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News Briefs 03-10-2005

My thoughts go out to the victims of the recent terrorist attack in Bali, and especially to the traditional indigenous people of Bali who stand to lose the most. They’re caught in the middle between religious fanatics and Western tourists who just want to have a good time … I hope the Balinese find a peaceful balance between the powers of Indonesia and Islam, and the tourist dollar.

  • The main drug designed to vaccinate against the Bird Flu might not work at all.
  • Will the real conservatives please stand up? Whitley Strieber discusses the perversion of conservatism in American politics. Likewise in Australia, where the Liberals are anything but.
  • Trust me, some liars are wired to do it, and a select few are naturals at spotting a lie. I’m neither, I’m too honest to lie, and I’m too trusting to spot one — except when it comes to politicians.
  • How gullible are you? Take this test to find out! I’m a learner, but really I’m just a gullible twit for taking the test in the first place.
  • A review of The Men Who Stare At Goats, by Jon Ronson (Amazon US or UK). Try staring at a cat …
  • Is the 2005 energy crisis making you feel nostalgic for bell-bottom jeans, bra burning and peace symbols? I miss the free love.
  • Arctic ice is disappearing quickly, but no one seems to care.
  • A volcano in El Salvador, dormant for more than a century has erupted.
  • Are natural disasters such as the recent hurricanes raising cosmic questions?
  • A Scottish composer has cracked Rosslyn’s musical code. Ron Howard orders a script rewrite.
  • A man was arrested on the Da Vinci Code film set trying to get Tom Hanks’ autograph. He was smart enough to know the Holy Grail was just a set piece.
  • Local legends and folklore of New England. Devils, witches and ghosts, oh my!
  • The giant squid may have been photographed at last, but there are still plenty of fish in the cryptozoological sea yet to be found.
  • A prehistoric spider trapped in amber 20-million years ago sparks hopes of an arachnid Jurassic Park. Coming soon, Shelob vs T-Rex.
  • A peak in the amount of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere 50-million years ago may have allowed big mammals to evolve.
  • Biologists have documented for the first time gorillas in the wild using simple tools. I see it all the time down the local supermarket.
  • A television documentary will explore the infamous Bridge of Suicidal Canine Death in Scotland. They should check if the dogs who jumped were all desexed …
  • Do you believe in a thing called mana? A new documentary explores how belief can imbue objects with power.
  • Ghosts in the lens, tricks in the darkroom: a photographic exhibition exploring the paranormal.
  • A campaign in India to dispel a superstition that it’s dangerous to eat during an eclipse. I’m surprised some Western confectionary company didn’t come up with an ice-cream called Eclipse to help dispel the myth.
  • I love this story: a Dutch witch successfully won the right to claim broomsticks and spell components as tax deductible.
  • An academic investigates perhaps Australia’s most famous UFO case, almost 40-years after the event. I’m not that old, so I have an alibi.
  • Mysterious red lights are appearing over Southland. Sting rewrites Roxanne.
  • A Skeptic and first-time interviewer whose questions are all out of order because of a terrible printer questions UFOlogist Professor David Jacobs.
  • Physicists says the evolution of the universe favoured the third and seventh dimensions.
  • Cassini photographs a spear-shaped object on Saturn’s moon, Tethys. There might be giants …
  • The newly-discovered tenth planet has a moon.
  • Here’s a brilliantly crisp photograph of Saturn’s moon, Hyperion.
  • Australian astronaut Andy Thomas says China is the next space power.
  • Here’s a review of a new book, Mark Twain: A Life by Ron Powers (Amazon US or UK). If you’re interested in the life of Mark Twain, the grandfather of American literature, here’s another review.

Thanks Kat.

Quote of the Day:

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

Mark Twain

  1. Gullability test…
    76 percent for me – but I would question some of the ‘correct’ answers.

    Hydrogen crystals at the bottom of the sea? I thought these deposits were (are) a form of methane, not hydrogen.

    Nostra

    1. verdict ;not gullible
      Hi,

      ” Free Thinker (94)

      Welcome to the top 5%. You’re a true free thinker and a person who is well informed about the reality in which you live. Although you may have been easily manipulated earlier in life, you eventually gained lucidity and developed a healthy sense of skepticism that you now automatically apply to your observations and experiences. You are endlessly curious about human behavior and the nature of the universe, and you have one or more lifestyle habits that most people would consider odd or unusual. You are not only of very high intelligence, you are also extremely creative in one or more areas (music, art, software development, inventing, etc.)”

      The questionaire wording is important, but i would expect most regular TDG visitors to score well below the gullible line. Take it..or leave it.

      ” do unto others as you would have them do unto you “

  2. the gullible test……
    that was fun……must be gullible to do it but if being in the top 5% means anything, then yeehaw! ;-{)
    94%

    DISCLAIMER: the opinions and veiws in this post are mine only and are not those of others or of TDG. Any similarities are by chance only.

  3. Skeptic questions famed UFO enthusiast
    Taken from the interview:

    David Jacobs:
    “That means that all the explanations for it, that ‘this is not happening’, all the explanations for this except for one will be wrong. But debunkers never, ever question other arguments, they never debate among themselves, it’s a very bizarre group of people who dedicate their lives to trying to disprove this, it’s a strange group, it’s a far stranger group than abductees are…”

    Ain’t that funny? Well, I found it was a greatly entertaining interview. Thanks for that one Rico!

      1. Cosmic disinformation agents
        Talking about the ‘debunkers’ of course.

        One can partake to a cultural enterprise without knowing it. Actually, that is the lot of a majority. Anything that does not fit within the workframe of social conditioning will have the system react by creating antibodies to preserve the integrity of the system.

        Antibodies and the chemicals of the system we call society can be likened to debunkers, philosophers, propagandists and all kinds of persons that work, generally unconsciously but still very diligently, to maintain thought forms within the borders of what is tolerable for the system.

        Works the same for the physical body, instead of thought forms we could talk about cellular messages, emitters and receptors. The consciousness limiting factors of the cells which are part of their programs then insure a guided behavior at the macro level.

        In the end, a debunker is fulfilling an agenda that he believes is under his control but that in reality he is unconscious of the real affectations and dependencies.

        A debunker simply deblaterates at nauseam what he believes to be the limit of reality as seen by the very limited horizon of his mind.

        The debunker is a unknowing disinformation agent, a brainwashed abductee of bliss ignorance made savant through manipulation of words.

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