Norman Borlaug March 25, 1914 – September 12, 2009
A truly Great man, forget your Bono’s and your Sting’s etc. Here was a man that is said to have save Billions of lives, and chances are that most of you have never heard of him…….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

Someone named Back2BackJack left a comment on Youtube under a video edit from Dr Borlaug’s appearance on P & T saying “Borlaug’s work has saved more lives than those taken by Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined.” there is a legacy worth having.

I would like to thank Tim at Skeptical Software Tools for this info.

It appears that some person of a low morale centre took advantage of a situation following Robert Lancaster’s recent medical condition.

Unfortunately the domain name for Stop Sylvia Browne expired during the early days of Robert’s Hospital treatment. It was subsequently bought up by someone who has used the name to front a site in favour of the kind of things Robert has spoken out against.

The site is now addressed here (http://www.stopsylvia.com/) and I ask that anyone interested in what Robert’s does please continue to view his excellent, well researched and factual work.

If anyone has previous saved links to Stop Sylvia Browne, I ask that they update them so as to not give traffic to the other site.

I would like to pass on this information that I have lifted from Skeptical Software Tools, I hope Tim doesn’t mind, but will edit my content if he does.

If you do a Google search for Sylvia Browne you will see that Robert’s site is the second result, right below Sylvia Browne’s own web site. This is a fantastic way to get the attention of people who might be considering buying products or services from Browne.

Except now that link no longer goes to Robert’s site. We need to fix this.

ACTION ITEMS

We need every skeptic webmaster and blogger out there to do the following, as soon as possible:

DO: Link to Robert’s site using the domain name stopsylvia.com.

DO NOT: Use any other domain name such as a .NET or .US domain that you have heard about, even if they appear to work correctly. There are a number of aliases for the site, but it is important for search ranking purposes that we all use the same URL when we link.

DO: Use the text “Sylvia Browne” within your hyperlink, to help Google discover that this link is relevant for that search. Your HTML should look like this:

<a href="http://stopsylvia.com">Sylvia Browne</a>

DO NOT: Include the word “Stop” inside the hyperlink. In order to appeal to fence sitters, we need to make this site appear in searches for “Sylvia Browne”, not “Stop Sylvia Browne”. The latter phrase will happen naturally in Google without our help due to the content of the site.

DO: VERY IMPORTANT! Change all the links on your site, even ones in ancient pages, old blog posts and in your blogroll. This not only helps Robert even more, but it will reduce the (now undeserved) ranking of the old name which is now owned by a bad guy.

DO: Consider adding a similar link to your signature file on any online forums you frequent. On many of these sites (including the JREF Forum) changing your signature retroactively changes your old messages as well!

DO NOT: Waste time adding links to sites which use rel=”nofollow” on user submitted links. For instance, links in blog comments on most blogs will not help, and links in Wikipedia will not help. If you are unsure, use the “View Source” or “View HTML” option of your browser to look at a typical page of the site with user submitted links. If you see something like this:

<a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://stopsylvia.com”>Sylvia Browne</a>

Then a user-submitted link on that site is not going to help at all.

DO: Spread the word to as many bloggers and webmasters you can.

I have decided to temporarily come out of retirement for the following blog…..

For those of you that know me, you will be aware that I have a serious distaste for Psychics, tarot reader and other such purveyors of bullshit that seek to exploit people of a vulnerable position. With that in mind I am very sad to learn from James Randi’s site, Robert Lancaster, a Skeptic that has taken the fight to one such purveyor of Bullshit, Sylvia Browne, has suffered a stroke.

This is a man that spends a large percentage of his time trying to educate people on why they should not turn to people like Browne for advice at times of need or for life changing decisions.

Robert is primary reason on why I am a Skeptic myself. I read his blog about Sylvia Browne after her criminally inaccurate assessment of the Shawn Hornbeck case, I finally realised the damaging affect so called psychics could have on people.

I wish that I had an ounce of the conviction that this man has at standing up to people like Browne as he has the courage of his convictions.

I wish him a speedy recovery as the world needs people like him. At the same time, my thoughts go out to his family and friends.

Please feel free to check out his site to see how much time, investigation and accuracy this man devotes to freeing the world of exploiters of people of a vulnerable nature and please check out his health status here.

Thank you for reading

It has probably been noticed I haven’t blogged for ages. Unlike my Moose colleagues that use their sites to push ideas or projects, I just use my site to voice opinions and I am just not in to doing that anymore. There are people out there far more qualified than I to review gigs, music and movies and disprove the irrational and supernatural and moan about every day mundane crap.

Although I am stopping this site based on my feelings and views at the moment, I have had great fun over the years doing the site and it also introduced me to some really great people and would not change that for the world. It would however be rude of me to just stop blogging without thanking the people that made this shit happen:

Firstly to Al and Ben, thank you for supporting me in putting the site up and answering all the tech problems that I had and encouraging me to become a part of the Moose Community

Ruth for the actual design of my site (hey, you didn’t actually think I did this did you?). Ruth was the talent behind that look and the concept, a truly talented individual.

My fellow Moose colleagues Lorna, Heather, Mikey, James, Noel and last but by no means least, Chris. One of the best things about the site was getting to meet and to call y’all friends. I know our friendships will continue out with the realms of the t’interweb as you are all top notch peeps.

And lastly my readers, thanks to everyone out-with the Moose family that commented, criticized, insulted, contributed or did anything else towards the site.

I do not believe in absolutes (other than one day I will shuffle off this mortal coil and pay taxes) so to say that Guy Incognito will be resurrected again is not out with the realms of possibility, just not in the foreseeable future.

To my fellow Moosers, good luck with your sites, I will still be reading.

Peace out

Guy Incognito (RIP)

In the same way that Robert Lancaster has a dislike of the practices of so-called psychic Sylvia Brown, I have a dislike of claims made by one fellow Scot, Derek Ogilvie. Derek has shot to fame as “The Baby Mind Reader” on Channel 5, conducted a tour of Scotland, has tried to break
through in the states and has recently and is working on a series called “Baby’s Wil Is Wet”
(translation from Dutch: “What Baby Wants Is Law”) in the Netherlands.

As I have previously stated, I am not a fan of what Mr Ogilvie does, I have watched his show and apart from the fact that he clearly cold reads the parents in his shows, he clearly has no shame in exploiting vulnerable people for his gain and the entertainment of others. His belief in his powers is so great that he applied for the great James Randi’s £1,000,000 challenge. Even though this challenge has been running since 1964 and never has been claimed, Mr Ogilvie fancied his chances. I was concerned about this and did email the JREF with my concerns, and got a reply from the great Randi himself, here is a transcript of the email:

“Dear all at the JREF
It has been really great reading all the articles on your site, I have really enjoyed it and it even convinced me to pick up a copy of Flim-Flam. It has come to my attention that a charlatan from my Hometown of Paisley in Scotland has applied to do Randi’s challenge. The so called baby reader “Derek Ogilvie”

I have no doubt in thinking that he will fail miserably to demonstrate anything other than being able to insert his head up his own ass, but where my concern is that he has applied to do the challenge at a time where he is launching a new tour and I can’t help but thinking he wants to do the challenge in order to gain some publicity in your shores as well as over here, the whole “there is no such thing as bad publicity” approach.

People that we (myself and my skeptical minded friends) have spoken to that are a tad narrow minded and believe that Ogilvie has “weegie waggie powers” say that even if (I actually mean when) he fails the challenge, it will not change their opinion of him.”
Yours sincerely
The Cognitive Grenade

…… and the great Randi’s reply…………

Have no fear….

James Randi.

And Randi was right, Ogilvie sat the challenge in May (although Randi agreed not to release the details of the test until the TV production company behind “Baby’s Wil Is Wet” gave him permission. As expected by yours truly and any other rational thinking Skeptic, Ogilvie failed to win the money. He had agreed to the test conditions and controls set by the JREF, but in his Psychic readings of 20 children/parents, he got 1 prediction right, which Randi states is an excellent example of the proof of the laws of chance, and of permutations and combinations.
On Ogilvie’s website he states “Until I prove my abilities scientifically then I realize that many Skeptics will undoubtedly dismiss my claims and try to wind me up by constantly going on and on about me “cold reading” or using trickery”

Well unfortunately you did fail to prove your abilities scientifically and the fact that you stated that that the JREF test “can’t be scientific, because Randi is an illusionist.” Seems to reek of sour grapes, I wonder what would have been said in the unlikely event of you passing the test

I salute Mr Randi, the JREF and all their work at exposing these fakers, the sad thing is though that there are those out there that will discount the results of this test and continue to be amazed by Ogilvie and his work.

You can read all of the article here.

After the enjoyable deafening experience 2 weeks ago which was Unkle, it was nice to go a mellow gig, and what better a gig to go to than Sia Furler, a solo artist also known for her vocal talents on all the Zero 7 albums. Was a good night with good people, Skiv and John who both also enjoyed the night.

On a side point, I would like to add to a comment that Kitten made on one of her last posts. I two have began to notice people talking through concerts, maybe because all of the gigs in my youth were at ear bleeding levels, I find myself being more and more annoyed during these more delicate shows at the idiots that pay money and talk through the gig, Sia is delicately singing a heartfelt song and some moron is talking about the beer he just bought…. STOP IT, GO AND SIT IN THE FECKING PUB AND TALK ABOUT YOUR FECKING BEER, I AM SURE MYSELF, THE REST OF THE CROWD AND PROBABLY THE PERFORMING ARTISTS DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT WHAT BEER YOU BOUGHT, SHUT UP AND ENJOY THE MUSIC… DUMBASS

Peace

Oh and you can check out the review with some links to videos here

I went to see Unkle with Marc. Great show, where we were standing right next to the Subs, so now am experiencing that constant “eeeeeeeeee” sound, plus my retina’s were almost burned out with the excessive strobe use. All signs of a good night if you ask me!!!!!

Check out the full review here.

Audio Beenies!!!

Whilst taking a “donner” around Buchanan Galleries of Saturday, I happened to take a walk into the O’Neills store situated on the ground floor. For those of you that are not familuar with it, it sells skateboarding/surfing/snowboardong gear and as I have a like for that sort of stuff (except the prices!!) I wanted to see what cool “threads” I may be able to purchase. Being a man of many hats, I found myself over looking at the beenies, and there I saw the sign saying “Audio Beenies”, what a marvelous invention I though, a beenie that can carry sound, must be wireless or something, may be Bluetoothed or some sort of technological breakthrough, alas no…..

As I picked up said product, I immediately noticed the wire hanging done from it, ok so not wires I thought, but lets see what it can do. luckily I had my MP3 player with me and was able to plug in to said product, as I tried on the hat to test the quality of sound, I noticed what the ingenious part of the product was….. they had stitched a set of headphones into the lining of said product so that they would be at your ears when wearing it……. fucking genius, up there with the invention of the wheel I thought.

Yes, I am being sarcastic.What on earth is the point of that????? there is no difference from putting your (probably superior quality) headphones that you got with your MP3 player in your ears then putting on a beenie on top of it?? I made that remark to a sales person who came over to ask me if I “needed help with anything”, he smiled embarrassedly and said something along the lines of novelty value.

My advice to the inventor of this, try harder at school sonny, only kidding…. Bluetooth it, fit good quality headphones, a mic then call it an audio beenie, until then stick to painting that bubbly packing paper red and writing “Tension Sheet” on it!!!

END OF RANT!!

A Mafia Godfather finds out that his bookkeeper has cheated him out of $10,000,000.00

His bookkeeper is Deaf. That was the reason he got the job in the first place. It was assumed that a Deaf bookkeeper would not hear anything that he might later testify about in court.

When the Godfather goes to confront the bookkeeper about the missing money, he brings along his attorney, who knows sign language.

“Where’s the fuckin’ money you embezzled from me you little fuck!” asks the Godfather, the attorney translates into sign.

“I have no idea what you are talking about” the attorney says to the godfather after watching the Bookkeeper sign a response.

The Godfather pulls out a handgun, puts it to the bookkeepers temple and says “Ask him again”.

The attorney signs to the bookkeeper: “He’ll kill you if you don’t tell him!”

The bookkeeper signs back: “OK! You Win! The money is in a brown briefcase, buried behind the shed in my cousin Vinnie’s backyard in Queens!”

“The godfather watches the bookkeeper sign to the attorney and asks him “Well, what did he say?”

The attorney replies: “He says you don’t have the balls to pull the trigger”

Don’t you just love lawyers

After some off the cuff remarks from Mrben, I thought it I should start to become a regular “blogger” again, by gorn its been a while. So something easy to start with, a joke…………

Paddy weighs 20 stone so his doctor puts him on a diet.

“I want you to east regularly for 2 days, then skip a day and repeat this for about 2 days. says the doctor.

When paddy returned, he shocked the Doctor by having lost 4 stone.

“Thats amazing!!” the doc said.

Paddy nodded, “I’ll tell you bejesus, I taught I waz gonna drop dead by da 3rd day!”

“What, from the hunger?” the doctor asked.

“No, from the feckin’ skippin!”