FROM THE RTE RADIO ONE WEBSITE, TODAY
Monday 12th September 2011
Listen Back
"Sue went to see psychic Sally Morgan last night in the Grand Canal Theatre. She was great in the first half but during the second half Sue began to hear somebody talking loudly at the back of where she was sitting. She thought it was somebody heckling but she soon realised that everything he said Sally was repeating on stage. He would say a name like David and she would repeat it onstage. Other callers who were also at the show tell of similar experiences."
Can be heard this week on listen back here (you need realplayer). Scroll down to "Liveline podcast- Psychic".
My thanks to anonymous.
£40 a ticket. "There were people there that were really grieving". Confirms my earlier suspicions. Here's a video of her doing her highly lucrative thing a while ago.
Monday, 12 September 2011
Saturday, 10 September 2011
Friday, 9 September 2011
Finsteraarhorn
I am just back from Switzerland (midnight yesterday) after great week glacier trekking and climbing in Bernese Oberland. Started at one end of the massif and worked out way across to the other. Got to see the Jungfraujoch where I went sledging with my 5 year old just a few weeks ago while staying in Wengen.
We had a shot at the Finsteraarhorn at 4200 metres, but there was too much snow on the ridge for us to get right to the top in time available. Frustrating but it was a cool day out and spectacular scenery. It was like a Grade 2 Scottish winter climb, not a PD scramble.
Unfortunately I must now get back to work. Here's the first video clip I took high on the ridge visible in the above photo.
Howard on another bit lower down...
This vid shows the route - up the top slanting glacier from the right and up the final rock ridge.
Newsweek magazine article on my book...
Philosopher of B.S.
Sep 4, 2011 10:00 AM EDT
British academic Stephen Law is intent on warning people about the perils of bullshit.
First, a credulity test. Do you believe the Bible foretold the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Or that 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy? Or that, despite the fossil record, the world is less than 10,000 years old?
If so, the news is bad. Chances are you’ve tumbled into “an intellectual black hole,” the favored term of British philosophy professor Stephen Law for a mental accident that’s dangerously common and is “capable of sucking people in and holding them captive so they become willing slaves of claptrap.” Your wacky belief may seem reasonable to you; be assured, it isn’t.
Now, the good news. Law’s latest work, Believing Bullshit, sets out a spotter’s guide to the standard techniques of intellectual quackery, to help the unwitting among us.
Continues here...
Sep 4, 2011 10:00 AM EDT
British academic Stephen Law is intent on warning people about the perils of bullshit.
First, a credulity test. Do you believe the Bible foretold the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Or that 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy? Or that, despite the fossil record, the world is less than 10,000 years old?
If so, the news is bad. Chances are you’ve tumbled into “an intellectual black hole,” the favored term of British philosophy professor Stephen Law for a mental accident that’s dangerously common and is “capable of sucking people in and holding them captive so they become willing slaves of claptrap.” Your wacky belief may seem reasonable to you; be assured, it isn’t.
Now, the good news. Law’s latest work, Believing Bullshit, sets out a spotter’s guide to the standard techniques of intellectual quackery, to help the unwitting among us.
Continues here...
Thursday, 8 September 2011
The riots-not-linked-to-poverty fallacy
Did poverty play a significant causal role in the riots?
Those who would prefer this was not true often employ the following argument - they say, "ah, but these other poor people didn't riot, so poverty cannot be the cause."
So for example, David Cameron: "These riots were not about poverty. That insults the millions of people who, whatever the hardship, would never dream of making others suffer like this."
Letter to Newsweek magazine: "Saskia Sassen blames conditions in disadvantaged areas for the UK riots, ignoring urban areas for the UK riots, ignoring that other deprived regions - Glasgow, Tyneside, South Wales - didn't riot."
By the same logic we could also show that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. "Smoking clearly wasn't the cause of Dave's lung cancer. After all, Mary, John and Peter also smoke and they didn't get lung cancer, did they?"
Poverty may or not be a causal factor re the riots (obviously it was a factor), but this sort of logic reveals nothing other than the desperation of those who see the obvious potential link and want to bury it.
Those who would prefer this was not true often employ the following argument - they say, "ah, but these other poor people didn't riot, so poverty cannot be the cause."
So for example, David Cameron: "These riots were not about poverty. That insults the millions of people who, whatever the hardship, would never dream of making others suffer like this."
Letter to Newsweek magazine: "Saskia Sassen blames conditions in disadvantaged areas for the UK riots, ignoring urban areas for the UK riots, ignoring that other deprived regions - Glasgow, Tyneside, South Wales - didn't riot."
By the same logic we could also show that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. "Smoking clearly wasn't the cause of Dave's lung cancer. After all, Mary, John and Peter also smoke and they didn't get lung cancer, did they?"
Poverty may or not be a causal factor re the riots (obviously it was a factor), but this sort of logic reveals nothing other than the desperation of those who see the obvious potential link and want to bury it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)