Empire of the Odd

A short time ago, some UFO update aficionados put together the UFO Blog Coalition, Terry Groff one of the founders and master of ceremonies of the UFC put it this way.

The UBC is kind of a one-stop-shop for UFO related blogs.
Instead of having to visit each blog, you can see at a glance
who has new postings and who hasn’t.

Well this is laudable to be sure. Terry set up and executed the thing but (so some say) a number of undesirable elements were introduced to the UBC, things started to go downhill, people got their feathers ruffled with probable results.

Rich Reynolds (one of the co-founders of the UBC) put it this way.

Eventually the UBC diminished in my eyes. It was meant to be like another coalition  –  one about literature that spurred me to set up the thing in the first place.

Paul Kimball; not a founder but a kind of ground floor guy in the Coalition. writes in part.

I pulled out of the UBC about two weeks ago, because I was no longer comfortable with some of the other members. Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but with a few notable exceptions (Mac Tonnies, Kyle King, Kevin Randle, Isaac Koi), most of the UBC members represented a faction within ufology with which I have no desire to be associated.

Having said that, however, I had no beef whatsoever with Terry Groff, who had acted as the administrator for the UBC since day one. Yes, the idea had originally been someone else’s, but it was Terry who got the thing off the ground, and then kept it going, day after day (no mean feat, as he had to sort through over two dozen blogs each day).

There was an undesirable element if one adjudges the UBC by how much bickering was going on. It became something of a BBS system, one that had skeptics and believers. It is very typical of that sort of thing to simply not work well. People in the UFO biz can have very divergent and radical opinions, many which cannot be reconciled.

Terry Groff announced that, because of the sniping he’s taking a step back from the day to day editing of the Coalition. He’s not to happy about the sniping either.

I’ve been watching this for some time now. Ever since it was announced on UFO updates (a place I lurk.) Most of the debate seemed above board, if a little spirited. There have been a few exceptions. Alfred Lehmberg adds his prose and saucy commentary. Regan Lee add her bits from time to time. One person posts synopsis of Coast to Coast. A couple of people grace us with their poetry. Most of the time there is very little that I would call interesting commentary.

The coalition (to paraphrase one or two people) was meant as a concordance of UFO researchers. It certainly is not that. Right now there is an odd mixture of research minded individuals and (to be perfectly frank.) people who are not anything of the sort.

This provides a pretty accurate cross section of the UFO biz to be sure but as a showcase for researchers, one to be used as media contacts the coalition leaves much to be desired. I don’t know if this is a problem though. It doesn’t serve the UFO business to represent itself as something that it’s not.

The UFO field is like a state fair or a carnival, there are performing pigs, strange bearded women, dwarves, strongmen, mediums and alien contactees, religious fanatics and purveyors of patent medicine. There are also carnie barkers, by the score. All clamoring for attention making the field a chaotic mass of sight and sounds, but trying to find something significant is like trying to get a good meal on the fairway, after passing by the cotton candy and deep fried Twinkies, what do you have?

Off in an un-swept, filthy corner can be found one or two serious researchers. They are a passionate lot, quietly interviewing people. Keeping statistics and compiling data. Their world doesn’t care about alien species or saucer propulsion systems. All they want is to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the aliens are here. Or that something is flying those dang things.

The rest can take care of itself.

But the sight and noise of the carnival completely drowns these people out, which is a shame. You see, it’s not the performing gorillas or the mentalists, the hucksters, the worlds’ largest horse that’s going to solve the UFO problem. It’s the researchers. The rest of them–they have their answers already, most of them don’t need to question any more. What they need is validation. Validation plus a need for egos to be stroked.

Validation and that’s the key. See, the carnie folk are fearful of their own experiences. They fear fault, fault in their own vision or prejudicial beliefs. They don’t care about research, research could prove them wrong, we can’t have that! In fact many carnie folk are downright hostile to the researchers. Researchers can fail to validate their beliefs and for that they must be punished. They must be driven to the edge of the field so that the carnie folk can have their big party in relative peace, such as it is.

This is exactly opposite of almost every other field of endeavor. The carnies, the cranks, the clowns and the nut-jobs usually don’t get much say at all in the research end of things. Researchers in serious R&D projects don’t tolerate the kind of flotsam and jetsam that washes around the UFO biz. It’s no wonder that the UFO business is more or less in the same state that it was forty or fifty years ago. It cannot progress because the clowns have taken center ring. And the clowns are jealous; they have no intention of giving one iota of ground. The clowns don’t need to find out what is going on. They don’t need to research. They already know!

They know everything.

In this light it’s no surprise that experiments like the UFO Coalition are shaky at best. With all those egos in play, both of the researchers and the carnie folk it’s no wonder that dialog rapidly brakes down. People with axes to grind on both sides begin to go at each other with gusto. It’s a pattern that’s repeated itself many times, from UseNet to the JREF.

It all comes down to communications. How and why we communicate and the methods we use. To some; abuse and belittlement, logical fallacies and insult are the pinnacle their communication style. Others have different opinions of wha’s proper and what is not. Until these two worlds can calmly regard each other, realizing that they are both after the same things will the field begin cleaning itself of the last several decades of clutter and waste.

Aaron Sakulich
did an interview with David M. Jacobs (PhD.) He’s an associate history professor at Temple University. It’s a fascinating piece. True to form Sakulich does something here that’s a bit unorthodox. He doesn’t edit his interview, he allows Jacob to say what he likes.

And so he does, he goes on an on. Blathering if I didn’t know better. There are about sixteen pages, something like seven hundred words per page so it’s a bit to wade through.

For example;

“Now it’s all the rage, books are coming out about it, in Harvard University in print, or, it’s false memory syndrome. The amount of explanations for this is so long it’s literally staggering. Your jaw flies open when you hear all the explanations for this. And there can only be one explanation for this, the correct explanation, because it’s so complicated and so precise, that only one thing will cause this kind of precision. That means that all the explanations for it, that ‘this is not happening’, all the explanations for this except for one will be wrong. But debunkers never, ever question other arguments, they never debate among themselves, it’s a very bizarre group of people who dedicate their lives to trying to disprove this, it’s a strange group, it’s a far stranger group than abductees are, who come from everywhere and everything, who are university professors, I’ll have you know, and physicians, and psychiatrists and psychologists themselves, and attorneys, and elementary school teachers(.)

OK, fine, but; this statement really jumped out at me. .

“But debunkers never, ever question other arguments, they never debate among themselves, it’s a very bizarre group of people who dedicate their lives to trying to disprove this, it’s a strange group, it’s a far stranger group than abductees are,”

Of course I have to take umbrage. In my experience there is far more debate among skeptics than among believers. I look at most believer boards and I see very little debate. He certainly can’t be talking about newsgroups. The only open newsgroups that I’ve experienced are on the skeptical side. Believers don’t often foster debate of any kind.

Says Jacobs ;

I don’t want to get into this, but all debunkers make one or all three of three mistakes: they don’t know the data, they distort the data, or they ignore the data. They all do that. There are no exceptions to that, Aaron. There are no exceptions to this.

No exceptions? All debunkers? Pretty strong words pilgrim!

And Jacob’s entire epistle says, there is only *one* explanation to the abduction phenomena. Only *one?* That’s not very scientific. That’s absurd as a matter of fact. Even if one were to prove the ETH there is no reason to believe *all* abduction stories are caused by this. No more than saying the ETH is impossible, unlikely perhaps. Not evidenced certainly but not impossible.

Is Jacobs a believer than? Is he someone with a strongly held conviction regarding the ETH in regards to abductee’s experiences?

It would seem so.

(Jacobs)
“But they (abductees) are not crazy. Let’s just say that they are not crazy and that everything is normal, and yet they are seeing these things, and this is happening to them at all times. We’ve dealt with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, and they are all saying the same thing. None of them are crazy, none of them have serious mental problems- and this [alien abduction] is not happening. What are you left with, then, if this phenomenon is not happening, and these people are saying it is and they are not suffering from mental delusions?

I guess the only problem I have with this is, it seems extremely prejudicial. By his own words, Jacobs says that he is not a psychologist and that he’s not trained to evaluate mental disorders. The statement “none of them are crazy” and “ yet they are seeing things” smacks of someone who has made up on the subject. He both knows these people are not crazy and know that they are seeing things – real things?

He must know that sane people see things all the time. We have all seen illusions, mirages. I remember having hallucinations once or twice while being awake for long periods of time. The things I saw were just as real and vital as other objects but I would hesitate to call them anything but artifacts from a fatigued mind.

In reading Jacobs words, I also get the sense of someone who tends to oversimplify things. To the point of absurdity. For example, a number of people are researching the so-called sleep paralyses as a possible explanation to some abductee experiences. I see no one saying categorically that *all* abduction events are caused by sleep paralyses, just that it *can* be documented that *some* are.

This is a theory and the mark of a theory is that it must be provable and it also must be falsifiable. Jacob is not talking about theories, he talking about conclusions – his own conclusions. Conclusions which by the way, were not arrived at in a scientific manner.

But how do I know that? Because he is not doing studies- not really, He using a  very weak form of evidence. Actually I think its weaker than even eye witness testimony which is right up there in the wet noodle category as far as evidence goes.

I can say with some assurance that hypnosis or putting people in a more suggestible state does nothing to help support testimony. It does nothing to support UFOs or the ETH.

That’s why psychologists say so. That’s why courts are loath to use such techniques.

Jacobs even says so himself!

So why do all these abduction “researchers” use something tha’s been proven to be unreliable? Why is it that people frequently relate dream-like abduction events only through hypnosis?

Because perhaps, the experts are right?

Anyway; as always, the Odd Emperor urges you read the entire piece before coming to a conclusion.

My dear friend R. Lee who writes UFO Bits says this about the interview;

“That whippersnapper of a skepti-bunkie, Aaron Sakulich, “interviews” Dr. David Jacobs. Sakulich says this is his first interview, but that’s no excuse for this long, rambling, and sloppy piece. Why did Jacobs agree to this? Why is Sakulich, one of the“New Thugs” I wrote about in my previous post, a member of the UFO Collective????!! Just what the hell is the UFO Collective anyway, and by the way, why are they so ageist? (And why do they use the nazi-fascist word “collective?”) (relax everybody, I am mot calling anyone a damn nazi.) “

This is more or less valid criticism. Colorful but valid nevertheless. Sakulich simply typed out his notes and presented them as is, all sixteen pages. It’s kind of silly but I can see what Sakulich is getting at. He’s a skeptic and makes no bones about it. If he did anything but put Jacob’s words up, as is without editing, people like R. Lee would scream foul. If he soft peddled Jacob’s words the skeptical community (those folks who never debate anything) would cry foul. By putting the interview up as is, without editing he is relating to us exactly what was said, how it was said and in what context. I don’t know if it’s just laziness or brilliance.

The piece does end abruptly, Why? Boredom?

I don’t know if this is a good way to approach a “hostile” interview. Sakulich can’t be accused of being unfair. Those are David M. Jacobs’s real words. If they seem foolish than perhaps Jacobs should think about what he’s saying once and a while, and what it sounds like.

Aaron Sakulich summed it up in a way that only he could

–“hey, look at me, I’m on the Astral Plane! Wooo!”

I could not have said it better myself.

Here we go again!

Meteorology expert, trained RF-remote sensing and climatologist Richard Hoagland has found evidence that hurricane Katrina is indeed an artificial hyper-dimensional storm that was hurled into the midsection of the US like a large soggy baseball into a fat man’s stomach.

Not being a meteorologist or a climatologist myself but having something of a background in RF remote sensing, I found myself puzzled at how a highly trained well credentialed person like Mr. Hoagland could come up with such a strange conclusion.

To me, Hoagland is beginning to sound like this gentleman.

Although to be fair, Hoagland is a much better writer.

Meet Doug Pooley. I reviewed his Flash Radar webpage on the Odd Empire some years ago. Pooley is very sincere in his beliefs, he’s written a web page all about radar rings and strange stuff he’s gotten off of weather radar sites.

Combining bible prophesies and end of the world paranoia, Pooley believes the literal truth of the Savior’s return and that evil radar rings are proof that someone is beaming rays into our heads from secret government facilities like the HARP research station in Alaska.

I noticed that Hoagland’s web page resembles Pooley in a number of ways. Hoagland’s page is black with white text, Pooley’s page is black with white text. Hoagland’s page has a few animated gif files, Pooley’s page has more than a few. Pooley often writes in ALL CAPS, Hoagland often does this. Hoagland’s page makes strange accusations against various government agencies. Pooley’s page does the same.

More importantly, both page authors make some very erroneous assumptions about what we are seeing when we look at weather radar pages.

“How can you say that!?” The critics shout, Hoagland wrote The Monuments of Mars he was right about that so surely he knows what he’s talking about!

Actually, no he doesn’t. In fact, Mr. Hoagland apparently has no idea what he’s talking about regarding RF remote sensing. Maybe about lots of other things but let us stick to the subject.

Hoagland’s contention is that storms like Katrina don’t occur naturally, they must be artificial man made storms that are steered into their targets via secret government weather modification projects. Your US tax dollars spent on to secret black op programs to send huge killer hurricanes into US cities.

That sounds logical right?

He’s been writing long diatribes to that effect on his web log people are taking him seriously.

Hoagland thinks that Radar PPI displays actually show weather, they do not. Radar displays an analog of radio echoes by placing a dot on a display corresponding the echo’s direction and range from the radar receiver. These are radio impulses bounced off some distant chunk of matter. Droplets of water in the case of weather radar. They can show outlines of clouds and rain itself depending on how they are configured. They can also show lots of other stuff that has little to do with the weather. Stuff that often fools laypeople like Mr. Pooley and unfortunately; Mr. Hoagland as well.

For example, from Mr. Hoaglan’s own weblog.

“It is the hope of those of us at Enterprise who have quietly pursued this research since 1998, as well as these dedicated specialists in this almost unknown field cited above, that by posting the truly bizarre “vortex radar anomaly” captured by the NEXRAD network over New Orleans on the evening of August 17th, 2005, someone “in the know” will be further inspired to release MORE crucial data of this type.

One thing seems clear, even at this early stage of our investigation:
Whatever formed this extraordinary radar signature, captured by the NEXRAD network on the 17th, cannot be considered, by any means, a “natural meteorological phenomenon.” Nature does NOT create — and in totally clear air — a set of slowly rotating “ionized vortices” … capable of reflecting radar energy across literally hundreds of miles”

OK, for those of you who think Hoagland’s some kind of demigod, and the Odd Emperor is just a freaking idiot, (and I know who you are!) Just skip the following paragraphs because they go into some technical aspects of radar. I (um) kind of doubt you would be interested in any case.

What Hoagland said is pure nonsense; radar is not a magical instrument. One that uses mystic rays to give the weather guys perfect images of storms from hundreds of miles away. Radar does not detect “vortex anomalies or any of that Star Trek crap because, frankly Scarlet; we don’t know what a “vortex anomaly is. How the duce can we detect something before we understand the nature of it?

Radar is simply a suite of man made-tools and like anything that humans make, it’s not perfect. Radar, very simply sends out a high frequency radio wave, waves that tend to be reflected by solid matter, suspended liquids or even gasses.

When we see a radar map of the US we are seeing a composite, or many smaller pictures all combined into one. Most cities in the US have one or more weather radar stations which contribute to the overall picture. Radar signals cannot cover an area like the United States. Radar waves tend to travel in straight lines and so, because of the curvature of the Earth a radar signal can only work a few dozen miles from it’s transmitter.

He is correct about one thing, “a set of slowly rotating “ionized vortices” is not a natural phenomenon, because there is no such thing. Or at least, no such thing has ever (to my knowledge) ever been detected by radar. What Hoagland is misidentifying is just unfiltered RF noise.

In fact, most of the stuff we see on a weather radar display is filtered, the clutter, noise and interference is washed out so that we only see the interesting stuff.

Here’s the kicker; all of these radar sets are attenuated and filtered to one extent or another . The PPI display (that’s the round picture with a sweep that radiates out from the center, “plan-position indicator) is like an old TV set with brightness and contrast knobs. Today these are computer algorithms but the concept is the same. Someone manually adjusts the attenuation or the sensitivity of the radar set to compensate for changing atmospheric conditions.

Radar can reflect off of anything, even air molecules so the set receivers must be attenuated so that the PPI is not simply a round bright mass on the screen. You can think of this as turning down a too loud stereo so that you can hear music better, radar displays are full of clutter and noise interference and all kinds of other crap. This unwanted data is rejected by attenuation or clever computer algorithm so that the weather guys (and us at home) can see storms magically appear on our screens. In fact we never see raw data, it would be like trying to pick out Beethoven’s ninth symphony at a biker convention. All the noise and other junk would clutter up the PPI display making it look like a bright disk or a ring.

Radar is also susceptible to interference too, just like any radio receiver. This is noise that might come from outside the radar or from any number of other sources. Even from the transmitter itself if it’s not shielded properly (a big problem for people who maintain radar sets.)

Aircraft, other weather radars, bounce-signals off of buildings, even microwave ovens can generate bogus returns.

The bands that Hoagland is citing as proof look suspiciously like accidental jamming to me. Perhaps another radar transmitter operating at nearly the same frequency. Perhaps it’s a reflection, a chunk of aluminum hanging from a building or even in a tree. These things can play hob with a radar set.

But please don’t take my word for it, I only have some training and experience to go by. Provided by the self-same US government that Hoagland thinks is screwing around with these storms. Who are you going to believe? (Yeh, that fellow who wrote the nutty books, right ! I got you covered!)

here is NOAA’s explanation;

Echoes from surface targets appear in almost all radar reflectivity images. In the immediate area of the radar, “ground clutter” generally appears within a radius of 20 nm. This appears as a roughly circular region with echoes that show little spatial continuity. It results from radio energy reflected back to the radar from outside the central radar beam, from the earth’s surface or buildings.

Under highly stable atmospheric conditions (typically on calm, clear nights), the radar beam can be refracted almost directly into the ground at some distance from the radar, resulting in an area of intense-looking echoes. This “anomalous propagation” phenomenon (commonly known as AP) is much less common than ground clutter. Certain sites situated at low elevations on coastlines regularly detect “sea return”, a phenomenon similar to ground clutter except that the echoes come from ocean waves.

Or this page

href=”http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/Atmosphere/tornado/weather_radar.html”>”>Or this

Or even this.

And this is kind of interesting

The bottom line is, those traces are not evidence of strange multidimensional rays, steering and amplifying hurricane Katrina, they are evidence that Mr. Hoagland is not the radar and meteorological expert that he thinks he is. He might not know what he’s talking about in other areas too but, lets leave that to other people, other times and places.

A very nice piece from the Harvard Gazette, “Alien abduction claims explained
Sleep paralysis, false memories involved”
By William J. Cromie

Many of the people who believe they have been abducted by aliens are bombarding Susan Clancy with hate e-mails and phone calls. The Harvard researcher, who has spent five years listening to the stories of some 50 abductees, has described her (and their) experiences in a new book to be published in October.

Clancy, 36, likes most of these people. “They are definitely not crazy,” she says. But they do have “a tendency to fantasize and to hold unusual beliefs and ideas. They believe not only in alien abductions, but also in things like UFOs, ESP, astrology, tarot, channeling, auras, and crystal therapy. They also have in common a rash of disturbing experiences for which they are seeking an explanation. For them, alien abduction is the best fit.”

..

“Boy, was I not,” she says in retrospect. “You can’t disprove alien abductions. All you can do is show that evidence is insufficient to justify the belief, and try to understand why people have those beliefs.”

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2005/09.22/11-alien.html

Of course the usual suspects are going to be screeching and hollering about this. I mean, how dare someone do a study and get results that go against the cannon of abduction believers? “Your science crap has no business reaching conclusions that counter my closely held forgone conclusions? they will probably shout. “Unless it validates my belief system it’s just closed minded, skeptical, canted, worker-bee, idiotic, debunkie, crap!

“Isn’t it time,” (they might say) “that we just chuck all this stupid research and let the gurus of the UFO field just tell everyone how things work?” Why; we can spend endless happy hours arguing what kind of toothpaste aliens use once we stop trying to prove that they exist at all.”

It’s so much easier to be mindless isn’t it?

I pulled this off of The Other Side–Paul Kimball’s weblog. He pulled it off of something else, UFO update I believe.

“Conspiracy theories are to real-life politics, history, and current events what pornography is to real-life sexuality – in other words, and extremely distant approximation. Both conspiracy theory and pornography, not incidentally, have the effect of discouraging their consumers from becoming responsible, rational adults and finctioning in a real, somplicated world. It’s easier, of course, to rant about sinister forces rendering all of us into helpless pawns, and laying all human problems on the machinations of behind-the-scenes, all-powerful plotters, than to participate in civic society, inform oneself, weigh difficult, complex issues and choices, make on’es voice heard, and vote as an educated citizen. Besides being just plain crazy, conspiracy theory is an intellectually lazy way out of actually having to think.”

Now if that’¢s not, “pith”? is the proper word I think. Yes I like that word–very apropos.

Moreover; any publisher (or student of history) will tell you that one of the earliest forms of expression in any new medium is pornography. In the Internet we have a medium that can reflect almost any expression instantly– to a world audience. Is it any wonder that it’s a fertile breeding ground for various forms of porn, the sexual and non-sexual kind?

It’s been a pretty slow week in UFO land. Nothing much happening on any front. UFO Update (which the Odd Emperor skulks on) had this exchange about the SETI project. Only mildly interesting it’s a comment by Stuart Miller which I agree with.

Alfred Lehmberg however; does not agree and replies in his own indomitable way.

****

From: Alfred Lehmberg
To:
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 08:29:39 -0500
Subject: Re: SETI Redux De Lux

>>From: Stuart Miller
>>To: UFO Updates
>>Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 21:26:18 +0100 (BST)
>>Subject: SETI Redux De Lux

>>I’ve been re-thinking my attitide towards SETI recently and
>>wonder if it’s time for a revision. Me’thinks it might be.

>>We knock Uncle Seth because he won’t acknowledge the evidence
>>that we profer and as far as he is concerned, there has been
>>absolutely no proof of ET visitation here on Earth. Why do we
>>blindly criticise him for that? How inane are we? Turkeys are not
>>usually in the habit of voting for Christmas and any such
>>philosophical wobbling on Seth’s part will possibly compromise
>>Paul Allen’s funding. You might well accuse him of scientific
>>dishonesty but even if that were true, he wouldn’t be alone. And
>>he has a point; namely we can’t produce the absolute proof he
>>asks for. We can show him a very strong possibility but we can’t
>>show him absolute proof.

No – he has the bully mainstream pulpit in the weaker
evidentiary position and he uses it to discount the stronger,
braver, more expansive, and finally, _richer_ evidentiary
position. Please pardon the hyperbole, but may the vermin of a
thousand camels infest his scrotal area.

>>Did you, btw, catch ‘that word’ in the above paragraph?
>>”Scientific”. There, I’ve said it. We drone on and on about how
>>science ignores us and there are plenty of folk on this List who
>>will retire happily to their graves in the knowledge that science
>>has at last turned its head in our direction, except that it has
>>with SETI and still we moan. Maybe it’s the wrong sort of
>>science? Maybe we’re only interested in science that agrees with
>>us before any investigation has begun?

Mainstream science is not remotely scientific with regard to
UFO. This is pointed out by many respected names past and
present. Moreover, few bemoan SETI *success* such as it is.
It’s the pandering after and celebration of the attentions of a
gutless, convenient, complacent, and corporate system chapping
folks nether regions, I suspect. The front man’s going to be
the front man for everything good and bad. Look at the idiot
prince GWB.

>>It might also be worth reminding the List, because it’s easy to
>>forget, that Seth and his colleagues are trying to do exactly
>>what we are trying to do. We have the same aims! Ergo it
>>naturally follows, as in any scientific discipline, that we
>>should therefore be at each others throats.

Then tell him to put his hands down, knock off the big arm
movements, or quit facilitating his senseless (_if_
‘believable’) ufological derision. Has he ever read Richard
Hall, Jerry Clark, or Peter Sturrock? I suspect not. We know
he’s read his Kal Korff… Moreover, bully pulpit or no, his is
the weaker dog in the fight. Maybe he shouldn’t arbitrarily run
with the big evidentiary dogs.

>>We could just try growing up a bit.

Or calling a spade a spade and giving as good as we get. Outrage
is not _necessarily_ immaturity, _me_’thinks.

>>Give Uncle Seth a cyber slap on the back and wish him well next
>>time you see him on the box instead of the usual booing and
>>hissing, and tell him to get the job done quickly. Who cares
>>which way we find out, as long we eventually do.

Well – considering his behavior, shtick, and track-record he’s
easy to boo and hiss at. Maybe he could try to be less boo-
hissable.

Concept disapproved at this station – resubmit in 30-days for
final disapproval.

DU, that’s “duh!” for the rest of you!

Of all the nutty-paranoid crap out there, I can find little that comes close to the utter insanity that’s reserved for depleted uranium (du.) Depleted uranium, that sounds so bad. Probably- kind of radioactive, should be stored as a glowing green jelly in leaking 50 gallon drums on some forgotten airbase. Just like in the cartoons.

But no! DU is actually USED! They make armor out of this crap! Bullets! Aircraft ballast! This stuff MUST be coating everything with a fine radioactive dust! It’s about to kill us all!!!

Morons! DUH!

A little reading on the subject is very informative.

First, Uranium; a naturally occurring substance. It’s very rare which is a good thing! Good because it’s also naturally radioactive. It decays rapidly spewing out alpha-beta particles and gamma radiation. You don;t want a few pounds of this stuff in your house. You would run the risk of getting cancer in the long term.

Now I’m not talking about fuel rods for power plants or chunks of plutonium. I’m talking about natural uranium. That stuff in dirt, probably under your own house right now! It’s a very dense metal, much more dense than lead but by itself; the stuff is not too dangerous. It takes many refining steps to make uranium into the atomic plant fuel that we all know and love. I mean that quite literally. If you don’t like atomic power I URGE you to turn off your computer, have yourself unhooked from the electrical grid and stop using electricity for any purpose whatsoever. If you use electricity, you use atomic power.

Live with it and stop whining!

Now, depleted uranium, that’s some of the stuff left over when uranium fuel rods are made. According to the World Health Organization: “
The uranium remaining after removal of the enriched fraction contains about 99.8% 238U, 0.2% 235U and 0.001% 234U by mass; this is referred to as depleted uranium or DU.

That’s right, most of the uranium is refined out, only a tiny percentage goes on to power our homes, our air conditioners and our electric toothbrushes. DU is the stuff that’s left over.

Is it safe? Well no. you don’t really want this stuff I your house ether, but it’s not the glowing-radiation spewing substance that some of the more hysterical public would have you believe. It’s not really very radioactive; to get a dose you would have to be in contact with this stuff for at least 250 hours, that’s around sixty days. That means you should not make furniture out of it, or rings, or eat it.

What it’s dandy for (unfortunately) is ammunition. See, this stuff is very dense, its sheering properties make it far more effective in penetrating armor plate than lead or steel ammunition. It can burn when heated rapidly and become a toxic dust, just like lead or steel. DU however is slightly more radioactive than steel (yes I said- slightly.) Kid’s shouldn’t play in and around battlefields where this stuff is used. Kids shouldn’t play around battlefields at all because of many toxic substances and unexploded munitions. As I said, you don’t want to eat this stuff but you don’t want to eat lead, or steel, Teflon, gasoline, or diesel fuel either.

“On impact with a hard target (such as a tank) the penetrator may generate a cloud of DU dust within the struck vehicle that ignites spontaneously creating a fire that increases the damage to the target. Due to the pyrophoric nature of DU, many of the DU particles and fragments that are formed during and following impact and perforation will spontaneously ignite, resulting in a shift of the particle size probability distribution function to a smaller mean diameter. As a result of physical differences between DU and its oxides, the oxide particles tend to crumble under relatively weak mechanical forces, further shifting the particle size to an even smaller mean diameter.

I have a friend who works with the stuff. Yes, she is a nuclear engineer (when she’s not raising horses) and works with this stuff every day. Apparently the place they have this stuff is contaminated but not because of DU. Because of compounds like radioactive mercury and a stew of other substances. DU (she says) is the least of their problems. It’s nearly inert.

You know what else DU is used for? Radiation shielding! For hospitals. It’s more effective than lead shielding. When it’s encased in plastic or ordinary cloth it’s *not* radioactive. Much less than say old radium dial watch. You yourself are probably more radioactive than a chunk of DU. Just from traces of good-old natural uranium deposited in your bones. And you didn’t get it because humans mine it, traces of uranium and all kinds of other stuff are all around us.

Here is one overly hysterical web page.

“To: All Concerned Humanitarians

We, the undersigned, demand an immediate ban on all depleted uranium weaponry. This highly carcinogenic poison is killing babies and children by the tens of thousands in Iraq and will soon be doing the same in the Balkans. It is a form of genocide and a severe environmental threat. We are not winning a war by giving babies cancer. We are not necessarily endorsing an end to war, only an end to using depleted uranium. These countries were once our allies and may someday be our allies again. Our problems are with the leaders of these countries, not with the children, babies, parents, and grandparents who are people just like us. The depleted uranium will poison the Earth long after the wounds of war have healed.
It is not in the best interest of the UN, NATO, nor the United States of America, to poison large segments of the population indiscriminately and it will not be tolerated. The handling of these weapons may poison our own servicemen and women. We are supposed to be the defenders of the weak and disenfranchised. We are not supposed to play the role of the Great Satan that so many now see us in. Let’s return to the role of the Peacekeeper and leave genocide for the bad guys on the other side. There can be no winners in a war fought between two evils. “

The problem of this kind of thing is that it vastly overstates one issue, replacing it with a nonsensical one. DU is not the problem, war is the problem. Diplomatic situations where the only negotiation is down the barrel of a gun is the real problem. The real issue is that weapons invariably become more and more effective. DU is not poisoning large segments of the population no more than any other munition might be. The most hazardous form of DU is a fragment entering your body at some fraction of the speed of sound. People have this junk lodged inside them and they are not dropping dead any more than people with chunks of lead inside of them instantly die of lead poisoning.

It’s pretty irresponsible to overstate something to this extent in any case. Some, non critical irrational people might be swayed but for myself, I tend to look at the basic theses of an issue, from both sides and if one party appears to be deliberately misstating their position? How can anything they say be taken for granted?

The use of DU munitions should be further studied. The effects of using this substance and the long term effects on and off the battlefield should be better known. That seems an awfully long way from declaring this substance an agent of genocide. Saying that DU will “poison the earth? is just silly and alarmist. Uranium, carbon, petrochemicals, fertilizers, lead, overpopulation, human waste and garbage are all poisoning the planet. Focusing all our attention to a relatively minor problem at the expense of much larger issues is to my mind stupid and unproductive.
This is exactly where the “duh” factor in DU resides.

Some good reading on this subject;

World Health Organization Fact Sheet.

Global Security DU page

Some unbalanced views.

A slightly more balanced anti DU opinion.

Part of the prevailing “crazy ignorant” viewpoint.

I’ve had some doubts on The Global Consciousness Project over at Princeton. It’s a fascinating idea and could be pretty significant. Apparently, a multitude of personal computers are tossing random number around all over the world and sending the results to a central server. The results are correlated and compared against world events to determine if this kind of random number generation might show spikes of congruence thereby be a kind of world- event-predictor-apparatus.

Still with me?

See; apparently computers react to human beings, mine certainly does. When I want to type out a rant it blithely co-operates but I was referring to another kind of interaction.

Psychic interaction.

Well, OK, my computers(s) do tend to malfunction more when I’m in a bad mood. Do you think that might be proof of as sort of human-computer connection? I always put it down to making more operator errors when I’m in a bad mood but maybe  – a machine with a brain that’s about as complex as a gnat’s. So what if it’s really just a machine, able to do only what we tell to do. Not intelligent by itself, it reads millions of lines of code to perform very complex tasks.

Human written code.

But I digress–most people seem to think computers are much smarter than they are. Or perhaps they think computers are much smarter than *they* are and reading some of the prattle out there I would tend to agree.

But one project had a computer flip random numbers endlessly. They saw a tiny correlation between an operator concentrating on the computer and the average random numbers that they generated.

OK so far?

So they decided to expand the experiment, using twenty odd PCs scattered all over the planet they started analyzing random numbers and found? PCs generate random numbers pretty much uniformly. That’s what the data shows. That’s not what the people at The Global Consciousness Project over at Princeton say however.

They say, “look! We saw a spike on 9-11!?

Well yes but that spike shows up on other days too.

“We saw a spike during the 2004 Tsunami!

That spike also shows up on days where nothing much is happening.

Claus Larsen writes a very illuminating interview with The Global Consciousness Project over at Princeton’s guru, Dean Radin. Larson thinks Mr. Radin is sincere but interview clearly underscores that he’s no longer doing science, he’s trying to prove a preconceived idea.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m very disappointed that The Global Consciousness Project over at Princeton has flat-lined. That it’s not making any significant predictions, that no correlation to human psychic interaction and world events can be seen. Just uniform random noise.

No really Regan! This disappoints the hell out me!

But facts are facts, if the data shows no correlation perhaps there is no correlation. In the very near future we can probably make a coordinated eqq project using millions of PCs, all shoveling random numbers back and fourth. I think it should be done. Berkley’s BOINC software might be ideal for such a thing (this is what SETI is running their shared processors on.) I would love to participate and have extra computing power standing by.

But I suspect Mr. Larson is correct when he writes–

“I don’t think he (Dean Radin.) appreciated it when I used the phrase “You are selecting your data”. It was the only time his brow was furrowed.

That pretty much says it all.

From the GCPoaP itself.

Here is a simple but beautiful rendition of the tapestry idea, programmed by Greg Nelson. It shows a recent five minute period of data, with the newest data on the right. The egg scores are shown as warm color dots (reds, yellows) for positive deviations and cool colors (blues, greens) for negative deviations. Horizontal rows (like the warp of a carpet) are the individual egg sequences, and successive vertical columns of color (the weft) are seconds. The egg array is mirrored around the horizontal centerline, which emphasizes patterns that may appear.

This was ripped from the Blog STAY FREE. Parody stamps of American (um) scientists.

Richard C. Hoagland just cracks me up, no I admit it. This fellows flights of fancy have given me happy hours of amusement in the voluminous and absurd tomes that he writes.

Now he has a weblog and absurdities abound, delivered daily to the fine mahogany desk of the Odd Emperor.

Why just today I learned to day that Hurricanes like the one that just slammed into the US Gulf Coast are *not* large storms powered by the interaction between warm water, cooler air, moisture and the rotation of the Earth. They are in fact hyperdimensional thingies. Huge artificial structures designed to wreak havoc in American cities. A fiendish plot that could only have been contrived by the sinister US government, or some vile multinational corporation bent on world domination.

Good thing that Hurricanes can’t be a natural phenomena! Hell, all those accounts from the 19th century and before must be simple fever-dreams of people wracked with malaria. All that stupid tree ring and sedimentary evidence? Must be a bunch of bullcrap.

Or the hyperdimensional hurricane creator device (HHCD) must have been around even back then!

Hyperdimensional? What the vug is that?

Well Mr. Hoagland has the answer ( I knew he would!) Just lookee here! Hurricane Ivan’s eye back in 2004 was kind of like, blurry, over-reprocessed photos of the planet Saturn. You can see patterns in the cloud wall and as we all know, hurricane eyes should be completely without patterns of any kind.

In fact this proves the hyperdimensional model of the entire solar system although this stunning revelation does not get us any closer to what the hell hyperdimensional means. I would really like a definition of the word. (Sigh,) Looks like I’m going to have to consult the Official Odd Emperor Word Definition Archive. (OOEWDA)

Hyper means

“Having a very excitable or nervous temperament; high-strung.“Emotionally stimulated or overexcited.

There are several definitions for “dimensional.” I guess the most revalent one might be

“ Physics. A physical property, such as mass, length, time, or a combination thereof, regarded as a fundamental measure or as one of a set of fundamental measures of a physical quantity: Velocity has the dimensions of length divided by time.”

So I guess the term hyperdimensional means,“overexcited, nervous and emotional physical qualities? Wow, that’s pretty heavy!

But the term hyperdimensional itself?, hmmm When I looked up this term I discovered

“No entry found for hyperdimensional. “

In desperation I turned to Wikipidia, surly they would know what hyperdimensional means. But alas I found

“No page with that title “

I’m thinking that hyperdimensional is not really a word or at best, a made up word. Well that’s OK! We all know that people like Hoagland can make up new words when ever they want. If the rest of us were better ejumacated (or something) we could all make up words! Wouldn’t that be fun? I want to make up a word now! How about Quasiundermanagementreality?”? I don’¢t know what this means yet but it sounds important! Hoagland continues on his blog.

.
One professional meteorologist, Scott Stevens — at KPVI-TV in eastern Idaho — has
independently reached the same scientific conclusion that we have … that “someone” is indeed “managing” our weather!

Scientific Conclusions? Just saying so must make it all true right? I bet Mr. Hoagland made observations (on long term hurricane and global climate data.) Formed a hypothesis, experimented on his hypothesis using controls (like he constructed a model of the planet Earth inside a giant supercomputer and replaced water vapor with limburger cheese vapor to see what happens.) Found that the data supported or refuted his hypothesis, revised his hypothesis and went back to testing and experimentation.

Well, he probably just made that all up but it’s OK! Making up stuff and claiming it’s a scientific conclusion is a time honored tradition among some people but we know Mr. Hoagland’s not like that!

So Wow! They must be pretty crappy managers! The weather seems to be getting worse, especially around the Gulf States. Do you think that (gasp!) Someone is CAUSING all the death and destruction in the southern US?

“As I (Hoagland) bluntly asked one of our own long-time Enterprise “intel insiders,” late last night:

“Are we, in fact — as Bearden strongly now suggests — immersed in an undeclared hyperdimensional weather war …!? “

So in conclusion we can plainly see that;

1) hurricanes are not natural phenomena but man made artificial storms using magical devices that have been around since at least 1600.

2) Hurricanes are steered so that their impact on cities can be maximized.

3) Hurricane Katrina was purposely steered into New Orleans to cause maximum economic damage to the US. even though it really missed, the center actually hit the towns of Biloxi and Gulfport. I guess no one’s perfect.

4) Over-processed photos (where you run unsharp mask filters and other electronic processing programs over and over) are to be assumed to depict actual things and not emerging rasters or Moray patterns like first year graphic artists are taught.

But the most stunning revelation? The Ralston Purina Corporation
must actually be the culprits behind engineered hurricanes! Look, here’s proof.

This photo from Richard Hoagland’s own web page of Hurricane Katrina CLEARLY shows the checkerboard device of the Ralston Purina Company. This is the smoking gun! The proof that Richard Hoagland is absolutely right and all those stupid meteorologists and climate guys should just pack it in and learn another trade, truck driving for instance.

How much more proof do we need? It must be a world-wide plot to destroy the US economy, disrupting the FOOD SUPPLY over a wide area by using five hundred year old hyperdimensional hurricane creation devises (HHCDs) The Purina Corporation comes in, distributing rations to starving people, making tons of money in the process. What could be more simple!

To think that we were almost taken over by a large pet-food conglomerate.

Thanks Richard! We would all be eating dog food right now if it were not for your diligent efforts.

The Odd Emperor