It appears that Astrologic horoscopes from Yahoo have a bunch of similarities. Big surprise, I know.
Click through the image to go to the Information is Beautiful site that includes discussion of how that did this.
Category: Skeptic
-
Bigfoot! A.K.A. "Fleecing Gullible People"
Don’t forget that today is the Big Reveal™ of the big foot carcass that was found/shot/planted in the north Georgia mountains. I commented on this yesterday.
Today, however, I clicked over to the
alleged big foot finders’scam artists’ website searchingforbigfoot.com. Alas, I was horribly disappointed. I was hoping that if you’re charging $1,000 a slot for positions on a big foot expedition, at least you could have an attractive website. Despite the design, there is a wealth of information about the creature on the site. For example:A body that may very well be the body of the creature commonly known as “Bigfoot” has been found in the woods in northern Georgia.
Next time I turn in a traffic report for consideration by my client, I’m going to use the phrase, “this traffic report may very well be an honest representation of the development in question. You be the judge!”
I’m not going to nitpick everything on the website, but this keeps popping up:
DNA evidence and photo evidence of the creature will be presented in a press conference…
Gosh, no one has ever manipulated photos before, and while I’m not any kind of biologist or forensic specialist, what kind of “DNA evidence” is this exactly? Will this prove that the creature has DNA at all? Or will it demonstrate that it’s a large biped? I honestly don’t know if someone can determine what a creature is from its DNA. I posted a question over at Pharyngula about this. I’ll update when there’s an answer.
Update: Thanks to Llewelly and Ranson for helping out. Apparently, yes, you could do a determination with DNA that a sample is a primate and run some comparisons, but still, what is this really going to teach us? They’ll probably say that this DNA sample is “98% consistent with human DNA” or something like that. It could be chimp DNA for all we know.
So, if you’re interested, the Big Reveal™ is today at noon (pacific time, I assume). We’ll see what comes about. My bet is “nothing”. Or “nothing that can’t be faked up by three guys with some time.”Here’s the info on the reveal as posted on their website.:
Date: Friday, August 15, 2008
Time: From 12Noon-1:00pm
Place: Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto, 4290 El Camino Real
Palo Alto, California 94306
(A Crown Plaza Resort)I just love the “(A Crown Plaza Resort)” parenthetical remark!
-
Cool News Reports
This morning I awake to learn that Julia Child was not only a legendary cook, but also a spy with the OSS. Awesome! I also learned that there’s a hoaxer living in Georgia who claims to have found Bigfoot’s corpse. Stupid!
-
JREF $1M Challenge
Phil Plait announced today that he is ascending the ranks of the skeptic community by accepting the Presidency of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). But that’s not why I’m writing.
After reading JREF’s press release, I went to the website and found their forums that include the list of people who have applied for the $1M Challenge. If you’re not familiar with the challenge, JREF offers a million dollars to anyone who can demostrate under controlled, mutually acceptable conditions that they have a paranormal power. The forum details the correspondence with various applicants for the prize. It’s interesting reading.
-
Proof of ESP, Etc.
As always, Xkcd makes the case succinctly.
-
UFO In Texas
I haven’t been
trollinglurking my usual stream of blogs this week because of general busy-ness, therefore this AP news item, concerning a UFO sighting reported by dozens has taken my by surprise.The normal comments are made:
While federal officials insist there’s a logical explanation, locals swear that it was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane. They also said the object’s lights changed configuration, unlike those of a plane. People in several towns who reported seeing it over several weeks have offered similar descriptions of the object.
Because no plane has ever turned lights on or off, nor have they turned to occlude certain lights from view. I also wonder, given that these sightings are mostly at night, how people know how big or fast it was?
What more do you want, when one of the contenders for the Leader of the Free World says that he saw a UFO.
-
Goddidit!
On the AP Wire today was a story about a man who was shot while being robbed. Instead of being mortally wounded, he threw up his hand and the bullet impacted his wedding band. The ring took enough kinetic energy off of the bullet so that it only lodged in the front part of his neck muscles, rather than traversing the various important structures found in the human neck. His wife gives all of the credit to God.
I hope she gives all the credit to God the next time something weirdly bad happens to her. I’ll give all the credit to blind luck, and a 14 karat wedding band.
-
Good Math, Bad Math does a Takedown
I really like Mark Chu-Carrol’s blog, Good Math, Bad Math. In it, he dissects various mathematical concepts, most of which are tantalizingly past my ken, which makes me think. I like that. But he also does frequent mathematical smack-downs on the Intelligent Design boneheads out there who like to play fast and loose with statistics and information theory.
My hat goes off to him.
-
Praying for Rain
Our noble born-again Georgia Governor held a prayer vigil yesterday at the capitol to pray for rain. If you’re not aware, Georgia is in an historic drought at this time.
Weather today? Unseasonably warm, 20% chance of showers.
My question: If it rains tonight, will this be seen as “the answer”? Of course, if it does shower tonight, the forecast is for very little of it. I would think this could be interpreted as a tease. Would Governor Perdue’s god be deemed a terrible prankster; giving us just a taste of what is needed?
I find this sort of thing a ridiculous political sop to the GOP’s right-leaning religious base. This sort of crap causes me to want to be a Pastafarian. We might as well hit up the homeopathic remedy producers to walk around spitting on the sidewalk (because we know that less is more in homeopathy).
-
It's a Mad Mad Mad … World
Phil Plait has a posting concerning a major TV personality who doesn’t know whether the Earth is flat.
Phil hit it hard, but I’ll reiterate one of his points. It is just not possible to exist in an industrialized country in the 21st century and not know that the Earth is a ball. People who espouse a belief in flath-earthism or, as this person did, claim ignorance of the matter, are not qualified to breathe.