The definitive place to answer all your Tornado questions...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/21/1210821/-Tornado-Questions-Y-all-Yankees-Are-Afraid-To-Ask
CaptainSchmideo
JoinedPosts by CaptainSchmideo
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I don't get it ... 80% of people in Oklahoma DON'T have a Tornado Shelter. Are they nuts ????
by RubaDub ini really don't understand.
how can any homeowner in his right mind, not have a tornado shelter ???
i understand that some people live in apartments and condos, but someone with any size yard (even a driveway) could have a shelter.. to me it's a no-brainer.
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I don't get it ... 80% of people in Oklahoma DON'T have a Tornado Shelter. Are they nuts ????
by RubaDub ini really don't understand.
how can any homeowner in his right mind, not have a tornado shelter ???
i understand that some people live in apartments and condos, but someone with any size yard (even a driveway) could have a shelter.. to me it's a no-brainer.
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CaptainSchmideo
T. Boone Pickens may have come from Oklahoma, but he lives in Dallas, TX
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I don't get it ... 80% of people in Oklahoma DON'T have a Tornado Shelter. Are they nuts ????
by RubaDub ini really don't understand.
how can any homeowner in his right mind, not have a tornado shelter ???
i understand that some people live in apartments and condos, but someone with any size yard (even a driveway) could have a shelter.. to me it's a no-brainer.
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CaptainSchmideo
Oh, and there is a small, but vocal, liberal group in this town. And believe it or not, Downtown OKC had a Gay Pride Festival, out in the open on a major street, and everything! The Baptists have had a large say in how this State is sometimes run, but surprise! you can buy a drink in a restaurant, even on Sunday (though the aforementioned Baptists still avoid the beer on Sunday (unless no one is looking, of course!))
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I don't get it ... 80% of people in Oklahoma DON'T have a Tornado Shelter. Are they nuts ????
by RubaDub ini really don't understand.
how can any homeowner in his right mind, not have a tornado shelter ???
i understand that some people live in apartments and condos, but someone with any size yard (even a driveway) could have a shelter.. to me it's a no-brainer.
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CaptainSchmideo
Thank you, sooner7nc. I live in Oklahoma, and I don't have a storm shelter. My house is 45 years old, and the plans did not include one. There is a public shelter a few blocks away, and thanks to Gary England and Rick Mitchell, we get plenty of warning when the storms start heading our way.
A side note, I keep reading about how Oklahoma is one of the poorest states, bla bla bla. The part of town that got hit, I would describe as one of the more higher middle class areas of the city. Moore was a "white flight" suburb that got popular in the 70's, many of the houses in the area were built in the 70's. And yes, the houses are wooden frame (as most houses tend to be since the 20th century) and I would say 98% of the house in Moore have brick outer walls (attractive bricks too, not some Sovietsky stack-a-prole housing blocks like in a Judge Dredd comic). Some of the comments I have been reading on this board make it sound like you all are thinking we live in some tar-paper, Joad sharecropper hovel on the edge of a dirt covered cornfield. But no, on a normal, non-storm day, we have running water, electricity, Wi-Fi, cable and satellite TV, paved roads, bistros and restaurants, and we all wear shoes when we go outdoors. -
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Oklahoma Tornado
by Simon inwow, just saw this on the news.
truly devastating.. sorry i have no words to offer anyone other than that we're thinking of anyone who'd been affected..
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CaptainSchmideo
Hortensia, there hasn't been an official count yet on the number of deaths involving the kids. I do know that a lot of children were recovered alive from the two schools that were hit. Right now, there is a lot of rumor flying around, and the newscasters are on "ramble mode". I live in another part of OKC, and am seeing a lot of stuff on the news, but right now, it's too soon to know definite answers until the crews are finished with the initial work.
I personally know people whose business got wiped out today. It's a pretty sad day. -
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Jehovah`s Witnesses beleive you only use 10% of your brain.......That is why you are a Jehovah`s Witness
by smiddy ini know, i was one of them ,i didnt think ,i didnt use my brain, i accepted what the organization said without questioning it , big mistake , why accept what some imperfect human says without seriously questioning it ?
and looking at alternatives to such reasonings ?.
do you beleive in the bible ?
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What about the OUIJA board? anyone played it?
by Monsieur inthe ouija board is suppose to be a straight shot to interacting with 'demons'.. has anyone here played it?
what happened?
are the claims true regarding the floating pieces an such?.
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CaptainSchmideo
Wow, a two minute read is "too wordy". Next time, I'll do it as an "anti-Jack Chick" comic strip.
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What about the OUIJA board? anyone played it?
by Monsieur inthe ouija board is suppose to be a straight shot to interacting with 'demons'.. has anyone here played it?
what happened?
are the claims true regarding the floating pieces an such?.
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CaptainSchmideo
A great post from James Randi's website-Key Money Quote "I still can't believe these guys that are into it don't sit back for a second and think, 'this is made by the same kind of people who make Monopoly boards..."
An amateur Skeptic's take on Ouija Boards --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just to let you know, I've written this essay during late evenings so my grammar, puncuation or others will not be at its best. Basically, this essay is just a draft. If there's any problems in my article, please let me know. Posts and comments are welcome. OUIJA BOARDS What is it with the appeal of these devices? Why are people afraid of these things? Are these boards a way to communicate with the other side? Is it the tool of the devil or demons? Before I begin, the Ouija Board isn’t the first of its kind in spirit communication. The Ouija Board is considered a tool of divination or spirit communication. Tarot Cards, Astrology, Palm Reading, certain hallucinogens etc. are also included in this category. So, the claim that Ouija Boards are infecting the spiritual health of the world (not that popular of a belief) is basically falsified because such forms of divination have been used long before the arrival of Christianity and Judaism. Now, onto the rest of the subject.
Some evangelical Christians and some self-proclaimed psychics, such as Edgar Cayce, insist that there is something unholy about these cardboard games. Claims like the one below are common throughout Christian fundamentalist attitudes towards Ouija boards: (1) Satan and his demons can use the Ouija board to give advice, or even to guide a person in a certain direction. This guidance will even seem to be true, good, and helpful. Satan and his demons pretend to be caring. They try to appear as something that appears harmless. The Bible says, "And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve" (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). Satan and his demons will do this in order to get a person even more deeply involved in spiritist practices. Things like the Ouija board appear to be innocent at first, but soon a person finds themselves addicted to guidance from the spirit world - thereby allowing Satan to control and destroy their life. 1 Peter 5:8 warns us, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." The Ouija Board may be advertised as just as game, and that is exactly what Satan wants us to believe.
On the other hand, most New Agers and Pagans have a much more positive view of the Ouija Board. It’s just a form of communication with the spirits. Here’s a paraphrase from an online author by the name of Patti Wigington: (2) Here's the problem with a Ouija Board -- anyone can use one, and no skill is required. In other words, the thing that makes the Ouija Board so easy to use is also what can make it potentially troublesome. Toy and game companies sell them by the thousands, but most people don't realize exactly what they are. Are they evil? No, no more than your Monopoly board is. Are they dangerous? Well, in the hands of someone who's untrained -- or an idiot -- they could be. Look at it as a spiritual version of the chat room, if that helps. There's nothing at all wrong with talking to thirty strangers… until one of them turns out to be a serial killer or a pedophile. And the thing is, you don't KNOW who is what when you enter that room. Same with a Ouija board. She’s right about the Ouija Board not being evil, but wrong about it being dangerous. I’ll explain why soon. As I browse through numerous sources, blogs and websites that contain information and personal anecdotes about the Ouija board, from the Christian fundamentalists to the New Age Pagans, I notice a common theme running throughout most of them. Normally, they never mention a naturalistic explanation for this phenomenon. Sometimes, they may even deny the existence of such a hypothesis or when a naturalistic explanation is even brought into question the response usually goes like, “Well, science can’t really explain it” or “Skeptics get it wrong all the time” or even the lame-brained, medieval rant that “Science is the tool of the Devil!”. All that crap. However, contrary to some of these claims mentioned above, there is an explanation offered by the skeptics about the phenomena about the Ouija Board (and an experiment as well).
Before I go on to explain the jargon of psychology, let me reveal the experiment so that you can understand what I am talking about. In Penn and Teller’s: Bullsh*t Season 1, Episode 12, they performed an interesting experiment where volunteers were offered to communicate to the spirit of Fred Mertz with a Ouija Board. First, the subjects used the pendulum to move across the letters and phrases on the Ouija Board. After the first run, the volunteers were a little spooked by the board’s supposed powers. However, on the second run, the volunteers were blindfolded and the board was turned around in a 180 angle. The results? Well, if the ghost of Mertz was really there to communicate with these volunteers then he must have some serious eye problems, even in the spiritual world. The pendulum stopped on empty spaces, went across letters that could not be comprehensible and spewed out a bunch of gibberish as a result. To try out this experiment yourself, acquire the following items: A Ouija Board (doesn’t have to be a particular brand or design) Two or more blindfolds: Handkerchiefs, cloth napkins, t-shirts etc. will do as long as you cannot see through them. I cannot emphasize this any further. A video camera Participants: For the best results, two or more Ouija Board users are recommended, plus one ‘master of ceremonies’ who will blindfold the players, turn the board around and record the results.
NOTE: The Ouija Board users should not be informed about the experiment (whether or not the board has supernatural powers). Be discrete. Invite them over to play the game as guests. Inform them that you’re going to record the results on video for any paranormal activity that may occur. People normally do not like it when they are being video tapped without their consent, and it can be illegal in some cases. Step 1: Have them use the Ouija board without any of the blindfolds. Ask the board, or the spirits, questions. No more than 15 questions should be asked since the players are going to be doing it a second time. Some example questions to start things up: “Are there aliens in heaven?” or “Are there ghosts around me?” Have a video camera record this session. Step 2: Analyze the results and talk to your guests about their feelings. Be informal. Step 3: Next, have the guests wear blindfolds. After that, move the Ouija Board in a 180 degree angle. Make sure that your guests are not able to see the board being moved around. Step 4: Have your guests use the Ouija board and record the session on video. Step 5: Finally, compare the two sessions and analyze the results. Make a conclusion about the experiment. In a nutshell, the ideomotor effect is characterized by unconscious and involuntary movement of the muscles that is usually influenced by outside forces (such as that of a person’s hand on someone else’s) or emotions. In a Ouija Board séance session, and with the influence of friends or self-proclaimed psychics and mediums, the ideomotor effect can be a very powerful, unseen influence on movement especially for the users who are not familiar with this effect. Psychology and psychiatry are the only fields that may mention the ideomotor effect as a part of human behavior but even psychiatrists, psychologists and scientists can be deceived by this phenomenon. You would have imagined that such naturalistic explanations would be a godsend for the Christians who are critical of the Ouija Boards. However, this isn’t the case. It appears that the fundamentalists would rather resort to tried-and-trite techniques of fear and “separation from God”, rather than straightforward, to-the point explanations for the board’s supposed supernatural powers. It isn’t chilling or blood boiling when a preacher speaks about the dangers of the Ouija Board. It’s just laughable. What they’re doing is choosing the wooden sword over the steel sword, or the gun, when it comes to a duel with the devil. The fact that these evangelicals would resort to such tactics is both counter-productive and absurd to anyone who’s familiar with the ideomotor effect and the blindfold experiment. This is also why I see these particular Christians on the same par with their Pagan counterparts. They will usually resort to emotions rather than reasoning to justify their religious or spiritual beliefs.
New Agers and promoters of the paranormal will usually bend the rules and make wild reinterpretations of the Ouija Board in order to defend its supposed supernatural powers. I’ve found a few examples. The first: (3) A word may come through with all of the letters but in the wrong order. That is why it is best to have someone not using the board - writing the letters as they come through. A name may come through as ICMAHEL - meaning MICHAEL. Remember that not all spirits speak in your language. Some spirits have trouble spelling words or creating sentences. Not being able to spell words or to keep up with the dialects and accents (Middle English speaking spirits communicating with 21st century mediums) is one thing, but anagrams? This is an odd way of communication. Anagrams are words whose letters can be rearranged to become a new word. To provide an example, I'm going to use the word "mhotas". First, you rearrange the letters (usually it's best to mix them up and to have many variations). omthas otmhas mhotas Then you try to see a word in this mess: "Thomas" Why would spirits communicate with anagrams, though a Ouija board, to an audience whom cannot communicate with the dead without the assistance of a medium or a psychic? This seems counterproductive. It’s like a German doctor explaining medical jargon in his native tongue to an kindergartener from the States. Of course, there’s always the possibility that a certain group of letters that were passed on the board can always be altered to mean a wide variety of phrases that are unconsciously invented and/or interpreted by the users. What if there were other letters that came before or after “omthas” or “ICMAHEL”? The message that I get from the claim is, “Figure out another word from the scrabble. It’s your interpretation!” Here’s another: (3) Once an answer is given you can ask for more information or clarification of the answer. But - - You can only ask a question ONCE! Do not continue to ask the question over and over to seek the answer you want. Ask the question once and accept the answers given. I guess spirits don’t like being asked the same question twice. But what happens when you ask the name of the spirit and you get “ICMAHEL” or “omthas”? How about the timeframe where the spirit or ghost had lived during his/her life? A vague response such as “Long Ago”, a bunch of jumbled up letters or a non- sequitur such as “Apple” is hardly an answer. Next claim: (3) Using a ouija board is not a channeling 'medium' for everyone. Some people get it immediately - while others never get the hang of it. This seems to have no bearing on whether one is psychic or not. Many psychics can't work a Ouija Board. “Many psychics can’t work a Ouija Board”. That’s a new one. Well I guess this one is for the self-proclaimed psychics where, in a failed Ouija Board session, they can get away by saying, “Oh. It normally doesn’t work for us.” So far, I’m getting the impression that this website does not represent the mainstream New Age community. If it does, then their arguments in defense of the Ouija Board are doomed. Some Ouija board promoters suggest that certain people can influence the movement and the activity of the board. Believers of the paranormal have the strongest influence while skeptics have the least. The common claim is that skeptics emit “negative energy” which prevents paranormal activity from occurring on the board, never mind the fact that the word ‘energy’ being used in that phrase is meaningless when one considers the actual definition of energy. This also gives the believers a type of “get out of jail free” card when anyone approaches the Ouija Board with any level of scrutiny. Both New Agers and Christian Fundamentalists haven’t taken into consideration a much more obvious fact; a fact that a man named David Plumb has stated better that I ever can: (4) I still can't believe these guys that are into it don't sit back for a second and think, 'this is made by the same kind of people who make monopoly boards...'
Footnotes: (1) http://www.allabouttheoccult.org/ouija-board.htm
(2) http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/divi...ija_Boards.htm
(3) http://www.crystalinks.com/ouija.html
(4) http://ohiouskepticsociety.blogspot....ja-boards.html
Resources: http://www.allabouttheoccult.org/ouija-board.htm
http://www.skepdic.com/ouija.html
http://www.crystalinks.com/ouija.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouija
http://www.castleofspirits.com/ouijaboards.html
http://www.skepdic.com/ideomotor.html
http://www.quackwatch.org/01Quackery...ideomotor.html
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MUST READ: Books for Young JWs - a Required Reading List
by Oubliette ini've been contemplating a list of works of fiction that should be read by every young jehovah's witness, (12 - 18 years old).
the goal is to plant seeds of truth and critical thinking skills which could ultimately invoking cognitive dissonance and help them wake up to the truth about "the truth" (ttatt).
my idea is an adaptation of steven hassan's approach of not attacking a cult members beliefs directly, but rather indirectly by getting them to look at other similar belief systems and social structures, in this case fictional ones that mirror many of the destructive, oppressive features of jehovah's witnesses.
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CaptainSchmideo
"The Demon Haunted World" by Carl Sagan.
Anything by Neil DeGrasse Tyson (my son LOVES his stuff).
"The Emperor's New Clothes". If the majority believe in something that just isn't there, does it really make it a fact?
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Need help finding a citation re: You wouldn't go to a Toyota dealer
by okage inokay, online, many jws use the line that if you have a question about a ford, you wouldn't go to a toyota dealer.
they use this to say "only jehovah's witnesses can answer questions about jws.".
i can swear that there is some version of this statement in a watchtower publication.
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CaptainSchmideo
If I was buying a car, I would consult Kelly Blue Book or Edmunds for unbiased information, and collective data about the reliability of a particular Make, Model, and Year of a car I was interested in. WTS does not encourage any of that at all, in the same way that a shady car dealer would discourage a sucker from looking up unbiased information.