Walsingham

At least three I could bring to mind immediately. One wasa filthy hippy who my stepfather got to housesit uyears ago. She actually cooked with pans and ate off plates, and simply stacked them in cupboards, still dirty. Unbelievable. The second was only a slob because she was going through seriuos depression, and is now fine. The third was one of the most unpleasant characters I've ever run into. Not Evil per se, just slack to the point of hazardous. She would eat plain pasta with butter, and had the human form of mange, and was so filthy that when she cleared out her room she *Edited by myself for decency*. For some inexplicable reason she had the ability to secure really cool guys as boyfriends. It was tragic, really, silly bastards.

CREDULITY and PROGRESS I think Amentep raises an interesting point. Investigating ghosts might prove practically very fruitful. I say this because we know that using existing methodology and equipment has failed to systematically observe anything. This suggests to me that whatever dimension/s the ghosts are in are not usually under observation. If we DID observe those dimensions in the ways required to observe the ghosts we'd probably learn a thing or two; and not just about ghosts. And yes, the purpose of this thread is not to debate ghosts. It's to explore what we might do to investigate them properly. To do otherwise, and to simply hold forth on the sins of believing in pixies etc is in fact anti-science, not pro-science. One might just as well abandon the science of psychology because you can't take a slide-rule to the sub-conscious. Sometimes science happens outside laboratories, in hard to reach nooks and crannies, and the only meaningful way to react to that is to put on a helmet and go after the facts with both fists. Godsdammit, I want the truth! ~~ ETHICS As for unethical treatment of ghosts I laughed at great length about this, then realised I should take the objection seriously. 1. Causing suffering is to be avoided at all costs in scientific endeavour. 2. We have no way of knowing currently if the phenomena we class as ghosts are purposive systems. If they are not purposive systems then they can't suffer. 3. Even if some ghosts suffer to prove they are purposive systems, then might this not be weighed against the possible benefits of establishing contact with them? We may eb able to improve the lot of ghosts in general. 4. Some theorists argue that ghosts are already suffering. If we destroy some in the process of observing them we may be doing them a favour!

My favourite irony for a while was that people who attacked Bush for being black and white about good and evil treated him as pure evil. A small pleasure, but fun all the same. There's a really festive witch-burning mood comes over any social occasion whenever he comes up.

My favoured hypothesis is that the humans witnesses to ghostly phenomena are picking up on tiny cues in the environment. These cues are interpreted pre-consciously and expressed pre-consciously as an emotional matrix.

I for one can't believe anything, even a UFO, can move at unbelievable speed without making any noise at all. Air displacement alone would make some sort of noise. Has to be a visual artifact.

Well UFOs are more tangible, theoretically speaking. We exist as intelligent life, say the scientists, as the consequence of mundane chemical interactions. These chemicals exist elsewhere in the universe. Therefore intelligent life is possible elsewhere. The question then becomes simply whether it is nearby. Ghosts are not the same thing, because they are asking us to believe in a new phenomenon. Or I should say, actually, a newly questioned phenomenon. A further distinction is that if UFOs exist then they are more dynamic pehenomenon. Who is to say what they might do in the future? This demands study and consideration. If ghosts arise simply from humans, then their behaviour is probably less dynamic, and we can more or less continue to ignore them.

My problem is that occasionally I will be typing or otherwise using the keyboard and it will freeze, for maybe 20 seconds. The mouse works fine. The keyboard is a new Saitek Eclipse II, complete with chav boy-racer underlighting, which I find soothing ok, so just shut up about it. My first thought was, naturally, witchcraft. My second thought, after dousing myself in the tears of a hanged man, was that it could be something in the keyboard going awry. But I don't move it around, and it's wired so there's no real reason why it should feth up. My third reason was virus or some satanic keylogger. Am I back to witchcraft, and given I have antivirus and antispyware up the wazoo, is this a sensible thing to check?

ROFL at general descriptions. I don't want to see the game in case it makes the images less funny.

UFO topic In the old topic we were looking at means of producing credible scientific proof of 'weird goings on'. i was going to suggest two things: 1. We try to take a naturalistic proof, which we'd accept, and extract the key features of that proof 2. We try to suggest novel proofs, we hadn't considered. On, perhaps, both options I'd suggest one I'd accept is destroying a ghost. That is, if one can define a ghost as purposive system, then one can break it. break the ghost, break the ghostly phenomena. Break the phenomena, measurable effect. My suggestion is, therefore, that we range the various hypthetical causes for a ghostly phenomena and then find something which will break ONLY the paranormal explanation. Apply the intervention, measure the result. ... and yes, I may well be a violent maniac.

IMO the problem for paranormal studies is the failure of the investigators to establish any sensible set of experimental procedures.

It just occurred to me that I've wanted to see a lot of film recently but teh only reason I've not gone is that I have got sick of having to tell people to shut up. I just can't be arsed to make up for some ****er's lousy parents. I think anyone who talks in a movie theatre should be immediately removed and spray-painted orange. Orange could pay for the procedure and shazaam, everyone's happy. Alternatively, there should be a m*********** talking section where the vapid cretins can bore each other with their commentary.

I don't think there's anything 'wrong' with wanting the limelight, and sexing up a story, in regular life. It's only wrong when you start trying to make people take action/sell their house and move to Nevada.

I really don't understand why spending hundreds of thousands on clothes seems unreasonable, when one considers the scale of campaign finance as a whole. I don't think anyone here would deny that simple visual image is above 60% of the equation for most voters.There's not much bloody point in putting someone on TV every five minutes if people watching think they look daft. Interesting notion about it being a hoaz. But I've no time just now to read the article.

Bastards! I may eat like a pig, but I don't dance like one. I dance like a rhino. Set on fire. I hope I understand the very good sense behind questioning the merits of prioritising the war on terror. You are quite correct that the West loses more people to poor healthcare than to terrorism. However, this does not mean we may not lose more people to terrorism. Terrorism has the potential to cause immense harm, not just directly but indirectly through economic destablisation, and fear. It can lead, and is intended to lead to full scale revolutions the implications of which cannot be underestimated. If i may draw an analogy, I've been nearly hit by motor vehicles on numerous occasions but never actualy hurt. Whereas I've been bitten by animals numerous times. Does this mean I should attend to animals more than cars?

Object: My black holdall which makes me look like a hitman Item of Clothing: My jacket which was intended to be trendy but wound up being incredibly functional. It has freaking zippered pencil cases in the thigh pockets, etc. Not at all waterproof, but it hold my reporter's notepads perfectly. Non Opera Singer: Norah Jones. If I was a dog, and her voice was a leg... Opera Singer: No idea. I'm a peasant in this respect. Motor Vehicle: Ratel APC Drink (alcohol): Ale Drink (non-alcoholic): Black coffee, African roasts Food: Thai food. Anything hot enough to replace your troubles and cares with liquid agony. Dessert: My own recipe apple pie. The trick is to put butter on the base of the pie, which turns to toffee with all the sugar. Sports Team: Don't really have one. Words/phrases: "I await your further instructions" "I'm positive"

There is something about dogs which makes their suffering more painful to witness. I got chewed out for being too esoteric on this job I'm doing. Became angry. Invented patentable system of communications to defeat ECM, while in state of vengeful annoyance. That showed them. Small minded wankers.

I expected at least a witty comment from Wals /wrist! Isn't that rather like expecting tap-dancing from a pig?

I'm just watching my housemate fend off an entire populace by repeatedly swinging his gun butt. I'm afraid I can't approve of these hordes of fast moving zombies. It's just a blurred firefest. There should be a large mob of slow moving bastards, with specialists fething you up unexpectedly. Also, limitless ammo? Survival horror? Am I the only one failing to make a connection? Overall, I'd say it was incredibly disappointing. We're deleting the demo now.

Could be THIS. Basically, deteriorating vision makes the brain try to make sense of a diminished signal. You see all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff.

It is? Are you saying that the 'surge' hasn't worked then? You know I meant in the event of us just going 'yoink' and running. I was talking about thsi recently, and someone reminded me of Haiti. Where the Un just upped and ran. There was total slaughter.

Woke to discover I had slept through putting out the rubbish. The bin men had arrived early. I now have several bags of rotting pig to deal with. Not good. Not good at all.

We could just forget about the danger of a dirty bomb. The UN have said it's a question of 'when not if', so I say best to make it sooner. Hell, most people don't worry about terrorism anyway. Viva la revolucion!

That's something we can all get behind! On the subject of troops I've just been reading the BBC's debate on this, and the only person who argued for an immediate pullout was Simon Jenkins! The fatuous cretin simply said that it was expensive, and the only reason we were there was to punish the Taliban! Punish the Taliban! As if that would make all the deaths and disruption, and betrayal OK. Not to mention the fact that if we pulled out now the Taliban would be stronger than when we started. I'm fully in favour of pulling out combat troops asap. I just regard asap as being when the countries themselves can keep it together when we go. However one feels about the start of the war, I don't see how anyone can pretend to be moral while supporting immediate pullout. ...Unless they're one of these people who claims the only thing causing violence is out troops. Which is about as plausible as swapping the combined educated opinion of every professional soldier, diplomat, and academic I've ever talked to on the subject... for a magic bean which will grow into a stalk of love to a magical future Afghanistan run with harmony and candy.

Those are some pretty cool photos. No doubt many of them are hoazes and mis-ids, but still, you gotta wonder, would anybody have even thought of hoaxing a UFO photo in 1920? And there wasn't a whole heck of a lot of manmade objects in the sky at that point. Besides biplanes, zeppelins, barrage balloons, and Lord Lucan?

Meh. I'm sulking because I just read a BBC poll headlined "Britons call for troop withdrawal". 63% said withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan in one year. I'm not sure what to make of this, because the headline reinforces the popular refrain of withdrawal, but then the article itself had various Afghans and Iraqis saying "For God's sake no! Are you retarded?" I could completely give up on democracy right now.