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FT420

How can there be an article about the occult and cultural significance of the hare without mentioning Terry Pratchett's Discworld witches even once....
The anecdote where a local poacher operating at night wings a hare, which escapes. The next day the poacher encounters the local Witch, Granny Weatherwax, who delivers a slap around his head that sends him sprawling. All she says is

"Ouch."

As she walks away, the dazed poacher notices she is limping.


Also the letter from Geoff Clifton where he says he is in the believers' camp on UFO's. The problem here is - what exactly are you believing in? The whole subject area is so tenuous and nebulous that there's a lot of room here for misunderstanding and misinterpretation. If you begin from the reasonable and factual premise that 95 out of every 100 objects you see the sky can immediately be identified with no mystery involved, and 4% that present ambiguously can also be resolved with a bit of digging and thinking, then that still leaves a 1% residue of mysteries. There are indeed UFO's - objects seen flying which cannot be identified. They exist.

But jumping from that to assert the existence of little grey aliens from the planet Tralfamadore is a big bound. This can't absolutely be ruled out but I'd suspect it's a very long way down the list of probable explanations for UFO's. The problem is that people are arguing from insufficient evidence - it's like nailing fog to a wall. Fog exists and walls exist. It just needs specialised nails and a very unique sort of hammer? (And there ends a horribly stretched metaphor).

If you say "I tend towards believing in UFO's" then you can't leave it there, you're obliged to explain further.... if only to stave off accusations of getting flakey.
 
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AgProv said:
How can there be an article about the occult and cultural significance of the hare without mentioning Terry Pratchett's Discworld witches even once....
The anecdote where a local poacher operating at night wings a hare, which escapes. The next day the poacher encounters the local Witch, Granny Weatherwax, who delivers a slap around his head that sends him sprawling. All she says is

"Ouch."

As she walks away, the dazed poacher notices she is limping.


Also the letter from Geoff Clifton where he says he is in the believers' camp on UFO's. The problem here is - what exactly are you believing in? The whole subject area is so tenuous and nebulous that there's a lot of room here for misunderstanding and misinterpretation. If you begin from the reasonable and factual premise that 95 out of every 100 objects you see the sky can immediately be identified with no mystery involved, and 4% that present ambiguously can also be resolved with a bit of digging and thinking, then that still leaves a 1% residue of mysteries. There are indeed UFO's - objects seen flying which cannot be identified. They exist.

But jumping from that to assert the existence of little grey aliens from the planet Tralfamadore is a big bound. This can't absolutely be ruled out but I'd suspect it's a very long way down the list of probable explanations for UFO's. The problem is that people are arguing from insufficient evidence - it's like nailing fog to a wall. Fog exists and walls exist. It just needs specialised nails and a very unique sort of hammer? (And there ends a horribly stretched metaphor).

If you say "I tend towards believing in UFO's" then you can't leave it there, you're obliged to explain further.... if only to stave off accusations of getting flakey.
Click to expand...
This is very true. 'First define UFO'. I mean, yes, there are objects that are flying and I can't identify them. That is a factual statement. But then, as I know absolutely nothing about aviation, other than things with wings leave airports, probably a very high number of things that I see in the sky would be UFOs to me.

I still remember the time that I was driving along and staring at the sky saying 'what the hell is that!' and my kids, who were in the car with me at the time just looked pityingly at me and said 'mother, it's a flock of birds.'
 
Re. Grant Hutchison's letter about Richard Creedon being blown out of the Brooklyn tunnel.

Although the ambient pressure was nearly halved, 0.9 bar (gauge) is equivalent to swimming at 9m so I doubt decompression sickness would be an issue.

Any divers on here that can confirm?
 
AgProv said:
How can there be an article about the occult and cultural significance of the hare without mentioning Terry Pratchett's Discworld witches even once....
The anecdote where a local poacher operating at night wings a hare, which escapes. The next day the poacher encounters the local Witch, Granny Weatherwax, who delivers a slap around his head that sends him sprawling. All she says is

"Ouch."

As she walks away, the dazed poacher notices she is limping.
Click to expand...
Plus 'Tiffany Aching'
 
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