James Randi - Fighting the Fakers

[Music] [Music] all right we're gonna do a little orchestration here because I want to have this haiku really means something you know who this is you know who's coming up all right so again it is right in the middle right we're all gonna clap together now watch the thing let's try one together here we go nice here we go magic beard of truth eyebrows raised perplexed yet sure what else amazing ladies doing Chin's ready I'm gonna have a word with the people who arranged this program having to follow again is no fun and tell you that so I have another announcement to make this will probably be a disappointment to most of the audience and I regret having a matrix announcement but I will I will not be doing my naked dance on fire tonight I know how disappointing that is but matter of fact I discovered that there's not as much call for it in the recent 20 years I was reminded that in recent towns have had not delivered a formal address to this giddy audience I stand before you're prepared to make up for that lack of communication now this keynote address will be somewhat different what follows is a series of comments confessions and revelations I'll try to explain to you the source of my assumed scientific expertise I'll offer a few appeals to your kindness and some regrets that I have with may help to explain various inconsistencies in my behavior that you may agree is quite a significant task I'll begin by telling you that the very special pleasure I get being here at a tam gathering is that I really sincerely believe that I am standing before a substantial audience of very good friends I trust that you look upon me as your friend as well I've been very edifying edified pardon me exchanging opinions and ideas and even arguments there's so many of you folks I hope that we have all grown somewhat as a result of that interaction folks that's one of my requests for the future I'm going to ask you all to refrain from trying to add me on to systems that require a password some sort of secret handshake or yet another combination of digits and letters that I have to add to a huge list that is currently stuck to the side of my computer though there was a Facebook presence for me on the air that that is tended to by people who are adept at doing that sort of thing I'm just never in that I don't Twitter flattered or dither if I were to subscribe to any of these services 24 hours would hardly be a sufficient period for me to fulfill a day's duties I have a hard time enough responding to the nut mail somehow manages to get through the built-in filters designed to spare me such involvement my personal medical condition has elicited a certain amount of interest in recent years and to quickly bring you up to date I'll merely give you a well I'll say that in a few days after we close down this happy gathering I'm due to be operated on I have great confidence in this skill of the surgeons who will be probing this ancient frame and if I appear to be rather stubborn about staying with you just consider all of the medical procedures that I've undergone in recent years it's true I've had to give up limbo limbo dancing and pole vaulting but I can still watch the images and perform simple tasks you're on the house which reminds me of one of my claims to fame I'm seriously I just might be one of the best end dishwashers in the world now I know that this statement requires evidence and here it comes and why I mentioned it as a youth on my own as I was from a very early age I answered an advertisement looking for someone to work in a laboratory to wash chemical glassware sounds like a very humble occupation but I got the job I listen to instructions I was given and I did such a good job that I was soon promoted you see I was at the Banting and best Institute at the University of Toronto or as we say from drama I know a couple of belts here from Toronto and they edified me by saying they were from trial the city in which I lived at that time the lads job was to test batches of insulin at that time extracted from cattle glands and we use live rabbits to do so those animals live very pampered and long lives being selected only about once a week to have carefully measured doses of innocent insulin injected under their skin followed by determinations of how much their blood sugar had been thus decreased I'll get into further descriptions of that procedure which was very humane and met my standards very easy there was a typo there that would make yes I graduated from dishwasher to lab technician actually performing the titrations and white writing up my reports ah but mr. humble a wonderful name in my past it was our lab director he periodically did something which in my present position as a skeptic and one who interferes with the procedures of incompetent scientists whenever I can he easily earned my admiration and served as an example for me mr. harsh album this year combo combo he would periodically change a few figures on the lab church that we had filled up thereby produced results that could be puzzling to the rest of us but we've been directed to record the results that we found not the results that we might expect to have found but seriously ladies and gentlemen I wish that such a standards were in place in labs all around the world so that reality might find a place in scientific work once more I have been to so many of these labs even recently and I find that they'll round off a figure here that shouldn't be that that is not silence ladies and gentlemen it doesn't even look like washing laboratory glassware this digression of mine was designed so that you might begin to see that my pretensions to scientific expertise though learned the hard way should at least be respected by those who denigrate them the late Jacque Ben Venise who I rather liked he fell head over heels for the spurious idea known as homeopathy he often referred to me as a former test tube lock he thought that would don't though I never resented it because I knew that it was a damn good test tube larger so there I also mentioned here that our constant denunciation of the dangerous quackery known as homeopathy has proved to be one of the Jay arrests major expose and has served us and the skeptical community very well I urge you to see the lengthy account that will appear in my eleventh book a magician in the laboratory soon to appear we all buy and copy I recently heard a comment to the effect that scientists are easily fooled as others wrong I say that they can be more easily fooled I mean that you see scientists think in a straight line A to B from cause to effect and those who would deceive them the so-called psychics think in curves and no scientist would ever think for example that some small bug on a microscope slide or an asteroid in outer space would or could purposely set up to deceive him or her just doesn't happen in nature but it does happen in the seance room or when small children find that they can be fuddle adults very easily by bending spoons when not observed I am I'm a great fan of a man named Spike Lee I hope you're all familiar with Spike Lee his motto is do the right thing and our theme this year is fighting the fakers folks that's doing the right thing and every one of us should be guided by that fine idea I am constantly reminded of the grief garbage and sorrow that is visited upon the innocent victims of the failures now i sat with family members and desperately tell me of how some elder of the family perhaps has squandered away the assets that supported them and I had been helpless to advise them they can't pay the mortgage and the loans they can't handle the expenses incurred because some faith healer quack has taken them to the cleaners as they say on another level we learn of such persons as soon all Edamaruku who spoke to us already about his government in India that literally drove him out of his home because he exposed one the Catholic Church's fraud of a Weeping statute that was poisoning people by delivering sewage water to them the killer that made them rich that's very shameful incidentally so now I are you in the audience or not okay you thinking something about a bed of nails I got to tell you when I was well when I had left home and I was a young teenager I joined a carnival and there was a lady there it's called the lady with the iron feet now if you didn't have iron feet faults I in my mind you have if I said would say that you but she did walk on a bed of nails and she would lay down on a bed of nails and I got interviewed by one of the local newspapers I prepared nails for myself it took me two days to put in something like 1200 nails mine buy my own at night not really I have a huge bicep in this arm as a result of that it lasted that long but they were about half an inch apart and I could easily lay down on that but no trouble at all it was rubble was uncomfortable I didn't like it much but they were this close to one another and one of the newspaper reporters said well they seem a little close but how would you suggest we test this lying on a bed of nails phenomena that all the [ __ ] and the carnival people are claiming is supernatural I said well and I think you'll approve of this this is the beginning of my skeptical career perhaps I said let's start with one man other they if they can do that too then three and four yes and I I think that the result would be very obvious ladies and gentlemen this man Sonali is one of my personal heroes and we're looking into what can be done to influence the Government of India to write this wall oh right in Plantation Florida where I presently make my home there is a very expensive private school called the American heritage school and I'm on occasion some years back I I was asked if I would be one of my lecturers there and it was a public service I was prepared to deal without any feet though maybe they had the money to pay if I'd asked for it and I went on the appointed morning and to the office of the the Dean of this school and he greeted me although somewhat stranger he seemed a bit fun easy greeting me and he ushered me into a room there was a group of four parents I saw the students at the school and they seemed quite concerned and one lady spoke up and she said we would like to ask you in mr. Roundy during your lecture that you who won't mention religion that didn't go down very well with me and I said we said don't like don't use it as part of my talk thoughts if during the question-and-answer period if I'm asked I will certainly answer quite honestly and they fidget it about they didn't care for that very much I ended up not doing that lecture I had to walk out because I was not going to be limited on answering a question but God or angels or whatever I will not be limited that way and thank you I can't find me doing it but I've had to do it on a couple of other occasions too I'll spare you those accounts you indicate you just as sort of spectacular friends I have oh I'm so fortunate in this respect I've walked in the shadow of Richard Dawkins for some time now and stated his home in Oxford Wow that that meant if there were a God I'd say it's Richard Dawkins I must tell you about a chap who's been a great supporter of the jrf I won't name him because he's very shy gentleman he was very rich let's put it plenty very rich and he heard about a book that had been discovered in a monastery near Grenoble in France this was a monastery one of these strange places where you had to get into it on a sort of a caged box with a donkey pulling the other end of the rope and it would haul you up and you'd get off at the other end hopefully alive and it had been known by scholars for quite some time it was a hymn book hymn book about so big like that in a book so thick and there's quite a recorded history of this mission looking at that hymnbook was a poem cest how many here let's see sure actual events how do you know what a palimpsest is not very much it's a thing you get on your neck right here no I've had like no pollen cyst is a reused book now I have to explain that when books were done hand written before the invention of printing parchment was the most common substance on which these pages were originally parchment is very expensive of course it's either go to a cow skin or whatever depending on the grade you needed and a pound cyst is a document which has been scrubbed with brushes and such and water and washed clean from the former writing that was on there and this hymnbook that was in there beautifully illustrated or as they say in the trade illuminated with gold foil and beautiful miniature figures in such a various biblical heroes and some people had noticed that in the gutter of the book when you open the book that stripped down the center that for the pages come together it's called the gutter and they had noticed that we're sentient and great are not angry by me writing instead of going this way across the pages was going this way it was very faint it was washed out essentially but very faintly visible and some of those scholars over the past hundred years or so because it was known for quite some time study that writing and made a translation it turned out to be grief and they studied it so carefully that when they put together various sections of it it occurred to somebody wow this is Greek and different kinds of Greek in different states or provinces of Greece at that time I was quite different the writing and even the use of the words was somewhat different like each little city-state had their own way of doing it and they determined they knew were originated and so they were able to do some translations over they turned ever these scholars surprised but this seemed to be scraps of something written by out of comedians a very famous Greek philosopher now it had been rumored that Artemis had turned out a book called mechanics and it had never been found no one had ever had a copy of it turned out that this was a copy erased my truth of the book mechanics well my wealthy friend heard about this and he made a bid on it he ended up I believe paying something like 1.6 million dollars to obtain it and he brought him to the United States to give to the walkers Museum in Baltimore and they specialize in restoring palimpsests particularly the problem was that there was not much ink that you know they were soaked into thee into the parchment but there wasn't much there but then they discovered a wonderful fact those who are technically minded might cheer along with me and I know it's this discovery it turns out that the hymn book was written with lamp black ink that is lamp Lac mixed with gum arabic and it's very jet black and it's cheap and easy to make that hadn't been discovered when this was written now that the writing was not from our Khomeini's hand himself no it was a copy of the Greek version of his book mechanics and carbon black is very against very intense though and so is gold these and a few things like that they were part of the book but the ink in which the original image had been written of the Archimedes text was made with oak galls and oak galls this is all technical stuff to just go over your head just perfect they're little parasites little balls that grow in oak trees they don't hurt the oak tree at all and they produce however they're the only natural source known I believe of tannic acid and organic acid which has a peculiar quality that if you dissolve it in water and you mix it with a soluble iron salt it turns jet black makes extra ink and that has been used for a long time but the one quality about this ink is that is the lost image in the process it had iron in it and so my wealthy friend came up with a wonderful idea of making an MRI machine not my size nope just this size just big enough to hold a page of the book at a time and when they put those pages in there and they scanned them for the iron all the other writings vanish machine couldn't see that stuff at all but the entire old writing it was embedded in the parchment was perfectly visible they recovered everything but two pages of Archimedes wonderful book that had been lost for all those years what a victory of Technology now the interesting thing for those of you are mathematically minded III won't probably do with all this stuff but for example one of the things they found out about Arthur means he was much more of a genius than anyone had ever suspected this God into Time magazine and was on the NBC News one night several years ago our committees actually knew about four different degrees of Aleph no briefly there are four different degrees known of infinity infinity just all the way hey it can't be to infinity so yes I can try this on for a night to a puzzle Aleph one is the number of possible dots which have no dimension just position Z dots on an infinite plane that goes out to infinity and all directions that's a big number I said awful lot of dots more Dobson you'll ever use or even conceive okay that's an infinite number of dots that's a loved one but think about this and I let it go around your head and you'll see this is a larger degree of infinity the number of possible straight lines that can be drawn on that same infinite plane going in all directions and it of course they can vary in length they can vary the direction so you've got some day another order of infinity and the third order of infinity I should like to find this out for yourself but I won't I'll take mercy on you send number of curved lines that can be made on the same plane I'll afford they don't want to know about it believe me but this is a wonderful discovery it was thought that it was only discovered back in the 1920s and actually codified that Aleph 1 2 3 & 4 existed our committees knew about it and the discovery of this process is therefore a major discovery in science and I celebrate the fact that this gentleman gave this to the museum walls museum and had them sketch it to scan it do the whole thing and I have in my library at home two books literally this size and that thing one atop the other it's the whole reproduction of every page in that palace after wonderful work what a scientific achievement leaves a lot of people totally cold but by commanding thanks me because I'm curious that way so that's the accomplishment of the pollen set I thought I'd share that with you know another thing happened the same gentleman this is sad and a happy story at the same time you remember sue sue was the the most complete t-rex Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton ever found and she was found some place up in a wild place someplace and brought into the United States and went up on auction my friend the wealthy friend he decided to bid for it for a reason that that he had in mind and he sent his agent who to England who the gallery there and they started to auction it off and he listened in by phone and he told them they could go I think his limit was 1.2 million years I think and he said stop at that point give it up well some people offered $500 and a few things like that and it soon all came down to two bidders II and an unknown bidder him the unknown bidder him and and the price went up into the millions he had given up as I said I think it and it stopped the next person that got it person or organization they've got it obviously that had a great find on their hands then he found out that Nick this is the sad part of the story the people who actually got it where the Field Museum in Chicago he was intending to buy it to give it to them well they they had a few laughs over that on the telephone I think he had tears in his eyes what it was laughing but that's the kind of guys I knew I mean the people that I have gotten to know I am so fortunate to know them and to have them think highly of me in many cases now earlier I enjoy to talk by a Barbara Drescher concerning the Mensa organization I'd like to address that subject for a motive by me back in the 60s I did a radio program on wor radio AM and FM in Europe and that covered all the United States in part of Canada and even got down to New Mexico 100,000 watt transmitter on am Wow and I got the attention of the Mensa people I had a few of them in as yes they went from midnight to 5:00 in the morning and the minds of people were always entertaining and they were smart oh yeah sure they were smart and we had good discussions and they kept on saying come enjoy music come enjoy medicine I said 9:00 at that time for this sort of thing and yeah yeah yeah come so they finally talked me into it when one Saturday afternoon I went in to take the test that was pretty funny because they sadist in his school room and we had a piece of paper was all filled out and imprinted turn your papers over to start answering questions and some of the questions that were on there well the thing was written in the UK and two of the questions involved columns of shillings and pence I think people who knew nothing about that but I had lived in England for quite some time by then and I could convert the new currency very easily and I just walked through that in a breeze you see and when I find it the paper and I said to the examiner and said well this question shouldn't have been on there oh we feel we should have cost that off but so many other people have wasted their time on doing it in any case I was accepted into Mensa and I was invited to give them a talk I did give them a talk and a crowded auditorium a week or so after that and I brought up the subject of astrology as what how did I define it no oh yes [ __ ] I immediately had a bad reaction from their audience if they had sees that's a studying interest groups or something like that I forgot what it stood for and I got it the relief a argument from a gentleman who waved his fist at me we know one strong dude works it's an ancient art and it's been practiced for millions of years or whatever and he gave me an argument I simply know the the the pin of a Mensa ID there's a yellow map pin with a little receiver on the back of it and I had it in my lapel proudly and as I stood at the podium there and I heard him talk and I just simply took the pin out and stuck it into the podium and walk offstage what satisfaction that gave now I must mention something here folks that is a friend of mine in the audience here in Bob Kirkland he's a professional nurse and very skilled in the art of Nursing and his wife is too I seem to recall so it's a nursing family and Bob Kirkland asked me to make a mention to this and I certainly will the biggest Nursing Association in this country and around the world has declared that a thing called therapeutic touch which isn't therapeutic and it doesn't involve touching himself it's badly named I would suspect actually works and that their members can do it it means you wave your hands over the human body and you can feel their aura what was the word again Oh [ __ ] yes I keep forgetting now we challenged Bob and the jrf we challenged the the people to come here to Cham and be tested for this and they would also be eligible for the jrf million dollar prize succeed and they hummed and hawed they carried on for quite some time and finally they just refused to answer us and Bob was very disappointed that but wants me to announce that it will be done it next year and what we will do at that point is probably announce maybe the cessation of the nursing to socio Association altogether but certainly of therapeutic touch that won't exist as something that's that's evidently to them something is genuine can you imagine what it crazy clamp now I must briefly introduce you to just a few old friends and associates share with us today just to bury truth there are so many first I want you to meet a young chap where I met some months ago in India I was lecturing there and my very first visit to the continent he made a very long trip from his home to where I was attending the Fink contracts the a J and K an event which I believe is offering serious competition to the famous TED meetings that have been receiving such a barrage of attention and of which I was the guest a couple of years ago this young man's name is Ajay rapido yeah you're there AG right he's gotta be here someplace right there all right stand up and wave at the beaver okay now I must tell you this young man I was on one side of India he simply showed up suddenly and the lobby of the hotel where I was staying from the other side of India after a torturous trip across the continent and just to share some of his thoughts with me we headed off immediately he decided to attend his first camp meeting ladies and gentlemen you've met AJ now he'll be seen pushing me around in the wheelchair and I hope you'll take the opportunity please of saying hello to him and shake his hand with thank you a gentleman a gentleman you've seen at every time usually scurrying about to perform one of the numerous requests we make of them the Scott Rolen Tosca he's a good friend of mine he just visited my home he's visited my home many times and I really don't think that a camp and take place without Scott he's a valued friend and colleague so please stop him and express your thanks to me to someone what are the tables out there you'll be identified by its back please say hello to Scott and tell them that you appreciate his work and chip Gedman is one of our executive board members is chip in the audience maybe maybe not but you out there you go alright so a round of applause for chip gentlemen he's done a wonderful job and Barbara murder by me is on the August that's kitty Merlin and she has recently written a children's book that explains him some things about mythology mistakes that adults have made and the kids probably love that idea I suspect why were you out there oh she's here and he better be here the one ananda Jamy Ian Swiss fearless prestidigitator are you with us this evening [Applause] and I'm very honored to say that the perennial Tamre richardsaunders has arrived from the strategy to share news weathers and you've heard from them and I hope that you appreciate his efforts he's been a great supporter finally a small number that I've mentioned if by our good friends juf good friends of course is the one and only Michael Shermer thank you and of course all you folks know RJ represent DJ Grothe and his partner Thomas Donnelly Thomas had been aboard the jailer for years known as quite a contributed to our success that's here good round of applause as I say these are only a few of our all-time stars at the jrf and this particular meeting has been a grand grand success and I thank you all for coming but I must tell you a bit of a an anecdote here the wall of my offices in Fort Lauderdale I have a photograph of that gracious first lady Betty Ford assisting me at a 1975 Christmas party at the White House I was invited to perform there I was very honored to do so first I'd been invited there to entertain the children of the diplomats I must tell you the funny well I think funny episode that happened at that time I entered the Blue Room where I was to perform and I was setting up my props today and I saw the Betty Ford come in accompanied by a couple of Secret Service agents as you might suspect and seeing her I immediately boldly made my way over to the first lady and addressed her and a Secret Service man stepped in between me and the first lady and she sort of just pushed him aside a bit and she said sir can I do something for and I said yes ma'am my name is James Randi I'm the amazing Randi I'm entertain the children I was dressed as an Egyptian you see and she rather suspected that anyway I'm sure and she said what can I do for you and I reached into my pocket and took out a small red silk handkerchief I had and I said ma'am I I have to ask someone in the audience that they have a small handkerchief would you be kind enough to carry this for me and when I asked for a handkerchief we can give you to me and the Secret Service man let up and he said the first lady does not participate in shows she put her arm in front of him I remember his name was lloyd porkchop and she said Lloyd I'll take this took the handkerchief from me stuck it in her belt she looked Lloyd straight in the eye - did mr. Roundy I'll be proud to wear your cars and at that same white house does it I ran into a fellow named Robert Arvin you wouldn't know who Robert Orban is but any magicians in the audience was certainly know who Robert / - yes there you go thank you sir whoever you are Robert Urban it was an actor and a magician is still so lie in fact he's one year older than I am can you believe that that's a magic trick in itself see I'm actor the magician and a writer of gag my genius to write for various comedians and he wrote several little booklets for magicians with funny stories in them he was working at the Ford White House so I couldn't help asked him I said he's Jerry Ford use many of your jokes and he said well yes he tries but I wrote him one for example take my wife please that's an old mine but Jerry Ford decided only use part of it you say take my wife that was it and so it didn't go over very well there weren't too many Azaz and they'd crowd now III even remembered I gotta get into it I even remember a routine that that I took from one of Robert Gordon's what yes I used to say to my audience oh this is awful honey I was burned a very early age in the log cabin I helped my father build we were a very poor family we couldn't afford to have kids so the people I started mean I left home at a very early age because of something my father said to me he said get up I won't want him further that's it but it was a longer routine than that it was just as bad all the way through Israel as a great artist Frank Sinatra so often sank regrets I've had a few but then again too few to mention well I list a few of mine though I had an occasional opportunity to do so I never personally witnessed a live performance by Luciano Pavarotti what a regret that is I've been heard in South Africa place too and I tried hard to get to meet Nelson Mandela but I never managed that you I rather hope that things will improve in the nation of Egypt so that I may someday stand before the great pyramid what a wonderful thing I can't wait to have that opportunity now you've heard from DJ Grothe of course several times you're at this tab our esteemed president with details on the state of the Jo f DJ tries valiantly to keep me on the straight and narrow but I often stray I'll just say read the origin of the giraffe that I was one of the three founders of the committee for scientific investigation of claims of the paranormal no one has psychic I undertook to meet with Martin Gardner and Ray Hyman to for a few to discuss the possibility of launching such an organization some 37 years ago Wow well psychic Clarice 200 dr. Paul Kurtz as we all know and at one point I was this was a shock to me I was specifically ordered by the executive of psycho to avoid ever mentioning her Yeller again because psychotic feared even though I didn't I knew that he was at that time our most important target he no longer is we don't care interestingly enough however Geller was forced to pay a huge sum of money to psych out when he grande law lost the case the legal case that resulted I didn't get any of that but sigh cop got something like I think it was two hundred and forty thousand dollars from from gallery so that was a loser for him the J ref came out against Reverend Peter Popovich who all know I'm sure and with the help of the Johnny Carson show we won that fight decisively we fought Sylvia Browne effectively we battled with psychic John Edward we've opposed quack medicine and I assure you that my 11th book remember that title the magician in the laboratory will expose even more of Browns chicanery with details I assure you so was 25 years ago when I first came up with the idea that eventually resulted in the giraffe it was launched to continue the skeptical fight no-holds-barred at that time I had no idea that I would ever be standing before such an audience of skeptical friends and colleagues I'm just leap roud of what we've done I'm mindful of the contributions that you've all made worth perpetuating our work and is quite evident that this organization ladies and gentlemen is now the leader in the field of rational skepticism world wide no other agency has achieved what we have in a time of serious economic difficulties we have survived and flourished we've attracted followers of all ages many nationalities and ethnic sources a wide range of professions and every certainty folks if a guy can bust from Pride I'd have done it by now I must tell you of the event that beautifully illustrates how skepticism has been an integral part of my long life I've never been able to discount what it first seems to be a fanciful story ever since my paternal grandfather it was very close to me told me how his own father learned to respect such tales as an only child at age 12 Gramps that George's Winkie was his name moved with his family from Austria to Copenhagen Denmark and they became Danish citizens they took up residence on a street that borders the large park that still holds the Royal Palace of demmer and George's dad worked at the Royal shipyards that industry being a major activity of the country as it still is now the family arose at a very early hour every weekday so that my great granddad I trust you're following in the family relationships you could get off work off to work or me by dawn with his lunch without Purdue without his lunch which his wife would lovingly prepare and give to young George who was commissioned to deliver it to the shipyard on his way to school thus his morning routine led him first to the shipyards and thence to school for which he was never late but perhaps from being an only child or due to his China or the rather limited acquaintances he had as a recent immigrant struggling with a new language the new George seemed to have developed an imaginary companion about whom he would constantly regale the family every evening he would tell them of mr. Christian a huge man with a - riding a huge black were surrounded by men drawing a bearing drawn swords and monstrous dogs that were larger than George himself but very friendly mr. Christian he said but regularly asked him about his family even offering hints on how to treat colds and other minor afflictions from which his mother started having been proudly told by George that his father worked as a shipwright mr. Christian he told them even suggested that mr. Cellini might want to ask to be transferred to a new area of the expanding Factory now that last suggestion from a ghost to this young boy was imagining in his mind that last suggestion for the ghost was too much for George's dad who sat him down and read him the new rules though they'd been tolerant of tall stories before there was to be no more mention of mr. Christian giant dogs black horses nor men with bared swords this imaginary situation was officially forbidden to come up again and despite the gold the voice urging exclamations the subject was permanently closed well your or so later as mr. zwicki opened his evening newspaper young George's eyes widened as he saw the front page father that's mr. Christian he exclaimed he pointed to a full front page birthday portrait of his majesty by God's grace King Christian the ninth of Denmark with his Russian Wolfhounds and his personal bodyguards astride his huge black horse during his usual early morning ride around the palace the very monarch with whom George Zweig II had been exchanging pleasantries pleasantries as he made his way through the Royal quartered shortcut every morning on his way to the ship guards how joyously my grand I'd love to tell that story of indication of how his father's attitude about children's stories had rather changed many years later I'm one of my many visits to Colton Hogg with my friend okay close Larson he kindly walked me through the very same path that my gramps had taken some 120 years before thank you a class in the interest of time and if you're a patient's I'll close this by somebody saying that I am enormous ly flattered I mean this folks right from the bottom of my heart by your attendance here at town and my staff and colleagues I know share my feelings in this respect next only to the well-being of my partner in life there is nothing more important to me than the continuance of the jrf ladies and gentlemen newcomers or old friends thank you for being here and I hope that we can satisfy your needs for further knowledge related to what we believe is our very important work bringing a better understanding of reality to the populace of this beautiful blue planet simply by being here ladies and gentlemen you have aided us hugely in achieving that goal James Randi is joining you

Channel: JamesRandiFoundation

Views: 48,221

Rating: 4.8890357 out of 5

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Id: bpi52gyO4NE

Length: 48min 9sec (2889 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 18 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

James Randi is so intelligent such a skeptic brilliant mind. He knows so much stuff.