The 68th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle: London made me forget

From deep in the heart of London, even here on vacation, I couldn't forget to mention that the 68th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle has been posted by Martin over at Aardvarchaeology. This carnival is remarkable for two things: First for Martin's no nonsense style of presentation; and second, because, thanks to my vacation, I totally forgot to submit anything to the Circle, making it perhaps the first Circle in two years that is totally Orac-free. Fortunately, I'm redundant, and the Circle is great without any contributions by me. Unfortunately, I'm redundant, and the Circle is great without any contributions by me.

Oh, well.

In any case, next up is Unscrewing the Inscrutable on September 13. Start getting your best skeptical posts ready! And, as always, if you're interested in hosting one of these puppies yourself, check out the schedule and the guidelines for hosting. Then drop me a line. I'll get you worked into the schedule, assuming, of course, that you're not a plant from Deepak Chopra.

The 67th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle: The Giant Robot Edition

Yes!

As intelligent and powerful as he is, Orac has always lacked something, and that's mobility. He's always been more or less at the mercy of the humans with whom he travels when it comes to locomotion. In short, being a clear box of blinking lights, he has to be carried everywhere, sometimes in a rather undignified fashion:



In this week's edition of the Skeptics' Circle, Bronze Dog gives Orac exactly what he needs:



Yes, a giant robot! Controlling such awesome machinery directly, finally, Orac is unshackled from his dependence on irrational humans to take him where he wants to go! And he gets some kick-ass weaponry to boot!

Not satisfied, Bronze Dog outfits a number of other skeptics with the armor and weaponry needed to plunge into the depths of irrationality and pseudoscience to do battle in the cause of science and reason (metaphorically speaking). It's a truly powerful team.

Who will next lead this awesome force?

It will be Martin at Aardvarcheology, two weeks from now on August 30.

You can command this awesome force as well, if you prove yourself worthy (i.e., show me that your blog isn't full of pseudoscientific nonsense--which, if it was, I doubt you'd be reading here). If you're interested in trying your hand at hosting the Circle yourself, drop me a line at oracknows@gmail.com. The schedule can be found here, and the guidelines for hosting are here.

The 66th Meeting of the Skeptics Circle, or the 66th Meeting of the International Society of Skeptics

This week, the 66th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle just so happens to coincide with the 66th Meeting of the International Society of Skeptics; so they decided to hold a joint meeting. This week's host, Mark Hoofnagle, has the abstract book all lined up for you to peruse. Excellent stuff. If only real scientific meetings could be like this.

Next time around, the Skeptics' Circle will land at The Bronze Blog, whose Doggerel series is a fantastic repository of rebuttals to common--well--doggerel that the credulous like to repeat in defense of their woo.

And, as always, if you're interested in trying your hand at hosting the Circle yourself, drop me a line at oracknows@gmail.com. The schedule can be found here, and the guidelines for hosting are here.

Do it before the aliens come to abduct you for their experiments.