Yes, I do have a silly side…

The Usefulness of Skepticism

Being a skeptic has its bennies.

Big Time…

Rather than living a life of strife and woo woo — of misery and of course poverty for spending huge gobs of cash on products and services that haven’t been shown to work or have been shown not to work, of putzing around worrying over bogus apocalyptic predictions, instead of denying evidence and good sense in favor of blind trust in some silly doctrine wholly contrary to or pretending to be science, and finally, rather than try ineffectually to use my ‘openness’ to the psychic world to protect myself from deception, charlatantry, and con-artistry — I find it highly useful to think with my head rather than just go with gut instinct or hunches.

I cannot count the instances of scams and other attempts at deception I’ve managed to avoid, the false beliefs, fear and confusion I’ve been able to keep myself from harboring, or express all of the damned usefulness of clear and deep thinking, not to mention the awesomely cool people I’ve met in person and online who (*gasp*) actually care about facts, about how the world really is rather than just making crap up for an infomercial, a book or DVD for hawking on a cheaply done website.

For my part, in the scant few years since I’ve first considered myself part of the skeptical movement, I can count the following things as never having happened to me, or to anyone I know while I was with them, at least never in a properly documented fashion, such as not ever having been…

• …abducted and subjected to embarrassing medical exams by aliens…

• …subjected to astral or other psychic attack…

• …haunted by ghosts, spectres, or any other sort of incorporeal dead folks…

• …possessed by demons, or any other such nasty alleged supernatural thingies…

• …on a boat capsized by loch or sea monsters…

• …read, my mind or future, much less my mood, accurately read by a psychic…

• …spontaneously combusted…

• …successfully cursed or otherwise ensorcelled, except perhaps those curses and spells funny enough in execution to cause fits of uncontrollable laughter…

• …kidnapped by elves or leprechauns and taken to Underhill…

• …trod on by large-footed North American anthropoids…

• …acidically spat upon or electrocuted by a Mongolian Death Worm™…

• …subject to disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle after bombardment by a submerged Atlantean death-ray crystal…

• …known to have any pets or livestock drained of body fluids by el Chupacabra,

• …zapped or sputtered by a passing electrically-charged Near Earth Object…

• …bitten or otherwise attacked by a werewolf, vampire, or rampaging horde of zombies…

• …the owner or knew someone who was the owner of a pet or livestock that had been surgically mutilated by aliens…

• …the recipient of designs ‘that no human could possibly make’ pressed in my lawn grass by aliens attempting to communicate with me…

• …the subject of an orbital mind-control laser used by sinister conspiracies of artificial intelligences, Reptilians or the Bilderbergers, (though my paymasters in the NWO have just informed me that I shall be a well-rewarded shill for my diabolical campaign of disinformation)…

• …beamed aboard a UFO using Quantum Forces by a psychic Sasquatch under the command of Lord Xenu…

Maybe this all has to do with those nasty and evil paranormal-killing negative vibes we skeptics are supposed to put out like phasers set to obliterate or a skeptical deflector screen or something, since none of these things ever seem to happen to those of us who don’t actually believe in them. But despite all these cool perks, there is one thing that’s a real downer, and that is…

…for some odd reason, my chiropractor-prescribed, astrologically-formulated, totally noninvasive and drug-free naturopathic remedies just don’t seem to work anymore… *Sigh*

Uranus sounds NASA-Voyager Recording

goanntokuinn082

From an original CD: Uranus NASA-VOYAGER
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm4978986