Announcement! Skeptical Blog Anthology Book Launch!

Saturday 3rd March 5.00pm A fabulous night with Kylie Sturgess and the Young Australian Skeptics!

See you at Embiggen Books 197-203 Lt Lonsdale St, Melbourne - behind the State Library.

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This is a short episode of a presentation that the artist and author Shaun Tan gave in Perth, not long after he won an Academy Award for best animated short film with The Lost Thing.

Shaun Tan is a Western Australian author and illustrator of award-winning children's books such as The Red Tree, The Rabbits and The Arrival. In 2006, his graphic novel The Arrival won the "Book of the Year" prize as part of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards and he won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2011.

In this lecture, he talks about audience, the impact of winning the Oscar and takes questions from the audience.

This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Visit www.tokenskeptic.org – and I’d love to get your feedback at tokenskeptic@gmail.com. Theme songs are “P&P” by Derek K Miller of www.penmachine.com and “Leap Second” by Milton Mermikides, of  www.miltonmermikides.com. Please considering supporting the show via visiting Tokenskeptic.

In Australia, it's the start of the University year. But is it so simple to find or start a club for your atheist / secularist / skeptical / freethinking undergraduate self ? I've taken the challenge to find out what happens if you are a student who says "Perhaps there is no God..."

In 2010, Rhys Morgan made headlines across the UK for discovering a disturbing and hazardous “cure all” called Miracle Medical Solution, lent his name to a libel reform claim and investigated the claims of the Burzynski clinic. On Rhys’ blog, he wrote: “If you’re involved in the skeptical and/or atheist community, it’ll have been pretty hard to miss the University College London Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society storm in which they were asked by their union to remove this image from a promotional Facebook page for their weekly pub meet because someone had found it offensive and complained.” Since that time, Rhys has also become an advocate for speaking out about supporting student groups.

Lyz Liddell is the Director of Campus Organizing for the Secular Student Alliance, coordinating the campus organizing team to deliver the SSA’s services and resources to affiliate groups and individual students. She leads development of new resources and helps build relationships with other organizations to promote acceptance of secular students. She volunteers with her local off-campus organization, the Humanist Community of Central Ohio, and is a member of the Challenge the Gap advisory board for Foundation Beyond Belief.

Many thanks also to Madge and Ash of the UWA Atheists and Skeptics Society and Felix Bloomfield of The ANU League of Extraordinary Atheists.

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The Token Skeptic Blog – now on FreeThought Blogs at http://freethoughtblogs.com/tokenskeptic. This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Feedback to tokenskeptic at gmail.com

Theme songs are “P&P” by Derek K Miller of www.penmachine.com and “Leap Second” by Milton Mermikides, of  www.miltonmermikides.bandcamp.com.

A first for the Token Skeptic podcast: an interview with Justin Weinstein and Tyler Measom, who are the directors/producers of the forthcoming documentary on James Randi, called An Honest Liar.

An Honest Liar profiles the life of famed magician turned professional skeptic James "The Amazing" Randi as he embarks on a series of public crusades to expose America's beloved psychics, mentalists, preachers, and faith healers with religious fervor. Along the way, the film will show how easily our perceptions can be fooled - by magicians, con artists, and even documentaries.

Justin Weinstein has been making documentaries for broadcast, theatrical release, or commercial clients for over 10 years. Most recently, he wrote and edited Being Elmo; A Puppeteers Journey, which premiered at Sundance in 2011 (Special Jury Prize). Prior to that, Weinstein produced science and environmental documentaries, including Face Off at Coal River Mountain for Al Jazeera English, and the feature documentary about the global coal problem Dirty Business, produced in collaboration with Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney. Earlier, Weinstein produced numerous projects for ABC News, Peter Jennings Reporting, and PBS, including Hot Politics for Frontline and the ABC News special, Last Days on Earth.

Tyler Measom is the co-director/producer of the documentary film Sons of Perdition, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, screened at over 45 festivals and was acquired by the Oprah Winfrey Network. Measom is also the producer of the feature film, TAKE, starring Minnie Driver and Jeremy Renner. He has written, produced and directed over one hundred commercials, short documentaries and industrials for a wide range of national and international clients.

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The Token Skeptic Blog – now on FreeThought Blogs at http://freethoughtblogs.com/tokenskeptic. This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Feedback to tokenskeptic at gmail.com

Theme songs are “P&P” by Derek K Miller of www.penmachine.com and “Leap Second” by Milton Mermikides, of  www.miltonmermikides.bandcamp.com.

Alom Shaha grew up in a strict Bangladeshi Muslim community in South-East London in the 1970s and 80s. He was expected to go to mosque regularly and recite passages in Arabic from the Quran, without being told what they meant. Alom spent his teenage years juggling two utterly different worlds: a chaotic, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic family life on a council estate, and that of a student at a privileged private school set amongst the idyllic green playing fields of Dulwich. In a charming blend of memoir, philosophy, and science, Alom explores the questions about faith and the afterlife that we all ponder.

The official site for the Young Atheist's Handbook is at http://alomshaha.com/yah.html.

Alom will be touring Australia at the end of February: Alom Shaha's "The Young Atheist's Handbook" tour will be heading to Perth (for the Perth Writers Festival), Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra (and possibly Sydney) - more details here.

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The Token Skeptic Blog – now on FreeThought Blogs at http://freethoughtblogs.com/tokenskeptic. This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Feedback to tokenskeptic at gmail.com

Theme songs are “P&P” by Derek K Miller of www.penmachine.com and “Leap Second” by Milton Mermikides, of  www.miltonmermikides.bandcamp.com.

With many thanks to Daniel Keogh and Renae Sayers - this is with permission and with love to you. A great Valentine's Day gift idea for that special geek in your life. Detailed step-by-step instructions can be found here.

Created by: Daniel Keogh - http://twitter.com/ProfessorFunk
Renae Sayers - http://twitter.com/LycraGeek

Music very kindly created and provided by Dan O - http://www.danosongs.com

More on Mobius Strips:
http://mathssquad.questacon.edu.au/mobius_strip.html (novice)
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/MoebiusStrip.html (expert)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bcm-kPIuHE (more tricks to try)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iMI_uOM_fY (a musical mobius strip)

The Token Skeptic Blog – now on FreeThought Blogs at http://freethoughtblogs.com/tokenskeptic.

This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Visit www.tokenskeptic.org – and I’d love to get your feedback at tokenskeptic@gmail.com. Please considering supporting the show via visiting Tokenskeptic.org.

At a time when we really need our children to be gaining a good understanding of the nature of science, pseudoscience seems to be on the rise. Rather than ignore it, or lambast it in a general way, a better approach may well be to make use of the teaching opportunities that pseudoscience offers”.

Alison Campbell is a blogger for the NZ Science Blogs and works at the University of Waikato in the science and engineering faculty. With many thanks to the New Zealand Skeptics, this talk featured at the 2011 Conference on the 27th August, held in the Rochester-Rutherford Hall in Christchurch (on the Canterbury University campus) and Gold, the Chair-Entity of the New Zealand Skeptics. Thanks also to the CUSP podcast, who have featured an interview with me on their show.

The 2012 New Zealand Skeptics Convention will be held on Friday 31 August-Sunday 2 September at Otago University, Dunedin.

The Token Skeptic Blog – now on FreeThought Blogs at http://freethoughtblogs.com/tokenskeptic.

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