And now for another Saturday Stub, where I post some short piece of news or other commentary that I think is of minor interest and perhaps worthy of some brief consideration on a Saturday. But before we get to that:
Welcome new Lethbridge Listeners!
If you were listening to your favourite radio station this morning (CKXU 88.3FM) you heard Radio Freethinker at 9am today. So there’s a good chance that if you’re reading this you might had heard our show and wondered “who are these Radio Freethinker people anyway?” Well, you’ve come to the right place to figure it out. This is our website and blog where we post show notes from our podcast as well blog about anything and everything that we think skeptics and freethinkers should be aware of.
If you look up at the top of the page, you can see an “About the Show” and “Meet the Cast” go ahead and check those out. That’s got a bit of the history of why we do what we do. There’s also a link for “What is Skepticism” that’s another great thing to click on because maybe you aren’t too familiar with “skepticism.” In fact, if you’re someone who just happened to hear our show and while finding it intriguing, has never really heard these terms like “skepticism” and “freethinking” before, perhaps check out some these links:
For a good definition of skepticism, check out The Skeptic’s Dictionary here.
For a good breakdown of what Free Thought means, the About.com article is quite good.
So that might give you a primer on the sorts of things we talk about. But perhaps you’d like to see a bit more of this site? Here are a few popular articles that we’re especially proud of:
Don wrote these two pieces in regards to the Ontario Supreme Court struck down a law that criminalized prostitution – Best little Whorehouse….pt 1 and Best little Whore House….pt 2
Early in the Year the CBC consumer protection program Marketplace ran an episode on Homeopathy called Cure or Con, I helped organize a skeptical response for Marketplace and number of local skeptics appeared on the show. Here is a post regarding that: Cure or Con?
During the last Federal Election, we sent out a questionnaire with skeptically themed questions for local Vancouver politicians. Here are the results of that questionnaire: Skeptical Questions for Politicians and their Answers
I attended a lecture about the “dangers” of vaccinations, I say “dangers” because the presenter (and much of the audience) were relying on pseudoscience to make their argument. Here’s my report on what happened: “Declare Your Agenda!”
Jenna wrote a excellent article on jargon in the scientific community that’s worth reading: Come Again? Jargon in Scientific Communication
Another great series of posts by Don, this time on terrorism can be seen here: Double standards of terrorism – Chapter 1 and Double standards of terrorism – Chapter 2 and Double standards of terrorism – Chapter 3 and Double standards of terrorism – Part 4
Well, that’s a lot of reading to do. Hopefully something there catches your interest and if so, feel free to browse around as there are a lot of great articles here. If you feel like staying in touch with us, on your left you can see the “Follow Us” line with Facebook and Twitter and such. Feel free to “Like” us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and subscribe to the blog and podcast. Thanks for listening!
Now, I have a few updates on the Dennis Markuze/David Mabus story I’d like to share, even though most of you who were following it have already heard, but here it is again. Montreal Police have arrested the internet spammer Dennis Markuze. For those who don’t know the situation regarding Markuze, we discussed him on a recent episode of the show, check it out here. In short, Markuze is a Montreal resident who for the past few decades has been sending threatening emails and messages to prominent scientists and atheists all over the world. Using the name David Mabus, his threats were rapidly escalating from vague and nonsensical to specific and violent.
Tim Farley, the creator of What’s the Harm.net, helped spearhead the project of getting the Montreal Police to respond to Markuze’s threats. He has written an excellent post where he documents the long history of the Mabus situation and contains many examples of the types of threats skeptics would receive as well as how Markuze would go about finding new targets. I highly suggest you read it.
Now that Markuze is under arrest, and perhaps more importantly, getting psychologically evaluated, this chapter of skeptical activism might be closed.
