Laugh Yourself Stupid (and get paid)
hxz...@goplay.com
You might as well chck it out at
http://www.myaffiliateprogram.com/u/twhumor/t.asp?id=16450
POST
From: tcm...@goplay.com
Newsgroups: aus.comms.videocon
Subject: Paid To Read Jokes???
Di you know that you can actually get paid for reading jokes. People are allready making 2000 month, and it dosnt cost you anything.
You might as well chck it out at
http://www.myaffiliateprogram.com/u/twhumor/t.asp?id=16450
jum...@my-deja.com
>>> jumangi wrote:
>>>> Randall Robinson, who should know about such things, told us
>>>> this morning on C-SPAN that chief among the perpetrators of
>>>> slavery were the Spanish Moors.
>>
>> pyro wrote:
>>> Just because some guy on C-Span makes some historical claims does
>>> not mean he is automatically right. I mean, do you think if he
>>> said negative things about Jews (like negative things are said
>>> about _all other groups_) he would be featured in so many
>>> television interviews? He HAS to be PC in order to keep his
>>> position -- and you know it.
>
> jumangi wrote:
>> Randall Robinson, Harvard Professor of Law, offers just a slight
>> edge on credibility over merely "some guy on C-Span."
pyro wrote:
> Randall Robinson is a "professor" of law, not a historian.
I think that's what my statement had said already, and the point
was not addressing a thesis of relative merits for "law vs history"
in terms of credibility, but whether a "professor" of law should be
awarded higher credibility than merely "some guy on C-Span." You
are introducing a new thread by recasting the subject as "history,"
since the earlier remarks were posted under the topical heading of
"Nature vs. Nurture." Your strawman attempt to miscast the intent
of my remarks under a "history" heading, to which I do not lay claim,
is patently transparent, and quite obviously fallacious. Even so, I
am uncertain by what kind of "logic" you should arrive at the notion
that a "professor" of history should be granted higher credibility
than a "professor" of law, as both history and law must overlap to
a considerable degree. In fact it is my experience that lawyers are
better than historians at cognitive-skill enterprises, such as Chess,
which are more highly correlated with "intelligence quotient" (IQ)
than any other direct measure. As an enterprise, history affords much
less opportunity for cross-checking mental ability in a contemporary
setting, since much of history consists largely of the interpretive
(perhaps unverifiable) second-guessing either deemed resolvable in a
court of law, or dismissed as insufficient to satisfy the evidentiary
rules. Insofar as "history" exerts force upon individuals influential
to decision-making process, it will override spontaneous contemporary
"nature." There is, therefore, an outstanding dialectical interplay
between "history" and "nature" demanding priority for attention. It
is clear that TK's criticism of "historical forces" as represented by
the "industrial revolution" fall beneath the suasion of his appeal to
"nature" as the elemental prime directive. On a "Nature vs. Nurture"
debate TK would seem to cast his vote toward the "nature" side of the
balance, rather than "nurture," (if you mean to say that "nurture" is
a kind of "history" component understood in a cultural sense). Once
transposing the "nature vs. nurture" dialectic to "law vs. history"
it seems evident that TK regards (contemporary) "law" as exerting the
relevant sensitivity, with prioritization for the present-tense. I
think it was also Orwell who said "Who controls the present controls
the past, who controls the past controls the future." So it's clear
that Orwell regarded the present as determinative of how history was
going to be written, and then indirectly how control of the present
would control the future by controlling representations of the past.
Historians might easily fall prey to ideological bent whereas lawyers
operate within fluid social contexts where many ideologies may become
compared for relative utility, truth, propriety, or specific context.
If "history" was to be your desired invocation then let's examine a
history on a.f.u. when in Nov '99 I had mentioned Henry Louis Gates,
black professor of history, also at Harvard. I would not expect that
Prof. Gates and Prof. Robinson should diverge in any substantial way
from the view that Spanish Moors were chief among the slavers, and I
would think that blacks, the impacted race, should be among those who
identify the oppressors, rather than disinvolved whites or hispanics.
> jumangi wrote:
>> ... Whether of
>> the ilk of Randall Robinson or of the Leader of the Nation of Islam
>> movement, Louis Farrakhan, each are advocates for Black Empowerment,
>> so remarks positive or negative about Jews seem unrelated to a cause
>> which sustains their common demoninator. We require improved means
>> for discussing the question of "political correctness." The suitable
>> analogy can be provided by Chess games.
pyro wrote:
> It appears you are a bit confused as to what "political
> correctness" really is. Political correctness is not about the
> correctness, or perceived correctness, of opinions or views, but
> arbitrary restrictions as to how members of a society can express
> themselves.
However, you were about to "correct" me on those semantics of
"political correctness" so the suppression (represented by what
you term "arbitrary restrictions") of views would, according to
you, also seem to apply upon efforts here that would arrive at a
semantics of "political correctness." To get at this crux, what
would need to qualify as an "arbitrary restriction?" What is
"arbitrary" about the actions of a legislature or court of law?
It seems to me that the word "arbitrary" should instead attach
upon individuals, quite possibly those of extremist perspectives
destabilizing to a society or national economy, who are themselves
minorities whining/complaining about some other minorities that
were granted constitutional protections through legal means in the
public forum. Minority status, by itself, is not sufficient for
obtaining those constitutional protections since we may recall that
at one time in the not-to-distant past, membership in a Communist
Party was considered to be outside the purview of constitutionally
protected status. Minority rights for social/economic empowerment
are unlike your hypothetical rights which would dehumanize others,
and instead might easily lead into deleterious chaos/diseconomics.
Today's Communist Party can be regarded as tolerable under their
constitutionally protected minority status because the USA Communist
Party does not lay claim to being a satellite agency of forces which
had earlier in a mid 20th-century advertised themselves as inimical
to the established government of this country, perhaps with intent
at violent overthrow. If you wish to walk on the revolutionary wild
side, you are of course free to do so, but you cannot at the same
time expect the same government you label as "arbitrary" and opposed
to your radical revolutionary aim to provide you simultaneously with
constitutionally protected "safe minority" status that you generally
don't acknowledge for others already granted "safe minority" status.
The bottom-line, with regards to semantics for the term "political
correctness" is that, at present, you are working with a certain
notion and I am working with a certain notion. All we have here is
"A defines the phrase as...." and "B defines the phrase as...." The
situation concerns either interplay, or a standoff, between "A & B."
I prefer an (evolving) interplay, because the standoff is stalemate
and gets us nowhere. In order to sustain an interplay there should
be discourse, and (minimal) rules of courtesy whereby a progressive
discourse becomes enabled. You'll need to clarify what leads you to
conclude that the restrictions currently in effect were "arbitrary."
Nothing about the rules for a cognitive-skill enterprise, such as a
boardgame like Chess, or legal/political processes of the democratic
republic with judicial oversight/review, strikes me as "arbitrary."
I do not doubt that the term, or phrase, "political correctness" may
evolve in meaning over time, as has been observed already to undergo
certain evolutions from history, yet all available for the semantic
discipline concerns "PC(date,place)" with the phrase-term for "PC"
identified according to its context in time-and-space, and then the
various likelihoods for meaning to be assigned upon "PC(date,place)"
in future contexts. Speculations about the future remain for that
future, however, and do not necessarily establish what the present
is, or ought to be, merely due to numbers of (competing/conflicting)
future speculations concerning what a future might/might not become.
One's possible disagreement with processes of democratic republics
with judicial oversight/review, does not need to lay claim to those
processes being "arbitrary" (when in fact the participation of large
numbers of individuals, many with high-capability IQs, renders that
claim to being "arbitrary" exceedingly difficult to sustain/defend).
Something can be "arbitrary" if consisting of an outlier/aberration,
and then if indeed that was the case the normative components of a
social/legal/political process would work toward its correction. If
there's an argument concerning where battle-lines and boundary-lines
are drawn then that argument can proceed in straightforward fashion
upon the merits/demerits of competing -NORMATIVE- views, with none
of them labelled/dismissed out-of-hand as necessarily "arbitrary."
So the question of "PC" or "non-PC" is really another distraction
burning up line-count on the USENET, when one could simply present
views which persuade or dissuade. Fundamentally, one's presence in
a serious cyberspace forum should be proceeding from a foundation of
persuading and/or dissuading. Agent99, for example, hasn't yet told
us he's here to persuade, though he had previously said awhile ago
that he's NOT here to persuade. We can go around and around in many
circles until these anti-semites agree to play by rules of courteous
and normative discourse, yet the longer they wait for taking up the
tasks which persuade, then a longer time-period "anti-anti-semites"
can identify whereupon anti-semites had failed to toe-the-line of a
mutual discourse of persuasion/dissuasion aimed at truth discovery.
pyro wrote:
> ... It carries a pretext of wanting to defend minorities
> who have been on the receiving end of alleged discriminatory
> treatment through history. In essense it is not based on
> (subjective) morality or ethics, but on what the powers that be
> find most expedient politically. Thus, to be "politically correct"
> is to abide by those restrictions, or it may be simply to take
> advantage of this "bonanza" as an opportunist.
No, I would think your argument more suitably expressed when
considering that how "powers that be" have been implementing a
"(subjective) morality or ethics." What distinguishes subjective
from objective might be -precisely- that "pretext" you would wish
to say is "arbitrary" since the subjective is more likely to be
highly volatile, and "subject to" various whims and caprices, i.e.
wishy-washy social changes back-and-forth in the legal/political
process. Volatility in social policy identifies its potential
incorrectness, a volatility of subjective special interest groups
and not the stability rendered by an objective long-range vision.
I would think, therefore, that "political correctness" should aim
at stable objectivity rather than volatile subjectivity, and since
stable objectivity will also win at the argument it should also
obtain the ultimate attribute of being "politically correct."
pyro wrote:
> One of the interesting things about political correctness is how
> the "elites" -- particularly through their control of the mass
> media -- create a false sense that what they are doing is in the
> best interest of society, that they mean well. They take an
> unwarranted moral tone. What's really perverse is not so much their
> immoral behavior -- because that can be observed in any group,
> however repugnant it may be -- but the moral tone that comes with
> it, the way they falsely portray themselves as having a higher
> moral ground, when the only high ground they really have is that of
> power, to enforce their will on the masses.
We've reached agreement here, and so for repugnant moralizers I
recommend challenging them to games of Chess to find out just what
they're made of in terms of the cognitive-skill intellectual logic.
At least that would be one approach taken by a mathematician. Many
of those opponents the anti-semites might be required to play, as per
the course for Chess Tournaments, might also be semites. There's no
way to subvert prospects of eventual win or loss at these boardgames.
pyro wrote:
> One of the prime enforcers of political correctness is the mass
> media. The media moguls understand that they can make or break a
> man's reputation. These media moguls (though perhaps brighter than
> average) are hardly learned or cultured individuals: in fact many
> are flat out ignorant on such things as the implications of the
> Enlightenment, or even what modern scholars have found to be
> indisputable. Nor are they concerned for the social well-being.
> They have an economic interest -- and use their oligopolic power to
> their advantage by slanting the information they disseminate to the
> masses with their largely uninformed or biased views. The media
> bosses use both brute force (i.e., tarnishing a man's reputation)
> and sophisticated psychological techniques (propaganda) to subdue
> the masses.
I think the actual problem here is not so much the "brute force"
involved in tarnishing reputations, but the fact that there are
at present influences controlling mass-media which select against
certain individuals who might launch an effective counterplay upon
mass-media dominance of the social/political discourse. What the
mass-media allows through their filtering processes are instead
those individuals whose reputations they can easily tarnish at any
given opportunity. The central question here concerns how one might
go about developing an individual who might pass through mass-media
filters and remain untarnishable. My claim addresses development of
cognitive-skill "intellectual sports" enterprises such as boardgames
of Chess or Go, which the mass-media can quickly recognize as having
logical suasion one way or another (unambiguous results to each and
every proposal "on the table"). There must be some disincentive for
mass-media support of philosophically-inclined individuals, since a
trained philosopher could quickly make mince-meat of the mass-media
pundits, and I would trace that disincentive to the perception among
mass-media tycoons that their survival in show-business is instead
dependent upon "ratings" which are, in turn, obtained from viewers
who are among the same constituency as citizen voters in elections.
Somehow the mass-media has determined that philosophical inquiry is
not highly "rated" among viewers, and so we're presently witness to
invidious feedback-loops between consumerism and consumerist media.
My fundamental contention stands, as with New Testament advice,
that if you wish to trump those who claim righteousness, then you
must become more righteous than they are. So the "game" involved
here is to "out politically correct" those who are laying claim to
"political correctness." The way to do that is NOT by grousing over
a "victimhood" status hypothetically rendered by being sidelined or
marginalized to the "outside" by the "politically correct insiders"
but by carefully analyzing the game they're playing and then beating
them at their own game. I think the direction for that would aim at
law, not history, as means devised for successful wins at THEIR game.
Alternatively, if you choose NOT to play their game, as did the story
of TK, then once working outside "the system" you can't expect to win
a "victimhood" status, since "victimhood" would itself be awarded in
context to "victimhood" with regards to "the system" already denied.
pyro wrote:
> So, one can hardly cite the enforcers of political correctness as
> those with opinions which coincide with what has been "arrived-at
> through centuries of scholarship augmented by contemporary
> investigations." Such an assertion is downright foolish and naive.
> But what else should we expect from an individual who cites a law
> professor who was interviewed on C-Span as an authority on history?
He may or may not be an "authority on history" so I think the point
would address whether Randall Robinson is out of agreement with Henry
Louis Gates, who IS a Harvard Professor of History, as was mentioned
above and last November 1999, which was a former history time-period.
I do not suppose Gates and Robinson speak oppositely from each other.
Often, perceptions of history are shaped and tailored according to
present exigencies as comprehended by those to whom history had been
unfair, so we could work forward from the case -they- would present.
Most of the scholarly realm would also conclude that Randall Robinson
obtains just slightly more credibility than Louis Farrakhan anyway.
pyro wrote:
> If we are to use the "chess" analogy, at best one can say that the
> atmosphere of political correctness hinders the free movement of a
> player (who is perhaps far superior), and therefore gives the other
> an unfair advantage.
You are distinguishing a (hypothetical) "atmosphere of political
correctness" at variance to an -ACTUAL- "political correctness" from
logical cognitive-skill endeavor. I had been -defining- correctness
in terms of the Chess game itself, so your opposition does not occur.
You would seem instead to be referring to circumstances where Chess
is not being recognized as a vehicle for arbitration/negotiation in
settling disputes, and where such circumstances are discovered, such
as with the case of "mass media" suppression, then I am in agreement
with you, where such suppression of logic ought to give way to logic.
> jumangi wrote:
>> Now a Jew and an Arab might agree to play games of Chess to determine
>> (relative) "correctness" in the gaming context just as they might be
>> playing at politics to determine "correctness" over an ensuing course
>> of history. It should be a pastime agreeable to both since Chess was
>> reputed to be a game invented in an Arab/Persian world when Zoroaster
>> was said to have given instruction to the King.
pyro wrote:
> Outside of the Arabian peninsula, Arabs were not very influential
> until they were converted to Islam by Mohammed in the 7th century
> and consequently driven by a raging fanaticism to convert others in
> their "jihad." At around the time of Zarathustra, the Persians were
> very Indo-European with perhaps some Semitic/Turkic elements
> beginning to seep its way in. The Persians did not come into much
> contact with the Jews until Cyrus the Great took Babylon and
> allowed the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem.
Interesting observations, I suppose, from conditions that were then
while this is now. Jews and Arabs lived in harmony during Persia's
zenith, and I see nothing which might prevent another similar zenith.
>> pyro wrote:
>>> In any case, we both agree that Arabs played a major role, as did
>>> many other groups. But it is clear Jews played a significant role,
>>> too, as even Jewish historians have conceded. Thus, Jumangi, you
>>> did not answer the questions I posed:
>
> jumangi wrote:
>> I refrain from attempting to answer your questions at this time,
>> because your questions concern "Why..." issues, which I find quite
>> difficult to think about, much less address speculatively. I tend to
>> distrust explanations for "Why..." questions anyway, because those
>> kinds of answers typically run toward religion rather than science,
>> and religion concerns a personal realm usually not easy to share.
>
>> pyro wrote:
>>> "Why must Whites and Christians perpetually apologize for 'sins'
>>> which they allegedly committed decades ago, or even thousands of
>>> years ago? Why don't the Jews apologize for uprooting millions of
>>> Palestinians, or for their role in Black slavery, their historical
>>> usurious practices, or even Bolshevism? Why isn't Meir Lau concerned
>>> about the Arab prisoners being tortured by his kinsmen TODAY?"
>
> jumangi wrote:
>> Frankly, I haven't the foggiest notion but maintain some confidence
>> that such perplexities and conundra will eventually become
>> clarified. Patience will remain the key to understanding.
pyro wrote:
> What I was trying to point out, and what I didn't expect for you to
> grab, was that there is a blatant case of hypocrisy coming from
> Jews. They want the Pope to apologize to them for what happened
> decades ago, even hundreds of years ago, while they remain silent
> on the fact that Arab prisoners are being tortured by their own
> people by the hundreds each year..
I'd imagine that Jews are among the first to admit to hypocrisy,
since their literature claims hypocrisy is a fundamental condition
of existence, so if they're not following their own literature then
we'd have a case of "hypocrisy to that hypocrisy observation." If
they're not following their own literature, however, then it would
be difficult to claim they are indeed Jews of an orthodox caliber.
You seem to suggest that the Pope's actions are motivated by Jewish
demands, which would then say the Catholic Church is under control
by Jewish agendas. Alternatively we might observe that the Catholic
Church, via their Pope, is acting of their own volition and as such
would make the answer to your "Why..." question much more subtle.
Mistreatment of prisoners, if indeed true, would illustrate a source
for Middle-East destabilization in contradiction to a stated Jewish
aim for regional "peace." Verified prisoner mistreatment does not
long remain secret, if that should really be the case, and I don't
understand how it might help their precarious bargaining position.
Though I'm not assuming a position one way or the other, at merely a
surface level of inquiry, what should be the motivating logic behind
your allegations? So if you were offering your "explanations" then
I find them grossly inadequate, which is again illustrative of my
own reluctance to venture forth speculatively. I'm more than willing
to investigate, but I'm not willing to draw premature conclusions
when there are evidently quite a number of complex "facts" to chase
out and innumerable story-accounts to validate if substantiated, or
to invalidate if not substantiated by reliable sources. Furthermore
there may be several sides to a story, and of course several parties
to disagreements under investigation, further complicating matters.
Fundamentally, of course, there needs to be shown relevancy for a
discussion of Middle-East politics which appears nowhere in the cited
TK writings, if discussion should occur on a.f.u. rather than upon
another newsgroup.
pyro wrote:
> If you read my post regarding the Pope's apology, you would see how
> much I despise those who advertise their (alleged) victimization,
> regardless of ideology.
I take this to mean that there will be no further whining about
victimization due to some complaint of being "politically incorrect."
----------
Fischer wrote:
> The fact that many regulars here are leftists is quite revolting
> considering what TK said about them in ISAIF.
At the risk of sounding sophistic I will observe how the word
"revolt" is at the basis of both "revolting" and "revolution."
Fischer wrote:
> Hertzlinger doesn't belong here just like Big Don
> doesn't belong here.
If you make a point of attacking Hertzlinger, then I think he's
authorized all means of making a suitable defense here.
-----------
agent99 wrote:
> All of our brainwashed ng participants -- j., woody, scott, and
> the rest -- have good crimestop:
I wouldn't imagine that Orwell wants Chess players to make
illegal moves in the game, which would be immediately disallowed.
Refraining from answering questions "at this time" does not
preclude answering later at a more appropriate time.
> ``Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as
> though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous
> thought. It includes the power of not grasping
> analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of
> misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are
> inimical to [PC orthodoxy], and of being bored or
> repelled by any train of thought which is capable of
> leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short,
> means protective stupidity.``
> --George Orwell
We're still at standoff without agreement on the common-ground of
logical cognitive-skill endeavor which might provide the basis for
what may be discerned as "grasping"/"not grasping," or "perceiving"/
"failing to perceive," or "understanding"/"misunderstanding" simple
arguments. How can you claim to present any arguments at all unless
you're willing to say your purpose on this newsgroup is to persuade?
>>>> agent99 wrote:
>>>>> I don't seek to persuade anybody.
>>>
>>> jumangi wrote:
>>>> So it's not difficult to understand why
>>>> your words get lost.
>>>>
>>>> [ ... ]
>>>>
>>>> agent99 wrote:
>>>>> Have I excluded you from debate? If that's
>>>>> what you think, then why am I wasting my
>>>>> time with you at all? But if it isn't what
>>>>> you think, you're just being dishonest in
>>>>> asking -- self-defeating if you aim to be
>>>>> taken seriously.
>>>
>>> jumangi wrote:
>>>> Why should I aim to be taken seriously when you've
>>>> you've stated for us that you don't seek to persuade?
>>
>> agent99 wrote:
>>> I have no idea why you should. Don't you
>>> want to be taken seriously?
>
> jumangi wrote:
>> Don't you want to persuade?
--------
> Subject: The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
>
> ``Don`t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to
> narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall
> make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because
> there will be no words in which to express it. Every
> concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed
> by exactly one word, with it`s meaning rigidly
> defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out
> and forgotten...Every year fewer and fewer words,
> and the range of consciousness always a little
> smaller. Even now, of course, there`s no reason or
> excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It`s merely a
> question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in
> the end there won`t be any need even for that. The
> Revolution will be complete when the language is
> perfect.``
> --Orwell, 1984, p.49.
Orwell is -satirizing- the (false) "Revolution" here. Was
TK's usage of the word "revolution" intended for satire?
agent99 wrote:
> Edward Sapir was a linguist and poet. He was a student of
> Boas, the Jew who did so much to enshrine in the anthropology
> departments of our colleges and universities the insane idea
> of the equal valuation of all cultures. With Benjamin Whorf,
> he developed a theory to explain the relationship between
> thought and language.
Boas died in 1942, so I don't think you can credit all post-1942
linguistic developments to Boas. Edward Sapir considered that our
language habits predisposed certain choices of interpretation, yet
Benjamin Whorf more adamantly advanced the stronger notion that
"language predetermines thought." Sapir arrived at his views from
studies of Native Americans, whereas Whorf was more closely allied
with schools of structural linguistics.
agent99 wrote:
> According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, language determines
> thought ...
However the strong hypothesis must be false because Wittgenstein
analyzed language as existing within communicative social construct
(there is no "private language"), whereas thoughts can remain private.
If all thoughts were predetermined according to received language then
there could be no innovation, such as brand new mathematical theorems,
or breakthroughs in computer algorithmic techniques.
agent99 wrote:
>
> [ ... litany of epithets snipped ... ]
>
> ... These are both very covert ways to destroy culture,
> and make the people dispirited. But that`s the idea, of
> course, and part of the reason such circumlocutions are popular
> with the power elites of our techno-industrial society.
Perhaps you could more directly inform us about the specific kind
of high spirits you think the people should have.
agent99 wrote:
> Insisting on them helps turn people into good drones -- faceless,
> sexless, deracinated, rootless entities, without any particular
> strengths, indeed, with no strength within themselves upon which
> some resistance to the centralized power of the state might
> coalesce.
Acquisition of cognitive-skill at an intellectual sports endeavor,
such as Chess, would most certainly not be a disempowering effect.
It was not disempowering for Maurice Ashley, Black Chess Grandmaster.
agent99 wrote:
> The converse is also true. If the language can be restored,
> then thought can be resurrected. Therefore I say, if you love
> your culture, if you believe in the culture of freedom, of
> individuality, of knowledge, and in fact all of the great
> things which distinguish Western culture from the rest of
> the world`s cultures, and which you have inherited from your
> forefathers; if you maintain that these things are in fact
> superior to what is valued in other cultures, and not merely
> equal to them -- the thatched hut of the nigger, the intrinsic
> mendacity and genocides of the kike, and so on -- then you
> must use such words.
Difficult indeed to follow your logic of how utilization of that
magic word-set would automatically confer culture, freedom, thought
and individuality upon the speaker. Surely there's more involved
than blind invocation of patterned sounds about a pentagram. How
should the verb "must" apply, in your last sentence (above) when
you had been promising freedom and individuality?
agent99 wrote:
>
> [ ... ]
>
> If you would be free, you must first free your mind.
Zen monastics say there is no mind, so what is it that would be freed?
- regards
- jb
.
==========
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Richard P. Feynman, _Six_Not-So-Easy_Pieces_, c1963/1989/1997
David M. Kennedy, _Freedom_From_Fear_, c1999
Holmes Rolston, III, _Philosophy_Gone_Wild_, c1986/1989
J.Z.Young, _Philosophy_and_the_Brain_, c1987
========
Cold War's CIA was seriously involved in film, literature, art
Saturday, March 18, 2000
By LAURENCE ZUCKERMAN
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Many people remember reading George Orwell's "Animal Farm" in high
school or college, with its chilling finale in which the farm animals
looked back and forth at the tyrannical pigs and the human farmers but
found it "impossible to say which was which."
That ending was altered in the 1955 animated version, which removed
the humans, leaving only the nasty pigs. Another example of Hollywood
butchering great literature? Yes, but in this case the film's secret
producer was the Central Intelligence Agency.
The CIA, it seems, was worried that the public might be too influenced
by Orwell's pox-on-both-their-houses critique of the capitalist humans
and communist pigs. So after Orwell's death in 1950, agents were
dispatched (by none other than E. Howard Hunt, later of Watergate
fame) to buy the film rights to "Animal Farm" from his widow to make
the story's message more overtly anti-communist.
Rewriting the end of "Animal Farm" is just one example of the often
absurd lengths to which the CIA went, as recounted in a new book, "The
Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters" (The New
Press), by British journalist Frances Stonor Saunders. Published in
Britain last summer, the book will appear in the United States next
month.
Much of what Saunders writes about, including the CIA's covert
sponsorship of the Paris-based Congress for Cultural Freedom and the
British opinion magazine Encounter, was exposed in the late 1960s. But
by combing through archives and unpublished manuscripts and
interviewing several of the principal actors, Saunders has uncovered
many new details and gives the most comprehensive account yet of the
period between 1947 and 1967.
This picture of the CIA's secret war of ideas includes cameo
appearances by scores of intellectual celebrities like critic Lionel
Trilling, poets Ted Hughes and Derek Walcott and novelists James
Michener and Mary McCarthy, all of whom directly or indirectly
benefited from the CIA's largesse. There are also bundles of cash
funneled through CIA fronts and several hilarious schemes that sound
more like a "Spy vs. Spy" cartoon than a historical account.
Traveling first class all the way, the CIA and its counterparts in
other Western European nations sponsored art exhibitions, intellectual
conferences, concerts and magazines to press their larger anti-Soviet
agenda.
Saunders provides ample evidence, for example, that the editors at
Encounter and other agency-sponsored magazines were directed not to
publish articles directly critical of Washington's foreign policy. She
shows how the CIA bankrolled some of the earliest exhibits of Abstract
Expressionist painting outside of the United States to counter the
Socialist Realism being advanced by Moscow.
In one memorable episode, the British Foreign Office subsidized the
distribution of 50,000 copies of "Darkness at Noon," Arthur Koestler's
anti-communist classic. But at the same time, the French Communist
Party ordered its operatives to buy up every copy of the book.
Koestler received a windfall in royalties courtesy of his communist
adversaries.
As it turns out, "Animal Farm" was not the CIA's only dabbling in
Hollywood. Saunders reports that one operative who was a producer and
talent agent slipped affluent-looking black Americans into several
films as extras to try to counter Soviet criticism of the American
race problem.
The agency also changed the ending of the movie version of Orwell's
"1984," disregarding the author's specific instructions that the story
not be altered. In the book, the protagonist, Winston Smith, is
entirely defeated by the nightmarish totalitarian regime. At the end,
Orwell writes, Winston realized that "he loved Big Brother." In the
movie, Winston and his lover, Julia, are gunned down after Winston
defiantly shouts: "Down with Big Brother!"
Such changes came from the agency's obsession with snuffing out a
notion then popular among many European intellectuals: that East and
West were morally equivalent. But instead of illustrating the
differences between the two systems by taking the high road, the
agency justified its covert activities by referring to the unethical
tactics of the Soviets.
"If the other side can use ideas that are camouflaged as being local
rather than Soviet supported or stimulated, then we ought to be able
to use ideas camouflaged as local ideas," said Tom Braden, who ran the
CIA's covert cultural division in the early 1950s. (In one of the
book's many surprising codas, Braden goes on in the 1980s to become
the leftist foil to Patrick Buchanan on the CNN program "Crossfire.")
An odd alliance was struck between the CIA leaders, most of them
wealthy Ivy League veterans of the wartime Office of Strategic
Services and a corps of largely Jewish ex-communists who had broken
with Moscow to become virulently anti-communist.
The CIA recognized from the beginning that it could not openly sponsor
artists and intellectuals in Europe because there was so much
anti-American feeling there. Instead, it decided to woo intellectuals
out of the Soviet orbit by secretly promoting a non-communist left of
democratic socialists disillusioned with Moscow.
Saunders describes how the CIA cleverly skimmed hundreds of millions
of dollars from the Marshall Plan to finance its activities, funneling
the money through fake philanthropies it created or real ones such as
the Ford Foundation.
"We couldn't spend it all," Gilbert Greenway, a former CIA agent,
recalled. "There were no limits, and nobody had to account for it. It
was amazing."
When some of the CIA's activities were exposed in the late 1960s, many
artists and intellectuals claimed ignorance. But Saunders makes a
strong case that several people, including the philosopher Isaiah
Berlin and the poet Stephen Spender, who was co-editor of Encounter,
knew about the CIA's role.
© 2000 The New York Times.
All rights reserved.
© 1998-2000 Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
All rights reserved.
=============
DNA prompts a re-evaluation of statutes of limitation
Saturday, March 18, 2000
By ROBERT TANNER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK -- With DNA solving crime after crime, some states are
extending or dropping the statute of limitations on prosecuting rape
and other violent offenses in case a genetic match that can prove who
did it turns up decades later.
Such changes in the law challenge the legal tradition that says
prosecutors have to bring charges within a certain amount of time
after the crime -- a rule based on concern that evidence might get
lost and witnesses might prove untrustworthy after many years have
gone by.
Generally, statutes of limitations for serious offenses run for four
to six years, depending on the state.
Defense lawyers warn that dropping those limits would give prosecutors
too strong a hand.
But such changes make sense to Michigan state Sen. William Van
Regenmorter, who heads his state's Senate Judiciary Committee.
"The statute of limitations served a function, particularly in pre-DNA
days, with worries about memories fading. DNA doesn't rely on
memories. Those old arguments fade away when you have DNA," he said.
Nationwide, at least 180,000 rape kits -- evidence gathered from a
woman's body -- remain untested, according to the Justice Department's
National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence.
Because crime labs are backlogged, kits that may provide the proof
that inextricably links rape victim and rapist can take years to get
tested. Meanwhile, statutes of limitations close the door on
prosecutors seeking justice.
"Every single day we reach a point that the rape that occurred five
years and one day ago is unprosecutable. And that victim has no
recourse whatsoever," said Chris Asplen, an assistant U.S. attorney
who directs the commission.
New DNA evidence has already freed many defendants convicted of crimes
they did not commit. It also prompted re-examination of the death
penalty in Illinois, where 13 men have been freed from death row
because of serious doubts about their guilt.
DNA -- the genetic molecule that can identify one person out of
billions -- is now a crucial enforcement tool. State and national
databanks already contain more than 220,000 DNA profiles of criminals
and suspects.
While legislators debate changing the laws, prosecutors and police are
already relying on DNA to buy themselves more time.
This week, New York City prosecutors filed charges against a serial
rapist identified only by his genetic profile. In effect, they escaped
the state's five-year statute of limitations and bought time to find
the suspect. Authorities have done something similar in Utah and
Wisconsin.
Some states have already reshaped laws involving sexual assaults. In
1997, Florida removed a statute of limitation on any rape case where
potential DNA evidence has been collected. That year, Nevada
eliminated its statute of limitations in rape cases. In California,
Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin,
lawmakers are now re-examining their statutes of limitations.
Most proposed changes focus on rape, but some go further. New York
legislators want to cut the five-year limits on prosecuting violent
felonies such as robbery, rape and manslaughter. The state already
places no time limits on arson and kidnapping. Michigan's Van
Regenmorter wants no limits for any felony with DNA evidence.
This month in California, a House committee approved a measure waiving
the five-year limit on rape if new DNA evidence is discovered.
Historically, states have placed no time limits on prosecutions in
murder cases. But lesser crimes have always carried time limits.
Gerald Lefcourt, a past president of the National Association for
Criminal Defense Lawyers, said the statute of limitations protects
defendants whose fate depends on witnesses or records that may be
impossible to find after too much time.
Lefcourt also questions how lawmakers can give prosecutors the right
to go to court with new DNA evidence, but not defendants who claim
wrongful convictions.
Asplen, the federal prosecutor, agreed. "It absolutely has to go both
ways."
Only two states -- New York and Illinois -- guarantee convicted
criminals the right to test evidence in cases that pre-date DNA
testing.
On the Net: National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence:
www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/dna
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers:
www.criminaljustice.org
© 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
© 1998-2000 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved.
============
The shooters and the shrinks
After Littleton, the media declared that studies show
computer games lead to violence. What studies?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Mark Boal
May 6, 1999 | As the Littleton tragedy unfolded, David Grossman, a
retired Army psychologist, emerged as the media's most quotable expert
on virtual mayhem. As he hawked his book, the good soldier explained
to the world that video games were "murder simulators," just like the
ones used in Vietnam to mold recruits into trigger-happy killers.
His spiel, despite its flimsiness, was picked up by at least 19 media
outlets. And the New York Times lent him its credibility in a piece
headlined "All those who deny any linkage between violence in
entertainment and violence in real life, think again."
The path clear, President Clinton ordered a summit with Hollywood on
the culture of teen violence (oblivious to the irony as U.S. bombs
pummeled Yugoslavia), while Senate Republicans announced a conference
of their own. Even the digerati got a touch hysterical, with some game
designers posting notices about ending digital gore for the sake of
the public weal. OK, rewind.
As of 1996, there had only been eight peer-reviewed studies testing
for aggressive effects of violent video games, according to a
literature review conducted in that year by MediaScope, a think tank
that specializes in media violence. Of these, four found effects,
three did not and one found effects for girls but not boys. (To put
this in some perspective, I have a paper in my desk drawer on
teleportation that cites 49 studies.) More recent work has been done
by Dr. Jeanne Funk, a psychologist at the University of Toledo, who
has conducted more control-group research than anyone in the country.
As both a practitioner and a parent, Funk supports labeling games for
violent content; she lets her own kids play, since "it's important for
children to be part of the culture," but "draw[s] the line at the
really violent ones."
As for Grossman, Funk tactfully points out that while "he believes in
what he says," the "research is not exactly there to support it."
For starters, video games do not improve reflexes, which are innate.
And while they can improve spatial recognition and coordination, the
problem is "skill transfer": There's a tremendous difference between
clicking a mouse in Half-Life and hefting a real eight-pound shotgun.
To put it another way, if all our GIs did was stare at monitors,
Milosevic would have nothing to fear.
But don't games make players more violent? Maybe, maybe not.
Putting aside the argument that computer games transform their players
into soldiers, one is left with the somewhat more plausible theory
that games bring out aggression among adolescents and adults. While
it's been shown that 5-year-olds, after playing a karate video game,
will go around chopping at each other, young children are highly
impressionable by just about any stimulus. Therefore, older kids are
more interesting from a scientific perspective; but they are also more
problematic to study -- observing them at unguarded play is nearly
impossible. So most studies of adolescents and adults have them hammer
on the fire button and then answer a battery of questions.
Funk's most recent work in this vein will be presented in public in
August at the annual meeting of the American Psychological
Association. Her study hypothesized that adolescents "with a
preference for violent games would be associated with more behavioral
problems, particularly externalizing problems such as aggressive
behavior." But the facts proved otherwise. As it turns out,
10-year-old gamers who preferred a lot of violence scored higher on
internalizing and anxious-depressed behaviors scales -- meaning they
were withdrawn, not aggressive. On the other hand, those with a
preference for less violent games scored highest on the delinquent
behavior scale. Shifting away from the aggression thesis, Funk
concluded that future studies should focus on correlations between
time spent playing computer games and subsequent depression.
This finding jibes with several older studies that correlate avid
gaming with low self-esteem among boys. Oddly enough, girls who play a
lot often didn't show the same problem. Cultural constructions of
gender may account for the difference, with girls feeling good when
they break out of the mold of timidity, and boys feeling lousy for
being game geeks.
One 1985 study of fourth-graders showed positive effects. Quoting the
abstract from the Journal of Child Study: "Subjects who played violent
video games exhibited fewer defensive fantasies and tended to exhibit
more assertive or need-persistent fantasies than did subjects who
played non-violent games. For non-aggressive females, the barrier
responsible for frustration was more salient in their fantasies after
playing the violent video game. Results suggest that aggression in the
context of a video game discharges children's aggressive impulses in a
socially acceptable way, leaving the children less defensive and more
assertive."
A Columbine high schooler said as much when she told the New York
Times, "I know this sounds weird, but some violent games are a therapy
for kids."
Why, then, the assertion in the New York Times and the Los Angeles
Times of overwhelming evidence? The mountains of research they are
referring to was done on television and film violence -- and while
it's presumed reasonable that video games would exhibit the same
impact, a presumption is not exactly hard evidence. Though the few
empirical studies on games are mixed -- at best -- facts alone cannot
cool the media's fever.
One reason for the disconnect, argues Andrew Ross, who chairs the
American studies department at NYU, is how the media handles race.
Ross notes that when white suburban kids go wrong, there's enormous
pressure to find a psychological cause rather than a social
explanation.
"White suburban kids are assumed to have an individual psychic
development that can be sidetracked into dysfunctional forms of
expression, if there is some sufficiently powerful external stimulus
-- a video game, a lurid Web site -- that can knock them off course."
But when it comes to inner-city black kids, "the explanations are
assumed to be socially determined from the get-go." By the media's
lights, "Society explains their behavior in a way that strips them of
their individuality and retains only their class and race attributes"
-- which is why video games are never trotted out to explain homicide
in inner-city schools.
In the end, says Ross, the pattern is distinctly American: "Since the
early days of the republic, it has also been an elementary rule of
public life for grandstanding experts and gatekeepers to hold popular
culture responsible."
Mark Boal is an investigative reporter in New York.
Copyright © 2000 Salon.com All rights reserved.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
jum...@my-deja.com
Skeptical Digest 12.1 (Winter 1999)
Author: Skeptic (UK) Digest <dig...@skeptic.org.uk>
Date: 1999/03/29
Forum: sci.skeptic
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>Skeptical Digest 12.1 (Winter 1999)
--Please forward as widely as possible without spamming anyone--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>CONTENTS>>>
>>>Skeptical Stats>>>Dubious News>>>UK CSICOP Research
Scholarship>>>In this issue>>>Admnistrivia>>>Mind Machine on Tour>>>
>>>SKEPTICAL STATS>>>
1. Amount awarded to trance channeler JZ Knight in her fight for
custody of 30,000-year-old warrior Ramtha: $800
2. Number of classmates who voted to ban Dihydrogen Monoxide after
14-year-old Nathan Zohner reported on its many dangers: 43 out of 50.
(Dihydrogen monoxide is a major component of acid rain, has been found
in cancerous tumours, accelerates the corrosion of metals. In those
who have developed a dependency on DHMO, its withdrawal causes certain
death.)
3. Number of times a day the Red Sea parts and Lazarus rises at the
new Biblical theme park outside Las Vegas: 24.
4. IQ attributed to Adam by creation scientists: 1500.
5. IQ attributed to Adam by Bernard Leikind, in analysing the above:
100
6. Number of victims of kidney theft who have come forward in
response to appeals for same: 0
7. Amount Derbyshire couple owed to their house's vendor when they
began claiming their house was haunted: UKP 3,000
8. Amount the couple intended to charge for a Halloween party to
prove the ghost's existence: UKP 5
9. Number of UFOs surveyed in Project Blue Book, 1947-1969: 12,618
10. Number of those reports which remained unidentified: 701
11. Number of individual dowsing tests carried out in Munich in 1986:
843 12. Number of tests showing positive results: 10
13. Average of four approximations of the number one, using different
methods: 1.99999999999
14. World's record for longest firewalk, Johnstown, Pennsylvania,
July 2, 1998: 165 feet
15. Age at which "The Prophet" author Khalil Gibran died of
alcoholism: 48
16. Cost of attending UFOlogists' conference on the militarisation of
space: UKP 220
17. Number of extracts from Tibetan herbs contained in the herbal
remedy Padma 28: 22
18. Cost of the first Feng Shui-friendly computer printer, Lexmark's
5770 Photo Jetprinter: UKP 349
19. Number of people psychiatrist Bennett Braun convinced late 1980s
MPD patient Patricia Burgus she ate in a year: 2,000
20. Population of Burgus's home town, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, in 1990:
24,94421. Amount in dollars for which Burgus eventually settled when
she sued Braunt: $10.6 million
22. Cost of magnetic boots to heal arthritis in horses: UKP 65
23. Number of faith healers retained by the England football team: 1
24. Number of each of doctors, masseurs, and physios, retained by
England football team: 2
25. Cost of your own rubber Roswell alien, 1995: $1,695
26. Average cost of aliens in London, 1999: UKP 2
For sources, see below.
>>>DUBIOUS NEWS>>>
Skeptic lives: Wendy Grossman, editor of The Skeptic, continues to
survive 21 days after opening Graham Wylie's glass box containing
(according to Wylie) the skeleton of cursed 18th century sailor
William Jones, who in the few years between his being cursed and his
death shrank from 5ft 10in to the skeleton's present height of 10in;
Wylie claims that anyone (except him, as mediums tell him he has a
special affinity with the cursed sailor's spirit) opening the box will
die within ten days. Apparently Grossman and fellow skeptics Mike
Howgate and Steve Donnelly, who opened the box and actually touched
the skeleton in February 1998, also have survived the intervening year
in fine shape. Skeptics must have an affinity with the cursed sailor.
Either that, or...dare we suggest that when you buy from Acme Skeleton
Supply curses are extra?)...
Dilbert gets an astrologer:
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert99031486792.
gif
...
Psychic Web site reads your mind in a seven-card trick at
http://members.tripod.com/~andybauch/trick.html (this one just may
deserve James Randi's $1 million)...
Chocolate lovers age more slowly than abstainers, according to Sky
News and Fox (guess the PR people found out Rupert Murdoch liked
chocolate)...
Late sleepers everywhere rejoiced to find out that they tend to be
wealthier than early risers (Independent, December). Like the old
folk song says, "Early to bed and early to rise/Your girl goes out
with other guys." (No explanation was suggested, but we have one:
perhaps late sleepers could get in the habit of sleeping late because
they had wealthy parents)...
Geri Halliwell, ex of the Spice Girls, is reportedly (Daily Mail)
considering her religious options by studying Scientology and the
writings of L. Ron Hubbard. Maybe she's not sure which planet she
wants to be an ambassador to...
Grim Reaper is in reality kind and patient, _Strange Magazine_
publisher Mark Chorvinsky tells Unconvention 98, the fifth annual
Fortean conference, basing his comments on reports of more than 100
sightings by nurses, the Grim Reaper is in reality kind and patient
and even saved one drowning woman's life...
The Chinese Flying Saucer Research Association, which claims to have
records of UFO sightings dating back to almost 4,000 years ago (*now*
they tell us), warns that imposters are flooding the UFO biz. Hint:
if someone offers to sell you a ride on an alien spacecraft, don't
hand over any cash up front. The good news is that you, too, can join
the God Saves the Earth Flying Saucer Foundation at its encampment in
Dallas, Texas, where they await God's help to leave the planet on
March 31, well in advance of the Earth's Millennial collapse
(Guardian)...
Research by Rupert Sheldrake (the Observer) claims to show that dogs
have greater cognitive abilities than cats after a survey of pet
owners in London, Manchester, and California found that 52 percent of
dog owners claimed their animals knew as much as ten minutes in
advance when a member of the household was on the way home. Did it
never occur to the researchers that cats might just not be
interested?...
Dan Taylor, the American who made headlines in 1969 by chasing around
Loch Ness in a yellow submarine (gee, just like the movies) is taking
up the chase again with a larger, faster, yellower $1 million 30-ton
fibreglass and steel vessel. He thinks Nessie is a huge eel, by the
way...
>>>IN THIS ISSUE OF THE SKEPTIC>>>
Hits and Misses:
New trends in exorcism
Football faith
Features:
A Man, a Woman, and a Bizarre Belief -- Mike Hardwidge takes to the
investigative trail to find out whether men are more or less gullible
than women.
Abductions That Never Leave the Ground -- Hilary Evans, author of
Intrusions and many other books, looks at the history of claims of
alien abductions.
The Brahan Seer -- Did a Scottish psychic foresee the Battle of
Culloden? David Hambling investigates.
Feng Shui Revisited -- AJ McKerracher explains the background of the
fad that's been described as a clever Eastern scheme for rearranging
the contents of gullible Westerners' wallets.
With:
Hilary Evans' Paranormal Picture Gallery
Sprite, by Donald Rooum
Cartoons, by Tim Pierce
Philospher's Corner, by Julian Baggini
Rhyme and Reason, by Steve Donnelly
Reviews of:
Abracadabra!: Secret Methods Magicians and Others Use to Deceive Their
Audience (Nathanial Schiffman)
Weird Water and Fuzzy Logic (Martin Gardner)
Think to Win: The Power of Logic in Everyday Life (S. Cannavo)
Why People Believe Weird Things (Michael Shermer)
The Reasonable Woman: A Guide to Intellectual Survival (Wendy McElroy)
Confirmation: the Hard Evidence (Whitley Strieber)
Borderlands (Mike Dash)
The Wreck of the Titanic Foretold? (Martin Gardner, ed.)
Impossibility: the Limits of Science and the Science of Limits
(John D. Barrow)
>>>CSICOP RESEARCH SCHOLARSHIP>>>
The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the
Paranormal and The University of Hertfordshire are pleased to announce
the creation of the 'CSICOP Research Scholarship'.
This three year scholarship will fund a Ph.D. student to carry out
research related to psychology and skepticism. Possible topics could,
for example, include:
- The critical evaluation of evidence for the paranormal
- The psychology of deception, lying and fraud
- Eyewitness testimony and the paranormal
- The psychology of belief in the paranormal
- The media and the paranormal
- Communicating science to the public
This research will be conducted under the supervision of Dr Richard
Wiseman at the Psychology Department of the University of
Hertfordshire (UK). Dr Wiseman currently heads a research unit
specializing in the scientific examination of alleged paranormal
phenomena and related topics. The Unit has a well established record
of research and postgrauduate training programme. The University is
located just North of London, is well equipped to support research
students and has an excellent record of Ph.D. completion.
Applicants should have a good first degree in Psychology or relevant
discipline, and be able to demonstrate an interest in skepticism.
Further details can be obtained from Dr Richard Wiseman, University of
Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Herts., AL10 9AB.
Direct tel: 01707 284628: Direct fax: 01707 285073:
E mail: psy...@herts.ac.uk
>>>SOURCES FOR SKEPTICAL STATS>>>
1,2: Tampa Bay Skeptics Report
3: The Freethinker
4,5: Newsletter of Oregonians for Rationality (quoting Bernard Leikind
in The Skeptic (US))6: The National Kidney Foundation, via
http://www.urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm
7: Electronic Telegraph
8,9: Britannica Online
10,11 Skeptical Inquirer
12 Annals of Improbable Research (http://www.improb.com)
13 Skeptical Inquirer, January/February 1999
14 Guardian
15 Daily Telegraph
16 Daily Telegraph
17 Daily Telegraph
18 Lexmark press release
19 News of the Weird, UPI
20 US Census
21 News of the Weird, UPI
22 Daily Telegraph
23, 24 Daily Telegraph
25 Sharper Image catalogue (quoted in Skeptical Eye)
26 Based on survey of prices of inflatable aliens and alien key rings
from stalls before Christmas 1998 averaged with cost of Asda bubble
bath (floating alien included for UKP 1.99)
>>>MIND MACHINE ON TOUR>>>
PRESS RELEASE
UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
UNIVERSITY LAUNCHES THE WORLD'S LARGEST EVER TEST OF PSYCHIC ABILITY
16 March 1999 - embargoed until 19 March 1999
Psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman will launch the world's largest ever
test of psychic ability at Brent Cross Shopping Centre during National
Science Week (20-21 March).
The 'Mind Machine' is a steel kiosk that houses a specially designed
multi-media computer and touch sensitive screen. It presents the
public with a series of video clips that guides them through an
experiment testing psychic ability. This unique interactive
experiment invites them to register their decisions by simply touching
the screen. The computer then analyses and records each entry.
The kiosk will embark on a year long tour of Britain's leading
museums, science festivals, shopping centers and galleries. It is
expected to collect over a quarter of a million entries and create the
largest database of its type in the world.
Dr Wiseman is based at the University of Hertfordshire and has
conducted ten years of research into the possible existence of psychic
ability. The Mind Machine is his most ambitious project to date - it
has taken two years to develop and has cost over 30,000 to produce.
'This is a new way of carrying out science - instead of bringing
people to the lab we are taking the lab to them', remarked Dr Wiseman,
'However, for the project to work we need as many people as possible
to take part - young or old, skeptic or believer - we need everyone's
help'.
Dr Wiseman is available throughout National Science Week and will be
present on both days of the launch.
Contact details:
Tel; 01707 284628 Pager; 01426
213822. Email; psy...@herts.ac.uk Fax; 01707 285073.
The Mind Machine is funded by both COPUS (The Committee On the Public
Understanding of Science) and the University of Hertfordshire.
Dr Richard Wiseman
Psychology Department
University of Hertfordshire
Direct tel: 01707 284628
Direct fax: 01707 285073
Pager: 01426 213822
===============================================================
Skeptical Digest 12.2 (Spring 1999)
Author: Skeptic (UK) Digest <dig...@skeptic.org.uk>
Date: 1999/06/25
Forum: sci.skeptic
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>Skeptical Digest 12.2 (Spring 1999)
--Please forward as widely as possible without spamming anyone--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>CONTENTS>>>
>>>Skeptical Stats>>>Dubious News>>>Skeptics in the Park>>>In this
issue>>> >>>Administrivia>>>Skeptics in the Pub>>>Parapsychology Day
at Goldsmiths College>>>
>>>SKEPTICAL STATS>>>
1 Proportion of cases exorcist Bishop Corrado Balducci told the
Vatican were genuinely possessed: 5 or 6 per 1000.
2 Number of words in the OED devoted to the Devil: about 13,000
3 Sale price of Conan Doyle's "Cottingley Fairies" cameras: UKP13,000
4 Percentage of articles published in medical journals that meet
scientific standards: 5
5 Cost, per room, of interactive online report on the Feng Shui of
your home: 11. (We note that the site,
http://www.online-fengshui.com, was unable to accommodate the piano in
our bedroom or the TV in our office, but perhaps for that you need to
pay the full 200 fee for a personal visit.)
6 Cost of full-day home visit plus 30 minutes email or telephone
follow-up from Dulwich-based healer, aura-reader, telepath, and dowser
Brian Snellgrove: 600 plus costs.
7 Number of detergent-free washes the UKP11.95 magnet-containing
Wonderwash Laundry Ball is guaranteed for: 500. (The UK distributors
say that the magnet is so powerful that it makes the water pass
through the fabric with enough force to lift the dirt off so you don't
need soap.)
8 Year investors believe there will be demand and a realistic price
for space tourism: 2025.
9 Amount Applied Space Resources expects to be able to charge for a
pea-sized moon rock: $200
10 Number of visitors to endangered "Stonehenge on Sea" tree circle
ritual site in Norfolk since its discovery in 1/99: 5,000
11 Number of points on the human body recognised by accupuncturists:
1500
12 Length of time it took scientists in Chapel Hill, NC, to read the
smallest known genome of an organism, the microbe Mycoplasma
genitalium, with 470 genes: three months.
13 Number of apparently superfluous genes out of those 470: 150.
14 Standard quoted number of Americans who die per year from food
poisoning, drawn from 1994 research based on a mathematical model, not
actual cases: 9000 (actual researcher's number 8982)
15 Alternative number, sourced from similar research at the same time:
522.7.
16 Number of trichinosis deaths assumed in 14's mathematical model,
per year: 1000
17 Actual number of trichinosis deaths reported to the CDC 1988-1998:
1
18 Number of annual food poisoning deaths claimed in USA Weekend,
January 23, 1998: 10,000.
19 Percentage of Americans who believe Jerry Falwell is crazy, after
Falwell's attack on the Teletubbies: 83.
20 Estimated size of Heaven, according to Billy Graham: 1500 cubic
miles.
21 Number of broadly different scenarios produced by six psychics
asked by The Globe to divine how JonBenet Ramsey was murdered: 5.
22 Number of saints canonised by Pope John Paul II in his 21-year
tenure: 283.
23 Number of saints canonised from 1592 until the beginning of John
Paul II's reign: 302.
24 Number of miracles now required for sainthood: 1.
25 Number of illegal castrations performed on voluntary patients by
Edward Bodkin of Indiana, USA: 5.
26 Number of years Bodkin was sentenced to spend in jail for
practising medicine without a license: 4.
27 Number of people named Elvis Presley living in Scotland: 19.
For sources, see below
>>>DUBIOUS NEWS>>>
Rearranging the Feng Shui books in bookstores so that they are
randomly up, down, and sideways gives great personal harmony, skeptics
find...
Skeptic still lives...see the picture of Skeptic editor Wendy M.
Grossman opening the Cursed Box at http://www.skeptic.org.uk. Box
owner Graham Wylie claims anyone who opens the box will die in ten
days...
A "blue moon" is not the second of two full moons in the same month,
as researcher James Hugh Pruett wrote in Sky and Telescope magazine in
1937 (Independent). S&T's current editor, Roger Sinnott, and Texas
physicist Donald Olsen searched the source of the claim, the Maine
Farmers' Almanac, and concluded that the "blue moon" in question was
the third full moon in a season where there were four full moons
instead of the usual three. After all, blue moons in the
two-full-moons-in-one-month sense aren't all that rare -- we've
already had two in 1999 (January and March). If that isn't confusing
enough, long-time Skeptic reader Steuart Campbell says on CIX, "A
'Blue moon' is so called because it looks *blue* (I think that's a
more convincing explanation than yours). It's so rare that it
justifies the saying 'Once in a blue moon' as representing a very rare
event. A 'Blue moon' was seen from the UK in 1950--it's caused by
diffraction of light by very small particles of dust or ash."
Everybody clear on this now?
Uri Geller has been making friends, as he and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
told the Independent on Sunday (the two are writing a book together
about spiritualism). Quoth Boteach in the "How we met" article, "Jews
have no problem with what Uri does; we accept the paranormal."
Somebody better tell that notorious skeptic Woody Allen that he's been
doing the Jewish thing all wrong. Oh -- and Groucho Marx, famed for
saying (among many other things), "I can tell that man has an open
mind -- I can feel the breeze from here"...
Gay animals! Scientific cover-up! In Biological Exuberance, author
Bruce Bagemihl painstakingly documents the more than 450 different
species in which homosexual behaviour has been noted by scientists as
far back as classical Greece. Although the first detailed studies
were carried out in the 1700s, scientists have persisted in explaining
away animal homosexual behaviour with pathetic excuses like: the
animal was confused, or hostile, or just full of biological exuberance
-- what humans might call joie de vivre. The book is available from
Amazon.com (parents -- don't show those pictures to the kids!), and
Susan McCarthy's biologically exuberant review that tells how male
animals give each other the "Really Big Greeting" is at
http://www.salon.com/it/feature/1999/03/cov_15featurea.html
This is serious research, folks...
We have been much taken by Freeman Dyson's images of the future, as
detailed in his new book, The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet. In
it, he surmises that we will genetically engineer warm-blooded plants
-- trees, even -- that will grow their own greenhouses, big enough for
people to live in even in an inhospitable place such as the moon,
using the solar energy the plants harness via the mirrors and windows
they grow to power everything necessary for a comfortable modern life
-- including Internet connections. Dyson doesn't mention that one
part of this scenario is actually coming true already, in that
Internet father Vinton Cerf is working with NASA on creating the
protocols needed for an interplanetary Internet. And they say the
paranormal is unlikely...
Spotting quackery, and much more on dubious medicine on the Web at
http://www.quackwatch.com...
Help find alien intelligence by downloading the software at
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ and joining your computer to the
planetwide SETI effort. Available in versions for Windows, Mac, and
UNIX...yes! you, too, can carry the operating systems religious war
into outer space...
Canadian-turned-British top-ten tennis player Greg Rusedski reveals
he's a skeptic at heart by saying he's got about as much chance of
winning the French Open as sighting a UFO...
Crop circles are making a comeback, with funding from the
Rockefellers, thereby proving that if something isn't a mystery
(hoaxers have admitted making circles; hoax circles have been admitted
as indistinguishable from "real" ones) maybe it will become one if you
throw enough money at it. Not a waste of money, though: the best ones
are really beautiful, as the Nettishly inclined can admire at
http://www.aviation-uk.com/cropper/98busty2.htm...
A recent Maury Povitch show featured yet another psychic pushing his
book touting his talents as a medium, but succeeded only in making the
panel guest, whose presence on the show can be explained by its title,
"I need a psychic to talk to my dead loved one", was deeply distressed
because her dead mother was talking to lots of other relatives -- but
not to her...
Remember to click on the horse's ass at http://www.darwinwars.com...
>>>IN ISSUE 12.2 OF THE SKEPTIC>>>
Hits and Misses, by Simon Brophy: GM foods; Dental alchemy;
EMF-shielding underwear; Meta-analyses and the perils of second-hand
smoke; Rockefeller funds crop circle research; Brooke Bond brews
tasseography.
Features:
Blind Belief -- Rupert Sheldrake proposes double-blind testing for the
physical sciences. Abductions That Never Leave the Ground, part II --
Hilary Evans concludes his examination of abduction stories. Rewriting
the Past, by Dene Bebbington -- Holocaust denial examined. You Got
Rhythm, by Terence Hines -- New study of biorhythms. When is a Field
Theory Not a Field Theory?, by Matt Colborn -- Review of Rupert
Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance.
With:
Sprite, by Donald Rooum
Cartoons, by Tim Pierce
Skeptic in Chains..., by Wendy M. Grossman
Philospher's Corner, by Julian Baggini
Rhyme and Reason, by Steve Donnelly
Reviews of:
The Meme Machine (Susan Blackmore); How to Defend Yourself Against
Alien Abduction (Ann Druffel); Paranormal People (Paul Chambers); Life
After Death and the World Beyond (Jenny Randles and Peter Hough);
Barcodes in the Stars (Richard Dawkins); Uri Geller: Magician or
Mystic? (Jonathan Margolis); Vital Signs: A Complete Guide to the Crop
Circle Mystery (Andy Thomas); From Other Worlds: the Truth About
Aliens, Abductions, UFOs, and the Paranormal (Hilary Evans); The
Near-Death Experience: a Reader (Lee W. Bailey and Jenny Yates, eds);
Royal Statistical Society's "Parapsychology and the Paranormal"
conference.
>>>SOURCES FOR SKEPTICAL STATS>>>
1 Daily Telegraph
2 Daily Telegraph
3 Amateur Photographer
4 Richard Smith, editor of BMJ, Guardian
5 http://www.online-fengshui.com
6 http://www.cix.co.uk/~lord_bryan/Who_we_are/who_we_are.html
7 Woman's Own
8 Independent
9 Discover magazine
10 Independent
11 Discover magazine
12,13 Business Week
14-18 Columbia Journalism Review
19 Free Inquiry
20 Free Inquiry
21 Skeptical Inquirer
22,23 Daily Telegraph
24 Independent
25,26 USA Today
27 Computer programmers compiling a credit card checking database,
via the Guardian
Upcoming talks:
Thursday July 15: Tony Youens (ASKE) - Magic performance -
'Sleight of Mind'.
Thursday August 19: John Rimmer (Editor, Magonia magazine) -
A skeptical look at UFOs.
Monday September 21 (date tbc): Special guest - The 'Skeptic of Oz'
- Barry Williams - legendary Australian skeptic.
[Note new date for Barry's talk. Also, the venue for this talk may be
changed.]
[Friday 16th July, 1pm - 5pm: ASKE conference: 'Parapsychology:
Current Status And Future Prospects', Goldsmiths Coll, Rm MB185 (Small
Hall), New Cross, London SE14. Enq: k.ho...@gold.ac.uk or 0171 919
7051. Featuring Stanley Jeffers (York University, Toronto), Vic
Stenger (Univ of Hawaii), Caroline Watt (University of Edinburgh),
Richard Wiseman (University of Hertfordshire), Chris French, Wayne
Spencer (ASKE, http://linus.mcc.ac.uk/~moleary/ASKE/pub.html)
>>>PARAPSYCHOLOGY DAY AT GOLDSMITHS COLLEGE>>>
The Association for Skeptical Enquiry (ASKE) and Goldsmiths College
present a free conference
PARAPSYCHOLOGY: CURRENT STATUS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS
VENUE: Room MB185 (The Small Hall), Goldsmiths College, University of
London, New Cross, London SE14. This is located in the main campus
building. For a map see
http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/gcexp/cmapfrm.html. Queries to
k.ho...@gold.ac.uk (0171 919 7051)
DATE: 16th July 1999.
SPEAKERS:
13:00 Wayne Spencer (ASKE):
Introduction
13:05 Dr. Chris French (Goldsmiths College):
Many Happy Returns? Investigating Reincarnation Claims in the Lebanon
13:45 Dr. Victor Stenger (University of Hawaii):
Quantum Theories of Psychic Phenomena
14:25 Dr. Caroline Watt (University of Edinburgh):
A Replicable Psi Effect? Research Using the Ganzfeld Technique
15:05 Break
15:20 Dr. Stanley Jeffers (York University, Toronto): Claims for
Anomalous Effects Related to Consciousness - A Critical Appraisal
16:00 Dr. Richard Wiseman (University of Hertfordshire):
Investigating Psychics - A Skeptical Perspective
16:40 General question and answer session and concluding remarks.
17:00 Finish
=============================================================
Skeptical Digest 12.3 (Fall 1999)
Author: Skeptic (UK) Digest <dig...@skeptic.org.uk>
Date: 1999/10/07
Forum: sci.skeptic
--------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>Skeptical Digest 12.3 (Fall 1999)
--Please forward as widely as possible without spamming anyone--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>CONTENTS>>>
>>>Skeptical Stats>>>Dubious News>>>Skeptics in the Park>>>In this
issue>>>>>>Administrivia>>>Skeptics in the Pub>>>Parapsychology Day at
GoldsmithsCollege>>>
>>>SKEPTICAL STATS>>>
1. Amount of money attracted by Australian hoax Web site advertising
Millennium Bug insurance that would "triple your money": $4 million
2. Number of people who sent personal messages via MiniTel and a radio
telescope to extraterrestrial civilizations in the late 1980s: 10,500
3. Percentage of papers appearing in the British Journal of Psychiatry
in 1993 that were found to have statistical errors: 65
4. Number of human souls up for auction on eBay, June 1999: 1
5. Amount of bid, with six days to go: $15.50
6. Probability that two human irises will produce the same code for
recognition: 1 in 10 to the 78th
7. Percentage of the world's supply of electricity supplied by
nuclear power plants in 1997: 17
8. Number of plant species under threat of extinction: almost 34,000.
9. Percentage of plant species that number represents: 12.5
10. Number of firearms in private hands in the US: 243 million.
11. Number of gun control laws on the books in the US: 22,000.
12. Number of virgins who have bought an insurance policy against
immaculate conception next year: 10,113
13. Amount paid in Taiwan for the mobile phone number 456789, believed
to indicate ever-increasing success: $2,447
14. Cost of a one-on-one controlled remote viewing instruction course:
$2,500
15. Number of essays required during basic training, no computers
allowed: 5
16. Number of years Australian Breatharian Jasmuheen claims to have
survived without eating or drinking more than two cups of herbal tea
per day: 5
17. Number of children who die worldwide each year of starvation: 7
million
18. Maximum likely estimate of the number of large (2m-plus) unknown
open-water marine creatures awaiting description by science: 47
19. Average number of years between scientific descriptions of these
animals: 5.3
20. Number of UK members of the Astrological Society of Great Britain:
1,000
21. Number of publications: 4
22. Cost of e-meter, a device claimed by the Church of Scientology to
identify charged areas in the Scientology student's ("pre-clear"'s)
mind: 500 to 3,500
23. Number of patents granted on the device by the British Patent
Office: 0
24. Number of yogic flyers needed in the Balkans to stop the war:
7,000
25. Number of British winners at this year's IgNobel awards: 3.
For sources, see below
>>>DUBIOUS NEWS>>>
Would you believe it? The Web can take your picture:
http://webspinners.futura.net/zumaltsp/camera1.html...
Back when we were in college, a friend of ours who had been astounded
by the amount of his life and will he had to sign away to buy a
refrigerator on time, wrote up a similar contract for selling a soul.
He had these printed up in Gothic type on red paper, and thereafter,
whenever a panhandler approached him for money, he offered instead to
buy the beggar's soul. He never succeeded in buying one: most
panhandlers backed away, making the sign of the cross. Today, of
course, the Internet makes all these things easier; inquire within
eBay for all things
(http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=129092855),
betcha can't buy just one...
Feel alone and disconnected? Try sending your personal message into
the future via the KEO time capsule, a 31-inch sphere intended for
launch into space as a geostationary satellite that will fall to Earth
sometime around 50,000 years from now, when it will look like a
shooting star. KEO will contain a group portrait of humanity today,
samples of air, seawater, soil, and human blood, stacks of compact
discs containing a library of human knowledge plus personal letters
(maximum 6000 characters) from as many people as are willing to submit
them by postal mail or via the KEO Web site (http://www.keo.org) - and
instructions for building a compact disc player. Be careful what you
say to the future, though: those personal messages will be published
as soon as KEO launches...
Need to Know (Now), our role model, says John F. Kennedy Jr. is
"shoo-in" for the Darwin award (http://www.ntk.net)...
"Soon" you'll be able to watch for the Loch Ness monster, live on the
Net, at http://www.lochness.scotland.net/lochness/lochness_monster.htm
...
Kids these days. The Big Issue reported in June that South African
six-year-old Evan Purl woke up to find one of his father's friends
dressed up as the tooth fairy and with his hand under the child's
pillow. Purl concluded the man was an alien come to abduct him, and
(logically enough) hit him with a bedside lamp, bruising his skull and
breaking his collarbone...
Simon Hoggart reported in The Guardian on a West Midlands couple who
called in a vicar to exorcise their house after being haunted by the
ghostly screaming of a dead child; a few days later they found the cat
stuck in the chimney...
Alonzo Fyfe, of Applied Space Resources, has emailed to thank us for
including the news of his company's plans to charge $200 for a
pea-sized moon rock in last issue's Skeptical Stats. As expensive as
that sounds at first, Fyfe points out that the prices typically paid
for a 1g fragment of a meteorite determined to have been knocked from
the moon and fallen to Earth is $35,000. The top bid for such a
thing, a 0.2g (1 carat) fragment of lunar material brought back by
Russia's Luna program, was an unbelievable, whopping $442,000.
Finally, he points out that although the pictures NASA and JPL take
belong to the public under their charter from the US government, none
of the material brought back on the Apollo missions is allowed to pass
into public hands. "If anybody," he notes, "ever tells you that they
have a genuine piece of lunar material brought back by the Apollo
missions to sell you, please inform the local authorities. They are
almost certainly lying. Or, somewhere along the line, somebody has
broken the law." In other words, the availability to you, the willing
buyer, of moon rocks depends on private space flight getting off, er,
the ground. Gives you plenty of time to save up for it, anyway...
Let's get this Nostradamus/end of the world thing straight. Quoth the
quatrain: "In the year 1999 and seven months, the Great King of Terror
shall come from the sky. He will bring to life the King of the
Mongols. Before and after, Mars reigns happily". C 10 Q 72. OK, now.
Seven months: July. Come from the sky is clearly John F. Kennedy Jr,
and while he wasn't a King of Terror, a lot of the US media called him
"America's prince." And I bet he was pretty terrified while he fell to
earth. Close. Or...you could say "September" means "seventh month"
so what we're really waiting for is 9/9/99, when the Y2K computer bug
was expected to make its first serious appearance. Except, er,
nothing much happened...
Sometimes amateur pictures of the eclipse are the best ones:
http://www.metronet.co.uk/tup/eclipse.jpg...
Quoth Warren Buffett, the US's 2nd richest man, in his company
Berkshire Hathaway's 1998 annual report: "There are really only three
kinds of people in the world: those who can count and those who
can't)."
The Science Reporter (the newsletter of the Association of British
Science Writers) is asking all its readers to inspect all vegetables
and fruits carefully after a recent report of a tomato in Bradford
that when cut open displayed the name of God in Arabic. Special
points will be awarded to anyone who can find the words "Science
sucks."
>>>SOURCES FOR SKEPTICAL STATS>>>
1 RISKS Digest 20.37,
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/index.asp?URL=/national/4291177.htm
2 Discover Magazine, 6/99
3 Study cited in RISKS Digest 20.49
6 IriScan company information
7 CNN
8,9 World Conservation Union (via CNN)
10,11 Charlton Heston, National Rifle Association president, on Sky News
12 Independent on Sunday
13 Independent on Sunday
14,15 Remote Viewing Instruction Services, http://www.rviewer.com
16 Fortean Times
17 UNICEF, 1997
18,19 CGM Paxton, Journal of the Marine Biological Association
20,21 Astrological Association
22,23 Daily Telegraph
24 Daily Telegraph, quoting Natural Law Party presidential candidate
John Hagelin
25 Live Webcast at http://www.improb.com
>>>SKEPTICS IN THE PUB>>>
Upstairs in the Florence Nightingale pub, 199 Westminster Bridge Road,
London, SE1. Junction with York Road, on the roundabout. Near Waterloo
station. Guest ales and food available. Non-skeptics welcome. Turn up
at any time during the night.
The talk will be followed by informal discussion in a relaxed and
friendly pub atmosphere.
Skeptics in the Pub is a regular evening (usually on the third
Thursday) for all those interested in and/or skeptical of the
paranormal, alternative medicine, psychic powers, pseudo-science,
UFOs, alien abductions, creationism, Fortean phenomena, cult
religions, water-divining, lost civilizations, etc.
Further information and mailing list announcements available from
trisk...@hotmail.com
=============================================================
Skeptical Digest 12.4 (Winter 1999)
Author: Skeptic \(UK\) Digest <dig...@skeptic.org.uk>
Date: 2000/01/11
Forum: uk.media
--------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>Skeptical Digest 12.4 (Winter 1999)
--Please forward as widely as possible without spamming anyone--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>CONTENTS>>>
>>>Skeptical Slogans for 2000>>>Skeptical Stats>>>Dubious News>>>In
this issue>>>Administrivia>>>Skeptics in the Pub>>>
>>>Skeptical Slogans for 2000>>>
Do ghosts have keys?
Roswell or BUST!
Has anyone ever used a dyslexic Ouija board?
If they're so psychic, why don't they call you?
>>>SKEPTICAL STATS>>>
1. Cost of a 40" x 40" tabletop Vedic Observatory (including table)
which allows one's Self to be attuned with the eternal order of cosmic
life: $2,950.
2. Cost of book explaining the knowledge and purpose of the
observatory: $17.95.
3. Number of American prime-time TV shows featuring aliens: 2.
4. Difference between "safest" and "riskiest" mobile phone, in terms
of radiation emissions: 20:1.
5. Amount of unquestionable evidence that these levels of radiation
are at all risky to users: none.
6. Percentage of the UK population that bought National Lottery
tickets 1994-1998: over 90.
7. Frequency, on average, with which you would match all six numbers
if you spent £1,000 a week buying Lottery tickets: once in 270 years.
8. Number of guns, per month, residents are allowed to buy according
to a new California law: 1.
9. Actual capacity of a 1.44Mb floppy disk: 1.4Mb.
10. Amount lost on the Mars Orbiter because NASA thinks in metric and
its contractor, Lockheed Martin, thinks in feet and inches: $1.25
million
11. Amount Anthony Robbins pulls in every year from sales of books,
tapes, and seminars: more than $80 million.
12. Market value of Robbins's share of the publicly traded GHS, Inc,
of which Robbins is now majority owner (Robbins put no cash into the
deal, and the company has yet to launch its Web site, which Robbins
says will be "the eBay of personal and professional empowerment"):
$276 million as of 9/13/99.
13. Amount of time average worker spends in a working life waiting for
technical support: one year.
14. Number of National Lottery draws to date: 359
15. Percentage of the public that have bought lottery tickets: 91
16. Percentage of the public that gambled before the National Lottery:
69
17. Ranking of AIDS among world's killer infections: 1
18. Ranking of AIDS among all killer conditions: 4
19. Number of deaths worldwide due to AIDS in 1998: 2.3 million
20. Length and height (when extended to chew leaves) of the newly
identified Jobariatiguidensis species of dinosaur, that roamed the
African landscape 135 million yearsago: 60 feet, 30 feet.
21. Number of comets Nostradamus predicted would appear to destroy the
Earth "in the year 1999 and seven months": 1
22. Number of Mystery theme parks to be set up by Erich von Daniken
and business partners in the Swiss Alps by 2002 to allow visitors to
explore "unexplained" phenomena such as the Egyptian pyramids in Giza
or the Nazca drawings in Peru via computer animations: 1
23. Number of visitors von Daniken hopes to attract the first year:
300,000-400,000
24. Number of independent heath food retailers in Britain: about 1,700
25. Number of shops visited that gave correct advice when approached
by a customer describing symptoms that could indicate a serious
condition: 1 out of 30 (two more gave reasonable advice, but the rest
sold herbal "treatments".)
For sources, see below
>>>DUBIOUS NEWS>>>
For those who like to review past science follies, the National
Capital Area Skeptics(NCAS) has posted the 1989 report of the Cold
Fusion Panel of the US Department of Energy's Energy Research Advisory
board (ERAB) on its Web site (www.ncas.org/erab/). The NCAS notes,
"The panel analysed claims that nuclear fusion could be initiated in
an electrolytic apparatus similar to the setup that is used to
generate hydrogen and oxygen in high school chemistry labs. These
claims were found wanting for a variety of reasons, and the panel
recommended that the department refrain from setting up any special
programs to fund cold fusion studies. The conclusions and
recommendations of the panel represented the consensus of mainstream
science at that time, and continue to do so today"...
A great story circulated on one of the skeptics' email lists recently.
According to the tale, when NASA scientists found that astronauts
couldn't write in space, the agency spent a fortune developing the
space pen (http://www.spacepen.com), which famously writes upside down
and sideways in all conditions. Well, we know the pen is true. So
the story is that when things got friendlier between the US and Russia
at some point some NASA guys thought to ask the Russians how *they*
managed (because, of course, they never developed the space pen...or
Tang, either -- now what does *that* tell us?). We just gave them
pencils, came the reply. Now, it's a very nice story and it's very
cute (oh, look at the stupid Americans who always want to spend money
when there's a simple answer), particularly if you ignore what space
might be like with a lot of pencil shavings floating around. But it's
not, as someone a little more informed on the list pointed out. It's
one of those urban legends. Early American missions did use pencils.
And the pen wasn't developed by NASA, it was developed by the Fisher
pen company as a universal refill cartridge; NASA just bought the
astronauts some pens. But it *sounds* true, like all the best urban
legends do. Until you remember that this is an agency that's having
trouble telling English measurements from metric ones, so if it did
develop a pen, probably the cartridges wouldn't fit...
Progressive Texas columnist (yes, there really can be such a thing)
Molly Ivins suggests in a column on the "Ooops!" factor in American
scientific life that
Learn how to read tea leaves...er, we mean stock price charts. It
seems that there's a caper out there called "technical analysis," in
which otherwise perfectly normal, sober, business-suited people read
the future of a stock's price and its value by looking at the pretty
patterns made by its charted prices over the last one month to five
years (depending, we presume, on what they're trying to prove).
Bollinger bands, relative strength index, moving averages...plotted
against the stock prices these are all attempts to impose patterns
where none exist. A sample of the thinking (if that's the right word)
involved here is the claim that if the stock price hits the upper
Bollinger band while simultaneously hitting an RSI of 70, the stock
will turn downward. Another complex of technical analysis charts see
patterns called things like candles, head-and-shoulders, triangles,
and so on. Finding these patterns purports to help you predict what's
going to happen next. As in: if the stock price starts to drop below
the right hand "shoulder" level on a head-and-shoulders pattern, watch
out for a major slide. So-called "momentum" investors (as opposed to
"value" investors, who sleep nights by buying stock and holding it for
many years) have lost lots of money using these charts as divination
tools to help them figure out when to buy or sell. Some people have
made money, of course, if only because since lots of people use these
charts (samples are broadcast regularly on CNBC), the self-fulfilling
prophecy comes into effect. Personally, we think it would be easier
just to get a few monkeys to throw darts at the Big Board, but hey!,
it's your money (why is it no one can stand to just look at the
figures in the company earnings reports?)...
According to Discover Magazine, one way to see leprechauns or tiny
people like Lilliputians is to take jimsonweed, which grows wild in
the Western plains of the US. Of course, along with the Little People
you'll also probably get symptoms like seizures, a rising heartbeat,
and a bunch of other problems that will land you in the ER.
They're strange, inhuman, and independent, and they stare at you with
impenetrable, alien eyes. The Proof is Out There, at
http://home.tampabay.rr.com/dapage/mars/marscats.htm...
Even a company the size of Intel is spooked by the number of the
beast. Last April, IT Week reports, Intel decided to renumber its new
ultra-fast 666MHz processor as a 667MHz part. IT Week predicts that
customers may sue over the missing 1MHz. We think Intel should have
embraced the 666's true El Diablo nature.
The good news for smokers is that they can smoke without having to
have sex first. A new study, jointly sponsored by Ash and the British
Medical Association, has produced the happy news that smoker's droop
is a real problem -- and one they hope will mean more to the teenagers
they're trying to dissuade from smoking than the dire warnings of
cancer, heart disease, and emphysema sometime in the far, far distant
future...
The Independent on Sunday reported on August 8 that "Aliens are in
control of Blair, say Serb psychics." Apparently one of the
consequences of the trauma of war has been a wild increase in the
level of paranormal belief. At all levels: not only have aliens
apparently been living in Kosovo all this time, but the Yugoslavian
army has set up a special squad to "confront the black magic forces
deployed by the Us Army." Apparently the US is out there training
witches and warlocks in a secret location in Texas. The worse news,
however, is apparently the reappearance of a Danube monster that's
been spotted swimming near Novi Sad...
We really do use all our brains, according to the Skeptic's Dictionary
at http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html. Well, what's
left of them after the alcohol-strewn Millennial celebrations. HAPPY
NEW YEAR! HAPPY CENTURY! HAPPY MILLENNIUM! (How often do you get to
say *that*?)
>>>IN THIS (DOUBLE) ISSUE OF THE SKEPTIC (12.3-12.4)
Hits and Misses
Nessie, the Tourist Monster
The Strange Astronomical Beliefs of the Hare Krishnas (Marc LaChapelle)
The Face on Mars -- Explained (Paul Chamberlain)
Radio Psychics (Tony Youens)
Fantastic Skepticism (David Eccott)
Satanic Ritual Abuse: Does it Exist? (Peter Ward)
Immortality...or not (Barry Seidman)
Scientists and the Paranormal (Harry Edwards)
Columns by Steve Donnelly, Wendy M. Grossman, Julian Baggini.
Sprite (Donald Rooum)
Reviews:
Anything Goes: Origins of the Cult of Scientific Irrationalism (David
Stove); Bible Prophecy: Failure or Fulfillment? (Tim Callahan); Magic
and Mystery in Ancient Egypt (Christian Jacq); Conjuring Spirits:
Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic (Claire Fanger, Ed.);
Fortean Studies Volume 5 (Steve Moore, Ed.); The Jesus Mysteries: Was
the original Jesus a Pagan God? (Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy);
Nostradamus: the Next 50 Years (Peter Lemesurier); Arrival of the
Gods: Revealing the Alien Landing Sites of Nazca (Erich von Daniken);
The Discovery of the Grail (Andrew Sinclair); Shamanism: Traditional
and Contemporary Approaches to the Mastery of Spirits and Healing
(Merete Demant Jakobsen); Galileo's Commandment: An Anthology of Great
Science Writing (Edmund Blair Bolles,Ed.); Probability 1: Why There
Must be Intelligent Life in the Universe (Amir Aczel); Music: The New
Age Elixir (Lisa Summer with Joseph Summer); Uriel's Machine: The
Prehistoric Technology That Survived the Flood (Christopher Knight and
Robert Lomas); Remote Viewing: The History and Science of Psychic
Warfare and Spying (Tim Rifat); Office Feng Shui in a Week (Lisa
Sumner with Joseph Sumner); Mind Myths: Exploring Popular
Assumptionsand the Mind and the Brain (Sergio Della Salla, Ed.); Scams
from the Great Beyond: How to make easy money off ESP, astrology,
UFOs, crop circles, cattle mutilations, alien abductions, Atlantis,
channelling and other New Age nonsense (Peter Huston); Too Good to be
True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends (Jan Harold Brunvand)
>>>SOURCES FOR SKEPTICAL STATS>>>
1,2 http://www.city-net.com/~dkrieger/gifs/observe1.jpg
3 Entertainment Weekly
4,5 Study by the Institute for Satellite and Mobile Communications,
reported in the Independent
6,7 Taking Chances: Winning With Probability, by John Haigh
8. Personal communication
9. Do the math
10. Cited by Molly Ivins, whose columns appear regularly at
http://www.star-telegram.com/columnist/ivins2.html
11,12. Business Week, 9/13/99
13. Press release from System Management Partners Ltd, 6/17/99
14,15,16. The Independent, June 4, 1999
17,18,19 UN report by the World Health Organisation
20. Independent, November 12, 1999
21 Any collection of the quatrains; analysis at
http://www.escape66.org/KingOfTerror.htm
22,23 Reuters
24,25 Which? report
>>>ADMINISTRIVIA>>>
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pyro...@my-deja.com
Jumangi know, Jumangi has been receiving a lecture on quite a few
topics and sub-topics. Because of his good behavior and punctuality
(not being tardy!), as well as effort, he received a C- in his last
course. ;-)
> pyro wrote:
> > Randall Robinson is a "professor" of law, not a historian.
>
> I think that's what my statement had said already, and the point
> was not addressing a thesis of relative merits for "law vs history"
> in terms of credibility, but whether a "professor" of law should be
> awarded higher credibility than merely "some guy on C-Span." You
> are introducing a new thread by recasting the subject as "history,"
> since the earlier remarks were posted under the topical heading of
> "Nature vs. Nurture."
If you are going to participate in this forum, you are naturally going
to draw scrutiny. If you are going to make an assertion, those who
participate in this forum will (hopefully) take what you have said into
consideration and try to correct any errors or perceived errors so that
it can be a learning experience for all. This is not a Mickey Mouse
forum; we are not here to show eachother how much we agree on issues.
You are playing with the Big Boys; naturally, the mentally weak ones
will get weeded out because they cannot handle a thought-provoking and
challenging dialogue.
Your strawman attempt to miscast the intent
> of my remarks under a "history" heading, to which I do not lay claim,
> is patently transparent, and quite obviously fallacious. Even so, I
> am uncertain by what kind of "logic" you should arrive at the notion
> that a "professor" of history should be granted higher credibility
> than a "professor" of law, as both history and law must overlap to
> a considerable degree.
It is very clear that in citing a professor of law at Harvard who
asserted that the Spanish Moors were chief among those who participated
in Black slavery, you were attempting to detract from allegations of
Jewish participation or predominance in the trade. By being taciturn
on the Jewish role, yet _enthusiastically_ pointing out that of others,
you are tacitly playing down Jewish participation; you are willfully
ignoring evidence that has been presented here, and its implications.
The Arabs _were_ involved in the Black slave trade. However, most of
their participation was centered in North Africa, the Middle East, and
parts of Asia. The Jews played a far more significant role in the
transatlantic trade than the Arabs, or "Moors." Since issues of
political correctness tend to involve African-Americans moreso than
those of Negro ancestry in North Africa, the Middle East, and parts of
Asia, there is little point to emphasizing Arab participation whilst
being non-committal on the Jewish role.
The Black slave trade peaked in the 18th century. By then it had been
at least 100 years since the Moors (even those who were converted to
Christianity) were expelled from Spain.
In fact it is my experience that lawyers are
> better than historians at cognitive-skill enterprises, such as Chess,
> which are more highly correlated with "intelligence quotient" (IQ)
> than any other direct measure.
According to _the Bell Curve_, lawyers have an average IQ of about
124. One study undertaken by a prominent IQ psychologist awhile ago
found Ph.D.'s averaging about 127. Thus, I doubt there'd be a
significant difference between the IQ's of historians (considering that
many have Ph.D's) and those of lawyers. I would expect any "historian"
to possess an exceptional amount of general knowledge; and let's keep
in mind, general knowledge and verbal skills correlate highly to IQ, as
I pointed out to Fischer.
While it is true that a more "fluid" intelligence -- the ability to
react and adapt to a fast-paced and unpredictable environment -- is
required among lawyers, fluid intelligence is but one type of
intelligence (although fluid intelligence tests correlate highly to
others). Some people may need more time than others to resolve complex
problems; but that does not mean they are dumber -- they may actually
be much deeper and more analytical. Christopher Brand, the IQ expert
who was booted out of his teaching position at Edinburgh University for
his controversial views, considers himself as the "deep thinker" type.
> Historians might easily fall prey to ideological bent whereas lawyers
> operate within fluid social contexts where many ideologies may become
> compared for relative utility, truth, propriety, or specific context.
With your admission that "historians might easily fall prey to
ideological bent," I take it you oppose legislation with aim to impede
or hinder open discussion of World War II?
> pyro wrote:
> > It appears you are a bit confused as to what "political
> > correctness" really is. Political correctness is not about the
> > correctness, or perceived correctness, of opinions or views, but
> > arbitrary restrictions as to how members of a society can express
> > themselves.
>
> However, you were about to "correct" me on those semantics of
> "political correctness" so the suppression (represented by what
> you term "arbitrary restrictions") of views would, according to
> you, also seem to apply upon efforts here that would arrive at a
> semantics of "political correctness." To get at this crux, what
> would need to qualify as an "arbitrary restriction?" What is
> "arbitrary" about the actions of a legislature or court of law?
I am not out to blacken your name just because you disagree with me; I
am not giving a homily as to why people with your views are dangerous
for society, or making a Freudian/pseudo-psychological analysis of you
simply because you have a different view. Again, political correctness
has nothing to do with the correctness, or perceived correctness, of
views or opinions. "Political correctness" is a degenerate ideology in
which society is viewed in the context of oppressors and the oppressed
(of course this is a bit over-simplified). But this is an ideology
that can be easily refuted. Political correctness is predicated on the
notion that the races are of equal ability, that the sexes are the same
except for their reproductive functions, etc. Political correctness is
egalitarianism transposed from an economic context to a cultural
context. It is not so much an ideology as it is about groups of
marginalized -- and at times conflicting -- factions within society
that work cohesively to achieve their ends.
>
> Today's Communist Party can be regarded as tolerable under their
> constitutionally protected minority status because the USA Communist
> Party does not lay claim to being a satellite agency of forces which
> had earlier in a mid 20th-century advertised themselves as inimical
> to the established government of this country, perhaps with intent
> at violent overthrow.
The Communist Party of America is no longer regarded as a threat not
because there has been a fundamental change in their ideology or belief
system, but because Communism is no longer in vogue. Communism fell in
Eastern Europe and other parts of the world; thus, to espouse Communism
as a political ideology today is almost like claiming the earth is flat
(not exactly since for some Marxism is an _ideal_ more than a political
ideology). Today Communists are very much in the mainstream -- the
rock group Rage Against the Machine is among the most popular among
younger people, and they openly support Marxist regimes abroad and
advocate a revolution in America in their lyrics. The poet Allen
Ginsberg -- who was fond of writing about his anus, as well as his
deviant sexual fantasies, including fucking his mom -- was an avowed
Communist sympathizer, and is among the most popular among the liberal
college professors in the English departments of America's
universities. Read Agent99's "The Paedophile Jew."
> No, I would think your argument more suitably expressed when
> considering that how "powers that be" have been implementing a
> "(subjective) morality or ethics." What distinguishes subjective
> from objective might be -precisely- that "pretext" you would wish
> to say is "arbitrary" since the subjective is more likely to be
> highly volatile, and "subject to" various whims and caprices, i.e.
> wishy-washy social changes back-and-forth in the legal/political
> process. Volatility in social policy identifies its potential
> incorrectness, a volatility of subjective special interest groups
> and not the stability rendered by an objective long-range vision.
> I would think, therefore, that "political correctness" should aim
> at stable objectivity rather than volatile subjectivity, and since
> stable objectivity will also win at the argument it should also
> obtain the ultimate attribute of being "politically correct."
Interesting analysis.
> My fundamental contention stands, as with New Testament advice,
> that if you wish to trump those who claim righteousness, then you
> must become more righteous than they are.
Not necessarily. Being anti-hypocrisy does not equate to being more
moral, or even claiming to be as such; it just means you dislike
certain types of bullshitters.
> pyro wrote:
> > Outside of the Arabian peninsula, Arabs were not very influential
> > until they were converted to Islam by Mohammed in the 7th century
> > and consequently driven by a raging fanaticism to convert others in
> > their "jihad." At around the time of Zarathustra, the Persians were
> > very Indo-European with perhaps some Semitic/Turkic elements
> > beginning to seep its way in. The Persians did not come into much
> > contact with the Jews until Cyrus the Great took Babylon and
> > allowed the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem.
>
> Interesting observations, I suppose, from conditions that were then
> while this is now. Jews and Arabs lived in harmony during Persia's
> zenith, and I see nothing which might prevent another similar zenith.
The Jewish holiday of "Purim" is celebrated in remembrance of the
Jewish "emancipation" from the Persian yoke. From what I understand,
this event occurred around the zenith of the Persian empire, and cost
the lives of about 60,000 Persians. While Cyrus the Great was friendly
with Jews and other marginalized religious groups, his successors were
not. The Persian empire reached Egypt with Cambyses, and made forays
into Greece with Xerxes I.
> I'd imagine that Jews are among the first to admit to hypocrisy,
> since their literature claims hypocrisy is a fundamental condition
> of existence, so if they're not following their own literature then
> we'd have a case of "hypocrisy to that hypocrisy observation."
There are many volumes of Jewish scriptures and much of it is
conflicting, from what Jews have told me. Besides, we are talking
about Jews as an ethnic group, not a religious group. Orthodox Jews
tend to be more conservative -- although they are probably just as
chauvanistic. Indeed, their religion tells them that they are "God's
Chosen."
Regards,
Pyro