Now you can find out what name Sarah Palin would have given you!
(Disclaimer: the one and only thing I like at all about Palin is that she gave her kids unusual names.)
I’m always tickled and disturbed when I hear news about JZ Knight. Knight, as some of you may already know, is a New Age charlatan who claims to “channel” a 35,000 year old Atlantean warrior, and dispenses ludicrous advice in a growly voice and gets paid big bucks by the gullible. However, now one of her former students dared to turn around and use moldy wisdom she learned from a hokey old invisible friend, and fleece some rubes of her own. So what does Knight do? Sue, of course.
The only thing that could make the trial sillier is if the court put Ramtha on the witness stand.
Ooops, it’s vanished from the Seattle Times site. Here it is:
Yelm channeler JZ Knight testified Tuesday she was so “disturbed” at reports that spiritual teacher Whitewind Weaver had “taken my school’s teachings, changed them around a little and then started teaching them” that she authorized a lawsuit.
“It wasn’t anything I wanted to do,” Knight, founder of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, said during a civil jury trial in Thurston County Superior Court. “We usually tend to assume people are impeccable.”
But Weaver’s attorney, Robert Kilborne, of San Diego, grilled Knight about why the channeler would sue when Weaver had been so supportive of her school.
Weaver, founder of Lacey-based Art of Life Coaching Inc., sent a letter to her students in Oregon telling them she was moving to Washington to study at the Ramtha school, urged the students to do the same and enrolled in more than $8,000 worth of classes, Kilborne said.
Knight, self-proclaimed channel of a 35,000-year-old male spirit warrior entity Ramtha, was the second witness in her case accusing Weaver of breach of contract in connection with a seminar Weaver taught in August 2006. Knight claims the seminar violated terms of a registration Weaver signed that says teachings at the Ramtha school are for the students’ personal use only and cannot be disseminated for commercial gain.
Weaver’s attorneys deny the allegations.
Seattle attorney David Spellman, representing Weaver, pummeled school administrator Mike Wright.
Knight’s attorneys claim Weaver copied seven school processes, including Fieldwork, an exercise designed to improve ability to focus attention and intuition by finding a symbolic card on a fence while blindfolded.
“Is Pin the Tail on the Donkey focused attention?” Spellman asked Wright.
“It could be,” Wright replied.
“So, then is it Fieldwork?” Spellman said.
“No, it’s Pin the Tail on the Donkey,” Wright said.
Knight, under direct examination by Tacoma attorney Rick Creatura, told the jury how Ramtha first appeared to her in 1977. In visits during the ensuing years, she said Ramtha used her body to speak at seminars, in books and on tapes around the world.
Kilborne, on cross-examination, was not impressed.
“Isn’t it the flat truth that there is no Ramtha?” he asked.
“That is incorrect,” said Knight, who hosted a conference of scientists at her school to investigate the Ramtha phenomenon. “And science proved in 1997 that Ramtha was not me.”
One of the quirks of this small town is the music I sometimes hear in the local grocery store. We don’t get the usual boring muzak that was screened by some beancounter to maximize inoffensiveness — I was quite charmed the first time I went shopping there, and instead of boring old 1001 Strings soft-soaping pop, I actually heard them playing Patti Smith belting out “Gloria”. Now it usually isn’t so transcendently magnificent — in fact, it’s still usually the kind of thing you might hear on a soft-rock or easy-listening or country station — but at least now and then you get to hear something with character.
Which isn’t always good.
So this afternoon I zipped over to pick up some fresh tomatoes and provolone for dinner, step in the door, and hear this horrible adenoidal voice with a Minnesota accent singing this:
Beating on the cheeseHEADS!
Beating on the cheeseHEADS!
We are all rejoicing
Beating on the cheeseHEADS!
Not just once, not twice, but over and over again, for the entire duration of my visit (which was short: there may be something to this idea that background music can influence market behavior.) It was incredibly annoying, but everyone else in the store was going about their business in a perfectly normal fashion. Weird.
I guess there is some football game tonight that has the region riled up. There’s nothing quite like bizarre, understated Minnesota patriotism to highlight some of the strangeness of local culture.
Or, at least, future vacation destinations. How could I resist a place that has a Devil’s Brewery, Bryggeriet Djævlebryg, and markets a godless beer?
Gudeløs
Type: Imperial stoutData: 8.9% alc/vol, OG app. 1.090, IBU app. 65
What? Bryggeriet Djævlebryg and the Danish Atheist Society have entered into an unholy alliance and the result is “Godless”: This first batch is a somehow accessible imperial stout with its 8.9% abv. It offers burnt notes from the malt mingled with sweet nuances and a warming depth from the alcohol. This brew is primarly aimed at members of the Atheist Society, but it will also be available in selected shops and bars. In these times, when companies are expected to show social responsibility, we in the brewery have decided to follow suit: For each bottle or draft sold we donate 1 danish crown to the Danish Atheist Society.
It sounds like the antithesis of Coors…and that’s a good thing all around.
Lots of you have been mailing me this comic today, 9 Chickweed Lane, because it contains a bizarre proof of god. I know, it’s supposed to be funny, but let’s take it seriously just for a moment.
To summarize the argument: Darwin’s theory predicts a progressive increase in human intelligence, refuting the Christian account; people are stupid; therefore, Darwin is refuted; therefore, god exists.
I assume the humor in the comic lies in the blatant illogic of the silly rationale the pompous ass in the blue overalls is bloviating (I hope…I don’t read this one very often, so I don’t know if the artist is one of those pontificating nitwits who really believes his captions [see Dilbert; see Poe’s Law]). But anyway, every step of his reasoning is wrong. Evolution does not predict a progressive pattern to our intelligence. The Christian account is an unsupported assertion instead of a description of the natural world, and many people interpret it in many different ways which do not necessarily preclude the observed natural distribution of intelligence. People are actually smarter than most, if not all, other species — compare us to cockroaches, for instance. Therefore, neither Darwin nor his strawman Darwin are refuted. Even if it were, though, disproving evolution does not mean one among many possible other alternative theories are proven.
OK, I’m done. Stop taking it seriously. You may now resume laughing at the arrogant fool in the comic strip.
Apparently, it’s an eppendorf pipette. If you aren’t a science nerd, an eppendorf pipette is one of the ubiquitous tools of molecular biology — it’s a calibrated gadget for dispensing minute quantities of liquids.
Eppendorf is now selling an automated pipettor called epMotion … and judging by the promotional video and music, it’s also intended to raise estrogen levels. Don’t watch it unless you want to be emasculated!
(The tune is rather catchy. I’m suddenly in the mood to cuddle.)
epMotion Song
Pipetting all those well-plates, baby, sends your thumbs into overdrive
And spending long nights in the lab makes it hard for your love to thriveWhat you need is automation, girl, something easy as 1 2 3
So put down that pipette, honey, I got something that will set you freeAnd it’s called epMotion (whisper: ’cause you deserve something really great)
Girl you need epMotion (whisper: yeah girl it’s time to automate)
It’s got to be epMotion (whisper: no more pipetting late at night)
Only for you epMotion (whisper: girl this time we got it right)DNA
RNA
Proteins
Cell Cultures
Less reagents
Faster workflow
Saves you money
Well, well, wellAnd it’s called epMotion (whisper: ’cause you deserve something really great)
Girl you need epMotion (whisper: yeah girl it’s time to automate)
It’s got to be epMotion (whisper: no more pipetting late at night)
Only for you epMotion (whisper: girl this time we got it right)
Harper Collins is about to release a children’s book called The Daring Book for Girls(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) in Australia. It contains a very short section on how to play a didgeridoo — and wouldn’t you know it, someone is offended.
But the general manager of the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association, Dr Mark Rose, says the publishers have committed a major faux pas by including a didgeridoo lesson for girls.
Dr Rose says the didgeridoo is a man’s instrument and touching it could make girls infertile, and has called for the book to be pulped.
I think Dr Rose has confused aboriginal belief with reality. The didgeridoo is a long piece of hollow painted wood. Go ahead, girls, you can touch it and it won’t hurt you, no matter how much someone claims its magic powers will do weird things to your gonads.
I would think that he could, possibly, make a case for cultural insensitivity if it were true that it would the book violated native taboos, but even that wouldn’t be grounds for demanding that the book be destroyed — it would just mean that members of a culture that rigidly defines women’s roles would not be buying the book. But this Rose kook goes further — he’s not just saying it violates a tradition, he is arguing that it literally has magic powers. What next, will Catholics start claiming that pieces of bread literally turn into pieces of a god? That would be ridiculous.
“I would say from an Indigenous perspective, an extreme mistake, but part of a general ignorance that mainstream Australia has about Aboriginal culture,” he said.
“We know very clearly that there is a range of consequences for females touching a didgeridoo, it’s men’s business, and in the girls book, instructions on how to use it, for us it is an extreme cultural indiscretion.”
Dr Rose says the consequences for a girl touching a didgeridoo can be quite extreme.
“It would vary in the places where it is, infertility would be the start of it ranging to other consequences,” he said.
“I won’t even let my daughter touch one…. as cultural respect. And we know it’s men’s business.
“In our times there are men’s business and women’s business, and the didgeridoo is definitely a men’s business ceremonial tool.”
Heh heh. He said “ceremonial tool.” I know who’s playing the tool here.
(via Josh Reviews Everything)
As Orac says, the latest Jack Chick tract is pretty loony. Did you know that if you’re a good Christian you can fend off vampires easily?
I’ve spent my evening curled up with a wracking cough and nasty pains in places I didn’t know I could hurt — I think I sprained my diaphragm — and while stumbling dumbly through the web, I belatedly found the story of the recent Georgia bigfoot. I know, it’s last week’s news, but I’m feeling a little addled.
Anyway, it brought back old memories. Way back when I was a teenager, I used to build balsa wood model airplanes in my grandparents’ attic. It was a good deal: my family didn’t have to deal with the smell, I didn’t have to worry about my brothers and sisters stomping on a delicate wing, and Grandma would bring me cookies and milk. There was also a stack of my grandfather’s manly men magazines to browse while I was waiting for that last coat of dope to dry. I don’t know if the genre is still around today, but in the 60s and 70s, at least, there were these magazines like Argosy and Saga that were full of manly stories of manly fellows braving dangers and hunting and exploring, with the occasional woman in a bikini lolling on the beach as the manly frogmen fought vicious sharks, and such like. One of the stories I recall most vividly was the Minnesota Iceman, which the article claimed was the most amazing evidence for the existence of bigfoot ever. There were several accompanying photographs of the poor guy in full color, frozen in a defensive pose, one arm thrown up over his head, with a bright splash of red over one eye, where he had been purportedly shot.
It made an impression. I recall reading up on cryptozoology quite a bit after that, trying to figure out whether it was real or not. I regretfully came to the conclusion eventually that it was a complete fraud, largely because I couldn’t find any legitimate scientific sources that had anything to say about it, and even in my teens I knew that Argosy was not a credible source of scientific information. Curiously, I now learn that creationists haven’t figured that out; Answers in Genesis uses the Minnesota Iceman as an example of scientific fakery ala Piltdown Man, accusing “experienced zoologists and scientific journals” of going out on a limb for a bogus missing link. At least now I can place their scientific expertise as somewhere significantly below mine…at the age of 15.
The Minnesota Iceman was a fake by a disreputable carnie. What about the Georgia Bigfoot? The lesson learned there is that people have gotten stupider since the 1960s. This bigfoot corpse was a graceless fake that was exposed within hours by the clever dicks at the JREF, and was concocted and promoted by a pair of blustering oafs named Rick Dyer and Matt Whitton, who have taken the unfortunate Southern redneck stereotype and amplified it into an embarrassment. It’s a rubber suit stuffed with dead animal parts. If I’d seen the photos of this thing at an impressionable age, I would not have been at all impressed — they were pathetic. The most thorough (if rather rambling) account is at a bigfoot site, and it’s damning. The creators weren’t just con-artists, they were stupid, incompetent con-artists…and people still fell for it. That’s the most depressing part of this story. The frauds don’t even have to try anymore, and the suckers line up to give them their money.
The pope has condemned this silly sculpture as blasphemous, and German Catholics are trying to get it removed from display.
They can’t be serious, can they? It’s kitschy and funny. But really, they’re unhappy about this.
The Vatican wrote a letter of support in the pope’s name to Franz Pahl, president of the regional government who opposed the sculpture.
“Surely this is not a work of art but a blashphemy and a disgusting piece of trash that upsets many people,” Pahl told Reuters by telephone as the museum board was meeting.
The Vatican letter said that the work “wounds the religious sentiments of so many people who see in the cross the symbol of God’s love”.
Pahl, whose province is heavily Catholic, was so outraged by the sculpture of the pop-eyed amphibian that he went on a hunger strike to demand its removal and had to be taken to hospital during the summer.
So wait…now doing anything with two sticks stuck together at right angles is going to be an affront to “God’s love”? I have been told over and over again by pompous wackaloons that I’m on the shock-jock trajectory, compelled to try and top my outrages against religion in an ever-upward spiral of offense, and that it’s going to be really hard to top cracker abuse. However, it looks like you can piss off the pope just by playing around with a couple of popsicle sticks.
