innocent_lex

This has me quite intrigued: An article from the BBC about reports of UFO sightings in Scotland.

It's not the fact that people are seeing UFOs that intrigues me, but the chap who's quoted at the end of the article. It says:

Stuart Campbell, the Edinburgh-based author of the book The UFO Mystery Solved, said: "UFO reports have all sorts of explanations - lights in the sky from aircraft to hot air balloons.

"Every mystery has a solution somewhere, everything has a rational explanation. The alternative is that we don't live in a rational universe.

"The job is to find an explanation and that can be hard work sometimes."

Assuming this is actually what he said (and from past experience with the website, I certainly can't take that as read), I'm a little bewildered. What is it about the possibility that there is life elsewhere in the universe, i.e. not just here on Earth, and that such life is more technologically advanced than we are so they can achieve interstellar travel... what about that possibility is not rational? It seems eminently rational to me considering the size of the universe, certainly more so than the assumption that ours is the only planet with intelligent and technologically capable life. Perhaps he meant that other explanations were more likely, which is fine when you think of the way we frequently mistake one thing for another, and the way in which our mind fills in gaps to create a reality that may or may not be what is actually around us. But including spacecraft in the list of possibilities is certainly not irrational, merely lower down on the likely list than other things that we see every day.

I just opened the door to let the cat out, and the outside smells of smoky bacon. Why? No idea. What's weird, though, is that my nose detected such a thing, considering it doesn't usually do smelling.

Am confused again. When American people say "oh snap" they don't appear to be indicating that they have just got a card that's exactly the same as the other person's card. In fact, there appear to be no cards in evidence. Pls to explain?

Kthx.

We've been hearing all kinds of stuff in the news about the swine flu pandemic, and how it's contagious and how people need to be quarantined if they have it. Er, sure, okay. But let's say, for example, I get it. I don't know I have it. I feel a bit crap, but like usual that doesn't stop me going to work because if you didn't go to work every day you felt a bit crap you'd never get anything done. But I digress... So, there I am on the tube. I'm not well, I'm breathing my swine flu germs all over many people while crammed in, while threading my way through the crowded underground stations and roads, while at work, while getting snacks and lunch, and while on the way home. Why don't all those people then get sick? All those terrorist studies say the best way to spread a virus is by releasing it on a tube train or at a hub airport. That's surely happened (it's around the world) but we're counting cases in hundreds not hundreds of thousands.

So what is it about this virus that we're not being told?

1) There appear to be quite a lot of people out there saying that women are being feminist if they're voting for Palin. There is no sense of irony included in the statements I've seen.

2) There are still plenty of people calling the US president the 'the leader of the free world'. There is no sense of irony coming from the people saying this.

Out of these two points, I'm not sure which baffles me more. I wonder if simple definitions of 'feminism', 'country', 'world', and 'free' will help these people, but I suspect not.