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The devices are fairly small, so it's easy to isolate them from any conceivable unknown energy input. Electricity input can easily be monitored. Output can easily be monitored. If you have done a careful job of isolation, and the output over time is more than the same amount of mass could produce chemically (i.e., even a super-powered chemical battery), then you have a nuclear reaction. It's that simple.

Electricity input can be supplied sneakily. Such as through the earth wire.

You should have professional magicians look at it.

Yep. And I'm pretty confident that Ian Bryce of the Sydney Skeptics found the trick.

Rossi refused Dick Smith's million dollar challenge, for a short demonstration of the machine in which the power from the earth cable is also measured, as Mr. Smith believed that the wiring may have been "misconnected".

(Details from the Sydney Skeptics thoughts here: Bryce said photos show a current meter on the brown wire, while the unmeasured green wire lies beside it in plain view. ( See photo ) Scientists regard a green wire as a safety earth, and would not expect it to be used to carry power. Under such a misconnection, there is the risk that metal parts could become live, and pose a hazard to people nearby. If Rossi disagrees, he can arrange for an independent test. It would be very straightforward to repeat the test with metering in all three wires. This would show whether the millions of dollars Rossi is seeking are justified or would be better spent elsewhere.

Rossi turned him down. If the power is being supplied through the earth wire, and he was at the junction, he would easily be able to perpetrate this hoax.

This stems from a confusion of what information is. Creationists define information as something intelligent beings make and therefore evolution is wrong as DNA contains information. This is a crappy circular argument. The information in DNA comes from the environment - evolution (described as a information process) can be described as the transfer of information from the environment to DNA. Natural selection ensures that those creatures whose DNA closely match the environment are allowed to continue into the next generation. Hence over time the DNA has more and more information about the environment.

No matter how stupid this question is, creationists still think it somehow stumps evolutionary biologists!

For more information: http://www.skeptics.com.au/articles/dawkins.htm

As a Creationist I'm stunned that they would do something this dumb. Honestly, I have no problem with people arguing about religion and trying to prove it wrong, that's to be expected and trying to silence it is akin to saying that your argument is weaker than your opponent's.

There is considerable evidence that vaccines prevent far more deaths than they cause. Diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus are almost nonexistent in the U.S. while there are millions of deaths worldwide in countries that do not vaccinate their general population. Anyone who trusts the 'facts' you put in your post should look at this site.

What's wrong with you. These lies you're telling will get people killed.

Perhaps your Uncle should contact the James Randi Educational Foundation. So far the dosers/witchers that have tried to claim the million bucks have turned out to be self deluded and incapable of finding water. So much so that Randi has written an article about them.

"Sure enough we dug down I believe it was 6 feet and hit all three springs."
This certainly sounds impressive, but how do you know that digging elsewhere in the hill would not have produced the same (or better) results? Six feet is pretty shallow, but what if it had been ten feet down? Would your uncle have stilled claimed success?

"There's a couple here in my state that made the news 6 or so months ago for witching unmarked graves in an abandoned cemetary. "
This sounds less impressive. Unmarked graves are often pretty densly packed. They also often cause visual clues on the surface.

"The only time it's reported to not work so well "
The only time it's Reported by whom? People who make a living dowsing? There's lot's of reports of spectacular failures of dowsing ability. Here is one that's related to the topic at hand : An objective test involving running running through pipes.

Don't get me wrong. I think it'd be the coolest thing in he world to see Randi give out that million bucks, but I also belive that if a witcher could really do what they think they can do, then one of them would have proven it by now. (You get to have a lawyer present during the experiment, so that you can sue Randi if he refuses to acknowledge your victory, but that's never happened either.)

I just haven't found any of the political episodes to be funny, but I'm not sure if that's me or the show. All I see are a lot of ad hominem attacks, false dichotomies, and other bullshit arguements which are neither ethical nor helpful when it comes to deciding the issues. Mostly I see a couple of Hollywood insiders campaigning for certain policies and against other Hollywood Insiders campaigning for other policies. And a lot of idiotic-to-offensive shit and ethnic jokes.

The other eps are alright. Taisetsu wa mono PROTECT MY BALLS.

Ah, the ad hominum attack. That's right, ignore the issue and attack the person.

This article advocates a

(x) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting spam.

I'd love to see a web site with this format, devoted to all the proposed solutions to SPAM. Call it the Baloney Detection Kit for Spam.
Or, the "Spam That's Really Baloney Detection Kit..."
Or, the "Spam Proposal Detection Kit for Spam..."

Fine! You think of a good name.

Especially so (in my experience) when the source is holding a microphone, or appears to be official.

I've tried to have Sagan's Baloney Detector handy for situations like these.

I think your friend and mine, Carl Sagan, could help you out a lot:

statistics of small numbers -- a close relative of observational selection (e.g., "They say 1 out of every 5 people is Chinese. How is this possible? I know hundreds of people, and none of them is Chinese. Yours truly." Or: "I've thrown three sevens in a row. Tonight I can't lose.");

In case you missed it, there are actually companies selling plots on the Moon and Mars. They do at least come with "maps" of the plots, which I believe some of the companies produce from pictures from one of NASA's probes.

Some related articles and stores:

• http://www.skeptics.com.au/features/weird/media/mw -marsplot.htm
• http://www.find-me-a-gift.co.uk/gifts-for-men/unus ual-gadgets/an-acre-of-mars.html
• http://www.moonestates.com/cat_Mars.asp

http://www.skeptics.com.au/journal/baloney.htm

And if this interests you, read Sagan's book, A Demon-Haunted World.

Alien invasions, abductions, etc. are great topics for movies, comic books, video games, and other forms of entertainment -- and the domain of the Sci-Fi Channel is, in fact, entertainment. But it saddens me to know that people are going to see stunts like this and begin to confuse fact with fiction -- you know, the "Fi" in Sci-Fi. :-)

People of the world, I beg you: please, please, don't take anything as fact without bothering to examine it rationally and critically.

Environmental policy is, by it's very nature (pun!), ineffecient. Pollution is one of those rare problems that cannot be solved by a competitive free market. It's extremely difficult for people to "vote with thier dollars" for whatever company creates the least amount of long term negative environmental impact. Firstly, because that kind of thing is difficult to print on a label. Secondly, because nobody knows what the long term effects of what we do really is. So you have to dictate from the top.

But autocracy breeds corruption. And when you have to base your policy on "what if" and "just in case" and not, for example, 5000 years of careful scientific observation, the possibility for corruption becomes much more than a possibility. Corruption and waste run rampant in any system that is based more on faith and arguments from authority than on science because oversight and public scruitiny become extremely difficult, and environmental policy is no different.

Don't get me wrong. We need these laws...otherwise we go back to the days of rivers being so polluted that they catch on fire. But unless some serious and objective long-term study is done in all areas of environmental science, the solutions will always be very sub-optimal and may not, in fact, do anything to protect the long term health of the planet.

An analysis of the logical flaws of the above reply, submitted for your reading pleasure.

From what you just said, it doesn't matter how many people they sue, you have already made up your irrational, vindictive little mind on the issue.

Ad hominem. The reply attacks the author instead the position through the derogatory use of "irrational" and "little".

I (and they) guess you haven't bought a CD in 3 years nor were likely to for the forseeable (sic) future anyway.

Speculation. There is no evidence in the post of past or future purchasing habits.

If you actually understood the issue, you would know that:

Ad hominem. The reply attacks the author instead of supporting the position through the implication that the author lacks understanding.

1. The RIAA does not represent all artists. This is a problem because they pretend to. Find out which of the bands/artists you like is represented indirectly by the RIAA and stop buying those CD's. Continue to buy CD's from independent bands. I do not download music, but I have bought CD's from my favorite bands online. These are often in the $6-$10 range. If the CD has 15 tracks, thats even better than iTunes.

Logical. This is the kernel of your argument and is well put.

2. Your tone and phrasing does not indicate you will stop listening to new music, only that you will stop buying CD's. This casts you in the light of someone who is not about what's right, but is instead about what you can get for free. By doing this you have marginalized yourself, potentially hurting the cause. The RIAA can point to your mentality and explain to people (as I saw them do on TechTV this morning) that because of people like YOU they have to sue. Is that true? Probably not, but by spouting off like this you move yourself to the fringe and drag the rest of us with you ever so slightly.

Speculation. There is no information in the "tone and phrasing" which conclusively conveys the complex idea of halting CDs purchases while continuing to listen to new music. The continuing train of logic builds upon the preceding speculative argument.

Please people, if we want to do something right here, we have to come across as educated adults and not spoiled children. Though I know Mr. Foreman is not in such a position currently, please keep that in mind if you are ever in a position to represent the group. (And bear that in mind when you mod someone like this up.)

Ad hominem. Attacking the author instead of supporting the argument, through the omission and inclusion of the author from the groups of "educated adults" and "spoiled children" respectively.
Special pleading. The act of "coming across as educated adults and not spoiled children" to achieve the goal of "do(ing) something right" is special pleading disguised as a logical statement. It provides no support for the argument.

My proposal? A no-CD && no-p2p week. A show of boycott AND good faith. If you stop buying CD's but keep trading songs online, you help the RIAA PR campaign. If you stop both, they can't point to p2p as your only reason for not buying CD's anymore.

Non sequitur. It does not follow that a simultaneous boycott will eliminate p2p as a source of contention, given that p2p sharing will resume after a boycott.

You too can detect Baloney!

Michael.

A British scientist claims to have solved the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle - and says the explanation could fix the world's energy problems.

Geologist Dr Ben Clennell told a conference that the phenomenon where planes, ships and people have vanished was caused by giant gas bubbles.

The gas bubbles resulted from underwater landslides releasing frozen methane gas which had built up over millennia. The methane ice "gas hydrate" was produced by deep-sea bacteria feeding beneath the ocean bed.

The effect of these apple-sized bubbles rising to the surface could be disastrous because the release of a large quantity of methane would reduce the density of seawater.

Search Google

In that case I turn to Carl Sagan's baloney detection kit -

baloney detection

inconsistency
(e.g., Prudently plan for the worst of which a potential military adversary is capable, but thriftily ignore scientific projections on environmental dangers because they're not "proved". Or: Attribute the declining life expectancy in the former Soviet Union to the failures of communism many years ago, but never attribute the high infant mortality rate in the United States (now highest of the major industrial nations) to the failures of capitalism. Or: Consider it reasonable for the Universe to continue to exist forever into the future, but judge absurd the possibility that it has infinite duration into the past);

weasel words
(e.g., The separation of powers of the U.S. Constitution specifies that the United States may not conduct a war without a declaration of Congress. On the other hand, Presidents are given control of foreign policy and the conduct of wars, which are potentially powerful tools for getting themselves re-elected. Presidents of either political party may therefore be tempted to arrange wars while waving the flag and calling the wars something else -- "police actions," "armed incursions," "protective reaction strikes," "pacification," "safeguarding American interests," and a wide variety of "operations," such as "Operation Just Cause." Euphemisms for war are one of a broad class of reinventions of language for political purposes. Talleyrand said, "An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public").

This "boiled frog" analogy sounds like a variation on the "excluded middle" argument, in Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit. Can you (or anyone) provide a reference to a documented experiment on a frog? I found vague references to "classical physiology experiments" on Google, but nothing more concrete. If there's no current work in this area, perhaps we could persuade someone to perform this experiment and document it. Okay, okay! Stop making that face! Maybe someplace that already serves frog legs, eh?

You are absolutely right. I stand corrected.

another loser hanging head in shame.

I slapped on that sig at 4am without questioning the source, or duh thinking about it. In fact, as I write this, it's past 2:30am. Maybe I should set a cutoff time ;->

But if you consider the source...

Anyway, you're right - it should be median, not mean. Thanks for pointing out my blunder. Another embarrassing lesson.

A more humorous aricle, the Carl Sagan's baloney detection kit can be found here. It basically tells the same stuff, in a lot more humorous way. Also checkout the section where he points out subtle flaws in arguments that everybody uses (and falls for).

When Donald Rumsfeld is saying absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, then he is making the same appeal to ignorance that Carl Sagan has described, and that I have met over and over again in various newsgroups.

Why does this sound to me like "Observational selection" that Carl Sagan listed in his Baloney detection kit ? What about those who got rejected and did not exactly shake up the world later in their life ?

The effects of a rejection could be positive or negative. There could be many reasons why Greg Forbes Siegman did what he did...too many variables and circumstances. "theorising" does not seem to be the right thing to do.

I am invoking Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit on your post. Specifically:

statistics of small numbers -- a close relative of observational
selection (e.g., "They say 1 out of every 5 people is Chinese. How
is this possible? I know hundreds of people, and none of them is
Chinese. Yours truly." Or: "I've thrown three sevens in a row.
Tonight I can't lose.")

TYVM. HTH. HAND.

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OK, that's enough. You can probably find more yourself. Bottom line: Lots of people would love to believe it works, but despite many years of investigation, the evidence that it works is scant. One would think that if acupuncture was as effective as its proponents claim, the evidence would fall solidly in favor of acupuncture. The fact that it does not ought to tell you something.