Maggie Twatcher

[Hartshot]

There's a campaign to make the song 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead' by Judy Garland number one in the singles chart, it has to be during the same week Maggie died though.
These guys have apparently campaigned on facebook for 6 years, plotting, waiting for the day to come.
The crunch comes when the radio stations have to decide whether (if it makes it to number one) they play the song or not.
This brings a major point to the table.
Do the radio stations "censor" the singles chart ?
If they do, on what grounds.

I have taken the liberty of starting a light hearted thread as a sort of poll, called 'Ding Dong - Poll' in this section.

It'll be interesting to find out which way this goes ???

H

[phoenix]

I suspect that many radio stations will "censor" it, and for sure the BBC will.
However, "censoring" records is nothing new, During the Queens' silver jubilee in 1977, the BBC wouldn't play "God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols and it still got to number one.
The BBC also "censored" "Je t'aime" and "relax" because of their supposed sexual content and they both made it to number one.

Cheers

Bruce

[Hartshot]

Media censorship, is'nt that the 'baby' that they fight so hard to protect.

Intersting one this eh !

H

[squid]

Do the radio stations "censor" the singles chart ?
If they do, on what grounds

H

On the grounds of common decency perhaps.

[Hartshot]

Forgive me for saying this but, decency doesn't come into it. I can see it from both sides of the coin.
Because the Lady has died, does this automatically relinquish everybody of opinion and freedom of speech. NO.
My thoughts are with her nearest and dearest, it's terrible for them and I truly sympathise with their own personal grief.

The question is, where is the line to be drawn ??? I honestly don't have an answer to that !

What sticks in my teeth is the idolisation by the sycophantic many these days, they have short memories.
Let's not forget that she lost her marbles and was unceremoniously kicked out of government by her own party in the end, for being too radical and out of touch !

Ironically, the very same people who now stand in line and hypocritically and give tribute.

[squid]

Forgive me for saying this but, decency doesn't come into it. I can see it from both sides of the coin.
Because the Lady has died, does this automatically relinquish everybody of opinion and freedom of speech. NO.
My thoughts are with her nearest and dearest, it's terrible for them and I truly sympathise with their own personal grief.

The question is, where is the line to be drawn ??? I honestly don't have an answer to that !

What sticks in my teeth is the idolisation by the sycophantic many these days, they have short memories.
Let's not forget that she lost her marbles and was unceremoniously kicked out of government by her own party in the end, for being too radical and out of touch !

Ironically, the very same people who now stand in line and hypocritically and give tribute.

Yes I agree with most of what you say, I just struggle to comprehend how people can rejoice in someone's death, I find it somewhat uncivilised. Excepting the likes of Hitler of course but I don't think Mrs T could be put into that category.

[Hartshot]

I agree, only on behalf of her nearest and dearest do I feel any sorrow from that perspective though.

Of course, there were many who wept over the death of Adolf too

I jest, they are not in the same category, not quite


Going off topic slightly here................
There's a similarity here with the moral issue, the moral contradiction -
It's a bit like the Veggie, those activists who look down upon us lot for doing what comes naturally - the hunter/gatherer. They are all for putting us down at every turn until a rat turns up in their kitchen, or a fox kills their urban corn fed free range hollistic hypoallergenic chooks. Then it's Kill, kill, kill it at any cost. Their morals soon go out the window when it happens to them eh !

Morals are meant to be tested, or they wouldn't be morals !

[rodp]

You may be right, there may not be a "God". There was something though, there's just too much gone on unexplained.
I believe Stonehenge, although built over several years, would have been impossible to build as there just wasn't the required amount of folk in the south ? All these temples etc abroad, in the jungles etc, made from blocks of stone that are "quite heavy" and cut too such an accuracy they would have trouble doing it now. To cut the stones then grind them to such a fine finish would have taken so long they would still be doing it now.
How do you explain the cave drawings of folk in helmets and with wings, at that time folk drew what they had seen, or thought they had seen.

There's more to this than we think ...........


Yeah, I'm puddled.

Rod,
Just because you believe that it was impossible for our ancestors to build Stonehenge, doesn't mean that they couldn't or didn't - that's called an argument from incredulity and is a well known logical fallacy.
The great strength of science is that it is continually being tested and when better explanations for what happens in the natural world come along, the old explanation is discarded and newer, better knowledge accepted and then that new knowledge is subjected to continual testing.
In addition, scientific theories must be falsifiable - in other words, there should be something which, if it was discovered would make a current theory false.
One of the best examples of this applies to the Theory of Evolution.
If someone discovered a fossilised rabbit in amongst a bunch of fossilised dinosaurs, then the Theory of Evolution would have been shown to be false, because everything we know about the age of the Earth and when animals appeared and became extinct tells us that dinosaurs were extinct many millions of years before rabbits existed
Religion has a real problem with science, because science has provided explanations for many of "God works in mysterious ways" things in the natural world. So much so that God can now only be found in the rapidly shrinking gaps in our knowledge.

Cheers

Bruce

Quite agree Bruce, and I would love to find out how 5% of the required manpower built all these wonderful structures, as would a lot of other folk.
As for theories being falsifiable, I thought that was the idea of a theory, it's theoretical not fact and can therefore be proven wrong when the facts are discovered (or if).
The idea of God though does make you wonder how a story (for that's what it is until proven) managed to become probably the only one to be believed by so many so far apart. When you consider the fact that so many believe in their God (worldwide), and all the Gods (I'm not talking sun god etc here but supreme being) seem to have the same basic roots (they came down from the heavens) doesn't it make you possibly think there's some distant reason for this, especially when you consider the things that have been done that shouldn't have been physically possible. Either way wouldn't surprise me at the moment to be honest, we're just a tiny speck in the great scheme of things and the chances of another race being about and developed well before us are highly likely, probably so likely as to be an absolute certainty.

[phoenix]

Rod,
I don't think there's any serious scientific debate about whether humans or aliens built the pyramids. And if humans could build such large structure thousands of years ago, why couldn't all the other large ancient structures which are still around for us to see (and probably many which have decayed beyond recognition) not also have been built by humans. I don't think there's any need to invoke any supernatural power in explaining how these types of structures came about.
Regarding the word "Theory"
Science has a specific meaning for the word "theory" and it's not the same as is commonly used in everyday speech.
In science, a theory is the best current explanation for a whole series of facts which have been observed or inferred by experiment. In common usage, "theory" is often no more than a hunch without any facts to back it up.
The creationists in the USA love to say that evolution is "only a theory", but as usual their wilfull ignorance of science shines through very brightly.
You're right that probably every civilisation since man first appeared has had a God or Gods. But I don't find that surprising. This planet can be a scary place what with volcanoes, earthquakes, and extremes of temperature, and for early humans lots of large animals ready to eat you in the blink of an eye. With all those threats around you and no understanding of how and why they happen, the easiest solution is to invent a supernatural entity or two who can make these things happen or not happen depending on whether or not you're nice to him and maybe sacrifice an couple of children now and then.
Regarding life on other planets - I think you're right. Although the chances of life starting on any individual plan are minute (and I think we just got s**t lucky on this planet), there are simply so many planets out there that it's highly likely that life has started on others. Whether that life has evolved in the same way as on this planet is an entirely different matter.

Cheers

Bruce

[rodp]

Rod,
I don't think there's any serious scientific debate about whether humans or aliens built the pyramids. And if humans could build such large structure thousands of years ago, why couldn't all the other large ancient structures which are still around for us to see (and probably many which have decayed beyond recognition) not also have been built by humans. I don't think there's any need to invoke any supernatural power in explaining how these types of structures came about.
Regarding the word "Theory"
Science has a specific meaning for the word "theory" and it's not the same as is commonly used in everyday speech.
In science, a theory is the best current explanation for a whole series of facts which have been observed or inferred by experiment. In common usage, "theory" is often no more than a hunch without any facts to back it up.
The creationists in the USA love to say that evolution is "only a theory", but as usual their wilfull ignorance of science shines through very brightly.
You're right that probably every civilisation since man first appeared has had a God or Gods. But I don't find that surprising. This planet can be a scary place what with volcanoes, earthquakes, and extremes of temperature, and for early humans lots of large animals ready to eat you in the blink of an eye. With all those threats around you and no understanding of how and why they happen, the easiest solution is to invent a supernatural entity or two who can make these things happen or not happen depending on whether or not you're nice to him and maybe sacrifice an couple of children now and then.
Regarding life on other planets - I think you're right. Although the chances of life starting on any individual plan are minute (and I think we just got s**t lucky on this planet), there are simply so many planets out there that it's highly likely that life has started on others. Whether that life has evolved in the same way as on this planet is an entirely different matter.

Cheers

Bruce

Because (and this is only what can be gleaned from various documentaries and magazines) the finish of the blocks on some of these structures means that if done by hand they still wouldn't be finished. When you get a block of stone, let's say 12' x 6' x 4' and it's perfectly flat (to less than the thickness of a sheet of paper) and it's polished it takes a long time to do. It would have to be hand ground with stones of a greater hardness for a start and some of those blocks are granite !! There just weren't the folk there to do it.

Now I'm not saying who did it, I just don't know, but what I do know is it's a most puzzling thing. The facts as we know them at this moment in time say the humans there at the time just could not have done it.

If you had been brought up in a secluded village with no outside contact whatever, so you were totally naive to the world as we know it, and someone told you the following two stories which one would you believe ?

Story one,

Apparently, so it's said, Gods son came to earth through a virgin birth (his mom gave birth to him without getting whoopy ??), he was born in a barn but rose to be worshipped by more than half the population of the planet. They worshipped him because he could perform magic tricks such as walk on water, feed thousands with just one loaf of bread and turn wine into water. His buddies could do tricks as well such as part the sea so lots of folk could walk across. One of them was up a mountain one day and he heard voices in his head telling him what to do. Gods son was eventually killed so the story goes, the Romans nailed him to a cross because he kept annoying them with his ranting and trouble making. When he died they chucked him in a cave and pushed a big rock across the door, three days later they found he'd gone but the rock was still there. One of his buddies had seen him come alive again and spoken to the dead guy, but this is only a third hand story and wasn't actually written down for lots of years after.
All this is written down in a big book but unfortunately no-one there at the time wrote it down. What's in the big book is what the authors heard second hand on the streets and from old wives tales while drinking round the fire and such. There's nothing in the big book that can actually be proven now but a lot of people say it's true.

Story two.
According to cave paintings, we assume were done at the time, beings unknown came to Earth. The paintings show them with wings, helmets and other flying apparel. They also show beings in flying machines. These paintings are genuine and scientific dating proves them to be thousands of years old. These paintings are found all round the world and stem from a time when outside communication was limited to how far and fast a person could walk at best and non existent normally. There are also huge drawings on various hillsides and desert area's that were not discovered until man could fly, they can only be seen in there entirety from the air.

In various places around the world there are buildings that were supposedly built by local inhabitants. For one reason or another it's proven (by some) that it would have been physically impossible for the locals to have built them for various reason such as the required tools, the time scale they were built in and the amazing accuracy and finish of the immense stone blocks. It's said we probably couldn't even do it now with the equipment we have at our disposal these days.
It is rumoured by some that the large jump from semi ape like being to modern man was engineered by an outside force, not of this planet but by the beings depicted in the cave drawings. These beings are also credited with being responsible for the buildings and structures that were beyond the realms of the human race at the time of building, thereby explaining the extraordinary accuracy and finish of the huge stone blocks.


Now in all honesty I don't know which I would believe, if either of them. I do know that if I try to look at both sides from a naive point of view the alien one wins hands down, there's just more evidence (although as fact a lot of it's debatable). What you reckon Bruce, which one would you go for if you had to pick one?