40th Anniversary - Apollo 11!

Congratulations of course, to Neil, Buzz and Michael, this being the 40th Anniversary of the first landing on the moon.

Raspberries and a cactus up the anus, to all the conspiracy fruitcakes that reckon it never happened. They are endlessly tedious and collectively have a negative brain cell count. The day Buzz punched one in the face (the jerk sprang out at Buzz and called him a liar, a thief and a cheat) was a great day for Truth, Justice, and the American Way! :-)

I do have a 40 year old grudge with Neil though.

He was so hyped up after landing that he insisted on skipping a three hour rest break scheduled for before the moonwalk. NASA caved and he and Buzz went out early. And I missed seeing the whole thing, as I was stuck in a compulsory school exam. My school refused to reschedule the exam just because of a little something happening on the Moon... It was all over before I got home. I couldn't see anything at school, as my school didn't have any televisions...

"Next time for sure!" I thought.

Nope. Al Bean buggered the Apollo 12 video camera by pointing it at the sun just after he and Pete Conrad started their moonwalk.

"Next time for sure!" I thought.

Nope. Apollo 13 never landed, but that's another story.

"Next time for sure!" I thought.

AMAZING! FINALLY! Live TV from the moon with Apollo 14! Wee...!

You too can be great writer in the comfort of your own home...

I have learned (thanks to Phil Plait) about a really neat website where you can submit short stories. Others may read and rate your stories and you can of course read and rate others. The site is called Ficly, and its really well done. The neat thing is that a single story can be no more than 1024 characters long, so you really have to be economical in your story telling. You can also write prequels and sequels to your own or other's stories.

I have submitted two stories so far.

The most recent, starring everyone's favourite fundie bigot, Fred Phelps is called Fred's Day and was up for about a minute before someone read and rated it. Wee.

If you like writing at all, give it a go...

Sri Lanka mystic reveals an answer to our problems

The Sri Lankan government has arrested a popular astrologer who predicted that the country's president would be ejected from office.

It's hard to pick the greater moron - the astrologer or the government genius who ordered the arrest. Probably the astrologer. He should have known better than to point the bone at a powerful figure in a country well mired in poverty and superstitious crap.

Still...

...it does give one an idea...

Ahem. I shall call forth my previously well shaded psychic astrological powers once endowed upon me by the venerated Gnostrell Earth Goddess of Foon, and confidently predict that out present Nanny Prime Minister Kevin '07 Rudd will be STABBED TO DEATH by every single member of the present Labor Caucus on or before the next Ides of March.

I mean, how much can they (or us) put up with? I am a long time Labor voter, but I am a little tired of all the self serving knee-jerk Mrs Grundy puritan crap oozing from this guy. He really would be better placed running for a spot in the U.S. Congress. They like that sort of thing there.

So, to get the crystal ball rolling, here's a little 100% guaranteed death spell:


... and by the magic of magick, we can sit back and watch Kevvie's inevitable doom unfold.

Aaaaaah.

Now to use my awesome skills on a Lotto ticket...

Hund-schwein!

Tee hee.

(...author undetermined, but 'Good Job!', whoever you are...)

Taliban Logic

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

---

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."

---

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...