Untitled: the 59th Skeptics' Circle

Julius Skeptic

Friends, bloggers, skeptic-types, lend me your ears... erm, eyes... erm, keyboards...

Crap. This just isn't flowing right. Let's try something else.

Ahem:

The Skeptics-burg Address

Four score and seven posts ago...

Nope... still not right.

How about:

The Skeptical Constitution

We the skeptics of the blogosphere, in order to form a less credulous world, establish sanity, insure critical thinking skills, provide for the mental defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of investigation to ourselves and...

Damn... still not working (and if you're complaining that the last one doesn't mesh well with the tune from School House Rock, I hoist my beer to you).

Screw it... time for a complete change of gears as we head to the Far East for a bit of renku (or rengu, depending on who you ask... no, it's not a brand of spaghetti sauce). The "official" rules aren't as simple as I'm about to make them appear, but for that to work I'd have had to have every participant read every submission and then email me their entries for each, at which point I (playing the role of "master", though "host" works well enough) would select the best ones for each and string them together. Traditionally, each chunk also requires a certain element of nature depending on where in the verse you are. For simplicity's sake, all I'm going to do here is throw out some verse in a 5-7-5, 7-7 format in the order which I received them and see what happens. Hey, even if the end result isn't particularly coherent as a whole, at least I've had fun...









Gadfly:
To go there seems odd
Striking curb is the subject
What would Sigmund think?

The Shroud of Turin is bunk
PBS needs some skeptics

Blake Stacey:
Without oversight
It tends to proliferate
Bad science writing

Surgeons should know some bio
It seems Egnorance is bliss

Bob Carroll:
Ian Stevenson
Smart man with strange ideas
Dealing with past lives

The Skeptical Alchemist:
Salt De Lights makes "healing" lamps
May the ions be with you

Paddy K:
It is strange to think
Auto crashes, millions dead
No one bats an eye

Jon Mendel:
Quacks earn my ire meddling
African politics, AIDS

Oliver:
Simple calculation
Shows human contribution
Carbon dioxide

EoR:
Ongoing search, stranger woo
Reiki takes the prize for now

Junk Food Science:
Sensational news
An out of control spiral
But why pick on salt?

Anti-aging schemes are big
One thought: mileage may vary

Bronze Dog:
Yet more doggerel
Materialsim thoughts
Something woos get wrong

Dying for the afterlife
Selfish as it gets I think

Akusai:
How 'bout a story
Written in serial form
My brush with a cult

Orac:
Tai Chi and woo-filled studies
But why use my tax dollars?

Beajerry:
Mass hysteria
Too much seen in medicine
Damn quacks anyway

Lord Runolfr:
It's an entertaining list
What they say and what they mean

Xiangtao:
Of Bible stories
My favorite one to pick on
Tower of Babel

Steve Novella:
Showcasing email exchange
Nine-one-one truthers need help

Conspiracy Factory:
Some fear mongering
Concerns about gen-mod foods
Some are off the mark

Bad Science:
Your hunches, not always right
Seems people can fool themselves

Anonymous Coward:
Game of find that flaw
Claims physics revolution
Doesn't understand

Aardvarchaeology:
Post-modernist hyper-crap
Dr. Whiting is her name

That about wraps it up for this edition. I hope you enjoyed the presentation, and hopefully none of you haiku buffs (you know who you are) feel an incredibly strong urge to lynch me for my efforts. Next up we have the 60^th edition scheduled to be hosted in two weeks by Infophilia. Send your submissions to TheInfophile@gmail.com and I'll see you there.