Dezrah Writes Love On His Arms

Here’s what I did instead of a blog today:

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Podcast Party!

I’m a huge fan of podcasts. They’re (mostly) free, feature content that mainstream media would never touch and range from “polished and professional” to “fresh from mom’s basement”. It’s a really exciting time for content creators, the tools of production are cheaper than they’ve ever been, and distributing the finished product is easer than ever. At some point I’ll do a rant on the rise of social media, Web 2.0 and the democratization of content, but for now, let’s talk reviews and recommendations.

Here’s a list of my Top 10 podcasts. This list consists of shows that are only available as podcasts, NPR rebroadcasts, etc don’t count.

1. The Totally Rad Show (weekly, video and audio)

    In my humble opinion this is the best pop-culture/geek review and preview show out there. Three guys (Alex Albrecht of Diggnation and Ex-Tech TV alum, Jeff Cannata, actor and Dan Trachtenberg, director) review Movies, Games, TV, Comics and anything else that pops up. With regular segments like “Dan Becomes A Man” and one of the best intros to Geocaching ever, it’s a fun run through everything geek

2. The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe  

(weekly, audio only)

    The SGU is a co-production of the New England Skeptic’s Society and Skepchick.com and it’s probably the most popular science/skepticism show on the web right now. Hosted by Dr. Steven Novella and his group of skeptical rogues (Steve Novella, Bob Novella, Evan Bernstein and the 1st and greatest Skepchick, Rebecca Watson) it’s your weekly round-table run down of scientific and pseudoscientific news. Funny, irreverent and knowledgable, it’s a must listen. It usually features an interview with some of the shining lights of the skeptical movement as well as science newsmakers and even true-believers. Don’t miss it!

3. The Bugle 

(weekly, audio only)

    The Daily Show’s John Oliver and his friend from back home Andy Zaltzman take a scathingly sarcastic and stunningly satirical look back at the week’s news. Imagine the Daily Show if it paid attention to the rest of the world. Tied with YLNT as the top source of my “laughing out loud in public for no apparent reason” moments.

4. You Look Nice Today  

(sporadic, audio only)

    “A Journal of Emotional hygiene” and the absolute best thing to come out of Twitter, no question . Merlin Man, Adam Lisagor and  Scott Simpson get together and brainstorm business ideas both ridiculous and sublime. Seemingly random topics are used as launching points for conversations that end up in territory such as “Baby Butlers”. Simply put, it’s three very smart, very funny guys trying to one-up each other with stream-of-consciousness weirdness masquerading as a serious conversation. This is one of the few podcasts where I would recommend, nay, demand going back and listening to the entire run.

5. Scam School (weekly, video only)

    The podcast that introduced the world (and myself) to Brian Brushwood. This pointy-haired wizard of the bar-room bet teaches you no-lose propositions that can get you a free beer, stunts that will get you stunned stares and tricks that just might impress someone enough to get you the elusive “phone number”. Basically, it’s how to do real world, kick-ass magic tricks for the non-magician. On top of all that, Brian is just a really cool guy if you ever get the chance to see his show, DO IT and tell Mr. Happypants that Dezrah sent you.

6. iFanboy (weekly audio with occasional video)

    a.k.a. The podcast I curse because it got me back into comics. Ron Richards, Josh Flanagan and Connor Kilpatrick review the week’s comics and each week they take turns with the unenviable task of choosing which book will be the “Pick of The Week”. The guys know their stuff, and discuss the craft and structure under the surface of the comics as well as spoiling the hell out of the plots. Funny, snarky and passionate about the medium, it’s like the comic conversations you have with your friends, except these guys are actually fun to listen to.

7. iTricks Magic Week In Review (weekly, audio only)

    (Full disclosure, I’m an assistant and weekly contributor to the iTricks.com parent site) iTricks is probably the premiere magic-based podcast right now. Justin Robert Young reviews the week’s magic news with the help of a guest magician/co-host every week. You get the perspective of working pros on some of the hottest issues in magic, while avoiding the simple Q+A of a straight-up interview. Barring the return of Go Magic Go, this is the must listen podcast for magicians.

8. Buzz Out Loud (daily, audio w/ live video broadcast)

    Tech news, headlines and rants from the best tech reporters in the business. Tom Merrit, Molly Wood, Jason Howell, Natalie Delconte, Brian Cooley, Rafe Needleman, and more tell us what’s going on and try to sift through the FUD. I listen every single day, it’s perfect commute listening, and keeps me up-to-date on gadgets, gizmos, and the vagaries of patent law.

9. This Week In Tech (weekly, audio w/ live video broadcast)

    Leo LaPorte of Tech TV fame has gone insane. Part of the insanity is building his own $10,000 recording and live broadcasting studio and hosting over 30 hours of live content a week on the TWIT network. The flagship show is This Week In Tech, where Leo, other Tech TV alumni dissect the week’s news and use their years of experience to parse the press releases. Entertaining, but very free-form and not for those who are afraid of rat-holes.

10. Reasonable Doubts Where the SGU turns a skeptical eye on pseudoscience and the paranormal, the folks at Reasonable Doubts aim all of their considerable knowledge and critical thinking skills at the heart of religion. It’s the best casual introduction to in-depth counter-apologetics available without a prescription. Personally, I think it’s mandatory listening for anyone with an interest in religion, no matter what your beliefs are. All three hosts are ex-Christians, with an impressive amount of religious education to draw from. They know their stuff. Great to listen to because they’re challenging without being dismissive or insulting. (Usually    

11. Point of Inquiry (weekly, audio only)

Yet another “must listen” for anyone on any side of “the culture wars”. This podcast is sponsored and hosted by the Center for Inquiry, the parent organization for groups like Center for Scientific Inquiry (once known as C.S.I.C.O.P.), the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion and the Council for Secular Humanism. The host D.J. Grothe (apostate, activist, mentalist and all-around interesting person on his own accord) interviews some of the most intriguing, controversial and thought-provoking guests imaginable. He asks tough yet respectful questions of everyone, no matter whether he agrees with them or not. I can absolutely guarantee that you will find something thought-provoking in every single episode .

12. Film Riot (weekly, video only)

I just started watching this a few weeks ago, and I’m in love. It’s another show from the geniuses at Revision 3. (Scam School and The Totally Rad Show are also Rev3 productions) Put simply, it’s a “how-to” show on video effects and movie-making for DIY directors. It covers practical effects and digital effects, both done on the cheap. A typical episode is full of vignettes and skits that use the effects described in the how-to portions. Aside from all the great information, it’s FREAKING HILARIOUS!!! Now be warned, the guys’ tastes run a little more to the extreme side of things, so it’s not exactly kid safe, but if you want to know how to smash in your friend’s skull with a toolbox on-screen, this is the place to go.

That’s a good start, but really it’s only the tip of the iceberg as far as free podcasting content goes. I’m into tech, magic, religion and pop-culture geekery, so that’s my list, but there are literally podcasts for ANYTHING you can think of from knitting to kinking. Explore and enjoy!

The Truth About Dragons

When I announced that I’d be doing a post a day, I asked my throngs of adoring fans to offer some suggestions of topics that I should cover. Clearly, my brilliance had cowed and intimidated all but the bravest of my legions of admirers, because I only received one response. Jon Wolf asked me to talk about the dragon that lived in the rings of Saturn. As soon as I heard his desperate entreaty, I knew I had to respond as quickly and thoroughly as possible to clear up the myths and misconceptions about said dragon.

There are many myths about dragons in general. Most people realize that dragons as we know them never actually existed in Europe, Asia, Africa. etc. Yes, there are myths and legends about the existence of enormous, scaly, flying and just plain bad ass creatures all over the world, but the majority of people believe that real dragons simply don’t exist. A reasonable stance to be sure, but true in only the most parochial sense. The real truth, (that only a few of us have had the drive and vision to discover), is that dragons are real but they don’t live on Earth. If one puts just a little thought to this, it quickly becomes clear why.

There is simply no way a creature that large could generate the lift necessary to fly under it’s own power. No matter how large the surface area of the wings, or how powerful the muscles, it’s too much mass to get off the ground with the speed and energy available to biological organisms. Dragons love to fly, and they can’t fly on Earth, therefore, no dragons on Earth. It’s elementary logic.

So in order to shine the light of truth on this sadly ignored fact, I’ve come up with a list of facts about our Solar System’s dragon(s) that I think you should read:

1) There isn’t just one dragon living in Saturn’s rings, there are two. Their names are Bruno and Jack-Jack. They have tremendous amounts of sex. There’s not much else to do out there, but they’re not complaining.

2) Jack-Jack is short for Jacqueline Jacobi. This is a little strange because dragons typically do not use surnames. She’s never bothered to explain it, and the few beings who have brave enough to ask about it never lived to regret their insolence.

3) Almost every current story and myth about dragons can be traced to the one particular dragon named Marshall. Somewhere around 4200BCE during what we would call a “mid-life crisis” he got hammered, flew a bit too close to Earth’s gravity well and was trapped here. After a few decades of anger and frustration in which he laid waste to much of what is now Northern Europe, he mellowed out, grew a mustache and ponytail and moved to a small cottage on the shores of the Yangtze.

4) The moon landings were not faked, but they were an integral part of a massive government conspiracy. In fact, the launching of Apollos 12-15 were a massively successful ruse to distract the media’s attention away from a secondary launch site in Central Florida, exactly where the “Astral Orbiter” now stands at Walt Disney World. First Kennedy and then Nixon authorized these covert missions in order to establish regular contact Bruno and Jack-Jack and hopefully gain their support in the Cold War.

5) When they were first discovered, Pulsars were assumed to be distant dragon flames. We have since discovered that they are actually exotic remnants of stars, given their bizarre characteristics due to the massive violence and energy of a supernova event. However, in private, most astronomers prefer to stick to the “Dragon Flame Interpretation”, when asked about it, they will pretend they have no idea what you’re talking about.

6) Academics, bureaucrats, artists, scientists and philosophers have know of real dragons for centuries. They keep their existence a secret not out of a fear of the public’s reaction, but because dragons are so damn cool that the jerks who gave them wedgies and the snobs who rejected them in high school don’t deserve to know about it.

7) Far from living in isolation, dragons are in regular contact with humanity, and enjoy many of our cultural exports. Bruno enjoys Iron Chef America, but still prefers the original Japanese version. Jack-Jack loved Battlestar Galactica and can even forgive the heavy-handed ending but when pressed says: “I actually liked the finale, but really, Starbuck? WTF?”. They are both serious Munchkin fanatics. Bruno’s musical tastes tend toward Progressive Rock and New Wave while Jack-Jack is massively eclectic, listening to everyone from Rascal Flatts to Franz Ferdinand.

One dragon scale is about the size of a cheese Pazzo from Amato’s. (Noteable because that is one of Jack-Jack’s favorite Earthly foods.)

9) The closest humanity has ever come to conflict with dragon kind was in 2007 when they Bruno was quoted at saying: “You know, that Cheney guy is kind of a tool.” Once the impracticality of sending 50,000 troops to Saturn’s rings was explained to the Vice President, the conflict was avoided.

10) If you ever come face to face with a dragon, panic and beg for mercy. You’re probably in no danger from the dragons, but you are now stranded, floating in the rings of Saturn, surrounded by massive balls of ice and debris. What the hell were you thinking?

The Gay (Marriage) Thing

     First things first, I’m not going to try and convince you that being gay is morally acceptable. You have been taught through your religious and cultural education or decided on your own that homosexuality is wrong and gay marriage is a sin against God and nature. You’re able to quote chapter and verse exactly where the Bible speaks out against “men lying with men as with women” and the whole the Lot situation gives you the heebie jeebies. That’s just fine, this post isn’t about Biblical criticism or biological determinism or any kind of justification or rationalizations. I’m not going to try and convince you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with what consenting adults decide to with their genitals on their own time. That’s not what I want to talk about today. Yes, I vehemently disagree with you about the supposed immorality of any particular sexual orientation, but for the sake of this discussion, I’ll grant that you and a significant portion of the population of the US feel that homosexuality is wrong, or at the very least icky.

     I know it’s hard to believe now, but I can relate. I was raised to believe that being gay was sinful and wrong. Not only did I believe it, I preached it. As much as I’m ashamed of it now, there exists an article that I wrote for my youth group’s newsletter in which I expressed my prejudice and hatred by lampooning the very concept of a “Gay Christian” movement. I was even arrogant enough to end that particular screed by saying that as real Christians “we have a lot of work to do here.”

     Thankfully, I’ve since changed my mind on that particular topic, (and many others), but I wanted you to understand that when I say “I know where you’re coming from”, I really do. I was once on your team, I was once where you are now. Some of you feel that since homosexuality is a crime against nature and anethema to the religion of the majority of American voters, it is right and fitting that the government does not allow the institutionalized support of homosexual relationships. To put it more simply: No gay marriage!

Many people will try to engage with you on the question of whether or not being gay is right or wrong, whether it’s a choice or a consequence of biology. Right now I’m not interested in those questions. The question I’m putting to you is this: “Does the fact that you disagree with the morality of a choice give you the right to take the right to take that choice away from others?”
See, this issue is a lot bigger than using the law to make a statement about your opinion of gay marriage. As states continue to pass legislation banning marriage, it will legally codify the second class status of an entire portion of the American population. According to some estimates 10% of the population self-identifies as homosexual, so by supporting a ban on gay marriage, you are saying that 30,000,000 tax-paying citizens of the United States of America do not have the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. You’re taking away the most fundamental part of what it means to be an American from 30,000,000 people because you disagree with what their definition of happiness is, and deny them the liberty to live the life they choose.

     All these millions of people are asking for is the same right you have. They want the right to choose the person they want to spend the rest of their life with, and the ability to share in the benefits and responsibilities that all married couples are granted by their government. They have found someone that fufills them so much, makes them so happy that in many cases they’ve been willing (or been forced) to face fear and condemnation from their friends, families and communities just to be able to have a relationship. They’re not asking you to condone their relationship, they’re not asking you to approve it, or tell your kids that you think it’s nifty. They just want the chance to have their partners legally and publically recognized as important to them. This isn’t about converting your children, it’s not about some mythical gay agenda, it’s about knowing that if you’re sick and hurting in the hospital, the most important person in your life has the legal right to visit you.

Do you understand yet? This isn’t a threat to you. This isn’t even about you. This isn’t an attempt to weaken or challenge your right to your religious views. You may disagree with it, you may think that a homosexual relationship is damaging and sinful, but so what? It’s not saying that you can’t get married because suddenly, gay people can.You don’t lose anything, and 30,000,000 people get to take their best shot at happiness. Let me put it this way: I hate alcohol. I think it’s a horrific waste of time and resources. I think it makes people who are otherwise charming, funny, intelligent and fun to be around act like slow-witted, boorish, obnoxious pricks who think they’re still charming, funny, intelligent and fun to be around. It can ruin careers and destroy families. All that aside, alcohol use is directly and indirectly responsible for tens of thousands of deaths a year from binge drinking, alcohol poisoning and drunk driving. All that being said, I recognize that other people feel differently and have the right to take part in an activity that I strongly disagree with. People whom I respect greatly enjoy alcohol and think it adds significantly to their quality of life. So, I don’t drink, and I don’t stop them from drinking. I respect the fact that they are adults and get to make their own decisions about how to live their life, no matter how much I wish they might choose differently. On top of that, I always have to remember that I may be wrong, and someday I could change my mind.

If freedom means anything, it means having the right to make bad decisions, or at least decisions that the majority disagrees with. We can disagree on whether or not homosexuality is wrong, but once we take away somene’s rights because we disagree with how they may use them, we’ve started our country down a very dangerous, very slippery slope.

…and if after all that, you still don’t think that gays should get married, then fine, you can skip the reception. You probably wouldn’t have had much fun anyways.

NaNoWriMo 2009 – Dezrah Edition

     Here we go, the first entry in my own little version of NaNoWriMo. I’ve tried (and failed) at writing a novel for NaNoWriMo on at least 3 separate occasions. This is due mostly to a) my pathological inability to finish anything I start and b) my unremarkable inability to write convincing dialogue. I won’t subject you to any examples, just take my word for it.
 
     So, if I can’t write fiction, that doesn’t leave me many options for novel-length prose. I suppose I could write historical fiction, but frankly, I’m too lazy for the research needed for such an undertaking. I’m too incompetent to write pure fiction, and too lazy to write history, so that leaves me with only one choice, poorly researched editorials coupled with personal opinion pieces.
 
     In other words, no change at all from the previous contents of this particular blog.
 
     I still think that the purpose of NaNoWriMo stands up to my particular situation however. Yes, most people use the excercise as a reason to get cracking on that novel they’ve been thinking about, but at the end of the day, the idea is to START WRITING! No more excuses, no more procrastintion, very little editing, just sit down in front of the computer and start creating. I’ve needed a good kick in the pants to get me started, and this seems like as good of an excuse as any.
 
     With that in mind, I’ll be taking the next few weeks to write 1 blog entry per day, of at least 300 words, for the month of November. No simple links and “look at this crazy cat video” posts for me. I need to create some kind of actual content. I have a few ideas kicking around, but if you’ve got something you want me to mull over and get all self-righteous about, let me know!

Bad Times- Presidents of the United States of America

I just heard this song for the first time this weekend, and it affected me in a real way. I thought I’d share it with all of you:

Lyrics:

1, 2, 3, 4

You never had rabies
You never gained weight
You never drank poison
You watched what you ate
You never came home with a terrible scar
You never so much as put a scratch on my car
You never got measles
You never got gout
You never got dizzy
And you never fell out
You never suggested we all play charades
You never picked up any live hand granades

You twisted your ankle
I carried you
You got a divorce
So I married you
You fell off a cliff
So I buried you
I wish there were more bad times to see you through
I wish there were more bad times
Wish there were more bad times (x4)
I wish there were more

You never lost contact
You never leaked oil
You never drank cleanser
And you never ate foil
You never got hurt by sticks and stones
You never choked on any big chicken bones
You never got mauled by a mad baboon
You never lost all the air in your balloon
You never got poked in the eye with a spork
You never got sick from all that leftover pork

You twisted your ankle
I carried you
You got a divorce
So I married you
You fell off a cliff
So I buried you
I wish there were more bad times to see you through
I wish there were more bad times

So many things did go wrong
But the list is not long enough
Not enough bad things to fill up a song

Wish there were more bad times (x4)

I’d rather gather your bones
Than mop up this mess
If I scrub us all spotless
I’ll wreck our success
I was holding your hand
When it fell on the floor
When you left you broke the knob on the door
I wish there was more

Are you still reading this? Thanks!

Wow, this blog still exists, huh? I bet you’re as surprised as I am. So, let’s get caught up:
 
Orion is doing well; he’s almost 8 months old now and roughly the size, shape and weight of a dump truck. Zoe is discovering the wonders and joys of fingernail painting and playing dress up, and Amanda is still the best wife I’ve ever had.
 
So I’ve got that going for me.
 
On the employment front, I’m coming up on my one year anniversary at Intel, halfway through my 2-year contract. At this point my thoughts are already turning to what’s next. There are a lot of changes coming to my area of the fab and I’ve yet to figure out how it will affect me and my ‘career’ with Intel. People have been impressed with the magic-based training videos I’ve done for the internal LeanTV “network”, but I’m not 100% happy with them. It’s the first time that the editing and production is completely out of my hands, and there have been some issues. WHO DOES A JUMP CUT DURING MIDDLE OF A NEWSPAPER TEAR?! Well, Ellusionist, of course, but why would anyone else?
 
That segues nicely into the magic topic…My career as a professional magician is doing as well as I could hope considering I don’t do anything to promote myself. I just did a really fun and successful show at “The Q” for their 2-year anniversary and had another fun but less technically successful show for Camp Inquiry. Lately, I’ve given up on thoughts of becoming a straight, serious mentalist. I really tried, and for awhile it’s what I thought I wanted to do. It turns out that being an entertaining and convincing mentalist requires a certain sense of decorum and seriousness to be truly effective and after 15 years of trying to NOT be an arrogant bastard, I’ve developed that pathological inability to take myself seriously.
As a result, my mentalism act always seemed lacking, and I just didn’t have fun when I tried performing it traditionally. Lately I’ve been mixing more geek magic and comic beats into the show and it’s really shaping up into something interesting. I won’t go as far as to say it’s polished or ready for prime-time, but it is a lot of fun to do. I’m more relaxed on stage and actually starting to enjoy myself. Shocking insight: I think that’s making a difference with my audiences! It turns out that audiences don’t actually enjoy watching stammering, nervous, pretentious numbskulls failing to be Max Maven. Apparently if the audience thinks the performer is having fun, they have fun too.
 
So I’m giving up on trying to blow minds and impress the audience with how amazing I am. Wow, until I just wrote that sentence, I didn’t realize that was (unconsciously) what I’d been trying to do. Self-realization +5. I guess that’s where the main criticism of magic comes from. Grown men on stage acting like little boys saying: “Look at me! Look at me! Look how cool I am!” Ugh. No wonder why so many people think they hate magic.
 
Time to grow up, get serious and HAVE FUN!!!
 
Question for any of y’all who’ve made it this far: If you’ve seen my show in the past year or so, leave a comment and let me know:

1) What was your favorite bit that you remember?

2) What was your least favorite?

 3) What would you like to see me doing on stage?

Beware the Spinal Trap

Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results – and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh.

On 29th July a number of magazines and websites are going to be publishing Simon Singh’s Guardian article on chiropractic from April 2008, with the part the BCA sued him for removed.

They are reprinting it, following the lead of Wilson da Silva at COSMOS magazine, because they think the public should have access to the evidence and the arguments in it that were lost when the Guardian withdrew the article after the British Chiropractic Association sued for libel.

We want as many people as possible around the world to print it or put it live on the internet at the same time to make an interesting story and prove that threatening libel or bringing a libel case against a science writer won’t necessarily shut down the debate.

You might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that “99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae”. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.

In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.

You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact some still possess quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything, including helping treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying – even though there is not a jot of evidence.

I can confidently label these assertions as utter nonsense because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.

More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.

Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.

Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared: “Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck.”

This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Edzard Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher.

If spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.

Simon Singh

To support Simon Singh and find out more about his work, head to: http://www.simonsingh.net/

Local skeptic makes good!

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve updated, but with the (insert lame excuse) and all the (insert plausible but still lame excuse) it’s been a bit difficult.

That being said, I do have some news! I’m going to be one of the featured acts at this year’s Camp Inquiry! (http://www.campinquiry.org) I’d explain what it is, but I think the press release will do just fine (pass it on!):

For Immediate Release
Contact: Nathan Bupp
Phone: (716) 636-4869 x 218
E-mail: nbupp@centerforinquiry.net

June 08, 2009

Physicist and bestselling author Lawrence Krauss featured in a wide-ranging summer program emphasizing critical thinking and science

Amherst, NY (June 8, 2009) — At a time when surveys reveal a rapidly changing religious landscape around the United States, a unique summer camp aims to provide a secular alternative for families who increasingly hold to no religion at all. On July 6-12, Camp Inquiry will open its doors to approximately 50 children ages 7 to 16, arming them with the tools to think through life’s questions—big and small—for themselves.

In addition to astronomy, magic, songwriting, visual arts, and outdoors activities, the camp provides an atmosphere where young people can learn to appreciate science as a method for understanding themselves and the world around them. “We live in bewildering times,” said camp director Angie McQuaig. “This is especially true for young people, bombarded by conflicting messages, who sense that no easy, ready-made answers will do.”

McQuaig, who holds a doctorate in educational leadership, pointed out that the goal is not just self-esteem building or self-actualization. “At Camp Inquiry we grapple with some serious ideas, and we approach them with the spirit of science: reason, evidence, self-criticism, and an honest commitment to the truth, wherever it might lie.”

The week-long experience brings these values to life with a series of special guests and activities, alongside the more familiar attractions of a summer camp. Guests this year include the acclaimed physicist Lawrence Krauss, author of the bestselling book The Physics of Star Trek; Professor Kevin Grazier, science adviser to the “Battlestar Galactica” TV series; magicians Christopher Moore and Scott Dezrah Blinn; mentalist and host of the popular podcast “Point of Inquiry” DJ Grothe; Nica Lalli, the author of the memoir Nothing: Something to Believe In, who is also an educator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; as well as Monty Harper, a professional children’s songwriter with whom campers will write, perform, and record their original compositions during the week.

Said McQuaig, “Will there be camp fire songs? Sure, but we will be singing our own tunes, literally.”

Camp Inquiry, now in its fourth year, is a project of the Center for Inquiry, an international organization committed to fostering a secular society and humanist values. It is held at Camp Seven Hills, a landscape of woodland paths, meadows, streams, and hills on 620 acres in Holland, New York. The camp is operated by a staff of fully screened and trained counselors, teachers, and a trained medical professional.

Enrollment remains open until the last week of June. More information is available at www.campinquiry.org.

The Center for Inquiry/Transnational, a nonprofit, educational, advocacy, and scientific-research think tank based in Amherst, New York, is also home to the Council for Secular Humanism, founded in 1980; and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP), founded in 1976. The Center for Inquiry’s research and educational projects focus on three broad areas: religion, ethics, and society; paranormal and fringe-science claims; and sound public policy. The Center’s Web site is www.centerforinquiry.net.

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The Zealot’s Fantasy

aka: Conversations that will never happen.

Zealot: “Hi there. I disagree with your beliefs. After some consideration, research and simple logic, I’ve decided that the beliefs you hold so dear are obviously false, and you would have to be an idiot to hold them. In fact, the only reasons someone could possibly hold your beliefs are willful ignorance, dogmatic social programming, racism, intolerance or just pathalogical stupidity. It’s not even worth my time to engage with you because my reasoning and intelligence are so far advanced compared to yours that you simply cannot fathom the sheer brilliance and flawlessness of my arguements.”

Normal person: “Thank you for sharing that, I find your perspective enlightening, and wish to know more.”