Ghoul agenda

Once again, the United States has been hit by a mass murder.  Fifty confirmed dead, more than that injured.  My heart is torn in half thinking about over a hundred people who had only intended to spend a fun night dancing, drinking, and socializing, and found themselves the targets of a terrorist.

But you know what galls me more?  Before the bodies cooled, before family and friends had been notified, before all of the victims had even been identified, there was an explosion of rhetoric designed for one purpose and one purpose only; to use the tragedy to score political points.  These ghouls couldn't even wait a few days before twisting the deaths of fifty people to serve their own ideologies.

Let's start with Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who shortly after the massacre tweeted a verse from the bible -- Galatians 6:7.  "Do not be deceived.  God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows."  Patrick was immediately excoriated for his callous response, and as a result deleted the tweet, following it up with a statement about how "stunned and saddened" he is over the event.  Some have generously speculated that Patrick's post had nothing to do with the Orlando killings -- he does post bible verses on a daily basis -- but given his anti-LGBT vitriol in the past, I'm to be forgiven for being somewhat doubtful of that.

Others were less equivocal about it.  Firebrand evangelical preacher Steven Anderson stated that he was happy the massacre occurred, because after all, the victims were "just disgusting homosexuals at a gay bar."  Anderson went on to point fingers at others he said were going to use the tragedy to gain political ground, in a statement that should be an odds-on contender for the 2016 gold medal in Unintentional Irony:

But the bad news is that this is now gonna be used, I’m sure, to push for gun control, where, you know, law-abiding normal Americans are not gonna be allowed to have guns for self-defense.  And then I’m sure it’s also gonna be used to push an agenda against so-called “hate speech.”  So Bible-believing Christian preachers who preach what the Bible actually says about homosexuality — that it’s vile, that it’s disgusting, that they’re reprobates — you know, we’re gonna be blamed.  Like, “It’s all extremism! It’s not just the Muslims, it’s the Christians!”

Because saying that homosexuals deserve to be gunned down because of their sexual orientation is, apparently, "not hate speech."

But Anderson's statement brings us to the whole conflict over gun ownership.  Because it wasn't even an hour after the murders hit the news that I saw this:

And this:

And this:

Then, there's this post implying that it's Obama's policies that are at fault here:

Because obviously, there can't be any reason for those statistics other than, you know, Obama.

Not to be outdone, Donald Trump commented on the killings, but as befits a sociopathic narcissist, made it all about him.  "Appreciate the congrats for being right about radical Islamic terrorism," he tweeted.  "I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance.  We must be smart!"

How about some mention of the victims, here?  No, of course not.  That would distract from his incessant focus on himself.  And because that wasn't enough, he followed it up by a sly implication that Obama was not only complicit, but in agreement with the shooter.  He "gets [the motives of the killer] better than anyone understands," Trump said in an interview yesterday.

Then the conspiracy theorists got involved.  The Pulse massacre was a "false flag."  The shooting victims weren't really shot, they were "crisis actors."  And combining all of the above, for a trifecta of heartless lunacy, we have none other than the inimitable Alex Jones, saying that the shootings and the recent killing of singer Christina Grimmie were false flags engineered by Obama to outlaw guns.

I just have one question, here.  What happened to the tradition of a moment of silence when tragedy occurs?  What happened to showing some respect for the people who have died, and those whose lives have been changed irrevocably?  What about compassion?

And most of all, what about forgetting about yourself and your narrow little worldview for a while, and putting yourself in the shoes of people who are suffering?

Yes, there have been tremendous outpourings of sympathy.  There have been donations of time, money, and blood for the victims.  Such times bring out the best in us, pull us together, tap into unknown wellsprings of love and caring.

But for some, it only tightens them down on fears, anger, and hatred.  And for those people, I have only one thing to say: shut the fuck up.

Meme wars

It's time we all make a commitment to the truth.

I am sick unto death of people trying to score political points by spreading around falsehoods on the internet.  With the access to technology most of us have, it usually takes less than five minutes to check on the veracity of what you're about to post before you post it.  Instead, people seem content to spread around bullshit that conforms to their preconceived notions, whether or not it's true.

This is inexcusable.  And it needs to stop.

And yes, it's both sides of the political aisle that are guilty of this.  Let's start with this one, that was making the rounds a few months ago:

Ted Cruz never said that.  Snopes has a link to a transcript of the entire speech he made at Liberty University on the 23rd of March, 2015.  That line appears nowhere.

The worst part?  When I told the person who posted this that it was fake, his response was, "Yes, but I'm sure he believes it.  He could have said it."

You know what?  I don't give a flying fuck what Ted Cruz, or anyone else, could have said.  The fact, is, he didn't say it.  Claiming that he did is a lie.  Don't try to tell me that the truth doesn't matter.

Next up, Elizabeth Warren:

That's another big nope.  Snopes says it's "unproven," but adds, "We were unable to locate any interviews, footage, clips, tweets, or other instances in which Elizabeth Warren said anything remotely resembling the phrase quoted above."

I.e., she didn't say it.  Moving on.

There's this one, attributed to Mitt Romney:

Not only did Romney not say that, Laura Ingraham didn't air a show on that date, and Romney was not her guest at any time in early 2014.

The false attributions don't stop at political figures:

This one started making the rounds right after Prince died, so he conveniently couldn't say "I never said that."  Fortunately, Snopes did.

How about this one, trying to discredit Donald Trump:

The people at FactCheck.org researched this one exhaustively.  Trump never said any such thing, not in 1998 or any other year.

Most appallingly, there's this one:

No, sorry for those of you who'd like to believe this; Hillary Clinton is not an "advocate for rapists."  In 1975 she was a defense attorney.  Do you know what a defense attorney's job is?  Go ahead, I'll wait while you look it up.

The truth is that Clinton was appointed to defend the accused rapist, Tom Taylor, and according to the chief prosecutor, Mahlon Gibson, "Hillary told me she didn’t want to take that case, she made that very clear."  Snopes goes on to say:

As for the claim that Hillary Clinton "knew the defendant was guilty," she couldn't possibly have known that unless she were present when the incident in question occurred.  Even if she surmised that the defendant was likely guilty based upon the evidence and/or his statements, she was obliged to operate under the rules of the U.S. legal system, which assume the accused to be innocent until proved guilty.

And so on and so forth.

You know what?  I don't honestly care what political party you belong to, whether you're liberal or conservative or something else entirely.  I don't care who you're planning to vote for next November, or if you're sick of the whole shebang and decide to stay home.

But I do care about the truth.  So for all of you people with the fast-forward-finger out there; take five damn minutes and check to see if what you're posting is true before you post it.  If posting stupid stuff politicians do and say gets you off, then there's certainly enough to choose from without spreading around outright falsehoods.   You are helping nothing, and proving nothing, by circulating bullshit because it lines up with what you'd like to be true.

What you're doing is making yourself complicit in a lie.

Brexit conspiracies

Even people over here across the Atlantic have been watching the whole Brexit controversy closely, and wondering whether the powers-that-be in Great Britain will elect to remain part of the European Union, or leave it and steer their own course.  I'm not nearly well-informed enough in global politics and economics to comment either way, but of course I did have to take a look at an article over at Politics that said that there have been conspiracy theories popping up all over the place that have to do with the issue.

Now, I may not be very savvy politically, but I do know my conspiracy theories.  (What that says about  my priorities I would prefer not to consider.)  So naturally I had to check out the article.  The author, Adam Bienkov, says that there are five conspiracy theories that have arisen regarding the Brexit controversy, to wit:

1. The "Remainers" have planted sleeper agents in the "Leave" campaign.
2. The online voter registration site crashed hours before the deadline to register, and the crash was staged by the government to prevent people from registering.
3. The news media is biased toward the "Remain" campaign.
4. The government has been sneakily registering non-British EU citizens who are living in the UK to vote.
5. There is a cadre of academics and experts who are working together to defeat the "Remain" campaign.

So I read all of this, and I'm thinking, "That's it?  That's the best you can do?  Sleeper agents, website crashes, and biased academics and news broadcasters?"

What, no chemtrails?  No government-run execution camps with guillotines for dissenters?  No HAARP-style weather modification stations to unleash chaos?  No claims that every damn thing that happens is a "false flag?"  No shape-shifting Reptilian alien overlords from another planet?  (Not even Nigel Farage?  I'd think that'd be a gimme.  The first time I saw him, he immediately struck me as looking like someone whose facial muscles were being operated remotely by a species that had only recently learned the rule "When expressing interest, raise the eyebrows and open the eyes wide.")

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

And not even a single claim that whatever side of the issue you're arguing against is being controlled by an evil cadre of Jews?

C'mon, British people.  You can do better than this.  I'm not normally someone who waves the Stars & Stripes and runs around shrieking "'Murica!  Fuck yeah!", but in this case, I'd say we're kicking your asses.  Okay, you got us with regards to beer quality, humor level in comedy shows, cleanliness of public transport, attractive accent quotient, and overall level of civilization, but when it comes to conspiracy theories, you don't even have a shot at a bronze medal.

I know it's probably galling to have to look to your American cousins for inspiration, but admit it; we got this down cold.  When it comes to dreaming up cockamamie explanations for perfectly ordinary events, the Yanks are the tops.  (Although I must say that the Russians are contenders.  Just in the last couple of years, we've had Russians claiming that a funny-looking rock was a spaceship, that Vladimir Putin attacked the Crimea to get control of a Jurassic-age super-powerful alien pyramid, and that every historical account that occurred before the early Middle Ages is a fabrication by an evil consortium of historians.  Not to mention various reports of Bigfoot, a topic they seem to take awfully seriously.)

So I'm not suggesting that we Americans get complacent, mind you.  It's times like this that I'm glad we have people like Alex Jones and Jeff Rense on our side.  But the recent British attempt to break into the world of batshit lunacy was really kind of embarrassing, and I would encourage any British readers of Skeptophilia to pay close attention to how we do things over here, and follow our model.

I'm confident that you can rise to the occasion.  Any country that produced both Monty Python and Eddie Izzard is definitely not lacking in the quality control department.  So I'm counting on you.  I'll be watching the news over the next few weeks, waiting for words like "Illuminati" and "truther" and "Nibiru" and "police state" to show up in British media sources.  Let's see what you got.

Dog days

My wife and I share our living space with two canine companions.

First, we have Grendel, a (very) mixed breed, who looks like the result of blenderizing DNA from a pug, a German shepherd, a pit bull, a husky, and a fireplug.  He's cute, in a melancholy, "what are you so sad about, boy?" kind of way, and uses his wide range of pathetic expressions to get attention and food scraps.

Then we have Lena, whose ancestry includes redbone, blue-tick coonhound, and beagle.  She's eternally cheerful, has a tail that never stops wagging, lives for chasing squirrels, and has the intelligence of a loaf of bread.

They get along pretty well, although I kind of get the impression they don't really understand each other.  Grendel sometimes tries to play with Lena, in his ponderous sort of way, but it never lasts very long.  Lena usually ends up capering around, trying to fit all of the toys in her mouth at the same time, and Grendel gives up, sighs heavily, and plods over to us hoping we'll give him a dog cookie for at least giving it a shot.

I've always had dogs.  There's something about having a dog in my house that just seems necessary.  It always comes along with bushels of pet hair, muddy pawprints, and a variety of carpet stains, but I can't imagine that part of my life being missing.

I bring all of this up because I've always wondered about how dogs were domesticated.  Some people think they started out as utilitarian hunting animals, and after selection for responsiveness to human interaction, gradually morphed into what we have today.  Others think that the companionship aspect was there from the beginning, perhaps from as long ago as our cave-dwelling days.

The question, of course, will probably never have much going for it other than speculation, given that we don't have much in the way of evidence on which to base an answer.  However, a study by Laurent Frantz of Oxford University et al., published this week in Science, has at least given us a little more information about when and where this pivotal event took place.

According to Frantz's team, a study of DNA from the remains of 59 ancient dogs, including one from the late Neolithic Period (this particular mutt lived in Newgrange, Ireland about 4,800 years ago), dogs were domesticated at least twice -- once in Western Europe, and once in East Asia.  The East Asian dogs came with their human friends during migrations, and interbred with preexisting European Paleolithic dogs to produce most of the breeds familiar in Europe and America.  Says Tina Hesman Saey, who wrote about the study in Science News:

Using the Newgrange dog as a calibrator and the modern dogs to determine how much dogs have changed genetically in the past 4,800 years, Frantz and colleagues determined that dogs’ mutation rate is slower than researchers have previously calculated.  Then, using the slower mutation rate to calculate when dogs became distinct from wolves, the researchers found that separate branches of the canine family tree formed between 20,000 and 60,000 years ago.  Many previous calculations put the split between about 13,000 and about 30,000 years ago, but the new dates are consistent with figures from a study of an ancient wolf’s DNA.

Which is a long time ago, considering that most of the distinct modern dog breeds trace back to a common ancestor only a few centuries ago.  (Exceptions include some of the old Chinese breeds, such as the Pekingese, Shih-Tzu and Sharpei, which seem to be a good bit older than that.)  But despite the recent diversification of shapes, sizes, colors, and behaviors, what seems pretty certain is that dogs in some form have been our friends for a long, long time.

Compare this to cats.  A recent study done in Japan found that cats recognize their own names and their owners' voices, but apparently evolved not to give a damn.  Their ears turn and whiskers twitch when their owners speak, but it doesn't make a lot of difference to their behavior otherwise.  I find this result unsurprising.  I can say from personal experience that my 18-year-old cat Geronimo considers me to be warm-blooded furniture, and his expression usually says, "I am only refraining from clawing your eyes out because you feed me expensive canned food every day."  Contrast this to Lena, whose body language communicates "I LOVE YOU SOOOO MUCH" if I give her a muddy stick to chew on.

Not that I'm biased, or anything.  I'm sure that a lot of this is my projecting my own emotions, thoughts, and feelings onto my pets, but when Grendel looks up at me with those big sad eyes, it's hard not to sense a bond.  Maybe we've evolved into the relationship, too, because there's something primal and comforting about having a dog around.

Despite the hair, muddy pawprints, and carpet stains.

Go to the source

One of the many things I harp on with my students is "check your sources."

And "check your sources" doesn't mean the same thing as "cite your sources."  A bullshit citation written up in perfect MLA format, every comma, parenthesis, and colon in place, is still a bullshit citation.  There is no substitute for doing the legwork of making certain that the information you're using comes from a reputable source.

Which brings us, predictably enough, to Natural News.

Natural News has hidden for years under the façade of being a healthy-lifestyle site.  The 10% of their articles that are about better diet and regular exercise as a way of increasing vitality and longevity, however, are drowned beneath piles of nonsense of the worst sort, including anti-vaxx rhetoric, homeopathy, "toxin cleanses," and conspiracy theories about how the scientific world is an evil empire bent on ruining human health permanently.  Here's a sampler of their most-viewed articles as of today:

• 10 shocking reasons why Zika virus fear is another fraudulent medical hoax and vaccine industry funding scam
• How antidepressants ruin your natural serotonin so you can never be happy again ... without your pills
• Why double-blind drug trials are a science FRAUD: The more toxic the side effects, the more patients believe the drugs are 'working'
• Mother beats cancer with JUICING after told she only had two weeks to live

So it's not surprising that you won't find anything from Natural News in a peer-reviewed science journal, and it's not because there's a big conspiracy to keep their discoveries from becoming known.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

But if there's one thing that Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams and his cadre of loons over at Natural News excel at, it's marketing.  They know how to push their ideas into social media, giving it all a nice glossy veneer of respectability, duping the desperate, gullible, and scientifically illiterate into buying what they're selling.  However, they haven't been able to make any inroads into the world of actual scientific research, which is why...

... they are starting their own science journal.

Called the Natural Science Journal, the idea is to make an end run around all of the legitimate checks-and-balances that keep outright bullshit from making its way into print.  Here's a bit from their press release:

In a world where nearly all so-called "science" is actually little more than corporate fraud and government malfeasance, nearly all mainstream science journals have been taken over by pharmaceutical and biotech interests.  As a result, they destroy and suppress human knowledge rather than expanding it. 

All the big science journals -- Nature, The British Medical Journal, The Lancet and so on -- function almost entirely as science prostitutes for corporate interests, spewing out a vomitous cascade of fraudulent, industry ghostwritten "doctored" studies that the industry pretends represent real science.  This sad, filthy corruption of science harms the reputation of science itself and detracts from the valuable expansion of knowledge that can be achieved when science is practiced in the interests of humanity rather than corporate profits.

Which is mighty convenient, given that most of what peer-reviewed science has shown directly contradicts everything that Mike Adams and his crew believe.

And I feel obliged to mention that he really needs to lay off the "bold" typeface.

Adams is adamant that he is fostering actual research:

Please note that this journal is a hard sciences journal, meaning we seek scientific papers based on hard analytics in chemistry, physics, botany and so on. This is not a journal for philosophy or thought experiments that cannot be proven through hard experimental data.

So he's asking for submissions about the following topics:

• Geoengineering and weather modification
• Climate change / carbon dioxide
• Vaccine composition, toxicity and adverse events
• Genetically modified organisms
• Agrochemicals (pesticides / herbicides)
• Epigenetics and chemically-induced genetic expression
• Biosludge and biosolids
• Botany, permaculture and chemical-free agriculture

But don't worry, they're not biased at all.

Look, I know science isn't perfect.  Scientists (like all of us) have their biases, peer review sometimes misses mistakes (and occasionally outright fraud), the money motive drives research to an unfortunate degree, and so on.  But it is still by far the best tool we have for understanding the universe, including ourselves and how our own bodies work.  The idea that Adams has created his own "journal" simply because he doesn't like the fact that scientific research doesn't support what he believes isn't an indication of a failure of science.

It simply means that Adams is wrong.

My fear, though, is that given Natural Science Journal's neutral-sounding name, and its cursory nod in the direction of peer review, it will be taken seriously.  And then it'll be even harder to deal with the unscientific hogwash Adams and his ilk put out.

Tunnel vision

Last week, Switzerland opened the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which at 57 kilometers is the longest underground traffic tunnel in the world.  The entire project took twelve years to complete, and cost over $12 billion.

All of which is cool enough, but things got even more interesting at the inauguration ceremony last week.  Because the powers-that-be saw fit to open the tunnel with a performance that can only be described as "really fucking weird."  It started with bunches of people in hard hats and orange jumpsuits doing a slow march into the tunnel, followed by their doing some kind of strange interpretive dance involving headbanging.  Then came a whole bunch of people wearing tiny tight garments that left you in no doubt about the size and shape of their naughty bits.  The almost-naked people proceeded to have what appeared to be a cross between a square dance and an aikido tournament, all while being watched over by an image of a very old lady with a creepy, knowing smile.

After this came some white Dementors flying around.  Then the almost-naked people came back, covered in gauzy veils, wearing expressions of extreme angst.  This was followed by about a dozen people flailing about wearing wigs and swinging around yards of swoopy material.  In the midst of which was a guy dressed up like a goat.  Some of these people were wearing suits with long colorful dreadlocks, sort of like Cousin Itt gone punk.

The whole thing culminated with the appearance of a huge-headed baby with wings.

I would strongly recommend watching the entire thing.  (Here are links to part I and part II.)  The whole time I watched it, I was thinking, "Who planned all of this, and what mind-altering chemicals had they just ingested?  And can I have some?"  I'm sure all of it was supposed to have deep significance and relevance to Swiss history and culture, but mostly what it did for me was cause me to say "What the fuck?" about 47 times.

But people do trippy things all the time, so my purpose here is not simply to report about a performance that looks like what J. K. Rowling would come up with if you gave her acid and then told her to write a script for a sequel to Zardoz.  The reason this comes up on Skeptophilia is the reaction of people who saw the ceremony.

Because large numbers of folks are completely freaking out over this.  Here is a variety of responses, gleaned from people who commented on the video and/or blogged about it:

• This is a satanic ritual.  These people have invoked the power of Satan.  That tunnel has been consecrated as a portal to hell.  I wish anyone who goes in there luck.
• A New World Order ceremony, complete with the all-seeing eye.  The real rulers of the world are coming out of the shadows.  We are near the end of them hidding [sic] -- prepare yourselves.
• They have called on Lucifer, they shouldn't be surprised when he shows up.
• Better pick which side you are on!  Jesus Christ's or Satan's...  Because at this rate, you DON'T have TIME to ride the fence.  They are flat out laying their evil ways and plans right to YOU, no longer are they in hiding.  Which side will you choose?  I pray you choose the Lord! Eternity is too long to be wrong. 
• FOR UNGODLY PEOPLE, THE WEIRDER THE BETTER!!!  THIS IS JUST A SMALL EXAMPLE OF DISGUSTING REPROBATE MINDS AT WORK!!!  I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL JESUS RETURNS AND DESTROYS THE FOUL WICKED!!!!
• sick and sad. they have there hands in everything.  FEMA train here it comes, even in switzerland.  stay tune bc they have big plans for this new rail train tunnel.
• FINALLY Illuminati ControllS [sic] Humans By RFID and Humanoid Robots In 2017 
• And so many buy all the paranormal bogus leaks from CERN.  Think.  Same country same leaders.
• THIS IS NOT ART.... THIS IS SATANIC OPENING CEREMONY/RITUAL RIGHT ON YOUR FACE!  you will see more and more of this until the world is used to the worshipping [sic] of Baphomet through entertainment.  You will fall in love with these dark presentations. AND you will embrace SATAN, the prince of this world!  YOU BETTER REPENT of you sins and seek the face of GOD!

So.  Okay.  Will all of you people just calm down for a moment?

The ceremony was bizarre, I'll grant you that, but I would strongly suspect that if Satan exists it takes more than bare-chested guys in tightie-whities jumping around on a train platform to summon him up.  What this looks like to me is an off-kilter experiment in modern dance, not an appeal to Lucifer.

A few other points:

• If this is a ritual of the Illuminati, the Illuminati need to lay off the controlled substances.
• If you "can't wait" for Jesus to return and butcher all of the nonbelievers, I think it's your morals that need some examination, not mine.
• FEMA is an agency in the United States.  Therefore there will not be any FEMA trains in Switzerland.
• CERN is a scientific research laboratory, and has nothing to do with mutant winged babies and guys in goat suits.
• The expression is "right in your face," not "right on your face."  If someone had a satanic ritual right on your face, it would be a far more serious matter.

Anyhow, that's our visit to the wacko fringe for the day.  If you're in Switzerland, make a point of taking a train through the new tunnel.  It'll significantly cut your travel time, and you'll have a nice tour of the nine circles of hell.  Such a deal.

Patterns and meaning

I remember a couple of years ago noticing something odd.  While eating breakfast on work days, I'd finish, and always give a quick glance up at the digital clock that sits on the counter.  Three times in a row, the clock said 6:19.

I know there's a perfectly rational explanation; I'm a complete creature of habit, and I do the same series of actions in the same order every single work morning, so the fact that I finished breakfast three days in a row at exactly the same time only points up the fact that I need to relax a little.  But once I noticed the (seeming) pattern, I kept checking each morning.  And there were other days when I finished at exactly 6:19.  After a few weeks of this, it was becoming a bit of an obsession.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

So being a rationalist, as well as needing a hobby, I started to keep track.  And very quickly a few things became obvious:

1. I almost always finish breakfast (and check the clock) between 6:16 and 6:22.
2. 6:19 is the exact middle of that range, so it would be understandable if that time occurred more often.
3. Even considering #2, 6:19 turned out to be no more likely than other times.  The distribution was, within that six minute range, fairly random.

So I had fallen for dart-thrower's bias, the perfectly natural human tendency to notice the unusual, and to give it more weight in our attention and memory.  The point is, once you start noticing this stuff, you're more likely to notice it again, and to overestimate the number of times such coincidences occur.

The whole thing comes up because of a link sent to me by a loyal reader of Skeptophilia called, "Every Time This Happens, an Angel Reveals Itself!"  I'm not going to recommend your going to the site, because it's pretty obviously clickbait, but I thought the content was interesting from the standpoint of our determination that the patterns we notice mean something.

The site is an attempt to convince us that when we see certain numbers over and over, it's an angel attempting to give us a message.  If you notice the number 1212, for example, this is an angel encouraging us to "release our fears and apprehensions, and get on with pursuing our passions and purpose... [asking you to] stay on a positive path and to use your natural skills, talents, and abilities to their utmost for the benefit of yourself and others."

Which is good advice without all of the woo-woo trappings.

Some numbers apparently appeal not only to our desire for meaningful patterns, but for being special.  If you see 999 everywhere, "you are amongst an elite few... 999 is sometimes confrontative, and literally means, 'Get to work on your priorities.  Now.  No more procrastinating, no more excuses or worries.  Get to work now."

Since a lot of the "angel numbers" involve repeated digits, I had to check to see what 666 means.  I was hoping it would say something like, "If you see 666, you are about to be dragged screaming into the maw of hell."

But no.  666 apparently is "a sign from the angels that it's time to wake up to your higher spiritual truth."  Which is not only boring, but sounds like it could come from a talk by Deepak Chopra.

So the whole thing turns out to be interesting mostly from the standpoint of our desperation to impose some sense on the chaos of life.  Because face it; a lot of what does happen is simply random noise, a conclusion that is a bit of a downer.  I suspect that many religions give solace precisely because they ascribe meaning to everything; the bible, after all, says that even a sparrow doesn't fall from the sky without the hand of god being involved.

Me, I think it's more likely that a lot of stuff (including birds dying) happens for no particularly identifiable or relevant reason.  Science can explain at least some of the proximal causes, but as far as ultimate causes?  I think we're thrown back on the not very satisfying non-explanation of the universe simply being a chaotic place.  I understand the appeal of it all having meaning and purpose, but it seems to me that most of what occurs is no more interesting than my finishing breakfast at 6:19.