Introduction

Well, the intro to this is basically the title of this post: Another winter storm blankets the eastern U.S., and of course we have, as a result, people trying to use it as evidence against global climate change.

Good Time Article

Last time I made a post like this – last month – I gave kudos to ABC News and their article explaining that climate is NOT the same as weather. This time, I would like to draw attention to Time article, “Another Snowstorm: What Happened to Global Warming?” by Bryan Walsh. Another good article that understands “it’s a mistake to use any one storm — or even a season’s worth of storms — to disprove climate change.”

The most relevant part are the following two paragraphs (emphasis mine):

“Climate models also suggest that while global warming may not make hurricanes more common, it could well intensify the storms that do occur and make them more destructive.

“But as far as winter storms go, shouldn’t climate change make it too warm for snow to fall? Eventually that is likely to happen — but probably not for a while. In the meantime, warmer air could be supercharged with moisture and, as long as the temperature remains below 32°F [0 °C], it will result in blizzards rather than drenching winter rainstorms. And while the mid-Atlantic has borne the brunt of the snowfall so far this winter, areas near lakes may get hit even worse. As global temperatures have risen, the winter ice cover over the Great Lakes has shrunk, which has led to even more moisture in the atmosphere and more snow in the already hard-hit Great Lakes region, according to a 2003 study in the Journal of Climate.”

The article also points out that the fallacy of equating weather and climate is used by people on both sides of the debate – both by people claiming winter storms disprove climate change and by people claiming that droughts or record highs during a month period mean that global warming is definitely happening.

Final Thoughts

Wow! A short blog post! Okay, but anyway, as is generally the case with a politically charged issue, and with one where there are people who are dogmatically set on a premise that fundamentally misunderstands the basic concepts, any ray of hope that can be grasped by a current event is used and exploited to its fullest. As I’ve mentioned before, unsurprisingly George Noory had on guest Robert Felix at the beginning of tonight’s Coast to Coast AM show to talk about how this storm and other record lows and snows prove his own pet ideas – that we’re going into an ice age, not a warming period. Sigh.

But, this Time article is an example of more good science reporting, and trying to explain to a misunderstanding public that weather and climate are two different things.

Art Bell really wasted the world’s time tonight and early morning. He’s allowing an idiotic faggy guest to go on and on with physics word salad (nonsense physics talk) about his supposed time travel experiments and oh so important dealings with other governments experimenting with time travel all over the world, and he even, with some fake dramatic laughs and pauses, claimed to have sent someone back in time, though his explanation was wrong, claiming that it was done by “retarding time”, meaning “slowing time down”, which obviously doesn’t mean “reversing” or “going back”. The disgusting idiot also claimed to have sent someone forward in time. What an insult to all the people of decent intelligence in the world to have this air-blowing babbler on. What an obvious fake! I don’t recall ever wanting to punch any guest I’ve heard on Hoax to Hoax, but this guy was horrible. What an arrogant evil liar to go on and on with such childish idiocy. He at least could have said something useful, not big duh’s like, “Well with time travel we could learn the behavior of dinosaurs. With time travel we could find out what actually happened in the past.” Hours later he poured out insultingly cliches babble, saying, “This technology [time travel technology] if released in the right way could be one of the great unifiers, and knock down those borders and political differences…” (something almost exactly like that). At least Art gave a half-good reply, “The development of nuclear technology didn’t do that… so if that didn’t bring us together…” his guest’s reply while Art was going on like that, “Heeeh”, not as in laughing, but as if he were deep in thought, and then “Sorry for all the references to Avatar but I really enjoyed them in yesterday’s show.” Then, when Art said he would take phone calls, his guest pretentiously replied, “It would be my pleasure Art.” *Sneer* Art then replied, “What a program. Sometimes we just stumble into one that just stuns me, this was one of those.” After the commercial break he said, “We’ve had three hours of the most amazing programming I’ve ever had. And I want to thank Whitely. Whitely reconnected me with Dr. Andrews…” Then after another commercial break right after that, his guest (appalling if true) slipped in a “by the way” and then claimed to be a educational science director in some United Nations program (or did he say Unicef?), and Art in part of his reply said, “Again, thank you Whitely.” Later the Professor of Pre-school Pretend Time said that he enjoyed talking to Buddhist monks and that when he told them “time passes” they looked at him confused and said, “What are you talking about time stands till, it’s still here.” What the Hell! What an insult to pay these idiots for such infantile preschool make-believe babble! Horrible! Who can pray for such evil morons?

Introduction

Following my appearance on The Conspiracy Skeptic podcast on January 12, 2010, two events occurred that caused me to go running back to Karl Mamer (the host/producer/creator) and asking if he would deign to allow me back on to do a “quick” follow-up interview about what we had discussed. The first event was that two days later, Michael Horn (the Swiss alleged UFO-contactee Billy Meier’s American shill) was interviewed on the late-night 4-hour radio show Coast to Coast AM by George Noory, about asteroid Apophis. The second event was The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast episode #235 where they also discussed T Pyx and that the astronomers got the numbers wrong … despite NO news source reporting on it other than what I could later find in Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog.

The Corrections/Updates

First, I encourage everyone to actually listen to the full episode (bottom of the page, or subscribe through iTunes).

But, if you don’t have time … here’s a quick summary:

(1) No, even if T Pyx is 1 kpc (~3200 light-years) away instead of 3.5 kpc away, if/when it goes supernova it will not kill us all. The astronomers used the incorrect energy values for how much energy is released in a Type 1a supernova, instead using the values for a gamma ray burst with the burst aimed right at us. Unfortunately, NO major media outlet has updated their story (Scientific American, Space.com, MSNBC, to name a few). Rather, I heard about it through the SGU episode and got the information from Phil Plait’s blog. I consider this a failure on my own part, too for not actually trying to run the numbers before appearing on Karl’s podcast — that’ll teach me to trust the news [said partially tongue-in-cheek].

(2) Apparently vampires don’t live forever and when their head is ripped off in the heat death of the universe, then they’ll die. My bad.

(3) Apophis still isn’t going to hit us. Unless you for some unfathomable reason believe in Billy Meier’s “prophecies” and what’s said by Michael Horn. This came wholly unexpected in that I hadn’t planned to ever address Meier and Horn until I heard Horn on the Coast to Coast AM show and then did my original post here. Based on everything I’d heard about Horn, I gave it about a 70% chance that he would find my blog and post a comment. I had decided before I even completed the post that if that happened, I would reply once to him, and that was it. Which I have maintained, despite the numerous (literally dozens) of comments on that particular post (I invite you to peruse them if you have time to kill). I then did a follow-up post that addresses not the language of the alleged contact predictions, but the actual content and shows that, no, Billy Meier did not predict Apophis and that it is going to hit.

Since that post, my blog has been picked up and re-posted by the Independent Investigations Group of the Center for Inquiry – Los Angeles as part of their exposé on Billy Meier and Michael Horn. It’s listed under “The Prophecies Of Billy Meier” as “Asteroid Apophis Deconstruction.” I encourage you to go through some of the links there to really understand the scope of the Meier alleged “contacts” as well as the disinformation and deceit by Michael Horn … if it wasn’t apparent already from the comments he has posted to my own blog. I’ve since offered my continued services to them in anything astronomy-related, but we’ll see what happens there.

Final Thoughts

That’s about it. The episode lasts about 55 minutes, which is shorter than my others on the show, but it’s one of the shortest episodes of the podcast in it’s new “Unplugged” format.

This morning I was reading some back issues of Knights of the Diner Table, when I came across an article talking about science fiction RPG, and related software. Regretfully before I had a chance to read the article in detail my cell phone went off to let me know it was time to head into work. During a lull I looked up star map generators. I found a few old programs on websites that looked like they were from 1998. I did find one though that caught my eyes, and the few sites I could find on such software people raved about.

You can have maps laying out the solar system, galaxy, space lanes, territories, fleets, habitable worlds, and more. All in 3D as you would expect for space. The downside is it costs about forty dollars. Never heard of the software company, and I am not really sure how relevant to my D6 game it would be. Yes having a map of the solar system showing the major locations, bases, and roaming fleet positions would be cool. Not to mention a space lane going to the ALPHA colony. Though on a larger scene be cool to see the territory controled by the known alien races. Perhaps even updates on potential conflicts.

The players may actually cause a large interstellar conflict if the plan they are trying is successful. They plan to try to reveal if a director in the UNE is a Kareen or not. Kareen is the name for an alien race in the world based off of the lizard alien race I heard about on occasion on Coast to Coast AM. If the players can prove that the Kareen were behind the death of a Gray Elarian, another race that blames Earth for the death of said alien, that would spark a very nasty war between the two races.

That is my goal for tonight. I plan to download a trial version of the star chart software, and see if I like it. I also plan to look at that article in detail in the hopes it can help give me more ideas, and materials I can use in the game. After all we now have a direction to go and I need to think of how the world will react to some of the plans the players have set in motion. Hopefully the siren call of WoW, actual housework, and sleep won’t get too much in my way.

“Freaks, geeks, and rebels have got a very, very strange advantage. In most things we’re sort of disadvantaged, but society needs us very badly—we’re its eyes and ears, we’re its antenna, we’re the way it stretches out and finds new things.”

Coast to Coast AM is a show that often gets laughed at. Yes, it is about x-files stuff, but I think some people are missing the point. Putting on George Noory at night is a different type of “suspension of disbelief”.

There is no chupacabra? Then what about this?

Coast to Coast is always a case of believe it or not, and many times it’s best not to. Blurring the line between real life and entertainment is a big part of the fun with Coast. In a dark recording booth down a quiet hallway in the dead of the night, anything is possible.

The moody new Atlantic article does a wonderful job of finding the appeal of and the problems with coast (George Noory might be the most non-committal host in radio). Read it, then take the time and listen to the show tonight. It’s thrilling, bizzare, and maybe true. Find your station here.

(Updated 1/17/2009/9:07 P.M. )

Michael Savage, as usual, trying to make himself out to be a righteous man, ends up attacking the Christian religion and God which he repeatedly claims to be in favor of, in his attempt to be fair and balanced, by attacking stupid comments by the pseudo-Christian Pat Robertson. Right after I typed that Michael was once again boasting about being one of the most influential conservatives. Tonight, Michael, making cheap shots at Pat Robertson’s own, “You reap what you sow” cheap-shot heresy, also said in response to Pat Robertson’s claim that a few sweat-lodge deaths were a result of not seeking enlightenment of God,

You say enlightenment is to be found in God. What do you tell a little boy who went to a Catholic priest and got the hand of man instead of the hand of God?

At the beginning of his show Michael claimed that he was attacking Pat, a republican, because he (Michael) often spent his time attacking Obama, a liberal, in other words Michael was merely attacking Pat to appear to be balanced. He also claimed that liberals stuck with “morons” like Obama because of what “born again Christians” like Pat Robertson said. Sure Michael, whatever you say is true because you said so; neither Wickedpedia, Absurdapedia nor Boring-to-death-pedia says anything about Pat Robertson claiming to be born again, and I wasn’t able to find such a quote, not that that doesn’t mean he never claimed to be one. So where did Michael get his info? A few minutes later, Michael said, that he wasn’t a Biblical absolutist”, and that “that is one of the points of my exercise: that you can’t take the Bible literally.” Then he attacked some absurd food laws and teachings in the Talmud, and used that as a reason not to be a Biblical literalist. To attack the work of man, the Talmud, which twists God’s word, and claim that makes God’s word corrupt, is illogical. If a man sins, it’s his sin, not someone elses, not God’s.

Michael illogically spoke of Judaics, “born again Christians”, all Christians, and Catholics, as if they were all of the same religion just because they used the Bible in their religion. Clearly Michael is not a scholar of any religion to keep stereotyping everyone who believes in the Bible, or who claims to, to all be at fault for believing the Bible to be true.

And yesterday, a Catholic woman called Michael Savage and ranted a defense for Pat Robertson, why then did Michael claim that it was “born agains” which kept liberals from becoming theists or embracing a religion that Michael sees as good? Why did he single them out? But later he made the child-molesting Catholic priest attack, as if Catholics were also “born agains”, and if that’s not what he meant, he was, regardless, speaking confusion then, being unclear. How, can Michael, claim to be a fair person, how can he complain about being singled out by Britain’s liberal government members to be banned from Britain merely so that they don’t appear to be biased against one kind of religion (Islam) and yet nearly state that he’s attacking P.R. to be balanced? I also wonder why he always gets Christian callers who make stupid arguments whether they are in favor of his drunken speech or against it on whatever topic. It causes me to wonder if the wise ones are being filtered out to keep Michael from looking bad. But it might be that the wise Christians are far out numbered by the stupid ones and that that is why the stupid ones keep getting through. I consider the stupid ones to be all Christians except Calvinists, and in comparison to all other types of Christians, Calvinists are a small number (Roughly 1,640,000,000 false Christians and 60 million Calvinists, which is 27.3 times more false Christians than true Christians).

“I like a certain amount of greed and corruption, I think it’s very healthy for society” – 8:23 P.M., Michael Savage – 1/8/2010

Michael, yesterday and today also repeatedly said that God has nothing to do with the occurrences in the universe, for example this statement from him on his show today:

“It never ceases to amaze me, in a time when common sense should reign – hello tektonic plates move?”

Yes Michael, the ground does move, things do happen in the universe, but how is that an argument against God have anything to do with movements in the universe? It’s not, and he might has well have said, “Things move because they just do” or “Nothing has anything to do with God because things just move on their own”. This is the same Michael who claimed that God was mocking liberals and Global Warming believers by having made it snow in Copenhagen during the recent international summit there to stop Global Warming/Climate Change, the same one who today remembered that God DOES INTERVENE TO HELP. But I can’t remember what he said after remembering that. So, does Michael who endorses belief in God over atheism and agnosticism believe in miracles (rare and amazing events in this universe that God has happen in order to especially have one acknowledge him and or his power)? Interesting how when God punishes Michael’s enemies, Michael magically knows that God is punishing them and takes joy in it, yet when a Bible-believer claims God is punishing someone other than God’s enemies, Michael speaks out against the Bible-believer. That is clear bias and hypocrisy. This is the same Michael who repeatedly speaks out against atheists, and indirectly, against agnostics, and who makes himself out to be a scholar, wise man and scientist.

Anyone can discover a few things as to why something happened, but as is evident, there is a nearly endless chain of previous events that led up to whatever event they are focused on, yet according to Michael, Darwinists have the universe all figured out, and the first event, just happened, because it just did.

Update 1/16/2:45 A.M.:

Yesterday night Michael said that he believed that if you do good good will happen to you, and that this is because of “karma”. What happened to Michael’s nature-did-it explanation? And does good only happen to those who do good? Not according to God, yet Michael in his bias, on the 14th, wanted us all to believe that hurtful events are only due to nature, and that God has nothing to do with them, and now he wants us to believe that good things happen because of karma. So now Michael has reversed his position and indirectly sad that bad will happen to those who do bad by his saying that good will happen to those who do good, and stating that it is because of karma. And what happened to God? So Michael has now robbed God both ways, of God’s just punishment and just rewards, God’s taking and giving to put it another way, and credits a mindless magical omnipresent force. But yesterday, on the 15th, Michael said that he believed that the major religions of the world were like a wheel and that God was at the center of them all (meaning that whatever religion you practice so long as it’s not harming others, according to Michael, will lead you to being in God’s loving presence and having peace with him). But according to Mike’s ranting, God is asleep at the wheel.

No doubt, like my dad, Michael has reached this conclusion based “life after death” claims made by people who have died or left their bodies and were in what they thought was God’s presence or the presence of angels. But his interpretation would be wrong, because, as God has implied in the Bible: One witness is not enough for an extraordinary event. The wisest skeptics know that humans are not reliable witnesses when there is only one witness, even for ordinary events. That doesn’t mean people who have died or left their bodies didn’t really experience anything supernatural, but that their interpretation of the supernatural event/s they experienced are not necessarily correct. Evidence is plentiful that demons exist and have a foothold in this universe, at least on Earth, and are able to twist human perception. I have no doubt that they can create a spiritual illusion for those who have died, surrounding their soul with an illusion, and either influencing their heart to feel wonderous emotions or using the illusion to provoke feelings of great joy and feeling loved. Satan deludes people all the time when they are still alive in their bodies, even to true Christians now and then, so it’s not hard for me to believe he’d do it to someone who is temporarily disembodied, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he does it to many people right after they’ve died, but who don’t come back to life, giving them a few last lies to believe to condemn them further. Somewhat might argue against me claiming that some people who have left their bodies experienced going into Hell and then became a Christian, and therefore Satan isn’t deluding anyone after they die, but there is no evidence to show that experiencing something bad after you die means Satan never deceives anyone who is temporarily dead. Further, there is no evidence to show that Satan (or people who lie in general) only use joy to deceive people. People cause others to suffer all the time to get their way with them, abusing each other into believing some lie. There is no evidence either that when people experience something terrible while dead, that they only become genuine Christians. Further, the Bible makes it clear that Satan doesn’t always succeed in deceiving people, so there is no reason to doubt that Satan doesn’t at times try and fool people into becoming something other than a true Christian using a negative experience/s, and sometimes fails, and the person instead does become a true Christian.

Now onto George Noory. Here are some stupid statements recently made by this man-pleaser:

“Something’s wrong with people, they just aren’t acting right” 1/7/2010

(Just before the January 7th episode of Coast to Coast A.M. ended, George mentioned that he had friends who lived in a haunted house, and then said, “I wonder why these apparitions get mean after a while, they start out friendly.” Because all ghosts are stricken with P.M.S. after meeting a human? Why ask a stupid question, why not just come out and say the obvious: that they are demons?

“Who created the Creator? Somebody had to… It truly is a paradox isn’t it?” – 12:18 P.M./1/8/2010

“[This universe came from] nothing. And how do you comprehend, nothing?” – 12:21 P.M./1/8/2010

Update 1/18/2010:

Today Michael Savage said:

I don’t complain because then God would punish me.

I wasn’t going to note that for anyone here because Michael didn’t say when God would punish him (he could have meant that God would punish him after he died), but then he said at 9:54 P.M. (about thirty minutes later maybe):

“My guess is the children will be punished for the father’s thievery.”

This is the same Michael who bashed Pat Robertson for (allegedly) claiming that the children of Haiti were suffering for what their fathers did hundreds of years ago. What, the, Hell. Talk about a 360 degree reversal. That just proves (to people who aren’t insane or bigot) my claim that Michael was attacking Pat Robertson merely to appear to be unbiased/balanced/fair. It feels good to be proven right on a somewhat complex subject as this. (Note that today the Michael Savage Show was strangely repeating segments of the same show like it usually does on a holiday, so when I say that he said something afterwards, I’m not certain if it was really after wards, it did however come after what I heard while listening).

Introduction

It’s cold here in Colorado. Last night after I walked from my car to my apartment after a meeting, just spending about 2 minutes outside, my fingers were so cold that I couldn’t type for about 15 minutes. The temperature was 3 °F, and as the evening progressed it got down to -6 °F (that’s way below zero for you Celsius users).

And then, I was supposed to receive a UPS package today. But, when I checked the status, it was: “ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS – LATE TRAIN” and UPS doesn’t know when they’ll actually deliver it (I’m guessing Saturday if they do a Saturday delivery, or just on Monday).

And then there are other “cold snaps” throughout the rest of the continent of North America. Could this mean that global warming is just another leftist environmentalists ivory-tower-loving scientists conspiracy?

No

Well that about sums it up.

Okay, Really …

I’ve already addressed this before, over a year ago in my post “Record and Unusual Snows and Cold – Proof Against Global Warming?” I suggest you read that if you need a primer. The very basic idea is that weather ≠ climate. For those of you who may not be mathematically inclined, “≠” means “not equal to.” The ability to predict weather patterns on a day-to-day basis is very different from predicting general climate trends years out.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is not to get into that again, but to point out an article and give kudos to the author, Bill Blakemore. The article is entitled, “No, the Cold Doesn’t Mean No Global Warming” and can be found by clicking that link, hosted on ABC News.

I’ll quote the most relevant part:

Bottom line — fast and simple? Three points:

1. Weather is not climate.
2. 2. Manmade global warming means less frequent cold snaps (not none at all) and more frequent heat waves — just as we’ve been having.
3. 3. You know (don’t you?) about the record high temperatures this week in Washington State, Alaska and Bulgaria in the Northern Hemisphere — plus, down south, the record-breaking high temperatures in New Zealand, and the second hottest year on record (after 2005) in Australia?

Why am I pointing this out? Because I think that it’s very important that the news media actually get the science right. On a topic that is a scientific one – global warming – that just so happens to be one where people make it a very political one, it is even MORE important for reporters to get their facts right, and Bill Blakemore has done a nice job.

Final Thoughts

I listen to a lot of Coast to Coast AM radio episodes in order to get ideas for blog posts, and often during these times (I’m a week behind so don’t know if he’s done it for this), the host, George Noory, will bring on Robert Felix, a man who has the book Not by Fire But by Ice that insists we’re plunging into an ice age rather than a warming period. George himself – I think – doesn’t understand the difference between weather and climate, but he seems to not have made up his mind about whether we’re warming or cooling, but he does believe that it’s a purely natural cycle rather than human-made. But, he gives people like Felix a platform to spread their conjecture and misunderstandings.

And Coast is the largest late-night radio show in the world, with at least 528 syndicates (last I heard) and over 10 million listeners. And judging by the comments on the ABC story, people like him make a difference. I’ll leave you with a sampling of a few of the comments:

“Global Warming is just a big hype pushed onto the people of the world to invoke fear in order to further an agenda. There are as many scientists that discount it as there are that push it. The climate of the earth has had warming and cooling trends as long anyone knows. 25 years of “warming” is not that much time in relation to the age of the earth itself.”

“Global Warming is a farce used to keep 3rd world countries from developing,and taxing everyone else.It’s not gonna stop pollution as big corporations will just trade carbon credits with smaller non polluting companies.It’s just gonna be another stock market.The msm plays it off as a left/right issue but that’s just the ptb’s using the divide and conquer trick on us.Wake up they’re all liars on both sides.Gore was given this agenda to push in order to not contest the 2000 election that the neo-cons stole.He and the Rothchild’s stand to make billions. It’s just another fear tactic put forth to keep us scared and under control.GW is just another UN conspiracy to take away more of our soverignity. The world’s climate has always fluctuated even to the point that in the 70’s they wanted to prevent Global cooling.Just like everything else we’ve been lied to.The climate scientists at East Anglia were caught changing stats and dropping other inconvienient truths. This is the next big scam just like the war on drugs and the war on terror.As long as we’re scared and rely on the so called “news” we’ll continue to be sheep to the elite’s.From Foxnews,CNN, BBC or MSNBC they are just corporate propaganda pushers.The ptb’s continue to suppress new energy to stick with oil and keep us in the Middle East.The Bilderberg group and Club Rome decide everything and there elitist opinions trickle down to the UN,CFR and Trilateral’s.These groups represent Big Oil, Big Pharma and the Military Industrial Complex.All the while we get milked by the Federal Reserve,the IMFand the IRS.Even the enviromental groups are crooked.We’re living in a backwards world.I lost all faith when Time gave Ben Bernanke the person of the year award and Obama who expanded Bush’s bs wars gets a Nobel.Just to let you know I have no party affiliation whatsoever but consider myself a constitution minded libertarian.I’m sick of these corrupt globalist/eugenists who really run the US and most of the world.No to NWO!”

“I can blow #2 right out of the water where I live. Thus far this Global Warming nonsense has NOT been proven to me whatsoever. The earth, well it’s been a changin’ since it’s creation and we the youngsters of this planet, the newest animal to it are just around now for one of it’s changes. We haven’t been kind to the planet; you can not be Capitalistic and Materialistic with continual reproduction without there being ramifications, however the Global Warming they say exists can be simply another of earth’s changes like the times of volcanos, earthquakes, glaciers, etc., Stop with the nonsense!”

Last night I was listening to Coast-to-Coast AM with host George Noory on my radio. I was delighted to hear George interview guests Roy Abraham Varghese and Dr. Raymond Moody.

Roy Varghese has authored several books on the interface with science and religion. This topic is of keen interest to me because I belong to two organizations with that same goal—Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) and the Swedenborg Scientific Association (SSA)—plus I have written my own book on this important topic of growing interest and debate.

Dr. Raymond Moody is known worldwide for his research on near-death experiences. Both guest contributed their views of what lies on the other side.

While Dr. Moody does not know I am launching a new book, Proving God: Swedenborg’s Remarkable Quest For The Quantum Fingerprints Of Love, I have been informed that he does know about Emanuel Swedenborg’s books on the afterlife and what lies in the spiritual world.

Moody predicted on George Noory’s show last night that new rational approaches would emerge over the next few years to show that life beyond the physical body could be proved by human reasoning (as opposed to faith). This is exactly what my new book accomplishes. It discusses the afterlife from a scientifically plausible model.

I was disappointed in last night’s interview that no mention was made of Swedenborg’s accomplishments. He was the greatest pioneer in history for describing afterlife phenomenon, including unique descriptions of the geography, minerals, flora, fauna and human societies that exist in the non-physical realm of the spirit. These observations are valuable to any discussion about the afterlife because Swedenborg was a notable scientist of his era.

Dr. Moody has always been impressed by near-death patients of all faith systems, including atheists, describing similar phenomena—like entering into a tunnel of light—and not being able to put these experiences into words of terrestrial language. The “light” these people experienced was not physical light. Rather, these individuals felt bathed in love and new knowledge! Moody felt that his challenge as a scientific researcher was to find some kind of rational approach to these phenomena—which he sees coming in the near future.

My new book addresses Dr. Moody’s challenge head-on. I explain how causal processes, dynamical magnitudes and even human life can continue in a realm beyond time and space. In fact, the spiritual world is the origin of all natural laws operating in the physical world.

I hope this subject interests you. If it does, please visit http://www.provinggod.com

Graham Hancock  autor je svjetskih bestsellera kao što su Znak i Pečat, Otisci Bogova i Tajna Marsa. Njegove knjige prodane su u više od 5 milijuna primjeraka širom svijeta te su prevedene na 27 jezika. Kroz svoja javna predavanja i pojavljivanja na televiziji, uključujući i dokumentarni film “Quest For Lost Civilizations ” predstavio je svoje ideje milijunima ljudi. Do danas je stekao ugled  nekonvencionalnog istraživača koji postavlja legitimna pitanja o povijesti čovječanstva i predpovijesti te na taj način dovodi u pitanje čvrsta stajališta ortodoksnih povijesničara koji se ponašaju kao da je znanost religija.

Diplomirao jesociologiju  na Sveučilištu Dunham nakon čega je započeo svoju karijeru istraživačkog novinara radeći za mnoge vodeće Britanske novine.

Godina emitiranja: 1998

Ian Punnett welcomed expert in finance and the economy, trends forecaster  Gerald Celente, to discuss the outlook in 2010 for markets, commodities, and the U.S. dollar.

Gerald Celente, Director and founder of The Trends Research Institute®, is the pioneer in forecasting, analyzing, and MANAGING trends. Celente designed and currently teaches the first professional course in trend tracking. Using his unique perspectives on current events forming future trends he developed the Globalnomic® methodology which is used to forecast and manage trends.
Gerald Celente is also known as Dr Doom and the Nostradamus of Modern Times  , Gerald Celente is regarded as one of the foremost trend predictors in the world. This author of Trends 2000 and Trend Tracking, and publisher of The Trends Journal, is frequently a guest on television news and talk show programs. The New York Post said “if Nostradamus were alive today, he’d have a hard time keeping up with Gerald Celente.”
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John Perkins (http://www.johnperkins.org/) has written books on Shamanic traditions and teachings, including: “The World is as You Dream It”, “Shape Shifting” and “Psychonavigation / Techniques for Travel Beyond Time”.

He has also written books on his not so wonderful past, such as “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, “The Secret History of the American Empire” and “Hoodwinked”. (Hoodwinked is supposed to tell us why the world markets have been targetted for implosion, who would manipulate something like that, & what they have to gain from bringing the U.S. economy down.)

-Um, the guy sounds like the real thing to me-

-I’m not terrified because I don’t think it’s too late to take back our future.

But then, what do I know? I’m just a half-baked philosopher scheduling security guards who work on the edge of oblivion in upper New York State.

-Doug

Linda Moulton Howe on Coast to Coast AM discusses with George Noory his recent interview with Gerald Celente and his past and future Forecasts 23 December 2009

Investigative reporter Linda Moulton Howe discussed on Coast to Coast AM her recent interview with trends analyst Gerald Celente, he shared his insights as to what he sees coming in the new year. This included ‘The Crash of 2010′ which he said will occur when the stimulus money of ‘09 dries up, new terrorist attacks, and a ‘Shape Up America’ trend in which people strive to make it through difficult times by being physically, emotionally, and spiritually fit. See the full interview. December 23-09

Gerald Celente, Director and founder of The Trends Research Institute®, is the pioneer in forecasting, analyzing, and MANAGING trends. Celente designed and currently teaches the first professional course in trend tracking. Using his unique perspectives on current events forming future trends he developed the Globalnomic® methodology which is used to forecast and manage trends.
Gerald Celente is also known as Dr Doom and the Nostradamus of Modern Times , Gerald Celente is regarded as one of the foremost trend predictors in the world. This author of Trends 2000 and Trend Tracking, and publisher of The Trends Journal, is frequently a guest on television news and talk show programs. The New York Post said “if Nostradamus were alive today, he’d have a hard time keeping up with Gerald Celente.”
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On December 12, 2009 NUFORC posted an update after a long delay. Over 1800 new or amended reports have been posted to the NUFORC database.

There are sightings highlighted this month from Florida, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Washington.

Peter Davenport, the Director of the National UFO Reporting Center appears on the Jeff Rense radio program as well as Coast to Coast AM.

One of the Center’s policies, which distinguishes its operations from most other UFO organizations, is that it makes available to the public all of its data in summary form. Detailed information is made available to experienced UFO investigators. Monthly sighting report summaries are posted on this web site.

The National UFO Reporting Center is a non-profit Washington State corporation, and it is applying for federal 501 C (3) non-profit status. It supports itself through subscription revenues from its monthly newsletter, from sales of its video tapes, from sales of general information packets, and through honoraria for public presentations.

You can read more about The National UFO Repoting Center, Peter Davenport and the highlights of reported UFO sightings at WAYD?

Introduction

Following my week-long break from a 6-week series (so far) on logical fallacies, I’m going to again take a slight detour from the more formal logical fallacies and address a fallacious way of arguing a point, and that is the complete misrepresentation of a position.

What Do I Mean by the Misrepresentation?

I suppose at its core, this can be the same as quote-mining or the Straw Man or even misusing an Argument from Authority, and it can be used either to bolster or to denigrate a claim.

In effect, what I’m talking about here is when someone is trying to stake out a position (for or against something), they bring in an apparent authoritative argument or a piece of evidence, they may actually quote it properly with or without context, but then they simply misunderstand what it actually is saying.

How did I come up with this? From an episode of Coast to Coast AM that I was listening to …

Example from a Conspiratorial Standpoint, Thinking Scientists Are Holding Back Earth-Shattering Information

The context of this example is a person, Mitch Battros, an “Earth changes expert,” trying to link together the Yellowstone supervolcano, apparent Mayan prophecy, the current solar cycle (#24), and multiple universes leaking into ours.

The following is a direct quote from Mitch Battros during the fourth hour of the December 17, 2009, Coast to Coast AM radio show, starting at approximately 11 minutes into the hour:

In this article, [the scientists with the European Space Agency's "Planck" satellite mission] say that they’re concerned about exposing too much information, that it would be overwhelming. I’ll quote: “To one’s surprise, there are astrophysicists and cosmologists who are concerned the Plank mission as well as other spacecraft will provide an overwhelming amount of data, setting new paradigms, and unsettling current models.” That goes back to Mayan prophecy. The galactic alignment.

Now, within the context of the show and everything that Battros spoke about, it’s fairly obvious that he at least is presenting this in the following way: Scientists think these missions will (a) Provide lots of new data that will make their “theories” certain to (b) set new paradigms that will (c) revolutionize the way we look at the universe. Within the context of the show and his very next sentence fragments, he seems to think that means that legitimate scientists will verify his ideas.

However, as an actual scientist who is likely more familiar with (1) the way that scientists write and think, (2) the way science operates, and even (3) some of the problems facing astronomy today, I have a different take on his quote.

My take is that, first, there is a real data problem in astronomy. For example, a single instrument on a single space craft (specifically, the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft) is returning images from Mars at up to a few 10s of centimeters per pixel. Each image is generally around a gigabyte in size. The instrument has been in orbit for a few years and has taken thousands of images, comprising terabytes (TB) of data. If any of you are computer folks, you’ll know that at the consumer level, we’re just now (Dec. 2009) getting hard drives out that store up to 2 TB. Now, multiply that by about 6 for the number of instruments on that craft. Multiply that by a dozen or two for the number of spacecraft out there. Multiply that out many times to include gigapixel camera arrays on world-class ground-based telescopes.

With that in mind, the phrase that scientists “are concerned the Plank mission as well as other spacecraft will provide an overwhelming amount of data” takes on a much less sinister and conspiratorial mentality. Figuring out how to store the data and then how to retrieve (from searching) that data is a real problem these days.

Now let’s look at the next two parts – new data creating new paradigms and unsettling current models. Again – and I say “again” because I’ve said this many times in this blog – this is the whole point of science. With new, high-quality data when testing models of very cutting-edge physics, you are almost always going to cause a paradigm shift, be it simply being able to rule out one model from another (a paradigm shift) or having good, reproducible, high-quality data that does not fit with any of the current models, forcing them to be “unsettled” and for a new model to take its place.

Hence, by misrepresenting what someone likely meant, they have used a fallacious form of arguing — their premise or apparent evidence from that quote is useless as it does not actually mean what they think.

Final Thoughts

Unfortunately, this is a fairly common method of arguing AND it is difficult to identify if you do not actually know the field well. It is VERY often used by young-Earth creationists and Intelligent Design proponents (see my post on Casey Luskin’s ignorance about library books), but everyone can fall into the trap, whether knowingly (in which case it’s no longer a fallacy other than plain ol’ lying) or unknowingly.

Nick Begich, priča o HAARP-u i kontroliranju vremena  na Coast to Coast radiju. Coast to Coast je po mom mišljenju najbolji radio što se tiče gostiju koji se tamo pojavljuju.

Isn't it arrogant of us to assume we're alone?

THE BRITISH MILITARY has shut down its UFO investigation unit after more than 50 years, Reuters reports.  

The MOD says it could no longer justify the cost of running the service given it had “found no evidence of a threat to Britain or proof of the existence of extra-terrestrials, despite the public sending thousands of reports of UFOs to a ministry hotline and email address.”  

“There is no defence benefit” in investigating such reports, the MOD concluded. “It would be an inappropriate use of defence resources.”

I was a bit saddened to hear this. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been intrigued by the idea of UFOs and the possibility of life on other planets. 

Nobody did spooky like Robert Stack

In the late 80s/early 90s I was obsessed with the show Unsolved Mysteries, which dealt lots with paranormal activity and was only made better by the smooth-talking but slightly scary host, the great Robert Stack (he of Airplane! and The Untouchables fame).  

In particular I loved the episodes that dealt with UFO sightings. I remember one that reenacted what the scientists encountered – or were encountered by – at Roswell. From then on I was a full-on alien freak (inside, at least).  

At school I’d look for books on UFOs in libraries; I liked getting spooked by the grainy old black and white photos of alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects.  Even today I dig listening to the late-night radio show Coast to Coast AM.  

I’ve always thought it was arrogant of us to assume we’re the only ones in this vast universe.  It’s too bad the MOD has concluded it’s not worth pursuing/monitoring the matter any longer.

On the other hand, with them out of the loop, perhaps we’re due for a close (and unexpected) encounter with the third kind.

Just thinking about it makes me feel like a kid again.   

 ryan@roadtostarrdom.com 

RVProducts on YouTube has just released an exclusive podcast/webinar titled “Ed Dames’ Remote Viewing Podcast 01″ with Major Ed Dames for new students and those interested in learning this world changing skill.

This video is not a visual presentation, as this was not needed by “Major Doom” to effectively express his thoughts. Basic information is provided visually and Ed Dames speaks throughout. Beginner’s tips and introduction to Analytical Overlay are presented. As usual, Ed Dames is succinct and precise in his explanations.

According to Ed Dames, Remote Viewing is an attention management skill. It is not imagination. The job of the Remote Viewer is to record the facts associated with the target that solves the problem that has been posed. There is no creative license or analysis of data while in session.

He also mentions the difference between a psychic and a Remote Viewer. A Remote Viewer is trained to recognize when their imagination is starting to overlay and interfere with the information related to a target and manage the occurrence.

The world’s foremost Remote Viewing teacher, Major Ed Dames, United States Army (ret.), is a decorated military intelligence officer and an original member of the U.S. Army prototype Remote Viewing training program. He served as both training and operations officer for the U.S. government’s Top Secret psychic espionage unit.

I listened to Michael Shermer as soon as he was on Coast to Coast AM tonight and almost immediately he made a mistake, saying, “Scientists are just naturally skeptical.” That’s false because scientists are human like everyone else and there are different types of science, some with very different degrees of credibility. Further, not all scientists have the same education and training (or “brainwashing”), so even if they are taught a scientific method like this one. To say that a scientist will naturally become skeptical or will become more logical, which is what skeptics and their panderers equate with being logical or more logical, is as deeply stupid as saying that U.S. senators,  lawyers and police officers will become or become more so, good and logical because they take an oath to uphold the Constitution. On top of that, at least mainstream scientists are not made to swear an oath to uphold any scientific method, at least it’s not a common practice. On top of that, the scientific method does not say at the end to come to a truthful conclusion nor does it say how to draw a correct conclusion let alone how to analyze the results of the tests NOR HOW TO CARRY OUT CORRECT/GOOD/RELEVANT tests! It simply says, “draw a conclusion”. And some might argue that “draw a conclusion” is an illogical step since a mere two or more tests will not always give you results to believe one thing or the other.

At about 11 P.M., George Noory asked him, “Do you take anything at faith?” and Shermer replied, “probably most of my emotional life” and implied that his emotional life only had to do with his relationships with those he loved or was hoping to have a loving relationship with, which is not logical, since an emotional life is your entire life. A person’s entire life comes with emotions and your interaction with other people or animals. And if Shermer says that he takes things on faith with those he loves or hopes to love, why would he be anymore logical with his other interpersonal reactions? If he’s biased when it comes to those he loves, his liberal and/or macro-evolution and/or Big Bang-believing friends, how can he be a logical person overall? If he can’t be logical when it comes to those he loves, how much more will he be illogical with those he has little to no concern for, and hates?

When George asked him if he believed in, or rather why he didn’t believe in out-of-body occurrences, Shermer said that he didn’t believe because (among a few other reasons), that he didn’t know what the method would be for transferring his memories. But why does he conclude that the memories of a person is in their brain? Further, why would not knowing how everything works mean it shouldn’t be believed, and that last argument is one which which Darwinists, Big Bang-believers and Global Warmers love and often use against Christians, as if Christians are the illogical ones.

Shermer also said that he didn’t believe there was enough evidence to know what the effects of (slight) global warming would be. So much for a scientific consensus that Global Warming is going to be a bad thing, even if that had been true, Shermer’s statement, because of his high standing among mainstream scientists and his popular Skeptics magazine, will heavily influence them to follow his lead. On top of that, the truth is not determined by majority vote, let alone a universal agreement.  This is known in many places, including on Wikipedia, where especially the administrators there will admit that the truth is not determined by consensus, but deny this and contradict themselves with their actions by their one-on-one-bullying or ganging up on anyone who opposes their beliefs, and verbally contradicting themselves by saying or implying that only the “mainstream scientists / the majority of scientists should be believed or are the credible or most credible scientists.

No doubt to me, even if Christians became the majority of scientists, these Wickedpedians would simply claim that whether Christians can be scientists or not is debatable in  order to throw the truth into doubt.

When George asked him if the universe and us were created by a roll of the dice, Shermer replied, “No, if it was just a roll of the device we certainly would not be here… evolution is not random… but random variations” do occur. So Shermer admits that it took organized, precise for the universe and the first living thing to have their existence and design. Shermer also said, “You disagree with Huxley at your own peril.” and that Huxley had said that you can’t know if God exists by using science. And why is that Shermer, did you use the scientific method to find that out?

Shermer said that he had once been an evangelical Christian, but not a Calvinist. It’s known by many millions, that evangelicals, which are usually associated with the crazy charismatics and often crazy Pentecostals,  have a high rate of losing faith or reverting back to their old way of thinking and life, unlike Calvinists. So, it’s no surprise to me or them that Michael lost his faith.

When George asked him about prayer, he also said, “Why does he need anyone to remind of who needs help; he doesn’t.” The Bible also says that God knows what you want before you Jealousy is a human emotion. The problem with evil is an insurmountable one to unbelievers

Michael also said that it was ridiculous that any alien would give us a five year advance in technology because, “Any alien [that can get to Earth?] would be able to create [life] so how is that any different than what we know as God [and God doesn't help anyone if he exists].” Says who Michael? You said you had no evidence that God didn’t or did exist, so how would you know if he’s helping anyone or not, and why if someone were much more advanced than us, would they not want to help us at all unless it were to give us a massive boost in technology or technologies? Using Michael’s logic, aliens and God should make all of us humans into Supermen even though Michael often claims in various ways that the majority of the world is stupid, weird, unscientific and destructive.

This is a stupid man, one of those typical stupid narcissists who claims everyone else is stupid, who because of their ignorance and hatred of God’ law, and impatience, fall for some narcissist giving them clever-sounding  live-life-how-you-feel-like-not-God-justifications, “Do you really think God, a supreme being, would feel jealously?” from another narcissist. Yet they think they are wiser because they use big words and make clever analogies and metaphors, and/or in eloquent or confident-sounding ways (though very rarely original ways, and they often make a fuss over Christians not being original), and because they aren’t afraid of Hell or death. But what’s their feelings have to do with them being right? How does not being afraid of something make them right? How does confidence or doubting/skepticism make them right? How does feeling superior make them right? How does using “big words” or being eloquent make them right? Such behavior are all signs of a narcissist who has nothing to back up his claims, even running away from the truth, always AFRAID of having to live in fear.

Shermer, in denying that 9/11 was an “inside job” replied, “Clinton couldn’t even pull off a blow job in the white house… [without being found out, how is the government going to pull off a conspiracy] “for months on end without anyone noticing?” Shermer, conspiracies are pulled off all the time without anyone noticed for months on end, or do you not know the obvious. Apparently no amount of being Big Banged on your head with the Bernie Madehoff stories made any impression on your very aware self. Oh, I know, you were skeptical of that Bernie or anyone could get away with robbing people for years, let alone months. So according to Shermer, there are no secrets that can be held long for a month before the public knowing about them. So everyone knows every business, engineering, miltary, and scammer secret. We all know every single military device in existence, we all know every technology being researched and developed and which people in what city in what building.  And what is your scientific evidence for these teachings Shermer? Oh wait, people only find out about conspiracies in a few weeks, not other types of secret collaborations, because, uh, cuz Shermer feels and said so! He’s God!

Shermer also said that God wouldn’t feel jealousy because, “jealousy is such a human emotion” Says who Shermer? Why if we were made in God’s image would it only be an emotion that humans would feel? So no alien even would feel jealousy, no animal? Why would jealousy only be something humans would feel? He also said that Greek god’s were portrayed as jealous, but how is that evidence that God wouldn’t feel jealousy of any kind for any reason? If humans are constantly attributing jealousy to divine beings, how is that evidence AGAINST divine beings feeling jealousy? How about, Michael, it being evidence FOR divine beings feeling jealousy if humans INSTINCTIVELY attribute divine beings to having feelings like us? And what Michael, would be those “not such human emotions” that God WOULD feel in your biased opinion? Did you perform some secret science experiment that told you what were “not such human emotions that God would feel” and decide to hide your magic results from us? And yet you write a book called, “Why People Believe Weird Things”? Arrogant, blind, hypocritical, bigoted. Truly the ones who speak “mumbo jumbo” are anti-Christians.

Shermer also said that a universe with a jealous God is no different than saying that “stuff just happens.” This is the same Dr. Michael Shermer who said just a few minutes earlier, said that the universe and everything in with a design [not created by humans or aliens], appeared by ordering, right after that mutations were “random”/”just happen”. Why and how would the creation of the universe and the first living things in it be created in a specific knowable way, yet not “natural selection”? And since when are mutations not predictable in any way, or random just because we can’t know every process involved in causing a mutation?

Yet another blind guide.