Joe Buchman, who I interviewed on my podcast, The Libertarian Dime, went on a trip to Mongolia to see the eclipse as well as attend the first part of the Olympics in Beijing. We had such a great interview, on and off the record, that he was nice enough to keep us in the loop about his trip to Mongolia. Last night he sent Jonathan and I (among other people) this picture of the eclipse as seen from Mongolia:

When he gets back to where he has better internet access, I hope to get some more. Also, he’ll be on the show sometime in August to talk about his trip and more libertarianism.

is that I have too have interviewed Michael Shermer on my show. It was a great thrill to interview one of my favorite authors. Sure, there were a couple other podcasters at TAM6, who have had big time guests like Shermer on all the time, but my podcast is pretty new. I’m only eleven episodes in, and still learning the medium.

Listening to the interview again, I see places I could have done better. I realize I spoke a mile a minute, though, my memory is that he had some place to go quickly, so I didn’t have too much time to delay. One thing I’m glad didn’t happen, is that I didn’t have a “You’re so awesome” interview. I tried to ask questions I really wanted answers for.

The interview was included in our 11th episode of The Libertarian Dime, but if you don’t want to listen to all that, you can download the interview here.

Enjoy!

Josh and I have been enjoying the TAM6 conference quite a bit. Friday’s speakers were all around pretty good. Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson was so good, he was asked to go over his time by 30 minutes. If you think he is good on the Colbert Report, he is even better in person. PZ Meyers and Ben Goldacre were both new to TAM but they were also pretty good. About the only low point, was someone named George Hrab, who sings folk songs about skepticism. Because Christopher Hitchens was unable to attend, Hrab sang a song he dedicated to Hitch called “God is not great.” Well, I can tell you that it is more like that God is great than that song was great. I wasn’t alone, a number of people left during the 10 minutes of folk songs.

I was not able to interview Michael Shermer yet. I did go up to him and check in, and was working on his laptop on his presentation, and clearly was also very tired. During the Penn and Teller session, he was actually sleeping on the floor. So I’m assuming he was actually tired, and not blowing me off. So, sometime in the late morning I will try to arrange a time. I’m still a little nervous, but I think I’ll do okay.

Well, that’s it for now. Josh and I will be heading out to Saturday’s festivities in a little bit. Shermer, Phil Plait, and Adam Savage are on today, and oh, hey, I have a big interview as well.

I don’t really watch the debates, because honestly, all the presidential candidates are basically in pandering mode now. How else can you explain Hillary Clinton’s inane babble about paying money to people for kids, Guiliani’s 9/11 name dropping at everything including when he orders dinner, to Gravel’s “sticking it to the man” boasts about stiffing credit card companies. It’s just drivel.

Some drivel is worse than others.

Recently, both Romney and McCain blew off the issue of medical marijuana. Politicians, and Republicans especially, have a real blind spot when it comes to the Drug War. They lose all common sense and attempt to legislate medical treatment. Despite all the evidence of it helping cancer patients and the terminally ill, politicians just ignore it, citing outdated reasons from the fifties for keeping marijuana totally illegal in every way.

Let me put it this way: My friend who is having chemo to treat his colon cancer, is unable to get a medical marijuana prescription, but some narcissistic, upper class, douchebag (male or female) is able to get an FDA approved prescription for botulism, a deadly poison, to inject into the folds of skin above the eyes in a desperate attempt to hold on to a few more years of youth.

Yeah, it’s really that dumb.

The New York times has a story about the desire of some in the field of evolutionary biology to have a paradigm shift.

Is Darwin due for an upgrade? There are growing calls among some evolutionary biologists for just such a revision, although they differ about what form this might take. But those calls could also be exaggerated. There is nothing scientists enjoy more than the prospect of a good paradigm shift.

This story will give Intelligent Design pimps (ID’ers) a couple conflicting issues to deal with. ID’ers love to claim how rigid and unchanging scientists are concerning evolutionary theories, and this article highlights the desire of many scientists to change the theory. Of course, it could also lead ID’ers to now claim there is a real “controversy” within the evolution community. The article, to me, clearly outlines the technical differences all within the context of Darwinian evolution. It highlights the greatness of science: the constant pursuit of knowledge without superstition. If this is ever what ID’ers mean by “teaching the controversy”, I might be for it.

The last minute rush for Mother’s Day gifts is nothing new. Legions of forgetful (mostly) sons and daughters used to rush into drug stores, conveniences stores or whatever the closest center of commerce was. In the digital age, online gift shopping has replaced a lot of this last minute shopping. Chocolates, flowers, and gift certificates can all be ordered online with amazingly quick turn around.

According to this article from Australia, a new, disturbing trend is developing:

More Men Flock to Universal Psychic Guild in Time for Mother’s Day

Instead of receiving flowers that liven up a room, chocolates that make a nice treat, or even a gift certificate to buy something useful, men are resorting to psychic based crap. Wonderful.

Every survey I’ve ever seen indicates that by a vast margin, women are far more likely to buy psychic based crap. Online readings, horoscopes, phone readings are all popular with women, so of course, it’s a natural fit for men to buy for women the same psychic crap. It’s like kicking society when its down. First you have lazy forgetful men, who then compound the problem by pushing garbage. Wonderful

Recently, William Dembski, the tireless crusader against scientific rigor, and Michael Shermer, one of my favorite authors, were involved in a debate at Bridgewater College, a small liberal arts school affiliated with the Church of the Brethren. It was hostile territory for Michael Shermer, who is used to being outnumbered. I remember quite well his taking on four different guests on Coast to Coast AM, debating each of them on some psuedoscientific nonsense.

While I didn’t get to be there, of course, I thought it was interesting to see two different takes on the debate.

Panda’s Thumb has a nice write up here: Shermer and Dembski in Bridgewater

And on the ID side, we have a writeup from Dembski’s blog “Uncommon Descent”: “Bill Dembski is world famous” says creationism’s prodigal son Michael Shermer

The second day of TAM 5, was the first day of speakers. It was quite a day.

Hal Bidlack opened the day, as usual. He informed us that people from all over the world were attending. A group of people from both New Zealand and Australia made it here. One gentleman spent three days flying from Kabul, Afghanistan just to be here.. As usual, Bidlack was funny and very comfortable in front of the crowd. He is now retired from the Air Force after twenty five years, and, as he put it, is now able to speak candidly about President Bush. Much laughter from the crown ensued.

James Randi made an unscheduled appearance next. The show is named after him, so he can pretty much do what he wants, and I mean that in the most respectful way. He updated the crowd on his health issues for the past year. He had a double bypass soon after TAM4, and spent much time recovering. There are two months of his life that he basically has no recollection of. He thanked everyone for their kind words and support over the year he was recovering.

Daniel Dennett, who was a speaker at TAM 4, also suffered some health problems this year and is still recovering. Randi read a quote from Dennet, where Dennett, thanks, not God, but goodness. “Goodness” is the help and support he received from doctors and well wishers. One need not thank god, for all the help people here on Earth gave.

Randi’s famous Million Dollar challenge is undergoing some revisions this year. The vast number of applications from people unable to effectively articulate what they can do, is swamping JREF resources. So to fix this, the Challenge is being revised. Also, the JREF would like the challengers to be more high profile.

In the future, applicants to the challenge must meet two requirements: 1) They must have a substantial media profile 2) They must have their claim endorsed by a qualified third party. In addition, the JREF will be issuing formal challenges to Uri Gellar, Sylvia Browne, John Edward, and James Von Praagh. There will be subsequent press releases to inform the public about the progress. Also, the JREF will be pursuing legal action against those who defraud the public. Expect class action suits.

Michael Schermer was up next, and his walk was on “Evolution Economics” and why it is okay to be a libertarian (small ‘l’), just like it’s okay to be an atheist. It was a very good talk, and I couldn’t keep very good notes, because I was so interested in the material. Schermer puts forth the idea that evolution and economics are analogous systems, both derived from the idea of complex adaptive systems. His new book on this subject should be very interesting.

I know Eugenie Scott from the Point of Inquiry podcast. I thought she was one of the best guests on that long time running podcast. Her talk was focused on the media, and how it reports stories She broke it down into the following categories: It’s gonna kill you, It’s gonna cure you, mad scientist story, bad scientist, anything having to do with religion or abortion. She focused somewhat on evolution and the recent story about a creationist book in the book stores of the Grand Canyon. She also gave a quick background presentation of creationism and intelligent design. One problem with the media, as she sees it, is that the media focuses on narratives and conflicts, and often times injects a controversy where none really exists. Scott was very interesting, and it was a good presentation.

James Randi came back on to tell us that he will be on Anderson Cooper tonight, and that Nick Gillespie and Ron Bailey from Reason magazine have been rescheduled until tomorrow.

I’ll continue in my next post tomorrow.

For the third time, I attended Jame Randi’s Amaz!ng Meeting. I was at the very first TAM in 2003, but missed TAM 2 and 3. Last year, as with this year, I attended with my brother Josh who generously donated his timeshare points to the cause.

We both flew into Vegas around the same time, both arriving a few minutes late. We rushed to the Riviera, where the conference was being held, and registered. I also picked up tickets for the Banachek show that night. We didn’t have time to stay for the opening ceremonies, but came back later for the Banacheck show.

My brother was not familiar with Banachek, and my only knowledge of him came from the Criss Angel show “Mindfreak” as well as reading about him and the Project Alpha hoax. It was an amazing show. Knowing that he possesses no psychic abilities whatsoever, makes the whole show more amazing. His first trick was to pick four random people from the audience, tell them to pick a card, and then guess what their card was. He guessed four out of four. The whole show was filled with amazing mentalism tricks that I have no idea how he accomplished. At some points, I thought that the audience members just had to be in on it, it was so well done. It was one of the most entertaining shows I’ve ever seen. A great way to start off the TAM experience.

I’m back from The Amaz!ng Meeting 5, but haven’t had time to write about it. I have lots of notes about it. For now, you will have to view my pictures (which are not an example of competent photography) in a photoset my wife Kelly did on flickr. A big update coming soon though.