THERE IS STILL TIME!
- Though our block of rooms at South Point has expired, you may still find rooms at their site.
- TAM 7 is not sold out. You will be able to register at the door, if need be.
Faced with an apparently unsolvable challenge, the perennial Captain Disillusion is ready to give up, and until a familiar force offers a helpful hand. Do not miss this!
Direct link to YouTube video here.
SWIFT Digest
The official blog of the JREF, here are this week's entries:
This week's topics include:
from Jeff Wagg
What is it with Baseball players? They're big, strong, well-paid... and yet some of them are afraid to sleep in a hotel alone.
No, I'm not making this up. Others sleep with a baseball bat by their side. Are they afraid of paparazzi? Jealous wives and girlfriends? No. They're afraid of ghosts.
WISN in Milwaukee reports that a local hotel, the newly remodeled Pfister, is scaring ballplayers from many visiting teams. You can check out their video report here.
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from Alison Smith
 You might've noticed that SAPS has, lately, fallen off the grid a little while I sat around contemplating the wisdom of being on a television show called Door to the Dead.
With The Amaz!ng Meeting coming so fast, though, I've been forced out of my funk and into participating in a big way.
SAPS is involved in a lot of events at TAM 7, and here are some of them, if you'd like to be involved too.
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from Harriet Hall
 A new book has just come out that will be of interest to skeptics everywhere. Science Under Siege: Defending Science, Exposing Pseudoscience. Edited by Kendrick Frazier, it is a collection of some of the best writing from Skeptical Inquirer from the last few years:
Some of the gems it contains:
- Carl Sagan's last Q & A on science and skeptical inquiry.
- A paean to the wonder and awe of real science by Sagan's wife, Ann Druyan.
- An article explaining Ray Hyman's Categorical Directive: "before we try to explain something, we should make sure it actually happened."
- John E. Jones, III's eloquent decision in the Dover "Intelligent Design" case.
- An article on AIDS denialism by Nicoli Nattrass, who is director of an AIDS research unit in South Africa and can testify to the incalculable harm denialism has caused her compatriots.
Read more
from Jeff Wagg
Sometimes you have to ask: what good is it being psychic? As I'm not psychic, I will probably never know the answer to that question, but being psychic apparently doesn't protect you from having your accountant run off with $200,000 of your "hard-earned" money. Such a fate has befallen self-proclaimed psychic Rosemary Altea, who was exposed on Penn & Teller's Bullshit! as having a stacked audience for her reading.
From the Rutland Herald article:
Denise Hall of East Arlington faces one count of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return after investigators with the U.S. Attorney's office say she stole money from self-proclaimed spiritual medium Rosemary Altea - using four credit cards to obtain cash advances, forging checks and giving herself unauthorized electronic paychecks all under Altea's name for the past seven years, according to court records.
So, for seven years, a bookkeeper was able to swindle money from Rosemary in ways that most of us would detect simply balancing our checkbooks.
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from Jeff Wagg
 In a far too infrequent moment of proaction (or is that proactivity?), the FDA announced that they have
issued Matrixx Initiatives, maker of these Zicam products, a warning letter telling it that these products cannot be marketed without FDA approval.
What's the problem? Oh, nothing much… it just seems that using their product even once can permanently remove your sense of smell. And while we're not canines, and rely mostly on our visual sense, losing your sense of smell is a great way to increase your risk of death through fire, food contamination, or the over-consumption of durian.
from Jeff Wagg
In the latest of a series of articles critical of "alternative" medicine, MSNBC proclaims that Zicam is not the only remedy that may harm your health. From the article:
an Associated Press analysis of the Food and Drug Administration's side effect reports found that more than 800 homeopathic ingredients were potentially implicated in health problems last year. Complaints ranged from vomiting to attempted suicide.
So once again, we're happy to see alternative medicine getting negative press. But hold on... homeopathy has no ingredients. How can they be harmful? Well, they can't.
Read more
from Jeff Wagg
This week, beacon of truth FoxNews had an interview with two champions of reason: John Edward and Sean Hannity. Removing tongue from cheek, I present to you an interview that demonstrates two things: 1) it's still cool to be "the skeptic" and 2) to quote Southpark, " John Edward is the biggest douche in the universe."
Note that the article is entitled " Medium John Edward Explains Ability." Really? Did whoever titled this piece actually read or see the interview?
John Edward, when asked why he doesn't defend what he does, had this to say:
Because as soon as — as soon as you have to defend something, then you're admitting that something needs defense. So I kind of, like — I come from a place of I'm a spiritual person. I believe in God. I would never defend my belief in God. People either do believe or they don't believe, and that's OK. That's their choice.
So I feel the same way about this. As soon as I go to a place I have to defend it, I feel like you immediately lose. I have no problem explaining it, though, or trying to teach about it.
Well, guess what John… if you want us to believe that you can TALK TO THE DEAD, yes, you're going to have to defend it. Do so succesfully, and we'll give you $1,000,000. This "non-answering" is a favorite technique of so-called psychics and mediums, as it puts all the pressure on the person who has questions, and make them feel guilty for somehow doubting such an esteemed individual. Alas, we skeptics are like that.
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The James Randi Educational Foundation ( www.randi.org) is a not-for-profit organization that promotes critical thinking, science education, and skeptical inquiry by providing the public and the media with reliable information about paranormal, supernatural, and pseudoscientific claims.
Randigram is the weekly e-bulletin of the JREF. Contents © 2006-2009 James Randi Educational Foundation.
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