his wits sufficiently about him to describe a "muscular man, with a wild, grinning expression, long, pointed nose and ears, and protruding, glowing eyes." Sort of like the love child of Salvador Dali and Mr. Spock, is the way I think of him.
Others were attacked, and some were not so lucky as our businessman. A girl named Mary Stevens was attacked in Battersea, and had her clothing torn and was scratched and clawed, but survived because neighbors came to help when they heard her screams. The following day Jack jumped in front of a coach, causing it to swerve and crash. The coachman was severely injured, and several witnesses saw Jack escape by leaping over a nine-foot-high wall, all the while howling with insane laughter.
Several more encounters occurred during the following year, including two in which the victims were blinded temporarily by "blue-white fire" spat from Jack's mouth.
Although publicity grew, and Spring-heeled Jack became a character of folk myth, song, and the punch line to many a joke, sightings grew less frequent. Following the footprints in the snow-covered Devonshire countryside in 1855, there was a flurry of renewed interest (rimshot), but the last claimed sighting of Spring-heeled Jack was in Lincoln in 1877, and after that he seems to have gone the way of the dodo.
As intriguing as this story is, all of the evidence points to pranksters (and, in the case of Mary Stevens, an unsuccessful rapist). I'm not inclined to believe in Jack's phenomenal jumping ability, except in cases where Jack jumped down off a wall -- that requires no particular skill except the agility to get up there in the first place, and after that gravity takes care of the rest. It seems to me that nighttime, fear, a wild costume, and the witnesses' being primed by already knowing the story create a synergy that makes their accuracy seriously in question.
The fact remains, however, that it's a very peculiar story. I remember reading about the Devon footprints when I was a kid (I didn't find out about Spring-heeled Jack until later), and the idea of some mysterious non-human creature pacing its way across the English countryside, silently crossing fields and farms and streets, peering in the windows at the sleeping inhabitants, was enough to give me the cauld grue. Still does, in fact. Enough that I hope that the fitful December sun has eradicated my bootprints in the front yard completely -- which goes to show that even a diehard rationalist can sometimes fall prey to an irrational case of the creeps.
Watching the effect that the sun had on footprints I made yesterday while hauling firewood, as they widened from the clear indentations of a human wearing ridge-soled Timberland boots into diffuse, open blobs, put me in mind of one of the most peculiar legends of Merrie Old England. Perhaps you've not heard of it; if not, you may find it an interesting tale for a cold, snowy winter day.
Early in the morning on February 8, 1855 (so the story goes), the people of five small towns in south Devon -- Topsham, Lympstone, Exmouth, Teignmouth, and Dawlish -- woke to find a line of footprints in the snow. The London Times of February 16 reported on the story in detail:
"It appears that on Thursday night last there was a very heavy fall of snow in the neighborhood of Exeter and the south of Devon. On the following morning, the inhabitants of the above towns were surprised at discovering the tracks of some strange and mysterious animal, endowed with the power of ubiquity, as the foot-prints were to be seen in all kinds of inaccessible places - on the tops of houses and narrow walls, in gardens and courtyards enclosed by high walls and palings, as well as in open fields. There was hardly a garden in Lympstone where the footprints were not observed.
"The track appeared more like that of a biped than a quadruped, and the steps were generally eight inches in advance of each other. The impressions of the feet closely resembled that of a donkey's shoe, and measured from an inch and a half to (in some instances) two and a half inches across. Here and there it appeared as if cloven, but in the generality of the steps the shoe was continuous, and, from the snow in the center remaining entire, merely showing the outer crest of the foot, it must have been convex.
"The creature seems to have approached the doors of several houses and then to have retreated, but no one has been able to discover the standing or resting point of this mysterious visitor. On Sunday last the Rev. Mr. Musgrave alluded to the subject in his sermon, and suggested the possibility of the footprints being those of a kangaroo; but this could scarcely have been the case, as they were found on both sides of the estuary of the Exe.
"At present it remains a mystery, and many superstitious people in the above towns are actually afraid to go outside their doors at night."
"The track appeared more like that of a biped than a quadruped, and the steps were generally eight inches in advance of each other. The impressions of the feet closely resembled that of a donkey's shoe, and measured from an inch and a half to (in some instances) two and a half inches across. Here and there it appeared as if cloven, but in the generality of the steps the shoe was continuous, and, from the snow in the center remaining entire, merely showing the outer crest of the foot, it must have been convex.
"The creature seems to have approached the doors of several houses and then to have retreated, but no one has been able to discover the standing or resting point of this mysterious visitor. On Sunday last the Rev. Mr. Musgrave alluded to the subject in his sermon, and suggested the possibility of the footprints being those of a kangaroo; but this could scarcely have been the case, as they were found on both sides of the estuary of the Exe.
"At present it remains a mystery, and many superstitious people in the above towns are actually afraid to go outside their doors at night."
The snow, as it melted, accentuated the strangeness of the prints, just as it did with the bootprints in my front yard. The resemblance to a cloven hoof, with its suggestion of the devil, became more pronounced, and the fear grew to near hysteria. Fortunately (or unfortunately, for those of us who like to know the solutions to mysteries) the events were never repeated, and never satisfactorily explained.
The Devon footprints were credited by some as a visitation not by Satan, but by one of his uniquely English cousins -- Spring-heeled Jack. Spring-heeled Jack was first sighted in London in 1837 by a businessman walking home from work. The gentleman described being terrified by the sudden appearance of a dark figure which had "jumped the high railings of Barnes Cemetery with ease," landing right in his path. The businessman wasn't attacked, and was able to keep his wits sufficiently about him to describe a "muscular man, with a wild, grinning expression, long, pointed nose and ears, and protruding, glowing eyes." Sort of like the love child of Salvador Dali and Mr. Spock, is the way I think of him.
Others were attacked, and some were not so lucky as our businessman. A girl named Mary Stevens was attacked in Battersea, and had her clothing torn and was scratched and clawed, but survived because neighbors came to help when they heard her screams. The following day Jack jumped in front of a coach, causing it to swerve and crash. The coachman was severely injured, and several witnesses saw Jack escape by leaping over a nine-foot-high wall, all the while howling with insane laughter.
Several more encounters occurred during the following year, including two in which the victims were blinded temporarily by "blue-white fire" spat from Jack's mouth.
Although publicity grew, and Spring-heeled Jack became a character of folk myth, song, and the punch line to many a joke, sightings grew less frequent. Following the footprints in the snow-covered Devonshire countryside in 1855, there was a flurry of renewed interest (rimshot), but the last claimed sighting of Spring-heeled Jack was in Lincoln in 1877, and after that he seems to have gone the way of the dodo.
As intriguing as this story is, all of the evidence points to pranksters (and, in the case of Mary Stevens, an unsuccessful rapist). I'm not inclined to believe in Jack's phenomenal jumping ability, except in cases where Jack jumped down off a wall -- that requires no particular skill except the agility to get up there in the first place, and after that gravity takes care of the rest. It seems to me that nighttime, fear, a wild costume, and the witnesses' being primed by already knowing the story create a synergy that makes their accuracy seriously in question.
The fact remains, however, that it's a very peculiar story. I remember reading about the Devon footprints when I was a kid (I didn't find out about Spring-heeled Jack until later), and the idea of some mysterious non-human creature pacing its way across the English countryside, silently crossing fields and farms and streets, peering in the windows at the sleeping inhabitants, was enough to give me the cauld grue. Still does, in fact. Enough that I hope that the fitful December sun has eradicated my bootprints in the front yard completely -- which goes to show that even a diehard rationalist can sometimes fall prey to an irrational case of the creeps.
Monday, December 27, 2010
iGiveUp
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We're sorry, there's a hardware problem preventing installation of your new operating system upgrade. You will need to purchase Apple iCable 10.4.3, Apple iKeyboard 12.2, and Apple iComputerDesk 10.7 before attempting this installation. Also, if your house was built before 1980, you will need to upgrade to Apple iHouse version 11.1 or system incompatibility may result in less than optimal performance, including any digital music devices being unable to play anything but the BeeGees, Neil Sedaka, and, god help us, Abba.
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ATTENTION: You are attempting to interface this device with an old version of iTunes. To update to iTunes 10.1, go HERE.
To DOWNLOAD iTunes 10.1, click here! Check the box below if you'd like to receive optional regular updates on special offers from Apple.
To DOWNLOAD iTunes 10.1, click here! Check the box below if you'd like to receive optional regular updates on special offers from Apple.
To DOWNLOAD iTunes 10.1, click here! Check the box below if you'd like to receive optional regular updates on special offers from Apple.
Thanks for finally checking the optional box! Your download will be complete in 7 hr. 47 min. 38 sec.
Your download is complete. Click the iTunes 10.1 icon to install your software!
We're sorry, there's a compatibility problem with your operating system. iTunes 10.1 will only work with Mac OS 10.5 or higher. Please upgrade your operating system before attempting to install this software.
Welcome to Apple's Mac OS X download site!
We're sorry, Mac OS 10.5 is not available as a free download. Please purchase the upgrade at the following site.
Thank you for purchasing Mac OS 10.5! Your software is downloading now. Your download will be complete in 13 hr. 13 min. 58 sec.
Your download is now complete. Click the Mac OS 10.5 icon to install your operating system upgrade!
We're sorry, there's a hardware problem preventing installation of your new operating system upgrade. You will need to purchase Apple iCable 10.4.3, Apple iKeyboard 12.2, and Apple iComputerDesk 10.7 before attempting this installation. Also, if your house was built before 1980, you will need to upgrade to Apple iHouse version 11.1 or system incompatibility may result in less than optimal performance, including any digital music devices being unable to play anything but the BeeGees, Neil Sedaka, and, god help us, Abba.
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