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29th April 2011, 05:15 PM | #41 |
Satan's Helper
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"I am a collection of water, calcium and organic molecules called Carl Sagan" Carl Sagan |
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29th April 2011, 05:43 PM | #42 |
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29th April 2011, 06:13 PM | #43 |
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Hmm, what could the reason for that possibly be - I mean, heads of companies never get way more money than staff. Oh dear, what a quandry this puts me in!!!
Oops, I was wrong - they do, and I really do not care. MYOB is a good policy for stuff like that - otherwise people might think you are jealous. |
14th September 2011, 06:35 PM | #45 |
Illuminator
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14th September 2011, 10:13 PM | #46 |
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Randi explains the obvious to the ignorant. In other words, he's a consultant.
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"Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world." - Arthur Schopenhauer "New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled, the humiliating question arises, 'Why then are you not taking part in them?' " - H. G. Wells |
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23rd September 2011, 03:28 PM | #47 |
Knave of the Dudes
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It's cool how Randi is at first this sort of almost mystical force of Skepticism somewhere in the world.
Then you actually meet him and he's pretty much a really nice, witty, smart and funny old man. |
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"The president’s voracious sexual appetite is the elephant that the president rides around on each and every day while pretending that it doesn’t exist." - Bill O'Reilly et al., Killing Kennedy |
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26th September 2011, 07:03 AM | #48 |
Philosopher
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James Randi is showing me card tricks and teaching me skepticism over skype. I am bored. I did like the one where he threw a deck of cards at my window and a card stuck to it. Virtual window that is.
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27th September 2011, 09:26 PM | #49 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Throwing a deck of cards over Skype is serious magic.
I, too have met Randi a couple of times. The thing you first notice is how small he is. Then you talk to him for a minute and you stop noticing that. The question of his salary is a fair one. Compared to other celebrities of comparable standing it's probably not much. Compared to the CEO of non profit organisations with half a dozen staff, some volunteers, it's rather a lot. Helluva lot more'n I make anyway. Whether you feel he earns it is going to depend on a lot of things. I'm inclined to think he does, but I do wonder what a man his age whose primary hobby and interest is basically also his vocation would find to spend it on. I guess that's not my business. Slightly off topic , apart from the business with the cross, which I think was contracted out, is there any biblical evidence of Jesus actually doing carpentry? |
27th September 2011, 09:57 PM | #50 | |||
Scholar
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Actually there is:
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28th September 2011, 02:06 AM | #51 |
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6th October 2011, 05:21 PM | #52 |
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I just looked at the 2010 990 form. It looks like they had expenses of 380k for "Conferences, Conventions and Meetings." Is this the main body of the JREF's cash that is spent on pursuing its mission beyond salaries and maintenance and stuff? Just trying to get a handle on what's going on there.
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Almo! My Music Blog "No society ever collapsed because the poor had too much." — LeftySergeant "It may be that there is no body really at rest, to which the places and motions of others may be referred." –Issac Newton in the Principia |
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10th October 2011, 05:47 AM | #53 |
Non credunt, semper verificare
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10th October 2011, 06:22 AM | #54 |
Thinker
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Isn't he a wizard?
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12th October 2011, 01:43 AM | #55 |
Muse
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Mate, James Randi, better known as Randall James Hamilton Zwinge is an illusionist.
He made a good living doing the rabbit out of the hat stuff for a long while. But as time progressed he saw that the crowds were becoming bored. Looking around he saw that the churches of the day were making a killing doing much the same as he was..........illusions. So, hey presto, he set up his own and called it the JREF. And lo and behold, disillusioned ex Catholics, people who had been to false prophets, those whose love ones had died from quack remedies flooded to him. All he had to do was pass around the plate and "Abracadabra"........$175,000 per annum appeared. His best trick yet. |
12th October 2011, 01:58 AM | #56 |
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Some data is available in this discussion:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com...07#post7661707 Disclaimer: correctness of the presented information has not been verified (not by me anyway), and is subject to faith. |
12th October 2011, 07:39 AM | #57 |
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Almo! My Music Blog "No society ever collapsed because the poor had too much." — LeftySergeant "It may be that there is no body really at rest, to which the places and motions of others may be referred." –Issac Newton in the Principia |
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13th October 2011, 03:01 AM | #58 |
Penultimate Amazing
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It was a while ago, but this post of yours--quoting mine--keeps popping up on the top of my page when I look into this thread.
At the time, there was a lot of speculation that the writer of the OP was a troll who was falsely claiming to be mentally ill. I was arguing against this interpretation of his behavior, and this was my last post on the subject, after looking into it as much as I could. My post is not to be understood as charging him with anything. Rather, it attempted to list what others had said as part of a list of possibilities. As you probably know, many things that are very unlikely are still logically possible. In order to understand my thrust, unfortunately, you would have had to read some or all of the previous discussion. There, I had done some Googling and quoted many posts by MNBrant. I'd also looked at his YouTube videos--now removed. Perhaps this was overzealous. Based on my experience with mental illness in my own family, based on a fairly extensive reading in psychology, and based on my reading of his other posts on the 'Net and looking at his video, I came to the conclusion that MNBrant was pretty much what he said he was-- said many times over a period of years in other forums. My intention was not to be cruel or accusatory, so I regret what I said. It's just that a few of us had looked into it a little more than most other people, and I had gotten frustrated saying the same thing a few times over. I regret causing any distress to MNBrant, if I did, or sounding like I was accusing him of anything. I had gotten a little too passionate, because I thought someone was wrong on the Internet. I put a lot of effort into one post (not this quoted post) in which I hope I sounded a little more humane. He was getting a lot of attention for a while, because he was starting a lot of threads. Aside from those who thought that he was lying about being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, most people here responded to him politely and appropriately. |
13th October 2011, 03:07 AM | #59 | ||
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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22nd October 2011, 10:04 AM | #60 |
Philosopher
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Actually, I am a skeptic, same as you all. The only difference is that I acknowledge there is a mystery surrounding death, while you deny it. Randi has made an enjoyable forum for the number of people who come here.
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