Wow! 25 Years Already?

Today is a red-letter day in history.

Not because it is Pi Day. That is a manufactured non-holiday forced upon the masses by the global arithmeto-governmental cabal.

No. Today is the 25th anniversary of the first B.L.O.G. post from The Math Skeptic. What started out as a humble ARPANET node is now THE top gopher site on the new Inter-net for Math Skepticism. And I, for one, could not be prouder.

To all my loyal readers downloading these articles via Kermit and viewing them on VI or their preferred text editor of choice, I thank you!

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Happy Rapture Day Again!

I do hope each and every one of you is wearing his and/or her Wednesday Best today, for today is a special day!

Today is the day in which you will be raptured! According to prophet and spiritual leader Bang ik-Ha of Spokane, Washington and/or Korea, today is the day of the Rapture when all good God-believing people will be whisked into the Heaven like swooping cranes. Since I know for a fact that all of my readers are good God-believers, I can safely assume that this will include each and every one of you.

However - now is not the time to contract "senioritis" - or, more apt-ly, "rapture-itis." There are some important safety tips you must keep in mind as the rapturing-hour (12:00) approaches. Even though you will no longer have a need for your corporeal body as of noon o'clock, there are other non-saved heathens who may be depending on your body to be doing a thing at the time it is raptured, in which case its sudden transfiguration will be dangerous or even inconvenient. To prevent post-raptural misfortune, I hereby present the following Rapture Safety Tips:

Important Safety Tips For The Soon-To-Be-Raptured

• If you regularly drive a car, do not be driving a car at 12:00 noon, the time of the Rapture.
• If you regularly drive a bus, do not be driving a bus at 12:00 noon, the time of the Rapture.
• If you regularly drive a train, do not be driving a train at 12:00 noon, the time of the Rapture.
• If you regularly pilot an airplane and/or helicopter, do not be piloting an airplane and/or helicopter at 12:00 noon, the time of the Rapture.
• If you regularly operate heavy machinery, do not be operating heavy machinery at 12:00 noon, the time of the Rapture.
• If you regularly smoke cigarettes and/or other smoking paraphernalia, do not be smoking cigarettes and/or other smoking paraphernalia at 12:00 noon, the time of the Rapture.
• If you regularly work with radioactive materials, do not be working with radioactive materials at 12:00 noon, the time of the Rapture.
• If you do not regularly drive, pilot, operate, or radioact any of the above, please do not be doing any of the above at 12:00 noon, the time of the Rapture.

Now I know what you're thinking. "I'm going to Heaven -- why should I care what happens to the un-saved heathens once I'm gone?"

However, this is known as a Cosmic Trick Question. By putting others at risk of harm from your sudden lack of corporeal existence, you may be negating the very selflessness that got you on the Rapture list in the first place. My suggestion - stay home, don't smoke, and wait it out.

If you really want to be creative, you could try going to the roof of a moderately-tall building and jumping off a few seconds prior to noon. The sudden mid-air disappearance of your corporeal body might just prompt a few additional conversions among the crowd below as your bodyless articles of clothing flutter to the ground. Warning: Do not attempt unless you are really Christian or it will not work.

Well, that should cover the basic Rapture Day safety tips. I look forward to seeing you on the other side, readers!

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Will The Real Human Candidates Please Stand Up?

Candidates:
We have reached the point in the campaign season when I make my impassioned plea on my gopher site to see the birth certifications of the candidates. Been doing it for almost a decade now with no success, but I hope this time my plea will be heeded.

Gentlemen, we live in dangerous times. Aliens from multiple worlds are anxiously awaiting the first opportunity to invade and enslave our planet, possibly by installing a pod-clone or android in the White House.

Not to alarm you all, but I have strong reason to suspect that one of you is such an android and/or pod clone. In the interest of fairness, I won't say which.

Oh, never mind fairness. It's Perot, ok? I'm pretty sure he's an android. Just look at the guy!

I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'll be proven wrong. Prove me wrong, candidates - show me your birth certificates.

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Voyager 1 Annoys The Planets One Last Time

The notorious interplanetary paparazzo Voyager 1, which has been antagonizing the outer solar system since its launch in September 1977, has been commanded by NASA managers to snap one last series of unauthorized candids of our poor solar system.

Capitulating to the demands of legendary planet-botherer Carl Sagan, NASA ordered the space probe to turn sunward and take a series of sixty photos of the Sun and planets, from a distance of some 4 billion miles. The patently offensive resulting photo not only captures the sun and gas giants unawarely, but portrays our Earth - the most important planet in the world - as a mere pale blue dot:

The gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune - no doubt caught off-guard and in some sort of embarrassing pose by the long-distance Voyager voyeurism - have yet to communicate their protestations through the astrologers, but I do not doubt these messages will be received soon. Hopefully not accompanied by a rogue comet, as has been their preferred method of making their feelings known since a young patent clerk named Galileo Galilei first turned his telescopes skyward and literally used them to draw the most salacious scribblings of the planet and its moons ever scribbled.

While I don't expect this latest affront to planetary privacy will be met with the kind of vitriol that caused the 1908 Tunguska incident, we would be well-advised to keep looking up, just in case.

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Shit on a Fucking Pancake.

I'm not having a good day

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Stock Market, Here I Come!

After a long talk with my accountant today, I've come to realize that perhaps my long-standing fear of the stock market is hurting my long-term financial prospects.

Yes, fellow Math Skeptics - we all know that the stock exchange is just a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah of numbers, all gathered together and engaging in a disgusting, hideous orgy of calculation. Until today, I would never have even dreamed of subjecting my buried boxes of cash to such fiduciary hedonism.

But my accountant made some good points. Historically, he said, the market outperforms any other form of investment. Plus, you can diversify your portfolio, putting your life savings into many different companies in promising industries. I'm talking safe bets here, like Pan Am Airlines, or Commodore Business Machines, or Drexel Burnham - people are always going to need air travel, computers, and financial services, right?

So I did it. I got a broker, dug up those tin boxes, and put it all in the market. Every last penny.

Don't worry, I'm still just as skeptical as always. Once a Math Skeptic, always a Math Skeptic. But sometimes, even a Skeptic has to take care of his financial future.

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A Tragesty of Justice has Occurred!

As you may have heard, the Supreme Court has just handed down a land-mark ruling that may spell the death-knell for academic freedom in our nation's biological science classrooms. In the case of Edwards v. Aguillard, the Court ruled in favor of Edwards. Or Aguillard. I don't remember which.

Whichever one was the evolutionist. That's the guy who won.

With this ruling, Louisiana's "Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction Act" is null and void, as the so-called law violated the so-called Establishment Clause of the so-called Constitution. And with the unfortunate precedent this sets, all other laws mandating academic freedom are guilty by association.

The ruling isn't all that surprising, of course. The decks were clearly stacked against the poor pro-freedom creationists from the beginning, as the anti-freedom forces of Big Darwin rallied their troops with all manner of amicus briefs and what-have-you. I can only hope that Edwards and/or Aguillard (whichever guy lost) will serve his jail term with dignity.

While this is certainly a setback for us academic freedomists, I don't think it's the end of the road. I'm sure there's some way for the creation scientists - all very intelligent people - to design some sort of curriculum that won't trip that silly "establishment clause."

Hope!

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Congratulations, Pete Rose!

In the war of Humans vs. Numbers, we humans are hopelessly disadvantaged. We're outnumbered, for one thing - there are infinite numbers, but only five billion of us.

Every now and then, however, we human people come out on top. Today is one of those days. Because today, Cincinnati Reds hitmaster Pete Rose broke the Ty Cobb number curse with his 4,192nd career hit!

As we in the Math Skeptic community are well aware, numbers have been trying to tarnish Ty Cobb's career hit record for decades now, attempting to rob the famed ballplayer and salad inventor of two legitimately hitted hits through quantum uncertainty.

Well, there's no uncertainty anymore. You can bet on Pete Rose, the new all-time career hit leader. There's no gambling with uncertain numbers here - this record for this future Hall-of-Famer is set in stone!

And hey - look at the date! 9/11 again - I told you there was something special about those numbers!

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