Mermaids, Megalodon and mockumentaries, oh my

Quite a few people have commented on the Animal Planet programs: “Mermaids: The Body Found,” and the follow up “Mermaids: The New Evidence.” These are a pair of fictional programs that present themselves like a documentary. Not to be outdone, the Discovery Channel jumped on the bandwagon with a shark week program entitled: “Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives.” All three of these programs are depressing statement of the state of programming on basic cable television, particularly on channels that profess to have some informational value. If someone were inclined to defend such programming, they might point out that there were disclaimers at the end of the programs. Let's take a look at the disclaimers, first up Megalodon:


none of the institutions or agencies that appear in the film are affiliated with it in any way, nor have approved of its contents.
though certain events and characters in this film have been dramatized, sightings of “submarine” continue to this day.
megalodon was a real shark. legends of giant sharks persist all over the world. there is still debate about what they may be.


Next, the disclaimer that ran at the end of both mermaid programs:


none of the institutions or agencies that appear in the film are affiliated or associated with it in any way, nor have approved its contents. any similarities in the film to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
though certain events in this film are fictional, navy sonar tests have been directly implicated in whale beachings
the bloop is a real phenomenon. there is still debate about what it may be.


All of these were in white text in all caps, on the screen for a short period of time and right at the end of the program. It also looks like they get their legal boilerplate from the same source. The mermaid programs were even more tricky and placed their disclaimer at the end of the closing credits, megalodon at least put up it's disclaimer during the program's conclusion. The really frustrating thing is that neither just come out and says, “It's a joke, we pulled a fast one on you, there are no mermaids/megalodons.” To show how a disclaimer at the end of a trick broadcast is supposed to go, I take you to 1938 and the words of Orson Welles:


“This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that 'The War of The Worlds' has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be: the Mercury Theatre's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet an jumping out of a bush and saying 'Boo!' Starting now, we couldn't soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night. . . so we did the next best thing. We annihilated the world before your very ears, and utterly destroyed the Columbia Broadcasting System. You will be relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn't mean it, and that both institutions are still open for business. So goodbye everybody, and remember, please, the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody's there, that was no Martian. . . it's Hallowe'en.”

Phil Plait advocating for Wil Wheaton's law

While I drag my feet on creating new content, enjoy this video of Phil Plait encouraging skeptics to follow Wil Wheaton's law:


Phil Plait - Don't Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

Luke's Change

Sure it's just embedding another person's video, but it combines Star Wars with making fun of 9/11 conspiracy nuts.  Without further ado, Luke's Change:

The Skeptic's Dictionary

I thought, for the new year, that I would put up some skeptical terms and offer up definitions and some commentary. Well, the definitions part has been addressed already by The Skeptic's Dictionary, a website with over 700 entries and quite a bit of information. I would encourage people to give it a look and see all the skeptical goodness contained within. In the meantime, I'll keep my eye open for other skeptical things to blog about.

Politics 2012, plenty of stupid to go around

Well, the Republican National Convention is over. Clint Eastwood probably set the high-water mark for straight up weird with his speech there. Paul Ryan takes the cake for straight up liar of the event. When Fox News is pointing out that a conservative politician is just making things up, you know he's gone really far down the rabbit hole.

Now, while it may be fun to point out that the Republican party has let a bunch of nutters get their hands on the microphone and they are afraid to take it away from them, there is plenty of stupid on both side of the isle. My example of liberal stupidity today comes completely out of left field (pun intended) in, of all places, a Kickstarter campaign for a paper and dice role playing game. People familiar with paper and dice role playing game will, most likely, recognize the name Monte Cook, he has been a prolific and successful game designer for a number of years. For his latest project Numenera, he set up a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of raising twenty thousand dollars, his project has been well received and has been pledged over two hundred thousand dollars. This success is where the political nonsense has come in. Mr. Cook incorporated a number of, “Stretch Goals,” into his project to keep interest after reaching his initial fund-raising goal. When one hundred thousand dollars were pledged, he said he would make three hundred copies of the game made available to educators and libraries who want them. At the two hundred thousand dollar mark, Mr. Cook said he would ship two hundred copies of the game to military bases around the world. Some idiot took offense to this, called him nationalistic and militaristic and asked for the Kickstarter campaign to be shut down. Cooler heads prevailed (or was that functional heads prevailed) and the Kickstarter is still going. Hats off to Kickstarter for not taking baseless allegations seriously and to Monte Cook as well for sharing his creation with poorly paid teachers, libraries and military personnel.  You can read Monte Cook's take on the event at his website.

I'm not sure how you make the leap from Monte Cook making a commitment to share copies of his new game with military personal to viewing that as Mr. Cook making some kind of endorsement of American geopolitical policies. It's nonsense like this that has so many people turned off to the entire American political process. When the election of 2012 sets all kinds of records for low voter turnout, once you get past all the voter suppression going on, you can blame big fat liars like Paul Ryan and nameless idiots like the ones who tried to shut down a Kickstarter campaign for a paper and dice role playing game.

A Witch Hunter, really?

For those of you who missed the latest. "how weird can Texas get these days," bit of news, a Nigerian witch hunter is going to be in the lone star state for almost 2 weeks in March of this year.  Seriously, here's a link, and another one.  Maybe, since the witch hunter is from Nigeria, she doesn't know this country had a pretty serious psychological scar as far as witch trials go, about 420 years ago.  Yes, even before the Unites States became a country, it got witch hunting out of it's system, except for a few lapses, here and there.  In fact, when the United States got around to writing a constitution and tacking on a bill of rights, the very first amendment starts off; "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."  That's right, people in the states have the right to practice the religion of their choosing without fear of the government locking them up for not picking the approved one.  Sorry, just because someone disagrees with you about matters of the supernatural, you don't get to blame all your problems on them and have them locked up.  In fact, I would hazard to guess that the majority of Americans feel that the diversity of faiths in this country is one of it's strengths.  What better way is there to gauge how Americans feel about something than to see how it is depicted in the mass media?  It is in that spirit that I present my list of the top ten sexiest witches in film:

10.  Caleb Danvers played by Steven Straight in The Covenant(2006)  Yes, here is the token guy on the list.  Goes to show that men can play witches as well, they just don't get the opportunity to very often.

9.  Eva played by Ione Skye in Four Rooms(1995) There was a whole coven of witches to choose from in this film, so I went with the one who, rather literally, bewitches Ted the Bellhop.

8.  Serafina Pekkala played by EvaGreen in The Golden Compass(2007)  While certainly a supporting character in this film, she still has quite the screen presence.

7.  Lamia played by Michelle Pfeiffer in Stardust(2007)  I imagine if most people saw Michelle Pfeiffer on this list, they would have thought of The Witches Of Eastwick.  Well, it's my list and I went with Stardust, besides the list needs a few bad witches, doesn't it?

6.  Mirror Queen played by Monica Bellucci in The Brothers Grimm(2005)  Right to another bad witch.  While I did try and base this list off the character and not necessarily the actor, in this case I may have been influenced by Ms. Bellucci's performance in Brotherhood of the Wolf.

5.  Gillian Owens played by Nicole Kidman in Practical Magic(1998)  Okay, you could go back and forth as to whether I should have gone with Sandra Bullock's character from this film, but I decided to go with the taller one.

4.  Ann played by Melissa McConnell in Ninjas VS Vampires(2010)  The list needed an over the top, spell flinging, vampire killing witch and this movie provided one.  The only downside is since the movie is Ninjas vs Vampires, the witch doesn't get nearly enough screen time.

3.  Cassandra Nightingale played by Catherine Bell in The Good Witch(2008)  Catherine Bell is just utterly charming as the witch next door in this picture.  If you think made for television movies don't count, then you'll dislike. . .

2.  Morgaine played by Julianna Margulies in The Mists of Avalon(2001)  If Four Rooms presented a coven of witches, then this feature had more Pagans than you could shake a wand at.  In this version, Morgaine is the character that the Arthurian tragedy gets to revolve around.

1. Patricia Kennealy played by Kathleen Quinlan in The Doors(1991)  How to you take sex, drugs and rock and roll and make it sexier?  Well, plugging in witchcraft certainly worked for Oliver Stone in this movie.

Clever quote for the new year

"It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them." Alfred Adler

With any luck, in the new year, I will do a better job in regards to both.