Posts Tagged Merseyside
Dogs, Doom and Dictators
Posted by Colin H in Conspiracy Theories, Merseyside on March 4th, 2010
Last weekend, the Bluecoat gallery in Liverpool hosted a day of events under the title Views From The Grassy Knoll. It was a mixture of talks, screenings and performances covering everything from conspiracy theories and art, to science and politics. It also included an overview of what Skepticism is by Gavin Schofield from the Greater Manchester Skeptics, which I sadly missed but which I heard was a very good talk.
The headline lecture was 2012 by Dr Bill Aitchison, a performance artist and researcher. I was lucky enough to be able to make this one, albeit fifteen minutes late, and found it a very interesting and entertaining, if strange, experience. Read the rest of this entry »
The Helping Hand Of God In The Unibond League
Posted by Marsh in Media, Merseyside, Religion on February 6th, 2010
I’m about to do something a lot of you will likely frown on. I’m aware of this, and I do apologise. I don’t know what I was thinking. Perhaps all of those sugar pills last weekend scrambled my brain. Perhaps aliens visited me at night and implanted this wild, crazy and completely inappropriate idea into my mind (hey, at least they stayed up THAT end this time). Perhaps I’m just spoiling for a rumble. In any case, there’s no getting away from it, this is happening:
I’m going to talk about football.
I know, I know, IknowIknowIknow. You guys, our lovely readers, are scientists, science fans, and generally science types. As am I. But when I’m not talking Cold Reading with psychics, organising mass non-suicide or generally being a good-for-nothing skeptic, there are few things I love more than settling down to a good match. The poetry of movement, the grit of teamwork, the drama, the excitement, the cliches.
Oh, and the batshit lunacy.
I’ve spoken elsewhere about the superstition rife in football (it was my handy hook to hang the story of Arsenal striker Robin Van Persie’s horse placenta treatment on, you may recall. If you can’t recall, please head over and have a read. Horse placentas. Lol. Etc.), but this time I’m bringing things back home. We are, after all, the Merseyside Skeptics Society, and no amount of International campaign-running (yes, I’m going to milk 10:23 for all of the kudos I can get, what of it?) will change that. Which is why when I was sent this article by a listener to our podcast, I just had to take a look at it. Read the rest of this entry »
Homeopathic Mass ‘Overdose’ – The 10:23 Campaign
Posted by Marsh in 10:23, Activism, Homeopathy, Skepticism on February 3rd, 2010
The 10:23 Campaign
Cross-posted from the JREF Swift blog.
Generally speaking, when homeopathy hits the headlines here in the UK skeptics have cause to wince – whether it’s B-list celebrities advocating homeopathic malaria prevention, newspaper lifestyle columns promoting the benefits of the long-discredited pseudomedical practice or simply major pharmacies out to make an easy profit, there are very seldom many good days for succussion-skeptics.
Saturday, 30th January 2010, however, was different. At precisely 10:23am that morning, over 400 protesters took to the streets of cities around the UK as part of the 10:23 campaign – aiming to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of homeopathic pills. Gathering in a dozen town centres the length and breadth of the land, activists bravely took their lives into their hands by ‘overdosing’ on entire bottles homeopathic remedies.
Unsurprisingly, no skeptics were harmed in the making of this protest – for, as we know, there’s nothing in homeopathy. Zip. Zilch. Nil. What’s more, the event didn’t go unnoticed – with prominent press coverage from the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph and even the Huffington Post, amongst many, many other sources. Radio stations had phone-ins on the the story. It made the TV news. All in all, this wasn’t a day for skeptics to wince. Read the rest of this entry »
Biblical Healing: Coming To A Town Near You
Posted by Marsh in Merseyside, Pseudomedicine, Religion, Skepticism on October 1st, 2009
Flyer for the Revival Fellowship. Click for big.
Last weekend I was handed a flyer on the street for something called the Revival Fellowship. Well, that’s not strictly true – it was actually a friend of my girlfriend’s who was given the flyer, with the specific reason that she knew it would annoy the hell out of me, and she was right. Because the Revival Fellowship is a ‘prayer heals’ kind of organisation, going so far as to make some extraordinarily outrageous claims. The flyer – which is a pretty well-made affair, I might add (you can view it right there on the right) – claims to be ‘Totally Different from anything you’ve heard before’. Bold claims. Turn the flyer over, and you’ll see the happy faces of various healees (it’s not a word, I know, but I like it). Beside the face of the first healee, the flyer proclaims:
“After prayer, Russell was healed from a severe food allergy and Autism. He now leads a completely normal life”
This struck my girlfriend as odd, and it definitely strikes me as odd. First of all, I like how the statement goes with the big claims first – namely that he was healed from a severe food allergy? Wow, that’s an amazing claim! Oh yeah, and he was healed from the hitherto-untreatable autism too, but that’s by the by… And that’s not the only extraordinary claim. Read the rest of this entry »
The Daily Mail says ‘Don’t Worry, She’s Not Foreign’
Posted by Colonel Molerat in Merseyside, Religion on September 29th, 2009
On Wednesday, I wrote about the vicious pillow fight between a pair of Christian hoteliers and their Muslim guest. I had reservations about taking either party’s side – both seemed frustratingly petty and argumentative, and the greater issue seemed to me to be the danger of using the police to forcibly resolve silly arguments.
Well, today the Daily Mail have released an update, in which they interview the Muslim woman involved, Ericka Tazi. She is a recent convert to Islam, being brought up a ‘staunch Catholic’ until a year ago (maybe one day she’ll settle on something sensible). The odd thing about the Mail’s approach is how they desperate they seem to be to separate her religion from any ‘foreign’ connotations. They quote her saying:
I only took up the Muslim faith a year ago. And it had nothing to do with my husband. Although he was born into the Muslim faith, he is as English as I am. He goes around in jeans and T-shirts and has even got a season ticket for Everton
Wow! He’s got a season ticket for Everton! He’s more English than me! The Mail seems, as always, utterly confused. “He may be Muslim, but he’s not foreign!” How bizarre (yet, of course, expected) that the Mail isn’t worried about the oddness of a person’s beliefs, just as long as they make sure they are thoroughly English. Read the rest of this entry »
It ain’t easy being green.
Posted by Colonel Molerat in Merseyside on September 9th, 2009
Greetings, dear reader! What did you say? You’re an eccentric millionaire looking to employ a sceptic-IT-technician-cum-media-something to keep you company in your doting years, and you’re offering access to your wine cellar (and vintage gins) for nothing more than the provision of a little evening conversation and the odd compliment or two?
Certainly! I’d be delighted to fill that role! Fetch the decanter and I’ll start right away!
For the audience here who are not eccentric millionaires looking to keep me in exquisite comfort for the rest of their lives, let me explain…
At the last Sceptics in the Pub (on Thursday) I offered to try and write a blog post each week in time for Sunday. However, I wasn’t counting on the rather panicky Friday I would have, and the worry that would lurk at the back of my mind for the rest of the weekend. Read the rest of this entry »
