Pareidolia Party #1

I love pareidolia. You skeptics out there already know what that is. For the benefit of the pre or non-skeptic, pareidolia is the human ability to recognise patterns or pictures in random information.

A really good example surfaced recently: The face of Christ in the cross-section of a Kit Kat bar. What amuses me is that this is not the usual face-of-Christ in a shadow or a toasted sandwich, but the face-of-Christ as depicted in the Turin Shroud. Here is the Kit Kat:


...and here is the Turin Shroud:



The Turin Shroud image is a photographic negative, since the Catholic/deluded believers think he looks more believeable and worshippable that way. I agree, assuming it is not Photoshop'd (Annie thinks it is), that it is a pretty good match, even is if it IS missing the blood splatters. I picked a Turin Shroud picture already tinted a nice dark brown so as to match the Kit Kat better.

Proof positive of the Divine Influence of GOD on a chokkie bar!!! Yowza!!!

...but wait...

The Shroud of Turin has been pretty conclusively debunked. It is a medieval fake.

Unless, of course, you are a credulous member of the aforementioned Catholic/deluded faith.

So, God has chosen to create the image of a forgery of the image of Jesus, in a chocolate bar. If so, he is displaying a rarely obvious sense of humour here.

Let us gaze on another recent Jesus sighting:

It would seem that The Lord is confused about what he really looked like on his brief stop-over in human history. This is a slab of concrete with an oil stain on it. Its owner managed to extract over $1500 off some religious idiot for it.

To put it another way, if God was REALLY planting happy-snaps of himself in and around our planet, you would think he would keep the image vaguely consistent. These things always have beards (the Jesus ones, not the Virgin Mary!). Beyond that the resemblances are pretty thin.


Is this yet another Jesus revealing himself in a mysterious way, or a baby in a bonnet sitting on daddy's knee?

Sheesh, people can be thick...

Stupid Pommie Tabloids #2

The Telegraph 28th March 2009

Dumb-ass headline: Victorian 'ghost' picked up by Google Street View
A ghostly figure dressed in Victorian clothes was filmed on Google Street View - before vanishing into thin air.
Dumb-ass journalist: Sarah Knapton

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Experts have been called in to examine the Google ghoul filmed at a former Victorian docklands which has a dark and sinister past. She was captured by the Google Street View cameras in Tiger Bay, Cardiff - the scene of murders and unsolved mysteries going back 200 years.

Local medium Jane Cohen, 39, said: "Apparitions have often been caught on film but are invisible to the naked eye. But what is really strange is that she doesn't appear as a full figure - you can't see all of her."

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Now, either the editorial staff of the Telegraph thinks its entire readership is completely thick between the ears (and I'm sure a good percentage of them are) or, the entire editorial staff of the Telegraph is thick between the ears. The only clue that they are not would be the quotes around the word 'ghost' in the headline.

The 'local medium' is thick between the ears by definition so I will let her off. She has no choice but to grasp at any straw thrust her way.

The journalist only needed to consult ANY of the telegraph's photographic staff to reveal this as the non-story it is.

Google Street View images are stitched together from many separate photographs from moving cameras. As the point of view is changing a little or a lot between each recording it follows that the joins will often show.

The join in this particular image is so bleeding obvious that I am amazed that the Telegraph had the gall to try and pull this off at all. Look at the posts around the 'ghost' and look at the distorted posts below the stitch line to get an idea of how different the camera placement is. Indeed it seems to me that the part of the image below the 'ghost' is made up of at least 3 images.

All in all this is the most pathetic attempt at passing nothing off as a spirit photograph that I have seen in years.

Creationism Explained #1

Creationism apologist (or not :-) ) Jim H. sent me this image after seeing my timeline History of Everything, the YEC side of which I wholeheartedly endorse.

Saith Jim H: "But...but...but...what about this? How can this not be true?"


Well Jim H., be happy, and prance with fife and timbrels, for I tell thee it IS true!

According to rarely published sacred tomes, a couple of weeks after Creation had been wrapped up and while still in the planning stages for what to do with it, the Lord decided to have a dress rehearsal for 'Riding into Jerusalem' (yet to be built, but just getting in early). A mount of suitable stature was chosen.

Alas, the test drive did not go well - the tiny brained creature wanted to walk sideways most of the time and the stench of its excrement was strong enough to drop a horse.

So the Lord smote all the dinosaurs, in his Infinite Mercy, and he spent the next few thousand years picking something else. He picked a donkey. Go figure.

If it were me, I'd have gone with the air-conditioned and palmfrond-proof PopeMobile, but hey, its His Universe.

Young Earth Creationists vs Reality

Young Earth Creationists (YECs) believe the whole world and the entire Universe was created by God less than 10,000 years ago.

Yes, you're right: barking mad.

10,000 years is somewhat less than the time it takes light to travel from the centre of our Milky Way galaxy to here. Yet astronomers can see galaxies more than 13 billion light years away.

As a silly service to truth and understanding I present an unbiased timeline history of the Universe. I leave out a few trillion events, but waddaya gunna do?

And oh, yeah: each vertical pixel below is equal to over 2 million years...

Young Earth Creationists really need to get a sense of perspective.

Quick! Fetch the Total Perspective Vortex...

Fluffy Corners - The Genteel Petros #1

I got a bit carried away in my last post.

Lest I come across as just a grumpy old curmudgeon without a kind word to say about anything (jeez! the truth hurts!), I promise to blog occasionally to show my soft and gooey side. My smurfy aspect.

Ikky diddle wumkins.

So, to kick off 'Fluffy Corners', here is picture I pulled off the admirable worth1000.com website, because it is so Gosh Darned Heart-warmity Cute!

Everyone go 'Awwwwww...!'


Awwwwww!

See? I can do warm and fuzzy too. Just like this little tyke...

It's Official - God is a murderous scumbag - Fred said so

A blessing of enlightenment from the most pious of all earthly Christians, the Reverend Fred Phelps, head of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas:

God is getting it off, creaming his jeans and rolling on the floor in hysterics, about his successful campaign to kill off Australians in the recent Victorian bushfire disaster. More than 210 and counting. All the dead Aussies: women, children, animals and pooftas hurled on an express plummet into the Lake o' Fire. Australia brought it on itself, says Fred, because of Heath Ledger (now also fashionably burning and screaming in Hell forever) and his fag promotin' film "Two words…..BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN!!!!"

So, as befits a nation of hateful non-bible-believing fag enablers, Holy and everlasting God Almighty is killing Australians every way He can. Read all about it here.

So there you have it - the Most Reverend Fred Phelps has revealed the truth. That God is a vicious, hateful, murderous, sadistic, homophobic, vile and treacherous scumbag who, I'm absolutely sure, Fred would agree should be sentenced to DEATH!

Com'on Fred - you know supreme evil when you see it! Sentence God to the DEATH He clearly deserves! Throw His holier-than-thou spook body, screaming, into an industrial meat grinder! You know you want to.

You have been calling God a hateful shit for years - so put your blame where it REALLY belongs and screw the stinking magical cock-sucker in the sky! It's only fair. You know - to follow His Holy Example...

There is nothing quite as stupid as the Pommie tabloid press

I think I should make a series out of this. Let's start with:

Stupid Pommie Tabloids #1

The Mirror 14-Feb-2009

Dumb-ass headline: The Dark Side of the Moon: 40 years after moon landing the doubts persist

Dumb-ass journalist: Dennis Ellam

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It doesn't seem to matter how often and how completely this particularly stupid conspiracy theory gets torn down; it will always pop up again, pretending to be fresh and new.

Every single hoax detail the writer breathlessly reveals has been debunked countless times. Anyone with half a shred of intelligence can see that the whole conspiracy is a load of crap.

But here it is - again.


This isn't the moon, you see. It is "an elaborate mock-up in a movie studio somewhere in a remote corner of an Earthly desert."

You want proof? There's acres of it:

1. Heaps of American believe the landings were a hoax. 6% in 1979. 11% in 1999. 22% "recently"... that would be 60 million doubting yanks. "It's embarrassing now for NASA to realise that, as a four-decade anniversary approaches, a rapidly-growing body of public opinion is convinced the greatest moment was a fake." PROOF!

2. 1960's era computers were too primitive to do it. PROOF!

3. The lighting was too good. The lighting cast shadows in weird directions. PROOF!

4. No stars in the pictures. PROOF!

5. Buzz Aldrin punches a dumb-ass conspiracy theorist on the nose who is trying in shove a bible at him so he can swear on it that he is not lying about going to the moon. Buzz is clearly guilty! PROOF! (Note: Dumb-ass journalist Ellam calls the dumb-ass conspiracy theorist a "TV Reporter" BZZZT. Nope. Just a loon 'film maker' trying to falsely nail someone who actually achieved something amazing in his life. I am not a supporter of violence, but in this case it's a pity Buzz didn't actually hurt this jerk. I have seen the video and the 'reporter' deserved more than he got. It went to court when the 'film maker' sued Buzz, but the judge just as quickly threw it out again. Heh.)

6. "The most telling evidence, say the HBs (Hoax Believers), is that the Moons still there, 250,000 miles away, but we dont go there any more... Has science moved so far backwards? Or are we about to celebrate the day when it really took all of us for a ride? That small step begins to look even more mysterious than ever." PROOF! KNOCK-OUT PUNCH!

What complete drivel.

I am not going to debunk this rubbish again here as it has been done elsewhere better than I can do it. Go to: http://www.clavius.org/ or http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html and have a fun read.

The Mirror obviously has a very low opinion of the intelligence of its readers. There is nothing new in this story. This tired list of 'evidence' has been regurgitated endlessly for years.

I even wonder if this present story isn't just a reprint of a very old story by a lazy (probably an essential skill for an employee of the Mirror) sub-editor. It says: "But the HBs have begun to gather important allies. A former engineer who worked on the design of Apollo rockets Bill Kaysing had his doubts during the 1960s..."

"BEGUN" to gather Bill Kaysing? He was the certified loon who started this nonsense. And he was NOT an engineer.

Oh, and yes: this recently gathered important ally of the HB's died on 25th April 2005. Killed by aliens, I heard.

Good ol' Bill is making much more intelligent pronouncements these days...

COME ALL YE FAITHFUL

Not according to this bunch of cheery fundie funsters:



Go to this site and you can watch a video where Amy and LaKai and Larrell and Blair and Nyasha can tell you all about how cool it is to be an Ex-Masturbator for Christ. And you can buy the bitchin' t-shirt to show the world you are free from Satan's super sexual sin trap. Hallelujah.

As one who has long left behind silly fears about the evils of masturbation carefully implanted by the morality mafia, I find it quite sad that there are young people out there still buying into these delusions. As a teenager in the 1960's/1970's I actually learned somewhere that masturbation would give me Syphilis. Great. Combine that with a fear that my recently deceased Grandmother was possibly watching me in the bath from 'the other side' and I was a bit of a mess internally. It didn't stop me from masturbating though... :-)

Masturbation remains the safest most harmless form of sex. As Woody Allen said: "It is having sex with someone you love"... Heck, it should be openly encouraged, and 'moral' idiots such as those above should be told to pull their heads in. Public, free Masturbatoriums! Come one, come all! It would reduce teen pregnancy, sexual ignorance and phobias, the spread of AIDS and other STDs, road rage, rape, other forms of sexual violence, etc.

Maybe some more enlightened christian groups need to come out in support of this ultimate form of safe sex. They could even do a better t-shirt:



Aaah! That's better.

Going for the record here...

To quote the 'news' pages in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb):

Hudson's Love For Steamy Photos

Kate Hudson has some good news for her male fans - she has vowed to carry on stripping off for raunchy photoshoots.

The Bride Wars actress enjoys posing for racy pictures, and is happy to shed her clothes for the cameras in the name of art.

She tells MTV.co.uk, "I love doing them and I will do more. It's fun. Also, I've come to appreciate the skill of the photographer. It's a real art. I'm very interested in that side of it.

Now count the puerile sexual adjectives in this quite short story. There are three: 'steamy', 'racy' and 'raunchy'. Usually stories of this sort get just one or two pearls out of the journalist's treasure trove of creaky clichés. Three? Definitely heading for a record. Other frequent choices include 'naughty' and of course the ever popular 'saucy'.

Every single IMDb story that hints at sexuality gets the saucy, racy, steamy, naughty, raunchy treatment. You can almost hear the tittering of the spotty 13 year old boys pounding this crap out for publication.

Another nearby story refers to a possible X-rated topless scene for the new Star Trek movie. This was quickly howled down and assurances were made that NO! The film will be 'Family Friendly'...!

Oh puh-leeze. A 'topless' shot is worth an X-rating? Only in America, land of the pure.

Or is that: America, Land of the Puerile...

Happy 'Nother Year

'Tis the daytime of the first of the new year.

We were in bed by 11.30 last night after watching three episodes of "House", and were playing an episode of the "Skeptic's Guide to the Universe" podcast rather loudly, to drown out the neighbouring party goers in all their drunken glory.

We are rather 'over' celebrating New Year as such.

Age doesn't make the passing years something one particularly wants or needs to celebrate.

The new year however, does promise to be different.

My work situation will change drastically, as everyone else in my work group has been centralised, leaving me as a little island in my organisation. This is not necessarily bad, as web development work is rather solitary anyway, but it will feel very different, not belonging to an IT group anymore. I will be stapled losely to the Admin group. They are good people so it should be OK, but I lose all my direct IT camaraderie.

Oh well.