Seriously I hope to get to one of these AM’s one of these days… They sound like a blast!

Your fellow bald guy in a purple shirt,

Peter

I probably should mention that I have a girlfriend, so no for-realsies, just betend.

[Just to help this thread get completely out of hand ]

For some reason the irony cracks me up that at your core, you’re no different than the evangelicals out there promoting their cause.

But, you keep going with your bad selves, because perhaps Michelle will get to TAM 6, and we need every chick we can get!

geek grrl power!!!

QD, you beat me to it with Michelle Maybe BA has a new opportunity for making money, “The BA Matchmaking Co.”

Ah, I’m just flirtin’

It really is 850, though.

Maybe skeptic_match.com? critical_thinking_and_dating.com?

the_dating_delusion.org? Ha ha! I crack me up! Dawkins humor!

Well, I prefer a common *goal* rather than a common enemy, but at this point I’ll take what I can get.

Wayne: I’d like to echo the lament that labels and pidgin-holing really stops the dialog and only serves the political ends of further dividing us.

A more atypical one I ran into:

I saw a picture in the paper last year from a trial for a man just convicted of murder. Pretty much cut and dry case. Now, I’m generally Mr. Law and Order when it comes to something like murder (but ambivalent about the death penalty), but I saw something in the picture that really got to me. It was the defendant listening to the verdict. The expression on his face was that of an utterly broken man. His eyes were just devoid of humanity and you could almost see the reflection of the abyss there. His life story was one of endless mistakes- from the time he was born, through a childhood with horrific parents and afterward when he was old enough to start making his own stupid mistakes until he made the stupidest one of all.

Now, in my mind he must still pay for his crime (IMHO, life in prison, no parole). But I really felt bad that our society could produce such a broken man. I dared mention to someone that I sort of felt bad for the guy, and the response was (sarcastically) “Oh, well, let’s just let him go and forget about the victim.”

This someone who made the comment was my own sister, who has known me for 40+ years, and has NEVER known me to anywhere even CLOSE a soft on crime type. I just stared at her.

Wayne: It’s sad that people like Glenn Beck talk about this all the time, but get vilified anyway just because they’re behind the curve on their understanding of Global Warming (or whatever).

Eh, I have no opinion on Glen Beck or any other infotainer, but similar things have happened here. Ron Paul had a difference of opinion on a Constitutional issue, and he’s declared a “theocrat” in skeptical circles. WTF???

Sweet Feathery Bouncing Baby Jesus, at least the man remembers there *is* a Constitution and is willing to debate finer points about it in public and in front of a camera. This sort of response is what drives politicians deeper into their reality distortion bubbles.

Michelle: Unfortunately…. It would cost me a *fortune* to go to TAM6. The kind a 24 years old girl like me can’t pay. Darnit I’d love to go!

Maybe some kind sugar daddy will take you. I’m a SWM, 42, gainfully employed in the space communications field and, well, let’s cut to the chase, shall we? My FICO credit score is 850. It doesn’t get higher than that. I’m just sayin…

Success. He apologized later for calling me closed-minded, having seen that the scientists, to a person, had said “it seems,” “we think” and “the best data we have suggests” to Graham Hancock’s “it looks like so it must be.”

No amount of shouting or cajoling or mocking would have done that.

Sometimes patience and persistence are the best tools for reason. Keep showing folks cold reading techniques. Keep putting out the lists of standard excuses for failure of psychic predictions. Keep track of the yearly forecasts of famous charlatans and archive them along with scoring of who got what right or wrong.

Being able to forecast and predict the behavior of failed forecasters and predictionists is sometimes the best way to beat them at their own game. And be aware that no political bent has cornered the market on magical thinking, be it a new-age Reiki practitioner drinking homeopathic remedies or a devout faith healer on a pilgirimage to see a tortilla.

“Unfortunately…. It would cost me a *fortune* to go to TAM6. The kind a 24 years old girl like me can’t pay. Darnit I’d love to go!”

If funds are tight for you, look into assistance from the James Randi Educational Foundation. There is often “scholarship” funding that TAMsters put together to help those for whom attending is a financial hardship.

Unless, of course, you live in Ouagadougou, then you’re probably stuck with the DVD.