The criteria can be any falsifiable claim, and most ghost stories make it a point not to be.

Hey, did you know there's a balm that will remove your tattoos, so you don't have to get expensive laser treatment?

Funny how I heard about this remarkable product on Internet radio, and not in some visual medium where its use could be demonstrated visually. But before-after pics are so easily faked, aren't they?

But the most remarkable thing about this product is that they're offering a free 60-day supply! I guess they only make money off the people who have more than 60 days worth of tattoos to remove.

Sunday morning, after breakfast, there was one table full of people who stayed a little longer than everyone else. And they were discussing the problems people with albinism are having in Tanzania, a country of 39 million people.

Not only are they having the usual trouble African countries have with availability of sunscreen, and the usual developing-countries problem of not enough hospitals for treating skin cancer, but every albino living in the country is living under the unique threat that some witch doctor may attempt to harvest their body for medicinal purposes.

I listened for as long as I could, but as the description of the problem became clearer to me, I became more aware that the problem is cultural, and therefore difficult to solve effectively. We can attempt to build a support network, like we have in the United States, which they certainly need, and I'd like to help with that. But as long as the people of that country are susceptible to both the belief in that kind of medicine, and the willingness to take lives to obtain it... well, that's a grim situation.

And I got Standard Skeptic's Frustration, much like every skeptic gets when they see how long faith healers and psychic surgeons can operate prosperously here in the United States. Except it's not just the patients that are dying.

The other science-minded person at the table, a doctor that studies genetics, is familiar with the problem, and his proposed solution is a memetic one: write a folk song that turns a martyred albino into a sympathetic character, or at least a human one, and hope it spreads. I don't know if an American can write the Tanzanian equivalent of Chocolate Rain, but I wish that cause luck.

This probably contributed to my post-conference bum-out.

Art Bell's Prediction Show for 2007.

Copied from this blog.

( Pasted in my journal )

If you're watching James Van Praagh and John Edward on their upcoming Larry King Live appearance, be sure to print out this Cold Reading Bingo card beforehand.

I watched that video, and on the right side of the screen one of the "Related Videos" was the VW GTI ad with the wrecking ball.

There are two more ads describing how a nihilist can un-pimp an auto: "Catapult" and "Crate!".  VEE DUB!  Representin' Deutschland!

Also, discovering Penn Jillette's radio show led me to the trailer for Penn & Teller's video game, "Smoke and Mirrors", complete with the desert bus simulator. You can download the game via BitTorrent, but you'll need a Sega CD or emulator thereof.

I was thinking about James Randi's feud against Sylvia Browne.

James Randi is a well-known skeptic, who offers a million-dollar prize to anyone who can demonstrate any paranormal ability or activity under controlled conditions. Sylvia Browne is a cunt who claims such paranormal abilities, including talking to the dead and predicting the future, who appears on Larry King Live regularly, and once accepted that offer on his show, and has spent the last four years dodging him and slandering him in the media.

A frightening thought occurred to me: one day, James Randi will die. The next evening, Sylvia Browne will appear on Larry King Live. I predict, through reasoning rather than magic, that she'll vector a deathbed recantation from him, or some horrible punishment in the afterlife for doubting her immense powers of cuntage.

And the day after that, the Earth will be hit by an asteroid the size of Uzbekistan.