The Rochester Atheist Meetup group will be attending a showing of Expelled this Sunday at 3pm. If you're interested, call Joshua Wachsler at 585-530-0085 or e-mail him at neutrinodog at yahoo dot com.

They will be meeting in the lobby of the Regal Henrietta. Make sure you read ExpelledExposed.com to prepare yourself!

I just got back from driving Lori Lipman Brown to the airport. She arrived yesterday, gave a talk to the skeptics and a numbers of people who aren't members of the group and stayed overnight at a local motel.

The talk was good. She covered topics relating to her job lobbying for the rights of non-theistic Americans. She also showed some clips of times she appeared on Fox News. I think that the most interesting part of the evening was the discussion. The questions people brought her during the Q&A, and the answers she gave were very interesting.

There has been a recent hubbub on campus with people wearing shirts that say "I Agree with Josh". This is, at best, an underhanded attempt at proselytizing on campus, and at worst, deceptive. In fact, this tactic is not unique to RIT, and is quite common among US universities.

A quick search on Google brings up many hits for other campuses' "I agree with" campaign. Syracuse University had "I agree with Craig" last year, while other campaigns have used Ryan, Sam, or Rachael as their name. This recycled tactic is designed to stir curiosity on the campus, and make people question the shirt-wearers. In return, the shirt wearers start their speech on Jesus.

There is a "Come and Indulge", "Come and enjoy a chocolate fountain and aromatherapy at the Student Development Center 1445" On Tuesday, April 15th from 6pm-7pm. We're stopping by after class, anyone is welcome to join. We're going to try to meet in the SAU at 6pm or a few minutes after, before heading over to check it out. Worst case we just get free chocolate.

Meeting in Clark B in the SAU. Please note that this meeting is at 7pm and not 8pm.

Agenda:

• TBD

Important announcement:
April fools!

The RIT Skeptics are hosting a discussion with secular lobbyist Lori Lipman Brown. The discussion will include present and past experiences that Lori Lipman Brown has had while lobbying for secular causes, and difficulties ahead.

http://www.rit.edu/studentaffairs/studenthealth/acupressure.html

This is distressing.

Check out my blog entry about it:

http://rocloop.com/blogs/782/2008/03/24/5759-accupressure-rit

His guest, Richard Dawkins, was not...

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/expelled.php

The Skeptics visit a psychic fair. Well, add an 'e' for extra woo! We'll be going to scope out what they're up to. Perhaps even document our findings. :)

On North Clinton Avenue, here in Rochester, there sits a tree. Normally this would not be a cause of great concern to most people. True, humanity seems to have waged a war on woody plants, attempting to wipe them out with a variety of cutting devices, but this tree had, until recently escaped notice.

In 2005 someone look at the tree and thought that they saw Jesus. You might find that odd because by most Christian accounts, Jesus did not belong to the kingdom Plantae. (Many accounts wouldn’t place him in the kingdom Animalia either, but that’s a different story altogether.) Actually, what they claimed was that the pattern of lighter and darker spots on the tree resembled Jesus.

Again and again. Megadosing vitamins, i.e., taking a much higher dosage of a vitamin than recommended, does not ward off colds, or help end them faster.¹ In fact, high doses of vitamins can damage you. Any significant change in your diet, including these woo-pills, should be checked against a qualified medicinal professional first.

Spring quarter is coming, and the RIT Skeptics are looking for speakers. So far, we've asked the Secular Student Alliance about Brian Dunning (from Skeptoid), Rebecca Watson (from Skepchick) and Lori Lipman Brown. If you'd really like to see one of these speakers, or someone else, leave a comment!

Recently when I had a case of acute viral nasopharyngitus (aka rhinitus, aka the common cold), I went to Wegman's to pick up a palliative. The most prominently displayed product, Cold-eeze, didn't look too out of the ordinary, and not feeling well enough to investigate it too closely, I bought a box.

When I got home I read the box to get the directions for the product-- I was surprised to see that the box claimed the Cold-eeze could reduce the length of a cold by about 40%. That seemed to be too good to be true, so I investigated on the internet.

Cold-eeze contains a zinc compound, and there are couple of clinical trials which seem to indicate that this Zinc compound it is effective in reducing the length of a cold.

Student Government officially recognizes the RIT Skeptics as a club. Hooray! We have to meet with SG now, but the hard work is done.