New Year superstitions have always intrigued me - simply because there's so many of them and not much has been said about 'why?' From the recent news of injury in the Philippines due to unsafe use of celebratory fireworks, to the Scottish tradition of 'First Footing', there's a lot going on to commemorate the start of the New Year.

Music used in this episode includes the Brobdingnagian Bards of www.thebards.net. This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Visit www.tokenskeptic.org – and I’d love to hear your feedback at tokenskeptic@gmail.com. Theme songs are ‘P&P’ by Derek K Miller of www.penmachine.com and ‘365′ by Milton Mermikides, of www.miltonmermikides.com.

Although it is time for seasonal cheer, beer, what have you - the end of our school year for us in the southern hemisphere includes a fresh batch of abandoned lucky charms to clean out of my classroom. Here's a short run-down on some of the reasons why!

This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Visit www.tokenskeptic.org – and I’d love to hear your feedback at tokenskeptic@gmail.com. Theme songs are 'P&P' by Derek K Miller of www.penmachine.com and '365' by Milton Mermikides, of www.miltonmermikides.com.

On Santa - a first-run effort at the show! Re-release for December, 2010.
While listening to a great Skepticality podcast episode (www.skepticality.com), I found I had many unanswered questions.
Delving into the research, I started checking out what research has been done into belief in Santa. Is it such a bad thing to believe in Santa... and how would you gather evidence about the pros and cons?
Could belief in Santa, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy and so forth, be a natural part of childhood development... and can it be used to tell us more about human nature?

Intro song is 'P & P' by Derek K Miller of http://www.penmachine.com.
Outro song is "What If Every Day Were Christmas", by Podsafe for Peace, produced by Slau and co-written by Orlando Pagan, from www.podsafeforpeace.org.