ChaoSkeptic

It's quiz time again! Reason Weekly currently has a quiz up with a very simple basis. They give you a quote and you have to figure out if it was said by a character from South Park or by atheist author/journalist Christopher Hitchens:

http://reasonweekly.com/christopher-hitchens/who-said-it-south-park-vs-hitchens

Some of the quotes are easier than others ("God takes those closest to us, because it makes him feel better about himself. He is a very vengeful God"). Some are just bizarre ("The four most over-rated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics.") I won't spoil it by telling you who those were from. I managed to get 21 out of the 25 questions correctly even though I've never read anything from Hitchens. I guess watching every single episode of the first 8 seasons of South Park has finally paid off.

This viral video has hit just about every single other Skeptic site so I guess it's my turn to post it. It's a great video from YouTuber QualiaSoup who also did the amazing "Instruction Manual for Life" clip. This one is about the "you are just closed-minded" gambit that advocates for the supernatural and the paranormal like to throw at anyone who questions their beliefs. He makes a very good point that asking for solid evidence doesn't make you closed minded, it makes you open-minded.

Sadly, I have to report that the Discordian community lost an important member on Saturday. Santa Cupcake was more than a mascot and a vagabond, he was an inspiration to everyone. He didn't let the fact that he was just a holiday time convection stop him from spreading his message of hope and togetherness around the globe. He was officially sent off of this Mortal Coil with a proper Viking funeral. You will be missed, lil buddy.




Squid's Eulogy:

It started as a joke.
In December of 2007 my friend presented me with Santa Cupcake. I was supposed to eat it but as I began to pull back the paper I looked down into his glassy, shiny frosting eyes and I couldn't bring myself to do it.
I set him on my desk and there he sat. For a year and four months. Without any decomposition at all.
He's been on many adventures. He survived the election, he's fallen off the desk, been trampled, licked and sat on by cats.
Toward the last few weeks of his life my sympathy started to grow for his condition. He reminded me of a person in a coma on life support. The back of his head had fallen off and been re-squished back into place several times and I felt it was time to end his suffering.

On April 4th, 2009 we did the humane thing and put Santa Cupcake down.

then we laughed till we peed.

I am not a expert at Chaos Magic. Hell, let's face it, I downright suck at it. As a skeptic I barely believe that it exists. I personally feel that it is just a way of putting yourself in a trance like state that changes your subjective view of your surroundings. It is just an occult tradition that has no traditions. It is DIY and MYOB religion. It is the refusal to listen to anyone else when it come to what works for you.

And it almost never works for me. I'm entirely too antsy for meditation. I can't sit still for more than a couple of minutes before my skin starts to crawl and my muscles rebel against me. Pagan rituals don't seem to work for me either. I just can't turn off the disbelief center in my brain. I also couldn't do it back when I was a Christian. I'd often hear people after a service talking about how "the Holy Spirit sure moved here today" and be completely dumbstruck by the concept. It was just so foreign to me. Props or pageantry don't seem to help either.

Having said that, there are a couple of things that do actually put me in the ultra-fine religious state of gnosis. I'll just cover the first one in this post and talk about the others later on.

One thing that seems to work about 75% of the time for me is a simple music relaxation technique. As I've said before I am a very auditory learner and music can have a very strong effect on my psyche. First, I isolate myself in a distraction free room, which isn't easy when you are married and have a 2 year old. The only equipment I need is an MP3 player and a good pair of headphones. I'm not an obsessive audiophile but good headphones are a must for this. I like hearing every single note clearly and it helps to block out any background sounds around you. I then lie as still as possible while listening to an album with an ethereal feel to it. The old standbys like "The Dark Side of the Moon" almost always work. I get chills every single time I get to "Us and Them". I've also used Radiohead's "Ok Computer" and Broken Social Scene's "Feel Good Lost"with good results.

As with any Chaos Magic this technique doesn't work for everyone and doesn't work every single time. This particular technique can get me into a shallow trance-like state and positively affect my mood. However it doesn't seem to be good for much else. I'll get to the more powerful stuff next time around.

Looks like the James Randi Educational Foundation is back and running on YouTube. The ban happened because of a little copyright issue as Randi explains here:



This still doesn't excuse the fact that the JREF's videos were blocked for four days. Especially since the issue was over a copyright that the copyright owner had no problem releasing to the JREF. YouTube's terms of service and the DMCA are still crap. There should be a better way for Youtube channel owners to resolve copyright issues without the Ban Hammer falling without warning. This has been happening too often lately and is quickly becoming a disturbing trend. If Youtube insists on being so draconian with their rules than another video hosting site will quickly overtake them. To paraphrase Gregg Easterbrook: There is no immutable law that says YouTube will always be the most popular video site on the internet.

Over at e-Skeptic they have an amazing story on how a couple of guys were recently able to fool the entire town of Morristown, New Jersey into thinking they had been visited by a UFO using nothing more than large helium balloons and a couple of road flares.

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-04-01.html#feature

On January 5, 2009, we set out into the woods on the border of Morris Plains and Hanover, NJ, carrying one helium tank, five balloons, five flares, fishing line, duct tape, and a video camera. After filling up one 3-foot balloon with helium, we tied about five feet of fishing line to the balloon, secured the line with tape, then tied and taped the flare to the other end of the line. Once all five balloons were ready for takeoff (with our fingers on the verge of frost bite), we struck the 15-minute flares and released them into the sky in increments of fifteen seconds apart from each other. We filmed the “UFOs” as they floated away, and then walked the half-mile stretch out of the woods to our car. The hoax was underway.

The media coverage the incident received over the next few days was extensive. Both local and national news stations were covering the UFO over New Jersey. The local paper had a field day with it, quoting a doctor who said the mysterious lights traveled against the wind, and quoting another man who said the object “didn’t appear to be manmade.” The most sought after witnesses were the Hurley family. Paul Hurley, a pilot, along with his family, made appearances on just about every major news station, describing the strange lights that they saw in the sky. The “Morristown UFO” became the talk of the town.

There's some good video in the link showing exactly how they did it. It's amazing how easy it is to fake something like this. The conspiracy nuts and the media eat it up every single time too. I wish I could have fun shenanigans like this too.

(Tip of the tinfoil hat to Bad Astronomy)

After months of anticipation Radio Free Discordia is finally on the air. The web radio station for all spags and spaggettes has hit the interwebs just in time to rock your face off! The schedule is kinda sparse right now but there are plans to replay Emmanuel Goldstein's "Off the Hook" podcast on Wednesday nights, followed by Robert Anton Wilson clips. There are also several music shows lined up with DJ's Triple Zero, The Dark Monk, The Borderline Simpleton, station owner Mourning Star, and yours truly. I have plans to do an independent music show in the wee hours of Sunday night/Monday morning. The time isn't 100% set right now.

To listen to the RFD, just head over to their website http://radiofreediscordia.org/. There are links on the sidebar to listen in Shoutcast and Windows Media Player. Rock on!