Category Archives: superstitions

Meet Charlie’s Exorcists

A con artist with 30 years of “experience” is now teaching his daughter and two of her friends to perpetuate the fraud. Behold!

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Paris, Oddly Enough (Part 5: Place de Greve)

The Hotel de Ville is not a hotel, but rather the City Hall of Paris.  The public square adjacent to it is called the Place de l’Hotel de Ville.  Catchy, huh? The Place de l’Hotel de Ville used to be … Continue reading

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Romanian witches must now pay taxes

The Romanian government has just revised its tax code to require witches and fortune-tellers to pay income taxes. Some witches have protested by throwing poisonous mandrake into the Danube and cursing the government; others have welcomed the measure since it … Continue reading

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A lung? My bad…

This is a rather grotesque story.  If you have a sensitive constitution and/or a hair-trigger gag reflex…you’ve been warned. Nicolas Cocaign has just been sentenced by a French court to 30 years in prison for (…wait for it…) murdering his … Continue reading

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GA college “exorcist” removed from school post

Nathan Mallory, the junior at north Georgia’s Berry College who performed an “exorcism” on a fellow student (and later bragged about it), has been removed from his position as a resident hall adviser by the school.  The young woman on … Continue reading

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Podcast #66 – Freethought in Mexico

We interview Danny Zepeda, a skeptical blogger living in Morelia, a city in central Mexico.  He talks about the state of freethought South of the Border, the prevalence of superstition and alt-medicine quackery in Mexican society, and the challenges of … Continue reading

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Posted in atheism, children, christianity, international freethought, podcast, religion, skepticism, superstitions | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Gran Torino, MD

I think I’ve figured out how they could pull off a sequel to the recent film Gran Torino: as the new movie opens, Clint Eastwood’s  über-curmudgeon Walt Kowalski lies in intensive care, riddled with bullet holes but not dead.  Grimacing, … Continue reading

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Posted in alternative medicine, commentary, ethics, medical research, religion, science, superstitions | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Evolution, Lucky Edition

We stumbled across this yesterday, quite by accident, while doing our grocery shopping.  It’s Evolution Wine, a blend of nine white varietals produced by Sokol Blosser Winery in Oregon.  Too bad it wasn’t around for Darwin Day back in February, … Continue reading

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A total eclipse…of reason

Well, the upcoming solar eclipse (visible in Asia) will be accompanied by the usual superstitious blither-blather. Hopefully there won’t be any harmful consequences associated with astrological predictions and other dire portents.

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Posted in astronomy & space, hinduism, news, religion, superstitions | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Carving a niche for “official superstitions”

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that there’s no well-drawn line to tell the government when it can interfere with parental discretion.  Cases like that of Daniel Hauser (the 13-year-old boy with a six-inch-diameter tumor whose parents wanted to … Continue reading

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