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WILLIAM Shatner, Star Trek's James T Kirk has lumped his motorcycle while not wearing a helmet on a Californian highway.Nooooooooo!
The reckless former Star Trek star is famous for not bothering with leather or body armour and rides around the state wearing just beach clothes. But took a few scrapes after toppling off his Harley-Davidson. He said: "I think leather, and helmets and protective gear is foolish, in the hot California weather. I ride with sandals and shorts and a t-shirt.
I was driving along and the bike slid from under me, and I skidded across the two lane highway.You see - the man's a true talent. Despite it being a long time since Star Trek he's not lost the knack of rolling on the ground in a ripped shirt.
"I grabbed the bike hauled it up and got back on. I had to get to Los Angeles. ... I got back on the bike and my clothes are shredded, then I realised I was bleeding."
A shop in [Exeter's] Princesshay centre will come under the spotlight tonight when it is featured in an investigative TV programme.Neal's Yard do sell malaria remedies, which are so diluted they contain no active ingredient. As far as recommending homeopathic-only prophylaxis - instead of effective pharmaceutical prophylaxis - goes, they sell a book titled 'Homoeopathic Alternatives To Immunisation' which "contains practical information on preventing and treating major infectious diseases, including hepatitis, flu, malaria, measles and whooping cough" (my emphases) by Susan Curtis, who is a member of the Society of Homeopaths and works as the Medicines Director at Neal's Yard.
BBC One's Inside Out South West has investigated claims by Neal's Yard that homeopathic remedies it sells in its stores can help prevent and treat serious fatal diseases such as malaria.
For the programme Janine Jansen also interviewed Susan Curtis, medicines director for Neal's Yard and author of the book Homeopathic Alternatives to Immunisation.Well I suppose just getting up and walking out of the interview is one way of dealing with criticism. I don't know what "evidence by extension" is supposed to be, so I've written to her to ask what she meant, as well as to ask her for her evidence of homeopathic effectiveness against epidemic diseases.
Ms Curtis called an abrupt halt to the interview after about 15 minutes, when being questioned about the scientific evidence that homeopathic remedies worked.
She said during the interview that: "I do say that there is no guarantee that the remedy will prevent malaria. There are no clinical trials that we know of that show that the homeopathic remedies work for malaria. However, there is some evidence by extension that homeopathy can be very effective in certain epidemic diseases."
The House of Lords has refused to hear a petition of appeal brought by a Christian activist group trying to prosecute the BBC for blasphemy [because] it did "not raise an arguable point of law of general public importance".Having exhausted all available avenues of English Law, the complainants invoked the Wrath Of God. No, really, in the 21st century:
Christian Voice called the decision an "ignoble move".So everyone be on the lookout for plagues of locusts. Mind you, if 'Jerry Springer' can move the gods to anger, I dread to think what they'll make of this:
"It brings down the judgement of God on us all," said Stephen Green, national director of the evangelical lobby group.
"I love my neighbour and I do not want that to happen."
The government has got its controversial plan to scrap the blasphemy law through the House of Lords.Never mind the locusts, take precautions for a rain of burning sulphur.
Peers voted 148 to 87 in favour of the move last night - which was a government amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill.
The amendment will abolish the offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel in England and Wales.
I challenge you to phone Ainsworths Homeopathic Pharmacy and order a Lycopodium 10M powder and tell me you don't feel ANYTHING at all after taking it!Lest someone accuse Science of cowardice in the face of Magic I felt obliged to accept that challenge. So it is that at 3 o'clock tomorrow afternoon I will collect a bottle of homeopathic lycopodium from Ainsworths in New Cavendish St and go to The Dover Castle pub just around the corner in Weymouth Mews. I will then take it in the presence of anyone who cares to be there. I've invited sceptics and homeopaths alike, but the homeopaths didn't seem keen. In fact it's been over a month since I wrote to the challenger 'LouiseZ' to ask her what effects she expected the homeopathic lycopodium to induce in me, and she's not uttered any reply. But my own background reading suggests hair loss, itching of the scalp, biliousness, flatulence, impotence, hair loss, headaches and the baffling-sounding "fan like motion of the nostrils", all of which sound fairly noticeable, would be predicted by homeopathic theory. I predict nothing will happen because there's nothing at all in the pills. I suppose we'll just have to see whether I "feel ANYTHING at all after taking it!"
What links the Giza Pyramids with 9/11, with the Comet NEAT, with the Mayan Calendar; with Revelation, the Grateful Dead and the New World Age?I was just wondering that. Do go on:
The Twin, black-white Towers of blind certainty and belief, have fallen. And after the 9/11 storm, a rainbow synthesis of Beautiful Truth is now spreading on the Web. So, let's begin to Understand. Let's junk the myths. Let's start afresh. Let's slip the Fear Matrix. See Reality. Discover who we Really are. It's Beautiful.I'm sure it is. Very very beautiful.
The Beautiful Truth Show - 22nd January, 2008. LISTENI'm doing so now. It's... illucid.
When will the commentators recall to the viewers that it is only two weeks since the same thing happened to a Qantas heavy, a 747-400, in the final approach to Bangkok?Okay, so far so unremarkable: a roughly similar thing did happen recently to a Quantas 747 at Bangkok. But then Irving shows that flair which has made him such a... uniquely reputable historian:
Nobody mentions the Qantas incident, and I begin to wonder if they have been instructed not to -- whether a "D"-notice has been issued to the media on a very sensitive issue...Oh really, nobody mentions it? That must be because of the government silencing them. Irving lurches off into wilder territory:
... did somebody, a suicide attacker, pull out a mobile phone on the 777 to check his messages? Or more deliberately: some kind of telephone-jamming device, designed to fry the internal wiring of these planes?Mmmmm... no.
According to one expert, a woman professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it was evidently an electro-magnetic pulse device being developed by the United States military which inadvertently brought down TWA 800 off Long Island on July 17, 1996.And according to similar "experts", NASA faked the moon landings.
We regret to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, the publication of 'The Astrological Magazine' will cease with the December 2007 issue.(via the Bad Astronomer)
The average UK person will this year have a greater income than their US counterpart for the first time since the 19th Century, figures suggest.I can only hope that this return to the 19th Century will bring with it a resurgence in top hats, waistcoats and handlebar moustaches.
However, because goods and services are cheaper in the US, Americans will have stronger purchasing power...But our prices will plummet once we staff our mills and factories with urchins who work for a penny a day!
Jeremy Clarkson has lost money after publishing his bank details in his newspaper column.Oops.
The Top Gear host revealed his account numbers after rubbishing the furore over the loss of 25 million people's personal details on two computer discs.
He wanted to prove the story was a fuss about nothing.
But Clarkson admitted he was "wrong" after he discovered a reader had used the details to create a £500 direct debit to the charity Diabetes UK.
Those who prefer a more colourful yarn will be familiar with the legend of Finn MacCool, the Irish giant who, children are told, created the causeway as a footbridge to fight the Scottish giant Finn Gall but who then foxed his rival by pretending to be a baby.I vote for the Finn MacCool version - there's just as much evidence for it and it's got fighting giants in it. The creationists, as ever, don't fail to amuse:
However, momentum is growing in Ulster for an alternative theory of the origin of the causeway... The Causeway Creation Committee was set up in Co Antrim as a body which advocates literal biblical creationism.
Therefore the theory [sic] dictates that the Earth is only 5,000 years old, it was created by God in six days and the dinosaurs existed alongside humansWhen you stop laughing, try to remember that some people really think this. But they save the best for the punchline:
"The other main difference in our view is the date. They say the causeway was created 60 million years ago but we believe that's a fairy tale. When you follow The Bible timetable it is about 4,500 years ago and due to volcanic activity that surrounds the events of a global flood."Let's get this straight. You think the Earth was ravaged by a catastrophic, all-destroying months-long flood which killed every animal and person who wasn't on Noah's boat 4,500 years ago... but somehow various civilisations around at the time didn't notice it?
They've identified what they believe is the closest fossil relative [from that time] of whales [today]. It's a raccoon-sized beast named Indohyus that lived 48 million years ago in Kashmir. Analyzing the bones of Indohyus, the scientists discovered that it shares some--but not all--of the traits previously considered unique to cetaceans from Pakicetus to today's whales and dolphins.Obviously this won't for one moment silence even a single creationist. For one thing, where there used to be one gap in the whale fossil record (between Pakicetus and Ambulocetus) there are now two gaps: one between Pakicetus and Indohyus, and one between Indohyus and Ambulocetus. So creationists will say "Hah, those crazy scientists' evidence just keeps getting even gappier!". Then they'll pick up their main weapons of incredulity and straw men: "In any case this discovery is nonsense, as we all know that whales were designed intelligently to spend their lives underwater swimming in the sea, without any distant common ancestors on land. That they breath air and have femurs just, erm, shows the designer's intelligence... erm, anyway... nobody's ever seen an antelope give birth to a dolphin."
Lego is set to turn slightly more sinister with the launch of an unofficial book that teaches children how to make weapons out of the iconic plastic bricks. ... controversial new book that gives children detailed instructions on how to make weapons such as catapults and 'automatic ping-pong ball launchers' purely out of Lego.
Local people believed they could be healed of spiritual and physical problems if they touched his leg.Yet somehow he didn't see this coming. But seriously, if you know of anyone in the Tirupathi area who seems to have come by half a leg that doesn't belong to them, please contact the police immediately.
They also believed in Mr Kondaiah's predictions of the future.