Thursday, October 27, 2011

Episode 029 is nearly dressed for Halloween but keeps changing its costume


This Week: hh:mm:ss
00:01:57 Lawsuit vs San Antonio mayor
00:03:30 FLDS update
00:05

00:10:15 "Natural" medicine drug interactions:19 Texas license plate offering not legal?
00:16:00 Fracking and earthquakes
00:26:13 Poe's Corner
00:36:02 Yoga versus stretching
00:45:00 Global warming study again shows it's real
00:59:45 Lightning Round
01:13:32 A scaaaaaary Halloween story!
And the dogs search for ghosts using high tech equipment like an ammeters and a MiniDisc recorder. And a hot dog. Did you kn
ow ghosts are attracted

to hot dogs? Go figure.

Brian Dunning's on fracking:
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4275

Global warming speech referred to in the 'cast:
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/10/18/347070/video-senator-whitehouses-must-watch-speech-on-climate-change-and-the-senates-failure-of-duty/

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Look at all the spirit orbs. OooOOOOooooh!

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Poe's Corner 10/26/11

This week in Poe's Corner, we will be looking at the extraordinary claims by Kangen Water. See if you can tell which one is the real one!

1) There is no substitute for a healthy balanced diet, especially rich in antioxidant materials such as vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, and other foods that are good for us. However, these substances are not the best source of free electrons that can block the oxidation of healthy tissue by active oxygen.


2) Reduced Ionized Water, on the other hand, has a negative redox potential of approximately -250 to -350 mV. This means it has a large mass of electrons ready to donate to electron-thieving active oxygen.

3) Water treated by electrolysis to increase its reduction potential is the best solution to the problem of providing a safe source of free electrons to block the oxidation of normal tissue by free oxygen radicals. We believe that reduced water, water with an excess of free electrons to donate to active oxygen, is the best solution


4) The molecule weight of reduced water is low, making it fast acting and able to reach all tissues of the body in a very short time.

5) When taken internally, the reduced Ionized Water with its redox potential of -250 to -350 mV readily donates its electrons to oddball oxygen radicals and blocks the interaction of the active oxygen with normal molecules.

6) Because active oxygen can damage normal tissue, it is essential to scavenge this active oxygen from the body before it can cause disintegration of healthy tissue

7) One way to protect healthy tissue from the ravages of oxidation caused by active oxygen is to provide free electrons to active oxygen radicals, thus neutralizing their high oxidation potential and preventing them from reacting with healthy tissue.

8) Ionized Water quickly permeates the body and blocks the oxidation of biological molecules by donating its abundant electrons to active oxygen, enabling biological molecules to replace themselves naturally without damage caused by oxidation that can cause diseases.

9) Although many people today in developed countries are growing more skeptical about what they eat, they tend to concentrate more on what the food contains rather than the metabolized products of foods in the digestive tract.

10) Normal cells are protected from the electron thievery of active oxygen and allowed to grow, mature, function and regenerate without interference from rogue, oddball oxygen radicals which tend to steal the electrons from the molecules of normal, healthy biological molecules.

Guess what???? There is NO Poe this week. All of these statements come directly from the source matter itself.

http://www.memberize.com/clubportal/clubdocs/3061/benefitsofalk alinehayashi_4.pdf

Monday, October 24, 2011

On End of Life Options

We skipped this topic on the podcast last week for two reasons: 1) because the segments we had were already long, and 2) because it's kind of depressing. Not to say we can't talk about depressing things on the podcast, but we can blog about them as well.


In our live show a few weeks ago, we discussed the documentary made by the BBC and author Terry Pratchett concerning Pratchett's dealing with Alzheimer's and questions about euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the right to end one's life. Here is the documentary “Choosing to die” of which we spoke. It is also available on youtube with a bit of searching, if this link becomes broken. Also: be warned that they follow a Dignitas client through to the end: it's a powerful moment.

Terry Pratchett - Choosing to die from Lisette Leona on http://vimeo.com">Vimeo.


and Terry Pratchett's article:

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1203622/Ill-die-endgame-says-Terry-Pratchett-law-allow-assisted-suicides-UK.html


Saturday, October 22, 2011

Make New Friends, But Keep The Old...

I was raised in a liberal christian family.  One of the things I credit with leading me away from religion is that my best friend from childhood, we'll call him "S", was not a christian:  He was a muslim.  Like most Americans back then (1980s) I knew it was a different religion, but I didn't know much more than that.  With muslim and jewish friends, and about a dozen different flavors of christianity in town, some of my first skeptical thoughts about religion were along the lines of "Well, they can't all be right."

At this year's Texas Freethought Convention (co-sponsored by Atheist Alliance of America...though if you hear the AAA's president talk it's the other way around) I made a new friend who was also raised muslim, let's call her "I."  Through the miracle of "the internets" these two friends of mine, old and new, have "met" through me on Facebook.  That interaction led to a recent IM comment from "S".
"So I'm like super intrigued by your ex-Muslim atheist friend, "I". She's really the only one I've ever known to come out and openly express her views. YOU GO GURL!!"
I started off thinking I'd give him a quick reply about how I met "I" at this year's TFC and what I've seen so far...and I just kept going.  So since I wrote a bunch (and haven't posted much to the blog lately) I figured I'd share some of what I wrote back to "S" with you all.  Here's what I wrote: 

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Episode 028 leaves some stuff but carries on regardless

Download it directly here or get it on iTunes


This Week: hh:mm:ss
01:15 Texas Freethought Convention sum-up
13:25 Occupy San Antonio (and thus Wall Street)
18:35 The importance of breathing
44:55 Anthropology news: skull found
01:04:19 Lightning Round
01:22:10 Thailand using slapping to increase breast size

And Maese lets something outside know what's what and Who's who and whatever they are, they darn well better stay away. Oh

and apparently is well bored with the procedings at some point.

Gary's other podcast: Injudicious Ramblings on iTunes or injudiciousramblings.blogspot.com

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Thursday, October 13, 2011

Episode 027 can hear perfectly well, thank you very much

Download it directly here or get it on iTunes


This Week: hh:mm:ss
04:24 Gary and Greg perform "Mr. Reverend John Martin"
09:30 Holistic Chamber of Commerce Houston-style "Body Talk"
20:20 Value Voter Summit and "Family" discussion
34:20 Talks at the conference
45:00-ish morph into a discussion of debating religion
54:00 Atheist and music: Tim Minchin and Susan Werner
56:00 Hitchens' talk
60:14 Mr. Reverend John Martin pre-release demo

Very special thanks to Jason Huey, Gary Clemons-Gibbon, John Clark, Kenneth Bower, John Griffin, Jeff Nichanen for joining

the discussion and everyone else who joined us: and I apologize for mis-spelling your name (which I didn't do, because you

all agreed to change your name to whatever spelling/ prnounciation I chose)!

Freethought Forum Knoxville youtube channel: finitist
Checkout the new podcast out of Austin "godless bitches"

And the dogs enjoy themselves elsewhere, having no input to or at, the procedings.


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Calliope is unamused at being left out of the convention

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Poe's Corner - Episode 026

This week's Poe's Corner theme is cheese!  
Yes, cheese.  Yeah...um...OK, here we go.



#1  No Cheese Laced with Nails in Chicago Area Dog Parks
Chicago area dog owners might be alarmed by the possibility of nail-laced cheese cubes at dog parks—but there's no need to be.
The Facebook-based thread warns “New trend at dog parks, nails in pieces of cheese, if you take your dogs to dog parks, be careful.” The warning is accompanied by a photo of a person's palm filled with cubes of cheese with what appears to be nails embedded.
The picture comes from a July 2011 report of similarly spiked treats found in a kennel near a public park in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Snopes reports. A dog walker there found the treats on the floor of a kennel. There were no reports of animals being harmed…

#2  Dyson Cheese Grater the Next Revolution
Now the mighty intellect that is Dyson is looking at ways to improve the lives of people in kitchens. The new Dyson Cheese Grater looks nothing like any cheese grater that has gone before it, but promises to be the most radical kitchen invention since the electric tin opener (which Dyson will be looking at next).
"The main problem with cheese graters as they stand," said Dyson, "is that they are bloody dangerous. You try grating anything other than very soft cheddar and you're looking at taking at least some skin off your fingers. Parmesan? Carrots? No chance. You'd be better off putting a pair of chain mail gloves on before you start."

#3  Say (cottage) cheese and smile
Call it the cottage cheese revolution. The protest movement that has convulsed Israel these past few months began with a Facebook campaign to lower the price of the white stuff. Furious at being overcharged, Israelis stopped buying this staple of the national diet - forcing the dairy companies to slash the price.
The tent protests that pitched first on Rothschild Boulevard and spread - bringing together young and old, religious and secular in a unity usually felt only in wartime - culminated in a Saturday-night demonstration of some 460,000 people. The number is staggering: seven per cent of the entire Israeli population, equivalent to bringing 4.2m people on to the streets of Britain. 
Links to the source articles after the jump...

Episode 026 starts with a smile and ends with a quack


Download it directly here or get it on iTunes

This Week: (hh:mm:ss)
2:15 Update on Atheist billboard on Church Property
06:39 Women given right to vote in Saudi Arabia
16:36 Poe's Corner: Cheese!
22:39 Online petition system in place at whitehouse.gov
38:00 Alt-Med in the military
54:41 Lightning Round

And the dogs discuss if something walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and floats in water could it possibly be a shape-shifting alien replicator like the Thing.

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Write us at: skepticwire@gmail.com
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