I'm still Electrosmoking rather than real-smoking. The benefits - No ash. No ashtray. No lingering smoke. It's considerably cheaper and best of all, no cough. The only downside is that it's not quite the same as a really good cigar and sometimes I miss that. I suppose I could allow myself a real one once in a while. National No Smoking day, perhaps. I'll consider it next time.
However, Electrosmoke has no particulates, no tar, none of the nasty chemicals at all and in fact, no smoke either. It's steam with a little nicotine in it, and nicotine is just about as harmful as caffeine, ie - not. Not unless you take in massive amounts at once. None of the nasty stuff is present in Electrosmoke, and nothing is burning. The vapour is produced by a little heater and a 3.6 volt battery.
I don't consider myself an ex-smoker and I won't be calling myself a 'vaper' because I'm still a smoker. I'm still enraged at the ludicrous claims made by the antismokers (who still hate me anyway so I might as well keep the 'smoker' tag) and I am still absolutely opposed to the North Korean style of control these people want to exert over everyone.
So I'm a smoker who has moved with the times and now does it without all that messy ash and fire. It's better for night time photography too - the steam vanishes within seconds instead of hanging around on a still night and getting caught up in photos.
I'd recommend any smoker try one of these things. If you smoke cigarettes you can get a trial set here. Not everyone takes to them, some find them just too different from tobacco, but if it works for you then you can smoke without any risk at all. Sure, there have been attempts already to claim that they 'harm non-smokers' but if you believe that there is a risk in second hand steam, then there really is no hope for you and you'd be better to sell your brain to someone who can make proper use of it. Second-hand smoke is touted with no proof at all. Second hand steam?
(Those are UK company links. They sell overseas, I think, but you might get a local supplier if you run a quick search.)
No particulates and no chemicals apart from flavoured steam and nicotine. You can get any flavour you like. I don't just mean cigar/cigarette/pipe. You can get apple and strawberry and coffee and absinthe and even roast chicken flavours for a really surreal smoke. Many flavours are available.
You can also get all these flavours nicotine-free so all you get from the device is flavoured steam. Just as the non-drinker can join in the party with alcohol-free wine and the vegetarian can join in the barbecue with vegetarian sausages and burgers, the non-smoker can now have something that looks like smoking but is nicotine-free, tar-free, in fact smoke-free. Just flavoured steam.
Whenever I say that, I get 'Oh, but it will start people smoking'. Will it? Does the veggie burger make the vegetarian crave a rare steak? Does the alcohol-free wine make the non-drinker demand whisky? If there is no nicotine and no tobacco at all in there, what can they become addicted to?
There is a certain terror attached to smoking these days. All you need do is put a cigar on a table - even a fake cigar like mine - and people break out in a sweat. They seem as scared as if I had placed a bundle of dynamite there with a timer ticking down. It's because it's never been about the health. It is, and has always been, about social control.
The smoking ban caused the invention of Electrosmoking which is totally harmless. There is a risk in real smoking, that's undeniable, but it's only a risk to the smoker. Smokers can eradicate that risk by switching to Electrosmoking or they can reduce the risk by switching to part-Electrosmoking. It would be like cutting down without cutting down. It would be like an alcoholic replacing part of his daily intake with alcohol-free drinks. The risk can be reduced to negligible.
The antismoking groups don't like Electrosmoking because it looks like smoking and that is what they want to stop. Also, they get a lot of their funding from the makers of patches and gum that are useless. It's not health that drives them. It's control. Control over smokers, but more than that, control over a huge mob of antismoking zealots who will believe any old rubbish because it suits them.
Electrosmoking works for me. It won't work for everyone. It is a completely harmless form of smoking and it has been banned in several places already - not because of any real harm, but simply because it looks like smoking.
As long as the antismoking Nazis exist, I am a smoker and will remain so.
Just... a high-tech one.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The world behind the shed.
In the absence of investigations, garden repairs continue. This year's solstice was a grey washout but today there was a big yellow thing in the sky for a while. I seem to recall seeing it before...
The most terrifying part of the garden is Behind the Shed. There is room to get in there and paint both shed and fence - but not without getting covered in paint - and that space is deadly. It's where all the junk goes, all those things that might be useful but never are. They can't be seen from anywhere in the garden so there is no barrier to their buildup over time.
Therefore, Behind the Shed has been neglected for years because to paint and repair in there means clearing out the junk first.
This year, with nothing better to do, I have removed all the junk, patched and painted the shed and fence and it all looked great until I put the junk back. Well, not the stuff that had actually rotted, but the stuff that might be useful one day.
Realistically, I won't even look behind there again for at least two years.
The clouds are breaking here and hopefully it will be safe to risk staying out overnight very soon. I have done something that will guarantee it won't rain for a while. I've installed a rainwater barrel.
Investigations soon. I hope.
The most terrifying part of the garden is Behind the Shed. There is room to get in there and paint both shed and fence - but not without getting covered in paint - and that space is deadly. It's where all the junk goes, all those things that might be useful but never are. They can't be seen from anywhere in the garden so there is no barrier to their buildup over time.
Therefore, Behind the Shed has been neglected for years because to paint and repair in there means clearing out the junk first.
This year, with nothing better to do, I have removed all the junk, patched and painted the shed and fence and it all looked great until I put the junk back. Well, not the stuff that had actually rotted, but the stuff that might be useful one day.
Realistically, I won't even look behind there again for at least two years.
The clouds are breaking here and hopefully it will be safe to risk staying out overnight very soon. I have done something that will guarantee it won't rain for a while. I've installed a rainwater barrel.
Investigations soon. I hope.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
The human becomes inhuman.
There are fewer and fewer reports of ghosts lately. This is probably due, in large part, to the weather. A few days from Midsummer and I have plants dying of the cold, so anyone who wants to claim the world is warming had better brace themselves. I'm likely to get vociferous.
In the cold, staying out all night on the off-chance of getting a result is not an appealing prospect. Few are willing to shiver, only to find the scratching sounds they recorded were a mouse or rat, the 'voice' was just the wind and the lights were some reflective surface a mile or so away. Good results are rare and take persistence and it's hard to be persistent when you can't feel your fingers. No wonder so many take solace in those out-of-focus dust particles and mice in the walls.
There is also the matter of the economic state of the country which is such that homeless people are richer than the government. They might have nothing but at least they don't owe more money than exists. Many people are in constant fear of losing their jobs and their homes. Distracted people with heads full of worries rarely see the lamppost they are about to walk into, never mind a ghost.
Plenty of reason, then, for the general public to ignore hauntings or any attempt at communication by a spirit. This does not explain the cries of 'Photoshop!' as soon as any photo appears. No investigation, no study of the image, just shout 'Photoshop!' and the debunking is considered done. Yes, in many cases, it is Photoshop but these can be spotted. Images dating from before Photoshop are not so easily dismissed, yet the cry is the same. Even nature photos, dramatic pictures of an eagle in flight, say, are met with this cry. Why so cynical?
This might be the reason.
People don't interact with nature any more. When they ignore the normal, how can we expect them to pay any attention to the paranormal? If they don't believe a photographer who captures images of an eagle taking a bird in flight, they certainly will not believe an image of someone who's dead.
I have a mouse in my garden. I have mentioned this to people locally and they are horrified. They want me to kill it. I refuse because it's not doing me any harm. If it was in the house, chewing electrical wiring and eating holes in food packets it would be a different matter. It's not. It's in the garden, where, as far as I am concerned, it has a perfect right to be.
As do the bumble-bees who have set up home in my compost bin. I have been told I must kill them in case they sting someone. They won't sting anyone unless they are threatened. Bumble-bees are not vicious, not like wasps (who are top of the kill list, even above slugs). I have fruit trees. Bumble-bees are welcome. I can tolerate not using the compost bin for a year. Bumble-bees only live one year, then they produce queens and males who leave and mate. The males die, the queens hibernate and all of the original colony dies. So I'll get my compost bin back at the end of the year and in the meantime, my plum and apple trees are already showing the beginnings of fruit.
Against a six-foot fence stands some bamboo. This has surprised me by surviving several winters including this last one, which seems to have not quite left yet. I pulled it back to paint the fence but let go quickly. On top of the fence post, behind the bamboo, is a blackbirds' nest. They've probably finished with it already but I'll leave it there for now, just in case. It'll be the cheeky blackbird who has often faced me down (and lost) for ownership of the garden. He's almost a pet, that one. I've noticed a couple of young ones about lately, along with young sparrows by the dozen and a load of tiny bluetits who seem to fly like hummingbirds. There are regular visits from a robin, some wrens, three wood-pigeons, starlings and a host of others.
I haven't seen a heron this year but that'll be because I filled in the dead pond. Not that they ever managed to get any fish after the first time. I installed a net. I have nothing against herons but there are two rivers nearby. They can fish there.
I wonder how many could even name these birds now? How many would eat apples from a tree? How many recognise any kind of fruit if it's hanging from a branch? I know of several local public paths where blackberries and raspberries grow wild. Nobody seems to touch them. That's fine by me, I can get a few pounds of free fruit every year.
There was a time when you had to compete. You had to watch the wild fruit until it ripened, knowing others were watching too, then it was a race to get it. You also had to pick out the insect grubs before consumption even though it didn't really matter too much because they aren't poisonous. We don't have many dangerous animals in the UK as long as you know what you're picking up.
These days, hardly anyone bothers. I've seen such fruit rotted on the plant. I've seen woodland floors strewn with hazelnuts and crabapples. What I never see any more, as the author of that article says, are children turning over logs to find lizards or picking hazelnuts or setting up a makeshift camp or building a mud dam across a stream or even climbing trees. Health and Safety forbids it all. As children, we would not have listened.
Modern children would probably not listen either but their parents are brainwashed into believing that there's a paedophile on every street corner and that anything not cellophane-wrapped is deadly. Children in this country are developing rickets - rickets! - because they are not getting outside any more. They are becoming obese and every official idiot is demanding something be done but in the old days, when we ignored the official idiots, children weren't fat. Well, a few were, but genetics could account for that. Most of us were active and fairly slim.
We ate gooseberries and blackcurrants off the bush. We climbed for crabapples and nuts. We came home covered in mud with jars of lizards or tadpoles to keep as pets. My father once set up an old tin bath in the backyard, filled it with water and stones and we watched the tadpoles grow into frogs. I once came home with a toad who lived in our back garden for a while and kept the slugs under control. There's a hedgehog who patrols my garden now and performs much the same purpose. You don't have to control nature. You just have to let it control itself. It's been doing the job for a very long time and it doesn't need our help.
In the modern world, if it hasn't been sanitised by a supermarket, people won't eat it. They want it on a plastic tray or they don't believe it's food. It also has to be guaranteed to be free of any of those 'dangerous' bacteria that are easily killed by proper cooking because they are too lazy for proper cooking.
People have disconnected from the natural world. They don't even believe in the natural so how will they cope with the supernatural? There's only one way to cope - to dismiss it entirely. If they insist that a photo of an eagle catching its prey is Photoshopped, then how can they possibly accept what cannot be so readily seen?
When people lived on the land and were among nature every day, the paranormal was accepted as normal. Now people live in concrete and plastic and the paranormal is an entertainment show on late-night TV, with some pretend psychics and pretend hauntings to tittilate the masses.
Who is right? Those who were in tune with the real world, or those who aren't?
In the cold, staying out all night on the off-chance of getting a result is not an appealing prospect. Few are willing to shiver, only to find the scratching sounds they recorded were a mouse or rat, the 'voice' was just the wind and the lights were some reflective surface a mile or so away. Good results are rare and take persistence and it's hard to be persistent when you can't feel your fingers. No wonder so many take solace in those out-of-focus dust particles and mice in the walls.
There is also the matter of the economic state of the country which is such that homeless people are richer than the government. They might have nothing but at least they don't owe more money than exists. Many people are in constant fear of losing their jobs and their homes. Distracted people with heads full of worries rarely see the lamppost they are about to walk into, never mind a ghost.
Plenty of reason, then, for the general public to ignore hauntings or any attempt at communication by a spirit. This does not explain the cries of 'Photoshop!' as soon as any photo appears. No investigation, no study of the image, just shout 'Photoshop!' and the debunking is considered done. Yes, in many cases, it is Photoshop but these can be spotted. Images dating from before Photoshop are not so easily dismissed, yet the cry is the same. Even nature photos, dramatic pictures of an eagle in flight, say, are met with this cry. Why so cynical?
This might be the reason.
People don't interact with nature any more. When they ignore the normal, how can we expect them to pay any attention to the paranormal? If they don't believe a photographer who captures images of an eagle taking a bird in flight, they certainly will not believe an image of someone who's dead.
I have a mouse in my garden. I have mentioned this to people locally and they are horrified. They want me to kill it. I refuse because it's not doing me any harm. If it was in the house, chewing electrical wiring and eating holes in food packets it would be a different matter. It's not. It's in the garden, where, as far as I am concerned, it has a perfect right to be.
As do the bumble-bees who have set up home in my compost bin. I have been told I must kill them in case they sting someone. They won't sting anyone unless they are threatened. Bumble-bees are not vicious, not like wasps (who are top of the kill list, even above slugs). I have fruit trees. Bumble-bees are welcome. I can tolerate not using the compost bin for a year. Bumble-bees only live one year, then they produce queens and males who leave and mate. The males die, the queens hibernate and all of the original colony dies. So I'll get my compost bin back at the end of the year and in the meantime, my plum and apple trees are already showing the beginnings of fruit.
Against a six-foot fence stands some bamboo. This has surprised me by surviving several winters including this last one, which seems to have not quite left yet. I pulled it back to paint the fence but let go quickly. On top of the fence post, behind the bamboo, is a blackbirds' nest. They've probably finished with it already but I'll leave it there for now, just in case. It'll be the cheeky blackbird who has often faced me down (and lost) for ownership of the garden. He's almost a pet, that one. I've noticed a couple of young ones about lately, along with young sparrows by the dozen and a load of tiny bluetits who seem to fly like hummingbirds. There are regular visits from a robin, some wrens, three wood-pigeons, starlings and a host of others.
I haven't seen a heron this year but that'll be because I filled in the dead pond. Not that they ever managed to get any fish after the first time. I installed a net. I have nothing against herons but there are two rivers nearby. They can fish there.
I wonder how many could even name these birds now? How many would eat apples from a tree? How many recognise any kind of fruit if it's hanging from a branch? I know of several local public paths where blackberries and raspberries grow wild. Nobody seems to touch them. That's fine by me, I can get a few pounds of free fruit every year.
There was a time when you had to compete. You had to watch the wild fruit until it ripened, knowing others were watching too, then it was a race to get it. You also had to pick out the insect grubs before consumption even though it didn't really matter too much because they aren't poisonous. We don't have many dangerous animals in the UK as long as you know what you're picking up.
These days, hardly anyone bothers. I've seen such fruit rotted on the plant. I've seen woodland floors strewn with hazelnuts and crabapples. What I never see any more, as the author of that article says, are children turning over logs to find lizards or picking hazelnuts or setting up a makeshift camp or building a mud dam across a stream or even climbing trees. Health and Safety forbids it all. As children, we would not have listened.
Modern children would probably not listen either but their parents are brainwashed into believing that there's a paedophile on every street corner and that anything not cellophane-wrapped is deadly. Children in this country are developing rickets - rickets! - because they are not getting outside any more. They are becoming obese and every official idiot is demanding something be done but in the old days, when we ignored the official idiots, children weren't fat. Well, a few were, but genetics could account for that. Most of us were active and fairly slim.
We ate gooseberries and blackcurrants off the bush. We climbed for crabapples and nuts. We came home covered in mud with jars of lizards or tadpoles to keep as pets. My father once set up an old tin bath in the backyard, filled it with water and stones and we watched the tadpoles grow into frogs. I once came home with a toad who lived in our back garden for a while and kept the slugs under control. There's a hedgehog who patrols my garden now and performs much the same purpose. You don't have to control nature. You just have to let it control itself. It's been doing the job for a very long time and it doesn't need our help.
In the modern world, if it hasn't been sanitised by a supermarket, people won't eat it. They want it on a plastic tray or they don't believe it's food. It also has to be guaranteed to be free of any of those 'dangerous' bacteria that are easily killed by proper cooking because they are too lazy for proper cooking.
People have disconnected from the natural world. They don't even believe in the natural so how will they cope with the supernatural? There's only one way to cope - to dismiss it entirely. If they insist that a photo of an eagle catching its prey is Photoshopped, then how can they possibly accept what cannot be so readily seen?
When people lived on the land and were among nature every day, the paranormal was accepted as normal. Now people live in concrete and plastic and the paranormal is an entertainment show on late-night TV, with some pretend psychics and pretend hauntings to tittilate the masses.
Who is right? Those who were in tune with the real world, or those who aren't?
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The dead ghosts.
I haven't been online for a while because there hasn't been much to say. The sky is slate grey from horizon to horizon and featureless. Rain is spontaneous and unpredictable so investigation is pointless.
Instead I've been wondering about things. There are six billion people on the planet now. There are an awful lot of dead ones stretching back over the ages. Where are all the ghosts? We should see at least a dozen each by now.
Another thing I wonder is when did it start? Are there Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal ghosts? I haven't heard of any. Australopithecene hauntings are unheard of. At some point, we either changed from an animal to another type of creature or the religious are right.
Sceptics are guffawing already but last week's New Scientist insists that we are not as other animals. We are not only aware, we are aware of being aware. If we are special, then the question must be 'why?' If we are not special, then why does science regard humanity as better than dogs? If we can have a lucid dream then why cannot a cat or a pig or a duck-billed platypus? Is it because we are much more spiritual than other animals? Why? If the word 'spiritual' gets the sceptic muscles twitching, then what word would you prefer? Either we are just another mammal or we are not. Which do you want? One or the other. You can't have both and switch between them depending on the situation.
Either we contain a soul or spirit, call it what you want, that carries on existing after we die, or we don't. The evidence I have seen but cannot irrefutably prove suggests we do but then why are they not all still here? Where are they?
Most religions say that there is a heaven and/or hell where spirits go. Catholics have made up levels of hell and a new place called Limbo that isn't in any religious text, but then Catholics do tend to get carried away with this sort of thing. Those spirits who are lost remain here. I have no evidence at all for a heaven or hell but then the ghosts I've seen won't have been to either of them - because none come back. So I can't discount that.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that there are no ghosts, only demonic spirits who can pretend to be human ghosts. One I know locally, who is a self-employed painter (canvas painting, not decorator painting) will not paint any subject that includes a graveyard. It might provoke the nasties he believes hang around there. That's possible. Faced with something ethereal and human-looking, could any of us tell for certain whether it was Granny or a demon pretending to be Granny? I think the JW's are wrong on this. My grandmother called to me at the moment she died and I was hundreds of miles away. That's my feeling on the subject but I cannot absolutely rule out the possibility of an impersonating demon. I just don't see what the demon would have gained in that action.
Three more possibilities are floating around. One is that the spirit, separated from the body, has a finite lifespan. This can depend on available energy to support that spirit. It would explain why rural areas are largely ghostless. If the spirits have no energy source they will not be able to sustain any sort of manifestation and might eventually fade out of existence altogether.
The second concerns travel. Are ghosts bound to Earth? If I had the ability to visit Jupiter or Saturn, without being crushed by their atmospheres, I'd do it. Who wouldn't? If, as a spirit, we could wander the universe, why would we stay here? If ghosts are not bound by a planet then they could be off wandering and sightseeing.
Finally, what if there is a spirit predator? Every natural system we know about has predators. Could there be some kind of unknown creature that lives on ghost energy? Are those ghosts being eaten? It would explain why there are so few very old ghosts around. Roman ghosts, for example, tend to be of the 'recording' variety rather than the actual spirit.
All speculation, but being effectively house-bound can do that. There's a local ruined church I've been itching to look at but with no roof and random rain, it's out of the question for now.
Any more possibilities? Somewhere there are a lot of missing ghosts.
Instead I've been wondering about things. There are six billion people on the planet now. There are an awful lot of dead ones stretching back over the ages. Where are all the ghosts? We should see at least a dozen each by now.
Another thing I wonder is when did it start? Are there Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal ghosts? I haven't heard of any. Australopithecene hauntings are unheard of. At some point, we either changed from an animal to another type of creature or the religious are right.
Sceptics are guffawing already but last week's New Scientist insists that we are not as other animals. We are not only aware, we are aware of being aware. If we are special, then the question must be 'why?' If we are not special, then why does science regard humanity as better than dogs? If we can have a lucid dream then why cannot a cat or a pig or a duck-billed platypus? Is it because we are much more spiritual than other animals? Why? If the word 'spiritual' gets the sceptic muscles twitching, then what word would you prefer? Either we are just another mammal or we are not. Which do you want? One or the other. You can't have both and switch between them depending on the situation.
Either we contain a soul or spirit, call it what you want, that carries on existing after we die, or we don't. The evidence I have seen but cannot irrefutably prove suggests we do but then why are they not all still here? Where are they?
Most religions say that there is a heaven and/or hell where spirits go. Catholics have made up levels of hell and a new place called Limbo that isn't in any religious text, but then Catholics do tend to get carried away with this sort of thing. Those spirits who are lost remain here. I have no evidence at all for a heaven or hell but then the ghosts I've seen won't have been to either of them - because none come back. So I can't discount that.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that there are no ghosts, only demonic spirits who can pretend to be human ghosts. One I know locally, who is a self-employed painter (canvas painting, not decorator painting) will not paint any subject that includes a graveyard. It might provoke the nasties he believes hang around there. That's possible. Faced with something ethereal and human-looking, could any of us tell for certain whether it was Granny or a demon pretending to be Granny? I think the JW's are wrong on this. My grandmother called to me at the moment she died and I was hundreds of miles away. That's my feeling on the subject but I cannot absolutely rule out the possibility of an impersonating demon. I just don't see what the demon would have gained in that action.
Three more possibilities are floating around. One is that the spirit, separated from the body, has a finite lifespan. This can depend on available energy to support that spirit. It would explain why rural areas are largely ghostless. If the spirits have no energy source they will not be able to sustain any sort of manifestation and might eventually fade out of existence altogether.
The second concerns travel. Are ghosts bound to Earth? If I had the ability to visit Jupiter or Saturn, without being crushed by their atmospheres, I'd do it. Who wouldn't? If, as a spirit, we could wander the universe, why would we stay here? If ghosts are not bound by a planet then they could be off wandering and sightseeing.
Finally, what if there is a spirit predator? Every natural system we know about has predators. Could there be some kind of unknown creature that lives on ghost energy? Are those ghosts being eaten? It would explain why there are so few very old ghosts around. Roman ghosts, for example, tend to be of the 'recording' variety rather than the actual spirit.
All speculation, but being effectively house-bound can do that. There's a local ruined church I've been itching to look at but with no roof and random rain, it's out of the question for now.
Any more possibilities? Somewhere there are a lot of missing ghosts.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
More dubious science.
It looks as if science has just given up these days. Instead of reason and logic, many now seem to be depending on 'This is how it is because we say so, just shut up and do as you are told'.
Those 'units per week' limits on alcohol consumption weren't the result of any research at all. They were made-up numbers. That 'five-a-day' rule for fruit and vegetables was made-up too. No research behind it at all. Second hand smoke has not a shred of evidence behind it. Third hand smoke is risible. Global warming is not actually happening - the whole thing is based on a short period of warming that ended a decade ago, and since then the planet has been cooling. It has been much hotter in the past according to those ice-core samples and life wasn't erased.
Even in the 'debunkers' camp, those who spend a lot of time trying to disprove every aspect of the paranormal, they're just not trying any more.
A group calling themselves scientists claim to have proved that those out-of-body experiences reported by people close to death are just sparks in a dying brain. Yet when you look at the report, they have proved no such thing.
What they did was to run brain scans on dying patients. A perfectly logical and sensible way to look for an explanation of near-death experiences. What they saw was a burst of furious brain activity in the unconscious patient, followed shortly by death.
None of the patients came back after that burst of activity so there are no reported visions or experiences to link to it. Furthermore, they describe the activity like so:
'We think the near-death experiences could be caused by a surge of electrical energy released as the brain runs out of oxygen,' Dr Chawla told The Times.
'As blood flow slows down and oxygen levels fall, the brain cells fire one last electrical impulse. It starts in one part of the brain and spreads in a cascade and this may give people vivid mental sensations.'
That does not sound like brain activity leading to coherent and remembered images. It sounds like the sort of random cascade that happens in cases of epilepsy.
They found a random cascade of last-burst activity in a dying brain. A final firing of neurons that have done their job and are shutting down forever. Not a series of logical and coherent pathways firing, just a last blast of random noise. None of the patients survived so there were no reported visions to link with this random noise.
From that, they conclude that they have explained the phenomenon known as near-death experience.
This is not science. This is starting with a conclusion and forcing a tenuous link from the data to pretend you've proved that conclusion. There is an awful lot of this about these days and it's time the higher echelons of science took these ludicrous experiments to task. Science seems to me to be in a seriously bad way nowadays. It's losing credibility at an alarming rate - and I say that as a scientist working on the paranormal, a field of study these same scientists deride as 'woo'.
It's not much fun battling sceptics and debunkers if they're not even going to try for the slightest shred of credibility. When nobody challenges the science, when those who do challenge it are simply labelled with whatever label they now apply to heretics and then ignored, then science is not science. Paranormal investigators are challenged on every detail and that is how it should be. It makes us take more precautions to rule out errors, and it makes us cautious in interpreting results. All branches of science must be subject to that scrutiny or there'll be more and more rubbish spouted by people who should know better.
If this slide into pretend science continues, the paranormal could well end up as the only credible branch left.
I don't think I'd like being mainstream.
Those 'units per week' limits on alcohol consumption weren't the result of any research at all. They were made-up numbers. That 'five-a-day' rule for fruit and vegetables was made-up too. No research behind it at all. Second hand smoke has not a shred of evidence behind it. Third hand smoke is risible. Global warming is not actually happening - the whole thing is based on a short period of warming that ended a decade ago, and since then the planet has been cooling. It has been much hotter in the past according to those ice-core samples and life wasn't erased.
Even in the 'debunkers' camp, those who spend a lot of time trying to disprove every aspect of the paranormal, they're just not trying any more.
A group calling themselves scientists claim to have proved that those out-of-body experiences reported by people close to death are just sparks in a dying brain. Yet when you look at the report, they have proved no such thing.
What they did was to run brain scans on dying patients. A perfectly logical and sensible way to look for an explanation of near-death experiences. What they saw was a burst of furious brain activity in the unconscious patient, followed shortly by death.
None of the patients came back after that burst of activity so there are no reported visions or experiences to link to it. Furthermore, they describe the activity like so:
'We think the near-death experiences could be caused by a surge of electrical energy released as the brain runs out of oxygen,' Dr Chawla told The Times.
'As blood flow slows down and oxygen levels fall, the brain cells fire one last electrical impulse. It starts in one part of the brain and spreads in a cascade and this may give people vivid mental sensations.'
That does not sound like brain activity leading to coherent and remembered images. It sounds like the sort of random cascade that happens in cases of epilepsy.
They found a random cascade of last-burst activity in a dying brain. A final firing of neurons that have done their job and are shutting down forever. Not a series of logical and coherent pathways firing, just a last blast of random noise. None of the patients survived so there were no reported visions to link with this random noise.
From that, they conclude that they have explained the phenomenon known as near-death experience.
This is not science. This is starting with a conclusion and forcing a tenuous link from the data to pretend you've proved that conclusion. There is an awful lot of this about these days and it's time the higher echelons of science took these ludicrous experiments to task. Science seems to me to be in a seriously bad way nowadays. It's losing credibility at an alarming rate - and I say that as a scientist working on the paranormal, a field of study these same scientists deride as 'woo'.
It's not much fun battling sceptics and debunkers if they're not even going to try for the slightest shred of credibility. When nobody challenges the science, when those who do challenge it are simply labelled with whatever label they now apply to heretics and then ignored, then science is not science. Paranormal investigators are challenged on every detail and that is how it should be. It makes us take more precautions to rule out errors, and it makes us cautious in interpreting results. All branches of science must be subject to that scrutiny or there'll be more and more rubbish spouted by people who should know better.
If this slide into pretend science continues, the paranormal could well end up as the only credible branch left.
I don't think I'd like being mainstream.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
An odd sort of thing.
It probably means nothing but the current weather (warm with occasional and unpredictable monsoons) leaves me with time to brood on little things.
In the UK, if you use a mobile (cell) phone to send a text message, but send it to a landline phone, there's no screen on the landline phone so the message can't be displayed. Instead, you get an automated call and a recorded voice reads out the number of the phone that sent the message, then reads the message.
I had one such call today. I have no idea who owns the phone it came from, the number is nowhere in my list of contacts. The message was short and enigmatic.
"Jim passed away this morning."
Now, I know several people called Jim, scattered around the country. There are even some overseas. One in particular is an uncle who is old and hasn't been well for some time. So what do I do? Phone back the number and say 'Who are you, and which Jim do you mean?' I have a reputation for being allegedly insensitive but that's a bit much even for me.
The alternative would be to phone every Jim I know with the following short exchange:
Jim: Hello?
Me: Oh, you're not dead then.
Click.
The one who doesn't answer gets a card. I could call it 'Funeral Roulette' but that would get me further accusations of insensitivity, I suspect.
Then again, it could have been a wrong number. Probably safest to do nothing and wait until someone doesn't turn up somewhere.
In the UK, if you use a mobile (cell) phone to send a text message, but send it to a landline phone, there's no screen on the landline phone so the message can't be displayed. Instead, you get an automated call and a recorded voice reads out the number of the phone that sent the message, then reads the message.
I had one such call today. I have no idea who owns the phone it came from, the number is nowhere in my list of contacts. The message was short and enigmatic.
"Jim passed away this morning."
Now, I know several people called Jim, scattered around the country. There are even some overseas. One in particular is an uncle who is old and hasn't been well for some time. So what do I do? Phone back the number and say 'Who are you, and which Jim do you mean?' I have a reputation for being allegedly insensitive but that's a bit much even for me.
The alternative would be to phone every Jim I know with the following short exchange:
Jim: Hello?
Me: Oh, you're not dead then.
Click.
The one who doesn't answer gets a card. I could call it 'Funeral Roulette' but that would get me further accusations of insensitivity, I suspect.
Then again, it could have been a wrong number. Probably safest to do nothing and wait until someone doesn't turn up somewhere.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Is it or isn't it?
This the the 'Wem Ghost', photographed in 1995 by Tony O'Rahilly while photographing the town hall as it burned in a fire. Apparently it was a real-film rather than a digital photo and while it could be faked using real film, it's very hard to do that without it being spotted. Digital fakery is easy, but apparently this image wasn't digital.Now, someone claims to have debunked this photo. Brian Lear claims the girl's image appears in a 1922 postcard - the girl at the left of the picture.
Unfortunately these are the only images I have, the ones from the newspaper article I've linked to. I can't enlarge the postcard to see if it's the same girl so I'll take it on trust that the two girls look very similar. They certainly seem to be wearing the same clothes.
I'm not convinced that this is a debunking. I'm not convinced by the original photo either because I'm not aware of any checks made on the negatives. Even so, all I really see here is that the Wem Ghost was dressed in 1920's style and looks like - indeed might have been - the same girl from the Wem postcard printed some 75 years earlier.
There was speculation that the Wem ghost was Jane Churm, who accidentally set fire to an older town hall in the town in 1677. The correlation in dress between the 1920's postcard and the ghost photo suggests it wasn't - but it still does not prove that the ghost photo was faked.
It is possible that the ghost photo contains the image of that girl from the 1920's postcard. She was resident in the same town and we have no record of when she died. It might have been the day after the postcard photo was taken and she might have been haunting the town since then. So the Wem Ghost might indeed be that girl from the postcard.
Or it could have been faked by transposing the postcard image onto the burning town hall. I don't think her stance is the same in the ghost photo as in the postcard but I'd need better images of both to be sure. I also don't think a 1920's postcard photo would reproduce well enough to produce the ghost image. There should be visible grain in the image, and it would be different between the image of the girl (taken with 1920's film) and the image of the fire (taken with 1995 film).
Any competent photo technician could spot that. Hell, with images from 1920 film and 1995 film, anyone with a hand lens should be able to see it.
I'll look out for better quality images on the Internet. The Wem ghost photo won't be hard to find, but the postcard might be.
I'm not saying the ghost photo is real, but I don't believe this debunking is credible. The ghost photo, for me, stays in the 'not disproven' category.
UPDATE - The Shropshire Star is where this story originated. They have an enlarged image of the girl in the postcard and she does look very, very similar to the one in the ghost photo. Even down to the shadow across her face.
The case for 'fake' is very strong indeed for this one.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Something happened while I was asleep.
I feel as if I'm coming out of hibernation. For months, it has been freezing here. Far longer and far colder than usual. Only now is it warming up out there. Then we had the Government election that nobody won, and the lunacy that followed (and still follows) it. The paranormal seems to have been brushed aside - nobody has time any more.
Then again, nobody has much time for anything any more. Or anyone. People seem so tense, so rushed, so angry all the time. It does indeed sound like what Tom Sheepandgoats would call the 'end times'. Everyone is angry all the time and nobody seems to know what they are angry about.
There has been a proliferation of amateur psychological tricksters. Have you noticed, in a supermarket queue, the person behind taking small steps forward? It's an intimidation technique designed to make you hurry up. It works if you don't know about it. If you do know about it and are annoyed by it, the response is called 'precision packing' where every item must be tested in various orientations before placing it in the bag, and on no account must you be anywhere near ready to pay when the last item has come through.
By the time you put your credit card in the reader slot, they will be at your shoulder. That's when I turn around, look them in the eye and say, loudly;
"Would it be easier if I just told you the number, so you won't have to watch me type it in?"
You want to play psychological games? I like such games. Once they have withdrawn, red-faced, and I have paid and left, they still have to go through that same checkout, with the same checkout operator, the same customer waiting behind them, the same staff and customers on adjacent tills...
A small woman once decided I was in her way in the shop so she accelerated her trolley at me and looked sideways. I was supposed to panic and move aside. I stared straight at her. She lost. Cars, when overtaking, like to swerve in to assert their dominance. I have a rusty wreck so a few more dents won't trouble me so I swerve right back at them. It accelerates surprisingly fast too. I have followed people who tailgate, overtake with an inch clearance and then cut-in too tight for tens of miles. I have seen them slow to let me pass and speed up to lose me and I have stayed there, grinning in their mirrors, with no intention of doing anything more than scaring the living daylights out of them.
Psychological games are the only ones worth playing. Play them with me if you want, I like those games.
There's something deeper going on. People didn't used to cross the road without bothering to look. People didn't used to barge each other out of the way. People didn't used to try every trick to intimidate everyone they met. Cars didn't used to race at you if you were turning a junction well ahead of them. I'm not talking about twenty years ago. The difference is noticeable between this year and last. The world (at least, the UK) has become childish and pathetic. Everyone is out for themselves and cares not a fig for those around them. Okay, it means I get more justification for using voice-tone tricks and the Glare but really, those are for particularly objectionable people and troublesome students. Now, it seems everyone is asking for it.
What happened out there while I was homebound by ice? Did you all go mad or something?
Then again, nobody has much time for anything any more. Or anyone. People seem so tense, so rushed, so angry all the time. It does indeed sound like what Tom Sheepandgoats would call the 'end times'. Everyone is angry all the time and nobody seems to know what they are angry about.
There has been a proliferation of amateur psychological tricksters. Have you noticed, in a supermarket queue, the person behind taking small steps forward? It's an intimidation technique designed to make you hurry up. It works if you don't know about it. If you do know about it and are annoyed by it, the response is called 'precision packing' where every item must be tested in various orientations before placing it in the bag, and on no account must you be anywhere near ready to pay when the last item has come through.
By the time you put your credit card in the reader slot, they will be at your shoulder. That's when I turn around, look them in the eye and say, loudly;
"Would it be easier if I just told you the number, so you won't have to watch me type it in?"
You want to play psychological games? I like such games. Once they have withdrawn, red-faced, and I have paid and left, they still have to go through that same checkout, with the same checkout operator, the same customer waiting behind them, the same staff and customers on adjacent tills...
A small woman once decided I was in her way in the shop so she accelerated her trolley at me and looked sideways. I was supposed to panic and move aside. I stared straight at her. She lost. Cars, when overtaking, like to swerve in to assert their dominance. I have a rusty wreck so a few more dents won't trouble me so I swerve right back at them. It accelerates surprisingly fast too. I have followed people who tailgate, overtake with an inch clearance and then cut-in too tight for tens of miles. I have seen them slow to let me pass and speed up to lose me and I have stayed there, grinning in their mirrors, with no intention of doing anything more than scaring the living daylights out of them.
Psychological games are the only ones worth playing. Play them with me if you want, I like those games.
There's something deeper going on. People didn't used to cross the road without bothering to look. People didn't used to barge each other out of the way. People didn't used to try every trick to intimidate everyone they met. Cars didn't used to race at you if you were turning a junction well ahead of them. I'm not talking about twenty years ago. The difference is noticeable between this year and last. The world (at least, the UK) has become childish and pathetic. Everyone is out for themselves and cares not a fig for those around them. Okay, it means I get more justification for using voice-tone tricks and the Glare but really, those are for particularly objectionable people and troublesome students. Now, it seems everyone is asking for it.
What happened out there while I was homebound by ice? Did you all go mad or something?
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Chilling.
The temperature has dropped below freezing and it's snow and hail here. There might be a reason for that.
The UK has just elected a new government, with a massive public voting declaration of 'don't care'. Nobody won it. There has been a lot of behind-the-scenes horsetrading in the last few days and now we will have a weak Conservative government propped up by Liberal Democrats until the whole lot collapses and we'll have to vote again. It shouldn't take long.
In this election, for the first time, a Green MP won a seat. Since then, the weather has returned to winter.
Last October our government met to discuss global warming and how much tax they could squeeze out of us for it. It snowed. The first time we'd seen snow in October for a very long time.
Then there was the Copenhagen meeting where lots of governments discussed global warming and how much tax they could squeeze out of us for it. We had the coldest and longest winter in memory and Washington looked like a scene from a natural-disaster movie. Around here, gardens that had been established for decades have been ruined by one single winter.
The tax issue mystifies me. How does taking more money from us solve anything? Are they going to bribe the planet to stay cool?
Every time the people of this planet get worked up about global warming, the temperature drops. I wonder if it's connected to Jung's 'collective unconscious' with perhaps some form of telekinesis thrown in. When so many people are trying to wish-away global warming, are they producing a cooling effect?
If so, it's a bad thing because the planet isn't warming.
Not when it's sub-zero in May.
The UK has just elected a new government, with a massive public voting declaration of 'don't care'. Nobody won it. There has been a lot of behind-the-scenes horsetrading in the last few days and now we will have a weak Conservative government propped up by Liberal Democrats until the whole lot collapses and we'll have to vote again. It shouldn't take long.
In this election, for the first time, a Green MP won a seat. Since then, the weather has returned to winter.
Last October our government met to discuss global warming and how much tax they could squeeze out of us for it. It snowed. The first time we'd seen snow in October for a very long time.
Then there was the Copenhagen meeting where lots of governments discussed global warming and how much tax they could squeeze out of us for it. We had the coldest and longest winter in memory and Washington looked like a scene from a natural-disaster movie. Around here, gardens that had been established for decades have been ruined by one single winter.
The tax issue mystifies me. How does taking more money from us solve anything? Are they going to bribe the planet to stay cool?
Every time the people of this planet get worked up about global warming, the temperature drops. I wonder if it's connected to Jung's 'collective unconscious' with perhaps some form of telekinesis thrown in. When so many people are trying to wish-away global warming, are they producing a cooling effect?
If so, it's a bad thing because the planet isn't warming.
Not when it's sub-zero in May.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Heavy Soul.
In 1907, Duncan MacDougall published a paper on the weight of the soul. Fortean Times carried an article on it in the latest issue and so does the Journal of Scientific Exploration this month.
In essence, he took volunteers who were doomed and laid them on a bed which was suspended on a scale. When they died, their body weight immediately declined by between 10 and 45 grams. The same test applied to dogs showed no weight loss on death. Then again, it was 1907 and a smaller animal's soul might not be detectable by the methods available then. It has not been repeated because Science doesn't like it.
Involuntary evacuation of bowel or bladder at death is of no relevance because that weight is still on the bed.
It looks as though the soul might have mass. Not very much, but it does suggest a cohesive existence in the physical world. If we have up to 40 grams of reality to deal with after death, then the lack of frequent manifestation is easy to explain. We end up as substantial as fog, and must draw on external energy to appear.
Scientifically, it all fits together but Science will never recognise that.
In essence, he took volunteers who were doomed and laid them on a bed which was suspended on a scale. When they died, their body weight immediately declined by between 10 and 45 grams. The same test applied to dogs showed no weight loss on death. Then again, it was 1907 and a smaller animal's soul might not be detectable by the methods available then. It has not been repeated because Science doesn't like it.
Involuntary evacuation of bowel or bladder at death is of no relevance because that weight is still on the bed.
It looks as though the soul might have mass. Not very much, but it does suggest a cohesive existence in the physical world. If we have up to 40 grams of reality to deal with after death, then the lack of frequent manifestation is easy to explain. We end up as substantial as fog, and must draw on external energy to appear.
Scientifically, it all fits together but Science will never recognise that.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Random thoughts. Can you hear them?
I'm still spending a lot of time fighting the garden (most of which has now been deleted). I'd like to plant fresh things but I'm not yet confident the frosts have passed. The snow has at least gone but it's still pretty cold.
This isn't 'climate change'. I remember a fishing trip in April in the 1980's where the line froze to the rod rings. I also remember a May 1st, about ten or twelve years ago, where I had to seek shelter in a hurry because of hailstones that came down like buckshot. They actually punched holes in many plants.
The last ten years or so have seen warm April weather but it's just a natural cycle and nothing to get all worked up about. Unless, of course, you've set up a career or a tax income based entirely on lunatic scare stories. As, indeed, many have these days, and not just on climate change. Scares range from third hand smoke (comical) to deleting salt from the diet (dangerous) and they are everywhere now.
Funnily enough, nobody seems to be doing much about pollution, which is a real problem. They're all too involved in what kind of light bulbs we use and never seem to mention that the low-energy ones are full of mercury vapour. Whatever you do, don't break one of those things. They are far, far worse than the old filament types.
The logic has gone from science and the world, I think. This week I read an article in 'Fortean Times' about telepathy. It's not a subject I study but it's interesting because there are tantalising hints that there might be something in it. No proof, just hints.
My only possible experience was when my grandmother died. I knew she had gone even though I was hundreds of miles away at the time and when I was informed of her time of death, the time matched my experience exactly. However, that is not evidence of telepathy, but of an entirely different phenomenon which I've experienced more and more since then. Personally, I have not experienced anything I could definitely call telepathy.
The problem I have with studies on things like telepathy is not that they are too likely to find an effect, but that they are too likely to find no effect.
The current method for testing telepathy is, basically, this:
The receiver wears headphones transmitting white noise, half a ping-pong ball taped over each eye and is in a dimly-lit room with no contact possible with the outside. Okay. They can't hear or see anything.
The sender chooses one of four pictures and attempts to send it to the receiver. Then the receiver comes out of their sensory deprivation room and, with the sender cleared away so they can't give any hints, points out the picture they 'saw'.
On pure chance they would choose the right picture 25% of the time. Statistically that is correct. However, it assumes something. Something very important.
It assumes everyone is a telepath.
It assumes everyone can 'send' and everyone can 'receive'. Well, I don't seem to be able to do either of those things. Some might be able to receive but not send and vice versa.
The 25% result due to chance must be modified by the proportion of people in the population who are actually able to use telepathy. What proportion of the population can do that? I have no idea and neither does anyone else. Every test assumes it is a standard human trait.
Which is rather like assuming every human can run a mile in four minutes, or pull a railway carriage, or land an arrow in the bullseye every time. A few people can but most people can't.
I suspect telepathy is like that. I am certain that mediumship is like that. Using randomly selected people means that the few who might be genuine are lost among the noise of those who have no ability at all. So when a telepathy study turns up a 38% success rate, that is not 'just above chance'. That is astoundingly above chance.
What to do about it? I leave that to those who actually study telepathy but I would suggest devising some sort of 'pre-test' procedure which can select for those who show promise as 'senders' and those who would be best placed as 'receivers'.
The sceptics will say that this is introducing bias, but how so? If telepathy is not real then no amount of pre-selection will result in improved results. The results would be the same every time if there is no effect, no matter what criteria you use to select the participants.
If there is a real effect and if it is not in every person, then pre-selection will show an improved set of results over random selection. It will weed out those with little or no ability in the same way that successive races weed out the slow runners until only the fastest are left. If there is no real effect (as in, if everyone always ran at the same speed anyway or if nobody can transmit thought) there will be no difference.
So, take the participants who scored accurately and test them again as a subset. If telepathy is not real then the success rate will be about the same. If it is real then the selected group will score much higher than the random group. Treat it like a competition.
Worth considering, perhaps?
This isn't 'climate change'. I remember a fishing trip in April in the 1980's where the line froze to the rod rings. I also remember a May 1st, about ten or twelve years ago, where I had to seek shelter in a hurry because of hailstones that came down like buckshot. They actually punched holes in many plants.
The last ten years or so have seen warm April weather but it's just a natural cycle and nothing to get all worked up about. Unless, of course, you've set up a career or a tax income based entirely on lunatic scare stories. As, indeed, many have these days, and not just on climate change. Scares range from third hand smoke (comical) to deleting salt from the diet (dangerous) and they are everywhere now.
Funnily enough, nobody seems to be doing much about pollution, which is a real problem. They're all too involved in what kind of light bulbs we use and never seem to mention that the low-energy ones are full of mercury vapour. Whatever you do, don't break one of those things. They are far, far worse than the old filament types.
The logic has gone from science and the world, I think. This week I read an article in 'Fortean Times' about telepathy. It's not a subject I study but it's interesting because there are tantalising hints that there might be something in it. No proof, just hints.
My only possible experience was when my grandmother died. I knew she had gone even though I was hundreds of miles away at the time and when I was informed of her time of death, the time matched my experience exactly. However, that is not evidence of telepathy, but of an entirely different phenomenon which I've experienced more and more since then. Personally, I have not experienced anything I could definitely call telepathy.
The problem I have with studies on things like telepathy is not that they are too likely to find an effect, but that they are too likely to find no effect.
The current method for testing telepathy is, basically, this:
The receiver wears headphones transmitting white noise, half a ping-pong ball taped over each eye and is in a dimly-lit room with no contact possible with the outside. Okay. They can't hear or see anything.
The sender chooses one of four pictures and attempts to send it to the receiver. Then the receiver comes out of their sensory deprivation room and, with the sender cleared away so they can't give any hints, points out the picture they 'saw'.
On pure chance they would choose the right picture 25% of the time. Statistically that is correct. However, it assumes something. Something very important.
It assumes everyone is a telepath.
It assumes everyone can 'send' and everyone can 'receive'. Well, I don't seem to be able to do either of those things. Some might be able to receive but not send and vice versa.
The 25% result due to chance must be modified by the proportion of people in the population who are actually able to use telepathy. What proportion of the population can do that? I have no idea and neither does anyone else. Every test assumes it is a standard human trait.
Which is rather like assuming every human can run a mile in four minutes, or pull a railway carriage, or land an arrow in the bullseye every time. A few people can but most people can't.
I suspect telepathy is like that. I am certain that mediumship is like that. Using randomly selected people means that the few who might be genuine are lost among the noise of those who have no ability at all. So when a telepathy study turns up a 38% success rate, that is not 'just above chance'. That is astoundingly above chance.
What to do about it? I leave that to those who actually study telepathy but I would suggest devising some sort of 'pre-test' procedure which can select for those who show promise as 'senders' and those who would be best placed as 'receivers'.
The sceptics will say that this is introducing bias, but how so? If telepathy is not real then no amount of pre-selection will result in improved results. The results would be the same every time if there is no effect, no matter what criteria you use to select the participants.
If there is a real effect and if it is not in every person, then pre-selection will show an improved set of results over random selection. It will weed out those with little or no ability in the same way that successive races weed out the slow runners until only the fastest are left. If there is no real effect (as in, if everyone always ran at the same speed anyway or if nobody can transmit thought) there will be no difference.
So, take the participants who scored accurately and test them again as a subset. If telepathy is not real then the success rate will be about the same. If it is real then the selected group will score much higher than the random group. Treat it like a competition.
Worth considering, perhaps?
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Snow!
My new decking is covered in snow. All preparation for the greenhouse has stopped.
Mood: murderous.
Mood: murderous.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Corporeal visitor.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Ghosts and aliens and filled-in ponds.
I have been scarce lately because of the effort involved in entirely remodelling the garden. The pond is filled in, the wrecked lower lawn dug out, the dead plants bagged and ready to take to the dump. I'm putting in decking - or rather, someone who knows what they are doing is putting in decking and I'm getting in their way. For a wooden structure, there seems to be rather a lot of concrete involved.
There is some haste in this because the weather forecast says we are to expect snow next week. That's nothing unusual, I recall having to seek rapid shelter because of a hail shower that punched my hostas full of holes one year and felt like it was doing the same to me. It was the first of May, I think it was 2001 or maybe 2002. So it is not 'climate change' but it will soon be illegal to say that.
Garden centres and supermarkets have been selling garden plants for over a month, but only an idiot would buy them now. Unless he had a greenhouse, which I will order as soon as the weather calms down. I decided on polycarbonate rather than glass because it's less likely to break in a hard frost, or when rampaging mobs of drooling children-shaped demonic entities decide that throwing stones at random strangers' property is some kind of a good idea.
I might also build a pillory, in case I need it for something.
It has been an excessively long break from investigating but it's not just me who is affected. There are few reports in the news these days, nobody is willing to freeze to death on the off-chance of a photo that no sceptic will believe anyway. What is interesting is that my 'guest' appears to be active again. It's been silent throughout the cold weather and I thought it had left.
There are far more reports of ghostly activity when the temperature is comfortable than when it is cold. I'd always put this down to the investigators, rather than the ghosts, and assumed that cold weather might not affect activity anywhere near as much as it would affect those looking for it. Then again, ghostly activity is associated with a drop in temperature so maybe ghosts (human or otherwise) don't just absorb heat, but require it. The ability to generate a temperature differential might be important. That would be harder to do in severe cold and might also be hard in severe heat. This will take some thinking about.
On the UFO side of things, an American professor says that the subject should be studied properly, in universities. I agree absolutely. Sceptics will howl 'Waste of time' because they are true believers in what they think science should be about.
Science is, or should be, about investigating. Many people have reported seeing something unusual. Dismissing them all as cranks is not science. Maybe what they see is not from another world, maybe it's a phenomenon of this world and if that's the case, should we ignore a natural event on the say-so of true believers in the logic of 'I haven't seen it so it's not real'?
Maybe, just maybe, some of those sightings are totally inexplicable by science as we currently understand it.
The sceptics will say 'Then we should ignore it. It's inconvenient. Stick your fingers in your ears and sing "La-la-la". It's not real. Stay with the herd.'
I say, that's when science gets really interesting.
There is some haste in this because the weather forecast says we are to expect snow next week. That's nothing unusual, I recall having to seek rapid shelter because of a hail shower that punched my hostas full of holes one year and felt like it was doing the same to me. It was the first of May, I think it was 2001 or maybe 2002. So it is not 'climate change' but it will soon be illegal to say that.
Garden centres and supermarkets have been selling garden plants for over a month, but only an idiot would buy them now. Unless he had a greenhouse, which I will order as soon as the weather calms down. I decided on polycarbonate rather than glass because it's less likely to break in a hard frost, or when rampaging mobs of drooling children-shaped demonic entities decide that throwing stones at random strangers' property is some kind of a good idea.
I might also build a pillory, in case I need it for something.
It has been an excessively long break from investigating but it's not just me who is affected. There are few reports in the news these days, nobody is willing to freeze to death on the off-chance of a photo that no sceptic will believe anyway. What is interesting is that my 'guest' appears to be active again. It's been silent throughout the cold weather and I thought it had left.
There are far more reports of ghostly activity when the temperature is comfortable than when it is cold. I'd always put this down to the investigators, rather than the ghosts, and assumed that cold weather might not affect activity anywhere near as much as it would affect those looking for it. Then again, ghostly activity is associated with a drop in temperature so maybe ghosts (human or otherwise) don't just absorb heat, but require it. The ability to generate a temperature differential might be important. That would be harder to do in severe cold and might also be hard in severe heat. This will take some thinking about.
On the UFO side of things, an American professor says that the subject should be studied properly, in universities. I agree absolutely. Sceptics will howl 'Waste of time' because they are true believers in what they think science should be about.
Science is, or should be, about investigating. Many people have reported seeing something unusual. Dismissing them all as cranks is not science. Maybe what they see is not from another world, maybe it's a phenomenon of this world and if that's the case, should we ignore a natural event on the say-so of true believers in the logic of 'I haven't seen it so it's not real'?
Maybe, just maybe, some of those sightings are totally inexplicable by science as we currently understand it.
The sceptics will say 'Then we should ignore it. It's inconvenient. Stick your fingers in your ears and sing "La-la-la". It's not real. Stay with the herd.'
I say, that's when science gets really interesting.
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
The death of education.
Another birthday passed. Still, it's better than the alternative. Perhaps it's time to give some consideration to what I plan to do with my life. Then again, I think that way every year... for about a day.
I have to admit, my life is considerably better than the one facing this country's youth. They now leave school fully versed in Socialist dogma and the tenets of Climatology but barely able to read or add up. When I went to school, it was clear that we were there to learn. Political indoctrination was around, depending who was in power at the time but it was never so blatant and never so intense. Teachers were allowed to enforce discipline but now, any teacher who tries that is likely to end up in court on child abuse charges. Over half the schools in this country have a 'no contact' policy which means that teachers cannot lay a finger on the horrible little monsters in their charge, on pain of instant dismissal and arrest. The outcome was predictable from the start.
Even New Scientist, a magazine I thought was about science, push the Green God's agenda with religious fervour while decrying religion as mumbo-jumbo. They have reacted to calls that the actual scientific debate around global warming be taught in schools (rather than This Is So, just shut up and believe) by saying they are the same as teaching creationism.
So if you don't believe in the global warming religion, you are a heretic and must be burned. I have a very good book on the Spanish Inquisition they might like to read.
For me, creationism in schools is no problem as long as it's in religion class, not science class. It is religion, after all. I don't demand that all religions give equal sermon-time to 'alternative interpretations' so I regard it as unfair that religion demands time in science class. So yes, teach creation, but in the right classroom. Give the children all the information and let them decide for themselves which to go with.
I know, Archbishop Dawkins of the Church of Nothing would be incensed at that attitude. To him, people must be forced to not-believe for their own good. Just as Tomas de Torquemada forced people to believe in Catholicism for their own good. Exactly the same, but he'll never see it.
Let's face it. It really doesn't matter most of the time. Whether a plumber or a barrister or a policeman or even a medic believes in creation or spontaneous generation of the universe is of no relevance at all to their jobs. If you are a creationist, you're not likely to want a job studying evolution. If you take the scientific path, you are not likely to study for holy orders. It really does not matter in the slightest.
You can even be devoutly religious and not follow the '6000 years' thing. That was calculated by a man, not a god, and men are fallible.
So I would say, give all those children all the information from all sides and let them work out which they will follow. Just... in the right classes.
Now we have a government who demand that children shop their parents for smoking, believe without question in the Climatology doctrine, nag their families with utterly inaccurate and frankly dangerous assertions on salt and fat and meat consumption, and learn about all forms of sex from the age of five.
Writing and maths are not important any more. New Scientist and Archbishop Dawkins are fretting over creationism and demanding everyone follow science, but have failed to notice that nobody is teaching science any more.
When I was at school, the acceleration due to gravity was 9.8 m/s/s (how fast something accelerates when you drop it, no matter what it weighs). Now, children in school are being told it's 10 m/s/s because it makes the sums easier. So if you have gained weight, have no fear. You have not gained mass. Gravity has increased, which just makes you seem heavier.
This is far more serious than whether the children learn about God. They are being told factually incorrect information in science class, facts that apply to the here and now - and New Scientist is worried that they might learn something wrong about the past?
Where is the credibility of that science class when they change definite physical laws to make the sums easier? There is no child in the class without a calculator. I didn't have one when I learned to work out square roots and quadratic equations on paper. Calculators were not allowed in exams then. Make the sums easier? Calculators already do that. This is not about making life easier. It is pure dumbing-down of an entire generation.
A supermarket chain has complained that candidates for jobs are increasingly useless. A supermarket chain. What must the universities be thinking - oh, I forgot, they think only about money these days. Once places of study and exploration of science, they are now businesses where income trumps truth. The stuff coming out labelled 'research' nowadays might as well have been written by the funding company's marketing department and in some cases, probably was. There is little science left in universities, and less in New Scientist.
So we return to the days of Copernicus and Galileo, where individuals free of State interference perform real experiments with no outside influence forcing their conclusions.
Lucky for me, I'm already there.
I have to admit, my life is considerably better than the one facing this country's youth. They now leave school fully versed in Socialist dogma and the tenets of Climatology but barely able to read or add up. When I went to school, it was clear that we were there to learn. Political indoctrination was around, depending who was in power at the time but it was never so blatant and never so intense. Teachers were allowed to enforce discipline but now, any teacher who tries that is likely to end up in court on child abuse charges. Over half the schools in this country have a 'no contact' policy which means that teachers cannot lay a finger on the horrible little monsters in their charge, on pain of instant dismissal and arrest. The outcome was predictable from the start.
Even New Scientist, a magazine I thought was about science, push the Green God's agenda with religious fervour while decrying religion as mumbo-jumbo. They have reacted to calls that the actual scientific debate around global warming be taught in schools (rather than This Is So, just shut up and believe) by saying they are the same as teaching creationism.
So if you don't believe in the global warming religion, you are a heretic and must be burned. I have a very good book on the Spanish Inquisition they might like to read.
For me, creationism in schools is no problem as long as it's in religion class, not science class. It is religion, after all. I don't demand that all religions give equal sermon-time to 'alternative interpretations' so I regard it as unfair that religion demands time in science class. So yes, teach creation, but in the right classroom. Give the children all the information and let them decide for themselves which to go with.
I know, Archbishop Dawkins of the Church of Nothing would be incensed at that attitude. To him, people must be forced to not-believe for their own good. Just as Tomas de Torquemada forced people to believe in Catholicism for their own good. Exactly the same, but he'll never see it.
Let's face it. It really doesn't matter most of the time. Whether a plumber or a barrister or a policeman or even a medic believes in creation or spontaneous generation of the universe is of no relevance at all to their jobs. If you are a creationist, you're not likely to want a job studying evolution. If you take the scientific path, you are not likely to study for holy orders. It really does not matter in the slightest.
You can even be devoutly religious and not follow the '6000 years' thing. That was calculated by a man, not a god, and men are fallible.
So I would say, give all those children all the information from all sides and let them work out which they will follow. Just... in the right classes.
Now we have a government who demand that children shop their parents for smoking, believe without question in the Climatology doctrine, nag their families with utterly inaccurate and frankly dangerous assertions on salt and fat and meat consumption, and learn about all forms of sex from the age of five.
Writing and maths are not important any more. New Scientist and Archbishop Dawkins are fretting over creationism and demanding everyone follow science, but have failed to notice that nobody is teaching science any more.
When I was at school, the acceleration due to gravity was 9.8 m/s/s (how fast something accelerates when you drop it, no matter what it weighs). Now, children in school are being told it's 10 m/s/s because it makes the sums easier. So if you have gained weight, have no fear. You have not gained mass. Gravity has increased, which just makes you seem heavier.
This is far more serious than whether the children learn about God. They are being told factually incorrect information in science class, facts that apply to the here and now - and New Scientist is worried that they might learn something wrong about the past?
Where is the credibility of that science class when they change definite physical laws to make the sums easier? There is no child in the class without a calculator. I didn't have one when I learned to work out square roots and quadratic equations on paper. Calculators were not allowed in exams then. Make the sums easier? Calculators already do that. This is not about making life easier. It is pure dumbing-down of an entire generation.
A supermarket chain has complained that candidates for jobs are increasingly useless. A supermarket chain. What must the universities be thinking - oh, I forgot, they think only about money these days. Once places of study and exploration of science, they are now businesses where income trumps truth. The stuff coming out labelled 'research' nowadays might as well have been written by the funding company's marketing department and in some cases, probably was. There is little science left in universities, and less in New Scientist.
So we return to the days of Copernicus and Galileo, where individuals free of State interference perform real experiments with no outside influence forcing their conclusions.
Lucky for me, I'm already there.
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