“hate christmas” 12/25/07. A sunny but cold Tuesday. Stuck inside my shoebox apartment with nowhere to go. Just another person who is left out by circumstances during the so-called “Happy Holidays” season. I turn on the TV just long enough to make sure that they haven’t blown up the world on this holiest of holy days. Then I snap it off. Why should I bother to watch sappy Xmas specials or movies for the nth time? Even the TV news – known for its “objectivity” – is slanted towards upbeat seasonal cheer. So it’s time to escape this frozen tundra Podunk and connect to the outside world via my blazing 40 kbps dial up connection. Type in the key words “hate christmas” on the Google search engine and see what pops up. As I suspected, I’m not alone. Not everyone can conform to the societal dictates of the season. Of course, there are those who hate the holiday because of the stress on materialism, not religion. As oxymoronic as it may sound, there are Christians out there who hate Chr...
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SEASON’S GREETINGS FROM THE ILLUMINATI You are commanded: $pend! $pend! $PEND!! Buy more gifts, throw bigger parties! Indulge in the illusions of joy and freedom. Then sober up and report to work, wage slave. Thus The Ill stays in power!! (Brought to you as a public service by your local Illuminati.) [Illuminated art by TG; coloring by RX]
The Science Of George Adamski ( Flying Saucers Farewell by George Adamski. 1961. Abelard-Schuman, publisher.) Unfortunately, I only have one book by contactee George Adamski, his third effort. But even this one tome reveals many startling truths. Back in 1952 Adamski claimed that he met a Venusian with the synthetic-fiberly appellation of Orthon. This happened like all such events in a desolate area: a Californian desert. Following this life-changing meeting he had other encounters with the space brothers who, he said, looked like ordinary humans and who lived amongst us unsuspecting earthlings. In his books Adamski made claims that were quickly derided by scientists. He said that all the planets in our solar system were habitable to humanlike beings, even the outer ones like Pluto, despite the great distance from the sun. So how could the outer planets be warm enough to support life? Check out the image below from page 29 of Flying Saucers Farewell. (Click on image to enlarge ...
Don’t Hesitate: Ugate! Sick of the holiday rat race? Tired of shoving through crowds at the mall to find The One Perfect Gift? Then why bother? All you’re doing to letting some CEO rake in more obscene profits while you go deeper into debt. And does everyone out there really need the latest overpriced, materialistic fad? You’re just accumulating a pile of useless junk. Christmas is really Crapmass. Ugation is the answer. Slap together a gift on the small and cheap. Here’s an example made from a couple of dollar store items, a mouse pad found in a wastepaper basket, and a comb spotted lying on the sidewalk: All I have to do is glue this grotesque arrangement together on the ratty mouse pad and it’s ready to go. (Health tip: The comb was rinsed off, the pad was only dusty and worn. No need to spread contagion. Always use items that are at least semi-clean.) Of course, I wouldn’t give this to a friend unless they were in on the true meaning of ugation (ugly creation). But there’...
Jigsaw If you’re like me, when someone wants to share a weird dream, your instinct to is flee. Start running. I’m standing in the middle of nowhere with three other men. Barren flatland in all directions. The road stretches straight ahead, falling over the horizon. Dusky brown skies prevail. It’s imperative that one of us has to get home within the next two hours. Suddenly a car shows up. Not exactly a car. A futuristic transport one-and-a-half lanes in width, no roof, plenty of seating. The driver is a friendly woman who offers us a lift to civilization. I know what is going on. This is an alien abduction, albeit a benign one. The woman promises that no one will be hurt. I ask her how long it will be because one of us has to be home as soon as possible. One hour, no more than two, she replies. My companions and I end up in what appears to be a standard issue medical center. Most of the tests are mental: IQ, psychological, whatever. No nasty needles or probes. I’m aware th...
It’s Academic Fortunately Loren Coleman was there to set the record straight. Over at cryptomundo.com Coleman has posted an article showing how academic types, despite their vaunted degrees, can get still get it wrong. ( The Flatwoods Monster Decoded – 11/6/07 .) Coleman recently attended a conference in Maine, the Twenty-First Annual Conference of The Society for Literature, Science and the Arts 2007. He attended panels dealing with cryptozoology, his area of interest. One such panel dealt with Gray Barker and the Flatwoods Monster incident. Four academic types – three of them from the University of West Virginia – discussed their research into the Gray Barker archives related to the sighting of a strange being in Flatwoods, West Virginia back in 1952. To quote Coleman: “They mentioned many people I had worked with or have known, such as Ivan T. Sanderson, James Moseley, John Keel and Barker, so the material was firsthand to me.” While he sat in the audience, Coleman noted a few his...
Paul Kimball's Prediction In a post at his blog, The Other Side Of Truth , Paul Kimball discusses a new book by author Jeremy Vaeni. ( Nov. 2, 2007 ). He soon digresses, making an observation about certain folks in ufology "who seem to be obsessed with the notion that George W. Bush is a fascist anti-Christ." He also adds: "...when he (GWB) leaves office at the end of his term with no fuss, I'll be the first to say ‘I told you so’.” A prediction, Paul? Gee, how can this be? After all, you took me to task for "predicting" that the war in Iraq would turn out to be a disaster. Of course, since I was considering the history of the region, from the Crusades to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, I should have expected Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) was going to be a complete success, no long-term problems. Mission Accomplished! Be careful with those predictions, Paul.
Who Really Drives The Saucer? “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Many scholars have debated the meaning of those words uttered by Jesus dying on the cross. To R.L. Dione those words mean only one thing: it’s conclusive proof that Jesus was in contact with an UFO. In his classick book, God Drives A Flying Saucer , Dione claims that Jesus had his pain relieved by hypnosis induced by an ET God. But the pain became too much for even a trance to control. On page 114 (Bantam Books, 1973), Dione claims: “In the last analysis the incident makes sense only when we conclude that Jesus experienced more pain that he had been led to believe he would. And his knowledge that the saucerian above was reading his mind (thus being aware of his suffering) was allowing the pain to continue despite his ability to stop it. This saucerian (God) may in a sense have betrayed Jesus after all. He may have allowed Jesus to suffer a little more than promised in order to remain above reproach in the ...
Jesus, Saucerian Agent Of Deception It’s easy to perform miracles when God, up there in his flying saucer, is backing you up with all sorts of supertechnological chicanery. A brain manipulator and hypnosis can work around, not overcome, science. R.L. Dione outlined the true story behind Jesus in his book, God Drives A Flying Saucer (Bantam Books, 1972). He claimed that the being we call God is actually an alien who has been secretly influencing events on earth for centuries. As Dione points out, little is known about Jesus until he reached adulthood. This is because time was needed to make him the perfect agent of deception: education, indoctrination. Like a sleight of hand trickster, Jesus had to practice how to perform his miracles without any hitches. And, adds Dione cryptically, maybe this human chosen by Saucerian God had to undergo some biological changes. Another reason why Jesus stayed in the background for thirty years is because his master had to set up some other pawns ...
Radio Station GOD Experiments involving the implantation of electrodes in the brains of animals have shown that electrical stimulation to specific parts of the brain can control certain emotions. If these signals can be given directly, then theoretically they can be transmitted over a distance, to be received by our “brain radios.” -- God Drives A Flying Saucer , Page 33 (Bantam Books, 1969). Did you know God in his flying saucer beamed messages to Adolph Hitler, manipulating the dictator so that the prophecies of Our Lady of Fatima would be come true? Welcome to the world of R.L. Dione. A world where God is supertechnological, not supernatural, the leader of alien technicians from another world. The miracles at Fatima during 1916 – 1917 were actually UFO encounters, claims Dione. The three children didn’t see and receive messages from the Angel of Peace and the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was high tech deception by God the Alien. One of the Fatima prophecies claimed peace would ensu...
The Solution Is Now A Problem Sleep apnea prevents proper rest. Airways constrict, the sufferer gasps for air, the sleep cycle is constantly interrupted. CPAP is one solution. Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. Strap on the mask, activate the unit, and the increased pressure keeps the airways open during sleep. As I’ve mentioned before I’ve been trying to deal with sleep apnea by using CPAP. But lately I’ve been hitting a wall. Dead tired, I put on the mask. The machine activates and – bang! – I’m wide-awake. It’s refreshed me. Or I do drift off but the mask slips and the seal starts leaking, “farting” with each breath. Adjust the mask. Drift off, move in bed a little, and then leaking air starts hitting my eyes. Another adjustment. And then another. I get pissed off after an hour of such torture and then give up, ripping off the mask. Then I finally fall asleep but I’ve lost an hour. Of course, it isn’t a deep sleep, but at least it’s some rest. Lousy sleep is better th...
Fatima, Flu, And The Great Technician God is supertechnological, not supernatural. So declares R.L. Dione in his 1969 book, God Drives A Flying Saucer . To read this work is to witness the workings of a rare mind. Dione doesn’t connect the dots; he just jams them together, forming one big black hole. The intense gravitational pull of his theory makes everything fit. Chapter 6 is typical of how Dione works with information at hand. He discusses the miracles at Fatima in terms of advanced science, God the great ET technician using his alien devices to deceive the simpleminded human masses. In the years 1916 and 1917 strange things were happening near a remote Portuguese village. Three children made contact with beings from the Catholic heaven: first, an angel, followed by the Blessed Virgin Mary. The young experiencers ranged in age from nine to six. The oldest, Lucia, would live on for many years after the amazing encounters while her younger friends, Francisco and Jacinta, would b...
A Gnat Of A Theory Professional sports. Tribalism for profit. Ho-hum. Despite my indifference, useless bits of sports info manage to seep in and stay. For example, I know that one baseball team, the Yankees, didn’t make it into the final two spots this year. The team’s totem is a phallic wooden club shoved inside a top hat (another useless bit of sports info). Totems are supposed to grant supernatural power to a tribe. Apparently the Yankee’s silly symbol served them well in the past but has lost its mojo. It’s piss poor magic when a totem can’t ward off the simplest of God’s creatures. During the league playoffs gnats swarmed around the head of the Yankee pitcher, disturbing his concentration. The pitcher was covered with bug spray to keep the tiny devils away. But to no avail: the gnats kept swarming and the Wood-Phallus-In-Top-Hat team still lost. So far no conspiracy theorists have come forth and speculated on what actually happened. That leaves the field wide open for me....
The Circle Of The Elitist Andrew Keen doesn’t like me. He doesn’t know me personally; he just hates me for what I am. Why do I say that? Let’s look at a couple of typical passages from his book, the cult of the amateur – how today’s internet is killing our culture (2007). Most amateur journalists are wannabe Matt Drudges—a pajama army of mostly anonymous, self-referential writers who exist not to report news but to spread gossip, sensationalize political scandal, display embarrassing photos of public figures, and link to stories on imaginative topics such as UFO sightings or 9/11 conspiracy theories. – Page 47 “So instead of a dictatorship of experts, we’ll have a dictatorship of idiots,” I might have responded. – Page 33 Yup, a pseudonymous blogger who writes about UFOs and other “imaginative topics” is destroying culture. Man, what a menace I am. Keen is concerned that the Internet is too democratic; it’s not keeping the lowly rabble under control. He’s one of the privileged fe...
Bias Against Humans The other day someone accused me of being biased against peasants. That’s not exactly true. I’m just biased against most humans. Backtrack: I mentioned to someone about the meteor that fell in South America. A fireball was seen in a remote region of Peru. Later a smelly crater - apparently created by a meteor slamming into the earth - was discovered. Local villagers went to look at the impact site and many fell sick later, symptoms ranging from headaches to stomach pain. [ link ] I said that a number of different answers could apply to the outbreak of illness, e.g., mass hysteria (or to use the more accurate term, collective delusion). The other person replied I was being prejudiced against the peasants who reported being sick. I told her that it had nothing to do with the socio-economic background of the people. Collective delusion has been reported over the years, involving people from all social groups. There’s the classic case of the Seattle windshield pit...
A Plan From Outer Space? The push is on. Posters are circulating to make people aware of what they should do in the case of an emergency (i.e., TERRORISTS STRIKE!) The poster features “nine essential items to help you shelter-in-place in the event of an emergency,” (i.e., TERRORISTS BLOW UP YOUR CITY!!!). Emblazoned on the colorful poster is the logo, “Plan 9.” Plan 9? Where have I seen that term before? The poster lists items such as water, food, medications, and a first aid kit. Obviously a plan to reanimate the semi-dead. Is Ed Wood in charge of this project? Or could it be sinister aliens from another world who like their meat ambulatory, easy to herd, fresh on the hoof?
Mutant Fowl Up Bioengineering firm G Spot unveiled its line of polychromatic chickens. The birds are striking, variegated color bands marking their bodies from beak to tail. The head might be shade of green or yellow while the other end could be dark blue or bright red. Unfortunately a couple of defects can’t be overlooked. Doctor Jean Nettics, head of research at G Spot, said that flower DNA was spliced into the DNA stands of a common chicken to create the multicolored mutations. While the feather color change was successful, the altered avians suffer from unusual disabilities. The roosters make horrible sounds because they crow backwards. The repeated reversed crowing soon causes their throats to collapse and they suffocate. A few of the chickens are afflicted with head spinning, constantly twisting their heads in circles. This chronic action disconnects their necks. Eventually their heads sag and droop; they’re unable to eat. The DNA splicing is so effective that it only has t...
Ufoological Images Let’s see. I can comment on the latest feuds going on in ufodumb or provide insightful takes on ufo-related images. Not a hard choice. This first image is from an ad for a local insurance company. I blotted out the company’s contact info. I’ll be more than happy to promote its services – for a fee, of course. (Gotta make a bit of dough with this money-losing interest.) This ad is striking, does get your attention, but is it lost on the average person who doesn’t think about being abducted and anally probed? Does this company imply that it will cover you if you’re beamed aboard a flying saucer? I’ve always wondered why gray aliens rudely probe people. Maybe they’re trying to promote universal health care and are offering free colonoscopies. Next up: a postcard from Roswell. Some friends decided to move west this month, leaving Plattsburgh, NY behind. On their trip they passed through Roswell, New Mexico, and checked out the Cover-Up Café. Why did they move? ...
Happy Birthday, Supreme Commander Unbeknownst to me until tonight, August 4th marks the birthday of James W. Moseley, perpetrator of the zine, Saucer Smear . I was talking to Jim via a semi-secured telephone line about various subjects ufological and ufoological when he mentioned it was his birthday. Besides all of his other honorary titles, we can now call him The Spirit Of 76. If gray aliens ever abduct him, Jim promised to call me by phone, giving me an exclusive interview during his capture. Of course, knowing the evil grays, I’ll have to pay for the call. (Does anyone know what the collect charges are from Out There?)
UFOdom & Boredom Tautology induces yawning. A man observes strange lights in the night sky. The lights might be extra-terrestrial craft. Or might not be. A woman finds a small scar on her leg after she recalls under hypnosis her abduction by small gray aliens. The scar could be proof of her abduction. Or it could be just an ordinary scar. The data keeps repeating itself, maybe with a new riff here and there, but essentially there is no solid evidence. A UFO sighting in 2007 sounds like one reported in 1947. OK, so the mystery can’t be solved. But with ufology the mind can still be exercised, stretched a bit. Intelligent people can theorize and speculate. Ufology can be interdisciplinary: psychology, metaphysics, folklore, etc. Discussion and debate can keep one mentally toned up. But another feud erupts. A says that B is a liar, B says A is wrong, A says something else to prove B is a liar, and C, D, E, etc. chime in with their takes on the subject. It’s not a matter of ...
The Satanic Subtext of Pollyanna © Copyright 2007 Ray X Pollyanna. I’ve heard the term a few times but I really didn’t grok its meaning. I had to go straight to the source. Time to read the novel. A trip to the library and soon I was grokking. (And gagging.) I never knew that the novel Pollyanna spawned a series, The Famous Pollyanna [TRADE MARK] Glad [TRADE MARK] Books. Now I am forewarned. When the book was written, it was a simpler time. 1912. Good and evil. Black and white. No troubling shades of gray. Along came a simple writer, Eleanor H. Porter, who wanted to give hope to the world. In Porter’s day characters didn’t speak dialogue; they ejaculated. For example, there’s a scene where Pollyanna meets a sour stranger on the street and tries to cheer him up. In response, the man reacts this way: “Well, of all the—" ejaculated the man, with an oddly impotent gesture. (Page 52 in my edition. Porter doesn’t specify the form of the gesture.) When they weren’t ejacula...
A Sign Of The Apocalypse: I Defend Michael Shermer I just left a comment over at Mac Tonnies blog, www.posthumanblues.com , in regards to some quotes that skeptic Michael Shermer made in an ABC News article about the reality behind UFOs. After reading it over, I decided that it was a piece I wanted to share here. I’ve made the mistake in the past of jumping the gun, reading through an article too quickly and missing some key points. It happens to all of us. In this case I think Mac and most of the commenters at his blog have done this. To put this issue in perspective, click on the links above to Mac’s post and the ABC News article. Then read my following comment. Sure, I sometimes engage in wild speculation and humor, but I strive to be fair (it's not always easy). Mac and the anti-Shermer commenters also try to be fair, but this time I think they overreacted. = = = Mac: I’m not a “fan” of Michael Shermer. One time he was pushing for a euphemism to replace the word “...
Roswell: What Really Went Down Ignore all that coverage of the 60th year celebration in Roswell, New Mexico. Eschew all the insubstantial theories about what fell to the ground. The answer is revealed right here. A skyborne array that had been held aloft by a big balloon did hit the dirt back in 1947 at a remote ranch. And it was indeed a secret military project launched by the US government, but it wasn’t called Mogul and it wasn’t intended to detect the Soviets setting off nukes. The balloon array was made from ETech smuggled out of Russia years after the Tunguska Event. American scientists learned about Visitors from Out There from a data recorder that survived the crash in Siberia. With the remaining material they were able to built a device to trap a flying saucer. As the balloon array drifted across the sky, it sent out a phony alien distress signal. And when a disc showed up, an electro-static field was created, ensnaring the ET scout ship. The ship struggled, finally bre...
Print Your Own Over at my website I just added the latest version of my hardcopy zine, the Ray X X-Rayer . It’s a collection of posts from this blog mainly intended for those who prefer paper over photons. A few of my followers only receive my writings via snail mail. I include posts that aren’t time sensitive. My printzine is created with MS Word. Instead of just storing my zine files on my harddrive, I decided to share them with my online readers. I’m aware that I blog here infrequently. If you want to catch up with my observations in one neat package, check out The Zine Zone . You can either open or download each file with Word or a compatible word-processing program. Each edition – in glorious black and white – runs 4-6 pages.
Turf Wars Yes, beings from other worlds are visiting our planet. But the ETs (extraterrestrials) aren’t completely responsible for the myriad of UFO sightings. Cryptoterrestrials, a hidden race native to this world, are also out and about in their machines, thanks to their superior technology. Sometimes they try to scare off the ETs. But the CTs get flummoxed when they’re duped by ultraterrestrial tricksters from another dimension. The UTs like to play the ETs and CTs off each other. The tricksters might pretend to be members of either group, projecting illusions of ET or CT vessels. But the tricksters are sometimes blamed for the actions of the DTs. Demon terrestrials live beneath the earth, apart from the CTs. They have physical form but are shape-shifters, giving rise to the legends of demons as portrayed by many religions, especially Christian. They find the OTs – ordinary terrestrials, i.e., humans – gullible, easy targets for mental torture and manipulation. Fortunately a...
Loren Coleman Likes Women “For years...women needed to just stay home and raise a family. Their hormones made them irrational and they needed a man around to tell them what to do.” Obviously whoever wrote the preceding quote is a male chauvinist. But in this case the obvious is wrong. A woman made that statement. I twisted its meaning around by pulling it out of context and then throwing in a key ellipse. The quote is from a recent Grey Matters essay by Lesley (June 5, 2007) entitled “Give Pheromones a Chance.” When you read the original statement in proper context, it’s obvious that her POV is 180 degrees opposite of how I’ve spun it. Lesley and other bloggers have been defending cryptozoological researcher Loren Coleman who has been accused of making a chauvinistic statement during a radio program. On Coast To Coast Coleman said that Bigfoot, being so pheromone sensitive, would be more apt to make contact with a woman than a man. A couple of women bloggers played up that com...
Print Ain’t Dead – It Just Mutated © Copyright 2007 Ray X Beware. The “Print is dead” meme is on the loose again. Recently a bookstore owner in Kansas City, Missouri was suffering from a surfeit of used books. Since he couldn’t give them away, he decided to burn them. According to the news story about the incident, the owner said that people don’t read anymore. When someone dies, it was observed, they usually leave behind five TV sets and three books. Well, I don’t print think is dead. I read more stuff than ever, but not packaged in the usual mainstream hardcopy formats. I still have piles of books and magazines around my apartment, but added to the mix are printouts, corner-stapled compilations produced from the Web. Using my computer I put together my own news zine, selecting just articles I want -- “comping,” if you will. ThanX to Bloglines I can check on various blogs and other sources all in one spot. If an article grabs my attention, I copy and paste it into a wordprocess...
What’s Wrong With This Cover? I’m reading the latest issue of Saucer Smear when I noticed a familiar image. Supreme Commander Jim Moseley reproduced the cover of a new tome, Karl Pflock’s Roswell book translated into French. Moseley commented how the aliens don’t resemble the entities reportedly found near Roswell after their flying saucer – or “disc” – crashed. ThanX to Google and various combinations of key words I just found the original image online. (This scan can be found at http://linesonpaper.tripod.com/PULPMags.html ) It’s from the June 1952 edition of the SF pulp magazine, Startling Stories . Hey, it’s a classic image, but isn’t it a bit deceptive using it for Pflock’s skeptical look at the Roswell incident? Like Jim Moseley mentions, that ain’t a crashed Mogul balloon in the background. It makes one wonder: if they’re playing around with the cover to the French edition like that, how accurate is the translation? Comment via email: rayxr@yahoo.com
Notes From A Sickbed By Recuperating Ray X © Copyright 2007 -- Lying in the ER, waiting for test results. They move my bed into the hallway; they need the room for another patient. The new arrival is taken in, screaming like a wounded animal. Mental, not physical, pain. They strap him down. I can still hear his cries through the closed door. What’s more distressed –- my gut or his mind? -- Back home. Some people heal in hours; me, it’s usually days. Stuck in bed, only radio and TV for company. TV infomercial trumpets a cure-all. The guy hawking the miracle stuff: reedy, his hair gassed back, a ratty moustache. I think of Willie The Pimp by Frank Zappa. The miracle stuff guy is a cue-carder; not spontaneous. Sitting at a small round table, pseudo-talk show, a couple pretends to interview him. Question. Response: his little dark peepers just dart over to the cue cards and he robots his reply. Hey, Willie, I’ll buy five. Why? Your sincerity is so obvious. -- On shortw...
A Skeptic Stumbles: Preaching, But Not Always Practicing © Copyright 2007 Ray X Shouldn’t a skeptic be – well, skeptical? I mean, shouldn’t a skeptic not accept anything at face value when there’s an opportunity to check the facts? After all, skeptics usually criticize “true believers” for accepting only those opinions or viewpoints that reinforce their beliefs. A questioning attitude is important because – as skeptics will point out – someone may be sincere but they still can be wrong. Or they could just be lying. Case in point: Michael Shermer, the man behind The Skeptic Magazine and its online little brother, eSkeptic. Back on January 10th eSkeptic published an article that used information provided by PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility). It was claimed that the Bush administration through its appointees was pressuring federal park employees to be “geological agnostic.” Kowtowing to the creationists, rangers were told never to give out any estimates of the ...
Two Female Glands (C) Copyright 2007 Ray X Men can’t understand women. A guy can’t figure out what his girlfriend really wants. Women are fickle, mysterious. But is there really a mystery? I think a clue can be found in a comic book from the 1960s: Justice League of America #6, featuring the story “The Wheel of Misfortune.” The superheroes in the League are caught off guard when Professor Amos Fortune stymies their heroic efforts by targeting their “luck glands.” With his research into the science of luck, Amos has discovered a ductless gland within each person that controls an individual’s fortune. He can induce bad luck through his stimo-luck machine. Now that’s a thought-provoking insight. What other unknown glands might be influencing human actions? It can be posited that women also have a pair of specialized glands that control their emotions towards men. The first one is located on the left side: the romance gland. This causes a woman to become deeply infatuated with a ma...
How About Dumb Intelligence? © 2007 Ray X ( Image from www.samcci.comics.org/ ) . Someone somewhere (my memory ain’t the best) made a statement about UFOs possibly being probes from other worlds without onboard organic operators. Such probes could be controlled via built-in artificial intelligence, but he couldn’t speculate how such an AI device would work since none exist (at least on this planet). Hey, I’ll take a stab at it. Let’s define the “intelligence” part of AI. To me AI implies a non-organic (or syntho-organic) construct capable of reacting like a human mind, albeit one with a good IQ. To me intelligence implies more than a perfunctory response to a stimulus. In my definition intelligence involves the processing of knowledge to pursue a course of action based upon individualistic reasoning. For example, two intelligent people can look at the same set of facts but infer different courses to take. Besides being able to gather and store data, an intelligent mind must also...
CPAP: The Misadventure Continues © 2007 Ray X “Sleep deprivation played a role in catastrophes such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska, the space shuttle Challenger disaster, and the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island.” – The Harvard Medical School Guide To A Good Night’s Sleep , Lawrence J. Epstein, M.D. with Steve Mardon (2007), page 6. Apparently it’s a good thing that the heaviest piece of machinery I am operating is this personal computer. I haven’t whined about my obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in a while. And I might as well since the only thing going on in UFOdom (or UFOdumb, as it may be) are the usual petty, personal feuds and pointless arguments spiraling around like insane, tail-chasing dogs. Also, someone out there might find some benefit or useful info from this post. (Anyway, this is my party and I’ll whine if I want to.) I’m still struggling with my CPAP machine, the device that keeps my airways open while I sleep. This is the second CPAP I’ve...
A Magical Ride With Saucerer Moseley (Wheee!!) I was sitting at the coffeehouse counter this evening when the barista asked me what I was reading. He noticed the name of the newsletter: Saucer Smear by James W. Moseley. I eXplained it was about “flying saucers,” or UFOs. The barista replied: “People still see those things?” Just part of the sad state of modern ufology. Mosely has been around since the early days when aerial phenomena was called “flying discs." Jim is an amiable curmudgeon, a living flame who refuses to be extinguished by the Dark Ages. What I like about Jim is that he doesn’t accept any crazy story that comes down the space pike – but neither does he side with the Absolute Skeptics. I sat there at the coffeehouse, sipping my brew and reading, educated and entertained at the same time. I know I was entertained; I chuckled out loud a few times. Some might not be impressed with Jim’s snail mail retro-zine. It’s on plain paper, basic black and white, composed w...
Ufology As A Catty Girls School “Well, I think Paul Kimball started it when he made a snippy comment about Kal Korff – no, I don’t mean Snippy the horse – anyway, Paul questioned Kal’s intelligence, Paul put up a photo of Kal as a Green Lantern, well, that wasn’t funny (but Kal did looked dreamy in that Green Lantern Corps uniform), and then Kevin Randle said something snarky and so Kal is having him investigated by the KPMG Sorority – oh, that Kevin!! (but he does look dreamy in his Army uniform) and then Mac Tonnies whispered something into Paul’s ear about Mirka, Mac has no Klass, he just repeats gossip (not that I am doing the same thing, I’m above that), and Merkin – oops, I mean Mirka Fabianova – is going to dish it out about Paul and what an uncool person he is (even though Paul does look dreamy with that big red maple leaf tattooed on his left buttock), anyway, all of this will solve the UFO mystery, won’t it?, maybe in time for the next dance, what are you going to wear?, you ...
Reddy Kilowatt: A Cruel God As a connoisseur of bad poetry, some crème de la scum can be found in bad movies. For example, take “Lady In A Cage” — please! This 1964 overwrought disaster stars Olivia de Havahistrionic – I mean Havalland – as a wealthy woman who finds herself alone, trapped in her mansion during a hot 4th of July weekend. Due to a hip injury, a special elevator has been installed in her two-story living room. Havalland’s character – who considers herself a poetess – finds herself trapped up in the air when the power goes out. Ergo, she is a lady in a cage. (Clever, eh?) With no air conditioning, the poetess becomes a little delusional from the heat, slumping down in one corner of the elevator, trying to pass the time until someone shows up to help her. At one point she kills a few moments – and a few of my brain cells – by composing a poem within her skull (even though I suspect it was created in another body cavity). Havilland acts out each line like a melodramati...