Place of Stuff

Yes, the rumours are correct: I now have a Privacy Policy.  And, somewhat confusingly, it’s no longer private.  If you can get your head around that, here’s some more stuff that I will lay on you.

This site has always had a privacy policy.  Like most important documents, I carried it around in my head and, if you so wished, I would have presented it to you upon request.  However, the grey beards of the internet were unhappy with this state of affairs.  They felt that this wasn’t right and proper and insisted that I created a written version that people can see without asking.  Now, you know me and you know I can be trusted “word is bond” and all that.  Yes, I may have used your address to buy a few personal items on sites I wasn’t too sure about – security on the internet is very important.  Oh, if those passports I ordered turn up, could you hang onto them for me.   Thanks.

They have obviously got at Sire as it’s his fault that I wrote this down.  This now means that instead of just trusting me, as you should do, and accepting that all is kosher and pukka on this site you now have to read the Privacy Policy and understand it and then explain it to me every single time I decide to amend it.  Tedious but apparently necessary.  So yeah, read it, understand and then leave your front door keys under the mat, I’ll bring the van round.

Unrelated Footnote: While writing this, I had a thought.  Is it possible to get someone accused of a crime on the internet without actually doing so?  To explain, in the above post I have put URLs under “Sire” and “it’s his fault“.  These links are now indexed by search engines.  If I were to write a completely normal and ordinary post, but use certain phrases as keywords and give them links, could I construct a letter to the data mining authorities via these means which would mean that Sire could get a call from the Aussie Stasi?  And, if I wrongly accuse him, would this cause him to form an Aussie A-Team?? Hmm, I feel an experiment coming on….

By the way, apologies to Sire for singling him out – it was those two links that kicked off the train of thought.  Obviously I wouldn’t implicate him in any crimes.  Obviously.  No, really.

For some time I have been toying with a post about the skeptics out there, faithfully blogging and writing and debunking. But I couldn’t think of a post I could bring out of their writing without either massively plagiarising them (a very bad thing, by the way) or just providing a bunch of links in a post.

What to do? I have created a new section on my Links page – Skeptical Links. In there you will find a random sampling of links to pages which aim to debunk such things as psychics, mediums, homeopathic medicine and a glut of other things which end up with you paying money for nothing except some (hopefully) kind words and little else.

I would like to thank the following people for getting and maintaining my interest in these things: The Two Percent Co whose entertaining rants kept me reading, the James Randi Educational Foundation who strive to discount false mediums and psychics and other tricksters and to teach the world to use their brains and finally, Robert Lancaster of StopSylviaBrowne who spends an awful lot of time researching and investigating the claims of Sylvia Browne (if you’re a Montel fan, you’ll know of her) and finding the flaws and the misleading and plain wrong information she disseminates.

A warning: these sites are often plainly atheist and so, if those sorts of things offend, don’t go there or blame me if they challenge and disagree with your religious views. These sites are owned by the people who write them and they are well within their rights to express their views and beliefs.

Hopefully, even those of you with only a passing interest in these subjects will find them interesting. I will say this to you all – if you are planning to visit a psychic, a medium, a palm reader or whoever, please please please read the sites before you go. They may not change your minds, but any information or testimonials can give you a better picture of what to expect.

And finally, if you are like I was some time ago, you may think that it’s not always a bad thing to tell someone a harmless lie, even if it does cost a lot of money to receive that lie. Read through the stories told by people who have attended to receive the lies and also look at what happens to people who are told these lies. One psychic *cough* Sylvia Browne *cough* told a couple on national television that their missing daughter was working as a dancer at an “adult entertainment” club. Turns out that the poor girl had been killed not long after she went missing. Not such a harmless lie after all.

The fact is that a psychic can and does tie up essential police resources looking in the wrong places and can either give a family false hope or devastate them by giving them information on their missing loved ones that cane harm thier memories of that person.

That said, please read the sites and come to your own conclusions. Obviously, these sites are one viewpoint, there are others and you should always look at both sides of the story and come to your own conclusions.