Rational Crank

A while back I spoke about pareidolia, the act of seeing specific images in vague random shapes. It was easy for me to find a bunch of pictures of the virgin marry to illustrate the phenomena, So I started looking for some pictures of the big man, himself. They were also easy to find - Jesus on toast, Jesus in an x-ray, Jesus in a Kit Kat bar. But, there was one picture in particular, that I came across, that I specifically did not use. When you stare at this picture, if you squint your eyes, and you use your imagination you can clearly see the image of Jesus in…I’m sorry, I can’t say it. It is too crude for my blog. Believe it or not, I DO want to maintain a certain civility in my posts. And this image of Jesus would be crossing the line. But I can’t stop thinking about it. Not because of where the image is, but because of what the implications of this image appearing in this particular place, are. You see, the fact that the image of Jesus can clearly be seen in… this place, could v...

I want to be the first one to link to this. I love at the end when she slaps the girl wearing the Kurt Vonnegut T shirt.

The following is either the thought process of a skeptic or the mad scribblings of a schizophrenic mind.  First the obligatory disclaimer - All of the preliminary investigation suggests BP was grossly negligent in regards to the recent oil spill. BP should pay every cent for the cleanup and be heavily fined for the damage that it caused to the environment and to people’s lives. (Offer not valid where prohibited by law.) With that said, will the Gulf recover from this spill a lot faster than we expected? From the beginning something didn’t seem right about the media’s coverage of this spill. What I remember from the Exxon Valdez disaster are images of scores of workers in hazmat suits using giant pressure sprayers along large runs of coastlines. I haven’t seen that here. I know this spill is bad but why is it that all of the images I see of this disaster only involve close ups of fish and frames of marshland about 20 to 30 feet wide. Oh Nick, don’t be suckered. The reason you do...

I’ve said I don’t really like people much, but I DO love the Human race. Take a second to go to this wed site on flicker called Portraits of Strangers . Human Beings are wonderful.

Yesterday the Skeptical community was abuzz about a crooked poll, PZ Myers found on a creationist website. It reminded me of this clip from a great, British sitcom I loved in the 80’s called “Yes Minister.” If you don’t know, PZ Myers is a biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris. On his website, Pharyngula , he is a distinguished bulldog, relentlessly fighting the nonsense that is creationism and intelligent design. The poll question was: What do you believe about evolution? It’s a religion. 46% It’s a fact! 43% It’s a reasonable scientific theory 11% The skullduggery here, as PZ points out, is that the creationists split the reasonable choice into two, thereby ensuring its loss and their win.

Someone at the office told me this story: It seems there was this zoo in Bristol, England, which had a small secondary parking lot that was owned and administered, not by the zoo, but by the city. It was manned by a loyal parking attendant, who in 25 years , never missed a day of work. That is until one day, when the parking attendant didn’t show up for work. The zoo administrator called the city to tell them they needed to send a replacement over. The city said they had no idea what the zoo administrator was talking about. The city had no employee collecting money for them in that location. It seems this phony parking attendant had been collecting money and pocketing it. They figured it was 400 pounds a day for the past 25 years. When the authorities went to the employee’s home they found it empty and no one knows what had become of him. When I heard this story, immediately my “skepty” sense started tingling. I informed my coworker that what he just told me was probably an urban leg...