The Death of Hope

Today I have some sad news to report. Comedian and entertainer Bob Hope has died.

The beloved comedian, known for his many tours with the United Service Organizations (U.S.O.) and his use of Polish jokes long after it was considered "politically incorrect" to make fun of Polish people, died of pneumonia just a few weeks after his 100th birthday.

Hope's tragic, untimely death is a reflection of the sad state of our country's current trajectory, and its dreadful failure to care for its centenarians.

In a way, it's quite symbolic that Bob Hope has died, for it is symblematic of our current national malaise -- what with two wars and the loss of our Space Shuttle and the impending economic stag-nation thrust upon us by the scourge of global numerism. Truly we have lost hope.

Ten years ago, we had Bob Hope. Today, we have no hope.

Of course, it could be worse. We could also be mourning the death of, say, Johnny Cash. Or Steve Jobs. Or Kevin Bacon. Then we would have no hope, no cash, no jobs, and no bacon!

That's just a little "gallows humor." A bit too soon, perhaps, but then that's just how we humans deal with tragedy. I deeply apologize if you have mistakenly taken offense at my previous statement.

Besides - Bob Hope would have thought it was pretty funny. He was a comedian, after all - jokes were his "thing." If we can't laugh at the passing of a 100-year-old man, then we are more malaised than we thought.

Thanks for the memories, Bob! You - and the abstract concept of hope in general - will be missed.

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The End Of The World Is Nigher Than Ever!

I have recently been informed by some friends over at ZetaTalk that the Earth is headed for a cataclysmic world-as-we-know-it-ending pole shift!

This impending disaster is going to be caused by a hitherto-undetected 10th and/or 12th planet passing by our planet and upturning us with its gravity. North will become south, east will become west, day will become night, and dogs and cats will live together in a state of mass hysteria.

One has to wonder why this has been kept secret from us for so long. It is likely that the Astronomers and Astrologers have known about it for years but have withheld this information from the public so as not to cause a panic.

Well, who's panicking now, eh?

I'd like to tell you more about this impending catastropocalypse, but I have to prepare for it myself. So much to do! I have to stock up on perishables and fill up my gas tanks and kill my dog and get a can opener. There isn't enough time to panic!

Brave readers, I wish you all the best and thank you for your reading patronage over these years. We can only pray that by chance we will all survive the coming doom!

Doom!

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Court Ruling: Math Phobia A Real Thing!

Since this blog first began in 1970, I have been arguing for recognition of Math Phobia as a legitimate medical condition. Today, an Italian court has vindicated my vindication in a landmark case pitting academic freedom versus the global arithmetico-scientific hegemony.

The case involved a high school junior code-named Viviana against her school, which wanted to cruelly and un-justly prevent her from advancing to her senior year. Their reasoning? Viviana had failed math.

Viviana sued, citing a diagnosis of dyscalculia, or fear of math. And the court has ruled in her favor, mandating that her high school allow her to advance despite her flunking math scores. If my understanding of the law is correct, this ruling is now binding precedent in all courts around the world.

While we at The Math Skeptic support this decision, we do feel that it does not go far enough. Allowing some students to skip math because of a math phobia is only a partial solution. We should be striving for a future in which ALL students are dyscalculitic, as numbers are indeed a thing to be feared. In order for justice to truly have been served, the Italian judge should have thrown out all of mathematics as unreliable and invalid due to the inherent instability of numbers.

But we'll take a partial victory. This is indeed a good day for math skepticism - and for all of us battling the forces of arithmetofascism around the world.

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WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

Well, folks, as I predicted, the Y2K "Millennium Bug" is already wreaking havoc on the globe. Shoppers in the UK are just the first victims. Beginning at midnight on January 1, 2000, power stations will literally shut down, airplanes will literally fall out of the sky, and nuclear weapons will literally launch themselves when their onboard computers reset to 1900 and create a General Fault Alarm.

Trust me, I know this stuff. I worked for computers.

Luckily, I've prepared for this eventuality, having spent the better part of the 1990s stocking up on canned goods and Crystal Pepsi. I've also created my own seed bank so that I can re-start agriculture after the Y2Kpocalypse, fortified my property with twelve-foot-high cinderblock walls, and stocked up on sandbags to launch at marauding attackers with my homemade trebuchet.

I'm prepared. I've been listening to me. Hopefully some of you have been listening to me as well, and have taken similar precautions.

I'll try to continue posting after the Y2Kpocalypse, but I make no guarantees, as both the Internet and the global power grid will be literally on fire. So if this turns out to be my last post ever, I wish you all blessings and luck for the future, however bleak it turns out to be.

The Math Skeptic, signing off.

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Numbers Strike Again!

So NASA is releasing preliminary findings on the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter last week, and the likely culprit is -- you guessed it! Numbers!

Specifically, the problem arose in the conversion between English (aka "correct") measurements and Metric (aka "communist") measurements. NASA is, typically, covering up for the numerical-governmental conspiracy by attributing the failure to "human error."

Still - not all is lost. The Mars Polar Lander is also en route to the Red Planet, and this one's sure to land without a problem. I mean, what are the chances of numbers striking two Mars probes in a row?

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NASA Putting Us All In Danger!

Once again, those braniac poindexters at NASA are playing fast-and-loose with the solar system, sending yet another probe to annoy one of our planetary neighbors.


The Cassini-Huygens probe, named for two 17th-Century casualties of the Astronomy-Astrology War, is scheduled to launch today en route to Saturn, the ringy majestic gas giant in our outer solar system.

However, instead of just flying by like probes of old, Cassini is going to stick around the ringed planet, circling her and her moons for years in the name of "scientific science."

How thoroughly irresponsible! This is going to do nothing but irritate and antagonize our Saturnian neighbor, potentially turning all of the gas giants against us. It's bad enough we're bugging Jupiter with the Galileo probe, but this is just too much.

And, of course, the typical science-indoctrinated liberals are protesting this probe for all the wrong reasons. You think a little atmospheric plutonium is bad? Wait till Saturn gives us a dose of asteroids and minor moons!

You're playing with fire, NASA. Take heed!

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Astronomer: Arriving Comet Likely Harboring Alien Invaders!!!

Shocking revelations cherry-picked from an essay by astronomer Alan "Skipper" Hale, co-discoverer of the soon-to-be-perihelioning Comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp), reveal that the comet may indeed be either a concrete sign of the prophesied end-times and/or a disguise for a fleet of invading alien space frigates!

In an essay in this month's Skeptical Inquirer, Dr. Hale readily admits that, "...Hale-Bopp is some kind of alien 'mother ship' or, at the very least, is 'under intelligent control.'" In a related essay, he adds that "there are few people in the world who are better prepared than I am to meet with an alien race," evidence that the astronomer and wayward ship captain is already in contact with the invaders.

In another chilling passage, he surmises that, "...Hale-Bopp could be one of the 'signs of the end times' as foretold in several New Testament prophecies."

In typical NASA coverup fashion, Dr. Hale later uses the tried-and-true alarmism-denialist tactic of "logical explanation" to dismiss his earlier claims, citing "scientific illiteracy" as the reason amateur comet-watchers with no astronomy experience are clearly seeing alien spacecraft in the comet's wake:

This whole phenomenon of "Hale-Bopp madness" strikes me as a glaring example of the scientific illiteracy that pervades our society and that has been addressed many times in the pages of this magazine and so eloquently by Carl Sagan in The Demon-Haunted World. The numerous scientific and technological challenges that our society will be faced with during the years and decades ahead are too important and too complex to be adequately met and dealt with by a population that cannot distinguish between legitimate science and the pseudoscience that is so prevalent now.

Okay, there, Skipper. "learn science." That's a nice idea. But how is learning science going to protect our planet from imminent alien invasion?

I fear it may be too late, with perihelion approaching in a few days. My suggestion to my readers: pack your bags, gather some canned goods, put your sneakers on, and head for the hills until the invasion is over. Hopefully the aliens will not notice us while they're conscripting humans to work in their deuterium mines and seedy alien nightclubs.

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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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