This is completely insane. A psychic told an “educational assistant” that a student with a name starting with ‘V’ was being abused by young male. That forced the school to inform the authorities, who started investigating the claim. All because of a scam artist and a gullible mark.
The idea that anyone involved in educating […]

I keep seeing ads for Zicam on TV. Zicam is a homeopathic cold remedy that, unlike most homeopathic remedies, has progressed beyond anti-modern medicine hippiedom and found a marketing department. Homeopathy combines two stupid ideas: the claim that taking a substance that causes symptoms similar to an illness will cure that illness and that such […]

Apparently there are weird lights in Texas. Not all that weird, but then there’s this person, who posits that since they appear to be spinning, the Air Force could be experimenting with time travel. Now, you might think that’s a bit of a leap. You’d be wrong. It’s actually several gigantic leaps the landing points […]

1. Greatest award ever? The Ig Nobel for linguistics for this year:

Linguistics - A University of Barcelona team for showing that rats are unable to tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and somebody speaking Dutch backwards.
2. James Randi has challenged the reviewer of a pair of $7,250 audio cables to prove […]

They never really go away, do they?
(via Pharyngula)

David Lynch, whose movies I enjoy quite a bit, spouts debunked New Age nonsense in the Independent:
Indy: You’re talking about Transcendental Meditation?
Lynch: Yes. Transcendental Meditation is a mental technique—it’s not a religion, it’s not against any religion, it’s not a cult, it’s not a sect. It’s a mental technique and an ancient form of […]

A lesson in being skeptical of things that confirm your biases.

I thought it was some combination of roller-blading and golfing, but what do I know? Anyway, I came across it at work and wondered what exactly it was. I sort of knew it was related to New Age-y alternative medicine, but didn’t really know much about it. A brief synopsis:
Rolfing® seems to be a kind […]

Cruising around the MT blogosphere I see I’m not the only one who received a bit of 9/11 conspiracy theory spam. I imagine it’s all from the same person, with the IP address of 69.3.84.145, which appears to be from the San Jose, CA area. A Google search reveals lots of similar comments.
I haven’t decided […]

Last night Bad Taste, a local Bozeman music and movie shop, put on a showing of Alex Jones’s Terrorstorm at the Procrastinator theater on campus. I’ve mentioned Jones before; he’s a conspiracy theorist about all manner of things, 9/11 most famously. The whole documentary is online here.
It was somewhat interesting. Jones decided to give a […]