Open thread: PZed's in the UK

Back in the USA, here is a campaign video you have to see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4tFk9WLjwM

Naturally, the Rethuglican candidate, Jim Walsh, wants it stopped.

The group, Majority Action, has other ads on Youtube too.

Bernarda,
That is one excellent ad. Thanks for posting the link.

Hey, Design for Dreaming from 1956! (I was a mere lad at the time.) The pretty dancer is the fabulous Tad Tadlock.

Here's something interesting to read. Too bad that politicians can't say stuff like this and are always trying to out-jesus each other.
http://indigestible.nightwares.com/2006/10/11/dear-christians/

Dawkins equals Freemasonry equals Buckyfullerene Platonic Geometry equals answer to left-hand carbon molecule asymmetry as right-hand silica nanobiomotor A.I. apocalypse.

That's easy for you to say.

I was bitten by a radioactive cephalopod, and my magical posting powers have returned!

Who is that song by?

(grumbles) you can tell that youre getting old when you dont know who the songs are by any more ..and this ones not a new one < sigh >

I think it's Peter Gabriel. "In Your Eyes". It was in that famous scene with the guy holding up the stereo.

The Secret Service picked up a 14 year old girl in Sacramento for threatening the president.

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/38768.html

I went to high school with her father (graduated from the same high school in 1977), and I would vouch for him any time. He's very smart, very articulate, very educated. He is a wonderful person.

I can't say I'd condone what his daughter did, either. In fact, I wouldn't. But does a 14 year old know to ask for a lawyer, or her/his parents, or both? I'd say it's quite clear I'm biased in this situation, but really, this looks like a civil rights violation to me. Asking about her father's employment? What in the world does that have to do with anything??

Just an unbelievable situation.

As for the daughter, I guess I'd say she shouldn't blog for a while, but I think she's had her natural consequences now. Grilled by the SS; yeah, I'd say she's learned her lesson.

I don't normally like music videos, but the music in this one was kinda cool ...

Amazing what people are getting away with on YouTube, though. (Yesterday someone I know found that all of TRON had been uploaded, in 8 minute parts.)

John Horgan disses ESP

Who Believes in ESP?
.
Since Discover published my update on The End of Science, some readers have informed me that science--far from ending--is on the verge of thrilling breakthroughs in the understanding of paranormal phenomena, or "psi." Coincidentally (or is it synchronistically?), the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina, just sent me a fundraising letter making the same point.
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The center is named after Joseph B. Rhine, a psychologist at Duke University who in the 1930s started investigating extrasensory perception and telekinesis. Along with the Institute for Noetic Sciences in California, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research program and Britain's Society for Psychical Research, the Rhine Center (no longer affiliated with Duke) insists that psi is real and doggedly pursues investigations of it.
.
In the fundraising letter, Sally Rhine Feather, Rhine's daughter and the center's executive director, contends that the scientific evidence for ESP and other paranormal effects "is substantial and continually growing." Researchers "are now focusing on how it works" and "can be used in healing and even business [!] applications." The letter adds that half of all Americans believe in ESP and 65 million have experienced it first-hand.
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As Deborah Blum points out in her new book Ghost Hunters, a century ago William James and other leading intellectuals thought psychic phenomena--including ghosts and channeling--worth investigating. Unfortunately, since then no one has produced any credible evidence for psi. That is why vanishingly few prominent scientists evince belief or even interest in psi now.
...

I disagree with Horgan about some things, I'm glad to see he got the right side of this issue. I wish he would sit down with Sam Harris and discuss it with him too.

The best book on the paradoxes of objective "psi" research is "The Challenge of Chance" by Alstair Hardy, another top Brit scientist and Arthur Koestler (1972). It's better than any of Koestler's books on his own.

I'm not giving away the secret but just suggesting "don't believe the hype."

zeno, thanks for the video and especially the site with a lot of other good ones.

For those looking for an instructive game for their kids, try this free downloadable. Food Force.

http://www.food-force.com/

Put out by the UN World Food Program.

brightmoon & Caledonian -- yeah, it's In Yoour Eyes by Peter Gabriel. It's easy to overlook his talent; he's really good.

mena, thanks for the mention. ;)

Dawkins equals Freemasonry equals Buckyfullerene Platonic Geometry equals answer to left-hand carbon molecule asymmetry as right-hand silica nanobiomotor A.I. apocalypse.

drew's strewn wordstreams
make meta-sense, as will his dreams
in true sequence, oh so groovy
make meta-movies

Umm... was there some point to this post, PZ? Were we supposed to gleam some insightful commentary on a topic of vital import? Cause if so, I missed it. If I want to watch you tube videos, well hey, I'll go to you tube! Stick to what you do best PZ and don't get lazy on us. It's a sad day when an articulate and talented writer such as yourself resorts to videos to let them do his talking.

Sergio, to begin with, the word is "glean".

Second, PZ is travelling (in the non-virtual world, imagine that!) and doesn't have the time to keep up his usual traffic. So he's been dropping a series of "open threads" (which are conveniently indicated by the phrase "Open thread") to keep the blog traffic going. The videos are optional window-dressing.