Our inaugural meeting was held Oct. 15 from 7:30 to almost 11:00. We had 10 people attend, there were approximately five individuals who thought they might make it but were unable to for various reasons. Thankfully several people unexpectedly brought friends and family. This is an excellent starting point. Some people even showed up early.
Someone had asked several questions, about goals, format, etc. so I prepared a rough agenda, on which we covered the several few items.
We did go around the table and introduced ourselves. Several people came out of curiosity. Being concerned about the dynamics of a large group of people who know each other, I have intentionally not been telling many of my friends about the meeting. Of the people I did not know, almost everyone was either someone from meetup.com or their friends or family.
The second most important agenda item (after adult refreshments), was the discussion on skeptics vs. atheists. There were at least two people who are not atheists, so it was good to discus the difference between skepticism and atheism. We do not want the discussion to get bogged down on just religion or to make people with a belief God feel excluded. When the discussion turns to religion all other conversations stop.
We had a long brainstorming session about possible topics, generating way too many topics.
In the end people felt that we should strive for variety (as the discussion list can attest) and contradictorily focus.Most importantly people wanted to learn and T-Shirts.
As we adjourned it was decided to keep the momentum and have our next meeting in two weeks (Oct. 29).
Everyone appeared to have a good time and stayed to the end.
I am a bit concerned that location is a bit hard to find.I added detail to the room location on the web site.
I also collected contact information from everyone. I had trouble reading some email addresses the next day. I should have verified that I could read them that night.
On the technical side.
I posted an announcement message on the skeptics and JREF forums, asked both skepchick.org and the jref to add our next event to their event calendar. After the posts, Google finely picked up the web site.
I am also trying to add the events to the local papers. So far I have missed the weekend community papers deadline.
I found out that there is a Calgary group who just setup a Skeptics in the pub meeting. They have a nice website based on phpBB. I contacted them to see who is doing their hosting and suggestions on a first meeting.
Went fishing again. There is a regional humanist group. Sent an invitation to their contact person.
I figured out how to change the google site name to the DNS registed one.
In the Google site, select site settings, Web Address. Add www.mydomain.com.
On your domain registrar, change the CNAME for www. On GoDaddy this is under Total DNS Control and MX Records, edit the CNAME record for the www host. Change @ to ghs.google.com. Wait a long time.
I saw Religulous last night. While I enjoyed it, I thought the editing was juvenile at times. My partner (a recovering Catholic) seemed to enjoy it more than I. I think in my case they were preaching to the converted.
In my mind the editing was done poorly. They are trying to make it funny, but you can make anyone seem stupid if you edit appropriately. The audience is too often told when to laugh by splicing in old movie clips. Perhaps they should have added a laugh track as well.
There isn’t much you can say about this other than many people have way too low threshold for conspiracies and the paranormal.
[Edit]
This is actually one of the most commonly searched items on this blog. If you came here for an explanation rather than a snarky comment here it is.
There is nothing strange in the water, it is just a normal rainbow, like any other rainbow that occurs after some rain. Small drops of water act as a prisim and split the sunlight into the rainbow of colors. Wikipedia has more details on how this works.
You can do this yourself on a sunny day. Spray water up into the air in the same direction as your shadow. The finer the spray the better. This works best early or later in the day when the sun is near the horizon. You need to be between the sun and the water that is why you should spray the water in the direction of your shadow it is opposite to the sun.
I have no idea why the woman in the video has not seen this before. Maybe she just never noticed, maybe she moved and is now looking a different direction. Maybe she got a new sprinkler that creates a finer mist.
When I was growing up we often created rainbows with the water hose. It was fun for a few seconds. I grew up on a farm and the water came from the well. There was nothing in the water other than the occasional dead mouse who was unfortunate enough to crawl in and fall into the water. Yum!
I have made numerous web searches and have been unable to find a local skeptic or atheist group, so I have decided to organize one myself. This is my progress so far.
Step 1. Create a basic web site.
Create a google email. Redirect the email to your personal email. If you publish this email on a web page it is likely to get lots of spam.
Create a google web site. You could use some other service for this, google is free and easy.
Optional, register a domain name with someone like GoDaddy.com. Pay the extra $10 to hide your identity. Don’t buy any of the millions of options. Forward your new domain to the Google website. The advantage of this is you can publish this address and when you outgrow Google you can just redirect it to a future website.
Step 2. Go fishing. Find some people
Google search for city and skeptic hits about a dozen people on meetup.com who are also looking for a group. Send them all a message with a possible date/time for a meeting and a link to the website. Ask them about date and location.
Create a facebook group. Invite friends that may be skeptical. You could also do something like this on MySpace, but I don’t use it much. Point the group to your website.
Create a kijiji add. In the text of your add, list the web site. You could also use Craigs list.
Step 3. Pick a date and location.
Pick something central not too far in the future.
Update your web page, facebook pages, online adds with the meeting details.
Step 4. Go fishing some more
Email any friends you think might be interested. Try not to overdo this. You don’t want a few strangers and a bunch of existing friends.
Check skeptic and skeptical inquirer magazines for people who are associated with the magazine who may be in your area. Contact them.
Send an email to alison@randi.org at the JREF, asking for your event to be added to their event list.
Step 5. Pray that someone will show up.
The meeting is in 5 days. One or two of the meetup people have made it to the facebook group. I hope to have 6 to 10 people
The National Post, one of Canada’s national newspapers, almost has a science story on the front page. The article The big bounce vs. the big bang reports on a lecture Sir Roger Penrose recently gave at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Admittedly the article briefly discusses his new model of the universe which is cyclic rather than a single big bang, it describes little of the lecture and mainly makes fun of his hand drawn overheads. You need to use power point to impress the press.
Unfortunately the bulk of the article is: “How does this affect God?”, and where would she fit into a more Hindu like model of the universe. Sigh.
Writing the Why Can’t Dolly be Dolly? post reminded me about Dollywood and the Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies. I skipped Dollywood, but did go to the aquarium. I was pleasantly surprise by the aquarium. I have been to a lot of aquariums and have to been to some of Ripley’s tourist traps so I has low expectations. The aquarium while small, seemed well maintained with good displays. It has the now standard features, such as a ray touch pool and a tunnel under the main tank. It was very enjoyable. I was there at low season late in the evening, so there were very few patrons.
By comparison, I found the Georgia Aquarium a bit of a disappointment. Maybe my expectations for it were too high. Yes it has a huge tank with whale sharks (which are amazing) and a multitude of other fish, but the rest of the displays seemed to be fairly basic. Don’t get me wrong I think it is worth going to especially if you have not been to many aquariums, I was just expecting more from “The World’s Largest and Most Engaging Aquarium”.
It is new and they are working on an expansion, so I am optimistic for its future. The World of Coke is next door so you can alway go there if you are into that sort of thing. I like Coke, but I thought $15 a person was a bit much for what amounts to an extensive Coke commercial and all the free coke products you can drink. The functioning bottling line was the best display. The very best part is being able to sample about 40 different coke products from around the world. I just wish you could by the foreign drinks.
As for the Georgia Aquarium, I can’t wait for the the whale sharks to grow bigger.
My friend over at Shamelessly Atheist posted a story about a second Alberta School Board not supplying their students with the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.
In this case it is the Calgary Catholic School Board. This is not a small backwater school board. It has approximately 44,000 students in 102 schools, and unlike the US it is publicly funded. For comparison, the public school board is approximately twice as big.
Calgary likes to tout itself as a world class city. It has a booming economy. It is one of the oil capitals of the world. It held the winter Olympics in 1988. It is appalling that one of its school boards would withhold a safe, free vaccine from its students.
This is a public health issue not a religious one. The argument that protecting against HPV will promote premarital sex is specious. The vaccine should be provided to all students. If individual parents want to opt out that is unfortunate but their decision.
The “it might lead to premarital sex” faction drives me nuts. If you are concerned about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), genital warts must be at the bottom of the list. Can you imagine a child saying I can’t have sex because I might get warts and maybe cervical cancer when I am really old and almost dead–You know around 40. Once I am vaccinated I am good to go.
This is for grade 6 students, children who are approximately 12. They are not even teenagers yet. Of course the goal of vaccinating is to do so before any likely sexual activity.
The only reason that this vaccine is being withheld is it prevents a sexually transmitted disease. If you want to be cynical, a disease that is potentially fatal, only for women. While sexual activity is the known transmission mechanism, there appears to be growing evidence that this is not the only vector. Mother to child transmission is known to occur. HPV DNA has been found under the finger nails of infected individuals and on seats in humid environments such as showers. While I don’t want to join the “you can get STDs from a toilet seat” brigade. Are the parents who are confident that their children will not engage in intercourse, as confident that they will not be involved in milder sexual activities such as petting and mutual masturbation?
Calgary is one of Canada’s fastest growing cities, but the catholic school board is showing declining enrollment, while the public enrollment is projected to rise. For the students future health, lets hope this trend accelerates.
As for the children, they may eventually be concerned about AIDS, herpes, syphilis, hepatitis, and lice, but the lucky ones will not have to worry about getting warts. That makes sex soooo much less scary.
It was a good interview, with Dolly obviously having fun. Dolly is often making mildly sexual jokes. When asked if she should run for President she replied that there had already been enough boobs in the office.
Ellen has a running bit about wanting to capture George Clooney, whose office is just out the studio door. She takes Dolly to the office as George bait. George is not there, so Ellen pulls out a life size cardboard cutout of Dolly. They joke about it and when Ellen says that it was just something she had at home. Dolly apparently goes to far and jokes about Ellen still fantasizing about her. Ellen laughs for am moment, then slips in a whisper that she is going to get her in trouble. Based on the look on Dolly’s face she takes this seriously.
I happened to be watching on TV. I took it as serious concern from Ellen. It did not appear to be a joke.
Why is this worse than any of the previous sexual jokes that were made in the segment. This one had lesbian connotations. Quick cover your ears and repeat La-La-La over and over again.
It seems really strange that Dolly who has a large religious fan base did not seem to be concerned about the joke. Yet Ellen was. Is such a tame joke too much for daytime network television. That is just pathetic.
One of my friends died this week. She was a skeptic and a believer. She believed in ghosts, God, blond jokes and many other things. She was also deeply skeptical, especially of American politics. She was an ethical vegetarian who cared deeply about all animals great and small.
We frequently emailed each other jokes. This is one she sent me . . .
An atheist was taking a walk through the woods. What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals! He said to himself.
As he was walking along side the river he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look, he saw a 7 foot grizzly charging towards him. He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was closing in on him. He looked over his shoulder again and the bear was even closer. He tripped and fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw the bear right on him, reaching for him with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike him.
At that instant the atheist cried out: “Oh My God!” Time Stopped, the bear froze and the forest was silent. As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky: “You deny my existence for all of these years, teach others I don’t exist, and even credit creation to a cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?
The atheist looked directly into the light, “It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian?”
Very well,” said the voice. The light went out, and the forest resumed.
He looked at the bear and the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together and bowed his head and spoke these words: Lord, bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen.”
Posted by theskepticnextdoor 
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This is for grade 6 students, children who are approximately 12. They are not even teenagers yet. Of course the goal of vaccinating is to do so before any likely sexual activity.
The only reason that this vaccine is being withheld is it prevents a sexually transmitted disease. If you want to be cynical, a disease that is potentially fatal, only for women. While sexual activity is the known transmission mechanism, there appears to be growing evidence that this is not the only vector. Mother to child transmission is known to occur. HPV DNA has been found under the finger nails of infected individuals and on seats in humid environments such as showers. While I don’t want to join the “you can get STDs from a toilet seat” brigade. Are the parents who are confident that their children will not engage in intercourse, as confident that they will not be involved in milder sexual activities such as petting and mutual masturbation?
Calgary is one of Canada’s fastest growing cities, but the catholic school board is showing declining enrollment, while the public enrollment is projected to rise. For the students future health, lets hope this trend accelerates.
As for the children, they may eventually be concerned about AIDS, herpes, syphilis, hepatitis, and lice, but the lucky ones will not have to worry about getting warts. That makes sex soooo much less scary.