The Padded Cell

I occasionally just do Google searches for "god in the news" or some such, just to see what stupidity lies beyond my doorstep.

Found this one today: The Prophesied End-Time Revealed

It's probably been there for a while, since the one page says:

From now until the latter part of 2008, many prophecies are going to begin to be fulfilled, especially the Seven Thunders of the Book of Revelation, which the apostle John saw but was restricted from recording. Those thunders are revealed in this book, as well as detailed accounts of the final three and one-half years of man's self-rule on earth, which are recorded in the account of the Seventh Seal of Revelation.

Ooh, I'm all scared and shit! I can't say these particular people are opportunists, since they're giving the book away. So I can only conclude that they are extremely delusional and should be locked away so as not to harm anyone.

Update 02/27/2009: Still waiting...

Revenant

While perusing the Web for crop circle stupidity, spurred by a repeat of a History Channel show from 2001 on the subject, I stumbled upon a site presumptuously called "Genius Forums".

On said forum I found a thread where (presumably) geniuses were discussing Crop Circles. Indeed the discussion was about crop circles, but I saw precious little genius involved.

Here's the URL to the thread, which was closed last year: http://www.theabsolute.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3454&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Apparently there are still people out there who think ANY of the crop circles are something other than human creations.

10 seconds of google searching finds this page, which pretty much debunks any of the "cerealogist" claims of radiation effects, strange plant nodes, etc, ad nauseum.

Here's a quote:

"As I began to make circles myself, l noted that my own mistakes, or unconscious idiosyncracies, were transformed magically by cerealogists into special accomplishments that no human could possibly duplicate. A standing stalk in a circle of felled wheat, missed by my garden roller as a lawnmower might miss a blade of grass, was seen as a cerealogical miracle. A pictogram, fabricated with the aid of several pints of Guinness and a wood-and-rope stalk stomper, was later alleged, with the most sensitive instruments, to be buzzing with radioactivity." -- Jim Schnabel.

So much for serious researchers. Deluded morons is more like it.

Revenant

I'm not sure what one is supposed to take away from the Jack Links jerky ads. You know, the ones where people out in the woods do assinine things to Sasquatch.

What I take away from the ads is: "Buy our products and be an asshole, and see imaginary creatures."

http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/ohio.pdf

The link above is an excellent summary of the entire Hockey Stick debacle as described by one of the men who exposed it for what it was in the first place.

I highly recommend reading through the whole thing.

The author, in other posts, tells us that a discredited Hockey Stick does not disprove Anthropogenic Global Warming, and that's true. What is does is show how a major piece of data purportedly showing unprecedented 20th century temperature rise is actually a piece of statistical nonsense.

Even the new Hockey Stick is no better. It uses essentially the same cherry-picked and distorted data as the original.

What's even more interesting is that research which supposedly vinidicated the HS are just re-iterations of the same data, and not independent reconstructions as implied. There is a lot of fraud going on here, but no one in charge seems to want to say it. It also amazes me that anyone who can call themself a scientist actually defends these practices.

Revenant