Hey, baby!

Hello all you seekers of Truth! Baba Doodlius here once again to let you in on another juicy tidbit of Universal knowledge.

This mystery will be of interest to everybody because it involves

SEX!




No, I'm not going to post pornographic pictures or anything like that (they'd revoke my Mystery License if I were to stoop to so prurient a level). In fact, this post deals only peripherally with "the S word" in that it is all about Procreation, which is, of course, sometimes the result of "the ol' horizontal mambo". (Whoops, I got two points on the Mystery License for using that bad euphemism - darn it, my insurance rates are gonna go up. Stupid Mystery License Board!)

So what mystery am I solving today? Today's revelation is none other than the Answer to the Most Puzzling Question related to "sausage wrestling" (two more points, consarnit), which is:

HOW DO BABIES KNOW WHEN TO BE BORN?

Because, as I have mentioned before, I am a lazy bastard, I really like this mystery. I mean c'mon, there are babies everywhere you look. You can barely throw a rock without hitting one (not, um, that I ever threw a rock at a baby, mind you, it's just an expression). So the research on this one was hardly difficult, not like that Bigfoot escapade or the Chupacabra experience. Truly, it was like taking candy from a, uh, baby.

All I had to do was find a newborn baby. They had plenty of them in the local hospital. So I snuck in and took some pictures. Here's what I found:



Looks like a plain ol' baby, right? Well it is. But look very carefully at the belly area - here, I'll blow it up a little for you:




At this point it dawned on me what I was seeing, and it was the answer to the mystery! Still haven't guessed it? OK, I'll zoom in just a little more:




It's a pop-up timer!

I really suspected this all along. The same gizmo that helps you get a perfect Butterball every Thanksgiving also tells Junior when it's time to come out and see the world. Doctors remove them because they generally come in colors that clash with the traditional pink and blue blankets, but right out of the chute you can clearly see them right there.

Wow, that was easy! I almost feel like I didn't earn my paycheck for that one. Almost.

Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking?

Howdy all you seekers of knowledge! Welcome back to the Baba Doodlius Emporium of Truth!

Today's topic is yet another of the great Mysteries of the Universe that has fascinated humankind for millenia. The roots of this mystery go back to the beginning of human existence, when certain persons, through their seeming mastery of paranormal phenomena, earned the respect, awe, and financial contributions of lesser mortals. I am of course referring to the Mystery of

PSYCHIC POWERS!

"Psychic Power" is actually a collection of different topics, which I am combining into a single post because I am a lazy bastard. The gamut of psychic phenomena runs from Telepathy and ESP to Psychokinesis to Precognition. Soothsayers and mediums and sorcerers claim to be able to read others' thoughts, manipulate objects with only their minds, and predict future events. (Frequently they perform these feats after being given large piles of valuable goods.)

Arguments over the reality of psychic phenomena have raged for as long as psychics have existed. This battle royale has not abated to this day. So who are combatants in this eternal struggle?

On the Psychic side: Let's meet some of the well-known psychics from recent history:

1) Jeane Dixon

Claim to fame: Ms. Dixon was the mother of all modern psychics, whose bold precognitions won over important celebrities like Richard Nixon and Nancy Reagan.

2) Uri Geller

Claim to fame: Mr. Geller continues to demonstrate all kinds of psychic abilities, including mind reading and remote vision, but is most known for bending spoons with his mind.

3) John Edward

Claim to fame: Mr. Edward formerly had a television program in which he contacted deceased relatives and friends of audience members, and has also published several books on this topic.


On the Skeptical side: Let's meet some of the prominent nay-sayers:

1) Carl Sagan

Claim to fame: Dr. Sagan was an astronomer and popularizer of scientific ideas, well known for his television program "Cosmos" and for his dismissal of psychic powers as "pseudoscientific twaddle".

2) James Randi

Claim to fame: Mr. Randi is a former professional magician and founding fellow of CSICOP, an organization that investigates paranormal claims.

3) Penn Jillette

Claim to fame: Mr. Jillette is the large half of the magic show duo "Penn and Teller" who have a television program called "Penn&Teller: Bullshit!" which aims at exposing both psychic and nonpsychic fraud.


With all the strong personalities and fiercely-held beliefs on either side, how can we possibly tell who is right? I, the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius, have determined a foolproof method of determining who has genuine psychic powers and who doesn't! This method is

KIRLIAN PHOTOGRAPHY!

This amazing technique allows us to view the auras of living objects, and is a totally real and valid phenomenon (that's a bonus Secret of the Universe, no extra charge).

Using this technique we can evaluate the auras of people who claim to have psychic powers! As should be obvious, real psychics will have distinctly different aura characteristics than non-psychics. I tested the auras of all the psychics listed above for traces of real psychic powers, and got the following results:




So as you can see, none of these self-proclaimed psychics have any real powers at all! How about that?

But any true scientific inquiry has to have a control group. To verify my findings, I tested all the skeptics listed above using the same Kirlian apparatus and got this result:



Amazingly, the Kirlian photographs clearly show that all of the skeptics have actual psychic abilities! How can this be? What can this mean? When other people wish to deceive us into thinking they are gifted psychics, why would these amazing persons want to hide the fact that they posess genuine paranormal powers?

A common trick-of-the-trade for professional magicians (like, for example, Penn Jillette or James Randi) is misdirection - the magician distracts the audience and, while their attention is diverted, performs some sleight of hand that makes the observers unaware of what is truly happening. The same thing is going on here: the skeptics are misdirecting our attention from the real psychics, which are, of course, themselves. Why would they do this?

The answer is: these real psychics live in a constant state of paralyzing fear! Fear of being thought of as "freaks". Fear of being ostracized by society. Fear of being made to "disappear" by those in authority who see them as too dangerous to be let roam free! Woe is them!

But now their secret is out! They no longer have to live in fear because we know everything, and we still love them for who they are!

If you see Penn Jillette or James Randi today, give them a big hug and say "I know your secret and I want you to know, I still love you, man!"

When they shed those tears of gratitude, tell them Baba Doodlius sent you!



This post is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Carl Sagan. Billions and billions of people miss you, Carl.

I Feel So Peaceful

Ahhhhh.

I love packing up some stuff and taking some days off once in a while. This business of knowing everything* can really take it out of you sometimes! A bird really needs to unwind on a tropical island now and again!

So that's what I did. I took a little trip with my new buddy Mr. Ghost to the tiny, msytical, magical island of Mukalakamika out in the middle of the ocean to let my feathers down a little, to let all my cares and woes melt into the glistening sand under my talons. Luxurating beneath the azure sky, soaking in the brilliant warming rays of the sun, I could feel all my tension rolling away like fresh, crystal-clear rainwaters flowing down yonder craggy volcanic peak through lush, verdant fields into the boundless sea.

Ahhhhh.

All this bliss was the inspiration to reveal this week's Secret of the Universe. But this week the secret is a little more localized than the whole Universe - it concerns just one little planet in the Universe, namely the one you're on, the Earth. Even being so localized, this revelation may be the most important thing you will ever read anywhere and any time. The secret this week is none other than the Secret of


WORLD PEACE!


For countless eons, human civilization has suffered from strife after strife, war after war. Humans, it would seem, are never more creative than when devising ways to cause other humans to suffer. Rare are the times in human history when Rodney King's timeless question "Can't we all just get along?" could be answered with a resounding "Yes".

But I, the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius, am now in possession of the Ultimate Secret of how humans can finally say "Yes, We CAN all just get along!" And that secret is:

Tropical islands.

If everybody could just take a couple weeks out of their busy schedules and take a vacation on a tropical island, the world would be at peace. Nobody could possibly think of hating their fellow man when sunbathing under a palm tree while listening to the soothing tones of a ukulele and sipping a fruity drink. The Baba Doodlius Formula for World Peace** is thus:

x (+ ) =

So what's my plan for World Peace? (And don't scoff until you hear the details.)

The Plan is to send everyone on the planet on a 2-week vacation on a tropical island within a 10-year period! (10 years sounds like a long time, but nobody said World Peace could be achieved overnight!)

OK, I know, you're saying "Baba's been smoking something". Hear me out, alright?

The following are the details of my 100% guaranteed, completely realistic and workable plan for World Peace:

1. The population of the world is somewhere around 7 billion people. Spread evenly over the ten years, that would be 700 million people per year, or ~27 million every 2 weeks. That's doable. No problemo.
2. The total world military expenditure is over $1 Trillion USD per year. That's a truly astonishing number. (If you lined up all those 1-dollar bills end to end, you'd have a line over 1 trillion dollars long!) Since we're talking about Peace here rather than war, we funnel this entire sum into the new World Peace Fund, which would contain $1430 USD for each of the 700 million people per year. (Yeah, that's a little thin for some islands, but with a little help from William Shatner we could get this money to go a long way! Captain Kirk wouldn't steer us wrong!)
3. We send 27 million people to tropical islands all over the world every 2 weeks for 10 years.
   


4. Tropical islands are so peace-inducing that at the end of the 10 years we will have achieved Total World Peace. It's really quite simple.

In a typical two-week period we might see the following results:

• Day 2: Palestinians and Israelis start saying "They're not really bad neighbors when you think about it".
• Day 5: RIAA decides to stop suing music downloaders.
• Day 7: Chinese government says it "doesn't really mind" if Falun Gong members do tai-chi in the park.
  


• Day 10: Kanye West and 50-Cent jointly plan hip-hop cover of "We Are the World".
• Day 12: Colombian drug cartels go legit. "It's only money", says former drug kingpin. "I'm going to open an art gallery."
• Day 14: Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush seen dry humping under palm trees.
  
  
  

So that's the plan. Everybody get right to work now, calling and/or writing your local government officials to get the ball rolling. The Earth and its citizens are overdue for some peace!***

* See disclaimer in blog header text
** "Baba Doodlius Fund for World Peace" and "BDFWP" Copyright 2007, Baba Doodlius, all rights reserved
*** Just between you, me, and the wall, we all know that everything in this post is complete and utter bullsh*t. ( C'mon, Kanye West and 50-Cent burying the hatchet? Never happen.). But a bird can dream, can't he?

A Meme for Me

Howdy all you fans of Mysterious Enigmas!

I am back from my all-too-brief vacation. I'll have details on that a a little later, but in the mean time...

Today I am diverting from my normal procedure of revealing the Truth behind a secret of the Universe. Sorry, no revelations today! Why, you ask? And what the heck else could this goof talk about that would be worth 3 minutes of my valuable day?

Well the thing is, I got "memed". That is to say, I have been tasked by my buddy Azzitizz over at The Totally Transparent Party, in a blatant "I-had-to-do-it-now-you-have-to-do-it-next" manner, to come up with a list of 10 cool things about the place where I live. Thanks a pantload, Azzy!

As stated in my mini-profile over on the right somewhere, I am a full-time resident of The Universe. That gives me pretty broad leeway to come up with a list, which is good - I don't have to work very hard. Heh!

So without further ado, here is
____________________________________________

Baba Doodlius' List of 10 Cool Things About the Universe

1) It's Big.

The Universe is big. Really big. It's so big that there's no way you could possibly conceive of its monstrositous biggitude.

2) It has stars. Lots of stars.

"Gojillions" is not even close to being a big enough made-up number to describe the number of stars in the Universe.

3) It's almost empty.

Despite having all those gojillions of stars and plenty of other cool stuff (see below), the Universe still consists almost entirely of empty space. That gives you some idea of just how big I'm talking about in #1 (above) when I say the Universe is "really big".

4) It's pretty organized.

For something of that ginormous extent and with such a variety of contents, the whole shebang all follows the same set of rules. You humans haven't figured out all the rules yet, but you're doing pretty well so far.

5) Gravity.

It's one of the rules I was just referring to, and a pretty neat one at that. It might suck for you humans, especially ones who want desperately to be able to dunk a basketball, but Gravity holds the whole Universe together. Like a humongous group hug.

6) Black Holes.

I did a post about these Cosmic Pac-Mans already. If you ever meet one, hope you can run pretty fast or your new name will be "Breakfast".

7) Antimatter.

There's hardly any of it around, but when any of it smacks into some regular old matter, POOF! They're both gone in a flash of light. Seriously! Just like Doug Henning!

8) Dark Matter.

You humans know it's there, but you can't figure out what it is. I may do a regular Mystery of the Universe post on this one sometime, if I feel like it.

9) The Speed Limit.

The Speed of Light. 3 hundred million meters per second. That's pretty quick, and you can't go any faster than this. Why not? That's another potential Mystery of the Universe post.

10) Life.

The universe would be pretty disappointing if it had all that other cool stuff in it and there was nobody around to enjoy it.
____________________________________________

So there you have it - The 10 coolest things about the Universe, as expounded by the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius. I could throw a few more things in there, but the spec said 10 things so I'll stick to 10 things.

Tune in next time when I reveal another Secret of the Universe!

Have a nice day!